Tech Brew Ride Home - M5 Chips Are Here

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

The new Apple M5 chips are here, and I’ll tell you what devices got them and what they can do. ChatGPT wants to allow you to have sexy time. Waymo is coming to London. Netflix wants to bring podcasts to your streaming diet. And its officially the end of the road for Windows 10. Apple’s 14-inch MacBook Pro gets an M5 chip bump and faster storage (The Verge) Sam Altman says ChatGPT will soon sext with verified adults (The Verge) Waymo’s robotaxis are coming to London (The Verge) Spotify partners with Netflix for video podcast distribution deal (TechCrunch) YouTube has a new video player (The Verge) OpenAI makes five-year business plan to meet $1tn spending pledges (FT) Windows 10 support “ends” today, but it’s just the first of many deaths (ArsTechnica) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. Welcome to the TechBrew right home for Wednesday, October 15th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today. The new Apple M5 chips are here, and I'll tell you what devices got them and what they can do. ChatGPT wants to allow you to have sexy time. Waymo is coming to London. Netflix wants to bring podcasts to your streaming diet, and it's officially the end of the road for Windows 10. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Apple this morning updated pieces of its hardware lineup. These are mostly spec bumps, but they're impressive. bumps because this marks the arrival of the M5 chip. For example, Apple unveiled a 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip, which Apple says offers up to 3.5x more performance for AI workflows. It also gets faster storage for the same $1,59 starting price shipping October 22nd. The iPad Pro got an M5 chip as well, also the new C1X cellular modem and an N1 chip for the start. starting price of $9.99 for the 11-inch and $1299 for the 13-inch model, shipping also October 22nd. The Vision Pro got an M5 chip 2, which Apple says allows it to render 10% more pixels.

There's also a new reportedly more comfortable dual-knit band to keep on your noggin. I will also note that Apple will begin selling Vision Pro-compatible PlayStation VR2-Centz controllers for $250 on November 11th, and a $130-Muze Digital Pen on October 22nd. So, you know, more kit for the like two or three of you out there who have one of these. But obviously, the big news here is that new M5 chip. So what do it do? Quoting the Verge, talking about the MacBook Pro. Apple claims the M5 chip is 3.5 times faster at AI tasks than the M4 chip,

thanks to a next-gen 10-core GPU with a neural accelerator in each core. The new GPU also means 1.6x faster graphics performance and up to 1.6x higher frame rates in games over the M4 MacBook Pro. Multi-threaded performance is also increased by 20%. And the M5 chip in the 14-inch Pro also has higher memory bandwidth of 153GBPS. The M4 had 120 GbPS for storage. Users can now choose up to a 4 terabyte SSD, previously only available if you upgraded to the M4 Pro chip. Just about everything else about the new 14-inch MacBook Pro matches the previous model. It's got the same ports, screen, battery, webcam, networking specs, and speakers as the M4 generation. There's not even a new color. That's not such a bad thing as last year's base pro laptop saw a very nice revision when it

went to the M4 chip gaining a third USBC Thunderbolt 4 port and the option for an anti-glare display. It proved a big quality of life improvement over the M3 generation before it and became one of my personal favorites for students and content creation, end quote. We know that OpenAI has been relaxing some of their rules and safeguards around intellectual property, but what this segment presupposes is, what if they're really ready to let loose? Let me read you this tweet from Sam Altman yesterday, quote, We made chat GPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realized this made it less useful slash enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems,

but given the seriousness of the issue, we wanted to get this right. Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases. In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of chat GPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4-0. We hope it will be better. If you want your chat GPT to respond in a very human-like way or use a ton of emoji or act like a friend, chat GPT should do it, but only if you want it, not because we are usage maxing.

In December, as we roll out, age-gating more fully and as part of our treat adult users like adults principle, we will allow even more like erotica for verified adults, end quote. So chat GPT is about to let you talk sexy to it. Quoting the verge, earlier this month, OpenAI hinted at allowing developers to create mature chat GPT apps after it implements the, quote, appropriate age verification and controls. OpenAI isn't the only company dipping into Erotica, as Elon Musk's XAI previously launched Flirty AI companions, which appear as 3D anime models in the GROC app, end quote. And actually, I found this article from Ars Technica from back in February, which suggests that

OpenAI has been considering this for a while, quote, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has mentioned the need for a grown-up mode publicly in the past as well, while it's seems like grown-up mode is finally here. It's not technically a mode, but a new universal policy that potentially gives chat GPT users more flexibility in interacting with the AI assistant. Of course, uncensored large language models have been around for years at this point, with hobbyists communities online developing them for reasons that range from wanting bespoke written pornography to not wanting any kind of paternalistic censorship, end quote. Waymo plans to launch a fully driverless robotaxie service in London in 2026.

its first European launch. Human supervised cars will first collect data for a period of time, but it sounds like self-driving is coming to you soon, Londoners. Quoting the verge. The UK currently doesn't have any fully driverless vehicles on the road. The government has said it will start piloting fully driverless ride hail services in spring 26, though a fuller rollout of self-driving taxis won't come until the Automated Vehicles Act of 2024 fully takes effect in late 2027. Waymo says it will start deploying supervised robotaxies with safety drivers behind the wheel for data collection in London in the next few weeks. When it launches its commercial service next year, its fully driverless robo taxis will be available through Waymo's own ride hail app. The vehicles will be maintained by a

company called Move, which provides fleet services, as well as a range of financial products for mobility companies. Move is also managing Waymo's fleets in Phoenix, Austin, and soon Miami. Waymo has been eyeballing London for a while now. Last month, the Telegraph reported that the company had begun advertising for staff in the UK Capitol, including a fleet readiness lead and various engineers. Waymo says it has strong ties in the UK, citing its engineering hubs in London and Oxford. These hubs include teams advancing large-scale closed-loop simulation, a gold-standard development method for fully autonomous driving technology, the company says in a blog post. London won't be the first overseas city to see Waymo's distinctively driverless Jaguar SUVs.

The company recently sent two dozen vehicles to Tokyo for a small, trial and has said it aims to launch a commercial business in that country. When it launches, Waymo is sure to find plenty of competition in London. Uber has said it is working with UK-based autonomous driving startup Wave on testing some driverless cars in the city next year. Wave may have a leg up given its homegrown status, end quote. But will it call you governor when you get in? I'm joking about that, but I'm not joking about this. Cabbies in London are genuinely one of the treats of visiting that city, and I say that as a New Yorker where we've got some pretty fun cabbies of our own. Spotify is partnering with Netflix to distribute a selection of video podcasts from

Spotify Studios and The Ringer on Netflix, starting in early 2026 in the U.S., quoting TechCrunch. The move follows Spotify's increased focus on video podcasts, beginning with the launch of tools that made it possible for anyone to publish their shows as videos. Over the past year, the company has added incentives that paid podcasts or hosts for their popular videos and launched a partner program so hosts could monetize their video content in a challenge to YouTube. Spotify's interest in streaming video comes after a major shift in its podcast strategy back in 2003, which included layoffs, including that of chief content and business officer Don Ostroff, who had led its podcast initiatives. During Ostroff's time at the service, Spotify had invested

billions in podcasts buying studios like Parkast, The Ringer, and Gimlet Media, and signing exclusive podcast deals with big names like Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper, which have since expired. However, Spotify's investments failed to turn into substantial profits necessitating a new strategy. Video, which is heavily consumed by Gen Z users in particular, offers more opportunities for ad products and monetization, the company now believes. As of Q2 2025, the company said it now has more than 430,000 video podcasts on its service, and video consumption is growing 20 times faster than audio-only consumption since 2024. More than 350 million Spotify users have also streamed a video on its platform up 65% year-over-year, end quote. One other interesting detail about this,

quoting the Times. Netflix will not run ad breaks with the initial set of shows, even for subscribers who pay for the less expensive plans that shows advertising during its programming. But the advertising Spotify sells that are integrated into the shows will remain. Netflix has been exploring adding podcasts to its video service for some time, the company's interest has attracted the attention of podcast executives at other companies, some of whom say Netflix has been courting the same talent they do. The 16 shows in The Deal are produced by Spotify Studios and The Ringer, the website and podcasting Network that Bill Simmons started, and that Spotify acquired in 2020.

The shows include two popular true crime podcasts, conspiracy theories, and serial killers, the Bill Simmons podcast, and rewatchables, which features Mr. Simmons and a roundtable of movie lovers discussing their favorite films, end quote. Study And play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get

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But if you like getting your video podcast, that's the old-fashioned way. You might notice they look a bit different because YouTube has started rolling out a redesigned video player. Quoting the Verge, YouTube is updating the look of the video player to be cleaner and more immersive beginning this week. This includes updated controls and new icons to make the viewing experience more visually satisfying while obscuring less content, YouTube says. It started testing changes to the player earlier this year. A screenshot from YouTube shows how the new look includes rounded on-screen buttons with a little bit of translucency, though the effect isn't nearly as intense as Apple's liquid glass.

YouTube says the new player will be available on mobile, web, and TV devices. The company is introducing a bunch of other updates to YouTube says the double-tap-to-skip feature will be modern and less intrusive to your video-watching experience. A new structured system for comment replies is intended to provide a more focused reading experience within the replies panel, and on some videos, hitting the like button will show a dynamic animation like a music note when liking a music video." The Financial Times says Sam Altman does have a plan to raise that $1 trillion, as we've been speaking about recently, a five-year plan maybe.

Quote, AI is working on new revenue lines, debt partnerships, and further fundraising as part of a five-year plan to make good on the more than $1 trillion in spending. It is pledged to create world-leading artificial intelligence. Open AI is planning on deals to serve governments and businesses with more bespoke product. creating more income from new shopping tools, and new sales from its video creation service SORA and AI agents said multiple people familiar with the startup's efforts. These people said it is exploring creative plans to raise new debt

that can help it build out its AI infrastructure while considering becoming a supplier of computing resources via its Data Center Initiative Stargate. It is also weighing ways to cash in on its intellectual property by developing new AI infrastructure, making forays into online advertising, and plans to launch consumer-hundred, hardware products, including a new AI-powered personal assistant device with former Apple Star designer

Johnny Ive. One senior Open AI executive said, investors expect you to have a five-year model. But added, right now, I'd say there's a lot of fuzz on the horizon, and as it gets closer, and it's going to start to take real shape. Open AI books about $13 billion in annual recurring revenue, 70% of which comes from consumers using chat GPT, which costs $20 for a standard subscription, according to people familiar with the company's finances. ChatGPT has more than 800 million regular users, but just 5% of those are paying subscribers. A number OpenAI intends to double, the senior executive said.

The company has also rolled out cheaper access to users in India with plans to do the same in the Philippines, Brazil, and elsewhere, they said. I don't view them as drunken sailors going to bars and laying down IOUs everywhere, said a person who has advised the company on its dealmaking. It might look and feel that way, but this is actually a strategy backed up by technology, products, business plans, and visibility into what is happening, end quote. Finally, today, Microsoft is officially ending support for Windows 10, which might eventually be a

problem for a lot more of you than I realized. Quoting Ars Technica, today is the official end of support date for Microsoft Windows 10. That doesn't mean these PCs will suddenly stop working, but if you don't take action, it does mean your PC has received its last regular security patches and that Microsoft is washing its hands of technical support. This end of support date comes, about a decade after the initial release of Windows 10, which is typical for most Windows versions. But it comes just four years after Windows 10 was replaced by Windows 11, a version with stricter system requirements that left many older but still functional PCs with no officially supported upgrade path.

As a result, Windows 10 still runs on roughly 40% of the world's Windows PCs or around a third of US-based PCs according to stat-counter data. But this end of support date also isn't set in stone. Some users with Windows 10 PCs can enroll in my Microsoft's extended security updates program, which extends the support timeline by another year. We've published directions for how to do this here. While you do need one of the Microsoft accounts that the company is always pushing, it's relatively trivial to enroll in the ESU program for free.

Home users can only get a one-year stay of execution for Windows 10, but IT administrators and other institutions with fleets of Windows 10 PCs can also pay up for up to three years of ESUs, which is also roughly the amount of time users can expect new Microsoft Defender anti-virus updates and updates for core apps like Microsoft Edge. Obviously, Microsoft's preferred upgrade path would be either an upgrade to Windows 11 for PCs that meet the requirements or an upgrade to a new PC that does support Windows 11. It's also still possible, at least for now, to install and run Windows 11 on unsupported PCs. Your day-to-day experience will generally be pretty good,

though installing Microsoft's major yearly updates like the upcoming Windows 11, H2 update can be a bit of a pain, end quote. Nothing more for you today. Talk to you tomorrow.