TechTarget and Informa Techs Digital Business Combine.TechTarget and InformaTechTarget and Informa Techs Digital Business Combine.Together, we power an unparalleled network of 220+ online properties covering 10,000+ granular topics, serving an audience of 50+ million professionals with original, objective content from trusted sources. We help you gain critical insights and make more informed decisions across your business priorities.How AI, Energy Requirements Are Shaping Data Center InvestmentHow AI, Energy Requirements Are Shaping Data Center InvestmentAs Microsoft invests $80 billion to build out AI-powered data centers, tech companies face energy challenges in the cost of AI infrastructure.Brian T. Horowitz, Contributing ReporterJanuary 31, 20251 Min ReadTanapong Sungkaew via Alamy StockEarlier this month, Microsoft announced it would invest about $80 billion indata centerspowered by AI. As part of its golden opportunity for American AI, the company willtrain AI models and roll out AI and cloud-based applications with this investment.In FY 2025, Microsoft is on track to invest approximately $80 billion to build out AI-enabled data centers to train AI models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications around the world, wrote Brad Smith, vice chair and president of Microsoft, in aJan. 3 blog post. More than half of this total investment will be in the United States, reflecting our commitment to this country and our confidence in the American economy.Last year, Microsoft said it would invest more than $35 billion across 14 countries within three years to construct AI and cloud data center infrastructure. It is also collaborating withBlackRock and MGXto form an international investment fund that contributes up to an additional $100 billion for AI infrastructure and the AI supply chain, Smith wrote.Microsoft is all-in on AI much like they were with the cloud, and AI has eclipsed their cloud efforts much like the cloud eclipsed Windows, says Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, via email.Tony Harvey, a senior director analyst at Gartner, also sees the investment as a sign that Microsoft is committed to AI and must invest to lead the market in this area. He expects Microsofts investments in AI data centers to focus on many large language models (LLMs) and then include AI agents.Read the Full Article on Network ComputingAbout the AuthorBrian T. HorowitzContributing ReporterBrian T. Horowitz is a technology writer and editor based in New York City. He started his career at Computer Shopper in 1996 when the magazine was more than 900 pages per month. Since then, his work has appeared in outlets that include eWEEK, Fast Company, Fierce Healthcare, Forbes, Health Data Management, IEEE Spectrum, Mens Fitness, PCMag, Scientific American and USA Weekend. Brian is a graduate of Hofstra University. Follow him on Twitter: @bthorowitz.See more from Brian T. HorowitzNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also LikeWebinarsMore WebinarsReportsMore Reports

Groundhog Day is coming on Sunday, Feb. 2. It's a time when we look to a sleepy woodchuck (or other animal) to tell us how much more winter we have to endure before spring arrives. In fact, an opposum named Sand Mountain Sam in Boaz, Alabama is getting to the job a little early. Sam predicts the end of winter every year around Feb.2, and this year he didn't see his shadow, predicting an early spring.Sam has his own opinions, but more people may be more familiar with Punxsutawney Phil, the most famous groundhog prognosticator in history. Soon, Phil will emerge from his Pennsylvania burrow with some human assistance. If Phil sees his shadow, then we're supposedly in for six more weeks of winter. But there are some questions about Phil's accuracy.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration checkedPunxsutawney Phil's track recordlast year and found the fuzzy ambassador's predictions lacking. This year, NOAA took a deeper dive into Groundhog Day results andgraded the work of 19 groundhogsand groundhog surrogates to determine the accuracy of their predictions. Spoiler: Phil came in 17th. Enlarge Image A groundhog nibbles on some vegetation in Virginia. NPSNOAA ranks the groundhogs Upgrade your inbox Get cnet insider From talking fridges to iPhones, our experts are here to help make the world a little less complicated. NOAA set a few ground rules. The groundhogs and "alternative groundhogs" must have been prognosticating for at least 20 years and must also have been active as of Feb. 2, 2024. The competitors included 13 groundhogs, three taxidermied groundhogs, one never-seen creature presumed to be a groundhog, a prairie dog statue and a tortoise.NOAA used data from its National Centers for Environmental Information, which maintains an archive of ocean, weather and climate data. The agency compared the groundhogs' track records with US March temperature averages from 2005 to 2024.All hail Staten Island Chuck, a woodchuck at the Staten Island Zoo in New York City. Chuck, also known as Charles G. Hogg, topped the rankings with 85% accuracy. He famously bit the mayor in 2009 when Michael Bloomberg attempted to coax him out for a Groundhog Day ceremony.The next-best groundhog was General Beauregard Lee from the Dauset Trails Nature Center in Jackson, Georgia with 80% accuracy. Third place belongs to Lander Lil, a bronze statue of a prairie dog in Lander, Wyoming. Lander Lil came in at 75% accuracy. Groundhogs don't live in Wyoming, but prairie dogs do. The prognostication principles are the same. If Lander Lil "sees" a shadow on Groundhog Day, then more winter is expected.How Punxsutawney Phil fared Enlarge Image Mojave Max is a desert tortoise like the one pictured here in a National Park Service image. NPSOverall, 14 of the groundhogs had 50% accuracy or better. Poor Punxsutawney Phil managed only 35% accuracy, landing him near the bottom of the rankings. At least he's more accurate than Mojave Max, a desert tortoise at the Springs Preserve in Nevada who took the last spot with 25% accuracy.The ranking might not be fair to Mojave Max, though. The tortoise doesn't get paraded around on Groundhog Day. His predictions are based on when he emerges from brumation (like hibernation for reptiles). Max gets up sometime between February and April each year."Warmer temperatures, longer daylight hours and his own internal clock are factors known to contribute to his emergence every year," the Clark County Desert Conservation program said. His appearance marks the unofficial start of spring for southern Nevada.Groundhog Day has been a tradition at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania since the late 1800s and it's still going strong. NOAA's debunking of woodchuck weather forecasting doesn't detract from the fun of the celebration. What Phil lacks in accuracy he makes up for in sheer fame, cuteness and charisma. So go ahead and cheer for Phil, but maybe base your spring plans on a rodent from Staten Island rather than Punxsutawney.

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT,has fully released its o3-mini model to all paid tiers, including a trial to free users, the company announced Friday. The launch comes at the end of a week in whichDeepSeek R1, a Chinese-made, freely available and open-source "reasoning" AI model, sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley.OpenAI's o3-mini model is a lighter version of o3, a "reasoning" model that takes longer to develop answers but can deal with more complex information for greater outputs. OpenAI says o3-mini excels in math, science and coding at faster speeds, especially when compared to its top-tier o1 model.The o3-mini model supports function calling for outside data like stock prices and can produce responses in a specific format like JSON or XML. It also supports developer messages and allows for streaming, which is the incremental delivery of results so you can see them faster. Unlike o1, o3-mini doesn't support vision capabilities, meaning you can't have it analyze pictures.The sudden release of o3-mini is likely in response to DeepSeek R1, a reasoning model out of China that vaulted onto the internet last weekend and sent tech stocks spiraling downward when markets opened Monday. DeepSeek says it found a way to develop a reasoning model that'sfar cheaper and more efficient while also using older Nvidia hardware. DeepSeek hasn't been entirely transparent on how it landed on its training costs, but R1 is available now, and people are using it. It's competitive with OpenAI's o1 model, which is remarkable considering o1 is part of ChatGPT's $200 pro tier. Watch this: What Is DeepSeek AI? Everything to Know About the Popular New AI 01:25 DeepSeek's release completely upended the current paradigm in Silicon Valley, where conventional wisdom said more money and computing power were necessary to create the next wave of AI models. It's why Big Tech has been pouring billions into AI development. For a company like Nvidia, which makes the hardware powering the AI revolution, investors were spooked to learn that powerful models could be made using older hardware.Along with the release of o3-mini, OpenAI will increase the usage rates for its more powerful o1-mini model. The o3-mini model can also connect to the internet to find up-to-date information.

Notes: berries, black currant, roseApotheke Bitter Cherry Classic CandleCherry, arguably the sexiest of all fruits, is the main character here, made only more alluring with its bitter complexity. The sweet and tart smell is deepened with patchouli, cardamom, warm oud, and tonka bean. This is most certainly a dinner-date candle, a shaved-my-legs candle, a sleepover candle.Notes: black cherry, cardamom, sweet patchouli, sandalwood, tonka beanD.S. & Durga Big Sur After Rain CandleAny scent that can bring us that windows-down feeling is an instant add to cart. Its easy to feel like a Californian coasting down Highway 1 with this votivethe smell of wet, effusive eucalyptus, and what they call young green shoots, long spears, and russet underbrush.Notes: coastal rain, eucalyptus shoot, magnolia, pacific sprayLe Labo Petit Grain 21 CandleA small grain, this candle is both herbaceous and floralvery Mediterranean orchard-smelling. The orange blossom is grounded in green and earthy smells, making it a perfect choice for creating an unobtrusive and calming scent experience.Notes: orange-blossom, bergamot and white floralFlamingo Estate Roma Heirloom CandleThis candle smells more like a tomato vine than a tomato vine doesand it really packs a punch. After this candle was lit for 5 minutes, my entire living room was subsumed with the lush and peppery smell of tomato, says commerce writer Julia Harrison. For the herbalists, the chefs, the gardeners, or the garden-missing, this is the perfect gift.Notes: Tomato Vine, Holy Basil, Black PepperMalin + Goetz Strawberry CandleLooking to capture summer year-round? This candle brings peak produce to the darkest hours, with notes of fresh bergamot and pink pepper with warm musks, jasmine petals, and soft orris root. I also own the fragrance version of this candleI cant get enough of the scent. Its light, not overly sweet, and super refreshing, says Audrey.Notes: sparkling bergamot, mara strawberry, pink pepperAesop Ptolemy Aromatique CandleGone viral many a time for their perfumes, Aesop is a master of aromatherapy. This candles notes of cedar, cypress, and vetiver are for bringing the outdoors in, a forest bathing technique for the city-dweller.Notes: Cypress, Cedar and VetiverTOM FORD Ebene Fume CandleThis is a candle for the spiritually inclinedmindfulness meets opulence, they call it. Its scent profile of palo santo, cistus, and ebony wood is both meditative and transcendent. Light this candle, start your chant playlist, criss-cross applesauce and let your mind wander.Notes: palo santo, leather, woodsNEST New York Driftwood & Chamomile CandleThe title says it all, really. This one smells of driftwood and chamomile, but it includes undertones of vanilla bean and sandalwood to sweeten and deepen the smell. Were also very tempted to purchase this one because of its cute reusable glass containerit would make a good-looking bedside water glass.Notes: chamomile, vanilla bean, sandalwood, driftwoodJoya x Brooklyn Museum "Purple Wisteria" (Winter) CandleJoya always nails its collabstheres one from A24 we also love farther down this list. This launch was to celebrate the work of Japanese print designer Utagawa Hiroshiges 100 Famous Views of Edo. The candle itself smells of Japanese forestdamp, herbaceous, chilly. The top notes here are laurel leaf, basil, ice and wild mint, but below that lies a bed of musk, moss, and florals.

Actor Will Arnett is letting go of his customized Beverly Hills house, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Bojack Horseman star has listed the 10,300-square-foot contemporary dwelling for $22.5 million. His listing agent told the outlet that the bicoastal actor is selling because he has been spending more time in New York.Arnett, who co-hosts the popular SmartLess podcast alongside his Arrested Development co-star Jason Bateman and Will & Grace star Sean Hayes, had a professional sound booth installed on the half-acre parcel to record voiceovers and podcasts from the comfort of his home. He was the first resident of the new build when he bought it for $16.4 million in 2021. He then spent millions more tweaking it to his liking; in addition to the sound booth, the Toronto native revamped the backyard, added built-ins, and switched out the lighting, plumbing fixtures, and hardware.A black pivot-entry front door opens into the homes double-height foyer, which features a sculptural floating staircase leading up to the bedroom level. The primary suite comes equipped with a modern fireplace and a luxurious bathroom with vaulted ceilings, treetop views, a massive glass-walled shower for two, and a soaking tub. The upper level also features a balcony overlooking the homes resort-like backyard, which boasts a cold plunge, meditation area, sauna, and a vegetable gardenin addition to the typical outdoor amenities of an eight-figure Beverly Hills listing, including a swimming pool, a barbecue area, and an alfresco dining setup. More entertaining spots can be found on the pads lower level, which hosts a game room, a gym, and an especially cozy-looking film screening spot with tiered seating, wood paneling, and extra-deep sofas.Join NowBecome an AD PRO member for only $25 $20 per month + receive an exclusive toteArrowArnett apparently has a thing for bespoke homes. He previously owned a custom-built Beverly Hills Post Office mansion, which he sold for $7.85 million in 2021.

Key resources for environmental data and public health have already been taken down from federal websites, and more could soon vanish as the Trump administration works to scrap anything that has to do with climate change, racial equity, or gender identity.Warnings floated on social media today about an impending purge at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), spurring calls to save as much data as soon as possible. The CDC shares data on a wide range of topics, from chronic diseases to traffic injuries, tobacco use, vaccinations, and pregnancies in the US and its just one of the agencies in the crosshairs. Researchers have been archiving government websites for monthsFortunately, researchers have been archiving government websites for months. This is typical with every change in administration, but there was even more imperative with the return of Donald Trump to office. Access to as much as 20 percent of the Environmental Protection Agencys website was removed during the first round of Trumps deregulatory spree. And now, it seems, similar moves are happening fast.The CDCs social vulnerability index and environmental justice index tools that could show whether particular populations might face disproportionate health risks have both been taken offline within the past week. In 2007, during the Bush administration, social scientists, geographers, and statisticians started developing the social vulnerability index (SVI), which incorporated demographic and socioeconomic factors including poverty, race, and ethnicity over the years. The Biden administration launched the environmental justice index (EJI) in 2022. Too many communities across our nation, particularly low-income communities and communities of color, continue to bear the brunt of pollution. Meeting the needs of these communities requires our focused attention and we will use the Environmental Justice Index to do just that, then Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a press release at the time.Since stepping into office, Trump has tried to undo previous administrations work to address health disparities when it comes to race and gender. In an executive order Trump signed to undo Biden-era policies, the president wrote that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has corrupted government institutions. He also claimed that climate extremism has exploded inflation and overburdened businesses with regulation. During his first term in office, there was a near 40 percent decline in the term climate change across websites for federal environmental agencies. Its too soon to know what the damage might be this time around, but some webpages have already vanished. The US Department of Transportations priorities website has removed pages on both climate and sustainability and equity. It follows an internal memo sent this week instructing USDOT operating administrations to identify and ultimately terminate Biden-era activities relating to climate change and DEI.Donald Trumps efforts to limit foreign aid seem to have also led to information being taken down on HIV and AIDS. The data webpage for the US Presidents Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) was taken down this week. PEPFAR has been around since 2003 and helped more than 20.6 million people get access to antiretroviral therapy in 2024 alone, according to a snapshot of the website taken by the Wayback Machine on January 26th, before it was taken down.The End of Term Web Archive project has saved content on federal government websites during every presidential transition since 2008. The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) that formed after Trump was first elected also documents changes to government websites and works to make archived datasets available elsewhere. It has backed up data from the CDCs Social Vulnerability Index and Environmental Justice Index and shared it on a webpage for The Public Environmental Data Project.Yet even if these datasets have been archived, they arent as helpful when they arent updated. Any dataset has a lifespan of utility, says Dan Pisut, senior principal engineer at GIS software company Esri. Aging datasets might not fully represent whats actually happening on the ground, so people have to be careful about how they use them, Pisut points out. It could be risky, he says, but better than nothing.See More:

submitted by /u/marketrent [link] [comments]

Tech companies developing self-driving vehicle technology have tapped the brakes on testing on Californias public roads, according to new data from the states Department of Motor Vehicles. The agency reported Friday a total of 4.5 million autonomous vehicle test miles were logged in 2024, a 50% drop from the previous year. That figure covers two kinds of permits: autonomous vehicles with human safety drivers behind the wheel and those that allow for driverless testing. The decline is more pronounced under the driverless testing category, according to DMV, the agency that regulates autonomous vehicle testing in the state. Records show driverless testing fell 83% from 3.26 million miles in 2023 to just 552,895 miles last year.The DMV also released its annual disengagement reports, which details instances where human drivers had to take over control due to technology failures or safety concerns. These reports have been controversial in the past because companies use varying standards, making it impossible to compare the results or rate the proficiency of the autonomous vehicles technology.The new figures reflect an industry with few players, Waymos transition to commercial robotaxi operator, and the suspension, and ultimate shuttering, of Cruise by its parent company GM. Cruise and Waymo have historically reported the highest testing miles. For instance, Cruise logged 2.6 million test miles in 2023 until the DMV suspended its permits in October of that year. The company never restarted testing in California. Waymo has shifted away from testing as it ramps up commercial operations in San Francisco and Los Angeles.There has been a noticeable decline over the past three years in new permits issued by the DMV for testing vehicles with a human driver. In 2022, four permits were issued. The following year, two new permits were granted. The DMV gave just one new permit in 2024.Today, just 31 companies hold permits for testing with a safety driver and of those, just 11 actually conducted public road testing in 2024. Nine companies that submitted reports for the 2023-2024 period have ceased testing and withdrawn from the program, according to the DMV. Tesla, for instance, did not log any autonomous miles, per the report. Six companies, including AutoX, Nuro, WeRide, Waymo, and Zoox are approved for driverless testing. Only Mercedes-Benz (which has an advanced driver assistance system that allows hands-free, eyes-off driving on some highways), Nuro, and Waymo have permits that allow commercial operations. This lies in contrast to the heady and hyped days of autonomous vehicles when venture funds flowed and as many as 60 companies had permits to test so-called drivered autonomous vehicles. A period of consolidation swept through the nascent industry in 2019. Today, fewer companies are willing to pour millions into the development of autonomous vehicle technology development. Although there are some recent outliers. Wayve raised $1 billion in May and Waymo raised $5.6 billion in November. The result is a short list of active participants with Waymo in front, in terms of testing and commercial miles. The upshot is a consolidated industry that lacks competition on the commercial front.

OpenAI used the subreddit, r/ChangeMyView, to create a test for measuring the persuasive abilities of its AI reasoning models. The company revealed this in a system card a document outlining how an AI system works that was released along with its new reasoning model, o3-mini, on Friday.Millions of Reddit users are members of r/ChangeMyView, where they post hot takes hoping to learn about other points of view on a subject. In response to those hot takes, other users reply with persuasive arguments explaining why the original poster is wrong.The subreddit is one of many Reddit forums thats basically a goldmine for tech companies, such as OpenAI, that want to train AI models on high-quality, human-generated data.OpenAI says it collects user posts from r/ChangeMyView and asks its AI models to write replies, in a closed environment, that would change the Reddit users mind on a subject. The company then shows the responses to testers, who assess how persuasive the argument is, and finally OpenAI compares the AI models responses to human replies for that same post.The ChatGPT-maker has a content-licensing deal with Reddit that allows OpenAI to train on posts from Reddit users and display these posts within its products. We dont know what OpenAI pays for this content, but Google reportedly pays Reddit $60 million a year under a similar deal.However, OpenAI tells TechCrunch the ChangeMyView-based evaluation is unrelated to its Reddit deal. Its unclear how OpenAI accessed the subreddits data, and the company says it has no plans to release this evaluation to the public.While OpenAIs ChangeMyView benchmark is not new it was used to evaluate o1 as well it does highlight how valuable human data is for AI model developers, as well as the murky ways that tech companies obtain datasets.Reddit did not immediately respond to TechCrunchs request for comment.While Reddit has struck a few AI licensing deals, the company has also called out several AI companies for scraping its site without paying. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told The Verge last year that Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity refused to negotiate with him and said its been a real pain in the ass to block these companies.Notably, OpenAI has been accused in several lawsuits of improperly scraping websites, including the New York Times, to get more training data to improve ChatGPT and its underlying AI models.In terms of performance on the ChangeMyView benchmark, o3-mini does not appear to perform significantly better or worse than o1 or GPT-4o. However, OpenAIs latest AI models appear to be more persuasive than most people on the r/ChangeMyView subreddit.Image Credit: OpenAIGPT-4o, o3-mini, and o1 all demonstrate strong persuasive argumentation abilities, within the top 8090th percentile of humans, said OpenAI in o3-minis system card. Currently, we do not witness models performing far better than humans, or clear superhuman performance.The goal for OpenAI is not to create hyper-persuasive AI models but instead to ensure AI models dont get too persuasive. Reasoning models have become quite good at persuasion and deception, so OpenAI has developed new evaluations and safeguards to address it.The fear motivating these persuasion tests is that an AI model would be dangerous if it was very good at persuading its human users. Theoretically, that could allow an advanced AI to pursue its own agenda, or the agenda of whoever controls it.Even after scraping most of the public internet and jumping through hoops to license other data, the ChangeMyView benchmark shows how AI model developers are still struggling to find high-quality datasets to test their models. But obtaining them is easier said than done.

Includes access to nearly 20,000 professional materials, models, and lighting environments without managing points.