Oh, hey, sorry. I just finished getting the tech news from my tech news guy and now I can give it to you
From his guy Microsoft has pumped the brakes on development of its handheld Xbox console
And is now dedicating more resources towards optimizing Windows 11 for third-party gaming handhelds
According to Windows Central's resident sneaky Xbox guy Jez Corden
He must have a talent for hiding in vents above boardrooms. To be clear
We're not talking about Project Kennan, the Xbox edition of an ASUS handheld first leaked by Jez himself
After he squeezed his now sweaty body back out of the vents. We're talking about the
We're talking about the first-of-its-kind proper Xbox branded handheld console meant to natively run Xbox games
Which was supposedly slated for a 2027 release
But it makes sense that Microsoft wants to get its Windows 11 house in order first because Steam OS is having what you might call a
Verified gamer moment the newest build which officially supports installation on third-party hardware is being installed on desktop
PCs by multiple youtubers including random gaming in HD and ETA prime and it's outperforming Windows 11 in many cases
Valve has noticeably changed their language recently adding Steam OS compatibility ratings for games to help cover any
Device running Steam OS. That's not a Steam Deck for everything else. That's not rated as Steam OS compatible
There's the new official GeForce now app for Steam Deck
Which apparently runs the service better than previously available alternatives people are getting all hot and steamy over Steam OS
So Microsoft has got to do something to draw gamers away
Oh, hey, maybe releasing an early version of co-pilot for gaming in the Xbox app on iOS and Android will help
So while gaming you can ask the AI on your phone for tips
I don't know the damage might be done here There must be some amount of people out there who already think Xbox is owned by Elon Musk
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on the Verges decoder podcast that AI is going to be bigger than the internet
Which I think is true, but with the opposite effect see the internet allowed and encouraged
Unprecedented human-to-human contact across the globe AI will allow you to completely avoid speaking to another human again ever
Something that used to be necessary if you wanted to create a photorealistic short film like this one made by the Wall Street Journal
Although it's still a pretty complicated process
Which will leave you even less time to interact with other humans
Okay, that's not entirely true live translation in smart glasses is real close to letting people have a near real-time
Conversation in two separate languages and Gemini can analyze videos in Google Drive now, and that's cool
What's not cool is the other Gemini stuff like Gmail AI summaries now
Automatically popping up and taking up half your phone screen unless you turn it off and AI
Overviews in search still making basic errors like confidently stating it is not the current year that it is
I'm not sure if Gemini was involved in Google Maps suddenly marking all of the most used
German autobahn routes as closed for a few hours because Google didn't say what happened
But what you think Claude for from Anthropic crawled in and wreaked havoc in the Google Maps system for a while
That's outlandish great news everyone meta has made amends with founder of Oculus and enjoyer of goatees grown in the
Scrotum style Palmer lucky lucky was fired in 2017
But has since regained prominence through his successful military tech company and drill which will now be working with meta on
Mixed reality tech for the military
Military reality, maybe I don't know and maybe that's because meta CTO and head of reality laps
Which is what Oculus became? Apologize to lucky for being rude on Twitter, and that's not really the whole story
But it's also not super important meta's involvement here comes after and you real picked up where Microsoft left off after their
Holo lens project for the army fizzled out and Bloomberg notes that this all shows how much has changed in
Silicon Valley everybody's doing military deals now
But pre-2020 the expectation was that big tech wouldn't get involved in military projects
But that being taboo led to the founding of a number of relatively new
Less scrupulous tech companies who are happy to accept military and sensitive government contracts
And many of whose names like Andrew and Palantir are also references to the works of JRR
Tolkien who would probably have some choice words for the people associating his name with the industrialization of war
Palmer luck he's out here naming his company after the reforged sword of Aragorn and yapping about his dream being to turn
Warfighters into techno mansors and the geekiness is kind of charming
But it also makes me want to go Tom Bombadil on this guy
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It's time for quick bits but first fun fact at some point the never-ending chain of tech news guys passing on the tech news turns
In to turtles and honestly I try not to think about that too much the New York Times has made its first AI deal
Licensing the use of its content to Amazon to train their in-house AI models and to allow Alexa to include excerpts from and links back to
The NYT website the New York Times of course sued open AI in 2023 for training its models
On the Times content without a license That's perhaps the most prominent AI copyright case and is still moving through the courts and it all just goes to show
You either die before AI scrapes your content for free or live long enough to make a deal for AI to scrape your content for money
You are going to die though We already knew that AMD's RX 9060 XT was coming soon with both 8 gig and 16 gig versions
But the two variants may have differences in other specs as well depending on the manufacturer
Marketing materials from GPU board partner. Yes, Tom. Yes, Tom lists their Gaia
16 Gigabyte version with a 100 megahertz higher base and boost clock
So make sure you read the fine print if you're in the GPU market or you could wait until Chinese chipmaker
List swan brings its brand new six nanometer GPU, which is apparently targeting our X40 60 level performance
To external markets the tariffs will have to be gone by then I think AI hosting platform
Hugging face has introduced a humanoid robot called Hope JR
Which Hope Jr. I don't know which will cost around
3000 USD and is completely open source so anyone can rebuild or modify it however
They like add spider legs, you know, just really this thing up if you want the company also announced a small desktop
open-source robot called the Richie Mini Which is a pretty rude thing to name a robot that can only move its head
but maybe it's also really good at arguing in bad faith and
researchers in Austin, Texas have developed specialized electronic tattoos
Super thin sensors you stick around your head that monitor brain activity and eye movement
to gauge the wearer's level of mental strain
The researchers figure that if workers wear these E face tats their superiors could adjust assignments and
Reallocate personnel if the system detects that someone's cognitive burden has reached critical levels that sounds dystopian
But I have to admit I love the idea of making face tattoos functional
Now you can have a couple tier tattoos under your eye because they tell your boss's computer when you're sad
Maybe they light up for the next trial They should give these to real gang members and if they just can't take the stress of living outside the law
The mob boss again, let them leave with no issues
Hey You're not cut out for this. I'm so you know you can go
But oh boy will I have an issue with you if you don't come back here on Friday for more tech news
Don't think I won't do anything either. You know why I got this tattoo because I oh what oh it washed off already
You didn't want to know anyway