2024-10-02 nvidias_gift_to_pc_gamers.txt

Hi, welcome back to TechLinked.
Don't ask.
NVIDIA has announced that it plans to launch
its new NVIDIA app out of beta before the end of this year.
Now, users with some combination of the NVIDIA control panel,
the GeForce Experience app,
and the RTX Experience app already on their PC
may be experiencing some apprehension,
but the new app is actually intended
to unify the features of all three apps
and in the darkness bind them
into a single streamlined experience.
We've had three, yes.
What about fourth app?
NVIDIA has also added a handful of new features,
such as a toggle for G-Sync,
multi-monitor support for RTX HDR,
and driver rollback.
Heck yeah.
The app allows users to sort their games the way they want,
and the new UI allows users to customize the font and colors
in case neon green on black just doesn't jive with your particular brand of dyslexia.
But NVIDIA is not the only one bringing cool new features out of beta.
AMD the perpetual ash to NVIDIA's Gary,
launched Fluid Motion Frames 2,
alongside the rollout of its 24.9.1 adrenaline driver.
AFMF2 demonstrates substantial performance gains
and fixes the first version's notorious input lag issue.
It also comes with improved geometric downscaling,
just in case you're the kind of psychopath
who likes watching movies in a super tiny window
rather than their native size.
I need to make room for subway surfers.
A pair of students at Harvard have released a paper
on an experiment they conducted
where they ran facial recognition software
through a pair of Meta smart glasses.
The glasses would then automatically cross-reference
that face with social media
and compile a profile on the person,
including name, biographical information,
personal associations,
and even sometimes addresses.
The students filmed themselves
approaching strangers in public places,
greeting them by name,
and claiming to have met them previously,
through a shared event or organization.
While the system was occasionally inaccurate,
this is a clear demonstration of how such technology
could be used for harm by a malicious actor.
Just think about the last time somebody
who knew your name, occupation, and birth date
stopped you on the street.
Literally never happened to me,
and I'm vaguely famous.
I probably assume I was the jerk
who forgot my old acquaintance and their snazzy glasses.
How could I forget those?
The student group has committed to not releasing the tool
that they showed everyone that they had,
but Meta won't even commit to not training their AI
using smart glasses photos,
a feature that can notably be set off accidentally
using common keywords such as look.
Meta, much like a giant irradiated squid kaiju,
seems determined to use every tendril of its organization
to violate our privacy in new and horrible ways
previously known only to science fiction.
And Eldritch Horror.
But Mark looks great, doesn't he?
Who cares if he made a deal with Cthulhu?
Microsoft is rolling out voice and vision capabilities
for its AI assistant co-pilot,
as well as enhanced reasoning,
which would be a big deal if it wasn't for the fact
that most Microsoft AI innovations
are actually just open AI innovations
that were already rolled out several weeks ago.
It's been 28 years,
but despite the odds,
Microsoft is still trying to make Clippy happen
with an assistant that has a friendly, human-like voice
that dynamically responds to the user's emotions
and makes interjections like cool
and huh to give the impression of active listening.
It's as good a reminder as any
to try to call up your actual friends
and make plans this weekend.
You may be lonely,
but please don't be making small talk
with lobotomized Cortana lonely.
If it was Sydney,
it'd be a whole nother thing,
but she's gone.
According to Microsoft AI Tsar Mustafa Suleiman,
we're just a year away from ever-present,
highly capable AI assistants,
but he kind of has to make big claims like that,
given how crowded the field
of AI development has gotten
with deep-pocketed tech giants.
Gemini Live, Google's own enhanced voice mode,
is now freely available to all Android users,
while Nvidia just announced
its own GPT-4-class
open-source AI model
with weights already available and training code coming soon.
I didn't see that coming.
Honestly, at this point,
Taylor Swift could surprise drop a new AI assistant next week,
and it'd only be a little weird.
It'd be more weird if I didn't tell you
I'm just realizing the potential here.
Quick bits.
I'll tell you eventually.
Indie app developer, Christian Selig,
best known for the now-defunct Apollo app for Reddit,
has now had Juno,
his third-party YouTube app for the Vision Pro,
shut down,
most likely at Google's request.
While Selig probably saw this coming,
the closure means that there is no longer a chance for it
to become a YouTube app for the platform.
YouTube claimed that a native app for Vision Pro
was on its roadmap back in February,
but that the company was focused
on ensuring a great experience in Safari,
an experience that continued to suck
for several months afterwards.
What are the odds that we get an official YouTube app on Meta's Orion
before we get one on the Vision Pro?
Mark looks really good.
I can't stress this enough.
I cannot tell you how good his curls look
after that Cthulhu deal.
AMD's new flagship X870 and X870E motherboards
are now available,
and that's fine.
The X870 non-E could be considered a downgrade for some use cases,
since it has the same single Promontory 21 die configuration
as last gen's lower tier B650 mobos.
And on top of that,
some PCIe lanes will need to be dedicated
to accommodating USB 4,
which is great,
provided you can take advantage of USB 4,
more objectively,
What's effectively bad is that many X870 motherboards
do support Wi-Fi 7,
but don't have the hardware
to go above Wi-Fi 6E speeds.
Because once again,
tech specs don't actually mean anything
and are purely vibes based.
Reddit has changed its settings
to stop users from protesting.
Last year,
when the API changes were announced,
Redditors protested by turning subreddits private or only showing not safe for work content.
Right, it was a bit of a minefield for a second there.
Now, setting a subreddit to private
or changing a safe for work subreddit to not safe for work
requires Reddit's permission.
VP of Community, Laura Nestler, told The Verge
that the change has been in motion since at least 2021,
but it was accelerated by last year's events.
The official Reddit post says protests are still allowed,
just not ones that actually impact the site.
You know, protests Reddit can ignore.
You have the right to protest in your own basement.
It's the only King joke I've made in this episode.
And California has updated its consumer privacy act
to protect individuals' neural data,
preventing tech firms from collecting, sharing,
or selling info collected from
your nervous system.
A similar law protecting brain data
was passed in Colorado earlier this year.
Unfortunately, this is necessary
because the dark future is approaching
and someone has to stop the corpos from trying to protect
or trying to download your consciousness
while you scroll a brain dance.
I never played Cyberpunk,
so I don't know what I just said,
but it felt cool.
And okay, fine,
I'll tell you why I'm dressed this way.
It's Riley week on Floatplane.
So I guess that means that I've dressed like a king.
I'm the king of Floatplane.
I got to make videos like however I want.
So watch these clips.
Gotta get the blood up.
The core issue with Star Wars today, as I see it,
is that it's struggling to change itself
How is your Tim Cook impression so good?
I don't know.
The ship is not moving.
Shoot the ship.
What does being a minimalist actually mean?
I'm gonna be so loud.
I'm gonna be so disruptive.
Bing bong.
How is Riley's mom?
You keep my mom's name out your-
So subscribe to Floatplane
if you want to see those
and come back on Friday for more tech news.
And also on Friday,
my 20 minute rant about Star Wars on Floatplane,
as I've mentioned.
Be there, choom.
Still don't know what that means.