The Anti-Consumer Electronics Show with Steve Burke

Summary

Better Offline: "The Anti-Consumer Electronics Show with Steve Burke" (Jan 14, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Ed Zitron sits down with Steve Burke of Gamers Nexus for a debrief on the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), delivering a raw, sardonic post-mortem on how the once-vibrant expo for innovative tech devolved into a showcase of corporate double-speak and AI hype with little substance—especially on products for actual consumers.

Together, they critique the major tech companies' keynotes (Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Lenovo), revealing a deep industry malaise: a relentless pursuit of AI growth for its own sake, ignoring actual user benefits, and resulting in a palpable disconnect between tech elites and the needs—or interests—of ordinary people.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. A Dismal CES—"Drowning in Nothing"

• Ed opens by describing the event as “feeling like I was drowning in nothing” post-CES ([02:30]).
• Both hosts agree CES was the worst in memory, with keynotes that contained little real news for consumers.
• Critique: Event felt overtaken by "AI for AI’s sake," government involvement, and recycled announcements.

2. Nvidia Keynote: Hype Over Substance

• The duo attended the Nvidia presentation, describing it as disorganized and un-informative:

  • Lengthy, buried actual technical updates. ([03:22])
  • DLSS 4.5 and other relevant consumer advancements got no spotlight.
  • Instead, a focus on “Omniverse,” which remains poorly explained and was perceived as boring and vague.
  • Memorable moment: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spoke to Star Wars robots in a lengthy, awkward segment ([14:13–17:13]).

  Quote:
  “If you dropped your phone after that, you would have heard it on the crowd mic.” — Steve Burke ([14:13])

• Tech “news” they did share, like announcing that Vera Rubin is in manufacturing, was meaningless without specifics ([13:14]).

• Huge disconnect: Nvidia, at a consumer show, focused on enterprise demos and speculation, not actual consumer products ([09:04]).

3. The AI Bubble, Dystopian Hype & Doomerism

• Industry obsession with AI noted as ungrounded, with companies spinning empty sci-fi utopias/dystopias to sell products.

• Greg Brockman (OpenAI) appears at AMD keynote, making questionable claims about AI “saving lives” and “optimizing child management” ([07:23–07:48]).

  Quote:
  “He, like, told some stories I question the veracity of about how AI has saved the lives of people and blah, blah, blah, then they talked about a child management optimization.” — Steve Burke ([07:23])

• Both co-hosts mock the prevalent “AI doomerism” and utopianism as little more than sales tactics ([11:21–12:29]).

  • “They're lying about it. They're just... making stuff up.” — Ed Zitron ([11:53])

4. Corporate/Government Convergence on Stage

• AMD brings up Michael Kratsios, a White House policy adviser, for a mini-policy summit on AI deregulation—during a supposed consumer keynote ([06:00]).
• Hosts found this surreal and alarming for the consumer orientation of CES; the whole audience left confused ([06:32–07:11]).

5. What Was Actually Announced?

Nvidia

• Real advancements, such as DLSS 4.5 improvements, were glossed over:
  • “That’s one of those where it's... not just bullshit two letters 'AI.' It actually does something.” — Steve Burke ([29:55])
  • Still, even these updates could make gaming experience meaningfully better.

AMD & Intel

• AMD “re-announced” a CPU, yet focused keynote on Helios AI racks and brought in government/Big AI players.
• Neither company offered specifics or meaningful demos; the actual technological advances were sidelined for B2B/investor talk ([34:11]).
• Intel’s keynote was deemed “least worst,” with some details on their next-gen chip process (18A/Angstrom, backside power delivery), but poorly explained ([31:47–33:34]).

Lenovo

• Rented the Vegas Sphere for an AI “super agent” demo (Kira) that showed little besides generic LLM capabilities, inaccurate answers, and calendar summaries ([43:02–50:33]).
  • “It goes, Las Vegas's fashion mall has some Labubus that kids will go crazy for.” — Ed Zitron ([45:00])
• Underneath: Just an Azure-connected LLM, branded as if it were cutting-edge.

6. Industry Malaise, Economic Fragility & Consumer Alienation

• Tech companies increasingly favor enterprise and speculative AI narratives over real consumer-facing innovation.
• Even hardware component makers face layoffs and possible collapse, with the “AI bubble” distorting industry economics ([53:37]).
• Rising prices for basics (RAM, cases) and consolidation—from AMD's struggles to the dominance of Nvidia.
• Bizarre sentiment: Finding a satisfying wall plug is more exciting and innovative than the barrage of AI “solutions” on display ([53:10–54:41]).
• Tech is no longer seen as being “for people”: “Technology has stopped being built for people, so I feel like people are just understandably frustrated and tired of it.” — Ed Zitron ([61:56])

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• Ed Zitron (on CES 2026):
  “Just feeling like I was drowning in nothing is the best way to put it.” ([02:30])

• Steve Burke (on government/policy on stage): “We’re having a White House government policy meeting on AI on stage in front of an audience. Like, what am I watching?” ([06:32])

• Steve Burke (mocking AI use cases):
  “He had a line about… the goal is to get there and have AI provide these—or help with these important moments and optimize them. And this is after he’s talking about managing children.” ([07:48])

• Ed Zitron (on AI Doomerism):
  “They're lying about it. They're just... making stuff up. It’s... just lying.” ([11:53])

• Steve Burke (on Nvidia keynote):
  “If you dropped your phone after that, you would have heard it on the crowd mic.” ([14:13])

• Ed Zitron (on the overall show):
  “Consumer Electronic Show. Consumer. For the consumers. Yeah. Nothing.” ([08:56])

• Steve Burke (on tech industry morale):
  “It's just like, I've never seen it this bad. And it's not just technology, it's just... AI and the need to keep this bubble inflated has crept into everything.” ([55:49])

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Segment Timestamps

• Introduction to episode/post-CES mood: [01:53–02:30]
• Nvidia keynote breakdown and critique: [02:46–04:42], [13:14–20:53]
• AMD/White House/AI event at CES: [05:19–08:56]
• AI Doomerism, empty hype: [08:28–13:14]
• Omniverse confusion & skepticism: [09:47–14:13], [21:15–23:48]
• Industry negativity vs. realism: [10:34–12:29], [51:07–55:49]
• Consumer malaise, economic reflections: [53:12–54:41], [55:49–59:21]
• Wrap-up, macroeconomics, and the future: [60:46–67:06]

---

Final Thoughts: Tech for Whom?

• Both hosts are disillusioned not just by CES, but by the industry’s direction: an endless cycle of growth-at-all-costs, untethered AI hype, and a blatant disregard for the needs of actual consumers.
• The most “innovative” moments of CES were finding a well-designed plug or an Anker surge protector with USB-C—tiny comforts in a field dominated by vapid buzzwords and finance-driven strategy.

Closing Reflection:
“Technology has stopped being built for people, so I feel like people are just understandably frustrated and tired of it. And this CES really did kind of show that the companies are in that 'fuck you, consumer' mode.” — Ed Zitron ([61:56])

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For Further Info:

• Gamers Nexus Data Center Series upcoming ([66:38])
• Ed Zitron’s Better Offline newsletter and Discord (see show notes)

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This summary distills the episode’s candor and frustration, offering a clear roadmap for anyone interested in what really happened at CES 2026—and what it means for the tech industry at large.

Transcript

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[Ed Zitron]

Call zone media hello and welcome to better offline. I'm your host, ed zetron. We're back in the normal verse after 19 hours of CES coverage. As ever, buy the merchandise in the links in the show notes and subscribe to my freaking premium newsletter. Got a banger of a beast coming out Friday, but today we're talking once again to the incredible Steve Burke of Gamers Nexus. How you doing Steve?

[Steve Burke]

I'm doing well. How about you?

[Ed Zitron]

Doing all right after post CES and just feeling like I was drowning in nothing is the best way to put it.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, I mean it was definitely the keynotes Were a lot of air.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

I mean, we can start with Nvidia, I think, because I watched that one in person. And the funniest thing was we get there and they're like, there's. You have to do this, like a massive line rounded around the corner. And then there was a different line where everyone lined up only to find out that that was actually the line for the viewing party. And then they let us in and it was standing room only. Then someone came around and said, actually there are seats. And then the actual presentation felt like they just stapled together a few GTC speeches and then gave up.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, like go on. The Nvidia one was like that one I was watching with someone on the team. And I want to say the whole thing was maybe like 92 or 93 minutes. And then they had the lead in as well. And it was. The frustrating thing for me was they had actual news. So on the consumer side they had some news. DLSS 4.5, some other stuff didn't really get a mention at all in the keynote. And then even on the Enterprise side it was like they bury the Vera Rubin stuff an hour deep. And they had published this huge article that was actually pretty interesting on their website about the architecture and none of it made it in.

[Ed Zitron]

What was weird was a lot of the Vera Rubin stuff wasn't new though. Like they announced the six so called new chips that went into it. That was all announced, like every single one. And they didn't even talk about the interesting part, which was they really buried the fact that. Yeah, the actual. The next stage of this, whatever this is to make it faster and whatever isn't just the power of the gpu, but the surrounding hardware, the networking, the RAM and so on and so forth. And storage, which is actually kind of interesting to me. None of that shit. No, no, no.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah. And intel did a similar thing where intel re announced Panther Lake. They had a little more detail this time, just I guess like Nvidia had a little more detail, you know, on Vera Rubin. But ultimately it's a thing that was announced months ago and it was just. I don't know, the whole show is kind of weird. I think easily the worst CES that I've ever personally witnessed. And yeah, it was. It's just there's a. The strangest thing to me was when AMD pulled the White House up on stage.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. Actually I missed amd. Tell me what happened in that one. We can go back to Nvidia in a minute. I missed AMD just because the concussion I sustained watching Jensen talk. But what happened with amd? What did they do?

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, I think if you watched another keynote after that, he had the hospital. So, yeah, it was AMD. Was they? So they, they have a new CPU. They have a 9850 XVD, which is a refresh and a little bit faster, clocks like 400 MHz or something. Did not mention it a single time. They talked about their Helios rack. So they're kind of Vera Rubin, you know, equivalent discussion.

[Ed Zitron]

So AI GPU racks.

[Steve Burke]

Yep. And then the part that was strange and different from even Nvidia's was when they pulled up. I think his name is Michael Krasios. He's a technology policy head advisor for the White House. They pulled him up on stage and had this clearly rehearsed, scripted conversation. And this is the guy who is leading sort of the federal government charge.

[Ed Zitron]

On.

[Steve Burke]

Stripping down states rights for data center and AI regulation. And even on stage, he was talking about how they've been getting rid of these obstructions to AI and data center development. And it's just. I don't know. I was like, I don't know what the fuck I'm watching. Because it's like it's ces, which is put on by the Consumer Technology association, and they have a consumer product. They didn't mention it. And now we're having a White House government policy meeting on AI on stage in front of an audience. You know, it's like, what am I watching?

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. And on top of that, didn't Greg Brockman from OpenAI show up? Yeah, that fucking guy. AI for everyone. Everywhere or everything at once, I guess.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, he, he, he. I don't. I don't know, man. He like, told some stories. I question the veracity of. About how AI has saved the lives of people and blah, blah, blah. And then they talked about a child Management optimization.

[Ed Zitron]

What, What?

[Steve Burke]

He had a line about, everyone, you know, raise your hand if you've had an important moment in your life and something has happened to you, like the birth of a child. I'm not even. I'm not trying to make it ridiculous. Like, that is basically what he said. And audience is dead silent. And then he talks about how, yeah, the goal is to get there and have AI provide these. Or help with these important moments and optimize them. And this is after he's talking about managing children. And you had, of course, managing children. Well, he had Sam Altman on Jimmy Fallon.

[Ed Zitron]

I love going on TV. Just be like, I don't know what to do. ChatGPT.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, it's.

[Ed Zitron]

It's so weird. It feels like living. It feels like living through a giant gaslighting just like everybody pretending. And I'm gonna guess. I'm gonna guess nobody brought up the data centers they meant to be building for this year either. They just were like, we love. We love. Number go up, don't we, folks?

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, I mean, they didn't. There wasn't any detail, really. Yeah. No specifics.

[Ed Zitron]

And also to your point, Consumer electronic show. Consumer for the consumers. Yeah. Nothing.

[Steve Burke]

Again, owned by the Consumer Technology Association. So it's like, I don't know, the whole thing was just. It's fine if that's what you want it to be. Fine. Right. But, like, that's a different show than what we were promised.

[Ed Zitron]

And back to Nvidia for a second. I will also say that it was fucking. I give Jensen Huang some real credit here, and that's. If you are gonna start your. It's your. It's really a make it or make or break year for AI. The first thing I think when I'm thinking AI, make or break, I gotta really blow the stocks off is half of the show, like 45 minutes straight. About the fucking Omniverse.

[Steve Burke]

Oh, yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

I sat there and I had David Roth from Defecto with me trying to explain what the omniverse was and just being like, I think it's computer simulations.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah. I think if you're talking about Nvidia's omniverse.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, it's there. Like, you can use it. If I remember it correctly, you can use it to make digital twins of things. Yeah, like. Or at least that's their buzzword for it. But, yeah, they've had some examples in the past of using it for, like, logistics mapping and for planning around things like typhoons and Taiwan and simulations. Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Interesting. Yeah, well, interesting isn't the word. It wasn't interesting. It was so very. It was so very boring.

[Steve Burke]

Well, you know, I've seen. But I've seen some. It's funny. Some of the limited sort of pushback I've seen online against the negativity about what's going on right now has just been, well, why is everyone so negative? Everyone's very critical. Everything's doomerism, it's AI doomerism. It's very negative. And I read that stuff. I try to factor it in and consider it. And we ran a piece that was really positive today as a palate cleanser after ces, because CES was actually genuinely awful. What do you think about that? Because that's. I'm sure you see that too.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, I mean, when he says AI Doomerism, is he talking about the people saying that the bubble will burst?

[Steve Burke]

If we're talking Jensen Huang, then I think. Yeah, he just did an interview, some podcast. I think it's called no Priors or something.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, yes, it would be no Prior.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah. And so in that he said. For him, I think doomerism is, to use his words, like the science fiction version of AI in the future.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay. If he's saying that's bad, I agree, because. But not for the. He probably says it's bad because he doesn't want people to be scared of AI so they keep buying it. I say it's bad because it's a lie. Because that. Because they're lying. They're lying about it. They're just. They're making stuff up. It's just. Just lying.

[Steve Burke]

It's interesting, too. You could. You could spin that both ways. It's like it could be the overtime. Other companies, you know, their version of AI in the future is also a science fiction. It's just the Utopia version.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes.

[Steve Burke]

And, like, there's. Yeah, there's ground between Terminator and Utopia, but it's kind of a hand. Wavy dismissal. Right. To just be like, all this negativity is unreasonable. And in that same interview, he was talking about how it's sort of hurtful, I think was the word he used. Or harmful. Sorry, damaging. And the general vibe I got was like, this negativity is hurtful to society as a whole. Can't you please buy my product?

[Ed Zitron]

Well, that was the weird thing as well. They did the whole Vera Rubin song and dance at that presentation. And they're not talking pricing yet. They're not talking about anything. And then they made the comment where it's like. And Vera Rubin is now in manufacturing.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And dead silent. Just dead silent. Partly because that doesn't mean anything, I assume. I'm going to be honest, I assumed it was in manufacturing. They're meant to be shipping them soon, like.

[Steve Burke]

Right.

[Ed Zitron]

What was. People. Were people like, oh, they haven't put them together yet. They just. I don't know. And there was that. I think it was Patrick Moorhead as well, during it, who was saying like, yeah. And the crowd went wild, which it didn't. This crowd. The crowd went, to quote someone on Twitter, the crowd went mild was the best way of putting it.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah. You could hear like a couple claps, you know.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. And I could. I've Never. And I've watched a lot of press conferences, good and bad. I've never heard a cough. And it was just like.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah. I mean, if you dropped your phone after that, you would have heard it on. Yes, on the crowd mic.

[Ed Zitron]

But another great part of that was the robots. And he brought in the robots, which I did not realize were Star wars robots. He kind of muttered it under his breath and I thought, oh, he just thinks Star wars is about robots. I get. I just thought it was like almost a boomery thing. Just like, yes, you know, robots and. But apparently it's the robots from Jedi Fallen Order.

[Steve Burke]

It is, yeah. That's so weird because he brought them out. The only reason I know that is because they brought them out last time as well. I think Computex or gtc.

[Ed Zitron]

That's so sad.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah. And so last time they brought them out, that was when he was. I don't know if he was actually frustrated or if he was, like, joking frustrated, but they weren't responding to the commands properly and they got kind of stuck. The green one wouldn't move. This time. They responded to the commands more. But it was strange because he was using the second person U from that point on. And sometimes it wasn't clear to me if he was talking to the audience or to the customer or to the robots. And he was talking to the robots. He was like, there was one. I didn't talk about this in the video, but there's a clip we used where he says. He's talking to the robot and he says, and we're actually gonna give birth. You're gonna be born in these systems.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes. That was so weird.

[Steve Burke]

He had this, like, give birth, you know, Then he cut himself off. I was like, what the hell?

[Maria Hinojosa]

It was so strange.

[Ed Zitron]

And he was like. And he talked to them for what felt like an hour.

[Steve Burke]

It was like 20 or 30 minutes.

[Ed Zitron]

And he was like, you're good. This is how we build you. And he turned and he looked at the picture of the robots behind him. That was from gtc. Like, we've seen that picture before. He's like, this is where we train. These are your. These. They're like you. These are your friends. And it's just like, mate, you are wearing a, I assume, $25,000 leather jacket. Your company is the largest on the stock market. Why are you talking to them? To quote David Roth from Defecta, like, you're offering them Skittles. Like, it was so bizarre. I think that we're going to look back on that press conference as, like, the top, because I went and I rewatched GTC 2025. I watched some of his other, like, even his analyst things. He used to have this, like, braggadocious swagger. He would trot around. He had a big smut. Even last ces, he did the Avengers. She, like, the Avengers shield. They're gonna email me about the Avengers shield, The Captain America SHIELD thing. And like, he. He felt kind of like up. And Atom this time, he was like, ah, you know, got some shit, I guess. You want to look. We're gonna maybe do a. I didn't even catch that. They're planning to do a robo taxi service. Yeah, I didn't. I was watching and listening, but it was not super obvious.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah. I know some people who are. Who tried it and were, like, actually impressed by it.

[Ed Zitron]

I mean, it's a robo taxi. We've the cool, but like. But just also like, you're Nvidia. What are you doing?

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, we went back on the team here, and we were looking at some of their older keynotes because I was basically like, has it always been like, I'm just not remembering it right? And no, I mean, they were a lot tighter in the past. Like, if you go back to 900 series, 10 series era keynotes.

[Ed Zitron]

And how long ago was that?

[Steve Burke]

That'd be 2015, 2016, maybe 2014. Yeah. So you go back to that range of two to three years, and generally they were tighter together. It's interesting how much. I mean, we all change. Certainly my hosting style has changed on camera. If you run 10 years apart, then, yeah, it's a totally different person. But it is interesting, though, to see his change in particular, where the gaffes and the sort of silliness back then, they were more of like, your uncle is telling old, tired jokes that you've heard a million times. But, you know, but it was like, it was a likable style. And now it's like, instead, the jokes are things that, I don't know. You're just kind of like, fuck up.

[Ed Zitron]

Can you tell me about. Do you have a graphics card you could show me? Can I see a graphics card? What are you talking about? Yeah, what do you. And he also seemed just psychoanalyzing Jensen Huang here. But he seemed unconfident. Like, even when he was being a huge asshole last year when he was, like, saying, you broke the audio thing to the guy he named.

[Steve Burke]

Right.

[Ed Zitron]

Even then, he seemed confident. He seemed excited. He was kind of like, yeah, let's go this year. He was like. And We've got, we got some. You want to see the Omniverse? I guess. Look, Vera Rubin, it's so powerful. There were less slides.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, I actually.

[Ed Zitron]

I mean he just kind of seemed like he didn't have anything new. Probably because he didn't.

[Steve Burke]

It's so weird though because like at least with. Not to make it all about gaming, but you know, it's kind of like if you're going to make space for robo taxis and for robots and AI and Omniverse and okay, so there's a little carve out for everybody. Everybody's got their 10 or 20 minutes and it's the gaming stuff. It's like there was actually new stuff there and it could have replaced any number of other things, but I was almost just uncertain if. Do they feel like the gaming topics sort of devalue what they do in the business enterprise world? If they talk about gaming for five minutes in the keynote, are they worried their stock price is going to go down? I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't get a presence.

[Ed Zitron]

I think they're just scrambling. I don't think they know what to do anymore. There's a lot of the kind of key jingling going on. I think they just like. But even then that was what that's actually. I don't know if I actually agree with that thinking about it because why did you talk about the Omniverse? Why talk about that at all when you don't appear to be able to explain what it is? But I think talk to a few analysts afterwards as well, like good ones that actually know what they're talking about. So now the ones on Twitter.

[Steve Burke]

Right.

[Ed Zitron]

And all of them pretty much came to same conclusion, which was this was a half hearted attempt to claim the GPUs can do something else.

[Steve Burke]

Oh yeah, sure, yeah. Trying to start creating a carve out for if. If interest wanes or whatever. And the other, you know, an AI or other applications didn't really work because.

[Ed Zitron]

It was impossible to. It was impossible to actually divine what it was they were selling. Also, it didn't help that that morning the information put out story saying the Omnib sucked, that like nobody would buy it. But that was crazy though. That was one part of that story that I'm unsurprised that they didn't talk about on there. But apparently Nvidia has been paying the cloud. They've been paying various cloud providers money to rent capacity so that people can do Omniverse stuff.

[Steve Burke]

Oh, for Omniverse specifically, yeah. Okay.

[Ed Zitron]

But I mean, it sucks. Like, it just doesn't work so good. Because also, digital twin stuff has been around for a while, and I also think digital twin must be small.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, it is interesting. Like, I mean, that is one of the ones where the first time I saw one of their digital twin demos was before they were throwing around AI as much as they are now as a buzzword. And I mean, I do remember I was like, okay, yeah, no, I kind of get this, because the example they were giving at the time when I first really saw it was they had a weather simulation, but they also had a warehouse simulation, and they were using it to show at the time, instead of AI, it was more commonly referred to as machine learning. And using it to show how you might digitally replicate a warehouse and all the stock and then map out how people and robots move and interact with the warehouse. Right. Like, okay, this I get. I mean, this is like, yeah, it makes sense.

[Ed Zitron]

It isn't a complete vaporware product.

[Steve Burke]

But they're not really. Like, that's already been done. You know, that's been. They showed that a long time ago.

[Ed Zitron]

So it's also just not a sexy story. Even though it's very likely useful to.

[Steve Burke]

Someone, it's definitely not an interesting story at the Consumer Technology Association's ces. You know, it's like, oh, oh, great, cool. I'll. Yeah, I'll.

[Ed Zitron]

I can't wait to. So I, as a consumer technology person, will look forward to doing some. And it was also not obvious what it was meant to be like. He didn't do, like, a traditional product rundown. And while one could argue the people that want this don't need that, it was still a keynote. It was still a keynote. You're meant to be showing things at the keynote.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah. And I mean, I think also he did mention Palantir, like, three.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, yes, he did.

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[Ed Helms]

Hey, everyone, it's Ed Helms.

[Ed Zitron]

And I'm Kalpen.

[Steve Burke]

And we are the hosts of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart.

[Ed Helms]

Audiobook Club this week on the podcast I am talking to film and TV critic, radio and podcast host and Harry Potter super fan Rhianna Dillon to discuss Audible's full cast adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. What moments in this audiobook capture the feeling of the magical world best for you or just stood out the most?

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

I always loved reading about the Quidditch matches and so and I think the audio really gets it because it just plunges you right into the stands. You have the crowd sounds like all around you. It is surround sound, especially if you're listening in headphones.

[Ed Helms]

Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Lines and Tines with Spencer Graves on the iHeartRadio app is a podcast designed for hunters and fishermen to enjoy success.

[Spencer Graves]

I like the idea of like, hey, put me on a big deer. You know, hey, there's a big deer out here. He's doing this. Be looking for this deer. But I also love doing it on my own. I love going out there and saying, running my cameras. I love patterning the deer. I like showing up at the right time, checking the wind, knowing what stand I need to be in. And then whenever it all comes together and it happens, that's the most saddest, fine thing ever. So when you do it on your own, it's like, I then can hang my hat. But if I had somebody say, hey, pull up on these dots and catch them right here and you're going to win. And then when I go in, it's like, yeah, it's cool. I won the tournament. The ultimate goal is done. But it's like, dude, when you find them and you make them bite, that's the puzzle. I love it.

[Ed Helms]

Listen to Lines and Tines with Spencer Graves on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Ed Zitron]

Just reading a quote from the information. The problem might be that, and I quote, developers who have used Omniverse tools for building and simulating scenes and objects often say the software was hard to use, that it easily broken, that its features felt incomplete. So who knows what could have happened there? I. I don't know. I think. But Nvidia actually announced stuff, though they just chose not to announce it at their announcement.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, I mean, great.

[Ed Zitron]

What did they announce? Because I truly missed it. I truly. I was there.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, it's like it wasn't huge, but also they had, they've had announcements in the past that weren't huge. So like back in the day when they were pushing, I'm trying to remember the name of it, it was like game something. Anyway, they had a program where GameWorks. That's what it was. It had some controversy over the years, like all their products. But even when it was just gameworks where they were, hey, here's some developer tools to make graphics look better easier was kind of the pitch. And even when that was it for their announcement, they didn't have new GPUs. They would still find spots to talk about it on stage at keynotes at these various shows. Yeah, this time, I mean, they had DLSS 4.5 and that's the thing that.

[Ed Zitron]

You can upscale, right?

[Steve Burke]

Yep.

[Ed Zitron]

Unless I'm misunderstanding.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, it's kind of like more. They've rolled in a bunch of things to it now. So it's a general blanket name to describe the upscaling solution and also frame generation and things like that. So. So yeah, now they have an update to their model. They rolled out a transformer model last year as opposed to the neural net, the CNN model previously. And we tested that last year. It was improved. And then their new one that they have this year, the half step iteration, actually directly fixes and resolves most of the issues we found with the previous one, which I thought, yeah, I was like, okay, cool. Yeah, they're doing stuff. They're, you know, they took the feedback, they fixed it and then they don't really show it anywhere, which is kind of disappointing. But.

[Ed Zitron]

And so that allows you to run games at higher resolution or is the frame rate higher just for the.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, so it sort of fakes it. Basically you can run the game as far as your computer is concerned, it's being run at a lower resolution so there's a lot fewer pixels which reduces the load on the GPU especially. So if you're on an older gpu you can more easily run the software at a higher performing frame rate to get a better experience. And it then upscales that lower resolution native render and stitches it back together by using machine learned upscaling. And it's one of the use cases where it's not just bullshit two letters AI. It actually does something. There's actually instances now and this didn't used to be true, but there's instances now rarely where an upscaled output can at times be better than a low resolution native output. A lot of that has to do with replacing what the game is doing. So if the game is doing like a temporal anti aliasing and you replace it with dlss, it's going to look better. And so like it's an. I don't know, it's. That's one of those where it's like the fake frames thing. Not the biggest fan of but generally DLSS and the upscaling, I think it works fairly well and they've actually improved on it and they've actually addressed the criticisms and it was nowhere to be found in the keynote.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, that's I guess, well, I guess the argument being the. Okay, they're not going to talk about why you don't need a new gpu.

[Steve Burke]

Fair. Yeah. But they can say AI.

[Ed Zitron]

They can say AI. So it's really difficult one for old Jensen. But you know, moving off of Nvidia, I didn't catch it. What did intel do at CES this year? What are they up to?

[Steve Burke]

Intel does have actual products that are potentially promising. I mean they've got 18 Angstrom rolling their new process.

[Ed Zitron]

And what is that?

[Steve Burke]

That is the new process node where intel for a while now has had to rely on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation TSMC to make their parts. Intel historically has fabbed all of its own silicon. And then as its process technology fell behind and it started losing the race to tsmc, they had to take their own in house products and get them made by their fab competitor. And now they've gotten some of their fabs operational like one of their new ones in the US at least one it might be two to where they're producing their modern, more competitive process technology. 18 Angstrom 18A it's called. And they've rolled out things like backside power delivery, which is a more efficient way to deliver power into the cpu. It has some benefits where the frequency can be uplifted a little bit. Couple percentage points, single digit percentage points. And so there's actual technology improvements there like Nvidia, the actual technology and improvements and the engineering got almost no airtime at the show. What did AI.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, what?

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, sorry, I was so disappointed because it's just like, man. So you re announced Panther Lake, which they announced in October, I think it.

[Ed Zitron]

Was, and Panther Lake is the new cpu?

[Steve Burke]

Yes, thank you. Yeah, it's the new SOC solution, CPU and Yeah, mostly for mobile products, handhelds, laptops.

[Ed Zitron]

Cool, but reannounced though.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah. And it's kind of like the backside power delivery is not a new technology, but it's kind of new for being deployed in actual things that you can buy. And if you're going to re announce the existence of the product, I feel like you might as well take the time to just go into detail on the cool engineering that makes it actually interesting and potentially competitive. But instead. Yeah, they reserve all that time for the usual revolving door of executives in suits to come. Talk about AI.

[Ed Zitron]

But what are they even doing with AI?

[Steve Burke]

I don't know.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, oh, okay. That rocks. Like you've been in this, you've been in hardware for decades now and you just. Who the fuck knows? Great stuff.

[Steve Burke]

I was like intel, it was. It's weird. So I would say if I had to rank the keynotes least worst to best worst.

[Maria Hinojosa]

Nice.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay.

[Steve Burke]

I think intel was the least worst. They were not as bad as the others. I watched them among the first. Little did I know at that point it would get worse from there. So I put intel at the not as bad scale. Nvidia's in the middle. AMD's. Honestly, for me, theirs was the worst.

[Ed Zitron]

I really wish I'd have watched it now.

[Steve Burke]

Oh, it's. It's. You're welcome. It's still out there. You got an hour to spend.

[Ed Zitron]

I could hit myself in the nuts with a baseball bat. And that's just really. That's. That's. That sounds more fun. It is. It is really depressing though with Lisa Su. Because even a year ago I would have been like, okay, Lisa is the smart one.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

She's not gonna do the key jingling, but I guess not. I guess it's all keys from here on out.

[Maria Hinojosa]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

It's so weird. And I mean, I mentioned it earlier And I need to put this in an episode versus just the newsletter. But they announced this deal with OpenAI back in September or October last year that they were going to build. They were going to have the first gigawatt of MI450 instinct whatevers in a data center this year. And I feel like I'm going insane because nothing has happened. They haven't raised their guidance, they haven't changed anything. They're not, they're not acting as if they're going to build it. They're just like, look, it's Greg Brockman. You love him, right?

[Steve Burke]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And he just turned like the least charismatic man.

[Steve Burke]

Yes. Dollar store Jensen Huan.

[Ed Zitron]

His leather jacket just like, hey guys. Yeah. You know, imagine if your children could be raised with an AI. Wouldn't that be good? Well, it can't do that now. In fact, it can't do very much. But what if it could? Welcome to amd. This is the Consumer Electronics Show. We have no products. Goodbye.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, I mean it's. AMD's in particular is just like your count on Lisa is interesting because you know, Jensen absolutely is intelligent in multiple different ways and so is Lisa. They both have originally at least an engineering background. Not sure that they do much of that now. It's not a slight against them, but Lisa I would say has had a fairly clean reputation of kind of a no bullshit straight shooter.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Steve Burke]

Welcome to our show. Here's our stuff. See you later. And she's still, I would say still more of a straight shooter than Jensen. But it's just like, I don't know, I watched the Andy keynote. It's like, oh, okay, you're all doing sort of the same type of thing right now with the company because it's the same government policy discussions on stage, it's the same AI, B2B enterprise obsession, data centers and. And you just kind of go, all right, I thought maybe you were different, but yeah, I guess not.

[Ed Zitron]

You are not only the same, you're really the same. Like you were just. It's also very strange based on the history, the modern history of like AMD vs. Nvidia and intel and such, watching AMD being an also ran. I don't know, I'm not anywhere near as bait and this as you, but like I had reached a point where it's like, wow, AMD isn't a company that jumps on shiny objects. That or if they do, they do so with consideration and thought and how it might now it's just like, yeah, we're going to do AI GPUs, you know, the ones that are so expensive that the only way you can buy them is using that. That one. That's what we're going. Everything is on this now.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah. And it's the thing I find if I try to take a devil's advocate position, I think the thing I would say would be, well, but if they don't try at all, then they get completely left behind and there's zero competition for Nvidia. I don't know the best responses to that other than, well, you could do it in more moderation or do we really have to try, though? But I think that's probably the response is like, well, what do you want them to do? And that's what I see a lot of that. I read a lot of the initial comments on content from a place of actually trying to gather sort of feedback. I would say the general sentiment definitely, at least on our channel, is aligned with kind of how you and I are both talking right now. If you look at the people who are more cynical of the negativity in good faith, I think they. I do think a lot of times it comes down to, well, what would you have them do? Almost as if to say, not pursuing, you know, infinite money glitches is impossible. Like you have. You literally have to pursue an infant money glitch in this market. I think that's probably the argument, or maybe that it's idealistic to assume that they wouldn't. Right.

[Ed Zitron]

I think the. No, I think you're right. It's just the level of maybe they're making the money now, but I don't Even know if AMD. AMD's data center revenue like it so hit 4.3 billion in Q3, 2025. I mean, it's like, okay, you can get that money, the stock. It's good for the stock and all that, but at the same time, how do you walk this back? If you fail, how do you walk this back? Because that's the thing that I keep saying. Because putting aside how anyone feels about AI in any particular moment, it is proof that this is not coming out of cash flows, that this has to come out of debt. And amd now, amd staking their entire future on this. It just feels. It feels chaotic. It doesn't feel like a strategic. There is no strategic moat. They're not trying to be. I'm sure that they'll claim there is something, but they're trying. There's no real difference other than they're not as powerful and they don't have Cuda. They're trying with HIP df, I guess, which is their version of Cuda, kind of.

[Steve Burke]

Do you think if this all implodes, do you think. I saw a comment that was interesting to me where no particular evidence or anything, but the guy just said if it all collapses, he thought AMD would get screwed the most because he said they just don't have the cash reserves to deal with a collapse like Nvidia does. What's your take on that?

[Ed Zitron]

I mean, let's see, that free cash flow, 2.4 billion. I mean, it really comes down to the cash in hand, which I'm going to look, I'm going to look at live on air. So they got about 5 billion, let's see, 7 billion on hand. I mean, when a crash happens, I don't think it's something where Nvidia dies or AMD dies. I think Oracle could. I think Oracle, Oracle has negative $13 billion of cash flow. They're fucked. But with AMD, it's like I am not super familiar with their finances well enough to say, oh, this will mess them up. That being said, they have a much, much, much smaller cushion, right? Like their cushion is like Nvidia has like tens of billions of dollars in cash. I think amd, AMD as well. Their business, they've. They've really had to yank their business. Yeah, they have about $7 billion in inventory as well. They've really had to yank their business towards AI rather. And they've had to rush to catch up, which is not great. If this explodes. And then the longer it takes for this to explode, the better it will be for amd. Just because they will be able to make some sales and actually get some instincts out the door. If it breaks in the next year, they're in real trouble. And also, I personally am looking forward to watching all these companies have to explain what they were doing.

[Steve Burke]

Like, hey, ideally, in front of a congressional committee. Yes, exactly.

[Ed Zitron]

Or like over a shark tank or something like that. Like, because it's just throughout ces. Oh, actually, I'll give you a great example. The worst presentation I watched was actually yesterday, okay. I watched it on the fly and it was only five minutes and it pissed me off. So Lenovo, you remember Lenovo, they make laptops and such. I remember that famous, famous laptop company, Lenovo. So they rented out the Las Vegas sphere, okay. And they get up. I'm wondering if I can actually get this, get the quote of what the CEO said. Because the CEO got on stage, don't remember his name. Not gonna lie. See, here we go. Here we go. And I quote, nowadays AI is no longer just generating answers, writing code, creating images and producing videos. I mean, citation needed. AI is quickly evolving and gaining new capabilities. Sensing our three dimensional world, understanding how things move and connect, and learning our logic and complexity, and interacting with reality in ways never seen before. AI is everywhere. So based on that, you would think that they would have something new. What they actually had was an AI called Kira Q I, R A. That was. They called a super agent. And you'll be shocked to hear it can summarize things. It can tell you what's on your calendar, it can look things up. The worst part was because the CEO came on, did his kind of like word vomit and then just walked off. And this unnamed spokesperson, this woman comes on and is like, kira, what do you see around you? And it goes, I see we're in there. It's a big screen and this, that and the other. And they say the size of the screen, of the sphere, and it's wrong. It was like a hun. It's just immediately. But also it's like, wow, that's so new. Except multimodal AI has been around for years, so. And then she says, oh, Kira, when I have some time later, what should I get for my kids? So it's just like, oh, great. Yeah, you fucking Kira. I'm. I am. I don't give a fuck about my family. What can I do?

[Steve Burke]

What should I do?

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, I'm too busy rebranding a chatbot as a new thing and I shit you not, it goes. Las Vegas's fashion mall has some Labubus that kids will go crazy for. And I was just. I was on a plane, so I couldn't make the noise I wanted to make, which was just a guttural raw, just ang. Just complete disgust.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

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[Ed Helms]

Hey, everyone, it's Ed Helms and I'm.

[Steve Burke]

Kal Penn and we are the hosts of Irsay The Audible and iHeart.

[Ed Helms]

Audiobook Club this week on the podcast I am talking to film and TV critic, radio and podcast host and Harry Potter super fan Rhianna Dillon to discuss Audible's full cast adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. What moments in this audiobook capture the feeling of the magical world best for you or just stood out the most?

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

I always loved reading about the Quidditch matches and I think the audio really gets it because it just plunges you right into the stands. You have the crowd sounds like all around you is surround sound, especially if you're listening in headphones.

[Ed Helms]

Listen to Hearsay, the Audible and iHeart Audio Book Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Lines and Tines with Spencer Graves on the iHeartRadio app is a podcast designed for hunters and fishermen to enjoy success.

[Spencer Graves]

I like the idea of like, hey, put me on a big deer. You know, hey, there's a big deer out here. He's doing this. Be looking for this deer. But I also love doing it on my own. I love going out there and saying, running my cameras. I love patterning the deer. I like showing up at the right time, checking the wind, knowing what stand I need to be in. And then whenever it all comes together and it happens, that's the most saddest, fine thing ever. So when you do it on your own, it's like, I then can hang my hat. But if I had somebody say, hey, pull up on these dots and catch them right here and you're going to win. And then when I go in, it's like, yeah, it's cool, I won the tournament, the ultimate goal is done. But it's like, dude, when you find them and you make them bite, that's the puzzle. I love it.

[Ed Helms]

Listen to Lines and Tines with Spencer Graves on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Maria Hinojosa]

I'm Maria Hinojosa, host of Latino usa. Venezuelans around the world are celebrating the takedown of former President Maduro. But inside the country, there is fear and silence. And in the United States, people are concerned about Donald Trump's rogue tactics. Listen to Latino usa, the fall of Maduro and the rise of an unconstrained Trump. That's on your iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Steve Burke]

I have their press release here and it says it is AI.

[Ed Zitron]

Uh huh.

[Steve Burke]

But did you know their definition of AI?

[Ed Zitron]

No, Tell me, because it's not the.

[Steve Burke]

Same as everyone else's. Oh, there's Lenovo Kira, called a personal ambient intelligence system. That's ambient intelligence AI. It says, we'll begin rolling out on select Lenovo and Motorola products. And yes, it is going to help people move More easily between PCs, tablets and phones by keeping tasks connected again, see Google Calendar or any Calendar app. Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And the sphere is that probably cost them north of $10 million to rent that. And then probably. That spokesperson was def. I don't know if she worked for Lenovo. She was very clearly like a seasoned actor, right. In the sense that she was lying. But it was just. It was remarkable because it's. It was just. I've watched a lot of CES keynotes, I've gone to a lot of cess, and I've heard a lot of bullshit. This feels like. This feels like just the year when everybody just gave up on trying. They were just like, it's a large language. It's AI. Is large language model good? You like this? And they were claiming it's their own ambient intelligence. You'll be shocked to hear it's just connected to Microsoft Azure.

[Steve Burke]

Oh, great. Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And then right at the end, she's like, and here I have a proof of. And to be clear, this was like minutes of her just doing the classic LLM bullshit. And then right at the end, she says, I have here a proof of concept. And what it is, is it records what you're saying, but only when you give it permission. Oh, and it transcribes everything. It's also just. Yes, I also don't trust that. But on top of it, it's like, wow, a device that records you and transcribes everything.

[Steve Burke]

You don't even need AI for that. Right.

[Ed Zitron]

Like Otter or literally any LLM will do this. I mean, it's almost as if nobody has anything. I mean, Lenovo did have this really cool unrolling screen situation that was pretty cool. I like that they didn't show that. They can't show that. You can't. Can't be showing interesting stuff. You have to show.

[Steve Burke]

Well, you can't show the screen products inside of the giant Las Vegas.

[Ed Zitron]

How would people possibly see it? It's so weird. It's.

[Steve Burke]

But so is. Is. I don't know. I kind of. I almost. I want to come back to this negativity topic a little bit because it is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, which is like, it's, you know, we're trying to balance, as best we can, palate cleansers of. There's a lot of bad things. Let's make sure we're still trying to get some coverage of good things. Interesting, fun, educational, whatever, but not to the point of it just being for purposes. You don't want to hide from reality, right?

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Steve Burke]

So there's got to be a balance. But I just. It for me, the negative things that are going on right now in the tech industry have become so intertwined with global economics and politics that it's a lot worse, I think, than just this series of GPUs is bad. And you're not gonna like the frame rate with them. You know, it's a lot more wide reaching. And I have a hard time. Like the negativity for me or the criticism, the cynicism doesn't. It's not an act, It's. I actually am very concerned about the direction of where things are headed right now. And so I don't know what you. You know, it's like, I don't know what to say to someone who's like, everything's so negative because we put a couple pieces out that are more positive, but you really. You're just kind of hiding from reality at some point. So.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, it's weird as well, because, I mean, we did 19 hours at CES and I asked everyone, did you see stuff you liked? And I shit you not. The most consistent thing I got was, yeah, I saw a battery I liked. And every. Like, Cory Doctorow found a plug that he really liked.

[Steve Burke]

Okay, like, that goes into a wall.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. Like a British plug that has a satisfying metallic click.

[Steve Burke]

That's nice.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, but that's the.

[Steve Burke]

I'm not even trying to see. Why can't you be happy, Ed?

[Ed Zitron]

Exactly.

[Steve Burke]

Look, look.

[Ed Zitron]

Plug, plug, click. Plug click. The thing is, I love my doodads, my gizmos. I love seeing, like, the big TVs were nice. There's big old TVs. We like a big television.

[Steve Burke]

There are some computer cases that looked interesting, but even those. Well, so even though the public doesn't know some of this yet, they will soon. But the preview is that even the cases that are nice are nested in bad things that are about to happen. And it's because the companies like the computer case and the cooler companies cannot survive when people can't afford to buy a stick of ram. And there's like, as of the last week, two major companies in the computer case and cooling side have terminated basically their, like, entire staff for one of them and then a significant amount of the staff for the other. And so it's. And these Companies are companies that just showed actually pretty cool cases at ces, you know, but then it's, it's sort of the last hurrah of what they can get across the line and then they're just out of money.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, it's. I mean, I don't know. I have also had the opposite. Like a few weeks, like maybe a month ago, I had, I was like, I like the iPhone air and I got so many comments, people. You fucking shill. You fucking shill Apple. It's true. Apple has tons of shitty things. Like they, Their app store is a horrifying mob like thing. They won't take. They won't take X's child porn generator down, but they will take down like the ICE app. Like, it's, it's very. Yeah, it's very. Like there are tons of bad things, but at the same time, to your point, yeah, being negative is kind of just telling people what's happening. Like the RAM crisis in and of itself was a big conversation during the show and it's like, yeah, everything is going to get more expensive because of this. And I think the, I think it's hard to not be negative even when, like, trying to be positive right now makes you sound like an insane person. On XD Everything app being like, this is the year that agents take over consumer. It just, you just have to just start lying, like, you just have to.

[Steve Burke]

Start lying about it where it's like, yeah, I can, I can find a computer case to be happy about and we will, you know, we'll publish reviews of products that are good. But yeah, you just, you can't strip out the general undertone because I don't know, I've even seen some comments about that where. There was one that I agreed with, I didn't disagree with at all, but where the guy referenced an ad we had for a thermaltake case in a video and I almost wanted to heart it too. And he said, oh, this case looks awesome. It'll be great to put the nothing inside of it that I can afford. And I don't blame him. I completely agree. So, yeah, it's just, I don't know, I've never seen it this bad. And it's not just technology, it's just like. Or I should say it's not just consumer gaming, it's technology sort of broadly has this problem and it's AI and the need to keep this bubble inflated has crept into everything, including just if you want to go buy groceries or whatever, where they're manipulating pricing in some stores.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, I think my whole thing is my rot economy. All the growth at all cost thing. Like, like, of course that is my bit, but it is kind of that. It's. They've chased out all the people that run these companies that make actual technology and those that have. Those that have remained, those, those that are actually run by technology, people at technologists like Elisa Sera or Jensen Huang are just like, fuck it. Number co op. We must buy as much as possible. We must sell as much as possible.

[Steve Burke]

Everything.

[Ed Zitron]

We must have every RAM stick. I just, I think that a reckoning is coming for everything related to technology and I think it is going to be bloody. Not literally, but I think it's got like most of CES was LLM rappers, right?

[Steve Burke]

Like what was it called? Something with a Q for Lenovo?

[Ed Zitron]

Kira.

[Steve Burke]

Kira, yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. Just like everything had an element. They were. I think consumers are also aware they're being lied to in a way that they're not usually right.

[Steve Burke]

And not usually lied to or not usually aware.

[Ed Zitron]

They're usually not aware of it. Or at least the.

[Steve Burke]

I agree with that.

[Ed Zitron]

The wank is not as wank. The wank has never been this wanky. It's never been so bad that it's.

[Steve Burke]

The wankiest right now.

[Ed Zitron]

It's the wank. It's peak wank. Yes, that's. That's good. I'm going to write that down. But it's. I think it's also that it's never hurt this much. Like it's never been a case where it's like, hey, everything's getting more expensive because we must buy all the RAM for this thing you don't like. Also this thing you don't like. We're going to tell you it does things that it doesn't, but you're going to need to adopt it now or you'll be left behind. By the way, you should be scared for your job because you're going to be overtaken by the software that doesn't work that's making everything more expensive. I just think it's pushing people to a limit. And I even said this on the show, I'm not buying new electronics for a while. I'm for the first time in like 17 generations, I'm not going to buy the next iPhone. I'm going to buy used for as long as humanely possible. My MacBook here is like 3 years old. I don't know why I'd update that because I think that that's the only thing that will possibly shift. And also new Electronics are not as like, there's not really anything new either.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, I mean, I feel the same way with. I don't know, I went through and canceled some subscriptions to software companies, which is just my favorite thing to subscribe to. And part of the reason I was canceling them, I was like, I don't know, maybe we have a use for this a couple times a year. We probably get the value out of it. But it's the smallest form of protest, I guess. And for me it felt like putting your money where your mouth is a little bit. If I'm gonna complain about all this shit, I should at least stop feeding into some of it. And I don't know. So I've got three computers I use regularly. Two at the office, one home, and two of them have 1080 TI from. What is it, 2016, I think in them or 2017. And if I play games, it's like independent developer indie games and they tend to not need ray tracing and they play just fine on it. And. And at the office I have numerous stuff for video editing. But yeah, I don't know, I think the only concern I have with the. Well, do you just boycott broadly? Do you try and organize or whatever? Boycott or. I think the only concern I have is it seems that these companies can. If you don't want it, fine, they want it, you know, and then you can rent it back from them later.

[Ed Zitron]

But right up until they can't. Because the thing I keep coming back to is all of this is based on debt. Nvidia is the ultimate in growth economics because Nvidia reached a point where they're like, we can just set the price to whatever we want to. Eight B200 GPUs in a pod is what, $500,000? I reckon Vera Rubin could be like $700,000. They just set the price. And what's funny is people will buy it right up until they don't. And when I say people, I mean enterprises, right? And it's very clear that everyone is just in a fuck you, customer mode. And it's hard to be positive because I. I can't find anything to like my fate. My favorite game of the last year was Dead Zone Rogue, which can run on most PCs and is on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Great name. And I don't know, like, I reckon it would probably run on old PCs too.

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, my favorite game right now is Nova Roma, which is a city builder and it can run on probably any computer I've owned since like 2010. You know, and it's just.

[Ed Zitron]

And I think that that, like, the best thing about the Internet is being able to connect to people. Technology has stopped being built for people, so I feel like people are just understandably frustrated and tired of it. And this CES really did kind of show that the companies are in that fuck you, consumer mode. So if there is, I'm always open. Easy. Better offline dot com. I'll take email. Email recommendations for things to be excited about in tech. But walking around that convention center, bringing people in specifically to do that, to be like, go and find cool stuff. I couldn't. I Talked to like 11 journalists on air that week.

[Steve Burke]

I really want that plug, though.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, the clicky. Well, it's only for England, though, so unless you go to England, it's not really that exciting.

[Steve Burke]

I know you guys get the best things.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, thankfully I'm in New York, though, because otherwise I'd have to live in England. And that's the thing. Like, I couldn't even find an anchor booth. I couldn't even find, like, a delightful charger booth. Just if it was just like, oh, we've got a cable that. My. One of my favorite tech innovations this year is an Anker surge protector that has USB C cables built into it. Yes, perfect. But it's. It's like maybe we're at the end of this era. I think, like, you talk about what AMD will do if things go wrong, the answer is suffer in a way that they should for not building a sustainable company. Suffer in a way every. Anyone, any company that is put in distress as a result of chasing the AI bubble. At this point, I'm kind of like, fuck them. I hope they burn. Yeah, I feel bad for the people that work there and get laid off. I really do. The people that should suffer are the CEOs.

[Steve Burke]

Well, and. And feel bad for the people who are in the wider economy. Right. Who are going to get.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, God. But I mean, they're the. They're already the victims of this.

[Steve Burke]

But I agree with you. And I also, I do. I know effectively nothing about, like, macroeconomics or whatever. My gut feeling, hot take or not, is the sooner it pops, the not necessarily better, but the less damaging it'll be for normal people.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes.

[Steve Burke]

But then at the same time, the longer it goes on, probably you get maximum damage for some of these companies, where some of them are more likely to go out of business, which is maybe a good thing. I guess it depends who it is.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, and as we wrap up today, literally is recording This, a story just came through that the Chinese government has told tech companies that would only approve purchases of Nvidia's H200AI chips under special circumstances. You know what? To wrap it up, it is funny watching China just kind of talk like, I've got cats. This is how cats play with dying mice. It's like, we're going to, we're going.

[Steve Burke]

To do this where it was going.

[Ed Zitron]

Let you run away. They're going to smack you again. Oh, I'm going to get you now. You're going to run away. Because it's just like, yeah, there were, I think I've read three different stories saying, hey, wow, China is going to buy $50 billion worth of H2 hundreds. And now it's. China isn't going to do shit. China's just playing with you. And it's. Yeah, well.

[Steve Burke]

And it also. CXMT is at like 5% or whatever of the memory supply market share now. Johnston Memory Technologies, they're a Chinese fab silicon, fab for memory, for like DRAM. And they've just taken like 5% out of the chunk that was part of the big three. Samsung, sk, Hynix, Micron. And the consumer sentiment has. I've never seen more people be positive about like Chinese products. Where, you know, I started at the time where it was like, if you bought something from AliExpress, you were happy if it got there and people were surprised if it worked. And that's just, it's the sentiment. It's not necessarily that the quality has changed because like the quality manufacturing has been pretty good for a long time in China because we, you know, that's where everything's been made forever. And the thing that I'm seeing shift though is the sentiment where now there's almost this like literally any other silicon manufacturer on earth, please save us from these companies. And it looks like it's gonna be up to right now Chinese silicon companies. Cause they're the only ones who kind of have products that they're starting to make.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, on that happy note, Steve, you got anything coming up you wanna plug?

[Steve Burke]

Yeah, we do have our Data center series we're working on. So we're going to be visiting a bunch of different data centers around the US and covering the story about people, you know, getting screwed by them and hopefully connect with a bunch of viewers around the US and get their story on how the data centers are coming in and bulldozing, literally and metaphorically, everything in their path. Yeah. Is that happening?

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's the kind of chipper thing. No, it's always good to have you, Steve. Thank you for having us. It was having, well, us for having you. Nah, it's a podcast. Thank you everyone for listening. I've been Ed Zitron, of course. We will be back with a monologue this Friday. And thank you, of course, for sticking with us during ces. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Mattossowski. You can check out more of his music and audio [e-mail] m a t t o s o w s k I.com youm can email me at ezetteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat where's your Ed? To visit the Discord and go to R betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

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