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I don't always host news shows, but when I do, I prefer tech news. Stay techy, my friends. Lenovo is starting to ship some laptops with SSDs from Chinese company Yangy Memory Technologies Code. YMTC. This is likely a result of soaring NAND prices pushing manufacturers to look for new suppliers. Reportedly, Lenovo's ThinkBook. I almost said Thickbook. Thinkbook 14G IPL comes with a 512 GB PCIe 4.0 SSD made by YMTC. Notebook checks testing found that the drive delivers below average performance for an office laptop SSD. I guess Lenovo is getting what they paid for and of course passing it on to us. Yeah, true. Yeah. Still, the
big story here is that a YMTC SSD has made its way into the global market through a major PC maker. This marks a notable shift in the storage industry and potentially signals that if pricing pressure continues, there'll be broader adoption of Chinese-made components or maybe other countries. What? Coat Dazzer, I want some Peru SSDs, please. H peruse D's. All that said, I can't tell if any of this is actually going to help the consumer or just help Lenovo's profit margins soon enough. I think Pringles are going to be the only chips I can afford. And with Canadian grocery prices,
I don't even know about that. Have you seen how narrow and non-girthy the cans are now? They're pinner. I want some girth in my Pringles. Microsoft plans to lay off about 4,800 employees, roughly 2% of the company's global workforce, with most of the cuts hitting its Xbox and sales divisions. Does that mean people are not buying Xbox and co-pilot stuff? I'm shocked. In a blog post and tweet, Xbox President Asha Sharma says around 1,600 Xbox employees are being laid off immediately with close to 3200 Xbox folks total set to be let go through 2027's fiscal year. Now,
some of you might be thinking, "Well, that sucks for those people, but what about the games? Someone please think of the games." Well, this shakeup goes beyond job cuts. Compulsion Games and Double Fine are being spun back into independent studios, while Ninja Theory and Undead Labs are being sold to new owners who we don't know about yet with funding to finish their current projects. Chararma does say that none of Xbox first party publicly announced projects are being cancelled. And thank goodness. Can you imagine that? We're not done with Halo. We're not
done with Gears of War cutting bug people in half. Imagine never seeing a chainsaw gun again. Sad. Blood on the lens. There's a ton of meetings that could have been emails, but this is not that. This email/blog post/weet definitely should have been a meeting. SpaceX just disclosed in a routine FCC filing that it vaporized 260 Starlink satellites in the last 6 months with controlled re-entries into Earth's atmosphere because they attacked Elon on Twitter. Despite sounding sick, that raised pollution concerns from climate nerds and anyone who doesn't like breathing vaporized
aluminum oxide. Unfortunately for those nerds, the FCC has been trying since August 2025 to exempt satellites from the National Environmental Policy Act, arguing that space is extr territorial and outside its jurisdiction. That contradicts a 2024 USC study which found re-entries leave behind ozone destroying aluminum oxide particles. Those oxides rose eightfold between 2016 and 2022 alongside Starling's launch spree and could exceed natural levels by 646% once the tens of thousands of currently planned satellites deploy. Another study found the buildup of
these chemicals could warm the stratosphere by about 1.5° and slow polar vortex winds by 10%, weakening the ozone layer and disrupting global weather patterns. But, you know, you could always just smash them while they're in space and trap humanity under a cloud of super fast paint flex. Or you could just listen to this sponsor spot. War Thunder. Hey, look at this big cat. His name's Fresno. And he just keeps meowing at you for more food. Ah, he's so damn cute. You just keep giving in. Well, thankfully there's War Thunder, the most comprehensive vehicle combat game ever made to
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trying to ignore their entitled fat pets. Play War Thunder for free on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and mobile using the links below. Hey, new to the game or returning after 6 months. You'll get a massive bonus back on PC and consoles. Claim your bonus and start playing today and stop worrying about Fresno. He's fine. You know, the Quickbits actually inspired these most interesting man in the world commercials. They stole the bits whole vibe and never paid him. But the Quickbits don't mind. They're too busy living. Midjourney, which is currently being sued by Disney, Universal,
and Warner Bros. for copyright infringement, is changing up their legal strategy and going on the attack. Initially, they tried using the fair use defense, which was obviously stupid because they are making money off copyrighted material. So, they're now using the discovery phase of the trial to force the studios to reveal how they use AI internally. The plan is to prove the studios also use AI trained on unlicensed material and mount a we're all doing it defense which doesn't really make sense because it doesn't make their actions any less illegal and also midjourney. You're kind
of like a snitch. Bite dance and Alibaba have announced that they are killing the custom AI companions in their Dubau and Quen apps by July 15th. That's the day new Chinese rules regulating the behavior of humanlike AI take effect to address risks like addiction and harm to mental health. Under the new rules, chat bots must warn users they're talking to a machine. Like, that's going to matter. Interrupt sessions every 2 hours. How annoying. And intervene when they detect signs of crisis. Meanwhile, on this side of the Pacific, we're handling AI companies the American way.
Do nothing for 20 years, then a massive class action lawsuit when people die, as our fathers did before us. As long as they've already made their money, they'll allow it. Samsung's Galaxy Zfold 8 and Flip 8 prices just leaked for the UK and Korea, and they're going up again. The new Ultra branding suggests Samsung is going even more premium with the top config hitting €2,799. Oh my god, I wanted a folding phone. I wanted two kidneys. The funny part is that the all-new wide format Fold 8 keeps last year's €2,000 price, while the barely changed Ultra gets a hundo hike.
The cheaper model seems to be the smarter buy. Unless the Ultra badge and a third camera are worth extra money to you. Ultimately though, do what you want. I'm not your dad. I could be your dad. I'm not your dad, as far as I know. Oh jeez. Illinois Governor JB Pritsker has signed a new AI safety bill into law, adding transparency, safety, and accountability rules for companies developing AI systems. The bill requires companies to detail what risks they're testing and how. Building on similar moves in California and New York, but going further by requiring thirdparty audits,
so it won't just be AI companies grading their own homework. Illinoisans, you're finally safe from the scourge of AI. Now you can focus on cheering for the Pope's favorite baseball team or the Bears. And Google commemorated America's 250th birthday by releasing an AI slop ad showing the founding fathers writing the Declaration of Independence with Gemini. And it was exactly as cringe as you think. Especially because if AI wrote the Declaration of Independence, it would be a lot less we hold these truths to be self-evident and a lot more we don't
just hold these truths M dash, we delve into them. life, liberty, happiness. These aren't rights, mdash. They're a tapestry. To know how the founding fathers would react to AI, we need to look no further than their actual words. For it was Benjamin Franklin who said, "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." And sure, we pulled that out of a listical that was almost certainly written by AI. But our point stands, godamn it. It stands as tall and proud as Lady Liberty. Happy godamn Independence Day,
[__] You'll be happy on godamn Wednesday when you come back for more tech news. Screw it. I know we're out of work, but I'm gonna have a dose of keys with the quick bits. Come on, James. They don't talk, Riley. The quick bits. They never talk.
