1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 I know what you're probably thinking right now. Hey, that's the tech news guy. 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:09,120 What's he doing in my house? Well, by clicking the thumbnail, you invited me in. 3 00:00:09,120 --> 00:00:12,480 And it's nice in here. So I'm not leaving. 4 00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:16,160 Sorry. You can now lease a PlayStation 5 in the UK, 5 00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:20,920 starting at 10 pounds per month, because owning things is a quaint little tradition 6 00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:26,200 our ancestors enjoyed. This is much better. The program is called PlayStation Flex 7 00:00:26,200 --> 00:00:29,520 and is essentially just a partnership with Raylo, 8 00:00:29,520 --> 00:00:34,880 a gadget leasing business that has been doing PS5 leases since March of last year. 9 00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:38,200 The big change here is that it's now being advertised 10 00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:41,440 directly through the PlayStation Direct Storefront, 11 00:00:41,440 --> 00:00:46,880 which basically just sends you to a PlayStation branded section of the Raylo website. 12 00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:51,680 There's no clear buyout path. You either keep paying or eventually, 13 00:00:51,680 --> 00:00:57,280 hand the console back when your term is up, unless you contact them to negotiate. 14 00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:00,920 No rent-to-own or financing options are being offered either, 15 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:04,920 like what you might see with something like a firm on other digital stores. 16 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:09,520 And this isn't even exclusive to PlayStation. Raylo will lease you the Nintendo Switch 2, 17 00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:13,600 MetaQuest, Xbox consoles, and even the Lenovo Legion Go. 18 00:01:13,600 --> 00:01:16,960 Interestingly, Microsoft offered a console 19 00:01:16,960 --> 00:01:20,600 rent-to-own program called Xbox All Access 20 00:01:20,600 --> 00:01:24,800 before shelving it last year, presumably because it actually allowed people 21 00:01:24,800 --> 00:01:27,960 to save about 20 bucks overall 22 00:01:27,960 --> 00:01:30,960 on the cost of the console and Game Pass combined. 23 00:01:30,960 --> 00:01:34,800 That's helping consumers. We're past that. 24 00:01:34,800 --> 00:01:39,200 No, society has progressed to a new advanced stage 25 00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:42,360 where companies take hardware that people used to be able to purchase 26 00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:46,000 and make it a subscription like HP's laptop program 27 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:51,880 that Line has recently covered on LTT. The problem is hardware keeps getting more expensive, 28 00:01:51,920 --> 00:01:55,720 so cheaper payment plans look okay by comparison, 29 00:01:55,720 --> 00:02:01,240 but these companies don't even have the decency to easily let you buy out the device at the end. 30 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:06,360 I mean, even car leasing companies at least entertain the option of a buyout, 31 00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:10,240 even if it's usually probably not the best idea. 32 00:02:10,240 --> 00:02:14,480 Hey, I'll tell you what, Sony, I'll charge you 10 pounds a month for me 33 00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:19,200 to give you some better ideas for what to do with those IP rights to Spider-Man 34 00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:23,760 that you somehow still have. You know what, let's talk Morbius sequels. 35 00:02:24,960 --> 00:02:27,960 Morbius too, Morbius. 36 00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:31,760 Amazon security camera subsidiary Ring announced yesterday 37 00:02:31,760 --> 00:02:35,640 that it has canceled its partnership with Flock Safety, 38 00:02:35,640 --> 00:02:40,200 the incompetent mass surveillance company that's recently been under fire for potential misuses 39 00:02:40,200 --> 00:02:44,720 of its automated license plate reader network in the leaking of 2.3 million license plate searches 40 00:02:44,720 --> 00:02:49,600 from its database. That one. The announcement comes after Ring aired 41 00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:54,160 a Super Bowl ad on Sunday for its new AI-powered search party feature, 42 00:02:54,160 --> 00:02:58,480 showing dozens of cameras scanning a neighborhood to find a lost dog. 43 00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:03,840 Aw, that would be good. But as pointed out by Senator Ed Markey, 44 00:03:03,840 --> 00:03:07,480 this is kind of clearly a mass surveillance program, 45 00:03:07,480 --> 00:03:11,880 prompting people to take a more critical look at what it might mean for Flock 46 00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:15,320 to be able to access Ring's camera network at will. 47 00:03:15,320 --> 00:03:20,760 And what they found was not reassuring. The partnership, which was announced in October, 2025 48 00:03:20,760 --> 00:03:23,960 as part of Ring's community requests program, 49 00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:27,160 allows law enforcement agencies to request video footage 50 00:03:27,160 --> 00:03:31,200 from Ring doorbell owners during active investigations. 51 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:35,520 Under the Flock integration, police departments using Flock software 52 00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:39,480 would have been able to submit those requests directly through Ring's system. 53 00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:42,740 And combined with Ring's recently launched familiar faces, 54 00:03:42,740 --> 00:03:46,960 a facial recognition feature that scans every person who walks past a camera, 55 00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:51,880 and the search party features ability to track living things across an entire neighborhood. 56 00:03:51,880 --> 00:03:55,920 The whole package starts looking less like, find my lost puppy, 57 00:03:55,920 --> 00:03:58,880 and more neighborhood surveillance state. 58 00:03:59,880 --> 00:04:03,060 In its press release, Ring says it's canceling the integration 59 00:04:03,060 --> 00:04:07,560 because it would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated. 60 00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:11,920 Sure, it is, and the breakup was totally mutual. 61 00:04:11,920 --> 00:04:16,180 Flock was one of two companies approved for the community requests feature. 62 00:04:16,180 --> 00:04:21,540 The other is Axon, the world's largest manufacturer of tasers and body cameras. 63 00:04:21,540 --> 00:04:27,100 So the only remaining approved handler for your Ring doorbell footage is the taser guys. 64 00:04:27,100 --> 00:04:31,460 If that makes you feel safe, I've got a very nice bridge to sell ya. 65 00:04:31,460 --> 00:04:37,620 The China manned space agency on Tuesday successfully tested its Mengzhu crew capsule 66 00:04:37,620 --> 00:04:43,340 and Long March 10 rocket, which nailed a propulsive landing on a recovery barge. 67 00:04:43,380 --> 00:04:47,020 China is targeting a manned landing on the moon by 2030, 68 00:04:47,020 --> 00:04:50,340 which is also where Jeff Bezos wants to go. Hours after the test, 69 00:04:50,340 --> 00:04:54,780 Bezos, with the energy of the weird kid who ate glue in elementary school, 70 00:04:54,780 --> 00:04:58,460 tweeted a black and white photo of a turtle. 71 00:04:58,460 --> 00:04:59,580 I like totals. 72 00:05:01,500 --> 00:05:05,620 What can I say? Bold move when you already look like the turtle club guy 73 00:05:05,620 --> 00:05:11,420 from Data Carvey's 2002 film, Master of Disguise. Yes, the cryptic tweet was, evidently, 74 00:05:11,420 --> 00:05:15,180 a reference to Bezos' own space company, Blue Origin, 75 00:05:15,180 --> 00:05:20,860 which has a coat of arms featuring two turtles in an apparent attempt to troll Elon Musk. 76 00:05:20,860 --> 00:05:25,740 The two have taken little potshots at each other since 2015 when Jeff made his infamous 77 00:05:25,740 --> 00:05:30,220 welcome to the club tweet. SpaceX had just landed a Falcon booster 78 00:05:30,220 --> 00:05:33,380 and Bezos pointed out that Blue Origin's new shepherd 79 00:05:33,380 --> 00:05:36,540 had done a suborbital landing weeks earlier. 80 00:05:36,540 --> 00:05:40,260 So yeah, you're just as cool as us now. 81 00:05:40,300 --> 00:05:43,940 You gotta love watching these two weirdos be in a decade-long pissing contest 82 00:05:43,940 --> 00:05:49,580 over who gets to colonize space first. It feels like they drown the world in piss 83 00:05:49,580 --> 00:05:54,380 before either of them won. Blue Origin recently shared plans 84 00:05:54,380 --> 00:05:59,580 for an accelerated moon architecture that could land astronauts before 2030, 85 00:05:59,580 --> 00:06:02,580 which may have had something to do with Elon announcing on Sunday 86 00:06:02,580 --> 00:06:08,820 that SpaceX has shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the moon instead of Mars, 87 00:06:08,820 --> 00:06:16,140 claiming that this could be achieved in less than 10 years. Now, this is the same Elon Musk who, in January 2025, 88 00:06:16,140 --> 00:06:22,940 tweeted that the moon is a distraction and called NASA's Artemis moon mission a jobs program. 89 00:06:22,940 --> 00:06:27,940 All of this might be moot though, because apparently SpaceX is a train company now. 90 00:06:27,940 --> 00:06:32,020 Sort of, we're referencing a letter written by the National Labor Relations Board 91 00:06:32,020 --> 00:06:36,380 to eight former SpaceX employees who were fired after they wrote an open letter 92 00:06:36,380 --> 00:06:39,740 criticizing Musk as a frequent source of embarrassment. 93 00:06:39,740 --> 00:06:45,020 The NLRB under the Biden administration had filed a complaint seeking those employees' 94 00:06:45,020 --> 00:06:48,860 reinstatement and back pay. But in an effort to get out of it, 95 00:06:48,860 --> 00:06:52,300 SpaceX argued it should be regulated like an airline 96 00:06:52,300 --> 00:06:56,380 or railroad instead, which coincidentally exempts it 97 00:06:56,380 --> 00:06:59,420 from the National Labor Relations Act entirely. 98 00:06:59,420 --> 00:07:04,780 When you're a train, they let you do it. The fired employee's attorney called the NLRB's decision 99 00:07:04,780 --> 00:07:07,780 to treat SpaceX as a common carrier, 100 00:07:07,780 --> 00:07:13,180 contrary to law and public policy. Choo-choo, I'll aboard the space train. 101 00:07:13,180 --> 00:07:17,780 You get no benefits, and you'd have to work in Elon Musk's moon colony. 102 00:07:17,780 --> 00:07:21,100 Just so you know. Me, I'd rather check out our sponsor. 103 00:07:21,100 --> 00:07:25,020 Oh, sorry, I should have also said the quick bits are also in your house now. 104 00:07:25,020 --> 00:07:28,980 They may chew on your wires a little bit, but don't worry, they're harmless 105 00:07:28,980 --> 00:07:33,380 as long as you don't try to stop them. Cash app now lets you generate payment links 106 00:07:33,380 --> 00:07:37,900 to drop straight into DMs with the goal of making peer-to-peer payments 107 00:07:37,900 --> 00:07:41,700 feel less formal. The new feature comes after cash app 108 00:07:41,700 --> 00:07:48,100 conducted a money matters report, which found that Gen Zers already coordinate transactions 109 00:07:48,100 --> 00:07:52,020 over text a lot of the time anyways. Convenient? 110 00:07:52,020 --> 00:07:57,020 Sure, I mean, here in Canada, Interac has had similar request money links for years, 111 00:07:57,020 --> 00:08:01,780 and that definitely didn't lead to a tidal wave of fake Canada revenue agency e-transfer scams. 112 00:08:01,780 --> 00:08:05,260 What could possibly go wrong? It'll probably work, you guys do it, it's fine. 113 00:08:05,260 --> 00:08:09,980 Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström, 114 00:08:09,980 --> 00:08:13,460 it's probably wrong, sorry, bragged during this week's earnings call 115 00:08:13,460 --> 00:08:18,580 that the company's best developers have not written a single line of code since December, 116 00:08:18,580 --> 00:08:22,260 thanks to an internal AI coding system called Honk. 117 00:08:22,260 --> 00:08:29,340 The company shipped more than 50 new features throughout 2025, including AI-powered prompted playlists 118 00:08:29,340 --> 00:08:33,540 and page match for audiobooks. Given the speed of this development 119 00:08:33,540 --> 00:08:38,940 and AI's propensity for creating security vulnerabilities, we feel it is our responsibility to tell people 120 00:08:38,940 --> 00:08:42,580 to not try and hack Spotify right now. 121 00:08:42,580 --> 00:08:47,260 No matter how trivially easy it might be, especially given that they just hit record profits 122 00:08:47,260 --> 00:08:51,300 of 2.2 billion euros for 2025, nearly double the year before, 123 00:08:51,300 --> 00:08:58,900 driven largely by subscription price hikes. Come on, let's not just let them enjoy this. 124 00:08:58,940 --> 00:09:04,420 Meta is reportedly working on facial recognition for its smart glasses, again, 125 00:09:04,420 --> 00:09:07,860 potentially letting wearers identify people in real time. 126 00:09:07,860 --> 00:09:13,380 They were holding off on outing this feature after receiving backlash over potential privacy concerns, 127 00:09:13,380 --> 00:09:20,060 but an internal memo showed to the New York Times noted that we are now in a quote, dynamic political environment 128 00:09:20,060 --> 00:09:23,460 where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us 129 00:09:23,460 --> 00:09:29,940 would have their resources focused on other concerns. In other words, mods are asleep, post AI slop. 130 00:09:29,940 --> 00:09:34,740 Anyway, if someone wearing smart glasses whispers your name before you introduce yourself, 131 00:09:34,740 --> 00:09:37,980 just assume the pre-crime division is hiring. 132 00:09:37,980 --> 00:09:42,660 And just to get ahead of it, no, I am not the Riley who is gonna steal your car later today. 133 00:09:42,660 --> 00:09:46,300 Apple's latest iPhone update, iOS 26.3, 134 00:09:46,300 --> 00:09:49,980 now includes a built-in transfer to Android tool 135 00:09:49,980 --> 00:09:54,740 that lets you move apps, photos, and even your phone number over to an Android device 136 00:09:54,740 --> 00:09:59,020 just by placing the two phones next to each other. We actually saw hints of this back in December 137 00:09:59,020 --> 00:10:04,780 when code found in an Android canary build suggested that Google was working towards a similar feature 138 00:10:04,780 --> 00:10:08,260 in the opposite direction. The good news doesn't end there. 139 00:10:08,260 --> 00:10:11,500 iPhone users in the EU can also now turn on 140 00:10:11,500 --> 00:10:14,620 notification forwarding for third-party smart watches, 141 00:10:14,620 --> 00:10:19,940 meaning that you don't need to wear a square watch just because you decided to buy an iPhone. 142 00:10:20,820 --> 00:10:25,060 I mean, it's rounded corner squares. Circles are cool, too, 143 00:10:25,060 --> 00:10:28,980 and so are interoperability rules. Thanks, EU. 144 00:10:28,980 --> 00:10:34,300 Thanks so much. And the new robot from Weave Robotics, Isaac Zero, 145 00:10:34,300 --> 00:10:38,900 want about $10,000 upfront, or roughly $450 a month, 146 00:10:38,900 --> 00:10:43,460 to fold some of your laundry. It's mostly autonomous. 147 00:10:43,460 --> 00:10:47,300 The system runs off a stationary pole you set up in front of a table 148 00:10:47,300 --> 00:10:52,420 and plug it into the wall. The robot uses onboard sensors to identify, grab, 149 00:10:52,420 --> 00:10:58,100 and fold common garments on its own, but for more complex or confusing items, 150 00:10:58,100 --> 00:11:02,100 a remote teller operator can step in and assist. 151 00:11:02,100 --> 00:11:07,940 So it's not fully human-controlled, but it's also not quite rosy the robot just yet. 152 00:11:07,940 --> 00:11:13,780 Weave says it's been stress-testing Isaac Zero in commercial laundromats with promising results. 153 00:11:13,780 --> 00:11:19,540 Still, I cannot unsee that this is just Nintendo's Rob with a glow-up. 154 00:11:20,540 --> 00:11:25,380 Maybe we should have treated Rob better. He did help us beat Gyromite after all. 155 00:11:25,380 --> 00:11:30,020 I did not play whatever game this is referring to. But Rob won't be able to help you predict 156 00:11:30,020 --> 00:11:35,180 when I'll come back next week. I'll give you a hint. It's Wednesday, the 18th, 157 00:11:35,180 --> 00:11:38,660 because this Monday is Family Day here in British Columbia. 158 00:11:38,660 --> 00:11:43,300 It's a little problematic because we have one Olive Garden 159 00:11:43,300 --> 00:11:46,140 and it gets real crowded with everyone in there.