Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 10/24 – Nvidia Is Gunning For Intel

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Nvidia wants to get into the ARM CPU game. Somebody is taking a run at some high value targets via Okta. A new version of maybe the most advanced smart glasses out there. Are you seeing ads when you press pause on streaming? And what is it like to have a robot lawnmower that actually works? Sponsors: Notion.com/ride Miro.com/podcast Links: Exclusive: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel (Reuters) 1Password detects “suspicious activity” in its internal Okta account (ArsTechnica) Xreal’s Air 2 glasses put a big screen on your face and ship in the US next month (The Verge) ‘Pause Ads’ Creep Onto Hulu, Peacock and Max as Streamers Seek New Revenue (Variety) Matter 1.2 is a big move for the smart home standard (The Verge) I tested a $6,000 automower for four months. Here's why I'm fully invested (ZDNet) Life360 Sued for Selling Location Data (The Markup) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the TechMeme right home for Tuesday. October 24th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today.

InVIDIA wants to get into the ARM CPU game. Somebody is taking a run at some high-value targets via Octa. A new version of maybe the most advanced smart glasses out there? Are you seeing ads when you press pause on streaming? And what is it like to have a robot lawnmower that actually works? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Sources say that Nvidia has begun designing Arm CPUs for Windows PCC. C's. Also, AMD is doing something similar, planning to build arm chips, quoting Reuters.

Nvidia dominates the market for artificial intelligence computing chips. Now it's coming after Intel's long-time stronghold of personal computers. Invita has quietly begun designing central processing units or CPUs that would run Microsoft's Windows operating system and use technology from arm holdings. Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters, the AI chip giant's new pursuit is part of Microsoft's effort to help chip companies build arm-based processors for Windows PCs. Microsoft's plans take aim at Apple, which has nearly doubled its market share in the three years since releasing its own arm-based chips in-house for its Mac computers, according to preliminary third-quarter data from research firm IDC.

Advanced microdevices is also planning to make chips for PCs with arm technology, according to two people familiar with the matter. Nvidia and AMD could sell PC chips as soon as 2025, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Nvidia and AMD would join Qualcomm, which has been making arm-based chips for laptops since 2016. Invidia, AMD, and Qualcomm's efforts could shake up a PC industry that Intel long dominated, but which is under increasing pressure from Apple. Apple's custom chips have given Mac computers better battery life and speedy performance that rivals chips that use more energy.

Executives at Microsoft have observed how efficient Apple's arm-based chips are, including with AI processing and desire to attain similar performance, one of the sources said. Microsoft learned from the 90s that they don't want to be dependent on Intel again. They don't want to be dependent on a single vendor, said Jay Goldberg, chief executive of D2D advisory, a finance and strategy consulting firm. If Arm really took off in PC chips, they were never going to let Qualcomm be the sole supplier, end quote. Microsoft has been encouraging the involved chipmakers to build advanced AI features into the CPUs they are designing. The company envisions AI enhanced software such as its co-pilot to

become an increasingly important part of using Windows. To make that a reality, forthcoming chips from Nvidia, AMD, and others will need to devote the on-chip resources to do so, end quote. Keeping an eye on this, one password says they have detected suspicious activity on their Octa instance for managing employee-facing apps, but, quote, found no compromise of user data or other sensitive systems. Again, looks like somebody is going after some pretty high-value targets here. Quoting ours, Technica. On September 29th, we detected suspicious activity on our ACTA instance that we used to manage our employee-facing-facing apps. One password CTO, Pedro Kanahti, wrote in an email. We immediately terminated the activity, investigated, and found no compromise of user data or other sensitive systems, either employee-facing or user-facing, end quote.

Since then, Kadahti said his company has been working with ACTA to determine the means that the unknown attacker used to access the account. On Friday, investigators confirmed it resulted, from a breach, Octa reported, hitting its customer support management system. Octa said that a threat actor gained unauthorized access to its customer support case management system, and from there viewed files uploaded by some Octa customers. The files that the threat actor obtained in the Octa compromise comprised, HTP archives or HAR files, which ACTA support personnel used to replicate customer browser activity during troubleshooting sessions.

Among the sensitive information they store are authentication cookies and session tokens, which malicious actors can use to impersonate valid users. Security firm Beyond Trust said it discovered the intrusion after an attacker used valid authentication cookies in an attempt to access its Octa account. The attacker could perform a few confined actions, but ultimately Beyond Trust's access policy controls stop the activity and blocked all access to the account. One password now becomes the second known Octa customer to be targeted in a follow-on attack, end quote. X-Real, formerly known as N-REL, has announced the $399 X-RILL air 2 and $449 Air2 Pro glasses with brighter micro-o-led displays shipping in November in the U.S. and the UK, quoting the verge.

The glasses are a follow-up to the first-generation air glasses released last year under the company's former name Enreal. Starting at $399, they plug into phones, computers, and a variety of gaming devices to project a display through a pair of sunglasses. The Air 2 glasses are an iterative upgrade from the original $379 Air. They use micro-Oled displays to project a 1920-by-1080 pixel display in front of your eyes, the same resolution as the original air. But they promise a brighter image than their predecessors, 500 nits compared to 400 nits on the air, and are about 10% thinner and lighter than the first-gen version, which weighed 79 grams. That makes them a bit heavier than the roughly 50-gram, ray-band meta-smart glasses, which feature cameras but no built-in display. X-Real says it's improved the

temple and nose pads to offer a more comfortable fit as well, and it promises it's redesigned the audio system to pipe sound more directly into your ears without leaking it to the rest of the room. The Air 2 Pro, which starts at $449, will give you one big extra feature, dimming control, an option that uses electrochromatic glass to control how much light is allowed through the glasses, ranging from full transparency to a blackout tint. Both models are supposed to ship in mid to late November in the U.S. and UK and appear in the rest of the European market in December. They've already launched in China and Japan. Unlike many augmented reality glasses, including Xreal's first-generation light glasses, the Air 2 and Air 2 Pro don't feature cameras that can track or record a user's

surroundings. That means they can't do some things people often associate with AR glasses like make virtual objects stick to walls or floors. Rather than heavily blending the physical and virtual, they're designed for use as a big screen that will float in front of your face. While this is far from a new concept, XREEL's take on it is unusually sveled. Easy to use and by AR glasses standard is pretty normal looking. It also gives you a real view of the outside world instead of a pass-through video feed like Apple or meta. The downside is that even with that bolstered brightness, you'll typically get some image transparency in anything but a very dark room. The Air 2 uses a USBC cable with USBC or HDMI output to connect with a wide range of supported

devices. X-Real Tout's support for the Valve Steam Deck, Asis Raj Ally, and Nintendo Switch alongside Xbox and PlayStation consoles, iOS and Android devices, and PCs and Macs. That long list makes sense, since it's fundamentally an external monitor, you should be able to plug those into almost anything. Maybe you notice this. Streaming services including Hulu, Peacock, and Max are increasingly showing pause ads, which appear a few seconds after a viewer pauses the programming. Quoting variety, Need a break? Asked an on-screen graphic from Procter & Gamble's Sharman during a halt in one

recent stream. The toilet paper's colorful bear mascot makes an appearance. Enjoy the go, it says. There are other ads with similar themes, one on-screen entreaty for Hershey's Kit Kat shows one of the candy bars in pieces and says, have a break. One from Berkshire Hathaway's Geico tells viewers to hold the phone. So-called pause ads, they only turn up a few seconds after a viewer has decided to halt the programming, and not every time one does, are seeing new movement in the streaming world, with the format appearing more frequently on Hulu since July, according to Josh Madison, senior vice president of revenue management and operations for Disney advertising.

Pause ads are also in motion in venues such as NBC Universal's Peacock and Warner Brothers' Discoveries Max. As more media companies seek to goose subscriber rates by offering cheaper ad-supported versions of their streaming services, this type of commercial may become more handy. One of the main attractions of streaming, after all, is that it boasts fewer traditional commercials than its linear TV counterpart. The industry hopes that a pause ad, other out-of-pod commercial experiences are also in development, can appear on-screen without upsetting a subscriber who gets viscerally roiled by the prospect of a glut of typical TV spots. Others have also found ways to work ads and to the moments when streaming fans come to a

stopping point. NBC Universal's Peacock launched with pause ads, said Peter Blacker, executive vice president of streaming and data products for NBC Universal's ad sales division, while Warner Brothers Discovery's Max introduced them in 2022, says Ryan Gold, head of digital ad sales and client partnerships at the company, end quote. Smart Home Standard Matter has hit version 1.2, adding support for robot vacuums, refrigerators, washing machines, dishwasher, smoke and CO alarms, air quality sensors, and more. Quoting the Verge. The Internet of Things, connectivity standard, with ambitions to fix the smart home and make all of our gadgets talk to each other,

has hit version 1.2, adding support for nine new types of connected devices. It's a crucial moment for the success of the industry-backed coalition that counts 675 companies among its members. This is where it moves from the relatively small categories of doorlocks and light bulbs to the real moneymakers, large appliances. The Connectivity Standards Alliance are CSA, the organization behind Matter, release the Matter 1.2 specification this week, a year after launching Matter 1.0, following through on its promise to release two updates a year. Now appliance manufacturers can add support for matter to their devices, and ecosystems such as Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Samsung Smart Things can start supporting the new device types. Yes, this means you should

finally be able to control a robot vacuum in the Apple Home app, not to mention your wine fridge, dishwasher, and washing machine. The initial feature set for the new device types includes basic function controls like start, stop, or change mode, and notifications such as the temperature of your fridge, the status of your laundry, or whether smoke is detected. Robot vacuum support is robust, remote start and progress notifications, cleaning modes, dry vacuum, wet mopping, and alerts for brush status, error reporting, and charging status. But there's no mapping, so you'll still need to use your vacuum app if you want to tell the robot where to go. Air purifiers and air quality sensors are also interesting additions. Currently, support across

platforms for air purifiers is spotty and products are expensive. Matter supports a wide range of air quality sensors, plus location for sensors, so individual sensors placed around a home can feed data to a device like an air purifier, HVAC system, or connected oven hood. Most smart appliances already provide most functions, Matter supports, but they're siloed in each manufacturer's app. With Matter, you should be able to connect them to your smart home platform of choice, unlocking intriguing automation options. While it's possible today to get your lights to flash when your laundry is done, turn a light red when your fridge's temperature rises or shut off the HVAC systems if the smoke alarm goes off, it can be complicated.

to set up and often wholly unreliable. You need to download multiple apps, maybe by a sensor or two, deal with laggy cloud integrations, and worry about whether your washer is even compatible with your smart home app in the first place. With Matter support, this type of simple command and control should be much easier to implement in any ecosystem. The future potential is also interesting bringing into play the ambient smart home many companies are pursuing where devices can talk to each other to take action on our behalf without us really having to get involved. Tobin Richardson, president and CEO of the CSA, gave this example, quote, With more aggregate data and more information, we can see more interaction between devices, he says.

With an edge AI engine to take care of it, if an air quality sensor senses something, then your favorite voice assistant platform can kick off the robot vac, boost the air purifier, and maybe hold off on the laundry and the dishwasher to save energy while the other devices are working, end quote. Finally today, speaking of autonomous smart home devices, I personally have long, dreamed of an autonomous lawn mowing system. Well, Grock, this review of a robot lawnmower that fits the bill, the Husk Varna E-POS. Only problem, it's $6,000. Quoting ZDNet. To start, the E-POS auto mower has to be professionally installed, so beyond swiping your credit card to purchase the robot, it's as much of a hands-free experience as it gets. The setup process went like this. A team member arrived at my doorstep,

surveyed my property and outlined where the EPOS reference station needed to be placed. You need a clear line of sight to the sky and limited tall trees and buildings for the satellite to work properly. The reference station eliminates my biggest complaint with other auto mower options, boundary wires. With EPOS, the only cords I have anywhere near my yard are the ones that power the reference station and the charging base. How glorious! Once the station is set up, the installer will literally walk the automower around your property creating maps of the areas you want mowed. Don't worry, you can also do this yourself as your property changes and evolves. The reference station is a satellite-based technology that delivers centimeter-level accuracy to your mowing experience.

The accuracy is downright cool when we added a shed to our yard. I needed to go in and adjust my map so the auto mower knew to avoid running into it. And as I was making adjustments, I could literally change my no-go zones by centimeters. That's impressive. And again, not a single boundary wire needed to be placed or adjusted. I have a front, back, and side yard that I can send the auto mower to tackle, which is all managed through the Husk-Varna Automore app. Once the setup is complete, you manage everything from the app. Initially, I would just go into the app and tell it when to mow if I noticed my front yard

getting a little long, but after a while, I just set up a schedule where all three sections of my yard were mowed every three days. Today, I don't even have to think about mowing my yard. It's just done. Much to my husband's surprise, the Epo's auto mower can mow in patterns. There are a few to choose from, but our yard still has that lovely striped look. This is also a welcome feature because previously the yard was mowed in a random pattern. I'd look out and not be sure how much of my yard had been tidied.

With the Huskvara Epo's auto mower, the stripes let me see exactly where the mower has been and how much of my yard is left. And besides, dads and moms everywhere crave that striped pattern, so this was perfect. The Epo's automower only needs new blades and electricity to charge throughout its lifetime. The cost may seem steep up front, but it'll pay off in the end. As someone who invests heavily in items and services that buy back my time, this automower is no exception. My husband and I both have gotten our weekends back.

Another hour or two every week we can spend making memories rather than being stuck working, end quote. Several listeners got in touch overnight to let me know that Life 360, which I mentioned yesterday has been sued for selling location data. So I do want to note that since I was unaware. Final link in the show notes is to a story about that. If you want to learn more, talk to you tomorrow.