So Riley wanted a day off, which I'm fine with, but try telling that to the tech news.
It never stops. Every other day, it's story after story after story after story after story
after story after story after story. It's finally happening. Android and Chrome OS are merging.
But how exactly? Well, I'm not sure, but Google's Samir Samat, Android ecosystem president
extraordinaire, has confirmed this in an interview with tech radars Lance Ulanoff.
Now, it wasn't the main topic of discussion, and he didn't have much else to say on the matter,
but this statement could confirm the rumor from November of last year that Chrome OS would be
migrating to Android. Man, that would be great to have all of my apps and experiences just
translate perfectly between my devices. You know, like on Apple, except without the massive price tag
on every piece of hardware and a walled garden ecosystem that forces you to use products from
a single manufacturer. Speaking of expensive hardware, looks like those price leaks for the
Xbox ally and ally x were right. 3DHuegos noticed that Google search store metadata from ASUS's
own website has listed the Xbox ally x at 899 euro and the regular Xbox ally non x at 599 euro.
I mean, considering how much an ally and an ally x cost right now, those prices do sound about right,
but if you thought the Switch 2 was expensive, welcome to PC gaming, baby.
Expensive hardware up front, but hey, at least there's cheap games aplenty after the fact.
And in all seriousness, that tax can greatly affect electronics MSRP's in Europe,
and we might see some lower prices on this side of the pond. It's just not that much lower. So,
for anyone who is hoping that Xbox and Microsoft would be subsidizing a big chunk of the price,
maybe don't hold your breath. I mean, this is the same Microsoft that just laid off a ton of
developers, developers, developers. Steve Ballmer must be rolling over in his grave.
Right. Next topic. It turns out that Google Gemini for Workspace can be easily manipulated,
just like me. I guess. I don't know, it's in the script. Basically,
an attacker can embed invisible, size zero, white on white font instructions within admin tags,
and then if they get summarized by AI, the user will get a bunch of official looking security
warnings that could socially engineer them into handing over credentials or placing a call to a
scam call center. There's no obvious phishing links, no .exe files to run, and no requests to
wire money to a Nigerian prince. The whole thing is kind of pretty clever, and it gets worse,
because this goes beyond just email and affects just about everything that can be summarized,
like docs, slides, and drive search functionality. Marco Figaroa. Marco F, who first published
findings of this new scam process a few days ago, suggests that you remove, neutralize,
or ignore content that is styled to be hidden in the body text, or add a post-processing filter
that scans the Gemini output. Guys, I've got it. Let's just make another AI
that summarizes whether the AI summary is a scam. Ah, it's brilliant, but watch about the rest.
Bring out the expeditious midgens. Quickly now, I can only do this bit for so long.
Ever wonder how quickly you can destroy evidence in a pinch? Well, now you don't have to,
because Teamgroup has created a self-destructing SSD with intelligent dual-mode data destruction
on the new P250Q-M80. You can choose S slash W quickerase, which will wipe the drive but maintain
functionality, or H slash W quickerase, which will physically destroy the NAND with high voltage.
Okay, that sounds pretty cool. I 100% want to try this when it launches.
As for GROC, maybe that should get unlaunched? XAI has tried to explain what happened with the whole
mecha-Hitler fiasco. Their explanation? We discovered a root cause that was an update to a
code path upstream of the at GROC bot. This is independent of the underlying language model
that powers at GROC. Wow. Well, I'm completely relieved. All of the racist, Hitler-loving code
is just from an upstream code path, guys. Just like with rivers. It's not our problem if the
pollution is coming from upstream. Wait, yes it is, but I'm not going to worry about that. Just
like I'm not going to worry about Microsoft Office not getting any more feature updates on Windows 10
because I'm using Windows 11 and also Google Docs. But whether you care about this or not,
it's a really good time to point out that as of June earlier this year, Windows 10 still had a higher
install base. So the transition, not going too great, but that doesn't stop the impending end of
life that's coming in October 2028 when it stops getting security updates. And it doesn't change
that in August there won't be any new features unless you upgrade your OS to Windows 11 or Linux.
You know, sometimes I wonder why we don't see more human-inspired computer technology.
Maybe it's because we're gross bags of meat. Maybe? Yeah, I think so. But Korean scientists
are looking to our noses for inspiration around filtering air particles. It's called PRO,
Particle Removing Oil Coated Filter, and it both removes more particles while lasting way
longer than traditional filters. That's pretty neat. Excuse me, sorry. They're still working
out the kinks. And last, but yeah, honestly, this one was definitely least. I mean, the one that came
before it was a nose filter, but anyway, it's pretty cool. We're getting fake CRTs from Japan's
Mizukiko. And I really do mean fake because basically it's just a curved 4x3 LCD panel
that's housed in a CRT-shaped shell. It's going to be about 8 inches small and is going to pair
with their mini retro reprint PCs. That is assuming they're crowdfunding works. They're
a little under halfway there at the time of writing, and I really don't know what the appeal is going
to be of an 8 inch CRT alike. Thanks for joining us for another episode of TechLinked. What's going
to happen next time? Unlike Dragon Ball Z. There's no sneak peek, so your guess, honestly, is as good
as mine, but I think I'm going to bet on Goku fighting Mecha Hitler.