Tech

Xbox president Sarah Bond revealed earlier this year that a new Xbox mobile store would be launching in July. Xbox fan Klobrille discovered an Xbox mobile store webpage recently, which suggests Xbox Insiders will get access first. “Testing has begun for our browser-based mobile store,” says Kari Perez, head of Xbox communications in a statement to The Verge. “Our work is progressing well and we will have more to share in the future.”

Update: Article updated with comment from Microsoft.

Several recent studies found an association between eating “ultraprocessed foods” — made with ingredients not found in a home kitchen — and cognitive decline. New preliminary research presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference suggests that regularly eating processed meats like hot dogs, bacon, and bologna increases the risk of developing dementia later in life.

The study tracked more than 130,000 adults in the United States for up to 43 years. During that period, 11,173 people developed dementia. Those who consumed about two servings of processed red meat per week had a 14 percent greater risk of developing dementia compared to those who ate fewer than three servings per month.

Conversely, eating unprocessed red meat did not significantly increase the risk for dementia.

With no big movies or The Legend of Zelda games this quarter, Nintendo’s gross profits have fallen by 45 percent compared to the same period last year.

Sales of Nintendo Switch hardware, now in its eighth year since launch, have also “decreased significantly year-on-year” — and we may not see a notable improvement until the company announces its highly anticipated next-gen console sometime in 2025.

It’s one of a few updates the company shared in a post how it will support Reddit communities during elections. Reddit also plans to release an “after-election report” in Q1 2025 about how things went on the platform and is experimenting with a dedicated tip line for moderators to escalate election-related concerns.

Per Android Headlines, the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and Pixel 9 Pro XL will launch on August 22nd, while the Pixel 9 Pro Fold will be available on September 4th. Also, the Pixel Buds Pro 2 will apparently follow later, on September 26th.

“When high profile things happen [like] the assassination attempt a couple of weeks ago, you do see that people shift their attention to news,” Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said to reporters, according to Axios. The Olympics have also apparently disrupted consumer spending.

Amazon reported Q2 2024 earnings today.

“The reality right now is that while we’re investing a significant amount in the AI space and [on] infrastructure, we would like to have more capacity than we already have today,” Jassy said on Thursday’s Q2 2024 earnings call. “We have a lot of demand right now, and I think it’s gonna be very, very large business for us.”

Earlier, Jassy said that AWS’ AI business has a “multi-billion dollar revenue run rate.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said yesterday that the platform is close to reaching 200 million monthly active users, and now it’s official.

The app and website for Boomerang, Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming service featuring classic Warner Bros. cartoons, is being shut down on September 30th in favor of Max. WBD is no longer offering Boomerang subscriptions.

However, the Boomerang TV channel will continue to be available, WBD says.

AWS earned $26.3 billion in net sales during Amazon’s second quarter — a jump of 19 percent over last year. In Amazon’s Q2 earnings press release, CEO Andy Jassy lauded AWS as a top choice for its AI offerings.

But Amazon’s stock price is down after hours due to lower revenues than expected and disappointing Q3 guidance, CNBC reports.

“From Llama 3.1, to GPT-4o and GPT-4o mini, to Phi 3 or Mistral Large 2, you can access each model via a built-in playground that lets you test different prompts and model parameters, for free, right in GitHub,” according to GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke. Seems kind of like Microsoft’s take on Hugging Face.

Nvidia:

Starting in November, GeForce NOW will transition away from updating the GeForce NOW Windows and macOS apps for legacy operating systems, including Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and macOS 10.11-10.14. Members on these systems can still enjoy streaming on play.geforcenow.com via supported web browsers.

Probably fine; just feels odd! Nvidia marketed GFN as the way to virtually stuff a new GPU into your aging laptop.

$450 MSRP for a Game Boy emulator console is a bundle of cash, OLED screen and premium build notwithstanding — $700 if you want it in Game Boy grey.

$220 for the elegant Micro seems better, but we’re still talking about a crowdfunded Indiegogo. Would you pick these over an $220 Analogue Pocket? Full specs at the links.

The rumored 45mm model will start at $50 more than the $349 price for the 41mm model, according to Android Headlines. With Google’s next big hardware event coming up on August 13th, we probably won’t have to wait long to see if that pricing is accurate.

I was once told that the only reason people are wowed by AI products like ChatGPT is because it mimics us, and we’re obsessed with ourselves. I think about that a lot, especially as I watched this video of ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode catching its non-existent breath as it counts quickly to 50. So strange.

Sam Altman announced that OpenAI is collaborating with the US AI Safety Institute for early access to their next foundation model (but no release date was specified.)
He also emphasized OpenAI’s commitment to dedicating 20% of computing resources to safety, a promise originally made to the now-defunct Superalignment team.

Plus, he noted that OpenAI has removed non-disparagement clauses for employees and provisions allowing the cancellation of vested equity.

I’m hearing that Obsidian is about to announce an Avowed delay. The team had been targeting a November release, but with Xbox exclusive S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 delayed to November, things are getting stacked for Xbox games in the all-important holiday season. More on the Avowed delay and Xbox employees being back under one roof in this week’s issue of Notepad.

This was mandated for all federal agencies back in March, so expect more of these kinds of announcements.

CISA’s general ambit means this hire is a tad bit more significant than the average Chief AI Officer — the agency deals with foreign influence operations and election cybersecurity, for instance. (In 2020, the agency’s head was yeeted by Trump for saying that the election had in fact been safe and secure.)