Technology

Pretty much the only thing I think AI could be useful for - forecasting the weather based off tracking massive amounts of data. I look forward to seeing how this particular field of study is improved.

Bonus points, AI weather modeling, for once, saves energy relative to physics models. Pair it with some sort of light weight physical model to keep the hallucinations at bay, and you've got a good combo.

The article has full details, excerpts below

The week before Thanksgiving, Marshall Brain sent a final email to his colleagues at North Carolina State University. "I have just been through one of the most demoralizing, depressing, humiliating, unjust processes possible with the university," wrote the founder of HowStuffWorks.com and director of NC State's Engineering Entrepreneurs Program. Hours later, campus police found that Brain had died by suicide.

Marshall David Brain II established HowStuffWorks.com in 1998 as a personal project to explain technical topics to general audiences. The website grew into a major success that Discovery Communications acquired for $250 million in 2007. He later expanded his educational reach through books like The Engineering Book and television shows on National Geographic Channel [...]

Brain was also well-known in futurist and transhumanist circles. In 2003, his "Robotic Nation" essay, published freely on the web, predicted that widespread automation and robotics would cause a massive labor crisis by 2050, warning that up to half of American jobs could be eliminated, leading to unprecedented unemployment and social upheaval. [...]

At 4:29 am—just two and a half hours before he was discovered dead in his office, Brain sent a final email, obtained by Ars Technica, to over 30 recipients inside and outside the university. In the detailed letter, Brain disputed an announcement made by his boss, Stephen Markham, executive director of NC State's Innovation and Entrepreneurship program. Markham had told staff Brain would retire effective December 31, 2025. Brain wrote that he had instead been terminated on October 29 and was forced into retirement as a face-saving option.

The termination followed Brain's filing of ethics complaints through the university's EthicsPoint system about an employee at the university's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The complaints stemmed from an August dispute over repurposing the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program meeting space.

"What got us to this point? The short answer is that I witnessed wrongdoing on campus, and I tried to report it," Brain wrote in his email. "What came back was a sickening nuclear bomb of retaliation the likes of which could not be believed," Brain wrote in the email. He stated that the accused person "excommunicated me from my department for reporting my concerns to her."

In his email, Brain wrote that the school's head of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering later informed him the department would stop recommending students for Brain's Engineering Entrepreneurs Program. According to Brain's account, this led to disciplinary action against Brain for "unacceptable behavior."

"My career has been destroyed by multiple administrators at NCSU who united together and completely ignored the EthicsPoint System and its promises to employees," Brain wrote. "I did what the University told me to do, and then these administrators ruined my life for it."

[...] Dror Baron, an NCSU professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, wrote on X, "A professor I know died following various investigations. I know the people mentioned here, and call for a transparent and independent investigation."

So far, that investigation has not been forthcoming. University spokesperson Mick Kulikowski declined to comment to The Technician about Brain's death or the allegations. To date, the university has not issued a public statement about Brain's death.

Barry and Kashani expressed disappointment in the university's lack of public response. "It's been six days now," Kashani said at the time to the school newspaper. "There hasn't been any acknowledgment of mistakes that were made, systems that failed, no resignations, not even a call to celebrate Marshall's achievements."

Ubisoft will be shutting down its free-to-play first-person shooter game "XDefiant" in the new year.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/48909380

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/23162928

Archive link: https://archive.ph/nAWbR

Despite Microsoft's push to get customers onto Windows 11, growth in the market share of the software giant's latest operating system has stalled, while Windows 10 has made modest gains, according to fresh figures from Statcounter.

This is not the news Microsoft wanted to hear. After half a year of growth, the line for Windows 11 global desktop market share has taken a slight downturn, according to the website usage monitor, going from 35.6 percent in October to 34.9 percent in November. Windows 10, on the other hand, managed to grow its share of that market by just under a percentage point to 61.8 percent.

The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade. The stats also revealed a small drop in the market share of its Edge browser, despite relentlessly plugging the application in the operating system.

Software engineer Vishnu Mohandas decided he would quit Google in more ways than one when he learned that the tech giant had briefly helped the US military develop AI to study drone footage. In 2020 he left his job working on Google Assistant and also stopped backing up all of his images to Google Photos. He feared that his content could be used to train AI systems, even if they weren’t specifically ones tied to the Pentagon project. “I don't control any of the future outcomes that this will enable,” Mohandas thought. “So now, shouldn't I be more responsible?”

The site (TheySeeYourPhotos) returns what Google Vision is able to decern from photos. You can test with any image you want or there are some sample images available.

If even half of Intel's claims are true, this could be a big shake up in the midrange market that has been entirely abandoned by both Nvidia and AMD.

China has near global monopolies on these exports, accounting for 98% of global gallium production, 93% of germanium production, and 49% of antimony production.

Research results on reverse engineering of the LoRa protocol and an implementation in GNU Radio. An open source LoRa PHY layer project provides access to the LoRa protocol for researchers and hobbyists.

Company behind Arc browser teases a new browser called Dia Browser, an heavily AI focused browser (built on Chromium). Official website at: https://www.diabrowser.com/. Watch the video for a good laugh.

Invidious link to video: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=C25g53PC5QQ

Youtube link to video: https://youtu.be/C25g53PC5QQ

For those not interested in a video, here is a TechCrunch article on the topic.

For those not interested in leaving Lemmy, here is that article -->

Thank you all that gave me suggestions on Lemmy apps for web or iOS , so noob/ dumb here it takes to to git hub for all than I’m lost on how to get the apps I’m lost