FlatpanelsHD: LG has discontinued all Blu-ray players, including the UBK80 and UBK90 UHD Blu-ray players, with remaining units only available while stocks last.

The announcement echoes similar moves from Oppo in 2018 and Samsung in 2019, when both companies exited the optical disc player market. LG has now officially discontinued its Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray players, as reflected on LG's online portals and confirmed by multiple sources to FlatpanelsHD.... [ Read it >> ]

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Harvard University announced Thursday it's releasing a high-quality dataset of nearly one million public-domain books that could be used by anyone to train large language models and other AI tools. From a report: The dataset was created by Harvard's newly formed Institutional Data Initiative with funding from both Microsoft and OpenAI. It contains books scanned as part of the Google Books project that are no longer protected by copyright. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon Web Services said in a post earlier this month that developers report spending an average of "just one hour per day" on actual coding. But that doesn't mean these workers twiddle their thumbs the remaining seven hours per day. Instead, developers spend the majority of their time on "tedious, undifferentiated tasks such as learning codebases, writing and reviewing documentation, testing, managing deployments, troubleshooting issues or finding and fixing vulnerabilities," according to Amazon Web Services.... [ Read it >> ]

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Startup Embodied is closing down, and its product, an $800 robot for kids ages 5 to 10, will soon be bricked. From a report: Embodied blamed its closure on a failed "critical funding round." On its website, it explained: "We had secured a lead investor who was prepared to close the round. However, at the last minute, they withdrew, leaving us with no viable options to continue operations. Despite our best efforts to secure alternative funding, we were unable to find a replacement in time to sustain operations." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Photobucket was sued Wednesday after a recent privacy policy update revealed plans to sell users' photos -- including biometric identifiers like face and iris scans -- to companies training generative AI models. From a report: The proposed class action seeks to stop Photobucket from selling users' data without first obtaining written consent, alleging that Photobucket either intentionally or negligently failed to comply with strict privacy laws in states like Illinois, New York, and California by claiming it can't reliably determine users' geolocation. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Russia has reportedly cut some regions of the country off from the rest of the world's internet for a day, effectively siloing them, according to reports from European and Russian news outlets reshared by the US nonprofit Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and Western news outlets. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Paul Knopp, KPMG US CEO, writing in an op-ed on WSJ: According to a United Nations estimate, 230 languages went extinct between 1950 and 2010. If my profession doesn't act, the language of business -- accounting -- could vanish too. The number of students who took the exam to become certified public accountants in 2022 hit a 17-year low. From 2020 to 2022, bachelor's degrees in accounting dropped 7.8% after steady declines since 2018. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google has announced an experimental AI-powered code agent called "Jules" that can automatically fix coding errors for developers. From a report: Jules was introduced today alongside Gemini 2.0, and uses the updated Google AI model to create multi-step plans to address issues, modify multiple files, and prepare pull requests for Python and Javascript coding tasks in GitHub workflows. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg abruptly left a key WordPress community platform after a federal court ordered his company to restore rival WP Engine's access to WordPress.org and remove a controversial login requirement. The preliminary injunction mandates Automattic eliminate a checkbox that forced users to declare they had no connection to WP Engine before accessing the platform. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An international research team has for the first time imaged and controlled a type of magnetic flow called altermagnetism, which physicists say could be used to develop faster and more reliable electronic devices. Financial Times: A groundbreaking experiment at a powerful X-ray microscope in Sweden provides direct proof of the existence of altermagnetism, according to a paper published in Nature on Wednesday. Altermagnetic materials can sustain magnetic activity without themselves being magnetic. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google today unveiled Project Mariner, its first AI agent capable of autonomously navigating web browsers, operating through a Chrome extension that controls cursor movements and form-filling to replicate human interactions online.

The Gemini-powered prototype, developed by Google's DeepMind division, is initially available to a select group of testers. During demos, the agent performed tasks like creating shopping carts on grocery websites, though with noticeable five-second delays between actions. The system captures browser screenshots and processes them through Gemini in the cloud to generate navigation commands. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Software has become essential for winning modern wars, a senior Palantir executive told a defense conference in Israel this week. "Modern war cannot be won without software," said Noam Perski, executive vice president at the data analytics company.

"Seeing software as a defense system, as a weapon system, and the most malleable weapon system we have, is really important as we build the next generation's capabilities." Speaking at Tel Aviv University's first DefenseTech Summit, Perski said human factors still determine military success.... [ Read it >> ]

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Security researchers have uncovered a new surveillance tool that they say has been used by Chinese law enforcement to collect sensitive information from Android devices in China. From a report: The tool, named "EagleMsgSpy," was discovered by researchers at U.S. cybersecurity firm Lookout. The company said at the Black Hat Europe conference on Wednesday that it had acquired several variants of the spyware, which it says has been operational since "at least 2017." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Rising renewables, low demand and cheaper power imports all helped reduce fossil fuel use in the UK power system to record lows. From a report: For the first full year wind, solar, and hydropower will generate more electricity than all fossil fuels combined. Homegrown UK renewable power will cross a significant threshold in 2024, overtaking fossil fuel generation for the first full year. Wind, solar and hydropower are set to generate a combined 37% of UK electricity in 2024 (103 TWh), compared to 35% from fossil fuels (97 TWh). Just 3 years ago, in 2021, fossil fuels generated 46% of UK electricity, while low-carbon renewables generated 27%. ... [ Read it >> ]

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AI-powered apps have flooded Apple's App Store, with AI-branded tools dominating top rankings across multiple categories, particularly in graphics and design. An investigation by The Verge reveals significant quality concerns among these applications.

Turkey-based developer HUBX controls three of the top 10 graphics apps, including DaVinci AI, which offers limited free features while charging up to $30 annually for full access. The app produces low-quality images and forces watermarks on paid users' downloads, The Verge writes. According to Sensor Tower data, four of the top 10 most downloaded iOS graphics apps in the U.S. this year include "AI" in their titles. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The news came by Slack message. Cruise CEO Marc Whitten, who took the top post in June, posted a message Tuesday afternoon in the company's announcements channel along with a link to a press release entitled "GM to refocus autonomous driving development on personal vehicles." ... [ Read it >> ]

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WP Engine just won a preliminary injunction against WordPress.com parent company Automattic. On Tuesday, a California District Court judge ordered Automattic to stop blocking WP Engine's access to WordPress.org resources and interfering with its plugins. From a report: The preliminary injunction comes after WP Engine, a third-party WordPress hosting service, filed a lawsuit that accused Automattic and its CEO, Matt Mullenweg, of "multiple forms of immediate irreparable harm." It later asked the court to stop Mullenweg from restricting WP Engine's access to WordPress.org. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Google recently asked the U.S. government to break up Microsoft's exclusive agreement to host OpenAI's technology on its cloud servers, according to a person who has been directly involved in the effort. The conversation took place after the Federal Trade Commission, one of the primary federal antitrust enforcement agencies, asked Google about Microsoft's business practices as part of a broader investigation, this person said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Amazon expanded Tuesday into online car sales with the launch of Amazon Autos, an e-commerce business that lets customers find, order, and buy new cars, trucks, and SUVs from dealerships. From a report: Amazon is kicking off the new endeavor with Hyundai in 48 U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. The launch comes a little more than a year since the e-commerce giant announced plans to start selling vehicles on its website in the second half of 2024. Amazon said it will add more cities and additional auto manufacturers in 2025. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Nearly 100 live samples of the deadly Hendra virus have been lost in a biosecurity bungle at a state-run Queensland laboratory. An investigation has been launched after it was revealed 323 virus samples went missing from Virology Laboratory in 2021 in a "major breach" of biosecurity protocol, Health Minister Tim Nicholls announced on Monday. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Software vulnerability submissions generated by AI models have ushered in a "new era of slop security reports for open source" -- and the devs maintaining these projects wish bug hunters would rely less on results produced by machine learning assistants. Seth Larson, security developer-in-residence at the Python Software Foundation, raised the issue in a blog post last week, urging those reporting bugs not to use AI systems for bug hunting. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Global antibiotic use in livestock varies dramatically across regions, with some Asian countries using up to 80 times more antibiotics per kilogram of meat than European nations, according to new research published by Our World in Data. Thailand leads global antibiotic consumption in livestock, while Norway reports the lowest usage rates. ... [ Read it >> ]

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After spending more than $10 billion on its robotaxi unit, General Motors
is abandoning its Cruise driverless ride-hailing service. From a report: The Detroit automaker on Tuesday said it will no longer fund its Cruise division's robotaxi development and will instead fold the unit into its broader tech team. "Cruise was well on its way to a robotaxi business -- but when you look at the fact you're deploying a fleet, there's a whole operations piece of doing that," GM CEO Mary Barra said on a call Tuesday. ... [ Read it >> ]

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BrianFagioli writes: Linux Mint has reclaimed its position as the top-ranked Linux distribution on DistroWatch, dethroning MX Linux. The latest page hit rankings, which reflect the popularity of distributions among DistroWatch users, place Linux Mint in first place with 2,412 hits per day. MX Linux, previously the reigning champ, now sits in second with 2,280 hits.... [ Read it >> ]

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Cable industry lobbyists have urged the Federal Communications Commission to avoid regulating data caps and overage charges, comparing broadband plans to restaurant menus in a filing last week.

NCTA - The Internet & Television Association argued that usage-based pricing benefits low-income consumers by providing cheaper options, pushing back against advocacy groups who say data caps disproportionately harm price-sensitive users. The group likened different pricing models to restaurants offering tasting menus, buffets, or unlimited soup and salad. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft, trying to mitigate the climate impact of its data center building boom, is starting to roll out a new design that uses zero water to cool the facilities' chips and servers. From a report: Launched in August, the new design will eliminate the more than 125 million liters of water each data center typically uses per year, the company said in a statement. The new system use a "closed loop" to recycle water; liquid is added during construction and continually circulated -- obviating the need for fresh supplies. Data centers will still require fresh water for worker facilities like bathrooms and kitchens. ... [ Read it >> ]

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China should focus on developing original technologies and scientific knowledge and leverage the expertise of scientists returning from the United States, according to a top Chinese-American mathematician. From a report: Yau Shing-Tung retired from Harvard University in 2022 to teach at Tsinghua University and help China become a maths powerhouse.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon on Tuesday said it is piloting a quick commerce service in India that will see the U.S. tech giant delivering grocery and other items in 15 minutes or less.

[...] The quick-commerce model -- delivering items to customers within 10 to 15 minutes -- hasn't worked in most parts of the world, but it's increasingly finding success in India, where a range of retailers and internet firms, from food delivery giant Swiggy to online cosmetics platform Nykaa, are gearing up their supply chain ecosystems to accommodate for faster deliveries.... [ Read it >> ]

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As tech giants struggle to profit from AI, a growing industry of specialized AI training firms is emerging by hiring doctors, radiologists and other experts to develop commercially viable applications. The $20 billion data services sector, projected to grow 20% annually, is attracting major investment by focusing on high-value, specialized AI applications. ... [ Read it >> ]

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China's high-speed rail network, which has tripled to nearly 30,000 miles under President Xi Jinping's leadership, faces mounting financial challenges amid aggressive expansion plans. China State Railway Group, the national operator, has accumulated nearly $1 trillion in debt and liabilities, requiring $25 billion annually for debt service. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An area of land nearly a third larger than India has turned from humid conditions to dryland -- arid areas where agriculture is difficult -- in the past three decades, research has found. From a report: Drylands now make up 40% of all land on Earth, excluding Antarctica. Three-quarters of the world's land suffered drier conditions in the past 30 years, which is likely to be permanent, according to the study by the UN Science Policy Interface, a body of scientists convened by the United Nations. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Malaysian lawmakers voted in favor of broadening the government's control over the internet, unmoved by criticism that the law risks suppressing dissent and free speech. From a report: Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil told parliament Monday that the government needed to amend existing laws to tackle online harm including scams, cyber-bullying, and more. "Freedom of speech does exist, but we are also given power through parliament to impose any necessary restrictions for the safety of the public," said Fahmi. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Scientific advisers to the European Commission are calling for a moratorium across the EU on efforts to artificially cool Earth through solar geoengineering. That includes controversial technologies used to reflect sunlight back into space, primarily by sending reflective particles into the atmosphere or by brightening clouds. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Over 300 musicians have signed an open letter defending the Internet Archive against a $621 million copyright infringement lawsuit over its preservation of 78 rpm records. The letter, organized by Fight for the Future, opposes the lawsuit filed by major record labels including Universal Music Group and Sony Music. ... [ Read it >> ]

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chiguy writes: In October, a jury in a federal class-action lawsuit returned a verdict that found Cognizant intentionally discriminated against more than 2,000 non-Indian employees between 2013 and 2022. The verdict, which echoed a previously undisclosed finding from a 2020 US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation, centered on discrimination claims based on race and national origin. Cognizant, based in Teaneck, New Jersey, was found to have preferred workers from India, most of whom joined the firm's US workforce of about 32,000 using skilled-worker visas called H-1Bs. ... [ Read it >> ]

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ChatGPT maker OpenAI released its AI-generated video tool called Sora for general use by its paying customers Monday. From a report: The company then said it would do wide testing with creatives and red-teaming with security experts before its release to the public. "We don't want the world to just be text," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a live-streamed announcement Monday. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google has achieved a major breakthrough in quantum error correction that could enable practical quantum computers by 2030, the company announced in a paper published Monday in Nature. The research demonstrated significant error reduction when scaling up from 3x3 to 7x7 grids of quantum bits, with errors dropping by half at each step. The advance addresses quantum computing's core challenge of maintaining stable quantum states, which typically last only microseconds. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman predicts conversational AI will become the primary way people interact with technology,
replacing traditional web browsers and search engines within the next few years. In an interview with The Verge, Suleyman, who oversees Microsoft's consumer AI products including Bing and Copilot, called current search interfaces "completely broken" and "a total pain," arguing that voice-based AI interactions will prove "100 times easier" for users. He said: The UI that you experience is going to be automagically produced by an LLM in three or five years, and that is going to be the default. And they'll be representing the brands, businesses, influencers, celebrities, academics, activists, and organizations, just as each one of those stakeholders in society ended up getting a podcast, getting a website, writing a blog, maybe building an app, or using the telephone back in the day. ... [ Read it >> ]

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AI-powered teams at a major U.S. materials company discovered 44% more new materials and filed 39% more patents compared to teams using standard methods, according to a study by MIT economist Aidan Toner-Rodgers.

The research, conducted at an unnamed corporate laboratory with over 1,000 scientists, tracked the implementation of a custom machine-learning system combining graph neural networks with reinforcement learning. The AI tool, deployed in 2022, was pre-trained on crystal and molecular structure databases. Top-performing scientists showed the greatest gains with AI assistance, while lower-ranked researchers saw minimal benefits. The AI-designed materials demonstrated higher novelty compared to human designs, based on patent text analysis. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Fans post about him on social media. Swag bearing his name sells out on the regular. College professors dedicate class sessions and textbook sections to him. Foreign government officials have been known to express jealousy over his skills, and one prominent economist refers to him as a "national treasure." Meet FRED, a 33-year-old data tool from St. Louis, Mo., and the economics world's most unlikely celebrity. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Amazon is offering $25 (one-way) plane tickets to 5,000 students (or young adults between 18 and 24 years old) who have a Prime membership (up to $700 off the ticket's original price). CNET REports:

Last year, Amazon offered the $25 flight deals to Prime Student members, but this holiday season, the retail giant is expanding the limited-time offer to those enrolled in its Prime for Young Adults plan... Once again, Amazon is joining with [travel-booking site] StudentUniverse to offer several thousand $25 flights you can book between December 9, 2024, and January 14, 2025. The offer is for a one-way domestic ticket within the U.S., including Washington, DC, while supply lasts. Amazon said it's making available 1,000 tickets to Prime Student and Young Adult subscribers each day for five days, starting at 10 a.m. PST on December 9.... [ Read it >> ]

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Bruce Perens, original co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, has responded to questions from Slashdot readers about a new alternative he's developing that hopefully helps "Post Open" developers get paid.
But first, "One of the things that's clear from the Slashdot patter is that people are not aware of what I've been doing, in general," Perens says. "So, let's start by filling that in..." ... [ Read it >> ]

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"Mercedes-Benz is researching a new type of solar modules that could be seamlessly applied to the bodywork of electric vehicles," according to a recent Mercedes-Benz press release.

They describe the 5-micrometer coating as "similar to a wafer-thin layer of paste... significantly thinner than a human hair" — but creating an active photovoltaic surface with an efficiency of 20%.... [ Read it >> ]

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Slashdot reader prisoninmate shared this report from the blog 9to5Linux

Renowned Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced Thursday that the Linux 6.12 kernel series has been officially marked as LTS (Long Term Support) on the kernel.org website with a predicted life expectancy of at least two years. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google's app store claims that their text-messaging app Google Messages means "conversations are end-to-end encrypted".

"That is some serious bullshit," argues tech blogger John Gruber:
It's shamefully misleading regarding Google Messages's support for end-to-end encryption... Google Messages does support end-to-end encryption, but only over RCS and only if all participants in the chat are using a recent version of Google Messages. But the second screenshot in the Play Store listing flatly declares "Conversations are end-to-end encrypted", full stop... ... [ Read it >> ]

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This week a Florida-based Bitcoin-tech company named MARA Holdings announced it had bought a 114-megawatt Texas wind farm, reports Chron.com, "and will subsequently take it off the power grid and use it to energize its mining operations."

MARA's CEO tells the site they're "leveraging renewable resources that would have otherwise been curtailed" while "reducing our bitcoin production costs through vertical integration, and demonstrating MARA's commitment to environmental stewardship."... [ Read it >> ]

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"Generative AI is transforming software development by enabling natural language prompts to generate code, reducing the need for traditional programming skills," argues Analytics India magazine.

Traditionally, coding was the bastion of the select few who had mastered mighty languages like C++, Python, or Java. The idea of programming seemed exclusively reserved for those fluent in syntax and logic. However, the narrative is now being challenged by natural language coding being implemented in AI tools like GitHub Copilot. Andrej Karpathy, senior director of AI at Tesla predicted this trend last year.... English is emerging as the universal coding language. ... [ Read it >> ]

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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. ... [ Read it >> ]

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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."... [ Read it >> ]

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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. ... [ Read it >> ]

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