News: Technology News

Ubisoft seemingly leaks Star Wars Outlaws release date ahead of trailer reveal

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 18:13:26 +0000

Star Wars Outlaws, the open-world adventure game Ubisoft unveiled last year, is about to receive its first Story Trailer later today. This is also where many fans were expecting to see a launch date attached to the title. However, it seems the Ubisoft Japan YouTube channel has made a small error and put more information than intended in the Story Trailer's YouTube Premier page description.

While now private, the YouTube video's description originally listed August 30, 2024, as Star Wars Outlaws' release date. It also leaked that there will be Gold and Ultimate editions for sale. In addition to the base game and season pass, these editions will carry three days of early access for the single-player game, letting fans jump in starting on August 27.

Pre-order bonuses were also listed in the description, where cosmetic items for the Trailblazer spaceship and speeder will arrive as part of a Kessel Runner Bonus Pack. The English version of the Outlaws Story Trailer from Ubisoft's primary YouTube channel, embedded below, doesn't list any of this information in its description.

For those in the dark regarding the title, Ubisoft is calling it the "first-ever open world" Star Wars entry. Players will be exploring the popular universe while jumping between planets in an original story set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

Here's how developer Massive Entertainment, the studio behind The Division and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, describes the setting:

Explore distinct planets across the galaxy, both iconic and new. Risk it all as Kay Vess, an emerging scoundrel seeking freedom and the means to start a new life, along with her companion Nix. Fight, steal, and outwit your way through the galaxy's crime syndicates as you join the galaxy's most wanted.

There is, of course, a small chance that this leak is a placeholder release date set by Ubisoft. Fans will have to wait until 9 AM PT today to find out when exactly the company plans to release this highly-anticipated Star Wars experience.

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Qualcomm unveils new micro-power Wi-Fi chip and RB3 Gen 2 robotics platform

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 18:11:09 +0000

Qualcomm has expanded its portfolio of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions with the introduction of a new micro-power Wi-Fi chip and an updated robotics development platform. The QCC730 dual-band Wi-Fi system is aimed at power-constrained IoT devices and promises to significantly reduce their power consumption.

Qualcomm claims the chip can transmit data with up to 88% less power than previous generations. This new level of efficiency could extend the battery life of various Wi-Fi-connected devices. The QCC730 supports the Wi-Fi 6 standards for improved range and throughput.

It also features direct cloud connectivity and integration with the Matter smart home connectivity standard. According to the company, this enables IoT products to connect and exchange data with mobile applications and cloud services.

Rahul Patel, Qualcomm's group general manager of connectivity, broadband, and networking, said;

QCC730 enables devices to support TCP/IP networking capabilities while remaining form-factor and complete wireless constrained, whilst remaining connected to the Cloud platforms.

In addition to the new Wi-Fi solution, Qualcomm introduced the RB3 Gen 2 robotics platform for industrial and commercial applications. As the successor to the previous RB3 platform, it comes equipped with Qualcomm's QCS6490 CPU and Adreno 643 GPU.

The platform supports multiple 8MP+ camera sensors for computer vision capabilities. Other features include WiFi 6e, Bluetooth 5.2 for wireless accessories, and LE Audio for enhanced audio quality.

The RB3 Gen 2 robotics platform is also supported in Qualcomm's AI Hub. It contains a library of continuously optimized, pre-trained AI models specific to the RB3 Gen 2 and other Qualcomm platforms.

Developers can view a selection of models for RB3 Gen 2 and integrate the optimized AI models into their applications, reducing time-to-market and unlocking the benefits of on-device AI implementations such as immediacy, reliability, privacy, personalization, and cost savings.

Qualcomm plans to make RB3 Gen 2 development kits available in June 2024, giving robotics companies and manufacturers early access to explore new products on the platform.

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Caribbean nation of Aruba backs itself up to Internet Archive

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 18:09:59 +0000

Aruba's National Archives and National Library are now on Internet Archive.

Aruba has long been a special place for Stacy Argondizzo. For years, her family has vacationed on the tiny Caribbean Island every July. More recently it’s been more than just a place to take a break from her work as a digital archivist—becoming wholly a part of that work.

A project Argondizzo galvanized comes to full fruition this week. The Internet Archive is now home to the Aruba Collection, which hosts digitized versions of Aruba’s National Library, National Archives, and other institutions including an archaeology museum and the University of Aruba. The collection comprises 101,376 items so far—roughly one for each person who lives on the Island—including 40,000 documents, 60,000 images, and seven 3D objects.

The Internet Archive is mostly known for trying to back up online resources like websites that don’t have a government body advocating for their posterity. Being tapped to back up an entire nation’s history takes the nonprofit into new territory, and it is a striking endorsement of its mission to bring as much information online as possible. “What makes Aruba unique is they have cooperation from all the leading cultural heritage players in the country,” says Chris Freeland, the Internet Archive’s director of library services. “It’s just an awesome statement.” The project is funded wholly by the Internet Archive, in line with its policy of generally letting anyone upload content.

The Aruba project was set in motion in 2018, after Argondizzo, then working at the Internet Archive, began to wonder if she could help preserve Aruba’s history. The island has a turbulent past—its indigenous population was colonized by the Spanish and then the Dutch—and its archives contain artefacts ranging from sunny vintage postcards to books about the nation’s role in the slave trade and Venuzuela’s oil boom. Although Aruba is relatively safe from hurricanes, the threat of what a severe storm or other extreme weather could do to its physical archives made Argondizzo nervous. “They were one disaster away, basically, from losing everything,” she says.

Argondizzo reached out to Peter Scholing, an information specialist at Aruba’s national library. When they met the next time she was in town at the library’s colorful headquarters in the capital city Oranjestad, what started as a brief tour of the library turned into a marathon conversation. “We just hit it off,” says Argondizzo.

Scholing was equally delighted to connect. “We ran into a lot of roadblocks before we stumbled upon the Internet Archive,” he says. Archival work can be labor- and resource-intensive—it’s not easy to turn stacks of dusty tomes and fragile decades-old newspapers into easily searchable files. The budget for digitization, he says, is “shoestring,” making the scope of the project daunting, especially for a country of around 110,000 people.

Despite its limited funds, Aruba had its own scanning equipment it could use for the project. But the Internet Archive provided the software to organize the sprawling collection, including algorithms to decipher handwriting to turn centuries-old penmanship into digital text ready for modern readers.

Aruba’s colonial history also meant documents were spread all over the place. “Our collection was scattered,” says Edric Croes, the head of archival conservation and management at the National Archives of Aruba. There were works to be scanned across the world, including in the Netherlands, Spain, the United States, and other islands like Curaçao. Establishing a hub to find the documents online has been especially helpful, Scholing notes, for researchers located abroad, who no longer have to travel to Aruba to physically dig through archives.

It’s unusual for a country to outsource this sort of project to a foreign nonprofit. “In a dream world, every national library would have enough funds to bring on an amazing team of people,” says University of Waterloo history professor Ian Milligan, who is writing a book on the Internet Archive’s origins and was not involved in the Aruba project. “Governments often don't have that.”

The Internet Archive has not previously acted as custodian of a country’s whole collection, although it has worked with a number of national and regional libraries around the world. Back in 2011, it partnered with the Culture Office of Bali, an island province of Indonesia, to preserve what the office described at the time as “90 percent of Bali’s literature.” (This now makes up the Internet Archive’s Balinese Digital Library collection.)

Aruba’s archivists hope other nations will follow in its digital footsteps. “It’s a really feasible model that could be applied to a lot of small islands, developing states, even bigger countries with limited means,” Scholing says.

Partnering with the Internet Archive looks like an obvious solution for cash-strapped archivists. Potential partners do need to think, though, about what it means to rely on another country’s private organization, one with its own challenges.

“When we think about digital preservation, we often think of the technical challenges,” says Milligan of Waterloo. “But I think the biggest challenges are the social challenges, the human challenges. How can you set up an organization that will be here in 50 years?”

He credits the Internet Archive with a very “sustainable structure,” in terms of future-proofing. But that doesn’t make it wholly invulnerable. The Archive is currently facing a number of serious legal challenges, including a lawsuit from major record labels, including Universal Music Group, Capitol, and Sony, that poses an existential threat—the labels are asking for damages that could amount to over $400 million.

That’s on top of an ongoing dispute with publishing companies over a digital lending library it established during the pandemic. While its digitization capabilities are far more robust than many nation-states, the Internet Archive’s position in an increasingly vituperative battleground between copyright holders and tech companies means that its future is precarious, too.

The Internet Archive sees Aruba’s endorsement as especially timely. “It's been really empowering to see that the nation of Aruba is continuing to add materials and upload content at the same time that we're facing this,” Freeland says. “We’re in this for the long haul.”

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

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Floppy disks still help to run San Francisco's trains and it could take 10 years to upgrade

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 18:09:19 +0000

Earlier this year, we reported that the German ICE railroad network was still using Microsoft's Windows 3.11, which launched in 1993, to help run parts of its services. Now there's word that one of the biggest municipal train systems in the US is being run in part by three 5-inch floppy disks.

According to KGO-TV News, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has been using these floppy disks to help control its trains since the system was first installed in 1998. The story says that this system was considered to be the state of the art for train technology in that time period. However, by 1998, most new tech devices had moved away from floppy disks, so it's unclear why the SFMTA decided to use this system.

In any case, the story says that this technology was designed to last between 20 to 25 years. The SFMTA has gone over that time frame, and it looks like it could be another 10 years before the system is updated in any way.

Jeffrey Tumlin, the Director of Transportation of the SFMTA, admits in the story that before that upgrade happens, things could get very bad with the current floppy disk-based technology:

It's a question of risk. The system is currently working just fine but we know that with each increasing year risk of data degradation on the floppy disks increases and that at some point there will be a catastrophic failure.

The story does not go into concrete details about how the current system works, including what operating system, if any, is running with those floppy disks. However, it's reasonable to assume that a system failure could happen with this old technology at any time.

Upgrading the system to something more modern will not only take a lot of time but also a ton of money. The story says it could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to get this system out of the 1990s.

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Nvidia RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 could release later this year

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 07:42:53 +0000

Rumors suggest that Nvidia could be releasing the GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics card in the fourth quarter of this year, 2024.

In October 2022, Nvidia released the first RTX 4000 graphics card, the RTX 4090. The flagship graphics card of the RTX 40 series is all set to get its successor, the RTX 5090.

While the RTX 4090 has been unchallenged when it comes to performance. The performance and the release dates of its successor is a point of contention.

A year ago, it was rumored that Nvidia will not release the RTX 5000 graphics cards till 2025.

Since then, more rumors have come forward. Including the rumor that the RTX 5090 is likely to come with 512-bit memory bus and 32GB of VRAM.

Now, we are getting some idea that Nvidia might release the RTX 5000 starting from this year itself.

RTX 5090 & RTX 5080 May Release This Year

Taiwan based Money UDN reports (translated), via VideoCardz and Club386, that Nvidia board partners (like ASUS, MSI, others) expect that Nvidia will launch the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 later in fourth quarter of this year itself. Quoting them:

As NVIDIA storms into the AI business, graphics card-related products also continue to introduce new products. Board card manufacturers expect that Nvidia’s latest RTX 50 series graphics cards will be unveiled in the fourth quarter. Initially, they will focus on top-end and high-end 5090 and 5080 product lines. The legal person is optimistic that the launch of Nvidia’s biennial GPU refresh will help board card manufacturers ship shipments this year and will drive up the average unit price (ASP) of graphics card products.

Well known leaker @kopite7kimi too has confirmed, not once but twice, that this news is true.

Interestingly, the report talks about GPU refresh. Which might be either mistranslation or a mistake. As all rumors suggest that RTX 50 will be a completely new generation.

Graphics card board partners are hoping that with the release of flagship graphics cards, their earnings too will increase with them.

The RTX 5090 might use GB202 GPU and RTX 5080 might use GB203 GPU. Interestingly, RTX 5080 is possibly going to come with just half the performance of RTX 5090. This is based on the rumored GPU sizes.

Initially, only flagship graphics cards will release, as always. It’s only later when Nvidia will release the mid-range and budget-range variants.

Prices Of Budget Graphics Cards To Increase

The Money UDN report also mentions that the prices of the budget graphics cards in the GTX 16, RTX 30 and RTX 40 series are all set to increase.

The increase is going to be as big as 10% and graphics card board manufacturers are going to benefit from it.

This is in addition to the high demand in some regions of the world, which has increased the graphics card prices further.

It’s likely that the prices could get cut again when Nvidia releases their successors, but don’t expect it to happen a year at least, if not more.

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Microsoft is sure its new Windows 11 AI PCs will deliver better performance than MacBooks

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 18:36:18 +0000

2024 is a big year for Microsoft and Windows 11. In the coming months, Microsoft and its partners will launch the first wave of the next-generation Windows on ARM PCs. The company will lead the way with its Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6, which are expected at a special Surface event next month.

Even though Windows on ARM is far from being new (in fact, Microsoft announced the initiative almost eight years ago), Microsoft is pretty confident that things will be right this time.

The Verge reports, citing unnamed sources within Microsoft, that the company is sure its ARM-powered PCs will be able to beat Apple's M3-based MacBook Air, one of the most popular laptops on the market. To showcase the power of the new Windows on ARM PCs, Microsoft plans to host a series of CPU horsepower demos and comparisons with the regular M3 chip.

Microsoft's internal documentation reportedly claims that Windows AI PCs with ARM processors can emulate apps faster than Apple's Rosetta 2 emulation layer (the software thing that makes it possible to run x86 apps on ARM), the area Windows on ARM has been struggling with for many years.

Interestingly, rumors say that Microsoft will not offer the consumer versions of the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 with Intel processors. Those SKUs will remain business-only, leaving ARM variants for regular users (learn more about the Surface Pro 10 for Business here and the Surface Laptop 6 for Business here).

The Surface Pro 10 for Business

Windows AI PCs with ARM chips will be the first to get the next-gen Windows 11 features, such as the rumored "AI File Explorer," local Copilot processing, and additional features for audio/video. Microsoft bets big on Copilot and AI, and the company reportedly expects half of all new Windows computers to ship with AI chips by the end of 2026.

It is not just Microsoft who is confident in Windows on ARM. Qualcomm claims its new Snapdragon X Elite can outperform most competitors in many aspects and even serve as a gaming platform with most Windows games "just working." Google also joined the hype train by releasing a native version of Chrome for Windows on ARM. Having the most popular browser in the world on board is a big deal if you want to make a platform successful.

Microsoft is hosting its event on May 20, 2024. Expect to see the Surface Pro 10 and Laptop 6 for consumers and a lot of AI features for Windows 11. We would say we are pumped, but Panos Panay is now at Amazon, so let's just say we cannot wait to see the next-gen features for Windows 11 and the first AI PCs.

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TSMC will build third Arizona fab after winning $6.6B in CHIPS funding

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 18:33:10 +0000

Funding comes after significant delays at Arizona's other fabs.

The US Department of Commerce has proposed another round of CHIPS Act funding up to $6.6 billion for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which President Joe Biden hopes will "support the construction of leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing facilities right here in the United States."

With this award—which includes additional funding up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans—TSMC has agreed to increase funding in Arizona fabrication plants to $65 billion. That's the largest foreign direct investment in a new project in US history, the Commerce Department said, and it will fuel construction of TSMC's third Arizona fab.

According to Biden, "these facilities will manufacture the most advanced chips in the world," putting the US "on track to produce 20 percent of the world’s leading-edge semiconductors by 2030."

By 2025, TSMC's first Arizona fab will begin high-volume chip production, but TSMC won't be producing "the world’s most advanced 2nm nanosheet process technology" until its second fab is operational in 2028. That technology, the Commerce Department said, will allow the US to domestically power "the AI boom and other fast-growing industries like consumer electronics, automotive, Internet of Things, and high-performance computing."

"At full capacity, TSMC Arizona’s three fabs would manufacture tens of millions of leading-edge chips that will power products like 5G/6G smartphones, autonomous vehicles, and AI datacenter servers," the Commerce Department said.

TSMC's third fab is also planned to "produce 2nm or more advanced process technologies," the Commerce Department said, "depending on customer demand" of key TSMC-dependent companies like AMD, Apple, Nvidia, and Qualcomm.

“One of the key goals of President Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act was to bring the most advanced chip manufacturing in the world to the US, and with this announcement and TSMC’s increased investment in their Arizona campus, we are working to achieve that goal,” US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a press release. "The leading-edge semiconductors that will be made here in Arizona are foundational to the technology that will define global economic and national security in the 21st century, including AI and high-performance computing."

But analysts told the Financial Times that the US is still moving too slowly to become a global chip leader. One engineer told FT that by 2028, "Nvidia and other AI chip vendors are likely to have migrated to 2nm" process technology, ahead of the TSMC Arizona fabs reaching that goal. In January, TSMC Chairman Mark Liu told investors that Taiwan-based fabs "will start 2nm mass production next year" and that the company has "plans to build 'multiple' more fabs operating on that technology" in Taiwan, FT reported.

It appears that TSMC's key customers would still have a choice as to whether to purchase chips from Taiwanese fabs rather than US fabs. Currently, FT reported, 90 percent of cutting-edge chips are made in Taiwan.

In the Commerce Department's press release, Liu provided a statement saying that TSMC's "US operations allow us to better support our US customers, which include several of the world’s leading technology companies. Our US operations will also expand our capability to trailblaze future advancements in semiconductor technology.”

But this year, Liu has blamed delays at TSMC Arizona fabs on a supposed lack of specialized workers, pushing back promises to produce the most advanced chips in the US from 2026 to 2027 or, more likely, 2028.

The addition of a third Arizona fab, the Commerce Department said, promises even more jobs that will need to be filled, including "approximately 6,000 direct manufacturing jobs, more than 20,000 accumulated unique construction jobs, and tens of thousands of indirect jobs in this decade."

The Arizona Building and Construction Trades Council (AZBCT) has pushed back on TSMC's claims that there aren't enough workers locally, striking a deal with TSMC in December that requires TSMC to develop a training program and hire Arizona workers.

To that end, today's agreement with TSMC includes a proposed "$50 million in dedicated funding to develop the company’s semiconductor and construction workforce" that can support TSMC's projects.

According to the Commerce Department, TSMC has already teamed up with the city of Phoenix to establish a registered apprenticeship program for semiconductor technicians. And moving forward TSMC will collaborate with engineering programs at universities around the country to train more workers. Anyone joining TSMC's fabs, the Commerce Department said, will "have access to discounts, reimbursements, and priority enrollment through partnerships for local area early education and childcare centers."

Biden said this funding will ensure that "workers don’t have to leave their hometowns to find good-paying jobs in innovative industries."

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Microsoft News Roundup: Elon Musk on AI ending humanity, Xbox leadership shake-up, and Windows 10 updates costing a fortune

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 17:30:41 +0000

The prospect of AI ending humanity was only one big news story from this week.

From Elon Musk predicting AI will destroy humanity to Microsoft unveiling how much it will cost to get Windows 10 security updates, it's been an eventful week for news. Our team also exclusively reported on major Xbox news that could shape the future of gaming at Microsoft. We also covered some of the best ways to save money on laptops or handheld gaming and went hands-on with some of the latest gadgets.

Windows 10 security update cost

It will cost hundreds of dollars to receive Windows 10 security updates after October 2025. (Image credit: Future)

Windows 10 will stop receiving security updates in October 2025. That is, unless you pay a pretty penny to continue to receive updates. Microsoft announced an extended support program for Windows 10 earlier this year, so we already knew that security updates after the cutoff would cost money. We now know how much you'll have to pay, at least if you're a commercial customer. It's not great news for those hoping to stick with Windows 10.

Getting updates after the October 2025 cutoff will cost you $61 per device, but that price doubles each year for three years. At $122 for the second year and $244 for the third year, keeping a device secure while running Windows 10 will be a costly endeavor. If you wait a year to start paying for updates, you'll have to pay for the first year and second year.

Microsoft will reveal costs for individual customers later this year, though I wouldn't hold my breath on an affordable option if I were you.

Of course, upgrading to Windows 11 is free and PCs on the new operating system will receive security updates. But not all PCs are able to upgrade to Windows 11 due to its minimum requirements.

Minecraft April Fools' joke

Minecraft's April Fools' joke was so good that many wished it was real. (Image credit: Bing Image Creator)

Usually, news writers dislike April Fools' Day. The holiday often leads to fake news reports that you have to discern from the truth. But Microsoft's Minecraft team had some fun that many enjoyed. In fact, people enjoyed Minecraft's April Fools' Day joke so much that they wished it was real.

Minecraft received an update on April 1 that added poisonous potatoes, normal potatoes, and an entire poisonous potato dimension.

Minecraft is the most purchased game of all time and generally considered one of the best sandbox games ever. That being said, the game hasn't seen as many major updates in the last few years as it did during its early years. The April Fools' Day update caused many to wish for more meaningful updates for Minecraft. Of course, it's easier to add new skins and jokes than it is to make entire updates built for everyday use, but it's a reasonable ask by Minecraft players.

Xbox exclusives

This week we exclusively covered two major pieces of Xbox news that will shape the future of gaming at Microsoft.

(Image credit: Windows Central | Jez Corden)

This week we covered a different type of Xbox exclusive. Rather than games on a specific platform, our gaming experts shared two exclusive reports about Microsoft and its Xbox team. First, our Jez Corden reported that Xbox CVP Kareem Choudhry will leave Microsoft. Corden then followed with another exclusive report, the latter about Xbox President Sarah Bond setting up a new team focused on game preservation and forward compatibility.

Elon Musk and AI ending humanity

Elon Musk says there's between a 10-20% chance of AI ending humanity. (Image credit: Tesla)

Will AI cause the end of humanity? Perhaps, but considering Copilot and ChatGPT struggle to make a simple white image, we're probably a way off from Skynet. But an AI safety researcher claims that there is a 99.999999% probability of AI taking over humanity. Before you start building a bunker, Elon Musk says the chances are between 10 and 20 percent. Then again, considering Tesla's margins for error, maybe Musk isn't the best person to trust with percentages.

Even with Musk placing the chances of humanity's doom at the hand of AI between 10 and 20%, the celebrity says it's worth developing AI. "I think that the probable positive scenario outweighs the negative scenario," said Musk at the Abundance Summit.

Reviews and Editorials

The Keychron Q6 Pro earned high marks in our review. (Image credit: Harish Jonnalagadda / Windows Central)

We don't just cover the biggest news. We go hands on with the latest gadgets each week. Our experts reviewed the Dell XPS 14, ASUS Zenbook Duo, and Keychron's Q6 Pro keyboard recently. Spoiler alert: all three devices earned spectacular reviews, but you'll have to catch up with our team's coverage to find out why!

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Microsoft Weekly: Microsoft celebrates 49 years and Windows 11 fights UI customization apps

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 17:26:48 +0000

In this episode of Microsoft Weekly, we look at leaked Windows 11 LTSC builds, version 24H2 RTM builds, fights between Microsoft and Windows 11 UI customization apps, more management shifts in Microsoft, app updates, Microsoft turning 49, and more.

Table of contents:

Windows 10 and 11 news
Windows Insider Program
Updates are available
Gaming news
Random fact about Microsoft
Great deals to check

This week's Microsoft Weekly kicks off with a celebration of Microsoft's 49th birthday. On April 4, 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the company that would soon become a $3 trillion software giant. To celebrate the occasion, we published a brief list of interesting tidbits about Microsoft and its history.

Windows 11 and 10

Here we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And of course, you may find a word or two about older but still supported versions.

At the beginning of each month, we look at fresh reports from Statcounter, which let us track the popularity of different Windows versions and desktop browsers. In March 2024, Windows 11 lost a bit of its audience (according to Statcounter), including gaming (according to Valve). As for Microsoft Edge, its market share decreased just a little.

Last week, Microsoft released the Windows 11 Moment 5 Update as the March 2024 optional non-security update (some are already getting it without any notice). If you want to give it a spin, beware of potential issues, as reported by affected customers. Things might get a little better after installing KB5036567, which should improve Windows Recovery features.

After the Moment 5 Update, Microsoft will release version 24H2. The next Windows 11 version should hit RTM this month, but most of its features are only expected in September 2024. To learn more about the alleged 24H2 release timeline, check out this article. Despite the imminent RTM, the OS reportedly contains quite a lot of bugs.

This week, we witnessed the first leak of the first Windows 11 LTSC release. Microsoft confirmed that its current OS would be available in the Long-Term Servicing Channel about a year ago, and now, we finally know where to expect it. Windows 11 LTSC build 26100 leaked in its full glory, and Microsoft itself later confirmed the existence of Windows 11 LTSC 2024 in the official documentation.

Speaking of version 24H2, some interesting stuff is going on with it not liking UI personalization apps, such as StartAllBack. Without any warning, Microsoft started flagging StartAllBack as one causing performance or security issues. Besides not letting you launch it on 24H2, Microsoft even prevents you from upgrading to newer builds. The same thing happened to ExplorerPatcher as well.

But it is not only Microsoft that is doing some questionable stuff. Google, for example, was caught overwriting DNS settings in Windows with its own after you installed its VPN.

Moving to Windows 10, Microsoft confirmed that some Windows 10 machines experience issues with Microsoft Connected Cache. This feature offers software-based caching to deliver Windows updates, apps, and security definitions within corporate networks. While the company is working on resolving the issue, IT admins can apply temporary workarounds. Microsoft also reported that it fixed the bug with a broken System Preparation Tool in Windows 10.

The company is also getting ready to launch the Extended Security Program for Windows 10. It will kick off in less than two years, and we already have the official information about its prices. Additional security updates for Windows 10 after October 2025 will cost $61 per year per device. There are also additional offers, such as a discount for those using cloud-based update management solutions and Windows 365.

As for regular consumers, Microsoft said it would make a separate announcement with prices and policies.

Finally, here is a neat tool that lets you customize the Start menu in Windows 11 beyond its stock and quite limited capabilities. It cannot make it look as sexy as the concept below, but it is still something.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft Released this week for testing in the Windows Insider Program:

	Windows 11	Windows 10
Canary Channel	Build 26100	Not Applicable
Dev Channel	Build 26100	Not Applicable
Beta Channel	Build 22635.3430	Not Applicable
Release Preview Channel	Nothing in the Release Preview Channel this week

The company also released a new version of the Photos app for Dev and Canary Insiders. The biggest change is that the app is now based on Windows App SDK. Microsoft said the change would bring modern UI and "other quality and performance improvements."

In addition, Windows Insiders can try a new Microsoft Store update, which delivers significant performance improvements.

Updates are available

This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more from Microsoft and third parties.

This week, big things happened in Microsoft's productivity apps. The company finally gave in and decided to separate Microsoft Teams from the rest of its Office suite, not just in Europe but worldwide. The move means Microsoft will let its customers purchase Teams without Office apps and Office apps without Teams.

Microsoft released PowerToys version 0.80 with Desired State Configuration support and new features for the Peek module. The latter now lets you preview audio and WebP/WebM files. The update also contains a traditionally long list of improvements for existing utilities.

Microsoft Edge 125 is now available for testing in the Dev Channel. Version 125.0.2492 arrived this week, bringing users fixes for crashes when using favorites, PDF documents, and more. In the Stable Channel, Edge 123 received fixes for five security vulnerabilities—three in Chromium and two Edge-specific.

On the mobile side, users discovered that Edge Canary on Android now lets you install any desktop extension from the Edge Add-ons store. The process is a bit tricky and not very stable, but if you are willing to try, check out this article.

Microsoft also published a detailed FAQ about the XZ Utils vulnerability in Linux, which was accidentally discovered by a Microsoft employee. The FAQ offers detailed recommendations for affected users.

If you need a Windows-based virtual machine for app development, experimentation, or just to poke around Microsoft's latest operating system, check out the updated Windows Development Environment. It is a set of prebuilt Windows 11 virtual machines with a bunch of extra stuff inside. Version 2403 is now available for download with the March 2024 updates. You can use those virtual machines without activation for 90 days.

Other notable updates include the following:

And here are the newest drivers released this week:

Nvidia 552.12 WHQL with Modern Warfare III Serason 3 and Diablo IV ray-tracing support.

Finally, here is our latest weekly recap of everything new that Microsoft added to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap. The upcoming features include a new ringless experience for Teams chats, meeting transcript consent prompts, and more.

On the gaming side

Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts and more.

A new report emerged this week about Kareem Choudhry, Corporate Vice President of Xbox, leaving Microsoft after 26 years in the company. There is no information on why Kareem decided to leave nor where he heads after working for over two decades at Microsoft.

Microsoft has announced a new Special Edition Controller. The Nocturnal Vapor has a smoky pattern with dark green color accents, which is unique to each gamepad. You can pre-order the controller for $69.99. Shipments begin on April 9.

Microsoft unveiled the first wave of new games for Xbox and PC Game Pass in April 2024. They include Shadow of the Tomb Raider, EA Sports PGA Tour, LEGO 2K Drive, Kona, Botany Manor, and other titles. Some of those games are already playable, while others will join during the next two weeks.

Nvidia also refreshed the list of games playable on its GeForce NOW cloud streaming service with The Elder Scrolls Online. Also, the Ultimate plan, which lets you access the beefiest hardware, the highest resolutions, and the highest frame rates, is now available in Japan.

If you play Minecraft on a computer with 32-bit Windows or macOS, you better update your device since the game will soon require a 64-bit OS. The latest Minecraft snapshot no longer works on 32-bit Windows and macOS.

Sea of Thieves is among the first Xbox exclusive to hit PlayStation later this month. This week, Rare unveiled some details about the upcoming launch, such as cross-platform progression, cross-play, DualSense support, and more.

Here are some other gaming stories from this week:

Halo Infinite received a new free content update, The Yappening II.
Microsoft is working on an AI chatbot for Xbox called "Xbox Support Virtual Agent."
Xbox Insiders can check out a new build in the Alpha Skip-Ahead Ring with various controller improvements.
Throne and Liberty's closed beta test is coming to Xbox Insiders on April 10.

Random fact about Microsoft

Here is a randomly selected piece of trivia about the company, Windows, and other Microsoft-made things.

Microsoft once experimented with a feature that allowed you to group different Office files into one. Called Microsoft Binder, the app was part of Microsoft Office 95, 97, and 2000. However, its complexity led to low usage among users, and the company was forced to discontinue it in Office XP.

Image credit: Andrew Nile

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Google reportedly let OpenAI transcribe a million hours of YouTube videos to train GPT-4

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 17:21:43 +0000

According to a fresh report, in a bid to secure high-quality data to train their AI models, AI companies such as OpenAI, Google, and Meta have resorted to shady tactics. A New York Times report states that OpenAI has purportedly transcribed over a million hours of YouTube videos to dab data to train its most advanced large language model (LLM), GPT-4.

Reportedly, OpenAI developed the Whisper audio transcription model, which helped the company in scraping data from YouTube videos. The NY Times reports that OpenAI knew that this method could come under scrutiny, but they went ahead with it because they believed it to be fair use. Interestingly, Google, which owns YouTube, has also been allegedly involved in practising the same for its AI models, thereby violating its creator's copyrights.

The NY Times report is in line with The Information's report, where it was highlighted that OpenAI allegedly scrapped data from YouTube videos and podcasts to train two of its AI systems. The report also suggests that OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman, was also on the team.

When YouTube CEO Neil Mohan was interviewed by Bloomberg, he said that the company's policies "do not allow for things like transcripts or video bits to be downloaded, and that is a clear violation of our terms of service." However, when he was questioned whether YouTube data was used by OpenAI or not, Mohan gave an ambiguous answer, saying, "I have seen reports that it may or may not have been used. I have no information myself."

The NY Times report further claims that some people in Google knew about OpenAI's practice of transcribing YouTube data, but they could not do anything since Google also resorted to the same practice to train its own AI model. Google, though, said to The NY Times that it does data scraping of videos only after the creator of the video has given their consent.

As per the report, it is claimed that Google asked a team to "tweak its privacy policy" in June 2023, "to allow Google to be able to tap publicly available Google Docs, restaurant reviews on Google Maps, and other online material for more of its A.I. products."

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"It's like the gold rush. But it's probably going to come down in a couple of years, and then we'll just be refining the experience." AMD Senior Manager talks AI PCs and NPUs

Sat, 06 Apr 2024 18:39:10 +0000

AMD's Senior Processor Technical Marketing Manager, Donny Woligroski, discusses the challenges of creating AI PC technology.

"We were the first ones with the NPU and then we're the first ones to have kind of our second iteration already out and running."

AI PCs have been getting a lot of attention lately, with Microsoft specifically defining AI PCs as AI-capable computers with a Copilot key and a system that utilizes an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) as well as a CPU and GPU. AMD was the first chip company to produce NPUs, but now Intel has its own series of Core Ultra processors with NPUs which have allowed several more AI PCs to enter the market (learn more at our NPU guide).

Recently, AMD shared benchmarks with me, which show that AMD Ryzen AI processors perform faster and more efficiently than Intel's AI processors. After viewing this information, I sat down with AMD Senior Processor Technical Marketing Manager Donny Woligroski to discuss how AMD plans to maintain a competitive edge against Intel. We also talked about AI PCs, Ryzen AI processors, and what AMD sees in its future.

Disclaimer

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

AMD Ryzen 7 vs Intel Core Ultra 7: Ryzen Mistral Intruct 7B benchmark measuring time to first token.

(Image credit: AMD)

Before speaking with Woligroski, AMD sent me presentation slides and a recorded briefing that showed benchmarks where the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U (15W) had clearly outperformed the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (28W). Specifically, some benchmarks and demonstrations showed that AMD's processor was able to respond to LLM text prompts significantly faster than Intel's processor within Mistral AI (see the time to first token chart above). Impressive results, indeed.

I recently attended an Intel AI Summit in Taipei, where thousands of developers learned more about Intel's new Core Ultra AI-accelerating processors. This got me thinking about how, despite AMD having such impressive AI hardware, it's no secret that Intel has a larger sway on the processor market than AMD does. I brought this up with Woligroski and asked how AMD intends to remain competitive in the realm of AI processors now that Intel has joined the fray.

"I mean, full disclosure, our competitors probably have a much larger kitty when it comes to this kind of thing," he told me. "But AMD's strength has always been... just make good products and [buyers] will come sooner or later when the word gets out. This is really no different. We're just doing the best we can, making the best hardware we can, and trying to let people know our value prop."

AMD Ryzen AI processors. (Image credit: AMD)

A little while later in our discussion, we once more turned to the subject of staying competitive in the AI processors arena. "We were the first ones with the NPU," he continued. "And then we're the first ones to have kind of our second iteration already out and running. So we had 10 TOPS or 10 Trillions of Tera Operations per Second on the first one in the 7000 series. In the 8000 series, we have 16 [TOPS]. So it's already 60% faster. And what we have disclosed in our December AI event is that 'hey, the next-gen is going to have three times this power.'"

He went on to explain that "AMD is very much an aggressive player and quite innovative" thanks to its intelligent people "whose entire goal is to make sure that [AMD is] on the cutting edge." This being the case, discussions are frequently had at AMD about how best to optimize the GPU, CPU, and NPU for better overall performance so the company can continue to produce competitive and useful AI processors.

AI PCs feature an NPU in addition to a CPU and GPU. (Image credit: AMD)

Our discussion led us to talk about the benefits of using AI PCs. When I asked him what use cases do you think the average consumer would be most interested in for a computer with an NPU (AI PCs)? Woligroski responded that the ability to do AI tasks locally on an AI PC was very important, listing four key reasons: better performance, better security/privacy, the ability to use open-source software rather than subscription AI services, and having an NPU that is specifically created to be an efficient AI engine.

"So those are [reasons]... I would flag to people and say, 'Hey, this is why you want this hardware locally.' And that's not to say we don't think server AI is important. Absolutely, it is. And there's going to be things that are more appropriate to run on servers. And if you're not a commercial user, you might be more open to that but it's really evolving."

(Image credit: Kevin Okemwa | Bing Image Creator)

We ended up talking about how AI PCs allow us to use LLM locally on a laptop while on the go. "Yeah." he said. "It is humbling to run an LLM locally and be like, 'This is my laptop. My laptop is that smart. I can say things to it and it understands what I'm saying and it knows all these things. It's so bizarre.' Like LLaMA, the 7 billion parameter model I think fits in, I want to say 4 gigs of RAM. That's crazy. That's so tiny."

"...It's a new resource too. If you think about it that way, right? We've had CPUs and GPUs for years. And now you could do a bunch of things on this resource and it's not slowing down your other stuff that otherwise would have been relied on for that. And it's not like we have a slower CPU this year because we put in an NPU. And it's not like we have slower graphics. Quite the contrary it all kind of you know, the rising tide hits all the boats on that level."

AMD frequently takes part in tech events. (Image credit: AMD)

Woligroski also reminded me that while the NPU is important in AI PCs, the CPU and GPU are also key factors. What is more important is having a system that knows when best to use the NPU, CPU, and GPU for various tasks.

He stated, "In a perfect world - and I think in the future, this will be there - is that the OS is going to be intelligent enough to kind of handle all that stuff... I think the OS is a big piece of this, and it's great to have a great partner like Microsoft who's really focused on getting that experience up like Copilot Pro is probably one of the best things I've played with in my career and that's saying something."

"...AI isn't just an NPU problem," he continues. "The way AMD defines it, and the way Microsoft also, I believe will define it is an AI processor in the next-gen AI PC. It's going to need an NPU, yes, but it's also still going to need AI acceleration on the CPU. There's [sic] a lot of things the CPU does to also enhance your experience. There's also a ton of acceleration on the GPU now too. So it's not just this one thing (the NPU), although this one thing is in the center of everyone's minds because it's the new piece... The NPU is definitely going to come into its own in 2024. But it's ramping... Really, this is the first iteration of the AI PC- the next-gen PC will be coming. And when that is [here] it's going to be more integrated into your OS. And that means your whole operating system is going to be more tied into it."

As we continued to talk, I asked Woligroski about the future of AMD. Specifically asking "what challenges is AMD facing right now with machine learning and AI in general?" He told me that AI is evolving at such a rapid rate compared to past computer innovations that it's hard to know where things will be in the next few years. This has made it so that the company frequently has to change tack on its plans.

"The good is also the bad, right?" He replied. "The speed at which this is moving makes it very hard to crystal ball a year out, two years out, compared to our traditional computing models where it's like okay, we need more GPU, we need more CPU, and this amount every year seems to be really good and people like it. Now it's like, okay, what's going to be taxed the most? Where do we put our resources? What kind of software do we optimize?

"And I've seen those targets change over the last year where we thought it was one thing and then we're like, oh, okay, this thing over here is happening and then let's work on that and it's oh, this thing over here. So it is just so fast-moving. And the good news is, I can't see it sustaining that realistically. I mean, it's like the gold rush, but it's probably going to come down in a couple of years, and then we'll just be refining the experience and making it easier and more accessible, which we're already doing."

AI PCs in our future

This year, we have already seen a big wave of AI PCs hit the market, and more are on the way. These computers are already incredibly impressive, allowing us to perform AI tasks far quicker on our local systems than we have hitherto been able to. As time goes on, AMD will refine its hardware and bring us even better experiences.

We really are on the cusp of a huge shift in the laptop market and these first few waves of AI PCs are just the beginning. AMD will certainly take steps to continue growth in this area for years to come.

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Intel XeSS 1.3 announced with promises of big FPS boosts in games and more

Sat, 06 Apr 2024 00:34:17 +0000

Intel's Arc GPU uses its own version of upscaling technology, Intel Xe Super Sampling (XeSS), that competes with Nvidia's GeForce GPUs and DLSS and AMD's Radeon GPUs with FSR. This week, Intel announced the next version of its upscale tech, XeSS 1.3, which it says will help boost frame rates in many PC games.

Currently, XeSS technology is being used by over 100 PC games, according to Intel. In a blog post, the company released benchmarks that used a "modified build of XeSS and popular games to validate improvements" to show what XeSS 1.3 will be able to do when it is incorporated into those games.

Based on Intel's benchmarks, XeSS 1.3 could generate an average of 10 percent higher frame rates compared to a previous version of the graphics tech with a PC with the Intel Arc A750 GPU at 1440p resolution.

Intel also tested the same XeSS 1.3 preview with an Intel Core Ultra CPU that had an embedded ArC GPU with the same games. They showed an 8 percent average boost in those games at 1080p resolution.

Intel also says PC games should look better when running on Arc GPUs with the new XeSS 1.3 version. It stated:

Through model optimizations, additional training, and in particular on difficult visual elements, the new XeSS version delivers more detailed reconstruction, better anti-aliasing, less ghosting, and more temporal stability.

Intel has released the XeSS 1.3 SDK via GitHub so developers can start using the new graphics technology in their games.

Of course, these benchmarks have been provided by Intel, using a modified version of the current tech to simulate what the company claims XeSS 1.3 will be able to provide in terms of better frame rates and visuals. We will have to wait until the first games with XeSS 1.3 tech are released, or older games are updated with the new version. In the meantime, take Intel's claims with an appropriate grain of salt.

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New data shows shortsighted companies will try to replace workers with AI

Sat, 06 Apr 2024 00:32:07 +0000

The staffing provider Adecco Group has released new data which shows many companies will be hiring fewer people in the next five years thanks to generative AI. While the companies in question may be giving themselves a pat on the back for reducing costs, it makes one wonder how they’ll deal with fewer revenues when people find themselves unemployed and unable to buy as much.

Adecco Group asked senior executives from 2,000 large companies worldwide to predict what they think will happen in the coming years. Of those, 41% said they expect to have small workforces in the next five years due to artificial intelligence.

These findings are in stark contrast to what AI pushers, like Microsoft, have been touting. Microsoft frequently claims that AI is there to assist employees and not replace them; it has even called its AI Copilot to reflect its vision of assistive generative AI.

Despite Microsoft’s best efforts to frame generative AI in a positive way, it looks like thousands of people will be negatively impacted by this new technology. Just over half a year since ChatGPT was released, Neowin reported that several workers had been replaced by AI in various fields - as AI improves, the threat to livelihoods will likely increase.

Data from the International Labour Organization last August also showed which sectors of society will be hardest hit by generative AI. It said that clerical workers would be hardest hit by the new technology and that this sector is dominated by women in developed countries.

At the same time, the ILO was a bit more optimistic than Adecco Group saying that it’s unlikely that generative AI would take everybody’s job but would instead automate a portion of workers’ duties so they’re free to do other tasks.

While Adecco Group’s findings show that executives believe there will be smaller workforces, the CEO of Adecco, Denis Machuel, said that between jobs created by AI and jobs destroyed, there will probably be a balance. He said that companies should train their employees to use AI rather than relying on recruiting specialists from outside their companies.

Source: Reuters

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Happy birthday, Microsoft! The company officially turns 49 today!

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 02:26:13 +0000

On April 4, 1975, two young men, Bill Gates and the late Paul Allen, officially formed the company that would later get the name Micro-Soft (later changed to just Microsoft) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Today is, of course, the 49th birthday of the company that has grown into one of the biggest businesses on the planet.

As it did in 2023 for its 48th birthday, the company is not making a lot of fuss about today. It's official X (formerly Twitter) account does have a message about the occasion, however:

Here are a few more interesting tidbits about the founding of Microsoft.

Why was Microsoft founded?

Both Gates and Allen learned about the world's first microcomputer, the Altair 8800, in late 1974 by reading an article about it in Popular Electronics magazine. It was made by a company called Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Gates and Allen thought they could create a version of BASIC that would work on the Altair 8800. They moved to Albuquerque in 1975 to officially form a company that would later get the name Micro-Soft.

Where was the company founded?

Gates and Allen formed Microsoft in a room at the Sundowner Hotel, off the legendary Route 66. The Sundowner Hotel is still there, although it was converted to low-cost apartments in 2014.

Later in 1975, Gates and Allen moved the business to a proper office building in Albuquerque. In 2006, a plaque was put in place to commemorate that location, although it's been ripped off from its stone base at least once..

Where did the name come from?

The name Micro_Soft was Allen's idea, as he thought it was a good mashup of "microcomputer" and "software".

When did the company officially become named Microsoft?

Gates and Allen waited until November 26, 1976, over a year after the company first began, to register the name Micro-Soft with the Secretary of State in New Mexico. It wasn't until 1979 when Gates refire to the company as Microsoft, without the hyphen, for the first time.

After Gates and Allen, who were Microsoft's first employees?

According to TheOrg, Marc McDonald is credited with becoming Microsoft's first paid employee. He joined the business in 1976 as a system software engineer. In 1977, at least two more people joined the company. Ric Weiland and were both hired as computer programmers.

Happy 49th birthday, Microsoft! You have certainly had a truly impressive run. We await what you plan to do in one year's time for your milestone 50th birthday celebration.

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TSMC resumes chip manufacturing a day after 7.4 magnitude earthquake hits Taiwan

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 02:22:36 +0000

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has resumed work at its fabrication sites in Taiwan after an earthquake-led shutdown. The company was able to recover quickly, with no damage to critical chipmaking equipment, ensuring minimal disruption to chip supply. Despite initial concerns, analysts believe the impact on TSMC's operations should be manageable, with limited downside.

TSMC's advanced technological measures and revised building codes helped mitigate damage and casualties, which showcased Taiwan's resilience to seismic events. The earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.4, struck Taiwan on Wednesday, causing some disruptions to chip production. However, TSMC's initial checks showed that safety systems at its chip fabs were operating normally, and all personnel were safe and had returned to their workplaces shortly after the disaster.

The chipmaking company reported that some production lines in areas that faced greater impact were likely to take more time to return to fully automated production. Despite that, TSMC's overall tool recovery of its fabrication facilities exceeded 80% as of Thursday. Newer fabs, like the Fab 18 in Tainan, are expected to reach full recovery later tonight.

TSMC is the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, offering foundry services to a wide range of global customers and partners, including the likes of Apple, Intel, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and more. TSMC's revenue comes from selling chips to clients worldwide, with North America being its biggest market, contributing over 65% of the company's revenue.

Apple is TSMC's largest client, and it has outsourced the entirety of its chip demand to the company. Currently, the chipmaking company is producing one of the most advanced chips using the 3nm process. TSMC is also expanding its fabs in the U. S. and Japan to fulfill the ever-increasing need for advanced chips and as more countries are looking to manufacture semiconductors locally in order to reduce the supply chain hurdles that unfolded during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Reuters

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To Build a Better AI Supercomputer, Let There Be Light

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 16:58:36 +0000

OpenAI and other AI leaders think new leaps in machine intelligence will require new forms of computer hardware. One proposal involves connecting GPUs with light.

Most artificial intelligence experts seem to agree that taking the next big leap in the field will depend at least partly on building supercomputers on a once unimaginable scale. At an event hosted by the venture capital firm Sequoia last month, the CEO of a startup called Lightmatter pitched a technology that might well enable this hyperscale computing rethink by letting chips talk directly to one another using light.

Data today generally moves around inside computers—and in the case of training AI algorithms, between chips inside a data center—via electrical signals. Sometimes parts of those interconnections are converted to fiber-optic links for great bandwidth, but converting signals back and forth between optical and electrical creates a communications bottleneck.

Instead, Lightmatter wants to directly connect hundreds of thousands or even millions of GPUs—those silicon chips that are crucial to AI training—using optical links. Reducing the conversion bottleneck should allow data to move between chips at much higher speeds than is possible today, potentially enabling distributed AI supercomputers of extraordinary scale.

Lightmatter’s technology, which it calls Passage, takes the form of optical—or photonic—interconnects built in silicon that allow its hardware to interface directly with the transistors on a silicon chip like a GPU. The company claims this makes it possible to shuttle data between chips with 100 times the usual bandwidth.

For context, GPT-4—OpenAI’s most powerful AI algorithm and the brains behind ChatGPT—is rumored to have run on more than 20,000 GPUs. Harris says Passage, which will be ready by 2026, should allow for more than a million GPUs to run in parallel on the same AI training run.

Lightmatter wants to speed up AI supercomputers by moving data between chips using light, not electrical signals.

Courtesy of Lightmatter

One audience member at the Sequoia event was Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, who has at times appeared obsessed with the question of how to build bigger, faster data centers to further advance AI. In February, The Wall Street Journal reported that Altman has sought up to $7 trillion in funding to develop vast quantities of chips for AI, while a more recent report by The Information suggests that OpenAI and Microsoft are drawing up plans for a $100 billion data center, codenamed Stargate, with millions of chips. Since electrical interconnects are so power-hungry, connecting chips together on such a scale would require an extraordinary amount of energy—and would depend on there being new ways of connecting chips, like the kind Lightmatter is proposing.

GlobalFoundries, a company that makes chips for others, including AMD and General Motors, previously announced a partnership with Lightmatter. Harris says his company is “working with the largest semiconductor companies in the world as well as the hyperscalers,” referring to the largest cloud companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.

If Lightmatter or another company can reinvent the wiring of giant AI projects, a key bottleneck in the development of smarter algorithms might fall away. The use of more computation was fundamental to the advances that led to ChatGPT, and many AI researchers see the further scaling-up of hardware as being crucial to future advances in the field—and to hopes of ever reaching the vaguely-specified goal of artificial general intelligence, or AGI, meaning programs that can match or exceed biological intelligence in every way.

Linking a million chips together with light might allow for algorithms several generations beyond today’s cutting edge, says Lightmatter’s CEO Nick Harris. “Passage is going to enable AGI algorithms,” he confidently suggests.

The large data centers that are needed to train giant AI algorithms typically consist of racks filled with tens of thousands of computers running specialized silicon chips and a spaghetti of mostly electrical connections between them. Maintaining training runs for AI across so many systems—all connected by wires and switches—is a huge engineering undertaking. Converting between electronic and optical signals also places fundamental limits on chips’ abilities to run computations as one.

Lightmatter’s approach is designed to simplify the tricky traffic inside AI data centers. “Normally you have a bunch of GPUs, and then a layer of switches, and a layer of switches, and a layer of switches, and you have to traverse that tree” to communicate between two GPUs, Harris says. In a data center connected by Passage, Harris says, every GPU would have a high-speed connection to every other chip.

Lightmatter’s work on Passage is an example of how AI’s recent flourishing has inspired companies large and small to try to reinvent key hardware behind advances like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Nvidia, the leading supplier of GPUs for AI projects, held its annual conference last month, where CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the company’s latest chip for training AI: a GPU called Blackwell. Nvidia will sell the GPU in a “superchip” consisting of two Blackwell GPUs and a conventional CPU processor, all connected using the company’s new high-speed communications technology called NVLink-C2C.

The chip industry is famous for finding ways to wring more computing power from chips without making them larger, but Nvidia chose to buck that trend. The Blackwell GPUs inside the company’s superchip are twice as powerful as their predecessors but are made by bolting two chips together, meaning they consume much more power. That trade-off, in addition to Nvidia’s efforts to glue its chips together with high-speed links, suggests that upgrades to other key components for AI supercomputers, like that proposed by Lightmatter, could become more important.

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Apple's LLM reportedly outperforms GPT-4, but Sam Altman already admitted it "kind of sucks" as OpenAI gets ready to unveil a new model that's "really good, like materially better"

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 16:56:59 +0000

Apple's ReALM beats OpenAI's GPT-4 model despite using fewer parameters.

What you need to know

Apple is reportedly developing a LLM dubbed Reference Resolution As Language Modeling (ReALM) that will enhance Siri's capabilities and allow it to understand context in a conversation and even process onscreen content.
According to benchmarks shared by researchers, Apple's smallest model shares similar performance stats as OpenAI's GPT-4, whereas its largest models outperform it entirely.
It's unclear when the models will ship, whether with the iOS 18 update or new lineup of iPhones.

Apple has been relatively quiet and rather slow hopping onto the AI bandwagon compared to its competitors like Microsoft, which was quick to make a multi-billion dollar investment in the technology further strengthening its ties with OpenAI. This has proven to be beneficial as Microsoft is the world's most valuable company with over $3 trillion in market capitalization. 13 market analysts unanimously voted that Microsoft will be the world's most valuable company in the next five years ahead of Apple, owing to its early lead and commitment to AI.

Apple's iPhone sales have taken a major hit, specifically in China as other competitors are starting to dominate the market. As you might be aware, Apple is slated to hold WWDC later this year in June. It's expected to make a host of announcements revolving around its new lineup of phones, We also expect the company to make several AI-related announcements.

And as it now seems, we might be getting an early look at what the company intends to present to the world in the next few months. While details remain slim, Apple AI researchers recently published a research paper highlighting the company's plans to supercharge Siri with nifty AI capabilities.

Is ReALm better than OpenAI's GPT-4?

(Image credit: Daniel Rubino)

The research paper is based on a Reference Resolution As Language Modeling (ReALM). It seems that Apple is looking to build on Siri's capabilities with this new model, as it'll enhance its capability to understand context in a conversation and even process onscreen content.

Additionally, ReaLM will reportedly ship with the capability of converting conversational, onscreen, and more into a text-format that can be processed by large language models (LLMs). Per the research paper, the ReALM model will be available in four sizes: ReALM-80M, ReALM-250M, ReALM-1B, and ReALM-3B. The “M” and “B” at the end of the ReALM models represent the number of parameters in millions and billions respectively.

Per the research paper, the researchers ran benchmarks of Apple's new AI tools against OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models. Based on their findings, Apple's smallest AI model showcased a similar performance when compared to OpenAI's GPT-4.

According to the researchers:

“We demonstrate large improvements over an existing system with similar functionality across different types of references, with our smallest model obtaining absolute gains of over 5% for onscreen references. We also benchmark against GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, with our smallest model achieving performance comparable to that of GPT-4, and our larger models substantially outperforming it.”

The researchers indicated its ReaLM outperforms OpenAI's GPT-4 model despite having “fewer parameters.” Rumors indicate GPT-4 has 1.76 trillion parameters. Even Sam Altman recently admitted GPT-4 “kind of sucks” with rumors looming in the air indicating OpenAI is getting ready to release a new model that will reportedly make ChatGPT “really good, like materially better.”

It's unclear if these models will ship with Apple's iOS 18 update or with the soon-to-launch lineup of iPhones.

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Apple is reportedly looking into making robots for the home as its next big product

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 03:35:00 +0000

The dream of having a robot that could fulfill all of our needs at home has been a big theme in science fiction for decades. Today, there's word that Apple might be looking into creating a personal home robot as one of its next big products.

Bloomberg reports, via unnamed sources, that Apple has begun doing some early research into such a home robot. The story claims that one idea would have such a device follow people around in their houses. Another very different product idea that was mentioned was a new table-top device with a robotic movable display. The display could mimic the movement of a human during a FaceTime session.

The report states that this early research is currently being handled by Apple's hardware and AI teams. Since this is still very early in development, it's entirely possible the company could decide to cancel this research at any time.

This skunkworks project is reportedly happening in part because Apple quietly canceled the development of making its own electric car earlier in 2024. The project had been in the works for years, even though the company never officially confirmed its existence. Rumors claim the car team experienced a lot of issues over the years before it got canceled, including moving away from making a completely autonomous vehicle to a more conventional driver-based, but still electric, car.

Of course, Apple did launch an all-new product earlier this year. The Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset officially went on sale in the US in February with a hefty $3,499 price tag. While the product has gotten a lot of positive reviews, it has had its share of critics. Most importantly we don't know how successful the device has been in terms of sales, and Apple may not reveal those numbers for a long time, if ever.

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Ubisoft Forward gaming showcase returns this June with fresh announcements

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 03:33:12 +0000

E3 is no more, but it doesn't look like game publishers are stopping their June showcases anytime soon. Ubisoft has just announced the return of Ubisoft Forward, its yearly presentation that gives fans glimpses of upcoming projects by the many studios it owns.

In a social media update, Ubisoft confirmed that the Ubisoft Forward 2024 presentation will kick off on June 10, 2024. It will be a live event held in Los Angeles that's broadcasted worldwide with "updates and upcoming releases" from the company.

Unfortunately, the short announcement does not drop any hints as to what Ubisoft has planned for the presentation. Last year, its studios gave looks at Star Wars Outlaws, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Skull & Bones, The Crew: Motorfest, and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Most of those games have already been released by now. Massive Entertainment's Star Wars Outlaws is the biggest game that's still pending a launch, meaning we may get to see much more footage of the action game at the show.

Ubisoft also has multiple more Assassin's Creed games in development. What we will most probably see during the 2024 Forward presentation is Codename Red, an Assassin's Creed project that is slated to finally take players to feudal Japan. Ubisoft Quebec is said to be developing this highly-anticipated RPG title.

Don't forget that a remake of the original Splinter Cell was quietly announced a few years back. Ubisoft has released no more information about this Snowdrop engine-using project since then, but it could make a surprise appearance this year. There should be teasers and reveals for upcoming updates to Ubisoft's plethora of live service games at the show too.

The Ubisoft Forward 2024 showcase will go live just a few days after Geoff Keighley's Summer Games Fest presentation, which is slated to bring two hours of announcements on June 7.

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WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook are back up and running after outages

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 03:32:12 +0000

WhatsApp users couldn’t connect starting around 2PM ET, while Facebook’s and Instagram’s feeds shuddered to a halt.

WhatsApp went down worldwide on Wednesday afternoon, impacting the 2 billion users of the messaging service. Users started experiencing issues connecting to WhatsApp in multiple countries just after 2PM ET today, with the service stuck on “connecting” for many.

Users can still send messages, but they weren’t delivered until WhatsApp came back online.

A status page for Meta’s business APIs was updated to note an outage impacting service on the APIs for connecting to WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram starting at 2:10PM ET.

As of 4PM ET, the issues seemed to be resolved for most of us in the US; and as of 4:45PM ET, the status page confirmed things should be fixed. The Verge contacted Meta about the issues, but we have not received a response yet.

For other Meta services like Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, many people were reporting issues trying to view recent posts or create new posts on the services, but now, those seem to be working consistently again.

This WhatsApp outage comes just weeks after a massive Meta outage locked users out of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Threads. The outage lasted around two hours but never impacted WhatsApp. It’s rare for WhatsApp to be affected by outages, with the last major outage taking the service offline for two hours in 2022.

Update April 3rd, 2:53PM ET: Added details on Facebook and Instagram issues.

Update April 3rd, 4:58PM ET: Noted access appears to be restored for some.

Update April 3rd, 5:17PM ET: Noted access appears to be restored for some.

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Copilot key is based on a button you probably haven’t seen since IBM’s Model M

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 03:30:51 +0000

Left-Shift + Windows key + F23

In January, Microsoft introduced a new key to Windows PC keyboards for the first time in 30 years. The Copilot key, dedicated to launching Microsoft's eponymous generative AI assistant, is already on some Windows laptops released this year. On Monday, Tom’s Hardware dug into the new addition and determined exactly what pressing the button does, which is actually pretty simple. Pushing a computer's integrated Copilot button is like pressing left-Shift + Windows key + F23 simultaneously.

Tom's Hardware confirmed this after wondering if the Copilot key introduced a new scan code to Windows or if it worked differently. Using the scripting program AuthoHotkey with a new laptop with a Copilot button, Tom's Hardware discovered the keystrokes registered when a user presses the Copilot key. The publication confirmed with Dell that “this key assignment is standard for the Copilot key and done at Microsoft's direction.”

F23

Surprising to see in that string of keys is F23. Having a computer keyboard with a function row or rows that take you from F1 all the way to F23 is quite rare today. When I try to imagine a keyboard that comes with an F23 button, vintage keyboards come to mind, more specifically buckling spring keyboards from IBM.

IBM’s Model F, which debuted in 1981 and used buckling spring switches over a capacitive PCB, and the Model M, which launched in 1985 and used buckling spring switches over a membrane sheet, both offered layouts with 122 keys. These layouts included not one, but two rows of function keys that would leave today’s 60 percent keyboard fans sweating over the wasted space.

But having 122 keys was helpful for keyboards tied to IBM business terminals. The keyboard layout even included a bank of keys to the left of the primary alpha block of keys for even more forms of input.

An IBM Model M keyboard with an F23 key.

James R. Maynard III/Wikimedia Commons

The 122-key keyboard layout with F23 lives on. Beyond people who still swear by old Model F and M keyboards, Model F Labs and Unicomp both currently sell modern buckling spring keyboards with built-in F23 buttons. Another reason a modern Windows PC user might have access to an F23 key is if they use a macro pad.

But even with those uses in mind, the F23 key remains rare. That helps explain why Microsoft would use the key for launching Copilot; users are unlikely to have F23 programmed for other functions. This was also likely less work than making a key with an entirely new scan code.

The Copilot button is reprogrammable

When I previewed Dell's 2024 XPS laptops, a Dell representative told me that the integrated Copilot key wasn't reprogrammable. However, in addition to providing some interesting information about the newest PC key since the Windows button, Tom's Hardware's revelation shows why the Copilot key is actually reprogrammable, even if OEMs don't give users a way to do so out of the box. (If you need help, check out the website's tutorial for reprogramming the Windows Copilot key.)

I suspect there's a strong interest in reprogramming that button. For one, generative AI, despite all its hype and potential, is still an emerging technology. Many don't need or want access to any chatbot—let alone Microsoft's—instantly or even at all. Those who don't use their system with a Microsoft account have no use for the button, since being logged in to a Microsoft account is required for the button to launch Copilot.

A rendering of the Copilot button.

Microsoft

Additionally, there are other easy ways to launch Copilot on a computer that has the program downloaded, like double-clicking an icon or pressing Windows + C, that make a dedicated button unnecessary. (Ars Technica asked Microsoft why the Copilot key doesn't just register Windows + C, but the company declined to comment. Windows + C has launched other apps in the past, including Cortana, so it's possible that Microsoft wanted to avoid the Copilot key performing a different function when pressed on computers that use Windows images without Copilot.)

In general, shoehorning the Copilot key into Windows laptops seems premature. Copilot is young and still a preview; just a few months ago, it was called Bing Chat. Further, the future of generative AI, including its popularity and top uses, is still forming and could evolve substantially during the lifetime of a Windows laptop. Microsoft's generative AI efforts could also flounder over the years. Imagine if Microsoft went all-in on Bing back in the day and made all Windows keyboards have a Bing button, for example. Just because Microsoft wants something to become mainstream doesn't mean that it will.

This all has made the Copilot button seem more like a way to force the adoption of Microsoft's chatbot than a way to improve Windows keyboards. Microsoft has also made the Copilot button a requirement for its AI PC certification (which also requires an integrated neural processing unit and having Copilot pre-installed). Microsoft plans to make Copilot keys a requirement for Windows 11 OEM PCs eventually, it told Ars Technica in January.

At least for now, the basic way that the Copilot button works means you can turn the key into something more useful. Now, the tricky part would be finding a replacement keycap to eradicate Copilot's influence from your keyboard.

Listing image by Microsoft

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TSMC “still assessing” chipmaking facilities after 7.4-magnitude quake hits Taiwan

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 17:57:15 +0000

TSMC makes most high-end chips for Apple, Nvidia, AMD, and others.

Chipmaking operations at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) were briefly paused today following a 7.4-magnitude earthquake that hit Taiwan, according to a company statement provided to Bloomberg and others.

TSMC says that workers were evacuated as part of its earthquake safety protocols and that they have already returned to work. Bloomberg reports that the company is still "examining impact" to its operations, but it "expects to resume production overnight."

The quake's epicenter was on Taiwain's east coast and has prompted tsunami warnings in Japan, China, and the Philippines, according to The New York Times. The quake was followed by a long series of over 200 aftershocks, including one 6.5-magnitude aftershock. It's the strongest earthquake to affect Taiwan since the 7.7-magnitude Jiji earthquake in 1999. As of this writing, the NYT reports that at least nine people have died, and 1,011 have reported injuries.

Bloomberg reports that the quake also paused manufacturing at United Microelectronics Corp., which makes some chips for AMD, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Realtek, Rockchip, and other companies with a large footprint in smartphones, wireless communications, and cars.

Both TSMC and UMC's factories are mostly on the island's north and west coasts, reducing the chances of serious disruption. But analysts speaking to Bloomberg pointed out that high-end chip manufacturing can require "24/7 seamless operations in a vacuum state for a few weeks," potentially amplifying the impact of even minor manufacturing interruptions.

TSMC is currently responsible for the vast majority of high-end chipmaking at this point, with a hand in manufacturing essentially every single current-generation CPU, GPU, and SoC for Nvidia, Apple, and AMD. Intel is manufacturing its Arc GPUs and major parts of its newest Meteor Lake CPUs at TSMC, even as the company tries to convince third-party fabless chip designers to use its factories.

A disruption at TSMC could affect everything from PCs and workstations to smartphones to AI servers, to say nothing of the universe of smart gadgets that use lower-end, less-glamorous processors and microcontrollers.

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Broadcom execs say VMware price, subscription complaints are unwarranted

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 03:16:50 +0000

Industry groups aren't giving up hope for government intervention.

Broadcom has made controversial changes to VMware since closing its acquisition of the virtualization brand in late November. Broadcom executives are trying to convince VMware customers and partners that they'll eventually see the subscription-fueled light. But discontent remains, as illustrated by industry groups continuing to urge regulators to rein-in what they claim are unfair business practices.

Since Broadcom announced that it would no longer sell perpetual VMware licenses as of December 2023, there have been complaints about rising costs associated with this model. In March, a VMware User Group Town Hall saw attendees complaining of price jumps of up to 600 percent, The Register reported. Small managed service providers that had worked with VMware have reported seeing the price of business rising tenfold, per a February ServeTheHome report.

Broadcom execs defend subscription model

However, Sylvain Cazard, president of Broadcom Software for Asia-Pacific, reportedly told The Register that complaints about higher prices are unwarranted since customers using at least two components of VMware's flagship Cloud Foundation will end up paying less and because the new pricing includes support, which VMware didn't include before.

The Register reported that Cazard, as well as Paul Turner, VP of product management at VMware, and Prashanth Shenoy, VP of product and technical marketing for the Cloud, Infrastructure, Platforms, and Solutions group at VMware, all agreed that people who think moving to subscriptions is unfair aren't considering that VMware waited longer than many in the industry to implement the model.

This is an argument Broadcom has made before. Broadcom CEO and President Hock Tan called subscription-only licensing “the industry standard” in a March blog post defending VMware's changes.

Pushing for government intervention

Despite Broadcom execs' efforts to convince people that its changes are reasonable and will eventually end up financially benefitting stakeholders, there's still effort from industry groups to get federal regulators involved with how Broadcom is running VMware.

As reported by Dutch IT magazine Computable on Friday, representatives from Beltug, a Belgian CIO trade group; Le Cigref, a French network of companies interested in digital technology; the CIO Platform Nederland association for CIOs and CDOs; and VOICE e.V., a German association for IT decisionmakers, sent a letter [PDF] to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Commissioner Thierry Breton on Thursday to "strongly condemn" Broadcom's businesses practices and ask the commission to take action.

The letter complains of “sudden changes in policy and practices” that Broadcom issued to VMware that the authors claim led to: "steeply increased prices; non-fulfillment of previous contractual agreements; disallowing reselling of licenses; refusing to maintain security conditions for perpetual licenses; (re)bundling of licenses, leading to higher costs; a shake up of the ecosystem of VMware resellers and partners"; and "a loss of knowledge."

The letter reads, in part:

In the context of the VMware takeover and the change in business strategy, Broadcom's contempt and brutality towards its customers are unprecedented in the recent history of the digital economy in Europe. In view of its scale and Broadcom's impact, this case cannot be left exclusively to competition law technicians.

The letter also discusses concerns about Broadcom driving business to the public cloud with negative consequences for the European economy.

"This will further strengthen the position and power of the hyperscalers, which will have a profound impact on the entire market," the letter says.

It's worth noting that this group has written letters to the commission before and that the commission approved Broadcom's VMware acquisition in July 2023 after an antitrust probe. However, Broadcom was recently contacted by antitrust authorities in Europe regarding claims that it was changing VMware software licensing and support conditions, MLex reported on Wednesday.

Regardless of whether a government body steps in, longtime VMware users and partners are reconsidering whether the company's vision aligns with their own businesses. Meanwhile, rivals are pushing hard to capitalize on the disruption happening at VMware.

Cloud Foundation updates

Broadcom has a couple of big updates planned for VMware's Cloud Foundation that, execs told The Register, will help people understand the value of the new VMware.

In July, Broadcom plans to update Cloud Foundation so that a single license key can be used for all components. The update is also supposed to heighten OAuth support as the company seeks to bring single sign-on to all VMware products and add a VMware NSX overlay. Turner told The Register that the changes are examples of how Broadcom is trying to make VMware Cloud Foundation easier to implement than before Broadcom took over.

In the first half of 2025, VMware plans to release the VCF 9 update, which will be "the fullest expression of Broadcom's vision for product integration,” Shenoy told The Register. Turner claimed that because of the update, users with multiple VMware products would no longer need individual silos for discrete storage.

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Intel’s chipmaking business lost a boatload of billions last year

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 03:14:36 +0000

Past outsourcing decisions put the company in this spot, but will break even by 2027, says Intel CEO.

Intel’s chip-making division accumulated $7 billion in operating losses in 2023, Reuters reported on Tuesday. That’s a big increase from $5.2 billion it lost in 2022, and while it made $18.9 billion in revenue in 2023, that number is down 31 percent from the $27.49 billion it made the year prior.

However, based on CEO Pat Gelsinger’s comments to investors, the total loss isn’t a total surprise. Gelsinger says these latest numbers are partially the result of Intel’s past mistakes catching up with its foundry business, which caused the chipmaker to outsource about 30 percent of all its wafer production to other foundries, like TSMC, one of Intel’s biggest competitors currently.

But now Intel has invested in using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines from Dutch firm ASML, when previously it decided not to. Gelsinger expects the cost-effectiveness of those tools to help Intel break even by 2027. ASML also says on its website that its technology makes scaling the mass production of computer chips more affordable for chip foundries like Intel.

It sounds like Intel may have made the right call just in time. In total, Intel plans to spend around $100 billion building or expanding its chip foundries in four states. It also will receive up to $8.5 billion in funding from the U.S. government, as part of the new CHIPS Act. But for everything to go according to plan, Intel will need to persuade companies to use its chipmaking service. Microsoft recently signed on as a foundry customer, but it’s unclear how many more companies Intel will need to break even (as planned) in a few years.

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It’s time for a hard reset on notifications

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 20:30:28 +0000

How did it come to this?

Feel that? Your phone buzzing in the pocket of your yoga pants? Better check it. Maybe it’s a request to approve a substitution in your grocery order. Maybe it’s a fraudulent charge on your credit card. Maybe it’s your mom or your spouse or your sister. Maybe it’s a notification from your kid’s daycare. It might be any of those things! But it’s probably not. It’s probably something like:

Hi! You’re running out of time to do your Spanish lesson! Still thinking about ordering dinner? Enjoy $8 off your purchase. Terms apply. You hit your sleep goal seven times in the last two weeks. Nice one, Allison. Shop these fresh beauty picks. Take a second to reflect on how you’re feeling. Beck performing on Wed, Jul 3. Tap to learn more!

Notifications are hell, particularly on iOS. Android offers better controls and mercifully shunts some offenders to a “silent” inbox, but it’s not totally off the hook, either. On both platforms, notifications have been and continue to be a constant distraction, a plague upon our already razor-thin attention spans. In theory, we have tools to tame them. But I don’t think I’m in the minority when I say that I find them inadequate, tedious, and confusing. I’m also paranoid about missing an important alert, so I just let the notifications wash over my phone all day, every day. That’s how a single grocery delivery results in no less than five individual push notifications:

Your order is confirmed. Your order is out for delivery. Your order will be delivered soon. Your order has been delivered ❄️ Remember to chill those perishables. Tell us how we did!

All day, every day, I am urged to learn more! Rate my experience! Treat myself! Try the new seasonal drinks! Sign up for premium and save!

Here’s the thing: I think it’s time for apps to cut that shit out. Let’s all declare notification bankruptcy and start over.

I have a couple of ideas for how this could work. One: Tinder for notification settings. Every app has to show you an example of the kind of notification it wants to send you, and you get to swipe left or right to opt in or out. This would save us the trouble of going into the settings in two hundred different apps and ticking two thousand little “opt out” buttons. Plus, it kind of feels like a game, which is fun.

My second proposal — and this is a wild one — is that promotional notifications should just not be allowed. Or you can opt in to them if you desperately want to hear from the Starbucks app every single day, but you should have to go out of your way to do that and should not be the default behavior when you choose “allow notifications.” Just an idea!

However it happens, I think it’s time that power over notifications be returned to the people, not the app developers who want us to check out these Deals! Deals! Deals! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. Better see what’s up.

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