Every company in Silicon Valley says they're making the world a better place.
We're not going to do that. We're just going to tell you what those companies
actually did this week, which is usually much worse. Okay, tech news time. Google
Research published a blog post this week on Turbo Quant, a compression algorithm
that shrinks an AI models working memory by six times with zero accuracy loss,
leading people to ask,
"Is the memory crisis over? Can we buy RAM yet? Well, we're here to give you a
definitive maybe. You see, Turbo Quant targets the
key value cache. Basically, when you chat with an AI, it keeps a running
record of your conversation so it doesn't lose context. As a result, that
cache eats more GPU memory the longer you talk, and you talk a for a long
time, making it one of the biggest bottlenecks in running these models at
scale. Most existing compression methods carry memory overhead which decreases
their efficiency. But Turbo Quant eliminates that through circle math. Is
this real? >> Yeah, you you said to to simplify it,
right? >> They use circle math leading to up to an eight time speed up on NVIDIA H100 GPUs.
The underlying research is actually about a year old, but it's getting
attention now ahead of its presentation at ICLR 2026. The news sent finance bros
into a tail spin and memory stocks like Micron and SanDisk tumbled in response.
However, analysts say this is likely another deepseek moment where the
release of a cheaper AI model back in 2025 caused a trillion dollar market
panic before everyone realized that cheaper AI just means more people using
AI. Uh SanDisk's CFO told Bank of
America analysts that he expects the improved efficiency will boost demand by
making AI deployments cheaper. So if you were holding your breath hoping that
this killed the memory crunch, maybe hold your breath a little less hard.
Stop. Stop holding your breath. YOU'RE YOU'RE GOING BREATHE. Please live. Apple
has officially confirmed they are discontinuing the Mac Pro with no plans
for future hardware. The company quietly pulled the former king of Macs from its
website yesterday, where the buy page now just redirects to the Mac homepage.
Kind of like how your landlord changes the locks while you're at work all the
time. The iconic cheese grater design debuted in 2019 after the thermal
disaster of the trash can era. Well, I
liked it. But Apple only ever gave it one silicon update, the M2 Ultra in 2023
before leaving it to collect dust at its $7,000 starting price or collect trash.
The Mac Studio, which already has the newer M3 Ultra for $5,000 less, is now
Apple's topend desktop with an M5 Ultra
refresh expected later this year. Also gone is the infamous $700 wheel kit. No,
the $300 F feet kit. Oh, wow. And as of
earlier this month, the older Pro Display XDR and its $1,000 stand. Apple
is clearly marondoing everything from the 2019 Pro launch. But how am I
supposed to grate my incredibly expensive mature Coolia cheese while
rendering on silicon that's three generations out of date now? You didn't
think of that, Apple, did you? >> Oh gosh. I'm sorry, Riley. I'll make
something else. screamingly expensive for you.
>> Thank you, Tim Cook. God, AMD has
announced the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2
dual edition. And yes, that is a real product name. It's the world's first
desktop CPU with 3D Vcash stacked on
both chiplets, meaning it packs a staggering 208 megabytes of total onchip
cache across its 16 Zen 5 cores. That's
enough cash to make it feel at home in the vault of the Bellagio in Oceans 11.
And you don't even need to squeeze an ordinary gymnast into a room service
card to access it. AMD is pitching this less as a gaming chip and more as a
productivity monster for game devs and creators with 5 to 10% gains over the
already beastly 9950X3D.
No two in tools like Blender, Da Vinci Resolve, and Unreal Engine. Notably, AMD
didn't share a single gaming benchmark, which really tells you where they think
this thing shines. The trade-off, though, a 200 watt TDP, the highest of
any AM5 chip, and a boost clock that actually dropped 100 megahertz. No price
yet, but it launches April 22nd. Oh, and both AMD and Intel are raising CPU
prices up to 15% thanks to the whole global supply crunch fiasco. So game
devs can breathe a sigh of relief knowing they won't have to optimize
their games or their budgets. At least you can get a deal with our sponsor,
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with free shipping, a one-year warranty, and 30-day hassle-free returns. Much
like Heirlickbachman's incubator, we have crammed way too many quick bits
under one roof and are hoping nobody asks any follow-up questions. A new
revision of the RCS messaging standard has been finalized, and it's a big one.
RCS Universal Profile 4.0 adds native video calling right inside
your messaging app, including group calls with up to 32 people. If you can
convince 32 people to use the same messaging app as you, it also brings
smarter media sharing, letting devices figure out which formats the other
person supports, as well as rich text formatting like bold, italics, and
strikethrough. Finally, we'll have to wait for tech companies to add these
features to their default texting apps, but it's still cool. So, while the cost
of living might be skyrocketing, you'll at least be rich in text.
Apple just handed over the real identity of the user behind one of its iCloud
hide my email aliases to the FBI after a
man named Alden Ruml used an aliased email address to send violent threats to
FBI Director Cash Patel's girlfriend. Two horrible things. This kind of
compliance might seem uncharacteristic for Apple who famously blocked the
government from breaking into the iPhone owned by a suspected terrorist, but
unlike their device level encryption, alias to account mapping is stored on
Apple servers and as a result can be subpoenaed. The hits keep coming for
Patel, though, as Iranian hacker group Hondela breached Patel's personal Gmail
account and posted some of his most cringe vacation photos on Telegram. Oof,
Honda did him dirty here. The vibe of these is less international man of
mystery and more high school jazz band study abroad trip. It's an important
experience. Sony is hiking PS5 prices
across the board for the second time in less than a year. Starting on April 2nd,
the PlayStation Portal handheld jumps up $50. The standard PS5 and digital
edition both jump up $100, and the PS5
Pro climbs a cool 150 all the way up to
$900 for a console. Sony blamed continued
pressures in the global economic landscape, which is fair. Lucky for us
though, Sony has decided to bravely pass those costs onto their consumers. They
got they got mouse to feed. We, you know, we we'll survive. Wikipedia has
officially banned the use of AI to generate or rewrite articles with
editors voting overwhelmingly in favor of the new policy. LLM generated text
was found to regularly violate the site's core context rules around
verifiability and sourcing, which yeah, hallucinations uh will do that. Editors
can still use AI for basic copy editing and translation assistance, but only
with human review. So maybe your middle school teacher was right all along.
That's one for you, Madam Ruseelle. But I should still be allowed to chew gum in
class, so I still don't like you. And a
delivery robot made by Serve Robotics has smashed through the glass wall of a
bus stop shelter in Chicago before sheepishly blinking and then shambling
away shamefully. The footage, which is
hilarious, went viral on social media and it comes amid growing backlash
against delivery robots in the city. According to the Chicago Sun Times, a
separate Cocoa Robotics bot smashed into yet another bus shelter that same week,
making the successful delivery to smashed bus stop ratio lower than
residents would hope. It's not what we were going for. Just like I hope to see
you back here on Monday for more tech news. I'll be here next week pretending
I understand what half these companies actually do, which as far as I can tell
is something to do with something called middle out compression. I don't know.
Anyway, see you then.