USPS Reverses China Parcel Ban Amid Tariff Confusion #1797

The US Postal Service has reversed its brief suspension of shipments from China and Hong Kong. After initially halting them in response to a new tariff policy under the press under president Trump, Decision followed changes eliminating the the minimums exception, which previously allowed low value packages to enter The US duty free.

Retailers like Sheen and Tumu, which have benefited from the exemption, now face increased tariffs and duties as both The US and China and Pu's retaliatory tariffs, trade disruptions remain a concern. Welcome. To episode 1,797 coming to you this Thursday, February 6. I'm your host, Todd Cochran, ready to deliver your tech news and information fix. A quick shout out to our incredible sponsor, GoDaddy. Score exclusive deals and discounts at geeknewcentral.com/GoDaddy.

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and going strong. Hey, everyone. How are you doing? Welcome to the show. I had a, just

I I will call this week probably the most intense planning and orchestrating week I've had in a long, long time. Keeping everyone busy, keeping everyone focused, keeping their nose to the grindstone. It's it's been a it's just been a week. It has. I'm, I'm quite ready, to be honest with you. I'm quite ready for the weekend, in in a in a big, big way. I delayed going to the VA on Tuesday, so so I'm going tomorrow morning. I gotta

get some blood taken. They're gonna check my, my sugar level and, cholesterol and all that stuff that's going on. So we'll see we'll see where I am at, and, I'm sure, you know, it's gonna be lecture time, but that's kinda the way it is at time. Hey, those on YouTube, thanks for saying hello, and it says, Garth Roselle, welcome to the Club America. Funny how nowhere mentioned AliExpress. It's a marketing that still has ability to take VAT during checkout. UK used to have a $15 exemption.

And then hi, hi, Brian here from Tampa. Yeah. We'll talk just a second about USPS and what's going on there. But for those of you that are bourbon lovers, do you see what's right there? I don't know if I talked about it on the last show.

I've had two or three bottles of bourbon on my wish list for a more than a year. Eagle Rare, which that is, is from the Buffalo Trace family, has been on my list for a while, and, and I I scored. I scored one last weekend. You know, I'm a big I like the Buffalo Trace. Again, this is this is not an ad. And I and and, again, drink alcohol, be be safe on how much you consume, but I am a big Buffalo Trace fan. And, you know, it's got all the big names, Stagg, E. H. Taylor. It's got Pappy Van Winkle.

It's got Eagle Rare. It's got, you know, just all these different, mixtures. Weller, of course, another bottle that's on my list. But, finally, I scored me an Eagle Rare, and, oh my goodness. It is it even delicious. Now I paid about $20 above retail, which I was happy to do. And, the bourbon thing, you know, there's certain bourbons I don't really care for too much. They end up going into mixers, but the Buffalo Trace family, I don't know what it is. I really do like that,

that particular bourbon. Any other Buffalo Trace fans out there? And, you know, if anyone's got a Weller, it's got, you know, any of these Thomas r Handys, any of these type of really super rare bourbons that, you know, are on allocations. Hey. I'll gladly pay shipping if you find one. If you are someplace and find a stag, and it's not insane, of course, you you have to know if it's insane or not. If you if you get a bourbon lover, you know what's insane from a price.

Yeah. Always feel free to text me. I'll Cash App you. Yes. I know you can buy online on secondary, but I'm not paying secondary prices. Okay? Don't need it that bad. But, yeah, I am going to partake on this tomorrow, considering the week that I've had. It's been

it's been insane. One thing I will also mention, and and and I don't know if any of you else have been following, but, my evenings when I just get in, I get a little time to kick back and just been crushed with all the madness going out of DC. And, I'm had to, like, this week, take a little little bit of break and go find some other stuff to watch.

One thing I also seen and it's even evident tonight, there's a whole bunch, I mean, of super, super, super, super biased tech news that's out there of everything that's going on in DC, and everyone has lost their damn mind about Elon Musk

and Doge. I mean, it's just, just crazy. Hey, Leland. How are you? Thanks for checking in on Facebook. You can send a few pictures over. Oh, you you've got a little bit of a bourbon collection, do you? But, anyway, it's just that the tech news is super biased, and I don't care what side of the politics you're on. Anytime we can get rid of frivolous spending, even if it's a dollar, I'm all good

for it. You know? We can still do what we need to do with the world, but let's, you know, let's get rid of the frivolous stuff. And I've talked long and hard about over the years on this show on how government contracts work and the waste and the insanity that goes into that. So there is room for efficiencies just to save you can save money just on efficiencies. So, we'll see if any of that actually gets

done. I I'm be honest with you. I continue to be skeptical that they'll make any negligible impact, but it's it's definitely interesting to watch for sure. Alright. Let's go ahead and get into, the stack of stuff today. We'll start right off with this,

situation that happened with USPS and how they, have reversed course. It sent shock waves through the and a matter of fact, this is written by our own, Jen Thorpe for she put this together on the website. You know, the US Postal Service on Wednesday halted, an order that was gonna suspend incoming shipments from China and Hong Kong to threaten severely disrupt trade, between two major economies. Now how many of you have ordered anything?

Maybe you've had a a wife or girlfriend order stuff from Sheen. The that company is real super popular with the ladies. Tmoo is another popular, site, Alibaba, any of these places where you can get stuff from China. And you've always wondered, how's this stuff come in so cheap? Right? It just comes in, they can ship it in and, I've ordered stuff from Alibaba in the past, you know, to have and say that I haven't, but what's happening now is they've suspended the minimum.

So, basically, stuff that was under $800 didn't have to pay duty. And now that stuff is above anything, and I don't know if there's a $10, 15 dollar, or any limit, but they ended the policy that allowed small packages worth 800 less to be sent to America without paying taxes and fees. And that is not the case now. So these online giants use the exemption really to benefit their own companies. And, you know, there's similar rules in The UK and European Union as well to reach millions of customers

with this exception. Now the explosion of parcels being shipped under the loophole has prompted increased scrutiny in recent years. This I mean, we've talked about this in the past. So this trade loophole, really drove this this explosive growth for those bargain sites. But now that really is going to change. And, essentially, everything is gonna go to, I think, at least 35% duty. So what cost a hundred dollars before is now a hundred and 45 or a hundred and 35. And,

so it's gonna be a big impact. Very, very, very, very big, impact. And one of the commenters on YouTube, and I'm sorry I'm having to squint, trouble is some of the parts I can only buy from China. Some have such a low demand that no local store could afford to keep those stocked. Cables alone are a, compatible lottery for eGPUs as tires were coming and then delayed. Currency exchange rate drastically changed.

I saved £15 by watching the currency exchange rates on a mini PC, so it's probably true. Now, Leland says Dodge is a kicker is a kicking. Yes. It is. So we knew there was going to be pain. This is not a surprise, and, getting your electronics are going to cost more. It it just it just will. I've decided when I go back to The Philippines, I'm gonna take a Mac mini with

me. And, I've got an extra one here, so I'm gonna take that with me. And it's I'm not, you know, I don't have to buy one. I've got one that's perfectly well, to go, but I needed a little I wanted to have a extension for basically a hub. So I went online today thinking, oh, man, I'm gonna get hammered. But they had hubs still in stock that are already here. So if you've got things that you think that you want to buy, you you need to buy right now.

You need to go before the price increase, before the stock runs out, and they have to ship stuff in from China. So if you've been sitting on something that you've been thinking about getting, go go go go go immediately. And in order, because all this stuff is gonna see a dramatic increase here. And I and, you know, I got to thinking about it today, and I'm thinking, do I need any do I have any cables? Do I need you know? So I was really kinda doing, like, a bit of an

accounting around here. Do I need any dongles? Do I need and do you know, I was just thinking, even so far as to thinking about memory. And, of course, memory luckily comes a lot well, comes mostly out of Taiwan, some out of Korea. So what's gonna happen is is you're gonna start to see huge price disparity on Amazon or wherever else you shop, where depends on where stuff originates. So if it comes out of Taiwan, no effect. Comes out of Hong Kong or China, big effect.

So, again, it's because of this minimum shipping change. It it's it's gonna have a huge effect. So, just be aware,

Until this thing kinda washes through, we're we're gonna we're gonna see. So Leland says, how much do you think most of the equipment will go up? I I think they're gonna lower price. Now this this is the key too. The China manufacturers are making so much money on this stuff. They have such a markup because it costs them nothing. Their labor is essentially slave labor. So they so material costs and a minimal amount of so they're already got a margin.

So they may lower their price, get a smaller margin just to offset the the duty. Leland, I think it could be 25%. Can can a manufacturer take a 35% cut? Now they were already paying 20 here's the difference. How they got around this previous duty was let's say they sent, stuff to an Amazon warehouse. As long as the shipping on that was under $800, no duty. But that's gone. So now anything they ship is gonna be 35%. There'll be a 35% tariff on it. So

so this is where the delta is. And all of us that have bought anything that comes from China that has been delivered in a flat that's had one or two pieces of product in it, 35%. So but they're gonna lower the price as much as they can, but it's gonna hurt them. It's gonna hurt their profit margins, which, you know, I you know, cry me a cry me a river. This is why American companies have not been able to compete. I've said this for for a long, long time.

And now the economics is gonna start impacting. Yeah. It's gonna cost us more, You know? And with what happened with Canada and Mexico and that being waived for thirty days, we'll see. Again, this is a big bargaining chip, you know, and I I saw something where even in our own country, you know, people are freaking out, but I think what it is is, you know, someone's paying chess and and the other people are playing checkers here. Will it pan out and work out for everything? Who knows?

But, this is why I had to kinda just shut the make sure I wasn't watching it because it was just bam bam bam bam bam. And and x if any of you been on x, good lord. I mean, it's just nonstop. Nonstop. And, it's entertaining to say the least. I know it, Eric. I'm sure there's many of you, at least 50% of you, this aggravates the piss out of you. I'm sure. I'm sure it does. But this this thing on the on the shipping so we'll see what USPS does with this. But

Garth says when UK UK changed, okay, changed from 15 minimum to an exception, we had about a two months notice. Why didn't America give such a reasonable notice period? Well, during the run up to the election, that was we he was saying exactly what he was this is not news to anyone here in The United States. He said he was going to do this, you know, October, November. We knew this was coming. So it's not a surprise.

But again, going back to and again, this I don't wanna get in the politics of this, but again, he said from a Canada and Mexico standpoint, this is not a trade war. This is a drug war. They just want to stop the people drug and people coming across the border trying to get the fentanyl to stop. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. But, this has been wild, and we'll see what happens within the tech sector. Of course, the almighty Super Bowl is coming, and I'm not a big

you know? I I will watch the Super Bowl. My mom texted me a little earlier that my brother in law's cooking wings and, you know, there's people coming over and you know? To be honest with you, I I might rather sleep on Sunday than watch the Super Bowl. But the commercials this year, there are gonna be regional ads and national ads. So what some of you may see in New York will not be what I see in here in Michigan, but there'll be some

that'll be national. One of them is a Google Gemini Super Bowl ad that they've already released. It's two minutes, and it's just some dude basically doing a mock interview with Google Gemini for two minutes as his kids are running around. It's a well done ad. And, essentially, he practices a job interview with Google Gemini and then directly then sits down and does a real world interview. Do you think that's where we're at? So watch the video. I'd love to hear your feedback. Geeknews@gmail.com.

In a very interesting move, CISA, and we know who CISA is. Right? The Department of Homeland Security, cybersecurity, and frustration security agency was initially excluded from the broader US government offer to take the deferred resignation offer in part due to the role of national security and defending critical infrastructure. Apparently, yesterday, because only 60,000 people have accepted the, basically, the eight month severance, and it wasn't enough.

Some c I s a staffers were given offer in just hours to decide whether accept it or not. So

it's being it's being thought that they were trying to get they weren't getting enough people. So the offer did not go to everyone. There was exceptions. And so it's interesting that they select, and I'd be interesting to know who those select people were. What roles did they have that they offered? Were they administrative types or were they techie types? So go government cybersecurity employees are panicking over the level unfettered access given to the Doge team.

You know, I've talked about this before,

and I I did the federal thing, so I understand how it works. We could if you we could never get into people I worked with before. I'm sorry. But programmers and IT administrators that have government, a k a government jobs, a federal employee job, very easily could have went out in the public sector and made a lot more money, a lot more money because of the of the caps. You go look at the general service scale, and most of those CISA folks are probably GS twelves.

Not because it what it does is GS 12, GS 13. The the higher you go in the GS scale, the narrower number of people that are actually getting those pay rates. So probably the majority of those CISA and other IT officials are twelves. Administrators are thirteens. The top bosses are fourteens. You just don't go to 14. 12 and 13 is a relatively easy jump. If you have the time, there's a job position. You know? So but, again, you go look at that GS scale, and let's just look

at it. Let's go and look at the GS pay scale, and you guys will understand what I'm talking about. Government government service yeah. I got it. I I typed it wrong. GS scale. So here's the general schedule. Salary tables. So let's look for 2025, and let's look at the GS. Come on. Of course, I it's not bringing it right up. It's usually very simple. Okay. Twenty twenty five GS pay table. Alright. So

Alright. If you are a g s twelve and it's based on steps so example, if you get hired as a g s twelve step four, there's a a amount of a period of time you have to wait before you go from a step four to a step five. It might be two years. Sometimes, it takes three years to make the step up. So a g s twelve in a regional area that basically has no cost of living extras. In other words, you're in Washington, DC, you're gonna get a you're gonna get some more money. It's a cola or something to

that effect. But if you're a GS 12

step four or step five, that's like $85,000 a year. Now let me take that up to a step 10, and I think it takes someone to get to step 10, like, twenty years. That's $98,000. That's as high as you can go, $98. A g s 13 is a 17, a g s 14, a hundred and 38. Now you get up in the g s 15 level, that's a hundred and $62,000 a year at step 10. But in step

one is a hundred and 25. But if you are g s 12, step five, make an 85 no. If you are g s 12, a step 10, making $98,000 and you get promoted to g s thirteen, there is some you can't make less money. They don't allow you when you get promoted to make less money. So you were at $98,422, and you would jump as a g s thirteen to a step four at 99,000 o '28 or actually probably $98.04 $2.02. You do your couple years time or whatever to

get the $99.00 $2.08. So even at 13, you're still under a hundred thousand dollars. Now we take into COLA and those types of considerations, locality pay. And if you are a government employee, not a contractor, let's just be clear about that, that's that's your salary, hundred and 20, hundred and 20 5 thousand dollars at the, you know, very kinda high ends of some of those steps that most these people are at. How much can you make as a IT or a cybersecurity person on the outside?

You make a hell of a lot more money. A lot more money. So the programmers that I had to deal with that were government on the GS scale, they weren't that good. Sorry. They weren't that good. Now exception, when I worked with National Labs, they're on a whole different pay scale. They're not on the GS level. It's a whole different pay scale, and they get paid accordingly. We're not talking about SES. We're not talking about senior executive service, which is the next level up beyond GS fifteen.

And, again, that number of people in those positions are rare, and they're usually government people. They are not and they're they're money and oversight people. They're not programmers. So when they talk about allowing a 20 year old genius to come in and work on an IT system in the US government, an individual might be making $250,000 on the outside and may have equivalent or more education on modern systems than the people working the systems today.

I know I'm gonna get pissed people off here. And I understand. I get it. But why could we never really why are so many contracts made to have stuff go out and be programmed? Why does stuff go to John Hopkins where there's really smart people? Some of the stuff I used to work on was was was managed and coded by John Hopkins. Very, very smart people. Very. Making big money. Big, big, big, big money. PhDs. Super smart people.

So there's a segment of the government work that goes out to the big brains. But when you're talking about internal in the office and you're a staffer I don't know. Don't know. But you have different levels of stuff. You have technical representatives. You know, the job descriptions across the federal government are wide. You know? You have Natick. You have you have government reps that sit in the seats, right in embedded in military units that are there as a technical expertise.

And they're a GS 12, GS 13. They're making $80.90, hundred thousand a year. You know, very smart people getting paid an appropriate salary for their knowledge level. But I've always said on the IT side, you know, it is what it is. I and, sure, I'm gonna get some feedback here. But to say they don't know what they're doing and they're letting these young people in. Okay. They have read only access, by the way. So the CISA thing is just one one part of this. What say you? Geeknews@gmail.com.

What say you? What say you? I wanna hear from you. Leland says, I'm okay with loss of profits versus banning access to goods. Oh, so we're talking about the tariffs still. So thanks, Leland, for for weighing in tonight. Appreciate it. Alright. Let's move on here. Work from home, don't clean the home office tax deduction

unless you have a sidekick in job. So I work from home, and I get a regular w two from my company, from Rawboys. I sit at a desk. I work at that desk all day long. But when I come here and do this show in my little cubby and using up a 50 square feet of space, I got storage that's, you know, this claim for the business. This is my separate business. So, technically, I could deduct a portion of the rent I pay in my taxes, but here's what I do. The IRS loves to nitpick when they audit you.

They love to nitpick. So what I like to do is always leave a little on the bone. I don't claim any of my space that I'm using here in my home as a tax deduction. I don't and it wouldn't be that much, you know, based on the percentage of floor space I'm using in my rent. So you pay your rent your rent times 12, your insurance, whatever that total is, you take all that up, heat, electricity, blah blah blah, that grand total of a year for what it costs

you to live somewhere. And if you're using 10% or 15 or 20% of your space, and let's say that's $20,000, let's use a number, and you're using 20% of the space, well, 20% by point two o times 20,000, 4 thousand bucks. I could potentially claim I think that's right. Normally, 20,000. I could yeah. Did I say 10? Well, anyway, you guys got it. And I could write that off.

I could. But if I've made a $4,000 accounting error down the road, and Sugar wants to come after me to penalize me for a mistake in my taxes for the amount of $4,000, I could have an abridged tax submission to claim that, to offset a mistake I pretend. Now I don't try to make any mistakes on my taxes. I've been through too many audits. It's not fun and not fun at all because they look at everything. They look at your credit card receipts. They look at everything.

So separation of church and state. I have a business card. I put business expenses on. Personal card, I buy personal stuff, cat food, towels, beans. That all goes on personal. New computer, lights, all that goes on the business card, keeps them separate. And if I mistakenly buy something on my business card that was supposed to be personal, I have to reimburse through my personal checking account back to the company, and I have to make a notation that I reimbursed.

You can get hit on an audit for doing that. You do that too many times, you can get in trouble. So I have that annotation in my taxes said, hey. I had to pay back $262, put it on the wrong account, and make sure that transaction shows. And I write a check, deposit it in my bank accounts because I want a piece of paper. I just don't wanna trans I could probably transfer it. But work from home? Don't claim the home office due tax deduction before you read the article I linked to.

So you guys are getting some super value out of the show tonight. Leland says, the day we say no to income tax is the day we actually become free citizens. I you know? Lina, so as far as I'm concerned, the IRS can take a flying leap. You know, as much as I send them every year, I coulda retired. I could've retired already on the amount of money I send the IRS every year. I'd had no problem. I could've I could've punched out. They take so much. If you really look how much they take.

Kwikset launches two new smart locks with Z Wave support. And as end up as a private doing a private business on my own, the taxes I pay, oh my god. Quick sit and manufacturer, both traditional and smart locks, officially released the Home Connect nine eighteen and the Home Connect six twenty. So, this is using a Z Wave, so, you don't have to be close to the hub.

So Kwikset, I like their products and services. The lock I have in my door downstairs, my steel door downstairs, has got a, a Kwikset lock on it. So here's here is a, hit piece, Trump's EPA to prioritize AI, lobbyists, and staff cuts and mission to traumatize. That's that's the title of the article. I'm not even gonna go into it because you can already see by the by the header of it what the tone is gonna be. Here's another one. Elon Musk, DOGE, storm's federal weather forecast headquarters.

DOGE's hostile corporate takeover and proposals to privatize a key science agency could make it harder to get weather forecast. There's no proof to that. What is wrong with this country in wanting to lower the amount of money the government is spending? What is wrong? What is there to hide? I can get audited. You can get audited. I don't know about those of you in The UK or anywhere else, but if the IRS sends you a letter to audit you, that puts the fear of God into you.

They have the power to put you in jail and take your stuff away, seal your bank accounts, enjoin you from doing anything, prevent you from leaving the country. Yet we get upset when six or seven Doge team members goes in and says, let us look at the books. Let us look at your IT systems.

A current no employee was granted enmity because of the risk of retaliation tells the verge that having ex that ahead of an external audit, staff have been instructed to fully delete or take down any material related to DEI, whether it's public available online, on internal sites, or in physical office spaces, government web pages, for other federal agencies have already removed content.

The employee tells The Verge that posters with information has also been taken down from their chat rooms and websites or employee resource groups have also gone down. Well, I think they've learned that there has been a bunch of attempts to avoid actions in the past, so they're just gonna have to get together face to face and talk about it. QWERTYKES halts keyboard shipments to the yes over tariff costs and confusion.

A keyboard company, QWERTYKES, has temporarily halted all shipments to The United States. The company says it's working on ways to mitigate shipping costs, and the tariffs have made it so that all keyboards from China to The US now are subjected to 45% tariffs at full value. We are closely watching the progress situation. Really hope there's something else we can do other than bumping the price up.

Quirky says partner DHL now requires prepayment of 50% of the declared product value as a tariff deposit plus a $21 processing fee per package that would drastically raise the price for customers in The US. Why don't we start making some stuff here? That's the question I have. Leland says the only people complaining are the ones spending it. You know, I I've been involved in the game. I held two pots of money when I was my last couple of years in the military.

Fuel money for airplanes and, basically, gear, like weather gear, coats, jackets, boots, stuff that's essentially consumable that can go away, cleaning supplies, that type of stuff. And I was given a budget every year, and

we would allocate to the squadrons based upon the their needs if they're deploying or not. And I got really good at making sure people got what they needed, And my predecessor before me, it was basically made it hard on people.

But I said, listen. If you're going on deployment and you're going to a cold weather zone in or let's say you're going to Afghanistan in the winter and you only have summer where, then put in the requisition, write it up, give me the numbers, give me the total cost, and I'll send it up to chain of command and get you money. And and and and 95% of the time, the stuff that came through me asking for more money was based on a need that was

justified. I knew all the people I was working for or working for they you know, I was working for them. I was basically their money man, and they and I would send that up to the, to the wing. And, really, probably in four or five days, I I would get an approval. I'd get their money, and I would distribute it into their accounts.

And, but when it got down to the end of the quarter, if a certain squadron had not used all their fuel money, let's say they had $25,000 left in fuel money, and they weren't gonna be able to fly it off. They weren't have didn't have, you know, they'd done all their training, done all their required flights, but another another group was short. I I would pull that money out, put it in the other squadron, and we would we'd burn the fuel. And, there's a saying, use it or lose it.

So we were trained, use it or lose it. Because if you spend a half a million dollars in jet fuel, or let's say a million dollars a year actually, I think we're spending a million 6 a year in jet fuel fuel, And you you only use a million 5 1 year because maybe things just the way things worked out, but you knew we're gonna need a million 6 the next year because I forecasted out three years.

The I I would we'd have to burn it because if you use a million 5, the budget people would say, oh, they need a million 5. We give them a million 5 the next year, and then I'd have to be begging, borrowing, stealing to try to get more fuel money the following year. So the idea of use it or lose it is is ingrained throughout the federal government. It doesn't have to be that way. Why couldn't everybody said, hey. We only need

a million 5 this year. We'll give the extra hundred thousand back to the US government, and then next year, give me my million 6 again because I know I'm getting million 6 next year, but they don't work that way. The whole system doesn't work that way. But it's all about the comptroller. I was a comptroller for two budget lines of 13. And no one likes spending money. I had some request come in one time for some Ray Bans, and I'm like, you you don't you're not getting Ray Bans.

Why do you need Ray Bans? Why why do these guys need Ray Bans? They've already got government issued glasses if they need to wear glasses, and they can get government issued sunglasses, which are a lot cheaper than, you know, the birth control glasses, a lot cheaper than a lot cheaper than, Ray Bans. You don't need to be styling on the flight line. No. You're not getting Ray Bans. So it wasn't like I was given everything

to for what they wanted. No. But if it was justified if you're going to a summer location let's say you're going to Diego Garcia and you and you're gonna be there for six months and you're asking me for winter wear. Okay. How many detachments are going to somewhere where it's cold from Diego Garcia? Well, only two. A crew of 40. Okay. That's different. I can authorize cold weather gear for 40 people instead of 240.

And, oh, by the way, two years from now, don't ask me for that winter weather again year again because I bought it once. It needs to be turned in and reissued. So, you know, there is it is possible to manage the money good and not allow stupidity to go on. So I would have no problem if Doge walked into my office and says, show me your books. Open up the computer. Here it is. Go ahead. Audit me. Fine. I can justify every penny.

So Leland says, sound justified to me. Also, what they're finding is just how the government has comp aspired and to spend as little as possible on actual services riding and pocketing the rest of your shell companies. That's a whole another show, Leland, right there. Alright. You guys bored with me already? Google magic editor will watermark its AI tweak photos. And, again, I've been away from government for a long time, so things could have changed. I just know what I know from

a while ago. So, again, Google magic editor will watermark its AI tweaked photos. Some security updates make Google Chrome so much better, aka password sharing. Group sharing of passwords. If you're part of a family group, you can send credentials through Google password manager share feature.

But you can do so on PC too. Yeah. Nothing bad is gonna happen there. Sharing with only a sharing with only a group is a free feature, but Google's seeming logic makes sense. Arguably, you'd rely and share passwords with family members at least anyone close enough to be considered family.

Yeah. You know? That's why my mom has a master password to my my, my password, app because if I stroke out, the only way you're getting into any of my stuff is to if you don't have that password, you're screwed. You don't have the password to my phone, you're screwed. You know, that's just the way it is. Apple's m five chip is rumored to be in mass production, but we're still waiting on m four MacBook Airs.

So Apple's believe stepping up the Brexiom m five is currently slated for later this year or early twenty twenty six, is reported to stick with the TSMC three nanometer process, With the Apple, yet to make a move to the two nanometer, which offers even greater power and efficiency. And I I will say one thing about Apple, they will move when they're ready. Ransomware payments declined in 2024 despite massive well known hacks. So how much did we send?

Extortion payments totaled 814,000,000 in 2024, '8 hundred and '14 million, almost a billion dollars. 20 20 3, it was 1,250,000,000.00. Just insane how much money is who's getting that money? NASA's unveiled a new space telescope more powerful than James Webb aimed at providing a clear understanding of the universe beginnings. I'm like, what? Where did this come from? SPHERE? Remember us talking about SPHERE? I don't remember talking about this, but I'm sure we

have. We know the James Webb Telescope cost $10,000,000,000 when it launched in 2021, took, what, ten or twenty years to build.

With exciting new piece of kit, it only cost 488,000,000. Here's what happened. Technology is getting better. Stuff is able to be done smaller. They started using when they started building the James Webb Telescope probably twenty years ago, components were this big. Now they're that big, so core stuff is cheaper. So the spectrophotometer. Mirrors will help uncover new points of interest. So when's this scheduled to launch? February 27. Who's gonna launch that? SpaceX? Probably.

IPhone seven owners are getting $200 in class action lawsuit. If you acted on this before, yes. You will score, you will score your $200. You were gonna get three, but it was reduced. Hey. I do wanna thank those who've been, using a new podcast app and streaming sats. Pestmark, thank you so much. On the last show for, streaming sats 20 sats per minute. That's a healthy, healthy donation for the whole show. Greatly appreciated, that you did that. Thank you. Thank you

so much. We've had no boost no new boost come in, so that's a couple shows in a row on that. As we talked about on our last show, we've got this new sponsor here, the and I I really, am impressed with their lineup. Again, Valentine's Day is just eight days away. In the next show, I have stuff for the ladies, for you guys to buy for the ladies.

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So distillunion.com. Distill union Com, and you get and you can use the promo code geek news at checkout. Upgrade your wallet carry, not your conceal carry, and simplify your life with distill union, d I s t I l union dot com. And, we had no new donor donations come in this this event. But, again, if you think about becoming an insider, definitely do. And, also, check out distill union dot com. Bill Gates has got got it right. Intel what what has happened with Intel? They have lost their way.

He's stunned how far behind Intel has fallen compared to Nvidia. And you guys know I've talked about it before. I have some Intel stock. Jeez. Come on. I wanna I wanna retire someday. Probably not because of Intel. Global tablet shipments grew 9% in 2024. According to latest data from Canalys, worldwide tablet shipments grew 5.6 year on year, reaching 39,900,000 units. Warner Brothers is doing something interesting. They're stringing full movies for free on YouTube.

It's a strange assortment of obscure oddities. One's, an Eddie Murph Eddie Murphle. Oh my god. Eddie Murphle. Eddie Murphy's dreadful Pluto Nash movie. So there's, like, 40 of these that they have released. So for free.

No DMCA oh, 30 of them. No DMCA. So Michael Collins, Waiting for the Guf Man, the the Mission, Death Trap. These are, like, 8696. Dungeons and Dragon movie, Hot to Trot, 1988. The Eddie Murphy's Adventure of Pluto and Ash 02/2002. So, again, these are all been very curiously released by Warner Brothers on YouTube. Maybe if they decide we're not making no money on these things, we're going to, we're going to just do that. Hacker target NATO US army arrested in Spain.

Spanish authorities arrested an individual, allegedly hacked several high profile organizations. They described him as a dangerous hacker who was arrested in the town of Calipi in Spain's Alicante province, and, he has identified they identified him having more than 50 cryptocurrency accounts. And, oh, this this dangerous hacker, eighteen years old, ladies and gentlemen, he hacked NATO, and he hacked the US army. So let let's let that sink in.

An 18 year old who is a dangerous hacker hacked NATO and hacked the US army, yet we have six or seven individuals from Doge that are in their twenties. Okay. Android 16 to feature major health updates starting with Fitbit. So if you're an Android user and, of course, Android 15 was just launched a few months ago, and they're already looking in Android 16. So this edition could improve how user interact

with their health data. I just want to be able to take my blood glucose without having to prick my finger. I can't afford the patch. That thing costs, like, $1,200 a month or some ridiculous number. My insurance won't cover it. I just don't wanna have to poke my finger to check blood glucose. Amazon drops unsubtle hints that Alexis oh my god. Alexa AI did my it didn't respond. I have an Alexa in here that's listening. Is landing soon. Three things

expect from the new voice agent. It might cost you more, 5 to $10 a month. No. Could be an autonomous AI agent. No. Amazon literally spelled Alexa teasing at this major update. Oh, those are the three things. Will it be worth it? No. How many of you using DeepSeek even I talked about it? Anybody willing to fess up? More Windows 11 patch woes, this time with mouse pointers acting up, so, you know, don't do the, the optional update, the KB five zero five zero zero

nine four patch. Don't don't don't go there. You know, I I oh, this next article is from you. Guess who? Political. You got $8,000,000 from USAID. A bill banning social media for youngsters advance.

The senate commerce committee approved legislation Wednesday to ban children 13 from social media by limiting access. The bill hopes to address youth anxiety, depression, and link social media. You know something, ladies and gentlemen? How come the rest of us were too stupid to get some of this free money? I should I should have applied for some

USAID money. How about you? Don't you think Geek News Central could have, you know couldn't couldn't we have, couldn't the show have gotten, like, you know, I had to take 500,000. That that'd run me that'd run the show for five years. Been fat. We could've hired someone else. I don't need 8,000,000. Just give me cool 500,000. Why not? Giving everyone else money. Right? At least I'll tell you the truth with my angle on it. Don't you think?

I I I'm just how come, you know, how come I didn't form an NGO? We're we're just dumb. You know, those that are smart have been the one that's been on the lam, that's been on the take. You know, those of us that that work an honest nine to five that pay our taxes, you know, go sit on jury pools, you know, do all the things you do as a good citizen. You know? How do I get some of that money? Nah. I would have never have done that, but, you know, it makes you go, doesn't it?

So the Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation Wednesday to ban children on 13 from social media. Well, that'll work. The panel approved by the Kids of Social Media Act sponsored by the panel's chair, Texas Republican Ted Cruz, and Democrat on the panel, Hawaii's Brian Schatz. Oh, there's a piece of work. I I I liked Brian before. By voice point clearing the way for consideration of the full senate, only Ed Markey, Democrat, Massachusetts asked to be recorded as a no on the bill.

So it's true. When you get Ted Cruz and Ed and and senator Ed Schwartz agreeing on something, that's saying something. Now the question is, will it will it get voted on in the house? The Commerce Committee will likely take up more online safety legislation. So what do you think about banning your 13 year old and younger from using social media? Isn't that a parent thing to do? Isn't that parents' responsibility? Crazy, Robot dogs learn to bomb disposal tricks and

trials. Yeah. If you have a robot, you can blow the the robot up. You can teach a robotic dog new tricks. The trial is led by Ministry of Defense Scientists and carried out at the Defense Scientific Technology Lab, this was in The UK, by the way, involved a number of robotic systems. It's hoped that this early experiment could eventually revolutionize bomb disposal

and, secondly, reduce risk to personnel, both in Britain and overseas. So they worked alongside both British and international com companies like l three Harris. I'm familiar with l three Harris. Marble Communications and AeroVironment, Tomahawk Robotics. And, the pilot study involved a number of scenarios where a robot was required to perform tasks such as opening and closing doors, navigating stairs, and inspecting IEDs. And it was also equipped with carbon fiber

disruptors. So in other words, fire. So, very, very cool. Workday has laid off I don't know who Workday is. Workday laid off 1,750 employees citing demand for AI. In other words, they replaced the employees with AI. Anybody know who Workday is? What do they cover? The Veterans Affairs has reboots Oracle health records, project for $330,000,000. Concerns around unfixed problems remain after system result in a harm to some 150

patients. Wow. The new payments relate to a 300,000,000 agreement for optimization of the electronic health record management system and 29,000,000 for identity access management support enhancements. The deal means Oracle will also be used to support medical facilities already using software in Spokane, Walla Walla, Washington, Columbus, Ohio, Rosenberg, and White City, Oregon. Nothing to say about the one I go to in Battle Creek, Michigan.

So, we'll see if this continues to be a bad investment. Volkswagen is unveiling a 20 thou $21,000 entry in the EV in March. The small EV will make it proper debut in 2027, and it's gonna be available in Europe First, not in America, of course. And Amazon announced their fourth quarter results.

Net sales increased 10% to a hundred and 80 7 point 8 billion, And, excluding the 900,000,000.0 unfavorable impact from year over year charges, north so how much money do they make? Operating income increased to 21,200,000,000.0 in the fourth quarter compared to 13,200,000,000.0 in the '4. Okay. Oh, prior 2023. So net income increased to $20,000,000,000. So alright. I'm I know. The the it goes through all the details. If you're interested, they

they made money. Don't worry. They didn't lose money. And ChatGPT has dropped its sign in requirements for search. OpenAI is making its AI search engine more accessible. Alright, ladies and gentlemen. I was definitely on a rant today, but, you know, if if you want to, I love Buffalo Trace Bourbon. You definitely, you know, a donation in kind of, a Stagg or Blanton's would, you know, would be would be wonderful. An antique one zero seven? Sure. Why not? Yeah. Okay. So,

I'm pushing the wrong button here. The email, geeknews@gmail.com, geek news at g mail dot com, at geek news on x, and, of course, I'm on Facebook. Did you enjoy today's show? Been on a bit of rant. I kind of enjoyed it, actually. Reminds me of the old days. We're not gonna be able to keep up the news. It it you know, I think it's just too much information overload at this point. We'll see how it affects the tech sphere. Don't forget. If you had something techie you're gonna buy, get her done.

Get her done before the prices go up, before stock runs out. And remember, places don't keep too much stock. That's why they have those big ships coming across the ocean with containerfuls of all those electronic goods that we all love to buy. So, the hammer is coming.

45% increase. My kitty cat's down here. I'm not gonna lift him up. He's clogged me twice already. Here's something wrong with him. He's gotten real big in the middle, and he's skinny front and back. I don't under I don't I don't get it. Last year, he was all he was plump all the way through during the winter. He's just getting old. His his new food hasn't arrived yet, so supposed to be, I think, here tomorrow. So keep an eye out for it. I'll be back here with you on Monday.

I thank everyone for being here. Thank you for tuning in. Don't forget about me and be being an insider. You can always make a donation, although I can't use the donation to buy liquor. That's not a legal write off. So I can't use money that you donate to buy the juice. You can send me a bottle, and that can be a donation. I think, actually, from tax standpoint, I have to claim that. So but it's I'd rather claim it as a gift than pay for the juice.

Alright, everyone. We'll see you back here on Monday. We're on the March to eight 1800. Not that far away. So, be good out there. We'll see you next time. Thanks. Take care. Bye bye.