WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.080 So today's intro was going to involve a whole intricate Rube Goldberg machine, but unfortunately 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. 00:00:11.920 --> 00:00:17.440 Anyway, here's the tech news, I guess. Samsung officially launched the Galaxy XR, 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 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:29.600 Android XR, the OS for headsets announced by Google last December, and Samsung says it's 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? 00:00:36.400 --> 00:00:43.440 A nice, cool, 1800 US dollars, which is worth approximately half an Apple Vision Pro, unless 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, 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 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 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 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 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 00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:27.440 partnership with the brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. So whether you want to enter the 00:01:27.440 --> 00:01:33.440 metaverse or just forget what sunlight looks like, Samsung's got you covered. Literally. 00:01:33.440 --> 00:01:40.640 OpenAI has fulfilled the prophecy and introduced Atlas, a web browser with chatGPT built in. 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 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 00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:56.640 understand and imitate your browsing behaviors scares you too, don't worry. The feature is 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. 00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:07.680 Plus, OpenAI says Atlas will pause to ensure you're watching it when it accesses sensitive 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 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, 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:24.800 don't worry, Atlas has that. And it will temporarily log you out of chatGPT, 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 00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:35.280 the specific kind of cat photos you like. Moving on, Atlas's announcement video shows 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:40.880 its shopping and filling carts based on simple prompts, which is a worrying level of power, 00:02:40.880 --> 00:02:46.160 given that security research from Brave Software found that hidden text in an image 00:02:46.160 --> 00:02:51.760 can manipulate AI browsers like perplexities comment. They showed that this text can trick 00:02:51.760 --> 00:02:57.600 a browser into, among other things, visiting a hacker-controlled website. Great, we're putting 00:02:57.600 --> 00:03:03.440 our web browsing in the hands of a hallucinating gullible Greek titan. Atlas was a titan? 00:03:03.440 --> 00:03:08.240 The effects of Monday's major Amazon web services outage are still being felt, 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:14.480 with some Slack users reportedly being completely unable to leave work conference calls, 00:03:14.480 --> 00:03:19.680 which sounds like something out of a late-night snack-induced stress dream. Speaking of sleeping, 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' 00:03:25.040 --> 00:03:31.680 position or temperature, resulting in some folks roasting in their blankets, like proverbial pigs. 00:03:31.680 --> 00:03:35.760 I'm not calling these poor people pigs. I'm just being clear about that. 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 00:03:41.920 --> 00:03:50.640 disruption. Still, the outage might be a good distraction for Amazon, 00:03:50.640 --> 00:03:55.360 because the New York Times is reporting on leaked documents that suggest Amazon plans to 00:03:55.360 --> 00:04:02.880 replace 600,000 human employees with robots by 2033. The report says Amazon's robotics team 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. 00:04:09.760 --> 00:04:16.880 jobs by 2027. However, an Amazon spokesperson attempted to downplay this news, telling The Verge 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 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:28.720 permanent holiday shortly afterwards. Seems like Amazon could use some business management help 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:34.560 from our sponsor. Fun fact, the QuickBits enjoy watching those marble races more 00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:39.600 than Rube Goldberg machines. They're faster, and it's all about speed with the QuickBits. 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, 00:04:48.800 --> 00:04:56.080 marking a big win for domestic chipmaking, sort of. Before these wafers actually become usable GPUs, 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 00:05:01.840 --> 00:05:07.760 chip on wafer substrate and high bandwidth memory stacking, critical steps that bond multiple chips 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 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:19.440 those advanced processes exist in Arizona, these Made in America chips will keep earning 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. 00:05:24.560 --> 00:05:30.400 YouTube is rolling out AI likeness detection, a tool designed to catch deep fakes before they 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 00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:44.880 selfie scan, letting Google's AI compare faces and voices in uploads to detect impersonations. 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 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 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, 00:06:00.400 --> 00:06:05.520 or block the video automatically. Because if Google is serious about one thing, it's about 00:06:05.520 --> 00:06:11.440 giving creators the tools they need to fight content created with other tools Google created 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 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:25.840 Broadcasting Union and the BBC found that nearly 45% of AI assistant responses about current major 00:06:25.840 --> 00:06:32.640 events contained major issues. For example, Google Gemini claimed the NHS in the UK does 00:06:32.640 --> 00:06:40.160 not recommend vaping to help quit smoking. Well, not only does the NHS actually recommend it, 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:45.760 it's objectively the coolest way to quit. With a younger generation increasingly using AI for 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 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 00:06:57.440 --> 00:07:04.720 Pixium Vision back in 2022, is finally delivering on its promise, helping blind patients read again. 00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:10.960 The system, now refined by the aptly named Science Corporation, suddenly more suspicious of this 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 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 00:07:22.400 --> 00:07:26.960 infrared light signals, something that can be converted to actual visual information 00:07:26.960 --> 00:07:32.480 by the eye-inserted chip. In recent trials, more than 80% of patients with severe macular 00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:38.320 degeneration regained enough vision to recognize letters and small words. At this rate, we'll 00:07:38.320 --> 00:07:42.720 need implants just to unsee half the stuff on the internet. When are those coming? 00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:46.640 And researchers in Japan have made a breakthrough in the field of 00:07:46.640 --> 00:07:56.880 enteral ventilation via anus, aka EVA, aka butt breathing. Let me explain. In 2024, 00:07:56.880 --> 00:08:02.960 researchers snagged an Ig Nobel Prize in physiology for showing that mice, rats, and pigs 00:08:02.960 --> 00:08:09.360 can actually absorb oxygen through their rear ends. If scientists put some oxygenated liquid in 00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:16.640 there, which is a key detail, now the same group is studying whether using this method 00:08:16.640 --> 00:08:22.560 can be used to bypass blocked airways or clogged lungs in humans. And the first step, 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:31.920 asking 27 healthy male volunteers to hold some regular non-oxygenated liquid inside of there 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, 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:43.360 they turned out alright with the only adverse effect so far being some bloating and discomfort, 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 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 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 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 00:09:04.160 --> 00:09:09.040 comments what your favorite Rube Goldberg machine is. Do they have names?