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A profile of data labeler Scale AI, which has a $249M contract with the US DoD and was the first AI company to have an LLM deployed on a classified network (Gerrit De Vynck/Washington Post)

Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post: A profile of data labeler Scale AI, which has a $249M contract with the US DoD and was the first AI company to have an LLM deployed on a classified network  —  The tech start-up says the United States needs Silicon Valley to compete with China.  Others fear a

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Framework Motherboard Turned Cyberdeck

The beauty of a modular ecosystem lies in how it allows individuals to repurpose components in unconventional ways. This is precisely what [Ben Makes Everything] has achieved by using a Framework laptop’s motherboard and battery to create a slab-style cyberdeck. (Video, embedded below.) The Framework motherboard presents an excellent choice for custom portable computer projects

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A profile of China-based Luxshare, which started as Foxconn’s electronics supplier and is now, according to analysts, eating into Foxconn’s Apple business (Yang Jie/Wall Street Journal)

Yang Jie / Wall Street Journal: A profile of China-based Luxshare, which started as Foxconn’s electronics supplier and is now, according to analysts, eating into Foxconn’s Apple business  —  Apple increasingly relies on China-based Luxshare for manufacturing amid U.S. tensions with Beijing

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What AI won’t replace in your programming

Datasette founder Simon Willison declares that “there has never been a better time to learn to program,” and it’s not because AI is going to do your coding for you. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. “Large language models flatten [the] learning curve,” Willison argues, making it easier for young developers to get up to speed.

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7 mistakes to avoid when developing RPAs

Automating business processes can take the drudgery out of repeating steps, improve productivity, and reduce the number of human errors. Automations include filling out forms, transforming data between different tools, and looping through tasks with a data list. Beyond workflows and integrations, automations can help extract information from public websites, SaaS, and enterprise applications. They

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The Worldcoin Foundation plans to pay orb operators, who scan people into the Worldcoin network, in WLD rather than USDC in December and has issued ~134M WLD (Zack Abrams/The Block)

Zack Abrams / The Block: The Worldcoin Foundation plans to pay orb operators, who scan people into the Worldcoin network, in WLD rather than USDC in December and has issued ~134M WLD  —  – In a recent blog post, the Worldcoin Foundation announced that orb operators, who assist people in scanning their eyes to join

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Analysis: the iPhone 15 lineup has ~10% more expensive components than the iPhone 14 lineup; iPhone 15 Pro Max costs rose to $558, up 12% from the 14 Pro Max (Nikkei Asia)

Nikkei Asia: Analysis: the iPhone 15 lineup has ~10% more expensive components than the iPhone 14 lineup; iPhone 15 Pro Max costs rose to $558, up 12% from the 14 Pro Max  —  Apple largely shoulders costs of zoom camera and 3-nm chip: Nikkei analysis  —  South Korea provided 29% of the latest iPhone series’

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Hackaday Links: October 22, 2023

The second of three major solar eclipses in a mere six-year period swept across the United States last week. We managed to catch the first one back in 2017, and still have plans for the next one in April of 2024. But we gave this one a miss, mainly because it was “just” an annular

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Math Book Gets Real with Complex

The [Math Sorcerer] loves books. His latest acquisition is the famous Real and Complex Analysis, which is a very stout math book.  How stout? Well, there are several chapters on holomorphic functions, including how to do a Fourier transform on such a function. There’s also an appendix about Hausdorff’s maximality theorem. What are those? Beats

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Q&A with Satya Nadella: AI as Microsoft’s biggest opportunity, regrets on missing the mobile phone category, and doubling down as a game publisher and producer (Mathias Döpfner/Insider)

Mathias Döpfner / Insider: Q&A with Satya Nadella: AI as Microsoft’s biggest opportunity, regrets on missing the mobile phone category, and doubling down as a game publisher and producer  —  – Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently sat for an interview at Axel Springer’s Berlin headquarters.

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Q&A with Fei-Fei Li and NTIA head Alan Davidson on regulating AI, US and China tech competition, the representation of women and PoC in AI discussions, and more (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: Q&A with Fei-Fei Li and NTIA head Alan Davidson on regulating AI, US and China tech competition, the representation of women and PoC in AI discussions, and more  —  Fei-Fei Li of Stanford and the Commerce Department’s Alan Davidson agree that artificial intelligence has the potential to do a lot of good.

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Antique Motherboard Speaks

[Bits und Bolts] has been restoring an old PC motherboard with the infamous bad electrolytic capacitors. The video of his exploits was interesting enough, but pretty standard stuff. What we found interesting though, was an odd feature of the ASUS Bios called “Post Reporter” that let the motherboard speak error codes and status through the

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Crunchbase: Black US founders raised ~$39.7M, or 0.13% of all capital allocated to startups in Q3 2023, down from $212M in Q2, $352M in Q1, and $1B in Q3 2022 (Dominic-Madori Davis/TechCrunch)

Dominic-Madori Davis / TechCrunch: Crunchbase: Black US founders raised ~$39.7M, or 0.13% of all capital allocated to startups in Q3 2023, down from $212M in Q2, $352M in Q1, and $1B in Q3 2022  —  Black founders raised 0.13% of all capital allocated to U.S. startups in Q3, according to Crunchbase.  That’s about $39.7 million

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Sources: Apple was caught flat-footed by the generative AI fever and is on course to spend ~$1B/year to add the tech across iOS 18, Siri, Music, and other apps (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple was caught flat-footed by the generative AI fever and is on course to spend ~$1B/year to add the tech across iOS 18, Siri, Music, and other apps  —  But the company is now preparing its response and plans to develop features for its full range of devices.

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Gurman: Apple is planning a “Mac-centered product launch” around October’s end and may release an updated 24-inch iMac; the current model launched in April 2021 (Hartley Charlton/MacRumors)

Hartley Charlton / MacRumors: Gurman: Apple is planning a “Mac-centered product launch” around October’s end and may release an updated 24-inch iMac; the current model launched in April 2021  —  Apple is planning a Mac-focused product launch, likely including the announcement of a refreshed 24-inch iMac …

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Martin Goetz, who received the first US software patent, died on October 10 at 93; Goetz was awarded a patent for data-sorting software for mainframes in 1968 (Richard Sandomir/New York Times)

Richard Sandomir / New York Times: Martin Goetz, who received the first US software patent, died on October 10 at 93; Goetz was awarded a patent for data-sorting software for mainframes in 1968  —  “I knew at some point in time the patent office would recognize” computer software, he said.  It happened in 1968, helping

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The Global Times: China opens a Foxconn investigation over tax and land use, inspecting Guangdong, Jiangsu, Henan, and Hubei sites; Foxconn plans to cooperate (Financial Times)

Financial Times: The Global Times: China opens a Foxconn investigation over tax and land use, inspecting Guangdong, Jiangsu, Henan, and Hubei sites; Foxconn plans to cooperate  —  Tax authorities said to have inspected a number of the Apple supplier’s sites in provinces  —  China has launched an investigation …

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