HW News - Everyone Hates AI, NVIDIA's Vibecoded Drivers, RAM Companies Pull Debt

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:01]Hey everyone, welcome back to the hardware news recap of the week. In this one, Nvidia's drivers just posted a massive set of patch notes for a lot of vulnerabilities that they have vibe coded into existence, I guess.

[00:00:13]Additionally, the US government's cyber security agency had a folder named private on GitHub. Spoiler alert, folder was not private. Also, passwords were in it. Uh there's other GitHub news, too.

[00:00:26]That's not going to be in this episode though because it just came out as I'm working on this, but we'll get to that later. Additionally, the AI parasites are getting booed on the stage as they do commencement speeches around the various universities uh during their ceremonies right now, which is just real heartening to see.

[00:00:45]>> And if you if you'd let me make this point, please.

[00:00:50]ASUS is getting into the memory business after saying ASUS would not get into the memory business 5 months ago, but they're in it now. Sort of. They're buying sticks from someone else and then selling them for $882 because it's ROG. And also, PlayStation Plus prices going up for the subscription that you use to use your other subscription to play games that you bought on the internet. All that and more. Uh, also Computex is coming up in a couple weeks and we've got a ton of interviews and uh, booth visits to see all the new stuff they have. So, we'll talk about that, too. Before that, this video is brought to you by Montek and the 10 microATX case. The 10 is launching for Mont's 10-year anniversary and goes heavy on the mesh ventilation with a fine mesh front, side panel, and even heavily ventilated rear exhaust for the case. The case is an open slate for fan positioning and air flow and also advertises nine power supply positions, three motherboard positions, and seven GPU slots across modes, which makes the case highly reconfigurable, giving you the ability to build a unique microATX PC that gives more space than ITX, but doesn't take the footprint of ATX. Learn more at the link in the description below. First up, just the usual quick GN update before a major trade show or event. The one coming up now, we're about to leave for because we always go early every year, is Competitex, which is the biggest show of the year. Uh, this year I I I don't think it's I'm a little worried about what the companies are going to have. I It sure seems like it's going to be a whole lot of AI. And interestingly, this year, Nvidia has a GTC event, their own event that just so happens to be the exact same time in the same area, and they're like kind of working together, but it seems more of like an Nvidia, you either work with me or I'm going to I'm going to make sure you regret it type of thing. That was my read on the situation. So, it'll be a very interesting show, if only for that reason. Uh, but we'll be out there. We have in addition to the sort of product coverage and then the interviews I hope to get with a bunch of different you know people who work in the industry engineers and otherwise we also will be meeting up with a bunch of people you all are familiar with. So uh Dar Bower I'm going to get up with him. We'll show some of his new stuff but also just talk about industry in general fun topics things like that. We'll also be meeting up with Steve from Hardware Unboxed. I last year he took me to the bridal suite. by took me to Too. I mean, I I think we occupied it when we probably weren't supposed to be, but look, no one else was in there. And they only found out when we published the video, but we last time we filmed the video in the bridal suite. I'm going to see if he'll take me to the chapel this time, and we'll we'll see if we might not be I don't know, maybe we'll be able to upload it to YouTube. uh show should be pretty fun though if only because this will be a good opportunity for us to also document additional coverage of the companies that are struggling which is a lot of them right now as we're talking about in several of our uploads at the moment for the companies that don't make silicon. So obviously the companies like Samsung, Nvidia, Highex, AMD, [ __ ] all them like they've got plenty of money.

[00:03:54]They're fine. Uh but it's everyone who relies on them for this industry to exist. We'll be talking to them as well.

[00:04:00]So that's kind of the plan. Um some other quick news on the GN side because of this travel coming up. Uh we've got that bamboo lab sort of deep dive I mentioned and I'm working on configuring something pretty big for that. So the scope expanded which is you know it's good and bad. The bad is it means it's going to be a lot more work. The good is that it'll be way more interesting and complete which is how we prefer to do things. So, uh, the scope expanded because there's been a [ __ ] of a lot of news in the last week where, uh, there, so they're getting challenged on the legality of some of the way they operate. Bamboo has sort of responded.

[00:04:36]There's a lot to get into. We want to do it full justice. And so, I'm currently working on planning a bunch of flights all over the place. We might end up in Europe for a bunch of this too uh for our Bamboo Lab deep dive sort of investigative report that we're putting together that will now likely be pushed out into like July or August. And the reason for that is because I'm also starting to research with the team some of the 3D printer laws that are being proposed where you know we've gotten into we've gotten a lot more familiar at GN with the uh the laws that are written, how they're passed, the lobbying, the spend, how companies benefit from them and stuff like that. I want to dig into all of that as well because I think there's some places where bamboo could benefit from laws that are pretty anti-consumer. So, we've got a lot of work to do. Point of saying it is uh we're pushing that into like July August time frame. Is that okay? I was worried that those months were six and seven and then people would be in the comments like six, seven because every it's become a whole thing. Seven and eight. So, uh that's the plan for Bamboo. And the last one on the quick jet update side is we have some ads coming up for a tabletop card game, which I'm I'm only mentioning hardware news because it's different. Normally we do computer hardware ads and stuff like that. Uh but this one's different. And so it's like the usual, you know, pre-roll brought to you by Thermal Grizzly, brought to you by uh Anttech, that type of thing, except it's going to be for a tabletop game that my friend is making. And actually, he is the one who runs our warehouse and appeared in our Terrace part two documentary. Uh, and so he's also got his own thing on like that he's doing on his own on the side where he's trying to get a tabletop card game and uh plushies that he's making for it off the ground. I like it. I think it's cool. It is all made by human artists.

[00:06:14]So, he's been really big on hiring artists to design all of the characters, the cards they're doing. Like it's sad that you have to do this now, but they're like recording the process of making the art by hand because unfortunately [ __ ] AI has made it so that everyone thinks anything remotely creative is made by an LLM now. Uh but I I like what they're doing. I like their angle where uh you know hiring artists for everything and actually like making a thing that's creative expression is cool. So, uh, also, and the reason this is in news is, uh, some of you probably know who Vincent is, the attorney who joins us to talk about NZXT's lawsuit and ASUS's warranty issues and all that stuff. The guy who comes in and provides expert analysis. Uh, he has worked on play testing and developing that card game. And if you've watched those interviews with him, he regularly references Magic the Gathering. So, he's got a I don't know what it is with lawyers, but every lawyer I know is like a top tier player in Magic. So, anyway, he worked on uh on play testing this card game, too, which is called Totem.

[00:07:23]Uh so, that'll be one of the ads I really only wanted to kind of go over it because when people see it, they're going to be like, "Wait, what? This is not like a computer case. Why is this here?" But, and that's why I just I think it's cool and u they they wanted to run ads and uh I wanted to give them the the spot to do that. So, all right, getting into the news. We'll start with the good news, which is speaking of working with humans to make art instead of using LLMs to do it. keep booing these [ __ ] parasites is what I was tweeting about over the past week as speaker after speaker at university commencement ceremonies including the ex CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, who's worth an estimated $64 billion have been massively booed to where it's like actually picking up on the mic and drowning them out by the students in attendance when these executives are starting to talk about AI because go figure telling a room full of people who just spent at least four years of their lives normally going into massive debt to then hopefully get a job when they graduate that uh AI is the future and deal with it. actual quote by the way that's it turns out not a winning play especially when you're like go learn all of the stuff and also by the way all that knowledge that you just learned we're going to feed it into the AI wood chipper and see what comes out the other side let's just let's play a montage we'll play them all back toback this this is a good news item all right this at the front of hardware this is like a world first the first story in hardware news this week is a good news item Because these [ __ ] parasites are finally hearing what people actually think of their beloved AI. Let's roll the clips. Last December, Time magazine selected its person of the year for 2025 and it would this time it was the architects of artificial intelligence.

[00:09:19]Interesting.

[00:09:23]It will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person and every relationship you have. I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you. There is a fear.

[00:09:44]We do not know.

[00:09:46]We do not know the precise contours of what this transformation will look like.

[00:09:53]Choose a diversity of perspectives including let me add and if you if you'd let me make this point please.

[00:10:08]Streaming rewrote the economics.

[00:10:11]Social media rewrote the discovery model.

[00:10:16]AI is rewriting production as we sit here.

[00:10:21]I know it. Deal with it. Like I said, it's a tool.

[00:10:27]Hey, like I said, you can you can hear me now or you can pay me later.

[00:10:35]Hey, then do something about it. Okay?

[00:10:38]It's a tool. Make it work for you.

[00:10:42]The things you learn. The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.

[00:10:55]So the people in these clips include ex CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, who champions AI and presumably its ability to replace millions of jobs. Again, estimated to be worth $64 billion. That was at the University of Arizona. The second was Scott Porchetta, the guy who said, "Do something about it," which is certainly a choice of words to say, and is the owner of Big Machine Records and beneficiary of signing Taylor Swift when she was about 14. And he's estimated to be worth as a result of that $450 million. The third was Gloria Cfield, the vice president of a real estate development company. If you watch their speeches, these to me, it's like condescendingly put together.

[00:11:34]Like the guy said, "Get used to it." Uh, and and either you use it or you make him rich or whatever. You pay me later or whatever. He said, "Hear me now or pay me later." It's like, "Yeah, real real great thing to say to a bunch of students who again just got done paying tens of thousands of dollars to hopefully get a job when they're out."

[00:11:55]So, I don't know. The choice is not the most in touch, but uh this is the next big one that's coming up is Lisa Booze.

[00:12:04]Lisa Sue, Lisa, Lisa Sue will be on stage at MIT to give a commencement speech on May 28th, right before Computex, which is like pretty interesting timing. If they do a keynote at Computex and she goes and gets booed on stage at MIT, uh that will definitely make it into our coverage because that that will live for the whole week at the show if that's what happens. But we'll see. We'll see if she reads through if she sees what happens here and goes maybe I don't like overcommit on the whole AI thing this time. But the good news is that everyone is fed up with the absolute feckless destructive expansion of data centers as they have continued to encroach on clean air and clean water regulations consume power beyond what we are actually capable of sustaining.

[00:12:51]increase people's power bill as a result of that to pay for the power usage of the private companies that are benefiting from stealing everything that society has made to then profit off of themselves. So, you get to make the stuff that they use to make their money and then you also get to subsidize their energy consumption and their water as you drink and breathe less clean water and air uh respectively. I'm just glad to see that there's a younger generation that's rejecting this stuff as it's been pitched to them and they're not just like drinking the Kool-Aid because there's a lot of reasons to be skeptical of the way this is being rolled out right now. There's a lot of control that's being enacted by very large uh corporate entities that are very small in number over a lot of people and that's concerning. So, I was happy to see that. I saw one comment on Twitter that said something like something to the effect of these billionaires don't care about getting booed. They make lots of money. like they don't they really couldn't give a [ __ ] I I disagree honestly. I think if you're like one of these types of people, you are probably a megalomaniac and this probably really eats at you at night. Like this is probably causing some second guesses and thinking about uh maybe I won't do the commencement thing next year at the other school. They get fewer speaking arrangements and kind of just it would be easier to disappear into the background and not talk about AI again.

[00:14:12]So I think it would bother them, but you know, whatever. Just voice your opinion.

[00:14:16]It's good to be heard. Let's get into the next news item. Up next, Nvidia's vibecoded drivers and its security updates it has where Nvidia has been open about its use of AI and everything it does.

[00:14:28]>> One of my favorite things is just vibe coding. Anybody could be a software programmer now and and Vibe coding is creating software that you know is better than a lot of software programmers.

[00:14:38]>> Maybe we're seeing the results of that.

[00:14:39]On May 18th, Nvidia updated one of its security bulletins that describes a bunch of vulnerabilities for its drivers. specifically uh and Nvidia has struggled with GPU drivers for the last 15 months or so with things as basic as just stability and uh you know working.

[00:14:57]So this is a continuation of that. But on the security side, the most recent post recommends an immediate driver update for security reasons with this patch arriving immediately after Nvidia's GeForce Now thirdparty partner breach for its cloud gaming service. We covered that on GNCA if you're curious about what happened there. The driver patch notes mentioned resolution of over a dozen CVEEs, including several of high severity, with impact notes mentioning denial of service attacks, escalation of privileges, which could be used for code execution at an elevated level, information disclosure, and we'd assume information theft, data tampering, and code execution. The vulnerabilities listed are being resolved for both Linux and Windows, though the specifics are different in some cases. Describing some of the exploits, Nvidia writes, quote, "Nvidia display driver for Linux contains a vulnerability where an attacker could cause a use after free. A successful exploit of this vulnerability might lead to denial of service, escalation of privileges, information disclosure, data tampering, and code execution." End quote. Another writes, quote, "Nvidia display driver for Windows and Linux contains a vulnerability in the kernel mode layer where a user could cause improper access to GB resources." End quote. with another describing time of check time of use issues also leading to code execution. The various patched vulnerabilities include incorrect numeric type conversion, heap buffer overflows, out-of-bounds write issues, unified virtual memory vulnerabilities, out-of-bound reads that could lead to information disclosure, possible leaks for held driver locks, multi-instance GPU partition management, quote, where an insecure default initialization of the memory subsystem routing resources could lead to data corruption or a hang during partition reconfiguration.

[00:16:30]unquote race conditions for leaking sensitive memory, reordering compiler or processor memory instructions, incorrect permissions assignment, and that's just the first table. Its VGPU software also had vulnerabilities noted, including use after free stack memory exploits and outofbounds access exploits. Notably, Nvidia's Pascal GPUs are still getting this security update despite being abandoned for game optimization. To Nvidia's credit, they promised security updates for the 1080 Ti and its kin, and they seem to be delivering. The card is about a decade old now, and it still looks like it's one of the best supported gaming cards ever made because it's still getting the security updates.

[00:17:09]Nvidia has had its worst year we've ever witnessed for its GPU drivers. They have been awful. I mean, the amount of issues uh since the 50 series launch has it's really been impressive. like a it's very clear that Nvidia has shifted its focus and also maybe that it's using AI to code them or something. In multiple interviews, Jensen has talked about how they use AI in everything they do. Now, he's talked about vibe coding and how much he's a big fan of it and uh like unironically using that phrase and it's possible that we are seeing the results of that for their drivers. Up next, according to CTE, in total, RAM module makers like Adata and Team Group are bringing in about 880 million US dollars between them in the form of bank loans, convertible bonds, and private share offerings in order to secure enough capital for ongoing memory purchases.

[00:18:04]So, these companies, they're not the memory suppliers. The groups that make the memory themselves again are SKH, Samsung, and Micron. A couple others like CXMT, but those are the main ones.

[00:18:15]And everyone else that we know in the consumer space, they buy that supply and then they put it onto a PCB, slap a heat sink on it. They obviously do a bunch of testing and stuff, but they don't make the silicon and then they sell it. And those companies uh also don't supply memory for the big data center solutions that we commonly talk about. So when Nvidia goes and sells its Vera Rubin whatever solution it's going to be uh that's mostly going to be filled with LP DDR memory. So in the past they've used for example LP DDR5X a lot of it for the CPU that is not made by a company like GSkill or Vcolor or Corsair. It's made by the memory supplier and then attached to a different board and shoved into the box. Uh same goes for the GPU VRAMm that is not made by the stick suppliers obviously. So point of me saying all this is because I I did see a number of comments on this specific thread when I was reading some of the posts on Reddit and elsewhere where there are still a lot of people who don't understand that uh a data for example in team group don't make the memory. So, the reason this is an interesting story is because the companies that buy the memory supply can no longer afford the massive upfront capital investment that they need to buy the memory supply, which is bad. Like, that is real bad. Uh because that means is they're taking on additional loans and capital to buy the thing they have to sell to you. That's going to have a cost for you because they're they're paying interest on that, whatever it is.

[00:19:47]uh and that interest is going to be reflected in the price. Likewise, if there is a point at which everything falters, which this would be a good thing for us consumers, but a bad thing for them, then they're in a situation where they have now taken loans. They've massively overpaid for something where say uh some black swan event happens.

[00:20:06]Open AAI just goes under overnight or they uh none of the data centers end up needing the amount of capacity that they claimed and the requirement for memory goes down. something like that that causes the memory market to tank without expectation even if it's like 15%. Now you've got all these companies who have already bought in at the high price with loans and what happens next is not really clear. Some of them probably go out of business but uh a lot of them would probably have to try and just continue selling at the current high price because they can't really sell for a loss for too long. So anyway, this is not a good situation. And the end result is that the stick makers are facing challenges getting supply themselves uh including cash flow challenges as a result of supply cost. Even though the revenue is up doesn't necessarily mean that the profits up and you know even with high revenue if there's not enough margin there they can have some pretty serious sudden cash flow problems. All of that said with memory and such demand companies like InoDisk Transcend and Neo Fora have already surpassed their 2025 revenue totals within the first four months of this year. Obviously, that's just revenue. It doesn't necessarily mean that the profit looks good. And for at least one of the memory stick makers we spoke to for our documentary that uh is coming up, profits are not proportionally up with revenue.

[00:21:24]Documentary may actually be live by the time we post this. I'm not sure, but it'll be on the channel regardless.

[00:21:28]According to market research firm Trend Force, the pricing trend will only continue. Trend Force expects DRAMM contract prices to increase 45 to 50% quarter-over-arter in the second quarter of 2026 with mobile phone LPDDR5 memory up 58 to 63% in the first quarter and projected for 78 to 83% in second quarter per CTE. So this is it's an interesting story for really all the wrong reasons which is I if anyone falters for even a second then some of these companies could be at risk of just being snapped out of existence.

[00:22:00]realistically they get bought by someone else who's larger which seems maybe architected into how this whole thing is constructed. Uh but on the consumer side this will lead to cost increases if the supply itself remains elevated which it has so far. I mean the it's it doesn't look like it's really gotten any better.

[00:22:19]that blip where it went down like 5% whatever it was a month ago or something maybe two months now that I remember seeing headlines like memory drops for first time in a month down 5% like cool up 850% I guess 845 now we're roughly you know up and down with the percentage but anyway point is that blip happened at like the end of a quarter which is not an accident normally that happens when a company briefly like Newegg for example which is publicly traded drops prices on a bunch of categories to try and hit targets or hit some kind of objective before the quarter closes so that they can shove those numbers into their report and pad it a little bit, look a little better. That's when that blip happened. It's like right before earnings for everybody and then it went back up. Sure seems intentional, but anyway. Up next, the government's cyber security and infrastructure security agency uh leaked its own credentials on a public GitHub page. They called it private, but you know, the honor system doesn't normally work. So, I guess the takeaway we have for this story going into it is there are no non-clowns left in the clown car. The CISA's public folder contained plain text passwords, Department of Homeland Security passwords, which we assume weren't the name of Christ's dog, cloud keys, and more. Krebs on Security has a write up of the work done by Giam Valadon of GitGarduian, a security researcher.

[00:23:50]GitGardian found a GitHub repository called private-cisa that was uploaded and maintained on an ongoing basis by the US Cyber Security and Infrastructure Agency via Krebs on security. Quote, "Commit logs in the offending GitHub account show that the CISA administrator disabled the default setting in GitHub that blocks users from publishing SSH keys or other secrets in public code repositories." End quote.

[00:24:14]Quoting Valadon as expressing his disbelief that his find was even real.

[00:24:18]Valadon said, quote, "This is indeed the worst leak I've witnessed in my career."

[00:24:22]End quote. GitG Guardian, the researchers behind the find, stated that it found quote 844 megabytes of plain text passwords, AWS tokens, and Entra ID SML certificates belonging to the CISA.

[00:24:34]End quote. The repository was accessible since November of 2025, meaning the US government had credentials available to various services, including those used by the DHS apparently for about 6 months. It noted that some of the credentials were still valid. First off, good work done by GitG Guardian. Second off, I struggle to believe that this is the first agency or entity that has found this vulnerability. Uh they may be the first to publicly disclose it and they may be the first that found it without intent to use it for bad things.

[00:25:07]It just seems to me that if you're in an adversarial cyber security agency, you probably find this stuff pretty fast and it's been there for like six months. So, I don't know. Maybe maybe everyone has clowns in the clown car. Uh but either way, it just seems incredibly bad. GitG Guardians post describes that the exposed content included supply chain tooling, internal documentation, backups, notes, and Microsoft DocX files, scripts for infrastructure operations, and more. GitGardian wrote, quote, "At first we thought it was a hoax given at how suspicious the directory names file names like external- secret-reoccuben.txt, important AWS tokens.txt, AWS workspace, Firefox passwords.csv, and Kuba config.txt." And their context, private keys, personal and professional GitHub tokens, AWS secrets seemed too good to be true." End quote. Yes. Yes, that does seem too good to be true.

[00:26:09]Plain text passwords for government agencies on the open internet does seem too good to be true.

[00:26:20]If you're any kind of adversarial agency because now you don't need funding to do your job because we just put it on the internet. GitG Guardian said that it disclosed the leak via nine emails to the repository author. GitG Guardian gives credit to the CISA for moving quote fast and quote referencing other disclosures as taking longer. However, the group does note that it took days to get resolved only happening quickly once they had emailed the CISA directly.

[00:26:46]Additionally, in some of our prior content, we've already reported how the CISA has been facing budget cuts and staffing cuts under the Trump administration for the past little over a year now. So, uh, this is either an indication that they definitely deserved those cuts or that those cuts led to stuff like this. It's not really clear to me which one of those it is. Um, at a time when US states are starting to propose bills mandating ID though for certain basic functions of the internet like chatting with people in a video game. The the handling of the US cyber security ay's credentials is a concern. I if you haven't followed it, New York State currently is proposing a bill. We've covered this on our GNCA channel which is a different channel we have. Um that bill basically says anything that would be classified as social media which is not like Facebook and Twitter. It's those things but also anything else where you create a profile or functionally some kind of representation of yourself i.e. character and where there are whisper or direct messaging functions available. So everything basically like video games especially uh where the proposal is that you'll need to do some form of face scan and or ID verification to use those services without any kind of interrupt or downgrade to them. And at a time when we're proposing bills like that in government apparently leaking everything publicly like it's not even a breach. They just put it out there that this is this is like unbelievably incompetent. I don't I can't really give them credit for acting fast when they did it to begin with. So, uh this is to me this was just like the biggest Yes. Thank you for the reminder of why face scans and ID uploads to do basic stuff on the internet is not a good idea. Uh, and if you want to see more about that, then the GNCA channel we'll link below has it and uh, the coverage in our New York uh, Bill episode. Back in December, ASUS denied a rumor that stated it would be getting into the memory market. Now, back then, the rumor there were some stories that some suggested they were looking at getting into memory fabrication, which just personally I think that never was going to happen. ASUS is not that big of a business, but uh they denied the rumors at the time of getting into memory. But now ASUS has at least decided to start selling sticks of RAM made by other people and decorated by them. They aren't fabricating the silicon, but they will be selling the 2x 24 GB sticks of DDR5 626 36 3676 memory in China for $882.

[00:29:37]The RAM sticks are made by Bowwin via the ASUS slides published by video cards. ASUS will support both XMPP and Expo in addition to its own ROG mode which works with some ASUS motherboards.

[00:29:49]ROG mode will offer a switch between DDR5 6000 CL26ish and DDR5 8000 364848 1110. Most kits have two profiles that functionally would allow the same type of thing, but this does it in a way that it's it's basically four profiles cuz across Expo and XMPP. Asus overclocker baiten showed additional photos of the RAM. This was helpful because we were trying to understand how these could possibly be worth $882.

[00:30:18]We assume it comes from the tasteful GPS coordinates printed on them, which are valuable because they probably point straight to the ASUS RAM warehouse or something. It's like a map to El Dorado except it's like El El Duramando.

[00:30:38]Let's just move on. Following Sony's price hikes on its PlayStation hardware, which included bringing the PS5 Pro to $900 because of changes to the quote global economic landscape end quote, Sony is now also increasing the price of PlayStation Plus to $11 per month. Sony says this is due to once again quote ongoing market conditions end quote noting that the price will only apply to new users and they'll grandfather in existing users. As you can imagine the internet was not happy about this. Uh, one reason might be the big difference between increasing the price on physical hardware that has RAM in it and increasing the price on a subscription that allows you to use your other subscription for internet to play games that you already bought separately on the internet is there's no memory in that second one. The nested recursive subscriptions, they they don't have the memory part.

[00:31:39]So, uh, PlayStation Plus already shouldn't exist again because it's like a double subscription. Uh, it is literally just a hard wall that blocks you from using the internet you already pay for. But, uh, it will continue to exist now at $11 per month starting, which is a $1 increase per month. A 3month subscription will cost $28, which keeps that scale at a $3 increase over that time. Sony chalocks the price hike up to quote ongoing market conditions end quote. But at least it's not doubling the monthly price to play video games on the internet like Steam famously did when it went from $0 per month to play video games on the internet to double that, which is okay, it's still zero, but the point stands. This piggybacks on the fact that Sony is currently trying to get millions of its users to verify their identities with options of doing face scans or ID uploads to a third-party service that has funded the advancement of ID verification laws. Big [ __ ] surprise.

[00:32:43]To use the PS5s that those users already bought and own. Now, Sony says that this is to comply with laws. But the tricky detail is that Sony has lots of options for how precisely to comply with the laws in the UK, including which third party services to use, if any, and also the method with which customers can verify their identity, quote unquote, verify their identity, uh, i.e. feed information into a surveillance system.

[00:33:10]But our GNCA video explained why we think the implementation by Sony is dangerous and we'll link that below. But that's on our other channel called GNCA if you want to hear about that. At least over here in the PC playing multiplayer games is other than sometimes games themselves free. And uh you know it's it it's kind of how it should be because you're already paying for the internet. So to pay for a wall to go through I like I get it. They've got servers, they make enough money, right? Uh but then again, I guess the PC also is the platform where two sticks of memory is $882.

[00:33:49]But it does have GPS coordinates on it.

[00:33:51]Speaking of increasing prices, with gas prices being so high right now, now is also a great time to figure out how to make EVs, a obvious alternative, also cost more. A congressional bill called the Build America 250 Act is proposing an annual $130 fee on electric vehicles, which is set to increase $5 every year until it's capped at $150. Presumably, the America they want to build is one where everyone is perpetually in debt.

[00:34:19]But there's good news. This is a bipartisan effort. The bipartisan bill was proposed by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves, a Republican lawmaker from Missouri, and committee ranking member Rick Larson, a Democrat lawmaker from Washington State. For some reason, they didn't call it the Grave Larseny bill, Grave Larsson bill. But the bill notes that it's designed to quote continue to ensure we have bipartisan support of economically [ __ ] no.

[00:34:49]Oh, no. It says, quote, "Authorize funding for federal aid highways, bridge construction and rehabilitation, highway safety programs, transit programs, and rail programs, and for other purposes," end quote. Now, because we are a very serious publication, we sent a reporter to ask the lawmakers what the quote other purposes end quote meant. And we unfortunately couldn't understand their response. It wasn't in English. I'm not quite sure what the language was, but when we asked them what are the other purposes the money could be used for, they said uh something like but I don't if anyone could translate that. The two lawmakers put out a press release elaborating their justification for the fee, stating quote, "The Build America 250 Act ensures that electric vehicle owners begin paying their fair share for the use of our roads." End quote. The logic here on the surface maybe makes some sense where they're basically saying EVs use roads. EVs are heavy. EVs put wear and tear on roads.

[00:35:48]EVs don't use gas. Gas helps pay for roads, at least federally. Uh and therefore EVs should pay for the use of those roads through something equivalent to the gas taxes. Uh but it's just the execution of it that to us seems a little bit strange. At least 41 states already impose their own EV fees.

[00:36:07]According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the lowest state fees start at $50 per year and encompasses states like Colorado, Hawaii, and South Dakota. They top off at $290 in New Jersey. In North Carolina, it's a nice round, predictable, easy to remember number of $214.50.

[00:36:28]So, that's good. Our understanding is that if the proposed bill becomes law, this money would be paid on top of the state requirement for their fees for EVs, uh, which is because this would be a federal mandate for roads that are supposed to be federally maintained. And so that's in theory where that money would go. Flat EV fees are problematic for a number of reasons. First of all, the traditional gas taxes and users of that gas who drive gas powered vehicles are paying based on how much gas they use, which would directly correlate with how much they use the roads and how far or how much they drive. The EV tax, as proposed, would be a flat fee federally for anybody with an EV. Uh those who drive very little would pay the same as those who drive a lot. And we also don't know where this stops where uh it really wouldn't surprise me if ebikes at least some kind of them end up on this type of proposal in the future or if maybe e scooters did which definitely cause a lot less wear and tear than for example a heavy cyber truck. So uh in addition consumer reports uh reports that quote the average American pays between $70 and $90 per year in federal gas taxes end quote. This is a far cry from what an EV driver from New Jersey might pay if this bill goes through, which would conceivably amount to $420 per year.

[00:37:51]Calculating fees based on mileage, like New Zealand already does, might make more sense. though that policy has reportedly caused a decline in EV sales.

[00:37:58]Katherine Garcia, director of the Sierra Club's Clean Transportation for All campaign, criticized the bill and said, quote, "Now is the time to incentivize, not penalize, clean transportation options that curb emissions harmful to our health and climate." End quote. The bill isn't a done deal yet. It still needs to be passed through the House and Senate before the president would sign it into law. Now, this in some ways feels similar to what we're kind of going through at the office with solar panels where I've wanted to do solar panels for a long time just because I mean it'd be nice from both an environmental stewardship perspective and also just it is nice to knock out that recurring cost. Uh but there's a big upfront cost obviously and there have been various tax incentives over the years or breaks to make it more affordable because it's just otherwise kind of impossible to afford for us to do solar in a way that would actually like power our testing and all that stuff that we do here. It would be over $100,000 to get the panels. It would be close to 200k plus uh to get enough panels to actually cover our power usage, which is why I've never been able to do it. But point is the breaks and the uh incentives for that just happen to be expiring at the same time that the power bill is increasing as a result of data center buildouts which is just real nice. It's just I don't it's not really related. I just kind of it's been bothering me lately and I've wanted to say something. It's like, huh? With the cost of energy going up because of all the [ __ ] data centers that aren't paying for their own energy buildout, uh, causing everybody else who lives here to pay for it, it sure would be a good time to invest in solar so that we can, you know, it would pay for itself faster because the energy bill is going up and so obviously the ROI, it's quicker, right? Uh, but then they all of the things that make it actually maybe possible to afford are all evaporating at the exact same [ __ ] time, which again, not related, but really annoying.

[00:39:57]So, that's my that's our new segment.

[00:40:00]Steve rants about random [ __ ] that bothered him this week. Uh, we could make I guess that's actually what this entire channel is. But anyway, now there's like a it's like a section of a section of a video. So, it's recursive, kind of like the recursive PlayStation subscription, except for ranting. Up next, we've built thousands of data centers on land. Executives and CEOs are talking about building them in space, but have you thought about maybe putting them under the water in the ocean, too, because boy, have we got a plan for data centers. China has taken steps to actually build a data center under the sea. This is where we would insert the obvious clip, but then there'd be a copyright strike. So, you can just imagine that we played it instead. China Global Television Network, CDTN, which is an English-speaking wing of China's state-owned media, claimed, quote, "Unlike traditional land-based data centers, which can use up to 40% of their electricity for cooling, the underwater site relies on naturally cold seawater. Average sea temperatures in the area hover around 15° C, significantly reducing the energy needed for cooling systems." End quote. Now, data centers on land have caused a lot of ecological and environmental concerns. And even if those things don't bother you, then the fact that we're talking about removing clean water and clean air safety regulations, at least in part, see Lisa Sue on stage with Michael Gratzios, uh, should still be concerning because those things are good generally speaking. So the idea here is what if we took all of those ecological, environmental, and health concerns and then we put them into the ocean. The the publication, sorry. It's just it's just all so ridiculous now. It's it's like I don't I just I feel like I'm every day I read the news is like uh it's it's just like they they typed into chat GPT do something more ridiculous than yesterday. The publication expanded on the specifics for the ocean data center, writing, quote, "The underwater facility sits about 10 meters below the sea surface and contains 192 server racks across four levels. Its pilot phase currently operates at 2.3 megawws, while the full project is expected to reach 24 megawws." End quote. CGTN noted that the project has a total planned investment of 1.6 6 billion UN which converts to roughly $235 million US. The publication claims the design reduces carbon emissions and states that quote the data center is linked directly to a nearby 200 megawatt offshore wind farm with more than 50 turbines end quote. In a video on the CGTN YouTube page, the publication says that it quote cuts freshwater use to zero end quote. While that certainly sounds better down where it's wetter, it doesn't really get into talking about the unforeseen consequences of everything we do with data centers except in the ocean instead. Uh where it's definitely going to heat the surrounding water because that's uh how physics works. But to be fair, and I'm sure this would be the counterargument, oceans generally can take a massive amount of heat. The heat capacity of an ocean, it turns out, pretty [ __ ] high, which is probably the argument. uh but you would have a a localized hot we'll call it a a hot pocket for example that's probably trademarked uh where the heat would be higher at least around the data center and uh particularly too one thing I haven't seen a lot of discussion which when I was talking with Jimmy on the team about this he made the point of but particularly if there's a failure or a leak of some kind involving batteries for example uh plastics heavy metals or really anything to do with a data or where you get like a like a contamination breach effectively. Uh the ocean then gets to have that stuff in it.

[00:43:53]So I we've spent a lot of time trying to like not put it in rivers that go to the ocean. I guess that was so we could shortcut them and just put it straight in the ocean instead. But anyway, the the data centers what I'm getting at is uh we need more of them and uh and they are good for society and Jensen has not gotten his parasite into my brain yet.

[00:44:13]This is my actual opinion. The post doesn't also really talk much about the risk that underwater data centers face otherwise. Aside from things like being in an ocean, which is just going to be harder to maintain, uh you also have potential corrosion concerns. I'm sure they'd use materials where they try to avoid that. the issues could be exacerbated due to extreme weather, due to earthquakes, seismic events, things like that. So anyway, I guess that's we're going to data centers in space and data centers in the ocean or something.

[00:44:41]Let's break it up with a nice fun story actually for the end of the news which is a couple weeks ago we saw a post from a Reddit user RF3D which was really fun where the user discovered if you drop your Steam controller and if you do this do it on a soft surface uh it unleashes the scream heard around the world which is the Willilhelm scream.

[00:45:05]So this is it's nice it's a fun Easter egg from Valve to include in the news on the Steam Controller subreddit. The Redditor elaborated that it has a timeout period, so users can't just spam dropping in the controller to spam the screen. This is probably for the safety of the controller. On that topic, the user added, quote, I discovered this by tossing the controller onto my bed. No controllers were harmed in the making of this post. End quote. Like the original Steam Controller, which released in 2015, the 2026 variant doesn't have any traditional speakers, but it does have haptics, which can be tuned to generate tones.

[00:45:49]The Wilhelm Scream is a stock sound effect that's been used in hundreds of movies and TV shows. Fun fact, the first movie to use the Wilhelm Scream was the 1951 film Distant Drums. The Scream got its name from a character named Wilhelm, who falls into a river and gets eaten by alligators.

[00:46:08]Unlike RF3D's controller, Wilhelm was harmed in the making of this movie. They they didn't have special effects back then, so they just actually just had a guy get eaten by alligators. Uh just just don't say you didn't learn anything today. We've all learned something today, which is the history of the Wilhelm Scream. I'm glad we've been of service. That's it for this one. Uh the next one probably will be filmed in Taiwan because we've got Computex coming up. So, it's going to be a big show.

[00:46:34]We'll be out there uh for a couple weeks reporting on everything going on. Have a lot of meetings with companies. And as always, check back for all that coverage. There is a ton coming up just on both the hardware side and on the discussion side of what the [ __ ] is going on in the industry. And subscribe for more. Go to store.gamersex.net to help us out directly or patreon.com/gamersex and check back regularly the next couple weeks because we have all that news coming up. See you all next time.