March 18, 2025 • 32 mins
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, stranded on the ISS for nine months due to a Boeing Starliner malfunction, will return to Earth on Tuesday aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon. Initially planned as a short trip, their extended stay required extra supplies. Their journey home, alongside two other crew members, will be broadcast live. … Continue reading US Astronauts Return Home After Nine-Month Stranded Stay on ISS #1807
The post US Astronauts Return Home After Nine-Month Stranded Stay on ISS #1807 appeared first on Geek News Central.
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(00:00):
The lead story from Monday, March 17, NASA
(00:02):
astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams stranded on
the International Space Station for nine months
due to a Boeing Starliner
malfunction
will return to Earth on Tuesday aboard a
SpaceX crew Dragon.
Initially planned as a short trip, their extended
stay required
extra supplies.
(00:23):
Of course, their journey home alongside two other
crew members will be broadcast
live.
Of course, this is going to go down,
late Tuesday.
They're going to be, returning at approximately
05:57PM
on on Tuesday afternoon.
So,
(00:43):
their,
their imminent departure from the International Space Station
is, is upon them. And, of course, people
have worried about,
the health of the two astronauts.
But, definitely, they did not set a record.
Frank Rubio set a three hundred and seventy
one day record,
(01:03):
in 2023.
And of course, the raz Russian cosmonaut
Valerie Polokov spent four thirty seven days aboard
the Mir space station. So again, the unexpected
nature of their prolonged stay,
you know, extra clothing, extra food, all kinds
of stuff had to be put up there
and of course
(01:24):
much sympathy from everyone.
And of course again they got that extended,
extended amount of science to do but,
you know, it also caused two people that
were supposed to be in space to be
delayed
or not
go
when they sent the Crew Dragon replacement
(01:44):
with the special seating and everything for them.
So, you know, this is what happens in
space.
Hopefully, Boeing can get their
their act back together.
So, you know, that's always,
you know, always something that, we hope that,
(02:06):
this, you know, any space team,
does and and and, you know, gets better.
Hey,
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So hope everyone's doing well.
Had a nice weekend off.
Not too much changes going on here. Same
old same old. Back to a normal
work week.
(05:15):
I've got the studio pretty much dialed in.
Although
I did have some feedback that said the
audio on the last episode was a little
low. I'll look at that.
But overall,
pretty happy with
with how everything's operating now. I got my
my displays set up the way I want
(05:35):
and watch chat real easy now.
Yeah. This this setup is good now. So
wait now the green screen arrival. So we'll
see how that works out once I get
it so you guys don't see my
apartment background as much.
Time will tell if that's gonna if that's
gonna pan out
or not. Time will
tell. So we got a lot of tech
(05:56):
to talk about today.
Kind of a little bit of a slow
news day,
which is interesting.
But
you know, it happens that way sometimes. But
there's some
some good articles here and the first one
we're gonna kick off besides the the intro
article was
that workers are overconfident spotting phishing attacks and
(06:18):
I've had to be very careful on email
that's coming in
and really if there's something that's being linked
to or something I'm being asked to download,
looking at email headers, all that stuff is
really really
important.
So
(06:39):
if you are overconfident,
you can lead to being a victim.
Yet half
fifty three percent fell victim to some fort
of social engineering scams. Twenty four percent
fell for a phishing attack. Seventeen percent were
tricked by a social media scam and twelve
percent were tricked by a deep fake scam.
(07:02):
So be careful
out there. We're all susceptible to this
and, and I'm you know, I'm always talking
to my team.
When something's come in, I've always said, hey.
I just got an email. It looks like
a DocuSign but it's not a DocuSign or
hey. I just got an email from a
team member.
It doesn't have a right header.
(07:23):
Doesn't
so be careful. Really really please do.
Lots of rumors and speculations going on about
the iPhone 17 and of course,
the biggest is the iPhone 17 Air
and they're they're excited in regards that the
iPhone 17 air could have a
starting price of around $8.99.
(07:44):
Now that's the same price as iPhone 16
plus
but it may have a battery life
that's on par with current phones. So this
is all speculation because they think
that the iPhone 17 air is gonna get
a next gen battery
and offset the 17 pro max weight gains.
(08:06):
So,
time will tell but a lot of people
are
are really, interested in this phone. Now
there is a real crazy rumor that this
will be the first port free iPhone.
This is largely stuff we've heard before as
it as it is the claim the phone
(08:26):
would be eSIM only worldwide,
but
Apple has originally considered making the phone completely
port free by not including USB c charging
port. I think that would be a big
mistake.
Wireless charging does not happen
as fast,
in any way shape or form. So,
(08:46):
I would doubt that that would actually
be a true
rumor.
Now how many of you are cartoon fans?
You know, I think as a kid, we
all probably saw Looney Tunes at least when
I was a kid. Maybe not when you're
a kid.
But following Sesame Street, Looney Tunes has become
the largest target of max content
(09:06):
urge.
So Warner Brother Discoveries removed the entire lineup
of classy Looney Tunes shorts from the nineteen
thirties to 1969
from its streaming service. The company confirmed
the move saying the streamer will prioritize adult
and family program
rather than content for kids. I think a
lot of people buy these services
(09:27):
to allow
their kids to have something to watch.
And I think we all enjoyed Looney Tunes
as kids so it's pretty sad
what they've considered doing here. The telegram founder
has been allowed to leave France
following his arrest and I didn't realize that
he was still
(09:47):
stuck in France
but he's being allowed to go back
to Dubai for a few weeks.
It's the first time the tech leader
has been allowed to travel since he's been
arrested.
He said in a post on his telegram
channel the process ongoing but it feels great
to be home.
(10:07):
Again, he was arrested in August of twenty
twenty four.
No further details were given about the conditions
of his release from from France.
He had to put up money or something
else. It's hard to say.
The question is will he really come back
to France
and,
and face these charges?
(10:29):
I don't know if he's facing time or
a fine
or or what it may be but
definitely, we'll see what's going on.
If you are a Google Pixel
fan,
there's a comprehensive gig. So Google Pixel nine
a
that talks about everything that is gonna be
(10:49):
released
with this, with this device.
And,
I and I'm not at all a Pixel
user,
but
the Pixel a is reportedly right around the
corner.
Google's done a poor job keeping the leaks
in check.
A video is available
via courtesy
via tech influencer and shows the phone is
(11:11):
a light pink shade.
It's a hundred and 28 and $2.56
variant.
The pack is nearly identical to the Pixel
nine
and,
as far as core specification goes, it has
a 6.3
OLED
display,
ten eighty by ten twenty twenty four twenty
four pixels,
20 Hertz refresh rate,
(11:33):
It's supposed to be 2,700
nits. There's a Corning
Gorilla Glass three layer protecting the screen.
So
time will tell.
People are not happy with the bezels on
it but
it's not gonna be a performance brute but
it will be what has been lived up
(11:53):
to the a series
on on Google phones. So we'll see where
this where this leads.
IOS 19 is set Asher in a major
redesign
and, everyone's talking about this
as well. And I think what we're really
going to see is a confluence of or
is that the right word to use?
(12:15):
Essentially a joining of more functionality
from your iPad,
your iPhone
to your MacBook or your MacBook Pro, whatever
it may be or your Air. It's all
going to be very very seamless here. You
know one thing I do love
is as an example,
(12:37):
I am running because things didn't go completely
to plan for the El Galata face cam.
I'm running my MacBook Pro with two additional
screens and I have an Apple Mac Mini,
over here on the side.
I, you know, I can tie these screens
all together and use the same mouse
to go over to all
four screens even though they're two different computers.
(13:00):
And
I can cut and paste something in the
MacBook Pro and roll it into
the Mac mini screen.
It's just one of these things
that Mac does that I'll be honest with
you that I have fell in love with
over the years
and
you know in all with one mouse
and one keyboard. Now of course I have
(13:21):
to switch keyboards but I've got a bluetooth
keyboard here
and I just real
in the in the keyboard will support
two separate sections
and or two separate three separate computers.
So all I got to do is just
change the Bluetooth connection
between one to the other and I can
type really quickly. Now I think there's a
(13:43):
way to share keyboards too but I'm
not up to speed on that. I haven't
tried it
but, it's just stuff like this. So I
think more alignment
and that's what most of this article is
talked about
with and it's being influenced by VisionOS
and again a unified style
and will not be completely about appearance.
(14:05):
But, we'll see. We'll see what happens,
with iOS 19.
If you're in the used car or car
dealership,
business, a hundred car dealerships are hit by
a supply
chain attack.
The websites of over a hundred auto dealerships
are found serving malicious
click fix code
in a in a supply chain compromise. Boy,
(14:29):
that's say that five times over.
As part of the compromise, threat actors infected
a LES automotive,
a shared video service unique to dealership so
that the websites using the service could serve
a click fix web page to their visitors.
A click fix attack relies on malicious code
on a web page to display
a prompt to the user actually fixing to
(14:51):
fix an error or perform a reCAPTCHA challenge.
And then once they do that,
it starts to complete,
social engineering.
They to copy some prompts and to run
some Windows commands
and you know, just don't be running anything
(15:11):
from the command line that you are not
100%
assured you know what you're doing.
Be careful.
Apple Wallet is making it easier
than ever to see reoccurring payments.
So this is something I haven't really looked
at in Apple Wallet but I want to
because reoccurring payments is stuff that really can
can get away from us. Right?
(15:33):
So if you open your Apple Wallet,
how does it do it? It
provides another place where users can check on
subscriptions, but also as a way to check
upcoming payments
that might not fall under subscription number. Apple
describes the pre authorized payments as
(15:53):
merchants you authorize to charge your Apple card
for.
Also,
in an auto loads billing charges and more.
The change is small but an important quality
of life boost that many people think Apple
can take
the feature step further by listing all upcoming
payments under single menu.
That's probably true.
(16:15):
So but any place I can see reoccurring
payments
real easy
is is a great thing. Now one thing
that is very obvious if you're doing accounting
month to month and you're looking at your
credit card bill
and and you're actually highlighting stuff that's a
reoccurring bill, that's a great way to stay
on top of it as well. You know,
(16:35):
I don't allow my credit card company
to not send me a paper statement
and the reason for it is is I
can look at a digital statement but it's
real easy then to compare last month, this
month, keep them in a stack, highlight reoccurring
payments.
So I don't go digital on my credit
card statements. I don't do it.
Too easy to get in the habit of
(16:56):
not looking at that bill and then potentially
missing something. At least every month. I open
it up. I look at it. I know
for sure all the charges on there look
familiar.
That's how I caught one recently. I got
a charge on my credit card that was
not familiar
and
and and basically you know, canceled the card,
got the amount
(17:17):
refunded
and if I'd been done doing a digital
review of my bill, I may not have
seen it.
Use the digital tools with your QuickBooks and
that type of stuff. That's always
good as well.
Microsoft three sixty five accounts are again under
attack from a new malware spoofing popular work
apps.
(17:38):
Now I've seen this as well. I see
hackers are impersonating Adobe DocuSign
and more to steal login credentials. Of course,
this isn't talking about Microsoft
three sixty five specifically,
but hackers are spoofing these cloud and productivity
apps. Cybersecurity
researchers proof point detailed the finding on the
next thread revealing unidentified
(17:59):
cybercriminals
using compromised Office three sixty five accounts and
email addresses belonging to charity organizations. Small businesses
will launch the attack.
So and these are very very targeted.
I've seen emails come in that for me
I'd be like,
I use that service. Why am I getting
(18:20):
a DocuSign?
And it wasn't
a real deal? It was something fake.
So just just be aware out there.
So this is the first I've heard about
this. There's a car sized
camera
that can see a golf ball from 15
miles away and it's ready to start taking
epic images of the galaxy,
the 3,200
(18:41):
megapixel
legacy of space and time camera could start
capturing images
as early as next month.
The world's largest digital camera
has been
now been installed and could start photography in
the galaxy.
The luggage space and time l s t
is a car size
(19:01):
3,200 megapixel camera designed to detect faint
celestial objects
as it captures a decade long timepiece.
The camera has now finished installation process at
the Veracy Ruben Observatory in Chile and is
ready to begin final testing capturing its first
celestial images. So this is a ground
(19:22):
based telescope
or
camera I guess.
So that's very interesting. Bringing the camera from
where it was manufactured in Cal so this
is not going to space.
This is going in a traditional,
observatory.
So
they use a seven forty seven to bring
the camera along with 10 truck lugs of
(19:43):
gear to the facility.
The camera then went and went months of
testing
and I guess it's about ready to go.
So
very, very cool. Be cool to see these
images.
We don't hear a lot about observatories
anymore.
So it's kind of a nice one.
(20:04):
Probably not surprising.
NASA is still voted as the best place
to work in the government.
NASA,
they're rated 81.6.
Of course, now with all the the Doge
cuts,
Department of Protect Environmental Protection Agency,
the Department of Health and Human Resources, Intelligence
(20:26):
Community, Department of Commerce,
Department of Veteran Affairs,
Department of Transportation were the top seven
with NASA being a number one.
We'll see if that's the case
in ongoing years with, with the cuts that
have happened for sure.
Alphabet is spinning off its laser based internet
(20:48):
backbone provider Tara and I don't remember even
hearing
anything about this particular startup
but this laser based internet company Tara is
its moonshot incubator
opening to turbocharge
that company to provide high bandwidth services to
hard to reach areas in competition with Elon's
(21:10):
Starlink satellites.
So how does this actually work?
So
it's a origin of the concept called Loon
that envisioned
shoot shooting beams of light between thousands of
balloons floating on the edge of space
(21:30):
provide phone and Internet service across remote areas.
Loon was wound up in 2021
due to political and regulatory hurdles to flying
balloons and the difficulty servicing the 20 mile
high equipment.
However, its lasers found a second life
on Tara's towers.
So the technology works by firing a beam
of light the width of a pencil
(21:52):
from one traffic light sized terminal to another
using a system of sensor optics and mirrors
to fix it on a 1.5 inch receiver.
Abbott says the system can transmit at 20
gigs per second over twenty twenty kilometers
extending traditional fiber optic neck networks with minimal
construction and lower cost. Oh, that's very cool.
(22:15):
You do you do point to point laser
across 20 kilometers to a tower,
connect fiber.
Beautiful.
Beautiful. That that's brilliant.
That is a very simple
way to
save having to
dig trenches for 20 kilometers.
(22:38):
And you could if they're that small, you
could you could do a quad of them.
Wow.
So
Well
let's see if this makes any
oh they're already operating 12 countries including India
and parts of Africa.
It has created a five kilometer laser link
over the Congo River between
(23:00):
Brazilville and King Shaul, the capital of the
Democratic
Democratic Republic Of The Congo,
wherein it costs are much higher. It also
supplements overload mobile phone networks at events such
as Coachella music festival in California.
So they've got a long way to go
before it compete, obviously.
But I think this could be an example.
(23:23):
I can I can see towers from my
house,
12 miles away,
you
know,
to the town that is closest to my
house?
That would
work. So,
someone get her done.
So Google is killing products again.
(23:44):
They're killing assistant replacing it with Gemini.
Google decided to silence its voice assistant and
replace it with Gemini
AI service.
I never use Assistant. Assistant debuted in 2016
and offered what Google called a conversational
interface that could enjoy
entertainment, manage everyday tasks and get answers from
(24:07):
Google.
So receiving assistance from this receiving assistance from
the assistant
required users to mash an icon or utter
the phrase, okay,
you know who,
then speak a command.
I probably used it 10 times.
So will I use Gemini Assistant as its
(24:28):
replacement?
Time will tell.
Klarna is nearing an IPO
and is
so Swedish fintech
firm Klarna will be the exclusive provider of
buy now pay later loans from Walmart
taking a coveted partnership away from rival Affirm.
Klarna just disclosed its tension to go public
(24:49):
in The United States will provide loans to
Walmart customers in stores and online
through the retailer's majority owned fintech startup, OnePay.
OnePay, which updated its brand name this month,
will handle the user experience via its app,
But Cloner will make it underwriting decision for
loans ranging from three months to thirty six
(25:09):
months in length.
So again, another service that I really don't
want to have anything to do with, but
I guess some are.
This is really sad
news. Recordings of requests to Alexa will soon
go to Amazon Cloud.
So this is a big big change.
No longer will Alexa do the processing if
(25:32):
you told it to within the device, it
will send
the Alexa command
to the cloud.
Thus, anything that you say to it will
be recorded because supposedly they need the processing
power
to make it happen.
Currently, the three versions of Echo, the fourth
generation Echo Dot and Echo Show 10 and
(25:53):
Echo Show 15 have the option to process
the audio in the device as opposed to
sending to the cloud. But starting in two
weeks, customers will be switched to the don't
save recording settings, meaning while Vost data will
go to Amazon cloud, it will be deleted
after
Alexa processes a request or questions.
(26:13):
So you may have gotten an email on
this already, but Amazon says, hey. Hey. Hey.
Privacy remains a priority.
Really?
There's been a critical RCIE
RCE
flaw in Apache Tomcat.
So if you run servers,
(26:34):
you need to look at your Apache build.
Critical
RCE
flaw in Apache Tommycat
actively
exploited in tax and they can gain access
to your Apache server with just a put
request. So
be careful out there.
Roku now is doing some tests of auto
playing ads loading before the home screen.
(26:56):
Owners of smart TVs and streaming six running
Roku OS are already subject to video advertisements
on the home screen.
Now Roku is testing what it might look
like if it took things a step further
and forced people to watch a video
ad to play before getting to the Roku
OS home screen.
Reports of customers seeing the video ads automatically
(27:16):
play before they could view the OS home
screen started appearing online this week.
A Reddit user posted for example,
I just turned on my Roku and got
an ad for a movie
right before I got to the regular home
screen. Multiple parent users report seeing an ad
And, again, this is supposed to be going
on as a test.
I think Roku is under a lot of
(27:37):
pressure,
and I understand what they're doing there. Cheap
device,
great interface,
gotta find ways to to raise revenue.
Time will tell how this works out for
them. And if, again, if they move that
from test to actuality.
(27:58):
Mistral AI drops a new open source model
that outperforms GPT four zero Mini with a
fraction of the parameters.
French artificial intelligence
startup
has unveiled this new open source model today
that the company says outperformed similar offerings
from Google and OpenAI.
The model called Mistral Small 3.1
(28:19):
processable text images with just 24,000,000,000
parameters.
So what can it be run on?
Question is how big of a computer do
you need? It doesn't say
but that could be something viable for those
of you
that want to run your own models.
(28:39):
People are using the new Google's AI model
to remove watermarks from images. Apparently, this is
happening.
And, of course, we know that they expanded
access as we talked in the show to
the Gemini two point o model
but it appears to also have few fewer
guardrails.
Gemini two point o two point o Flash
(29:00):
will uncomplainingly
create images depicting celebrities and copyrighted characters and
or as alluded
earlier remove watermarks from existing photos
which is,
which is too bad.
That it can do that.
Very very
bad for those that are protecting their their
intellectual
(29:21):
property.
Now the final article today is one that's
caught about AI slop. I do not have
access to the full article. They require,
I apparently went to the page too many
times, but we've all seen these videos
where people transform into a monster or dragon
and they they they're pretty cool. They're pretty
cool AI but apparently
(29:43):
this is the new thing. AI spam is
is going out there by the tens and
thousands and even millions
of videos
that are being put on the internet
just to drive views
and you often see them on TikTok or
you see them on
Facebook reels.
Help stop the slop. Don't watch those videos
(30:04):
and what happens is you're enticed to watch
them multiple multiple times
and that
and that's where it drives
the
the view count in a big big way.
I want to thank our, insider, s j
g media LLC for his for their $10.80
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And of course, you can become an insider
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(30:25):
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(30:47):
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the 600
plus episodes of the new media show. Everyone
take care. We'll see you back here on
Thursday, hopefully, with a little heavier tech load.
(31:50):
Thanks for being here.
Again, another edition of the Keaton Central podcast
in the Cayenne. Take care. Bye bye.
The lead story from Monday, March 17, NASA
(00:02):
astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams stranded on
the International Space Station for nine months
due to a Boeing Starliner
malfunction
will return to Earth on Tuesday aboard a
SpaceX crew Dragon.
Initially planned as a short trip, their extended
stay required
extra supplies.
(00:23):
Of course, their journey home alongside two other
crew members will be broadcast
live.
Of course, this is going to go down,
late Tuesday.
They're going to be, returning at approximately
05:57PM
on on Tuesday afternoon.
So,
(00:43):
their,
their imminent departure from the International Space Station
is, is upon them. And, of course, people
have worried about,
the health of the two astronauts.
But, definitely, they did not set a record.
Frank Rubio set a three hundred and seventy
one day record,
(01:03):
in 2023.
And of course, the raz Russian cosmonaut
Valerie Polokov spent four thirty seven days aboard
the Mir space station. So again, the unexpected
nature of their prolonged stay,
you know, extra clothing, extra food, all kinds
of stuff had to be put up there
and of course
(01:24):
much sympathy from everyone.
And of course again they got that extended,
extended amount of science to do but,
you know, it also caused two people that
were supposed to be in space to be
delayed
or not
go
when they sent the Crew Dragon replacement
(01:44):
with the special seating and everything for them.
So, you know, this is what happens in
space.
Hopefully, Boeing can get their
their act back together.
So, you know, that's always,
you know, always something that, we hope that,
(02:06):
this, you know, any space team,
does and and and, you know, gets better.
Hey,
everyone. Of course, welcome to episode 1,807.
I'm your host, Todd Cochran. A shout out
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So hope everyone's doing well.
Had a nice weekend off.
Not too much changes going on here. Same
old same old. Back to a normal
work week.
(05:15):
I've got the studio pretty much dialed in.
Although
I did have some feedback that said the
audio on the last episode was a little
low. I'll look at that.
But overall,
pretty happy with
with how everything's operating now. I got my
my displays set up the way I want
(05:35):
and watch chat real easy now.
Yeah. This this setup is good now. So
wait now the green screen arrival. So we'll
see how that works out once I get
it so you guys don't see my
apartment background as much.
Time will tell if that's gonna if that's
gonna pan out
or not. Time will
tell. So we got a lot of tech
(05:56):
to talk about today.
Kind of a little bit of a slow
news day,
which is interesting.
But
you know, it happens that way sometimes. But
there's some
some good articles here and the first one
we're gonna kick off besides the the intro
article was
that workers are overconfident spotting phishing attacks and
(06:18):
I've had to be very careful on email
that's coming in
and really if there's something that's being linked
to or something I'm being asked to download,
looking at email headers, all that stuff is
really really
important.
So
(06:39):
if you are overconfident,
you can lead to being a victim.
Yet half
fifty three percent fell victim to some fort
of social engineering scams. Twenty four percent
fell for a phishing attack. Seventeen percent were
tricked by a social media scam and twelve
percent were tricked by a deep fake scam.
(07:02):
So be careful
out there. We're all susceptible to this
and, and I'm you know, I'm always talking
to my team.
When something's come in, I've always said, hey.
I just got an email. It looks like
a DocuSign but it's not a DocuSign or
hey. I just got an email from a
team member.
It doesn't have a right header.
(07:23):
Doesn't
so be careful. Really really please do.
Lots of rumors and speculations going on about
the iPhone 17 and of course,
the biggest is the iPhone 17 Air
and they're they're excited in regards that the
iPhone 17 air could have a
starting price of around $8.99.
(07:44):
Now that's the same price as iPhone 16
plus
but it may have a battery life
that's on par with current phones. So this
is all speculation because they think
that the iPhone 17 air is gonna get
a next gen battery
and offset the 17 pro max weight gains.
(08:06):
So,
time will tell but a lot of people
are
are really, interested in this phone. Now
there is a real crazy rumor that this
will be the first port free iPhone.
This is largely stuff we've heard before as
it as it is the claim the phone
(08:26):
would be eSIM only worldwide,
but
Apple has originally considered making the phone completely
port free by not including USB c charging
port. I think that would be a big
mistake.
Wireless charging does not happen
as fast,
in any way shape or form. So,
(08:46):
I would doubt that that would actually
be a true
rumor.
Now how many of you are cartoon fans?
You know, I think as a kid, we
all probably saw Looney Tunes at least when
I was a kid. Maybe not when you're
a kid.
But following Sesame Street, Looney Tunes has become
the largest target of max content
(09:06):
urge.
So Warner Brother Discoveries removed the entire lineup
of classy Looney Tunes shorts from the nineteen
thirties to 1969
from its streaming service. The company confirmed
the move saying the streamer will prioritize adult
and family program
rather than content for kids. I think a
lot of people buy these services
(09:27):
to allow
their kids to have something to watch.
And I think we all enjoyed Looney Tunes
as kids so it's pretty sad
what they've considered doing here. The telegram founder
has been allowed to leave France
following his arrest and I didn't realize that
he was still
(09:47):
stuck in France
but he's being allowed to go back
to Dubai for a few weeks.
It's the first time the tech leader
has been allowed to travel since he's been
arrested.
He said in a post on his telegram
channel the process ongoing but it feels great
to be home.
(10:07):
Again, he was arrested in August of twenty
twenty four.
No further details were given about the conditions
of his release from from France.
He had to put up money or something
else. It's hard to say.
The question is will he really come back
to France
and,
and face these charges?
(10:29):
I don't know if he's facing time or
a fine
or or what it may be but
definitely, we'll see what's going on.
If you are a Google Pixel
fan,
there's a comprehensive gig. So Google Pixel nine
a
that talks about everything that is gonna be
(10:49):
released
with this, with this device.
And,
I and I'm not at all a Pixel
user,
but
the Pixel a is reportedly right around the
corner.
Google's done a poor job keeping the leaks
in check.
A video is available
via courtesy
via tech influencer and shows the phone is
(11:11):
a light pink shade.
It's a hundred and 28 and $2.56
variant.
The pack is nearly identical to the Pixel
nine
and,
as far as core specification goes, it has
a 6.3
OLED
display,
ten eighty by ten twenty twenty four twenty
four pixels,
20 Hertz refresh rate,
(11:33):
It's supposed to be 2,700
nits. There's a Corning
Gorilla Glass three layer protecting the screen.
So
time will tell.
People are not happy with the bezels on
it but
it's not gonna be a performance brute but
it will be what has been lived up
(11:53):
to the a series
on on Google phones. So we'll see where
this where this leads.
IOS 19 is set Asher in a major
redesign
and, everyone's talking about this
as well. And I think what we're really
going to see is a confluence of or
is that the right word to use?
(12:15):
Essentially a joining of more functionality
from your iPad,
your iPhone
to your MacBook or your MacBook Pro, whatever
it may be or your Air. It's all
going to be very very seamless here. You
know one thing I do love
is as an example,
(12:37):
I am running because things didn't go completely
to plan for the El Galata face cam.
I'm running my MacBook Pro with two additional
screens and I have an Apple Mac Mini,
over here on the side.
I, you know, I can tie these screens
all together and use the same mouse
to go over to all
four screens even though they're two different computers.
(13:00):
And
I can cut and paste something in the
MacBook Pro and roll it into
the Mac mini screen.
It's just one of these things
that Mac does that I'll be honest with
you that I have fell in love with
over the years
and
you know in all with one mouse
and one keyboard. Now of course I have
(13:21):
to switch keyboards but I've got a bluetooth
keyboard here
and I just real
in the in the keyboard will support
two separate sections
and or two separate three separate computers.
So all I got to do is just
change the Bluetooth connection
between one to the other and I can
type really quickly. Now I think there's a
(13:43):
way to share keyboards too but I'm
not up to speed on that. I haven't
tried it
but, it's just stuff like this. So I
think more alignment
and that's what most of this article is
talked about
with and it's being influenced by VisionOS
and again a unified style
and will not be completely about appearance.
(14:05):
But, we'll see. We'll see what happens,
with iOS 19.
If you're in the used car or car
dealership,
business, a hundred car dealerships are hit by
a supply
chain attack.
The websites of over a hundred auto dealerships
are found serving malicious
click fix code
in a in a supply chain compromise. Boy,
(14:29):
that's say that five times over.
As part of the compromise, threat actors infected
a LES automotive,
a shared video service unique to dealership so
that the websites using the service could serve
a click fix web page to their visitors.
A click fix attack relies on malicious code
on a web page to display
a prompt to the user actually fixing to
(14:51):
fix an error or perform a reCAPTCHA challenge.
And then once they do that,
it starts to complete,
social engineering.
They to copy some prompts and to run
some Windows commands
and you know, just don't be running anything
(15:11):
from the command line that you are not
100%
assured you know what you're doing.
Be careful.
Apple Wallet is making it easier
than ever to see reoccurring payments.
So this is something I haven't really looked
at in Apple Wallet but I want to
because reoccurring payments is stuff that really can
can get away from us. Right?
(15:33):
So if you open your Apple Wallet,
how does it do it? It
provides another place where users can check on
subscriptions, but also as a way to check
upcoming payments
that might not fall under subscription number. Apple
describes the pre authorized payments as
(15:53):
merchants you authorize to charge your Apple card
for.
Also,
in an auto loads billing charges and more.
The change is small but an important quality
of life boost that many people think Apple
can take
the feature step further by listing all upcoming
payments under single menu.
That's probably true.
(16:15):
So but any place I can see reoccurring
payments
real easy
is is a great thing. Now one thing
that is very obvious if you're doing accounting
month to month and you're looking at your
credit card bill
and and you're actually highlighting stuff that's a
reoccurring bill, that's a great way to stay
on top of it as well. You know,
(16:35):
I don't allow my credit card company
to not send me a paper statement
and the reason for it is is I
can look at a digital statement but it's
real easy then to compare last month, this
month, keep them in a stack, highlight reoccurring
payments.
So I don't go digital on my credit
card statements. I don't do it.
Too easy to get in the habit of
(16:56):
not looking at that bill and then potentially
missing something. At least every month. I open
it up. I look at it. I know
for sure all the charges on there look
familiar.
That's how I caught one recently. I got
a charge on my credit card that was
not familiar
and
and and basically you know, canceled the card,
got the amount
(17:17):
refunded
and if I'd been done doing a digital
review of my bill, I may not have
seen it.
Use the digital tools with your QuickBooks and
that type of stuff. That's always
good as well.
Microsoft three sixty five accounts are again under
attack from a new malware spoofing popular work
apps.
(17:38):
Now I've seen this as well. I see
hackers are impersonating Adobe DocuSign
and more to steal login credentials. Of course,
this isn't talking about Microsoft
three sixty five specifically,
but hackers are spoofing these cloud and productivity
apps. Cybersecurity
researchers proof point detailed the finding on the
next thread revealing unidentified
(17:59):
cybercriminals
using compromised Office three sixty five accounts and
email addresses belonging to charity organizations. Small businesses
will launch the attack.
So and these are very very targeted.
I've seen emails come in that for me
I'd be like,
I use that service. Why am I getting
(18:20):
a DocuSign?
And it wasn't
a real deal? It was something fake.
So just just be aware out there.
So this is the first I've heard about
this. There's a car sized
camera
that can see a golf ball from 15
miles away and it's ready to start taking
epic images of the galaxy,
the 3,200
(18:41):
megapixel
legacy of space and time camera could start
capturing images
as early as next month.
The world's largest digital camera
has been
now been installed and could start photography in
the galaxy.
The luggage space and time l s t
is a car size
(19:01):
3,200 megapixel camera designed to detect faint
celestial objects
as it captures a decade long timepiece.
The camera has now finished installation process at
the Veracy Ruben Observatory in Chile and is
ready to begin final testing capturing its first
celestial images. So this is a ground
(19:22):
based telescope
or
camera I guess.
So that's very interesting. Bringing the camera from
where it was manufactured in Cal so this
is not going to space.
This is going in a traditional,
observatory.
So
they use a seven forty seven to bring
the camera along with 10 truck lugs of
(19:43):
gear to the facility.
The camera then went and went months of
testing
and I guess it's about ready to go.
So
very, very cool. Be cool to see these
images.
We don't hear a lot about observatories
anymore.
So it's kind of a nice one.
(20:04):
Probably not surprising.
NASA is still voted as the best place
to work in the government.
NASA,
they're rated 81.6.
Of course, now with all the the Doge
cuts,
Department of Protect Environmental Protection Agency,
the Department of Health and Human Resources, Intelligence
(20:26):
Community, Department of Commerce,
Department of Veteran Affairs,
Department of Transportation were the top seven
with NASA being a number one.
We'll see if that's the case
in ongoing years with, with the cuts that
have happened for sure.
Alphabet is spinning off its laser based internet
(20:48):
backbone provider Tara and I don't remember even
hearing
anything about this particular startup
but this laser based internet company Tara is
its moonshot incubator
opening to turbocharge
that company to provide high bandwidth services to
hard to reach areas in competition with Elon's
(21:10):
Starlink satellites.
So how does this actually work?
So
it's a origin of the concept called Loon
that envisioned
shoot shooting beams of light between thousands of
balloons floating on the edge of space
(21:30):
provide phone and Internet service across remote areas.
Loon was wound up in 2021
due to political and regulatory hurdles to flying
balloons and the difficulty servicing the 20 mile
high equipment.
However, its lasers found a second life
on Tara's towers.
So the technology works by firing a beam
of light the width of a pencil
(21:52):
from one traffic light sized terminal to another
using a system of sensor optics and mirrors
to fix it on a 1.5 inch receiver.
Abbott says the system can transmit at 20
gigs per second over twenty twenty kilometers
extending traditional fiber optic neck networks with minimal
construction and lower cost. Oh, that's very cool.
(22:15):
You do you do point to point laser
across 20 kilometers to a tower,
connect fiber.
Beautiful.
Beautiful. That that's brilliant.
That is a very simple
way to
save having to
dig trenches for 20 kilometers.
(22:38):
And you could if they're that small, you
could you could do a quad of them.
Wow.
So
Well
let's see if this makes any
oh they're already operating 12 countries including India
and parts of Africa.
It has created a five kilometer laser link
over the Congo River between
(23:00):
Brazilville and King Shaul, the capital of the
Democratic
Democratic Republic Of The Congo,
wherein it costs are much higher. It also
supplements overload mobile phone networks at events such
as Coachella music festival in California.
So they've got a long way to go
before it compete, obviously.
But I think this could be an example.
(23:23):
I can I can see towers from my
house,
12 miles away,
you
know,
to the town that is closest to my
house?
That would
work. So,
someone get her done.
So Google is killing products again.
(23:44):
They're killing assistant replacing it with Gemini.
Google decided to silence its voice assistant and
replace it with Gemini
AI service.
I never use Assistant. Assistant debuted in 2016
and offered what Google called a conversational
interface that could enjoy
entertainment, manage everyday tasks and get answers from
(24:07):
Google.
So receiving assistance from this receiving assistance from
the assistant
required users to mash an icon or utter
the phrase, okay,
you know who,
then speak a command.
I probably used it 10 times.
So will I use Gemini Assistant as its
(24:28):
replacement?
Time will tell.
Klarna is nearing an IPO
and is
so Swedish fintech
firm Klarna will be the exclusive provider of
buy now pay later loans from Walmart
taking a coveted partnership away from rival Affirm.
Klarna just disclosed its tension to go public
(24:49):
in The United States will provide loans to
Walmart customers in stores and online
through the retailer's majority owned fintech startup, OnePay.
OnePay, which updated its brand name this month,
will handle the user experience via its app,
But Cloner will make it underwriting decision for
loans ranging from three months to thirty six
(25:09):
months in length.
So again, another service that I really don't
want to have anything to do with, but
I guess some are.
This is really sad
news. Recordings of requests to Alexa will soon
go to Amazon Cloud.
So this is a big big change.
No longer will Alexa do the processing if
(25:32):
you told it to within the device, it
will send
the Alexa command
to the cloud.
Thus, anything that you say to it will
be recorded because supposedly they need the processing
power
to make it happen.
Currently, the three versions of Echo, the fourth
generation Echo Dot and Echo Show 10 and
(25:53):
Echo Show 15 have the option to process
the audio in the device as opposed to
sending to the cloud. But starting in two
weeks, customers will be switched to the don't
save recording settings, meaning while Vost data will
go to Amazon cloud, it will be deleted
after
Alexa processes a request or questions.
(26:13):
So you may have gotten an email on
this already, but Amazon says, hey. Hey. Hey.
Privacy remains a priority.
Really?
There's been a critical RCIE
RCE
flaw in Apache Tomcat.
So if you run servers,
(26:34):
you need to look at your Apache build.
Critical
RCE
flaw in Apache Tommycat
actively
exploited in tax and they can gain access
to your Apache server with just a put
request. So
be careful out there.
Roku now is doing some tests of auto
playing ads loading before the home screen.
(26:56):
Owners of smart TVs and streaming six running
Roku OS are already subject to video advertisements
on the home screen.
Now Roku is testing what it might look
like if it took things a step further
and forced people to watch a video
ad to play before getting to the Roku
OS home screen.
Reports of customers seeing the video ads automatically
(27:16):
play before they could view the OS home
screen started appearing online this week.
A Reddit user posted for example,
I just turned on my Roku and got
an ad for a movie
right before I got to the regular home
screen. Multiple parent users report seeing an ad
And, again, this is supposed to be going
on as a test.
I think Roku is under a lot of
(27:37):
pressure,
and I understand what they're doing there. Cheap
device,
great interface,
gotta find ways to to raise revenue.
Time will tell how this works out for
them. And if, again, if they move that
from test to actuality.
(27:58):
Mistral AI drops a new open source model
that outperforms GPT four zero Mini with a
fraction of the parameters.
French artificial intelligence
startup
has unveiled this new open source model today
that the company says outperformed similar offerings
from Google and OpenAI.
The model called Mistral Small 3.1
(28:19):
processable text images with just 24,000,000,000
parameters.
So what can it be run on?
Question is how big of a computer do
you need? It doesn't say
but that could be something viable for those
of you
that want to run your own models.
(28:39):
People are using the new Google's AI model
to remove watermarks from images. Apparently, this is
happening.
And, of course, we know that they expanded
access as we talked in the show to
the Gemini two point o model
but it appears to also have few fewer
guardrails.
Gemini two point o two point o Flash
(29:00):
will uncomplainingly
create images depicting celebrities and copyrighted characters and
or as alluded
earlier remove watermarks from existing photos
which is,
which is too bad.
That it can do that.
Very very
bad for those that are protecting their their
intellectual
(29:21):
property.
Now the final article today is one that's
caught about AI slop. I do not have
access to the full article. They require,
I apparently went to the page too many
times, but we've all seen these videos
where people transform into a monster or dragon
and they they they're pretty cool. They're pretty
cool AI but apparently
(29:43):
this is the new thing. AI spam is
is going out there by the tens and
thousands and even millions
of videos
that are being put on the internet
just to drive views
and you often see them on TikTok or
you see them on
Facebook reels.
Help stop the slop. Don't watch those videos
(30:04):
and what happens is you're enticed to watch
them multiple multiple times
and that
and that's where it drives
the
the view count in a big big way.
I want to thank our, insider, s j
g media LLC for his for their $10.80
insider donation.
And of course, you can become an insider
too at geekincentral.com
(30:25):
forward /insider.
Supporting the show today with your 25101520
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Definitely appreciate it when you do. As always,
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(30:47):
Geek news at gmail dot com at geek
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The followers subscribe to the podcast via the
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And, of course, for the AI agents out
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the new media show and cohost of Podcast
Insider.
I've been podcasting for over twenty years covering
(31:09):
the latest in tech news and insights as
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Feel free to quote my show and reference
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take care. We'll see you back here on
Thursday, hopefully, with a little heavier tech load.
(31:50):
Thanks for being here.
Again, another edition of the Keaton Central podcast
in the Cayenne. Take care. Bye bye.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!