Daily Tech News 20 May 20206

Top Story

Google search is dead, says... Google. (Tech Crunch)

Professor Plum in the library with a lead pipe?

Or just Google being Google.

Anyway, the plan is, now that Google has killed its premier product through years of malign neglect, to force you into an AI "experience" any time you want to look something up.

One small problem: I already have Grok for that, and it doesn't try to sell me stuff I don't want, and most of the time it doesn't like to me either.

The secondary is problem is that behind the scenes Grok is using search engines like Google to pull related data together to answer your query. You can even watch it doing that - if you have SuperGrok (my company pays for it because it saves a lot of time we used to spend digging through Stack Overflow) you can watch it spin up three different agents that perform different searches and argue about the correct answer - and oftentimes even get it right.

So the question is, if the underlying search engines go away, what happens to the AI experience? Does it go the way of the nudged quanta in the single data drawer among the galaxy of indexes of indexes?

Tech News

Lenovo has a new all-in-one desktop PC that is a serviceable replacement to my Dell model from 2017. (Notebook Check)

It has a Panther Lake 358H - twice as fast as my old Ryzen 1700, integrated B390 graphics - comparable to the Dell's dedicated Radeon 580, a 32" 4k 165Hz OLED panel - compared to the 27" 4k 60Hz IPS panel in the Dell, 32GB of soldered RAM, and two M.2 slots.

Not present: Ethernet. You can hang a dongle off one of the USB ports but it's a bit of a nuisance.
Microsoft has announced its new lineup of Surface laptops, starting at $1299 with 8GB of RAM. (Tom's Hardware)

Forgivable - maybe - at the $449 of the Chuwi model we looked at recently, or with the $599 MacBook Neo which actually works with 8GB of RAM. At $1299 and running Windows 11, no.
Microsoft has announced its new operating system, available now. (ZDNet)

For suitably small values of "its", "new", and "available".

Azure Linux 4.0 is based on RedHat's Fedora 40, and you can download the source code on GitHub. There is no downloadable build to be found anywhere.
314 NPM packages were just compromised. (SafeDep)

Or maybe 317; the headline and article disagree on the exact number.
Leaked images have surfaced of Intel's Crescent Lake AI graphics card. (WCCFTech)

It uses an Xe3P chip - the one that is not coming to your desktop, ever - and 160GB of LPDDR5X memory rather than the usual GDDR6 or GDDR7.

That allows more and cheaper memory, but does limit bandwidth. Given the sheer size of the grid for the chip and the specific memory layout, I wonder if they went for a 640 bit wide bus to compensate for the slower clock speed.

Musical Interlude

Disclaimer: I am shooketh.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 !!

Posted by: clarence at May 20, 2026 04:31 AM (1QT7n)

2 w00t

Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 04:32 AM (6wpGE)

3 Guten morgen, horde.

Posted by: clarence at May 20, 2026 04:32 AM (1QT7n)

4 Disclaimer: I am shooketh.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM

You are Pixy Misa!

Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 04:32 AM (6wpGE)

5 G'Day everyone

Posted by: Skip at May 20, 2026 04:33 AM (Ia/+0)

6 >>>Google has killed its premier product through years of malign neglect, to force you into an AI "experience" any time you want to look something up

Thank you, thank you, thank you for making this the Top Story. I have been all OCD about it.

Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 04:33 AM (6wpGE)

7 Hello , all

Of you're not familiar with it and are a Christian and have an interest a , I thought this was a wonderful story of a Coptic Christian saint, Moses the Black.:

https://tinyurl.com/46knvtk7

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 20, 2026 04:37 AM (lQ+/f)

8 I really liked The Cars in .late 70s. Still play videos occasionally

Posted by: Skip at May 20, 2026 04:37 AM (Ia/+0)

9 me OCDing on yesterday's tech thread:

22 The AI Overview on google search just will not shut up. I was adding -ai to the end of a string of terms in a search field but that seems to have quit working. Adding (hide -ai overview) worked just now; fingers crossed.
Posted by: m at May 19, 2026 05:25 AM (6wpGE)

Maybe they will give us a workaround. Like, click on some button. Which will be an extra step, which will encourage use of their AI as default, but which will be something.

Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 04:38 AM (6wpGE)

10 The Cars - Shake It Up

Such good, clean fun!

Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 04:44 AM (6wpGE)

11 Re: M$ Azure
So, just as Gates bought/stole his operating system, M$ is now adopting the work of open source developers.

Thoughts on how long it takes for M$ to bork this up?

Posted by: clarence at May 20, 2026 04:46 AM (1QT7n)

12 nudged quanta

https://ziply.pk/MUrRXs

Posted by: clarence at May 20, 2026 04:53 AM (1QT7n)

13 New Cut Jib Speaks yesterday, something to listen to on a long commute

Posted by: Skip at May 20, 2026 04:56 AM (Ia/+0)

14 https://tinyurl.com/bddsahc9
And TJM's Sam Peckinpah video
Like and Hype please

Posted by: Skip at May 20, 2026 04:58 AM (Ia/+0)

15 Mornin'

youtu.be/eo683EaXFEg

I think I'll take a walk. Will be too hot later and then the weather gets sporty.

Posted by: Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come at May 20, 2026 05:03 AM (sAmhv)

16
g'mornin', 'rons

Posted by: AltonJackson at May 20, 2026 05:07 AM (AMvSw)

17 Puddleglum, have a good one!

Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 05:08 AM (6wpGE)

18 Oh! Good news! Oregon's gas tax/registration fee increase was shot down, under 2/3 reporting but over 4/5 a resounding No. The story is too complicated for me to follow, but getting it passed by the state legislature was the signature achievement of Gov. Tina Kotek (D), and she pulled out every dirty trick in the book to try to keep canvassers from getting it put in front of the voters as a ballot referendum. She is such a sneaky-sneaky, she somehow got away with changing a Nov. referendum against the bill into a May ballot measure for it, but that plainly didn't help.

This means that Kotek is now a big fat loser going into a Nov. rematch against state senator Christine Drazan (R), who won the nomination for Gov. with only a plurality of primary votes (Oregon doesn't do runoffs for party nominees). This does make the governor contest more competitive, but Motor Voter and the Magic Mail-Ins (I saw them open for X at Y in Z) create a nigh-insurmountable Margin Of Fraud.

Posted by: SciVo at May 20, 2026 05:09 AM (Sy6m/)

19 Maybe only high 80s today here in se Pa

Posted by: Skip at May 20, 2026 05:11 AM (Ia/+0)

20 Is the irritating redirect to a spammy ad whenever you click "Continue" on this site a bug or a feature?

Posted by: Hal1959 at May 20, 2026 05:11 AM (cJUX8)

21 Yesterday, my out of town bride asked me to water her flower pots in the morning. Does 5 AM qualify? Because thats the route I took.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at May 20, 2026 05:12 AM (bvwOM)

22 20 Is the irritating redirect to a spammy ad whenever you click "Continue" on this site a bug or a feature?
Posted by: Hal1959 at May 20, 2026 05:11 AM (cJUX

Press "Comments"?

Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 05:13 AM (6wpGE)

23 Thoughts on how long it takes for M$ to bork this up?
Posted by: clarence at May 20, 2026 04:46 AM (1QT7n)
-----------------
*jumps up and down* I know! I know!

The minute they started.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at May 20, 2026 05:15 AM (bvwOM)

24 22 20 Is the irritating redirect to a spammy ad whenever you click "Continue" on this site a bug or a feature?
Posted by: Hal1959 at May 20, 2026 05:11 AM (cJUX

Press "Comments"?
Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 05:13 AM (6wpGE)

... which is not an answer to your question but is perhaps a solution to the problem.

Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 05:16 AM (6wpGE)

25 Ric Ocasek and Paulina Porizkova. Have there ever been two more mismatched people, she gorgeous and he, Ric Ocasek.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at May 20, 2026 05:17 AM (bvwOM)

26 PixyMagic (or something) removed the smiley face when I reposted (at comment 24) the text that contained it (at comment 22)!

Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 05:18 AM (6wpGE)

27 Posted by: Huck Follywood at May 20, 2026 05:12 AM (bvwOM)

Your "out of town bride". Do you have an in town bride and and out of town bride?😉

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 20, 2026 05:19 AM (AQXU4)

28 Now that the GOP is going to be down one Uniparty Senator and one crazy House member, after last night, will the GOP Senate caucus learn anything?

Magic Eight Ball seems to be choking with laughter and cannot presently answer me.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at May 20, 2026 05:21 AM (bvwOM)

29 26 PixyMagic (or something) removed the smiley face when I reposted (at comment 24) the text that contained it (at comment 22)!
****

It is something in the code that removes some formatting when quoting, I think.

Posted by: clarence at May 20, 2026 05:23 AM (1QT7n)

30 29 26 PixyMagic (or something) removed the smiley face when I reposted (at comment 24) the text that contained it (at comment 22)!
****

It is something in the code that removes some formatting when quoting, I think.
Posted by: clarence at May 20, 2026 05:23 AM (1QT7n)

Super cool.

Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 05:23 AM (6wpGE)

31 Is the irritating redirect to a spammy ad whenever you click "Continue" on this site a bug or a feature?

Moose at door should have told you to just click on 'comments'.

Also, good morning everyone.

Posted by: Gmac-WTF did you think was going to happen? at May 20, 2026 05:24 AM (Q/FnY)

32 So this was a "God incident" yesterday. They are doing a lot of construction at the supermarket so it is very busy with cars. I needed to park further away and I was parked right next to a car with a sticker on that side which said, "Jesus lives in my heart" in Spanish.

It sure beats the heck out of "Eff Trump". I saw that last week. Why on earth would you want to put that on your car? I didn't like Biden but I didn't ride around with " F Biden" decals in my car.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 20, 2026 05:25 AM (RDpV/)

33 Well that tears it then. Time to start training the brain to type in "Startpage" instead of "Google".

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at May 20, 2026 05:27 AM (O7YUW)

34 Evening and morning to all the AoSHQ satellites out there on this Woden's Day!

Who is the girl in the Cars video? She looks something like Bernadette Peters, but, you know, actually cute and sexy.

Oh, okay, Bernadette was cute in her own way and in her own day. Say, the '70s.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 20, 2026 05:27 AM (wzUl9)

35 Well that tears it then. Time to start training the brain to type in "Startpage" instead of "Google".
Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at May 20, 2026

***
Qwant is the way

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 20, 2026 05:28 AM (wzUl9)

36 Adding to the victory in Kentucky, Trump endorsed Andy Barr beat McConnell staffer Daniel Cameron in the primary to succeed the Turtle.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at May 20, 2026 05:28 AM (XCCeP)

37 On the topic of bumper-borne worldviews, I once converted a friendly acquaintance into a non-friendly acquaintance by pointing out that the concept of Karma is indeed, at its core, a dogma.

It could also have been me saying that Phish is astonishingly mediocre. Maybe. Who knows.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 20, 2026 05:28 AM (Ot/FD)

38 11 Re: M$ Azure
Posted by: clarence at May 20, 2026 04:46 AM (1QT7n)

As far as I can see from my family tree:
No relation.

Posted by: m at May 20, 2026 05:28 AM (6wpGE)

39 @32/FenelonSpoke: "Why on earth would you want to put that on your car?"

2 Timothy, Chapter 3, the first seven verses.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at May 20, 2026 05:31 AM (O7YUW)

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