By Nadeem Sarwar At CES 2026, Samsung is showcasing a whole bunch of concept devices with an OLED screen. One of them is classroom robot, while the other one sits on your face.
The post Samsung concepts put an OLED screen on a classroom robot and retro music gear  appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Moinak Pal Samsung plans to showcase a Brain Health feature at CES 2026 that uses wearable and smartphone data to flag early dementia indicators and suggest preventive actions.
The post Here’s how Samsung plans to track brain health using your devices appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Manisha Priyadarshini Samsung is preparing a Brain Health feature that uses data from Galaxy Watches and phones to monitor voice, gait, and sleep patterns, helping spot early signs of cognitive decline and dementia.
The post Samsung plans to use your Galaxy Watch to spot early signs of dementia appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Omair Khaliq Sultan AirPods Max don’t usually need a sales pitch. People either want them for the Apple ecosystem experience, or they write them off as too expensive. That’s why the price matters more than the hype here: the AirPods Max (USB-C) are $449.99, which is a $100 drop. If you’ve been waiting for the moment when the […] The post Save $100 on AirPods Max if you’re deep in the Apple ecosystem appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Alexandru Stan Five stars used to mean something. People still read reviews before buying software. They just don’t trust them the way they used to. And no, this isn’t about fake reviews or obvious scams. Those are easy to spot. The real problem is more uncomfortable. The review economy didn’t collapse. It slowly drifted away from its original purpose. User reviews began as authentic buyer guidance, but they’ve morphed into strategic assets for businesses. Scroll through any app store or e-commerce site: everything is “top-rated” and lavished with praise. If every product gleams with a 4.8/5 rating, those stars start to lose…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

Two cybersecurity professionals charged with running a ransomware operation have pleaded guilty to conspiring to obstruct, delay, or affect commerce through extortion.

They will be sentenced on March 12, 2026, the US Department of Justice announced this week.

Ryan Goldberg and Kevin Martin were charged with using the BlackCat ransomware against multiple victims in the US between April 2023 and December 2023. An unnamed co-conspirator was also listed in the court filings.

They were accused of targeting five companies with the ransomware: a Florida medical device company, a Maryland pharmaceutical company, a doctor’s office in California, an engineering company in California, and a drone manufacturer in Virginia.

BlackCat ransomware, also known as ALPHV, is particularly pernicious as it can exploit cloud copies of data intended to protect against ransomware attacks as a way into the enterprise. Those behind it are among the most dangerous ransomware groups active today.

Goldberg and Martin didn’t develop BlackCat, though: they identified victims and targeted them with the ransomware-as-a-service, sharing ransom payouts  with the developers.

The two reached plea agreements with the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida on Dec. 18, 2025, and these were accepted by the US District Court for the Southern District fo Florida on Dec. 29, court records show.

The ransomware attacks resulted in losses exceeding $9.5 million, the parties agreed. However, authorities were only able to trace $324,123.26 in proceeds of the crimes to Goldberg and Martin, according to the plea agreements.

The pair face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

US authorities have been after them and the developers of the BlackCat software they used for years. The wider ransomware group is believed to have targeted more than 1,000 victims around the world, according to a DOJ news release.

The group was defanged in December 2023, when the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) developed a tool that could decrypt data held to ransom, according ot the DOJ. It estimated this saved hundreds of victims some $99 million in ransomware payments.

This article first appeared on CSO.

Source:: Computer World

Over 200,000 banking jobs in Europe could disappear by 2030 as banks invest more in AI and close physical branches according to a new analysis by Morgan Stanley reported by the Financial Times. This is equivalent to around 10% of the workforce at 35 major banks.

The biggest cuts are expected in back-office functions, risk management and compliance, where AI can automate much of the work. At the same time, several banks expect to increase efficiency by up to 30%.

JPMorgan Chase VP for Europe, Middle East and Africa Conor Hillery warns that integrating technology should be done carefully.

“What we have to be very careful about in all this eagerness and enthusiasm around AI in the banking world is that people don’t lose sight of the basics and the fundamentals,” he said, according to the report.

According to Hillery, JPMorgan is trying to strike a balance that allows younger bank employees to gain the experience needed for the financial sector of the future — something that otherwise risks creating big problems further down the line.

Source:: Computer World

By Omair Khaliq Sultan Smart glasses are finally at the point where they don’t scream “tech gadget,” and that’s why a discount like this is worth noticing. The Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer with clear lenses is down to $224.25 (was $299.00), saving you $74.75. If you’ve been curious about hands-free photos, quick videos, and audio you can hear without wearing […] The post Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer price drop: get them for $224 and save $75 appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Tom Bedford We’ll explore whether smart rings are ready for mainstream appeal, or what needs to change before they are.
The post Are smart rings finally ready for the mainstream? appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

It’s the calm before the storm.

Today, on New Year’s Day, we have a brief moment to pause and prepare — and set ourselves up for success.

From a tech perspective, that means taking the time to clean up and optimize your smartphone setup. That way, when the inevitable craziness hits, you’ll be ready to tackle whatever comes your way with smart, sensible systems and all the best apps already in place and ready to serve you.

We’ve already thought through the top Android tips and Google Android app tricks from 2025 — and even the most noteworthy Pixel-specific advice from the past year. Today, it’s time to shift our focus and look at some of the most exceptional (and often off-the-beaten-path) third-party Android apps that can really expand your experience and grant you some exceptionally effective new productivity powers.

Take a peek through the following standout suggestions — 47 awesome apps to explore, spread out over a dozen different articles! — and for even more Android Intelligence, make sure you’re set to receive my free Android Intelligence newsletter, too. You’ll get three new things to try in your inbox every Friday, and you’ll get my game-changing Android Notification Power Pack as a special welcome bonus.

Here we go!

2025’s top Android app advice

11 Android Quick Settings additions that’ll supercharge your efficiency

These out-of-sight shortcuts will turn whatever phone you’re using into an even more powerful productivity powerhouse.

7 Android launchers for enhanced efficiency

Save time and make your Android home screen work better with the help of these eclectic tools.

Google Keep, discarded: A smart new source for Android location reminders

Google’s Keep app just lost one of its most useful features on Android — but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on it entirely.

An Android multitasking revelation

Ready to fly around your phone like never before?

An ingenious new Android notification upgrade

Know what new notifications you’ve got pending without ever even glancing at your phone.

The simple Android screen app that saves my sanity

Upgrade your Android-using experience in four minutes flat.

The easiest ways to view, sign, and edit PDFs on Android

Stop making your life difficult and start using these simple, free tools.

A Pixel-inspired productivity upgrade for any Android device

Prepare for a whole new way to think about screenshots.

An eye-opening Android privacy blacklight

This free tool offers up fascinating insight into the typically-invisible ways apps track your activity.

How to bring Google’s custom vibration brilliance to any Android phone today

This buzzworthy new enhancement can work on any phone this instant with a teensy bit of easy tinkering.

A handy new Android memory superpower

Boost your brain with this brilliant new tool for retracing virtual steps and finding anything again.

20 genuinely useful AI apps for Android

These top-notch apps rely on AI in some refreshingly thoughtful ways.

Bonus: The double-sided brilliance of Google’s new native Windows app

This surprise creation is well worth your while to notice — both for your own practical benefit and for appreciating the impossibly clever play behind it.

A very happy New Year to you. Here’s to many new geeky, Googley adventures ahead!

Give yourself the gift of endless Android Intelligence in 2026 with my free weekly newsletter — three new things to try in your inbox every Friday and six powerful new notification enhancements the second you sign up!

Source:: Computer World

By Deepti Pathak OPPO India has announced the launch of The Snap Circle, a pan-India initiative to empower young,…
The post OPPO India Introduces ‘The Snap Circle’ for Aspiring Young Photographers appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

Voice-to-text tools have been around for decades, yet there’s little sign that office workers are relying any less on their keyboards. There are various reasons for this: the accuracy of voice dictation compared to typing, for instance, as well as the awkwardness many feel when talking to an AI assistant in an office.

Wispr, a startup with $81 million in funding and a reported $700 million valuation, hopes to change that. Its Flow dictation tool turns speech into text across any desktop or mobile app — from Slack and Gmail to AI assistants such as ChatGPT.

Flow automatically edits the transcript of a user’s speech to remove filler words and typos. Wispr claims its outputs are more accurate than other dictation tools — including those built into AI assistants — thanks to Wispr’s “voice-first models.” These are trained on how people actually speak, according to Wispr, learning transcription, formatting, and intent together, “rather than bolting speech recognition onto a general-purpose language model.” For text editing, it uses the open-source Llama 3.1 model, combined with proprietary models from the likes of OpenAI. 

It’s also capable of tracking speech at low volumes, according to Wispr CEO Tanay Kothari, which could help alleviate discomfort when talking in an open-plan office.

Wispr CEO Tanay Kothari
Wispr

With around 125 new customers a week, Flow is gaining traction among businesses and being adopted across a range of professions, from legal teams to sales and engineering. Computerworld recently spoke with Kothari about how Flow affects productivity and why voice technology may finally be ready for mainstream use in the workplace.

The interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.

What challenges does Wispr Flow address around the use of voice technology in the workplace? “Typing is a big part of everyone’s life: most communication is asynchronous, with lots of documents, and everything we’re doing with AI is also very prompt focused— if you can give AI systems more context, they just perform better. And typing on phones sucks even more than typing on desktops: many people don’t send emails or long messages on their phone.

“People report that their lives look different after using Wispr Flow. On average, they reduce their daily typing time from five hours to three. After about five months, 72% of users’ computer activity happens with Flow, compared to less than a quarter with the keyboard.

“AI tools are the gateway drug for people to start using Flow. They download it, use it with ChatGPT or Cursor, and by week two or three they realize, ‘Why don’t I use this everywhere?’ Then they start using it for all their Slack messages and emails.”

What are some typical use cases? What industries and roles do you see uptake in? “At Yahoo, the chief legal officer used it to draft legal paperwork and commenting on Google Docs and Word. At Ramp, the analytics team use it for all of their engineering workflows and also writing documentation.

“At Upwind, a cybersecurity company, it’s the field sales team. When they go from one meeting to the next, they would have just typed a sentence into the CRM notes: “Good chat with Bob, he wants to buy.” That’s it. Now, they write much more detailed responses to their CRM instead, so their VP of sales started using it and deployed it across the entire sales org.

“This year, Wispr has been growing at about 50% month over month, both in revenue and user base. Primarily it’s driven by word of mouth.”

One of my initial hesitations about using a voice dictation tool is talking aloud in an office environment. Has this discomfort inhibited the adoption of voice tools in the workplace in the past? “It definitely has. I think of it in terms of ROI — how much value does this add for you, versus what is the cost? In this case, the cost is to change your behavior and do something different from everyone else around you. But if what you’re doing adds enough value, then it’s worth it.

“These kinds of changes happen every 10 years or so. The first time phones came around, talking to a metal brick was pretty weird. Wearing AirPods and walking around, talking to nobody in the air, was really weird. But these things just worked, and if something solves a big problem, you’re willing to make the investment.

“I do hear a lot of people say, ‘I don’t know if I want to use this in my office.’ What I often tell them is, ‘Just try it once.’ They usually have an ‘aha’ moment and realize, ‘Okay, this is a big unlock.’ In fact, among all the companies we work with, the majority are in-person, open-office workplaces, with people using voice tools around each other.

“So yes, it’s going to be an uphill battle for us, like it is for any tool that requires behavior change, but it’s one I’m very happy to take on.”

How does Wispr Flow compare to other voice tools in terms of accuracy? “Look at [competitors’] claims: they boast 95% word accuracy, which sounds impressive, but it actually means there’s likely to be a mistake in every sentence. We decided that getting everything perfect is what’s really important.

“We measure Flow’s performance by the percentage of messages users send without making any changes to the output. That tells a very different story when you start comparing models. There are a few reasons for this. First, other models transcribe everything you say word-for-word, but that’s not what people want — you speak very differently to how you write, so the output should reflect how you would actually write.

“The second thing is that context matters a lot. For example, ‘Brian’ can be spelled in five different ways; Flow uses context to figure out which you prefer. Flow also looks at your previous threads: were you formal or super casual? Should it start your message with a lowercase? And it does all of that on your behalf, in the background.”

Wispr claims its speech recognition and editing models result in significantly fewer edits for users, compared with other speech-to-text models.
Wispr

How do you balance user data privacy concerns with some of the more advanced functionality? “Wispr is a tool that people use for many of their private, personal and professional conversations, myself included. We wanted to build it on a foundation of privacy, so we offer every person the ability to turn on privacy mode, which means zero data retention, regardless of whether they are on the free or paid tier. Nothing you say with Wispr is saved on servers or used for training our models.

“About 25% to 30% of our user base opts in to help train our models, and we work with that data. For everyone else, we are very transparent — this is one of the first things you see when signing up for the product.

“For enterprises, we allow them to enable and enforce privacy mode across their entire organization. This has helped us secure some of the largest and most strict financial institutions places where, for example, Otter and several other tools are blocked. We are about to deploy across one of Europe’s largest banks, which is very exciting. Being in Europe and being a bank — I haven’t encountered anywhere with higher requirements.”

Are there any other developments on the roadmap, and could you share your broader perspective on the potential impact that voice technology and Flow might have on the way people work in the coming years? “The main reason I started this company was because I wanted to build J.A.R.V.I.S. [a highly advanced AI assistant in Marvel comics and films]. I want interacting with technology to feel just like talking to a friend. Right now, it feels too mechanical and effortful whenever I see people using their phones or computers.

“The future shouldn’t be one where my kids grow up staring down at their phones all day. That, to me, is just… depressing. I want them to walk with their heads up, not bogged down by screens. The only way to make that happen is to develop a voice interface that people genuinely trust.

“Right now, we’re meeting people where they already are — on their phones and computers. But that’s going to change over the next five to ten years, and we’re building the foundation for that. In the future, it won’t just be that you speak and Flow writes your words, it will also do things for you. Internally, we call this project ‘Wispr Actions,’ which will be a major focus for next year.”

Source:: Computer World

By Ana-Maria Stanciuc 2025 was the year technology stopped being tomorrow’s promise and became today’s anchor. What began as a surge in generative AI and platform innovation two years prior crystallized this year into concrete shifts in how people work, governing bodies legislate, and markets invest. Across continents and industries, the arc of technology bent toward practical impact, regulatory reality, and economic weight. At the heart of the year’s story was artificial intelligence’s jump from novelty to infrastructure. LLMs and multimodal models moved beyond demos into everyday workflows, influencing how documents are written, campaigns are conceived, products designed, and code generated. Enterprises that…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

Microsoft Defender is the built-in anti-malware package that’s included with modern Windows operating systems. It’s alternatively known as Windows Security (it shows up under Settings > Privacy & security as Windows Security), Windows Defender, or Microsoft Defender Antivirus, as on this Microsoft Learn page. But whatever you want to call it, for many Windows users, this tool is the go-to default for handling security on their PCs.

As with Windows Update in general, sometimes Microsoft Defender updates may not work. Normally, Defender updates are handled as part of routine Windows update behavior, run on a daily basis as a scheduled task. But sometimes, Windows Update itself runs into problems and doesn’t do much (or anything).

Should this happen, there are numerous other ways to keep Defender updated, sidestepping any issues strictly related to Windows Update itself. (See the note at end of story for more advice on this topic.)

1. Use Microsoft Defender’s update facility via Windows Security

You can access Windows Security within Settings by typing windows security into the Start menu search box in either Windows 10 or 11. Doing so produces a direct link to that app, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The Windows Security app comes right up when you call it by name from Start.
Ed Tittel / Foundry

Once you open Windows Security, you’re presented with an array of choices to dig deeper. Click the item that reads Virus & threat protection. From the top, the third heading down in that window reads “Virus & threat protection updates,” as shown in Figure 2.

srcset=”https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-02-virus-threat-protection.png?quality=50&strip=all 588w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-02-virus-threat-protection.png?resize=230%2C300&quality=50&strip=all 230w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-02-virus-threat-protection.png?resize=534%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 534w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-02-virus-threat-protection.png?resize=129%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 129w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-02-virus-threat-protection.png?resize=64%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 64w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-02-virus-threat-protection.png?resize=368%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 368w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-02-virus-threat-protection.png?resize=276%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 276w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-02-virus-threat-protection.png?resize=191%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 191w” width=”588″ height=”768″ sizes=”auto, (max-width: 588px) 100vw, 588px”>Figure 2: Click Protection updates (blue link at bottom) to update Windows Defender in Windows 11.
Ed Tittel / Foundry

Click the Protection updates link at the bottom of that section (it reads Check for updates in Windows 10). This forces a manual update of Defender’s security definitions (also known as signatures) and software, when available. Easy-peasy.

2. Update Defender signatures in PowerShell

There’s a special PowerShell command for updating Defender signatures. The simple, basic syntax for this command is to type the command name — Update-MpSignature — in PowerShell. This command works on Windows 10 and 11 versions alike.

Although it doesn’t appear to do much inside PowerShell, the command does indeed update the Defender signatures. If you watch while it runs, it takes a while to complete, and it does report progress.

Figure 3 shows what things look like upon completion; the white diamond in the green glyph at the end of the command prompt indicates that the command complete successfully. I also ran the helpful Get-MPComputerStatus command to display the current Defender version and status, also shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: A single PowerShell cmdlet, Update-MpSignature, does the necessary here.
Ed Tittel / Foundry

Once you’ve updated Defender’s signatures, you can easily check status by returning to the Protection updates item shown earlier in Figure 2. It provides information about last update, creation date and security intelligence version in effect. Figure 4 shows those details. (Indeed, it’s a little easier to read than the preceding Get-MPComputerStatus info shown above in Figure 3.)

srcset=”https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-04-protection-updates-screen.png?quality=50&strip=all 547w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-04-protection-updates-screen.png?resize=300%2C225&quality=50&strip=all 300w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-04-protection-updates-screen.png?resize=224%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 224w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-04-protection-updates-screen.png?resize=112%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 112w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-04-protection-updates-screen.png?resize=480%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 480w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/update-ms-defender-04-protection-updates-screen.png?resize=334%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 334w” width=”547″ height=”410″ sizes=”auto, (max-width: 547px) 100vw, 547px”>Figure 4: The “Security intelligence” item shows the version number, creation date, and update time for current signatures.
Ed Tittel / Foundry

3. Update all Defender components using DISM

Microsoft maintains a web page specifically for Defender updates entitled “Microsoft Defender update for Windows operating system installation images.” It identifies three components that make up the Defender environment, all of which are subject to periodic updates:

Platform version: signatures for a specific edition of Windows 10 or 11 (Home, Pro, Education, etc.)

Engine version: specific anti-malware engine version for Windows 10 or 11

Security intelligence version: current security intelligence updates for Defender

Because they change daily (or more often), signatures get updated all the time. But the anti-malware client (the part of Defender that coordinates checks on individual PCs) and the anti-malware engine (the part of Defender that handles defensive maneuvers and cleanups on individual PCs when malware is detected) are also subject to periodic updates. These typically happen anywhere from one to four times a month, depending on malware activity and severity.

Security intelligence updates (labeled as “Windows Intelligence Update” under the “Other Updates” heading in Windows 11 Update History listings) also occur at irregular intervals. (As I write this, the most recent one I can find is dated July 21, 2025: YMMV.)

Installing the update requires picking the appropriate platform version for your target PC(s) — namely, 32-bit, 64-bit, or ARM64. This downloads a ZIP file that includes relevant cabinet files (.cab or .msu), patching files, and a PowerShell script named DefenderUpdateWinImage.ps1.

After unpacking, the script must be applied to an offline Windows image inside an administrative Windows Terminal/PowerShell session using the following syntax:

DefenderUpdateWinImage.ps1 -WorkingDirectory [path] -Action AddUpdate -ImagePath [path_to_OS_image] -Package

Replace [path] with the actual path to the offline image to be updated, and [path_to_OS_image] with the path to the working directory for results.

4. Give Microsoft PC Manager a try

Microsoft has a new OS management tool called Microsoft PC Manager that’s available in beta test form. You can download it from the application home page or the Microsoft Store. Once you’ve installed MSPCManager.exe, you can run the application from the Start menu — typing pc man will usually bring up the app name to click on.

If you click the Protection button (upper left) and then Windows Update, it will offer Defender updates if any are available, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: If PC Manager finds any Defender updates pending (shown as “Virus definitions” and “Security Intelligence…” here), click Update to apply them.
Ed Tittel / Foundry

Essentially, this provides another path to the same functionality described for Windows Security in section 1 earlier. But PC Manager does all kinds of other interesting stuff, too, including offering a wicked good Deep Cleanup tool.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way

Given the various methods to download Microsoft Defender signatures and executables, there’s always a method to bring things up to date. My advice is to let Windows Update do things automatically whenever it can. If that doesn’t work, try the Protection updates (Windows 11) or Check for updates (Windows 10) links in the Windows Security app.

And if that fails, you can turn to PowerShell to update signatures or to the Defender installation images support page. What the heck: you can give Microsoft PC Manager a go, if you’re of a mind to try it out.

Hopefully you won’t have to go that far at all, or not very often. But it’s nice to know there’s another way to update Windows Defender when one is needed.

This article was originally published in January 2022 and most recently updated in December 2025.

Source:: Computer World

By Varun Mirchandani Apple’s latest Apple Watch campaign highlights fitness features designed to keep users motivated and moving.
The post Apple’s Latest Watch Ads Feel Like Your Personal Trainer appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Shikhar Mehrotra Samsung’s latest Galaxy Watch 4 update promised new features, but early adopters instead ran into battery issues and malfunctioning sensors.
The post Samsung halts Galaxy Watch 4 update after users report battery drain and broken sensors appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Manisha Priyadarshini A new Apple Watch concept reimagines Apple’s iconic iMac G3 with a translucent, candy-colored design, showing how bold retro aesthetics are still a big hit.
The post What if the Apple Watch looked like an iMac G3? This concept nails it appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Adarsh Verma In today’s competitive landscape, simply using off-the-shelf software is often not enough. Your company has unique…
The post Custom Software Development Solutions That Drive Business Growth appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

Nvidia has licensed intellectual property from inferencing chip designer Groq, and hired away some of its senior executives, but stopped short of an outright acquisition.

“We’ve taken a non-exclusive license to Groq’s IP and have hired engineering talent from Groq’s team to join us in our mission to provide world-leading accelerated computing technology,” an Nvidia spokesman said Tuesday, via email. But, he said, “We haven’t acquired Groq.”

Groq designs and sells chips optimized for AI inferencing. These chips, which Groq calls language processing units (LPUs), are lower-powered, lower-priced devices than the GPUs Nvidia designs and sells, which these days are primarily used for training AI models. As the AI market matures, and usage shifts from the creation of AI tools to their use, demand for devices optimized for inferencing is likely to grow.

The company also rents out its chips, operating an inferencing-as-a-service business called GroqCloud.

Groq itself announced the deal and the executive moves on Dec. 24, saying “it has entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Nvidia for Groq’s inference technology” and that, as part fo the agreement, “Jonathan Ross, Groq’s Founder, Sunny Madra, Groq’s President, and other members of the Groq team will join Nvidia to help advance and scale the licensed technology.”

The deal could be worth as much as $20 billion, TechCrunch reported.

A way out of the memory squeeze?

There’s tension throughout the supply chain for chips used for AI applications, leading to Nvidia’s CFO reporting in its last earnings call that some of its chips are “sold out” or “fully utilized.” One of the factors contributing to this identified by analysts is a shortage of high-bandwidth memory. Finding ways to make their AI operations less dependent on scarce memory chips is becoming a key objective for AI vendors and enterprise buyers alike.

A significant difference between Groq’s chip designs and Nvidia’s is the type of memory each uses. Nvidia’s fastest chips are designed to work with high-bandwidth memory, the price of which – like that of other fast memory technologies — is soaring due to limited production capacity and rising demand in AI-related applications. Groq, meanwhile, integrates static RAM into its chip designs. It says SRAM is faster and less power-hungry than the dynamic RAM used by competing chip technologies — and another advantage is that it’s not (yet) as scarce as the high-bandwidth memory or DDR5 DRAM used elsewhere. Licensing Groq’s technology opens the way for Nvidia to diversify its memory sourcing.

Not an acquisition

By structuring its relationship with Groq as an IP licensing deal, and hiring the engineers it is most interested in rather than buying their employer, Nvidia avoids taking on the GroqCloud service business just as it is reportedly stepping back from its own service business, DGX cloud, and restructuring it as an internal engineering service. It could also escape much of the antitrust scrutiny that would have accompanied a full-on acquisition.

Nvidia did not respond to questions about the names and roles of the former Groq executives it has hired.

However, Groq’s founder, Jonathan Ross, reports on his LinkedIn profile that he is now chief software architect at Nvidia, while that of Groq’s former president, Sunny Madra, says he is now Nvidia’s VP of hardware.

What’s left of Groq will be run by Simon Edwards, formerly CFO at sales automation software vendor Conga. He joined Groq as CFO just three months ago.

This article first appeared on Network World.

Source:: Computer World

By Pranob Mehrotra Researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new type of lens that can keep all parts of a scene in focus.
The post This camera breakthrough could soon help you take photos where everything is in focus appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends