- Tech news. It's what we all want.
And now we all can, and that's TechLink.
This week, frustrated tech nerds
had to deal with news outlets circulating
the shocking revelation that the iOS apps
for Facebook and Instagram track user activity
inside their in-app browsers.
My whole reality! Scott...
- [Man] Mark, how could you?
- I will say that the source of the story,
a blog post by developer Felix Krause,
is interesting because it finds direct evidence
that Meta's apps inject JavaScript code
into every website a user visits,
using those app's built-in browsers,
which allows the monitoring of links clicked on,
text input, and screenshots.
Meta actually responded to Krause and gave him
a bit more details about how things actually work
which is almost enough to forgive them.
Good job.
I guess people think this is a big deal
because Apple's app tracking transparency feature
was supposed to prevent this kind of thing,
which is why Meta waged a PR campaign against it.
And now all the iPhone users who are like,
"Whew, thanks Apple. I'm safe now,"
are getting a little bit of a wake up call.
- [Man] You're not safe. You're never safe.
- I'll find you.
Yes, Meta tracks you to the maximum it possibly can,
and you should have known that.
But I guess now we know a bit more how they do it, so...
Intel is persevering in marketing its
Arc Gaming graphics cards despite recent rumors
that the whole product line could be delayed
or even shut down all together.
And that's what it means to be on a team.
Team Blue! Team Blue!
You're supposed to chant.
Anyways, blue boys Ryan Shroud and Tom Peterson can be seen
in a new video comparing the Arc A750s performance
to that of NVIDIA RTX 3060,
and the graphics guys appear to be pretty honest
about the fact that the A750 wins some,
loses some, and ties some,
unlike whoever's in charge of Intel's CPU marketing.
Sure, it's only DX12 and Vulcan-compatible games
that are being compared, which gives Arc cards
a bit more performance than in DX11 and OpenGL,
but are any of us cheering for Intel
to not release these cards?
Just get 'em out there.
Sure, they might not be the best,
but you still gotta (squawk) send it.
- [Man] I don't want the option to buy them.
- Get it outta my site!
And TikTok parent company ByteDance
has at least 300 employees who used to work
for Chinese state-owned media,
and a dozen or so may still do so,
according to a new report from Forbes.
- [Man] I thought the rest still did.
- I find it hard to imagine working 30 hours a day
for two employers, but who knows?
The report's writers based their claims off
ByteDance staff's LinkedIn profiles,
insinuating that the Chinese government
may have some control over the company's operations.
But some analysts are pointing out that being, well,
any kind of journalist in China essentially means
working for state media because almost all media outlets
are state media over there.
But of course, some analysts would say that,
especially since the official guidance
and ByteDance's official PR handbook, leaked by Gizmodo,
instructs employees to downplay the fact
that TikTok or ByteDance has any affiliation
to China at all.
Affiliation with China at all.
As we've pointed out many times here,
you're being tracked by Meta, China, maybe some aliens.
There's a bunch of people.
Living in the woods is still an option.
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Quick Bits. Ah, those are the best.
I love those guys.
- [Man] Those little dudes?
- Those little duderenos.
Last week, Meta released an AI chat bot called BlenderBot 3,
as a way to research conversational AI,
and the internet has pretty quickly gotten it
to bite the hand that feeds.
- This is just so Mark can speak.
- Asked about Mark Zuckerberg, the bot told reporters
that he did a terrible job testifying before Congress,
and that it's concerned for our country.
The AI went on to say Zuck exploits people for money
and he doesn't care.
However, it did admit to PC Gamer
that Mark is cooler than Dragon Age,
so maybe there's some parental love there still.
Amazon-owned MGM Television has announced Ring Nation,
a new reality show featuring lighthearted content
captured on Amazon-owned Ring security cameras.
You know, the ones that have repeatedly given police
their footage without user consent?
It seems like the show, which is hosted by Wanda Sykes,
will only consist of content
willfully submitted by Ring cam owners,
But this is only a step or two away
from a Black Mirror episode,
so it still gives me the weeby-geeblies.
That's what I call 'em.
You thought Samsung foldable phones
were the only ones in town?
Well, yeah, they pretty much are, in North America at least.
But Chinese customers will soon have the option
to get the new Moto Razr 2022
with a bigger, 144 Hertz display
and a new dual camera system.
Or Xiaomi's new MIX Fold 2,
which looks just like the Galaxy Z Fold 4, but thinner.
This has been your semi-occasional reminder that
yes, folding phones are a thing;
they're just still too expensive.
Don't worry. We'll keep you posted.
Google's faith in Stadia has sunk so low
that it's begun helping users jump into games
on other cloud-gaming platforms.
- [Man] So we all agree there.
- Some users spotted a play button
next to some game titles in Google search results recently,
which took them right to that game's page on GEForce Now,
Xbox Cloud Gaming, Amazon Luna,
and yeah, of course, it did it for Stadia as well.
Maybe Google's taking more of a hard parenting approach now,
like Stadia has gotta enter the real world sometime.
- [Man] It's tough love, Stadia.
- You can't just stay on the bench.
You gotta get up. It's gonna get destroyed.
And a utility company called National Grid has partnered
with the city of Melrose, Massachusetts, to install
EV Chargers mounted up on telephone poles as a prank.
You can't get to them.
- [Man] What?
- Good job. Good luck.
- Lol. We still like oil.
- No, just kidding.
You connect with your phone
and the charger lowers the cord down.
This is a great idea.
I didn't put this in here for any other reason.
- [Man] You can climb buildings like a grappling hook.
- And I wish there were more of stories like that,
but we're fresh out.
Come back on Monday for more
and don't let anyone tell you different.
Whoa.