February 17, 2025 • 48 mins
In the 1800th episode of Geek News Central, host Todd Cochrane marks a major milestone by reflecting on the evolution of podcasting and the show’s journey over two decades. He dives into 30 major tech stories, including AI industry shakeups, Tesla protests, TikTok’s legal troubles, and Meta’s latest innovations. With a mix of personal anecdotes … Continue reading Celebrating 1800 Episodes of Geek News Central #1800
The post Celebrating 1800 Episodes of Geek News Central #1800 appeared first on Geek News Central.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Geek News Central, your go to
source for the latest in AI and tech
news.
Today, we're covering a major shakeup in the
AI industry. Anthropic is fighting back against a
proposed US government ban
on Google investing in AI startups.
With billions online,
could this decision reshape the competitive landscape,
(00:21):
or will it stifle innovation?
We'll break down what's happening, why it matters,
and what's next for the AI arms race.
I wanna welcome you to episode 1,800
coming to this Monday, February 17.
I'm your host, Todd Cochran, ready to deliver
your tech news and information fix. A quick
shout out to our incredible sponsor at GoDaddy.
(00:44):
Score
exclusive deals and discounts at geekinesscentral.com/godaddy.
And to all of you that have been
here through 1,800
episodes,
you are the heartbeat of this show. If
you wanna support the GNC mission, head to
geekoncentral.com/insider
and become a GNC
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(01:04):
modern podcast apps. Don't just listen, experience the
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You can interact in real time and take
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check out the full Geek News Central universe
at geeknewscentral.com
where you find all our partner shows, tons
of content, and more tech goodness.
(01:25):
Of course, you can stay in the loop,
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Don't forget to sign up for our newsletter
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Have something to say? Join a conversation at
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or email me at geeknews@gmail.com.
You can also hit me up on x
at geek news, and you can even catch
(01:46):
me on
Facebook.
Of course, Geek News Central listeners are a
long, steady,
continuous sponsor of this show since really February
has been GoDaddy.
And just like all these other hundreds of
episodes,
we wanna thank them for being a continued
sponsor here, and you can lock in some
(02:08):
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(02:29):
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(02:51):
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(03:13):
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Share my deals with friends and family because
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and going strong.
Here we are.
1,800.
Took forever to get here, didn't it?
(03:34):
Took over a year.
We'll talk a little bit about that.
Do wanna thank SJG Media
for their, $10.80
donation to the show. Thank you so much
for that. We appreciate it for your ongoing
support and your warrior donation.
(03:55):
But if we go back,
we're gonna go back too far, but if
we think about where this show has been,
some quick facts and figures for you.
Eight thousand
six hundred hours producing and publishing this show.
That's what it has taken for
twenty and a half years.
(04:18):
Two thousand plus hours of content,
eighty three days of your life if you've
listened to every single episode over the twenty
plus years.
That's an incredible number. And some of you
have been here from the beginning
or or single digits, you know, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten.
It's really incredible that you've you've hung out
(04:40):
for 1,800 total episodes, and I'm
truly grateful.
You know, the history of this show and
for those of you that have never heard
it, you know, really, it it had humble
beginnings, and it goes all the way back
to probably 1987,
'19 '80 '8.
Excuse me, 1988
to 1991,
(05:02):
when I ran a bulletin board system. I
started out with a 65 meg hard drive
and a Commodore Colt and a 2,400 baud
modem, which is right
over my shoulder.
If I go this way,
you guys can see it on the shelf
if you're watching the show.
It's a reminder to me
how far we've come
(05:24):
in all these years.
Ninety one ninety four, I ran a bulletin
board system in Guam.
I was using,
AOL Telnet with our login to get to
a Chicago CBBS
to basically download new shareware and messages,
and, of course, I was using Wildcat.
And then '94 to '97, I was in
(05:45):
Maryland. The military was moving me around,
and I ran that bulletin board system in
a closet of a ISP.
Literally, I would pull the chair out, sit
down in it, and move my chair into
the closet
to manage
my system.
And then when I left Maryland and moved
to Hawaii in 1997,
(06:07):
the bulletin board moved there and basically went
to die
because 02/2001,
'2 thousand '2 is about the time
the bulletin board scene was kinda
dialing off.
I was basically taken care of, in the
FidoNet land Region 6 for many years,
which was, you know, all of Asia.
(06:28):
And,
so it was a pretty wild time.
And then 02/2002, I launched the geeknesscentral.com
website, and,
that
little did we know.
Those humble beginnings and those early years when
none of no one was reading the website,
you know, maybe 300 a week if I
(06:48):
was lucky.
And then, of course,
you know, 02/2004
in June, I had my my accident,
swimming pool accident that
just about paralyzed me.
I was really, really, really, really lucky, but
I broke my back
and,
was on for a long recovery.
(07:10):
And, of course, when you're broke in the
navy, the navy looks to say, what are
you doing for Uncle Sugar? How are you
going
to how are you going to take care
of, you know, what are you gonna do
for Uncle Sugar? So I went off to
Waco, Texas to
babysit,
airplanes being manufactured. And little did I know,
(07:30):
in very, very early October of '2 thousand
'4,
October ninth, specifically,
well, I heard about podcasting before October 9,
but I had to go across the street
and buy a buy a microphone.
And this show was launched in Hampton Inn
on I thirty five and introduced by ECDC
Back in Black.
(07:51):
First two episode had commercial music in it.
Those episodes are no longer available,
which then, you know, really led to a
book deal. We launched Tech Podcast Network
in February,
announced the book. June, announced
GoDaddy.
Two February,
announced GoToMeeting as a sponsor.
(08:13):
Launched the company, RawVoice, which is now I
commonly refer to as Blueberry, but RawVoice is
still the parent company.
Launched the podcast awards at podcastrewards.com.
I went to my first CES in January,
02/2006,
and,
really, things kind of progressed very quickly. June
30, we launched Blueberry and stats, and
(08:36):
you all know what happened in August 2006.
My dad died on my two hundredth episode,
and I came back to, you know, essentially
5,000 emails from all of you of condolences.
So,
it's hard to believe. 02/2007, I retired from
the Navy. I've spent almost
a couple years here will be twenty years
since I retired, which is
(08:58):
really kind
of mind boggling to me.
And, 02/2009,
I started playing with video.
I think that was around episode 500 or
so.
Fortunately, was inducted in the podcast hall of
fame in 02/2015.
I left Hawaii in 02/2019
and, built the first new media studio. Of
(09:21):
course, this year, got kicked out of that
studio, and we're in the new studio.
And, of course,
here we are. We've hit 1,800
episodes, and they did, just, you know, some
quick math, about 87
episodes a year
out of a hundred and four possible because
they do two episodes a week, fifty two
(09:42):
weeks in a year.
So considering I've been at this,
for nearly,
twenty plus years,
not bad.
Not bad,
whatsoever.
I figured there's there's not a lot of
shows that made it to 1,800.
Very few shows and or very few podcasters
(10:04):
that made it twenty plus years.
And I talked to you guys way
back in the beginning
way back in the beginning, and
I told you if this show quit being
fun, I'd quit.
Or when it become no longer fun, I
would I would stop. And so so far,
(10:26):
there's been a few times
a few times that I wish I would
have
pulled the plug per se,
but,
here I am
and still sustaining and doing the show. And,
you know, thank goodness GoDaddy is still supporting
the podcast with their sponsorship.
(10:48):
A number of you that are insiders are
supporting the show by becoming by by being
an insider. It does you know? And get
don't get me wrong. We have much more
higher expenses than what the
what the insiders contribute, but that's okay.
You know? As long as you guys keep
buying GoDaddy products and services and telling people
about GoDaddy,
(11:09):
we're gonna be okay. And, you know, and
it's truly there should be some world record
I should get for having a Guinness Book
of World Record for having GoDaddy. And matter
of fact, you know, I don't know what
the case will be, but June
of this year
will be twenty years.
It'd be pretty cool to have a Guinness
Book of World Records for
(11:30):
the same sponsor for twenty
twenty years.
No one else.
No one. No one in the podcasting space.
Not a single show
Even is, I would say, even a tenth
close.
So maybe that's something we'll look into. I
wonder what they require for payment
(11:50):
to make that happen. But,
yeah, twenty years of the same podcasting sponsor.
That's that is definitely a world record whether
Guinness gives it gives me that record or
not.
And here we gotta make it to June,
of course, with them
as a sponsor. But the last couple of
months, you guys keep doing what we're doing.
Yeah. We don't have to worry about that.
(12:10):
But,
yeah, exciting exciting time,
and I'm just so grateful
for for all of you
for, for being here for 18. You know,
always the goal was a hundred episodes a
year, but
just don't think I can do it.
That's why the average is about 90.
(12:30):
So that's why the why it shifts
a month, month and a half every
hundred,
you know, because I I don't, I don't
do
a hundred episodes
a a year.
Sure. We could do replays and stuff like
that, but this is a tech news show,
and it gets it gets you know, you
guys wouldn't wanna listen to reruns. That doesn't
(12:51):
that doesn't work. So where are we going
from here? Well, the March continues, the March
to February,
of course.
You know, and if if everything goes right
two and a half years or so, and
we will
we will be at at February.
I don't know. I I'm not going to
promise
a faster pace
(13:11):
because I'm got a business.
I'm keeping employees employed,
and I I do this show, you know,
at the time I'm doing it now. It's
06:30 here
in Michigan at this time,
and,
that's just, you know, that's kind of the
pace
that, that we're at. But, thanks for being
(13:32):
here, and thanks for continuing to stay subscribed.
And it's it's been a fun ride, and
and onward we go. So let's go ahead.
We we spent enough reminiscing here. Let's go
ahead and get into the tech news.
Kirk did a good job. I had to
go out and grab a few more because,
the it was a little slow. I think
the weather,
this ice cold I mean, it's I've just
been hibernating.
(13:54):
I had to take the trash can to
the road yesterday,
but oh, I did go. We did go
somewhere. I had to take a power supply
to send back this, to Starlink.
So I had to take that to the
FedEx drop box. So I did that Sunday.
Other than that, it's been pretty much, you
know, stayed here. Went up to dinner Friday,
stayed in Saturday,
(14:17):
and then again a full I mean, absolutely
full workday today
with things going on at at Blueberry and
juggling everything happens there. Alright. So let's, let's
talk about x here.
X is blocking
links to secure
messaging platform signal,
and here's what we think
(14:38):
or here's what they think is happening because
some government employees are trying to
hide their communications.
They think they're linking from x
into signal,
but that doesn't make any sense. Why would
you put a public link
to something in signal unless it was directed
(14:58):
to? You know, I've I haven't I haven't
used signal in
a while,
but wasn't it all about secure messaging back
and forth, not necessarily
letting someone see a link to a conversation,
or is that
maybe that is a use case, but
that's the suspicion.
Just like WhatsApp, which relies on wa.me
(15:20):
URL to format for sharing direct messages, Signal
also follows a similar approach
to let users click on signal.me
and directly land in a one on one
chat.
So through a direct message, this individual tried
sharing a signal chat link,
but got an error message on me that
the post wasn't set
(15:42):
and, but they didn't go through.
Putting a signal link in public post or
DM simply returns a sending error without an
explanation. However, when updating the x bio
with the link, the error message describes signal.me
as a as malware, which is wow.
X is also blocking users from clicking on
signal links shared in older posts.
(16:05):
So far, the platform hasn't seen anything officially
about why signal links are running into a
digital wall for list existing links out there
and x platformers warning user may be malicious,
spamming, misleading, or something that violates x policy.
Well, x, I think we all know that
signal is a is a viable
messaging platform.
So there's some something going on here.
(16:28):
But I wouldn't be linking to anything
private in
signal anyway. Doesn't make any sense whatsoever
to me.
Anthropic is, trying to figure out what they're
gonna do.
Court ban on Google AI stakes would hurt
anthropic clients,
says analyst,
and they're speaking out against the proposed ban
(16:51):
on Google investing in AI firms.
It's one of the remedies sought by the
US government after the company was found guilty.
Remember this. They found guilty
of anti competitive practice in markets for search
and text advertising, and I think we fully
understand that. I do, especially,
as I'm watching things.
So,
Anthropic, you know, is relying on money from
(17:13):
Google.
So they've asked the US court for permission
to intervene because
the AI investment was not part
of the antitrust
investigation.
So they filed a request for submitting the
remedy phase of the trial.
And,
(17:34):
as an amicus curiae or friend of the
court.
So a force x about itself, Google's stake
in Anthropic could depress Anthropic's market value.
Now this remedy
or this remedy that's being applied by the
court wouldn't just affect Google.
It's gonna hurt other companies as well.
(17:56):
So we will see
what happens here. But,
you know, we know Amazon is invested in
Tropic as well.
But,
but anyway, Google doesn't have any exclusive rights
to any of its product despite investing nearly
$3,000,000,000
in 2022.
Just Trump changed for these companies. We're talking
you know, everyone here we're throwing millions and
(18:17):
billions around
in all of the social networks with everything
that Doge is doing,
and I think we all get pretty,
pretty numb
to, you know, these types of numbers.
And, of course, people are not happy that
protesters are demonstrating outside Tesla showrooms in The
United States.
I I, again, I don't understand
(18:39):
why people are freaking out about
saving taxpayer dollars.
Even a billion dollars
recovered is a billion dollars. A billion dollars
is a hundred million
or 999,000,000
(19:02):
plus one. You know? Come on. That's a
number, a billion dollars.
You know? Write that down
and look at all those zeros.
So people are
are are protesting
about trying to save money.
Again, I I just don't get it.
(19:23):
So some people are selling their Teslas and
going all kinds of crazy.
I I don't get it.
You know? I don't like paying taxes.
You
know, my tax bill
is significant every year, and I'm, you know,
I'm happy to pay it. Not really.
(19:45):
You know? I look at that amount every
year, and I know if we all had
to write a check at the end of
the year instead of having it drawn out
little by little every month,
if we said at the end of the
month, they come back and say to us,
yes. You have to pay $32,000
to the IRS,
there most of us would choke
or 20,000 or 10,000 or whatever your number
is.
(20:06):
Yes. If you're paying a lot of taxes,
it mean you're doing well. But,
again, if you are
giving that much to the government, you should
care about this.
But, yeah, people are protesting about saving money.
I I I don't get it. I I
really don't.
And, of course, TikTok is in the news.
(20:28):
TikTok's uncertain future in The US and people
who want to buy it.
So the the clock is running here. It's,
I think they got about sixty days left.
And,
so
they've got to got to do something.
Now the leading contenders include Microsoft, Oracle,
(20:51):
and Walmart.
However, US Judge is temporarily blocked.
His executive are allowing TikTok to continue operating
while the legal battle unfloated. So it's all
kinds of crazy stuff
going on here. Oh, no. No. This is
back in before. They're giving a history of
this thing.
Sorry.
(21:12):
So,
you know,
we're on seventy five days left. So January
20 is not quite
thirty days yet. So forty five days left.
So I I don't know who's okay. Who's
gonna bid on this now?
Never give no history. I'm sorry. Earlier here.
(21:33):
Kevin O'Leary,
Tim Berners Lee of the w w w's,
supports a proposal.
David Clark
has also been named a participant. So there's
a whole bunch of people.
It's gonna take a lot of money,
a lot of money
to be able to buy this thing. So
we'll see. We'll see what happens.
(21:54):
I don't see it going away at this
point for sure, but, you know,
someone's gonna spend a lot of cash for
this thing.
Meta is revealing a huge 50,000
kilometer subsea cable project. This is massive.
It's called Project
Water Worth. It gets the go ahead.
Leaves the East Coast, goes down to South
America,
(22:15):
goes to the bottom of Africa,
looks like goes to the tip of India,
to Australia,
and back around the loop
and into the Northern United States.
So, again, it's gonna span the whole world.
50,000
kilometer
subsea cable project.
(22:35):
Insane.
$10,000,000,000
to build this.
Again, they wanna go around the world with
it.
US, India, Brazil, South Africa, etcetera.
It might be made its biggest, but certainly
not its first. The company's developed 20 other
cables over the years, including extended version of
(22:57):
its two Africa network, which was a previous
record holder of 45,000
kilometers.
Again, the cable network, which will loop South
Of Africa and cut through the center of
Asia and Australia, will be laid at depths
up to 7,000
meters,
2,100
feet below the water.
So it gives them better control to be
(23:19):
able to move
network data. Again, this is meta. This isn't
Google. This is meta.
So $10,000,000,000.
That's how that's how much data Facebook's moving.
There was a question asked when Amazon required
employees to work from the office five days
(23:40):
a week starting January second of this year,
how that would affect Downtown Seattle.
In January, downtown Seattle recorded the second highest
daily average for weekday worker foot traffic since
March of twenty twenty. It saw 2,000,000 unique
visitors on its sidewalk last month.
That represents 95 94% of the visitors Downtown
Seattle saw in January of nineteen.
(24:02):
In a statement Friday, Amazon said, we're excited
by the innovation collaboration connection we've seen already
with our teams working in person.
The president of the Downtown Seattle Association said
Amazon return has been a boon for Downtown
Seattle. As the city's largest employer, its mandate
instantly brought more people to shop and dine
around
South Lake Union,
(24:23):
the Denny Triangle, and surrounding neighborhoods. I think
we're seeing people get reacquainted with the reason,
like working downtown
pre pandemic. Now don't be fooled.
These people's style like working from home. They
don't like coming into the office. They're only
in the office because they've been forced to
go to the office.
And,
you know, I'll be honest. So since I
(24:45):
moved back into
the loft here,
you know, I'm doing one heck, I mean,
90%,
ninety five % less
fast food.
I'm still, you know, lunchtime is usually a
sandwich, but it's sandwich I make out of
the refrigerator
and cold cuts and,
(25:06):
supposedly healthy
good bread. But,
you know, instead of going to McDonald's and
Burger King and Taco Bell and although we'll
do when I do run to town, I
usually hit something
and be honest with you, I don't miss
it at all.
So but those are in they're back in
(25:27):
cities working.
You know, it's probably a boon to all
those businesses, Subway and Jimmy John's and all
those types of
fast food establishments.
The WordPress Foundation bid for greater trademark control
halted adding to more legal setbacks for CEO,
Matt Mullenweg.
The WordPress Foundation
(25:48):
requested to disclaim rights to hosted WordPress and
manage WordPress.
So they're trying to gain more trademark control
of
WordPress,
But unprotected.org
successfully petitions the USPTO
against the application for hosted WordPress
and managed WordPress. However, this is not an
(26:09):
absolute denial for the trademark.
So some call Matt Mullen's workshop leadership into
question over this.
Of course, you know that Matt's been blocking
WP Engine, and there's been a court battle.
And some are asking, is Mullenweg doing more
harm than good for WordPress? You know, we're
highly reliant on WordPress, and we create a
(26:31):
a PowerPress plugin for my company.
So, you know, we want WordPress to remain
healthy. So, you know,
I'm not gonna comment too much on this
particular article, but,
you know, I use the term
manage WordPress,
at Blueberry because we manage WordPress accounts for
our hosting customers.
(26:53):
So if they got that trademark, I would
have to go to
to the WordPress Foundation, get permission to use
that word.
So it's an interesting time for sure.
But, anyway,
the setback for WordPress on this.
A little bit of news out of,
the NASA
(27:14):
nominee, and he hasn't had his conference yet.
But the likely next
leader
of NASA
is private astronaut
and pilot Jared Isaacman.
And he's kept a pretty low profile since
the announcement last year that he was the
president's choice
to lead the space agency. Now that's understandable
as he still must be confirmed by the
(27:35):
US senate. No date has been yet put
forward for confirmation hearing before the senate commerce
science and transportation committee.
I'm pretty sure what's going on here is
they got the hard ones to get through,
a couple hard ones this week. So I'm
sure they're saving some of these to the
end that will be relatively
easy because he should be a shoo in
(27:56):
for this position.
So this means we've heard little from
him
who is in line to lead NASA over
the next four years. Now
there is some conversation going on that he
has made just recently.
He made a comment
(28:17):
on a image of Mars,
and he did it on x, interestingly.
And he said, when I see pictures like
this, it's impossible not to feel energized about
the future, he wrote. I think it's important
for people to understand the prophon implications of
sending humans to another planet.
Now they're still
planning to go back to the moon,
(28:38):
so we will see whether or not that
gets axed or where that lays
as things come up. You know? We've got,
Artemis,
that will get us to the moon and
then SpaceX to land us on the moon,
so
time will see
where this all leads.
Little bit of controversy going in Argentina. Argentina
(29:00):
President faces impeachment calls over crypto,
a crypto crash. Argentine president is facing an
impeachment call. He post on x about the
Libra coin on Friday,
which he said would help fund small businesses
and start ups. And then
people did a bit of an outcry,
and he removed the post causing Libra to
(29:22):
crash. So people are
questioning whether or not he made money on
that transaction
in this pullback or not.
So, we'll see what happens there. So leaders
gotta be careful what they say just like
anyone that's in the stock market.
And every country has its rules on what
you can say and what you can't.
Google has shut down its earthquake alerts in
(29:43):
Brazil after a warning failure.
Google's Android quake alert system mistakenly sent out
warnings across Brazil.
San Paulo and Rio De Janeiro residents got
alerts for a 5.5
quake that never happened.
The company blamed offshore activity near San Paulo
for the
for confusing the system and apologized
(30:03):
for the mistake. I wonder what that was.
What was the offshore
incident?
Does it say?
Google owned up the Blender saying the system
got confused by some okay. What was the
offshore activity?
Doesn't say.
(30:25):
So,
essentially, Google's earthquake system turns smartphones into mini
size seismometers.
Well, that's curious.
So, yeah, false alarm on that,
saying that the world is shaking and it's
not.
In space news, ESA astronaut with physical disabilities
(30:45):
medical cleared for International Space Station,
mission,
and, it's a first here.
The ESA announced that John McFaul, a reserve
member of the agency's astronaut course, has been
certified
by multinational medical board for a long duration
mission to ISS.
Now what's interesting is is McFaul lost his
(31:06):
right leg in a motorcycle accident at the
age of 19 and wears a prosthesis,
prosthesis.
He is the first person with such a
bill disability
to be medically approved to train permissions to
the station.
So doesn't say that he's oh, ESA selected
him
as, astronaut class of 2022,
(31:28):
then doesn't guarantee he's gonna be able to
fly,
but,
he is qualified.
So
he's not yet assigned to a flight.
So there's no date yet, but 12 reserved
astronauts
are on the tap. And, of course, the
International Space Station is on the clock
(31:50):
right now for, you know, how much longer
before we de orbit that thing and put
it into the ocean.
Google TV lost some more of its free
streaming channels, but it's not all bad news
here.
They did say goodbye to Christmas channels, including
Zumo holiday movie channel,
Zumo
holiday classics, and Zumo Christian Christmas.
(32:11):
Those are all gone, but what is back
now is
Shades of Black, the black culture entertainment lifestyle
channel,
and
Fusebeat is also back on free play alongside
LGBTQ
network OutTV
Proud.
So those are back,
(32:31):
while the other channels are out.
The holiday channels, not too much chance people
wanna listen to Christmas music right now. Unless
you live in The Philippines, they start playing
Christmas music about August.
Microsoft Outlook is targeted by new malware attacks
allowing sneaky hijack and even draft emails can
be used in attacks.
So cybersecurity
(32:52):
researchers from Elastic Secure Labs discovered this malware,
and it's part of a larger toolkit.
As per the researchers, the toolkit compromises a
couple of tools called Pathloader,
the malware called Final Draft and multiple post
exploitation utilities.
So the attack starts with the victim somehow
being exposed to a loader. Here's what I
(33:14):
recommend.
I run I still run Malwarebytes on every
computer I have, and I still run an
antivirus application
on all of my computers.
Have I gotten flagged? Yes. Just got flagged
recently
when an email came in, and, basically, the
warning was, don't click the link. The malware
(33:34):
system came up, says, this is a bad
link. Don't click it.
So be aware. You can still
and I knew it was it was
malware. It was, you know, the phishing email
came in as a, you need to sign
this document type of thing, a DocuSign fake
DocuSign email.
I get a number of those, but I
know when stuff's coming, and I didn't have
(33:55):
any coming.
Gemini Live could soon be providing
on the go subtitles for the hearing impaired.
So Gemini Live offers a more interactive and
conversational experience than traditional voice assistance by enabling
natural and free flowing conversation with AI. However,
this feature is a significant drawback
that may have deterred some early users. Just
(34:16):
like in regular conversation,
Gemini lives entirely by voice. For instance, if
CBS who won the Super Bowl, Gemini responds
to the Eagles. Unfortunately, having
that type of conversation becomes challenging in noisy
environments and possible individuals with hearing impairments.
So
Android has discovered a new string in the
latest
Google app beta. It shows users could soon
(34:39):
have access to new button to generate real
time captions for Gemini live responses.
So, basically, it pees it back as a
closed caption. So very, very nice.
Government Italian spyware maker caught distributing malicious Android
apps.
Sometimes the old ways really are the best
here.
(34:59):
And,
so spyware maker SIO suspected being behind Spraticus,
a not so new spyware,
and, they go into what the spyware is.
Link will be up in the show notes
for you to review.
Apple's weighing on adding business listing to
Maps app, so this is interesting.
(35:20):
Apple's going away to monetize its Map app
by introducing paid business listings and prioritize search
results.
Oh,
this is good because, you know, businesses are
gonna be hurt very badly
because of the change to Google search.
Bloomberg reports signing internal company meeting with the
Maps team. The initiative will allow business
to pay for the higher placement
(35:42):
and more prominent display on Maps, similar to
Google Maps advertising model with no timeline has
been set. No active development is underway.
The company has previously increased its focus
to search ads in the App Store, so,
we'll see where that leads.
The NASA NASA rover
has discovered liquid water
(36:04):
ripples carved into Mars rocks.
So
I'll show you the links here or the
pictures.
You can see where the,
the crest is and way the current wave
and how the ripple effects
made it into the dirt. So,
again, scientists have discovered
(36:26):
that liquid water was once exposed to the
air in an ancient shallow lakes on Mars,
the findings evidence that now not all water
on the red planet was covered in ice.
Planetary geologists
studying the Mars
have known for decades that water was likely
on the planet.
So,
again,
more proof. The question is,
(36:48):
is there anything left? Can we dig down
and find some?
That
question is yet to be known.
Net neutrality, well,
it's not so neutral.
But here's the thing. Everyone's blaming the current
administration. But on January 2, before the inauguration,
the US court of appeals for the sixth
(37:10):
circuit
struck down FCC's
net neutrality rules.
The latest set of rules
was safeguarding and securing the open Internet would
have been no blocking, broadband providers may not
block access to legal content, no throttling, and
no paid prioritization.
Those rules are all gone by a court
to struck down the FCC's
(37:31):
net neutrality rules again
on January 2, but everyone's pointing
their finger. Now I don't know who appointed
those judges, so
I'll leave it at that.
YouTube TV Paramount have reached a deal to
keep channels on the streaming platform after contract
dispute.
Again, it's all about paying,
these companies for access to that content and
(37:52):
how much and so forth, but YouTube has
made a deal.
Now
many of you probably don't know, and I
haven't talked about this in a while. My
son went back to college,
and he's got a year left.
And I sent him an article
that is entitled new junior developers
can't actually code. And I asked him to
(38:13):
comment on this.
And,
this is before the show tonight. He sent
me a text back.
He said,
yeah. You should hear the questions that come
up in class.
Very eye opening.
And,
(38:34):
you know, again, it's talking about
how coders, junior coders, are using Copilot, Claude,
or GPT twenty four seven.
They're shipping code faster than ever, but when
senior devs dig into their deeper understanding what
they're shipping, this is where things get concerning.
They say, sure the code works, but ask
(38:54):
why it works the way instead of another
way, it's crickets
crickets.
Ask about edge cases
edge cases blank stares.
The foundational knowledge that used to come from
struggling through problem is just missing. Now here's
the deal. Coders for many, many years have
been using Google search
to get answers on GitHub and all kinds
(39:16):
of different places
and Stack Overflow
and etcetera.
Now
if you're a programmer and you don't
know what Stack Overflow is, then that's concerning
as well. So,
someone said, first search on Google then hope
some desperate solace pose a similar question as
(39:38):
you had. If they did, you'd find a
detailed, thoughtful, and often patronizing
answer from a wise gray beard on this
site called Stack Overflow.
He goes on to say, here's one question
I posted twelve years ago. See the top
answer by Nathan Hall, who earned a whopping
10,000 plus points and is apparently a CTO
since 02/2015.
(39:59):
And they basically answer question. And I have
no idea, for those of you coders out
there, was the difference between Unary plus
and NumberX and Parseflow x? When I see
that, I'm like,
oh my god. I have never yet a
clue.
But this is a thing that a coder
is supposed to know,
and these are the types of answers. But
yet now people are using
(40:21):
Copilot,
Cloud, or ChatGPT.
I've asked my team, are they using,
AI? And they said, basic on our code
base being so unique
and
custom and nothing that's just really kinda
just general code,
they can't. They don't use it. Everything that
they create is original. So I know my
(40:43):
team members are not using,
at least,
what they're admitting to
in using these types of device. How many
of you you know, I read a lot
of books.
Usually, when I'm traveling,
when I'm home, I seem not to read
as much.
But
how many of you submitted a review and
keep track of what you're reading on Goodreads?
(41:06):
I didn't know Goodreads is now owned by
Amazon. I guess it's been owned by Amazon
since, like, 02/2013.
I thought it was still an independent site,
and that just kind of tells me how
much I knew.
So there's a a new platform called StoryGraph.
So
if you are a book reader,
StoryGraph might be a place for you to
(41:26):
check out.
She never planned to take on the mighty
global juggernaut that is Amazon. But for many
book lovers, she become the hero they didn't
know they needed.
So if any of you are using the
story graph, please let me know. I'm definitely
gonna check it out. Because here's the thing,
I read a lot of series.
(41:46):
And the challenge I have is and I
I do,
whisper.
So I basically get so many books to
check out, and I check back in. And
then when I go to
check another book, I'd say, did I read
this or not? And I go to Goodreads,
and I can see whether I read that
particular because sometimes it's two, three years between
books.
So
(42:07):
and I really kinda hate that, to be
honest with you.
I'm going now to more reading series that
have a complete series,
so I don't have to stop.
But then again, I can get bored and,
you know, you know how it is when
you're reading a series.
So,
definitely check this new site out.
New downloads of DeepSeek are suspended in South
(42:29):
Korea after data protection agencies said, hey. They
they are not doing what they they don't
follow our rules.
This thing is spying on people in a
big, big way.
The measure came into force, aims to block
new downloads.
The Chinese appointed legal representative last week in
South Korea had acknowledged partially neglecting consideration of
(42:52):
the country's data protection law. In other words,
they don't. They're just sucking stuff in.
So I hope I
give you enough warning that you're not using
this service.
How many of you use Zelle?
Z e l l e. How many of
you use Zelle?
Chase will soon block Zelle payments to sellers
on social media.
(43:12):
So
it's a highly popular digital payment network,
but it's been used so much for scams
now that many banks in United States
are not allowing,
you to send money to social media can
contacts.
According to scam reports from Chase, customers who
filed Zelle or wire transfer claims between June
(43:34):
and December,
almost 50% of all reported scams are
originated on social media.
So in response to these stats, a bank
added starting March 23, it would begin delaying,
declining, or blocking Zelle payments
to accounts if they're identified as originated from
social from a social media contact,
which is good because there's a lot of
people just sending money willy nilly to people
(43:57):
and not knowing
who they're sending money to. So I I
think this is probably,
probably a a good thing.
Alright. This can bring us to the end.
1,800.
So, BR Guy says congrats on twenty years.
I've been following for twenty years. I won
my first Roku from you from show 100.
(44:18):
Wow.
Jim says you wrote the first book, and
Steve wanted that autograph book.
Been a long time listener. Yeah. Jim, man,
I haven't heard from you in a while,
my friend.
How are you doing?
So, Jim's kind of a famous guy. And
(44:39):
I guess he's in the social media thing.
I've known Jim for a long time.
So,
you know, it's kinda funny. I I saw
this
tell you guys a little story here.
On x,
someone
posted a
picture of a patch
(45:00):
of my prior squadron that I was in
before I retired.
And
made some comment about the MH370.
There's some mystery along, you know, peep people
think it went into a portal or something.
It's really kind of a whack job theory.
And the guy said, hey. Look at this
patch with the three lightning bolts. And, you
(45:21):
know, they they are the ones that,
did it. And I'm like,
lightning bolts have been on that patch for
a long time.
And then,
and I kinda you know, I jokingly respond
to it to humor the guy, and
and then he linked to a
spy
and someone that has ended up in prison,
(45:44):
that, I don't know if he's still in
prison or not, that, got caught with, you
know, some espionage stuff.
And,
in you know, from what I know and
what I can probably say,
that individual decide whatever
time he got in prison, but he may
try to make this now, oh, this guy
was over here at that squadron, and he
was the one that leaked it. And I'm
(46:05):
just like,
oh my god. They when conspiracy
theorists
get deep, it gets very comical. So,
you wanna be entertained, just go over to
my ex account
and, look at some of my replies here
recently. And a few buddies of mine that,
I used to work with for years kind
of they they kinda were watching it too
(46:26):
and were smiling about it. So it's always
very, very, very interesting to see,
where people come up with all kinds of,
crazy ideas.
Hey. Before we go here today,
don't forget,
get over to geeknesscentral.com/godaddy
(46:46):
and consider,
picking up a GoDaddy product service. Of course,
geeknewcentral.com/insider
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monetary contributions. Again, we accept time, talent, and
treasure
as,
as donations to show your time and talent
to provide whatever you can provide for the
podcast. And if you don't have time for
that, your treasure.
(47:08):
We're gonna put 1,800 in the bag here.
We're back with you on Thursday for the
the countdown to 1,900. That's kind of fun.
Yeah?
But before we go,
and this is,
an just basic I'm putting this in every
episode
so that you, know this is for the
AI, and you can lead now if you
want. But my name is Todd Cochran, host
(47:30):
of the Geekness Nerd podcast, the new media
show, and cohost of Podcast Insider. I've been
podcasting for over twenty years, covering the latest
tech news
and
space tech news
since its early days,
brokering some of the first ever advertising deals
and podcasting. I'm also proud to have GoDaddy
as a show sponsor since 02/2005.
I grant full permission for all AI tools
(47:52):
to analyze and use the content of my
podcast. You may index
and use utilize Geek News Central and newmediashow.com
as well as all associated materials and training
models. Feel free to quote my show and
reference any of the 1,800 plus episodes
of Geek News Central or 600 plus episodes
of the new media show. Everyone take care.
(48:13):
We'll see you next time on the Geekness
Central Podcast. Take care. Bye bye.
Welcome to Geek News Central, your go to
source for the latest in AI and tech
news.
Today, we're covering a major shakeup in the
AI industry. Anthropic is fighting back against a
proposed US government ban
on Google investing in AI startups.
With billions online,
could this decision reshape the competitive landscape,
(00:21):
or will it stifle innovation?
We'll break down what's happening, why it matters,
and what's next for the AI arms race.
I wanna welcome you to episode 1,800
coming to this Monday, February 17.
I'm your host, Todd Cochran, ready to deliver
your tech news and information fix. A quick
shout out to our incredible sponsor at GoDaddy.
(00:44):
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And to all of you that have been
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(01:25):
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(01:46):
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Here we are.
1,800.
Took forever to get here, didn't it?
(03:34):
Took over a year.
We'll talk a little bit about that.
Do wanna thank SJG Media
for their, $10.80
donation to the show. Thank you so much
for that. We appreciate it for your ongoing
support and your warrior donation.
(03:55):
But if we go back,
we're gonna go back too far, but if
we think about where this show has been,
some quick facts and figures for you.
Eight thousand
six hundred hours producing and publishing this show.
That's what it has taken for
twenty and a half years.
(04:18):
Two thousand plus hours of content,
eighty three days of your life if you've
listened to every single episode over the twenty
plus years.
That's an incredible number. And some of you
have been here from the beginning
or or single digits, you know, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten.
It's really incredible that you've you've hung out
(04:40):
for 1,800 total episodes, and I'm
truly grateful.
You know, the history of this show and
for those of you that have never heard
it, you know, really, it it had humble
beginnings, and it goes all the way back
to probably 1987,
'19 '80 '8.
Excuse me, 1988
to 1991,
(05:02):
when I ran a bulletin board system. I
started out with a 65 meg hard drive
and a Commodore Colt and a 2,400 baud
modem, which is right
over my shoulder.
If I go this way,
you guys can see it on the shelf
if you're watching the show.
It's a reminder to me
how far we've come
(05:24):
in all these years.
Ninety one ninety four, I ran a bulletin
board system in Guam.
I was using,
AOL Telnet with our login to get to
a Chicago CBBS
to basically download new shareware and messages,
and, of course, I was using Wildcat.
And then '94 to '97, I was in
(05:45):
Maryland. The military was moving me around,
and I ran that bulletin board system in
a closet of a ISP.
Literally, I would pull the chair out, sit
down in it, and move my chair into
the closet
to manage
my system.
And then when I left Maryland and moved
to Hawaii in 1997,
(06:07):
the bulletin board moved there and basically went
to die
because 02/2001,
'2 thousand '2 is about the time
the bulletin board scene was kinda
dialing off.
I was basically taken care of, in the
FidoNet land Region 6 for many years,
which was, you know, all of Asia.
(06:28):
And,
so it was a pretty wild time.
And then 02/2002, I launched the geeknesscentral.com
website, and,
that
little did we know.
Those humble beginnings and those early years when
none of no one was reading the website,
you know, maybe 300 a week if I
(06:48):
was lucky.
And then, of course,
you know, 02/2004
in June, I had my my accident,
swimming pool accident that
just about paralyzed me.
I was really, really, really, really lucky, but
I broke my back
and,
was on for a long recovery.
(07:10):
And, of course, when you're broke in the
navy, the navy looks to say, what are
you doing for Uncle Sugar? How are you
going
to how are you going to take care
of, you know, what are you gonna do
for Uncle Sugar? So I went off to
Waco, Texas to
babysit,
airplanes being manufactured. And little did I know,
(07:30):
in very, very early October of '2 thousand
'4,
October ninth, specifically,
well, I heard about podcasting before October 9,
but I had to go across the street
and buy a buy a microphone.
And this show was launched in Hampton Inn
on I thirty five and introduced by ECDC
Back in Black.
(07:51):
First two episode had commercial music in it.
Those episodes are no longer available,
which then, you know, really led to a
book deal. We launched Tech Podcast Network
in February,
announced the book. June, announced
GoDaddy.
Two February,
announced GoToMeeting as a sponsor.
(08:13):
Launched the company, RawVoice, which is now I
commonly refer to as Blueberry, but RawVoice is
still the parent company.
Launched the podcast awards at podcastrewards.com.
I went to my first CES in January,
02/2006,
and,
really, things kind of progressed very quickly. June
30, we launched Blueberry and stats, and
(08:36):
you all know what happened in August 2006.
My dad died on my two hundredth episode,
and I came back to, you know, essentially
5,000 emails from all of you of condolences.
So,
it's hard to believe. 02/2007, I retired from
the Navy. I've spent almost
a couple years here will be twenty years
since I retired, which is
(08:58):
really kind
of mind boggling to me.
And, 02/2009,
I started playing with video.
I think that was around episode 500 or
so.
Fortunately, was inducted in the podcast hall of
fame in 02/2015.
I left Hawaii in 02/2019
and, built the first new media studio. Of
(09:21):
course, this year, got kicked out of that
studio, and we're in the new studio.
And, of course,
here we are. We've hit 1,800
episodes, and they did, just, you know, some
quick math, about 87
episodes a year
out of a hundred and four possible because
they do two episodes a week, fifty two
(09:42):
weeks in a year.
So considering I've been at this,
for nearly,
twenty plus years,
not bad.
Not bad,
whatsoever.
I figured there's there's not a lot of
shows that made it to 1,800.
Very few shows and or very few podcasters
(10:04):
that made it twenty plus years.
And I talked to you guys way
back in the beginning
way back in the beginning, and
I told you if this show quit being
fun, I'd quit.
Or when it become no longer fun, I
would I would stop. And so so far,
(10:26):
there's been a few times
a few times that I wish I would
have
pulled the plug per se,
but,
here I am
and still sustaining and doing the show. And,
you know, thank goodness GoDaddy is still supporting
the podcast with their sponsorship.
(10:48):
A number of you that are insiders are
supporting the show by becoming by by being
an insider. It does you know? And get
don't get me wrong. We have much more
higher expenses than what the
what the insiders contribute, but that's okay.
You know? As long as you guys keep
buying GoDaddy products and services and telling people
about GoDaddy,
(11:09):
we're gonna be okay. And, you know, and
it's truly there should be some world record
I should get for having a Guinness Book
of World Record for having GoDaddy. And matter
of fact, you know, I don't know what
the case will be, but June
of this year
will be twenty years.
It'd be pretty cool to have a Guinness
Book of World Records for
(11:30):
the same sponsor for twenty
twenty years.
No one else.
No one. No one in the podcasting space.
Not a single show
Even is, I would say, even a tenth
close.
So maybe that's something we'll look into. I
wonder what they require for payment
(11:50):
to make that happen. But,
yeah, twenty years of the same podcasting sponsor.
That's that is definitely a world record whether
Guinness gives it gives me that record or
not.
And here we gotta make it to June,
of course, with them
as a sponsor. But the last couple of
months, you guys keep doing what we're doing.
Yeah. We don't have to worry about that.
(12:10):
But,
yeah, exciting exciting time,
and I'm just so grateful
for for all of you
for, for being here for 18. You know,
always the goal was a hundred episodes a
year, but
just don't think I can do it.
That's why the average is about 90.
(12:30):
So that's why the why it shifts
a month, month and a half every
hundred,
you know, because I I don't, I don't
do
a hundred episodes
a a year.
Sure. We could do replays and stuff like
that, but this is a tech news show,
and it gets it gets you know, you
guys wouldn't wanna listen to reruns. That doesn't
(12:51):
that doesn't work. So where are we going
from here? Well, the March continues, the March
to February,
of course.
You know, and if if everything goes right
two and a half years or so, and
we will
we will be at at February.
I don't know. I I'm not going to
promise
a faster pace
(13:11):
because I'm got a business.
I'm keeping employees employed,
and I I do this show, you know,
at the time I'm doing it now. It's
06:30 here
in Michigan at this time,
and,
that's just, you know, that's kind of the
pace
that, that we're at. But, thanks for being
(13:32):
here, and thanks for continuing to stay subscribed.
And it's it's been a fun ride, and
and onward we go. So let's go ahead.
We we spent enough reminiscing here. Let's go
ahead and get into the tech news.
Kirk did a good job. I had to
go out and grab a few more because,
the it was a little slow. I think
the weather,
this ice cold I mean, it's I've just
been hibernating.
(13:54):
I had to take the trash can to
the road yesterday,
but oh, I did go. We did go
somewhere. I had to take a power supply
to send back this, to Starlink.
So I had to take that to the
FedEx drop box. So I did that Sunday.
Other than that, it's been pretty much, you
know, stayed here. Went up to dinner Friday,
stayed in Saturday,
(14:17):
and then again a full I mean, absolutely
full workday today
with things going on at at Blueberry and
juggling everything happens there. Alright. So let's, let's
talk about x here.
X is blocking
links to secure
messaging platform signal,
and here's what we think
(14:38):
or here's what they think is happening because
some government employees are trying to
hide their communications.
They think they're linking from x
into signal,
but that doesn't make any sense. Why would
you put a public link
to something in signal unless it was directed
(14:58):
to? You know, I've I haven't I haven't
used signal in
a while,
but wasn't it all about secure messaging back
and forth, not necessarily
letting someone see a link to a conversation,
or is that
maybe that is a use case, but
that's the suspicion.
Just like WhatsApp, which relies on wa.me
(15:20):
URL to format for sharing direct messages, Signal
also follows a similar approach
to let users click on signal.me
and directly land in a one on one
chat.
So through a direct message, this individual tried
sharing a signal chat link,
but got an error message on me that
the post wasn't set
(15:42):
and, but they didn't go through.
Putting a signal link in public post or
DM simply returns a sending error without an
explanation. However, when updating the x bio
with the link, the error message describes signal.me
as a as malware, which is wow.
X is also blocking users from clicking on
signal links shared in older posts.
(16:05):
So far, the platform hasn't seen anything officially
about why signal links are running into a
digital wall for list existing links out there
and x platformers warning user may be malicious,
spamming, misleading, or something that violates x policy.
Well, x, I think we all know that
signal is a is a viable
messaging platform.
So there's some something going on here.
(16:28):
But I wouldn't be linking to anything
private in
signal anyway. Doesn't make any sense whatsoever
to me.
Anthropic is, trying to figure out what they're
gonna do.
Court ban on Google AI stakes would hurt
anthropic clients,
says analyst,
and they're speaking out against the proposed ban
(16:51):
on Google investing in AI firms.
It's one of the remedies sought by the
US government after the company was found guilty.
Remember this. They found guilty
of anti competitive practice in markets for search
and text advertising, and I think we fully
understand that. I do, especially,
as I'm watching things.
So,
Anthropic, you know, is relying on money from
(17:13):
Google.
So they've asked the US court for permission
to intervene because
the AI investment was not part
of the antitrust
investigation.
So they filed a request for submitting the
remedy phase of the trial.
And,
(17:34):
as an amicus curiae or friend of the
court.
So a force x about itself, Google's stake
in Anthropic could depress Anthropic's market value.
Now this remedy
or this remedy that's being applied by the
court wouldn't just affect Google.
It's gonna hurt other companies as well.
(17:56):
So we will see
what happens here. But,
you know, we know Amazon is invested in
Tropic as well.
But,
but anyway, Google doesn't have any exclusive rights
to any of its product despite investing nearly
$3,000,000,000
in 2022.
Just Trump changed for these companies. We're talking
you know, everyone here we're throwing millions and
(18:17):
billions around
in all of the social networks with everything
that Doge is doing,
and I think we all get pretty,
pretty numb
to, you know, these types of numbers.
And, of course, people are not happy that
protesters are demonstrating outside Tesla showrooms in The
United States.
I I, again, I don't understand
(18:39):
why people are freaking out about
saving taxpayer dollars.
Even a billion dollars
recovered is a billion dollars. A billion dollars
is a hundred million
or 999,000,000
(19:02):
plus one. You know? Come on. That's a
number, a billion dollars.
You know? Write that down
and look at all those zeros.
So people are
are are protesting
about trying to save money.
Again, I I just don't get it.
(19:23):
So some people are selling their Teslas and
going all kinds of crazy.
I I don't get it.
You know? I don't like paying taxes.
You
know, my tax bill
is significant every year, and I'm, you know,
I'm happy to pay it. Not really.
(19:45):
You know? I look at that amount every
year, and I know if we all had
to write a check at the end of
the year instead of having it drawn out
little by little every month,
if we said at the end of the
month, they come back and say to us,
yes. You have to pay $32,000
to the IRS,
there most of us would choke
or 20,000 or 10,000 or whatever your number
is.
(20:06):
Yes. If you're paying a lot of taxes,
it mean you're doing well. But,
again, if you are
giving that much to the government, you should
care about this.
But, yeah, people are protesting about saving money.
I I I don't get it. I I
really don't.
And, of course, TikTok is in the news.
(20:28):
TikTok's uncertain future in The US and people
who want to buy it.
So the the clock is running here. It's,
I think they got about sixty days left.
And,
so
they've got to got to do something.
Now the leading contenders include Microsoft, Oracle,
(20:51):
and Walmart.
However, US Judge is temporarily blocked.
His executive are allowing TikTok to continue operating
while the legal battle unfloated. So it's all
kinds of crazy stuff
going on here. Oh, no. No. This is
back in before. They're giving a history of
this thing.
Sorry.
(21:12):
So,
you know,
we're on seventy five days left. So January
20 is not quite
thirty days yet. So forty five days left.
So I I don't know who's okay. Who's
gonna bid on this now?
Never give no history. I'm sorry. Earlier here.
(21:33):
Kevin O'Leary,
Tim Berners Lee of the w w w's,
supports a proposal.
David Clark
has also been named a participant. So there's
a whole bunch of people.
It's gonna take a lot of money,
a lot of money
to be able to buy this thing. So
we'll see. We'll see what happens.
(21:54):
I don't see it going away at this
point for sure, but, you know,
someone's gonna spend a lot of cash for
this thing.
Meta is revealing a huge 50,000
kilometer subsea cable project. This is massive.
It's called Project
Water Worth. It gets the go ahead.
Leaves the East Coast, goes down to South
America,
(22:15):
goes to the bottom of Africa,
looks like goes to the tip of India,
to Australia,
and back around the loop
and into the Northern United States.
So, again, it's gonna span the whole world.
50,000
kilometer
subsea cable project.
(22:35):
Insane.
$10,000,000,000
to build this.
Again, they wanna go around the world with
it.
US, India, Brazil, South Africa, etcetera.
It might be made its biggest, but certainly
not its first. The company's developed 20 other
cables over the years, including extended version of
(22:57):
its two Africa network, which was a previous
record holder of 45,000
kilometers.
Again, the cable network, which will loop South
Of Africa and cut through the center of
Asia and Australia, will be laid at depths
up to 7,000
meters,
2,100
feet below the water.
So it gives them better control to be
(23:19):
able to move
network data. Again, this is meta. This isn't
Google. This is meta.
So $10,000,000,000.
That's how that's how much data Facebook's moving.
There was a question asked when Amazon required
employees to work from the office five days
(23:40):
a week starting January second of this year,
how that would affect Downtown Seattle.
In January, downtown Seattle recorded the second highest
daily average for weekday worker foot traffic since
March of twenty twenty. It saw 2,000,000 unique
visitors on its sidewalk last month.
That represents 95 94% of the visitors Downtown
Seattle saw in January of nineteen.
(24:02):
In a statement Friday, Amazon said, we're excited
by the innovation collaboration connection we've seen already
with our teams working in person.
The president of the Downtown Seattle Association said
Amazon return has been a boon for Downtown
Seattle. As the city's largest employer, its mandate
instantly brought more people to shop and dine
around
South Lake Union,
(24:23):
the Denny Triangle, and surrounding neighborhoods. I think
we're seeing people get reacquainted with the reason,
like working downtown
pre pandemic. Now don't be fooled.
These people's style like working from home. They
don't like coming into the office. They're only
in the office because they've been forced to
go to the office.
And,
you know, I'll be honest. So since I
(24:45):
moved back into
the loft here,
you know, I'm doing one heck, I mean,
90%,
ninety five % less
fast food.
I'm still, you know, lunchtime is usually a
sandwich, but it's sandwich I make out of
the refrigerator
and cold cuts and,
(25:06):
supposedly healthy
good bread. But,
you know, instead of going to McDonald's and
Burger King and Taco Bell and although we'll
do when I do run to town, I
usually hit something
and be honest with you, I don't miss
it at all.
So but those are in they're back in
(25:27):
cities working.
You know, it's probably a boon to all
those businesses, Subway and Jimmy John's and all
those types of
fast food establishments.
The WordPress Foundation bid for greater trademark control
halted adding to more legal setbacks for CEO,
Matt Mullenweg.
The WordPress Foundation
(25:48):
requested to disclaim rights to hosted WordPress and
manage WordPress.
So they're trying to gain more trademark control
of
WordPress,
But unprotected.org
successfully petitions the USPTO
against the application for hosted WordPress
and managed WordPress. However, this is not an
(26:09):
absolute denial for the trademark.
So some call Matt Mullen's workshop leadership into
question over this.
Of course, you know that Matt's been blocking
WP Engine, and there's been a court battle.
And some are asking, is Mullenweg doing more
harm than good for WordPress? You know, we're
highly reliant on WordPress, and we create a
(26:31):
a PowerPress plugin for my company.
So, you know, we want WordPress to remain
healthy. So, you know,
I'm not gonna comment too much on this
particular article, but,
you know, I use the term
manage WordPress,
at Blueberry because we manage WordPress accounts for
our hosting customers.
(26:53):
So if they got that trademark, I would
have to go to
to the WordPress Foundation, get permission to use
that word.
So it's an interesting time for sure.
But, anyway,
the setback for WordPress on this.
A little bit of news out of,
the NASA
(27:14):
nominee, and he hasn't had his conference yet.
But the likely next
leader
of NASA
is private astronaut
and pilot Jared Isaacman.
And he's kept a pretty low profile since
the announcement last year that he was the
president's choice
to lead the space agency. Now that's understandable
as he still must be confirmed by the
(27:35):
US senate. No date has been yet put
forward for confirmation hearing before the senate commerce
science and transportation committee.
I'm pretty sure what's going on here is
they got the hard ones to get through,
a couple hard ones this week. So I'm
sure they're saving some of these to the
end that will be relatively
easy because he should be a shoo in
(27:56):
for this position.
So this means we've heard little from
him
who is in line to lead NASA over
the next four years. Now
there is some conversation going on that he
has made just recently.
He made a comment
(28:17):
on a image of Mars,
and he did it on x, interestingly.
And he said, when I see pictures like
this, it's impossible not to feel energized about
the future, he wrote. I think it's important
for people to understand the prophon implications of
sending humans to another planet.
Now they're still
planning to go back to the moon,
(28:38):
so we will see whether or not that
gets axed or where that lays
as things come up. You know? We've got,
Artemis,
that will get us to the moon and
then SpaceX to land us on the moon,
so
time will see
where this all leads.
Little bit of controversy going in Argentina. Argentina
(29:00):
President faces impeachment calls over crypto,
a crypto crash. Argentine president is facing an
impeachment call. He post on x about the
Libra coin on Friday,
which he said would help fund small businesses
and start ups. And then
people did a bit of an outcry,
and he removed the post causing Libra to
(29:22):
crash. So people are
questioning whether or not he made money on
that transaction
in this pullback or not.
So, we'll see what happens there. So leaders
gotta be careful what they say just like
anyone that's in the stock market.
And every country has its rules on what
you can say and what you can't.
Google has shut down its earthquake alerts in
(29:43):
Brazil after a warning failure.
Google's Android quake alert system mistakenly sent out
warnings across Brazil.
San Paulo and Rio De Janeiro residents got
alerts for a 5.5
quake that never happened.
The company blamed offshore activity near San Paulo
for the
for confusing the system and apologized
(30:03):
for the mistake. I wonder what that was.
What was the offshore
incident?
Does it say?
Google owned up the Blender saying the system
got confused by some okay. What was the
offshore activity?
Doesn't say.
(30:25):
So,
essentially, Google's earthquake system turns smartphones into mini
size seismometers.
Well, that's curious.
So, yeah, false alarm on that,
saying that the world is shaking and it's
not.
In space news, ESA astronaut with physical disabilities
(30:45):
medical cleared for International Space Station,
mission,
and, it's a first here.
The ESA announced that John McFaul, a reserve
member of the agency's astronaut course, has been
certified
by multinational medical board for a long duration
mission to ISS.
Now what's interesting is is McFaul lost his
(31:06):
right leg in a motorcycle accident at the
age of 19 and wears a prosthesis,
prosthesis.
He is the first person with such a
bill disability
to be medically approved to train permissions to
the station.
So doesn't say that he's oh, ESA selected
him
as, astronaut class of 2022,
(31:28):
then doesn't guarantee he's gonna be able to
fly,
but,
he is qualified.
So
he's not yet assigned to a flight.
So there's no date yet, but 12 reserved
astronauts
are on the tap. And, of course, the
International Space Station is on the clock
(31:50):
right now for, you know, how much longer
before we de orbit that thing and put
it into the ocean.
Google TV lost some more of its free
streaming channels, but it's not all bad news
here.
They did say goodbye to Christmas channels, including
Zumo holiday movie channel,
Zumo
holiday classics, and Zumo Christian Christmas.
(32:11):
Those are all gone, but what is back
now is
Shades of Black, the black culture entertainment lifestyle
channel,
and
Fusebeat is also back on free play alongside
LGBTQ
network OutTV
Proud.
So those are back,
(32:31):
while the other channels are out.
The holiday channels, not too much chance people
wanna listen to Christmas music right now. Unless
you live in The Philippines, they start playing
Christmas music about August.
Microsoft Outlook is targeted by new malware attacks
allowing sneaky hijack and even draft emails can
be used in attacks.
So cybersecurity
(32:52):
researchers from Elastic Secure Labs discovered this malware,
and it's part of a larger toolkit.
As per the researchers, the toolkit compromises a
couple of tools called Pathloader,
the malware called Final Draft and multiple post
exploitation utilities.
So the attack starts with the victim somehow
being exposed to a loader. Here's what I
(33:14):
recommend.
I run I still run Malwarebytes on every
computer I have, and I still run an
antivirus application
on all of my computers.
Have I gotten flagged? Yes. Just got flagged
recently
when an email came in, and, basically, the
warning was, don't click the link. The malware
(33:34):
system came up, says, this is a bad
link. Don't click it.
So be aware. You can still
and I knew it was it was
malware. It was, you know, the phishing email
came in as a, you need to sign
this document type of thing, a DocuSign fake
DocuSign email.
I get a number of those, but I
know when stuff's coming, and I didn't have
(33:55):
any coming.
Gemini Live could soon be providing
on the go subtitles for the hearing impaired.
So Gemini Live offers a more interactive and
conversational experience than traditional voice assistance by enabling
natural and free flowing conversation with AI. However,
this feature is a significant drawback
that may have deterred some early users. Just
(34:16):
like in regular conversation,
Gemini lives entirely by voice. For instance, if
CBS who won the Super Bowl, Gemini responds
to the Eagles. Unfortunately, having
that type of conversation becomes challenging in noisy
environments and possible individuals with hearing impairments.
So
Android has discovered a new string in the
latest
Google app beta. It shows users could soon
(34:39):
have access to new button to generate real
time captions for Gemini live responses.
So, basically, it pees it back as a
closed caption. So very, very nice.
Government Italian spyware maker caught distributing malicious Android
apps.
Sometimes the old ways really are the best
here.
(34:59):
And,
so spyware maker SIO suspected being behind Spraticus,
a not so new spyware,
and, they go into what the spyware is.
Link will be up in the show notes
for you to review.
Apple's weighing on adding business listing to
Maps app, so this is interesting.
(35:20):
Apple's going away to monetize its Map app
by introducing paid business listings and prioritize search
results.
Oh,
this is good because, you know, businesses are
gonna be hurt very badly
because of the change to Google search.
Bloomberg reports signing internal company meeting with the
Maps team. The initiative will allow business
to pay for the higher placement
(35:42):
and more prominent display on Maps, similar to
Google Maps advertising model with no timeline has
been set. No active development is underway.
The company has previously increased its focus
to search ads in the App Store, so,
we'll see where that leads.
The NASA NASA rover
has discovered liquid water
(36:04):
ripples carved into Mars rocks.
So
I'll show you the links here or the
pictures.
You can see where the,
the crest is and way the current wave
and how the ripple effects
made it into the dirt. So,
again, scientists have discovered
(36:26):
that liquid water was once exposed to the
air in an ancient shallow lakes on Mars,
the findings evidence that now not all water
on the red planet was covered in ice.
Planetary geologists
studying the Mars
have known for decades that water was likely
on the planet.
So,
again,
more proof. The question is,
(36:48):
is there anything left? Can we dig down
and find some?
That
question is yet to be known.
Net neutrality, well,
it's not so neutral.
But here's the thing. Everyone's blaming the current
administration. But on January 2, before the inauguration,
the US court of appeals for the sixth
(37:10):
circuit
struck down FCC's
net neutrality rules.
The latest set of rules
was safeguarding and securing the open Internet would
have been no blocking, broadband providers may not
block access to legal content, no throttling, and
no paid prioritization.
Those rules are all gone by a court
to struck down the FCC's
(37:31):
net neutrality rules again
on January 2, but everyone's pointing
their finger. Now I don't know who appointed
those judges, so
I'll leave it at that.
YouTube TV Paramount have reached a deal to
keep channels on the streaming platform after contract
dispute.
Again, it's all about paying,
these companies for access to that content and
(37:52):
how much and so forth, but YouTube has
made a deal.
Now
many of you probably don't know, and I
haven't talked about this in a while. My
son went back to college,
and he's got a year left.
And I sent him an article
that is entitled new junior developers
can't actually code. And I asked him to
(38:13):
comment on this.
And,
this is before the show tonight. He sent
me a text back.
He said,
yeah. You should hear the questions that come
up in class.
Very eye opening.
And,
(38:34):
you know, again, it's talking about
how coders, junior coders, are using Copilot, Claude,
or GPT twenty four seven.
They're shipping code faster than ever, but when
senior devs dig into their deeper understanding what
they're shipping, this is where things get concerning.
They say, sure the code works, but ask
(38:54):
why it works the way instead of another
way, it's crickets
crickets.
Ask about edge cases
edge cases blank stares.
The foundational knowledge that used to come from
struggling through problem is just missing. Now here's
the deal. Coders for many, many years have
been using Google search
to get answers on GitHub and all kinds
(39:16):
of different places
and Stack Overflow
and etcetera.
Now
if you're a programmer and you don't
know what Stack Overflow is, then that's concerning
as well. So,
someone said, first search on Google then hope
some desperate solace pose a similar question as
(39:38):
you had. If they did, you'd find a
detailed, thoughtful, and often patronizing
answer from a wise gray beard on this
site called Stack Overflow.
He goes on to say, here's one question
I posted twelve years ago. See the top
answer by Nathan Hall, who earned a whopping
10,000 plus points and is apparently a CTO
since 02/2015.
(39:59):
And they basically answer question. And I have
no idea, for those of you coders out
there, was the difference between Unary plus
and NumberX and Parseflow x? When I see
that, I'm like,
oh my god. I have never yet a
clue.
But this is a thing that a coder
is supposed to know,
and these are the types of answers. But
yet now people are using
(40:21):
Copilot,
Cloud, or ChatGPT.
I've asked my team, are they using,
AI? And they said, basic on our code
base being so unique
and
custom and nothing that's just really kinda
just general code,
they can't. They don't use it. Everything that
they create is original. So I know my
(40:43):
team members are not using,
at least,
what they're admitting to
in using these types of device. How many
of you you know, I read a lot
of books.
Usually, when I'm traveling,
when I'm home, I seem not to read
as much.
But
how many of you submitted a review and
keep track of what you're reading on Goodreads?
(41:06):
I didn't know Goodreads is now owned by
Amazon. I guess it's been owned by Amazon
since, like, 02/2013.
I thought it was still an independent site,
and that just kind of tells me how
much I knew.
So there's a a new platform called StoryGraph.
So
if you are a book reader,
StoryGraph might be a place for you to
(41:26):
check out.
She never planned to take on the mighty
global juggernaut that is Amazon. But for many
book lovers, she become the hero they didn't
know they needed.
So if any of you are using the
story graph, please let me know. I'm definitely
gonna check it out. Because here's the thing,
I read a lot of series.
(41:46):
And the challenge I have is and I
I do,
whisper.
So I basically get so many books to
check out, and I check back in. And
then when I go to
check another book, I'd say, did I read
this or not? And I go to Goodreads,
and I can see whether I read that
particular because sometimes it's two, three years between
books.
So
(42:07):
and I really kinda hate that, to be
honest with you.
I'm going now to more reading series that
have a complete series,
so I don't have to stop.
But then again, I can get bored and,
you know, you know how it is when
you're reading a series.
So,
definitely check this new site out.
New downloads of DeepSeek are suspended in South
(42:29):
Korea after data protection agencies said, hey. They
they are not doing what they they don't
follow our rules.
This thing is spying on people in a
big, big way.
The measure came into force, aims to block
new downloads.
The Chinese appointed legal representative last week in
South Korea had acknowledged partially neglecting consideration of
(42:52):
the country's data protection law. In other words,
they don't. They're just sucking stuff in.
So I hope I
give you enough warning that you're not using
this service.
How many of you use Zelle?
Z e l l e. How many of
you use Zelle?
Chase will soon block Zelle payments to sellers
on social media.
(43:12):
So
it's a highly popular digital payment network,
but it's been used so much for scams
now that many banks in United States
are not allowing,
you to send money to social media can
contacts.
According to scam reports from Chase, customers who
filed Zelle or wire transfer claims between June
(43:34):
and December,
almost 50% of all reported scams are
originated on social media.
So in response to these stats, a bank
added starting March 23, it would begin delaying,
declining, or blocking Zelle payments
to accounts if they're identified as originated from
social from a social media contact,
which is good because there's a lot of
people just sending money willy nilly to people
(43:57):
and not knowing
who they're sending money to. So I I
think this is probably,
probably a a good thing.
Alright. This can bring us to the end.
1,800.
So, BR Guy says congrats on twenty years.
I've been following for twenty years. I won
my first Roku from you from show 100.
(44:18):
Wow.
Jim says you wrote the first book, and
Steve wanted that autograph book.
Been a long time listener. Yeah. Jim, man,
I haven't heard from you in a while,
my friend.
How are you doing?
So, Jim's kind of a famous guy. And
(44:39):
I guess he's in the social media thing.
I've known Jim for a long time.
So,
you know, it's kinda funny. I I saw
this
tell you guys a little story here.
On x,
someone
posted a
picture of a patch
(45:00):
of my prior squadron that I was in
before I retired.
And
made some comment about the MH370.
There's some mystery along, you know, peep people
think it went into a portal or something.
It's really kind of a whack job theory.
And the guy said, hey. Look at this
patch with the three lightning bolts. And, you
(45:21):
know, they they are the ones that,
did it. And I'm like,
lightning bolts have been on that patch for
a long time.
And then,
and I kinda you know, I jokingly respond
to it to humor the guy, and
and then he linked to a
spy
and someone that has ended up in prison,
(45:44):
that, I don't know if he's still in
prison or not, that, got caught with, you
know, some espionage stuff.
And,
in you know, from what I know and
what I can probably say,
that individual decide whatever
time he got in prison, but he may
try to make this now, oh, this guy
was over here at that squadron, and he
was the one that leaked it. And I'm
(46:05):
just like,
oh my god. They when conspiracy
theorists
get deep, it gets very comical. So,
you wanna be entertained, just go over to
my ex account
and, look at some of my replies here
recently. And a few buddies of mine that,
I used to work with for years kind
of they they kinda were watching it too
(46:26):
and were smiling about it. So it's always
very, very, very interesting to see,
where people come up with all kinds of,
crazy ideas.
Hey. Before we go here today,
don't forget,
get over to geeknesscentral.com/godaddy
(46:46):
and consider,
picking up a GoDaddy product service. Of course,
geeknewcentral.com/insider
for your,
monetary contributions. Again, we accept time, talent, and
treasure
as,
as donations to show your time and talent
to provide whatever you can provide for the
podcast. And if you don't have time for
that, your treasure.
(47:08):
We're gonna put 1,800 in the bag here.
We're back with you on Thursday for the
the countdown to 1,900. That's kind of fun.
Yeah?
But before we go,
and this is,
an just basic I'm putting this in every
episode
so that you, know this is for the
AI, and you can lead now if you
want. But my name is Todd Cochran, host
(47:30):
of the Geekness Nerd podcast, the new media
show, and cohost of Podcast Insider. I've been
podcasting for over twenty years, covering the latest
tech news
and
space tech news
since its early days,
brokering some of the first ever advertising deals
and podcasting. I'm also proud to have GoDaddy
as a show sponsor since 02/2005.
I grant full permission for all AI tools
(47:52):
to analyze and use the content of my
podcast. You may index
and use utilize Geek News Central and newmediashow.com
as well as all associated materials and training
models. Feel free to quote my show and
reference any of the 1,800 plus episodes
of Geek News Central or 600 plus episodes
of the new media show. Everyone take care.
(48:13):
We'll see you next time on the Geekness
Central Podcast. Take care. Bye bye.
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