Oh no, don't tell me we blue screened too!
We're okay. We're good? Great!
Welcome to TechLinked, everything's on fire today!
Public services and businesses across the globe have been taken out by a faulty software
update within the last 24 hours. The bug has caused Windows systems around the world to enter seemingly unrecoverable boot
loops. Now, Linux systems are unaffected, but some Linux users are suffering from a new and frightening
experience. Feeling empathy for Windows people.
Tech's and cybersecurity company CrowdStrike rolled out an update earlier this morning
for their FalconSensor security platform and it was bad.
Airlines have grounded flights, banks are offline, hospitals in multiple countries have
cancelled non-emergency surgeries and the 911 emergency hotline went down in several
US states. Worst of all, hundreds, maybe even thousands, have been forced to go without an iced brown
sugar oat milkshake in espresso from Starbucks today.
Okay, that's a joke, but on a serious note, US viewers should look up and save the 10-digit
number for their local police or fire department because that wasn't affected.
Now, CrowdStrike has assured Windows customers that this is not a cyber attack, so you can
feel safe knowing that this level of chaos was caused without any malicious actors whatsoever.
And as a bonus, the situation has given cyber criminals ample opportunities to fish users
with phony emails and domains that are offering fixes and patches for the outage.
One of the few countries they're not targeting right now though is Russia, because thanks
to all of the recent sanctions from the West, they haven't used CrowdStrike since February
of 2022. Wow, good for them. Instead, they use software from local firms like Kispersky Labs, a company that the United
States banned almost exactly one month ago. Coincidence?
I think so. Now, CrowdStrike has deployed a fix, but it requires being online, something that you
can't really do when your computer is boot-looping, so if that doesn't work, they've suggested
that you start the machine in safe mode, navigate to the CrowdStrike directory folder, and delete
the relevant file, something that needs to be done manually at every single machine.
If that doesn't work, Microsoft has an alternative solution.
Have you tried turning it off and on again? Have you tried it 15 times in a row?
You're 16th time you get a free sub. AMD's Cinebench scores for their upcoming Ryzen AI9 HX370 chip allegedly is better than
Apple's M3 Max, with just one core operating.
These alleged scores were leaked by HXL on Twitter, but they seem like they might be
real because they line up pretty well with AMD's own claims, or, well, they line up
with the claims that it's faster, not the massive 15% that they mentioned at their
recent two-day event in Los Angeles. They're also bragging that the HX370 can run up to four displays, that it can play
AAA games in full HD on integrated graphics, and that its neural processing unit can manage
50 trillion floating point operations per second.
To prove all of that, they didn't prove it.
Most of the AI demos actually weren't running on the NPU, and the games that AMD said ran
faster on the new integrated graphics weren't available for testing at the event.
In fact, the beefiest laptop that was showcased was running games on NVIDIA graphics with
NVIDIA's DLSS upscaling. AMD reps provided various excuses for this, like that the laptop hardware and firmware
isn't final. Okay, fair enough. And also that the Wi-Fi is too slow at the hotel to download different games.
It's not like they existed somewhere. Did you build the laptop in the hotel?
Maybe they did. And maybe I need to tell you about our sponsor.
Enough slow sponsor bites. I want some quick bites.
And I want them now. The new MetaQuest 4 has got a tentative release date, with two versions of the headset launching
in 2026, and a premium version planned for the following year, codenamed La Jolla, La
Jolla. I think we're La Jolla. Cool.
And if you don't like bulky headsets, you're in luck, because Meta is also launching a pair
of 70 gram augmented reality glasses.
For reference, a typical pair of glasses is a little less than 40 gram.
Soâ¦ still heavier, but a lot lighter than a Quest.
Intel is making it harder to thermal throttle their upcoming Aero Lake CPUs.
Not by making them run cooler, mind you, but by raising the temperature at which they will
throttle. According to the schematics published by Leaker, Joaquin?
Jacob? Cool. That is exactly what they plan to do.
Just increase the TJ Maxx from 100 degrees to 105 degrees Celsius, meaning that they
will definitely have hotter threads than the real TJ Maxx.
That's a good one. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing if the CPU is designed for it and operates
reliably at that temperature, but since currently they're 13th and 14th gen processors seem
to be designed around a philosophy of crashing more than the competition even at a TJ Maxx
of 100 degrees, I can't say that I'm feeling too hopeful.
Back in 2018, Google announced the deprecation of their URL shortener and just wanted to
give you a reminder that, yes, that's still happening.
While they stopped generating shortened links in 2019, they transferred those links to fire-based
dynamic links, but now that they're shutting that down too, when you click through a goo.wool
link, you'll be directed to a page informing you that that link will soon be dead.
Boy, oh boy, Google killing even more of the internet.
That's my favorite thing. In the words of my boy Axl Rose, nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain.
It lasts only as long as November. Yeah, and then it's over.
Dyson, the market leader in moving air very expensively, is making a second attempt at
headphones after the hilarious Dyson Zone.
The newly announced Dyson On-Track headphones will have customizable earpads and outer caps
and 55 hours of battery life with their best-in-class noise-canceling On.
And with a price of 500 big ones, they are undercutting the AirPods Max and not much
else. They must be mad that Apple got their air branding out before they did.
But hey, at least if they're bunked, then we could say they blow without anyone getting
upset. And Toyota Mariahoners, speaking of being upset, are launching a class-action lawsuit
accusing Toyota of misleading consumers into thinking that buying a brand-new car based
on hardly-supported hydrogen fuel cell technology was a good decision.
The lawsuit focuses on Toyota not disclosing lower-than-advertised driving range, the difficulty
of finding functioning fuel pumps, and the fact that hydrogen is twice as expensive as
it once was, meaning the $15,000 fuel card that the company gave as an incentive is
not going to last for the promised five years.
Then there's the issue of the fuel pumps freezing to the car, requiring a 30-minute
wait for the pump to warm up. The last one is really a flaw with hydrogen tech in general, so get perverent, get PVNRT'd
nerds neat. And speaking of nerds, you nerds need to tune back in on Monday for more tech news, and
maybe spend your weekend learning thermodynamics to better appreciate the beauty of the ideal
gas law. They're not going to do that.