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Category: Interesting or Cool

Ohio and the Intel Fabs

Ohio and the Intel Fabs

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Nice to see investment partners asking hard questions and stating their expectations clearly. I can only hope Intel can pull this through:

“I am not a financial analyst, but I think it’s a sign your company is in trouble when the stock market reacts positively to reports of a $126 million loss and a third straight quarter of declining revenue,” CCU Coalition Director Judith Barish said. “Our message is the same: The federal government and the state of Ohio have committed billions to the company, despite its well-publicized financial woes. We expect Intel to live up to the commitments it made to taxpayers for those subsidies.”

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Game Studio pain will go into 2025

Game Studio pain will go into 2025

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One CEO of a public company told us: “If 2023 was the year of layoffs, 2024 will be the year of closures. Not just developers, but publishers, media, service companies… There are just too many unprofitable businesses in video games. We’re looking at up to two years of pain.”

This article was written Jan 22, 2024 – and was spot on. 2024 was a bloodbath of studio layoffs and closures. While it slowed towards the end of 2024, studio closures and cancelations have been steady.

The VC commenters were also spot on:

  1. “Too many games were green lit in 2020 and 2021,” one publisher boss said. “We need to get to pre-pandemic levels in terms of the release schedule, and that’s probably going to take two years. You can already see publishers signing fewer games. That’s happening everywhere. The stores are saturated, not just Steam, and the games just aren’t delivering the levels they were. “
  2. Another said: “The expansion and investment over COVID has left engagement-based businesses, not just video games, spread too thin. We’re doing too many things that aren’t delivering.”
  3. The VC added: “Competition isn’t the biggest factor [in this current situation], but it is a challenge, especially when you consider how much disposable income people have at the moment. It’s also not just the number of new games you’re competing with, but all the old games and live service games that are there and doing huge numbers.”

The solution?

“Focus isn’t exciting, but getting back to basics, back to those foundations, and building back up is needed” The other observation is that they needed to return to pre-covid era levels of development to stay afloat.

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Intel’s layoff numbers

Intel’s layoff numbers

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Some bad numbers for Intel.

  • Intel has laid off over 23,000 people since the end of 2022.
  • Intel lost 16,000 of those jobs in 2024 alone
  • In Nov 2024, Intel reported it had 108,900 workers – which puts it back to at 2018 employment levels, but is generating $18 billion less in annual revenue than 2018
  • Productivity has dropped. In 2020, the company generated more than $700,000 in revenue per employee. By 2023, that figure had dropped to under $440,000.
  • Employee count
    • 2024 Workforce: Intel reported 108,900 employees for the fiscal year ending in December 2024. 
    • Previous Employees Numbers: In 2022, Intel had 131,900 employees. 

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Silent Breath

Silent Breath

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Silent Breath is a photo-realistic footage game set in a spooky forest with people disappearing and a crumbling grip on sanity.

The game randomizes jump scares and the missing people at the core of the story. The photorealistic environment has multiple supernatural creatures who roam between the trees. Silent Breath uses the microphone and detects your reaction to what’s happening in-game. If you don’t stay silent while playing, the creatures will detect you and pounce.

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Zoom in! With AI

Zoom in! With AI

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Extreme zoom-in videos are something that have gotten a little publicity with some videos made by Jesse Martin.

Now Google and University of Washington have created a text-to-image model for extreme semantic zooms for consistent multi-scale content creation

Check out the Research paper here.

It seems like this kind of technique that over-arches the generation from one topic to the next might be very useful in maintaining continuity relating to temporal stability.

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Reboot animated TV series – master tapes found!

Reboot animated TV series – master tapes found!

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The TV show Reboot was the first full-length, fully CGI-animated TV series. It had its debut in 1994 and spanned four seasons. It ended up spanning 48 original episodes, a toy line, a video game, a 2018 live action/CGI hybrid Netflix revival. ReBoot brought technology and imaginative storytelling to the masses. It also built a lasting legacy among fans.

Jacob Weldon and Raquel Lin are currently producing ‘ReBoot Rewind’ documentary for the series. As part of their research, the team was allowed to search for the original master tapes and in doing so, found them. It was feared that the original tapes had been lost over the decades. They’re now locating suitable playback equipment to the tapes.

It’ll be interesting to see what they find and their documentary when completed.

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Syntilay 3d Printed shoes

Syntilay 3d Printed shoes

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The idea of 3D printing AI generated shoes is not new. Nike has debuted AI generated and 3D printed shoes, and others like Lightspray are also creating completely automated manufacturing methods.

Now enter Syntilay, the world’s first entirely AI-designed and 3D-printed thermoplastic polyurethane shoe. Syntilay used Midjourney AI to create the image, then the image was run back through Vizcom to generate the 3D model data. Generative AI was used one more time to apply some patterns to the final design to add some character. They’re then shipped to the printer for each order.

You can own your own for $149.99 a pair.

The 89 year old Joe Foster, who co-founded Reebok 60 years ago, is so interested in the idea that he is now helping to launch Syntilay.

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Nonprofit profits

Nonprofit profits

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It’s long been a dirty secret in Portland that the non-profits have board members and CEO’s making $100,000’s a year – and they often serve on multiple boards. Worse, many of their well-meaning employees find themselves serving in dangerous conditions working with dangerously sick or mentally ill homeless with little training or protection. Sadly, in too many cases, many barely even make the equivalent of minimum wage.

How do you find this all out? Well – tax records are public. ProPublica has an amazing website that has copies of their W-2’s and breaks down their costs.

For example: Urban League of Portland made $24.7 million last year. The CEO of this nonprofit? He made $400,000. A good non-profit should use 90% or more of their income for programs and actually helping people. Urban League? Only around 70%

I highly recommend everyone check out the non-profits they give to and see if they’re actually using the money wisely – or just to make their CEO’s and board members rich.

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