China Curbs US Investment, Meta Layoffs and Microsoft Buyouts, Apple Update + more!

Octopuses may have three hearts, nine brains and the ability to open up jars from the inside. But consider this, none of them watch tech news. So could they really be that smart? Would they even know that China is apparently telling its top tech companies to refuse US investments unless they get explicit government approval? Insiders reportedly told Bloomberg that this move is part of a broader response to Meta's purchase of Chinese AI agent focused startup, Manus with regulators citing national security as they move to block US stakes in sensitive sectors. But I mean, I guess it's not that bad. I mean, China doesn't really need US money anyway to keep making EVs that feel more like flashy next-gen tech products than cars, which I guess is probably why BYD outsold Tesla globally last year. Then this week, tech giant Alibaba announced its QIN AI models are going to be integrated into a number of vehicles made by Chinese automakers like BYD, but then also SAIC Volkswagen, the Chinese-German joint venture. So wait, I guess they're not against Western money in general. They just prefer their own tech oligarchs to run things rather than bringing in the Zuck to help them throw billions of dollars down the drain. Speaking of the Zuck, Meta and Microsoft have both announced new massive reductions in staff, although in very different ways. Meta is laying off 8,000 people, which amounts to 10% of its workforce. Meta CPO Janelle Gale told staff that the cuts will offset the other investments we're making. Well, that's comforting. Some of you may die. And makes sense, I guess, given that Meta just committed up to $135 billion on data centers this year alone. Microsoft's plan, meanwhile, is a little more gentle. They're offering voluntary buyouts to about 8,700 US employees in the company's first ever voluntary retirement program. Anyone at the senior director level or below whose age and years worked at Microsoft add up to 70 can apply. So if you're a 52 year old with 18 years at Microsoft, you're good to go. And by go I mean get out of here You gotta hand it to Microsoft legal team though Voluntary retirement does kind of dodge the age discrimination lawsuits that regular layoffs can invite while still keeping that we're all living in a dystopia vibe going. And they say there's no innovation in tech anymore. Apple, meanwhile, patched a vulnerability this week that let the FBI obtain deleted signal messages from a suspect's iPhone. Even after the app was uninstalled and the messages were set to auto-delete. The fix comes after an April 9th report from 404 Media. The outlet revealed that the bureau was using a forensic tool to dig into a defendant's push notification database where copies of incoming signal previews were quietly hanging around for long after they were supposed to be gone. It turns out that iOS was treating Signal's delete request as more of a suggestion. Yeah, we'll get to it. Signal CEO, Meredith Whitaker flagged the issue on Blue Sky noting that deleted notifications shouldn't linger in any OS database and asked Apple to fix it. And to Apple's credit, they did listen. Apple rolled out iOS 26.4.2 on Wednesday with a patch highlighting improved data redaction, leading Signal to publicly thank them for the quick turnaround. A rare moment of tech giants listening to each other and helping protect people from government surveillance. All it took was the FBI rifling through someone's notification history. You know who would never do that though? Our sponsor. Scrimba, I've come from the future to warn you about the Borg. 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Microsoft is finally letting IT admins uninstall Copilot from enterprise devices via a new Patch Tuesday policy, which is good, but it does have some interesting conditions. Microsoft 365 Copilot has to be installed. I mean, that one makes sense. AKA Office. The user can't have installed Copilot themselves. Okay, sure, they can't delete something the user installed. Okay, I can jive with that one. And Copilot can't have been launched in the last 28 days. Now, come on, we all accidentally press the button sometimes. What may not have been an accident is a conspiracy to profit from polymarket gambling. The French weather agency has asked police to investigate some suspected tampering with a weather sensor at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris after a couple of suspiciously timed temperature spikes that were cashed in on to the tune of around $35,000 in profit. You know, I thought the whole point of a blockchain prediction market is that it supposed to be trustless but I guess that works great until someone demonstrates that the entire system is plugged into an airport thermometer that anyone can walk up to with a hairdryer and go Oh yeah I think the high of today is going to be 52 It's democratizing insider trading. A former ransomware negotiator at cybersecurity firm Digital Mint has pleaded guilty to playing both sides of the table with the hacker group that he was paid to fight. And prosecutors say that Angelo Martino gave the cyber gang known as Black Cat his client's insurance limits and internal strategies across five different negotiations, helping to steal $75 million in ransom money for a cut of the profits. Feds have already seized $10 million in assets from Martino, including a luxury fishing boat and inexplicably a food truck, because you should never pretend to negotiate on an empty stomach. The UK National Cyber Security Center has unveiled a plug and play dongle called Silent Glass that can stop malware from being transmitted over HDMI or DisplayPort. If you're confused about why this device would be necessary, it turns out that analysts are too. Protocol level exploits and compromised monitors are both legit attack vectors, but they're basically non-existent outside of conference demos. But hey, I guess it makes about as much sense as anything else you'll find in the UK. Oh, come on. That's not nice. catching strays today. And Sony's AI division has built a ping pong robot that just became the first machine to beat a professional table tennis player under official tournament rules. Ace, the ping pong bot, tracks the ball using nine cameras and measure spin 700 times per second, which according to a Nature paper published this week, is how it took down elite university players and pros alike. That's right, unbeatable bots are coming to athletic games now too. And if chess is anything to go by, This is inevitably gonna lead to somebody cheating with a butt plug. But, robots can't replace your innate value as a conscious human being. So we want you to come back here on Monday for more tech news. That's it for today. I'm gonna go taste something with my arms. Dang octopus got nothing on me. I'll put my arms on stuff. They're not gonna beat you like, yeah, that's good. Just like that. You're tasting the air.