Tech News Weekly (Video)

Swedish furniture giant Ikea just bought TaskRabbit, the San Francisco-based on-demand company that finds you someone to help you do stuff, like for example, assemble your Ikea furniture. According to a press release, TaskRabbit will continue to work as an independent company. TaskRabbit operates in the US and in London, and has been around for nearly a decade. The biggest question I have about this sale is, why buy furniture that needs to be put together if you're going to pay for someone to put it together? Just buy furniture that's already put together.

YouTube is making some changes that affect creators on the Patreon crowd funding platform. Going forward, those creators are being asked to join YouTube's Partners Program in an effort to battle abusive and inappropriate content on the video site. However, many of these creators aren't very happy with the new request because YouTube's policy states that creators can't apply until they reach 10,000 public channel views which might not harm creators who already have a healthy following, but will make it hard for up and comers to gain traction by linking out externally to their own Patreon destinations.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pi says Apple should flip the switch on the iPhone's FM radio, especially if the company cares about people's safety in natural disasters. The Federal Communications Commission says the radios that are already present in iPhones could have helped millions of people access lifesaving radio information in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey, Maria, and Irma. Samsung, LG, Motorola, and HTC all sell smartphones with unlocked radios, but critics of Apple's choice say they don't unlock theirs because they don't want people to have free access to the radio, so that we'll pay for services like Apple Music.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

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Google no longer lets you watch YouTube videos on your Amazon Echo Show. We read Apple's White Paper on privacy and FaceID. Signal says you don't have to sacrifice privacy to be social. ReCode reports that Facebook, Google, and now Twitter have all been asked to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee in November. Plus, everything Amazon announced at their secret press event today.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

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The CEO of Equifax is retiring, effective immediately. Richard Smith is the latest executive of the hacked credit-reporting giant step down nearly a month after the company announced that a hack exposed the personal information of 143 million people.

Dyson working on an Electric Vehicle to launch publicly by 2020. James Dyson, founder of the company, wrote an email to his employees, revealing the plan that is already underway, employing a team of 400 people to get the motor running.

According to a study by Visier Inc., women and men both struggle equally to get jobs in tech when they're over 40. According to the report, the average tech worker is 38 years old, compared to the average non-tech worker who is 43 years old and this is a result of systemic ageism in the tech hiring practices.

Plus, Atari's next console is really expensive for what it is, Twitter doubles its character limit, and we go hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

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Another company in charge of protecting our valuable personal information reports that they've been hacked. Deloitte, dedicated to auditing, risk management and tax related services, says a cyberattack has exposed some customer information including passwords and personal emails from the company's blue chip clients.

Microsoft says its new programming language for quantum computers should be out by the end of the year after working on the technology for more than a decade. MIcrosoft will include support for the new language in Visual Studio before 2018.

It's macOS High Sierra day and you should install it where you can for no other reason than it will now let you stop autoplaying audio in Safari. If you upgrade you'll also have access to the new Apple File System with an advanced architecture that is supposed to make your computer more responsive and more secure.

Plus, macOS High Sierra already has a zero day. Levi's pricey Project Jackquard commuter jacket is hitting the hangers and Sarah Frier from Bloomberg interviewed Mark Zuckerberg about this particularly challenging moment in time for Facebook and politics.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: Sarah Frier

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Uber lost its license to operating in London, with the city's transport regulator issuing a statement saying that the company was unfit to hold a private hire operator licence.

Intel's Project Alloy "merged reality" reference design headset, which was to offer inside-out and completely wireless tracking, is off the table. Intel cited a lack of interest from its partners, but does say it will continue to invest in other aspects of AR and VR technology.

Walmart announced a new home delivery program for dropping off groceries directly into customers' homes. Walmart will work with August Smart Locks to make it easy for delivery people to get into the home and put the groceries away in the fridge.

Plus, HP is near another reduction in its workforce, Megan gets to unbox her new iPhone 8+, and Sam Machkovech from Ars Technica explains why the new horror movie called "Friend Request" is scarier than Facebook

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: Sam Machkovech

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Another beautiful iPhone, another iFixit Teardown. Joining us to talk a little bit about the preparation for the teardown of the iPhone 8s, the new Apple Watch, and the new Apple TV is Kelsea Weber from iFixit (a sponsor of TWiT). We talk about how and why they do tear-downs and how sometimes there will be blood.

Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and more have been filling the news for weeks. It's hard to sit back in our comfortable living rooms reading tweets and wondering what we can do about it. But it's also pretty easy to get fooled by scams when we want to help. Brooke Binkowski, managing editor of Snopes.com, joins us to help.

Tomorrow my iPhone 8 arrives and just in time Geoffrey Fowler, tech columnist from The Wall Street Journal, says I shouldn't have ordered it. He writes that with so many iPhone choices this fall, the iPhone 8 is the best model...to avoid. Why, Geoffrey, Why?

Plus, what is Google buying from HTC and what are they going to do with it?

Host: Megan Morrone

Guests: Kelsea Weber, Geoffrey Fowler, and Brooke Binkowski

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The Apple Watch Series 3 reviews are out and many are reporting significant connectivity issues related to the device's LTE capability. Apple says it is exploring a software fix.

Nest unveiled a family of new security focused devices, including the Nest Secure system that includes a hub for all of its devices to connect to. The package includes an alarm system, Nest Detect for monitoring portals in the home, and the Nest Tag for tracking items throughout the home.

Facebook CTO Sheryl Sanberg says the company is tightening its enforcement processes to make sure ad targeting terms don't violate Facebook's community standards. Sandberg also promised that Facebook would add more human review to their automated processes to track potential abuses of the Facebook ads system.

Also, Amazon is working on a face computer, Equifax is even more inept than it already was, and Ryan Whitwam from Android Police discusses Google's rumored bid to buy out HTC's smartphone division.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: Ryan Whitwam

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Google's entire lineup of new hardware devices leaked by Droid Life all in one day. The for-profit online education program Udacity is now offering new nanodegrees in the study of self-driving cars and flying cars. CNBC released a new report saying that Sprint and T-Mobile might be near an agreement that could be announced in as few as two weeks. Plus, James Martin, Senior Photographer CNET, shows off the camera on the new iPhone 8 Plus.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: James Martin

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CCleaner for Windows, the popular antivirus and security app created by and hosted on Avast Software's site, was found to be tainted with a backdoor and served to millions of its users as an official update directly from the site. The malware was found to have sent detailed information about the infected computer to a server, including a fail-safe system called the Domain Generation Algorithm that would still transmit the stolen data in the event that the hacker's servers went down.

Intel announced that it would be further collaborating with Alphabet's Waymo division to be the brains that power its autonomous driving system. Currently, Waymo has Intel-based computing inside the company's fleet of Chrysler Pacifica minivans, and Intel says it hopes to deliver on improved power and efficiency with the goal of getting Waymo's vehicles to Level 4 and 5 autonomy in all types of real world settings.

Samsung is rolling out an update to Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note 8 owners that adds a toggle to the settings to determine what happens when the Bixby button is pressed. The settings only allow you to turn it off or on, so there is no official way to put that button to some other use if you wanted to.

Plus, Google releases Tez to the Indian market for cashless payments, the NES classic GOLF is hidden deep inside the Switch's firmware, and Alex Kantrowitz from Buzzfeed joins Ron Richards and me to discuss all the ways the online ad marketing industry is infecting itself with racist ad categories.

Hosts: Jason Howell and Ron Richards

Guest: Alex Kantrowitz

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Beijing is cracking down on Bitcoin by ordering a stop to trading as well as notifying cryptocurrency exchange users of the shut down. No new registrations will be allowed according to government notice, and platforms are required to report to the government as to how they will enable users to make risk-free withdrawals.

Wisconsin state legislators approved a $3 billion tax incentive package for Foxconn's plans for a factory in the state. It would employ at least 3000 people.

Equifax's Chief Security Officer Susan Mauldin and Chiefe Information Officer David Webb have officially retired from their positions.

Also, Chrome will kill autoplay audio in the future, GAB is "declaring ware on Google", Lyft is near a $1 billion investment by Google, and South Park sets off everyone's Amazon Echo and Google Home devices.

Hosts: Jason Howell and Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ

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