Daily Tech News 8 July 2024

• Boeing is planning to plead guilty to criminal fraud. (CNBC)
  
  No, not for that. Not for that, either. Yes, for the two fatal 737 Max crashes, and more specifically, for the flawed flight control system that caused those crashes.
  
  Boeing will be fined $240 million and be required at least $450 million in new compliance and safety programs, as well as having government compliance officials operating directly within its facilities. This is in addition to a $240 million fine and a $2.5 billion settlement in 2021 for the crashes themselves.
  
  Much as I loathe the administrative state, the alternative looks like murder trials, sooner or later.
  
  
  

• China has seen the creation of one hundred competing LLMs. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Resulting in a massive outflow of money from China to Nvidia for AI hardware, before 98 of those projects (plus or minus five) inevitably crater.
  
  
  
• Current leading AI models cost around $100 million to train. The next generation currently in development could cost closer to $1 billion. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  So a hundred of those would cost... Carry the twelve... A lot.

  "Right now, 100 million. There are models in training today that are more like a billion." Amodei also added, "I think if we go to ten or a hundred billion, and I think that will happen in 2025, 2026, maybe 2027, and the algorithmic improvements continue a pace, and the chip improvements continue a pace, then I think there is in my mind a good chance that by that time we'll be able to get models that are better than most humans at most things."

  For a hundred billion dollars, you get something that is incapable of learning (LLMs are trained once) and is better than humans mostly at things that aren't particularly useful.
  
  Hooray. We're saved.
  
  
  
• The looming spectre of Mt Gox paying back its users wiped $170 billion off the global crypto market. (CNBC)
  
  Pay back users? What insanity is this?
  
  
  
• Fedora Linux 41 will retire Python 2.7. (Fedora Project)
  
  Python 2.7 still works, but it was released in 2.7, and support ended in 2020. The current version is 3.12, with 3.13 in beta.
  
  You can actually still get a supported release of Python 2.7 in the form of PyPy, a Python compiler written in Python. Since it's written in Python 2.7 and can compile Python 2.7 (as well as more recent versions like 3.10), they are planning to support Python 2.7 indefinitely.
  
  
  
• What has it got in its pockets? (Liliputing)
  
  An eight core Ryzen 8840U, 32GB of RAM, an M.2 2230 SSD, USB4, and wifi, all packed into a folding keyboard.
  
  It even has the Four Essential Keys, sort of. Dedicated Home and End, and four keys marked L1 through L4. It's a little cramped, but if you want a powerful computer that can fit in your coat pocket, it is one.
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:37 AM

| Access Comments