OpenAI’s Last Unreasonable Model - DTNSB - 4966  ## Metadata - Author: [[Daily Tech News Show]] - Full Title: OpenAI’s Last Unreasonable Model - DTNSB - 4966 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/5463bb67-4397-4a5d-aa8a-902c9ce36fbc ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Skype's Retirement** - Microsoft is retiring Skype on May 5th, 2025. - Huyen Tue Dao reminisces about meeting her husband on Skype. Transcript: Huyen Tue Dao Well, pour one out because Microsoft announced it will retire the Skype call service on May 5th. Well, if you are still using Skype, you have 10 weeks to export your contacts and chat data or migrate it to Microsoft Teams. And in the interim, Skype users will be able to log into Teams with their Skype credentials. Skype launched on, wait for it, August 29th, 2003, and Microsoft acquired it in May 2011. Tom Merritt So it's old enough to drink in the US. Huyen Tue Dao So we can't pour one out for it. Tom Merritt It's legal. Pour one out and it can drink it. Uh, yeah. I don't know when the last time I launched my Skype was it's my, I might not have launched it this entire year. So. Huyen Tue Dao I don't think either. It's really nostalgic though. And I, it's such a weird fabric or a good solid fabric of like the history of the internet. Um, I guess personal story. I met my husband on the internet, uh, sort of, we had personal questions, but we went on the internet we spent so many hours uh you know like talking on skype and i feel like a lot of podcasts I were you know popped up on and like what 10 years ago we're all using skype for like the multi calls i don't know yeah so it's it's sad to see it go i mean obviously it makes sense but man the Nostalgia uh we will, we thank you Skype for your service. Tom Merritt What a Cinco de Mayo. Speaker 3 Say goodbye to Skype. Huyen Tue Dao Yeah, drink a, you know, yeah. Celebrate Cinco de Mayo and celebrate the life and times of Skype. Let's not be sad that it's gone, but be glad that it was here. ([Time 0:08:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/017316b8-98ce-45b2-83f9-e79a4d559f3c)) - **Firefox Terms of Service** - Mozilla updated Firefox's terms of service, causing concern about data usage. - Mozilla clarifies the changes aim for readability, not selling user data. Transcript: Tom Merritt Do. She was my friend. Mozilla recently published changes to the Firefox browser's terms of service. That never goes bad for anyone, does it? Well, one change worded the usual non-exclusive royalty-free worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate experience and interact with online content as you indicate With your use of Firefox. And that set a bunch of people off. They're like, wait, you get what? You used to say specifically you wouldn't do this or that. This kind of phrase is a common cause for concern when it appears in terms of service. It's almost always there, but when people notice it, they get freaked out. It's kind of boilerplate. Non-exclusive means Mozilla doesn't have the right to stop you from using your data elsewhere just because you accessed it in Firefox, so that's good. You don't want it to be exclusive. Royalty-free means neither you nor Firefox have to pay for you to use the browser, like to use the data that you're using in your browser. And worldwide is necessary because Firefox is available everywhere. What people were worried with is, oh, sure, but now that you no longer specifically say what you won't use it for in the terms, you're going to sell it to AI, you're going to sell it to advertisers, All of that. Mozilla categorically denies any of that and says that the privacy notice has not changed and still limits what Mozilla can do. The change in the terms was meant to make it easier to read, and there has been no change in how it uses Firefox user data. Specifically, they told TechCrunch the terms do not give Mozilla ownership of user data or a right to use it beyond what's stated in the privacy notice. They were just trying to make things efficient by having the privacy notice have all the privacy stuff and not have it in more than one place, it seems like. ([Time 0:10:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c03ba9c7-595a-4ef3-b311-fb0ee1768ee7)) - **AI-Powered Track Inspection** - The MTA used Pixel phones to analyze subway track sounds, detecting defects with 92% accuracy. - Human inspectors achieved an 80% success rate in comparison. Transcript: Huyen Tue Dao Well, New York's Metro Transit Authority, the MTA, has released some results of its study, Operation Track Inspect with Google Public Sector on track safety inspections. So the study actually attached Google Pixel phones to subway cars and then programmed them to analyze sounds and track movement. So this data was fed to models trained to identify parts of the track that needed attention or repair. 92% of the detected defects were confirmed by human inspectors. And then by, so by comparison, human inspectors listening to the sound recordings had an 80% success rate. And so the next step is to see if specialized hardware, not just, you know, pixels strapped to the side of a subway car would be cheaper probably and more accurate. Tom Merritt I know. I know that in reality, these are probably like just, you know, put in the, in that locked cab that you can't get into. But I like to imagine them like screaming. Huyen Tue Dao No, that's exactly what I pictured. There's like pixels on the outside with like duct tape or gaffer tape or just something. That was, no, that's my headcanon for this. I'm sorry. Tom Merritt That's definitely how I'm picturing it as well. But they wanted to use off the shelf hardware to show like, yeah, you don't need specialized hardware to do this. So if you don't need all the rest of what a pixel does, then you should be able to make it even cheaper. ([Time 0:15:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cfd9290f-e8e1-4dfa-9ac5-67572e11bb47)) - **iPhone 16e Charging** - The iPhone 16e lacks MagSafe because its target audience prefers wired charging. - Tom Merritt agrees, admitting he doesn't use MagSafe either. Transcript: Huyen Tue Dao Finally, if you are wondering why the new mid-range iPhone 16e doesn't have MagSafe charging, Apple told Daring Fireball it's because, quote, most people in the iPhone 16e's target Audience exclusively charge their phones by plugging them into a charging cable. Basically, they don't care if it charges lower over wireless Qi charging. Yeah. Tom Merritt Yeah. If it's, if it's, uh, wireless, it is wireless charging. It just doesn't have the magnets and the magnets help speed things up. Uh, if, if you've got a compatible charger and a compatible phone, this is the whole Samsung mag safe ready thing. Huyen Tue Dao Yes. Ready, but not uh chi too because there is a speculation there is a yeah chi too ready means that it can be chi too you can use chi too if you have a case that has magnets but actual chi too means That the magnets are in the phone i just learned this like for android faithful and i was well that's such a that's such a that's such a big oem thing to do is just to be like it T2 ready. Yeah. Not clarifying what that means, but you know. Tom Merritt And basically that's what Apple's doing. They're not calling it T2 ready, but they're like, yeah, you could get a phone with magnets and it'll work. But we're not going to, we're going to, we're going to keep the price down. They didn't keep the price down that much, but they kept the price down a little bit by not putting the magnets in. Also, I'll be honest. I don't use MagSafe on my phones. Oh, really? Yeah. I've just got old wireless chargers that I haven't replaced that don't have MagSafe in them. So I'm apparently the 16E's target audience, at least in that respect. Huyen Tue Dao Well, there you go. If you guys were wondering if there was someone who would fit in that category, Tom certainly does. ([Time 0:18:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2978aaec-b129-4cfb-a18f-7fcf86ae3103)) - **Securing Car Tech** - Protect your car tech by avoiding social engineering scams and using strong, unique passwords. - Don't connect unknown devices, and be cautious with public Wi-Fi. Transcript: Tom Merritt Thanks for joining me again. It's good to have you back. Our cars are big rolling computers. So I know a lot of this advice is just going to be the same advice that we give to someone when you were talking about securing their email or their phone or something like that. But what are some of the things that people need to think about to secure their car? Bodhi Grimm Yeah, I don't want to get too dystopian, but we should think of them as big rolling monitoring devices. You know, they're they're looking. They're always watching us and always reporting back. And sometimes that will help you if it's not your fault and you get in an accident. And sometimes, you know, if it is your fault, it's not going to help you out. So one of the things is because it's collecting so much data is you don't want somebody to hack your car. There's a lot of worry about people hacking electric vehicles, especially Teslas. So there's a couple of things you can do. First, protect yourself against social engineering, which is, you know, if you get a weird text and it doesn't look right and it says it's from Tesla and you need to enter your, your login Credentials or whatever, it's probably not from Tesla and you should delete that text. Tom Merritt Be highly skeptical. Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah. Bodhi Grimm Yeah. And then, you know, there's other things like use strong passwords and, uh, that seems, know, obvious in most cases, but you'd be surprised how many of my friends who weren't that bright, But how many of them who will actually get hacked because they didn't use a strong password or they reuse passwords, that kind of thing. Tom Merritt Yeah. And when you're in your car, you may start to let your guard down a little bit. And you should. I think that's the point. Bodhi Grimm For sure. For sure. This is as connected as your phone, 100% in most cases. The other thing is, is don't connect random devices to your car, whether that's wirelessly, USB, or through the OBD2 port. I know that there are a lot of devices out there, and I'm not calling out anything in particular, but there are a lot of devices out there that will let you turn your Tesla infotainment Screen into an Apple CarPlay screen. If you don't know where or what that device is doing on the backend, probably not something you should connect to your car wirelessly. And then there are a bunch of OBD2 type of connectors that will give you like a whole host of information. Like you'll get a whole dashboard on your phone of what the car is doing, the state of charge and things like that. But also if you don't know what that's connecting back to, probably not a good idea to connect it to your car. Tom Merritt Yeah. It's, it's similar to, uh, learning. Don't plug any USB drive into your computer. If you don't know and don't trust and can't completely trust where it came from that OD that OBD two port, uh, can, can be a vector just like a USB port and your car has USB ports. Uh, and just like, you know, you got to be careful with Wi-Fi and all of that. You got to be careful with things connecting to your car. Yeah. Bodhi Grimm Wi-Fi is a big one. My car connects to Wi-Fi when I get home, right? But it's, I don't turn it off when I leave. So it's, it's, the Wi-Fi is open on my car. Probably I should turn it off, but that's also a vector for being hacked. I don't think I'm going to get hacked while sitting at my house, but who knows if I, if I drive somewhere and there happens to be somebody looking for an opportunity, that might be a vector For them to hack my car. ([Time 0:20:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dd7ff4df-a735-4892-bda8-a6e59d2a938e)) - **Car Modification Risks** - Avoid jailbreaking your car unless you possess expert-level knowledge. - Follow security experts like GreenTheOnly for reliable information. Transcript: Tom Merritt Attackers are looking for. What, what about that modification? You talked about hardware that could give you car play, you know, what about getting cool apps into your car? Bodhi Grimm Yeah, I, I can't, I think it was Jen said that she would, on one of the episodes last week said she would jailbreak her car. Don't, don't jailbreak your car. Don't do that. There are lots of security experts like Green the Only is one. If you want to follow somebody on Twitter, it's at Green the Only. He is really good at like digging through the Tesla source code and reporting back what he finds. But yeah, if you're not at that level, you should not be trying to jailbreak your vehicle. Yeah. I ([Time 0:24:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/55f82528-bbab-48cf-b461-202c19774599)) - **EV Charging Security** - Ensure both your car and charger software are up to date. - Regularly check and install updates. Transcript: Tom Merritt Okay. And then simple other stuff. What are some other things that people probably should know or maybe even do know, but it's good to be reminded of? Bodhi Grimm Well, Pone to Own in Tokyo was in January. And two of, I can't remember the hacking groups, but two of the hacking groups hacked multiple EVSEs, which are electric vehicle supply equipment or level two wall chargers, they're Actually able to hack the charger and make them crash. Now, is that like a huge deal? Probably not. But your EVSEs or your electric vehicle or your wall chargers, those are also often connected to the internet, which is also a vector. And when you connect your car to your charger, there's data going back and forth. So something to keep in mind. Tom Merritt Yeah. So we're not saying don't charge your car, but just make sure that your software is up to date. Yeah. Bodhi Grimm And that's the biggest thing is make sure your software is up to date for your car as well as your wall charger. Tom Merritt Yeah. And you may think, oh, my car's up to date, but is the charger? Is everything that connects to your car? I mean, it goes for your phone and everything else too, I think, right? Bodhi Grimm Oh yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. Well, ([Time 0:25:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/de2ea621-2036-4617-9ee1-036a0ee5cc96))