1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,520 Between Avatar 1 and 2, the humans went from harvesting unobtainium to slurping up alien 2 00:00:05,520 --> 00:00:09,440 whale brain juice. It's a cautionary tale about how they should have been harvesting 3 00:00:09,440 --> 00:00:14,720 tech news from the get-go. And also something about colonialism. Did you see Avatar 2? 4 00:00:14,720 --> 00:00:22,720 In 3D. Now that's technology. Discord has confirmed a data breach in which hackers were able to access 5 00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:28,400 government IDs. Discord says that the hackers hit one of their third-party customer service providers 6 00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:33,440 and gained access to some personal information shared by users with that provider, including 7 00:00:33,440 --> 00:00:39,200 users' names, emails and other contact details, IP addresses, messages with support agents, 8 00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:45,440 and a small number of images of government IDs. Again, which is crazy because I thought the UK 9 00:00:45,440 --> 00:00:50,640 government rolled out age checks only after they made all the hackers promise to leave the IDs alone. 10 00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:55,520 Hopefully all the other hackers stick to the agreement and we won't see any more IDs get 11 00:00:55,520 --> 00:00:59,840 compromised from the hundreds of other popular platforms that have also collected them. 12 00:00:59,840 --> 00:01:04,880 Microsoft is assuring gamers that their Xbox hardware isn't going anywhere. 13 00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:11,920 Console elves won't steal it away in the middle of the night. When Microsoft announced they'd be raising the price on multiple tiers of their Game Pass 14 00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:17,040 subscription service, rumors began to spread that this focus on profiting from software 15 00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:22,480 and membership fees marked the end for Xbox hardware. However, Microsoft has now stated 16 00:01:22,560 --> 00:01:27,920 that they are still investing in upcoming first-party consoles and devices made by Xbox. 17 00:01:27,920 --> 00:01:32,640 It makes sense that Microsoft isn't totally giving up on Xbox hardware because apparently 18 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:36,960 they're still figuring out exactly how to make those gaming services profitable. 19 00:01:36,960 --> 00:01:40,960 According to The Verge, Microsoft is considering launching a free, 20 00:01:40,960 --> 00:01:45,760 ad-supported Xbox cloud gaming service while a Bloomberg report came out saying 21 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:51,600 Microsoft lost almost $300 million in sales by putting Call of Duty 6 on Game Pass. 22 00:01:52,160 --> 00:01:57,200 So yeah, maybe it's not time to jump ship on building hardware quite just yet. 23 00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:02,000 That said, it doesn't look like Xbox is doing a good job of releasing hardware either 24 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:07,040 because apparently a first-party Xbox handheld was cancelled when Microsoft wouldn't commit 25 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:11,200 to filling AMD's minimum order requirements for the chips inside the hardware. 26 00:02:11,600 --> 00:02:14,800 Well, we really just don't know if we're going to sell that many, so I was like, 27 00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:22,080 can we just do like, Baker's Dozen? The Xbox brand is 23 years old now, and like many others, 28 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:26,320 it's age. It's clearly going through a bit of an existential crisis, something that routinely 29 00:02:26,320 --> 00:02:32,800 happens at age 23 these days. It's true though. Hey, I hope you figure out who you want to be, 30 00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:38,400 Xbox. I may be time to go backpacking to find yourself. You know who seems to be really figuring 31 00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:44,320 themselves out recently? Xbox's first-party hardware partner AMD, who has entered into 32 00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:49,840 another lucrative partnership, this time with OpenAI. The new partnership was announced today, 33 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:57,600 and we'll see OpenAI deploy what they describe as six gigawatts worth of AMD's Instinct AI GPUs, 34 00:02:57,600 --> 00:03:03,360 which I guess translates to potentially millions of GPUs over the next several years, 35 00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:11,200 beginning with one gigawatt of the upcoming Instinct MI450 GPU in the first half of 2026. 36 00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:17,040 Great, Scott! What a missed opportunity for these nerds to have referenced the 1.21 37 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:20,960 gigawatts used to time travel and back to the future, but whatever. 38 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:30,720 The deal is worth tens of billions of dollars a year for AMD and gives OpenAI the ability to 39 00:03:30,720 --> 00:03:37,760 acquire up to 10% of that company for a penny per share. Not only is this deal seemingly great for 40 00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:43,200 AMD's wallet, but it also highlights growing confidence in their AI GPUs, which could help 41 00:03:43,200 --> 00:03:48,640 them become more competitive with NVIDIA, who obviously dominates that field. Yet, 42 00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:54,000 the production demands of making all of these enterprise AI GPUs has PC gamers concerned that 43 00:03:54,000 --> 00:04:02,640 AMD's head is in the cloud instead of the desktop market, which is already dealing with a storage 44 00:04:02,640 --> 00:04:08,960 and memory-related pricing apocalypse. I don't think Dr. Lisa Sue will forget about us. She took 45 00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:13,440 an oath to protect the vulnerable, heal the sick, and all that stuff, you know? Right? 46 00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:20,880 Now, in the way of water, the second Avatar movie, sure, those Metcaina clan kids can swim fast, 47 00:04:20,960 --> 00:04:25,840 but there's no way they're beating the Quickbits. Quickbits don't even have to hold their breath. 48 00:04:27,280 --> 00:04:33,280 Intel's imminent Panther Lake mobile CPUs are reportedly set to feature another kind of chip 49 00:04:33,280 --> 00:04:39,360 branding. Yay! Every Panther Lake CPU will allegedly include integrated graphics, 50 00:04:39,360 --> 00:04:46,560 but the models with the highest spec will be referred to as Core Ultra X. Elon has gotta be hyped on 51 00:04:46,560 --> 00:04:55,840 this, and you can expect to see a Core Ultra X9 and X7 chip. Make it stop. Like Jason X, these Core 52 00:04:55,840 --> 00:05:02,320 Ultra X CPUs are gonna be beefier than their compatriots. The CPUs will use 12 XE3 GPU cores, 53 00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:07,840 a big jump from the 8 XE2 cores found on Lunar Lake processors, so Intel is clearly focused on 54 00:05:07,840 --> 00:05:14,240 making more powerful iGPUs to compete with AMD's APU. For a while there, we thought about combining 55 00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:20,160 Techlinked with Jackass to create Techlinked X, but there were just too many casualties. 56 00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:26,320 The Nintendo Switch 2 supports multiple versions of NVIDIA's DLSS as discovered by 57 00:05:26,320 --> 00:05:30,960 Digital Foundry in one of their recent YouTube videos. One version is practically the same as 58 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:36,400 the one you'd find on NVIDIA's PC GPUs, but the second version is a sort of DLSS light that 59 00:05:36,400 --> 00:05:41,840 prioritizes performance and appears built to upscale games beyond 1080p on the Switch 2. 60 00:05:41,840 --> 00:05:47,360 This lighter version is far less resource-intensive, but becomes more apparent during camera motion, 61 00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:53,920 revealing unfiltered pixels. According to some reporting by Digital Foundry, game developers 62 00:05:53,920 --> 00:05:58,400 working on Switch 2 titles are able to choose which DLSS variant best suits their performance 63 00:05:58,400 --> 00:06:05,440 targets. Do a Mario impression saying, It's a me! Super sampling! Open AI and Johnny Ive are 64 00:06:05,440 --> 00:06:10,800 hitting some roadblocks on the way to creating their secretive AI device. According to a report 65 00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:16,320 by the Financial Times, Open AI and Ive, the legendary Apple product designer, are working 66 00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:22,240 to build a palm-sized piece of hardware that doesn't have a screen but uses audio and visual cues to 67 00:06:22,240 --> 00:06:27,280 serve as your AI assistant. However, they are running up against the privacy concerns created 68 00:06:27,280 --> 00:06:32,080 by designing hardware that is always listening and or watching, along with concerns about how 69 00:06:32,080 --> 00:06:37,520 much compute power is needed for a mass consumer product to run Open AI's suite of models. 70 00:06:37,520 --> 00:06:42,240 So far, this all sounds a bit like that AI friend product Linus tried on ShortCircuit, 71 00:06:42,240 --> 00:06:49,920 named Riley. And he seemed to hate. But that's only because there can only be one AI Riley. 72 00:06:51,440 --> 00:06:55,840 Wait, Activision's Ricochet anti-cheat appears to be doing what it's supposed to. 73 00:06:56,480 --> 00:07:01,200 Thank god. Cheating is the scourge of many competitive online games, in case you didn't know, 74 00:07:01,200 --> 00:07:06,720 but with the launch of Call of Duty Black Ops 7's early access beta, Ricochet appears to be 75 00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:13,760 catching cheaters hyper-efficiently. Uh-oh. They claim to be stopping 97% of cheaters within 30 76 00:07:13,760 --> 00:07:18,880 minutes of their first sign-in, and that fewer than 1% of cheating attempts are making it into 77 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:24,000 matches. This is great news. Hopefully, Ricochet's work sets an example for the rest of the gaming 78 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:28,160 industry. But the standard they've set for themselves also needs to be maintained, because 79 00:07:28,160 --> 00:07:32,960 the game is only in early access and concurrent gameplay numbers have been lackluster for a Call 80 00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:38,880 of Duty game. As the anti-cheating ramps up, people care less about the game. The Astros aren't in 81 00:07:38,880 --> 00:07:44,800 the MLB playoffs, and they're clearing cheaters off of a COD game. Maybe there is hope for fair 82 00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:50,560 play after all. I'm sure that joke makes sense. To someone, yeah, yeah. But I wouldn't know. 83 00:07:50,560 --> 00:07:57,840 And in Japan, NTT East Group has teamed up with Chiba Prefecture to protect the poultry industry, 84 00:07:57,840 --> 00:08:03,600 with drones equipped with lasers. This doesn't need to be said, but this is bad ass. 85 00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:08,160 Chicken defending laser drones. Sadly, the more I tell you about these drones, 86 00:08:08,160 --> 00:08:12,400 the more pedestrian and logical this plan all sounds. But I'm gonna do it anyway. 87 00:08:12,400 --> 00:08:17,440 Lasers aren't gonna set fires or anything like that. They're actually being used to scare other 88 00:08:17,440 --> 00:08:23,440 birds away from interacting with the chickens in order to avoid any spread of avian flu, 89 00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:27,360 which will help to avoid having to call the chickens. We're living in the future, baby. 90 00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:33,200 I'm gonna start shooting a laser pointer at my nephew whenever he comes at me with a runny nose. 91 00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:40,400 Get away from me, Goopy. And that's why you're not a parent. And you should get away from me, too. 92 00:08:40,400 --> 00:08:46,720 But come back on Wednesday for more tech news. I've got to get my Nevi language lessons in. 93 00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:52,080 I'm trying to learn it before fire and ash. That's Avatar 3, so I don't have to use any 94 00:08:52,080 --> 00:09:02,560 subtitles. Hey, olove means until next time.