Abrar Al-Heeti from CNET joins Mikah Sargent this week on Tech News Weekly! Tesla has been found partially liable for a fatal crash in 2019. Project Ire from Microsoft can autonomously identify malware at scale. Age verification is slowly being rolled out across the internet. And OpenAI announced GPT-5!

• Abrar discusses Tesla's being found partially liable in a fatal 2019 crash and ordered to pay $243 million in damages. Tesla seeks to appeal the ruling.
• Mikah shares a new AI model from Microsoft called Project Ire that can analyze and classify malware in software.
• Age verification is slowly being rolled out to numerous websites that host adult material and harmful content. However, there are concerns with how this is being utilized, which raises privacy concerns for users.
• And Sabrina Ortiz of ZDNET joins the show to chat with Mikah about everything announced at OpenAI's unveiling of its latest AI model, GPT-5.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Abrar Al-Heeti

Guest: Sabrina Ortiz

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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy joins Mikah Sargent this week on Tech News Weekly! Jennifer shares her first impressions of Alexa Plus. The growing overlap between consumer wellness gadgets and regulated medical technology. And Google's rolling out a machine-learning age verification model to detect account users who are under or over the age of 18.

• Jennifer Pattison Tuohy has spent some time with Amazon's new, AI-powered Alexa, Alexa Plus. She shares her excitement and criticisms for the new voice assistant.
• Victoria Song of The Verge joins Mikah to talk about wearable tech companies using the idea of "wellness" technology to skirt FDA regulation on medical technology.
• And Mikah talks about Google's rollout of a machine-learning age verification model to verify account users' age in the U.S.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Guest: Victoria Song

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Dan Moren joins Mikah Sargent for this episode of Tech News Weekly! A zero-day bug was discovered in Microsoft's SharePoint. T-Mobile's new satellite texting service, T-Satellite. Apple announces AppleCare One. And Meta's Reality Labs published new papers on the latest advancements in its wrist-based controllers.

• Mikah shares details about the zero-day bug discovered in Microsoft's SharePoint on Monday, which affected over 400 organizations worldwide.
• Jeff Carlson of CNET spent some time using T-Mobile's new satellite-based service, T-Satellite, and shares his thoughts on the company's Starlink-based service.
• Dan Moren talks about Apple's latest iteration of its device coverage program, AppleCare One, a $19.99/month subscription that covers up to three devices of your choice.
• Breaking news as Apple's iOS 26 Public Beta arrives Thursday morning!
• And Mikah talks about the latest on Meta's wrist-based controllers that use surface electromyography (sEMG) to allow you to interact with paired devices.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren

Guest: Jeff Carlson

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Emily Forlini of PCMag joins Mikah Sargent this week! A look into Synchron's headquarters, Beeper relaunches its messaging services after being acquired by Automattic, OpenAI releases its new agentic AI service, and an AI service company is hosting over 5,000 nonconsensual AI models of real people.

• Emily shares her time checking out Synchron, a company developing brain-computer interface implants that is considered a significant competitor to Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk.
• Mikah talks about Beeper's relaunch of its messaging app, which runs on devices and offers premium services such as access to more accounts and power-user-type features.
• OpenAI launched its new agentic AI service, ChatGPT Agent, on Thursday morning. This service can complete work for you on your computer and perform a variety of tasks for you.
• And Emanuel Maiberg of 404 Media shares his reporting into Hugging Face and how it is hosting over 5,000 AI models of real people, without consent, following another company, Civitai, which previously banned these models.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Emily Forlini

Guest: Emanuel Maiberg

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Dan Moren joins us this week! Rumors are circulating about an A18 MacBook Pro and iPhone 17 Air from Apple, Samsung just held its Galaxy Unpacked event this month and unveiled updates to some of its products, AI bots are scraping obituaries for profit, and a new browser war is emerging between two AI companies.

• Dan Moren talks about the rumored A18 MacBook Pro and iPhone 17 Air that Apple could announce this year as ways to appeal to broader consumer markets.
• Mikah Sargent shares the Galaxy Z Flip7, Galaxy Z Fold7, and the Galaxy Watch8 that Samsung unveiled at its recently held Galaxy Unpacked July 2025 event.
• Joe Supan of CNET joins the show to talk with Mikah about how AI is starting to scrape obituaries shared on social media networks like Facebook, and is being monetized for profit.
• And Mikah discusses an upcoming AI-powered browser war that looks to challenge Google Chrome, with companies like Perplexity launching Comet and OpenAI soon to launch its own web browser.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren

Guest: Joe Supan

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Amanda Silberling joins Mikah Sargent this week for Tech News Weekly! X is piloting the use of AI chatbots to generate Community Notes. The Supreme Court's porn ruling and what it means for internet privacy. Microsoft tests using AI to diagnose medical cases. And what's new with the Nothing Phone 3?

• Amanda shares the story she wrote for TechCrunch about how the social media company, X, is testing an AI program that can help generate Community Notes for its posts.
• Mikah talks about the Supreme Court's ruling on a Texas law requiring age verification to access adult websites and what this could mean for internet privacy in the future.
• Mikah also shares research that Microsoft conducted on utilizing AI to help diagnose medical cases that even expert physicians struggle to figure out.
• And Andrew Lanxon of CNET joins the show to talk about the Nothing Phone 3 and what he experienced from his hands-on with the device.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Amanda Silberling

Guest: Andrew Lanxon

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This week on Tech News Weekly, Mikah Sargent and Emily Forlini explore RFK Jr.'s ambitious plan to get health trackers on every American's wrist, Apple's CarPlay Ultra facing resistance from automakers, landmark AI copyright rulings, and Fairphone's latest sustainable smartphone offering.

• RFK Jr.'s Wearable Health Initiative - Emily Forlini discusses the HHS Secretary's vision for every American to wear health trackers within four years, examining both the potential benefits of democratizing health data and concerns about privacy, data collection, and the government outsourcing public health monitoring to tech companies.
• Apple CarPlay Ultra vs. Automakers - Mikah explores Apple's ambitious expansion beyond infotainment to control entire car dashboards, revealing which manufacturers are embracing or rejecting the technology, and discussing the fundamental question of who should own the in-car experience - tech companies, automakers, or consumers.
• AI Copyright Rulings Shake Tech Industry - WIRED's Kate Knibbs breaks down two precedent-setting court decisions involving Meta and Anthropic, explaining how judges ruled AI training as "transformative" fair use while leaving the door open for piracy-related damages that could reach into the trillions.
• Fairphone 6: Sustainability Meets Modularity - Will Sattelberg from 9to5Google showcases the latest repairable smartphone featuring modular backplates, a dedicated "Moments" mode for digital wellness, and an ambitious 8-year software support promise, though US availability remains limited.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Emily Forlini

Guests: Kate Knibbs and Will Sattelberg

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Surface Duo Hands-on, Russian SIMs, Apple's unannounced subscription bundles.

• Harry McCracken from Fast Company has the Microsoft Duo foldable Android device and shares his thoughts after spending one week with the prerelease hardware.
• Joseph Cox from VICE got the inside scoop on a secretive Russian SIM network that enables all sorts of illegal activity, and he explains how they work.
• Apple is expected to announce a collection of subscription bundles for its services and Mikah isn't quite sold on the value of them.
• Epic Games added a new in-game payment method for Fortnite that bypasses Apple and Google's own in-app payment systems, and the consequences are beginning to take shape.

Hosts: Jason Howell and Mikah Sargent

Guests: Harry McCracken and Joseph Cox

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