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Daily Tech News 4 January 2025

Top Story

• Microsoft is planning to spend $80 billion on AI datacenters in 2025. (Thurrott)
  
  Why?

  "In many ways, artificial intelligence is the electricity of our age, and the next four years can build a foundation for America's economic success for the next quarter century," Microsoft president and vice chair Brad Smith writes. "It's clear that artificial intelligence is poised to become a world-changing General-Purpose Technology, or GPT. AI promises to drive innovation and boost productivity in every sector of the economy. The United States is poised to stand at the forefront of this new technology wave, especially if it doubles down on its strengths and effectively partners internationally."

  Because you don't get a market cap of $150 billion by not creating the Torment Nexus.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Canadian online accounting firm Bench has apparently been bought by Employer.com in a slightly-after-the-last-minute deal. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Bench shut down very abruptly just after Christmas, leaving tens of thousands of customers without their accounting and tax information, only promising that the information would be available for download "soon".
  
  
  
• If you were playing Marvel Rivals on your Steam Deck or Mac, congratulations, your century-long ban has been repealed. (Ars Technica)
  
  It's not officially supported, and if you did get it working on anything other than Windows, the anti-cheat measure would make sure it didn't stay that way.
  
  
  
• Speaking of Windows, Microsoft offered up a little Christmas gift: Your scanners don't work. (The Register)
  
  If you are running the Windows 11 24H2 update, at least. The problem is marked as fixed, but the problem is not fixed.
  
  
  
• It's your fault that Hollywood keeps churning out the same boring crap. (The New York Times) (archive site)
  
  The ten top movies of 2024 were all sequels or derivative works.

  The problem is that Americans tend to say one thing and do another: They complain that Hollywood does not make enough original films, only to stay home or go elsewhere when studios call their bluff. Over the past year, the moviegoing masses rejected originals like "Here," "Fly Me to the Moon," "Argylle," "Horizon: An American Saga," "Harold and the Purple Crayon," "Lisa Frankenstein," "Y2K" and "Megalopolis."

  But those movies sucked.

  To be fair, all of those films received soft-to-poor reviews, diminishing their appeal.

  No shit, Sherlock.
  
  
  
• Our security, not yours: If you used online store MyGiftCardSupply to buy gift cards as gifts, the gift was you. (Tech Crunch)
  
  The store required you to upload your ID to prove you are legitimate.
  
  And stored all those documents - hundreds of thousands of them - on a server without a password.
  
  

Not At All Tech News

Ceres Fauna of Hololive English Council / Promise had her final stream today, before heading off to parts unknown.

To commemorate her tenure, here's a link to a picture of every Hololive talent. All of them. Retired talents like Kiryu Coco. Short-termers like Mano Aloe. Fired talents like Uruha Rushia. Forgotten talents like Hitomi Chris, who only ever streamed once. Hololive China, which only streamed on Bilibili. All of them.

Twitter link.
Reddit link.

Yes, there are a lot of them. The great majority are still active.

For those following along at home:

Mano Aloe is Delutaya.
Kiryu Coco is Kson.
Yozora Mel is Hanamiya Rica.
Tsukumo Sana returned to her art career and doesn't stream much these days. You can find her online, but don't bother her, her focus is art rather than streaming.
Amelia Watson is Dooby3d.
And Ceres Fauna is Lemonleaf.


On the Nijisanji side of things:

Selen Tatsuki is Dokibird.
Pomu Rainpuff is Maid Mint.
Zaion Lanza is Sayu Sincronisity.
Victoria Brightshield is MoguGhost.


Musical Interlude of the Day




AI Musical Interlude of the Day



The subject is AI, not the music, which is by Midas, who also did the Touch Tone Telephone cover:




Disclaimer: You only live three times. Maybe four. Five tops.