1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,880 9 out of 10 doctors recommend you sit down while listening to the tech news in case you pass out 2 00:00:04,880 --> 00:00:11,920 from shock. The 10th doctor? Bit of a jerk to be honest. Audio company DCS has been forced to 3 00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:16,720 respond to allegations they've threatened to sue a YouTuber for giving a bad review 4 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:24,400 three years ago. According to Cameron Oatley aka Golden Sound, a DCS representative contacted him 5 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:29,760 in October 2023 to express concern about a remark he had made that was taken out of context. 6 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:34,960 Representatives then brought up alleged inaccuracies in Oatley's 2021 review of 7 00:00:34,960 --> 00:00:39,280 one of their products. Oatley claims that he had asked for details so he could 8 00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:44,160 correct the factual errors, yet he never received them until May of this year, from lawyers 9 00:00:44,160 --> 00:00:49,920 threatening litigation if they weren't fixed in 10 days. According to Oatley, however, 10 00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:55,440 none of the complaints given are actually errors. David Stevens, managing director of DCS, refute 11 00:00:55,440 --> 00:01:01,520 some of this in a response. He claims Oatley was provided a list of inaccuracies in 2022, 12 00:01:01,520 --> 00:01:07,520 but Oatley never followed up. This refuting has itself been refuted by headphones.com, 13 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:12,960 who Oatley has worked for since 2022. Stevens also said there was no threat of litigation, 14 00:01:12,960 --> 00:01:17,840 but his argument seems to be predicated on the word litigation not being used. 15 00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:22,960 I guess the threats of real and special damages and punitive damages was referring to Oatley being 16 00:01:22,960 --> 00:01:27,200 beaten up by a team of paralegals. There's much more to this story, but we didn't have room for 17 00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:31,440 everything. We'll try to provide updates on future episodes, and Linus will probably mention this 18 00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:40,240 on this week's WAN Show on Friday, so stay tuned for that. AMD has confirmed that the Ryzen 9000 series of CPUs will launch at the end of this month, 19 00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:44,800 but they didn't tell us how much we'll have to shell out to get our grubby little hands on them. 20 00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:47,920 But don't worry, they gave us a bunch of pretty graphs that they definitely, 21 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:54,640 definitely cherry-picked to make themselves look good. AMD claims that while they've lowered the TDP of 3 out of the 4 SKUs, 22 00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:59,280 all 9000 series chips will see a performance uplift when compared to their current gen rise 23 00:01:59,280 --> 00:02:04,320 in 7000 counterparts. A huge part of that performance uplift are the architectural tweaks 24 00:02:04,320 --> 00:02:08,960 AMD has made to the Zen 5 cores powering these little processor puppies. At the same time, 25 00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:13,120 the company has allegedly made changes to the thermal material between the silicon 26 00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:20,720 and the heat spreader, allowing the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X to run 7 degrees cooler than the 7950X, 27 00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:25,440 even though both have the same TDP. According to earlier leaked benchmarks of the 9950X 28 00:02:25,440 --> 00:02:30,160 engineering sample, there's also strong efficiency improvements over the 7950X. 29 00:02:30,160 --> 00:02:33,680 This is great news for people who want to save on their energy bills, but terrible news for 30 00:02:33,680 --> 00:02:37,840 enthusiasts who have been using their PCs as in-suite heating. Can't win them all, 31 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:42,080 I know, unless there's no seasons where you live. Apologies to all tech lovers in Oslo. 32 00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:48,640 According to Wired, US telecom giant AT&T paid hackers $370,000 to delete customer 33 00:02:48,640 --> 00:02:53,840 data stolen in the breach we reported on last week. For that fee, AT&T also got a video recording 34 00:02:53,840 --> 00:03:00,480 of the data being deleted, but it's still possible some of the data is out there. AT&T also did a 35 00:03:00,480 --> 00:03:04,160 fine job of negotiating as they talked the hackers down from a million dollars. 36 00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:09,600 Now AT&T is in a fight with fellow telecoms T-Mobile and Verizon over 5G service for 37 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:15,040 emergency responders. Back in 2017, AT&T won a contract to help the US government build 38 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:19,120 FirstNet, a dedicated network for first responders. As part of the deal, 39 00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:23,600 AT&T can sell excess capacity to AT&T's commercial customers. 40 00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:30,640 Now AT&T has asked the FCC to assign the 4.9GHz band to FirstNet, especially since the band 41 00:03:30,640 --> 00:03:35,360 is already considered a public safety spectrum. Verizon and T-Mobile don't want FirstNet to get 42 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:42,000 that band because they see it as a $14 billion gift to AT&T. That, or maybe Verizon wants to be 43 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:46,080 able to go back to the good old days when they could throttle firefighters on limited data plans 44 00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:51,760 during dangerous wildfires. In their defense, think of the savings they got. Wait, quick bits are on 45 00:03:51,760 --> 00:03:57,200 their way? But I'm underdressed. Does my hair look okay? Shh, quiet, they're coming, be cool. 46 00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:02,560 At least two game studios are calling out Intel over instability issues on their high-end 13th 47 00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:08,400 and 14th gen CPUs. Path of Titan's developer Aldron Games raked them over the Death Star 48 00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:14,960 laser with their scathing write-up aptly titled Intel is selling defective 13th 14th gen CPUs, 49 00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:19,280 citing crashes and memory corruption. Warframe developer Digital Extreme says their user base 50 00:04:19,280 --> 00:04:26,160 is experiencing an NVGPU Comp64.dll error, and the crash logs are overwhelmingly from Intel's 51 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:32,240 CPUs. Don't believe me? Believe the almighty pie chart. Google's Gemini AI platform has been accused 52 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:38,000 of scanning Google Drive files without user permission by Kevin Bankston, the senior advisor 53 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:42,400 on AI governments for the non-profit Center for Democracy and Technology, and I almost want to 54 00:04:42,400 --> 00:04:47,360 call him Kevin Bacon. Bankston tweeted that his tax return in Google Docs was summarized by Gemini 55 00:04:47,360 --> 00:04:52,400 without his consent. Having said that, Google has made a statement clarifying that workspace data 56 00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:58,160 isn't used to train AI, and so Bankston's data is safe. The company also says that all Bankston 57 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:03,600 had to do was close the Gemini side panel and it would stop giving summaries, proving once again 58 00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:07,440 that maybe having a fancy title doesn't mean you always know what you're talking about. 59 00:05:07,440 --> 00:05:13,120 Last year, OpenAI pledged that it would rigorously test new versions of its AI to ensure that it 60 00:05:13,120 --> 00:05:17,920 wouldn't help dangerous actors by developing tools for cyber attacks or a bio weapon that makes 61 00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:22,000 lupus go airborne. However, according to The Washington Post, OpenAI leadership pressured 62 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:27,120 its safety team to speedrun their new testing protocol. Likewise, company insiders claim that 63 00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:32,640 employees were required to sign NDAs, requiring them to ask permission before talking to regulators. 64 00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:37,520 OpenAI reportedly scheduled the after-party for the launch of GPT-4 Omni even before it was 65 00:05:37,520 --> 00:05:41,920 confirmed to be safe, which is like sending invites for a baby shower before you've even missed a 66 00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:50,160 period. C-Sonic's wattage calculator has leaked the power requirements for the upcoming RTX 50 67 00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:56,000 series graphics cards. The 50 and 30 watt increases on the 5090 and 80 aren't shocking, 68 00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:01,200 but 60 class cards are getting juiced. If the calculator is correct, we're talking upwards 69 00:06:01,200 --> 00:06:07,200 of 170 watt or almost 50% more power compared to the current generation. Maybe if we're lucky, 70 00:06:07,200 --> 00:06:11,760 NVIDIA will start bundling power supplies with their GPUs instead of games. What would you 71 00:06:11,760 --> 00:06:17,520 rather have? Diablo 4 or a working computer? And the World AI Creator Award says crowned its first 72 00:06:17,520 --> 00:06:23,680 Miss AI, Kenza Laylee, or more realistically, Phoenix AI, the company that made her. 73 00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:29,040 Visorily, two of the competition's four judges are also AI-generated influencers who exist entirely 74 00:06:29,040 --> 00:06:33,600 as Instagram feed ThirstBate. Some commentators of the beauty pageant, including many so-called 75 00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:38,720 real women, were skeptical of the competition and the unrealistic beauty standards it presents 76 00:06:38,720 --> 00:06:44,240 of soulless, brainless homunculi with poreless skin and zero opinions. But if you want our opinion, 77 00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:48,080 you should come back on Wednesday for more tech news. How could you say no? It's tech news. It's 78 00:06:48,080 --> 00:06:49,200 friggin' tech news!