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Daily Tech Headlines
Amazon Attempts Mobile Comeback with Secret "Transformer" Smartphone - DTH
00:05:06
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- [00:01]
Host
Want to get this show ad free? Head to dailytechnewshow.com subscribe to find out how.
- [00:12]
Capital One Sponsor
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- [00:42]
Host
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- [01:04]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [01:26]
Mint Mobile Sponsor
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- [01:39]
Rob Dunwood
These are the daily tech headlines for Friday, March 20, 2026. I'm Rob Dunwood. Amazon is developing a secret smartphone codenamed Transformer as a second attempt to enter the mobile market after the 2014 fire phone failure. The project aims to fulfill Jeff Bezos vision of a voice driven assistant by creating a personalized mobile device that integrates deeply with Alexa and Amazon services. The company is focusing on using AI, potentially bypass traditional app stores, and is exploring both a traditional smartphone and a limited dumb phone concept. Though the project's success is uncertain due to the challenge of competing with Apple and Samsung's established ecosystems. The White House proposes a minimally burdensome federal AI regulation framework to preempt most state laws. Aiming to protect innovation, the plan focuses on innovation, political bias and child safety, including banning AI generated child sexual abuse material requiring age, gating and AI skills training. While seeking federal preemption, it asked Congress to maintain state child protection laws. The proposal's future is uncertain due to Republican concerns about overreach, though linking it with the COSA online safety bill could secure Democratic support. OpenAI is reportedly developing a unified super app for desktop, combining ChatGPT, its browser and codecs to improve user experience and consolidate resources. This move, championed by Chief of Applications fijisimu and President Greg Brockman, aims to address application fragmentation and quality issues by focusing aggressively on hype productivity use cases and developing agentic AI capabilities for complex tasks like software development and data analysis with minimal human supervision. Social network bluesky announced a significant $100 million Series B funding round led by Bain Capital Crypto to scale its team and further develop the BlueSky app and its underlying ad protocol. This funding follows rapid growth to over 43 million users and comes after CEO Jay Graber transitioned to Chief Innovation Officer to seek a new chief executive. The investment from a crypt crypto oriented firm is notable as bluesky does not use cryptocurrencies or blockchain, but its decentralized design, inspired by Graeber's previous work, appeals to the crypto space. Aligning with the vision of an open and distributed atmosphere for social media. Google is proposing concessions to address UK competition concerns, including an eventual opt out for sites from generative AI features like AI Overviews and search. This move aims to appease publishers like the Publishers association who report lower click through rates due to AI. Key details of the timeline for this opt out are missed, missing and concerns remain that opting out might harm a site's standard search ranking. Epic Games and Disney are deepening their partnership by allowing Fortnite creators to build and publish custom Star wars themed games and experiences starting May 1st using a variety of Star wars assets. This long requested feature, facilitated through the Unreal editor for Fortnite, requires creators to give Disney 20% of their payout. This launch is part of the ongoing development for a persistent universe tied to Fortnite, following Disney's $1.5 billion investment and coincides with for Fortnite's new showdown battle Royale season, a global Android return and price increases for V Bucks. Rivian and Uber have partnered in a deal potentially worth up to $1.25 billion to develop and deploy autonomous robo taxis based on the Rivian R2 SUV. The initial $300 million investment covers 10,000 robo taxis planned for a 2028 rollout in San Francisco and Miami. This aligns with Rivian's focus on automated driving, but development challenges remain as the R2, its Georgia factory and the UN tested AI first Rivian autonomy platform are still under construction. Rivian plans a late 2026 hardware upgrade for a fully autonomous personal L4 system. The deployment timeline is later than some of Uber's other autonomous vehicle initiatives. Jeff Bezos is reportedly aiming to raise $100 billion for a new fund dedicated to acquiring major industrial companies, specifically in aerospace, chipmaking and defense, to implement AI driven modernization and automation. This effort is linked to his AI startup project Promethe, co founded with Vic Bajaj, which has already secured $6.2 billion in funding and seeks to develop high level AI models for manufacturing and engineering. The new fund will use acquisitions as customers for Prometheus AI technology. And finally, ByteDance is selling its gaming unit Moontown, known for mobile legends, Bang Bang, the Savvy Games Group, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's, for $6 billion. The sale reflects ByteDance's shift away from gaming to focus on AI development following previous downsizing of its gam. Conversely, savvy games continues its aggressive expansion in the gaming industry, evidenced by its prior acquisition of Nianantic and PIF's stakes in major companies, highlighting the ongoing consolidation in the sector. For more analysis of the tech news of the day, subscribe to dailytechnews show.com you can find show notes and links to all the headlines there as well. Thanks for listening and we'll talk to you next.
- [06:45]
Capital One Sponsor
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.
- [07:15]
Host
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