Nerd News Tracker

It's a chilling reminder of the burgeoning medical tech industry. Second Sight Medical Products has ditched their already successful efforts to restoring sight, leaving some blind implant recipients unable to see where they will get tech support. That's a concern that...

The DeLorean has it's long history. John DeLorean had his problems. The car company died. Great Scott! The 1985 movie, Back To The Future, brought the dream back and put DeLorean back on the map. Some years later, someone purchased everything to make new ones, as well...

Just as I prepared to talk about Windows 11 again this week, and give more of a rundown on why you can wait, Microsoft came up with an update. Is it perfect? No, apparently multiple reports of new bugs, features with bugs, and other concerns plague us. Sure, on this...

Meta is playing chicken with the EU over where it stores data, and the UK over verifying users are over 18 with a credit card. I don't want Facebook anywhere near my credit card, and I don't care where they store data. They have threatened both the EU and UK of...

Why do we like Siri and Alexa? Apparently, we humans like female robots more than male robots. A test by Washington State University with 170 participants, had people engaging with robots of either simulated gender. It's intriguing, as most of us have the ability to...

I'm both amazed and yet not surprised that Amazon has built up an amazing advertising business. $31 billion is what they made, and that's mixed amongst so many areas of traditional online advertising. Banner ads, videos, sponsored ads on search engine results, and...

I find it interesting that the maximum base pay for corporate workers or tech workers would even exist. I'm sure Amazon used it as a way to resist giving increases to some workers, but this was crazy. The other tech companies out there, big names we all know, drove...

Lots of other stock and news announcements this week. Just one more... Alphabet (aka Google) announced a 20-for-1 stock split.In its quarterly earnings report, Alphabet, the owner of Google, has announced a 20-for-1 stock split, designed to make buying shares more...

While Meta suffered a hit, Amazon announced good news, and a $20 a year increase for Prime subscriptions, which brought shares up 18%. The battle between Mark Zuckerberg's and Jeff Bezo's empires is clearly going to heat up. Driving some of the success in Amazon...

Is Zuckerberg's empire ready to fall apart? On Thursday, after they released their forecast, shares of Meta dropped 26%, eliminating $200 Billion from the market cap, and hitting Mark's pocketbook for $29 Billion. Yes, in the span of hours, he lost enough to buy any...

New simple labels about your broadband internet plan are coming. The only problem that I have, is that many people have zero competition to their current Internet Service Provider. The FCC action is meant to address consumer complaints about surprise prices and fees....

Right wing Fox News Channel host Dan Bongino was permanently banned by YouTube for questioning the effectiveness of face masks. If they can ban someone this big, they can ban anyone. Bongino tried to circumvent a one-week suspension by posting on a secondary channel....

We don't talk rumors, but we will talk about confirmed items in beta... and Apple's latest 15.4 beta releases using Face ID with a Mask. It also includes glasses, and that's a great approach towards ensuring you are you. I'm excited for this. No Apple watch, just an...

Tim Cook, CEO at Apple, has his own concerns, with a Virginia woman who has been stalking him. Her various threats, trespassing attempts, and more have allowed Tim Cook to obtain a restraining order. She's apparently a real threat, but hasn't figured out to track this...

The video gaming world had an amazing bit of news. Microsoft is purchasing Activision Blizzard for $68 Billion. This is rumored to have Sony and Nintendo concerned as it both helps Activision Blizzard recover from recent scandals, but also adds to the juggernaut that...

China created a digital yaun, or basically, their version of a digital dollar. Now our Federal Reserve is looking to do the same thing. I'm really concerned on a number of fronts here. First is that something like this could be used as a surveillance tool. Second, I...

Netflix just levied just over a 10% increase on all of their plans. Their statement was that they wish to "continue to offer a wide variety of quality entertainment options." We could get upset over the third year in a row of drastic price shifts, but the reality is...

Microsoft will now monitor your every word to see if you are participating in groupthink. Yes, your grammar checker will now evaluate if you are using the proper language to not express negative or problematic phrases that include gender, age, sexual orientation,...

Keith and I are going to talk more about the metaverse, but Phil Libin, creator of Evernote, has his own insight. He grew up in the Soviet Union, and says that all of what we see now is just the same propaganda he saw as a youth. His insight of "no one wants to spend...

Short and simple: Many celebrities are getting involved in crypto, and these is all going to be a big loss for each of us. Who wins? The celebrities who bounce in for a few minutes, and then drop out before we lose our shirts. Don't play in that crazy world. The...

I was at a wedding recently, and for whatever strange reason, a song played... and we all enjoyed it. Baby Shark! I never thought I'd speak to it on my tech show, but it just became the first YouTube video to surpass 10 Billion views. Amazingly simple, actually an old...

Ages ago, there was a virtual world called Second Life, and it was comical because people were wasting money and their First Life there. It was a topic on CSI, and a few other shows of the day. The creator of the virtual world just went back to it... and my surprise...

The past days have been filled with odd news items out of CES, trying to tell us the future again. One such spin was how sci-fi medical implants are coming. It's all based on a product which I reviewed back at CES five or so years ago... a glucose monitor in a watch....

Imagine that you buy a Tesla Model S. They run about $30,000. You have a good time with it for the first 1000 miles, but then take it in for some quirks. The dealer says it needs a new battery pack around $20,000, but that may or may not resolve the problems. How...

Everyone's talking about VR again, and it's interesting that our own Keith M. Sedor will be covering it this week. His Christmas gifts included an Oculus, and while it's only first hand impressions, we'll get an idea of his feelings on it. The interesting thing is...

Blackberry devices are finally being unsupported. This is an area where if you have one, much like one of the old 10-15 year old flip phones, it will stop working bit by bit. It might work in some areas, but not in others, and so forth. I recently helped Ernie with...

Someone invented a lickable TV to taste on-screen flavors. I'm... speechless. A Japanese professor built a system that offers up tastable flavors for on-screen content. See full story on Scientist invents a lickable TV to taste on-screen flavors and we're wondering...

Just when you thought that texting and driving was bad, apparently people are surfing the internet on the laptop sized touchscreen in their tesla. Or playing games. Or doing things other than paying attention to where the car is going. There's a feature called...

The Log4J / Log4Shell issue is something that will stick with us a while. When bad guys find one flaw, they all pile on to see if they can find more, both in the original location, and replacement patches. Also, when the flaws are found in major locations accessible...

In a new level of audacity, Toyota is now charging for car owners to use a basic functionality of their cars... the remote start keyfob. This isn't because it's a remote service, but simply because Toyota can use that remote service to disconnect features, much as...

One of Amazon's warehouses in Illinois was struck by a tornado. Six workers lost their lives. There will be a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking, finger pointing, and investigations by OSHA and more. The tech giant will face critiques from many for not allowing...

Meta-Facebook, while attempting to defend their actions of censorship, have stated that fact-checking is opinion. When fact-checking is subjective and opinion based, it's no longer facts. Truth is not subjective, and to allow for Meta-Facebook to take this approach is...

The Log4J/Log4Shell issue is big news. It would have been big without the pre-Christmas doldrums in the tech news world, but this is promising to squash a lot of Christmas plans for techs around the world. This one article gives a few of the things to be following....

The day after Amazon had their problems, Google experienced a similar issue with some of their services. We will see this on a regular basis, as we become more internet connected. This is the price we pay for new generation connectivity. Some Google services,...

Apple's new approach with Applecare+ is to offer it to people during the repair phase. The previous approach was to just say "oh well" each time you broke your device. This neat little add-on is great for those who realize that they are far more accident prone than...

In this weeks breaking news that is akin to the known item that "water is wet", software pirates are being attacked by software that is searching for crypto currency on local drives. Yep, download a copy of some famous software, and find out that your Bitcoin is gone....

63% of the world has joined the Information Age, at least through access to the Internet. The rest of the statistics are unsurprising, with obvious numbers that Africa is the least connected, and so are rural areas in most countries. Youth are leaders, and mobile...

Sadly, the idea of reaching out to 911 via a text message, a picture, or video, is going to continue being unavailable. Congress apparently is under the impression that we no longer need state-of-the-art 911 centers, and cut the budget to 2/3rds of the agencies that...

Forget 911, there's a new kid out there. 988 is the coming National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. We've mentioned this earlier, but it's now final as of this week. 988 will be expressed out by July, and will include calls and text messages. This is big towards stopping...

The article is about a lobbyist, but the real news is a space tax. Kinda. It's a tax on any space travelers where it's not really business. OK, I get it... rich billionaires flying into space can afford the few percentage points extra for taxes. I worry, however, as...

Apple's announcement this week sounds good, great, awesome, and more. Repair your own Apple products with official parts. Overpriced parts, if experience proves out. But there are some serious concerns from Louis Rossmann, and others, and rightfully so. Apple has...

Subaru announced their first electric vehicle. Yawn. This is now becoming the race to the bottom to see who is the last to announce electric options for their cars. Subaru introduced its first electric vehicle, the Solterra SUV. The vehicle will feature a 71.4kWh...

Running an older version of Windows? You've got about 4 months to update to Windows 10 or 11, or OneDrive will stop working for you. Not thrilled with this, not because I'm running Windows 7... cause I'm not... but because this is such simple basic communications,...

Taking an Uber, but you're disabled? Apparently there has been an extra fee added for taking too long to get in or out of the car. The USDOJ is working to fix this and bring Uber into compliance with the American's with Disabilities Act. Frankly, I'm not surprised,...

Just recently, it was uncovered that Apple installed a chip into the screen with a serial number. Swap out the screen, and the phone would know, and then break your FaceID. This unconscionable act had nothing to do with anything but Apple trying to lock you into their...

Last weeks news about Hertz and Tesla inking a 100,000 car deal has some interesting battles. Hertz says Tesla is already delivering cars... but Elon Musk says there's no contract that's been signed. Very strange... Hertz declined to discuss details of the agreement...

Strangely, Facebook announced they will end their face recognition plans, and delete more than 1 Billion individual identification parameter templates. Amazingly, they announced concerns over how regulators are adjusting rules governing usage, and also "how people can...

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, and genuine nerd, has joined with our own Keith in dismissing the newer versions of the iPhone. Keith is still using an older version, and I'm less inclined to make the jump these day's. Woz revealed this past week to Business...

In a new twist to keep you addicted to computing, or more specifically, gaming, the latest version of Far Cry is now sending you emails. The email contains a taunt from the villain, who guilt trips you into playing more. In a day and age where we are bombarded to...

I've already had a few contacts reach out about how Windows was offering to upgrade to Win11. Yes, it's an option, but it's barely been out a few weeks and they are already getting pushy. I've never resisted an upgrade like this before, and it concerns me how fast...

A shakeup in the car industry is coming, as Tesla just received a 100,000 car order from Hertz. This deal, estimated at $4.2 Billion is coming from Hertz who just left bankruptcy about 18 months ago. It blew up Tesla stock, and pushed Elon Musks value even higher than...

The latest news is that the big chip manufacturers are going to continue soaking us for more money. Yes, they are predicting at least a year before the prices on chips will come down. That means that pricing on computers will be going back up, and that will even...

Donald Trump announced a new social media platform, slated to open next year, and reporters started to create fake accounts named after the previous President and Vice President. I find it shameful that they participated in the news story, instead of reporting on it...

Process this number as best you can. FedEx shipped less packages last year than... Amazon. Amazon controls 21% of the shipping market, with FedEx in 2020 at 16%. While Amazon is still working on some components in various areas, like the last mile, that is amazing for...