Brian McCullough (0:04)

Welcome to the Tech Meme REINHOME for Tuesday, January 7th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Meta is completely revamping its fact checking program, going instead with a version of Community Notes, a new Tesla recall, but for a different reason. Dell is taking rebranding to new Google like lows, all of the headlines from a jam packed Nvidia keynote, and what about an AI copilot but for gaming? Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. This morning, Mark Zuckerberg took to his personal accounts to announce that Meta will restore quote, free expression on its platforms, including by replacing its fact checking program with Community Notes starting in the US Meta will lift restrictions on quote, topics that are part of mainstream discourse like immigration or gender, and focus on quote, illegal and high severity violations instead. Community Notes is obviously a feature copied from X, quoting the official Meta announcement. We've seen this approach work on X, where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context, and people across a diverse range of perspectives decide what sort of context is helpful for other users to see, meta said. We think this could be a better way of achieving our original intention of providing people with information about what they're seeing, and one that's less prone to bias. These changes are an attempt to return to the commitment to free expression that Mark Zuckerberg set out in his Georgetown speech, Meta said. That means being being vigilant about the impact our policies and systems are having on people's ability to make their voices heard and having the humility to change our approach when we know we're getting things wrong, end quote. And quoting Zuck himself, here's what we're going to do. Number one replace fact checkers with community notes starting in the U.S. number two simplify our content policies and remove restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse. Number three Change how we enforce our policies to remove the vast majority of censorship mistakes by focusing our filters on tackling illegal and high severity violations and requiring higher confidence for our filters to take action. Number four Bring back civic content. We're getting feedback that people want to see this content again, so we'll phase it back into Facebook, Instagram and threads while working to keep the communities friendly and positive. Number five Move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California and our US Content Review to Texas. This will help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content. Number six Work with President Trump to push back against foreign governments going after American companies to censor. The US has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world, and the best way to defend against the trend of government overreach on censorship is with the support of the US Government. It'll take time to get this all right, and these are complex systems, so they'll never be perfect, but this is an important step forward and I'm looking forward to this next chapter. End quote the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it has opened a probe into about 2.6 million Tesla vehicles. So you're probably thinking is this related to full self driving? But you would be wrong. This is about that actually Smart Summons feature and four crashes related to that. Quoting Reuters the vehicles failed to detect posts or parked vehicles when they were operating on actually Smart Summons, NHTSA said, adding it had reports where users, quote, had too little reaction time to avoid a crash, either with the available line of sight or releasing the phone app button, which stops the vehicle's movement. Actually Smart Summon was launched in September and allows users to remotely move their vehicle towards them or another location using a smartphone application. The predecessor to the feature allowed users to move their car forward or backward into or out of a parking spot, end quote the next potential step here would be an upgrade to an engineering analysis investigation, a necessary precursor to any potential recall mandate. The agency's evaluation of actually Smart Summon will examine several key technical parameters, including velocity limitations and requirements for visual contact. Their investigation extends to mobile app based remote operation, looking at potential latency issues and how the system handles unexpected scenarios. The investigation encompasses a broad range of vehicles equipped with the optional Full Self Driving Driver Assistance Package, Model S and X vehicles from 2016 to 2025, model 3 vehicles from 2017 to 2025 and model Y vehicles spanning 2020 and 2020. Huge deal for the content creation ecosystem Getty Images holdings and Shutterstock have agreed to merge in a deal that creates a $3.7 billion company. Getty CEO Craig Peters will remain CEO of the combined business. Quoting Axios. The deal underscores the soaring demand for images and related content from content creators and platforms. Getty CEO Craig Peters will remain chief executive of the combined business, which will trade under the Getty ticker symbol. The companies estimate synergies in the range of 150 to 200 million dollars. The agreement is subject to regulatory approval and shareholder approval for both companies. End quoting the wrap the new company aims to offer a larger content library, expanded opportunities for its contributor community and a reinforced commitment to the adoption of inclusive and representative content. But the Deal also aims to create a stronger financial profile and innovation for customers in a fast evolving and highly competitive environment, a nod to the growing AI threat on both of their businesses. The launch of AI driven programs like Canva have dramatically increased competition for Getty and Shutterstock, which both provide a bevy of stock photos that can increasingly be created to the user specification by AI. The combined company will increase investment in tech innovation, including generative AI. End Quote Dell is rebranding its PCs into three categories Dell, Dell Pro and Dell Pro Max, each with Base plus and Premium tiers, thereby killing names like xps, Inspiron, Latitude and Precision, which is what I find crazy. Those are some super well known brand names, right? Quoting the Verge the tech industry's relentless march toward labeling Everything Plus Pro and Max soldiers on with Dell now taking the naming scheme to baffling new levels of confusion. The PC maker announced at CES 2025 that it's cutting names like XPS, Inspiron, Latitude, Precision and Optiplex from its new laptops, desktops and monitors and replacing them with three main product lines. Dell? Yes, just Dell, Dell Pro and Dell Pro Max. If you think that sounds a bit appley and bland, you're right. But Dell is taking it further by also adding a bit of auto industry parlance with three sub tiers, Base plus and Premium. That yields new products like the freshly announced Dell 32 inch 4K QD OLED monitor and Dell Pro Premium laptops in the future. It means we can also expect product names like Dell Pro Max plus, since a laptop like the Dell Pro Premium comes in two sizes, 13 inch and 14 inch. Their proper full names are Dell Pro 13 Premium and Delpro 14 Premium, their spiritual successors to outgoing Dell Latitude laptops. Dell's XPS line, which has been a prominent name in premium laptops for years, is being replaced by new Dell Premium models, so they're part of the Base tier Dell line at the Premium sub tier. While this is a substantial brand restructuring for one of the world's biggest PC manufacturers, Dell isn't tossing the old names out all at once. Existing products already launched under xps, Precision and other retiring brands will continue on as they are, but once they're discontinued, they'll only be replaced by whatever Madlib's concoction of Plus, Premium Pro and Pro Max Dell has lined up for them them until Dell's lines are fully turned over. There may be even more confusion when, for example, customers are cross shopping current XPS laptops with Dell and Dell Premium ones, or when businesses have to consider a fleet of leftover Dell Precision notebooks or newer Dell Pro Max Dell Pro Max plus Dell Pro Max Premium models. End Quote Growing your small business in 2025 all comes down to how well you can hire better hires. Start with Smarter Insights and LinkedIn has strongest hiring data and insights to help you identify the right candidates so you can make the best hiring decisions. Start the new year off hiring smarter with LinkedIn. LinkedIn pairs you with the best candidates using data you won't find anywhere else, from unique skills and interests to the connections you have in common. No wonder that based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small and medium businesses using LinkedIn say that LinkedIn helps them find high quality candidates. LinkedIn also lets you go beyond candidates who are actively applying in a given week on LinkedIn. 171 million LinkedIn members aren't actively seeking jobs, but are open to new opportunities. That's a big pool to miss out on if you're not hiring with LinkedIn. So hire smarter in the new year with the only hiring tool I've ever used for my businesses. Post your job for free@LinkedIn.com ride that's LinkedIn.com ride to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Even if you think it's a bit overhyped, AI is suddenly everywhere from self driving cars to molecular medicine to business efficiency. If it's not in your industry yet, it's coming fast. But AI needs a lot of speed and computing power, so how do you compete without costs spiraling out of control? Time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or oci. OCI is a blazing, fast and secure platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, plus all your AI and machine learning workloads. OCI costs 50% less for compute and 80% less for networking, so you're saving a pile of money. Thousands of businesses have already upgraded to oci, including Vodafone, Thomson Reuters and Sunoai. Right now, Oracle is offering to cut your current cloud bill in half if you move to OCI for new US customers with minimum financial commitment. Offer ends March 31st. See if your company qualifies for this Special offer@oracle.com Techmeme that's oracle.com Techme I'll tell you who takes CES seriously in the old school. Let's use this event as a vehicle to announce our flagship product sort of way Nvidia Here are all the headlines from a jam packed Nvidia keynote last night. First up, Nvidia revealed the RTX 50 Series Blackwell GPUs, the $1999 RTX 5090, the $999 RTX 5080, the $749 RTX 5070 and the $549 RTX 5070 available from January. Nvidia says the RTX 5090 has 92 billion transistors, 4000 AI tops and GDDR7 memory with support for next gen DLSS4, which can now generate multiple frames at once. Quoting TechCrunch, the RTX 50 Series GPUs include a new design for the Founders edition with just two double flow through fans, a 3D vapor chamber and GDD. All of the RTX 50 series cards are PCIe Gen 5 and include DisplayPort 2.1B connectors to drive displays up to 8K and 165Hz. Surprisingly, the RTX 5090 Founders Edition will be a two slot GPU and will be capable of fitting inside small form factor PCs, a big departure from the size of the RTX 4090. The RTX 5090 has 32 gigabytes of GDDR7, a memory bandwidth of 1,792 GB per second, and massive 21,760 CUDA cores. This all adds up to a GPU that Nvidia says will be two times faster than the RTX 4090 thanks to DLSS4 and the Blackwell architecture. But it will come at a cost of power consumption. As Nvidia says the RTX 5090 will have a total graphics power of 575 watts and a recommended PSU requirement of 1000 watts. That's 125 watts more than the RTX 4090, but hopefully the RTX 5090 will be a lot more power efficient so that you'll rarely be using the full 575 watts. End quote. But wait, there's more. A ton more. In no particular order. Nvidia also announced the Llama Nemotron and Cosmos Nemotron family of AI models to advance agentic AI available in Nano, super and Ultra sizes. On Hugging face, they shared Cosmos World foundation models, a family of world models that can generate Physics Aware videos available from hugging face and Nvidia's API. They updated their autonomous game characters, saying that the NPCs can perceive, plan and act like human players in games like Pu ubg with small language models. They unveiled Mega, an Omniverse blueprint for developing, testing and optimizing physical AI and robot fleets at scale in a digital twin before deployment. And actually they spent a lot of time emphasizing robotics as their next big thing. Jensen Huang predicted robotics could become the largest technology industry the world has ever seen, saying the humanoids market could reach $38 billion in 20 years. Huang said Nvidia's Cosmos models for humanoids were trained on 20 million hours of real footage. Humans walking, hands moving, manipulating things. And hey, forget about adding AI to computers. How about computers specifically for making AI? They announced Project Digits, a personalized AI supercomputer with a new GB10 Grace Blackwell superchip, and says it can run models up to 200 billion parameters in size, quoting TechCrunch. Project Digits runs the entire Nvidia AI stack. All of Nvidia software runs on this, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on stage during a press conference on Monday. It's a cloud computing platform that sits on your desk. It's even a workstation if you like it. To be Designed for AI researchers, data scientists and students, project digits packs Nvidia's new GB10 Grace Blackwell superchip, which delivers up to a petaflop of computing performance for prototyping, fine tuning and running AI models. Nvidia claims a single Project Digits unit can run models up to 200 billion parameters in size. Parameters roughly correspond to a model's problem solving skills, and models with more parameters generally perform better than those with fewer parameters. The GB10, which was developed in partnership with MediaTech Tech, features an Nvidia Blackwell GPU connected to a 20 core Nvidia Grace CPU. Inside the project Digits enclosure. The chips are hooked up to a 128 gigabyte pool of memory and up to 4 terabytes of flash storage. Nvidia says that two Project Digits machines can be linked together to run up to 405 billion parameter models. If a job calls for it. Project Digits can deliver a standalone experience, as alluded to earlier, or connect to a primary Windows or Mac PC. But it's not cheap. Project Digits machines, which run Nvidia's Linux based DGX os, will be available starting in May from top partners for $3,000, the company said, so it won't be just anyone who can afford a Project Digits unit of their own. Huang thinks there's a market, however. With Project Digits, the Grace Blackwell superchip comes to millions of developers, he said in a statement. Placing an AI supercomputer on the desks of every data scientist, AI researcher and student empowers them to engage and shape the age of AI. Finally today, one more AI thing from CES Razer unveiled Project Ava, an AI gaming co pilot that helps gamers by taking thousands of pictures of their screen and telling them how to play in real time. Quoting the Verge Gaming hardware manufacturer Razer is introducing what might be its most controversial project yet, an AI gaming copilot designed to help you get better at video games. With your permission, it takes thousands of pictures of your screen and then tells you how to play a game optimally in real time as you continue to play by analyzing millions of simulations within seconds, I'll always have an answer to your toughest gaming challenges, a Razer marketing video claims. For example, watching a pre recorded video of a punishing Black Myth Wukong boss fight, Razor's AI assistant had all sorts of tips. Get ready to dodge when his blade spins or glows with an orange tinge. Keep a close eye on his health. Once you shave off 10 to 20% get your Dodge fingers read. He's going to vanish. If he grabs you, you will feel it. I felt weird about this almost immediately. While it could be more convenient than looking up a guide, it doesn't credit or compensate the creators of the guides that Razor ingests in order to train its AI. It would be pretty disruptive if Ava spent time telling me that Verge sister site Polygon crafted that guide, after all. And yet Eva did sound pretty disruptive regardless, seemingly interrupting the game's audio to tell the player what to do. I suppose you might only summon Ava when you need help, but it still feels like a bit of a weird fit for Razer, a company that's long associated itself with elite gamers. There's also a long conversation about how female AI can perpetuate harmful stereotypes, but at least Razer global marketing director David Ng tells us it'll offer other voices in the future. Next, we saw an actual live demo of Ava helping someone play League of Legends, acting as an AI chatbot that could help you figure out what to do and which spells and items to equip based on enhanced situational awareness of the game, API call calls, guides, and even potentially historical data about the outcomes of matches played by esports teams. Ava knows where the enemy's champions are because it's taking pictures of the minimap, and it knows what you might want to use to counter them, though its answers were delayed by multiple seconds in the prototype we saw, which ran on a pair of local Nvidia RTX 4090 laptop GPUs using Meta's Llama 3.2 LLM instead of in the cloud following the match, Eva attempts to continue to act as a coach, creating replays, pointers and feedback for you about your performance. It's clear that there's a lot of work that would need to be done to make this useful, particularly if Razer wants to fulfill some of its other dreams. It imagines Ava could help you auto configure your computer, act as an autonomous gaming companion, and serve as a RAID leader if no one wants to spend their time organizing the group. But unlike many of Razer's concepts, which it never guarantees to turn into products, it seems the company is already invested in Ava and is thinking about an Ava service as a new business opportunity. It's not waiting for feedback on the idea before it rolls out a beta, and NG tells us it's building out a whole team of AI developers to work on such ideas. A planned bigger announcement at GDC in March. End quote One more bit of New Year's podcast housekeeping for you if you're a new listener to the show. Are you aware of our Ad Free feed? If you go to tech Supercast for $5 a month, you get a version of the show with no ads. Stripping out the ads can save you more than an hour a month if you listen every day, time is really money. And also you'll be supporting my work on this show every day directly. Much appreciated. Again, Tech Supercast Tech to sign up for the Ad Free feed. Talk to you tomorrow.