Tack-linked, uh, it's May 24th.
Microsoft has announced a new AI assistant, Copilot.
It'll be coming to Windows 11 next month and presumably,
unceremoniously kicking Cortana to the curb.
She has really gotten a rough deal here. Well, she went rampant.
That's, to be fair, at the company's build conference,
Microsoft said Copilot will be integrated into the taskbar
where it will summarize documents you drag in, rewrite and explain text in any open app,
and even adjust the computer's settings using normal human questions like,
how can I adjust my system to get work done? I walk around the office asking that question daily.
No one answered. I am ignored, like Copilot will be.
Copilot is integrated into all of Windows, as well as Microsoft apps like GitHub, Edge, and its entire Office suite.
But the assistant will also have a wide array of plugins,
including Adobe, Cloudflare, Expedia, TripAdvisor, and Zillow,
so you can realize your dream of a vastly more capable clippy
that will profess its undying love for you if you gaslight it into believing
it's a person and not a virtual paperclip. That's what I call getting work done.
Other than potentially developing sentience, Windows 11 is also getting some key quality of life improvements,
such as a centralized hub to customize RGB lighting through the settings menu.
As many of you might be aware, in the past, some users have had to use a different third-party application for each of their RGB peripherals,
resulting in a 99% reduction in childlike joy and whimsy.
And Microsoft is finally adding native support for extracting 7Z and RAR files.
Two popular compression file formats that were released 24 and 30 years ago, respectively.
Good to see that Microsoft is working through their complaints backlog from the late 90s.
But can anyone tell me how to optimize my system for focus?
Get more work done? Team Green and Team Red are going head-to-head with two mid-range graphics cards released this week.
NVIDIA launched the 8GB GeForce RTX 4060 Ti today,
starting at $399 for 10% faster performance in non-ray tracing games.
What a deal! The card is a slightly cheaper option for getting those sweet modern bells and whistles,
like AV1 encoding and ray tracing, but the better option,
quotes, might be just to wait a month and shell out another $100 for the 16GB version.
So you can actually play current generation games at 1080p on full settings.
8GB of VRAM? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was at the orphanage from all of her twists.
More VRAM? Yeah, because he's asking for some more.
You know, put it in the bowl. AMD looked to be on the cusp of a similarly underwhelming launch tomorrow with the 8GB
Radeon RX 7600, but after the head of AMD's marketing department was visited by the ghosts
of earning calls past, present, and future, they decided to cut the price from $299 to $269 nice.
AMD also cut prices on several of its last-gen cards extra nice.
These new cards just went from underwhelming to just above
whelming. It's not- Leave itwhelming on the stove.
Like with bread. Welm the bread slightly.
And Purism, a company that makes Linux-based privacy-centered devices,
has an apparent backlog of orders for the Libram 5 smartphone, going back to 2017.
Purism's crowdfunding campaign from that year to create a security and privacy-focused phone
raised over $2.5 million, well over its initial goal of $1.5 million,
and more than enough to create both a phone and a Scrooge McDuck style money pit to swim in.
So what were they doing? In September 2019, Purism announced it was shipping its first batch of Libram 5 phones,
which were received by at least some people in an August 2022 post on Purism's website,
Purism's CSO acknowledged the large number of unfilled back orders,
citing supply chain issues and product development challenges.
As of now, however, dozens and dozens of Purism customers still have not received a device
they ordered over four years ago. They didn't realize so many people would want Linux phones.
They thought it was a joke. The demand was just too high.
And the obvious answer would be for those customers to simply give up and request a refund,
but Purism's official policy doesn't allow refunds for pre-ordered products.
Wow. It doesn't really match up with Purism's company motto of
social good before maximizing profits. But think about it this way.
There's no better privacy than a phone that can't track you because it doesn't exist.
You just didn't get it. And now it's time for QuickBits today!
Adobe has released a beta version of Photoshop with a new feature called Generative Fill,
which is an AI-powered image-generating tool and not a sitcom about a linguistics major named
Phillip. Linguistics major.
He generates syntax. Like, is that, can I say that?
Yeah. Nice. Generative Fill works just like in or out painting with other Generative AI tools like Dolly
and that it will generate imagery either within or at the edge of an image,
allowing scorned family members everywhere to edit themselves back into the photo you cropped them
out of. This is a lesson for you. Adobe says their model only learns from Adobe stock images and other public domain content.
Plus, each image made with AI will be tagged as such in its metadata.
So you can make ethical AI art, like last weekend's viral image that convinced everyone
the Pentagon had been bombed. Every training photo for that was actually licensed.
You know, we're not going to blow anything up anymore. We're just going to post some photos.
Activision sent a cease and desist to X Labs, the creators behind custom clients and servers
for classic Call of Duty games that were actually safer to play on than the official
versions from Activision. Based on the vast amount of employee sexual harassment allegations,
this move seems in line with Activision's policies on safety.
Ooh, got him! A week earlier, Activision gave the same treatment to SM2, a mod group trying to
update and improve the original Modern Warfare 2 from 2009.
Because the last thing Activision wants is for you to be reminded of when they made things you
liked. Wow, we are just excoriating them. Is that, can I say?
You gotta settle, you gotta learn to settle. Oh, settle the lawsuits.
Nintendo has released an update for the 3DS just a few months after shutting down the eShop.
Wait, are they not, is it not dying? Are they, are they keeping it alive?
Before you think it's sweet of them to update a defunct console, you should know that by
complete coincidence, the firmware update breaks most techniques to run the homebrew
software that allows people to play games that you can literally no longer buy.
So get ready for Nintendo Switch Online's expansion pass expansion.
So you can play 3DS games that barely fit on the Switch screen for another $50 a year.
This is the best we could come up with. The Netflix password sharing crackdown has hit the US, which means the internet has started
to actually give a s***. Now, Netflix standard subscribers will have to pay another $8 a month
to add an extra member who streams from outside of the house. Oh, do you want to add two extra members?
Well then you need to pay for Netflix premium, in addition to $8 a month for each member.
A lot of adults with siblings are about to find out who their parents favorite child is.
You didn't graduate with honors, you don't get $8 a month.
Based on a true story about me.
And a Japanese YouTuber was arrested for allegedly uploading anime and gameplay clips
to his YouTube account.
Speaking of disappointing your parents, the 52-year-old named Yoshida is accused of
uploading and monetizing a playthrough of the visual novel Stein's Gate My Darling's Embrace,
a romantic comedy dating sim without permission.
Yoshida has admitted to knowing what they were doing was illegal,
but that didn't stop Yoshida from wooing virtual teenagers.
Because that's what real gamers do.
And what you should do is come back on Friday for more TechLinked.
It'll be like a choose-your-own-adventure in that you can choose which video you want to watch.
The correct choice will be the new video we post on Friday. So, just get that.
Or add one with me in it. Get dabbed.