Month: January 2024
Current Refinance Rates on Jan. 31, 2024: Rates Tick Even Lower – CNET
Several key refinance rates have dropped. Refinancing makes sense if you can get a lower interest rate on your home loan.
Several key refinance rates have dropped. Refinancing makes sense if you can get a lower interest rate on your home loan.
Dell is terminating its distribution deal with VMware
Dell has used a get-out clause to end its agreement with VMware after the company got acquired by Broadcom in 2023.
In a recent regulatory filing, Dell Technologies has confirmed it will be terminating its commercial framework agreement with VMware by using a clause that would allow either party to pull out should there be a change in the control of the other party.
Until November 2021, Dell had an 81% stake in VMware, but this was sold as part of Broadcom’s takeover of the company, which also introduced several significant changes to VMware operations which left left many customers and partners unhappy.
When Dell sold its stake in VMware in 2021, the two struck up a deal that would allow Dell Technologies to continue distributing the latter’s products and services, as well as a degree of collaboration on some solutions and go-to-market activities.
Dell ends deal with VMware after Broadcom takeover
The January 25 filing is subject to a 60-day notice period, meaning that the companies are expected to part ways on March 25.
Originally, the agreement set out: “with respect to certain technologies and [go-to-market] activities, the Parties’ respective products and services work better together to create advantages and value for customers.”
Dell’s termination of the agreement follows Broadcom’s decision to change licensing policies for VMware products, cutting perpetual licenses in favor of subscription-based models – a move that proved to be unpopular among partners, distributors, and customers alike.
Although Broadcom’s changes have sent ripples through the virtualization landscape, VMware continues to be an incredibly competitive option. It’s unclear whether some recent unsavory decisions have driven Dell to want to sever its ties with the company, or whether there’s more at play.
TechRadar Pro asked Dell for more information about its decision, but the company did not immediately respond.
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Apple Failed to Comply With App Store Court Order, Epic Tells Judge
Apple has failed to properly comply with a court order that requires non-App Store purchasing options be made available to third-party developers, Epic Games has told a judge (via Bloomberg).
The Supreme Court earlier this month declined to hear separate requests from both Apple and Epic Games in their three-year-long lawsuit against each other regarding App Store rules. As a result, Apple is able to continue to disallow third-party payment processing within apps, but it must allow developers to direct customers to a non-App Store purchasing option for digital goods.
Apple has since made changes to its U.S. App Store policies, and now allows apps to feature a single link to a developer website that leads to an in-app purchase alternative. However, Apple plans to continue to collect a 12 to 27 percent commission on content bought this way. The commission applies to transactions for digital goods and services that take place on a developers website within seven days after a user taps through an External Purchase Link to an external website.
Epic likely wishes to contest this aspect of the change in particular, as well as Apple’s implementation of them. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney on January 16 took to X (formerly Twitter) to criticize the changes as soon as they were announced, and said that it would dispute Apple’s “bad-faith compliance plan” in District Court.
A quick summary of glaring problems we’ve found so far:1) Apple has introduced an anticompetitive new 27% tax on web purchases. Apple has never done this before, and it kills price competition. Developers can’t offer digital items more cheaply on the web after paying a… pic.twitter.com/YkHuapG7xa— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) January 16, 2024
According to Bloomberg, Epic said in a filing Tuesday that it “disputes Apple’s compliance” with previously ordered changes and said it will explain the “non-compliance” in a forthcoming filing.
Meanwhile, Apple wants Epic Games to pay $73.4 million in legal fees after Apple won the antitrust case brought against it by the North Carolinian games maker. Apple bases the claim on Epic’s original violation of its developer agreement, when its Fortnite game offered an in-app payment alternative on the App Store. Epic previously accepted that it would owe damages if it lost its antitrust claims against Apple. Now that it has, Apple has issued the bill.Tag: epicThis article, “Apple Failed to Comply With App Store Court Order, Epic Tells Judge” first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums
Apple has failed to properly comply with a court order that requires non-App Store purchasing options be made available to third-party developers, Epic Games has told a judge (via Bloomberg).
The Supreme Court earlier this month declined to hear separate requests from both Apple and Epic Games in their three-year-long lawsuit against each other regarding App Store rules. As a result, Apple is able to continue to disallow third-party payment processing within apps, but it must allow developers to direct customers to a non-App Store purchasing option for digital goods.
Apple has since made changes to its U.S. App Store policies, and now allows apps to feature a single link to a developer website that leads to an in-app purchase alternative. However, Apple plans to continue to collect a 12 to 27 percent commission on content bought this way. The commission applies to transactions for digital goods and services that take place on a developers website within seven days after a user taps through an External Purchase Link to an external website.
Epic likely wishes to contest this aspect of the change in particular, as well as Apple’s implementation of them. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney on January 16 took to X (formerly Twitter) to criticize the changes as soon as they were announced, and said that it would dispute Apple’s “bad-faith compliance plan” in District Court.
A quick summary of glaring problems we’ve found so far:
1) Apple has introduced an anticompetitive new 27% tax on web purchases. Apple has never done this before, and it kills price competition. Developers can’t offer digital items more cheaply on the web after paying a… pic.twitter.com/YkHuapG7xa
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) January 16, 2024
According to Bloomberg, Epic said in a filing Tuesday that it “disputes Apple’s compliance” with previously ordered changes and said it will explain the “non-compliance” in a forthcoming filing.
Meanwhile, Apple wants Epic Games to pay $73.4 million in legal fees after Apple won the antitrust case brought against it by the North Carolinian games maker. Apple bases the claim on Epic’s original violation of its developer agreement, when its Fortnite game offered an in-app payment alternative on the App Store. Epic previously accepted that it would owe damages if it lost its antitrust claims against Apple. Now that it has, Apple has issued the bill.
This article, “Apple Failed to Comply With App Store Court Order, Epic Tells Judge” first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums
QRDO Foundation and EQ LAB Announce Strategic Partnership to Launch the Warden Protocol
Cayman Islands, Cayman Islands, January 31st, 2024, Chainwire The QRDO Foundation, dedicated to the growth and development of the QRDO ecosystem, has announced a strategic partnership with EQ LAB, a leading blockchain developer lab, to launch the Warden Protocol. This
The post QRDO Foundation and EQ LAB Announce Strategic Partnership to Launch the Warden Protocol first appeared on TechStartups.
Cayman Islands, Cayman Islands, January 31st, 2024, Chainwire The QRDO Foundation, dedicated to the growth and development of the QRDO ecosystem, has announced a strategic partnership with EQ LAB, a leading blockchain developer lab, to launch the Warden Protocol. This […]
The post QRDO Foundation and EQ LAB Announce Strategic Partnership to Launch the Warden Protocol first appeared on TechStartups.
Netflix remakes 1953 French movie The Wages of Fear into a Fast and Furious spectacle
Netflix’s remake of the fifties action classic, The Wages of Fear, brings one of the most influential films of all time to modern audiences.
The 1953 French movie Wages of Fear is widely regarded as a classic and one of the key influences on modern movies. It’s a tale of desperate men transporting two truckloads of nitroglycerine across a danger-laden desert – and while it’s an edge of the seat thriller, it’s also a savage satire.
One reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes, where it has a flawless 100% score, calls it “an uncompromising parable about money, greed, and man’s jealous desire for that which he can never have”. The movie is so iconic that it was remade in 1977 under the title Sorcerer, and now Netflix is remaking its own version of it.
As you can see from the new Netflix movie‘s trailer below, the 2024 reboot looks just as explosive as the original, but benefits from all the marvels available to modern filmmakers – the action scenes of trucks sprinting down highways are reminiscent of Fast and Furious movies. But the emphasis on action does raise an important question: will the 2024 remake keep the original’s darkness?
Why The Wages of Fear is already a modern classic
Writing in the Chicago Tribune, Dave Kehr describes the fifties original of The Wages of Fear as “one of the most deeply and disturbingly nihilistic films ever made” – and while the edited cut shown in US theaters was a “mutilated version” it was still “one of the most heart-pounding thrillers on record”. It was also arguably pretty anti-American, something that had the film accused of being communist propaganda when it was first released.
The film – and arguably Georges Arnaud’s novel of the same name that it was based on – went on to influence a generation of filmmakers, including Sam Peckinpah of The Wild Bunch. Slant magazine put it best when it wrote that the original source material now feels like “the spiritual godfather to every testosterone-fuelled thrill ride since”.
The late film critic Roger Ebert revisited the film in 1992, arguing that the action has aged much better than its often really awful sexual politics and its politics more generally. “The film’s extended suspense sequences deserve a place among the great stretches of cinema,” he wrote, adding that “if the opening sequences, now restored, have a tendency to drag, the movie is heart stopping once the two trucks begin their torturous 300-mile journey to a blazing oil well”.
The Wages of Fear will premiere on Netflix, the best streaming service, on March 29, 2024.
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Could our Universe be a simulation? How would we even tell?
Simulations all the way down—the philosophical debate on the nature of our Universe.
Enlarge / Is this a simulation? (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)
Ever since Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom proposed his simulation argument in 2001, the nerdiverse has attempted to the assess the possibility that reality is not really real, that what we experience as our Universe is instead the product of a computer simulation. Popular figures such as Elon Musk and Neil deGrasse Tyson have offered their own conclusions, but taking a firm stance was not the point of Bostrom’s argument. Instead, Bostrom’s position is nuanced and careful, and it doesn’t arrive at fixed answers.
I’ll take it for granted that the Ars readership is more sophisticated than the average geek, so let’s take some time to dissect Bostrom’s simulation argument, exploring its construction, its implications, its strengths, and its weaknesses.
But I have to warn you: If you’re hoping for relief, one way or the other, from the existential crisis brought about by the possibility that we live in a simulation, you won’t find any comfort here. The firmest conclusion anyone can reach, after examining and re-examining the arguments for and against the simulation thesis, is a profound yet resigned “maybe.”
Figure AI in talks with Microsoft and OpenAI for funding
Figure AI, a company that specializes in the development of humanoid robots, is planning to secure $500 million in a
The post Figure AI in talks with Microsoft and OpenAI for funding appeared first on ReadWrite.
Figure AI, a company that specializes in the development of humanoid robots, is planning to secure $500 million in a funding round led by Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI, according to Bloomberg.
Although the tech giant reportedly will not provide the full amount, it is said to be investing approximately $95 million alongside OpenAI, which will contribute $5 million. If the funding round is successful, the company might achieve a pre-money valuation of $1.9 billion.
However, the funding round is not yet finalized, and there is always the possibility of talks collapsing. The potential investors and Figure AI have also not commented on the situation.
Why is Figure AI creating humanoid robots?
Figure AI’s website states that it aims to amalgamate new AI technologies with robotics, in order “to develop general purpose humanoids that make a positive impact on humanity and create a better life for future generations.” It believes that by creating humanoid robots, “unsafe and undesirable jobs” can be eliminated, thus helping to plug unprecedented labor shortages.
However, the California-based company said that its priority will be in industries such as manufacturing, shipping and logistics, warehousing, and retail, “where labor shortages are the most severe.”
The AI-powered robot is set to look like a human called Figure 01, equipped with “two legs, two arms, hands, and screen for a face.” Brett Adcock, founder and CEO, said it has managed to make coffee like a human.
Adcock added that his sole focus is “building Figure with a 30-year view to positively impact the future of humanity.” Earlier this month, the company signed a deal with BMW to have its robot work in the car developer’s United States’ facilities.
Where do robots work today?
There are already several devices being used in the workforce such as warehouse robots, who help get work done in giant facilities. Similarly, an affordable robot has been created to help with intricate tasks called Mobile ALOHA. Stanford University scientists used AI, readily available components and 3D-printed hardware to make the £32,000 robot.
AI and robotics are also working in several healthcare establishments, carrying out tasks such as genetic testing, robotic surgery, cancer research, data collection, and more.
Featured image: Canva / Figure AI / Mike Mozart
The post Figure AI in talks with Microsoft and OpenAI for funding appeared first on ReadWrite.