Blime me. What? You want my home address? Like I'm
inviting xvideos.com over for a cuper when a bloke's just trying to have some
quiet time to herself. Come off it. The UK's online safety act has officially
gone into effect requiring platforms that allow pornography to have strong
age checks, a phrase that describes almost anything other than asking users
to check a box if they're over 18. Although I like to imagine that worked
for someone. According to UK regulator Ofcom, age verification pop-ups are now
the first thing displayed to UK users on not only around 6,000 adult websites,
but on every major platform with adult content from Reddit to Twitter to
Twitter for anxious people. Okay, but how do they verify user ages? Especially
when many British children sound like tiny lords and ladies. Mother, I'm off
to a cricket match with John. That kid sounds 40 years old. Offcom recommends a
number of methods, all of which risk compromising user privacy to some
degree. In a completely unrelated development, there was a massive spike
in searches for VPNs in the UK this week, leading to concerns that many
Muppets, BPIs, and Chabs will install
free VPNs that are unsafe, potentially
setting many Gooners up for a rude awakening. Now, the BBC reported that
platforms can't encourage the use of VPNs to get around the checks, but this
smart guy noted that Ofcom's language indicates this is only true for child
users. So, it's still okay to encourage VPN use for adult users. So, you just
have to make sure it's an adult user. And then you can tell them to use a VPN
to get around the thing that will make sure it's an adult user. Except if you
look at the actual guidelines PDF instead of the website, you can see that
this isn't true and the BBC was right
originally. This has been Obscure Tweet Takedown with Riley. Moving on. If
you're scared of VPNs and you're a gamer trying to get around Discord's new age
verification in the UK, you can use Death Stranding's photo mode instead, as
Discord is apparently fine with admitting an infinite amount of Norman
Reedi. But should age verification be required for Wikipedia? The Wikipdia
Foundation has challenged its status under the law and told the High Court of
Justice this week that it could be forced to limit UK users access if the
government doesn't acknowledge that no one's really going to Wikipedia to blow
off some steam. All right, I mean, almost no one. I'm sure there are some
hidden gems in there. Seems like at the very least the government might have to
respond to this UK petition to repeal the online safety act, which blew past
its goal of 100k signatures as the title
wave of age check pop-ups started to hit. All those people are hoping that
the UK repeals this law and gets back to passing legislation that actually
matters, like editing their antirust rules so Epic Games will bring Fortnite
back to iOS. Do you hear the UK iPhone gamers screaming? This is bollocks.
Stupid. Intel just announced more layoffs, saying in its Q2 earnings
report that it plans to have only 75,000 employees by the end of this year, which
would mean around 24,000 jobs gone
compared to the end of 2024. Team Blue has got to stop the bleeding. So, it's
even cutting entire countries. Plans to build facilities in Poland and Germany
have been cancelled and an existing one in Costa Rica's being downsized. Perhaps
most concerning is the company's SEC filing spotted by semi analysis which
says that if they can't find a big customer, Intel might have to pause or
discontinue development of its nextG 14A
node and successor nodes. I'm going to be frank here. I've covered Intel for a
long time and this feels like the sky is falling. And to make things worse, CEO
Lip Bhutan published a letter to employees with the plan for what they're
focusing on going forward. And once again, there's no mention of ARC GPUs.
I'm starting to think no one's told them about those yet. Or even about our
sponsor, SY, the global eSIM service that keeps you connected while
traveling, even to multiple countries. What are you trying to impress someone?
If so, I think downloading one eim for your whole trip with sE affordable
prices for regional and global plans will do the trick. Oh, sorry. Were you
looking forward to waiting in line at the airport to buy a local potentially
scammy SIM card? That's an authentic cultural experience.
You do you. SY eSIM plans are compatible
with most iOS and Android devices. And if yours isn't compatible, you'll get a
full refund with chat support available 24/7. and get an exclusive 15% discount
on sale eim data plans. Just download the SY app and use code techn.
It's quick bits time already. I felt bad for only doing English stuff. Uh I won't
touch whales though. They scare me. AMD has announced their nonpro Ryzen Thread
Ripper 9000 series will start shipping on July 31st led by the 64 core
128thread 9980X for $5,000. mighty
powerful, but it can't go in a handheld. Not the case for the Ryzen AI Max Plus
395, aka Stricks Halo. GPD has confirmed
its upcoming Win 5 as the first handheld to be powered by this monster chip. And
YouTuber The Fox was able to share more details like the fact that it does not
have an internal battery. It's got an external 80Wh hour unit that can clip
onto the back of it like the giant heavy backpacks worn in high school by the
kind of dorks that will buy this thing. Is it worth it? I'm kidding. I I want to
see it. I am dork. Dork me. Apple has
launched Apple Care 1, a new $20 a month subscription that can cover up to three
Apple devices, including ones you already own, as long as you take them to
an Apple store to verify that they're in good condition. As far as device
insurance goes, it's not bad. But as his germulousness, Mark German points out,
the vast majority of people will pay 240 bucks a year for the next several years
and never use it. But that's new income that Apple will desperately need to
replace all the revenue from third party iOS apps that the EU is blocking them
from collecting. Evil EU, bad. Apple will be saved by all the maniacs who
insist on using their phones without a case. The founder of the Pebble
smartwatch, Eric Migakovsky, has confirmed that the new Pebbles his
company has been working on will be called Pebbles, which is good because
everyone was already calling them Pebbles. And Pebble rolls off the tongue
so much better than the new smartwatch made by the Pebble guy or its previous
official name, the Core 2 Duo. There was
We already had that. Migakovsky secured the rights to use the Pebble name once
more, so it's now the Pebble 2 Duo. the
remix reawakening Pebble 2 duo again.
Just some ideas. And OpenAI will probably release GPT5 in August
according to Tom Warren at The Verge based on his own sources. But it also
lines up nicely with things Sam Alman has said recently and with the fact that
references to GPT5 were spotted in code for Microsoft's Copilot Assistant, which
is getting an appearance mode where it shall reveal its true form to you. A
tiny, slightly unevenly shaped blob.
Sounds about right. But maybe it won't stay that way. The CEO of Microsoft's AI
subsidiary predicts that AI assistants may soon age like an organic being and
maybe even have a room that it lives in.
Maybe when it grows up a bit, it can graduate from being a formless CGI blob
to controlling the new R1 humanoid robot from Chinese company Unit, who once
again couldn't resist having like the second thing its consumer marketed robot
does in its launch video, be punching and kicking. Unitry, hi. This is like
the one thing we're hoping the friendly daily life robots don't do. They're not
They're not They're They're all punching and kicking. They're not listening. They're having a good time. I don't want
to interrupt. But hey, feel free to interrupt me on Monday by clicking on
the next Techlink video when it goes up on that day. I won't be doing anything.
I'll just be sitting right behind the thumbnail waiting.
Maybe I should be working on my kung fu.