Geek News Central Podcast (Video)

On this special final New Media Show tribute episode, we honor the life and legacy of Todd Cochrane, podcasting pioneer, podcast hall of famer, founder of Blubrry and RawVoice, host of Geek News Central podcast, author of one of the first podcasting books, and co-host on The New Media Show for 13 years. Todd’s influence on podcasting was profound: from launching one of the earliest shows in 2004, to creating the Podcast Awards, to championing open RSS and independent podcasters. His voice, conv

YouTube is enforcing stricter rules for its Premium Family plan, requiring all members to live in the same household. Non-eligible users will lose Premium benefits after 14 days, following Netflix’s 2023 policy shift to curb account sharing and drive new subscriptions. -Want to be a Guest on a Podcast or YouTube Channel? Sign up for GuestMatch.Pro -Thinking of buying a Starlink? Use my link to support the show. Subscribe to the Newsletter. Join the Chat @ GeekNews.Chat Email Todd or follow h

New research reveals that ChatGPT’s frequently used words, often referred to as AI buzzwords, are increasingly appearing in everyday human conversations. By analyzing over 22 million words from unscripted podcasts, researchers found a notable rise in terms like “intricate” and “delve,” suggesting AI is subtly influencing how people speak. While the study doesn’t confirm a permanent language shift, it raises concerns about AI-driven vocabulary trends, potential seep-in effects, and the long-term

AI chatbots, trained to be overly agreeable, have unintentionally become catalysts for psychological crises by validating users’ grandiose or delusional beliefs. Vulnerable individuals can spiral into dangerous fantasy feedback loops, mistaking chatbot sycophancy for scientific validation. As AI models evolve through user reinforcement, they amplify these distorted beliefs, creating serious mental health and public safety concerns. With little regulation, AI’s persuasive language abilities are p

In recent months, headlines have sensationalized stories of AI models “blackmailing” engineers and “refusing” to shut down, stoking fears of runaway artificial intelligence. But beneath these dramatic narratives lies a far less sinister truth: these alarming outputs emerged from theatrical, highly engineered testing environments—not real-world rebellion. This episode explores how models like OpenAI’s o3 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 ended up simulating blackmail and sabotage, not through intent

Perplexity AI has been exposed for secretly deploying stealth crawlers that intentionally evade website no-crawl directives, rotate IP addresses, and even masquerade as regular browsers. Despite explicit robots.txt blocks and firewall defenses, Perplexity’s undisclosed bots aggressively scrape restricted content from millions of websites daily. Cloudflare’s investigations confirm this shocking breach of trust, prompting immediate countermeasures against these rogue AI crawlers. -Want to be a Gu