The Tech Jawn: Black Tech Enthusiasts Covering The Week's Tech News And How Tech Affects Black Culture

Microsoft Recall was supposed to launch with Copilot+ PCs last week, but Microsoft decided to send the controversial, AI-powered, timeline snapshotting feature to the Windows Insider Program. Social Media Influencers aren’t seeing the sponsorship and brand deal payouts that they once did, possibly because everyone and their momma is trying to become one.  Meta is flagging real photos edited w...

Apple’s new Tap to Cash feature that allows iPhone users to tap their phones to initiate an Apple Pay transfer makes paying someone really easy.  The question is does it make it too easy? The US Surgeon General wants tobacco-like warning labels on social media. The proposed labels would regularly warn users that social media platforms have not been proven safe for their mental health. The Fea...

In this episode of The Tech Jawn, we cover Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference Keynote.  Brothech breaks down the new hotness coming to visionOS 2, iOS and iPad OS 18, WatchOS 11, and macOS Sequoia.   TechLifeSteph catches us up with the saga of the phantom system data on her new Macbook Air.  To make a long story short, Steph had to make a trip to the Genius Bar. And we wr...

A pair of studies published in the journal Science indicate that predominately older Republican women are responsible for the vast majority of the “fake news”. Spotify is raising its prices for the second time in as many years. Will the streaming music service be able to maintain the industry's best churn rate? The social media platform X has updated its terms of service specifically allowing...

We’ve got something special in this week’s episode of The Tech Jawn. We interview Cherish Samuels, a unicorn of unicorns, as she is a Black, female, mechanical engineer. We talk about everything from her journey getting into engineering at a young age, for years being the only face on the job that looks like hers, and how she has transitioned into tech now working on Amazon Fresh, the automat...

Political deep fakes are a thing in India, they generally aren’t nefarious, and most politicians approve. They probably need to do a better job at making sure folks know they are indeed fake, however. The latest iOS update, version 17.5, appears to in some instances resurface deleted content, including deleted nudes users thought were gone forever.  OpenAI is tossing around the idea of l...

Developer season is upon us with Google I/O kicking off, and, tech pettiness is on full display.  Apple announced iOS 17.5 and there are rumors that ChatGPT is coming to iPhone. OpenAI took petty to trolling with an event Monday, the day before I/O, with a brand new version of its generative AI bot called ChatGPT-4o. Online dating site Bumble is betting that AI bots dating other AI can help r...

By the time you hear this Apple’s Let Loose iPad Event has happened.  Here is all the new iPad hotness we think is going to be announced. The Supreme Court of The United States really wasn’t interested in hearing why Elon Musk thinks he no longer needs a “Twitter Sitter” to approve all of his Telsa-related social media posts. Jack Dorsey is no longer on the board at BlueSky, the decentralized...

The Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to ban non-compete agreements for most employees allowing workers to switch jobs or start their own businesses more easily. A Baltimore area gym teacher has been arrested for using AI to make a deep fake recording of his principal making racist and antisemitic comments. Gunshot detection system ShotSpotter keeps collecting data and notifying...

It appears that a lot of folks repeatedly sign up and cancel streaming services based on there being content on them we want to watch, and, they have a name for us. Serial Churners. The potential TikTok ban is picking up steam again as a revised bill mandating TikTok parent company ByteDance divest its US interest in the social media platform passes the House of Representatives. A court ruled that...

Hybrid work appears to be here to stay. Millennials are making it clear that they have no intention of returning to the office 5 days per week.  Artificial Intelligence will allow artists to perform digitally long after they’ve passed away.  The bigger question is how will the content be licensed and distributed. X may start charging new users a small fee to be able to post, reply to, an...

New York City’s city governance chatbot instructs citizens to break the law in some cases and government officials are a bit miffed journalists are telling the public about it. A University of North Georgia student says she was falsely accused of using AI to write a paper when she in fact only used Grammarly to spell-check it at the suggestion of her college professors. A Washington State Lottery...

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences illustrates how AI fails to detect depression signs in social media posts by Black Americans as compared to their white counterparts.  Joel Bervell, a.k.a., the Medical Mythbuster, has been saving lives by tackling racial and gender disparities in healthcare via social media. X tests and confirms plans for new Not Safe f...

The U.S. Department of Justice and 15 states accuse Apple of monopolizing the smartphone market in a landmark antitrust lawsuit.  Online recruiting site Glassdoor abruptly changed its terms of service and has started adding users’ personally identifiable information to their profiles without consent.  Florida Governor Ron Desantis signs a bill preventing children under 14 from signing up...

The Federal Government is really pushing hard for TikTok to be sold.  There is overwhelming bipartisan support in the House of Representatives, The President will sign a bill if it comes across his desk, and the full court press is on in the Senate. Apple is in talks with Google to let Gemini Power AI features on the upcoming iPhone. The Don Lemon Show having its distribution contract cancele...

Congress and the Whitehouse appear to be for real for real contemplating banning TikTok in the US if its parent company, ByteDance, does not sell the social media platform to a company based outside of China. Trump supporters attempt to swoon Black voters with AI-generated images of President Trump surrounded by Black people. Will Black Twitter watch the Black Twitter documentary?  That we do...

Microsoft’s Copilot calls itself the Joker and suggests self-harm to a Meta data scientist. Tesla must face a class-action lawsuit from nearly 6000 Black workers for racial discrimination at its Fremont, CA, plant. Apple was hit with first-ever EU fine totaling nearly $2 billion five years after Spotify complained about its App Store practices. And humanoid robots named Digit debut in a Seattle Am...

Google hits the pause button on Gemini’s ability to generate images of people after a backlash to it creating historical depictions of white people as people of color. Tyler Perry halts plans of his $800 million studio expansion after seeing what could be done with Sora, OpenAI’s text-to-video generation engine. The FTC has cracked down on H&R Block for making it hard to downgrade tax products...

Shomax , an African streaming service has dethroned Netflix for top spot in the motherland and all but made Amazon Prime Video quit with its vast library of local content. Many early adopters of the Apple Vision Pro have returned their devices citing reasons from discomfort to a lack of applications Social media platforms that collect vast amounts of information on us and are working out deals to...

Meta won’t algorithmically share political content with you in Threads from accounts you don’t already follow.  The question is do we trust  Meta to determine what content is and is not political? Score is a new dating app conceived at last year's AfroTech and requires you to have a credit score of 675 or better in order to find a match. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seeks a measly $7 trillion f...

Although things aren’t as bad as last year, layoffs at big tech companies are dominating the news.  Tech hiring at companies generally not thought of as tech companies, however, can’t seem to happen fast enough. Big tech, particularly, social media companies was on trial last week.  CEO’s from Meta, TikTok, X, Snap, and Discord testified before Congress, and let's just say that things we...

Apple announced plans for alternative iPhone and iPad app stores in the EU, but, developers still feel some kind of way. Should linear television be concerned about live events moving to streaming platforms like Netflix and Peacock? Google Deepmind proposes a new AI to assist doctors with wellness checks. And Black Twitter is not bothered by all the things antithetical to Black culture on X. Link...

Fujitsu and the UK Postal Service knew about bugs in Fujitsu software that sent UK postal workers to jail from the time when the Postal Service started using it. Apple sold between 160,000 and 180,000 Vision Pro devices over the weekend and analysts believe Apple could sell as many as half a million units in 2024. The Police are using DNA to create 3-D sketches of what a suspect might look like an...

Meta will stop treating teens like adults by curbing harmful material and reducing unwanted interactions from their Facebook and Instagram timelines. Peacock’s AFC Wild Card game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins is the most viewed live-stream event in U.S. history.  OpenAI removes military application limits, bans the use of its tools in creating political ads, and prohibits...

The Consumer Electronics Show, the largest tech show in the world kicks off this week and we’re excited about all the announcements, especially the things that actually exist. Apple officially announced the pre-order and launch dates of the Vision Pro mixed reality headset and guest host TechSavvyDiva is contemplating getting one. The Black tech talent gap is widening and it could cost Black house...