Okay, here's how this works. We say the tech news and you absorb it. You can laugh,
you make some facial expressions, maybe write a comment, but don't speak. We can't hear you.
When that tech is here, we'll let you know. There were several new features announced at
this year's Made on YouTube event, many, but not all of which are AI. Google DeepMind's newest
video generation model, VO, will be integrated into DreamScreen, which creates still and moving
backgrounds for YouTube shorts. In addition to making these backgrounds more realistic,
VO is able to edit and remix previously generated footage, allowing creators to fine-tune their
very own machine-generated horrors. Like this in-watershot of the San Francisco Bay. Oh,
disgusting. At some point early next year, you'll be able to use DreamScreen to fully generate
six-second video clips, not a background, an actual video. That's right, Vine is back, baby,
and now it's 100% robot hallucinations. All natural, the opposite. YouTube also announced
communities, which seem to operate like a creator-controlled Discord or Facebook page,
where both the creator and their subscribers can post in a fun, parasocial little hangout space.
YouTube is also testing a new hype feature, where users can choose to promote a recent video
from a creator with fewer than half a million subscribers, causing it to be served to more
people on the platform instead of an AI choosing to do it for humans. Imagine.
Highly hyped videos will appear on a special leaderboard, as well as receiving a badge marking
them as fan favorites. Viewers can hype up to three videos for free every week or pay for more
in a fee, which will also be shared with a creator. All in all, it's pretty cool, guys.
Yet another feature announced is a new community hub in the YouTube Studio app,
which includes AI-enhanced comment reply suggestions to give creators a starting
point when a weird comment leaves them thinking, what the heck am I supposed to say to that?
You look like my grandma. Okay. Or maybe as a way of responding to all of those porn bots
infesting the comment section, just let the robot sort this out between themselves.
Oh my gosh. I actually kind of like them. They're very encouraging.
Meanwhile, the inspiration tab in analytics is rolling out more widely to more creators,
adding AI idea generation to preexisting features that show you what your viewers are
supposedly searching for. You guys are apparently big into line is tech tips.
What's the story there? Thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by the militant group Hezbollah
horrifically exploded across the country of Lebanon in the past two days,
killing at least 22 people and wounding nearly 3000, leaving hospitals overrun and many wondering
if this was some kind of cyber attack. But two sources with knowledge of the operation have
told Axios and other outlets that Israel in a complex supply chain maneuver planted explosives
in the devices before they were sold to Hezbollah. The destroyed pagers apparently used to design
by the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, who says the model in question is actually licensed and
manufactured by a separate company, Hungary based BAC Consulting. NBC reached BAC CEO by phone who
confirmed their business relationship with Gold Apollo, but said they don't make the pagers
either, claiming to be an intermediary, a statement cosigned by the Hungarian prime minister's office.
Israel hasn't explicitly confirmed it's behind the attack, but has declared it's shifting its
military focus to its northern region, bordering Lebanon, where it will supposedly continue trying
to eradicate its enemies by making new ones. AMD's Ryzen 9000 CPU launch has been one of the worst
in the company's history, with abysmal sales numbers in the DIY market. According to publicly
available sales numbers from Mind Factory, an online retailer based out of Germany,
they have only sold a couple hundred units of these chips since they launched a month ago, really?
This has drawn comparisons to the 2011 launch of AMD's infamous bulldozer architecture.
But while bulldozer chips had genuinely poor single thread performance,
Zen 5 really just seems to be kind of underwhelming, particularly in one specific area, gaming.
That being said, your average tech enthusiast isn't out here buying the fresh new hotness
straight off the line for the sake of a lightning fast refresh rate in Microsoft Excel.
AMD is otherwise doing fine as a company. They got a bustling data center business,
as well as their contracts for consoles and other pre-builds. They got their head above water,
unlike their nearest competitor Intel, which has been thrashing in the deep end while the
lifeguard has his back turned for a while now. But it's not all doom and gloom, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger.
Sadly, the multiverse's last surviving Pat Gelsinger.
Announced on Monday that the company has received up to $3 billion in funding from the US government
and will be expanding its partnership with Amazon Web Services, as well as restructuring and making
its foundry division into an independent subsidiary. That still reports to Pat.
This isn't a huge change. It's kind of like moving out of your parents' place and
into the coach house in their backyard. Okay, here come the quick bits. For this part,
you actually can speak. They are not going to stop to reply to you, though.
Snap of chat fame have officially unveiled their new Spectacles 5 AR glasses,
and they look like if the CIA did a bad job hiding cameras in a pair of 3D glasses.
But that's okay, because they aren't for you. They're for developers who can rent them
for $99 a month. What? What also isn't for you is the exclusive use of your face.
It turns out that Snapchat's AI-powered MySelfie feature can be used to serve you ads
with your own face in them, unless you toggle off the setting.
But to be safe, you can also uninstall the app, microwave your phone, and go live in the forest.
Apple has temporarily paused the rollout of iPadOS 18 on newer M4 iPad Pros
due to complaints that the update was bricking the devices. This is further proof that tablets
should never have evolved past just being clay. The bug hasn't affected every M4 iPad Pro,
but the ones that are affected seem unrecoverable, with Apple allegedly offering hardware replacements
to affected users. Apple has put out a statement saying they are working to resolve the issue,
but it's a real mystery. Like something right out of the Emmy Award-winning TV series,
Monk, starring Tony Shalhoub. We're back, baby! He's back! I don't know the- is there a song?
It's a jungle out there. What? Disorder and confusion everywhere.
Okay. Discord is officially rolling out Dave.
A new guy. Dave, which stands for Discord's audio and video end-to-end encryption.
Bizarrely, one thing Dave doesn't include is encrypted text communications.
Probably because that would have messed up their fun acronym. Discord says this exception is to
ensure they can continue their current moderation policy, but that doesn't explain why an audio
call is somehow less risky than a DM or why they couldn't use a system similar to WhatsApp,
where communications aren't encrypted until a user in the conversation reports a message.
Dave's like an overbearing parent who insists on reading all your text messages,
but hasn't figured out that you've been calling your weed dealer using the landline.
Technically, that's hacking. A bipartisan bill to force vehicle manufacturers to include AM radio has passed through committee
and will now move to a full floor vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.
AM radio has been in cars for nearly a century, but some manufacturers have started leaving it out
of EV vehicles because the electromagnetic forces from the powertrain cause significant interference.
There are workarounds, but they might require expensive redesigns and additional shielding,
you know, stuff that costs money. Lawmakers, however, argue that AM radio is a vital tool during natural disasters and other
emergencies because AM signals travel much farther than FM signals and pass through solid
objects, like the ghost of NPR. And Microsoft says all Microsoft 365 co-pilot subscribers
can now access co-pilot Academy, a product to help you learn how to use a different product.
Because despite generative AI being forcefully injected into literally everything, industry
reports consistently say that workers and consumers are struggling to figure out how to make it
actually useful. You might think that's because it's not actually that useful for people outside
of a few specific niches, but you'd be wrong. You're just not using it right with your dumb,
fleshy sausage fingers. Move over, let the AI use itself. We here at TechLink love your fleshy sausage
fingers and we want to see them here again on Friday. Everybody in the office wants a look.
Come on, hold them up. Look at those. They're great. It's a sin against man. Those look, what? Except, no.