WEBVTT 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 00:00:05.680 --> 00:00:14.160 overtook Net Vista, and there were only 151 Pokémon. Good stuff. But counterpoint quacksly. 00:00:17.680 --> 00:00:22.960 Okay, the magic's still there. Electronic Arts, the makers of your favorite full-priced 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:28.880 annual sports game roster update, announced today that it has been acquired for $55 billion. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:35.840 The consortium buying EA includes Saudi Arabia's public investment fund, along with Infinity 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 00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:48.720 typically associated with gamers. The enormous deal makes EA the biggest leveraged buyout ever, 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 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 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 00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:10.560 Saudi government influence, perhaps a next-gen Sims title featuring forced labor and executions, 00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:16.640 or a Battlefield 6 DLC game mode featuring journalist assassinations. EA already just blew 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 00:01:25.360 --> 00:01:30.560 Extreme chips have been benchmarked by a number of tech outlets since their unveiling last week, 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:37.280 with most of those outlets running headlines like, this show's promise, and hey, not bad. 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:42.000 Now, normally that kind of measured, cautious enthusiasm really gets me going, 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 00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:53.440 that Qualcomm pre-installed on the demo laptops. Although they did let the journalists press the 00:01:53.520 --> 00:01:57.040 start button, for which they received a sticker that said, I helped. 00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:01.840 Now, some of you may remember Qualcomm had a similar setup while promoting the first-gen 00:02:01.840 --> 00:02:08.160 Snapdragon X series. The pre-launch hype for those chips reached a fever pitch. Reviewers and 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 00:02:13.600 --> 00:02:18.720 would be Windows' answer to Apple Silicon. Power, efficiency, and compatibility on the 00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:24.000 ARM architecture, and then the actual chips launched. And their performance turned out to be 00:02:24.720 --> 00:02:28.720 just okay. They were interesting and innovative and definitely pretty cool, 00:02:28.720 --> 00:02:33.760 but compatibility issues remained and the gaming experience didn't live up to the hype. 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 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 00:02:45.040 --> 00:02:51.440 chatGPT, parental controls, and the ability to buy stuff directly from the chatbot. Two things 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 00:02:56.640 --> 00:03:02.320 own life, the parental controls OpenAI promised are finally here allowing parents to link to their 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, 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 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. 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? 00:03:27.600 --> 00:03:32.160 If the accounts stay linked, though, parents can customize their teen's experience by setting 00:03:32.160 --> 00:03:37.280 time limits, turning off voice mode and image generation, and hopefully disabling that other 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:43.600 new feature, Instant Checkout. It'll let chatGPT suggest products that users can buy without 00:03:43.600 --> 00:03:49.360 ever leaving the app. It's built on an open agent commerce protocol developed with Stripe, 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 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 00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:06.720 something real was missing in their relationship with their AI boyfriend or girlfriend. The ability 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, 00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:17.120 but that legend's got nothing on these quick bits. 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 00:04:26.560 --> 00:04:31.920 Life reports that although the cards were expected to be announced at January CES 2026, 00:04:31.920 --> 00:04:38.000 the cards should actually be revealed between March and May this coming year. Bench Life suggests 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' 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 00:04:51.040 --> 00:04:56.720 time to process the damage they'll do to our collective bank accounts. Stop buying NVIDIA, 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 00:05:01.760 --> 00:05:06.960 performance issues with several of its ROG gaming laptops. Apparently, the issue impacts 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 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... 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, 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 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 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, 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, 00:05:51.840 --> 00:05:57.440 the imperious germanatorious Mark Gurman, reports that the new app, code named Veritas, 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, 00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:07.680 the app is not planned to be released alongside the long-awaited upgraded Siri, 00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:10.560 which could start rolling out as early as this coming March. 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 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. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:26.400 Microsoft doesn't seem to like your energy when you're working with its office products, 00:06:26.400 --> 00:06:35.920 so inspired by AI-driven Vibe coding, they're introducing Vibe Working, aka Not Working. 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 00:06:42.160 --> 00:06:47.360 PowerPoint presentations and Word documents, with Excel support coming soon. Probably not 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 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. 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 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. 00:07:11.840 --> 00:07:18.320 And beloved streamer SkyrimGrandma, also known as Shirley Curry, has announced her retirement from 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 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, 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 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. 00:07:43.760 --> 00:07:47.600 Plus, there are always rumors that the Elder Scrolls 6 could be right around the corner, 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:54.320 so one day, we might see SkyrimGrandma right again. But I know Techlinked will definitely 00:07:54.320 --> 00:08:00.400 right again on Wednesday, so come back on that day. For now, go like and subscribe, 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? 00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:10.560 Blasephalon?