Hardware

Source Financial Times article

The world's first nuclear-powered battery, which uses a radioactive isotope embedded in a diamond, could power small devices for thousands of years, scientists say.

The nuclear battery uses the reaction of a diamond placed close to a radioactive source to spontaneously produce electricity, scientists at the University of Bristol in the U.K. explained in a Dec. 4 statement. No motion — neither linear nor rotational — is required. That means no energy is needed to move a magnet through a coil or to turn an armature within a magnetic field to produce electric current, as is required in conventional power sources.

The diamond battery harvests fast-moving electrons excited by radiation, similar to how solar power uses photovoltaic cells to convert photons into electricity, the scientists said.

A console modder and retro gaming enthusiast has realized his dream of becoming the owner of what he claims to be the holy grail of CRT TVs. Shank Mods managed to save an extremely rare 43-inch Sony Trinitron KX-45ED1 from an untimely ending, as it was being kept on the second floor of an Osaka noodle shop due for demolition before getting it shipped to the U.S.

The Sony Trinitron KX-45ED1, aka the PVM-4300, is thought to be the largest CRT TV ever sold to consumers, delivering a 43-inch visible diagonal on its 45-inch tube. Shank Mods began his video by explaining how rare these TVs were, likening it to "the Bigfoot of CRTs."

There are one or two reasons why CRT TVs of such a size were/are rare. As tube sizes increased, device weights went up almost exponentially. And then there was the price. Regarding mass, a popular domestic TV set like a 27-inch model might weigh about 50kg or 110 pounds, but you would have to handle a set weighing double that for a 36-inch model. The KX-45ED1 weighs over 200kg or 440 pounds and comes with a 77kg or 170-pound stand. The stand might be advisable so you don't accidentally crush a less well-prepared piece of furniture. KX-45ED1 buyers were also warned to make sure their floors were strong enough.

But while Nvidia remains an AI infrastructure titan, it's facing stiffer competition than ever from rival AMD. Among earlier adopters of its Instinct MI300 series GPUs, AMD is quickly gaining share.

Despite growing share among key customers like Microsoft and Meta, AMD's share of the broader GPU market remains comparatively small next to Nvidia.

How much of this thirst is driven by limited supply of Nvidia hardware is hard to say, but at least on paper, AMD's MI300X accelerators offered a number of advantages. Introduced a year ago, the MI300X claimed 1.3x higher floating point performance for AI workloads, as well as 60 percent higher memory bandwidth and 2.4x higher capacity than the venerable H100.

Even with Nvidia's Blackwell, which is only just beginning to reach customers, pulling ahead on performance and memory bandwidth, AMD's new MI325X still holds a capacity advantage at 256 GB per GPU. Its more powerful MI355X slated for release late next year will push this to 288 GB.

Omdia expects Nvidia to struggle over the next year to grow its share of the AI server market as AMD, Intel, and the cloud service providers push alternative hardware and services.

"If we've learned anything from Intel, once you've reached 90-plus percent share, it's impossible to continue to grow. People will immediately look for an alternative," Galabov said.

The Epomaker RT80 mechanical keyboard has many great features. The retro look is quite nice, but updated with many modern amenities like the RGB LEDs, providing a great underglow between the keys. The wireless connectivity is good with both the 2.4GHz option and Bluetooth. Typing on the Epomaker RT80 was a good experience with a satisfying sound and responsiveness. The switches and keycaps are well-made, which should make it a long lasting keyboard. Epomaker also made an effort to include many different layers within the keyboard to help dampen the sound and improve the vibration absorption. The plastic housing is strong as well, but keep in mind it is still plastic, and will not be as durable as an aluminum build. On the other hand, the small screen on the keyboard was a disappointment. The touch features are responsive, but actually using the screen was incredibly difficult. The instructions were unclear with how the screen works and what it is for. Furthermore, the Bluetooth connection did suffer some delay with regular input. Lastly, the software was a letdown. It was mostly usable, but figuring out how to configure the small screen was a hassle. For the price, the RT80 comes in at $96 USD. This is a pretty good price for a mostly well-functioning mechanical keyboard, but key improvements to these extras and add-ons can be made to enhance the overall experience.

Summary

Based on slides presented by Bernt Børnich, cofounder and CEO of 1X Technologies, the firm's Neo humanoid robot is scheduled to debut in 2025 for a set of early adopters in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Milburn said 1X is likely to be conservative about where it places Neo initially – meaning homes with children would be avoided due to the higher safety concerns. Neo is only 5' 4" and 66 lbs, with four hours of battery life, but it could still do damage if it fell on a child. The biz is looking specifically for customers who want to provide feedback and help it gather the data to improve Neo.

The limited autonomy of the first robots headed into people's homes follows from the fact that, like autonomous cars, a lot of data is required for a machine to operate in a residential environment – and that data has not yet been gathered. Simulated data can help, but for humanoid robots to navigate effectively in the human world, they have to stumble and fumble before they can walk among us.

Just as Waymo robotaxis initially were accompanied by a human supervisor, Neo bots and other domestic human-like machines will head out into the world, awkwardly, under human oversight, to gather the data required to allow them, eventually, to operate on their own. And as with mobile phones, expect that the privacy policies imposed by robot makers will not afford much privacy – the robot's video record of dropping the breakfast you requested will help company engineers improve its performance.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/50475756

Global shipments of VR and mixed reality (MR) headsets are expected to hit approximately 9.6 million units in 2024, according to a report by market analyst TrendForce. This represents a year-on-year increase of 8.8% compared to 2023.

Meta retains its position as the global leader in VR and MR device shipments with a 73% market share in 2024, which TrendForce puts down to the popularity of the relatively affordable Quest 3S—priced at just US$299.

Sony’s PS VR2 claimed the second-largest market share at 9% for 2024. But the analyst said despite its efforts to integrate the PS VR2 with PC, using adapters to broaden the content available to users, limited functionality and application support have held back its sales. It says these issues caused Sony's annual shipments to decline by 25% year-on-year.

Apple Vision Pro quickly captured 5% of the overall market after launching earlier this year according to the report, making it the third-largest player in the VR/MR market. The analyst thinks that the high price and lack of applications may have held back Apple’s Vision Pro sales compared to previous product launches, though the headset will likely influence the future direction of the entire market.

The company has a unique approach: a proprietary electrochemical system – running on clean electricity – first converts seawater into hydrogen gas, oxygen gas, an acid stream, and an alkaline slurry. The slurry absorbs CO2 when exposed to air. The captured CO2 is discharged back into the ocean as stable mineral compounds meant to lock it up for 10,000 years or more.

The BBC reports that a major new plant in Singapore, said to be the world's largest ocean carbon removal facility, is currently under construction. It will have over 100 times the capacity of the prototypes, capturing an expected 4,000 tons of CO2 and churning out around 100 tons of hydrogen annually.

Then there's a much bigger commercial plant planned for Quebec, Canada, which could start operating as soon as 2026. This will boast a capacity to remove over 100,000 tons of CO2 and generate 3,600 tons of hydrogen each year.

The controversial machine sending CO2 to the ocean and making hydrogen - BBC

Leaks suggest the price will be around ~$1,900.