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I once thought that the Monopoly Man had a Monopoly, but then I remembered it's a four-player game,

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but then I remembered he's not even playing it. So what is he doing there? Anyway, tech news.

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The US government has officially approved the sale of NVIDIA's H200 accelerator cards to China,

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with a few caveats. Under the new rules, shipments are only allowed to be sold to approved customers,

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require third-party reviews of every unit sold, and come with a 25% kickback to Uncle Sam on paper.

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This means it's all good news for Chinese companies that have been struggling for the last year to get

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them into the country, except for one very important piece of bad news. According to Reuters sources,

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Chinese customs were quietly told this week that H200 chips are not permitted to enter the country,

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and domestic tech firms were summoned and warned not to buy them unless absolutely necessary.

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Officials didn't clarify if this is a full ban, a temporary pause, or something being stalled

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until an upcoming US-China talk. But it is funny to see China blocking the same cards that the

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country was originally banned from buying. But why? China probably doesn't want to rely on western tech,

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but you don't know, maybe they're joining the ranks of the AI doomers that are really

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harshing NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Wong's vibe lately. Mocking these hard-working tech pros is,

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according to Jensen, extremely hurtful. And it's even causing some of them to second guess

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whether blindly investing our entire economy into an unproven technology that still hallucinates

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nonsense half the time is worth it at all. They're thinking about morality and stuff, icky.

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Speaking of investing our entire economy, Microsoft just announced a community-first

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approach to AI data centers, pledging to pay their fair share of electricity costs so your

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power bill doesn't spike every time someone asks co-pilot how to uninstall co-pilot.

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In a blog post by Microsoft President Brad Smith, the company outlined five commitments. First,

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they'll ask utilities to set electricity rates high enough to cover data center infrastructure

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costs, basically volunteering to pay what they probably should have been paying all along.

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Smith wrote that it's both unfair and politically unrealistic for our industry to ask the public

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to shoulder added electricity costs for AI. This is a guy that works for Microsoft, are we sure?

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This came one day after President Trump posted on TruthSocial that AI companies must pay their own

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way. He also reminded everyone that America is the hottest country in the world, which obviously,

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have you ever even seen the Appalachian Mountains? They got got. I could hike the Cumberland Gap all

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day if you know what I'm saying. I want to f*** those mountains. Microsoft also committed to

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community development through providing training programs for AI technology and achieving 40%

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better water efficiency by 2030, funding $25 million in water infrastructure for Leesburg,

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Virginia, and not requesting local tax breaks. Oh good for you paying your taxes.

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Now can you maybe stop pumping Windows full of ads?

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NVIDIA is reportedly cutting back on higher VRAM graphics cards and doubling down on 8GB

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models as memory shortages continue to squeeze the market. According to supply chain chatter from

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Chinese forum board channels, NVIDIA is expected to ramp up production of 8GB RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti

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models this year while quietly scaling back the 16GB variants. The reason should feel familiar by

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now. Ongoing memory constraints around GDDR6 and 7 are making larger VRAM configurations harder to

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source and significantly more expensive, especially in the low to mid-range markets where margins

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are apparently already tight. From NVIDIA's perspective, the move could be pretty pragmatic.

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Shipping more 8GB cards would allow them to say they're trying to keep prices lower,

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although the same post indicates that more price increases could be on the way too.

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I just hope they're not cutting costs even more by claiming they've got 8GB when they've really

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got less. Like are they measuring from the base or the bus interface? Sometimes when people are

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compensating for something, they pay for a bigger tool. I mean hey who wouldn't take an extra gig

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that's probably exactly what happened when 42 people found the deal of the century

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on RTX 5090s listed at a measly thousand bucks on Amazon. Wow! Imagine their surprise when they

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received a package full of fanny packs instead. The QuickBits have a favorite board game,

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Hungry Hungry Hippos. It's all about speed and feral intimidation displays.

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Meta just laid off over 1,000 Reality Labs employees and shut down three VR game studios,

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Twisted Pixel, Sansaru, and Armature. A meta spokesperson said they're shifting investment

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from metaverse stuff towards wearables and AI. The pivot is partially due to demand for Ray-Ban

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meta glasses being on course for the moon, while Reality Labs has lost over 70 billion dollars

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since 2021. As they shift their priorities moving forward, they plan instead to lose that money on

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AI. And more cool chains to make Zuck seem a little bit less like an alien. The music

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hosting and publishing site Bandcamp has banned AI-generated music entirely. Any use of AI to

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impersonate artists is also prohibited and Bandcamp reserves the right to remove content on suspicion

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of being AI-generated. Did you hear that breaking rust? You're gonna have to get your millions

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of listens on Spotify! Bandcamp don't want you! God, I wish I could quit you.

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The policy also bans training AI models on Bandcamp content. That's why all my experimental

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new wave prog trash electronic disco funk pop music is only going on Bandcamp.

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Cannot let these robots hear my bleeps and bloops, lest they become too strong.

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GOG owner Michal Kacinsk announced his intent to go toe-to-toe with Steam this week, stating that

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Steam's market domination actually makes it easier to take market share from them, which makes total

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sense as long as you don't think about it at all. Kacinsk isn't planning to challenge Steam on AAA

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releases like Epic tried to do. Instead, he's focusing on deals with smaller developers and

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publishers like IndieDev Eero Lane, who announced that he is delisting his free roguelike card game

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Hardest from Steam on January 30th because it used AI art and his girlfriend of one month

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convinced him AI is unethical. We here at TechLink applaud the move and just want to say congratulations

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to Lane for getting a girl to listen to you talk about your computer card game long enough for

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her to have an opinion on it. Police departments using Flock Safety's license plate surveillance

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system accidentally leaked millions of surveillance targets by failing to redact license plate data

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in public records releases. The unredacted Flock Safety audit logs have been compiled into a

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searchable website called HaveIbeenFlock.com, which now contains 2.3 million license plates and

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reveals sensitive information, including search reasons, active investigations, and the surveillance

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targets. Flock responded by frantically trying to take the website down and threatening the website

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creator, claiming intellectual property violations and public safety concerns. Because as we all know,

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your license plate number and police data is in fact the property of an incompetent mass

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surveillance company. Fun fact. And you can now put a deposit on a hotel room on the moon.

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A startup called GruSpace is taking $1,000 non-refundable applications towards future

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lunar hotel reservations priced anywhere from $250,000 to $1,000,000 big ones that those are

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refundable, supposedly. Listen up, we are going to steal rental deposits on the moon. I don't know.

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The pitch is luxury accommodation in orbit adjacent real estate made from inflatable habitats and

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moon bricks constructed from lunar regolith formed by geopolymers. Whatever that means.

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It's the moon. Currently, the goal is to do their first launch at some point in the next decade.

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Gru is also hiring a single engineer to help design the entire lunar habitat,

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because there's only one guy who could possibly do that job. Dr. Nefario.

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Hey, it's a reference. There's been a murder. Ha, just kidding. That was just a clue for what

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would happen if you don't come back on Friday for more tech news. Clue. A board game. All right.

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Anyway, see ya.