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Daily Tech News Show

12 Mar 2026 · 29m · 14 chapters

Episode artwork

Attackers Take Down Medical Equipment Maker’s Systems - DTNS 5224

In short

Hosts: Tom Merritt and Huyen Tue Dao

Episode Description

Discussion on a cybersecurity incident affecting medical equipment manufacturer Stryker, confirmation on PC games coming to Xbox, and new features in Google Maps.

  • Incident Overview:
  • Medical technology company Stryker experienced a major cyber attack resulting in system disruptions.
  • The attackers claimed to have copied 50 terabytes of data and deleted tens of thousands of servers.
  • Stryker primarily manufactures surgical equipment, not directly involved with personal health data.
  • Details of the Attack:
  • The Stryker intra-login page was defaced; devices in the mobile management system were remotely erased.
  • Employees were instructed to remove corporate applications from personal devices.
  • The company confirmed the attack to the SEC in a Form 8K, stating there is no evidence of ransomware and that the incident is contained.
  • Potential Consequences:
  • Delay in shipments of medical equipment could impact patient health.
  • Discussion highlighted the nature of cyber attacks, distinguishing between financial vs. politically motivated attacks.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

3:24

Stryker Cyber Attack Overview

Discussion on the cyber attack against Stryker and its implications.

“The same malicious attackers claiming this have also claimed to have compromised payment device maker Verifone and posted screenshots seen by the register of what look like company systems.”
4:19

Motivations Behind Cyber Attacks

Exploration of the motivations behind the recent cyber attack.

“Yeah, with Stryker in particular, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with their actual equipment.”
6:10

Nature of Cyber Warfare vs. Criminal Activity

Comparison between politically motivated attacks and financial cyber crimes.

“No, I think that that's what the attacking group wants you to say.”
8:30

Restoration and Preparedness in Cybersecurity

Discussion on the importance of preparedness for cyber incidents.

“And then if you don't pay, they'll release your data to embarrass you or undermine your company.”
14:00

Exploring Immersive Navigation Features

Discussion on the new immersive navigation features in Google Maps and personal experiences with navigation apps.

“That is one of my pet peeves with navigation apps that they don't do that often enough.”
17:00

Next Generation Xbox Details

Overview of Microsoft's announcements regarding the next Xbox, including Project Helix and gaming capabilities.

“at GDC and said, we're sending developers alpha versions of Project Helix in 2027.”
19:23

Innovations in Photonic Devices

An exploration of new photonic devices developed by MIT that promise significant advancements in technology.

“And I mean, a lot of the advancements make a lot of sense.”
22:49

WordPress's New Browser-Based Publishing

Discussion on WordPress's launch of my.wordpress.net for creating websites directly in the browser.

“This is similar to how the coil in a thermostat works.”
27:27

Quick Tech Headlines

A roundup of the latest tech headlines, featuring updates on Apple's foldable and autonomous vehicles.

“All right, let's get to some quick headlines.”
28:00

Apple Security Updates and Autonomous Vehicle Testing

Learn about Apple's security updates addressing vulnerabilities and the latest in autonomous vehicle trials in Tokyo.

“Oh, plenty of time for everyone to get angry about that before they actually announce it.”
Show all 14 chapters
28:30

Tech Updates: Monitors, AI Systems, and Health Innovations

Discover recent announcements from ASUS, NVIDIA, and Microsoft regarding new technologies and health integrations.

“Toyota Prius vehicles in Tokyo last month with human safety drivers behind the wheel.”
30:28

Google's G-Fiber Merger and Disney's Short-Form Content

Explore Google's G-fiber business changes and Disney's new short-form content strategy.

“Well, Google has merged its G-fiber business into astound broadband, which becomes the majority owner, with Alphabet still holding a minority stake.”
31:39

Oppo and OnePlus Price Increases and Market Strategies

Examine the implications of Oppo and OnePlus's planned price hikes in response to market conditions.

“That's available on the mobile version of Disney+.”
32:53

Philosophies Behind Price Transparency in Tech

Discuss the differing philosophies among tech companies regarding price transparency and customer communication.

“Realme, Vivo, Honor have all had to hike prices and analysts say it's because of that.”
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Transcript

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0:00Tom Merritt: This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. Performance comes down to controlling what you can. For Jessica Pagula, it starts with the air around her.

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1:56Huyen Tue Dao: responsibility for a wiper malware attack against medical technology company Stryker. That's Stryker with a Y. The group claimed it copied 50 terabytes of data before deleting tens of thousands of servers. Stryker makes surgical and other medical equipment. So this is not a hospital. This is not even a company that has health data per se, like personal data. This is a company that makes equipment for hospitals, for clinics, things like that. Stryker's intra-login page was also defaced. A Stryker employee told Bleeping Computer that devices in the company's mobile device management system were remotely erased Wednesday morning.

2:36Huyen Tue Dao: Staff were instructed to remove corporate management and applications from their personal devices, including the Intune company portal, Teams, and VPN clients. Stryker's working to restore systems. The Irish Mirror reports that staff in Cork were told in a message, we are experiencing a severe global disruption impacting all Striker laptops and systems that connect to our network. And a message to employees in Asia said the root cause has not yet been identified. We are actively engaged with Microsoft and treating this as a critical enterprise-wide incident. Striker also filed Form 8K with the SEC.

3:11Huyen Tue Dao: That's the one that they have to file to say, hey, we've had a material breach. in that filing it said on march 11th 2026 striker corporation identified a cyber security incident affecting a certain information technology systems of the company that resulted in a global disruption to the company's microsoft environment company has no indication of ransomware or malware and believes the incident is contained they don't have a timeline for when things are going to be restored company said thursday morning that it can view orders placed before the attack So those aren't gone and that they will ship those orders as soon as system communications are restored.

3:52Huyen Tue Dao: The same malicious attackers claiming this have also claimed to have compromised payment device maker Verifone and posted screenshots seen by the register of what look like company systems. So it looks like this group, when is inside systems, able to disrupt systems. It's unclear of whether they're actually getting data and if so, how much? Gotcha.

4:14Tom Merritt: And this has nothing to do with the equipment itself that they're making, but more on their internal infrastructure?

4:19Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah, with Stryker in particular, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with their actual equipment. And like I said, it's not a hospital. It's not a clinic. It doesn't have personal information on patients. It would have personal information on its clients, though.

4:36Tom Merritt: Wow, fascinating. I mean, cybersecurity not being my area, but is it simplistic to say, oh, this looks like a big one or a bit silly to say or does not certificate?

4:47Huyen Tue Dao: Yes, it is a big one because of the pervasiveness of it. It's a big one because it's related to the Iran bombings, the Iran war. And so that gives it more prominence. On another day, I'm not sure this is the big story. If this is just a year ago and a company went down, it'd be like, oh, some hackers got in and took that company down. That's not great. The fact that it's healthcare related, I think also makes people pay more attention to it. But again, it's a manufacturer. They happen to manufacture surgical equipment. If those were delayed significantly, that could impact patient health because, you know, hospitals might not get the equipment they need in time for something, but it looks like they are working on making sure they get those shipments back underway.

5:31way.

5:32Tom Merritt: This is just kind of obviously there's more like maybe an impression or just like a general feeling about how often an attack like this, which seems to be, you know, mostly if one might say politically motivated or otherwise, where I think normally the kind of attacks that we as normal people, even those of us who are like techie people normally think of it's more like a some kind of like, I want to say financial, not the right word, but kind of like more opportunistic, like, you know, for profit kind of attack where people are stealing data to otherwise sell it to in various ways. But this is strictly like an attack to injure and to harm an entity for political slash ideological purposes.

6:09Tom Merritt: Is that a little bit, is that drama to say that? Or is that kind of like it?

6:13Huyen Tue Dao: No, I think that that's what the attacking group wants you to say. That's their motivation here. If they did get any data, they say they copied data. If they did copy any useful data, I mean, It's one thing to copy data. It's another to copy any valuable data. If they copied any useful data, I'm sure they would want to try to make use of that again to damage Stryker. But I don't think the aim, although it could be a secondary aim, is to make money off this. If they can sell it, they're going to make money to fund their continued operations. But yeah, this is more for political statement, activist statement.

6:55Huyen Tue Dao: this is not the kind of thing where it's like hey we locked up your systems give us money and we'll unlock them they did not unlock the systems they seem to have wiped uh computers it's hard to tell how many of them were actually just corporate you know employees laptops uh and striker is not talking specifically about backups but they are talking as if they will be able to restore their systems which makes me think that they probably do have backups they certainly have pen and paper that they're using because there's reports of employees saying we're back to just writing things down for the time being.

7:30Tom Merritt: Is this like, if I can use a phrase, just maybe think of bombing someone back to the Stone Age, we're driving them back to pencil and paper. Yeah, for the time being. Yeah, I guess just the context that from your perspective of someone who keeps up with these and as you said, the reason it's kind of most forefront is because of the current geopolitical situation. how often do you see attacks like this happening just every day? Because I mean, like, obviously we've heard over the last several years about, and for me, again, someone who is not very involved in cybersecurity and specifically these kind of like, you know, like cyber warfare.

8:05Tom Merritt: I feel like I know that this kind of thing goes on. And is this just kind of common? I hate to use that phrase. There are hundreds of these a year.

8:15Huyen Tue Dao: Now, hitting a company as big a striker, maybe more like a few times a year, right? They used to not go after the smaller companies, but they found that they can make some money going after smaller companies. But again, usually they're ransomware. Usually they're locking up systems. And then if you don't pay, they'll release your data to embarrass you or undermine your company. They are not usually done for political purposes like this. If they are, they're usually done for espionage purposes, and they don't want anyone to know they did, right? So this is unique in the sense that they want people to know, but it's not purely for money-making.

8:55Huyen Tue Dao: And I will be interested to see how fast Stryker gets back because when you do see these sorts of things, there are various timelines on restoration depending on how well a company has prepared for these kinds of situations. And I feel bad for the CISO of Stryker who is now having to put in place all of those plans that he told people we need to make these just in case, because today is the day they needed them.

9:20Tom Merritt: Well, there you go. Preparedness is key.

9:22Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah.

9:23Tom Merritt: All right. Well, DTNS is made possible by you, the listeners. So let's take time to thank Norm Fazekas, Chris Allen, and Reed Fishler.

9:32Huyen Tue Dao: It's Fazekas, because I know he'll tell us.

9:34Tom Merritt: I'm so sorry, Norm.

9:36Huyen Tue Dao: I'm sorry, Norm. I meant to remind one. Okay.

9:40Tom Merritt: So, yes, I should have asked. I'm so sorry, Norm. But you nailed Fishler. Well done. Okay, great. I was a little bit. And Alan.

9:46Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah.

9:48Tom Merritt: Thank you. I try. I try very hard. But Norm Fazekas and Kristen Reed, thank you so much.

9:54Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. Norm also had an email read on one of the Economist podcasts, and I was impressed that they nailed the reading the first time. Okay.

10:04Tom Merritt: Next time.

10:04Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. Yeah. Next time. All right. Thanks, patrons.

10:11Tom Merritt: This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. Youth mental health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions. We must strengthen after-school programs.

10:48Tom Merritt: We must make digital literacy tools available in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children. And we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy. Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at empowerourfuturecoalition.com slash solutions. Paid for by the Coalition to Empower Our Future.

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11:38Tom Merritt: and get a$250 gift card as a thank you. That's bill.com slash proven. Terms and conditions apply. See offer page for details. Security and compliance done wrong is a giant headache. Security and compliance done right, that's Vanta. Vanta helps you earn trust and speed up growth. No spreadsheets required. For startups low on time and resources, Vanta becomes your first security hire, using AI and automation to get you compliant fast and unblock big deals. For enterprises, Vanta is your AI-powered hub for compliance and risk, bringing together data from across your businesses and automating workflows so you can prove trust at any moment.

12:17Tom Merritt: Vanta scales with you at every stage. That's why top companies from startups like Cursor to enterprises like Snowflake choose Vanta. Do security and compliance right. Get started today at Vanta.com slash TED Audio. Studies show that 100 % of everybody in the world wants to curl up indoors and do nothing because it's so darn cold out there. That's why many people are turning to Bombas, whose pillowy plush slippers and warm merino wool socks have been said to be the most comfortable in the history of feet. Bombas products have been found to boost coziness by up to 1 million percent. Okay, enough fake statistics, but could Bombas socks and slippers really be the cure?

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13:04Huyen Tue Dao: there's more we need to know today let's get to the briefs all right well google is adding

13:08Tom Merritt: new features to google maps so ask maps lets you talk to gemini to do things like plan trips etc basically anything that maps could do you can ask it it will use your maps preferences it can factor in route preferences you can find it in a button by the search bar starting in india and the US in the Android and iOS apps. And this is going to be coming to web and more countries later on. Another feature called immersive navigation gives you a 3D view that should accurately reflect the real world. This will also show you more of the route ahead so you can plan what you'll need to do after the next turn.

13:45Tom Merritt: Voice guidance will also reference turns after the next one so you can prepare to move to the correct lane, assuming that you're in a car. It will give you updates on the route so you know why it's taking you that way like to avoid tolls or because of traffic and when you arrive the 3d view should help you orient yourself as you head into the parking garage or venue this one is rolling out to all android and ios apps now but will take a few months to fully arrive and a little longer to hit android auto carplay and google built-in man

14:16Huyen Tue Dao: telling me like hey you're gonna want to turn left after this next turn right so stay in the left lane. That is one of my pet peeves with navigation apps that they don't do that often enough. So I love that. Waze does that quite a bit. Yeah. So I love that. And the immersive navigation I think is good. So instead of seeing the top down view, you're going to be seeing the same view that you're seeing out of your car, but kind of more bird's eye as if it was flying above your car, but it'll correctly do overpasses and pedestrian lanes and stop signs and things like that. I like the immersive navigation stuff here a lot.

14:53Huyen Tue Dao: I'm skeptical on what I can do with asking Google Maps. They're trying to say, you won't have to sort through a bunch of reviews. Just say, I need a coffee shop where I can recharge my EV and not have to wait in line. I'm like, sure, in theory, that would be fantastic. I have noticed Google Maps telling me someplace was not busy and it was and vice versa. So I'm not sure that I entirely trust it to just be like, let me just ask you and I'll trust your answer quite yet. And that's not even an LLM thing. That's just informational thing.

15:25Tom Merritt: Yeah, no, I totally agree. I aligned with you. I was going to ask you what you thought of AskMass because yeah, immersive navigation, a hundred percent. I don't like, I actually was in California last week, not where you were, but up North for work. And the, there were a couple of turns that were very weird, which ended up me having to take a U-turn because sometimes that's just life, right? It just takes quick turns. I am also currently planning a trip to Japan for my cousin who I'm taking for the first time. And no, I would not trust Ask Maps. I mean, it's like an interesting idea, right? Because I did have moments where, for example, I had this nerdy Google Doc and Google Sheet where I'm compiling everything.

15:59Tom Merritt: And I think I was kind of hoping that this is like a different integration, that Google Docs could somehow work with Google Maps to at least kind of help me fill in information. I don't think I would specifically rely on Gemini. And that's kind of, to me, because I've been to japan a few times i kind of know what i'm doing so that's sort of also just a thing i have very specific ideas if i went to some place i had never been before that is a very appealing but just to your point like for example just in a very the specific example of say like japan and other countries they have other review systems and other there's like there's other information out there that i definitely use when planning a trip because to be honest as as great as google maps reviews can be it's not the whole picture so i don't know i good try but i agreed i probably wouldn't i'll

16:43Huyen Tue Dao: play with it. I'll see what it's good for. Maybe there are some things where I'm like, oh, actually, it's really great at this particular kind of question. But yeah, I'm more excited about the immersive navigation. Microsoft's vice president of Next Generation for Xbox, Jason Ronald, spoke at GDC and said, we're sending developers alpha versions of Project Helix in 2027. So next year, developers, you're going to get something that is the next Xbox, probably a dev kit. Ronald also repeated that the next Xbox will be able to play PC games as well as Xbox games, and added to that, a custom AMD system on a chip will render graphics with path tracing.

17:29Huyen Tue Dao: And Gadget notes that this is similar to what AMD is doing for Sony's PlayStation. Ronald also wrote in a blog post, it delivers an order of magnitude leap in ray tracing performance and capability, integrates intelligence directly into the graphics and compute pipeline, and drives meaningful gains in efficiency scale and visual ambition. So basically trying to make it more efficient to make it better for you. Microsoft also announced advanced shader delivery, ASD, will be available through the Xbox Store for developers to pre-compile shaders. That's a long way of saying that you won't have as much shader stuttering when you're playing a new title.

18:07Huyen Tue Dao: It can get it going before you start needing it. Microsoft also announced that the full screen Xbox mode that you find on the ROG Ally Xbox is coming to all Windows 11 devices in April. It will now be called Xbox mode. It will start in select markets. The idea is to make it easier to navigate with a controller when you're using your PC. You can access that mode from the game bar or by pressing Windows F11 and then you exit it just by tapping the Windows key, which makes me think I will accidentally do that definitely a few times. People have been playing around with this on Insider Preview as well if you've seen people doing this already.

18:45Huyen Tue Dao: Finally, the This is an Xbox marketing campaign has been all but removed from the Xbox Wire blog, making everyone say, well, I guess they're giving up on that phrase. Although they are making more things work like an Xbox.

18:59Tom Merritt: That's, I don't mean, this sounds patronizing and I don't mean it. And Xbox is certainly not a little company, but it just starting to feel like the little console that could compared to Sony and Nintendo and just all the storm and drang that Microsoft and Microsoft games in particular has had over the last couple of years. I honestly was a little bit surprised reading this. And I'm not that well-versed in what's going on behind the scenes, but I was just like, oh, they're still trying. Good for them. And I mean, a lot of the advancements make a lot of sense. It's just so interesting that, again, given everything, that they're still making things happen.

19:30Tom Merritt: And I'm actually kind of interested in the PC games on Xbox as well.

19:33Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah, I think they're still pursuing the strategy of we're a company that wants you to play a game and we don't care where. They're just retiring that as their slogan because it made people mad. And they're still going to bring you a console. And that console will be able to play more games because it'll be able to do PC games. So, yeah, if you're a PlayStation fan, you're a Nintendo fan, you're going to stay in that area. and Microsoft would like to sell you games on those consoles as well. It seems to be what their plan is, is like whether it's the cloud or your phone or an Xbox or anything else, we would love to sell you a game that you can play on that.

20:09Huyen Tue Dao: And we want to make it as easy as possible.

20:11Tom Merritt: Makes sense. Speaking of Windows, you may or may not know that last year, Google fully launched a version of the Google Play Store for Windows. This uses a container to run a light version of Android to play the game on Windows. Google Vice President Arash Mbadd announced that it is adding features to Google Play's listing of Windows-compatible games. So, this includes more games that work on both Android and Windows, with the ability to sync your play across platforms, the ability to buy such games once and play them both on Windows and Android, a PC section to the Play Store's games tab, game trials that let you try a game before buying it, starting with MobileBut coming to PC games eventually.

20:55Tom Merritt: Google is also launching Play Game Sidekick, which can show relevant info and tools for the game that you are playing.

21:02Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah, this becomes a little less impressive when you internalize that these are just Android games that they're running on Windows. These are not like PC titles necessarily. but yeah you would expect that you should be able to play across games with your Android and since it's an Android app on Windows too this all makes sense these are good improvements.

21:24Tom Merritt: I like that so Windows is like we want you to think about us in other places and by the way we want to let you think about Android in other places or at least our spaces as well it just feels like a very like kumbaya let's all hold hands and like game together kind of.

21:37Huyen Tue Dao: I wonder how pleased Microsoft is at Google doing this. They're not preventing them from doing it. It's certainly the thing that got Epic upset.

21:45Tom Merritt: Yeah.

21:46Huyen Tue Dao: Google started saying like, oh, yeah, we're going to do a game store on Windows. But it's also not the same thing as what Epic is doing.

21:52Tom Merritt: Yeah. But at least, you know, you're not leaving Windows. So it just feels like that kind of that thing where like, well, as long as you're in the room with us.

21:59Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As long as you're using our platform. An article called Nanophotonic Waveguide Chip-to-World Beam Scanning was published in the journal Nature. And if you're not already enamored by that title, you will be enamored by what it can do. Scientists at MIT, along with some colleagues from other institutions, have developed a new class of photonic devices that can broadcast light from a chip in a more useful way. Photonics are faster than electrical transmissions. Photonic chips are a buzzword these days, but it's harder to control light once it leaves a chip because light kind of just goes wherever it wants, right?

22:36Huyen Tue Dao: It broadcasts widely. So the chip they developed use microscopic ski jump looking structures that let them control how light is emitted. The structures curl and uncurl based on temperature. This is similar to how the coil in a thermostat works. That gives you thousands of small, individually controlled, effectively laser beams that you can point light from. They have a series of modulators that control turning the light on and off to the little ski jumps. And they say their system doesn't even need error correction. It is precise enough to project 30 ,000 pixels into the same area that holds two pixels on a modern smartphone display.

23:17Huyen Tue Dao: So, of course, obviously, this could lead to higher resolution displays. It could also lead to lightweight augmented reality glasses because you can do that more precise light in a smaller system. Smaller LiDAR systems for putting into robots, for sensing the world around them. More precise 3D printers because you can get higher resolution of the light that molds the resin. And it could make it easier to build larger quantum computers as well.

23:40Tom Merritt: Oh, sounds fun. There is a joke in here that is not that funny that I want to make about ski jumps and hyaluronic injection into the gyps, but I won't make it.

23:50Huyen Tue Dao: Yes, I can see the outline of that joke that you're talking about now that you say that.

23:54Tom Merritt: Someone cleverer than me, go ahead and fill it. Yeah, yeah, send it to us.

23:57Huyen Tue Dao: Feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com.

23:59Tom Merritt: All right, well, WordPress has launched my.wordpress.net, which can publish a website entirely in a browser. So you don't need to set up a hosting plan or register a domain. The sites are private and not accessible from the public internet. The data is saved in the browser storage so you can access it at any time but only from that device or the storage is. You can move the site to a public hosted server if you want. And this could be used for prototyping but also for journaling, research, a personal RSS reader, and more. There's an app catalog available to get you started with ideas. And you can use a chat assistant to modify the sites as well.

24:38Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah, I'm not sure who wants this, but I know people do and people are going to play around with it, especially because it's got a little of that LLM magic in it. So you can just mess around and there's no harm done, right? Because it's basically in a sandbox, but it stays in your browser. And even when you turn your machine off, you can get it later. It's not like temporary or anything like that. It's pretty cool.

24:59Tom Merritt: I have one specific use case that my buddy at work told me about because him and his wife traveled the world, like I think for their honeymoon, it was like a year-long trip and they had a blog spot or some other now defunct blog you know uh had kind of like basically journaled their entire um journey on blogspot and i think there's probably like some were there plugins on blogs but or just some there were some features like geotagging other things and he actually on his home network basically i think imported that old site or archive of it and then okay so that they can reference it yeah i think he's able to hit that so i could imagine like that actually i could see for like i could imagine myself doing that not with my own like home like hosted server or something but like just to kind of preserve certain things that are in a web format or that or in the presentation of a website but that i mean you don't really need that to be public and maybe that's just not something that's

25:52Huyen Tue Dao: necessary anymore but anyway yeah that was kind of cool yeah i like the idea of of like i want to i want to keep a version of a website local to me it doesn't need to be available on the internet or Or I want to do a journal. I want to do a blog, but I don't need to share it with the world. I just want to have it.

26:07Tom Merritt: It's the opposite of what we've come to, but yeah.

26:10Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah, yeah. Well, as I mentioned, our email address earlier, there's other ways to get in touch with us on the internet. We are available on social networks at DTNS Show. There's two S's in that, DTNS Show. That's X, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, and Mastodon. For TikTok and YouTube, you find us at Daily Tech News Show.

26:36Tom Merritt: This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade-in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. Taking care of your eyes shouldn't be a hassle. That's why Warby Parker is a one-stop shop for all your vision needs.

27:12Tom Merritt: Our prescription glasses and sunglasses are expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Stop by a nearby store or use our app to virtually try on frames and get personalized recommendations. Did we mention we offer eye exams and take vision insurance too? For everything you need to see, head to your nearest Warby Parker store or visit WarbyParker.com today. That's WarbyParker.com.

27:37Huyen Tue Dao: All right, let's get to some quick headlines. These are those little nuggets that you can go like, well, actually, what you didn't know is that Apple's foldable will do this.

27:46Tom Merritt: Well, actually, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says Apple's upcoming foldable will be able to run apps side by side when unfolded into a display roughly the size of an iPad mini, but will not run iPad optimized versions of apps.

28:04Huyen Tue Dao: Oh, plenty of time for everyone to get angry about that before they actually announce it. Apple also issued security updates to prevent the Corona vulnerability on devices running all the way back to iOS 13. From iOS 13 through iOS 17.2.1, those operating systems were vulnerable to this chained vulnerability. There are patches for that. That reaches back to the iPhone 6S. All right.

28:29Tom Merritt: Well, long-time autonomous car company Neuro began testing its autonomous Toyota Prius vehicles in Tokyo last month with human safety drivers behind the wheel. Meanwhile, Uber and Wave announced autonomous taxi services will launch as a pilot program also in Tokyo later this year.

28:48Huyen Tue Dao: When are you going?

28:49Tom Merritt: In a couple weeks.

28:50Huyen Tue Dao: So they won't be out. You might see them driving around training, but you won't be able to get in one.

28:55Tom Merritt: I will keep an eye and see the relative comfort level of the human safety driver in the back. Good idea.

29:02Huyen Tue Dao: Document that. Big thanks to Evelyn Cleed for noting this one on our subreddit. Anthropic has officially asked the court for a stay against the designation of it as a supply chain risk by the U.S. government. They filed a lawsuit to get it overturned, but while they pursue that lawsuit, they don't want the supply chain risk designation to stand, so they're asking for the court to issue an injunction against it, basically.

29:25Tom Merritt: Well, ASUS announced three new 27-inch 1440p OLED gaming monitors starting at$599 USD and topping out at$699 for a model with a 280 hertz refresh rate.

29:41Huyen Tue Dao: That's refreshing. Perplexity has launched Personal Computer, which is a locally run agent, not a cloud version of their agent, that you can install, say, on a Mac Mini. And they claim this is more secure than OpenClaw. Cue all the OpenClaw competitors. Here they come.

30:00Tom Merritt: Oh, boy. NVIDIA showed off its Nematron 3 superagentic system released with open weights under a permissive license, letting you deploy it on workstations if you have the power. This is separate from reports that NVIDIA is developing an open call competitor called NemoClaw.

30:18Huyen Tue Dao: NemoClaw. Microsoft is introducing Copilot Health. This will bring together your medical records and your wearable data so that you can ask questions about it. That data will be kept separate from the rest of Copilot. It's a separate product.

30:31Tom Merritt: Well, Google has merged its G-fiber business into astound broadband, which becomes the majority owner, with Alphabet still holding a minority stake.

30:41Huyen Tue Dao: Man, will they, won't they on Alphabet and fiber internet service? I guess it's less of a will they right now astound broadband. That is a big change. Google scientists have used Gemini to analyze 5 million news articles about 2.6 million different flash floods to develop a neural network that can then ingest new weather forecasts and rate the probability that a flash flood will happen with more accuracy. Flash floods, one of the hardest things to predict. Wonderful.

31:10Tom Merritt: All right. Well, Valve announced that 5 ,863 games made at least$100 ,000 on the platform in 2025, up from 3 ,005 years ago. I do wonder what percent that is of all the games, but hey, congratulations to you, 5 ,863 games.

31:29Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah, that's not bad. Disney began rolling out its feed of short-form excerpts from its movies and TV shows they call Verts, because they're vertical. That's available on the mobile version of Disney+. Right now, it's just their own stuff, but they say they're going to let creators do remixes soon, and then eventually use Sora.

31:47Tom Merritt: Shorts, shorts, shorts, shorts, shorts, shorts. Everybody likes shorts. Okay. All right. And finally, Honda canceled three EV models it had planned to sell in the U.S., citing competition from Chinese brands, tariffs, and slowing U.S. demand.

32:02Huyen Tue Dao: All right. We end every episode of DT &S with some shared perspectives. On March 10th, Oppo and OnePlus confirmed price increases coming March 16th in response to rising costs of several key mobile phone components. And Mohan has a pertinent question. is oppo one plus the first phone manufacturer to come out and say the prices are going up because of shortages so i looked into this uh i think they might be the first to avowedly say that they're doing it because of that samsung raised the price of the last 26 100 and everybody knows that's why uh xiaomi uh said that rising memory costs would force price hikes and then the Xiaomi 17 Ultra was a higher price, but they didn't necessarily connect the two.

32:52Huyen Tue Dao: They just set them in different places. Realme, Vivo, Honor have all had to hike prices and analysts say it's because of that. But I think, I don't know, they may be, Oppo, OnePlus may be the first one to just say it out loud.

33:06Tom Merritt: Is that, I mean, I don't know if that's just a company strategy or philosophy, let's call it or whether especially with abo and one plus before even like late last year middle of last year they did announce several you know pullbacks like they pulled back from releasing the one uh the open plus the sorry the one plus open two and like you know like other things like the kind of sermon drawn over whether one plus was shuttering as a brand is it because they were forced to because of all this other press where i don't know whether you can label it as an explanation or excuse or just is that just how they are and that's just their plan is to just

33:41Huyen Tue Dao: a little more transparency i don't know yeah i mean i i it is it is a difference in philosophy there's one philosophy that says don't call attention to your price increase you know don't if you're explaining you're losing uh the other is like people are going to be mad about the price increase so may deflect the blame to somebody else uh i i think what mohan was really going after was like is this the first evidence of it and it's not the first evidence of it but it's

34:07Tom Merritt: certainly the most acute evidence of it yeah i i when i first saw this i thought well i thought other companies were saying that but i understand what you're saying is that they're coming out and connecting the two whereas the other companies kind of rely on a cooler shop effect where they put this statement about rising memory costs and then like just put the price here and then yeah connect the dots so they don't have to say it right which may be a distinction without a difference in

34:29Huyen Tue Dao: a lot of cases. But I think it is unique that OnePlus was like, because of this, price increase next week. Boom, boom, boom.

34:37Tom Merritt: All right. Well, what are you thinking about? Do you have some insight? We would love to hear it. Feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com.

34:43Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. Thanks to Mohan for contributing to today's show. Thank you for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You folks keep us in business. If you're not already a patron, become one right now. It's easy and you get a lot of cool perks and extra content patreon.com slash DTNS.

35:02Tom Merritt: The DTNS family of podcasts helping

35:05Huyen Tue Dao: each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.

35:16Tom Merritt: This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. Youth mental health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions. We must strengthen after-school programs.

35:53Tom Merritt: We must make digital literacy tools available in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children. And we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy. Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at empowerourfuturecoalition.com slash solutions. Paid for by the Coalition to Empower Our Future.

From the publisher

But we also have confirmation on PC gems coming to Xbox and a more immersive Google Maps experience.


Starring Tom Merritt and Huyen Tue Dao.


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