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Daily Tech News Show

11 Jun 2026 · 29m · 14 chapters

Episode artwork

Microsoft Gets Honest About Xbox - DTNS 5288

In short

This DTNS episode focuses mainly on Microsoft’s Xbox situation and broader tech news. Key story: Bloomberg sources say Xbox plans layoffs next month after Microsoft’s June 30 fiscal year end, with marketing and other budget cuts. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s memo (published on Xbox.com) cites declining revenues, rising expenses, a 3% “accountability margin” down year over year, and points to Activision Blizzard spending $20B without revenue growth. She also says Xbox can’t make enough consoles due to supply constraints, flags a storage/memory cost increase (5x by 2027), and discusses new hardware models including Helix (a device to play Xbox + PC games).

Guests

none—this is a host-and-cohost news discussion (Tom Merrick and Gwyneth Wittdahl in Salt Lake City).

Notable examples

YouTube in-app one-on-one messaging via share links; Deezer’s free AI-music detector for playlists; Canada’s Digital Safety Act proposal for under-16 accounts; OpenAI/DOJ reports on influence and domain-name scams.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

0:34

Microsoft's Xbox Layoffs

Discussion on Microsoft's Xbox division layoffs and financial struggles.

“Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI.”
2:46

Microsoft's Xbox Layoffs

Discussion on Microsoft's Xbox division layoffs and financial struggles.

“But let's start with what you need to know with today's big story.”
4:50

Asha Sharma's Leadership Insights

Analyzing Asha Sharma's memo and its implications for Xbox.

“She did not mention layoffs in her memo, but did write the following, which a few outlets took note as being ominous.”
8:42

Future of Xbox Under New Strategy

Speculating on Xbox's future direction and product strategies.

“You can say you're going to make a delicious pudding, but until you've made it and we've tasted it, we don't know.”
14:01

YouTube's New Messaging Features

Learn about YouTube's innovative chat features and their implications.

“but you can only contact people you know how to contact.”
16:51

Deezer's AI Music Detection Tool

Discover Deezer's new tool for identifying AI-generated music in playlists.

“Can I just say, like, I mean, I can't just help but say, oh, this sounds great.”
18:58

Concerns About AI-Generated Music

Discuss the implications of AI-generated music on user playlists and listening experiences.

“I tried to do this with Apple Music and it didn't work.”
20:02

Canada's Digital Safety Act

Explore Canada's approach to protecting minors on social media through new legislation.

“And it is a little early to be talking too much about it because who knows what's going to change in it or if it hits a roadblock at some point.”
22:56

OpenAI's Actions Against Disinformation

Learn how OpenAI is tackling disinformation campaigns linked to Chinese operatives.

“Then it has to go through the regulatory review, not regulatory review, like mergers, but like the regulator has to decide, oh, this is how we're going to enforce it.”
28:34

Tech Headlines Overview

A recap of recent tech news including smart jewelry, laptop delays, and smartphone updates.

“All right, let's get to some quick headlines that are going to make us look smart.”
Show all 14 chapters
30:05

Surveillance and Legislation Update

Discussion on the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and its implications.

“Just like the HTC U24 Pro, it got a repairability score of three out of 10.”
31:39

AI and Workforce Training Initiatives

Examining recent training programs by tech companies to address labor shortages.

“And there will be no change in the surveillance it empowers until then.”
32:44

Class Action Lawsuit Against SpaceX

Discussion on a lawsuit filed against SpaceX regarding noise pollution from data centers.

“Anthropic is making restrictions in Fable 5 visible so users can see when and why the model reroutes requests it considers dangerous to the older Opus model.”
33:39

Listener Feedback and Engagement

Engaging with listener feedback and encouraging contributions to the show.

“All right, well, we end every episode of DTNS with some shared perspectives.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

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2:21In Salt Lake City, I'm Tom Merrick. I'm Gwyneth Wittdahl. Who's also in Salt Lake City. He's also in Salt Lake City, yeah.

2:26Huyen Tue Dao: Because we're both attending Nerdtacular, Scott Johnson's big shindig. So if you're at Nerdtacular, come say hi. We'll be around. We're doing a DTNS Live on Friday with Dr. Nikki and Bobby Frankenberger. Gwen and I will be debating technology versus their science. And one of them will win. No, we were just going to compare the overlap of the two. But let's start with what you need to know with today's big story.

2:55Huyen Tue Dao: Sources within Microsoft told Bloomberg that the Xbox division is planning layoffs next month, shortly after Microsoft's fiscal year closes on June 30th. Not only are they going to save money by eliminating positions, they're also going to slash budgets for marketing and a few other areas. This comes right alongside Xbox CEO Asha Sharma sending a memo to employees, which was published on the Xbox website. So this is not a sources say. This is an actual, you can go read it on Xbox.com, detailing declining revenues, increasing expenses. She noted a 3 % profit margin. They call it an accountability margin in Microsoft accountants speak, but it's basically the same as a profit margin.

3:35Huyen Tue Dao: Anyway, that 3 % profit margin is down year over year. And specifically, she called out Activision Blizzard to point out, we've spent$20 billion, but we have declining revenue. So the money isn't causing the revenue to go up, which is not good. Sharma also said they need to adequately fund their top franchises to compete and win. Talked about a component crisis coming. I mean, obviously that's everybody, right? They're estimating the company is going to pay five times as much for storage and memory by the end of 2027 as it did in 2024. And she did say that she thought Xbox was affected more than others because of, quote, the choices we made over the last decade.

4:14Huyen Tue Dao: I assume that's supply. Yeah, or parts. Yeah. She said Microsoft cannot make enough consoles to meet demand right now because they just don't have the right supply. She talked about new business models and partnerships for hardware for Helix. Helix is what they're calling the next project that will have a device that can play both Xbox and PC games. So maybe what we're talking about there is kind of what Steam Machine does. Yeah. where they would make their own reference design, but let other partners produce it. And that widens the base. Sharma said her mandate is not profit margin, but quote, to be the number one gaming and entertainment company.

4:51Huyen Tue Dao: She did not mention layoffs in her memo, but did write the following, which a few outlets took note as being ominous. We won't succeed by hiding hard truths, nor will we succeed by doing the same thing and expecting different results. as somebody who works in the corporate enterprise when you hear a ceo say something like that how does that make you and i mean more than a little bit nervous i mean i i assume that you know especially given xbox i don't i suppose as a corporate employee you always kind of understand sort of at least to some extent where you stand in the wider market so you're aware but it doesn't feel good especially like i i guess suppose i suppose that there's most people i think i do most people most um long time corporate big company employees understand that some transparency is good but it's it's transparent but it's not that transparent especially in regards to maybe layoffs and resourcing that's always the kind of thing is like how does this affect me um and i think a lot of us big corporate employees can kind of understand and and sort of compartmentalize some of like the larger broader business impacts but yeah this is this one makes one a little nervous especially if one is in the kind of hardware division xbox division for sure yeah um yeah it's it's never good and i kind of wonder how morale is feeling right now which is a is a very real thing we feel at y 'all all this little grunts on the inside so this kind of thing is a kobayashi maru like it is a no-win scenario uh because you know when you say some but you don't say all everybody wants to know the rest of it companies never want to talk about layoffs until it's time to actually lay people off because they might change their mind.

6:34Huyen Tue Dao: And also you don't want people sandbagging or jumping ship. Yeah. And that's real. That is all real. That's the thing. I do think that the reaction amongst the customer base seems to be leaning positive to this. Like, okay, she's telling us the hard truth. She's not trying to sugarcoat things, you know, and clearly not saying anything about cloud. Yeah. Phil Spencer was all about like, we're going to win in the cloud. And as much as I thought he was right, that there was there was something to be had there. It has not paid off. And this is a pivot back to hardware, which I know the customer base really likes.

7:11yeah it was interesting because i remember we my husband and i were watching summer games fest uh jeff keely's like you know the the summer game show with all the announcements i i want to say was it gears of war e-day that was like the xbox exclusive and i i mean it's a small drop in the bucket but i think that for for any i mean i'm not a gears player but i think it's hard not to be impacted by the i mean i know what gears is and and like this is one of their stronger you know brands and one of the i almost feel like it's one of their like kind of iconic games on xbox uh so i can't i couldn't help but feel like oh are they back a little bit it does drive that that customer sentiment and also like the rebranding during the summer i think everyone's been very positive on it so as a gamer i do think that again very much sympathy as a corporate like a big big tech employee but yeah from the outside we kind of all understand the story of overspending in all flavors of big tech and why against transparency and doing the hard thing might be the best thing for the company.

8:10So yeah, as a gamer, I'll say, yeah, like this kind of just all seems to jive with them trying to do something to save the ship.

8:17Huyen Tue Dao: I feel like since Asha Sharma took over, the perceptions of her leadership have improved from being like, oh, she's the AI person that's going to shovel slop in here because she was previously in charge of some AI stuff at Microsoft to like, oh, she seems to be wanting to listen to us and do the right thing. We'll see if that holds, you know, public opinion is fickle. Yeah. And I guess we'll see. But I do think that in general, it makes sense. And to them admitting that whatever their device strategy was, I mean, I personally don't know what the internals were, but that, as you said, they're maybe trying to move into a totally different direction, which does require hard pivots, which does have collateral damage usually uh but that for overall as a brand and as like a hardware and as a console that's it's intriguing and and we'll wait to see what happens i mean it it does sound like she's saying the right thing which of course ceos are very good at saying the right thing they are but but the right thing being we want to spend the money where it will have a return because she did talk about increasing investment in certain properties that hadn't been funded properly uh the you know proof is always in the pudding, right?

9:22Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. You can say you're going to make a delicious pudding, but until you've made it and we've tasted it, we don't know. We don't know yet. Well, I mean, I guess I think I am looking forward to the pudding. I mean, again, just as the hype from a lot of the games that are coming out from Summer Games Fest, I do think they have a bit of momentum or hype, I guess, around the brand again. So I guess hopefully they can use that and go somewhere with it. Will Asha Sharma approve the proper ingredient purchases and will Matt Booty cook a delicious pudding? Stay tuned to find out. Well, you know what we're made with or made by rather?

9:57It's you guys, the listeners. Oh, God. We're not Soylent Green. We are DTNS. And we're made possible by you, the listeners. So let's take time to thank Chris Allen, Reed Fishler, Larry Bailey, and Crystal. Thank you.

10:19This 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.

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13:03Huyen Tue Dao: Of course, there's more we need to know today, so let's get to the briefs. All right, well, YouTube is expanding the rollout of an in-app messaging system that will show in the top right corner of the YouTube app. You can share videos, shorts and live streams and have one on one conversations with folks about them. You can only start a conversation, though, by sharing a link. That link lasts for seven days over a third party messaging system. The link then brings you into a YouTube interface to chat where the recipient can click allow messaging or not now. Once you've allowed it, not now, once you've allowed it, you can find contacts by opening the share menu when watching a video.

13:45Users must be in Brazil, Singapore, the UK or the US must be 18 years or older. And you can block messages and report conversations.

13:54Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah, I think this is a really interesting take on messaging because the messaging is happening on the YouTube platform. but you can only contact people you know how to contact. Yeah. Right. So spammers are going to try to take advantage of this by sending out links and getting people to click on them and then trying to message them within YouTube. Like there's going to be ways around that as there always are, but it's not a direct messaging situation like you have on Instagram or Facebook or something like that, where they have to manage it. YouTube leaves that up to you. Like you, you send the link or you click on the link and you approve it.

14:29Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. And then you guys have a relationship and you can chat in the YouTube app all you want. I do think it's really smart. I know that there is chat on YouTube, especially for live streams, but generally this feels like a different kind of chat. Yeah, this is one-on-one. Yeah, and yeah, it's kind of a joke in app world that chat apps are hard, but everyone, like not everyone, a lot of companies are able to just stick a chat, but a chat in there. It's really, really hard. so part of just from a technical feasibility this makes a lot of sense to offload that to you know an app that number one the users already using number two already has all of that kind of whatever needed uh needed um infrastructure but then bouncing back makes a lot of sense i actually really like this this kind of makes so much sense in a post-covid world where we are so used to kind of hanging out with each other online and specifically consuming media together online my husband and i do this i'm traveling a lot as you can see me being in salt like city.

15:20So we used to do this a lot when we were like long distance. And even when I'm traveling, we do watch things together. So this just makes too much sense.

15:27Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and it really, because of that hurdle, it does make it. So it feels like you really only want to use it around video, even though you could use it for anything else. You have to go to the trouble of the hurdles and stuff. So why would you use it for general messaging at that point? Yeah. It just makes sense. It's just really targeted. And like, uh, what is it that we say purpose, purpose driven or purpose-built. So yes. Speaking of purpose-built, Francis Deezer has launched a free tool to detect tracks generated by multimodal models in your playlists across 20 music services.

16:01Huyen Tue Dao: So it won't work everywhere, but they've got 20 music services. All the big ones are in there. YouTube is in there. Deezer uses this technology on its own service already to label generated music and remove it from its recommendations. You can play it. You can put it in your own playlist if you want, but it won't push it out there. It won't put it in its editorial playlists. And this tool will help identify if you accidentally put something in there that you didn't realize was generated, if that's a concern for you. Deezer is also licensing this detection technology to the music industry in general.

16:32Huyen Tue Dao: They've got one French company that is using it to detect generated music. Obviously, Deezer being French, That was an easier win for them. And I think this tool is a way to demonstrate it and get some PR around it so that they can sign those big industry contracts, which is why they're making it available for free for us to use. Yeah. Can I just say, like, I mean, I can't just help but say, oh, this sounds great. And it's great that they are offering kind of opening up licensing of it. I have to say Deezer, as a music company, is so, I think, tech forward and tech present. I've met a lot of great Android, specifically developers from Deezer, and it really does feel like the tech is like it's I know this is like this.

17:13You can say the same thing about Spotify, but it really feels like tech and like innovation and engineering is really part of Deezer's DNA, if I might say. Yeah. So I this all of this kind of jives with my very positive mental model of Deezer. So I guess we'll see how many how many other companies kind of take it up.

17:30Huyen Tue Dao: How many people are concerned that they accidentally put AI music in their playlist? I mean, maybe playlists from that they have subscribed to from the service. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I know that for this is I don't think there's much AI music in this. But as an example, I still like to use Daily Discovery on Tidal. So and I yeah, I think it's this there's definitely a fear of it, I think. Even for me, again, I have a very specific listening like workflow, but I still fear that just because we do hear so much about AI slop and and and kind of invading music. services i know we've talked about related stories so i feel like if anything people think that they think that they need this yeah i could see it happening to me on youtube where we often just put up a big long playlist on youtube video of jazz right yes yes and i have recently started to be concerned about looking at the description like am i actually exposing myself to actual artists that i will learn about or is this just background music and i'm fine if it's just background music that's generated but there's sometimes where i'm like i actually kind of want to be low-key learning something, like hearing some Miles Davis tracks that maybe I never heard of before.

18:39Huyen Tue Dao: So it might be useful for that. Also, one question I have is what Deezer does with the information it gathers from your playlist, because that's some interesting telemetry for them to have, not necessarily for third-party data tracking, which it could be used for, that would be the most nefarious, but just like, ooh, what do people listen to on the other platforms? Now they'll have an insight into that. I mean, I guess that plays into my earlier statement that Deezer is very much a techie engineering company, and that is a very techie engineering company thing to do, is to license your software and also to understand your users better through a lot of data gathering.

19:12So there you go.

19:12Huyen Tue Dao: I tried to do this with Apple Music and it didn't work. It said I had to turn on sync in Apple Music, which I thought I had. Maybe I didn't. So it's not as easy as just hitting a couple of buttons. Well, legislators introduced a bill in the Canadian Parliament called the Digital Safety Act, Act, which would prohibit social media companies and AI chatbots from allowing children younger than 16 from having accounts unless the company obtained an exemption from the government. To get an exemption, the platform would have to identify risks, build in-age appropriate design and offer blocking and flagging tools.

19:49Similar to Meadows Global Teen Account Settings, Bill C-34, as it's called, will take at least a year to work through parliament and then another 18 months to undergo a regulator review. So it's going to be a bit. Yeah, I think this is an interesting approach.

20:06Huyen Tue Dao: And it is a little early to be talking too much about it because who knows what's going to change in it or if it hits a roadblock at some point. But I do like the idea of like, we're not banning users under 16. We're saying you have different concerns with users under 16 and let's meet those concerns. Now, whether you think the government is the proper judge of what those concerns are or not is another conversation to have as well. But I do in concept like that idea of let's come up with some guidelines and rules of the road and best practices that say, oh, when you're younger than 16, you shouldn't be exposed to X, Y and Z.

20:41Huyen Tue Dao: And a lot of companies have started to do similar things where you you can't message people you don't know if you're not getting parental permission. We've seen parental controls like that in Android and iOS. And so, yeah, I think this is kind of a natural outgrowth of that. A lot of the blaring headlines were like, Canada goes farther than Australia. And I'm like, no, I don't know if that's the right take on this. It's more of a Canada takes a more fine tuned approach. I mean, just what I was like, oh, wow. Harsh, harsh, harsh. Oh, an exemption, which is which is always the key. And I do agree with you.

21:13And I think this is definitely headed in the right direction. as always with good intentions let's say good intention governmental legislation and tech i do wonder and this is just my wide swing especially as like a cynical tech person who still kind of you know doesn't mind a little bit of regulation does that does that am i like

21:33Huyen Tue Dao: outing myself as something anyway um we all evolve as we grow up i know i'm such an adult now um Gosh, that's such an old person thing to say. Sorry. No offense to anybody. I do feel, I'm just digging myself deeper in this hole. I do wonder a lot of times, especially when it comes to things like this, where it does, I imagine that for them to get the exemption, there needs to be some kind of review of the system, the kind of like this whole like, you know, kind of like age appropriate system. And I always wonder, does the government have the resources to aptly determine, okay, is this sufficient or is this not sufficient?

22:15It's always like the execution. And I guess, I don't know. And I think my other reaction to this was, is this now too easy? Because, again, Meta, which I think to be like, if we want to kind of like contextualize it, Meta has been the kind of, I guess, biggest offender or at least the most. Biggest target. Biggest target. Biggest offender. That's very fair. biggest target in the news. And as this is, as, as I mentioned, they're already working on something. So is this kind of like an easy, like checking their homework kind of thing?

22:42Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. I, I think it's good to underline meta has a similar thing that doesn't mean it would pass this exemption. That's a fair point. So that, that will be an interesting thing to see. And again, we've got a lot of time because it's going to take at least a year for this thing to even get passed. Then it has to go through the regulatory review, not regulatory review, like mergers, but like the regulator has to decide, oh, this is how we're going to enforce it. So it'll be a couple of years. OpenAI says it has banned several accounts that it says were being used by Chinese operatives to create social media campaigns to sway U.S.

23:14Huyen Tue Dao: public opinion about tariffs, data centers and some other topics. OpenAI dubbed one group of campaigns. There were more than two campaigns, but they put them into two big groups. One group was the data center bandwagon, which generated prefabricated comments and comics that claimed data centers were driving up electricity prices and then tried to seed those out on social networks to start conversations. The idea here is never that the original post would be the thing everyone responds to. It's that it gets picked up and other people start to imitate it. And then that becomes kind of what appears to be a grassroots movement.

23:48Huyen Tue Dao: The other group was called Tech and Tariffs, created similar content criticizing both U.S. tariffs and U.S. global tech dominance. Those seem like three categories, if you ask me, but there you go. The posts were meant both for the U.S., but also for targeting Chinese dissidents and political commentators living outside of China. And they found examples of them on X and a few other platforms. But OpenAI does not believe the campaigns had much effect. They say the reason they were shining a light on this is to show that it happens, not so much that it does a whole lot. Meanwhile, a similar story here, the U.S.

24:23Huyen Tue Dao: Department of Justice announcing it has seized 13 domain names registered between November 2023 and October 2025 with names like Centric Global Consulting, Pulse Wave Global, the Gulf Peace Foundation, very official sounding websites. and the Department of Justice alleges that they were used by the People's Republic of China Intelligence Services to lend credence to job postings so that you'd see a job posting, you'd research and like, oh, no, there's their website. They look like a real company. And then they would use that job posting to fish classified information out of government employees that were looking for jobs.

24:58This is one of those things that I think, regardless of how you feel about the actual utility of AI, is that because you're able to do things at such scale, it feels like these kind of attacks can be more subtle i literally just never mind i don't want to spoil the pit but um tv often depicts like um i guess uh you know certain what we think of as cyber attacks in a certain way right and it's a little more like kind of out there and kind of like um apparent um but at the same time it's like i think it's good that open ai did bring awareness to because they are as you said a little more subtle and not necessarily like direct attacks But the idea that it's very subtly kind of influencing things by just like a drop, like, I don't know what the metaphor is, but like a drop in the ocean, it kind of ripples out.

25:39Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that it seems to be able to kind of also, again, like do a little more kind of these certain things that might take a human being a little more time to do. I don't know. It's interesting.

25:49Huyen Tue Dao: I have taken to assuming that when I see an opinion, even if it's from somebody I know that doesn't fit the facts and seems a little outrageous that I'm like, oh, Chinese chatbot. Really? Like I, like I just, it's a, it's an almost involuntary reaction. Uh, when I see certain stuff where I'm like that, that's a little beyond what I know to be true. Yeah. No, I, I guess it's just another, just yet the universe reinforcing to us that we should always kind of be critically thinking about anything we read, regardless of even where we assume something is coming from. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when it fits your own biases and you get a little too excited about it.

26:27Huyen Tue Dao: Right. Yeah. That's what I wonder too. And it's so hard because, again, I feel like our entire, because of COVID and everything else going on, that we tend to, you know, doom scrolling and being able in your own echo chamber and algorithms, it behooves, like it feels good from an endorphin and other chemicals in your brain standpoint, and also from an algorithm standpoint for you to be in your echo chamber. So, yeah, guilty. Well, we are also guilty of bringing you a great product review show. Charge Us. Live With It. The show that reviews products we actually live with now has its own YouTube channel and its own Patreon.

27:04Huyen Tue Dao: If you want to support Live With It directly, get ad free versions of it as it spreads its wings and becomes its own show. Head to Patreon dot com slash live with it and let us know what you want to hear on the show.

27:23This 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.

27:52Huyen Tue Dao: Hey, it's Paige from Giggly Squad. and I want to let you know that if you want the newest and hottest beauty products, you have to go to Sephora. I'm obsessed with the One Size Liquid Blotting Paper Spray. It's the first of its kind blotting spray that mattifies for up to eight hours. It's unreal. There's also the Summer Friday Shade Drops SPF 50, which basically lives in my bag at this point. Oh, and the Kayali Eden Plush Pear smells so good. It's sweet, warm, and addictive. Like, people literally stop me and ask what perfume I'm wearing, which you know I love. So if you want the makeup, skincare, hair, and fragrance products everyone's about to be obsessed with, shop only at Sephora.

28:34Huyen Tue Dao: All right, let's get to some quick headlines that are going to make us look smart. All right, well, former Fitbit executives company The 90 announced The Gem, a smart jewelry necklace that tracks UV exposure and makes recommendations for skincare. It's available now for$300. Is that expensive for a necklace? It's expensive for a UV tracker. I don't know how people's opinions of the aesthetics of this necklace will be, but. It's on the expensive side of a wearable, I suppose, but I don't know. Framework has announced it as delayed shipments of its modular laptop 13 Pro by one month to late July.

29:13Huyen Tue Dao: And they were very transparent about why they are going to fix an issue with the haptic touchpads design. So they're going to have to like rebuild it a little bit. And the custom displays firmware, which is rebuilding the software for this. The good news is if you ordered a product or a module of the Laptop 13 Pro that doesn't include those two modules, you're not delayed. Because it's modular. Well, the Honor Magic V6 has begun shipping and the reviews are largely neutral. It's not much of an upgrade from the V5 released last August, though it is marginally thinner. Marginally better and marginally thinner seems to be just the trend of all phones in the last little bit.

29:55Minus the end memory is expensive.

29:57Huyen Tue Dao: Most of the reviews I read were like, I really love the V5. And so therefore, I really love the V6, but not that much more. But not that much, yeah. Yeah, totally. iFixit published the results of its teardown of the Trump Mobile T1 and finds that the parts are the same as you find inside a 2024 HTC U24 Pro with a few cosmetic changes to make it look slightly different, like with the speaker grill and a slightly higher capacity battery that was made in the Philippines, not in China. Just like the HTC U24 Pro, it got a repairability score of three out of 10. Well, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, aka CISA, announced a new directive for federal security updates that requires agencies to remediate high risk vulnerabilities in three days and less urgent situations in no more than two weeks.

30:51Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. And these things often ripple out because if a company has a contract that requires them to do this for the federal agency they serve, they'll just do it for everybody. So it has a good effect. This one, I think, is going to get misunderstood for political reasons because people want to get people excited. Section 702 of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires on Friday. They did not reach an agreement to extend it. However, it's important to realize the last certification of the program happened in March, and those certifications last for about a year. So the program will continue until March, 2027, even if the law expires, the law would expire would just mean they can't recertify it next March.

31:32Huyen Tue Dao: So that gives them a lot of time to yell at each other and blame each other and say the world is on fire and then pass something before March 2027. And there will be no change in the surveillance it empowers until then. So all that sounded like business as usual. Well, China's state-run Workers Daily wrote an editorial urging government agencies to strengthen labor standards and oversight of AI to protect jobs. Yeah, that's a common theme around the world. Google's philanthropic division has committed to spending$50 million to train more than 300 ,000 trade workers, folks like electricians and welders, across 20 U.S.

32:08Huyen Tue Dao: states. Earlier this week, Meta announced a$115 million skills training program and Anthropic launched a$150 million fellowship. This is all because they are facing worker shortages when they go to build data centers because there aren't enough skilled tradespeople. Well, Amazon published a report showing water usage of its data centers fell 2 % from 2024 to 2025 to 0.12 liters per kilowatt hour. while the number of data centers it owns expanded. These are numbers. These are good to have. It's good to have actual numbers. Three people have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of 10 ,000 Mississippi residents against SpaceX claiming that its gas-fired power plants that power its data centers there produce, quote, omnipresent and inescapable noise that degrades their health and their home values.

33:04Huyen Tue Dao: And they don't like it. I don't blame them. Nope. Anthropic is making restrictions in Fable 5 visible so users can see when and why the model reroutes requests it considers dangerous to the older Opus model. And OpenAI is expanding its partnership with Visa so that you can more easily let your agent make payments on your behalf at more than 175 million participating Visa-taking merchants. So set your approval thresholds, your spending caps, and your merchant restrictions wisely before you let that agent do it, but they will make that easier. Nice. All right, well, we end every episode of DTNS with some shared perspectives.

33:43Today, CCO Mario points out a missed opportunity in our reporting.

33:48Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah, we were just talking about Anthropic and Mythos and Fable 5, which is Mythos-powered, and CCO Mario writes, you missed an opportunity. Today, Anthropic just released Mythos for everybody with guardrails. I guess you can call it a near mythos, like a near mythos. Yeah, it's a near myth. You know, often we get very insightful, hard hitting emails from people and we very much encourage those and love them. Also, occasionally we get funny things like this. I love it. Mari, I'm on like five hours of sleep right now for four or five hours of sleep right now. So I love the near mythos, which and I'm going to be saying that all day.

34:30I might unfortunately be saying it like that forever. But what are you thinking about? Do you have something fun, funny, insightful, or otherwise to show us? We would love to hear it. Feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com.

34:43Huyen Tue Dao: Yes, thank you, Cece O'Mario, for contributing to today's show. Thank you for being a patron of Daily Tech News Show. You're the folks who keep in this business by becoming a patron. If you haven't done it already, check it out. A few people did it this week. We thank them every Monday. You could be one of them. Patreon.com slash D-T-N-F.

35:09The DTNS family of podcasts. Helping each other understand.

35:15Huyen Tue Dao: Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.

35:22This 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.

35:52Huyen Tue Dao: Hey, it's Paige from Giggly Squad and I want to let you know that if you want the newest and hottest beauty products, you have to go to Sephora. I'm obsessed with the One Size Liquid Blotting Paper Spray. It's the first of its kind blotting spray that mattifies for up to eight hours. It's unreal. There's also the Summer Friday Shade Drops SPF 50, which basically lives in my bag at this point. Oh, and the Kayali Eden Plush Pear smells so good. It's sweet, warm, and addictive. Like, people literally stop me and ask what perfume I'm wearing, which you know I love. So if you want the makeup, skincare, hair, and fragrance products, everyone's about to be obsessed with, shop only at Sephora.

From the publisher

Xbox is about to get serious about winning. And YouTube adds messaging in a good way.


Starring Tom Merritt and Huyen Tue Dao


Show notes can be found here.

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