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.

G.SKILL is set to make another big splash in extreme overclocking at Computex 2024. Its booth will host the 10th Annual OC World Record Stage 2024, where high-end Intel motherboards from ASRock, ASUS, GIGABYTE, and MSI will be paired with G.SKILL DDR5 memory and plenty of liquid nitrogen (LN2).

The world's top overclockers will do their thing in front of a live audience (we'll be there!), attempting to achieve as many overclocking records as possible. G.SKILL has released the 10th Annual OC World Record Stage 2024 schedule (see it above), which kicks off on June 4 and runs through to June 7.

Each motherboard maker and a group of overclockers will be given their day in the sun (or is that LN2 fog), with OC legends like HiCookie and Splave set to appear. The 8th Annual OC World Cup 2024 Competition will also take place live at the G.SKILL Computex 2024 booth, with overclockers going head-to-head with G.SKILL DDR5 memory and 14th Gen Intel Core processors - and yes, even more LN2.

Samsung has announced the new Head of Device Solutions Division, part of Samsung's semiconductor business, with Young Hyun Jun taking over.

Jun will be officially named President and CEO of Samsung once the approval from the board of directors and shareholders comes through. Remember, Samsung has a dual-CEO system, with one CEO looking after the semiconductor business, and the other looking after other device experiences (displays, phones, etc).

Jun has a big task ahead of him, with his primary objective to Samsung is to "strengthen its competitiveness amid an uncertain global business environment". Jun replaces Samsung President Kyehyun Kyung, leaving his previous role at the Future Business Division.

Microsoft seems pretty hungry after its Activision acquisition, with a fresh (and very hot, prepare your salt) rumor that the Windows and Xbox giant is preparing a $16 billion offer to buy Valve. Yes, that Valve, from Gabe Newell.

Dior is a gaming-focused content creator in the Counter-Strike gaming community, posting on X that Microsoft is reportedly preparing a $16 billion offer to buy Valve Corporation, which would include the absolutely gigantic Steam store... by far, the most popular PC gaming platform on the market, and stars in the eyes ($$$) of Microsoft.

The rumors of NVIDIA making a next-generation Arm-based processor seems to be gaining traction, with both the CEOs from Dell and NVIDIA teasing a new NVIDIA Arm-based processor inside of a new Dell AI PC in 2025.

During a recent chat with Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow, Dell CEO Michael Dell was asked about NVIDIA's place in the huge AI PC market, to which the Dell CEO said: "come back next year," while NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said "exactly".

We know that the Windows-on-Arm AI PC market is going to absolutely explode in the next 12 months, with Microsoft launching its new Copilot+ PCs powered by Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus processors. NVIDIA has all of the ingredients to create a monster Arm-based processor: Arm general purpose cores, GeForce GPUs, Tensor Cores for AI, networking, and more hardware.

Samsung is speeding into the world of next-gen 3D RAM, the future of compact RAM, something we're learning from its presentation during IMW 2024 this week.

VCT (vertical channel transistor) DRAM is one of the first achievements towards this goal, with Samsung expected to complete the initial development of VCT DRAM in 2025, with 3D DRAM hitting the market by 2030. IWM 2024 is an international conference for computer memory companies, where Samsung teased its developments in DRAM innovation.

ZDNet Korea reported on the story, with Samsung Vice President, Lee Si-woo, speaking during Samsung's research in 4F Square VCT DRAM and 3D DRAM. Lee said: "Industrial developments such as hyperscaler AI and on-demand AI require a lot of memory processing ability. On the other hand, the microprocessing technology of existing DRAM is limited". While, in the future, Lee predicts "new innovations are expected to occur in the structure of cells".

A new website is aiming to be the go-to resource for Windows on ARM gamers who are trying to suss out which games will run well on their Copilot+ PC.

If you've missed the fuss this week somehow, Copilot+ PC is Microsoft's new terminology for its AI PCs, only this category of devices requires a much more powerful NPU.

Indeed, the only chip that qualifies to power a Copilot+ PC right now is the Snapdragon X Elite, but it won't be long before NPUs with 45+ TOPS appear from Intel and AMD as well (Lunar Lake, Strix Point).

There have been a ton of new rumors floating around in the last few weeks that suggest the upcoming iOS 18 iPhone software update will be a big one, bringing with it a slew of new AI-powered features. Now, a new report has shared more details about what IOS 18 will have to offer and for once, it isn't something to do with Apple's newfound focus on AI.

AppleInsider has been sharing various tidbits about the expected iOS 18 features of late and now a new report suggests that Apple is planning some new changes to the way the Music app works on iPhones.

The report, which cites unnamed people familiar with Apple's pre-release software, claims that a new audio passthrough feature is coming to Apple Music and QuickTime player. It will only be available on supported hardware and nobody knows what that hardware will be just yet, and details are also unclear as well. The report says that it appears to relate to spatial audio.

Apple has today released an updated version of its popular Shazam music identification app including support for a feature that has been around since the arrival of iOS 16 in September of 2022. The feature, Live Activities, allows apps to put information in the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro's Dynamic Island, making it visible at all times and across apps.

The feature can be hugely useful when trying to identify a song running in another app, for example, while it can also just be handy for those times when the action of identification is taking longer and the user needs to access another app in the interim. Whatever the reason, the arrival of Live Activity support is most welcome.

Apple has been steadily improving the Shazam experience since it bought the company in 2018 and it's now baked into the iPhone experience not to mention the iPad and Mac. There is also support for widgets as well as launching the app via Control Center on the iPhone and iPad.

There has been an awful lot of talk about Apple's upcoming iOS 18 software update that will power the iPhone starting later this year and most of it has been about the new AI features that it will bring to the table. But it's also set to bring new emojis as well, and we now have a better idea of which we can start to look forward to making their debut.

The Unicode Consortium has shared details of a handful of new emojis that are set to be available this year, assuming that they gain final approval. If they do, Apple and other companies will start to release the new emojis via software updates this year and it's likely that iOS 18 will include them. However, it's possible that we will have to wait for a later 18.1 or similar release for them to break cover as has been the case in previous years.

The new emojis that have been previewed include a face with bags under its eyes, a fingerprint similar to the Touch ID logo, a leafless tree, a root vegetable, a harp, a shovel, and a splatter of something like ink or paint.

The latest hit to land on the Apple TV Plus streaming service appears to be Dark Matter, a sci-fi show that's based on a best-selling book of the same name by Black Crouch and starring Joel Edgerton alongside Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly.

The new show has only been available since its premiere on May 8 but it's already taking the streaming charts by storm. New figures shared by the data collectors at Reelgood have Dark Matter sitting at the top of the pile in terms of the TV show streaming chart for the week beginning May 9. To get there it beat out some big names including Fallout, Baby Reindeer, and a Man in Full. In fact, the show also came out at the top of the overall streaming chart which includes both TV shows and movies.

The Dark Matter book was hailed as one of the best sci-fi novels of the decade and follows Jason Dessen (played by Edgerton), a physicist, professor and family man who is abducted into an alternate version of his life. From there he's left to figure out what is going on and then try to get back to his real life all the while trying to figure out who was behind the whole thing. It's a gripping story, and one that is sure to prove popular as the later episodes begin streaming. The finale isn't due to arrive until June 26.