Stargate Project’s $500B AI Dream & TikTok’s Creepy Accuracy | Tech News of the Week

Chaos Lever Podcast

Welcome to this week’s **Tech News of the Week**! 📰 Chris and Ned dive into four fascinating stories from the tech world that made us scratch our heads, laugh, and maybe even fear the AI overlords just a little. Let's break it down:

✨ TikTok’s Secret Sauce
Want to know how TikTok seems to know you better than you know yourself? We explore a research paper that gives us a peek into TikTok's game-changing algorithm and why it's so eerily accurate. Spoiler: It's all about keeping you glued to your screen. But should it even be legal? Link to the paper here 👉 https://thenewstack.io/what-makes-tiktoks-algorithms-so-effective

⚡ The Stargate Project: AI Meets Texas
OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank are pouring billions into massive AI-focused data centers in Texas. Abilene is set to host one of the first 20 mega-centers, and locals have questions: Where’s all the power and water coming from? Meanwhile, Sam Altman has even bigger dreams (or nightmares) with trillions in investment. AI heaven or AI hell? You decide. Learn more here 👉 https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/21/openai-teams-up-with-softbank-and-oracle-on-50b-data-center-project/

🐑 Openvox: The Puppet Fork That Isn’t a Muppet
Remember Puppet? Well, it's been forked into Openvox after Puppet went proprietary. Openvox is staying open-source, and they’ve promised compatibility with existing Puppet extensions for now. We also go down a rabbit hole of rejected names (like Muppet and P-I-N-P), and Chris reminisces about why he avoided Puppet entirely. Full details here 👉 https://github.com/OpenVoxProject

🖨️ Bamboo Labs: Locking It Down for Safety?
Bamboo Labs made waves in the 3D printing world by locking down their printers to secure their cloud services. While some Redditors cried foul, Chris and Ned debate whether this is a practical move or a step toward ecosystem lock-in. Either way, 3D printing drama is alive and well. Read more here 👉https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/01/bambu-lab-pushes-a-control-system-for-3d-printers-and-boy-did-it-not-go-well/

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