Apple is looking to have its newest product, the Vision Pro headset, ready for launch in February according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. To meet this launch window manufacturers in China are currently working at “full speed” to ensure enough units are ready to go for customers eager to try out Apple’s newest offering.
Of course, it’s not
Source: Hot Hardware – Apple Vision Pro Headset Production Hits Full Speed To Hit This Launch Target
2023 is almost over, folks. I’d say, “We made it,” but who am I kidding? 2024 will begin, and all the same shit that made 2023 a non-stop hellscape will continue in perpetuity. But 2023 did have a lot of cool games, and every December, we gather to talk about our favorites. We’re doing it here at Kotaku, as well. You…
Source: Kotaku – Kotaku Asks: What’s Your Favorite Game Of 2023?
Enlarge / NREL has taken some of the hassle out of getting permits for projects like these. (credit: owngarden)
Can government agencies develop software to help cut bureaucratic red tape through automation? The answer is “yes,” according to the promising results achieved by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which has saved thousands of hours of labor for local governments by creating a tool called SolarAPP+ (Solar Automated Permit Processing Plus) for residential solar permits.
“We estimate that automatic SolarAPP+ permitting saved around 9,900 hours of… staff time in 2022,” NREL staff wrote in the report, “SolarAPP+ Performance Review (2022 Data). “Based on median timelines, a typical SolarAPP+ project is permitted and inspected 13 business days sooner than traditional projects… SolarAPP+ has eliminated over 134,000 days in permitting-related delays.”
SolarAPP+ automates over 100 compliance checks in the permitting process that are usually the responsibility of city, county, or town employees, according to Jeff Cook, SolarAPP+ program lead at NREL and first author of the report. It can be more accurate, thorough, and efficient than a time-pressured local government employee would be.
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Source: Ars Technica – Government makes an app to cut down government’s role in solar permitting
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, and several other telescopes are getting into the holiday spirit with two mind-blowing images from space. While images of NGC 2264 and UGC 8091 may only appear to some as tokens of holiday spirit, astronomers are seeking much more information from them.
The newest image of NGC 2264,
Source: Hot Hardware – NASA Shares Mind-Blowing Images Of A Christmas Tree Cluster And Snow Globe In Space
It’s been a busy year for spaceflight — the busiest ever, in fact. This fall, space companies once again broke the record for successful orbital launches in a single year with 2023’s 180th flight. That record was broken when SpaceX sent up Starlink satellites on November 22, according to Ars Technica. The number has since climbed to 200.
That pace has been driven in no small part by Elon Musk’s aerospace venture, which set a goal of hitting 100 launches in 2023 and is nearly there, with 92 as of December 7. Private companies have become key players in the new space race, not only vying to serve as launch providers for science and communications missions but also ushering in the era of space tourism (for anyone rich enough to nab a ticket). But spaceflight is hard, especially if you’re trying to change the game with design innovations, and for all the wins in 2023, there have been plenty of hiccups. Here’s a look at how some of the leading private space companies made out this year.
SpaceX seemingly didn’t stop once to catch its breath in 2023. The company managed a record-setting run of orbital launches with its reusable Falcon 9 and partially reusable Falcon Heavy rockets, with the lion’s share dedicated to delivering its Starlink internet satellites to orbit (there are now more than 5,000 of them circling Earth). SpaceX also delivered payloads for other entities, including NASA, and carried out multiple crewed flights with its Dragon capsule. Four astronauts arrived at the International Space Station in March aboard a Crew Dragon, and Axiom Space contracted SpaceX for a private astronaut mission that flew to the ISS in May.
As for its experimental Starship flights, things were expectedly a bit more volatile. Starship is the biggest and most powerful launch vehicle built to date, and is designed to support future human spaceflight missions, including NASA’s return to the moon as soon as 2025. The spacecraft itself is 165 feet tall, and when stacked on top of the Super Heavy rocket, the two tower at a combined 397 feet. Both Starship and Super Heavy are planned to be fully reusable. It’s all still in development, and after a few years of suborbital flight tests without Super Heavy — Starship has six of its own Raptor engines that enable flight — the vehicle advanced to orbital tests in 2023.
SpaceX launched Starship for the first time in an integrated flight with its Super Heavy rocket on April 20, and there were problems from the moment liftoff began. Multiple engines failed, and when Starship started its flip maneuver that allows for stage separation about 3 minutes in, it just kept spinning. It was eventually given the command to self-destruct, ending the test with an explosion.
The launch left behind a lot of damage on the ground, too, tearing up the launchpad at SpaceX’s Boca Chica test site, creating a sizable crater and starting a 3.5 acre fire on the grounds of a protected wildlife refuge. But for SpaceX, it was still considered a success — its goal was just to clear the tower. Starship made it to an altitude of about 24 miles before it got caught in that uncontrolled spin. Nevertheless, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded Starship after the destructive test, and ordered the company to complete dozens of corrective actions before it could fly again.
Starship did fly again before the end of 2023, and again Starship exploded. This time, though, Starship officially made it to space, climbing to about 92 miles above Earth. It also performed SpaceX’s first attempt at hot staging — where the upper stage begins to fire its engines while still attached to its lower stage — and was able to complete separation from the Super Heavy booster. It fell well short of the planned 90-minute flight, lasting only around eight minutes, but it demonstrated hot staging was possible.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin had a strong run between late 2021 and 2022 with its reusable New Shepard suborbital booster and capsule, completing six crewed flights to the edge of space following years of tests and payload missions for industry clients including NASA. But in September 2022, one of its rockets suffered a main engine failure during an uncrewed research mission, and New Shepard spent a subsequent 15 months grounded.
After investigations into the cause of the event, the company’s then-CEO Bob Smith — who is stepping down in the new year — said in June 2023 that New Shepard would again “be ready to go fly within the next few weeks” pending FAA approval. The FAA closed its investigation at the end of September and gave Blue Origin 21 corrective actions to complete before New Shepard could take to the skies again. Around that time, Ars Technica reported that sources close to the matter said Blue Origin was targeting an October return to flight, but that window came and went with no liftoff or further updates. While it was starting to look like Blue Origin wouldn’t fly at all in 2023, the company finally announced New Shepard’s return in mid-December, and pulled off a successful suborbital payload flight on December 19.
It’s mostly been crickets for Blue Origin’s still-in-development New Glenn, as the company races to get it ready for its debut. New Glenn, a partially reusable heavy lift vehicle, is expected to make its inaugural flight sometime in 2024. It’s already been tapped by NASA to send a pair of small satellites to Mars later that year, but the timeline keeps slipping. It was originally supposed to launch in 2020, but was later rescheduled to 2021, then 2022 and now 2024. The company shared some photos of the rocket’s first and second stage being assembled at its Florida factory over the summer, and confirmed to the Orlando Sentinel that it was still shooting for next year.
Blue Origin has also been busy building engines for another launch provider, United Launch Alliance, which will be used for ULA’s heavy-lift Vulcan Centaur rocket. Both New Glenn and Vulcan will rely on Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine, and have faced delays tied to its development. Most recently, in July, CNBC reported that one of these engines exploded during testing at Blue Origin’s West Texas facility.
ULA had a quiet year as well, carrying out only three launches in 2023 with its Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy rockets — down from eight the year before. Both rockets are in the process of winding down their operations ahead of their official retirement. Delta IV Heavy has just one flight left, which is expected to take place in 2024, and all of Atlas V’s remaining flights have been sold and scheduled out over the next several years. One of ULA’s few 2023 launches was the first flight in its partnership with Amazon, and an Atlas V rocket successfully delivered two of the company’s prototype Project Kuiper internet satellites to orbit.
Most of ULA’s attention right now is focused on putting the final touches on Vulcan ahead of its maiden flight. Vulcan has been in development for roughly a decade, and it, too, has faced years of delays. There was some hope it would finally launch in the first half of 2023, with the company targeting liftoff in May, but after the explosion of a Centaur upper stage during tests, it pushed this target to the end of the year. In October, ULA had said it was planning to launch Vulcan for the first time on Christmas Eve from Cape Canaveral, Florida. But, in an update posted this week, the company confirmed Vulcan wouldn’t be flying in 2023 after all.
Following a successful WDR, the launch of ULA’s first #VulcanRocket flight test and #Cert1 mission is planned for Jan. 8, 2024, pending range approval. The Vulcan VC2S rocket will launch from SLC-41 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. https://t.co/xFQoT0042V pic.twitter.com/gkHOBFF6UT
— ULA (@ulalaunch) December 14, 2023
The rocket completed some critical tests in December, and is now scheduled to fly on January 8, 2024. Vulcan’s first flight, dubbed Certification-1, will send Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander to the moon. Once Vulcan is in operation, ULA will start ramping up flights again. It’s already got a contract with Amazon for 38 Project Kuiper launches on Vulcan. It just needs to get off the ground first.
Over the last few years, Rocket Lab has risen as a company to watch in the launch sector. In the first few months of 2023, it seemed on track to beat its 2022 record of nine orbital launches in one year with its Electron rocket. The company told SpaceFlight Now it was targeting 15 launches this time around. It made it to seven by the end of August, but in September, a problem with the rocket’s upper stage resulted in its failure to reach orbit. Rocket Lab has at least three dozen successful Electron flights under its belt, and only a handful of failures, but the latest is the third such failure in as many years.
Whether or not it proves to be a major setback has yet to be seen. The FAA in October cleared Rocket Lab to resume flights following the finalization of its investigation into the issue, which wrapped up in November. According to Rocket Lab, the problem was caused by “the rare interaction” of “three rare conditions” in the low-pressure space environment that created “an unexpected electrical arc” within the power supply system for the engine’s motor controllers, “shorting the battery packs that provide power to the launch vehicle’s second stage.” The company was still able to return to flight before the end of the year. On December 15, an Electron rocket delivered a Japanese satellite to orbit in a mission dubbed “The Moon God Awakens.”
Rocket Lab has been experimenting with different ways to recover its Electron boosters after flight —including mid-air catch attempts via helicopter — as it works toward rocket reusability. It’s also developing a medium-lift, partially reusable launch vehicle, Neutron, that’s expected to be completed in 2024.
Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, managed a steady cadence of flights this year with its VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane. The rocket-powered craft made six flights in six months in 2023, including its first ever space tourism trip in August. In addition to research missions, it’s now completed a total of four flights with paying tourists on board, all of them completed between this summer and fall.
The company took a bit of a hit on the stock market in December, though, after Branson said he wouldn’t be putting any more of his own money into it. Speaking to the Financial Times, Branson said, “We don’t have the deepest pockets after COVID, and Virgin Galactic has got $1 billion, or nearly. It should, I believe, have sufficient funds to do its job on its own.” Following his comments, shares took a nosedive. But, they’ve since climbed back up.
Virgin Orbit, on the other hand, didn’t fare so well in 2023. Branson’s Virgin Galactic spinoff announced in May that it was shutting down a month after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company was formed in 2017 with the intention of becoming a launch provider for small satellite missions. It had a unique approach to getting payloads to space; Virgin Orbit used a modified Boeing 747 plane to launch its rocket, LauncherOne, from the air.
But it struggled to keep up with the competition, and in January, it suffered a failure during what was the first ever orbital launch from the UK. As a result, the satellites it had been commissioned by the UK and US governments to deliver didn’t make it to orbit. It was the company’s second failure out of a total of just six missions, and it proved unable to rebound.
California-based Relativity Space has been working for years to build the first fully 3D-printed reusable rockets, with plans for an eventual medium-to-heavy-lift vehicle that could send missions to the moon and Mars. Its first rocket, Terran 1, had its inaugural launch in March this year, but it failed not long after liftoff. It hit some key milestones, though, making it through Max-Q (the point of maximum dynamic pressure on a spaceship during flight) and stage separation. Now, Relativity Space is turning its attention to its larger vehicle, Terran 2, which it plans to have ready for launch in 2026 from Cape Canaveral.
ABL Space, also based in California, conducted its own first flight in 2023 with the launch of its RS1 rocket. Shortly after liftoff, all nine of RS1’s engines shut down, causing the vehicle to crash back down to Earth. In a Substack post at the end of October, CEO Harry O’Hanley detailed some of the work the company has been doing in the months since the first flight to prepare for its second launch, but no date for Flight 2 has been announced just yet.
In many ways, 2023 has felt like a primer for what’s to come in 2024, which is shaping up to be a big year for spaceflight based on the timelines of current projects, both private and government-sponsored. SpaceX has already said it’s planning to hit 12 launches a month in 2024, which would bring it to 144 by the end of the year.
This year marked the end of the road for Arianespace’s long-running Ariane 5 rocket, which has become the leading launch vehicle in Europe for heavy missions over its 27 years of service. Ariane 5 had its final flight in July, leaving the continent with few launch options for big missions until the release of its successor, Ariane 6. Like others, though, Ariane 6 has been hit by delay after delay over the years, pushing it way behind its originally targeted 2020 debut. The rocket, which Arianespace is developing for the European Space Agency, is expected to make its first flight in summer 2024.
NASA and Boeing are planning the first crewed flight of the Starliner reusable spacecraft capsule, which after being back for the umpteenth time this year, is now slated to be ready around March 2024. NASA also plans to launch the next phase of its moon mission, Artemis II, as early as November 2024. It will be the second flight for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and will have four astronauts aboard the Orion capsule for a lunar flyby. But as always, it’d be reasonable to expect some delays.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spacex-dominated-private-spaceflight-in-2023-but-its-competitors-mostly-arent-quitting-153050005.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – SpaceX dominated private spaceflight in 2023, but its competitors (mostly) aren’t quitting
We’re not quite done with video game showcases for the year 2023. Devolver Digital is squeezing in one more in the form of its annual Public Access Holiday Special. The stream starts at 11AM ET and you can watch it below.
It seems like the publisher’s going to stick to form by delivering some offbeat skits (including a musical number and “a surprisingly detailed cooking segment”) alongside more details on some of its upcoming games. Expect fresh looks and additional info on Baby Steps (think QWOP but 3D and with a story), Pepper Grinder and the impossibly charming-looking The Plucky Squire at the very least.
We’re very much looking forward to Baby Steps, which is slated for a summer 2024 debut, so extra details about that one will be more than welcome. I’m personally hoping for an update on Skate Story after Devolver delayed that one (and several other games) to 2024.
G.Skill is arguably best known for its ever-evolving lineup of enthusiast memory products, such as its Trident and Ripjaws RAM, but it actually has an expansive lineup that extends into CPU coolers, power supplies, PC cases, and of course peripherals like keyboards and mice, to name a few. Adding to that latter category is G.Skill’s new WigiDash
Source: Hot Hardware – G.Skill’s WigiDash PC Command Panel For Gamers Is Coming For Stream Deck’s Lunch Money
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
I like the idea of drawing the year to a close with some good news for a change, and I think maybe the US Environmental Protection Agency does as well. On Wednesday, the EPA published its Automotive Trends Report, which now included data for model-year 2022 vehicles.
And the data is good: record-low carbon emissions and record-high fuel economy, and the biggest improvement year on year for almost a decade.
For MY2022, the EPA says that the average real-world CO2 emissions for all new vehicles fell by 10 g/mile to 337 g/mile, the lowest average it has ever measured. Similarly, real-world fuel economy increased by 0.6 mpg for MY2022, to 26 mpg—this, too, is a record high and the single-largest year-on-year improvement for both CO2 and mpg for nine years.
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Source: Ars Technica – EVs and hybrids had a noticeable effect on US fuel consumption, says EPA
The initial pitch for the $380 Logitech Astro A50 X Lightspeed headset sounds like an infomercial. It’s as if a revived, gamer-ified Billy Mays made a 30-second TV pitch sounding off: “Are you tired of shoving all those dongles in your consoles? Do you hate that it’s so hard to use the same headset across all your…
Source: Gizmodo – Logitech Astro A50 X Review: Ditching All Your Dongles Means Dealing with a Mess of Wires
When we talk about sex, some of the most widely-used euphemisms point to how private the act usually is. We refer to what we do “behind closed doors” or “in the bedroom.” Naturally, then, the thought of taking the show on the road is taboo and sexy. Public play is a pretty common fantasy because it feels a little risky (and sometimes is). You can bring it to life without going all the way to Pound Town by engaging in public foreplay—but there’s a respectful and safe way to do it.
It’s hard to know exactly how common the sex-in-public fantasy really is, but 2018 research suggests that novelty and adventure are elements of the third most common fantasy genre for Americans, right behind threesomes and BDSM. For what it’s worth, while working on this article, every time I tried to Google for information, I mostly got links to porn, where there are tons of staged upskirt videos of women on buses and clips of performers banging while seemingly unsuspecting friends and family are mere feet away.
Because we live in a capitalist society, we can gauge the popularity of this fantasy in a more money-minded way. If people didn’t want to take their play out into the real world, we wouldn’t be able to buy wearable toys designed to be tucked discreetly into our undies and controlled by an app on a partner’s phone, would we?
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter how common the fantasy is. You’re here looking for information, so it’s important to at least one person and that’s what counts. The issue with fantasies is they can be abstract or too complicated. There are easy ways to implement public foreplay into your sex life without orchestrating overly complex scenarios.
I spoke to Amanda, aka “The Kink Consultant,” a sex and relationship coach, about ways you and your partner can pull this off on your next night out. Here are a few tips:
First, make sure you’re at a busy restaurant or bar, as noise and general commotion will actually give you some cover.
Try the toy or wearable vibrator in private first to get a feel for how it works and how you like it.
Only insert it when you’re going to start playing; if you do it at the start of the night, “things could get uncomfortable if it’s being worn for too long.”
Think outside the box: “Restrictive devices like a chastity belt or cage can add spice. Using a butt plug or nipple clamps can provide some tantalizing fun.”
Discuss the strategy with your partner before you get to your chosen site. Have a plan in place for what you’ll do if you end up not enjoying it, for instance, and set some clear guidelines for when you’ll leave to go home and really get busy. Setting up a timeline and boundaries might seem a little clinical, but it doesn’t have to zap the fun out of your adventure: “It can add a little extra spice for the controller to give the directions to the wearer,” Amanda says. If you’re handling the directing, something as simple as handing the toy over and telling them to go to the bathroom to put it on can be exciting.
You can also try a few non-toy options, like heading to the bathroom and removing your undies, then slipping them in your partner’s hand when you return to the date. Hell, gamify it by challenging each other to see who can talk the dirtiest throughout dinner. Whichever person folds and asks for the check first because they’re ready to get out of there has to pay the bill.
All of this is fun and good, but it’s morally wrong to make your sexy adventure someone else’s problem, so be respectful of everyone around you at all times. The presence of strangers is kind of the whole crux of the fantasy, but they should never, ever know what you’re up to. It’s not fair to them.
“Consent is key and bystanders should never be exposed to your play,” says Amanda. “Busy and loud places allow for more anonymity—which means you’ll be able to get away with a little more without being noticed.”
If you’re using a wearable vibrator, make sure you gauge how loud it is in your at-home trial run and nix it if it’s going to be audible to people around you. If you’re planning to talk dirty at the dinner table, keep your voices low. In addition to being respectful of others, it can actually be more fun for you if you set a no-touching rule while you’re out, waiting instead until you’re somewhere more private. Amanda even suggests planning your outfit around your plans, pointing out that skirts and looser-fitting clothing can make it easier to adjust things without drawing attention. A loose top can obscure clamps and a long skirt can hide the fact that you’re going commando. Planning goes a long way, so don’t leave anything to chance.
Source: LifeHacker – The Dos and Don’ts of Public Foreplay
At one moment in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, characters are running through a mutated jungle, chased by lion-sized cockroaches while avoiding violent, human-eating plants. In another moment, multiple characters are standing around, their hair flowing wildly, delivering wooden dialogue that’s almost as painful for…
Source: Gizmodo – Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Has Its Moments, But Mostly Fizzles
Five years in and Bethesda’s Fallout 76 is still resonating with gamers, with 17 million players taking a dive into the game’s Wastelanders update. Bethesda shared this information on its Fallout blog, and also went on to reveal key details about what players can look forward to in 2024 stating, “we thought this the perfect time to look forward
Source: Hot Hardware – Fallout 76 Holds Strong With 17M Gamers, Teases Map Expansion And New Content In 2024
Over 90,000 users on X experienced an outage on Thursday morning, marking the platform’s most severe outage since Elon Musk’s takeover in October of 2022, according to Bloomberg. Data from Google Trends shows that many users rushed to Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads during the outage.
Source: Gizmodo – Users Flock to Threads as X Suffers Largest Outage Since Musk Takeover
Three methods to install Transmission on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish using APT, Flatpak with Flathub or Snap with the command-line terminal.
Source: LXer – Guide to Install Transmission on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04
Enlarge / The iPhone 15 Pro. (credit: Apple)
Apple’s latest research about running large language models on smartphones offers the clearest signal yet that the iPhone maker plans to catch up with its Silicon Valley rivals in generative artificial intelligence.
The paper, entitled “LLM in a Flash,” offers a “solution to a current computational bottleneck,” its researchers write.
Its approach “paves the way for effective inference of LLMs on devices with limited memory,” they said. Inference refers to how large language models, the large data repositories that power apps like ChatGPT, respond to users’ queries. Chatbots and LLMs normally run in vast data centers with much greater computing power than an iPhone.
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Source: Ars Technica – Apple wants AI to run directly on its hardware instead of in the cloud
The largest lake in Earth’s history is now in the Guinness Book of World Records. The Paratethys—or Lake Paratethys, if you will—and contained 10 times more water than all of Earth’s modern lakes. In other words, it’s long overdue for its place in the Guinness Book.
Source: Gizmodo – Behold the Mega Lake: Earth’s Largest Lake in History Lands in Guinness Book of Records
It’s been an interesting few years for Huawei. After the Chinese giant’s initial struggle with the US trade sanctions, it would end up with a surprise mobile resurgence featuring homegrown processors — ones that are just two generations behind the competition. Not only that, the Chinese government has since allocated billions of dollars to boost its silicon industry, so much that Huawei is already working towards a self-sufficient chip network. It’s as if former President Donald Trump’s earlier attempts to starve Huawei of vital inputs eventually accelerated China’s semiconductor development.
Trump’s first strike on Huawei was the declaration of a national emergency in May 2019, which saw the Commerce Department add the company to its Entity List, citing surveillance concerns and links to the Chinese state security. As such, Google could no longer provide Android support to Huawei, thus causing the Mate 30 series and later models to miss out on Google apps (they would eventually adopt Huawei’s Android replacement, HarmonyOS, two years later).
In November 2019, the FCC banned carriers from buying Huawei and ZTE networking gear with government subsidies.The following March, Trump signed a bill that would reimburse the replacement of Chinese gear — even if it meant spending an estimated $1.8 billion. Huawei attempted to sue the FCC over these restrictions, but the court sided with the regulator.
The tech war heated up rapidly in May 2020, when the US further restricted Huawei’s access to American equipment and software. This meant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s leading fab, would have to stop producing HiSilicon chips for Huawei — its then second-largest customer, after Apple. Likewise, Samsung and SK Hynix had to stop selling chips to the Chinese brand by the September 15, 2020 deadline. As Bloomberg’s teardown of the latest Huawei smartphones revealed, the company didn’t have a problem stockpiling these Korean memory chips.
For processors, Huawei had no choice but to rely more on local chip makers, namely Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and Shanghai IC R&D Center. That meant a significant downgrade, though: SMIC had just started mass-producing 14nm chips for Huawei then, whereas TSMC reached 5nm later that year and supplied Kirin 9000 processors for Huawei’s Mate 40. That would be the final “high-end” Kirin chip, Huawei’s mobile boss Richard Yu said at the time.
Qualcomm was eventually allowed to supply 4G chips to Huawei as of November 2020, but that’s four G, and market share figures don’t lie. The once-leading brand in China dropped to just 16 percent locally in January 2021 (and then down to a mere 6 percent in Q2 2022), as noted by Counterpoint. Huawei’s global market share has been negligible since 2021. According to both Counterpoint and Statista, though, since Huawei sold the Honor brand in November 2020, the spin-off has been able to claim one of the top China quarterly chart positions all this time.
China’s chip investment finally paid off when SMIC made a 7nm breakthrough in August 2022 — a leap from 14nm in just two years — faster than it took TSMC or Samsung, according to TechInsights. What’s more, this achievement was apparently done without using the most advanced lithography equipment, which were largely exclusive to the likes of ASML and Nikon. It wasn’t until earlier this year that the US convinced the Netherlands and Japan to restrict China’s access to advanced chipmaking machinery.
As Bloomberg would later find out in a lengthy investigation, this might have been the fruition of a Shenzhen city government investment fund from 2019 that helped Huawei build “a self-sufficient chip network.” Through a network of enterprises, Huawei could stealthily gain access to lithography tech while exchanging experts to work on each others’ turfs, without raising any flags. Huawei apparently even managed to hire several former ASML employees, which was likely key to reaching the 7nm node process for its latest processor (the 5G-capable HiSilicon Kirin 9000S, fabricated by SMIC). Benchmarks indicate that this chip’s performance is on par with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 from late 2020, thus suggesting that it’s around two generations behind the leading competition.
Huawei then took a rather unusual approach to launch its Kirin 9000S smartphones at the beginning of September this year. Without any launch event or teaser, the company simply announced on Weibo that the Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro were immediately available. This surprise stunt coincided with the US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s visit to China, which led many to believe that Huawei received special orders from certain authorities to hastily launch these 5G devices ahead of schedule. This was quickly followed by the China’s announcement of a $40 billion fund to further boost its chip industry, as well as the launch of two more phones, the Mate 60 Pro+ and the Mate X5 foldable, a week later.
While this may seem a temporary win for China, the country actually saw 10,900 chip-related companies close down in 2023 (as of December 11) — a staggering 90-percent year-on-year increase, which is a sign of a bad economy, according to TMTPost. On the flip side, 65,700 new chip-related companies registered in the same period, which is a 9.5 percent increase year-on-year. The report added that the China-made RAM chips and processors on Huawei’s Mate 60 series are an indication of the growing reliance on the local supply chain, which will continue to drive the long-term development of the Chinese semiconductor industry.
As much as the US government wants to limit China’s access to high-end tech, the truth is western companies still want to tap into the big market in the east. NVIDIA is a prime example, as it’s still in talks with the authorities on the specifications of AI chips that it can sell to China, without breaching US export rules. “What we cannot allow them to ship is the most sophisticated, highest-processing power AI chips, which would enable China to train their frontier models,” Raimondo told Reuters. Of course, failing that, China may eventually come up with an AI chip that’s just as impressive, if not more — like its recent claim of a light-based chip that is apparently 3,000 times faster than NVIDIA’s A100.
The US-China tech war isn’t just limited to chips, either. The Biden administration is proposing to cut tax credits on electric vehicles that contain Chinese components — especially batteries, as an attempt to wean local car brands off Chinese components. The trade-off here is always the cost savings (as is the idea behind Ford and CATL’s Michigan battery plant), as well as the US market missing out on potential breakthroughs on power density or output, namely the upcoming 150kWh battery demoed in Chinese EV manufacturer Nio’s ET7, which reached a range of around 650 miles. Who knows, maybe someday Huawei may want to sell its Aito or Luxeed electric cars in the US, too — if it’s allowed to enter at all.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-chinas-chip-production-boomed-in-2023-despite-sanctions-143058510.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – How China’s chip production boomed in 2023 despite sanctions
There’s a lot out there on the web, if you haven’t noticed—and a fair amount being added each day, too. One of the ways to tackle an ever-growing reading list of articles is to have stories read out to you from your phone, which is now something the default browsers on both Android and iOS can handle.
This feature is of course also useful for the visually impaired, and it’s not difficult to get up and running. It means you can be listening to articles from your favorite websites while doing the dishes, driving, nodding off to sleep, taking a walk, or doing anything else where you can spare some attention for an audio source.
If you think about all the places where you can catch up on podcasts or audiobooks, webpages that are read out to you can work the same way. Everything you need is already on your phone, and you don’t have to install any additional apps.
On Android, the task of reading out articles on the web is handled by Google Assistant working with the default Google Chrome browser. With a page open in Chrome, just say, “Hey Google, read this page” to hear it. Depending on your handset, you might also be able to press and hold the power button to launch Google Assistant.
You’ll see playback controls appear along the bottom of the screen while the article is read out. You can pause and restart the audio, jump to a different part of the page, and change the reading speed using the dial icon on the right. To exit the read-aloud mode, tap the back arrow in the top right corner (or use the back gesture).
Tap the three dots (top right), and you can find options for changing the voice used to read out webpages. You can also enable or disable text sync—that’s where words in the web article are highlighted in blue as they’re read out. Another option is Translate, if you want Google Assistant to translate the webpage as well as reading it out.
It’s also worth noting that if you’ve installed Google’s Reading mode app for Android, this has a read aloud feature built into it, too. When you’ve set up the app, it lets you view webpages without any ads, menus, or other distractions, and there’s a play button at the bottom of the interface to hear articles in audio form.
While iOS has long been able to read out whatever’s on screen for you as part of its accessibility settings, Apple added the specific ability for Siri to look at and read out the text of web articles with the arrival of iOS 17. It makes for a much more intuitive and effective user experience, which we’ve covered before.
With a webpage open in Safari on your iPhone, say, “Hey Siri, read this” to hear the text read aloud (a media playback panel will show up at the top of the screen, too). You can also press and hold the side button or the Home button on your iPhone to launch Siri, of course. If you prefer, you can tap the double-A icon in the address bar at the bottom of the screen, then tap Listen to Page.
If you take that second option, you’ll see a speech bubble icon next to the website address: Tap on this, and you can change the speed of the audio, pause and restart the playback, or jump forwards or backwards through the page. Tap End Listening to stop the audio and return to normal browsing.
Safari also comes with a built-in reading mode that lets you concentrate on the text of a website by removing most of the formatting and extra furniture on the page: You can activate it by tapping the double-A icon in the address bar and choosing Show Reader; the read-aloud feature can be launched in the same ways from reading mode, too.
Source: LifeHacker – You Can Get Your Phone to Read Webpages to You
LG is teasing a handful of OLED gaming monitors that it plans to show off at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next month. The one that stands out from the bunch is the UltraGear 32GS95UE, a 32-inch 4K resolution OLED display with a potentially game-changing “Dual-Hz” feature. With just a single click, players can go from a 3840×2160 resolution
Source: Hot Hardware – LG Unveils 4K OLED Gaming Monitor With First-Of-A-Kind Dual Refresh Rate Feature
Enlarge / Look at this very good boy taking a test to determine the origin of his spatial bias for a study on how dogs think. (credit: Eniko Kubinyi)
Research has shown that if you point at an object, a dog will interpret the gesture as a directional cue, unlike a human toddler, who will more likely focus on the object itself. It’s called spatial bias, and a recent paper published in the journal Ethology offers potential explanations for why dogs interpret the gesture the way that they do. According to researchers at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, the phenomenon arises from a combination of how dogs see (visual acuity) and how they think, with “smarter” dog breeds prioritizing an object’s appearance as much as its location. This suggests the smarter dogs’ information processing is more similar to humans.
The authors wanted to investigate whether spatial bias in dogs is sensory or cognitive, or a combination of the two. “Very early on, children interpret the gesture as pointing to the object, while dogs take the pointing as a directional cue,” said co-author Ivaylo Iotchev. “In other words, regardless of the intention of the person giving the cue, the meaning for children and dogs is different. This phenomenon has previously been observed in dogs using a variety of behavioral tests, ranging from simple associative learning to imitation, but it had never been studied per se.”
Their experimental sample consisted of dogs used in a previous 2018 study plus dogs participating specifically in the new study, for a total of 82 dogs. The dominant breeds were border collies (19), vizslas (17), and whippets (6). Each animal was brought into a small empty room with their owner and one of the experimenters present. The experimenter stood 3 meters away from the dog and owner. There was a training period using different plastic plates to teach the dogs to associate either the presence or absence of an object, or its spatial location, with the presence or absence of food. Then they tested the dogs on a series of tasks.
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Source: Ars Technica – Study: “Smarter” dogs think more like humans to overcome their biases
