Tech
Microsoft OpenAI computer is world's 5th most powerful – Tech Xplore
Microsoft announced Tuesday that it has built the fifth most powerful computer on Earth.
Packed with 285,000 processor cores and 10,000 GPUs, the supercomputer was built in collaboration with San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research organization OpenAI. Microsoft announced its partnership with OpenAI last year and contributed $1 billion to the project.
The computer will operate as part of Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing system. The technology giant expects to achieve significantly better results from a single massive supercomputer system than from large numbers of smaller, isolated models.
Supercomputers are forging paths into natural language learning, realtime surgical procedures, climate change, molecular dynamics, cures for disease and astrophysical simulation.
In making the announcement at the start of its annual Build conference this week, Microsoft officials did not provide many specifics about its new gargantuan system. But an examination of the specs of its two closest competitors offers some insight. The new computer would place between two systems currently holding the 4th and 5th place in rankings of the most powerful computers, as determined by the Top500 ratings group.
In 5th place is the University of Texas Frontera Dell C6420 setup that reaches 23.5 petaflops. A petaflop, or one thousand teraflops, is a unit of measurement indicating a computer can perform one quadrillion floating point operations per second.
A university of Texas press release states that a human would require a billion years to tackle a single calculation per second to accomplish what the Frontera supercomputer can achieve in just one second.
In 4th place is the Tianhe-2A, the creation of China’s National University of Defense Technology at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou. Also called the Milky Way, that supercomputer has five million cores and can reach 61.4 petaflops.
Although Microsoft’s new computer curiously remains unnamed, a ZDNet report theorizes the project codename is Odyssey. ZDNet cited recent published job openings by Microsoft that referred to an opportunity to work on “a massively parallel supercomputer… equivalent in power and storage of [up to] 100,000 machines.”
Microsoft Chief Technical Officer Kevin Scott stated in a company blog this week, “This is about being able to do a hundred exciting things in natural language processing at once and a hundred exciting things in computer vision, and when you start to see combinations of these perceptual domains, you’re going to have new applications that are hard to even imagine right now.”
The new machine represents a significant step towards the era of true artificial general intelligence. AGI means a computer is capable of understanding the world as well as any human.
Noted futurist, inventor and author Ray Kurzweil predicts that an AGI that can pass the Turing test—devised by computer pioneer AlanTuring in 1950 to measure a computer’s ability to exhibit human behavior—will be created by the end of this decade. By 2040, he predicted, cheap computers will be capable of performing the same number of calculations per second as the combined brainpower of the entire human race.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was also initially a big supporter of AGI projects; he helped found OpenAI and contributed huge sums to support it. But he recently raised warnings about the potential misuse of AGI, going as far as to suggest it may be “the biggest existential threat” facing humanity. He has called for government and industry regulations on such research, including his own Tesla operations relying on AGI for its driverless vehicles.
And the late Cambridge University Professor Stephen Hawking warned, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
Still, there is much to respect and admire about this burgeoning field. Summit, the world’s fastest supercomputer (200 petaflops), has identified more than 77 drugs that may potentially be used to stop COVID-19 in its tracks. And, in a lighter achievement, DeepMind’s AlphaGo became the first computer to defeat a human at the centuries-old Chinese strategy board game of Go.
AGI technology is extraordinary and beautiful. And inevitable. As always, it is the people handling the technology that will require our attention.
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blogs.microsoft.com/ai/openai-azure-supercomputer/
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Tech
Nothing customer data leaked after apparent breach – MobileSyrup
The personal information of some Nothing customers has hit the web.
As discovered by Android Authority, a file on a text file-sharing website contains a bunch of Nothing Community profiles. While some of the data is here public information, like usernames, comments and join dates, private information, namely emails, are also visible.
Digging into it further, Android Authority says it couldn’t find any evidence of passwords being leaked. It also notes that the data appears to be from 2022 and affects roughly 2,250 Nothing Community profiles, including some for community managers.
Of course, despite Android Authority‘s investigation, there’s always the chance that other info could have been leaked. Therefore, you might want to keep an eye on your info for any strange activity on top of changing your password.
Android Authority says it’s still awaiting comment from Nothing.
Source: Android Authority
Tech
BikeRadar Podcast | Sea Otter 2024 mountain bike round-up | BikeRadar – BikeRadar
In this episode of the BikeRadar Podcast, George Scott and Jack Luke look back over the best MTB tech they sniffed out at Sea Otter 2024.
Neko Mulally’s bonded DH frame is discussed, alongside the much anticipated Maxxis Aspen ST tyres, which have been teased by professional riders over the past couple of years.
George and Jack also share their thoughts on Atherton’s new S-Range alloy bikes, with the S.170 making its trade show debut after being released in February.
We’ve also put together an article on all the new and oh-so-shiny MTB tech from the show, so be sure to check that out.
How to subscribe to the BikeRadar Podcast
The BikeRadar Podcast takes you to the heart of the issues that matter for bike riders, whether you’re a roadie, mountain biker, gravel rider or commuter.
From the latest tech news, reviews and debates, to interviews with the biggest and most interesting personalities in cycling, the podcast is your direct line into the BikeRadar team.
To make sure you don’t miss a future episode, you can subscribe via Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tech
Apple's FineWoven cases rumored to get one final release – AppleInsider
Apple has probably stopped production of its poorly-received FineWoven cases for the iPhone, but a new report from the same herald of its death says there is one last set of seasonal colorways coming.
Now according to leaker Kosutami, who first reported the cancellation, there could still be one more push for the FineWoven cases.
Pressed on the rumor, Kosutami emphasizes later in the same thread that if this is correct, it will be for only one more season. It’s now almost eight months since the launch of the iPhone 15 range, so it’s unlikely that there is to be a new mid-cycle color of the iPhone, but perhaps there can yet be new colors for the FineWoven cases.
Consequently, this rumor can at best be said to be possible, especially if Apple had already committed resources to the new colors. However, since FineWoven has proven to be startlingly poor at stain resistance or even just durability, it’s more believable that it is gone for good than it is that FineWoven will get a last hoorah.
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