Quick, quick, drop whatever you're doing, and wha-
Intel seems to have implicitly confirmed rumors that they'll release a more powerful
ARK Battle Mage GPU if some tweets are anything to go by, and when are they not?
In response to multiple fans pleading for an ARK B770, which would sit above the existing
B570 and B580 in Intel's naming scheme, the official Intel Twitter account replied with
various versions of Stay Tuned, with an eyes emoji, which in influencer means Watch This
Space. Sparkles, despite not having officially confirmed the existence of the B770, Intel said another
fan who wants one is a gamer with great taste, and called the card, which so far only exists
in liminal space, a solid pick, which is like me congratulating you on picking me for your
baseball team. Yeah, I might show up, but my schedule's all up in the air right now.
Now Intel said the same thing to the one reply guy or gal who asked about a B780,
which makes me think either they're also making that card, or this account is like
an AI that will also tell you to stay tuned when you ask for an Intel ARK B-LT cheese
sandwich. But really, who knows what we're gonna see at Computex next week.
There have been rumors about a 24 gig version of the ARK B580, which is probably actually
a pro card. But another fresh rumor this week indicates a third party card manufacturer is prepping
a dual GPU graphics card with two B580 chips on a single board.
Maybe they'll be stacked, like a cheese sandwich.
Stay tuned. Google is testing out adding an AI mode button to the main search page.
Users have reported seeing it replace the I'm feeling lucky button that takes you directly
to these top result of your search, while others report seeing it as an additional button
in the search bar. So to make sure I understand, Google forced AI overviews into your normal searches and
made you first perform an AI enabled search before you can even select the option to search
without AI. And instead of making normal web searches more accessible, they're adding an extra button
that injects even more AI that very well might tell you that rocks are edible.
Very cool. That works for human people. We're not being evil.
Got it. But you know what? It's okay because Google is offsetting this nonsense with improved spam and scam protections
for Android, which will stop you from disabling Google Play Protect, side loading or granting
extra permissions while on a call, and it'll warn you about scams if you open a banking
app while screen sharing with an unknown contact, which probably should just also not do that.
These add to the existing scam detection tools in calls and messages added this year, which
are entirely processed on device, supposedly, and oh, there's also a new key verifier feature
that will let you confirm the identity of the contact you're talking to using cryptographic
keys. Somebody send this to the Department of Defense stat.
Google also showed off and confirmed the new design language that had previously leaked
coming with Android 16 called Material 3 Expressive, which is definitely going to bring in so many
Gen Zers who were like, I thought Android was cringe, but I see myself here.
Color blocks on the Google logo make that a gradient and I'm on board.
Watch this space. House Republicans have slipped language into the proposed budget reconciliation bill that
could ban U.S. states from enforcing any locally passed AI regulations for 10 years.
It's a strange move because the rest of the bill is about completely unrelated stuff like
cuts to Medicaid, but it's not the only wacky AI related bill in the house right now.
Senator Tom Cotton introduced his own bill that proposes putting tracking chips in all
high performance AI processors so we can protect children.
This kind of legislation is going to be relevant because the Trump administration just rescinded
Biden's AI diffusion rule, which was horribly named to be fair, that placed strict limits
on U.S. companies shipping AI chips, although China's still a no-go.
The Middle East, however, is fair game, which is why Saudi Arabia's hot new AI company,
Humane, with an I in it, is immediately buying $10 billion worth of AMD GPUs and $18,000
NVIDIA GPUs to start while the United Arab Emirates wants to buy over a million GPUs.
Okay, hold on there, Sparky. I mean, they're going to need chips to power all of these data centers being built over
there in the desert because according to a recent statement from the U.S. Commerce Department,
anyone using Huawei's Ascend AI chips anywhere in the world could be subject to disciplinary
action by the U.S. And also, don't make fun of the tariffs online.
It's bad. For the nation's youth?
You know what's good for the youth? Video games, like our sponsor.
Okay, you're still watching. That's good. I thought I saw you looking at reels for a second there.
Hey! Hey! Eyes up here.
Yesterday, Samsung announced the Galaxy S25 Edge, which does not have a curved edge on
the screen like the discontinued edge phones from Days of Yor.
This edge is just amazingly thin and an amazing example of the exact reasons why everyone
reacted to rumors of ultra-thin phones with...but why?
With a 6.7-inch screen, the S25 Edge is basically an S25 Plus, but worse, while being slightly
more expensive at $1,100 U.S. The battery is 1,000 mAh smaller at 3,900.
It's got weaker, wired-only charging and no telephoto lens.
Even while it's got a 200-megapixel main camera now, it uses the same size sensor as
the 50-megapixel one and the rest of the lineup.
On the plus side, though, you won't get bullied for having a phone with a normal thickness.
I don't get it. Nintendo published proper tech specs for the Switch 2, so the digital foundry team at Eurogamer,
who did a lot of Switch 2 hardware sleuthing before the official announcement, dove into
analysis mode. The biggest takeaway is that the Switch 2 has a much larger gap in performance between
handheld and docked mode, probably partially due to the new dock having a fan in it.
So get hyped to play on the TV, but don't be disappointed when you can't see the sweat
glistening on your cyborg GF in Cyberpunk.
It wouldn't be a problem with a real girl.
You'd see their sweat just fine, and that's just an idea.
Those who bought a lifetime subscription to VPN provider VPNsecure had those subscriptions
cancelled because the company's new owners say they had never heard about it when they
were in the buying process. It's not their fault, nobody told me.
After enduring customer backlash, the new VPNsecure agreed to give the lifetime sub-holders
two free years. So I guess, after that, they'll die.
Thanks! A couple super-quick bits here, because I didn't know where else to put them, HBO
is changing the name of its streaming service back to HBO Max two years after rebranding
as just Max in an effort to signal that it's not just the Sopranos and stuff on there.
There's a lot of worse shows, too. And Uber has announced Uber Root Share, route share, whatever you want, which involves drivers
following set routes and arriving at stops every 20 minutes.
Yes, it's a bus. This Silicon Valley innovation is relentless.
And scientists at the FOM Institute for Molecular and Atomic Physics in Amsterdam built a robot
powered entirely by air being pushed through tubes, like a wacky inflatable tube man.
But he's alive now, apparently without any programming.
The robot's leg movements begin as a chaotic mess, but then naturally synchronize through
the power of raw physics, unlike other robots which don't involve physics at all.
The bot even switches to an alternating limb method in water, wild.
I'm not gonna lie, though. The real reason I included this story is because R's Technica's title and subtitle
sounds like a string of creative insults. You're a brainless robot that runs on air.
You're a starting gazelle that swims like a dog.
You have an air of stilted vapidity about you.
Big on. Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.
Okay, look, how about to make it up to you? You come back here on Friday for more tech news, and we'll call it even, okay?
Don't look away yet.