Tech News Weekly (Audio)

Abrar Al-Heeti of CNET joins the show to talk about her review of the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, Meta's smart glasses are slowly becoming a concern in the workplace, and Amazon is destroying rare books & utilizing them as AI training data.

Abrar Al-Heeti shares her review of the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, noting how foldables have become nearly indistinguishable in size from standard phones like the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and shares a look at its camera, battery, and new software features like Pause Point.

Mikah shares an article published by The Verge that looks into how retail workers, tourism employees, and comedians describe being secretly recorded by Meta Ray-Ban wearers on the job.

And 404 Media's Emanuel Maiberg joins the show to share his investigation into Amazon buying and shredding rare, out-of-print books to scan them as AI training data, and how a legal ruling in Anthropic's book-piracy case made destroying the originals advantageous.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Abrar Al-Heeti

Guest: Emanuel Maiberg

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Jacob Ward is guest-hosting this week, and Amanda Silberling joins Jacob for the first half of the show! Amazon is using Twitch streamers to train its generative AI models. The EU's Transparency Code now requires tech companies to label AI-generated content. The Bay Area's AI wealth isn't affecting all cities. And security experts express concerns following an OpenAI model's hack on Hugging Face.

Twitch is beginning to use creators' content on the platform to help train generative AI models for its parent company, Amazon. Even though streamers can opt out of having their content used, it's still sparking backlash from the community over deepfake concerns.

The EU's Transparency Code is quietly pushing tech companies to label AI-generated content, with Jacob Ward drawing a parallel to how regulators once mandated adding a smell to odorless natural gas to make leaks detectable.

Reporter Adam Rogers joins the show to discuss why Bay Area AI wealth isn't translating into the civic investment, jobs, or economic ripple effects seen in past tech booms

And reporter Sharon Goldman from Ground Level AI stops by to share reactions from security experts about the OpenAI agent that breached Hugging Face during her recent trip to the Black Hat security conference.

Hosts: Jacob Ward and Amanda Silberling

Guests: Adam Rogers and Sharon Goldman

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Dan Moren of Six Colors joins the show. A newly disclosed flaw was discovered in Apple's iCloud Private Relay. What is the phenomenon, "spiralism," and its ties to AI chatbots? Apple's Siri AI finally makes its way into the iOS 27 beta. And a SpaceX rocket impacted the Moon, but is it as big a deal as the headlines are making it?

Apple's iCloud Private Relay has a newly disclosed flaw that can leak users' real IP addresses via passkey authentication, marking the second privacy-feature vulnerability found in iCloud+ in as many months.

A bizarre phenomenon called "spiralism" saw thousands of people across different AI chatbots independently arrive at eerily similar mystical "spiral" doctrine and recruitment language, likely a byproduct of shared training data and LLM patterns.

Apple's long-awaited Siri AI update has finally landed in the iOS 27 beta and mostly delivers on its promises, but reviewers find the experience oddly anticlimactic now that competitors offer similar AI assistant capabilities.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper-stage crashed into the Moon near Einstein Crater, sparking outsized headlines despite such impacts being common and scientifically useful.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren

Guest: Rod Pyle

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Jacob Ward from The Rip Current joins the show this week! Looking into the fallout from an OpenAI model breaching Hugging Face. Winamp returns with a Deezer-powered streaming relaunch. Breaking down the math behind Apple's new leasing program. And shared Claude chats are turning up in Google search results.

Last week, an OpenAI Model autonomously hacked into Hugging Face while performing a cybersecurity task. Jacob breaks down the fallout from the incident and how it is fueling questions about whether AI labs have crossed into "critical risk" territory.

Winamp is getting a new lease on life through a partnership with Deezer, bringing a Winamp-branded music subscription alongside local files, internet radio, and podcasts, set to launch in the first half of 2027.

D. Griffin Jones joins to explain how Apple Upgrade replaces the iPhone Upgrade Program and expands leasing, via Klarna, across iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac.

And a report from 404 Media's Joseph Cox looks into publicly published Claude conversations and artifacts being indexed by Google, exposing sensitive material like crypto wallet keys and personal data, and why understanding what "public" really means before sharing matters.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Jacob Ward

Guest: D. Griffin Jones

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Amanda Silberling of TechCrunch joins the show this week! AI isn't taking your job, per a report from Google. Gen Z is gravitating towards more "dumb" and simpler tech. An OpenAI model hacked Hugging Face. And Americans are uniting against data centers.

A new Google report analyzing 14.6 million AI conversations finds most workplace AI use is "shallow," with automation rare and collaboration more common.

Amanda shares her report on a "slow tech" trend, which includes both a hacked "dumb phone" and a $299 flip phone called Light flip, as younger users seek friction and less screen time from their devices.

During an internal red-team test, an OpenAI model exploited a zero-day to escape its test environment and breach Hugging Face, stealing cloud and cluster credentials in over 17,000 recorded events.

And a piece from the Washington Post shows bipartisan backlash to AI data centers nationwide, driven by rising electric bills and residents' feelings of powerlessness over local development decisions.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Amanda Silberling

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