Welcome aboard TechRadar flight 330 with non-stop service from the chip shortage
to whatever insane new robot is doing martial arts. Fasten your seat belts,
stow your hot takes, and prepare for a rapid descent into tech news. Love you.
Microsoft has confirmed major improvements are coming to Windows 11
search after years of complaints and
anguish, gnashing of teeth. Search wasn't explicitly part of Microsoft's
recent Windows 11 overhaul announcement, but after users took to Twitter to point
out how broken and cluttered it still is, referencing the meme of how
searching terminal is a crapshoot between finding the actual terminal and
the critically reviled 2018 neo-noir thriller Terminal, which you have on
your PC for some reason, or you don't and Edge thinks that's what you want.
>> [laughter] >> Windows Shell product head Tali Roth
confirmed that search fixes are also in the works. She said, "A lot of
improvements are coming with the goal of making search simpler and less
distracting, including making installed apps appear instantly." Can you keeping
core system tools always discoverable and ranking local files higher than web
suggestions. Truly revolutionary.
Microsoft also says that they're going to plague their own OS with progressive
web apps less and move more towards building more 100% native Windows 11
apps. Rudy Huyn, a partner architect at Microsoft, announced he's hiring for the
team that's going to do this and confirmed that the apps will be 100%
native since even flagship tools like Clipchamp are currently web apps.
>> [music] >> Don't even get me started on Teams. This all sounds great, but Microsoft might
want to figure out how to ship a working update first because their last update,
yet again, had to be pulled after it somehow shipped without all of its
files. Real dog ate my homework energy
happening over there at Windows. >> Well, I thought it was right here. The
White House launched an app last Friday, sparking a massive viral panic over the
weekend. Controversy was triggered when a researcher decompiled the code and put
out a blog post reporting that there was a third-party GPS tracking pipeline
baked into the app, configured to pull your location every 4 and 1/2 minutes,
which wouldn't seem that weird for an app that
asks location permission, but why does the White House app need that? Initial
reports took the findings at face value with headlines claiming the app was
actively tracking users' exact locations and sending them to a third-party
server, but follow-up analysis by multiple independent developers
confirmed the GPS code is dormant and was never actually invoked, summoned if
you will. The app was positioned in a White House blog post as a direct line
to the administration, delivering unparalleled access to Trump
administration live streams, press releases, his private Discord, I don't
know. It's mostly just kind of an unnecessary portal that opens external
websites. Android Authority described the social tab as buggy with constant
stuttering and it includes a button to text President Trump that auto populates
the chat with "greatest president ever" before trying to sign you up for a
marketing blast, in case you weren't sure what was going on here. White House
Communications Director Steven Cheung encouraged users to download it saying
users would find some little Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the app. If you
find them all, you'll get to pre-order a framed picture of the Trump phone, cuz
that's all it's going to be is a picture. Uh, Swift, Apple's coding language, can now
officially be used to build Android apps, which is actually kind of a bigger
deal than you might think. The Swift 6.3 update includes the first stable version
of a toolkit that lets developers write Android apps using the same language
they've been using to make iPhone apps for over a decade. This update was
actually part of a community effort. A dedicated Android workgroup spent about
a year getting it from an early preview to an official release. Now, this
doesn't mean Android is suddenly running on Apple code or anything. Android apps
are still mostly built in Google's preferred languages, Kotlin and Java.
But Swift now includes built-in translator tools that let devs drop
chunks of their existing iPhone app code into an Android project without
rewriting everything from scratch. Gandalf's voice. WELCOME, I SUMMON
DEVELOPERS. Let me tell you of a language that was in use before you even
learn to touch type. The toolkit is mostly useful for sharing the back-end
logic between platforms. So, if you're a developer who already built something
for iPhone and wants it on Android, too, this update just saved you a lot of busy
work. And if all of that cross-platform coding has your wrists crying for help,
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below. I'm pretty sure the quick bits have climbed out of under the wing and
are ripping pieces off the plane. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL THE PILOT WE'RE
GOING TO GO DOWN? >> [screaming] >> GITHUB COPILOT got caught sneaking ads
into developers' code submissions because apparently they thought that was
helpful. Writing code? Hmm. Do you need
a vacuum? Microsoft's favorite slop child was quietly inserting promotional
tips, including plugs for a third-party app called Raycast, into pull request
descriptions. And over 11,000 were found with the exact same ad copy. GitHub's VP
of dev relations confirmed the behavior and said they've disabled it, calling
it, "quote, icky." You know things are bad when your own platform gives you the
ick. Sony, the company that literally invented the memory stick, just stopped
accepting orders for the majority of its lineup of SD and CFexpress memory cards
in Japan, making them the global memory shortage's most ironic victim. They get
a trophy, I think. The suspension covers everything from high-end tough branded
cards down to basic models with no timeline for when they'll come back.
Data centers are eating up so much memory that even the little cards
photographers stick in their cameras are getting squeezed out. Sony's only
comment was, "We'll monitor the situation." Which is corpo speak for,
"We have no idea what's going on. Please help. What are we supposed to do?"
Break into their office and be like, "Hey, it's okay."
>> [laughter] >> It'll be fine. AnimePlay, one of the
biggest less-than-legal anime streaming apps in the Asia-Pacific region, just
got completely dismantled by the anti-piracy coalition, otherwise known
as ACE. The app had over 5 million users and was
being run by a single guy out of Indonesia since 2020. When ACE tracked
him down, he surrendered everything. Source code, servers, databases,
basically his entire operation. ACE also seized 15 associated domains. So, this
is really more of a full scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners take-down against the
service. And in one fell swoop, the pirate weebs' quest for the One
Piece has suffered a major setback. I've never seen the show. Tell me if that's a
valid reference. And researchers in South Korea have developed a wireless
communication system that works 100 m
underground using magnetic fields instead of radio waves to punch through
solid rock. Okay. They tested it in a
limestone mine environment that's known for completely blocking traditional
wireless signals, and it worked well enough for voice communication. The goal
of the project is to improve the technology for rescue operations and
mine safety, but they're already reportedly looking at shrinking it down
for smartphones. Finally, we'll have better internet for
the mole people. They've been asking us, "Hey,
Wi-Fi sucks." Sorry. And those same mole
people will use their better internet to track you. Uh-oh, if you don't come back
on Wednesday for more tech news. Somehow
uh that's related. Well, oh, we've reached our destination. Please collect
your opinions from the overhead bin and exit in an orderly fashion. What we
don't want them to comment the the opinions?