Here is the daily technology #threadcast for 10/26/24. The goal is to make this a technology "reddit".
Drop all question, comments, and articles relating to #technology and the future. The goal is make it a technology center.
Here is the daily technology #threadcast for 10/26/24. The goal is to make this a technology "reddit".
Drop all question, comments, and articles relating to #technology and the future. The goal is make it a technology center.
Annoyed Redditors tanking Google Search results illustrates perils of AI scrapers
“Spreading misinformation suddenly becomes a noble goal,” Redditor says.
A trend on Reddit that sees Londoners giving false restaurant recommendations in order to keep their favorites clear of tourists and social media influencers highlights the inherent flaws of Google Search’s reliance on Reddit and Google's AI Overview.
#ai #technology #reddit #fakenews #scraping #socialmedia
This one is just sad... I can understand why they're doing it, but is it worth it to spread misinformation?
Yeah. As I was posting that I was thinking that is why we need blockchain.
Verifiable data that is posted. We can track the accounts that are doing things and what is being posted.
In May, Google launched AI Overviews in the US, an experimental feature that populates the top of Google Search results with a summarized answer based on an AI model built into Google’s web rankings. When Google first debuted AI Overview, it quickly became apparent that the feature needed work with accuracy and its ability to properly summarize information from online sources. AI Overviews are “built to only show information that is backed up by top web results," Liz Reid, VP and head of Google Search, wrote in a May blog post. But as my colleague Benj Edwards pointed out at the time, that setup could contribute to inaccurate, misleading, or even dangerous results: “The design is based on the false assumption that Google's page-ranking algorithm favors accurate results and not SEO-gamed garbage."
As Edwards alluded to, many have complained about Google Search results' quality declining in recent years, as SEO spam and, more recently, AI slop float to the top of searches. As a result, people often turn to the Reddit hack to make Google results more helpful. By adding "site:reddit.com” to search results, users can hone their search to more easily find answers from real people. Google seems to understand the value of Reddit and signed an AI training deal with the company that’s reportedly worth $60 million per year.
But disgruntled foodies in London are reminding us of the inherent dangers of relying on the scraping of user-generated content to provide what’s supposed to be factual, helpful information.
Influencer Spamming: A New Form of Online Manipulation
Influencer spamming is a tactic used by individuals or groups to manipulate online search results by flooding the Internet with low-quality, biased, or false content. This type of content is often designed to promote a particular product, service, or idea, and can take many forms, including social media posts, comments, reviews, and even entire websites.
In the case of the Angus Steakhouse controversy, influencers were using social media platforms to spread false information about the restaurant, with the goal of driving up its popularity and increasing its visibility in search results. This type of manipulation can have serious consequences, including undermining the credibility of search results, influencing consumer behavior, and even affecting the way AI models learn and make decisions.
The Dangers of Depending on User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is a key component of online platforms, providing a wealth of information and opinions from real people. However, UGC can also be a double-edged sword, as it can be prone to bias, inaccuracies, and manipulation.
When AI models are trained on UGC, they learn to recognize patterns and relationships in this type of content. However, if this content is biased or inaccurate, the AI model may learn to recognize these patterns as "normal" or "valuable," leading to flawed or incorrect conclusions.
For example, if a large number of people on social media post positive reviews of a particular restaurant, an AI model may learn to associate this type of content with high-quality information. However, if these reviews are fake or biased, the AI model may learn to recognize this type of content as "genuine" or " trustworthy," leading to flawed search results.
The Consequences of Influencer Spamming
The consequences of influencer spamming can be far-reaching, affecting not only search results but also online content, consumer behavior, and even the way AI models learn and make decisions.
Some potential consequences of influencer spamming include:
What Can Be Done to Address Influencer Spamming?
To address the issue of influencer spamming, several steps can be taken, including:
The Future of Online Content and AI
The issue of influencer spamming highlights the need for greater transparency and accountability in online content and AI models. As AI models become increasingly sophisticated, it's essential that we take steps to ensure that they are trained on high-quality, accurate data, and that they are designed to recognize and mitigate the effects of influencer spamming.
Ultimately, the future of online content and AI will depend on our ability to create systems that are transparent, accountable, and free from manipulation. By promoting high-quality content, improving content moderation, and educating users, we can create a more trustworthy and reliable online ecosystem.
Google's AI overview is a broad and ever-evolving field that encompasses a wide range of technologies and applications. Here are some key aspects of Google's AI efforts:
Key Areas of Focus
How AI is Used
Resources
AI Overviews: About last week
Here’s what happened with AI Overviews, the feedback we've received, and the steps we’ve taken.
A couple of weeks ago at Google I/O, we announced that we’d be bringing AI Overviews to everyone in the U.S.
User feedback shows that with AI Overviews, people have higher satisfaction with their search results, and they’re asking longer, more complex questions that they know Google can now help with. They use AI Overviews as a jumping off point to visit web content, and we see that the clicks to webpages are higher quality — people are more likely to stay on that page, because we’ve done a better job of finding the right info and helpful webpages for them.
In the last week, people on social media have shared some odd and erroneous overviews (along with a very large number of faked screenshots). We know that people trust Google Search to provide accurate information, and they’ve never been shy about pointing out oddities or errors when they come across them — in our rankings or in other Search features. We hold ourselves to a high standard, as do our users, so we expect and appreciate the feedback, and take it seriously.
Given the attention AI Overviews received, we wanted to explain what happened and the steps we’ve taken.
How AI Overviews work
For many years we’ve built features in Search that make it easier for people to find the information they’re looking for as quickly as possible. AI Overviews are designed to take that a step further, helping with more complex questions that might have previously taken multiple searches or follow-ups, while prominently including links to learn more.
AI Overviews work very differently than chatbots and other LLM products that people may have tried out. They’re not simply generating an output based on training data. While AI Overviews are powered by a customized language model, the model is integrated with our core web ranking systems and designed to carry out traditional “search” tasks, like identifying relevant, high-quality results from our index. That’s why AI Overviews don’t just provide text output, but include relevant links so people can explore further. Because accuracy is paramount in Search, AI Overviews are built to only show information that is backed up by top web results.
This means that AI Overviews generally don't “hallucinate” or make things up in the ways that other LLM products might. When AI Overviews get it wrong, it’s usually for other reasons: misinterpreting queries, misinterpreting a nuance of language on the web, or not having a lot of great information available. (These are challenges that occur with other Search features too.)
This approach is highly effective. Overall, our tests show that our accuracy rate for AI Overviews is on par with another popular feature in Search — featured snippets — which also uses AI systems to identify and show key info with links to web content.
About those odd results
In addition to designing AI Overviews to optimize for accuracy, we tested the feature extensively before launch. This included robust red-teaming efforts, evaluations with samples of typical user queries and tests on a proportion of search traffic to see how it performed. But there’s nothing quite like having millions of people using the feature with many novel searches. We’ve also seen nonsensical new searches, seemingly aimed at producing erroneous results.
Separately, there have been a large number of faked screenshots shared widely. Some of these faked results have been obvious and silly. Others have implied that we returned dangerous results for topics like leaving dogs in cars, smoking while pregnant, and depression. Those AI Overviews never appeared. So we’d encourage anyone encountering these screenshots to do a search themselves to check.
But some odd, inaccurate or unhelpful AI Overviews certainly did show up. And while these were generally for queries that people don’t commonly do, it highlighted some specific areas that we needed to improve.
One area we identified was our ability to interpret nonsensical queries and satirical content. Let’s take a look at an example: “How many rocks should I eat?” Prior to these screenshots going viral, practically no one asked Google that question. You can see that yourself on Google Trends.
There isn't much web content that seriously contemplates that question, either. This is what is often called a “data void” or “information gap,” where there’s a limited amount of high quality content about a topic. However, in this case, there is satirical content on this topic … that also happened to be republished on a geological software provider’s website. So when someone put that question into Search, an AI Overview appeared that faithfully linked to one of the only websites that tackled the question.
In other examples, we saw AI Overviews that featured sarcastic or troll-y content from discussion forums. Forums are often a great source of authentic, first-hand information, but in some cases can lead to less-than-helpful advice, like using glue to get cheese to stick to pizza.
In a small number of cases, we have seen AI Overviews misinterpret language on webpages and present inaccurate information. We worked quickly to address these issues, either through improvements to our algorithms or through established processes to remove responses that don't comply with our policies.
Improvements we've made
As is always the case when we make improvements to Search, we don’t simply “fix” queries one by one, but we work on updates that can help broad sets of queries, including new ones that we haven’t seen yet.
From looking at examples from the past couple of weeks, we were able to determine patterns where we didn’t get it right, and we made more than a dozen technical improvements to our systems. Here’s a sample of what we’ve done so far:
We built better detection mechanisms for nonsensical queries that shouldn’t show an AI Overview, and limited the inclusion of satire and humor content.
We updated our systems to limit the use of user-generated content in responses that could offer misleading advice.
We added triggering restrictions for queries where AI Overviews were not proving to be as helpful.
For topics like news and health, we already have strong guardrails in place. For example, we aim to not show AI Overviews for hard news topics, where freshness and factuality are important. In the case of health, we launched additional triggering refinements to enhance our quality protections.
In addition to these improvements, we’ve been vigilant in monitoring feedback and external reports, and taking action on the small number of AI Overviews that violate content policies. This means overviews that contain information that’s potentially harmful, obscene, or otherwise violative. We found a content policy violation on less than one in every 7 million unique queries on which AI Overviews appeared.
At the scale of the web, with billions of queries coming in every day, there are bound to be some oddities and errors. We’ve learned a lot over the past 25 years about how to build and maintain a high-quality search experience, including how to learn from these errors to make Search better for everyone. We’ll keep improving when and how we show AI Overviews and strengthening our protections, including for edge cases, and we’re very grateful for the ongoing feedback.
Freenet used a web-of-trust system to establish the reputation of postings left by others. Systems like this can reduce review stuffing, but are computationally expensive.
I'm loving the #Technology threadcast, it's nice having a place to read news like this on HIVE.
I am agree. My goal is to make it a place for people to consume.
i bought 10 dollars Worth of hive just to do more and help the Leoai. 10 dollars is good money in my country but anyways as longs as it helps the system. But I feel my 10 dollars RC will still not be enough. I would build up over time then I can do way more
I will delegate the RCs you need to keep going.
thank you so much sir. I can keep going now 🥳
I delegated RCs to your account. That way you should be able to do more. If you run low again, let me know.
Good job on adding some $HIVE to your account.
I appreciate the support sir.
No problem. Do not allow a lack of RCs to stop you.
yes sir
Intern allegedly sabotages ByteDance AI project, leading to dismissal
ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, faced a security breach involving an intern. This intern allegedly sabotaged AI model training, causing concerns about the company’s security protocols. The incident highlights risks in tech companies when interns handle critical responsibilities.
#ByteDance #AI #Cybersecurity #InternshipEthics
ByteDance clarified that while the intern disrupted AI efforts, no commercial projects were harmed. Rumors about extensive damage, including losses of over 8,000 GPU cards, were dismissed as exaggerated. This shows the importance of clear communication in crisis situations.
The intern involved was a doctoral student in the commercialization tech team, not in the AI Lab. Frustrated with resource allocation, the intern exploited a vulnerability in Hugging Face, affecting model training but leaving major projects unharmed.
Despite initial struggles to identify the problem, the ByteDance team minimized damage as the attack only impacted internal models. This incident raises serious concerns about intern management and the potential risks of giving interns significant responsibilities in tech environments.
This breach poses risks to AI commercialization, leading to potential delays in product launches and loss of client trust. For ByteDance, whose AI capabilities are vital to its operations, such incidents can be especially damaging to its market position.
The situation emphasizes the need for ethical AI development and responsible business practices. Companies must ensure that security measures are in place and that interns receive proper training. Transparency and accountability are essential to maintain trust in AI technologies.
The ByteDance incident shows the importance of robust security protocols in tech companies. As AI technology continues to grow, managing interns effectively and ensuring responsible AI practices will be crucial for success and reputation.
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AI is helping brands avoid controversial influencer partnerships
Brands often work with influencers to promote products. This can boost brand awareness and improve public perception. However, influencer partnerships can be risky. Influencers may act unpredictably and seek controversy to gain attention, which can hurt the brand's image.
#InfluencerMarketing #AI #BrandSafety
To manage these risks, brands must research influencers carefully. This process has traditionally taken a lot of time. AI tools, like Lightricks' SafeCollab, now help brands vet influencers more efficiently. SafeCollab automates the research process, making it easier for marketers.
SafeCollab uses AI to analyze influencers’ social media content. It checks for alignment with brand values and assesses risks. The tool can review years of posts across various platforms quickly, which saves marketers from spending hours searching manually.
An example of influencer risk is Brooke Schofield, a lifestyle influencer. After collaborating with Boys Lie, old racist posts of hers resurfaced, leading the brand to end their partnership. If Boys Lie had used SafeCollab, they might have found these posts earlier and avoided the backlash.
Due diligence is critical for brands. Even influencers who seem harmless might have problematic content in their past. The SafeCollab tool helps brands identify such risks and avoid potential scandals before they happen.
SafeCollab also offers real-time monitoring. It alerts brands about any new problematic content from influencers. This ongoing oversight is essential since influencers regularly post new material that might not align with a brand's values.
Lightricks is known for its various AI tools, not just SafeCollab. They develop apps for video and image editing that save time for users. Their technology highlights how AI can improve many aspects of marketing and content creation.
AI is transforming how brands approach influencer partnerships. Tools like SafeCollab help automate the vetting process, ensuring that brands work with influencers who reflect their values. This reduces risks and enhances brand safety in a fast-paced social media environment
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What kind of information would really help the LeoAi you spoke of the last time.
Also if you get the time please analyze my threadcast to see if I'm feeding the information well. Thank you sir.
Anything fed is in helpful. However, context is something to always think about.
So when we place an article, is there something else we can add under it? I use both search engines to sometimes find other others and chatbots to ask questions and paste the answers in.
A combination of human and synthetic data is helpful. Also, answering the synthetic also adds to it.
Oh ok, I'm modify my technique now.
FTC hits Lyft with $2.1M penalty for luring drivers with false earnings )claims
Lyft has agreed to a $2.1 million settlement proposed by the FTC over the car-hailing company's "deceptive earnings claims about how much money drivers
#lyft #ftc #technology #lawsuit
As documented in the FTC’s complaint document, Lyft systematically inflated the incomes it advertised to drivers it was attempting to recruit in 2021 and 2022. For instance, in LA it suggested drivers would be offered up to $43 per hour. “Lyft failed to disclose that these amounts did not represent the income an average driver could expect to earn, but instead were based on the earnings of the top one-fifth of drivers,” and the difference was up to 30%.
“Lyft claimed that Drivers in New Jersey could earn up to $34 per hour when Lyft’s own calculations put the median earnings at only $25 per hour. In the same month, Lyft claimed that Drivers in Boston could earn up to $42 per hour when median earnings were just $33 per hour,” the FTC wrote in the complaint.
Not only that, but the advertised hourly rates were inclusive of customer-provided tips, while implying to any normal reader that it was a base rate. So the effective rate was likely $5 to $10 lower even than the unstated average.
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The fediverse is getting its own TikTok competitor called Loops
Similar to how Mastodon offers an open source, distributed version of X, the fediverse is getting its own TikTok competitor.
Similar to how Mastodon offers an open source, distributed version of X, the fediverse is getting its own TikTok competitor. This week, an app called Loops began accepting signups on its new platform for sharing short, looping videos. Still in the early stages, Loops is not yet open sourced, nor has it completed its integration with ActivityPub, the protocol that powers Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, and other federated apps.
#fediverse #tiktok #shorts #loops #technology #socialmedia
However, both those efforts are in the works and when complete, will allow Loops to add another layer of social activity to the growing open social web known as the fediverse, which now has north of 11.6 million users and over 1 million monthly active users. (Mastodon accounts for roughly 65% of that activity.) Growth in this space has also encouraged other apps to adopt ActivityPub, like social magazine app Flipboard and Meta’s Threads. The latter is not yet fully integrated but already has more than 200 million monthly active users.
Loops, meanwhile, was developed by Daniel Supernault, who also created the federated Instagram rival Pixelfed. In fact, Loops will run under the Pixelfed project, according to an FAQ on its website.
In addition to the eventual benefit of being open source and distributed, Loops claims it will not sell or provide user data to third-party advertisers, use your content to train AI models, or gain the rights to any content uploaded on its service. Instead, users only grant Loops permission to use their content, but will retain full ownership of their contributions, the Loops website explains.
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Delta sues CrowdStrike after widespread IT outage that caused thousands of cancellations
Delta is seeking damages for its losses from the July IT incident, as well as litigation costs and punitive damages.
Delta Air Lines on Friday filed a lawsuit against CrowdStrike in Georgia, accusing the security software vendor of breach of contract and negligence after an outage in July that brought down millions of computers and prompted 7,000 flight cancelations.
#delta #lawsuit #crowdstrike #outage
Other airlines recovered more quickly than Atlanta-based Delta, which said the incident reduced revenue by $380 million and brought $170 million in costs. The flawed software update affected computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system.
Days after the outage, Delta hired David Boies of law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to seek damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft. Delta asked for damages to cover its losses, along with litigation costs and punitive damages.
"CrowdStrike caused a global catastrophe because it cut corners, took shortcuts, and circumvented the very testing and certification processes it advertised, for its own benefit and profit," Delta said in its complaint. "If CrowdStrike had tested the Faulty Update on even one computer before deployment, the computer would have crashed."
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Missouri AG probing Google for allegedly 'manipulating search results' ahead of 2024 election
Google faces an investigation by the Missouri AG’s office for allegedly “manipulating search results” and exhibiting anti-conservative bias ahead of the election.
Google faces an investigation by the Missouri attorney general for allegedly “manipulating search results” and exhibiting anti-conservative bias ahead of the 2024 election.
#election #google #missouri #fraud
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said he will issue subpoenas to “get to the bottom of what appears to be election interference by Google,” a spokesperson for the Republican told The Post on Friday.
Bailey will be seeking information about the black-box algorithm that powers Google search — which has come under fire from Donald Trump leading up to the election for yielding mostly negative articles about the Republican presidential candidate.
“Evidence has come to light that Google is de-emphasizing conservative speech or content — such as putting conservative reporting on Page 11 rather than Page 1 — by manipulating search results,” the spokesperson said.
“Google is the largest search engine in America and has an obligation to consumers to utilize fair business practice,” the spokesperson added. “We will be subpoenaing information on Google’s algorithms and other systems to determine whether they are censoring conservative speech.”
Bailey accused Google of “waging war on the democratic process” in an X post announcing the probe on Thursday.
“I am launching an investigation into Google — the biggest search engine in America — for censoring conservative speech during the most consequential election in our nation’s history,” Bailey wrote.
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What is Apple Intelligence, when is it coming and who will get it?
Apple Intelligence was designed to leverage things that generative AI already does well, like text and image generation, to improve upon existing features.
#apple #appleintelligence #ai #technology #generateiveai
Apple Intelligence: A Pragmatic Approach to AI Integration
After months of anticipation, Apple has finally unveiled its strategic entry into the artificial intelligence arena with Apple Intelligence (AI), marking a characteristically methodical approach that focuses on practical integration rather than standalone features. Set for release in late October 2024, this new platform represents Apple's distinctive vision for AI implementation across its ecosystem.
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Core Features and Implementation
Apple Intelligence isn't positioned as a separate product but rather as a sophisticated enhancement to existing Apple services. The platform introduces several key features:
Hardware Requirements and Availability
The platform will be available exclusively on newer Apple devices with advanced processing capabilities:
Rollout Strategy and Localization
The initial release will come through iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, with additional features arriving in version 18.2. The platform launched first in U.S. English, followed by support for other English variants (Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, South African, and UK). Further language support, including Chinese, French, German, and others, is planned for 2025, though regulatory challenges may affect availability in China and the EU.
Technical Architecture and privacy
Apple has adopted a unique "small-model, bespoke approach" to AI implementation, focusing on task-specific datasets rather than general-purpose models. This strategy enables:
Third-Party Integration
A notable aspect of Apple Intelligence is its integration with OpenAI's ChatGPT, available in version 18.2. This partnership provides:
Market Positioning
Apple's entry into the AI space reflects its traditional approach to new technologies: methodical, integrated, and focused on practical user benefits. By branding it as "AI for the rest of us," Apple positions its offering as a more accessible and practical implementation of artificial intelligence, emphasizing seamless integration over standalone features.
The platform represents a significant step forward in Apple's AI strategy, balancing innovation with practicality while maintaining its commitment to privacy and user experience. As the platform continues to evolve with future updates and partnerships, it may well define a new standard for consumer AI integration in everyday computing.
Former OpenAI Staffer Says the Company Is Breaking Copyright Law and Destroying the Internet
Is OpenAI breaking U.S. copyright law? A former employee of the company says yes.
A former researcher at the OpenAI has come out against the company’s business model, writing, in a personal blog, that he believes the company is not complying with U.S. copyright law. That makes him one of a growing chorus of voices that sees the tech giant’s data-hoovering business as based on shaky (if not plainly illegitimate) legal ground.
#openai #copyright #internet #ai
What is Apple Intelligence? Here’s everything the iPhone 16’s AI can do
Apple Intelligence is a new suite of AI features coming to iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 on compatible devices—including the new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. Here is everything you should know about Apple Intelligence, including the features it will bring to your iPhone, Mac, and iPad when it launches.
Apple Intelligence is Apple’s unique branding for its suite of AI features debuting later this year, starting with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.
Those first AI releases won’t launch until October, and additional features will arrive later in the year and into 2025.
Craig Federighi summed up Apple Intelligence this way during the WWDC keynote:
There are five key pillars of Apple Intelligence that, in combination, distinguish it from other AI (artificial intelligence) tools that already exist.
Apple believes no one else has an AI offering that can check all these boxes—a claim that certainly seems true.
The goal of Apple Intelligence? Tim Cook put it well in his introduction: “to make your most personal products even more useful and delightful.”
Because of the advanced computing resources necessary to properly power these features, Apple Intelligence is limited to a select number of modern devices:
iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max, and iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max
iPads with M1, M2, or M4 chip
Macs with M1, M2, or M3 chip
If you buy any of the new iPhone 16 models, you’ll be set for Apple Intelligence. But if not, the only iPhones that will support these new AI features are last year’s 15 Pro models.
Former OpenAI Staffer Says the Company Is Breaking Copyright Law and Destroying the Internet
Is OpenAI breaking U.S. copyright law? A former employee of the company says yes.
A former researcher at the OpenAI has come out against the company’s business model, writing, in a personal blog, that he believes the company is not complying with U.S. copyright law. That makes him one of a growing chorus of voices that sees the tech giant’s data-hoovering business as based on shaky (if not plainly illegitimate) legal ground.
#openai #copyright #internet #technology #ai
“If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” Suchir Balaji recently told the New York Times. Balaji, a 25-year-old UC Berkeley graduate who joined OpenAI in 2020 and went on to work on GPT-4, said he originally became interested in pursuing a career in the AI industry because he felt the technology could “be used to solve unsolvable problems, like curing diseases and stopping aging.” Balaji worked for OpenAI for four years before leaving the company this summer. Now, Balaji says he sees the technology being used for things he doesn’t agree with, and believes that AI companies are “destroying the commercial viability of the individuals, businesses and internet services that created the digital data used to train these A.I. systems,” the Times writes.
This week, Balaji posted an essay on his personal website, in which he argued that OpenAI was breaking copyright law. In the essay, he attempted to show “how much copyrighted information” from an AI system’s training dataset ultimately “makes its way to the outputs of a model.“ Balaji’s conclusion from his analysis was that ChatGPT’s output does not meet the standard for “fair use,” the legal standard that allows the limited use of copyrighted material without the copyright holder’s permission.
“The only way out of all this is regulation,” Balaji later told the Times, in reference to the legal issues created by AI’s business model.
Gizmodo reached out to OpenAI for comment. In a statement provided to the Times, the tech company offered the following rebuttal to Balaji’s criticism: “We build our A.I. models using publicly available data, in a manner protected by fair use and related principles, and supported by longstanding and widely accepted legal precedents. We view this principle as fair to creators, necessary for innovators, and critical for US competitiveness.”
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Rental car startup Kyte slashes staff and shrinks to two markets in bid for survival
Rental car startup Kyte, which bills itself as the "best alternative to Hertz," is pulling out of almost all of its major markets in the United States
Rental car startup Kyte, which bills itself as the “best alternative to Hertz,” is pulling out of almost all of its major markets in the United States and has cut its workforce roughly in half in a bid to survive after exploring a sale earlier this year.
#kyte #rentalcar #technology #business
The company is shrinking its operations to focus only on San Francisco and New York City (including Jersey City) as it works to reach profitability in the next 18 months, CEO Nikolaus Volk told TechCrunch. Kyte has been exiting other major markets like Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Seattle. It started telling customers in Los Angeles that it is suspending operations in that city after November 7, as Curbivore reported Thursday.
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'Yikes': While gaming, Musk inadvertently broadcasts 'scary' near-abort of Starship booster landing
Elon Musk occasionally posts clips of his video game plays to his social media platform X — but a recent clip includes background audio of a SpaceX
Elon Musk occasionally posts clips of his video game plays to his social media platform X — but a recent clip includes background audio of a SpaceX engineer telling Musk how the most recent Starship flight test was “one second away” from an abort. The clip, posted on Friday, was caught by Reuters’ Joey Roulette on X, but it’s not clear if the conversation between Musk and Starship engineers occurred that same day.
#spacex #elonmusk #starship #space
“I want to be really upfront about scary shit that happened,” the unnamed engineer said, seemingly as Musk played Diablo IV. He went on to explain that a misconfigured component didn’t have the right “ramp up time for bringing up spin pressure” on the booster.
“We were one second away from that tripping and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower,” the engineer says.
“Wow,” Musk says in response. “Yikes.”
The same engineer went on to say that right before engine startup on the booster’s descent back to Earth, a cover on the skin of the booster ripped off, apparently in a place that had been spot welded. “We wouldn’t have predicted the exact right place, but this cover that ripped off was right on top of a bunch of the single point failure valves that must work during the landing burn. So thankfully, none of those or the harnessing got damaged, but we ripped this chine cover off over some really critical equipment right as landing burn was starting. We have a plan to address that.”
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Apple confirms 'exciting week of announcements' for Mac starting on Monday
While it’s not an event, Apple has officially confirmed that next week will be an “exciting week of announcements”
While it’s not an event, Apple has officially confirmed that next week will be an “exciting week of announcements” starting on Monday morning. The teaser was posted to social media by Apple’s marketing VP Greg Joswiak.
This announcements are expected to focus on the Mac and Apple’s transition to the M4 chip. Head below for the full details on what’s to come.
#mac #apple #company #technology
There are no other details provided on what form next week’s announcements will take. We’d expect a series of press releases over the course of the week, perhaps with a few accompanying videos. We’ll have to wait and see for sure. Apple has also invited select creators to in-person hands-on events in Los Angeles next week.
Next week is expected to be focused entirely on the Mac, with updates to the iMac, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini on the horizon. All of these new Macs will be powered by the M4 chip, which first made its debut in the iPad Pro back in May.
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Nobody Can Rent Twister, the Last DVD Trapped in Redbox’s Dead Video Business
Hardware nerds just want to see Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt outrun a tornado. Why isn't that possible?
Though Redbox, the DVD vending machine company, is officially dead, the company’s disc-dispensing kiosks are still strewn all over America. The machines still work and there are still hundreds of DVDs inside of them. Lately, those machines have been getting sold off to various hardware enthusiasts who have, in turn, been reverse-engineering them to figure out how they work, and to dispense the movies trapped inside. Well, with one exception: Twister.
#twister #redbox #technology #bankruptcy #dvd
404 Media reports that, for some weird reason, the army of amateur hardware enthusiasts who have been futzing with the company’s machines cannot figure out how to get the 1996 disaster flick out of them. To illuminate this bizarre conundrum, 404 cites a series of Reddit threads and Discord communities where the hardware pros have been posting about the issue. “Sorry, there was a problem with the purchased items in your cart. Please remove these items from your cart in order to continue,” an alert from the kiosk reads, whenever someone tries to rent Twister. This issue impacts “seemingly every Redbox kiosk and is not happening with any other movie,” the outlet writes.
404 Media writes that the machine’s refusal to dispense Twister “appears to be either a licensing dispute or software bug.” The outlet further states that one of the prevailing theories is that “Redbox’s licensing agreement for Twister ran out ahead of the release of its sequel, Twisters, and there is a hard-coded date where checking out with Twister in your cart was disabled.” That said, 404 notes nobody has been able to confirm this.
Redbox swept onto the video rental scene in the early aughts, not long before the industry’s mom-and-pop store paradigm would be disrupted by the advent of Netflix and video streaming. Originally an offshoot of McDonald’s, the company expanded aggressively in the years after its founding. At one point, Redbox surpassed Blockbuster as the largest video rental retailer in the country. Now, of course, that’s all over, thanks to the dominance of streaming.
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In 1996, Twister was one of the first DVDs ever released. In 2024, Twister is the last DVD trapped inside Redbox DVD rental kiosks.
In recent weeks, thousands of DVDs have been “liberated” from abandoned Redbox machines all over the U.S. after the bankruptcy of the rental kiosk’s parent company. But a bizarre and still unexplained software error is preventing anyone from renting Twister, meaning that single movie is stuck inside many of the machines. To be clear, this is not happening with any other DVD, only Twister.
Even after the bankruptcy of Redbox’s parent company, many kiosks have remained online and more-or-less functional. But for reasons that remain unclear to everyone, including, so far, the community of tinkerers who have taken machines home to reverse engineer them, Redbox machines simply refuse to rent out Twister for what appears to be either a licensing dispute or software bug.
Encrypted Chat App ‘Session’ Leaves Australia After Visit From Police
Session, a small but increasingly popular encrypted messaging app, is moving its operations outside of Australia after the country’s federal law enforcement agency visited an employee’s residence and asked them questions about the app and a particular user. Now Session will be maintained by an entity in Switzerland.
#encryption #chat #application #technology #australia
The move signals the increasing pressure on maintainers of encrypted messaging apps, both when it comes to governments seeking more data on app users, as well as targeting messaging app companies themselves, like the arrest of Telegram’s CEO in August.
“Ultimately, we were given the choice between remaining in Australia or relocating to a more privacy-friendly jurisdiction, such as Switzerland. For the project to continue, it could not be centred in Australia,” Alex Linton, president of the newly formed Session Technology Foundation (STF) which will publish the Session app, told 404 Media in a statement. The app will still function in Australia, Linton added.
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YC startup Pharos lands a $5M seed led by Felicis to bring AI to hospital quality reporting
Medical and administrative staff are increasingly overwhelmed with piles of paperwork they have to fill out every day.
Medical and administrative staff are increasingly overwhelmed with piles of paperwork they have to fill out every day.
Dozens, if not hundreds, of startups, are seeing opportunities to make those bureaucratic processes less burdensome with the help of generative AI. These companies are building AI medical scribes, platforms for pre-authorizing health insurance payments, and products for automatically extracting medical coding from patients’ electronic medical records (EMRs.)
#startup #technology #pharos #funding #healthcare
But Pharos, a company that was a part of Y Combinator’s summer 2024 cohort, is applying AI to tackle another somewhat under-the-radar administrative function for hospitals: quality reporting to external clinical registries.
Organizations like Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the American College of Surgeons aim to measure each healthcare centers’ record on delivering safe and effective care for patients. Although reporting to these registries is not always mandatory, it’s often in the best interest of hospitals. These external organizations play a crucial role in identifying quality issues (such as an increase in post-surgery infections), which can be addressed to improve patient care.
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Billionth of a billionth of a second: Quantum entanglement ‘birth time’ clocked
Researchers used powerful computer simulations to model how
Quantum entanglement is one of the most perplexing phenomena in physics. This bizarre concept proposes that two particles become linked, and any change to one causes an “instantaneous” change in the other, even if they are separated by vast distances.
Prima facie, this concept challenges the laws of classical physics, and until now, the exact process of how this entanglement arises has been shrouded in mystery.
#quantum ##entanglement #technology #physics
“You could say that the particles have no individual properties, they only have common properties. From a mathematical point of view, they belong firmly together, even if they are in two completely different places,” explained Prof. Joachim Burgdörfer from the Institute of Theoretical Physics at TU Wien.
It is in this context that researchers at TU Wien in Vienna have made a big stride. Working with colleagues in China, they have achieved a breakthrough in understanding the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, in a world first.
The researchers have peered into the ultra-fast world of attoseconds. An attosecond is an incredibly short period of time – a billionth of a billionth of a second. This is the timescale where quantum entanglement emerges.
“We are interested in finding out how this entanglement develops in the first place and which physical effects play a role on extremely short time scales,” said Prof. Iva Březinová, one of the authors of the current publication.
To study this, the team used powerful computer simulations to recreate the interactions between atoms and intense laser pulses. They focused on atoms hit by an intense laser pulse.
What Is Entanglement and Why Is It Important?
Entanglement is at the heart of quantum physics and future quantum technologies. Like other aspects of quantum science, the phenomenon of entanglement reveals itself at very tiny, subatomic scales. When two particles, such as a pair of photons or electrons, become entangled, they remain connected even when separated by vast distances. In the same way that a ballet or tango emerges from individual dancers, entanglement arises from the connection between particles. It is what scientists call an emergent property.
How do scientists explain quantum entanglement?
In the video below, Caltech faculty members take a stab at explaining entanglement. Featured: Rana Adhikari, professor of physics; Xie Chen, professor of theoretical physics; Manuel Endres, professor of physics and Rosenberg Scholar; and John Preskill, Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Allen V. C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair, and director of the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter.
Unbreakable Correlation
When researchers study entanglement, they often use a special kind of crystal to generate two entangled particles from one. The entangled particles are then sent off to different locations. For this example, let's say the researchers want to measure the direction the particles are spinning, which can be either up or down along a given axis. Before the particles are measured, each will be in a state of superposition, or both "spin up" and "spin down" at the same time.
If the researcher measures the direction of one particle's spin and then repeats the measurement on its distant, entangled partner, that researcher will always find that the pair are correlated: if one particle's spin is up, the other's will be down (the spins may instead both be up or both be down, depending on how the experiment is designed, but there will always be a correlation). Returning to our dancer metaphor, this would be like observing one dancer and finding them in a pirouette, and then automatically knowing the other dancer must also be performing a pirouette. The beauty of entanglement is that just knowing the state of one particle automatically tells you something about its companion, even when they are far apart.
Are particles really connected across space?
But are the particles really somehow tethered to each other across space, or is something else going on? Some scientists, including Albert Einstein in the 1930s, pointed out that the entangled particles might have always been spin up or spin down, but that this information was hidden from us until the measurements were made. Such "local hidden variable theories" argued against the mind-boggling aspect of entanglement, instead proposing that something more mundane, yet unseen, is going on.
Thanks to theoretical work by John Stewart Bell in the 1960s, and experimental work done by Caltech alumnus John Clauser (BS '64) and others beginning in the 1970s, scientists have ruled out these local hidden-variable theories. A key to the researchers' success involved observing entangled particles from different angles. In the experiment mentioned above, this means that a researcher would measure their first particle as spin up, but then use a different viewing angle (or a different spin axis direction) to measure the second particle.
Rather than the two particles matching up as before, the second particle would have gone back into a state of superposition and, once observed, could be either spin up or down. The choice of the viewing angle changed the outcome of the experiment, which means that there cannot be any hidden information buried inside a particle that determines its spin before it is observed. The dance of entanglement materializes not from any one particle but from the connections between them.
In 1969, while still a graduate student at Columbia University, Clauser, along with Michael Horne, Abner Shimony, and Richard Holt, transformed Bell's 1964 mathematical theorem into a very specific experimental prediction via what is now called the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt (CHSH) inequality (Their paper has been cited more than 8,500 times on Google Scholar.) In 1972, when he was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Clauser and graduate student Stuart Freedman were the first to prove experimentally that two widely separated particles (about 10 feet apart) can be entangled.
Clauser went on to perform three more experiments testing the foundations of quantum mechanics and entanglement, with each new experiment confirming and extending his results. The Freedman–Clauser experiment was the first test of the CHSH inequality. It has now been tested experimentally hundreds of times at laboratories around the world to confirm that quantum entanglement is real.
Apple upgrades TestFlight with redesigned invites, testing criteria, and more
Alongside the Apple Intelligence-powered iOS 18 updates for consumers and developers,
Alongside the Apple Intelligence-powered iOS 18 updates for consumers and developers, Apple is rolling out a sizable refresh to its app testing platform for developers, TestFlight. Developers will have more control over who can join their beta and how an app’s new features are shared with testers. They’ll also be able to view metrics related to the beta’s success, in terms of how many people viewed the invite and opted in, and why others did not.
#apple #testflight #technology #applications
The changes will make it easier for developers to target their betas and gain more feedback ahead of their app’s public debut on the App Store. Meanwhile, for beta testers, the redesigned invitations will offer more information about the app, helping them make a decision as to whether or not they want to join the test group.
With the update,invitations now highlight new features or content coming to the app or game, which could encourage testers to try it out. In addition, Apple says the beta builds of apps and games that have been already approved for publication the App Store will be able to include screenshots and the app category along with their invite. This will make the beta testing experience feel more like downloading from the App Store. It could also challenge the alternative testing marketplaces that have popped up in recent years, like Airport, which includes app screenshots, and Departures, which organizes apps into categories.
The ability to set criteria for TestFlight testing, meanwhile, helps developers narrow their test groups to specific audiences, like those using a particular device type or OS version. Given that TestFlight offers a max of 10,000 invitations, this could help save spots in a more popular beta from going to those who can’t yet use the app on their device or aren’t a part of the intended audience for the test. Developers can set a maximum number of testers in the group, to further control access.
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Is AI the key to converting everyday investors to crypto?
If someone were to Google “how to buy crypto,” they would be met with thousands of resources—from articles to YouTube videos—that break down the ins and outs and introduce potential holders to digital assets. Scrolling through these resources might eventually inspire those with an elementary knowledge of cryptocurrency to take their first steps into it.
#ai #technology #crypto #investors
However, that straightforwardness screeches to a halt when it comes down to newcomers actually purchasing digital assets, discouraging them from fully engaging with the ecosystem.
For new adopters, practical barriers have hindered their crypto exploration. For instance, the notion of relying on a single password to secure all their assets can be daunting. An analysis by the Wall Street Journal revealed that 20 percent of
Bitcoin has been lost due to forgotten passwords, lost keys, and the complexities of wallet management, highlighting the risks these frameworks create.
In contrast to the volatility associated with crypto, traditional investment options have been around for centuries, providing a more established framework for individuals to build their financial portfolios. Even professional financial advisors, for example, are accessible resources within finance, playing a crucial role in helping clients create strategies tailored to their financial goals.
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Inside the U.S. Government-Bought Tool That Can Track Phones at Abortion Clinics
Privacy advocates gained access to a powerful tool bought by U.S. law enforcement agencies that can track smartphone locations around the world. Abortion clinics, places of worship, and individual people can all be monitored without a warrant.
#abortion #surveillance #technology #tracking #applicaion #privacy
On a computer screen a map shows the movements of smartphones around the globe. Zooming into an abortion clinic in the south of the United States, the online tool shows more than 700 red dots over the clinic itself, each representing a phone, and by extension, a person.
The tool, called Locate X and made by a company called Babel Street, then narrows down to the movements of a specific device which had visited the clinic. This phone started at a residence in Alabama in mid-June. It then went by a Lowe’s Home Improvement store, traveled along a highway, went past a gas station, visited a church, crossed over into Florida, and then stopped at the abortion clinic for approximately two hours. They had only been to the clinic once, according to the data.
The device then headed back, and crossed back over into Alabama. The tool also showed their potential home, based on the high frequency at which the device stopped there. The tool clearly shows this home address on its map interface.
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Report: Google will report revenue of about $86.4 billion for the third quarter
Google parent Alphabet expects $86.4 billion in Q3 earnings, driven by strong AI momentum and growth in cloud services.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is set to share its third-quarter earnings next week, and analysts expect some impressive numbers. They predict that the company will report revenues of around $86.4 billion for the third quarter, according to analyst estimates compiled by FactSet. This follows a strong performance in the second quarter, where Google exceeded expectations thanks to its advances in artificial intelligence (AI).
#google #revenues #technology #alphabet #ai
For the upcoming report, analysts estimate that Google’s revenues from the U.S. will be around $40.6 billion, while the rest of the world is expected to contribute about $45 billion. The earnings per share (EPS) is projected to be $1.84. In the previous quarter, Google brought in nearly $85 billion, surpassing Wall Street’s predictions by about $640 million.
This represented a 14% increase in revenue compared to the same period last year. Notably, Google Cloud crossed the $10 billion mark in quarterly revenue for the first time and also achieved over $1 billion in operating profit.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted the company’s success in search and cloud services, emphasizing their ongoing work in AI. He stated, “We are innovating at every layer of the AI stack.” This innovation includes advancements in large language models (LLMs), which are AI systems designed to understand and generate human-like text.
Recently, Google has been improving its AI models to mimic human reasoning. This means they can tackle complex problems by breaking them down into smaller, more manageable steps, much like how people think. This approach is known as “chain-of-thought prompting.” In July, Google also released a faster and more efficient AI model called 1.5 Flash for the free version of its Gemini chatbot.
Across-the-board, the upcoming earnings report is highly anticipated, especially with the recent focus on AI advancements and the positive trends in revenue. Investors and analysts will be looking closely at how these developments impact Google’s financial performance.
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Scientists develop wearable robot that walks and fits itself on disabled people
The robot uses a frontal-docking method instead of a rear-sitting method, allowing people to wear the robot immediately without getting out of the wheelchair
Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have introduced a wearable robot for paralyzed individuals.
This innovative robot can walk to the user, allowing them to put it on directly from their wheelchairs without needing assistance from others.
KAIST announced the new version of the wearable robot for paraplegic individuals, the WalkON Suit F1, on October 24.
#technology #robots #disability #healthcare
This robot is designed to assist individuals with the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale – A (complete paralysis) grade injuries, which represent the most severe level of paraplegia.
Its development purpose differs from other rehabilitation therapy and muscle strength assisting robots currently supplied nationally by Angel Robotics.
KAIST announced the WalkON Suit 1 in 2016 and introduced WalkON Suit 4 in 2020, increasing its walking speed to 3.2 km/h, which matches the normal walking speed of individuals without disabilities.
This robot is designed to assist individuals with the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale – A (complete paralysis) grade injuries, which represent the most severe level of paraplegia.
Its development purpose differs from other rehabilitation therapy and muscle strength assisting robots currently supplied nationally by Angel Robotics.
KAIST announced the WalkON Suit 1 in 2016 and introduced WalkON Suit 4 in 2020, increasing its walking speed to 3.2 km/h, which matches the normal walking speed of individuals without disabilities.
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Microsoft CEO earns $30.6 million more despite laying off over 2,000 employees in 2024 — salary package represents a 63% raise from the previous year
AI bonuses, unfortunately, do not translate to job security for employees in other divisions.
#microsoft #ceo #technology #salary #layoffs
Microsoft’s regulatory filing revealed that its CEO, Satya Nadella, received a $79.1 million compensation package for this year, increasing his salary package by 63% compared to 2023. According to Reuters, Nadella hit this milestone with the help of his stock awards when Microsoft’s market cap jumped to over $3 trillion due to its investment in AI technology.
Note that the $71 million figure is just based on Nadella’s stock awards, which were just $39 million last year. Aside from this amount, he also received a $5.2-million cash incentive, an over 50% reduction from the $10.7 million he was entitled to due to massive cybersecurity breaches involving the Redmond company.
However, even though Microsoft is on a roll with its AI investment, other arms of the company haven’t been performing as well. This is especially true as its gaming studios have suffered massive layoffs. Three months after it finished its acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, Microsoft laid off 1,900 employees from its gaming divisions, including Activision-Blizzard, Xbox, and ZeniMax, which happened during a general downtrend in the gaming industry.
Just a few months later, in May, the company started another run of cuts with the shuttering of three game studios—Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, and Arkane Austin. More Microsoft employees were again shown the door in September when Xbox reduced its staff by an additional 650. This means that Microsoft’s gaming division has to downsize by at least 2,550 people (probably more) this year.
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Intel CEO is "frustrated" with CHIPS Act payout progress — Intel has received $0 from the $8.5 billion that the US government promised
“My simple message is, ‘Let’s get it finished,’” said Gelsinger in an interview with The New York Times.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has been frustrated with the U.S. government’s slow progress in providing Intel with its promised CHIPS Act funding. The New York Times shared recent interviews with Gelsinger and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo about the CHIPS and Science Act.
#intel #chips #semiconductors #government #technology
The Biden-backed CHIPS Act represents $280 billion of funding for semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, giving the Commerce Dept. the ability to provide 10-figure grants and loans to companies like TSMC and Intel to supercharge a young U.S.-based chip industry. The Biden administration has promised Intel $8.5 billion in direct funding to build its new chipmaking fabs (plus $11 billion in loans and a 25% investment tax credit of up to $100 billion). Still, the company has not seen any of these funds so far.
Missing the funds is a problem for Intel, which is in turmoil due to $1.6 billion in losses in Q2 2024. Intel is cutting 15% of its workforce, representing 15,000 or more workers worldwide. Gelsinger has spent the past three months since the disastrous August earnings call restructuring his company and placating stockholders. He has become “frustrated” with the roadblocks the government has put in between Intel and its CHIPS Act funds.
“My simple message is, ‘Let’s get it finished,’” said Gelsinger in an interview. “There’s been renegotiations on both sides.” The U.S. government put some objectives between CHIPS Act recipients and their money, with milestones including completing building projects, securing customers, etc. “Obviously, with elections, you know, nigh in front of us, hey, we want this done,” said Gelsinger, with the possibility of a new presidential regime lighting a fire of urgency.
This reticence to give out CHIPS Act funding right away apparently stemmed from fears from the government that Intel specifically would not meet its promises. “[There is fear that] Intel is going to take chips money, build an empty shell of a factory and then never actually open it, because they don’t have customers,” said former Commerce Department official Caitlin Legacki.
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OpenAI will reportedly unleash next-gen Orion AI model this December — Orion is expected to be 100X more potent than GPT-4
But not for a wide audience.
OpenAI is set to introduce Orion, its next-generation AI model, this December, reports The Verge, citing its sources with knowledge of the matter. However, initial access will be limited to key partner companies instead of a broad release through ChatGPT.com to the general public. The new model is expected to be a full-blown version rather than an enhanced or specialized version of an existing one.
#orion #openai #ai #chatgpt #technology
Orion is viewed internally as a successor to GPT-4, though it is unclear whether its official name will be GPT-5 when released. An OpenAI executive has reportedly hinted that Orion could be up to 100 times more powerful than GPT-4, Open AI's flagship model. Unlike the recently released o1 model, designed for enhanced reasoning and aimed at applications like scientific problem-solving, data analysis, and structured knowledge tasks, Orion is geared toward broader AI capabilities for the general public.
For now, OpenAI plans to keep AI models with enhanced reasoning and AI models with broader capabilities separate, though eventually, they will merge as the company is working on artificial general intelligence (AGI). Yet, Orion's training involved synthetic data generated by o1, known internally as Strawberry.
According to The Verge, engineers at Microsoft Azure, OpenAI's cloud service provider, are getting ready to launch Orion on the Azure platform, potentially starting in November.
Earlier this year, a source informed The Verge that in September, OpenAI researchers organized a happy hour event to celebrate the new model's completion of the training phase. Around the same time, Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, posted an X message about winter constellation in the U.S. Midwest. Curiously, The Verge tried to ask the o1 AI model to decipher what Sam Altman's post means, and it came up with the answer that it hides the word 'Orion.' Yet, when yours truly asked to do the same, it responded that the message hides the phrase 'It Begins.' Nonetheless, all AI models responded that the post could hint at a big announcement.
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The Browser Company is building another browser, and it’s not called Arc.
The Arc browser isn’t dead — it’s just finished.
Stop me if this sounds familiar: The Browser Company is building a browser that it thinks can make your internet life a little more organized, a little more useful, and maybe even a little more delightful. It has new ideas about tabs, and what your browser can do on your behalf.
#browser #browser #technology
I’ve heard this story before! But the browser that Browser Company CEO Josh Miller wants to talk about when he calls me on Thursday isn’t Arc, the product he and his team have been working on for the last five years. It’s not Arc 2.0, either, even though Miller has been talking publicly about Arc 2.0 for a while now. It’s an entirely new browser. And for Miller and The Browser Company, it’s a chance to get back to building the future of browsers they set out to create in the first place.
A strange thing has happened over the last couple of years, Miller says. Arc has grown fast — users quadrupled this year alone — but it has also become clear that Arc is never going to be a truly mainstream product. It’s too complicated, too different, too hard to get into. “It’s just too much novelty and change,” Miller says, “to get to the number of people we really want to get to.” User interviews and data have convinced the company that this is a power-user tool, and always will be.
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Siri’s big ChatGPT upgrade reaches the iPhone with iOS 18.2
Just watch out for hallucinations.
Apple Intelligence’s official launch is less than a week away, but it’s the next wave of AI updates that will start to make Siri a lot more useful.
#chatgpt #iphone #appleintelligence #technology #siri
The forthcoming iOS 18.2 update — now available as a developer beta — starts to make your phone a lot smarter with the addition of Visual Intelligence and the ability to pass Siri requests along to ChatGPT. On phones that support Apple Intelligence, Siri won’t just be a “let me Google that for you” machine; now it’s a “let me ChatGPT that for you” machine, with all that entails: good, bad, and everything in between.
By default, Siri will ask for confirmation every time it wants to pass on a request to ChatGPT. This makes a lot of sense, and I thought I’d prefer that behavior. But after an afternoon using it, I realized I just wanted to get to the ChatGPT answer faster and turned it off. Siri still handles basic questions on its own and doesn’t pass things like “When is the US election?” to ChatGPT, thankfully. And it will still just Google something for you when that’s the best way to get to your answer.
But more complex stuff goes to ChatGPT, which means Siri can handle a lot more stuff than I’m used to throwing at it. Ask it “What are some cocktails I can make with whiskey and lemon juice?” and you’ll get a short list of options with descriptions. Old Siri will basically just show you a Google search snippet.
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Tesla Fremont Factory celebrates 1 million Model Y production at GA4
Just days after announcing that it had produced its 7 millionth vehicle, Tesla announced that the Fremont Factory has produced its 1 millionth Model Y from GA4. This is an incredible achievement, considering that the Fremont Factory is a facility that is not built specifically to produce Teslas.
The Fremont Factory is Tesla’s first production facility. As per the Q3 2024 Update Letter, the factory currently has an installed annual vehicle capacity of over 550,000 Model 3 and Model Y and 100,000 Model S and Model X. This is lower than facilities like Giga Shanghai, which can produce over 950,000 Model 3 and Model Y, but it is already very impressive.
#tesla #fremont #modely #ev #technology
The Fremont Factory, after all, started its life as a traditional automotive plant. Unlike later facilities like Gigafactory Texas, which was built specifically to produce the Model Y and the Cybertruck, the Fremont Factory required a lot of strategy and creativity before it was able to produce the Model 3 and Model Y at scale. These included the use of sprung structures to house an additional general assembly line for the Model 3, a move that caught the attention of Tesla shorts.
This was highlighted by the company in its celebratory post on social media platform X. As noted by Tesla on its official X account, the first Model 3 from the Fremont Factory’s GA4 line was completed on June 8, 2018. Since then, GA4 has grown into an impressive vehicle production line that was able to produce the facility’s 1 millionth Model Y on Friday, October 25, 2024. That’s not so bad at all for a facility that was mocked by critics as a simple “tent.”
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Tesla Semi has “ridiculous” demand, and it’s about to make roads cleaner
During the third quarter earnings call, CEO Elon Musk commented that the demand for the Tesla Semi is “ridiculous.” This was because the Class 8 all-electric truck’s operating costs are so low that it would be silly for businesses not to use it.
“Fundamentally, if you’ve got a (Tesla) Semi, the fully considered cost per mile per ton of transport is better than a diesel truck. Any company that doesn’t adopt an electric Semi will lose. It’s not a subjective thing,” Musk said during the Q3 2024 earnings call.
#tesla #semi #earnings #demand #trucking
This point was recently highlighted by Tesla Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy in a comment on social media platform X. In response to a post from Tesla’s official account, which noted that more EVs on the road means quieter cities and highways, Moravy noted that the lockdowns a few years ago showed that clean air in cities and highways is achievable.
Moravy also provided an update on the Tesla Semi, stating that the vehicle is coming en masse shortly. “Tesla Semi is coming in mass shortly and we made it so compelling, anyone who does not use it will be left behind! Tesla’s goal – make products people love – or in this case, heavy goods transportation companies,” Moravy wrote in his post.
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Actually they will make the environment dirtier. The heavier EVs cause the tires to break down faster adding microplastics exponentially faster than the lighter combustion engines. MPs are now know to be mostly created by tires.
Tesla Megafactory in Shanghai on track to start shipments in Q1 2025
Tesla Megafactory Shanghai is on track to start shipments by Q1 2025.
Last month, local media outlet IT Home reported that Tesla’s Megafactory in Shanghai was already 60% complete, passing the halfway point. Tesla China officially started construction on the Shanghai Megafactory on May 23, 2024. Based on recent reports, Tesla China’s Megafactory will be completed less than a year after the start of production—proving the company’s remarkable speed again.
#megafactory #megapack #shanghai #china #tesla
Tesla’s Megafactory complex spans about 49.4 acres. It is situated in the Lingang area, close to Giga Shanghai. Tesla estimates that the Megafactory in Shanghai will have an annual capacity of 10,000 Megapack batteries, or about 40 GWh of energy storage.
In its recent earnings call, Tesla estimated that its Shanghai Megafactory will begin with a 20 GWh run rate. Tesla’s Energy business will likely see a significant boost once the Megafactory in China starts shipments.
In its Q3 2024 Update Letter, Tesla reported a record gross margin of 30.5% in the third quarter from its Energy division. The company shared that its Megafactory in Lathrop produces 200 Megapacks per week.
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Feds Say You Don’t Have a Right to Check Out Retro Video Games Like Library Books
The U.S. Copyright Office denied an exemption from the DMCA to allow gaming historians to access out-of-print games they can’t legally get anywhere else.
Most of the world’s video games from close to 50 years of history are effectively, legally dead. A Video Games History Foundation study found you can’t buy nearly 90% of games from before 2010. Preservationists have been looking for ways to allow people to legally access gaming history, but the U.S. Copyright Office dealt them a heavy blow Friday. Feds declared that you or any researcher has no right to access old games under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.
#copyright #videogames #dmca #technology
Groups like the VGHF and the Software Preservation Network have been putting their weight behind an exemption to the DMCA surrounding video game access. The law says that you can’t remotely access old, defunct games that are still under copyright without a license, even though they’re not available for purchase. Current rules in the DMCA restrict libraries and repositories of old games to one person at a time, in person.
The foundation’s proposed exemption would have allowed more than one person at a time to access the content stored in museums, archives, and libraries. This would allow players to access a piece of video game history like they would if they checked out an ebook from a library. The VGHF and SPN argued that if the museum has several copies of a game in its possession, then it should be able to allow as many people to access the game as there are copies available.
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Boeing Reports $6 Billion in Quarterly Losses Amid Struggles, Strike
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg laid out a turnaround plan Wednesday, calling for a "fundamental culture change" at the struggling planemaker as its quarterly losses surged to $6 billion due to a crippling strike.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg laid out a turnaround plan Wednesday, calling for a "fundamental culture change" at the struggling planemaker as its quarterly losses surged to $6 billion due to a crippling strike.
#boeing #earnings #airplane
The company has now racked up losses of nearly $8 billion for the current year, as a halt in production of its 737 MAX, 777 and 767 planes following the strike and an ailing defense and space division hammer its business.
Boeing shares slipped 1% in premarket trading.
In a letter, Ortberg stressed the need for improving performance in its defense business and its 737 MAX and 777 programs while broadly stabilizing Boeing, which is "at a crossroads" after lapses in its performance disappointed customers and eroded trust.
"This is a big ship that will take some time to turn, but when it does, it has the capacity to be great again," Ortberg told the planemaker's employees in a message containing prepared remarks for his first earnings call as CEO.
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Baldur's Gate 3 publishing chief calls out Ubisoft's 'broken strategy': If gamers need to get used to not owning games, 'developers must get used to not having jobs'
Prince of Persia: The Lost Throne was a critical hit but didn't sell very well, and Michael Douse thinks that's entirely Ubisoft's fault.
Larian director of publishing Michael Douse, never one to be shy about speaking his mind, has spoken his mind about Ubisoft's decision to disband the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown development team, saying it's the result of a "broken strategy" that prioritizes subscriptions over sales.
#baldur #gaming #ubisoft #technology
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is quite good. PC Gamer's Mollie Taylor felt it was dragged down by a very slow start, calling it "a slow burn to a fault" in an overall positive review, and it holds an enviable 86 aggregate score on Metacritic. Despite that, Ubisoft recently confirmed that the development team has been scattered to the four winds to work on "other projects that will benefit from their expertise."
This, Douse feels, is at least partially the outcome of Ubisoft's focus on subscriptions over conventional game sales—the whole "feeling comfortable with not owning your game" thing espoused by Ubisoft director of subscriptions Philippe Tremblay earlier this year—and the decision to stop releasing games on Steam, which is far and away the biggest digital storefront for PC gaming.
"The last notable game on their platform was arguably Far Cry 6 in 2021," Douse posted on X (via GamesRadar). "The Crew, Mirage and Avatar came in 2023 and didn’t perform, so you can assume subscriptions were at a lull when PoP released by 2024. Which means people wouldn’t be launching their store all too much.
"If it had released on Steam not only would it have been a market success, but there would likely be a sequel because the team are so strong. It’s such a broken strategy. The hardest thing is to make a 85+ game—it is much, much easier to release one. It just shouldn’t be done as it was."
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Intel's former CEO pushed for the chip maker to buy Nvidia for $20 billion in 2005—the GPU company is now worth $3.5 trillion
I don't think this so-called "Nvidia" will turn out to be much, anyway. Best left alone, I reckon.
As some hockey player once said, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take". Or in Intel's case, you miss out on buying a company that's currently sitting second on the list of most valuable companies in the world, back when it was worth relatively little.
#intel #nvidia #technology #gpu
That's according to a report from the New York Times, detailing how Paul Otellini, Intel's chief executive from 2005 to 2013, presented the board with an idea to buy a little computer graphics company called Nvidia. This wasn't long after he'd taken the position, and the board apparently put up a significant amount of resistance, as (at a $20 billion value at the time), it would easily have been Intel's most expensive acquisition to date.
As a result, Otellini backed away from defending the purchase. One attendee at the meeting reportedly described it as "a fateful moment", and I should think so, too. Given that Nvidia has since positioned itself at the forefront of the AI boom, and currently has a market cap estimated to be around $3.5 trillion dollars, it does strike as one of those misses you'd kick yourself for.
Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and other such platitudes. Still, it seems like even back in 2005, some Intel executives could already see some of the future that Nvidia might be involved in. According to its sources, the New York Times reports that some Intel execs believed that the underlying design of its graphics chips might be important for future data centers, which today would count as a massive understatement.
Given some of the reveals here about Intel's corporate culture (and how it might have contributed to the almighty financial and strategic mess it currently finds itself in), it's perhaps no surprise that Intel was slow on the draw with this sort of future planning. Intel executives reportedly described the company as "the largest single-cell organism on the planet", a reference to the insular and single-minded corporate culture at the time.
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OpenAI plans Orion AI model release for December
Altman has teased that Orion is coming.
OpenAI plans to launch Orion, its next frontier model, by December, The Verge has learned.
Unlike the release of OpenAI’s last two models, GPT-4o and o1, Orion won’t initially be released widely through ChatGPT. Instead, OpenAI is planning to grant access first to companies it works closely with in order for them to build their own products and features, according to a source familiar with the plan.
#openai #orion #ai #technology
Another source tells The Verge that engineers inside Microsoft — OpenAI’s main partner for deploying AI models — are preparing to host Orion on Azure as early as November. While Orion is seen inside OpenAI as the successor to GPT-4, it’s unclear if the company will call it GPT-5 externally. As always, the release plan is subject to change and could slip. Microsoft declined to comment for this story, and OpenAI initially declined.
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Nvidia’s Sana: An AI Model That Instantly Creates 4K Images on Garden-Variety PCs
Nvidia's latest model promises to bring 4K image creation to everyday computers—and you’ll generate those images in a few seconds.
The AI art scene is getting hotter. Sana, a new AI model introduced by Nvidia, runs high-quality 4K image generation on consumer-grade hardware, thanks to a clever mix of techniques that differ a bit from the way traditional image generators work.
#nvidia #sana #ai #technology #model
Sana's speed comes from what Nvidia calls a “deep compression autoencoder” that squeezes image data down to 1/32nd of its original size—while keeping all the details intact. The model pairs this with the Gemma 2 LLM to understand prompts, creating a system that punches well above its weight class on modest hardware.
If the final product is as good as the public demo, Sana promises to be a brand new image generator built to run on less demanding systems, which will be a huge advantage for Nvidia as it tries to reach even more users.
“Sana-0.6B is very competitive with modern giant diffusion model (e.g. Flux-12B), being 20 times smaller and 100+ times faster in measured throughput,” the team at Nvidia wrote on Sana’s research paper, “Moreover, Sana-0.6B can be deployed on a 16GB laptop GPU, taking less than 1 second to generate a 1024×1024 resolution image.”
Yes, you read that right: Sana is a 0.6 Billion parameter model that competes against models 20 times its size, while generating images 4 times larger, in a fraction of the time. If that sounds too good to be true, you can try it yourself on a special interface set up by the MIT.
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Here is what I ran on Nvidia Sana:
Raspberry Pi Bumper for Raspberry Pi 5 review: Silicone protection for your silicon
We did not test if it bounces, nor should you.
Raspberry Pi has been releasing a slew of products in 2024. We’ve had the Raspberry Pi Pico 2, the Raspberry Pi 5 2GB, a new AI Camera, as well as two AI boards (the Raspberry Pi AI Kit and the Raspberry Pi AI HAT+). That's in addition to new Raspberry Pi branded A2 micro SD cards and SSDs. But a $3 Raspberry Pi Bumper for the Raspberry Pi 5 was something of a curveball.
#raspberrypi #technology #compute
This one-piece flexible silicone rubber bumper is exactly that. Not a case, more of a means to keep your Pi 5 stuck to the desk, and not shorting out on that errant screw you left sitting out.
But does it work? Does it interfere with the Raspberry Pi 5’s cooling? Is it any good? Let's find out in what could possibly be my shortest ever review.
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Mazda’s new EREV promises 800-mile range, charges 30%-80% in 15 minutes
With the EZ-6, Mazda aims to meet the demand for innovative and sustainable vehicles in the Chinese market.
The electric vehicle (EV) market is buzzing with new developments. Almost every day, new technologies are emerging in this field. Now, a leading automaker Mazda is making a bold entry into the EV market with its EZ-6.
This technologically advanced sedan is touted to provide an impressive all-electric range of up to 600 km (373 miles) on the CLTC cycle. Through this, Mazda aims to tackle the range issue, one of the biggest hurdles hampering the widespread adoption of EVs.
#mazda #ev #range #charging #technology
The EZ-6’s impressive range can be attributed to its 68.8 kWh battery and a powerful 190 kW (254 hp) electric motor. Besides, for those seeking even greater range, Mazda also offers an extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) version.
This innovative system combines a 93-hp gasoline engine with a 160 kW electric motor, achieving a total range of up to 1,301 km (808 miles). Moreover, as per CarNewsChina, the EV will get charged 30% to 80% in just 15 minutes.
Beyond its impressive range, the EZ-6 is packed with cutting-edge technology and luxurious features. The EZ-6 features a 14.6-inch infotainment screen, a digital instrument cluster, and an expansive 50-inch augmented reality heads-up display (AR-HUD). A Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chipset powers the cabin, handling climate control, seat adjustments, and entertainment functions.
Other highlights include 13 ambient scene modes, a 64-color lighting system, a 14-speaker Sony audio system, reclining front seats, a fixed panoramic sunroof, and four-zone voice activation.
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Central Bank of Brazil Highlights Tokenization Potential Before IMF and World Bank
The Central Bank of Brazil propped up tokenization and “open finance” as key elements of the future’s financial system. In a panel presentation before the IMF and the World Bank, the bank’s president stated that the intersection between these had been underestimated.
In a recent panel presentation held in Washington, the Central Bank of Brazil delved into the possibilities of tokenization and its benefits to the financial system when integrated with other elements.
#tokenization #centtralbank #brazil #government
Central Bank’s President Roberto Campos Neto, who participated in the panel before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, stressed that the possibilities of the intersection of tokenization and elements like “open finance” had been underestimated, propping up the potential of these solutions.
Open finance involves “sharing data, products, and services between regulated entities” with user permission. These procedures are focused on encouraging innovation and promoting competition to facilitate the implementation of new business models.
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Manchester United asked Man City to give their players a lift to Ballon d’Or ceremony – but latest cost-cutting plan backfires
Manchester United cheekily asked crosstown rivals Man City if they could give their players a lift to the upcoming Ballon d’Or ceremony.
In the latest cost-cutting efforts from Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his INEOS team, United wanted to save the expense of hiring their own private jet for the glitzy do in Paris on Monday night.
#manu #epl #sports #football
City have eight stars nominated for the prestigious Golden Ball gong, which crowns the best player in European football, and have chartered a plane to fly their team out to France following their Premier League clash against Southampton this weekend.
Man United have two players nominated, and talkSPORT understands a report by the Daily Mail - which claims the Red Devils asked City if they had room on their plane to seat their players - is true.
However, United’s request was met with a ‘no’ from City chiefs and the Old Trafford outfit have since had to arrange their own travel.
United sources told talkSPORT the club were keen to avoid chartering a private jet for only two players due to the impact on the environment.
They also insisted it’s normal for clubs in the north-west of England to share private jets when necessary, including when players return from international duty.
We were also told all parts of the club are seeking to save costs wherever possible to make the club more efficient and maximise funds for investment in football.
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China’s first outer space travel announced at $210,000 for 12-minute flight
Deep Blue Aerospace’s space tourism tickets, launched Thursday on Taobao, sold out in 20 minutes, with more to be released next month.
A Jiangsu-based tech startup, Deep Blue Aerospace, has revealed plans to send its first passengers on a 12-minute suborbital space journey, providing at least five minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth.
According to Chinese media, the company launched ticket sales at 6 p.m. on Thursday and sold out within 20 minutes during a live-stream event on e-commerce giant Taobao. The company also plans to release additional tickets next month.
#space #china #deepblueaerospace #spacetourism #technology
The 2027 trip will take passengers on a suborbital flight, reaching outer space without entering Earth’s orbit, according to a company statement posted on social media Wednesday.
The company, acknowledging the “complexity and risks” of rocket technology, announced plans to carry out dozens of tests over the next two years to guarantee safety and reliability before launching commercial space tourism in 2027.
During the live stream, Deep Blue Aerospace chairman Huo Liang mentioned that “ticket prices at several hundred thousand yuan may soon become a reality” as orbit-capable, reusable rocket technology continues to advance.
While many view the trip as a luxury experience, some commenters pointed out that it is more affordable compared to international options, with Deep Blue Aerospace’s tickets starting at $210,000.
Furthermore, some Chinese social media users also suggested that Chinese companies may play a role in reducing costs in the space tourism sector, potentially making space travel more accessible to a broader audience.
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The Rise of Space Tourism: A New Era of Commercial Space Travel
Space tourism, once confined to the realm of science fiction, has emerged as a burgeoning industry that promises to revolutionize human space exploration and create new opportunities for commercial space ventures. As private companies push the boundaries of what's possible, space tourism is rapidly transitioning from an exclusive domain of government agencies to a potentially accessible experience for affluent adventurers.
The Evolution of Space Tourism
The concept of space tourism isn't entirely new. In 2001, American businessman Dennis Tito made history by becoming the first private citizen to fund his own trip to space, paying a reported $20 million to visit the International Space Station (ISS). However, the modern era of space tourism truly began to take shape in the early 2000s with the emergence of private space companies founded by ambitious entrepreneurs.
Key Players in the Space Tourism Industry
SpaceX
Founded by Elon Musk in 2002, SpaceX has revolutionized space travel through its reusable rocket technology. While primarily focused on satellite launches and NASA contracts, SpaceX has made significant strides in human spaceflight with its Crew Dragon spacecraft. The company's ambitious plans include lunar tourism and eventually, trips to Mars.
Blue Origin
Jeff Bezos's space venture has developed the New Shepard vehicle for suborbital tourist flights. The company focuses on providing brief experiences of weightlessness and views of Earth from space. Blue Origin's approach emphasizes safety and reusability, with a capsule design that includes an escape system for emergencies.
Virgin Galactic
Richard Branson's company takes a different approach, using a spaceplane launched from a carrier aircraft. This method provides a more airplane-like experience for customers and allows for a gentler return to Earth. Virgin Galactic has already begun taking reservations for future flights, with tickets initially priced at $250,000.
The Space Tourism Experience
Suborbital Flights
The most accessible form of space tourism currently available is the suborbital flight. These journeys typically last a few minutes and reach altitudes of around 50-100 kilometers, allowing passengers to experience:
Orbital Tourism
More ambitious and expensive, orbital tourism involves:
Training and Preparation
Space tourists must undergo significant preparation before their journey. This typically includes:
Physical Requirements
Training Components
Economic Impact and Market Potential
The space tourism industry is projected to grow significantly in the coming decades. According to various market research reports, the global space tourism market could reach:
Key Economic Factors
Environmental Considerations
The environmental impact of space tourism has become a significant point of discussion:
Concerns
Mitigation Efforts
Regulatory Framework
As the industry grows, regulatory frameworks are evolving to ensure safety and sustainable development:
Current Regulations
Emerging Issues
Future Prospects
The future of space tourism holds exciting possibilities:
Near-Term Developments
Long-Term Possibilities
Societal Impact
Space tourism has broader implications for society:
Educational Benefits
Cultural Impact
Challenges and Obstacles
Despite progress, significant challenges remain:
Technical Challenges
Economic Challenges
Human Factors
Conclusion
Space tourism represents a transformative development in human space exploration. While currently limited to wealthy individuals, the industry shows promise for broader accessibility in the future. As technology advances and costs decrease, space tourism could become an increasingly important part of both the space industry and the global tourism sector.
The success of space tourism will depend on several factors:
As private companies continue to innovate and compete, the dream of space travel is becoming a reality for more people. While challenges remain, the trajectory of the industry suggests that space tourism will play an increasingly important role in humanity's relationship with space exploration.
The transformative power of viewing Earth from space, known as the Overview Effect, could have lasting implications for how we view our planet and our place in the universe. As more people experience this perspective, it could lead to increased environmental awareness and a greater sense of global unity.
As we look to the future, space tourism stands as a testament to human ingenuity and ambition, promising not just new experiences for wealthy adventurers, but potentially opening up new frontiers for human civilization. The coming decades will be crucial in determining whether this nascent industry can fulfill its promising potential and truly make space accessible to a broader segment of humanity.
Quantum secret of hydrogen bonds in liquid water revealed for the first time
Decoding the H-bond network in water molecules has never been so easy, thanks to this new spectroscopy method.
The hydrogen bonds that form water molecules are responsible for the many properties that make water a unique liquid. However, even today scientists don’t fully understand the science behind these bonds.
This is because these H-bonds have a very short lifetime as they constantly form and break due to the motion of water molecules.
#quantum #science #hydrogren #water #newsonleo
For instance, the typical lifetime of a hydrogen bond in liquid water is one millionth of a millionth of a second. This dynamic behavior makes it difficult to capture and study their interactions accurately.
However, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) claim to have developed a new method that can allow scientists to study the electronic and nuclear quantum effects of liquid water’s hydrogen bonds in depth.
This new method called correlated vibrational spectroscopy (CVS), can finally reveal what factors make the hydrogen-bond networks in water such a strong and mysterious force.
Not all water molecules are involved in hydrogen-bond network interactions. CVS first identifies and separates the interacting and no-interacting molecules. This is done by shooting ultra-fast laser pulses on water molecules.
These quick bursts of light create tiny movements in the water’s atoms, which then emit visible light. The pattern of this light reveals how the molecules are arranged, and the color of the light shows how the atoms inside and between the molecules are moving.
“Current spectroscopy methods measure the scattering of laser light caused by the vibrations of all molecules in a system, so you have to guess or assume that what you are seeing is due to the molecular interaction you’re interested in,” Sylvie Roke, one of the study authors and a professor at EPFL, said.
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Boeing reportedly considers selling off its space business
Starliner and other projects for NASA could be on Boeing’s chopping block.
Kelly Ortberg, who took over as Boeing CEO in August, is weighing the sale of the company’s space division as part of an attempt to turn things around, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The plans, which are reportedly at an early stage, could involve Boeing offloading the Starliner spacecraft and its projects supporting the International Space Station.
#starliner #boeing #space #newsonleo
Boeing is facing a series of predicaments, including a fraud charge over 737 Max plane crashes and Starliner issues that left two astronauts at the ISS for months. Just this week, a Boeing-made satellite for Intelsat stopped working and fell apart suddenly after suffering an “anomaly.”
“We’re better off doing less and doing it better than doing more and not doing it well,” Ortberg said during an earnings call this week. “Clearly, our core of commercial airplanes and defense systems are going to stay with the Boeing Company for the long run. But there’s probably some things on the fringe there that we can be more efficient with or that distract us from our main goal here.”
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Conception and Development (2007-2012)
In 2007, NASA announced its plans to develop a new commercial crew vehicle (CCV) to carry astronauts to and from the International space Station (ISS). The agency issued a Request for proposal (RFP) to several companies, including Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada corporation.
Boeing's proposal, known as the CST-100 Starliner, was selected as the winner of the CCV program in 2008. The CST-100 was designed to be a reusable spacecraft that could carry four crew members to the ISS and back.
The development of the CST-100 was a complex and challenging endeavor. Boeing assembled a team of engineers and technicians to work on the project, which included the design and testing of the spacecraft's systems, including its propulsion, life support, and communication systems.
CST-100 Starliner Design and Testing (2012-2015)
In 2012, Boeing completed the design and testing of the CST-100 Starliner's ground system, including the launch pad and the recovery system. The company also completed the testing of the spacecraft's systems, including its propulsion, life support, and communication systems.
The CST-100 Starliner features a crew compartment, a service module, and a launch abort system. The crew compartment is designed to carry four crew members, while the service module provides power, propulsion, and communication systems for the spacecraft. The launch abort system is designed to quickly evacuate the crew in case of an emergency.
Uncrewed Test Flights (2019-2020)
On December 21, 2019, Boeing launched an uncrewed test flight of the CST-100 Starliner, known as Orbital Flight Test-1 (OFT-1). The spacecraft reached orbit but experienced a series of technical issues, including a launch abort system malfunction, a computer error, and a failure to achieve the desired orbit.
The OFT-1 mission was intended to test the spacecraft's systems in space, but it was aborted after just 17 minutes due to a computer error. The spacecraft's computer had experienced a glitch, which caused the launch abort system to malfunction.
Crewed Test Flight (2020)
On August 30, 2020, Boeing launched an uncrewed test flight of the CST-100 Starliner, known as OFT-2. The spacecraft successfully reached orbit and completed the mission.
However, the OFT-2 mission was also plagued by technical issues. The spacecraft experienced a series of computer errors, which caused it to veer off course and fail to achieve the desired orbit.
First Crewed Flight (2022)
On November 15, 2022, Boeing launched a crewed test flight of the CST-100 Starliner, known as CFT-1 (Crew Flight Test-1). The spacecraft carried a crew of four NASA astronauts to the ISS and successfully completed the mission.
The CFT-1 mission was a major milestone for the Boeing Starliner program. It marked the first time that the spacecraft had carried a crew to the ISS, and it demonstrated the spacecraft's ability to safely transport astronauts to and from the station.
Certification and Commercial Operations (2023)
In 2023, NASA certified the Boeing Starliner as a safe and reliable CCV. The certification marked a major milestone for the program, as it paves the way for commercial operations.
Boeing is nOW preparing for commercial operations, with the first commercial crewed mission to the ISS expected to launch in 2023. The company has also announced plans to offer the Starliner to private customers, including companies that operate the ISS.
Challenges and Controversies
The Boeing Starliner program has faced several challenges and controversies, including technical issues, cost overruns, and delays. In 2019, Boeing announced that the Starliner would not be ready for its first crewed flight until 2022, citing the need for additional testing and certification.
The program has also faced criticism for its high cost, with estimates suggesting that the program could cost up to $10 billion. In addition, the program has faced criticism for its reliance on a single supplier, Boeing, and for its lack of transparency and communication with NASA and other stakeholders.
Technical Issues
The Boeing Starliner program has experienced several technical issues, including:
Cost Overruns
The Boeing Starliner program has faced significant cost overruns, with estimates suggesting that the program could cost up to $10 billion. The cost overruns have been attributed to a number of factors, including:
Transparency and Communication
The Boeing Starliner program has faced criticism for its lack of transparency and communication with NASA and other stakeholders. The company has been accused of being secretive about the program's progress and of not providing adequate information to stakeholders.
In response to these criticisms, Boeing has announced plans to increase transparency and communication within the program. The company has also announced plans to establish a new office to oversee the program's communication and stakeholder engagement efforts.
Overall, the Boeing Starliner program has been a complex and challenging endeavor. The program has faced significant technical issues, cost overruns, and controversies, but it has also made significant progress in recent years. The program's success will be crucial to the development of commercial crew vehicles and the future of human spaceflight.
Conversation with AI Threadcast today:
https://inleo.io/threads/view/ahmadmanga/re-leothreads-3n6f4gtv?referral=ahmadmanga
China accuses US of ‘disinformation’ hacking attempt report
Perpetrators are said to have tapped into Verizon’s network in bid to access devices used by the Republican nominee and his running mate.
China’s embassy in Washington said the US has spread “disinformation” after reports on alleged Chinese attempts to hack the mobile phones of the Republican Party’s presidential candidate and his running mate.
#china #hacking #election #trump #vance
“In recent years,The US has compiled and spread all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats. Such allegations are full of malicious speculations against China, which China firmly opposes,” the embassy spokesperson told the Post in an email.
“The presidential elections are the United States’ domestic affairs. China has no intention and will not interfere in the US election. We hope that the US side will not make accusations against China in the election,” the spokesperson added.
The US government is investigating suspected efforts by Chinese hackers to tap data from phones used by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance, as well as the campaign of their challenger, Vice-President Kamala Harris, American media reported on Friday.
The reports, citing people familiar with the matter, came out around the same time as the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said they are investigating “unauthorised access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China”.
“After the FBI identified specific malicious activity targeting the sector, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) immediately notified affected companies, rendered technical assistance, and rapidly shared information to assist other potential victims,” the federal agencies said in a joint statement.
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