Month: July 2023

Enlarge / Nine main engines propel a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket off its launch pad earlier this year. (credit: SpaceX)

The US Space Force, long content with using just one or two contractors to carry the military’s most vital satellites into orbit, has announced it will seek a third provider for national security launch services in its next multibillion-dollar round of rocket procurement.

This is good news for Blue Origin, which has long sought to join the ranks of United Launch Alliance and SpaceX as the military’s preferred launch contractors. The Space Force has spent the last few months refining how it will purchase launch services for military satellites and National Reconnaissance Office spy payloads in the late 2020s and early 2030s.

Pardon the jargon

In February, the Space Force unveiled a “dual-lane” acquisition strategy that will include two tiers of space missions.

Enlarge / Nine main engines propel a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket off its launch pad earlier this year. (credit: SpaceX)

The US Space Force, long content with using just one or two contractors to carry the military’s most vital satellites into orbit, has announced it will seek a third provider for national security launch services in its next multibillion-dollar round of rocket procurement.

This is good news for Blue Origin, which has long sought to join the ranks of United Launch Alliance and SpaceX as the military’s preferred launch contractors. The Space Force has spent the last few months refining how it will purchase launch services for military satellites and National Reconnaissance Office spy payloads in the late 2020s and early 2030s.

Pardon the jargon

In February, the Space Force unveiled a “dual-lane” acquisition strategy that will include two tiers of space missions.

Enlarge / Signage outside the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. facility under construction in Phoenix, Arizona. (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) was supposed to have its first Arizona chip factory operational by late 2024 but now has confirmed significant delays. Primarily due to a shortage of technical workers with critical expertise in the US, TSMC projects to finish construction instead by 2025.

This is an "ominous delay," Bloomberg reported, and it comes right when investment in AI is booming. TSMC is a leading supplier of AI chips, and the Biden administration is scrambling to quickly expand the US domestic chip industry. But the delay wasn't necessarily unexpected, ASML Holding NV CEO Peter Wennink told Bloomberg. Wennink's company is one of the world's leading producers of chipmaking equipment, and he said that getting access to skilled workers is a common cause of setbacks when building semiconductor fabrication plants, also known as fabs.

“People don’t seem to realize that when we start building those fabs across the globe now and are everywhere, that skill has been refined over the last couple of decades in only a few places on the planet—predominantly in Taiwan and in Korea and a bit in China,” said Wennink. “Getting access to the requisite skills and skilled workers to keep the construction plan on time is a challenge.”

Enlarge / Signage outside the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. facility under construction in Phoenix, Arizona. (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) was supposed to have its first Arizona chip factory operational by late 2024 but now has confirmed significant delays. Primarily due to a shortage of technical workers with critical expertise in the US, TSMC projects to finish construction instead by 2025.

This is an "ominous delay," Bloomberg reported, and it comes right when investment in AI is booming. TSMC is a leading supplier of AI chips, and the Biden administration is scrambling to quickly expand the US domestic chip industry. But the delay wasn't necessarily unexpected, ASML Holding NV CEO Peter Wennink told Bloomberg. Wennink's company is one of the world's leading producers of chipmaking equipment, and he said that getting access to skilled workers is a common cause of setbacks when building semiconductor fabrication plants, also known as fabs.

“People don’t seem to realize that when we start building those fabs across the globe now and are everywhere, that skill has been refined over the last couple of decades in only a few places on the planet—predominantly in Taiwan and in Korea and a bit in China,” said Wennink. “Getting access to the requisite skills and skilled workers to keep the construction plan on time is a challenge.”

Enlarge / An AI-generated image of a "robot journalist." (credit: Midjourney)

Google has been developing tools aimed at helping journalists write news articles, reports The New York Times and Reuters. It has demonstrated one tool, dubbed "Genesis," to the Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Reportedly, Google is positioning the tool as a personal assistant for news reporters.

According to Reuters, Genesis is not intended to automate news writing but can instead potentially support journalists by offering suggestions for headlines or alternative writing styles to enhance productivity. "Quite simply, these tools are not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating, and fact-checking their articles," a Google spokesperson told Reuters.

Like OpenAI with its ChatGPT AI assistant that can compose text, Google has also been developing large language models (LLMs) such as PaLM 2 that have absorbed massive amounts of information scraped from the Internet during training, and they can use that "knowledge" to summarize information, rephrase sentences, explain concepts, and more. Naturally, both companies have sought to find market applications for this technology, including in journalism.

Enlarge / An AI-generated image of a "robot journalist." (credit: Midjourney)

Google has been developing tools aimed at helping journalists write news articles, reports The New York Times and Reuters. It has demonstrated one tool, dubbed "Genesis," to the Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Reportedly, Google is positioning the tool as a personal assistant for news reporters.

According to Reuters, Genesis is not intended to automate news writing but can instead potentially support journalists by offering suggestions for headlines or alternative writing styles to enhance productivity. "Quite simply, these tools are not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating, and fact-checking their articles," a Google spokesperson told Reuters.

Like OpenAI with its ChatGPT AI assistant that can compose text, Google has also been developing large language models (LLMs) such as PaLM 2 that have absorbed massive amounts of information scraped from the Internet during training, and they can use that "knowledge" to summarize information, rephrase sentences, explain concepts, and more. Naturally, both companies have sought to find market applications for this technology, including in journalism.

Enlarge (credit: Jericho / Ron Amadeo)

Google has a nasty surprise for YouTube Premium subscribers: a price increase. The price is going up $2 for a single-person subscription in the US (and presumably other countries), from $11.99 to 13.99 per month. If you're subscribing through the iOS App Store, the price is now $18.99 due to Apple's 30 percent tax. The hike follows a price increase to the YouTube Premium family plan less than a year ago.

Premium gives you ad-free access to YouTube and YouTube Music, along with background playback for YouTube Music. Google has also tried to sweeten the deal lately with enhanced bitrates for 1080p videos. It's also possible to subscribe only to YouTube Music, though its price is also increasing, from $9.99 per month to $10.99.

Google didn't make any kind of official announcement about this price change. 9to5Google, which was the first to notice it, got a statement from a YouTube spokesperson:

Enlarge (credit: Jericho / Ron Amadeo)

Google has a nasty surprise for YouTube Premium subscribers: a price increase. The price is going up $2 for a single-person subscription in the US (and presumably other countries), from $11.99 to 13.99 per month. If you're subscribing through the iOS App Store, the price is now $18.99 due to Apple's 30 percent tax. The hike follows a price increase to the YouTube Premium family plan less than a year ago.

Premium gives you ad-free access to YouTube and YouTube Music, along with background playback for YouTube Music. Google has also tried to sweeten the deal lately with enhanced bitrates for 1080p videos. It's also possible to subscribe only to YouTube Music, though its price is also increasing, from $9.99 per month to $10.99.

Google didn't make any kind of official announcement about this price change. 9to5Google, which was the first to notice it, got a statement from a YouTube spokesperson: