April 8, 2025 • 32 mins
Tech stocks swung wildly as Trump reaffirmed global tariff plans, rattling markets after last week’s $1.8 trillion sell-off. Major players like Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Nvidia closed higher despite early losses. Apple and Tesla ended in the red, while hopes of tariff delays briefly buoyed sentiment. Wall Street braced for a broader economic fallout, with … Continue reading Impact of Tariffs on Tech Companies’ Stock Performance #1812
The post Impact of Tariffs on Tech Companies’ Stock Performance #1812 appeared first on Geek News Central.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Lead story for Monday, April 8. Tech stocks
swing widely
as the Trump administration
reaffirm global tear tariff plans.
It's totally rattled markets after last week's 1,800,000,000,000.0
sell off
Despite early losses, major players like Alphabet, Amazon,
Meta, and Nvidia
(00:21):
have closed higher.
Apple and Tesla ended in the red,
although Tesla came back up in after hours
training
while hopes of tariff delays briefly buoyed cement
sentiment,
Wall Street brace for a broader economic fallout
with corporate leaders
warning of rising costs and slowed growth.
(00:42):
Well, obviously,
the tariffs have been everything
in the news.
And,
one thing is for sure, it has not,
gone without
notice of of really all the tech stories
because it's it's just really
everywhere and anywhere.
This particular
(01:03):
discussion,
we've seen that TSMC
have one of the biggest one day, or
Taiwan having one of the biggest day
drops and specifically TMC took took a took
a big hit.
We know that Bitcoin
is down
in a significant way. We know that
(01:25):
lots of activity is is happening in the
market,
really due to this
volatility.
But at the same time,
we're starting to see countries like well,
the EU coming and say, hey. We wanna
do zero for zero.
Another
a number of countries saying zero for zero.
(01:47):
We will see where all of this leads,
in really the the coming, coming weeks.
But, one thing for sure,
stock prices are just
a little bit crazy. I wanna welcome you
to episode 1,812.
I'm your host, Todd Cochran, of course, a
(02:08):
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(02:28):
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(02:48):
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Thank you for keeping us online and going
strong. So just a little bit of a
change
to the setup today,
and I'm still tweaking everything because
I feel like I'm not completely,
dialed in here.
(05:17):
We've been having some trouble
with
some audio.
And,
apparently, on the stream from time to time,
it makes a little noise
and a noise that
we can't track down. Now part of my
original plan
(05:37):
when I was
coming back to The Philippines, I was gonna
run everything on a Mac mini.
And,
I finally got the new webcam in.
And so I'm currently running everything now
on a Mac mini.
And there's really two issues
(05:59):
that I have with the new setup so
far.
Eyeballs.
My eyeball seems to be
always appears to be looking down versus the
camera even I'm looking
directly at the camera right now.
Also the green screen,
I guess for a better words,
(06:19):
the keying is not perfect. I see a
lot of green around the edge of my
head. Maybe it's because
the shirt I'm wearing today.
And really that's the that's the two main
things. So hopefully,
we've got the
the audio situation,
solved.
It's something to do with maybe running on
(06:42):
a power supply. I I don't know.
But I'll be listening back to the audio
and make sure there isn't the little
that we kept hearing.
It's always something
for sure.
And,
we want to provide the best and and
this really sets everything up to the point
(07:02):
where when I go home, all I do
is turn things off. I don't have to
unhook the laptop,
and and and I can still tie the
machines together.
So, so far so good. Pretty happy.
But, anyway, we'll see if the audio quality
has improved. So enough on on this discussion.
(07:22):
Let's, go get into
the rest of the stack. And I do
wanna thank our insiders.
We'll cover all our insider donations on
the next, show.
Now, obviously, Apple.
Apple apparently flew three airplanes
of gear back before the tariffs
(07:45):
went into effect
of phones,
laptops.
So they got as much stock out of
China
as they could,
and they basically have said they are going
to now,
ramp up production,
in India,
which,
to me as like, okay.
(08:06):
So, you know, one way to avoid
one way to avoid tariffs,
is, you know, again, not doing as much
business in the country where tariffs are so
high
and China has doubled down. And and if
they don't acquiesce,
there's gonna be additional tariffs on China. So
we'll see what happens,
(08:27):
tomorrow.
That will be
the you know, that'll be the telltale sign
here of of what is to happen for
sure.
Oh, it was five airplanes full of iPhones
and other products,
in just three days.
Oh, they flew them out of India?
(08:53):
How many they fly out of China?
Now these reserves are gonna help things for
a few days, but people have been rushing
to the Apple Store to pick stuff up.
And as I talked about,
buyer electronics
before the tariffs kicked in, but now it's
now it's too late.
But at the same time, Apple say they're
gonna source more iPhones from India's as a
(09:15):
potential
tariff fix. How about just bring in manufacturer,
back to The United States? But, of course,
that will take,
some time,
to accomplish.
GM's,
UK
design team imagines an electrified
Corvette.
So we will see. But, again, the futuristic
(09:38):
new electric
powered Corvette,
was done by the design team in Birmingham,
England. The team developed a hyper car design
inspired by aviation industry with a sculpted aerodynamic
design
and,
keeping the, the typical,
core of that,
lines for better for better guess.
(10:01):
There's been more
discussion about the White House, chat group
and and how it actually happened.
And I didn't even know
this is a
thing.
How did they add this guy to
(10:24):
the chat? Well,
the outlet says because
he had approved a Siri
suggestion to update the contact at some point.
So I didn't know Siri would
suggest
updates
to contacts.
(10:45):
If it's it's true, I guess, that Siri
can make these suggestions based on info like
phone numbers and and that it finds in
your text messages, some something you can disable
in iOS settings apps.
But perhaps Siri never should have had had
the chance to end up tangled it in
a national security scandal here.
For in the Guardian, the White House is
(11:06):
authorized to use the signal because there's no
alternate platform
to text in real time across different agencies.
And I I completely,
agree with that based upon my prior life.
But,
interesting that this was all caused by an
automated update that they opted into.
(11:28):
Windows 11 is rumored to have a new
start menu
redesign that could eat up a huge chunk
of desktop space for some user, although it
can be tamed.
You might get a flashback to Windows eight,
but,
really don't panic here.
Microsoft looks to be mulling
a redesign
(11:48):
for the start menu,
and we saw that last week in hidden
testing. And now we've caught a glimpse
of what it looks like with the phone
link side panel enabled. This configuration start menu
takes up most of the desktop,
but there's a switch that you can flick
to change it.
So, for those of you that are,
(12:08):
hardcore Windows users,
taming the start menu can be,
can be challenging at times.
Vaio is announcing that it's, advertising tariff free
laptop prices for a limited time.
So they're promoting current prices on laptop
stock that hasn't been affected by the,
(12:29):
by the import tax.
So very, very simple. All Japan has to
do is come to table, have a discussion,
and,
if this can be fixed.
We'll see how
fast
these,
these tariff changes happen
as, as countries,
acquiesce.
(12:49):
What do you guys think? I'd love to
hear your
your thoughts. Jeff me drop me an email
geeknews@gmail.com.
Potential NASA Earth science cuts highlight budget
uncertainty.
Of course, I think there's a lot of
stuff that's gonna become
uncertain.
Some NASA Earth science missions have, have been
(13:12):
told to prepare termination plans given the potential
for major budget cuts in the agency's
overall
science activities.
Representative George Whiteside,
Democrat of California, vice ranking member of the
House Science Committee, said at a congressional roundtable,
during the Fortaleous Space Symposium that he had
(13:33):
recently learned the Earth science missions in formulation
and those extended operation after their prime missions
have been asked for repair termination plans
starting for fiscal twenty twenty six. Now,
they haven't done this officially, but
basically told them to start planning. Now here's
my thing.
We know that a lot of science projects
(13:55):
are limited in scope. They're gonna go for
ninety, a hundred and twenty, a year, two
years, three years. And oftentimes, those missions get
extended and those missions get extended
with significant budget impacts.
So
I I can foresee
people being held,
(14:16):
to make sure that their mission times are
exactly what they're supposed to be,
and not a day longer,
in this current, and if you need longer,
you should have planned that
in in the in the very, very beginning.
Google's AI mode can now see and search
(14:36):
with images.
Google is adding multimodal capabilities to its search
centric
AI mode
that enables it to see and answer questions
about images as it expands
access to AI mode to millions of more
users.
Of course, ChatGPT has been able to do
this for a very long time.
It's been able to see and answer questions
(14:57):
about images. So,
I think they're about a year
behind in in this regard.
So,
good to see this to come to Google
AI.
SpaceX has scored 5,900,000,000.0
line share of Space Force launch contracts.
ULA
won 5,400,000,000.0
(15:18):
before everyone freaks out.
SpaceX got 5.9,
ULA got 5.4,
and Blue Origin got 2.4.
So SpaceX is due 28 missions.
ULA is gonna get 19,
and Blue Origin is expected to get two
(15:39):
missions.
So amazing that, Blue Origin got 2,400,000,000.0
for two missions
while
Elon Musk got 5,900,000.0,
for 28 missions. A little bit of a
disparity there in total number
of emission counts and,
not the best bang for the buck for
(16:01):
sure for the US government.
Apple's twentieth anniversary iPhone could bring major design
overhauls. This has been rumored, rumored, rumored, rumored.
And according to Bloomberg, the company's developing a
special pro model featuring more
glass elements to market's two decades of existence.
The company is also expected to launch a
(16:21):
foldable iPhone alongside
the redesigned pro, but it's unclear if that
would be first or second iteration.
Reports currently point to a 2026
launch for a foldable iPhone,
and Apple remains
the only major smartphone manufacturer without a foldable
device.
I think I would just prefer not to
(16:43):
have one.
Amazingly, the US government was spent still been
using magnetic tape.
The US government says it will save a
million dollars a year by getting rid of
magnetic tape, so there's still a place for
tape in 2025.
Question question question.
The GSA has decommissioned 14,000
tapes and an unknown
(17:04):
14,000
tapes and an unknown amount of tape drives
that had to be maintained.
The data is being moved to new unknown
media platforms that appears to have worm capabilities.
Of course, that's,
write once,
read a multiple
or read many.
(17:25):
So they're about to save about a million
dollars a year,
no longer needing
tapes.
Being coming out by the Port Of Seattle,
they say 90,000 people were impacted by the
ransomware
attack.
This was the data that was stolen in
August of twenty twenty four
and,
(17:46):
that forced the port to isolate critical systems
which impacted
the Seattle Tacoma International Airport, Fisherman's Terminal, and
Port Marina's it operates.
By mid September,
the port confirmed that ransomware was used in
the attack,
and, they refused to pay the $6,000,000
(18:08):
ransom.
So,
good at them for not paying the ransom,
and hopefully their
their support,
their backups were were good.
You know, that's that's always the the challenge.
Apple's rumored Smart Home Hub has another setback.
(18:28):
There's been a number of rumors suggesting Apple
has been working on a Smart Home display
to rivals Google Nest, Amazon Echo for a
while.
The device was
initially expected to be revealed this year,
but according to the latest reports from Mark
Gurman of Bloomberg,
Apple's considering a delay until 2026 for the
(18:49):
smart home device,
said
Gurman said in his Power On newsletter that
major engineering hiccups related to the revamped
Siri voice assistant have ended up delaying
the project. So,
that will get pushed.
X is gonna clamp down on
(19:10):
oh, that's that's nice.
Elon is gonna clamp down on parody accounts.
So from April 10, accounts which impersonates another
user person must use keywords such as fake
or parity at the start of their account
names, not at the end.
The platform will also require parity accounts
users to hold a put a different image,
(19:33):
belonging to those,
yeah. The platform will also require
parity account holders who dis use different images
to the x accounts belonging to those they
seek to represent.
Some users complain about confusion caused by parity
counts on the platforms,
such as those even in person
impersonating,
(19:54):
Elon.
So,
this will be a change.
And,
they won't peep they wanna know when people
know there's a parity count. Even I have
to look
at sometimes look at the accounts and make
sure that they are who they say they
are.
Microsoft is apologizing
after publishing
(20:16):
Siri is, like, going crazy.
Siri, never mind.
Microsoft
apologizes after publishing incorrect
software prices.
The prices were temporarily wrong and published on
April 5
for April 1 no less.
They admitted to publishing the wrong prices.
(20:38):
They were rectified on April 4.
The 5%
hike only affects monthly subscriptions,
but I guess there was a a bigger
error
that, that was published. So, good. April's full,
that was a mistake.
Serial giant, k w Kellogg, reveals a data
breach, but it's lacking any real data.
(21:01):
Fortunately
well or Impact. Fortunately, so far, only four
people seem to be affected,
and,
this could be connected to the recent Clio
file transfer breach.
So, pretty good as only four people.
So
(21:22):
not a big, big one, but still they
did reported it.
The United Kingdom is banning fake reviews and
sneaky
fees for online products.
They banned outrageous fake reviews and sneaky hit
but it's a sneaky hidden fee.
New measures under the DMCC
(21:44):
came into force on Sunday require online platforms
to transparently include all mandatory fees within a
product's
advertised price, including booking or admin charges.
We'll also target so called dripped pricing in
which additional fees like platform service charges are
dripped in
(22:04):
during a customer checkout process that dupe them
into paying a higher price than expected.
The ban aims to,
bring to an end
the shock that online shoppers get when they
reach the end of their shopping experience. So,
change here in The UK and those of
you that do business
in The UK.
(22:25):
Now the EU has basically said they're going
to propose a zero tariff,
for all products and services
in the EU.
But
others in the EU are talking different.
Speaking ahead of today's extraordinary meeting in the
European Union, trade ministers' focus was for the
French government was clear
that the trading bloc's response to blanket tariffs
(22:48):
on goods could include services bringing US tech
giants within its scope.
Sofia Primus told the media last week that
the response to sweeping US tariffs on EU
goods at 20%
would hit would hit digital services.
(23:08):
You responded to US tariffs on aluminum and
steel last month, but the blanket tariff announced
by the president,
which have wiped trillions of dollars of global
stock market valuation require another response.
They say the second response will cover all
products. I want to stress this. Services will
be included.
She said the deal of service including those
(23:29):
provide Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft would be
in scope.
So
whenever you think about the tariffs,
definitely getting people to the table to talk.
I've actually been asked to review this. I'm
not home to get one of these, the
OOFY new robot mower.
(23:50):
And here's one thing I told him. I
says, I've got a big you know, I
got one property that's three acres
that I share in mowing and then my
sister's place is like,
you know, half an acre of grass.
So is this thing really gonna work? The
Oofy's new robot, Maurer, uses smart vision to
trim your grass. The e 15 and e
(24:11):
18 don't need GPS, nowhere to go.
So that's that's curious.
But Anchor's lifestyle
brand OOFY has already swallowed a big chunk
of the robot vacuum market,
and now it's got sites set in your
yard. The company has been sharing details of
its first two robot mowers
(24:31):
since the start of the year, and now
they're ready to start selling them.
And, what's the price on these?
Does it say
cable covering lungs up to 800
square meters while the e 18 will conquer
yards up to 1,200
square meters. Don't think that's gonna get it.
(24:56):
I guess, per charge,
has a 4,200
milliamp
milliamp battery.
What else?
Gonna be wow.
$1,600
(25:16):
for e 15
and $19.99
for the e 18.
You can hire a lot of kids to
mow a lot of lawn for that kind
of money. That is for sure.
That is
for sure.
Chrome is gonna patch a decade old old
flaw that lets sites peek at your history.
After twenty three years,
(25:37):
the privacy plumbers finally arrived to clean up
this mess.
The privacy attack referred to as browser history
sniffing involves reading the color values of web
links on a page to see if the
linked pages have been visited previously. Websites commonly
consist of HTML files that describe page structure,
(25:58):
JavaScript files that contain code for interactivity, and
CSS files that describe page styling.
CSS includes a pseudo class visited
that can be applied to an anchor or
area elements which have an href property.
So web publishers and third parties capable of
running scripts have used this technique to present
links on a page for visitors and then
(26:19):
check how the visitors browser set the color
for those links on the rendered web page.
When the technique first emerged, this could be
done by including a script.
So, basically, they could see where you had
been.
So that it that is going
away.
Tesla shares tumble after bullish analyst Dan Ivy
(26:40):
slash prices
slash price target by 43.
I I think
great time to buy Tesla.
Really do.
I think it's gonna come back. People are,
you know, this is this is only a
temporary
temporary situation.
People are gonna come back to those vehicles.
(27:01):
I truly believe it.
Doge plans now reportedly
include Doge yeah. Doge
plans now reporting include an IRS hackathon.
So they're planning to hold a hackathon next
week in order to create mega API for
accessing internal revenue service data. Well, it says
(27:21):
the API would be used to move the
data into a cloud platform, potentially a third
party one to serve as the read center
of the agency systems. We know that they're
all on COBOL right now.
So this is all an attempt to try
to modernize.
Dodd's hackathon plans include pulling together dozens of
IRS engineers
in DC to build the API
(27:44):
among third party providers. The department's repost discussed
involving is Palantir,
the company for its known vast data collections
and government surveillance and analyst work.
Dodge's aim is to finish the API work
in thirty days.
A time a time lamb one IRS implode
excuse me.
A time line one IRS
(28:05):
employee told Wired it's not technically possible
and would cripple the IRS. Will you these
guys don't know how Elon works.
Wire says Doge operators orchestrating their projects are
25 year old Gavin
Kliger
and HealthTech CEO Sam Korcos.
The Washington Post reported that Korcos had pushed
(28:25):
the agency to lift restrictions it placed on
Kilgore's access to its systems and proposed an
agreement to share IRS data across the government.
So
one of the sources Wired spoke to said
the schematizing and understanding the IRS data doges
(28:48):
after would take years,
and these people have no experience, not only
government, but in IRS or or with taxes
or anything else, it's data.
Anyone that says you can't make major changes
to a system in thirty days
obviously has never worked
in the tech world.
(29:08):
Let's let's be frank.
You know, come
on. Monumental changes can happen in thirty days,
and there's only so many
data entry lines.
If, you know, if this has all been
stored in databases,
what, several thousand, two, three, four thousand? How
(29:30):
many forms?
How many data entry points on those forms?
Every one of those then can can become
an API call.
Our subset of data can be made in
API call.
I think people are gonna be surprised.
I I I really do. And if this
what it takes to get the system modernized,
(29:55):
Yeah. Writing the the new UI,
it's gonna take more than thirty days, but
the API,
shouldn't be that long.
It really, really shouldn't.
Billions and billions and billions of dollars have
been wasted trying to modernize the the IRS.
So, you know, when some somebody that works
(30:18):
at the IRS says this can't be done,
I don't think they understand
exactly who they're who they're talking about here.
Alright. Relatively short show today.
Thank you for being here.
News has just been all over the tariff
stuff.
Hopefully, we've cleaned up all of the audio
(30:40):
issues
and,
there's no more beeping
sounds.
And, this I just needed to do this
anyway.
So, all the gear was here and just
a matter of reconfiguring
OBS and,
moving some of the stuff on the desk
around.
So I think I'm in my final configuration
(31:00):
now. So time will tell,
how this ultimately,
works out.
But, yeah, having the Mac on the side
and being able to use it as a
second monitor,
perfect. They got the big fat monitor on
the desk here.
So, plenty of workspace
and a fully capable Mac Mini that, doesn't
(31:23):
need to move,
stays right here when I leave.
So, just again,
changes here at the studio. Alright. If you've
got comments on today's show,
or don't forget about the sponsor GoDaddy. Geetna
central dot com
forward slash godaddy. And, of course, don't forget
about becoming an insider at geeknewscentral.com/insider.
(31:47):
We have a comment about the show at
geek news on x, geeknews@gmail.com,
for email. Of course, geeknews.chat
is where our
online website
is for participating and having,
internal discussions.
I wanna thank everyone for being here today.
I'll be back with you on Thursday
(32:09):
for another edition of the Geekness Central podcast.
Everyone take care. We'll see you next time.
Bye bye.
Lead story for Monday, April 8. Tech stocks
swing widely
as the Trump administration
reaffirm global tear tariff plans.
It's totally rattled markets after last week's 1,800,000,000,000.0
sell off
Despite early losses, major players like Alphabet, Amazon,
Meta, and Nvidia
(00:21):
have closed higher.
Apple and Tesla ended in the red,
although Tesla came back up in after hours
training
while hopes of tariff delays briefly buoyed cement
sentiment,
Wall Street brace for a broader economic fallout
with corporate leaders
warning of rising costs and slowed growth.
(00:42):
Well, obviously,
the tariffs have been everything
in the news.
And,
one thing is for sure, it has not,
gone without
notice of of really all the tech stories
because it's it's just really
everywhere and anywhere.
This particular
(01:03):
discussion,
we've seen that TSMC
have one of the biggest one day, or
Taiwan having one of the biggest day
drops and specifically TMC took took a took
a big hit.
We know that Bitcoin
is down
in a significant way. We know that
(01:25):
lots of activity is is happening in the
market,
really due to this
volatility.
But at the same time,
we're starting to see countries like well,
the EU coming and say, hey. We wanna
do zero for zero.
Another
a number of countries saying zero for zero.
(01:47):
We will see where all of this leads,
in really the the coming, coming weeks.
But, one thing for sure,
stock prices are just
a little bit crazy. I wanna welcome you
to episode 1,812.
I'm your host, Todd Cochran, of course, a
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Thank you for keeping us online and going
strong. So just a little bit of a
change
to the setup today,
and I'm still tweaking everything because
I feel like I'm not completely,
dialed in here.
(05:17):
We've been having some trouble
with
some audio.
And,
apparently, on the stream from time to time,
it makes a little noise
and a noise that
we can't track down. Now part of my
original plan
(05:37):
when I was
coming back to The Philippines, I was gonna
run everything on a Mac mini.
And,
I finally got the new webcam in.
And so I'm currently running everything now
on a Mac mini.
And there's really two issues
(05:59):
that I have with the new setup so
far.
Eyeballs.
My eyeball seems to be
always appears to be looking down versus the
camera even I'm looking
directly at the camera right now.
Also the green screen,
I guess for a better words,
(06:19):
the keying is not perfect. I see a
lot of green around the edge of my
head. Maybe it's because
the shirt I'm wearing today.
And really that's the that's the two main
things. So hopefully,
we've got the
the audio situation,
solved.
It's something to do with maybe running on
(06:42):
a power supply. I I don't know.
But I'll be listening back to the audio
and make sure there isn't the little
that we kept hearing.
It's always something
for sure.
And,
we want to provide the best and and
this really sets everything up to the point
(07:02):
where when I go home, all I do
is turn things off. I don't have to
unhook the laptop,
and and and I can still tie the
machines together.
So, so far so good. Pretty happy.
But, anyway, we'll see if the audio quality
has improved. So enough on on this discussion.
(07:22):
Let's, go get into
the rest of the stack. And I do
wanna thank our insiders.
We'll cover all our insider donations on
the next, show.
Now, obviously, Apple.
Apple apparently flew three airplanes
of gear back before the tariffs
(07:45):
went into effect
of phones,
laptops.
So they got as much stock out of
China
as they could,
and they basically have said they are going
to now,
ramp up production,
in India,
which,
to me as like, okay.
(08:06):
So, you know, one way to avoid
one way to avoid tariffs,
is, you know, again, not doing as much
business in the country where tariffs are so
high
and China has doubled down. And and if
they don't acquiesce,
there's gonna be additional tariffs on China. So
we'll see what happens,
(08:27):
tomorrow.
That will be
the you know, that'll be the telltale sign
here of of what is to happen for
sure.
Oh, it was five airplanes full of iPhones
and other products,
in just three days.
Oh, they flew them out of India?
(08:53):
How many they fly out of China?
Now these reserves are gonna help things for
a few days, but people have been rushing
to the Apple Store to pick stuff up.
And as I talked about,
buyer electronics
before the tariffs kicked in, but now it's
now it's too late.
But at the same time, Apple say they're
gonna source more iPhones from India's as a
(09:15):
potential
tariff fix. How about just bring in manufacturer,
back to The United States? But, of course,
that will take,
some time,
to accomplish.
GM's,
UK
design team imagines an electrified
Corvette.
So we will see. But, again, the futuristic
(09:38):
new electric
powered Corvette,
was done by the design team in Birmingham,
England. The team developed a hyper car design
inspired by aviation industry with a sculpted aerodynamic
design
and,
keeping the, the typical,
core of that,
lines for better for better guess.
(10:01):
There's been more
discussion about the White House, chat group
and and how it actually happened.
And I didn't even know
this is a
thing.
How did they add this guy to
(10:24):
the chat? Well,
the outlet says because
he had approved a Siri
suggestion to update the contact at some point.
So I didn't know Siri would
suggest
updates
to contacts.
(10:45):
If it's it's true, I guess, that Siri
can make these suggestions based on info like
phone numbers and and that it finds in
your text messages, some something you can disable
in iOS settings apps.
But perhaps Siri never should have had had
the chance to end up tangled it in
a national security scandal here.
For in the Guardian, the White House is
(11:06):
authorized to use the signal because there's no
alternate platform
to text in real time across different agencies.
And I I completely,
agree with that based upon my prior life.
But,
interesting that this was all caused by an
automated update that they opted into.
(11:28):
Windows 11 is rumored to have a new
start menu
redesign that could eat up a huge chunk
of desktop space for some user, although it
can be tamed.
You might get a flashback to Windows eight,
but,
really don't panic here.
Microsoft looks to be mulling
a redesign
(11:48):
for the start menu,
and we saw that last week in hidden
testing. And now we've caught a glimpse
of what it looks like with the phone
link side panel enabled. This configuration start menu
takes up most of the desktop,
but there's a switch that you can flick
to change it.
So, for those of you that are,
(12:08):
hardcore Windows users,
taming the start menu can be,
can be challenging at times.
Vaio is announcing that it's, advertising tariff free
laptop prices for a limited time.
So they're promoting current prices on laptop
stock that hasn't been affected by the,
(12:29):
by the import tax.
So very, very simple. All Japan has to
do is come to table, have a discussion,
and,
if this can be fixed.
We'll see how
fast
these,
these tariff changes happen
as, as countries,
acquiesce.
(12:49):
What do you guys think? I'd love to
hear your
your thoughts. Jeff me drop me an email
geeknews@gmail.com.
Potential NASA Earth science cuts highlight budget
uncertainty.
Of course, I think there's a lot of
stuff that's gonna become
uncertain.
Some NASA Earth science missions have, have been
(13:12):
told to prepare termination plans given the potential
for major budget cuts in the agency's
overall
science activities.
Representative George Whiteside,
Democrat of California, vice ranking member of the
House Science Committee, said at a congressional roundtable,
during the Fortaleous Space Symposium that he had
(13:33):
recently learned the Earth science missions in formulation
and those extended operation after their prime missions
have been asked for repair termination plans
starting for fiscal twenty twenty six. Now,
they haven't done this officially, but
basically told them to start planning. Now here's
my thing.
We know that a lot of science projects
(13:55):
are limited in scope. They're gonna go for
ninety, a hundred and twenty, a year, two
years, three years. And oftentimes, those missions get
extended and those missions get extended
with significant budget impacts.
So
I I can foresee
people being held,
(14:16):
to make sure that their mission times are
exactly what they're supposed to be,
and not a day longer,
in this current, and if you need longer,
you should have planned that
in in the in the very, very beginning.
Google's AI mode can now see and search
(14:36):
with images.
Google is adding multimodal capabilities to its search
centric
AI mode
that enables it to see and answer questions
about images as it expands
access to AI mode to millions of more
users.
Of course, ChatGPT has been able to do
this for a very long time.
It's been able to see and answer questions
(14:57):
about images. So,
I think they're about a year
behind in in this regard.
So,
good to see this to come to Google
AI.
SpaceX has scored 5,900,000,000.0
line share of Space Force launch contracts.
ULA
won 5,400,000,000.0
(15:18):
before everyone freaks out.
SpaceX got 5.9,
ULA got 5.4,
and Blue Origin got 2.4.
So SpaceX is due 28 missions.
ULA is gonna get 19,
and Blue Origin is expected to get two
(15:39):
missions.
So amazing that, Blue Origin got 2,400,000,000.0
for two missions
while
Elon Musk got 5,900,000.0,
for 28 missions. A little bit of a
disparity there in total number
of emission counts and,
not the best bang for the buck for
(16:01):
sure for the US government.
Apple's twentieth anniversary iPhone could bring major design
overhauls. This has been rumored, rumored, rumored, rumored.
And according to Bloomberg, the company's developing a
special pro model featuring more
glass elements to market's two decades of existence.
The company is also expected to launch a
(16:21):
foldable iPhone alongside
the redesigned pro, but it's unclear if that
would be first or second iteration.
Reports currently point to a 2026
launch for a foldable iPhone,
and Apple remains
the only major smartphone manufacturer without a foldable
device.
I think I would just prefer not to
(16:43):
have one.
Amazingly, the US government was spent still been
using magnetic tape.
The US government says it will save a
million dollars a year by getting rid of
magnetic tape, so there's still a place for
tape in 2025.
Question question question.
The GSA has decommissioned 14,000
tapes and an unknown
(17:04):
14,000
tapes and an unknown amount of tape drives
that had to be maintained.
The data is being moved to new unknown
media platforms that appears to have worm capabilities.
Of course, that's,
write once,
read a multiple
or read many.
(17:25):
So they're about to save about a million
dollars a year,
no longer needing
tapes.
Being coming out by the Port Of Seattle,
they say 90,000 people were impacted by the
ransomware
attack.
This was the data that was stolen in
August of twenty twenty four
and,
(17:46):
that forced the port to isolate critical systems
which impacted
the Seattle Tacoma International Airport, Fisherman's Terminal, and
Port Marina's it operates.
By mid September,
the port confirmed that ransomware was used in
the attack,
and, they refused to pay the $6,000,000
(18:08):
ransom.
So,
good at them for not paying the ransom,
and hopefully their
their support,
their backups were were good.
You know, that's that's always the the challenge.
Apple's rumored Smart Home Hub has another setback.
(18:28):
There's been a number of rumors suggesting Apple
has been working on a Smart Home display
to rivals Google Nest, Amazon Echo for a
while.
The device was
initially expected to be revealed this year,
but according to the latest reports from Mark
Gurman of Bloomberg,
Apple's considering a delay until 2026 for the
(18:49):
smart home device,
said
Gurman said in his Power On newsletter that
major engineering hiccups related to the revamped
Siri voice assistant have ended up delaying
the project. So,
that will get pushed.
X is gonna clamp down on
(19:10):
oh, that's that's nice.
Elon is gonna clamp down on parody accounts.
So from April 10, accounts which impersonates another
user person must use keywords such as fake
or parity at the start of their account
names, not at the end.
The platform will also require parity accounts
users to hold a put a different image,
(19:33):
belonging to those,
yeah. The platform will also require
parity account holders who dis use different images
to the x accounts belonging to those they
seek to represent.
Some users complain about confusion caused by parity
counts on the platforms,
such as those even in person
impersonating,
(19:54):
Elon.
So,
this will be a change.
And,
they won't peep they wanna know when people
know there's a parity count. Even I have
to look
at sometimes look at the accounts and make
sure that they are who they say they
are.
Microsoft is apologizing
after publishing
(20:16):
Siri is, like, going crazy.
Siri, never mind.
Microsoft
apologizes after publishing incorrect
software prices.
The prices were temporarily wrong and published on
April 5
for April 1 no less.
They admitted to publishing the wrong prices.
(20:38):
They were rectified on April 4.
The 5%
hike only affects monthly subscriptions,
but I guess there was a a bigger
error
that, that was published. So, good. April's full,
that was a mistake.
Serial giant, k w Kellogg, reveals a data
breach, but it's lacking any real data.
(21:01):
Fortunately
well or Impact. Fortunately, so far, only four
people seem to be affected,
and,
this could be connected to the recent Clio
file transfer breach.
So, pretty good as only four people.
So
(21:22):
not a big, big one, but still they
did reported it.
The United Kingdom is banning fake reviews and
sneaky
fees for online products.
They banned outrageous fake reviews and sneaky hit
but it's a sneaky hidden fee.
New measures under the DMCC
(21:44):
came into force on Sunday require online platforms
to transparently include all mandatory fees within a
product's
advertised price, including booking or admin charges.
We'll also target so called dripped pricing in
which additional fees like platform service charges are
dripped in
(22:04):
during a customer checkout process that dupe them
into paying a higher price than expected.
The ban aims to,
bring to an end
the shock that online shoppers get when they
reach the end of their shopping experience. So,
change here in The UK and those of
you that do business
in The UK.
(22:25):
Now the EU has basically said they're going
to propose a zero tariff,
for all products and services
in the EU.
But
others in the EU are talking different.
Speaking ahead of today's extraordinary meeting in the
European Union, trade ministers' focus was for the
French government was clear
that the trading bloc's response to blanket tariffs
(22:48):
on goods could include services bringing US tech
giants within its scope.
Sofia Primus told the media last week that
the response to sweeping US tariffs on EU
goods at 20%
would hit would hit digital services.
(23:08):
You responded to US tariffs on aluminum and
steel last month, but the blanket tariff announced
by the president,
which have wiped trillions of dollars of global
stock market valuation require another response.
They say the second response will cover all
products. I want to stress this. Services will
be included.
She said the deal of service including those
(23:29):
provide Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft would be
in scope.
So
whenever you think about the tariffs,
definitely getting people to the table to talk.
I've actually been asked to review this. I'm
not home to get one of these, the
OOFY new robot mower.
(23:50):
And here's one thing I told him. I
says, I've got a big you know, I
got one property that's three acres
that I share in mowing and then my
sister's place is like,
you know, half an acre of grass.
So is this thing really gonna work? The
Oofy's new robot, Maurer, uses smart vision to
trim your grass. The e 15 and e
(24:11):
18 don't need GPS, nowhere to go.
So that's that's curious.
But Anchor's lifestyle
brand OOFY has already swallowed a big chunk
of the robot vacuum market,
and now it's got sites set in your
yard. The company has been sharing details of
its first two robot mowers
(24:31):
since the start of the year, and now
they're ready to start selling them.
And, what's the price on these?
Does it say
cable covering lungs up to 800
square meters while the e 18 will conquer
yards up to 1,200
square meters. Don't think that's gonna get it.
(24:56):
I guess, per charge,
has a 4,200
milliamp
milliamp battery.
What else?
Gonna be wow.
$1,600
(25:16):
for e 15
and $19.99
for the e 18.
You can hire a lot of kids to
mow a lot of lawn for that kind
of money. That is for sure.
That is
for sure.
Chrome is gonna patch a decade old old
flaw that lets sites peek at your history.
After twenty three years,
(25:37):
the privacy plumbers finally arrived to clean up
this mess.
The privacy attack referred to as browser history
sniffing involves reading the color values of web
links on a page to see if the
linked pages have been visited previously. Websites commonly
consist of HTML files that describe page structure,
(25:58):
JavaScript files that contain code for interactivity, and
CSS files that describe page styling.
CSS includes a pseudo class visited
that can be applied to an anchor or
area elements which have an href property.
So web publishers and third parties capable of
running scripts have used this technique to present
links on a page for visitors and then
(26:19):
check how the visitors browser set the color
for those links on the rendered web page.
When the technique first emerged, this could be
done by including a script.
So, basically, they could see where you had
been.
So that it that is going
away.
Tesla shares tumble after bullish analyst Dan Ivy
(26:40):
slash prices
slash price target by 43.
I I think
great time to buy Tesla.
Really do.
I think it's gonna come back. People are,
you know, this is this is only a
temporary
temporary situation.
People are gonna come back to those vehicles.
(27:01):
I truly believe it.
Doge plans now reportedly
include Doge yeah. Doge
plans now reporting include an IRS hackathon.
So they're planning to hold a hackathon next
week in order to create mega API for
accessing internal revenue service data. Well, it says
(27:21):
the API would be used to move the
data into a cloud platform, potentially a third
party one to serve as the read center
of the agency systems. We know that they're
all on COBOL right now.
So this is all an attempt to try
to modernize.
Dodd's hackathon plans include pulling together dozens of
IRS engineers
in DC to build the API
(27:44):
among third party providers. The department's repost discussed
involving is Palantir,
the company for its known vast data collections
and government surveillance and analyst work.
Dodge's aim is to finish the API work
in thirty days.
A time a time lamb one IRS implode
excuse me.
A time line one IRS
(28:05):
employee told Wired it's not technically possible
and would cripple the IRS. Will you these
guys don't know how Elon works.
Wire says Doge operators orchestrating their projects are
25 year old Gavin
Kliger
and HealthTech CEO Sam Korcos.
The Washington Post reported that Korcos had pushed
(28:25):
the agency to lift restrictions it placed on
Kilgore's access to its systems and proposed an
agreement to share IRS data across the government.
So
one of the sources Wired spoke to said
the schematizing and understanding the IRS data doges
(28:48):
after would take years,
and these people have no experience, not only
government, but in IRS or or with taxes
or anything else, it's data.
Anyone that says you can't make major changes
to a system in thirty days
obviously has never worked
in the tech world.
(29:08):
Let's let's be frank.
You know, come
on. Monumental changes can happen in thirty days,
and there's only so many
data entry lines.
If, you know, if this has all been
stored in databases,
what, several thousand, two, three, four thousand? How
(29:30):
many forms?
How many data entry points on those forms?
Every one of those then can can become
an API call.
Our subset of data can be made in
API call.
I think people are gonna be surprised.
I I I really do. And if this
what it takes to get the system modernized,
(29:55):
Yeah. Writing the the new UI,
it's gonna take more than thirty days, but
the API,
shouldn't be that long.
It really, really shouldn't.
Billions and billions and billions of dollars have
been wasted trying to modernize the the IRS.
So, you know, when some somebody that works
(30:18):
at the IRS says this can't be done,
I don't think they understand
exactly who they're who they're talking about here.
Alright. Relatively short show today.
Thank you for being here.
News has just been all over the tariff
stuff.
Hopefully, we've cleaned up all of the audio
(30:40):
issues
and,
there's no more beeping
sounds.
And, this I just needed to do this
anyway.
So, all the gear was here and just
a matter of reconfiguring
OBS and,
moving some of the stuff on the desk
around.
So I think I'm in my final configuration
(31:00):
now. So time will tell,
how this ultimately,
works out.
But, yeah, having the Mac on the side
and being able to use it as a
second monitor,
perfect. They got the big fat monitor on
the desk here.
So, plenty of workspace
and a fully capable Mac Mini that, doesn't
(31:23):
need to move,
stays right here when I leave.
So, just again,
changes here at the studio. Alright. If you've
got comments on today's show,
or don't forget about the sponsor GoDaddy. Geetna
central dot com
forward slash godaddy. And, of course, don't forget
about becoming an insider at geeknewscentral.com/insider.
(31:47):
We have a comment about the show at
geek news on x, geeknews@gmail.com,
for email. Of course, geeknews.chat
is where our
online website
is for participating and having,
internal discussions.
I wanna thank everyone for being here today.
I'll be back with you on Thursday
(32:09):
for another edition of the Geekness Central podcast.
Everyone take care. We'll see you next time.
Bye bye.
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