5 Tech Things You Should Know

Jeffrey Powers

Rundown of what happened in technology for the week

Episodes

  1. 21/09/2023

    Elon Musk Wants You to Pay for X? (Twitter)

    Make a Logo on Fiverr This week we’ll look at how Elon Musk wants you to pay for X (Twitter). How many people pay $7.99 a month right now, and will more pay a smaller fee for access? What will happen to your X handle after the walls go up? And why are people still calling it Twitter? This episode brought to you by FIVERR Are News Sites Blocking AI Bots? Some are. What does this mean for AI collection? Google is Adding Bard to Mail, Maps, and more You’ll be able to make form letters, better choices when mapping out a trip, and videos to help you with what you’re doing. iOS17 Drops. We Talk about the features Lots of new features to iOS17, iPadOS17, and WatchOS10. I talk about a couple of them, including the new AirDrop contact feature. Airbnb Has a Problem The community rental site is getting a verification system so you feel safe in booking your next Airbnb. Elon Musk wants Everyone to Pay for X The X-Files is back as we try to figure out why Musk wants to put up the big pay wall. Will you Pay for X? Why is Everyone Still Calling it Twitter? An extra aside – Many still call it Twitter. Why? Check out last week’s 5 Tech Things on Which iPhone 15 Should You Get?   Check out the Geekazine Merch, including "I AM AI " T-Shirt.  Thanks for reading! Don't forget to subscribe to Geekazine: RSS Feed - YouTube Twitter - Facebook Tip Me via Paypal.me Send a Tip via Venmo RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial Be a Patreon: Part of the Sconnie Geek Nation! Reviews: Geekazine gets products in to review. Opinions are of Geekazine.com. Sponsored content will be labeled as such. Read all policies on the Geekazine review page.  Reviews: Geekazine is also an affiliate of Amazon Last Updated on August 1, 2025 11:58 am by Jeffrey Powers The post Elon Musk Wants You to Pay for X? (Twitter) appeared first on Geekazine.

    14 min
  2. 14/09/2023

    Which iPhone 15 Should You Get?

    Make a Logo on Fiverr This week I look at the Apple event and the new iPhone 15. Which one should you get? That’s what we’ll deep dive into it. Start a Fiverr Today (sponsor) The Google Antitrust Trial Google is in court for monopolistic practices. We look at how Apple is involved in this. What’s New at NAIAS Auto Show? GMC Acadia and Ford F-150 both show new features in their 2024 models. Harman Ready Car watches the driver with sensors to alert when drowzy. YankTech is putting wireless power into cars to charge phones, light consoles, or even adjust your seats. VNC Colbalt Cube creates interfaces for emergency responders to get a modular dash display. WhatsApp Gets Channels Meta expanded their Channels support in WhatsApp. You can subscribe and get alerts to what interests you the most. Ring for Pets A collar with a QR code attached allows people to scan the code to find out the dogs name, and contact the owner. iPhone 15 – Which Should you Get? The event talked watches and phones. The Apple Watch 9 includes many new features including gesture activation. The Ultra 2 contains a 36 hour battery, for long use. But the main focus was the iPhone. Just like last year, four models are available – iPhone and iPhone Plus, using the A16 Bionic chip, and iPhone Pro and Pro Max, which contain the newer A17 chip. The A17 chip is 3nm in size, but adds a lot more process power. This includes a better graphics engine with Ray Tracing. For gamers, this feature will give a more realistic look and smoother game play. We decode USB-C in the video, because not all phones will work the same. The Pro and Pro Max will have more camera features. More in the video   Check out the Geekazine Merch, including "I AM AI " T-Shirt.  Thanks for reading! Don't forget to subscribe to Geekazine: RSS Feed - YouTube Twitter - Facebook Tip Me via Paypal.me Send a Tip via Venmo RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial Be a Patreon: Part of the Sconnie Geek Nation! Reviews: Geekazine gets products in to review. Opinions are of Geekazine.com. Sponsored content will be labeled as such. Read all policies on the Geekazine review page.  Reviews: Geekazine is also an affiliate of Amazon Last Updated on August 1, 2025 11:58 am by Jeffrey Powers The post Which iPhone 15 Should You Get? appeared first on Geekazine.

  3. 17/08/2023

    What’s Going on With Linus Tech Tips?

    Make a Logo on Fiverr This week we look at LMG – or Linus Media Group and Linus Tech Tips. What Gamers Nexus posted to cause LMG to stop production, what they’re doing about it, and will it even fix the problems? Check out the sponsor  TubeBuddy  00:23 Was Your Health Data Hacked? In May 2023, IBM disclosed that a cyberattack had exposed the personal health information of millions of Americans. The attack targeted IBM’s MOVEit file transfer software, which is used by businesses and organizations to securely transfer files. The attack was carried out by Cl0p ransomware gang, and affected over 600 organizations in 20 countries. This ranges from banks, to colleges, to – of course – healthcare. IBM is offering anyone affected credit monitoring, but do you know if YOU were affected? 01:21 Why are Saudi Arabia and UAE Buying up NVIDIA Chips? Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are reportedly in a race to buy chips from Nvidia. The two countries are looking to secure supplies of the chips for their ambitious artificial intelligence and computing projects. The Saudi Arabian government has been investing heavily in artificial intelligence in recent years. And that makes sense, because the country has set a goal of becoming a global leader in AI by 2030. The UAE is also investing heavily in AI, and it has launched a number of initiatives to promote the development of the technology. So They’re tagging up to secure supplies of NVIDIA chips. 02:53 Tech History for Aug 17-23 August 18, 1992 – Wang Computers had been growing, but their financial outlook didn’t seem good. In 1992, they filed for Bankruptcy protection. They eventually got out of bankruptcy, but not before they changed the scope of the business. They changed to Wang Global, then in 1999 were bought out by “Gentronics” August 19, 2004: 19,605,052 Google shares of Google stock (GOOG) went on sale at $85 a share. Google wanted $135, however, US regulators approved the float at $85. Google raised $1.67 billion – giving them a 23 billion dollar market capitalization. August 22, 565: St. Columba saves someone who was being attacked by a monster in Loch Ness. That will later become record as the first time Nesse was spotted. 04:11 The X-Files: Elon Musk’s X-Files, that is. Tweetdeck has been moved into the paywall as X.Pro. X throttled links going to sites like Threads.net, BlueSky, and more. And Elon Musk closed down the “Followers Objective”, even though it was making the social media site $100 million a year. 06:44 How to Get Netflix Games Netflix is launching tests in the UK and Canada for their Gaming service. Do you have a OTT device that can play games though their service? 08:50 Linus Tech Tips Drama Explained Apparently, there have been questions coming from YouTube channel Gamers Nexus, accusing the LMG of reviewing a prototype graphics card water cooler from Billet Labs. The review was tainted because LMG used the wrong video card for this video. The alligation further stated LMG auctioned off said prototype card without permission. This added on to a question of ethics and misleading consumers in videos for a while. Along with favoritism towards certain companies. There is also an allegation of verbal abuse and bullying, which although is disgusting if true, it is an allegation, and not in the range of focus on what we’re going to talk about today. I do understand a 3rd party hired a private investigator for this. But now LMG is taking action. I think Even if you are not a techie, you might have come across a Linus Tech Tips or related video from LMG. They produce 25 video a week. When I started Geekazine video on YouTube, I produced 10 videos a week by myself. That was tough. But LMG is bigger: over 100 employees – around half of those people are helping in the creation of these 25 pieces of content. And the 25 pieces includes long form and short form content. So this is not a stretch, but many inside have stated how difficult it is to make some of these videos. And they’ve made mistakes. Heck, in my reviews, I make mistakes. Especially when you are out at events like CES, and mishear information that is coming at you like a freight train in the dark of night. The best thing to do is acknowledge, edit, and move on. If you posted to YouTube, you can actually do a trim to the video as long as the video has under 100,000 views, and is not 4 hours long. It’s limited editing, but you can still make fixes, like trim or blur faces (can’t do both) and keep the URL. Otherwise, you take down and upload the new version. A video hosted on their own media host does not have those limitations. Even something like a paid Vimeo account lets you re-upload. YouTube does this for integrity purposes, and their policy will most likely never change. Terren Tong, CEO of LMG, along with other members of the team addressed issues in a video posted yesterday. They stated a pause in content creation to go back and find problems to fix, along with policies going forward. Only problem is the video was fairly disingenuous. Jokes were made across the video of “Visiting our sponsor” and product placements. The video was also monetized. With affiliate ads attached, they could have made a lot just for an apology video. As for the prototype, a leaked email came out stating there was a miscommunication, and the prototype was auctioned off for charity. Usually, when I get a product like this, it’s an “infinate loan” and not for resale – let alone being able to auction it off. Addressing the favoritism side: IN most cases, that is simply a part of business. To keep lights on, you have to pay bills. I have products in the wings waiting to get reviewed because I have to pay my bills first. Any job is like that. If you have a fun project that you get to work on, most likely, you have to do it during down time unless it’s critical for the job. And this is a issue a lot of vendors don’t understand. It frustrates me when a vendor calls it “Free product”. I call it “a necessary item to do my job”. I cannot talk about it on my Amazon channel, for example, if I have not touched the product. And some creators do have a different stance on their channels. Their budget allows to purchase items to review, and they don’t accept “Media samples”, which is what it’s really called. But I don’t know everything that was happening at LMG, nor do I want to speculate. That would not be right. In all reality, if a sample was supplied, there should be disclaimers somewhere in the content. It’s not a good idea to decieve an audience. There was another YouTuber out there years ago that made parody videos alongside their real ones. People had a hard time telling what was real, and what was parody. The creator ultimately took down all the parodies when the comments got bad, and they are still making videos to this day. On the channel that gained thousands of subscribers because of questionable practices. This is not new: I can think of many companies that had to make major changes after being caught in deception. From Theranos, to Wells Fargo, to Uber, to Boeing. And news sources, too. I won’t say who, but you might be able to guess. Human error is always going to come into play. You can quadruple secret check things, but if you have 2 POV, it’s going to happen. Best thing to do is re-evaluate, and move forward. I am not sure what’s going to happen with LMG. Linus Gabriel Sebastian, the person who founded LTT and LMG, stepped down a month ago, which I am guessing is part of that allegation issue. I feel that Tong – who was in senior roles at Corsair before coming to LMG as CEO – handled the apology way wrong, and should have kept it short, to the point, solo, and without promotion injections. I give props to Gamers Nexus for sticking to their guns. I give props to Madison Suop for addressing the issues and not keeping silent. I don’t know where this will leave LMG. Sometimes, it just becomes a footnote. Other times, it becomes an acquisition of another media group. If you didn’t know – LMG had a major YouTube hack in March of this year due to the opening of a PDF email that took over systems. With all this, I am surprised that YouTube hasn’t stepped in. I’m surprised that Creative BC – a major partner of LMG – hasn’t stepped in. What are your thoughts on this? Are you backing LMG, or moving to alternate media sources? Let me know in the comments below. Last Updated on August 1, 2025 11:58 am by Jeffrey Powers The post What’s Going on With Linus Tech Tips? appeared first on Geekazine.

    16 min
  4. 03/08/2023

    Smartphone Regulation for Children

    Make a Logo on Fiverr https://youtu.be/9S7SB7bEMm0 Google Gemini Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has returned to the company’s offices to help with the development of their AI model, Gemini. Gemini is a new AI project that is competing against ChatGPT. The program was created by Demis Hassabis of DeepMind and is based on the AlphaGo program, which defeated a champion player of the board game Go in 2016. There is no mention of how Brin is specifically helping with the development of Gemini, but it is possible that he is providing guidance on coding or helping to keep the project on track for its rumored release in October of this year. Gemini has already been praised as an AI that could surpass ChatGPT, and it is expected to be used in a variety of Google products, including search, documents, and Google Home. Brin and co-founder Larry Page are still active on Google as board members. Where is Amazon AI? Amazon is working on developing its own AI technology. The project is led by Rohit Prasad, the SVP and head scientist for Alexa. Tech History Aug 3, 1977, Lewis Kornfeld announced the TRS-80 Model I microcomputer. This 8-bit computer had 4KB RAM, 4KB ROM, 12-inch RCA video, and came with the CP/M OS. $399.95, but add all the extras and it would come to $599.95 Aug 6, 1997, Steve Jobs announced a 5 year alliance, then brought in Bill Gates. The Microsoft alliance, which happened at MacWorld Expo, would make certain patents cross-license. Office for Mac would be created, as well as Internet Explorer. Aug 9, 1999: AMD introduced the Athlon processor, which replaced the K7 line. This was a Slot-A processor, which was a processor on a Slot-A card. Speeds from 500 MHz to 650 MHz, with prices from $249 to $849. What was your first processor? Let me know! Oppenheimer 70mm IMAX Pulls the Limits Did you see this movie in 70mm IMAX? Did you have any glitches that happened during the film? I talk about what the problems were and how this 600 lb, 11 mile long beast can be tough to handle for a technology not used that much. Could YouTube Break Loose to $240 Billion? Michael Nathanson believes that YouTube will grow in revenue in the next 5 years with YouTube TV. I talk about how that could happen. Smartphone Regulation for Children The Cyberspace Administration of China published a draft set of rules for smartphones that would limit daily internet use by minors. This limits 40 minutes to anyone under 8, one hour for those 8-16, and two hours if you’re 16-18 years old. How does this affect people going forward? Last Updated on August 1, 2025 11:58 am by Jeffrey Powers The post Smartphone Regulation for Children appeared first on Geekazine.

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Rundown of what happened in technology for the week