Jess Weatherbed is a news writer, and part of The Verge UK-based team. While passionate about the future of technology, she originally trained as a prosthetics makeup and wig-making technician, fuelled by a love of animatronics and practical movie effects. Jess started her career at TechRadar, covering news and hardware reviews across computing, PC gaming and streaming. Additional bylines can be found at GamesRadar, PCGamer, Creative Bloq and Space.com.
ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent have reportedly collectively ordered more than 3 million of Nvidia’s RTX Pro 5500 GPUs, among the most powerful still compliant with US export controls. Those orders far exceed planned production, however, and Reuters reports that Nvidia has warned customers they might only get 5 to 10 percent of what they requested.
Waymo is reportedly looking to use that $5 billion loan it acquired this month to quintuple its current fleet of 4,000 robotaxis: bringing it to 8,000 by the end of this year, and 20,000 by December 2027. The goal is to expand to more US and international locations, having recently announced it’ll launch in Toronto, Canada by 2028.
Star Wars Funday Football will be a real-time, animated telecast of Super Bowl LXI that will animate the players as Star Wars characters, just before the original cut returns to theaters on February 19th.
Anthony Daniels will voice C-3PO, and it’ll stream live on the Disney Channel and Disney Plus. Will it be weird? Judge for yourself with this Simpsons version in 2024, or other versions for the Australian Open, NBA, and NHL.
Reuters reports that Microsoft pulled out of the deal with British company Nscale to build the AI data center after local electricity grid officials said the site won’t be supplied with power until the 2030s. Construction is still expected to go ahead without Microsoft’s support, and Nscale says it’s partnership with Microsoft on other projects “remains strong.”
What’s not to trust about this X post, given the vague deadline of “next year,” and track record of broken promises? Actually doing this would require Musk to give away more than $10 billion worth of shares, but I guess that’s more feasible than President Trump’s $1.3 trillion plan to sway voters.
