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Remember when your TV's only job was to entertain you, not to spy on you, and certainly not to snitch to advertisers? Well, Samsung remembers. And they prefer the spying. I'm James Drive, this is Tech Link, and Samsung smart TVs might be collecting more of your data than you thought. According to cybersecurity researcher Log4j, who claims he found evidence that Samsung TV gathered audio, screenshots, and other info for targeted ads. Worse, even models without built-in microphones may reportedly use connected devices like soundbars to pick up audio. Sound detection is an advertised feature of these TVs, but reporting back to Samsung is another story. Of course, this Samsung stuff comes after a Gamers
Nexus investigation raised similar privacy concerns about LG TVs. Log4j called Samsung's practices pretty evil and clever. But it should be noted that its findings haven't been fully independently verified. And Log4j used OpenAI tools to analyze the data, so it's unclear exactly how these features work on stock TVs. We used to call TVs the idiot box. Now the mic cuz they've started school, smarting up. They're taking notes. Apple has released its official DIY repair guide for the iPhone Duo. Though genuine replacement parts are not yet available to order. Meanwhile, iFixit has published its teardown review of the phone, calling it the most repairable foldable smartphone they've ever taken apart. Sounds pretty
promising, but iFixit still only gave the phone a five out of 10 repairability score. And they recommended a conventional phone if repairability is your priority. That advice could come in handy if crackgate, reports of Duo screens cracking along the hinge, keeps on a crackalackin. Thankfully, YouTuber Curious Hoji may have found a clue after stress testing and then dissecting a Duo. He discovered a snapped hinge link that was thinner than its neighboring links, potentially making it a weak point. But the exact cause remains unconfirmed. At least now we know where things might have become unhinged.
Nintendo Switch games can now run on Macs and iPhones with no emulator thanks to an open-source project called NX Native that turns your games into regular Apple apps. Nintendo's console and Apple's product lineup both use ARM chips, so the game's actual code runs here as is. A script rewrites the few gaps left over, a small stand-in program fills in for the Switch operating system, and Nintendo's graphics get redrawn in Apple's own graphics language. And bada bing, bada boom, Bob's your uncle. The whole thing just works. Around 60 games have been tested so far with more than a dozen running at 60 frames per second, which is double what the Switch manages. You still need to source the game and the console keys
and do some tinkering in Xcode, but hey man, this is finally a solution for people who own a Switch and a MacBook and resent that those two are separate things. Now, I know what you're probably thinking. Nintendo keeps killing off emulators left and right. How could this possibly be any different? Well, it borrows shader code from Yuzu, one of the emulators Nintendo killed, so the difference is that Nintendo hasn't noticed yet. But you're going to notice our sponsor, Jawa. For years I searched, searched, searched through endless listings, questionable deals, and the cold, unforgiving void of the internet.
I longed for a place where gamers could buy and sell PC hardware at reasonable prices. Then I found Jawa, the number one gaming marketplace for new and used gaming gear and custom PCs with verified sellers, manually moderated listings, and secure transactions. Jawa puts the market back in the hands of gamers. It's for the gamers! These 50 60 Ti builds, perhaps they're what I've always been searching for all along. If you want to skip the hassle of researching, buying, and building a gaming PC for yourself, buy one from one of Jawa's verified sellers. Visit the link below to get started. Upgrade inevitable.
Jawa. My god, what have we done? The quick bits, THEY'VE HAVE ESCAPED CONTAINMENT. [screaming] APPLE IS GIVING THE IPAD Mini a big makeover, upgrading the old 8.3-in LCD screen to an 8.5-in OLED one. And who amongst us doesn't want another 0.2 in The new Mini also packs a faster A20 Pro chip, a thinner design, IP67 water and dust resistance, upgraded cameras, better audio, and new Siri AI features. Starting at $700, it hits stores November 6th. I'm not going to tell you when pre-orders open because I don't think you should pre-order things. And I get to decide what news you get. Me.
Valve has added CD-ROM drive support to its Steam Deck headset one day after a single user asked for it on the Steam forums. The user wanted to watch DVDs on the road and install Need for Speed: Carbon from a 2006 disk that nobody sells anymore. Naturally, a Valve developer replied, "We will look into this." and had the kernel change done in under 10 minutes. Valve, if you're watching, I'd like floppy drive support cuz I still have my copy of 7-Up's Cool Spot from 1994. And he deserves to be seen in VR. Sony has discontinued its last standalone 4K Blu-ray player, the UBP-X700, which was being sold in Japan.
20 years after it launched the format, they launched it. Shipments stopped in February and the listing now says it won't be restocked. The only Sony product left that plays Blu-ray is a PlayStation 5 with a disc drive, which can't do Dolby Vision or HDR10 Plus to the formats 4K discs are mastered at. Sony invented Blu-ray and the last company still making players for it is Panasonic, which also made the last plasma TV, so best way to kill a format is to let Panasonic get attached to it. Hey, they actually make the world's best Blu-ray player, okay? It's the only one you need. Jailbroken PS5s can now run Windows games straight from your Steam library thanks to a new homebrew app called Playden that runs
them on the console itself, so there's no streaming from a PC. It uses a PS5 port of Wine, the Windows compatibility layer that Valve's Proton is built on. And the list of working games already includes Cyberpunk 2077 and Resident Evil 4, although the performance can vary a lot. It's alpha software, and it stores your Steam login on the console in plain text, so be careful. Someone could steal your Steam account and finally play all those games you bought. And Japan is dealing with trees falling onto its railways in the most anime way possible. Deploying giant human-operated robots with chainsaw hands to clear the tracks and keep trains running safely.
Unfortunately, with Japan facing a demographic crisis, these sexy steel lumberjacks might be making things worse. How is a salary man supposed to compete with a big robot daddy holding a chainsaw and keeping the trains on time? Japan's birth rates are cooked, just like you'll be cooked if you're not back Wednesday for more tech news. Speaking of news, here's some good stuff. We found the Quick Bits. Turns out, they just gone out to get some Slurpees. And who can't relate to that? Big gulps, huh? Well, see you later.
