dtns

Samsung Announces Galaxy XR Headset - DTH

OpenAI launches ChatGPT Atlas web browser, public figures sign "Statement on Superintelligence”, Apple reportedly cuts orders for the iPhone Air.

Show Notes

OpenAI Launches the ChatGPT Atlas Browser - DTNS 5129

Napster is back again with a holographic AI agent for your MacBook, Apple is giving iOS users a toggle switch to make Liquid Glass easier to use.

Starring Jason Howell and Tom Merritt.

JASON: This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, October 21, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

TOM: Today, OpenAI is officially entering the web browser arena.

I’m Jason Howell,

I’m Tom Merritt

JASON: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

BIG STORY

It looks like OpenAI is about to announce its AI web browser
OpenAI is launching a web browser called Atlas

JASON: ChatGPT Atlas web browser

• macOS Worldwide at launch

• Coming soon to Windows, iOS, Android

• Chromium

ChatGPT button and sidebar

• Search in omnibox
  Search Tabs - Traditional ChatGPT
  Search
  Image
  Video
  News
  -- Also opens into a more search engine presentation

• Cursor chat - chip
  – Writing assistance with a chip that appears next to text you enter

Agent Mode (plus/pro users)

• Uses browser for you

• Can watch it in the tab but don't have to

• a "take control" button for interrupting the task

• Select if Agent has access to logged in accounts or not with each search (toggle)

Safeguards

• can be logged out

• can do incognito

• holds off on buying choices

Vibe-coding? Scratch that... what about Vibe-life-ing???

TOM: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
MirandaJanell
thatCharlieDude
Justin Zellers
and David Haga

JASON: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

BRIEFS

The massive AWS outage that broke half the internet is finally over - here's what happened
"Service health - Oct 20, 2025 | AWS Health Dashboard | Global"
TOM: AWS finally marked its US-EAST-1 outage as resolved at 6:01 PM Eastern time Monday, putting the entire outage, which started at 3:11 AM Eastern, at just short of 16 hours. The problem began with a DNS resolution problem in the DynamoDB API endpoint. Basically, calls for data couldn't tell where anything was. They fixed that about 5:24 AM Eastern, but by then, a subsystem responsible for loading EC2 virtual machines, which relied on DynamoDB, began to fail. That caused Network Load Balancer health checks to fail, which led to connectivity issues in Lambda (a way to run code without a server), CloudWatch, and DynamoDB itself. They fixed that at 12:38 PM, but the network was a mess of queued requests by then, so they had to throttle some EC2 launches and Lambda requests until they restored everything to normal operations at 6:10 PM Eastern. Some services had a backlog still, but they weren't throttled anymore, and things have now caught up. Amazon has not said what caused the initial issue in the DynamoDB DNS resolution issues.

Napster returns as an AI companion for your MacBook – seriously
JASON: Napster is back... again. This time as a gadget company offering a holographic screen called Napster View that attaches to the top of a MacBook M1 or higher, showing one of 15,000 agents to keep you company. The device can monitor screen contents and the user's facial expressions, with permission, offering insight and suggestions while they work. The agents use models from a wide variety of services, and the avatars are created through a partnership with Eleven Labs. The agent can also create music, if you're into that sort of thing. Napster View starts at $99 with additional service fees.

Amazon hopes to replace 600,000 US workers with robots, according to leaked documents
TOM: The New York Times saw leaked documents that indicate Amazon plans to automate 75% of its operations, meaning 600,000 potential jobs would be handled by robots by 2033. This could reduce costs by 30 cents per item, saving Amazon $12.6 billion by 2027. Amazon is also considering strategies to counter backlash by actively avoiding terminology like "automation" and "AI", and using "advanced technology" and "cobot" instead. Amazon told The Verge “Leaked documents often paint an incomplete and misleading picture of our plans, and that’s the case here. In our written narrative culture, thousands of documents circulate throughout the company at any given time, each with varying degrees of accuracy and timeliness.”

Aura’s first color E Ink frame is for the cord-averse
neat!
JASON: Digital picture frame company Aura now offers its first color E Ink frame, called simply Ink, with a 13.3" Spectra 6 display, and it's cordless as well. It's also pretty pricey, at $499, but the battery in the frame lasts for three months thanks to the e-ink technology, meaning the frame can be mounted almost anywhere and doesn't require a constant power source like LED digital frames. The e-ink panel shows 60,000 colors, and The Verge noted that some photos with heavy saturation or darker detail might not look as good as brighter images. Users can upload photos remotely with support for Google Photos and Apple Photos. The frame also auto-wakes when motion is detected.

Apple adds a new toggle to make Liquid Glass less glassy
TOM: Apple's iOS 26.1 developer beta introduced a new setting to enable users to adjust the transparency level of its Liquid Glass interface. Users have the option of either "clear," which presents more transparency into elements, or "tinted," which offers a subtle shift in colors and contrast that is aimed at improving readability. Apple also added a feature that allows disabling swipe-to-camera from the lock screen for better privacy.

JASON: And finally, some quick headlines that are just good to know if you want to understand the news in the future.

Perplexity made a TV app and it’s coming to Samsung sets
TOM: Perplexity's AI search app is now available on Samsung's 2025 smart TVs, with 2024 and 2023 models set to receive the app later this year.

Google’s new deadline for Epic consequences is October 29th
JASON: Google AND Epic Games requested an extension to October 29th for Google’s deadline to comply with a court order requiring sweeping changes to the Play Store related to its loss to Epic Games.

HBO Max Raises Prices Across All Plans Effective Immediately
TOM: For the third year, HBO Max has raised its price. The Basic with ads plan goes up $1 to $10.99. Standard with no ads goes up $1.50 to $18.49, and Premium, which does 4K goes up $2 to $22.99.

Anthropic brings Claude Code to the web
JASON: Anthropic is launching a web app for Claude Code for Pro and Max plan users that allows them to access its AI coding agents directly from the browser, instead of having to use the command line.

PROMO

TOM: Join in the conversation in our Discord, which you can join by linking to a Patreon account at patreon.com/dtns

HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND

JASON: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today, TJ and Matt help us understand why it always seems to be AWS’s US-EAST-1 region that causes these major outages:

TOM: TJ wrote:

To answer the question of why the East data centers are so popular and populated with data and services compared to the West, it’s inter connectivity and latency.

There is still latency over the “wire” and data centers on the US East Coast are closer to Europe and closer to the majority of users in the US. More people live east of the Mississippi than west.

The company I work for uses Azure, not AWS (well, a tiny amount of AWS) and the same reasoning applies.

The further you are from the data the longer it takes to get the data back. The same goes for using VMs and other services in those centers.

Yes, it may be less than a second but multiply that by many billions of bits of data and that adds up.

This is the same reason that companies that do automated stock/commodity trading invest huge money on large throughputs and try to be as physically close to the stock data centers as possible. Microseconds in an automated trade delay can cost or gain millions of dollars.

JASON: But why not have better redundancies, just in case? Matt wrote:

I think part of the reason you don't see this as much with other regions is exactly as you pointed out. since AWS grew out of that region so many core things for customers apps are hosted there too. Most customers that are in other regions had the advantage of thinking about multi-region out of the gate so they were able to make better decisions!

TOM: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us at feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

JASON: Thanks to TJ and Matt for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron at Patreon.com/dtns

Tech Journo Talk - Editors Desk

Tom answers Marty's followup

Hey Tom!

Thanks for responding today on the Editor's Desk! You mentioned you were open to a follow up so I wanted to say sorry for you having to repeat your explanation here! I've heard your thoughts previously on what you cover on your shows, I was trying to focus my question more on the industry side of things, rather than your shows specifically, so I apologize that I didn't communicate my question clearly! I was more curious your opinion on the industry level, which obviously feeds into the show, but more of a discussion on the industry itself. I don't recall hearing your opinions on the wider industry but I may have just missed it before, so I'm sorry if so!

One of the things I like the most out of DTNS is it exposes me to things I wouldn't come across otherwise, outside of my bubble, and I was more looking at both your thoughts on the types of stories the industry covers as someone who does a lot of research for your shows (and as someone with a lot of experience in the industry in general), and if you had any suggestions for how someone could stay up to date with things like my examples, that aren't getting news coverage - but that may be an impossible question to be fair.

That's more what I was trying to get at, and again, sorry for not coming across properly. Just like I wouldn't expect DTNS to be my sole source of tech news, I wouldn't expect any one source to be sole news source either, but when no news sources are reporting stories like the examples, I'm wondering how would someone stay up to date with these types of stories, particularly for similar stories outside of their bubbles?

On the note of the examples, I did some more digging tonight, and on the Alienware issue there was about a dozen and a half reported cases, whereas the 5090 melting issue there was about a half dozen reported cases. On the Windows update example, I have found about 100 reports over the last two weeks on this issue, and a better comparison for that story would be the 24H2 update issues, which was reported on at the time from various outlets, despite the 24H2 issues having more conflicting reporting over the scope of the issues.

The obvious difference in both cases is that Nvidia is higher profile than Alienware, and a marketed Windows release is higher profile than a random KB update, but I guess that's what got me thinking to ask your thoughts - both of these examples cover very similar topics and coverage areas, but only one example in both cases got reported on which I find interesting.

Anyway, sorry again for getting you to repeat yourself, I just thought it might be a fun topic! Keep up the awesome work!

Take care!

Marty

Amazon Plans To Automate 600,000+ US Jobs By 2033 - DTH

Amazon plans to automate 600,000+ US jobs by 2033, NASA is considering reopening the lunar lander contract competition, and HBO Max has increased prices for all its plans.

Link to Show Notes

What Caused A Third of the Internet to Go Down - DTNS 5128

Good news for data center power consumption and for Samsung’s chip-making.

Starring Tom Merritt and Robb Dunewood.

TOM: This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, October 20, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

ROBB: Today how Amazon once again took out a chunk of the internet.

I’m Tom Merritt,

I’m Robb Dunewood.

TOM: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

[[BIG STORY]]
[[SOLO story of the day. Basic details, monitor commentary and sound when possible.]]

“Major AWS outage across US-East region sows chaos online • The Register”
“Amazon’s AWS outage has knocked services like Alexa, Snapchat, Fortnite, Venmo and more offline”
“Major AWS outage took down Fortnite, Alexa, Snapchat, and more | The Verge”
“Service health - Oct 20, 2025 | AWS Health Dashboard | Global”

TOM: We don’t cover internet outages unless they are unusually big or have a very interesting explanation. Well we definitely have the first one with the AWS outage that took out a chunk of the internet early Monday morning.

Early Monday morning at 3:11 AM Eastern time, Amazon Web Services reported increased error rates and latencies for multiple services in the US-EAST-1 Region in Northern Virginia.

I suspected something because our Echo couldn’t respond to turn off a light.

By 5:01 AM Eastern Amazon identified the problem related to DNS resolution of the DynamDB API endpoint. To oversimplify, websites relying on AWS in many cases couldn’t get their domain names resolved. So if, say, Reddit, wanted to query some data, the location that needed the data, reddit.com/pagethatneedsdata.html, couldn’t be resolved. Basically the data was fine, you just couldn’t get to it.

While this was just in the US-EAST Regions enough relied on data stored there, that it affected hundreds of websites on multiple continents.

By 6:35 AM Eastern, AWS said it had mitigated the DNS issue but some AWS services, especially EC2 were now having knock-on issues. EC2 operates virtual machines for companies, which is why you might have seen intermittent issues even after that time.

By 8:48 AM Eastern, AWS recommended that clients avoid certain “availability Zones” basically particular data centers in the region. At 9:42 AM AWS started rate limiting new EC2 launches.

At 11:43 AM Amazon said it identified the problem starting in the EC2 internal network in an underlying “internal subsystem responsible for monitoring the health of our network load balancers.”

That could mean the system might have inaccurately marked nodes as healthy or unhealthy, causing delays. And since the load balancer’s routing depends on DNS updates, it might also have failed to propagate those routing changes.

At 12:13 PM it started talking about pulling back on the throttling soon indicating it seems to have mitigated the problem in the subsystem and could start putting everything back together.

And at 1:03 PM Amazon announced similar problems in its Lambda system. Which is why I couldn’t turn on my studio lights right before we started to record.

AWS powers a huge chunk of the internet, with around a 30% of cloud market share by some estimates. And its US-EAST-1 region is particularly crucial. Problems at that region caused big outages in 2020, 2021, and 2023.

[[DISCUSS]]

ROBB: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
Larry Bailey
Michelle Sirjue
Kirk Steffensen
New Patron: A Beck

[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]

TOM: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

[[BRIEFS]]
[[3-5 more solo reads with sound to complete the day in tech news. These are informational with minor commentary.]]

“Exynos 2600 Wipes The Floor Against The Competition; Samsung’s Internal Testing Shows 6x Higher AI Performance Than A19 Pro, Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 & More”
“Report: all Galaxy S26 models will use the Exynos 2600, but not in all regions - GSMArena.com news”

ROBB: Samsung is beginning to test its Exynos 2600 chips, its first 2-nanometer Gate All Around (or G-A-A) SoC. Korea Economic Daily compiled reports on internal tests that showed the Exynos 2600 was faster than the A19 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 both on CPU and GPU. These are internal tests under ideal conditions, but they do bode well for the chip even when it meets real world conditions. This also makes it believable that all Galaxy S26 models, not just the base model, will use the Exynos 2600 chip. At least in some regions.

“Apple’s (APPL) iPhone 17 Is Selling 14% Better Than Predecessor in US and China - Bloomberg”
“iPhone Air, One Month Later: My Camera and Battery Fears Have Been Put to Rest - CNET”
“I took an iPhone Air on vacation to test its two biggest floors”

TOM: It’s been a month since the launch of the iPhone 17 and sales estimates are beginning to come in. Counterpoint estimates that the iPhone 17 sold 14% better in its first ten days than the iPhone 16 did in both the US and China. In addition to sales numbers, we’re also getting reviews based on a month of testing. CNET and Apple Insider are among the reviewers surprised to find that battery life and camera quality were both sufficient in iPhone Air. CNET notes durability wasn’t a problem either.

“X is testing a new way of opening links in posts to improve engagement”
“X to launch marketplace for buying inactive handles | TechCrunch”

ROBB: X is testing a new way of handling links that lets you open a link while still seeing the like, repost and other buttons. The idea is to boost engagement numbers. X is also launching a marketplace to let paying users get inactive user names for free or in some cases by paying a fee. Priority usernames like full names, multi-word phrases or alphanumeric combinations will be transferred for free. However, some rare handles could cost you from $2500 to a few million dollars. Rare handles are short, generic, or culturally significant names. If multiple people want to buy a handle, X will select who gets it based on their use of and engagement on the platform and intended use of the handle. Rare handles include usernames like @Pizza, @Tom, and @One.

“Rainbow laser chip could help stop AI from eating power”
“Rainbow-on-a-chip’ could help keep AI energy demands in check — and it was created by accident | Live Science”
“Alibaba Cloud says it cut Nvidia AI GPU use by 82% with new pooling system— up to 9x increase in output lets 213 GPUs perform like 1,192 | Tom’s Hardware”

TOM: A few noteworthy items about technology that could help make data centers more power efficient.

Alibaba says it has created a new pooling system that let 213 GPUs perform like 1,192, cutting its use of Nvidia chips by 82%. It tested its Aegaeon system for several months in its Model Studio and will present a peer-reviewed paper on the system at the 2025 ACM Symposium on Operating Systems (SOSP) in Seoul.

Scientists from Xscape Photonics publishing in the October 7th edition of the journal Nature Photonics, described how they have created a highly-efficient photonics chip.

The scientists were trying to improve the lasers in long-range Lidar, often used in autonomous vehicles. They found that by accident they had created a natural frequency comb. Usually a frequency comb needs bulky expensive lasers, to split light into multiple colors. Each color can transmit a separate data stream. The small frequency comb they created fits on a thumbnail-sized chip, meaning it could replace racks of individual lasers and fiber that can only send one single wavelength.

Xscape Photonics principal engineer and former Columbia Engineering researcher Andres Gil-Molina said “If you can make them powerful, efficient and small enough, you can put them almost anywhere.”

TOM: And finally, some quick headlines that are just good to know if you want to understand the news in the future.

“Oura is redesigning its app weeks after Ceramic Ring launch”

ROBB: Oura is redesigning its app including a new feature called Cumulative Stress, which combines data from sleep, heart stress, temperature and activity.

“Apple Now Faces App Store Challenges in China, Too - MacRumors”

TOM: An antitrust complaint has been filed in China on behalf of 55 iPhone and iPad users, accusing Apple of abusing its control over app store distribution and payments.

“Adobe might’ve just solved one of generative AI’s biggest legal risks | ZDNET”

ROBB: Adobe is offering something it calls an “AI Foundry” that uses its copyright-safe model to train on a company’s own intellectual property to create personalized tools.

“Windows 11’s October update causes a serious recovery mode glitch - but there’s a workaround | ZDNET”

TOM: A bug in the October patch Tuesday update for Windows 11 stops USB devices from working in Windows Recovery environment, causing people to search out non-USB options for mouse and keyboard.

“OpenAI confirms GPT-6 is not shipping in 2025”

ROBB: An OpenAI employee who goes by Roono on X denied a report on CNBC that GPT-6 will ship by the end of the year.

“(21) Eric Migicovsky on X: ‘Pebble is officially back on iOS and Android! ...’ / X”

TOM: Eric Migicovsky posted on X that the Pebble Core apps have been accepted on Google Play and Apple app stores, ahead of the revived Pebble watches shipping this year.

TOM: What do YOU want to hear us talk about on the show? One way to let us know is in our subreddit. Submit stories and vote on them at www.reddit.com/r/DailyTechNewsShow/

[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]

[[HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND]]
[[Short missives from people with experience. Could be written email or pre-recorded from the person.]]

ROBB: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today Curtis reminds us of an old friend.

TOM:
Curtis wrote:
Ever since the shows started covering talking to Copilot on Windows it reminded me of way back when Windows 95 included Dragon Naturally Speaking and I was telling my computer to open and close Windows and apps.

Lo and behold Jenn mentioned the same app today and brought it all together.

Great show!
Curtis

[[DISCUSS]]

ROBB: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

TOM: Thanks to Curtis for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron, at Patreon.com/dtns

Major AWS Outage Affects Multiple Services - DTH

Adobe launches Adobe AI Foundry, X launches a new username marketplace, iPhone 17 sales 14% higher than iPhone 16.

Show Notes

Why We Celebrate Nobel Prize Winners - DTNS Weekend

Dr. Niki reviews the science prizes. We talk about that they are, how they affect our use of technology, and why they may or may not be all that important.

Featuring Tom Merritt and Nicole Ackermans.

Wikimedia Claims AI Is Reducing Wikipedia Traffic - DTH

Apple signs 5-year deal with Formula 1, WhatsApp tests sending limits to curb spam, Lyft announces technology hub in Toronto.

Show Notes

MacBook Pros Might Soon Have Touchscreens - DTNS 5127

OnePlus unveiled a big OxygenOS 16 release coming with the OnePlus 15, and Andy Beach talks about the Screen Actors Guild’s first AI casting.

Starring Jason Howell, Jenn Cutter, Tom Merritt and Andy Beach.

JASON: This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, October 17th, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

JENN: Today Andy Beach tells us about the Screen Actor Guild’s first AI casting and how Apple MacBooks might finally get a touchscreen.

I’m Jason Howell,

I’m Jenn Cutter.

JASON: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

BIG STORY

Apple Readies Its First Ever Touch-Screen MacBook
Apple's M6 MacBook Pro generation will reportedly offer touchscreens

JASON: Mark Gurman at Bloomberg is reporting that Apple will introduce touchscreens into its upcoming MacBook Pro models with a projected release in late 2026 or early 2027. This backs up an earlier report by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo from last month. The updated laptops will feature M6 chips, along with OLED screens along with "reinforced hinge and screen hardware" for improved stability along with the new touch-based control type. Gurman's report also states that the new laptops will incorporate "thinner and lighter frames." The display will also no longer have the notch up top, replaced by a hole-punch design surrounding the front facing camera.

Don't worry, the keyboard and touchpad won't be going away with the transition to touchscreens. But do worry, if you don't like spending more money, because Gurman says these changes are likely to increase the cost by several hundred dollars to account for the higher-end components. Apple is expected to roll out these features to the high-end MacBook Pros first, as it monitors market demand to see if it should bring the feature to more of its lower end options down the line.

JENN: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
Norm Fazekas

 Chris Allen
Reid Fishler
New Patrons: Sebastian and Marc

JASON: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

BRIEFS

OxygenOS 16 has new lock screen customization options and a novel Gemini integration
JENN: OnePlus has taken the veil off OxygenOS 16, the next major update of its mobile operating system set to release on the upcoming OnePlus 15. The new update includes deeper Gemini AI integration with its Mind Space app, letting users reference saved content with Google's AI model. The update also includes improved personalization options for creating vibrant lock screens with Motion Photos, an AI Writer for text work, including turning text into mind maps and tables, improvements to animations and fluidity throughout the OS, and enhanced photo editing tools like Portrait Glow and Perfect Shot. OxygenOS 16 will roll out to select OnePlus devices starting in November 2025.

Hackers Dox Hundreds of DHS, ICE, FBI, and DOJ Officials
JASON: A group of hackers published highly personal data, including the names, phone numbers, and addresses of hundreds of US government officials on Telegram. The group appears to be from Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters and the Com. Officials from the US Department of Justice, the FBI, ICE, and nearly 700 from DHS are included in the information dump. Some of the data released is confirmed to match real government officials' addresses. The agencies themselves have not yet publicly commented on the incident. The DHS claims that Mexican cartels are offering cash for doxing agents, but US authorities have not yet provided evidence of those bounties. The group is an offshoot of communities behind other major data breaches like Scattered Spider, which targeted MGM Resorts, and LAPSUS$, which targeted gaming companies like Electronic Arts.

Anthropic turns to ‘skills’ to make Claude more useful at work
Claude Skills are awesome, maybe a bigger deal than MCP
JENN: Anthropic introduced "Claude Skill" for its Claude AI model, allowing users to create folders containing Markdown files with instructions, scripts, and other resources tailored to specific tasks. The upgrade will make Claude smarter at tasks like handling Excel documents or sticking to brand guidelines. Skills leverages Claude's coding environment to create an agent that's capable of automating any number of computer tasks. Companies like Box, Canva, and Rakuten are using the tools. The update is available to Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise customers.

Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
JASON: Wikipedia is experiencing a notable drop in human visitors, according the Wikimedia Foundation Senior Director of Product Marshall Miller, which he says is the result of generative AI chatbots and search engine summarizations. Miller told 404media that although AI and platforms increasingly rely on Wikipedia for training data and answers, the resulting traffic loss is about 8% compared to last year and that threatens the long term viability of the resource. The Foundation is enforcing policies for third-party bots and encouraging responsible use and access of Wikipedia's content, and also urges users to look for citations and click through to original sources when using generative AI tools to access this kind of information.

JASON: And here’s some headlines that are good to know for future stories that may come up on the show.

Apple and F1 reach 5-year media deal, bringing all races to Apple TV streaming in the U.S.
JENN: Apple and Formula 1 signed a $140 million-per-year, five year US media deal to stream every F1 race exclusively on Apple TV beginning in 2026. This replaces ESPN as the media partner and includes F1 TV Premium for Apple TV subscribers with some races available for free in the Apple TV app.

OpenAI pauses Sora video generations of Martin Luther King Jr.
JASON: OpenAI has halted Sora video generations of Martin Luther King Jr. after his estate flagged "disrespectful depictions" of his image. OpenAI asserts that public figures should continue to have control over how their likeness is used with the service.

Apple TV and Peacock bundle starts at $15/month, available on Oct. 20
JENN: Apple is breaking tradition by partnering with Peacock to offer a discounted streaming bundle that starts at $15 per month, starting October 20. Apple also plans to offer select Apple Originals to Peacock subscribers.

Steam just broke its concurrent user record with 41.6 million gamers
JASON: Steam just shattered its concurrent user record, reaching 41.6 million gamers on October 12, timed with the release of popular titles like Battlefield 6 and Hollow Knight: Silksong, and demos from Steam Next Fest.

Meta is shutting down its desktop Messenger app
JENN: Meta will shut down its Messenger app for macOS and Windows on December 15, pushing desktop users to the Facebook app on Windows, and Facebook and Messenger website for those chats. Meta provided no explanation for the end of the dedicated apps.

JENN: Those are the essentials for today. Let’s dive a little deeper.

JASON: The first voice actors have been cast under the Screen Actors Guild’s new rules for AI in entertainment. Andy Beach tells us how it all went down.

PROMO

JENN: Need a snazzy gift for a co-worker or colleague? We got dozens of ideas at dailytechnewsshow.com/store! Pick up a mug, t-shirt or mouse pad with our new DTNS Logo! They're great gifts and a great way to support the show!

HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND

JASON: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today we have a couple of folks with different perspectives on the new Copilot features for Windows 11.

JENN: Andrew says:
I had a visceral "no" response to the Microsoft story about elevating voice to be a first class input to the computer.

Some of that likely stems from having worked in "open floor plan" offices, which are already noisy and distracting as individuals have very different norms about whether or not to take meetings out in the main area. If some portion of the people are also talking to their computers all day, it may be unbearable.

Andrew from Colorado

JASON: And Marty says:
Hey Jason!

I've had access to Copilot Vision for a few weeks … I tried asking it how to do things in an app I was developing, and it did a good job at identifying user flows and creating a virtual mouse cursor to guide me around the app and showed me what to click on and stuff. For a private app where it couldn't have had prior training data on specifically, I thought it was pretty smooth.

JENN: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

JASON: Thanks to Andy Beach, Marty and Andrew for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron, atPatreon.com/dtns

A U.S. Representative Voiced “Very Serious” Concerns About Licensing TikTok’s Algorithm - DTH

A U.S. Representative voiced “Very Serious” concerns about licensing TikTok’s algorithm, Meta is implementing new AI safety features for teens, and Micron will stop providing server chips to Chinese data centers.

Link to Show Notes

Microsoft Wants You Talking To Your Windows PC… Again - DTNS 5126

Spotify is co-creating opt-in "artist-first" AI products along with some of the biggest studios, and DoorDash is using Waymo's robotaxis to autonomously deliver food in Phoenix.

Starring Jason Howell, Tom Merritt, and Sean Hollister.

JASON: This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, October 16th, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

TOM: Today Sean Hollister tells us why the ROG Xbox Ally might not be good for anybody and Microsoft wants to let you talk to every computer.

I’m Jason Howell,

I’m Tom Merritt.

JASON: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

BIG STORY

Microsoft wants you to talk to your PC and let AI control it
Microsoft wants you to talk to your PC and let AI control it

JASON: Microsoft announced its plan to place AI at the heart of the Windows 11 operating system. Microsoft's vision begins with new features rolling out now that allow users to interact with the OS using voice input via the new "Hey, Copilot" wake word. Copilot Voice, along with Copilot Vision which is also rolling out now, will work alongside each other, giving Windows the ability to understand voice commands and act while also having the ability to scan the screen and help with apps, docs, and whatever else appears there. This also elevates voice as another key input method in the OS, along with mouse and keyboard. Microsoft stresses that this is opt-in and that user permission is critical.

Beyond these new features, Microsoft is planning to release Copilot Actions, a sandboxed environment that will use agentic AI to carry out tasks that have been requested by the user. That's currently testing inside the preview program and limited in scope to a narrow set of use cases.

Copilot is also making its way to the taskbar, for one-click access to these tools.
Tip of the hat to RWNash for submitting this one on our subreddit.

TOM: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
High Tech Okie
Kris Zaragoza
Mike Aikins
Raises from Dave and “Pat and Ron”

JASON: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

BRIEFS

Spotify partners with record labels to create ‘artist-first’ AI music products
Spotify partners with record labels to create ‘artist-first’ AI music products
Spotify spotted working on a ‘SongDNA’ feature that showcases the people behind your favorite music
Spotify spotted working on a ‘SongDNA’ feature that showcases the people behind your favorite music
TOM: Spotify has partnered with Sony, Universal, Warner, and Merlin to create "artist-first" AI music products that aim to prioritize musician rights and fair compensation. Artists will have the ability to choose whether they allow the AI tools or not, opting in to generative AI features and protecting copyright in the process. Techcrunch speculates it might let them use a ContentID-like system to collect royalties if their music appears in a generated song from someone else. Spotify said, “If the music industry doesn’t lead in this moment, AI-powered innovation will happen elsewhere, without rights, consent, or compensation.” Spotify is also developing a dedicated research lab and product team to drive this and other efforts within the company.

Also, Jane Manchun Wong found code in the Spotify app referring to a SongDNA feature. The feature would let users explore music credits and see where producers, writers and others were featured in other tracks. TIDAL has a similar feature called Interactive Credits.

Pinterest adds controls to let you limit the amount of ‘AI slop’ in your feed
Pinterest adds controls to let you limit the amount of ‘AI slop’ in your feed
JASON: Pinterest is tackling generated content overload with new user controls that allow limiting slop in feeds. Generated imagery can be restricted in certain categories through the "Refine your recommendation" settings, addressing calls from users to give them tools to limit the appearance of such content. The company will bring the controls to more categories in the future, based on user feedback. Pinterest also plans to make existing generated content more obvious through more prominent labeling after first rolling out "AI modified" labels earlier this year.

Uber is turning its app into an AI training ground
Uber is turning its app into an AI training ground
TOM: Uber is offering its drivers the option to make money labeling data while they're waiting to accept a ride. A category called "digital tasks" in the driver app has been tested in India and will show up later this year in the US. It will include tasks like uploading photos of restaurant menus, or photos of cars, and recording themselves speaking. It pays based on the amount of time it takes. The data will be used by Uber AI Solutions, which offers development services to enterprises. That division also employs people for more complex tasks like annotation, translation, and editing multilingual and multimodal content.

DoorDash will use Waymo’s robotaxis for delivery in Phoenix
DoorDash will use Waymo’s robotaxis for delivery in Phoenix
JASON: DoorDash is launching autonomous food delivery in Phoenix using Waymo's driverless fleet of Jaguar SUVs. Users can order their items to be delivered by the Waymo and given access to the locked trunk through the app curbside. Doordash will focus at launch on delivering DoorDash's DashMart convenience, grocery, and retail store in Phoenix with broader support for more businesses over time.

Google's Veo 3.1 is better at generating videos from images
Google's Veo 3.1 is better at generating videos from images
TOM: Google's Veo 3.1 model update is here, offering improved "prompt adherence", simultaneous audio and video generation, and a new "Frame to Video" feature inside the Flow editor for defining the start and end frames for better user control.

Google Announces New Scam Protection Tools
Google Announces New Scam Protection Tools
JASON: Google launched Android scam protection tools, including malicious link detection in Messages, improved account recovery via trusted contacts, and a web game for scam education.

Meta poaches Apple’s newly appointed head of AI search project
Meta poaches Apple’s newly appointed head of AI search project
TOM: Meta hired Ke Yang, leader of the Apple's Answers, Knowledge and Information team which has been working to make Siri more like ChatGPT. This is the latest high profile defection from that team to Meta's Superintelligence Labs.

The Vision Pro will get an iPad app in upcoming iPadOS update
The Vision Pro will get an iPad app in upcoming iPadOS update
JASON: The Apple Vision Pro will soon get a dedicated iPad app, coming with the iPadOS 26.1 update, and bringing all of the features currently found in the iPhone app to the tablet.

CNN to Launch Streaming Subscription Tier for $6.99 Per Month
CNN to Launch Streaming Subscription Tier for $6.99 Per Month
TOM: CNN will launch its "CNN All Access" subscription for $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year starting October 28th in the US, with access to select live programming and print articles.

TOM: Those are the essentials for today. Let’s dive a little deeper.

INTERVIEW

JASON: The ROG Xbox Ally launched today, October 16th. Should you even consider buying it? Tom caught up with Sean Hollister from the Verge to find out.

TOM: If you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show… Get in touch with us on the socials. @DTNSshow on X, Instagram, Threads!, Blue Sky, and Mastodon. For TikTok and YouTube, you can find us at Daily Tech News Show.

HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND

JASON: We end every episode of Daily Tech News Show with some shared wisdom. Today Shantrell has more thoughts on live translation!

TOM: Shantrell writes
While I’ve thankfully never had a need myself, a coworker brought up their recent need to seek somewhat urgent medical attention during a trip to Spain and the complications of the language barrier, despite the ubiquity of translation apps.

While I hope I’ll never have this need, I’ll be glad for the babel fish-esque experience should the need arise

-Shantrell

TOM: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us at feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

JASON: Thanks to Sean and Shantrell for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron atPatreon.com/dtns

Apple Updates The iPad Pro, Vision Pro, and MacBook Pro With The New M5 Chip - DTH

Apple updates the iPad Pro, Vision Pro, and MacBook Pro with the new M5 chip, Threads now includes group messaging for up to 50 individuals, and Microsoft introduces new Copilot AI features.

Link to Show Notes

Bonus Show Topics for October

Let us know what you want us to talk about on the upcoming October Bonus Show!

Post your suggestions in the comments section below!

We'll pick three of them to use as our discussion topics when we record later in the month.

Thanks for your support!

Apple’s New M5 Gear. Will It Make You Upgrade? - DTNS 5125

Plus, robot phone camera,  London gets Waymo, and OpenAI wants to get erotic.

Starring Tom Merritt and Sarah Lane.

TOM: This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, October 15th, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories, and help each other understand.

SARAH: Today, Apple drops new stuff with the M5. Should you upgrade?

I’m Tom Merritt,
I’m Sarah Lane.

TOM: Let’s start with what you need to know, with the big story.

BIG STORY
SOLO story of the day. Basic details, monitor commentary and sound when possible.

Apple Announces New M5-Powered iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, and Vision Pro
Apple Vision Pro: PlayStation VR2 Sense controller in November, Logitech Muse and standalone Dual Knit Band available to order — 9to5Mac
Apple to Build Home Hub and Robot in Vietnam in Pivot From China — Bloomberg
Apple exec on Apple TV rebranding: ‘let’s just do it’ — The Verge

TOM: Apple announced new MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with the M5 chip inside. So the announcement is really about the M5 chip coming to more devices.

The M5 is a 3nm chip with up to 10 CPU cores (4 performance and 6 efficiency) and a 16-core neural engine. And each GPU core on the M5 has a neural accelerator for improved AI workloads and a third-generation ray-tracing engine. And the unified memory bandwidth rises to 153 GB/s. That’s 30% better than the M4.

The new iPad Pro with the M5 looks the same, but also comes with the N1 chip, which brings Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Threads connectivity. The models with cellular data use Apple’s C1X modem, which is also in the iPhone Air for improved power efficiency. It has 12 GB unified memory, fast charging, and can power external displays with up to a 120 Hz refresh rate. The 11-inch model starts at $999 and the 13-inch at $1,299.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro also gets the M5 along with a faster SSD and up to 4 TB of storage. It starts at $1,599.

And the Apple Vision Pro now comes with an M5 chip. Apple says it should have sharper, crisper text and more detailed images, and refresh rates up to 120 Hz. Apple also now promises 2.5 hours of battery life or three hours if you’re just playing video. It’s still priced at $3,499.

You also get a dual-knit band to make it more comfortable. If you want it for the older model, it’s $99.

You can also preorder the Logitech Muse digital pen for $130 to go with your Apple Vision Pro.

All of the models are available for preorder, shipping October 22. Though the Vision Pro is still only in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UAE, the UK, and the US, and won’t come to South Korea or Taiwan until later.

And Apple said it will start selling PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers and the charging station at Apple Stores in the US starting November 11th, which means we’ll see support turned on before then.

DISCUSS

TOM TAG OUT: While we’re talking about Apple, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple will have its security cameras and display built in Vietnam, with the help of BYD. It also plans to manufacture iPads and its tabletop robot arm with BYD in Vietnam for release in 2027. And Apple senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, told The Town podcast that it dropped “plus” from the Apple TV name because everybody just called it Apple TV anyway.

SARAH: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
Tim Deputy
Brandon Brooks
Jony Hernandez
and Garry Paszul.

BREAK
PAUSE

TOM: There’s more we need to know today — let’s get to the briefs.

BRIEFS
3–9 more solo reads with sound to complete the day in tech news. These are informational with minor commentary.

YouTube’s biggest redesign in years brings sleek look and enhanced features
YouTube rolls out its redesigned video player globally

SARAH: YouTube is rolling out its redesigned interface to Web, mobile, and TV apps. Here’s what to expect:
– Icons are softer and more transparent, and placed to obscure the content less when you’re using them.
– The seek function should be more seamless.
– Likes now have custom animations that change based on the type of content.
– New visuals and a smoother process for other actions like Watch Later and playlists.
– Comments will have a threaded layout for replies.

OpenAI has five years to turn $13 billion into $1 trillion — TechCrunch
Sam Altman says ChatGPT will soon allow erotica for adult users — TechCrunch
Japan asks OpenAI not to infringe on “irreplaceable” manga and anime content — Engadget
Sam Altman on X

TOM: Several OpenAI stories that we’ll group together here. On X, CEO Sam Altman said that in a few weeks, if you want it to, ChatGPT will start to respond in a more human-like way, use emojis, and act like a friend. And in December, after age-gating rolls out, some restrictions like erotic chats will be eased for verified adults.
Japan’s minister in charge of AI and IP, Minoru Kiuchi, said at a press conference: “We have requested OpenAI not to engage in any actions that could constitute copyright infringement. Anime and manga are irreplaceable treasures that we can be proud of around the world.” The Financial Times says OpenAI has a five-year plan to raise revenue to meet the one trillion in data center expenses it has contracted for. It includes government contracts, shopping tools, video services, consumer hardware and, in a bit of an Amazon-AWS move, becoming a supplier of compute.

Netflix and Spotify Partner Up to Bring 16 Video Podcasts to Your Subscription — PCMag
Spotify partners with Netflix for video podcast distribution deal — TechCrunch

SARAH: Starting early next year in the US, Netflix will make 16 Spotify video podcasts available in its service. Most are from Spotify’s partnership with The Ringer. The New York Times says the deal will prevent the shows from being shown in their entirety on YouTube. Sports shows included in the deal are The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Zach Lowe Show, The McShay Show, Fairway Rollin’, The Mismatch, and The Ringer’s F1 Show, Fantasy Football Show, NFL Show, and NBA Show. The culture and lifestyle shows are The Rewatchables, The Big Picture, The Dave Chang Show, Recipe Club, and Dissect. And two true crime shows: Conspiracy Theories and Serial Killers.

Honor reveals a new smartphone with a fold-out robotic camera arm — CNBC
Honor’s Magic 8 phones have huge batteries and oodles of AI — The Verge

TOM: China’s Honor launched its Magic 8 and Magic 8 Pro flagship phones in China, with an international launch coming later this year. They come with 7,200 and 7,000 mAh batteries. International versions will top out at 7,100, and in Europe, the max will be 6,270. A button launches its assistant called Yoyo. Both phones run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and run MagicOS 10, built on top of Android 16. The Magic 8 and Magic 8 Pro launch in China this month for ¥4,499 (≈ $630) and ¥5,699 (≈ $800).
Honor also showed off a concept phone that has a robotic arm to fold the camera out of the back of the phone. It will show more details at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next year.

Waymo plans launch in London, first European market for robotaxi — CNBC

SARAH: Waymo said it will start testing its autonomous taxis in London in the coming months with human safety drivers, and intends to make the service available to all next year.

TOM: And finally, some quick headlines that are just good to know if you want to understand the news in the future.

Samsung will introduce its Android XR headset at a Galaxy event on October 21 — Engadget

TOM: Samsung will stream an announcement on its YouTube channel Tuesday, October 21st, at 10 PM Eastern time, where it is expected to announce the Android XR headset, previously known as Project Moohan.

Kobo made a remote control for its ereaders — Engadget

SARAH: Kobo announced a remote control for its ereaders, named Kobo Remote, selling for $30 starting November 4.

This “gaming PC” is actually a Bluetooth speaker — Tom’s Hardware

TOM: Edifier announced a Bluetooth speaker called the Huazai New Cyber, which looks like a high-end dual-GPU gaming system, for ¥1,499 (≈ $210).

Motorola launches ultra-thin Edge 70 in China, international release coming soon — 9to5Google

SARAH: Motorola announced the Moto Edge 70, also called the X70 Air in China, which at 5.3 mm is thinner than either the iPhone Air or Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, coming to China on October 31st and later internationally.

Views of AI Around the World — Pew Research Center
Threads is getting group chats as messaging rolls out to the EU — TechCrunch

TOM: Pew Research Center surveyed more than 28,000 adults in 25 countries on AI and found that 81% have heard a lot or a little about it, 34% are more concerned than excited, and 42% are equally concerned and excited.

Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Sells Stock, Now Owns Less Than 10 Percent — Hollywood Reporter

SARAH: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sold more Amazon stock, bringing his ownership down to 9 percent. He owned 47% when it went public in 1997.

Facebook removes ICE-tracking page after US government “outreach” — The Verge

TOM: Facebook is the latest US platform to remove a service for tracking where US Customs Enforcement personnel are located.

Mozilla’s Firefox adds Perplexity’s AI answer engine as a new search option — TechCrunch

SARAH: And Mozilla has added Perplexity as an option to be your default search engine in the browser.

PROMO

TOM: We do live streams! Catch them by becoming a subscriber at youtube.com/dailytechnewsshow.

BREAK
PAUSE

HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND
Short missives from people with experience. Could be written email or pre-recorded from the person.

SARAH: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today Andrew has an update on using his AirPods Pro 3 to live translate.

TOM:
Andrew writes:

You read my AirPod translation letter on air.

Update:
Installed iOS 26.0.1 & Firmware for AirPods.
Seems you can’t have your Siri as U.K. English and have French Canadian as your other language for Live Translate. It actually freezes the setup window — force quit and reopen; it asks to download languages already downloaded, then freezes again.
If I switch everything to US 🇺🇸 (a pain in the 🍑) & choose Français 🇫🇷, it didn’t freeze but doesn’t translate. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Cheers,
Andrew R

DISCUSS

SARAH: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us — feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

TOM: Thanks to Andrew for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron atPatreon.com/dtns.

Spotify Partners with Netflix for Streaming Video Podcasts - DTH

Spotify announced a partnership with Netflix to bring video podcasts to the streaming network, OpenAI to allow more mature conversations with ChatGPT for "verified adults", and Waymo plans to launch its driverless ride-hailing service in London in 2026.

Check out the show notes here.

Why Some Tech Stories Don't Get Covered - Editor's Desk

Hi Tom,

I know you've been fielding serious questions about the large changes to DTNS, but do you fancy a small, irrelevant question?

I know that all members of the DTNS crew work from home, and so I'm curious when was the last time you met each member of the team in meatspace? Are there any members of the team that you have never actually physically met? Amos, for example, lives in Alaska - which means you've got most of the North American continent between you.

Kind regards,

David.

---

Hey Tom!

Might be a fun one for the editor's desk as I've been thinking about this more lately - what actually counts tech news as tech news?

I'm sure this is anecdotal, but I've been noticing more items over the last year that are 'new things happening in tech' but aren't covered for whatever reason by tech news journalists (and then by extension shows like DTNS). Some quick examples off the top of my head:

Alienware laptop motherboard power connectors melting

Stealth AI models being dropped (that often later are determined to be GPT-5, Grok, etc)

Windows update KB5065789 from last week causing installation issues, boot loops, and most commonly reported - significant gaming/GPU performance loss

That Windows Update one is the one that triggered me to want to email in and ask this question actually, because there have been a lot of reports across various forums, feedback threads, etc over the last week regarding this update, but I can't find any news coverage regarding this, and personally I'd like to know when it's safe to update.

Now these are all things that I'm plugged into, but it makes me wonder how many more things I'm missing in 'tech news' because I'm not personally plugged into those areas - and how I get updates for stuff like this, if they aren't being reported on in the first place. Furthermore - what makes stories like these not make the news cycle, but similar and smaller stories, at least in terms of scale and how many people they affect, do make the cut - for example Cybertruck recalls, 5090 GPU power cable melting, or a any story about The Browser Company at this point haha.

My simple theory is journalists simply don't have the time/resources to be looking for news as much these days vs reporting on announcements, press events, and product launches. I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. I know you have previously stated what marks your bar for including a story or not in your shows is how impactful it is to your audience, which I think makes sense, and of course DTNS are not acting as journalists, but it made me wonder what your bar is for tech news period, at the industry level. I guess this could be a bigger question over what counts as news in general, but let's not get too crazy here haha.

Keep up the awesome work - with the changes I've been able to listen to a bit of Live so yay!

Take care!

Marty

Keep Your Android Phone Safe From Pixnapping - DTNS 5124

TOM: This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, October 14, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

JENN: Today, we walk you through the Pixnapping exploit for Android, what you do and do not need to worry about, and how to avoid falling victim to it.

I’m Tom Merritt,

I’m Jenn Cutter.

TOM: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

[[BIG STORY]]
[[SOLO story of the day. Basic details, monitor commentary and sound when possible.]]

Hackers can steal 2FA codes and private messages from Android phones – Ars Technica
Hackers can steal 2FA codes and private messages from Android phones : r/DailyTechNewsShow

TOM: You should always be careful what apps you install on your devices, but here's an extra reason for Android users to be careful. Thanks to lujuan73 on our subreddit for calling attention to this one.

Scientists from the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Washington, the University of California at San Diego, and Carnegie Mellon University presented a paper this week at the 32nd ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security. The paper is called "Pixnapping: Bringing Pixel Stealing out of the Stone Age."

The team's exploit requires the victim to install a malicious app. So that's your first line of defense. Don't install a malicious app. Sounds easy, but of course, if people didn't get tricked into installing malicious apps all the time, this wouldn't be much of a concern.

Once installed, the app that takes advantage of the Pixnapping exploit can read any data displayed on the screen without needing special system permissions.

It does this by invoking Android programming interfaces that cause the targeted app to send sensitive information, say a multifactor code, into Android's rendering pipeline to be displayed on screen. The app then runs graphical operations on the pixels on screen (like drawing a transparent piece of content over the other content) and exploits a side channel in the GPU, usually the known GPU.zip side channel. To oversimplify, the time it takes for a frame to be rendered on the screen behind the transparent image, can be used to deduce whether a pixel is white or not. The app can use that information to map pixels to letters, numbers, or shapes, thus letting it deduce what information the app sent.

The attack takes time, so had to be refined to work in the 30 seconds in which a multifactor code is shown on screen before it changes. They were able to do this on the Pixels but not the Galaxy S25.

Obfuscated or hidden information that is not displayed on screen cannot be accessed.

The exploit works on the Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S25. Google released partial mitigations in the September Android security bulletin, but a modified version of the exploit can still work. Google says further mitigations are coming in the December Android security bulletin. No in-the-wild exploits have been discovered.

[[DISCUSS]]

JENN: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
Dale Mulcahy
Matt Zaglin
Jeff Wilkes
New Patron: Razvan
And a raise from: Pete

[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]

TOM: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

[[BRIEFS]]
[[3–9 more solo reads with sound to complete the day in tech news. These are informational with minor commentary.]]

Windows 10 support ends today, but here's how to get an extra year for free

JENN: Just a reminder that Windows 10 officially is out of support and therefore end of life as of now, October 14th. Your PC will continue to work, it just won't get any more updates.

Your options are to:

• Upgrade to Windows 11, if your machine supports it. (Or buy a PC that does)
  
  

• Enroll in Extended Security Updates for Windows 10, which will be provided until October 13th, 2026. You can get those for free by agreeing to use Microsoft cloud backups, use 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points or paying $30.
  
  

Nvidia to Start Selling $3,999 DGX Spark Mini PC This Week | PCMag
NVIDIA starts selling its $3,999 DGX Spark AI developer PC
Nvidia unveils its vision for gigawatt 'AI factories' based on its Vera Rubin architecture – SiliconANGLE

Tom: At the 2025 OCP Global Summit in San Jose, Nvidia said it is donating its Vera Rubin NVL144 architecture to the Open Compute Project as an open standard. It is a more power-efficient rack server architecture designed to support the Vera Rubin GPUs coming in 2027.
And while we're talking about Nvidia, the company will begin selling its DGX Spark desktop (aka Project DIGITS) on October 15th. The $3,999 desktop 2.6-pound PC runs Nvidia's DGX OS, a custom version of Ubuntu. It has a GB10 super chip, which combines a 20-core Grace CPU with a Blackwell GPU and 128GB of LPDDR5x memory. That and custom software will let scientists run powerful models locally. Versions of the desktop from other vendors like Dell, HP, Lenovo and ASUS were shown at Computex, and should be coming soon. Nvidia is also working on a model with a GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip, with 20 petaflops of performance and 784GB of unified system memory.

Microsoft debuts its first in-house AI image generator

JENN: Microsoft debuted its first in-house image generator, called MAI-Image-1. It specialises in generating photorealistic images with natural lighting and landscapes. The model is being tested on LMArena, with plans to roll out to Copilot and Bing Image Creator soon.

OpenAI and Broadcom partner on AI hardware | TechCrunch
OpenAI is making its own AI chips with Broadcom's help
OpenAI partners with Broadcom custom AI chips alongside Nvidia, AMD
Oracle, AMD Partner on New AI Chip Deal – WSJ

TOM: OpenAI announced Monday that it has partnered with Broadcom for 10 gigawatts worth of custom-designed AI accelerator racks that will be deployed to OpenAI data centers and partner data centers from 2026 through 2029. Since the beginning of September, OpenAI signed deals for 6 Gigawatts of chips from AMD, 10 Gigawatts from Nvidia, and an infrastructure deal with Oracle. Deployments are to begin in the second half of 2026 as well. OpenAI is expected to have 2GW of capacity by the end of this year, but these deals are part of a goal to reach 250GW of capacity in the next 8 years. That would cost $10 trillion. OpenAI is expected to make $13 billion in revenue this year. Meanwhile, AMD is partnering with Oracle to deploy 50,000 MI450 chips in Oracle's data centers by Q3 next year.

Satellites found exposing unencrypted data, including phone calls and some military comms | TechCrunch
T-Mobile customer call and text data captured from satellite comms

JENN: Scientists at UC San Diego and the University of Maryland discovered that by using an $800 off-the-shelf satellite receiver, they could monitor unencrypted data from satellites used for routing voice calls, text messages, and internet traffic, including WiFi from airplanes. It also included communications with critical infrastructure like energy and water. The data was in an obscure format, which they needed three years to consistently decode. The scientists alerted providers, including AT&T and T-Mobile, which have since encrypted the traffic, though not everyone they contacted has done so.

Supreme Court rejects Grindr liability case

TOM: The US Supreme Court has declined to hear appeals to a second case that challenged Section 230 safe harbor protections for internet companies. Previously, it declined to hear a case holding Meta accountable for the radicalization of a mass shooter. This time, it declined to hear an appeal holding a dating app accountable for connecting a minor with adults who were later convicted of sex crimes against the minor. In both cases, lower courts ruled that the platform was not responsible for the conduct of its users.

The Pixel 10's app crash nightmare is finally over
Samsung halts Android 16 update for all Galaxy S22 users

JENN: Good news and bad news for Android phone users.
Android Police reports that Google has made a server-side change that stops apps from crashing on Pixel 10 devices. Android Police shared detailed logs with Google to help the company identify the problem in an update to Google Play services that was causing the intermittent bug. However, Samsung has stopped the rollout of One UI 8 for users of the older Galaxy S22. Samsung has not explained why.

Dutch Seized Nexperia After US Demanded Ouster of Chinese CEO – Bloomberg
China Puts Export Controls on Nexperia After Dutch Takeover – Bloomberg

TOM: The government of the Netherlands used a never-before-invoked cold war era law to take over automobile chipmaker Nexperia after the US warned that it would need to replace its Chinese CEO or go on a sanctions list. In response, China put export controls on Nexperia components coming from its Chinese factories.

TOM: And finally, some quick headlines that are just good to know if you want to understand the news in the future.

Microsoft restricts IE mode access in Edge after zero-day attacks

JENN: Microsoft has made it more difficult to activate the Internet Explorer mode in the Edge browser after discovering attackers exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in the mode.

TP-Link confirms successful Wi-Fi 8 trials — next-gen wireless standard to usher in advances in reliability and latency | Tom's Hardware

TOM: TP-Link announced it has conducted its first successful trial of WiFi 8 hardware, which would bring reliability improvements over WiFi 7.

Apple’s streaming service gets harder to tell apart from its streaming app, box – Ars Technica

JENN: In a press release for the streaming version of the F1 movie, Apple noted that Apple TV Plus is now just called Apple TV.

Dashlane Partners with Yubico in a First for Security Keys – Thurrott.com

TOM: Password manager Dashlane is partnering with Yubico to let users use their FIDO 2 YubiKey as the primary authentication for passwordless access to their vault.

AI-written web pages haven't overwhelmed human-authored content, study finds

JENN: Analysis from Graphite found that while the percentage of AI-generated articles rose sharply after the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the percentage converged in November 2024 and has been roughly equal ever since.

Anduril's new EagleEye MR helmet sees Palmer Luckey return to his VR roots | TechCrunch

TOM: Anduril Industries, headed by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, announced "EagleEye" on Monday, a system that can deliver live video, sensor data alerts and more into a soldier's helmet.

Google to invest $15B in Indian AI infrastructure hub | TechCrunch

JENN: Google will invest $15 billion in a 1-gigawatt data center in India to be built within the next five years.

Instagram to show PG-13 content by default to teens, adds more parental controls | TechCrunch

TOM: Instagram will now restrict content shown to those younger than 18 in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US, to the same standards as the US PG-13 rating, which does not allow extreme violence, sexual nudity, and graphic drug use.

Spotify rolls out controls to keep kids music out of your algorithm | The Verge

JENN: And family users of Spotify in seven countries can soon make managed accounts for children that can filter out adult music and content, and keep the kids' songs from affecting their recommendations.

[[PROMO]]

TOM: Join in the conversation in our Discord, which you can join by linking to a Patreon account at patreon.com/dtns

[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]

[[HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND]]
[[Short missives from people with experience. Could be written email or pre-recorded from the person.]]

JENN: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today Rob has some thoughts on AI helping productivity.

TOM: Responding to Friday’s discussion on AI productivity, Rob Bugslife commented:
With the news items today, the stuff Jenn mentioned and that I have seen at my own job, I'm not sure I can trust any of the reports of "efficiencies gain" when being self report by companies. When employees are told to find ways to use these tools and report back on gained efficiencies, they will find ways to at least appear to be following orders cause they don't want to lose their jobs. Which means to mean a lot of that data in the future may be artificially boosted.
From my own experience there are no doubt benefits, but I would be lying if I said it added more than 15% maybe 20% efficiency for some tasks, definitely not to everything.
Keep sharing and thanks keeping everything levelheaded.

[[DISCUSS]]

JENN: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

TOM: Thanks to Rob for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron, atPatreon.com/dtns

Plus we discuss the improbably large deals OpenAI is signing and how Section 230 is being protected by the US Supreme Court.

Starring Tom Merritt and Jenn Cutter.

TiVo Has Ceased Sales Of Its DVR Set-Top Boxes - DTH

TiVo has ceased sales of its DVR set-top boxes, Apple is rebranding its streaming service, Apple TV Plus, to "Apple TV", and SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy rocket successfully completed a test launch.

Link to Show Notes

Dutch Government Takes Control of Netherlands-Based Chinese Chip Manufacturer - DTH

The Dutch Government takes control of Netherlands-based Chinese Chip Manufacturer using the "Goods Availability Act", Taiwan expects no significant impact from China's updated rare earth export rules, and Apple discontinues social media video editing app Clips.

Check out the show notes here.

Israeli Spyware Firm NSO Group Acquired By US Investors - DTH

Apple hikes bug bounty program payouts, Austria rules Microsoft violated EU privacy law, Microsoft sells Windows XP-themed Crocs.

Show Notes

Meta’s Metaverse Workers Go AI-First - DTNS 5123

Apple is offering a $2 million bug bounty for its most critical exploit chains, and Instagram Reels are coming soon to a TV set near you.

Starring Jason Howell and Jenn Cutter.

JASON: This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, October 10, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

JENN: Today, a leaked message at Meta shows the company has high expectations around how AI is used by its workers.

I’m Jason Howell,

I’m Jenn Cutter.

JASON: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

BIG STORY

Meta Tells Its Metaverse Workers to Use AI to ‘Go 5X Faster’

JASON: Meta still believes in the Metaverse, so much so that the company is pushing its metaverse workforce to use AI tools to make their work five times faster. Meta's VP of Metaverse Vishal Shah posted an internal message, obtained and shared by 404 Media, that made clear he was talking about small changes. "Think 5X, not 5%." He's pushing for his teams to treat AI as a critical part of their workflow and not a curiosity and, as he put it, a novelty.

He's looking for team members to use AI for tasks like rapid prototyping, bug fixes, and all kinds of workflow improvements, with a goal of 80% of its metaverse team using AI daily by the end of the year.

Mark Zuckerberg has spoken in recent months about company goals that illustrate just how critical the company sees AI to its growth and goals. He's said that he expects most of the company's code to soon be written by AI, and even new job applicants might get to use AI in coding tests.

JENN: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
Paul Theisen
Ali Sanjabi
AB Puppy
New Patron: Molly
And raises from Carsten and MirrorsOfTime

JASON: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

BRIEFS

Apple Announces $2 Million Bug Bounty Reward for the Most Dangerous Exploits
Apple Announces $2 Million Bug Bounty Reward
Apple to Move Health, Fitness Divisions to Services in Reorganization

JENN: Apple has raised its maximum bug bounty payout to $2 million for its most critical exploit chains that could target spyware on the iPhone. Apple is also offering extra rewards totaling $5 million for hacks that bypass Lockdown Mode along with bugs found in its beta software. New expanded categories include WebKit and wireless proximity exploits that use any kind of radio. The changes to the program will go into effect in November 2025.

Apple is also reportedly about to restructure leadership as COO Jeff Williams prepares for retirement. Eddy Cue is expected to oversee health and fitness divisions, Craig Federighi will lead the Watch OS team, John Ternus will lead the Apple Watch hardware team, and Sumbul Desai will be in charge of all health and fitness teams as he reports to Cue. Apple has declined to comment on the Bloomberg report by Mark Gurman that reported on these upcoming changes.

China issues port crackdown on all Nvidia AI chip imports, says report — enforcement teams deployed to quash smuggling and investigate data center hardware, targeting H20 and RTX 6000D shipments | Tom's Hardware
China Launches Port Crackdown on Nvidia Chips

JASON: The Financial Times reports that China's customs officials have deployed enforcement teams to major ports to inspect data-center hardware being brought into the country. The teams are focusing on Nvidia’s H20 and RTX 6000D chips, which are designed specifically to comply with US export controls. The inspections are coordinated with the Cyberspace Administration of China and are designed to prevent smuggling. This follows an expansion of export restrictions on rare earth minerals used in chip manufacturing. China is clearly playing hardball as trade negotiations with the US continue.

UK slaps Google Search with special market status, making way for stricter regulations
UK Slaps Google Search with Special Market Status

JENN: The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has labeled Google Search as having "strategic market status." What does that mean? The UK sees Google as playing a dominant role in search and online ads and this gives the regulator the ability to apply stricter rules to promote fair competition. It does not come with any immediate changes to enforce, but does highlight the likelihood of future requirements. Google's AI-focused search features like AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in the designation, but Gemini AI isn't included for the time being.

Google says 'likely over 100' affected by Oracle-linked hacking campaign
Google Says Dozens of Organizations Affected by Oracle-Linked Hacking Campaign

JASON: Google has revealed that more than 100 companies were likely affected by a major hacking campaign targeting Oracle's suite of business products. The attack saw "mass amounts of customer data" stolen, according to Google, and reportedly began three months ago. Google associates the attack with the CL0P group, a hacking group with a long list of previous attacks under its belt. CL0P members have not commented on its involvement, but had made claims recently that Oracle had "bugged up their core product."

Instagram Is ‘Exploring’ a Dedicated TV App in Video Push
Instagram Is Exploring a Dedicated TV App

JENN: Instagram is working on a dedicated TV app, according to CEO Adam Mosseri speaking at the Bloomberg Screentime conference. He shared that the app is still in the exploratory phase and does not have a launch date at this time.

This comes at a time when Instagram is also testing making Reels the default home tab in its mobile app for select users, illustrating Instagram's evolution from a photo-first platform to a short-form video product that competes directly with TikTok.

Sora copycats flooded Apple’s App Store, and some still remain
Sora Copycats Flooded Apple’s App Store
OpenAI Video App Sora Hits 1 Million Downloads Faster Than ChatGPT

JASON: The Sora app for iOS continues to climb the App Store charts, and as of today it's being reported that it hit 1 million downloads in less than five days after release. According to Bill Peebles who heads the Sora team, that's even faster than ChatGPT and it's made even more impressive considering Sora requires invites and only targets North America.

Considering its such a hot commodity, that places it firmly in the sites of people looking to capitalize on that success by releasing copycat apps in the App Store. Appfigures noted more than a dozen fake Sora-branded apps that were somehow able to pass through Apple's App Review process. Fake apps are also appearing in the Google Play Store despite there being no official Android app currently. Many of those apps have since been removed but be cautious if you plan on installing the app on your own device!

Copilot on Windows can now create Office documents and connect to Gmail
Copilot on Windows Adds Document Creation and Gmail Connection

JENN: Microsoft Copilot on Windows now lets users create Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files with one-click export options surfacing from the chat interface. Users can also connect directly to Gmail and Outlook accounts and linking those accounts is opt-in for users. The update is available to Windows Insiders first, with a wider rollout coming soon.

You can now buy Microsoft’s Windows XP Crocs for $79.95
Microsoft’s Windows XP Crocs Now on Sale

JASON: If you wanted those limited edition Windows XP Crocs that were featured as an Instagram sweepstakes prize by Microsoft back in August, but if you didn’t win, you now have another chance to get them. Microsoft hadn't planned to sell them initially, but something must have changed because you can now buy them for $79.95 from the company's online store. The shoes include six familiar XP-inspired Jibbitz to attach to the toe holes. The bundle also includes an XP-themed drawstring backpack. The shoes are a celebration of Microsoft's 50th anniversary and are a limited time offer.

JENN: Need a snazzy gift for a co-worker or colleague? We got dozens of ideas at dailytechnewsshow.com/store! Pick up a mug, t-shirt or mouse pad with our new DTNS Logo! They're great gifts and a great way to support the show!

HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND

JASON: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today Jochen (Jo-Chen) has another use case for live translation with AirPods.

JENN: Jochen writes:
I work for a Japanese company and visit the headquarters in Japan regularly. While some colleagues speak good English, others not so much. We tried using translation apps or a dedicated translation device, but it is not very conversational.
In meetings, the Japanese colleagues also tend to have more in-depth (hidden?) conversations in Japanese with each other and only present the "important" summary to us English speakers.

I think the capabilities in the new AirPods or similar devices will make meetings more effective, as shown in remote-only meetings with Microsoft Teams Premium live translation feature.

I already have several executives asking about this, showcasing Apple ad-reach but also the broader interest in those kind of tools. I will try this out later this month and also see how it works in a more informal setting with a group of people and a lot of background noise (the infamous after-work dinners)...

Love the show(s)!

JASON: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us at feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

JASON: Thanks to Jochen for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron atPatreon.com/dtns

UK CMA Confirms Google's "Strategic Market Status" - DTH

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) designated Google as having "strategic market status" in search, China's State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR) will investigate Qualcomm's acquisition of Autotalks, and Bloomberg reports Instagram is exploring a dedicated TV app.

Check out the show notes here.

Intel Packages Up Its Future in Panther Lake - DTNS 5122

Also, Andy Beach tells us about an IETF effort to make standards for AI bot scraping.

Starring Tom Merritt, Jenn Cutter, and Andy Beach.

TOM: This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, October 9, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

JENN: Today Intel has new chips. Will this put the company on the road to recovery? And Andy Beach tells us about the fight to keep the Web working amidst increased AI bots.

I’m Tom Merritt

I’m Jenn Cutter

TOM: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

[[BIG STORY]]
[[SOLO story of the day. Basic details, monitor commentary and sound when possible.]]

Intel unveils Core Ultra series 3 chip in major test for ailing chipmaker
Intel’s next-generation Panther Lake laptop chips could be a return to form - Ars Technica
Intel takes the wraps off Panther Lake — first 18A client processor brings the best of Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake together in one package | Tom's Hardware
Intel Says Panther Lake is in Production on 18A Process Node - Thurrott.com

TOM: Intel announced details for its Core Ultra series 3 processors, aka Panther Lake. It will be the first chip manufactured on Intel's 18A process (comparable but not identical to 2nm) at the Fab 52 plant in Arizona.

Panther Lake chips all get the same package design, something that caused confusion with Meteor, Arrow, and Lunar Lake. Since Panther Lake SoCs are built from the same Performance core (Cougar Cove), Efficiency Core (Darkmont), and GPU cores (Xe3), you get the power efficiency that came with Lunar Lake AND the performance scalability that came with Arrow Lake. Panther Lake comes in three variants. An 8-core version with 4 Xe GPU cores seems meant for workhorse ultraportable laptops. A 16-core version with 4 Xe GPU cores and extra PCI Express lanes seems right for bulkier workstations and gaming laptops with external GPUs. And the 16-core version with 12 Xe GPU cores seems a fit for high-end thin-and-lights without dedicated GPUs.

Intel is making the CPU and GPU tiles in the package, while TSMC is making the platform controller tile that handles I/O.

Intel promises 10 percent improvement on single-core performance over Lunar Lake and 50% improvement on multicore over Lunar and Arrow Lake. Intel says the chip consumes 10 percent less power than Lunar Lake and 40 percent less power than Arrow Lake.

Panther Lake can support up to 96GB of memory and up to 180 TOPS, which is important for AI use.

Expect to see these in laptops and possibly get a desktop version of Panther Lake, aka Intel Core Series 3, after the first of the year.

Warning: the next little bit is an oversimplification for people who are into chip architecture, but enough for people who are curious to get the gist of what's going on:
Intel has delayed using its 18A process as it worked out issues with the RibbonFET gate-all-around transistors. That literally means it wraps all the way around the channel, unlike FinFET, which reduces power leakage when the chip is off, and less wasted energy when it's on. If that means nothing to you, it improves performance and energy efficiency. And the PowerVia system delivers reliable backside power delivery, which also reduces power loss over putting the wires above the transistor.

Intel will also make its Xeon 6+ data center processor on the 18A process.

Core Ultra series 3 chips will go into high-volume production and ship before the end of the year. Intel says "broad market availability" will start in January 2026.

[[DISCUSS]]

JENN: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
dlaser
Bradd
Kevin Morgan

[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]

TOM: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

[[BRIEFS]]
[[3-9 more solo reads with sound to complete the day in tech news. These are informational with minor commentary.]]

Dia is now generally available on macOS - 9to5Mac

JENN: The Browser Company, makers of the Arc browser, announced that its more AI-focused Dia browser is now available to all users on macOS for free. We knew this was coming, but here are the details. You need macOS 14 or later and an M1 chip or later and you get chat on any tab, custom skills, mentioning tabs in any query, adding attachments to queries, and personalizing with memory, all for free. But there's a rate limit. You can pay $20 a month to lift the limit.

Hackers claim Discord breach exposed data of 5.5 million users

TOM: Discord said it will not pay the malicious actors who claim to have accessed customer support information from Discord's Zendesk support system. Discord also disclosed that the government ID image of 70,000 users was accessed in the attack. The attackers had claimed a higher number. Those images were used for age verification. The attackers told Bleeping Computer they accessed the data through a compromised account of a support agent employed from another outsourced company. The attackers also accessed email addresses, Discord usernames and IDs, phone numbers, partial payment information, date of birth, multi-factor authentication related information, suspicious activity levels, and other internal information.

Logitech will brick its $100 Pop smart home buttons on October 15 - Ars Technica

JENN: Logitech Pop Switches, which went on sale in August 2016, let you program up to three actions to happen when you press the button. Logitech says it will stop supporting Pop Switches, making them inoperable starting October 15th. Logitech is giving affected customers a 15% off coupon good until March 31st in the US.

Apple prepares to comply with Texas age assurance law, but warns of privacy risks | TechCrunch

TOM: Thursday, Apple announced changes it will make to comply with a Texas law on age verification. That law goes into effect January 1st, and requires the OS makers to confirm if a user is 18 or older and requires those younger than 18 to join a Family Sharing group, managed by a parent or guardian. Apple already operates a Declared Age Range API to help developers target their apps appropriately by content. Apple will update that API to include the Texas-mandated age ranges. This means a developer won't have to know how old anyone is, beyond whether they are younger or older than 18. Apple will also add new APIs later this year that let developers get parental consent if changes to their app change the age rating.

Netflix is bringing party games to TVs
Netflix Brings Video Games to Its TV Service for First Time - Bloomberg

JENN: At the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles, Netflix announced party games you can play on your TV, coming to Netflix before the holidays. Existing Netflix subscribers can play Lego: Party, Boggle Party, Pictionary: Game Night, Tetris Time Warp, and Party Crashers: Fool Your Friends. Participants scan a QR code from the TV screen with their phone, which becomes a controller for the game. The games will launch on select platforms, like Roku, in certain countries, which were not announced.

China tightens export controls on rare earth minerals once again | TechCrunch

TOM: China's Commerce Ministry said on Thursday that it has added five rare earth elements to its export control list in order to “safeguard national security.” The list now controls 12 rare earth elements for export. Organizations must apply for a license to export the minerals. Licenses will not be granted for defense uses, and semiconductor uses will depend on the circumstances. Humanitarian aid, public health emergencies, and disaster relief are exempt from the license requirement.

OneDrive is Getting New Copilot Features, Photos Agent, More

JENN: At an event on Wednesday, Microsoft announced new features coming to OneDrive. A Copilot icon will appear in the right corner of the page on the OneDrive Web app. A link to a shared file can have different permissions for different users without changing the link. A photos tab includes a gallery view and editing features. You can also find photos, build albums, and share them both through natural language prompts. Other new features include a custom agent for folders, smarter search, and more. A new OneDrive app with these features is coming next year.

California just passed three bills to boost internet privacy

TOM: The Governor of California signed a bill into law that requires browsers to let users opt out of all third-party tracking with a single setting. All major browsers offer one-click opt-out for third-party data sharing, but it's unclear if that is actually universal across all sites.

Google won’t fix new ASCII smuggling attack in Gemini

JENN: Security researcher Viktor Markopoulos from FireTail tested several LLM services for vulnerability to ASCII smuggling. This is when a malicious message contains special characters from the Tags Unicode block that can't be seen by the user but are read by the LLM. It can be used to prompt the LLM to deliver false information, like directing the user to a malicious website. ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude are not vulnerable to such attacks. Grok, DeepSeek, and Gemini are. The researcher contacted Google on September 18th about the vulnerability, but Google does not consider it a security bug, but a social engineering attack.

TOM: Those are the essentials for today. Let’s dive a little deeper.

[[SEGMENT A - FROM SCHEDULE]]

JENN: There’s a battle inside the Internet Engineering Task Force that could reshape how the web works in the age of AI. Andy Beach explains.

[[PROMO]]

TOM: If you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show… Get in touch with us on the socials. @DTNSshow on X, Instagram, Threads!, Blue Sky, and Mastodon. For TikTok and YouTube, you can find us at Daily Tech News Show.

[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]

[[HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND]]
[[Short missives from people with experience. Could be written email or pre-recorded from the person.]]

JENN: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today Scott has some perspective on ads on your fridge.

TOM: Scott writes:

I heard you discussing the ads on Samsung appliances. Robb compared it to Minority Report. I recommend checking out the first episode of the Max Headroom TV show (1987). I am reminded of that episode, "Blipverts," every single day with all the advertising that we are subjected to.

Love the show,
Scott

[[DISCUSS]]

JENN: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

TOM: Thanks to Andy Beach and Scott for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron, atPatreon.com/dtns.

Roger’s $0.02 - Writing Fan Fiction with ChatGPT

Writing fiction is an art. A browse through the NY Times Best Seller list gives you an idea of the width and breadth, and even the quality of fiction for sale. But reading fiction and writing it are two different things. Consuming and processing thoughts and ideas from another person is, from my experience, more effective than thinking, planning, and composing your thoughts on the screen. In my experience, much time is spent scratching out notes, ideas, and writing, and then deleting paragraphs, and the final output often seems small, incomplete, and stored as a text file on Google Drive and forgotten. So, in the interests of reporting back my full creative writing experience with an LLM Chatbot, I said, “Why not. It's not like I have any other ideas for a column.”  And so pressed on into the creative writing circle composed of myself and ChatGPT. Well, maybe less of a circle, more of a co-writer.

When it comes to subject matter, fiction has no limits. You can explore the relationship between humanity and religion by writing about space gods and astronauts, speculating on what a world without Pringles would look like, or even writing slash fiction about everyone’s favorite North American cryptid, Bigfoot. But like any other red-blooded middle-aged American male, I zero in on the one pop-culture topic that binds us and connects Boomers, Gen-X, and Millennials. Star Wars. Star Wars is one of the great standard bearers for Fan Fiction writing, along with Star Trek, which is where we supposedly get the term “Mary Sue”, Lord of the Rings, and, of course, Harry Potter. Star Wars has a rich history of both canon and non-canon stories written for it across the Expanded Universe in novels, comic books, and video games. And because Star Wars is more about the universe it inhabits, it offers a colorful tapestry of story lines, characters, places, and enough allegories of the modern world to satisfy George Lucas.

One of the first things I did with ChatGPT was to have it play a role. Being Star Wars, I naturally choose a Jedi. I wrote a descriptive paragraph about the motivations and current situation of the character. I did not initially give the character a name or physical description. Initially, ChatGPT wrote possible scenarios for the Jedi that were not unlike what you would find in an AD&D game, where the Dungeon (Game) Master would lay out a scene and give you two possible paths to take. After a few run-throughs, I decided to change things up a little. LLMs do best with lots of context, so I started writing lengthier descriptions of a scene, including character motivations and bits of dialogue. What I watched unfolding was creatively interesting. Using the information I gave ChatGPT, it would start to build character interaction based on its existing training data. I assume a large amount of ChatGPT’s training data came from popular fiction and lots of fan fiction. Dialogue is something I still have great difficulty writing a great number of characters without most of them sounding or talking in a very similar fashion. Giving characters in an ensemble cast unique personalities without them degrading into simplistic stereotypes is a real challenge. It's why such great writers tend to take such copious notes and devote a great deal of time to researching people and personalities. You can do the most amazing world-building and believable scenarios, but if all your characters sound like they stepped out of an episode of Super Friends, it blows a hole in the verisimilitude of your entire story. And to its credit, ChatGPT did a bang-up job. Not great, mind you. I had to make tweaks along the way, and honestly, I would never publish anything directly produced from ChatGPT. As good as it is as a writing aid, it still has too many issues.

The biggest issue is something that all LLM Chatbots suffer from, and that’s they’re not aware of what they’re producing. In my case, ChatGPT would mistake characters for each other, assigning dialogue from one character to another, misrepresenting a situation, forgetting what a character said or did in a previous paragraph, or what happened in the two previous scenes. Another problematic area is that it recycles dialogue heavily, reusing the same phrases and constantly repeating the same words and actions. For example, ChatGPT has a lot of the characters in my Star Wars story tighten their jaws or cross their arms. In fact, it happens so many times I’ve made it a game to see if the next character introduced will tighten their jaw as a sign of character tensing up or crossing their arms as during a disagreement.

Now, in fairness, everything I’m critical about happens when you let ChatGPT write entire scenes for you. If you’re more heavy-handed and lay out exactly how you want a scene to play out, you’re more likely to get better results. Of course, this is how a writing aid should work. Not doing the work but helping with the mundane or assisting in the writing in areas you feel are not your strongest. Letting ChatGPT have a free hand can give you a mish-mash of different story influences that might be jarring or contextually inappropriate.

For those who find writing more of a chore than a joy, ChatGPT is a handy tool. But if you enjoy writing fictional stories based on existing properties or ideas that are your own, ChatGPT is still a great tool. As I stated earlier, I would never publish anything that ChatGPT or any LLM writes. It’s a great way, however, to outline a story or character arc because you can see how the LLM interprets what you write, which is a great stand-in for a reader. If LLM misinterprets its chances, so might the reader. It also lets you iterate on ideas quickly and efficiently. I could go through three or four different scenarios to see which one read better or made more sense. For train-of-thought writers, it's a great way to move through a story idea. I moved from my initial concept of a wayward Jedi after the Order 66 purge to the story of a lost Imperial pilot looking for redemption and a sense of purpose. All the characters are the same, but as I progressed from story arc to story arc, I found one that had enough legs to continue developing the idea.

My final recommendation is to give ChatGPT if you’re into creative writing. It works better, I found, for that purpose than say Anthropic’s Claude or Google’s Gemini. It’s a blast to see your ideas take shape at a much quicker pace than traditional writing approaches allow. If you want to see what I’ve conjured up in less than a week, check out the link. But word-for-word it's unedited. It’s all a stream of Star Wars consciousness. Roger’s Star Wars Fanfic Here.

Discord Reported That 70,000 Users’ Data May Have Been Compromised - DTH

Discord reported that 70,000 users’ data may have been compromised, Verizon is acquiring the millimeter wave specializing ISP Starry, and OpenAI is expanding its affordable ChatGPT Go plan in Asia.

Link to Show Notes

Europeans Fight Back Against Back Doors - DTNS 5121

Also, new Sennheiser headphones that do it all, and the Nintendo mystery is solved.

Starring Tom Merritt, and Sarah Lane.

TOM: This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, October 8, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

SARAH: Today, we fight again about encryption and back doors. This time, in Europe.

I’m Tom Merritt,

I’m Sarah Lane

TOM: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

[[BIG STORY]]
[[SOLO story of the day. Basic details, monitor commentary and sound when possible.]]

One-man spam campaign ravages EU ‘chat control’ bill – POLITICO
Europe's future is at stake: Open letter against Chat Control | CryptPad Blog
Germany will not support 'Chat Control' message scanning in the EU | The Record from Recorded Future News

TOM: Hey, Sarah. Remember the dozens of other times we have covered governments trying to get back doors into messaging systems?

The US was trying to get Apple to do it, then trying to get a law. The UK is trying to do it. And there’s a fight over a similar proposal in the EU.

The European Union is considering a proposal to fight CSAM (child sexual abuse material) proposed by the Danish president of the EU Council. It would give police the power to force messaging companies, like Signal and WhatsApp, to scan their service for illegal content. Those services would need to deploy code that could scan messages for matches to illegal content and report if it found any messages that matched a set of rules meant to identify CSAM. Signal indicated it would stop operating in Europe if the bill becomes law. More than 40 EU tech companies have signed an open letter opposing the law.

Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard says the measure is more balanced than previous proposals, and scanning would only happen as a last resort.

Joachim (YO-ah-keem), a 30-year-old software engineer living in Aalborg, Denmark, set up a website called Fight Chat Control that lets users email a warning to lawmakers about the bill. The email can be sent to national government officials, members of the European Parliament, and others. As of early October, nearly 2.5 million people have visited the website. Emails are sent by the individual's own email services, so there is no tracking of how many have been sent.

Some MEPs have reported inboxes becoming overloaded as a result.

EU member nations need to create their own positions, then bring them to the European Parliament to negotiate an EU-wide policy. So, the proposal needs to be approved by EU ambassadors on Wednesday in order to advance to the meeting of EU ministers in Luxembourg next week.

Poland's government said last week it is against the scanning of messages. German officials said Wednesday that they will vote against the proposal.

[[DISCUSS]]

SARAH: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
Ken Hays
Philip Shane
Paul Boyer

[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]

TOM: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

[[BRIEFS]]
[[3-9 more solo reads with sound to complete the day in tech news. These are informational with minor commentary.]]

Google AI Plus is now in 77 countries
Google’s latest AI model uses a web browser like you do | The Verge
Gemini Browser

SARAH: Two Google-related notes to start us off.
Google AI Plus, which gives you access to 2.5 Pro and Deep Research with a 128K token context window (among other perks), is expanding to 36 more markets, bringing it to a total of 77.
And:
Google is previewing Gemini 2.5 Computer Use, an agent that can navigate browser interfaces designed for humans that don't have an API. It supports 13 actions, like opening the browser, typing, dragging and dropping, searching, clicking, most of the things you do in a browser. Google says it can fill out forms and be used for UI testing. Google posted a video showing the agent rearranging items in a sticky note app to be in the right categories. It's another entrant alongside ChatGPT Agent and Anthropic's Computer Use tool. Developers can get Gemini 2.5 Computer Use in Vertex AI and Google AI Studio, and there’s a demo on Browserbase that can do things like play the game "2048" and browse Hacker News for trending debates.

Mastodon snags Bluesky’s starter packs feature and includes the ability to opt out | The Verge

TOM: Mastodon announced it is developing "Packs" similar to Bluesky's "Starter Packs," which contain a curated list of accounts related to a particular category of posting types. Mastodon's version will notify you when you've been included in a pack and let you opt out, without having to block or report a user. The feature will launch in Mastodon 4.6. The current version is 4.4. Mastodon hopes to make them available to all ActivityPub apps at some point.

Sennheiser's HDB 630 headphones combine wireless convenience with wired lossless audio

SARAH: Sennheiser launched the HDB 630 wireless noise-canceling headphones that support lossless listening when wired. So yes, you can use them wirelessly or not. They plug in through USB-C or a 3.5mm port. And there's a USB-C dongle that lets you use aptX Adaptive for high-quality wireless audio, if your device doesn't support it already. Your choice. The HDB 630s use the Momentum 4 chassis but have a new acoustic system, including 42mm dynamic drivers and a high-resolution digital audio engine. Battery life is up to 60 hours with active noise canceling, and a ten-minute charge adds 7 hours of listening. They also come with an airline adapter. You can order now for $499.95, shipping on October 21st.

Boox’s next smartphone-sized e-reader has a color screen and a stylus | The Verge

TOM: Boox posted more details on Weibo for the Boox P6 Pro e-reader that it teased at IFA in September. It's a smartphone-sized device with an e-ink screen that you can get in black and white or color. It also has a stylus and microSD card slot that can double as a SIM-card tray for data connections, though we don't know if that will include SMS or calls. However, it can access the Google Play Store and run apps like WhatsApp and Zoom. It's expected to launch in China on October 9th.

TOM: And finally, some quick headlines that are just good to know if you want to understand the news in the future.

Nintendo Reveals Mysterious Animated Short is Indeed a New Pikmin Tease - IGN

SARAH: The mystery is solved. Nintendo's mysterious short film about a magic baby now shows an army of Pikmin. No word on what kind of Pikmin project to expect.

Today's Steam outage may have been part of a massive DDoS attack targeting Xbox, PlayStation, Riot, and other game companies | PC Gamer

TOM: Thanks to KAPT_Kipper for posting this on the DTNS Subreddit. A Steam outage yesterday was part of a massive DDoS attack, possibly through the Aisuru botnet, that also targeted Xbox, PlayStation, Riot Games and Epic.

UFS 5.0 announced with double the performance over the previous generation - GSMArena.com news

SARAH: The Joint Electron Device Engineering Council announced the UFS 5.0 flash storage standard has been finalized, with speeds of 10.8GB per second, up from 5.8GB per second in UFS 4.1.

Synology reverses its hard drive policy, but it might be too late

TOM: Synology says it has worked with drive makers to certify third-party drives for use in its 2025 model Synology NAS systems, starting with the DSM 7.3 software update, available now.

Ransomware Gang Qilin Claims Hack That Hit Beermaker Asahi - Bloomberg

SARAH: Russian-speaking attackers have claimed responsibility for the ransomware attack on Asahi Breweries, which temporarily halted production and caused some convenience stores in Japan to run short on Asahi beer.

TiVo Confirms It Has Stopped Making DVRs, Marking the End of an Era | Cord Cutters News

TOM: You may have thought this was already the case, but here’s a statement to CordCuttersNews from TiVo: “As of September 30, 2025, TiVo stop selling EDGE DVR products, including hardware and accessories, both online and through agents. TiVo, and its partners, no longer manufacture TiVo DVR hardware, and our remaining inventory is now depleted.”

[[PROMO]]

TOM: We do live streams! Catch them by becoming a subscriber at youtube.com/dailytechnewsshow.

[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]

[[HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND]]
[[Short missives from people with experience. Could be written email or pre-recorded from the person.]]

SARAH: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today, Andrew reports on AirPods Pro translation

TOM:
Hi Tom , Jen & The Gang,

I was sitting in a Tim Hortons 🇨🇦 (with tea 🫖 & biscuit 🍪 , I’m 🇬🇧 born). When a bunch of French Canadian construction 🦺 workers sat near me. Oh darn I should of updated my AirPods Pro 2 to OS 26 for the translation function, so I could understand “better“ what they were saying but then realised they was lot of French Canadian 🇨🇦 swear words (they were Fing & Blinding in 🇬🇧 slang) being said. I started laughing, as I wondered what Siri would make of those *%#£ words?

Cheers
Andrew R
Montreal 🇨🇦

[[DISCUSS]]

SARAH: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

TOM: Thanks to Andrew for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron, atPatreon.com/dtns.

Tesla's New "Affordable" Model Y And 3 Face Skepticism Due To High Costs - DTH

Tesla's new "affordable" Model Y and 3 face skepticism due to high costs, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate price increase is paused in specific markets, and Google's new Gemini 2.5 Computer Use model helps AI agents interact with user interfaces more effectively.

Link to Show Notes

Is Top 5 Dead? - Editors Desk

The short answer is no, but Tom explains. Plus more info on new programming and thoughts on a Samsung fridge dilemma!

Jesse

editors desk questions. is top 5 done? weve heard something about sarahs new dog will she be telling us more? will scott be a regular on dtns live or a rarity?

----

Hi Tom,

Here's a few questions (for the editor's desk?) that I'm finally getting around to sending. Sorry for sending so many at once. Feel free to address each one if and when you see fit.

1) I've been meaning to ask this for a while and I apologize if you've covered it before:

I often notice significant differences in the audio levels between different podcasts. For example, The Editor's Desk seemed to have much lower audio levels than the main DTNS feed. It might be better the last few months so maybe you addressed it. It was a really noticeable when I was driving. The volume would need to be higher to hear The Editor's Desk then when the next DTNS episode came on it was too loud.

Anyway, are there "standards" for audio levels that you apply or are there industry standards for broadcasts, for example?

2) I know that you have different domains for different shows. Do you have a provider that can redirect email sent to different domains to a common set of emailboxes to manage? Who is it? (I'm looking to do something like that myself).

3) I've been a listener for over 10 years and really like the show, hosts, and guests. I used to listen to GDI and liked that format since, if I didn't have a lot of time, I could skip the last 30 mins or so after the news was done (I listened to the whole hour most of the time). The switch to DTNS Live seemed to be a pretty reasonable substitute for me. I really like the Live format since it feels like I get to know a little more about the people presenting the information along with their views and experiences on some of the topics.

Since the changes at the beginning of September, none of the feeds really match my listening profile. I mostly listen when I'm driving or mowing and like to just start a feed and let it run through each episode in chronological order. DTH is generally too brief, but if I don't have a lot of time and have gotten far behind, I do listen to it to catch up on the current headlines and then listen to the other feeds if I have more time.

The "DTNS" feed seems to have everything in it, but it does take forethought and quite a bit of time to curate that feed before starting an extended listening session like a road trip.

This is just feedback on my experience with the changes. It's still a great product and I'm going continue to listen and remain a patron. I don't enjoy any of the new feeds as much as I did GDI/DTNS Live, but I do like the information and format.

4) I haven't quite figured out all the new streams so here's a couple of questions:

On days when there is a DTNS Live, does the content overlap with DTNS Briefing? Is DTNS Briefing just referred to as "DTNS" now?

Is the "DTNS" feed still the "everything" feed?

Thanks to you and the team for putting in the effort and providing what I find to be a valuable and entertaining product.

Thanks,

Mike

----

Hello Tom, Sarah, Roger, Robb, et al.,

Listening to the editor's desk from September 30, I am realizing that I'm not alone in making adjustments to how I listen to DTNS. Prior to September, I would consistently listen to DTNS Live and the Bonus Episodes feed (Editor's Desk, etc.) and skip DTH and the briefing. That meant as an example of an exception that I would listen to DTH on holidays when Live and Briefing were off for the well deserved break.

For the past month, I shifted to the all shows feed and am realizing that while I can keep up with Live with It, Editor's Desk, DTNS Live (Thursdays), DTH, and DTNS, the Monday, Tuesday, and Friday office hours and hangouts leave me too much to listen to. I'm tempted to change back to the individual feeds and drop DTH (except holidays and weekends) as that generally is mostly included in Briefing or the Thursday Live show. Do you have thoughts on this? While writing this email, I went to Patreon to review what is in each feed, and I think I will end up switching away from the entire feed. You mentioned something in the editor's desk that there is a lot of contnt on the entire DTNS feed, and I'm finding out how true that is.

I use Apple's Podcast app and use stations to organize how I listen to podcasts. My plan is to subscribe to everything, but what will show up in my podcast stations will be DTNS, DTNS Bonus Episodes, and Live With It. I do want to listen to each one of those episodes. For DTH and DTNS Live, I'll pick up particular individual episodes (DTH holidays/weekends and DTNS Live on Thursday) and include them in my podcast listening queue manually. I'll see how that works.

Thanks for always listening to feedback and reporting back to us on it.

Thanks, Tom (aka TomSaysGoChiefs on Twitch)

-----

Chris

It's a +1 for Phil's email from me as I think that sums up my perspective too. I've enjoyed the recent changes more than I expected. The only thing I'd add is that I've enjoyed having the office hours recordings in the live feed to dip in and out of when I have some extra time. I especially enjoyed the recent ones with Scott and Justin. If you do have someone else join you could you put their name in the title of the office hours episode? Would help me to prioritise it to listen! Thanks

----

Arthur writes

On a recent editor’s desk there were some musings about the shifting experience of subscriptions vs the stability of a hardware review. My experience with the Samsung smart fridge hardware has been anything bus stable with each software update.

It seems that with each update features come and go. For example, a few updates ago we gained Google Photos (this was a great feature which allowed us to backup our niece’s doodles which were previously locked in), however in the most recent update we will loose Google photos.

Here is a quick synopsis of the latest update:

* New voice guide (The fridge will now speak error conditions to you - value tbd)

* Ability to register more than one Samsung account (Not useful in my household)

* “Ice ball maker” updated to “Ice sphere” (a feature I have never used)

* Added News widget (U.S. only - doesn’t apply to me)

* News from CBC has been discontinued in Canada (annoying to loose yet another source of news in Canada)

* Bixby accessibility controls (we don’t use Bixby or Alexa functions on the fridge)

* Added TV Plus app (our fridge is not positioned to be viewed from a seated position)

* Discontinued: Google Photos (We had this feature for a year at best….)

* Discontinued: Trivia (not a used feature, but could have been fun)

* Discontinued: ViewInside Food recognition (Seriously one of the main reasons we bought a smart fridge)

Learning that Samsung is planning to put ads on the screen of this very expensive fridge would be the last straw for me. I would 110% join or start a class action if they try to force ads into my home. The only thing that pulls me back from the edge is my decision to run a pihole on the home network.

I’m frustrated to the point that I don’t think I’ll bother applying this update, or any future update. I’ve long considered that a downfall of a fridge with a tablet built into the door is the potential security hole when the manufacturer stops support; but here I am ending support all by myself.

Looping back around to Live With It on subscriptions - I say go for it! We live in an ever changing world with internet connected devices.

Nobel Prize for Quantum Tunneling Breakthrough - DTNS 5120

OpenAI Dev Day brings broader app integration support into ChatGPT, and a fitness sensor kit by Output Sports that replaces expensive diagnostic equipment.

Starring Jason Howell, Tom Merritt, and Darragh Whelan.

JASON: This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, October 7, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

TOM: Today Darragh Whelan tells us about a small fitness sensor kit that replaces large and expensive diagnostic equipment, and quantum physicists get a Nobel prize for their work.

I’m Jason Howell,

I’m Tom Merritt.

JASON: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

BIG STORY

Nobel physics prize awarded for pioneering experiments that paved the way for quantum computers

JASON: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel prize for Physics to John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis for their experiments that demonstrated quantum tunneling in an experimental electrical circuit. Tom, what the heck does that mean?

TOM: I don’t know either. But here’s what I do know. Quantum tunneling is a phenomenon where a subatomic particle can appear on the other side of a solid barrier. The demonstration used superconducting wires, which have no resistance, interrupted by an insulator that normally impedes the flow of particles like electrons. The interrupted wire is called a Josephson junction. The scientists cooled the wire, which should reduce the number of electrons that can break through the insulation. However, if quantum tunneling is happening, after a certain point, the flow does not reduce. That's what they found. This principle is used in the creation of quantum computers. It's also used in superconducting quantum interference devices, or SQuIDs, which can measure small variations in a magnetic field. It can be used to find minerals below the surface of the Earth or detect the source of epileptic seizures in the brain. It's also used in flash memory and other transistors.

PROMO

TOM: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
Pat
Mike Cortez
Erwin Stuhr
New Patrons: Leandro and Pranay

JASON: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

BRIEFS

OpenAI wants to make ChatGPT into a universal app frontend
Ars Technica
TOM: Yesterday was the start of OpenAI Dev Days and during the keynote, CEO Sam Altman announced a few new products for ChatGPT users and developers.

OpenAI launched an SDK that turns ChatGPT into an app frontend platform. It's built on the popular open-source Model Context Protocol (MCP), meaning developers can create full-featured apps directly within ChatGPT conversations. Those integrations will happen entirely in the chat environment with interactive UI elements, real-time context sharing, and overlaid chat functionality. Launch partners include Spotify, Canva, Zillow, Expedia, and Booking.com. Uber, Doordash, Peloton, and Target are coming soon.

JASON: OpenAI also introduced AgentKit, a simplified GUI for creating specialized chatbots with a drag-and-drop building block style interface called ChatKit. The platform includes performance measurement tools, testing workflows, pre-built widgets, and information sources.

OpenAI also announced updates for its Codex coding agent, including Slack integration and improved SDK support. Sora 2, GPT5-Pro, and a smaller and cheaper version of its Real Time audio interface are also now available via API.

OpenAI also teased an "agentic commerce protocol" for instant checkout with monetization details yet to be announced.

US Supreme Court allows order forcing Google to make app store reforms
Reuters
JASON: The US Supreme Court denied Google's request for a partial stay of Judge James Donato's order that requires significant changes to its Play Store, as part of last year's Epic Games' antitrust lawsuit. Court-ordered changes are now required to go into effect by October 22, 2025. That includes allowing developers to use external payment links, informing users about alternative payment methods, and setting their own prices. Google must also stop sharing revenue in exchange for Google Play exclusivity or preinstallation. A July 2026 deadline is set for Google to open its app store catalog to competitors and enable third-party app stores inside of the Play Store. Google plans a full Supreme Court appeal by October 27.

Qualcomm is acquiring DIY electronics platform Arduino
The Verge
TOM: Qualcomm has agreed to acquire Arduino, the Italian open-source electronics platform that has been celebrated by hobbyists and educators. Qualcomm promises to keep Arduino's brand intact as well as its mission, but give it extra leverage with Qualcomm's tech portfolio. Arduino is also launching the Uno Q, a single-board computer powered by Qualcomm's Dragonwing QRB2210 chip running Linux Debian. The computer supports lightweight AI models and is preinstalled with App Lab, an "all-in-one development environment" for managing AI models, Python scripts, and Arduino Sketches. The Uno Q is available for pre-order today for $44.

California law forces Netflix, Hulu to turn down ad volumes
Politico
JASON: California signed a bill into law requiring streaming video services not to “transmit the audio of commercial advertisements louder than the video content the advertisements accompany.” US federal rules made in 2010 capped ad volume on cable and broadcast TV, but do not cover streaming. This bill closes that loophole in California. Content makers initially opposed the law, fearing legal action over the fixes they adopted, but the bill was ultimately reworked to include protections against private lawsuits. This move may set a precedent for other states.

Nintendo just released a mysterious animated short
Engadget
TOM: Nintendo released a 4-minute animated short called "Close to You" on the Nintendo Today app with no context around what it is and whether it is a teaser to something bigger. Of course, that has everyone speculating why it exists in the first place. The short is about a baby playing with a magical pacifier with no instantly recognizable characters or notable clues beyond that. Some wonder if this is a tease ahead to the Super Mario Galaxy Movie featuring a young Princess Rosalina. Others are guessing it might be teasing an upcoming Pikmin film, which has not been officially announced.

As Elon Musk Preps Tesla’s Optimus for Prime Time, Big Hurdles Remain
The Information
JASON: The Information is reporting that Tesla's plans to produce 10,000 Optimus robots for internal use by the end of 2025 has been scaled back by "several thousand." Complications related to technical challenges with the robotic hands forced Tesla to reduce its outlook this Summer.

Google hints at a new Nest Hub
The Verge
TOM: Google told The Verge that it will soon launch a new smart display. Well, what Google Home’s Anish Kattukaran said, was they would “continue to invest in that category,” referring to smart displays. They also said a lot about Gemini, so they might rebrand the Google Home Hub, with integrated Gemini AI. The Nest Hub was last refreshed in 2021, and Amazon recently introduced two new Echo Show smart displays so there is plenty to compete against. Kattukaran says it is “definitely committed to smart displays,” and that they’ll “have news to share there soon.”

TOM: Those are the essentials for today. Let’s dive a little deeper.

DIVE A LITTLE DEEPER

JASON: I’ve been sharing conversations from my trip to Dublin, Ireland, where I met with startups pushing the edge of sports tech innovation. Today, we wrap up that series of interviews with my chat with Output Sports co-founder Darragh Whelan, and we talk about how his company is turning elite sports science into something you can fit in your pocket with a powerful and flexible performance-tracking sensor.
[TRT - 11:40]

TOM: Join in the conversation in our Discord, which you can join by linking to a Patreon account at patreon.com/dtns.

HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND

We end every episode of DTNS by hearing from you. Today, Kevin just has nice things to say.

Hey DTNS Crew, I really enjoyed the monthly recap episode. It was nice to look back and reflect on the month we just had. I liked pulling in AI to get its opinion. Another segment that might be interesting is a “biggest non-tech news story” (and maybe non-political) just to see the big story that didn’t make your lists. Maybe talk about why it didn’t fit your rundown; maybe give some opinions on it. Always love the show!

—Kevin from Milwaukee

JASON: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

JASON: Thanks to Darragh Whelan and Kevin for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron, atPatreon.com/dtns

OpenAI Unveils Interactive Applications Directly Within ChatGPT - DTH

OpenAI unveils Interactive Applications directly within ChatGPT, Anthropic and IBM teamed up to put Anthropic's Claude AI models into IBM's software, and India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will allow payments to be approved using facial recognition and fingerprints.

Link to Show Notes