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