Well, welcome back.
I'm gonna stay here for this one, is that cool? Mark?
A hot new wireless carrier and smartphone have been announced by none other than the Trump
organization, which is currently being run by the president's son, Eric.
So there's no conflict of interest. I mean, they hardly know each other. The carrier service, Trump Mobile,
will operate as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator,
or MVNO, that will license parts of Verizon, AT&T,
and T-Mobile's network to offer the T1 phone.
A $500 gold-colored iPhone knockoff Android phone,
apparently built entirely in the US of A.
Now, there have been many claims about how making iPhones entirely in the US would be impossible,
but as reported by 404 Media, there is at least one smartphone that did it,
the Liberty Phone from Purism. It just also costs $2,000,
while the version made overseas is 800 bucks.
The T1 phone lists some pretty decent specs, 12 gigabytes of RAM, expandable 256 gigs of storage.
Wait, it doesn't say what processor, 120 Hertz screen.
None of this matters though, because it's probably not real. The only evidence we have is this low-res bad Photoshop job.
But it doesn't have to be real to revolutionize cell phones
because it'll have more internet, more international dial-in for free.
This phone has the most internet you've ever seen. It'll be the biggest bang for your buck
if you sign up for the 47 plan for 47.45 a month.
Okay, apparently this is because Trump is the 47th
and the 45th president, but if I'm gonna be swindled into pre-ordering
a fake gold Chinese phone, I expect you to commit to the bit.
I'm staying on this stool the whole time. Microsoft has confirmed user reports that Windows Hello
just doesn't work anymore in the dark. After an April update, changed the sign-in feature
to require your face to be visible to your computer's color camera,
not just the infrared sensor. The change was made to mitigate a vulnerability
that made it easy for attackers to spoof Windows Hello,
and while basement dwellers may be upset about this, you can't say the same about Mark Hatchman,
author of the PC World article, Windows Hello webcams have stopped working in the dark.
I don't care. If you can't log into your laptop because of a power outage
and you live in that town in Alaska that doesn't get daylight for two months, hey, that's not my problem.
In other Windows news, users running an insider build
were surprised to log into their Windows 11 PCs and hear the startup chime from Windows Vista.
Microsoft called the switch Rue a delightful blast
from the past in the release notes, and a manager on the Windows Insider team says,
he had some fun with the sound files on Twitter
before clarifying that, okay, yeah, it's an actual bug, and we're working on a fix, we're so sorry.
The online ad ecosystem is being shaken up right now.
Following Amazon's new AI video ad features,
TikTok is expanding their symphony suite of AI ad tools
to include generated videos of products. Advertisers can generate a bunch of five second clips
by uploading an image of their product, either directly on TikTok or through the tools
that the company is licensing to third parties like Adobe Express, which is terrible
because the ads were one of the only things on TikTok that I knew was real.
What I didn't know about was the updates tab in WhatsApp,
where the chat app will be introducing its first ever ads.
The company described the addition of ads as helping you find more stuff on WhatsApp,
which was my primary complaint before. WhatsApp is cool,
but I wish it could help me find more channels and businesses. I use Reddit for that,
which will now allow advertisers to attach user-generated positive posts
about a product to their ads, along with an AI-generated summary
of the discussion in those threads. I'm assuming they'll skip over the replies
accusing the OP of hating thing X, because they said they liked thing Y.
Okay.
We'll want some quick bits or... Intel may be planning a massive return
to powerful desktop chips next year. If this leak mentioning the company's
next-gen Nova Lake S platform is anything to go by.
Twitter leaker Golden Mango listed a lineup with a flagship CPU featuring 52 cores,
16 performance, 32 efficient, and four low power.
I'm not sure if that's real, but this one probably is.
Also Twitter leaker Momomo posted an Intel slide
describing the Core 5 processor 120F,
a no frills gaming CPU with six performance cores
and nothing else. Intel doesn't care which one you buy,
but please just buy one of them, anything.
Controller maker Gullykit?
Claims they've figured out how to make their controllers wake the Nintendo Switch 2 from sleep mode,
something gamers were dismayed to discover was only possible with the Switch Pro controller
thanks to a new system protocol. Hopefully more companies figure this out too,
so gamers can wake their Switch 2s only to find out that the Ethernet port in its dock is borked.
Nintendo has acknowledged the issue, which is being experienced by a bunch of people apparently,
but so far there's no permanent fixes, maybe because Nintendo wants you to take a break,
get up and get outside for a change, meet some people, bond over how annoying
and restrictive Nintendo's infrastructure is, work together on a company that lets people bypass it
so Nintendo can sue you, not me, I'm staying inside.
The founder of 23andMe and Wojcicki has successfully reclaimed the assets
of the genetics testing company after winning its bankruptcy auction.
Phew, now all of that genetic data will land back
in the hands of the person who started the company
that collected all of it in the first place. Is this better?
The cycle never ends. And how much did she bid to win the auction?
23 million dollars?
The number 23, no, it was 305 million.
But I'm sure you can divide that to get to 23 somehow. Etsy is cracking down on the sale of 3D printed products,
saying that physical items made using computerized tools
must be produced based on a seller's original design.
Now, Etsy's new rules allow non-original 3D printed designs
if they're sufficiently modified by hand, so sticking on some googly eyes
to your thousands of chain link plastic dragons is probably not gonna cut it.
If you put feathers on them, maybe. Dragons didn't have feathers and Nexus mods,
perhaps the internet's biggest game mod repository
has apparently been sold. In a blog post, the platform's founder,
RobinDarkOneScott, basically said, he's been doing this since 2001.
And despite having his team handle more and more of the site recently, he's frickin' tired.
So he's handing the site over to new ownership. Although we don't know the real names of the new owners,
their handles on Nexus mods are Fulladino and Rapsack.
And I think they might be Pokemon. Scott assures the Nexus mods community
that the values and direction of the platform won't change.
It'll always be community first and mod author focused.
Whether those authors are crafting fleshed out, story driven expansions for Skyrim
or flesh driven gooner outfits for Stellar Blade.
Somebody get Nintendo to check on those guys. And I mean, hey, you know, that's,
as you know, it's a, it's a heck of a thing.
More tech news on Wednesday?
Yeah, probably.