1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,560 As you can see, it is a new year, one that we can now verify contains some bonkers tech news 2 00:00:08,560 --> 00:00:15,120 right off the bat. So here's some of it. The Nintendo Switch 2's motherboard has leaked in 3 00:00:15,120 --> 00:00:20,480 photos posted on Reddit. And while normally I'd sprinkle in some alleged leads in here, 4 00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:25,520 the sheer quantity of Switch 2 leaks in recent months is making it pretty easy to see which 5 00:00:25,600 --> 00:00:30,880 ones overlap. This motherboard not only has USB-C ports in the right places on the top and 6 00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:36,000 bottom, but it matches up with a previous leak showing the other side of the PCB attached to 7 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:42,320 what is certainly the Switch 2 panel. And I've never been more sure of anything in my life. 8 00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:46,400 Do we live in a simulation? I don't know, but that's the Switch 2! 9 00:00:46,400 --> 00:00:51,840 One image shows the NVIDIA processor, with text indicating it was built on a slightly older 10 00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:58,000 Samsung 8nm node, leading some to express concerns that the console's graphics won't be able to 11 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:05,120 render Mario's nipples at the 4K and 60fps they deserve. Others, like YouTuber TheWolften, 12 00:01:05,120 --> 00:01:11,120 aren't as worried. LOL RATION! In fact, Nintendo just filed a patent yesterday, 13 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:17,280 spotted by Laura Kate Dale on Blue Sky, that describes upscaling techniques. And since NVIDIA's 14 00:01:17,280 --> 00:01:24,160 DLSS is the best in the game, I'm sure the Switch 2 will do justice to whatever nips may slide on 15 00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:29,600 to its display. Sounds painful. So when the heck is Nintendo going to speak up about this console? 16 00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:34,000 Well, they're going to talk about it sometime in the next three months, according to the Game 17 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:39,440 Awards Twitter account for some reason. Look, Jeff Kealy's just protecting his shy Japanese 18 00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:45,200 mega-corporation friend. See, they're just not ready yet! 19 00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:51,760 That was Jeff Kealy. I haven't worked on it. In other leaks that seem surprisingly legit news, 20 00:01:51,760 --> 00:02:00,640 Half-Life 3. It seems like it's happening. YouTuber and data miner Gabe Follower, 21 00:02:00,640 --> 00:02:05,040 who's been responsible for some reliable info in the past, claims his sources say 22 00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:10,880 Valve has begun friends and family playtesting for the project codenamed HLX, 23 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:15,840 which is strongly believed to be Half-Life 3. His video goes through many more breadcrumbs, 24 00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:22,080 but speculation was truly set ablaze when Mike Shapiro, the voice actor for Half-Life characters 25 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:29,520 G-Man and Barney, tweeted a video speaking in a G-Man-esque voice and teasing unexpected 26 00:02:29,520 --> 00:02:37,200 surprises in the new year. Unexpected surprises. The last time Shapiro did something like this 27 00:02:37,200 --> 00:02:44,640 was back in 2020 during the launch of Valve's VR title, Half-Life Alyx. Now, this may be solid proof 28 00:02:44,640 --> 00:02:52,640 that we can soon expect at least another Half-Life game. It may also be a promo for Shapiro's own 29 00:02:52,640 --> 00:02:58,320 music, given that the painting shown in the video is the art from the two-week-old Mike Shapiro 30 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:12,320 best long dog. If that's the case, I will be disappointed but happy for Mike and his reportedly 31 00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:19,200 very good and lengthy pet. California's ban on what it calls addictive feeds for miners on social 32 00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:24,960 platforms was approved by a federal judge on New Year's Eve in the world's latest attempt to 33 00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:30,800 stop whatever is happening to Gen Alpha. We don't understand it, but we know its aura is 34 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:35,200 High Key Ohio, which is not goals at all. Did you understand that? 35 00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:38,320 High Key Ohio? Yes. Why Ohio? 36 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:44,720 Just gotta look it up. The ruling means companies like Meta, Snap, and Bite Dance will be forced to make significant 37 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:50,880 changes to their social apps to prevent miners from accessing algorithmic feeds fed by their 38 00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:56,160 personal data. Why don't those companies sue to stop this? Well, they did. 39 00:03:56,160 --> 00:04:03,680 After Bill SB976 was signed into law in September, industry group NetChoice sued to block it from 40 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:09,840 taking effect. And indeed, Judge Edward J. De Villa did block many of the Bill's key elements, 41 00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:16,320 but upheld the ban on addictive feeds. Social platforms will also not be able to send miners 42 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:24,560 notifications from 8am to 3pm and from midnight to 6am. Go to sleep kids, you can have brain rot 43 00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:29,360 for breakfast. Oh, turns out there are quick bits in the New Year too, which I honestly wasn't 44 00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:36,560 expecting, but okay. Honey, the scam posing as a coupon finding service has been hit by a class 45 00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:42,000 action lawsuit filed by a group of lawyers and YouTubers, including Wendover Productions and 46 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:48,160 Legal Eagle, aka Devin Stone, who says after watching YouTuber Megalag's recently posted 47 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:53,920 expose, he was furious, presumably because he found out about Honey stealing influencers 48 00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:58,800 affiliate link commissions and not because he couldn't understand Megalag's Kiwi accent. 49 00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:05,760 What? I understood him fine. I just thought, isn't it cool that people talk differently? 50 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:11,840 Pornhub parent company ILO has blocked access to its network of adults websites in Florida 51 00:05:11,840 --> 00:05:18,320 and South Carolina, who just joined a list of 16 other US states who have passed age verification 52 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:24,560 laws to prevent miners from accessing adult content. It was 17 other states, but a judge 53 00:05:24,560 --> 00:05:30,560 blocked the law in Tennessee, and an investigative redditor from the state confirmed they can still 54 00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:36,080 access the site. Doing the hard work so you don't have to, or in case you can, that was a pun. 55 00:05:36,080 --> 00:05:42,160 A map from 404 Media shows that ILO sites are now blocked across nearly half the country, 56 00:05:42,160 --> 00:05:47,360 if you're going by landmass. Which, I don't know why you would. 57 00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:52,800 The US Treasury Department says that Chinese hackers broke into several workstations and 58 00:05:52,800 --> 00:05:58,800 accessed classified documents in what the agency called a major cybersecurity incident, 59 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:04,400 as opposed to the normal ones that happen every Tuesday. The breach comes as US government officials 60 00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:10,560 are still trying to get hackers out of the country's telecoms networks, which is hard when they can 61 00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:15,120 squeeze through gaps the width of a pencil or the length of a human hair or something. 62 00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:23,440 They squish their bones flat or something. I don't get it. And a software engineer helping to maintain the diaspora, Federated Social Network, said that 63 00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:29,040 while investigating load spikes in the project's infrastructure, he discovered that around 70% 64 00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:35,680 of requests received by those websites are sent by bots collecting data to train large language 65 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:42,080 models. Bots from OpenAI, Amazon, and Anthropic apparently come back to crawl the same webpage 66 00:06:42,080 --> 00:06:49,200 every six hours and manage to evade every attempt to block them, unlike the crawlers from Google 67 00:06:49,200 --> 00:06:54,640 and Bing, which still remember how to behave decently. These younger bots, though, they're 68 00:06:55,280 --> 00:06:58,480 skibbity-rizzing all over the place. I never did that. 69 00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:02,880 But I did ask you to come back for tech news, and so I shall again. 70 00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:06,080 Friday is when there will be more, so see you then. 71 00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:10,720 What? Why are you still looking at me? 72 00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:15,280 Well, well, this is awkward.