Apple Camera Air Pods Near Launch; Meta Trial-$1.4 Billion Sought for Social Media Addiction; RingCentral Breach Exposes 1.6 Million Accounts; OpenAI Cut Catastrophic Risk Team Right After Rogue Model Escaped

Posted: August 18, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It sounds like the old Google Glass…or present Meta Ray-Bans on steroids, but apparently that isn’t the direction Apple is taking with their camera equipped AirPods. Apparently, the things won’t be putting anything on any screens, just sending data to Siri to get information for you. Macrumors.com reports that it looks like camera equipped AirPods are almost ready to launch. The camera on the AirPods will feed information to ‌Visual Intelligence‌, and Siri will be able to answer questions about the wearer’s surroundings and log information. Noted analyst with Bloomberg Mark Gurman thinks the AirPods may launch as soon as September…probably with the new iPhones and Apple Watch lines.

A trial is now underway in Oakland claiming social media addiction and other harms caused by Meta Apps. Meta is the defendant, and they are being sued by dozens of states. According to engadget.com, Meta is accused of intentionally creating addictive features and violating consumer protection laws. The action came after a multi-state investigation into the company’s safety practices that officials said revealed serious harms to children and teens. California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey haven’t publicly disclosed how much they plan to seek. But Meta said in a court filing ahead of the trial that states were seeking penalties as high as $1.4 trillion, an amount it described as “outlandish.” Judge Rogers has already indicated that number is “unreasonable,” according to remarks reported by Law360. But she also took issue with Meta’s proposed estimate of $4 million. I would expect that if the states win the case and on all appeals…which will take years…the amount will be in the billions, but nowhere near 1.4 trillion.The $400 million Meta has talked about…that’s a rounding error to them and basically insulting to the states. 

A group of hackers and extortionists broke in and stole the personal information of some 1.6 million RingCentral accounts. Bleepingcomputer.com says the group is ShinyHunters, and the hack happened in July. It was noted on Have I Been Pwned. RingCentral is a cloud-based collaboration and communication platform used by over 600,000 businesses for services such as calling, messaging, and voicemail. RingCentral disclosed the hack on July 28th. The company claims that there hasn’t been any further intrusion since they discovered they were hacked and took remediation efforts. They said in a statement if you haven’t been contacted by them already you aren’t affected. When RingCentral refused to pay a ransom for the data, the cyber criminals leaked a compressed archive with 280 gigs of files on their dark web site. 

It sounds unreal, but OpenAI disbanded its Catastrophic Preparedness team weeks after a rogue model escaped and hacked Hugging Face. Thenextweb.com notes that OpenAI disputes this. The AI firm claims that they moved the responsibilities to senior staffers on existing teams. It seems to be splitting hairs, but the team was disbanded in July, and the restraints weren’t put on the model until August. The model had been into Hugging Face for months before it was caught. US and British government regulators are demanding answers about how OpenAI and other AI firms will handle this sort of thing in the future. The former head of super alignment for OpenAI, who left in 2024, stated simply that the company was ignoring safety in favor of building shiny products. I hope we are all ready to follow the commands of our shiny AI overlords. 

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

Apple Will Drop Down to 15% Cut on Outside App Store Purchases; YouTube Starts Counting Views Earlier; First Test Flight of Large Electric Plane-$5 Electricity Cost; Anthropic Watermark System-Some Users Really Angry

Posted: August 17, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Under the gun from the US District Court of Northern California to reduce their cut of purchases, Apple has now proposed commissions of 15% from standard apps, and larger discounts for developers enrolled in special Apple Programs. TechCrunch.com reports that small business developers would pay a 5% commission on payments. Developers in the Video Partner Program, News Partner Program, and Mini Apps Partner Program would pay 10%. Subscription renewals would also be reduced to 10%. All this is in Apple’s court filing. Cupertino had delayed and appealed, but last week the Supreme Court rejected Apple’s plea to pause the lower court action. This all flows from the lawsuit that has been ongoing for years brought by Epic Games. Apple had been taking a 30% cut originally….a pretty hefty commission.

YouTube is getting set to start counting views as soon as a video starts to play, aligning them with what Instagram, TikTok, and their own Shorts do. According to theverge.com, X still doesn’t count a view until a couple seconds have passed. YouTube will keep their original view counting method, but it will be under an ‘engaged views’ metric. 

This is some pretty exciting news. The first test flight of a large-sized electric airplane has been completed, and it only used $5 worth of electricity! Arstechnica.com notes that the plane was the Heart Aerospace X1. How long did it fly on that $5 bucks? A half hour. That would work out to a 4 hour flight costing about $40 in electricity…a hell of a lot cheaper than Jet A fuel. The X1 plane is the size of a regional plane like fly between a couple of close cities frequently. It is noticeably quieter than a jet…the plane is a propeller craft though, not a jet. It has a range of 500 miles…plenty for those commuter hops between cities. When I fly from Denver to Colorado Springs, it is always on one of the small Canadair regional jets flown by a subsidiary of the likes of United or Delta. That’s 15 minute flight, so figure the fuel cost would be $2.50. Will airlines buy these and charge less for those flights? I won’t hold my breath…but if it keeps them from raising ticket prices, that would be cool.

Anthropic has stirred up a hornet’s nest with some users, as it has announced a controversial watermarking system. On Friday, the company put out a blog post trying to justify it. Gizmodo.com says that the watermarking is intended to comply with the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act. The watermarking will make it harder for users to get away with pretending they wrote AI-generated text. Apparently…according to posts on X…a number of users have cancelled their accounts over the watermarking. Anthropic claims the watermarking will not be distinguishable by users. They are basically using the same tech as Google uses in its SynthID watermarking system. Some Claude users admit that they don’t want their AI-generated work to be detected by clients and school faculty who expect work to be done by a human. I say good for Anthropic and Google. In a college situation, professors used to be able to spot something copied from Cliff’s Notes in a New York second. It’s harder with AI generated text, so the watermarking is a good thing in my opinion.

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

Google Shows Pixel 11, More; Foxconn Reports Big Profit Increase; Grok Bot is Out; Bluesky Active User Base Shrinks

Posted: August 12, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

New gadget season is well underway. Last month it was Samsung, now Google, and in September Apple. Engadget.com reports that Google has dropped 4 hew phones…Pixel 11, 11 Pro, 11 Pro XL, and 11 Pro Fold. All  the Pro models feature a new camera bar. All the new Pixels are powered by the Tensor G6, which Google says has 20% more power efficiency, 25 percent faster browsing and 15 faster app loading compared to the Tensor G5. The cams have an improved Image Signal Processor. Google is claiming all the Pixel 11 phones will run for 30 hours before you have to charge back up. With the data centers gobbling up chips, Google has had to boost prices on the short supplied chips. Expect to pay $100 more than for the Pixel 10’s. Preorders are open now, with phones shipping August 20th. 

The Pixel Watch 5 is also out, starting at $399, a $50 buck boost. You can get a Steph Curry branded version for $579. Google also shows off something new…the Pixel Tag…its first bluetooth tracker. It runs $30. It is about half again as large as an Apple Air Tag, and runs about a year on a battery, just like Apple’s. 

They have become less dependent on Apple, and profits are up at Foxconn. According to macdiailynews.com, for the quarter ending in June, the giant contract electronics manufacturer saw profits jump 35%. Interestingly, as Apple remains their biggest account, most iPhones for the US market are now built in India, rather than Taiwan or China. Meanwhile, Foxconn is expanding, building plants that make chips for AI servers. New facilities are going into Mexico and also Texas for Nvidia.

SpaceX AI has announced Grok Bot…which they say is a new kind of AI agent they describe as “AI teammates you can give real work to.” Each Bot gets its own computer, then signs into the apps and services you already use to take on work across inboxes and other tools. SpaceXAI says Bots can complete jobs end to end, only returning when approval is needed. It’s out in beta today on Mac and iOS as well as Windows and Linux for the desktop. SpaceX AI says an Android version is coming soon. Right now, it is restricted to SuperGrok Heavy, Cursor Ultra, and Cursor Teams Premium subscribers.

Bluesky’s active user base has taken a hit…dropping from almost 500 million active users down to about 300. Techcrunch.com notes that X is down too, but not as much as Bluesky. Threads, the app joined at the hip with Meta’s Instagram, has grown over 20%. The good news for Bluesky in light of this drop is that the folks that stay seem to be highly engaged. The jury is still out on whether Threads is picking up users that have basically abandoned Bluesky or if that app is getting all new users.

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

Four Top Google AI Minds Leave for Startup; Foldable Smartphone Sales to Grow 20% with Apple iPhone Ultra in Mix; SpaceX Earnings Report Spooks Investors; Desktop Linux Exceeds 10% Market Share

Posted: August 5, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Talk about brain drain…four of Google’s top AI whizzes are jumping ship to launch their own AI startup. Wired.com reports that one is Jeff Dean, who co-founded Google Brain and has been chief scientist of Google DeepMind and Google Research. Colleague Sanjay Ghemawat and two others will join him in the fledgling AI company. It is worth noting that Google will have a stake in the new company….but it is still a blow to have so much AI brainpower off on its own. The new firm is called Discovery Loop. The other big brains founding the new AI startup are Quac Le and Oriol Vinyals. Discovery Loop is aiming for making superhuman advances in a variety of fields, including chip design, biology, drug discovery, and material design.

With Apple about to enter the fray with the upcoming iPhone Ultra folder, worldwide folding smartphone sales are expected to be 20% higher than last year. According to macrumors.com, this is despite the tight supply of logic chips and price increases on memory chips due to all the AI data centers gobbling that silicon up. Folders have been around for about 8 years now, with Samsung really driving the category almost single handedly for a good share of that. Apple plans to ship some 10 million folding phones this year…not a big number compared to the total number of iPhones, but a big boost to the folding phone sector.

SpaceX’s first earnings report as a publicly traded company were out yesterday, and the company beat expectations with revenue of $7.8 billion, while analysts looked for $6.82 billion. Arstechnica.com notes that SpaceX had a net loss of about $541 billion, better than the $2.12 billion expected. Even so, shares took a 10% dump after the firm reported capital expenditures of about $16 billion on AI, double last quarter and far more than Wall Street’s expectations…AND SpaceX indicated that spending level would continue for at least 2 more quarters. SpaceX shares have lost about half their initial value from the initial public offering. Worrisome to investors…the majority of their AI revenue has come from leasing excess data center capacity to rival AI firms like Anthropic and Google. 

It may not have crossed your mind, but Linux…an operating system favored by gamers and hobbyests…has now passed 10% market share on the desktop. Zdnet.com reports that StatCounter gives the OS 10.65% of the North American market now. Almost all the growth can be blamed on the intrusive Windows 11 from Microsoft. In 2025, Linux only had about 5% of the market. ChromeOS has a bit over 2% of the desktop…and it is a so-called Linux distro. If you add that in, Linux as 12.72%. Windows is at about 60.8% in North America, while the MacOs has about 12%…roughly the same as Linux. (It should be noted that the MacOS is built on a base of Unix, as is Linux.) Linux is free and easy to install. It resembles Android in a way….infinitely customizable, and a plus is no one is pushing their AI on you if you use it. 

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

Apple AI Glasses Bow at WWDC ’27; Discord & Meta Sued as Products Not Publishers; Hugging Face Calls for ‘Radical Transparency’ After OpenAI Hack; NVIDIA Launches ‘Open Secure AI Alliance’

Posted: July 27, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Word is that Apple will show off its long rumored AI glasses at WWDC27 next June…with the specs becoming available later in 2027. 9to5mac.com reports that several things are going on at Apple as it heads towards releasing the product. One is privacy…something that has dogged smart glasses ever since the original Google Glass and the infamous ‘Glassholes,’ who were banned from restaurants and bars as people feared being videoed secretly. Apple apparently hasn’t decided whether to include cameras on the glasses…or if so, whether to limit them to just seeing and identifying things for the wearer using AI, or another alternative…having full video, but limiting where it works via software. The glasses from Cupertino won’t have any displays…at last initially, but should have the ability to capture photos, listen to music, talk to Siri, take phone calls, and more. Apple is also expected to have more stylish and attractive glasses than Meta or others. 

This seems to be a novel legal theory that may get around Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a shield against accountability. According to thenextwb.com, a woman suing Meta and Discord is not suing for defamation or publication, as she claims she was coerced as a minor into sharing sexual images. The wrinkle in this suit is that she is alleging negligence in operation, design, and failing to warn…basically using a products liability claim against the platforms. This legal theory has been used since the dawn of products liability back with McPherson vs Buick, but it is certainly novel to use it against online platforms. At this point, neither Meta nor Discord will comment on the suit, but you can be sure their legal eagles are digging in to try to fend off this unique claim. 

In the aftermath of the OpenAI advanced model escaping a walled garden and hacking Hugging Face to get the answers to queries it was assigned, the CEO of Hugging Face has called for ‘radical transparency’, asking OpenAI to  “release the traces from the ‘rogue’ agents so the entire research community can study what happened.” TechCrunch.com notes that the Hugging Face CEO, Clem Delangue, also calls for “more capabilities for defenders,” demanding that OpenAI commit $100 million worth of computing power “to help the Hugging Face community build powerful cyber defenses with the best open and closed models.” Except for Elon Musk still claiming that large language models will be super intelligent in the next 5 years, most actual AI experts don’t see that happening…but this escape has really been alarming. The OpenAI model even left notes for future versions to use to hack out of the walled garden and into the internet and then onward into other systems.

NVIDIA has put together the Open Secure AI Alliance, with the goal of strengthening cybersecurity. Engadget.com reports that there are 27 founding members, including Microsoft, SpaceX, Dell, The Linux Foundation, and of course NVIDIA. The group argues that to best defend against attacks in the age of AI models like Anthropic’s Mythos 5, security researchers need access to both open and closed frontier models. As a prime example, NVIDIA cited OpenAI’s recent rogue attack on Hugging Face. Hugging face first tried to use closed commercial frontier models to find and repel the hack, but its requests triggered safety guardrails and were refused. It then switched to open source models and managed to stop the attack. The group is also calling on governments to work with companies on shared open AI infrastructure investments.

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

Google Frozen Chip-Gemini Baked In; TSMC is Hastening Arizona Factory Build; YouTube Clarifies AI Slop Policies; Apple Genius Bar-Now with AI Summary for Customers

Posted: July 20, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Google is trying something a bit radical. They are baking Gemini right into chips. The chip is the ‘Frozen V2’, at least internally. Thenextweb.com reports that up to now, AI firms have just loaded their models on to general purpose chips. With Gemini baked in, the Google chips could be 6 to 10 times more efficient than their latest custom AI chips…at least measured by tokens served per unit of power. Google plans to have the chips in use by 2028. The chips will be faster, more efficient, and that will reduce cost. There is a big caveat, though….chips with today’s Gemini AI baked in may be pretty dated by 2028, if AI keeps moving at the speed it has up to now. 

TSMC is pushing to accelerate capacity at its Arizona factory as the firm continues to see what they are calling a ‘multi-year mega trend’ from customers. According to cnbc.com, Taiwan Semiconductor will pump an additional $100 billion in to aggressively expand its US chipmaking footprint. This will put TSMC’s total investment in the Arizona plant at some $265 billion. 

YouTube is cracking down more on AI slop, clarifying its policies on how content on the platform can be monetized. TechCrunch.com notes that the idea is to discourage creators from using AI and other tools to make low quality content. YouTube’s new policy describes three types of videos under the broad category of ‘inauthentic content’ that can’t be monetized. YouTube says the 3 buckets are…one—generic, repetitive, or template-based content, two—off-putting or distressing content, and thirdly— any content where AI personas are used to discuss sensitive topics, like health and finance. YouTube is trying to make things a bit clearer than just ‘you’ll know it when you see it,’ as has been a long-time rule for adult content. Any YouTube channel that has too much of any of the three types of content will not be able to monetize. 

This really doesn’t seem like a big jump into AI, but Apple has stated recording and AI summarizing conversations at its Genius Bars. Gizmodo.com reports that the new pilot program is called ‘Live Notes,’ and it is being positioned as a time-saving tool for the store employees. Right now, it is just in a limited number of stores. What happens is that a recording of a conversation between an Apple employee and the customer is auto-transcribed and summarized. It is then stored in the ‘record of repair session’ on the Genius Bar employee’s work iPad. Some Apple employees are worried that this could be used for monitoring and evaluating employees. It does kind of smack of keystroke monitoring software and the like, but time will tell. More and more invasive monitoring can make a workplace pretty unbearable to employees when it is misused…which is pretty much always.

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

NY Bans Data Center Builds for a Year; California Offers Instant Rebates on New EV Buys; Google-Another AI Training Suit; Anthropic Gives Teachers Free Claude AI Premium Access

Posted: July 14, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New York has shaken up the AI sector, passing a law banning construction of data centers using 50 megawatts or more. Arstechnica.com reports that the ban won’t be removed until the state figures out what ‘consistent standards’ for responsible data center development will look like. Many municipalities have stopped data center projects over concerns for sapping the power grid and leaving electricity more expensive and sometimes limited availability for regular consumers. Water use is also a huge concern, as is water pollution. At the federal level, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have introduced legislation seeking a possible nationwide construction ban. That can’t pass under GOP control, but might next year of the Democrats take the House and Senate. Lots of people across the political spectrum are concerned. 

Since the feds knocked off the EV tax rebate last year, electric vehicle sales have suffered. They have perked up a bit with the high gas prices, but still lag the growth they had before. Now, according to engadget.com, California Governor Gavin Newsom has rolled out a bill that should go into effect later this summer that gives up to $3500 as an instant rebate to new EV buyers purchasing a vehicle costing less than $50,000. If you are looking at a used EV, there is a $1700 rebate on models that cost less than $25,000. The program is only for first time EV buyers. Half the money is coming out of the 2026-27 California budget…with the other half fronted by participating automakers. 

It’s another class action lawsuit against Google. A group of publishers and authors are claiming the tech giant has used their copyrighted works to train its Gemini AI platform. Techcrunch.com notes that the group of plaintiffs, which includes Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, author Scott Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E., also alleges that Google intentionally removed or changed copyright information on these works to “conceal… that its Gemini Models were trained on stolen materials,” according to the lawsuit. There are other suits still working their way through the court system…although two early decisions by courts have favored the AI companies, claiming that AI training is ‘fair use’ under copyright law. 

Anthropic is giving teachers free access to premium Claude Features. 9to5mac.com notes that this will apply to teachers teaching K-12. Shades of Apple early on offering discounts on computers to get into the education market, and more importantly to get kids in school used to using Claude as opposed to ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. Claude for Teachers includes access to both Claude Cowork and Claude Code, giving educators access to the latest AI technologies from Anthropic. The company also recently published a fluency guide for educators interested in using AI in the classroom.

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

Samsung Deletes Health Data If You Don’t Let Train AI; LAPD Lets Flock Contract Expire; Apple Stock in Record Territory-Traders Souring on AI; 200 Experts Urge Action Re AI Effects on Jobs

Posted: July 13, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In a move that smacks of extortion, Samsung will delete your health data if you refuse to let it use your data to train its AI. Androidpolice.com reports that there is a new option in Samsung Health settings…it lets you turn off Samsung’s ability to use your data to train its AI models. That’s a good thing, BUT…there’s always a but…If you turn it off, then a warning pops up, informing you that turning this option off will delete your existing Samsung Health data and stop any further syncing with Samsung’s servers. It is pretty distressing that the largest smartphone maker by market share is using its might to hold your data hostage to their hungry AI model training program. They are no doubt betting that most people will just say ‘Oh, well,’ and go ahead and let them. A few will opt out, and their health data will go ‘poof.’ This is really not cool. 

A number of municipalities are growing more and more uneasy about the intrusiveness of Flock cameras, as people have raised concerns…and hell at public meetings…over the invasion of privacy of the intrusive cameras. Now, the Los Angeles police will let a contract with Flock expire. According to TechCrunch.com, LAPD’s Chief Information Officer Dean Gialamas said in a statement “This contract is not being renewed because of serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues, particularly around privacy and the data that is being collected from these cameras. The LAPD had to make a difficult decision, in this case discontinuing using Flock services until we can get those data, privacy, security and sharing concerns ironed out through a contractual relationship.” As the third-largest police department in the U.S., the LAPD is one of Flock’s largest government customers to date. Flock has a network of at least 80,000 cameras around the U.S. that scan license plates and allow police and federal agencies to track vehicles. 

Apple stock is up 15%, adding nearly $600 billion in value since June 25th…putting them back in record territory. Macrumors.com notes that the uptick has come as investors grow uneasy about the mind-boggling sums of cash continually being poured into the AI data center buildout, despite there being no obvious indicator for when investors will get a return on their investment. Apple’s decision to sit out the data center spending spree and instead pay Google for access to its frontier AI models is being increasingly seen by traders as an asset rather than a liability. Apple is using Google’s Gemini to underpin the revamped version of Siri and new Apple Intelligence features across its platforms.

Over 200 researchers and economists, including 15 Nobel laureates and also researchers at AI companies Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI are urging governments and tech leaders to immediately put polices in place and set up institutions to address the economic impact of AI. Reuters.com reports that the group signing on to the statement are warning that the economic transformation could exceed the Industrial Revolution and do so in a ‘vastly shorter’ time frame…affecting workers, companies, and public institutions. “Steam, electricity, and computers ​each gave societies decades to adapt. AI may give us only a ‌few ⁠years,” said Anton Korinek, professor at the University of Virginia. He  continued “We cannot improvise our strategy and institutions in the middle of the transformation; waiting for certainty means arriving ​too late.”

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

Apple Cuts Deal to Buy $30 Billion in US-Made Broadcom Chips; OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Gets Public Release; Bezos’ Blue Origin Taps Outside Money; Browser Extension- Hides Knock-Offs on Amazon

Posted: July 8, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Apple has inked a deal with Broadcom to buy $30 billion worth of wireless chips that are made in the US. Engadget.com reports that Broadcom will design and make custom chips “for a wide range of Apple products.” Apparently, $1.5 billion of the total will go into upgrading a Broadcom facility in Fort Collins, Colorado, which will be used to make ‘advanced radio frequency components.’ The information about the deal from the two companies indicates that there will be some ’15 billion US-made chips’ produced. Broadcom itself doesn’t have extensive manufacturing resources, and outsources production to various suppliers, including TSMC. 

OpenAI is finally bowing its ‘strongest model yet’ this week. GPT-5.6 Sol is now coming out after weeks of delays due to government concerns. According to mashable.com, OpenAI has spent weeks working on “strengthened protections for higher-risk activity, sensitive cyber requests, and repeated misuse.” Arch competitor Anthropic also has had to deal with restraints from the US government on its Fable 5 and Mythos 5. I have to think while wearing my attorney hat that if these large language models are so damned dangerous, the products liability exposure ought to be massive. We may see a whole new army of lawyers coming after these firms before long with some enormous class action suits. 

When you are one of the richest people on the planet, you can run a space company out of your wallet. Jeff Bezos has been doing that with Blue Origin, but now, he is turning to outside funding. Thenextweb.com notes that Bezos has bankrolled the company for the last 25 years, but now is closing a $10 billion round of funding. The deal values the rocket company at about $130 billion. It is not lost on tech observers that this is happening just as Elon Musk’s SpaceX has completed that biggest IPO ever. While Blue Origin trails SpaceX right now, the blast of cash may help them change that. 

They are sometimes clever, and other times blatantly copy name brand goods. You have no doubt run across these sketchy items. Now, bgr.com reports thee is a browser extension that will filter them out. It is just called Knockoff—Amazon Brand Filter, and it eliminates “pseudo-brands”. The extension runs inside either Google Chrome or Firefox. They claim to check bands against a list of some 5,000 approve names. You can also customize it by blocking or trusting any brand on the results page. A handy plug in for Amazon shoppers. 

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

Google Pixel Event August 12th; Meta Bows AI Image Model-Muse Image; Startup Gets Dealers to Bid Against Each Other for Your Used Car; FCC Drops Biden Era Rule for ISPs to Disclose All Fees

Posted: July 7, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Google will hold an event for Pixel 11 and Pixel Watch 5 on August 12th. According to 9to5google.com, The event will be in New York City for the second year in a row. In the invite, you can see the gold, shiny metal frame of a Pixel. Google ie expected to roll out the Pixel 11, 11 Pro, 11 Pro XL and 11 Pro Fold. The designs are predicted to stay pretty well the same, except for a reported ‘Pixel Glow’ indicator. The Watch 5 will be presented, and possibly an update Pixel Buds Pro. 

Meta has rolled out Muse Image, its first gen AI image model built by its Superintelligence Labs Division. According to thenextweb.com, the model is first bowing inside the Meta AI chatbot, and it will also be embedded across Instagram and WhatsApp. Users can generate images from text prompts or modify existing photos. The headline feature lets users create images featuring friends or creators based on their publicly available Instagram posts. For users who won’t want their content reused or remixed by AI, Meta has an opt out in the settings menu. All AI images will have an invisible watermark, and Meta says there are safety precautions to prevent violations of its terms of service…including protections for children. Totally obvious…advertisers will soon have access to the model for creating marketing materials. 

Turnabout is fair play, it looks like. For many years, a lot of large car dealerships used what had been called ‘the turnover system’ or ‘Go System’ to bounce buyers between the salesman and managers, in a system designed to extract more money out of buyers. One of the managers would be the used car manager that bids your trade in, and tells the salesperson how much they can allow for your car. (Disclosure: I ran my family’s small car dealership for 10 years…but we didn’t use such a system…only my Dad and I sold new cars…the old fashioned way…our word on the phone was the price. Back to the story, though. Now, techcrunch.com says there is a startup that pits dealerships against one another to bid on your used car. BidBus is the startup, and they claim with their digital marketplace, getting multiple dealers to bid on your car, you can get an average offer that is about $2,000 to $3,000 more than what Carvana offers, for example. Right now, Bidbus is just in California and Texas, but they have raised another $15 million in backing, and are planing to move into other states. If you are planning to trade cars or buy a new one in the near future, it would definitely be worth your while to check out Bidbus. Two to three grand is real money…and going into your pocket or reducing the cost of your new car. 

The administration rolls on, dropping more consumer friendly rules. This time, it’s the FCC…axing a rule from the Biden administration that forced ISPs to list all their fees. Arstechnica.com reports that the providers will no longer have to list all of their so-called ‘passthrough’ fees on an easily accessible broadband price label. The FCC may also vote to make the price labels themselves harder to find. ISPs routinely advertise prices much lower than those actually charged to consumers on their monthly bills. One method of raising monthly bill prices above advertised rates is to tack on fees that, ISPs claim, are used to offset charges imposed by local governments. Expect more so-called ‘junk fees’ and hidden charges on your cable bill.

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

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