0:04

Welcome to the Tech Mean Bright Home for Monday, April

0:06

15, 2024. I'm

0:08

Brian McCullough. Today really looks like

0:10

high-end reshoring of chip tech is

0:12

happening and happening soon. What

0:15

if satellite telephony becomes a table

0:17

stakes smartphone feature? Get ready

0:19

for the Bitcoin halving. Does

0:21

anyone have invites to AirChat and get

0:24

ready for 4TB? Yes,

0:27

4TB SD cards. Here's what you missed today in

0:29

the world of tech. The

0:33

US has awarded Samsung $6.4 billion

0:36

in Chips Act funding, saying

0:39

the company plans to make 2nm

0:41

chips at its Taylor, Texas plant

0:44

by 2026, two years ahead of

0:46

when TSMC is going to roll

0:48

up a similar plant, 2nm

0:50

chips. So the cutting edge top of the

0:52

line manufactured here in the US in just

0:54

a couple of years. This

0:56

is onshoring we can get behind, I think,

0:58

quoting the Financial Times. US

1:01

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo

1:03

announced on Monday that the South Korean

1:05

chipmaker was set to produce chips at

1:07

the 2nm level of miniaturization at a

1:09

new fabrication plant or fab it was

1:11

building in the city of Taylor in

1:13

Texas. It will be part

1:15

of a $40 billion investment made by

1:17

the company in capabilities ranging from the

1:20

manufacturing of microprocessors to advanced chip packaging

1:22

and research and development work. Samsung's

1:24

investment will be topped up with as much as $6.4 billion in

1:26

direct funding received

1:28

under the US Chips and Science Act, a

1:30

week after the US government announced that TSMC

1:33

would receive up to $6.6 billion from

1:35

the flagship subsidy program to

1:37

support its chip expansion in

1:39

Arizona. The first of Samsung's

1:42

new Taylor fabs will start making 2nm chips in

1:44

2026, according to a

1:46

senior US official. TSMC is set to

1:48

produce 2nm chips at an Arizona facility

1:50

from 2028. An

1:52

initial $17 billion investment, part of a

1:54

planned $40 billion in total, was announced by Samsung

1:57

in 2021 to build its first fab in Taylor,

1:59

which will now make 2 and 4

2:01

nanometer chips. The new capital

2:03

spending adds a second fab that will

2:05

also make 2 nanometer and 4 nanometer

2:07

chips, as well as the construction of

2:09

an advanced chip packaging facility for 2.5D

2:11

packaging of processor and memory chips. Advanced

2:14

packaging is a crucial stage in the production of

2:16

artificial intelligence chips, such as NVIDIA's H100, which is

2:18

used to train generative

2:20

AI systems, such as OpenAI's chat GPT.

2:23

TSMC, the world's biggest contract chip

2:25

maker, carries out 2.5D packaging for

2:27

NVIDIA's most powerful chips. But it

2:29

currently has no plans for such an

2:31

advanced packaging facility in the US, end

2:33

quote. It

2:40

would be interesting if this became

2:42

standard table stakes for flagship smartphones.

2:44

Sources tell Android Authority that

2:47

Google's new Pixel 9 series, next

2:49

generation Pixel Fold, and an under-development

2:52

5G tablet will use

2:54

a new Samsung modem that has

2:56

satellite connectivity. The

2:59

Tensor G4, coming first to the Pixel 9

3:01

series, is bringing a brand new modem, the

3:03

Samsung modem 5400. While

3:05

it's not a Qualcomm modem like some would prefer,

3:08

it's still an upgrade over the previous generations. Our

3:10

source couldn't give any exact specs, but as

3:12

always, we can expect it to be faster

3:14

and more power efficient than the previous generations.

3:17

Additionally, the software stack has been

3:19

upgraded again, which should improve stability.

3:21

Finally, there's support for 3GPP-REL17, which

3:27

brings support for 5G non-terrestrial

3:29

networks, or NTN, satellite-based communication,

3:31

in other words. The modem

3:33

is coming to all cellular-enabled

3:35

Tensor 4 devices, including the

3:38

Pixel 9 series and the next generation Pixel

3:40

Fold. Our sources also informed us that

3:42

Google is in the early stages of

3:44

developing a 5G tablet codenamed Clementine with

3:46

the same modem. However, it is currently

3:48

unknown when and if the device will

3:50

make it to market. As

3:52

we previously reported, Google has made significant

3:54

progress in integrating support for satellite-based messaging

3:56

in Android 15. Thanks

3:59

to NTN's support. in the Exynos modem 5400,

4:01

the Pixel 9 series will

4:04

be the first to support Android's native

4:06

satellite implementation. Initially, the feature will be

4:08

provided by T-Mobile, built in collaboration with

4:10

SpaceX, with other providers possibly

4:12

added in the future. The satellite link will

4:14

allow for texting, but not calling. Additionally, a

4:17

special satellite gateway app will allow

4:19

for easy communications with emergency services

4:21

via a feature called Emergency SOS.

4:24

We've already seen earlier indications about how

4:26

this could work, but we can now

4:28

preview it in more detail. First, you

4:30

will be asked a few basic questions to

4:32

narrow down the situation. You will also be

4:34

given a choice to notify your emergency contacts,

4:37

after which you will be able to message

4:39

with emergency services to get you the help

4:41

you need. Many of the questions will also

4:43

have predefined answers to choose from to make

4:46

the process quicker. Due to the nature of

4:48

satellite connectivity, mobile solutions using it typically need

4:50

very specific alignment to connect. Google has designed

4:52

animations to help this process," end quote. Something

5:00

to put on your radar, the

5:03

next Bitcoin halving is

5:06

right around the corner. This will cut

5:08

miners validating transactions to 450 from 900

5:12

now and costing the industry around $10

5:14

billion in annual revenue. And

5:16

it's expected to happen April 20, because

5:19

of course it is, 4-20, quoting

5:21

Bloomberg. For enthusiasts of Bitcoin, a

5:24

once every four years software update called the

5:26

halving has long been held as one of the

5:28

keys to propping up its value. Around

5:30

April 20, the halving will cut the amount of

5:32

Bitcoin that miners can earn each day for validating

5:34

transactions to 450 from 900 now.

5:38

Based on Bitcoin's current price, it could spell

5:40

revenue losses of around $10 billion a year

5:42

for the industry as a whole, marathon digital

5:44

holdings, CleanSpark, and other miners, which compete for

5:46

a fixed Bitcoin reward by solving mathematical puzzles

5:49

using super fast computers, have invested in new

5:51

equipment and sought to buy smaller rivals in

5:53

an attempt to cushion the drop off in

5:55

revenue. This is the final push for

5:57

miners to squeeze out as much revenue as they can. for

6:00

their production takes a big hit," said

6:02

Matthew Kimmel, a digital asset analyst at

6:04

CoinShares. With revenues across the board decreasing

6:06

overnight, the strategic response of each miner

6:08

and how they adapt could well determine

6:10

who comes out ahead and who gets

6:12

left behind. Granted, Bitcoin

6:14

has reached new highs after previous halvings,

6:17

helping to mitigate the periodic drop in

6:19

mining rewards and the increase in the

6:21

cost of doing business. The event this

6:23

month is coming after the digital currency

6:25

has more than quadrupled since November Yet,

6:29

the margin of success for the industry keeps getting

6:31

finer. Miners will need to

6:33

continually spend more money in a never-ending

6:35

technological arms race for smaller rewards. And

6:38

while the energy-intensive validation process has always

6:40

made mining expensive, companies now

6:42

face even more competition for power from

6:44

the burgeoning and deep-pocketed artificial intelligence industry.

6:47

The soaring price of Bitcoin has helped offset

6:50

those power costs and fueled growth in crypto

6:52

mining. Since the first specialized

6:54

machines came into play in 2013, the aggregate

6:56

market cap of 14 US-listed miners has grown

6:58

to about $20 billion, according

7:00

to an April 1st report by JPMorgan Chase.

7:03

While US-listed miners are the face of the industry,

7:05

they account for just about 20% of

7:07

the sector's computing power, according to crypto

7:10

researcher The Miner Mag. Private

7:12

miners make up the rest and could be

7:14

more vulnerable after the halving, as they typically

7:16

must tap debt financing or venture capital to

7:18

cover their needs, whereas public companies can raise

7:21

funds via share sales. As

7:23

La Hoopla has revved up around the event,

7:25

some traders are betting that mining stocks will

7:27

fall. Total short interest, the dollar value of

7:29

the shares borrowed and sold by bearish

7:31

traders, stood at about $2

7:33

billion as of April 11th, according to

7:35

an estimate from S3 Partners. That

7:38

short interest accounted for almost 15% of the

7:40

group's outstanding shares, three times more than the US average

7:42

of 4.75%. The

7:45

update, the fourth since 2012, was

7:47

programmed by the anonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi

7:50

Nakamoto to maintain the hard cap of

7:52

21 million tokens to keep it from

7:54

becoming inflationary as a free. The

7:57

situation differs from four years ago when Bitcoin was trading under

7:59

$9 million $9,000 and most of the mining

8:01

activity took place in China. Since

8:03

then, much of that activity has shifted to

8:05

the U.S. driving competition for electricity." 10

8:09

seconds on the

8:11

clock. How

8:16

many things can you name that are always

8:18

growing? How about your

8:20

customer base? How about your business on

8:23

Shopify? Shopify

8:25

is the global commerce platform that helps you sell

8:28

at every stage of your business from the launcher

8:30

online shop stage to the first real-life store stage

8:32

all the way to the did we just hit

8:34

a million orders stage. Shopify is

8:36

there to help you grow whether you're selling

8:38

scented soap or offering outdoor outfits. Shopify

8:41

helps you sell everywhere from their all-in-one

8:43

e-commerce platform to their in-person POS system

8:45

wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify has

8:47

got you covered. Shopify helps you turn

8:50

browsers into buyers with the Internet's best

8:52

converting checkout 36% better on

8:54

average compared to other leading commerce platforms.

8:57

And sell more with less effort thanks to

8:59

Shopify Magic, your AI-powered all-star. I was just

9:01

checking in on our Shopify store this morning

9:04

running flawlessly as it's done for nearly a

9:06

decade now. Shopify powers 10% of

9:08

all e-commerce in the U.S. and Shopify

9:11

is the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's,

9:13

and Brooklyn and millions of other entrepreneurs

9:15

of every size across 175 countries. Sign

9:18

up for a $1 per month

9:20

trial period at shopify.com/Ride. All

9:23

lowercase. Go to shopify.com/Ride now

9:25

to grow your business. No

9:28

matter what stage you're in,

9:30

shopify.com/Ride. In

9:36

2023, just 10 vulnerabilities accounted for

9:38

over half of the incidents responded

9:41

to by Arctic Wolf's

9:43

incident response. Wouldn't

9:45

you like to know how to take them

9:47

off the table and make life more difficult

9:50

for cybercriminals? That's just one of the essential

9:52

insights you'll find inside the Arctic Wolf Labs

9:54

2024 Threats Report, authored

9:57

by their elite team of security researchers.

10:00

scientists and security development engineers,

10:02

and backed by the data

10:04

gained from trillions of weekly

10:06

observations with thousands of unique

10:08

environments. This report offers expert

10:10

analysis into attack types, root

10:12

causes, top vulnerabilities, TTPs, and

10:14

more. Discover the attack vector

10:16

behind nearly half of all successful cyber

10:18

crimes, why ransom demand climbed 20%

10:20

from 2023,

10:22

and find out why 2024 will be

10:24

an especially volatile year for cybersecurity. Learn

10:27

more and get your

10:30

copy now at arcticwolf.com.com.

10:32

That's arcticwolf.com.

10:38

I'm not saying this to jinx anything,

10:40

but the lowest hanging fruit of the

10:43

feared AI apocalypse still hasn't

10:45

quite been picked yet. Yes, AI

10:47

fakery is making its way around the various

10:49

nooks and crannies of the internet, but it's

10:52

not the overwhelming deluge that we might have

10:54

feared. Again, at least not yet.

10:56

But also remember that first

10:58

AI panic around cheating in

11:00

academic settings? Again,

11:02

it's not been the step change that some

11:04

were fearing. An analysis of more than 200

11:06

million student papers submitted over the last year shows only around

11:09

11% of them had

11:11

signs of AI help in them, and only around

11:13

3% of papers contained at least 80% AI writing, quoting

11:17

the Financial Times. In the US,

11:19

Stanford University researchers said last year that cheating

11:22

rates did not appear to have been affected

11:24

by AI. Up to 70% of

11:26

high school students have long confessed to

11:28

some form of cheating, and nearly a

11:30

year after chat GPT's arrival, that proportion

11:32

has not changed. At universities, research shows

11:34

half of students are regular generative AI

11:36

users, not necessarily to cheat, but only

11:38

about 12% use it daily. When it

11:40

comes to the number of student essays

11:43

written with the help of AI, rates

11:45

appear relatively steady, says, turn it in,

11:47

a plagiarism detection software group that has

11:49

a tool for checking generative AI use. It's

11:52

said that students have submitted more than 22 million

11:54

papers in the past 12 months that do show

11:56

signs of AI help, which was 11% of the

11:58

total it reviewed. Dude, more

12:00

than six million papers or three percent of the

12:02

total contain at least eighty percent of a I

12:04

writing. That is a lot of papers, but the

12:07

percentage of a I writing is virtually the same

12:09

as what turned it in San last year when

12:11

it carried out a similar assessment. Ai

12:13

usage rates have been stable. Says Chris Karen

12:15

turn it into Chief Executive and as

12:17

he told me last week, just because you're

12:20

using chat Cbd does not necessarily mean you

12:22

are cheating. Some teachers and faculty allow

12:24

some level of Ai assistance and writing an

12:26

essay, but they also want that properly

12:28

cited. He says a I can be incredibly

12:31

useful for doing research and brainstorming ideas and

12:33

quote. It's

12:39

that time again time when I ask

12:41

if anybody has invited to a new

12:44

social network. Will not knew exactly but

12:46

novel rob accounts air chat apps sort

12:48

of blew up late last week. So

12:50

is the have an invite? Please let

12:52

me know by an attack mean.com Here's

12:54

the deal with air Chat according to

12:56

Techcrunch. A. Previous version of Airtight

12:58

was released last year, but the team

13:01

led by Angeles founder of all Rather

13:03

taunt and former Tinder products exact Brian

13:05

nor Guard rebuilt the app every last

13:07

It on Ios and Android yesterday currently

13:09

invite only. Airtight is already ranked number

13:11

twenty seven and Social Networking on Apple's

13:13

app Store. Visually, Airtight should feel pretty

13:15

familiar and intuitive with the ability to

13:18

follow other users, scroll through a fee

13:20

to posts, then reply to like and

13:22

share those posts. The difference is that

13:24

the posts and replies are audio recordings

13:26

which the app then transcribes. When

13:28

you open Air Chat, messages automatically start

13:30

playing and you quickly cycle through them

13:33

by swiping down and up if you're

13:35

so inclined. You can actually paused the

13:37

audio and just read tax. Users can

13:39

also share photos and videos, but audio

13:41

seems to be what everyone's focus on

13:43

and what Robert thought describes as transforming

13:45

the dynamic compared to text based social

13:47

apps. After joining Air Chat this morning,

13:49

most of the posts I saw were

13:51

about the app itself with Rob Account

13:53

and Nor Guard answering questions and soliciting

13:55

see back humans are all meant. to

13:57

get along with other humans it just requires

14:00

the natural voice, Ravikant said. Online

14:02

text-only media has given us this delusion that

14:04

people can't get along, but actually everybody can

14:06

get along. This isn't the first

14:09

time tech startups have bet on voice as

14:11

the next big social media thing, but AirChat's

14:13

asynchronous, threaded posts make for a pretty different

14:15

experience than the live chat rooms that briefly

14:17

flourished on Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces. Narguard

14:20

argued that this approach removes the stage fright

14:22

barrier to participating because, quote, you can take

14:24

as many passes at composing a message on

14:26

here as you like and nobody knows. In

14:29

fact, he said that in conversations with early users,

14:31

the team found that, quote, most of the

14:34

people using AirChat today are very introverted and

14:36

shy. Personally, I haven't convinced

14:38

myself to post anything yet. I was

14:40

more interested in seeing how others were

14:42

using the app. Plus, I have a

14:44

love-hate relationship with the sound of my

14:46

voice. Still, there's something to be said

14:48

for hearing Ravikant and Narguard explain their

14:51

vision rather than just reading the transcriptions,

14:53

which can miss nuances of enthusiasm, intonation,

14:55

etc. And I'm especially curious

14:57

to see how deadpan jokes and

14:59

shitposting translate, or don't, into audio. I

15:02

also struggle a bit with the speed. The

15:04

app defaults to 2x audio playback, which I

15:06

thought sounded unnatural, particularly if the whole idea

15:08

is fostering human connection. You can reset the

15:11

speed by holding down the pause button, but

15:14

at 1x, I noticed I'd start skimming

15:16

when listening to longer posts. Then I'd

15:18

usually skip ahead before listening to the

15:20

full audio, but maybe that's fine, end

15:23

quote. Again, any invites? brianattechmeme.com or

15:25

at brianmcc on Twitter. Finally

15:33

today, long-time listeners know I have a

15:35

fascination with storage. I remember

15:37

when I got my first computer with a 100 gigabyte

15:40

hard drive and how spacious and capacious

15:43

that felt, but I also

15:45

remember how my first mp3 player could

15:47

hold but one album at a time,

15:49

only one. I'd load Primal Scream's Exterminator

15:51

album and go for a run, and

15:54

at track 11, this device

15:57

was out of storage, so it was either hit

15:59

repeat or stop running. I usually stopped running.

16:02

So here we go, quoting the Verge, it

16:05

wasn't that long ago when we were

16:07

impressed by a 400 gigabyte micro SD

16:09

card, but now Western Digital is showing

16:11

off a full size SD card with

16:13

10 times the storage capacity. The new

16:15

SanDisk Extreme Pro 4 terabyte SD card

16:17

is designed for cameras and laptops, and

16:20

it's the first time we've seen the

16:22

storage size on an SD card. While

16:24

Western Digital is previewing its 4 terabyte

16:26

SD card at the NAB show this

16:29

week, it won't actually be available until

16:32

2025. Anantek notes that the card uses

16:34

the ultra high speed I UHSI

16:36

interface, which supports up to 104

16:40

MBS data transfers in the

16:42

UHS 104 mode.

16:44

It also has minimal sequential write speeds

16:47

of 30 MBS, enough

16:49

for 8K video recording. The

16:51

SD Association first announced its

16:53

secure digital ultra capacity or

16:55

SDUC card specifications in 2018,

16:58

promising that SD cards would soon

17:01

hold up to 128 terabytes of

17:03

storage. It's taken quite some time to get

17:05

to the 4 terabyte point and Western Digital

17:07

isn't disclosing what type of NAND is inside

17:10

the upcoming card. So even higher

17:12

capacities are likely a ways off. Still,

17:14

if you're eager to record beyond 4K

17:16

resolution with 4 terabytes of space, then

17:19

Western Digital should have something ready next

17:21

year. The big question is how much

17:23

a 4 terabyte UHS1 SD card will

17:25

cost. Given the 1 terabyte versions

17:27

of the same card retail for around $140, you're probably looking at

17:31

$600 or more for a 4 terabyte

17:33

version, end quote. I

17:41

think I brought this up before, but I've

17:43

fallen in love with the feature in Apple

17:45

News Plus where certain articles are

17:48

turned into podcast episodes so you can listen

17:50

to instead of read them. Can

17:52

anyone listening to me right now put me

17:54

in touch with the Apple News team? I

17:57

mean, I do a daily news

17:59

show that could be... perfect for this section of

18:01

Apple News Plus. We'd love to have at least

18:03

the conversation. Brian at techmeme.com,

18:05

talk to you tomorrow.