TikTok is coming after Amazon and eBay, as they have just launched digital gift cards. TechCrunch.com reports that the cards will allow friends and family to choose to buy items from the millions of products featured on the app. The cards can be denominated anywhere from $10 to $500. They can be personalized with animations, and besides the holidays, they can be configured for birthdays, thank-yous, weddings, and other occasions. Right now, the digital gift cards are only available in the US. 

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has picked up Intersect, a “data center and energy infrastructure” company that aims to provide additional support for building out its capacity for AI. According to 9to5google.com, Alphabet is paying $4.75 billion in cash for the company, and also assumes its debt. Intersect itself will remain under its own brand- separate from both Google and its parent company. Alphabet has had a minority stake in Intersect since December 2024. They are building a power center and data center in Texas, which is included in the deal. 

Nvidia plans to start shipping H200 chips to China by mid-February. Reuters.com says Nvidia intends to ship a total of 5,000 to 10,000 chip modules…equivalent to around 40,000 to 80,000 H200 AI chips. Nvidia has also told Chinese clients it plans to ramp up production capacity for the chips by the second quarter of 2026. Right now, all they are waiting on is final government approval. Allowing shipment of these chips was banned during the Biden administration, so letting Nvidia sell to China is a big reversal. It is worth noting that the H200 chips are not the most advanced ones Nvidia makes, the newer Blackwell models are the latest and greatest, and they are already ramping up for the Rubin line of chips, which will be their next top of line AI chips. 

After a power outage Saturday that affected about a third of San Francisco, and which befuddled Waymo cars, the robo-taxis are rolling again. Engadget.com notes that it was the traffic light outage that confused the Waymo vehicles. A reporter friend of mine who lives in the City posted a couple pics…one of a stalled Waymo in an intersection, and another with THREE stalled out at an intersection! This just added to the gridlock of traffic lights being out. Waymo suspended service Saturday, but was able to bring them back online today as only a few thousand people remain without power, and traffic signals are working. Waymo noted that their system is supposed to treat malfunctioning traffic lights as a 4 way stop, but with officers directing traffic and the gridlock and confusion, a number just halted and turned their flashers on. Waymo says it is working on a fix in the event this happens again (which it will.) Elon Musk tried to snark on X that Tesla’s robo-taxis did just fine…but that was just b.s., as Musk’s cars are all required to have a human driver behind the wheel. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.