This Week in Tech (Audio)

AI giants are battling not just in code, but in politics, with behind-the-scenes lobbying, strategic naming, and rumors of blockbuster deals at the heart of this week's wildest tech stories. Get the inside scoop on who's pulling the strings. Apparently The Real Reason Anthropic's Models Are Offline: A Six-Year-Old Trump Grudge Trump says he no longer views Anthropic as a national security threat after G7 meeting with CEO Exclusive | Apple to Raise Prices Due to Memory Chip Crunch, Tim Cook Says Elon Musk's Next Move May Be a Mega-Merger of SpaceX and Tesla Anthropic's latest feud with the Trump admin may actually help it, sales data suggests Google's Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer is leaving for OpenAI Google's Secret Warrant Fight Over DOJ Pipe Bomb Probe Revealed The UK Places a Sweeping Ban on Social Media for Kids Under 16 Meta lobbies Congress for protection from child-harm lawsuits Waymo recalls nearly 4,000 robotaxis to stop them driving into highway construction zones Snap Launches $2,195 Specs, Declaring Glasses the Next Computer Fox wants to take over your TV — and the tech inside it Midjourney goes from generating cat images to full-body ultrasound scans Nothing cancels this year's CMF phone due to RAM prices The AI IPO boom is different Joshua Baer, Capital Factory Founder, Dies in Laredo Plane Crash - RuntimeWire Ubisoft's co-founder Claude Guillemot dies in plane crash Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Iain Thomson, Owen Thomas, and Doc Rock Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: shopify.com/twit Simply CX ethos.com/twit box.com/AI zscaler.com/security

An astronomical amount of money is being poured into AI and data centers as tech giants fight for dominance, but is this fueling the next big tech bubble or just the price of staying in the game? Get the panel's opinions on wild IPO valuations, global power grabs, Build 2026, NVIDIA GTC Taipei, and even successful YouTuber movies! SpaceX IPO to Be Largest Ever at $135 Share Price Utah residents sue officials over Kevin O'Leary data center plan When AI builds itself NVIDIA announces RTX Spark as 'the most efficient PC chip ever built' Major Homebuilder To Test Placing Mini Data Centers in Suburban Backyards Microsoft Build 2026: The 7 biggest announcements What to Expect at Apple's WWDC 2026: iOS 27, New Siri and AI Meta Silently Added Face-Recognition Code for Its Smart Glasses to Millions of Phones Trump Signs Executive Order Seeking Oversight of A.I. Models Trump: U.S. stake in AI giants "could be a beautiful thing" Cable lobby warns of chaos if FCC doesn't relax ban on foreign routers Google ordered to put clearer links in AI search and let UK publishers opt out AT&T and Verizon lose Supreme Court case over fines for selling location data YouTubers Win the Box Office, Goodbye Gatekeepers, The YouTube Bar YouTube overtakes Netflix in average daily viewing around the world Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Joey de Villa, Jeff Jarvis, and Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: expressvpn.com/twit ZipRecruiter.com/twit canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT Melissa.com/twit helixsleep.com/twit

Explore everything from explosive technology for space to electric technology for the road. Leo, Molly, Gary, and Sam have deep discussions on Magnifica Humanitas takeaways, Wikipedia drama, Peter Thiel's mvoe to Argentina, and more! US Space Force confirms SpaceX will build sensor-to-shooter targeting network The most spectacular rocket explosion since N1 just happened in Florida What Pope Leo XIV's First Encyclical Says About the Power of AI Google's search overhaul has social media users baiting the 'AI Overview' to prove a point Apple to Overhaul iOS 27 Siri, AI Features: Here's a First Peek Someone wrote a fake EULA into Bitcoin. Two hours later, they revoked it. Wikipedia editor is threatening to go on strike Ferrari reveals its first EV, with design help from Jony Ive In Argentina, U.S. Tech Billionaire Peter Thiel Finds An Escape Robotaxis Are Spreading Across the U.S.—and So Is the Backlash Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Gary Rivlin, Sam Abuelsamid, and Molly White Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: mill.com/TWIT box.com/AI zscaler.com/security ZipRecruiter.com/twit doppel.com

Google is rewriting the rules of search, CBS News Radio just died after 99 years, and billionaires now own the newsrooms. This episode dives into what happens when technology giants tighten their grip on how we get information. Google's new Universal Cart wants to follow your entire shopping journey across the internet Hands-On With All of Google's New Upcoming Android XR Smart Glasses New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is launching a Twitch show U.S. Invests $2 Billion and Takes Stake in Quantum Firms Elon Musk lost his case against Sam Altman GM Driver Data Privacy Lawsuit: California Fines GM $12.75 Million A Bipartisan Amendment Would End Police License Plate Tracking Nationwide 'Creepy' Listening Tool for Targeted Ads Didn't Actually Work, FTC Says Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Larry Magid, Marshall Kirkpatrick, and Jacob Ward Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: outsystems.com/twit superhuman.com meter.com/twit box.com/AI doppel.com mill.com/TWIT

Is the era of American tech dominance ending? Get an inside look at how China's pragmatic approach to AI, robotics, and hardware is shifting the global balance, and why the US might need a new playbook to keep up. Trump and the CEOs go to China NVIDIA CEO joins Trump in China despite 'awkward' politics US clears H200 chip sales to 10 China firms as Nvidia CEO looks for breakthrough Empty Waymos invade Atlanta neighborhood, circle cul-de-sac for hours with no passengers The Class of 2026 is cooked Chinese AI groups pull ahead of US rivals in video generation race Google Weighs Using SpaceX to Launch Orbital Data Centers What smart people are saying about OpenAI's new $10 billion company to help businesses deploy AI Bitcoin trader recovers $400,000 using Claude AI after getting 'stoned' and losing wallet password 11 years ago — bot tried 3.5 trillion passwords before decrypting an old wallet backup Your Mattress Got Worse on Purpose Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Harper Reed and Amy Webb Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: threatlocker.com/twit scribe.how/twit shopify.com/twit box.com/AI NetSuite.AI/TWIT

Campus hacks bring final exams to a standstill, a blockbuster study on AI in education gets pulled, and the world's biggest technology companies face government crackdowns with barely a dent to their bottom lines. Plus, Apple returns to Intel as chip wars reshape US tech! Anthropic and OpenAI IPO Chatter Canvas Breach Disrupts Schools & Colleges Nationwide The Canvas Hack Is a New Kind of Ransomware Debacle Influential study touting ChatGPT in education retracted over red flags - Ars Technica Anthropic Says It Has Eliminated Undesirable Behaviour Like Blackmail From Claude By Deeply Explaining To It Why It Was Wrong Tech is turning increasingly to religion in a quest to create ethical AI Intel's comeback story is even wilder than it seems Apple, Intel Have Reached Preliminary Chip-Making Agreement Meta challenges Ofcom in UK High Court over the Online Safety Act, which calculates levies based on global, not UK, revenue, in a case scheduled for October Meat Industry Price Fixer Sentenced to Make Money Chrome's Prompt API: A Unilateral Gamble That Is Fracturing Web Standards NHTSA says the 2026 Tesla Model Y is the first car model to pass the agency's new ADAS tests; Tesla conducted the tests and submitted the results to the NHTSA Here is Yarbo's promise to fix the robot mower that ran me over Social Media Sites Got Information from Ad Trackers on US State Health Insurance Sites Pinterest crosses $1 billion quarterly revenue as AI-powered visual search drives advertising growth that social platforms cannot match Cloudflare beat earnings, cut 1,100 jobs because AI agents do the work now, and lost a quarter of its stock price in a day Motherboard Sales 'Collapse' By More Than 25% - Slashdot The FCC Wants Your ID Before You Get a Phone Number Kids say they can beat age checks by drawing on a fake mustache FCC to allow banned drones and routers to receive critical updates until 2029 Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Berber Jin, Iain Thomson, and Paris Martineau Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: outsystems.com/twit joindeleteme.com/twit promo code TWIT bitwarden.com/twit ziprecruiter.com/twit meter.com/twit zscaler.com/security

Big Tech is pouring hundreds of billions into AI, but with rising signs of an industry bubble and some real-world fallout, this week's episode digs into who actually wins, who stands to lose, and whether Apple's patient strategy may outsmart the hype. Big Tech firms beat earnings expectations amid AI spending questions RIP the $599 Mac Mini, you were too beautiful for this world Microsoft lifts 2026 AI spend by $25 billion to cover component price rises Microsoft speeds up in Big Tech's data center spend-off Crosswording the Situation Meta's historic loss in court could cost a lot more than $375 million Utah first state to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs — law goes into effect, designed to prevent bypassing age checks Australia unveils a 2.25% levy on Meta, Google, and TikTok Meta found in breach of EU law for failing to keep children off Facebook and Instagram Meta inks deal for solar power at night, beamed from space Musk v. Altman week 1: Elon Musk says he was duped, warns AI could kill us all, and admits that xAI distills OpenAI's models OpenAI-backed 1X opens California factory targeting 10,000 home humanoid robots in year one Sam Altman asked GPT-5.5 to plan its own launch party. Its requests were 'beautiful' but 'strange.' Sam Altman says Elon Musk can come to his GPT 5.5 party: 'World needs more love' The US Senate unanimously passed a rule barring senators from trading on prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, amid rising concern over insider trading 'We Know You Live Right Here': No Secrets in America's New Surveillance Dragnet California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws China Suspends New Autonomous Driving Permits After Baidu Outage China has decided that firing a worker because an AI can do their job is illegal. No Western country has done the same. Maryland Is First to Ban A.I.-Driven Price Increases in Grocery Stores The most severe Linux threat to surface in years catches the world flat-footed Hackers are actively exploiting a bug in cPanel, used by millions of websites The Hottest Anti-AI Gadget Is a Cyberdeck Jack Dorsey-backed Vine reboot Divine launches to the public GameStop eyes eBay takeover in audacious $46 billion bet on Ryan Cohen's e-commerce vision AI-generated actors and scripts are now ineligible for Oscars Ukraine says it's training drone pilots in 'Grand Theft Auto V' This free website is like Wikipedia meets the CIA Light Phone III Is a Delightfully Minimalist Smartphone Alternative Valve Steam Controller is here, it's a gamepad in search of a console Bluetooth Connected - The Voices Behind the Connection Spirit Airlines shuts down after Trump's war on Iran doubled jet fuel prices Ask.com has shut down, marking the official farewell to the Internet's favorite butler Pioneering geneticist and decoder of the human genome J. Craig Venter dies at age 79 Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Nicholas De Leon, Devindra Hardawar, and Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: helixsleep.com/twit canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT Melissa.com/twit expressvpn.com/twit box.com/AI