This week on the TT Show, Lord of the Rings superfan (and also superfan) Jak and Kosta discuss Peter Jackson returning to The Lord of the Rings franchise with the new movie 'The Hunt for Gollum.' They discuss the potential story, timeline, and their hopes for a return to the magic of the original trilogy. And not, you know, The Hobbit.

Another big story this week is Apple's apologizing for its seemingly tone-deaf iPad Pro advertisement that quickly caused a massive wave of negative backlash. Is it as bad as some of the comments? As a fan of retro hardware who doesn't like seeing it get destroyed, Kosta thinks so, while Jak is more on the fence and 'meh.'

And it wouldn't be an episode of The TT Show without GPU news, with all of the latest GeForce RTX 50 Series, Radeon, and Intel graphics talk bundled into a new section of the podcast called 'GPU Corner.' Speaking of new sections, Jak and Kosta play a round of Guess the Headline for some fun.

Apple iPhone owners in Japan may one day be allowed to install third-party app marketplaces if new legislation goes ahead. The move would mimic that of the European Union and the Digital Markets Act. That act means that third-party app stores are now available across 27 member countries and it now appears that Japanese officials may bring similar legislation to their country as well.

A Japan Times report says that the legislation is currently being debated in parliament and that it would apply to Google as well as Apple. The bill has been submitted by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and would force dominant platforms, like those operated by Apple and Google, to allow third-party app markets as well as alternative payment options. The move would also prevent technology companies from giving preferential treatment to their own products, the report explains.

Developers have long argued that Apple's high fees and App Store restrictions inhibit innovation, with those in Japan suggesting that they would be able to reduce the prices they charge customers as a result of third-party App Store alternatives. It remains to be seen whether that is how things would ultimately pan out however, especially if Apple chooses to roll a similar system out to the one that's in use in the EU. There, Apple charges a core technology fee and other fees to reduce the loss of revenue that comes about as a result of apps being sold outside of the App Store.

Windows 11 24H2 is entering the final phase of testing ahead of its likely fall release later this year, and Microsoft has made a big move with Copilot.

In preview build 26100, which is now in the Release Preview channel (the last stage before general availability), Copilot has been transformed into a fully standalone app.

That means the AI assistant is no longer confined to a panel at the right side of the desktop, but it's now in its own window which can be moved around the desktop and resized, just like any other app.

Activision has taken to its official Call of Duty X, formerly Twitter, account to share a short teaser video that confirms the next Call of Duty.

The above teaser video was released only an hour ago, and it confirms the next Call of Duty will be called Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which Activision writes will bring in "a dark new chapter of the Black Ops franchise." The coming Call of Duty is rumored to be releasing this October on the following platforms: Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. The reason that's worth mentioning is because of Microsoft's acquisition of Activision, which led many to believe that Call of Duty was going to become an Xbox and PC exclusive, only to be released on PlayStation at a later date, but that isn't the case.

The current agreement Microsoft is under is to continue launching the Call of Duty franchise on multiple platforms. As for Black Ops 6, there isn't much officially known about the now highly anticipated game, but we are scheduled to find out more about it at the Xbox Games Showcase penciled in for June 9. Rumors indicate that Black Ops 6 will take players, at least in part, to the Gulf War.

Former Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt have predicted that artificial intelligence-powered systems will become so advanced that they will be placed on military bases and guarded with barb-wire and machine guns.

The former head of Google sat down for an interview with Noema Magazine, where he weighed in on the current explosion of AI. Schmidt said that developments in AI will eventually exceed the level the US government is comfortable putting in the hands of a citizen without discrete permission, and the general advancements in AI will reach a point where the system is so incredibly advanced it will have to be housed in an army base, powered by a form of nuclear energy, and protected by military forces.

Additionally, the former Google head said that it's important to keep the capabilities of AI out of the hands of the US's adversaries, which is something that is currently being reflected with the US government implementing export restrictions on the most powerful AI chips to China, in an effort to prevent China getting the upper-hand in the race to develop the most-advanced AI system.

Microsoft recently unveiled a suite of new PCs integrated with its new artificial intelligence, Copilot+. The first batch of new PCs are coming in the form of AI laptops, and the ones available are powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite SoC. It's expected Intel and AMD will release their own versions later this year.

The X Elite was recently put up against Apple's MacBook Air M3 by benchmarking and analysis company Signal64. Ryan Shrout, a former Intel employee and President & GM of Signal65 headed the report, which was commissioned by Microsoft. A common move by companies that want to legitimize the claims they are making about their products.

The report found the X Elite outperformed Apple's M3 silicon in a variety of different tests, with the X Elite-powered Surface Laptop surviving over 21 hours in a local video playback test, which is 15% longer than a MacBook Air M3 and twice as long as the Surface Pro 9. Notably, the X Elite did lose to the M3 silicon in single-core performance in both Cinebench and Geekbench by approximately 15%. However, in multi-core performance, the X Elite was found to be more than 30% faster than Apple's M3.

OpenAI hasn't revealed when it will be releasing its next-generation AI model under its GPT branding, but when it does it will make all the company's previous generation look inferior.

The artificial intelligence development company has been at the forefront of the AI industry since the release of its intensely popular AI-powered tool, ChatGPT. Since then, OpenAI has released various other AI-powered products, with the latest being GPT-4o, a new AI model that is significantly better at coding than its predecessors, and is capable of reasoning across audio, vision, and text in real-time. While GPT-4o is certainly impressive, it's apparently nothing compared to GPT-5.

In a recent interview, the Director and GM of Redpoint, Logan Bartlett, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman touched on future AI developments, saying an advanced AI base model could be like a "virtual brain" and may exhibit "deeper 'thinking' capabilities". As for GPT-5, Altman has previously said OpenAI's next model will make GPT-4 look "mild embarrassing at best" as it's significantly more powerful, capable, and intelligent.

A gaming industry insider who has previously been correct about the Kingdom Hearts series coming to Steam has said the next installment in the series might be coming to Nintendo's next console.

The insider is Midori, who took to X, formerly Twitter, to share some details about a tip they received back in February. According to Midori, they received a message in February that informed them about Missing Link, Kingdom Hearts 4, and the Kingdom Hearts series coming to Steam. Midori said they didn't believe the information from the source at the time, but the news was confirmed on May 21 via the official Kingdom Hearts X account that announced the series will arrive on Steam on June 13.

Midori revealed further details about what the source told them, writing the Steam ports have been in development since last summer. As for Kingdom Hearts 4, the source said it has some "small online features" and that it "looks very different from the first trailer".

On average NVIDIA has released new GPU architecture every two years, but due to the overwhelming demand for new chips to power AI models the company is accelerating its manufacturing schedule and therefore the time between generations.

NVIDIA recently reported its first-quarter earnings where the company revealed it made an astounding $14 billion in profit from its dedicated AI chips, which have been in extremely high demand since the AI boom. Companies such as Meta, Amazon, Google, and OpenAI want NVIDIA's advanced GPUs to train and power their new artificial intelligence models. NVIDIA plans on meeting this overwhelming demand by increasing the frequency it releases new GPU architecture generations.

Notably, NVIDIA released new architecture approximately every two years, with Ampere releasing in 2020, Hopper in 2022, and Blackwell in 2024 (rumored to release at end of the year). But NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang announced, "after Blackwell, there's another chip. We're on a one-year rhythm." Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported earlier in the month that NVIDIA was planning on releasing its next-generation GPU architecture codenamed "Rubin" in 2025, which would likely produce an R100 AI GPU that will be released sometime next year.

NVIDIA, the world's leading GPU manufacturer, has just wrapped up its first-quarter earnings report, announcing it has completely exceeded sale expectations, pushing the company's stock above the $1,000 per-share mark.

The new financial report unveiled a remarkable achievement for NVIDIA. The company's revenue for the first three months, which concluded in April, soared to an impressive $26 billion, surpassing the $24 billion expectation set in February. This is the third consecutive quarter where NVIDIA has tripled its sales from a year earlier, a testament to the company's meteoric rise.

The surge is largely attributed to the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence-powered systems by tech giants like Google, Meta, Amazon, OpenAI, and more, further solidifying NVIDIA's position as a key player in this domain.

Microsoft recently announced its Copilot+ artificial intelligence-powered tool that will be arriving on a range of new AI-powered laptops, and one the features of the new AI implementation is a Windows 11 feature called Recall.

The new Windows feature gives the PC a "photographic memory," which enables the user to travel back to a specific time on the PC. Turning on Recall will let a user retrieve their past activities on their PC, but for this feature to work, the user has to opt into Windows, taking a screenshot of their desktop every few minutes.

With these screenshots, or as Microsoft calls them, snapshots, users will be able to access the specific points in time, which Copilot+ will provide additional context on in the form of identifying objects within the screenshot, providing additional information, and more. Essentially, the tool is web browsing history, but for your whole PC. Notably, Microsoft states all of the screenshots the AI takes will be stored locally on the PC and won't be accessed by the company. Furthermore, users are free to delete any of the screenshots.