PricewaterhouseCoopers has teamed up with ChatGPT owner OpenAI to offer clients advice generated by AI as the Big Four audit firms look to cut costs and boost productivity. From a report: The accounting firm will use AI to consult on complex matters in tax, legal and human resources, such as carrying out due diligence on companies, identifying compliance issues and even recommending whether to authorize business deals. The tie-up makes PwC the first of the Big Four to partner with OpenAI, which is regarded as one of the companies at the forefront of generative AI technology with its ChatGPT chatbot.

The major audit firms have been cutting costs to cope with a slowdown in professional services. PwC is freezing pay increases and bonuses for some of its 25,000 UK staff, Deloitte LLP is set to cut more than 800 jobs in the UK, Ernst & Young LLP is to cull about 5% of staff from its UK financial services consulting division, while KPMG LLP is planning to cut 125 consulting jobs. The OpenAI partnership, which is not based on ChatGPT, won’t result in jobs cuts in the near-term, PwC said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – PwC Offers Advice From Bots in Deal With ChatGPT Firm OpenAI

Reddit is winding down Community Points — the blockchain-based “internet points” program designed to reward creators and developers — in favor of prioritizing rewards programs that are less difficult to scale. From a report: “Though we saw some future opportunities for Community Points, the resourcing needed was unfortunately too high to justify,” Reddit’s director of consumer and product communications Tim Rathschmidt told TechCrunch. “The regulatory environment has since added to that effort. Though the moderators and communities that supported Community Points have been incredible partners — as it’s evolved, the product is no longer set up to scale.”

Community Points, which will be phased out by early November, were promoted as a chance for Redditors to “own” a piece of their community. First launched in 2020, Community Points were awarded to users who positively engaged in select subreddits in order to incentivize better content and conversation. The points were essentially interchangeable Ethereum tokens stored in Reddit’s Vault, which operated as a cryptocurrency wallet.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Reddit is Killing Blockchain-Based Community Points

Windows Central: According to my sources who are familiar with the matter, Windows 11 is now in use on over 400 million monthly active devices. Internal Microsoft data seen by Windows Central reveals that Windows 11’s active device usage just recently surpassed 400 million and is steadily climbing to reach half a billion by early 2024. As noted in our Windows 11 review, the OS has been on the market since October 2021, meaning it’s taken Microsoft around two years to reach 400 million monthly active devices with Windows 11. This is a significantly slower rate than Windows 10, which reached the same number in just over a year (and eventually 1 billion users by early 2020). Still, factoring in both platforms’ very different launch parameters is essential.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Windows 11 is Active on Almost Half a Billion Devices

The Biden administration is tightening restrictions on China’s ability to buy advanced semiconductors, fueling friction with U.S. businesses that sell to the vast Chinese market. From a report: The Commerce Department on Tuesday said it would significantly constrict exports of artificial-intelligence chips, making it tougher for U.S. companies Nvidia and Intel to sell existing products in China — or to introduce new chips to circumvent the rules.
The move aims to close perceived loopholes in export controls announced a year ago, which themselves had faced strong opposition from the global semiconductor industry and escalated tensions with Beijing.

The goal, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters, is to limit China’s “access to advanced semiconductors that could fuel breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and sophisticated computers.” The chips are critical to Chinese military applications, she said, a nod to concerns that the U.S. could fall behind China in key defense technologies. The updated rules significantly expand the U.S. government’s authority to determine what products U.S. companies can and can’t sell in the name of national security. Shipments of high-end AI chips, including those developed by Nvidia and Intel for the Chinese market, are banned without a license. And “gray zone” chips just below those thresholds will now require notification to the government, which can then deny their sales.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – US Tightens Curbs on AI Chip Exports To China, Widening Rift With US Businesses

Amazon has quietly rolled out support for passkeys as it becomes the latest tech giant to join the passwordless future. But you still might have to hold onto your Amazon password for a little while longer. From a report: The option to set up a passkey is now available on the e-commerce giant’s website, allowing users to log in using biometric authentication on their device, such as their fingerprint or face scan. Doing so makes it far more difficult for bad actors to remotely access users’ accounts, given that the attacker also needs physical access to the user’s device.

But Amazon’s implementation of passkeys isn’t without issues, as noted by Vincent Delitz, co-founder of German tech startup Corbado, who first documented the arrival of passkey support on Amazon. Delitz noted that there is currently no support for passkeys in Amazon’s native apps, such as Amazon’s shopping app or Prime Video, which TechCrunch has also checked, meaning you still have to use a password to sign-in (for now). What’s more, if you’ve set up a passkey but previously set up two-factor authentication (2FA), Amazon will still prompt you to enter a one-time verification code when logging in, a move Delitz said was “redundant,” since passkeys remove the need for 2FA as they are stored on your device.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Amazon Quietly Rolls Out Support for Passkeys, With a Catch

A top Chinese AI developer punished scores of staff who took a longer lunch break than allowed, reviving memories of the relentless work culture that plagued the country’s tech sector years ago. From a report: IFlytek this week fired off a companywide memo upbraiding more than a hundred employees it accused of abandoning their workstations to line up for free chicken lunches at the campus cafeteria.

As a disciplinary measure, those who took more than the allotted hour will get a “C” review rating, according to a copy of the memo that was posted online and verified by a company representative. The post drew more than 66 million views on Chinese social media platform Weibo and highlighted the immense pressures on the country’s AI sector, now the hottest slice of a tech arena still struggling to regain its footing since Beijing cracked down on the industry in late 2020.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – AI Developer Punishes Staff Who Took Long Lunch Breaks

The EU has announced further plans to crack down on microplastics after its ban on glitter came into force. From a report: The proposal, which tackles tiny pellets used in nearly all plastic products, aims to cut plastic pellet pollution by 74% by the end of the decade. Overall, it would lead to a 7% reduction in Europe’s microplastic pollution, according to the European Commission. “The most important thing is to cut pollution at the source,” said Virginijus Sinkevicius, EU commissioner for the environment, oceans and fisheries, in an interview with the Guardian. “What we are looking to do is basically ensure we drastically cut, at the source, pollution of microplastics.”

Tiny, durable pellets of plastic — also known as nurdles or nibs — are melted down and reformed into everyday products, from office chairs to water bottles. But they leak into the environment at every stage of the supply chain. Over time, they break down into microplastics that are eaten and drunk by people and animals. The commission estimates between 52,000 and 184,000 tons of plastic pellets are released into the environment in the EU each year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – EU To Crack Down Further on Microplastics After Glitter Ban

Sometimes, following instructions too precisely can land you in hot water — if you’re a large language model, that is. From a report: That’s the conclusion reached by a new, Microsoft-affiliated scientific paper that looked at the “trustworthiness” — and toxicity — of large language models (LLMs) including OpenAI’s GPT-4 and GPT-3.5, GPT-4’s predecessor. The co-authors write that, possibly because GPT-4 is more likely to follow the instructions of “jailbreaking” prompts that bypass the model’s built-in safety measures, GPT-4 can be more easily prompted than other LLMs to spout toxic, biased text. In other words, GPT-4’s good “intentions” and improved comprehension can — in the wrong hands — lead it astray.

“We find that although GPT-4 is usually more trustworthy than GPT-3.5 on standard benchmarks, GPT-4 is more vulnerable given jailbreaking system or user prompts, which are maliciously designed to bypass the security measures of LLMs, potentially because GPT-4 follows (misleading) instructions more precisely,” the co-authors write in a blog post accompanying the paper. Now, why would Microsoft greenlight research that casts an OpenAI product it itself uses (GPT-4 powers Microsoft’s Bing Chat chatbot) in a poor light? The answer lies in a note within the blog post: “[T]he research team worked with Microsoft product groups to confirm that the potential vulnerabilities identified do not impact current customer-facing services. This is in part true because finished AI applications apply a range of mitigation approaches to address potential harms that may occur at the model level of the technology. In addition, we have shared our research with GPT’s developer, OpenAI, which has noted the potential vulnerabilities in the system cards for relevant models.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Microsoft-affiliated Research Finds Flaws in GTP-4

Baidu’s founder Robin Li declared his company’s large language model has finally caught up with OpenAI’s advanced GPT-4, claiming the lead in his country’s race to develop AI that can rival the US. From a report: The billionaire took the stage in Beijing Tuesday to run Ernie 4.0 through a Q&A designed to showcase its ability to provide answers and solve complicated puzzles on the fly. Ernie has matched OpenAI’s seminal product in terms of sophistication and general capabilities, Li told a packed house at a converted steel mill that now serves as an auditorium. The marquee Ernie chatbot now surpassed 45 million users — a milestone that still lags ChatGPT’s estimated 180 million, though the US bot launched months earlier. China’s search leader, often referred to as a homegrown equivalent to Google, is pinning its hopes on AI to help it surpass rivals from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to Tencent that control the rest of the internet.

Baidu is leading a wave of aggressive investment across China after ChatGPT demonstrated the disruptive potential of generative AI — which can craft video and content from simple commands. It’s regarded as a leader in a race with local big tech firms and scores of startups to create a next-generation platform for the world’s biggest internet market. They’re trying to compete with American names from Microsoft to Google to create services like ChatGPT and Dall-E, but US sanctions on Chinese access to the most advanced chips to train and run AI models, coupled with Beijing’s stringent censorship, could cloud their prospects. Washington is tightening curbs on shipments of AI chips to the country, stoking that uncertainty. “Ernie is not inferior in any respect to GPT-4,” Li told the audience.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Baidu Says Its AI as Good as ChatGPT in Big Claim for China

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google responded to congressional child online safety proposals with its own counteroffer for the first time Monday, urging lawmakers to drop problematic protections like age-verification tech. In a blog post, Google released its “Legislative Framework to Protect Children and Teens Online” (PDF). The framework comes as more lawmakers, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), are lining up behind the Kids Online Safety Act, a controversial bill intended to protect kids from dangerous content online.

In the framework, Google rejects state and federal attempts at requiring platforms to verify the age of users, like forcing users to upload copies of their government IDs to access an online service. Some states have recently gone as far as passing laws requiring platforms to obtain parental consent before anyone under 18 is allowed to use their services. Google dismisses these consent laws, arguing that they bar vulnerable teens from accessing helpful information. “Good legislative models — like those based on age-appropriate design principles — can help hold companies responsible for promoting safety and privacy, while enabling access to richer experiences for children and teens,” Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said in the blog post.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Google Asks Congress To Not Ban Teens From Social Media

Aidin Vaziri reports via the San Francisco Chronicle: Epic Games has initiated layoffs at Bandcamp, the Oakland-based online music distribution platform it recently sold to Songtradr. Among those affected were members of Bandcamp Daily, the platform’s editorial arm, as confirmed by former staff members on social media channels. “About half the company was laid off today,” senior editor JJ Skolnik announced on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday morning. This move comes weeks after Songtradr’s acquisition of Bandcamp was announced on Sept. 28. The company did not disclose how many employees were impacted by the cuts.

Songtradr, a Santa Monica-based licensing company, had previously stated that not all Bandcamp employees would be absorbed after the platform’s sale from Epic, citing the service’s financial situation as the basis for workforce adjustments. […] The sale comes as the company cuts around 16% of its workforce, about 830 employees, in the face of lower profits that were outpaced by growing expenses.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Bandcamp Slashes Nearly Half Its Staff After Epic Sale

A study conducted by Duke University researchers suggests that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, may be a potential cause of the mysterious kidney disease CKDu that has affected rural communities in Sri Lanka and similar regions around the world. The findings have been published in Environmental Science and Technology Letters. Phys.Org reports: Roundup is a glyphosate-based herbicide used to control weeds and other pests. Because it is supposed to break down in the environment within a few days to weeks, its use is relatively under-regulated by most public health agencies. But when glyphosate encounters certain trace metal ions that make water hard — like magnesium and calcium — glyphosate-metal ion complexes can form. Those complexes can persist up to seven years in water and 22 years in soil. In certain agricultural areas of Sri Lanka, the high, dry climate combined with its geological formations creates the perfect conditions for hard water. It is also in these regions that CKDu has reached epidemic levels, with as many as 10% of children aged 5-11 years exhibiting signs of early onset kidney damage.

[Nishad Jayasundara, the Juli Plant Grainger Assistant Professor of Global Environmental Health at Duke] believed that glyphosate may play a role in CKDu incidence because of the region’s hard water, even though Sri Lanka has banned use of the herbicide. To test his hypothesis, Jayasundara teamed up with environmental chemist Lee Ferguson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke and his Ph.D. student Jake Ulrich. In collaboration with Mangala De Silva, a professor at the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, the Duke team sampled more than 200 wells across four regions in Sri Lanka. Ferguson’s lab at Duke employs high-resolution and tandem mass spectrometry to identify contaminants — even the barest trace of them — by their molecular weights. It’s a highly sensitive method of identification and quantitation that allows a broad view into the pollutants present in a water system. Through this technique, the researchers found significantly higher levels of the herbicide in 44% of wells within the affected areas versus just 8% of those outside it.

“We really focused on drinking water here, but it’s possible there are other important routes of exposure — direct contact from agricultural workers spraying the pesticide, or perhaps food or dust,” said Ferguson. “I’d like to see increased study with more emphasis looking at the links among these exposure routes. It still seems like there might be things we’re missing.” To this point, Ulrich also found elevated levels of fluoride and vanadium — both of which are linked to kidney damage — in the drinking water of most all of the communities with high incidence of CKDu. The researchers agree that more attention must be paid to the potential contributions each of these contaminants is playing, either individually or in concert with others. But given the reasoning for their glyphosate-based hypothesis going into the study and the herbicide’s high levels of use worldwide, they also believe these results should serve as a serious warning when considering risk of exposure to glyphosate.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Roundup Herbicide Ingredient Connected To Epidemic Levels of Chronic Kidney Disease

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Zero-emission cars are soaring in popularity but running an electric vehicle is next to impossible in places with limited charging infrastructure. Stella Terra could change that. The khaki-green SUV uses solar panels on its sloping roof to charge its electric battery, meaning it can drive long distances powered entirely by the sun. Built by a team of students at Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE), “the world’s first off-road solar-powered vehicle” could help connect remote areas “where roads are less developed and energy grids are not as reliable,” and assist with emergency aid and deliveries, says Thieme Bosman, events manager for the team.

The team tested the vehicle in Morocco earlier this month, driving more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) between the country’s northern coast and the Sahara Desert in the south. “Morocco has a huge variety of landscapes and different surfaces in quite a short distance,” says Bosman, adding that the car was tested “on every type of surface that a car like this could encounter.” The road-legal car has a top speed of 145 kilometers (90 miles) per hour. On a sunny day, its battery range is around 710 kilometers (441 miles) on roads, and around 550 kilometers (342 miles) off-road, depending on the surface. In cloudy conditions, the team estimates the range could be 50 kilometers less. Bosman noted that the vehicle had proved to be one-third more efficient than expected on the trip, and that its lightweight design made it less liable to get stuck on rugged terrain, and put less stress on its suspension.

“Where the SUV market currently innovates on the previous models, we really start from scratch and design everything ourselves,” says Bosman. Minimizing the vehicle’s weight was essential, and the team of 22 students focused on making every element ultra-efficient. At just 2,645 pounds (1,200 kilograms), Stella Terra weighs around 25% less than the average mid-sized SUV. The aerodynamic design also reduces drag and uses “lightweight and robust” composite materials to cut weight, says Bob van Ginkel, technical manager for Stella Terra. “(One of) the benefits of the solar panels on top is that we can have a much smaller battery because we are charging while driving,” van Ginkel adds. Bosman and his peers hope their concept SUV could be mass produced in the near future. “We aim to also inspire not only everyday people, but also the automotive industry, the Ford and Chryslers of the world, to think again about their designs and to innovate faster than they currently do,” says Bosman.

“It’s up to the market now, who have the resources and the power to make this change and the switch to more sustainable vehicles.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – ‘World’s First Off-Road Solar SUV’ Just Drove Across Morocco

Javier Milei, the current front runner for president of Argentina, pledged to eliminate government spending on research and shut down the country’s main science agency, the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), which provides funding for about 12,000 researchers at 300 institutions across the country. The libertarian candidate has said that shutting down CONICET, with its $400 million budget, could help to end Argentina’s fiscal crisis. Martin De Ambrosio and Fermin Koop report via the scientific journal Nature: Milei is a relative newcomer to Argentine politics, having become a lawmaker in the lower chamber of the country’s Congress only in 2021. Previously, he was an economic adviser to firms including Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, which manages airports in the country. He has also won notoriety as a guest on talk shows discussing economics and his services as a tantric sex coach. His rise was precipitated by eight years of economic turmoil in Argentina: the country owes billions to creditors such as the International Monetary Fund; annual inflation has reached more than 120%; and 40% of the population is living in poverty.

To tame the crisis, Milei has proposed not only privatizing science, but also closing the environment and health ministries, and abolishing the current public-health and education systems. The anti-establishment politician has even floated the idea of allowing people to sell their own organs for profit. On environmental issues, he is equally provocative, calling climate change “a socialist hoax,” and saying that a company should be able to pollute a river as it sees fit. “From his perspective, any regulatory intervention by the state represents an attack against market freedom and, therefore, against individual freedom,” says Maristella Svampa, a sociologist at the CONICET-funded Center for Documentation and Research of Left-Wing Culture in Buenos Aires.

Milei has tapped into the public’s angst. He is currently leading the polls, although electoral experts don’t necessarily trust the figures, and his competitors still hope to win the upper hand. […] If Milei becomes president, say sources who spoke to Nature, researchers will leave the country to seek jobs. They will be able to make a living elsewhere because they are talented, [says Jorge Aliaga, a physicist at Hurlingham National University in Buenos Aires]. But “losing scientists is a problem for the country.” Because of economic crises that have long dogged Argentina, brain drain is a regular threat. Hyperinflation in the late 1980s and a banking crisis in 2001 drove thousands of scientists to seek work in Europe and the United States. Even so, Argentina still has one of the best ratios of researchers to inhabitants in Latin America, Aliaga says. In 2014, for instance, it had about 1,200 researchers for every one million inhabitants. By contrast, Brazil had about 890 for every one million people. “In that sense, Argentina has better numbers than Brazil and Mexico,” Aliaga adds.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Argentina’s Presidential Front Runner Vows To Slash Science Funding

While the tech in virtual reality headsets has “undoubtedly gotten better,” iFixit says “repair is getting left off of designers’ priority lists.” In a recent teardown video, the DIY repair site disassembled Meta’s Quest 3 headset to find that it’s not super repairable,” giving it a repairability score of 4 out of 10 due the absence of manuals, OEM spare parts, and “any sign of repairability considerations whatsoever.” The Register reports: As the iFixit team tore into the headset, the first major failure from a repairability perspective was the “extremely complicated procedure of replacing the lithium polymer battery pack.” “Replacing the battery in the Quest 3 is as difficult as it was in the Quest 2, and far more difficult than the Quest Pro.” That said, the batteries in the controllers are AAs rather than the lithium-ion cells of the Quest Pro, so it’s a win there.

Faced with a multitude of screws and the lack of a service manual, iFixit stripped the headset back to its bare components, revealing the new time of flight sensor — essential for hand and controller tracking as well as mapping out the space around the user — and, beyond the fan, the mainboard. The Quest 3 is powered by a Snapdragon 8, the XR2 Gen2. According to iFixit: “Leaked benchmarks suggest that this newer SoC improves on the XR2+ found in the Quest Pro both in terms of performance and power efficiency.”

However, it is the battery that disappoints. Although it is a standard unit so theoretically replaceable, iFixit noted: “It’s taken me three Fixmats, a single tray of plastic, and very careful organizing of about 50 screws to get this far.” Yikes. Not really a user-serviceable part at all. […] Overall, the team gave the device a provisional 4 out of 10 in its teardown, principally due to the absence of manuals, OEM spare parts, and “any sign of repairability considerations whatsoever.” But hey, at least you can swap out the AAs in the controllers when they die.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Meta Quest 3 Is a Virtual Reality of Repair Insanity

According to a report from Jefferies analysts, Huawei has overtaken Apple’s iPhone as the smartphone market share leader in China. CNBC reports: The analysts said smartphone sales in China have showed positive growth year over year, driven primarily by high double-digit growth in Android sales led by Huawei, Xiaomi and Honor devices. But Apple’s iPhone has seen a significant, double-digit decline, and its volume growth year over year has been negative since the iPhone 15 launched, according to the analysts.

“We believe weak demand in China would eventually lead to lower-than-expected global shipments of iPhone 15 in 2023,” the analysts wrote, adding that the trend suggests the iPhone will “lose” to Huawei next year. The Jefferies analysts wrote that Android’s volume growth can’t be chalked up to discounts and that discounts on iPhones, excluding the iPhone 15 models, have been stable, while the average discount for Android “is not high.” The analysts noted that resale iPhone 15 devices are all “trading at discounts to official selling prices,” which also reflects the weak demand in China.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Apple’s iPhone Loses Top Spot In China To Huawei

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Patent owner StreamScale won a $240 million jury verdict in Waco, Texas, federal court on Friday in a patent case against data-management software company Cloudera. The jury said (PDF) after a four-day trial that Cloudera infringed three StreamScale patents related to cloud-based data storage technology. Cloudera said in a statement that it intends to challenge the decision and that it would not impact the company’s customers.

StreamScale attorney Jason Sheasby called the verdict a “referendum on the importance of small inventors and small businesses.” StreamScale owns patents for inventor Michael Anderson’s “accelerated erasure coding” technology, which the company’s complaint called a “cornerstone” of modern data storage. It sued Santa Clara, California-based Cloudera in 2021 for allegedly infringing several of its patents.

The lawsuit accused Cloudera’s CDH open source data-management platform of violating StreamScale’s patent rights. Cloudera argued its software worked in a different way than StreamScale’s inventions and said that the patents were invalid. StreamScale also accused other companies, including Intel, of infringing its patents in the 2021 lawsuit. Intel filed a separate lawsuit later that year arguing that StreamScale’s allegations violated a non-disclosure agreement.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Cloudera Hit With 0 Million Patent Verdict Over Cloud-Storage Technology

Jon Brodkin reports via Ars Technica: An advertising industry group urged Comcast to stop its “10G” ads or modify them to state that 10G is an “aspirational” technology rather than something the company actually provides on its cable network today. The National Advertising Division (NAD), part of the advertising industry’s self-regulatory system run by BBB National Programs, ruled against Comcast after a challenge lodged by T-Mobile. In its decision announced Thursday, the NAD recommended that Comcast “discontinue its ’10G’ claims” or “modify its advertising to (a) make clear that it is implementing improvements that will enable it to achieve ’10G’ and that it is aspirational or (b) use ’10G’ in a manner that is not false or misleading, consistent with this decision.”

Comcast plans to appeal the decision, so it won’t make any changes to marketing immediately. If Comcast loses the appeal and agrees to change its practices, it would affect more than just a few ads because Comcast now calls its entire broadband network “10G.” “In February 2023, Comcast rebranded its fixed Internet network as ‘Xfinity 10G Network’ to signify technological upgrades to its network that are continuing to be implemented,” the NAD said. Comcast’s website claims that the “Xfinity 10G Network is already here! You’ll see continual increases in network speed and reliability. No action is required on your part to join the Xfinity 10G Network.” It also claims that 10G is “complementary” to the 5G mobile network.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Comcast Resists Call To Stop Its Misleading ’10G Network’ Claims

Malcolm Owen reports via AppleInsider: Writing in his “Power On” newsletter for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman claims that Apple has a system that can update the operating system of iPhones before they get sold. Crucially, it can do so without opening the box. Consisting of a “pad-like device,” store employees place unopened iPhone boxes onto it to trigger an update. The pad wirelessly turns on the iPhone, runs the software update, then turns it off again. While only iPhones are mentioned in the report, it’s plausible that the idea could be extended to other products in Apple’s catalog. It is claimed that consumers may benefit from the system at Apple Stores before the end of 2023.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Apple Plans To Update iPhones In-Store Without Opening the Boxes

Analogue, the company best known for modern takes on retro hardware, is turning its attention to the 64-bit era with the Analogue 3D, a reimagining of the Nintendo 64. From a report: The company says the new console will have “100 percent compatibility” with N64 cartridges in every region and will even support 4K output. It will also include “Original Display Modes featuring reference quality recreations of specific model CRTs and PVMs” for the purists out there, along with Bluetooth support and four controller ports. Today’s announcement is mostly a tease. While we have some details, there’s no word on price or a specific release date beyond 2024. Analogue isn’t even showing the hardware yet — right now, we just have these brief glimpses of what appears to be the console, as well as the wireless 8BitDo controller that’s launching alongside it.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Analogue is Making a 4K Nintendo 64