Okay. And then it goes over there. Okay. Gotcha. Right. Thanks. Oh, hey. Sorry. I
just finished getting the tech news from my tech news guy, and now I can give it
to you. Where's he get it from? Hm. Where's he getting it from?
From his guy. Microsoft has pumped the brakes on development of its handheld
Xbox console and is now dedicating more resources towards optimizing Windows 11
for third-party gaming handhelds. According to Windows Central's resident
sneaky Xbox guy, Jez Cordon, he must
have a talent for hiding in vents above boardrooms. To be clear, we're not
talking about Project Kennon, the Xbox
edition of an Asus handheld first leaked by Jez himself after he squeezed his now
sweaty body back out of the vents. We're talking about the We're talking about
the firstofits-kind proper Xbox branded handheld console meant to natively run
Xbox games, which was supposedly slated for a 2027 release. But it makes sense
that Microsoft wants to get its Windows 11 house in order first because Steam OS
is having what you might call a verified gamer moment. The newest build, which
officially supports installation on thirdparty hardware, is being installed
on desktop PCs by multiple YouTubers, including Random Gaming in HD and ETA
Prime. And it's outperforming Windows 11 in many cases. Valve has noticeably
changed their language recently, adding Steam OS compatibility ratings for games
to help cover any device running Steam OS that's not a Steam Deck. For
everything else that's not rated as Steam OS compatible, there's the new
official GeForce Now app for Steam Deck, which apparently runs the service better
than previously available alternatives. People are getting all hot and steamy
over Steam OS. So, Microsoft has got to do something to draw gamers away. Oh,
hey, maybe releasing an early version of C-Pilot for gaming in the Xbox app on
iOS and Android will help. Uh, so while gaming you can ask the AI on your phone
for tips. I don't know, the damage might be done here. Uh, there must be some
amount of people out there who already think Xbox is owned by Elon Musk. Google
CEO Sundar Pichi said on the Veres
Decoder podcast that AI is going to be bigger than the internet, which I think
is true, but with the opposite effect. See, the internet allowed and encouraged
unprecedented humanto human contact across the globe. AI will allow you to
completely avoid speaking to another human again, ever. Uh, something that
used to be necessary if you wanted to create a photorealistic short film like
this one made by the Wall Street Journal. Although it's still a pretty
complicated process, which will leave you even less time to interact with
other humans. Okay, that's not entirely true. Live translation in smart glasses
is real close to letting people have a nearrealtime conversation in two
separate languages. And Gemini can analyze videos in Google Drive now. And
that's cool. What's not cool is the other Gemini stuff, like Gmail AI
summaries now automatically popping up and taking up half your phone screen
unless you turn it off and AI overviews in search still making basic errors like
confidently stating it is not the current year that it is. I'm not sure if
Gemini was involved in Google Maps suddenly marking all of the most used
German autobon routes as closed for a few hours because Google didn't say what
happened. But what you think Claude for from Anthropic crawled in and wreaked
havoc in the Google Maps system for a while? That's outlandish. Great news
everyone. Meta has made amends with founder of Oculus and enjoyer of goatees
grown in the scrotum style Palmer Lucky.
Lucky was fired in 2017, but has since regained prominence through his
successful military tech company, Andril, which will now be working with
Meta on mixed reality tech for the
military. Military reality, maybe. I
don't know. And maybe that's because Meta CTO and head of Reality Labs, which
is what Oculus became, apologized to Lucky for being rude on Twitter. And
that's not really the whole story, but it's also not super important. Meta's
involvement here comes after Anduril picked up where Microsoft left off after
their hollow lens project for the Army fizzled out. And Bloomberg notes that
this all shows how much has changed in Silicon Valley. Everybody's doing
military deals now, but pre2020 the
expectation was that big tech wouldn't get involved in military projects. But
that being taboo led to the founding of a number of relatively new, less
scrupulous tech companies who are happy to accept military and sensitive
government contracts. And many of whose names like Anduril and Palanteer are
also references to the works of JRR Tolken, who would probably have some
choice words for the people associating his name with the industrialization of
war. Palmer Lucky's out here naming his company after the reforged sword of
Aragorn and yapping about his dream being to turn war fighters into
technommancers. And the geekiness is kind of charming, but it also makes me
want to go Tom Bombadil on this guy. Please shave. And please check out our
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simplify your setup. It's time for quick bids. But first, fun fact. At some
point, the never-ending chain of tech news guys passing on the tech news turns
in two turtles. And honestly, I try not to think about that too much. The New
York Times has made its first AI deal, licensing the use of its content to
Amazon to train their in-house AI models
and to allow Alexa to include excerpts from and links back to the NYT website.
The New York Times, of course, sued Open AI in 2023 for training its models on
the Times content without a license. That's perhaps the most prominent AI
copyright case and is still moving through the courts. And it all just goes
to show you either die before AI scrapes
your content for free or live long enough to make a deal for AI to scrape
your content for money. You are going to die though. We already knew that AMD's
RX960 XT was coming soon with both 8 gig
and 16 gig versions, but the two variants may have differences in other
specs as well, depending on the manufacturer. Marketing materials from
GPU board partner Yeson Yes, Ton lists
their Gaia 16 GB version with a 100
megahertz higher base and boost clock. So, make sure you read the fine print if
you're in the GPU market. Or you could wait until Chinese chipmaker Lisswan
brings its brand new 6nanmter GPU which
is apparently targeting RX460 level performance to external markets. The
tariffs will have to be gone by then. I think AI hosting platform Hugging Face
has introduced a humanoid robot called Hope Jr. which hope junior I don't know
which will cost around 3,000 USD and is
completely open source so anyone can rebuild or modify it however they like
add spider legs you know just really this thing up if you want the company
also announced a small desktop open- source robot called the reachi mini
which is a pretty rude thing to name a robot that can only move its head but
maybe it's also really good at arguing in bad faith and researchers in Austin
Texas have developed specialized electronic tattoos, super thin sensors
you stick around your head that monitor brain activity and eye movement to gauge
the wearer's level of mental strain. The
researchers figure that if workers wear these eface tats, their superiors could
adjust assignments and reallocate personnel if the system detects that
someone's cognitive burden has reached critical levels. That sounds dystopian,
but I have to admit, I love the idea of making face tattoos functional. Now you
can have a couple tear tattoos under your eye because they tell your boss's
computer when you're sad. Maybe they light up. For the next trial, they
should give these to real gang members. And if they just can't take the stress
of living outside the law, the mob boss can let them leave with no issues. Hey,
you're not cut out for this. I'm You know, you can go. But oh boy, will I
have an issue with you if you don't come back here on Friday for more tech news.
Don't think I won't do anything either. You know why I got this tattoo? Because
I Oh, what? Oh, it washed off
already. You didn't want to know anyway.