Here is the daily technology #threadcast for 9/21/24. We aim to educate people about this crucial area along with providing information of what is taking place.
Drop all question, comments, and articles relating to #technology and the future. The goal is make it a technology center.
https://inleo.io/threads/view/mightpossibly/re-pzpasyuuad?referral=mightpossibly
SpaceX fired back at the Federal Aviation Administration over the agency’s proposed fines for launch license violations, blaming the FAA for dragging its heels on what the company considered minor changes.
SpaceX released Sept. 19 a letter it sent to the leadership of the House Science Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee, the two committees with oversight of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST.
https://spacenews.com/spacex-letter-criticizes-faa-for-systemic-challenges-in-launch-licensing/
Tesla highlights the Megapack site replacing Hawaii’s last coal plant
Tesla has highlighted a Megapack project that went live in Hawaii earlier this year, which is effectively replacing the state’s last coal plant.
On Thursday, the Tesla Megapack account on X shared a video featuring interviews with employees and partners involved in Oahu’s Kapolei Energy Storage (KES) system. The site, which went live earlier this year, features 158 Megapack 2XL units for 185MW / 565 MWh, and Tesla Residential Energy Director Colby Hastings says it’s roughly the equivalent of the nearby coal plant that was retired.
The battery energy storage system (BESS) is being operated in partnership with Plus Power, and the project has been considered a success in helping to stabilize the grid in preparation for Hawaii’s upcoming climate goals.
#newsonleo #tesla #energy #hawaii #megapack
Nearby Chairman Anthony Makana says that the BESS project allowed for the “sunsetting of one of the dirtiest polluters in our community,” referring to the coal plant. The site also comes ahead of Hawaiian Electric’s goal of reaching 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.
The features multiple short interview moments, including a few words from Plus Power CEO Brandon Keefe, who notes that the renewable provider first started working on the project in 2018. You can watch the full video below.
The Oahu KES site first went operational in January, and Tesla Senior VP of Powertrain and Energy Engineering Drew Baglino visited the BESS to celebrate its Comercial Operation Date (COD).
“Stopped by to congratulate the local team on the successful COD of the 185MW Hawaiian Electric Tesla Megapack installation on Oahu today,” Baglino wrote in a post on X.
The final shipment of coal to the Oahu coal plant took place in September 2022, as was highlighted in a post from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
The video also comes as the latest of Tesla’s efforts to create educational advertising material it shares on its various social media platforms. Although much of the company’s advertising team was reportedly affected by widespread layoffs in April, Tesla has continued to roll out educational ads both for its energy products and its electric vehicles (EVs).
Solar goes EXPONENTIAL - surpasses even Tony Seba's projections
#newsonleo #tonyseba #technology #solar
This is interesting. I want to find out if you really get enough to sell back to the power companies and still have enough to run your household
I guess it depends upon a variety of factors.
Solar Energy Growth Surpasses Predictions: A Global Energy Revolution
The global solar energy industry is experiencing unprecedented growth, far surpassing even the most optimistic predictions. Recent data from Global Sources reveals that solar energy installations grew by an astounding 86% last year, with projections indicating continued rapid expansion. This article summarizes the key points from a recent discussion on the topic, highlighting the transformative impact of solar energy on the global energy landscape.
Record-Breaking Growth
Surpassing Expert Predictions
The current growth rate of solar energy has exceeded even the most bullish projections:
Global Adoption
While China remains a leader in solar installations, other countries are rapidly catching up:
Economic Implications
The rapid growth of solar energy is having significant economic impacts:
Synergy with Battery Storage
The growth of solar energy is driving a parallel boom in battery energy storage systems (BESS):
Future Projections
Looking ahead, the solar energy revolution is set to continue:
Challenges and Misconceptions
Despite its rapid growth, solar energy still faces some challenges and misconceptions:
Conclusion
The exponential growth of solar energy is reshaping the global energy landscape at a pace that few predicted. As costs continue to decline and efficiency improves, solar power is poised to become the dominant energy source of the future. This transition promises not only to revolutionize how we generate and consume energy but also to drive significant economic and environmental benefits worldwide.
100 years ago, Henry Ford proposed ‘energy currency’ to replace gold
Bitcoin could be the ultimate energy currency that industrialist Henry Ford first talked about 100 years ago.
In 1921, American industrialist Henry Ford proposed the creation of an “energy currency” that could form the basis of a new monetary system — offering striking similarities to the peer-to-peer electronic cash system outlined in Satoshi Nakamoto’s 2008 Bitcoin (BTC) white paper.
Bitcoin as an energy currency
On Dec. 4, 1921, the New York Tribune published an article outlining Ford’s vision of replacing gold with an energy currency that he believed could break the banking elites’ grip on global wealth and put an end to wars. He intended to do this by building “the world’s greatest power plant” and creating a new currency system based on “units of power.”
Ford, who founded Ford Motor Company in 1903, told the publication:
The specifics around currency values “will be worked out when Congress cares to hear about it,” he said.
Although Ford was never able to advance his vision of a fully-backed currency, Bitcoin has seemingly vindicated the idea a century later. Since 2009, more than 18.8 million BTC have been created through an energy-intensive mining process that requires computers to solve increasingly complex math problems. This proof-of-work mining has drawn heavy criticism over its alleged environmental impact — a short-sighted claim that ignores Bitcoin’s ability to accelerate the shift to renewable energy.
eplacing gold, ending wars
On the relation between gold and war, Ford explained:
The remnants of the gold standard were abandoned in 1971 by United States President Richard Nixon, who said his government would temporarily suspend convertibility between dollars and bullion. The so-called quasi-gold standard would last until 1973, with all definitions linking the dollar to bullion removed by 1976. However, in effect, the gold standard system was eliminated by the British government in 1931, with the U.S. following suit two years later.
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Musk dodged Brazil's X ban by 'coincidence,' says Cloudflare CEO
X went back online in Brazil earlier this week, three weeks after Elon Musk's platform was blocked under orders from Brazil's Supreme Court.
X went back online in Brazil earlier this week, three weeks after Elon Musk’s platform was blocked under orders from Brazil’s Supreme Court. That prompted Brazil’s top court to fine X Corp. nearly $1 million for every day the platform remained accessible in the country.
#brazil #x #elonmusk #socialmedia
However, Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince tells TechCrunch that X going back online in Brazil this week was all a “coincidence.”
“I don’t think anything about this change was intentional to overcome a block in Brazil,” said Prince in an interview with TechCrunch. “This was literally just [X] switching from one IT vendor to another IT vendor.”
Some months ago, Prince said, Cloudflare won a deal to provide X with cloud computing services in several regions across the globe, including Brazil. X had previously used Fastly, a competitor to Cloudflare, and the social media platform is currently in the process of rolling out that switch. Changing providers also changed IP addresses associated with X, which disrupted how Brazilian internet service providers were blocking the X platform.
“We have never talked with [X] about helping them get around the Brazilian ban,” said Prince. “They happened to transition a bunch of their traffic from Fastly over to us, especially in the Latin American region, over the last week.”
Prince describes this as wild coincidence, where his sales team won a deal, and as a result ended up inadvertently “wading into some geopolitical Elon Musk vortex of craziness” months later. Some may find that a bit hard to believe, given that Elon Musk has tried multiple avenues already to skirt Brazil’s ban on X. Musk tried delivering X directly to Brazilians through his Starlink satellites earlier this month, but later backed down.
A spokesperson for X says the platform changed network providers when Brazil shut down X weeks ago, which disrupted its infrastructure throughout the rest of Latin America, in a statement posted on its Global Government Affairs account. So is the timing of all this truly a coincidence? You be the judge.
However, Brazilian regulators say Cloudflare has been extremely cooperative in helping to get X reblocked, according to The New York Times.
Brazil implemented its block by requiring ISPs to block traffic to certain IP addresses. When X switched from Fastly to Cloudflare, therefore, the block was no longer in effect. However, Prince claims his company did not know this was going to happen, and even says he doesn’t think X was actively trying to circumvent Brazil’s ban. He even knocked Brazil for using an insufficient strategy to block X.
“They chose to implement it in a way which is kind of kludgy, and very fragile,” said Prince. “That assumes that X, Twitter, or whatever we call it, will always be on that IP address… It changed because they switched to Cloudflare, but if X were trying to play games here, they could have switched their IP address very easily without switching to Cloudflare.”
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Plaud's $169 ChatGPT-powered NotePin has a permanent place in my travel bag
The $169 Plaud NotePin is a tiny magnetic recording device. Recordings are transcribed and AI provide summaries of meetings.
The Plaud.AI pin took up mercifully little space in my carry-on. It also presented an opportunity to kill two birds: I was flying across the country and knew I would be taking copious notes.
#ai #technology #plaud
If you’ve been in a meeting with me, you know I bring my laptop without fail. My dumb brain needs to take notes. That said, the process of typing while listening can be as distracting as it is engaging. At the very least, it stands between you and a natural conversation, especially in those moments when you’re still typing after the other person has finished talking.
Sure, you could try to type faster or find a shorthand, but I’ve found that both of these methods have a tendency to render text unreadable. The next obvious step is recording — with the other person’s permission, of course. Back when I was a cub reporter, standalone digital voice recorders were still a going concern.
These days, I record on my laptop or place my phone down on the table between myself and the subject. These devices present their own issues, like a lack of proper microphones and the tendency to pick up typing noises when doing double duty. I find myself harboring some light nostalgia for the days of my little Olympus recorder with its built-in USB-A dongle.
Plaud.AI’s raison d’être lives somewhere amon
Plaud.AI’s raison d’être lives somewhere among the above scenarios. Earlier this year, the startup launched Plaud Note, a recording device that magnetically snaps to the back of a handset, utilizing ChatGPT to transcribe conversations. While I didn’t have the opportunity to try out that earlier device, I jumped when the company told me about the upcoming NotePin.
I’m skeptical that the product has a large target audience in the days of do-everything smartphones, but I was sure that I was part of it. Sometimes it feels like I take notes for the sole purpose of having something to do in meetings. I say this because many of my notes just languish, due to an inability to find pertinent information or just general unreadability.
Otter.AI has helped a lot on both fronts when I upload recordings to the AI-based transcription service. Plaud’s process is similar, but more streamlined. In the case of NotePin, you wear it on your wrist or magnetically snapped to your lapel, tap once to record, and tap again to stop. The recordings are saved on your phone in real time, and from there you can decide whether to upload them for transcription, depending on how robust a monthly subscription you have.
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Qualcomm approached Intel about a takeover in recent days, source says
https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/qualcomm-approached-intel-about-takeover-recent-days-wsj-reports-2024-09-20/
#tech #news
Black Forest Labs, the company that powers Grok's image generation, is raising another $100M on a $1B valuation, say sources
Black Forest Labs, an image GenAI startup that only came out of stealth two months ago, has closed a a monster new round, sources say.
While OpenAI pursues yet another monster fundraise, it is not stealing all the oxygen in the room: AI startups building promising foundational models can still open doors, and checkbooks. Multiple sources tell us that Black Forest Labs — a startup that’s building generative AI image models and came out of stealth two months ago with $31 million in funding — is closing new funding. A $100 million round at a $1 billion valuation is the amount we are hearing. The deal may not be final and so could still be subject to change.
#ai #grok #imagegenerator #generativeai #technology #newsonleo
Black Forest is not just any AI startup: The company was co-founded by the engineers who built the technology behind Stability AI. And it has a big-name customer. Elon Musk’s X.ai is using Black Forest’s Flux.1 text-to-image model to power image generation in its Grok chatbot. That’s a service that set people chattering immediately after it was launched in part because of the audacious results people generated with it.
“No filters” still appears to be a thing a month later. We created the image on the right earlier this week.
The company is also catching the eye of investors because of its founders and founding team. They include Andreas Blattmann, Patrick Esser, Dominik Lorenz and CEO Robin Rombach, researchers who created Stability AI, considered a game-changing platform for image generation.
“Robin Rombach is known to be an absolute expert at image diffusion models and when you have someone that smart and proven in a brand new space, it makes it obvious one should invest if given the chance,” one of the company’s investors told TechCrunch.
It’s not completely clear yet who is investing in the Freiburg, Germany-based startup’s latest round. One source mentioned that Lightspeed — one of the more prolific investors in AI in Europe, backing Helsing, Mistral, Stability AI and others — might be involved. Lightspeed has not yet responded to a request for comment, and neither has Black Forest itself. (We will update the post if they do.)
The company’s previous, $31 million round included a high-wattage list of investors. Led by Andreessen Horowitz, others, per PitchBook data, included General Catalyst and Stuttgart VC Mätch.vc, with Nvidia’s Timo Aila, Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, Apple AI research scientist Vladlen Koltun, entertainment mogul Michael Ovitz, and Y Combinator’s Garry Tan also in the mix.
The $1 billion valuation is a big jump on its post-money valuation from that last round, which was a more modest $150 million. (Asked about more funding, Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment for this story.)
Rapid fundraising in the area of generative AI has become quite commonplace in the current market: Startups building these tools need the funding to buy compute, to hire talent, perhaps to settle IP licensing agreements, and for marketing and business development to compete against bigger and even more well-funded players. In the case of Black Forest Labs, there are more technology launches coming up soon. The company has already said it’s working on a state-of-the-art text-to-video tool, with an as-yet-unannounced debut date.
But the market has been tricky and sometimes unkind to some of the smaller AI players that have raised a lot and now have pressure to deliver. H in Paris, a generative AI startup started by DeepMind alums, raised $220 million in May of this year. It has already lost three of its five co-founders, allegedly over operational differences. Aleph Alpha, which has raised more than $500 million, appears to have pivoted to enterprise services over building foundational models.
Cards Against Humanity sues Elon Musk's SpaceX for trespassing
Cards Against Humanity (CAH) is suing Elon Musk’s space exploration company, SpaceX, for $15 million after it allegedly dumped construction equipment
Cards Against Humanity (CAH) is suing Elon Musk’s space exploration company, SpaceX, for $15 million after it allegedly dumped construction equipment all over the game company’s private land in Texas.
#elonmusk #spacex #lawsuit #newsonleo
An email, posted on Threads, went out to around 150,000 Cards Against Humanity Saves America donors. Those donors each contributed $15 seven years ago to help the game company buy land on the U.S.-Mexico border in order to protect it from former President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall blocking out illegal immigration.
“Unfortunately, an even richer, more racist billionaire – Elon Musk – snuck up on us from behind and completely f—-d your land with gravel, tractors, and space garbage,” the email reads.
CAH’s complaint, filed against SpaceX on Thursday evening in Cameron County District Court, depicts photos of the property in 2017, which the company has maintained in its natural meadow-like state, a place where it says “wild horses galloped freely in the Texas moonlight.” Those photos were juxtaposed with images of the property today, with dug-up earth, piping, and construction equipment.
CAH alleges that SpaceX treated the property as its own for at least six months, clearing the land of vegetation, compacting the soil with gravel, and generally creating an unsafe work site.
The company said that when it confronted SpaceX about its alleged disregard for its property rights and trespassing, the space company responded with a 12-hour ultimatum “to accept a lowball offer for half the land’s value.”
“We said, ‘Go f— yourself, Elon Musk. We’ll see you in court.’”
In the complaint, CAH outlines its method of maintaining trust with its loyal fanbase that it hopes to encourage to stand up against injustice. CAH says it uses pranks and stunts to draw attention to particular issues or “people who ignore the rights and problems of regular people for their own personal enrichment or aggrandizement.”
Trump and Musk have been two of CAH’s recurring targets.
Neither CAH nor SpaceX immediately responded to requests for comment.
CAH said in its email to campaign donors that if it wins this fight, the 150,000 people who donated $15 each in 2017 would get to split the net proceeds from the suit, “so $100 each.” The company also acknowledged that its chances are slim because “Musk has way more money and lawyers than we do, so you’ll probably get, like, $2 tops.”
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How Elon Musk hopes his new supercomputers will boost his businesses
Musk wants to use this supercomputing power to improve Teslas’ autonomous driving capabilities and train xAI’s chatbot Grok.
Elon Musk is on a mission to build new supercomputers. As the CEO of Tesla and his new artificial intelligence startup xAI, the tech titan has big plans for how artificial intelligence can help to supercharge his businesses.
#newsonleo #ai #technology #grok #supercomputers
In January, he wrote on X that Tesla should be viewed as an AI/robotics company rather than a car company. Tesla's custom-built supercomputer named Dojo is key to this transformation. Tesla has said it plans to spend $500 million to build the supercomputer in Buffalo, New York. Tesla is also building another supercomputer cluster, called Cortex, at the company's headquarters in Austin, Texas.
Dojo will process and train AI models using the large amounts of video and data captured by Tesla cars. The goal is to improve Tesla's suite of driver assistance features, which the company calls Autopilot, and its more robust Full Self-Driving or FSD system. Subscriptions to Tesla's FSD features cost $99 a month and include automatic lane changes, automatic parking and automatic stopping for traffic lights and stop signs.
"They've sold what is it, 5 million plus cars. Each one of those cars typically has eight cameras plus in it. And if you think then that those cars are driving around, let's just say 10,000 miles a year on average, they're streaming all of that video back to Tesla," says Steven Dickens, chief technology advisor at the Futurum Group. "So what can they do with that training set? Obviously they can develop Full Self-Driving and they're getting close to that."
Despite their names, neither Autopilot nor FSD make Tesla vehicles autonomous and require active driver supervision, as Tesla states on its website. In the past, the company has garnered scrutiny from regulators who say that Tesla falsely advertised the capabilities of its Autopilot and FSD systems. But reaching full autonomy is critical for Tesla, whose sky-high valuation is largely dependent on bringing robotaxis to market, some analysts say.
The company reported lackluster results in its latest earnings report and has fallen behind other automakers working on autonomous vehicle technology. These include Alphabet-owned Waymo, which is already commercially operating fully autonomous taxis in several U.S. cities, GM's Cruise and Amazon's Zoox. In China, competitors include Didi and Baidu.
Tesla hopes Dojo, which Musk says has been running tasks for Tesla since 2023, will change that. A Tesla robotaxi event originally scheduled for August is now expected to occur in early October.
Dojo can also be useful for training Tesla's humanoid robot, Optimus, which the company plans to use in its factories starting next year. Musk has said that Tesla plans to spend $10 billion this year on AI.
Musk is also betting on supercomputers to run his new AI venture xAI. Musk launched xAI in 2023 to develop large language models and AI products, like its chatbot Grok, as an alternative to AI tools created by OpenAI, Microsoft and Google.
Despite being one of its founders, Elon Musk left OpenAI in 2018 and has since become one of the company's harshest critics. In June, it was announced that xAI would build a supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee to train Grok. In early September, Musk revealed that a portion of the Memphis supercomputer, called Colossus, was already online.
Qualcomm recently approached Intel about a possible takeover
If Qualcomm were to acquire Intel, it would be one of the largest technology deals on record, but would first invite hefty regulatory scrutiny.
Qualcomm recently approached struggling chipmaker Intel about a takeover, CNBC has confirmed.
It wasn't clear if Intel had engaged in conversations with Qualcomm or what the terms would be, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the information was confidential.
#qualcomm #intel #semiconductor #technology #fintech
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the matter. Intel shares initially popped on the news before closing up about 3%, while Qualcomm shares fell about 3% at the close.
The deal, if it were to happen, would be one of the largest technology mergers ever. Intel has a market cap of over $90 billion.
Once the world's largest chipmaker, Intel has for years been in a downward spiral that accelerated in 2024. The stock had its biggest one-day drop in over 50 years in August after the company reported disappointing earnings. Intel shares are down 53% this year as investors express doubts about the company's costly plans to manufacture and design chips.
Qualcomm and Intel compete in several markets, including for PC and laptop chips. However, Qualcomm, unlike Intel, doesn't manufacture its own chips, and instead relies on firms such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung to handle production.
On Monday, after a board meeting to discuss strategy, Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger sent a memo to staff that reiterated the company's commitment to investing heavily in its foundry business, a project that could cost $100 billion over the next five years. It also said that it was weighing outside investment.
Intel has also missed out on the artificial intelligence boom that's captured the attention of Wall Street. Most of the advanced AI programs, such as ChatGPT, run on Nvidia graphics processors, instead of Intel central processors. Nvidia has more than 80% of the fast-growing market, according to analysts.
Qualcomm generates less revenue than Intel. It reported $35.8 billion in sales in fiscal 2023, compared with Intel's $54.2 billion during the same period.
A potential deal would be complicated by antitrust and national security matters. Both Intel and Qualcomm do business in China, and both have seen deals scuttled by Chinese antitrust enforcers. Intel was unsuccessful with its attempted acquisition of Tower Semiconductor, as was Qualcomm in its bid to acquire NXP Semiconductor.
Other giant acquisitions in the space have also been scuttled. In 2017, Broadcom made a bid to buy Qualcomm for more than $100 billion. The Trump administration blocked the deal the following year on national security concerns, because Broadcom was based in Singapore at the time. And in 2021, the Federal Trade Commission sued to block Nvidia's attempted purchase of Arm on antitrust grounds. The deal was called off in 2022 following additional pressure from regulators in Europe and Asia.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyl171lyewo
#crowdfunding #crypto #cent #news
Elon Musk's X and Starlink face nearly $1 million in daily fines for alleged ban evasion in Brazil
X and Starlink face daily fines of $5 million reals (about $920,000) for alleged ban evasion maneuvers by X in Brazil.
Elon Musk's X faces steep daily fines in Brazil for allegedly evading a ban on the service there, according to a statement from the country's supreme court Thursday.
#spacex #brazil #x #elonmusk
The fines imposed by Brazil's supreme court amount to $5 million in Brazilian reals, about $920,000, a day. The court said it would continue to impose "joint liability" on Starlink, the satellite internet service owned and operated by SpaceX, Musk's aerospace venture.
The suspension of X in Brazil was initially ordered by the country's chief justice, Alexandre de Moraes, at the end of August, with orders upheld by a panel of justices in early September. The court found that under Musk, X had violated Brazilian law, which requires social media companies to employ a legal representative in the country and to remove hate speech and other content deemed harmful to democratic institutions. The court also found that X failed to suspend accounts allegedly engaged in doxxing federal officers.
X recently moved to servers hosted by Cloudflare and appeared to be using dynamic internet protocol addresses that constantly change, enabling many users in Brazil to access the site. In a previous setup, the company had used static and specific IP addresses in Brazil, which were more easily blocked by internet service providers at the order of regulators.
Musk, who owns X, formerly known as Twitter, has been lashing out at de Moraes for months and continued to do so after the order was issued. He's characterized de Moraes as a villain, comparing him to Darth Vader and Harry Potter character Voldemort. He has also repeatedly called for de Moraes to be impeached.
Brazil previously withdrew money for fines it levied against X from the accounts of X and Starlink at financial institutions in the country. The new fines will begin as of Sept. 19, with the court calculating a total based on "the number of days of non-compliance" with its earlier orders to suspend X nationwide.
While Musk presents himself as a free speech absolutist, X has acquiesced to requests to remove profiles and posts in countries including India, Turkey and Hungary.
Musk and X may be in the process of complying with Brazil's takedown orders as well. Correio Braziliense, a Brazilian publication, reported on Wednesday that X has started blocking accounts as per suspension orders issued by the country's supreme court.
Among the apparently banned accounts were those of some internet influencers who are reportedly being investigated for spreading misinformation and promoting attacks against democratic institutions in Brazil.
X said it wasn't intending to restore access for Brazilian users.
"When X was shut down in Brazil, our infrastructure to provide service to Latin America was no longer accessible to our team," a company spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday. "To continue providing optimal service to our users, we changed network providers. This change resulted in an inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users. While we expect the platform to be inaccessible again in Brazil soon, we continue efforts to work with the Brazilian government to return very soon for the people of Brazil."
Inside Google’s 7-Year Mission to Give AI a Robot Body
https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-mission-to-give-ai-robot-body/
#technology #blog #cent
Amazon introduces Amelia, an AI assistant for third-party sellers
Amelia is the latest generative AI product from Amazon, which is using the technology across its retail portfolio.
Amazon is rolling out an artificial intelligence tool designed to help third-party sellers quickly resolve issues with their accounts and fetch sales and inventory data.
#amazon #amelia #ai #newsonleo #technology
The company said Thursday that it's launching the product, called Amelia, in beta for select U.S. sellers, before introducing it more broadly later this year. Amazon describes it as an "all-in-one, generative-AI based selling expert," and is making it accessible through Seller Central, the internal dashboard for third-party merchants.
Amelia is the latest generative AI tool that Amazon has brought to market in the past year as it seeks to capitalize on the hype sparked by OpenAI's ChatGPT. The company has introduced an AI-powered shopping assistant named Rufus, a chatbot for businesses dubbed Q and Bedrock, a generative AI service for cloud customers.
Amazon also plans to upgrade its Alexa voice assistant with generative AI features, CNBC previously reported, and the company has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI competitor Anthropic, its largest venture deal to date.
CEO Andy Jassy told investors earlier this year that the "generative AI opportunity" is almost unprecedented and that increased capital spending is necessary to take advantage of it.
"I don't know if any of us has seen a possibility like this in technology in a really long time, for sure since the cloud, perhaps since the internet," Jassy said on the company's first-quarter earnings call in April.
Google and Microsoft have introduced rival products to try to ensure their relevance in a market that's predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.
AI has also become more prevalent across Amazon's e-commerce platform. The company now displays AI-generated summaries of product reviews and it's launched AI features for third-party sellers that can help them write listings and generate photos for ads.
Amazon also said Thursday it's launching tools that let sellers create AI-generated video ads and use AI to write product listings in bulk based on their entire catalog. The company said it's beginning to use generative AI to show personalized product recommendations and listings based on a user's shopping history. For instance, Amazon would show the term "gluten free" in the description for a box of cereal if a shopper typically searches for products with that phrase.
Amazon made the announcements at its annual conference for sellers hosted in Seattle. Third-party sellers are the heartbeat of Amazon's dominant e-commerce business. Since about 2017, they've accounted for at least half of all goods sold on the site. In the second quarter of this year, that number swelled to 61%.
Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon's vice president of worldwide selling partner services, told CNBC in an interview that a growing number of merchants are using its AI services. More than 400,000 of Amazon's millions of third-party sellers have used its AI listing tool, up from 200,000 in June, he said.
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The 4680 ramp could be one of the most overlooked aspects to #tesla. It might be going at a pace much faster than people are anticipating.
Each Semi equates to 7.5 Cybtertrucks. Where do you think they will allocate it to?
https://inleo.io/threads/view/taskmaster4450le/re-leothreads-klbbxpxq?referral=taskmaster4450le
Moshis open source voice generator:
Moshi is a speech-text foundation model and full-duplex spoken dialogue framework. It uses Mimi, a state-of-the-art streaming neural audio codec. Mimi processes 24 kHz audio, down to a 12.5 Hz representation with a bandwidth of 1.1 kbps, in a fully streaming manner (latency of 80ms, the frame size), yet performs better than existing, non-streaming, codecs like SpeechTokenizer (50 Hz, 4kbps), or SemantiCodec (50 Hz, 1.3kbps).
Moshi models two streams of audio: one corresponds to Moshi, and the other one to the user. At inference, the stream from the user is taken from the audio input, and the one for Moshi is sampled from the model's output. Along these two audio streams, Moshi predicts text tokens corresponding to its own speech, its inner monologue, which greatly improves the quality of its generation. A small Depth Transformer models inter codebook dependencies for a given time step, while a large, 7B parameter Temporal Transformer models the temporal dependencies. Moshi achieves a theoretical latency of 160ms (80ms for the frame size of Mimi + 80ms of acoustic delay), with a practical overall latency as low as 200ms on an L4 GPU.
ChatGPT Creepy Behavior, LLaMA-Berry, Chipotle Robots, Microsoft Buys Nuclear Energy
#opensource #ai #technology #newsonleo
Recent Developments in AI: From ChatGPT's Unsolicited Messages to OpenAI's Massive Funding Round
In the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence, several significant developments have recently emerged, spanning from user interactions with AI to major industry moves. This article summarizes key events and innovations in the AI landscape.
ChatGPT's Unsolicited Messages Raise Eyebrows
Users of OpenAI's ChatGPT have reported receiving unsolicited messages from the AI, both in text and voice interfaces. This unexpected behavior has sparked discussions about AI engagement strategies and user privacy. While some view this as an attempt to increase user interaction, others find it unsettling. The development highlights the ongoing challenges in balancing AI capabilities with user comfort and ethical considerations.
Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant to power Microsoft's AI
In a surprising move, Constellation energy plans to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power Microsoft's AI operations. This decision underscores the immense energy demands of AI development and data centers. The agreement, set to begin in 2028, involves a 20-year power purchase arrangement. This development signals a potential trend of pairing nuclear energy with large-scale AI compute clusters, possibly paving the way for more sustainable AI infrastructure.
Automation in Food Service: Chipotle's "Autocado"
Chipotle is testing an automated bowl and salad maker called the "Autocado." This innovation aims to ensure consistency in portion sizes across different locations. While not strictly AI-related, it represents the broader trend of automation in various industries, potentially impacting employment and customer experience in the food service sector.
Advancements in Language Models
Several developments in language models have been announced:
These advancements indicate ongoing efforts to improve AI accessibility, safety, and capabilities.
AR/VR Developments: Snapchat's New Goggles
Snap Inc. has unveiled new AR/VR goggles with notable features such as a 45-degree field of view and auto-transitioning lenses. However, the limited 45-minute battery life poses a significant challenge. This release adds to the growing competition in the AR/VR space, with companies exploring various approaches to wearable technology.
AI in Entertainment: Runway Partners with Lionsgate
Runway, an AI company, has partnered with Lionsgate studios to integrate AI tools into the filmmaking process. This collaboration aims to provide filmmakers with advanced AI capabilities, potentially revolutionizing storytelling techniques and reducing production costs.
Addressing AI Hallucinations
Guardrails AI has introduced a new fact-checking model called "Grounded Factuality Detector," which aims to address the issue of AI hallucinations. This lightweight model reportedly outperforms larger foundation models in detecting factual accuracy.
New Open-source Models
Several new open-source models have been released:
These releases demonstrate the ongoing competition and innovation in the open-source AI community.
OpenAI's Record-Breaking Funding Round
OpenAi is reportedly raising a massive funding round, potentially the largest private round in history. With a pre-money valuation of $150 billion and billions in excess demand, this development underscores the immense investor interest in leading AI companies.
Regulatory Challenges in the EU
Both Meta and Apple have announced that they will not release certain AI functionalities in the European Union due to regulatory uncertainties. This situation highlights the potential impact of fragmented regulations on AI innovation and adoption.
AI Safety Concerns in U.S. Senate Testimony
Helen Toner, a former OpenAI board member, testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, expressing concerns about the potential risks of advanced AI, including possible human extinction. Her testimony reflects ongoing debates about AI regulation and safety measures.
As the AI landscape continues to evolve rapidly, these developments showcase the industry's dynamism, the increasing integration of AI across various sectors, and the complex challenges that accompany technological progress. Balancing innovation with safety, ethics, and regulation remains a central theme in the ongoing AI revolution.
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Microsoft launches a Windows app for iPhones, Macs, and Android devices
Stream a copy of Windows to almost any device.
Microsoft is launching a Windows app today for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, web browsers, Android devices, and even Windows PCs. The Windows app is essentially a hub for streaming a copy of Windows from a variety of sources, including Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, Remote Desktop, and more.
#newsonleo #microsoft #apple #android #windows
This new unified app has been in testing for nearly a year and includes a customizable homescreen, multi-monitor support, and USB redirection so you can use local devices like webcams, storage devices, and printers as if they were plugged directly in to a cloud PC.
This Windows app is limited to Microsoft work and school accounts, as it’s primarily designed for existing users of Remote Desktop clients for Windows and other operating systems to move to. Microsoft has had similar apps for connecting to PCs remotely in Windows for decades, including the Remote Desktop Connection app that still ships as part of Windows 11. These apps, including the new Windows one, are useful for connecting to work PCs from a personal laptop or PC.
There are no signs that Microsoft plans to support consumer accounts with its new Windows app, though. Last year, it was revealed that Microsoft has a long-term goal of moving Windows fully to the cloud to “enable improved AI-powered services and full roaming of people’s digital experience.”
Windows users can grab the Windows app from the Microsoft Store. It’s also available from Apple’s App Store for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. An Android version enters public preview mode today.
The FTC says social media companies can’t be trusted to regulate themselves
A new report reveals just how much Facebook, YouTube, X, and other platforms gobble up user data.
The Federal Trade Commission published a new report about the data collection policies of social media platforms and video streaming services, and the results are damning, if not unexpected. The report, which was released on September 19th, found that these platforms not only surveil consumers but often retain vast troves of data indefinitely about users and non-users alike — and suggests they can’t be trusted to regulate themselves.
#newsonleo #ftc #socialmedia #regulation #technology
Given the billions of dollars companies stand to earn from collecting and monetizing user data, “self-regulation has been a failure,” the report says. “Predicting, shaping, and monetizing human behavior through commercial surveillance is extremely profitable — it’s made these companies some of the most valuable on the planet — and putting industry in charge has had predictable results.”
The problem, the report finds, lies not with one particular company’s business model but with industrywide incentive structures that reward harvesting, collecting, and monetizing user data. “While lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms” like identity theft and stalking,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said. “Several firms’ failure to adequately protect kids and teens online is especially troubling.”
The report is based on questions the FTC sent to nine companies in December 2020 under section 6(b) of the FTC Act, which lets the commission conduct studies without a specific law enforcement purpose. The orders were sent to Amazon (which owns Twitch), Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, X, Snap, ByteDance (owner of TikTok), Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp and focused on these companies’ data collection and retention practices as well as how these practices affect children and teenagers.
Among the findings in the 129-page report is the fact that even people who don’t use these platforms had their data collected. The companies acquired consumer data from a variety of sources, including advertisers and data brokers, advertising tracking technology, and inferences from algorithms, data analytics, or artificial intelligence. Companies can retain this data indefinitely, the report found — and some didn’t delete users’ data in response to deletion requests. Instead, some companies deidentified data rather than deleting it, while others would only delete some data.
Article
FTC Staff Report Finds Large Social Media and Video Streaming Companies Have Engaged in Vast Surveillance of Users with Lax Privacy Controls and Inadequate Safeguards for Kids and Teens
Report recommends limiting data retention and sharing, restricting targeted advertising, and strengthening protections for teens
#fcc #socialmedia #report #newsonleo #technology
A new Federal Trade Commission staff report that examines the data collection and use practices of major social media and video streaming services shows they engaged in vast surveillance of consumers in order to monetize their personal information while failing to adequately protect users online, especially children and teens.
The staff report is based on responses to 6(b) orders issued in December 2020 to nine companies including some of the largest social media and video streaming services: Amazon.com, Inc., which owns the gaming platform Twitch;
Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms, Inc.); YouTube LLC; Twitter, Inc. (now X Corp.); Snap Inc.; ByteDance Ltd., which owns the video-sharing platform TikTok; Discord Inc.; Reddit, Inc.; and WhatsApp Inc.
The orders asked for information about how the companies collect, track and use personal and demographic information, how they determine which ads and other content are shown to consumers, whether and how they apply algorithms or data analytics to personal and demographic information, and how their practices impact children and teens.
“The report lays out how social media and video streaming companies harvest an enormous amount of Americans’ personal data and monetize it to the tune of billions of dollars a year,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “While lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms, from identify theft to stalking. Several firms’ failure to adequately protect kids and teens online is especially troubling. The Report’s findings are timely, particularly as state and federal policymakers consider legislation to protect people from abusive data practices.”
The report found that the companies collected and could indefinitely retain troves of data, including information from data brokers, and about both users and non-users of their platforms. The staff report further highlights that many companies engaged in broad data sharing that raises serious concerns regarding the adequacy of the companies’ data handling controls and oversight. In particular, the staff report noted that the companies’ data collection, minimization and retention practices were “woefully inadequate.” In addition, the staff report found that some companies did not delete all user data in response to user deletion requests.
The staff report also found that the business models of many of the companies incentivized mass collection of user data to monetize, especially through targeted advertising, which accounts for most of their revenue. It further noted that those incentives were in tension with user privacy, and therefore posed risks to users’ privacy. Notably, the report found that some companies deployed privacy-invasive tracking technologies, such as pixels, to facilitate advertising to users based on preferences and interests.
Additionally, the staff report highlighted the many ways in which the companies fed users’ and non-users’ personal information into their automated systems, including for use by their algorithms, data analytics, and AI. The report found that users and non-users had little or no way to opt out of how their data was used by these automated systems, and that there were differing, inconsistent, and inadequate approaches to monitoring and testing the use of automated systems.
Furthermore, the staff report concluded that the social media and video streaming services didn’t adequately protect children and teens on their sites. The report cited research that found social media and digital technology contributed to negative mental health impacts on young users.
Based on the data collected, the staff report said many companies assert that there are no children on their platforms because their services were not directed to children or did not allow children to create accounts. The staff report noted that this was an apparent attempt to avoid liability under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule. The staff report found that the social media and video streaming services often treated teens the same as adult users, with most companies allowing teens on their platforms with no account restrictions.
The report also noted some of the potential competition implications of the companies’ data practices. It noted that companies that amass significant amounts of user data may be in a position to achieve market dominance, which may lead to harmful practices with companies prioritizing acquiring data at the expense of user privacy. It noted that when there is limited competition among social media and video streaming services, consumers will have limited choices.
The staff report makes recommendations to policymakers and companies based on staff’s observations, findings, and analysis, including:
Congress should pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation to limit surveillance, address baseline protections, and grant consumers data rights;
Companies should limit data collection, implement concrete and enforceable data minimization and retention policies, limit data sharing with third parties and affiliates, delete consumer data when it is no longer needed, and adopt consumer-friendly privacy policies that are clear, simple, and easily understood;
Companies should not collect sensitive information through privacy-invasive ad tracking technologies;
Companies should carefully examine their policies and practices regarding ad targeting based on sensitive categories;
Companies should address the lack of user control over how their data is used by systems as well as the lack of transparency regarding how such systems are used, and also should implement more stringent testing and monitoring standards for such systems; Companies should not ignore the reality that there are child users on their platforms and should treat COPPA as representing the minimum requirements and provide additional safety measures for children;
The Companies should recognize teens are not adults and provide them greater privacy protections; and
Congress should pass federal privacy legislation to fill the gap in privacy protections provided by COPPA for teens over the age of 13.
The Commission voted 5-0 to issue the staff report. Chair Khan, as well as Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya, Melissa Holyoak and Andrew N. Ferguson each released separate statements.
The lead attorneys on this matter are Jacqueline Ford, Ronnie Solomon and Ryan Mehm from the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition and protect and educate consumers. The FTC will never demand money, make threats, tell you to transfer money, or promise you a prize. Learn more about consumer topics at consumer.ftc.gov, or report fraud, scams, and bad business practices at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Follow the FTC on social media, read consumer alerts and the business blog, and sign up to get the latest FTC news and alerts.
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen to Pay Nearly $1 Million Penalty to Settle Antitrust Law Violation
Today, the Federal Trade Commission announced that Ryan Cohen, managing partner of RC Ventures, LLC, and Chairman and CEO of GameStop Corp., will pay a $985,320 civil penalty
#newsonleo #ftc #newsonleo #ceo #technology
Today, the Federal Trade Commission announced that Ryan Cohen, managing partner of RC Ventures, LLC, and Chairman and CEO of GameStop Corp., will pay a $985,320 civil penalty to settle charges that his acquisition of Wells Fargo & company (Wells Fargo) shares violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act.
According to the complaint, Cohen, who is also the founder and former CEO of Chewy, Inc., acquired more than 562,000 Wells Fargo voting securities resulting in aggregated holdings of Wells Fargo securities that exceeded HSR filing thresholds. Cohen’s purchase triggered an obligation to file an HSR form with federal antitrust agencies and wait before completing the acquisition. Yet Cohen failed to do so, which violated the HSR Act, according to the complaint.
The HSR Act requires companies and individuals to report large transactions, including securities acquisitions, over a certain threshold to the FTC and DOJ so that the federal agencies can investigate the deals before they close. The agencies have 30 days after a transaction has been reported to conduct an initial investigation and file a “second request” demand for additional information. It is generally illegal to finalize an acquisition during this investigatory period. The maximum civil penalty for an HSR violation at the time Cohen made the corrective filing was currently $43,792 per day.
According to the complaint, Cohen’s acquisition of Wells Fargo voting securities was not exempt under the Investment-Only Exemption of the HSR Act, even though his holding represented less than 10 percent of the outstanding voting securities of Wells Fargo.
When acquiring the Wells Fargo shares Cohen intended to influence Wells Fargo’s business decisions as evidenced by Cohen’s emails when he advocated for a board seat. After acquiring the shares, Cohen proceeded to have periodic communications with Wells Fargo’s leadership regarding suggestions to improve Wells Fargo’s business and to advocate for a potential board seat, according to the complaint.
The Commission vote to accept the settlement and refer the matter to the Department of Justice for filing was 5-0. The Department of Justice filed the complaint and proposed stipulated order on the FTC’s behalf in the U.S. District court for the District of Columbia.
As required by the Tunney Act, the proposed settlement, along with a competitive impact statement, will be published in the Federal Register. Any person may submit written comments concerning the proposed settlement during a 60-day comment period to Maribeth Petrizzi, Special Attorney, United States, c/o Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580 bccompliance@ftc.gov. At the conclusion of the 60-day comment period, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia may approve the proposed settlement upon finding that it is in the public interest.
Tesla
Adeus, conta de luz? Graças à Tesla, agora sua casa pode gerar e vender energia graças a uma usina com 7 mil baterias residenciais!
A Tesla está mais uma vez revolucionando o setor de energia renovável , agora com a venda de seu ambicioso projeto de energia virtual no sul da Austrália. Trata-se de uma usina de energia virtual (ou VPP), que conecta mais de 7 mil baterias residenciais para estabilizar a rede elétrica e otimizar o uso de energia solar .
Com uma capacidade total de 35 megawatts, o projeto já atende aos picos de demanda e oferece serviços cruciais à rede elétrica local. Agora, a empresa de Elon Musk busca propostas para expandir essa solução inovadora e consolidar seu papel no mercado de armazenamento de energia , de acordo com o site electrek.
#newsonleo #technology #tesla
O projeto não visa apenas aumentar a eficiência da rede elétrica, mas também possibilitar que as residências gerem sua própria energia, contribuindo diretamente para a estabilidade e sustentabilidade do sistema. A Tesla, que já garantiu uma licença para atuar no varejo de energia na Austrália, quer ir além, unindo forças com grandes varejistas e ampliando o impacto de sua tecnologia.
A energia virtual , um conceito ainda novo para muitos, pode ser descrita como uma espécie de “central elétrica descentralizada”. Em vez de construir uma grande usina, as usinas de energia virtual (VPPs) conectam várias baterias domésticas e sistemas de energia solar em residências. Essas baterias, como as Powerwalls da Tesla, funcionam juntas para fornecer eletricidade à rede quando necessário, ou armazenam o excedente quando há mais produção do que demanda.
Basicamente, o sistema VPP combina a geração de energia de milhares de residências para criar uma solução muito mais flexível e eficiente. “É como se sua casa fizesse parte de um clube de energia“, permitindo que você compartilhe a eletricidade que produz com seus vizinhos e, ao mesmo tempo, mantenha seu próprio fornecido quando mais precisar. Essa inovação tem três grandes benefícios:
· Integração de fontes renováveis : painéis solares e baterias em várias casas conectadas como uma única unidade;
· Gerenciamento inteligente : um software otimiza a produção e o consumo de energia, atendendo às necessidades da rede e dos consumidores;
· Impacto econômico : o VPP contribui para a redução dos custos com infraestrutura energética, além de promover o uso eficiente de fontes renováveis.
A Tesla escolheu a Austrália como cenário de um dos seus projetos mais ousados no setor de energia renovável . O estado do Sul da Austrália , que já utiliza cerca de 75% de sua energia proveniente de fontes como a energia solar e eólica, tem planos ambiciosos de alcançar 100% de energia renovável até 2027. Para isso, a capacidade de armazenamento de energia desempenha um papel crucial, especialmente considerando a variabilidade das fontes de energia verde.
Nesse cenário, as baterias residenciais conectadas ao VPP da Tesla adquiriram uma peça chave. “Imagina que o sol está brilhando forte no telhado de sua casa, mas você não está usando toda essa eletricidade. Em vez de desperdiçá-la, o sistema armazena e compartilha com quem está precisando naquele momento. Genial, né?” E, claro, quando a demanda cai, a energia armazenada volta para a rede.
Além disso, o projeto está diretamente ligado às habitações públicas, sendo parte de uma parceria entre a Tesla e o governo local. Assim, não apenas contribui para a estabilização da rede elétrica, mas também oferece economia de custos para os usuários das residências.
Went 2 do some onboarding @ the Atlanta Blockchain Center yesterday & had no idea I was walking in on a private screening of the new documentary Vitalik: An Ethereum Story by some folks frm the Ethereum Foundation.
They were also promoting an initiative they have called “Crypto4Harris” which was funny because they admitted she hasn’t given any implication publicly that she is pro-crypto…enough for politics though.
The doc was dope & I gained a lot of insight…especially when it comes 2 the inevitable problems that come w/ scaling anything. It also gave me a newfound appreciation for @khaleelkazi, @anomadsoul, @scaredycatguide and the rest of the InLEO team.
Why? Because not only do they have 2 fight the ongoing blockchain battle of efficiency vs scaling, they have 2 come up w/ solutions to grow in the only market as scammy as crypto…social media #technology
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