Apple is reportedly scaling back production of the Vision Pro
due to several unforeseen issues, but I don't get how they didn't see this coming.
The headset has a transparency mode. I'm Riley Murdock, this is TechLinked,
and you might assume this production reduction is in response to low demand,
given the Vision Pro's $3,500 price tag.
But that would presuppose a Darth of People willing to buy overpriced things they don't need.
And that describes almost everyone, except me. No, the cause here, according to Inside Sources
who spoke to Financial Times, is the complexity of the headset design,
leading to difficulties in manufacturing, enough of the Vision Pro's cutting-edge micro OLED displays.
Cutting-edge components are a lot like farms during the 1930s dust bowl.
They have disastrously poor yields. We don't often get the chance to compare tech
to farms a hundred years ago, so that was exciting. We gotta sell it all, pa!
I always wanted to be a four. Apple's original target was the production
of a million units by 2024, but now they're likely looking at less than 400,000,
which is actually 100,000 fewer than analysts projected that Apple would sell
in its first year, showing once and for all that analysts do not have prescience like Paul Atreides
from Dune Part II coming to theaters November 3rd, 2023,
made their knives chip and shatter. I'm very excited. These production issues have apparently pushed back plans
for a budget version of the Vision Pro, and by budget, we obviously mean like
Elon Musk's Dorito budget. I assume that he eats a lot.
He's healthy now. He'd rather die earlier and eat well, so.
The Dorito joke stands. Intel plans to expand path tracing support
to integrated graphics, and in short, path tracing is an upgraded and more hardware intensive
form of ray tracing, using additional data to more accurately simulate the physics of light,
which sounds great if you want the fan on your high powered gaming PC
to more accurately simulate a buzz saw. Your neighbors can hear it,
but they know you're having a good time. If you'd like to experience the difference, path tracing is already available as a mod
for some older, less GPU intensive games like Quake II.
It's exactly as brown as you remember, but shinier now.
But hold on, Intel isn't talking about putting this hefty new feature into big, beefy graphics cards.
They're talking about putting ray tracing's buff big brother into comparatively lightweight
integrated GPUs. Intel is presenting new research
on hyper-efficient new methods for computing light simulation,
massively reducing GPU load. Perhaps soon, the world's grandmas will be able
to take full advantage of photorealistic real-time graphics
while playing bridge online on their Chromebooks. They got a discord server and everything.
Game or grandmas, rise up. In your face,
oh, come at me, and TikTok's parent company, Bite Dance,
is threatening to start publishing books. Please, no, believe it or not,
but many people on the internet can and do read.
This strange phenomenon means that book talk, a subset of TikTok that acknowledges
the existence of the written word, has become a powerhouse when it comes
to popularizing otherwise obscure novels. Earlier this year, Bite Dance's nascent publishing ARM,
8th Note Press, started approaching self-published writers
in the romance novel genre. They're like thirst traps, but with letters.
This might be an interesting opportunity for aspiring authors, but it's also raised
its share of concern among the openly literate.
Specifically, that Bite Dance might use TikTok to squeeze out user-driven viral book recommendations
through promoting its own publications. Traditional publishers have struggled with viral marketing,
but maybe the people who brought you an unending feed of bubblegum pop dance trends
and five-second strip teases are going to be the ones to make the case for spending multiple consecutive hours
staring at words on an unmoving screen. No cap.
On God, for real, for real. Hello, doctor. I got five quick bits.
Should I get five rabies shots? Really small ones.
Meta's new Twitter competitor, Threads, launches tomorrow
for tuitous timing, given that Twitter is currently even more broken and unusable than usual.
Either it's a complete coincidence or Zuckerberg flicked out his tongue and smelt blood.
The new site was visible for a few hours earlier today, and it does essentially look like Twitter
as imagined by Facebook. Beyond the logo, which looks like a hair
you found in your food. The decade-old GIF hosting service, Giffycat,
see, I'm trying to please both of you, will be shutting down September 1st,
after which all content will be deleted. Giffycat's parent company, Snapchat,
doesn't seem to have a plan to archive any of the site's material,
beyond telling users to download their memes while they still can.
And please, share your memes with those who need it. Giffycat has been running poorly for the past few months
with users experiencing failed uploads, extensive downtime, and complete silence
from the site's service team. Giffycat's integration into Snapchat
might also break a huge number of GIFs linked elsewhere on the web,
rendering users conversations like bite dances upcoming novels.
Essentially unreadable. China has restricted exports of two metals crucial
in chip production, gallium and germanium, which is a big deal,
since it's not like you can pop down to the Walmart and pick some germanium up.
They're always out of stock. They might have geraniums though.
China produces most of the world's supply of galamimus and geronimo,
so the US is considering retaliation in the form of restricting Chinese companies' access
to US-based cloud infrastructure, which could severely limit China's ability
to keep up in the AI arms race. Trade war!
Da-na, da-na, what is it good for?
Well, it's probably an okay stand-in for a real war. Probably so.
If it's not from the war region of France, it's just sparkling trade dispute.
Google obviously wants everyone to talk about their upcoming phones,
so we could show you fresh leaked photos.
Oh, they just leaked of the Pixel 8 Pro, showing it slightly tweaked rear camera design
and a sticker with a code named Zuma.
Seemingly confirming the phone will feature Google's next-gen Tensor G3 chip.
But we could also tell you about more interesting news, like the fact that the ultra-repairable design
for longevity Fairphone 4 is finally available to buy in the US
thanks to a partnership with Marina Morena,
a company that makes a de-googled, privacy-focused fork of Android.
Yeah, we ain't scared of the big man. Hack the planet!
And a new bot service called Jolly Roger allows users to get back at telemarketers
by wasting their time with meandering, rambling conversations like an elderly relative.
This sounds amazing. In fact, one of the bots, Personas, is an old man who just woke up from a nap,
who uses ploys like telling the telemarketer they sound like a former high school classmate,
rambling on about needing coffee, frequently asking them to repeat their name
and asking them to start over again.
Yes, the bot otherwise just allows the telemarketer to talk,
occasionally interjecting and uh-huh, okay, or yeah.
This all seems like good fun, but just wait until the telemarketers are all AI
and they're just talking to each other forever in an unending loop.
Finally, we will have removed all human involvement
from the very worst form of human interaction.
We'll be free! Those guys will just keep the economy going on their own.
And the best form of human interaction happens when you come back on Friday for more tech news, arguably.