Aha, I knew you'd come back. You love the tech news.
You always have, something about you.
AMD is making some major moves in Apple's general direction
by releasing the specs for its new Ryzen 740U Phoenix series
mobile processors. The name is a reference to the majesty and renewal
of the mythological Phoenix, and not the whole thing where some of the processors burst into flames last week.
Got some hot new hardware. According to AMD, their new lightweight chips
are ready to go head to head with Apple's M2 processors. For example, the Ryzen 7 7840U supposedly performed 75%
better than the M2 in Passmark 10, when's the last time you performed 75% better than anyone
at anything? God! AMD is also boasting a major performance lead
over Intel's integrated graphics, probably because bragging about beating Apple at gaming
is like expecting a medal for whooping a six-year-old in an ARM wrestling competition.
I mean, I'll do it. But I'm not going to brag.
Come back when you're seven. The other major team red news is not an official announcement,
but a leak of several Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs,
including the RX 7950XT. These names, man.
It's exciting news, especially for AMD, who, much like Apple and Intel, is in desperate need of a win.
The entire PC industry is in a slump, seeing shipments drop by 30% in the first quarter of this year.
AMD also reported a 9% drop in earnings.
Better than expected, but still kind of scary. Like a theme park ride that makes you convinced
of your impending demise for about half a second, and then your butthole relaxes, and you get some donuts.
This weekend, AI apocalypse, but boring news,
IBM plans to pause hiring for around 7,800 jobs
that could eventually be replaced by AI.
The idea seems to be to take the human out of human resources
by gradually phasing out back office roles, with at least 30% of such jobs being automated
over the next five years. I always thought Chagy would be good at restocking TP.
Meanwhile, a German stock photographer sent a cease and desist request to AI training database,
Leon, Leon, Leon, and was met not just with a refusal,
but with a counterclaim of nearly $1,000 in legal fees.
Does Leon use his copyrighted photographs?
Yes, they absolutely do, but they didn't store those images,
they just linked to them, you see, I didn't inhale.
So they can't delete them, he can't tell them to stop using them, and he should pay the damages
for even having asked the question. The system is working, and a US congresswoman introduced
a bill requiring disclosure of AI-generated content in political ads, because yes, of course that's happening.
Please keep up. On the one hand, this may mean the end of democracy
as we know it, big whoop. On the other hand, I'm excited to see an ad
for a local school board election where the candidate phases through the podium,
punches a baby into the sun with one of her 12-fingered hands, then devolves into a sentient mass of bees.
We've all been there. That was the best.
And live streaming on YouTube just got an upgrade thanks to the newly released OBS Studio 29.1,
which now supports streaming to YouTube using the AV1 encoder.
For those of you whose ears didn't just perk up when I said AV1 encoder, it's okay.
You're actually the more normal people in the room. Streaming with AV1 results in boosted image quality
and a bit rate that can be reduced by up to 40%
without sacrificing image quality, especially if you're using an NVIDIA GPU,
at least according to NVIDIA, the company famous for marketing and selling NVIDIA GPUs.
To back up their claim that their AV1 encoder leads to better streaming quality than AMD
or Intel's encoders, NVIDIA provided this graph, which is actually just three screen caps from Fortnite
with green squares all over it. Wow. As far as I'm concerned, the case is closed,
but even if NVIDIA is right, more AV1 out there in the wild is a better thing for
really anyone who watches internet videos, especially now that NVIDIA, AMD and Intel GPUs
all support it. In response to the news of YouTube streaming getting a huge upgrade Twitch,
which does not support AV1, loser had this to say.
Oh. Quick bits.
Quick bits. Quick bits. What have you considered a quick bits? Quick bits.
Another service has fallen to the blue check mark menace
as Gmail has announced companies can apply for free
to its new verification program. According, why is this contagious?
According to Google, the feature is intended to help users distinguish
between legitimate sources and scam artists. So Gmail users can rest easy with the knowledge
that the constant broads of emails demanding their time and money are coming from
the trusted brands you know and tolerate. A judge has ruled to protect the anonymity of eight
redditors who commented on piracy related posts.
A group of film studios were trying to prove that internet service provider RCN was turning a blind eye
to piracy committed by its customers. To prove this,
their lawyers served Reddit with a subpoena. But fortunately for us all, that won't happen.
If those redditors were unmasked, we all know that Yara Har Fiddley Dee won't be the only sin
to see the light of the Fiddley Dee day, the horror.
Researchers are using AI to translate the brain activity
of mice into a 95% accurate reconstruction
of what the mouse was watching when the data was taken
in its little mouse mind's eye. Finally, what we always wanted from the sci-fi future,
rodent specific telepathy. This likewise raises the specter
of animal assisted copyright infringement as wannabe pirates sneak into movie theaters
with a mouse in their pocket like Stuart Little to record the latest Disney feature
or Hollywood blockbuster. Mickey, how could you?
In response to a bill that allows pornographic websites to be sued if a minor accesses their content,
PornHub has blocked the entire state of Utah.
And they're good Mormons, so they don't care. Louisiana passed a similar law
requiring age verification to access sexually explicit sites.
But it has a state-run digital wallet that allows websites to check a user's official age.
Utah has no such system as taking the surprising position,
position that Utah citizens should just trust the average online smut peddler
with a photo of their government ID. In unrelated news, Google search data shows
a substantial spike in searches for VPN in Utah.
They're not all good Mormons. And the Jupiter icy moons explore or juice.
Wait, wouldn't it be giant? Anyway, Europe's Jupiter moon probe is suffering
from a stuck antenna on one of its instruments and the European Space Agency
is exploring options to rectify the problem.
The probe, one idea being initiating a rocket burn
to shake the craft and just jiggle it a little bit.
I mean, juice is in ice cold space and now everyone's watching it
and you expect a probe to fully extend under those circumstances.
I can't even pee when there's someone in the neighboring urinal. Just stop pressuring juice so much.
You're only making it worse. It retracts. And I don't want to pressure you
but if you came back on Friday for some more tech news, that'd probably be the best for you and your family.
Capiche? You f***er.