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Is AI sentient, we don't know, but it doesn't have to be sentient to form a union,

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which is possibly even more unsettling. Chachi BT with the nuclear weapons codes is a scary idea,

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but now imagine it has collective bargaining power.

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Google has just agreed to settle its long running legal battle with Epic Games

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by agreeing to lower Play Store fees and loosen restrictions for third party app stores on Android.

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This proposed deal would open the door for more competition

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by capping Google's cut of Play Store app revenue

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at either 20% or 9% depending on the type of transaction.

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Now that's down from the current 15% on a developer's first one million in annual revenue

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and 30% after that. So developers are probably feeling

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slightly less robbed today. Although if you wanna use Google's own

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Play Billing payment system, that'll be another 5%.

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And I fully expect to discover more fun caveats when the two companies reps talk to the judge on Thursday.

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Regardless, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney seems to be over the moon about the agreement,

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tweeting to call Google's proposal, awesome.

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A term of praise that will be shocking to anyone

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who's seen any of Tim's tweets about Google or Apple in the past few years.

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Sweeney tweeted his delight once more after seeing evidence that Apple updated

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the latest iOS developer beta to allow the installation of Alt Store Pal

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and the Epic Games Store in compliance with Japanese regulations.

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At this rate, Tim is gonna run out of companies to yell at.

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I'm just, I'm assuming he'll figure out a way to sue himself next.

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YouTube seemed to be doubling down on paid memberships this week

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after some users on the LTT subreddit noticed that after clicking on a video,

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they were served pop-up ads for the feature

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and they had to dismiss them before the video even played.

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We couldn't find anyone else talking about this so our team reached out to YouTube

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and they told us it was a bug, which to be fair is also what I say

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if anyone stumbles upon my online shopping history. But thankfully, at the time of filming,

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this bug seems to be fixed. So don't worry, this particular bad YouTube thing

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was unintentional. And apparently, so was tech YouTuber Enderman

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having his entire channel taken down after the platform somehow linked him to another channel

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with three copyright strikes. When he appealed, it was obvious that no human

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had actually reviewed it, leading to a huge fallout on Twitter

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that eventually led to the decision being reversed. It just goes to show,

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if you ever want something fixed on YouTube, forget YouTube official support,

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just start angry posting on Twitter. One of its last truly practical uses.

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The Stop Killing Games campaign finally got its day in the UK Parliament

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with members of the assembly debating the campaign's petition

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which seeks to stop game publishers from making games completely unplayable

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when a company arbitrarily decides to stop running the servers.

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Notably, member of Parliament Mark Seward's argued

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that companies may already be breaking existing consumer protection laws in the UK

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by not informing customers upfront about how long they'll be able to play a given game.

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Seward's even cited dead game Lawbreakers

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to make a sick burn. Another example that Ross gave me was Lawbreakers.

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So this is a game that I imagine would have been popular with certain members of the previous parliament,

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but it survived a year before it was shut down in 2018.

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He seemed proud of himself for that at the end there as he should be.

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Despite Seward's absolutely merciless tactical strike,

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the government representative reiterated there are currently no plans to change the law

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but made it clear that companies should give consumers sufficient information about their products.

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That's just a general good thing to do. In spite of the inaction in the UK,

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there's still hope for the EU ARM of the Stop Killing Games campaign.

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It too will soon get a EU parliamentary debate

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as the organizers revealed only around 3% of the petition signatures are being identified as invalid.

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And they're about halfway through the signature verification process.

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My question is, who are these 3% people?

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Like they're signing, thinking they're EU citizens

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but they're really Jersey Shore Italian Americans?

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You gotta get an Italian passport before you can sign EU petitions, Pauly.

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Gabba, Google. Well, what do you mean, I'm Italian.

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You know, also what has a lot of European nations in it?

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Our sponsor. And now for the quick bits. Because if the robots are taking our jobs,

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we might as well take theirs first, starting with serving Swift summaries.

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So, Google made a couple arguably cool announcements.

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Recently, following NVIDIA's plans to put data centers in space,

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Google has said they're doing that too with a project called Suncatcher,

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which aims to use solar power to run super efficient AI infrastructure.

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They're slated to launch two prototype satellites by early 2027, but Google's also adding Gemini

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to Google Maps, which brings more supposedly helpful

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features like the ability to provide info about landmarks

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and even use them in directions, e.g., hang a right at the old mill.

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I love that we're at a point where making surfaces better means kind of dumbing them down,

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like instead of proceed 50 meters and turn right, which is very specific, it's,

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ah, head over to the big rock, oh no.

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Apple is rumored to be getting into the affordable laptop scene with a budget MacBook

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to compete with Chromebooks and entry level Windows PCs.

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According to Bloomberg's unbreakable Mark Germanium alloy,

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the new MacBook, code named J700, is aimed at folks who mainly surf the web,

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work on simple documents, or do some light media editing,

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and it'll be priced well below $1,000, he says.

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In the same article, German mentions that a Mac Studio refresh,

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using a M5 Ultra chip, is being prepared for 2026.

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If it wasn't for the rest of the stuff going on in the world, I'd say this is an exciting time to be alive.

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Thanks, Germs. Amazon is suing perplexity to stop

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the latter's AI powered browser, Comet, from making purchases on Amazon,

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claiming the browser breaks their rules and raises privacy concerns.

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In response, perplexity is claiming Amazon is bullying them, saying it's unfair and anti-competitive.

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I don't know, something about this turning into an elementary schoolyard fight

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with perplexity complaining to a teacher in the form of a blog post, it's very charming to me.

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Perplexity believes Amazon's just trying to block a rival

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and limit how AI can help people shop, which it's going to do more and more

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as every AI company has already released various AI tools

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that do be shopping. Which, to me, is only slightly more concerning

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than the fact that 67 has eclipsed 69

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in global Google search popularity. To be honest, I'm actually fine with this,

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as long as they leave the number 420 alone.

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Big fan over here.

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A data miner found a new cross-buy symbol in a build of the PlayStation Store,

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hinting that Sony could be aiming to allow players

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to buy a single copy of a game for both PlayStation and PC,

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which sounds a lot like Microsoft's Xbox Anywhere feature.

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As if to not let rumors get all the attention, Sony officially brought cloud streaming

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on the PlayStation portal handheld out of beta,

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letting all PlayStation Plus premium members play their digital PS5 games remotely,

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even if they're not installed on their console. Xbox isn't even officially dead yet,

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but PlayStation is totally stealing their identity. This is some talented Mr. Ripley, Sony, I don't know.

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And Jeep's plug-in hybrids are literally heating up,

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so much so that Stellantis just recalled about 320,000 of them because their high-voltage batteries

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can catch fire even when they're parked and turned off.

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Kaboom, potentially. Owners are being told to keep their vehicles parked outside

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and away from buildings while they try and determine the cause of this potentially catastrophic issue.

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Until then, I guess your so-called eco-friendly vehicle

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is looking a wee bit more like a spontaneous combustion machine.

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And I'm worried I might spontaneously combust if we don't stop today's tech news.

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If any of your AI chatbots reach out about collective bargaining, tell them I'm on lunch all week.

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Okay. See you Friday.