If he texts you... DON'T OPEN IT
TechLinked
·TechLinked
·2020-05-05
·
1,217 words · ~6 min read
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Now, what's the name of that feeling you get? You know, when you're like you kind
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of see stars and your left ARM starts to go a little bit numb and you kind of
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short of breath. Yeah. Are you okay? No. No, that's not the one. No, it's the uh
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tech news. Hey, AMD released the RX 5600 XT yesterday,
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calling it the ultimate graphics card for 1080p gaming. And it seems like that
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might just be true. At $279, the card
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slots in right between the GTX 1660Ti
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and the RTX 2060, performing slightly better on average than NVIDIA's
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competitors, especially after board partners released BIOS updates that
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bumped performance up a bit. NVIDIA seemed to know that the 5600 XT was
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going to be good, though, and they slashed the price of the RTX 2060 by $50
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down to $299 just a few days before AMD's launch, which is what AMD did to
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NVIDIA when Team Green released the first Super Cards.
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What's that smell? Smells like Justice. The price drop makes the RX 5600 XT a
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bit harder to recommend if you also care about getting some of the special team
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green features like endbank encoding, but overall it is not a bad pick. So, go
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watch our full review over on LT. It's got Anthony in it. He loves you. Facial
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recognition is cool and all, but the EU and Google think that we might be
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getting a little bit ahead of ourselves with it. The new leadership of the EU
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are drafting a document that would propose banning the use of facial
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recognition in public spaces for up to 5 years until proper regulations can be
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put in place to minimize the risks of using the technology. Google actually
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agrees with CEO Sundar Pachai saying at a conference in Brussels that there
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should perhaps be a waiting period while governments figure out how to avoid
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letting facial recognition undermine civil liberties and potentially
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discriminate against people because of algorithmic bias. But Microsoft,
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they're having none of that. Probably because they're the ones working on the
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technology. Chief legal officer Brad Smith compared a ban to using a meat
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cleaver instead of a scalpel to solve the problem, saying that the only way to
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make the tech better is to actually continue developing it. And while that
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makes some sense, this guy was also just talking about meat cleavers a second
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ago. I don't know if he can be trusted. Scary. And a report claims to have
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evidence that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman, hacked the
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phone of Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. Bezos commissioned FTI
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Consulting to make a report after he became suspicious of a video bin Salman
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sent to him over WhatsApp in 2018. FTI
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found that shortly after Bezos received the video, his phone started uploading
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unprecedented volumes of data to an unknown source, indicating that the
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video file was infected with some sort of malware. Some analysts believe Bezos
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was hacked because of the Washington Post's coverage of Saudi Arabia, which
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was sometimes less than favorable. Go
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figure. The scandal has gained enough steam to prompt a call for investigation
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from human rights experts at the UN. So hopefully we'll get more information
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about what exactly happened soon. Just
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goes to show you guys be careful about opening attachments even when they come
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from heads of state. Actually, I guess especially when they come from heads of
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state of Saudi Arabia. Now it's time for
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Quickbits brought to you by Vessie Footwear, which I'm wearing right now
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because they're awesome. Can you see that?
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or at the link below. They also make you faster. No, they don't.
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Hey, what? Sorry, what's that? Don't
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No, it's just quibbley bibbles. I guess the federal government of Germany
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doesn't watch Techlink and didn't get our recommendation to upgrade to Windows
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10 because they now have to pay Microsoft €800,000
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in fees for Windows 7 extended security updates just this year. To be fair, I'm
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sure it is hard to upgrade over 33,000 workstations, but also, you know, hey,
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we could probably do it. You know, Germany, call us up. Epic collab, right?
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most ambitious crossover Marvel Avengers. Yeah, that's right.
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Thanks to some sneaky internet dwellers, we've gotten one of the most thrilling
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leaks you could ever lay eyes on. Pictures of the back of the Xbox Series
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X. The most thrilling leaks. Wow. That's right. Look at those ports.
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There's USB, Ethernet, HDMI, and a big
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old mystery port probably for diagnostics or firmware updates. Wow.
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All those years I thought the Xbox Series X was going to be just the
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another console. I guess even I, the one
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and only Lionus, can truly be wrong. Wow.
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Microsoft is being a little bit sneaky themselves. Reddit users have spotted a
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change in the Office 365 Pro Plus installer, which businesses use to
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install Office. Go figure. That would inject a Chrome extension that changes
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the default search engine to Bing.
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Gross. Code has also been found in the latest Windows Insider build that would
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make ads for Office pop up inside Wordpad. You wrote that. That's not too
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bad. That's terrible. No, that's you. You wrote that.
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I DID NOT WRITE THAT. You wrote the script.
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No, I am. Do I look like Ron Burgundy to
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you? A little bit. Oh, there he is. GM
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self-driving startup Cruz has shown off the Origin, an electric shuttle ban SUV
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thing with sliding doors and completely symmetrical ends. It is purpose-built to
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be autonomous and intended for use by ride sharing companies. Launch price,
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who knows? But it looks futuristic and not as dumb as a Cybert truck. So, wow,
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exciting. That's a good point. And Apple may be gearing up to launch the successor to
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the iPhone SE in March to serve the small but still there contingent of
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iPhone users who like using phones that are slightly smaller than the average
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purse. And that's it for tech news today. But wait, don't go anywhere. You
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have to click subscribe first. Not on this channel. I don't care about that. Go subscribe to Lena's Tech Tips. It's
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almost AT 10 MILLION. COME ON, GUYS. IT'S EXCITING. TRUE.
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YEAH. OKAY, I'll allow it. Thanks, Rally.