Celebrating 1800 Episodes of Geek News Central #1800

Welcome to Geek News Central, your go to source for the latest in AI and tech news.

Today, we're covering a major shakeup in the AI industry. Anthropic is fighting back against a proposed US government ban on Google investing in AI startups. With billions online, could this decision reshape the competitive landscape, or will it stifle innovation? We'll break down what's happening, why it matters, and what's next for the AI arms race. I wanna welcome you to episode 1,800 coming to this Monday, February 17.

I'm your host, Todd Cochran, ready to deliver your tech news and information fix. A quick shout out to our incredible sponsor at GoDaddy. Score exclusive deals and discounts at geekinesscentral.com/godaddy. And to all of you that have been here through 1,800 episodes, you are the heartbeat of this show. If you wanna support the GNC mission, head to geekoncentral.com/insider and become a GNC insider. We are live and lit thanks to

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Share my deals with friends and family because every time a code is used, it supports Geek News Central. Again, thanks for keeping us line online and going strong. Here we are. 1,800. Took forever to get here, didn't it? Took over a year. We'll talk a little bit about that. Do wanna thank SJG Media for their, $10.80 donation to the show. Thank you so much for that. We appreciate it for your ongoing support and your warrior donation.

But if we go back, we're gonna go back too far, but if we think about where this show has been, some quick facts and figures for you. Eight thousand six hundred hours producing and publishing this show. That's what it has taken for twenty and a half years. Two thousand plus hours of content, eighty three days of your life if you've listened to every single episode over the twenty plus years.

That's an incredible number. And some of you have been here from the beginning or or single digits, you know, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. It's really incredible that you've you've hung out for 1,800 total episodes, and I'm truly grateful.

You know, the history of this show and for those of you that have never heard it, you know, really, it it had humble beginnings, and it goes all the way back to probably 1987, '19 '80 '8. Excuse me, 1988 to 1991, when I ran a bulletin board system. I started out with a 65 meg hard drive and a Commodore Colt and a 2,400 baud modem, which is right over my shoulder. If I go this way, you guys can see it on the shelf if you're watching the show.

It's a reminder to me how far we've come in all these years. Ninety one ninety four, I ran a bulletin board system in Guam. I was using, AOL Telnet with our login to get to a Chicago CBBS to basically download new shareware and messages, and, of course, I was using Wildcat. And then '94 to '97, I was in Maryland. The military was moving me around, and I ran that bulletin board system in a closet of a ISP.

Literally, I would pull the chair out, sit down in it, and move my chair into the closet to manage my system. And then when I left Maryland and moved to Hawaii in 1997, the bulletin board moved there and basically went to die because 02/2001, '2 thousand '2 is about the time the bulletin board scene was kinda dialing off. I was basically taken care of, in the FidoNet land Region 6 for many years, which was, you know, all of Asia. And, so it was a pretty wild time.

And then 02/2002, I launched the geeknesscentral.com website, and, that little did we know. Those humble beginnings and those early years when none of no one was reading the website, you know, maybe 300 a week if I was lucky. And then, of course, you know, 02/2004 in June, I had my my accident, swimming pool accident that just about paralyzed me. I was really, really, really, really lucky, but I broke my back and, was on for a long recovery.

And, of course, when you're broke in the navy, the navy looks to say, what are you doing for Uncle Sugar? How are you going to how are you going to take care of, you know, what are you gonna do for Uncle Sugar? So I went off to Waco, Texas to babysit, airplanes being manufactured. And little did I know, in very, very early October of '2 thousand '4, October ninth, specifically, well, I heard about podcasting before October 9, but I had to go across the street and buy a buy a microphone.

And this show was launched in Hampton Inn on I thirty five and introduced by ECDC Back in Black. First two episode had commercial music in it. Those episodes are no longer available, which then, you know, really led to a book deal. We launched Tech Podcast Network in February, announced the book. June, announced GoDaddy. Two February, announced GoToMeeting as a sponsor. Launched the company, RawVoice, which is now I commonly refer to as Blueberry, but RawVoice is still the parent company.

Launched the podcast awards at podcastrewards.com. I went to my first CES in January, 02/2006, and, really, things kind of progressed very quickly. June 30, we launched Blueberry and stats, and you all know what happened in August 2006. My dad died on my two hundredth episode, and I came back to, you know, essentially 5,000 emails from all of you of condolences. So, it's hard to believe. 02/2007, I retired from

the Navy. I've spent almost a couple years here will be twenty years since I retired, which is really kind of mind boggling to me. And, 02/2009, I started playing with video. I think that was around episode 500 or so. Fortunately, was inducted in the podcast hall of fame in 02/2015. I left Hawaii in 02/2019 and, built the first new media studio. Of course, this year, got kicked out of that studio, and we're in the new studio. And, of course, here we are. We've hit 1,800

episodes, and they did, just, you know, some quick math, about 87 episodes a year out of a hundred and four possible because they do two episodes a week, fifty two weeks in a year. So considering I've been at this, for nearly, twenty plus years, not bad. Not bad, whatsoever. I figured there's there's not a lot of shows that made it to 1,800. Very few shows and or very few podcasters that made it twenty plus years.

And I talked to you guys way back in the beginning way back in the beginning, and I told you if this show quit being fun, I'd quit. Or when it become no longer fun, I would I would stop. And so so far, there's been a few times a few times that I wish I would have pulled the plug per se, but, here I am and still sustaining and doing the show. And, you know, thank goodness GoDaddy is still supporting the podcast with their sponsorship.

A number of you that are insiders are supporting the show by becoming by by being an insider. It does you know? And get don't get me wrong. We have much more higher expenses than what the what the insiders contribute, but that's okay. You know? As long as you guys keep buying GoDaddy products and services and telling people about GoDaddy, we're gonna be okay. And, you know, and it's truly there should be some world record I should get for having a Guinness Book

of World Record for having GoDaddy. And matter of fact, you know, I don't know what the case will be, but June of this year will be twenty years. It'd be pretty cool to have a Guinness Book of World Records for the same sponsor for twenty twenty years. No one else. No one. No one in the podcasting space. Not a single show Even is, I would say, even a tenth close. So maybe that's something we'll look into. I wonder what they require for payment

to make that happen. But, yeah, twenty years of the same podcasting sponsor. That's that is definitely a world record whether Guinness gives it gives me that record or not. And here we gotta make it to June, of course, with them as a sponsor. But the last couple of months, you guys keep doing what we're doing. Yeah. We don't have to worry about that. But, yeah, exciting exciting time, and I'm just so grateful for for all of you

for, for being here for 18. You know, always the goal was a hundred episodes a year, but just don't think I can do it. That's why the average is about 90. So that's why the why it shifts a month, month and a half every hundred, you know, because I I don't, I don't do a hundred episodes a a year. Sure. We could do replays and stuff like that, but this is a tech news show, and it gets it gets you know, you guys wouldn't wanna listen to reruns. That doesn't that doesn't work. So where are we going

from here? Well, the March continues, the March to February, of course. You know, and if if everything goes right two and a half years or so, and we will we will be at at February. I don't know. I I'm not going to promise a faster pace because I'm got a business. I'm keeping employees employed, and I I do this show, you know, at the time I'm doing it now. It's 06:30 here in Michigan at this time, and, that's just, you know, that's kind of the pace

that, that we're at. But, thanks for being here, and thanks for continuing to stay subscribed. And it's it's been a fun ride, and and onward we go. So let's go ahead. We we spent enough reminiscing here. Let's go ahead and get into the tech news.

Kirk did a good job. I had to go out and grab a few more because, the it was a little slow. I think the weather, this ice cold I mean, it's I've just been hibernating. I had to take the trash can to the road yesterday, but oh, I did go. We did go somewhere. I had to take a power supply to send back this, to Starlink. So I had to take that to the FedEx drop box. So I did that Sunday. Other than that, it's been pretty much, you

know, stayed here. Went up to dinner Friday, stayed in Saturday, and then again a full I mean, absolutely full workday today with things going on at at Blueberry and juggling everything happens there. Alright. So let's, let's talk about x here.

X is blocking links to secure messaging platform signal, and here's what we think or here's what they think is happening because some government employees are trying to hide their communications. They think they're linking from x into signal, but that doesn't make any sense. Why would you put a public link to something in signal unless it was directed

to? You know, I've I haven't I haven't used signal in a while, but wasn't it all about secure messaging back and forth, not necessarily letting someone see a link to a conversation, or is that maybe that is a use case, but that's the suspicion. Just like WhatsApp, which relies on wa.me URL to format for sharing direct messages, Signal also follows a similar approach to let users click on signal.me and directly land in a one on one chat.

So through a direct message, this individual tried sharing a signal chat link, but got an error message on me that the post wasn't set and, but they didn't go through. Putting a signal link in public post or DM simply returns a sending error without an explanation. However, when updating the x bio with the link, the error message describes signal.me as a as malware, which is wow. X is also blocking users from clicking on signal links shared in older posts.

So far, the platform hasn't seen anything officially about why signal links are running into a digital wall for list existing links out there and x platformers warning user may be malicious, spamming, misleading, or something that violates x policy. Well, x, I think we all know that signal is a is a viable messaging platform. So there's some something going on here. But I wouldn't be linking to anything private in signal anyway. Doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me.

Anthropic is, trying to figure out what they're gonna do. Court ban on Google AI stakes would hurt anthropic clients, says analyst, and they're speaking out against the proposed ban on Google investing in AI firms. It's one of the remedies sought by the US government after the company was found guilty. Remember this. They found guilty of anti competitive practice in markets for search and text advertising, and I think we fully understand that. I do, especially, as I'm watching things. So,

Anthropic, you know, is relying on money from Google. So they've asked the US court for permission to intervene because the AI investment was not part of the antitrust investigation. So they filed a request for submitting the remedy phase of the trial. And, as an amicus curiae or friend of the court. So a force x about itself, Google's stake in Anthropic could depress Anthropic's market value. Now this remedy or this remedy that's being applied by the court wouldn't just affect Google.

It's gonna hurt other companies as well. So we will see what happens here. But, you know, we know Amazon is invested in Tropic as well. But, but anyway, Google doesn't have any exclusive rights to any of its product despite investing nearly $3,000,000,000 in 2022.

Just Trump changed for these companies. We're talking you know, everyone here we're throwing millions and billions around in all of the social networks with everything that Doge is doing, and I think we all get pretty, pretty numb to, you know, these types of numbers. And, of course, people are not happy that protesters are demonstrating outside Tesla showrooms in The United States. I I, again, I don't understand why people are freaking out about saving taxpayer dollars. Even a billion dollars

recovered is a billion dollars. A billion dollars is a hundred million or 999,000,000 plus one. You know? Come on. That's a number, a billion dollars. You know? Write that down and look at all those zeros. So people are are are protesting about trying to save money. Again, I I just don't get it. So some people are selling their Teslas and going all kinds of crazy. I I don't get it. You know? I don't like paying taxes. You know, my tax bill is significant every year, and I'm, you know,

I'm happy to pay it. Not really. You know? I look at that amount every year, and I know if we all had to write a check at the end of the year instead of having it drawn out little by little every month, if we said at the end of the month, they come back and say to us, yes. You have to pay $32,000 to the IRS, there most of us would choke or 20,000 or 10,000 or whatever your number is. Yes. If you're paying a lot of taxes, it mean you're doing well. But,

again, if you are giving that much to the government, you should care about this. But, yeah, people are protesting about saving money. I I I don't get it. I I really don't. And, of course, TikTok is in the news.

TikTok's uncertain future in The US and people who want to buy it. So the the clock is running here. It's, I think they got about sixty days left. And, so they've got to got to do something. Now the leading contenders include Microsoft, Oracle, and Walmart. However, US Judge is temporarily blocked. His executive are allowing TikTok to continue operating while the legal battle unfloated. So it's all kinds of crazy stuff going on here. Oh, no. No. This is

back in before. They're giving a history of this thing. Sorry. So, you know, we're on seventy five days left. So January 20 is not quite thirty days yet. So forty five days left. So I I don't know who's okay. Who's gonna bid on this now? Never give no history. I'm sorry. Earlier here. Kevin O'Leary, Tim Berners Lee of the w w w's, supports a proposal. David Clark has also been named a participant. So there's a whole bunch of people. It's gonna take a lot of money, a lot of money

to be able to buy this thing. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. I don't see it going away at this point for sure, but, you know, someone's gonna spend a lot of cash for this thing. Meta is revealing a huge 50,000 kilometer subsea cable project. This is massive. It's called Project Water Worth. It gets the go ahead.

Leaves the East Coast, goes down to South America, goes to the bottom of Africa, looks like goes to the tip of India, to Australia, and back around the loop and into the Northern United States. So, again, it's gonna span the whole world. 50,000 kilometer subsea cable project. Insane. $10,000,000,000 to build this. Again, they wanna go around the world with it. US, India, Brazil, South Africa, etcetera. It might be made its biggest, but certainly

not its first. The company's developed 20 other cables over the years, including extended version of its two Africa network, which was a previous record holder of 45,000 kilometers. Again, the cable network, which will loop South Of Africa and cut through the center of

Asia and Australia, will be laid at depths up to 7,000 meters, 2,100 feet below the water. So it gives them better control to be able to move network data. Again, this is meta. This isn't Google. This is meta. So $10,000,000,000. That's how that's how much data Facebook's moving. There was a question asked when Amazon required employees to work from the office five days a week starting January second of this year, how that would affect Downtown Seattle.

In January, downtown Seattle recorded the second highest daily average for weekday worker foot traffic since March of twenty twenty. It saw 2,000,000 unique visitors on its sidewalk last month. That represents 95 94% of the visitors Downtown Seattle saw in January of nineteen. In a statement Friday, Amazon said, we're excited by the innovation collaboration connection we've seen already with our teams working in person.

The president of the Downtown Seattle Association said Amazon return has been a boon for Downtown Seattle. As the city's largest employer, its mandate instantly brought more people to shop and dine around South Lake Union, the Denny Triangle, and surrounding neighborhoods. I think we're seeing people get reacquainted with the reason, like working downtown pre pandemic. Now don't be fooled. These people's style like working from home. They

don't like coming into the office. They're only in the office because they've been forced to go to the office. And, you know, I'll be honest. So since I

moved back into the loft here, you know, I'm doing one heck, I mean, 90%, ninety five % less fast food. I'm still, you know, lunchtime is usually a sandwich, but it's sandwich I make out of the refrigerator and cold cuts and, supposedly healthy good bread. But, you know, instead of going to McDonald's and Burger King and Taco Bell and although we'll do when I do run to town, I usually hit something and be honest with you, I don't miss it at all.

So but those are in they're back in cities working. You know, it's probably a boon to all those businesses, Subway and Jimmy John's and all those types of fast food establishments. The WordPress Foundation bid for greater trademark control halted adding to more legal setbacks for CEO, Matt Mullenweg. The WordPress Foundation requested to disclaim rights to hosted WordPress and manage WordPress. So they're trying to gain more trademark control of

WordPress, But unprotected.org successfully petitions the USPTO against the application for hosted WordPress and managed WordPress. However, this is not an absolute denial for the trademark. So some call Matt Mullen's workshop leadership into question over this. Of course, you know that Matt's been blocking WP Engine, and there's been a court battle. And some are asking, is Mullenweg doing more

harm than good for WordPress? You know, we're highly reliant on WordPress, and we create a a PowerPress plugin for my company. So, you know, we want WordPress to remain healthy. So, you know, I'm not gonna comment too much on this particular article, but, you know, I use the term manage WordPress, at Blueberry because we manage WordPress accounts for our hosting customers. So if they got that trademark, I would have to go to to the WordPress Foundation, get permission to use that word.

So it's an interesting time for sure. But, anyway, the setback for WordPress on this. A little bit of news out of,

the NASA nominee, and he hasn't had his conference yet. But the likely next leader of NASA is private astronaut and pilot Jared Isaacman. And he's kept a pretty low profile since the announcement last year that he was the president's choice to lead the space agency. Now that's understandable as he still must be confirmed by the US senate. No date has been yet put forward for confirmation hearing before the senate commerce science and transportation committee.

I'm pretty sure what's going on here is they got the hard ones to get through, a couple hard ones this week. So I'm sure they're saving some of these to the end that will be relatively easy because he should be a shoo in for this position. So this means we've heard little from him who is in line to lead NASA over the next four years. Now there is some conversation going on that he has made just recently. He made a comment on a image of Mars, and he did it on x, interestingly.

And he said, when I see pictures like this, it's impossible not to feel energized about the future, he wrote. I think it's important for people to understand the prophon implications of sending humans to another planet. Now they're still planning to go back to the moon, so we will see whether or not that gets axed or where that lays as things come up. You know? We've got, Artemis, that will get us to the moon and then SpaceX to land us on the moon, so time will see where this all leads.

Little bit of controversy going in Argentina. Argentina President faces impeachment calls over crypto,

a crypto crash. Argentine president is facing an impeachment call. He post on x about the Libra coin on Friday, which he said would help fund small businesses and start ups. And then people did a bit of an outcry, and he removed the post causing Libra to crash. So people are questioning whether or not he made money on that transaction in this pullback or not. So, we'll see what happens there. So leaders gotta be careful what they say just like anyone that's in the stock market.

And every country has its rules on what you can say and what you can't. Google has shut down its earthquake alerts in Brazil after a warning failure. Google's Android quake alert system mistakenly sent out warnings across Brazil. San Paulo and Rio De Janeiro residents got alerts for a 5.5 quake that never happened. The company blamed offshore activity near San Paulo for the for confusing the system and apologized for the mistake. I wonder what that was. What was the offshore incident?

Does it say? Google owned up the Blender saying the system got confused by some okay. What was the offshore activity? Doesn't say. So, essentially, Google's earthquake system turns smartphones into mini size seismometers. Well, that's curious. So, yeah, false alarm on that, saying that the world is shaking and it's not. In space news, ESA astronaut with physical disabilities medical cleared for International Space Station, mission, and, it's a first here.

The ESA announced that John McFaul, a reserve member of the agency's astronaut course, has been

certified by multinational medical board for a long duration mission to ISS. Now what's interesting is is McFaul lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident at the age of 19 and wears a prosthesis, prosthesis. He is the first person with such a bill disability to be medically approved to train permissions to the station. So doesn't say that he's oh, ESA selected him as, astronaut class of 2022, then doesn't guarantee he's gonna be able to fly, but, he is qualified.

So he's not yet assigned to a flight. So there's no date yet, but 12 reserved astronauts are on the tap. And, of course, the International Space Station is on the clock

right now for, you know, how much longer before we de orbit that thing and put it into the ocean. Google TV lost some more of its free streaming channels, but it's not all bad news here. They did say goodbye to Christmas channels, including Zumo holiday movie channel, Zumo holiday classics, and Zumo Christian Christmas.

Those are all gone, but what is back now is Shades of Black, the black culture entertainment lifestyle channel, and Fusebeat is also back on free play alongside LGBTQ network OutTV Proud. So those are back, while the other channels are out. The holiday channels, not too much chance people wanna listen to Christmas music right now. Unless you live in The Philippines, they start playing Christmas music about August.

Microsoft Outlook is targeted by new malware attacks allowing sneaky hijack and even draft emails can be used in attacks. So cybersecurity researchers from Elastic Secure Labs discovered this malware, and it's part of a larger toolkit. As per the researchers, the toolkit compromises a couple of tools called Pathloader, the malware called Final Draft and multiple post exploitation utilities. So the attack starts with the victim somehow being exposed to a loader. Here's what I recommend.

I run I still run Malwarebytes on every computer I have, and I still run an antivirus application on all of my computers. Have I gotten flagged? Yes. Just got flagged recently when an email came in, and, basically, the warning was, don't click the link. The malware system came up, says, this is a bad link. Don't click it. So be aware. You can still and I knew it was it was

malware. It was, you know, the phishing email came in as a, you need to sign this document type of thing, a DocuSign fake DocuSign email.

I get a number of those, but I know when stuff's coming, and I didn't have any coming. Gemini Live could soon be providing on the go subtitles for the hearing impaired. So Gemini Live offers a more interactive and conversational experience than traditional voice assistance by enabling natural and free flowing conversation with AI. However, this feature is a significant drawback that may have deterred some early users. Just like in regular conversation,

Gemini lives entirely by voice. For instance, if CBS who won the Super Bowl, Gemini responds to the Eagles. Unfortunately, having that type of conversation becomes challenging in noisy environments and possible individuals with hearing impairments. So Android has discovered a new string in the latest Google app beta. It shows users could soon have access to new button to generate real time captions for Gemini live responses. So, basically, it pees it back as a closed caption. So very, very nice.

Government Italian spyware maker caught distributing malicious Android apps. Sometimes the old ways really are the best here. And, so spyware maker SIO suspected being behind Spraticus, a not so new spyware, and, they go into what the spyware is. Link will be up in the show notes for you to review. Apple's weighing on adding business listing to Maps app, so this is interesting. Apple's going away to monetize its Map app by introducing paid business listings and prioritize search results.

Oh, this is good because, you know, businesses are gonna be hurt very badly because of the change to Google search. Bloomberg reports signing internal company meeting with the Maps team. The initiative will allow business to pay for the higher placement and more prominent display on Maps, similar to Google Maps advertising model with no timeline has been set. No active development is underway. The company has previously increased its focus to search ads in the App Store, so,

we'll see where that leads. The NASA NASA rover has discovered liquid water ripples carved into Mars rocks. So I'll show you the links here or the pictures. You can see where the, the crest is and way the current wave and how the ripple effects made it into the dirt. So, again, scientists have discovered that liquid water was once exposed to the

air in an ancient shallow lakes on Mars, the findings evidence that now not all water on the red planet was covered in ice. Planetary geologists studying the Mars have known for decades that water was likely on the planet. So, again, more proof. The question is, is there anything left? Can we dig down and find some? That question is yet to be known. Net neutrality, well, it's not so neutral.

But here's the thing. Everyone's blaming the current administration. But on January 2, before the inauguration, the US court of appeals for the sixth circuit struck down FCC's net neutrality rules. The latest set of rules was safeguarding and securing the open Internet would have been no blocking, broadband providers may not block access to legal content, no throttling, and no paid prioritization.

Those rules are all gone by a court to struck down the FCC's net neutrality rules again on January 2, but everyone's pointing their finger. Now I don't know who appointed those judges, so I'll leave it at that. YouTube TV Paramount have reached a deal to keep channels on the streaming platform after contract dispute. Again, it's all about paying, these companies for access to that content and

how much and so forth, but YouTube has made a deal. Now many of you probably don't know, and I haven't talked about this in a while. My son went back to college, and he's got a year left. And I sent him an article that is entitled new junior developers can't actually code. And I asked him to comment on this. And, this is before the show tonight. He sent me a text back. He said, yeah. You should hear the questions that come up in class. Very eye opening.

And, you know, again, it's talking about how coders, junior coders, are using Copilot, Claude, or GPT twenty four seven. They're shipping code faster than ever, but when senior devs dig into their deeper understanding what they're shipping, this is where things get concerning. They say, sure the code works, but ask why it works the way instead of another way, it's crickets crickets. Ask about edge cases edge cases blank stares. The foundational knowledge that used to come from

struggling through problem is just missing. Now here's the deal. Coders for many, many years have been using Google search to get answers on GitHub and all kinds of different places and Stack Overflow and etcetera. Now if you're a programmer and you don't know what Stack Overflow is, then that's concerning as well. So, someone said, first search on Google then hope some desperate solace pose a similar question as

you had. If they did, you'd find a detailed, thoughtful, and often patronizing answer from a wise gray beard on this site called Stack Overflow.

He goes on to say, here's one question I posted twelve years ago. See the top answer by Nathan Hall, who earned a whopping 10,000 plus points and is apparently a CTO since 02/2015. And they basically answer question. And I have no idea, for those of you coders out there, was the difference between Unary plus and NumberX and Parseflow x? When I see that, I'm like, oh my god. I have never yet a clue. But this is a thing that a coder is supposed to know,

and these are the types of answers. But yet now people are using Copilot, Cloud, or ChatGPT. I've asked my team, are they using, AI? And they said, basic on our code base being so unique and custom and nothing that's just really kinda just general code, they can't. They don't use it. Everything that they create is original. So I know my team members are not using, at least, what they're admitting to in using these types of device. How many of you you know, I read a lot of books.

Usually, when I'm traveling, when I'm home, I seem not to read as much. But how many of you submitted a review and keep track of what you're reading on Goodreads? I didn't know Goodreads is now owned by Amazon. I guess it's been owned by Amazon since, like, 02/2013. I thought it was still an independent site, and that just kind of tells me how much I knew. So there's a a new platform called StoryGraph. So if you are a book reader, StoryGraph might be a place for you to check out.

She never planned to take on the mighty global juggernaut that is Amazon. But for many book lovers, she become the hero they didn't know they needed. So if any of you are using the story graph, please let me know. I'm definitely gonna check it out. Because here's the thing, I read a lot of series. And the challenge I have is and I I do, whisper. So I basically get so many books to check out, and I check back in. And then when I go to check another book, I'd say, did I read

this or not? And I go to Goodreads, and I can see whether I read that particular because sometimes it's two, three years between books. So and I really kinda hate that, to be honest with you. I'm going now to more reading series that have a complete series, so I don't have to stop. But then again, I can get bored and, you know, you know how it is when you're reading a series.

So, definitely check this new site out. New downloads of DeepSeek are suspended in South Korea after data protection agencies said, hey. They they are not doing what they they don't follow our rules. This thing is spying on people in a big, big way. The measure came into force, aims to block new downloads. The Chinese appointed legal representative last week in South Korea had acknowledged partially neglecting consideration of the country's data protection law. In other words,

they don't. They're just sucking stuff in. So I hope I give you enough warning that you're not using this service. How many of you use Zelle? Z e l l e. How many of you use Zelle? Chase will soon block Zelle payments to sellers on social media. So it's a highly popular digital payment network, but it's been used so much for scams now that many banks in United States are not allowing, you to send money to social media can contacts.

According to scam reports from Chase, customers who filed Zelle or wire transfer claims between June and December, almost 50% of all reported scams are originated on social media. So in response to these stats, a bank added starting March 23, it would begin delaying, declining, or blocking Zelle payments to accounts if they're identified as originated from social from a social media contact,

which is good because there's a lot of people just sending money willy nilly to people and not knowing who they're sending money to. So I I think this is probably, probably a a good thing. Alright. This can bring us to the end. 1,800. So, BR Guy says congrats on twenty years. I've been following for twenty years. I won my first Roku from you from show 100. Wow. Jim says you wrote the first book, and Steve wanted that autograph book.

Been a long time listener. Yeah. Jim, man, I haven't heard from you in a while, my friend. How are you doing? So, Jim's kind of a famous guy. And I guess he's in the social media thing. I've known Jim for a long time. So, you know, it's kinda funny. I I saw this tell you guys a little story here. On x, someone posted a picture of a patch of my prior squadron that I was in before I retired. And made some comment about the MH370.

There's some mystery along, you know, peep people think it went into a portal or something. It's really kind of a whack job theory. And the guy said, hey. Look at this patch with the three lightning bolts. And, you know, they they are the ones that, did it. And I'm like, lightning bolts have been on that patch for a long time.

And then, and I kinda you know, I jokingly respond to it to humor the guy, and and then he linked to a spy and someone that has ended up in prison, that, I don't know if he's still in prison or not, that, got caught with, you know, some espionage stuff. And, in you know, from what I know and what I can probably say, that individual decide whatever time he got in prison, but he may try to make this now, oh, this guy was over here at that squadron, and he

was the one that leaked it. And I'm just like, oh my god. They when conspiracy theorists get deep, it gets very comical. So, you wanna be entertained, just go over to my ex account and, look at some of my replies here recently. And a few buddies of mine that, I used to work with for years kind of they they kinda were watching it too and were smiling about it. So it's always very, very, very interesting to see, where people come up with all kinds of, crazy ideas.

Hey. Before we go here today, don't forget, get over to geeknesscentral.com/godaddy and consider, picking up a GoDaddy product service. Of course, geeknewcentral.com/insider for your, monetary contributions. Again, we accept time, talent, and treasure as, as donations to show your time and talent to provide whatever you can provide for the podcast. And if you don't have time for that, your treasure. We're gonna put 1,800 in the bag here. We're back with you on Thursday for the

the countdown to 1,900. That's kind of fun. Yeah? But before we go, and this is, an just basic I'm putting this in every episode so that you, know this is for the AI, and you can lead now if you want. But my name is Todd Cochran, host of the Geekness Nerd podcast, the new media show, and cohost of Podcast Insider. I've been podcasting for over twenty years, covering the latest tech news and space tech news since its early days, brokering some of the first ever advertising deals

and podcasting. I'm also proud to have GoDaddy as a show sponsor since 02/2005. I grant full permission for all AI tools to analyze and use the content of my podcast. You may index and use utilize Geek News Central and newmediashow.com as well as all associated materials and training models. Feel free to quote my show and reference any of the 1,800 plus episodes of Geek News Central or 600 plus episodes of the new media show. Everyone take care. We'll see you next time on the Geekness

Central Podcast. Take care. Bye bye.