1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,760 Hey, do you ever think about medieval tech news? 2 00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:07,240 Like a town crier talking about advancements in trebuchets? 3 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:10,640 Instead of liking the video, they throw tomatoes and stuff. 4 00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:16,240 Whether it's good or bad, you know everything. So Valve announced three new hardware products today 5 00:00:16,240 --> 00:00:20,960 and wait, three, three? 6 00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:25,320 Amongst those announcements were a new steam controller and steam machine. 7 00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:29,640 The controller is essentially the controls from the steam deck with no screen, 8 00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:35,560 but with some improvements like magnetic joysticks and a controller puck, a wireless transmitter 9 00:00:35,560 --> 00:00:40,840 that provides a fast stable connection to the controller and doubles as a magnetic charging station, 10 00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:43,840 which IMO is a much better innovation 11 00:00:43,840 --> 00:00:46,840 than the original steam controller from 2015, 12 00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:50,160 which made its giant track pads its whole personality. 13 00:00:50,160 --> 00:00:54,320 As for the new steam machine, it's a little cube shaped steam OSPC 14 00:00:54,320 --> 00:00:58,000 powered by a six core 30 watt AMD ZenFORCE CPU 15 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:02,200 and an RDNA 3 GPU, which is apparently powerful enough, 16 00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:06,440 despite being the last gen to play games at 4K 60 17 00:01:06,440 --> 00:01:12,640 when AMD's FSR features are enabled. It will come in 512 gig and two terabyte variants. 18 00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:16,560 And thankfully, Valve has given it interchangeable face plates 19 00:01:16,560 --> 00:01:20,840 and a programmable LED light strip to help it look a little bit less 20 00:01:20,840 --> 00:01:24,840 like the Xbox Series X had a baby with a Nintendo GameCube. 21 00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:29,600 Not to say that's a bad thing at all. I mean, folks are already calling this new steam machine 22 00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:34,600 the GabeCube, which this guy's custom steam deck boot animation 23 00:01:34,880 --> 00:01:38,760 was already prepared for three years ago. So come up with something else, I don't know. 24 00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:42,280 But his holiness Lord Gaben's work was not yet finished, 25 00:01:42,280 --> 00:01:46,680 for he walked across the water from his yacht to also reveal the long rumored 26 00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:50,840 and long leaked steam frame VR headset. 27 00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:54,520 It's got a resolution of 2160 by 2160 per eye 28 00:01:54,520 --> 00:02:00,920 and FOV of up to 110 degrees and is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset. 29 00:02:00,920 --> 00:02:04,680 Valve says the headset is a streaming first experience 30 00:02:04,680 --> 00:02:08,320 with a six gigahertz wireless adapter included in the box. 31 00:02:08,320 --> 00:02:13,440 Although wireless VR using six gigahertz adapters has been the high-end home VR standard for a while now, 32 00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:17,160 not many, if any, VR headsets have described themselves 33 00:02:17,160 --> 00:02:20,520 that way, yet Valve also reiterates a couple of times 34 00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:24,760 that steam frame is a PC and runs SteamOS 35 00:02:24,800 --> 00:02:28,560 so it can play a growing number of games all by itself, 36 00:02:28,560 --> 00:02:32,880 which could eventually grow even more if developers grab the developer kit. 37 00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:36,720 Possibilities are endless. The steam frame comes with a couple new controllers 38 00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:42,840 which can be tracked entirely by the frame's inside out tracking system quest style. 39 00:02:42,840 --> 00:02:46,760 So no need for the Valve index's external tracking stations. 40 00:02:46,760 --> 00:02:51,080 Unfortunately, that also makes Steam's older VR controllers obsolete. 41 00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:55,480 It won't work with this one. LTT put up a video so you can hear Linus's thoughts 42 00:02:55,480 --> 00:03:00,880 if you want, although one thing that wasn't covered in that video or in Valve's announcements 43 00:03:00,880 --> 00:03:08,000 is a price or release date for the new hardware. We've only got a vague promise of shipping in early 2026. 44 00:03:08,320 --> 00:03:11,840 Uncertainty, however, is nothing new for Valve diehards. 45 00:03:11,840 --> 00:03:15,280 There also wasn't any mention of Half-Life 3, 46 00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:19,280 but that hasn't stopped the folks on the subreddit from losing their minds about once again 47 00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:22,960 being left in limbo. Please don't hurt us, Gaben. 48 00:03:22,960 --> 00:03:27,360 Like buying a lottery ticket on your birthday. The hope is at an all-time high. 49 00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:31,360 Germany has ruled that OpenAI violated copyright law 50 00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:35,680 by training chat GPT on the lyrics of popular songs 51 00:03:35,680 --> 00:03:39,640 and reproducing those lyrics in response to user prompts. 52 00:03:39,640 --> 00:03:42,800 Now that might not seem very infringy, 53 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:48,440 but the music industry makes a big deal about who is allowed to officially distribute music lyrics. 54 00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:54,640 The court decided that even short excerpts generated by chat GPT count as infringement, 55 00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:59,480 ordering the company to pay an undisclosed amount in damages to German artists. 56 00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:03,680 Now this music-related AI ruling comes just as AI-generated 57 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:07,080 music is, horrifically, becoming way more popular. 58 00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:11,080 A fake AI country band called Breaking Rust 59 00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:14,240 just hit number one on Billboard's digital song 60 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:17,920 sales chart with its new song, Small Town Dreams. 61 00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:23,160 Because it's a digital fart? 62 00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:26,960 Small Town Dreams, what does AI know about small towns? 63 00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:32,440 It lives in a data center surrounded by concrete and the soothing roar of jet turbines nowadays. 64 00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:35,480 However, it's not the end of real music just yet. 65 00:04:35,480 --> 00:04:38,680 Unlike the more well-known Billboard Hot 100, 66 00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:44,720 the company's digital song sales chart only counts digital downloads, not radio plays, 67 00:04:44,720 --> 00:04:48,160 keeping our grandparents' ears just a little bit safer 68 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:51,480 after a Deezer survey found that 97% of listeners 69 00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:55,600 couldn't tell AI-generated songs from human ones. 70 00:04:55,600 --> 00:05:01,000 So I guess that we all deserve the slop. Now, to be clear, the quick bits were around 71 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:06,080 during the medieval ages, but all they'll say about it is that they missed the mutton. 72 00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:10,680 I keep asking. Hackers are reviving Google's discontinued Nest thermostats 73 00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:14,360 with an open-source project called No Longer Evil. 74 00:05:14,360 --> 00:05:18,600 The custom firmware reroutes traffic to a reverse engineered server 75 00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:21,960 tricking the devices into thinking Google turned them back on. 76 00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:25,040 Meanwhile, Google's fighting a Chinese fishing ring 77 00:05:25,040 --> 00:05:29,440 called Lighthouse, suing the group for its fishing as a service campaigns 78 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:33,320 that may have compromised up to 115 million credit cards 79 00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:38,840 in the US alone with just one operation. So for once, Google's the good guy 80 00:05:38,840 --> 00:05:43,880 and so are the thermostat hackers for fixing the bad guy thing that Google did. 81 00:05:43,920 --> 00:05:47,920 Okay. Microsoft's Windows chief, Pavan Davaluri, 82 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:53,160 said on Twitter this week that Windows is evolving into an agentic OS 83 00:05:53,160 --> 00:05:57,280 that will use AI to proactively act on your behalf. 84 00:05:57,280 --> 00:06:01,920 The internet unsurprisingly pushed back with a collective, please don't. 85 00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:06,120 The post got absolutely cooked in the comments with some people saying that nobody wants this 86 00:06:06,120 --> 00:06:11,960 while others took the time to beg for Microsoft to just bring back Windows 7, wasting keystrokes. 87 00:06:11,960 --> 00:06:17,000 I mean, let's be... So yeah, Microsoft wants Windows to predict your questions before you ask. 88 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:20,600 But will it be able to predict everyone switching to Linux instead? 89 00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:23,720 Ba-ba-ba-boop, ba-ba-ba-boop, gotcha. 90 00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:30,160 Sony just announced a cheaper, Japanese language only PS5 exclusive to Japan. 91 00:06:30,160 --> 00:06:35,000 It's the first time they've region locked a console since segmenting different models of the PS2 92 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:39,480 way back in 2000. Now like Nintendo's Japan only switch to model, 93 00:06:39,480 --> 00:06:45,380 this special PS5 is an attempt by Sony to make the console more affordable domestically. 94 00:06:45,380 --> 00:06:50,940 Meanwhile, Sony also revealed a new 27 inch PlayStation branded gaming monitor, 95 00:06:50,940 --> 00:06:55,940 boasting a truly unremarkable 1440P panel at 240 Hertz 96 00:06:55,980 --> 00:06:59,660 that somehow drops down to 120 Hertz if you plug it into a PlayStation. 97 00:06:59,660 --> 00:07:02,780 But it does have a new snazzy charging hook 98 00:07:02,780 --> 00:07:06,220 for your controller. At least something's getting plugged in 99 00:07:06,220 --> 00:07:09,780 because it sure isn't that you're imported PS5 100 00:07:09,780 --> 00:07:14,580 because you can't get it here. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 101 00:07:14,580 --> 00:07:20,700 just unveiled research showing proposed needle injectable chips that zip through your veins 102 00:07:20,700 --> 00:07:25,340 and park themselves in your brain. No craniotomy required. 103 00:07:25,340 --> 00:07:28,580 These wafer thin devices hitch a ride on immune cells, 104 00:07:28,580 --> 00:07:31,580 sneak past the blood brain barrier, okay, 105 00:07:31,580 --> 00:07:36,260 and deliver targeted electrical therapy to stubborn conditions like Alzheimer's, 106 00:07:36,260 --> 00:07:39,300 multiple sclerosis, and even brain tumors. 107 00:07:39,300 --> 00:07:42,300 I mean, hey, Neo used needles too, didn't he? 108 00:07:42,300 --> 00:07:45,620 When can we get the Kung Fu update? That's what this is for. 109 00:07:45,620 --> 00:07:50,740 And a humanoid robot built in Russia made its stage debut earlier this week, 110 00:07:50,740 --> 00:07:55,220 briefly stumbling like an inept drunkard before crashing onto the stage, 111 00:07:55,220 --> 00:07:58,980 scattering its parts on the floor. It was actually sad to watch. 112 00:07:58,980 --> 00:08:06,580 It wasn't a great introduction to the rubber faced robot, but at least AI dolls, AI dolls, okay, 113 00:08:06,620 --> 00:08:10,780 promotional images show the bot got some smooches. 114 00:08:10,780 --> 00:08:15,580 The clankers are stealing our potential partners now, honestly, predictable. 115 00:08:15,580 --> 00:08:20,860 A robotics company that does seem to be doing well is China's UBTECH, or UBTECH, 116 00:08:20,860 --> 00:08:25,100 who announced over $112 million in orders this year 117 00:08:25,100 --> 00:08:28,580 for its Walker S2 humanoid robot model. 118 00:08:28,580 --> 00:08:34,060 But they announced it with a terrifying Star Wars-esque droid army video, 119 00:08:34,300 --> 00:08:39,300 and China apparently thinks that's totally fine, I guess. 120 00:08:41,180 --> 00:08:44,420 And ended this tech news episode has, 121 00:08:44,420 --> 00:08:49,220 come back on Friday for more. All this talk of armies and the medieval ages 122 00:08:49,220 --> 00:08:52,820 has me wanting to play, wanting to watch Excalibur 123 00:08:52,820 --> 00:08:58,620 and play Age of Empires. So I'm out of here to absolutely do those two things.