I found today’s puzzle to be an EXERCISE in patience, the kind where you know one of the groups from the first glance but have to wait until the very end to narrow down its members. If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Thursday, November 9, 2023, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and…
Source: LifeHacker – Today’s NYT Connections Hints (and Answer) for Thursday, November 9, 2023
Samsung has beat Apple to the chase by introducing a new generative AI model that’s expected to come to its devices soon. The model is called Samsung Gauss after Carl Friedrich Gauss, “the legendary mathematician who established normal distribution theory, the backbone of machine learning and AI.” CNBC reports: The AI system has a number of features: the first, Samsung Gauss Language, is a generative language model which can help compose emails and translate content, as well as “enhance the consumer experience by enabling smarter device control when integrated into products.” The second feature allows in-house software developers to write code quickly, while the third, Samsung Gauss Image, can generate or edit images.
“Samsung Gauss is currently used on employee productivity but will be expanded to a variety of Samsung product applications to provide new user experience in the near future,” Samsung said in a press release on Wednesday. Samsung could be amongst the first handset makers in the world to introduce generative AI to its devices. Daniel Araujo, Samsung’s vice president of the mobile business, said on the company’s earnings call last month that generative AI technology will likely reach customers next year.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Samsung Launches Generative AI Model Made For Its Devices
Enlarge / The military’s X-37B spaceplane landed last November to end the program’s sixth mission. (credit: US Space Force/Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks)
The US military’s reusable X-37B spaceplane will launch on the next flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, scheduled for December 7, officials announced on Wednesday.
This was unexpected because the spaceplane’s six previous missions launched on medium-lift Atlas V or Falcon 9 rockets. This next mission, the seventh by an X-37B spaceplane, will fly on a heavy-lift launcher for the first time.
The payload for the next Falcon Heavy rocket was a secret before the military’s announcement on Wednesday. The mission was known simply by the designation USSF-52, and it will take off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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Source: Ars Technica – In a surprise move, the military’s spaceplane will launch on Falcon Heavy
Nearly 120 days after authorizing an actors strike, SAG-AFTRA may have finally locked down a deal.
Source: Gizmodo – SAG-AFTRA Has a Tentative Deal That Could Bring the Hollywood Strike to an End
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record: A federal judge on Tuesday refused to bring back a class action lawsuit alleging four auto manufacturers had violated Washington state’s privacy laws by using vehicles’ on-board infotainment systems to record and intercept customers’ private text messages and mobile phone call logs. The Seattle-based appellate judge ruled that the practice does not meet the threshold for an illegal privacy violation under state law, handing a big win to automakers Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors, which are defendants in five related class action suits focused on the issue. One of those cases, against Ford, had been dismissed on appeal previously.
The plaintiffs in the four live cases had appealed a prior judge’s dismissal. But the appellate judge ruled Tuesday that the interception and recording of mobile phone activity did not meet the Washington Privacy Act’s standard that a plaintiff must prove that “his or her business, his or her person, or his or her reputation” has been threatened. In an example of the issues at stake, plaintiffs in one of the five cases filed suit against Honda in 2021, arguing that beginning in at least 2014 infotainment systems in the company’s vehicles began downloading and storing a copy of all text messages on smartphones when they were connected to the system. An Annapolis, Maryland-based company, Berla Corporation, provides the technology to some car manufacturers but does not offer it to the general public, the lawsuit said. Once messages are downloaded, Berla’s software makes it impossible for vehicle owners to access their communications and call logs but does provide law enforcement with access, the lawsuit said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Court Rules Automakers Can Record and Intercept Owner Text Messages
As mentioned last week, merged for the Linux 6.7 kernel is NVIDIA GSP firmware support in the Nouveau driver so that these NVIDIA firmware blobs can handle hardware initialization and power management related tasks. This support is optional right now for the GeForce RTX 20 / RTX 30 series hardware with Nouveau but necessary if wanting better performance via re-clocking the GPUs. The GSP firmware is a mandatory requirement for Nouveau with the NVIDIA RTX 40 GPUs and moving forward…
Source: Phoronix – NVIDIA Pushes 62MB Of GSP Binary Firmware Blobs Into Linux-Firmware.Git
Tim Hardwick reports via MacRumors: WhatsApp has introduced a new privacy feature that lets you hide your IP address from whoever you call over the encrypted communications platform. As it stands, one-to-one calls over WhatsApp are established as a direct peer-to-peer connection between users. While this ensures the best possible voice quality, it means the connected devices must reveal their IP addresses to each other. According to WhatsApp, the new privacy setting introduced today works differently by relaying all of your calls through WhatsApp’s servers to obfuscate your location, rather than connecting you directly to the person you are calling.
Meta engineers elaborated on the feature in a blog post: “Most calling products people use today have peer-to-peer connections between participants. This direct connection allows for faster data transfers and better call quality, but it also means that participants need to know each other’s IP addresses so that call data packets can be delivered to the correct device — meaning that the IP addresses are visible to both callers on a 1:1 call. IP addresses may contain information that some of our most privacy-conscious users are mindful of, such as broad geographical location or internet provider. To address this concern, we introduced a new feature on WhatsApp that allows you to protect your IP address during calls. With this feature enabled, all your calls will be relayed through WhatsApp’s servers, ensuring that other parties in the call cannot see your IP address and subsequently deduce your general geographical location.” WhatsApp notes that call quality might be reduced as a result of using the new setting. The feature can be enabled under “Advanced” privacy settings in the app.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – WhatsApp Now Lets You Hide Your IP Address During Calls
The LWN.net Weekly Edition for November 9, 2023 is available.
Source: LWN.net – [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for November 9, 2023
A robot in a South Korea distribution center crushed a man to death after the machine apparently failed to differentiate him from the boxes of produce it was handling. The Guardian reports: The man, a robotics company worker in his 40s, was inspecting the robot’s sensor operations at a distribution centre for agricultural produce in South Gyeongsang province. The industrial robot, which was lifting boxes filled with bell peppers and placing them on a pallet, appears to have malfunctioned and identified the man as a box, Yonhap reported, citing the police. The robotic arm pushed the man’s upper body down against the conveyor belt, crushing his face and chest, according to Yonhap. He was transferred to the hospital but died later, the report said. The BBC notes that the man was “checking the robot’s sensor operations ahead of its test run […] scheduled for November 8.” It was originally planned for November 6th, “but was pushed back by two days due to problems with the robot’s sensor,” the report adds.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Robot Crushes Man To Death After Misidentifying Him As a Box
The Ai Pin from Humane, a much-hyped startup founded by former Apple employees, will cost $699. That’a according to The Verge, which obtained documents about the device ahead of its official launch on November 9.
In addition, the Pin will reportedly have a monthly $24 subscription fee for access to T-Mobile’s cellular network and large language models from OpenAI and Microsoft to power its smarts.
The Ai Pin is a device that’s about the size of a large business card that clips on to your clothing magnetically and acts as a personalized assistant controlled via voice and touch. Notably, it doesn’t have a screen. Instead, it projects a barebones user interface onto the palm of your hand.
We expect to have more details about the Pin and confirmation of The Verge’s leak tomorrow once the device is officially released.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/humanes-ai-pin-will-reportedly-cost-699-235018028.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Humane’s Ai Pin will reportedly cost 9
Jason Koebler reports via 404 Media: Voters in Maine overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure Tuesday that enshrines the right to repair cars, a major win for consumers and a blow to auto manufacturers who have spent millions lobbying against similar legislation and fighting against it in the courts. “Question 4,” which enshrines consumers’ data access to car diagnostics for the purposes of repair, passed by a margin of 84.3-15.7 in Tuesday’s election with 94 percent of the votes tallied. The yes/no question was simple: “Do you want to require vehicle manufacturers to standardize on-board diagnostic systems and provide remote access to those systems and mechanical data to owners and independent repair facilities?” “Maine residents have won the right to control their destiny when it comes to car repairs,” Tommy Hickey, director of the Maine Automotive Right to Repair Coalition, told 404 Media. “There’s a new technology in cars, they’ve become computers on wheels, and with this law owners in Maine will be the gatekeepers of that information.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Voters Overwhelmingly Pass Car Right to Repair Law in Maine
Enlarge / The facility seen in this architect’s rendering will not be built. (credit: Idaho National Lab)
Nuclear power provides energy that is largely free of carbon emissions and can play a significant role in helping deal with climate change. But in most industrialized countries, the construction of nuclear plants tends to grossly exceed their budgeted cost and run years over schedule.
One hope for changing that has been the use of small, modular nuclear reactors, which can be built in a centralized production facility and then shipped to the site of their installation. But on Wednesday, the company and utility planning to build the first small, modular nuclear plant in the US announced it was canceling the project.
Small modular reactors take several steps to potentially cut costs. Their smaller size makes it easier for passive cooling systems to take over in the case of power losses (some designs simply keep their reactors in a pond). It also allows the primary components to be built at a central facility and then shipped to different plant sites, allowing a lot of the manufacturing equipment to be reused for all the sites that use the reactors.
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Source: Ars Technica – First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled
That sound you hear in the distance is the slow approach of Black Friday, steadily making its way into your holiday shopping, for better or worse. The deals have already begun, and we’ve got some doozies in today’s Dealmaster, including 4K TVs, headphones and audio gear, tons of tools, and Herman Miller office and gaming chairs.
Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.
Read on Ars Technica | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Dealmaster: Herman Miller chairs, AirPods, and more
The UBports Foundation announced today the release and general availability of Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-3 as the latest stable version of this Ubuntu-based privacy and freedom-respecting mobile operating system for smartphones and tablets.
The post Ubuntu Touch OTA-3 Out Now With OTA Support for PinePhone & PineTab Devices appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – Ubuntu Touch OTA-3 Out Now With OTA Support for PinePhone & PineTab Devices
Walmart’s early Black Friday deals are now live. They are the third major retailer after Target and Best Buy to kick off their Black Friday deals. Early Black Friday deals are actually good this year, and you should be checking them out if you haven’t already. I’ve covered how essential improving your TV’s sound…
Source: LifeHacker – These Are the Best Soundbar Deals During Walmart’s Black Friday Sale
Walmart’s early Black Friday deals are now live, with deals on smartwatches, laptops, TVs, and vacuums. They are the third major retailer after Target and Best Buy to kick off their Black Friday deals. Early Black Friday deals are actually good this year, and you should be checking them out if you haven’t already. One…
Source: LifeHacker – These Apple AirPods Are Only During Walmart’s Early Black Friday Sale
Enlarge (credit: The Washington Post / Contributor | The Washington Post)
After a viral TikTok trend spurred tens of thousands of car thefts this summer, cops in Washington, DC, started realizing that it was much easier to recover stolen vehicles that could be tracked with Apple AirTags.
Because of this, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) rolled out a pilot program this week, doling out free tracking devices to residents in DC areas where cops are seeing “the greatest increase in vehicle theft,” according to a press release from the office of DC mayor Muriel Bowser.
Over the next few days, MPD will hand out the tracking devices—both AirTags and Tiles—at distribution events, where officers will help residents hide the devices in their vehicles and pair the devices to their phones. Residents will be able to choose whether they want an AirTag or a Tile, MPD said, and once the device is installed, only the resident will have access to tracking information as the sole owner of the device, but they will be required to share data with police if their vehicle is stolen.
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Source: Ars Technica – AirTags are the new go-to tool for cops after spike in car thefts
Even as audiences gobble up salacious rumors about purported crises at Marvel, and perhaps an end to the dominance that superhero media has had on blockbuster moviemaking in the wake of a string critical and financial misfires, people love reading about people talking about comic book movies like they’re here to stay.…
Source: Gizmodo – Chris Nolan Doesn’t Want to Talk About The Batman, Because That’s All Anyone Will Talk About if He Does
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
Authorities on Wednesday arrested the owners of a southern Colorado funeral home after discovering 190 decaying, improperly stored bodies at their facility—a discovery made only after reports of a putrid smell seeping from the facility.
Jon and Carie Hallford, the owners of the Return to Nature Funeral Home, which claimed to provide environmentally friendly “green” burials, were arrested in Wagoner, Oklahoma, according to a news release from the office of Michael Allen, the district attorney for Colorado’s 4th judicial district.
The Hallfords were arrested without incident on four felony charges: abuse of a corpse, theft, money laundering, and forgery. The probable cause affidavit is sealed, but Allen told reporters at a press conference Wednesday that he would not contest releasing it to the public at a later date, according to NPR.
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Source: Ars Technica – Funeral home of horrors: Owners arrested after 190 rotting corpses found
There’s a moment, a little over a minute into the announce video, where Chroma Console finally starts to make sense. Up until that point it seems like a really excellent, but rather straightforward multi-effect pedal. And if you’re familiar with Hologram Electronics at all, you know the company doesn’t really do “straightforward.”
It starts small. After introducing you to the four different effect modules — Character, Movement, Diffusion and Texture — a hand cranks a knob while someone plays the drums and this doubled phasing tape effect comes out of the speakers. Interesting. Then some text on the screen lets you know that, hey, you can rearrange the effect modules. So if you want everything to feed into the fuzz mode of Character, you can do that.
Then at the 1:37 mark of the video, we’re introduced to Gestures. It’s basically the same sort of motion controls and automation that you’ll find on many modern synths, except this is a guitar pedal. Instead of having to be glued to an expression pedal or implement some complicated MIDI setup, you can just press a button and turn some knobs. This allows you to crank the distortion of only part of a riff, or have pitch shifted sparkles erupt at regular intervals. This sort of simplified automation is all but unheard of on a guitar pedal.
The four modules themselves are pretty versatile, though. Each of them has five different modes, for a total of 20 effects. Character is where you’ll find overdrive, fuzz, compression and swell effects to shape your tone. Movement, unsurprisingly, is where modulation like doubling, vibrato, phaser and tremolo live. Diffusion is for time based effects, like delay and echo, including some with that trademark Hologram glitchy weirdness. And Texture is like a dash of finishing salt on your tone, here are filters, compressors and tap emulators.
There’s also a master Drift effect which introduces hints of randomness and instability. Plus Capture, which does dual (but very similar) roles as an infinite sustainer or a looper with up to 30 seconds of record time.
Hologram Electronics made sure to outfit Chroma Console with all manner of useful features beyond the effects, too. It’s got stereo ins and outs, MIDI over 5-pin DIN and USB-C, expression pedal input and 80 user presets. The two foot switches are also assignable, so you can turn off only specific effects without getting down on your knees.
The whole thing seems like a unique take on what appears at first glance to be a pretty simple multi-effect pedal. Chroma Console is available now direct from Hologram Electronics for $399, though quantities are limited.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/chroma-console-is-hologram-electronics-unique-take-on-a-multi-effect-pedal-221501285.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Chroma Console is Hologram Electronics’ unique take on a multi-effect pedal
