Oh, wow, oh my gosh, you clicked on our thumbnail. We just put it out there and we didn't know anyone.
I actually clicked on watch, thank you, oh my God. The fact that Google pays to be the default search engine
on many devices is well-known, but thanks to a recent New York Times report
and testimony coming out of the USV Google antitrust trial,
we now know how much $26.3 billion was paid out in 2021
with 18 billion of that going solely to Apple.
That means Google is sacrificing almost one third
of its profits from its entire ad business, including YouTube, so you can keep telling yourself
you don't use Bing because it's just not as good. You're just a puppet, man.
What's your kermit's there? Miss Piggy told me not to use it. The Times report claims that Google also worked
on their own version of Apple's spotlight for iPhones, promoted its Chrome browser to iPhone users
and tried to leverage the EU's Digital Markets Act to cut off Apple's potential search engine ambitions,
like a vasectomy, but for ideas. This makes Apple and Google's relationship
kind of complicated. Google is actively trying to hold Apple back
from their full potential by paying the massive sums of money.
It's like the most toxic relationship you've ever heard of, but they're the world's richest corporations
and not people, so who are we to judge? Except under US law.
Love is love. The newly released Alan Wake 2 is drawing criticism
for listing only GPUs with mesh shader support in its PC requirements,
discouraging any graphics card older than NVIDIA's RTX 20 series or AMD's RX 6000 series
from touching the game. Like how back in third grade, Ali Watson was excluded from touching anything
because she had cooties. While you can start up the game on older cards
with no hardware mesh shaders, there's reasons to avoid doing so.
Like the fact you'll get this warning pop-up that looks like it traveled all the way from 1995
to stop you from making a terrible mistake. Sarah Connor, don't start that game.
We'll have to make sure your parents get married. Then there's the fact that at 1080p max settings
without upscaling, an RX 5700 XT and a GTX 1080 Ti
will perform worse than expected and get spanked by a GTX 1660 Ti and an RTX 3050.
If you lower the settings and enable FSR, the 5700 XT will give playable frame rates,
but it's wild that once trusty flagships like the GTX 1080 and 1080 Ti
are lucky to average 30 FPS. If this is where the industry is headed,
gamers with older cards will be faced with costly decisions, not too dissimilar to when Ali Watson's family
decided to move to a new school district. I hear she's in Alaska now.
The only thing she's touching is baby seals. Cooties can't thrive in the cold.
Western Digital's planned merger with memory chip maker Keoksia has apparently stalled.
Turns out this is because a key investor in Keoksia
is the competing memory chip maker SK Hynex.
Hey, they may not like their competition, but damn it, they respect them enough to invest.
But while respect is nice and all, I'm sure Japan's top three banks,
as well as the state-backed Development Bank of Japan,
are probably miffed about the paperwork they'll have to redo
since they already authorized $12.7 billion
to help finance the merger. Think about all the extra zeros they have to erase.
Oh, to go all the way around the circle. This isn't the first time a Western Digital Keoksia merger
has been attempted either. In 2021, a $20 billion deal completely fell apart.
But even then, the companies have circled each other, like star-crossed lovers,
even becoming involved in a joint venture last year. Just let them get together already, SK Hynex.
I've been writing fan fiction for two years. Don't blow this for me.
I can't go back to the Potifers. No, Ron, no.
Fuah, quick bits? No, dude. Sick bits.
I don't like this. Sick bits.
Oh, so sick. Apple has released iOS and iPadOS 17.1,
notably addressing recent problems with screen burn-in
for the iPhone, improving airdrop, and fixing a bug where the OS turned off privacy settings
for significant locations and iPhone analytics. Significant locations, of course,
being a feature that tracks and remembers places you visit often, like your work, your local cafe,
and the Fight Club under the Overpass. Riley, you're not supposed to talk every time.
I'm dead. We gotta move now. It also fixes a three-year-old security gap
in iOS's private address feature, which was supposed to allow users to avoid being tracked
while connecting to Wi-Fi networks, but instead just gave them the warm illusion of safety
in a cold and perilous world, which is also worth something.
Qualcomm has apparently snagged six more laptop OEMs
for their upcoming ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite processors,
including names like ASUS, Dell, and Samsung. But Intel CEO and the world's most calm
under-pressure nerd, Pat Gelsinger, isn't afraid of any competition from ARM CPUs,
despite efforts from not just Qualcomm, but also allegedly secret projects
by both NVIDIA and AMD. In fact, he's willing to build their chips
with Intel's foundry. This guy's tough. I'm already fan-casting Dwayne Johnson
to play him in the inevitable biopic. Who's Kevin Hart gonna be?
Lisa Sue. We're the best! Google is launching About This Image,
a tool to verify the origin and context of an image,
including how long it's been available on Google search and which websites have used it in the past,
like news outlets and fact-checkers. And if that's not enough reassurance
for you to trust that an image is real, you can try Leica's new M11P camera,
which comes with built-in content credentials, stamping a digital photo with detailed metadata
at the point of capture. You can't put a price on authenticity,
but Leica can because this thing costs $9,000.
In partnership with New Lab, Airspace Link, and the Michigan Department of Transportation,
Ford is testing automated delivery drones at a giant, 100-year-old train station
that was closed in the late 1980s. The project covers a three-mile radius
around Michigan Central Station, which is 100% haunted,
both by the spirit of 20th century industrialism and packs of feral, train-spotting enthusiasts.
They love you in McGregor movies. And beloved hacker gadget Flipper Zero
can now spam Windows and Android with Bluetooth alerts,
thanks to a new app called BLE Spam on GitHub
that can make it difficult for a target to discern between legitimate Bluetooth devices and spoofs.
The attack is actually based on a similar one used to target and crash iPhones.
The Spam app gives eight flood attack options, such as Apple device pop-up, Android device pair,
Windows device found, and even every method combined.
Because, I mean, why go one at a time when you can ruin everyone's day?
But your day will only improve if you come back on Monday for more tech news.
But first, hey, you know what? Why don't you get some rest, enjoy your weekend.
You could write a short steamy romance about your two favorite companies.
Their love is forbidden, but they can't fight their own hearts
or their quarterly earnings.