WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.600 This holiday season, you're getting the greatest gift of all, a James-hosted tech news. 00:00:04.600 --> 00:00:09.720 So be grateful. And yes, James does refer to himself in the third person. 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:13.400 Good boy. Spotify has had its entire music library scraped 00:00:13.400 --> 00:00:16.640 by a pirate activist group and dumped on Anna's archive 00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:21.680 an open source search engine for shadow libraries books with black pages. 00:00:21.680 --> 00:00:25.760 The scraped data is about 300 terabytes, including metadata and of course, 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:30.320 tens of millions of tracks. Apparently making up 99.6% of Spotify listens. 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:36.560 Take a second to appreciate just how much shitty music that no one cares about is in these files. 00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:41.520 Now it's all AI. Just delete the file. Apparently this hack is a preservation project, 00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:45.640 but Spotify says it was done by abusing public access and bypassing protections. 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:51.000 Spotify insists no customer personal info was compromised. Now this is more about scraped audio and metadata 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:55.000 than some full internal leak, but still, it's a lot of data. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:57.280 It's not a lot in size, but it's a lot in file count. 00:00:58.160 --> 00:01:02.760 For its part, Spotify isn't gonna take this lying down, promising to defend the rights of the artists 00:01:02.760 --> 00:01:06.360 on their platform. Sure, yeah, when hacktivists scrape someone's data, 00:01:06.360 --> 00:01:10.080 they call the lawyers, but nobody bats an eye when data from YouTube, Twitter or Reddit 00:01:10.080 --> 00:01:13.760 gets scraped by AI. The AI doesn't know any better. It's still learning. 00:01:13.760 --> 00:01:16.800 Maybe if those platforms owned the license to my content, they would fight for me. 00:01:16.800 --> 00:01:20.640 Valve has officially discontinued the original Steam Deck LCD, 00:01:20.640 --> 00:01:24.760 quietly sun setting one of the best bang for your buck handheld gaming devices ever made. 00:01:24.760 --> 00:01:29.280 Launched in 2022 for 400 US dollars, the LCD model was the most affordable way 00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:33.960 to play your Steam library on the go, and even helped kick off the entire handheld PC boom 00:01:33.960 --> 00:01:39.040 that we're still basking in today. Once existing stock has gone, she gone for good, 00:01:39.040 --> 00:01:42.880 leaving the Steam Deck OLED as the new entry point at $550. 00:01:42.880 --> 00:01:46.720 Valve hasn't exactly said why they pulled the plug, but the writing's been on the wall 00:01:46.720 --> 00:01:50.440 since the OLED model first launched. The newer version has a better screen, 00:01:50.440 --> 00:01:54.240 improved internals and likely cannibalized sales of its little brother, the murderer. 00:01:54.240 --> 00:01:57.320 The cane of handhelds. Still, it stings. 00:01:57.320 --> 00:02:01.600 With handheld prices climbing across the board, the Steam Deck LCD was one of the cheapest great options. 00:02:01.600 --> 00:02:05.600 In related Valve, new Steam itself is going fully 64-bit on Windows. 00:02:05.600 --> 00:02:10.720 Support for 32-bit installs is entering its final countdown and will stop receiving updates in 2026. 00:02:10.720 --> 00:02:16.480 So if you are still somehow running 32-bit Windows, don't worry, Steam isn't mad, it's just moving on. 00:02:16.480 --> 00:02:21.200 China's tech giants have found a hilarious workaround to get at NVIDIA's banned AI chips. 00:02:21.200 --> 00:02:25.120 While NVIDIA Blackwell B200 accelerators are barred from being sold in China, 00:02:25.120 --> 00:02:29.240 companies like Tencent are still getting access by renting them from overseas. 00:02:29.240 --> 00:02:33.080 According to the Financial Times, Tencent is leasing large amounts of Blackwell compute 00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:36.760 through a Japanese neocloud operator called Data Section, 00:02:36.760 --> 00:02:40.320 which owns the hardware and runs data centers in Japan and Australia. 00:02:40.320 --> 00:02:44.480 They're kind of like the Blockbuster video for AI. The chips never physically entered China, 00:02:44.480 --> 00:02:48.080 so the arrangement stays technically legal under current rules. 00:02:48.080 --> 00:02:55.480 Block what? I guess more like Netflix. Tencent reportedly has access to thousands of B200 GPUs 00:02:55.480 --> 00:02:58.680 and even newer B300 chips under contracts worth billions 00:02:58.680 --> 00:03:02.160 of dollars, allowing them to continue training advanced AI models. 00:03:02.160 --> 00:03:06.160 Analysts say this rental approach may actually be more attractive than buying approved chips 00:03:06.160 --> 00:03:11.400 inside China since overseas Blackwell hardware massively outperforms what's allowed domestically. 00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:14.920 That's the whole reason to do it, right? Meanwhile, NVIDIA is still strengthening 00:03:14.920 --> 00:03:20.400 its position elsewhere, recently receiving US antitrust clearance for a major investment in Intel. 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:24.840 Quietly expanding its influence across the industry, vertically integrating, consolidation, 00:03:24.840 --> 00:03:28.200 owning the world. Speaking of hardware you can actually own, 00:03:28.200 --> 00:03:33.840 you should check out these sick deals from our sponsor. Trying to hide Christmas presents from the quick bits 00:03:33.840 --> 00:03:37.520 is a nightmare. They just zip around until they find them. 00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:43.000 Painly ass little ingrates. Mozilla says Firefox will add a dedicated AI kill switch 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:46.400 after community pushback. The company's new CEO has been pitching Firefox 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:50.040 as a modern browser with optional AI features to keep up with competition. 00:03:50.040 --> 00:03:55.640 And so far, everything that's been added is optional to use. The new change simply adds a single explicit toggle 00:03:55.640 --> 00:04:00.320 to disable all AI features at once, instead of making you hunt through settings. 00:04:00.320 --> 00:04:04.000 One big button to make the annoying thing go away. I wish I could do this with Christmas 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:07.480 and you just get them all. Cuckoo, enough. 00:04:07.480 --> 00:04:10.520 I wish I could do it with all AI. Hell people. 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:15.960 YouTube accounts appear to be showing strangely high CPU usage, even when videos are paused 00:04:15.960 --> 00:04:23.560 or just when you're on the homepage before you've watched anything. And a chunky post on the LTT subreddit user Ray Zazzle 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:28.120 caught the issue, surmising that YouTube premium seems to have a web worker, a way for a website 00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:33.520 to run JavaScript in the background, called echoworker.js that sits in a busy wait loop 00:04:33.520 --> 00:04:38.800 using the CPU for no real reason. Sounds like my old job. 00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:41.880 Luckily, our boy Ray Zazzle does offer a fix 00:04:41.880 --> 00:04:46.600 for Firefox users. So if you're a member of the dog pack, go check out that post. 00:04:46.600 --> 00:04:49.600 If you're a wrestling. 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:54.560 The dog pack is Firefox users? Yeah, I guess. If there's not a dog, it's a fox. 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:57.560 It's a f-k9? Who is this guy? 00:04:57.560 --> 00:05:01.920 It's half cat. If you're a Chrome user, I guess pick up some more CPU cores 00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:05.000 while you're downloading more RAM Homeboy. You're on your own. 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:08.800 Chinese chip designer, More Threads, has just rolled out a new set of GPUs, 00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:12.120 including its next generation, Huashan AI chip, 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:15.400 that it says can compete with NVIDIA's high-end products, 00:05:15.400 --> 00:05:20.240 helping fuel a stock price jump. You love to see it and invest your excitement. 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:24.000 It's still going higher as China pushes for tech independence. 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:24.840 Huashan! 00:05:27.840 --> 00:05:31.280 2026, Riley? What? I wasn't... Despite all this, the company 00:05:31.280 --> 00:05:35.560 hasn't given detailed benchmarks yet, and there's no third-party benchmarks, 00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:39.640 leaving some questions about how it really stacks up against NVIDIA. 00:05:39.640 --> 00:05:43.160 More power to you, More Threads. I'm just looking for an affordable GPU 00:05:43.160 --> 00:05:46.400 that can run crisis, you know? What is today's crisis? 00:05:46.400 --> 00:05:50.520 Let me know in the comments! A big old power outage, 00:05:50.520 --> 00:05:55.120 knocked out traffic lights in San Francisco, causing Waymo's driverless taxis to get stuck. 00:05:55.120 --> 00:05:59.560 This is fine and normal. With the cars immobilized and adding to the blackout mess, 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:02.760 Waymo paused its RoboTaxi services for safety, 00:06:02.760 --> 00:06:07.120 but has since resumed operations as power came back on. If this story didn't turn you off RoboTaxi's, 00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:11.240 and you live in London, good news. Uber and Lyft are teaming up with China's Baidu 00:06:11.240 --> 00:06:15.480 to bring Apollo Go RoboTaxi's to London streets for testing in 2026, 00:06:15.480 --> 00:06:19.640 putting them on the starting grid against Waymo, who's already testing cars in the old smoke. 00:06:19.640 --> 00:06:23.720 Just hope there's no power outages, Londoners, or you'll be back to check in the tube. 00:06:23.720 --> 00:06:29.920 Wow. And Google has finally pulled the plug on the Sega Dreamcast Planet Web 3.0 browser. 00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:34.840 No! Officially breaking web access on a console released all the way back in 1999. 00:06:34.840 --> 00:06:38.440 The last good year on this planet. The shutdown happened because Google services 00:06:38.440 --> 00:06:42.480 simply stopped responding to the ancient browser, quietly ending a 25 year run. 00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:46.200 Which is honestly impressive, because this might be one of the longest running services 00:06:46.200 --> 00:06:49.480 Google didn't intentionally kill. How the heck am I supposed to get my optimal 00:06:49.480 --> 00:06:52.880 seaman growth strategies now? Jeff, I need you to stay strong. 00:06:52.880 --> 00:06:56.600 I will get you out of that tank eventually. It's a Dreamcast game Riley. 00:06:56.600 --> 00:06:59.720 Okay. And you don't need to stay strong to make it through to these next few days 00:06:59.720 --> 00:07:05.000 without any tech news. But don't worry, we'll be back soon enough. Me and my seaman are gonna stay safe and cozy 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:08.760 in my house over the break though. If I hear anyone banging the roof, I'm not gonna be checking out. 00:07:08.760 --> 00:07:12.040 You're not gonna catch me in any of that Tim Allen Santa Claus bullshit. 00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:16.440 Ugh! Ha ha ha. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I.