Transcript
Susan Ettlinger (0:00)
The PC gave us computing power at home, the Internet connected us, and mobile let us do it pretty much anywhere. Now, generative AI lets us communicate with technology in our own language, using our own senses. But figuring it all out when you're living through it is a totally different story. Welcome to Leading the Shift, a new podcast from Microsoft Azure. I'm your host, Susan Ettlinger. In each episode, leaders will share what they're learning to help you navigate all this change with confidence. Please join us, listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Riley Murdoch (0:30)
Welcome back to the tech news show. You watch instead of googling stuff, I guess. I'm Riley Murdoch, but you know, feel free to Disagree. More than 50 Chinese tech companies have announced plans to use a new connector standard that makes HDMI, DisplayPort, USB4 and Thunderbolt seem like two cans with a string between them. The appropriately named General Purpose media interface, or GPMI, supports 96 gigabits per second of data bandwidth and 240 watts of power delivery over a USB Type C connector, which beats every other consumer standard on the market. But there's also a GPMI Type B connector with double the specs, supporting 192 gigabits per second and 480 watts. Now, there aren't great pictures of the Type B, but it appears to resemble a USB C plug stretched sideways, thus making the hole bigger so pictures can slide through more easily. The computer won't have to fold them in half anymore. The GPMI standard has been licensed by the USB Implementers Forum, and TV manufacturers like tcl, Hisense and Huawei are on board. So GPMI products and cables could very well arrive on non Chinese shores soon enough for the price of $200,000. The way tariffs are going, a modder has managed to flash a Radeon RX9070 with bios of an RX9070 XT, increasing its power draw and clock speeds in. Basically the GPU equivalent of the billionaire guy who injects himself with his son's blood to make him stronger. He's basically his own son now, and the fabric of time is in danger anyway. The modder, who goes by Gertie on the German language PC games hardware forums, found that the XT's BIOS also unlocked more overclocking headroom, allowing an RX 9070 to match the 9070 XT's performance in 3D mark tests. Despite having a lower number of cores, the hybrid card is apparently stable, although its ultra low power mode doesn't work and One of the forum members encountered some freezes when they tried it in their setup. You know, it's like how the billionaire guy sometimes has a little seizure where his eyes roll back in his head and he sees horrifying visions of his inevitable galactic conquest. Like should he accept his dark destiny? Or could he avoid slaughtering billions to become an immort worm king? You get glitches with these kind of things. We're still learning things about the Switch too. For example, Nintendo confirmed that the console doesn't have hall effect joysticks despite the original Switch Joy cons notoriously having issues with stick drift. Nintendo hasn't said how they addressed that issue, but maybe they used a newer joystick technology called tunneling magnetoresistance, or tmr, which the Verge wrote about here. And I'm only really mentioning because it involves quantum mechanics, which tickles my brain a little bit whenever I hear about it. Despite the stick uncertainty, though, developers told Stephen Totillo at Gamephile they are extremely happy with the console's horsepower acclaim that vibes well with these screenshots of Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition that CD Projekt Red says were taken on the Switch 2. They look good. Even if the Switch 2 looks great, though. Fans are still calling for Nintendo to drop the price. But as the man chosen at birth to one day become the current Nintendo of America, president Doug Bowser told Wired the company is a set the impact of Trump's new tariffs, which they didn't factor into the price of the Switch 2 because they couldn't have. Meaning if the price is changing at all, it ain't going down. All right, not going down tonight. Instead, we're getting down with our sponsor Odoo, and their full suite of business management software, which brings together pretty much everything you need to run your business in one platform. One pot. You could say like a chicken pot pie, which has all of your essential nutrients to survive. I don't think I ate lunch. And Odoo's easy to use with a user friendly and customizable interface, just like one of Gam Gam's classic pot pies. They're portable. Odoo's got everything with apps to manage sales and inventory tracking, accounting, invoicing, project management with customizable interfaces. You can even set up a forum with official documentation and a reward system to encourage engagement. But if that pie sounds a bit too big for you, you only have to use the apps your business needs. And if you only need one app, it's free. Use our link in the description to book a demo with their expert team to learn how Odoo can help your business. Or just sign up for a free 15 day trial with no credit card required before the quick bits. I'm not saying you should Google stuff instead of watching the show. I watch almost every episode. I think they're doing a great job. I mean they're doing their best Tariffs continue to roil Great word, the global economy, with threatening to place an extra 50% tariff on China if the country doesn't rescind its 34% tariff that it announced in retaliation for Trump's reciprocal tariffs announced last week. Snip snap. Snip snap. It's crazy. The extra 50% would bring the US total tariffs on China to 104%, and Trump said the country has until April 9 to make the change, by which point global stocks may have reached Atlantis. But hey, humans are smart. We're adapting to the new conditions. For example, Apple reportedly flew five cargo planes full of iPhones and other products into the US in the last week of March, giving their warehouses a few months of supply before those hefty tariffs were put in place. Hey, big market opportunity for smugglers, you know. Jobs are being created. Over in the uk, a judge has ruled that Apple's fight with the government over access to its users encrypted data cannot take place in secret, despite secrecy rules laid out in the Investigatory Powers act, which the Home Office used to demand Apple provide them with a software backdoor. The ruling is a win for privacy advocates, while another UK law just coming into effect this week is a win for advocates of skimming online reviews and not realizing halfway through that it doesn't make any freaking sense. I'm trying to buy a cordless drill and this is an essay about a hairdryer. Is it a two in one? I'm wasting so much time. Colossal Biosciences, the genetic engineering firm whose wooly mice went a bit viral a few weeks ago, has now claimed to have successfully brought back the dire wolf, a species that went extinct around 11,000 years ago. I'm very much summarizing here, but the company says they scraped some dire wolf DNA off of some fossils, combined it with gray wolf DNA and edited it to get something similar to a real dire wolf with twin males who are now about six months old. It's being called the world's first de extinction, brought to you by a younger John Hammond, who loves hooded leather jackets. He actually kind of looks like Jon Snow, which does not bode well for any of us. As cool as all this sounds, this company gives me major red flags. They named the twins Romulus and Remus, which, you know, fine, that's cool. The mythical founders of Rome, et cetera. Followed by a female named Khaleesi. Blake Lively. They also love memeing. I feel like these people saw Jurassic park as an instruction manual. Also, a few years ago, scientists found that dire wolves aren't technically wolves and are more closely related to African wild dogs, which don't look like wolves. So I don't know what cool though. And Kawasaki unveiled the Corleo, a concept vehicle, rideable robot horse cat thing. It's powered by 150cc hydrogen fueled engine and it will apparently carry you just fine as it leaps over icy chasms. Something ATV owners have been itching to do basically forever. It's got AI, apparently, so it seems like it could act like something in between a vehicle and a real horse. And if it's good, you can feed it an apple like, like it's like. Like computer. Because it's. And I don't have anything to give you if you come back on Wednesday for more tech news. Unless. Well, I'm. I'm already giving you something. It's. It's the tech news. What? You want something else too? I just Google it.