WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.920 What's that boy? The tech news fell down a well? Oh, it's currently still falling down a well? 00:00:05.920 --> 00:00:09.480 It's like a bottomless well situation? So we can't do anything. 00:00:09.480 --> 00:00:12.680 You just wanted me to know. Good boy. 00:00:12.680 --> 00:00:16.140 Discord announced today that it's rolling out global age verification 00:00:16.140 --> 00:00:19.600 starting next month, taking a teen by default approach, 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:25.280 meaning that without verification, the app will default to an experience appropriate for teens. 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:29.760 Which would include updated communication settings, restricted access to age-gated spaces, 00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:33.040 and content filtering. And will not include hanging out 00:00:33.040 --> 00:00:37.880 in a blockbuster video parking lot, firing Roman candles into my friend Kyle's Honda Civic, 00:00:37.880 --> 00:00:41.120 like I initially assumed. In order to validate their age, 00:00:41.120 --> 00:00:46.040 users will need to either complete a facial age estimation video by a selfie, 00:00:46.040 --> 00:00:51.480 or submit a photo of their government ID to one of Discord's third-party vendor partners. 00:00:51.480 --> 00:00:55.600 As an added bonus, this also protects adults from being bullied by teens 00:00:55.600 --> 00:00:58.860 in age-gated servers where they come together to innocently discuss 00:00:58.900 --> 00:01:02.300 their mutual love of the minions' extended cinematic universe. 00:01:02.300 --> 00:01:06.220 Discord initially tested the system in the UK and Australia last year, 00:01:06.220 --> 00:01:11.200 but now it's being rolled out globally. Critics are quick to point to the October 2025 data breach 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:16.100 in which one of Discord's third-party vendors was compromised and approximately 70,000 users 00:01:16.100 --> 00:01:21.840 had their age verification data exposed, including images of the government IDs. 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:26.660 But it's important to note that that leak was the product of a legacy age verification system 00:01:26.660 --> 00:01:30.180 that was introduced in 2020. Some of you weren't even born yet. 00:01:30.180 --> 00:01:33.260 And Discord has terminated its contract with that vendor. 00:01:33.260 --> 00:01:37.540 According to Savannah Batalich, Discord's global head of product policy, 00:01:37.540 --> 00:01:41.140 the new system uses similar face scan and ID-based verification, 00:01:41.140 --> 00:01:46.180 but with a few key differences. Facial age estimation is now done entirely on-device. 00:01:46.180 --> 00:01:50.540 Any ID documents submitted to vendors are, in most cases, deleted immediately 00:01:50.540 --> 00:01:54.260 after age confirmation, and Batalich says that if the age estimation 00:01:54.260 --> 00:01:58.020 from the selfie is incorrect, users can appeal it or verify 00:01:58.020 --> 00:02:03.180 with a photo of a government ID instead. Discord is also rolling out an age inference model 00:02:03.180 --> 00:02:08.180 that runs in the background and analyzes metadata like the types of game a user plays, 00:02:08.180 --> 00:02:11.340 their activity on Discord, and behavioral signals to estimate age. 00:02:11.340 --> 00:02:16.460 So if Discord notices that you're listening to S-Club 7 and pausing your game every 30 minutes or so to go pee, 00:02:16.460 --> 00:02:21.580 it will assume correctly you're 45 years old and probably also hopefully send a message 00:02:21.580 --> 00:02:25.740 to your urologist. Or remind you about what the actual daily recommended intake 00:02:25.740 --> 00:02:29.880 is for Mountain Dew. It's zero, unless it's Co-Red. 00:02:31.260 --> 00:02:35.300 Then it's a lot. AMD's beastly Strix Halo APU has arrived 00:02:35.300 --> 00:02:38.420 in another handheld, the Ioneo Next 2. 00:02:38.420 --> 00:02:43.540 But unlike existing Strix Halo handhelds, this one doesn't need an external battery 00:02:43.540 --> 00:02:47.780 or external validation, she knows who she is. And that's a handheld with a mass 00:02:47.780 --> 00:02:52.820 of 116 watt-hour internal battery. It's bigger than most gaming laptop batteries 00:02:52.820 --> 00:02:56.740 and could even cause you trouble at the airport. So that's how you know it's bad. 00:02:56.740 --> 00:03:00.140 Thank you, Jeff. They won't take me down. You're gonna have to pat me down. 00:03:00.140 --> 00:03:04.940 The Next 2 has some other impressive specs too, which I guess is partially why Ioneo is okay 00:03:04.940 --> 00:03:09.060 with pricing the base model at $2,700 US dollars. 00:03:09.060 --> 00:03:12.620 Although the early bird price on Indiegogo is 2,300. 00:03:12.620 --> 00:03:16.980 And that's expensive, but like this is a new generation flagship Windows handhelds for the future 00:03:16.980 --> 00:03:22.380 masterpiece beyond imagination we're talking about here. And sure, you could also say that the other Strix Halo 00:03:22.420 --> 00:03:26.140 handhelds, the GPD Win 5 starting at $2,500 00:03:26.140 --> 00:03:29.940 and the One X Player One X Fly Apex for $2,200 00:03:29.940 --> 00:03:32.980 are also handhelds for the future masterpiece beyond imagination, 00:03:32.980 --> 00:03:37.100 but they need external battery packs. Regardless, they're all too expensive. 00:03:37.100 --> 00:03:41.460 So hopefully soon we'll see handhelds sporting those two new Strix Halo variants 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:45.100 that AMD announced at CES 2026 with fewer CPU cores, 00:03:45.100 --> 00:03:50.260 but the same graphics power as the flagship Ryzen AI Max Plus 395, 00:03:50.260 --> 00:03:53.740 which could end up being a bit cheaper. I think I might like one wearing 00:03:53.740 --> 00:03:58.140 a little battery backpack though. I can imagine it's carrying its favorite treasures in there. 00:03:58.140 --> 00:04:02.780 For me, that's our sponsor. Ha, didn't see that one coming. 00:04:02.780 --> 00:04:07.380 All right, we got the tech news out of the well, but what's that? 00:04:07.380 --> 00:04:11.060 The quick bits are down there now? God damn it! 00:04:11.060 --> 00:04:15.380 Intel may have canceled the release of its Core Ultra 9 290K plus 00:04:15.380 --> 00:04:20.220 Aero Lake Refresh desktop processor. And I don't really know whether to mourn its death or not 00:04:20.220 --> 00:04:23.460 because we only just heard about it today. So sad. 00:04:23.460 --> 00:04:27.860 Insider sources apparently told videocards.com of the cancellation, 00:04:27.860 --> 00:04:34.380 but said other Aero Lake Refresh parts, a 270K plus and a 250K plus are still coming. 00:04:34.380 --> 00:04:40.220 And there is some weight to the Aero Lake Refresh rumor since ASUS posted and deleted tweets about it 00:04:40.220 --> 00:04:43.260 featuring these images with graceful robot hands 00:04:43.260 --> 00:04:46.300 holding motherboards. They're coming for your hand model jobs. 00:04:46.300 --> 00:04:50.540 Some a reliable leaker, HXL slash 9550 Pro 00:04:50.540 --> 00:04:56.260 claimed the embargo will lift on March 23rd in a tweet with a saddening lack of robot hands. 00:04:56.260 --> 00:05:00.100 Or any hands at all. At least you got a job, pal. Great news, everybody. 00:05:00.100 --> 00:05:04.660 They don't write these voices and I just do those. They've added co-pilot to the Windows 11 setup experience. 00:05:04.660 --> 00:05:08.740 So if you need to download a large update when booting your new PC for the first time, 00:05:08.740 --> 00:05:12.380 you can chat with Microsoft's helpful little harbinger of humanities downfall 00:05:12.380 --> 00:05:16.180 and even ask it to generate images of yourself doing what you're doing. 00:05:17.060 --> 00:05:23.420 Talking to a computer as if it's people. Really, if you could, please do anything with co-pilot. 00:05:23.420 --> 00:05:27.580 Microsoft would love to tell their investors, you guys did that once or twice. 00:05:27.580 --> 00:05:30.740 VPN provider, Windscribe has claimed that Dutch authorities 00:05:30.740 --> 00:05:36.340 who are the best authorities seized one of their physical servers just yanked it right out of the rack without a warrant. 00:05:36.340 --> 00:05:40.580 Noting that because they use RAM disk servers, the cops won't find anything on there 00:05:40.580 --> 00:05:43.760 unless you count the unredacted E.P. Stein files. 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:48.400 How does that, how can they say that? 00:05:48.400 --> 00:05:51.600 Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any supporting evidence that this seizure 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:57.160 actually happened other than Windscribe's own tweet, leading some observers to be skeptical of the whole thing. 00:05:57.160 --> 00:06:01.640 The vibe is off. It's like, Dbrand did edgy marketing so I can do it too? 00:06:01.640 --> 00:06:06.080 I'm not so sure. OpenAI is allegedly scaling back its first consumer hardware product, 00:06:06.080 --> 00:06:10.800 a pair of AI earbuds developed in partnership with Apple's famous designer, Johnny Ive. 00:06:10.800 --> 00:06:15.480 According to Twitter leaker, smart Pikachu, a patent filing in China revealed that the earbuds 00:06:15.480 --> 00:06:19.480 will go to market under the name Dime or Demave, you're Spanish. 00:06:19.480 --> 00:06:23.000 And while initially billed as a device with phone level computing power, 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:25.400 it's now being scaled back to something more like 00:06:26.800 --> 00:06:31.120 regular earbuds. No! Smart Pikachu was apparently banned from Twitter 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:35.960 for bringing us this information. I guess not so smart. According to the post, soaring memory costs 00:06:35.960 --> 00:06:40.360 made the original bill of materials too expensive so the enhanced features have been delayed. 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:43.400 The memory crisis tolls for these, that moment! 00:06:43.400 --> 00:06:48.200 Speaking of ex and losers, Elon Musk announced on ex yesterday that SpaceX, 00:06:48.200 --> 00:06:54.280 that's so many exes, has shifted its near-term focus from settling Mars to building a self-growing city 00:06:54.280 --> 00:06:58.560 on the moon. Whatever that means. This is a complete 180 for Musk, 00:06:58.560 --> 00:07:01.640 who just last year called the moon a distraction. 00:07:01.640 --> 00:07:05.040 Why they change your heart? In his tweet, Musk cites the moon's proximity 00:07:05.040 --> 00:07:09.360 as the reason for the shift, evidently only now realizing that Mars 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:12.400 is farther from Earth than the moon. 00:07:12.400 --> 00:07:16.040 By a lot! Truly a genius of our time. Ours technically made the point 00:07:16.040 --> 00:07:19.760 with the success of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket flights 00:07:19.760 --> 00:07:24.280 and their team going all in on lunar exploration, Musk needs to get there first 00:07:24.280 --> 00:07:28.720 or risk losing the economic high ground. Also the dick-measuring contest. 00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:31.880 So much like shifting Tesla factories to robot production 00:07:31.880 --> 00:07:35.840 or pushing full self-driving subscriptions to unlock his trillion-dollar pay package 00:07:35.840 --> 00:07:38.840 for Elon. It's less about human advancement 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:42.480 and more about getting that cake. Leaving no crumbs. 00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:47.280 I mean, what's the point of unleashing hordes of potentially murderous robots and cars onto the world 00:07:47.280 --> 00:07:51.760 if you can't even retreat to your own self-growing moon city if things go sideways? 00:07:51.760 --> 00:07:55.000 You don't have eight months to get to Mars? There's no point. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:59.800 Do you need a self-growing city? And Harvard engineers have 3D-printed soft robots 00:07:59.800 --> 00:08:05.440 that bend, twist, and grasp on command by embedding air channels directly into the material 00:08:05.440 --> 00:08:10.000 using a rotating nozzle. You pump air through the channels and the structure moves in whatever direction 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:14.920 was programmed during printing. The team demonstrated a gripper with articulated fingers 00:08:14.920 --> 00:08:18.080 that curl around objects and a spiral actuator 00:08:18.080 --> 00:08:22.080 that unfurls like a flower. The team says they intend to use the technology 00:08:22.080 --> 00:08:26.720 for advanced surgical tools and wearable devices and definitely not for sex. 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:31.040 Unlike Moya, Droid Up's new humanoid robot that the company is calling the world's first 00:08:31.040 --> 00:08:36.600 fully bio-mimetic robot in which we're calling an obvious attempt to make a real-life anime waifu. 00:08:36.600 --> 00:08:40.480 Somebody has to. She's not Japanese, Riley. Like all the best waifus, 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:43.920 Moya walks with 92% human-like accuracy. 00:08:43.920 --> 00:08:50.360 I'm willing to wager that 8% matters. Maintains a body temperature between 89.6 and 96.8 degrees 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:55.960 Fahrenheit and has a bunch of promo videos that feature an unusually high number of shots of its ass. 00:08:55.960 --> 00:09:01.080 I ain't buying any robot with no ass. And that's all the news we're pulling out of the well today. 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:04.880 Come back Wednesday when the tech news inevitably falls back in. 00:09:04.880 --> 00:09:08.520 It is famously uncoordinated. Way too big of an ass. 00:09:08.520 --> 00:09:12.520 Wagon. Can't block. Absolute rump.