July 10, 2025 • 44 mins
xAI’s Grok 4 achieves the highest Artificial Intelligence Index score, outperforming OpenAI, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Anthropic Claude 4 Opus in extensive benchmarks. Grok 4 excels notably in coding, mathematics, and advanced reasoning tasks despite moderate speed and pricing. -Thinking of buying a Starlink? Use my link to support the show. -Get a United … Continue reading Grok 4 Surpasses OpenAI and Google, Now Top AI Model #1831
The post Grok 4 Surpasses OpenAI and Google, Now Top AI Model #1831 appeared first on Geek News Central.
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(00:00):
The lead story from Monday, July 11.
(00:02):
Yes. I'm back.
XAI's
GROC four
achieves the highest artificial intelligence
index score,
outperforming
OpenAI,
Google Gemini 2.5
Pro,
and Anthropic
Claude four Opus.
In extensive
benchmarks, GROC four
(00:23):
executes
and excels
notably in coding,
mathematics,
and advanced reasoning task despite
moderate speed
and pricing. I wanna welcome you to episode
1,831.
I'm your host, Todd Cochran. Yeah. Big year.
Big deal out of out of Grok,
(00:44):
and their and their update.
Lots of praise going around even for developers
who are using
Grok to correct code
and so
the
extensive
reporting by the folks at artificial analysis say
that this thing is,
(01:04):
is really knocking it out of the ballpark.
And we know that GROC four's pricing is
equivalent to add about
the 3 to $15
per 1,000,000
input output tokens via API
and that price per token pricing is identical
to
(01:25):
Claude four, Sonnet,
but more expensive than Gemini
two.
So, you know, I have not used
GROC very much,
whatsoever.
And, but this is the first time
that xAI
has led the AI frontier.
You know, GROC three scored competently with the
(01:46):
latest models from OpenAI, but GROC four is
the first time that the intelligence index
has shown x AI in the in first
place. Now we expect these types
of bouncing back and forth
scores to happen as models come out. But
one thing that's super notable here
(02:08):
is that it's getting praise.
Huge praise across the industry for
for what it's able to, to do and
it's working at, they're saying at the at
PhD
level and some have went so far as
to say it feels like AGI.
Now, I don't know if I would go
that far at this point, but this is
(02:28):
what people are
are referring to and they definitely
have a good, you know, it's got a
good index score.
So again but the difference is is marginal.
A couple of points,
higher,
than,
than other models. So,
pretty amazing stuff here. I'm not surprised,
(02:50):
with the amount of money being spent. Of
course,
x has now been acquired by xAI,
which is,
interesting in itself
and the departure of their CEO at x
here recently.
Have you been using rock?
I'd love to hear from you if you
have it and
and what you feel has been the results
(03:12):
thereof.
Hey. I wanna
welcome you again to episode 1,831.
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(06:02):
online
and and going strong.
As I mentioned,
and I don't know if I can get
into it.
Had a personal issue pop up. I'm healthy.
I'm fine.
Nothing legal. Nothing nothing crazy, but it just
made it impossible to do,
(06:23):
the show on Monday. So I apologize I
wasn't back with you on Monday.
And,
I'm alive, well, healthy, and everything else. So
sorry for missing a couple of episode here.
Sometimes,
things out of my control
happen.
And, I appreciate your patience and,
and thank you again for staying subscribed
(06:46):
to the show. Got a great stack of
stuff today to go through here.
One thing I did do and I get
to pick them up today. I
had,
I've been having issues with my primary glasses
and I don't know if the prescription
drifted out And so I always carry a
(07:06):
spare pair
of glasses as my
backup.
The basically, the previous subscription, when I put
those on, they were much better
than
the current prescription. So something has shifted
here. So I went
and booked an appointment.
Well, actually not even booked appointment. It was
(07:26):
kind of like one of those walk in
places.
You're able to do a complete
eye exam.
The home nine yards about thirty minutes of
a traditional ophthalmologist
exam
and
ordered glasses
and
they weren't as nice as these. But the
(07:46):
challenge I have with these is because they're
frameless,
they're starting to separate and I need to
send them back and have them fixed.
But the,
I picked up glasses
and all under about,
I think all in. I was all in
for about a $150
(08:08):
with,
new glasses
for everything. The full nine yards. Now I
have insurance in America
And typically when I get new glasses,
the exam is covered.
The frames, obviously, I have a bit of
a discount because of the insurance. But because
frames are so expensive,
(08:29):
I usually never walk out of the door
under like
maybe $300
or something like that.
So,
I'm pretty impressed,
from from that savings per se.
So new glasses are ready to pick up.
It's been about seven days.
So everything progressive lenses transitions,
(08:49):
you know, the
the light the glasses get darker. Time will
tell. I'll have them for the next show
and I'll be able to see how they're
how they're working.
Little bit of
over glare here in the studio. So it
bothers me just a little bit,
when I'm
(09:09):
doing the show. So I may have to
adjust these lights just a little bit. I
did turn them quite a bit. But
anyway,
things seem to be working. I think I
found the secret decoder ring for the RODEcaster
and how to not get it to disconnect.
It's all about starting a recording at least
ten minutes early. Something about that triggers it
to disconnect from the computer from
(09:31):
from time to time.
So I'm just double checking here because I
didn't refresh Facebook. Now I can see the
Facebook comments.
So let's talk a little bit of a
little more about
XAI.
They've unveiled a new $300 per month AI
subscription plan.
Now I'm still on OpenAI
(09:54):
Pro at 200 a month and I'm just
it's paying huge benefits. I'm getting
at least once a week my entire value
for that subscription
out of that advanced plan. I'm not sure
$300
is is that's a big big, big
leap. But,
(10:14):
I just wonder what people are seeing with
this, with this new,
with this new plan with well, with the
with the anticipation of GTVFi,
which is coming this summer.
I'm definitely not going to sign up for
it. But one thing I am,
really
pressing,
then trying to make sure my coders
(10:35):
at my company are starting to test these
tools
with code snippets and cleaning things up. And,
I feel that developers at this point are
the ones most at least
my opinion so far, the most resistant to
using AI.
And I don't fully understand
(10:56):
why.
If it's not working, it's not working. But
at least
attempt
try to use and and nothing else, QA
code or
get help with queries.
Because they've used search for years and years
and years to find stuff on GitHub and
other locations. So I'm just
makes me wonder just a little little bit
(11:17):
why developers are
as resistant as they are to using
using AI. My production team is all in.
The same time OpenAI
is talking about launching its own web browser
and it could arrive within the week. So
they're, you know, they're trying to
(11:38):
of course, Engadget,
they definitely have nothing really good to say
about
a number of these companies.
But if they launch their own
browser and deeply integrated services into
the work lives,
this is this could be a game changer.
Now
the browser slated to have a chat gbt
(11:59):
style chatbot baked in which completely,
makes sense.
And they're
reportedly
looking to use the browser to capture more
data, which is a strategy that's definitely worked
for Google.
They've done that for years.
So it's nothing new.
(12:20):
The browser said to be designed to keep
many reactions within an AI chatbot
rather than directing users to websites. Now this
is where,
for me it it's it becomes very, very
concerning for small businesses.
And,
and if they do start offering this, it
(12:41):
would be following Perplexity which released
a browser
with agentic AI functions,
earlier this week that
we missed in the news cycle here.
And but that browser is only available for
those that are
on Perplexity's max subscription of $200
per month.
(13:02):
So
that's,
that's it. You're not gonna see big penetration
on that largely because of the number of
people using
that level of a
subscription.
Now talking about browsers, there's something here that's
very concerning
and
it was reported by ArsTechnica
(13:22):
and I want all of you really to
listen up here if you're using
any extensions
in your browsers.
Browser extensions turn nearly 1,000,000 browsers into web
scraping
bots.
And,
they've been overriding key security protections, turned browsers
into engines, and scrape websites on behalf of
(13:44):
a paid service.
There's 245
extensions available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
They've racked up nearly
a million downloads.
So there's an extensive list and I looked
through this list
and to me none of them were
anything that I recognized,
(14:05):
but this is the bad part about this.
Of 45 known Chrome extensions, 12 are now
inactive. Some of the extensions removed for malware
explicitity.
Of a 129
edge extensions incorporating the the specific library that's
doing this, only eight are in inactive
(14:25):
and of 71 affected by Firefox. Only two
are now inactive. So
if you're using Chrome, you have less exposure,
but there's an extensive
list
linked in the in the article here. So
definitely consider going through that list and see
if any of the extensions you're using
(14:46):
have made the list here. And if they
have, please
start out with a fresh install
of the browser
and and remove,
those extensions.
So after months and months of battling it
out to become the world's most world's most
valuable company
(15:06):
and, Nvidia
briefly held that spot
to hit a staggering 4,000,000,000,000
market cap.
It's since dipped to 3,972,000,000,000.000.
But anyway,
hit that $4,000,000,000,000
value. You might as well just call it
4,000,000,000,000 based upon stock fluctuation. But,
(15:28):
you know, huge huge huge first company ever
to hit
a $4,000,000,000,000.
And if it doesn't show you that the
AI
the AI stuff is just hotter than ever
then,
you know, I don't know what you can
think of.
HBO
Max is back.
HBO Max says the rebranding to the name
(15:49):
that should have never been changed is underway.
So,
you know,
maybe now they can figure out
their, their model.
It just doesn't make any sense why they
made that change to begin with. But,
you know, at HBO Max is
is on its way back and you'll start
(16:09):
seeing updates across the websites and so forth
over the coming days.
So if you're a big Samsung phone, the
Galaxy Unpacked 2025,
everything Samsung announced including the z fold z
excuse me. The z fold seven,
the z flip seven, and Galaxy Watch eight,
are basically have,
(16:31):
there's great reporting on it here by the
fact the folks from Engadget.
And,
you can get all the details on these
on these different devices.
Do any of you own a flip a
flip phone? Of course, I'm following a flip
phone because a modern flip phone do any
of them have those?
And any of you are actually using a
(16:52):
Galaxy watch.
I'm kinda curious about that.
But,
anyway, some major updates there on on the
mobile the mobile situation
with
Samsung.
And I will admit that the,
the fold
definitely looks
a lot like a tablet to me. And
(17:14):
until I saw a picture of this modern
one today,
I really had
no specific interest in picking up one of
these phones, but it it's it's becoming more
attractive.
But
here's the problem.
$2,000.
(17:36):
That's just insane amount of money.
Insane.
Major League Baseball
will test its robot
umpire system
at the next all star game. The automated
ball strike system
is being used as a way to challenge
calls during it was used as a way
to challenge calls during spring training.
(17:59):
It's not being used to replace
umpires, which
would be very, very hard, I think.
But the current version of ABS uses Hawkeye,
the computer
vision system developed by Sony to monitor the
exact location of the pitch relative to the
batter's strike zone.
The league is tested
(18:20):
relying on ABC exclusive for calls, but views
the ABC challenge system as good as a
good compromise
between tradition and technology like other possible rule
changes.
It also
adds a new element of strategy with only
two opportunities to challenge,
and players have to be selective. So I'm
(18:41):
not much of a major league baseball
fan. You know, there's often controversies about Empires,
but how do you complain and yell at
and get the face of a bot?
I don't think you can.
And a very interesting move, T Mobile has
end its DEI programs and attempt to win
approval from the
(19:02):
FCC as part of its attempt
to acquire
the $20,000,000
merger with Frontier.
And,
we know that the current administration
is,
definitely anti DEI,
(19:23):
but they also need regulatory backing to purchase
extensive assets of United States cellular in a
deal at 4,400,000,000.0.
So they're trying to make
trying to make this happen. Did any of
you pick up anything up on,
Prime Week on Amazon?
I was shopping and did not see any
(19:43):
deals.
So
I don't know. It to me, it was
underwhelming
the offerings to be quite frank with you.
There were some good Apple stuff, but I
I needed more Apple computers like I need
a hole in my head at this point.
NASA's gonna lose over 2,000 senior staff due
to propose budget cuts.
(20:04):
The 2026 budget will leave the space organization
in a difficult position if it's improved.
So
of the of over the two thousands
potential
departing staff members, nearly all of them are
in senior positions,
requiring specialized skills or management
(20:25):
experience. Those include 1,818
staff serving in missionaries like science or human
spaceflight,
the rest performing mission
support roles like IT, facilities, maintenance, or finance.
So it was a large number of g
s 13, fourteens, and fifteens.
Of course, that's where the most of the
money
is being spent is on those positions.
(20:48):
But if you look at the GSA pay
scale, I think you'll consider,
g s 13 even topped out doesn't make
that much competitive money
as compared to the open market. And fourteens
and fifteens
are similarly placed, but they get incredibly great
retirements out of those,
out of those pay levels.
(21:10):
So
very, very interesting. But,
I, you know, I think the government needs
to be cut. The question is how
big of an impact,
will it be? If you're a Lego fan,
the Lego's first buildable Decepticon
is
a talking sound wave.
The 1,505
piece sound wave set includes sound effects and
(21:32):
ravage and laser break cassettes, whatever that means.
I don't know what a laser
rec and set is. At a $189.99
sound wave will also be Lego's most expensive
transformer set to date
and going on sale in August.
And, Optus Prime is currently a $179
with the much smaller Bumblebee at
(21:54):
$89.
So,
Lego fans, you have that to look forward
to.
Qantas confirms a 5,700,000
have been impacted by a data breach.
So, the personal information
was compromised.
The incident occurred on June 30.
(22:15):
On July 7, the company announced that hackers
made contact likely for extortion
and roughly 6,000,000 customers data was stored on
a hack platform.
And
so they found that
names, email addresses, Qantas frequent fire details
(22:35):
Of those 1,200,000
records only contained names and email addresses.
So,
they had,
phone numbers,
gender information, meal preferences.
I don't care if people know what I
eat,
which I am,
by the way, I'm doing very well
(22:57):
on my diet.
I'll have more to report soon
and some information for you to share with
you.
Jack Dorsey says his secure Nitbit chat app
has not been tested for security. So let
me say that again.
Jack Dorsey says his new secure
(23:20):
new bit chat app
has not been tested for security.
He launched this open source chat app
this previous Sunday, promising delivers secure and private
messaging without a centralized infrastructure.
The app relies on Bluetooth and end to
end encryption unlike
traditional messaging apps that rely on the Internet.
(23:40):
By being decentralized, BitChat has potential to being
a secure app in high risk environments
where the Internet
is monitored or,
inaccessible.
Did I just oh, that's what I did.
So
but it hasn't faced any
scrutiny by security researchers.
I don't know how this works if it
(24:01):
just uses Bluetooth.
And how do you talk to other people?
He says that work in progress.
The latest disclaimer claimed after basically, they put
a disclaimer on this. Do not use it
for production use and do not rely on
its security whatsoever until it's been reviewed.
So maybe that maybe it should have been
(24:22):
the cart before the horse there a little
bit.
On the science front, echoes from the Big
Bang suggests the Earth is trapped inside a
giant
cosmic void. Now this is not the first
time.
This has been suggested a few times since
1990,
but astronomers claim to found new evidence supporting
this controversial
(24:43):
observation
is that we're kind of out in the
backwoods of anywhere.
They say they found claim evidence Earth and
our Milky Way are suspended inside a gigantic
void.
First, they told us last week we were
in a black hole.
So
the proposal made by analyzing echoes of the
Big Bang suggests that our galaxy may be
(25:04):
floating in a 2,000,000,000 light year
region that's 20% less dense than average.
So okay. We'll see.
Curious observation
and, people spend their life
spend their life analyzing this stuff.
The July full moon rises
(25:26):
tonight. So the full moon reads at peak
illumination at forty six PM
eastern
daylight time. Interesting.
So it actually happened yesterday. So this is
a or happened today
on July 10, your time.
The exact time the moon race takes place
which is around 08:53PM
(25:47):
in New York.
So take a look at the moon
and,
the black moon
will be the farthest full moon from the
sun in 2025.
So,
guess it's supposed to be darker.
How many shades of gray darker?
(26:07):
Outlook hit was down for quite a while,
and it's certainly come back online, but they're
recovering from a major outage
that lasted most of the morning.
So,
how many of you were impacted
by that?
Elon Musk is saying that Grok is going
to come to Tesla EVs
and
(26:28):
so they're going to be be putting that
into,
into Teslas. I'm not surprised.
The question is, what happens when Grok gets
it wrong?
Love to see how that ends up being
integrated if any of you have a Tesla
and are willing to admit it. A lot
(26:49):
of people don't want to admit they have
a Tesla right now.
But if you do,
and
find out details on this, I'd love to
have you share it with us
so that we can share it with the
audience.
A McDonald's
chatbot.
Why does McDonald's have a chatbot?
Why why is that even a thing? McDonald's
(27:13):
chatbot law a leak 64,000,000
records with the one two three four five
six password.
Oh, it was from a job applicant website.
Information about 64,000,000
people applying for jobs at McDonald's been leaked
via Olivia,
an AI powered chatbot created by Paradox dot
AI to handle hiring.
(27:33):
So yeah. You go to apply for McDonald's
now and an AI is and analyzing your
your application.
This give Carol access to information including the
name, addresses, phone numbers, and email address of
job applicants
among other data.
Reporting a leak to Paradox was challenging as
the company lacked a dedicated security team.
(27:56):
So, apparently, they finally were able to get
through to them and get this patched.
Microsoft is doubling down and spending 4,000,000,000 to
push AI in schools,
universities, and more.
Microsoft wants the wants to upscale the next
generation in AI. And for those of you
that listen to the show that have kids,
(28:18):
what are you doing with your
with AI? How
how have you got that
integrated
in
your household for your kids? Are you letting
your kids use AI?
I think there's there's you're damned if you
do damned if you don't in this regard.
(28:38):
But Microsoft's donating 4,000,000,000 cash over five years
to upscale today's youth. AI and cloud skills
are lacking in much of the global workforce.
Teachers also getting support to help them integrate
AI into the classroom.
I know there's a lot of cheating going
on,
(28:58):
but it's it's a great research
tool
if you use it as a research tool
and backup sources.
I can't imagine
going to college now and having this
available. It would be beyond
(29:19):
tempting. I know that they are
working on and in schools are using, you
know,
detection technology.
But
you
know, how far does it go?
How much do you would you rewrite?
That, you know, therein lies the question, you
know, and also if a student,
(29:41):
hires,
pays for the
higher
pro model like I'm using and getting the
advanced research functions,
the advanced research functions, I get all of
the sources.
And they're they're basically
not in the format that you'd use in
school, but, you know, you you've got the
(30:01):
list
already prebuilt of the sources for the for
the articles for
the the write up.
So,
you know,
I think if I wanted a tactical advantage
in college at this point, I would probably
be paying for pro
just for the high reasoning function and being
able to
(30:22):
resource,
you know, sources for articles and so forth.
We all know that and and for those
that do you haven't done under any undergraduate
work,
you know, writing papers in college to me
was kind of a joke.
It was very, very simple because I knew
how to use Google. I knew how to
do search and I was able to pull
(30:43):
stuff out and put papers together
very, very quickly and source information.
And
so for me, it was one of those
things that was never,
you know, a big lift
as as a, as a college student.
Of course, I went to college late in
life
and got my degree. But,
(31:05):
I think this AI is just going to
change
going to change everything.
Now the doom and gloomers has said the
Trump tariffs were gonna ruin everything. They, you
know, they've been a little bit
silent recently because
everything's went pretty well so far.
But the tech side is still worried because
(31:26):
tariff uncertainty
and we know that computers are still exempt
from the levies that Trump
administration introduced.
And,
there's still a threat though because
those
those tariffs could be coming off,
on August 1. Now they could be extended
(31:47):
again,
I guess, depending on how
negotiations
are going.
But,
you know, I think a lot of people
went and got notebooks and so forth,
when they knew this was gonna happen.
But, again, you've got a few weeks here
if you want
to be able to pick up a PC
with it. Again, who knows what's gonna happen?
(32:09):
This might be off or not.
We could end up
with the
with the with the tariff situation resolving itself.
I'd love to hear what you think. What's
what's happened with you and purchases?
Have you slowed down on purchases because of
the perceived higher cost
of things. Now one thing's for sure, Amazon
(32:31):
Prime Day, they say that sales plunge 41%
on the first day. I I would not
be surprised.
Experts attributed the drop to shoppers delaying purchase
anticipation of better deals
during the extended four day event.
Amazon said, of course, they were pleased by
the engagement.
(32:52):
And according to
the numbers provided at Adobe, kickoff numbers to
rest Thanksgiving of 2024
of June,
but I really didn't need anything, to be
honest with you. I really did not.
And what I actually what I look for
is I have certain stuff that I have
subscriptions for. I have a subscription to
(33:14):
a heartburn medicine,
and I have subscriptions
to my
sugar monitoring system. And I looked to see
if there was any discounts on that if
I could lock in cheaper pricing. And of
course, there were
none of that. I will say this too.
Having monitored been monitoring now my,
oh, by the way, I had one sensor
(33:34):
fail.
So I'm gonna run out of sensors before
I come home. The Astellas did replace it.
It failed after twenty four hours, which was
quite annoying.
They sent me a replacement.
The one I'm using,
for those of you that are not aware
is Stell O.
It's
$50
(33:54):
every fifteen days or a $100 a month.
Just the awareness
of I've learned
so much in a month.
I think any of you with type two
diabetes
that do not
I'm telling you, if I if I if
(34:15):
they could come on and be a sponsor,
I would be a great spokesperson for this.
If if you have type two diabetes
and,
you're not pricking every day
and seeing where your levels are at or
pricking multiple times a day as some have
to,
this monitoring tech,
(34:36):
I feel I can probably
within two or three months,
maybe even four months,
completely learn
what I had been doing wrong
and knowing what price I pay for
what type of food I eat,
and how to
(34:57):
also time my metformin
pill,
from,
you know, being able to
I'm supposed to be on a time release,
but I'm gonna tell you that I'm on
a twelve hour time release met form and
so I take two a day.
And if if I you used to wake
(35:17):
up in the morning and take that pill
immediately because it was already twelve hours, but
I often didn't eat for two or three
hours later.
Much much better to hold
for two or three hours. You take
that first meal of the day to take
that pill
and then
in the evening
take the second one not even twelve hours
(35:38):
in when you have your evening meal
and
and even though there might have only been
nine hours separation
has a dramatic effect
on
the
on your blood sugar
and
my levels like this morning,
(35:59):
for those of you that
are aware of these type number, a normal
range
is
70 to 180.
I'm I'm right now at 92
and I've been 90
in the nineties since
about
almost
(36:20):
twelve hours ago.
And I haven't ate yet this morning.
Here
about twelve hours ago when I had my
last meal, which I jumped up
to about
the 120
range.
But I have not gotten close
to 180.
(36:41):
There was I got close once about three
days ago,
close to 180. And and I have the
event logged on what triggered that.
Here in The Philippines.
Rice rice is definitely
huge. But if you do a protein in
a rice,
it the rice isn't really doesn't have much
(37:02):
of an effect.
But it's just amazing.
It really is.
And it's gonna be interesting when I go
back to The United States
and and eating
food
that maybe is a restaurant or prepared to
see what the effect is because I was
having a hard time
initially getting the sugar down
(37:23):
with,
when I was first on this.
And
to be quite frank,
American food
is just
so full of
of
bad stuff. It's just
unbelievable.
I hear I know I always knew my
sugar was better when I was here. I
(37:45):
could just tell physically
and the
it
it's just because there's not a lot of
processed food here.
Everything is made fresh.
So,
again,
I'm telling you,
if if if it's not in your budget,
please
try if you're on if you're a type
(38:07):
two diabetic,
I impair upon you to do this for
one month.
Just one month and,
you're gonna see a major major major difference.
Alright. Millions of cars exposed to remote hacking
via a what's called the perfect blue attack.
And
researchers conducted an analysis of the blue SDK
(38:29):
Bluetooth firmware
framework developed by OpenSynergy
and found several vulnerabilities.
The perfect blue hack was demonstrated against recent
infotainment
models shipped from Mercedes Benz, Skoda, and Volkswagen,
as well as products made by another unnamed
OEM that was only recently made aware of
the findings.
So,
(38:50):
their CVEs
out on this,
but,
if you again,
this is I don't know the extent of
attack,
but they say that this could allow remote
code execution.
IKEA has launched two cheap Bluetooth speakers including
a retro throwback with a handy,
(39:11):
Spotify trick.
There there's the start of another IKEA smart
home push,
so they're ugly. I'll be honest with you.
These speakers,
you know, maybe for a teenager,
but for an adult,
does an adult want
why do you see these things?
(39:31):
They're really ugly.
I I guess I'm just, I like modern
stuff.
This
it it it is a retro throwback,
but
it's ugly. I mean, it's really, really ugly.
4999
won't set you back too far though.
(39:53):
So everyone's making fun of the interim
NASA administration. President Trump announced that,
transfer patient secretary Sean Duffy and of course
they're taking shots at him of being a
reality TV star.
Isaacman said, short of a new nominee, this
(40:14):
was a great move.
NASA needs political leadership from someone that president
trust
and has confidence in wishing secondary well and
important endeavor.
So he's I guess he's gonna do a
hat.
So
is I think he was in transportation. Is
he gonna move from transportation
or stay in trans
(40:35):
rotation?
I guess he's gonna do do a hat.
So,
a lot of criticizing still going out there
for sure.
Last couple of articles here and don't and
don't leave.
I plan
Apple man. They are planning a whole new
MacBook lineup with the M5.
(40:56):
So, you know, if you're if you're thinking
if you're if you've got an M1,
M2 and you're thinking about the jump,
The m five stuff is looking
pretty
extensive across the entire
product line. So
don't upgrade early, but probably this stuff won't
be available until
(41:17):
early twenty twenty six if you can wait
that long, but,
a big big jump. I'll tell you my
my situation
here with the studio
and everything that I was,
having challenges with the last time
has completely
resolved itself.
It's in it's really purely now the Rodecaster
(41:39):
that is, given me issues, but I've I
definitely found
the hack. The camera's working great.
I and I have two cameras going on.
I've got this camera that I'm using here
and I've switched that to a beautiful PTZ
optics camera
that I'll probably transport back and forth with
me. I'll probably use it at home and
then bring it back here when I come
back next time,
(42:00):
because it's pretty expensive. And then I have
the
the,
teleprompter
and the camera on that and different focal
view and it's just it's it's working
out terrific.
Everything's working.
Yeah. I this was the right move
(42:22):
to
to bring the
the, the Mac Studio
with me.
I don't like the idea of transporting it
back and forth, but at the cost of
that machine, I'm just gonna transport it home
and I'll bring it back.
No no sense in having a second computer
here
when I'm not here. The next time I'm
(42:43):
gone, I'll be away for about sixty days.
I'm a I'll be back in The States
for at least sixty
to ninety days.
And
so
I'm very very happy with this setup here.
OBS is working like a charm.
Again, everything I wanted to do the first
trip in this new setup is working great.
(43:05):
Just a few tweaks here here and there.
Green screen stuff is working out well.
I've even got a pretty good, depending on
the type of shirt I wear, is if
the keying works good. OBS keying is definitely
not as good as
the TriCaster because there's still just a tiny
a bit of bleed
around my head and every amount of tweaking
(43:26):
I've done has not helped it.
But,
yeah. I'm pretty jazzed with the with the
setup here.
Alright. This is gonna bring us to the
end of the show. Geeknews@gmail.comatgeeknews
on Twitter. Don't forget about our sponsor GoDaddy.
Newcentra.com/godaddy.
You have
to continue. I will plan to continue to
(43:46):
do shows here as scheduled. There should be
no more
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in early August.
And
even then, I think I'm traveling on days
where I will not miss an episode. I
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(44:07):
forward /insider.
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Share the show with your friends and family,
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late,
for another edition of the Geek Central pod
Geek News Central podcast. Everybody take care. Bye
bye.
The lead story from Monday, July 11.
(00:02):
Yes. I'm back.
XAI's
GROC four
achieves the highest artificial intelligence
index score,
outperforming
OpenAI,
Google Gemini 2.5
Pro,
and Anthropic
Claude four Opus.
In extensive
benchmarks, GROC four
(00:23):
executes
and excels
notably in coding,
mathematics,
and advanced reasoning task despite
moderate speed
and pricing. I wanna welcome you to episode
1,831.
I'm your host, Todd Cochran. Yeah. Big year.
Big deal out of out of Grok,
(00:44):
and their and their update.
Lots of praise going around even for developers
who are using
Grok to correct code
and so
the
extensive
reporting by the folks at artificial analysis say
that this thing is,
(01:04):
is really knocking it out of the ballpark.
And we know that GROC four's pricing is
equivalent to add about
the 3 to $15
per 1,000,000
input output tokens via API
and that price per token pricing is identical
to
(01:25):
Claude four, Sonnet,
but more expensive than Gemini
two.
So, you know, I have not used
GROC very much,
whatsoever.
And, but this is the first time
that xAI
has led the AI frontier.
You know, GROC three scored competently with the
(01:46):
latest models from OpenAI, but GROC four is
the first time that the intelligence index
has shown x AI in the in first
place. Now we expect these types
of bouncing back and forth
scores to happen as models come out. But
one thing that's super notable here
(02:08):
is that it's getting praise.
Huge praise across the industry for
for what it's able to, to do and
it's working at, they're saying at the at
PhD
level and some have went so far as
to say it feels like AGI.
Now, I don't know if I would go
that far at this point, but this is
(02:28):
what people are
are referring to and they definitely
have a good, you know, it's got a
good index score.
So again but the difference is is marginal.
A couple of points,
higher,
than,
than other models. So,
pretty amazing stuff here. I'm not surprised,
(02:50):
with the amount of money being spent. Of
course,
x has now been acquired by xAI,
which is,
interesting in itself
and the departure of their CEO at x
here recently.
Have you been using rock?
I'd love to hear from you if you
have it and
and what you feel has been the results
(03:12):
thereof.
Hey. I wanna
welcome you again to episode 1,831.
I'm your host,
and a shout out to our incredible sponsors
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(04:17):
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Go over there and get
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Let's start with a website
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Geek News Central. Thank you for keeping us
(06:02):
online
and and going strong.
As I mentioned,
and I don't know if I can get
into it.
Had a personal issue pop up. I'm healthy.
I'm fine.
Nothing legal. Nothing nothing crazy, but it just
made it impossible to do,
(06:23):
the show on Monday. So I apologize I
wasn't back with you on Monday.
And,
I'm alive, well, healthy, and everything else. So
sorry for missing a couple of episode here.
Sometimes,
things out of my control
happen.
And, I appreciate your patience and,
and thank you again for staying subscribed
(06:46):
to the show. Got a great stack of
stuff today to go through here.
One thing I did do and I get
to pick them up today. I
had,
I've been having issues with my primary glasses
and I don't know if the prescription
drifted out And so I always carry a
(07:06):
spare pair
of glasses as my
backup.
The basically, the previous subscription, when I put
those on, they were much better
than
the current prescription. So something has shifted
here. So I went
and booked an appointment.
Well, actually not even booked appointment. It was
(07:26):
kind of like one of those walk in
places.
You're able to do a complete
eye exam.
The home nine yards about thirty minutes of
a traditional ophthalmologist
exam
and
ordered glasses
and
they weren't as nice as these. But the
(07:46):
challenge I have with these is because they're
frameless,
they're starting to separate and I need to
send them back and have them fixed.
But the,
I picked up glasses
and all under about,
I think all in. I was all in
for about a $150
(08:08):
with,
new glasses
for everything. The full nine yards. Now I
have insurance in America
And typically when I get new glasses,
the exam is covered.
The frames, obviously, I have a bit of
a discount because of the insurance. But because
frames are so expensive,
(08:29):
I usually never walk out of the door
under like
maybe $300
or something like that.
So,
I'm pretty impressed,
from from that savings per se.
So new glasses are ready to pick up.
It's been about seven days.
So everything progressive lenses transitions,
(08:49):
you know, the
the light the glasses get darker. Time will
tell. I'll have them for the next show
and I'll be able to see how they're
how they're working.
Little bit of
over glare here in the studio. So it
bothers me just a little bit,
when I'm
(09:09):
doing the show. So I may have to
adjust these lights just a little bit. I
did turn them quite a bit. But
anyway,
things seem to be working. I think I
found the secret decoder ring for the RODEcaster
and how to not get it to disconnect.
It's all about starting a recording at least
ten minutes early. Something about that triggers it
to disconnect from the computer from
(09:31):
from time to time.
So I'm just double checking here because I
didn't refresh Facebook. Now I can see the
Facebook comments.
So let's talk a little bit of a
little more about
XAI.
They've unveiled a new $300 per month AI
subscription plan.
Now I'm still on OpenAI
(09:54):
Pro at 200 a month and I'm just
it's paying huge benefits. I'm getting
at least once a week my entire value
for that subscription
out of that advanced plan. I'm not sure
$300
is is that's a big big, big
leap. But,
(10:14):
I just wonder what people are seeing with
this, with this new,
with this new plan with well, with the
with the anticipation of GTVFi,
which is coming this summer.
I'm definitely not going to sign up for
it. But one thing I am,
really
pressing,
then trying to make sure my coders
(10:35):
at my company are starting to test these
tools
with code snippets and cleaning things up. And,
I feel that developers at this point are
the ones most at least
my opinion so far, the most resistant to
using AI.
And I don't fully understand
(10:56):
why.
If it's not working, it's not working. But
at least
attempt
try to use and and nothing else, QA
code or
get help with queries.
Because they've used search for years and years
and years to find stuff on GitHub and
other locations. So I'm just
makes me wonder just a little little bit
(11:17):
why developers are
as resistant as they are to using
using AI. My production team is all in.
The same time OpenAI
is talking about launching its own web browser
and it could arrive within the week. So
they're, you know, they're trying to
(11:38):
of course, Engadget,
they definitely have nothing really good to say
about
a number of these companies.
But if they launch their own
browser and deeply integrated services into
the work lives,
this is this could be a game changer.
Now
the browser slated to have a chat gbt
(11:59):
style chatbot baked in which completely,
makes sense.
And they're
reportedly
looking to use the browser to capture more
data, which is a strategy that's definitely worked
for Google.
They've done that for years.
So it's nothing new.
(12:20):
The browser said to be designed to keep
many reactions within an AI chatbot
rather than directing users to websites. Now this
is where,
for me it it's it becomes very, very
concerning for small businesses.
And,
and if they do start offering this, it
(12:41):
would be following Perplexity which released
a browser
with agentic AI functions,
earlier this week that
we missed in the news cycle here.
And but that browser is only available for
those that are
on Perplexity's max subscription of $200
per month.
(13:02):
So
that's,
that's it. You're not gonna see big penetration
on that largely because of the number of
people using
that level of a
subscription.
Now talking about browsers, there's something here that's
very concerning
and
it was reported by ArsTechnica
(13:22):
and I want all of you really to
listen up here if you're using
any extensions
in your browsers.
Browser extensions turn nearly 1,000,000 browsers into web
scraping
bots.
And,
they've been overriding key security protections, turned browsers
into engines, and scrape websites on behalf of
(13:44):
a paid service.
There's 245
extensions available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
They've racked up nearly
a million downloads.
So there's an extensive list and I looked
through this list
and to me none of them were
anything that I recognized,
(14:05):
but this is the bad part about this.
Of 45 known Chrome extensions, 12 are now
inactive. Some of the extensions removed for malware
explicitity.
Of a 129
edge extensions incorporating the the specific library that's
doing this, only eight are in inactive
(14:25):
and of 71 affected by Firefox. Only two
are now inactive. So
if you're using Chrome, you have less exposure,
but there's an extensive
list
linked in the in the article here. So
definitely consider going through that list and see
if any of the extensions you're using
(14:46):
have made the list here. And if they
have, please
start out with a fresh install
of the browser
and and remove,
those extensions.
So after months and months of battling it
out to become the world's most world's most
valuable company
(15:06):
and, Nvidia
briefly held that spot
to hit a staggering 4,000,000,000,000
market cap.
It's since dipped to 3,972,000,000,000.000.
But anyway,
hit that $4,000,000,000,000
value. You might as well just call it
4,000,000,000,000 based upon stock fluctuation. But,
(15:28):
you know, huge huge huge first company ever
to hit
a $4,000,000,000,000.
And if it doesn't show you that the
AI
the AI stuff is just hotter than ever
then,
you know, I don't know what you can
think of.
HBO
Max is back.
HBO Max says the rebranding to the name
(15:49):
that should have never been changed is underway.
So,
you know,
maybe now they can figure out
their, their model.
It just doesn't make any sense why they
made that change to begin with. But,
you know, at HBO Max is
is on its way back and you'll start
(16:09):
seeing updates across the websites and so forth
over the coming days.
So if you're a big Samsung phone, the
Galaxy Unpacked 2025,
everything Samsung announced including the z fold z
excuse me. The z fold seven,
the z flip seven, and Galaxy Watch eight,
are basically have,
(16:31):
there's great reporting on it here by the
fact the folks from Engadget.
And,
you can get all the details on these
on these different devices.
Do any of you own a flip a
flip phone? Of course, I'm following a flip
phone because a modern flip phone do any
of them have those?
And any of you are actually using a
(16:52):
Galaxy watch.
I'm kinda curious about that.
But,
anyway, some major updates there on on the
mobile the mobile situation
with
Samsung.
And I will admit that the,
the fold
definitely looks
a lot like a tablet to me. And
(17:14):
until I saw a picture of this modern
one today,
I really had
no specific interest in picking up one of
these phones, but it it's it's becoming more
attractive.
But
here's the problem.
$2,000.
(17:36):
That's just insane amount of money.
Insane.
Major League Baseball
will test its robot
umpire system
at the next all star game. The automated
ball strike system
is being used as a way to challenge
calls during it was used as a way
to challenge calls during spring training.
(17:59):
It's not being used to replace
umpires, which
would be very, very hard, I think.
But the current version of ABS uses Hawkeye,
the computer
vision system developed by Sony to monitor the
exact location of the pitch relative to the
batter's strike zone.
The league is tested
(18:20):
relying on ABC exclusive for calls, but views
the ABC challenge system as good as a
good compromise
between tradition and technology like other possible rule
changes.
It also
adds a new element of strategy with only
two opportunities to challenge,
and players have to be selective. So I'm
(18:41):
not much of a major league baseball
fan. You know, there's often controversies about Empires,
but how do you complain and yell at
and get the face of a bot?
I don't think you can.
And a very interesting move, T Mobile has
end its DEI programs and attempt to win
approval from the
(19:02):
FCC as part of its attempt
to acquire
the $20,000,000
merger with Frontier.
And,
we know that the current administration
is,
definitely anti DEI,
(19:23):
but they also need regulatory backing to purchase
extensive assets of United States cellular in a
deal at 4,400,000,000.0.
So they're trying to make
trying to make this happen. Did any of
you pick up anything up on,
Prime Week on Amazon?
I was shopping and did not see any
(19:43):
deals.
So
I don't know. It to me, it was
underwhelming
the offerings to be quite frank with you.
There were some good Apple stuff, but I
I needed more Apple computers like I need
a hole in my head at this point.
NASA's gonna lose over 2,000 senior staff due
to propose budget cuts.
(20:04):
The 2026 budget will leave the space organization
in a difficult position if it's improved.
So
of the of over the two thousands
potential
departing staff members, nearly all of them are
in senior positions,
requiring specialized skills or management
(20:25):
experience. Those include 1,818
staff serving in missionaries like science or human
spaceflight,
the rest performing mission
support roles like IT, facilities, maintenance, or finance.
So it was a large number of g
s 13, fourteens, and fifteens.
Of course, that's where the most of the
money
is being spent is on those positions.
(20:48):
But if you look at the GSA pay
scale, I think you'll consider,
g s 13 even topped out doesn't make
that much competitive money
as compared to the open market. And fourteens
and fifteens
are similarly placed, but they get incredibly great
retirements out of those,
out of those pay levels.
(21:10):
So
very, very interesting. But,
I, you know, I think the government needs
to be cut. The question is how
big of an impact,
will it be? If you're a Lego fan,
the Lego's first buildable Decepticon
is
a talking sound wave.
The 1,505
piece sound wave set includes sound effects and
(21:32):
ravage and laser break cassettes, whatever that means.
I don't know what a laser
rec and set is. At a $189.99
sound wave will also be Lego's most expensive
transformer set to date
and going on sale in August.
And, Optus Prime is currently a $179
with the much smaller Bumblebee at
(21:54):
$89.
So,
Lego fans, you have that to look forward
to.
Qantas confirms a 5,700,000
have been impacted by a data breach.
So, the personal information
was compromised.
The incident occurred on June 30.
(22:15):
On July 7, the company announced that hackers
made contact likely for extortion
and roughly 6,000,000 customers data was stored on
a hack platform.
And
so they found that
names, email addresses, Qantas frequent fire details
(22:35):
Of those 1,200,000
records only contained names and email addresses.
So,
they had,
phone numbers,
gender information, meal preferences.
I don't care if people know what I
eat,
which I am,
by the way, I'm doing very well
(22:57):
on my diet.
I'll have more to report soon
and some information for you to share with
you.
Jack Dorsey says his secure Nitbit chat app
has not been tested for security. So let
me say that again.
Jack Dorsey says his new secure
(23:20):
new bit chat app
has not been tested for security.
He launched this open source chat app
this previous Sunday, promising delivers secure and private
messaging without a centralized infrastructure.
The app relies on Bluetooth and end to
end encryption unlike
traditional messaging apps that rely on the Internet.
(23:40):
By being decentralized, BitChat has potential to being
a secure app in high risk environments
where the Internet
is monitored or,
inaccessible.
Did I just oh, that's what I did.
So
but it hasn't faced any
scrutiny by security researchers.
I don't know how this works if it
(24:01):
just uses Bluetooth.
And how do you talk to other people?
He says that work in progress.
The latest disclaimer claimed after basically, they put
a disclaimer on this. Do not use it
for production use and do not rely on
its security whatsoever until it's been reviewed.
So maybe that maybe it should have been
(24:22):
the cart before the horse there a little
bit.
On the science front, echoes from the Big
Bang suggests the Earth is trapped inside a
giant
cosmic void. Now this is not the first
time.
This has been suggested a few times since
1990,
but astronomers claim to found new evidence supporting
this controversial
(24:43):
observation
is that we're kind of out in the
backwoods of anywhere.
They say they found claim evidence Earth and
our Milky Way are suspended inside a gigantic
void.
First, they told us last week we were
in a black hole.
So
the proposal made by analyzing echoes of the
Big Bang suggests that our galaxy may be
(25:04):
floating in a 2,000,000,000 light year
region that's 20% less dense than average.
So okay. We'll see.
Curious observation
and, people spend their life
spend their life analyzing this stuff.
The July full moon rises
(25:26):
tonight. So the full moon reads at peak
illumination at forty six PM
eastern
daylight time. Interesting.
So it actually happened yesterday. So this is
a or happened today
on July 10, your time.
The exact time the moon race takes place
which is around 08:53PM
(25:47):
in New York.
So take a look at the moon
and,
the black moon
will be the farthest full moon from the
sun in 2025.
So,
guess it's supposed to be darker.
How many shades of gray darker?
(26:07):
Outlook hit was down for quite a while,
and it's certainly come back online, but they're
recovering from a major outage
that lasted most of the morning.
So,
how many of you were impacted
by that?
Elon Musk is saying that Grok is going
to come to Tesla EVs
and
(26:28):
so they're going to be be putting that
into,
into Teslas. I'm not surprised.
The question is, what happens when Grok gets
it wrong?
Love to see how that ends up being
integrated if any of you have a Tesla
and are willing to admit it. A lot
(26:49):
of people don't want to admit they have
a Tesla right now.
But if you do,
and
find out details on this, I'd love to
have you share it with us
so that we can share it with the
audience.
A McDonald's
chatbot.
Why does McDonald's have a chatbot?
Why why is that even a thing? McDonald's
(27:13):
chatbot law a leak 64,000,000
records with the one two three four five
six password.
Oh, it was from a job applicant website.
Information about 64,000,000
people applying for jobs at McDonald's been leaked
via Olivia,
an AI powered chatbot created by Paradox dot
AI to handle hiring.
(27:33):
So yeah. You go to apply for McDonald's
now and an AI is and analyzing your
your application.
This give Carol access to information including the
name, addresses, phone numbers, and email address of
job applicants
among other data.
Reporting a leak to Paradox was challenging as
the company lacked a dedicated security team.
(27:56):
So, apparently, they finally were able to get
through to them and get this patched.
Microsoft is doubling down and spending 4,000,000,000 to
push AI in schools,
universities, and more.
Microsoft wants the wants to upscale the next
generation in AI. And for those of you
that listen to the show that have kids,
(28:18):
what are you doing with your
with AI? How
how have you got that
integrated
in
your household for your kids? Are you letting
your kids use AI?
I think there's there's you're damned if you
do damned if you don't in this regard.
(28:38):
But Microsoft's donating 4,000,000,000 cash over five years
to upscale today's youth. AI and cloud skills
are lacking in much of the global workforce.
Teachers also getting support to help them integrate
AI into the classroom.
I know there's a lot of cheating going
on,
(28:58):
but it's it's a great research
tool
if you use it as a research tool
and backup sources.
I can't imagine
going to college now and having this
available. It would be beyond
(29:19):
tempting. I know that they are
working on and in schools are using, you
know,
detection technology.
But
you
know, how far does it go?
How much do you would you rewrite?
That, you know, therein lies the question, you
know, and also if a student,
(29:41):
hires,
pays for the
higher
pro model like I'm using and getting the
advanced research functions,
the advanced research functions, I get all of
the sources.
And they're they're basically
not in the format that you'd use in
school, but, you know, you you've got the
(30:01):
list
already prebuilt of the sources for the for
the articles for
the the write up.
So,
you know,
I think if I wanted a tactical advantage
in college at this point, I would probably
be paying for pro
just for the high reasoning function and being
able to
(30:22):
resource,
you know, sources for articles and so forth.
We all know that and and for those
that do you haven't done under any undergraduate
work,
you know, writing papers in college to me
was kind of a joke.
It was very, very simple because I knew
how to use Google. I knew how to
do search and I was able to pull
(30:43):
stuff out and put papers together
very, very quickly and source information.
And
so for me, it was one of those
things that was never,
you know, a big lift
as as a, as a college student.
Of course, I went to college late in
life
and got my degree. But,
(31:05):
I think this AI is just going to
change
going to change everything.
Now the doom and gloomers has said the
Trump tariffs were gonna ruin everything. They, you
know, they've been a little bit
silent recently because
everything's went pretty well so far.
But the tech side is still worried because
(31:26):
tariff uncertainty
and we know that computers are still exempt
from the levies that Trump
administration introduced.
And,
there's still a threat though because
those
those tariffs could be coming off,
on August 1. Now they could be extended
(31:47):
again,
I guess, depending on how
negotiations
are going.
But,
you know, I think a lot of people
went and got notebooks and so forth,
when they knew this was gonna happen.
But, again, you've got a few weeks here
if you want
to be able to pick up a PC
with it. Again, who knows what's gonna happen?
(32:09):
This might be off or not.
We could end up
with the
with the with the tariff situation resolving itself.
I'd love to hear what you think. What's
what's happened with you and purchases?
Have you slowed down on purchases because of
the perceived higher cost
of things. Now one thing's for sure, Amazon
(32:31):
Prime Day, they say that sales plunge 41%
on the first day. I I would not
be surprised.
Experts attributed the drop to shoppers delaying purchase
anticipation of better deals
during the extended four day event.
Amazon said, of course, they were pleased by
the engagement.
(32:52):
And according to
the numbers provided at Adobe, kickoff numbers to
rest Thanksgiving of 2024
of June,
but I really didn't need anything, to be
honest with you. I really did not.
And what I actually what I look for
is I have certain stuff that I have
subscriptions for. I have a subscription to
(33:14):
a heartburn medicine,
and I have subscriptions
to my
sugar monitoring system. And I looked to see
if there was any discounts on that if
I could lock in cheaper pricing. And of
course, there were
none of that. I will say this too.
Having monitored been monitoring now my,
oh, by the way, I had one sensor
(33:34):
fail.
So I'm gonna run out of sensors before
I come home. The Astellas did replace it.
It failed after twenty four hours, which was
quite annoying.
They sent me a replacement.
The one I'm using,
for those of you that are not aware
is Stell O.
It's
$50
(33:54):
every fifteen days or a $100 a month.
Just the awareness
of I've learned
so much in a month.
I think any of you with type two
diabetes
that do not
I'm telling you, if I if I if
(34:15):
they could come on and be a sponsor,
I would be a great spokesperson for this.
If if you have type two diabetes
and,
you're not pricking every day
and seeing where your levels are at or
pricking multiple times a day as some have
to,
this monitoring tech,
(34:36):
I feel I can probably
within two or three months,
maybe even four months,
completely learn
what I had been doing wrong
and knowing what price I pay for
what type of food I eat,
and how to
(34:57):
also time my metformin
pill,
from,
you know, being able to
I'm supposed to be on a time release,
but I'm gonna tell you that I'm on
a twelve hour time release met form and
so I take two a day.
And if if I you used to wake
(35:17):
up in the morning and take that pill
immediately because it was already twelve hours, but
I often didn't eat for two or three
hours later.
Much much better to hold
for two or three hours. You take
that first meal of the day to take
that pill
and then
in the evening
take the second one not even twelve hours
(35:38):
in when you have your evening meal
and
and even though there might have only been
nine hours separation
has a dramatic effect
on
the
on your blood sugar
and
my levels like this morning,
(35:59):
for those of you that
are aware of these type number, a normal
range
is
70 to 180.
I'm I'm right now at 92
and I've been 90
in the nineties since
about
almost
(36:20):
twelve hours ago.
And I haven't ate yet this morning.
Here
about twelve hours ago when I had my
last meal, which I jumped up
to about
the 120
range.
But I have not gotten close
to 180.
(36:41):
There was I got close once about three
days ago,
close to 180. And and I have the
event logged on what triggered that.
Here in The Philippines.
Rice rice is definitely
huge. But if you do a protein in
a rice,
it the rice isn't really doesn't have much
(37:02):
of an effect.
But it's just amazing.
It really is.
And it's gonna be interesting when I go
back to The United States
and and eating
food
that maybe is a restaurant or prepared to
see what the effect is because I was
having a hard time
initially getting the sugar down
(37:23):
with,
when I was first on this.
And
to be quite frank,
American food
is just
so full of
of
bad stuff. It's just
unbelievable.
I hear I know I always knew my
sugar was better when I was here. I
(37:45):
could just tell physically
and the
it
it's just because there's not a lot of
processed food here.
Everything is made fresh.
So,
again,
I'm telling you,
if if if it's not in your budget,
please
try if you're on if you're a type
(38:07):
two diabetic,
I impair upon you to do this for
one month.
Just one month and,
you're gonna see a major major major difference.
Alright. Millions of cars exposed to remote hacking
via a what's called the perfect blue attack.
And
researchers conducted an analysis of the blue SDK
(38:29):
Bluetooth firmware
framework developed by OpenSynergy
and found several vulnerabilities.
The perfect blue hack was demonstrated against recent
infotainment
models shipped from Mercedes Benz, Skoda, and Volkswagen,
as well as products made by another unnamed
OEM that was only recently made aware of
the findings.
So,
(38:50):
their CVEs
out on this,
but,
if you again,
this is I don't know the extent of
attack,
but they say that this could allow remote
code execution.
IKEA has launched two cheap Bluetooth speakers including
a retro throwback with a handy,
(39:11):
Spotify trick.
There there's the start of another IKEA smart
home push,
so they're ugly. I'll be honest with you.
These speakers,
you know, maybe for a teenager,
but for an adult,
does an adult want
why do you see these things?
(39:31):
They're really ugly.
I I guess I'm just, I like modern
stuff.
This
it it it is a retro throwback,
but
it's ugly. I mean, it's really, really ugly.
4999
won't set you back too far though.
(39:53):
So everyone's making fun of the interim
NASA administration. President Trump announced that,
transfer patient secretary Sean Duffy and of course
they're taking shots at him of being a
reality TV star.
Isaacman said, short of a new nominee, this
(40:14):
was a great move.
NASA needs political leadership from someone that president
trust
and has confidence in wishing secondary well and
important endeavor.
So he's I guess he's gonna do a
hat.
So
is I think he was in transportation. Is
he gonna move from transportation
or stay in trans
(40:35):
rotation?
I guess he's gonna do do a hat.
So,
a lot of criticizing still going out there
for sure.
Last couple of articles here and don't and
don't leave.
I plan
Apple man. They are planning a whole new
MacBook lineup with the M5.
(40:56):
So, you know, if you're if you're thinking
if you're if you've got an M1,
M2 and you're thinking about the jump,
The m five stuff is looking
pretty
extensive across the entire
product line. So
don't upgrade early, but probably this stuff won't
be available until
(41:17):
early twenty twenty six if you can wait
that long, but,
a big big jump. I'll tell you my
my situation
here with the studio
and everything that I was,
having challenges with the last time
has completely
resolved itself.
It's in it's really purely now the Rodecaster
(41:39):
that is, given me issues, but I've I
definitely found
the hack. The camera's working great.
I and I have two cameras going on.
I've got this camera that I'm using here
and I've switched that to a beautiful PTZ
optics camera
that I'll probably transport back and forth with
me. I'll probably use it at home and
then bring it back here when I come
back next time,
(42:00):
because it's pretty expensive. And then I have
the
the,
teleprompter
and the camera on that and different focal
view and it's just it's it's working
out terrific.
Everything's working.
Yeah. I this was the right move
(42:22):
to
to bring the
the, the Mac Studio
with me.
I don't like the idea of transporting it
back and forth, but at the cost of
that machine, I'm just gonna transport it home
and I'll bring it back.
No no sense in having a second computer
here
when I'm not here. The next time I'm
(42:43):
gone, I'll be away for about sixty days.
I'm a I'll be back in The States
for at least sixty
to ninety days.
And
so
I'm very very happy with this setup here.
OBS is working like a charm.
Again, everything I wanted to do the first
trip in this new setup is working great.
(43:05):
Just a few tweaks here here and there.
Green screen stuff is working out well.
I've even got a pretty good, depending on
the type of shirt I wear, is if
the keying works good. OBS keying is definitely
not as good as
the TriCaster because there's still just a tiny
a bit of bleed
around my head and every amount of tweaking
(43:26):
I've done has not helped it.
But,
yeah. I'm pretty jazzed with the with the
setup here.
Alright. This is gonna bring us to the
end of the show. Geeknews@gmail.comatgeeknews
on Twitter. Don't forget about our sponsor GoDaddy.
Newcentra.com/godaddy.
You have
to continue. I will plan to continue to
(43:46):
do shows here as scheduled. There should be
no more
interruptions before my departure,
in early August.
And
even then, I think I'm traveling on days
where I will not miss an episode. I
think that'll be good. If you so feel
inclined, feel to support the show,
definitely consider geekcentral.com
(44:07):
forward /insider.
One time donations are great as well. We
appreciate it when you do make those, one
time donation. It goes greatly to help in
the podcast.
Share the show with your friends and family,
share the share my sponsor with friends and
family as well. Again, thank you for staying
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(44:29):
late,
for another edition of the Geek Central pod
Geek News Central podcast. Everybody take care. Bye
bye.
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