As documented in the FTC’s complaint document, Lyft systematically inflated the incomes it advertised to drivers it was attempting to recruit in 2021 and 2022. For instance, in LA it suggested drivers would be offered up to $43 per hour. “Lyft failed to disclose that these amounts did not represent the income an average driver could expect to earn, but instead were based on the earnings of the top one-fifth of drivers,” and the difference was up to 30%.

“Lyft claimed that Drivers in New Jersey could earn up to $34 per hour when Lyft’s own calculations put the median earnings at only $25 per hour. In the same month, Lyft claimed that Drivers in Boston could earn up to $42 per hour when median earnings were just $33 per hour,” the FTC wrote in the complaint.

Not only that, but the advertised hourly rates were inclusive of customer-provided tips, while implying to any normal reader that it was a base rate. So the effective rate was likely $5 to $10 lower even than the unstated average.

However, both those efforts are in the works and when complete, will allow Loops to add another layer of social activity to the growing open social web known as the fediverse, which now has north of 11.6 million users and over 1 million monthly active users. (Mastodon accounts for roughly 65% of that activity.) Growth in this space has also encouraged other apps to adopt ActivityPub, like social magazine app Flipboard and Meta’s Threads. The latter is not yet fully integrated but already has more than 200 million monthly active users.

Loops, meanwhile, was developed by Daniel Supernault, who also created the federated Instagram rival Pixelfed. In fact, Loops will run under the Pixelfed project, according to an FAQ on its website.

In addition to the eventual benefit of being open source and distributed, Loops claims it will not sell or provide user data to third-party advertisers, use your content to train AI models, or gain the rights to any content uploaded on its service. Instead, users only grant Loops permission to use their content, but will retain full ownership of their contributions, the Loops website explains.

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Other airlines recovered more quickly than Atlanta-based Delta, which said the incident reduced revenue by $380 million and brought $170 million in costs. The flawed software update affected computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Days after the outage, Delta hired David Boies of law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to seek damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft. Delta asked for damages to cover its losses, along with litigation costs and punitive damages.

"CrowdStrike caused a global catastrophe because it cut corners, took shortcuts, and circumvented the very testing and certification processes it advertised, for its own benefit and profit," Delta said in its complaint. "If CrowdStrike had tested the Faulty Update on even one computer before deployment, the computer would have crashed."

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Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said he will issue subpoenas to “get to the bottom of what appears to be election interference by Google,” a spokesperson for the Republican told The Post on Friday.

Bailey will be seeking information about the black-box algorithm that powers Google search — which has come under fire from Donald Trump leading up to the election for yielding mostly negative articles about the Republican presidential candidate.

“Evidence has come to light that Google is de-emphasizing conservative speech or content — such as putting conservative reporting on Page 11 rather than Page 1 — by manipulating search results,” the spokesperson said.

“Google is the largest search engine in America and has an obligation to consumers to utilize fair business practice,” the spokesperson added. “We will be subpoenaing information on Google’s algorithms and other systems to determine whether they are censoring conservative speech.”

Bailey accused Google of “waging war on the democratic process” in an X post announcing the probe on Thursday.

“I am launching an investigation into Google — the biggest search engine in America — for censoring conservative speech during the most consequential election in our nation’s history,” Bailey wrote.

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Apple Intelligence: A Pragmatic Approach to AI Integration

After months of anticipation, Apple has finally unveiled its strategic entry into the artificial intelligence arena with Apple Intelligence (AI), marking a characteristically methodical approach that focuses on practical integration rather than standalone features. Set for release in late October 2024, this new platform represents Apple's distinctive vision for AI implementation across its ecosystem.

Core Features and Implementation

Apple Intelligence isn't positioned as a separate product but rather as a sophisticated enhancement to existing Apple services. The platform introduces several key features:

• Writing Tools: An LLM-powered system integrated across Mail, Messages, Pages, and Notifications, offering capabilities like text summarization, proofreading, and context-aware message composition.
• Image Generation: Including custom emoji creation (Genmojis) and a dedicated image Playground app for creating shareable visual content.
• Enhanced Siri: A significant upgrade to Apple's virtual assistant, featuring deeper system integration and cross-app functionality, marked by a subtle glowing edge interface rather than the traditional icon.

Hardware Requirements and Availability

The platform will be available exclusively on newer Apple devices with advanced processing capabilities:

• iPhone 16 (all models)
• iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max (A17 Pro)
• iPad Pro and Air (M1 and later)
• Mac devices with M1 chips or newer
• iPad mini with A17 or later

Rollout Strategy and Localization

The initial release will come through iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, with additional features arriving in version 18.2. The platform launched first in U.S. English, followed by support for other English variants (Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, South African, and UK). Further language support, including Chinese, French, German, and others, is planned for 2025, though regulatory challenges may affect availability in China and the EU.

Technical Architecture and privacy

Apple has adopted a unique "small-model, bespoke approach" to AI implementation, focusing on task-specific datasets rather than general-purpose models. This strategy enables:

• On-device processing for many tasks
• Private cloud Compute for more complex operations
• Seamless switching between local and cloud processing
• Enhanced privacy protection through Apple Silicon-powered remote servers

Third-Party Integration

A notable aspect of Apple Intelligence is its integration with OpenAI's ChatGPT, available in version 18.2. This partnership provides:

• Supplementary knowledge base for Siri
• Enhanced writing tools through the Compose feature
• Free access to basic ChatGPT features, with premium features available for paid ChatGPT subscribers
• Future plans to integrate additional AI services, with Google Gemini likely next in line

Market Positioning

Apple's entry into the AI space reflects its traditional approach to new technologies: methodical, integrated, and focused on practical user benefits. By branding it as "AI for the rest of us," Apple positions its offering as a more accessible and practical implementation of artificial intelligence, emphasizing seamless integration over standalone features.

The platform represents a significant step forward in Apple's AI strategy, balancing innovation with practicality while maintaining its commitment to privacy and user experience. As the platform continues to evolve with future updates and partnerships, it may well define a new standard for consumer AI integration in everyday computing.

Former OpenAI Staffer Says the Company Is Breaking Copyright Law and Destroying the Internet

Is OpenAI breaking U.S. copyright law? A former employee of the company says yes.

A former researcher at the OpenAI has come out against the company’s business model, writing, in a personal blog, that he believes the company is not complying with U.S. copyright law. That makes him one of a growing chorus of voices that sees the tech giant’s data-hoovering business as based on shaky (if not plainly illegitimate) legal ground.

#openai #copyright #internet #ai

What is Apple Intelligence? Here’s everything the iPhone 16’s AI can do

Apple Intelligence is a new suite of AI features coming to iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 on compatible devices—including the new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. Here is everything you should know about Apple Intelligence, including the features it will bring to your iPhone, Mac, and iPad when it launches.

Apple Intelligence is Apple’s unique branding for its suite of AI features debuting later this year, starting with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.

Those first AI releases won’t launch until October, and additional features will arrive later in the year and into 2025.

Craig Federighi summed up Apple Intelligence this way during the WWDC keynote:

Apple Intelligence is the personal intelligence system that puts powerful generative models right at the core of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

There are five key pillars of Apple Intelligence that, in combination, distinguish it from other AI (artificial intelligence) tools that already exist.

• Powerful: Capable of offering truly useful help
• Intuitive: Easy to use and accessible
• Integrated: Baked into the core of your devices
• Personal: Understands your personal context
• Private: Built from the ground up for privacy

Apple believes no one else has an AI offering that can check all these boxes—a claim that certainly seems true.

The goal of Apple Intelligence? Tim Cook put it well in his introduction: “to make your most personal products even more useful and delightful.”

Because of the advanced computing resources necessary to properly power these features, Apple Intelligence is limited to a select number of modern devices:

iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max, and iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max
iPads with M1, M2, or M4 chip
Macs with M1, M2, or M3 chip
If you buy any of the new iPhone 16 models, you’ll be set for Apple Intelligence. But if not, the only iPhones that will support these new AI features are last year’s 15 Pro models.

“If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” Suchir Balaji recently told the New York Times. Balaji, a 25-year-old UC Berkeley graduate who joined OpenAI in 2020 and went on to work on GPT-4, said he originally became interested in pursuing a career in the AI industry because he felt the technology could “be used to solve unsolvable problems, like curing diseases and stopping aging.” Balaji worked for OpenAI for four years before leaving the company this summer. Now, Balaji says he sees the technology being used for things he doesn’t agree with, and believes that AI companies are “destroying the commercial viability of the individuals, businesses and internet services that created the digital data used to train these A.I. systems,” the Times writes.

This week, Balaji posted an essay on his personal website, in which he argued that OpenAI was breaking copyright law. In the essay, he attempted to show “how much copyrighted information” from an AI system’s training dataset ultimately “makes its way to the outputs of a model.“ Balaji’s conclusion from his analysis was that ChatGPT’s output does not meet the standard for “fair use,” the legal standard that allows the limited use of copyrighted material without the copyright holder’s permission.

“The only way out of all this is regulation,” Balaji later told the Times, in reference to the legal issues created by AI’s business model.

Gizmodo reached out to OpenAI for comment. In a statement provided to the Times, the tech company offered the following rebuttal to Balaji’s criticism: “We build our A.I. models using publicly available data, in a manner protected by fair use and related principles, and supported by longstanding and widely accepted legal precedents. We view this principle as fair to creators, necessary for innovators, and critical for US competitiveness.”

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The company is shrinking its operations to focus only on San Francisco and New York City (including Jersey City) as it works to reach profitability in the next 18 months, CEO Nikolaus Volk told TechCrunch. Kyte has been exiting other major markets like Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Seattle. It started telling customers in Los Angeles that it is suspending operations in that city after November 7, as Curbivore reported Thursday.

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“I want to be really upfront about scary shit that happened,” the unnamed engineer said, seemingly as Musk played Diablo IV. He went on to explain that a misconfigured component didn’t have the right “ramp up time for bringing up spin pressure” on the booster.

“We were one second away from that tripping and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower,” the engineer says.

“Wow,” Musk says in response. “Yikes.”

The same engineer went on to say that right before engine startup on the booster’s descent back to Earth, a cover on the skin of the booster ripped off, apparently in a place that had been spot welded. “We wouldn’t have predicted the exact right place, but this cover that ripped off was right on top of a bunch of the single point failure valves that must work during the landing burn. So thankfully, none of those or the harnessing got damaged, but we ripped this chine cover off over some really critical equipment right as landing burn was starting. We have a plan to address that.”

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There are no other details provided on what form next week’s announcements will take. We’d expect a series of press releases over the course of the week, perhaps with a few accompanying videos. We’ll have to wait and see for sure. Apple has also invited select creators to in-person hands-on events in Los Angeles next week.

Next week is expected to be focused entirely on the Mac, with updates to the iMac, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini on the horizon. All of these new Macs will be powered by the M4 chip, which first made its debut in the iPad Pro back in May.

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404 Media reports that, for some weird reason, the army of amateur hardware enthusiasts who have been futzing with the company’s machines cannot figure out how to get the 1996 disaster flick out of them. To illuminate this bizarre conundrum, 404 cites a series of Reddit threads and Discord communities where the hardware pros have been posting about the issue. “Sorry, there was a problem with the purchased items in your cart. Please remove these items from your cart in order to continue,” an alert from the kiosk reads, whenever someone tries to rent Twister. This issue impacts “seemingly every Redbox kiosk and is not happening with any other movie,” the outlet writes.

404 Media writes that the machine’s refusal to dispense Twister “appears to be either a licensing dispute or software bug.” The outlet further states that one of the prevailing theories is that “Redbox’s licensing agreement for Twister ran out ahead of the release of its sequel, Twisters, and there is a hard-coded date where checking out with Twister in your cart was disabled.” That said, 404 notes nobody has been able to confirm this.

Redbox swept onto the video rental scene in the early aughts, not long before the industry’s mom-and-pop store paradigm would be disrupted by the advent of Netflix and video streaming. Originally an offshoot of McDonald’s, the company expanded aggressively in the years after its founding. At one point, Redbox surpassed Blockbuster as the largest video rental retailer in the country. Now, of course, that’s all over, thanks to the dominance of streaming.

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In 1996, Twister was one of the first DVDs ever released. In 2024, Twister is the last DVD trapped inside Redbox DVD rental kiosks.

In recent weeks, thousands of DVDs have been “liberated” from abandoned Redbox machines all over the U.S. after the bankruptcy of the rental kiosk’s parent company. But a bizarre and still unexplained software error is preventing anyone from renting Twister, meaning that single movie is stuck inside many of the machines. To be clear, this is not happening with any other DVD, only Twister.

Even after the bankruptcy of Redbox’s parent company, many kiosks have remained online and more-or-less functional. But for reasons that remain unclear to everyone, including, so far, the community of tinkerers who have taken machines home to reverse engineer them, Redbox machines simply refuse to rent out Twister for what appears to be either a licensing dispute or software bug.

The move signals the increasing pressure on maintainers of encrypted messaging apps, both when it comes to governments seeking more data on app users, as well as targeting messaging app companies themselves, like the arrest of Telegram’s CEO in August.

“Ultimately, we were given the choice between remaining in Australia or relocating to a more privacy-friendly jurisdiction, such as Switzerland. For the project to continue, it could not be centred in Australia,” Alex Linton, president of the newly formed Session Technology Foundation (STF) which will publish the Session app, told 404 Media in a statement. The app will still function in Australia, Linton added.

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But Pharos, a company that was a part of Y Combinator’s summer 2024 cohort, is applying AI to tackle another somewhat under-the-radar administrative function for hospitals: quality reporting to external clinical registries.

Organizations like Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the American College of Surgeons aim to measure each healthcare centers’ record on delivering safe and effective care for patients. Although reporting to these registries is not always mandatory, it’s often in the best interest of hospitals. These external organizations play a crucial role in identifying quality issues (such as an increase in post-surgery infections), which can be addressed to improve patient care.

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“You could say that the particles have no individual properties, they only have common properties. From a mathematical point of view, they belong firmly together, even if they are in two completely different places,” explained Prof. Joachim Burgdörfer from the Institute of Theoretical Physics at TU Wien.

It is in this context that researchers at TU Wien in Vienna have made a big stride. Working with colleagues in China, they have achieved a breakthrough in understanding the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, in a world first.

The researchers have peered into the ultra-fast world of attoseconds. An attosecond is an incredibly short period of time – a billionth of a billionth of a second. This is the timescale where quantum entanglement emerges.

“We are interested in finding out how this entanglement develops in the first place and which physical effects play a role on extremely short time scales,” said Prof. Iva Březinová, one of the authors of the current publication.

To study this, the team used powerful computer simulations to recreate the interactions between atoms and intense laser pulses. They focused on atoms hit by an intense laser pulse.

What Is Entanglement and Why Is It Important?

Entanglement is at the heart of quantum physics and future quantum technologies. Like other aspects of quantum science, the phenomenon of entanglement reveals itself at very tiny, subatomic scales. When two particles, such as a pair of photons or electrons, become entangled, they remain connected even when separated by vast distances. In the same way that a ballet or tango emerges from individual dancers, entanglement arises from the connection between particles. It is what scientists call an emergent property.

How do scientists explain quantum entanglement?
In the video below, Caltech faculty members take a stab at explaining entanglement. Featured: Rana Adhikari, professor of physics; Xie Chen, professor of theoretical physics; Manuel Endres, professor of physics and Rosenberg Scholar; and John Preskill, Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Allen V. C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair, and director of the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter.

Unbreakable Correlation
When researchers study entanglement, they often use a special kind of crystal to generate two entangled particles from one. The entangled particles are then sent off to different locations. For this example, let's say the researchers want to measure the direction the particles are spinning, which can be either up or down along a given axis. Before the particles are measured, each will be in a state of superposition, or both "spin up" and "spin down" at the same time.

If the researcher measures the direction of one particle's spin and then repeats the measurement on its distant, entangled partner, that researcher will always find that the pair are correlated: if one particle's spin is up, the other's will be down (the spins may instead both be up or both be down, depending on how the experiment is designed, but there will always be a correlation). Returning to our dancer metaphor, this would be like observing one dancer and finding them in a pirouette, and then automatically knowing the other dancer must also be performing a pirouette. The beauty of entanglement is that just knowing the state of one particle automatically tells you something about its companion, even when they are far apart.

Are particles really connected across space?
But are the particles really somehow tethered to each other across space, or is something else going on? Some scientists, including Albert Einstein in the 1930s, pointed out that the entangled particles might have always been spin up or spin down, but that this information was hidden from us until the measurements were made. Such "local hidden variable theories" argued against the mind-boggling aspect of entanglement, instead proposing that something more mundane, yet unseen, is going on.

Thanks to theoretical work by John Stewart Bell in the 1960s, and experimental work done by Caltech alumnus John Clauser (BS '64) and others beginning in the 1970s, scientists have ruled out these local hidden-variable theories. A key to the researchers' success involved observing entangled particles from different angles. In the experiment mentioned above, this means that a researcher would measure their first particle as spin up, but then use a different viewing angle (or a different spin axis direction) to measure the second particle.

Rather than the two particles matching up as before, the second particle would have gone back into a state of superposition and, once observed, could be either spin up or down. The choice of the viewing angle changed the outcome of the experiment, which means that there cannot be any hidden information buried inside a particle that determines its spin before it is observed. The dance of entanglement materializes not from any one particle but from the connections between them.

In 1969, while still a graduate student at Columbia University, Clauser, along with Michael Horne, Abner Shimony, and Richard Holt, transformed Bell's 1964 mathematical theorem into a very specific experimental prediction via what is now called the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt (CHSH) inequality (Their paper has been cited more than 8,500 times on Google Scholar.) In 1972, when he was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Clauser and graduate student Stuart Freedman were the first to prove experimentally that two widely separated particles (about 10 feet apart) can be entangled.

Clauser went on to perform three more experiments testing the foundations of quantum mechanics and entanglement, with each new experiment confirming and extending his results. The Freedman–Clauser experiment was the first test of the CHSH inequality. It has now been tested experimentally hundreds of times at laboratories around the world to confirm that quantum entanglement is real.

The changes will make it easier for developers to target their betas and gain more feedback ahead of their app’s public debut on the App Store. Meanwhile, for beta testers, the redesigned invitations will offer more information about the app, helping them make a decision as to whether or not they want to join the test group.

With the update,invitations now highlight new features or content coming to the app or game, which could encourage testers to try it out. In addition, Apple says the beta builds of apps and games that have been already approved for publication the App Store will be able to include screenshots and the app category along with their invite. This will make the beta testing experience feel more like downloading from the App Store. It could also challenge the alternative testing marketplaces that have popped up in recent years, like Airport, which includes app screenshots, and Departures, which organizes apps into categories.

The ability to set criteria for TestFlight testing, meanwhile, helps developers narrow their test groups to specific audiences, like those using a particular device type or OS version. Given that TestFlight offers a max of 10,000 invitations, this could help save spots in a more popular beta from going to those who can’t yet use the app on their device or aren’t a part of the intended audience for the test. Developers can set a maximum number of testers in the group, to further control access.

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However, that straightforwardness screeches to a halt when it comes down to newcomers actually purchasing digital assets, discouraging them from fully engaging with the ecosystem.

For new adopters, practical barriers have hindered their crypto exploration. For instance, the notion of relying on a single password to secure all their assets can be daunting. An analysis by the Wall Street Journal revealed that 20 percent of
Bitcoin has been lost due to forgotten passwords, lost keys, and the complexities of wallet management, highlighting the risks these frameworks create.

In contrast to the volatility associated with crypto, traditional investment options have been around for centuries, providing a more established framework for individuals to build their financial portfolios. Even professional financial advisors, for example, are accessible resources within finance, playing a crucial role in helping clients create strategies tailored to their financial goals.

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On a computer screen a map shows the movements of smartphones around the globe. Zooming into an abortion clinic in the south of the United States, the online tool shows more than 700 red dots over the clinic itself, each representing a phone, and by extension, a person.

The tool, called Locate X and made by a company called Babel Street, then narrows down to the movements of a specific device which had visited the clinic. This phone started at a residence in Alabama in mid-June. It then went by a Lowe’s Home Improvement store, traveled along a highway, went past a gas station, visited a church, crossed over into Florida, and then stopped at the abortion clinic for approximately two hours. They had only been to the clinic once, according to the data.

The device then headed back, and crossed back over into Alabama. The tool also showed their potential home, based on the high frequency at which the device stopped there. The tool clearly shows this home address on its map interface.

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For the upcoming report, analysts estimate that Google’s revenues from the U.S. will be around $40.6 billion, while the rest of the world is expected to contribute about $45 billion. The earnings per share (EPS) is projected to be $1.84. In the previous quarter, Google brought in nearly $85 billion, surpassing Wall Street’s predictions by about $640 million.

This represented a 14% increase in revenue compared to the same period last year. Notably, Google Cloud crossed the $10 billion mark in quarterly revenue for the first time and also achieved over $1 billion in operating profit.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted the company’s success in search and cloud services, emphasizing their ongoing work in AI. He stated, “We are innovating at every layer of the AI stack.” This innovation includes advancements in large language models (LLMs), which are AI systems designed to understand and generate human-like text.

Recently, Google has been improving its AI models to mimic human reasoning. This means they can tackle complex problems by breaking them down into smaller, more manageable steps, much like how people think. This approach is known as “chain-of-thought prompting.” In July, Google also released a faster and more efficient AI model called 1.5 Flash for the free version of its Gemini chatbot.

Across-the-board, the upcoming earnings report is highly anticipated, especially with the recent focus on AI advancements and the positive trends in revenue. Investors and analysts will be looking closely at how these developments impact Google’s financial performance.

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This robot is designed to assist individuals with the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale – A (complete paralysis) grade injuries, which represent the most severe level of paraplegia.

Its development purpose differs from other rehabilitation therapy and muscle strength assisting robots currently supplied nationally by Angel Robotics.

KAIST announced the WalkON Suit 1 in 2016 and introduced WalkON Suit 4 in 2020, increasing its walking speed to 3.2 km/h, which matches the normal walking speed of individuals without disabilities.

This robot is designed to assist individuals with the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale – A (complete paralysis) grade injuries, which represent the most severe level of paraplegia.

Its development purpose differs from other rehabilitation therapy and muscle strength assisting robots currently supplied nationally by Angel Robotics.

KAIST announced the WalkON Suit 1 in 2016 and introduced WalkON Suit 4 in 2020, increasing its walking speed to 3.2 km/h, which matches the normal walking speed of individuals without disabilities.

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Microsoft’s regulatory filing revealed that its CEO, Satya Nadella, received a $79.1 million compensation package for this year, increasing his salary package by 63% compared to 2023. According to Reuters, Nadella hit this milestone with the help of his stock awards when Microsoft’s market cap jumped to over $3 trillion due to its investment in AI technology.

Note that the $71 million figure is just based on Nadella’s stock awards, which were just $39 million last year. Aside from this amount, he also received a $5.2-million cash incentive, an over 50% reduction from the $10.7 million he was entitled to due to massive cybersecurity breaches involving the Redmond company.

However, even though Microsoft is on a roll with its AI investment, other arms of the company haven’t been performing as well. This is especially true as its gaming studios have suffered massive layoffs. Three months after it finished its acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, Microsoft laid off 1,900 employees from its gaming divisions, including Activision-Blizzard, Xbox, and ZeniMax, which happened during a general downtrend in the gaming industry.

Just a few months later, in May, the company started another run of cuts with the shuttering of three game studios—Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, and Arkane Austin. More Microsoft employees were again shown the door in September when Xbox reduced its staff by an additional 650. This means that Microsoft’s gaming division has to downsize by at least 2,550 people (probably more) this year.

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The Biden-backed CHIPS Act represents $280 billion of funding for semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, giving the Commerce Dept. the ability to provide 10-figure grants and loans to companies like TSMC and Intel to supercharge a young U.S.-based chip industry. The Biden administration has promised Intel $8.5 billion in direct funding to build its new chipmaking fabs (plus $11 billion in loans and a 25% investment tax credit of up to $100 billion). Still, the company has not seen any of these funds so far.

Missing the funds is a problem for Intel, which is in turmoil due to $1.6 billion in losses in Q2 2024. Intel is cutting 15% of its workforce, representing 15,000 or more workers worldwide. Gelsinger has spent the past three months since the disastrous August earnings call restructuring his company and placating stockholders. He has become “frustrated” with the roadblocks the government has put in between Intel and its CHIPS Act funds.

“My simple message is, ‘Let’s get it finished,’” said Gelsinger in an interview. “There’s been renegotiations on both sides.” The U.S. government put some objectives between CHIPS Act recipients and their money, with milestones including completing building projects, securing customers, etc. “Obviously, with elections, you know, nigh in front of us, hey, we want this done,” said Gelsinger, with the possibility of a new presidential regime lighting a fire of urgency.

This reticence to give out CHIPS Act funding right away apparently stemmed from fears from the government that Intel specifically would not meet its promises. “[There is fear that] Intel is going to take chips money, build an empty shell of a factory and then never actually open it, because they don’t have customers,” said former Commerce Department official Caitlin Legacki.

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Orion is viewed internally as a successor to GPT-4, though it is unclear whether its official name will be GPT-5 when released. An OpenAI executive has reportedly hinted that Orion could be up to 100 times more powerful than GPT-4, Open AI's flagship model. Unlike the recently released o1 model, designed for enhanced reasoning and aimed at applications like scientific problem-solving, data analysis, and structured knowledge tasks, Orion is geared toward broader AI capabilities for the general public.

For now, OpenAI plans to keep AI models with enhanced reasoning and AI models with broader capabilities separate, though eventually, they will merge as the company is working on artificial general intelligence (AGI). Yet, Orion's training involved synthetic data generated by o1, known internally as Strawberry.

According to The Verge, engineers at Microsoft Azure, OpenAI's cloud service provider, are getting ready to launch Orion on the Azure platform, potentially starting in November.

Earlier this year, a source informed The Verge that in September, OpenAI researchers organized a happy hour event to celebrate the new model's completion of the training phase. Around the same time, Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, posted an X message about winter constellation in the U.S. Midwest. Curiously, The Verge tried to ask the o1 AI model to decipher what Sam Altman's post means, and it came up with the answer that it hides the word 'Orion.' Yet, when yours truly asked to do the same, it responded that the message hides the phrase 'It Begins.' Nonetheless, all AI models responded that the post could hint at a big announcement.

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I’ve heard this story before! But the browser that Browser Company CEO Josh Miller wants to talk about when he calls me on Thursday isn’t Arc, the product he and his team have been working on for the last five years. It’s not Arc 2.0, either, even though Miller has been talking publicly about Arc 2.0 for a while now. It’s an entirely new browser. And for Miller and The Browser Company, it’s a chance to get back to building the future of browsers they set out to create in the first place.

A strange thing has happened over the last couple of years, Miller says. Arc has grown fast — users quadrupled this year alone — but it has also become clear that Arc is never going to be a truly mainstream product. It’s too complicated, too different, too hard to get into. “It’s just too much novelty and change,” Miller says, “to get to the number of people we really want to get to.” User interviews and data have convinced the company that this is a power-user tool, and always will be.

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The forthcoming iOS 18.2 update — now available as a developer beta — starts to make your phone a lot smarter with the addition of Visual Intelligence and the ability to pass Siri requests along to ChatGPT. On phones that support Apple Intelligence, Siri won’t just be a “let me Google that for you” machine; now it’s a “let me ChatGPT that for you” machine, with all that entails: good, bad, and everything in between.

By default, Siri will ask for confirmation every time it wants to pass on a request to ChatGPT. This makes a lot of sense, and I thought I’d prefer that behavior. But after an afternoon using it, I realized I just wanted to get to the ChatGPT answer faster and turned it off. Siri still handles basic questions on its own and doesn’t pass things like “When is the US election?” to ChatGPT, thankfully. And it will still just Google something for you when that’s the best way to get to your answer.

But more complex stuff goes to ChatGPT, which means Siri can handle a lot more stuff than I’m used to throwing at it. Ask it “What are some cocktails I can make with whiskey and lemon juice?” and you’ll get a short list of options with descriptions. Old Siri will basically just show you a Google search snippet.

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The Fremont Factory, after all, started its life as a traditional automotive plant. Unlike later facilities like Gigafactory Texas, which was built specifically to produce the Model Y and the Cybertruck, the Fremont Factory required a lot of strategy and creativity before it was able to produce the Model 3 and Model Y at scale. These included the use of sprung structures to house an additional general assembly line for the Model 3, a move that caught the attention of Tesla shorts.

This was highlighted by the company in its celebratory post on social media platform X. As noted by Tesla on its official X account, the first Model 3 from the Fremont Factory’s GA4 line was completed on June 8, 2018. Since then, GA4 has grown into an impressive vehicle production line that was able to produce the facility’s 1 millionth Model Y on Friday, October 25, 2024. That’s not so bad at all for a facility that was mocked by critics as a simple “tent.”

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This point was recently highlighted by Tesla Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy in a comment on social media platform X. In response to a post from Tesla’s official account, which noted that more EVs on the road means quieter cities and highways, Moravy noted that the lockdowns a few years ago showed that clean air in cities and highways is achievable.

Moravy also provided an update on the Tesla Semi, stating that the vehicle is coming en masse shortly. “Tesla Semi is coming in mass shortly and we made it so compelling, anyone who does not use it will be left behind! Tesla’s goal – make products people love – or in this case, heavy goods transportation companies,” Moravy wrote in his post.

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Actually they will make the environment dirtier. The heavier EVs cause the tires to break down faster adding microplastics exponentially faster than the lighter combustion engines. MPs are now know to be mostly created by tires.

I am agree. My goal is to make it a place for people to consume.

Tesla’s Megafactory complex spans about 49.4 acres. It is situated in the Lingang area, close to Giga Shanghai. Tesla estimates that the Megafactory in Shanghai will have an annual capacity of 10,000 Megapack batteries, or about 40 GWh of energy storage.

In its recent earnings call, Tesla estimated that its Shanghai Megafactory will begin with a 20 GWh run rate. Tesla’s Energy business will likely see a significant boost once the Megafactory in China starts shipments.

In its Q3 2024 Update Letter, Tesla reported a record gross margin of 30.5% in the third quarter from its Energy division. The company shared that its Megafactory in Lathrop produces 200 Megapacks per week.

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Groups like the VGHF and the Software Preservation Network have been putting their weight behind an exemption to the DMCA surrounding video game access. The law says that you can’t remotely access old, defunct games that are still under copyright without a license, even though they’re not available for purchase. Current rules in the DMCA restrict libraries and repositories of old games to one person at a time, in person.

The foundation’s proposed exemption would have allowed more than one person at a time to access the content stored in museums, archives, and libraries. This would allow players to access a piece of video game history like they would if they checked out an ebook from a library. The VGHF and SPN argued that if the museum has several copies of a game in its possession, then it should be able to allow as many people to access the game as there are copies available.

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The company has now racked up losses of nearly $8 billion for the current year, as a halt in production of its 737 MAX, 777 and 767 planes following the strike and an ailing defense and space division hammer its business.

Boeing shares slipped 1% in premarket trading.

In a letter, Ortberg stressed the need for improving performance in its defense business and its 737 MAX and 777 programs while broadly stabilizing Boeing, which is "at a crossroads" after lapses in its performance disappointed customers and eroded trust.

"This is a big ship that will take some time to turn, but when it does, it has the capacity to be great again," Ortberg told the planemaker's employees in a message containing prepared remarks for his first earnings call as CEO.

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Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is quite good. PC Gamer's Mollie Taylor felt it was dragged down by a very slow start, calling it "a slow burn to a fault" in an overall positive review, and it holds an enviable 86 aggregate score on Metacritic. Despite that, Ubisoft recently confirmed that the development team has been scattered to the four winds to work on "other projects that will benefit from their expertise."

This, Douse feels, is at least partially the outcome of Ubisoft's focus on subscriptions over conventional game sales—the whole "feeling comfortable with not owning your game" thing espoused by Ubisoft director of subscriptions Philippe Tremblay earlier this year—and the decision to stop releasing games on Steam, which is far and away the biggest digital storefront for PC gaming.

"The last notable game on their platform was arguably Far Cry 6 in 2021," Douse posted on X (via GamesRadar). "The Crew, Mirage and Avatar came in 2023 and didn’t perform, so you can assume subscriptions were at a lull when PoP released by 2024. Which means people wouldn’t be launching their store all too much.

"If it had released on Steam not only would it have been a market success, but there would likely be a sequel because the team are so strong. It’s such a broken strategy. The hardest thing is to make a 85+ game—it is much, much easier to release one. It just shouldn’t be done as it was."

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That's according to a report from the New York Times, detailing how Paul Otellini, Intel's chief executive from 2005 to 2013, presented the board with an idea to buy a little computer graphics company called Nvidia. This wasn't long after he'd taken the position, and the board apparently put up a significant amount of resistance, as (at a $20 billion value at the time), it would easily have been Intel's most expensive acquisition to date.

As a result, Otellini backed away from defending the purchase. One attendee at the meeting reportedly described it as "a fateful moment", and I should think so, too. Given that Nvidia has since positioned itself at the forefront of the AI boom, and currently has a market cap estimated to be around $3.5 trillion dollars, it does strike as one of those misses you'd kick yourself for.

Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and other such platitudes. Still, it seems like even back in 2005, some Intel executives could already see some of the future that Nvidia might be involved in. According to its sources, the New York Times reports that some Intel execs believed that the underlying design of its graphics chips might be important for future data centers, which today would count as a massive understatement.

Given some of the reveals here about Intel's corporate culture (and how it might have contributed to the almighty financial and strategic mess it currently finds itself in), it's perhaps no surprise that Intel was slow on the draw with this sort of future planning. Intel executives reportedly described the company as "the largest single-cell organism on the planet", a reference to the insular and single-minded corporate culture at the time.

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Another source tells The Verge that engineers inside Microsoft — OpenAI’s main partner for deploying AI models — are preparing to host Orion on Azure as early as November. While Orion is seen inside OpenAI as the successor to GPT-4, it’s unclear if the company will call it GPT-5 externally. As always, the release plan is subject to change and could slip. Microsoft declined to comment for this story, and OpenAI initially declined.

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Sana's speed comes from what Nvidia calls a “deep compression autoencoder” that squeezes image data down to 1/32nd of its original size—while keeping all the details intact. The model pairs this with the Gemma 2 LLM to understand prompts, creating a system that punches well above its weight class on modest hardware.

If the final product is as good as the public demo, Sana promises to be a brand new image generator built to run on less demanding systems, which will be a huge advantage for Nvidia as it tries to reach even more users.

“Sana-0.6B is very competitive with modern giant diffusion model (e.g. Flux-12B), being 20 times smaller and 100+ times faster in measured throughput,” the team at Nvidia wrote on Sana’s research paper, “Moreover, Sana-0.6B can be deployed on a 16GB laptop GPU, taking less than 1 second to generate a 1024×1024 resolution image.”

Yes, you read that right: Sana is a 0.6 Billion parameter model that competes against models 20 times its size, while generating images 4 times larger, in a fraction of the time. If that sounds too good to be true, you can try it yourself on a special interface set up by the MIT.

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This one-piece flexible silicone rubber bumper is exactly that. Not a case, more of a means to keep your Pi 5 stuck to the desk, and not shorting out on that errant screw you left sitting out.

But does it work? Does it interfere with the Raspberry Pi 5’s cooling? Is it any good? Let's find out in what could possibly be my shortest ever review.

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The EZ-6’s impressive range can be attributed to its 68.8 kWh battery and a powerful 190 kW (254 hp) electric motor. Besides, for those seeking even greater range, Mazda also offers an extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) version.

This innovative system combines a 93-hp gasoline engine with a 160 kW electric motor, achieving a total range of up to 1,301 km (808 miles). Moreover, as per CarNewsChina, the EV will get charged 30% to 80% in just 15 minutes.

Beyond its impressive range, the EZ-6 is packed with cutting-edge technology and luxurious features. The EZ-6 features a 14.6-inch infotainment screen, a digital instrument cluster, and an expansive 50-inch augmented reality heads-up display (AR-HUD). A Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chipset powers the cabin, handling climate control, seat adjustments, and entertainment functions.

Other highlights include 13 ambient scene modes, a 64-color lighting system, a 14-speaker Sony audio system, reclining front seats, a fixed panoramic sunroof, and four-zone voice activation.

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Central Bank’s President Roberto Campos Neto, who participated in the panel before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, stressed that the possibilities of the intersection of tokenization and elements like “open finance” had been underestimated, propping up the potential of these solutions.

Open finance involves “sharing data, products, and services between regulated entities” with user permission. These procedures are focused on encouraging innovation and promoting competition to facilitate the implementation of new business models.

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City have eight stars nominated for the prestigious Golden Ball gong, which crowns the best player in European football, and have chartered a plane to fly their team out to France following their Premier League clash against Southampton this weekend.

Man United have two players nominated, and talkSPORT understands a report by the Daily Mail - which claims the Red Devils asked City if they had room on their plane to seat their players - is true.

However, United’s request was met with a ‘no’ from City chiefs and the Old Trafford outfit have since had to arrange their own travel.

United sources told talkSPORT the club were keen to avoid chartering a private jet for only two players due to the impact on the environment.

They also insisted it’s normal for clubs in the north-west of England to share private jets when necessary, including when players return from international duty.

We were also told all parts of the club are seeking to save costs wherever possible to make the club more efficient and maximise funds for investment in football.

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The 2027 trip will take passengers on a suborbital flight, reaching outer space without entering Earth’s orbit, according to a company statement posted on social media Wednesday.

The company, acknowledging the “complexity and risks” of rocket technology, announced plans to carry out dozens of tests over the next two years to guarantee safety and reliability before launching commercial space tourism in 2027.

During the live stream, Deep Blue Aerospace chairman Huo Liang mentioned that “ticket prices at several hundred thousand yuan may soon become a reality” as orbit-capable, reusable rocket technology continues to advance.

While many view the trip as a luxury experience, some commenters pointed out that it is more affordable compared to international options, with Deep Blue Aerospace’s tickets starting at $210,000.

Furthermore, some Chinese social media users also suggested that Chinese companies may play a role in reducing costs in the space tourism sector, potentially making space travel more accessible to a broader audience.

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The Rise of Space Tourism: A New Era of Commercial Space Travel

Space tourism, once confined to the realm of science fiction, has emerged as a burgeoning industry that promises to revolutionize human space exploration and create new opportunities for commercial space ventures. As private companies push the boundaries of what's possible, space tourism is rapidly transitioning from an exclusive domain of government agencies to a potentially accessible experience for affluent adventurers.

The Evolution of Space Tourism

The concept of space tourism isn't entirely new. In 2001, American businessman Dennis Tito made history by becoming the first private citizen to fund his own trip to space, paying a reported $20 million to visit the International Space Station (ISS). However, the modern era of space tourism truly began to take shape in the early 2000s with the emergence of private space companies founded by ambitious entrepreneurs.

Key Players in the Space Tourism Industry

SpaceX

Founded by Elon Musk in 2002, SpaceX has revolutionized space travel through its reusable rocket technology. While primarily focused on satellite launches and NASA contracts, SpaceX has made significant strides in human spaceflight with its Crew Dragon spacecraft. The company's ambitious plans include lunar tourism and eventually, trips to Mars.

Blue Origin

Jeff Bezos's space venture has developed the New Shepard vehicle for suborbital tourist flights. The company focuses on providing brief experiences of weightlessness and views of Earth from space. Blue Origin's approach emphasizes safety and reusability, with a capsule design that includes an escape system for emergencies.

Virgin Galactic

Richard Branson's company takes a different approach, using a spaceplane launched from a carrier aircraft. This method provides a more airplane-like experience for customers and allows for a gentler return to Earth. Virgin Galactic has already begun taking reservations for future flights, with tickets initially priced at $250,000.

The Space Tourism Experience

Suborbital Flights

The most accessible form of space tourism currently available is the suborbital flight. These journeys typically last a few minutes and reach altitudes of around 50-100 kilometers, allowing passengers to experience:

• Several minutes of weightlessness
• Views of the Earth's curvature
• The darkness of space
• The thin blue line of Earth's atmosphere

Orbital Tourism

More ambitious and expensive, orbital tourism involves:

• Longer duration stays in space (several days to weeks)
• Complete orbits around Earth
• Potential visits to space stations
• More extensive training requirements
• Significantly higher costs (tens of millions of dollars)

Training and Preparation

Space tourists must undergo significant preparation before their journey. This typically includes:

Physical Requirements

• Medical screenings
• Cardiovascular fitness assessments
• balance and spatial orientation tests
• stress tests

Training Components

• Weightlessness familiarization (zero-G flights)
• Emergency procedures
• Space suit operations
• Basic spacecraft systems understanding
• Communication protocols

Economic Impact and Market Potential

The space tourism industry is projected to grow significantly in the coming decades. According to various market research reports, the global space tourism market could reach:

• $1.7 billion by 2027
• Over $3 billion by 2030
• Potentially $8 billion by 2040

Key Economic Factors

1. Infrastructure Development

• Launch facilities
• Training centers
• Manufacturing facilities
• Support services

1. Job Creation

• Aerospace engineers
• Pilots and astronauts
• Technical specialists
• Support staff
• Tourism industry professionals

1. Technology Advancement

• Spacecraft development
• Safety systems
• Life support technologies
• Materials science

Environmental Considerations

The environmental impact of space tourism has become a significant point of discussion:

Concerns

• Carbon emissions from launches
• Upper atmosphere pollution
• Space debris
• Noise pollution near launch sites

Mitigation Efforts

• Development of cleaner propulsion systems
• Reusable spacecraft technology
• Environmental impact assessments
• Sustainable launch facility practices

Regulatory Framework

As the industry grows, regulatory frameworks are evolving to ensure safety and sustainable development:

Current Regulations

• FAA oversight of launches in the United States
• International space law compliance
• Safety standards for human spaceflight
• Insurance requirements

Emerging Issues

• Liability considerations
• Environmental regulations
• International coordination
• Space traffic management

Future Prospects

The future of space tourism holds exciting possibilities:

Near-Term Developments

• Increased flight frequency
• Lower costs through competition
• Improved safety systems
• Enhanced passenger experiences

Long-Term Possibilities

• Lunar tourism
• Space hotels
• Mars expeditions
• Private space stations

Societal Impact

Space tourism has broader implications for society:

Educational Benefits

• Increased interest in STEM fields
• Public engagement with space science
• Educational opportunities
• Research possibilities

Cultural Impact

• Changed perspective on Earth (Overview Effect)
• International cooperation
• Scientific advancement
• Innovation spillover to other industries

Challenges and Obstacles

Despite progress, significant challenges remain:

Technical Challenges

• Safety concerns
• Vehicle reliability
• Life support systems
• Emergency procedures

Economic Challenges

• High costs
• Market sustainability
• infrastructure investment
• Insurance costs

Human Factors

• Physical requirements
• Psychological preparation
• Health risks
• Training demands

Conclusion

Space tourism represents a transformative development in human space exploration. While currently limited to wealthy individuals, the industry shows promise for broader accessibility in the future. As technology advances and costs decrease, space tourism could become an increasingly important part of both the space industry and the global tourism sector.

The success of space tourism will depend on several factors:

• Continued technological advancement
• Safety record establishment
• Regulatory framework development
• Market demand sustainability
• Environmental impact management

As private companies continue to innovate and compete, the dream of space travel is becoming a reality for more people. While challenges remain, the trajectory of the industry suggests that space tourism will play an increasingly important role in humanity's relationship with space exploration.

The transformative power of viewing Earth from space, known as the Overview Effect, could have lasting implications for how we view our planet and our place in the universe. As more people experience this perspective, it could lead to increased environmental awareness and a greater sense of global unity.

As we look to the future, space tourism stands as a testament to human ingenuity and ambition, promising not just new experiences for wealthy adventurers, but potentially opening up new frontiers for human civilization. The coming decades will be crucial in determining whether this nascent industry can fulfill its promising potential and truly make space accessible to a broader segment of humanity.

Anything fed is in helpful. However, context is something to always think about.

So when we place an article, is there something else we can add under it? I use both search engines to sometimes find other others and chatbots to ask questions and paste the answers in.

A combination of human and synthetic data is helpful. Also, answering the synthetic also adds to it.

For instance, the typical lifetime of a hydrogen bond in liquid water is one millionth of a millionth of a second. This dynamic behavior makes it difficult to capture and study their interactions accurately.

However, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) claim to have developed a new method that can allow scientists to study the electronic and nuclear quantum effects of liquid water’s hydrogen bonds in depth.

This new method called correlated vibrational spectroscopy (CVS), can finally reveal what factors make the hydrogen-bond networks in water such a strong and mysterious force.

Not all water molecules are involved in hydrogen-bond network interactions. CVS first identifies and separates the interacting and no-interacting molecules. This is done by shooting ultra-fast laser pulses on water molecules.

These quick bursts of light create tiny movements in the water’s atoms, which then emit visible light. The pattern of this light reveals how the molecules are arranged, and the color of the light shows how the atoms inside and between the molecules are moving.

“Current spectroscopy methods measure the scattering of laser light caused by the vibrations of all molecules in a system, so you have to guess or assume that what you are seeing is due to the molecular interaction you’re interested in,” Sylvie Roke, one of the study authors and a professor at EPFL, said.

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I will delegate the RCs you need to keep going.

I delegated RCs to your account. That way you should be able to do more. If you run low again, let me know.

Good job on adding some $HIVE to your account.