Apple Bows To Pressure, Drops Plan To Buy Chinese Memory Chips

Following increased U.S. export controls against working with Chinese companies, Apple has halted plans to use YMTC chips in the iPhone. AppleInsider reports: According to Nikkei Asia, YMTC flash memory is at least 20% cheaper than that of rivals, and the company’s 128-layer 3D NAND chips are the most advanced by a Chinese company. They remain reportedly one or two generations behind the chips made by Micron and Samsung, both of which are known to be working with Apple. Nikkei Asia claims that Apple had completed is months-long testing and verification. Political pressure and criticism from US policymakers made it abandon the plan.

“The products have been verified, but they did not go into the production lines when mass production of the new iPhone began,” an unspecified source told Nikkei Asia. Reportedly, the intention had been to initially use YMTC chips only for iPhones being sold in China. Another unnamed source, though, claimed that Apple was considering ultimately buying 40% of all its worldwide iPhone NAND flash memory from the company. “YMTC is government-subsidized so they can really outprice competitors,” said another source.

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Fintech Giant ‘The Clearing House’ Joins Open-Source Patent Protection Powerhouse OIN

The Clearing House, a banking association and payments company owned by the largest commercial banks in the U.S., has joined the Open Invention Network (OIN) — the world’s largest patent nonaggression consortium. ZDNet reports: The OIN has long protected Linux and Linux-related software from patent aggression by rival companies. With the increase in patent troll attacks, the OIN is also defending companies from these assaults. You may not think financial companies and banks are subject to such attacks. I mean, TCH’s roots go all the way back to 1853. Think again.

As Keith Bergelt, CEO of OIN, said in June, “The most sophisticated and compelling global banking and fintech companies have essentially become technology companies that employ open-source software to deliver their services at scale.” Further, patent trolls “appear to be targeting them for this reason, along with the fact that financial services companies have not historically been active patent filers.” That’s because, historically, they’ve purchased most of their tech from third-party vendors.

That was then. This is now. Today, financial institutions generate more tech in-house, so they’re more concerned about being granted patents, building patent portfolios, and related patent issues. Indeed, these days fintech businesses have their own Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), the financial sector branch of the Linux Foundation. So, Bergelt said in a release Wednesday, “Advancements in financial services and fintech increasingly rely on open-source technologies. As the most experienced payment company in the US, and a keystone for the financial services industry, we are pleased that The Clearing House is committed to patent nonaggression in core Linux and adjacent open-source technologies.”

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Vaccines to Treat Cancer Possible by 2030, Say BioNTech Founders

Ugur Sahin and and Özlem Türeci. The BBC calls them “the husband and wife team behind one of the most successful Covid vaccines” — the couple who co-founded the German biotech company BioNTech in 2008, “exploring new technology involving messenger RNA to treat cancer.”

And though they partnered with Pfizer to ues the same approach for their Covid vaccine, “Now the doctors are hopeful it could lead to new treatments for melanoma, bowel cancer and other tumour types.”

BioNTech has several trials in progress, including one where patients are given a personalised vaccine, to prompt their immune system to attack their disease. The mRNA technology being used works by sending an instruction or blueprint to cells to produce an antigen or protein. In Covid this antigen is part of the spike protein of the virus. In cancer it would be a marker on the surface of tumour cells. This teaches the immune system to recognise and target affected cells for destruction.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Prof Tureci said: “mRNA acts as a blueprint and allows you to tell the body to produce the drug or the vaccine… and when you use mRNA as a vaccine, the mRNA is a blueprint for the ‘wanted poster’ of the enemy — in this case cancer antigens which distinguish cancer cells from normal cells.”

Harnessing the power of mRNA to produce vaccines was unproven until Covid. But the success of mRNA vaccines in the pandemic has encouraged scientists working with the technology in cancer.

The Guardian notes that the couple said cancer-targetting vaccines could be available “before 2030”, though Özlem Türeci warns that “As scientists we are always hesitant to say we will have a cure for cancer. We have a number of breakthroughs and we will continue to work on them.”

BioNTech was working on mRNA cancer vaccines before the pandemic struck but the firm pivoted to produce Covid vaccines in the face of the global emergency. The firm now has several cancer vaccines in clinical trials.

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How ‘Homestar Runner’ Re-Emerged After the End of Flash

Wikipedia describes Homestar Runner as “a blend of surreal humour, self-parody, and references to popular culture, in particular video games, classic television, and popular music.” But after launching in 2000, the web-based cartoon became a cultural phenomenon, co-creator Mike Chapman remembered in 2017:

On the same day we received a demo of a song that John Linnell from They Might Be Giants recorded for a Strong Bad Email and a full-size working Tom Servo puppet from Jim Mallon from Mystery Science Theater 3000…. The Homestar references in the Buffy and Angel finales forever ago were huge. And there was this picture of Joss Whedon in a Strong Bad shirt from around that time that someone sent us that we couldn’t believe. Years later, a photo of Geddy Lee from Rush wearing a Strong Bad hat on stage circulated which similarly freaked us out. We have no idea if he knew what Strong Bad was, but our dumb animal character was on his head while he probably shredded ‘Working Man’ so I’ll take it!

After a mutli-year hiatus starting around 2009, the site has only been updating sporadically — and some worried that the end of Flash also meant the end of the Flash-based cartoon and its web site altogether. But on the day Flash Player was officially discontinued — December 31st, 2020 — a “post-Flash update” appeared at HomestarRunner.com:
What happened our website? Flash is finally dead-dead-dead so something drastic had to be done so people could still watch their favorite cartoons and sbemails with super-compressed mp3 audio and hidden clicky-clicky easter eggs…!

[O]nce you click “come on in,” you’ll find yourself in familiar territory thanks to the Ruffle Project. It emulates Flash in such a way that all browsers and devices can finally play our cartoons and even some games…. Your favorite easter eggs are still hidden and now you can even choose to watch a YouTube version if there is one.

Keep in mind, Ruffle is still in development so not everything works perfectly. Games made after, say 2007, will probably be pretty janky but Ruffle plans on ulitmately supporting those too one day. And any cartoons with video elements in them (Puppet Jams, death metal) will just show you an empy box where the video should be. But hang in there and one day everything will be just like it was that summer when we got free cable somehow and Grandma still lived in the spare bedroom.

And since then, new content has quietly been appearing at HomestarRunner.com. (Most recently, Thursday the site added a teaser for an upcoming Halloween video.)

The Homestar Runner wiki is tracking this year’s new content, which includes:

Strong Bad livestreaming his play of a text adventure (titled “Disk 4 of 12 — Vampire’s Castle”) on September 19thStrong Sad streaming a demo of the expando deck for Trogdor!! The Board Game (July 2)A Twitch parody in which Strong Bad livestreams a speedrun on a horrific beef-themed game (titled “Strong-Play: Marzipan Beef Reverser”) on April 25thA new Strong Bad Email on April 1st

And past videos are now also being uploaded on the site’s official YouTube channel.

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HBO Max Picks ‘Homestar Runner’ Co-Creator to Direct Batman Spin-off Series ‘The Penguin’

From a report:
Filmmaker Craig Zobel has been tapped by HBO Max to direct the first two episodes of The Penguin, its much-awaited Batman spinoff. He will also serve as executive producer of the show, with Lauren LeFranc writing the script. Starring in The Penguin is Colin Farrell, who played the villainous Oswald Cobblepot in The Batman earlier this year. The Penguin will focus its attention on Cobblepot’s notorious past and trace his rise to power in Gotham.

Zobel is already part of the family, having previously directed The Mare of Easttown for HBO Max. The prolific director also applied his talents to episodes of Westworld, The Leftovers, and American Gods…

If all goes according to schedule, viewers could be enjoying The Penguin by the end of 2023.

The article also notes that Zobel also helped co-create Homestar Runner in its original incarnation as a parody children’s picture book.

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DeepMind Breaks 50-Year Math Record Using AI; New Record Falls a Week Later

Last week, DeepMind announced it discovered a more efficient way to perform matrix multiplication, conquering a 50-year-old record. This week, two Austrian researchers at Johannes Kepler University Linz claim they have bested that new record by one step. Ars Technica reports: In 1969, a German mathematician named Volker Strassen discovered the previous-best algorithm for multiplying 4×4 matrices, which reduces the number of steps necessary to perform a matrix calculation. For example, multiplying two 4×4 matrices together using a traditional schoolroom method would take 64 multiplications, while Strassen’s algorithm can perform the same feat in 49 multiplications. Using a neural network called AlphaTensor, DeepMind discovered a way to reduce that count to 47 multiplications, and its researchers published a paper about the achievement in Nature last week.

To discover more efficient matrix math algorithms, DeepMind set up the problem like a single-player game. The company wrote about the process in more detail in a blog post last week. DeepMind then trained AlphaTensor using reinforcement learning to play this fictional math game — similar to how AlphaGo learned to play Go — and it gradually improved over time. Eventually, it rediscovered Strassen’s work and those of other human mathematicians, then it surpassed them, according to DeepMind. In a more complicated example, AlphaTensor discovered a new way to perform 5×5 matrix multiplication in 96 steps (versus 98 for the older method).

This week, Manuel Kauers and Jakob Moosbauer of Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, published a paper claiming they have reduced that count by one, down to 95 multiplications. It’s no coincidence that this apparently record-breaking new algorithm came so quickly because it built off of DeepMind’s work. In their paper, Kauers and Moosbauer write, “This solution was obtained from the scheme of [DeepMind’s researchers] by applying a sequence of transformations leading to a scheme from which one multiplication could be eliminated.”

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Honda and Sony To Build an EV That Entertains While It Takes the Wheel

“Sony and Honda have officially launched their joint mobility venture that aims to start delivering premium electric vehicles with automated driving capabilities in the United States in the spring of 2026, followed by Japan in the second half of 2026,” reports TechCrunch. Details are scarce but the partnership appears to produce what the companies promise to be a wildly smart vehicle that’s heavily focused on keeping its passengers entertained. Slashdot reader SouthSeb shares the news with us, writing: Since cars are expected to fully drive themselves in a near future, how to maintain their occupants entertained seems to be the next big question. It makes one wonder if cars are going to radically change and become more and more like living rooms or office spaces on wheels. “The new EV, which will be initially manufactured at Honda’s North America factory, will be developed with Level 3 automated driving capabilities under limited conditions, and with Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems that can handle situations as complex as urban driving,” reports TechCrunch. “Sony will provide the sensors and tech for the autonomous capabilities, as well as all of the other software, from cloud-based services to entertainment, that drivers will hopefully be able to enjoy all the better for not having to actually drive the car all the time. The companies didn’t share too much about what the infotainment system would look like, but they did say the metaverse would be involved.”

“[Sony Honda Mobility] aims to evolve mobility space into entertainment and emotional space, by seamlessly integrating real and virtual worlds, and exploring new entertainment possibilities through digital innovations such as the metaverse,” according to SHM.

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Google Starts Real-World Testing Its Giant Video Chat Booths

A year after announcing its “Project Starline” video booth idea, Google says it’s expanded enterprise testing with third parties and is working on making Starline “more accessible,” reports Ars Technica. From the report: Project Starline basically asks the question, “What if Zoom was a giant, sit-down arcade machine?” While the home console version of video chat just involves a tiny camera above your laptop screen, Starline brings 3D video chat to life in a 7×7-foot sit-down booth, with seemingly no regard given to cost, size, or commercialization. The goal is to make it seem like the other person is in the room with you, and Google categorizes it as a “research project.” As for what Starline actually is, a Google Research paper contains a good amount of detail. The display side of the video booth features 14 cameras and 16 IR projectors, which all work to create, capture, and track a real-time, photorealistic 3D avatar of the user. Four microphones and two speakers don’t just play back speech; spatialized audio and dynamic beamforming supposedly make the speech sound like it’s coming out of the avatar’s mouth.

People who have tried Starline seem to like it, but considering you have to be personally invited by Google to try it, that’s only a very small handful of people. It’s hard to imagine much of a market for what must be a six-figure video booth the size of a small bathroom, but Google is pushing ahead with more testing. A Google statement says: “Today, Project Starline prototypes are found in Google offices across the US, with employees using the technology every day for meetings, employee onboarding and building rapport between colleagues.” The company continues: “Beyond Google employees, we’ve also invited more than 100 enterprise partners in areas like media, healthcare and retail to participate in demos at Google’s offices and provide us with feedback on the experience and applications to their businesses. We see many ways Project Starline can add business value across a number of industries, and we remain focused on making it more accessible.” Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile, and Hackensack Meridian Health have signed up to try it. WeWork, a company based around renting too-expensive-to-own office space, seems particularly enthused with the idea.

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Honda’s New $4.4 Billion EV Battery Plant Will Be Built In Ohio

Honda Motor and LG Energy Solution on Tuesday said a new multibillion-dollar plant to produce batteries for electric vehicles will be located in Ohio. CNBC reports: Construction of the new facility — located about 40 miles southwest of Columbus — is expected to begin in early 2023, followed by mass production of lithium-ion batteries by the end of 2025. The battery plant is expected to cost $3.5 billion, with overall investment by the unnamed joint venture eventually reaching $4.4 billion, the companies said. Honda and LGES announced plans for the joint venture and battery plant last year, but had not revealed a location. The facility is expected to employ about 2,200 people, the companies said.

In addition to the new battery plant, Honda on Tuesday said it plans to invest $700 million to retool several of its existing auto and powertrain plants for production of EVs. The Japanese automaker expects to begin production and sales of EVs in North America in 2026. Honda has plans to phase out traditional internal combustion engines and exclusively offer battery-electric and fuel cell electric vehicles by 2040 in North America. It’s part of the company’s plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

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New Apple Services and Apps Are Rolling Out On Windows 11 and Xbox

Today, Microsoft and Apple announced a number of deeper integrations of Apple services on both Windows PCs and Xbox game consoles, including Music and TV apps for both platforms and the ability to browse your iCloud Photo Library within the Windows 11 Photos app. Ars Technica reports: The Apple Music app for Xbox is already available. Existing users can download the app and start listening to their playlists and stations, while new users can sign up for a one-month trial. The user interface for Apple Music on the Xbox is almost exactly the same as the one we’ve used before on Apple TV hardware. It doesn’t add any new features we haven’t seen before, but it’s nice to see parity between the platforms. The Music and TV apps for Windows aren’t available yet, but the companies say they’ll both be available next year.

The Windows iTunes app lets users listen to songs and watch TV and movies purchased through Apple’s online store. Even though Apple Music will arrive on Windows, iTunes will continue to be available, and users will still be able to access Podcasts and Books there. While you’ll have to wait until next year to download the Music and TV apps in Windows, the iCloud Photo Library integration is available right now. You’ll have to download the iCloud Windows app (which is already used to sync a variety of things, like browser bookmarks) and opt into syncing your iCloud Photo Library. After that, both videos and photos should be available within the Windows 11 Photos app.

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