WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.480 I once thought that the Monopoly Man had a Monopoly, but then I remembered it's a four-player game, 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:12.400 but then I remembered he's not even playing it. So what is he doing there? Anyway, tech news. 00:00:13.040 --> 00:00:19.040 The US government has officially approved the sale of NVIDIA's H200 accelerator cards to China, 00:00:19.040 --> 00:00:24.720 with a few caveats. Under the new rules, shipments are only allowed to be sold to approved customers, 00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:32.160 require third-party reviews of every unit sold, and come with a 25% kickback to Uncle Sam on paper. 00:00:32.160 --> 00:00:36.960 This means it's all good news for Chinese companies that have been struggling for the last year to get 00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:43.520 them into the country, except for one very important piece of bad news. According to Reuters sources, 00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:50.080 Chinese customs were quietly told this week that H200 chips are not permitted to enter the country, 00:00:50.160 --> 00:00:55.920 and domestic tech firms were summoned and warned not to buy them unless absolutely necessary. 00:00:55.920 --> 00:01:01.600 Officials didn't clarify if this is a full ban, a temporary pause, or something being stalled 00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:08.080 until an upcoming US-China talk. But it is funny to see China blocking the same cards that the 00:01:08.080 --> 00:01:15.200 country was originally banned from buying. But why? China probably doesn't want to rely on western tech, 00:01:15.200 --> 00:01:20.480 but you don't know, maybe they're joining the ranks of the AI doomers that are really 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:26.960 harshing NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Wong's vibe lately. Mocking these hard-working tech pros is, 00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:32.560 according to Jensen, extremely hurtful. And it's even causing some of them to second guess 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:37.680 whether blindly investing our entire economy into an unproven technology that still hallucinates 00:01:37.680 --> 00:01:44.720 nonsense half the time is worth it at all. They're thinking about morality and stuff, icky. 00:01:45.920 --> 00:01:50.400 Speaking of investing our entire economy, Microsoft just announced a community-first 00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:55.840 approach to AI data centers, pledging to pay their fair share of electricity costs so your 00:01:55.840 --> 00:02:01.200 power bill doesn't spike every time someone asks co-pilot how to uninstall co-pilot. 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:06.880 In a blog post by Microsoft President Brad Smith, the company outlined five commitments. First, 00:02:06.880 --> 00:02:12.080 they'll ask utilities to set electricity rates high enough to cover data center infrastructure 00:02:12.160 --> 00:02:16.640 costs, basically volunteering to pay what they probably should have been paying all along. 00:02:16.640 --> 00:02:22.160 Smith wrote that it's both unfair and politically unrealistic for our industry to ask the public 00:02:22.160 --> 00:02:27.280 to shoulder added electricity costs for AI. This is a guy that works for Microsoft, are we sure? 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:33.440 This came one day after President Trump posted on TruthSocial that AI companies must pay their own 00:02:33.440 --> 00:02:40.480 way. He also reminded everyone that America is the hottest country in the world, which obviously, 00:02:40.480 --> 00:02:46.560 have you ever even seen the Appalachian Mountains? They got got. I could hike the Cumberland Gap all 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:50.800 day if you know what I'm saying. I want to f*** those mountains. Microsoft also committed to 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:56.480 community development through providing training programs for AI technology and achieving 40% 00:02:56.480 --> 00:03:02.880 better water efficiency by 2030, funding $25 million in water infrastructure for Leesburg, 00:03:03.040 --> 00:03:09.840 Virginia, and not requesting local tax breaks. Oh good for you paying your taxes. 00:03:10.880 --> 00:03:14.240 Now can you maybe stop pumping Windows full of ads? 00:03:17.200 --> 00:03:23.120 NVIDIA is reportedly cutting back on higher VRAM graphics cards and doubling down on 8GB 00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:28.880 models as memory shortages continue to squeeze the market. According to supply chain chatter from 00:03:28.880 --> 00:03:36.240 Chinese forum board channels, NVIDIA is expected to ramp up production of 8GB RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:42.640 models this year while quietly scaling back the 16GB variants. The reason should feel familiar by 00:03:42.640 --> 00:03:49.120 now. Ongoing memory constraints around GDDR6 and 7 are making larger VRAM configurations harder to 00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:54.720 source and significantly more expensive, especially in the low to mid-range markets where margins 00:03:54.720 --> 00:04:00.160 are apparently already tight. From NVIDIA's perspective, the move could be pretty pragmatic. 00:04:00.160 --> 00:04:05.280 Shipping more 8GB cards would allow them to say they're trying to keep prices lower, 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:09.760 although the same post indicates that more price increases could be on the way too. 00:04:09.760 --> 00:04:14.560 I just hope they're not cutting costs even more by claiming they've got 8GB when they've really 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:19.920 got less. Like are they measuring from the base or the bus interface? Sometimes when people are 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:24.160 compensating for something, they pay for a bigger tool. I mean hey who wouldn't take an extra gig 00:04:24.720 --> 00:04:29.280 that's probably exactly what happened when 42 people found the deal of the century 00:04:29.280 --> 00:04:36.640 on RTX 5090s listed at a measly thousand bucks on Amazon. Wow! Imagine their surprise when they 00:04:36.640 --> 00:04:42.000 received a package full of fanny packs instead. The QuickBits have a favorite board game, 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:48.560 Hungry Hungry Hippos. It's all about speed and feral intimidation displays. 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:55.280 Meta just laid off over 1,000 Reality Labs employees and shut down three VR game studios, 00:04:55.280 --> 00:05:00.720 Twisted Pixel, Sansaru, and Armature. A meta spokesperson said they're shifting investment 00:05:00.720 --> 00:05:08.160 from metaverse stuff towards wearables and AI. The pivot is partially due to demand for Ray-Ban 00:05:08.160 --> 00:05:15.520 meta glasses being on course for the moon, while Reality Labs has lost over 70 billion dollars 00:05:15.520 --> 00:05:21.600 since 2021. As they shift their priorities moving forward, they plan instead to lose that money on 00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:27.280 AI. And more cool chains to make Zuck seem a little bit less like an alien. The music 00:05:27.280 --> 00:05:34.240 hosting and publishing site Bandcamp has banned AI-generated music entirely. Any use of AI to 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:39.920 impersonate artists is also prohibited and Bandcamp reserves the right to remove content on suspicion 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.880 of being AI-generated. Did you hear that breaking rust? You're gonna have to get your millions 00:05:44.880 --> 00:05:50.240 of listens on Spotify! Bandcamp don't want you! God, I wish I could quit you. 00:05:50.240 --> 00:05:56.880 The policy also bans training AI models on Bandcamp content. That's why all my experimental 00:05:56.880 --> 00:06:02.800 new wave prog trash electronic disco funk pop music is only going on Bandcamp. 00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:08.480 Cannot let these robots hear my bleeps and bloops, lest they become too strong. 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:16.080 GOG owner Michal Kacinsk announced his intent to go toe-to-toe with Steam this week, stating that 00:06:16.080 --> 00:06:21.840 Steam's market domination actually makes it easier to take market share from them, which makes total 00:06:21.840 --> 00:06:27.920 sense as long as you don't think about it at all. Kacinsk isn't planning to challenge Steam on AAA 00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:33.360 releases like Epic tried to do. Instead, he's focusing on deals with smaller developers and 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:39.840 publishers like IndieDev Eero Lane, who announced that he is delisting his free roguelike card game 00:06:39.840 --> 00:06:45.680 Hardest from Steam on January 30th because it used AI art and his girlfriend of one month 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:51.840 convinced him AI is unethical. We here at TechLink applaud the move and just want to say congratulations 00:06:51.840 --> 00:06:56.480 to Lane for getting a girl to listen to you talk about your computer card game long enough for 00:06:56.480 --> 00:07:01.680 her to have an opinion on it. Police departments using Flock Safety's license plate surveillance 00:07:01.680 --> 00:07:07.440 system accidentally leaked millions of surveillance targets by failing to redact license plate data 00:07:07.440 --> 00:07:13.120 in public records releases. The unredacted Flock Safety audit logs have been compiled into a 00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:19.360 searchable website called HaveIbeenFlock.com, which now contains 2.3 million license plates and 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:25.120 reveals sensitive information, including search reasons, active investigations, and the surveillance 00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:30.240 targets. Flock responded by frantically trying to take the website down and threatening the website 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:35.920 creator, claiming intellectual property violations and public safety concerns. Because as we all know, 00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:40.720 your license plate number and police data is in fact the property of an incompetent mass 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:46.560 surveillance company. Fun fact. And you can now put a deposit on a hotel room on the moon. 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:54.080 A startup called GruSpace is taking $1,000 non-refundable applications towards future 00:07:54.080 --> 00:08:01.520 lunar hotel reservations priced anywhere from $250,000 to $1,000,000 big ones that those are 00:08:01.520 --> 00:08:11.120 refundable, supposedly. Listen up, we are going to steal rental deposits on the moon. I don't know. 00:08:11.120 --> 00:08:18.240 The pitch is luxury accommodation in orbit adjacent real estate made from inflatable habitats and 00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:26.080 moon bricks constructed from lunar regolith formed by geopolymers. Whatever that means. 00:08:26.080 --> 00:08:31.760 It's the moon. Currently, the goal is to do their first launch at some point in the next decade. 00:08:31.760 --> 00:08:37.120 Gru is also hiring a single engineer to help design the entire lunar habitat, 00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:41.760 because there's only one guy who could possibly do that job. Dr. Nefario. 00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:49.520 Hey, it's a reference. There's been a murder. Ha, just kidding. That was just a clue for what 00:08:49.520 --> 00:08:55.360 would happen if you don't come back on Friday for more tech news. Clue. A board game. All right. 00:08:55.360 --> 00:08:56.320 Anyway, see ya.