This week, documents were leaked from a former Cambridge Analytica employee that the company data-mined information from Facebook worldwide on an "industrial scale" to manipulate elections worldwide.
The president signed a new law called the Traced Act, which will enable the federal government to frustrate and maybe even end Robocalls.
Today marks the beginning of the 17th year of the Tech Guy Show, and Leo says it's just plain odd. It's 2020, the distant future is here. But it looks nothing like Blade Runner. In fact, it's not that much different from 2000 or even 1995, except slightly better technology. Science Fiction promised flying cars, living on other planets, and the virtual metaverse (ala Ready Player One). But we're barely starting to crack self-driving cars, and VR is a disappointment so far.
This year at CES, AMD is making some huge announcements. AMD has started to give Intel a run for their money, with the Ryzen Threadripper chips! So Leo is expecting some huge news on Monday afternoon.
With what people are saying is the end of the decade (it isn't), there are stories coming out about technology over the decade. And one story talks about the most disappointing stories of the decade. Leo says that Social Media has been one of the most disappointing stories of the decade as it didn't really achieve the promise that it would bring us together. In reality, the old saying "familiarity breeds contempt" has been more likely. Social media has made us more fractured, as people tend just to read and embrace the things they agree with, or uniformity of thought.
Chuck Peddle, the creator of the Apple 2 6502 microprocessor and father of personal computing, passed away this week. He was 85. Although the 6502 wasn't a very good processor, it blazed a trail for affordable processors that would eventually become the ARM processor and the Intel 8080.
Running on 386 computers for the last 20 years, the International Space Station received a computer upgrade this week.
This week, Senators sent a letter to Facebook telling them to respect user privacy, especially when they request not being tracked. Turns out, even if users opt-out of being tracked, Facebook has been doing it anyway. Leo says that while he chooses to opt-out of having his online activity tracked, he understands that Facebook is a free service and they do have to pay the bills with targeted ads. But shouldn't they respect when someone doesn't want to be included?
Leo says that the best gift for the technology geek in your life these days is a gift card. If they are really geeky, make it a NewEgg gift card, but Amazon is generally the safest. For gamers, a PS or Xbox gift card is ideal, or maybe even one for STEAM.
With the launch of Apple's new high priced AirPods Pros, a sales record of over $4 BILLION dollars for the recent quarter was announced. Not the year, mind you. BUT THE QUARTER. It's a good holiday for Cupertino.
Meanwhile, Samsung tried to brag that they had sold over a million Samsung Galaxy Fold phones, but when called on it, they pulled the number back. Embarrassing.
