Technology

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer BYD has introduced a new charging platform that claims to reduce charging times to match the refuelling speed of petrol vehicles. The company also announced plans to build a network of fast-charging stations across China, marking a significant shift in its approach to EV infrastructure. The company’s founder, Wang Chuanfu, unveiled the ‘Super e-Platform’ at an event streamed from BYD’s headquarters in Shenzhen on Monday, as reported by Reuters.

BYD 1,000 kW charging speeds and infra plans The new platform boasts peak charging speeds of 1,000 kilowatts (kW), allowing EVs to gain 400 km (249 miles) of range in just five minutes.

This is double the speed of Tesla’s latest Superchargers, which currently offer a maximum of 500 kW. The innovation aims to tackle one of the biggest barriers to EV adoption – charging time.

The company also announced its intention to build more than 4,000 ultra-fast charging stations across China to complement the new platform. However, BYD has not disclosed a specific timeline for the project or the amount it plans to invest.

The charging platform will initially be available in two upcoming BYD models – the Han L sedan and the Tang L SUV – priced from 270,000 yuan (around $37,400). These vehicles will be built on BYD’s e-Platform 3.0, which integrates multiple EV technologies, including:

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/58742668

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP's) national internet censor just announced that all AI-generated content will be required to have labels that are explicitly seen or heard by its audience and embedded in metadata. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) just released the transcript for the media questions and answers (akin to an FAQ) on its Measures for the Identification of Artificial Intelligence Generated and Synthetic Content [machine translated]. We saw the first signs of this policy move last September when the CAC's draft plans emerged.

This regulation takes effect on September 1, 2025, and will compel all service providers (i.e., AI LLMs) to “add explicit labels to generated and synthesized content.” The directive includes all types of data: text, images, videos, audio, and even virtual scenes. Aside from that, it also orders app stores to verify whether the apps they host follow the regulations.

Users will still be able to ask for unlabeled AI-generated content for “social concerns and industrial needs.” However, the generating app must reiterate this requirement to the user and also log the information to make it easier to trace. The responsibility of adding the AI-generated label and metadata falls on the shoulders of this end-user person or entity.

Just got this update which renamed my app to "iRobot Home (Classic)" so I looked up what's "non-classic" and found this.

HP, along with other printer brands, is infamous for issuing firmware updates that brick already-purchased printers that have tried to use third-party ink. In a new form of frustration, HP is now being accused of issuing a firmware update that broke customers’ laser printers—even though the devices are loaded with HP-brand toner.

The firmware update in question is version 20250209, which HP issued on March 4 for its LaserJet MFP M232-M237 models. Per HP, the update includes “security updates,” a “regulatory requirement update,” “general improvements and bug fixes,” and fixes for IPP Everywhere. Looking back to older updates’ fixes and changes, which the new update includes, doesn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary. The older updates mention things like “fixed print quality to ensure borders are not cropped for certain document types,” and “improved firmware update and cartridge rejection experiences.” But there’s no mention of changes to how the printers use or read toner.

However, users have been reporting sudden problems using HP-brand toner in their M232–M237 series printers since their devices updated to 20250209. Users on HP’s support forum say they see Error Code 11 and the hardware’s toner light flashing when trying to print. Some said they’ve cleaned the contacts and reinstalled their toner but still can't print.

Google’s Gemma 3 LLMs, the new iteration in its already existing portfolio of lightweight Gemma LLMs, come in four variants: 1 billion parameters, 4 billion parameters, 12 billion parameters and 27 billion parameters. These LLMs, Google says, allow AI developers to choose the best model for their available hardware and performance when developing AI applications.

The Gemma 3 LLMs are designed to run quickly and directly on devices ranging from workstations to laptops and smartphones. For example, to run a Gemma 3 LLM on a device with a GPU or a TensorFlow processor, a larger model can be used than for a smartphone processor. The latter then uses a smaller model.

According to the tech giant, the new Gemma 3 LLMs’ performance is very high, surpassing that of OpenAI’s Llama-40B, DeepSeek-V3, and o3-mini, according to benchmarks. However, they still have to beat DeepSeek R1.

Includes passmark scores, which are missing from pc part picker.

Misinformation, market volatility and more: Faced with the need to mitigate risks that artificial intelligence presents, countries and regions are charting different paths

If you're getting "Untrusted device" on your Chromecast today, you're not alone. It looks like an expired cert.

A robotic private spacecraft designed to provide crucial data for returning humans to the moon toppled over as it landed on the lunar surface, bringing an immediate and premature end to the mission, its operators said on Friday.

Athena, a probe launched by the Texas-based company Intuitive Machines (IM) last month, touched down about 250 miles from its intended landing site near the moon’s south pole on Thursday. Initially at least, it was generating some power and sending information to Earth as engineers worked to make sense of data showing an “incorrect attitude”.

On Friday, however, IM declared Athena dead.

“With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge,” it said in a statement confirming that the 15ft (4.6 meter) spacecraft was on its side.

The joint investigation with Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has found Unit 8200 trained the AI model to understand spoken Arabic using large volumes of telephone conversations and text messages, obtained through its extensive surveillance of the occupied territories.

According to sources familiar with the project, the unit began building the model to create a sophisticated chatbot-like tool capable of answering questions about people it is monitoring and providing insights into the massive volumes of surveillance data it collects.

“We tried to create the largest dataset possible [and] collect all the data the state of Israel has ever had in Arabic,” the former official, Chaked Roger Joseph Sayedoff, told an audience at a military AI conference in Tel Aviv last year. The model, he said, required “psychotic amounts” of data.

TikTok is to be investigated by the UK’s data protection watchdog, which is looking into whether social media algorithms are serving up inappropriate or harmful content to children.

Growing concerns over how social media platforms are using data generated by children’s online activity have prompted the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to launch an investigation into the Chinese platform, along with the forum site Reddit and the image-sharing site Imgur.

It will look at how TikTok uses the personal information of 13- to 17-year-olds to deliver content recommendations to them, and also examine Reddit and Imgur’s use of age assurance measures, such as how they estimate or verify a child’s age, which can then be used to tailor their experience on the platform.

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, March 4 (Reuters) - China plans to issue guidance to encourage the use of open-source RISC-V chips nationwide for the first time, two sources briefed on the matter said, as Beijing accelerates efforts to curb the country's dependence on Western-owned technology. The policy guidance on boosting the use of RISC-V chips could be released as soon as this month, although the final date could change, the sources said.

In China, state entities and research institutes have eagerly embraced RISC-V in recent years, seeing it as geopolitically neutral. Chinese chip designers are attracted by its lower costs, but the government has yet to mention it in policy.

In 2023, Reuters reported that some U.S. lawmakers were putting pressure on the Biden administration to restrict American companies from working on the technology over concerns that Beijing was exploiting its open-source nature to advance its own semiconductor industry.

Tech content creators and news sites have recently dug into an Insider build of Skype's files, to find a string of text which reads as follows:

"Starting in May 2025, Skype will no longer be available. By logging into Microsoft Teams with your Skype account, your chats and contacts will appear in the app so you can pick up where you left off. Alternatively, you can export your Skype data"

This message comes as no surprise to those who saw the writing on the walls before this, especially since people had already jumped over to other platforms, such as Zoom, Discord, and even Microsoft's own-brand Microsoft Teams.

I myself have fond memories of contacting friends and family with Skype, especially during the pandemic before I got Zoom.

Farewell, Skype. You will always live on in the hearts and minds of those that used it.

2003 - 2025

Five Microsoft employees were removed during a company town hall meeting after staging a protest against the company’s contracts supplying Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud computing services to the Israeli occupation military.

The demonstration took place on Monday, following an Associated Press (AP) investigation that revealed Microsoft and OpenAI’s advanced AI models had been utilised by the Israeli occupation military to select bombing targets in recent attacks against Gaza and Lebanon.

Is it just me, or does the Oppo Find X5 Pro have the worst battery in existence, even when it launched and was brand new? At most (during normal usage) it lasted me about 2:30hrs on average, but this number was sometimes more or less depending on what my phone felt like doing.

As well as this, I have to travel long lengths to shopping, and in most scenarios I'd leave my house with 100% and make it back with about 30-45%. I've even lost the ability to scan my train tickets through the barriers at some stations thanks to this.