1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,680 You know what, I want to cover some old tech news. Like it's 1998, Internet Explorer just 2 00:00:05,680 --> 00:00:14,160 overtook Net Vista, and there were only 151 Pokémon. Good stuff. But counterpoint quacksly. 3 00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:22,960 Okay, the magic's still there. Electronic Arts, the makers of your favorite full-priced 4 00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:28,880 annual sports game roster update, announced today that it has been acquired for $55 billion. 5 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:35,840 The consortium buying EA includes Saudi Arabia's public investment fund, along with Infinity 6 00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:41,280 Partners, which was founded by Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Not the kind of Kush 7 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:48,720 typically associated with gamers. The enormous deal makes EA the biggest leveraged buyout ever, 8 00:00:48,720 --> 00:00:54,400 and we'll see the company's shareholders get $210 per share. Right now, we don't know how this 9 00:00:54,400 --> 00:00:59,120 buyout will impact EA's games. We'll have to wait to find out if this is part of Saudi Arabia's 10 00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:04,560 attempt to resuscitate their public image, or if EA's video games will start to show signs of 11 00:01:04,560 --> 00:01:10,560 Saudi government influence, perhaps a next-gen Sims title featuring forced labor and executions, 12 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:16,640 or a Battlefield 6 DLC game mode featuring journalist assassinations. EA already just blew 13 00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:24,400 up our beloved Zac Efron. So really, nothing's off the table. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite and 14 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:30,560 Extreme chips have been benchmarked by a number of tech outlets since their unveiling last week, 15 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:37,280 with most of those outlets running headlines like, this show's promise, and hey, not bad. 16 00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:42,000 Now, normally that kind of measured, cautious enthusiasm really gets me going, 17 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:47,680 but it's important to note that the only results being shared are from specific synthetic benchmarks 18 00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:53,440 that Qualcomm pre-installed on the demo laptops. Although they did let the journalists press the 19 00:01:53,520 --> 00:01:57,040 start button, for which they received a sticker that said, I helped. 20 00:01:57,040 --> 00:02:01,840 Now, some of you may remember Qualcomm had a similar setup while promoting the first-gen 21 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:08,160 Snapdragon X series. The pre-launch hype for those chips reached a fever pitch. Reviewers and 22 00:02:08,160 --> 00:02:13,600 certain tech news-related individuals were foaming at the mouth for what we all thought and hoped 23 00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:18,720 would be Windows' answer to Apple Silicon. Power, efficiency, and compatibility on the 24 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:24,000 ARM architecture, and then the actual chips launched. And their performance turned out to be 25 00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:28,720 just okay. They were interesting and innovative and definitely pretty cool, 26 00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:33,760 but compatibility issues remained and the gaming experience didn't live up to the hype. 27 00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:39,040 So forgive me if I feel the need to use a bit more than a pinch of salt in this particular 28 00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:45,040 entree, even if I do love to see it on the menu. OpenAI is adding a couple long-awaited features to 29 00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:51,440 chatGPT, parental controls, and the ability to buy stuff directly from the chatbot. Two things 30 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:56,640 that actually go together quite well. After a lawsuit from the parents of a teen who took his 31 00:02:56,640 --> 00:03:02,320 own life, the parental controls OpenAI promised are finally here allowing parents to link to their 32 00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:08,560 teenagers' accounts if the teen opts in and if the teen doesn't ever disconnect their account, 33 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:13,680 which they can do at any time. Although the parents will be notified. And right there is a 34 00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:21,840 perfect illustration of how, in the internet age, we don't know what the f*** we're doing. 35 00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:26,800 This is parental controls for the good kids that need it the least, but it's something? 36 00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:32,160 If the accounts stay linked, though, parents can customize their teen's experience by setting 37 00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:37,280 time limits, turning off voice mode and image generation, and hopefully disabling that other 38 00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:43,600 new feature, Instant Checkout. It'll let chatGPT suggest products that users can buy without 39 00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:49,360 ever leaving the app. It's built on an open agent commerce protocol developed with Stripe, 40 00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:53,920 and will only work with Etsy listings for now, although the plan is to add support for over 41 00:03:53,920 --> 00:04:00,240 a million Shopify merchants soon, which is exciting news for the diehards who couldn't ignore that 42 00:04:00,240 --> 00:04:06,720 something real was missing in their relationship with their AI boyfriend or girlfriend. The ability 43 00:04:06,720 --> 00:04:12,960 to engage in commerce. Reggie Alecki is the fastest Pokémon with a base speed stat of 200, 44 00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:17,120 but that legend's got nothing on these quick bits. 45 00:04:19,520 --> 00:04:26,560 NVIDIA's RTX 50 Super series of cards are rumored to be arriving in the first half of 2026. Bench 46 00:04:26,560 --> 00:04:31,920 Life reports that although the cards were expected to be announced at January CES 2026, 47 00:04:31,920 --> 00:04:38,000 the cards should actually be revealed between March and May this coming year. Bench Life suggests 48 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:45,280 that the RTX 5070, 5070 Ti, and 5080 will all get super variants, which will see all three cards' 49 00:04:45,280 --> 00:04:51,040 memory capacity expanded. It's very thoughtful of NVIDIA to delay these cards, so we have more 50 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:56,720 time to process the damage they'll do to our collective bank accounts. Stop buying NVIDIA, 51 00:04:56,720 --> 00:05:01,680 they're gonna sell out. It's just a fact. ASUS is working to address stuttering and 52 00:05:01,760 --> 00:05:06,960 performance issues with several of its ROG gaming laptops. Apparently, the issue impacts 53 00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:12,560 ROG laptops all the way back to the 2021 models, but this bug was only recently brought to light 54 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:19,600 by Zefkik on GitHub, whose work was highlighted on our September 19th WAN Show. Our, I mean... 55 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:29,600 ASUS has released beta BIOS updates for a number of the affected laptops, and in a community update, 56 00:05:29,600 --> 00:05:34,880 the company says to expect more finalized work in early October. It's good of ASUS for finally 57 00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:39,440 getting on this long-standing issue after being called out on a popular tech podcast. Now that's 58 00:05:39,440 --> 00:05:45,600 the kind of quick customer service we love to see. Apple has made its own chat GBT-like chatbot app, 59 00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:51,840 but it exists only to test their new Siri AI revamp. Ultimate knower of Apple's secrets, 60 00:05:51,840 --> 00:05:57,440 the imperious germanatorious Mark Gurman, reports that the new app, code named Veritas, 61 00:05:57,440 --> 00:06:03,120 is being used internally by Apple staff to test out the company's current AI models. However, 62 00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:07,680 the app is not planned to be released alongside the long-awaited upgraded Siri, 63 00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:10,560 which could start rolling out as early as this coming March. 64 00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:16,000 Early is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Honestly though, Apple take all the time you 65 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:22,000 need to make this good. Nobody needs a slightly better Siri. It's too late for that. 66 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:26,400 Microsoft doesn't seem to like your energy when you're working with its office products, 67 00:06:26,400 --> 00:06:35,920 so inspired by AI-driven Vibe coding, they're introducing Vibe Working, aka Not Working. 68 00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:42,160 Using Microsoft's new office agent in co-pilot chat, you can type in prompts to create AI-generated 69 00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:47,360 PowerPoint presentations and Word documents, with Excel support coming soon. Probably not 70 00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:52,320 going to win any Excel championships with this, but hey, you can also use the incredibly similarly 71 00:06:52,320 --> 00:06:58,480 named Agent Mode in Word or Excel to create AI-generated spreadsheets and documents right in the app. 72 00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:04,560 Ultimately, what is better for your work vibes than just letting AI do a worse job of your tasks 73 00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:10,960 for you? Your work doesn't make sense. Who cares? You're vibing. And what do you do for work? We vibe. 74 00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:18,320 And beloved streamer SkyrimGrandma, also known as Shirley Curry, has announced her retirement from 75 00:07:18,320 --> 00:07:24,880 uploading Elder Scrolls videos. In her goodbye video, the soon-to-be 90-year-old told her viewers 76 00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:31,600 that after about 15 years of streaming, she is tired and not having fun anymore. But don't worry, 77 00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:36,400 Curry says she'll still be posting a vlog every so often, and she even left information to stay 78 00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:41,840 in contact with her. Nice to see her retire like this, instead of because of an arrow to the knee. 79 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:47,600 Plus, there are always rumors that the Elder Scrolls 6 could be right around the corner, 80 00:07:47,600 --> 00:07:54,320 so one day, we might see SkyrimGrandma right again. But I know Techlinked will definitely 81 00:07:54,320 --> 00:08:00,400 right again on Wednesday, so come back on that day. For now, go like and subscribe, 82 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:06,640 and I will go catch up on literal decades worth of new Pokemon. What the hell is a Blasephalon? 83 00:08:08,560 --> 00:08:10,560 Blasephalon?