Follow us:

Frequently asked questions about the new version of solidot website, please click here see.

science and technology : AI revolution may have lost momentum

artificial intelligence
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 00:03 Sunday, June 2, 2024
From strength
The AI revolution seems to be in the ascendant, but some people think that it is in decline, for the following reasons: the speed of improvement is slowing down; The application scope is smaller than expected; Construction and operation costs are too expensive. The data available for training big models is also decreasing. We only have one Internet, and it is difficult for AI companies to find new training data sources. AI such as ChatGPT has made rapid progress in the early stage, but little progress has been made in the past 14 months. In 2023, the technology industry purchased $50 billion of chip training AI from Nvidia, but only brought $3 billion in revenue. This input-output ratio is difficult to maintain for a long time. Generative AI may lose more than it gains even if it adds ads, and the cost of each search answer may be higher than the cost of advertising. Both Google and Microsoft face this problem. Generated AI is overvalued as a commodity.

science : Japanese Billionaire Cancels Private Tour Around the Moon

Moon
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 23:23 Saturday, June 1, 2024
From Frankenstein
Japanese billionaire Yoshihiro Maezawa canceled his first private trip around the moon. In September 2018, Yozuo Maezawa and Elon Musk jointly announced the first commercial moon orbiting mission of heavy rocket Starship at SpaceX rocket factory. The project is expected to be launched at the end of 2023, but due to the sharp decline in priority, the launch date of dearMoon may be postponed to the 2030's, so Maezawa decided to cancel directly rather than continue to wait. The development of Starship is lagging behind. It will not launch for the first time until April 2023. To execute the dearMoon mission, it must first complete a series of security tests. NASA will choose Starship as the lander of Artemis moon landing project in 2021. SpaceX currently has two priority tasks for the Starship rocket: putting Starlink satellite into operation and launching, and NASA's Artemis related technology development. At the same time, the personal assets of Yozuo Maezawa have also shrunk significantly, and his attention on the X/Twitter platform of Musk was also cancelled by the latter this year. The two sides finally decided to break up.

Hackers stole more than $300 million worth of Bitcoin from the Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange

Bitcoin
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 22:24 Saturday, June 1, 2024
From the seventh sense of super power · collision
The Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DMM Bitcoin confirmed on Friday that hackers stole 4502.9 bitcoins from their wallets, worth $305 million. It is the eighth largest cryptocurrency theft in history in terms of currency value. DMM Bitcoin said that it had taken measures to prevent further loss of Bitcoin after detecting that Bitcoin was transferred from its wallet without authorization. It restricts some services to ensure security. DMM Bitcoin said that the customer's Bitcoin deposit will be fully guaranteed, and it will use the company's funds to purchase the same amount of Bitcoin.

science : "Intelligent" antibiotics can selectively kill deadly drug-resistant bacteria

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 00:26 Saturday, June 1, 2024
From Padido Street Station
Pathogens known as gram-negative bacteria can quickly develop resistance to antibiotics. Although a few existing therapeutic drugs can kill them, they can also destroy beneficial intestinal bacteria. According to a study published in the journal Nature, scientists have developed an antibiotic that can selectively kill gram-negative bacteria without destroying the intestinal microbiota. Researchers have targeted compounds known to inhibit the Lol system, which is a unique group of proteins of gram-negative bacteria. Such compounds can inhibit proteins but cannot kill bacteria. Researchers adjusted the compound to produce a new compound called lolamicin, which selectively kills pathogenic bacteria without harming non pathogenic bacteria according to the difference of Lol protein between bacteria. Laboratory mouse studies have verified its effectiveness, and the results also show that loramicin does not significantly change the intestinal microbiota.

Linux : Kdenlive 24.05.0 release

KDE
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Friday, May 31, 2024 at 23:42
From different star battlefield
The nonlinear video editor project Kdenlive announced the release of the latest 24.05.0. The features of the new version include: adding Group Effects to a group of video clips, rendering videos with multiple picture scales, and automatically translating subtitles using SeamlessM4T; Enhanced stability, significantly improved performance, etc.

science and technology : One big model may solve the energy demand problem of AI

artificial intelligence
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Friday, May 31, 2024 at 23:29
From me is legend
Large models are becoming more and more powerful, but the demand for computing and power is also growing. If large models are to become cheap, fast and environmentally friendly, they need to be significantly scaled down so that they can run locally on devices similar to mobile phones. Researchers are committed to finding ways to achieve this goal. Similar to all neural networks, the large model is trained by modifying the connection strength between artificial neurons, which is stored in the form of mathematical parameters. By reducing the accuracy of parameters, researchers can compress the network. This process is called quantization. The number of bits of parameters can be reduced from 16 bits to 8 or 4 bits. Researchers are working to push it to the limit - storing parameters with 1-bit accuracy. There are two general methods for compressing networks, one is quantization after training (PTQ), and the other is quantitative perceptual training (QAT). Researchers prefer the former. Che Wanxiang of Harbin Institute of Technology said that the advantage of PTQ over QAT is that it does not need to collect training data, does not need to re train, and the training process is more stable. The advantage of QAT is that the model may be more accurate, because quantification is built into the model from the beginning. Last year, the research team of Microsoft Asia Research Institute created the first 1-bit PTQ large model BBitNet 1.58b. Each parameter accounts for about 1.5 bits of memory. BitNet with 3 billion parameters performs as well in various language tasks as the full precision LLaMA model with the same parameter scale, but the speed is 2.71 times, the GPU memory used is 72% less, and the GPU energy consumption is 94% lower.

science and technology : The survey shows that AI products such as ChatGPT are not commonly used by the public

artificial intelligence
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 22:41 Friday, May 31, 2024
Children from the sky
Researchers from Reuters Research Institute and Oxford University surveyed 12000 people in Argentina, Denmark, France, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. They found that the general public did not use popular AI products such as ChatGPT, with the exception of young people aged 18-24. The research aims to measure the general public's views on generative AI, which has been extremely popular in the past two years. The results show that most people predict that generative AI will have a significant impact on society in the next five years, and the news, media and science fields will be most affected; Most people believe that generative AI will improve their lives; Most people are pessimistic about the impact of generative AI on society. Although most people have heard of generative AI, 20% - 30% of them know nothing about it; ChatGPT is the most widely used generative AI product, 2-3 times higher than Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot; 56% of people aged 18-24 have used ChatGPT at least once, and 16% of people aged 55 and above have used ChatGPT at least once; Most people use generative AI to obtain information and create media such as text, images, audio and video, and 5% use it to obtain the latest information.

Software : Google Chrome begins to eliminate Manifest V2 extension

Chrome
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Friday, May 31, 2024 at 17:24
From empty color Gouyu
The official Google Chrome blog announced that the Manifest V2 extension will be phased out: from June 3, 2024, in Chrome Dev, Canary and Beta channels, if users still have the Manifest V2 extension installed, users will visit the extension management page chrome://extensions A warning message will be displayed to inform them that the Manifest V2 extension will not be supported soon. The Manifest V2 extension will be gradually disabled in the next few months, and users will be directed to the Chrome Web Store to recommend the Manifest V3 alternative extension. Manifest V2 extensions that are disabled for a short time can be re enabled, but will be completely disabled in the future. For the disputed Manifest V3 extension system, Google claims that more than 85% of the active support extensions in the Chrome Web Store have been migrated to Manifest V3. The controversial point of Manifest V3 is that it limits the function of WebRequest API and replaces WebRequest with declarativeNetRequest. Ad screening extensions such as uBlock Origin will be affected because they use WebRequest blocks the request before downloading the advertisement. Disabling Manifest V2 extension means that uBlock Origin will be disabled. The developer has released a compact version of uBO Lite using Manifest V3, which is weaker than the original. The original version can only be used on Firefox and other browsers in the future.

Research says the days of extreme high temperature in China are increasing

the Great Wall
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Friday, May 31, 2024 at 16:57
Apocalypse from the Dynasty
According to a study published in Science in China: Earth Sciences, under the background of global warming, the days of extreme high temperature exceeding 35 ℃ and 40 ℃ increase nonlinearly, the start time of high temperature is advanced, the end time is postponed, the high temperature season is extended, and the influence scope is expanded. With the increase of global temperature rise, the influence range of high temperature is expanded, and the high temperature center is located in the east and northwest of China. In the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, when the global temperature rises by 1.5 ℃, the number of high temperature days above 40 ℃ will increase by about 0.5 day on average, but it will increase by 2-4 days at the level of 2 ℃, and even up to 6-8 days at the level of 3 ℃, which means that extreme high temperatures above 40 ℃, which were rare in the past, may become a common phenomenon in the future with global warming. When the global temperature rises by 5 ℃, extreme high temperature may occur in some regions of China most of the time.

science : The ancient Egyptians removed brain tumors by surgery 4000 years ago

Medical Science
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Friday, May 31, 2024 at 16:47
From Breaking Dawn
For a long time, cancer has been regarded as a disease in modern life. The latest archaeological discoveries and medical research reveal that ancient Egyptian doctors may have tried to cure cancer through surgery more than 4000 years ago. This discovery not only rewrote our understanding of ancient medicine, but also added a new chapter to the history of cancer treatment. The latest research focuses on an ancient skull preserved in the University of Cambridge, UK, Duckworth Laboratory. This skull belongs to a 30-35 year old man, whose surface scars and tumor scars provide clues. Through digital microscopy and computerized tomography (CT) of the skull, researchers found cutting marks around the tumor. These marks indicate that ancient Egyptian doctors may have used sharp metal tools to remove tumors. In addition to the first skull, scientists also found cancer lesions in the second skull collected by Duckworth. This skull belongs to an adult female at least 50 years old, and its age can be traced back to 664 BC to 343 BC.

science : Weber telescope discovered the most distant galaxy known

NASA
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Friday, May 31, 2024 at 16:31
From White Rose
Weber Space Telescope has found a galaxy with a redshift of more than 14, which is the most distant galaxy known. The galaxy known as JADES-GS-z14-0 has a redshift of z=14.32, which is far higher than the previous record holder, JADES-GS-z13-0 with a redshift of z=13.2. Its age is less than 300 million years away from the Big Bang. The galaxy is more than 1400 light-years in diameter, and its light mainly comes from young stars rather than supermassive black holes. Spectral analysis revealed the presence of hydrogen and oxygen, which means that the galaxy had experienced generations of massive stars before it was observed.

book : Amazon informed customers that the Kindle China e-bookstore will be completely closed in a month

book
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 15:10 Friday, May 31, 2024
From catching fallen leaves
Amazon informed its Chinese customers that the Kindle China e-book store will be completely closed on June 30, and e-books that have not been downloaded since then will be unable to download and read. Amazon announced two years in advance in 2022 that it would stop the operation of the Kindle e-book store in China from June 30, 2023, and stop the cloud download service on June 30, 2024. After that, the e-books purchased by Kindle Chinese users will not be downloaded. To read the e-books purchased and downloaded, users need to ensure that their accounts are logged in. Amazon has closed its e-commerce business in China. It said that its cross-border e-commerce business, including Amazon overseas shopping, Amazon global store opening, Amazon advertising, Amazon global logistics, Amazon cloud technology and Amazon intelligent hardware and services, will continue to operate in China.

Recommended algorithm for separating dithering and TikTok by byte hopping

business
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Friday, May 31, 2024 at 14:51
From the interstellar homecoming
Byte beating was reported to prefer to close rather than sell TikTok, but according to the latest news from Reuters, it has been preparing to split dithering and TikTok. It is reported that since last year, byte hopping has maintained a TikTok recommended algorithm version independent of dithering operation. People familiar with the matter said that it may take more than a year to completely split the recommendation algorithm between the two, which is intended to show U.S. lawmakers that their U.S. business is independent of China. The insiders said that splitting the source code would cut off the "large-scale engineering development capability" of TikTok and byte hopping. As for the Reuters report, TikTok issued a statement saying that it was misleading and inaccurate in fact.

science : Japan promotes open access to all publicly funded research

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 14:28 Friday, May 31, 2024
From Doctor Mystery: silhouette
The Japanese government is promoting open access to all publicly funded research papers. This month, the Ministry of Science of Japan began to allocate funds to universities to build the necessary infrastructure for free reading of research papers nationwide. From January 2025, all researchers receiving government funding must publish their papers free of charge. This move aims to strengthen the long-term traceability of research information, promote secondary research and promote cooperation. Japan is one of the first Asian countries to make significant progress in open access, and also one of the first countries in the world to formulate a national open access plan. The United States announced open access regulations in 2022, and all taxpayer funded research must be open access by 2026. Japan has launched its own preprint service Jxiv, but so far there are few preprints of papers. Kazuki Ide, a Japanese scholar, said that the reason is that most researchers have not yet had the habit of publishing preprints, and many people do not know the existence of Jxiv.

security : Mysterious malware destroyed 600000 routers of an ISP

security
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Thursday, May 30, 2024, at 23:58
The hero from Tarzan the ape returns
On October 25 last year, broadband users of American ISP Windstream reported that their routers had not responded to bricking, restarting or resetting operations. After confirming that the router cannot be used, Windstream sends a new router to the customer. Black Lotus Labs, the security team of Lumen Technologies, a security company, named the event Pumpkin Eclipse. Security researchers said that malicious programs destroyed at least 600000 routers within 72 hours from October 25. The attacker used a commercial malicious program called Chalubo, which has a function that allows the execution of custom Lua scripts on infected devices. Researchers believe that malicious programs download and run code that permanently overwrites the router's firmware. The researchers said that they did not rule out that the attacker had a national background, but there was no evidence at present. As the number of equipment to be replaced is up to 600000, the scale of the attack is unprecedented. Another unique feature of this event is that it is only for a single ISP or autonomous system.

Hardware : Data center power consumption in the United States will account for 9% of total power generation by 2030

Power Supply
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 23:39
From Kepler 626: Secret
The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that according to the current growth trend, data center power consumption will account for 9% of the total power generation in the United States by 2030. Generative AI has driven technology companies to significantly expand their data centers, and the computing and cooling systems of the data centers need a lot of power. Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, data center is one of the fastest growing businesses in the world. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that before 2030, the annual growth rate of power consumption in the data center will be 3.7% - 15%, and by 2030, the power consumption is expected to account for 9% of the total power generation. The research institute said that the electricity consumption of ChatGPT's early query is 10 times that of Google search, and more electricity may be needed to generate music, images and videos.

Hardware : Saudi Arabia is vigorously developing renewable energy such as solar energy

Power Supply
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 22:47
From full launch
The world's largest oil exporter is stepping up its efforts to develop solar and wind energy, in part to ensure its leadership in the rapidly changing energy industry. Sudair, a recently completed solar project, installed more than 3.3 million solar panels in a 14 square mile desert, which can provide power for 185000 households. Saudi Arabia's ambitious goal is to increase the output of renewable energy such as solar energy and wind energy to about 50% by 2030. Analysts believe that this goal is unlikely to be achieved. At present, renewable energy is insignificant in Saudi Arabia's power production. But its investment in solar energy is the largest outside China. It not only has sufficient funds, but also does not have the lengthy procedures required by similar projects in the West. Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant of Saudi Arabia, has entered the field of solar energy. It invested 920 million dollars to buy 30% of the shares of Sudair project.

science and technology : Mistra publishes code generation model Codestral

artificial intelligence
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 18:42
From real and fake Taishan Mountain
Mistra, a French AI startup, released its code generation AI model Codestral. Codestral uses data set training in more than 80 languages, including popular languages such as Python, Java, C, C++, JavaScript and Bash. Codestral has 22 billion parameters, and the context length is 32K. It can complete code functions, write tests and complete code, and answer code base questions in English. Mistra said that Codestral is an open weight model, and the code can be downloaded on the Hugging Face, using a non-commercial license. The license certificate does not allow the use in business activities, which may be due to the use of code training authorized by different licenses.

science and technology : AI earphones allow the wearer to listen to the voice of a specific person in the crowd by taking a look

artificial intelligence
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 17:25
From Wool Wars
The University of Washington team has developed an AI system that allows users with headphones to "lock" the speaker by staring at him for three to five seconds. The system called "Target Speech Healing" will then eliminate all other sounds in the environment and only transmit the marked speaker's voice in real time, even if the user moves around in a noisy place and no longer faces the speaker. The system can be used on existing earphones. The proof of concept code is released on GitHub, using a non-commercial use license. The system itself has not yet been released. The system uses machine learning software to learn the voice mode of the selected speaker, and then locks the speaker's voice.

science : How does the brain distinguish between music and language

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 15:53
From Ika Tenge
According to a study published in the journal PLOS Biology, the brain simply distinguishes the sound of music and language through acoustic features. Researchers say that music and language are different in many aspects, such as tone, timbre and sound texture. They use Hertz (Hz) to represent the rhythm or change period of sound. The change of volume or loudness of a song over time (AM) is relatively stable between 1Hz and 2Hz. In contrast, the amplitude modulation of a language is usually 4Hz - 5Hz, which means that its volume often changes. The research team conducted four experiments, allowing more than 300 participants to listen to a series of synthetic music and language audio, which have different amplitude modulation and laws. The results show that the human auditory system uses very simple and basic acoustic parameters to distinguish between music and language: for participants, audio with slower speed (less than 2Hz) and more regular amplitude modulation sounds more like music; The audio with faster speed (4Hz) and more irregular amplitude modulation sounds more like language.

Yesterday's article