Chrome is nuking one of the most powerful ad blockers—uBlock Origin— as them move from Manifest V2 to V3. Mashable.com reports that the Google browser is changing the way it manages API requests, allegedly ‘aiming to…improve the privacy, security, and performance of extensions.’ Google, in the hunt for more money like basically every business, has been really moving to crack down on ad blockers…see YouTube, where they have managed to force users to watch preroll and intermediate ads. Now I hate the things as much as anyone, but you have to keep in mind that the seemingly ‘Free’ internet searches, YouTube videos, and all the rest have to be paid for somehow…and it’s by either grabbing and reselling your data or ads…or now it’s both. Have a nice day!

Waymo has gotten approval from California authorities to start testing driverless cars on San Francisco freeways this week. According to techcruch.com, employees of the Alphabet division will be the first guinea pigs for the service. The first testing will be outside rush hours, with what they are calling ‘less than a handful’ of vehicles. Alphabet just pumped an additional $5 billion into Waymo, and now the robotaxi service will include Daly City, Broadmoor, and Colma. Waymo is also ramping up efforts to do pickups and drop-offs at San Francisco International Airport. 

Here’s more on next year’s Slim iPhone 17 from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Gurman is corroborating the rumors about the slim phone, which some are calling the iPhone Air. This model is expected to fit in between the iPhone 17 and the 17 Pro models. Apple apparently thinks they can sell people who want something a bit more premium than the base iPhones, but don’t need the cameras, performance, and screen size of a Pro model. Even though that seems to be a kind of niche market, Gurman thinks it will be a bigger seller for Apple than the 12/13 Mini or the 14 through 16 Plus models. It looks like Apple won’t have an ‘Ultra’ model until 2027.

Yes, it’s one of those things that is out in the future a bit, but some scientists at Oxford have a new solar power-generating material that can be applied to things like backpacks, cars, and mobile phones. It’s a pretty exciting development…generating power without silicon-based solar panels. Electrek.co reports that the material is called perovskite. It bests a lot of solar panels at 27% efficiency, is 150 times thiner than silicon, and is doing well enough that they have started large scale production of perovskite photovoltaics at its factory near Berlin, Germany. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.