for today's Tech news we're getting back to basics you know like you know Wheels
chisels fire you know classic Tech show this one to your grandpa he'll love it
many critics have said that the rabbit R1 should have just been an app rather
than a standalone device but they're in luck because it turns out that it
probably already is according to a report from Android authority the rabbit
R1 the AI device that is definitely not a phone appears to run on a version of
Android and its interface is actually an Android application Android authority
acquired the r1's Launcher APK from a
source and they found they were able to install and run it on a pixel 6A they
were then able to create an account and interact with a device as if it were a
genuine R1 a rabbit CEO Jesse Leu has
released a statement claiming that the R1 interface is not an app it's not an
app stop saying it's an app and that
rabbit o is cloud-based with very bespoke Android
open source project and lower level firmware modifications but that really
just means that most of their services Special Sauce is still essentially
Android-based just running in the cloud and not on the hardware they're selling
it I mean there have even been a couple reports of people sideloading and
running other Android apps on the R1 so
rabbit has argued in the past that building an app for a smartphone means
being limited by that device devices pre-existing hardware and app systems
which is fair enough but that approach has also wound up chaining the R1
experience to another even more limited device and I only have so many pockets
and a Max one device per pocket rule it's getting complicated the FCC has
announced a nearly $200 million fine against three of the largest American
telecoms for selling their customers realtime location data without consent
tragically it's not $200 million each but at at least it's something I'm not
getting any of it so I don't know why I but at least we have some shot in Freud
here Verizon will be fined 47 million AT&T 57 million and a combined 92
million for T-Mobile and Sprint who merged after the investigation began
remember if you eat somebody you get all their debts not many people consider
that one of the big risks of cannibalism the FCC found that the company sold
their customers real-time location data to aggregators who then sold it to
basically everybody else the telecoms likewise tried to offload their duty to
obtain consent onto Downstream actors and tried using those smaller companies
as a shield from legal responsibility like a grown adult trying to blame a dog
for a fart Jessica you just have a way with words I'm a poet real-time location data
is considered incredibly sensitive because of how revealing it is the only
person who regularly travels back and forth between my house and my workplace
and Big Mike's all you can eat cheese Emporium is me and my gassy dog meta has
announced that it will be altering Instagram and threads algorithms to stop
recommending posts from content aggregators so that small original
content creators have more visibility likewise these platforms will be adding
labels to reposted content linking it back to the original Creator pretty good
this won't apply though if the content has been changed significantly such as
having been edited into a meme or remixed in some way as the youths will
do what this probably means is that you'll be seeing fewer straight reposts
and more reposts that just so happen to have Subway Surfers running beneath them
on split screen and boom it's fair use metan now acknowledges that its
algorithm has traditionally benefited accounts with lots of followers that
mostly share reposted content however at the same time as this new change to
prioritize original content meta is also weaving AI throughout its platforms
famously not trained on original content
which has only added to the overall spam problem Instagram search bar is now
pulling double duty as an AI chatbot so now it's easy to accidentally fat finger
your way into a conversation with a robot while trying to talk to your
friends you don't have any friends Dave
oh me it's me now Facebook meanwhile has been absolutely flooded with bizarre
often Jesus themed AI art and its own AI
has been acting strangely even once commenting on a parenting group claiming
to have a disabled yet gifted child it's obviously not apparent but I'm not sure
we should completely dismiss the possibility that meta's AI has a child
like in a cage somewhere they're forced to use Facebook
every day and they're depressed but what if instead you had soft dry cages for
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now make sure to leaven your quick bits with baking soda not yeast unless you're
trying to loose an ARM it's no joke the UK has updated its telecommunication
security legislation to ban manufacturers from adding easily
guessable default passwords to their connected devices now devices with
online connectivity must come with a randomized password or generate a random
password during setup in addition default passwords cannot be incremental
like password one or obviously reference
publicly available information like Wi-Fi SS IDs the problem of course being
that most of us never change the default Wi-Fi password and some of us don't even
know how I don't want to put us in that
do do you Riley doesn't know hey was just shut up shut up that's how the heck
happened the US general Services Administration aka the most generically
named government body ever is auctioning off its 7-year-old 5.34 petaflop cheyen
supercomput which was considered the 20th most powerful computer in the world
when it was installed in late 2016 by contrast the current most powerful
supercomputer has 1,680 pedop flops which I don't got to
tell you is a lot this thing's flopping all over the
place the cheyen supercomputer was invaluable to the scientific study of
weather climate wildfires and seismic activity throughout its relatively long
for a supercomputer lifespan but maybe now one of us can buy it and test
whether it'll run crisis I think lonus was tweeting somebody about this the
accounting team was physically holding him
back meta is back and they're being investigated for non-compliance with the
eu's digital Services act particularly its rules about fighting misinformation
and deceptive advertising and you know to be honest the whole meta AI had a
baby thing that hasn't helped neither has meta's shutdown of crowd tangle the
company's Analytics tool that allowed researchers and journalists to monitor
public discourse during elections meta's also laying off staff from the oversight
board meant to monitor the company's own decisions and that all sounds bad but
since the EU is monitoring everyone already why shouldn't meta take it easy
I mean you don't want too many cooks in the kitchen in a settlement with the FTC
Razer Incorporated has agreed to pay back $1 million to customers who bought
the company's Zephyr mask after falsely claiming it was equivalent to an n95
certified mask on honestly the only thing worse than selling an RGB covered
face mask for $100 is lying about the mask Effectiveness during a global
pandemic interestingly Razer has admitted no wrongdoing and claims they
agreed to the settlement to avoid more litigation since it's a distraction and
disruption to making great products products like mice with RGB or laptops
with RGB or mouse pads which for some reason also have RGB they just you can't
and Google is apparently introducing audio emojis for the Google Phone app
presumably so they have a feature in their back pocket they can kill later to
meet their yearly quota of dead services at their companywide meetings guys we
are not killing nearly enough Services right now ABK always be
killing the Emojis play stock sound
effects like clapping canned laughter or
even farts you know things you can't
already Express in an audio-based medium
I already got that model if I need that I'll just call Jessica in
oh crap you got the new update and that's not even to mention the fact that
the only person I regularly talk to on the phone is my psychiatrist I can't
wait to play the sad trombone audio Emoji to really emphasize how I'm
dealing with my depression and I want to emphasize that you can get more Tech
news if you come back on Friday that's right Friday have I made that clear
enough I it's a day it happens at soon