Latest / Connecting the Dots / TikTok’s New Rules, Physical AI Funding, and a $2,899 Foldable

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TikTok’s New Rules, Physical AI Funding, and a $2,899 Foldable · Connecting the Dots

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  Today's tech news moves fast, but understanding
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  it shouldn't be hard. That's why Snarful Solutions
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  Group brings you Connecting the Dots, where we
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  break down what's happening in tech and why it
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  matters to you. Now let's dive in with your hosts.
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  Good morning. You are listening to Connecting
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  the Dots. I'm Alex. And I'm Morgan. It is Tuesday,
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  January 27th, 2026. We hope your week is off
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  to a fantastic start. We have a pack show for
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  you today. Everything from social media mysteries
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  to the future of factory robots. But first, the
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  important question. Do I need a coat today? Well,
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  if you're here in Sacramento with us, maybe not
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  a heavy coat, but you definitely need your headlight.
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  Oh, the fog. Yep. We have a dense fog advisory
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  in effect until 11 zero a .m. this morning. Visibility
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  is pretty low out there, so please take it slow
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  on the roads. Coffee and fog lights. Got it.
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  What about the rest of the country? is looking
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  pretty brutal for the eastern half of the lower
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  48. That deep freeze we talked about yesterday,
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  it's holding strong. Still, we're seeing well
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  below normal temperatures continuing this week.
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  And get this, there's another blast of Arctic
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  air expected to spread from the plains through
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  the southeast by Friday. Even Florida is looking
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  at potential record lows. And if that wasn't
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  enough, meteorologists are watching a potential
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  winter storm threat for the east coast this weekend.
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  Okay, stay warm out there, everyone. All right,
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  let's look at the numbers. How are the markets
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  S &P 500 is basically flat up just a tiny fraction,
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  doing? Bitcoin has taken a bit of a breather
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  to it. It's time for the Morningstar, our SNARFL
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  Tech article report. Help us connect the dots
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  on today's top stories. Let's jump in. Our first
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  story is one that is just, well, Taking over
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  social media right now, it involved TikTok, a
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  very specific glitch, and a whole lot of questions.
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  Yeah, I saw this trending on X yesterday. People
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  are claiming they can't send direct messages
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  on TikTok if the message contains the name Epstein.
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  Exactly. So here's the scoop. Users started noticing
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  that if they tried to send that word, referring
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  to the Lake Jeffrey Epstein in a DM, the message
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  just wouldn't go through. What happens? Does
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  it just disappear? No. You get a prompt saying
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  the message is a violation of community guidelines.
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  and that it was blocked to protect our community.
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  Which is bizarre, right? Because usually community
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  guidelines are about, you know, hate speech or
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  violence. Just the name itself triggering a block
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  seems extreme. It's inconsistent, too. Yeah.
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  Some accounts can send it, others can't. But
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  what makes this really explode is the context.
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  We have to connect the dots to what happened
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  just a few days ago. You mean the sale. Right.
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  This is happening mere days after TikTok finalized
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  its sale to the TikTok USDS joint venture. This
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  was the big deal put together to avert a US ban.
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  The idea was to put the company in the hands
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  of mostly American investors to solve those national
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  security concerns. And one of those key investors
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  is Oracle. Right. And Oracle is run by Larry
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  Ellison, who is a known close ally of President
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  Trump. And to bring it full circle, President
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  Trump has had past connections to Jeffrey Epstein.
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  So people are looking at this new American ownership,
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  looking at the glitch and saying, wait a minute.
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  Just connecting the dots. Exactly. The hashtag
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  hashtag TikTok censorship is trending and it
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  has escalated quickly. California Governor Gavin
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  Newsom has actually announced an inquiry. Yeah,
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  he wants to review whether TikTok is violating
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  state law by censoring content. So what is TikTok
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  saying? Are they admitting to blocking it? No,
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  quite the opposite. A spokesperson stated, quote,
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  we don't have rules against sharing the name
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  Epstein. They are claiming it's a technical issue
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  they're investigating. A technical issue that
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  just happens to specifically target one controversial
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  name. That feels convenient. That's their stance.
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  They're pointing to a broader outage. Apparently
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  there was a data center issue earlier in the
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  week that caused zero views on videos and feed
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  lag. Okay, so they're suggesting this is all
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  part of the system just being wobbly after the
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  migration to new ownership. That's the argument.
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  But let's unpack that. I mean, we hear technical
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  issue a lot from big tech companies when things
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  go wrong. Is it actually plausible? It's a fair
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  question. From a technical standpoint, I mean,
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  TikTok is undergoing one of the most complex
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  data migrations in history right now. Moving
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  everything over to Oracle's cloud infrastructure.
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  Exactly. And when you move that much data, things
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  break. It's not clean. So how would that work?
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  Like, how does a name get accidentally blocked?
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  Well, think about content moderation. It's usually
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  an automated filter checking against a huge database
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  of banned words and phrases, really. If you're
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  migrating that database and the indexing gets
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  corrupted, the system might misinterpret a benign
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  string of text as a prohibited one. So the system
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  could just be making a mistake, and the error
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  message we see is just the default one it knows
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  how to show. Precisely. That is the most generous
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  argument for the technical glitch theory. We've
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  seen similar things happen before. Okay, but
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  on the other hand, the timing is just incredibly
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  suspicious. It really is. And there are other
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  reports that sensitive topics like the Minneapolis
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  shootings or immigration raids were also seeing
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  feedlag. That starts to feel like a pattern.
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  And that's where the skepticism is warranted.
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  If it were just the one name, you might buy the
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  Corrupted Index Theory. But when it's a cluster
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  of politically charged topics all having glitches
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  at the same time Right as the ownership changes
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  to a group with very clear political alignments
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  Yeah, the oops bad code excuse gets a lot harder
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  to swallow It just highlights the fragility of
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  these platforms. We treat them like public squares,
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  but they're private servers. And that distrust
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  is exactly what Governor Newsom is tapping into
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  with this inquiry. It's a collision of digital
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  code and physical politics. We're going to see
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  a lot more of this, I think. OK, let's shift
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  gears. We're moving from the messy world of digital
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  moderation to the equally complex world of physical
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  manufacturing. Our next story is about a company
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  called Vention. This is a fascinating one out
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  of Montreal. Vention just raised $110 million
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  in a Series D funding round. That is a huge amount
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  for a Series D in this economy. Investors must
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  be seeing something really big here. What are
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  they building? They are scaling what they call
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  physical AI. Okay, let's pause on that term.
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  Physical AI. We hear AI and we think of chat
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  GPT writing emails or mid -journey making weird
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  pictures. That's all digital. Right. Physical
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  AI is about how machines perceive, navigate,
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  and manipulate the real physical world. It involves
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  motion planning, sensory feedback, actually moving
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  atoms around. So Vention is building the brains
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  for robots. They're building the entire nervous
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  system. Think of Vention as the Ikea of industrial
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  automation. Ikea for robots sounds like my personal
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  nightmare to assemble. I have enough trouble
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  with the bookshelf. Well, that's the problem
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  they're solving. Historically, if you wanted
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  to automate a factory line, It was a nightmare.
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  You had to hire expensive integrators and write
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  what the industry calls spaghetti code. Spaghetti
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  code is a great visual. Just a tangled mess of
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  logic that breaks if you touch it. Exactly. It's
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  custom, fragile code. Fention is trying to kill
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  the spaghetti code. They've created a self -serve
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  platform. You go to their website, design your
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  robot cell, order the hardware. And it just shows
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  up. It ships to you. And it's all plug and play.
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  So it's like Squarespace, but for building a
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  robot assembly line instead of a website. That's
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  the perfect analogy. You don't need to be a coding
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  wizard. Their physical AI uses generative models
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  to help you design the system. You tell it what
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  you need and it suggests a configuration. That
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  completely changes the economics. Usually automation
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  is only for the big players, Boeing, L 'Oreal.
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  It's massive for the middle market. CEO Etienne
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  Lacroix says they want to be the default standard.
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  This makes automation accessible for smaller
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  businesses. But what about the labor implication?
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  We always worry that robots are coming for our
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  jobs. If you make them easier to deploy, does
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  that accelerate job loss? It's nuanced. The counter
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  -argument is that this actually helps reshoring.
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  We've seen so much manufacturing leave North
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  America because labor is cheaper overseas. So
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  if you make automation affordable here, it becomes
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  viable to build factories here again. That's
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  the hope. It shifts the labor from manual repetition
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  to system management. A factory tech can be trained
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  to manage these systems much faster than the
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  old one. It feels like the industry is maturing,
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  moving from the expensive experimental phase
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  to the utility phase. And then they're expanding
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  to Europe now, so they're aiming for global dominance.
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  Definitely a company to watch. All right. For
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  our final story, we are going from giant factory
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  robots to a robot you can put in your pocket,
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  or maybe a very large pocket. Probably a jacket
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  pocket. Samsung is officially bringing the Galaxy
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  Z trifold to the US this Friday, January 30th.
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  The trifold, so just to visualize this, we are
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  talking about a phone that folds not once, but
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  twice. Correct. Three panels, two hinges. When
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  it's all folded up, it looks like a thick smartphone.
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  But when you unfold it, you get a massive 10
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  inch screen. It's basically a full size tablet
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  that collapses. 10 inches is iPad territory.
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  That's a serious piece of glass. But I have to
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  ask about the price. I feel like I need to brace
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  myself. You definitely should. The U .S. pricing
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  is confirmed at $2 ,899. Almost $2 ,000. That's
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  $899 more than the standard Galaxy Z Fold 7.
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  That is... wow. That is a decent used car. That
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  is a lot of money for something I'm probably
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  going to drop. It's a statement piece for sure.
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  But let's look at why it costs that much. Driving
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  a screen that big requires serious horsepower.
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  It's got the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and 16 gigabytes
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  of RAM. 16 gigs of RAM. My laptop has 16 gigs.
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  Because the selling point isn't just big screen,
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  it's multitasking. Yeah. This phone is designed
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  to run three full -sized apps simultaneously.
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  You can have your email, a Zoom call, and a spreadsheet
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  all active at the same time. So it's not really
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  competing with the iPhone, it's competing with
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  your laptop. Exactly. But there are trade -offs
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  for that engineering. I imagine durability is
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  the big one. Two hinges means twice the mechanical
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  failure points. And twice the crease. YouTubers
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  are already stress testing it. It's also so thin
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  when unfolded, only 3 .9 millimeters, that it
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  feels delicate. And because of the design, it
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  lacks flex mode. Remind us what flex mode is.
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  That's on the standard fold, where you can bend
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  it 90 degrees and sit it on a table like a mini
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  laptop. The tri -fold is a bit more awkward to
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  prop up. And then screen quality. Reports say
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  it's slightly dimmer than the Fold 7, likely
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  to conserve batteries since it's lighting up
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  so much more surface area. So you're paying a
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  huge premium for the form factor, but taking
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  a small step back on some features, who is this
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  actually for? I think it's the ultimate power
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  user device. The executive who wants to sign
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  documents, check the market, and email, all while
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  standing in an elevator. It's a status symbol
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  as much as a tool. It's the cool factor tax.
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  You pull that out at a dinner party, and you've
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  won the gadget war. For sure. But it does push
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  the industry forward. It forces Apple and Google
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  to figure out how to make their software adapt
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  to these changing screen sizes, blurring the
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  line between a mobile OS and a desktop OS. It
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  seems like that's the theme today. All these
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  categories we used to have, this is a phone,
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  this is a robot, are just melting away. Convergence
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  is the theme, for sure. Well, speaking of flexible,
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  entire purchase. That is SCONI .com. So to recap
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  the dots we connected today. First, TikTok's
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  EpsteinDM blocks. Looks like censorship might
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  be a database failure, but the timing with the
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  new ownership is incredibly suspect. Then we
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  looked at Vention raising $110 million to bring
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  physical AI to manufacturing. They're making
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  it as easy to design factory automation as it
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  is to build a website. And finally, Samsung's
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  Galaxy Z trifold. A $3 ,000 engineering marvel
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  that puts a 10 -inch screen in your pocket, challenging
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  the very idea of what a smartphone should be.
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  It's a wild time for tech. The systems are getting
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  smarter, the robots are getting easier to use,
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  and our phones are getting, well, bigger and
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  more expensive. We're here to help at Snarful,
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  so reach out on our website if you have any more
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  questions. Have a great day, everyone. That's
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  a wrap on today's top stories. Remember, tech
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  doesn't have to be complicated, and we're here
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  to help connect the dots. If you've got questions
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  or want to learn more, visit us at snarfle .com.
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  Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next
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  time.