The company also announced some upcoming features coming to Bard. One will allow it to create AI-generated images. Google stated:

In the coming months, we’ll integrate Adobe Firefly, Adobe’s family of creative generative AI models, into Bard so you can easily and quickly turn your own creative ideas into high-quality images, which you can then edit further or add to your designs in Adobe Express.

The chatbot has also added dark mode and will add the ability for responses to questions to include images. It will also add a way to create documents and have them exported to Gmail and Docs for final edits. Some other upcoming features include:

• Source citations: Starting next week, we'll make citations even more precise. If Bard brings in a block of code or cites other content, just click the annotation and Bard will underline those parts of the response and link to the source.
• “Export” Button: We've heard that developers love the export to Colab feature, so coming soon, we're adding the ability to export and run code with our partner Replit, starting with Python.

Stay tuned as we will be posting more news and announcements from Google I/O today.

Google Bard chatbot AI is now available without a waitlist, and it uses the new PaLM 2 LLM

At the event, Google shared the improvements that PaLM 2 brings to the table. These include improved multilingual capabilities and is trained in over 100 languages. Google further claims that its LLM can pass "advanced language proficiency exams at the “mastery” level." Moreover, PaLM 2 is also trained on a variety of scientific papers, journals and websites giving it great research and mathematics capabilities. Lastly, the model has also been trained on a large amount of codebase making it proficient in not only modern languages like Python and JavaScript but also languages like Prolog, Fortran and Verilog.

Google has already deployed PaLM 2 within 25 of its services which includes productivity tools like Google Docs, Sheets and Gmail. Furthermore, the model is also powering specialized Google services like Med-PaLM 2 which has achieved "state-of-the-art results in medical competency, and was the first large language model to perform at “expert” level on U.S. Medical Licensing Exam-style questions." Other specialized examples include Sec-PaLM which used PaLM 2 and Google Cloud to scan malicious scripts, cyber threats and more.

At the event, Google stated:

Even as PaLM 2 is more capable, it’s also faster and more efficient than previous models — and it comes in a variety of sizes, which makes it easy to deploy for a wide range of use cases. We’ll be making PaLM 2 available in four sizes from smallest to largest: Gecko, Otter, Bison and Unicorn. Gecko is so lightweight that it can work on mobile devices and is fast enough for great interactive applications on-device, even when offline. This versatility means PaLM 2 can be fine-tuned to support entire classes of products in more ways, to help more people.

At last, Google also teased Gemini, a new multimodal that is highly efficient at tool and API integrations. Google notes that Gemini is currently getting trained and once finely tuned, it will be available "at various sizes and capabilities, just like PaLM 2, to ensure it can be deployed across different products, applications, and devices for everyone’s benefit."

Google officially unveils PaLM 2 LLM that will power next-gen Google Services

The Dark theme obviously doesn’t add an ability to Bard’s skills but it’s a nice addition so that you don’t get blinded in the middle of the night. It’s not clear if the theme is enabled automatically based on your browser or operating system settings but you can quickly toggle between Light and Dark.

In recent weeks, Google has also spruced up the send message button in Bard so that the send arrow flies past several of those Bard stars. It’s a nice addition, but again, doesn’t really add to the ability of the Bard model itself.

Stay tuned to Neowin’s coverage of Google I/O where we expect plenty of AI and Bard-related news to drop.

Update: Google has updated its Bard release notes to mention the new Dark theme. Also, you can now export responses to email and Google Docs, just tap the upload button to the left of the Google it button.

Google Bard rolls out Dark theme and export feature [Update]

GameSpot reports that the employees that could be affected by this move are from Ubisoft's Customer Relations Center team, which are based in Cary, North Carolina, and Newcastle in the UK. In a statement, Ubisoft said that this decision to cut its workforce is part of a new "focus on where we can have a significant impact." There's no word on what kind of compensation package will be given to these workers.

Ubisoft is making this new move a few months after it revealed it was canceling three unannounced games that were in production. It also revealed that the long-in-development pirate-based game Skull and Bones, which was first revealed way back in 2017, had been delayed once again, with no new release date set.

The game publisher is set to reveal its new publishing plans for the next year or so on June 12, That's when the Ubisoft Forward streaming video event will be held in Los Angeles. It will be a replacement of sorts for the E3 trade show, which was supposed to happen in LA in mid-June but has since been canceled.

Ubisoft is the latest tech company to announce layoffs

What they're saying: "With exponential growth in AI research and development, the window of opportunity to avoid serious and potentially existential harms is closing," wrote the authors, among them experts from the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the International Institute for Global Health.

The big picture: The warning comes amid increasing calls for improved oversight of artificial intelligence from the likes of Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called godfather of AI, who announced he was quitting Google over his worries about threats from machine learning, PBS reports.

Zoom in: The physicians and public health experts say the health care community needs to sound the alarm "even as parts of our community espouse the benefits of AI in the fields of health care and medicine."

• They cite AI's ability to rapidly analyze sets of data could be misused for surveillance and information campaigns to "further undermine democracy by causing a general breakdown in trust or by driving social division and conflict, with ensuing public health impacts."

• They also raised concerns about the development of future weapons systems which could be capable of locating, selecting and killing "at an industrial scale" without the need for human supervision.

• And they noted AI's potential impact on jobs.

• "While there would be many benefits from ending work that is repetitive, dangerous, and unpleasant, we already know that unemployment is strongly associated with adverse health outcomes and behavior," they said.

Between the lines: Health industries have been grappling with the potential benefits of AI — the improved ability to diagnose disease, discover new therapies, answer patient questions and perform menial tasks — and its potential harms.

• Studies have cited hospital algorithms that discriminated against Black patients by allocating less care to them. Questions have also been raised about the reliability of algorithms, with researchers warning of a "reproducibility crisis" in health care studies.

• Among the major concerns is how quickly the decision-making lines will blur between computer and human clinician, wrote Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at New York University's Langone Health in USA Today.

• Siegel wrote he "can envision a future where fights for insurance coverage become even more escalated than they are already – and where personalized medicine is replaced by algorithms."

• "What's to stop insurance companies from replacing me with a cheaper, more predictable AI robot, who practices some of the science but none of the art of medicine?"

Reality check: Americans are uncomfortable with AI being used in their own health care. The Pew Research Center earlier this year found 6 in 10 U.S. adults say they would feel uncomfortable if their own health care provider relied on AI for tasks like diagnosing disease and recommending treatments.

Source

Also:  AI poses existential threat and risk to health of millions, experts warn.

A ULX called M82 X-2 is shown here inside the Messier 82 galaxy in this pseudo colored and visible light picture. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SAO/NOAO

•     Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULX) are objects that shine ten million times brighter than the sun.

•     Scientists have said they are too bright to exist, as they break the so-called Eddington limit.

•     A new study confirms the brightness of a ULX — leaving the mystery of how it exists unsolved.

Scientists have been left baffled by a mysterious celestial object so bright that physics dictates it should have exploded.

NASA has been tracking so-called ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULX), impossible objects that can be 10 million times brighter than the sun, to understand how they work.

These objects are impossible in theory because they break the Eddington limit, a rule of astrophysics that dictates that an object can only be so bright before it breaks apart.

A new study categorically confirms that M82 X-2, a ULX 12 million light-years away, is as bright as previous observation suggested it to be.

But the question remains: how can it possibly exist?

Objects that are that luminous should push matter away

A photo montage shows a view of the Messier 82 galaxy in visible light (left) and X-ray light (right). NASA/STScI/SAO

The principle behind Sir Arthur Eddington's rule is simple. Brightness on this scale only comes from material — like stardust of remnants of disintegrating planets — that falls inward toward a massive object, such as a black hole or a dead star.

As it is pulled by the object's intense gravity, the material heats up and radiates light. The more matter falls towards the object, the brighter it is. But there's a catch.

At a certain point, so much matter is being pulled in that the radiation it's emitting should be able to overwhelm the power of the gravity from the massive object. That means at some point, the radiation from the matter should push it away, and it should stop falling in.

But if it were not falling in, the matter shouldn't be radiating, which means the object shouldn't be that bright. Hence the Eddington limit.

M82 X-2 is achieving the impossible

< View the video here. >

NASA observations shows X-ray energy pulsating out of M82 X-2. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Because of the Eddington limit, scientists have questioned whether a ULX's brightness was indeed caused by enormous amounts of material falling into it.

One theory, for instance, is that strong cosmic winds concentrated all the material into a cone. In this theory, the cone would be pointed toward the Earth, which would create a beam of light that would look much brighter to us than if the material was scattered evenly around the ULX.

But a new study looking at M82 X-2, a ULX caused by a pulsating neutron star in the Messier 82 galaxy, put the cone theory to rest.

(A neutron star is a superdense object left behind when a star has run out of energy and dies.)

The analysis, published in The Astrophysical Journal in April, found that M82 X-2 pulls in about 9 billion trillion tons of material per year from a neighboring star, or about 1.5 times the mass of Earth, per a NASA statement.

That means the brightness of this ULX is indeed caused by limit-breaking amounts of material.

Super strong magnetic fields may squish atoms into submission

In this illustration of an ULX, hot gas is pulled onto a neutron star. Strong magnetic fields emerging from the star are shown in green. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Given this information, another explanation has become the leading theory to explain ULXs. And it is even more bizarre.

In this theory, super-strong magnetic fields shoot out of the neutron star. These would be so strong that they would squish the atoms of the matter falling into the star, turning the shape of these atoms from a sphere into an elongated string, per NASA's statement.

In this case, the radiation coming from these squished atoms would have a harder time pushing the matter away, explaining why so much matter could fall into the star without breaking apart.

The problem is that we'll never be able to test this theory on Earth. These theoretical magnetic fields would have to be so strong that no magnet on Earth could reproduce them.

"This is the beauty of astronomy. Observing the sky, we expand our ability to investigate how the universe works. On the other hand, we cannot really set up experiments to get quick answers," Matteo Bachetti, an author on the study and astrophysicist with the National Institute of Astrophysics' Cagliari Observatory, said in NASA's statement.

"We have to wait for the universe to show us its secrets," he said.

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The primary objective of generative AI is to simplify routine procedures and undertakings such as data analysis, communication, as well as content and conversation summarization.

"Today, we’re announcing a broader set of popular enterprise companies that are bringing Google Cloud generative AI capabilities to their applications this year," the company said.

This entails that participating companies, among them Canva, an online graphic design tool that is free to use, and cloud services provider Salesforce, will integrate generative AI functionalities into their platforms to develop consumer-oriented experiences.

Additionally, Google has confirmed that further information on its strategy for implementing applied generative AI on Google Cloud will be unveiled during the upcoming Google I/O conference.

Generative AI seems to be the focus for all tech giants

At an earlier point this year, Google revealed its plans to introduce generative AI features to its proprietary applications, such as Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and others. Nonetheless, the testing phase was limited to a small set of users. Google's demonstration of generative AI implies that it functions in a comparable manner to Microsoft's equivalent offerings.

According to reports, Google is also looking to integrate AI capabilities into its Chrome browser and advertising business, with the intention of using AI tools to generate advertisements.

What about Google Bard?

Google has allowed Workspace users to trial Bard, a conversational generative AI chatbot that belongs to the LaMDA family of large language models. Google announced that Workspace users can now utilize Bard to assist with work-related tasks, research, or other business requirements, when signed in to their administrator-enabled Google Workspace account.

It is worth noting that the majority of personal Google account holders still do not have access to Bard. Access to Google's AI chatbot is currently limited to Google Workspace clients, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business users.

Image courtesy of Google

As the integration of AI into daily business activities continues to gain momentum, Google's expansion of generative AI capabilities into more workspace applications is a significant development. By automating mundane tasks such as data analysis and communication, generative AI has the potential to revolutionize the way we work and boost productivity.

The fact that other companies are partnering with Google to incorporate these features into their platforms is a clear indication of the growing interest and excitement surrounding AI's transformative potential. With further details about Google's applied generative AI strategy set to be unveiled at the highly anticipated Google I/O conference, the future of AI in the workplace is looking bright and brimming with possibilities.

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IBM has announced (opens in new tab) its new Watsonx platform designed to supply the right tools to companies still struggling to get their versions of AI to market.

The all-encompassing platform promises to deliver ML tools and AI foundation models, as well as the right hardware and data storage, in a bid to help enterprises train their own tools including AI writers. IBM is also making available a governance toolkit as part of the offering.

At the company's annual Think conference, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna described the platform as enabling customers to develop from being “users” to becoming “AI advantaged,” citing scalability, affordability, and efficiency.

Train your own AI with IBM Watsonx

The company’s own foundation models and open-source models promise to speed up AI development for companies, though the thought is nothing new and is already one being used by some of its biggest competitors including Amazon.

The move also sees IBM broadening a partnership with Hugging Face, which will in turn allow the watsonx.ai studio to benefit from the latter’s open source libraries and its thousands of open models and datasets.

Cost is clearly the area that IBM is looking to tackle with the launch of Watsonx, promising a reduction in data warehouse costs by as much as 50%.

It is also hoped that the Watson Code Assistant will be rolled out “later this year” - much like GitHub Copilot X, it will use generative AI to help developers write and amend code with English-language prompts.

While AI investments continue to skyrocket, many, including IBM’s own workers, are concerned at the thought of the company’s commitment to the emerging technology, given as it was reported earlier this month that IBM would be pausing hiring in favor of AI, with as many as 7,800 jobs at risk.

IBM watsonx.ai and watsonx.data are expected to be generally available by July 2023.

Source

Beside the schoolhouse turned medical station in the northern Bolivian village of Las Maras, everyone is waiting for breakfast. Today’s meal is rice and eggs, generously salted and adorned with globs of mayo: hearty fuel for a workday of foraging and hunting animals. Sheltering from the rain under palms, rubber trees, and a series of large tarps, the people are aged from 40 to 80-plus—all of them Tsimane, an Indigenous group living in the lowlands of the Amazon.

Each has been asked to fast until after they’ve had a voluntary medical exam. Blood draws. Urine and stool samples. Respiratory tests under one tarp; artery stiffness measurements under another. While they wait to speak with a doctor, people give interviews to fellow Tsimane who are collecting anthropological data. Later—if they desire—the interviewees will take a drive to the nearby city of Trinidad to get their brains scanned.

The routine was familiar for Hillard Kaplan, an anthropology and health economics professor at Chapman University in Orange, California, who has been working alongside the Tsimane for 20 years. His life’s work is to study how people in their society age compared to people in the United States and Europe. Between 2014 and 2019, Kaplan led a mobile team of doctors, lab biochemists, and anthropologists—more than half of whom were from the Indigenous population—to more than 100 villages. They collected data from those willing to share it and provided health care to those who wanted it. “Everything is up to the person—what they want to do and don’t want to do,” Kaplan says. About 90 percent of people agreed to participate.

Though some Tsimane interact with broader Bolivian society, their way of life is less industrialized than most. Tsimane villages have no running water, and most have no electricity. They use slash-and-burn agriculture. People hunt on foot for animals such as peccaries—a kind of pig—which means they must expend a lot of energy to simply eat. In some ways, their way of life gives a glimpse into the past. That means a lack of modern health care infrastructure but also, as Kaplan and his team have come to suspect, protection from the ills of urbanized life.

Time, and modern life, take a toll on brains. Cognitive function naturally fades as brain cells shrink and die. Some cells get replaced, yet many don’t, so brains get smaller with age, starting around the time a person turns 40. This atrophy accompanies declines in cognitive function and is a common feature of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or dementia, which affect more than 55 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

But our fundamental understanding of brain aging has a problem: It’s biased. Far more studies pick apart the aging brain in white, industrialized populations than among racial and ethnic minorities—especially isolated societies. Kaplan and his team want to change that. Their previous work has shown evidence that groups like the Tsimane don’t suffer the same burden of cardiovascular disease as the rest of the world. Could the same be true for the brain? “We didn’t know what we would find,” Kaplan says.

Now, his team has evidence that the brains of the Tsimane and neighboring Moseten people may age slower than yours, mine, and the brains of pretty much everyone else in the industrialized world. “Something about the lifestyle is affecting brain aging,” Kaplan says. He thinks he knows what that something is—and that it can teach us how to better control the aging of anyone’s brain.

Public health in remote societies could enlighten public health elsewhere. Back in the 1980s, Kaplan was working with the Mashiguenga, an Indigenous group who had only recently come into contact with industrialized society in Peru. As Kaplan observed their lives and conducted interviews, people would often ask him for help with health problems. But the young anthropology professor had no medical training.

So he asked a colleague, physician Benson Daitz, to come along to perform checkups. Daitz flew to Peru in 1987 and diagnosed patients with a litany of infections. But he was surprised by what he didn’t find. He heard no murmurs or other cardiac problems. The Mashiguenga had healthy hearts and blood pressure levels, even in old age. Kaplan concluded that they might be spared many chronic diseases. That hunch stuck with him.

Three decades later, Kaplan is still connecting the dots between lifestyle and chronic disease, and he’s still offering health care in villages that host his team and work with them. The people in the villages get their medical needs met; the researchers, in return, get to learn about diseases of the heart and brain.

Over the years, Kaplan’s team has reported that, like the Mashiguenga, the Tsimane have higher than average rates of infection yet lower rates of heart disease and diabetes compared to people in the US and Europe. “These were not conditions associated with aging,” says Daniel Eid Rodriguez, a biomedical researcher with the Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Bolivia, who has worked with Kaplan and the Tsimane since 2004. Nor were these people with healthy hearts isolated cases, says Rodriguez. “The lifestyle of the Tsimane seemed to be the healthy recipe.”

On the other hand, a majority of people in the US today die from diseases of aging. Heart disease, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s accounted for 56 percent of US deaths in 2019. The problem is that industrialized societies are an unnatural environment for humans, full of cheap calories and opportunities to be inactive.

Kaplan’s team wanted to see if a non-industrialized life versus a modern, industrialized life would also benefit the brain. For their latest paper, published in March, Kaplan continued his ongoing partnership with the Tsimane and started a new one with the nearby Moseten, a rural Indigenous group that farms more and is more involved in modern markets than the Tsimane. The Moseten are less dependent on hunting and foraging—meaning they don’t have to work as much for their food. All the participants the team studied were over 40, because that’s when scientists expect the brain to age more noticeably.

After the daily breakfast and data collection sessions, participants would go to a nearby hospital, where specialists would image their brains and chests with CT scanners. Brain scans would yield a total volume of brain matter for each person; chest scans would reveal deposits of fat and calcium in and around the heart. The team also collected data from people like their height, body mass index, and cholesterol.

Four years and 1,165 participants later, the results revealed a stark difference. When compared to similar data taken from the US and Europe, the Tsimane fare much better, especially in old age. Tsimane brains lose about 2.3 percent of their volume per decade, compared with around 2.8 percent for the Moseten and about 3.5 percent for industrialized populations. For septuagenarians and older, the difference nearly doubled.

In industrialized populations, brain volume usually drops with increasing body mass index and non-HDL (so-called “bad”) cholesterol. But Tsimane and Moseten brain volumes largely increased with rising BMI and cholesterol. Kaplan believes this discrepancy makes sense given humankind’s evolutionary past. If you have to work a lot to get your food, more energy actually helps. The Tsimane walk 17,000 steps per day.

Older Tsimane provide food and care for their grandchildren and don’t really retire, Kaplan says. People who live in the US and Europe on average work much less for their calories, which creates a surplus.

To Kaplan, the new data suggests a “sweet spot” between energy in and energy out and that it’s fine to build up a higher BMI if you expend a lot of energy too. But without that balance, you may lose brain volume faster, perhaps due to poorer cardiovascular health—although the exact mechanism remains unclear. “We’re at the point where we’ve overshot the mark,” he says of industrialized populations. “We have too many calories, too little physical activity, leading to negative effects on our brains.” The team refers to the phenomenon as the “embarrassment of riches” hypothesis.

“I imagine that the same logic will be valid for other non-communicable diseases among the Tsimane where there is a strong metabolic component,” says Rodriguez. “That is, the food reflected in the BMI and cholesterol is important for the body to carry out its activities, but in excess it is ultimately harmful.”

While this is the first study to compare brain volume between people in such different societies, others have pointed out the link between exercise and dementia risk. Studies estimate that the risk of dementia drops by at least 30 percent for physically active adults. Exercise may reduce inflammation in the brain and sustain hardier connections (or synapses) between neurons. Last year, researchers autopsied US participants of an aging and cognition study, and discovered that those who exercised more had higher levels of biomarkers tied to synaptic function.

“We’re starting to understand that these behaviors that we engage in can change how our brain develops,” says Kaitlin Casaletto, a neuropsychologist at the University of California San Francisco, who led the autopsy study but was not involved in Kaplan’s work. “Maybe we can play an active role in how our brain develops with age.”

Casaletto says that Kaplan’s work with Tsimane and Moseten populations addresses an important representation problem in aging and brain science—that most people studied are white and live in industrialized societies. But while the findings broaden our understanding of brain shrinking, it also brings a lot of new questions too, she says.

“I would want to know if the positive relationship between BMI and cholesterol with brain volume differs by age,” she says. In other studies, involving US and European participants, the relationship evolves: high BMI in middle age indicates bad brain health, but low BMI in old age tracks with frailty and dementia. Overall, Casaletto finds the embarrassment of riches hypothesis “compelling” and worthy of more testing.

Still, a tricky thing about comparing such different societies is that researchers are only evaluating who actually survives to old age. It’s a bias inherent to many aging studies. And in Bolivia, Indigenous populations have higher rates of early death, primarily due to infections. “The adults that made it to this point may not be representative of the whole population,” Casaletto says. “They may have certain genetic or social or other biological advantages.”

Genetics may play in Kaplan’s data, adds Tamar Gefen, a neuropsychologist with Northwestern University who was not involved in the study. Gefen has worked with Northwestern’s SuperAging study, which follows people over age 80 whose brains function like those of people decades younger. The brains of the superagers in the study shrank less than those of “cognitively average” elderly people. Many superagers don’t have healthy lifestyles, but they still stay cognitively sharp. This suggests genetics may be crucial to brain health and that physical activity isn’t a panacea. Superaging studies also suggest that being social, happy, and exercising your mind all play a role in keeping the brain healthy. But each factor relates to the other: It’s easier to be happy and social if you’re healthy, for example.

To Kaplan, the implication is that we need to better understand both the physiology and psychology at play in healthy aging. How to strike that balance of energy in and out is valuable for overall health. “That’s what we need to understand more,” he says. “I think there are many people in the US who are living close to that optimal sweet spot. But many people are failing to achieve it.”

Back in Bolivia, the Tsimane population has recently begun integrating more, thanks to cheaper canoe motors. There are benefits to integration, Kaplan notes, like easier access to food. “The modern lifestyle is more comfortable,” Rodriguez adds. “Even though they are conscious that their lifestyle can be healthier, it’s full of limitations related to transport, trading, health care access, education.”

More integration also means people may get closer to health care; doctor visits once held in thatch-roofed schools may give way to more frequent trips to the city. But as the population modernizes, there’s always the chance that the Tsimane will succumb more frequently to ailments common in industrialized society. It’s even possible the condition of their brains may start to change. Whatever happens, Kaplan and Rodriguez know that there’s much more to learn.

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There’s plenty of fake tech news floating around; each new generation of technology products and services begets even more false beliefs. A lot of those are pretty easy to discredit, but we found a few for this story that might make even our readers do a double-take!

It’s possible you’re worried about something that isn’t true—or maybe something that used to be true but isn’t now, as new discoveries and updates cleared up the problem. Go through our list below, and then pass on the real deal to your friends, family, and social following, so they won’t fall prey to tech disinformation.

(Credit: René Ramos)

1. Cutting the Cord Will Save You Money

This can still be true, if you’re willing to settle for using just a couple of streaming services and perhaps an HD antenna to get basic networks over the air. But all the media companies have created walled gardens of content and made much of it exclusive (especially if it’s new).

If you want NBC content (say, The Office reruns), you need Peacock. If you want CBS shows (and Star Trek), you need Paramount+. Want to watch Fixer Upper? You require Discovery+ (soon to be folded into Max with HBO). ABC has stuck with Hulu because Disney owns so much of the streamer—but Disney launched Disney+ for everything else. Netflix, Prime Video, and Apple TV+ each tries to entrance you separately with zeitgeist-y original content.

The cost of having even the minor tier on all these services was around $960 per year as of summer 2022, and several top streaming services have seen price hikes since then. That may still be cheaper than pay TV or a live-TV streaming service, but you still won’t have access to everything. No matter which way you go. Who has the time (or the money) for that?

But with Discovery and HBO Max merging, and the likelihood that Hulu could be shuttered or folded into Disney+, maybe some costs will go down. Or you could just use commercial-laden free streaming services such as Freevee, Tubi, and The Roku Channel, and make your streaming feel like it's from the previous century.

(Credit: René Ramos)

2. Privacy/Incognito Mode Is Totally Private

Do you feel a little safer from spying when you put your web browser of choice into privacy or incognito mode? It helps, but you're still far from 100% privacy and anonymity.  

The mode erases cookies and tracking data after you close a window. But it doesn’t stop websites or even your ISP from knowing where you’re going. For example, your browser has a unique fingerprint that has nothing to do with files or info (such as cookies) placed by the site. The fingerprint is more like revealing the very DNA of your browser. Sites can and do use that. Even if you use a VPN in incognito mode, you can’t mask all of it.

The best solution is to switch to a security-focused browser such as Brave or to use the Tor Browser, a system that bounces your connections around as you surf. (Both can notoriously slow down your internet experience, unfortunately.) Some services can even inject false info into your fingerprint to obfuscate who you are.

For more tips, read How to Completely Disappear From the Internet.

3. You Are Small Potatoes and Not a Target for Cybercrime

Why would anyone try to hack you if you’ve got nothing to hide? Hold on: We all have something to hide. Namely, private personal information (PPI)—the kind of data used in identity theft. Having it stolen really can ruin your life.  

If you do any kind of work on government websites, your Social Security number may be used or stored there. Your credit card number is tied to every online shopping spree. It might seem safe, but that kind of private data is going public all the time due to frequent, massive data breaches. You may indeed be small potatoes, but that doesn't mean your PPI won’t be found, sold, and resold to bad actors. And many of the tools doing this are automated: They’ll scrape for whatever they can use and sell it, hitting as many targets as possible.

One thing you can do to help yourself is to make sure you have a different password for each site and service you use online. Yes, it’s a giant pain to remember them all (which is why we recommend you use a password manager), but if your password is found in one breach, then the bad guys could have access to every account for which you use that single password. Sign up for some ID theft protection and breach-monitoring services—they'll tell you whether your PPI is compromised.

For more, read What to Do When You've Been Hacked.

4. Batteries Develop a 'Memory'

In the olden days, when devices were powered by nickel-cadmium (NiCad) batteries, they could indeed develop a memory that never let them charge past a certain threshold. That’s where the whole “I must discharge my battery all the way to zero” belief (see below) came from—doing that would act as a sort of memory reset.

This is not the case with the modern lithium-ion battery. The problem with lithium-ion batteries is capacity and degradation. In the same amount of charging time, a new phone might hit 100% when an older phone can manage only 80%. Some call it “old man syndrome.” Younger batteries are hungrier for power, much like teenagers at buffets.

No matter what, the more charge cycles you put a battery through, the less capacity it retains in the long run. So-called “fast charging” on phones makes the degradation happen even faster (and even that tends to be a myth, since modern phones are very smart about charging). Stick to the usual overnight charging—just use a slow charge, whether it's plugged in or wireless.

(Credit: René Ramos)

5. You Should Charge a Phone Only From 0%

Nope: Running a modern lithium-ion battery down to 0% all the time is harmful. It wears them out faster. What you want to do is a partial discharge.

This is another capacity issue. With the inside components of a battery (like the one in your smartphone) in a constant state of decay, the materials simply hold less power over time. It’s why your old phone lasts for fewer and fewer hours, compared with the full day or more you get from a brand-new device.

Some people still believe that running a phone down to zero occasionally helps as a recalibration of sorts—say, if your phone shows it’s at 30% but then promptly dies. But the problem is that modern phones seldom get to the end of battery life. They’ll do an auto-shutdown with a trickle of charge left inside. If you suspect that, let the phone sit for a few hours before you plug it in.

The best strategy: Never let the battery go below 20%, then charge it up to around 80%, which happens quickly on a fast charge. Keeping it between 30-80% all the time is a good way to increase a battery’s lifespan.

6. Charging Phones Overnight Overloads the Battery

Your phone is smart enough to have extra protection, so when the lithium-ion battery hits 100%, it stops charging. It will never overload. Those tales of someone’s phone catching fire were generated by phones with faulty batteries.

But also, don’t put the phone under your pillow—it can get hot, even burn you, and then burn itself out. A phone needs to dissipate some heat, another thing that hurts batteries. You wouldn’t sleep on your laptop, so don’t sleep on your smartphone.

It’s possible that when an older phone is plugged in to charge all night long, it will use some juice and drop to 99% and charge up again to 100%. That’s not great, but don’t lose any sleep over it. If you should wake up during the night, unplug it or take it off the wireless charger. It won’t lose much before morning.

For more, read Charging Your Phone Overnight: Battery Myths Debunked.

(Credit: René Ramos)

7. Phones Take Pictures as Well as Full-Frame Cameras

The best camera is the one you have with you, of course, and the camera we always have on hand is our phone. You can look at the amazing specifications of a modern phone camera—the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has a 200-megapixel sensor!—and feel very good about the shots you take. Just don’t kid yourself that you can’t do better with a dedicated interchangeable lens camera.

The “more megapixels means a better picture” myth is one we try to dispel often (the sensor size inside the camera that matters more). Also prevalent these days is the belief that all the revolutionary tech inside a phone camera makes it just as good as a dedicated camera. That tech is called computational photography, in which imaging tech enhances or extends your digital photography capabilities. Shooting a 360-degree view of the landscape or getting the shallow depth of field bokeh effect without a big, fancy camera are good examples of what computational photography can do.

But think about it: Have you ever seen a professional photographer use a phone at a wedding, on the sidelines of the big game, or at a model’s photoshoot? Not likely.

Of course, sophisticated equipment requires sophisticated skills. You have to learn about exposure, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO settings. And the lens selection on a phone is, well, limited. If you haven't mastered a high-end camera, using a phone camera might indeed mean better pictures—from you, at least.

For tips, read 10 Easy Tips and Tricks for Better Smartphone Photos.

8. Expensive HDMI Cables Provide a Better Picture

There’s something to be said for beauty and durability in a cable. And sometimes, you get that with an expensive HDMI cable. How expensive?

We found one 20-meter cable priced at $10,500! But it’s hard to believe any cable that costs as much as a car is going to be worth the money.

Ultimately, a digital signal is a digital signal. And a $10 cable versus a $1,000 cable of the same length (at least below 75 feet long) and specifications isn’t going to change the picture on your TV.

You should be aware of the different HDMI standards. The 1.4 specification dates back a decade and handles everything up to 4K video. Every HDMI cable supports it. If you’re one of the few with an 8K setup, get a cable supporting HDMI 2.1, which is also supported by the vast majority of TV models from the last couple of years, whether 8K or not. More important is the speed rating (Standard, High Speed, Premium High Speed, and Ultra High Speed). The latter three can handle 4K at 24 frames per second, but you need Premium or Ultra to get the max frame rate for gaming.

Cable length can be a factor when your components are far apart. Over distance, cables need to be better shielded to avoid interference. So you might indeed pay more for that—but at a certain point, you’d be better off using Ethernet.

For more on the topic, read What You Need to Know About HDMI Cables.

(Credit: René Ramos)

9. 5G Towers Can Make You Sick

Certain people have long been worried that cellular signals, Wi-Fi, and probably even radio (back in the 1930s) are making them sick. 5G is simply the newest over-the-air “villain.” In our conspiracy-rife times, where outright lies can masquerade as the truth even when facts smack the liars in the face, 5G gets a lot of attention.

Our friends at Mashable have covered some of the conspiracy theories: say, 5G being “turned up” will cause people who are vaccinated for COVID-19 to spontaneously combust. (This was supposed to “happen”(Opens in a new window) on Jan. 5, 2022. It did not.) Furthermore, there’s no scientifically validated connection(Opens in a new window) between 5G and COVID-19.

The Jan. 5 date was for the rollout by carriers Verizon and AT&T of new 5G services, which was postponed to Jan. 19. That happened because the FAA became worried about C-band service causing interference with aircraft. That might be the only way 5G could impact your health: by crashing a plane. (Before we create a new myth, please know that scenario is also highly unlikely.)

What it boils down to is that 5G is, as our former mobile-tech expert Sascha Segan has said, “based on radio frequencies that have been used for decades.” It’s like expecting to get a headache from UHF. The World Health Organization says the low-level electromagnetic fields from towers (“if they exist at all”) are a minor threat compared with the everyday risks of riding in a car, or, say, not wearing a mask during a respiratory-illness pandemic.

For more, read Is 5G Safe?

(Credit: René Ramos)

10. Airport X-Rays Erase Laptop and Smartphone Memory

Airport security can do many things, such as pour out your drinking water, make you take off your shoes, and blast you with air in search of explosives residue. But the conveyor belt scanners the TSA uses to look at your belongings won’t erase your data. The myth is a holdover from the days of film cameras: The electromagnetic radiation of an X-ray could indeed do some damage to undeveloped negatives, in particular to high-speed film that’s particularly photosensitive. But the photon scanners in use today won’t hurt a hard drive (though a big magnet could, so don’t take your laptop into an MRI machine).

TSA scanners also won’t do anything to a solid-state drive, which is the only kind of storage you have in a smartphone. Not because they couldn’t, in theory, if they were powerful enough. But TSA machines just aren’t that intense.

So why does the TSA make you take out your electronics and put them in a separate bin? Because they’re so dense that agents can’t see through them on a screen, potentially obscuring the view of your 4 ounces of forbidden shampoo.

Keep in mind that the radiation exposure(Opens in a new window) you and your electronics get from the sun and beyond at 36,000 feet on a cross-country plane ride is about the equivalent of two chest X-rays. It’s not really that dangerous (unless you’re a crew member(Opens in a new window)), but maybe you should consider driving instead.

11. Product Radiation Is Making You Radioactive

Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are everywhere, because just about everything with power emits such a field, from the sun and lightning down to your AirPods. We’re not talking about the equivalent of sitting next to a mound of uranium. As the World Health Organization says(Opens in a new window): “Everyone is exposed to a complex mix of weak electric and magnetic fields, both at home and at work.”

The main effect of a low- to mid-frequency EMF on biological systems is to cause them to heat up, but most people never encounter levels high enough for that to happen. (High-frequency EMFs are the ionizing kind that do more damage, such as X-rays, CTs, and even UV rays from the sun and tanning beds.)

WHO has had an EMF Project in place since 1996 assessing what frequencies up to 300GHz can do. A lot more research has to be done. Some reports call non-ionizing EMFs a possible carcinogen; others don’t. But even with the vast proliferation of devices over the last 20 years, cancer death rates have declined since the early 1990s(Opens in a new window).

An entire world of products to protect you from this invisible radiation exists. From beanies for your head (the modern version of a tin-foil hat), to “anti-EMF” stickers you can put on your phone, to a router cover that probably does more to prevent dust than radiation, most are utter grifts offered by schemers to take advantage of people’s fears. Some so-called negative-ion jewelry claiming to “block 5G” was found to actually emit ionizing radiation that was truly dangerous.  A few products might do what they claim, but when the EMF is blocked, so is the signal for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 4G, and so on. You may as well put them in a Faraday cage to make them inert. If you’re that scared about EMFs, just stop using your phone and the internet.

12. PCs Should Be Properly Shut Down Every Night

This one has been debated for years. The reasons to shut down computers overnight are numerous—they’ll use less energy, moving parts such as fans and drives won’t spin up, you won’t receive overnight notifications and alarms, and a daily restart helps the OS. But there are also reasons to leave it on all night—remote access is possible, the PC can run background updates, you don’t want to wait for a restart, and a cold reboot causes a power surge that seems unnecessary. Both factions—leave-it-on-all-nighters and shut-it-downers—claim their practice leads to a longer lifespan for a PC.

Panda Security surveyed people on this topic(Opens in a new window) in 2020 and found that, for work computers at least, 37% shut down nightly, 23% never shut down, and 15% would only turn the machine off if it stops working.

According to Panda, you should shut down at night only if your PC has sensitive information on it and the network isn’t secured, or when you don’t need to run backups or remotely access the drive. Otherwise, leave it on, and restart it occasionally to clear the RAM and perform OS installation updates.

13. Apple Slows Down Old Devices to Get You to Buy New Ones

When a new iPhone comes out, your current, older phone somehow seems less responsive. As though, perhaps, something has happened to it that might drive you to make a new purchase.

At one point, Apple actually admitted to this. In 2017, the Batterygate fiasco revealed that Apple did throttle CPUs on older iPhones to help address the aging of iPhone batteries. People didn’t like that, states sued, and Apple was fined $113 million. Apple’s excuse is it did this for our own good—to prevent crashes, not to increase sales. (I’m sure the latter was just a coincidental side effect.) All the other phone makers also say they don’t reduce phone performance with age. At least, not on purpose.

So is your phone really getting slower? The answer probably has more to do with the updates to your mobile OS and all the apps installed. Everything is optimized to run on the latest hardware. If you’re trying to run iOS 15 on the iPhone 8, which came with iOS 11 in 2017, even running newer updated apps with it, the chips inside aren’t what that software was designed for.

(Credit: René Ramos)

14. Apple's Macs and iPhones Can't Get Malware

The evil people who write viruses want to infect as many people as possible. That’s one reason Windows systems and Android devices are the usual targets; there are just a helluva lot more of them.

But simply because you don’t hear a lot about macOS and iOS attacks, that doesn’t mean they don’t happen. While the walled-garden aspect of Apple’s products makes it more difficult for bad actors to load your devices with malware, sometimes even Apple leaves security holes in its products’ defenses. Take, for instance, the IOMobileFrameBuffer problem of July 2021 that struck iOS, iPadOS, and even watchOS. Had it been found by the wrong people and not patched with an update, it could have been an easy exploit. Keep your devices up to date to avoid such issues.

You’re far more likely to be infected if you have a jailbroken iPhone or iPad. But if you jailbroke your device, you’re probably tech-savvy enough to know the risks that go with using apps and software that haven’t been vetted. Like those of us who’ve been using Windows for decades.

(Credit: Brian Westover/PCMag)

15. Starlink Will Replace Everyone's ISP

A lot of people have placed hope in Starlink, the satellite-based internet provider from Elon Musk-owned SpaceX. For people living in disenfranchised areas, many of them rural, who have next to no choices when it comes to broadband access, Starlink is transformative. And customers who have Starlink give it high marks.

But the likelihood that it can or should replace your cable or fiber connection, no matter how crappy the customer service or connection, is slim. There's a reason it scores particularly well in rural areas, where Starlink is certainly the best choice among the satellite-based ISPs.

One of the issues will be congestion. One report says that even with 12,000 low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites in the sky, the Starlink service would be able to handle only about 485,000 users; The service hit 400,000 users in May 2022, but only 4,000 satellites are operational as of this writing. That number won't hit 12,000 until 2026(Opens in a new window). SpaceX wants to get to a "megaconstellation" of 42,000 LEO satellites(Opens in a new window). Eventually.

Even Musk has said the service will be best for places with low to medium population density. In cities, he say 5G will be better.

Starlink ultimately isn’t meant to replace anything: It’s a supplement. And not a very affordable one, at $110 per month plus the cost of equipment.

16. You Can't Recycle Electric Vehicle Batteries

Electric vehicles (EVs) account for only 5% of cars on the road, but sales will only go up as governments push people toward buying them. In California, for example, the mandate (Opens in a new window)is that "by 2035, all new cars and passenger trucks sold in California be zero-emission vehicles." Tax credits help push people to them nationally. EVs are the future.

But apparently, quite a few people think you can't recycle the batteries used in EVs. That's not true at all. They can be recycled and rehabbed. Over and over. They won't even have any performance loss. Also, the minerals inside are far too expensive and critical to just let rot in a landfill.

For more, read Chasing Black Mass: Inside the Electric Vehicle Battery Recycling Process.

(Credit: D3Damon/Getty Images)

17. Alexa Is Recording Everything

An Amazon Echo and similar devices, such as the Google Home and Apple HomePod, are indeed always passively listening—because if not, the devices wouldn’t hear the “wake word,” which is typically “Alexa" on an Echo device. The wake word tells the device to actively listen and help you with a query.

(You can push a button on top of any Alexa to turn off the microphone until you want it on. You could also push the microphone button on top to start your query. But that's not what smart speakers were designed to do.)

The devices record only what you say after you say the wake word. They don’t record everything, unless you turn on something like Alexa Guard, a feature ostensibly for listening for suspicious noises, like breaking glass, while you’re away.

If even that much listening in is too much for you, go into the Alexa mobile app to More > Settings > Alexa Privacy > Review Voice History to delete one or all queries, even just those on certain date ranges. You can also do it from the Amazon.com website. You can also say “Alexa, delete everything I said today” (once you enable that function in the app.) Best of all, you can set Alexa never to save your recorded voice—and even tell it never to send improvement data to Amazon, ever.

For details, read How to Review and Delete Your Alexa History.

18. Artificial Intelligence Is Sentient

AI, as we know it today, is many things: an incredible achievement even at this early stage; full of biases that are downright embarrassing and legally actionable; able to hallucinate such things as a dying man in the desert in need of water. But AI has not achieved human intelligence. It is not self-aware. It does not have feelings.

Google itself has issued a list of AI myths(Opens in a new window) and it says specifically that AIs “remain narrow and brittle, and lack true agency or creativity.” Google will likely stay ahead of the claims of sentient AI. The company fired an engineer in the summer of 2022 who publicly claimed that the LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) chatbot system—upon which the Bard AI is built—was alive.

What Google is saying is that AI didn’t decide to write a story or compose a song—you did that. Generative AI such as Bard, ChatGPT, and even Dall-E and Midjourney for images, are fantastic mimics. The AIs simply use patterns to make new, never-before-seen patterns. They’re fed an enormous amount of data—GPT-4 supposedly has 1 trillion parameters to build on. The tool will then vomit back something that mashes all that info together. If you are talented enough to write a highly specific prompt describing what you want, that mashed new thing could deliver something beyond your expectations, making the AI look miraculous.

But the tool is by no means something that feels or thinks, even if it sometimes answers questions as though it does. Just because it uses a neural network does not mean it has neurons. Machine learning isn’t about education; it’s more about the “complete abandonment of caution that should be associated with the judicious use of statistical methods,” according to NewsClick(Opens in a new window).

Could we someday reach the “AI Singularity,” where machines reach human-level intelligence, aka “machine consciousness?” Experts say it could happen, but it will take decades and require architectures we haven’t yet built. Hopefully, by then we’ll have instilled AIs with the Three Laws of Robotics(Opens in a new window), among other safeguards.

(Credit: René Ramos)

19. The Cloud Is in the Sky

We didn’t realize the tech term “cloud” was being taken so literally, but this myth persists, popping up in lists occasionally. Apparently, some people think references to the cloud or cloud computing indicate that data is being stored in the actual sky. And that stormy weather can interfere with it.

No. “The cloud” is a metaphor for the internet, taken from the cloud image used in flowcharts back in the day to represent the internet’s amorphous nature. More specifically, cloud computing refers to massive data farms run by the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, not only for online storage and file sharing but also for access to and development of products. Gmail, Netflix, OneDrive, and Amazon AWS are all different forms of cloud computing. You can read all about it in What is Cloud Computing? Rest assured, your ability to access cloud computing data and services isn’t going to go away because of clear skies or rainy days.

Source

If OpenAI’s ChatGPT creation is being adopted by apps and platforms related to office productivity, it seems Google wants to use its AI creation in more practical ways. In a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, the American fast-food restaurant chain is said to be working with the search giant to create a chatbot that will be specifically fashioned for its business. The bot will reportedly be placed in Wendy’s branch in Columbus, Ohio, in June.

The report shares that the bot will be used to take orders from drive-thru customers, though Wendy’s assured that it wouldn’t replace any employee with this new practice. Instead, just like any other businesses want from AI, Wendy’s reportedly intends to use the technology to help its workers focus on more important things. As expected, the bot should reduce the line of waiting for customers by being more efficient in taking orders. Meanwhile, Wendy’s executive Todd Penegor said that the drive-thru bot “will be very conversational” and that “you won’t know you’re talking to anybody but an employee.”

To do that, however, Google has to specifically modify the bot to recognize the natural language being used by Wendy’s customers. This applies to the order jargon and some certain special order requests. According to the report, the bot can also ask customers whether they want to upsize their orders.

Google is working with Wendy’s to perfect an AI-based drive-thru bot

When Nvidia released it’s GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card, the reviews for the card were rather unexciting. It performed similar to the RTX 3080 and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT.

Also, it is expensive and the performance uplift that it offers compared to the previous generation is just 30%, rather than 50% that Nvidia usually offered.

The next in the line for the release in the RTX 40 series is most likely going to be RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti. Now it seems that we have some idea about their release dates.

RTX 4060 Series Coming Starting May

Well known Twitter based leaker MEGAsizeGPU has leaked the release dates for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 and 4060 Ti graphics cards.

There are four important things he has mentioned.

First, Nvidia is going to release two versions of RTX 4060 Ti. One with 8GB VRAM and another with 16GB VRAM.

Second, all three, RTX 4060, RTX 4060 Ti 8GB and RTX 4060 Ti 16GB will be announced in (the later part) of May, that is this month.

Third, when asked by @VideoCardZ, MEGAsizeGPU has clarified the dates further:

He mentions that while RTX 4060 Ti 8GB will be made available in May itself. However, both RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 16GB will be available to the public only two months later, in July.

Not only that, he also mentions that RTX 4050 might be delayed. Those unaware, earlier rumors suggest that RTX 4050 might have only 6GB of VRAM and was expected to release in June. But now as he is saying that it’s delayed, then that June release might not happen.

What This Means

First of all. It is known that these graphics cards are most likely going to be announced in COMPUTEX. It starts on 30th May and will run till 2nd June. However, till now we had no confirmation of release dates or date of availability for these cards, now we do.

The second important thing we are learning here is that the public’s criticism of Nvidia skimping out VRAM has made sure that Nvidia has to relent. Hence, Nvidia is possibly going to release a 16GB VRAM version of RTX 4060 Ti.

The second point is very important. A lot of people are finding out that 8GB VRAM is not enough in modern day games like Hogwarts Legacy and others. If that is not enough, then AMD too has taken on Nvidia by showing how AMD graphics cards with higher VRAM are better than Nvidia’s offerings.

So if Nvidia releases a 16GB version for RTX 4060 Ti, then it’s very much a welcome move. The problem is with pricing. Don’t expect RTX 4060 Ti to be cheaper than $499, a price which was reserved for the xx60 previously. However, unless confirmed, this is just a speculation. So let’s see how Nvidia prices all three of them.

A New RTX 4070 Version Coming With RTX 4080 GPU

Meanwhile, another well known Twitter based leaker @kopite7kimi is saying that Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 could have a version which uses GPUs made for RTX 4080. Something which does happen, but not so soon after their release.

Now it’s possible that RTX 4080 is not selling as much and hence Nvidia seems to be believing that another RTX 4070 version is required and Nvidia could use those extra produced RTX 4080 GPU chips to make them.

Release Dates For Nvidia RTX 4060, 4060 Ti 8GB & 16GB Leaks

Doom II RPG is what it says on the label, and it’s ready for PC 13 years later

Various leaks over the past few months have hinted at the upcoming release of Intel's 14th Gen Meteor Lake CPU family on the desktop platform. The latest information comes within the Linux 6.3 patch, which adds support for Meteor Lake-S SPI serial flash, along with a list of Meteor Lake-S PCI IDs to the driver list of supported devices. This patch was recently released on May 6.

Intel is revved up for launch

Intel's recent efforts to speed up Linux support for Meteor Lake-S Desktop CPUs indicate that the launch is imminent. The Meteor Lake-S Desktop CPUs are expected to comprise up to Core i5 SKUs and TDPs of 35-65W. These chips will exist alongside the higher-end Arrow Lake-S parts that will scale up to Core i9 SKUs with 125W TDPs. Both chips will feature support on the brand-new 800-series chipset platform.

The new Intel 800-series chipset platform is expected to support at least two generations of CPUs, including Meteor Lake-S and Arrow Lake-S. This platform will drop the existing LGA 1700/1800 socket and use the new LGA 1851 socket, which has a similar package size as the existing socket, ensuring cooler compatibility remains intact. The 800-series motherboards will also support faster DDR5 memory.

Meteor Lake-S lineup is offering several SKUs

Based on the previous information, the 800-series platform will offer several SKUs within the Meteor Lake-S lineup, including MTL-S 22 (6P + 16E) with 4 Xe Cores and TDPs of 125W, 65W, and 35W, and MTL-S 14 (6P + 8E) with 4 Xe Cores and TDPs of 65W and 35W.

Meanwhile, the Intel Arrow Lake-S Desktop SKUs are expected to come in configurations such as Arrow Lake-S 24 (8P + 16E) with 4 Xe Cores and TDPs of 125W, 65W, and 35W.

Mark 2024 on your calendar

Intel has confirmed that it is testing 14th Gen Meteor Lake-S CPUs, and reports suggest that the chips are already being sampled. This evidence indicates that the family is indeed heading for a desktop launch, even if in a limited fashion. Intel is aiming for a 2024 launch for its first 14th Gen Meteor Lake-S Desktop CPUs, as Raptor Lake-S chips with up to 6.2 GHz clock speeds will be released for desktops in 2H 2023.

Linux in the forecast as Intel preps for Meteor Lake-S launch

In a blog post, Microsoft said it is working with the US Department of Defense on its Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes (RAMP) program. That work included a demonstration of using Azure cloud servers to help BAE Systems and Raytheon Technologies design three new chips for the DoD. Microsoft stated:

This achievement is a key milestone that marks the first time such chips were designed in the cloud and transmitted via the cloud to chip foundries for manufacture. This process rapidly accelerates the time to market for critical microelectronic components and represents a significant milestone in secure cloud-based microelectronic design and manufacturing.

The blog post added this cloud-based method could also be used in the future to design chips and send them to manufacturers for commercial use. Microsoft says this might be a good way to create a local supply chain for new chips in the future as well as speed up their development and release time. It added:

Customers routinely use Azure’s infrastructure solutions to optimize design turnaround times, such as high-performance virtual machines and storage, as well as platform solutions that are custom built for silicon design workloads.

With supply chain issues for microelectronics continuing to be an issue worldwide, this new cloud-based method could help eliminate some of those problems.

Microsoft helped with making chips that were designed and sent from the cloud to foundries

The man, surnamed Hong, “exploited modern technological methods to fabricate fake information, and proceeded to spread it on social media,” the public security bureau of northern Gansu province said in a press release posted on WeChat.

The alleged offense came to light after police discovered a fake article about a train crash that left nine people dead, which had been posted to multiple accounts on Baidu Inc.’s blog-like platform Baijiahao. The article was viewed over 15,000 times before being removed.

Further investigations revealed that Hong was using the chatbot technology — which is not available in China but can be accessed via VPN networks — to modify viral news articles which he would then repost. He told investigators that friends on WeChat had showed him how to generate cash for clicks.

Authorities said the large-scale dissemination and viewing of the material meant that Hong was liable for the “major crime” of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” — an offense punishable by at least five years in prison.

OpenAI Inc.’s artificial intelligence technology has prompted a scramble in China, both by major technological firms that want to develop similar chatbots, and by authorities seeking to introduce rules governing the technology’s use within the strictly-controlled internet realm.

Source

According to the research published in the journal Nature Medicine, the diagnosis is based solely on the patient's medical records.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal forms of cancer, and this discovery offers hope of earlier diagnosis, and therefore, better chances of survival.

Currently, pancreatic cancer is difficult to diagnose early on, leading to a low survival rate, and a need for better screening tools.

Without any population-based tools to screen for pancreatic cancer, only individuals with a family history of the disease or certain genetic mutations are screened. This approach leaves out cases that fall outside these categories.

Chris Sander, faculty member in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School and co-senior investigator of the study, noted that determining who is at high risk for a disease is one of the most important decisions clinicians face.

Sander stated that an AI tool that can identify those at high risk of pancreatic cancer and would benefit most from further tests, could improve clinical decision-making, leading to earlier diagnosis, treatment, and better outcomes.

The research team trained the AI algorithm on two data sets of nine million patient records from Denmark and the United States.

The model used disease codes and the timing of their occurrence to predict which patients were likely to develop pancreatic cancer in the future. Notably, many of the symptoms and disease codes were not directly related to or stemming from the pancreas.

The AI model was tested on different versions for its ability to detect people at elevated risk of disease development within different timescales, ranging from six months to three years.

The researchers found that each version of the AI algorithm was substantially more accurate at predicting who would develop pancreatic cancer than current population-wide estimates of disease incidence.

They found the model to be at least as accurate as current genetic sequencing tests available for only a small subset of patients in data sets.

One significant advantage of the AI tool is that it can be used on all patients with available health records and medical history, not just those with a known family history or genetic predisposition for the disease.

This is particularly important because many patients at high risk may not be aware of their genetic predisposition or family history. Without clear indications that someone is at high risk of pancreatic cancer, clinicians may be cautious to recommend expensive testing.

An AI tool that identifies those at high risk of pancreatic cancer would ensure that clinicians test the right population, while sparing others unnecessary testing and additional procedures, the researchers said.

Pancreatic cancer has a low survival rate, and early diagnosis is essential for better outcomes.

Only 12% of pancreatic cancer cases are diagnosed early, which has led to a call for better screening tools. The AI tool developed by the researchers offers hope for earlier diagnosis and treatment, as well as improved survival rates.

According to Sander, there is a clear need for better screening, more targeted testing, and earlier diagnosis, and this is where the AI-based approach comes in.

Source

MediaTek Dimensity 8050: Specs

Crafted using TSMC's advanced 6nm (N6) process node, MediaTek's latest chipset boasts an octa-core processor, replete with three high-performing Cortex-A78 cores, which can be clocked up to 2.6GHz, alongside four energy-efficient Cortex-A78 cores that can reach a frequency of up to 2GHz, and a single Cortex-A78 core that can be clocked up to an impressive 3GHz. To complement the powerful CPU, the chipset also features a 9-core ARM Mali G77 GPU, providing users with an enhanced and immersive visual experience.

Users can expect an impressive level of performance from MediaTek's latest offering, with the Dimensity 8050 chipset supporting up to 16GB of LPDDR4x RAM, alongside UFS 3.1 internal storage. Moreover, the chipset's cutting-edge features include a maximum display resolution of 2520x1080 pixels, combined with an outstanding refresh rate of 168Hz.

Additionally, the chipset's MiraVision technology enables advanced features such as HDR video playback, AI-powered picture upscaling, and hardware-accelerated AV1 encoding, making it an ideal solution for users who demand top-of-the-line performance from their devices.

To cater to the rapidly-growing mobile gaming industry, MediaTek has introduced its innovative HyperEngine technology, which offers a suite of gaming-centric features that include a boost in performance and power efficiency, superior voice and picture chat quality, smoother gameplay, reduced latency with Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Hybrid coexistence, and advanced 5G awareness. Moreover, the chipset is optimized to conserve power usage when the device is being used as a hotspot.

Image source: Unsplash

The Dimensity 8050 chipset also excels in photography, with support for high-resolution images of up to 200MP and videos of up to 3840 x 2160 resolution. Furthermore, the chipset features an impressive dual-camera setup on the front, capable of supporting 32MP+16MP cameras. The chipset's HDR-ISP, video HDR, video NR, video bokeh, video EIS, AI-shutter, AI-AE, AI-AF, AI-AWB, AI-NR HDR, AI-HDR, and AI-FD features ensure that users can capture stunning, professional-grade images and videos with ease.

In addition to its impressive gaming and photography capabilities, the Dimensity 8050 chipset supports various cellular technologies, including 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G multi-mode, 4G carrier aggregation, 5G carrier aggregation, CDMA2000, EDGE, and TD-SCDMA, making it a versatile solution for a broad range of devices. With a peak downlink speed of 4.7Gbps and a peak uplink speed of 2.5Gbps, the chipset delivers lightning-fast data transfer speeds, and also supports various GNSS technologies and Wi-Fi 6.

To provide users with enhanced location accuracy, the Dimensity 8050 chipset supports GPS L1CA+L5, BeiDou B1I+ B2a, Glonass L1OF,Galileo E1 + E5a, QZSS L1CA+ L5, and NavIC. This enables users to navigate more efficiently and accurately, especially when using location-based services.

The Dimensity 8050 chipset has already made its debut in the Tecno Camon 20 Premier 5G, demonstrating its impressive performance capabilities and versatility.

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The report is based on a survey of 31,000 people around the world, along with analyzing data from Microsoft 365 users and looking at labor trends via Microsoft's LinkedIn Economic Graph. The report claims there are three main works trends that must be addressed. The first is a better way to spend the day working, rather than spending tons of time in meetings and writing emails. The report states that 68 percent of all workers say they don't have enough time in the workday to just focus on their jobs. It adds:

Across the Microsoft 365 apps, the average employee spends 57% of their time communicating (in meetings, email, and chat) and 43% creating (in documents, spreadsheets, and presentations). The heaviest email users (top 25%) spend 8.8 hours a week on email, and the heaviest meeting users (top 25%) spend 7.5 hours a week in meetings.

Microsoft says that the lesson here is that meetings need to be more efficient and effective for employees so they don't feel so burned out.

The second trend in the report is that the use of AI features may not be the job killer that many people have predicted it will be. Microsoft's report claim employees are welcoming these kinds of features. It stated:

Not only did 3 in 4 people tell us they would be comfortable using AI for administrative tasks (76%), but the same goes for analytical (79%) and even creative work (73%). People are also looking for AI to assist with finding the right information and answers they need (86%), summarizing their meetings and action items (80%), and planning their day (77%).

The report adds that business owners are twice as likely to use AI to boost employee productivity than they would be to use it to reduce their workforce.

The final trend is that employees must learn some new skills in order to best use these AI features in the future. It stated:

Leaders we surveyed said it’s essential that employees learn when to leverage AI, how to write great prompts, evaluate creative work, and check for bias. As AI reshapes work, human-AI collaboration will be the next transformational work pattern—and the ability to work iteratively with AI will be a key skill for every employee.

The report states that AI features could help both employees and companies become more efficient at work. It's also clear that while AI can be a great tool, it's not perfect, and workers will be needed to make sure that the content AI can provide is accurate and helpful for their jobs.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that Wendy's has been working with Google on an AI chatbot that would take orders from drive-thru customers.

The chatbot is likely a modified version of Google's Bard. This new chatbot for Wendy's will be able to recognize words that might only be used at the drive-thru, such as ordering a Frosty (Wendy's version of a milkshake). It will also be designed to get customers to upsize their orders, or state some daily specials. The ultimate goal is for the chatbot to reduce the wait time at the drive-thru and thus get more sales.

The article says this drive-thru chatbot will be set up at one of Wendy's company-owned locations in Columbus, Ohio in June. If it does its job right, customers won't know the difference between a human taking an order and the chatbot. Wendy's says this will not replace any workers in their locations but rather will allow them to concentrate on other jobs. There's no word on when this technology might find its way to other Wendy's locations.

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Investors must act fast; this is the most exciting get-rich-quick opportunity since Bitcoin started accepting Bitcoin in transactions for Bitcoin.

Without writers, editors, photographers, and photo editors, our company will incur almost no expenses when putting out Total Crap.

You may be skeptical about machine-written work at first, but once you see the software rearranging familiar-seeming paragraphs into different orders and changing a few words, you’ll realize it’s a suitable replacement for your favorite authors, who can now rest and starve. The masses always fear new technology, but they eventually get used to it. When elevators advanced to the point where passengers could push the buttons themselves to choose a floor, the public didn’t trust that it would be safe to use the conveyances without a human operator. Now, you take it for granted. That’s why our AI opens the debut Total Crap issue with the following insight:

“In many ways, fear of automated writing is similar to fear of automatic elevators without operators. At first, passengers were afraid to ride in automatic elevators because they were accustomed to the presence of human operators. In time, they realized that it was safer to use the automatic versions. Similarly, many people are now afraid that automated writing is prone to errors, incapable of originality, or destined to relegate millions of skilled workers to lives of uselessness and destitution. In fact, automated writing is safer than the manual version.”

Our technology has rendered terrible human writers obsolete. Clichés, plagiarism, lazy repetition of unexamined ideas—this software does it all. We dare you to find a single bad scribe who can disgrace themselves and their profession faster than ChatTCM.

And buckle up, because ChatTCM is only one of the amazing innovations that will change everything in the next three months. Others include:

•     Lab-grown friends. Don’t worry about their feelings; they came from a lab.

•     Self-driving Carls. You need not do a thing; these Carls are more than capable of driving themselves quite mad.

•     Computer-generated typewriters, for you technophobes who wish we could all go back to using typewriters. Happy now?

We are on the brink of a better world where humans won’t need to waste their time thinking or feeling. Imagine a perfect system in which articles are written by ChatTCM, edited by EditorTCM, and read and laughed/cried/nodded at by AudienceTCM, as appropriate, while you relax. And if you can’t, just ask ImagineTCM to do it.

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According to a report from the BBC, artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT excel at certain tasks. James Fern, a lecturer at the University of Bath, noted that “Multiple choice questions, for example, [ChatGPT] will handle those very well. We definitely were not expecting it to do as well as it did … it was getting close to 100% correct.”

Yet there were tell-tale signs that the paper it produced was not crafted by a human brain. ChatGPT struggled with more complex questions that required a degree of creativity rather than simply regurgitating facts or picking from multiple options.

When answering a question on why it is important to understand the timing of exercise in relation to nutrition status, for instance, ChatGPT slipped up several times. It repeated parts of the question word for word on two occasions, created vague and unattributed statements, and wrote in oversimplified language without being specific.

The chatbot even invented fake academic papers and then cited them in its answer. While the names of the authors and journals were correct, the cited articles simply did not exist, which would be easy for examiners to spot with just a cursory check.

So, while ChatGPT can produce convincing answers in many different contexts, writing your college thesis for you seems to be a step too far for now.

An uncertain future

Hatice Baran / Unsplash

ChatGPT’s academic future isn’t entirely in tatters, however. Gillian Keegan, the U.K.’s Education Secretary, believes that it is “making a difference in schools and universities already,” and that it could provide assistance to teachers when it comes to lesson planning and marking.

It can also help students get started on tasks and generate ideas that they can then expand upon. While it might not be able to properly answer exam papers, it can at least provide a starting point for further research.

In any case, ChatGPT isn’t going away, and universities and colleges around the world are going to have to adapt to it. It has a lot of potential to improve productivity in the future, and colleges are already teaching students how to use it to improve their output.

But while ChatGPT is unlikely to be awarded a degree any time soon, its potential for misuse is still very real. Apple founder Steve Wozniak has just warned that chatbots could make scams even more realistic, and he was part of a group of prominent tech leaders who signed an open letter in March calling for a pause on further chatbot development. ChatGPT’s future is very much uncertain, but it is no doubt being studied at colleges and universities up and down the land.

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How To Delete Your Data From ChatGPT

Air pollution poses a major threat to public health, with the World Health Organization attributing over 4 million premature deaths globally each year to poor air quality. Despite this, comprehensive measurement remains limited. However, an MIT research team is now introducing an open-source, affordable, and portable pollution detection device that could expand air quality monitoring capabilities.

Named Flatburn, this detector can be produced through 3D printing or by ordering inexpensive parts. The researchers have calibrated and tested it against cutting-edge machines and are publicly releasing all the information about it — how to build it, use it, and interpret the data.

“The goal is for community groups or individual citizens anywhere to be able to measure local air pollution, identify its sources, and, ideally, create feedback loops with officials and stakeholders to create cleaner conditions,” says Carlo Ratti, director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab.

“We’ve been doing several pilots around the world, and we have refined a set of prototypes, with hardware, software, and protocols, to make sure the data we collect are robust from an environmental science point of view,” says Simone Mora, a research scientist at Senseable City Lab and co-author of a newly published paper detailing the scanner’s testing process. The Flatburn device is part of a larger project, known as City Scanner, using mobile devices to better understand urban life.

“Hopefully with the release of the open-source Flatburn we can get grassroots groups, as well as communities in less developed countries, to follow our approach and build and share knowledge,” says An Wang, a researcher at Senseable City Lab and another of the paper’s co-authors.

The paper was recently published in the journal Atmospheric Environment.

In addition to Wang, Mora, and Ratti the study’s authors are: Yuki Machida, a former research fellow at Senseable City Lab; Priyanka deSouza, an assistant professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Colorado at Denver; Tiffany Duhl, a researcher with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and a Tufts University research associate at the time of the project; Neelakshi Hudda, a research assistant professor at Tufts University; John L. Durant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Tufts University; and Fabio Duarte, principal research scientist at Senseable City Lab.

The Flatburn concept at Senseable City Lab dates back to about 2017, when MIT researchers began prototyping a mobile pollution detector, originally to be deployed on garbage trucks in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The detectors are battery-powered and rechargable, either from power sources or a solar panel, with data stored on a card in the device that can be accessed remotely.

The current extension of that project involved testing the devices in New York City and the Boston area, by seeing how they performed in comparison to already-working pollution detection systems. In New York, the researchers used 5 detectors to collect 1.6 million data points over four weeks in 2021, working with state officials to compare the results. In Boston, the team used mobile sensors, evaluating the Flatburn devices against a state-of-the-art system deployed by Tufts University along with a state agency.

In both cases, the detectors were set up to measure concentrations of fine particulate matter as well as nitrogen dioxide, over an area of about 10 meters. Fine particular matter refers to tiny particles often associated with burning matter, from power plants, internal combustion engines in autos and fires, and more.

The research team found that the mobile detectors estimated somewhat lower concentrations of fine particulate matter than the devices already in use, but with a strong enough correlation so that, with adjustments for weather conditions and other factors, the Flatburn devices can produce reliable results.

“After following their deployment for a few months we can confidently say our low-cost monitors should behave the same way [as standard detectors],” Wang says. “We have a big vision, but we still have to make sure the data we collect is valid and can be used for regulatory and policy purposes,”

Duarte adds: “If you follow these procedures with low-cost sensors you can still acquire good enough data to go back to [environmental] agencies with it, and say, ‘Let’s talk.’”

The researchers did find that using the units in a mobile setting — on top of automobiles — means they will currently have an operating life of six months. They also identified a series of potential issues that people will have to deal with when using the Flatburn detectors generally. These include what the research team calls “drift,” the gradual changing of the detector’s readings over time, as well as “aging,” the more fundamental deterioration in a unit’s physical condition.

Still, the researchers believe the units will function well, and they are providing complete instructions in their release of Flatburn as an open-source tool. That even includes guidance for working with officials, communities, and stakeholders to process the results and attempt to shape action.

“It’s very important to engage with communities, to allow them to reflect on sources of pollution,” says Mora.

“The original idea of the project was to democratize environmental data, and that’s still the goal,” Duarte adds. “We want people to have the skills to analyze the data and engage with communities and officials.”

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How do you create a robot that can go places no one has ever seen before – on its own, without real-time human input? A team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that’s creating a snake-like robot for traversing extreme terrain is taking on the challenge with the mentality of a startup: Build quickly, test often, learn, adjust, repeat.

Called EELS (short for Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor), the self-propelled, autonomous robot was inspired by a desire to look for signs of life in the ocean hiding below the icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus by descending narrow vents in the surface that spew geysers into space. Although testing and development continue, designing for such a challenging destination has resulted in a highly adaptable robot. EELS could pick a safe course through a wide variety of terrain on Earth, the Moon, and far beyond, including undulating sand and ice, cliff walls, craters too steep for rovers, underground lava tubes, and labyrinthine spaces within glaciers.

Team members from JPL test a snake robot called EELS at a ski resort in the Southern California mountains in February. Designed to sense its environment, calculate risk, travel, and gather data without real-time human input, EELS could eventually explore destinations throughout the solar system. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

“It has the capability to go to locations where other robots can’t go. Though some robots are better at one particular type of terrain or other, the idea for EELS is the ability to do it all,” said JPL’s Matthew Robinson, EELS project manager. “When you’re going places where you don’t know what you’ll find, you want to send a versatile, risk-aware robot that’s prepared for uncertainty – and can make decisions on its own.”

The project team began building the first prototype in 2019 and has been making continual revisions. Since last year, they’ve been conducting monthly field tests and refining both the hardware and the software that allows EELS to operate autonomously. In its current form, dubbed EELS 1.0, the robot weighs about 220 pounds (100 kilograms) and is 13 feet (4 meters) long. It’s composed of 10 identical segments that rotate, using screw threads for propulsion, traction, and grip. The team has been trying out a variety of screws: white, 8-inch-diameter (20-centimeter-diameter) 3D-printed plastic screws for testing on looser terrain, and narrower, sharper black metal screws for ice.

EELS is tested in the sandy terrain of JPL’s Mars Yard in April. Engineers repeatedly test the snake robot across a variety of terrain, including sand, snow, and ice. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

The robot has been put to the test in sandy, snowy, and icy environments, from the Mars Yard at JPL to a “robot playground” created at a ski resort in the snowy mountains of Southern California, even at a local indoor ice rink.

“We have a different philosophy of robot development than traditional spacecraft, with many quick cycles of testing and correcting,” said Hiro Ono, EELS principal investigator at JPL. “There are dozens of textbooks about how to design a four-wheel vehicle, but there is no textbook about how to design an autonomous snake robot to boldly go where no robot has gone before. We have to write our own. That’s what we’re doing now.”

JPL’s EELS (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor) was conceived of as an autonomous snake robot that would descend narrow vents in the icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus to explore the ocean hidden below. But prototypes of have been put to the test to prepare the robot for a variety of environments. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

How EELS Thinks and Moves

Because of the communications lag time between Earth and deep space, EELS is designed to autonomously sense its environment, calculate risk, travel, and gather data with yet-to-be-determined science instruments. When something goes wrong, the goal is for the robot to recover on its own, without human assistance.

“Imagine a car driving autonomously, but there are no stop signs, no traffic signals, not even any roads. The robot has to figure out what the road is and try to follow it,” said the project’s autonomy lead, Rohan Thakker. “Then it needs to go down a 100-foot drop and not fall.”

Members of JPL’s EELS team lower the robot’s sensor head – which uses lidar and stereo cameras to map its environment – into a vertical shaft called a moulin on Athabasca Glacier in British Columbia in September 2022. The team will return to the location in 2023 and 2024 for additional tests with versions of the full snake robot. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

EELS creates a 3D map of its surroundings using four pairs of stereo cameras and lidar, which is similar to radar but employs short laser pulses instead of radio waves. With the data from those sensors, navigation algorithms figure out the safest path forward.

The goal has been to create library of “gaits,” or ways the robot can move in response to terrain challenges, from sidewinding to curling in on itself, a move the team calls “banana.”

In its final form, the robot will contain 48 actuators – essentially little motors – that give it the flexibility to assume multiple configurations but add complexity for both the hardware and software teams. Thakker compares the actuators to “48 steering wheels.”

Many of them have built-in force-torque sensing, working like a kind of skin so EELS can feel how much force it’s exerting on terrain. That helps it to move vertically in narrow chutes with uneven surfaces, configuring itself to push against opposing walls at the same time like a rock climber.

The screws that propel EELS while providing traction and grip are lined up in a lab at JPL. At left is the black aluminum screw for testing on ice. The remaining 3D-printed plastic screws – with varying lengths, lead angles, thread heights, and edge sharpness – have been tested on looser snow and sand. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

Last year, the EELS team got to experience those kinds of challenging spaces when they lowered the robot’s perception head – the segment with the cameras and lidar – into a vertical shaft called a moulin at Athabasca Glacier in the Canadian Rockies. In September, they’re returning to the location, which is in many ways an analog for icy moons in our solar system, with a version of the robot designed to test subsurface mobility. The team will drop a small sensor suite – to monitor glacier chemical and physical properties – that EELS will eventually be able to deploy to remote sites.

“Our focus so far has been on autonomous capability and mobility, but eventually we’ll look at what science instruments we can integrate with EELS,” Robinson said. “Scientists tell us where they want to go, what they’re most excited about, and we’ll provide a robot that will get them there. How? Like a startup, we just have to build it.”

The EELS system is a mobile instrument platform conceived to explore internal terrain structures, assess habitability and ultimately search for evidence of life. It is designed to be adaptable to traverse ocean-world-inspired terrain, fluidized media, enclosed labyrinthian environments, and liquids. Credit: NASA/JPL-CalTech

More About the Project

EELS is funded by the Office of Technology Infusion and Strategy at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California through a technology accelerator program called JPL Next. JPL is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California. The EELS team has worked with a number of university partners on the project, including Arizona State University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of California, San Diego. The robot is not currently part of any NASA mission.

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