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Sora launches to mixed reviews with what some are calling AI TikTok. Confused about what happens to your old smart speakers with Google's Gemini rollout, you're not alone. China's not just matching the US on Generative AI, it's pushing forward on superintelligence. And finally, Starlink satellites are falling out of orbit daily. Welcome to trending. I'm your host Jim Love. Let's get into it. OpenAI's new app Sora 2 promises to do for video what chat GPT did for text. Type a prompt and within minutes you've got a moving speaking scene complete with sound, music and voice. Think TikTok, powered by generative AI, a non stop feed of AI made clips you can watch, remix or even step into yourself. Technically, it's a big leap. Sora blends text, images and even the user's face into a short realistic video with smooth motion, consistent lighting and characters that stay on model. This approach really distinguishes OpenAI from the others, like Google's Lumiere and Meta's Veo. The difference? These tools make video. Sora appears to be building a social media platform as well. Now, some of the results are just stunning. One clip circulating online shows former U.S. president John F. Kennedy appearing on a game show. It's really eerie and close to home. Our own Marcel Gagne from Project Synapse shared a Sora generated video of himself flying a jet out of his garage. Despite the technical achievement and some of the interest in this, the early reactions have been critical. The Guardian found violent and racist clips slipping through Vox called it an unholy abomination, a feed full of repetitive AI slop. And even Sam Altman warned it's easy to imagine the degenerate case of AI video generation that ends up with us all being sucked into an RL optimized slop feed. Or was that Sam Altman? Right now, Sora is invite only. Access is limited to select users in the US and Canada who get codes to share. And this may reflect OpenAI's efforts to install tighter guardrails or simply the colossal demand even among a restricted audience because it has slowed down immensely over the past day or so and expect a copyright storm on this. A viral Sora clip showed an AI version of Altman surrounded by Pokemon saying I hope Nintendo doesn't sue us. That line appears to be AI generated, not something Altman actually said, but we're not sure. But it may have forced OpenAI to retreat from its original use anything unless you opt out policy for copyright content. So sora may be the future of short form entertainment, or it could be the start of an AI powered content flood. Either way, it's going to redefine who gets to make video and what counts as original. If you're wondering whether your existing Google speakers and displays will work after the October 5th update, you're not alone. Even after last week's news, Google hasn't exactly been crystal clear about who gets what. We do know Gemini for Home is replacing Google Assistant on smart speakers and displays, and the rollout starts this month. It kicked off October 1st with cameras and doorbells. Speakers and smart displays are supposedly following later in October. So will older gear be bricked? Unlikely. Google's line is that Gemini upgrades will reach devices from roughly the last decade, the old Google home speaker era included. Though the fancier features may be limited by hardware. You might think about it as your device still working, but it might be feeling a little second class compared with the newest models. What's going to change? Well, voice control is going to get more conversational. That's Gemini becoming the default home voice, a much more intelligent speaker. Secondly, the Google Home app is going to pick up smarter controls and an Ask Home Assistant for automations and camera queries. Third, Google is introducing Google Home Premium. It's a subscription that unlocks things like Gemini Live, which is supposedly a hot word, free chat, AI notifications, home brief summaries and a searchable video history. Features that may not all land on older hardware. The bottom line over the next few weeks, most existing speakers, displays, cameras and even doorbells should keep working. But the best Gemini features are likely to show up first and run best on newer devices, with some gated behind the new subscriptions. If your model is ancient, expect, I don't know, maybe basic voice and control, but not the full AI experience. Again, Google's been clear as butt on this. We're just guessing from what we can pick up. We often talk about how China is catching up fast in generative AI and sometimes even passing the US in real world applications like logistics, E commerce and even surveillance. Quite the contrary, a recent NBC news report says Chinese AI leaders and policymakers are now openly talking about superintelligence, and US officials are paying close attention. The language is careful, but it signals that China wants to be seen not just as a follower but but as a leader in the next phase of AI. And at the same time, China's AI companies are producing some of the most used open weight models in the world. Alibaba's Qin family has been downloaded more than 40 million times, making it the country's most deployed open model. The new Quinn 3 Max boasts over a trillion parameters and is built for reasoning and autonomous agents. So while the focus of Chinese AI remains deeply practical, from factory automation to city planning, its research labs are still talking about machines that could one day outthink humans. That ambition has strategic value. It helps attract and hold talent, funding, and international prestige. For now, China's AI strategy seems to balance the real and the aspirational. Put AI to work in the short term while keeping its eyes on the long term goal. That still sounds like science fiction superintelligence. And finally, when you wish upon that Falling star, It might be a SpaceX Starlink satellite SpaceX's Starlink network has given the world fast Internet in places where fiber will never reach. But it turns out that building a megaconstellation in orbit has its own gravity problem. In the past few weeks, dozens of Starlink satellites have been re entering Earth's atmosphere, creating bright trails visible from the ground. Gizmodo reports that a solar storm and orbital decay have combined after malfunctioning. This isn't catastrophic. Starlink was designed so that dead satellites burn up completely on re entry, leaving little or no debris. But the rate of recent reentries has raised questions about how sustainable thousands of short lived satellites can be. Even a small failure rate could add up to a steady rain of hardware. The company says it's improving durability and collision avoidance, but managing thousands of objects in low Earth orbit is becoming one of the hardest operational challenges in space. NASA's Orbital Debris Office already tracks more than 25,000 pieces of debris larger than a softball, and the number is climbing. Still, most of us won't see the risk. We'll just see the glow. And when you wish upon that shooting star these days, chances are it may be a Starlink satellite burning up on its way home. And that's our show. Just one quick note before we finish. One of our listeners was responding to our story that Microsoft extended free security updates to Windows 10 that were said to go to European customers only and said this might extend to Canadians or even others, he reported. I got the same offer from Microsoft a couple of weeks ago and I opted in. I live in Saskatchewan and it remains to be seen whether they're truly giving me that extension or if the security updates will stop two weeks from now. We joke about people from the US not knowing a lot about international geography, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't think Saskatchewan was a European country. Although if you say it with a French accent. Anyway, let us know if any of you have had similar communications. You can reach me, of course, at technewsday ca or dot com. Just go to the Contact Us page. Let us know. And if you're watching this on YouTube, just leave a comment below the video. We had a wickedly great weekend. I hope you did as well. But today, have a marvelous Monday.