Month: August 2023

Enlarge / A Qualcomm sign. (credit: Qualcomm)

Arm is facing down its biggest competition ever, with the up-and-coming RISC-V architecture threatening to unseat it as the CPU at the center of almost every portable device. Now, one of Arm's biggest customers is trying out RISC-V, as Qualcomm is getting involved in a joint venture dedicated to the architecture.

The joint venture doesn't have a name yet, but Qualcomm, NXP, Nordic Semiconductor, Bosch, and memory giant Infineon are all teaming up to form a new company that Qualcomm's press release says is "aimed at advancing the adoption of RISC-V globally by enabling next-generation hardware development." At first, the group will be focused on automotive uses, with an "eventual expansion" to IoT and mobile, Qualcomm's biggest market.

Arm doesn't manufacture any chips itself and instead exists as a design and licensing operation. It licenses both the Arm architecture, allowing companies to design an Arm-compatible chip themselves (this is what Apple does), and it also licenses completed CPU designs, allowing partners like Qualcomm, Samsung, and MediaTek to produce new SoCs year after year.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images / Benj Edwards)

Recently, a number of viral music videos from a YouTube channel called There I Ruined It have included AI-generated voices of famous musical artists singing lyrics from surprising songs. One recent example imagines Elvis singing lyrics to Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back. Another features a faux Johnny Cash singing the lyrics to Aqua's Barbie Girl.

(The original Elvis video has since been taken down from YouTube due to a copyright claim from Universal Music Group, but thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can hear it anyway.)

Obviously, since Elvis has been dead for 46 years (and Cash for 20), neither man could have actually sung the songs themselves. That's where AI comes in. But as we'll see, although generative AI can be amazing, there's still a lot of human talent and effort involved in crafting these musical mash-ups.

Enlarge / Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer. (credit: IMAx/Universal Picture/YouTube)

Christopher Nolan’s newest film, Oppenheimer, grossed over $82 million domestically over its opening weekend. It is perhaps Nolan’s most significant project yet: a biopic of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, also known as the “father of the atomic bomb.”

To preserve Oppenheimer’s historical accuracy, Nolan and his film crew shot at the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton and Los Alamos, two places where Oppenheimer worked. Because the film was shot near the real-life campus of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the opportunity arose for LANL researchers to join the film as extras. These interactions gave the scientists a more personal experience with LANL’s rich legacy and created a deeper level of detail for a movie that critics have called “a supersize masterpiece.”

Bringing in the extras

LANL’s inception began hastily, as the demands of World War II forced the US government to rush to create a facility for nuclear weapons development. As Oppenheimer shows, it was renowned engineer and science advocate Vannevar Bush who led the charge by working with several military personnel to birth a top-secret nuclear effort called Project Y. As Project Y developed into what we now know as the Manhattan Project in the early 1940s, Oppenheimer was appointed the first director of LANL. In the middle of the New Mexican desert, Oppenheimer and a team of brilliant scientists worked on developing the world’s deadliest weapon.

Enlarge / Unfortunately, this is the only photo of the new EVs that Fisker chose to share with the media. From left to right, a Fisker Ocean, a Fisker PEAR, a Fisker Alaska, and a Fisker Ronin. (credit: Fisker)

The electric vehicle startup Fisker made a splash in Huntington Beach last night, showing off a range of new EVs it plans to build alongside the Fisker Ocean, which is slowly beginning deliveries in Europe and the US. With shades of Lotus circa 2010, it seems there's something for most tastes, with a powerful four-door GT, a versatile pickup truck, and an affordable electric city car.

"We want the world to know that we have big plans and intend to move into several different segments, redefining each with our unique blend of design, innovation, and sustainability," said CEO Henrik Fisker.

Starting with the cheapest, the Fisker PEAR—a cutesy acronym for "Personal Electric Automotive Revolution"—is said to use 35 percent fewer parts than other small EVs. Although it's a smaller car, the PEAR seats six thanks to front and rear bench seats. Oh, and it has a frunk, which the company is calling the "froot," something that will satisfy some British English speakers like Ars' friend and motoring journalist Jonny Smith.