Mayhem with Apple, AMD, and Google Tinkering with AI Robots

That sudden Chromecast blackout seemed more severe than it appeared when it happened. It was the fourth day that second-generation Chromecast and Chromecast Audio owners had been without their devices. Google immediately assured everyone that they had their backs, but they still hadn’t fixed it, so they apologized for that, too. I’ll let my friends who spent hours trying to troubleshoot their parents’ Chromecast off the hook for that. Google also benevolently advised against factory resetting their devices—a day too late for the majority who had already done that. One even reported that Google had explicitly told them to do that. We’ll also discuss the Mayhem with Apple?

Chromecast Outage Caused by Expired Certificate

As Reddit user Madh Hatter noted, the problem is due to an expired Chromecast certificate that expired on the day all this happened, March 29. If only we could have seen this coming. In its defense, the second-generation Chromecast came out nine years ago; we’re talking about a Google product here—at the time, we’re sure that they figured that they’d let it run for a couple of years before they went out behind the shed and put it out of its misery themselves.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D has impressed

Would you like to hear about technology that’s proving to be a winner? AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D shipped yesterday for $699, the most expensive mainstream processor on the market, but critics are calling it the best, as well. It has the gaming dominance of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D but with production capabilities that outstrip the Core Ultra 9 14900K. In Jake’s ShortCircuit clip, not a review, but a vibe, the 9950X3D had a tiny advantage with games. It was the same across other publications, but the 9950X3D won with software optimized for more cores—all but Cinebench, where the Intel Core Ultra 9 14900K sometimes led the pack. Get outta that location.

AMD’s 9900X3D Could Be a “Fall Guy” Model

AMD also had the Ryzen 9 9900X3D available yesterday for $549, but as Leo at KitGuru recommends, we suspect that this is yet another “fall guy” model that AMD produces to make the more expensive one that much more enticing. Great if you desire everyone to adore you—that isn’t quite that expensive, though.

Mayhem with Apple? New Apple M4 MacBook Air Gets Praise

Regarding silicon, reviews also went up for the new M4-powered MacBook Air. There’s good mayhem with apple. Reviewers are praising yet another Apple SoC that is dominating almost any Windows laptop in its league without the benefit of using any fan. Embarrassing. PCMag did, however, get their hands on the Acer Swift A, which boasts a Ryzen AI chip, and had it outbench the M4 MacBook Air on Cinebench. There’s that odd Cinebench result again—whoever has the broken Cinebench or this laptop performed better because it has “AI” in the title. Suitable enough for investors, I guess.

Mac Studio and the M4 Ultra Get Good Response – Mayhem with Apple

Reviews of Apple’s new Mac Studio models were also good. There was certainly mayhem with Apple. The M4 Ultra has been hailed as Apple’s most powerful SoC, with 32 CPU cores and up to 192 gigabytes of unified RAM. The M4 Max has higher single-core performance but only reaches 16 CPU cores and 128 gigabytes of RAM. Apple surprised us with something else this week—they listened to their critics. They added a disclaimer on their iPhone 15 series pages, indicating that the Siri AI upgrade “is coming later” following the brouhaha over hyping AI Siri as though she already exists on the planet. If she did, she’d provide printed MapQuest instructions, including motoring through a lake.

Pixel 9 Renders and Pixel 8a Video Leaked

OnLeaks rendered exclusive shots for Google’s Pixel 9 to the Android Headlines. It has three cameras in the back, something that only Pro-tier Pixels possessed previously. But YouTuber Alexis Garza took the news and took off with it by posting a quick clip of the upcoming Pixel 8a, which goes on sale towards the latter half of the current month. Its tiny sausage-shaped camera block seemed right at home inside a pouch of wet sausages in his backpack.

Niantic has Sold Pokémon GO and other IPs to Scopely.

Niantic Labs has sold the IP and development staff behind Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now to Saudi investment firm Scopely for $4 billion. Scopely already owns Monopoly GO, so this is a heaven-made pairing. Niantic explained that the deal would allow the games to be supported “in the long term” so that the players won’t be able to put their games down even in their last breath—and even beyond, as it turns out, you can take it with you.

Google DeepMind Unveils Gemma and Gemini Robots.

DeepMind has announced its new model, Gemma, the best model you can fit on a single GPU—if by that you interpret the latter as an Nvidia H100 accelerator, not a gaming GPU. Google announced the introduction of Gemini Robotics, a set of multimodal models that cause robots to fold origami, zip up, attempt to tidy up your desk as you’re making a mess in real-time, and even learn to dunk a little basketball—although perhaps the latter one should have learned that especially because that gentle dunk wasn’t quite so LeBron-esque.

Yuzu Emulator Gains Multiplayer Capability

Yuzu, the Nintendo Switch emulator, has released a new version that adds multiplayer capability—in addition to a big caveman stepping outside to fight a mammoth with his bare hands. Yeah, the Yuzu community had a disclaimer on their site indicating that the community doesn’t endorse piracy, which should be enough to make the lawyers at Nintendo pause for a nanosecond for the developers to acknowledge that they made a mistake, but that’s all. What a rush, though.

The implantable heart keeps man alive for 16 days.

A patient with an artificial heart implant lived for 16 days outside the hospital before receiving a donated heart that was successfully implanted. The Australian-developed “Total Artificial Heart” employs a powered magnetic rotor that continuously circulates blood through the body so its wearer does not have a pulse. So all those love songs about heartbeats are irrelevant, but okay, probably so.

Lip-Bu Tan was appointed as Intel Chair, and in the end, Intel added a new chairman, former board member Lip-Bu Tan, who’s more than adequate but never my cup of tea that Pat Gelsinger would have been. Tan had resigned as a board member in August following disagreements with Gelsinger and other directors. Individuals with knowledge of the issue reported that Tan had become fed up with Intel’s stodgy, rulebook-by-the-elastic nature and had pushed the manufacturing business to be customer-focused. Okay, I’ll grant you your chance, Mr. Tan. It’s what Pat would’ve wished for. That’s all for the day. I see you on Friday for more technology news. Until I hear back at that point, I will not be receiving anything. I will talk to you soon.

In the meantime AI Doomsday, Nvidia’s GPU Debacle, and Xbox’s Vaporware AI