Our first story today is really an attempt by me to correct a series of weird articles that
are circulating right now. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me in the comments.
It'll be like a fun game where everyone's feelings get hurt.
Last week, Microsoft called the TPM 2.0 hardware requirement for Windows 11 non-negotiable.
But this week, a bunch of Reddit posts and articles went up claiming Microsoft had flip-flopped
and we're now allowing the installation of Windows 11 on PCs that don't meet the official
requirements. Now, I've seen some chatter on this topic in the last little bit, so my
newsy sense went off. It was very unpleasant. It seems like the source of this idea is this
PC World article published on Monday, which claims Microsoft is issuing instructions for
installing Windows 11 on incompatible PCs. PC World says this article is translated from the
original version that appeared on their German-language sister site,
PC Welt, titled Microsoft erlaubt Installation von Windows 11 auf incompatiblen PCs.
They didn't have to yell. I'm not sure why they're so angry. But both articles link to this Microsoft support article, which says nothing about
allowing such installation and definitely doesn't give instructions for installing Windows 11.
It actually only warns about compatibility issues and the lack of security updates you'll get
if you do install Windows 11 on unsupported PCs, which you have been able to do using various
workarounds since Windows 11 launched. This support article has been up for quite some time.
I referenced it in our episode from a week ago, so I guess you could say this whole thing is
my fault. Who put that in there? Day four and five of what turned out to be the 12 week days
of OpenAI have come to pass, with day four's announcement being ChatGPT's Canvas notebook-like
feature now being made available to all users, even those on the free tier. For day five,
OpenAI's big announcement was the previously announced ChatGPT integration with Apple Intelligence,
which was also announced by Apple today in what can only be described as the big tech equivalent
to re-gifting. But it's worse, it's like Apple gave someone a gift and then OpenAI
took it and wrapped it up again and gave it back. Here, I got you something.
OpenAI did give out an Easter egg during the live stream, showing a calendar event for
super secret AGI on their iPhone. You know, just a little tongue in cheek way to tease the thing
Sam Altman says will usher in a post job society. It's just fun. As for Apple, that ChatGPT
integration is part of software updates rolling out to iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS with support for
Apple's image playground. So you can make little cartoon pictures and send them to your friends.
Stunning! Is it Serkan? It's fine. iPhone users can also make GenMoji now to rectify the fact that
no one thought to make a DJ octopus emoji. Among the arguably more useful changes,
Apple Mail is finally getting categorization, and there are some tweaks to the reimagined
Photos app that will hopefully save its designers from being lynched. Apple Intelligence also now
supports localized English dialects in more countries, including the UK and Canada. So I'll
now be telling Siri to order me a pop and a double double from Timmy's or she can take off like a
as soon as I get an iPhone. Not to be left out, Google announced their first Gemini 2.0
model Flash, which they say outperforms Gemini 1.5 Pro at twice the speed, etc, etc. Wake me up
when they're self-aware. While we're not there yet, all of Google's main demos today involved
agents, ones that can find out what the meta is for the game you're playing, an agent that will go
browse the web for you to say find the contact email for a list of companies. But for now,
only in your active browser tab, so it can keep checking if you're watching like a six-year-old.
User! User! Watch this! Wow, good job! There's an agent for controlling a robot and a new coding
agent called Jules. You know she's got tattoos. But the most interesting demo to me was Deep
Research, a tool kind of similar to Notebook LM, but instead of just summarizing sources you've
uploaded, it will search the web, compile sources on a topic, and then write a report. But what does
school even need students for anymore? Get them out of there! Google also published an updated
demo of its Project Astra Assistant deciphering laundry machine controls, which is a heck of a
thing to trust an AI with, but it's definitely not a pre-made demo this time. We stopped doing that.
Now I'm using these prototype glasses to test Project Astra hands-free.
Sorry, you're using what now? Why didn't you bring that up before?
What would I be without the quick bits? A shell of a man. Like a kind of mollusk.
Microsoft is rolling out a couple things. One is the Experimental Windows Mixed Reality link
app for Quest headsets, letting you set up multiple virtual monitors in 3D space.
The other is nearly 400 PC games being added to the Xbox app on Windows, along with a new
home layout and the Jump Back In section from the Xbox console dashboard. I mean,
if that doesn't entice PC gamers to use the Xbox app, then I don't know, but it won't.
General Motors has cut off funding for Cruise, the self-driving taxi startup it acquired back in
2016. It'll absorb Cruise's assets and employees into GM's own division working on autonomous
driving features for its consumer vehicles. Cruise staff reportedly got the memo the day
that this was announced by GM, leading Cruise co-founder and former CEO Kyle Vogt to call the
automaker a bunch of dummies. The Autopian writes this is yet another example of automakers learning
they're not tech companies. But cars are machines. That's technology. Nope. They're art.
That's nice. Meta social platforms including Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp suffered a
widespread outage today. At the time of writing, Meta hadn't given a specific reason for the outages
beyond calling them a technical issue, which I guess is technically correct. As soon as reports
started flooding in, Meta tweeted that they're working to get things back to normal because your
dog needs to be using Meta AI or he won't know what the f**k is going on. Huh? Huh? This dog needs
Meta AI. LG is exiting the Blu-ray player business and will no longer be making new players according
to Flatpanel's HD and sure enough LG's site lists the last Blu-ray player the company announced,
the UPK90, as discontinued. With Sony and Samsung also out of the market, Panasonic remains one of
the few remaining companies who haven't quit yet. And while this is sad news for disc enthusiasts,
I think we can all agree Blu-ray was a dumb name. CD, VHS, DVD, Blu-ray? We couldn't come up with a
good acronym. Come on. And an AI company called Artisan has attracted criticism for advertising
its services on San Francisco billboards with the slogan, Stop Hiring Humans. Telling companies to
hire its AI sales rep agents, which it calls artisans, instead. When interviewed by SF Gate CEO
Jaspar Carmichael Jack, which sounds like an AI-generated name, admitted the ads are somewhat
dystopian. But so is AI, adding that you don't draw eyes with boring messaging. Fair point.
And to be fair, you can't call this billboard boring. They even gave the AI laser eyes and
included a spelling mistake as an example of human error. See, unlike humans,
AIs won't make little mistakes like that. They may suggest that if you run out of gas,
you could try filling your car up with melted cheese, but that could work. You won't even try it.
Hey, why don't you try coming back here on Friday for more tech news? I mean,
probably won't change your life for the better in unimaginable ways.
Unless, uh...