Summary
Overview
Linus and Luke discuss their week apart - Linus being home alone tending to chickens while his family is overseas, and Luke quarantining from his sick partner. They cover major tech news including Samsung banning apps that share internet connections, PlayStation 5 going digital-only in 2028, PS5 emulation progress, and the challenges of the semiconductor shortage affecting everything from gaming to power banks. The discussion ranges from corporate policies to personal experiences with smart home automation and the future of various tech industries.
Life Updates: Solo Week Adventures
Linus shares his experience being home alone for a week while his family travels to China for his son's World Scholars Cup competition. He discusses the unusual experience of having free time, falling asleep on the couch for the first time in 13 years of running LMG, and his adventures caring for the family's chickens. Luke reveals he's been quarantining from his sick partner by sleeping on an air mattress in a separate room to avoid getting sick before critical work deadlines.
- Linus's family is in Shanghai for World Scholars Cup competition during a typhoon
- First time in 13 years Linus came home and fell asleep on the couch watching TV
- Chickens escaped to neighbor's yard - all four had to be rescued from wet plant beds
- Luke quarantining on air mattress in computer room to avoid getting sick
" I came home after work, I got a snack, and I fell asleep watching TV on the couch. I woke up at like five after eight and I was like, oh my god, I'm supposed to be in LMG badminton five minutes ago. "
Samsung Bans Malicious TV Apps Sharing Internet Connections
Samsung discovered apps in their TV store that secretly turned Smart TVs into residential proxies, routing strangers' internet traffic through users' home networks. Well-known games like Pac-Man, Tetris, and Space Invaders contained SDK code from Bright Data that offered ad-free gaming in exchange for using devices' internet connections to download public data. The apps were presented as only 20 lines of HTML that loaded everything remotely, making them nearly impossible to properly vet.
- At least one editor's choice app contained code allowing TVs to be used as residential proxies
- Playworks games with over 400 million installations included Bright Data SDK
- Apps loaded as 20 lines of HTML with all logic loaded remotely, bypassing app store security
- LG's app store had nearly half of apps with hidden proxies built in
" This whole thing is crazy. You're just like, oh, okay, here's some absolute slop, like random coded by rando developers or realistically these days, AI slop developed game. In exchange, I get to download anything I like through your internet connection and then upload it to wherever I want. "
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