Daily Tech News 19 January 2025

• Intel's eagerly-awaited fix for its latest Arrow Lake desktop CPUs is here, and makes them perform up to 2%... Slower. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Ouch.
  
  Also, nice chart of AMD's latest 9800X3D being 36% faster on average than the best Arrow Lake performance - which was measured before applying these firmware fixes.
  
  
  
• Is Intel going to be taken over by a consortium led by Elon Musk? (WCCFTech)
  
  Probably not, no. Intel is undervalued compared to its revenues and rivals, though, so something could well be on the cards.

• Could TikTok be saved by a 13th hour merger with Perplexity AI? (Tech Crunch)
  
  Oh, look, they've found a cure worse than the disease. Again.
  
  
  
• Chinese hackers infiltrated the Treasury Department. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Including Janet Yellen's own computer.
  
  Sadly all they found was an unpaid credit card bill.
  
  
  
• The DOJ has confirmed that the soldier arrested for threatening to leak his commander in chief's call logs is connected with the massive Snowflake breach last year. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Also a little more detail on how Snowflake was breached.
  
  
  
• The mad dash to protect environmental data from President Trump. (The Verge) (archive site)
  
  A useful list of people to be fired and projects to be cancelled.
  
  
  
• How Democrats drove Silicon Valley into Trump's arms. (New York Times) (archive site)
  
  An interesting interview with venture capitalist Marc Andreesen, who has finally, dimly, maybe, seen the light.
  
  
  
• Top AI investor says his companies are filled with America-hating communists destroying them from the inside. (Futurism / MSN)
  
  An utterly retarded take on the same story. It's a hit piece on just one thing - one patently true thing - that Andreesen said in the interview. They first assume it to be axiomatically false because tech companies are profitable (AI companies are not profitable) and then immediately give details that demonstrate it to be true.
  
  
  
• Electric vehicle company Canoo has filed for bankruptcy, and not the hearts-and-flowers Chapter 11 kind, but the he's-dead-Jim Chapter 7 variety. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Less than a year ago, Canoo bought the assets of bankrupt British competitor Arrival. Now it's gone too. Guess making cars isn't that easy.
  
  
  
• The FTC has ordered General Motors to stop collecting and selling your location data. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Nobody needs to plant a tracker on your car anymore. You just need to make a phone call to a data broker.
  
  
  
• Before you get too mad at General Motors Texas has filed a suit against Allstate Insurance that implicates Toyota, Lexus, Mazda, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Maserati, and Ram in the same style of tracking as well. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Now you can get mad.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile in Europe GDPR complaints have been filed against TikTok, AliExpress, SHEIN, Temu, WeChat, and Xiaomi for, uh... Being Chinese websites running in China. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  It's a fair cop.
  
  
  
• New York is looking to require a background check before you can purchase a 3D printer. (News10)
  
  Leave before they build the wall.
  
  You only have... A couple of hundred years, the speed at which public works projects move in that state.
  
  
  
• And the FTC is also cracking down of Genshin Impact, for collecting tracking data from AI-powered 3D printers sold to the Treasury Department. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Just kidding. They're in hot water for selling loot boxes to children, which is exactly what every successful mobile game in the world does.
  
  
  
• The original version of "AI" chatbot Eliza has been resurrected more than 60 years after it was written. (Live Science)
  
  A version translated into Lisp has been available the entire time, but the original code was not written in Lisp, but in a custom-built programming language.
  
  
  
• Nato is increasing its patrols of the Baltic sea after a series of RUSSIA incidents where cables RUSSIA were cut "accidentally" RUSSIA by ships of no fixed abode. RUSSIA. (BBC)
  
  Everyone knows who is responsible, of course, and they're barely pretending otherwise.
  
  
  
• Quantum computers may or may not work, but they arguments against them are unsound. (Cr.Yp.To)
  
  A very detailed post from someone who seems to have worked in that field for 30 years.
  
  
  
• Bambu Labs just announced it would brick your 3D printer if you don't update to their latest software, even if you are not using their software. (Consumer Action Taskforce)
  
  One step ahead of New York.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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