Subtitle: Breaking Down the Wildest Week in Social, Surveillance, and Smart Tech So Youāre Ready for Whatās Coming Nextā
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Cold open & episode introWelcome to another powerful episode of The JMOR Tech Talk Show with John C. Morley, Serial Entrepreneur, Engineer, Marketing Specialist, Video Producer, Podcast Host, Coach, Graduate student and lifelong learner. Tonightās episode, āTikTok, Drones, Robotaxis & Alexa+: One Wild Week in Tech,ā is your guided tour through a week where governments rewrote the rules, Big Tech pushed new boundaries, and our daily lives quietly became more trackable, more automated, and a whole lot more complicated. From China and TikTok trading diplomatic jabs with the U.S., to drone bans, driverless cars, hacked insurers, and an AI assistant that wants to become your fullātime concierge, this is the week that shows just how fast the future is crashing into the present.ā
So sit back, buckle up, and letās decode the headlines that will shape how you scroll, drive, shop, learnāand protect your privacyāin 2026 and beyond.ā
1ļøā£ China demands a āfair, non-discriminatoryā TikTok handoverChina isnāt just quietly signing off on TikTokās U.S. handover; itās demanding that any deal follow Chinese law and offer a āfair, non-discriminatoryā environment for its companies. This turns TikTok from just an app on your phone into a geopolitical bargaining chip on the tech chessboard between Washington and Beijing.ā
For listeners, the real question is simple: when you open TikTok, are you just watching videos, or are you sitting front row in a global power struggle over data, algorithms, and who gets to control the next generationās attention?ā
2ļøā£ Italy tells Meta it canāt lock WhatsApp to only Metaās AIItalyās antitrust authority has ordered Meta to halt WhatsApp terms that would effectively shut out rival AI chatbots, calling it an abuse of dominance. The watchdog argues that if WhatsApp becomes a closed playground for only Metaās AI, innovation dies and users lose meaningful choice.ā
Think about it: your messaging app could become the front door to dozens of AI helpersāor a gated community where only one corporate assistant is allowed to speak. Italy is effectively asking, āWho gets to live inside your chats: whoever you choose, or whoever Meta chooses?āā
3ļøā£ āBad Bloodā author sues big AI firms over his booksJohn Carreyrou, the investigative reporter behind āBad Blood,ā is suing a roster of major AI companies, accusing them of copying his books to train their models without permission. This lawsuit adds to a growing wave of creators saying, āYou canāt quietly vacuum up years of work and call it āinnovationā without a license or a check.āā
If this legal battle lands hard, it could reshape how AI is trainedāpushing companies toward paid data, licensing deals, or smaller, cleaner training sets. That means the future of AI might depend on how much respectāand compensationāthese systems give to the humans whose work theyāre built on.ā
4ļøā£ Zoox recalls 332 robotaxis for drifting over the center lineAmazonās Zoox is recalling 332 self-driving vehicles after software made some robotaxis drift over the center line and stop in front of oncoming traffic. The company says it fixed the problem with an overātheāair update, but regulators are treating it as a serious safety red flag.ā
This is the nightmare scenario for autonomous cars: itās not a blown tire or bad driver, itās a line of code that misjudges where āsafeā ends and āoncoming headlightsā begin. The recall forces us to ask: how much trust are you willing to hand over to software when the steering wheel isnāt in your hands anymore?ā
5ļøā£ A tiny 1990s āVirus MĆ”lagaā helped bring Googleās cyber hub to SpainA mostly harmless 1990s malware strain nicknam
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