WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.320 Oh, well hello there! 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:09.800 Looking for some company on this fine Christmas day? Well, you're welcome to a mug of hot cocoa. 00:00:09.800 --> 00:00:15.600 What's that? You're also looking for someone to round up the biggest tech stories of the year? 00:00:15.600 --> 00:00:21.120 It's a Christmas miracle. Because this is the 2024 Tackling Christmas Special! 00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:24.720 Let's begin! Let's start off with a classic story. 00:00:24.720 --> 00:00:28.960 2024 had a pretty good run of major tech hardware launches. 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:33.240 NVIDIA launched the RTX 40 Super series at CES. 00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:37.280 Did gamers hate them? Like them? Here's the fun part. 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:43.800 It doesn't matter, because NVIDIA's AI accelerator products drove the company to a two trillion, 00:00:43.800 --> 00:00:48.080 then three trillion dollar valuation for the first time. 00:00:48.080 --> 00:00:53.320 And now, NVIDIA regularly trades places with Apple and Microsoft as the most valuable company 00:00:53.320 --> 00:00:56.480 in the world. I think they take turns. There's a system. 00:00:56.480 --> 00:01:04.040 Google is not allowed. After announcing its spatial computing headset last year, Apple launched the Vision Pro in 00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:09.240 February for $3,500, and it was never heard from again. 00:01:09.240 --> 00:01:12.480 I'm being hyperbolic, of course. But why shouldn't I be? 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:19.520 It's Christmas! Besides the usual things like iPads, iPhones, and Macs, Apple updated the Magic Mouse with 00:01:19.520 --> 00:01:23.960 USB-C, but put the port on the bottom again. 00:01:23.960 --> 00:01:27.480 Which is f***ing insane. But okay. 00:01:27.480 --> 00:01:32.200 And they made up for it anyway, by surprise launching an incredibly powerful yet teeny 00:01:32.200 --> 00:01:36.600 tiny new M4 Mac mini that starts at only $600. 00:01:36.600 --> 00:01:42.680 In contrast, Qualcomm continued to hype up the launch of their Snapdragon X Elite ARM-based 00:01:42.680 --> 00:01:46.560 laptop chips, making bold claims about their performance. 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:50.720 Would this be Windows PC's Apple Silicon moment? 00:01:50.720 --> 00:01:58.560 Well, Snapdragon X promised the world and delivered, perhaps, Luxembourg? 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:02.120 Haha. A small part of the world? 00:02:02.120 --> 00:02:07.200 Like the laptops were fine, great battery life, some compatibility issues. 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:16.480 It didn't match the hype, though. An enthusiasm for the devices was also hindered by Microsoft's Co-Pilot Plus PC branding, 00:02:16.480 --> 00:02:22.560 and their headline AI records everything you do feature Recall, which creeped everyone 00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:27.880 out. As the verges Tom Warren puts it, it was a massive own goal. 00:02:27.880 --> 00:02:34.520 To make things worse for Qualcomm, laptops with AMD's Ryzen AI 300 and Intel's Core 00:02:34.520 --> 00:02:40.760 200v chips also had excellent battery life, with none of the compatibility issues. 00:02:40.760 --> 00:02:46.460 Qualcomm did just secure an initial win in its court battle with ARM, so hopefully we'll 00:02:46.460 --> 00:02:51.140 get to see whether the Snapdragon X Elite Gen 2 is any better. 00:02:51.140 --> 00:02:56.820 Now, that's not to say Intel and AMD had a stellar year, either. 00:02:56.820 --> 00:03:02.000 Intel was plagued for most of the year by instability issues in its 13th and 14th gen 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:06.740 desktop CPUs, which it eventually figured out how to fix in October. 00:03:06.740 --> 00:03:12.540 Then, both the Ryzen 9000 series and Intel's new Aero Lake desktop chips were criticized 00:03:12.540 --> 00:03:16.300 for bringing very little gaming chops to the table. 00:03:16.300 --> 00:03:21.180 Even in Aero Lake's case, actually performing worse than its predecessor. 00:03:21.180 --> 00:03:26.140 Apparently, an update is coming next month that will boost performance, but even if that 00:03:26.140 --> 00:03:29.460 doesn't work, I can't stay mad at Intel right now. 00:03:29.460 --> 00:03:35.660 Because the little elves in the graphics department delivered the ARC B580, a bangin' GPU for 00:03:35.660 --> 00:03:41.460 250 bucks. If you somehow managed to find it at that price because it's sold out everywhere. 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:45.900 And that's the best Christmas present a PC gamer could ask for. 00:03:45.900 --> 00:03:50.340 Next up, tech giants like Apple, Google, and Microsoft have had a pretty great time the 00:03:50.340 --> 00:03:55.460 last few years, reaching record valuations, building little walled fortresses so it's 00:03:55.460 --> 00:04:00.060 hard for anyone to compete with them, hiring thousands of people, firing them again. 00:04:00.060 --> 00:04:08.580 It's like a fun game they play. But this year, governments around the world were like, ah, no, no, no, but just, oh, hold 00:04:08.580 --> 00:04:11.940 on. Particularly, the European Union. 00:04:11.940 --> 00:04:16.500 Their Digital Markets Act came into force in March, and its primary purpose seemed to 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:20.900 be to fill tech companies stockings with fines. 00:04:20.900 --> 00:04:24.020 You were very good this year, comparatively. 00:04:24.020 --> 00:04:31.820 Still getting a fine, though. In January, Apple complied with the DMA, adding support for third-party payment systems, 00:04:31.820 --> 00:04:36.820 browser engines, and what they called app marketplaces for the first time. 00:04:36.820 --> 00:04:45.540 But they were not happy about it. Acquiring all apps on alternative stores to pay Apple royalties and be notarized and 00:04:45.540 --> 00:04:51.780 vetted by Apple anyway, with a new per-install core technology fee that for many developers 00:04:51.780 --> 00:04:56.380 actually made it more expensive to distribute outside the Apple app store. 00:04:56.380 --> 00:05:02.180 Some accused Apple of malicious compliance, and indeed, the EU charged Apple with breaching 00:05:02.180 --> 00:05:06.980 the DMA rules in June. How many fines is that? 00:05:07.060 --> 00:05:15.420 We lost count. We just love giving them out. It's taking a while, but the EU is slowly forcing Apple to open up their ecosystem. 00:05:15.420 --> 00:05:20.300 Apple even approved the Epic Game Store to launch on iOS after Epic complained to the 00:05:20.300 --> 00:05:29.340 EU because they were rejected twice. Over in the US, the Department of Justice sued Apple for monopolizing smartphone markets. 00:05:29.340 --> 00:05:35.940 But while Apple has weathered the regulatory attacks, Google ain't looking so high. 00:05:35.980 --> 00:05:40.500 After losing their court battle with Epic Games over the Play Store last December, the 00:05:40.500 --> 00:05:46.380 tech giant also lost to the Department of Justice in August of this year for monopolizing 00:05:46.380 --> 00:05:51.700 the market with Google Search, and could be forced to sell off the Chrome browser as 00:05:51.700 --> 00:05:57.500 a result. That giant leak of Google Search-related documents from earlier in the year, showing 00:05:57.500 --> 00:06:03.540 that results heavily prioritized big brands over small ones, probably didn't help. 00:06:03.540 --> 00:06:08.100 And then the UK and Canada sued Google too, because at this point it's like, why not? 00:06:08.100 --> 00:06:13.300 Everyone's doing it. And the Federal Trade Commission had a Christmas candle lit under their butts this year. 00:06:13.300 --> 00:06:18.780 They took all sorts of pro-consumer action, including opening an investigation into personalized 00:06:18.780 --> 00:06:25.260 surveillance pricing, adopting the click-to-cancel rule, and proposing a ban on the sale of sensitive 00:06:25.260 --> 00:06:32.020 location data. I mean, it felt like the government was actively trying to fend off a Corpo-dominated cyberpunk 00:06:32.020 --> 00:06:36.300 dystopia. Which wouldn't be in the Christmas spirit at all. 00:06:36.300 --> 00:06:40.540 Meanwhile, the AI industry was doing the opposite. 00:06:40.540 --> 00:06:46.340 Video generation took off this year, OpenAI unveiled the groundbreaking Sora model in 00:06:46.340 --> 00:06:51.660 February, and waited until December to publicly release an upgraded version. 00:06:51.660 --> 00:06:56.740 That was necessary, because competitors had nearly caught up with Sora's capabilities. 00:06:56.740 --> 00:07:02.020 Including Chinese models like Tencent's Han Yuan, which can generate a realistic dancing 00:07:02.020 --> 00:07:08.180 guy in a ghost costume, no problem. And that's why we need AI for that stuff. 00:07:08.180 --> 00:07:14.740 OpenAI also launched its faster GPT-40 model with advanced voice mode, kicking off a fun 00:07:14.740 --> 00:07:18.900 little debate over its auditory resemblance to Scarlett Johansson. 00:07:18.900 --> 00:07:25.100 2024 solidified the idea that if AI is going anywhere, it's going in search. 00:07:25.100 --> 00:07:30.140 Google's AI overviews launched and promptly recommended eating rocks. 00:07:30.140 --> 00:07:36.460 OpenAI revealed their search ambitions with SearchGBT, which is now just chat-gbt-search, 00:07:36.460 --> 00:07:40.020 and Reddit announced its AI-powered Answers feature. 00:07:40.020 --> 00:07:46.820 Because most of your Google searches end up on Reddit anyway. Hey, remember those beautifully designed AI assistant devices? 00:07:46.820 --> 00:07:50.420 The humane AI pin and the rabbit R1? 00:07:50.420 --> 00:07:54.220 They launched and crashed. 00:07:54.220 --> 00:07:59.580 Look can you blame them? There's a lot of money going into AI right now, and we need to sell something! 00:07:59.580 --> 00:08:04.620 I guess it's just phones for now, since iPhones have Apple intelligence and Google 00:08:04.620 --> 00:08:08.340 and Samsung are putting their own AI features in phones too. 00:08:08.340 --> 00:08:13.820 Yep, generative AI trained on massive data sets scraped from the entire internet is coming 00:08:13.820 --> 00:08:19.740 along alright. It sure would be nice to figure out where that leaves the idea of copyright. 00:08:19.740 --> 00:08:25.860 Because while companies like OpenAI and Perplexity are embroiled in a ton of plagiarism accusations 00:08:25.860 --> 00:08:30.820 and copyright lawsuits, most of them are still in progress, leaving us in this kind 00:08:30.820 --> 00:08:37.460 of limbo where stories come out about multiple AI companies training models on YouTube videos 00:08:37.460 --> 00:08:40.540 without permission and even pirated movies. 00:08:40.540 --> 00:08:44.460 And nothing happens. 00:08:44.460 --> 00:08:50.460 YouTube's like, oh, what, oh, hey, that's against TOS, don't do that. 00:08:50.460 --> 00:08:57.100 New studies continue to show how gen AI models can deceive people, published by the very people 00:08:57.100 --> 00:09:03.260 building them, and with AI generated SEO content flooding the web, there's rising concern 00:09:03.260 --> 00:09:10.140 that as the old internet is disappearing, it's being replaced by industrial grade slop. 00:09:10.140 --> 00:09:15.300 But look, AI can be used for good stuff too, like this company that works with college professors 00:09:15.300 --> 00:09:19.700 to generate $25 digital textbooks based on old course notes. 00:09:19.700 --> 00:09:24.300 So students don't have to pay through the nose for a heavy, physical version of a barely 00:09:24.300 --> 00:09:30.220 changed yearly edition. I guess AI can feel the holiday spirit after all. 00:09:30.220 --> 00:09:34.740 Alright, these quick bits might be a little jumbled up because I think someone may have 00:09:34.740 --> 00:09:39.380 dropped a little special eggnog in my hot cocoa. 00:09:39.380 --> 00:09:42.620 Which is especially concerning because I'm the only one here. 00:09:42.620 --> 00:09:47.060 What else happened this year? Ah, YouTube really had it out for ad block. 00:09:47.060 --> 00:09:52.420 Or at least, it seemed like they did, reports of slow video buffering were initially attributed 00:09:52.420 --> 00:09:57.140 to YouTube early in the year, but eventually found to be caused by a flawed update from 00:09:57.140 --> 00:10:06.740 the developers of ad block plus. No, YouTube actually began a harsh crackdown on ad blocking apps in April, despite still 00:10:06.740 --> 00:10:10.180 promoting them on the Chrome Web Store. 00:10:10.180 --> 00:10:13.180 Old habits die hard, I guess. Don't I know it! 00:10:13.180 --> 00:10:18.060 In June, the developer of sponsor block said YouTube was experimenting with server-side 00:10:18.060 --> 00:10:23.900 ad injection, which was reportedly to blame for some ad block users seeing black screens 00:10:23.900 --> 00:10:27.100 instead of ads on YouTube videos. 00:10:27.100 --> 00:10:31.980 But wait, if YouTube doesn't want to block ads, why'd they introduce the jump-ahead 00:10:31.980 --> 00:10:36.420 feature for YouTube Premium, which is pretty much designed to skip ads? 00:10:36.420 --> 00:10:39.740 Also, you see ads when you pause YouTube videos now. 00:10:39.740 --> 00:10:46.980 Merry Christmas. Microsoft really thinks you should be upgrading to Windows 11 before Windows 10 loses official 00:10:46.980 --> 00:10:52.980 support next October. So tell you what, they'll remind you with a full screen ad every time your PC boots 00:10:52.980 --> 00:10:55.980 up. Okay? Just trying to help. 00:10:55.980 --> 00:11:00.540 Yeah, despite Microsoft's efforts, Windows 11 market share is barely budging. 00:11:00.540 --> 00:11:05.020 No doubt that's partially because some people who would want to upgrade need to buy a new 00:11:05.020 --> 00:11:11.540 PC to do so thanks to Windows 11's non-negotiable TPM 2.0 requirement. 00:11:11.540 --> 00:11:15.580 But many others are probably just hesitant to go along with it when Microsoft's releasing 00:11:15.580 --> 00:11:21.740 things like Recall, which was pulled from release, fixed, and is now slowly rolling 00:11:21.740 --> 00:11:30.660 out again, despite still not working properly. Speaking of not working properly, the list of issues with the Windows 11 24H2 update 00:11:30.820 --> 00:11:36.500 is longer than Santa's at this point, and the OS comes along with lovely baked-in ads 00:11:36.500 --> 00:11:39.500 you have to go turn off. What's the matter, guys? 00:11:39.500 --> 00:11:43.220 Why don't you want to upgrade? Are you okay? 00:11:43.220 --> 00:11:46.260 Enter a bright hope on the horizon. 00:11:46.260 --> 00:11:52.860 SteamOS. No, you can't get the modern version on desktop yet, but Valve has confirmed they're adding 00:11:52.860 --> 00:11:56.820 support to SteamOS for third-party gaming handhelds. 00:11:56.820 --> 00:12:03.500 They drop new branding guidelines with powered-by-SteamOS labels and signs point to Lenovo announcing 00:12:03.500 --> 00:12:08.180 a SteamOS-powered handheld of their own at CES in a couple weeks. 00:12:08.180 --> 00:12:11.740 So why not put it on my gaming PC, too? Valve? 00:12:11.740 --> 00:12:15.500 Hello? They never answer, even though it's Christmas. 00:12:15.500 --> 00:12:22.700 2024 also saw the launch of the PlayStation 5 Pro with Sony's own PSSR upscaling tech 00:12:23.020 --> 00:12:28.460 and a $700 price tag. Not that it hurts sales much, apparently it's doing alright. 00:12:28.460 --> 00:12:33.500 We didn't get an upgraded Xbox Series X, which is fine by me because I don't even want to 00:12:33.500 --> 00:12:38.580 know what they'd add on to that name. Xbox Series XS. 00:12:38.580 --> 00:12:47.180 Actually, I'd go for that. Xbox Chief Phil Spencer said they might make an Xbox handheld, but that'd be years out. 00:12:47.180 --> 00:12:52.660 The same can't be said for the Nintendo Switch 2, which has sprung so many leaks in recent 00:12:52.660 --> 00:13:00.940 weeks, I think she's about to blow. Nintendo's bound to reveal the Switch 2 soon, they were going to do it this year, but decided 00:13:00.940 --> 00:13:06.860 to hurl lawyers at the developers of the Yuzu and Ryu Jinx Switch emulators instead, forcing 00:13:06.860 --> 00:13:10.820 them both to shut down. Don't worry about the lawyers, they're fine. 00:13:10.820 --> 00:13:14.140 And to top things off, here are some other things that happened. 00:13:14.140 --> 00:13:19.620 Australia passed a social media ban for kids under 16, it's still unclear how that'll 00:13:19.620 --> 00:13:23.660 be enforced, or where kids will get their skibbity riz. 00:13:23.660 --> 00:13:29.620 Speaking of which, a law was passed to ban TikTok from the US unless parent company ByteDance 00:13:29.620 --> 00:13:35.500 sells the app to someone else. But they've got a hearing with the Supreme Court on January 10th, which I'm sure will 00:13:35.500 --> 00:13:43.540 fix everything. In October, SpaceX caught the Starship booster in midair with the giant robot arms of its 00:13:43.540 --> 00:13:47.020 launch tower, remember that? That one's just cool. 00:13:47.020 --> 00:13:53.180 Back in June, SoftBank demoed another heartwarming use case for AI, a filter that makes angry 00:13:53.180 --> 00:14:00.380 customers sound calm on the phone. I'm sure it'll be very appreciated by any customer service agents that haven't been 00:14:00.380 --> 00:14:07.740 replaced by AI. Yeah, well guess what, scientists are building processors with literal brain cells inside. 00:14:07.740 --> 00:14:13.380 So I guess the old biological organisms get to take the machine's job this time. 00:14:13.380 --> 00:14:17.340 As a Christmas present. And there's my present to you. 00:14:17.340 --> 00:14:20.460 I'm not gonna lie, I think I missed a few things. 00:14:20.460 --> 00:14:25.060 But I have to go to sleep now, or St. Nicholas is gonna skip right over my house. 00:14:25.060 --> 00:14:33.420 So farewell 2024, and cheers to another year full of tech news, because it just keeps coming. 00:14:33.420 --> 00:14:34.340 It doesn't stop.