FCC Bans Foreign Drones; Alexa+ Now Works With Several Additional Services; iOS 26.3-AirPods Like Pairing for 3rd Party Devices Under EU’s DMA; OpenAI & Google Chatbots Still Make Deepfakes of Women-But Bikinis Not Bare

Posted: December 23, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The FCC has effectively banned foreign drones. Mashable.com reports that the ban includes the most popular drones out there, the ones from China’s DJI. DJI presently has some 90% of the world drone market. The ban includes components, too…so even building them in another country besides China is not going to get them into the US. The FCC claims the ban is for national security…it seems that horse has been out of the barn for a number of years, however. One bright spot…According to the FCC, those who already own drones will not be affected by the ban. Consumers in the U.S. can continue to own and operate their DJI drones or any other drones made by companies affected by the blacklist. Additionally, retailers can continue to sell drone models and products from blacklisted companies that have already been approved for sale.

Amazon is making Alexa+ work with several additional services in 2026. According to TechCrunch.com, you will be able to use Alexa+ with Angi, Expedia, Square, and Yelp. Now, if you need home handy services, or want to book a hotel, or the like…you have more options. I would note that not all AI assistants and chatbots are as useful as they should be yet. Yesterday, I called a pharmacy to refill a couple of prescriptions. Instead of just keying in my information and getting it confirmed, the overly solicitous chat bot took at least twice as long to get the job done. Hopefully, they will get better!

It shouldn’t have taken a law to make it happen, but the European Union’s Digital Markets Act has pushed Apple to bring AirPods like pairing to third party devices. Macrumors.com notes that the change comes in iOS 26.3. This means gadgets like 3rd party earbuds will be able to pair with an iOS device just by bringing them close to the iPhone or whatever iIOS product, and the simple, one-tap pairing will begin. In addition, 3rd party smart watches will now be able to get notifications from an iPhone. I have an Apple Watch, and use this feature all the time. With the phone always on mute…due to on-air obligations, and not wanting a phone ringing or buzzing on-air, I can just glance at the watch and see who is calling or texting, and call them back after I am finished on air. For fans of other smart watches that aren’t Apple’s, this will be a really nice feature. The ear bud pairing is cool, but really a one-time use feature…then you just use them as always…but without a big pairing hassle. 

It’s a step in the right direction, but still creepy. While there are nasty deepfake making sites still operating, mainstream AI has generally blocked making nude photos of people. Ah, but even the big ones are still not completely free of creepiness. Both Google and OpenAI chatbots will still make deepfakes of women in bikinis. Wired.com reports that one had been spotted on Reddit. After being notified of this, Reddit removed the offending image. Of mainstream chatbots, only xAI’s Grok still allows making not safe for work images. Google just strengthened its guardrails for Gemini last month in an effort to block sexually explicit content…which would include bikini deepfakes. OpenAI’s ChatGPT users are prohibited from altering someone else’s likeness without consent and that the company takes action against users generating explicit deepfakes, including account bans. As with all things computing, people are always going to find ways around the guardrails. It’s like the radar detectors vs police radar…a constant battle. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

TikTok-Digital Gift Card Launch; Alphabet Has Acquired a Data Center Company; Nvidia H200 Shipments to China Start in February; Waymo Robo-taxis Rolling Again in San Francisco

Posted: December 22, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

TikTok is coming after Amazon and eBay, as they have just launched digital gift cards. TechCrunch.com reports that the cards will allow friends and family to choose to buy items from the millions of products featured on the app. The cards can be denominated anywhere from $10 to $500. They can be personalized with animations, and besides the holidays, they can be configured for birthdays, thank-yous, weddings, and other occasions. Right now, the digital gift cards are only available in the US. 

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has picked up Intersect, a “data center and energy infrastructure” company that aims to provide additional support for building out its capacity for AI. According to 9to5google.com, Alphabet is paying $4.75 billion in cash for the company, and also assumes its debt. Intersect itself will remain under its own brand- separate from both Google and its parent company. Alphabet has had a minority stake in Intersect since December 2024. They are building a power center and data center in Texas, which is included in the deal. 

Nvidia plans to start shipping H200 chips to China by mid-February. Reuters.com says Nvidia intends to ship a total of 5,000 to 10,000 chip modules…equivalent to around 40,000 to 80,000 H200 AI chips. Nvidia has also told Chinese clients it plans to ramp up production capacity for the chips by the second quarter of 2026. Right now, all they are waiting on is final government approval. Allowing shipment of these chips was banned during the Biden administration, so letting Nvidia sell to China is a big reversal. It is worth noting that the H200 chips are not the most advanced ones Nvidia makes, the newer Blackwell models are the latest and greatest, and they are already ramping up for the Rubin line of chips, which will be their next top of line AI chips. 

After a power outage Saturday that affected about a third of San Francisco, and which befuddled Waymo cars, the robo-taxis are rolling again. Engadget.com notes that it was the traffic light outage that confused the Waymo vehicles. A reporter friend of mine who lives in the City posted a couple pics…one of a stalled Waymo in an intersection, and another with THREE stalled out at an intersection! This just added to the gridlock of traffic lights being out. Waymo suspended service Saturday, but was able to bring them back online today as only a few thousand people remain without power, and traffic signals are working. Waymo noted that their system is supposed to treat malfunctioning traffic lights as a 4 way stop, but with officers directing traffic and the gridlock and confusion, a number just halted and turned their flashers on. Waymo says it is working on a fix in the event this happens again (which it will.) Elon Musk tried to snark on X that Tesla’s robo-taxis did just fine…but that was just b.s., as Musk’s cars are all required to have a human driver behind the wheel. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Google’s Gemini 3 Flash-Pro Level Performance; Amazon in Talks to Pump $10 Billion into OpenAI; Trump Administration Wants to Break Up Climate Research Center; Bluesky Bows Privacy-Focused ‘Find Friends’ Feature

Posted: December 17, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Google has rolled out Gemini 3 Flash for consumers and developers. 9to5google.com reports that Google says this brings pro level performance with it. They are also claiming it will bring “frontier intelligence built for speed at a fraction of the cost.”  Google says that Gemini 3 Flash surpasses 2.5 across the board, and 3 Flash is comparable to 3 Pro, even beating it in some areas. Gemini 3 Flash will be available in the model picker as two options: “Fast” for quick answers and “Thinking” for complex problems. Gemini 3 Pro will appear as “Pro” for advanced math and code prompts. 

As tech giants continue to pump unimaginable amounts of cash into artificial intelligence. Now, Amazon is in talks to invest $10 billion in OpenAI and supply its Trainium chips. According to engadget.com, this deal would push OpenAI’s valuation over $500 billion but is likely to raise more questions about the company’s circular investment agreements involving chips and data centers. The new deal would require OpenAI to use Amazon’s Trainium AI chips and rent more data center capacity from Amazon Web Services (AWS). That’s on top of the $38 billion that OpenAI has already committed to renting servers from AWS over the next seven years. As has been reported widely…and caused a lot of concern…OpenAI has thus far lost more money than it makes.

The Trump administration’s head of the Office of Management and Budget…and key author of Project 2025…Russell Vought…has moved to break up a major climate research center. Arstechnica.com says it’s the National Center for Atmospheric Research. This is what has been termed a crippling blow to climate research in the US and is being widely decried by scientists.Vought has called it “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.” He apparently isn’t intelligent enough about climate change to understand that we are at or near a hair on fire stage of climate change. Vought wants to further target what were termed “green new scam research activities.” It is rather amazing and terrifying that one person or a small group of people may be able to bring about the end of humanity…although they will comfortably not live long enough to see that spiral really gain speed. Good luck, humans.

Bluesky has rolled out a friend-finding feature that they say respects privacy. TechCrunch.com notes that there is a rub people may not care for: to use the feature, the app matches you with friends from your saved contacts in your phone’s address book…but only if both people have opted in. “Contact import has always been the most effective way to find people you know on a social app, but it’s also been poorly implemented or abused by platforms,” the company explained in its announcement. “Even with encryption, phone numbers have been leaked or brute-forced, sold to spammers, or used by platforms for dubious purposes. We weren’t willing to accept that risk, so we developed a fundamentally more secure approach that protects your data.” That’s great. I love Bluesky, and trust them more than other platforms…but I never have and don’t intend to willingly upload my contacts list! If you want to…have at it!

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

RAM Prices Hit Phones-Apple Will Come Out Better; Meta AI Glasses Can Help You Hear; LG Forces Copilot on Smart TVs; Senators Probe AI Tech Giants over Electric Bills

Posted: December 16, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

We have talked about it here…hell, everyone has that covers tech. The AI boom is gobbling up RAM chips and the prices are through the roof, and there are shortages. Now, it is starting to hit consumer products like smartphones. Appleinsider.com reports that The revised forecast expects global smartphone shipments to fall about 2% year over year, reversing earlier expectations for modest growth. Memory costs are the primary driver, with Counterpoint Research pointing to supply tightness and aggressive pricing from memory vendors. That said, Apple’s iPhone is in pretty good shape to weather the shortage and price bump better than their competitors. For one thing, Apple can absorb higher component costs more effectively than other makers, while preserving margins. Expect many of the Android phone makers to have to hike prices, or cut specs…or even cut back their product lines a bit. Budget phones…the ones that sell for under $200…have already seen prices jump 20-30% since early 2025. Mid-range phones are up in prices in the teens. The high-end flagships have seen much smaller, but still notable jumps in price. Of the Android phones, Samsung should be better off than most in holding the price line. Like Apple, they have long term supply deals on pricing. Even so, both Samsung and Apple will see a small drop in sales this year. 

Meta has released an update to its AI that lets you hear people better in a noisy environments. According to techcrunch.com, the feature will initially be available on Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HSTN smart glasses in the US and Canada. Besides the improved hearing in a noisy environment, the update can play you a song by an artist if you are looking at an album cover by them. You can also get Christmas music if you are looking at your Christmas tree. Ho, ho, ho…can you say feature only useful for a few weeks a year? Ok, a bit snarky here. Actually, the clearer hearing of a conversation with someone in a noisy environment will be pretty useful if it really works. So far, the AI that is supposed to do this in hearing aids really doesn’t do any better than without the AI…but we’ll see how Meta’s update works out. 

A fair number of people really don’t like Microsoft Copilot on their computers. If you are one of those, you may want to steer clear of LG smart TVs. Mashable.com notes that LG is baking Copilot into their smart TVs, and it can NOT be deleted. You can hide it from the home screen, but it is still there, lurking in the background. The un-deletable Copilot was first mentioned on Reddit, at r/mildlyinfuriating. So far, the post has gotten some 36,000 upvotes and thousands of comments…most from people irritated at the unremovable Copilot. The problem is…what can an AI assistant app really do for you on your TV that you can’t do yourself better and faster? Apparently, most of the Redditors that have noticed the Copilot think ‘not much.’

A side effect of the great AI boom and all those data centers…besides causing a shortage of memory chips…is that it takes a huge amount of power to run all those server farms. Guess what? Electric bills are up. Now, geekwire.com reports three Democratic Senators have sent letters to Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta…and 3 data center firms. The senators are concerned about tech giants and their AI push raising residential electric bills. For its part, Amazon put out a white paper Tuesday saying that its data centers aren’t the problem, and that in some regions it actually pays more than required for energy use. The investigations come amid a general rise in household expenses, making the allocation of utility costs particularly contentious. Residential electricity costs nationwide are on the rise, according to federal data. Power bills rose more than 7% on average when comparing September rates to a year earlier. The senators are Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

UK Wants Explicit Images Blocked Unless Age Verification; Grok Got Critical Facts Wrong About Bondi Beach Shooting; Google Translate-Live Translation Rolls Out to Headphones; iRobot Files for Bankruptcy

Posted: December 15, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Here we go again…Apple and Google will be ‘encouraged’ soon to build nudity-detection algorithms into their software by default, as part of the UK government’s strategy to tackle violence against women and girls. Macrumors.com reports that Home Office officials want device operating systems to prevent any nudity from being displayed unless users can verify that they’re adults through biometric checks or official ID. These efforts usually work about as well as Bullwinkle the Moose trying to pull a rabbit out of his hat. Privacy advocates are raising the roof about the dangers of this, as well as noting that they are often ineffective. Apple currently offers Communication Safety tools that parents can activate and which detect nude photos and videos in apps like Messages, AirDrop, and FaceTime. However, teenagers can still view flagged images after dismissing an alert, while under-13s must enter a passcode.Google also provides parental controls through its Family Link feature and includes “sensitive content warnings” in Google Messages. But neither company offers system-wide nudity blocking that extends to third-party apps like WhatsApp. The UK Home office will officially unveil their proposals in a few days. 

The Grok chatbot, from Elon Musk’s xAI, apparently spread misinformation repeatedly about the mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Australia. According to techcrunch.com, the chatbot misidentified the bystander…Ahmed al Ahmed…who disarmed one of the gunmen. One post had him as an Israeli hostage, and another had him as an IT professional named Edward Crabtree. The Grok chatbot eventually corrected itself, writing that the “misunderstanding arises from viral posts that mistakenly identified him as Edward Crabtree, possibly due to a reporting error or a joke referencing a fictional character.” 

Google’s live translate, powered by Gemini AI, is now rolling out in Translate for Android and iOS apps. It will now work with headphones. 9to5google.com notes that the live translation works between English and almost 20 other languages. With Gemini, the translation won’t be literal word for word, but will be what Google calls a ‘more natural, accurate translation.’ It will work with any pair of headphones, and the beta is being released in the US, Mexico, and India starting today. 

The maker of Roomba, iRobot, has filed for bankruptcy. The automatic vacuum maker will be taken over by its Chinese supplier, according to Financial Times. The company was just undercut too much by cheaper rivals. iRobot was started way back in 1990 by some engineers from MIT. They have sold over 40 million devices, primarily Roomba vacuums. Amazon had looked at buying iRobot, but was thwarted by European Regulators. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Australian Kid Social Ban Starts; Nvidia Says China Isn’t Using Smuggled Top Chips; Petco Pulls Vetco Site-Customer Info Hacked; AI Boom Could Inflate GPU Prices Soon

Posted: December 10, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Australia has become the first country to ban teens under 16 years old from social media. BBC.com reports that as of today, kids in the country have awakened to find their accounts have gone dark. As you might assume, a substantial number of kids there have already figured out work arounds, and are continuing to doomscroll on social media…and will until they are caught. At that point, they will find another hack. As you might imagine, tech companies are quite unhappy with this new law…which requires Meta, TikTok, and YouTube to take ‘reasonable steps’ to make sure the underaged Australians don’t have accounts on their platforms. Many global leaders cheered the ban, claiming it is necessary to protect children from harmful content and algorithms – though critics have argued blanket prohibition is neither practical nor wise. Count me as one of the critics that finds it impractical…how many memes and stories are there about kids helping parents or grandparents to use tech? The kids are smart and learn much more quickly than adults. The bans won’t work…in Australia or anywhere else. 

After a report hit that said China was using smuggled top line Nvidia Blackwell chips in AI startup DeepSeek, Nvidia has put out a statement refuting the story. according to CNBC.com, the statement from Nvidia said in part, “We haven’t seen any substantiation or received tips of ‘phantom data centers’ constructed to deceive us and our OEM partners, then deconstructed, smuggled, and reconstructed somewhere else,” a Nvidia spokesperson said in a statement. “While such smuggling seems farfetched, we pursue any tip we receive.” We just reported yesterday that President Trump said Nvidia can ship its less powerful H200 chips to “approved customers” in China and elsewhere on the condition that the U.S. will get 25% of those sales. China has indicated that DeepSeek will soon have its own ‘next generation’ chips to support its AI models. 

Petco has taken a portion of its Vetco Clinics website offline. Techcrunch.com says a security lapse exposed a lot of customer personal information and info about their pets. The lapse made it possible for anyone to download the records without needing a login. Besides pet info, the files contained customer names and home addresses, email, and phone number. They also showed the clinic location the person took their pet to. All their pet info was there, too…species, breed, sex, age and medical history, prescriptions, etc. The records dated back to at least 2020. Petco didn’t disclose how many people were affected, but they will have to if it was more than 500, under California law. Petco was hacked earlier this year but a hacking collective that demands a ransom, and they also had a data breach in September. 

RAM chips have already gone up dramatically in price due to AI use hoovering them up. Now, graphics cards could be next. Engadget.com reports that AMD is weighing raising the price on its 8 gig models by $20 and its 16 gig cards by $40 due to the price of GDDR6 memory. NVIDIA, meanwhile, is rumored to have recently told its board partners it would no longer supply them with VRAM for their cards. On top of that, neither Nvidia nor AMD will releases new models soon…it may be the middle of next year. If you are thinking about buying a better GPU card, you’d better move fast. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Trump Says Nvidia Can Sell H200 Chips to China; Apple Silicon Chief Staying for Now; Claude Code Coming to Slack; Google Project Aura- Hopefully Not AI for Glassholes

Posted: December 9, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Donald Trump has now said he will allow Nvidia to sell the H200 AI chip to China. Gizmodo.com reports that Nvidia will still be barred from selling its more advanced Blackwell chips to China, but it’s still considered a win for the tech company since the lower quality H200 chip had been sidelined by the Chinese government for supposedly not being powerful enough. There are still some conditions surrounding the ability to sell the chips, and in addition China has just said it may not allow purchase of them anyway…as it tries to get chipmakers there to make their own AI chips that are competitive with US silicon. 

There has been an exodus from Apple unlike any in recent memory lately. A number of top players have jumped ship for higher paying jobs or what they see as opportunities to move ahead. One who isn’t leaving…for now…is Apple’s silicon chief Johny Srouji. He had been ‘seriously considering’ leaving, but has decided to stay. This is great news for Cupertino, after losing their AI chief, their environmental chief, and General Counsel…in addition to a top software designer. 

Anthropic is launching Claude Code in Slack…allowing developers to delegate coding tasks directly from chat threads. Techcrunch.com says it is available now as a beta, and builds on Anthropic’s existing Slack integration by adding full workflow automation. This signals that AI coding assistants are moving out of integrated development environments and morphing into collaboration tools that will live where teams already work. For Slack’s part, it can position itself as an ‘agentic hub’ that could shape how software teams work. 

Google just held a livestream this week on its Android YouTube channel, and they unveiled new Galaxy XR capabilities, AND teased Android XR smart glasses that should be available next year. Bgr.com reports that Project Aura will be glasses that Google didn’t preview last spring. We already knew they were working on some screen less glasses and some with a display. Project Aura is a different animal….they are wired XR glasses. The glasses connect to a smartphone like puck that you keep in your pocket or on a desk. The puck supports touch input, much like a mouse. The glasses will effectively let you run a virtual Android XR computer anywhere you are. You can see the world around you while operating a private computing experience. This is quite a volley across the bow of Apple, which has a great…but big and heavy VR headset. As with their other glasses, Google will be partnering with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. The first AR glasses will launch in 2026…and Google says even the Project Aura glasses will be available next year!

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Android Warns if Scammer Asks to Share Screen; iPhone Testing Under Screen Face ID; OpenAI Brags of Time Savings for Workers; ICEBlock Sues Trump Administration for Censorship

Posted: December 8, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Google has a new feature for in-call scam protection. Bgr.com reports that should you be on a call and share your screen with someone…then open a financial application like one of your bank apps, the feature in Android will check to see if the person you are talking with is in your contacts. If not, Android will pop up a warning that the call is likely a scam. It is hoped that this will stop a lot of social engineering attacks that allow bad buys to steal your info and drain money out of your bank accounts. The feature has been released in the UK first as a pilot program, but it appears to be a big success…so look for it in a release in the US soon. 

A new leak says Apple is now actively testing under-screen FaceID for next year’s iPhone 18 Pro models…using a special ‘spliced micro-transparent glass’ window built into the display. according to macrumors.com, a Chinese leaker going by ’Smart Pikachu’ is the source. This source has previously put out accurate supply chain details on Chinese Android hardware. This does confirm what a report from the Information put out in May of this year saying that the upcoming iPhone won’t have a dynamic island…just a pinhole in the upper left corner of the screen. Others say there will still be a dynamic island, but the pill shape will be smaller. We will know for sure in September.

For those who have continued to ask ‘What can AI really do for me,’ OpenAI has put out new data extolling the virtues of ChatGPT in enterprise use. TechCrunch.com says that the report from OpenAi shows 8 times growth in usage since November 2024, and close to 36% of us businesses using ChatGPT enterprise…compared to 14.3% for competitor Anthropic. OpenAI says based on the data that participants are saving 40 to 60 minutes a day with their enterprise products. This doesn’t take into consideration the amount of time spent learning the systems, prompting, or correcting the AI output though!

The ICEBlock app developers have sued the Trump administration for censorship and ‘unlawful threats. NPR notes that a suit filed in federal court today…Monday…in D.C. asks a judge to declare that the administration violated the First Amendment when it threatened to criminally prosecute the app’s developer and pressured Apple to make the app unavailable for download, which the tech company did in October. After Apple removed ICEBlock from the App Store, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that “we reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so.” The justice department has not commented so far. Although Apple isn’t named in the suit, the legal action claims “For what appears to be the first time in Apple’s nearly fifty-year history, Apple removed a U.S.-based app in response to the U.S. government’s demands.”  It is worth mentioning that even though the app is no longer available for download, the app actually still works for those who have it. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Anthropic Moving towards One of Biggest Tech IPOs Ever; Meta Makes $7 Billion a Year from Scam Ads; New Law Could Mandate Speed Limiters on Cars; India Drops Government App Preinstall Demand on Phones

Posted: December 3, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Anthropic, backed my mighty Amazon, is moving towards what may be one of the biggest tech IPOs ever. Benzinga.com reports that the company has engaged powerhouse law firm Wilson Sonsini as it aims to set the valuation of the AI company at over $300 billion. The maker of the Claude large language model may be going public in 2026 at this rate. Rival Open AI, the makers of ChatGPT is also quietly preparing for an IPO, but no timeline has been indicated for them to go public. 

We all see them….some scammy ads on Facebook. Why does Meta allow them to continue? Money, that’s why. According to mashable.com, Meta is bringing in about $7 billion a year on scammy ads. There have been ads for an alleged AI photo editor that turned out to be malware when you downloaded it for example. Reuters did an investigation and found there were an estimated 15 billion ‘higher risk’ scam ads presented to users on Meta platforms eery day. An internal document seen by Reuters showed that around 10% of Meta’s ad revenue in 2024  “would come from ads for scams and banned goods.” According to the report from Reuters, Meta “only bans advertisers if its automated systems predict the marketers are at least 95% certain to be committing fraud” — while other likely scammers simply get charged a higher rate as punishment. Caveat emptor…let the buyer beware!

Some luxury and super car makers have limited top speeds for years…although those limits might be anywhere from 135 to 200 mph. Now state lawmakers in Wisconsin are looking at passing a law that would make some drivers install speed-limiting devices on their cars. Bgr.com notes that the bill would be aimed at people who have had at least two reckless driving convictions during a 5 year time span. The limiters would restrict the speed to no more than 20 mph above the posted speed limit. Wisconsin is #5 among states for speed related incidents. The limiter device would cost about $1700. They are including assistance in the bill for people who would be at a real hardship to afford the gadget.  

India has backed off a mandate to make smartphone makers pre-install a government app on phones. Bgr.com reports that there were concerns…even from lawmakers there…that the mandate would expand government access to users’ devices and weaken privacy protections. The anti-theft and cybersecurity protection app will remain voluntary. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Samsung Bows Trifold Galaxy Z; Amazon Releases New AI Chip; Apple AI Chief Retiring; Your Boss May See Your Google Messages

Posted: December 2, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Samsung has rolled out its Galaxy Z Trifold smartphone. The three panel phone will be available in Korea on December 12, and also will be released in China, Taiwan, Singapore, and the UAE. It won’t drop in the US until the first quarter of 2026. No pricing yet but it is widely expected to be over the $2000 price of the Z Fold two panel model. Interestingly, if you fold it improperly, it will vibrate and show an on screen alert to warn the user. It has a 10 inch inner screen, and a 6.5 inch outer screen when folded. It is a fat 12.9 millimeters closed, but a thin 3.9 mm…not counting camera bump…when unfolded. It is powered by a custom Snapdragon 8 chip, and has a 5600 mAh battery. The cameras? There’s a rear 12 MP ultra wide, a 200 MP wide angle lens, and a 10 MP telephoto lens. The main screen and cover screen both have 10 MP front cameras. 

Amazon Web Services, which has been building its own AI training chips for some time now, just introduced a new version known as Trainium3. According to TechCrunch.com, the 3 nanometer process chip brings a big performance jump from the last generation. Amazon says it is 4 times faster, and has 4 times more memory. The chips are also 40% more energy efficient. Also important…the Trainium4 chips are in development. That future generation will be able to interoperate and extend their performance with Nvidia GPUs while still using Amazon’s homegrown lower-cost server rack technology. 

Apple’s head of AI John Giannadrea is leaving the position, and will retire from Apple in 2026. Macrumors.com notes that he will serve as an advisor until his retirement. His replacement is an AI researcher that used to work for Microsoft…Amar Subramanya…who will step in as Apple’s VP of AI. Besides Microsoft, Amar spent 16 years at Google, where he was head of engineering for Google’s Gemini Assistant. This all comes in the wake of iOS 18’s major Siri failure. Apple is reportedly partnering with Google for a more advanced version of Siri and other planned Apple Intelligence features. 

Google has added a new app to company-managed Pixel phones that allows IT administrators to see all the RCS messages sent and received on specific devices. Androidpolice.com reports that this only applies to Pixels that are owned by companies. The purpose is a bit less nefarious than at first glance. It is to satisfy regulatory requirements that make businesses archive business messages in the event of a legal discovery situation or a freedom of information requests. In the past, the info was archived by carriers, and companies didn’t have to mess with this. Now that RCS apps encrypt, that isn’t an option…so Google has rolled out this archival application. To avoid the encryption issue, the messages are archived on the phone…and IT can see them remotely. You want to avoid your private messages being seen? Use your personal phone if you are messaging your sweetie.

I’m Clark Reid and you are ‘Technified’ for now.

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