• The cost to query advanced AI APIs has dropped 99.7% in the past 18 months.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  That's a pretty dramatic shift.  What's causing it seems to simply be competition.
  
  Hardware costs have come down - a bit - and the new hardware is also more energy efficient - a bit.
  
  Training costs for creating new models have soared, on the other hand - DeepSeek's bullshit notwithstanding - but investor money keeps pouring in to cover that.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Nintendo has explained why Switch 2 hardware and software costs so much.  (Ars Technica)
  
  "Because", Nintendo said.
  
  
  
• Whistleblower-as-a-service Sarah Wynn-Williams has accused Facebook of building a Nazi base on the dark side of the Moon.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Or something.
  
  
  
• Is Nvidia's priority access program for RTX 5000 cards finished?  (Hot Hardware)
  
  Yes.
  
  
  
• Hackers spied on emails of the Office of Comptroller of the Currency - which is apparently a real thing somehow - for over a year.  (Straits Times)
  
  This is distinct from the hackers who were spying on the emails of the Treasury Department.
  
  
  
• Windows 11 has a new feature that lets Copilot watch while you work with other apps.  (Bleeping Computer)

  When you share your screen with AI, Copilot can then help analyze, offer insights, answer your questions, and speak to you in real time.

  I see you are attempting to uninstall Copilot.  This incident has been reported.
  
  
  
• Google is making some AI employees sign non-compete agreements.  (Business Insider)  (archive site)
  
  Since these have often been ruled unenforceable, Google has tried a new tack: After an employee resigns, their employment continues for another year.  They continue to be paid but they don't need to work, they are just not allowed to work for a competing company.
  
  
  
• Turns out there are still motherboards around with a good number of PCIe slots.  AMD's business-oriented B840 boards mostly have five slots, which is not bad considering that the maximum for a standard ATX system is seven.
  
  They're mostly PCIe 3.0 x1 electrically (x16 physical slots) so not great if you want a 100Gb network card but fine for most other uses.

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Friday, April 11 2025 03:05 AM (KOtXO)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, April 11 2025 09:46 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: normal at Friday, April 11 2025 03:31 PM (bg2DR)

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