By Nadeem Sarwar In 2024, Hollywood was roiled by protests led by the SAG-AFTRA union, fighting for fair rights over their physical and voice identities in the age of AI. A deal was inked late last year to ensure that artists are fairly compensated, but the underlying current was obvious.  AI in films is here to stay.  If […]

Source:: Digital Trends

Changes to Intel’s executive management team by its new CEO, after just over a month on the job, is proof of the sense of urgency in the company to act quickly to compete with rivals Nvidia, AMD, and TSMC, an industry analyst said Monday.

Mario Morales, group vice president, enabling technologies and semiconductors at IDC, was responding to a recent Reuters report in which, according to a memo it quoted from by new Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, “networking chip chief” Sachin Katti has been promoted to the role of “chief technology officer and artificial intelligence chief.”

In the memo, Tan stated that the company’s data center and AI chip group, and its personal computer chip group, would report to him directly, not as before to Michelle Johnson Holthaus, who will take on new responsibilities.

Reuters reported that Tan wrote, “I want to roll up my sleeves with the engineering and product teams so I can learn what’s needed to strengthen our solutions. As Michelle and I drive this work, we plan to evolve and expand her role, with more details to come in the future.”

Morales said the appointment of Katti, who previously was vice president and general manager of the Network and Edge Group (NEX) at Intel, is a good move, because “it tells us that that Intel needs to really rebalance and focus on AI, because that’s where we’re seeing the most rapid growth for the semiconductor market as a whole. That’s probably the area that has the biggest gap in terms of Intel versus its competition.”

Scott Bickley, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group,added, “Intel is facing a monumental uphill battle. After completely opting out of the mobile and AI chip design innovation waves, they are now faced with a slumping x86 legacy CPU business coupled with their high-risk strategy to move to a sub-2nm design produced in their fabs.”

He pointed out that this “includes new process technologies such as Gate All Around [GAA] processing and backside power delivery that have yet to be proven at scale. It would be somewhat of a miracle to expect Intel to leapfrog both Nvidia and their fab partner, TSMC, in the AI space. Even if these new chips are successful in terms of design and performance, they may be a product in search of a market.”

It is possible, said Bickley, that “Intel could seek to be the fab of choice for the hyperscalers if they can bend the cost-for-performance curve, but that is a longshot and likely to only garner a fraction of this market. Intel’s best hope is a paradigm shift to whatever is post-AI chip architecture … they are not in an enviable position.”

Morales added that giving more power to Intel engineers is important, since the company has “lost its way,” and the move should help the organization start making the changes that it needs to make.

Now, he said, there is a need for Intel to act more quickly, adding that when Tan spoke at the recent Intel Vision conference in Las Vegas, he presented with a “humbleness and integrity that I think resonated with a lot of partners and developers there, but you can see that he needs to make these moves very quickly. He is basically a month into the role and already making management changes, and I think you are going to see more announcements later this week when they announce their earnings.”

Morales said he would be not surprised to see more employee attrition, because when it comes to revenue per employee, “it is not as good as the competition.”

Alvin Nguyen, senior analyst at Forrester, said that while having a dedicated person in charge of AI development is a “good move,” the proof will come in what Katti is able to deliver as the new CTO.

While the fab partnership with TSMC is a “nice cash infusion” for Intel, he said, it is still unclear what Intel will get out of the arrangement, and investors are “not going to be happy until those details come out.”

According to Nguyen, the longer this takes, the less latitude the new CEO will be given. “The problem is that they are nowhere near the top of their game in terms of products or fab technology,” he said. “They are behind Nvidia, they are behind AMD in terms of AI, in terms of data center CPUs and in some cases the workplace CPU markets.”

He said that the move by Tan to streamline the organization “gives him the ability to see more of what is going on, but the question at this point is, is he overwhelming himself, or does it give him the ability to provide better guidance?”

Source:: Computer World

Apple executives will certainly be hoping that raw materials and components intended for use in the iPhone 17 will remain available despite the politically driven trade war with China. They can see that while what they promise will be exciting for Apple’s customers, getting the components together and manufacturing the devices is more challenging than ever.

There’s a lot at stake. This is, after all, allegedly set to be the biggest iPhone upgrade in years.

What to expect from the iPhone 17 range

The devices are expected to host a faster A19 Pro 3nm processor and significant camera improvements. Those include a 48MP camera to replace the current 12MP rear camera unit sitting on a larger camera island, as well as a 24MP front-facing camera. With the exception of the new, thin, iPhone 17 Air model, the new iPhones may be slightly thicker than today, thanks to a much larger-capacity battery that supports reverse wireless charging. 

You’ll see Apple’s C-series 5G modems begin to proliferate across the iPhone range, potentially with a C2 variant with slightly wider 5G band support. Software improvements will include iOS 19, which is also being billed as a huge change in the system and the introduction (we hope) of contextually aware Apple Intelligence. 

Roll it all together and you have the biggest iPhone redesign for years, including the introduction of iPhone Air, all supported by new modems and Apple AI. With new folding iPhones anticipated for release in the next year or so, the stage is set for a new generation of iPhone sales, with new designs and reinvigorated operating systems all supported by an AI that means you can get more done with the computer in your pocket.

Trouble at the mill

Except for one thing: component supply. Now, it’s easy to mistake the iPhone as comprising solely the components inside those devices, but that’s to miss the parts included elsewhere in the ecosystem. That includes incredibly expensive and hard to get tools for component manufacture (including processor manufacturing) and also includes the components and rare earth materials used across the supporting ecosystem — all those Apple Intelligence servers need components too.

The problem here is that trade agreements continue to unravel worldwide as political will coalesces to express itself as a self-harming rejection of aspects of globalism. That unravelling has a multitude of faces, from limited exports of rare earth materials to tariffs on components that can only be made in one part of the world.

While many of these challenges can be solved by sourcing elsewhere or throwing money at the problem, their impact will be to build in additional frustration and delay inside the Apple component supply chain. We know this is already impacting the company as it has reportedly flown iPhones into the US in huge quantities to slip past the tariffs. 

Complex components

Apple won’t be able to just do the same thing with the iPhone 17 series. In part that’s because they aren’t being manufactured in quantity quite yet, though I imagine production will begin in June and also think we’ll see more models than ever before flying to the US from India.

But it’s not just about US tariffs, it’s also about international response to those tariffs. Open up an iPhone and you’ll find raw materials and components that come from all around the world, and many of those nations — including China — seem a little upset at how they feel they have been treated recently. They are articulating this in their own ways: China’s move to limit exports of rare earths will have a particular impact on smartphone manufacturing, though China is not the only nation to respond to these taxes.

That’s likely to make life quite difficult for a company that likes to create new hardware using cutting-edge material science and advanced manufacturing processes. Even if iPhone components ship in quantity, items used in the manufacture of those parts may be limited in some way. I’ve even seen one fairly weak claim that suggests the company is already experiencing problems as a result of WTW1 (World Trade War 1). 

Along with manufacturing bottlenecks, the new post-globalist tradeoff era will be defined by price.

When it comes to iPhones, Apple may be able to swallow some of the additional costs on the strength of the money it is saving on licensing fees to Qualcomm for the 5G modems it has used until now. Those savings may enable Apple to mitigate some of the cost but won’t mitigate all of it. In practice, while I think Apple will maintain good prices on some models, others — principally the iPhone 17 Air — seem likely to come in at reassuringly expensive prices, with Apple management sensibly thinking its highest-end customers are the least price sensitive and will buy the best all the same.

While the iPhone 17 will no doubt be the best iPhone yet and the new design will no doubt impress, it hits a market in turmoil and to some extent existentially articulates the challenges of a politically fragmented world. 

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Source:: Computer World

By Hisan Kidwai If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve probably seen the viral light switch wallpaper…
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By Nadeem Sarwar A Micron executive details how enhancements to RAM and storage technology are going to speed up AI operations on next-gen smartphones coming to the market.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Thomas Macaulay Five flourishing French scaleups have made it into TECH5 — the “Champions League of Technology.” The quintet will now compete for the title of top scaleup in Europe. The contest concludes on June 19-20, when the TECH5 champion will be announced on the main stage of TNW Conference. But first, the contenders have to win a regional crown. For the French challengers, that’s no easy task.  The country’s tech sector has been going through a historic boom. Over the past decade, the startup scene has seen the most dramatic growth of any European country, with investments surging nearly 1000% to…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Nadeem Sarwar Meta promised users that they can opt out of giving access to their social media content for AI training. Some are saying that the exit tool doesn’t work.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Nirave Gondhia One of my favorite things about Huaqiangbei, the world’s craziest tech market, is the diverse range of wares available in its various stalls. Visit this market in Shenzhen, China, and you’ll find thousands of small retailers selling a wide range of products, with the majority being branded or inspired by Apple.  I found $9 AirPods […]

Source:: Digital Trends

By Nadeem Sarwar You may have seen robots dancing like the music icon Mick Jagger, doing parkour, or even painting on a canvas. Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot is eagerly anticipated, while Google and Meta are also planning to enter the field. The competition in the East, however, is on a different level altogether. China just put humanoid robots […]

Source:: Digital Trends

In a landmark decision, a US District Judge has ruled that Google illegally monopolized the ad tech market.

A federal judge in Virginia has found that the tech giant established “monopoly power” for two online advertising markets: publisher ad servers and ad exchanges that sit between buyers and sellers.

The ruling in the second-largest antitrust case of the century could mean that Google will have to break up its advertising products or change its business practices.

Google is said to have earned nearly $265 billion in 2024 alone through ad placement and sales. The company has said it will appeal the decision.

Google was previously the center of the century’s largest antitrust case, and was found guilty of being a “monopolist” with its search business. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has made it clear that it wants the company to sell off its Chrome browser. That issue goes to trial next week.

Thursday’s ruling will likely have a significant impact on the ad tech market, not to mention on Google’s business model and structure. That being said, the lengthy appeals process means the market isn’t going to feel seismic changes anytime soon.

“Google’s integration across ad serving, exchange, and buying platforms created efficiency, but it also limited competition and transparency,” said Julie Geller, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group. “This decision forces a closer look at how market power is exercised through vertical control.”

Decision: monopoly in two of the three areas

The core of the case was Google’s alleged monopoly over three markets in the ad tech space — one for publishers, one for advertisers, and one that connects the two.

US District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled today that Google had a monopoly on two of those markets (the publisher market and the ad exchange market), but sided with Google in finding that there is no separate advertiser market for online ads. She also ruled that the company’s acquisition of  advertising company DoubleClick in 2008 was not anticompetitive.

Google took this as a partial win, with the company’s VP for regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, stating: “We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half. The Court found that our advertiser tools and our acquisitions, such as DoubleClick, don’t harm competition. We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable, and effective.”

Geller called the ruling a “major inflection point” for digital advertising, as it confirms that Google’s dominance wasn’t just about market share: It was reinforced by unlawful practices like tying DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) with Google Ad Exchange.

“Structural separation is no longer theoretical, it’s moving forward,” she said. “For advertisers and publishers, the implications are real.”

She pointed out that a breakup would reshape how media is bought, how value flows, and how trust is built across the ad ecosystem, and potentially, search as well.

“It’s not just about Google,” said Geller. “It’s about whether the digital market can evolve toward something more open, accountable, and competitive.”

Bid to ‘restore competition’ to the web

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) and a coalition of eight states initially brought the case against Google in 2023, saying the tech giant engaged in monopolistic behavior, strategically acquiring particular companies and controlling the industry’s most popular tools and exchanges. The lawsuit sought to “restore competition” to the web.

The company avoided a jury trial, instead going before a judge only in a “bench trial,” by making a roughly $2.3 million payment to the DOJ that covered a portion of damages to the plaintiffs.

The trial took place last fall, with lawyers for the government arguing that Google has been looking to monopolize control of the ad network, server, and exchange markets since its DoubleClick purchase. This and other moves gave Google a monopoly over the three markets in the ad tech space, the DOJ alleged.

Google, for its part, argued that the feds didn’t understand advertising market economics and were just focusing on a narrow sliver of it (banner ads at the top and sides of web pages). The company described the industry as “intensively competitive” and claimed that its share in the market has decreased even as its revenues have increased.

Source:: Computer World

There’s a lot of finger-pointing going on between providers trying to explain this week’s two-hour outage of Zoom’s American service.

On its website, Zoom says its zoom.us domain wasn’t available on Wednesday because of a “communications error” between Zoom’s domain registrar, Markmonitor, and GoDaddy Registry, “which resulted in GoDaddy Registry mistakenly shutting down zoom.us domain.”

For its part, a spokesperson for GoDaddy said the problem was between Markmonitor and Zoom.

“The GoDaddy registry team notified an account person at Markmonitor of an inquiry, and Markmonitor failed to notify Zoom that we had made the contact about the inquiry,” Kristy Nicholas told Computerworld. “[It was] something that we noticed and wanted to bring their [Markmonitor’s] attention to.”

She couldn’t clarify whether the communication was by phone or email. But, she said, GoDaddy waited several days to get a reply from Zoom.

“MarkMonitor acknowledged our communication,” Nicholas said, “and so we presumed information had been relayed to Zoom. That presumption was incorrect, that information had not been relayed to Zoom.”

She wouldn’t detail what the issue was, only that “we noticed something, we made contact with Markmonitor and Markmonitor failed to pass that information on to Zoom.”

“GoDaddy followed its protocol for ‘if it makes contact and no action is taken’, and put the server block in place.”

 This sort of communications problem is “not uncommon” with many customers, she added..

Asked for comment, Markmonitor’s parent company, Newfold Digital, which owns diverse providers offering web hosting, web design, and online marketing, sent this statement: “Markmonitor did include the client on our communications with GoDaddy Registry. That said, we believe there are opportunities to improve co-ordination and communication between GoDaddy Registry and Markmonitor, and we are committed to making that happen.”

Computerworld emailed Zoom for a response to Nicholas’ statement that Markmonitor allegedly hadn’t passed its message to them. No answer was received by press time.

“I think the lesson GoDaddy learned,” said Nicholas, “particularly with a customer the size of Zoom, is if we made contact with a registrar and we don’t know if that contact has been passed along to their customer, then we would go directly to Zoom and make contact with them before we put a server block in place.

“We’ll definitely analyze this situation for opportunities to improve the process, to try to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

Communication issues are somewhat common but usually do not lead to service outages, said Johannes Ullrich, dean of research at the SANS Institute.

“Initially, the ‘whois’ system was intended to provide up-to-date contact information for technical and business contacts associated with a particular domain,” he said. “However, this system never worked well and was often flooded with spam, or the information was out of date. More recently, most domains use “privacy protected” whois records that no longer list actual contact information. In the case of Zoom, they elected to have Markmonitor manage any communications. Sadly, it looks like somewhere along the line, the ball was dropped, and the message from GoDaddy did not reach Zoom.”

Source:: Computer World

By Siôn Geschwindt Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope say they have detected the “strongest evidence yet” that life exists outside our solar system.   Scientists at the University of Cambridge found signs of the gases dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b. On Earth, these gases are only produced by living organisms like phytoplankton, suggesting that K2-18b may also support life.  Located 124 light years away, K2-18b is almost three times the size of Earth and inhabits a region in space where temperatures might allow liquid water. This has long made the exoplanet a top candidate…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Nick Godt Through Amazon Autos, you can now lease a brand-new Hyundai entirely online—and even better, you’ll qualify for the full $7,500 federal tax credit if you choose an electric model like the Ioniq 5, Ioniq 6, or Kona EV.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Siôn Geschwindt Songs generated by AI tools such as Suno and Udio are flooding Deezer — but the French music streaming platform is trying to fight back.  Deezer said on Wednesday that users are adding over 20,000 fully AI-generated tracks to its platform each day. This bot-made audio now makes up 18% of “total uploaded content” — almost double the 10% figure the company shared in January.  Aurelian Herault, Deezer’s chief innovation officer, said the flood of AI-generated slop songs is an issue that shows “no sign of slowing down.” In January, Deezer launched a tool that detects AI-generated music. The algorithm…This story continues at The Next WebOr just read more coverage about: Spotify

Source:: The Next Web

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Source:: Fossbytes

Nvidia now expects new US government restrictions on exports of its H20 chip to China will cost the company as much as $5.5 billion, Reuters reports.

Nvidia’s H20 chip is used for AI development; the US government has said it wants to restrict exports of the chip to China because of concerns it could be used to build a supercomputer. The H20 chip is the most advanced that Nvidia has been allowed to sell in China, though it is not as fast as the chips the company sells outside China.

AMD’s MI308 chip and its counterparts have also been restricted, a move the company estimates will cost it $800 million, Techcrunch reports.

Source:: Computer World

The European Commission has issued so-called burner phones and simple laptops to certain staffers traveling to the US to reduce the risk of espionage, according to The Financial Times.

The Commission issued the new guidelines to commissioners and senior officials traveling to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings next week. The EU has in the past used the same approach for staffers traveling to China.

“They are worried about the US getting into the Commission’s system,” an anonymous source told the Times.

The European Commission confirmed it recently updated its security advice for travel to the US, but said no specific instructions on burner phones were given in writing. Those instructions for travel to the US recommend turning off the phone at the border and placing it in a special bag to protect it from spying if it is unattended. The US White House has not commented on the matter.

Source:: Computer World

By Siôn Geschwindt The Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs have ruffled feathers across the world — and reignited Europe’s push for digital sovereignty.  One of the key focus points has been Europe’s cloud infrastructure, which is currently dominated by US tech giants: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Together, the “big three” account for more than 50% of the continent’s cloud market. “Europe has been heavily reliant on US tech and cloud for decades,” said Mark Boost, CEO of UK-based web hosting company Civo. “But there are alternatives, where France, Germany, and the UK have full control of their…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web