Month: September 2021

Despite their name, neural networks are only distantly related to the sorts of things you'd find in a brain. While their organization and the way they transfer data through layers of processing may share some rough similarities to networks of actual neurons, the data and the computations performed on it would look very familiar to a standard CPU.

But neural networks aren't the only way that people have tried to take lessons from the nervous system. There's a separate discipline called neuromorphic computing that's based on approximating the behavior of individual neurons in hardware. In neuromorphic hardware, calculations are performed by lots of small units that communicate with each other through bursts of activity called spikes and adjust their behavior based on the spikes they receive from others.

On Thursday, Intel released the newest iteration of its neuromorphic hardware, called Loihi. The new release comes with the sorts of things you'd expect from Intel: a better processor and some basic computational enhancements. But it also comes with some fundamental hardware changes that will allow it to run entirely new classes of algorithms. And while Loihi remains a research-focused product for now, Intel is also releasing a compiler that it hopes will drive wider adoption.

A new teardown of Apple's latest iPad mini by iFixit found a clue that may explain the "jelly scrolling" effect that some of the tablet's users have complained about.

In case you missed our past coverage on the subject, some iPad mini users noticed a subtle, stagger-like disconnect between the right and left sides of the screen when scrolling through content. Some people see it right away, others have to have it pointed out to them, and others still don't notice even when told.

After we wrote about it, Apple commented on the story to us saying that the effect is expected. From our coverage:

Enlarge / Jon Stewart is back to TV to set some things on fire. (credit: Apple TV+ / Busboy)

In Jon Stewart's first-ever conversation with an Apple TV+ studio audience, he offers a curious send-off—in fact, it argues against the point of his new multi-million dollar hosting deal. "You're probably just going to look at aggregated clips of" this first episode of The Problem With Jon Stewart, he says, instead of subscribing to Apple TV+. It's a bit meandering, followed by a joke about pirating episodes of Ted Lasso.

If anybody can show up to a new streaming service and make a joke at the expense of subscriptions, it's probably Stewart. Online video sharing—and we're talking the renegade kind, uploaded by fans and shared freely—greatly contributed to The Daily Show's massive cultural footprint before Stewart left that show behind in 2015. And as you may have noticed, the TV landscape has dramatically changed since then. These days, every major player is throwing stuff at the video-streaming wall to see what sticks (or, in Quibi's case last year, what absolutely doesn't).

So after six years off the "fake news" desk, what path does Stewart and Apple's new production take? His aforementioned joke may suggest a series that's meant to be shared and remixed in small clips, but The Problem arrives with a different modus operandi: empathy, not sound bites, and patience, not pulverization. You can arguably pluck out some zingers tailor made for quick swipes on a service like TikTok, but Stewart seems more invested in relishing the full 44 minutes of each episode. As a result, this fake-news innovator spends the runtime of his new series punting the "fake" out of his reputation, expectations be damned.

Enlarge / Tech workers show support for Maren Costa (left) and Emily Cunningham (right) on Sept 16, 2021. (credit: Amazon Employees for Climate Justice)

Amazon has agreed to a settlement with two employees who alleged that they were illegally fired for speaking out about warehouse working conditions during the pandemic.

"Amazon will be required to pay us our lost wages and post a notice to all of its tech and warehouse workers nationwide that Amazon can't fire workers for organizing and exercising their rights," the fired workers, Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, said in a statement yesterday. "It's also not lost on us that we are two women who were targeted for firing. Inequality, racism, and sexism are at the heart of both the climate crisis and the pandemic."

Costa and Cunningham were tech workers at Amazon's Seattle headquarters and were fired in April 2020. "Both were active in an internal employee group advocating for climate issues and had circulated a petition inside the company calling on Amazon to expand benefits and pay for employees in warehouses," we noted in an article at the time.

Enlarge / Let's see, you landed on my "Google Ads" space, and with three houses, that will be $1,400. (credit: Ron Amadeo / Hasbro)

Google is in the middle of one of its many battles with EU antitrust regulators—this time it's hoping to overturn the record $5 billion fine the European Commission levied against it in 2018. The fine was for unfairly pushing Google search on phones running Android software, and Google's appeal argument is that search bundling isn't the reason it is dominating the search market—Google Search is just so darn good.

Bloomberg reports on Google's latest line of arguments, with Alphabet lawyer Alfonso Lamadrid telling the court, “People use Google because they choose to, not because they are forced to. Google’s market share in general search is consistent with consumer surveys showing that 95% of users prefer Google to rival search engines.”

Lamadrid then went on to drop an incredible burn on the #2 search engine, Microsoft's Bing: “We have submitted evidence showing that the most common search query on Bing is, by far, 'Google.'"

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  Nreal plans to release its specs in the US. [credit: Nreal ]

Ever wish you could watch YouTube videos through your sunglasses? That’s pretty much what augmented reality (AR) glasses company Nreal is going for with the Nreal Air announced today. With a light, 2.72 ounce (77 g) weight and micro-OLED display, the Nreal Air is just what you need to finally watch Parks and Recreation in an actual park.

Since Nreal released the Nreal Light in 2019, AR tech has evolved so hardware offerings can be smaller. The Nreal Air is 27 percent lighter than the Nreal Light (3.74 ounces/106 g), although it also comes with less functionality. There’s no handtracking or spatial awareness, so you can’t interact with what you see. Instead, you’ll have to rely on an app on your smartphone, which must be tethered to the Nreal Air for it to work (as is the case with the Nreal Light).

This is because the Nreal Air isn’t about dragging and dropping furniture around your virtual home or trying on outfits via a virtual avatar before buying, or other, more interactive AR applications. Instead, Nreal is targeting the Nreal Air primarily at watching videos on YouTube and other streaming apps.

Enlarge / Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. (credit: Getty | CNBC)

A scientist who worked at a Theranos partner said that her company did not “comprehensively validate” the diagnostic startup’s proprietary devices, undermining a claim that founder Elizabeth Holmes allegedly made to investors.

Victoria Sung had been tasked with evaluating Theranos’ Edison device for her employer, Celgene, which had a small contract with the startup. What she saw suggested that the device was not ready for use with patients.

Initially, Celgene and another pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline, were intrigued by the promise of Theranos’ devices. QPS, the gold-standard of diagnostic testing, needs 2 ml of blood. But Theranos promised to do it with 0.25 ml, and the company claimed it was able to get good results with whole blood, which Sung described as “very nice.” The problem was, just over 14 percent of Theranos samples failed to produce usable results compared with less than 2 percent for QPS. Was that good or bad, the prosecution asked her? “Bad,” Sung replied.