Roger talks about the last big chip announcement.
Starring Jason Howell and Huyen Tue Dao.
JASON: This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, March 20th, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.
HUYEN: Today Roger Chang tells us about the CPU landscape and a little something from your emails. [14:13]
I’m Jason Howell,
I’m Huyen Tue Dao.
JASON: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.
BIG STORY
The latest Flip phone on the market might be the strangest one we've seen yet
Huawei sees 22% growth, govt/enterprise revenue up 25%
JASON: Huawei announced a new smartphone for the Chinese market called the Pura X that represents a different take on the foldable clamshell concept. The smartphone has a 6.3" internal display when unfolded with a unique 16:10 aspect ratio. That ratio can commonly be found on tablets and laptops, but rarely on smartphones, let alone clamshell flip phones. In fact, I could only find the original Samsung Galaxy Note with the same ratio. The 3.5” square cover display sits below a triple camera array.
The Pura X is the company's first device to run solely on Huawei's Android-less HarmonyOS Next operating system, as the company has leaned into severe limitations in the face of US sanctions.
The software includes Huawei's Harmony Intelligence, including its AI Assistant, Xiaoyi, which is powered by their Pangu LLM and enhanced by China's DeepSeek model. Huawei claims that its AI can convey humanlike "emotions" and detect users' moods.
Huawei has plans to replace Android on its mobile devices and Windows OS on PCs with HarmonyOS Next and has a notebook set to launch in May.
Huawei also used the announcement to share that the company has seen a 22% increase in revenue this past year, with 25% growth in its government and enterprise sector in China.
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JASON: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.
BRIEFS
SoftBank to acquire Arm CPUs for datacenter firm Ampere in $6.5 billion cash deal
HUYEN: SoftBank is set to buy Ampere Computing, makers of Arm-based cloud-native CPUs for data centers, in a $6.5bn cash deal. Ampere will continue to operate under its own name and has plans on its roadmap to launch AmpereOne CPUs with 256 cores in 2025. SoftBank aims to use Ampere's chips in its future AI-focused cloud data centers, including its Stargate project. The deal is expected to close in late 2025 after regulatory approval.
Read more
Substack rival Ghost is now connected to the fediverse
JASON: Open source newsletter platform Ghost is officially connected to the fediverse after first announcing its work behind the scenes a year ago. This enables publishers using the platform to share their posts with the wider open social web with users on federated apps able to post, like, reply, and repost that content. All Ghost Pro sites can activate the new beta feature which will continue to be developed as they head toward a final release with Ghost 6.0.
Read more
A First Look at How Apple’s C1 Modem Performs With Early Adopters
HUYEN: Ookla analyzed and compared performance of Apple's in-house C1 modem that's found in the new iPhone 16e to the Qualcomm modem Apple has used in previous devices including the iPhone 16 and results were mixed. The 16e offered better worst-case speeds and higher upload speeds on AT&T and Verizon while underperforming on T-Mobile's 5G network. The iPhone 16 reigned supreme in top-end download speeds across all US carriers. Apple is expected to address these limitations as it continues to iterate on the C1 with future models.
Read more
OpenAI’s o1-pro is the company’s most expensive AI model yet
JASON: OpenAI launched a more powerful version of its reasoning AI model called o1-pro to the developer API, but it's pricey at $150 per million tokens. That's twice the cost of GPT-4.5 and 10x the cost of o1. OpenAI says the new model gives "consistently better responses" to the hardest problems and hopes that will justify the cost increase for developers.
Read more
Meta AI is coming to Europe this week
HUYEN: Meta is launching its AI assistant across 41 European countries, including EU member states, and 21 overseas European territories this week after facing delays related to European regulatory hurdles. Meta had withheld release of its Llama models as well paused training of its LLMs using content from European Facebook and Instagram users. Now, the AI Assistant will integrate into Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger with support for six regional languages. Meta plans to expand the feature set to match those available in the US.
Read more
Verizon now supports texting via satellite on the Pixel 9 and Galaxy S25
HUYEN: Verizon announced its support for satellite text messaging coming first to Google's Pixel 9 and Samsung's Galaxy S25 lineup. Verizon has partnered with AST SpaceMobile to enable the feature that works when those phones are "outside the reach of terrestrial cellular networks." The new feature will continue to roll out to supported devices over the following two weeks.
Read more
Plex raises subscription prices for the first time in a decade
JASON: Media streaming software Plex is increasing subscription prices for the first time in a decade. Its premium Plex Pass service is jumping to $7 per month, a $2 increase while the yearly subscription price increases from $40 to $70 annually. If you want to purchase a lifetime pass, you'll now pay more than twice as much to do that with an increase from $120 to $250. The changes happen on April 29 so you still have time to lock in those lower prices, but not for long!
Read more
Discord is getting mobile ads
HUYEN: Discord users will soon see third party ads on its mobile platform after first showing ads for Video Quests to PCs and consoles last year. The ads will appear at the bottom of the screen with a Quest Bar that can be tapped to "Accept the quest" and show the full screen ad. Mobile users will be able to hide in-app promotions as well as opt out of personalized promotions, mirroring that capability on other platforms. All of this is taking place as Discord prepares for its IPO launch.
Read more
HUYEN: Those are the essentials for today. Let’s dive a little deeper in the ongoing stories and follow up.
IN DEPTH
SEGMENT A - FROM SCHEDULE
JASON: The last of the big CPU announcements has been made and now we know the current landscape for Intel and AMD. So Tom got Roger Chang to break down what's been announced, what the differences are, and what it means for consumers. [TRT 10:46]
Roger’s got more details if you want them in his regular column on our Patreon out now at patreon.com/dtns.
PROMO
HUYEN: If you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show… Get in touch with us on the socials. @DTNSshow on X (Twitter), Instagram, Threads!, Blue Sky and Mastodon (mstdn.social). For TikTok and YouTube you can find us at Daily Tech News Show.
HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND
JASON: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today Tim Jahr is helping us understand.
HUYEN: Appreciate the rundown on the Nvidia announcements. I think my head is still swimming a bit, but I appreciate being aware of what's going on with all of that.
Is it just me, or is "will slow down our ability to innovate" the new rallying cry for anything that's asked of companies (perhaps closely replacing "But that will cost money")?
[DISCUSS]
JASON: Thanks to Roger and Tim for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. The show is made possible by our patrons onPatreon. DTNS has a live version called DTNS Live onYouTube andTwitch. Find details on that and more ondailytechnewsshow.com. Talk to you tomorrow.
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