Nerd News Tracker

Netflix is starting to wind down their DVD rental business. They've also announced that the estimated 1 million+ existing members who are still renting DVDs will get to keep all the discs on hand, and those who sign up will get up to 10 extra discs shipped from the...

India is the fourth country to put a craft on the moon. The name is not all that unique... Chandrayaan-3 means "moon craft" in Hindi. On the other hand, this is hte first mission to touch down at the lunar south pole, and it represents an exciting time for India, who...

Lamborghini has a new car, the Lanzador. It's been expected, as an electric vehicle... and it has 1341 horsepower. If you have to ask how much... you likely can't afford it. The Lamborghini Lanzador concept previews the Italian automaker's first EV, due in 2028. See...

We don't understand it, but Apple is onboard with a new California bill that is working it's way forward. Under this Right to Repair act, manufacturers of products that cost over $99.99, will have to make parts, tools and repair diagnostics readily available for seven...

A strange report states that many of us engaging in email, web surfing, doomscrolling, and more, are holding our breath, or at least changing the patterns. Linda Stone is a former exec at Microsoft, and now calls this screen apnea. The report is that we are being...

Zoom's CEO, Eric Yan, seems to be out of touch with where the money comes from for his company. We all are aware that Zoom came to the rescue when we all had to work from home. Even today many refer to the calls as Zoom calls, even if using a different product. So,...

Verizon is rolling out some higher speeds on 5G. The latest is that they have received clearance for usage from the FCC has come through early, and as such, they'll expand quickly to deliver to remote locations. You'll need a newer phone or device for this service...

Home Depot is selling the Masonite M-PWR Smart Door, the first residential one of it's kind. $4000. Four Thousand Dollars. Moving along...The Masonite M-PWR has an integrated Ring video doorbell and Yale Assure SL smart lock and is hardwired to your home. See full...

We knew this would be coming soon enough... AI used to drive more sales. Amazon has setup an AI tool to summarize all of the reviews into a paragraph. Using this to drive your concerns in regards to different aspects of the reviews, it purports to be really accurate....

AI can perform some strange tricks these days. One of the latest is that with a microphone and the right programming, it can now determine your password and whatever other keys you hit, just by listening to many nuances involved. It has to do with the intensity, the...

My Internet Service Provider bill is a flat rate, which solves a different problem by most carriers of internet, voice, or TV traffic. They have a tendency to list all of these other fees as not part of your core cost, but other fees coming from governments, hardware...

Cortana, the Microsoft Voice Assistant is being spun down, in favor of Copilot, their new AI. But a lot is missing yet... A recent update to the Cortana app on Windows Insider PCs makes Microsoft's first AI assistant unusable. See full story on Microsoft begins...

Threads is already struggling after half of their users haven't logged back in since creating their accounts. Just what we need! See full story on Threads is dead - can AI chatbots save Meta's Twitter clone? | TechRadarFound at www.techradar.com

Amazon posted double-digit profit growth in Q2. In streaming, Max, which used to be HBO Max, lost about 2% of their subscribers in Q2. They played it down, but....The service lost 1.8 million subscribers as Warner Bros. Discovery announced a $10.3 million loss in...

Apple is locking people out of their Apple Pencil....On the other side of the tech world, Microsoft is now offering up Xbox repair and replacement parts, as well as videos on how to save money repairing instead of replacing. It's not altruistic, but in response to a...

This coming week are two major tech conferences in the cybersecurity world. First is BlackHat, which will then be followed by Defcon. This is where we will see a number of the different vulnerabilities announced, some in the form of stupid pet tricks, and others in...

Apple has moved forward with an anti-repair technique that is raising eyebrows in the Right-To-Repair community. If you have one of the more recent iPad Pro machines, and you replace the screen with a 3rd party screen, the Apple Pencil will stop working. They even...

The FCC officially is looking into an updated definition of broadband internet. Currently, it's listed as 25Mbit down, and 3Mbit up, which is what I had in the early 2000's. The proposed updated numbers would shift us to 100Mbit down, 25Mbit up. Redefining these...

A strange bit of news came out on the Chevy Bolt, which was the first "affordable Electric Vehicle". It was discontinued by an official announcement during the Q1 2023 earnings call, but then this week, at the Q2 call, they said it will be back. Yes, it's going to go...

Twitter is in the middle of a rebranding. X.com, owned by Elon Musk for a while, now points to Twitter.com. Additionally, there is a large rollout of the new X logo through the company. The social media platform is in the middle of a reboot, so this isn't as...

DJI has a new drone this week, the Air 3, which adds in a second camera, and a bump in specs. $1100 start, but the price climbs from there, just as fast as the drone itself. The DJI Air 2S's successor is a major all-round update See full story on Mid-size DJI Air 3...

Amazon.com is now rolling out a new feature regarding recalls and product safety alerts related to items that you've ordered. It has a few issues that will hold it back along the way, like US sellers only, and it's opt-in, but this is the start of an interesting...

Drones have to follow a number of rules set forth by the FAA. After a certain size, they have to adhere to a RemoteID rule that broadcasts various bits of information, much like a high-tech license plate. DJI is one of the biggest companies in the drone world, and...

Netflix has removed one of their plans, the Basic. Now people have options to move down to the $7 plan and take ads, or up to $15.50 for no ads. Not a major shift, but represents the typical 3 options that are easy to select from. Netflix has already said its...

Ford is struggling with the F-150 Lightning and the similar electric versions of the Mustang. This has been driving some costs of new vehicles down, but not enough for most buyers. Ford announced significant price cuts to its F-150 Lightning electric pickup, citing...

Imagine purchasing a factory sealed 2007 iPhone with 4GB. 16 years ago, this was about $500, but this week, this purchase from someone's hidden vault went for $190,000. Quite an investment, and it actually came from someone on the original engineering team, who also...

Tesla's first Cybertruck is finally built. I hesitate to say that it rolled off the finish line, as it's still the first one, and they are ramping production slowly. This is a long time in coming, but has been anticipated for quite some time. Strangely, Elon Musk...

VanMoof makes an electric bike, and there are all kinds of features that are best handled through your smartphone. Now, it gets worse... VanMoof is in a Dutch style of bankruptcy court, and a company has come along with their own app just in case VanMoof doesn't...

Amazon sold $12.7 Billion on Amazon Prime Day, which was this past Tuesday and Wednesday. See full story on Amazon boasts record sales for Prime Day as US shoppers spent $12.7 billion during the sales event | TechCrunchFound at techcrunch.com

An Ohio doctor that livestreamed plastic surgeries on TikTok had her license pulled. See full story on Doctor Who Livestreamed Surgeries on TikTok Has License AxedFound at gizmodo.com

A decade and a half have gone by, and Microsoft has had us using the Calibri font that whole time. This week, it was announced that a new font will be replacing it, called Aptos. It'll be coming to Office 365 very soon. They worked through a few different sans-serif...

The big purchase of Activision-Blizzard, by Microsoft, has cleared a big problem this past week. A US Federal judge refused to stop the deal, stating it was unlikely that Microsoft would withhold games from Sony, and was more likely to provide increased access. It's...

If you bought a 4K Samsung QLED TV from Best Buy, there may be some issues coming down the line. A new class action against both companies throws that the advertising includes features that weren't actually in the TVs delivered. Not quite what you want to hear when...

BMW has entered into the world of smartglasses, and it's not as strange as you might think. Take the heads-up display from a car, and place it into sunglasses. Why there? Because it's not for the car, but for BMW motorcycle riders. Next up, add in basic speed,...

I spent 10 minutes unpacking Threads last week, and it's no surprise that they hit 100 million in under a week. Of course, it didn't hurt that they basically treat it like an add-on to Instagram and Facebook, rather than it's own entity. It didn't hurt that it's...

France hit our radar twice this week in tech news. One item was where French police will be able to turn on microphones and cameras on peoples cell phones via remote. It only applies to people who may be committing crimes facing more than 5 years in jail which may be...

No secret, Amazon Prime Day is July 11... and 12. It's got deals, but it's also turning into another Black Friday hype machine with good deals on Amazon items, and scattered random distractions which will result in spot deals here and there. My personal chjeck will be...

Google killed off their AR glasses. Before anyone gives credit to Apple for scaring this off, I believe that they have realized that this is a very fickle future. There are many that are enamored with the idea, just as with 3D printing, but they don't wish to pay the...

When it comes time to talk about ethics, many consider church to be a good source of guidance. This past week, the Vatican released a set of guidance in regards to AI. The title is "Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap", and is intended...

Following in the footsteps of Netflix, Costco is also stopping the abuse of their previous kindness, and moving to stop the sharing of their membership cards. Costco mirrors Netflix's password-sharing policy with a crackdown on non-members shopping at its stores. See...

I remain concerned about folding screens. A reporter was doing simple review in the office, without the rigors of daily monotonous use, said that after 4 days, the Pixel Fold was dead. The closed display halves almost touch, and that can smash debris into the screen....

The White House announced another $42 Billion in funding to bring broadband internet to rural America. The goal is to provide high-speeds to the entire US by 2030. All Americans should have a solid Internet connection, White House believes See full story on White...

We've known for ages that social media has bots, is sometimes overvalued, and the entire concept is fickle, fragile, and prone to failure. IRL stands for In Real Life, both in shorthand, but also a social media platform with a coveted 3 letter domain name. It was...

We've known for ages that social media has bots, is sometimes overvalued, and the entire concept is fickle, fragile, and prone to failure. IRL stands for In Real Life, both in shorthand, but also a social media platform with a coveted 3 letter domain name. It was...

Finland is now home to the first phone-free tourist zone, though we found it's all voluntary on Ulko-Tammio, and service is still available. This European island is asking tourists to switch off their phones this summer. See full story on Phone-free zone: Finland...

Amazon Prime Day is July 11th and 12th. Day? Days? Whatever...Amazon's bacchanalia of consumer deals is coming in July. Here's what you need to know to get ready. See full story on Amazon Prime Day 2023: Everything you need to know | PCWorldFound at www.pcworld.com

An Amazon driver reported a smart doorbell making a racist remark. The driver reported it, and Amazon responded by turning off the homeowners Alexa. It turned out that the homeowner was a Microsoft software engineer who had outfitted cameras all over. He found the...

A bizarre series of tweets this week resulted in what seems to be a proposal for Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk to fight each other. This strange distraction in all of the tech news placed people everywhere arguing about who would win. Zuckerberg has been doing Jiu-...

The Federal Trade Commission is chasing after Amazon. Years ago, AOL would trick people into signing up for their services. The FTC states Amazon used similar deceptive practices, setting people up for Prime, and even complicated the cancellation process. My own AOL...

There's a software called MOVEit, and it's used for moving various diles back and forth. Simple enough, except it has a vulnerability in it that has left companies, as well as some US federal agencies reeling under a ransomware attack. The problem started about 2...

Reddit decided to start charging 3rd party developers for access, and it's not small numbers. It was big enough so that there are various groups turning their channels private in a blackout that is impacting over half of the channels.The Reddit blackout is still...

Netflix will have a pop-up restaurant in Los Angeles featuring a number of Netflix famous chefs. A Netflix restaurant is opening in Los Angeles with food by chefs Curtis Stone, Ming Tsai and others from Netflix shows like Chef's Table. See full story on Netflix...

Apple, and many other companies, have dealt with the crazy world of trademarks. Apple's facing the problem again with the new Vision Pro headset, at least in China. Apparently, Huawei trademarked the title years back, and it covered a large range of products,...

Hard drives all have failure rates. There's a common system called SMART that hopefully will give you an advance warning. Many drives will last quite a number of years. Western Digital is coming under fire, as their business drives are giving an automatic warning...

We've mentioned before that gaming now includes advertising, but there is a new twist. Schneider National is a trucking firm, and they recently made a deal with American Truck Simulator to place billboards in-game that say something along the lines of "drive for us...

Rather than making Windows 12, Microsoft made a small change to Windows 11 to control custom lighting of your keyboard or other system lights, if so enabled.RGB controls on PCs are a mess, with each accessory or component manufacturer usually having their own tool for...

5 Levels of automated driving (not counting Level 0). Tesla's operate at Level 2, but Mercedes is now the first to offer Level 3 in limited areas in California. I'll explain the levels more in the coming weeks.California regulators have given Mercedes-Benz the OK to...