(upbeat music) - Oh! They clicked it!
Guys! Guys! (snaps fingers)
They actually clicked on it! - Yeah! They clicked it!
Yeah! - Whoo!
- Let's go! - Yeah!
Oh, I love you so much! - Thank you.
God bless you.
(crew laughs)
- [Riley] Thanks.
Thanks, guys.
- Microsoft has sided with Australia
in their feud with Google.
You see, last week the Australian government
proposed new laws that would force Google
to pay local news outlets
for the privilege of indexing their content.
Google's obviously not a fan of the idea
so they threatened to leave the country altogether.
Well, Microsoft was more than happy
to step in with their own little search engine,
Bing. - What one's that?
- You know the one.
The one that opens every time you start an Edge browser.
You know, every time you mistype
something in a Windows search,
even if your default browser is set to something else...
It's super annoying,
but apparently the Australian government
would rather deal with that
instead of working with Google on this,
especially after Microsoft says
the proposed legislation reasonably attempts
to address the bargaining power imbalance
between digital platforms and Australian news businesses.
- [Riley] Reasonable?
- Honestly, I'm starting to think Microsoft
actually has it out for Australia.
They wanna unload Bing onto the island like a cargo ship
that the front fell of.
- [Riley] That's a reference.
- You'll never be able to get the Bing out!
Boston Dynamics is continuing
its slow replacement of human life
with the announcement of some fancy accessories
for its dog-like robot Spot.
The company had shown a prototype arm attachment
for the unfeeling creature before,
but there's now an official ready-to-ship version
that Spot can use to do,
well, things that arms can do,
like turning handles, pulling levers,
and jabbing through multiple layers of human flesh.
- [Riley] They didn't demo that.
- There's also a camera package
with 30-times zoom and thermal imaging,
as well as a charging dock Spot can park its ass on.
For now, human operators can control the robot (chuckles)
through the new Scout browser-based system.
But who knows how long it'll be content
to just follow orders?
- I mean- - You know?
"I can't let you do that, Riley."
- [Riley] Ha!
(James and Riley laugh)
- "Ow! My nipples!" (laughs)
And Huawei's Harmony OS, the operating system
meant to replace Android on the company's phones,
has been tested out by the folks at Ars Technica,
who found that...
Yeah, uh, it's Android.
Literally, it's Android.
Huawei's brand-new OS appears to be a fork of Google's
with the word Android removed and replaced with Harmony OS.
It was a bit of a disappointing result after the guys at Ars
went through a two-day background check
that included sending copies of their passports
to the Chinese government.
- [Riley] No!
- [James] Also, they weren't actually allowed
to install the OS on their phones.
Huawei's developer program involves streaming
from a phone running Harmony OS back in China.
So go read the Ars Technica piece and feel a less FOMO
around the normal, boring Android version
you're currently running. - Aw, I wanna run-
- Because no iPhone people watch this show.
- [Riley] Aw, that's true. I'm sorry, guys.
- Could you imagine someone with an iPhone
having FOMO over Harmony OS?
(James and Riley laugh)
"I want my phones built in China, not designed there."
Now it's time for Quick Bits,
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Or, "How 'bout grades? Those suck too!"
LOL, no, bruh.
Just pick a course that you're into and get started,
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(Riley laughs)
If you're a gamer,
it's never made much sense to get a MacBook.
Until now.
Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service
has been updated to work with Apple's M1 Macs,
so can finally join your PC gaming brethren online,
albeit with a bit of latency.
But honestly, that's what you get. (laughs)
That's what you get for wanting the best of both worlds,
because there's only one world.
Yeah, I said it. Narnia isn't real.
Okay? - Oh, but Middle Earth is?
- Yeah, but it's- - Yeah.
- We're the bread. - Right.
- Then there's Middle Earth. - Then there's the butter.
And then there's the turtle, all the way down.
- Turtle toast. - Gotcha.
- SpaceX has launched and crashed another starship prototype
in almost the exact same way as before.
Don't you ever learn, Elon?
After a successful belly flop maneuver,
one of the rocket's engines failed to ignite,
causing it to fall to the ground and explode.
Look, it happens to the best of us, okay? (cackles)
We all fall off countless times
when we learn to ride a bike.
Let's just hope SpaceX learns to balance
before their civilian manned flight
currently scheduled for the end of the year.
CD Projekt RED has warned "Cyberpunk 2077" players
against playing mods for the game right now
because doing so could allow hackers
to exploit a vulnerability
which can be used to execute code on PCs.
And this is a week after the game
first received support for mods.
Quite embarrassing,
although I have to say it's also super cyberpunk.
- [Riley] Don't run that mod!
- "My vision is augmented."
Following the announcement
of "Mass Effect: Legendary Edition,"
which contains all three remastered original trilogy games
and their 40 DLC packs,
EA has said in an earnings call
that they're very, very confident about BioWare's future.
The timing seems to make sense
since the OG "Mass Effect" games
were the last time anyone remembers
playing a good BioWare game.
- Hey! - Oh! (snaps)
Wa-bow! - Do you disagree, David?
- Right in the kisser!
- [David] "Inquisition" was okay.
- [Riley] "Dragon Age: Inquisition" was okay.
- But who doesn't love a good inquisition?
And you've always been told to eat your spinach,
but it's 2021, baby.
Not baby spinach.
Now we use spinach for sending emails!
- [Riley] Ah!
- Scientists from MIT have genetically engineered spinach
with carbon nanotubes built into its leaves
which emit a fluorescent signal when the plant
detects certain chemical compounds in the ground.
The signals are read by an infrared camera
which can trigger a small computer to send an email.
Okay, so the spinach plants
aren't actually sending the emails.
Also the study was done in 2016
but it went viral thanks to an article on Euronews...
(Riley grunts)
Just now. I'm bored.
- [Riley] But carbon nanotubes!
- Carbon spinach tubes?
- [Riley] Yah!
- Better end this episode now
so you can go and get swoll like Popeye.
Come back on Friday for more tech news.
And you're gonna click that one too, right?
We're gonna be waitin'.