Tech News Weekly (Audio)

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of The Verge joins Mikah Sargent on this episode of Tech News Weekly! Apple is rumored to launch a series of AI-powered devices, the upcoming Pebble Time 2's design is shown off, a look into a global SMS phishing scam ring, and the blood oxygen feature is returning to Apple Watches?

• Apple is seeking to expand its product offerings into AI-powered robots, home security, and smart displays, according to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.


• Eric Migicovsky, founder of Pebble smartwatches, unveils the design of the company's Pebble Time 2* watch.


• Harrison Sand, Senior Security Consultant for mnemonic, unveils Darcula. This global SMS phishing-as-a-scam ring sends SMS messages hoping to steal credentials from those who click on the links in the messages.


• And Apple announces that it's bringing back the Blood Oyxgen feature for Apple Watches, which was a clever workaround following a recent U.S. Customs ruling against Masimo.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Guest: Harrison Sand

Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!

Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsors:

• zocdoc.com/tnw


• cachefly.com/twit

Abrar Al-Heeti from CNET joins Mikah Sargent this week on Tech News Weekly! Tesla has been found partially liable for a fatal crash in 2019. Project Ire from Microsoft can autonomously identify malware at scale. Age verification is slowly being rolled out across the internet. And OpenAI announced GPT-5!

• Abrar discusses Tesla's being found partially liable in a fatal 2019 crash and ordered to pay $243 million in damages. Tesla seeks to appeal the ruling.


• Mikah shares a new AI model from Microsoft called Project Ire that can analyze and classify malware in software.


• Age verification is slowly being rolled out to numerous websites that host adult material and harmful content. However, there are concerns with how this is being utilized, which raises privacy concerns for users.


• And Sabrina Ortiz of ZDNET joins the show to chat with Mikah about everything announced at OpenAI's unveiling of its latest AI model, GPT-5.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Abrar Al-Heeti

Guest: Sabrina Ortiz

Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!

Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsors:

• zscaler.com/security


• go.acronis.com/twit


• smarty.com/twit

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy joins Mikah Sargent this week on Tech News Weekly! Jennifer shares her first impressions of Alexa Plus. The growing overlap between consumer wellness gadgets and regulated medical technology. And Google's rolling out a machine-learning age verification model to detect account users who are under or over the age of 18.

• Jennifer Pattison Tuohy has spent some time with Amazon's new, AI-powered Alexa, Alexa Plus. She shares her excitement and criticisms for the new voice assistant.


• Victoria Song of The Verge joins Mikah to talk about wearable tech companies using the idea of "wellness" technology to skirt FDA regulation on medical technology.


• And Mikah talks about Google's rollout of a machine-learning age verification model to verify account users' age in the U.S.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Guest: Victoria Song

Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!

Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsors:

• spaceship.com/twit


• uscloud.com


• threatlocker.com for Tech News Weekly

Dan Moren joins Mikah Sargent for this episode of Tech News Weekly! A zero-day bug was discovered in Microsoft's SharePoint. T-Mobile's new satellite texting service, T-Satellite. Apple announces AppleCare One. And Meta's Reality Labs published new papers on the latest advancements in its wrist-based controllers.

• Mikah shares details about the zero-day bug discovered in Microsoft's SharePoint on Monday, which affected over 400 organizations worldwide.


• Jeff Carlson of CNET spent some time using T-Mobile's new satellite-based service, T-Satellite, and shares his thoughts on the company's Starlink-based service.


• Dan Moren talks about Apple's latest iteration of its device coverage program, AppleCare One, a $19.99/month subscription that covers up to three devices of your choice.


• Breaking news as Apple's iOS 26 Public Beta arrives Thursday morning!


• And Mikah talks about the latest on Meta's wrist-based controllers that use surface electromyography (sEMG) to allow you to interact with paired devices.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren

Guest: Jeff Carlson

Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!

Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsor:

• zocdoc.com/tnw

Emily Forlini of PCMag joins Mikah Sargent this week! A look into Synchron's headquarters, Beeper relaunches its messaging services after being acquired by Automattic, OpenAI releases its new agentic AI service, and an AI service company is hosting over 5,000 nonconsensual AI models of real people.

• Emily shares her time checking out Synchron, a company developing brain-computer interface implants that is considered a significant competitor to Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk.


• Mikah talks about Beeper's relaunch of its messaging app, which runs on devices and offers premium services such as access to more accounts and power-user-type features.


• OpenAI launched its new agentic AI service, ChatGPT Agent, on Thursday morning. This service can complete work for you on your computer and perform a variety of tasks for you.


• And Emanuel Maiberg of 404 Media shares his reporting into Hugging Face and how it is hosting over 5,000 AI models of real people, without consent, following another company, Civitai, which previously banned these models.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Emily Forlini

Guest: Emanuel Maiberg

Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!

Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsors:

• smarty.com/twit


• threatlocker.com for Tech News Weekly