Google Pixel 10A; FDA Reverses-Will Review Moderna mRNA Flu Vaccine; Google Announces Dates for I/O; Tesla Avoids Suspension in California Over Full Self Driving Claim

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

Google has dropped the Pixel 10A, their latest budget…or at least mid-priced phone. At $499, the price is still right, but theverge.com reports that it is really only slightly better than the 9A it replaces. The handset still has the same Tensor G4 chip as last year’s model, and just 8 gigs or RAM…which means it won’t have the horsepower to run the latest AI features that are available on the Pixel 10 series. No Magic Cue or Pixel Screenshots. If you are skeptical or just don’t like AI, you really won’t care. One new feature you might well care about is that the phone has SOS satellite communications…so if you are somewhere out of cell range and get into trouble, you can hold that phone up and call for help using the satellite connection. An example was given in an article of being chased by a bear in the woods. Note: any bear can outrun you. If you don’t need all the AI whistles and bells, the 10A is worth a look at under $500.

The FDA has reversed its stunning refusal to review Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine. According to arstechnica.com, the reversal was made by political appointee Vinay Prasad, the Trump administration’s top vaccine regulator, who overruled a team of agency scientists and a top career official in rejecting Moderna’s application. Prasad’s ostensible reason for initially refusing to review the application was based not on Moderna’s vaccine, mRNA-1010, but on the established flu vaccine Moderna used for comparison in its Phase 3 trial. Moderna used licensed standard-dose influenza vaccines, including Fluarix, made by GlaxoSmithKline, in the trial, which involved nearly 41,000 adults aged 50 and older. In a letter to Moderna dated February 3, Prasad said this choice “does not reflect the best-available standard of care,” and therefore the trial was not “adequate and well-controlled.” Moderna acknowledged that FDA scientists had previously suggested that the company use a recommended high-dose flu vaccine in trial participants 65 and older. But the agency ultimately signed off on the trial design with the uniform standard dose, calling it “acceptable.” No guarantee that the FDA will approve the vaccine, but at least they are going to review it.

Google has announced the dates for I/O 2026. Theverge.com reports that that it will be May 19th and 20th. In a news release Google says it will share the “latest AI breakthroughs and updates in products across the company, from Gemini to Android and more” during the event, which will take place in-person in Mountain View, California’s Shoreline Amphitheatre, and online.

Tesla has agreed to change language describing their glorified cruise control, and stop using the word ‘Autopilot.’ Techcrunch.com notes that Tesla has stopped using ‘Full Self-Driving Capability.’ Now, they will say Full Self-Driving (Supervised), which is actually pretty accurate. The Autopilot term was contested by the state, and in December, an administrative law judge agreed with the DMV’s request to suspend Tesla’s sales and manufacturing licenses in California for 30 days. That got Tesla’s attention. The state DMV said Tesla now had 60 days to comply. The company agreed, and has dropped the ‘Autopilot’ term in marketing its cars in California. 

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

EU Calls Out Meta-Blocking Rival Chatbots on WhatsApp; Discord Will Require Face Scan or ID for Full Access; Gadget Turns Car Display into Infotainment Center; Locking Down iPhone-For Reporters and Protestors

Posted: February 9, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

The European Union has warned Meta that it may take what they are calling ‘interim measures’ against WhatsApp. Engadget.com reports that the EU is doing a ‘preliminary review’ around concerns that Meta is violating antitrust laws by blocking third party AI assistants from its WhatsApp platform. Back in October, Meta announced update to the terms of its WhatsApp Business Solution. EU investigators say that a January 15th update ‘effectively’ makes Meta AI the only assistant available on WhatsApp. In a statement, Meta responded “The facts are ‍that there is no reason for the EU to ​intervene in the WhatsApp ‌Business API. There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating ⁠systems, devices, websites, ​and industry ​partnerships.”

Discord has announced that it is rolling out age verification on the platform in the US. According to theverge.com, starting next month all accounts will be automatically be set to ‘teen-appropriate.’ If you want to access more, you will have to use a face scan or ID to get through the teen screen. Direct messages and servers that are not age-restricted will continue to function normally, but users won’t be able to send messages or view content in an age-restricted server until they complete the age check process, even if it’s a server they were part of before age verification rolled out. Discord had already started age checks in the UK and Australia. 

This was bound to happen with the full screens that go door to door on your dashboard on a number of cars. There are some limitations, but now you can turn your screen into basically a smart TV. Bgr.com says if you buy a $60 Carlin Kit Fire Drive Link Pro, you can connect your vehicle with a wired CarPlay System to a Fire TV stick and stream movies or games. The Fire stick is not included, and so far it’s the only one they recommended using…but some people have gotten a Roku stick to work. There isn’t time here to detail all the steps, but it isn’t rocket science to hook up and use. If you are getting ready for a road trip this spring or summer, and have a late model car or SUV with a giant display, this may be a cheap way to entertain the passengers on the way to your destination. 

This is not for everyone…but if you are out protesting, covering an event as a reporter, or getting video of Enforcement actions, you may want to lock down your iPhone. ZDnet.com notes that the Lockdown Mode feature has been on iPhone for a while now. To use it, you should make sure your phone is updated to the latest OS. Then, back up your phone first…if you have iCloud, your stuff is backed up nightly already. go to Settings, then Privacy and Security, and scroll to the bottom where you will find Lockdown Mode. Note that a LOT of features on your phone will be deactivated. Most message attachments are link previews are locked, incoming FaceTime calls, SharePlay, and more are turned off. It removes shared photo albums and strips location data from shared images, and more. Again, not something you want to do unless you are reporting or protesting…but worth knowing about. 

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

Apple Folding Phone-Most Battery Life; Music Publishers Sue anthropic; Ring Opens Search Party for Lost Dogs to Non-Ring Cams; A So-Called AI Mouse

Posted: February 2, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Along with numerous others, we have been following reports of Apple’s rumored folding phone, due out in September with the other iPhones. Apple is now revisiting making a ‘flip’ phone like Samsung has as a companion to the book type folder they will bow this fall. The big hype so far has been that Apple’s phones will have no visible crease on the inside screen when opened. Now, macrumors.com reports that the folding iPhone will have another major plus that all phone users crave…more battery life. Up to now The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 has had a 4400 mAh battery, and the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold has a battery capacity of 5015 mAh. Apple’s folder is rumored to have a powerful 5500 mAh battery, easily putting it at the top of the heap as far as battery life. The folding iPhone will apparently use high-density cells in the battery to get this great battery life. Besides no visible crease, and long battery life…expect the folding iPhone to have a 7.8 inch inner screen, and a 5.5 inch outside screen. It will also have Touch ID, 2 rear cams, and Apple’s own modem chip which they started using in their products last year. Rumors still have the price at around $2000 to $2200. 

A number of music publishers have teamed up to sue Anthropic…maker of the Claude AI products…for $3 billion dollars for what they describe as ‘Flagrant piracy.’ According to engadget.com, the group is lead by Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group. Anthropic is accused in the suit of illegally downloading more than 20,000 copyrighted songs, including sheet music, lyrics and compositions. These songs were then allegedly fed into the chatbot Claude for training purposes. There are some iconic tunes named by Universal in the suit, including tracks by The Rolling Stones, Neil Diamond and Elton John, among many others. Concord is an independent publisher that handles artists like Common, Killer Mike and Korn. At $3 billion, this is one of the biggest non-class action copyright cases in US history. Anthropic was already nicked to the tune of $1.5 billion in a case called Bartz v Anthropic when they cut an agreement. There has been a rising uproar about AI companies basically stealing creative material from artists and writers to train their AI models.

Nothing freaks out pet owners more than when their dog or cat gets away outside and doesn’t return. Ring has had a ‘Search Party’ feature that uses to network of cams to find lost dogs. The feature has been available to most customers, but now is available to all Ring customers in the US AND those who don’t use Ring cams. Sharing video with police may be controversial, but everyone ought to be able to get behind this. Techcrunch.com notes that Search Party uses AI to find possible matches for lost dogs across neighbors’ camera footage. When a neighbor reports a lost dog in the Ring app, nearby outdoor cameras use AI to scan for possible matches. If a match is found, that camera owner receives an alert and can optionally choose to share any related video clips with their neighbor who reported the pet missing. They’ll also have an option to call the owner or send them a message, without sharing their own phone number. So far…since launch, the Search Party feature has reunited a dog a day with their owners. 

I was looking at getting a mouse, since the trackpad on my PC laptop is getting flaky. On Amazon’s first page of results, there were wired mice starting at $6.99 and wireless ones for under $10 bucks. THEN, there’s a mouse that is ChatGPT AI compatible, takes notes, and so forth. $109! Gad, are there really people stupid enough to buy that? EVERY mouse is compatible with ChatGPT and AI.

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

Week Long Phone Battery Life Coming?; Apple Dynamic Island-Tiny Size and Moved; Sony TV Biz Spun to TCL; Sequoia Invests in Anthropic, Despite Also Backing OpenAI

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

It sounds like a dream come true for power users, or for those who just always forget to charge their phones. A 10,000 mAh battery is about to be shoehorned into a smartphone. Androidpolice.com reports that maker Realme has announced that it will put such a horse of a battery into its upcoming P4 Power phone. The phone is 8.5mm thick and weighs 215 grams, so the more powerful battery hasn’t really meant a giant brick shoved in your pocket. What Realme has done is use a 10% silicon anode in the battery and used a clever stacking system for components, making for maximum available space in the phone for the battery. While it may not give power users a whole week of use without plugging in, it will be close. Androidpolice.com noted that the OnePlus 15 has a 7300mAh battery and that lasts 3 to 4 days on a charge. It will be a nice breakthrough to see this phone out…and logically, to see similar tech show up in market leaders Samsung and Apple. Even making it 5 days through the work week without having to remember to charge will be huge.

There have been reports all year that the next iPhone will see a smaller ‘Dynamic Island.’ Now, according to apple insider.com, tipster Jon Prosser claims the iPhone 18 Pro could not only see the island and front cam shrink in size, but also but also move to the top left corner from the top center of the screen. In addition, Prosser joins others in saying that the iPhone 18 Pro will use an under display Face ID system. This will allow for more useable front screen area, without the clutter from cameras, etc. When the Dynamic Island expands for a notification or the like, it will grow to the right, but not down as the present one does…so again, leaving you more clean screen area. 

Sony was the market leader in TVs and home entertainment for years. Lately, you would be hard pressed to see a Sony TV in any big box store or ads online. Now, the verge.com says Sony is spinning off its TV business to a joint venture with TCL. In the deal, TCL will hold a 51% stake. The company will still use the Sony and Bravia branding. A deal is supposed to be finalized by the end of this quarter. Sony has retained an aura of a premium brand, but TVs have become commoditized to the point that they have really been eclipsed by a number of other brands. 

In an unusual departure, investment firm Sequoia Capital is pumping a bunch of cash into Anthropic, maker of the Claude AI. Techcrunch.com reports that investment firms have generally avoided backing competing companies in the same area, a Sequoia already has money in both OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI. In the case of being in those two AI startups that compete, it is notable that Sequoia already had ties to both Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and with Elon Musk. Anthropic is shooting to raise $350 billion in this funding round. Again, massive money is being pumped into AI, as we have noted here…with minuscule returns or no returns. For its part, Anthropic is allegedly planning an IPO this year. 

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. 

Amazon Testing New Fast Delivery Setup; Folding iPhone-May be $2400; Landlord Rent Setting Tool Gets Gutted; Amazon Web Services- $50 Billion to Build Government AI Infrastructure 

Posted: November 25, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amazon is trialing a new rapid delivery idea in Seattle. Geekwire.com reports that Amazon is using a closed Amazon Fresh site as a mini warehouse for  most popular and fast moving items. It is something like a convenience store…open 24/7 but not to you. It functions as a pick up site for  Amazon Flex drivers. Amazon employees will fulfill online orders…picking and bagging items from a stock room, then putting them on shelves for Flex drivers to pick up and deliver to the nearby neighborhoods within hours of ordering. Flex drivers are independent contractors who deliver packages using their own vehicles, signing up for delivery blocks through the Amazon Flex app. The program has often been described as Uber for package delivery. 

We’ve heard price rumors ranging from the $1900 plus level up to $2500 for the upcoming folding iPhone. Now, according to mac rumors.com, analyst Arthur Liao is postulating it will be $2399. Noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo had previously said it would land at between $2000 and $2500, and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has predicted it will be somewhere around $2000. The foldable ‌iPhone‌ will be expensive because of the premium components that Apple plans to use. The display panel and hinge will push pricing toward the upper end of market expectations, Fubon Research suggests. One truly big deal is that the iPhone is expected to be the first folder with no crease at all in the middle of the screen. Fubon Research sees Apple selling about 5.4 million of the folders in 2026. That is a pretty modest number compared to 228 million total iPhones sold in 2024, the last full year we have figures for. 

A controversial tool used by landlords to set rental prices has had its ears pinned back after a settlement with the Department of Justice. The DOJ said in a press release that the proposed settlement “would help restore free market competition in rental markets for millions of American renters.” The antitrust settlement is with RealPage. For years since the pandemic started, rental prices outpaced inflation, and the DOJ suspected that RealPage was the dominant force driving a market that never favored renters. Under the settlement, RealPage admits no wrongdoing, and doesn’t pay a fine. Arstechnica.com notes that if the court approves the deal, however, RealPage has agreed to update its software so that rival landlords cannot access “competitively sensitive information to determine rental prices in runtime operation.” Additionally, RealPage will “remove or redesign features that limited price decreases or aligned pricing between competing users of the software.” And the company will “cooperate in the United States’ lawsuit against property management companies that have used its software.”

Amazon is spending an eye-watering $50 billion to build out AI infrastructure for the US government. Techcrunch.com reports that it will be a ‘high performance computing infrastructure’ built specially for the feds. It will expand government agency access to AWS AI services. Amazon will break ground on the data centers in 2026. Amazon has long supplied cloud infrastructure to the US government…starting back in 2011. 

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

iPhone 18 Could See Big Upgrades; TikTok Will Now Let you Choose How Much AI Content You See; YouTube TV’s “Lower Cost Sports Bundle” Coming; CDC-US Close to Losing Measles Elimination Status

Posted: November 19, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Several cool changes may be coming to the iPhone 18 Pro series. Bgr.com reports that the first thing might be a major camera upgrade…a variable aperture. If this makes your eyes cross as too camera nerdy, the net is it would improve low-light pictures and make brighter scenes more realistic with better depth of field. Another rumor has a smaller dynamic island coming, and in fact…Apple may hide the FaceID sensors under the display…that rumor is coming from both analyst Ross Young and Bloombergs Mark Gurman. Another possibility is Cupertino adding a single pinhole cam in the upper left corner of the display. Sources in China have the 18 Pro thicker and heavier…probably due to a bigger battery. This has been rumored for a while, but the iPhone 18 Pro may have its processor made using a 2 nanometer process…that means more power without sapping battery life. A cool rumor has Apple adding support for 5G networks via satellites, which would expand satellite connection from emergency calls to mainstream use…this means for you using your iPhone 18 Pro with unlimited online access anywhere in the world. 

TikTok is now adding a setting that lets you pick how much AI generated content you want to see in your ‘For You’ feed. According to techcrunch.com, they are also adding more advanced labeling tech for AI generated content. Since OpenAI has launched Sora, realistic AI-generated videos have been posted to TikTok. Additionally, many TikTok users are leveraging AI to create visuals for posts about other topics, like history or celebrities. TikTok says that with the new AI-generated content control, users who want to see less of this sort of content can now dial things down, while those who enjoy it can choose to see more of it.

YouTube may be preparing to launch a new, ‘lower-cost’ sports bundle in 2026, after cutting a deal with Disney. 9to5google.com notes that there’s a catch…there’s always a catch. MLB.TV won’t be included. Disney’s ESPN unit just recently finalized a deal with MLB.TV…probably at a significant bump in cost. Another issue that has held up a deal with the House of Mouse sports content is that traditional cable and satellite providers have had similar access to the content, but up to now, Roku Amazon, and Apple have never had access to Disney’s direct to consumer content. As the saying goes…stay tuned.

In a sad report…thanks Robert F. Kennedy, Jr…CDC date confirms that the US is only about 2 months away from losing measles elimination status. Arstechnica.com reports that Federal health officials have linked two massive US measles outbreaks at the border of Arizona and Utah as a continuation of the explosive outbreak in West Texas that began in mid- to late-January. That is, the two massive outbreaks are being caused by the same subtype of measles virus. The finding that the outbreaks are linked means there’s been continuous circulation within the country for about 10 months. If the same measles virus subtype from the outbreaks—dubbed 9171—continues to spread and surpasses the 12-month mark in January 2026, the US will lose its elimination status.

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

Amazon to Lay Off 30,000 Corporate Staffers; Apple & Microsoft Now Worth More than $4 Billion; Musk’s Grokipedia is Live Now; Feds Investigating Tesla Mad Max Mode

Posted: October 28, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amazon is getting ready to lay off up to 30,000 corporate employees. Geekwire.com reports that the reduction is to reduce expenses, and it is intended to compensate for what Amazon terms overhiring during the pandemic. Emails are going out today. The company hasn’t put out a workforce number lately, but had about 350,000 employees in early 2023. At that number, this cut would be about 8.5% of the workforce. The cuts will be across logistics, payments, video games, and Amazon Web Services.

As the tech sector continues to dominate much of the financial markets, two tech titans have passed another milestone…one that is hard to wrap your head around. According to techcrunch.com, both Apple and Microsoft are now worth over $4 trillion bucks. It’s the first time Apple has surpassed the $4 trillion mark. Microsoft did it in July, then dropped a bit…but is now over $4 trillion.The only other company that is worth that much right now is Nvidia…but Alphabet…the parent company of Google, is getting a bit close. It is at $3.25 billion. Wouldn’t you love to have the interest on that amount of money for just a few minutes? An hour at 4.26% interest would add up to $19.4 million!

Along with a number of other right-leaning folks, Elon Musk has railed against Wikipedia as being too liberal and too ‘woke.’ Now, he’s unveiled Grokipedia. Gizmodo.com notes that it looks like Wikipedia with dark mode turned on. The site claims to have just under 900,000 articles. Wikipedia, on the other hand, has about 7 million English articles. A quick take: Overall, Grokipedia gives off the impression of a site where topics and people that Elon Musk likes or supports are presented without framings that cast any doubt on their validity, and those he dislikes are presented with criticism front-and-center. If that’s your cup of tea, have at Grockipedia.

The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration is looking into Tesla’s Full Self Driving Mad Max mode. Engadget.com reports that Tesla says it offers “higher speeds and more frequent lane changes” than its Hurry speed profile. Apparently, it is a little too much like Mad Max…reports have it speeding, running red lights, and driving against the flow of traffic. Tesla has given the disparaging description ‘Sloth Mode’ to the regular, no hurry, follow the speed limit mode. 

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

Anthropic Releases Claude Code to iOS & the Web; iPhone 17 Line Outselling Last Year’s Models; SpaceX Launches 10,000th Starling Satellite; Update of This Morning’s AWS Outage 

Posted: October 20, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Last winter, Anthropic announced Claude Code. Now, the AI company is making it easier for developers to use Claude Code in more places by putting up a new web interface to access the agent. Engadget.com reports that Anthropic is also releasing a preview of the agent inside its iOS app. The company has given users a warning that the mobile version is an early integration, which will be quickly refined based on user feedback. Pro and Max users can start using Claude Code on the web today. Anthropic notes any cloud sessions share the same rate limits with all other Claude Code usage.

The new iPhone 17 models are a hit for Apple. This year’s models around outselling last year’s iPhone 16 series by 14% in the first 10 days of availability in both the US and China. According to macrumors.com, this is new sell-through data from Counterpoint Research. The firm said the overall uplift is being led by stronger upgrades to the standard ‌iPhone 17‌, particularly in China, and by higher uptake of the iPhone 17 Pro Max among U.S. carrier customers based on enhanced subsidy plans. In China, the base iPhone 17 nearly doubled compared to the iPhone 16 based on the same initial period. The 17 Pro Max is ahead of the 16 for the initial period, in no small measure due to the big three carriers increasing maximum subsidies by about $100. 

SpaceX has notched a major milestone. They have launched the 10,000th Starlink satellite. Arstechnica.com notes that the benchmark came when two Falcon 9 rockets took off from spaceports in Florida and California Sunday afternoon, adding 56 more satellites to SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network. Actually, now there are 10,006 in orbit…including a few dozen demo satellites. Starlink passed 7 million global subscribers in August.

There was a huge outage early this morning for Amazon Web Services. Geekwire.com says the outage took down several major sits and services. Thankfully it was not due to a cyberattack, but an internal issue within the cloud giant’s infrastructure. Facebook, Coinbase, Amazon, and even check-in kiosks at LaGuardia airport were affected. Amazon pinned the outage on a failure of an “underlying internal subsystem responsible for monitoring the health of our network load balancers.” Tech experts say that this outage indicates that many sites have not adequately implemented the redundancy needed to fall back to other regions or other providers in the event of AWS outages. 

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

AMD Partners with OpenAI; ICE Wants to Build 24-7 Social Media Surveillance Team; Discord User IDs & Data Compromised; Tesla Insurance Division Accused of ‘Egregious Delays’

Posted: October 6, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

AMD is partnering up with OpenAI, and will provide the AI firm with 6 gigawatts worth of processors for its AI data centers…something that poses a direct challenge to Nvidia’s AI chip market dominance. Theverge.com reports that the deal is a 5 year agreement which will aim to help OpenAI bulk up its infrastructure to meet the growing computational demands for its AI apps like ChatGPT. The first wave will be a gigawatt worth of AMD GPUs coming in the 2nd half of 2026. No dollar amount has been announced, but it is safe to say it will be in the tens of billions of dollars. 

ICE is moving to connect with private vendors to run a multi-year surveillance program out of its two little—known targeting centers. According to wired.com, ICE plans to hire almost 30 contractors to sift through posts, photos, and messages—raw material to be transformed into intelligence for deportation arrests and raids. The contractors would be located at ICE facilities in Williston, Vermont and Santa Ana in Southern California. They would pore over Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms converting posts and profiles into fresh leads for enforcement raids. 

A third party customer service provider for Discord has been infiltrated, and the hackers were able to gain access to user information. Engadget.com says the breach occurred on September 20th. Discord claims that the compromised data includes a “small number” of government IDs like driver’s licenses and passports, which some users may have submitted to verify their ages. To be clear, Discord itself wasn’t hacked, and you would only be affected by the data breach if you’ve ever communicated with the messaging service’s Customer Support or Trust & Safety teams. That also means the bad actors didn’t get access to your messages within the service, just whatever you may have communicated with customer support. Affected users are getting emails notifying them. They have cut ties with the provider. 

The California Department of Insurance has slapped Tesla with an enforcement action for routinely denying or delaying customer claims despite years of warnings from that state regulator. Techcrunch.com notes that Tesla’s insurance arm along with partner State National Insurance Company, engaged in “willful unfair claims settlement practices” including “egregious delays in responding to policyholder claims in all steps” of the process and “unreasonable denials,” CDI wrote. This has allegedly caused “financial harm” and “distress to policyholders.” The state insurance department first warned about the issues in 2022, and now says things have only gotten worse. Tesla launched the in-house insurance back in 2019. 

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

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