Month: August 2024
Who Wins From Nature’s Genetic Bounty?
Scientists are harvesting genetic data from microorganisms in a North Yorkshire quarry, fueling a global debate over ownership and profit-sharing of natural genetic resources. Researchers from London-based startup Basecamp Research are collecting samples and digitizing genetic codes for sale to AI companies. This practice of trading digital sequencing information (DSI) has become central to biotechnology research and development. The issue will be a focal point at October’s COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, The Guardian reports.
Developing nations, home to much of the world’s biodiversity, are pushing for a global system requiring companies to pay for genetic data use. Past discoveries underscore the potential value: heat-resistant bacteria crucial for COVID-19 testing and marine organisms used in cancer treatments have generated significant profits. Critics accuse companies of “biopiracy” for commercializing genetic information without compensating source countries. Proposed solutions include a global fund for equitable benefit-sharing, though implementation details remain contentious.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Scientists are harvesting genetic data from microorganisms in a North Yorkshire quarry, fueling a global debate over ownership and profit-sharing of natural genetic resources. Researchers from London-based startup Basecamp Research are collecting samples and digitizing genetic codes for sale to AI companies. This practice of trading digital sequencing information (DSI) has become central to biotechnology research and development. The issue will be a focal point at October’s COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, The Guardian reports.
Developing nations, home to much of the world’s biodiversity, are pushing for a global system requiring companies to pay for genetic data use. Past discoveries underscore the potential value: heat-resistant bacteria crucial for COVID-19 testing and marine organisms used in cancer treatments have generated significant profits. Critics accuse companies of “biopiracy” for commercializing genetic information without compensating source countries. Proposed solutions include a global fund for equitable benefit-sharing, though implementation details remain contentious.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Revised Raspberry Pi 5 chip comes with unexpected power savings
What we don’t know is whether 4GB or 8GB Pis will get the tweaked chip design.
Enlarge / The Broadcom SoC used in the original 4GB and 8GB Raspberry Pi 5. The 2GB version uses an updated revision with several small but significant benefits. (credit: Raspberry Pi)
When Raspberry Pi introduced a new 2GB version of the Raspberry Pi 5 board earlier this month, CEO Eben Upton said that the board would come with a slightly updated version of the board’s Broadcom BCM2712C1 SoC. By removing chip functionality that the Pi 5 didn’t use, the new D0 stepping of the chip would use less silicon, reducing its cost.
Raspberry Pi enthusiast and YouTuber Jeff Geerling has performed some firsthand testing of the 2GB Pi 5. As Upton said, the new board is functionally identical to the older 4GB and 8GB boards, with identical performance (as long as whatever workload you’re running doesn’t benefit from extra RAM, anyway). The new silicon die is also about 33 percent smaller than the old one, which Geerling verified by removing the SoC’s heat spreader to expose the silicon underneath and measuring by hand.
Geerling also demonstrated that the 2GB Pi 5 comes with a couple of unexpected benefits that Upton didn’t mention in his announcement—that the 2GB Pi 5 runs a little cooler and uses a little less power than the 4GB and 8GB editions. The 2GB Pi used just 2.4 W or power at idle and 8.9 W during a CPU stress test, compared to 3.3 W and 9.8 W in the 4GB version. The SoC of the 2GB Pi measured 30° Celsius at idle and 59° under load, compared to 32° and 63° for the 2GB version. Those are all small but significant differences, given that nothing has changed other than the SoC.
Are Google’s monopoly cases 5 years too late or 2 years too early?
Google suffered a major defeat when U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta found that the tech giant had acted illegally to maintain its monopoly in online search. Mehta has yet to decide on the consequences — which Google will undoubtedly fight — but many have speculated how the decision could alter the way Google does
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Google suffered a major defeat when U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta found that the tech giant had acted illegally to maintain its monopoly in online search. Mehta has yet to decide on the consequences — which Google will undoubtedly fight — but many have speculated how the decision could alter the way Google does […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
ChatGPT’s weekly users have doubled in less than a year
Illustration: The Verge
OpenAI says that more than 200 million people use ChatGPT each week, as first reported by Axios. OpenAI spokesperson Taya Christianson confirmed the number to The Verge, which is now double the 100 million weekly active users OpenAI reported last November.
Additionally, Christianson says that 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies are using OpenAI’s products, while API usage has doubled following the release of the company’s cheaper and smarter model GPT-4o Mini.
Since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, Google, Microsoft, and Meta have also launched AI chat interfaces of their own, but OpenAI’s user base continues to grow. Today, The Information reported that Meta’s AI assistant has at least 400 million monthly active users and 40 million daily active users.
Earlier today, the US AI Safety Institute also announced that OpenAI and Anthropic have agreed to let the government evaluate major AI models before being launched to the public. Reports are also circulating that Apple and Nvidia could be among OpenAI’s next round of investors.
Illustration: The Verge
OpenAI says that more than 200 million people use ChatGPT each week, as first reported by Axios. OpenAI spokesperson Taya Christianson confirmed the number to The Verge, which is now double the 100 million weekly active users OpenAI reported last November.
Additionally, Christianson says that 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies are using OpenAI’s products, while API usage has doubled following the release of the company’s cheaper and smarter model GPT-4o Mini.
Since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, Google, Microsoft, and Meta have also launched AI chat interfaces of their own, but OpenAI’s user base continues to grow. Today, The Information reported that Meta’s AI assistant has at least 400 million monthly active users and 40 million daily active users.
Earlier today, the US AI Safety Institute also announced that OpenAI and Anthropic have agreed to let the government evaluate major AI models before being launched to the public. Reports are also circulating that Apple and Nvidia could be among OpenAI’s next round of investors.
As China creates more space junk, the US military still plays orbital traffic cop
“We all should operate with due regard and in a professional manner.”
Enlarge / Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of US Space Command, speaks earlier this year at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. (credit: USSPACECOM photo by John Philip Wagner Jr.)
The head of US Space Command said Wednesday he would like to see more transparency from the Chinese government on space debris, especially as one of China’s newer rockets has shown a propensity for breaking apart and littering low-Earth orbit with hundreds of pieces of space junk.
Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of US Space Command, said he’s observed some improvement in the dialogue between US and Chinese military officials this year. But the disintegration of the upper stage from a Long March 6A rocket earlier this month showed China could do more to prevent the creation of space debris, and communicate openly about it when it happens.
The Chinese government acknowledged the breakup of the Long March 6A rocket’s upper stage in a statement by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs on August 14, more than a week after the rocket’s launch August 6 with the first batch of 18 Internet satellites for a megaconstellation of thousands of spacecraft analogous to SpaceX’s Starlink network.
Apple Announces Rare Wave of Job Cuts
Apple has laid off about 100 employees in its services group (source may be paywalled; alternative source), primarily affecting roles associated with the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: The impacted employees at the Cupertino-based tech giant were informed of the cuts on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported (paywalled). The layoffs spanned various teams under Senior Vice President Eddy Cue. The job cuts include roles primarily associated with the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore, with the company shifting its focus to other divisions. Additionally, other services teams, such as the one managing Apple News, also experienced layoffs.
While Apple has largely avoided mass layoffs even as other major tech companies have downsized, it did lay off 614 employees in Santa Clara earlier this year. Those cuts marked Apple’s first significant job reductions since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and coincided with the cancellation of its decade-long electric car project.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple has laid off about 100 employees in its services group (source may be paywalled; alternative source), primarily affecting roles associated with the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: The impacted employees at the Cupertino-based tech giant were informed of the cuts on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported (paywalled). The layoffs spanned various teams under Senior Vice President Eddy Cue. The job cuts include roles primarily associated with the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore, with the company shifting its focus to other divisions. Additionally, other services teams, such as the one managing Apple News, also experienced layoffs.
While Apple has largely avoided mass layoffs even as other major tech companies have downsized, it did lay off 614 employees in Santa Clara earlier this year. Those cuts marked Apple’s first significant job reductions since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and coincided with the cancellation of its decade-long electric car project.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Remember Steam Machines? EmuDeck founder revisits Valve’s TV console idea
Looks like a Dreamcast. Needs more arrows. | Image: EmuDeck
Valve once dreamt of building Linux-based game consoles called Steam Machines. They flopped — but the dream eventually became reality as the handheld Steam Deck instead. Now, a particularly noteworthy Steam Deck enthusiast is reviving the idea of a console-sized Steam Box, one with his own retro gaming twist.
Rodrigo Sedano is the founder of EmuDeck, a program beloved by the Steam Deck community. It automatically installs, configures, and enhances emulators for Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and other retro consoles so they work beautifully on Valve’s handheld.
Now, he wants to make it even easier. He’s preparing to sell you a console-shaped custom gaming PC preloaded with that entire Steam + EmuDeck experience, plus a wireless controller, all ready to go.
He’s calling them EmuDeck Machines, and he’s currently crowdfunding the idea on Indiegogo for prices starting at around $400 — with an incredibly ambitious promise to ship them in December of this year, just four months from now.
They’ll house (weak) Intel N97 or (stronger) AMD 8600G chips in a Sega Dreamcast-inspired shell, with four USB ports around front for additional wired controllers or peripherals. By overclocking the AMD 8600G’s integrated Radeon 760M graphics, he claims he can get what looks like Steam Deck-beating performance out of his pricier $700 model:
Image: EmuDeck
EmuDeck Machine configurations.
There are lots of reasons to wait before putting money down on a crowdfunding campaign, though. While I love EmuDeck, and he seems to have other software design, web design, and management experience, he admits to The Verge that he’s never shipped a hardware product like this before.
He says his US and EU partners are telling him that getting FCC and CE certifications should only take one month. His current prototype is just a Mini-ITX board in a wooden box, while he waits for his potential case manufacturing partners in Spain to deliver the Dreamcast-shaped console case he’s dreamt up. He’s planning to assemble the PCs himself, as a family business of sorts.
But I think it’s at least plausible because he says he’s not necessarily expecting to sell more than 100 of these as a side project — and because he says these PCs will use off-the-shelf parts. It’s a standard Mini-ITX desktop motherboard and chip, in an 8.66 x 8.66 x 2.55-inch chassis. (He tells me they will have an external 155W power supply.)
Sedano says he’s been building computers since he was 14 and sees this as a hobby, too, but he’s getting serious about it in a few ways. EmuDeck is now a registered limited liability company in Spain (we checked!), and he says he’s locked down several suppliers to make sure he’ll have the components. He’ll offer hardware support and a warranty, he claims.
He also may not need Valve’s support to make this a reality; the operating system he’s preloading is Bazzite, a promising fork of the SteamOS interface with a different underlying operating system (Fedora). I’ve loaded it on a Lenovo Legion Go and the ROG Ally X at this point, and I’ve been mostly impressed by how well it works. Bazzite founder Kyle Gospodnetich tells me his team gave EmuDeck their blessing, though Bazzite isn’t currently helping EmuDeck tweak the software.
It’s a little surprising we haven’t seen many Steam Boxes like this before, and Bazzite says it isn’t aware of any others in the works. Perhaps other companies have been waiting on Valve? The Steam Deck maker told us in late 2022 that it’s actually excited for other manufacturers to make small SteamOS PCs — after Valve releases a general image of SteamOS 3 for those manufacturers to use.
As of this month, there are signs that Valve’s getting closer.
If you’d rather tinker instead of looking for a turnkey console gaming experience, you could of course build your own Bazzite box with EmuDeck. Or, add an HDMI dock or hub to a handheld. Or, you could possibly even do what YouTuber ETA Prime did and turn an old Steam Deck into a mini PC.
Looks like a Dreamcast. Needs more arrows. | Image: EmuDeck
Valve once dreamt of building Linux-based game consoles called Steam Machines. They flopped — but the dream eventually became reality as the handheld Steam Deck instead. Now, a particularly noteworthy Steam Deck enthusiast is reviving the idea of a console-sized Steam Box, one with his own retro gaming twist.
Rodrigo Sedano is the founder of EmuDeck, a program beloved by the Steam Deck community. It automatically installs, configures, and enhances emulators for Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and other retro consoles so they work beautifully on Valve’s handheld.
Now, he wants to make it even easier. He’s preparing to sell you a console-shaped custom gaming PC preloaded with that entire Steam + EmuDeck experience, plus a wireless controller, all ready to go.
He’s calling them EmuDeck Machines, and he’s currently crowdfunding the idea on Indiegogo for prices starting at around $400 — with an incredibly ambitious promise to ship them in December of this year, just four months from now.
They’ll house (weak) Intel N97 or (stronger) AMD 8600G chips in a Sega Dreamcast-inspired shell, with four USB ports around front for additional wired controllers or peripherals. By overclocking the AMD 8600G’s integrated Radeon 760M graphics, he claims he can get what looks like Steam Deck-beating performance out of his pricier $700 model:
Image: EmuDeck
EmuDeck Machine configurations.
There are lots of reasons to wait before putting money down on a crowdfunding campaign, though. While I love EmuDeck, and he seems to have other software design, web design, and management experience, he admits to The Verge that he’s never shipped a hardware product like this before.
He says his US and EU partners are telling him that getting FCC and CE certifications should only take one month. His current prototype is just a Mini-ITX board in a wooden box, while he waits for his potential case manufacturing partners in Spain to deliver the Dreamcast-shaped console case he’s dreamt up. He’s planning to assemble the PCs himself, as a family business of sorts.
But I think it’s at least plausible because he says he’s not necessarily expecting to sell more than 100 of these as a side project — and because he says these PCs will use off-the-shelf parts. It’s a standard Mini-ITX desktop motherboard and chip, in an 8.66 x 8.66 x 2.55-inch chassis. (He tells me they will have an external 155W power supply.)
Sedano says he’s been building computers since he was 14 and sees this as a hobby, too, but he’s getting serious about it in a few ways. EmuDeck is now a registered limited liability company in Spain (we checked!), and he says he’s locked down several suppliers to make sure he’ll have the components. He’ll offer hardware support and a warranty, he claims.
He also may not need Valve’s support to make this a reality; the operating system he’s preloading is Bazzite, a promising fork of the SteamOS interface with a different underlying operating system (Fedora). I’ve loaded it on a Lenovo Legion Go and the ROG Ally X at this point, and I’ve been mostly impressed by how well it works. Bazzite founder Kyle Gospodnetich tells me his team gave EmuDeck their blessing, though Bazzite isn’t currently helping EmuDeck tweak the software.
It’s a little surprising we haven’t seen many Steam Boxes like this before, and Bazzite says it isn’t aware of any others in the works. Perhaps other companies have been waiting on Valve? The Steam Deck maker told us in late 2022 that it’s actually excited for other manufacturers to make small SteamOS PCs — after Valve releases a general image of SteamOS 3 for those manufacturers to use.
As of this month, there are signs that Valve’s getting closer.
If you’d rather tinker instead of looking for a turnkey console gaming experience, you could of course build your own Bazzite box with EmuDeck. Or, add an HDMI dock or hub to a handheld. Or, you could possibly even do what YouTuber ETA Prime did and turn an old Steam Deck into a mini PC.
US: Alaska man busted with 10,000+ child sex abuse images despite his many encrypted apps
Encryption alone won’t save you from the feds.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Yuichiro Chino)
The rise in child sexual abuse material (CSAM) has been one of the darkest Internet trends, but after years of covering CSAM cases, I’ve found that few of those arrested show deep technical sophistication. (Perhaps this is simply because the technically sophisticated are better at avoiding arrest.)
Most understand that what they are doing is illegal and that password protection is required, both for their devices and online communities. Some can also use tools like TOR (The Onion Router). And, increasingly, encrypted (or at least encrypted-capable) chat apps might be in play.
But I’ve never seen anyone who, when arrested, had three Samsung Galaxy phones filled with “tens of thousands of videos and images” depicting CSAM, all of it hidden behind a secrecy-focused, password-protected app called “Calculator Photo Vault.” Nor have I seen anyone arrested for CSAM having used all of the following: