Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will deliver a keynote at CES 2025 in January. The keynote will take place on January 6th at 6:30PM PT / 9:30PM ET, just a day before the Consumer Electronics Show opens its doors in Las Vegas. It comes amid rumors of next-gen Nvidia GPUs appearing early next year.

A source familiar with Nvidia’s plans told The Verge last month that we might hear more about the RTX 50-series at the Consumer Electronics Show in early 2025. Nvidia is an official guest keynote of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) for this upcoming CES show after the company previously delivered its own “special address” stream at CES 2024 earlier this year.

While Huang will undoubtedly focus on the AI hardware and software that has propelled...

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Samsung, the world’s leading memory chip manufacturer, issued a rare apology after saying it expected to post just $6.78 billion in operating profit for the most recent quarter, about $900 million short of analyst expectations.

“We have caused concerns about our fundamental technological competitiveness and the future of the company due to our performance falling short of the market’s expectations,” reads the statement attributed to Samsung Vice Chairman Jun Young-hyun. “Many people are talking about Samsung’s crisis. We, who are leading the business, are responsible for all of this.”

The so-called “crisis” caused the company to instigate a six-day workweek for executives earlier this year. That change was instigated after posting...

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When we reviewed Diablo IV, the latest installment in the long-running action roleplaying game series last year, we said it was off to a hell of a good start. But ARPGs live and die by their endgame loops, and it was far too early at the time to accurately assess the game’s true staying power.

Sadly, after that confident first step, like so many loot-hunting games before it, Diablo IV fell flat on its face. I’ve seen plenty of boneheaded updates to live-service games, but Diablo IV’s first major patch, released a couple of months after the game’s release, was still pretty shocking. By that point, a consensus had emerged that the endgame was a bit barren, and getting to the game’s level cap of 100 was a tedious slog. But that’s the great thing about live-service games, right? Tweak some numbers, throw in a couple of fun high-level activities, and, baby, you’ve got a stew going.

Sadly, the game’s developers at Blizzard had other plans. The patch notes for that first update read like someone had systematically gone through the game and removed anything that could be considered fun. Almost every character build had been mercilessly nerfed, and worst of all, the game became even slower. Fans were incensed, and Diablo IV floundered like this for its first three seasons. I mostly lost interest.

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The holiday shopping season is traditionally the most important sales time of the year for brands and retailers, but for the last two years, brands have approached the season with cautious optimism. This year, brands are feeling much better about their holiday sales going into the season.

That’s based on new Modern Retail+ research based on a survey of brands and retailers about the upcoming holiday season. When asked about their revenue expectations, a plurality of respondents (35%) said they expect sales to be up between 11-30% compared to last year’s holiday season. Comparatively, only 20% said the same in 2023 and only 6% in 2022. Instead, in previous years, the most common answer to the question was between 1-10%.

This is a member-exclusive article from Modern Retail. Continue reading it on modernretail.co and subscribe to continue reading content like this.

Plus proche de la clé HDMI que de la carte de développement, Digiport propose une sortie vidéo qui permettra de jouer, lire des fichier vidéo ou audio locaux et même de surfer ou de piloter des logiciels.

Digiport est une sorte de clé HDMI dans le sens ou le dispositif ne comporte pas qu’une connectique classique mais embarque un port HDMI mâle, de telle sorte qu’on peut enficher directement la clé dans un port HDMI de téléviseur sans câble. Une idée qui est d’ailleurs de moins en moins pratiquée par le marché car elle n’a pas forcément que des avantages et force les industriels à livrer avec leurs solutions des câbles HDMI femelle-mâle.

Le dispositif se présente comme un support permettant d’embarquer un Compute Module de Raspberry Pi. Compatible avec le CM4, il devrait assurer une certaine évolution dans le temps si la fondation continue d’embarquer ses composants sur le même format de module. Permettant ainsi à l’utilisateur de faire évoluer son matériel. On se souvient qu’entre le Compute Module 3 et la version 4, la connectique avait été totalement bouleversée. Le CM4S a permis de retrouver le format SODIMM de la version 3.

Le Digiport profite de ce module pour assurer des travaux variés, connecté à un clavier, un écran et une souris il offrira tous les services possibles à ce type de solution. Proposé par une équipe australienne, l’objet est proposé en plusieurs versions sur Kickstarter : un support seulement livré avec un dissipateur à 62€. Ou des kits complets avec un Compute Module 4 et une carte de stockage à partir de 121€ et jusqu’à 165€ suivant l’équipement et les accessoires choisis.

La petite carte de support offrira au CM4 deux ports USB 2.0, une alimentation en USB Type-C, un capteur infrarouge pour être pilotée à la télécommande (non fournie) et un lecteur de cartes MicroSDXC. 

Rien de vraiment révolutionnaire dans cette offre mais un format qui peut intéresser certains utilisateurs. La carte peut facilement être transportée et accrochée à un écran, servir aussi bien pour ajouter des services à un téléviseur que devenir un support pour des présentations. Néanmoins, la valeur ajoutée par rapport à une carte de développement classique est assez mince. Limitée essentiellement au format de l’objet et non pas aux services qu’il pourra rendre. Comme souvent le streaming et le jeu rétro sont mis en avant sur ce type de dispositif même si je ne suis pas sur qu’un Compute Module 4 soit la solution la plus adaptée pour ces usages.

Un nouveau format de Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4

Minimachines.net en partenariat avec Geekbuying.com
DigiPort : une autre solution d’informatique sur téléviseur © MiniMachines.net. 2024.

En 2014, Hélène Courtois, Daniel Pomarède, RB Tully et d'autres font une annonce retentissante : ils ont identifié que la Voie lactée est liée gravitationnellement à 100 000 autres galaxies s'étendant sur 500 millions d'années-lumière. Une partie de leurs 10 années d'observations s'étant faites à Mauna Kea, à Hawaï, ils donnent le nom très poétique d...

Type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune condition whereby the patient’s own immune system attacks the pancreatic islets, destroying them in the process. Since these islets are responsible for producing insulin in response to blood sugar (glucose) levels, the patient is thus required to externally inject insulin for the remainder of their life. That was the expected scenario, but it appears that this form of diabetes may soon be treatable, with one woman now being free of the condition for a year already, as reported in Nature, referencing an article by [Shusen Wang] et al. that describes the treatment and the one-year result.

Most notable with this study is that the researchers didn’t use the regular method to create pluripotent stem cells. These cells were extracted from the patient, to revert back to this earlier developmental stage. They were not modified using genes, but rather singular chemicals (PDF). The advantage of this is that it avoids having to modify the cell’s genomes, which could conceivably cause issues like cancer later on. This was one of the first time that this method was used in a human subject, with islet cells formed and about 1.5 million of them injected into the patient’s abdominal muscles, a novel site for this procedure.

This location made these islets easy to keep track of, and easier to remove in case of any issues compared to the usual injection site within the liver. Fortunately for this woman, no complications occurred and one year later she is still free of any diabetes symptoms. Two other patients in the trial are also seeing very positive results, leaving only the question of whether the auto-immune condition that originally caused the islet destruction still exists. Since this female patient is taking immunosuppressants for a previous liver transplant it’s a hard to thing to judge, especially since we understand the causes behind type 1 diabetes so poorly.

Regardless, this and other trials using pluripotent cells, transplanted islets and more offer the prospect of a permanent treatment for the many people who suffer from type 1 diabetes.

Featured image: “Human induced pluripotent stem cell colony” National Eye Institute/NIH

 

Bea Baron (aka BeaPlays) has taken on the role of Community Manager at Dress To Impress, a Roblox game where players show off their fashion skills that has become something of a pop culture phenomenon.

In a post on X, BeaPlays, a Roblox YouTuber and Twitch partnered streamer, said: “I have been involved in the Roblox space now since I was ten years old, and worked with some incredible games and people. I think that together, we can make Dress To Impress an incredible, safe and welcoming place for everyone.”

“I look forward to working with you, the DTI community, and the developers, to hopefully ensure the game’s future is one that you feel involved in and proud to be a part of. If you’re a DTI influencer, concept designer, creative member of the community, or just a player, introduce yourself below! I’d love to meet as many of you as possible!”

BeaPlays added: “While I will still continue to work freelance on some other games behind the scenes, and make my videos/streams, I am elated to begin this new journey with DTI. I want to take a moment to thank all of you, from the bottom of my heart, for the years of support you have given to me.”

“Without you, I wouldn't be here today, and this wouldn't be happening.”

2024 RTIH INNOVATION AWARDS

Immersive experiences are a key focus area for the sixth edition of the RTIH Innovation Awards, which is now open for entries.

The awards, sponsored by CADS, 3D Cloud, Brightpearl by Sage’s Lightning 50, and Retail Technology Show 2025, celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

Key 2024 dates

Friday, 25th October: Award entry deadline 

Tuesday, 29th October: 2024 shortlist revealed

30th October-6th November: Judging days

Thursday, 21st November: Winners announced at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony, to be held at RIBA’s 66 Portland Place HQ in Central London.

Marble machines are a fun and challenging reason to do engineering for the sake of engineering. [Engineezy] adds some color to the theme, building a machine to create 16×16 marble images automatically. (Video embedded below.)

The core problem was devising ways to sort, lift, place, and dump marbles in their correct positions without losing their marbles—figuratively and literally. Starting with color detection, [Engineezy] used an RGB color sensor and Euclidian math to determine each marble’s color. After trying several different mechanical sorting mechanisms, he settled on a solenoid and servo-actuated dump tube to drop the marble into the appropriate hopper.

After sorting, he faced challenges with designing a mechanism to transport marbles from the bottom hoppers to the top of the machine. While paddle wheels seemed promising at first, they tended to jam—a problem solved by innovating with Archimedes screws that move marbles up smoothly without clogs. The marbles are pushed into clear tubes on either side of the machine, providing a clear view of their parade to the top.

Perhaps most ingenious is his use of constant-force springs as a flexible funnel to guide the marbles to a moving slider that drops them into the correct column of the display. When a picture is complete, sliding doors open on the bottom of the columns, dumping the marbles into a chain lift which feeds them into the sorting section. Each of the mechanisms has a mirrored version of the other side, so the left and right halves of the display operate independently.

The final product is slow, satisfying and noisy kinetic testament to [Engineezy]’s perseverance through countless iterations and hiccups.

Marble machines can range from minimalist to ultra-complex musical monstrosities, but never fail to tickle our engineering minds.

[3DPrintBunny] is someone who continually explores new techniques and designs in 3D printing, and her latest is one she calls “pause-and-attach”, which she demonstrates by printing a vase design with elements of the design splayed out onto the print bed.

At a key point, the print is paused and one peels up the extended bits, manually attaching them to sockets on the main body of the print. Then the print resumes and seals everything in. The result is something that appears to defy the usual 3D printer constraints, as you can see here.

Pausing a 3D print to insert hardware (like nuts or magnets) is one thing, but we can’t recall seeing anything quite like this approach. It’s a little bit reminiscent of printing foldable structures to avoid supports in that it prints all of its own self-connecting elements, but at the same time it’s very different.

We’ve seen [3DPrintBunny]’s innovative approaches before with intentional stringing used as a design element and like the rest of her work, it’s both highly visual and definitely it’s own thing. You can see the whole process in a video she posted to social media, embedded below.

I tried out another 'pause-and-attach' type print today using some strings. The strings give it extra flexibility and allow me to add a twist pic.twitter.com/gIytsb8NEm

— 3DPrintBunny (@3DPrintBunny) October 3, 2024

On Friday, Meta announced a preview of Movie Gen, a new suite of AI models designed to create and manipulate video, audio, and images, including creating a realistic video from a single photo of a person. The company claims the models outperform other video-synthesis models when evaluated by humans, pushing us closer to a future where anyone can synthesize a full video of any subject on demand.

The company does not yet have plans of when or how it will release these capabilities to the public, but Meta says Movie Gen is a tool that may allow people to "enhance their inherent creativity" rather than replace human artists and animators. The company envisions future applications such as easily creating and editing "day in the life" videos for social media platforms or generating personalized animated birthday greetings.

Movie Gen builds on Meta's previous work in video synthesis, following 2022's Make-A-Scene video generator and the Emu image-synthesis model. Using text prompts for guidance, this latest system can generate custom videos with sounds for the first time, edit and insert changes into existing videos, and transform images of people into realistic personalized videos.

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Three years ago, Disney revealed the most convincing replica of a Star Wars lightsaber ever devised — one whose glowing blade fully and automatically retracts inside the handle due to a cleverly patented device.

Now, its lead inventor, Lanny Smoot, says he’s hoping that lightsaber might turn into a product you can actually buy — and it sounds like plans could already be in motion, unless Smoot was misinformed.

At Disney’s D23 fan expo last month, a fan asked that question with a camera rolling, as documented by YouTuber Finding The Force. Smoot replied:

I think the company would like to do that. And I think Josh D’Amaro, our number two guy, our head of Disney Parks, said it at a public — I hope — meeting of toy vendors to say, hey,...

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La justice est souvent symbolisée par Thémis, la déesse grecque qui porte un bandeau sur les yeux pour incarner l’impartialité, une balance pour l’équité des décisions et un glaive pour signifier des sanctions justes. Aujourd’hui, l’arrivée de l’Intelligence Artificielle dans le domaine judiciaire suscite de nombreuses interrogations. Peut-on allier justice et IA tout en garantissant l’équité des décisions ? Cette technologie pourrait-elle accélérer les procédures sans compromettre les principes fondamentaux de la justice ? Besoin urgent d’innovation dans la justice En France, le système judiciaire souffre de lenteurs chroniques. Des délais excessifs, pour les affaires civiles et pénales, s’étirent souvent […]
Lire la suite : La justice et l’intelligence artificielle : un équilibre à trouver

Meta is bringing reminders to its Ray-Ban smart glasses, a feature it previewed during its Connect event last month. With the update, you can ask Meta AI to remember your surroundings, like where you parked, and even time up reminders to make a phone call.

The other features coming with the update include the ability to send and record voice messages on WhatsApp or Messenger without taking out your phone. You can now ask Meta AI to scan QR codes or call phone numbers that you come across, too.

Meta is also updating how you invoke Meta AI while wearing the smart glasses. Instead of saying “Hey Meta” before each question, you now only need to say “Hey Meta” for your first question and then ask any additional questions without the prompt....

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Vorfreude is a delightful German word for the pleasure of anticipation. It combines vor, meaning "before" or "in advance", and freude, meaning "happiness". It's the joy from the anticipation of joy.

How to get more happiness from the same activity? Vorfreude!

The magic of Vorfreude

For me, the magic of Vorfreude lies in how it stretches out the pleasure of any upcoming event or experience. Once I hit 'Confirm' to book a trip, it kicks off joy for months whenever I think about the trip. And the great part about it, if we're organised, is that a trip in December can bring 'anticipatory joy' from when we book it in January. I need only reflect on my positive feelings about the trip, and life seems better.

"Vorfreude is the best joy"

I've often found that the Vorfreude may surpass the joy of the actual trip. With my Vorfreude glasses on, I never worry about the mosquitoes, the heat, or the inevitable waiting on the journey.

Germans have a saying that reflects this: "Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude," or Vorfreude is the best joy.

Thanks to something called fading affect bias, the emotional weight of negative memories tends to fade faster than positive ones. This leaves us with a rose-tinted view of past trips and may conveniently erase the niggly parts we didn't enjoy, allowing us to focus on just the good parts of a trip coming up. Or perhaps it's our optimism bias (we had a fun podcast about optimism bias).

Vorfreude is not just for the big events

Vorfreude doesn't only apply to big events like a holiday or wedding. I find anticipatory joy in small things, too. I look forward to the first coffee in the morning every day. Sometimes, the coffee won't live up to what I'd hoped for, but hey, I'd already been enjoying the idea of it since I finished my last coffee the day before.

I look forward to meeting friends and loved ones. I look forward to a dinner out. I look forward to weekends. I look forward to the next football match. I look forward to a cake coming out of the oven. Many people look forward to 5 o'clock each day. By simply reflecting on these moments of future joy, we can experience happiness right now, no matter where we are.

Enhancing Vorfreude

We can even work to cultivate and enhance our Vorfreude. As a child, nothing built anticipation like an advent calendar, ramping up excitement for Christmas day as I opened each new window. Sharing photos of your holiday destination with friends and family before you go and planning activities increases vorfreude. Getting good things in the diary can kick us out of languishing.

In some ways, Vorfreude mirrors the benefits I get from fear-based training plans or the forcing function of signing up for endurance events later in the year—having signed up for the event, I start to benefit from it as soon as I get out training with friends.

The opposite of Vorfreude

Of course, you may not be looking forward to the trip that's coming up. Perhaps upcoming events are filling you with dread. Anxiety is an emotion perhaps closest to the opposite of Vorfreude, or anticipatory anxiety more specifically.

I've also seen Vorangst proposed—with Angst being strong anxiety or fear—which seems a very suitable alternative.

Avoiding expectations

While thinking fondly about upcoming events can give you Vorfreude, a reader pointed out to me the dangers of thinking too much about how good something will be in the future.

It's easy to slip into setting expectations in your mind about how good something ought to be. If it then doesn't live up to your expectations, it could affect your enjoyment in the moment.

I guess the sweet spot is expectation-free Vorfreude.

Voorpret

It's not just the Germans who thought of giving a word to the joyful anticipation and excitement before an event. The Dutch use the word Voorpret for the same concept—pret meaning fun.

Enjoy the moment

But don't forget to enjoy the moment. I'm sometimes reminded of Calvin talking with Hobbes about the enjoyment of his favourite breakfast cereal, Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs:

"Ahhh, another bowl of chocolate frosted sugar bombs! The second bowl is always the best! The pleasure of my first bowl is diminished by the anticipation of future bowls, and by the end of my third bowl, I usually feel sick."

While it’s great to savour the anticipation, remember to enjoy the moment when it arrives.

More tips for Vorfreude in this excellent article by Rachel Dixon: The Vorfreude secret: 30 zero-effort ways to fill your life with joy

Also see:

• Schadenfreude
• Fading affect bias
• 5 ways to wellbeing
• Wabi sabi
• If this isn't nice I don't know what is
• Choose passwords that make you happy
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs
• If money doesn't make you happy you're probably not spending it right

I made prints for this as:

• the full Vorfreude sketch
• a simpler vorfreude picture with text (which works rather well as a message on a clock)—to be honest, this is probably better =)
• and just the umbrella and beach

Dans la rubrique “Nos étudiants ont du talent”, AnhPhu Nguyen et Caine Ardayfio ont réussi à transformer des lunettes connectées en appareil de reconnaissance faciale, divulguant une palanquée d’informations sur les gens environnant.Ces deux étudiants de l'Université Harvard ont partagé un projet glaçant d’efficacité, baptisé I-XRAY. Pour faire simpl...

Google initially rolled out Gemini Live, its conversational AI voice chat, in just one language: English. Today, the company is expanding the service to a handful of other languages, starting with French, German, Portuguese, Hindi, and Spanish. And while support for these languages does appear to be imminent for a lot of people, the company is still couching promises of other Gemini features with fuzzy “coming weeks” timelines.

Google expects that the languages starting to roll out today will be available to all users “in a couple of weeks.” As for other languages, Google says it will have more than 40 languages over “the coming weeks,” which is harder to pin down. Still, Google’s timeline from announcement to full rollout for Gemini...

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Blacked Out

A huge solar flare caused a radio blackout on Earth yesterday, according to Spaceweather.com.

The event, which saw a huge amount of electromagnetic radiation being slung our way by the Sun, clocked in as a powerful X-level solar flare and was deemed by experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to be the second-strongest of the year so far. The radio blackouts occurred over Hawaii and other areas of the Pacific.

Communications were only briefly lost, but the powerful event serves as a potent reminder of the cosmic forces that can have a direct influence on life on our home planet.

An X7.1 (R3) solar flare erupted from Region 3842 this evening - as seen in this animation (courtesy of jhelioviewer). This was the second strongest flare of Solar Cycle 25, only bested by an X8.7 flare on May 14th of this year. See https://t.co/MiukLmxbua for full story. pic.twitter.com/Qohhyk17DW

— NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (@NWSSWPC) October 2, 2024

Aurora Watch

And the drama might not be over yet. According to the NOAA, the sunspot explosion appears to have caused a coronal mass ejection — which in short, means that the Sun just spit up a wad of solar plasma.

That plasma now seems to be heading in our direction and is due to collide with our atmosphere on October 5. NOAA has since issued a "minor-strong" geomagnetic storm warning as a result.

The concept of solar plasma hurtling toward our planet might sound scary, but you probably have nothing to worry about. According to NOAA, some "technological infrastructure" could experience some "limited, minor effects," though those should remain "mainly mitigable."

And beyond some (hopefully) minor technological difficulties, there could be a huge plus to the geomagnetic event: auroras!

Back in May, when a similar X-level plasma plume hit our planet's atmosphere, keen-eyed observers across the globe — including across the US, as far south as Florida — were privy to incredible views of the Northern Lights, which are usually only visible in a few, far-north regions of the word.

NOAA says that if there are auroras this week, they'll likely be visible "over many of the northern states and some of the lower Midwest and Oregon."

We'd recommend keeping up with NOAA updates this week, lest you miss a dazzling cosmic light show.

More on the Sun and radio signals: NASA Investigating Mysterious Radio Signals From the Sun

The post A Colossal Solar Flare Just Triggered a Radio Blackout on Earth appeared first on Futurism.

OpenAI isn’t interested in open relationships.

As the buzzy artificial intelligence upstart finally wraps its latest funding round — a $6.6 billion raise at a gargantuan $157 billion valuation — it’s asking for a big commitment from its financial backers: exclusivity. On Wednesday, the Financial Times reported that the ChatGPT-maker is requesting its investors avoid backing competitors. The ask comes just as OpenAI fully enters the next phase of the burgeoning tech titan life cycle.

A Tech Tale as Old as Time

Uber once pitched investors on a future that could deliver cheap labor and services (in the form of private drivers) on demand. Netflix once pitched investors on a future that could deliver mass amounts of entertainment and media on demand. Both laced their shiny promises with one big, if implicit, caveat: It’ll take years and years and billions and billions of dollars before we reach the market share and scale and find the delicately-balanced business model needed to achieve profitability. But once we do, it’s game on. 

Now, OpenAI is where those two companies were a decade ago — only its promises of ultra-cheap labor are based on possibly replacing humans. And, like both Uber and Netflix before it, OpenAI remains a massive money-loser. That means it’ll need a lot of financial runway to achieve its dreams — and that’ll be a lot easier if its backers aren’t crowding the runway by funding rivals. But OpenAI wunderkind Sam Altman can be forgiven for feeling cocky: 

• The $6.6 billion raise marks the largest venture capital round of all time, led by a $1.3 billion investment from Thrive Capital, a source told The New York Times. Thrive Capital was joined by Microsoft (which has already invested $13 billion), AI chipmaker Nvidia, SoftBank, Fidelity, and Tiger Global, among others. Notably absent, sources told Axios, is Apple, which had been linked all summer to the funding round.
• The cash injection is well-timed; according to internal documents recently seen by the NYT, OpenAI expects to lose roughly $5 billion this year due to massive costs. Still, it expects its roughly $3.7 billion in projected revenue for 2024 to soar to $11.6 billion next year — just as the company sheds the final vestiges of its nonprofit origin.

Open and Closed: Whether OpenAI can get investors to agree to exclusivity remains an open question, the FT reports, and it’s not in VC firms’ nature to accept such demands. Better to spread your bets. Still, Uber successfully made similar demands in its ride to the top, making this a script even the lousiest of AI chatbots could write.

The post OpenAI Closes Its Latest Funding Round with One Major Request appeared first on The Daily Upside.

Le numéro un mondial du luxe confirme la conclusion d'un partenariat mondial avec la Formule 1, détenue par Liberty Media. Effectif à partir de 2025, cet accord impliquera plusieurs Maisons du groupe.

Microsoft is releasing a new version of Office this week, designed for people that don’t want to subscribe to Microsoft 365. The standalone Microsoft Office 2024 release is now available for both consumers and small businesses, and includes locked-in-time versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook across both Mac and PC.

Office 2024 includes a lot of the updates that Microsoft has been delivering to Microsoft 365 subscribers over the past few years. Microsoft last released a standalone version of Office in 2021, and this new Office 2024 release includes improvements to the core apps, as well as accessibility and UI changes.

Office 2024 has a new default theme, with Microsoft’s latest Fluent Design principles that match the...

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Artificial intelligence (AI) seems to be doing everything these days. Making images, making videos, and replacing most of us real human writers if you believe the hype. Maybe it’s all over! And yet, we persist, to write about yet another job taken over by AI: creating video games.

The research paper is entitled “Video Game Generation: A Practical Study using Mario.” The basic idea is whether a generative AI model can create an interactive video game by first training it on an existing game.

MarioVGG, as it is called, is a “text-to-video model.” It hasn’t built the Mario game that you’re familiar with, though. It takes player commands as text inputs—such as “run, or “jump”—and then outputs video frames showing the result in the ‘game.’ The model was trained on a dataset of frame-by-frame Super Mario Brothers game play, combined with data on user inputs at the time. The model shows an ability to generate believable video output for given player inputs, including basic game physics, item interactions, and collisions. It’s able to do this in a chained way, so that it can reasonably simulate a player making multiple actions and moving through a level of the game.

It’s not like playing a real Mario game yet, by any means. Regardless, the AI model has shown an ability to replicate the world of the game in a way that behaves relatively consistently with its established rules. If you’re in the field of video game development, though, you probably don’t have a lot to worry about just yet—you probably moved past making basic Mario clones years ago, so you’ve got quite an edge for now!

Thunderbolt 5 was first unveiled last year with promises of 120 Gbps bandwidth and support for multiple 8K monitors. The good news is that the first Thunderbolt 5-compliant devices are now coming to market.

There’s not too much to choose from for now, but we need to start somewhere, and the OWC Envoy Ultra portable SSD ($299.99 and up) and the Kensington SD5000T5 EQ Thunderbolt 5 Triple 4K Docking Station with 140W PD  ($399.99) – also found on Amazon –  are some of the first Thunderbolt 5 devices to make it to market.

OWC Enjoy Ultra Thunderbolt 5 portable SSD

Key features:

• Speed over 6000MB/sm or up to twice faster than Thunderbolt 4 and USB4
• Capacity – 2TB or 4TB
• Compatibility – Macs, PCs, iPad Pros, Chromebooks, and Surface devices with a Thunderbolt 3 to 5 port, or USB4 port
• Rugged design – Waterproof, dustproof, and crushproof
• Power Supply – Bus-powered with built-in Thunderbolt cable
• Fanless design with a heat-dissipating aluminum enclosure

The 2TB model can be pre-ordered for $399.99, and the 4TB variant for $599.99.

Kensington SD5000T5 Thunderbolt 5 docking station

Specifications:

• Connection technology – Thunderbolt 5, works without additional drivers on macOS (14.5 or later) and Windows 11 (23H2 or later)
• Thunderbolt ports
  • 1x Thunderbolt 5 host port
  • 3x Thunderbolt 5 downstream ports
• Data transfer speeds – Up to 80Gbps of bidirectional bandwidth with Bandwidth Boost enabling up to 120Gbps for video-intensive usage
• Storage – SD card reader (UHS-II, SD4.0)
• Video Ports – 3x Thunderbolt 5 DFP supporting up to triple 4K @ 144Hz, dual 8K @ 60Hz, single 8K @ 60Hz, or 1080p @ 540Hz
• Audio – 3.5mm combo microphone & headphone jack
• Networking  – 2.5GbE RJ45 jack
• USB – 3x USB 3.2 Gen2 (10 Gbps) ports
• Misc – Kensington Nano Security Slot, Kensington Security Slot
• Power Delivery – Up to 140W (28V/5A) via USB-C PD 3.1 port

The number of available Thunderbolt 5 devices is limited, and a search for “Thunderbolt 5” on Amazon only shows the above docking station and a few 80 Gbps certified cables. But more compatible devices should eventually see the light of the day over time.

Where are the Thunderbolt 5 hosts?

It’s all good to have a Thunderbolt 5 portable SSD and docking station, but you won’t benefit from the higher transfer speed and multiple 4K and 8K features of the standard unless you purchase a host that supports the new standard.

Kensington representatives told PCWorld that they are currently (September 2024) only two laptops with an Intel “Barlow Ridge” Thunderbolt 5 chip inside, namely the  Razer Blade 18 Mercury (2024) and the Maingear ML-17 going for $4500 and $3900 respectively. So upgrading your setup to Thunderbolt 5 is quite pricey at this time.

Via Liliputing

The post Thunderbolt 5 devices are starting to show up with OWC portable SSD and Kensington docking station appeared first on CNX Software - Embedded Systems News.

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Discord a optimisé son infrastructure en réduisant de 40 % le trafic WebSocket en éliminant les pings inutiles et en optimisant la gestion des connexions. Cela a permis de réduire la charge serveur et d’améliorer l’efficacité des communications en temps réel pour ses millions d’utilisateurs. Cette réduction a également entraîné une diminution des coûts opérationnels tout en maintenant une expérience utilisateur fluide.

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