• Download the Cloud Optimization Enterprise Spotlight
    us.resources.computerworld.com
    Download the December 2024 issue of the Enterprise Spotlight from the editors of CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World.
    0 Comments ·0 Shares ·80 Views
  • Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger retires
    www.computerworld.com
    Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger retired Sunday, after more than 40 years in the industry.The company quickly named two interim co-CEOs to hold the fort while it searches for a long-term replacement.The two co-CEOS are David Zinsner, who currently serves as CFO, and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, who, in addition to her existing responsibility for the companys client computing group (CCG), now takes on the data center and AI group and the network and edge group in the newly created role of CEO of Intel Products.Gelsinger was told to retire or be removed, according to a news report by Bloomberg.However, Intel Board Chairman Frank Yeary spoke kindly of Gelsinger in a statement announcing his retirement. Gelsinger spent his formative years at Intel, then returned at a critical time for the company in 2021. As a leader, Pat helped launch and revitalize process manufacturing by investing in state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing, while working tirelessly to drive innovation throughout the company, he said.He went on to say that while the company has made significant progress in regaining manufacturing competitiveness and building the capabilities to be a world-class foundry, we know that we have much more work to do at the company and are committed to restoring investor confidence.The honor of my lifetimeIn a brief statement accompanying the announcement of his retirement, Gelsinger said, Leading Intel has been the honor of my lifetime this group of people is among the best and the brightest in the business, and Im honored to call each and every one a colleague. Today is, of course, bittersweet as this company has been my life for the bulk of my working career. I can look back with pride at all that we have accomplished together.It has been a challenging year for all of us as we have made tough but necessary decisions to position Intel for the current market dynamics. I am forever grateful for the many colleagues around the world who I have worked with as part of the Intel family.Not unexpectedAnshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said Monday he had been expecting this kind of announcement, primarily because Gelsinger has already spent a lot of time and energy turning the company around. While this announcement seems abrupt, and it is, we probably wont know the root cause for a while.That said, he added, Gelsinger and the board have clearly put the right people in place for success in the future, as Johnson Holthaus is the right pick for products CEO and the right person to help guide the company into the future. I have spoken with her extensively and shes very candid and honest, and knows what needs to be fixed within the company, and it shows, with CCG keeping the company afloat.Intel, said Sag, has been through a lot in the last few years, but they have some very promising products launching over the next 12 months that I believe could help the company turn a corner. Lunar Lake has been a success, with limited profitability due to a heavy dependency on TSMC, which should change with Panther Lake.Patrick Moorhead, chief analyst with the research firm, said, as we dont have full information on Pats departure, were left with speculation on what happened.Judging by the timing with no whisper reason, the split was sudden and unplanned.He said potential scenarios on what prompted the resignation include:The board demanded to split the company up between design and foundry and Pat didnt want to stick around.There was a product or process schedule slip on an important product, lets say for the data center.The board wants to sell part of the company off and Pat didnt agree. I find this unlikely as it would face intense regulatory approval scrutiny globally.There was a significant, sudden loss of a major customers market share.John Annand, practice lead at Info-Tech Research Group, said the resignation and Bloombergs news report should come as no surprise. A twinge of regret, perhaps, and a grudging acknowledgment that what it takes to run a multinational technology company these days is business acumen, not necessarily technological talent.Intels stock price, he said, is about 50% off its 52-week high and 60% lower than it was when he took over; Pat finally ran out of chances. Again and again, (he) packaged up all the bad news and presented it as a necessary but one-time hit for the greater plan to go forward. The problem was that he started giving this speech in February of 2021 and continued right through into Octobers guidance, announcing billions in non-cash charges impacting Intels results.Jack Gold, president and principal analyst at J. Gold Associates, agreed, noting that this is a major realignment for Intel Corporation that shows that the board of directors was not happy with the style or substance of Gelsingers continued leadership, nor are they pleased with the slower, more challenging turnaround resulting in the recent poor revenues and losses. BODs [boards of directors] driven by Wall Street are usually pretty impatient with reduced revenues and losses, he said. I dont think that Pat Gelsinger did a bad job of kicking some butt to get Intel out of its complacency, which it had been in for many years before his arrival. And that was a good thing. But its taken far longer to get the ship sailing in the right direction and after 3+ years or so of trying, I think the BOD just wanted more success, so finally it just said we need to change direction and let him go.Foundry business importance increasesForrester Senior Analyst Alvin Nguyen said Gelsingers departure increases the importance of the Foundry business to the future success of Intel:. (Its) investment in it and its importance to bringing back product manufacturing in-house cannot be overstated, he said. There is huge risk in terms of the Foundry technology not panning out (see Samsungs efforts in the US with 2nm as an example), but getting a technological advantage here would help drive more business, and not just their own.Sag agreed, noting that while it remains unclear how Intel Foundry Services( IFS) will continue to be part of the company, he believes it will be a critical component of the companys future success and I dont expect that it will be fully spun out, however that could have been a point of contention with Pat, who recently said that Foundry would remain a subsidiary.Nguyen, however, has a number of concerns. He is waiting to see whether Intel receives the expected CHIPS Act funding and other government assistance to defray the enormous investments necessary to regain a technological lead, since it had mentioned not having received any to this point. He is also watching to see how the incoming administration will address the semiconductor industry, and what that will mean for Intel and others.Other areas Nguyen said he is keeping an eye on include:Data center products growth, especially in AI, with Nvidia and now AMD show Intel falling behind in a rapidly growing market. Their data center CPUs are now behind AMDs offerings, but the new Xeon 6 release following AMDs latest processors is an opportunity to gain back some thought leadership and market share.How Gaudi 3 acceptance grows AMD has been able to gain some market share from Nvidia, however minor it may seem, so we need to see the same from Intel.If the Xeon 6 acceptance can stem the tide with AMD on the data center CPU market. Will NPU capabilities and their AI everywhere strategy help?Pats final giftDespite the turmoil, Annand said that the resignation will probably not impact the average enterprise that is buying IT equipment. Intel has Justin Hotard (former HPE chief of high performance computing) leading the Data Center and AI Group and Naga Chandrasekaran (former Micron CVP of product development) as EVP and GM of Intel Foundry, he noted. They are experienced technologists who have a track record of executing the plan.This, he said might be Pats final gift to Intel, a high-profile departure of a favored son who takes all investor angst and unrealistic comparisons to a world 20 years ago with him as he leaves, leaving only his vision for the future.Gelsinger, Annand said, may not have been a founder like Sergey Brin, or Ellison, Gates, or Moore, but he was a technology luminary who made these ideas come to life. Technology companies today seem to need and reward a different kind of leader, but I hope Pat enjoys his retirement hes earned it.Whats nextNow that Gelsinger has retired, Annand said, hopefully, what will follow is the board finding a team-focused CEO who will work with the bright stars already on the Intel roster. Or maybe Broadcom will just buy them! We certainly have a playbook of how that could all fall out. Third parties have thus far seemed hesitant, given the legal complexities that come with buying Intel, but those are all business problems the new Intel CEO will have to solve.However, Gold is dubious about Annands hoped-for happy ending, saying that he thinks the decision to oust the CEO was the culmination of many events over time, which, he said, means that Intels direction and planning under Gelsinger may not remain in place, even though I believe he has put Intel on the right track to succeed. Overall, this is an indication that Intels recovery may take longer than expected.
    0 Comments ·0 Shares ·76 Views
  • This manga publisher is using Anthropics AI to translate Japanese comics into English
    www.technologyreview.com
    A Japanese publishing startup is using Anthropics flagship large language model Claude to help translate manga into English, allowing the company to churn out a new title for a Western audience in just a few days rather than the two to three months it would take a team of humans.Orange was founded by Shoko Ugaki, a manga superfan who (according to VP of product Rei Kuroda) has some 10,000 titles in his house. The company now wants more people outside Japan to have access to them. I hope we can do a great job for our readers, says Kuroda.Oranges Japanese-to-English translation of Neko Oji: Salaryman reincarnated as a kitten!IMAGES COURTESY ORANGE / YAJIMABut not everyone is happy. The firm has angered a number of manga fans who see the use of AI to translate a celebrated and traditional art form as one more front in the ongoing battle between tech companies and artists. However well-intentioned this company might be, I find the idea of using AI to translate manga distasteful and insulting, says Casey Brienza, a sociologist and author of the book Manga in America: Transnational Book Publishing and the Domestication of Japanese Comics.Manga is a form of Japanese comic that has been around for more than a century. Hit titles are often translated into other languages and find a large global readership, especially in the US. Some, like Battle Angel Alita or One Piece, are turned into anime (animated versions of the comics) or live-action shows and become blockbuster movies and top Netflix picks. The US manga market was worth around $880 million in 2023 but is expected to reach $3.71 billion by 2030, according to some estimates. Its a huge growth market right now, says Kuroda.Orange wants a part of that international market. Only around 2% of titles published in Japan make it to the US, says Kuroda. As Orange sees it, the problem is that manga takes human translators too long to translate. By building AI tools to automate most of the tasks involved in translationincluding extracting Japanese text from a comics panels, translating it into English, generating a new font, pasting the English back into the comic, and checking for mistranslations and typosit can publish a translated mange title in around one-tenth the time it takes human translators and illustrators working by hand, the company says.Humans still keep a close eye on the process, says Kuroda: Honestly, AI makes mistakes. It sometimes misunderstands Japanese. It makes mistakes with artwork. We think humans plus AI is whats important.Superheroes, aliens, catsManga is a complex art form. Stories are told via a mix of pictures and words, which can be descriptions or characters voices or sound effects, sometimes in speech bubbles and sometimes scrawled across the page. Single sentences can be split across multiple panels.There are also diverse themes and narratives, says Kuroda: Theres the student romance, mangas about gangs and murders, superheroes, aliens, cats. Translations must capture the cultural nuance in each story. This complexity makes localization work highly challenging, he says.Orange often starts with nothing more than the scanned image of a page. Its system first identifies which parts of the page show Japanese text, copies it, and erases the text from each panel. These snippets of text are then combined into whole sentences and passed to the translation module, which not only translates the text into English but keeps track of where on the page each individual snippet comes from. Because Japanese and English have a very different word order, the snippets need to be reordered, and the new English text must be placed on the page in different places from where the Japanese equivalent had come fromall without messing up the sequence of images.Generally, the images are the most important part of the story, says Frederik Schodt, an award-winning manga translator who published his first translation in 1977. Any language cannot contradict the images, so you cant take many of the liberties that you might in translating a novel. You cant rearrange paragraphs or change things around much.Oranges Japanese-to-English translation of Neko Oji: Salaryman reincarnated as a kitten!IMAGES COURTESY ORANGE / YAJIMAOrange tried several large language models, including its own, developed in house, before picking Claude 3.5. Were always evaluating new models, says Kuroda. Right now Claude gives us the most natural tone.Claude also has an agent framework that lets several sub-models work together on an overall task. Orange uses this framework to juggle the multiple steps in the translation process.Orange distributes its translations via an app called Emaqi (a pun on emaki, the ancient Japanese illustrated scrolls that are considered a precursor to manga). It also wants to be a translator-for-hire for US publishers.But Orange has not been welcomed by all US fans. When it showed up at Anime NYC, a US anime convention, this summer, the Japanese-to-English translator Jan Mitsuko Cash tweeted: A company like Orange has no place at the convention hosting the Manga Awards, which celebrates manga and manga professionals in the industry. If you agree, please encourage @animenyc to ban AI companies from exhibiting or hosting panels.Brienza takes the same view. Work in the culture industries, including translation, which ultimately is about translating human intention, not mere words on a page, can be poorly paid and precarious, she says. If this is the way the wind is blowing, I can only grieve for those who will go from making little money to none.Some have also called Orange out for cutting corners. The manga uses stylized text to represent the inner thoughts that the [protagonist] cant quite voice, another fan tweeted. But Orange didnt pay a redrawer or letterer to replicate it properly. They also just skip over some text entirely.Orange distributes its translations via an app called Emaqi (available only in the US and Canada for now)EMAQIEveryone at Orange understands that manga translation is a sensitive issue, says Kuroda: We believe that human creativity is absolutely irreplaceable, which is why all AI-assisted work is rigorously reviewed, refined, and finalized by a team of people.Orange also claims that the authors it has translated are on board with its approach. Im genuinely happy with how the English version turned out, says Kenji Yajima, one of the authors Orange has worked with, referring to the companys translation of his title Neko Oji: Salaryman reincarnated as a kitten! (see images). As a manga artist, seeing my work shared in other languages is always exciting. Its a chance to connect with readers I never imagined reaching before.Schodt sees the upside too. He notes that the US is flooded with poor-quality, unofficial fan-made translations. The number of pirated translations is huge, he says. Its like a parallel universe.He thinks using AI to streamline translation is inevitable. Its the dream of many companies right now, he says. But it will take a huge investment. He believes that really good translation will require large language models trained specifically on manga: Its not something that one small company is going to be able to pull off.Whether this will prove economically feasible right now is anyones guess, says Schodt. There is a lot of advertising hype going on, but the readers will have the final judgment.
    0 Comments ·0 Shares ·90 Views
  • What the departing White House chief tech advisor has to say on AI
    www.technologyreview.com
    President Bidens administration will end within two months, and likely to depart with him is Arati Prabhakar, the top mind for science and technology in his cabinet. She has served as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy since 2022 and was the first to demonstrate ChatGPT to the president in the Oval Office. Prabhakar was instrumental in passing the presidents executive order on AI in 2023, which sets guidelines for tech companies to make AI safer and more transparent (though it relies on voluntary participation).The incoming Trump administration has not presented a clear thesis of how it will handle AI, but plenty of people in it will want to see that executive order nullified. Trump said as much in July, endorsing the 2024 Republican Party Platform that says the executive order hinders AI innovation and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has said he would support such a move.However, complicating that narrative will be Elon Musk, who for years has expressed fears about doomsday AI scenarios, and has been supportive of some regulations aiming to promote AI safety.As she prepares for the end of the administration, I sat down with Prabhakar and asked her to reflect on President Bidens AI accomplishments, and how AI risks, immigration policies, the CHIPS Act and more could change under Trump.This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.Every time a new AI model comes out, there are concerns about how it could be misused. As you think back to what were hypothetical safety concerns just two years ago, which ones have come true?We identified a whole host of risks when large language models burst on the scene, and the one that has fully manifested in horrific ways is deepfakes and image-based sexual abuse. Weve worked with our colleagues at the Gender Policy Council to urge industry to step up and take some immediate actions, which some of them are doing. There are a whole host of things that can be donepayment processors could actually make sure people are adhering to their Terms of Use. They dont want to be supporting [image-based sexual abuse] and they can actually take more steps to make sure that theyre not. Theres legislation pending, but thats still going to take some time.Have there been risks that didnt pan out to be as concerning as you predicted?At first there was a lot of concern expressed by the AI developers about biological weapons. When people did the serious benchmarking about how much riskier that was compared with someone just doing Google searches, it turns out, theres a marginally worse risk, but it is marginal. If you havent been thinking about how bad actors can do bad things, then the chatbots look incredibly alarming. But you really have to say, compared to what?For many people, theres a knee-jerk skepticism about the Department of Defense or police agencies going all in on AI. Im curious what steps you think those agencies need to take to build trust.If consumers dont have confidence that the AI tools theyre interacting with are respecting their privacy, are not embedding bias and discrimination, that theyre not causing safety problems, then all the marvelous possibilities really arent going to materialize. Nowhere is that more true than national security and law enforcement.Ill give you a great example. Facial recognition technology is an area where there have been horrific, inappropriate uses: take a grainy video from a convenience store and identify a black man who has never even been in that state, whos then arrested for a crime he didnt commit. (Editors note: Prabhakar is referring to this story). Wrongful arrests based on a really poor use of facial recognition technology, that has got to stop.In stark contrast to that, when I go through security at the airport now, it takes your picture and compares it to your ID to make sure that you are the person you say you are. Thats a very narrow, specific application thats matching my image to my ID, and the sign tells meand I know from our DHS colleagues that this is really the casethat theyre going to delete the image. Thats an efficient, responsible use of that kind of automated technology. Appropriate, respectful, responsiblethats where weve got to go.Were you surprised at the AI safety bill getting vetoed in California?I wasnt. I followed the debate, and I knew that there were strong views on both sides. I think what was expressed, that I think was accurate, by the opponents of that bill, is that it was simply impractical, because it was an expression of desire about how to assess safety, but we actually just dont know how to do those things. No one knows. Its not a secret, its a mystery.To me, it really reminds us that while all we want is to know how safe, effective and trustworthy a model is, we actually have very limited capacity to answer those questions. Those are actually very deep research questions, and a great example of the kind of public R&D that now needs to be done at a much deeper level.Lets talk about talent. Much of the recent National Security Memorandum on AI was about how to help the right talent come from abroad to the US to work on AI. Do you think were handling that in the right way?Its a hugely important issue. This is the ultimate American story, that people have come here throughout the centuries to build this country, and its as true now in science and technology fields as its ever been. Were living in a different world. I came here as a small child because my parents came here in the early 1960s from India, and in that period, there were very limited opportunities [to emigrate to] many other parts of the world.One of the good pieces of news is that there is much more opportunity now. The other piece of news is that we do have a very critical strategic competition with the Peoples Republic of China, and that makes it more complicated to figure out how to continue to have an open door for people who come seeking Americas advantages, while making sure that we continue to protect critical assets like our intellectual property.Do you think the divisive debates around immigration, especially around the time of the election, may hurt the US ability to bring the right talent into the country?Because weve been stalled as a country on immigration for so long, what is caught up in that is our ability to deal with immigration for the STEM fields. Its collateral damage.Has the CHIPS Act been successful?Im a semiconductor person starting back with my graduate work. I was astonished and delighted when, after four decades, we actually decided to do something about the fact that semiconductor manufacturing capability got very dangerously concentrated in just one part of the world [Taiwan]. So it was critically important that, with the Presidents leadership, we finally took action. And the work that the Commerce Department has done to get those manufacturing incentives out, I think theyve done a terrific job.One of the main beneficiaries so far of the CHIPS Act has been Intel. Theres varying degrees of confidence in whether it is going to deliver on building a domestic chip supply chain in the way that the CHIPS Act intended. Is it risky to put a lot of eggs in one basket for one chip maker?I think the most important thing I see in terms of the industry with the CHIPS Act is that today weve got not just Intel, but TSMC, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. These are the five companies whose products and processes are at the most advanced nodes in semiconductor technology. They are all now building in the US. Theres no other part of the world thats going to have all five of those. An industry is bigger than a company. I think when you look at the aggregate, thats a signal to me that were on a very different track.You are the Presidents chief advisor for science and technology. I want to ask about the cultural authority that science has, or doesnt have, today. RFK Jr. is the pick for health secretary, and in some ways, he captures a lot of frustration that Americans have about our healthcare system. In other ways, he has many views that can only be described as anti-science. How do you reflect on the authority that science has now?I think its important to recognize that we live in a time when trust in institutions has declined across the board, though trust in science remains relatively high compared with whats happened in other areas. But its very much part of this broader phenomenon, and I think that the scientific community has some roles [to play] here. The fact of the matter is that despite America having the best biomedical research that the world has ever seen, we dont have robust health outcomes. Three dozen countries have longer life expectancies than America. Thats not okay, and that disconnect between advancing science and changing peoples lives is just not sustainable. The pact that science and technology and R&D makes with the American people is that if we make these public investments, its going to improve peoples lives and when thats not happening, it does erode trust.Is it fair to say that that gapbetween the expertise we have in the US and our poor health outcomesexplains some of the rise in conspiratorial thinking, in the disbelief of science?It leaves room for that. Then theres a quite problematic rejection of facts. Its troubling if youre a researcher, because you just know that whats being said is not true. The thing that really bothers me is [that the rejection of facts] changes peoples lives, and its extremely dangerous and harmful. Think about if we lost herd immunity for some of the diseases for which we right now have fairly high levels of vaccination. It was an ugly world before we tamed infectious disease with the vaccines that we have.
    0 Comments ·0 Shares ·88 Views
  • How to use Apple Notes for instant equation results on iOS 18
    appleinsider.com
    Tired of juggling between Apple Notes and Calculator? A math feature in iOS 18 lets you solve equations instantly with just a quick settings tweak.How to tweak math results in Apple NotesIf you're like most people, the Apple Notes app on your iPhone is a go-to for jotting down ideas, to-do lists, and even the occasional math equation. It's quick, convenient, and always just a tap away. But Notes can actually solve equations for you.The new math result feature in iOS 18's Notes app transforms how you handle equations during note-taking. Instead of relying on a separate calculator or switching apps mid-task, Notes can now recognize, calculate, and display results directly in your document. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
    0 Comments ·0 Shares ·66 Views
  • Apple Vision Pro global rollout continues with Taiwan on December 17
    appleinsider.com
    Taiwan joins the short list of countries with Apple Vision Pro on December 17 after a round of pre-orders starting on December 5.Apple Vision Pro coming to TaiwanApple's first foray into spatial computing has seen a slow rollout since its launch in February 2024. With the addition of Taiwan, there are thirteen countries where Apple Vision Pro can be purchased.The news was shared on the localized Taiwan Apple Newsroom, first discovered by MacRumors. The headset has proven difficult for Apple to sell given its high price point and limited native app selection. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
    0 Comments ·0 Shares ·75 Views
  • Tnder Sports Hall, Southern Denmark - e-architect
    www.facebook.com
    Tnder Sports Hall, designed by ZENI arkitekter in southern Denmark, has a warm wooden cladding which is made from sustainably-sourced timberhttps://www.e-architect.com/denmark/tonder-sports-hall-southern-denmark#Tnder #sportshall #denmark #timber #architectureTnder Sports Hall, designed by ZENI arkitekter in Denmark, has a warm wooden cladding which is made from sustainably-sourced timber
    0 Comments ·0 Shares ·163 Views
  • Le Within Student Housing, Montreal - e-architect
    www.facebook.com
    By transforming a historical building into Le Within Student Housing, Sid Lee Architecture propose an exceptional living environment to the Montreal student communityhttps://www.e-architect.com/montreal/le-within-student-housing-montreal#buildingtransformation #historicalbuilding #studenthousing #architecture #montrealBy transforming a building into Le Within Student Housing, Sid Lee Architecture propose an exceptional living environment in Montreal
    0 Comments ·0 Shares ·167 Views
  • Five bespoke California homes by Laney LA: Your Next Employer?
    archinect.com
    Following our previous visit toCover, we are keeping ourMeet Your Next Employer seriesin Los Angeles this week to explore the work ofLaney LA.A multidisciplinary studio based in the Hermosa Beach Arts District, the firm has amassed a portfolio from private homes to masterplans. The firm describes its ethos as to create work that speaks powerfully; sparking a dialogue between enduring architecture and its evolving environment.Over on Archinect Jobs, the firm iscurrently hiringfor an Associate to join their Hermosa Beach team. For candidates interested in applying for a position or anybody interested in learning more about the firms output, we have rounded up five California homes by Laney LA that exemplify the firms ethos.OZ Residence. Image credit: Eric StaudenmaierOZ Residence, Manhattan Beach, CAThe 15,000-square-foot OZ Residence seeks to prioritize outdoor spaces to enhance active living. Key features include a full-size basketball court, a large herb garden, and d...
    0 Comments ·0 Shares ·70 Views
  • Editor's Picks #565
    archinect.com
    The latest entry in the Deans List series, with USC Architecture Dean Brett Steele generated some discussion with Thayer-D and Will Galloway both ultimately agreeing that "North America cities are not being built in the nicest way right now. Lots of...car-dominated planning in general that does not compare well with what we did in the pastSomehow we seem incapable of that kind of outcome with our current planning laws and economy."Plus, in celebration of International Coffee Day Archinect picked a few favorite examples of new caf designs. Bench appreciated the "breadth of projects shown here across cultures. Really lovely work happening in far flung corners of the world that i never would have seen otherwise. Awesome article, more of this".Mamonaku Kohi in Quezon City, PhilippinesNewsThe new NCARB Competency Standard for Architects outlines 16 key competencies. Donna Sink felt "These all seem reasonable". For their part bennyc thought "16 is a big change and valuable addition"...
    0 Comments ·0 Shares ·86 Views