Samsung Electronics has started mass production of its 9th generation of V-NAND memory. The first dies based on their latest NAND tech come in a 1 Tb capacity using a triple-level cell (TLC) architecture, with data transfer rates as high as 3.2 GT/s. The new 3D TLC NAND memory will initially be used to build high-capacity and high-performance SSDs, which will help to solidify Samsung's position in the storage market.

Diving right in, Samsung is conspicuously avoiding to list the number of layers in their latest generation NAND, which is the principle driving factor in increasing capacity generation-on-generation. The company's current 8th gen V-NAND is 236 layers – similar to its major competitors – and word on the street is that 9th gen V-NAND ups that to 290 layers, though this remains to be confirmed.

Regardless, Samsung says that its 9th generation V-NAND memory boasts an approximate 50% improvement in bit density over its 8th generation predecessor. Driving this gains, the company cites the miniaturization of the cell size, as well as the integration of enhanced memory cell technologies that reduce interference and extend the lifespan of the cells. With their latest NAND technology, Samsung has also been able to eliminate dummy channel holes, thus reducing the planar area of the memory cells.

Interestingly, today's announcement also marks the first time that Samsung has publicly confirmed their use of string stacking in their NAND, referring to it as their "double-stack structure." The company is widely believed to have been using sting stacking back in their 8th generation NAND as well, however this was never confirmed by the company. Regardless, the use of string stacking is only going to increase from here, as vendors look to keep adding layers to their NAND dies, while manufacturing variability and channel hole tolerances make it difficult to produce more than 150-200 layers in a single stack.

Samsung TLC V- NAND Flash Memory
	9th Gen V-NAND	8th Gen V-NAND
Layers	290?	236
Decks	2 (x145)	2 (x118)
Die Capacity	1 Tbit	1 Tbit
Die Size (mm2)	?mm2	?mm2
Density (Gbit/mm2)	?	?
I/O Speed	3.2 GT/s (Toggle 5.1)	2.4 GT/s (Toggle 5.0)
Planes	6?	4
CuA / PuC	Yes	Yes

Speaking of channel holes, another key technological enhancement in the 9th gen V-NAND is Samsung's advanced 'channel hole etching' technology. This process improves manufacturing productivity by enabling the simultaneous creation of electron pathways within a double-stack structure. This method is crucial as it enables efficient drilling through more layers, which is increasingly important as cell layers are added.

The latest V-NAND also features the introduction of a faster NAND flash interface, Toggle DDR 5.1, which boosts peak data transfer rates by 33% to 3.2 GT/s, or almost 400MB/sec for a single die. Additionally, 9th gen V-NAND's power consumption has been reduced by 10%, according to Samsung. Though Samsung doesn't state under what conditions – presumably, this is at iso-frequency rather than max frequency.

Samsung's launch of 1Tb TLC V-NAND is set to be followed by the release of a quad-level cell (QLC) model later this year.

"We are excited to deliver the industry’s first 9th-gen V-NAND which will bring future applications leaps forward," said SungHoi Hur, Head of Flash Product & Technology of the Memory Business at Samsung Electronics. "In order to address the evolving needs for NAND flash solutions, Samsung has pushed the boundaries in cell architecture and operational scheme for our next-generation product. Through our latest V-NAND, Samsung will continue to set the trend for the high-performance, high-density solid-state drive (SSD) market that meets the needs for the coming AI generation."

The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses now feature support for multimodal AI -- without the need for a projector or $24 monthly fee. (We're looking at you, Humane AI.) With the new update, the Meta AI assistant will be able to analyze what you're seeing, and it'll give you smart, helpful answers or suggestions. The Verge reports: First off, there are some expectations that need managing here. The Meta glasses don't promise everything under the sun. The primary command is to say "Hey Meta, look and..." You can fill out the rest with phrases like "Tell me what this plant is." Or read a sign in a different language. Write Instagram captions. Identify and learn more about a monument or landmark. The glasses take a picture, the AI communes with the cloud, and an answer arrives in your ears. The possibilities are not limitless, and half the fun is figuring out where its limits are. [...] To me, it's the mix of a familiar form factor and decent execution that makes the AI workable on these glasses. Because it's paired to your phone, there's very little wait time for answers. It's headphones, so you feel less silly talking to them because you're already used to talking through earbuds. In general, I've found the AI to be the most helpful at identifying things when we're out and about. It's a natural extension of what I'd do anyway with my phone. I find something I'm curious about, snap a pic, and then look it up. Provided you don't need to zoom really far in, this is a case where it's nice to not pull out your phone. [...] But AI is a feature of the Meta glasses. It's not the only feature. They're a workable pair of livestreaming glasses and a good POV camera. They're an excellent pair of open-ear headphones. I love wearing mine on outdoor runs and walks. I could never use the AI and still have a product that works well. The fact that it's here, generally works, and is an alright voice assistant -- well, it just gets you more used to the idea of a face computer, which is the whole point anyway.

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According to the Wall Street Journal, a deal for IBM to acquire HashiCorp could materialize in the next few days. Shares of HashiCorp jumped almost 20% on the news. CNBC reports: Developers use HashiCorp's software to set up and manage infrastructure in public clouds that companies such as Amazon and Microsoft operate. Organizations also pay HashiCorp for managing security credentials. Founded in 2012, HashiCorp went public on Nasdaq in 2021. The company generated a net loss of nearly $191 million on $583 million in revenue in the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, according to its annual report. In December, Mitchell Hashimoto, co-founder of HashiCorp, whose family name is reflected in the company name, announced that he was leaving. Revenue jumped almost 23% during that period, compared with 2% for IBM in 2023. IBM executives pointed to a difficult economic climate during a conference call with analysts in January. The hardware, software and consulting provider reports earnings on Wednesday. Cisco held $9 million in HashiCorp shares at the end of March, according to a regulatory filing. Cisco held early acquisition talks with HashiCorp, according to a 2019 report.

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A lawsuit is alleging Amazon was so desperate to keep up with the competition in generative AI it was willing to breach its own copyright rules. From a report: The allegation emerges from a complaint accusing the tech and retail mega-corp of demoting, and then dismissing, a former high-flying AI scientist after it discovered she was pregnant. The lawsuit was filed last week in a Los Angeles state court by Dr Viviane Ghaderi, an AI researcher who says she worked successfully in Amazon's Alexa and LLM teams, and achieved a string of promotions, but claims she was later suddenly demoted and fired following her return to work after giving birth. She is alleging discrimination, retaliation, harassment and wrongful termination, among other claims.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There's a new Linux distro on the scene today, and it's a bit specialized. Its development was led by the automotive electronics supplier Elektrobit, and it's the first open source OS that complies with the automotive industry's functional safety requirements. [...] With Elektrobit's EB corbos Linux for Safety Applications (that sure is a long name), there's an open source Linux distro that finally fits the bill, having just been given the thumbs up by the German organization TUV Nord. (It also complies with the IEC 61508 standard for safety applications.) "The beauty of our concept is that you don't even need to safety-qualify Linux itself," said Moritz Neukirchner, a senior director at Elektrobit overseeing SDVs. Instead, an external safety monitor runs in a hypervisor, intercepting and validating kernel actions. "When you look at how safety is typically being done, look at communication -- you don't safety-certify the communication specs or Ethernet stack, but you do a checker library on top, and you have a hardware anchor for checking down below, and you insure it end to end but take everything in between out of the certification path. And we have now created a concept that allows us to do exactly that for an operating system," Neukirchner told me. "So in the end, since we take Linux out of the certification path and make it usable in a safety-related context, we don't have any problems in keeping up to speed with the developer community," he explained. "Because if you start it off and say, 'Well, we're going to do Linux as a one-shot for safety,' you're going to have the next five patches and you're off [schedule] again, especially with the security regulation that's now getting toward effect now, starting in July with the UNECE R155 that requires continuous cybersecurity management vulnerability scanning for all software that ends up in the vehicle." "In the end, we see roughly 4,000 kernel security patches within eight years for Linux. And this is the kind of challenge that you're being put up to if you want to participate in that speed of innovation of an open source community as rich as that of Linux and now want to combine this with safety-related applications," Neukirchner said. Elektrobit developed EB corbos Linux for Safety Applications together with Canonical, and together they will share the maintenance of keeping it compliant with safety requirements over time.

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Apple's iPhone sales dropped sharply in China in the first quarter of this year as the company saw strong competition from domestic brand Huawei, according to a new report from market research firm Counterpoint Research. CNBC: Apple saw sales of its iPhones fall 19.1% in the first three months of the year, Counterpoint's data showed, as Chinese telecommunications and consumer electronics giant Huawei saw a resurgence in its smartphone business. The Shenzhen, China-based firm saw sales of its smartphones surge a whopping 69.7% in the first quarter, Counterpoint said.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: For years, people who have found Google search frustrating have been adding "Reddit" to the end of their search queries. This practice is so common that Google even acknowledged the phenomenon in a post announcing that it will be scraping Reddit posts to train its AI. And so, naturally, there are now services that will poison Reddit threads with AI-generated posts designed to promote products. A service called ReplyGuy advertises itself as "the AI that plugs your product on Reddit" and which automatically "mentions your product in conversations naturally." Examples on the site show two different Redditors being controlled by AI posting plugs for a text-to-voice product called "AnySpeech" and a bot writing a long comment about a debt consolidation program called Debt Freedom Now. A video demo shows a dashboard where a user adds the name of their company and URL they want to direct users to. It then auto-suggests keywords that "help the bot know what types of subreddits and tweets to look for and when to respond." Moments later, the dashboard shows how Reply Guy is "already in the responses" of the comments section of different Reddit posts. "Many of our responses will get lots of upvotes and will be well-liked." The creator of the company, Alexander Belogubov, has also posted screenshots of other bot-controlled accounts responding all over Reddit. Begolubov has another startup called "Stealth Marketing" that also seeks to manipulate the platform by promising to "turn Reddit into a steady stream of customers for your startup."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mozilla hopes you'll never have to see it, but they've been rewriting their crash reporting application for Firefox within the Rust programming language...

General Motors (GM) has been selling data about the driving behavior of millions of people to insurance companies, leading to higher premiums for some drivers, according to a recent investigation. The affected drivers were not informed about the tracking, which was carried out through GM's OnStar connected services plan and the Smart Driver program. The New York Times reporter who broke the story discovered that her own driving data had been shared with data brokers working with the insurance industry, despite not being enrolled in the program. GM has since discontinued the Smart Driver product and stopped sharing data with LexisNexis and Verisk, following customer feedback and federal lawsuits filed by drivers across the country.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a result, Apple is expected to take a "conservative view" of headset demand when the Vision Pro launches in additional countries. Kuo previously said that Apple will introduce the Vision Pro in new markets before the June Worldwide Developers Conference, which suggests that we could see it available in additional areas in the next month or so.

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The Federal Trade Commission is set to vote Tuesday afternoon on a proposal to ban noncompete agreements, which prevent workers from taking positions at competitors for a period of time after they leave a job. From a report: The ban could be a win for workers -- particularly at the low end of the income scale. Critics of these agreements say they stifle innovation and wage growth by restricting workers' ability to take new jobs that pay higher wages or offer some other opportunity. They also make it tougher for employers to hire strong talent, lessening competition. Some states have laws limiting noncompetes to higher-income folks or banning them altogether -- but most don't. Experts told Axios that the final rule will likely look similar to the draft proposal, which was a broad prohibition on all noncompetes, even for executives. Any final rule is unlikely to take effect for many years -- if ever, as it will surely get tied up in court. The Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the ban, has already said it's ready and willing to file a lawsuit.

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The U.S. publishing industry is driven by celebrity authors and repeat bestsellers, according to testimony from a blocked merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. Only 50 authors sell over 500,000 copies annually, with 96% of books selling under 1,000 copies. Publishing houses spend most of their advance money on celebrity books, which along with backlist titles like The Bible, account for the bulk of their revenue and fund less commercially successful books.

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Intel today sent out more than one hundred new feature patches to DRM-Next of new "Xe" kernel graphics driver material they have readied for the upcoming Linux 6.10 kernel merge window...

prisoninmate writes: Fedora Linux 40 distribution has been officially released -- powered by the latest Linux 6.8 kernel series, and featuring the GNOME 46 and KDE Plasma 6 desktop environments, reports 9to5Linux: "Powered by the latest and greatest Linux 6.8 kernel series, the Fedora Linux 40 release ships with the GNOME 46 desktop environment for the flagship Fedora Workstation edition and the KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment for the Fedora KDE Spin, which defaults to the Wayland session as the X11 session was completely removed." "Fedora Linux 40 also includes some interesting package management changes, such as dropping Delta RPMs and disabling support in the default configuration of DNF / DNF5. It also changes the DNF behavior to no longer download filelists by default. However, this release doesn't ship with the long-awaited DNF5 package manager. For AMD GPUs, Fedora Linux 40 ships with AMD ROCm 6.0 as the latest release of AMD's software optimized for AI and HPC workload performance, which enables support for the newest flagship AMD Instinct MI300A and MI300X datacenter GPUs."

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Chinese tech giant Kuaishou is laying off employees in their mid-30s as part of a company-wide restructuring plan dubbed "Limestone," FT reported Tuesday, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter. The move highlights the pervasive ageism in China's tech sector, where younger workers are favored for their perceived willingness to work long hours and keep up with the latest technological developments, the report adds. While China's labor law does not explicitly prohibit age discrimination, some have interpreted it as such. However, tech executives have openly expressed their preference for younger employees, with companies like ByteDance and Pinduoduo boasting some of the youngest workforces in the industry. The economic slowdown and regulatory crackdowns have exacerbated the problem, with tens of thousands of jobs cut across the sector in recent months. Those over 35 face significant challenges in finding new employment, as even the civil service and service sector prioritize younger applicants. The situation has left many older tech workers anxious about their future job prospects, the report adds.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Concomitamment à son évènement Adobe MAX London Creativity Conference, l’entreprise éponyme vient de déployer son nouveau modèle Firefly Image 3 Foundation Model. Disponible via une application web autonome ou directement au sein des applications Adobe, ce modèle génère du contenu à partir d'invites textuelles, ou modifie des images grâce à l’intelligence artificielle... [Tout lire]

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Mise à jour du 23/04/2024 : Le Zotac ZBOX Edge MI351 en version Barebone est à 83.96€ sur Amazon aujourd’hui. Cet engin est à compléter par une barette de mémoire SODIMM DDR5 jusqu’à 32 Go et un SSD NVMe ou SATA3 au format M.2 2242/2280. Une très bonne affaire si vous avez des composants qui trainent pour faire un excellent MiniPC d’appoint, un lecteur multimédia, un serveur domotique ou tout autre idée qui vous passe par la tête. Je n’ai aucune idée des stocks, la machine vient tout juste de souffler sa première bougie. Merci à « Penury » pour l’info.

Voir l’offre sur Amazon

Billet original du 13/04/2023 : Avec le MI351, Zotac suit donc le mouvement proposé par Intel de basculer sa gamme sous Alder Lake-N. Un mouvement largement suivi par l’ensemble de l’industrie avec une majorité de constructeurs ayant cherché a proposer des minimachines ainsi équipées.

Pour le MI351, Zotac n’est pas allé très loin. La marque s’est basée sur le design du Mi626 annoncé en juin 2022 sous processeur Tiger Lake. Au gré de quelques ajustements techniques, on retrouve donc le même châssis pensé pour proposer une machine ultrafine.

L’ensemble mesure en effet 28.5 mm d’épaisseur pour 14.9 cm de profondeur comme de largeur. Un boitier suffisamment peu épais pour se loger n’importe où ou se positionner derrière un écran facilement. A l’intérieur d’autres ajustements ont été faits. Le N100 d’Intel ne gérant qu’un seul module de mémoire vive en mono canal, les deux emplacements SoDIMM du précédent modèle sont réduit à un seul, en DDR5-4800. Pour faire bonne mesure les deux emplacements de stockage du MI626 sont également réduits à un seul avec un M.2 2280/2242 à la fois compatible NVMe PCIe X4 et SATA III.

Pour le reste, peu de changement. La solution de refroidissement semble identique, elle ne devrait pas avoir de mal a encaisser les 6 Watts de TDP du N100 quand on la savait capable de gérer les 12 à 28 Watts des puces Core i5-1135G7 précédentes. Et cela malgré les hausses de consommation du N100 pouvant atteindre 25 Watts en pleine charge.

La connectique varie un peu également. La face avant propose ainsi un port USB 3.2 Type-A accompagnés de deux Jack audio 3.5  en entrée et sortie.

Le côté cache une prise antivol type Kensington Lock et la face arrière trois USB 3.2 Type-A, un Ethernet Gigabit, un port HDMI 2.0 et un DisplayPort 1.4. Une prise d’antenne est visible pour une solution amovible qui pilotera une solution Wi-Fi6 et Bluetooth 5.0. L’alimentation se fera en 19V/40W par un jack dédié.

Pour le moment le MI351 n’a pas eu de détail quand à sa commercialisation. Ni date de sortie, ni tarif.

Les Zotac ZBox Edge MI626 et MI646 passent au Tiger Lake

Source : Zotac

Zotac ZBOX Edge MI351, le Barebone Intel N100 sous les 84€ ! © MiniMachines.net. 2024.

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Tracker Beeper est un projet de Bert Hubert, un internaute Néerlandais et développeur de logiciel qui a décidé d’entendre l’invisible. En rendant sonores les échanges de données entre son ordinateur et les systèmes d’écoute tiers que sont les trackers, il donne du relief à ce que nous ne ressentons pas vraiment.

A chaque fois que nous cliquons sur « accepter » pour accepter des cookies ou que nous naviguons sur des sites tiers, nous échangeons des données. Malgré des petits logos amusants avec des mascottes mignonnes montrant de gentils et inoffensifs gâteaux, ces actes de validation permettent aux sites que nous visitons de partager nos données avec des dizaines et parfois des centaines de sociétés tierces. Seulement, cela ne se voit pas. Après un consentement qui se règle d’un clic, l’opération est vite oubliée. Et ses conséquences également. L’habitude et le fait que ces demandes de consentement soient régulières a contribué à rendre le geste anecdotique. Comme si ce partage était totalement inoffensif.

En réalité, les dessous de ces échanges sont bien plus inquiétants et Bert Hubert les met en valeur d’une manière très éclairante. Son extension Tracker Beeper ne fait rien d’autre qu’émettre un petit son à chaque fois qu’une donnée est échangée avec un tracker. Et la cacophonie qui en résulte est monstrueuse. Sur la vidéo d’intro, on peut voir un site de recherche d’emploi officiel du gouvernement Néerlandais émettre des « bips » à chaque fois qu’une donnée est envoyée vers… Google. Et cela malgré l’absence de tout consentement. Un bruit se fait entendre à chaque lettre écrite dans la barre de recherche et un autre si vous cliquez sur le lien vous permettant de postuler pour un boulot. Cette manière de rendre audible l’invisible est assez pertinente car elle met en valeur des choses que nous avons tendance à vouloir glisser sous le tapis.

 

Beeper Tracker  est également mis à rude épreuve quand il se retrouve face à un site d’info généraliste comme sur cette seconde vidéo. Le nombre d’informations qui partent vers des trackers tiers est proprement ahurissante. Le son généré est quasi permanent et l’ensemble de vos données partagées part dans tous les sens.

Pour le moment Beeper Tracker est un diamant brut, il s’agit d’une extension Linux uniquement qui nécessite des compétences d’installation particulières. Mais devant le succès de cette idée, Bert pense à la faire évoluer avec des versions plus grand public et notamment des solutions installables pour MacOS et Windows. Et, peut être à terme, créer une solution rendant plus audible l’ensemble des échanges d’un smartphone.

Merci à Thomas pour l’info

Source : Axbom.com et Berthub.eu

Avez vous déjà entendu le son des trackers en ligne ? © MiniMachines.net. 2024.

Microsoft has launched Phi-3 Mini, a lightweight AI model with 3.8 billion parameters, as part of its plan to release three small models. Phi-3 Mini, trained on a smaller data set compared to large language models, is available on Azure, Hugging Face, and Ollama. Microsoft claims Phi-3 Mini performs as well as models 10 times its size, offering capabilities similar to GPT-3.5 in a smaller form factor. Smaller AI models are more cost-effective and perform better on personal devices.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.