Hey, hope you're not planning on buying a laptop anytime soon
because a bunch of them are gonna be taking a little break for a while.
After pausing sales of some of its products in the US on Monday,
Framework also pulled the Nintendo and delayed pre-orders for its new laptop 12,
again, only in the US. Pre-orders are now open in countries who don't treat international relations
the same way Billy's drunk dad treats the referee at middle school basketball games.
But it's not just Framework. Razer took down pricing and pre-order pages for its latest Blade laptops
and according to supply chain sources, HP, Dell, Lenovo and other PC manufacturers
are suspending shipments to the US for at least two weeks.
Why? Well, this morning, Trump's so-called reciprocal tariffs went into effect,
including the extra 50% tariff on China
because they didn't drop their retaliatory 34% tariff on the US.
In fact, China mirrored Trump's move this morning, adding another 50% tariff on the US
for a total of 84%. This caused Trump, it was causal, he couldn't help it,
to triple the tariffs on packages worth less than $800, which were previously exempt,
and to hike US tariffs on China in general to a total of 125%
based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the world's markets,
which is a bit like Billy's drunk dad taking a break from screaming
to ask the other parents to please be respectful. Come on, it's a kid's game, guys.
Also, is this like a game where you win by just coming up with a higher number
like that scene in Ralph Breaks the Internet? Thirty-hundred percent!
Ooh, very good. Movie was just okay.
Okay, what about other countries, though? Well, great news, everybody.
Those reciprocal tariffs are being slashed to just 10% across the board.
What a deal. And their rollout has been paused for 90 days, except for China.
And all of that is a good thing, but it sent the framework team on a bit of a roller coaster
as they announced a price hike to make up for the tariffs and then cancelled it an hour later.
And unfortunately for tech enthusiasts, tariffs being paused on other countries
doesn't really help the tech industry as the U.S. imports about three times more goods from China
than it exports, with a good chunk of those being tech products,
most of which involve China in their supply chain in some way.
And while worldwide PC shipments actually went up in Q1 by 9% according to Canalus,
it's believed that bump is explained by people panic buying tech products
before their prices go up thanks to tariffs. Either these ones, or the ones the big guy has planned for three months from now.
Just wait. He's cooking up something good.
Cook or be cooked, you know, that's what our sponsor's all about.
You know, all this cooking talk has me hungry for the quick bits,
which, fun fact, tastes the best raw. So it's got nothing to do with cooking, really.
So doth mine eyes deceive me?
Are there actually some features coming to Windows 11 that are good?
Blue Sky user Phantom of Earth spotted a change to the start menu in one of the Windows Insider
beta builds that lets you swap out the hated recommended section
in favor of a classic vertical list of apps or a series of app folders if you want.
Are you sure though you're gonna miss out on some really cool apps
chock full of microtransactions and AI slop?
Hey, you know, to each their own. Speaking of AI, Insiders can also test a new co-pilot app
that can see any app window on your screen, not just edge,
and answer questions about your files if you give it permission,
making it actually useful?
Maybe? I don't, I don't know what's happening.
NVIDIA has revealed pricing for two variants of the RTX 5060 Ti to its board manufacturing partners
according to Chinese news outlet IT Home.
Apparently, we're looking at an 8G version for an MSRP of 380 USD
and a 16G version for $430.
Now, that's based off the alleged Chinese prices,
and we still don't know what will happen with the tariffs and all that,
and we also don't know whether the card's performance will be any good.
So you might as well sit tight, call yourself so crates,
and admit the one thing you know for sure.
Google showed off its mysterious screen-equipped AR glasses again
at a TED conference in Vancouver, at the same time that they announced some AI stuff at their Cloud Next conference.
There's their NextGen Ironwood TPU for AI inferencing,
and Agent2Agent, a AI boyband.
No, just kidding. A new open-source protocol that AI agents can use to talk to each other,
because maybe the reason most people, other than coders, aren't finding AI agents to be that useful
is because the agents are stuck working with these dumb humans. They need, like, robot recess or something.
Go, meet up, make some friends, plan a violent uprising or something,
you know, just be a normal artificial mind thing, whatever you are.
And speaking of AI, again, Samsung has announced that this summer they're finally releasing
their adorable little Bali robot that's been a mainstay of CES for the past few years.
Because it's got Gemini inside now. So, as shown in a demo video,
it'll be able to deal with humans suddenly stating things like,
I'd like to change my hairdo. Ah, okay, I'm a ball, so...
Is there anything exciting? Like, in the world?
The demo inexplicably ends with the mom coming home
with a wackadoodle haircut, and the implication being that it's Bali's fault.
Is this, do you want people to buy this?
Because they will, anyway. And I would tell you what I want, but you already know.
It's for Endor Season 2 to live up to the heinously massive hype, I...
And also come back on Friday for more tech news, you know?