Woah, running into Freddy Krueger in your nightmares can be pretty scary, and
running into Chad Kroger isn't great either. But the worst nightmare of all
is a Monday without the tech news. Thankfully, we're all awake right now.
Or uh-oh.
Okay. AMD is once again reshuffling its chip lineup, but instead of launching
new laptop processors, it's just renaming old ones. AMD's older Zen 2 or
Mendocino chips are getting rebranded as the Ryzen 10 series, and the Zen 3 Plus
or Rembrandt chips are now called the Ryzen 100 series. Despite the fresh
names, the hardware underneath is basically unchanged. Same core, same
performance, just new labels. The move seems aimed at simplifying marketing,
but it could easily confuse buyers who might think they're getting brand new
tech when it's really the same stuff with a new name. None of this is
surprising, as we've seen similar moves from Intel lately, renaming the Core i5
10400 as the Core i5 110. Rebadging is a
scourge, but I won't get got for a second time. Ordering a Volkswagen
Routan only to discover a Dodge Grand Caravan sitting in your driveway changes
a man. Never again. Discord user data is being
swiped by hackers using a fork of Red
Tiger, an open-source red teaming tool. The campaign was first discovered by
cybersecurity firm NetWitness Scope with a K.
So, after spotting the malware spreading through gaming communities earlier this
month, attackers are disguising Red Tiger as game mods, cheat tools, or
other utilities to harvest browser data, Discord tokens, and crypto wallet info.
The tool then takes this information and uploads everything to remote servers via
webhooks. Victims have been reporting stolen accounts and lost Nitro
subscriptions, while early analysis shows that the malware's many
Discord-specific hooks make it a highly effective tool for taking over accounts
entirely. Researchers at ClearFake have also been able to link infections to
phishing links shared across Discord servers, proving yet again that those
advertisements you see for free FPS boosts are almost never actually free.
That's a couple times, but
Microsoft is in hot water down under,
which is in quotes. Makes it sound like innuendo. Having just been slapped with
a new lawsuit by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, aka
the ACCC, for allegedly duping 2.7
million customers into thinking they had to pay for Copilot, and actually that's
a good thing. The company quietly bundled the AI assistant into its
Microsoft 365 plans, selling the change as an unavoidable upgrade alongside a
new subscription price. Yeah, you pay more, but look at all this great stuff
you get. It's made up and apparently a
cheaper non-AI version of the service was available, but it was hidden in the
labyrinth of cancellation menus, a secret level customers were never meant
to find. We need a hyper-focused YouTuber to get in here and take apart
the code. The ACCC is calling this a clear breach of Australian consumer law,
arguing that Microsoft weren't upfront with their users' purchase options. With
potential penalties reaching 33 million USD, Microsoft is sure to probably try
something like this again, because that's like uh
slap on the wrist to Microsoft. It's also not even close to what you would
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victory sounds way cooler in surround
sound. Freddy Krueger can't even dream up a way of catching the QuickBits.
They're so fast. The QuickBits only have lucid dreams, also. They're very active
on the subreddit. Fujitsu is proudly keeping the dream of physical media
alive by continuing to ship new laptops
with built-in Blu-ray drives. While being slightly outdated in specs, their
new FMV Note A comes equipped with a Ryzen 7 7735U,
16 GB of RAM, and a 512 gig SSD in its
top configuration. But listen, does old specs really matter when you can ask the
if the boys want to come over and pop in Hannah Montana: The Movie? That's not
even a compromise. Apparently, movie discs are all the rage still in Japan,
with the Akihabara region experiencing a huge Ryzen Blu-ray player demand. Say
what you want about old tech, but at least the next time AWS goes down,
they'll be able to enjoy The Little Mermaid 2 DVD in glorious 480p. Cooler
Master has apologized for advising customers to modify the 16-pin power
connectors on some of the company's power supplies by dismantling them, a
risky fix that could have caused overheating or even fires. This advice
came after users reported compatibility issues with their GPUs because of Cooler
Master's right-angled connector design. More like wrong-angled connector design.
You know what you know what I'm saying? I do. Cuz it's
In response, the company has discontinued the problematic connector
and told their support teams to stop recommending such modifications. Please,
I know you're just trying to help. Moving forward, Cooler Master plans to
include straight 16-pin connectors in new power supplies and add visual
indicators to make sure the connection is snug as a bug in a rug, except this
bug could burn down your damn house. Anyway, Tesla's newly released Mad Max
automated driving mode has caught the eye of the US National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration. Some Tesla owners are claiming their cars are exceeding
speed limits when the Mel Gibson-inspired mode is active, which
makes a lot of sense. The NHTSA has started probing, reaching out to Tesla
for more info, and reminding drivers that the human behind the wheel is still
fully responsible for safe driving. Apparently, Mad Max mode comes with
higher speeds and more frequent lane changes. As Gizmodo opined, it's pretty
obvious naming this mode after a vengeful dystopian drifter with a lead
foot might someday catch the eye of federal regulators. We couldn't have put
it better ourselves. Plus, I just don't think you'll ride eternal, shiny and
chrome, if you're letting your Tesla drive for you. That's kind of There's no
honor. Microsoft's financial filings show a whopping $4.7 billion in losses
tied to its stake in OpenAI, which on
paper is listed simply under other.
However, Microsoft doesn't mention exactly how much is invested in OpenAI,
how much OpenAI is losing, and they don't even have it labeled as a related
party. Microsoft is releasing its Q1 earnings on Wednesday, and if it still
does not disclose OpenAI as a related party with the vague other line as the
only clue to how much money it is bleeding to stay ahead in the AI race,
investors will have to figure things out on their own, testing the partnership's
ethics and transparency. Sweeping losses under the rug as other expenses honestly
seems like the kind of quick and dirty financial solutions you'd expect
punching your banking queries into ChatGPT.
Oh, I don't know.
ChatGPT, what do you think? I don't know.
You hear that? That's what it was. And researchers at Ohio State University
discovered that everyday mushroom tissues you know can function as living
memory chips. The research found that mushrooms like shiitake and button
mushrooms, when engineered into memristors,
can store and switch electrical signals.
And these fungal materials could be greener alternatives to traditional
silicon microchips because they don't need rare metals, they're easier to
produce, and they're biodegradable. The mushy microchips aren't ready to replace
your laptop's RAM yet, but they could pave the way for a low-power or
specialized computing devices down the line, made of fungi. It's incredible
what people are doing in the kitchen these days.
And it's incredible what we'll be doing with the tech news on Wednesday. Woo, so
you better come back. Fun Freddy fact, Freddy's sweater is subliminally
frightening because of its abrasive red and green color combination.