WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.800 Welcome to Tech News, National Geographic Edition. 00:00:03.800 --> 00:00:06.800 Here in the vast digital savannah, 00:00:06.800 --> 00:00:09.880 we observe the tech industry in its natural habitat. 00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:13.400 Shh, don't startle it, let's watch. 00:00:13.400 --> 00:00:16.640 Oh, it's me, I have to, okay. 00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:19.840 It really seems like NVIDIA will launch their N1 00:00:19.840 --> 00:00:23.600 and N1X ARM-based SOCs in the first half of this year, 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:26.760 with Dell and Lenovo already on board with laptop designs, 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:30.360 according to insider sources who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. 00:00:30.360 --> 00:00:34.920 As previous leaks have indicated, the N1X is essentially expected to be 00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:39.080 a consumer-focused version of the GB10 Super Chip 00:00:39.080 --> 00:00:43.000 that powers NVIDIA's DGX Spark Enterprise mini PCs, 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:48.000 with up to 20 ARM cores, a massive 6,144 CUDA cord IGPU, 00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:52.520 and don't forget that sweet, sweet, unified memory. 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:56.400 But while ARM-powered Windows laptops have come a long way, 00:00:56.440 --> 00:01:01.200 they're still not great for gaming. So why should gamers care? 00:01:01.200 --> 00:01:07.320 Well, one reason might be that, as much as we rag on NVIDIA for caring more about AI than us, 00:01:07.320 --> 00:01:12.440 they do still put resources into gaming. I mean, look, they're hiring software engineers 00:01:12.440 --> 00:01:17.240 to work on native speed x8664 gaming 00:01:17.240 --> 00:01:20.280 on Linux slash ARM64 platforms. 00:01:20.280 --> 00:01:25.200 They're hiring someone to make the gaming experience better for a niche within a niche. 00:01:25.240 --> 00:01:28.240 Maybe Jensen does still have a gamer soul 00:01:28.240 --> 00:01:31.240 hiding beneath all those layers of leather jackets. 00:01:31.240 --> 00:01:34.520 They protect him from the outside, all the hurtful words. 00:01:34.520 --> 00:01:39.840 However things shake out, with a full reveal anticipated at the NVIDIA GTC keynote 00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:42.880 on March 16th, the laptop market is heating up 00:01:42.880 --> 00:01:46.320 and Qualcomm and AMD are sweating profusely 00:01:46.320 --> 00:01:51.400 through their quarter zips. Samsung took the wraps off the Galaxy S26 phone lineup 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:55.720 at an unpacked event this morning, completely shocking the world 00:01:55.720 --> 00:02:01.080 by unveiling new smartphone tech that isn't just chat GPT with extra steps. 00:02:01.080 --> 00:02:05.840 Although that was there too. Samsung says the new Galaxy S26 Ultra features 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:09.120 the world's first privacy display on mobile, 00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:15.880 which makes your phone screen completely opaque when viewed from outside of the primary user cone 00:02:15.880 --> 00:02:19.760 in front of the phone, the cone of brain rot, maybe we could call it. 00:02:19.760 --> 00:02:23.040 And it can even selectively black out parts 00:02:23.040 --> 00:02:28.200 of the screen like sensitive message notifications from your landlord that say in all caps, 00:02:28.200 --> 00:02:31.560 for the last time you cannot pay rent in Funko Pops, 00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:36.880 it is up to you to sell them for money first. It is not legal tender. 00:02:36.880 --> 00:02:43.080 The way the privacy display works is kind of cool. Every other pixel in the grid is a narrow pixel 00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:47.920 with little donuts above it that modulate how much light escapes to the sides 00:02:47.920 --> 00:02:51.240 and you can't eat them, but at least they're in there. 00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:54.880 The rest of the features are fairly standard new phone stuff. 00:02:54.880 --> 00:02:58.620 The cameras are largely the same, but apparently let in more light now 00:02:58.620 --> 00:03:02.620 with a new super steady mode that can keep footage level with the ground. 00:03:02.620 --> 00:03:06.840 There's a few more AI photo editing options to help you construct false memories 00:03:06.840 --> 00:03:12.440 of things that never happened, very fun. But there's a couple cool AI features too. 00:03:12.440 --> 00:03:16.640 Ask Samsung's Bixby AI Assistant to change your phone settings 00:03:16.640 --> 00:03:22.960 and it will present you with a toggle for the feature you want, hopefully right there in the chat interface, finally. 00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:27.720 And audio eraser can strip background noise from third-party apps like Instagram now, 00:03:27.720 --> 00:03:33.480 not just Samsung ones. The S26 Ultra starts at the same price as the S25 Ultra, 00:03:33.480 --> 00:03:38.240 $1,300 USD, while the S26 and S26 Plus 00:03:38.240 --> 00:03:44.940 have gotten $100 price hikes. They start at $900 and $1,100 USD respectively, 00:03:44.940 --> 00:03:48.760 although the base model does come with 256 gigs of storage 00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:53.000 instead of 128 this year. So it's not all just storage crisis stuff. 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:59.240 But still, for those prices, you can pick up a few pairs of the new $250 Galaxy Buds 4 Pro, 00:03:59.380 --> 00:04:04.240 which have been redesigned with what Samsung calls a real metal blade. 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:08.980 They've got bigger woofers and are shaped for all day comfort, 00:04:08.980 --> 00:04:13.280 as long as you're careful not to accidentally put the metal blade in first. 00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:16.400 I'm still like picking it up, gotta be careful. 00:04:16.440 --> 00:04:21.040 Feels awesome though. Every time I listen to something, it's like I'm a samurai. 00:04:22.400 --> 00:04:26.200 Department of War is going toe-to-toe with Anthropic 00:04:26.200 --> 00:04:29.920 over ethical restrictions baked into its AI model, Claude, 00:04:29.920 --> 00:04:33.560 in the ultimate Nerds versus Jocks slug fest. 00:04:33.560 --> 00:04:38.720 This is what we've been waiting for. Defense Secretary or War Secretary, 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:42.840 Pete Hegseth summoned Anthropic CEO, Dario Amode 00:04:42.840 --> 00:04:46.200 to the Pentagon on Tuesday to deliver an ultimatum. 00:04:46.200 --> 00:04:50.480 Let the government use Claude for mass domestic surveillance of US citizens 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:53.680 and or making targeting decisions in physical attacks 00:04:53.680 --> 00:04:57.640 without human input, or Amode is gonna get a hell of a swirly 00:04:57.640 --> 00:05:03.040 and I'll make you do my homework. No, Hegseth reportedly threatened to designate Anthropic 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:06.480 as a supply chain risk, blocking it from working 00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:09.960 with the government and a wide swath of affiliated companies, 00:05:09.960 --> 00:05:14.000 or maybe Hegseth will invoke the Defense Production Act 00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:18.480 to force Anthropic to adapt its model to the military's needs. 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:21.760 Or maybe even both. Ah, I know that doesn't make sense, 00:05:21.760 --> 00:05:26.000 but I'm just so angry right now because you keep saying words, I don't understand. 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:29.640 The Pentagon has given Anthropic until Friday to comply, 00:05:29.640 --> 00:05:33.160 but Anthropic reportedly does not plan on budging. 00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:37.120 A senior government official commented that taking this action against Anthropic 00:05:37.120 --> 00:05:43.400 would be massively disrupted for the Pentagon because Claude is currently the only AI model used 00:05:43.440 --> 00:05:47.080 in classified defense systems. The Pentagon is currently addressing this issue 00:05:47.080 --> 00:05:50.320 by signing a deal to bring XAI's GROC 00:05:50.320 --> 00:05:55.320 into classified defense networks, which has real pouty teenager energy. 00:05:55.320 --> 00:05:59.040 Oh, you're not letting me use your AI to autonomously kill people? 00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:03.280 Fine, I'll just go hang out with Mecha Hitler. How do you like that, dad? 00:06:03.280 --> 00:06:09.200 Go to your room. Now, Anthropic has budged on a separate safety pledge, 00:06:09.200 --> 00:06:14.800 the commitment to never train an AI model unless they could guarantee it would be safe first, 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:18.080 which seems hard to be fair. Why? 00:06:18.080 --> 00:06:24.800 Well, to paraphrase their chief science officer, other AI companies are never gonna stop, never stopping, 00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:27.840 so Anthropic is not actually contributing 00:06:27.840 --> 00:06:32.240 any additional risk to the ecosystem, which is basically just them saying, 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:37.160 we're committed to safety, but we're also committed to money and winning, 00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:40.320 which is super self-aware and honestly super wise. 00:06:40.320 --> 00:06:46.080 I believe it was Marcus Aurelius who said, never regard something as doing you good 00:06:46.080 --> 00:06:50.680 if it makes you betray a trust, unless you're about to lose an AI arms race 00:06:50.680 --> 00:06:55.360 to Elon Musk, then f*** it. And here we see the quick bits in the wild, 00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:59.480 often moving in packs of five. Scientists believe they communicate 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:04.720 through a series of rapid-fire headlines, fascinating creatures, remarkably savage. 00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:09.080 Discord is delaying its global age verification rollout 00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:15.040 to the second half of 2026. CTO Stanislav Vishnevsky, 00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:18.840 coming at the problem with the energy of a beleaguered substitute teacher, 00:07:18.840 --> 00:07:24.160 posted that many of you walked away thinking we're requiring face scans and ID uploads 00:07:24.160 --> 00:07:28.880 from everyone just to use Discord. That's not what's happening. 00:07:28.880 --> 00:07:33.160 He went on to clarify that over 90% of users will never need to verify their age 00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:38.720 to keep using Discord exactly as they do today. That said, Discord stressed they'll still meet 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:43.520 any legal obligations for age verification, which currently means using third-party vendors 00:07:43.520 --> 00:07:48.080 like KID in the UK and Australia, with Brazil soon to follow. 00:07:48.080 --> 00:07:53.720 The company will use the delay to learn how to write a f***ing blog post properly, I guess. 00:07:53.720 --> 00:08:01.120 Product listings for budget HP laptops have been spotted advertising 1.2 terabytes of storage, 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:05.480 the catch being that one terabyte of that is just a one-year free trial 00:08:05.480 --> 00:08:11.320 of Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage. Reddit user BMR99 posted several links 00:08:11.320 --> 00:08:14.680 to blatant cases of spec padding in the LTT subreddit, 00:08:14.680 --> 00:08:18.960 showing that with NAND prices spiking, I guess the new industry standard 00:08:18.960 --> 00:08:22.480 is just download more storage, bro, it's a you problem. 00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:25.640 Thankfully, Canadians get to avoid this specific trap. 00:08:25.640 --> 00:08:31.000 We have a different one. Some Amazon.ca listings advertise one terabyte drives 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:34.360 as 1,024 Gigabyte SSDs, 00:08:34.360 --> 00:08:39.160 which actually makes the listing even more deceitful because one terabyte drives usually have less 00:08:39.160 --> 00:08:43.680 than 1,000 gigs of usable space, but I don't know. That still sounds like a heck of a deal there, 00:08:43.680 --> 00:08:47.640 but I think you should fricking send it. Tech giants are hunting for cheap farmland 00:08:47.640 --> 00:08:51.800 for their power-hungry AI data centers and have offered million-dollar payouts 00:08:51.800 --> 00:08:56.080 that many US farmers are none of the less flat-out refusing 00:08:56.080 --> 00:09:00.200 according to a report from The Guardian. But these companies want that land. 00:09:00.200 --> 00:09:05.200 Some utility companies have threatened to invoke eminent domain, the government's power 00:09:05.240 --> 00:09:08.240 to seize private property for public use. 00:09:08.240 --> 00:09:13.160 But for the farmers, it ain't about the money. It's about protecting their family legacies. 00:09:13.160 --> 00:09:17.000 They got Tigriti and unlike them Silicon Valley boys, 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:22.960 farmers recognize that God didn't intend for us to eat servers or become romantically entwined 00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:28.440 with AIY foods, it ain't right. Panasonic, the former plasma TV king, 00:09:28.440 --> 00:09:33.760 will no longer make its own television. All Panasonic branded TVs will now be manufactured, 00:09:33.760 --> 00:09:37.280 marketed and sold by Skyworth, a Chinese company, 00:09:37.280 --> 00:09:42.120 with the same name as my high school World of Warcraft character, Skyworth. 00:09:42.120 --> 00:09:47.840 Skyworth. It's just AI, Skyworth. Skyworth's CEO pitched it as a meeting of minds, 00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:52.480 but the real trade is pretty obvious. Skyworth gets to use a legendary brand name 00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:57.640 to sell TVs in Western markets, and Panasonic gets to stop spending money making TVs. 00:09:57.640 --> 00:10:03.400 If it seems familiar, that's because it's a very similar deal to the Sony and TCL one that just happened recently. 00:10:03.400 --> 00:10:09.840 This is a bummer for Panasonic though. They controlled over 40% of the global plasma market 00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:13.540 until price sensitivity caused by the 2008 financial crisis 00:10:13.540 --> 00:10:19.000 ended up destroying their margins. After that, Panasonic never really recovered. 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:24.320 Don't worry Panasonic, none of us did. And Spotify and Liquid Death have released 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:28.640 the Eternal Playlist Earn, a limited edition Bluetooth speaker 00:10:28.640 --> 00:10:34.120 shaped like a cremation urn. It asks you questions about your eternal vibe 00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:37.620 and your go-to ghost noise, all right? 00:10:37.620 --> 00:10:41.320 Then generates a playlist that syncs to the urn 00:10:41.320 --> 00:10:46.280 and plays you into the afterlife. Is it a real urn, like for ashes? 00:10:46.280 --> 00:10:51.760 Yeah, you didn't put ashes in there. Might screw it up, but the Bluetooth speaker. 00:10:51.760 --> 00:10:55.080 So for me, that'll be an infinite loop of monster mash 00:10:55.080 --> 00:10:58.840 and fallout boys, sugar we're going down swinging. 00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:05.760 But given Spotify's history of launching then bricking physical devices like the car thing, 00:11:05.760 --> 00:11:08.880 eternity might be more like two years. 00:11:08.880 --> 00:11:13.720 And I guess you'll have to keep paying for Spotify premium. Otherwise you'll be hearing ads for the rest of eternity, 00:11:13.720 --> 00:11:17.800 which again, according to Spotify, is just two years. So it's not that bad. 00:11:17.800 --> 00:11:20.920 And that concludes today's episode of Planet Tech. 00:11:20.920 --> 00:11:27.560 Oh, okay, join us on Friday when we will watch as the AI hype beast performs its mating display 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:33.120 for potential investors. It is truly so cringe.