The latest user milestone was announced by Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier today on his own Threads account. He added, "Way beyond our expectations."

He stated about 24 hours ago that Threads had about 30 million users since the launch on Wednesday. That would indicate that the actual pace for signups has not slowed down a lot since the initial rush.

Of course, one of the big reasons why Threads is so popular is that people can sign up for it by using their Instagram account info. Since Instagram has over a billion users, that means the potential for many more Threads users is huge.

That's assuming that Meta continues to update Threads with features that its growing community wants. Instagram head Adam Mosseri has been responding to many of the feature and improvement requests from Threads users. He's confirmed that features like editing Threads, improving search, adding a fully featured version for web users, and many more are in the works.

One thing that is not coming in the near future is the ability to direct message, or DM, Thread users. Mosseri indicated that Meta did not want to "build yet another inbox" for Threads. For now, it appears that Meta is just fine with allowing Threads users to send posts to other social messaging services.

Meta is already getting some unwanted attention from its rival Twitter over the Threads launch. Twitter has sent a legal letter to Meta, threatening it with a lawsuit over claims that it took trade secrets from Twitter and that it hired former Twitter team members to work on Threads.

Meta has denied these claims.

Source

The UK digital regulator said that rather than choosing to give the spectrum to mobile or Wi-Fi, an alternative exists where they could be both used in the band. It has dubbed this approach ‘hybrid sharing’ and has provided two examples of how it could be implemented.

Outlining the two approaches, Ofcom wrote:

• Indoor outdoor split. Wi-Fi routers tend to be indoors – carrying broadband traffic within a localised indoor area; whereas mobile transmitters are mostly located outdoors – providing wider area coverage. So, we are exploring the possibility of enabling the indoor use of Wi-Fi while also enabling licensed mobile use outdoors.
• Geographical sharing. Most of the data traffic carried across mobile networks tends to be concentrated in a relatively small proportion of sites. It might be possible to enable licensed mobile use in specific high-traffic locations while allowing Wi-Fi use elsewhere. It might also be possible to prioritise Wi-Fi use in specific areas of high demand while allowing mobile use in other areas.

 

While the regulator says it’s inviting comments, now that it has made this announcement there’s a good chance it’s set on the idea. Aside from identifying mechanisms to achieve its hybrid sharing approach, it said it’s also pushing for international harmonization of hybrid sharing in this band “to enable economies of scale for equipment.”

Radio spectrum is used by all devices with wireless communications whether they be car key fobs, baby monitors, TV, or satellites. Mobile phones and broadband equipment also use the radio spectrum.

As the spectrum is limited, Ofcom argues that it needs to be carefully managed to prevent services from interfering with each other and causing disruption for people and businesses.

Source

Of course, Microsoft's own Bing Chat chatbot is run in part with GPT-4 as well.

Today, OpenAI revealed that GPT-4 is generally available for all developers who have paid API access. In a blog post, the company stated:

Today all existing API developers with a history of successful payments can access the GPT-4 API with 8K context. We plan to open up access to new developers by the end of this month, and then start raising rate-limits after that depending on compute availability.

The blog post added that OpenAI is making even more of its APIs generally available starting today. That includes GPT-3.5 Turbo, Whisper, and its DALL·E image generation API. Finally, the blog post said OpenAI is working on "enabling fine-tuning for GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 Turbo" and plans to offer those for developers later in 2023.

OpenAI also launched its Chat Completions API in March so developers could "build conversational experiences and a broad range of completion tasks" for ChatGPT. Now, Chat Completions takes up "97% of our API GPT usage." As a result, it will retire some of its older models that use the older Completions API starting on January 4, 2024. It stated:

While this API will remain accessible, we will label it as “legacy” in our developer documentation starting today. We plan for future model and product improvements to focus on the Chat Completions API, and do not have plans to publicly release new models using the Completions API.

 

Developers who have been using a number of older ChatGPT embeddings models will need to switch to the current text-embedding-ada-002 model by January 4 as well.

Source

CFR is now available to customers of nine banks including Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, NatWest, Monzo and TSB. The announcement didn’t state the other banks that were included but they were likely to be smaller banks.

Explaining how the solution works, Mastercard said:

“Organized criminals move ‘scammed’ funds through a series of ‘mule’ accounts to disguise them. To counter this, for the past five years Mastercard has worked with UK banks to follow the flow of funds through these accounts, and then close them down.”

“Based on insights from this tracing activity and overlaying them with specific analysis factors such as account names, payment values, payer and payee history, and the payee’s links to accounts associated with scams – Mastercard’s AI solution provides banks with the intelligence necessary to intervene in real time and stop a payment before funds are lost.”

 

TSB, one of the banks that partnered with Mastercard on this initiative, has been using the Consumer Fraud Risk tool and in the past four months has greatly increased its fraud detection. Based on its results, TSB believes that £100 million could be saved in the UK if all banks mirrored its performance.

In terms of a rollout, Mastercard said the Consumer Fraud Risk tool would be adopted by other banks during 2023. Mastercard said it’s also looking to bring the technology to international markets to scale the solution and make it even more effective.

The company said that this AI is aimed at those cases where a customer gets past all of the bank's checks and sends the money themselves, not realizing they’re being scammed. It said by stopping customers from losing money to scams, it can help build and maintain people’s trust in online banking.

Source

In a tweet on July 7, 2023, Musk said, "Competition is fine, cheating is not. Meta literally just stole dozens of Twitter employees who worked on our direct competitors, the ones who know the product best".

You may see Musk's tweet below.

Musk also said that he would be "looking into" the matter and that he would take "appropriate action" if necessary.

Background of the allegations

Musk has a history of being critical of Meta. In the past, he has called the company "a copycat" and has said that it is "not innovative." He has also said that he believes that Meta is "a dying company."

In April 2022, Musk made an offer to buy Twitter for $44 billion. The deal is still pending regulatory approval.

What is Threads?

Threads is a new social media app that was launched by Meta in May 2023. The app is designed for sharing personal moments with friends and family. Threads users can create posts, share photos and videos, and send direct messages.

The app has been compared to Twitter, as it allows users to share short posts with their followers. However, Threads also has some features that are different from Twitter, such as the ability to create group chats and the ability to share photos and videos in a more private way.

The launch Threads is clearly shaking the reputation of Twitter

What's next?

It is unclear what Musk will do next in regards to the allegations that Meta stole Twitter employees. However, it is clear that he is not happy about the situation.

It is also unclear what Meta will do in response to Musk's allegations. The company has not yet commented on the matter.

The situation remains fluid, and it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

Elon Musk's allegations that Meta stole Twitter employees are serious. If true, it would be a violation of Twitter's intellectual property and could have legal implications. It is also a sign of the growing rivalry between Musk and Meta and Meta has not yet responded to Musk's allegations.

Source

Last week, a spectacular image of Saturn was published by the JWST team. It shows the sparkling rings of the giant planet almost floating by themselves. Saturn itself doesn’t really shine in infrared. A different release shows a little bit more of the ringed planet this time around, as well as showing more details in the rings – and three moons also show up in this gorgeous composition.

The image was taken by JWST's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). It clearly shows planetary details and Saturn’s ring system. The moons Dione, Enceladus, and Tethys are visible to the left of the planet. The snap is just one of deeper observations of the planet that can see Saturn’s fainter rings (not visible in this photo) including the thin G ring and the diffuse E ring. This latter one is produced by the plumes released by Enceladus, like the big one spotted by JWST a short time ago.

Saturn looks dark when this filter is used due to methane, which absorbs sunlight. The rings and the moons, on the other hand, get a chance to shine once the spotlight is removed from the planet. Despite the darkness, there are plenty of details to be gathered from the observations, including seasonal changes in the hemispheres. The polar regions change color as the planet goes around the Sun, and these new infrared observations provide never-before-seen details of these periodic changes.

These JWST observations are just the beginning of what might be gathered on the ringed planet, its atmosphere, and its moons.

Source

Source

The RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is a significant upgrade over the previous generation of mid-range graphics cards. It offers a 10% performance improvement over the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB and a 30% performance improvement over the RTX 3060 Ti.

The RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is also more efficient than the previous generation of mid-range graphics cards. It uses less power and produces less heat, which makes it a better option for gamers who are looking for a quiet and cool gaming experience.

Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 16GB specs

The RTX 4060 Ti 16GB has the following specifications:

• 16GB GDDR6 memory
• 128-bit memory bus
• 2400MHz boost clock speed
• 70 Tensor cores
• 46 RT cores

The RTX 4060 Ti 16GB also features a number of other new technologies, including:

Nvidia DLSS: This technology uses artificial intelligence to improve the performance and image quality of games.

Nvidia Reflex: This technology reduces input lag, making games feel more responsive.

Nvidia Broadcast: This technology uses AI to improve the quality of your voice and video when you are streaming or recording games.

Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 16GB price and release date

The Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is a new graphics card that offers a significant performance improvement over the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB. The card is also expected to be more efficient than the RTX 3060 Ti, which could make it a more attractive option for gamers.

If you are looking for a mid-range graphics card that offers great performance, the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is a great option. The RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is priced at $399, which is a good value for the performance it offers.

RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is expected to be available from Nvidia partners starting on July 18, 2023.

Update: Corrected the memory bus to be 128-bit (previously written 256-bit)

Source

As Meta’s Twitter competitor, Threads, started generating buzz ahead of yesterday’s launch, curious netizens spotted a placeholder listing for the app in Apple’s App Store. Like all iOS apps, the listing included details about the user data the app is designed to collect and track. And observers couldn’t help but notice that this brand-new app was already listing a whopping 14 categories of data that “may be collected and linked to your identity.” 

It might be a jarring reminder, but this is par for the course with Meta-owned apps, which the company monetizes by selling targeted ads and personalized marketing. Facebook and Instagram’s iOS apps list even more categories than Threads, the Messenger app lists about as many, and even the secure messaging app WhatsApp discloses nine categories of “Data Linked to You.” So for people fed up with Twitter’s rapidly deteriorating platform (and vibes), a Meta-owned alternative—with its predictability and relative stability—could even potentially appeal to those who are generally concerned about data privacy. 

Early data suggests as much: Threads, which is directly linked to users’ Instagram accounts, saw 10 million sign-ups in its first seven hours, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Ultimately, Meta’s pitch for Threads is simply that it’s the devil you know.

But one thing is different this time: Meta is dangling an opportunity to essentially be on Threads without signing up for the platform at all. The company announced yesterday that it is planning to make Threads interoperable with other, non-Meta social networks that support a decentralized protocol already used by WordPress and 2022’s decentralization poster child, Mastodon. This means that if Meta follows through, you’ll be able to see and interact with Threads content from other platforms and services that support the standard, which is known as ActivityPub.

Meta says that Threads will start supporting ActivityPub “soon,” a descriptor that doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence. The company has already spent years, for example, working on its longtime promise of default end-to-end encryption on Messenger. But incorporating decentralization into Threads, and specifically supporting ActivityPub, has reportedly been a core aspect of Meta’s vision for the app from the beginning. Meta has also already sketched out details of the plan in its supplemental privacy policy for Threads.

All of this means that if you’re sick of Meta’s data-gobbling ways, or you don’t already have an Instagram account and don’t want to get one, you actually have some leverage: Don’t join Threads. Use Mastodon or another ActivityPub platform until Threads comes to you. Or hang out on Bluesky, which doesn’t support ActivityPub but is working on its own vision of a decentralized, portable social network.

“The fact that large platforms are adopting ActivityPub is not only validation of the movement towards decentralized social media, but a path forward for people locked into these platforms to switch to better providers. Which in turn, puts pressure on such platforms to provide better, less exploitative services," Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko wrote in a blog post ahead of yesterday’s Threads launch.

Easy examples of decentralized services you already intuitively understand are phones and email. You can call anyone on any number, even if you and the person you’re calling buy phone service from different companies. Same with email. Even if pretty much everyone you know uses Gmail, there’s nothing materially different about emailing with the Yahoo and Hotmail holdouts in your life. And maybe your friend Jane runs her own email server and her address is jane@janerox.com. Love that for you, Jane—doesn’t change anything for anyone else.

That’s it. That’s how “the fediverse,” or federated services, work too. You join a server, and you’re trusting that server with your data. But then you can communicate with all the other servers running the same protocol, and the only data everyone on all those other servers can see from you is the content you choose to put out there. So Gmail has all of your emails and usage history, and Jane has all of her own emails and usage history, but the only data she has about you on her server is the emails you’ve sent her. And the only data Gmail has about Jane comes from her interactions with you and any other Gmail users.

Decentralization doesn’t change the basic functions of a social network, and that’s fine. The whole point of these services is to be a platform for publicly posting and consuming information. They aren’t designed around implementing end-to-end encryption. The servers still have access to user data and can be subpoenaed by governments or hacked. But decentralization creates a model through which users can elect to entrust their information to servers based on which ones have less-predatory data practices.

Ross Schulman, senior fellow for decentralization at digital rights nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that if Threads emerges as a massive player in the fediverse, there could be concerns about what he calls “social graph slurping." Meta will know who all of their users interact with and follow within Threads, and it will also be able to see who their users follow in the broader fediverse. And if Threads builds up anywhere near the reach of other Meta platforms, just this little slice of life would give the company a fairly expansive view of interactions beyond its borders.

“I am perhaps equal parts excited and apprehensive to see how things play out with Threads, but it is really underlining the beauty of the fediverse that you have every option and the opportunity to choose,” Schulman says. “If you like Meta and you want to be in there, great. Go join Threads, you’ll be happy there, and you’ll also have access to everything else. If you don’t want to be a part of Meta, but you’ve got friends or family that do or public figures or whatever, then fine. You can get an account on any number of other fediverse servers and then follow the people that you want. Or if you want nothing to do at all with Meta, then there are plenty of servers out there [that] have already announced that they're preemptively blocking Threads. So you can live that life, too.”

No matter who you throw your lot in with, an important concept is that the server you choose is still going to have access to your data, even though all the other servers don’t. If Threads implements ActivityPub and you use it to interact with the fediverse, you’re choosing Meta as your server and everything that comes with that. If you run your own server, like Jane, you can retain full control. But if you’re somewhere in the middle and use a server run by someone else, you need to keep an eye out for future changes. Mastodon is currently a crowdfunded platform, but it’s largely unclear what the business model will be for decentralized services like Bluesky. And future pivots could mean that your server eventually implements more user-monitoring or data-tracking practices. Then it might be time to move on—a process made easier by the portability that's built into the fediverse, allowing you to switch servers while maintaining your connections.

If you’re a Twitter user, or used to be, you have already dealt with a service that makes dramatic changes and completely upends your expectations and trust. But the Twitter case study illustrates a crucial idea. From a data privacy perspective, the worst-case scenario is no worse in the world of decentralization, the best-case scenario is much better, and, for once, you get a say in where you end up.

Source

(May require free registration to view)

Source

The first-person shooter genre is a big one for PC gaming fans. These kinds of games really became popular on PCs first, rather than on consoles or on arcade machines, in the early 1990s. The FPS genre helped to solidify the PC platform as an excellent way to play video games and also helped to push advancements in graphics and other technology for gaming PCs.

I thought I knew a lot about the FPS genre, but the truth is that the upcoming documentary FPS: First Person Shooter offers a ton of new info about the making of these games over the past several decades.

If you are a fan of these kinds of games, this extensive film is a must-watch, based on my viewing of a "work in progress" version of the documentary. (Since this is a not-quite-complete version, this is not considered to be a final review of the film).

When I say, "extensive" I mean it. FPS is no brief 20 or 30-minute mini-doc that you might watch on YouTube. This is an over four-hour documentary with tons of interviews with many of the people behind classic first-person shooter games including the many FPS titles from id Software like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake, along with other games like System Shock, Descent, Rise of the Triad, Jurassic Park: Trespasser, Unreal, Half-Life, Halo, Call of Duty, and more.

It even goes back well before Wolfenstein 3D to look at, and interview, the people behind proto-FPS games like Maze War.

Lots of the developers who directly made these games are interviewed for the doc. Lots of id Software team members talk about making those seminal games like John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall, Adrian Carmack, American McGee, and more.

We also get to hear from people like former Epic Games' team member, Cliff Bleszinski. Looking Glass and Ion Storm member Warren Spector and more.

You will learn lots of new and interesting info on the making of many of these games. You will see how movies influenced the content of certain games, and even how one movie, Aliens, turned into a highly popular Doom total conversion.

You'll also hear about one of the most ambitious games of its time, Jurassic Park: Trespasser, which didn't quite come together as planned, but was still a huge influence on a more successful game, Half-Life.

While FPS is an excellent documentary, it's not quite perfect. Perhaps the biggest issue I had with it is that it lacked any interviews with anyone at Valve which was directly involved in the making of Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and Portal.

We do, however, get interviews with the Team Fortress creators about the making of Team Fortress 2 and from Randy Pitchford, the head of Gearbox and the creator of the Half-Life: Opposing Force expansion pack. Still, the lack of interviews with people like Valve founder Gabe Newell is very noticeable when it comes to discussions about Valve's games.

I would have also liked to have seen some more attention given to Raven Software, which had a huge influence on the FPS genre with its Hexen and Heretic games, and later with titles like Solider of Fortune.

Finally, the majority of the film concentrates on the 1990s decade of first-person shooter games. More modern FPS games are a part of the film, but they don't get as much attention. Perhaps the filmmakers will produce a sequel that will look into those post-2000 games more closely.

The issues I had with the documentary are very minor. Overall, FPS: First Person Shooter is a love letter to the genre with lots of great info about the making of many classic games, and I can't wait to see the final version.

Starting today, you can preorder FPS: First Person Shooter at the documentary's official website. The digital version is priced at $49 and includes the game's official digital soundtrack, desktop backgrounds, a digital checklist, an invite to the film's virtual premiere, and your actual name in the final credits.

The film is also being released as a limited and individually numbered physical Blu-ray disk for $99. It includes a digital copy of the film, the digital soundtrack, an invite to the film's virtual premiere, your name in the credits, and physical extras like a sticker pack, a 16-page booklet, and three posters.

There are some other options as well, including a "big box" edition with lots of physical extras, and even a way to get your name in the credits as an associate producer, producer, or executive producer for the film. Orders will be taken until August 1.

Source

The announcement of Threads, Meta’s Instagram-Twitter hybrid, had been met with confusion and skepticism. Then, when it launched yesterday, 30 million people signed up within hours.

Threads, the latest of Meta’s copycat innovations, faces a long slog in its bid to topple Twitter as the microblogging platform of choice. It has jumped into a feeding frenzy for users that has grown increasingly heated since Elon Musk bought the platform last year. But Threads comes with big potential, thanks to its polished tech, built-in user base, and a reputation for better moderation that’s likely to please big-money advertisers.

The platform also arrives at a particularly weak moment for Twitter. Musk’s recent announcement that free Twitter accounts would, temporarily, only be able to view 600 tweets per day was met with derision. Such moves will likely further hurt advertising on the platform—worsening a crisis that’s been ongoing throughout Musk’s tenure.

It’s a perfect storm: Technical troubles at Twitter converging with a slow news week have set the stage for Threads. “Suddenly, you have something that’s improbable: Meta has gotten into microblogging and people are actually digging it,” says John Wihbey, a professor in the School of Journalism and Media Innovation at Northeastern University who has worked as a contracted consultant for Twitter.

Threads, which is closely linked to Instagram but is actually a different app, has a major advantage over other Twitter copycats—it already has a huge potential pool of users on Instagram, and those people can choose to follow accounts they already follow on Instagram as they come onto Threads.

With the backing of Meta, Threads has a team of engineers that volunteer-run networks like Mastodon can’t rival. People can also post Threads directly to their Instagram stories. And, according to a post yesterday from Instagram head Adam Mosseri, Threads will eventually have support for ActivityPub, the protocol behind Mastodon, which would let people take their followers to another service if they leave Threads or the app ever shuts down.

Threads can’t do all that Twitter can—yet. People need an Instagram account to sign up, and Threads is not available in the European Union, which has strict privacy standards that the app may not meet. The feed defaults to a mix of accounts people follow and a slurry of posts selected by an algorithm; there’s no direct messaging feature; and the feed’s order is algorithmic, not chronological. Threads doesn’t have a trending topics section, and the search feature seems to only bring up accounts, not specific topics or posts, which makes it initially less appealing for anyone following big news events. There are also no ads—yet.

But Threads had a mostly smooth launch and largely positive reception, aside from a slight hiccup when Zuckerberg’s own Threads failed to load this morning. Still, microblogging remains a risky bet, as social platforms focusing on it haven’t been consistently profitable. At the same time, Threads may boost Meta’s brand as Twitter’s reputation falters. And it’s a chance to capitalize on advertisers that have ditched Twitter.

After months of chaos at Twitter, many people are looking for something different—but most have yet to commit to a single platform, which is good news for Threads. “They’ve definitely got a fighting chance if all of their protections for communities and individuals are firmly in place,” says Tama Leaver, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University in Australia. “If Threads can displace Twitter’s current toxicity, it may well steal Musk’s crown.”

That also matters to brands, and by extension advertisers, who flooded Threads as it opened to users. Netflix and Spotify were there right away, as were news organizations. Instagram has long been brand-friendly, and Twitter is increasingly losing trust. “It’s a play for advertising,” Matthew Bailey, principal analyst of media and entertainment at consultancy firm Omdia, says of Meta’s venture into Threads. “It wants to pick up that exodus of Twitter advertisers. Developing this brand-safe environment is crucial.”

Other competitors haven’t killed Twitter, despite ongoing technical and ethical difficulties at the bird app. Decentralized Mastodon saw a surge of new users, but interest eventually waned, with active monthly users sitting at 1.7 million as of July. Bluesky has gotten attention, but it isn’t fully open to new users. There’s Post.news and Spill, too, though none of these has emerged as a clear victor, and Twitter continues to stumble along eight months after Musk’s takeover.

Instagram, and Threads by extension, has its own challenges. Instagram has struggled with harassment and hate speech, and it is still trying to shake its reputation for negatively affecting teens’ mental health. But its reputation is better than Twitter’s, which has seen hate speech increase since Musk took over. And it’s telling that Meta chose to link Threads to Instagram rather than Facebook, which has an older audience and a worse reputation for toxic political fighting.

But Meta has a mixed history when it comes to cannibalizing its competitors. Instagram Reels leveraged some of TikTok’s popularity, and Instagram Stories, a Snapchat copy, has become a key part of the app—although neither has killed the rival networks, which remain two of Meta’s top competitors for attention among younger generations.

Threads might be the shiny Twitter rival of the week, but Meta has a rotten record with projects outside its core apps. Its all-in bet on the metaverse hasn’t yielded the immersive world Zuckerberg envisioned, even when it added legs. In the past year alone, Meta has killed other offshoots, including Super (a Cameo copy), Facebook live shopping, and Neighborhoods (a Nextdoor clone). A podcast push also packed up shop earlier in 2022. And Meta followed Twitter in announcing a paid subscription tier that would come with verification and better features earlier this year.

And people don’t generally seek out Twitter and Instagram to meet the same needs. Twitter allows some nudity, while Instagram has barred it. Instagram is, at times, about aesthetics and positivity and personal updates—though it’s notorious for veering into toxic positivity and overly edited and carefully selected images. Twitter’s brand lies in snark, memes, and breaking news. It’s doubtful those two energies can merge seamlessly. “My take is it’s less about text versus photos and videos and more about what public conversations you want to have,” Mosseri wrote in a Thread about the platform’s purpose.

Threads might never be Twitter—but it might be a friendlier place for conversations. For now, most of the posts on Threads are about the platform itself. But it will have to hold attention past its launch to avoid being shuffled off into the Meta graveyard of failed imitators.

Source

Scoop

Twitter is threatening legal action against Meta over its new text-based “Twitter killer” platform, accusing the social media giant of poaching former employees to create a “copycat” application.

On Wednesday, Instagram parent company Meta introduced Threads, a text-based companion to Instagram that resembles Twitter and other text-based social platforms. Just hours later, a lawyer for Twitter, Alex Spiro, sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg accusing the company of engaging in “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”

“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” Spiro wrote in a letter obtained exclusively by Semafor. “Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta.”

Spiro accused Meta of hiring dozens of former Twitter employees who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information.”

He also alleged that Meta assigned those employees to develop “Meta’s copycat ‘Threads’ app with the specific intent that they use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app, in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter.”

A Meta source told Semafor that Twitter’s accusations are baseless.

“No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing,” the source said.

Max’s view

Twitter’s letter is an early sign that Threads is the most serious rival yet to Musk’s chaotic, but still-central, platform.

Since Musk bought Twitter last year, a chorus of dissatisfied voices have complained about the tech billionaire’s rightward political tilt and the site’s degraded user experience. But despite criticism from both opponents of Musk’s politics and users upset with the new owner’s aggressive attempts to charge for Twitter, alternatives that have emerged such as Post.News, Mastodon, and Bluesky have failed to gain mainstream traction and large user bases.

Threads may be the most serious threat yet to take users (and ad dollars) away from Twitter. Meta has the resources to commit serious time and money to competing with Twitter. And it has a built-in network of billions of Instagram users to build on: Threads lets users immediately find and port over their Instagram followers instead of rebuilding their network from scratch. Meta also has long experience hobbling rivals with successful copycats. Instagram Stories stopped Snapchat’s growth, while Reels is muscling through as a TikTok rival.

On Thursday, Zuckerberg announced that Threads had already signed up 30 million users in its first day, vastly dwarfing competitors. (Bluesky last reported that it had 50,000 users.)

Source

Also:  Twitter claims it may file a lawsuit against Meta over the launch of the "copycat" Threads.

He pitched the app as a "friendly" rival to Twitter, which was bought by Elon Musk in October.

Experts say Threads could attract Twitter users unhappy with recent changes to the platform.

But Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino said though Twitter is "often imitated", its community can "never be duplicated".

Threads allows users to post up to 500 characters, and has many features similar to Twitter.

Earlier, Mr Zuckerberg said keeping the platform "friendly... will ultimately be the key to its success".

But Mr Musk responded: "It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram."

When asked on Threads whether the app will be "bigger than Twitter", Mr Zuckerberg said: "It'll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it.

"Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn't nailed it. Hopefully we will."

The launch has had a warm response online, with one person telling the BBC they saw Threads as a "much-needed competitor" to Twitter.

Competitors have criticised the amount of data the app might use. This may include health, financial, and browsing data linked to users' identities, according to the Apple App Store.

Some users have also expressed concern that it is not possible to delete your Threads profile without deleting the associated Instagram profile. Meta told the BBC: "At this time, you can't delete your Threads profile without deleting your Instagram account. This is something we're working on. In the meantime, you can deactivate your Threads profile at any time.

"Deactivating your Threads profile will not deactivate your Instagram account".

Deactivation will mean your Threads profile, your posts and interactions with others' posts won't be visible, the firm added.

Users can download and delete Threads data by visiting their Instagram settings, Meta says.

Threads is now available to download in over 100 countries including the UK, but not yet in the EU because of regulatory concerns.

'Initial version'

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, called the new app an "initial version", with extra features planned including the ability to interact with people on other social media apps like Mastodon.

"Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text," the firm said prior to its launch.

Despite Threads being a standalone app, users log in using an Instagram account. Their Instagram username carries over, but there is an option to customize their profile specifically for Threads.

Users will also be able to choose to follow the same accounts they do on Instagram, Meta says. The app allows users to be private on Instagram, but public on Threads.

The new app's release comes after criticism of Meta's business practices.

Last year, Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen said the company had put "profits over safety" and criticised how the platform was moderated.

The company was also rocked by a scandal in which it allowed third parties, including British political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, to access Facebook users' personal data.

In an apparent reference to this controversial past, Mr Musk joked on Monday "thank goodness they're so sanely run".

There are several alternatives to Twitter available, such as Bluesky and Mastodon, but these have struggled to gain traction.

Threads has a significant advantage because it is connected to Instagram, and the hundreds of millions of users already on that platform.

How does Threads work?

On Threads, posts can be shared to Instagram and vice versa and can include links, photos, and videos of up to five minutes in length.

However, some early users on Wednesday reported problems when uploading images, hinting at teething problems.

Users see a feed of posts, which Meta calls "threads", from people they follow as well as recommended content.

They are able to control who can "mention" them and filter out replies to posts that contain specific words.

Unfollowing, blocking, restricting or reporting other profiles is also possible, and any accounts users block on Instagram are automatically blocked on Threads.

While Meta stresses ties to Instagram, media coverage has focused on its similarity to Twitter, with some investors describing the app as a "Twitter killer".

Posts can be shared between Threads and Instagram and can include links, photos, and videos

On Saturday, Twitter boss Elon Musk restricted the number of tweets users could see on his platform per day, citing extreme "data scraping".

It was Mr Musk's latest push to get users to sign up to Twitter Blue, the platform's subscription service.

Twitter has also announced that its popular user dashboard TweetDeck will go behind a paywall in 30 days' time.

Since Mr Musk took over, many users of Twitter have publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with the platform and his stewardship - citing erratic behaviour and political views.

Last month, Mr Musk and Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg agreed - possibly in jest - to a cage fight, and Mr Zuckerberg's early posts on Threads mentioned his interest in mixed martial arts.

While Threads will be available in the UK, it is not yet available in the EU because of regulatory uncertainty, particularly around the EU's Digital Markets Act.

But the company says it is looking into launching in the EU.

That act lays down rules on how large companies such as Meta can share data between platforms that they own. The sharing of data between Threads and Instagram is part of the issue.

Meta maintains protecting privacy is fundamental to its business.

Additional reporting by Max Matza and George Bowden

Source

Also:  Meta's Threads swiftly signs up 30 mln users, in clear threat to Musk-owned Twitter.

          Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter rival passed 30 million signups overnight — here’s how to use Meta’s Threads app and what’s missing.

After months of speculation and secrecy, Mark Zuckerberg’s long-rumored competitor app to Twitter is here.

The new app, Threads, was unveiled on Wednesday as a companion to Instagram, the popular photo-sharing network that Mr. Zuckerberg’s company, Meta, bought more than a decade ago. If Instagram executives get their way, Threads will also replace rival Twitter, with some techies referring to it as a “Twitter killer.”

The rollout of Threads ramps up the rivalry between Mr. Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, who bought Twitter last year. Mr. Musk has changed the experience of Twitter by tinkering with its algorithm and other features, and most recently imposed temporary limits on how many tweets people could read when using the app, inciting outrage.

Many tech companies have tried capitalizing on Twitter’s turmoil in recent months. But Threads has a leg up, backed by Meta’s deep pockets and Instagram’s enormous user base of more than two billion monthly active users around the world.

In a post to his Threads account on Wednesday, Mr. Zuckerberg said: “I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.” He later said that Threads achieved 10 million sign-ups within seven hours of its launch.

Mr. Musk weighed in, saying he was not impressed by Threads and claiming he had canceled his Instagram account. “It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram,” he wrote on Twitter.

Here’s what to know about Threads.

What is Threads and how does it work?

Built by Instagram, Threads is positioned as an app where people can have real-time, public conversations with one another. Threads also helps boost Instagram, which is a marquee app in Meta’s family of products.

“The idea is to hopefully build an open, friendly space for communities,” Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said in an interview.

Instagram has tied Threads closely to itself. Those interested in signing up for the new app are required to have an Instagram account for now. A user’s Instagram handle must also be their Threads user name.

And people will be able to directly import the list of those they follow on Instagram to Threads if they wish. Instagram’s verified users will also be verified on the new app. Users can set their Threads account to be private or public.

How is Threads similar to or different from Twitter?

Threads looks nearly identical to Twitter in many ways. Users can post mostly text-based messages to a scrolling feed, where people who follow them and whom they follow can reply. People can also post photos or video to the app.

But Threads is also different from Twitter. It does not currently support direct messaging, a feature that Twitter offers. Instagram said it may add features to Threads if new users ask for them.

People can have conversations with one another on Threads, posting messages to a scrolling feed.Credit...via Meta

How did Instagram come up with Threads?

Instagram has made a concerted effort to simplify its app over the past few years, Mr. Mosseri said. As part of that effort, he said, Threads was spun out into a separate app. That way, Instagram would not be too cluttered by trying to make public conversations work inside its existing app.

The choice to create a new app was also hard to resist, Mr. Mosseri added, especially at a tumultuous moment in the social media landscape.

“There was an opportunity or demand for more people to play in the public space,” he said, referring to the changes around Twitter under Mr. Musk. Mr. Mosseri added that the chance to challenge Twitter came about “not just because of the ownership, but because of product changes and decisions” that Mr. Musk and others made to how the social platform works.

“The idea is to hopefully build an open, friendly space for communities,” Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said about Threads.Credit...

Ricky Rhodes for The New York Times

Instagram began its effort to take on Twitter late last year, with dozens of engineers, product managers and designers pitching ideas on what a rival app could look like. Among the notions Meta’s workers talked over at the time was a more extensive rollout of a feature called Instagram Notes, where people can share short messages on the site, and a text-focused app using Instagram’s technology.

Ultimately, Mr. Mosseri said, he and other managers decided they should “make a bet” on a messaging app and leaned into building what became Threads.

How will Threads work with other apps?

Instagram’s goal is to ultimately have Threads work across multiple apps in what it calls the Fediverse, which is shorthand for a federated universe of services that share communication protocols. Other apps like Mastodon, another social network, also function in this way.

This might sound like a lot of tech speak. What it means, essentially, is that Instagram wants to make it easier for Threads to operate seamlessly with other platforms, which could appeal to creators and influencers so they do not have to start from scratch on each app.

If a creator builds up a sizable number of followers on Threads, for instance, they could ostensibly take those followers with them to other platforms that are built on the same technology. That would make it less risky for creators and could free them from feeling like they are “stuck” on one platform, Mr. Mosseri said.

Has Instagram cloned other apps?

Mr. Zuckerberg’s Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, has an extensive history of trying to stamp out social media rivals, partly by copying their features. Mr. Zuckerberg is fiercely competitive and has long wanted to own a product that accomplishes what Twitter does.

That strategy does not always guarantee success. Facebook’s early attempts to clone the ephemeral messaging app Snapchat, for example, did not initially gain much traction.

Even so, Meta has continued to imitate rivals. In 2020, Meta released a TikTok copycat called Reels, which focuses on short videos and has since become widely used.

Where will Threads be available?

Threads is available for download for free from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store in the United States and roughly 100 other countries beginning on Wednesday. It has plans to expand further.

But Meta said Threads will not initially be available in the European Union, one of the company’s largest markets. A new E.U. law called the Digital Markets Act is taking effect in the coming months and limits how the largest tech companies share data across services. Meta said it was waiting to get more specifics about the law’s implementation before introducing Threads across the 27-nation bloc.

Adam Satariano contributed reporting.

Source

Also:  Threads Hands-On: Instagram's New App Might Just Be Dull Enough to Beat Twitter.

Has Zuckerberg invented a Twitter killer?

Threads made its debut on Wednesday night with a bang. Meta’s new social network had already racked up more than 10 million sign-ups within seven hours of its launch, and attracted celebrities and politicians like Oprah Winfrey and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York.

But the presence of big-name advertisers such as Procter & Gamble and Ford points to the bigger commercial stakes in the fight between Mark Zuckerberg’s new platform and Elon Musk’s Twitter.

Meta is billing Threads as a “friendly” forum, but the social media giant is gunning for the blue bird. Mr. Zuckerberg wants the platform to become “a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it.” And he engaged with his nearly 600,000 Threads followers, responding with a laughing emoji when one suggested that the new social network could be Twitter’s undoing.

Advertisers are watching closely, even if they can’t buy ads there yet. “Threads could really fly and people are obviously concerned about brand safety on Twitter,” Martin Sorrell, the longtime advertising mogul who now leads S4 Capital, a digital marketing firm, told DealBook.

Twitter’s new C.E.O., Linda Yaccarino, joined last month aiming to patch relations with big brands that left the platform after Mr. Musk bought it and culled an army of content moderators. “Controversy is a negative and not something that brands want to deal with,” Mr. Sorrell said.

Meta has had its own problems with privacy and data, and some have already raised concerns about how it will handle disinformation on the platform. But the company has made strides to improve and is seen as a genuine alternative, Mr. Sorrell said, adding that the timing of the launch, just as Twitter looks to restrict how many tweets users can see, is “advantageous.”

Meta is also able to leverage the heft of its platforms and ad operations. The company has imported features from Instagram, which is used monthly by roughly two billion people. And it is targeting the same lucrative audience of digitally savvy creators, Adam Mosseri, the head of the photo-sharing app, said in an explanatory video.

One sticky feature: If a Threads user wants to delete the account, she has to also delete her Instagram account. Would that invite scrutiny from the F.T.C., which has pledged to crack down on firms that make opting out of a service too onerous, DealBook wonders?

Mr. Musk was unimpressed. “It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram,” he tweeted.

Not everyone can use Threads. It’s available in 100 countries, but not in the Europe Union as Meta and privacy watchdogs battle over the company’s handling of user data. There are also no direct-messaging or livestream options, unlike Twitter.

Source

The factory is being built by Micron, a US semiconductor company. The factory will cost $2.75 billion but it’s also receiving support from the Indian government. Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s minister of electronics and IT said that the factory will be ready by December 2024.

Speaking to the FT, he was noted as saying:

“This is the fastest for any country to set up a new industry. I’m not just saying a new company — this is a new industry for the country. Eighteen months is when we have targeted for production to come out of this factory — that is, December of ‘24.”

With the United States and China squabbling over semiconductors, it’s giving India a chance to attract business. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s India Semiconductor Mission is attempting to draw in business all through the supply chain including suppliers of chemicals, gases, manufacturing equipment, and chip makers.

Discussing the applications India has received from companies in the supply chain, Vaishnaw said that the government was in talks with around 14 companies and that two of them are “very good” and “should be able to make it”.

By setting up a factory in India, Micron will be helping to diversify the manufacture of semiconductors. Just a handful of countries, including Japan, China, and the US dominate in semiconductors but because the technology is so important, more countries are trying to boost their capacity.

One of the big companies to announce expansions in Europe and the Middle East is Intel. The company has agreed to build a factory in Italy and Germany and expand its presence in Israel.

Source: Financial Times

Source

Some users have reported being able to view tweets without logging into their accounts, although some limitations remain. While user profiles are accessible, the associated tweet feeds are not visible to those not logged in. Also, there have been reports of tweet previews in iMessage working correctly for some users.

In addition to restricting the visibility of tweets, Twitter also introduced limits on the number of tweets users can read daily. This move was designed to identify and eliminate bots and other bad actors harming the platform.

The Twitter post started by saying:

To ensure the authenticity of our user base, we must take extreme measures to remove spam and bots from our platform. That's why we temporarily limited usage so we could detect and eliminate bots and other bad actors that are harming the platform. Any advance notice of these actions would have allowed bad actors to alter their behaviour to evade detection.

By imposing these limits, Twitter aimed to curb data scraping activities used to train AI models. The company emphasized that these rate limits "only affected a small percentage of users" at the implementation time.

On the other hand, Meta's Twitter-rival app, Threads, is now publicly accessible from the web version. Reverse engineer and leaker Alessandro Paluzzi has tweeted the Threads handles of Mark Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri, and some creators with early access to the platform.

The web version of Threads currently offers a minimal interface with prompts to download the unreleased app, for instance, when trying to access the followers list. Also, you need the app to perform basic functions such as liking, sharing, reposting, or commenting on a post.

Source: Engadget

Source

CNBC reports that one of the authors involved in the lawsuit is Paul Tremblay, who is best known for his 2018 horror novel The Cabin at the End of the World. The novel was recently adapted into the film Knock at the Cabin by director M. Night Shyamalan.

The other writer named in the lawsuit is Mona Awad, who is an acclaimed author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, Bunny, and All's Well, the latter two of which are considered to be horror-themed novels.

The lawsuit states:

Plaintiffs and Class members did not consent to the use of their copyrighted books as training material for ChatGPT. Nonetheless, their copyrighted materials were ingested and used to train ChatGPT. 5. Indeed, when ChatGPT is prompted, ChatGPT generates summaries of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works—something only possible if ChatGPT was trained on Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.

The authors are looking at an unnamed amount of "statutory and other damages" to be paid by OpenAI if the courts find in favor of their arguments. So far OpenAI has yet to comment on this lawsuit.

The company is already facing another lawsuit from a group of 16 people who allege OpenAI and its main development and financial partner Microsoft used their personal data to train ChatGPT without their consent. That group is looking to make this a class action lawsuit and is seeking damages of $3 billion. Again, OpenAI and Microsoft have yet to comment on this lawsuit.

Source

According to the developers, this new release has been self-playing against the last major release, Stockfish 15 and after lots of games its Elo rating is up to 50 points higher. That means that Stockfish 15 can win some of the time, but the odds are always in Stockfish 16’s favour - it wins up to 12 times more game pairs.

Discussing the progress that had been made in this update, the Stockfish team said:

“This updated version of Stockfish introduces several enhancements, including an upgraded neural net architecture (SFNNv6), improved implementation, and refined parameterization.

The ongoing utilization of Leela’s data combined with a novel inference approach exploiting sparsity, and network compression ensure a speedy evaluation and modest binary sizes while allowing for more weights and higher accuracy.

The search has undergone more optimization, leading to improved performance, particularly in longer analyses. Additionally, the Fishtest framework has been improved and is now able to run the tests needed to validate new ideas with 10,000s of CPU cores.”

Stockfish, with changes available in Stockfish 16, has played in several computer chess tournaments and won the TCEC season 24 Superfinal, Swiss, Fischer Random, and Double Random Chess tournaments and the CCC 19 Bullet, 20 Blitz, and 20 Rapid competitions.

In most of those tournaments, Stockfish had reached the finals with Leela Chess Zero, another chess engine. The Stockfish team noted that this means the top chess engines are under free and open-source software licenses.

Aside from all the engine improvements, the team said that Stockfish now includes documentation inside the wiki folder when you download the engine, you can also read it on GitHub. It includes guides for users looking to start using Stockfish and for developers who want to compile the engine from the source, include Stockfish in their projects, or contribute to the project.

If you’ve never used Stockfish before, Neowin has a getting-started guide. If you know what you’re doing, then you can grab Stockfish 16 from the download page.

Source

Beginning August 1, Chinese chemical suppliers must apply for government licenses to export 38 products including gallium nitride (GaN) and germanium dioxide (GeO2), China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on July 3.

The metals are used in chipmaking, communications equipment and various defense items. Gallium is used in compound semiconductors, which when combined with various other elements are often used to improve transmission speed and efficiency in mobile phone screens, solar panels and radars.

Germanium is used in fiberoptic communication cables, night-vision goggles and the solar cells that are used to power many satellites. US imports of gallium metal and gallium arsenide wafers in 2022 were valued at only about US$225 million, according to US trade data.

China is by far the world’s top source of both metals, accounting for 94% of gallium supply and 83% of germanium, according to a European Union study released this year.

Some analysts have already estimated the impact of China’s bans will be limited as the US and Japan can import the materials from other countries or produce them domestically, although at considerably higher costs.

Chinese commentators said China’s export controls aim at slowing the pace of development of US and Japanese chipmakers, a bid to create the time and space for Chinese players to catch up in the critical race to forge ever smaller chip sizes.

“China is always committed to keeping the global industrial and supply chains secure and stable, and has always implemented fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory export control measures,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a media briefing on Tuesday.

“The Chinese government’s export control on relevant items in accordance with law is a common international practice, and it does not target any specific country,” she said.

As germanium prices are expected to rise, shares of Yunnan Lincang Xinyuan, a Chinese supplier of the chemical, surged 10% and triggered a suspension of trading on July 4. Shares of Chihong Zinc and Germanium increased 6.1%.

Tech war tit-for-tat

China’s metal ban came after the Dutch government said on June 30 that it will require ASML, the world’s largest chip-making equipment producer, to apply for export licenses for shipments of its DUV lithography systems, including the Twinscan NXT:2000i and subsequent immersion systems.

The requirement will commence on September 1. Twinscan NXT:2000i can make 38-nanometer chips in a single exposure. Prior to the Dutch ban, the Japanese government said in May that it will restrict the export of 23 types of chip-making equipment from July 23.

A silicon wafer is seen through a scaled lens element. Credit: ASML

US media reported last week that Washington will ban Nvidia from exporting its artificial intelligence (AI) chips, namely the A800 and H800, to China. At the end of July, Biden will sign an executive order banning US funds from investing in China’s high-tech sectors, the media reports said.

Chinese commentators are cheering the tit-for-tat move. “It is necessary for China to take effective measures to form an effective countermeasure against the US chip hegemony,” a Tianjin-based columnist wrote in a July 4 article.

He says the new export license system will allow China to identify the ultimate users and uses of its metal products in order to safeguard its national security and interests.

The columnist also opines that by manipulating the supplies and prices of these key metals, China can exert influence on the costs and profits of US and Japanese chipmakers, thus reducing their competitiveness.

He says the new export controls will also ensure a stable supply of gallium and germanium for Chinese chipmakers.

Global reserves

Among the restricted chemicals, GaN is a raw material used in the production of third-generation semiconductors used mainly in power grids, electric vehicles and telecom base stations.

GaN microwave radio-frequency chips are used in missiles, radars and electronic countermeasures designed to dupe radars through their ability to operate in high temperature and frequency environments.

In 2021, China accounted for 84% of the world’s production capacity of primary low-purity gallium, a byproduct of processing bauxite and zinc ores, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said in a research report last year.

China’s market dominance was established after Japan, South Korea and Russia cut their output after a large surplus of primary gallium flooded markets in 2012. Germany and Kazakhstan ceased primary production in 2016 and 2013, respectively, due to the high supply.

Between 2017 and 2021, the US imported 53% of its gallium from China, 11% from the United Kingdom, 9% from Germany and 7% from Ukraine, according to the USGS report. Since the US raised tariffs on Chinese goods including gallium products in 2019, it started diversifying its import sources to Canada, Japan and Singapore.

The USGS also said there are large reserves of zinc concentrates containing germanium in mines in the US states of Alaska, Tennessee and Washington. Between 2015 and 2018, the US imported 59% of its germanium from China, 22% from Belgium and 9% from Germany. Both gallium and germanium can also be recycled from scrap metal.

A gallium oxide wafer. Photo: Novel Crystal

Wang Xinxi, a Guangdong-based technology writer, said in a recent article that China’s export controls cannot completely stop targeted countries from obtaining the two chemical compounds, though it will definitely push up their prices.

He says China can produce gallium at a low cost as it has the world’s largest production capacity of aluminum oxides and gallium extraction know-how. He claims it will be very expensive for Japan and the US to follow suit.  

“In the short run, gallium and germanium prices will increase while Chinese suppliers will benefit from this trend,” Wang says. “But this is not our goal. What we want is to increase the costs and slow the development pace of the Japanese and US chip sectors.”

He said that China could next expand its export controls to include indium compounds, which are also used in semiconductor production.  

The Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm, said in a research note that China’s export controls will only have a limited impact on global supplies given the targeted scope of the bans.

The report said China only wants to remind the US, Japan and the Netherlands that it has retaliatory options if they move to impose further restrictions.

Source

The sudden decision didn't sit well with most Twitter users. Today, Twitter published a post on its business blog site to better explain its actions, and what users can expect in the future.

The post started by saying:

To ensure the authenticity of our user base we must take extreme measures to remove spam and bots from our platform. That’s why we temporarily limited usage so we could detect and eliminate bots and other bad actors that are harming the platform. Any advance notice on these actions would have allowed bad actors to alter their behavior to evade detection.

The post claimed these bots were scraping Twitter user data for "AI models". It also claims that the bots were "manipulating people and conversation on the platform in various ways." The company didn't specify which organizations were using bots for AI modeling data.

The blog also claimed this new user limit on posts only affected "a small percentage of people using the platform" and that it had a "minimal" effect on its advertising platform. The post hinted that things might return to normal as it stated it would "provide an update when the work is complete."

The post ended with this statement:

While this work will never be done, we’re all deeply committed to making Twitter a better place for everyone.

At times, even for a brief moment, you must slow down to speed up.

We appreciate your patience.

The move to limit the number of posts by users has sent lots of Twitter users to alternative sites, including Mastodon and the invite-only Bluesky. Twitter will reportedly get even more competition on Thursday when Meta is expected to launch its rival service, Threads.

Source

It released version 1.0.2 of the development tool that significantly improves the performance of PC games running on Macs.

Game Porting Toolkit Beta 1.0.2 is a notable upgrade from the previous version. Although Apple has not provided any official patch notes outlining the changes, several significant improvements have been observed by Mac developers.

One noticeable change is the labeling of the Rosetta line in the statistics panel displayed during gameplay, which now reads "v0.2". This was not the case in the original release.

The updated version also boasts a reduced file size, with the toolkit now taking up just 27.9 MB compared to the original 53.4 MB.

There are reports of varying performance improvements for different games and chipsets. YouTuber Andrew Tsai's demonstrations highlighted a 20% improvement in Elden Ring running on an M1 Max. Arkham Knight also showed similar levels of performance to before the update.

According to an Apple engineering manager, Nat Brown, the latest version addresses 32-bit support, rendering, performance and general stability issues. The previous version suffered from crashes during video cutscenes using particular codecs. However, these issues have been largely resolved after Beta 1.0.2, resulting in a smooth gaming experience for Mac testers.

Here's what Apple had to say about this new toolkit in its press release for the latest MacOS Sonoma update:

To make it easier to port games from other platforms to Mac, Metal introduces a new game porting toolkit, eliminating months of upfront work and enabling developers to see how well their existing game could run on Mac in just a few days.

Apple released the Game Porting Tool under an open-source license on GitHub.

Source: Andrew Tsai via AppleInsider | Images: Devyn Johnston and Bloomberg

Source

A couple of days ago, we posted a feature that looked back at when Microsoft decided to enter the gaming PC and keyboard market with technology from Razer. Of course, many of you may remember that Microsoft had already released a number of gaming PC gamepads and joysticks under its SideWinder brand before that was ultimately retired.

While the SideWinder game controllers and joysticks mostly looked and acted similar to other devices made by others, there are a couple of products that stood out as, well, different than the others. One of them was definitely the Microsoft SideWinder Strategic Commander (say that three times fast) which first went on sale in 2001.

At first glance, you may think that the Strategic Commander was a PC gaming mouse. However, Microsoft labeled it as a joystick, and that's because the base of the product is not meant to move on a flat surface like a mouse. Instead, the upper half of the "joystick" is designed to be held by the left hand. It can be rotated slightly and also moved up and down and from side to side.

As the name strongly suggests, the Strategic Commander is made for strategy games in general and real-time strategy games in particular. At the time the product was released, the RTS game genre was at its most popular, with games like Blizzard's Warcraft and Starcraft, EA's Command and Conquer franchise and of course the Age of Empires games from Ensemble and Microsoft. So it made some sense for Microsoft to offer a gaming accessory that was made for that community.

The upper half of the Strategy Commander had six programmable buttons made for a person's ring, major and index fingers. You could use the included software to customize how they worked in games. On the right side of the device, there were two zoom buttons, which were made specifically so RTS gamers could quickly zoom in and out of a map.

Three shift buttons were also available, so you could press one of the six buttons on time, and one of the shift buttons at the same time, to perform even more in-game actions. Microsoft said up to 72 different commands could be programmed.

A record button is also available so you can reprogram the six main buttons on the fly. Finally, the lower base of the device had a button that could be used to switch between three stored game controller profiles.

The included Strategic Commander software allowed users to create and modify controller options and profiles for games. Microsoft had 30 pre-created profiles for a number of games. Some reviews mentioned that the joystick could also be a great controller for first person shooter games.

Speaking of reviews, they were a bit mixed. ActiveWin.com stated at the time, "Even if the device targets a very specific market, every strategy game addict should buy it to change the way he plays." However, Neoseeker wrote that the lengthy use of the joystick could lead to cramps in the hand, and that it was made for small or average hands. Since the Strategic Commander was made to be used on the left hand only, that meant left-handed people who need to use a regular mouse in that position were out of luck.

Microsoft ended up discontinuing the SideWinder Strategy Commander, and indeed the entire SideWinder PC gaming accessory lineup went into a period of hiatus for several years in 2002 before being revived again briefly in 2008 (perhaps we will write about that someday). However, there's no doubt the company was trying to do something different with this product, and it remains a curious oddity among Microsoft PC game products.

Source