Welcome back.
I'm going to sit here for this one. Is that cool, Mark? Uh, a hot new wireless
carrier and smartphone have been announced by none other than the Trump
Organization, which is currently being run by the president's son, Eric. So,
there's no conflict of interest. I mean, they hardly know each other. The carrier
service Trump mobile will operate as a mobile virtual network operator or MVNO
that will license parts of Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile's network to offer
the T1 phone, a $500 gold colored iPhone
knockoff Android phone apparently built entirely in the US of A. Now, there have
been many claims about how making iPhones entirely in the US would be
impossible. But as reported by 404 media, there is at least one smartphone
that did it. The Liberty phone from Purism. It just also costs $2,000, while
the version made overseas is 800 bucks. The T1 phone lists some pretty decent
specs. 12 GB of RAM, expandable 256 gigs
of storage. Wait, it doesn't say what processor. Uh 120 Hz screen. None of
this matters though because it's probably not real. Uh the only evidence
we have is this low res bad photoshop job. But it doesn't have to be real to
revolutionize cell phones because it'll have more internet. More international
dialin for free. This phone has the most internet you've ever seen. It'll be the
biggest bang for your buck if you sign up for the 47 plan for 47.45
a month. Okay. Apparently, this is because Trump is the 47th and the 45th
president. But if I'm going to be swindled into pre-ordering a fake gold
Chinese phone, I expect you to commit to the bit. I'm staying on this stool the
whole time. Microsoft has confirmed user reports that Windows Hello just doesn't
work anymore in the dark after an April update changed the sign-in feature to
require your face to be visible to your computer's color camera, not just the
infrared sensor. The change was made to mitigate a vulnerability that made it
easy for attackers to spoof Windows Hello. And while basement dwellers may
be upset about this, you can't say the same about Mark Hatchman, author of the
PC World article, Windows Hello webcams have stopped working in the dark. I
don't care. If you can't log into your laptop because of a power outage and you
live in that town in Alaska that doesn't get daylight for 2 months, hey, that's
not my problem. In other Windows news, users running an insider build were
surprised to log into their Windows 11 PCs and hear the startup chime from
Windows Vista.
Microsoft called the Switcheroo a delightful blast from the past in the
release notes. And a manager on the Windows Insider team says he had some
fun with the sound files on Twitter before clarifying that uh okay, yeah,
it's an actual bug and we're working on a fix. We're so sorry. The online ad
ecosystem is being shaken up right now. Following Amazon's new AI video ad
features, Tik Tok is expanding their Symphony suite of AI ad tools to include
generated videos of products. Advertisers can generate a bunch of
5-second clips by uploading an image of their product, either directly on Tik
Tok or through the tools that the company is licensing to third parties
like Adobe Express, which is terrible because the ads were one of the only
things on Tik Tok that I knew was real. What I didn't know about was the updates
tab in WhatsApp, where the chat app will be introducing its first ever ads. The
company described the addition of ads as helping you find more stuff on WhatsApp,
which was my primary complaint before. WhatsApp is cool, but I wish it could
help me find more channels and businesses. I use Reddit for that, which
will now allow advertisers to attach userenerated positive posts about a
product to their ads along with an AI generated summary of the discussion in
those threads. I'm assuming they'll skip over the replies accusing the OP of
hating thing X because they said they liked thing Y. It's better to stay
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want some quick bits or Intel may be
planning a massive return to powerful desktop chips next year if this leak
mentioning the company's nextG Nova Lake S platform is anything to go by. Twitter
leaker Golden Mango listed a lineup with a flagship CPU featuring 52 cores, 16
performance, 32 efficient, and four low
power. I'm not sure if that's real, but this one probably is. Also, Twitter
leaker Mom Mo posted an Intel slide describing the Core 5 processor 120F, a
no frills gaming CPU with six performance cores and nothing else.
Intel doesn't care which one you buy, but please just buy one of them.
Anything. Controller maker Ghouly Kit
claims they've figured out how to make their controllers wake the Nintendo
Switch 2 from sleep mode. something gamers were dismayed to discover was
only possible with the Switch Pro Controller thanks to a new system
protocol. Hopefully, more companies figure this out, too. So, gamers can
wake their Switch 2OS only to find out that the Ethernet port in its dock is
borked. Nintendo has acknowledged the issue, which is being experienced by a
bunch of people apparently. But so far, there's no permanent fixes. Maybe
because Nintendo wants you to take a break, get up and get outside for a
change, meet some people, bond over how annoying and restrictive Nintendo's
infrastructure is, work together on a company that lets people bypass it so
Nintendo can sue you. Not me. I'm staying inside. The founder of 23 andMe
and Wujiki has successfully reclaimed the assets of the genetics testing
company after winning its bankruptcy auction. Phew. Now all of that genetic
data will land back in the hands of the
person who started the company that collected all of it in the first place.
Is this better? The cycle never ends. And how much did she bid to win the
auction? $23 million.
The number 23. No, it was uh 305
million. Uh but I'm sure you can divide that to get to 23 somehow. Etsy is
cracking down on the sale of 3D printed products, saying that physical items
made using computerized tools must be produced based on a seller's original
design. Now, Etsy's new rules allow non-original 3D printed designs if
they're sufficiently modified by hand. So, sticking on some googly eyes to your
thousands of chain link plastic dragons, it's probably not going to cut it. if
you put feathers on them. Maybe dragons
didn't have feathers and Nexus mods, perhaps the internet's biggest game mod
repository, has apparently been sold. In a blog post, the platform's founder,
Robin Dark1, Scott, basically said he's been doing this since 2001. And despite
having his team handle more and more of the site recently, he's freaking tired.
So, he's handing the site over to new ownership. Although we don't know the
real names of the new owners, their handles on Nexus Mods are Fadino and
Rapsack, and I think they might be Pokemon. Scott assures the Nexus Mods
community that the values and direction of the platform won't change. It'll
always be community first and mod author focused. Whether those authors are
crafting fleshed out storydriven expansions for Skyrim or flesh-driven
Gooner outfits for Stellarblade, somebody get Nintendo to check on those
guys. And I mean, hey, uh, you know, that's,
as you know, it's a it's a heck of a thing. Um, more tech news on Wednesday.
Yeah, probably.