18:26
Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, is currently the subject of a national security inquiry after it was revealed that he's been having an extra marital affair with suspected Chinese spy, Alice Huang, who he is not related to. All the DNA exchanging has been recent, apparently. I'm James Strive. This is Tech Linked, and the news of the affair broke on November 7th when the Financial Times reported that US intelligence agencies confirmed that Alice, who was a former Mega Speed executive, had been passing intelligence on Jensen to China's Ministry of State Security. The Nvidia CEO confirmed the affair yesterday in an internal memo to his staff apologizing for his actions, and he's expected to
appear before Congress on November 18th to explain the affair, which honestly might be easier than facing your wife. While I'm sure that meeting will happen behind closed doors, we can all rest assured that the story of how Huang and Huang would hang and play with Jensen's Huang will be just as gross and hilarious as we all imagined. Reportedly, the Trump administration had been aware of the affair since at least the spring, but they chose to adhere to the bro code and not blow up Jensen's spot. Though it was likely less out of altruism and more because Trump had negotiated a deal to take 25% of the revenue from all Nvidia chip sales to China, and he loves money more than national security.
We know this now. In fact, Trump went so far as to give Jensen a ride to China on Air Force One during the US China summit back in May. We can only speculate at this point, but I expect Huang probably leaked more than just secrets on that trip. Ew. The Epic Games launcher appears to be coming to Steam OS. It would seem even Epic realized that Steam is where the party's at, like trying to host Bible Club across the street from a Creed concert. They'll take you churches with arms wide open. Epic's plan for Linux has been building for a while now with the company previously confirming plans to bring Fortnite to Linux, but first needing to rebuild its anti-cheat tech. In the meantime though, Epic's
communications director, Jake Jones, has confirmed that the company plans to support a wide of Linux distributions, specifically mentioning Fedora, CatOS, Omarchi, and of course, Steam OS. Epic has acknowledged that Fortnite still faces anti-cheat hurdles on Linux with the Steam Deck having some additional compatibility issues that the company is working with Valve to resolve. So don't expect Fortnite to suddenly work on your Linux machine just because the Epic launcher does. Still, an Epic launcher for Steam OS could mean a more seamless experience for Steam Deck owners, complete with better controller support.
This is trickle-down economics in action, people. Valve owns the neighborhood, and by their gracious goodwill, Epic gets to set up a food truck. And they even provide floss. Don't say it. It's a stupid joke. Oh. Stupid joke. Coinbase announced today that it has been granted final approval to be a chartered trust bank in the United States, and a bunch of people are mad about it. To be clear, this does not give Coinbase the ability to operate as a standard commercial bank. Like it won't be taking deposits or giving out loans, and it won't be an FDIC insured institution. What it does do is give Coinbase the right to have custody over
large amounts of crypto assets for big financial institutions, which in turn gives the federal government a measure of regulatory control over Coinbase, and it protects their customers' assets from being used to pay off creditors if the company were to file for bankruptcy. Critics of the move, however, are saying that this is the first step in Coinbase trying to find a side door into commercial banking. With Elizabeth Warren, you know, she's always out there claiming that Coinbase's operations are much more consistent with those of a crypto bank and not a trust. Furthermore, community banks have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that this is a violation of the National Bank Act and
alleging that the combination of the federal regulation along with the volatility of crypto assets makes it possible that a crash could result in the federal government using taxpayer dollars to bail out Coinbase. Anyway, sponsor time. Saily. It's November, which always makes me think of American Thanksgiving, which always makes me think of planes, trains, and automobiles. You know the movie? And if you're traveling by plane, train, or automobile this holiday season, you could probably use Saile. Whether you're heading to Jamaica, like in Cool Runnings, coming to Canada for some Canadian bacon, or going abroad to explore the great outdoors, Saile's eSIM keeps you connected in over 200
destinations without expensive roaming fees. Plus, Saile now offers US phone numbers with calls and SMS so you can keep your real number private whenever you roam. Activate in one tap, keep your real phone number private, and stay connected wherever your travels take you. Get a 15% discount on Saile eSIM data plans. Download Saile app and use code TechLinked at checkout. I'm going to go watch a John Candy movie. This is empty. Yeah, sometimes the quick bits can be a little tough to handle, but it could be worse. Think about this.
Quick zits. Pretty gross, right? You get those one time. You'll never take the quick bits for granted. AMD has confirmed a bug in its GPU drivers that can cause SSDs to constantly write data even when the PC is idle. The issue comes up after a Reddit user noticed the AMD external events process going nutso on their drive, with other users reporting excessive writes and potentially accelerated SSD wear. However, how much damage this actually causes is still unclear. Last year, a similar issue affected AMD's chipset driver. AMD says a fix is on the way, while some Redditors are already sharing possible workarounds. Clearly, AMD
doesn't make storage and therefore hates it. Simple. Can't fool me. The EU has found TikTok to be in breach of the Digital Services Act as a result of the rabbit hole effect of its recommendation algorithms. According to the European Commission, the For You feed has the tendency to show teens a continuous stream of content related to mental health struggles and body image, even if the user has selected not interested on this content. The EU has stated that in order to be compliant with the DSA, TikTok must not use viewing time as a recommendation signal, which is unfortunate for the company that, you know, powers its entire hyper-addictive recommendation algorithm based on viewing time. That's how it
cooks your brain sous vide style so good. What are they going to do? Sorry, Europeans, I think you're just not going to have TikTok anymore after this. Apple's John Ternus era has begun, which apparently means more AI in your iPhone and more eyes on your iCloud. Apple plans to check photos, videos, and files shared through iCloud links set to anyone with link for harmful content. That old vaguely defined boogeyman. Meanwhile, Apple is rumored to want to give Siri an even bigger AI makeover, evolving Siri into an agent that can control apps, coordinate tasks, and accomplish goals in the background.
Maybe the next album that just appears on all of our iDevices without our consent will be AI generated. Security researchers have just shown that White House IP addresses were up for rent as residential proxies between October 5th November 3rd, which means that for a month anyone could pay a few dollars and route their web traffic through the White House. Hey, I'm not American, but it sounds like you your country doesn't want that. You don't want that to happen. It's not good. The investigation showed that the proxies were likely unknowingly downloaded by a White House staffer who installed the shared streaming app Rave, which comes bundled with a bunch of residential proxy SDKs, including one
called Emphatica. That's notable because its founder, Vladimir Fomenko, has been implicated in the 2016 Russian state-sponsored cyber attack on voting systems in Arizona and Illinois. Luckily, it doesn't seem like the access was used to exfiltrate confidential information from the White House, but quoting a former resident of the illustrious 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Also, I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty. What a legend. And the Federal Aviation Administration must be flying high after announcing it is finally retiring the floppy disks used to deliver critical weather and flight info to air traffic controllers.
The FAA is replacing decades-old systems with a modern digital platform. Palantir. Just joking. The agency is officially cleared for takeoff into the 21st century with upgrades to 435 facilities expected by the end of 2028. Nothing says aviation discovering the cloud and making jet streams rain on you people and pacify you. Yes, that's Americans. They're passive. That's what we've seen. And you'll be actively discovering more great tech news when you come back on Friday. There's no show on Wednesday and I'm going to take that time to remember because it's Remembrance Day here in Canada. But also to take care of my skin. I really can't deal with another quick zits outbreak
