Apple Must Be Desperate…

In the future, when humanity travels via mass relay, tech news will be provided through a digestible data-bearing sludge. For now, though, I'll just give it to you normally. From my mouth. Apple and Google are close to finalizing a deal in which Apple would pay about $1 billion per year for the use of Google's AI technology to power their Siri voice assistant. Bloomberg's Mark Gurmeybears reports that Apple is finalizing plans to commission from Google a custom Gemini model to help overhaul Siri's summarizer and planner features. However, this planned reliance on Google is only temporary, as Gurman reports that the company is currently building its own flagship AI model, which it aims to make available for consumer use as soon as next year. And of course, this isn't the only deal between the two companies. Google currently pays Apple $20 billion a year for Search to be the default option on Safari. And under this supposed deal, Apple would pay $1 billion of that back to Google to continue pretending that they've made Siri any better. Siri will never change. It got better one time, and that's it. Tesla shareholders have approved Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package. Now, it's complicated, but the gist is that shareholders okayed a plan to give Elon's stock worth up to $1 trillion over the next decade, providing he hits a number of milestones, which include 20 million Tesla vehicles delivered, 10 million active full self-driving subscriptions sold, 1 million Optimus robots delivered, good luck on that, and 1 million robo-taxis in commercial operation. That also seems like a lot. Musk seems to be getting right to work on that last milestone, though, claiming that the CyberCab vehicle Tesla announced a year ago will begin production in April. Now, that might not necessarily mean much, considering Tesla's grand tradition of saying things will happen that then do not. Following that tradition, Tesla just announced they've delayed the reveal of the production Roadster 2 to April Fool's Day 2026, nearly nine years after the project was first revealed. It's gotta be a prank. And it's hard to tell if Elon was pranking us or trying to get those 1 million bought sales when he also said that in the future, prisoners shouldn't go to jail, but instead have a robot follow them around to make sure they're behaving themselves. Kinda like Na'vi in Ocarina of Time, except this Na'vi stops you from doing crime. I like this robot a lot more than my probation officer. Hey! Listen, f**ker! Twitter has started pre-loading links and media from posts across the platform, creating what some are describing as ghost traffic to external sites. Developers noticed the change after seeing spikes in referral data from Twitter to platforms like Substack and BlueSky, even when users never actually clicked on the links. According to the company, this behavior is actually intentional. When you tap a link, Twitter now collapses the original post, letting you still like, reply, repost, and bookmark while viewing the linked webpage underneath. You can do it all. So powerful. The idea is, apparently, to keep users engaged without leaving the timeline. Because god forbid you spend 5 seconds on another site. This is the Everything app. Why would you need to? Critics argue it's just another way for the company to inflate engagement numbers and muddy everyone else's analytics, with some advertisers already reporting suspicious traffic surges. Elon Musk's Twitter has gone from suppressing links to Substack and BlueSky, which they viewed as competitors, to loading them whether you like it or not. The internet's a wild ride, baby. If you want to calm things down, check out our sponsor, Ground News, for people that are tired of living inside algorithmically controlled online echo chambers. Ground News helps you step outside your information bubble to see the bigger picture by collecting news from across the political spectrum. Speaking of bubbles, I used Ground News to look into famed investor Michael Burry betting that the AI bubble is going to burst. I found that media representation of the story was pretty fair, with 27% of the stories covering the subject coming from the left, and 36% coming from the right. If everybody's equally interested in what Burry is up to, maybe we'll get a big short sequel. Maybe I'll have a better time following that one. Ground News reveals the political leanings and ownership behind each outlet, so you can check your own biases and understand how different sides cover the same story. Start seeing your news with the transparency you deserve, and you can even save 40% on a Ground News Vantage plan through the link in the description. One thing to know, the QuickBits love soup. But you're not going to catch them eating sludge. They love zuppa ogorkowa, Polish pickle soup. Is anyone, are you Polish? Can we, do we have any idea how to say, huh? Are you Polish? Sure. Pfft. Grand Theft Auto 6 has been delayed once again. With Rockstar confirming the launch is moving from May to November of 2026. A moment of silence for everyone really upset about this. This new delay follows reports that some recently fired employees leaked internal information about the company on Discord, though it's unclear if that actually had anything to do with this at all. I guess we'll just have to take two number nines, a number nine large, a number six with extra dip, a number seven, two number 45s, one with the cheese and a large soda while we wait. What is he talking about? Look it up. Meta is the subject of a Reuters investigation that claims the company earns billions from posts advertising scams, with internal documents reportedly showing Meta just really struggling with the decision of whether to forfeit all the revenue they're getting from these scammy ads by removing them, or pay the fines if they keep them up. Ah! It's less about what's the right thing to do and what's the money, what's the more money thing to do. Some higher value accounts even racked up hundreds of violations before being shut down, leading to them creating an internal list of the scammiest scammers. Real creative guys. What's next? A roundup of the most smiling smilers? I want the smiliest smile at my elementary school. Nice one. I want it. Hyundai's IT services subsidiary has revealed it was hit by a cyberattack between February 22nd and March 2nd of this year, during which hackers stole names, social security numbers, and driver's licenses of up to 2.7 million owners of Hyundai and Kia vehicles. The company says it's brought in forensic experts, notified law enforcement, and is offering two years of free credit monitoring to those impacted, which makes everything better. My wife told me I didn't need that Hyundai Santa Fe, but my love of New Mexico got the better of me. Damn you, Breaking Bad! Remember when you threw that pizza on the roof? I haven't seen the show. Oh, s***. And Tinder is testing a new AI-powered feature called Chemistry that, with your permission, at least, scans your camera roll and asks you questions to learn your interests and personality in order to get you better matches. The feature is live in Australia and New Zealand, and is slated to roll out more broadly in 2026. Hey! You've both got pictures of dogs! Go for a dog walk! You've both got a million pictures of food! Time for a dinner date! You've both got a million nudes on your phone! Now I've gotta get back in the kitchen to get some pictures of the tech news I'm prepping for Monday's feast. It's the tech news sludge. In the meantime, tell me about your favorite soup. Or your Mass Effect love interest. I don't want to hear that. You can... It's okay. Is it the soup or the Mass Effect love interest? It's fine. See you Monday.