We’re a month into virtual learning, and we’re still here. My 9 year old is struggling, but the 12 year old works too fast. It’s another Thursday, and here’s another week of tech talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. This week, Microsoft pulls the ultimate power move, Facebook shuts down 150 fake email accounts, and the sands of the hour glass continue to fall as time TikToks away. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.

MICROSOFT SAYS NO TO TIK TOK, MOVES TO BETHESDA

In a stunning strategic move, Microsoft announced plans to purchase ZeniMax Media, the parent company of famed game developer, Bethesda Softworks. Why is this a power move? Bethesday publishes a few SONY PlayStation EXCLUSIVE games! That’s right, Microsoft is buying the company that publishes games that are PlayStation only or launch on PlayStation before moving to other platforms. The deal is valued at $7.5 billion with Microsoft making sweet publishing money off of popular titles like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein, and DOOM. Gamers were all up in, “oh snap!” Moods yesterday.

TIME TIK TOKS AS BAN POSTPONED

I have so many opinions on Tik Tok, one of which is government intervention in the ownership and operation of a commercial concern. I just didn’t think we did things like that in America, unless it concerns monopolies. In a non-sensical move, Oracle and Wal-Mart were somehow engineered into acquiring 20% of TikTok. The remaining 80% of the company is still held by ByteDance. Oracle and Wal-Mart’s machinations prompted President Trump to delay TikTok’s proposed ban until September 27th. This whole thing reeks of market manipulation, with ByteDance claiming that they WILL STILL retain control of 80% of the equity of a newly formed TikTok after it files an IPO. Which undermines the whole point of selling TikTok, and which would be a boon for ByteDance. WTF!

FACEBOOK SHUTS DOWN FAKE CHINESE ACCOUNTS BECAUSE OF ELECTION TAMPERING

Facebook has shut down 150 Chinese accounts that were primarily used to trumpet Chinese interests, but were also used to tamper with the US’ upcoming Presidential election. The fake network had 130,000 followers and have been in use since 2016. Most of the accounts originated outside the US promoted China’s interests in the South China Sea, and misinformation profiles on Democratic Presidential candidates including Joe Biden. AI techniques were used to identify the accounts with some accounts using AI themselves to create fake profile pictures based upon real accounts. This is all a part of Facebook’s strategy to limit misinformation and refusing to approve news relating to either candidate winning the election before election day.