• A lawyer says he dropped Meta as a client after what he called a 'descent into toxic masculinity' by Zuckerberg's company
    www.businessinsider.com
    A Stanford law professor dropped Meta as a client in the wake of Mark Zuckerberg's recent changes.Mark Lemley represented Meta in a 2023 AI copyright case involving comedian Sarah Silverman and others.Zuckerberg's recent changes at Meta more closely align with Elon Musk's opinions and strategies.Mark Lemley, a Stanford law professor and lawyer who represented Meta in a 2023 AI copyright case,CEO Mark Zuckerberg's "descent into toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness.""I have fired Meta as a client. While I think they are on the right side in the generative AI copyright dispute in which I represented them, and I hope they win, I cannot in good conscience serve as their lawyer any longer," Lemley, a partner at the law firm Lex Lumina, wrote in a LinkedIn post on Monday.Lemley and Lex Lumina represented Meta when comedian Sarah Silverman and other authors sued the Facebook owner in 2023, saying it violated copyright by training the Llama AI model on books they had written.At the time, Meta's lawyers argued the claims should fail because the authors could not prove Llama generated text that closely resembled their books.In the LinkedIn post, Lemley also said he was changing how he used some Meta products.He has deactivated his Threads account because he did not want to "support a Twitter-like site run by a Musk wannabe."The lawyer also said he will no longer buy anything from ads he encounters on Facebook or Instagram."While I have thought about quitting Facebook, I find great value in the connections and friends I have here," Lemley wrote.Lemley is a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. At Lex Lumina, he works with clients on cases pertaining to intellectual property, antitrust, and internet law."Money can't buy everyone. We're proud to be a firm that doesn't sell out our values. Sadly, it seems this is becoming a rarer and rarer quality in America today," Rhett Millsaps, managing partner of Lex Lumina told Business Insider via email.Lemley, Meta and Sarah Silverman did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.Changes at MetaSince the start of the year, Zuckerberg has made sweeping changes to Meta, includingthird-party fact-checking on the platform in the US in favor of community notes.Meta also planned to reduce diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.Zuckerberg recently said Meta needs more "masculine energy.""Masculine energy, I think, is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think that corporate culture was really trying to get away from it," he said on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast.Zuckerberg's changes at Meta resemble those made by Elon Musk on the social media platform X.Musk has spoken out against DEI and content moderation. Politically, Musk has thrown his support behindright-leaning political partiesand figures in Europe and the US.He's a prominent supporter of President-elect Donald Trump and has been named the co-lead of a commission called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.Zuckerberg has also started to mirror Musk in terms of politics and relationship-building with Trump. Meta donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund, and Zuckerberg declined to endorse any candidate during the 2024 election campaign.These moves mark a distinct change in how Zuckerberg approached Trump in the past.In 2020, after Facebook was criticized over the then-president's violent remarks on the platform, Zuckerberg said he was "deeply shaken and disgusted by President Trump's divisive and incendiary rhetoric."Trump was barred from Facebook and Instagram in 2021 for what Meta called praising "people engaged in violence at the Capitol on January 6."
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  • Honkai Star Rail 3.0 review: Horrible history and smart battle changes make this the strongest HSR update yet
    www.vg247.com
    Better MetaHonkai Star Rail 3.0 review: Horrible history and smart battle changes make this the strongest HSR update yetA more thoughtful story and a fair new meta give HSR 3.0 a strong identityImage credit: VG247/HoYoverse Review by Josh Broadwell Contributor Published on Jan. 15, 2025 Theres a lot going on in Honkai Star Rail 3.0. Tales of gods, mortals, and monsters; a brand-new battle path; a big, beautiful planet; a ridiculous number of banners; and a fresh cast of extremely suspect characters with unclear motivations. I've spent the past week ahead of the version's launch seeing what HoYoverse has in store, and while some of the game's worst aspects remain unchanged, HSR 3.0 is a thoughtful and exciting first step on this year's new journey.This time, the Astral Express heads to Amphoreus, HoYoverses overt take on ancient Greece, birthplace of democracy, or so the Greek historians tell us. We only have their words as evidence for that claim, that democratic philosophy sprang out of the Greek mind fully formed with no input from others. Saying that isnt just some wanky attempt at sounding big-brained, either. The malleable nature of history, the lies we believe and tell to further our interests, and the way leaders weaponize storytelling and faith to pursue their agendas all these are at the center of HSR 3.0s story. Image credit: HoYoverseAfter an unexpected crash landing on Amphoreus, the Trailblazer and Dan Heng find themselves in the middle of a conflict. Statues come to life and attack a group of refugees, before a white-haired swordsman named Phainon thats Greek-pilled Kevin to anyone who played Honkai Impact 3rd and a small child named Tribbie rescue everyone and promise to take them to safety. The refugees refuse to go, insisting theyll follow their gods and traditions and find safety alone, until Phainon convinces them that he and Tribbie are Chrysos Heirs.In Amphoreus lore, Chrysos Heirs inherited the gods golden blood and are destined to overthrow the Titans and establish themselves as the worlds new gods. In this hierarchy, that little fact means the refugees have to trust Phainon or risk betraying their faith. The right words and a little manipulation are all it took for Phainon to bend a whole group to his will.Its for the better, though at least, this time it is. Phainon and the other Heirs openly admit they rely on peoples faith in them, the Titans, and the existing social order to keep things under control, and they arent above lying to them or abusing that faith to keep things the way they want. Otherwise, with the end of the world supposedly approaching, chaos could engulf the planet. The thing is, even the Heirs dont fully know why theyre doing this. They just have some old prophecy to go by, an ancient set of words of unknown provenance and unknowable intent that drives them to act.This order the Heirs built has an undercurrent of inequality running through Okhema. Citizens, in a very ancient Greek way, justify excluding others on the basis of where they were born or who they believed in. None but a few are allowed to know the city's true history. Everyone else gets a heavily censored version designed to inspire pride in their shared culture and belief in the Heirs. When the Trailblazer goes to meet Aglaea in a ritzy area exclusively reserved for the Heirs, even the in-game narration comments on how regular people dont have it as good.All this is an effort at deconstructing the idea of a hero, whether thats an epic one of legend or a modern one in whatever form they might take, be it politician, influencer, or celebrity. It quietly picks apart the forces that create heroes and how the heroes themselves are often behind those forces, while poking at the role of myths in maintaining ideals that shouldnt be maintained. A heros existence in real life and in HSR relies on them having ordinary people to save, which requires a persistant equality gap and encourages devotion to people who need that adoration for a sense of identity, but feel no obligation to love and care for the people offering it up. Amphoreus is HoYoverses overt take on ancient Greece | Image credit: HoYoverseThat all this happens in a setting inspired by ancient Greece is a delicious extra bit of irony. Amphoreus is built on that inequality, a state of affairs no one questions, as theyre told by stories, their faith, and even their love of country that this is the way things should be and the Chrysos Heirs certainly arent going to disabuse them of that notion, not with godhood up for grabs. Whether saving the world justifies the actions they take to fulfill their goals or even if the society they create will help others and not just themselves thats another matter.HoYoverse has a knack for making its least likeable characters tragically good in the end, or at least sympathetically tragic, as they did with Aventurine and Sunday. As the Trailblazers goal is helping the Chrysos Heirs overthrow their gods, it seems likely the Heirs will turn out to be victims themselves in the end, hopefully after realizing its not nice to step on the little people to get what you want, even if you are a hero. Still, whether everyone ends up nice for reasons later on or not, its a deeper, timelier, and more thoughtful follow-up to Star Rail 2.0s critique of escapism and capitalism.Amphoreus isnt all highbrow serious stuff, though. HSR 3.0 made me laugh out loud several times, like when I had the Trailblazer eat dirt to spite a dinosaur or when I realized a talking stone lion who spreads rumors was meant to be like Twitters trending topics section. Its got tender moments, trash cans, snark, plenty of fourth-wall-breaking moments basically all the good parts of Honkai Star Rail, only better than usual.And some of the bad parts, too. The conflicts in Amphoreus are far more interesting than the place itself, which, aside from looking beautiful, is often dull to explore. Not that its empty. Hub areas such as Okhema feel alive and layered like an actual town. Quests pop up naturally, as the Trailblazer overhears conversations or gets roped into peoples problems, and minor events unrelated to the story play out when they speak to certain characters, such as shopkeepers, for the first time. Image credit: HoYoverseBut everything is just a little too frictionless outside of endgame challenge modes. Conversation choices still dont matter, even the really big ones that seem like they should. Puzzle designs are basic. Heck, one of them is basically just a captcha test that has you rotate orbs until a clear picture forms. Dungeon-like areas have multiple paths through now, but theres no way to get lost. The new Remembrance power of rewinding time to fix or move objects seems like a gimmick and rarely shows up in ways that dont feel overly simplistic or forced. After two years of improvements and expansions, HoYoverse needs to start giving some thought to making all the moments between story beats and setpiece battles more interesting.Speaking of battles, Honkai Star Rail 3.0s meta seems designed to give older characters another shot at usefulness, instead of powercreeping them into obscurity. Enemies on Amphoreus have armor, which gradually decreases in strength as they take more hits from the party. This armor is separate from the toughness meter, though breaking armor means enemies take more damage for a short time.The idea is to hit as many foes as possible each turn. Erudition characters, including Himeko and HSR 3.0s new character The Herta, are perfectly suited for this, marking the first time theyre viable for anything outside of Pure Fiction. However, it also means pretty much every other character is suddenly useful again, except maybe Seele. Looks like youre still stuck at the orphanage, kiddo. Honkai Star Rail 3.0s meta seems designed to give older characters another shot at usefulness | Image credit: HoYoverseFollow-up attackers reduce enemy armor counts by one additional point, which makes Jade and even Bounce and single-target attackers like Aventurine and Moze more useful now. Lingsha and Gallaghers party-wide attacks have new importance. Hunt characters arent left out, either, as elite and boss enemies often have special armor thats easier to wear down with fast, single-target units.The Trailblazers new Remembrance form is perhaps slightly less powerful than Harmony Trailblazer, but is far more useful than their first two iterations or any of the player character forms in Genshin Impact. Powercreep is bound to happen at some point, possibly sooner than later, if Mydeis Blade-like kit is anything to go by. For now, though, it feels fair and balanced, and armor adds a welcome extra layer of strategy to battles.Aside from all the tired bits that HoYoverse seriously needs to address at some point, Honkai Star Rail 3.0 is a confident first step on this new journey. It sets up plenty of opportunities for growth as well, both in the main story, as the party helps each Heir topple their respective god, and in how its characters interact with each other and have lives that don't revolve around the Trailblazer.
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  • Hindenburg Research, a short seller that targeted tech and EV companies, is closing up shop
    techcrunch.com
    When Hindenburg Research posts a blog on its website, it often means a companys final days are near.Today, that company is Hindenburg Research.Nate Anderson announced Wednesday he has shut down short-selling firm Hindenburg Research, after a seven-year run issuing damning reports about high-profile companies, including many of the technology worlds giants and buzzy startups.As Ive shared with family, friends and our team since late last year, I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research, Anderson wrote in a blog post. The plan has been to wind up after we finished the pipeline of ideas we were working on. And as of the last Ponzi cases we just completed and are sharing with regulators, that day is today.Hindenburgs reports gained a reputation over the years for their prescient investigations and thorough research into overlooked and ignored corners of public markets. In many instances, the firms reports predated SEC investigations, criminal indictments, and massive stock drops around the companies it targets.Anderson said theres no specific reason for disbanding Hindenburg today. He said the short-selling firm has reached a level of success that he never expected, and that now is a good time to move on.However, Anderson did share that the last seven years running Hindenburg had taken a toll on his health and personal life. He noted in the blog that he often wakes up in the middle of the night with new ideas for investigations. Anderson also apologized to his family and friend in the post, stating hell have more time to spend with loved ones now.Over the years, Hindenburg has targeted some giants of the technology world. Anderson published a 2024 short report on Roblox where he characterized the gaming platform as an X-rated pedophile hellscape. Weeks later, Roblox rolled out new safety features for parents on the platform. Hindenburg has also shorted publicly traded tech companies such as Super Micro and Block.Hindenburg also developed a reputation for taking on some of the hottest electric vehicle startups.Hindenburg targeted hydrogen electric vehicle startup, Nikola, in a 2020 report, shortly after General Motors announced it had taken an 11% stake. The short seller claimed Nikolas trucks were not fully functional, and accused the companys leadership of nepotism. A government investigation into Nikola followed Hindenburgs report, and ultimately, led to a settlement with the SEC and the Nikola founders conviction.In 2021, Hindenburg published a short report about Lordstown Motors, claiming the electric automaker had faked EV truck pre-orders. Those claims turned out to largely be true, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which charged the EV company with misleading investors and forced it to pay $25 million.
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  • How to keep Linux optimized (and save time) with Stacer
    www.zdnet.com
    If you want to get the most out of your system while keeping it clean, free of junk, and running smoothly, Stacer is the tool for you.
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  • What Does Oracle Exadata X11M Deliver To The Enterprise?
    www.forbes.com
    The Oracle offices in Redwood City, California, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024. Photographer: David ... [+] Paul Morris/Bloomberg 2024 Bloomberg Finance LPOracle recently launched its Exadata X11M product to the market. Exadata is an integrated hardware and software platform designed from the ground up to optimize Oracle Database workloads. Exadata X11M zeroes in on a few areas performance across AI, OLTP and analytics, scale, operational efficiency, and cost. Further, Oracle simultaneously announced X11M innovations for public cloud, multicloud, hybrid cloud and on-premises deployments.While these are some big items, it is worth digging into what Oracle did and didnt deliver with this Database Machine.Oracle, Enterprise Data And The Database MachineOracle's huge footprint in the enterprise means that it possibly handles more enterprise data than any other technology vendor. This is data that runs organizations the very definition of mission- and business-critical. Because of these dynamics, Oracle introduced Exadata in 2008. Exadata was designed to deliver a tightly integrated platform tuned for performance, scale and reliability for in-database analytics. Over its thirteen generations of development, Exadata has been enhanced to deliver these capabilities across the spectrum of Oracle Database workloads: AI, analytics, transaction processing, document databases, graph databases, spatial, time series and more.Exadata is a tightly integrated hardware and software platform truly a database machine. It is designed from the ground up for performance, scale and reliability. For example, Exadata RDMA memory, also called XRMEM, is a shared read accelerator that uses remote direct memory access to provide incredibly fast access to data cached in storage servers. XRMEM is a prime example of how Oracle has created a bespoke architecture to drive differentiated performance.Oracle has built many such innovations into the Exadata platform since its launch. Further, while Oracle Database will run on virtually any server platform, its performance on Exadata is significantly better, and running workloads faster means that they can be run using fewer hardware and database licenses further increasing efficiency. Examples of Exadata optimizations that help run crucial workloads faster include Exadata Smart Scan, which offloads SQL queries to intelligent storage, and AI Smart Scan, which does the same for AI vector search.MORE FOR YOUExadata X11M Redesigned From The Ground UpWhile Exadata has evolved over the years, Exadata X11M may be the most significant update since Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010 and replaced HP as its server platform. As I mentioned earlier, X11M is about delivering better performance, operational efficiency and cost. It achieves this through a refreshed hardware platform anchored by dual-socket AMD EPYC servers (with up to 96 cores per CPU) and enhanced system software. Oracle uses these servers together with fast DDR5 memory and PCIe Gen5 flash storage to create high-performance database servers and intelligent storage servers that make Exadatas unique capabilities possible.By combining Oracle's XRMEM with these EPYC capabilities, the X11M storage servers realize a performance increase of up to 33% compared to the X10M and can scan data stored in flash storage 2.2x faster than before enabling more value to be delivered from data far faster. Oracle also claims that AI vector searches on database servers (in memory) can achieve results 43% faster than on the X10M. For vector searches executed on storage servers (in Flash), the performance increase is 55%.Further, when looking at how Exadata software leverages hardware, Oracle claims even more incredible results. For customers operationalizing generative AI on larger (private) datasets, more complex vector searches can be run considerably faster due to improvements in storage server data filtering (4.7x increase) and binary vector searches (up to 32x increase).This all adds up to Exadata X11M delivering real-world value for organizations operationalizing AI with their enterprise data. It is difficult to quantify exactly how much the X11M delivers in terms of realized (real-world) gains in performance and cost which will inevitably be a little different from the benchmark improvements cited above but it is clear that these gains are significant. And with no change in price from the prior generation, the inherent business value is only more compelling.Performance Matters And Not Just With AIWhile AI is the topic every IT pundit likes to discuss, there are other workloads that drive businesses today. One of those is online transaction processing, and this is another area where Oracle has delivered significant improvements with Exadata X11M. Handling OLTP effectively is all about low latency, high throughput and concurrency in other words, how many transactions can be committed per second. This requires a database with super-efficient indexing capabilities coupled with optimized queries and supported by an infrastructure that can handle extreme concurrency.However, when performing OLTP at scale, architectural designs of a database residing on servers go out the window due to that extreme concurrency. Because of this, Oracle has spent a lot of time working on software implementations that can fully exploit the underlying infrastructure.Extreme OLTP performance requires a tight coupling of hardware and software.OracleThe result of Oracles work in fully leveraging the X11M hardware means more transactions on fewer servers. For example, Exadata X11M can handle 25% more concurrent or serial transactions faster than its predecessor. While Oracle did not disclose configurations in its testing scenarios, I suspect this is happening on fewer servers due to the high core counts in AMDs EPYC processors.For customers with an older version of Exadata deployed, consider this: Exadata X11M delivers 4x faster concurrent transaction throughput and 62% faster serial transaction processing than Exadata X7.The company also claims significant performance gains in analytics, with up to 25% faster query processing than the X10M. This is again achieved not just by hardware or software but by the tight integration between the two. In this case, Exadata utilizes several unique capabilities to offload tasks (Smart Scan) and accelerate database I/O (Smart Flash Cache and Storage Indexes) for better results.As with OLTP, what is designed on paper to support analytics doesnt always translate into real-world performance as complexity and scale are introduced. This is where the value of an integrated data stack like X11M can deliver value where database platforms cobbled together using commodity hardware just cant.Autonomy Drives InnovationWhile performance numbers and claims typically (and rightfully) steal the show at any product launch, I tend to look more at any associated impacts on enterprise IT. Technology generative AI, for instance is amazing and can theoretically deliver great value to an organization. However, if an enterprise IT organization struggles to deploy, tune and manage that technology, the impact turns negative on many levels. Worse, failed POCs tied to a lack of IT skills can make business leaders skittish about operationalizing technology.Oracle seems to truly understand this and, as a company, has invested a lot in abstracting both complex and mundane tasks away from IT staffers through automation. With Exadata running Autonomous Database, database administrators and their teams spend far less time tuning and managing environments and more time delivering value to the business. Whether on-prem or in the cloud (or multiple clouds), Oracle has set a pace for self-running, self-tuning, self-managing and self-healing that the rest of the market is following. As an ex-IT executive who had to deal with the budget line items associated with doing all these tasks manually, I can tell you this is a breath of fresh air.It is hard to quantify how much of an impediment maintenance and management of complex systems is to innovation in an IT organization. It's not simply the hours spent on a weekly basis. It's the blinders that get put on staffers, along with the inability to see anything beyond the next trouble ticket. This is a compounding issue that bogs down far too many enterprise IT organizations. Because of this, I believe that what Oracle has been doing with Exadata, Exadata Cloud and Autonomous Database is worthy of far more recognition than it gets.Exadata In The Cloud And Multiple CloudsOracle has spent a lot of time and energy driving native multicloud support for Exadata. This means that Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (and the Exadata platform) physically resides not only in OCI data centers but also in the datacenters of every major cloud service provider. More importantly, it means that that customers applications and data can natively and securely integrate with their cloud instances.This is worth repeating: for Oracles customers that use other CSPs, OCI and the Exadata platform physically reside in AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud datacenters. They are consumed as a native service of each CSP and sit on that CSPs network, integrated with other cloud services.This is a wise strategy on Oracles part one that Ive written about a lot over the past two years (for example here, here and here). Im a big fan of what Oracle is doing with this for many reasons, but let me dig into a couple. First and foremost, Oracle meets customers where they are. The company is smart enough to realize that not all Oracle Database customers will run their workloads in OCI datacenters. Because of this, Oracle has put a premium on Oracle Database residing where the customers applications and services are deployed.Second, the company is forcing the cloud market to radically change from a bunch of stovepiped CSP environments to one in which apps and data can move quickly, securely and natively from CSP A to CSP B without fear of exploitation and without crazy egress fees. Were still early in this game, but I see Oracle making moves that are going to benefit every enterprise IT organization, whether they are Oracle customers or not.The Enterprise ImpactIt is sometimes difficult to quantify the value and impact of technology on an organization precisely. I've never been a fan of studies and tests that show such exact quantifications of value delivered. Value is too subjective, and each customer is too unique to take any claims as gospel.However, Oracle Exadata X11M is delivering huge improvements from an order-of-magnitude perspective. Further, it is doing so without a cost increase compared to previous-generation cloud and on-premises systems. Because of this, it seems to me that any existing Exadata customer would be wise to take a look at X11M and what it can deliver in terms of operationalizing AI and improving core business capabilities, and any Oracle Database customer thats not currently using Exadata should take a deep look into it as well.
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  • Will You Still Be Able to Use TikTok If Its Banned? Heres What You Need to Know
    time.com
    Content creators protest the TikTok ban outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. in January 2025.Andrew Harnik--Getty ImagesBy Andrew R. ChowJanuary 15, 2025 5:23 PM ESTThe TikTok ban is swiftly approaching on Jan. 19. But theres plenty of uncertainty about what will actually happen to the app on that day. TIME talked to experts, who contend that regardless of what actually happens on Sunday, the TikTok user experience is likely to drastically degrade in the weeks to come.Will users be able to access TikTok?Theres a strong possibility that TikTok will shut down completely. During a Supreme Court hearing last week, a lawyer for TikTok said that the app will go dark if the court didnt pause the ban. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that TikTok is preparing to shut its app on Sunday: that anyone who tries to log onto the app will be directed to a message alerting them to the ban and prompting them to download their data if they wish to do so. Users in India, which banned TikTok in 2020, are met with a similar message. A full website block would go above and beyond what the law mandates, which prohibits app stores and third party service providers from hosting the app and its related data. Lets say ByteDance, the Chinese companies that owns TikTok, simply adhered to that set of rules. On Sunday, new users would be cut off from downloading the app. Those with TikTok already on their phone, however, would still have access to the app, and not risk any legal penalties for logging on. But TikTok would no longer be able to update the software, making it buggier and slower over time. The apps security would also weaken, making users more susceptible to hackers. In this scenario, TikTok would die a slow death, as its technology degrades and its social fabric weakens with users departing for other platforms.Is using a VPN an option?Many TikTok users may attempt to use a VPN (virtual private network) or order to access the app. VPNs encrypt location data, allowing users to make it look like theyre somewhere else in the world. After X (formerly Twitter) was banned in Brazil, demand for VPNs skyrocketed, despite the government threatening users with a $9,000-a-day fine for using such workarounds.Kate Ruane, director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, says that VPNs would allow users to access TikTok legally. (The CDT joined an amicus brief supporting TikTok and its users.) But Ruane predicts that the experience will quickly worsen for those users, especially because TikTok files wont be allowed to be hosted within the U.S. There will be distance that data has to travel, which may degrade the service, since video in particular is highly dependent upon high fidelity broadband Internet access, she says.Bruce Randall Donald, a computer science and math professor at Duke University, adds that VPNs may not work very well on smartphones, the very medium that TikTok is designed for. Theyre not going to work very well on appliances like an iPhone, iPad or Android, which dont have the full strength of VPN security, he says. The experience is likely to be more glitch-free on a laptop or desktop. But if you've ever used TikTok on a laptop or desktop, it's not a very satisfying experience. Will the U.S. government intervene?Some members of the government have been trying to save TikTok from its imminent demise. On Wednesday, a group of legislators led by Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey introduced the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act, aiming to pause the ban for 270 days. But the original ban was passed with wide bipartisan support, and it is unlikely that this new bill will make it through both chambers in time. President-elect Donald Trump is also interested in pausing the ban, arguing that he should have time as president to pursue a "political resolution" of the issue. Once he becomes President, he could temporarily pause the law if ByteDance has started the process to sell TikTok. But ByteDance has repeatedly stated that the app is not for sale.Trump could also order his Justice Department to refrain from enforcing the law, essentially rendering it toothless and nullifying its power. In the Supreme Court oral arguments last week, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar acknowledged that the President has the discretion to do so. But she also said that if ByteDance or third-party providers continued to operate TikTok in the U.S., they would be violating the law, which would make them susceptible to future enforcement.Ruane voiced a similar sentiment. Even if President Trump and the incoming Attorney General say I will not be enforcing this law, there would still be significant legal risk for the companies to which the law applies that they may not be willing to take on, she says. Because should the decision ever change, they could be subject to significant penalties.Donald predicts that most companies who could feasibly provide TikTok services may instead choose to play it safe. If they're not in compliance for at least some period of time, there's a vulnerability there, with a market cap and shareholder situation, that would be actually somewhat dangerous, he says.So while there are several loopholes for users to remain on TikTok, strong disincentives will likely lead to a steep decline in terms of platform experience. Government intervention, meanwhile, seems increasingly distant. So unless something drastically unexpected occurs in the next week, creators would be wise to search for a replacement platform.More Must-Reads from TIMEL.A. Fires Show Reality of 1.5C of WarmingHow Canada Fell Out of Love With TrudeauTrump Is Treating the Globe Like a Monopoly BoardBad Bunny On Heartbreak and New Album10 Boundaries Therapists Want You to Set in the New YearThe Motivational Trick That Makes You Exercise HarderNicole Kidman Is a Pure Pleasure to Watch in BabygirlColumn: Jimmy Carters Global Legacy Was Moral ClarityContact us at letters@time.com
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  • Cableless GPU design supports backward compatibility and up to 1,000W
    www.techspot.com
    Something to look forward to: Asus has spent years working to eliminate GPU power cables, and its evolving BTF standard represents a major step forward. The BTF standard shifts power delivery to a new connector located next to the PCIe slot, requiring compatible motherboards and graphics cards. A recent update, however, introduces GPUs that are compatible with both BTF and traditional motherboards, addressing the biggest obstacle to adopting this new technology. Asus revealed more details about its planned cableless GPU power connector standard at CES last week. According to HardwareLuxx, the updated version of the Back to the Future (BTF) specification now supports non-compliant motherboards and increases the maximum supported wattage.Previously, Asus demonstrated BTF-compatible graphics cards that replaced conventional power connectors with a new GC-HPWR gold finger, positioned alongside the PCIe x16 gold finger. BTF-compliant motherboards include a corresponding HPCE connector, giving custom PC builders one less cable to worry about.The original BTF specification (click to enlarge)Interest in a cableless standard surged after some Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 users reported burning power cables. Asus aims to make PC builds simpler and safer by minimizing the number of required cables.However, the first generation of BTF GPUs required BTF-compatible motherboards, which posed challenges for upgrades unless the entire PC industry adopted the standard. The introduction of BTF 2.0 GPUs mitigates this issue by supporting both GC-HPWR connectors and the more common 12v-2x6 connectors. // Related StoriesBTF 2.0 (click to enlarge)The updated design reintroduces 12v-2x6 connectors on the outward-facing side of the graphics card, opposite the gold fingers. Meanwhile, the GC-HPWR connector is now recessed and no longer automatically aligns with the HPCE connector.Switching to BTF mode involves using a detachable GC-HPWR gold finger, which connects the GPU's gold finger to the motherboard's HPCE connector. Although Asus hasn't yet released any BTF 2.0 graphics cards, the new design would allow users to choose between traditional motherboards and BTF-compatible models.Detachable GC-HPWR connector (click to enlarge)Moreover, while earlier BTF-compatible graphics cards could draw up to 600W from the motherboard, BTF 2.0 raises the limit to an impressive 1,000W. Although no consumer GPUs currently require this much power, flagship cards are getting hungrier. For instance, Nvidia's recently announced RTX 5090 has a power requirement of 575W.The GC-HPWR and HPCE connectors are not the only innovations in the BTF lineup. Asus partner DIY-APE is already working on BTF 3.0, which aims to create a cableless connection between the power supply unit, motherboard, and GPU.This next-generation standard introduces a new connector on the backside of the motherboard, capable of delivering up to 1,500W to multiple system components. If widely adopted, BTF 3.0 would reduce the remaining cables in a PC build to those for SATA devices and chassis components.
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  • Future Samsung phones may get a wireless charging upgrade weve waited years for
    www.digitaltrends.com
    Samsung may be giving its future phones a wireless charging upgrade that will help charge their phones a lot faster, and it comes in the form of a new chip.In a blog post that was published during last week, the company said the new wireless charging chip, called the S2MIW06, is a Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC) that will help improve wireless charging by giving Samsung phones access to up to 50W of power. The S2MIW06 chip will support both the Qi and Qi 2.2 wireless charging standards, the latter of which is set to debut later this year.Recommended VideosThe Qi standard includes the Baseline Power Profile, the Extended Power Profile, and the Magnetic Power Profile the last two of which bring respective wireless charging speeds of 15W and 25W.Please enable Javascript to view this contentMost smartphones on the market today currently dont draw 50W when charging thats the power level of some laptops so the extra power should help phones charge faster. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S24 receives wireless charging speeds of up to 15W and reverse wireless charging speeds of 4.5W. The iPhone 16 is not immune to slow charging speeds either, as it gets 25W of wireless charging from a MagSafe charger.Meanwhile, only a few Android-run smartphone brands have adopted 50W wireless charging speeds for their products, including OnePlus. The OnePlus 12 and the OnePlus 13 have access to 50W of wireless charging, especially if you use the 50W AirVOOC wireless charger on the latest model, which takes 15 minutes to give it a 50% charge but 70 minutes to fill up the battery.Unfortunately, the Samsung Galaxy S25 wont have the luxury of wireless charging speeds that fast, as its capped at 25W. However, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra may get 45W of wireless charging, which is the closest itll get to 50W.Editors Recommendations
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  • Nordic Soundscapes Festival Review: Musical Fire in the Minnesota Cold
    www.wsj.com
    Conductor Thomas Sndergrd and the Minnesota Orchestra offered programs featuring Nordic composers in the first weekend of this smartly curated, beautifully performed festival.
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  • Zero-carbon shipping fuel could be a new source of pollution
    www.newscientist.com
    Fossil fuels currently power the shipping industrySven Hansche/ShutterstockSwitching from burning fossil fuels to burning ammonia is a promising way for the shipping industry to cut its carbon dioxide emissions. But if it isnt careful, this swap could also boost harmful nitrogen pollution.Thats a major alarm bell thats ringing, says Xin Zhang at the University of Maryland.The tens of thousands of ships on the oceans are responsible for about 3 per cent of global CO2 emissions, burning more than 300
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