Some people are way too obsessed with only one thing. It's like, "Hello,
Derek. Have you heard about stuff that isn't vintage pinball machines? We could
be talking about the only thing actually ever worth talking about, which is tech
news." Google search was ruled a monopoly in 2023, and the judge behind
that ruling just issued another one to say that's uh mostly okay. Actually,
monopolies often unfairly maligned. In
his ruling on remedies for the case, US District Judge Amit Meta said Google
will not have to sell off Chrome or Android like the US Department of
Justice wanted. After much deliberation, the judge concluded a Google breakup
would be incredibly messy, which is exactly why I tell all my friends in
toxic relationships to stay together. Who wants the hassle? Google will also
be able to continue paying Apple around $20 billion a year through a revenue
sharing agreement for Google searches made through Safari. And Google can also
continue making those payments to Mosilla, the maker of Firefox, who
relies on those payments for about 85% of its revenue. You ask yourself if
Firefox is worth letting Google keep passing go and collecting $200. But
Google isn't getting off scot-free. It can continue to pay companies to preload
their services and products, but those contracts cannot be exclusive. Other
companies are allowed to do the same. Google will also have to share some of
its search index and user interaction data with their competitors and offer
search and search ad syndication to their competitors at standard rates.
Google has released a statement which immediately praises the fact that the
judge recognized how the advent of AI has changed the industry and Google just
loves that. They don't love having to share data with rivals and they'll keep
fighting on that. But OMG AI mentioned while one giant monopoly is being
legally forced to share, another has grown sick of your sharing and are
wondering if you could please stop. Amazon is eliminating a program that
allowed Prime members to share their free 2-day shipping with one person,
even if they didn't share the same address. Now, Amazon is politely telling
those non-P Prime members to back off and get their own damn account with an
updated customer service page saying the Prime Invitee program will end October
1st. This announcement comes after Reuters reports that despite a big Prime
Day push, Prime membership signups in the US did not meet last year's total or
the company's target, which is to amass enough wealth to buy the moon. Now,
instead of letting you share your Prime benefits with just anyone, Amazon will
let you share your Prime benefits with up to one other adult, four children,
and four teens who all live at the same residential address. or as Amazon puts
it, the address you consider to be your home and where you spend the majority of
your time. So for me, this set, it's
it's what they project me onto. It's uh
I'm not real. Speaking of dynamic visuals, Dolby has announced Dolby
Vision 2. HDR formats don't usually get
sequels, but I can give this a chance as long as it doesn't completely clown on
the legacy of the legacy characters and then kill them. What are we What? Sorry,
what were we talking about? Right. HDR. Dolby Vision 2 introduces content
intelligence, an AI enhanced feature,
uh, naturally, that will allow your TV to automatically optimize its display
settings to provide you with the best image.
Trust the robot. Most of these features seem benign enough. But then there's
authentic motion, which is a motion control tool to make scenes feel more
authentically cinematic without unwanted jutdder on a shotby-shot basis, which
sounds a lot like another version of motion smoothing, a feature that makes
based 24 FPS films suffer from the soap
opera effect. So named because it makes the frames look like they're slipping
and sliding on a soapy TV. I think Dolby
also announced Dolby Vision 2 Max, which
is meant to add additional premium features, but we haven't been clued into
what those features are yet. They're probably awesome, though. Highense will
ship the first Dolby Vision 2 compatible TVs. And French media company Canal Plus
say they will distribute films, TV series, and live sports that have been
mastered to the new standard. It's going to be super interesting to see how that
French media looks in this new visual standard. I love watching French media
here or in France, which you could totally do with the help of our sponsor,
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techlink 3 at checkout. What are you saying? You think I talk about the tech
news too much? Okay, we can talk about something else
after a few more quick bits. Uh, a new PlayStation 5 digital edition hardware
revision is reportedly set to launch in Europe soon. That makes the console
worse because the story of human progress is a deceit perpetuated by
charlatans. The new model that was discovered back in June 2025 via
certification documents filed in Japan is set to launch on September 13th in
Europe for the same price as the current digital edition. However, this new model
will include an SSD with a smaller 825
GB capacity instead of 1 TBTE. Now, this
is an especially big downgrade for a console that doesn't even use discs. The
new version of the console is supposedly being released to optimize production
costs and avoid increasing the price again. But somehow this doesn't feel
that different. At a press conference yesterday, US President Donald Trump
said that a video circulating online of someone pushing a large black bag out of
a second story window at the White House was probably AI generated. Earlier, the
White House seemed to contradict the president by informing reporters that
the video featured a contractor who was doing regular maintenance. Speaking more
about AI, Trump said, "If something happens really bad, just blame AI." And
it's a little bit scary to be honest with you. Yes, it is, Donald. On Monday,
Tesla published part four of their master plan, and it didn't go over well.
Uh, The Verge called the plan AI slop. TechCrunch said it was LLM generated
nonsense. RS Technica wrote that the plan doesn't have any specifics and in
Gadget called it a discursive mess. Those quotes are great ammunition for
today's high school English teacher with a bone to pick with AI. Despite Tesla's
master plan not going over well with the tech press, I am happy to know they plan
to deliver unconstrained sustainability without compromise.
Yes. Back in July, the Lego company announced the Lego Game Boy. Well, Sega
fanboys, it's your turn. The French online Lego store has a listing for a
260 piece Sega Genesis controller. On
top of that, when you turn that bad boy around, there's a Sonic the Hedgehog
diarama in there. Now, for now, the only way to get the set is as a gift with a
bigger purchase, which seems crazy to me, but it probably seems fine to the
people who usually empty their wallets for nostalgia bait like this. And you
have to buy all three movies on Blu-ray. Sure, whatever. Give me. And if you ever
find yourself getting nostalgic for tech news, don't worry. We'll be back on
Friday. For now, I need to go listen to my friend tell me about pinball. What
the heck are banana flippers? That doesn't That sounds