Whether you’re a gadget guru or a complete Luddite, Gizmodo’s Tech Gift Guide will make you look like a rockstar gift-giver this holiday. Spoil a loved one (or, hey, yourself) with a new TV, phone, or smart mug—and we’ve even got ideas for kids and pets . Trust us: You can elevate your gift-giving game beyond a…
Source: io9 – The Best Tech Gifts of 2023
All those extra Xbox games you’ll collect during Black Friday sales and over the coming holiday season will need a lot of storage. Black Friday is also a great time to pick up SSDs, with Seagate’s Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X and Series S down to a new all-time low price. Seagate’s 1TB model is currently $130, down from $220 — a 41 percent discount. If you need a lot of space, the 2TB version is 18 percent off, dropping to $230 from $280. If Seagate isn’t your brand of choice, Western Digital’s 1TB C50 Storage Expansion Card for Xbox is down to $125 from $150 — a 17 percent discount.
In a perfect world, our gaming consoles would have endless gigabytes of storage for games (while we’re wishing for things, they’d also be cheaper). Yet, the 1TB Seagate and Western Digital storage expansion cards double the amount of storage that comes with the Xbox Series X — even more so since some of the initial storage is for the operating system.
The Seagate and Western Digital expansion cards work relatively the same. One of the most significant factors is that Seagate’s card connects with a USB while Western Digital’s card goes right into Xbox’s expansion slot. Typically, Western Digital is a better deal at $70 cheaper, but with only a $5 difference, it comes down to preference. However, only Seagate offers the 2TB option, so the choice is easy if that’s what you want. Don’t take too long to decide, as lots of gameplay awaits.
Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/seagates-xbox-series-sx-expansion-cards-are-at-record-lows-in-an-amazon-black-friday-deal-143020416.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Seagate’s Xbox Series S/X Expansion cards are at record-lows in an Amazon Black Friday deal
When Renita Adams puts a pot on the stove in her Virginia home, she also puts a rubber band around her wrist. The 62-year-old retiree prefers a tight band that squeezes a little bit, so she won’t forget it’s there–usually one of the colorful, stretchy rings that come wrapped around produce bundles. Her years as a…
Source: Gizmodo – What Happens When Your Body Becomes a Sensory Deprivation Chamber?
With all the handheld gaming devices popping up, like the Steam Deck OLED, Lenovo Legion Go, Ayaneo Slide, and the ROG Ally, I wouldn’t blame you if you first saw the PlayStation Portable and thought, “Whoa, did Sony just make a new PSP?”
Source: Gizmodo – PlayStation Portal Review: A Great Remote Play Tablet, but That’s Pretty Much It
With the launch of AMD new Ryzen Threadripper 7000-series processors and associated TRX50 platform comes the need for new memory kits. Thanks to UDIMMs and RDIMMs requiring different slot designs under DDR5, AMD has opted to go exclusively with RDIMMs for their latest generation of Threadripper processors. Which for memory makers has included putting together overclockable registered memory modules with ECC that support EXPO timings, such as the kits G.Skill and V-Color have announced this week with their Zeta R5 Neo and v-color DDR5 OC R-DIMM memory kits.
G.Skill’s Zeta R5 Neo product family and v-color’s OC R-DIMM are exclusively designed for AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 7000-series processors. Both vendors are currently offering two types of kits: a 64 GB quad-channel kit consisting of four 16 GB RDIMMs, and a 128 GB quad-channel kit featuring four 32 GB RDIMMs. For systems using the TRX50 platform, a single kit suffices, while the high-end workstation-class WRX90 platform requires two of these quad-channel kits to fully populate all eight channels.
G.Skill’s modules with ECC are rated for of DDR5-6400 CL32 39-39-102 at massive 1.40 Volts, whereas v-color promises data transfer rates of up to 7200 MT/s, never mentions timings or voltages, but stresses that its kits are aimed at TRX50-based machines.
G.Skill and v-color note that their overclockable RDIMMs, similar to other premium memory modules, are built using hand-selected memory ICs, making them better suited for overclocking. G.Skill’s modules come with very basic heat spreaders, which in case of DDR5 may become a limiting factor for overclocking potential. By contrast, v-color’s modules come with rather serious heat spreaders akin to those used for some server-grade modules.
All the overclockable RDIMM modules from G.Skill and v-color come with AMD’s EXPO profiles for simplified setup, with G.Skill using DDR5-6400 CL32 timings, while v-color runs at DDR5-7200 at unspecified timings.
The exact overclocking potential of G.Skill’s and v-color’s Threadripper memory kits remain to be seen. The actual I/O die powering Threadripper is the same I/O die as AMD’s other server processors, which is to say it’s been optimized for stability over performance – not to mention supporting a much larger amount of memory. Still, as we’ve seen on AMD’s consumer CPU platforms, the company’s memory controllers are no slouches. All the while memory vendors are already offering high-clocked RDIMM kits for Intel’s rival Sapphire Rapids Xeon platform.
G.Skill’s Zeta R5 Neo memory kits designed for AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 7000-series processors are already available at Newegg: the 64 GB kit is priced at $530, whereas the 128GB kit costs $1,070. This is of course a huge price premium, but this can be explained by the fact that we are talking about unique memory kits designed for very specific high-end CPUs.
As for v-color’s DDR5 OC R-DIMM memory kits for AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper TRX50 platform, the company says that they will be available in November on its website.
Source: AnandTech – G.Skill and V-Color Unveil Factory Overclocked ECC RDIMMs for Ryzen Threadripper 7000
Ian Hickson, a software engineer at Google who left the company after 18 years, reflects on his time at the firm in a blog post and why he thinks the firm lost its way. He joined in 2005 when its culture genuinely prioritized doing good, but over time he saw that culture erode into one focused on profits over users, he writes. The recent layoffs have damaged trust and morale across the company, he writes. An excerpt from the post: Much of these problems with Google today stem from a lack of visionary leadership from Sundar Pichai, and his clear lack of interest in maintaining the cultural norms of early Google. A symptom of this is the spreading contingent of inept middle management. Take Jeanine Banks, for example, who manages the department that somewhat arbitrarily contains (among other things) Flutter, Dart, Go, and Firebase. Her department nominally has a strategy, but I couldn’t leak it if I wanted to; I literally could never figure out what any part of it meant, even after years of hearing her describe it. Her understanding of what her teams are doing is minimal at best; she frequently makes requests that are completely incoherent and inapplicable. She treats engineers as commodities in a way that is dehumanising, reassigning people against their will in ways that have no relationship to their skill set. She is completely unable to receive constructive feedback (as in, she literally doesn’t even acknowledge it). I hear other teams (who have leaders more politically savvy than I) have learned how to “handle” her to keep her off their backs, feeding her just the right information at the right time. Having seen Google at its best, I find this new reality depressing.
There are still great people at Google. […] In recent years I started offering career advice to anyone at Google and through that met many great folks from around the company. It’s definitely not too late to heal Google. It would require some shake-up at the top of the company, moving the centre of power from the CFO’s office back to someone with a clear long-term vision for how to use Google’s extensive resources to deliver value to users. I still believe there’s lots of mileage to be had from Google’s mission statement (to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful). Someone who wanted to lead Google into the next twenty years, maximising the good to humanity and disregarding the short-term fluctuations in stock price, could channel the skills and passion of Google into truly great achievements.
I do think the clock is ticking, though. The deterioration of Google’s culture will eventually become irreversible, because the kinds of people whom you need to act as moral compass are the same kinds of people who don’t join an organisation without a moral compass.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – ‘Reflecting on 18 Years at Google’
The Beats Fit Pro, which Engadget named as the best wireless earbuds for working out, are on sale this Black Friday on Amazon for $159. The $41 discount is the lowest offered to date.
If you want to eliminate distractions at loud gyms the Beats Fit Pro have solid active noise cancellation technology, thanks to Apple’s H1 chip. The earbuds also have a built-in proprietary transducer that adds depth to the overall audio experience. The buds support Apple’s spatial audio technology, which can deliver a more immersive experience when streaming entertainment or listening to music on a commute. For what you’re paying, the Beats Fit Pro deliver ample bass and clear tones.
Battery life is another strong suit. With up to six hours of use on a single charge, and an additional 21 hours provided by the charging case, the earbuds offer a total of 27 hours of listening time with active noise cancellation or transparency mode activated. With Adaptive EQ mode on instead, there’s an extra hour on the earbuds and three more in the case, totaling 30 hours. The Fast Fuel feature ensures a quick recharge, offering an hour of noise-canceling playback with just a five-minute charge. In practical terms, this means the Beats Fit Pro can easily keep up with your daily activities, whether it’s a full day at the office or a commute. But importantly, the Beats Fit Pro also sport a comfortable design and flexible wingtip, that keeps them secure whether someone is running or weightlifting — or riding a bumpy subway.
Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-beats-fit-pro-drop-to-a-record-low-of-159-in-an-amazon-black-friday-deal-140037127.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – The Beats Fit Pro drop to a record low of 9 in an Amazon Black Friday deal
Our mouths might help keep our hunger in check. A recent study found evidence in mice that our brains rely on two separate pathways to regulate our sense of fullness and satiety—one originating from the gut and the other from cells in the mouth that let us perceive taste. The findings could help scientists better…
Source: Gizmodo – Your Tastebuds Help Tell You When to Stop Eating, New Research Suggests
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Cloudflare is a content-neutral Internet infrastructure service. The company aims not to interfere with the traffic of its clients and users but, in some cases, it has to take action. This means responding to DMCA subpoenas and takedown requests for hosted content, for example. In addition, Cloudflare now reports it has blocked access to ‘abusive’ content on its Ethereum gateway. […] In its most recent transparency report, Cloudflare further notes that it has implemented access restrictions on its public Ethereum gateway. The company doesn’t store any content on the Ethereum network, nor can it remove any. However, it can block access through its service.
If Cloudflare receives valid abuse reports or copyright infringement complaints, it will take appropriate action. The same applies to the gateway for the decentralized IPFS network. In its previous transparency report, Cloudflare already mentioned more than 1,000 IPFS actions a figure that increased slightly in the second half of last year. At the same time, Cloudflare also restricted access to 99 ‘items’ on the Ethereum network. Since these are ‘gateway’ related restrictions there’s no impact on the content hosted on IPFS or Ethereum. Instead, it will only make it impossible to access content through Cloudflare’s service.
It’s not clear how many of these restrictions are abuse or copyright-related, as not much context is provided. The Ethereum actions are, at least in part, a response to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s sanctions against the cryptocurrency tumbler Tornado Cash. “Those sanctions raise significant legal questions about the extent to which particular computer software, rather than individuals or entities that use that software, can be subject to sanctions,” Cloudflare writes. “Nonetheless, to comply with legal requirements, Cloudflare has taken steps to disable access through the Cloudflare-operated Ethereum Gateway to the digital currency addresses identified in the designation.” The report notes that the volume of valid DMCA notices Cloudflare received has increased, “up from 18 to 972 in the span of a year.” Meanwhile, the number of civil subpoenas it’s received, including those issued under the DMCA, has decreased. “In the second half of last year, the company received 20 civil subpoenas which targeted 57 domain names,” reports TorrentFreak. “That’s the lowest number since Cloudflare first disclosed this statistic five years ago, signaling a downward trend.”
Cloudflare’s latest Transparency Report is available here (PDF).
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Cloudflare Blocks Abusive Content On Its Ethereum Gateway
Google has updated its Bard AI chatbot, so you can use it to parse YouTube videos. In its most recent experiment update log, the company has announced it has expanded the capabilities of Bard’s YouTube extension, so when it’s enabled, the generative AI can “understand some video content.” For example, Google said you’d be able to ask Bard how many eggs were used in a video for an olive oil cake recipe.
Bard first gained the ability to pull data from YouTube in September after an update integrated it with other Google products, including Docs, Maps, Lens, Flights and Hotels. At that point, it couldn’t parse a video’s contents though.
Google claims people have been asking for “deeper engagement with YouTube videos” — but I guess that entails watching them less.
And Happy Thanksgiving, all! It’s a short, but sweet TMA today, but expect a tidal wave of Black Friday deals landing tomorrow — I suggest keeping an eye on this page.
— Mat Smith
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Black Friday 2023: The 63 best deals so far
Razer’s Black Friday deals knock up to 65 percent off gaming peripherals
What is going on with OpenAI and Sam Altman?
Broadcom closes its $61 billion megadeal with VMware
Japanese EV automaker HW Electro (HWE) says its Puzzle van will come to the US in 2025. It has rooftop solar panels and equipment for commercial disaster relief — including a crowbar… on the outside of the vehicle. It’ll be HWE’s first vehicle available in the US.
The nuclear research hub Idaho National Laboratory (INL) confirmed it was hacked earlier this week. SiegedSec, a group of self-proclaimed “gay furry hackers,” took responsibility for the attack and claimed they accessed sensitive employee data, like social security numbers, home addresses and more. The hacktivist group SiegedSec conducted a high-profile attack on NATO last month, leaking internal documents as a retaliation against those countries for their attacks on human rights.
“We’re willing to make a deal with INL. If they research creating irl (in real life) catgirls we will take down this post,” SiegedSec wrote in a post announcing the leak on Monday.INL has, unsurprisingly, promised nothing in the way of catgirls.
Teenage Engineering just announced the EP-133 K.O. II, a portable sampler with many tricks and the usual TE aesthetic. It’s also $300 — a bargain in TE terms. The K.O. II boasts 64MB of memory, which isn’t a lot, but TE products typically come with some tradeoffs. It should be enough for a bunch of samples and a few projects. There are 999 slots for samples and an internal microphone for making your own. Though this is, first and foremost, a sampler, it ships pre-filled with drum hits, synths and other sounds.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-googles-bard-ai-is-getting-better-at-understanding-youtube-121547943.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – The Morning After: Google’s Bard AI is getting better at understanding YouTube
Instagram launched the ability to download publicly viewable Reels in June, but it limited the feature’s availability to users on mobile in the US. Now, Instagram head Adam Mosseri has announced on his broadcast channel that the feature is rolling out to all users worldwide. Anybody on the app can now download public Reels to their devices and not just save them for viewing later. They simply have to tap on the Share button and start their download from there.
As TechCrunch reports, Mosseri explained during his broadcast that downloaded Reels will have the Instagram watermark with the account’s username, similar to downloaded TikTok videos. In addition, Reels will only come with music if they’re scored with original tracks. Instagram will strip their audio if they use licensed music as a background.
TikTok’s video downloading feature helps attract more users to the app, since it gives creators (and reposters) an easy way to share clips across platforms. People who don’t have TikTok may decide to sign up if they find creators they want to follow or if they want to see more similar types of content. Instagram could be looking to replicate that strategy, though users will have the ability to prevent their Reels from being download. To change their download options, they’ll have to go to Reels and Remix under Privacy in Settings and toggle off “Allow people to download your Reels.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagram-makes-public-reels-downloadable-for-everyone-120638475.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Instagram makes public Reels downloadable for everyone
Enlarge / Thirty-three engines fired to power the Super Heavy booster and Starship rocket into the sky. (credit: Stephen Clark / Ars Technica)
Welcome to Edition 6.20 of the Rocket Report! We apologize for missing last week, but both Stephen and I were in transit to South Texas for the Starship launch. To make up for it this week’s report is extra long, and a day early due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. But that doesn’t mean the spaceflight action stops, with an eagerly awaited hot fire test of the Ariane 6 rocket expected Thursday. See below for details on how to watch live.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
North Korea launches spy satellite. North Korea’s launch of a small, solid-fueled Chŏllima-1 rocket, which has a capacity of about 300 kg to low-Earth orbit, appears to have been successful, Reuters reports. Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said the US Space Force data had cataloged two new objects in an orbital plane consistent with the launch from North Korea at the time stated by Pyongyang.
Read 30 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Rocket Report: Beyond Gravity to study fairing reuse; North Korea launches satellite
NASA selected Blue Origin in February to launch the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission, a pair of smallsats that will study the interaction of the solar wind with the magnetosphere of Mars. The space agency now expects the mission will be on the first launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicle next year. SpaceNews reports: Neither Blue Origin nor NASA disclosed exactly where in the manifest of New Glenn launches ESCAPADE would take place. “It will be an early New Glenn mission and we’re going to be ready,” one Blue Origin executive, Ariane Cornell, said at the Satellite 2023 conference in March. At a Nov. 20 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations committee, Bradley Smith, director of NASA’s Launch Services Office, said he was “incredibly excited” about the ESCAPADE launch, which he said was scheduled for about one year. His charts, though, and past presentations, listed an August 2024 launch for ESCAPADE.
“It’s an incredibly ambitious first launch for New Glenn and we really appreciate the partnership,” he said. Later in the committee meeting, he confirmed that NASA expected ESCAPADE to be on the inaugural New Glenn launch. “We will very likely be the very first launch of New Glenn,” he said. That is acceptable, Smith said, since ESCAPADE is what NASA characterizes as a “class D” mission with a higher tolerance for risk. “We’re willing to take a little bit of risk with a price tag and a mission assurance model that reflects that risk.”
Besides the inherent technical risks in the first launch of a new rocket, there are also schedule risks. New Glenn development is years behind the original schedule Blue Origin put forward. The company has not provided recent updates about progress towards a first launch of the rocket, although Jarrett Jones, senior vice president for New Glenn at Blue Origin, said at World Satellite Business Week in September that the first flight vehicle would arrive at a Florida integration facility by the end of the year, with the company planning “multiple” launches of New Glenn in 2024.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – NASA Chooses Blue Origin’s Rocket To Launch Smallsat Mission To Mars
Broadcom’s mega $61 billion VMware acquisition has closed following considerable scrutiny by regulators, the company announced in a press release. With China recently granting approval for the acquisition with added restrictions, the network chip manufacturer had secured all the required approvals.
“Broadcom has received legal merger clearance in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, Israel, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and foreign investment control clearance in all necessary jurisdictions,” the company said. “We are excited to welcome VMware to Broadcom and bring together our engineering-first, innovation-centric teams.”
The Broadcom/VMware deal lacked the glamour of tech’s other mega acquisition involving Microsoft and Activision. However, San Jose-based Broadcom’s products form the structure of much of the internet, as they’re widely used for data centers, cloud providers and network infrastructure. VMware, meanwhile, makes virtualization and cloud computing software that allows corporations to safely link local networks with public cloud access.
That made VMware a logical target for Broadcom, but it also placed the acquisition in the crosshairs of regulators in multiple regions. The European Commission, for one, was concerned that Broadcom could harm competition by limiting interoperability between rival hardware and VMware’s server virtualization software. It also worried the company could either prevent or degrade access to VMware’s software, or bundle VMware with its own hardware products.
Broadcom gained EU approval for the deal in the summer though, mainly by providing IP access and source code for key network fiber optic components to its main rival, Marvell. The EU also concluded that fears of VMware bundling were unfounded and that Broadcom would still face competition in the storage adapter and NIC markets.
There were also concerns that tensions between China and the US could scuttle the deal, after the Biden administration announced new rules in October making it harder to export high-end chips to China. However, approval in that market was announced yesterday, with conditions imposed by China on how Broadcom sells products locally. Namely, it had to ensure that VMware’s server software was interoperable with rival hardware, China’s regulator said in a statement.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/broadcom-closes-its-61-billion-megadeal-with-vmware-083915996.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Broadcom closes its billion megadeal with VMware
GameMaker announced that it will be free to use for noncommercial, non-console projects, breaking away from Unity and its massive pricing controversy that saw game developers boycotting the engine. The company is also “eliminating its indie / creator tier monthly subscription fee in favor of a one-time paid licensing fee of $99,” reports The Verge. “Additionally, if you’re currently enrolled at the indie / creator tier and wish to pay the licensing fee, the subscription fees you’ve paid will be discounted from the price.” The Verge: Russell Kay, head of GameMaker, said that the changes were a way for the company to express its thanks to users, explaining that, since 2021, GameMaker has seen its user base triple in size. Kay also had some subtle but effective shade for GameMaker’s competitors. “We have seen other platforms making awkward moves with their pricing and terms, so we thought, what if we did the opposite, something that could actually be good for developers?” Kay wrote in the announcement.
Though customers currently enrolled in an enterprise-level subscription will see no changes to their plans, it seems like GameMaker is counting on the pricing update to draw more people to the software. “Our success is measured by the number of people making games!” Kay wrote.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – GameMaker Ditches Subscription Model For Indie Developers
Google has updated the Bard AI chatbot so you can have deeper and more meaningful conversations with it when it comes to YouTube videos. In its most recent experiment update log, the company has announced that it has expanded the capabilities of Bard’s YouTube extension so that when it’s enabled, the generative AI can “understand some video content.” For example, Google said you’d be able to ask Bard how many eggs were used in a video for an olive oil cake recipe. As Android Authority suggested, you’ll also likely be able to ask it for the name of specific tools in DIY videos. For food reviews, Bard may be able to tell you where certain restaurants discussed in videos are located, or where a specific cuisine came from.
Bard first gained the ability to pull data from YouTube in September after an update that integrates it with other Google products, including Docs, Maps, Lens, Flights and Hotels. It couldn’t parse a video’s contents, however, and couldn’t answer detailed questions about it. Google said it rolled out this update because it “heard you want deeper engagement with YouTube videos.” It also said that it has just taken the “first steps in Bard’s ability to understand YouTube videos,” which indicates that the technology could better analyze videos on the platform in the future. To be able to chat with Bard about YouTube videos, you’ll have to enable the YouTube extension on the chatbot’s web portal.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-bard-ai-chatbot-is-getting-better-at-understanding-youtube-videos-065614540.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Google’s Bard AI chatbot is getting better at understanding YouTube videos
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four days in exile, several staff researchers sent the board of directors a letter warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The previously unreported letter and AI algorithm was a key development ahead of the board’s ouster of Altman, the poster child of generative AI, the two sources said. Before his triumphant return late Tuesday, more than 700 employees had threatened to quit and join backer Microsoft in solidarity with their fired leader. The sources cited the letter as one factor among a longer list of grievances by the board that led to Altman’s firing. Reuters was unable to review a copy of the letter.
According to one of the sources, long-time executive Mira Murati mentioned the project, called Q*, to employees on Wednesday and said that a letter was sent to the board prior to this weekend’s events. After the story was published, an OpenAI spokesperson said Murati told employees what media were about to report, but she did not comment on the accuracy of the reporting. The maker of ChatGPT had made progress on Q* (pronounced Q-Star), which some internally believe could be a breakthrough in the startup’s search for superintelligence, also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as AI systems that are smarter than humans. Given vast computing resources, the new model was able to solve certain mathematical problems, the person said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company. Though only performing math on the level of grade-school students, acing such tests made researchers very optimistic about Q*’s future success, the source said.
Researchers consider math to be a frontier of generative AI development. Currently, generative AI is good at writing and language translation by statistically predicting the next word, and answers to the same question can vary widely. But conquering the ability to do math — where there is only one right answer — implies AI would have greater reasoning capabilities resembling human intelligence. This could be applied to novel scientific research, for instance, AI researchers believe. Unlike a calculator that can solve a limited number of operations, AGI can generalize, learn and comprehend. In their letter to the board, researchers flagged AI’s prowess and potential danger, the sources said without specifying the exact safety concerns noted in the letter. There has long been discussion among computer scientists about the danger posed by superintelligent machines, for instance if they might decide that the destruction of humanity was in their interest. Last night, OpenAI announced it reached an agreement for Sam Altman to return as CEO. Under an “agreement in principle,” Altman will serve under the supervision of a new board of directors.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – OpenAI Researchers Warned Board of AI Breakthrough Ahead of CEO Ouster
Brian Silvestro reports via Motor1.com: New Jersey announced a new rule set on Wednesday laying out plans to transition sales of light-duty vehicles in the state to 100-percent zero-emission by 2035. According to a statement released by the office of governor Phil Murphy, the law, titled the Advanced Clean Cars II rule, will come into effect starting in 2027, where manufacturers must ensure that zero-emissions vehicles represent 42 percent of sales in the state. That percentage will climb with each year until 2035, when it reaches 100 percent. Currently, EVs represent roughly 12 percent of all new vehicle sales, according to the governor’s office.
The new law will also put more stringent standards in place for traditional ICE-powered vehicles, with the goal of improving air quality in New Jersey communities and high-traffic corridors. While the announcement does not directly mention investment into charging infrastructure, the governor’s office points out its continued dedication to providing adequate charging locations across the state, claiming it has helped fund the installment of 2,980 charging stations with 5,271 ports at 680 locations. New Jersey is the ninth state to enact a ban on future ICE car sales, joining California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – New Jersey Moves To Ban New Gas Powered Vehicle Sales From 2035
Welcome to AI This Week, Gizmodo’s weekly roundup where we do a deep dive on what’s been happening in artificial intelligence.
Source: Gizmodo – After OpenAI’s Blowup, It Seems Pretty Clear That “AI Safety” Isn’t a Real Thing
Dan Robinson reports via The Register: Nvidia is facing legal action in the U.S. for theft of trade secrets from a German automotive company, which alleges its ex-employee made an epic blunder of showing something he shouldn’t have when minimizing a Powerpoint slide at a joint Microsoft Teams meeting both companies were attending. The automotive firm, Valeo Schalter und Sensoren, claims the flashing of its source code for the assisted parking app on the call is evidence to support its accusations that the ex-staffer stole the IP before leaving to join Nvidia. The two tech companies were both on the call as they were each suppliers on contract for a parking and driving assistance project with a major automotive OEM that was not named in the suit. Under the terms of the contract with the OEM, the suit states, engineers from both Valeo and Nvidia had to schedule collaboration meetings so that “Nvidia employees could ask Valeo employees questions about Valeo’s ultrasonic hardware and data associated with the hardware.”
The complaint [PDF], filed by Valeo in the US District Court for Northern California, goes on to allege misappropriation of trade secrets by Nvidia, through which the company claims the GPU-maker attempted to take a shortcut into the automotive marketplace by using its stolen software. Nvidia is a relative newcomer to the automotive market, introducing its Nvidia Drive platform at the CES trade show in 2015. Valeo says that it only discovered the theft during a conference call on March 8, 2022 between its engineers and those of Nvidia to collaborate on work for an automotive OEM, a customer of both companies. Valeo develops automotive hardware such as cameras and sensors, in addition to software to processes the data from the hardware. The court filing states that Valeo previously provided the OEM in question with both hardware and software for its autonomous vehicle technology, but in this instance, it asked Valeo to provide ultrasonic hardware only. For the software side, the OEM instead chose Nvidia. One of the Nvidia engineers on the call, named as Mohammad Moniruzzaman, was a former employee of Valeo, and during the call, made using Microsoft’s Teams software, he shared his screen in order to give a presentation containing questions for the Valeo participants.
Yet also visible on his screen after the presentation finished – or so the complaint alleges – was a window of source code, which the Valeo participants recognized as belonging to their company. According to the filing, one of the Valeo engineers succeeded in capturing a screenshot as evidence. According to Valeo, the source code file names that were allegedly visible in the screenshot were identical to those used in its source code, and it also claims the source code appeared to be identical to proprietary code maintained in Valeo’s repositories. The company says in the suit that it then conducted a comprehensive internal forensic IT audit, and alleges it discovered that Moniruzzaman had copied four repositories containing the code for Valeo’s parking and driving assistance software, prior to leaving the company in May 2021. […] The claim is that Valeo’s source code and documentation has been used in the development of Nvidia’s software, and this provided the GPU giant and its engineers with a shortcut in the development of its parking assistance code, saving Nvidia perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in development costs.
According to the court filing, Nvidia said it removed Moniruzzaman’s additions to its code. However, those additions underwent “a peer review process of 10-30 iterations of feedback loops” before the code was fully merged into Nvidia’s database. Valeo contends that this process of extensive edits by others means it is not realistic that Nvidia could have fully remove Moniruzzaman’s contributions. Valeo claims it has suffered competitive harm as a result of Nvidia’s action and as a result is seeking damages, to be determined at trial, as well as an injunction prohibiting Nvidia or its employees from using or disclosing Valeo’s trade secrets. A date for jury trial has yet to be announced.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Robocar Tech Biz Sues Nvidia, Claims Stolen Code Shared In Teams Meeting Blunder
