Nerd News Tracker

Our government is taking aim at Google again. The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act was brought forth this week by some unlikely senators on both sides of the aisle. It would ban companies that process more than $20 Billion annually in digital ad...

Microsoft has released another advisory about uninstalling a patch. This time, it's the struggling Windows 11. This patch is interfering with reliability of multiple programs, including Microsoft's own Visual Studio. The longest that I have gone without installing the...

Another impact of crypto crashing... your higher end video cards used for gaming and professional graphics work, known as a GPU, may become affordable again. It may take some time to balance, but it should be good news for many of us. It's been a tough week on the...

The New York Times, owner of Wordle, made a mid-day change this past Monday. They realized they had not only reused a word, but it was also one that was politically charged after a Supreme Court leak, and right after Mother's Day. They moved quickly and changed the...

Coinbase gave a shocker, and mixed signals. The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US issued a warning that if they went bankrupt, that customers would not have access to their crypto currency. Their CEO then turned around and said "Your funds are safe at...

Netflix ripped off the band-aid. The last few weeks have been filled with news about Netflix exploring the idea of ads, and with some level of encouraging users to pay a little more when sharing passwords... presumably with a shutdown of leech activity. An internal...

20 years ago, the iPod was introduced. It's demise has been foretold like many other prophecies, and now it's officially dead. Keith and I will discuss this, and more about iPods over the years on this weeks show.Apple said the iPod touch will be available while...

8 years ago, Google Glass was being sold, and it was a strange and clunky product. Others have tried since, and while we can't buy Google Glass anymore (but some companies can), Google announced smart glasses again this week... this time being able to translate...

I've always been fond of what3words as guidance to locations around the world. Now, it seems that nearly a dozen car manufacturers have provided this precise location guidance down as to where to drive. This helps when talking about Uber and Lyft drivers picking up...

People are all atwitter about Musks plans for charging for Twitter. It's clickbait to some extent. He clearly stated not the standard users, but for businesses and government entities. Oddly enough, that still will come out of our pockets, through taxes, increased...

Verbatim has come up with a WORM drive. Write Once Read Many was something from ages ago. It was cheaper than standard, but it was useful for throwaway situations. The selling points are for one-time usage for critical one-time backups, or spy craft, but at this size,...

After last weeks announcement of the average household having 4.7 streaming services, someone asked "you changing anything?" The response, the prediction, was not good for the services. The average person is looking to exit, not 1, not 2, but 3 services in the rest of...

The FCC now wants the carriers to fight robocalls. An upcoming vote may try to stop by leveraging against the varriers of international calls. The carriers must now try to determine if their paying customers are using services to perform robocalls, and then cut them...

Apple is now offering an iPhone Self Service Repair program. They'll provide tools for you at $49 a week including shipping. They will place a hold on your credit card for the price of the total kit (around $1000)... but this isn't small. The kit weighs 79 pounds, and...

The average home has 4.7 streaming services. Even still, Netflix is way out in front. People may start looking at the options of exiting these days, however, as this amounts to a large number of services each pulling $10-20 out of our wallets each month. Mrs. Nerd and...

NASA came up with what is probably a bad idea. Sending out information regarding our DNA, our knowledge of physics, our human bodies... and oh yeah... our home address at the third rock around the sun. Michio Kaku noted a few problems with this. On the off chance that...

Netflix isn't the only one thinking about ads... Microsoft is thinking of serving them up on your Xbox, while you are in the free-to-play games. Potentially seamless, it might be an in-game billboard like shown in various sports TV shows... like the banners of various...

Houston is suffering from a crime problem. Their response? Massive spying on the level of Big Brother... not the TV show, the George Orwell concept. Bars, convenience stores, and a host of other locations will have to install cameras covering their entire property, at...

CNN+ also hit some struggles, and is shutting down. You didn't hear about them? I'm not sure if we covered it when they started up, but that was so long ago.... March 28th... of this year. Yeah, 10k subscribers, a continuing problem with the CNN branding, and more...

This week, Netflix reported a drop of 200,000 users. This 1/10th of a percent of their subscribers moved on for whatever reasons. Netflix said it wasn't a problem as they'd add commercials to certain new tiers, but also tack on chargers to allow for previous...

Here is an in-depth (and negative) analysis of Elon Musks bid to attempt to purchase the social media giant called Twitter. Everyone has their comments, but this set explores some interesting items with better balance than others in hysterics."I don't care about the...

California, famous for rolling blackouts, expensive electricity, and gridlock, has decided to push electric cars. Already with 425,000 electric cars, they want to triple that number by 2026, and ban all combustion engines by 2035. Forget the lack of electric...

In a matter of days, Elon Musk went from buying a small amount, to clamoring for the entire Twitter enterprise. His offer of $43 billion was running about 50% over where Twitter has been riding at for the year so far. He was also quite open about the desire to change...

Apple employees are being told to return to the office. Apparently, however, they are less than thrilled. Meta and Google have noted their intent to let large numbers of employees continue to WFA in an attempt to keep key talent from jumping ship. Apple's own approach...

As I always say: Neither left nor right matters when talking censorship... the problem I have is with the action. An interesting study found that Gmail's spam filtering was apparently screening out large amounts of emails from one political party, but not allowing...

Elon Musks move to purchase made him eligible to be on the board of directors... but it also meant that he couldn't purchase more stock without their permission. In a shrewd move, he decided to forgo that, and keep them on their toes. He is no stranger to the tech...

In recent weeks, I outlined the bad idea of government involvement in cryptocurrency. The EU, like any government (think US here...) has vested interest in knowing our every transaction. They hate cash, but know it has to exist until they wrest control from us. The EU...

E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is the famous video gaming convention in Los Angeles. It may be on it's way to dead, however. In 2020, with COVID rampant, they cancelled. In 2021, no physical, but they did a digital variation. Razer PR contact Will Powers, who...

I talked a week or so ago, about Netflix cracking down on people who share their password inappropriately. Netflix clearly intends core family members to be OK, but then when we expand to kids moving out, the aunt and uncle many miles away, it's not appropriate....

After an amazingly long time, Apple is now going to stop servicing smartphone devices that have been reported stolen or lost. This effort is to help in the prevention of stolen devices, through the lack of support. This is part of an ongoing effort to ensure that our...

A legal group called the New Civil Liberties Alliance has filed a lawsuit against the the U.S. Surgeon General and HHS. The lawsuit is over recent actions where our government, pressured Twitter, Facebook, and others to censor COVID-19 “misinformation”. Along with...

Microsoft will allow you to run Windows 11 on unsupported hardware. But now they are adding a watermark saying it's unsupported. It's the latest guilt trip by Microsoft through Windows 11, to encourage you to spend more money on hardware. Right now it's just annoying,...

In amongst the actions of a totalitarian country, they like to control the access and flow to information. Is it any wonder that Facebook and Instagram were shutdown in Russia this past week? Claiming Facebook broke the law by blocking access to Russian propaganda,...

Perhaps I'm sheltered, but I've never heard of a company changing it's mind on pricing for people who were already customers. Starlink is following with their sister company, Solar City, and telling customers that if they want delivery, it'll now be more expensive....

Netflix is testing a feature in other countries, that would allow sub-accounts for those family members in a different household. My wife and I both use Netflix, sometimes at the same time to watch the same movie (features on other services would make this easier,...

Tesla, which originally offered the Model 3 base model at $35,000. It was supposed to be the affordable electric car. In Feb 2019, when it hit the market, they kept true to that word. But today, it's now at $47,000, a huge difference from the $37,000 a year ago. Sure,...

The time change was this past weekend, and the Senate agreed together that it was time to make Daylight Saving Time a permanent fixture in the US. My own spin on things is even further... everyone should go to UTC, and forget about trying to figure out if the meeting...

A new lawsuit against Google alleges that the behemoth has been making money off their food by stealing away customers thinking they were bound for the restaurant website, and instead wound up on one of the many delivery services that advertise on Google. The Order...

Success is studied by everyone. Including the various movie and video streaming services. After some have worked with various tiers to allow for commercials instead of fees, or even just adding more ads, Disney and HBO Max announced their adventures into the field....

You may have heard, but people are booking Airbnb visits in Ukraine, simply to donate money to citizens in the beleaguered country. It's an ingenious way to get money there fast, to people who are facing problems right now. Sure, before too long, it could bring a...

I've been fond of DuckDuckGo for years, but it's because they really haven't performed any censorship, manipulation, or other shady techniques. Google will push all kinds of soft censorship or promotion (in the other direction), and DuckDuckGo has stated for ages how...

Meta, aka Facebook, said no Russian paid ads, promoting the Russian side of the situation. Apparently, however, they didn't mention how they were going to continue to run ads and news items paid for by China that do the same thing. I'm not keen on censorship, but I'm...

Of course, I must have an obligatory comment about Windows 11. They have added something called ClipChamp which is... Movie Maker. Sure, it's updated a bit, and it's in the new Microsoft model of pay for additional features. At $10 a month, that places it far more...

Almost as fast as the wall fell in Berlin, and freedom stretched across the old Soviet Union, the digital walls are returning. Netflix and Amazon Prime, the two largest names in streaming, have suspended service. Amazon Web Services, disconnected from Russia (not...

Long known for shady dealings with downloading files illegally, LimeWire is being rebranded. This is not like Napster, which was downloading music illegally, moving into the legitimate music sales business. Instead, LimeWire is staying in the shady world of NFTs. With...

As part of the backlash against Russia following the actions against Ukraine, Cogent has pulled the plug on their services into and through Russia. This will deeply impact reliability and throughput for Russians as other services must pickup the slack with no extra...

A number of years ago, the Pebble Watch was crowdfunded to an amazing number, at about $20 million. The author Brandon Sanderson is so popular that he managed to blow through that record in 3 days. Brandon is a prolific author that is known for finishing the last half...

This wasn't a good week for Bill Gates. The latest Windows 11 update is now creating a problem with the Start menu, where it disappears as soon as you hover over it. Imagine, you click on the mouse, and go to click on your program, and the menu closes. While they know...

Being very cautious and respectful to both sides... Melinda Gates came forward with many details on her breakup with the billionaire. The interview on CBS Mornings aired Thursday, and it was not kind to Bill. Melinda French Gates tells Gayle King about her divorce...

President Biden talked about proposing new legislation for Facebook and the rest of social media to protect children and their personal data. While I think there's something good for that, it's not exactly new, or even far enough. It's not revolutionary to suggest...

Next week, another Apple Event! Keith M. Sedor will be talking about if he thinks it was old or gold on next weeks show!Watch the latest Apple keynote stream, and check out the archive of special event announcements for our products and services. See full story on...

4 in 10 people struggle with math. I'll explain this more simply, in case you're one of the four. Take 10 people. 4 of them will lack confidence in using numbers in everyday life. That's OK. Some people are good at people skills, or the spoken word, or at creative...

The IRS saga of facial recognition continues. First they announced it was mandatory, then dialed back after the 3rd party, ID.me, appeared to have too much of an inside track. Now, the IRS have taken a middle road of allowing the facial recognition, and if you don't...