Tech

samsung’s-abandoned-nx-cameras-can-be-brought-online-with-a-$20-lte-stick

Samsung’s abandoned NX cameras can be brought online with a $20 LTE stick

Digital Camera, digital cameras, e-waste, firmware, firmware hacking, Open Source, samsung, samsung nx, samsung nx camera, Tech / /

Samsung: The Next Big Thing is Here (And Gone) —

All it took was a reverse-engineered camera firmware and a custom API rewrite.

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Samsung camera display next to a 4G LTE modem stick

Enlarge / Under-powered Samsung camera, meet over-powered 4G LTE dongle. Now work together to move pictures over the air.

Georg Lukas

Back in 2010—after the first iPhone, but before its camera was any good—a mirrorless, lens-swapping camera that could upload photos immediately to social media or photo storage sites was a novel proposition. That’s what Samsung’s NX cameras promised.

Unsurprisingly, Samsung didn’t keep that promise too much longer after it dropped its camera business and sales numbers disappeared. It tried out the quirky idea of jamming together Android phones and NX cameras in 2013, providing a more direct means of sending shots and clips to Instagram or YouTube. But it shut down its Social Network Services (SNS) entirely in 2021, leaving NX owners with the choices of manually transferring their photos or ditching their cameras (presuming they had not already moved on).

Some people, wonderfully, refuse to give up. People like Georg Lukas, who reverse-engineered Samsung’s SNS API to bring back a version of direct picture posting to Wi-Fi-enabled NX models, and even expand it. It was not easy, but at least the hardware is cheap. By reflashing the surprisingly capable board on a USB 4G dongle, Lukas is able to create a Wi-Fi hotspot with LTE uplink and run his modified version of Samsung’s (woefully insecure) service natively on the stick.

What is involved should you have such a camera? Here’s the shorter version of Lukas’ impressive redux:

  • Installing Debian on the LTE dongle’s board
  • Creating a Wi-Fi hotspot on the stick using NetworkManager
  • Compiling Lukas’ own upload server, written in Flask and Python
  • Configuring the web server now running on that dongle

The details of how Lukas reverse-engineered the firmware from a Samsung WB850F are posted on his blog. It is one of those Internet blog posts in which somebody describes something incredibly arcane, requiring a dozen kinds of knowledge backed by experience, with the casualness with which one might explain how to plant seeds in soil.

The hardest part of the whole experiment might be obtaining the 4G LTE stick itself. The Hackaday blog has detailed this stick (and also tipped us to this camera rebirth project), which is a purpose-built device that can be turned into a single-board computer again, on the level of a Pi Zero W2, should you apply a new bootloader and stick Linux on it. You can find it on Alibaba for very cheap—or seemingly find it, because some versions of what looks like the same stick come with a far more limited CPU. You’re looking for a stick with the MSM8916 inside, sometimes listed as a “QualComm 8916.”

Lukas’ new version posts images to Mastodon, as demonstrated in his proof of life post. It could likely be extended to more of today’s social or backup services, should he or anybody else have the time and deep love for what are not kinda cruddy cameras. Here’s hoping today’s connected devices have similarly dedicated hackers in the future.

Samsung’s abandoned NX cameras can be brought online with a $20 LTE stick Read More »

“immensely-disappointing”:-nike-killing-app-for-$350-self-tying-sneakers 

“Immensely disappointing”: Nike killing app for $350 self-tying sneakers 

clothing, Software, Tech / /

Retired app means owners will have to “just do it” themselves —

Without updates or ability to download after August, app will become useless.

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Nike Adapt BB sneaker

Enlarge / Nike announced the Adapt BB as “a Self-Lacing Basketball Shoe” with app-controllable LEDs.

Nike

In 2019, Nike got closer than ever to its dreams of popularizing self-tying sneakers by releasing the Adapt BB. Using Bluetooth, the sneakers paired to the Adapt app that let users do things like tighten or loosen the shoes’ laces and control its LED lights. However, Nike has announced that it’s “retiring” the app on August 6, when it will no longer be downloadable from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play Store; nor will it be updated.

In an announcement recently spotted by The Verge, Nike’s brief explanation for discontinuing the app is that Nike “is no longer creating new versions of Adapt shoes.” The company started informing owners about the app’s retirement about four months ago.

Those who already bought the shoes can still use the app after August 6, but it’s expected that iOS or Android updates will eventually make the app unusable. Also, those who get a new device won’t be able to download Adapt after August 6.

Without the app, wearers are unable to change the color of the sneaker’s LED lights. The lights will either maintain the last color scheme selected via the app or, per Nike, “if you didn’t install the app, light will be the default color.” While owners will still be able to use on-shoe buttons to turn the shoes on or off, check its battery, adjust the lace’s tightness, and save fit settings, the ability to change lighting and control the shoes via mobile phone were big selling points of the $350 kicks.

Despite the Adapt BB being Nike’s third version of self-tying sneakers and its most widely available one yet, the sneakers look doomed to have some its most marketed features bricked. Nike still maintains other mobile apps that are directly tied to shoe functionality, like its shopping app and Run Club app for tracking running.

Disappointed sneakerheads

Adapt BB owners have shared disappointment after learning the news. One Reddit user who claimed to own multiple pairs of the shoes called the news “hyper bullshit,” while another described it as “immensely disappointing.”

Some hope that Nike will open-source the app so that customers can maintain their shoes’ original and full functionality. But Nike hasn’t shared any plans to do so. Ars Technica asked the company about this but didn’t hear back ahead of press time.

One person going by Maverick-1776 on Reddit wrote:

These shoes were so expensive when they came out. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal to keep supporting the app. It doesn’t mean they need to dedicate a dev team. …

Hopefully the app doesn’t disappear if you already have it installed. I like using the app to see how much battery is left, or just messing around with the LEDs.”

Reddit’s Taizan said companies like Nike should “offer alternatives or put out stuff to the public domain when they do these things,” adding: “Sustainability also involves maintenance of past products, digital or not.”

“I’m out. Fuck ’em.”

Some may be unsurprised that Nike’s attempt at commercializing the shoes from Back to the Future Part II has run into a wall. Nike, for instance, also discontinued NikeConnect, its app for $200 NBA jerseys announced in 2017 that turned wearers into marketing gold.

Casual sneaker wearers would overlook the Adapt BB’s flashy features, but the shoe had inherent flaws that could frustrate sneaker fanatics, too. It didn’t take long, for example, for a recommended software update to break the shoes, including making them unwearable to anyone who wanted to tighten the laces (at the time, Nike said the problem affected a small number of owners). Nike’s tech inexperience played a role, as the company’s testing reportedly didn’t fully consider all the different phone models in use and their varying Bluetooth capabilities.

Nike’s borked shoe update was early warning of what happens when expensive products are tied to technology run by companies with limited tech chops.

Reddit user rtuite81 called Adapt’s sunsetting “entirely expected, but frustrating.” They added:

I knew this day would come … I just didn’t think it would be so soon LOL. I’ve only had these for a little over a year and worn them about 15 times. Hopefully my current phone outlasts the shoes.

This year, we’ve reported on customers of numerous companies—including Amazon, Oral-B, and Spotify—that have disappointed early adopters of their ambitious tech-tied projects.

As we’re currently seeing with AI, corporations are eager to force technology into products that don’t necessarily need it in order to set themselves apart and make money. But this makes customers inadvertent test subjects for products that are inevitably dropped. And as customers like Reddit’s henkmanz get let down, they lose faith in such trendy products:

I’m done with products supported by apps, now. If you can’t trust a multi-billion dollar company like Nike to continue support for a sneaker, how can you trust a toaster maker [or] an automaker? I’m out. Fuck ‘em.

“Immensely disappointing”: Nike killing app for $350 self-tying sneakers  Read More »

notepad’s-spellcheck-and-autocorrect-are-rolling-out-to-everybody-after-41-years

Notepad’s spellcheck and autocorrect are rolling out to everybody after 41 years

microsoft, notepad, Tech, Windows 11, windows 11 23h2, windows 11 24h2 / /

notrpad spelchexk —

It’s still bare-bones by most standards, but Notepad has evolved a lot recently.

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  • Testing spellcheck in the latest version of Windows Notepad.

  • Right-clicking and expanding the Spelling menu also presents more options.

    Andrew Cunningham

  • Like other recent Notepad additions, spellcheck and autocorrect can be tweaked or disabled entirely in the settings.

    Andrew Cunningham

In March, Microsoft started testing an update to the venerable Notepad app that added spellcheck and autocorrect to the app’s limited but slowly growing set of capabilities. The update that adds these features to Notepad is now rolling out to all Windows 11 users via the Microsoft Store, as reported by The Verge.

The spellcheck feature underlines words in red when they’re misspelled, and users can either left-click the words to see a list of suggestions or right-click words and see suggestions under a separate “spelling” menu item. Autocorrect works automatically to fix minor and obvious misspellings (typing “misspellign” instead of “misspelling,” for example), and changes can be reverted manually or by using the Undo command.

Either feature can be disabled from within Notepad’s settings. The spellchecker can also be switched on and off for a few different individual file extensions in case you want to see spelling suggestions for .txt files but not for .md or .lic files. The Verge also reports that spellchecking is turned off by default for log files or “other file types associated with coding.” Neither feature worked when I opened a batch file in Notepad to edit it, for example.

Microsoft often rolls out new app updates gradually, so you may or may not be seeing the new features yet. I can currently see the spellcheck and autocorrect features in Notepad version 11.2405.13.0 running on a fully updated Windows 11 23H2 PC, but your mileage may vary.

Notepad has received several updates over the course of the Windows 11 era, starting with dark mode support and other theme options. Eventually, it also added a tabbed interface that supported automatically reopening files when relaunching the app. These kinds of additions count as “major” for Notepad, which for years had only received relatively minor under-the-hood updates (when it was being updated at all).

The Notepad improvements come as Microsoft prepares to stop shipping WordPad with Windows 11. WordPad was previously Windows’ preinstalled basic word processor, but it has seen few (if any) significant updates since Windows 7 was released in 2009. WordPad is still available in Windows 11 22H2 and 23H2, but is no longer included in current versions of the upcoming Windows 11 24H2 update. After WordPad is gone, users looking for basic word processing will need to look to the more-capable Notepad, the free-to-use online version of Microsoft Word, or a free alternative like LibreOffice.

Notepad’s spellcheck and autocorrect are rolling out to everybody after 41 years Read More »

chatgpt’s-much-heralded-mac-app-was-storing-conversations-as-plain-text

ChatGPT’s much-heralded Mac app was storing conversations as plain text

AI, Apple, chatgpt, macOS, openai, Tech / /

Seriously? —

The app was updated to address the issue after it gained public attention.

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A message field for ChatGPT pops up over a Mac desktop

Enlarge / The app lets you invoke ChatGPT from anywhere in the system with a keyboard shortcut, Spotlight-style.

Samuel Axon

OpenAI announced its Mac desktop app for ChatGPT with a lot of fanfare a few weeks ago, but it turns out it had a rather serious security issue: user chats were stored in plain text, where any bad actor could find them if they gained access to your machine.

As Threads user Pedro José Pereira Vieito noted earlier this week, “the OpenAI ChatGPT app on macOS is not sandboxed and stores all the conversations in plain-text in a non-protected location,” meaning “any other running app / process / malware can read all your ChatGPT conversations without any permission prompt.”

He added:

macOS has blocked access to any user private data since macOS Mojave 10.14 (6 years ago!). Any app accessing private user data (Calendar, Contacts, Mail, Photos, any third-party app sandbox, etc.) now requires explicit user access.

OpenAI chose to opt-out of the sandbox and store the conversations in plain text in a non-protected location, disabling all of these built-in defenses.

OpenAI has now updated the app, and the local chats are now encrypted, though they are still not sandboxed. (The app is only available as a direct download from OpenAI’s website and is not available through Apple’s App Store where more stringent security is required.)

Many people now use ChatGPT like they might use Google: to ask important questions, sort through issues, and so on. Often, sensitive personal data could be shared in those conversations.

It’s not a great look for OpenAI, which recently entered into a partnership with Apple to offer chat bot services built into Siri queries in Apple operating systems. Apple detailed some of the security around those queries at WWDC last month, though, and they’re more stringent than what OpenAI did (or to be more precise, didn’t do) with its Mac app, which is a separate initiative from the partnership.

If you’ve been using the app recently, be sure to update it as soon as possible.

ChatGPT’s much-heralded Mac app was storing conversations as plain text Read More »

amazon-is-bricking-$2,350-astro-robots-10-months-after-release

Amazon is bricking $2,350 Astro robots 10 months after release

Amazon, Robots, Tech / /

RIP —

Amazon giving refunds for business bot, will focus on home version instead.

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Amazon Astro for business

Amazon

Amazon is bricking all Astro for Business robots on September 25. It first released the robot about eight months ago as a security device for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) for $2,350, but the device will soon be a pricey new addition to Amazon’s failed products list.

Amazon announced Astro in September 2021 as a home robot; that version of the device is still only available as a $1,600, invite-only preview.

In November, Amazon pivoted Astro to SMBs. But as first reported by GeekWire, Amazon on Wednesday sent emails to employees working on Astro for Business and customers telling them that the devices will stop working on September 25. At the time, Amazon’s email to customers said: “Your personal data will be deleted from the device. Any patrol or investigation videos recorded by Astro will still be available in your Ring app until your video storage time expires or your Ring Protect subscription ends.” According to The Verge, the email adds:

While we are proud of what we’ve built, we’ve made the decision to end support for Astro for Business to put our focus on making Astro the best robot for the home.

As of this week, Amazon will no longer charge users for subscriptions associated with Astro for Business, such as Astro Secure, which let the robot patrol businesses via customized routes, or Ring Protect Pro, which let Astro for Business owners store video history and sync the robot with Ring devices.

Amazon said it would refund customers $2,350 and give them a $300 Amazon credit. It also said it would refund unused, prepaid subscription fees.

Amazon has declined to share how many robots it sold, but it’s unfortunate to see such an expensive, complex piece of technology become obsolete after less than a year. Amazon hasn’t shared any ways to make further use of the devices, and spokesperson Courtney Ramirez told The Verge that Astro for Business can’t be used as a home robot instead. Amazon’s email to customers encourages owners to recycle Astro for Business through the Amazon Recycling Program, with Amazon covering associated costs.

Astro slow to take off

Amazon introduced Astro in late 2021, but as of 2024, it’s still not available to the general public. When Amazon released Astro for SMBs, it seemed like it might have found a new niche for the product. A May 2023 report from Business Insider claimed that Amazon opted to release Astro for Business over “an internal plan to release a lower-cost model” in 2022 for consumers.

Astro for Business could autonomously patrol spaces up to 5,000 square feet with an HD periscope and night vision, it could carry small devices, and, of course, was controllable by Amazon Alexa. Since its release, we’ve learned about Alexa’s dire financial straits and seen David Limp, who headed the Astro project as Amazon SVP of devices and services, exit Amazon, while his division has suffered notable layoffs (an Amazon rep told GeekWire that the shuttering of Astro for Business won’t result in layoffs as employees will start working on the home version of the robot instead).

Astro’s future

Per Amazon’s emails, the company is still keen to release the home version of Astro, which may surprise some since there has been no sign of an impending release since Amazon announced Astro years ago.

In May 2023, an Amazon representative told Insider that the firm had eyes on the potential of generative AI for Astro. It’s likely that Amazon is hoping to one day release Astro to consumers with the generative AI version of Alexa (which is expected this year with a subscription fee). In May 2023, Insider cited internal documents that it said discussed adding “intelligence and a conversational spoken interface” to Astro.

But considering that it has taken Amazon more than two and a half years (and counting) and reportedly the work of over 800 people to make Astro generally available, plus the sudden demise of the business version, there are reasons to be hesitant about paying the high price and any subscription fees for a consumer Astro—if it ever comes out. Early adopters could find themselves in similarly disappointing positions as the SMBs that bought into Astro for Business.

Astro’s development comes during a tumultuous time for Amazon’s devices business as it seeks to make Alexa a competitive and, critically, lucrative AI assistant. In June, Reuters reported that Amazon senior management had been telling employees that 2024 is a “must-win” for Alexa. Some analysts expect more reduced investment in Alexa if the paid tier doesn’t take off.

Amazon’s Astro home robot faces an uphill climb toward any potential release or consumer demand. Meanwhile, the version of it that actually made it to market is rolling toward a graveyard filled with other dead Amazon products—like Just Walk Out, Amazon Glow, Fire Phone, Dash buttons, and the Amazon Smart Oven.

Amazon is bricking $2,350 Astro robots 10 months after release Read More »

apple-vision-pro,-new-cameras-fail-user-repairability-analysis

Apple Vision Pro, new cameras fail user-repairability analysis

Apple, cameras, Meta, new york, Policy, right to repair, Tech, US PIRG / /
Apple's Vision Pro scored 0 points in US PIRG's self-repairability analysis.

Enlarge / Apple’s Vision Pro scored 0 points in US PIRG’s self-repairability analysis.

Kyle Orland

In December, New York became the first state to enact a “Right to Repair” law for electronics. Since then, other states, including Oregon and Minnesota, have passed similar laws. However, a recent analysis of some recently released gadgets shows that self-repair still has a long way to go before it becomes ubiquitous.

On Monday, the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) released its Leaders and Laggards report that examined user repairability of 21 devices subject to New York’s electronics Right to Repair law. The nonprofit graded devices “based on the quality and accessibility of repair manuals, spare parts, and other critical repair materials.”

Nathan Proctor, one of the report’s authors and senior director for the Campaign for the Right to Repair for the US PIRG Education Fund, told Ars Technica via email that PIRG focused on new models since the law only applies to new products, adding that PIRG “tried to include a range of covered devices from well-known brands.”

While all four smartphones included on the list received an A-minus or A, many other types of devices got disappointing grades. The HP Spectre Fold foldable laptop, for example, received a D-minus due to low parts (2 out of 10) and manual (4 out of 10) scores.

The report examined four camera models—Canon’s EOS r100, Fujifilm’s GFX 100 ii, Nikon’s Zf, and Sony’s Alpha 6700—and all but one received an F. The outlier, the Sony camera, managed a D-plus.

Two VR headsets were also among the losers. US PIRG gave Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s Quest 3 an F.

You can see PIRG’s full score breakdown below:

Repair manuals are still hard to access

New York’s Digital Fair Repair Act requires consumer electronics brands to allow consumers access to the same diagnostic tools, parts, and repair manuals that its own repair technicians use. However, the PIRG organization struggled to access manuals for some recently released tech that’s subject to the law.

For example, Sony’s PlayStation 5 Slim received a 1/10 score. PIRG’s report includes an apparent screenshot of an online chat with Sony customer support, where a rep said that the company doesn’t have a copy of the console’s service manual available and that “if the unit needs repair, we recommend/refer customers to the service center.”

Apple’s Vision Pro, meanwhile, got a 0/10 manual score, while the Meta Quest 3 got a 1/10.

According to the report, “only 12 of 21 products provided replacement procedures, and 11 listed which tools are required to disassemble the product.”

The report suggests difficulties in easily accessing repair manuals, with the report’s authors stating that reaching out to customer service representatives “often” proved “unhelpful.” The group also pointed to a potential lack of communication between customer service reps and the company’s repairability efforts.

For example, Apple launched its Self Service Repair Store in April 2022. But PIRG’s report said:

 … our interaction with their customer service team seemed to imply that there was no self-repair option for [Apple] phones. We were told by an Apple support representative that ‘only trained Apple Technician[s]’ would be able to replace our phone screen or battery, despite a full repair manual and robust parts selection available on the Apple website.

Apple didn’t immediately respond to Ars Technica’s request for comment.

Apple Vision Pro, new cameras fail user-repairability analysis Read More »

japan-wins-2-year-“war-on-floppy-disks,”-kills-regulations-requiring-old-tech

Japan wins 2-year “war on floppy disks,” kills regulations requiring old tech

floppy disks, Japan, Policy, Tech / /

Farewell, floppy —

But what about fax machines?

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floppy disks on white background

About two years after the country’s digital minister publicly declared a “war on floppy discs,” Japan reportedly stopped using floppy disks in governmental systems as of June 28.

Per a Reuters report on Wednesday, Japan’s government “eliminated the use of floppy disks in all its systems.” The report notes that by mid-June, Japan’s Digital Agency (a body set up during the COVID-19 pandemic and aimed at updating government technology) had “scrapped all 1,034 regulations governing their use, except for one environmental stricture related to vehicle recycling.” That suggests that there’s up to one government use that could still turn to floppy disks, though more details weren’t available.

Digital Minister Taro Kono, the politician behind the modernization of the Japanese government’s tech, has made his distaste for floppy disks and other old office tech, like fax machines, quite public. Kono, who’s reportedly considering a second presidential run, told Reuters in a statement today:

We have won the war on floppy disks on June 28!

Although Kono only announced plans to eradicate floppy disks from the government two years ago, it’s been 20 years since floppy disks were in their prime and 53 years since they debuted. It was only in January 2024 that the Japanese government stopped requiring physical media, like floppy disks and CD-ROMs, for 1,900 types of submissions to the government, such as business filings and submission forms for citizens.

The timeline may be surprising, considering that the last company to make floppy disks, Sony, stopped doing so in 2011. As a storage medium, of course, floppies can’t compete with today’s options since most floppies max out at 1.44MB (2.88MB floppies were also available). And you’ll be hard-pressed to find a modern system that can still read the disks. There are also basic concerns around the old storage format, such as Tokyo police reportedly losing a pair of floppy disks with information on dozens of public housing applicants in 2021.

But Japan isn’t the only government body with surprisingly recent ties to the technology. For example, San Francisco’s Muni Metro light rail uses a train control system that uses software that runs off floppy disks and plans to keep doing so until 2030. The US Air Force used using 8-inch floppies until 2019.

Outside of the public sector, floppy disks remain common in numerous industries, including embroidery, cargo airlines, and CNC machines. We reported on Chuck E. Cheese using floppy disks for its animatronics as recently as January 2023.

Modernization resistance

Now that the Japanese government considers its reliance on floppy disks over, eyes are on it to see what, if any, other modernization overhauls it will make.

Despite various technological achievements, the country has a reputation for holding on to dated technology. The Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) 2023 World Digital Competitiveness Ranking listed Japan as number 32 out of 64 economies. The IMD says its rankings measure the “capacity and readiness of 64 economies to adopt and explore digital technologies as a key driver for economic transformation in business, government, and wider society.”

It may be a while before the government is ready to let go of some older technologies. For example, government officials have reportedly resisted moving to the cloud for administrative systems. Kono urged government offices to quit requiring hanko personal stamps in 2020, but per The Japan Times, movement from the seal is occurring at a “glacial pace.”

Many workplaces in Japan also opt for fax machines over emails, and 2021 plans to remove fax machines from government offices have been tossed due to resistance.

Some believe Japan’s reliance on older technology stems from the comfort and efficiencies associated with analog tech as well as governmental bureaucracy.

Japan wins 2-year “war on floppy disks,” kills regulations requiring old tech Read More »

google’s-greenhouse-gas-emissions-jump-48%-in-five-years

Google’s greenhouse gas emissions jump 48% in five years

AI, data centers, Google, greenhouse gas emissions, syndication, Tech / /

computationally intensive means energy intensive —

Google’s 2030 “Net zero” target looks increasingly doubtful as AI use soars.

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Cooling pipes at a Google data center in Douglas County, Georgia.

Cooling pipes at a Google data center in Douglas County, Georgia.

Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have surged 48 percent in the past five years due to the expansion of its data centers that underpin artificial intelligence systems, leaving its commitment to get to “net zero” by 2030 in doubt.

The Silicon Valley company’s pollution amounted to 14.3 million tonnes of carbon equivalent in 2023, a 48 percent increase from its 2019 baseline and a 13 percent rise since last year, Google said in its annual environmental report on Tuesday.

Google said the jump highlighted “the challenge of reducing emissions” at the same time as it invests in the build-out of large language models and their associated applications and infrastructure, admitting that “the future environmental impact of AI” was “complex and difficult to predict.”

Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt said the company remained committed to the 2030 target but stressed the “extremely ambitious” nature of the goal.

“We do still expect our emissions to continue to rise before dropping towards our goal,” said Brandt.

She added that Google was “working very hard” on reducing its emissions, including by signing deals for clean energy. There was also a “tremendous opportunity for climate solutions that are enabled by AI,” said Brandt.

As Big Tech giants including Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have outlined plans to invest tens of billions of dollars into AI, climate experts have raised concerns about the environmental impacts of the power-intensive tools and systems.

In May, Microsoft admitted that its emissions had risen by almost a third since 2020, in large part due to the construction of data centers. However, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates last week also argued that AI would help propel climate solutions.

Meanwhile, energy generation and transmission constraints are already posing a challenge for the companies seeking to build out the new technology. Analysts at Bernstein said in June that AI would “double the rate of US electricity demand growth and total consumption could outstrip current supply in the next two years.”

In Tuesday’s report, Google said its 2023 energy-related emissions—which come primarily from data center electricity consumption—rose 37 percent year on year and overall represented a quarter of its total greenhouse gas emissions.

Google’s supply chain emissions—its largest chunk, representing 75 percent of its total emissions—also rose 8 percent. Google said they would “continue to rise in the near term” as a result in part of the build-out of the infrastructure needed to run AI systems.

Google has pledged to achieve net zero across its direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to run on carbon-free energy during every hour of every day within each grid it operates by the same date.

However, the company warned in Tuesday’s report that the “termination” of some clean energy projects during 2023 had pushed down the amount of renewables it had access to.

Meanwhile, the company’s data center electricity consumption had “outpaced” Google’s ability to bring more clean power projects online in the US and Asia-Pacific regions.

Google’s data center electricity consumption increased 17 percent in 2023, and amounted to approximately 7-10 percent of global data center electricity consumption, the company estimated. Its data centers also consumed 17 percent more water in 2023 than during the previous year, Google said.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

Google’s greenhouse gas emissions jump 48% in five years Read More »

surface-pro-11-and-laptop-7-review:-an-apple-silicon-moment-for-windows

Surface Pro 11 and Laptop 7 review: An Apple Silicon moment for Windows

Features, Reviews, surface laptop, surface pro, Tech / /
Microsoft's Surface Pro 11, the first flagship Surface to ship exclusively using Arm processors.

Enlarge / Microsoft’s Surface Pro 11, the first flagship Surface to ship exclusively using Arm processors.

Andrew Cunningham

Microsoft has been trying to make Windows-on-Arm-processors a thing for so long that, at some point, I think I just started assuming it was never actually going to happen.

The first effort was Windows RT, which managed to run well enough on the piddly Arm hardware available at the time but came with a perplexing new interface and couldn’t run any apps designed for regular Intel- and AMD-based Windows PCs. Windows RT failed, partly because a version of Windows that couldn’t run Windows apps and didn’t use a familiar Windows interface was ignoring two big reasons why people keep using Windows.

Windows-on-Arm came back in the late 2010s, with better performance and a translation layer for 32-bit Intel apps in tow. This version of Windows, confined mostly to oddball Surface hardware and a handful of barely promoted models from the big PC OEMs, has quietly percolated for years. It has improved slowly and gradually, as have the Qualcomm processors that have powered these devices.

That brings us to this year’s flagship Microsoft Surface hardware: the 7th-edition Surface Laptop and the 11th-edition Surface Pro.

These devices are Microsoft’s first mainstream, flagship Surface devices to use Arm chips, whereas previous efforts have been side projects or non-default variants. Both hardware and software have improved enough that I finally feel I could recommend a Windows-on-Arm device to a lot of people without having to preface it with a bunch of exceptions.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has chosen to launch this impressive and capable Arm hardware and improved software alongside a bunch of generative AI features, including the Recall screen recorder, a feature that became so radioactively unpopular so quickly that Microsoft was forced to delay it to address major security problems (and perception problems stemming from the security problems).

The remaining AI features are so superfluous that I’ll ignore them in this review and cover them later on when we look closer at Windows 11’s 24H2 update. This is hardware that is good enough that it doesn’t need buzzy AI features to sell it. Windows on Arm continues to present difficulties, but the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop—and many of the other Arm-based Copilot+ PCs that have launched in the last couple of weeks—are a whole lot better than Arm PCs were even a year or two ago.

Familiar on the outside

The Surface Laptop 7 (left) and Surface Pro 11 (right) are either similar or identical to their Intel-powered predecessors on the outside.

Enlarge / The Surface Laptop 7 (left) and Surface Pro 11 (right) are either similar or identical to their Intel-powered predecessors on the outside.

Andrew Cunningham

When Apple released the first couple of Apple Silicon Macs back in late 2020, the one thing the company pointedly did not change was the exterior design. Apple didn’t comment much on it at the time, but the subliminal message was that these were just Macs, they looked the same as other Macs, and there was nothing to worry about.

Microsoft’s new flagship Surface hardware, powered exclusively by Arm-based chips for the first time rather than a mix of Arm and Intel/AMD, takes a similar approach: inwardly overhauled, externally unremarkable. These are very similar to the last (and the current) Intel-powered Surface Pro and Surface Laptop designs, and in the case of the Surface Pro, they actually look identical.

Both PCs still include some of the defining elements of Surface hardware designs. Both have screens with 3:2 aspect ratios that make them taller than most typical laptop displays, which still use 16: 10 or 16:9 aspect ratios. Those screens also support touch input via fingers or the Surface Pen, and they still use gently rounded corners (which Windows doesn’t formally recognize in-software, so the corners of your windows will get cut off, not that it has ever been a problem for me).

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Bleeding subscribers, cable companies force their way into streaming

Charter, Comcast, peacock, streaming, Tech / /

Enter NOW TV Latino —

Companies like Charter brought about the streaming industry they now want to join.

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A person's hand aiming a cable TV remote control at a TV screen

Getty Images | stefanamer

It’s clear that streaming services are the present and future of video distribution. But that doesn’t mean that cable companies are ready to give up on your monthly dollars.

A sign of this is Comcast, the US’ second-biggest cable company, debuting a new streaming service today. Comcast already had an offering that let subscribers stream its Xfinity cable live channels and access some titles on demand. NOW TV Latino differs in being a separate, additional streaming service that people can subscribe to independently of Xfinity cable for $10 per month.

However, unlike streaming services like Netflix or Max, you can only subscribe to NOW TV Latino if Xfinity is sold in your area. NOW TV Latino subscriptions include the ability to stream live TV from Spanish-language channels that Xfinity offers, like Sony Cine and ViendoMovies. And because Comcast owns NBCUniversal, people who subscribe to NOW TV Latino get a free subscription to Peacock with commercials, which usually costs $6/month.

From cable to streaming

In addition to NOW TV Latino, recent Comcast efforts to stay relevant in a TV and movie distribution world dominated by online streaming has centered on bundling. As streaming giants like Netflix struggle with customer churn, bundling is the current favored tactic to keep customers subscribed for longer.

Comcast is selling NOW TV Latino as a separate service, but it’s truly a Peacock bundle. The cable giant is also selling the streaming service bundled with its cable service or with its recently released streaming bundle that combines Comcast’s Peacock with Netflix, Apple TV+, and ads for $15/month.

While popular for streaming service providers, cable companies were some of the pioneers of the bundling strategy, which can overwhelm customers with confusing rates and services that some may not need. As Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in May while announcing the aforementioned Peacock/Netflix/AppleTV+ bundle: “We’ve been bundling video successfully and creatively for 60 years, and so this is the latest iteration of that.”

Bleeding customers

The cable industry has been in a nose-dive for years. Comcast’s Q1 2024 earnings report showed its cable business losing 487,000 subscribers. The cable giant ended 2022 with 16,142,000 subscribers; in January, it had 13,600,000.

Charter, the only US cable company bigger than Comcast, is rapidly losing pay-TV subscribers, too. In its Q1 2024 earnings report, Charter reported losing 405,000 subscribers, including business accounts. It ended 2022 with 15,147,000 subscribers; at the end of March, it had 13,717,000.

And, like Comcast, Charter is looking to streaming bundles to keep its pay-TV business alive and to compete with the likes of YouTube TV and Hulu With Live TV.

In April, Charter also announced a Spanish language-focused streaming service, but in traditional cable fashion, one must subscribe to Charter’s Spectrum Internet to be able to subscribe (TV Stream Latino is $25/month). Charter also sells the ability to stream live TV from some of the channels that its cable service has.

In 2022, Charter and Comcast formed a joint venture, Xumo, that focuses on streaming but includes cable industry spins, like set-top boxes. The companies are even trying to get a piece of the money made from smart TV operating systems (OSes), with budget brands such as Hisense now selling TVs with Xumo OS.

It’s a curious time, as cable TV providers scramble to be part of an industry created in reaction to business practices that many customers viewed as anti-consumer. Meanwhile, the streaming industry is adopting some of these same practices, like commercials and incessant price hikes, to establish profitability. And some smaller streaming players say it’s nearly impossible to compete as the streaming industry’s top players are taking form and, in some cases, collaborating.

But after decades of discouraging many subscribers with few alternatives, it will be hard for former or current cable customers to view firms like Comcast and Charter as trustworthy competitive streaming providers.

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30 years later, FreeDOS is still keeping the dream of the command prompt alive

Features, freedos, MS-DOS, Tech / /
Preparing to install the floppy disk edition of FreeDOS 1.3 in a virtual machine.

Enlarge / Preparing to install the floppy disk edition of FreeDOS 1.3 in a virtual machine.

Andrew Cunningham

Two big things happened in the world of text-based disk operating systems in June 1994.

The first is that Microsoft released MS-DOS version 6.22, the last version of its long-running operating system that would be sold to consumers as a standalone product. MS-DOS would continue to evolve for a few years after this, but only as an increasingly invisible loading mechanism for Windows.

The second was that a developer named Jim Hall wrote a post announcing something called “PD-DOS.” Unhappy with Windows 3.x and unexcited by the project we would come to know as Windows 95, Hall wanted to break ground on a new “public domain” version of DOS that could keep the traditional command-line interface alive as most of the world left it behind for more user-friendly but resource-intensive graphical user interfaces.

PD-DOS would soon be renamed FreeDOS, and 30 years and many contributions later, it stands as the last MS-DOS-compatible operating system still under active development.

While it’s not really usable as a standalone modern operating system in the Internet age—among other things, DOS is not really innately aware of “the Internet” as a concept—FreeDOS still has an important place in today’s computing firmament. It’s there for people who need to run legacy applications on modern systems, whether it’s running inside of a virtual machine or directly on the hardware; it’s also the best way to get an actively maintained DOS offshoot running on legacy hardware going as far back as the original IBM PC and its Intel 8088 CPU.

To mark FreeDOS’ 20th anniversary in 2014, we talked with Hall and other FreeDOS maintainers about its continued relevance, the legacy of DOS, and the developers’ since-abandoned plans to add ambitious modern features like multitasking and built-in networking support (we also tried, earnestly but with mixed success, to do a modern day’s work using only FreeDOS). The world of MS-DOS-compatible operating systems moves slowly enough that most of this information is still relevant; FreeDOS was at version 1.1 back in 2014, and it’s on version 1.3 now.

For the 30th anniversary, we’ve checked in with Hall again about how the last decade or so has treated the FreeDOS project, why it’s still important, and how it continues to draw new users into the fold. We also talked, strange as it might seem, about what the future might hold for this inherently backward-looking operating system.

FreeDOS is still kicking, even as hardware evolves beyond it

Running AsEasyAs, a Lotus 1-2-3-compatible spreadsheet program, in FreeDOS.

Running AsEasyAs, a Lotus 1-2-3-compatible spreadsheet program, in FreeDOS.

Jim Hall

If the last decade hasn’t ushered in The Year of FreeDOS On The Desktop, Hall says that interest in and usage of the operating system has stayed fairly level since 2014. The difference is that, as time has gone on, more users are encountering FreeDOS as their first DOS-compatible operating system, not as an updated take on Microsoft and IBM’s dusty old ’80s- and ’90s-era software.

“Compared to about 10 years ago, I’d say the interest level in FreeDOS is about the same,” Hall told Ars in an email interview. “Our developer community has remained about the same over that time, I think. And judging by the emails that people send me to ask questions, or the new folks I see asking questions on our freedos-user or freedos-devel email lists, or the people talking about FreeDOS on the Facebook group and other forums, I’d say there are still about the same number of people who are participating in the FreeDOS community in some way.”

“I get a lot of questions around September and October from people who ask, basically, ‘I installed FreeDOS, but I don’t know how to use it. What do I do?’ And I think these people learned about FreeDOS in a university computer science course and wanted to learn more about it—or maybe they are already working somewhere and they read an article about it, never heard of this “DOS” thing before, and wanted to try it out. Either way, I think more folks in the user community are learning about “DOS” at the same time they are learning about FreeDOS.”

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Apple’s Vision Pro goes on sale outside the US for the first time

Apple, apple vision pro, ar, augmented reality, hmd, Mixed Reality, spatial computing, Tech, virtual reality, vision pro, visionOS, vr, XR / /

Spatial computing —

Since February, the headset has only been available in the United States.

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A mixed reality headset over a table in an Apple Store

Enlarge / A Vision Pro on display at an Apple Store in Tokyo.

Apple

Apple’s Vision Pro headset went on sale outside the United States for the first time today, in the first of two waves of expanded availability.

The $3,499 “spatial computing” device launched back in February in the US, but it hasn’t taken the tech world by storm. Part of that has been its regional launch, with some of the biggest markets still lacking access.

Apple announced that the product would be sold internationally during its keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month.

The first new markets to get Vision Pro shipments are China, Japan, and Singapore—those are the ones where it went on sale today.

A second wave will come on July 12, with the headset rolling out in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

When we first tested the Vision Pro in February, we wrote that it was a technically impressive device with a lot of untapped potential. It works very well as a personal entertainment device for frequent travelers, in particular. However, its applications for productivity and gaming still need to be expanded to justify the high price.

Of course, there have been conflicting rumors of late about just how expensive Apple plans to keep its mixed reality devices. One report claimed that the company put the brakes on a new version of the Vision Pro for now, opting instead to develop a cheaper alternative for a 2025 launch.

But another report in Bloomberg suggested that’s an overstatement.  It simply noted that the Vision Pro 2 has been slightly delayed from its original target launch window and reported that the cheaper model will come first.

In any case, availability will have to expand and the price will ultimately have to come down if augmented reality can become the major computing revolution that Apple CEO Tim Cook has predicted. This international rollout is the next step to test whether there’s a market for that.

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