Business leaders seeking to build or implement GenAI for B2B applications need to understand which of these contextual data types are relevant for their application.

Something to look forward to: AMD has officially confirmed that its Radeon RX 9000-series graphics cards will launch in March, putting an end to speculation about when its latest GPUs will be available for purchase. The RX 9000 lineup will compete with some of Nvidia's recently announced RTX 5000-series cards, headlined by the $1,999 RTX 5090. The announcement was made by David McAfee, the VP and GM of Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics at AMD. According to his post on X, Radeon 9000-series hardware and software are pretty much baked, and all that remains is the official launch. McAfee also said that the company is planning to have "a wide assortment of cards available globally" when they go on sale this March.AMD unveiled the Radeon RX 9000 cards earlier this month at CES 2025. The lineup includes four SKUs, led by the RX 9070 XT. The three other models are the vanilla RX 9070, RX 9060, and RX 9050. Based on the RDNA 4 architecture, the new products feature AI-powered FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4) upscaling, improved ray-tracing performance, and upgraded media encoding quality.The top-of-the-line RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 include AMD's second-generation AI accelerators, third-generation ray-tracing accelerators, and second-generation Radiance Display Engine. It's unclear how powerful the new 9070 twins are, but promotional material from AMD seems to suggest that they will offer similar performance to that of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4070 Super.AMD hasn't revealed much else about its latest GPUs, but a steady stream of leaks in recent months has revealed some of their hardware specifications and features. According to rumors, the flagship 9070 XT will feature the Navi 48 GPU with 4,096 cores, a 2.97GHz boost clock, 16GB of GDDR6 memory, 256-bit memory bus, 20 Gbps memory speed, and 640 GB/s memory bandwidth.Other critical specs, like the max board power and PCIe interface, remain a mystery. AMD has yet to announce the pricing for any of its 9000-series cards, but they are expected to be priced competitively against the RTX 5070 series. For reference, the vanilla RTX 5070 has a $549 MSRP in the US, while the more powerful 5070 Ti starts at $749. // Related Stories

In a nutshell: Despite being one of the most universal programming languages currently in use for web-based applications, JavaScript remains shunned by a tiny minority of netizens. But Google is now forcing this increasingly sparse group of users to use the ECMAScript-compliant language for searching the internet. Google recently confirmed that JavaScript is now required for users to submit queries to its web search service. According to a company spokesman, the new requirement will improve the overall security of the Google Search service against potentially malicious activities, including bots, spam, and criminals focused on abusing SEO algorithms.The user experience should improve as well, the spokesman stated, because Google Search would barely work without enabling JavaScript first. Bots, spam, and other forms of algorithmic abuse are constantly evolving, the tech giant said, which is why Search needs the full power of the JavaScript language to better protect and serve users.JavaScript's origins date back to the foundational years of the modern web, when Netscape cooperated with Sun Microsystems to add a proper programming language to its Navigator web browser. The "JavaScript" trademark is currently part of a legal quarrel between Oracle and the JS community, but the language is essential for modern, interactive websites and browsers to work the way they do.Some users still avoid using JavaScript for privacy-related reasons, or to improve security online in extremely sensitive environments. JavaScript can definitely increase the attack surface for cybercriminals and adversarial countries, with major browser developers fixing high-severity or critical security vulnerabilities every month.According to Google, the number of average search queries currently served without JavaScript is fewer than 0.1 percent. Google Search processes around 8.5 billion queries every single day, so this tiny minority still amounts to millions of netizens looking for information online without enabling JS first. // Related StoriesAside from being a potential security issue for a non-trivial number of users, the new JavaScript requirement could also have detrimental effects on third-party tools designed to check website rankings on Google Search. A recent report by Search Engine Roundtable stated that some of these tools stopped working after Google decided to enforce the use of JavaScript. The company declined to comment on this report, though a less SEO-oriented search service could be considered a highly desired improvement for those surfing the web.

The ethos of the streaming era is watch what you want, when you want, and that means DVR. Traditionally, with Slings streaming service, that meant getting 50 hours of cloud DVR alongside your base subscription. That meant you would be able to catch up on what you were watching at your leisure and skip through commercials. If you wanted more, you could pay $5 for 200 hours if you used the service a lot.But now the whole thing is getting a lot better. For starters, unlimited cloud storage is coming for just $5 per month, replacing the old 200 hours plan. Plus, you can still get 50 hours of free DVR alongside an additional 10 hours of Sling Freestream DVR storage for free. Tap the button below to check out Sling and pick your plan, or keep reading to see how both the new Sling unlimited DVR works and the free Sling DVR works.The first thing to point out is that DVR storage coming with your Sling subscription isnt going away. Youll still get 50 hours of DVR free, storing your goodies for up to nine months on Slings cloud servers. Sling will give you a nice warning at the one month mark that your programs storage life is about to expire, as well as clearly tell you how much storage you have. When something you have stored is about to go, you wont be able to miss it. In addition to this youll also get an additional 10 hours of Freestream DVR with a 30 day expiration, allowing you to check up on live programming at a time more convenient for you.And while this is all very generous, the big upgrade is getting Unlimited DVR. This service removes the 50 hour cap (and the former 200 hour cap for the paid service) for cloud DVR. Youll still need to watch saved programming within nine months, but youre free to let your backlog get as long as you like. If you decide later to not watch something you saved, its a no harm, no foul situation.At just $5 per month for the service, the hard decision for Sling users will still be choosing between Sling Blue and Sling Orange. So go ahead and tap the button below to get started with Sling today, enjoying free DVR and (should you so choose) possibly unlimited DVR for just $5 a month.

Some thought that AMDs upcoming best graphics cards would be launching in a matter of days, but we now know thats not going to happen. According to David McAfee, vice president and general manager of AMDs Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics division, the GPUs are doing great and will be widely available but not until March.This delay is an interesting choice, given that some retailers were ready to open preorders on January 22. Multiple listings of the card from all over the world have been leaked at this point, and although we havent seen almost any of its specifications, those listings implied that the cards were ready to go, or at least would soon be available.Recommended VideosRadeon 9000 series hardware and software are looking great and we are planning to have a wide assortment of cards available globally. Cant wait for gamers to get their hands on the cards when they go on sale in March! David McAfee (@McAfeeDavid_AMD) January 20, 2025Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming The manner of the announcement was pretty odd, too. After the cards were a complete no-show at CES 2025, AMD implied that the GPUs deserved their own event outside of the 45-minute keynote that also omitted its next-gen Z2 chips. Now, McAfee took to X (Twitter) to quietly reveal that AMDs plans arent so set in stone, and it all comes down to an ambiguous release date sometimes in March.At this point, with Nvidias full RTX 50-series range right around the corner, many AMD enthusiasts expected more. The reaction to McAfees announcement in Twitter replies was lukewarm at best, with many fans wondering where this delay is coming from. AMD and Nvidia are locked in a perpetual battle in the GPU market, and its hard not to give Nvidia the upper hand here, as we know the release date of the first two GPUs, but also the entire spec sheet for all four. Meanwhile, all we know about the RX 9000 series is that itll have 16GB VRAM, but even that comes from leaks.AMD didnt show off the cards during the event, but its partners had them on display during CES 2025, so we know the hardware seems ready to go. AMDs Frank Azor also told the press that the cards were set to launch in a matter of weeks, which still checks out even if its at the end of March, but just barely. Nvidias RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti should both be out by then, with a tentative February release date.Its possible that one of my least favorite leaks may have turned out to be true. A Chiphell forum leaker recently shared that AMD pulled back on the late January release date for the RX 9000 series, citing waiting for Nvidia as one of the reasons. Its hard to say what AMD might be waiting for at this point, but one way or another, we now know for a fact that the RX 9000 series wont be here until March.Editors Recommendations

oh well Californias air pollution waiver and the EV mandate are banned by Trump Among the new president's many executive orders were attacks on clean vehicle policies. Jonathan M. Gitlin Jan 21, 2025 8:19 am | 87 Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreUS President Donald Trump swore his oath of office on Monday, ascending yet again to the head of the federal government. As widely expected, he signed a swath of executive orders on his first day, many aimed at upending existing policies and satisfying grievances, whether that's pulling the country out of membership of the World Health Organizationor reversing the nation's clean vehicle policies.The Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 were signature pieces of former President Joe Biden's term of office. Among other things, the two bills contained many provisions meant to boost US competitiveness in EV manufacturing and build out publicly funded charging infrastructure.Specifically, the IIJA included $7.5 billion in funding for charging infrastructure. The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure programs were modeled on federal highway funding programs, where the funds are disbursed to state departments of transportation, which then award the money to successful applications. NEVI was meant to create corridors of fast chargers along federal highways, and CFI to build out charging infrastructure in underserved areas.That all seems very unlikely now. Trump has ordered the end of the "Green New Deal." He has ordered that all agencies immediately pause any disbursement of funds for NEVI and CFI and that those agencies conduct a review of their policies. If those agencies want to hand out any of that money from now on, they will have to satisfy the new head of the Office of Management and Budget that doing so is consistent with the president's desire to end any favorable treatment toward EVs.EV tax credit and Californias waiverThe executive order "Unleashing American Energy" also kills off former President Biden's goal of increasing EV adoption to 50 percent of all new vehicle sales by 2032. The order claims that it is ensuring "consumer choice" and "a level regulatory field" for vehicle sales.To do this, it eliminates "state emissions waivers that function to limit sales of gasoline-powered automobiles." That spells bad news for California and the 17 other states that follow the California Air Resources Board's Zero Emissions Vehicles regulations. California has been granted waivers under the Clean Air Act to set emissions controls within its state borders, but the first Trump administration spent much time and energy battling CARB's waiver.The previous moves to block CARB's waiver were partially successful and only reversed by the US Environmental Protection Agency just over a month ago.The revised clean vehicle tax credit, which provides up to $7,500 in credit toward the purchase of a new EV, or up to $4,000 for the purchase of a used EV, also looks to be in trouble. The executive order also calls out "unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies and effectively mandate their purchase by individuals, private businesses, and government entities alike by rendering other types of vehicles unaffordable." However, as the clean vehicle tax credit is a part of the tax code, changes to it will require Congress to pass legislation to that effect.As you might expect, environmental groups are not impressed. "The transition to electric vehicles is opening factories and putting people back to work across the country," said Katherine Garca, Sierra Club director of the Clean Transportation for All campaign. "Instead of building upon progress weve made, Donald Trump remains intent on fear-mongering around electric vehicles and taking the US back in time while the rest of the world moves forward on auto innovation. Rolling back vehicle emission safeguards harms our health, our wallets, and our climate."Jonathan M. GitlinAutomotive EditorJonathan M. GitlinAutomotive Editor Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica's automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC. 87 Comments

Wheat is harvested from strips lined by vertical solar panels at the Next2Sun solar park in GermanyKnoblauch GmbH/Next2SunRapid reductions in the price of solar panels mean they are starting to appear in unexpected places, from balconies to motorway embankments. Now, researchers say they could play the role of hedgerows in farm fields, with double-facing solar panels generating power while acting as windbreaks for crops and livestock.Farmers are already installing solar panels, often positioning tilted arrays over crops or allowing sheep to graze between panels. But such installations, known as agrovoltaics, can lead to excessive shading of

Paul Briginshaw/Millennium Images, UKWhats the difference between your time spent in bed and your bank balance? No, this isnt the start of a terrible joke and the answer is less than you might think.We all have the odd occasion when we stay up too late and dont sleep enough. Think of this as the equivalent of splurging on an expensive dinner: you probably shouldnt have, but your bank balance hopefully wont suffer too much.This article is part of special series investigating key questions about sleep. Read more here.But regularly going without enough sleep a problem for many people, with the US Centers for Disease Control reporting that a third of adults there get less than 7 hours a night could have you racking up a sleep debt, with real consequences for physical and mental health (see Why your chronotype is key to figuring out how much sleep you need). Like paying back a financial debt, catching up on sleep takes planning.Part of the problem is that we might not know how much sleep debt we have accrued and how badly it is affecting us. In one study, for instance, participants were randomly selected to get 4, 6 or 8 hours per night for 14 days straight. By the end, those getting 6 hours or less exhibited a cognitive deficit equal to missing up to two entire nights of sleep. However, despite feeling worse after a couple of days, from then on the restricted sleepers didnt necessarily notice their cognitive abilities continuing to decline. The tired brain cant detect how tired it is, says Russell Foster, a

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Why its so hard to use AI to diagnose cancer Finding and diagnosing cancer is all about spotting patterns. Radiologists use x-rays and magnetic resonance imaging to illuminate tumors, and pathologists examine tissue from kidneys, livers, and other areas under microscopes. They look for patterns that show how severe a cancer is, whether particular treatments could work, and where the malignancy may spread. Visual analysis is something that AI has gotten quite good at since the first image recognition models began taking off nearly 15 years ago. Even though no model will be perfect, you can imagine a powerful algorithm someday catching something that a human pathologist missed, or at least speeding up the process of getting a diagnosis.Were starting to see lots of new efforts to build such a modelat least seven attempts in the last year alone. But they all remain experimental. What will it take to make them good enough to be used in the real world? Read the full story. James O'Donnell This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Long-acting HIV prevention meds: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2025 In June 2024, results from a trial of a new medicine to prevent HIV were announcedand they were jaw-dropping. Lenacapavir, a treatment injected once every six months, protected over 5,000 girls and women in Uganda and South Africa from getting HIV. And it was 100% effective. So far, the FDA has approved the drug only for people who already have HIV thats resistant to other treatments. But its producer Gilead has signed licensing agreements with manufacturers to produce generic versions for HIV prevention in 120 low-income countries. The United Nations has set a goal of ending AIDS by 2030. Its ambitious, to say the least: We still see over 1 million new HIV infections globally every year. But we now have the medicines to get us there. What we need is access. Read the full story. Jessica Hamzelou Long-acting HIV prevention meds is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025, MIT Technology Reviews annual list of tech to watch. Check out the rest of the list, and cast your vote for the honorary 11th breakthrough. The must-reads Ive combed the internet to find you todays most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Donald Trump signed an executive order delaying TikToks ban Parent company ByteDance has 75 days to reach a deal to stay live in the US. (WP $)+ China appears to be keen to keep the platform operating, too. (WSJ $)2 Neo-Nazis are celebrating Elon Musks salutes Theyre thrilled by the two Nazi-like salutes he gave at a post-inauguration rally. (Wired $)+ Whether the gestures were intentional or not, extremists have chosen to interpret them that way. (Rolling Stone $)+ MAGA is all about granting unchecked power to the already powerful. (Vox)+ How tech billionaires are hoping Trump will reward them for their support. (NY Mag $) 3 Trump is withdrawing the US from the World Health OrganizationHes accused the agency of mishandling the covid 19 pandemic. (Ars Technica)+ He first tried to leave the WHO in 2020, but failed to complete it before he left office. (Reuters) + Trump is also working on pulling the US out of the Paris climate agreement. (The Verge)4 Meta will keep using fact checkers outside the USfor now It wants to see how its crowdsourced fact verification system works in America before rolling it out further. (Bloomberg $)5 Startup Friend has delayed shipments of its AI necklace Customers are unlikely to receive their pre-orders before Q3. (TechCrunch)+ Introducing: The AI Hype Index. (MIT Technology Review)6 This sophisticated tool can pinpoint where a photo was taken in seconds Members of the public have been trying to use GeoSpy for nefarious means for months. (404 Media)7 Los Angeles is covered in ashAnd it could take years before it fully disappears. (The Atlantic $) 8 Singapore is turning to AI companions to care for its eldersRobots are filling the void left by an absence of human nurses. (Rest of World) + Inside Japans long experiment in automating elder care. (MIT Technology Review)9 The lost art of using a pen Typing and swiping are replacing good old fashioned paper and ink. (The Guardian)10 LinkedIn is getting humorous Posts are getting more personal, with a decidedly comedic bent. (FT $) Quote of the day Its been really beautiful to watch how two communities that would be considered polar opposites have come together. Khalil Bowens, a content creator based in Los Angeles, reflects on the influx of Americans joining Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu to the Wall Street Journal. The big story Inside the messy ethics of making war with machines August 2023 In recent years, intelligent autonomous weaponsweapons that can select and fire upon targets without any human inputhave become a matter of serious concern. Giving an AI system the power to decide matters of life and death would radically change warfare forever. Intelligent autonomous weapons that fully displace human decision-making have (likely) yet to see real-world use. However, these systems have become sophisticated enough to raise novel questionsones that are surprisingly tricky to answer. What does it mean when a decision is only part human and part machine? And when, if ever, is it ethical for that decision to be a decision to kill? Read the full story. Arthur Holland Michel We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.) + Baby octopuses arent just cutethey can change color from the moment theyre born + Nintendo artist Takaya Imamura played a key role in making the company the gaming juggernaut it is today.+ David Lynch wasnt just a master of imagery, the way he deployed music to creep us out was second to none.+ Only got a bag of rice in the cupboard? No problem.

A Chinese app known as RedNote is surging with new users from the US.I downloaded it and found users posting gleefully about giving away their data to China.The frenzy around RedNote might be short-lived, however.I spent time on the Chinese app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, which Americans are flocking to a phenomenon that could become even more interesting after the Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban on Friday.It was an amusing and utterly confusing experience.The app is flooded with posts deriding the US government when I visited it earlier this week. It seems impossible to parse what's potentially propaganda, what's ironically pretending to be propaganda, and what are earnest complaints about the US government or earnest welcome messages from Chinese citizens.What's clear, however, is that many Americans are furious, and they're doing what angry Americans do best from their couches: make memes. One video with over 30,000 likes shows a scene from the movie "Brokeback Mountain" where the two main characters reunite and hug, with the caption, "Me being reunited with my Chinese spy."Many users joked using the hashtag "TikTokrefugee" about giving all their data to the Chinese government. One speculated that RedNote users were being assigned a new Chinese spy to watch them.My feed, overall, was chock full of dark humor about being fine with giving data to China or using the app "just to say FU to our govt," as one user put it.Many posts expressed anger toward the US government, or at least joy in what people perceived to be the government's embarrassment when it discovered that young people were signing up for an app that could be even worse of a national security issue than TikTok.Sure enough, RedNote and Lemon8, an app owned by TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, hit the top two spots on the Apple App Store rankings on Monday. I mean, yes, it is pretty funny!Admittedly, I also chuckled at another genre of memes, about how people would rather sign up for a dubious Chinese app than switch to Instagram Reels. One video I saw showed a cat labeled "Americans" loudly rejecting a cup of yogurt with the Instagram logo on it.The RedNote frenzy may be short-lived, however. The app is difficult to navigate for English speakers, and some new users havereportedit barred them (though it's possible these issues relate to the phone-verification system, which I also found to be buggy).It's also possible that users are downloading RedNote and other Chinese apps not to replace TikTok but to send a signal to the US government."It really is just retaliation towards the government in the simplest way but in a way that feels very native to Gen Z," Meagan Loyst, the founder of the investor collective Gen Z VCs, told my colleagues Dan Whateley and Sydney Bradley.Who knows what will happen with TikTok after the Supreme Court's ruling. It's likely going to go dark on Sunday, but it could get a reprieve from the incoming Trump administration.One way or the other, for at least a few days this week, there was some level of cathartic steam being released the frustration that millions of TikTok users feel that the app they enjoy is likely going away at least for a little while.