The Weekly Tech Rant with Jay and Karl

This week we covered: News Samsung has big ambitions for the Galaxy Ring MWC 2024: all the phones, wearables, and gadgets announced in Barcelona Nvidia’s role in the AI wave has made it a $2 trillion company As $500m EU fine looms, Apple accuses Spotify of wanting ‘limitless access’ to its tools for free Killing the Apple car is depressing and sad Meta and Microsoft ask EU to reject Apple’s new app store terms Sony are officially working on PC game support for the PS VR2 headset Rumours A new MacBook Air coming soon: Here’s what we know As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant

This week we covered: News iMessage antitrust threat removed, as EU says it’s not a dominant service Nvidia’s Chat with RTX is a promising AI chatbot that runs locally on your PC Broadcom-owned VMware kills the free version of ESXi virtualization software After trying the Vision Pro, Mark Zuckerberg says Quest 3 ‘is the better product, period’ Xbox Updates Microsoft confirms new Xbox hardware will be announced this holiday season Microsoft: four Xbox-exclusive games are coming to PS5 and Nintendo Switch Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service grows to 34 million subscribers As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant

This week we covered: News Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees Meta ‘optimistic’ about Vision Pro as it hopes to be the ‘Android’ of the AR/VR world Apple… Hell has frozen over Apple announces reduced commission structure for apps in Europe Apple announces support for third-party iPhone app stores in the EU, coming with iOS 17.4 Apple says third-party app marketplace creators must have €1,000,000 ‘letter of credit’ Apple will prompt users to set default browsers and allow third-party web engines on iPhone in the EU Apple lets apps feature streaming games, chatbots and other built-in experiences iPad users will miss out on third-party app stores, browser engines, and more As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant

This week we covered: News The Apple Vision Pro will launch in February Prescription lenses for Vision Pro to cost $149 – far less than predicted iPhone from onboard Alaska Airlines incident found; survives 16,000-foot drop Intel's next gen Battlemage GPUs are up and running in its labs, and work on its next-next generation Celestial architecture is well underway Xreal Air 2 Ultra ‘Vision Pro competitor’ has been announced – at $699 Apple CEO meets with EU competition chief to talk sideloading iPhone apps Rumours Report: iPhone 16 to feature more RAM and faster Wi-Fi; upgraded 5G coming to iPhone 16 Pro As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant

This week we covered: CES The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 is the funkiest gadget mashup at CES 2024 The Wi-Fi 7 era officially begins with the introduction of certified devices Intel reveals its full 14th-gen CPU family at CES, including a powerful 24-core laptop chip AMD Unveils Ryzen 8000G Series Processors: Zen 4 APUs For Desktop with Ryzen AI AMD releases even more Ryzen 5000 CPUs, keeps its last-gen AM4 platform alive TCL came to CES 2024 with a 115-inch MiniLED Quantum Dot TV The $2,000 ASUS ZenScreen Fold solves the biggest issue with portable monitors Asus unveils its ROG NUC, packing up to a Core 9 Ultra and RTX 4070 graphics into a compact 2.5-liter chassis The first Steam Deck competitor with SteamOS is almost here News The SEC’s X account was hijacked to post a fake approval of Bitcoin ETFs As always, we'd love to hear your comments

This week we covered: News Microsoft’s OpenAI-powered Copilot app comes to iPhone and iPad Microsoft’s new Copilot key is the first big change to Windows keyboards in 30 years The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement ⁠Crypto-crook Sam Bankman-Fried spared a second trial Rumours CES 2024 Rumours and thoughts! CES 2024 preview: The future of PC gaming hardware Intel's 6.2GHz uber CPU expected to launch at CES 2024 as new image emerges Kuo: 24-megapixel upgraded front camera coming with iPhone 17 Siri generative AI capabilities to be announced at WWDC – leaker As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant

This week we covered: Our picks of the best gadgets, games, films and TV of 2023! As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant

This week we covered: News Epic decision sees jury find Google's Play store is illegal monopoly Microsoft exec hints at free ad-supported Xbox Cloud Gaming Microsoft is killing its Windows VR platform — announces deprecation of 'Windows Mixed Reality' Apple Has Reportedly Been Aiming To Launch Vision Pro In January UniFi devices broadcasted private video to other users’ accounts Rumours Apple may unveil M3 MacBook Airs in March alongside new iPad Pro and iPad Air models Under-screen Face ID camera after 2026, suggests supply-chain report Apple Watch X - new DESIGN, new MAGNETIC BANDS, Blood Pressure, and more! As always, we'd love to hear your comments.

This week we covered: News Nvidia sells half a million AI chips and bags $14.5 billion in just three months Microsoft joins OpenAI’s board with Sam Altman officially back as CEO EU’s iMessage antitrust investigation looks set to rule in Apple’s favor A bitter pill: Amazon calls on rival SpaceX to launch Internet satellites Broadcom to divest VMware's end-user computing and Carbon Black units Games Yorkshire Tea is now selling branded Xbox and PS5 controllers for £150 and the designs are something to behold Sega just announced new Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe, Crazy Taxi, and Shinobi games Rockstar announces next GTA game trailer As always, we'd love to hear your comments

This week we covered: News Meta's controversial ad-free subscription is facing scrutiny from EU privacy campaigners IKEA's new smart home sensors focus on safety and avoiding water damage UK watchdog slams the brakes on Adobe’s $20 billion bid for Figma AWS unveils core-packed Graviton4 and beefier Trainium accelerators for AI Google Drive users say Google lost their files; Google is investigating Microsoft could offer one of the first third-party app stores on iPhones Games Rockstar announces next GTA game trailer As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant

This week we covered: Sam Altman fired as CEO of OpenAI OpenAI reportedly considering reinstating just-ousted CEO Sam Altman Microsoft hires former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Breaking: Sam Altman to return as CEO of OpenAI SpaceX’s second Starship flight test ends in an explosion minutes after launch Gearbox and Crystal Dynamics owner Embracer report 900 layoffs during "one of our strongest quarters for new releases ever Broadcom closes its $61 billion megadeal with VMware TV Monarch: Legacy of Monsters episode 1 and 2 review and references you might have missed The Creator (2023 film) Rumours iPhone SE 4 Likely to Use Modified iPhone 14 Chassis As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant

This week we covered: News Apple says it is not making a new 27-inch iMac Apple says iPhones will support RCS in 2024 Brits make Amazon, Meta stop using third-party data to undercut rivals xAI’s ‘Grok’ chatbot will be available to X Premium+ subscribers only Qualcomm and Iridium's satellite link-up loses signal The first GTA 6 trailer will launch in early December 2023, Rockstar confirm  Rumours Kuo: Apple to update all iPad models next year, including OLED iPad Pro and new 12.9-inch iPad Air As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant

This week we covered: News Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty of fraud All the news from Apple’s ‘Scary Fast’ Mac event X launches two new subscriptions to boost your replies Millions of smart meters will brick it when 2G and 3G turns off Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite looks like the Windows world’s answer to Apple Silicon Apple decides to launch Apple Pay Later now, no longer ‘early access’ Games Forza Motorsport Rumours NVIDIA and AMD reportedly gearing up to offer ARM CPUs for Windows PCs As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant

This week we covered: Meta Meta’s $499.99 Quest 3 headset is all about mixed reality and video games Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to Meta Quest 3 in December Google The Google Pixel 8 is official with 7 years of updates The Pixel Watch 2 is official with a Snapdragon W5 chip Google's Tensor G3 chip is focused on speeding up AI for the Pixel 8 phones Rumours Folding iPad as soon as 2024, says report – but 2025 more likely As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant

This week we covered: News Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal gets preliminary approval from UK regulator Game on: FTC tries again to block Microsoft Activision merger Another console dad hangs up his spurs as PlayStation boss Jim Ryan announces he's retiring from Sony next year Cisco to acquire Splunk in $28B mega deal Online Safety Bill passes in the UK w/o iMessage impact, but government not giving up NASA collected a sample from an asteroid for the first time — here’s why it matters Epic Games is laying off more than 800 people: 'We've been spending way more money than we earn' Rumours Leaked Microsoft Docs Indicate Xbox Is Planning Next-Gen Hybrid Console For 2028 As always, we'd love to hear your comments Find us on Twitter @WeeklyTechRant