Computers & the Internet News and Discussions

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wjfox
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Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

Published 1 hour ago

Toyota is to slash worldwide vehicle production by 40% in September because of the global microchip shortage.

The world's biggest carmaker had planned to make almost 900,000 cars next month, but has now reduced that to 540,000 vehicles.

Volkswagen, the world's second-biggest car producer, has warned it may also be forced to cut output further.

The Covid pandemic boosted demand for appliances that use chips, such as phones, TVs and games consoles.

On Thursday, German firm Volkswagen, which cut output earlier in the year, told Reuters: "We currently expect supply of chips in the third quarter to be very volatile and tight.

"We can't rule out further changes to production."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58266794
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World's Largest Chip Maker to Raise Prices, Threatening Costlier Electronics
Source: Wall Street Journal
TSMC to increase prices of most advanced chips by roughly 10%; less advanced chips will cost about 20% more

The world’s largest contract chip maker is raising prices by as much as 20%, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that could result in consumers paying more for electronics.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plans to increase the prices of its most advanced chips by roughly 10%, while less advanced chips used by customers like auto makers will cost about 20% more, these people said. The higher prices will generally take effect late this year or next year, the people said.

Apple Inc. is one of TSMC’s largest customers and its iPhones use advanced microprocessors made in TSMC foundries. It couldn’t be determined how much more Apple would pay.

A TSMC spokeswoman declined to comment on prices but said the company works closely with customers. An Apple spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/worlds-lar ... 1629978308
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China Proposes Strict Control of Algorithms
by Manish Singh
August 27, 2021

https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/27/china ... lgorithms/

Introduction:
(TechCrunch) China is not done with curbing the influence local internet services have assumed in the world’s largest populous market. Following a widening series of regulatory crackdowns in recent months, the nation on Friday issued draft guidelines on regulating the algorithms firms run to make recommendations to users.

In a 30-point draft guidelines published on Friday, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) proposed forbidding companies from deploying algorithms that “encourage addiction or high consumption” and endanger national security or disrupt the public order.

The services must abide by business ethics and principles of fairness and their algorithms must not be used to create fake user accounts or create other false impressions, said the guidelines from the internet watchdog, which reports to a central leadership group chaired by President Xi Jinping. The watchdog said it will be taking public feedback on the new guidelines for a month (until September 26).

The guidelines also propose that users should be provided with the ability to easily turn off algorithm recommendations. Algorithm providers who have the power to influence public opinion or mobilize the citizens need to get an approval from the CAC.

Friday’s proposal comes at a time when Beijing is increasingly targeting companies for the way they have handled consumer data and the monopolistic positions they have assumed in the nation.
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Samsung showed three segment smartphone that folds:

Smartphones like this might get popular later this decade.
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
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AMD Leading Exascale Supercomputers with 2 Exaflop El Capitan Supercomputer in 2023
August 31, 2021 by Brian Wang
El Capitan will drive unprecedented advancements in HPC and AI, powered by the next-generation AMD EPYC CPUs and Radeon Instinct GPUs. It will be a 2 exaflop supercomputer for Lawrence Livermore Labs.

It is expected in 2023 and is costing $600 million.

This and the Frontier 1.5 exaflop supercomputer are huge victories for AMD. Intel has dominated the chips used in supercomputers for decades. Nvidia GPUs became key for high performance computing starting about two decades ago. AMD has stepped up to the leading edge of supercomputer performance.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2021/08/a ... -2023.html
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Stanford discovery could pave the way to ultrafast, energy-efficient computing
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-09-sta ... cient.html
by Mark Shwartz, Stanford University

Scientists have spent decades searching for faster, more energy-efficient memory technologies for everything from large data centers to mobile sensors and other flexible electronics. Among the most promising data storage technologies is phase-change memory, which is thousands of times faster than conventional hard drives but uses a lot of electricity.

Now, Stanford University engineers have overcome a key obstacle that has limited widespread adoption of phase-change memory. The results are published in a Sept. 10 study in Science.

"People have long expected phase-change memory to replace much of the memory in our phones and laptops," said Eric Pop, a professor of electrical engineering and senior author of the study. "One reason it hasn't been adopted is that it requires more power to operate than competing memory technologies. In our study, we've shown that phase-change memory can be both fast and energy efficient."
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Apple Issues Emergency Security Updates to Close a Spyware Flaw
Source: New York Times
Apple issued emergency software updates for a critical vulnerability in its products on Monday after security researchers uncovered a flaw that allows highly invasive spyware from Israel’s NSO Group to infect anyone’s iPhone, Apple Watch or Mac computer without so much as a click.

Apple’s security team has been working around the clock to develop a fix since Tuesday, after researchers at Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog organization at the University of Toronto, discovered that a Saudi activist’s iPhone had been infected with spyware from NSO Group. The spyware, called Pegasus, used a novel method to invisibly infect an Apple device without the victim’s knowledge for as long as six months.

Known as a “zero click remote exploit,” it is considered the Holy Grail of surveillance because it allows governments, mercenaries and criminals to secretly break into a victim’s device without tipping the victim off. Using the zero-click infection method, Pegasus can turn on a user’s camera and microphone, record messages, texts, emails, calls — even those sent via encrypted messaging and phone apps like Signal — and send them back to NSO’s clients at governments around the world.

“This spyware can do everything an iPhone user can do on their device and more,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, who teamed up with Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab, on the finding. In the past, victims learned their devices were infected by spyware only after receiving a suspicious link texted to their phone or email. But NSO Group’s zero-click capability gives the victim no such prompt, and enables full access to a person’s digital life. These abilities can fetch millions of dollars on the underground market for hacking tools.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/tech ... group.html
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Physicists develop miniature terahertz sources
Researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and Freie Universität Berlin have developed a new, simple approach for generating terahertz radiation. Strong optical laser pulses enable terahertz electromagnetic fields to be generated directly at a specific point.
The team has published its findings in the journal ACS Applied Nano Materials ("On-Chip Generation of Ultrafast Current Pulses by Nanolayered Spintronic Terahertz Emitters"). Potential applications for terahertz radiation are wide ranging - from materials testing to communications and security technology.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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Apple Unveils New iPhone 13, iPad mini, and Watch 7

By Ryan Whitwam on September 14, 2021 at 3:41 pm
https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/3269 ... le-watch-7
Apple has just wrapped up its fall 2021 announcements, and there were no major surprises. There are new iPhones, an updated Apple Watch, and redesigned iPad Mini. That new pocket-sized iPad is the biggest departure from the last-gen device, and the others have just a few small tweaks and improvements. Apple will no doubt sell a boatload of them, though. Let’s recap.
iPhone 13 lineup

Just like last year, there are four iPhone models in Apple’s lineup. That’s actually one of the more surprising parts of the announcement — Apple didn’t kill the Mini variant of the iPhone 13. The phones have slimmed-down display notches, and the battery life is just a bit better, amounting to 1.5-2.5 hours of additional usage per charge in Apple’s testing. That’s true even with the more powerful A15 processor, which powers improved photography features in tandem with the dual cameras. You get some of the same camera hardware from last year’s Pro Max iPhone, too.
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Beijing is Tearing Down the Digital "Walled Gardens"
by Rita Liao
September 18, 2021

https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/18/china ... d-gardens/

Introduction:
(TechCrunch) Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world.

This week, China gets serious about breaking down the walled gardens that its internet giants have formed for decades. Two major funding rounds were announced, from the newly established autonomous driving unicorn Deeproute.ai and fast-growing, cross-border financial service provider XTransfer.

Tear down the walls

The Chinese internet is infamously siloed, with a handful of “super apps” each occupying a cushy, protective territory that tries to lock users in and keep rivals out. On Tencent’s WeChat messenger, for instance, links to Alibaba’s Taobao marketplace and ByteDance’s Douyin short video service can’t be viewed or even redirected. That’s unlike WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal that offer friendly URL previews within chats.

E-commerce platforms fend off competition in different ways. Taobao uses Alibaba’s affiliate Alipay as a default payments option, omitting its arch rival WeChat Pay. Tencent-backed JD.com, a rival to Alibaba, encourages its users to pay through its own payments system or WeChat Pay.

But changes are underway. “Ensuring normal access to legal URLs is the basic requirement for developing the internet,” a senior official from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said at a press conference this week. He added that unjustified blockages of web links “affect users’ experience, undermine users’ rights, and disrupt market orders.”
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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