Month: April 2025

We're used to updating Windows, macOS, and Linux systems at least once a month (and usually more), but people with ancient DOS-based PCs still get to join in the fun every once in a while. Over the weekend, the team that maintains FreeDOS officially released version 1.4 of the operating system, containing a list of fixes and updates that have been in the works since the last time a stable update was released in 2022.

FreeDOS creator and maintainer Jim Hall goes into more detail about the FreeDOS 1.4 changes here, and full release notes for the changes are here. The release has "a focus on stability" and includes an updated installer, new versions of common tools like fdisk, and format and the edlin text editor. The release also includes updated HTML Help files.

Hall talked with Ars about several of these changes when we interviewed him about FreeDOS in 2024. The team issued the first release candidate for FreeDOS 1.4 back in January.

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The AOOSTAR GT37 is a mini PC with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, OcuLink and USB4 ports, two 2.5 GbE LAN ports, support for up to three 4K displays, and support for WiFi 7. First introduced last year as the AOOSTAR GEM10 370, the computer is designed to pack a lot of performance into […]

The post AOOSTAR GT37 mini PC with Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 now available appeared first on Liliputing.

The AOOSTAR GT37 is a mini PC with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, OcuLink and USB4 ports, two 2.5 GbE LAN ports, support for up to three 4K displays, and support for WiFi 7. First introduced last year as the AOOSTAR GEM10 370, the computer is designed to pack a lot of performance into […]

The post AOOSTAR GT37 mini PC with Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 now available appeared first on Liliputing.

The AOOSTAR GT37 is a mini PC with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, OcuLink and USB4 ports, two 2.5 GbE LAN ports, support for up to three 4K displays, and support for WiFi 7. First introduced last year as the AOOSTAR GEM10 370, the computer is designed to pack a lot of performance into […]

The post AOOSTAR GT37 mini PC with Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 now available appeared first on Liliputing.

On Saturday, Meta released its newest Llama 4 multimodal AI models in a surprise weekend move that caught some AI experts off guard. The announcement touted Llama 4 Scout and Llama 4 Maverick as major advancements, with Meta claiming top performance in their categories and an enormous 10 million token context window for Scout. But so far the open-weights models have received an initial mixed-to-negative reception from the AI community, highlighting a familiar tension between AI marketing and user experience.

"The vibes around llama 4 so far are decidedly mid," said independent AI researcher Simon Willison in a short interview with Ars Technica. Willison often checks the community pulse around open source and open weights AI releases in particular.

While Meta positions Llama 4 in competition with closed-model giants like OpenAI and Google, the company continues to use the term "open source" despite licensing restrictions that prevent truly open use. As we have noted in the past with previous Llama releases, "open weights" more accurately describes Meta's approach. Those who sign in and accept the license terms can download the two smaller Llama 4 models from Hugging Face or llama.com.

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On Monday, biotech company Colossal announced what it views as its first successful de-extinction: the dire wolf. These large predators were lost during the Late Pleistocene extinctions that eliminated many large land mammals from the Americas near the end of the most recent glaciation. Now, in a coordinated PR blitz, the company is claiming that clones of grey wolves with lightly edited genomes have essentially brought the dire wolf back. (Both Time and The New Yorker were given exclusive access to the animals ahead of the announcement.)

The dire wolf is a relative of the now-common grey wolf, with clear differences apparent between the two species' skeletons. Based on the sequence of two new dire wolf genomes, the researchers at Colossal conclude that dire wolves formed a distinct branch within the canids over 2.5 million years ago. For context, that's over twice as long as brown and polar bears are estimated to have been distinct species. Dire wolves are also large, typically the size of the largest grey wolf populations. Comparisons between the new genomes and those of other canids show that the dire wolf also had a light-colored coat.

That large of an evolutionary separation means there are likely a lot of genetic differences between the grey and dire wolves. Colossal's internal and unpublished analysis suggested that key differences could be made by editing 14 different areas of the genome, with 20 total edits required. The new animals are reported to have had 15 variants engineered in. It's not clear what accounts for the difference, and a Colossal spokesperson told Ars: "We are not revealing all of the edits that we made at this point."

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Balatro is certainly habit-forming, but there's nothing to be won or lost, other than time, by playing it. While the game has you using standard playing cards and poker hands as part of its base mechanics, it does not have in-app purchases, loot boxes, or any kind of online play or enticement to gambling, beyond the basics of risk and reward.

Yet many YouTube creators have had their Balatro videos set to the traffic-dropping "Age-restricted" status, allegedly due to "depictions or promotions of casino websites or apps," with little recourse for appeal.

The Balatro University channel detailed YouTube's recent concerns about "online gambling" in a video posted last weekend. Under policies that took effect March 19, YouTube no longer allows any reference to gambling sites or applications "not certified by Google." Additionally, content with "online gambling content"—"excluding online sports betting and depictions of in-person gambling"—cannot be seen by anyone signed out of YouTube or registered as under 18 years old.

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Google started cramming AI features into search in 2024, but last month marked an escalation. With the release of AI Mode, Google previewed a future in which searching the web does not return a list of 10 blue links. Google says it's getting positive feedback on AI Mode from users, so it's forging ahead by adding multimodal functionality to its robotic results.

AI Mode relies on a custom version of the Gemini large language model (LLM) to produce results. Google confirms that this model now supports multimodal input, which means you can now show images to AI Mode when conducting a search.

As this change rolls out, the search bar in AI Mode will gain a new button that lets you snap a photo or upload an image. The updated Gemini model can interpret the content of images, but it gets a little help from Google Lens. Google notes that Lens can identify specific objects in the images you upload, passing that context along so AI Mode can make multiple sub-queries, known as a "fan-out technique."

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Tech companies' worst nightmare ahead of Donald Trump's election has already come true, as the US and China are now fully engaged in a tit-for-tat trade war, where China claims it expects to be better positioned to withstand US blows long-term.

Trump has claimed that Americans must take their "medicine," bearing any pains from tariffs while waiting for supposed long-term gains from potentially pressuring China—and every other country, including islands of penguins—into a more favorable trade deal. On Monday, tech companies across the US likely winced when Trump threatened to heap "additional" 50 percent tariffs on China, after China announced retaliatory 34 percent tariffs on US imports and restricted US access to rare earth metals.

Posting on Truth Social, Trump gave China one day to withdraw tariffs to avoid higher US tariffs.

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Some of the most interesting gadgets-with-keyboards I’ve seen over the past few years have been distraction-free writing devices, or WriterDecks. These devices, which are basically the modern version of the word processors of yesteryear, include purpose-built hardware from companies focused on a niche market as well as DIY solutions. But if you’ve already got an […]

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