Nvidia spends big to secure semiconductor supply, White Castle employs robots at 100 of its locations, and NYC introduces bills to slow down grocery delivery time.
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Tuesday, Feb. 22, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Nvidia will be spending an astounding $10 billion to secure 5nm semiconductors from TSMC. The company, best known for its graphics processors, is vying against other tech giants like Qualcomm, Apple and AMD for production capacity for its next-gen GPUs. Due to the semiconductor shortage, everyone is feeling the pinch from makers to consumers, which is why Nvidia is willing to pay so much to ensure that it can meet demand. The company has seen massive revenue growth in the past two years. According to PC Gamer, Nvidia saw $7.64 billion in revenue in Q4, 2021, up 53 per cent from last year. It also recently overtook Meta as the 7th most valuable company in the united states.
Fast food restaurant chain White Castle has “hired” robots to flip burgers at 100 of its locations, almost a third of its stores. The robot, called Flippy 2, is an upgraded version of the original Flippy, which was sparsely employed by the chain in 2020. Flippy’s maker Miso Robotics said that the robot can take over the work of an entire fry station. The goal isn’t to phase out human workers, but rather to free up time for them to attend to more pressing tasks. According to Fox Business, Miso Robotics says that Flippy 2 can complete food prep twice as fast and fries 30 per cent more food than humans.
NYC will be introducing a bill to prevent on-demand grocery apps from advertising 15-minute delivery times. According to the New York Post, the bill emerged amid numerous traffic accidents and fatalities linked to e-bikes. While the near-instantaneous delivery times are good for customers, the pressure to meet deadlines can cause deliverers to drive dangerously, putting themselves and others at risk. If passed, the bill would affect the numerous grocery delivery services in NYC, including Gorilla, Joker, and Fridge No More.
A new sub-square-millimetre battery could potentially be the next step in developing smart dust applications, or very, very small computers. These computers can be smaller than a mote of dust, and has applications in healthcare, military, agriculture and more. One big barrier that stymies its progress is the issue of the power source. The new battery, created through a collaboration between many researchers, uses “micro origami” to create a self-would cylinder micro battery. It can power the world’s smallest computer chips for about 10 hours, and is even rechargeable.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Tom Li.