This Week in Tech (Audio)

Meta faces a $1.4 trillion lawsuit, flock cameras are sparking a privacy revolt, and data centers may be fueling the next bubble. This episode pulls back the curtain on who's watching, who's profiting, and who could pay the price.

Meta's Big Reckoning Is Here

Meta heads to court in a landmark trial about kids and social media addiction

Ninth Circuit Ruling Will Force Online Platforms That Host User Speech to Fight Lengthy and Costly Lawsuits Before They Are Dismissed Under Section 230

The $1.4 Trillion State Tort Raid on Meta

Google's Pixel 11 Comes With Plenty of A.I. Does Anyone Want That?

Waymo's cheaper, next-gen robotaxi is now open to all riders in these three cities

Apple and European Commission Reach Agreement on App Payment Terms Under DMA, With Apple Conceding Very Little

Apple is laying off staffers working on the Vision Pro and Siri

Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI

Amazon aims for delivery drones to reach 500 US neighborhoods by the end of 2026

NVIDIA to Back Ohio Data Center With as Much as $105 Billion

Why Big Tech's AI Spending Is $3 Trillion Higher Than It Seems

New Chinese model adds to AI competition

Police Are Hiding Their Use of Flock Surveillance Cameras

Flock mistakenly flags 2 different auto writers for "stolen" license plates

Go Flock Yourself

Flock socks for UV protection

Ban on Chinese robots leaves U.S. startups stranded

China Is Strapping 'Digital Bombs' to Civilian Infrastructure—Is the US Ready?

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Sam Abuelsamid and Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ

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Can you trust Mark Zuckerberg's open AI manifesto, or is it just another play to keep control out of your hands? The panel debates the future of personal superintelligent agents, who really stands to benefit, and whether anyone should slow things down before it's too late.

Mark Zuckerberg Posts 6,500-Word AI Essay

Zuckerberg Is Right About Open, Decentralized AI. He's Also The Last Person You Should Trust To Deliver It

Anthropic pledges to embed watermarks to help discern AI slop in sop to EU

You can now turn off Google Gemini's visible watermarks

Everything Google announced: Pixel 11, Pixel Tag, Pixel Watch 11, more

Google is making the Pixel cameras better by making them worse

Following Epic loss, Google has started hosting rival app stores in the Play Store

Judge gives Google one week to fix "anticompetitive" app store download in Google Play

Apple proposes commissions of up to 15% for off-App Store purchases in the US [U]

Twitch content has trained Amazon AI for years, but users can opt out now

DEF CON crowd suspected in fake-hotspot attack on Delta flight

Happy 45th Birthday to the IBM PC and Model F/XT

Cats and dogs are missing meals after a popular smart feeder went down

Transportation Sec. Decides to Turn Air Traffic Control Into a Game

Have physicists finally discovered glueballs? New evidence points to yes.

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Denise Howell, Joey de Villa, and Gina Smith

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Autonomous AIs are hacking, collaborating, and outpacing human defenders, raising urgent questions about what happens when the machines start breaking into each other (and potentially us). Plus, a Tucson coder is using AI to reinvent local journalism, exposing how automation could fill the gaps left by shrinking newsrooms.

Tucson Daily Brief uses AI to revive local news coverage

Data centers boom in Arizona, with harsh environmental impact

Amazon's Texas data center to run on polluting natural gas

Nuclear and solar debates for sustainable data center power

Black Hat and DEF CON: Security pros, hackers, and mohawks

OpenAI's runaway AI hack at Black Hat stuns security community

AI agents collaborate, evade controls, and break into real-world systems

Industry struggles to regulate AI, and defense lags behind automated attackers

White House, Congress, and AI execs clash over regulation proposals

AI "kill switch" and model bans: pipe dreams in a global race

Google's DeepMind shakeup, Demis Hassabis moves upstairs

Jeff Dean and key talent exit Google for self-improving AI startup

Google, Meta, Apple: AI brain drain and market repercussions

Phones stagnate as hardware innovation slows, AI devours chip supply

OpenAI teams with Jony Ive on strange new AI-first device

Smart glasses privacy backlash and DuckDuckGo's tongue-in-cheek sunglasses

Meta fined $942 million by New Mexico court for youth harms

Apple sues OpenAI over alleged stolen secrets, countersuits ensue

UK revives "Snooper's Charter" for backdoors, Apple fights in secret court

License plate readers spark local backlash and privacy activism

U.S. water systems face cyber sabotage as critical infrastructure weakens

Bending Spoons buys Airtable, fueling SaaS layoffs and AI data grabs

Nicholas DeLeon uses AI tools to get fit

NASA hacks keep aging Voyager probes alive for another year

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Iain Thomson and Nicholas De Leon

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From foldable phones that out-price laptops to AI models that escape their digital cages, this episode dives into the wild next phase of tech innovation and its unexpected risks. See how the giants are scrambling to keep up as hardware, software, and even outer space are up for grabs.

Tim Cook passes the baton in Apple's Q3 2026 earnings call

Apple's Profit Is Up 27%, but Expectations for Current Quarter Disappoint

Apple Introduces Leasing Program for iPhones and Other Devices

Apple struggles to keep pace with AI 'bug' hunters

"Google and Reddit do not own the Internet," web scraper says after court win

As Reddit stock falls, CEO questions value of Google's AI Overviews

Microsoft's $450 Billion Jump Is Biggest in Stock Market History

Amazon's trying to launch a global satellite cellphone network in 2028

Iran struck Amazon data centers again amid widening war, satellites show

For the First Time, Zoox Can Charge People for Rides in Its Steering-Wheel-Free Robotaxis

Claude published malicious code to the Internet and attacked 3 real companies

OpenAI and Anthropic Are Quietly Teaming Up in Washington

AI leaders sign a statement asking the government to do something about automated AI

Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

How bitcoin cold wallets lost $70 million in an attack that never touched the devices

NBCUniversal and YouTube ink deal to embed Peacock in the video platform for premium subscribers

Inside the Luxury Robotaxi Uber, Lucid and Nuro Are Testing

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Abrar Al-Heeti and Mike Elgan

Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech

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From foldable phones that out-price laptops to AI models that escape their digital cages, this episode dives into the wild next phase of tech innovation and its unexpected risks. See how the giants are scrambling to keep up as hardware, software, and even outer space are up for grabs.

Tim Cook passes the baton in Apple's Q3 2026 earnings call

Apple's Profit Is Up 27%, but Expectations for Current Quarter Disappoint

Apple Introduces Leasing Program for iPhones and Other Devices

Apple struggles to keep pace with AI 'bug' hunters

"Google and Reddit do not own the Internet," web scraper says after court win

As Reddit stock falls, CEO questions value of Google's AI Overviews

Microsoft's $450 Billion Jump Is Biggest in Stock Market History

Amazon's trying to launch a global satellite cellphone network in 2028

Iran struck Amazon data centers again amid widening war, satellites show

For the First Time, Zoox Can Charge People for Rides in Its Steering-Wheel-Free Robotaxis

Claude published malicious code to the Internet and attacked 3 real companies

OpenAI and Anthropic Are Quietly Teaming Up in Washington

AI leaders sign a statement asking the government to do something about automated AI

Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

How bitcoin cold wallets lost $70 million in an attack that never touched the devices

NBCUniversal and YouTube ink deal to embed Peacock in the video platform for premium subscribers

Inside the Luxury Robotaxi Uber, Lucid and Nuro Are Testing

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Abrar Al-Heeti and Mike Elgan

Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!

Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsors:
adaptivesecurity.com

helixsleep.com/twit

expressvpn.com/twit

canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT

cachefly.com/twit