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You know that one friend who somehow knows everything about money? Yeah. Now imagine they live in your phone. Say hey to Experian, your big financial friend. It's the app that helps you check your FICO score, find ways to save, and basically feel like a financial genius. And guess what? It's totally free. So go on, download the Experian app. Trust me, having a BFF like this is a total game changer.
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Tech News oh, almost hit that close one. That would have been bad Intel CEO Lipp Bu Tan had some harsh truths to deliver to employees during a company wide address this week, as reported by the Oregonian. Tan stated, we are not in the top 10 semiconductor companies. Intel. We're talking Intel. This is like a Michael Jordan switches to baseball moment. Tan also indicated it's not even worth trying to compete with Nvidia in the market for advanced GPUs used for AI training, saying on training I think it is too late for us. I've never wanted to play a JoJo song so badly on this show. No nots Siwa the good one. Now some like Gizmodo are pointing to Intel's weakness as a reason that Apple, not feeling any kind of pressure, is deciding to launch its next MacBook Pro with an M5 chip next year instead of this fall. At least they are, according to the star of hit young adult TV drama Germing Up Germ. Mark Gurben of Bloomberg, it was either that or boys and Germs. I should save that. But the last MacBook Pro came out in October 2024, so early 2026 wouldn't even be the longest gap Apple has had between pros, so the reason for the supposed delay is unclear. But you know what is clear? Intel X CEO Pat Gelsinger could have turned this whole thing around, if not economically, then spiritually. He had vibes for days and now his new company, Glue, has just launched the Flourishing AI benchmark, which measures AI's capacity to help humans develop in these seven areas that contribute to human flourishing, which are of course good character, relationships, happiness, meaning spiritual growth, physical health, and finances. Very cool. Except which one does knowing how many Rs are in Strawberry belong to Someone will have to run that benchmark on grok because Elon Musk's X AI did in fact release their updated Grok 4 chatbot on Wednesday night. The livestream was an hour late, but the team had some not so small bugs to deal with. Check out our previous episode for the DL on that. Elon claimed that Grok 4 is so intelligent that he expects it to literally discover new technologies that are actually useful no later than next year and maybe end of this year. And it might discover new physics next year and within two years almost certainly. So just let that sink in. Oh, it has sunk. Coming from the guy that promised full self driving next year for like a decade, this is almost like a promise that neither of those things will happen now. To be fair, by all accounts, Grok4's performance is top of the line on a number of AI benchmarks, including Humanity's Last exam and ARC AGI. And it does something else no other chatbot does too. It checks Elon's stance before giving its opinion on controversial topics, a behavior first spotted by micahairfan but quickly replicated by others, which seems less maximally truth seeking and more maximally dad glazing. Now Grok4 does this specifically when asked about its own stance on a controversial topic. It seems to ignore Elon's opinion when asked about issues using a more powerful passive voice. So what is going here? Although Grok3 previously said it was built by XAI to incorporate Elon's voice and public perspectives, it doesn't seem like Elon or XAI specifically coded this behavior in as it's not in the system prompt. What is there is an instruction to search for sources that represent all parties stakeholders. Which yeah, Elon's a pretty big one of those. And as it notes during its thinking process, if the user is asking for an opinionated response, not a neutral one, I mean, who better to get opinions from than your meat daddy? Wow. Why did I do this? Krafton, the publisher of highly anticipated survival game Subnautica 2, is embroiled in a messy fight with the two co founders and the CEO of the game's developer, Unknown Worlds. The three execs were fired earlier this month, but have now announced they're suing Krafton. So it's Mutiny then? If that's what you call throwing the captain overboard. And then he climbs back on the ship and sues. You see this week, Bloomberg reported that Krafton was supposed to pay the unknown world's devs a bonus totaling $250 million if they hit pre specified revenue targets by the end of 2025, which they might have hit if they were allowed to launch the game in early access later this year as planned. But two days ago, Krafton delayed the launch to 2026, citing feedback from early tests, leading many to suspect they were just trying to avoid paying the devs. But according to a popup now appearing on the krafton homepage. This is not the case and the state of the game really was that bad. And also the ousted studio leads were behaving badly. Obviously the community is siding with the devs here, showering the latest Subnautica 2 gameplay trailer with comments about the game predicting that an evil corporation would steal money and resources from an unknown world. Oh, cause that's the plot of the game. I haven't had time to play it. I've been making this show also I can show you Our sponsor the MSI MPG A1000GS PCIe 5 power supply. It supports Nvidia GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards even better than you'd expect thanks to two native 12 volt 2 by 6 connectors and a dual color 12 volt 2 by 6 cable for some extra pizazz. The A1000GS is 80 plus gold certified and optimized for quiet operation with a zero fan mode at low power, but it's still durable as heck with embossed jacket cables to withstand more bending and routing, 100% server grade 105 degrees Celsius capacitors and industrial level protection mechanisms including OCP, OTP, OPP, OPP, SEP, OVP, UVP, SIP and NLO. So find out what those stand for at the link in the description. Quick Bits they're like the other bits, but shorter. Belkin announced they're shutting down all smart home devices under the WeMo brand on January 31, 2026, saying that some customers with WeMo devices that are under warranty may be eligible for a partial refund. It's the latest example of smart home companies bricking their own devices. I mean, what are they supposed to continually put resources into maintaining support for gadgets that most people purchased with the expectation that the company would do that? Yes, Google is currently rolling out its second software update this year that will nerf the battery of a Pixel phone to the point of it being unusable, like the Pixel 4a. Google says that the batteries in some Pixel 6As have defects that could make them explode or something, whatever. But Google has a support page you can use to check if yours is an impacted device and register to get a battery replacement. Or if that's not available in your country, cash or a gift card, which won't stop your phone from exploding. So just be aware. At least they're being upfront about what's happening. This time with the Pixel 4a, the whole vibe was a lot more like listen, your phone don't work no more why don't you be a good little schmuck and hand it over to Vinnie here and then shut your fish mouth. The FBI has taken down NSW2U, which is surprisingly not a website promoting tourism in the Australian state of New South Wales, but rather one of the most popular websites used to distribute pirated Switch games. Great to see that America's esteemed law enforcement agencies have their priorities all in order. This is probably the best thing they could focus their efforts on. And security researchers Ian Carroll and Sam Curry were able to access a database with with the personal information of 64 million McDonald's job applicants by logging into the web portal for the company's McHire chatbot using the username and password 123456. After disclosing the issue to McDonald's, the company behind the chatbot paradox, AI promptly investigated the issue and resolved it within a few hours of being notified. Is this a joke? How many vibe coders does it take to change a password? It's a good thing they fixed it, because having the applicant's personal information leak would have been the cherry on top after the infuriatingly dense chatbot gave them all a free McAneurism. That is my name. Hey, you know what would put a cherry on top of this whole episode? You promising me that you'll come back on Monday for more tech news. It would just. It would just really make my day. So say it, okay? Say you'll come back. Say it.