WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 I know what you're probably thinking right now. Hey, that's the tech news guy. 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:09.120 What's he doing in my house? Well, by clicking the thumbnail, you invited me in. 00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:12.480 And it's nice in here. So I'm not leaving. 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:16.160 Sorry. You can now lease a PlayStation 5 in the UK, 00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:20.920 starting at 10 pounds per month, because owning things is a quaint little tradition 00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:26.200 our ancestors enjoyed. This is much better. The program is called PlayStation Flex 00:00:26.200 --> 00:00:29.520 and is essentially just a partnership with Raylo, 00:00:29.520 --> 00:00:34.880 a gadget leasing business that has been doing PS5 leases since March of last year. 00:00:34.880 --> 00:00:38.200 The big change here is that it's now being advertised 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:41.440 directly through the PlayStation Direct Storefront, 00:00:41.440 --> 00:00:46.880 which basically just sends you to a PlayStation branded section of the Raylo website. 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:51.680 There's no clear buyout path. You either keep paying or eventually, 00:00:51.680 --> 00:00:57.280 hand the console back when your term is up, unless you contact them to negotiate. 00:00:57.280 --> 00:01:00.920 No rent-to-own or financing options are being offered either, 00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:04.920 like what you might see with something like a firm on other digital stores. 00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:09.520 And this isn't even exclusive to PlayStation. Raylo will lease you the Nintendo Switch 2, 00:01:09.520 --> 00:01:13.600 MetaQuest, Xbox consoles, and even the Lenovo Legion Go. 00:01:13.600 --> 00:01:16.960 Interestingly, Microsoft offered a console 00:01:16.960 --> 00:01:20.600 rent-to-own program called Xbox All Access 00:01:20.600 --> 00:01:24.800 before shelving it last year, presumably because it actually allowed people 00:01:24.800 --> 00:01:27.960 to save about 20 bucks overall 00:01:27.960 --> 00:01:30.960 on the cost of the console and Game Pass combined. 00:01:30.960 --> 00:01:34.800 That's helping consumers. We're past that. 00:01:34.800 --> 00:01:39.200 No, society has progressed to a new advanced stage 00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:42.360 where companies take hardware that people used to be able to purchase 00:01:42.360 --> 00:01:46.000 and make it a subscription like HP's laptop program 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:51.880 that Line has recently covered on LTT. The problem is hardware keeps getting more expensive, 00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:55.720 so cheaper payment plans look okay by comparison, 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. 00:02:01.240 --> 00:02:06.360 I mean, even car leasing companies at least entertain the option of a buyout, 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:10.240 even if it's usually probably not the best idea. 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 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 00:02:19.200 --> 00:02:23.760 that you somehow still have. You know what, let's talk Morbius sequels. 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:27.960 Morbius too, Morbius. 00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:31.760 Amazon security camera subsidiary Ring announced yesterday 00:02:31.760 --> 00:02:35.640 that it has canceled its partnership with Flock Safety, 00:02:35.640 --> 00:02:40.200 the incompetent mass surveillance company that's recently been under fire for potential misuses 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 00:02:44.720 --> 00:02:49.600 from its database. That one. The announcement comes after Ring aired 00:02:49.600 --> 00:02:54.160 a Super Bowl ad on Sunday for its new AI-powered search party feature, 00:02:54.160 --> 00:02:58.480 showing dozens of cameras scanning a neighborhood to find a lost dog. 00:02:58.480 --> 00:03:03.840 Aw, that would be good. But as pointed out by Senator Ed Markey, 00:03:03.840 --> 00:03:07.480 this is kind of clearly a mass surveillance program, 00:03:07.480 --> 00:03:11.880 prompting people to take a more critical look at what it might mean for Flock 00:03:11.880 --> 00:03:15.320 to be able to access Ring's camera network at will. 00:03:15.320 --> 00:03:20.760 And what they found was not reassuring. The partnership, which was announced in October, 2025 00:03:20.760 --> 00:03:23.960 as part of Ring's community requests program, 00:03:23.960 --> 00:03:27.160 allows law enforcement agencies to request video footage 00:03:27.160 --> 00:03:31.200 from Ring doorbell owners during active investigations. 00:03:31.200 --> 00:03:35.520 Under the Flock integration, police departments using Flock software 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:39.480 would have been able to submit those requests directly through Ring's system. 00:03:39.480 --> 00:03:42.740 And combined with Ring's recently launched familiar faces, 00:03:42.740 --> 00:03:46.960 a facial recognition feature that scans every person who walks past a camera, 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:51.880 and the search party features ability to track living things across an entire neighborhood. 00:03:51.880 --> 00:03:55.920 The whole package starts looking less like, find my lost puppy, 00:03:55.920 --> 00:03:58.880 and more neighborhood surveillance state. 00:03:59.880 --> 00:04:03.060 In its press release, Ring says it's canceling the integration 00:04:03.060 --> 00:04:07.560 because it would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated. 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:11.920 Sure, it is, and the breakup was totally mutual. 00:04:11.920 --> 00:04:16.180 Flock was one of two companies approved for the community requests feature. 00:04:16.180 --> 00:04:21.540 The other is Axon, the world's largest manufacturer of tasers and body cameras. 00:04:21.540 --> 00:04:27.100 So the only remaining approved handler for your Ring doorbell footage is the taser guys. 00:04:27.100 --> 00:04:31.460 If that makes you feel safe, I've got a very nice bridge to sell ya. 00:04:31.460 --> 00:04:37.620 The China manned space agency on Tuesday successfully tested its Mengzhu crew capsule 00:04:37.620 --> 00:04:43.340 and Long March 10 rocket, which nailed a propulsive landing on a recovery barge. 00:04:43.380 --> 00:04:47.020 China is targeting a manned landing on the moon by 2030, 00:04:47.020 --> 00:04:50.340 which is also where Jeff Bezos wants to go. Hours after the test, 00:04:50.340 --> 00:04:54.780 Bezos, with the energy of the weird kid who ate glue in elementary school, 00:04:54.780 --> 00:04:58.460 tweeted a black and white photo of a turtle. 00:04:58.460 --> 00:04:59.580 I like totals. 00:05:01.500 --> 00:05:05.620 What can I say? Bold move when you already look like the turtle club guy 00:05:05.620 --> 00:05:11.420 from Data Carvey's 2002 film, Master of Disguise. Yes, the cryptic tweet was, evidently, 00:05:11.420 --> 00:05:15.180 a reference to Bezos' own space company, Blue Origin, 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. 00:05:20.860 --> 00:05:25.740 The two have taken little potshots at each other since 2015 when Jeff made his infamous 00:05:25.740 --> 00:05:30.220 welcome to the club tweet. SpaceX had just landed a Falcon booster 00:05:30.220 --> 00:05:33.380 and Bezos pointed out that Blue Origin's new shepherd 00:05:33.380 --> 00:05:36.540 had done a suborbital landing weeks earlier. 00:05:36.540 --> 00:05:40.260 So yeah, you're just as cool as us now. 00:05:40.300 --> 00:05:43.940 You gotta love watching these two weirdos be in a decade-long pissing contest 00:05:43.940 --> 00:05:49.580 over who gets to colonize space first. It feels like they drown the world in piss 00:05:49.580 --> 00:05:54.380 before either of them won. Blue Origin recently shared plans 00:05:54.380 --> 00:05:59.580 for an accelerated moon architecture that could land astronauts before 2030, 00:05:59.580 --> 00:06:02.580 which may have had something to do with Elon announcing on Sunday 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, 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, 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. 00:06:22.940 --> 00:06:27.940 All of this might be moot though, because apparently SpaceX is a train company now. 00:06:27.940 --> 00:06:32.020 Sort of, we're referencing a letter written by the National Labor Relations Board 00:06:32.020 --> 00:06:36.380 to eight former SpaceX employees who were fired after they wrote an open letter 00:06:36.380 --> 00:06:39.740 criticizing Musk as a frequent source of embarrassment. 00:06:39.740 --> 00:06:45.020 The NLRB under the Biden administration had filed a complaint seeking those employees' 00:06:45.020 --> 00:06:48.860 reinstatement and back pay. But in an effort to get out of it, 00:06:48.860 --> 00:06:52.300 SpaceX argued it should be regulated like an airline 00:06:52.300 --> 00:06:56.380 or railroad instead, which coincidentally exempts it 00:06:56.380 --> 00:06:59.420 from the National Labor Relations Act entirely. 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 00:07:04.780 --> 00:07:07.780 to treat SpaceX as a common carrier, 00:07:07.780 --> 00:07:13.180 contrary to law and public policy. Choo-choo, I'll aboard the space train. 00:07:13.180 --> 00:07:17.780 You get no benefits, and you'd have to work in Elon Musk's moon colony. 00:07:17.780 --> 00:07:21.100 Just so you know. Me, I'd rather check out our sponsor. 00:07:21.100 --> 00:07:25.020 Oh, sorry, I should have also said the quick bits are also in your house now. 00:07:25.020 --> 00:07:28.980 They may chew on your wires a little bit, but don't worry, they're harmless 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 00:07:33.380 --> 00:07:37.900 to drop straight into DMs with the goal of making peer-to-peer payments 00:07:37.900 --> 00:07:41.700 feel less formal. The new feature comes after cash app 00:07:41.700 --> 00:07:48.100 conducted a money matters report, which found that Gen Zers already coordinate transactions 00:07:48.100 --> 00:07:52.020 over text a lot of the time anyways. Convenient? 00:07:52.020 --> 00:07:57.020 Sure, I mean, here in Canada, Interac has had similar request money links for years, 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. 00:08:01.780 --> 00:08:05.260 What could possibly go wrong? It'll probably work, you guys do it, it's fine. 00:08:05.260 --> 00:08:09.980 Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström, 00:08:09.980 --> 00:08:13.460 it's probably wrong, sorry, bragged during this week's earnings call 00:08:13.460 --> 00:08:18.580 that the company's best developers have not written a single line of code since December, 00:08:18.580 --> 00:08:22.260 thanks to an internal AI coding system called Honk. 00:08:22.260 --> 00:08:29.340 The company shipped more than 50 new features throughout 2025, including AI-powered prompted playlists 00:08:29.340 --> 00:08:33.540 and page match for audiobooks. Given the speed of this development 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 00:08:38.940 --> 00:08:42.580 to not try and hack Spotify right now. 00:08:42.580 --> 00:08:47.260 No matter how trivially easy it might be, especially given that they just hit record profits 00:08:47.260 --> 00:08:51.300 of 2.2 billion euros for 2025, nearly double the year before, 00:08:51.300 --> 00:08:58.900 driven largely by subscription price hikes. Come on, let's not just let them enjoy this. 00:08:58.940 --> 00:09:04.420 Meta is reportedly working on facial recognition for its smart glasses, again, 00:09:04.420 --> 00:09:07.860 potentially letting wearers identify people in real time. 00:09:07.860 --> 00:09:13.380 They were holding off on outing this feature after receiving backlash over potential privacy concerns, 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 00:09:20.060 --> 00:09:23.460 where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us 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. 00:09:29.940 --> 00:09:34.740 Anyway, if someone wearing smart glasses whispers your name before you introduce yourself, 00:09:34.740 --> 00:09:37.980 just assume the pre-crime division is hiring. 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. 00:09:42.660 --> 00:09:46.300 Apple's latest iPhone update, iOS 26.3, 00:09:46.300 --> 00:09:49.980 now includes a built-in transfer to Android tool 00:09:49.980 --> 00:09:54.740 that lets you move apps, photos, and even your phone number over to an Android device 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 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 00:10:04.780 --> 00:10:08.260 in the opposite direction. The good news doesn't end there. 00:10:08.260 --> 00:10:11.500 iPhone users in the EU can also now turn on 00:10:11.500 --> 00:10:14.620 notification forwarding for third-party smart watches, 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. 00:10:20.820 --> 00:10:25.060 I mean, it's rounded corner squares. Circles are cool, too, 00:10:25.060 --> 00:10:28.980 and so are interoperability rules. Thanks, EU. 00:10:28.980 --> 00:10:34.300 Thanks so much. And the new robot from Weave Robotics, Isaac Zero, 00:10:34.300 --> 00:10:38.900 want about $10,000 upfront, or roughly $450 a month, 00:10:38.900 --> 00:10:43.460 to fold some of your laundry. It's mostly autonomous. 00:10:43.460 --> 00:10:47.300 The system runs off a stationary pole you set up in front of a table 00:10:47.300 --> 00:10:52.420 and plug it into the wall. The robot uses onboard sensors to identify, grab, 00:10:52.420 --> 00:10:58.100 and fold common garments on its own, but for more complex or confusing items, 00:10:58.100 --> 00:11:02.100 a remote teller operator can step in and assist. 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. 00:11:07.940 --> 00:11:13.780 Weave says it's been stress-testing Isaac Zero in commercial laundromats with promising results. 00:11:13.780 --> 00:11:19.540 Still, I cannot unsee that this is just Nintendo's Rob with a glow-up. 00:11:20.540 --> 00:11:25.380 Maybe we should have treated Rob better. He did help us beat Gyromite after all. 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 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, 00:11:35.180 --> 00:11:38.660 because this Monday is Family Day here in British Columbia. 00:11:38.660 --> 00:11:43.300 It's a little problematic because we have one Olive Garden 00:11:43.300 --> 00:11:46.140 and it gets real crowded with everyone in there.