1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,400 We hope you enjoy this episode of tech news, but if you don't, we'll send you a voucher 2 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:08,640 for a half penny of laundry detergent in the currency of your choosing. 3 00:00:08,640 --> 00:00:11,360 So it's a win-win. What do you get to lose? 4 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:17,440 CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that famously crowd-struck millions of computers 5 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:22,000 with a faulty update late last week, is reportedly offering affected clients 6 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:28,000 a $10 Uber Eats voucher for their next cup of coffee or late-night snack. 7 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:32,000 While they're still at the office losing their minds trying to fix stuff. 8 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:37,760 It's not clear from publicly available information whether this voucher was offered to some or all 9 00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:43,280 employees at the affected companies, though presumably all of Delta Airlines isn't splitting 10 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:48,160 that $10 between themselves. Furthermore, at least some people who got the voucher reported 11 00:00:48,160 --> 00:00:52,720 that they got an error message saying it had been canceled when they went to redeem it, 12 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:57,600 possibly because the attached QR code was otherwise infinitely reusable. 13 00:00:57,600 --> 00:01:04,880 Insurance companies estimate that last Friday's outage cost US Fortune 500 companies $5.4 billion, 14 00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:09,840 slightly more than the price of a grande macchiato plus delivery fees. 15 00:01:10,880 --> 00:01:15,600 Just a little bit. Notably, that's an estimate that doesn't yet include Microsoft. 16 00:01:15,600 --> 00:01:21,280 CrowdStrike has released a detailed post-incident review that points to a bug in its test software, 17 00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:25,600 which failed to appropriately validate the content update before it caused the global 18 00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:32,560 economy to microdose the Y2K crash. Unsurprisingly, Congress has issued a summons to CrowdStrike CEO 19 00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:38,960 George Kurtz to give public testimony and explain himself this very instant young man. 20 00:01:38,960 --> 00:01:44,000 Google has abruptly announced that it will be scrapping its plan to eliminate third-party 21 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:49,440 cookies in Chrome, despite competing browsers like Firefox and Safari having blocked third-party 22 00:01:49,440 --> 00:01:55,120 trackers by default for years. Google originally announced the phase-out back in 2020, saying 23 00:01:55,120 --> 00:02:00,640 that it needed time to work out a mutually agreeable solution with advertisers. The solution 24 00:02:00,640 --> 00:02:06,080 was supposed to be Google's Privacy Sandbox, which replaces third-party tracking with first-party 25 00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:11,280 tracking within Chrome. It's much, much easier just to have Google have all the data instead. 26 00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:16,880 While arguably more secure, this would give Google an unprecedented, some might say monopolistic, 27 00:02:16,880 --> 00:02:21,680 level of control over this data, raising concerns among competitors and regulators. 28 00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:25,920 Likewise, some privacy researchers found that, despite Google's safeguards, 29 00:02:25,920 --> 00:02:31,360 the output of the Privacy Sandbox could still be reverse engineered to identify and track specific 30 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:37,440 users. That's the whole point. Google now says that they instead plan to introduce a new feature 31 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:42,080 that will allow users to make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, 32 00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:47,120 though what that could possibly mean is currently unclear. Some have speculated that Google might 33 00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:52,960 offer users a choice between cookies and the sandbox, like a dystopian surveillance state 34 00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:58,240 grandma. If you pick the cookies, you can't go in the sandbox. They don't mix. You'll wear down your 35 00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:04,640 teeth. Meta has launched a new version of their flagship AI model, and the people are excited. 36 00:03:04,640 --> 00:03:13,840 Llama 3.1 405B is the first GPT-4 class LLM that everyday users can freely download and run locally 37 00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:18,960 on their own computers. That is, of course, if they've got a cutting-edge AI server running 38 00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:25,040 out of their bedroom closet, because the B in 405B stands for billion parameters. 39 00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:32,000 According to AB evaluation against current models from OpenAI and Anthropic, Llama 3.1 405B 40 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:38,720 seems to hold its own. But while this new version of Llama is impressive and it is openly available, 41 00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:44,240 what it is not is open source. No matter how many times Mark Zuckerberg says that it is, 42 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:49,360 you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. That's a reference. 43 00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:54,160 Inconceivable. Inconceivable. I put the poison in your drink. It's open source. 44 00:03:54,800 --> 00:04:00,480 It's open source. Llama's weights are available for anyone to run and refine, but users will have 45 00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:05,440 to agree to a license and acceptable use policy, making projects built using Llama 46 00:04:05,440 --> 00:04:11,760 potentially subject to Meta's whims. As part of his 2000-word essay on the value of 47 00:04:11,760 --> 00:04:17,200 open source AI, Zuckerberg likewise addressed the concern that these open weights might be 48 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:23,280 misused by China, but argued that the benefits of fostering innovation outweigh the risks, 49 00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:32,240 mostly because China is just going to steal them anyway. Old Zuck's just using his usual reptilian charm to say something arguably true in the 50 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:37,520 least comforting way possible. Although he comforts me somewhat now, he looks like a surfer bro. 51 00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:43,040 Those are my people. Wavy locks. Don't worry about it bro. It's open source. This is totally chill. 52 00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:48,000 Come on my boat. I'm not going to lay eggs in your chest cavity. It's totally fine. Come on my 53 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:52,080 dorky boat. If comfort's what you're looking for, then you're going to want to check out our 54 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:57,680 sponsor. Remember, the quick bits aren't spying on you and any resemblance to your previous 55 00:04:57,760 --> 00:05:05,760 conversations is purely coincidental. The FTC has launched a probe into what it calls 56 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:10,240 surveillance pricing, which is kind of like if surge pricing followed you home and watched 57 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:14,640 you eat dinner with your family. Just like I do every night. We've talked about this. 58 00:05:14,640 --> 00:05:19,840 Services like Uber increase prices during peaks in activity, but surveillance pricing 59 00:05:19,840 --> 00:05:25,760 is personalized, using algorithms to rapidly change prices for individual customers based on 60 00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:30,880 data collected about them. The FTC has served eight companies, including Mastercard and JP 61 00:05:30,880 --> 00:05:36,480 Morgan Chase, with mandatory requests to see if that's what they're doing. And I really hope 62 00:05:36,480 --> 00:05:40,720 they don't find anything. I really thought Mastercard was one of the good ones. 63 00:05:40,720 --> 00:05:45,600 Companies who have integrated Microsoft's co-pilot AI assistant into their workflows 64 00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:51,600 have told Bloomberg that they're still struggling to figure out how to use the darn thing. For one 65 00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:56,560 thing, they've got to feed it a lot of data so it performs well without having that data accessed 66 00:05:56,560 --> 00:06:01,680 by hackers or Toby the intern who was only hired because he's the boss's nephew and he is not 67 00:06:01,680 --> 00:06:06,880 going to last long. Got him photocopying his butt again. He won't stop. Damn it, Toby. We're out of 68 00:06:06,880 --> 00:06:12,320 paper. Co-pilot also struggles to understand context and execute commands involving multiple 69 00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:18,320 apps. This all sounds like AI tools are overhyped and under-delivering, but that can't be right. 70 00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:23,920 Hey, Microsoft, try announcing co-pilot again. It's a new service. Never heard of before. 71 00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:29,600 NVIDIA's GPU board partners are skimping on thermal paste, causing RTX 40 series graphics 72 00:06:29,600 --> 00:06:35,680 cards to lose performance over time, according to an investigation by Igor's Lab. Not only are 73 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:42,000 RTX 40 series graphics card makers like ASUS, PNY, and Pilot using low-quality paste whose 74 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:46,960 thermal conductivity significantly worsens after a few months, they didn't even bother to squeeze 75 00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:53,600 enough of it on the GPU and squish it on there correctly, causing hotspots and thermal throttling. 76 00:06:53,600 --> 00:06:59,520 When Igor squeegee the stock paste and squooched better paste on himself, that doesn't sound 77 00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:05,520 right. Hotspot temperatures lowered by nearly 30 degrees Celsius, proving high clocks are nothing 78 00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:10,320 if you're not properly mashing that good ooze on there. That gooze, if you will. The gooze. 79 00:07:10,560 --> 00:07:18,880 Gooze it. Search engines that are not Google are currently unable to get recent results from Reddit, 80 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:24,960 as spotted by 404Media, thanks to the exclusive deal Reddit made with Google earlier this year. 81 00:07:24,960 --> 00:07:31,040 That means Bing, DuckDuckGo, uh-oh, there's not enough non-Google-related search engines 82 00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:40,240 that are popular enough to be recognizable, Quant, and Kagi? They can only surface Reddit posts from 83 00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:46,240 before the last few weeks. This sucks, but honestly, at this point I'm glad Reddit didn't make a deal 84 00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:54,880 with Mojeek. And during a recent interview, venture capitalist Mark Andresen of Andresen 85 00:07:54,880 --> 00:08:03,040 Horowitz expressed that comedy has basically died, but maybe, just maybe, AI could save the day. 86 00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:08,000 Soon, you'll be able to write and render an episode of animation the same quality as South 87 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:14,640 Park 20 years ago, quote, in basically half an hour. Man, remember South Park and Beavis and 88 00:08:14,640 --> 00:08:21,440 Butthead and Futurama? What, they're still on the air? All of them? I'm going to make worse versions. 89 00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:28,000 To be fair, AI can be pretty funny, though usually accidentally, like Deep AI's comedian chatbot, 90 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:33,920 which follows every single joke with an open bracket pause for laughter closed bracket. 91 00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:40,000 And I can tell it's a man because it ends every set with open bracket, wink, closed bracket. 92 00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:47,760 Wait, was that a joke? Oh, but that's why you should come back on Friday for more human-generated 93 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:53,520 tech news, open bracket, mustachioed, smolder, closed bracket.