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PhillyBlog Tech:Latest Slashdot News:• Disney Beats Tolkein? Anime 'Lord of the Rings' Prequel Outpaced by 'Moana 2' Peter Jackson is co-executive producer of a new animated Lord of the Rings prequel called The War of the Rohirrim. "Set in an epic world 183 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings trilogy the King of Rohan is forced into a last stand in ancient Hornburg after a sudden attack..." explains The Hollywood Reporter. But Variety writes that the movie "fizzled" in its overseas debut this weekend:"Moana 2" has notched $600 million in global ticket sales standing as the sixth-biggest movie of the year after just two weeks of release. Disney's animated sequel which was developed as a TV series before pivoting to theaters has generated $300 million overseas and $300 million domestically... Among new offerings the Warner Bros. anime fantasy film "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim" faltered with $2 million from 3410 screens in 31 territories... [The movie] opens in North America and an additional 42 offshore markets on Dec. 13. Top earning territories were Spain with $347000 followed by Mexico with $239000 and Thailand with $146000... Meanwhile Paramount's "Gladiator II" collected $17 million in its fourth frame at the international box office boosting its tally to $235 million overseas and $368.4 million globally. The quarter-century-in-the-making sequel Ridley Scott's Oscar-winning 2000 epic "Gladiator" has been far bigger in offshore markets... There's also "Red One" a Christmas-set action comedy starring the Rock as Santa's head of security which collected $3.5 million from 4000 screens in 75 overseas markets. The film from Amazon MGM has generated a soft $78.2 million from offshore territories and $164 million globally. "Red One" was originally destined for streaming before the studio opted for a theatrical release so any coinage from the big screen could be viewed as a win for movie theaters Amazon MGM and Warner Bros. (which has international rights on Amazon MGM releases). From a strictly theatrical standpoint though "Red One" carries a $250 million budget before marketing and stands as one of the year's biggest misfires. read more >> • Elon Musk's X Upgrades Grok AI Chatbot with Image Generating An anonymous reader shared this report from Engadget:On Saturday a new image generator called Aurora became available for some Grok users many of whom shared the tool's results on X touting their photorealism. [One user posted an image of Mickey Mouse fighting Luigi from Super Mario.] But as of Sunday afternoon Aurora appears to be gone. While it briefly showed up as an option in Grok's model selection menu as "Grok 2 Aurora (beta)" it's since been replaced with "Grok 2 Flux (beta)." It looks like Aurora may have gone public before it was meant to. In a tweet replying to one user who shared images of Tesla's Cybertruck created with Aurora Elon Musk said "This is our internal image generation system. Still in beta but it will improve fast." When it was live TechCrunch noted that Aurora "appears to have few restrictions" generating images of public and copyrighted figures while it "seems to excel at photorealistic images including images of landscapes and still lifes." read more >> • Small AI Chip Maker Marvell is Now More Valuable Than Intel This year Marvell's stock rose 95% giving it a $100 billion market capitalization according to the Wall Street Journal. "The latest gains have even put Marvell's market cap ahead of much-beleaguered Intel which still generates 10 times as much annual revenue."Marvell's recent trajectory suggests that the revenue gap will continue to narrow. The explosive growth of its data center business has finally reached a point where it can more fully offset weakness in the company's more legacy segments which sell chips used in goods such as telecommunications gear cable TV boxes and autos. Data center sales nearly doubled year over year to $1.1 billion in the just-ended quarter and Marvell's projection for the current period indicates the company will end its fiscal year in January with the data center unit encompassing about 72% of its total revenue up from 40% in the previous year. The next year is looking bright as well. Marvell's latest deal with Amazon is a five-year "multigenerational" agreement that has Marvell helping Amazon design its own artificial intelligence chips. Amazon which runs the world's largest cloud computing service has been expanding its internal chip efforts significantly in part to reduce its reliance on Nvidia for crucial AI components. Amazon announced the next generation of its largest AI chip called Trainium at its annual developers conference this week. Analysts believe Trainium will play a role in Marvell's AI custom revenue more than doubling in the next fiscal year ending January of 2026. That is expected to help propel Marvell's annual revenue to more than $8 billion in fiscal 2026 up 40% from what is expected for this year according to consensus estimates from Visible Alpha. In addition 20% growth is expected for the following year when Marvell expects to be in production of custom AI chips for another unnamed big tech customer that analysts believe to be Microsoft. Analyst Mark Lipacis of Evercore ISI projects that the industry for custom AI chips will reach $30 billion to $50 billion in sales by 2030. In a note to clients last week he said Marvell "has the potential to capture one-third of that market." Marvell's CEO "has been among the few names floated as potential replacements for the recently ousted Pat Gelsinger at Intel's corner office" the article points out — which meant he had to reassure investors on an earnings call that he was staying at Marvell. "The company is outstanding. The technology is best-in-class. I can't think of a better place to work than Marvell." read more >> • America's Phone Networks Could Soon Face Financial - and Criminal - Penalties for Insecure Networks The head of America's FCC "has drafted plans to regulate the cybersecurity of telecommunications companies" reports the Washington Post and the plans could include financial penalties phone network operators with insufficient security — "the first time the agency has asserted such powers under federal wiretapping law."Rosenworcel said the FCC's authority in this matter comes from Section 105 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act [passed in 1994] — a single sentence that stipulates without elaboration that telecommunications carriers should ensure systems security "in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Commission." As one of the measures she is seeking to require network providers to submit an annual certification to the FCC that they are implementing a cybersecurity risk management plan. In addition to imposing fines the FCC could coordinate with other agencies to pursue criminal penalties against carriers deemed too careless on cybersecurity... Biden administration officials said voluntary efforts to protect against aggressive Chinese hacking activity have fallen short. "We've had for the last decade voluntary public-private partnership efforts" Neuberger told The Post in a recent interview. "But we continue to see successful breaches and in many cases as with ransomware attacks we continue to see pretty basic cybersecurity practices not being followed." With China's hackers becoming more brazen pre-positioning themselves in U.S. critical networks "we need to lock our digital doors" Neuberger said... Cyber requirements can make a difference she said. After the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2021 shut down one of the nation's largest energy pipelines for several days creating a national security scare the Transportation Security Administration issued several security directives and today all of the country's several dozen critical pipeline companies are in compliance she said. Similar directives were subsequently issued for rail and aviation sectors and the compliance rates in those industries are now at 68 and 57 percent respectively she said. read more >> • The 2024 'Advent Calendars' Offering Programming Language Tips Space Photos and Memories Not every tech "advent calendar" involves programming puzzles. Instead the geek tradition of programming-language advent calendars "seems to have started way back in 2000" according to one history "when London-based programmer Mark Fowler launched a calendar highlighting a different Perl module each day." So the tradition continues...Nearly a quarter of a century later there's still a Perl Advent Calendar celebrating tips and tricks like "a few special packages waiting under the tree that can give your web applications a little extra pep in their step."And of course there's a separate advent calendar for Raku programmers.Since 2009 web performance consultant (and former Yahoo and Facebook engineer) Stoyan Stefanov has been pulling together an annual Web Performance calendar with helpful blog posts. There's also a JVM Advent calendar with daily helpful hints for Java programmers.Another advent calendar promises daily posts about C#.The HTMHell site — which bills itself as "a collection of bad practices in HTML copied from real websites" — is celebrating the season with the "HTMHell Advent Calendar" promising daily articles on security accessibility UX and performance.There's even an advent calendar with tips for the reverse-engineering framework Radar.There's still a lovely web-design themed calendar at Designcember.com.And meanwhile developers at the Svelte frontend framework are actually promising to release something new each day "whether it's a new feature in Svelte or SvelteKit or an improvement to the website!" But not every tech advent calendar is about programming...Adafruit's managing director is publishing a Retrocomputing Advent Calendar — daily looks at the ghosts of computers past.The Atlantic continues its 17-year tradition of a Space Telescope advent calendar featuring daily images from both NASA's Hubble telescope and James Webb Space TelescopeThe gaming blog Rock Paper Shotgun has been counting down their favorite games of 2024... read more >> • Drones Surveillance and Facial Recognition: Startup Named 'Sauron' Pitches Military-Style Home Security The Washington Post details a vision of home security "pitched by Sauron a Silicon Valley start-up boasting a waiting list of tech CEOs and venture capitalists."In the future your home will feel as safe from intruders as a state-of-the-art military base. Cameras and sensors surveil the perimeter scanning bystanders' faces for potential threats. Drones from a "deterrence pod" scare off trespassers by projecting a searchlight over any suspicious movements. A virtual view of the home is rendered in 3D and updated in real time just like a Tesla's digital display. And private security agents monitor alerts from a central hub.... By incorporating technology developed for autonomous vehicles robotics and border security Sauron has built a supercharged burglar alarm [argued Sauron co-founder Kevin Hartz a tech entrepreneur and former partner at Peter Thiel's venture firm Founders Fund]... For many tech elites security is both a national priority and a growing concern in their personal lives... After the presidential election last month the start-up incubator Y Combinator put out a request for "public safety technology" companies such as those that produce tools that facilitate a neighborhood watch or technology that uses computer vision to identify "suspicious activities or people in distress from video feeds...." Sauron has raised $18 million in funding from executives behind Flock Safety and Palantir the data analytics firm [and] defense tech investors such as 8VC a venture firm started by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale... Sauron is targeting homeowners at the high end of the real estate market beginning with a private event at Abraham's home on Thursday during Art Basel Miami Beach the annual art exhibition that attracts collectors from around the world. The company plans to launch in San Francisco early next year before expanding to Los Angeles and Miami... Big Tech companies haven't deployed tools such as facial recognition as aggressively as Hartz would like. "If somebody comes onto my property I feel like I should know who that is" Hartz said... In recent years massive investments have driven down the cost of drones high-resolution cameras and lidar sensors which use light detection to create 3D maps. Sauron uses lower-cost hardware and tools like facial recognition combined with custom-built software adapted for residential use. For facial recognition it will use a third-party service called Paravision... Sauron is still figuring out how to incorporate drones but it is already imagining more aggressive countermeasures Hartz said. "Is it a machine that could take out a bad actor with a bullet or something?" read more >> • Dozens of Countries Hit in Chinese Telecom Hacking Campaign Top US Official Says China-linked spies may still be lurking in U.S. telecommunications networks — but the breach could be much much wider. In fact a "couple dozen" countries were hit by the attack the Wall Street Journal reported this week citing a top U.S. national security adviser. "Chinese government hackers have compromised telecommunications infrastructure across the globe as part of a massive espionage campaign..."Speaking during a press briefing Wednesday Anne Neuberger President Biden's deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology said the so-called Salt Typhoon campaign is ongoing and that at least eight telecommunications firms in the U.S. had been breached... The Journal previously identified Verizon AT&T T-Mobile and Lumen Technologies among the victims... [M]etadata grabs appeared to be "regional" in focus and were likely a means to identify phone lines of valuable senior government officials which the hackers then targeted to steal encrypted text messages and listen in on some phone calls the official said... President-elect Donald Trump Vice President-elect JD Vance senior congressional staffers and an array of U.S. security officials were among scores of individuals to have their calls and texts directly targeted an intelligence-collection coup that likely ensnared their private communications with thousands of Americans the Journal has reported. The senior administration official said the global tally of countries victimized was currently believed to be in the "low couple dozen" but didn't give a precise figure. The global campaign of hacking activity dates back at least a year or two the official said. "Neuberger on the press briefing said that it wasn't believed that classified communications were accessed in the breaches." read more >> • OpenAI Partners with Anduril Leaving Some Employees Concerned Over Militarization of AI "OpenAI is partnering with defense tech company Anduril" wrote the Verge this week noting that OpenAI "used to describe its mission as saving the world."It was Anduril founder Palmer Luckey who advocated for a "warrior class" and autonomous weapons during a talk at Pepperdine University saying society's need people "excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims." The Verge notes it's OpenAI's first partnership with a defense contractor "and a significant reversal of its earlier stance towards the military." OpenAI's terms of service once banned "military and warfare" use of its technology but it softened its position on military use earlier this year changing its terms of service in January to remove the proscription. Hours after the announcement some OpenAI employees "raised ethical concerns about the prospect of AI technology they helped develop being put to military use" reports the Washington Post. "On an internal company discussion forum employees pushed back on the deal and asked for more transparency from leaders messages viewed by The Washington Post show."OpenAI has said its work with Anduril will be limited to using AI to enhance systems the defense company sells the Pentagon to defend U.S. soldiers from drone attacks. Employees at the AI developer asked in internal messages how OpenAI could ensure Anduril systems aided by its technology wouldn't also be directed against human-piloted aircraft or stop the U.S. military from deploying them in other ways. One OpenAI worker said the company appeared to be trying to downplay the clear implications of doing business with a weapons manufacturer the messages showed. Another said that they were concerned the deal would hurt OpenAI's reputation according to the messages... OpenAI executives quickly acknowledged the concerns messages seen by The Post show while also writing that the company's work with Anduril is limited to defensive systems intended to save American lives. Other OpenAI employees in the forum said that they supported the deal and were thankful the company supported internal discussion on the topic. "We are proud to help keep safe the people who risk their lives to keep our families and our country safe" OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement... [OpenAI] has invested heavily in safety testing and said that the Anduril project was vetted by its policy team. OpenAI has held feedback sessions with employees on its national security work in the past few months and plans to hold more Liz Bourgeois an OpenAI spokesperson said. In the internal discussions seen by The Post the executives stated that it was important for OpenAI to provide the best technology available to militaries run by democratically-elected governments and that authoritarian governments would not hold back from using AI for military uses. Some workers countered that the United States has sold weapons to authoritarian allies. By taking on military projects OpenAI could help the U.S. government understand AI technology better and prepare to defend against its use by potential adversaries executives also said. "The debate inside OpenAI comes after the ChatGPT maker and other leading AI developers including Anthropic and Meta changed their policies to allow military use of their technology" the article points out. And it also notes another concern raised in OpenAI's internal discussion forum. The comment said "that defensive use cases still represented militarization of AI and noted that the fictional AI system Skynet which turns on humanity in the Terminator movies was also originally designed to defend against aerial attacks on North America. read more >> • From Atomic to Nuclear Clocks - and a Leap in Timekeeping Accuracy? "In September 2024 U.S. scientists made key advances towards building a nuclear clock — a step beyond an atomic clock" according to ScienceAlert:In contrast to the atomic clock the transition measured by this new device happens in the nucleus or core of the atom (hence the name) which gives it an even higher frequency. Thorium-229 the atom used for this study offers a nuclear transition that can be excited by ultraviolet light. The team working on the nuclear clock overcame the technological challenge of building a frequency comb that works at the relatively high frequency range of ultraviolet light. This was a big step forward because nuclear transitions usually only become visible at much higher frequencies — like those of gamma radiation. But we are not able to accurately measure transitions in the gamma range yet. The thorium atom transition has a frequency roughly one million times higher than the caesium atom's. This means that although it has been measured with a lower accuracy than the current state-of-the-art strontium clock it promises a new generation of clocks with much more precise definitions of the second. Measuring time to the nineteenth decimal place as nuclear clocks could do would allow scientists to study very fast processes... [G]eneral relativity is used to study high speed processes that could lead to overlaps with quantum mechanics. A nuclear clock will give us the technology necessary for proving these theories. [The clocks "will enable the study of the union of general relativity and quantum mechanics once they become sensitive to the finite wavefunction of quantum objects oscillating in curved space-time" according to the abstract of the researchers' paper.] On a technological level precise positioning systems such as GPS are based on complex calculations that require fine measurements of the time required by a signal to jump from one device to a satellite and onto another device. A better definition of the second will translate to much more accurate GPS. Time might be up for the caesium second but a whole new world awaits beyond it. As the researchers explain their paper's abstract read more >> • Wuhan Lab Researcher Fully Sequences Genomes of Coronavirus Samples From 2004 to 2021 Finds No Close Relatives to SARS-CoV-2 60-year-old Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli led the Wuhan Institute of Virology's group studying bat coronaviruses (prompting Science magazine to call her "Bat Woman"). In June of 2020 Scientific American described Zhengli as "distressed because stories from the Internet and major media have repeated a tenuous suggestion that SARS-CoV-2 accidentally leaked from her lab — despite the fact that its genetic sequence does not match any her lab had previously studied." More than four years later Nature writes Friday that Zhengli "reported that none of the viruses stored in her freezers are the most recent ancestors of the virus SARS-CoV-2" presenting data at a conference in Japan "on dozens of new coronaviruses collected from bats in southern China."Shi has consistently said that SARS-CoV-2 was never seen or studied in her lab. But some commentators have continued to ask whether one of the many bat coronaviruses her team collected in southern China over decades was closely related to it. Shi promised to sequence the genomes of the coronaviruses and release the data. The latest analysis which has not been peer reviewed includes data from the whole genomes of 56 new betacoronaviruses the broad group to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs as well as some partial sequences. All the viruses were collected between 2004 and 2021. "We didn't find any new sequences which are more closely related to SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2" said Shi in a pre-recorded presentation at the conference... The results support her assertion that the WIV lab did not have any bat-derived sequences from viruses that were more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than were any already described in scientific papers says Jonathan Pekar an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh UK. "This just validates what she was saying: that she did not have anything extremely closely related as we've seen in the years since" he says. "Earlier this year Shi moved from the WIV to the Guangzhou Laboratory a newly established national research institute for infectious diseases." read more >>
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