An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Laptop screens can feel cramped. But what if you could magically get more real estate without having to carry around a portable monitor? That's precisely the purpose of Lenovo's ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable AI PC -- yes, rollable. It has an OLED display that, with the push of a button, extends the 14-inch screen upward to make for an awkward aspect ratio, but roughly doubles the screen space to 16.7 inches. Two screens are better than one for productivity, but what if one screen could be two but still one? Yes.

It plays a fun animation and some music when it does its rolling thing. You can also activate the rolling action with a palm gesture; once it scans your palm, shift it up or down to raise or lower the screen. (Pressing the button on the keyboard is way faster.) You can take advantage of Windows 11 window snapping features to put apps one on top of the other. I stacked two browser windows, but you can put other apps below too. Considering I'm already that guy who brings a spare portable monitor everywhere, this just seems like a more elegant solution that takes up less space in my bag. And of course, anyone can take advantage of the long aspect ratio to get a better look at documents, PDFs, and web pages.

Lenovo says it has tested the rolling function 30,000 times, and it has performed without flaws, so you can rest a little easier about reliability, though repairing this machine sounds like it will be a task. The whole laptop doesn't feel significantly different from a normal machine, weighing just 3.7 pounds -- that's 1 pound less than the 16-inch MacBook Pro. However, walking with your laptop open in your hand might be weird, as it feels a little top heavy. When closed, it's 19.9 mm thin -- the 16-inch MacBook Pro is 15.4 mm, so Lenovo's machine is thicker, but not as thick as a gaming laptop. Lenovo published a concept video on YouTube.

"Nvidia has officially introduced its highly anticipated GeForce 50 Series graphics cards, accompanied by the debut of DLSS 4 technology," writes Slashdot reader jjslash. "The lineup includes four premium GPUs: the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 are slated for release on January 30, with the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti following in February. TechSpot recount of the Jensen Huang keynote tries to differentiate between dubious performance claims and actual expected raw output": The new RTX 5090 flagship comes packing significantly more hardware over its predecessor. Not only does this GPU use Nvidia's new Blackwell architecture, but it also packs significantly more CUDA cores, greater memory bandwidth, and a higher VRAM capacity. The SM count has increased from 128 with the RTX 4090 to a whopping 170 with the RTX 5090 -- a 33% increase in the core size. The memory subsystem is overhauled, now featuring GDDR7 technology on a massive 512-bit bus. With this GDDR7 memory clocked at 28 Gbps, memory bandwidth reaches 1,792 GB/s -- a near 80% increase over the RTX 4090's bandwidth. It also includes 32GB of VRAM, the most Nvidia has ever provided on a consumer GPU. [...]

As for the performance claims... Nvidia has - as usual - used its marketing to obscure actual gaming performance. RTX 50 GPUs support DLSS 4 multi-frame generation, which previous-generation GPUs lack. This means RTX 50 series GPUs can generate double the frames of previous-gen models in DLSS-supported games, making them appear up to twice as "fast" as RTX 40 series GPUs. But in reality, while FPS numbers will increase with DLSS 4, latency and gameplay feel may not improve as dramatically. [...] The claim that the RTX 5070 matches the RTX 4090 in performance seems dubious. Perhaps it could match in frame rate with DLSS 4, but certainly not in raw, non-DLSS performance. Based on Nvidia's charts, the RTX 5070 seems 20-30% faster than the RTX 4070 at 1440p. This would place the RTX 5070 slightly ahead of the RTX 4070 Super for about $50 less, or alternatively, 20-30% faster than the RTX 4070 for the same price. These GeForce 50 series wasn't the only announcement Nvidia made at CES 2025. The chipmaker unveiled a $3,000 personal AI supercomputer, capable of running sophisticated AI models with up to 200 billion parameters. It also announced plans to introduce AI-powered autonomous characters in video games this year, starting with a virtual teammate in the battle royale game PUBG.

At CES 2025, AMD unveiled the Z2, Z2 Go, and Z2 Extreme chipsets -- all powered by Zen 5 CPU cores and designed for handheld gaming PCs. IGN reports: The AMD Zen 2 Extreme, along with lower-specced cousins the Z2 and Z2 Go, are powered by Zen 5 CPU cores. While the Zen 2 Extreme is using a RDNA 3.5-based GPU, the Z2 and Z2 Go are still using RDNA 3 and RDNA 2, respectively. This creates an entire family of APUs (Advanced Processing Units) for handheld gaming PCs that should hopefully cause the price of handhelds to go down a bit.

With the Z2 Extreme, AMD is hoping to dramatically improve battery life, while also delivering console-like gaming performance to devices like the Lenovo Legion Go. By and large, the biggest limiting factor of these handhelds, especially at the high end, is how quickly their batteries drain when playing demanding games away from a wall outlet. The company also introduced the "Fire Range" HX3D processors for gaming laptops, leveraging 3D V-cache technology for enhanced gaming performance and efficiency. "All of these mobile chipsets, from 'Fire Range' HX3D to the AMD Z2 Extreme, will end up in gaming laptops and handhelds over the next few months," adds IGN.

AMD published a press release with additional details and specifications.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After ditching the traditional Dell XPS laptop look in favor of the polarizing design of the XPS 13 Plus released in 2022, Dell is killing the XPS branding that has become a mainstay for people seeking a sleek, respectable, well-priced PC. This means that there won't be any more Dell XPS clamshell ultralight laptops, 2-in-1 laptops, or desktops. Dell is also killing its Latitude, Inspiron, and Precision branding, it announced today. Moving forward, Dell computers will have either just Dell branding, which Dell's announcement today described as "designed for play, school, and work," Dell Pro branding "for professional-grade productivity," or be Dell Pro Max products, which are "designed for maximum performance." Dell will release Dell and Dell Pro-branded displays, accessories, and "services," it said. The Pro Max line will feature laptops and desktop workstations with professional-grade GPU capabilities as well as a new thermal design.

Dell claims its mid-tier Pro line emphasizes durability, "withstanding three times as many hinge cycles, drops, and bumps from regular use as competitor devices." The statement is based on "internal analysis of multiple durability tests performed" on the Dell Pro 14 Plus (released today) and HP EliteBook 640 G11 laptops conducted in November. Also based on internal testing conducted in November, Dell claims its Pro PCs boost "airflow by 20 percent, making these Dell's quietest commercial laptops ever." Within each line are base models, Plus models, and Premium models. In a blog post, Kevin Terwilliger, VP and GM of commercial, consumer, and gaming PCs at Dell, explained that Plus models offer "the most scalable performance" and Premium models offer "the ultimate in mobility and design." By those naming conventions, old-time Dell users could roughly equate XPS laptops with new Dell Premium products. [...] Dell will maintain its Alienware line of gaming PCs and peripherals (Dell acquired Alienware in 2006). The changes were made to create more "unified branding" that will make it "easier and faster to find the right PCs, accessories, and services," said Dell in a press release. It also serves to push the company's "AI PCs" onto consumers.

Dell notes that it will maintain its Alienware line of gaming PCs and peripherals "that's been service PC gamers for nearly 30 years."

Intel, which has been fending off mounting competition in notebook processors, says a new range of chips will help enable the longest battery life available in laptops. From a report: New computers based on the latest version of its Core Ultra processors will go on sale starting this month, the company said Monday at CES, an annual consumer electronics show.

Intel was for decades the world's largest chipmaker thanks to its dominance of the computer processor market. Production technology stumbles and slow product introductions have opened the door to both long-time rivals and firms just entering the space. The company's board last month ousted its chief executive officer, citing the need to improve its offerings.

The new chips, intended for corporate PCs and high-end consumer devices, are aimed at boosting performance in two areas the company considers key selling points: battery life and the ability to run artificial intelligence functions. According to Intel, an HP laptop that uses one of the new processors can run Microsoft's Teams software for as long as 10.5 hours on a single charge. It can go 20.3 hours between charges when the user is running Microsoft's cloud-based 365 suite, Intel added. By comparison, Intel says a Dell device using a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor can last as long as 9.2 hours and 18.5 hours, respectively, under those conditions.

Global investment in electrical grid infrastructure is surging amid rising demand for power and the shift to renewable energy, reaching nearly $400 billion in 2024 from just over $300 billion in 2020. The International Energy Agency forecasts spending will hit $600 billion annually by 2030, driven by decarbonization efforts, electrification of transport and heating, and growing power needs from data centers and developing economies.

Major equipment manufacturers including Schneider Electric, Hitachi, and Siemens Energy are expanding production capacity to address severe supply chain bottlenecks, with transformer prices up 60-80% since 2020 and wait times extending to five years.

"Electric vehicles are expected to outsell cars with internal combustion engines in China for the first time next year," reports the Financial Times, calling it "a historic inflection point that puts the world's biggest car market years ahead of western rivals." China is set to smash international forecasts and Beijing's official targets with domestic EV sales — including pure battery and plug-in hybrids — growing about 20 per cent year on year to more than 12mn cars in 2025, according to the latest estimates supplied to the Financial Times by four investment banks and research groups. The figure would be more than double the 5.9mn sold in 2022. At the same time, sales of traditionally powered cars are expected to fall by more than 10 per cent next year to less than 11 million, reflecting a near 30 per cent plunge from 14.8 million in 2022...

Robert Liew, director of Asia-Pacific renewables research at Wood Mackenzie, said China's EV milestone signalled its success in domestic technology development and securing global supply chains for critical resources needed for EVs and their batteries. The industry's scale meant steep manufacturing cost reductions and lower prices for consumers. "They want to electrify everything," said Liew. "No other country comes close to China." While the pace of Chinese EV sales growth has eased from a post-pandemic frenzy, the forecasts suggest Beijing's official target, set in 2020, for EVs to account for 50 per cent of car sales by 2035, will be achieved 10 years in advance of schedule...

As China's EV market tracked towards year-on-year growth of near 40 per cent in 2024, the market share of foreign-branded cars fell to a record low of 37 per cent — a sharp decline from 64 per cent in 2020, according to data from Automobility, a Shanghai-based consultancy. In this month alone, GM wrote down more than $5 billion (€4.8 billion) of its business value in China; the holding company behind Porsche warned of a writedown in its Volkswagen stake of up to €20 billion; and arch rivals Nissan and Honda said they were responding to a "drastically changing business environment" with a merger.
"Meanwhile, EV sales growth has slowed in Europe and the US, reflecting the legacy car industry's slow embrace of new technology, uncertainty over government subsidies and rising protectionism against imports from China..."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.

"Robots and AI models share one crucial characteristic," writes the Washington Post. "Whether to move around, conduct conversations or solve problems, they function by constantly taking in and computing increasingly vast quantities of data. It's a brute-force approach to automation. Processing all that data makes them such energy guzzlers that their planet-warming pollution could outweigh any benefits they offer."

But then the article visits the robot soccer team of René van de Molengraft (chair of robotics at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands). "One solution, Molengraft thinks, might lie in 'lazy robotics,' a cheeky term to describe machines doing less and taking shortcuts..." There may be ceilings for laziness: limits to how much superfluous energy use can be stripped away before robots stop functioning as they should. Still, Molengraft said, "The truth is: Robots are still doing a lot of things that they shouldn't be doing." To waste less energy, robots need to do less of everything: move less, and think less, and sense less. They need to focus only on what's important at any particular moment. Which, after all, is what humans do, even if we don't always realize it....

Lazy robotics is already percolating out of university labs and into the R&D wings of corporations.... On the outskirts of Eindhoven, engineers at health technology firm Philips have encoded lazy robotics into two porcelain-white machines. These robots, named FlexArm and Biplane, move around an operating theater with smooth hums, taking X-ray images to help surgeons install cardiac stents or work on the brain with greater precision.... The robots use proximity sensors, which use far less energy. Lazy robotics can also cut down on the number of X-rays during a procedure. Frequently, surgeons take multiple X-rays to make their work as precise as possible. But with the robots' help, they can track the exact coordinates on a patient's body they are operating on in real time...

The theories behind lazy robotics make robots smart in a more practical way: by coding in an awareness of what they don't need to know. It may be a while before these solutions are deployed at scale out in the world, but their potential applications are already evident... Molengraft sees an extension of lazy robotics into the realm of generative AI, in which machines don't learn how to move but learn how to learn by processing veritable oceans of data... It's wiser to build versions that contain only the necessary information. A language model used by software engineers, for instance, shouldn't need to run through its training data about world history, sporting records or children's literature. "Not every AI model has to be able to tell us about the first Harry Potter book," Molengraft said.

The less data an AI model crunches, the less energy it uses — a vital efficiency fillip given that ChatGPT now uses 500,000 kilowatt-hours of energy a day, responding to 200 million queries. A U.S. household would need more than 17,000 days on average to rack up the same electricity bill... Molengraft sees this work as indispensable if the forthcoming age of machines is to be a cleaner time as well.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Constellation Energy has been awarded a record $1 billion in contracts to supply nuclear power to the U.S. government over the next decade, the company said on Thursday. Constellation, the country's largest operator of nuclear power plants, will deliver electricity to more than 13 federal agencies as part of the agreements with the U.S. General Services Administration. The deal is the biggest energy purchase in the history of the GSA, which constructs and manages federal buildings, and is among the first major climate-focused energy agreement by the U.S. government to include electricity generated from existing nuclear reactors.

The GSA estimated that the contracts, set to begin on April 25, will comprise over 10 million megawatt-hours over 10 years and provide electricity equivalent to powering more than 1 million homes annually. The procurement will deliver electricity to 80 federal facilities located throughout the PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission operator with service covering more than 65 million people. The U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Army Corps of Engineers are some of the facilities that will receive the power. [...] Constellation said the deal will enable it to extend the licenses of existing nuclear plants and invest in new equipment and technology that will increase output by about 135 megawatts. "The investments we make as a result of this contract will keep these plants operating reliably for decades to come and put new, clean nuclear energy on the grid while making the best use of taxpayer dollars," Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez said in a release.

Samsung is set to debut its new Odyssey 3D monitor at CES 2025, reviving the glasses-free 3D experience that manufacturers pushed on consumers over a decade ago. While details remain limited, the monitor reportedly utilizes a lenticular lens, stereo cameras, and AI to convert 2D content into lifelike 3D visuals, with a focus on appealing to gamers for broader adoption. Ars Technica reports: According to the South Korean company's announcement, the monitor's use of a lenticular lens that is "attached to the front of the panel and its front stereo camera" means that you don't have to wear glasses to access the monitor's "customizable 3D experience." Lenticular lenses direct different images to each eye to make images look three-dimensional. This is a notable advancement from the first 3D monitor that Samsung released in 2009. That display used Nvidia software and Nvidia shutter glasses to allow users to toggle between a 2D view and a 3D view through a few button presses and supported content.

Another advancement is the Odyssey 3D's claimed ability to use artificial intelligence "to analyze and convert 2D video into 3D." We've recently seen similar technology from brands like Acer, which announced portable monitors in 2022 and then announced laptops that could convert 2D content into stereoscopic 3D in 2023. Those displays also relied on AI, as well as a specialized optical lens and a pair of eye-tracking cameras, to create the effect. But unlike Acer's portable monitors, Samsung claims that its monitor can make 2D content look like 3D even if that content doesn't officially support 3D. [...] Interestingly, Samsung's announcement today only mentioned the release of a 27-inch, 4K resolution 3D monitor, despite Samsung teasing a 37-inch version in August. It's possible that the larger version didn't work as well and/or that demand for the larger size would be too small, considering the high price and limited demand implications of a glasses-free 3D monitor aimed at gamers. Further reading: Samsung, Asus, MSI Unveil First 27-inch 4K OLED 240Hz Gaming Monitors

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: A new study published in the journal Renewable Energy (PDF) uses data from the state of California to demonstrate that no blackouts occurred when wind-water-solar electricity supply exceeded 100% of demand on the state's main grid for a record 98 of 116 days from late winter to early summer 2024 for an average (maximum) of 4.84 (10.1) hours per day. Compared to the same period in 2023, solar output in California is up 31%, wind power is up 8%, and batteries are up a staggering 105%. Batteries supplied up to 12% of nighttime demand by storing and redistributing excess solar energy.

And here's the kicker: California's high electricity prices aren't because of wind, water, and solar energy. (That issue is primarily caused (PDF) by utilities recovering the cost of wildfire mitigation, transmission and distribution investments, and net energy metering.) In fact, researchers from Stanford, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of California, Berkeley found that states with higher shares of renewable energy tend to see lower electricity prices. The takeaway -- and the data backs it up -- is that a large grid dominated by wind, water, and solar is not only feasible, it's also reliable.

In 2025, China plans to start building a demonstration thorium-based molten-salt reactor in the Gobi Desert. IEEE Spectrum reports: The 10-megawatt reactor project, managed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP), is scheduled to be operational by 2030, according to an environmental-impact report released by the Academy in October. The project follows a 2-MW experimental version completed in 2021 and operated since then. China's efforts put it at the forefront of both thorium-based fuel breeding and molten-salt reactors. Several companies elsewhere in the world are developing plans for this kind of fuel or reactor, but none has yet operated one. Prior to China's pilot project, the last operating molten-salt reactor was Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, which ran on uranium. It shut down in 1969.

Thorium-232, found in igneous rocks and heavy mineral sands, is more abundant on Earth than the commonly used isotope in nuclear fuel, uranium-235. But this weakly radioactive metal isn't directly fissile -- it can't undergo fission, the splitting of atomic nuclei that produces energy. So it must first be transformed into fissile uranium-233. That's technically feasible, but whether it's economical and practical is less clear. The attraction of thorium is that it can help achieve energy self-sufficiency by reducing dependence on uranium, particularly for countries such as India with enormous thorium reserves. But China may source it in a different way: The element is a waste product of China's huge rare earth mining industry. Harnessing it would provide a practically inexhaustible supply of fuel. Already, China's Gansu province has maritime and aerospace applications in mind for this future energy supply, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Scant technical details of China's reactor exist, and SINAP didn't respond to IEEE Spectrum's requests for information. The Chinese Academy of Sciences' environmental-impact report states that the molten-salt reactor core will be 3 meters in height and 2.8 meters in diameter. It will operate at 700 C and have a thermal output of 60 MW, along with 10 MW of electricity. [...] But many challenges come along with thorium use. A big one is dealing with the risk of proliferation. When thorium is transformed into uranium-233, it becomes directly usable in nuclear weapons. "It's of a quality comparable to separated plutonium and is thus very dangerous," says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. If the fuel is circulating in and out of the reactor core during operation, this movement introduces routes for the theft of uranium-233, he says.

Speaking of robots, Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University researchers say they trained robots to perform surgical tasks autonomously using video learning, marking a breakthrough in robotic surgery capabilities.

The robots successfully manipulated needles, tied knots, and sutured wounds independently, demonstrating ability to correct errors like dropped needles without human input. Testing has advanced to full surgeries on animal cadavers.

Researchers aim to address a projected U.S. surgeon shortage of 10,000-20,000 by 2036. The technology builds on decades of robot-assisted surgery, which recorded 876,000 procedures in 2020.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Nvidia is betting on robotics as its next big driver of growth, as the world's most valuable semiconductor company faces increasing competition in its core AI chipmaking business. The US tech group, best known for the infrastructure that has underpinned the AI boom, is set to launch its latest generation of compact computers for humanoid robots [non-paywalled link] -- dubbed Jetson Thor -- in the first half of 2025.

Nvidia is positioning itself to be the leading platform for what the tech group believes is an imminent robotics revolution. The company sells a "full stack" solution, from the layers of software for training AI-powered robots to the chips that go into them. [...] Talla said a shift in the robotics market is being driven by two technological breakthroughs: the explosion of generative AI models and the ability to train robots on these foundational models using simulated environments. The latter has been a particularly significant development as it helps solve what roboticists call the "Sim-to-Real gap," ensuring robots trained in virtual environments can operate effectively in the real world, he said.

The Russian government has banned crypto mining in ten regions for a period of six years, according to reporting by the state-owned news agency Tass. Engadget adds: Russia has cited the industry's high power consumption rates as the primary reason behind the ban. Crypto is particularly power-hungry, as mining operations already account for nearly 2.5 percent of US energy use.

This ban takes effect on January 1 and lasts until March 15, 2031. The country's Council of Ministers has also stated that additional bans may be required in other regions during periods of peak energy demand. It could also go the other way. The ban could be temporarily lifted or altered in certain regions if a government commission examines changes in energy demand and deems it necessary.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: Although Samsung Foundry is a major chip contract manufacturer, the South Korean government mulls creating a government-funded contract chipmaker tentatively called Korea Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, KSMC, reports The Korea Biz Wire. Industry experts and academics have proposed the initiative.

The Semiconductor Industry Association's Ahn Ki-hyun called for a long-term government investment. Experts project that an investment of KRW 20 trillion ($13.9 billion) in KSMC could result in economic gains of KRW 300 trillion ($208.7 billion) by 2045. However, the big question is whether $13.9 billion is enough to establish a chipmaker. Another concern about publicly funded corporations like KSMC is whether they could develop advanced manufacturing technologies and land enough orders from clients to be profitable. It turns out that in addition to semiconductor makers, Korea needs more fabless software developers.

The proposal was introduced during a seminar hosted by the National Academy of Engineering of Korea (NAEK). The plan aims to address structural weaknesses in the industry, such as an over-reliance on Samsung's advanced nodes under 10nm amid the lack of mature process technologies. Smaller system semiconductor firms struggle to thrive as Korea lacks manufacturing diversity, as seen in Taiwan, where companies like UMC and PSMC that focus on mature and specialty nodes complement TSMC's advanced process technologies.

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) warns that while most adults recognize the importance of wiping personal data from old devices, nearly 30% don't know how, and a significant number of young people either don't care or find it too cumbersome. The Register reports: Clearing personal data off an old device is an important step before ditching it or handing it on to another user. However, almost three in ten (29 percent) of adults don't know how to remove the information, according to a survey of 2,170 members of the UK public. Seventy-one percent agreed that wiping a device was important, but almost a quarter (24 percent) reckoned it was too arduous. This means that the drawer of dusty devices is set to swell -- three-quarters of respondents reported hanging on to at least one old device, and a fifth did so because they were worried about their personal information. [...]

More than one in five (21 percent) of young people in the survey didn't think it was important to wipe personal data, while 23 percent said they didn't care about what might happen to that data. Fourteen percent of people aged 18-34 said they wouldn't bother wiping their devices at all, compared to just 4 percent of people over 55. On the plus side, the majority (84 percent) of respondents said they would ensure data was erased before disposing of a device. Alternatively, some might not worry about it and stick it in that special drawer alongside all the cables that might be needed one day. The survey also found that more than a quarter (27 percent) of UK adults were planning to treat themselves to a new device over the festive season [...].

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over the past year, OpenAI has dropped not-so-subtle hints about its revived interest in robotics: investing in startups developing hardware and software for robots such as Figure and Physical Intelligence and rebooting its internal robotics software team, which it had disbanded four years ago.

Now, OpenAI could be taking that interest to the next level. The company has recently considered developing a humanoid robot, according to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions. As a refresher, humanoid robots typically have two arms and two legs, distinguishing them from typical robots in a warehouse or factory that might have a single arm repeatedly performing the same task on an assembly line. Developers of humanoid robots think it will be easier for them to handle tasks in the physical world -- which is tailored to humans -- than it would be to change our physical environments to suit new robots.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday, a large group of university and private industry researchers unveiled Genesis, a new open source computer simulation system that lets robots practice tasks in simulated reality 430,000 times faster than in the real world. Researchers also plan to introduce an AI agent to generate 3D physics simulations from text prompts. The accelerated simulation means a neural network for piloting robots can spend the virtual equivalent of decades learning to pick up objects, walk, or manipulate tools during just hours of real computer time.

"One hour of compute time gives a robot 10 years of training experience. That's how Neo was able to learn martial arts in a blink of an eye in the Matrix Dojo," wrote Genesis paper co-author Jim Fan on X, who says he played a "minor part" in the research. Fan has previously worked on several robotics simulation projects for Nvidia. [...] The team also announced they are working on the ability to generate what it calls "4D dynamic worlds" -- perhaps using "4D" because they can simulate a 3D world in motion over time. The system will reportedly use vision-language models (VLMs) to generate complete virtual environments from text descriptions (similar to "prompts" in other AI models), utilizing Genesis's own simulation infrastructure APIs to create the worlds.

PCWorld's Jon Phillips pays tribute to Gordon Mah Ung, "our hardware guru, host of The Full Nerd, exemplary tech journalist, and very good friend." He passed away over the weekend after a hard-fought battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 58. From the report: With more than 25 years' experience covering computer tech broadly and computer chips specifically, Gordon's dogged reporting, one-of-a-kind personality, and commitment to journalistic standards touched many, many lives. He will be profoundly missed by co-workers, industry sources, and the PC enthusiasts who read his words and followed him as a video creator.

Gordon studied journalism at San Francisco State University and then worked as a police reporter for the Contra Costa Times in the late 1990s. In 1997, he joined Computerworld (a PCWorld sister publication) before I recruited him to join boot magazine (later re-launched as Maximum PC), where he would ultimately lead hardware coverage for 16 years.