Author: zppiot
SpaceX is building a souped-up version of its cargo Dragon spacecraft to drive the International Space Station out of orbit for a controlled re-entry and breakup over an uninhabited stretch of ocean when the lab is finally retired in the 2030 timeframe, NASA and company officials said Wednesday.The ISS Deorbit Vehicle, or DV, will be a custom-built, one-of-a-kind spacecraft needed to make sure the space station re-enters the atmosphere at the precise place and in the proper orientation to insure any wreckage that survives the 3,000-degree heat of re-entry will crash harmlessly into the sea. An artist’s impression of SpaceX’s…
As K-pop sweeps the world and accumulates a massive, devout fan base, these fans have been turning their power into action. Zeyi Yang, our China reporter, recently published a story about Kpop4planet, a group of activists who are using K-pop’s influence to hold large corporations accountable for their carbon footprints.During his reporting, he talked to several experts about how to correctly understand the climate impact of music streaming, and one thing became clear: It all comes down to how we stream—the content, the device, the length, etc. Read on for their tips to help any music streaming user leave a…
Building on the same example of PG&E, which I referenced earlier; through our collaboration, piece by piece progressively, we are building the backbone of a sustainable, digitized, and reliable energy future in California with the deployment of EcoStruxure DERMS. As grid reliability and flexibility become more important, DERMS enable us to keep pace with 21st-century grid demands as they evolve. Another critical component of moving fast is embracing open systems and platforms, creating an interoperable ecosystem. By adopting open standards, you empower a wide range of experts to collaborate together, including startups, large organizations, senior decision-makers, and those on the…
One of the most interesting (and also successful) campaigns Kpop4planet has organized shines a light on the carbon footprint of music streaming. Aware that K-pop fans stream significantly more than average (sometimes over five hours a day!) to support their favorite artists, the group successfully campaigned to get Korea’s largest domestic streaming platform to pledge to use 100% renewable energy by 2030. I have to admit, before working on this story, it didn’t really cross my mind that streaming music could be so polluting. Streaming an album more than 27 times uses more energy than it takes to produce a…
The argument for RECs is that companies often can’t purchase a pure stream of clean electricity to power their operations, since grid operators rely on a mix of natural gas, coal, solar, wind, and other sources. But if those businesses provide money or an indication of demand that spurs developers to build new renewables projects and generate more clean electricity than they would have otherwise, the companies can then claim this cancels out ongoing pollution from the electricity they use. Experts, however, are less and less convinced of the value of RECs at this stage. The claim that clean-energy projects…
Apple released a beta version of iOS 18, its latest operating system for its iPhone and other devices, for some consumers and developers to test. The new operating system includes more customization and a redesigned Photos app.The preview, released Monday, provides the public with a sneak peek ahead of the software’s official debut this fall. But those who test the software won’t immediately have access to all of its expected features, like Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI offering that it highlighted last month at its Worldwide Developers Conference.To access the iOS 18 beta software, you’ll first need to sign up…
Tech mogul Elon Musk announced Tuesday afternoon that he would be moving the headquarters of both his social media company X and SpaceX to Texas in response to a new California law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.Musk made the announcement in a pair of posts to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter at around 12:13 p.m. and 12:30 p.m., saying that SpaceX would be moving its headquarters from Hawthorne to Starbase, Texas, while X would relocate its headquarters from San Francisco to the tech hub of Austin. This is the final straw. Because of this law and the…
Apple released a beta version of iOS 18, its latest operating system for its iPhone and other devices, for some consumers and developers to test. The new operating system includes more customization and a redesigned Photos app.The preview, released Monday, provides the public with a sneak peek ahead of the software’s official debut this fall. But those who test the software won’t immediately have access to all of its expected features, like Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI offering that it highlighted last month at its Worldwide Developers Conference.To access the iOS 18 beta software, you’ll first need to sign up…
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Music streaming can be a drag on the environment. These K-pop fans want to clean it up. K-pop fans have for years been known for their incredible organizing power. As their numbers have grown around the world, they have become influential political forces, shaping elections and advocating for social change.It was these actions that inspired Kpop4planet. It’s a small group of volunteers that is achieving surprising success in mobilizing K-pop fans to act against the energy-intensive practices of…
For months, my colleague Will Douglas Heaven has been on a quest to go deeper to understand why everybody seems to disagree on exactly what AI is, why nobody even knows, and why you’re right to care about it. He’s been talking to some of the biggest thinkers in the field, asking them, simply: What is AI? It’s a great piece that looks at the past and present of AI to see where it is going next. You can read it here. Here’s a taste of what to expect: Artificial intelligence almost wasn’t called “artificial intelligence” at all. The computer scientist John…
“I think streaming is especially nefarious because those negative impacts are happening so far away and in such an invisible way,” says Joe Steinhardt, an assistant professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia who studies the music industry and is the author of the book Why to Resist Streaming Music & How. He calls streaming music “a disposable listen” because of the way an app keeps pulling data from the cloud and not storing it locally. Still, it’s hard to draw a definitive conclusion on whether streaming damages the environment more than buying physical copies; its actual carbon footprint depends on…
The big storyIs the digital dollar dead? July 2023 In 2020, digital currencies were one of the hottest topics in town. China was well on its way to launching its own central bank digital currency, or CBDC, and many other countries launched CBDC research projects, including the US. How things change. Three years later, the digital dollar—even though it doesn’t exist—has become political red meat, as some politicians label it a dystopian tool for surveillance. And late last year, the Boston Fed quietly stopped working on its CBDC project. So is the dream of the digital dollar dead? Read the…
AT&T says customer data exposed in massive data breach – CBS News Watch CBS News AT&T on Friday disclosed that hackers had accessed records of calls and texts of “nearly all” its cellular customers for a six-month period between May 1, 2022, and Oct. 31, 2022. Jo Ling Kent reports. Be the first to know Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Not Now Turn On #ATT #customer #data #exposed #massive #data #breach
3 tips to spot misinformation online – CBS News Watch CBS News It’s more important than ever to scrutinize what you see online. These three tips from CBS News Confirmed will help you know what to trust. Be the first to know Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Not Now Turn On #tips #spot #misinformation #online
Confidential computing use cases and benefits GPU-accelerated confidential computing has far-reaching implications for AI in enterprise contexts. It also addresses privacy issues that apply to any analysis of sensitive data in the public cloud. This is of particular concern to organizations trying to gain insights from multiparty data while maintaining utmost privacy. Another of the key advantages of Microsoft’s confidential computing offering is that it requires no code changes on the part of the customer, facilitating seamless adoption. “The confidential computing environment we’re building does not require customers to change a single line of code,” notes Bhatia. “They can redeploy…
The findings make sense, given that people who are already creative don’t really need to use AI to be creative, says Tuhin Chakrabarty, a computer science researcher at Columbia University, who specializes in AI and creativity but wasn’t involved in the study. There are some potential drawbacks to taking advantage of the model’s help, too. AI-generated stories across the board are similar in terms of semantics and content, Chakrabarty says, and AI-generated writing is full of telltale giveaways, such as very long, exposition-heavy sentences that contain lots of stereotypes. “These kinds of idiosyncrasies probably also reduce the overall creativity,” he…