Some worry the Chinese startups impressive tech indicates the US is losing its lead in AI, but it may really be a sign that a new approach to building models is gaining traction.

A new document examines the opportunities and risks of A.I. and calls for moral and ethical considerations to be enshrined in all of its applications.

Social media exploded in a celebration after the news that a Chinese start-up had made an artificial intelligence tool that was more efficient than any in the United States.

MacworldRecent models of Apple Watchthe Series 8 and later, to be preciseare equipped with a temperature sensor. That might sound useful for a variety of health purposes, but in practice, there are limitations. One of which is that you cant simply ask your Apple Watch to measure your body temperature right now. Lets see whats going on. If you open the Health app on your iPhone and tap Browse > Body Measurements youll notice that wrist temperature trends are given in terms of variance from baseline. In the screenshot below, for example, its -0.3C from baseline. Very interesting, but what if you want to know the absolute temperature rather than how much higher or lower it is than a standard/average reading?David Price / FoundryFortunately, that information is available, and its relatively easy to findyou just need to slog through a few menus. Scroll down on the Wrist Temperature screen shown above to find a section headed Options. Tap on the option labelled Show All Data, and youll see a long list of the dates and times when the watch measured your temperature. Tap one of these and youll see an absolute temperature reading: in this case, for January 11, 2025, the reading is 36.37C (97.47F).David Price / FoundryAlternatively, you can look on the Apple Watch itself. Open Settings and scroll down until you start to see an alphabetically ordered list of apps (probably starting with Activity and App Store). Find Health in this list and tap it.Now tap Health Data > Body Measurements > Wrist Temperature. Youll see a list of recorded temperatures, beginning with the most recent. In the screenshot below you can see that the absolute temperature the last time I took a reading was, once again, 36.37C.David Price / FoundryWhy cant I just take my temperature right now?There are some more limitations that it might be worth mentioning. The Apple Watchs temperature sensor isnt the equivalent of a digital thermometer, something you can use to take a spot check at any moment. Instead, it takes your temperature at a time of its choosing while youre asleep. So when we look up the data using the method above, it still isnt possible to determine your temperature right now. Whatever information you find is likely to be at least a few hours out of date.Whats more, the Apple Watch is quite particular about having a big enough sample size. It wont be sufficient to put the watch on for tonights sleep and then eagerly demand the data tomorrow morning; instead, you need to be wearing the Apple Watch for a few weeks in a row before the results start to appear. If you were wondering why the first screenshot in this article shows trends across the first half of 2024, when my Apple Watch has a reading from January 2025, its because that one-off reading isnt enough for the Apple Watchs satisfaction. If I try to scroll the graph to the right, it says Needs More Data.David Price / FoundryThe Apple Watchs wrist temperature sensor is designed to monitor long-term trends rather than single moments in time. But its possible that Apple may allow the watch to show temperature readings in the future. Fingers crossed.

MacworldAre you saving up for a new Mac, iPhone, or iPad this year? You might need to save more money than you were planning, especially if you live in the U.S. Thats if President Trumps plan to impose tariffs on computer chips goes into effect.On Monday, Trump announced that tariffs of up to 100 percent could be imposed on chips, though he did not provide any specific details. The tariffs would affect nearly every tech company, including Apple, which relies on TSMC to produce the system on a chip at the heart of its products. TSMC is based in Taiwan, and the company gets 70 percent of its revenue from North American companies that import its chips.When a government imposes an import tariff, the company pays the government a fee for the ability to import that product into the U.S. To cover the cost, the company will almost certainly raise the price of the product to the consumer. In Apples case, the company could raise the price of Macs, iPhones, and iPads to cover the tariff imposed on the M- and A-series chips in those products that are made by TSMC. Apples other chips, such as its S-series (Apple Watch, HomePod) and H-series (AirPods), could also be affected.Apple has been making efforts for chip production in the U.S., which could put the company in a better position should tariffs go into effect. Two weeks ago, Nikkei Asia reported that TSMCs plant in Arizona was in the final stage of verifying chips made at the plant. The first batch of chips made at this plant is expected to be as early as this quarter and Apple is expected to be TSMCs largest customer of the Arizona plant. Its not clear which chips will be made in the U.S. to start, but they are said to be lower-volume older processors. CNBC reports that the plant will manufacture 4nm chips, which corresponds to older Apple chips and not the current enhanced 3nm M4, the standard 3nm M3, or the enhanced 3nm A18 used in current Macs and iPhones. TSMC is building another fab in Arizona, which will reportedly be able to create 2nm chips, but it will not be ready until 2030. However, Apple is in a stronger position to quickly shift at least some of TSMCs Taiwan fabrication to the U.S.However, Trumps announcement and its lack of details essentially equates to a trial balloon. The governments effort to increase chip production in the U.S. originated before Trumps presidency, and Trumps announcement could be a negotiating tactic and a way to push companies to increase their U.S. efforts. Furthermore, tech CEOs have been cozying up to President Trump to start his second term, with Tim Cook reportedly donating $1 million of his own money to Trumps inauguration fund and attending the festivities.The Consumer Technology Association issued a report in January that examined Trumps tariff proposals. The report states that there are two proposals: a 10 percent tariff on all imports from all countries and a 60 percent tariff on all imports from China; or a 20 percent tariff on all imports from all countries and a 100 percent tariff on all imports from China. The CTA calculated that the tariffs would result in consumer price increases of laptops and tablets by 46-68 percent, and smartphones by 26-37 percent.

They may be stressed about shadow IT, security, endpoint management, and the recent proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Theyre challenged not just by static budgets and rising costs, but by the proliferation of tools they now must use to do their job. And while IT admins are not exactly struggling for work, there is plenty for them to do.Those are some of the findings inJumpClouds latest surveyof IT admin decision-makers across the US, UK, and Australia. The report confirms that the workplace continues to become increasingly multi-platform, with 27% of enterprise employees nowpreferring to use Macs, up from low-single figures at the turn of the century.JumpCloud, which this weekacquired Stack Identity, is one of the larger unified device, identity, and access management platforms toprovide support for the burgeoning Apple enterprise.Windows down, macOS and Linux upWindows use has shown the most significant decrease over the last six months, compared to macOS and Linux, which both increased, said JumpCloud. When asked about the breakdown of their organizations device type, admins reported Windows devices comprise 56% (down from 63% in Q3 2024), macOS 27% (up from 24% in Q3 2024), and Linux 20% (up from 18% in Q3 2024).Mac adoption in the enterprise iscertain to continue to climb. The tech support cost overhead of managing Windows systems means a migration might represent low-hanging fruit for many enterprise leaders working to squeeze more from their budgets. Initial cost aside (and the difference between Mac and equivalent Windows systems is smaller now than ever), the total cost of ownership has a significant impact on budgets.Make no mistake. Budget-wrangling really is a thing: 39% spend up to half of their entire budget on licensing fees. While this reflects the grim reality that tech providers of all kinds are forcing subscriptions onto their customers, it represents a massive increase in such costs. In Q3, 2024 just 28% of admins endured similar budget erosion for licensing fees.What do you get for your money?Windows and other Microsoft devices were seen as the most difficult things to manage by 23% of respondents. To be fair, Apple devices were seen as difficult to manage by 19% of IT admins, with Linux winning unspoken praise just 14% of admins saw it as the most difficult.All the same, what that difference in Windows-vs-Mac management difficulty means is that the Windows experience is more abrasive, which in conjunction with the upcoming Windows licensing replacement cycle means IT will be tempted to look at alternatives.Perhaps thats why 43% of admins expect macOS device use to increase in the coming year, though 54% also anticipate increased use of Windows. The default rate enterprises dropping support for either platform is fairly equal, though Apple has the edge.On-prem, off-prem, and multicloudAdmins are also frustrated at the complexity of managing cloud and multi-cloud setups. Thats turning into a big opportunity for managed service providers (MSPs) who increasingly offer to ease the pain of managing multi-cloud setups. MSPs arent just about cloud services management, of course. But it does appear to be their time to shine, with 93% of organizations already using or considering an MSP. Their role also seems to be changing, as theyre increasingly seen as trusted advisors.Can AI supplement IT roles? Admins see the technology as both a risk and an opportunity. But organizations appear to be accelerating AI deployments, with 15% of admins warning the tech is being put in place too fast and 67% believing these deployments are outpacing organizational ability to protect against threats.Keeping pace with all the improvements and changes keeps me up at night, one anonymous survey respondent told JumpCloud. AI has bought a new way of doing business and requires major adjustments.Back to the (AI) futureIts not just deployment that has admins spooked. Thirty-seven percent of them fear AI will take their jobs and 56% of corporate vice presidents now worry AI will replace them, up from 29% a year ago. All the same, fear of redundancy is endemic across every role.How is AI being managed? Most enterprises are taking steps to accommodate its use, with just 21% having taken no steps or put AI restrictions in position. Almost half (49%) of companies have developed policies to guide employee use of AI, with 47% encouraging use of tools such as ChatGPT.With data being the new gold, its no surprise that 28% of IT admins said their companies now have controls in place to prevent employee use of AI. To harness [AIs] power responsibly, organizations must lead with clear governance and innovation frameworks that balance opportunity with risk, JumpCloud said.All the same, unauthorized use of AI continues, and just like any other form of Shadow IT this proliferation is a big problem for IT. The usual suspectsThe number of admins concerned about the use of apps and devices that arent managed has increased again, with 88% of IT admins now worried about this. They estimate that most employees use between one and five unauthorized applications.There are lots of reasons for this, one of them being the speed at which businesses are moving, which means the current needs arent being met, driving employees to seek solutions that fit. And while youd expect IT to spend time handling this, lack of time and lack of visibility into all the apps employees use means that just as fiscal budgets demand careful juggling, so too does precious IT time.What else is eating that time? Security. It currently consumes the lions share of IT budgets. A plurality of organizations (47%) spend between 10% and 25% of their yearly IT budget on cybersecurity; another 24% spend 26% to 50%; 5% spend more than half their budget on security; and 24% less than 9% on security. In other words, security remains a tidy little earner for vendors, and a significant revenue expenditure line item for IT.Youd think withall that money spent, security would already be tightly constrained, but thats not the case.Almost half (46%) of organizations report that they have fallen victim to a cyberattack. AI-augmented attacks are also proliferating this is now the third-biggest security concern after phishing and shadow IT. Man-in-the-middle attacks, MFA hacks and security breaches in partner organizations are also on the rise.In other words, security is an endless feast of fear for some, and of revenue for others. Of course, things might be better if there were platform choices that couldmitigate this attack surface.You can explore some of the highlights from aprevious JumpCloud survey here.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

Mice with two fathers have been bornand have survived to adulthoodfollowing a complex set of experiments by a team in China.Zhi-Kun Li at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and his colleagues used CRISPR to create the mice, using a novel approach to target genes that normally need to be inherited from both male and female parents. They hope to use the same approach to create primates with two dads.Humans are off limits for now, but the work does help us better understand a strange biological phenomenon known as imprinting, which causes certain genes to be expressed differently depending on which parent they came from. For these genes, animals inherit part of a dose from each parent, and the two must work in harmony to create a healthy embryo. Without both doses, gene expression can go awry, and the resulting embryos can end up with abnormalities.This is what researchers have found in previous attempts to create mice with two dads. In the 1980s, scientists in the UK tried injecting the DNA-containing nucleus of a sperm cell into a fertilized egg cell. The resulting embryos had DNA from two males (as well as a small amount of DNA from a female, in the cytoplasm of the egg).But when these embryos were transferred to the uteruses of surrogate mouse mothers, none of them resulted in a healthy birth, seemingly because imprinted genes from both paternal and maternal genomes are needed for development.Li and his colleagues took a different approach. The team used gene editing to knock out imprinted genes altogether.Around 200 of a mouses genes are imprinted, but Lis team focused on 20 that are known to be important for the development of the embryo.In an attempt to create healthy mice with DNA from two male dads, the team undertook a complicated set of experiments. To start, the team cultured cells with sperm DNA to collect stem cells in the lab. Then they used CRISPR to disrupt the 20 imprinted genes they were targeting.These gene-edited cells were then injected, along with other sperm cells, into egg cells that had had their own nuclei removed. The result was embryonic cells with DNA from two male mice. These cells were then injected into a type of embryo shell used in research, which provides the cells required to make a placenta. The resulting embryos were transferred to the uteruses of female mice.It workedto some degree. Some of the embryos developed into live pups, and they even survived to adulthood. The findings were published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.Its exciting, says Kotaro Sasaki, a developmental biologist at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the work. Not only have Li and his team been able to avoid a set of imprinting defects, but their approach is the second way scientists have found to create mice using DNA from two males.The finding builds on research by Katsuhiko Hayashi, now at Osaka University in Japan, and his colleagues. A couple of years ago, that team presented evidence that they had found a way to take cells from the tails of adult male mice and turn them into immature egg cells. These could be fertilized with sperm to create bi-paternal embryos. The mice born from those embryos can reach adulthood and have their own offspring, Hayashi has said.Lis teams more complicated approach was less successful. Only a small fraction of the mice survived, for a start. The team transferred 164 gene-edited embryos, but only seven live pups were born. And those that were born werent entirely normal, either. They grew to be bigger than untreated mice, and their organs appeared enlarged. They didnt live as long as normal mice, and they were infertile.It would be unethical to do such risky research with human cells and embryos. Editing 20 imprinted genes in humans would not be acceptable, and producing individuals who could not be healthy or viable is simply not an option, says Li.There are numerous issues, says Sasaki. For a start, a lot of the technical lab procedures the team used have not been established for human cells. But even if we had those, this approach would be dangerousknocking out human genes could have untold health consequences.Theres lots and lots of hurdles, he says. Human applications [are] still quite far.Despite that, the work might shed a little more light on the mysterious phenomenon of imprinting. Previous research has shown that mice with two moms appear smaller, and live longer than expected, while the current study shows that mice with two dads are overgrown and die more quickly. Perhaps paternal imprinted genes support growth and maternal ones limit it, and animals need both to reach a healthy size, says Sasaki.

Apple is facing more controls in Germany due to its dominance in the market, as a German federal court has signaled that the country's antitrust regulator could win its legal fight.Headquarters of Germany's BundeskartellamtApple is facing the prospect of being deemed subject to an extended anti-competition law in Germany, and is fighting the country's Bundeskartellamt antitrust regulator in court over the matter. However, it seems that Apple may not get its way.On Tuesday, judges from the Federal Court of Justice deliberated for over three hours on whether Apple should be made to deal with additional controls to encourage competition in the market. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Benchmarking tool Geekbench has been updated to version 6.4, seeing added support for RISC-V Vector Extensions and Arm Scalable Matrix Extensions.Primate Labs releases Geekbench 6.4 Geekbench is a highly-used benchmark tool, providing quick ways to compare the performance between similar-specification devices. On Tuesday, the app was updated by Primate Labs to version 6.4.The update introduces support for RISC-V Vector Extensions, boosting the performance of workloads that leverage SIMD instructions when run on RISC-V CPUs that implement RVV. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

John Chase, the trailblazing Black architect and 1952 MArch graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, has received recognition from his alma mater with the official renaming of the SoAs Architecture & Planning Library building.The Cass Gilbert design, which was dedicated nearly 40 years before the Supreme Courts 1950 Sweatt v. Painter decision in 1911, now honors Chase through a family gift. Among other accomplishments, UT Austin mentions Chase as being the first Black School of Architecture graduate, U.S. Commission of Fine Arts member, and licensed architect in the South. He was also the first Black President of the UT alumni association (aka the "Texas Exes") from 1998-1999.Battle Hall, which houses the library and Alexander Architectural Archives, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.