Oregon Ranks 24 by size of economy
Visual Economist provides this neat breakdown of the US economy by state
Getting more from Confession
Those ‘Warranty void if removed’ stickers are illegal
Now the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sent warning letters to eight companies about their warranty practices, including ASRock, Gigabyte and Zotac, voicing concerns that stickers used by these manufacturers violate the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (via The Verge)
The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act was brought into effect in 1975 and was created to prevent manufacturers from using disclaimers on warranties in an unfair or misleading manner.
The FTC deems this sort of wording—alongside the warning stickers attached to multiple companies’ products—as hindering the consumer’s ability to perform routine maintenance and repairs. The US government agency has urged each company in its letter to review promotional and warranty materials to ensure that they do not “state or imply that warranty coverage is conditioned on the use of specific parts or services.”
Here’s the bottom line according to the iFixit article. Under US law, these are the actions that do not void your warranty:
- Modifications or improvements (like painting the case of a device or upgrading its software), as long as those improvements don’t damage the product
- Performing an upgrade that requires opening the device (like adding more RAM, or a bigger hard drive), as long as you don’t damage the product while opening it
- Repairs to fix accidental damage (like a broken screen), so long as the repair doesn’t damage other components
- Casual disassembly and tinkering for curiosity’s sake, as long as you don’t break anything in the device
Articles:
Fighting bots all the way down
It’s not hard to find faceless YouTube channels that have automated voices talking on particular subjects with just a few pictures or clips. These faceless channels are an attempt to very quickly use AI to generate videos – and money for their owners.
They often do this by stealing embedded transcript files from good YouTubers that generate content, run them through AI summarizers, and generate their own instant knock-offs. One YouTuber, F4mi, is trying to fight back.
By using some of the features in the .ass captioning format, she embeds her closed caption transcripts with junk data that is invisible to humans but poisonous to any AI that reads them.
It’s another example of people trying to poison the AI well.
Articles
$10,000 AI designed CPU cooler
A team consisting of Skatterbencher who’s renowned for overclocking prowess; Diabatix, specializing in generative AI for thermal solutions; 3D Systems for additive manufacturing; and finally ElmorLabs for overclocking gear put together a unique cooler.
The team took ElmorLabs’ existing Volcano LN2 container as a reference point, then used Diabatix’s ColdStream Next AI to generate an improved design. 3D Systems then 3D printed a prototype using oxygen-free copper powder. The cutting-edge process commanded a steep $10,000 price tag – a far cry from the $260 cost of the original Volcano.
The design did do better than the stock Volcano. Using 500mL of LN2, it hit -133°C, while the Volcano stopped short at -100°C
Links:
McDonalds ended AI drive through tests
The fast-food giant ended a test run of its AI drive-thru technology partnership with IBM in more than 100 restaurants. The so-called Automated Order Taker will be shut off no later than July 26, 2024.
The global AI partnership began in 2021. The combination of technologies from the two companies aimed to simplify and speed up operations with voice-activated ordering.
Two sources familiar with the technology told CNBC that among its challenges, it had issues interpreting different accents and dialects, which affected order accuracy.
Article:
Regular display as holographic projector
Researchers have created holograms using the light emitted from an ordinary smartphone screen.
In the study, the cascade began with a static color image shown on an iPhone. Light waves emitted from it were refined through the SLM — a device used to control and adjust the phase (timing), amplitude (strength or brightness) and polarization (direction) of light waves. Using the SLM, scientists progressively refined and layered the light waves to build up the 3D image step-by-step.
To achieve the holographic effect, the scientists had to determine the specific adjustments of light needed to create the 3D hologram from the image displayed on the iPhone’s screen.
This involved working backwards from the desired output to determine the specific adjustments needed in the light’s phase and amplitude at each step of the journey, from the iPhone display through the SLM, to recreate the hologram accurately.
They detailed their findings in a study published April 2 in the journal Optics Letters.
Articles:
Ohio and the Intel Fabs
Nice to see investment partners asking hard questions and stating their expectations clearly. I can only hope Intel can pull this through:
“I am not a financial analyst, but I think it’s a sign your company is in trouble when the stock market reacts positively to reports of a $126 million loss and a third straight quarter of declining revenue,” CCU Coalition Director Judith Barish said. “Our message is the same: The federal government and the state of Ohio have committed billions to the company, despite its well-publicized financial woes. We expect Intel to live up to the commitments it made to taxpayers for those subsidies.”
Articles:
Game Studio pain will go into 2025
One CEO of a public company told us: “If 2023 was the year of layoffs, 2024 will be the year of closures. Not just developers, but publishers, media, service companies… There are just too many unprofitable businesses in video games. We’re looking at up to two years of pain.”
This article was written Jan 22, 2024 – and was spot on. 2024 was a bloodbath of studio layoffs and closures. While it slowed towards the end of 2024, studio closures and cancelations have been steady.
The VC commenters were also spot on:
- “Too many games were green lit in 2020 and 2021,” one publisher boss said. “We need to get to pre-pandemic levels in terms of the release schedule, and that’s probably going to take two years. You can already see publishers signing fewer games. That’s happening everywhere. The stores are saturated, not just Steam, and the games just aren’t delivering the levels they were. “
- Another said: “The expansion and investment over COVID has left engagement-based businesses, not just video games, spread too thin. We’re doing too many things that aren’t delivering.”
- The VC added: “Competition isn’t the biggest factor [in this current situation], but it is a challenge, especially when you consider how much disposable income people have at the moment. It’s also not just the number of new games you’re competing with, but all the old games and live service games that are there and doing huge numbers.”
The solution?
“Focus isn’t exciting, but getting back to basics, back to those foundations, and building back up is needed” The other observation is that they needed to return to pre-covid era levels of development to stay afloat.
Articles:
Global Foundries lead to become next Intel CEO?
I have no info beyond what is public knowledge, but I found this to be an interesting speculative analysis of stock and investment behaviors. Like always, follow the money.