Author: The Tech Guy
Between A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, an Eragon series at Disney+, a Fourth Wing adaptation at Prime Video, and more, we’re on the cusp of an expensive new generation of fantasy shows. And when they all start airing, studios will have to deal with something that didn’t used to be a factor: the authors who wrote the books that these shows are based on are far more willing than they used to be to call the series out when they start deviating from the source material. This newfound boldness has already created problems for several big-name fantasy series, but…
I’m a reluctant Spotify user. The company doesn’t pay musicians as well as it ought to, which is one reason some of my favorite artists have gone AWOL. It also doesn’t do enough to prevent AI slop from infiltrating playlists, and being someone with a number of Apple devices in my household, I’d benefit from Apple Music’s platform integration. The truth is, though, that Spotify still does some vital things right, or at least better than the other streaming services out there. I sometimes consider making the leap to YouTube Music, given that my wife uses it, and I’m already…
The Trump administration is vowing to crack down on foreign tech companies’ exploitation of U.S. artificial intelligence models, singling out China at a time that country is narrowing the gap with the U.S. in the AI race. In a Thursday memo, Michael Kratsios, the president’s chief science and technology adviser, accused foreign entities “principally based in China” of engaging in deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns to “distill,” or extract capabilities from, leading AI systems made in the U.S. and “exploiting American expertise and innovation.” The administration, Kratsios wrote, will work with American AI companies to identify such activities, build defenses and find…
Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech A massive drought coupled with political mismanagement might fully deplete water in a major city: neither in West Asia nor the Horn of Africa, but in the United States of America. According to Inside Climate News, the city of Corpus Christi, Texas could soon completely out of water in the next year. It’s the eighth largest city in Texas, and a major industrial node in the Gulf Coast. Its water infrastructure provides access to over 500,000 Texans, as well as the major chemical…
When the sun is shining, there are few things better than having friends and family over for an outdoor gathering. The mere thought of good food sizzling on the barbecue and ice-cold drinks clinking together is enough to make most of us shut down our laptops and head for the nearest exit, but the one thing that truly makes the experience is a great playlist. With that in mind, these are the best outdoor speakers to have for your next shindig. As you can probably imagine, there’s a bit more to consider when it comes to buying an outdoor speaker.…
IKEA is turning 40, and has marked the occasion by releasing a range of limited-edition merch, embarking on 40 weeks of deals, and adding a ‘time machine’ to its website.While I enjoyed discovering what happened when IKEA made its US debut (metric measurements caused chaos, and a load of customers ended up with the wrong-sized kitchen cabinets), and learning the history of the brand’s famous meatballs (the earliest version was the result of a delicious “10 months of testing and tasting”), the 40th birthday feature I most enjoyed diving into was IKEA’s collection of iconic products.From Billy bookcases to Kallax…
At least one US federal agency was infected with a backdoor as part of a widespread China-linked espionage campaign targeting Cisco firewalls. In May 2024, Cisco patched two vulnerabilities in its Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) firewall platform that had been exploited as zero-days in a state-sponsored campaign tracked as ArcaneDoor. A year later, the company fixed two more zero-days linked to the same campaign, tracked as CVE-2025-20333 and CVE-2025-20362, and impacting the VPN web server of ASA and Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) software. In September 2025, the US cybersecurity agency CISA issued Emergency Directive 25-03 (ED 25-03), urging federal…
The Dylan Patel, head of Semianalysis, interview is a must watch for anyone tracking AI economics, infrastructure, and future societal shifts. SemiAnalysis’s own AI spend exploded from tens of thousands last year to $7 million annualized run-rate right now. Even non-technical staff are now heavy Claude/Code users. Semianalysis metrics and work are cited by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at his keynote address. One person spent a couple thousand dollars to build a GPU-accelerated chip reverse-engineering dashboard that previously required an entire Intel team. Economist Malcolm single-handedly built a full US energy-grid mapping + regression analysis + 2,000-task AI-impact benchmark in…
My original Switch should feel retired by now. It has the thick bezels, the aging screen, the tired battery life, and the unmistakable aura of a gadget that has survived too many backpacks. Next to Switch 2 and the current wave of handheld PCs, Nintendo’s first hybrid console looks hopelessly outgunned. And yet, I keep picking it up. My standards are not heroic here. I want to wake it and start playing before the part of my brain that checks battery percentages gets involved. I use the old console in 2026 because it’s almost annoyingly direct. That shouldn’t feel radical.…
I received a Google Nest Hub as part of a promotion with a Google One subscription, and for years, it was the organizational center of my smart home setup. It handled timers and alarms, answered quick questions, streamed news, music, and podcasts, and reminded me of calendar appointments and events when I woke. What it lacked, however, was flexibility — it did what it was designed to do, but that was about it. This limitation became more obvious as my requirements evolved. As I started to travel more for work and leisure, I needed better customization, more app support, and,…