I usually tell you the tech news in English, but this video is sponsored by Babbel who are giving
our audience 60% off their language learning subscriptions, so I might suddenly lapse into
Mandarin. We'll have to see. The European Commission has officially charged Apple with
non-compliance under the Digital Markets Act for preventing app store developers from
freely steering consumers to alternative channels. While Apple has recently allowed
in-app links to developer websites where users can buy stuff without giving Apple a cut,
devs still can't provide pricing information in the app, leaving it up to users to figure out
why that button is there. This button goes to our website. You've got a website. Great job.
Apple could be fined up to $30 billion for the violation, but EU regulation moves real slow.
Now Apple is supposed to examine the commission documents and reply in writing,
then the EU will make a final ruling by March 2025. The commission is also just now starting
another investigation into whether Apple's policies concerning third-party app stores
and their ridiculous core technology fee also violates the DMA because they just can't tell
you yet. I just don't, it could be fine. I mean, Apple's response statement says that they're
confident they are in compliance with the DMA. It's also confusing. Honestly, Apple seems a bit
confused as well. They just added the ability to format external drives to the iOS 18 beta, which
is cool, but it's not what the EU is asking for. Apple, do you understand this? They're like,
look, you can change your home screen icon color now. Is that good? What do you want?
The confusing launch of co-pilot plus Windows PCs with Qualcomm Snapdragon X series chips
continues. A lot of coverage really wants to position this as a revolutionary moment for PCs,
but performance and battery life tests still make the new laptops feel kind of like you're a
kindergarten teacher and a kid just handed you the best drawing of a horse in the whole class
that still mostly looks like a pile of unpeeled potatoes. Good job. But maybe it's not Qualcomm's
fault for misleading us. A fairly helpful video was posted by YouTuber Alex Ziskind on Saturday
looking at the Samsung Book 4 Edge with the flagship Snapdragon X Elite X1E84100, horrible names,
and two Surface Laptop 7s with the 8100 and the Snapdragon Plus 64100. Ziskind explains
how messed up Windows 11's power settings are. After fiddling around and finally enabling the
highest possible power profile, he witnessed a huge boost in performance compared to using
the balanced mode. He also noted a very small difference in performance between the Plus and
Elite chips. While emulation continues to be a sticking point for some, reviews continue to
trickle out as people actually get their hands on these machines. So hopefully I'll soon have
something to tell my tech illiterate friends and family when they inevitably ask about co-pilot plus
PCs other than do not date co-pilot. She will break your heart. There is at least one definite
win to award Microsoft's newest Surface devices, though. iFixit has given both the Surface Laptop
7 and Surface Pro 11 an 8 out of 10 for repairability after giving both of their original
incarnations a 0 and a 1, respectively. Just like a binary joke to make there, but not right now.
Unlike Samsung, which iFixit recently broke up with, Microsoft seems to have actually taken
repairability to heart, adding nice touches like a QR code visible as soon as you remove the bottom
plate that links to Microsoft's Surface manuals. Don't give Microsoft too many kudos though because
of anything their attitude about Windows 11's enthusiast friendliness seems to be getting
worse. They just removed instructions for how to sign in to a local account on Windows from a
support page while leaving up the instructions for how to convert a local account to a Microsoft
account. And the Windows 11 setup process reportedly no longer prompts you with a local
account sign in option either, even if you put in an email address that doesn't exist.
Thankfully, many workarounds still exist for using a local account and Microsoft won't
send killer robots to your house if you use them yet. They're co-pilot powered. She breaks hearts
and bones. Quick b****s. Why are you censoring that? Quick b****s. B****s. This is bull s***.
AMD's highly anticipated Strix Point laptop processors may be dwarfed by their big brother
lineup of Strix Halo APUs, according to a recently leaked shipping manifest. It lists boards with a
120 watt TDP and 128 gigabytes of RAM, which is a bit overkill. But another leak indicates that
Intel might be adapting an Aero Lake desktop processor into a laptop version with 24 threads.
That's right, this fall's hottest laptop trend is overkill. Three touchpads or I won't buy it.
Reports that Apple is currently in partnership talks with Meta are actually old news, according to
the Herald of Girmageddon, Mark Gurman. Apparently, Meta pitched their AI services to Apple who
rejected them. Can you blame them? I mean, Meta's Lama AI models are kind of open source,
but a lot of Apple's own models are too. Then there's the fact that Facebook has been tagging
real life photos as made with AI. It would never work. Apple's kind of the privacy company, and
Meta's kind of the feed three billion users data into Zuckerberg's gaping ma um-num-num-num
company. So every time I look at my bedroom window, I never see Tim Cook. Mark, get out of there.
I want the other guy. A Florida family has filed a formal request that NASA compensate them for
$80,000 in damages following an incident in March where a 1.6 pound metal part from a battery palette
jettisoned from the ISS, embarrassingly using the Canada ARM to robotic ARM, we're so sorry,
failed to burn up in the atmosphere and instead blew a hole straight through their two-story home.
Had the ISS instead committed an accidental DIY airstrike against a home in a different country,
they would be clearly obligated to provide compensation under the terms of the 1972
Space Liability Convention. US law, however, is less clear. The Recording Industry Association
of America has filed lawsuits against two AI music generators, Suno and Udio, for alleged
copyright infringement. The RIA claims that Suno and Udio have used massive amounts of
unlicensed music to train their models, and that that is wrong. While neither music generator
will specify what songs they used, some of their outputs seem rather telling, including one song
from Udio that copies the entire first verse of Green Day's American Idiot, followed by a chorus
of the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. Which is how I wish that song went the first time,
but I mean, we fixed it. And the internet has responded to Luma Lab's Free to Try Dream Machine
video generator by using it to turn static images into uncanny, meme-worthy videos as the AI struggles
to comprehend the horror that is wide-Linus and the human skeleton. Even historical images got this
treatment, leading to this video of the head of the Soviet secret police running across the water
of the Volga Canal like a combination of Bugs Bunny and Jesus. But at least the AI memes are
staying on the internet. Oh god, the AI generated an actual rocket engine. Not with a dream machine
thing, this was a different model, but maybe we should try it. It could be funny. What would be
even funnier is if you came back on Wednesday for more tech news. Can you imagine? What would your
neighbors say? Probably something like, LOL, what a cool person. Get away from the Windows, Mark.