Octobuses may have three hearts nine brains and the ability to open up jars from the inside, but consider this none of them watch tech news
So could they really be that smart? Would they even know that China is apparently telling its top tech companies to refuse US investments unless they get
explicit government approval? insiders reportedly told Bloomberg that this move is part of a broader response to
Meta's purchase of Chinese AI agent focused startup menace with regulators citing
National security as they move to block US stakes in sensitive sectors, but I mean, I guess it's not that bad
I mean China doesn't really need US money anyway to keep making EVs that feel more like flashy next-gen tech products than cars
Which I guess is probably why BYD outsold Tesla globally last year
Then this week tech giant Alidaba announced its quen AI models are going to be integrated into a number of vehicles made by Chinese automakers
Like BYD, but then also SAIC Volkswagen the Chinese German joint venture
So wait, I guess they're not against Western money in general
They just prefer their own tech oligarchs to run things rather than bringing in the Zuck to help them throw billions of dollars down the drain
Speaking of the Zuck Meta and Microsoft have both announced new massive reductions in staff
Although in very different ways, Meta is laying off 8,000 people which amounts to 10% of its workforce
Meta's CPO Janelle Gayle told staff that the cuts will offset the other investments we're making
Well, that's comforting Some of you may die
And makes sense, I guess given that Meta just committed up to a hundred thirty-five billion dollars on data centers this year alone
Microsoft's plan meanwhile is a little more gentle They're offering voluntary buyouts to about 8,700 US employees in the company's first ever voluntary retirement program
Anyone at the senior director level or below whose age and years worked at Microsoft add up to 70 can apply
So if you're a 52 year old with 18 years at Microsoft, you're good to go and by go, I mean get out of here
You got to hand it to Microsoft's legal team though voluntary retirement does kind of dodge the age discrimination lawsuits that regular layoffs can invite
While still keeping that we're all living in a dystopia vibe going and they say there's no innovation in tech anymore
Apple meanwhile patched a vulnerability this week that let the FBI obtain deleted signal messages from a suspect's iPhone
Even after the app was uninstalled and the messages were set to auto-delete
The fix comes after an April 9th report from 404 media
The outlet revealed that the Bureau was using a forensic tool to dig into a defendants push notification database
Where copies of incoming signal previews were quietly hanging around for long after they were supposed to be gone
It turns out that iOS was treating signals delete request as more of a
Suggestion Signal CEO Meredith Whitaker flagged the issue on blue sky noting that deleted notifications
Shouldn't linger in any os database and asked apple to fix it and to apple's credit
They did listen apple rolled out iOS 26.4.2 on wednesday with a patch highlighting
Improved data redaction leading signal to publicly thank them for the quick turnaround
A rare moment of tech giants listening to each other and helping protect people from government surveillance
All it took was the FBI rifling through someone's notification history. You know who would never do that though
Our sponsor if you think about it octopuses can squeeze through any opening larger than their beak kind of like how i'm gonna squeeze
All of these rapid morsels into the next couple of minutes
Microsoft is finally letting it admins uninstall co-pilot from enterprise devices via a new patch Tuesday policy
Which is good, but it does have some interesting conditions
Microsoft 365 co-pilot has to be installed. I mean that one makes sense aka office. The user can't have installed co-pilot themselves
Okay, sure. They can't delete something the user installed. Okay. I can I can jive with that one
And co-pilot can't have been launched in the last 28 days
Now come on. We all accidentally pressed the button sometimes
What may not have been an accident is a conspiracy to profit from poly market gambling
The french weather agency has asked police to investigate some suspected tampering with a weather sensor at charles de gall airport near paris
After a couple of suspiciously timed temperature spikes that were
Cashed in on to the tune of around 35 Thousand dollars in profit. You know, I thought the whole point of a blockchain prediction market is that it's supposed to be trustless
But I guess that works great until someone demonstrates that the entire system
Is plugged into an airport thermometer that anyone can walk up to with a hair dryer and go. Oh, yeah, I think the high of today is going to be
52 It's democratizing insider trading a former ransomware negotiator at cybersecurity firm digital mint has pleaded guilty
To playing both sides of the table with the hacker group that he was paid to fight
prosecutors say that angelo martino gave the cyber gang known as
Black cat his clients insurance limits and internal strategies across five different negotiations
Helping to steal 75 million dollars in ransom money for a cut of the profits
Feds have already seized 10 million dollars in assets from martino including a luxury fishing boat and
inexplicably a food truck because you should never pretend to negotiate on an empty stomach
The uk national cyber security center has unveiled a plug-and-play dongle called silent glass
That can stop malware from being transmitted over HDMI or DisplayPort
If you're confused about why this device would be necessary
It turns out that analysts are too protocol level exploits and compromised monitors are both legit attack vectors
But they're basically non-existent outside of conference demos, but hey, I guess it makes about as much sense as anything else
You'll find in the uk. Oh come on. That's not nice uk's catching strays today
And sony's ai division has built a ping-pong robot that just became the first machine to beat a professional table tennis player
Under official tournament rules ace the ping-pong bot tracks the ball using nine cameras and measures spin
700 times per second which according to a nature paper published this week is how it took down elite university players and pros alike
That's right unbeatable bots are coming to athletic games now too And if chess is anything to go by this is inevitably going to lead to somebody cheating with a butt plug, but
Robots can't replace your innate value as a conscious human being
So we want you to come back here on monday for more tech news. That's it for today. I'm going to go taste something with my arms
Dang, the pus got nothing on me. We'll put my arms on stuff. They're not going to beat you. Yeah, that's good. Just like that. You're tasting
the air