President of SCE Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, steps down from his 38 years. Scott shares his thoughts on Yoshida’s legacy. Plus OpenAI shuts down access to its video generative AI tool, Sora, after artists given early access released a version of the tool publicly alongside a statement decrying “being lured into ‘art washing’ to tell the world that Sora is a useful tool for artists”. And a Hugging Face machine learning librarian a dataset composed of one million Bluesky posts.

Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Scott Johnson, Roger Chang, Joe.

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A UK company has developed a gamma ray detector mounted on a robotic dog that can assess soil quality. Do the domestically manufactured chips in Huawei’s Mate 70 smartphone point to progress in China’s semiconductor industry? And the musician Drake has filed a lawsuit in New York’s Supreme Court alleging Universal Music Group used bots and bribes to inflate the popularity of rival Kendrick Lamar’s song “Not Like Us”.

Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Roger Chang, Joe.

Link to the Show Notes.

How does holiday pricing work and what motivates sellers to drop prices during the holiday shopping season? Big Jim explains. Plus the media is warning that AI development has reached its peak, but is it true? Andrew Mayne cuts through the FUD. And The Information says the iPhone 17 “Air” rumored to be coming next year will be between 5 and 6 millimeters thick compared to the iPhone 16 at 7.8 mm.

Starring Tom Merritt, Nica Montford, Andrew Mayne, James Thatcher, Roger Chang, Joe.

Link to the Show Notes.

Robert Heron is here with a holiday home theater buying guide! Not sure which TV deals are the best? Robert will steer you right. Plus OpenAI wants to make its own browser according to The Information. And Threads is overhauling its search and trend features as Bluesky closes in on engagement numbers.

Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Robert Heron, Len Peralta, Roger Chang, Joe.

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The US DOJ is proposing a breakup of Google's Browser and potentially its OS business as well. How likely is that? Plus Facebook Messenger has added support for HD video calls, audio and video voice messages, generative backgrounds, and support for Apple’s Siri. Tubi has introduced a new short-form video feature called “Scenes” that lets users explore short clips from over 250,000 popular television programs and films.

Starring Sarah Lane, Robb Dunewood, Justin Robert Young, Roger Chang, Joe.

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Why has Niantic, creators of the Pokémon Go mobile game, turned that into an AI tuned to geospatial information? Plus a system update for the PlayStation Portal lets users play games directly from the cloud. And Amazon introduces a new Echo product. The Echo Show 21.

Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Scott Johnson, Roger Chang, Joe.

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Tom Merritt and Huyen Tue Dao summarize the top announcements from Microsoft Ignite. Microsoft really is a cloud company. Plus Sony's potential big anime and video game acquisition and Andrew Heaton explains how he used AI to make an entire musical.

Starring Tom Merritt, Huyen Tue Dao, Andrew Heaton

Link to the Show Notes.