Ah, you've arrived, and just in time, the tech news is about to start.
And they're super chill about the dress code, so that's perfect.
Apple is reportedly gearing up for a big wave of AI hardware, including smart glasses,
camera-equipped AirPods for some reason, and even an AI-pendant thing,
which will finally signal to the normies that they can buy AI wearables now.
According to German notorious Markulon, aka Bloomberg's Mark German,
the glasses have evolved from early tethered prototypes
with external battery packs to sleeker frames with everything embedded directly inside,
including high-resolution cameras, but not a display.
The pendant, meanwhile, will have a low-res camera for environmental awareness,
and lean on your iPhone to power its AI features, which I need like yesterday.
My pendants haven't been hallucinating nearly enough.
Get these guys some LSD.
And Apple has pivoted to exploring camera-equipped AirPods
instead of a camera-equipped Apple Watch after realizing that viewing that video would suck.
Missed opportunity to redefine the term watching video. These new AirPods could incorporate gesture controls
and contextual awareness, but most importantly, these new devices will likely be able to let you record
fingerboard tricks from five different angles.
Six, seven. Valve has confirmed that Steam Deck OLED shortages
are tied directly to, shocker,
the ongoing memory and storage supply crisis, according to a little notice
now sitting at the bottom of the handheld store page. The news comes shortly after the Steam machine was delayed,
and the worst part of me worries that Valve is doing this on purpose
to create yet another Half-Life 3 situation. Valve could easily survive another 20 years
on the hopes of fans and commissions on CSGO trading.
It's legal, kind of. But the fact that even the mighty Valve
is being affected by this data-centered driven crisis lines up with what memory controller company
Fyzen CEO recently said in an interview. He predicts that many consumer electronics manufacturers
will go bankrupt or exit product lines by the end of 2026,
describing a structural shift in DRAM and NAN supply
that favors data centers over everyday devices. Which is fine by me.
We don't wait in lines to use the payphone in public places anymore.
I think we really lost something there. Ferdinand has subscribed to things.
Sitting a box full of graffiti and spit. Meanwhile, Western Digital revealed during an investor call
that they are pretty much sold out for 2026.
They apparently have data centers buying drives years in advance. So if you thought going back to the old hard disk drive
was gonna save you, then you were sorely mistaken, bucko.
As memory and storage continues to get prioritized for AI infrastructure,
we're rapidly heading into a situation where hardware will be so expensive
that people just won't be able to own their own computers anymore. And renting your bleeps and bloops
will really be the only option. In 10 years, we're gonna be driving across
the silicon wasteland, pumping buzzling into our EVSwap 1973 Ford Falcons
as we try to escape the war boys. And we'll still be making payments to a Morton Joe
for a lease on a Game Boy Color. At least we'll have payphones.
With a Chrome Edition. Discord's global age verification rollout
somehow got even messier this week. After users in the UK discovered
they were part of what Discord calls an experiment with Persona,
an alternate age assurance vendor. Persona is also used by Reddit, Roblox,
and OpenAI for age assurance. But users found this concerning for a couple reasons.
For one, Discord promised that age verification data would be kept local, not stored.
But Persona stores the info users submit for seven days
and then deletes it. That's not zero days. For two, one of Persona's biggest investors
is Founders Fund, the venture capital firm directed by co-founder of Palantir
and winner of the world's sweatiest billionaire award, which is the high bar, Peter Thiel.
And while Thiel's company isn't personally handling the face scans,
the association with the guy whose surveillance company builds tracking tools that helps the U.S. military
shorten the kill chain, and who appeared over 2200 times
in the recently released Epstein files, isn't going to help with user outrage.
What's wrong with that? He likes a massage. Discord told Kotaku that the Persona experiment
has concluded and they have edited their support blog to remove mention of it,
but that hasn't stopped the ongoing fallout. Discord competitor TeamSpeak says it hit hosting capacity
from the wave of users fleeing Discord. And even though the September data breach
that exposed roughly 70,000 Discord users' government IDs
was actually not connected to age verification rollouts in the past year or so,
collecting even more IDs was always bound to be met with significant pushback.
I, for one, will never push back, though, against our sponsor, I consent.
The QuickBits and I were just talking and we think it's so brave that you showed up
to today's tech news without a prom date. I feel like I would be absolutely mortified
if that were me, but you're like the Joan of Arc of tech news. You're like owning it.
Wow, epic. I have a date every time she's just off screen.
BiteDance is scrambling to add safeguards to its AI video generator, CDance 2.0,
after Hollywood came at it with the law. Play law and order sound effect.
Disney sent a cease and desist accusing BiteDance of a virtual smashing grab of its IP,
saying the tool treats its characters like free public domain clip art.
That's right. The Lion King is not public domain clip art.
It's just incredibly traumatizing. That said, CDance 2.0 is actually
a genuine leap in AI video. It can cut between shots with consistency,
generate decent fight choreography, and users have been cranking out everything
from a cat in Godzilla doing a Dragon Ball Z fusion dance to some actually funny Star Wars skits,
which really tickles Riley's heart.
And other parts. To be fair, it's because a human wrote them. A very clever human was involved.
But a very believable performance from AI Anakin,
doesn't hurt. Open AI has hired Peter Steinbagger,
the creator of viral AI assistant Open Claw to build its next generation of personal agents.
In his announcement, Steinbagger stated that Open Claw will stay open source
unlike the vast majority of Open AI's products.
What does that stand for? Open. He also pointed to Europe's regulatory environment
as a factor for the move to Open AI, tweeting that in the US, people are enthusiastic about his work.
While in Europe, they shout for regulation and responsibility.
Cridge. To be fair, Europe itself has acknowledged this.
Mario Draghi, former Italian Prime Minister, published a 2024 report calling the EU's innovation gap
with the US an existential challenge. But damn it, they just love regulating things so much.
It's hard to stop. Nokia, the company that made our dad's cell phones
has won a patent dispute over the H265 Kodak,
also known as HEVC, forcing Acer and ASUS to halt certain PC
and laptop sales in Germany. Europe's at it again.
Nokia felt that the use of the Kodak by these brands was not up to the fair, reasonable,
and non-discriminatory obligations tied to its designation as a standard, essential patent,
allowing Nokia to file for an injunction in Munich courts.
So many fun words in there. Afterwards, both manufacturers filed for an appeal
and will be pursuing further legal action to reach a fair solution as quickly as possible end quote.
So if you're a German and you wanna buy an Acer or ASUS PC with your marks or whatever,
it looks like you have to actually go into Dasgeschaft to get one while supplies laugh.
T-Mobile is rolling out a live call translation that works without an app.
Dubbed live translation, it runs at the network level
and can be activated after enrolling in the beta program by simply dialing an asterisk 8-7 asterisk on your phone.
8-7. Only one person on the call needs to be on T-Mobile
for a defunction, translating conversations in real time across supported languages.
And I mean, hey, that sounds great and all, but this is also the carrier that's currently being accused
of accidentally switching some customers to the wrong phone plans during iPhone promos.
At least now you can yell at their support agents in any language you want. Putin, T-Mobile, Senne, FunktionÃ©, Pa,
Zutalo, Tabernacle Baguette. No, not the last one.
The Justin Trudeau. And China's Spring Festival Gala,
an annual Chinese New Year celebration, featured humanoid robots doing backflips,
nunchuck routines, and kung fu alongside martial arts actors.
Not Steven Stigal, though, that guy. Four robotics firms showcased their bots to an audience
where nearly 80% of active TVs in the country were tuned in.
Because they had to be. But of course the bots couldn't pull it all off
without at least one stumbling and falling. I guess there's still some kinks to work out.
Oh, what? It's part of the show?
I wasn't expecting them to use drunken fist style.
It's self-referential. The whole thing was perfectly choreographed
and as an added bonus, no little kids got accidentally well done by a nunchuck-wielding robot.
You know what, China? Nice job on this one. I'd like to see more shows like this
performed over there, far away from me and my children.
They are nunchuck-free so far. But I want you to stay close, especially on Friday,
when we come back with more tech news. Right now, we're all heading to Brad's house
to go swimming in his parents' pool. You can come if you want, but as dad said,
you weren't allowed in the pool because of what you did last time. But you can come.
Not in the pool. Sit on the side.