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At WIRED’s The Big Interview event, the Figma cofounder said he’s “fascinated” by whether it’s possible to build a new company on the back of the tainted brand.

Intel Core i3-N305 8GB RAM.

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• Amazon unveils new image and video creation AI tools
• Amazon Nova Canvas and Nova Reel look to help ecommerce sellers
• Both new Nova models set to launch in 2025

Amazon has announced new image and video generation models as it steps up its fight to become an AI heavyweight.

The company unveiled Amazon Nova Canvas and Nova Reel at its AWS re:Invent 2024 event in Las Vegas, with CEO Andy Jassy revealing the launch as part of a new Nova series of AI models.

Both new models will be available in mid 2025, with the launches set to take Amazon into direct competition with the likes of OpenAI and Grok when it comes to image and video creation.

Amazon Nova Canvas and Reel

The new models look to initially target sellers and other users on Amazon's ecommerce platform, allowing them to quickly and cheaply create media content to enrich their pages.

Amazon didn't reveal too much in the way of specifics when it came to the new offerings, but did reveal Nova Canvas will allow users to create and edit images using natural language text inputs, and Nova Reel can provide "studio-quality" video, with features such as camera motion control, 360-degree rotation, and zoom.

In a blog post announcing the news, the company noted that customers on its Amazon Ads platform using the new models advertised five times more products and twice as many images per advertised product, widening their reach to buyers across the globe.

Looking forward, Jassy also revealed Amazon will be launching a Speech-to-Speech generation model in early 2025, followed by an "Any-to-Any" model in mid-2025.

The former will be able to analyse and understand streaming speech input in natural language, with the ability to interpret verbal and nonverbal cues such as tone and cadence, to reply in a natural, human-esque way.

The latter, which Jassy described as a true multimodal to multimodal model, will be able to take in text, images, audio, and video, before outputting in whichever mode is required.

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Does anyone miss the MacBook Pro Touch Bar so desperately that they need it back in almost any form? The answer would be yes if you're talking to Eniac, a small company that's just reinvented the not-quite-iconic Touch Bar as a Flexbar that can be used with the Mac, iPad, Android, and even your Windows PC.

Apple Introduced the Touch Bar on MacBook Pros in 2016. It was as close as a MacBook would ever come to having a touchscreen display. In practice, you often touched the Touch Bar, which sat embedded along the keyboard's top edge, while looking at the touch-averse MacBook Pro screen. The Touch Bar was almost magically contextual, switching up display features depending on the app. The loss of function buttons and Power/TouchID button annoyed many hardcore MacBook Pro users, though. And Apple, perhaps sensing it had gone too far, killed the Touch Bar when it introduced its first Apple Silicon MacBook Pro laptops in 2022.

I lamented the loss and the Touch Bar's "innate serendipity," but I also understood the Touch Bar's somewhat limited utility and recall how that OLED display went untouched for weeks at a time.

Few, not even me, saw a need for a new Touch Bar and certainly not one that sits outside the system.

(Image credit: Eniac)

As envisioned by Eniac and now on offer for $119 on Kickstarter, the new Touch Bar, called a Flexbar, is an aluminum bar featuring a 10-inch, 2K OLED display on one side. It looks every bit as adaptive as the original and even features haptic feedback. But it's a thickish strip that has to sit on top of the space between your keyboard and laptop display.

Having it awkwardly lying there while also plugged into power via its USB-C port as you touch and swipe at it, seems inelegant at best and certainly not the kind of thing that would ever emerge from, say, Apple's industrial design studio. At least there's a magnetic stand to hold the Flexbar in place, but that just makes it stick up even more from the keyboard.

If someone is that desperate to add touch to a MacBook, wouldn't they simply opt for an iPad? Similarly, many Windows 11 users enjoy touch-screen laptops; why do they need another touch-screen interface below that finger-friendly display?

What the engineers at Eniac might be missing here is the appeal of the original Touch Bar lay, at least in part, in that it was integrated into the MacBook Pro chassis. That made it subtle in the best way and allowed you to use it or casually ignore it. I don't see any way of ignoring the thick, aluminum Flexbar.

Eniac obviously sees things differently. The portable design could be a bonus because it means one Flexbar can be paired with numerous systems. Plus, Eniac is clear about why they created the Flexbar. From the Kickstarter page:

"The discontinuation of the original Touch Bar didn’t mean the concept was flawed—it simply wasn’t taken far enough to reach its full. There’s something undeniable itself: the potential for a customizable, adaptive interface that could streamline workflows was immense."

Flexbar does lean hard into customizability and macros; it appears just as functional and customizable as the original Touch Bar. But I still can't see the MacBook Pro audience adopting it. It may find more fans among people who want to use it alongside Windows systems, iPads, and Android tablets. At $119 when it starts shipping in 2025, it may be cheap enough that people will say, "What the heck, I'll give it ago."

Even so, I would not call this a Touch Bar replacement as that's kind of an insult to the original's elegant design.

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• Geyser Data's Tape-as-a-Service reaches general availability
• Built with Spectra Logic, integrates seamlessly with AWS S3
• No egress fees, secure air-gapped tapes, energy-efficient solution

Back in May 2024, cloud archive provider Geyser Data and data storage and management firm Spectra Logic introduced a new Tape-as-a-Service (TaaS) cloud offering combining the durability and cost-efficiency of traditional tape storage with the flexibility of cloud services.

This TaaS solution addresses the growing demand for secure, cost-effective data storage, supporting large volumes while minimizing environmental impact.

Geyser Data claims up to 97% lower CO2 emissions, 87% less power usage, and 85% less e-waste compared to other cloud services. It offers enhanced security with dedicated tapes and full control over encryption keys, along with the freedom of immediate access.

Subscription service

Following a well-received beta phase, the TaaS offering is now generally available.

Nelson Nahum, CEO of Geyser Data, outlined some of the service's key benefits, saying, "New workloads like AI require cold data to be warmer. One of our customers' biggest challenges today is the unpredictable and skyrocketing costs tied to data retrieval and egress fees in other cloud environments. Our service provides a simple and transparent pricing model that eliminates these burdens while giving businesses the storage capacity they need without investing in new hardware."

The 'enterprise-class' tape archiving solution operates on a subscription basis. It integrates with S3 APIs, allowing businesses to manage and store large volumes of data without the variable costs typical of traditional cloud providers, the need for specialized expertise, or reliance on complex on-premises infrastructure.

“By integrating Spectra Logic's Tape Archive Platform-as-a-Service (TAPAS) with Geyser Data's robust cloud software management platform, we've developed a solution that drives significant cost savings while also addressing critical power consumption challenges faced by data-intensive technologies such as AI and machine learning," noted Mitch Seigle, Chief Marketing Officer of Spectra Logic.

"As organizations grapple with the demands of rapidly expanding data volumes, tape storage provides unmatched security, longevity, sustainability, and operational efficiency - making it a pivotal element in modern data infrastructure strategies.”

Geyser Data offers a straightforward pricing model at $28 per tape per month, with each tape capable of storing up to 18TB of uncompressed data. This equates to an effective cost of $1.56 per terabyte. There are no restrictions on the amount of data customers can archive or back up, as the Spectra Cube library is designed to scale to meet demand.

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At its Re:Invent conference, Amazon also announced new tools to help customers build generative AI programs, including one that checks whether a chatbot’s outputs are accurate or not.

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• Apple is facing claims of illegal employee monitoring in a new lawsuit
• The lawsuit claims employees are also prevented from discussing working conditions
• Separate complaints allege compensation differences based on sex

An employee is suing Apple on behalf of the state of California for allegedly illegally monitoring worker devices and accounts, while also hindering their free speech by restricting their discussion of compensation and working conditions.

The suit, filed by Amar Bhakta, states that software required to be installed on employee personal devices gives Apple excessive permissions to access personal emails alongside photo libraries and data relating to their health.

Bhakta filed the suit after being requested by Apple to remove details of his working conditions from his LinkedIn page, and prevented him from talking about his employment on a podcast.

Apple lawsuit

“Apple's surveillance policies and practices chill, and thus also unlawfully restrain, employee whistleblowing, competition, freedom of employee movement in the job market, and freedom of speech," the lawsuit stated.

Apple reportedly prefers its employees to use Apple devices for work purposes, but many employees prefer to use their own devices over the heavily restricted work-provided devices - but to do so the employees must install a piece of software that grants Apple permission to search all files on the device.

In response to the lawsuit, Apple issued a statement claiming that the case was without merit, stating “At Apple, we're focused on creating the best products and services in the world and we work to protect the inventions our teams create for customers.”

The same lawyers who are filing Bhakta’s claim also represent two employees who are suing Apple for gender-discriminatory pay differences for women in Apple’s engineering, marketing, and AppleCare sectors. Apple has also recently faced complaints that employees are illegally prevented from talking about sex bias and pay discrimination - complaints for which Apple has denied any wrongdoing.

Via Reuters

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