Valve dropped the price of the Steam Deck, so ASUS seized the opportunity to launch a
new, cheaper variant of the ROG Ally with a 30% slower processor, providing a more interesting
alternative for those considering lighting their money on fire.
I'm Riley Murdoch, this is TechLinked and this new Ryzen Z1 equipped Ally makes very little
sense according to basically every review that's out right now. That's because it has one third
the number of GPU cores its big brother, the Z1 Extreme, has and, accordingly,
performs as much as 37% slower while being only $100 cheaper at $600 bucks.
Okay, fine. That's not a fair comparison though. So what about the Steam Deck? Well,
the Z1 Ally still has roughly half of the Steam Deck's GPU cores and yeah, the new Ally costs
$50 less than the most expensive deck with a matching 512 gigs of storage, but that was before
the aforementioned discounts, which actually bring the top deck model down to $70 cheaper than the
new Ally. And the base model deck, that's still about twice as powerful, $240 cheaper.
I mean, the Ally has a higher res screen and variable refresh rate, which won't be much
of a selling point when it's less powerful than the deck anyway. So in terms of valuable
allies, we're talking like Italy here. Mostly there for emotional support.
Let's go. I mean, the timing on this release makes it seem like ASUS wanted to be spanked,
which is weird for a tech company. I'm not kink shaming. I'm kink asking why.
Chief product officer and guy who always kind of looks like he's about to cry,
Panos Panay is leaving Microsoft after nearly two decades. He announced this disappointing news
today on X slash Twitter, the platform known for disappointment. In his post, Panay said,
I've decided to turn the page and write the next chapter. However, just a couple of weeks ago,
Panay said he was excited to appear at a Microsoft event happening three days from now,
making it sound like his metaphorical book writing is going about as well as George R.R.
Winter. It's never coming out. Accept it. This is especially surprising since the upcoming event
was expected to unveil the latest surface products and Panay has overseen the surface line since it
was but a twinkle in former CEO Steve Ballmer's eye. It's got to be kind of gross in there.
Microsoft has said that current corporate vice president of modern life search and devices,
Yusuf Mehdi, will be taking over as head of the Windows and surface divisions,
leaving many with unanswered questions. Questions like, how can someone be a vice president of
modern life? That's such a made up sounding title. I mean, what's next? Does Microsoft have a
chief vision officer? Got him. The UK has come up with seven principles to guide development of
generative AI as laid out by the CMA, the country's antitrust regulator, not the American
Country Music Awards. At least one of you was confused. The report is the result of an initial
review of AI first announced back in May and is intended to ensure consumer protection and
healthy competition are at the heart of responsible development and use of foundation models, which
refer to generative AI models serving as the foundation for more advanced ones, like Harry
Selden. Some people got to get that reference. I don't know what it means. I know. The report
suggests seven principles for consideration that they tragically decided to just list alphabetically
instead of forcing an acronym we'd be able to make fun of. Rude. In the report, the CMA
highlights the potential benefits of foundation models while also arguing societal harm could
result from weak competition or weak consumer protection laws. In other words, it is a thing
in society. Quick bits are the little one bite desserts you get at the end of a fine meal. Bon
epitide. But there's five of them. So it's like you had ordered the entire dessert menu.
Hope you saved some room. The Microsoft AI research division accidentally leaked 38 terabytes of
sensitive internal data beginning in July 2020, according to cloud security firm Wiz. Apparently
a public GitHub repository for open source AI learning models was mistakenly linked to a
misconfigured Azure Blob storage bucket, which is also what I call the hot tub at the public pool.
Regularly visited by blobs. The storage container used an overly permissive shared access signature,
or SAS token, which meant that anyone who accessed the URL had full control of the entire storage
account and all the data in it. According to Microsoft, customers should be unaffected beyond
the haunting knowledge that we are forever a single misposted link away from certain doom.
That's fine. ASUS, famous inventor of the award-winning ROG ally, we mentioned earlier,
is suing much bigger tech company Samsung for allegedly violating one of ASUS's
smartphone-related patents. Samsung has used the patent in basically all their phones and tablets
since the Galaxy S8 without paying ASUS licensing fees. The patent's description lists a method
and apparatus for improving a transmission using a configured resource in a wireless communication
system, which honestly sounds like something Samsung could have figured out themselves.
Pretty embarrassing. Google announced a major change to one of the main selling points of its
Nest Hub's Mac's smart displays, the removal of video calling support for Zoom and Google Meet,
horrifying fans of video chatting one's mom while one chops carrots. They have a subreddit.
However, a Google Spokesperson has said you can still make and accept video calls on the Nest Hub
Macs, but what you can't do is join a meeting via a meeting code or a link, meaning you can't
pre-plan meetings anymore. Google didn't explain why this is happening or how I'm supposed to have
a hashtag grind set when I can't schedule my business calls during my weekly carrot chopping sesh.
It helps me think. I don't use the carrots. I just chop them.
Apple will be issuing a software update for the iPhone 12 following a ban on sales in France
due to a report that it exceeded EU limits for electromagnetic radiation exposure.
While other countries are now looking into the issue, Apple states that the discrepancy is likely related to the specific testing protocols used by
French regulators, where the phone is force-fed grain to fatten its liver to 10 times the usual
size. They're not built for grain. Apple has reportedly told tech support staff to shut up
if asked for updates and to deny return requests unless the device was purchased in the last two
weeks. So for now, French customers will have to keep the phone that may or may not be gently
cooking their right buck cheek. That's how you deal with top round, low and slow.
And Apple CEO Tim Cook claimed in an interview that he uses the upcoming Vision Pro on a regular
basis and that he watched the entire third season of beloved Apple TV plus original series,
Ted Lasso, on the headset. Super relatable guy Tim Cook also said,
there's some things that I have access to that other people don't have, which was an incredibly
surprising fact to learn about from the billionaire CEO of a multi-trillion dollar company.
Yeah, like stakes made from human clothes. And more. And you'll be surprised by how much more
tech news there is when you come back on Wednesday. It'll be a lot like today, but different in that
it won't be Monday, so.