Month: August 2024
Nomad Debuts New Rocky Point Band for Apple Watch Ultra
Nomad today announced the launch of its latest Apple Watch accessory, the Rocky Point Band. The Rocky Point Band was created with the Apple Watch Ultra in mind, and it has a rugged look that matches well with Apple’s watch for outdoor enthusiasts.
According to Nomad, the Rocky Point Band is made from “ultra-touch, compression-molded FKM” fluoroelastomer rubber, and it is equipped with grade 2 lightweight titanium hardware to match the Apple Watch Ultra. The company used metal injection molding titanium to create the components for the band.
The design includes ventilation grooves for breathability, and it is entirely waterproof. While designed for the Apple Watch Ultra and Ultra 2, it is also compatible with all Apple Watch models.
Nomad is offering the Rocky Point Band in Storm, Sol, and Atlantic shades, and it can be purchased from the Nomad website for $80.This article, “Nomad Debuts New Rocky Point Band for Apple Watch Ultra” first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums
Nomad today announced the launch of its latest Apple Watch accessory, the Rocky Point Band. The Rocky Point Band was created with the Apple Watch Ultra in mind, and it has a rugged look that matches well with Apple’s watch for outdoor enthusiasts.
According to Nomad, the Rocky Point Band is made from “ultra-touch, compression-molded FKM” fluoroelastomer rubber, and it is equipped with grade 2 lightweight titanium hardware to match the Apple Watch Ultra. The company used metal injection molding titanium to create the components for the band.
The design includes ventilation grooves for breathability, and it is entirely waterproof. While designed for the Apple Watch Ultra and Ultra 2, it is also compatible with all Apple Watch models.
Nomad is offering the Rocky Point Band in Storm, Sol, and Atlantic shades, and it can be purchased from the Nomad website for $80.
This article, “Nomad Debuts New Rocky Point Band for Apple Watch Ultra” first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums
New MIT study finds neurons process language at varied timescales
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The maker of the Palma has a new cheaper e-reader
Image: Boox
Boox, the company behind the pocket-friendly Palma e-reader, has revealed its cheapest device yet. At just $149.99, the Boox 6 Go features a six-inch 300ppi E ink display and a wider-than-the-Palma form factor for reading while on the go.
The device uses an upgraded Carta 1300 E ink display that’s supposed to offer deeper blacks and brighter whites. Like many of Boox’s other e-readers, the Boox 6 Go is pretty light, weighing in at just 146 grams (or 5 ounces) and measuring a quarter of an inch thick.
Image: Boox
Along with Android 12 and the Google Play Store on board, it runs the latest version of Boox’s firmware, which introduces a minimalistic interface, a dark mode option, and a new handwriting tool. The Boox 6 Go ships with a 2.0Ghz octa-core processor and 32GB of storage. But it only has 2GB of RAM, which could slow down performance — especially if you want to download and use Android apps.
Either way, the Boox Go 6 could be a good fit if you’re looking for an e-reader that’s a bit larger than the Palma, but cheaper and more portable than its other options, like the Go Color 7 or the Go 10.3.
You can check out the Boox Go 6 from the company’s website.
Image: Boox
Boox, the company behind the pocket-friendly Palma e-reader, has revealed its cheapest device yet. At just $149.99, the Boox 6 Go features a six-inch 300ppi E ink display and a wider-than-the-Palma form factor for reading while on the go.
The device uses an upgraded Carta 1300 E ink display that’s supposed to offer deeper blacks and brighter whites. Like many of Boox’s other e-readers, the Boox 6 Go is pretty light, weighing in at just 146 grams (or 5 ounces) and measuring a quarter of an inch thick.
Image: Boox
Along with Android 12 and the Google Play Store on board, it runs the latest version of Boox’s firmware, which introduces a minimalistic interface, a dark mode option, and a new handwriting tool. The Boox 6 Go ships with a 2.0Ghz octa-core processor and 32GB of storage. But it only has 2GB of RAM, which could slow down performance — especially if you want to download and use Android apps.
Either way, the Boox Go 6 could be a good fit if you’re looking for an e-reader that’s a bit larger than the Palma, but cheaper and more portable than its other options, like the Go Color 7 or the Go 10.3.
You can check out the Boox Go 6 from the company’s website.
Google’s Gemini AI can now take notes on your Meet video calls
Google Meet is getting a new AI tool called take notes for me, which will generate summaries of key points during a video call. Rather than offering a word-by-word transcription, this feature uses Gemini AI to record key discussion points in a Google Doc that will appear in the meeting owner’s Google Drive. The document can be automatically sent to the attendees or added to the calendar event after the call. It will also include links to the meeting recording and transcript if those features have been enabled.
Google Workspace customers with the Gemini Enterprise, Gemini Education Premium, and AI Meetings & Messaging add-ons will be the first to have access to this note-taking feature. Its use is currently limited to English language and to meetings on computers or laptops.
The tech company announced plans to include generative AI in more services last year, and has been aggressive in putting AI features into its hardware and software since then. Its Gemini AI assistant is getting baked into Android and into its Workspace apps. As always, the usefulness of these features may vary depending on how well the AI works and how accurate it is. The specter of Google’s AI Overviews telling people to eat glue pizza will likely continue to hang over its ongoing efforts in this space.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-gemini-ai-can-now-take-notes-on-your-meet-video-calls-215741583.html?src=rss
Google Meet is getting a new AI tool called take notes for me, which will generate summaries of key points during a video call. Rather than offering a word-by-word transcription, this feature uses Gemini AI to record key discussion points in a Google Doc that will appear in the meeting owner’s Google Drive. The document can be automatically sent to the attendees or added to the calendar event after the call. It will also include links to the meeting recording and transcript if those features have been enabled.
Google Workspace customers with the Gemini Enterprise, Gemini Education Premium, and AI Meetings & Messaging add-ons will be the first to have access to this note-taking feature. Its use is currently limited to English language and to meetings on computers or laptops.
The tech company announced plans to include generative AI in more services last year, and has been aggressive in putting AI features into its hardware and software since then. Its Gemini AI assistant is getting baked into Android and into its Workspace apps. As always, the usefulness of these features may vary depending on how well the AI works and how accurate it is. The specter of Google’s AI Overviews telling people to eat glue pizza will likely continue to hang over its ongoing efforts in this space.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-gemini-ai-can-now-take-notes-on-your-meet-video-calls-215741583.html?src=rss
Ryzen speed boosts get backported to Windows 11 23H2 with optional update
And it turns out that old Ryzen CPUs benefit almost as much as newer ones.
Enlarge / AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)
Among AMD’s explanations for the somewhat underwhelming Ryzen 9000 performance reports from reviewers earlier this month: that the upcoming Windows 11 24H2 update would bring some improvements to the CPU scheduler that would boost the performance of the new CPUs and their Zen 5-based architecture.
But rather than make Ryzen owners wait for the 24H2 update to come out later this fall (or make them install a beta version of a major OS update), AMD and Microsoft have backported the scheduler improvements to Windows 11 23H2. Users of Ryzen 5000, 7000, and 9000 CPUs can install the KB5041587 update by going to Windows Update in Settings, selecting Advanced Options, and then Optional Updates.
“We expect the performance uplift to be very similar between 24H2 and 23H2 with KB5041587 installed,” an AMD representative told Ars.
How Do You Define ‘Open Source AI’?
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Open Source Initiative (OSI) recently unveiled its latest draft definition for “open source AI,” aiming to clarify the ambiguous use of the term in the fast-moving field. The move comes as some companies like Meta release trained AI language model weights and code with usage restrictions while using the “open source” label. This has sparked intense debates among free-software advocates about what truly constitutes “open source” in the context of AI. For instance, Meta’s Llama 3 model, while freely available, doesn’t meet the traditional open source criteria as defined by the OSI for software because it imposes license restrictions on usage due to company size or what type of content is produced with the model. The AI image generator Flux is another “open” model that is not truly open source. Because of this type of ambiguity, we’ve typically described AI models that include code or weights with restrictions or lack accompanying training data with alternative terms like “open-weights” or “source-available.”
To address the issue formally, the OSI — which is well-known for its advocacy for open software standards — has assembled a group of about 70 participants, including researchers, lawyers, policymakers, and activists. Representatives from major tech companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon also joined the effort. The group’s current draft (version 0.0.9) definition of open source AI emphasizes “four fundamental freedoms” reminiscent of those defining free software: giving users of the AI system permission to use it for any purpose without permission, study how it works, modify it for any purpose, and share with or without modifications. […] OSI’s project timeline indicates that a stable version of the “open source AI” definition is expected to be announced in October at the All Things Open 2024 event in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Open Source Initiative (OSI) recently unveiled its latest draft definition for “open source AI,” aiming to clarify the ambiguous use of the term in the fast-moving field. The move comes as some companies like Meta release trained AI language model weights and code with usage restrictions while using the “open source” label. This has sparked intense debates among free-software advocates about what truly constitutes “open source” in the context of AI. For instance, Meta’s Llama 3 model, while freely available, doesn’t meet the traditional open source criteria as defined by the OSI for software because it imposes license restrictions on usage due to company size or what type of content is produced with the model. The AI image generator Flux is another “open” model that is not truly open source. Because of this type of ambiguity, we’ve typically described AI models that include code or weights with restrictions or lack accompanying training data with alternative terms like “open-weights” or “source-available.”
To address the issue formally, the OSI — which is well-known for its advocacy for open software standards — has assembled a group of about 70 participants, including researchers, lawyers, policymakers, and activists. Representatives from major tech companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon also joined the effort. The group’s current draft (version 0.0.9) definition of open source AI emphasizes “four fundamental freedoms” reminiscent of those defining free software: giving users of the AI system permission to use it for any purpose without permission, study how it works, modify it for any purpose, and share with or without modifications. […] OSI’s project timeline indicates that a stable version of the “open source AI” definition is expected to be announced in October at the All Things Open 2024 event in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
“Exploitative” IT firm has been delaying 2,000 recruits’ onboarding for years
India’s Infosys recruits reportedly subjected to repeated, unpaid “pre-training.”
Indian IT firm Infosys has been accused of being “exploitative” after allegedly sending job offers to thousands of engineering graduates but still not onboarding any of them after as long as two years. The recent graduates have reportedly been told they must do repeated, unpaid training in order to remain eligible to work at Infosys.
Last week, the Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), an Indian advocacy group for IT workers, sent a letter [PDF], shared by The Register, to Mansukh Mandaviya, India’s Minster of Labor and Employment. It requested that the Indian government intervene “to prevent exploitation of young IT graduates by Infosys.” The letter signed by NITES president Harpreet Singh Saluja claimed that NITES received “multiple” complaints from recent engineering graduates “who have been subjected to unprofessional and exploitative practices” from Infosys after being hired for system engineer and digital specialist engineer roles.
According to NITES, Infosys sent these people offer letters as early as April 22, 2022, after engaging in a college recruitment effort from 2022–2023 but never onboarded the graduates. NITES has previously said that “over 2,000 recruits” are affected.
iCloud Mail, iCloud Web Apps, Stocks, Game Center, TestFlight and Apple News Experiencing Outage
Apple’s iCloud Mail service and its iCloud Web Apps are currently experiencing an outage, according to Apple’s System Status page.
Impacted users are unable to use iCloud Mail or iCloud Web Apps, and the services have been down since 4:29 p.m. Eastern Time.
Apple says that only some users are affected, so not everyone will experience issues. We’ll update this article when iCloud Mail and Apple’s iCloud Web Apps are up and running.
Update: Stocks, Game Center, and Apple News are also down.
Update 2: Apple has also added TestFlight and iWork for iCloud to the list of services experiencing issues. This article, “iCloud Mail, iCloud Web Apps, Stocks, Game Center, TestFlight and Apple News Experiencing Outage” first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums
Apple’s iCloud Mail service and its iCloud Web Apps are currently experiencing an outage, according to Apple’s System Status page.
Impacted users are unable to use iCloud Mail or iCloud Web Apps, and the services have been down since 4:29 p.m. Eastern Time.
Apple says that only some users are affected, so not everyone will experience issues. We’ll update this article when iCloud Mail and Apple’s iCloud Web Apps are up and running.
Update: Stocks, Game Center, and Apple News are also down.
Update 2: Apple has also added TestFlight and iWork for iCloud to the list of services experiencing issues.
This article, “iCloud Mail, iCloud Web Apps, Stocks, Game Center, TestFlight and Apple News Experiencing Outage” first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums