1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,080 So today's intro was going to involve a whole intricate Rube Goldberg machine, but unfortunately 2 00:00:06,080 --> 00:00:11,920 it didn't work. So I threw a bit of a tantrum and then I tripped and fell on it and smashed it. 3 00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:17,440 Anyway, here's the tech news, I guess. Samsung officially launched the Galaxy XR, 4 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:23,600 its much-anticipated mixed reality headset at an event yesterday. It's the first headset powered by 5 00:00:23,600 --> 00:00:29,600 Android XR, the OS for headsets announced by Google last December, and Samsung says it's 6 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:35,840 designed as the first step in their vision of an open, scalable XR ecosystem. The price for entry? 7 00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:43,440 A nice, cool, 1800 US dollars, which is worth approximately half an Apple Vision Pro, unless 8 00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:49,600 you're on eBay, where the corpses of a dead dream litter the landscape. Under the hood, 9 00:00:49,600 --> 00:00:57,600 it packs the new Snapdragon XR 2 Plus Gen 2 chip, a stunning micro OLED display, full hand and eye 10 00:00:57,600 --> 00:01:05,360 tracking, and a UI that looks hauntingly similar to the Vision Pro. And of course, Google's Gemini 11 00:01:05,360 --> 00:01:11,360 will let you do amazing things you couldn't do before, like organize your Windows. Do people still 12 00:01:11,360 --> 00:01:17,440 want an AR headset after the Vision Pro bombed? Well, just in case they don't, Samsung confirmed 13 00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:22,560 they're also working on smart glasses, which could compete with Meta's Ray-Bans through a 14 00:01:22,560 --> 00:01:27,440 partnership with the brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. So whether you want to enter the 15 00:01:27,440 --> 00:01:33,440 metaverse or just forget what sunlight looks like, Samsung's got you covered. Literally. 16 00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:40,640 OpenAI has fulfilled the prophecy and introduced Atlas, a web browser with chatGPT built in. 17 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:46,160 Atlas is meant to become more helpful over time by using its memory of your chats and searches 18 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:51,760 to better comprehend what you're doing and complete tasks for you. If an AI learning to 19 00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:56,640 understand and imitate your browsing behaviors scares you too, don't worry. The feature is 20 00:01:56,640 --> 00:02:01,920 completely optional, so you can make it so your browser won't even know that you're gaslighting it. 21 00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:07,680 Plus, OpenAI says Atlas will pause to ensure you're watching it when it accesses sensitive 22 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:12,480 sites like your bank, or when it just learned how to stand on one leg and just wants you to be 23 00:02:12,480 --> 00:02:18,800 proud of it. Look at me. Look at me. But what about incognito mode? I hear all the freak saying, 24 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:24,800 don't worry, Atlas has that. And it will temporarily log you out of chatGPT, 25 00:02:24,800 --> 00:02:30,080 so it will remember nothing of your secret tryst. But that also means it won't remember 26 00:02:30,080 --> 00:02:35,280 the specific kind of cat photos you like. Moving on, Atlas's announcement video shows 27 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:40,880 its shopping and filling carts based on simple prompts, which is a worrying level of power, 28 00:02:40,880 --> 00:02:46,160 given that security research from Brave Software found that hidden text in an image 29 00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:51,760 can manipulate AI browsers like perplexities comment. They showed that this text can trick 30 00:02:51,760 --> 00:02:57,600 a browser into, among other things, visiting a hacker-controlled website. Great, we're putting 31 00:02:57,600 --> 00:03:03,440 our web browsing in the hands of a hallucinating gullible Greek titan. Atlas was a titan? 32 00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:08,240 The effects of Monday's major Amazon web services outage are still being felt, 33 00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:14,480 with some Slack users reportedly being completely unable to leave work conference calls, 34 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:19,680 which sounds like something out of a late-night snack-induced stress dream. Speaking of sleeping, 35 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:25,040 during the outage, thousands of 8-sleep bed owners found they couldn't adjust these smart beds' 36 00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:31,680 position or temperature, resulting in some folks roasting in their blankets, like proverbial pigs. 37 00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:35,760 I'm not calling these poor people pigs. I'm just being clear about that. 38 00:03:35,760 --> 00:03:41,920 8-sleep then introduced a new outage mode to control the bed even during an AWS service 39 00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:50,640 disruption. Still, the outage might be a good distraction for Amazon, 40 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:55,360 because the New York Times is reporting on leaked documents that suggest Amazon plans to 41 00:03:55,360 --> 00:04:02,880 replace 600,000 human employees with robots by 2033. The report says Amazon's robotics team 42 00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:09,760 aims to automate 75% of the company's operations, and they're expecting to cut around 160,000 U.S. 43 00:04:09,760 --> 00:04:16,880 jobs by 2027. However, an Amazon spokesperson attempted to downplay this news, telling The Verge 44 00:04:16,880 --> 00:04:24,000 that this holiday season, they're planning on hiring 250,000 humans. Who may or may not go on 45 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:28,720 permanent holiday shortly afterwards. Seems like Amazon could use some business management help 46 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:34,560 from our sponsor. Fun fact, the QuickBits enjoy watching those marble races more 47 00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:39,600 than Rube Goldberg machines. They're faster, and it's all about speed with the QuickBits. 48 00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:48,800 You know that more than anyone. TSMC has produced the first NVIDIA Blackwell GPU wafer on American soil, 49 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:56,080 marking a big win for domestic chipmaking, sort of. Before these wafers actually become usable GPUs, 50 00:04:56,080 --> 00:05:01,840 each wafer still has to fly back to Taiwan for packaging. And that's where TSMC handles their 51 00:05:01,840 --> 00:05:07,760 chip on wafer substrate and high bandwidth memory stacking, critical steps that bond multiple chips 52 00:05:07,760 --> 00:05:14,000 and stack memory inside the processor. And they have said, we're only doing it there. So until 53 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:19,440 those advanced processes exist in Arizona, these Made in America chips will keep earning 54 00:05:19,440 --> 00:05:24,560 frequent flyer miles on their way to Taiwan and back. Maybe they'll take up holiday sometime. 55 00:05:24,560 --> 00:05:30,400 YouTube is rolling out AI likeness detection, a tool designed to catch deep fakes before they 56 00:05:30,400 --> 00:05:38,480 go viral. Because they will go viral. You've gotta stop them. Creators can opt in by doing a quick 57 00:05:38,480 --> 00:05:44,880 selfie scan, letting Google's AI compare faces and voices in uploads to detect impersonations. 58 00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:50,800 It's just occurring to me now that this also gives them more accurate data about what your face 59 00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:54,480 looks like specifically and how to reproduce it, which is the same thing you have to do when 60 00:05:54,480 --> 00:06:00,400 you log into the Sora app. Okay, if someone tries to use your likeness, YouTube can flag, label, 61 00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:05,520 or block the video automatically. Because if Google is serious about one thing, it's about 62 00:06:05,520 --> 00:06:11,440 giving creators the tools they need to fight content created with other tools Google created 63 00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:18,720 to fight creators in the marketplace of content. Speaking of AI, a new study by the European 64 00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:25,840 Broadcasting Union and the BBC found that nearly 45% of AI assistant responses about current major 65 00:06:25,840 --> 00:06:32,640 events contained major issues. For example, Google Gemini claimed the NHS in the UK does 66 00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:40,160 not recommend vaping to help quit smoking. Well, not only does the NHS actually recommend it, 67 00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:45,760 it's objectively the coolest way to quit. With a younger generation increasingly using AI for 68 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:52,160 news, I think everyone can see how that could start getting a bit capital H, Harry. I don't know 69 00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:57,440 why there was a capital H. A tiny bionic eye implant, first developed by a company called 70 00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:04,720 Pixium Vision back in 2022, is finally delivering on its promise, helping blind patients read again. 71 00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:10,960 The system, now refined by the aptly named Science Corporation, suddenly more suspicious of this 72 00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:17,760 whole thing, uses a rice-sized microchip implanted under the retina and a pair of smart glasses 73 00:07:17,760 --> 00:07:22,400 that record the world in front of you. The system uses both of these components to create 74 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:26,960 infrared light signals, something that can be converted to actual visual information 75 00:07:26,960 --> 00:07:32,480 by the eye-inserted chip. In recent trials, more than 80% of patients with severe macular 76 00:07:32,480 --> 00:07:38,320 degeneration regained enough vision to recognize letters and small words. At this rate, we'll 77 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:42,720 need implants just to unsee half the stuff on the internet. When are those coming? 78 00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:46,640 And researchers in Japan have made a breakthrough in the field of 79 00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:56,880 enteral ventilation via anus, aka EVA, aka butt breathing. Let me explain. In 2024, 80 00:07:56,880 --> 00:08:02,960 researchers snagged an Ig Nobel Prize in physiology for showing that mice, rats, and pigs 81 00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:09,360 can actually absorb oxygen through their rear ends. If scientists put some oxygenated liquid in 82 00:08:09,360 --> 00:08:16,640 there, which is a key detail, now the same group is studying whether using this method 83 00:08:16,640 --> 00:08:22,560 can be used to bypass blocked airways or clogged lungs in humans. And the first step, 84 00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:31,920 asking 27 healthy male volunteers to hold some regular non-oxygenated liquid inside of there 85 00:08:31,920 --> 00:08:38,000 and clench. And we swear we're not just doing this because we think it's funny. And these guys, 86 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:43,360 they turned out alright with the only adverse effect so far being some bloating and discomfort, 87 00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:47,360 obviously. I feel like they could have gotten the same findings from taking those 27 guys to 88 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:53,760 Taco Bell, but I think that study already won an Ig Nobel Prize. You know what? I think we 89 00:08:53,760 --> 00:08:59,120 should all take a butt breath. We'll be back on Friday with more tech news. I've got to go pick 90 00:08:59,120 --> 00:09:04,160 up the pieces of my Rube Goldberg machine. Maybe I can salvage something. Hey, let me know in the 91 00:09:04,160 --> 00:09:09,040 comments what your favorite Rube Goldberg machine is. Do they have names?