NASA Shuts Down Influencer’s False Astronaut Claim #1826

NASA firmly debunked claims by influencer Laysa Peixoto, who portrayed herself as a career astronaut selected for lunar and Mars missions. Clarifying that Peixoto had no official affiliation, NASA explained she participated only in a student workshop. Additional claims of university credentials were also proven false, intensifying the controversy. -Thinking of buying a Starlink? Use … Continue reading NASA Shuts Down Influencer’s False Astronaut Claim #1826 →

The post NASA Shuts Down Influencer’s False Astronaut Claim #1826 appeared first on Geek News Central.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Lead story for Thursday, June 12.
NASA shuts down influencers
false
claim
amid
social media
just explosion.
NASA has firmly debunked
claims by an influencer named Leisa
Piesto
out of Brazil

(00:22):
who portrayed herself as a crew astronaut selected
for lunar and Mars missions.
NASA clarified
that she had no affiliation,
no official affiliation,
and NASA explained she participated only in a
student workshop.
Additional claims of university credentials were also proven

(00:43):
false,
intensifying the controversy. Well, welcome to episode 1,826.
I'm your host, Todd Cochran. Well, ladies and
gentlemen, I think I should just make the
claim that I have been picked.
I have been picked by NASA
to
go
into
space.
Yeah. In my dreams.

(01:05):
In my dreams.
This controversy started about five days ago when
this twenty three three year old took to
Instagram
to reveal that she was chosen to fly
missions.
She was chosen to fly missions to the
moon
and Mars. So,
this, you know, young, very,

(01:27):
cute,
23 year old,
yep, made these claims that, she was chosen
to fly
missions to the moon.
How did she think that this was not
gonna end well? And then she's got she's
got a picture of her wearing a helmet,

(01:47):
got her lipstick and makeup,
just
very, very nice.
Even she's even got herself in a picture
in a,
a, a NASA
jumpsuit.
And,
yeah, I wonder if she photoshopped that or
or or where she got it, but

(02:09):
yeah. NASA said,
no.
No. No. No.
You know you know, in a slow news
day.
It doesn't take a lot to become the
lead story. And, actually, we got a lot
of great tech stories today. So, again,
welcome to eighteen twenty six. I'm your host.
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(02:30):
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(02:50):
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(03:10):
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(03:32):
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(03:52):
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(04:13):
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(04:35):
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(04:55):
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And thank you for supporting us and staying

(05:17):
online. Hey. On the last show, I did
ask those of you listening
for some feedback
on how you're using AI.
And lo and behold,
we got a got a audio clip that
came in. I'm gonna play that before we
get into the rest of the stack. We'll
comment on his
commentary

(05:38):
here. But, here's the feedback.
Hi, Todd. It's Andrew here from The UK.
Todd, on the previous episode, you were asking
about people's experiences of using AI. So I
thought I'd drop you a little voice note.
Now it's not totally on point, but I
think it's worth saying.
Now I'm really impressed with the kind of
AI that allows us to have self driving

(05:58):
cars, goes through medical scans, look for tumors
that were missed, Or even just the AI
that looks at your webcam footage and tells
you whether it's a person, a pet or
a parcel at the front door.
But what I'm not terribly impressed about is
generative AI, which to me just seems like
wholesale IP theft.
These companies are basically other people's work and

(06:19):
creativity
and repurposing it as their own. And I
don't think it's right.
These are some of the richest companies on
the planet and and they're just brushing people
off. They need to be clear about inclusion
in datasets, and they need to recompense people
fairly, or allow them to remove their content.
Yes. If you're Taylor Swift or the Wall
Street Journal, you'll probably be able to negotiate

(06:39):
a rate. But if you're little people, you're
screwed.
Now, I think you've alluded to this before,
but simply if you have a website that
provides factual long form content that relies on
advertising to make money, it's basically came over.
As soon as your content gets hoovered up
by the AIs, it'll be brought into whatever
response Gemini or ChatGPT
spits out and you're not really get any

(07:00):
credit.
In any other circumstances, this will be copying,
plagiarism, ripping off, and intellectual theft.
As I said, these are some of the
richest companies on the planet. And frankly, many
of their leaders have questionable morals.
Countries seem to be bending over backwards to
facilitate the AI companies, instead of strengthening protections
to enable a fairer share of revenue.

(07:22):
They're not doing this for the betterment of
the human race. They're doing it for their
bottom line.
Let's not forget that these are the companies
that came for our privacy, our data, and
treated it with contempt.
And now they're coming for our creativity.
That's it.
Thanks so much, Todd.
Hey. Now, that's a different take.
You know, here's the way I look at

(07:44):
it. And to be honest with you,
I think what you're gonna find already
is the ship has sailed and most companies,
most websites
are creating most of their content now with
AI generated output. There's very, very few
sites that are online today that are writing
original content.

(08:04):
You know, we've asked the team at Keaton
Essential to write original contents,
but they're probably
re write original content. But probably the team
members are getting access to articles
that have been garnered from taking a press
release and then pulled the data out and
and made a blog post.
So I I think it's gone full circle

(08:26):
at this point because, to be frank,
if they don't, they're not going to survive.
And
what this could lead to is the collapse
of the model as well. So if you
don't have good input
coming into the model, because everything that the
model's getting is what was generated by the
AI to begin with, I think,

(08:48):
you know, you can look at, model collapse.
But at the same time,
my, you know, the way I am looking
at this is
the way we use the tool is to
get ideas
and
topics that we can talk about. So if
we're gonna write a blog post, at Blueberry
about,

(09:10):
x, y, and z.
We say, what are the ideas that we
should be covering in this article in x,
y, z? And we often use some of
that data for the outline to write an
article,
that is still written by hand.
But at the same time, it is very,
very easy
now to
almost take that output

(09:32):
and cut and paste. Now at least here
in The United States, there's some copyright stuff
that's, you know, has been decided and so
But I think what we're gonna find out
and the way that I look at it
at this time,
especially from my personal site,
and for Blueberry's site.

(09:52):
If we ban
the the AI and they've gotten big. I
agree. But if we ban
the AI from indexing our websites,
we're done as a business.
We will not survive the next three years.
And the reason for it is very, very
simple.
People are using AI now for search, and

(10:14):
we're seeing evidence of that traffic
coming to Geaton Central, coming to Blueberry
that is originating from people asking,
how do I start a podcast?
What's a good tech site?
And so on and so And then get
them giving just as Google gives today,
search results. Those search results are put together

(10:35):
by an AI,
and hopefully, we get a little bit of
that traffic.
So there is a paradox
that we're facing because Google's all in,
and so is Bing and other folks in
changing the way search results are found.
It's a big dilemma for

(10:55):
big companies,
small companies. And my my company, Blueberry is
a very small company. Well, you know, we're
under 20.
Here at Geek New Central, we're a very
small team of three or four.
And, you know, there's a couple of principal
writers and some folks that, like you, that
contribute
to the content on on the website,

(11:16):
putting in original content. But I am not
at all,
I am not at all
unaware
that the site's obviously been indexed.
But
I don't believe per se they've trained the
model on, yes, all this written word. I
get it. But it's all one big big

(11:38):
massive
jumble,
right, of content that they've they've trained it
on. So when you are getting
when you're ask asking it to write a
blog post or you're asking it for ideas.
Yep. You're getting bits and pizzas from from
all over the place.
So there's really,

(11:59):
you know, two ways
that this is all gonna resolve. And and
and I hate to say it, but the
genie cannot be put back in the bottle.
It's it's already
gone to the point where
you have to figure out at this point
as a creative,
as a website owner, as a company,
because we're not gonna be able to go

(12:20):
sue them and get money. The big companies
are.
So what do we have to do? We
have to adapt,
and we have to be able to,
use
the
the platform's recommendations
to our advantage.
So it's it's it again,

(12:45):
the prompts that I'm writing
per se into,
let's say, ChatGPT
as an As an example, if I'm doing
a research product. Matter of fact, I'll give
you an example right now.
I'm looking at the last three years of
data traffic we've moved at Blueberry. So I
have three years

(13:06):
of all the data that we moved on
every single day
going back,
thirty six months. So, you know, what is
that,
about a thousand entries.
And I am going to use the research
tool. Matter of fact, I asked for the
data today. I'll do it in the morning.
I'm gonna ask the research, and I could
do this with math.
Be you know, it's just a standard math

(13:28):
problem. I gotta figure out the averages
per day, whether the usage is up, down,
where the peaks are, what months are better,
what it looks like from a year to
year, month to month. I gotta look at
all this data
because next month,
I go into negotiations
with
with Amazon

(13:49):
to contract for the next two years
what I'm gonna pay for Bandwidth to deliver
podcast.
So what I need to do and for
again,
I could sit down and take two or
three hours,
run all this data, build pie charts, all
these things. But instead, I'm gonna drop that
document,

(14:10):
in the chat g p t, turn on
research mode, and I'm gonna say analyze my
web traffic
or my data traffic over the past three
years.
Tell me the trends. Give me any insights
that you can
because I'm getting ready to negotiate a new
contract with Amazon
for CDN pricing, and I'm gonna say go.

(14:32):
And in about five minutes,
it's gonna give me a report
where I can QA, and I probably will.
I'll probably do a little bit QA work
to make sure that they did the math
right.
And I'll have a pretty good answer on
where I need to be projected bandwidth for
the next two years, whether I need to
bid for less bandwidth going forward, the whole

(14:54):
nine yards. And that would have probably been
half a day. Half a day's worth of
work. And yet,
the
the
the work that I'm gonna do
in chat g p t is gonna save
me a massive amount of time.
So I'm in a position now
where you have to make a decision

(15:18):
whether you are going to
fight it or join it. And if you're
gonna join it, how can you make it
work best for your company to be able
to succeed?
The whole landscape of the world,
regardless of what we may think is going
to and is changing.

(15:39):
I think I talked about it on the
last show. I had one of my long
time employees
decide they didn't want to be on forty
hours a week anymore.
They basically to they're getting older. They wanna
spend time with family.
They step their time back, ten hours a
week. I think I originally thought I was
35, but it's thirty hours a week. And

(16:01):
because of
AI, her productivity is basically the same
as it would been if she was working
forty hours.
So, you know, the way I'm looking at
it from my company standpoint is we're gonna
be AI forward.
We're gonna use the tools. We're gonna because

(16:22):
there's some stuff
that I've done
that I would have had to spend tens
of thousands of dollars to hire a data
analysis
to do a bunch of data analysis for
me to make a decision on something that
now I don't have to pay a data
analysis because I don't have the budget for
a data analysis. I don't have a budget
to go out and hire a data analysis.

(16:42):
I had to kinda interpret my own data
to the best of my ability,
but I basically got an undergraduate data analysis
for $200 a month.
And it's incredible, the outputs that we're getting
out of this.
And again, you have to be careful.
You don't necessarily wanna connect your Google Drive

(17:04):
or your email to these,
agents.
I think that's a little bit foolish because,
you know, you may expose all your data
to the world
if you don't have your settings right on,
you know, basically denying permission for them to
feed stuff back.
So, again, I think, you know and I
understand from an artist standpoint

(17:24):
this this challenge,
that's going And you look at the art
that we're creating for the show now.
I could have never have done that on
my own. I could have never have,
afforded
to be able to do art like that
on my own.
You know, thank god for Sam, for so
many years, submitted art to us that we

(17:45):
put in rotation.
A 120
images he give us, and we, you know,
we change the image every show, but it
always didn't didn't always match the
the content.
And when someone was looking at the show
in Apple Podcasts, you know, what did they
see? They just saw a GNC logo. Now,
at least, they're seeing something a little more
intriguing and it have the ability to say,

(18:07):
oh, maybe I should check that out.
I I agree that there's gonna be lots
of lawsuits and a lot of people paid,
and the common man is gonna get zero.
Zero.
And
so now we have to make a decision
being that we are going to get zero.
I'm not gonna get a penny from any

(18:27):
of these models,
and now I'm paying to use these models.
I think for the common man, this is
it makes sense. It gives you a a
competitive
advantage.
There's no reason now why
someone that's young, full of energy, can work
twenty hours a day,
can start with just a very small number

(18:50):
of people,
leverage AI, and build something beautiful.
There's no reason for it. There's no reason
that you would need today more than
four or five people,
maybe three
to launch something remarkable because you've got the
ability here to put a business plan together.
You can put your road map together. You

(19:11):
can have idea iteration.
It just goes on and on and on
and on. So there's huge
huge opportunities,
whereas
you may not have been able to do
that yourself.
Even the lawyer that's on my team,
we take and he helps chat GBT do

(19:32):
initial drafts on legal documents. He goes through
then and and QAs them, but would have
took him five, six, seven hours
at the billing rate of a lawyer to
put together. He now it's an hour, hour
and a half,
because the basis of the legal document and
him having a a a legal degree, and
being a legal being a lawyer, licensed lawyer,

(19:54):
he can go through and review and make
sure the language is right and and QA
it, make the changes where it's needed, and
he does have to make changes.
And the time
in money savings
is simply incredible.
Documentation
alone, just documentation
alone,

(20:14):
and being able to take an image
of a UI,
give a little explanation of it, and it
produces beautiful documentation
that if I was to write it, I
would not have, number one, been able to
write it as beautiful. Number two, would not
has been able to be as clear.
Now without going through many, many rounds,

(20:37):
many, many rounds of editing, but now
I I give it an image of a
UI.
I said, here's the here's the description of
what this page is, the general
idea of what it does, And it's smart
enough to look at that out and write
documentation
that I can then put up on my
website. Of course, added it. It maybe gets

(20:57):
90% right,
but it's gotten so much better.
And until you have a
a
something that you have had to pay someone
else to do,
and you're a small company and a budget,
and you're trying to
imagine,
you know, being able to drop legal agreements

(21:19):
and then just have
someone do the review on the legal doc.
Can you check to see if this is
right? And they pay for an hour of
somebody's time versus
five hours of their time to create it.
It it's it's a game changer. It really
truly is.
Yes. At the expense of all the data
on the web. But here's the thing, The

(21:41):
data on the web,
copyright excluded, has been on the web for
us all to read and enjoy,
and
it's out there.
We've got 16,000
articles on Geek News Central that I have
paid for about 90% of them to be
written.
So, of course, you know, we have value

(22:01):
in that. But, also, I'm not of the
size of a company to be able to
go out and say, hey.
But what I am worried about
and there's the flip side to this, not
saying it's right or wrong.
The flip side of this is what happens
when Geek News Central's web traffic goes down
because
I blocked

(22:22):
ChatGBT
or Claude or all these models,
and all of a sudden, we're not being
recommended anymore.
Game over. Out of business. Dead.
No more budget. No more
no more, conversions for what advertising is on
the website.
It's done. It's gone. It's over. Game over.

(22:42):
But I have yet to
separate one test that we did
is to have the temptation to go to
an AI writing machine and say, just churn
out three articles a day, and it very
well could do that. There's plenty of tools
out there that I'd give it a list
of resources,
press releases, whatever it may be, tie into
the the newswires

(23:04):
and say he and it gives me 20
articles that may be of interest to me,
and I pick three.
It writes articles about those press releases
and then publishes it. It'd just be that
simple.
That's not how I'm working at Geek and
Essential by making sure that we all have
original content, original thought.

(23:24):
And, again, we're not a big operation. So
what do we put up on the website
in a month?
Maybe 30 articles.
Does that allow me to compete with nine
to five Google, Engadget, Gizmodo
who are churning out hundreds of articles a
day,
95%
of them written by AI and edited by
a small team?

(23:45):
They're doing that.
May have a person's name on it, but
I can absolutely guarantee you the majority of
those articles are being written by AI. I
got a fly here that's dive bombing. I
have my fly swatter with me.
I don't know. He comes around I've been
trying to get him for three or four
days.
So I I know. It's it's it's a

(24:06):
double edged sword. I guess and if you're
an artist,
you know, that you you're screwed the biggest.
But, you know, you look at this image
for those of you watching,
this nine to five article, that is absolutely
unequivocally at the top of the page. That
is AI generated.
It says it's not just you. Google and
many other web services were hit with a

(24:26):
partial outage. This is not a real image.
This is something that was generated by AI.
So here you have a leading
website,
and there you and we're all seeing this
stuff everywhere. Right?
So it's not just you know, this is
a well well
reputable

(24:47):
website, and this is why many websites right
now
seeing the seeing the apocalypse
that's coming,
and their only revenue model is
advertising.
This is why so many sites have started
to put up paywalls. Give me $5 a
month, $3 a month. Let me give me
your email so I can, you know, email

(25:07):
you every day with what we're writing just
to get the traffic to the website.
And this is just the tip of the
iceberg. This you know, the
the amount of content that's gonna be put
out that is
AI generated is gonna be so large. You're
not gonna know.
You're not gonna know.
Now because I have done so much work

(25:28):
in ChatGPT,
it is I I can tell ChatGPT
right in my voice
with my
concerns about listener privacy, with my concerns about
owning your own brand, with my and it
will
it will speak
essentially as I do based upon having

(25:49):
literally
a thousand samples of my writing from the
past fifteen years.
And it just knows how to write like
me and sound like me. It's my personal
doppelganger.
And
to be honest with you, I'm able to
do stuff now
that I did not have the time to
do before.

(26:10):
Why have I added the podcast myth show?
Because I've got time to do that.
Because I've I've been able to squeeze
more time out of the day
because I'm not spending three hours writing,
you know, a proposal.
The proposal I got my proposal template,
and I explained into the chat GBTA, or

(26:32):
I am talking to company x y z.
They want x y z service.
I said, please fill out the proposal form,
and it has samples of my previous proposal.
Bam. Gives me the proposal form written in
a much in not rushed,
produces it in sixty seconds, looks like it's
been worked on for three hours,

(26:52):
exquisite detail,
even pulls stuff out of the terms of
service to say, pay attention to, you know,
these
these,
specific items in the in the terms of
service because it affects your
proposal,
and
voila. I can send that off to a
client,
which would have took me three or four
hours on my own. And in fifteen minutes,

(27:14):
I've got a product. Boom. It's out the
door. And in fact, I talked about it
today with,
because we had lunch with,
my CFO
and my lead support,
person at Blueberry. We we met,
north,
over in Hamilton, Michigan. And
I said that
at the because

(27:36):
I am being able to turn and burn
much faster
on stuff that I'm doing,
Sometimes I have to take a ten minute
break to let my brain catch up.
Prime example. The other day, I was able
to
take all the email
addresses
from the podcast show I went to in

(27:58):
London. All are scanned,
and including non scanned badges and everything else,
and I was able to,
tell ChatGPT.
I said,
here's the spread here's the spreadsheet
here and there's in there is a is
an a line item that is about the
topic of what I talked about with this

(28:19):
customer. And at the show, we talked about
x y we talked about these, you know,
these particular 10 topics.
You already know about our products and services
on those 10 topics.
Now create me a custom personal email
to every one of those people that I
can send them. And
sixty seconds,

(28:40):
I it gave me a spreadsheet to download.
I opened it up and it had
the subject of the email,
which I was like, wow. That's pretty good.
Personalized email. Didn't get it a 100% right.
I had to maybe spend
sixty seconds or ninety seconds on each email
to just get it tweaked a little bit

(29:01):
and hit send.
Now what would have took me
literally
probably two days
of because I always do personal emails. We
don't do any,
mass, you know, email with the same message.
So it to get those emails out was

(29:22):
a couple hours.
And, again, each yeah. But still it was
tedious. They still had to edit the emails,
but I had a starting point.
And it produced an email that was and
you know what's happened?
I've gotten more
responses and meetings set up from doing it
that usually, it'd be crickets.

(29:42):
We would have 3%.
I had nearly 50%
response rate,
from those emails. People booking additional meetings that
could turn into business.
So it's just I'm not having to answer
my email, but when I'm emailing a stack
of
people that we talk to over two days

(30:03):
and it and, again, I it did create
the email initially, and then I edit it.
And then maybe it got something a little
wrong, and I had to personalize it a
little bit.
But when the person got the email, guess
what? They felt like they got an email
from me, and it was
because
my doppelganger
knows my voice, knows what my it just

(30:24):
it has all this information now, good or
bad,
and it's able to mimic me
and write in the tone I want, and
it it works.
So
I understand where you're coming from, Andrew. I
do. I do.
But I think this is a train we
can't stop.
I think I think, you know, this this

(30:46):
this thing has has left the station.
And now,
what we have to do is figure out
how we survive.
They're already talking about job impacts
and that people that are AI literate, at
least in The United States, are garnering 50%
higher wages than those that are not.
Because what can you do? You get more

(31:07):
performance out of AI literate employee than you
do as someone that's resisting.
Now I'm at an age where, you know,
I I I I got a finish line
in sight,
and I know how much more time I've
got to do to, you know, to put
in
before I can hopefully retire.
But

(31:30):
I don't have the same energy
that I had when I was 40 years
old. So for me,
and for people that are just coming to
the workforce,
it's it's you gotta have this AI literacy,
and I just think things are are gonna
change. I I appreciate your your feedback,
but, you know, I'm looking at this as

(31:50):
this tsunami
that's offshore,
and it's it's 800 feet tall.
And, I'm in this little itty bitty house,
three miles,
inland,
and, knowing that I'm gonna get ate up
if we don't
if we don't,
adapt.

(32:10):
And it's really that's that's the
that's the the basis of it, to be
to be honest.
And if you're a business out there,
and you're not using these tools,
there's a train coming,
and,
it it need to get on or you
need to get on the train and move
with this now.

(32:31):
So but it's good. It's, you know, it's
I think at this point, no there's no
privacy anymore.
That that that's been gone for ten years.
When I when I can before AI, when
someone could tell me
just by a few markers
that, yep. This is Todd and here's your
address.

(32:53):
So here's something interesting.
We have a list of all of our
customers' emails and ZIP codes.
Certain types of advertising in Google, you can
upload
those emails and ZIP codes, and Google will
not advertise
to those clients the products that they already
own from you.

(33:14):
Did you know that was possible?
I didn't.
But it's something that's available in Google. If
you don't want if you're spending advertising money
in this big 800 pound gorilla
and you upload that list,
it's probably not perfect.
But, again,
an email and a ZIP code is enough
for them to say, okay. We won't serve

(33:36):
that customer your ads,
which if you think about it, wow. I
didn't know that was possible.
It's been available for years.
So so much for GDPR.
And, of course, it's only for US.
Anyone outside The US, we don't have ZIP
codes for, so you you can't submit them.

(33:57):
So,
yeah, it's it's it's it's wild. It really,
really is.
Okay. Yes. I guess
moving on here. Google, many other web services
have been hit with a partial outage. It's
complicated as this thing is. I I am
not surprised.
Smart tires are now gonna report on the
health of roads in a new pilot program.

(34:19):
Do you remember the, Pirelli Cyber tire?
Well,
I I don't I I do, but I
don't. But
they've got a sensor equipped tire now that
can inform the car
it's fitted to what's happening, both with the
tire itself and the road it's passing over.
The technology has been slow making its way
into the real world with rarefied stuff like

(34:42):
McLaren, Attura.
Now Pirelli is going to put some cyber
tires work for everyone, not just supercar drivers.
In a pilot program
for the regional government
of Opelia in Italy,
the cyber tires are sensor to monitor temperature
and pressure using Bluetooth low energy
to communicate with the car. Electronics are able
to stand more than 3,500

(35:03):
g's
as part of the life on the road
because, yes, your tire is spinning at such
a high rate. It it's in credit
raising incredible g's. But, anyway,
it's gonna talk with the vehicle and tell
them what's going on with the road.
Nvidia has hit the gas on automated vehicle
software.
Nvidia's officially rolled out its autonomous vehicle despite

(35:23):
telling a UK car magazine that full sell
full self driving vehicles are not likely before
the next decade.
But yet the AI accelerated chipmaker declared at
its GTC Paris event
that the NVIDIA DRIVE
AV SAFR plant a platform is now in
full production claiming it offers automotive industry a
robust foundation

(35:45):
for AI powered mobility.
So,
they're they're using everything for AI. Elon's way
ahead of this, of course, as well.
Amazon has changed its nuclear deal in Pennsylvania
to bypass grumpy regulators. I don't fully understand
this. It's called new front of meter agreement.
Avoids direct delivery snags. So, basically, they were

(36:07):
wanting 1,920
megawatts of nuclear power
being delivered to a single data center or
a series of data centers through 2042.
But, apparently,
they were saying, no. You can't direct feed,
because that's not fair for everyone else. So
what they're gonna do,
they're gonna have a shunt of some sort,

(36:29):
whatever that means. A shunt, I guess, a
tap,
I would assume.
The new
the new deal isn't a
colocation agreement, but a frontometer deal,
meaning 1,920 megawatts of energy Amazon has purchased
from the nuclear power plant won't be delivered
directly, but will be shunted
to the grid to cover Amazon's increased consumption.

(36:52):
No colocation drag on the grid.
So the reason so they were basically,
they didn't want this because they said cities
down
downstream would be affected because
of,
the facility getting so much juice.
Well, that's just the tip of the iceberg,
ladies and gentlemen. People are gonna need juice.

(37:13):
Now case in point today, Kirk came up
with a,
an article over on Axios.
And
the Axios
link will stay up in the show notes.
But because I'm not paying Axios,
I had a big fat ad on the
front.
And so I went and looked to see
if anyone else was talking about this Axios

(37:33):
article, and I did. I found someone talking
about it on LinkedIn.
But, apparently,
Lyft has announced three new ad formats, sponsored
map vehicles, sponsored rides by mode, and vertical
video, and wait and save.
So
they've hired a bunch of people to serve
this.
And, anyway, this is an exclusive by Axios

(37:53):
that I couldn't read. So but I'll have
the Axios link in the show notes to
give, to give credit.
Now speaking of, companies that have not been
so nice,
you know, John Deere, people love their John
Deere tractors. I'm a John Deere fan too,
but John Deere has to face the FTC's
right to repair lawsuit.

(38:14):
A federal judge rejected John Deere's attempt to
get the lawsuit tossed out,
And, so they're gonna have to go to
battle here.
The FTC in several states, good Illinois, Minnesota,
Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, sued John Deere in
January claiming the company spent decades
limiting the ability of farmers and independent repair
shops to fix their equipment.
Also, it brings up the specialized software John

(38:36):
Deere uses repairs equipment, which is only available
to authorized dealers, AKA John Deere John Deere
dealerships,
forcing farmers to solely rely on the more
expensive authorized dealers for critical repairs.
In the ruling, the judge rejected John Deere's
challenges to the FTC
constitutional structure along with the arguments to the
government's monopolization

(38:56):
claims are insufficient.
So we will see
where this leads, and quite frankly, I hope
they're forced to open things up. Hey. Hey.
If you have an Anker power bank,
stop using the Anker power cord 10,000.
Now let me
give you the model number.
So

(39:18):
the model number printed on the bottom edge
is a one two six three.
If you have a a one two six
three power bank,
get that thing out of your house.
They've had 19 reports of fires and explosions
and has caused as much as $60,000
in property damage.

(39:38):
So again, this is the Anker a one
A1263.
I went immediately, looked at my power banks.
I don't have any of these.
And And that's another thing too. If you
have an old power bank,
please
please please dispose of them properly.
Don't throw them in the fire.

(39:59):
Don't throw them in the dumpster.
But I will say one thing. Where do
you, where do you recycle old suitcases?
DJI rumors point to three major product launches
next month, including a new three sixty camera.
So we could be a few weeks from
DJ's
three sixty camera plus a flagship wireless mic.

(40:23):
I like the action,
the DJ action,
action camera. It's really fantastic. It's what I
carry in my bag now.
Much more happy with that than,
the GoPros.
Longer battery life, holds the battery, doesn't run
out of battery.
I I'm really a big fan of the

(40:43):
DJI
action cameras.
Collected a lot of content
over the past
year that's just sitting on SD cards that
sometime in the future, I'll make it to
YouTube.
Google, yes, has a new AI model and
website for forecasting tropical storms.
It's working with the US National Hurricane Center

(41:03):
to test out its new AI
based tropical
cyclone
models.
So we'll see how this works because, yes,
they are testing it. Google DeepMind,
whoo, and Google Research
launched a new website today. It's called WeatherLab.
Let me look and see if it's what
it looks like.

(41:24):
DeepMind.
This is kinda for those of you watching,
this is kinda what it looks like.
So, you know, they're giving predictions
over time.
So we'll have to for those of you
in hurricane zones,
just be aware that that is out there.

(41:44):
So maybe maybe this will turn out to
be something or not. But it'll be interesting
and see how it a b compares up
against,
folks that are actually doing weather forecast.
So again, AI might
might
be affecting,
weatherman
jobs.
Very well could be. Maybe the AI will

(42:05):
end up doing weather prediction.
The Pixel six a phone keeps catching on
fire so Google's could put limits on their
batteries.
So some Pixel six a phones have been
overheating.
Google says they'll address the issue with the
software update. The update will limit battery capacity
and charging speed. So,
again, it's quite old camera, but they've had

(42:26):
some issues. Now, just remember, if you've got
an older phone, you got an older laptop,
you got an older tablet,
if they start to swell,
if they feel hot, super hot when they're
charging,
it's time maybe to think about a new
battery and or replacement.

(42:46):
It's not worth it. It really, really isn't.
I've abandoned a lot of devices over the
years
because the batteries that started to swell
and or overheating,
it's just not worth the potential,
of a fire.
And being that I'm traveling a lot, I
make sure that all of my

(43:07):
wall warts that are used for charging are
all turned off or unplugged
before I go anywhere and it's not plugged
in to any device to sit there and
trickle charge for a month while I'm gone.
So, you know, just be careful out there.
A major Interpol operation takes thousands of in
post dealer sites offline. Dozens have been arrested.

(43:28):
Operation secure
looks to hit malware operators where it hurts.
So this has been going on for a
while.
For January and April,
police agencies in 26 countries have worked together
to locate servers
and move into a disrupt criminal campaigns. 32
people were arrested.
ATM in Vietnam, 12 in Sri Lanka, two

(43:48):
in Nauru, including the individual suspected have been
running the entire operation found with,
a hefty sum of cash and lots of
SIM cards.
So gigs of data and lots of stuff.
So,
again, another criminal unit stealing money from companies
and so
shut down.
And And I think this is this next

(44:09):
article is partially right.
Many businesses are thinking twice on using AI
bots.
We know that customers like to call a
friend.
We also know that if we can get
them an answer,
either via just normal search or an AI
search result,

(44:30):
it saves and frees up time for my
team members.
So, you know, we've been looking heavily at
how we can get better refined,
and also great documentation. But people, to be
honest with you, they don't wanna read. They
wanna talk to someone. So I understand this.
Even if you give them the answer, they

(44:50):
may still call.
But if we can prevent one, two, three,
four, five calls a week,
that's at least an hour of my team's
time back,
just by having the ability for people to
find the answer on their own. But, when
there's a telephone number, people will dial nine
out of 10 times without doing any search.

(45:11):
An experimental retina implant have get has given
a mice infrared vision.
These four mice.
A team of scientists in China's Fudan University
recently brought a proton retinal implant that can
replace the failing photoreceptors
and potentially provide infrared vision as a bonus.
They've only tested in animals so far.

(45:31):
So that's China. I'm sure they'll be testing
on humans soon,
but anything that we can do to give
sight back to those that are blind or
vision impaired,
you know, I'm all for as long as
it it works.
If you're an Amazon Prime Video subscriber, you're
sitting through it up to six minutes of
ads per hour if you are not paying
the extra $3 a month

(45:53):
to get the ad free. I don't watch
enough Amazon Prime Video right now to give
an extra $3,
But they were supposed to have limited
number of ads, but over time,
it's crept up now to you're getting six
minutes of ads even
because even if you're paying
for Amazon Prime at $15 a month or

(46:14):
139
per year,
you still are getting ads. Now, again, you
gotta pay them another $36
a year if you don't want ads.
So,
again, I don't watch enough primes Prime Video
to be annoyed.
I do pay for YouTube. Boy, they're super
annoying.
Made has cracked down on a Nudify app

(46:35):
after being exposed. The lawsuit comes one week
after an investigation found hundreds of AI undressing
apps advertised on Meta.
So Nudify,
basically, take a picture of a person and
Nudify them without their consent.
How do they do that? Do they just
make a fake
god. They don't can you imagine someone trying
to do a notify of me?

(46:58):
You know, come on now.
But, they're going after this group and
taking these these apps down. It's just
more and more of this is is gonna
be out there for sure. NASA raises odds
of killer city asteroids smashing into the moon.
Now it has a four point three percent
chance of happening
in 2043.

(47:21):
So April
potential.
The Earth was initially in this
ring.
And,
so again, they're up to 4.3%
chance this is gonna happen
in,
in 2043.
So
we will see.

(47:43):
2043.
See how old am I?
Yeah. I might still be around.
We'll see if I don't stroke out in
the meantime.
Yeah. Probability has risen
by striking the moon. The Kickstarter funded films
are coming to Tubi. Tubi is partnering with
Kickstarter to distribute more than 20 crowdfunded

(48:03):
films. That's awesome.
And Tubi is owned by Fox, if you
didn't know that. It's partnering with Kickstarter
and,
begins to follow more than,
more than 20 videos that uniquely resonate with
Tubi fans will begin exclusive streaming
on the service. Additionally, Tubi plans to invest
in Kickstarter's film stream collective fund.
So,
a lot more people will be able to

(48:24):
see crowdfunded
films.
Telegram has rejected allegations over links to Russian
intelligence.
Unauthorized access to any data is impossible, said
the provider. I'm just gonna tell you, use
any app.
Any app.
Doesn't matter which one is. Telegram, Signal,
anything is possible

(48:46):
for your data to be released. Just be
aware.
There's nothing out there that is secure, secure,
secure. The only thing that's secure is something
you don't tell or type to anyone else
and you keep it secret for the entirety
of your rest of your life. That's the
only thing that can be a secret.
Apple's iOS 26 requires kids to get parental

(49:07):
permission to text new numbers.
That's awesome.
So what's the age range on this?
So there'll be five categories, include
including three for 13,
16, and 18.

(49:27):
When parents set app content restrictions
that exceed those that will not appear on
the App Store, those kids can request exemption
if if the ask to buy setting is
enabled.
So have already employee safety features like web
content filters, app restrictions for kids 13, but
now they go 13, 16, 17.

(49:50):
So
you want your phone, young one?
I'm gonna know who you're texting.
This is very good.
This is kids are gonna hate it, but
oh, well.
Solar orbit captures images of the sun's
pole, South Pole specifically for the time.

(50:10):
Pole's magnetic field is all messed up right
now, but they got a image of it.
Again, the solar orbit has been observing the
sun since 2021,
but it recently went on a side trip
to Venus to get a get a boost,
speed boost,
which certainly tilted its orbit and gave it
a good view of the sun's polar region.
So that was how I was able to
capture images that will historically be known as

(50:31):
humankind's
ever views of the sun's pole
as our galaxy planets and other spacecraft we
deployed over around the sun,
around an imaginary
elliptic plane
along the star's equator.
But again, there was enough of an angle
15 degrees below the equator to get the
image. So very, very cool YouTube
video on that. So worth watching.

(50:54):
You'll be one of the in mankind to
see the sun's South Pole.
Google faces a billion dollar quid bruising over
Play Store fees in The UK, and this
is all about the 30%.
So a billion pound legal action against Google
over Play Store fees can proceed to trial.
The case hinges on apps sold by UK
developers on Play Store and for Android customers.

(51:16):
Google charges up 30%.
So,
again,
once again, they're going after these App Store
fees
in a big, big way.
So
how many have a bike?
I currently do not have a bicycle,
and I know a lot of people even
here in the country are driving around in

(51:37):
ebikes.
Well, there's a new one that can accommodate
two passengers. It boasts robust security features and
a battery that's easily removed. It's called Auto.
Top speed of 33 miles per hour with
a 20 mile limit
while riding in a bike lane. How about
a dirt road? So it's called Olto.
How much does it cost? Let's see if
we can get a price on this thing.

(52:03):
$30,495.
That's not a that's not an electric bice
that that you can you I think you
can buy, like, a their stuff ain't quite
cheaper than that. You can buy a motorized
motorcycle for that much, I would think.
My goodness.
Coinbase based up subscription plan by offering it
with American Express credit card.
So they're going to have a branded credit

(52:25):
card exclusively to Coinbase one, the platform's monthly
subscription product.
How much you're gonna be able to get
it?
You're gonna be able to get,
how much is the card gonna cost?
Cardholders will be able to earn 24% back
in Bitcoin,

(52:45):
and they'll get other benefits alongside the American
Express network.
The Coinbase one costs $29.90 a month, and
the basic tier and pure rewards, it costs
$4.90
$49.99
a month. So is that what the credit
card's gonna cost?
That's pretty amazing,
but that is gonna be that cheap.

(53:09):
I am I reading that right?
That's probably the cheapest American Express card I've
ever heard of.
So I don't know what it's gonna give
the back in. You know, if you if
you and American Express is definitely expensive.
But if you take advantage of every offer
they have to save money,

(53:30):
you can pay your fee back and then
some. But if you don't, it's an absolute
waste of time.
No need to have an American Express card
unless you take advantage of all of the
of the
cash savings.
That's the critical part.
IOS 20. Okay. We already talked about the
child account stuff. That's a dupe.

(53:52):
And
okay. Yes. We will allow ads. We always
do.
Hollywood Reporter says the sag after suspense strike
after video game companies paving way to return
to work.
The union had taken a stand on AI,
among other concerns, says look to advocate for
voice and performance capture,
work. So after nearly a year on strike,

(54:14):
a year,
how much money these folks lose in a
year?
A year? How much money did they lose?
Doesn't talk about any of the
it delivers historic wage increase over 24%
for performers, enhanced health and safety protections.

(54:36):
So a year they run strike.
My god.
Okay.
Obviously, I gave Andrew some feedback.
What say you
in regards to my commentary about
AI?
Where are you
in the game here? Okay? I love to
hear. I love to hear back from you.

(54:56):
It's real easy to to send me an
email, [e-mail],
or you can do like Andrew did and
send me send me an audio file. We'll
play on the show.
Love to hear
your thoughts on his and I thoughts. And
believe me, I understand completely where he's coming
from.
But I'm a reality standpoint. I have employees.
They need to make payroll,

(55:18):
medical,
dental,
four zero one k,
you know, all the things that go along
with running a business. And,
you know,
you can't
there's a hill
that you you know, it's just like video
and podcasting. It's like, you know, fighting
with a loaded wheelbarrow up a hill. You
know? You're gonna roll down the hill or

(55:40):
you go up the hill. And the same
thing with AI.
Do you fight it and end up broke
and no
job and
out of business, or do you embrace it
and try to stay ahead of the curve,
which is almost impossible?
I don't know.
Where where do you lay
in this? And by the way, again,

(56:02):
I can't believe that young lady decided that
she was gonna say she was an astronaut.
How how how did she think?
How did she think that was not going
to,
come back and
and and and haunt her?
But, hey, get over the website.
We definitely appreciate when you do.
Support our writers over there,

(56:24):
and, you know, just support a click to
the website. Come over and take a look.
Snoop around a little bit. We appreciate when
you do. Again, [e-mail].
Don't forget about our sponsor, GoDaddy.
Take care. Be safe. We'll see you back
here on Monday for another edition of the
Geek and Central podcast. Everyone take care. We'll
see you next time. Bye bye.