Daily Tech News 29 December 2023

• The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright infringement by ChatGPT and Copilot. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This suit seems more substantive than some earlier ones, with examples showing that ChatGPT will reproduce large chunks of NYT articles word-for-word.
  
  Where the case falls down is the NYT's attempt to paint itself as, if not a paragon of virtue, at least a public good, when the organisation is the editorial equivalent of pancreatic cancer, if pancreatic cancer were communicable.
  
  It's no real surprise that ChatGPT does this, of course. It's yet another weakness of building a language model rather than a fact model. Facts cannot be copyrighted.
  
  
  

• Quariding Shire has resorted to putting up road signs telling drivers not to trust their GPS. (ABC)
  
  Though to be precise, your GPS is not the issue; it's the mapping software connected to your GPS unit that is the problem. It does not distinguish between a dirt road and a sealed one, or in rainy season, a temporary river and a sealed road.
  
  Quariding Shire is only two hours out of Perth so this has thus far merely inconvenienced people and not killed anyone, but further inland things could be worse. Although further inland there aren't any sealed roads, so it's harder to go wrong.
  
  
  
• PCIe 6.0 is coming next year, just not for you. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Which is absolutely fine, because there are no mainstream PCIe 5.0 cards yet. As in none. Zero. So 6.0 can wait a while.
  
  
  
• Nvidia's newish graphics cards will be here soon. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Depending on pricing, the 4070 Super and 4070 Ti Super might be interesting. Probably won't, but might be. The 4080 Super is entirely pointless.
  
  
  
• Minisforum's new MS-01 is touted as a mini-workstation or mini-server, but I'm not sure who would want it. (WCCFTech)
  
  It has two 2.5GB Ethernet ports, and two 10Gb Ethernet ports - though those are SFP+; two USB4 ports albeit only up to 20Gbps, five regular USB ports, an HDMI port, and an audio jack. There are three M.2 slots though only one is PCIe 4, and a half-height, half-length, single-width PCIe slot. Oh, and two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots, all powered by an Intel 13900H.
  
  It's okay, but it doesn't do anything particularly well.
  
  
  
• Inside Apple's massive push to make the Mac a gaming paradise, after they completely killed off gaming on the Mac and almost killed off the Mac itself. (Inverse)
  
  Yeah, good luck with that, idiots.
  
  
  
• UK retailers will be forced to pay for e-waste recycling from 2026. (The Guardian)
  
  What's that? Prices on all your electronic gadgets just jumped by 20%? And it's only 2024?
  
  Inconceivable.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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