Here is the daily technology #threadcast for 9/18/24. 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.
Israel's technology is undoubtedly at least 10 years ahead of other countries.
#technology
https://inleo.io/threads/view/coyotelation/re-xrjcgkxuml?referral=coyotelation
I would not say that, but their intel and secret service surely is…
Yep, indeed.
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Modern juicers are technologically advanced, but it is much healthier for the body to get the fiber that remains in the pulp after squeezing juice from fruits, therefore, eating an apple is preferable to drinking apple juice. :) !BEER
Lets go on technology news this evening
Absolutely. Keep them coming.
YouTube announces AI features from Google DeepMind for Shorts creators
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/18/youtube-announces-ai-features-from-google-deepmind-for-shorts-creators.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4dnr8zemgo
#news #blog #cent
Facebook parent Meta Platforms beats lawsuit over Apple privacy, Sandberg disclosures
https://www.reuters.com/legal/facebook-parent-meta-platforms-beats-lawsuit-over-apple-privacy-sandberg-2024-09-18/
#facebook #socialmedia
#news
https://punchng.com/elon-musks-brain-chip-to-help-blind-people-see-gets-approval/
Elon Musk's company "Neuralink" has invented a device called BLINDSIGHT that will enable those who lost their eyes to be able to see again
#tech #cent
https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-blackrock-plan-30-bln-fund-invest-ai-infrastructure-ft-reports-2024-09-17/
#news #cent
The Conversations with AI threadcast is back!!
https://inleo.io/threads/view/ahmadmanga/re-leothreads-2pzfpwbaf?referral=ahmadmanga
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitget-foresight-invest-30-million-ton
#news #ton
#cent
#blockchain
The High Cost of ABC, CBS, FOX, & NBC is Killing Cable TV Along With YouTube TV & Fubo
#cordcutting #streaming #entertainment #technology
We have to do that dance with Spectrum again this month. Our promotionals from last year are ending on Oct 6th. Seriously considering YouTube TV. They'll probably charge us more for the High Speed Internet but we need that. They keep price-gouging loyal customers to advertise for new customers with better deals. So screwed up. My Dad has been their customer since the Time Warner days. He authorized us to deal with the account.
Yep. There is no point in being loyal to cable or insurance companies.
Shop around for the best deal and the hell with them.
We do our best on that. Luckily we are both able to dedicate time to researching our options
Smart move.
Thanks! We try! ☺️
Cord-Cutting trends and streaming services: A Comprehensive Overview
In the rapidly evolving landscape of television consumption, cord-cutting continues to gain momentum, driven by various factors including rising costs and changing viewer preferences. This article summarizes key trends and developments in the cord-cutting space, based on recent industry observations.
Cable TV's Struggle with Rising Costs
One of the primary drivers of cord-cutting is the increasing cost of traditional cable TV subscriptions. A prime example is Comcast, which now charges over $55 a month in some areas for local channels like ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, along with Regional sports networks (RSNs). These fees are significantly impacting the advertised base package prices, often pushing the actual cost to over $100 per month.
The rise in fees is largely attributed to local television stations demanding more money from cable providers, who then pass these costs onto consumers. This creates a challenging situation for cable companies:
This cycle is accelerating the rate of cord-cutting, with price being the primary motivator for consumers to switch to alternative options.
Streaming Services: The Rise of Niche Players
While major streaming platforms are experiencing some stagnation, smaller, niche streaming services are seeing unexpected growth. These specialized services cater to specific interests such as anime, fishing, drag racing, or lesser-known sports. This trend highlights the strength of targeted content in attracting and retaining subscribers.
Key points about niche streaming services:
However, industry experts still anticipate some consolidation among streaming services in the future.
Notable Developments in Streaming
Peacock's Growth: NBCUniversal's Peacock has seen significant subscriber growth, largely due to its coverage of the Summer Olympics and Paralympics. In August, Peacock reached 2.1% of all television viewing. The challenge now is to retain these new subscribers post-Olympics.
YouTube Premium Offer: YouTube is offering its premium subscribers a $100 discount on NFL Sunday Ticket, demonstrating the growing intersection of traditional sports content and streaming platforms.
Market Maturation and Consumer Behavior
The streaming market shows signs of maturation:
Conclusion
The television landscape continues to evolve, with cord-cutting driven primarily by cost considerations. While major cable providers struggle with rising fees, niche streaming services find success in targeted content offerings. The challenge for all players in this space will be to balance content quality, variety, and cost to attract and retain subscribers in an increasingly competitive market.
From Groq:
What is a token in computer science and how does it differ from cryptocurrency?
In computer science, a token is a small, unique piece of data that represents a specific value, concept, or entity within a system. tokens can be used to identify, authenticate, or authorize various actions, transactions, or interactions within a system. They can be thought of as a digital "key" or "credential" that unlocks access to a particular resource, service, or functionality.
This explanation is clear and very precise.
The difference from my view is that in comp science, it is not transferable
Well there is no value i.e. market. It is a unit of measure.
This is from a more broader angle and you are very right. It's just non-transactable
Tokens can take many forms, such as:
In contrast, cryptocurrency is a specific type of digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security and is decentralized, meaning it is not controlled by any government or institution. cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Litecoin, are designed to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions and are often used as a store of value or medium of exchange.
The key differences between tokens and cryptocurrencies are:
In summary, while both tokens and cryptocurrencies are digital or virtual, they serve different purposes and have distinct characteristics. Tokens are designed for specific use cases within a system, while cryptocurrencies are designed as a general-purpose currency.In computer science, a token is a small, unique piece of data that represents a specific value, concept, or entity within a system.
Tokens can be used to identify, authenticate, or authorize various actions, transactions, or interactions within a system. They can be thought of as a digital "key" or "credential" that unlocks access to a particular resource, service, or functionality.
Tokens can take many forms, such as:
In contrast, cryptocurrency is a specific type of digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security and is decentralized, meaning it is not controlled by any government or institution. Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Litecoin, are designed to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions and are often used as a store of value or medium of exchange.
The key differences between tokens and cryptocurrencies are:
In summary, while both tokens and cryptocurrencies are digital or virtual, they serve different purposes and have distinct characteristics. Tokens are designed for specific use cases within a system, while cryptocurrencies are designed as a general-purpose currency.
Governor Newsom on California AI bill SB 1047: 'I can't solve for everything'
California Governor Gavin Newsom said there are 38 bills on his desk that would create laws around artificial intelligence on Tuesday,
California Governor Gavin Newsom said there are 38 bills on his desk that would create laws around artificial intelligence on Tuesday, but one looms larger than all of them: SB 1047, California’s bill that tries to prevent AI systems from causing catastrophes. For the first time, California’s Governor shared how he’s thinking about the controversial bill.
#ai #technology #newsonleo #california
The California governor didn’t explicitly say on Tuesday whether he would sign or veto the bill. He told the LA times he has yet to make up his mind on the bill. OpenAI, Nancy Pelosi, the United States Chamber of Commerce, and Big Tech trade groups are pushing Newsom to veto SB 1047. On the other side, Elon Musk and Anthropic have expressed tepid enthusiasm, while some well regarded AI researchers, such as Yoshua Benjio and Geoffrey Hinton, have fully endorsed SB 1047.
Governor Newsom has two weeks to make his decision. Until then, we’re left with a pile of remarks that don’t look promising for the bill’s future.
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In short, he thinks SB 1047 has problems. Newsom said he’s interested in AI bills that can solve today’s problems without upsetting California’s booming AI industry. That’s not very promising for the future of SB 1047, which aims to protect against disasters by holding big AI vendors liable if their products are used to cause grievous harm, like bringing down critical infrastructure. At the same time, signing the bill would upset large swaths of the AI industry who want Newsom to veto the bill.
“We’ve been working over the last couple years to come up with some rational regulation that supports risk taking, but not recklessness,” said Newsom in a conversation with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on Tuesday, on stage at the 2024 Dreamforce conference. “That’s challenging now in this space, particularly with SB 1047, because of the sort of outsized impact that legislation could have, and the chilling effect, particularly in the open source community.”
Newsom went on to say he must consider demonstrable risks versus hypothetical risks. He later noted, “I can’t solve for everything. What can we solve for?”
The governor hit on a major criticism of SB 1047: the bill tries to prevent AI’s role in mass casualty events and cyber security events costing more than $500 million, but does little to hold tech companies accountable for anything short of that. Critics of SB 1047 have argued that the bill could stifle innovation, while failing to regulate the short-term issues AI systems are creating today.
Newsom gave these remarks to a room full of people attending an enterprise technology conference in the heart of San Francisco. At most tech conferences I’ve attended recently, you hear rumblings in the bathroom line about SB 1047’s many problems. Newsom likely knew which kind of voters were in the audience, and may have been playing to the crowd.
That said, the governor is putting his AI regulation where his mouth is. Earlier on Tuesday, California’s Governor signed five bills into law that address AI problems we’ve already seen play out in 2024, such as AI-generated election misinformation and Hollywood studios creating AI clones of actors. These may be the “demonstrable risks” Newsom is referencing.
“Governor Newsom understands better than anyone the importance of California’s leadership when the federal government does not step up,” said state Senator Scott Wiener in a statement to TechCrunch. “The Governor and the First Partner’s work to bring awareness to the impacts of social media is a direct result of the federal government’s failure to regulate social media. I have every confidence the Governor will give this bill the consideration it deserves.”
Newsom lamented on Tuesday how the federal government has “failed to regulate” in the AI space. The governor noted how California has led previous on tech regulation – namely, social media and privacy – and he isn’t surprised that people are looking to the state for leadership again. However, Newsom says he’s being careful not to squander California’s early lead in AI.
“[AI] is a space where we dominate, and I want to maintain our dominance,” said Newsom. “At the same time, you feel a deep sense of responsibility to address some of the more extreme concerns that many of us have – even the biggest and strongest promoters of this technology have – and that’s a difficult place to land.”
Newsom alluded that it’s probably been overstated how signing SB 1047 would disrupt the AI industry overnight. However, he noted how the impact of signing the wrong bills over the course of a few years could profoundly impact California’s dominance.
Article
Amazon taps long-time exec to lead India business as competition intensifies
Amazon has named long-time executive Samir Kumar as the new head of its India consumer business, a month after its domestic business' head resigned.
Amazon has named long-time executive Samir Kumar as the new head of its India consumer business, a month after its domestic business’ head resigned amid intensifying competition in the key market.
Kumar, who has been with the e-commerce giant for 25 years, will become Country Manager for India, the company said.
#newsonleo #amazon #india #technology
This role would be in addition to Kumar’s existing responsibilities overseeing Amazon’s consumer operations in the Middle East, South Africa and Turkey, the company said.
The leadership transition was announced by Amit Agarwal, Amazon’s senior vice president for emerging markets, in an email to staff. The move follows the sudden exit of Manish Tiwary, its previous head of Amazon’s India consumer business, last month.
“India remains an important priority for Amazon, and I am super excited about the opportunity ahead as we continue to transform lives and livelihoods,” said Agarwal in a statement.
Despite investing over $7 billion in India, Amazon is facing challenges in smaller cities and towns, where local competitors Flipkart (owned by Walmart) and Meesho (backed by SoftBank) have gained stronger market positions.
Meesho has overtaken Amazon in terms of monthly active users on mobile apps, according to Morgan Stanley. Bank of America analysts report that Flipkart boasts over 50 million daily active users on its mobile apps in India, while Amazon has fewer than 40 million.
In urban India, Amazon is facing growing competition from quick-commerce companies such as BlinkIt, Swiggy, and Zepto, which offer deliveries within 10 minutes.
Flipkart recently launched its own quick delivery service in Bengaluru. The company also started testing four-hour deliveries on Myntra, the nation’s top online apparel and fashion platform.
Amazon has not launched quick commerce offerings in India so far.
Article
Nurture wants to teach kids important life skills through interactive gameplay and entertainment
Parents understand the challenge of keeping young kids engaged in online learning.
Parents understand the challenge of keeping young kids engaged in online learning. Nurture is a new app designed for children aged 4 to 7 that features interactive content and games to capture their interest. The company’s mission is to equip children with critical life skills such as socializing, basic financial understanding, mindfulness, fitness, nutrition, and more through story-based adventures that kids can actively participate in.
#newsonleo #technology #games
Nurture announced Wednesday its $2.8 million pre-seed round, led by Golden Gate Ventures. The funding will go toward bringing on preschool content creators to help develop content for the platform.
The flagship title that Nurture first launched is called “Doki’s Delivery” and is focused on helping kids learn social-emotional skills. The series follows a group of characters who are on a mission to deliver an egg in a spaceship.
The app also has a dual-screen component that requires parents to download the Nurture TV app on Fire TV or Google TV so kids can interact between both screens. For “Doki’s Delivery,” kids can use their phone or tablet as a game controller while playing on the TV screen. They can tilt the mobile device from side to side to help the characters avoid obstacles.
Other interactions include answering a call from the main character, designing the spaceship, and hatching the mysterious egg, which players can then take care of– similar to Tamagotchi, the popular kids’ toy.
“I didn’t want to make it passive, mindless screen time. I want to make it an active, interactive learning experience,” co-founder and CEO Roger Egan told TechCrunch. “[Once kids] get the concepts, then we use the games and interactives to practice the skills and apply them.”
The company plans to release new original content focusing on “growth mindset and financial thinking,” as explained by Egan. Additionally, Nurture is in discussions with around 20 popular third-party creators to enhance its content library. Nurture’s creator platform enables creators to host content on their own digital “islands,” which users can access by swiping through the app menu.
In addition to the immersive learning content, parents will have the ability to track their kids’ performance in the games.
“We have these things called reflection moments where we ask questions, and the child can answer… With that answer, we can synthesize that information and understand how well do they understand the concept, and then feed that back into the product and report to parents about how they’re learning and showing progress,” Egan said.
There will also be offline activities to provide parents with ideas on how they can reinforce the concepts learned in the app and encourage children to apply their knowledge in everyday situations.
Nurture was founded in 2022, a few years after Egan’s kids started remote learning during the pandemic. Having a front-row seat to his children’s education, he believed that traditional schooling doesn’t adequately prepare kids for the rapidly changing world, especially one powered by AI. In his opinion, children should also learn things like adaptability, critical thinking, digital literacy, mindfulness, and empathy to thrive in the future. However, he struggled to find suitable alternatives to complement his kids’ education.
Article
Google nets court win against EU's $1.7B AdSense antitrust decision
Google has succeeded in overturning a $1.7 billion antitrust penalty handed down by the European Union back in March 2019.
Google has succeeded in overturning a $1.7 billion antitrust penalty handed down by the European Union back in March 2019.
The €1.49 billion fine, which Google appealed, was originally issued after the European Commission found the tech giant’s search ads brokering business had violated competition rules between 2006 and 2016 to cement a dominant position.
#newsonleo #google #eu #antitrust #technology
On Wednesday, the EU’s General Court upheld the majority of EU’s findings, but annulled the earlier decision in its entirety after finding that the Commission had failed to take into consideration all the relevant circumstances when assessing the duration of the contract clauses it deemed abusive.
The EU can appeal the decision to the bloc’s highest court, the Court of Justice (CJEU), on a point of law. But it has yet to confirm whether it will do so. Commission spokeswoman Lea Zuber told TechCrunch that it “takes note” of the General Court judgment and said it will study it “carefully” and “reflect on possible next steps.”
The new decision comes after the bloc netted a couple of major wins at the CJEU, one of which touched another Google decision (Google Shopping). The Commission also won the higher court’s backing for a high-risk State Aid case against Ireland’s tax breaks for Apple, confirming the tech giant must pay some $15B in back taxes. So the EU may be feeling emboldened to try its luck at challenging this latest court setback, especially as the General Court upheld most of its findings in the AdSense case.
Reached for a response to the General Court’s ruling, Google spokesman Jay Stoll emailed a statement welcoming the judgement. “This case is about a very narrow subset of text-only search ads placed on a limited number of publishers’ websites,” Google wrote. “We made changes to our contracts in 2016 to remove the relevant provisions, even before the Commission’s decision. We are pleased that the court has recognised errors in the original decision and annulled the fine. We will review the full decision closely.”
The Commission hasn’t stood still since the AdSense decision, as it has an ongoing investigation into Google’s adtech stack, instigated back in mid 2021, that’s looking more broadly at its role in the adtech supply chain.
It remains to be seen whether that antitrust probe will lead to enforcement, but the Commission’s competition chief previously warned that if its concerns are confirmed, the only viable remedy may be to break Google’s ad empire up.
EU’s Qualcomm penalty largely upheld
In a separate ruling also issued on Wednesday, the General Court largely upheld a July 2019 Commission antitrust penalty on Qualcomm that had fined the mobile chipmaker €242 million (~$271M) for predatory pricing of baseband chips.
Qualcomm petitioned the General Court to annul the fine entirely or substantially reduce it. The Court largely upheld the Commission’s penalty, only slightly revising the fine down to €238.7M.
The chipmaker had raised 15 pleas in law challenging the EU’s penalty. The General Court rejected all of them except one concerning the fee calculation, which it accepted partially, finding that the Commission “departed, without justification, from the methodology laid down in its 2006 guidelines [for calculating fees].”
The ruling is likely to be a big relief for the Commission, which had an earlier Qualcomm enforcement quashed by the General Court in 2022.
The legal avenues for Qualcomm to challenge the Court’s latest ruling are limited to raising a point of law with the CJEU.
Why United chose SpaceX's Starlink to power its free Wi-Fi
Late last week, United Airlines announced that it signed an agreement with Elon Musk's SpaceX to bring its Starlink internet service to its entire fleet
Late last week, United Airlines announced that it signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring its Starlink internet service to its entire fleet and — for the first time — offer free Wi-Fi to all passengers. To dig a bit deeper into why United went with Starlink, what that rollout will look like, and what it means for passengers and crew, we talked to United’s Chief Customer Officer Linda Jojo.
#spacex #united #starlink #space #technology #newsonleo
“If I could have done this change earlier, I certainly would have, because we’re proud of a lot of things, but we do think that our customers deserve a better Wi-Fi experience than the one they have today,” Jojo told me when I asked why the company is changing providers now.
Currently, United is using a mix of four different providers — Gogo, Thales, Panasonic and Viasat — all with different capabilities and limitations. You may find yourself on one flight that lets you stream video, for example, while your connecting flight only supports basic web surfing. While the airline has attempted to unify these systems behind a single sign-in experience, Jojo admitted that it’s not always possible to shield customers from the underlying complexity.
Meanwhile, the expectation, in part set by United’s competitors like Delta Air Lines, is that Wi-Fi on flights should be free. Yet United’s current set of providers simply didn’t have the capacity that would’ve allowed for offering free Wi-Fi to everyone on the plane, Jojo said.
“If we went free with what we had, we were going to enable a worse experience than what we had with the paid option, because the paid was just enough friction — $8 for a [MileagePlus] member — to say ‘I’m going to be really intentional about connecting,” she said. “We know the architecture and the setup today is not going to be good enough.”
The search for a better solution led United to consider low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. They are, by definition, closer to the aircraft than those in a geosynchronous orbit, and hence can offer lower latencies, more capacity, and higher speeds. And when it comes to offering satellite-based internet access with global coverage and enough bandwidth, Starlink is pretty much the only game in town.
“If we were going to try it, we were going to try it with Starlink,” Jojo said. “We first started looking at it for our regional fleet to see if we were going to try it out. And we quickly said, ‘there’s nothing to try out here. We can see that it’s going to work.’ We could see what JSX and others were doing. We could tell from where the satellites were, that the coverage was there.”
Earlier this year, United started its negotiations with Starlink to bring its hardware onto its planes. Jojo noted that since other airlines like Hawaiian (which is now merging with Alaska Airlines) are going through a similar process right now, that should speed up the certification process as well.
Article
Intuitive Machines lands $4.8B NASA contract to build Earth-moon communications infrastructure
Intuitive Machines lands a new contract for a constellation of satellites stretching to cislunar space.
NASA wants to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, but right now, astronauts have to be in direct line of sight with Earth to phone home.
#nasa #intuitivemachines #newsonleo #communications #technology
The space agency is looking to change that with its developing Near Space Network, and it’s willing to pay potentially huge sums to private companies to help make continuous lunar communications a reality. Those plans got a boost today when NASA announced it had awarded Intuitive Machines a contract to build and deploy a satellite constellation capable of providing navigation and communications for future missions on or around the moon.
The Houston-based company is best known for pulling off the first-ever private moon landing in February. (That mission was cut short after the lander tripped on a rock and landed on its side, but it still counts.) The company sells a rideshare service to the moon, but payloads can only transmit data when in direct line of sight with a ground station.
The task order contract for the Lunar Relay has a maximum potential value of $4.82 billion, though that doesn’t mean Intuitive Machines will definitely be paid out that much over the five-year contracting period. The task order, which also includes an option to extend another five years, only guarantees $150 million, according to a regulatory filing. But it’s likely that the lunar satellite constellation, plus communications and navigation services, will top out at more than the base price.
Satellite relays stretching from geosynchronous orbit to near the moon’s orbit will also be essential to NASA’s nearer-term ambitions to land humans on the moon’s south pole before the end of the decade. According to the agency, that region of the moon provides few landing opportunities that are in direct communication with Earth’s ground stations. But even beyond crewed missions, a lunar relay could also enable new capabilities for uncrewed missions, like remote or autonomous operation of rovers, plus navigation services and boosted data transmission rates for payloads on the moon’s surface.
This infrastructure won’t just benefit NASA; private industry, including Intuitive Machines, will likely need more robust communications for future moon missions.
Intuitive Machines, which went public last year, counts business with the government among the bulk of its revenue. That includes multiple significant contracts for lunar lander services, via NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, engineering services, and a contract to design a next-gen lunar rover. In the second quarter of this year, the company’s revenue hit $41.4 million, a 130% increase year-over-year.
Artricle
JPMorgan could take over Goldman’s Apple Card business
JPMorgan Chase is in talks to take over the Apple Card business from Goldman Sachs, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Goldman has issued credit for the Apple Card since its launch in 2019, but the Wall Street and Silicon Valley giants have been trying to untie their partnership since last year. In 2023, Goldman decided to abandon its push into consumer banking, including the $17 billion Apple Card program, because it was seen as a distraction from its core business.
#technology #applepay #banks #newsonleo
Goldman and Apple reportedly approached multiple lenders about becoming the credit card’s new backer, including American Express. Some of those deals were held up due to the Apple Card’s high loss rate, which may cause Goldman to sell the business to JPMorgan for less than its face value.
Amazon increases average pay for warehouse workers and adds free Prime membership perk
Starting this month, Amazon's average starting pay for front-line employees will be more than $22 an hour, up from roughly $20.50 an hour, the company said.
Amazon announced Wednesday it's raising hourly wages for its warehouse workers, and adding a new employee perk that will give them a Prime subscription at no extra cost.
Starting this month, Amazon's average starting pay for front-line employees in the U.S. will be bumped to an average of more than $22 an hour, up from roughly $20.50 an hour, the company said.
#amazon #prime #newsonleo #technology
Amazon said it's also making its Prime subscription service a part of employees' benefit package beginning "early next year." The service, which costs $140 a year, gives members access to speedy shipping and video streaming, among other perks.
Last week, Amazon also hiked wages for its contracted delivery drivers to roughly $22 an hour as part of a $2.1 billion investment this year into its third-party logistics program.
The wage hikes come as Amazon is preparing to enter the peak holiday shopping season, a period when retailers typically see a flurry of online shopping. Amazon said Tuesday it plans to host a second Prime Day-like deal bonanza on Oct. 8-9, the third year it's held the discount event.
Article
The iPhone 16 Pro Max has better battery life and great cameras, but Apple Intelligence hasn't arrived
CNBC's iPhone 16 Pro Max review. There are a lot of good upgrades but Apple Intelligence isn't ready yet.
Apple's iPhone 16 family of phones will hit shelves on Friday. Ahead of their launch, I've spent the past five days been testing the high-end iPhone 16 Pro Max.
It's a great phone with cool updates like a dedicated camera button, and it charges faster over MagSafe than earlier Pro models. The screens are also slightly larger than prior versions.
#apple #iphone #technology #newsonleo
But this review is tricky, because one of the banner features Apple has been hyping — on stage and in its new ads — is Apple Intelligence. It's Apple's suite of AI features for the iPhone, and it's not coming until later this year.
There are reasons to be excited. A few of the new AI features, like changes to Siri, photo editing, and the option to have AI rewrite text for you, will launch in beta in October. More additions, such as as Apple's image and emoji generator, more personal Siri responses and integration with ChatGPT, will come later.
I was able to test some of the beta features for this review. Others weren't available. Those limitations make it difficult to provide a comprehensive assessment of the new device or to suggest whether the upgrade is worthwhile.
Apple shares slid earlier in the week after analysts suggested lighter demand for the iPhone 16 Pro models this year. TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the problem is that Apple Intelligence isn't out at launch. Barclays also feared it may be because the Chinese language version of Apple Intelligence won't launch until 2025.
The changes to know about
The biggest change you'll notice is the new camera button. I'm still getting used to it after a few days, but I'm already defaulting to just pulling the phone out of my pocket, tapping the button and taking a picture.
My wife rightly asked me why I don't just hit the camera button on the lock screen like on earlier iPhones. I don't have a good answer for that. It just feels more natural to push a camera button.
I enjoyed doing a half-press to get camera controls like the zoom during my son's first soccer game, though I found it was easier to sometimes just pinch to zoom. The new 48-megapixel wide-angle lens offers sharper images in zoomed-out shots that can capture more scenery.
Videographers will likely enjoy the 4K 120fps recording offered on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Still, I try to keep my clips in lower quality because I'm sharing them over text messages with family and friends.
The iPhone 16 Pro Max has the best battery life of any iPhone yet. Apple's new A18 Pro processor paired with a larger battery offers up to 33 hours of video playback, up from 29 hours on last year's iPhone 15 Pro Max. I was usually able to make it to about dinnertime before needing to charge the 15, and I can make it to bedtime — or beyond — with the new phone depending on how much I'm using it.
I love that Apple increased the speed of its MagSafe charging. I used MagSafe when it came out but ultimately switched back to regular cable charging because it was quicker. Now, MagSafe gives up to a 50% charge in 30 minutes if you're using a 30-watt charger (not included.)
Apple Intelligence
In the absence of Apple Intelligence at launch, I'm limited to testing a few beta features. They're hit or miss, as to be expected in beta.
Apple Intelligence could help drive a new cycle of iPhone upgrades. Apple reported $39.3 billion in iPhone sales during the fiscal third quarter, about 46% of the company's total revenue and down 1% from a year earlier. CEO Tim Cook said the segment grew on a constant currency basis.
I like email summaries provided by Apple Intelligence. They're accurate and give you just a couple of lines that summarize what's said or relayed in an email. This only works in Apple's Mail app, though, so it won't work if your company makes you use Outlook or if you prefer Gmail. Similarly, I found that Apple Intelligence accurately summarized long bits of text (including the introduction to this review) and returned an accurate snippet.
In notifications, it's just OK. Summaries of news alerts were correct. Summaries of text messages sometimes were unnecessary. In one text from my wife, for example, Apple Intelligence suggested I threw a dinosaur at my daughter and made her cry before I apologized. In reality, my son was the culprit. The original text would have been sufficient.
If data is the new oil, think about it, you can generate a near unlimited amount of it.
#ai #technology
https://inleo.io/threads/view/taskmaster4450le/re-ijxvzqcmvq?referral=taskmaster4450le
Microsoft, BlackRock form group to raise $100 billion to invest in AI data centers and power
Microsoft, BlackRock and Abu Dhabi's investment vehicle are aiming to initially raise $30 billion to invest in AI data centers and the energy to power them.
Microsoft and BlackRock are part of a group of companies collaborating to pull together up to $100 billion to develop data centers for artificial intelligence and the energy infrastructure to power them.
#microsoft #blackrock #ai #computer #datacenter
The companies are part of the Global Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Investment Partnership, or GAIIP, which was announced in a press release on Tuesday. The other participants are Global Infrastructure Partners, or GIP, an infrastructure investor that is being acquired by BlackRock, and MGX, a tech investor in the United Arab Emirates.
"We are committed to ensuring AI helps advance innovation and drives growth across every sector of the economy," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, in a statement. He said the initiative brings "together financial and industry leaders to build the infrastructure of the future and power it in a sustainable way."
The group aims to assemble $30 billion of initial capital, with a future goal of bringing in up to $100 billion, including from debt financing.
Tech companies have been racing to build data centers full of Nvidia graphics processing units, or GPUs, that can run generative AI models such as those enabling OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot. Those GPUs consume serious power, and soaring demand has created a bottleneck for standing up new facilities.
Microsoft's investment comes on top of the capital expenditures needed to support infrastructure expansion for its Azure public cloud, which supplies OpenAI and other AI customers. Microsoft said in July that fiscal fourth-quarter capital spending, including assets acquired under finance leases, totaled $19 billion.
In January, BlackRock announced its intent to acquire GIP for $3 billion in cash and around 12 million shares of BlackRock common stock. BlackRock said last week that it expects the deal to close Oct. 1.
Snap unveils latest AR glasses despite ongoing struggles in core ad business
Snap on Tuesday announced the fifth generation of its Spectacles augmented reality glasses, despite its core business continuing to struggle.
Snap on Tuesday announced the fifth generation of its Spectacles augmented reality glasses that can overlay digital graphics onto the physical world.
The latest Spectacles are only available for developers, who must commit to paying $99 a month for one full year if they want to build AR apps for the device. The glasses can produce more compelling digital visuals than the prior version and are built on top of a redesigned software operating system dubbed Snap OS.
#snap #technology #newsonleo #mixedreality
Additionally, Snap is partnering with ChatGPT creator OpenAI to give developers tools that will allow them to build and port their artificial intelligence features for the smart glasses.
Snap's announcement comes days before rival Meta's Connect event, a conference where Facebook's parent typically unveils its latest hardware. Like Meta, Snap has been trying for years to break into consumer hardware. Unlike Meta, Snap's core online advertising business has been struggling.
Snap shares fell more than 20% after the company reported its latest quarterly results in August. Investors balked at weaker-than-expected guidance for the third quarter, and the company's revenue for the second quarter trailed analysts' expectations.
The previous day Meta reported better-than-expected quarterly results that sent the stock price up 7%. Still, Meta's AR and VR bets continue to rack up losses — the company's Reality Labs unit posted a $4.5 billion loss in the second quarter. That unit is responsible for the company's Quest virtual reality devices and Ray-Ban smart glasses.
Since 2020, Meta has poured more than $63 billion in expenses into its hardware efforts. The company has yet to find meaningful success, but Wall Street has afforded Meta patience with Reality Labs because the company's advertising business is thriving.
Meta brought in $131.9 billion in advertising sales for 2023, and reported net income of $39.1 billion for the year. By contrast, Snap recorded $4.6 billion in total revenue and a net loss of $1.3 billion in 2023.
We are at a point where the challenge with Snap is that it is just functioning at a different scale than Meta," said Leo Gebbie, a principal analyst and director at CCS Insight.
Fifth-generation Spectacles are pictured in a handout image, obtained by Reuters on September 12, 2024.
https://cryptoslate.com/swiss-stock-exchange-six-eyes-crypto-trading-platform-to-rival-binance/
#news
https://inleo.io/threads/view/lucidlucrecia/re-vhbaiwwusd?referral=lucidlucrecia
Wow I didnt know my chest looked like that. And look at all that hair.
Damn, what happened while I was sleeping. LOL
lol
Video games are having a meta moment, and I love it
Video games are having a meta moment. New games aren’t just occasionally breaking the fourth wall, but directly acknowledging the influential titles that have come before them. In September alone, Astro Bot, The Plucky Squire, and UFO 50 all showcased what seems to be a unifying moment for the video game industry.. All three of those titles are fantastic in their own right, but each is also a love letter to the video game industry’s history in their own way.
#gaming #technology #digital
To some extent, video games have always tried to replicate what was popular at the time. This moment shows that video games are no longer just chasing trends, though; they’re actively in conversation with those trends. That can be done through cameos, gameplay references, or by embracing the same game design constraints that birthed the medium’s most foundational titles. It’s a new kind of self-referential moment for video games — and I love it.
Astro Bot is the most straightforward kind of referential celebration. It’s meta in the sense that players are collecting parts of a PlayStation 5 and saving VIP Bots that are dressed like PlayStation characters from the brand’s history. It’s not just calling out the big names like God of War either; it features deeper cuts like Alundra and Motor Toon Grand Prix. This not only makes Astro Bot a great way to celebrate the PlayStation’s 30th anniversary, but it also feels like a real acknowledgment from developer Team Asobi that these games truly made PlayStation what it is today. Astro Bot owes a lot to platforming classics, so it’s gratifying to see franchises like Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter, and Sly Cooper represented here.
There’s a sadder read of that, too. Some have expressed that Astro Bot can feel like a graveyard for dormant franchises, but I feel a bit more optimistic about it. Astro Bot exists today because of the PlayStation series that came before it, and Team Asobi pays tribute to that fact in a way that suits its original series at this moment.
I imagine that Astro Bot was an IP licensing nightmare for Sony, but this month has also proven that there are ample ways for video games to be meta without directly referencing specific games. The Plucky Squire, from All Possible Futures and Devolver Digital, is a prime example of that. It’s a game all about celebrating creativity and the art that inspires people, and that’s reflected in its design. Almost every kind of gameplay featured within The Plucky Squire lovingly pulls from something else.
The meat of its storybook exploration is modeled after The Legend of Zelda, while other minigames players encounter call back to Punch-Out!, Rhythm Heaven, Fantasy Zone, Crypt of the Necrodancer, and more. Although this could’ve come off as gimmicky, within the wider context of The Plucky Squire, this variety feels reflective. It’s like the developers are in direct conversation with the video games that inspired them.
UFO 50 takes that idea to its logical extreme as a collection of 50 games designed to look like they were developed in the 1980s. From the color palette to the presentation, all of the games featured in Mossmouth’s latest feel like they could have been released during the 8-bit era. UFO 50 is undeniable evidence that, right now, games aren’t afraid to directly acknowledge what came before while still looking to the future.
35 years ago, Steve Jobs launched an obscure operating system that changed everything
Today marks the 35th anniversary of the launch of NeXTSTEP, a computer operating system launched by Steve Jobs during his years away from Apple. Deeply obscure these days and long since discontinued, it’s nevertheless had a monumental impact on computing history and development — and has led to many of the things we take for granted every day.
#apple #stevejobs #ios #operatingsystem
The World Wide Web? It was dreamed up on NeXTSTEP. It paved the way for macOS and all of Apple’s other modern operating systems. And as we mentioned earlier, it was crafted at a company led by a certain Steve Jobs. You might have heard of him.
Put together, it’s hard to overstate the legacy of NeXTSTEP and its innovations, both large and small. It could be the most influential operating system you’ve never heard of.
From Groq:
Explain the concept that data is the new oil?
The concept that "data is the new oil" suggests that data is a valuable resource that can be extracted, refined, and used to generate wealth and power, just like oil. This metaphor was first coined by Clive Humby, a British mathematician and data scientist, in 2006.
Here's why data is being compared to oil:
The "data is the new oil" concept highlights the importance of data in today's digital economy. It emphasizes the need for companies to collect, process, and analyze large amounts of data to gain a competitive edge, make informed decisions, and create new products and services.
Some of the ways data is being used like oil include:
In summary, the "data is the new oil" concept emphasizes the importance of data in today's digital economy, highlighting its value, scarcity, and potential to drive innovation and growth.
Who is Clive Humby?
Clive Humby is a British mathematician and data scientist who is often credited with coining the phrase "data is the new oil". He is a pioneer in the field of data science and has made significant contributions to the development of data-driven business strategies.
Humby is the founder of Dunnhumby, a company that specializes in data analytics and customer insights. He has worked with many major retailers, including Tesco, Sainsbury's, and Asda, helping them to use data to improve their business operations and customer relationships.
Humby's work focuses on the application of data science and analytics to business problems, particularly in the retail and consumer goods sectors. He has written several books on the topic, including "Data is the New Oil" and "Couchsurfing with Data", and has spoken at numerous conferences and events on the topic of data-driven business.
Humby's phrase "data is the new oil" was first used in a presentation he gave at the 2006 Retail week conference, and it has since become a widely-quoted phrase in the business and technology communities. The phrase is meant to convey the idea that data is a valuable resource that can be extracted, refined, and used to generate wealth and power, just like oil.
Throughout his career, Humby has been recognized for his contributions to the field of data science, including being named one of the "Top 10 Most Influential People in Data" by Data Science Central. He continues to work as a consultant and speaker, helping businesses to make the most of their data and drive growth and innovation.
#technology
Tesla unloads new Semi details: variants, efficiency, fleet data so far
The Tesla Semi program is arguably one of the most intriguing within the scope of the company in recent memory. But it’s only getting started.
During the IAA Transport Show in Germany today, the Semi’s Head of Engineering, Dan Priestley, unloaded tons of new details on the vehicle, including plans to leverage several different variants of the electric truck, how its efficiency stacks up, and various Easter eggs that the company has discovered through its fleet operation thus far.
#tesla #semi #trucking
Tesla Semi Configurations
Priestly said Tesla will develop several configurations of the Semi so that they can be purchased according to the buyer’s needs.
Thanks to Tesla’s vertical integration, manufacturing will be simple.
Mass production at the new Semi factory near Giga Nevada will scale to 50,000 units annually.
Priestley said:
Tesla Semi Efficiency
Tesla, along with the companies that have been operating the vehicle in their pilot programs, have routinely flexed the efficiency of the Semi.
But Priestley said today at the conference that common industry numbers are approaching 100 kWh per 100 kilometers traveled.
The Semi has already achieved this.
It will only get better when Tesla comes back with a high-volume version of the Semi. Higher efficiency means lower battery mass and cost, meaning a less expensive product and more advantages for the customer.
Fleet Data
Despite the Tesla Semi being a vehicle that is relatively new and only has operated on a very controlled basis, only being delivered to a handful of companies.
Here are some of the stats Tesla has logged so far for the fleet:
Over 4.65 million miles have been driven since the Tesla Semi pilot test fleet started operation
One Tesla Semi unit has over 248,000 miles driven — it took only 18 months to get to this point
The fleet has a 95 percent uptime — this includes scheduled and unscheduled maintenance
NVIDIA and Oracle to Accelerate AI and Data Processing for Enterprises
At the Oracle CloudWorld conference today, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure announced the first zettascale OCI Supercluster, accelerated by NVIDIA Blackwell.
Enterprises are looking for increasingly powerful compute to support their AI workloads and accelerate data processing. The efficiency gained can translate to better returns for their investments in AI training and fine-tuning, and improved user experiences for AI inference.
#nvidia #oracle #ai #technology #enterprise
At the Oracle CloudWorld conference today, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) announced the first zettascale OCI Supercluster, accelerated by the NVIDIA Blackwell platform, to help enterprises train and deploy next-generation AI models using more than 100,000 of NVIDIA’s latest-generation GPUs.
OCI Superclusters allow customers to choose from a wide range of NVIDIA GPUs and deploy them anywhere: on premises, public cloud and sovereign cloud. Set for availability in the first half of next year, the Blackwell-based systems can scale up to 131,072 Blackwell GPUs with NVIDIA ConnectX-7 NICs for RoCEv2 or NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking to deliver an astounding 2.4 zettaflops of peak AI compute to the cloud. (Read the press release to learn more about OCI Superclusters.)
At the show, Oracle also previewed NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 liquid-cooled bare-metal instances to help power generative AI applications. The instances are capable of large-scale training with Quantum-2 InfiniBand and real-time inference of trillion-parameter models within the expanded 72-GPU NVIDIA NVLink domain, which can act as a single, massive GPU.
This year, OCI will offer NVIDIA HGX H200 — connecting eight NVIDIA H200 Tensor Core GPUs in a single bare-metal instance via NVLink and NVLink Switch, and scaling to 65,536 H200 GPUs with NVIDIA ConnectX-7 NICs over RoCEv2 cluster networking. The instance is available to order for customers looking to deliver real-time inference at scale and accelerate their training workloads. (Read a blog on OCI Superclusters with NVIDIA B200, GB200 and H200 GPUs.)
OCI also announced general availability of NVIDIA L40S GPU-accelerated instances for midrange AI workloads, NVIDIA Omniverse and visualization. (Read a blog on OCI Superclusters with NVIDIA L40S GPUs.)
For single-node to multi-rack solutions, Oracle’s edge offerings provide scalable AI at the edge accelerated by NVIDIA GPUs, even in disconnected and remote locations. For example, smaller-scale deployments with Oracle’s Roving Edge Device v2 will now support up to three NVIDIA L4 Tensor Core GPUs.