Googlebook Announcement, Trump Phone, Meta Employees Protest Tracking Tech + more!

Google has revealed what is going to be the successor to Chromebooks, Google Books. They're gonna come out this fall running Google's Android-based aluminum OS, but don't worry, that's just the code name. They're gonna have a different name for it by the time it launches. They got the same crack branding team on it as the one that came up with Google Book. Google Book. I'm Riley Murdoch, this is TechLinked, and the Google Book announcement comes ahead of Google I.O., the company's annual dev conference. This year's theme, even more AI. I mean, Google VP, John Miletus says, "'The Google Book will run native Android apps with no emulation, "'cause it'll be running an OS built on the Android stack.'" Something that many of us were very excited about, because I guess we assumed that Google wouldn't stuff it full of AI bloat. I don't know why we thought that. Google was showing this kind of stock Google Book imagery in a lot of the presentation, but they didn't actually give any details on hardware. Apparently it's going to be a very similar situation to the one with Chromebooks. Miletus says Google is working closely with major OEMs from Acer to Lenovo to ensure premium quality. And Intel, Qualcomm and MediaTek are all on board on the processor side, meaning that both x86 and ARM support is baked in to aluminum OS right out of the gate. Google similarly did not go into a ton of detail about Aluminium OS, but they did talk a lot about Magic Pointer, which summons Gemini whenever you wiggle your cursor. So you can wiggle it over a table of data to turn it into a chart or wiggle it over an image of a Japanese storefront to get a translation. According to Google, the Magic Pointer is so important because pointing is really at the core of a lot of the interactions we have. I thought it was human connection, but no, actually, I just, this is the core of a lot. I just kind of go around. But it's where the Facebook poke came from. After months of waiting, the Trump phone is finally here. Asterix, asterix on basically everything in that sentence. People who put down a $100 pre-order deposit for the Trump phone have been freaking out this past week after Trump Mobile updated its terms and conditions on April 6th This led to people posting a lot of demonstrably false information on social media Posts went viral claiming that the terms and conditions said that the phone would not arrive, that people would not get their deposits back or refunded, that 600,000 pre-orders of the phone were confirmed. According to The Verge, however, that claim of 600,000 pre-orders is just, that came out of nowhere, someone made that up. And the terms and conditions do have a lot of weird language in there about how Trump Mobile might not release a phone. Just because you gave us a hundred dollars doesn't mean we're going to release a phone. I don't know. However, they do very explicitly promise refunds if the phone never ships. Who knows if they're going to honor that, but it's in there. The general vibe on the internet for the past week and a half has been that the Trump phone is dead, which is a totally fair thing to think. I thought it was dead a long time ago. But even more reporting from The Verge has surfaced evidence that the Trump phone is more real than it's ever been. It got FCC approval back in January and PTCRB approval in March, which is reportedly one of the final steps before a phone actually launches. And sure enough, Trump Mobile stated this morning that the phone is going to ship this week. Now, that said, the aforementioned terms and conditions also say delivery will come in no specific timeframe, which could put it anywhere between now and the eventual heat death of the universe. But the important thing is that we should all keep doing our best to figure out what is it gonna happen with this phone. I mean, stability of the stock market, you know, inflation, war is happening. That's all, that's fine. We gotta figure out what is up with this yellow colored phone. Meta employees across the US have begun to organize protests in response to the company's new mouse and keyboard tracking software. The pushback comes after last month's announcement that the tool would be logging employee activity in order to train the AI agents that Meta planned to use to replace those same employees. The company then announced that 10% of staff would be laid off on May 20th to help fund $135 billion in AI spending. So the fallout has triggered unprecedented worker organizing at Meta with the movement now spreading to the UK through a tech workers union So I guess congratulations to Zuckerborg for finally achieving Meta goal of bringing people together. This news comes during a rough stretch for the cursed puppet that is the Zucker corn, as Meta stock dropped nearly 9% after Q1 earnings showed a loss of 20 million active users across their platforms, and an impending $3.7 billion penalty as part of the ongoing New Mexico lawsuit. Honestly, in moments like this, I kind of feel sorry for Zuck. But then I remember that he's actually a lizard 95% of the way through a transformation into a man. And I actually feel totally fine again. Like you're gonna feel about our sponsor. Micro Center, they say that April showers bring May flowers and thanks to Micro Center, it also brings big savings on Apple products. What? Check out some of their amazing deals like this M5 MacBook Pro, that's $600 off. I bet you can get a screen player or two out of that baby. Exterior, Austin, Texas. Dawn, our handsome protagonist stands at the precipice of savings in a Micro Center parking lot. That's right, Austin, you are getting a Micro Center. And if you come to the grand opening later this year, you can sign up for a free 128 gig flash drive when the store opens. And if you don't live in Texas, but you still wanna get your grubby little hands at 128 gigs of sweet, sweet flash storage, you'll get your chance at Micro Center's Columbus grand reopening. They just keep opening them. Sign up for that one at the link below. And while you're over there, make sure to sign up for Micro Center News to keep up to date with the ever-changing world of tech. Now, back to my screenplay. You think it's weird if I call the protagonist James? Quick bits? I hardly know her. Spotify suffered a global outage Tuesday afternoon with more than 15,000 users reporting problems. The rest of them didn't even notice. Coincidentally, on the same day, the company rolled out a flashy new feature celebrating and recapping your entire listening history, not just this past year. Some users reported that their music had cut out, but the ads kept playing. Different user decided to go analog, listening to records to pass the time. Luckily, Spotify fixed the issue and it's working again now. Whew, almost got a bit introspective there, listening to an artistic work in its entirety. Don't want that! The EU has announced that it is working on expanded child safety legislation intended to crack down on social platforms for addictive features The commission said the move is necessary because these platforms have failed to protect children from harm Enforcement is however, where the EU will struggle as their age verification app was called a fundamentally ill-conceived disaster by security experts, which incidentally is what my local paper called my high school jazz band's decision to incorporate Roman candles into our pep rally performance. It looked really cool though. Amazon announced Tuesday it's rolling out 30 minute deliveries to dozens of US cities, starting with bits of Seattle and Philadelphia, its most aggressive push yet into quick commerce. The company is using smaller dark facilities tucked into neighborhoods close to where customers live. Knowing Amazon, I think those dark facilities might be where they keep employees trying to unionize or just take more than a five minute break. Apple released iOS 26.5 this week, alongside a warning to update immediately since it patches over 60 security flaws and many of them are serious. As usual, Apple's keeping the specifics vague in order to give users a head start before attackers reverse engineer the patches, I guess. So you should probably go get the update, unless you've always dreamed of being a silent partner in a Belarusian crypto mining operation. In Chinese robotics company, Unitree debuted the GD-01, a nine foot, 500 kilogram manned mecha that could be yours for only $650,000. The demo showcases a pilot controlling the bot as it stomps happily along before proceeding to knock down a brick wall. Why are all of their demos so violent? They just accept it. They're just like, well, if we make robots, they're gonna kill us. So it was just like, that's what, but that's not all. It also transforms and crawls backwards on all fours. like the girl from the ring. They one-upped it for this one. The cockpit doesn't rotate though. So in that form, the pilot would stare helplessly at the clouds. A great design for anyone who values a nice sunset over surviving a giant robot fight. I certainly hope you survive long enough to come back on Friday for more tech news. I'm sure we'll have some more quantifiably questionable and refreshingly quenchable quality stories.