As, like a tech guy, current events mostly have me imagining what-if scenarios where
I got into other hobbies, like I could've done crochet news videos and been spared
this pain. The high of Nintendo's Switch 2 Direct yesterday, filled with juicy details that gamers have
been waiting on for years, was immediately followed by the inevitable emotional crash
as fans grappled with the $450 price of the console and games costing $80 to $90.
But just as some were starting to come to terms with it, Nintendo announced it was delaying
pre-orders for the Switch 2 in the US to assess the impact of the fresh tariffs President
Trump imposed shortly after the Switch 2 stream on dozens of countries, including China and
Vietnam, where the Switch is at least partially produced.
Or on that, later. Nintendo also explained why the Switch 2's backwards compatibility is a bit complicated.
Its NVIDIA SOC is different enough from the Switch 1's that to make existing games playable,
Nintendo had to go for something in between a software emulator and hardware compatibility.
Something ALIVE cut to the little guy cranking the gears inside.
Hi! I'm a prisoner! The good news is, that new NVIDIA SOC means the Switch 2 benefits from Team Green's DLSS
and Ray Tracing Tech as well as G-Sync in handheld mode.
That was the only way Nintendo could save enough power, to include Dollar Store Discord.
Speaking of dollars, hold yours tight, because Trump's aforementioned tariffs are so wide-ranging
they're expected to raise the price of tech products and almost everything else too, gifting
the stock market with its worst day since 2020.
The tariffs ranging from 10 to 49% with China's total tariff now at 54% were supposedly meant
to reciprocate tariffs placed on the US by the affected countries.
But economist James Surowiecki noticed Trump's numbers are actually based on America's trade
deficit with those countries, divided by their exports to the US, which the White House
essentially confirmed. The whole approach is very strange, and there's some evidence that the administration based
the plan off chatbot responses. Ironically, this might mean that AI was used to hamper American AI companies, who aren't
sure whether these tariffs will apply to the heinous amounts of GPUs they're stealing
from the real victims, little gamer boys and girls.
It seems like semiconductors are exempt, although Trump told reporters that tariffs
on chips proper will be starting very soon.
But products with chips inside them are not exempt, and system integrators like Manegear
are warning of price hikes of at least 20%.
Then there's the executive order Trump signed right after announcing the tariffs that closes
the de minimis loophole, which made cheaper single packages exempt from tariffs, meaning
that Timu and Xi'en may lose their status as the go-to platform for fans of filling
your home with cheap garbage. Now, Trump did reiterate that he's open to reducing these tariffs for companies that
offer something quote phenomenal, like according to Trump, if China approved the sale of TikTok
before the April 5th deadline, which is tomorrow.
Instead, China announced retaliatory tariffs of 34% on all U.S. imports alongside additional
export restrictions on rare earth elements used in electronics manufacturing.
Trump responded by saying China played it wrong.
They panicked. And then he extended the TikTok deadline by another 75 days.
And then that's it this time. In a blessed return to non-tariff news, now Intel and TSMC have reportedly reached a preliminary
agreement to form a joint chip making venture, according to the information who got this
information from sources. Of information, presumably.
The deal would see TSMC take a 20% stake in Intel's foundry business, a move that,
if true, could help prevent Team Blue from the toilet flush spiral it currently finds
itself in. There have been a number of rumors about Intel mergers, acquisitions and agreements in recent
months, so hopefully we finally get some real answers at the company's foundry direct
connect on April 29th. I mean, when there's smoke, there's probably fire.
Or a guy who blows the sickest clouds you've ever seen.
And he's got some good ideas. You should listen to him. I don't think there would be enough new developments in the crocheting world for a three times a
week news show. And I want to assume I just haven't looked.
Anyway, here's Crickbits. For Microsoft's 50th birthday, the tech giant gifted a ton of new features to its AI assistant,
Co-Pilot, which is not normally how birthdays work, but okay.
Co-Pilot can now do basically anything ChatGPT and Gemini can do, including web search and
deep research. It can remember stuff you tell it to, see your computer screen, use your computer for
you with actions, and even generate yuppie podcasts hosted by imaginary Manhattanites
just like Google's Notebook LM. Speaking of, Notebook LM can now search for more sources than the ones you feed into it,
and Mid Journey released V7, their first image model, in almost a year.
And you can kinda see why when it's prompted to do this Studio Ghibli thing.
Ah, no, that needs a few more minutes to cook.
Put it back. The gamer debate over whether NVIDIA's laptop GPUs should share the same names as their
desktop counterparts was given new fodder by Notebookcheck.net, whose review of the
Schenker Neo 16 laptop showed the RTX 5090 version performing only 10-15% better than
the RTX 5080 version. The gap between the desktop versions of those cards is more like 55%.
So what are we supposed to do when someone says, I got an RTX 5090?
And then we're like, really? And then they're like, yeah, I can't believe NVIDIA fitted into my new laptop.
What? Like, do we say, yeah, that's sick, and then go find a couch to punch?
What do I do? And a new social media platform has a bold new idea to keep the toxicity at bay.
Only have the site open for three hours a day.
As the Verge explains, it's called 739 due to its opening hours being 739pm to 1039pm
Eastern time, and users get an email one minute before opening time to let them know, okay,
time to socialize, post your memey nonsense or hot takes, and know that others are also
definitely online to interact with it. Or not interact with it, making it way more easy to tell if your post was not even bad
in an ironic way. The site's landing page advertises no endless scrolling and no FOMO.
I mean, it's a great idea.
It's a great idea. Oh, and also a great idea I just had was, hey, what if you came back on Monday for more
tech news? Yeah, I know, it just popped into my brain.
I actually have a lot of great ideas in my journal. Maybe I'll show you.