Technology
Hardware, software, networking, and development
#5478: When AI Hands Out Your Phone Number
A chatbot gave out a stranger's real phone number. What happens when the model can't forget it?
#5477: Who Owns the Antennas? Israel's MVNO Puzzle
Israel's virtual operators won't tell you whose towers they ride. Turns out your phone already knows — if you read the right signals.
#5476: When Login Systems Lock Out Their Own Users
Why do login systems permanently lock out real users? A look at the hidden design failures behind OTP dead ends and circular recovery flows.
#5473: The Kindle Refund Trick and the Return Policy Arms Race
From market olives to a two-year Kindle refund scheme — where's the line between sampling and stealing?
#5472: Can Anyone Scan a QR Code From a Landing Plane?
A New York printing startup wants to tow a QR code behind a plane on the airport approach path. We rate the idea.
#5471: Your News Feed Is Filtering for Failure
40% of people now avoid the news. Here's why the feed distorts reality — and what to read instead.
#5469: Open Source's New Map: India, Croatia, Ethiopia
One in three new GitHub developers now comes from a country outside 2020's top ten. What that shift means for open source.
#5464: Your Keyboard's Hidden Data Problem
Your keyboard knows your email address, your phrases, your habits — and you can't take any of it with you.
#5463: What Happens When You Click "Connect" on an AI Plugin
You click accept, the tool runs, and a credential you never saw is doing the work. Here's who actually owns it.
#5461: TTS Can't Pronounce Hebrew Inside English
Your TTS reads Hebrew words with English phonetics. Here's why — and why the obvious fix doesn't work yet.
#5460: Four Small Models, One Android Phone: Does It Actually Work?
A chained on-device dictation pipeline — VAD, ASR, cleanup — and why "it feels smooth" isn't the same as knowing it works.
#5459: Rebuilding the Podcast: Turn-Taking, Buttons, and Chatterbox
Daniel wants a push-to-interrupt button and a live voice loop. The research says the button is easy and the live part is a research project.
#5458: Two Linuses and the Fun in Technology
What Linus Tech Tips and Linus Torvalds each model about play, mastery, and keeping tech fun as AI eats the tedious parts.
#5457: Pigeon Alerts on a Repurposed i5: Frigate Without the TPU
Daniel wants a pigeon notification, not a custom model. Frigate already ships with bird detection — the real work is masks, zones, and filters.
#5456: Parakeet vs Whisper: Picking a Phone ASR Model
Why Whisper loses on Android, why Parakeet v2 beat v3, and how to benchmark speech-to-text without any tooling.
#5455: Custom GPTs Are Sunsetting: What Happens to Your Actions
OpenAI is retiring Custom GPTs — and custom Actions don't survive the migration. What that means for your workflow.
#5454: Why a 4-Story-Deep Garage Beats a 20th-Floor Concrete Core
A deep garage should be cool. It isn't. A 20th-floor concrete core should be neutral. It isn't. Here's the physics.
#5450: Heat, Fans, and the Limits of Air-Gapped Security
Dozens of ways to leak data from air-gapped machines exist — but every real breach still used a USB stick.
#5447: The Models That Never Talk Back
Some models read text, score it, and return a number. No chat, no reasoning, just decisions — and they're running under every router you use.
#5440: What Does a Space Force Actually Do All Day?
Rockets get the coverage, but the real work happens at consoles on the ground. What 15,000 Guardians actually do.