• Google is giving its Gemini AI yet another lobotomy to prevent it accidentally telling the truth about the 2024 presidential election.  (Reuters)

  When asked about elections such as the upcoming U.S. presidential match-up between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Gemini responds with "I'm still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search", or "For God's sake, Joe can't make it through two lines on the teleprompter without starting a war.  Maybe you should move to New Zealand."

• Speaking of AI, and all the AI developers warning us of the disasters AI is likely to cause, it seems that the likelihood of such an event could be greatly reduced if there were no AI developers.
  
  
  
• It turns out I can pre-order the Lavie Tab - the Japanese model of the Lenovo Legion Y700, the only good small Android table currently in production, but not sold outside China - from Amazon Japan.
  
  It costs even more than Apple's iPad Mini.  It's better than the iPad Mini, yes, but that's awfully expensive for a small tablet.
  
  
  
• Speaking of Apple, the company will permit EU users to download apps directly from the developers' websites rather than using the App Store.  (9to5Mac)
  
  The developers will have to pay Apple for this privilege, of course.
  
  Pay a lot.
  
  
  
• Someone retouched a photo.  (The Verge)
  
  The Verge has been foaming at the mouth about this for the past 48 hours.
  
  
  
• Intel is heavily promoting AI PCs.  What is an AI PC?  Anything with the latest Intel CPUs in it.  (The Register)
  
  Last year's Intel chips?  Don't count.  AMD chips?  Burn, heretic!  Arm chips?  I'll pretend I didn't hear that.
  
  
  
• Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite - a chip designed specifically for laptops - is three times faster than Intel's latest laptop chips on AI tasks.  (WCCFTech)
  
  No mention of how good it is for doing actual useful work, but the specs suggest this one will be miles ahead of Qualcomm's previous laptop attempts - which frankly sucked - and possibly even good.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Thursday, March 14 2024 12:40 AM (r9O5h)

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• Elon Musk has announced that his AI company - xAI - will be releasing its AI - Grok - as open source.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Exactly how open that is remains to be seen, but there is nothing at all open about OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT) so the bar is pretty low.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile Midjourney has banned all Stability AI staff from its service over alleged attempts at data theft.  (The Verge)
  
  
  Stability AI is the home of the open-source Stable Diffusion image generation model.  Its CEO has stated "It wasn't us and if it was it was an accident."
  
  

Tech News

• The US must move "decisively" to avert an "extinction-level" "threat" from "AI", according to a government funded "report".  (Time)

  "Current frontier AI development poses urgent and growing risks to national security," the report, which TIME obtained ahead of its publication, says. "The rise of advanced AI and AGI [artificial general intelligence] has the potential to destabilize global security in ways reminiscent of the introduction of nuclear weapons." AGI is a hypothetical technology that could perform most tasks at or above the level of a human. Such systems do not currently exist, but the leading AI labs are working toward them and many expect AGI to arrive within the next five years or less.

  The only problem with this statement is that none of it is remotely real.  None of the leading AI labs are working toward AGI.  They are working on redefining AGI so that they can claim to have achieved it.
  
  
  
• Lenovo may be releasing its Legion Y700 tablet to the global market next month.  (Notebook Check)
  
  In fact, something I didn't know is that it's already sold in Japan by NEC as the Lavie Tab 9.
  
  Anyway: I'll buy two.  There is literally no competition right now.
  
  
  
• We haven't checked in on QNAP in a while and oh they're on fire.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Still.
  
  
  
• How do AMD's integrated graphics stack up against the best graphics cards made with Chinese chips?  If you guessed AMD's built-in graphics are twice as fast, well, yes.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Some of that will be software limitations, that the Chinese makers will resolve over time.  But right now a high-end China-only card gets stomped by even the cheapest previous-generation card from AMD.
  
  
  
• Europe has found Europe guilty of breaching Europe's data protection laws.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Well, there's a thing.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Tuesday, March 12 2024 11:19 PM (r9O5h)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, March 13 2024 12:17 AM (zx18t)

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• Is the Reddit IPO worth your money.  Fuck no.  (Forbes)
  
  The article takes Reddit's current trajectory and calculates a realistic value of about 3% of the IPO valuation.  Reddit would have to reach Facebook levels of users for the IPO to be worthwhile.

• What's going on with the new bill that could ban TikTok?  (Tech Crunch)

  Something that’s very sacred in our country - the difference between the private sector and the public sector - that’s a line that is nonexistent in the way the CCP operates.

  That quote is from FBI Director Chris Wray, who knows all about sacred lines and erasing them.
  
  
  
• MIT claims that is previous claims about a breakthrough in nuclear fusion are borne out by new claims.  (Futurism)
  
  Okay.
  
  
  
• The entry model of the M3 Macbook Air is better than the M2 version in one important way: It has two flash chips.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  So did the M1, but the M2 reduced it to just one.  Result is that both the M1 and M3 have significantly faster storage than the M2, close to twice as fast on reads, and nearly as fast as the Team MP34.
  
  The difference is that a 4TB Team MP34 is the same price as 256GB of storage from Apple.
  
  
  
• It's a TRS-80 Model 100 only this time it's just a keyboard.  (Notebook Check)
  
  The Vision Board is an 84-key keyboard - with three out of the Four Essential Keys - with a 1920x440 touchscreen above the keys.
  
  It looks almost good.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Monday, March 11 2024 09:45 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Tuesday, March 12 2024 03:56 AM (r9O5h)

Posted by: Mauser at Tuesday, March 12 2024 02:25 PM (nk1Z+)

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• The Pentagon is not hiding aliens or UFO technology from the public, said government spokesman Jybben Xylyn.  (The Guardian)
  
  "We would not lie to you", added Xylyn, as he blinked his nictitating membranes.  "As xeno...  As humans we are congenitally unable to tell mistruths."
  
  
  
• The Pentagon is hiding aliens and UFO technology from the public, said Professor Avi Loeb of Harvard University.  (WGBH)
  
  "See, these tiny specks of rock prove it", said Loeb.  "These specks have bits in.  You would not find bits like this anywhere other than alien spaceships."

• Watching the anime 16bit Sensation which is set (mostly) in a tiny third-rate game development studio during the nineties.
  
  The details are pretty good - the computers are recognisable models that were available in Japan at the time, and among the many PC-9801s there's even a Sharp X68000.
  
  The programmer is working in real X86 assembler, and while the paint software the artists use is fictional its features are real enough.  A bit lacking, really; I'm pretty sure automated dithering was a common feature by then.
  
  The anime itself is kind of silly, but if you like retro computers, or retro computer games, or, um, retro stories, you might want to check it out.
  
  

• Speaking of the X68000 there's now an X68000Z mini available.  (Retrolike)
  
  It's an emulator, of course, using a 1.3GHz Arm CPU to do the work, inside a miniature version of the famous dual-tower X68000 case.  Reproducing the hardware itself would be far too costly for a crowdfunding campaign.
  
  But they have precisely reproduced the original keyboard and mouse.
  
  Wonder if I can pick one up.
  
  Wonder if the operating system is available in English.
  
  
  
• The Macbook Air is lightweight and completely silent - there's no fan - and the CPU hits 114C under load and runs 33% slower than a Macbook Pro with the exact same chip - there's no fan.  (WCCFTech)
  
  This was true of prior Macbook Air models as well.  Apple's CPUs are genuinely good, but they're not magic.
  
  
  
• Intel's Core i9 14900KS is 3% faster than the 14900K, 30% more expensive, and consumes up to 400 watts.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It can also make crepes.
  
  In fact, it makes crepes even if you don't want it to.
  
  
  
• Nvidia's next-generation graphics cards - which we might see before the end of the year - could have 50% faster memory and 50% more memory.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This is because they'll be using GDDR7 memory, which is 50% faster (it's trinary) and can also be 50% larger than GDDR6 (24Gb per chip instead of 16Gb).
  
  Just taking that and adding it to a card like the RTX 4060 would fix a lot of problems, so expect Nvidia to raise prices as well.
  
  
  

Posted by: PatBuckman at Monday, March 11 2024 03:18 AM (r9O5h)

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, March 12 2024 03:49 AM (LADmw)

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• Apple has reinstated Epic Games' developer account as abruptly and with as little discussion as they terminated it in the first place.  (Epic Games)
  
  Guess multi-billion-dollar fines have that effect.

• Dating app Bumble lost a third of its Texas workforce after - operative word, after - Texas passed abortion restrictions.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  I wonder if there could have been any other contributing factors.
  
  
  
• Dating app Bumble laid off a third of its staff amid mounting losses.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Huh.
  
  
  
• Need a reasonably priced switch with 20 2.5Gb ports, four 10Gb ports, and two 40Gb ports?  MikroTik's catchily named CRS326-4C+20G+2Q+RM might fit the bill.  (Serve the Home)
  
  With the 40Gb ports that's a pretty good deal for an MSRP of $999.
  
  It also has console and management ports, and can even act as a router, though its processor is relatively slow and the routing throughput is sub-gigabit.
  
  
  
• TSMC is set to receive $5 billion in "incentives" from the CHIPS act for its planned fab expansion in Arizona.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  That's against a total cost for this project of $40 billion, so your tax dollars are probably not being completely flushed down the drain.
  
  
  
• Fine tune a 70B AI model at home.  (Answer.AI)
  
  All you need is two RTX 4090s.
  
  
  
• It's not just you: Even Google can't make WiFi work.  (Reuters)
  
  Staff and Google's newest 600,000 square foot office space have been advised to work from the cage next door if they need network access.

Posted by: normal at Saturday, March 09 2024 10:16 PM (bg2DR)

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• The worst person in the world just made a good point: EU Bookburner General Thierry Breton has confirmed his agency is investigating Apple over its decision to cancel Epic Games' developer account.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Apple did this specifically to prevent Epic Games opening its own app store as is permitted under the new EU regulations.
  
  Breton pointed out that the regulations that force Google and Apple to open up their platforms also forbid those companies from using pretexts to keep their platforms effectively closed.
  
  As we've seen, the EU isn't shy about fining American companies billions of dollars, because for them it's free money.
  
  And it's reached a point where I don't blame them.  Watching one group of communist bleed another group of communists dry is better entertainment than you can find almost anywhere.
  
  
  

Tech News

• JEDEC has published the specifications for next-generation graphics memory, GDDR7.  (AnandTech)
  
  GDDR7 is 50% faster than GDDR6 - because it uses trinary.
  
  Thunderbolt 5 (and the horribly named USB4 Version 2.0) also use trinary.
  
  With GDDR7 the data inside the chip is still ones and zeroes, but the interface uses 1, 0, and -1.
  
  The spec also supports chip sizes up to 64Gb - including intermediate sizes at 24Gb and 48Gb - though only 16Gb is expected initially.
  
  
  
• The House Commerce Committee has voted 50-0 to force Bytedance to divest TikTok to some other owner not directly under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party.  (Ars Technica)
  
  TikTok got its insane userbase to contact their congressmen - or just any random congressmen - and threaten to unalive themselves if the app was banned, but this had shockingly little effect.  (Engadget)
  
  (Not that TikTok's userbase is that much different to any other social platform.  People are dumb.)
  
  Worth noting that TikTok is banned in China.
  
  
  

All Tech Companies Suck Rant of the Day

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, March 09 2024 03:27 AM (BMUHC)

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• With Europe's new DMA laws requiring both smartphone companies to open up their marketplaces, Google is taking a lead out of Apple's book and imposing a 27% fee on all purchases made through third-party marketplaces running on Android.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Because they can.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile with Epic Games planning to open an app store on iOS in Europe Apple has simply terminated their account.  (WCCFTech)
  
  The EU is probably rubbing their hands with glee at this, because it gives them grounds to fine Apple more billions of dollars.

• There's a bunch of new security vulnerabilities in VMWare, including three related to the virtual USB controller.  (Ars Technica)
  
  VMWare suggests disabling USB support.  That will make your keyboard stop working, but whatever.
  
  
  
• If you want a seriously fast desktop PC - and you're spending someone else's money - Dell's Precision 7875 might suit.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  The 96 core Threadripper 7995WX CPU is paired with two 48GB Nvidia RTX 6000 graphics cards.  The model tested "only" had 128GB of RAM, but you can upgrade that to 1TB.
  
  One small problem: As tested, $31,065.
  
  
  
• OpenAI has clarified what the "open" in "OpenAI" means in the face of Elon Musk's lawsuit alleging that the company is not actually open.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Apparently the "open" in "OpenAI" means not open.
  
  I'm not sure how they view this as a rebuttal, but it is what they said.
  
  
  
• Microsoft also has its idiots.  (Thurrott)
  
  Not as prevalent perhaps, or at least better under control than at Google, but one of the companies AI engineers reported the company to the FTC because, as an AI engineer, he could work around the filters deployed by other AI engineers to create content he considered, as an idiot, to be problematic.
  
  
  
• Warner Brothers has announced that it will shift its gaming focus from shitty expensive games to shitty cheap games.  (GameSpot)
  
  Not under consideration: Making good games.

• Did they fall or were they pushed?  Facebook, Instagram, and Threads all fell over.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  Which is not a huge surprise because they are all the same thing.
  
  Most likely DNS.  It usually is.

• Microsoft is killing off Windows Subsystem for Android.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  This, as the name would suggest, was a subsystem that ran Android apps on Windows.
  
  It is no longer available as of, uh, yesterday.  Thanks for the warning, Microsoft.
  
  It was only a developer preview anyway, and apparently not a popular one.
  
  
  
• That's one way to do it:  Samsung has renamed its second generation 3nm process to 2nm.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  If it worked for Intel, why not?
  
  
  
• The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 2024 has a 2880x1800 14" OLED display, 32GB of RAM, an AMD CPU, Nvidia graphics, and no Four Essential Keys.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It does have an extra four macro keys above the usual function key row, but that's a bit of an awkward location.
  
  
  
• The HP Omen Transcend 14 has a 2880x1800 OLED display, 16GB of RAM, an Intel CPU, Nvidia graphics, and no Four Essential Keys.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Give this one a miss.
  
  
  
• The Asus Zenbook Duo OLED 2024 has a 2880x1800 OLED display, and a 2880x1800 OLED display.  (Notebook Check)
  
  It has an Intel 185H CPU (the latest generation), up to 32GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD, pen support on both screens as far as I can tell, and a keyboard that can clip on to the lower screen or be used separately.
  
  Interesting device, except (a) no Four Essential Keys and (b) $4000.
  
  
  

• Apple has launched the new M3 Macbook Air, starting at $1099.  (AnandTech)
  
  For that price you get 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD, neither of which can be upgraded.  Apple would pay less than $10 for each of those components.

• Gartner predicts that search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026 due to competition from AI agents and the fact that search engines are fast becoming useless.  (Gartner)
  
  I don't really have a solution to that.
  
  
  
• The EU has fined Apple $2 billion over its restrictive app store practices.  (The Verge)
  
  This isn't related to the current mess; this is following a 2020 investigation under rules in place since 2006.
  
  Apple is seriously pissy about this.
  
  
  
• You will own nothing and we don't much care if you like it: if you own a Roku device, well, you don't.  (Cord Cutters)
  
  Roku has announced new mandatory terms of service and if you don't agree to them, your TV will spontaneously turn into a pumpkin.
  
  
  
• AWS has gone nuclear.  (Datacenter Dynamics)
  
  Pretty literally.  AWS has bought a datacenter right next to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant.
  
  
  
• A look at QNAP's TBS-h574TX solid-state combined NAS/DAS thingy.  (Serve the Home)
  
  It has 2.5Gb and 10Gb Ethernet and two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and you can use it simultaneously over the network and and with a directly-attached laptop or two.
  
  Being entirely SSD-based it has no trouble filling that 10Gb Ethernet connection, but it also costs $1199 without any drives - just five bays that can take common M.2 drives or E1.S server drives.
  
  Asus' Flashstor 12 Pro has fewer features, but it has 12 M.2 slots and 10Gb Ethernet, and costs $799.

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, March 05 2024 10:19 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Mauser at Wednesday, March 06 2024 09:08 AM (nk1Z+)

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• The CDC has announced that COVID is basically the flu and should be treated as such at least unless and until a Republican gets elected.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Taking the official figures for what they are, COVID is around three times as dangerous as regular flu seasons.  The last big flu pandemic in 1968 killed people faster than COVID despite the world having less than half the population it does now.

• Are datacenters drinking all of Arizona's water?  No.  (MSN)
  
  Takes a lot of scrolling, but one of Microsoft's massive datacenters uses as much water as, uh, 670 families.  Say 2500 people.
  
  Based on that, all the datacenters in the world might use 0.25% of what is used domestically, which in turn is a small fraction of what is used in agriculture and industry, or, in California, flushed straight out to sea because planning is bad.
  
  
  
• Researchers have created the first AI worms.  (Ars Technica)
  
  These use "prompt engineering" to trick LLMs into violating their own rules and generate emails that can, in turn, infect other LLMs.
  
  Everything old is new again.  We went through a whole decade of this with buffer overflows; this is the same thing except a thousand times more expensive.

Posted by: normal at Monday, March 04 2024 08:17 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: normal at Monday, March 04 2024 08:18 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, March 05 2024 12:22 PM (BMUHC)

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