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Comment It's a "Badge" . . . (Score 2) 55

. . . "rumored to be a takeover target by Apple!"

A name-dropping salesman once tossed out while chatting with me that Apple was "interested" in them.

He wore it like a Badge of Pride:

"Approached by Apple, decided to stay independent . . . for the moment."

. . . um, . . . OK . . . like, yeah.

Submission + - Researcher Discovers That Stable Diffusion Can Compress Images (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Last week, Swiss software engineer Matthias Bühlmann discovered that the popular image synthesis model Stable Diffusion could compress existing bitmapped images with fewer visual artifacts than JPEG or WebP at high compression ratios, though there are significant caveats. Stable Diffusion is an AI image synthesis model that typically generates images based on text descriptions (called "prompts"). The AI model learned this ability by studying millions of images pulled from the Internet. During the training process, the model makes statistical associations between images and related words, making a much smaller representation of key information about each image and storing them as "weights," which are mathematical values that represent what the AI image model knows, so to speak.

When Stable Diffusion analyzes and "compresses" images into weight form, they reside in what researchers call "latent space," which is a way of saying that they exist as a sort of fuzzy potential that can be realized into images once they're decoded. With Stable Diffusion 1.4, the weights file is roughly 4GB, but it represents knowledge about hundreds of millions of images. While most people use Stable Diffusion with text prompts, Buhlmann cut out the text encoder and instead forced his images through Stable Diffusion's image encoder process, which takes a low-precision 512x512 image and turns it into a higher-precision 64x64 latent space representation. At this point, the image exists at a much smaller data size than the original, but it can still be expanded (decoded) back into a 512x512 image with fairly good results.

While running tests, Bühlmann found that images compressed with Stable Diffusion looked subjectively better at higher compression ratios (smaller file size) than JPEG or WebP. In one example, he shows a photo of a candy shop that is compressed down to 5.68KB using JPEG, 5.71KB using WebP, and 4.98KB using Stable Diffusion. The Stable Diffusion image appears to have more resolved details and fewer obvious compression artifacts than those compressed in the other formats. Buhlmann's method currently comes with significant limitations, however: It's not good with faces or text, and in some cases, it can actually hallucinate detailed features in the decoded image that were not present in the source image. (You probably don't want your image compressor inventing details in an image that don't exist.) Also, decoding requires the 4GB Stable Diffusion weights file and extra decoding time.

Submission + - Tim Cook: 'No good excuse' for lack of women in tech (bbc.com) 4

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Apple chief executive Tim Cook says there are still "not enough women at the table" at the world's tech firms — including his own. He said there were "no good excuses" for the lack of women in the sector. Apple has just launched its founders' development programme for female founders and app creators in the UK.

"I think the the essence of technology and its effect on humanity depends upon women being at the table," Mr Cook says. "Technology's a great thing that will accomplish many things, but unless you have diverse views at the table that are working on it, you don't wind up with great solutions." Apple had 35% female staff in the US in 2021, according to its own diversity figures. It launched its original Apple Health Kit in 2014 without a period tracker — which led to accusations that this was an oversight due to male bias among its developers.

One challenge facing the sector is the lack of girls choosing to pursue science, tech, engineering and maths subjects at school. "Businesses can't cop out and say 'there's not enough women taking computer science — therefore I can't hire enough'," says Mr Cook. "We have to fundamentally change the number of people that are taking computer science and programming." His view is that everybody should be required to take some sort of coding course by the time they finish school, in order to have a "working knowledge" of how coding works and how apps are created.

Submission + - Putin Grants Snowden Russian Citizenship (ria.ru)

Submitted by nunya_bizns
nunya_bizns writes: "Putin signs decree granting Snowden Russian citizenship," according to state-run RIA Novosti. "In accordance with paragraph 'a' of Article 89 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, I decide: to accept the following persons in the citizenship of the Russian Federation: Edward Joseph Snowden, born June 21, 1983, in the United States of America."

Submission + - Innovative Tracking Technique May Have Located Malaysia Airlines MH370 (mh370search.com)

Submitted by GFS666
GFS666 writes: WSPR (pronounced "whisper") is a computer based protocol used for weak signal radio communications between dedicated amateur radio ground stations. It is used for sending and receiving low-power transmissions to test propagation paths on the Medium Frequency (300 kHz to 3 MHz) and High Frequency (3 to 30 MHz) radio bands. The transmitting station transmits the station's callsign, location and transmitter power in dBM every 2 minutes with the receiving station noting the signals strength and received frequency. Crucially, WSPR Stations with internet access can automatically upload their reception reports to a central database called WSPRnet with the data collected, from over 2600 stations, available to the general public.

In 2021 Dr. Robert Westphal presented a paper that described how WSPR data could be used as electronic "trip lines" to detect the path of MH370. Aerospace Engineer Richard Godfrey, who has published a webpage on the search for MH370 since 2020, worked with Dr. Hannes Coetzee to utilize the techniques outlined by Dr. Westphal to track MH370. This ultimately lead to the publication in March 2022 of a technical paper claiming that by Using the WSPRnet radio data they had obtained 186 new data points for the flight path of MH370. Using the extra tracking data points and combining this information with previously known Inmarsat satellite data, performance/speed characteristics of the Boeing 777, and drift analysis of recovered MH370 floating debris, Godfrey and Coetzee claim to have pinpointed the likely MH370 crash area and reduced the search area for the aircraft from a 120,000 km2 area to an easily searchable 300 km2 area.

Submission + - California First State To Ban Natural Gas Heaters and Furnaces (thehill.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new proposal passed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) cements the state as the first to ban natural gas heaters and furnaces. The decision, which was passed unanimously, aims to phase out sales of the space heater and water heater appliances by 2030. The commitment is part of a broader range of environmental efforts passed by the board this week to meet the federal 70 parts per billion, 8-hour ozone standard over the next 15 years.

Residential and commercial buildings in California account for approximately five percent of the state’s total nitrogen oxide emissions due to natural gas combustion, according to the originally proposed plan (PDF), released in August 2022. In addition, space and water heating make up nearly 90 percent of all building-related natural gas demand. When burned, natural gas does emit less carbon dioxide than oil or coal. However, natural gas leaks pose health risks to homeowners, as they contain varying levels of volatile chemicals linked with cancer.
The new regulations will rely on adoption of heat pump technologies, which are being sold to electrify new and existing homes. Although the proposal does not include gas stoves, several cities and towns in the state currently ban or discourage use of gas stoves in new buildings. California’s Public Utilities Commission also eliminated subsidies for new natural gas hookups last week, marking the first state to do so. The move will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower utility bills for consumers.

Submission + - Linux Distro For Apple Silicon Macs Is Already Up and Running On M2 Chip (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Unlike Intel Macs, Apple silicon Macs were designed to run only Apple's software. But the developers on the Asahi Linux team have been working to change that, painstakingly reverse-engineering support for Apple's processors and other Mac hardware and releasing it as a work-in-progress distro that can actually boot up and run on bare metal, no virtualization required. The Asahi Linux team put out a new release today with plenty of additions and improvements. Most notably, the distro now supports the M1 Ultra and the Mac Studio and has added preliminary support for the M2 MacBook Pro (which has been tested firsthand by the team) and the M2 MacBook Air (which hasn't been tested but ought to work). Preliminary Bluetooth support for all Apple silicon Macs has also been added, though the team notes that it works poorly when connected to a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network because "Wi-Fi/Bluetooth coexistence isn't properly configured yet."

There are still many other things that aren't working properly, including the USB-A ports on the Studio, faster-than-USB-2.0 speeds from any Type-C/Thunderbolt ports, and GPU acceleration, but progress is being made on all of those fronts. GPU work in particular is coming along, with a "prototype driver" that is "good enough to run real graphics applications and benchmarks" already up and running, though it's not included in this release. The Asahi team has said in the past that it expects support for new chips to be relatively easy to add to Asahi since Apple's chip designers frequently reuse things and don't make extensive hardware changes unless there's a good reason for it. Adding basic support for the M2 to Asahi happened over the course of a single 12-hour development session, and just "a few days" of additional effort were needed to get the rest of the hardware working as well as it does with M1-based Macs.

Submission + - SPAM: Buyout Begone: Ford Says You Can Never Own Leased EVs 2

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The change, made earlier in the month, cruised under our radar until a reader asked for our take over the weekend. Ford could be wanting to capitalize on exceptionally high used vehicle prices, ensuring that more vehicles make it back into rotation. The broader industry has likewise been talking about abandoning traditional ownership to transition the auto market into being more service-oriented where manufacturers ultimately retain ownership of all relevant assets. But it may not be that simple as this being another step in the business sector’s larger plan to maximize profitability by discouraging private vehicle ownership.

Truth be told, EVs don’t typically hold their resale value all that well. While there are certainly exceptions to that rule (e.g. Tesla products), it has remained true even after fuel prices hit new records. One explanation could be the fact that battery-powered vehicles tend to become obsolete rather quickly — kind of like a laptop or cellular phone — due to the relative infancy of the technology and subsequent development efforts. Benefits aside, there are also lingering questions about battery lifespans, the costs associated with replacing one, and how long it will be before something better can be obtained.

While leasing customers will not be able to buy their EV, Ford Credit will allow them to renew an expiring contract in exchange for a brand-new model. Amazingly, the manufacturer is trying to frame this as environmentally responsible. But it smells like planned obsolescence and desperation from where I'm sitting. Ford knows that electrics require far less labor to produce. By also retaining/recycling the most-expensive component (the battery) it can effectively maximize profitability on a three or four-year turnaround.

For now, the updated leasing scheme is limited exclusively to all-electric products (e.g. Ford Lightning or Mach-E "Mustang") sold in 37 individual states. But the long wait times for new EVs and Ford's desire to expand the plan through the rest of the year effectively means it'll be national by the time most people take ownership.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Roe v. Wade reversal spurs Democrats' call for data privacy protections (thehill.com)

Submitted by codlong
codlong writes: Will the recent Roe v. Wade decision have a positive effect on hardening data privacy protections?

As Democrats weigh responses to the 6-3 court decision that will trigger abortion bans in 13 states, and likely lead to severe restrictions in others, supporters of key data privacy proposals said it is urgent to ensure Americans’ location, search and call data isn’t used to target people seeking abortion care.

Submission + - 'Buy Now, Pay Later' Becomes a New Way to Pay for Guns (nytimes.com)

Submitted by echo123
echo123 writes: Credova, a little-known fintech company, is leading the way in offering installment plans to buyers of guns and hunting supplies.

A few years ago, as American consumers were being wooed with “buy now, pay later” loans that let them pay for online purchases — from makeup to Peloton bikes — in small increments, one start-up had an idea: Why not adapt the model to sell outdoor recreation gear, including guns?

Thus, Credova was born.

Founded in 2018, the Bozeman, Mont., company positioned itself as a provider of easy online payment plans to customers of hunting, fishing and camping supplies. But Credova also saw an opportunity to focus on the gun industry, because most of the big “buy now, pay later” companies don’t finance purchases of weapons. Credova has since worked with dozens of online gun merchants to offer customers financing options that make buying guns — which generally cost anywhere from $200 to $900 — more affordable.

More recently, Credova drew attention because it offers financing plans to customers of Daniel Defense, the manufacturer of the gun used by the Uvalde, Texas, school attacker. Credova told Bloomberg that it did not finance the gunman’s purchase of firearms. Investigators said he had bought the guns with a bank debit card.

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