• AI has reached the Uncanny Valley.  (The Verge)  (archive site)

  I gave Buddy the same dialogue as in the commercial, using my son’s name rather than Emma.  Hearing that same manufactured voice say my kid’s name out loud set alarm bells off in my head.  An AI generated Buddy in front of the Eiffel Tower?  Sorta weird, sorta cute.  AI Buddy addressing my son by name?  Nope, absolutely not, no thank you.

  Even the idiots at The Verge are, when it comes down to it, human.
  
  
  
• 2025 marked the year when Hollywood embraced AI, and the results were, frankly, awful.  (The Verge)  (archive site)

  Amazon’s gen-AI dubs became a shining example of how poorly this technology can perform.  They also highlighted how some studios aren’t putting all that much effort into making sure that their gen AI-derived projects are polished enough to be released to the public.  That was also true of Amazon’s machine-generated TV recaps, which frequently got details about different shows very wrong.  Both of these fiascos made it seem as if Amazon somehow thought that people wouldn’t notice or care about AI’s inability to consistently generate high-quality outputs.  The studio quickly pulled its AI-dubbed series and the recap feature down, but it didn’t say that it wouldn’t try this kind of nonsense again.

  Lots of juicy AI hate from The Verge today.

• It's not a bubble: Nvidia has paid Groq - which was valued at $6.9 billion as of September - $20 billion in cash for a non-exclusive license to its inference technology.  (CNBC) (archive site)
  
  Groq who?
  
  
  
• Framework is increasing memory prices in its laptops to $10 per gigabyte effective immediately.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  On the one hand, that is about the average retail price now.
  
  On the other hand, I paid less than that and got the rest of the PC thrown in free.
  
  
  
• The MiniForum BD895i SE is a mini-ITX motherboard using laptop RAM with a laptop CPU soldered in place.  (Notebook Check)
  
  It has a 16-core 55W Ryzen 8945HX and room for two SODIMMs and two M.2 SSDs.  Three video outputs, three audio jacks, four USB ports, and 2.5Gb Ethernet.
  
  A soldered-in CPU might seem like a bad idea until you realise that this board is as fast as a 12-core Ryzen 9900X desktop CPU and also costs the same as a 12-core Ryzen 9900X.
  
  
  
• MinisForum also announced a PCIe OCuLink card.  (Notebook Check)
  
  I mean, sure, I guess.  OCuLink is for external PCIe devices and this only works if you have internal PCIe slots available.  Useful if you have a system that can only fit a half-height single-slot card and you want to attach a GPU.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, December 26 2025 11:39 PM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, December 26 2025 11:39 PM (1zWbY)

Posted by: normal at Saturday, December 27 2025 02:33 AM (LADmw)

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