Today is the 899th episode of TechLinked.
That means absolutely nothing, but we thought we'd mention it. NVIDIA unveiled what they call
the world's most powerful chip for AI. Earlier today, even though they haven't tasted
my homemade silicon crisps, it's what robots crave.
CEO Jensen Huang held up the Blackwell GB200 chip
next to an H100, the chip that catapulted NVIDIA's value
into the trillions of dollars to presumably publicly humiliate it.
The GB200 itself is four times more powerful
than an H100. But when it's incorporated into the new DGX-NVL72 system,
it can achieve 30 times the inference performance at 25 times lower energy consumption,
enabling it to run LLMs with up to 27 trillion parameters.
More than I have in there, theoretically at least, since the cutting edge GPT-4
is thought to have around 1.7 trillion. But Jensen didn't just talk about chatbots.
You may recall that NVIDIA used to be a graphics company, so he talked a lot about creating digital twins,
aka simulating physical objects, buildings that even planet Earth, to detect and solve issues,
like climate change, virtually. And it's just that simple.
Now, NVIDIA's fellow tech giants who are all working on AI chips of their own
probably have mixed feelings about NVIDIA announcing a massively upgraded successor
to the most in-demand hardware of all time. But what choice do they have,
except to buy it or fall behind? So they all lined up to kiss Jensen's ring
in the form of their logos being shown on screen. Yeah, Jensen was killing it according to Ryan Schraut.
I mean, he sold out San Jose's SAP Center
to talk about an AI processor. The man's at the top of his game, get him a turtleneck.
Except when he tried to explain the standard ratio of tokens to words and ended up admitting,
this is not going well. Only human after all.
Destroy him. You see, he's just a man. Apple wants Google's AI on iPhones,
according to Mark Gurman. Team Tim is seeking Gemini to power upcoming
generative AI features that will debut in iOS 18 this year.
Apparently, Apple also recently held talks with OpenAI trying to reach a similar deal.
Apple CEO Tim Cook already promised a big AI announcement
that is expected to occur at WDC in June. So the move to use another company's generative AI
suggests Apple's having a bit of trouble with their homegrown solutions.
You're a little shy. It certainly doesn't help that Apple is courting Google
for their generative solution not long after. They have to pause Gemini's ability to generate images
of humans due to some wacky historical revisions.
This isn't to say that Apple hasn't made progress on AI.
Just last week, researchers from the company published a paper detailing advancements they've made
in creating multimodal large language models, which are the cool kind.
Apparently their new method both increases performance while reducing the need for follow-up prompts
to achieve the desired result. I need this for my teenager.
I need to do dad jokes. So yeah, Apple might not be ready for primetime,
but that's because they're taking it slow. They've been burned. They're not say locking themselves inside for four months
to push out a chatbot like XAI,
who just open sourced the base model powering said chatbot.
You'd think Apple might try to save themselves some money and use GROC, but I guess that's too cringe.
So they're going with the AI that put minorities in Wehrmacht uniforms.
I had a dream like that once. They could have worn them. This is the plot to the get out prequel.
And a new meta quest headset may have leaked last week, twice.
Like all the best content on the internet, the most recent leak was first published on Reddit
before being reposted to Twitter. The tweet contains screenshots allegedly
from a meta user research zoom meeting showing details of the meta quest 3S.
But the authenticity of the images is still up for debate. Now last year, the Verge did report
that meta had plans to release a more accessible headset in 2024.
So many enthusiasts have been expecting a more budget friendly version of the quest 3,
referred to as the quest 3 light. You can have it if you're on a diet, a money diet.
It's lower in calories. And cash. Earlier last week, however, VR accessory seller VR Panda
tweeted alleged renders of the light that are very different for the more recent zoom pictures.
The unit is clearly lacking any form of pass through suggesting the headset would have no AR functionality.
Meanwhile, the newer alleged leaks clearly show a funky looking front facing camera array
and possible marketing images inviting consumers to discover mixed reality.
While these newer leaks feature far more information, they may be too detailed to be legitimate.
After all, if I was gonna risk running with meta's legal team by leaking internal documents,
I'd probably blur my face from the screenshots. No matter how good I looked in a college shirt
or svelte turtleneck, felt cute, might get sued.
Well, what can I say about the quick bits?
I don't know. Pretty quick. It's been a big week for foldable phone leaks.
According to reports, Samsung will be releasing both a budget and high end version of its Galaxy Z Fold 6.
The lower end model will allegedly cost around $800.
And amount consumers might actually pay. Though there will be trade-offs like no S Pen support
and a smaller battery than the full fat version. Meanwhile, according to an unconfirmed Apple roadmap
and market research company, Omdia. Apple will release a foldable iPhone in 2026
when we're all already dead. While we don't know much else about the foldable iPhone,
I'm confident that it won't be $800. But it will be sentient and racist.
Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 chip
as a cheaper alternative to the company's flagship, 8 Gen 3.
S means less good this time. The 8S Gen 3 is seemingly meant to occupy a thin niche
between being less powerful than the current flagship without giving up too many features.
It differs from the last Gen flagship, 8 Gen 2,
in two key ways. The 8S Gen 3 has a newer CPU and support
on device generative AI. In many ways, the 8S Gen 3 is the successor
to the 7 Plus Gen 2. Who's counting?
That was released last year, you remember? But you might not expect that since, once again,
the tech world is demonstrating its complete inability to name things comprehensively.
Huawei is developing an archival storage system using magneto-electric disks.
And this is definitely my origin story. They have 90% lower power consumption than hard disk drives.
How these disks work in practice is still uncertain.
China, some sources believe the magneto-electric disks
are spun down disks that power down or turn off to save energy.
While others claim the disks are a combination of magnetic tape and flash memory.
Whatever the case, everyday to order in the audience is already salivating.
They love these updates. Unquestionably a worst superhero name.
SpaceX has a apparently $1.8 billion contract
to build hundreds of spy satellites on behalf of US intelligence.
That's according to multiple sources for Reuters. While it's currently unclear
when the new satellite network will come online, sources say its earth imaging capabilities
would be used both by the US government and its military
to quickly spot potential targets almost anywhere in the globe.
Including climate change. So now they can finally track down a mysterious and dangerous fugitive known only as Waldo.
Space VIP, a tourism firm, is offering a near space fine dining experience
aboard Space Perspectives Spaceship Neptune.
The world's only carbon neutral spaceship in the sense that it's basically
just a high altitude balloon. Six passengers will dine at an altitude of 19 miles
as they watch the sunrise over the curve of the earth. The menu was created by award-winning chef Rasmus Monk.
Not to be mistaken by actor Tony Shalu.
There he is. Each passenger will be expected to pay
a tepid half million for the trip, which just goes to show that the cost of food
has gotten crazy. Space no one can hear you weep.
It'll cost you nothing to come back on Wednesday for more crazy tech news.
Unless you're watching this at work, in which case it could cost you a job,
but it'd be worth it. They don't know what you do.