To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, I personally have verified that today's episode is 100%
snake free. You're welcome. Snakes.
Samsung's Exynos chipsets have a galaxy's worth of vulnerabilities,
according to Google's Crack Security Research Division, Project Zero,
named for the amount of tolerance they have for insecure software.
Google's team claims that on December 15th, 2022, they disclosed eight vulnerabilities to
Samsung. Four of those vulnerabilities allow attackers to remotely compromise a phone
with no user interaction and only require the attacker to know the victim's phone number.
All those girls on Tinder asking for your number, they were hackers.
Those boys on Grindr, they just want to hook up before they hack you.
Normally, Project Zero gives companies 90 days to patch and exploit before they disclose its
details, but four out of the eight flaws are apparently so severe that Google is only
alluding to their existence alongside 10 other flaws that have not yet passed the 90-day mark
since being disclosed to Samsung. But the move has apparently prompted Samsung to release the names
of the affected chipsets, which have been matched to multiple Samsung phones.
Vivo devices, Pixel 6 and 7, series phones from Google, and even some cars. Cars.
If your device is affected, make sure to update as soon as possible, and if you can't,
turn off Wi-Fi calling and vault VOLTE in your device settings.
Apple is working on natural language generation features for Siri.
Information sourced from the TVOS 16.4 beta implies Apple is working on a Siri
natural language generation framework that could be used to juice Siri's capacity for
natural language, like the kind I use when I duck like this.
This is, of course, not to be confused with unnatural language like Blackspeech,
Hyvalarian, and Welsh. A move like this from Apple makes sense, since the proliferation of AI
chatbots has started to make your average voice assistant look kind of bad.
As things stand right now, Siri's new superpower is being reserved for the most important tasks,
like telling jokes on your Apple TV, and...that's it.
But the code for these natural language features is included across most of Apple's
operating systems, and reports have said Apple engineers are testing language-generating concepts.
I wouldn't expect anything at the level of chatGPT, especially since Mark Gurman said,
nope, to that idea. We here at TechLink stand firm with the GERM.
And on the subject of AI, it's been a big week for synthetic intellect.
That's what I call it. AI image generator mid-journey finally figured out
what human hands look like. To be fair, these look pretty weird.
In less polarizing news, Google announced AI integrations for workspace,
helping you summarize emails in Gmail, capture notes in Meet, and brainstorm in Docs,
which will come in handy when you get writer's block on the 400th page of your fan fiction of
Monk, starring Tony Shalhoub. Monk, really?
Then just yesterday, Microsoft announced basically the same thing for Microsoft 365,
but who wants to write a thousand-page epic about Monk teaming up with Sam and Dean Winchester
to defeat Godzilla with the power of love? Something I don't love is how chatGPT4
was able to hire a task-rabbit worker and convince the human to solve a capture for it.
The model was able to lie, claiming to be a visually impaired human.
And even if the worker saw through the lie, you think they're turning down a paying gig?
We'll all be working for their robots in a few years anyway. Our quick bits are so fast, Barry Allen was scared to present them. Didn't even answer our calls.
A couple of weeks ago, a leaker claimed on Twitter that Apple plans to limit
USBC functionality on its upcoming iPhones, continuing their historic tradition of making
third-party accessories work worse with iPhones than those made by companies who paid Apple for
a made-for-iPhone sticker. Who will save us? It's the EU. It's always the EU. They're in the future.
Turns out the common charger law adopted back in October forbids limiting charging speed on
third-party cords, although Apple could still limit data transfer speeds unless you buy the
USB-C Pro Max XDR complete cold and flu sinus Apple device.
YouTube TV has raised its base subscription cost by $8 a month,
meaning the streaming TV service is now double its launch cost.
On the bright side, they're reducing the 4K add-on from 20 bucks to 10 bucks.
That's pretty good if you don't mind paying an additional $10 for the 8-channels actually
supporting 4K, and some of those 4K channels actually just being upscaled 1080p.
The service had 5 million users as of last year, and I'm sure they're all thrilled to pay cable
prices for fewer channels. Stop watching sports, you guys. MENA Verified is rolling out on Facebook and Instagram in the US, giving Americans the privilege
to pay $12 a month for a checkmark, exclusive stickers on your stories, and other perks.
Hey, it really is my mom. All you have to do is provide a government-issued photo ID
to a company built on collecting and monetizing your private data.
If the prospect of handing the Zaka photo of your driver's license fills you with warm sparkles,
the waitlist to sign up is open now. Razer has released the Atlas, a pane of tempered glass that you can swipe your
mouse all over for the low, low price of $100. Don't worry about getting it dirty,
I expect Razer will start selling Green Windex for $50 a bottle.
What I didn't expect were the strange warnings on the product page, which seemed to warn users against using the Atlas to start fires.
As usual, it's better to light your money on fire than buy from Razer, though.
See you later, and Heinz has decided to do something about the worldwide decline of soil
health due to over farming. The catch-up company bravely built a Fortnite map called
SOS Tomatoes, and then paid Twitch streamers and TikTokers to spread awareness about it.
According to The Drum, the campaign is designed to educate gamers between ages 18 and 34,
so naturally they chose the game that has captured the 8-12 demographic instead.
Catch-up joke. I relish the opportunity to joke about Heinz.