This Week in Tech (Audio) – Details, episodes & analysis

• GTA 6 trailer 2 and anticipation
• Grok Pivots From 'White Genocide' to Being 'Skeptical' About the Holocaust
• Elon Musk's apparent power play at the Copyright Office completely backfired
• Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Explains How He's Making Himself Obsolete With AI
• How Finland's district heating systems are harvesting heat from data centers; Microsoft's project in Kirkkonummi will be the largest in the world when completed
• OpenAI launches Codex, an AI coding agent, in ChatGPT
• China begins assembling its supercomputer in space
• NASA engineers revive Voyager 1's dead thrusters from 15 billion miles away
• 25% of steam playeres play Blue Prince
• Jamie Lee Curtis publicly shamed Mark Zuckerberg to remove a deepfaked ad
• Fortnite players can speak with Darth Vader through a James Earl Jones-voiced AI
• Epic Games says Apple is blocking Fortnite from the US and EU App Stores
• Epic wants the court to compel Apple to approve Fortnite's return to the US App Store
• Nextcloud accuses Google of "Big Tech gatekeeping" over Android app permissions
• Samsung's Galaxy S25 Edge starts off the super thin phone era
• Square's $399 Handheld accepts tap-to-pay at your table
• Montana Becomes First State To Close the Law Enforcement Data Broker Loophole - Slashdot
• Republicans Try to Cram Ban on AI Regulation Into Budget Reconciliation Bill
• The first US hub for experimental medical treatments is coming
• The US Army is getting in on right-to-repair
• They're just giving up and calling it HBO Max again

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Wil Harris, Devindra Hardawar, and Harper Reed

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• Bill Atkinson, Macintosh Pioneer and Inventor of Hypercard, Dies at 74
• Folklore.org: Round Rects Are Everywhere!
• OpenAI slams court order to save all ChatGPT logs, including deleted chats
• A ban on state AI laws could smash Big Tech's legal guardrails
• Federal judge blocks Florida from enforcing social media ban for kids while lawsuit continues
• TikTok dodges U.S. ban — again — as Trump administration pushes deadline back
• Supreme Court Gives Doge Access to Social Security Data
• The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying to Kill Just Got Open Sourced
• The hidden time bomb in the tax code that's fueling mass tech layoffs
• AI Startup Revealed To Be 700 Indian Employees Pretending To Be Chatbots - Slashdot
• Google's NotebookLM now lets you share your notebook — and AI podcasts — publicly
• Holding your cellphone while driving for navigation is illegal, California court rules
• Volvo Debuts New IoT Seatbelt Design - Slashdot
• Ending USB-C® Port Confusion
• Walmart to Expand Wing Drone Deliveries to 100 Stores
• Nintendo Switch 2 Has Record-Breaking Launch, Selling Over 3 Million Units - Slashdot
• Calling All Cars Named Eleanor! The Ninth Circuit Has Decided You're Not Copyrightable After All
• California county accused of using drones to spy on residents

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Sam Abuelsamid, Cathy Gellis, and Larry Magid

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• YouTube Is Swallowing TV Whole, and It's Coming for the Sitcom
• Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans
• Trump makes a last-minute backtrack on his pick to lead NASA
• Xbox co-founder J Allard is working on 'breakthrough' devices at Amazon
• GitHub Users Angry at the Prospect of AI-Written Issues From Copilot
• Using technology may sharpen aging brains, not harm them
• We Bought a 'Peeing' Robot Attack Dog From Temu. It Was Even Weirder Than Expected
• Humanoid Robots for $3000, Hugging Face

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Louis Maresca, Doc Rock, and Iain Thomson

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In this jam-packed episode celebrating Towel Day, the TWiT crew dives into Apple's terrible week with Trump's tariff threats, Google and Microsoft's latest AI advances, the death of CAPTCHAs, and some wild new tech including laser-powered smart homes and sock-picking robot vacuums.

• Trump's Phone Tariff Ultimatum - President threatens 25% tariffs on iPhones and Samsung devices unless manufacturing moves to the US, putting Apple in an impossible position between economics and politics
• The Sock-Stealing Robot Revolution - Jennifer tests a $2,600 Roborock vacuum with an arm that picks up socks and occasionally tries to grab cats
• Microsoft's AI Science Breakthrough - Microsoft Build showcases agentic AI platform that helped create new coolant liquids by analyzing scientific journals and generating novel molecular compounds
• Windows Goes Agentic - Microsoft announces MCP protocol integration into Windows, raising both excitement about AI capabilities and concerns about data security
• Gaming Industry Consolidation - FTC finally drops its challenge to Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition after three years of failed legal battles
• Meta's Monopoly Defense Strategy - Company argues that Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions were beneficial rather than anti-competitive, as antitrust trial concludes
• Google's Hyper-Realistic AI Videos - Veo 3 generates convincing fake videos that blur the line between reality and AI creation, raising concerns about misinformation
• Revenge Porn Legislation Concerns - New "Take It Down" Act passes with bipartisan support but raises censorship worries about its 48-hour removal requirements
• Smart Glasses Make a Comeback - Google announces Android XR partnerships with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, signaling the return of consumer AR eyewear
• The $6.5 Billion AI Hardware Gamble - OpenAI's record-breaking acquisition of Jony Ive's design firm sparks debate about whether AI needs dedicated hardware devices
• Amazon's Smart Speaker Surveillance - Investigation reveals how much personal data Echo devices collect and store, highlighting the privacy costs of convenient AI assistants
• The Death of CAPTCHAs - AI now solves visual puzzles better than humans, making traditional bot-detection methods obsolete and forcing a rethink of online security
• America Abandons the Penny - The US will stop minting pennies due to production costs exceeding face value, ending a century-old currency tradition
• Air Traffic Control Crisis Exposed - Newark Airport's radar failures reveal America's dangerously outdated aviation infrastructure held together by 1990s technology and hope
• Fortnite's App Store Victory - Epic Games successfully returns to iOS after Apple quickly capitulates under legal pressure, ending years of bitter disputes
• Brain-Computer Interface Competition - Valve's Gabe Newell announces Neuralink competitor, expanding the race to connect human brains directly to computers
• Infrared Contact Lenses Enable Night Vision - Researchers develop contacts that let wearers see heat signatures even with eyes closed, promising superhuman vision capabilities
• 23andMe's Genetic Data Gold Rush - Regeneron Pharmaceuticals acquires the DNA testing company for $256 million, raising questions about genetic privacy and
• Stolen

These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1033

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, Brian McCullough, and Mike Elgan

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• Opinionated Design: Early Reactions to Apple's Liquid Glass Design Language
• Big Tech Is Dealing Flat Design a Death Blow
• Apple gets over its hang-ups, and the iPad enters a new era
• Apple Targets Spring 2026 for Release of Delayed Siri AI Upgrade
• Apple's de-chatbot-ification of AI is nearly complete
• Google launches Android 16, rolling out now to Pixel
• Google offers voluntary buyouts to US staff across several businesses and units, including the one housing its core search team and much of the ads organization
• IBM aims to build the world's first large-scale, error-corrected quantum computer by 2028
• Blue Origin Delays Second New Glenn Launch
• Anne Wojcicki Wins Bidding for 23andMe
• Twenty-seven states and DC sue 23andMe to oppose the sale of DNA data from its customers without their direct consent
• YouTube says its ecosystem created 490K jobs and added $55B to the US GDP in 2024
• God is hungry for Context: First thoughts on o3 pro
• Army reserve tech executives meta palantir
• Nintendo Switch 2 Is Fastest-Selling Game Console of All Time - Slashdot
• An Experimental New Dating Site Matches Singles Based on Their Browser Histories
• Anker recalls 1.1 million power banks due to fire hazard risk
• Local Malls Are Sitting Empty, and Becoming a Headache for Small Towns
• Bald eagle live cam update: Babies are leaving nest. What's next?

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Jason Hiner, Harry McCracken, and Jason Snell

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• Pope Leo makes AI's threat to humanity a signature issue
• Why We Don't Talk About Job Destruction
• Israel-Tied Predatory Sparrow Hackers Are Waging Cyberwar on Iran's Financial System
• Iran restricts internet access to ward off Israeli cyberattacks
• The AI Slop Fight Between Iran and Israel
• It's Official: Streaming Is Now the King of TV
• AI search finds publishers starved of referral traffic
• Mastodon updates its terms to prohibit AI model training
• For the first time, social media overtakes TV as Americans' top news source
• Trump extends TikTok ban deadline for a third time
• The People Search Sites in the Suspected Minnesota Killer's Notebook Are a Failure of Congress
• 40,000 Cameras, From Bird Feeders to Baby Monitors, Exposed to the Internet
• Pavel Durov on his arrest in France, Macron, Russia, the FBI — and the fight for Telegram
• WhatsApp's rollout of ads will change the app forever
• Here's your first look at the rebooted Digg

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Jason Calacanis, Amanda Silberling, and Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ

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• The panel discusses the current gaming environment
• More on Apple's Trust-Eroding 'F1 The Movie' Wallet Ad
• Low-income broadband fund can keep running, says Supreme Court
• The Supreme Court just upended internet law, and I have questions
• Meta and Anthropic prevailed in copyright suits against them, but the rulings have major caveats and don't address when AI output might infringe copyright
• ICE Is Using a New Facial Recognition App to Identify People, Leaked Emails Show
• Meta says it's winning the talent war with OpenAI
• Android phones could soon warn you of "Stingrays" snooping on your communications
• Tesla Ordered to Stop 'Deceptive Practices' on Cars' Self-Driving Capabilities in France or Face Thousands in Fines
• Trump's 'big beautiful bill' could mean slower Wi-Fi for you
• Future of States' AI Laws Hinges on Senate Rules for Tax Bill
• The NO FAKES Act Has Changed – and It's So Much Worse

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Dan Patterson, Patrick Beja, and Daniel Rubino

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• A New Era of Internet Regulation Is About to Begin
• Australia is quietly rolling out age checks for search engines like Google
• Bluesky is rolling out age verification in the UK
• House "crypto week" could change how Americans use, save money
• Latest stablecoin bill addresses foreign issuers, national security safeguards
• Grok team apologizes for the chatbot's 'horrific behavior' and blames 'MechaHitler' on a bad update
• Grok 4 seems to consult Elon Musk to answer controversial questions
• European Union Unveils Rules for Powerful A.I. Systems
• Gemini can now turn your photos into video with Veo 3
• Denmark to tackle deepfakes by giving people copyright to their own features
• Belkin shutting down these Wemo smart home products in 2026
• It's YouTube vs. Netflix as the Streaming Wars Come Down to 2
• Jack Dorsey launches a WhatsApp messaging rival built on Bluetooth
• GameStop's Nintendo Switch 2 stapler sells for more than $100,000 on eBay after viral mishap
• Professor Oak's voice actor, James Carter Cathcart, has died

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Harper Reed and Amy Webb

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• SCOTUS Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton
• Adalytics finds 9,000+ pirated movies, including summer blockbusters, TV shows, and live sports on YouTube, amassing a collective 250M+ views from July to May
• SCOTUS granting cert to Cox v. Sony
• Bartz v. Anthropic AI copyright case
• Kadrey v. Meta AI copyright case
• Microsoft layoffs hit 9,000 employees in new wave of cuts
• Here are the letters that let Apple and Google ignore the TikTok ban
• Identities of More Than 80 Americans Stolen for North Korean IT Worker Scams
• Everyone in tech has an opinion about Soham Parekh | TechCrunch
• Elon Musk's Starlink Adds $750 Congestion Charge
• Mystery recall of iPhone engineers may be Chinese interference in Apple's plans

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Cathy Gellis and Nicholas De Leon

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• Coldplay kiss-cam flap proves we're already our own surveillance state
• Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance
• OpenAI LLM's gold medal-level performance on the world's most prestigious math competition
• Thinking Machines Lab Raises $2 Billion at $10 Billion Valuation
• The Epic Battle for AI Talent—With Exploding Offers, Secret Deals and Tears
• Trump Signs Stablecoin Bill, Delivering Win for Crypto Industry
• Engadget Podcast: Ancestra director Eliza McNitt defends AI as a creative tool
• DOGE staffer with access to Americans' personal data leaked private xAI API key
• DOGE Put Free Tax Filing Tool on Chopping Block After One Meeting With Lobbyists
• EU backs down on Big Tech tax ahead of US trade deal
• Reddit begins age verification checks for UK users
• Roblox will require a facial scan or government ID to have unfiltered chats
• EU to test age-check app under new child safety rules - 9to5Mac
• Trump administration to spend $1 billion on 'offensive' hacking operations | TechCrunch
• A Little-Known Microsoft Program Could Expose the Defense Department to Chinese Hackers
• Uber to invest in Lucid and Nuro in massive robotaxi deal
• YouTuber leaked iOS secrets via friend spying on dev's phone, Apple lawsuit claims
• This Is the Commodore Comeback Fans Have Waited for—but the Odds Are Still Against It
• I Tested the Galaxy Z Fold 7: It's Slim, Powerful and Surprisingly Practical

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Abrar Al-Heeti, Iain Thomson, and Devindra Hardawar

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