Apple using Deepfakes on Facetime!?

In the opening stretch of the video, the hosts cover several technology news items that mix consumer hardware, software updates, and online infrastructure glitches. They begin with NVIDIA’s product refresh, detailing the discontinuation of the original RTX 2070 and 2080 in favor of the RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2080 Super, highlighting performance boosts of up to about 25% while maintaining price points. The discussion notes the timing against AMD’s upcoming Radeon 5700 series, suggesting a competitive landscape and the possibility of stronger performance-per-dollar as new cards launch. The segment then pivots to a separate outage event, Cloudflare, which disrupted access to several major sites and services due to a faulty deployment, providing a humorous “USB key” metaphor for the mishap. This outage briefly contextualizes the fragility of global internet infrastructure and the ripple effects when a single provider experiences issues. Transitioning to consumer tech, the video introduces Apple’s iOS 13 developer beta feature for FaceTime that allows the camera to simulate eye contact by altering video so it looks like the user is staring into the camera, even when looking at the screen, noting it as both intriguing and a little unsettling. The feature is presented as device-specific, available on the iPhone Xs and Xs Max, and is framed as a clever use of existing camera tech and deepfake-like techniques that can make conversations feel more natural, while also prompting questions about whether the other participant is truly looking at you. In the second portion, the hosts weave together a broader tech-news montage with a mix of humor and speculation. They mention Epic Games’ strategy of funding refunds to backers for crowdfunded games as a way to repair community relations after platform exclusivity shifts, and they joke about the “cat filter” meme popular in tech communities, including fan expectations for a Linus cat filter cameo. The discussion also touches on geopolitics and privacy, noting reports of Chinese border officials installing surveillance apps on traveler devices and the ethical concerns around data handling by tech giants like Amazon, whose Alexa may retain voice recordings for training purposes, not anonymized as some claims suggest. The segment closes with a light note on 5G network rollouts in Europe, a teaser from Microsoft about Windows 1.0, and anticipatory chatter about Stranger Things Season 3, all while urging viewers to subscribe for more TechLinked updates.

Topics · technology · infrastructure · consumer_electronics · privacy · ai · software_updates · gaming_news · media_and_entertainment