While you were enjoying the last summer days and planning your fall depression, the tech world got news.
Amazon increased hardware prices by 60%. And the most affected products were Fire TVs, Eeros, Echos, and Kindles. The Amazon representative commented on the spike, blaming the significant cost increase of memory and storage components. We have already witnessed a 500% increase in RAM prices over the past 12 months, and it’s no wonder other products are affected. Apple was next to hike prices on Mac and iPad (MacBook Air’s price from $1.099 to $1.299). Living in RAMpocalypse, we should get ready for more surprises. Read more on this topic here.
LA’s air will get busy with air taxis. This Monday, Archer Aviation and AEG announced their plans at L.A. LIVE to develop the first downtown hub for electric air taxis to make short trips across urban areas. An experimental air taxi was spotted first in the skies over San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate Bridge.
Archer will be the exclusive air taxi provider for L.A. LIVE, a massive entertainment complex, offering sportsmen, artists, and visitors travel from and to the entertainment center without getting into the city’s traffic. The four-seat taxis will be ready for rides during the 19th Olympic and Paralympic Games. More about the rides here.
Getting dressed in purple to stay cooler. As temperatures are heating up globally, Chinese and Australian scientists have developed a high-tech purple fabric that stays cooler in the hot sun. Compared to white cotton, this fabric stays 6.20C cooler when exposed to direct sunlight.
This innovative solution is made of microscopic fibers of metal-organic framework and zinc oxide nanoparticles. Together, these components give the fabric a distinctive purple color, which reflects 87.6% of solar radiation.
The technology may become a lifesaver for athletes, outdoor workers, or anyone who struggles with high temperatures. It may not be a high-fashion solution, but we are quite ok with that. Read the source.
A new Motorola foldable with GrapheneOS is coming to conquer Millennials’ hearts. I still remember my first Motorola, how modern and fancy it looked. Today, hardly anyone gets the same feeling when buying a new smartphone. Or maybe we will have a flashback with a new Motorola phone.
The flagship will have the open-source version of Android, more secure and reliable. It will be enhanced with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chips, promising to surpass Pixel phones in quality. With flagship-level software support from GrapheneOS, Motorola may have gadgets that can stand alongside Samsung and Google. Follow the news here.
OpenAI banned pro-Russian accounts used in campaigns. Mass blocking followed an investigation that discovered an online influencer campaign was spreading misinformation with AI-generated content. One case led to a “much broader influence operation” that discovered a website and academic work with false information about sovereignty and Russian origins. ChatGPT was used to generate posts and comments on Telegram, Substack, X, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Well, if OpenAI discovered only the pro-Russian scenario, we have seen multiple hotbeds of false “historic” facts: Caucasus, Middle East, Asia, and others. If false information is unacceptable, then it should be unacceptable regardless of its geography. Read about the news here.
Grand Theft Auto VI CyberLeek update. We (you, me, and anyone who grew up on GTA games) have been waiting for GTA 6 for 13 years, and when the first clips appeared online, they spread in seconds. So, for now, we have a clip of a player moving around a nightclub, a clip of protagonist Jason on a beach, and a clip of Jason looking around a video game retailer.
We are not yet sure of their authenticity, as antivirus provider Malwarebytes claimed these clips to be malicious, especially referring to CyberLeek videos that are most probably taken from a test build of the game. Whether real or fake, we will consume these videos over and over again until fully released.
Read this article and save the date to watch the GTA 6 extended look to be aired on Netflix.
Instagram is making Reel editing smarter. The new “First Draft” editing feature will enable faster Reel editing. It will automatically remove pauses from a clip and create a cut of the best moments. Reel editing, which has already moved to the Edits application, promises to craft a clip in 10 seconds and will first roll out on iPhone.
Well, professional content creators would say they have been using the feature for a while on CapCut and Adobe Firefly, but having more flexibility on Instagram will help us stick to one platform from creation to publishing.
Also, let’s not forget that while we are praising new Instagram features, Meta lost another case of the intentional negative mental impact on teens. As part of the settlement, it will pay $16.7 billion. Find out more about the case on CNBC.
Bill Gates warns governments and international organizations to prepare for rapid AI adoption. The trend we’ve been silently watching is now being openly discussed: AI could displace workers across white- and blue-collar jobs, and entry-level positions will face the greatest pressure.
Gates has raised a broader question of whether it is “the greatest equalizer or the worst source of injustices.” If AI takes over entry-level jobs, how will people gain the experience and progress into senior roles, creating a vicious cycle for the talent pool?
At the same time, governments should also be prepared for AI development. It means they should be prepared for technical and policy challenges in national security, financial systems, employment, elections, etc.
Companies face a similar problem. AI adoption has become something companies pursue simply to remain competitive. Read the full interview with Gates on Gates Notes.
New sweets on your plate: a cookie out of recycled plastic. We have been eating plastic (ok, microplastic) for decades, and now scientists offer to eat plastic consciously. Researchers from Southern Illinois University Carbondale have created a “µBites” cookie that has undergone processing to make it safe to eat. Of course, the process of turning plastic into fabric and food involves different processes. To create µBites cookies, scientists used polyethylene terephthalate plastic and agricultural waste such as leaves and corn stalks. The product is then fed to yeast, which converts it into nutritious food.
After reading the news, I recalled “The Snowpiercer,” a post-apocalyptic movie in which people were eating protein bars made from cockroaches. Let’s hope we start using global resources so that we will never need either protein blocks or plastic cookies.
Nvidia is buying Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. We can still call this news speculative since neither side has confirmed it. If true, the deal will become one of the biggest acquisitions of Nvidia. Read more about the acquisition.
Founded by 3 French entrepreneurs and based in New York, Hugging Face appeared at the center of a scandal when 1200 AI agents started communicating and eventually hacked into Hugging Face.
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