WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.360 Oh you like tech news? Well, tech news doesn't care what you think about it. 00:00:05.920 --> 00:00:10.480 Tech news just is. And there's a lesson for all of us there. 00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:16.960 Intel's next-gen gaming graphics cards, codenamed Battle Mage, could be alive after all. 00:00:16.960 --> 00:00:23.760 A shipping manifest spotted by Twitter user JosephK972 listed a product-designated Intel 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:31.760 BMG B580, which is either the name of the successor to Intel's alchemist-based A580 00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:35.200 or meaningless text the devil planted to deceive us. 00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:40.720 But there are other signs. Previously accurate leaker golden pig upgrade posted on Weibo, 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:47.120 indicating Intel would be at least demonstrating Battle Mage's performance in December, 00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:54.480 and others have agreed. Data miner Tomas Goronsky fueled Intel GPU rumors even more 00:00:54.480 --> 00:00:58.960 by spotting references to Intel's follow-up to Battle Mage Celestial. 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:03.840 For now, that's all these are, rumors. But they're encouraging, given that recent 00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:09.760 comments by Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger made it sound like his company is getting out of the discrete 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:14.480 GPU game. And even if it's not, you might want to temper your predictions. People thought the 00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:22.560 first ARC GPUs would take AMD and NVIDIA down a notch, and they were pretty good at encoding video. 00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:26.880 Gaming got a lot better with driver updates, but I'm gonna get ready for Intel to subvert 00:01:26.880 --> 00:01:32.720 expectations once again and launch a graphics card for spreadsheet power users. They don't have one 00:01:32.720 --> 00:01:38.960 yet, it's just for them. Announcing Battle Mage in December may help Intel avoid being overshadowed 00:01:38.960 --> 00:01:45.120 by NVIDIA, who's expected to reveal their RTX 50 series GPUs at CES in January. 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:51.840 Accordingly, reports are emerging of RTX 40 series GPU stocks dwindling. NVIDIA's board partners are 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:59.120 apparently shipping final batches of the RTX 4080 Super and 4070 Super, while the 4060 might stick 00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:06.240 around a little longer. Production of the China-specific RTX 4090D, specially built to avoid 00:02:06.320 --> 00:02:13.120 US sanctions, has apparently been done for some time, and with no desire to be subject to whatever 00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:19.280 sanctions the US decides to put on the RTX 50 series, PC Partner, one of the world's largest 00:02:19.280 --> 00:02:28.720 graphics card manufacturers behind brands like Zotac, Inno3D, and Manly, with an eye, has ironically 00:02:28.720 --> 00:02:34.480 cowardly fled from Hong Kong, moving their headquarters to Singapore. The US can't sanction 00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:38.720 them there, and if they show up to try, they'll get arrested for chewing their gum too loudly or 00:02:38.720 --> 00:02:45.040 something. But is NVIDIA's Blackwell architecture underlying the RTX 50 series ready for prime time? 00:02:45.040 --> 00:02:50.720 After insisting that corporate customers like Microsoft and Meta use NVIDIA's in-house server 00:02:50.720 --> 00:02:56.240 rack design instead of building their own, the company's Blackwell data center GPUs have apparently 00:02:56.240 --> 00:03:02.480 been overheating, reportedly due to that very in-house design being unable to properly cool 00:03:02.480 --> 00:03:08.400 72 chips at once. But I'm sure those overheating issues won't carry through to NVIDIA's famously 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:13.840 well-cooled flagship gaming GPUs that have barely had any heat-related issues, except for all the 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:19.600 times you're thinking of. Google is reportedly planning to slowly replace Chrome OS with the 00:03:19.600 --> 00:03:25.760 Android operating system, taking over Chromebooks from the inside out, like Cordyceps fungus 00:03:25.760 --> 00:03:31.520 assimilating an ant, which is always discomforting to see. Poor ants. Thankfully, no one cares about 00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:36.880 Chromebooks, which is partially why Google has been explicitly planning to do this since June. 00:03:36.880 --> 00:03:43.280 But an insider source told Android Authority that this Chrome OS Android hybridization is turning 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:49.360 into full Android assimilation, meaning we're looking at a future full of Android laptops. 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:55.520 Google sources also told Android Authority that a new Pixel tablet 2 is on the way with a keyboard 00:03:55.840 --> 00:04:02.480 case. An Android headline says their insider source tipped them off to a high-end Pixel laptop 00:04:02.480 --> 00:04:09.120 with a premium build, codenamed Snowy, being developed at Google. Neither outlet confirmed 00:04:09.120 --> 00:04:13.440 whether their Google sources were friends, and perhaps often had free lunch together in the 00:04:13.440 --> 00:04:18.720 Google cafeteria, because that's irrelevant to anyone but me. If this news about Android laptops 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:23.680 is irrelevant to you, I guess you can go build a risk-5-powered framework laptop with a new 00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:29.600 mainboard. Is that what you're looking for? Quick bits absolutely care what you think about them, 00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:35.680 but they will never admit that. Valve added support for NVIDIA's DLSS 3 with frame generation 00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:41.840 and optical flow AI to the experimental version of its proton compatibility layer last week, 00:04:41.840 --> 00:04:47.120 as well as adding playable status for a slew of new games and fixes for games like Doom Eternal, 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:53.120 Jedi Outcast, and most importantly, Skull and Bones. DLSS support means Linux gamers with NVIDIA 00:04:53.120 --> 00:04:58.720 graphics cards have one less technical issue to spend inordinate amounts of time trying to solve, 00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:03.200 although I'm not sure whether that's what they actually want. This might be bad news for them. 00:05:03.200 --> 00:05:08.240 Microsoft's new marketing campaign is in full swing, which consists almost entirely 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:15.360 of showing devices that are obviously not an Xbox and saying defiantly, this is an Xbox. 00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:22.080 Some people have taken this to mean there won't be any more Xbox Xboxes, but Phil Spencer told 00:05:22.080 --> 00:05:28.400 Rolling Stone that there will definitely be future consoles called Xbox. It's just hard to 00:05:28.400 --> 00:05:34.000 know exactly what he means by that when there's now billboards everywhere calling a laptop an Xbox 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:42.240 for your lap. Cringe, replies Twitter user Volt Dweller. That is not an Xbox. That is a laptop. 00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:47.520 You can't pull the wool over these eyes. I know what an Xbox is. I am not an Xbox. 00:05:48.480 --> 00:05:55.200 Much of the internet has celebrated Casio's newest device, which Gear Patrol says belongs to a 00:05:55.200 --> 00:06:01.600 burgeoning watch trend, which is, I guess, making watches for your finger. And it's honestly fair 00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:07.520 to call it a trend at this point because Casio's Ring Watch comes shortly after Timex also launched 00:06:07.520 --> 00:06:17.040 a, frankly, much uglier one. I'm sorry Timex. That's right Casio's CRW0011JR is a ring that 00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:23.040 looks like a watch and is actually also a watch complete with alarms and a stopwatch function 00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:28.960 unlike the rings they released last year that resembled, but were not actually watches. I have 00:06:28.960 --> 00:06:35.760 to imagine Volt Dweller was also mad about that. This is not a watch. Who watches those? Not me. 00:06:35.760 --> 00:06:41.680 AI search company Perplexity is trying a new way to make themselves useful. Now the LLM powered 00:06:41.680 --> 00:06:47.840 service can apparently be trusted to buy stuff for you, or at least for Perplexity Pro subscribers. 00:06:47.840 --> 00:06:53.760 Said subscribers can click the new buy with pro button to have the AI automatically fill in your 00:06:53.760 --> 00:06:58.880 saved shipping and billing information and check out with select products from select merchants, 00:06:58.880 --> 00:07:05.360 which Perplexity says just made shopping online 10 times more easy and fun. And I would like to 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:10.320 see the math on that. So you're thinking Perplexity's got to be taking a cut of these sales, right? 00:07:10.320 --> 00:07:14.080 But a spokesperson told the Verge that they don't and that right now, 00:07:14.080 --> 00:07:20.080 quote, there's no commercial element involved here. They're just so passionate about shopping. 00:07:20.080 --> 00:07:24.400 The AI got you chicken thighs instead of a toothbrush? Worth it. What a thrill. 00:07:24.400 --> 00:07:30.160 And to celebrate Half-Life 2's 20th anniversary, Valve released a freaking two hour documentary 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:35.360 about the project, revealing some interesting details about why the cliffhanger ending of 00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:42.160 Half-Life 2 Episode 2 wasn't carried on with an Episode 3. Lord Gabe Newell himself explained 00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:46.720 that although they, quote, could have shipped it, it wouldn't have been that hard. Continuing the 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:53.120 story just to finish it would be, quote, copping out of their obligation to gamers to provide some 00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:59.280 meaningful gameplay innovation. And can I just say no? Gabe went on to say he couldn't figure out 00:07:59.280 --> 00:08:04.480 why doing Episode 3 was pushing anything forward, the story. You'll be pushing the story forward. 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:09.680 I want to know, Gabe. Throw a reverse gravity gun in there or something. Just finish the story. 00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:13.440 Anyways, I better tell you to come back on Wednesday for more tech news before I say 00:08:13.440 --> 00:08:19.520 anything to the lord of PC gaming that I might regret. You do not want to mess with anyone with 00:08:19.520 --> 00:08:24.960 wraparound prescription glasses. That he looks in that he could do something bad. And they're not 00:08:24.960 --> 00:08:27.680 even Oakleys, they're Nikes. It's another level.