WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.520 Bit right to the end, I always say, and unfortunately for everyone involved, that includes today's 00:00:07.520 --> 00:00:10.520 tech news. That was barely Shrek. That was good. 00:00:10.520 --> 00:00:15.720 Honestly, I heard Shrek, but I also heard a crazy guy would have. 00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:21.120 China has quietly made progress on one of the hardest problems in modern chipmaking, extreme 00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:27.720 ultraviolet lithography. According to a Reuters investigation, researchers at a high-security lab in Shenzhen have built 00:00:27.720 --> 00:00:34.080 a prototype EUV lithography machine, a device essential for producing advanced semiconductors 00:00:34.080 --> 00:00:38.800 and long monopolized by the Dutch company ASML. 00:00:38.800 --> 00:00:45.240 They love monopolies. These are massive, delicate, wildly expensive systems, and no company outside of the Netherlands 00:00:45.240 --> 00:00:51.040 has successfully built one until now, kind of. 00:00:51.040 --> 00:00:57.200 And maybe not really. China's prototype already generates EUV light, and reportedly fills nearly an entire 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:01.760 factory floor, although it has not yet produced working chips. 00:01:01.760 --> 00:01:07.400 To make this happen, China recruited former ASML engineers, many of them Chinese-born 00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:13.080 and recently retired, offering them massive signing bonuses and housing incentives. 00:01:13.080 --> 00:01:17.880 One engineer reportedly arrived on his first day of work and was handed a fake ID with 00:01:17.880 --> 00:01:22.160 a new false name on it, and when he went in the doors, he discovered a bunch of his old 00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:25.560 co-workers, all with snazzy new names too. 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:29.800 It's Jeremy now. Me too. We're all Jeremy. 00:01:29.800 --> 00:01:34.160 Apparently, everyone was instructed to go buy their new aliases and to never acknowledge 00:01:34.160 --> 00:01:40.920 the project outside of the compound. To make things even more interesting, it kind of sounds like this is a skunkworks project 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:46.920 with China buying up parts from older ASML machines in used markets to get around all 00:01:46.920 --> 00:01:52.740 those pesky export controls. Now, if this scheme works out, it would be kind of wild, because it's basically the 00:01:52.740 --> 00:01:59.680 plot of the red movies. The retired Black Ops agents replaced by semiconductor equipment engineers. 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:05.760 The only thing these operatives are assassinating is the US hegemony. 00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:13.200 Okay, now that works. The global RAM shortage, being driven largely by AI companies buying up massive amounts 00:02:13.200 --> 00:02:18.080 of memory, is about to push PC and smartphone prices higher, and it doesn't look like it's 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:25.120 going to stop anytime soon. An IDC market analysis warns that the crunch could last well into 2027, and that major 00:02:25.120 --> 00:02:30.440 PC and phone makers are already preparing further price increases as the memory supply 00:02:30.440 --> 00:02:36.680 tightens. Apparently, Apple and Samsung are a bit insulated from all this because they secure their RAM 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:41.160 12 to 24 months in advance, so they probably won't increase their prices because they 00:02:41.160 --> 00:02:44.640 would have no reason to do that just because every other company in the market is doing 00:02:44.640 --> 00:02:51.760 that, right? All this pressure to get RAM is causing some wacky behavior in enthusiast spaces, as older 00:02:51.760 --> 00:02:59.840 CPUs like AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D are now selling on eBay for way more than newer chips, simply 00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:04.640 because they let people use the only slightly cheaper DDR4 memory. 00:03:04.640 --> 00:03:09.600 Yet this memory shortage hasn't stopped NVIDIA from releasing its RTX Pro 5000 Blackwell 00:03:09.600 --> 00:03:17.120 GPU, with a massive 72GB of GDDR7 targeting AI developers, data scientists, and creative 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:23.320 professionals. On Monday, we covered rumors that NVIDIA was slowing production of its lower to mid-tier 00:03:23.320 --> 00:03:28.440 5000 series gaming GPUs, and we kind of joked that it was because they were moving the 00:03:28.440 --> 00:03:32.120 GDDR7 RAM from those cards into more expensive products. 00:03:32.120 --> 00:03:35.840 Well, I guess we now know where all the RAM went. 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:40.600 I'm over here. Can't catch me. 00:03:40.600 --> 00:03:46.520 Apple has announced sweeping changes to iOS that are, legitimately, big in Japan. 00:03:46.520 --> 00:03:51.720 As of this week, iPhone users in Japan can officially side load apps, meaning developers 00:03:51.720 --> 00:03:57.600 can distribute apps outside the app store using alternative marketplaces like Alt Store. 00:03:57.600 --> 00:04:02.480 This comes as part of Apple's effort to comply with Japan's new competition rules, and is 00:04:02.480 --> 00:04:08.840 only the latest example of regulators forcing a crack into Apple's famously lockdown ecosystem. 00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:13.160 That said, this is still Apple, so the freedom comes with fine print. 00:04:13.160 --> 00:04:18.400 Apple will continue collecting fees on third-party in-app payments, and even on web purchases 00:04:18.400 --> 00:04:24.320 tied to iOS apps. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has, of course, already criticized the changes, arguing that 00:04:24.320 --> 00:04:28.760 Apple is still taxing developers even when it is no longer providing distribution or 00:04:28.760 --> 00:04:32.480 payment processing. An accusation Apple is happy to lean into. 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:37.160 The tech giant's updated developer agreement gives the company new powers to recover unpaid 00:04:37.160 --> 00:04:43.720 fees owed by devs who had the gall to conduct their business outside of Apple's holy dominion. 00:04:43.720 --> 00:04:49.280 I see what you have hidden. Your every atom cries out for penitence. 00:04:49.280 --> 00:04:54.320 So while this is, ultimately, progress, it's a little bit more of a sour Apple than a sweet 00:04:54.320 --> 00:05:02.760 one. Oh, girls are like onions. 00:05:02.760 --> 00:05:06.600 Unsort the quick bits. They have layers. 00:05:06.600 --> 00:05:14.120 And sometimes they make you want to cry. Riot Games has discovered a critical motherboard flaw that lets hardware-level cheats slip 00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:18.000 in and activate before anti-cheat software even wakes up. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:25.360 The bump in the night was real. The issue affects boards from ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, and Asrock, where a security feature 00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:30.760 called IOMMU isn't fully initializing at boot, despite looking like it is. 00:05:30.760 --> 00:05:35.640 Riot worked with manufacturers to push BIOS updates, and now Valorant players who don't 00:05:35.640 --> 00:05:40.400 update their systems will be blocked with a VAN restriction, meaning that your account 00:05:40.400 --> 00:05:47.920 will be flagged for using cheater-adjacent hardware. Oh yeah, what about Innocent Intel Proving Guilty, huh, some legal system? 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:56.120 Sir, this is a hero shooter. LG has backed down after TV owners freaked out when a Microsoft co-pilot app suddenly 00:05:56.120 --> 00:05:59.120 appeared on their home screens and could not be uninstalled. 00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:04.840 Well, LG has heard their cries and says it will allow users to delete co-pilot if they 00:06:04.840 --> 00:06:09.920 want, although they also clarified that it was only a browser shortcut, not a built-in 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:14.360 app. All this fuss over a little shortcut, don't you feel silly? 00:06:14.360 --> 00:06:18.840 No, actually, turns out quietly injecting an AI chatbot into a device people use to 00:06:18.840 --> 00:06:25.200 watch movies was not the vibe. Several popular browser extensions, with more than 8 million installs, have been quietly 00:06:25.200 --> 00:06:30.800 harvesting users' full AI conversations and selling them for marketing purposes. 00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:35.600 Security researchers found the extensions inject scripts directly into sites like ChatGPT, 00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:41.040 Claude from Anthropic, Gemini, co-pilot, and those other ones, and record everything that 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:47.200 gets said. Even worse, many of these extensions were labeled featured in Chrome and Edge stores. 00:06:47.200 --> 00:06:52.600 So yeah, that random free VPN you were using for therapy time with your AI girlfriend might 00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:57.480 have actually been recording the whole time. Maybe you can ask them to send it to you and you can remember the good times. 00:06:57.480 --> 00:07:03.320 Amazon caught a North Korean infiltrator working in its IT systems thanks to something almost 00:07:03.320 --> 00:07:11.480 invisible, typing lag. Security teams noticed keystrokes from a supposedly US-based worker were taking over 110 milliseconds 00:07:11.480 --> 00:07:15.840 to reach Seattle way longer than expected and definitely something that would show up 00:07:15.840 --> 00:07:21.920 in their performance review. But really, that tiny delay suggested the laptop was being controlled from halfway across the 00:07:21.920 --> 00:07:27.160 world. Amazon traced the activity, confirmed it was part of a North Korean remote work scheme, 00:07:27.160 --> 00:07:35.280 and kicked the contractor out within days. I knew some companies were tracking their employees, but this is ridiculous. 00:07:35.280 --> 00:07:42.240 And a Chinese tech company called Limex Dynamics just showed off Tron2, a robot that appears 00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:47.840 to consist of a waste torso module thing with two limbs that can be swapped between having 00:07:47.840 --> 00:07:51.920 legs or arms depending on the job. But not both. 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:59.240 Full robot bodies are so 2025. The launch video shows the robot lifting stuff and doing a variety of tasks, but despite 00:07:59.240 --> 00:08:05.600 its cool and original Tron name, there's no Daft Punk or 9-inch nails score, unfortunately. 00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:09.960 It doesn't even leave a neon solid light trail behind it wherever it goes, even when 00:08:10.040 --> 00:08:14.840 the disembodied robot hips are clearly in its weird doing the splits on Rollerblade's 00:08:14.840 --> 00:08:21.120 light cycle mode. But if none of that has you sold, wait till you see this half-humanoid perform some very 00:08:21.120 --> 00:08:26.600 inhumanoid, uh, Rollerblade summer salts? 00:08:26.600 --> 00:08:29.680 Is this like its mating ritual or something? 00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:35.000 What even? Whatever it is, it's working. Hey! What are you doing in my swamp? 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:39.240 You can't Rollerblade here! That's it for today's tech news. 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:43.160 Now get out of here, we'll see, oh I think I was still supposed to be doing the accent 00:08:43.160 --> 00:08:44.600 there, but it's okay.