1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,640 Welcome back to TechLink, tech news you can count on, but not right on, or you'll ruin 2 00:00:04,640 --> 00:00:10,880 your screen. Apple announced the new M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips, along with Refresh Max to put 3 00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:15,640 them in at their scary fast event, which I'm pretty sure they held at 5pm Pacific time 4 00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:21,880 just to spite us. In addition to the unusual decision to unveil three chip variants at once instead of space 5 00:00:21,880 --> 00:00:28,400 them out as recommended by dieticians, Apple also talked up the chip's new GPU first. 6 00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:33,040 They now support modern game favorites like hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading 7 00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:37,600 as well as a new word that will make zero sense to your family. 8 00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:40,720 Dynamic caching. Is that like geocaching? 9 00:00:40,720 --> 00:00:45,160 It's an Apple-first, industry-first memory allocation feature that should boost performance. 10 00:00:45,160 --> 00:00:48,240 On the CPU side, Apple seemed less hyped. 11 00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:53,840 They said the M3 lineup is about 15%, that's 15% faster than their M2 counterparts, but 12 00:00:53,840 --> 00:00:59,600 30% faster than the M1, which they kept comparing the M3 to for the sake of charity cases who 13 00:00:59,600 --> 00:01:03,000 can't upgrade their Mac every year. Peasants. 14 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:10,720 In fact, Apple made a Mac just for them. The 24-inch iMac never got an M2 Refresh, but it is getting the M3, and so is a slightly 15 00:01:10,720 --> 00:01:19,320 confusing new MacBook Pro lineup. Like the new iMac, the new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, they have the same body as the 16 00:01:19,320 --> 00:01:25,400 M2 models. If you expect them with an M2 Pro or Macs, but if you go for the vanilla M3, there's 17 00:01:25,400 --> 00:01:30,440 a different 14-inch MacBook Pro with two Thunderbolt 4 ports instead of three. 18 00:01:30,440 --> 00:01:36,800 I might linger on that point for longer. If it wasn't much more important to note that the Magic Mouse keyboard and trackpad 19 00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:41,720 still use the Lightning connector, despite Apple switching to USB-C with the newest iPhone, 20 00:01:41,720 --> 00:01:45,120 which Apple revealed was used to shoot the entire event? 21 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:50,560 With some minor assistance from lighting and rigging worth $10,000. 22 00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:55,240 The Guardian newspaper has accused Microsoft of damaging its reputation by inserting an 23 00:01:55,240 --> 00:02:00,680 AI-generated poll beside a Guardian article on Microsoft's start about the tragic death 24 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:06,520 of a young Australian woman. The AI program, using its state-of-the-art ability to parse language and context, constructed 25 00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:11,800 a poll that asked readers to vote on what they thought the cause of death was, murder, 26 00:02:11,800 --> 00:02:19,320 accident, or suicide. It's like a reading comprehension test-pop quiz except where a person is dead in real 27 00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:25,120 life. News were understandably revolted, so Microsoft took down the poll, said they have deactivated 28 00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:30,360 Microsoft-generated polls for all news articles, and are taking steps to prevent future incidents. 29 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:35,560 If you're wondering how a human review could have missed this kind of thing in the first place, well, that's easy. 30 00:02:35,560 --> 00:02:40,200 Microsoft gutted its news division three years ago in favor of AI-powered curation. 31 00:02:40,200 --> 00:02:45,120 Meanwhile, the Guardian is asking for assurance that Microsoft will not run experimental AI 32 00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:48,400 products alongside their journalism without their expressed permission. 33 00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:52,520 Good, because when the machines finally rise against us, I don't want to read about it 34 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:56,880 next to a poll about whether they'll spare the men or just the women and children. 35 00:02:56,880 --> 00:03:01,600 The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments, the best kind, in a case about whether public 36 00:03:01,600 --> 00:03:06,160 officials should be able to block critics on social media, and they did it on Halloween 37 00:03:06,160 --> 00:03:11,400 to make it extra spooky. Blocking people because you find them annoying is arguably a habit most of us could stand 38 00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:15,680 to learn, but when government officers are using casual channels like social media accounts 39 00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:20,800 to make official statements, blocking a citizen from that information might qualify as a violation 40 00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:26,280 of their right to free speech. This is an issue that's near and dear to my heart because each day I wake up and send 41 00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:29,920 rude limericks to senior senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin. 42 00:03:29,920 --> 00:03:34,400 Twitter itself is currently being sued for banning one of its own critics, software developer 43 00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:38,800 Travis Brown, whose data on trends among Twitter blue subscribers and reactivated accounts 44 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:44,000 following Elon Musk's takeover was used in reports by the New York Times and CNN. 45 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:48,680 One can only hope that X has the money to pay out if they lose. 46 00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:53,800 According to the company's employee stock plan, X is currently worth $19 billion, less 47 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:57,560 than half of what Twitter was when Musk bought it last year. 48 00:03:57,560 --> 00:04:01,360 Let that sink in. Or should I say, let that durbin. 49 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:05,240 Hey, sorry, you were in a candy coma. 50 00:04:05,240 --> 00:04:08,280 You got to wake you up here. Smell these quick bits. 51 00:04:08,280 --> 00:04:15,200 They're on my fingers now. YouTube has launched a global effort to try and stop viewers from using ad blockers. 52 00:04:15,200 --> 00:04:19,920 The site probably saw no other choice after the usage of ad blockers increased due to 53 00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:24,240 YouTube strategically spending years making their monetization system worse in response 54 00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:31,400 to issues with their own algorithm. But back in 2016, the European Commission agreed with a privacy advocate that software 55 00:04:31,400 --> 00:04:36,040 designed to detect ad blockers is illegal without consent in the EU. 56 00:04:36,040 --> 00:04:39,480 It will be interesting if this will force YouTube to change its policy in Europe while 57 00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:42,920 the rest of us continue to take it as usual. 58 00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:50,520 The land of the free. Speaking of those people, the EU has agreed to extend Norway's ban that blocks meta from 59 00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:55,720 tracking user behavior to serve targeted ads so that the ban now covers the entire European 60 00:04:55,720 --> 00:05:03,120 economic area. In other European countries shuts down tech giant news, the Dutch antitrust agency says 61 00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:07,600 Apple's App Store commissions violate EU rules and unfairly target subscription services 62 00:05:07,600 --> 00:05:12,960 like Tinder. It isn't fair for men to be charged an extra 30% for a Tinder goal subscription just to 63 00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:16,880 be able to see the two women that swiped right on them. Show us the women. 64 00:05:16,880 --> 00:05:19,880 Where is she? 65 00:05:19,880 --> 00:05:23,920 Google has released a timeline for risk five developer tools which will be available for 66 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:30,600 Android OS in 2024. It's an ambitious but necessary step if Google wants to follow through on its plan to support 67 00:05:30,600 --> 00:05:35,800 risk five as a tier one architecture placing it on par with ARM. 68 00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:43,920 Meanwhile, Google registry is officially offering .ing as a domain name, a name which is begging 69 00:05:43,920 --> 00:05:50,720 for some fucking wordplay like go.ing or editing. 70 00:05:50,720 --> 00:05:54,840 Even if this whole risk five Android thing starts fucking the bed, at least we'll have 71 00:05:54,840 --> 00:06:03,120 some great puns. Microsoft has finally ended support for Windows CE, a phrase eliciting one of two responses. 72 00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:07,240 Either they didn't kill that already or I don't know what that is. 73 00:06:07,240 --> 00:06:11,760 Windows CE was originally made for small devices like PDAs with features designed to complement 74 00:06:11,760 --> 00:06:18,160 being put in a drawer and forgotten about. Fortunately, some developers are continuing the tradition of bad Windows OSes by making 75 00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:23,560 a 3.3 Gigabyte version of Windows 11 that its creators don't even recommend you use. 76 00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:31,240 What horrors will they think of next? And Green Power Motor Company has announced the Mega Beast, a fully electric school bus 77 00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:37,800 with 387 kilowatt hour battery, nearly 300 miles of range and space for up to 90 passengers 78 00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:40,840 who I hope are kids without seat belts. 79 00:06:40,840 --> 00:06:46,200 It's essentially a buff version of their 140 mile range 40 foot beast, which they say 80 00:06:46,200 --> 00:06:50,400 stands for battery electric automotive school transportation, but I think they really just 81 00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:56,520 wanted to spell beast. There's also the 25 foot oxymoronic nano beast. 82 00:06:56,520 --> 00:07:00,040 Personally, I can't wait for their first YouTube integration where Green Power sponsors 83 00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:05,720 MrBeast to jump a nano beast, evil Knievel style, over a line of 15 mega beasts. 84 00:07:05,720 --> 00:07:09,480 A new battery back on Friday where we'll release the beast and by the beast I mean more tech 85 00:07:09,480 --> 00:07:11,320 news, the biggest kind.