Technology

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• Arm could be considering move to selling its own chips
• Details of proposed change revealed as part of Qualcomm’s court win over Arm
• Switch in strategy could prove incredibly lucrative for Arm

Update 01/16/25: This article has been updated with a correction to reflect that Qualcomm bought Nuvia, not Arm.

Original article follows.

Semiconductor technology supplier Arm, which almost certainly has its hardware somewhere in your business smartphone, is known for assisting companies to make their own mobile-suited processors, but that could soon change with a mooted shift into manufacturing its own chips.

A report from Reuters discusses Arm’s so called “Picasso” project; a bid to increase revenue by selling its own chips and competing with its own juggernaut customer base - including Qualcomm and Apple - that it normally sells ready-made Arm intellectual property to in order to assist with chip design.

Arm may also be planning to hike the royalty rates for those customers.

Arm v Qualcomm in brief

Details of the proposed strategy were revealed as part of Qualcomm’s court win over Arm in a royalty dispute brought and lost by the latter in December 2024.

This would nominally have included Qualcomm, but its purchase of the start-up Nuvia, in order to use the company's tech to produce its own chips and gradually break away from the prior agreement, led to Arm filing a complaint in US Federal Court in Delaware over a breach in licensing terms.

In the end, however, a jury ruled that Qualcomm’s Nuvia-tech chips were properly licensed, and ruled the company could continue to sell them as part of its route into the personal computing and AI sectors.

Arm’s future plans to “hose” its customers

Filings in those proceedings, that Reuters claims are still under court seal, reveal that the ‘Picasso’ plan for Arm to sell its own chips (or indeed “chiplets”) came at the behest of Arm CEO Rene Haas, who, before he even took on that role, had generally described the company’s biggest customers as “hosed” in an internal Teams message sent in December 2021.

In fact, court evidence suggests Arm executives had been discussing 300% royalty rate increases for its customers using Armv9 - its latest computing architecture, as far back as 2019, in a bid to boost the company’s smartphone revenue by $1 billion USD over the course of a decade.

It’s ultimately unclear as to whether this rate increase will happen or stick at all; use of Arm’s computing architecture doesn’t necessarily require its ready-made component blueprints.

And, as Reuters points out, many of Arm’s biggest customers-turned competitors could survive without those blueprints and still design their own parts.

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• The Comet is a blend of Raspberry Pi, Simputer and Project Ara with a hint of Game Boy
• Its standout feature is the use of hardware extensions that can be quickly removed
• It launches on crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, very soon

Developed in India in the early 2000s, the Simputer, (Simple Inexpensive Mobile computer) was a groundbreaking handheld Linux computer many people believe inspired the Apple iPhone (and by extension, Android devices). It featured a touch interface, stylus input with handwriting recognition, an accelerometer, and a USB master port - all innovations well ahead of their time.

I mention the Simputer now because I’m reminded of it looking at a brand new modular handheld computer set to debut on Kickstarter soon - the Mecha Comet is a portable Linux device aimed at developers, makers, and tinkerers.

Running on open source software, the device features a magnetic snap interface for swappable extensions, which currently include a game controller, keyboard, and GPIO breakout board. Users can also design and build their own extensions using Mecha’s open-source design files and community support.

Mechanix OS

The Mecha Comet is powered by a 1.8 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 32GB of eMMC storage.

Its 3.4-inch IPS LED touchscreen provides a compact yet functional display for various tasks. Connectivity includes dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz/5.0 GHz), Bluetooth 5.0, two USB 2.0 ports, and a Gigabit Ethernet port. The device also includes a 5 MP camera with autofocus, dual digital microphones, and an HD speaker.

Running Mechanix OS, a Debian-based operating system, the Comet is compatible with over 60,000 software packages from the Debian repository. Users can also port other Linux distributions. Mechanix Shell, built in Rust, supports GPU rendering on Wayland.

Mecha envisions the Comet as a versatile tool for diverse applications, such as a DIY Linux phone, drone launchpad, AI assistant, nanosatellite controller, car diagnostics tool, radio transceiver, DIY robot controller, and even a Tricorder inspired by Star Trek. Some of those ideas might just be wishful thinking, however.

The Comet, which measures 150mm x 73.55mm x 16mm and weighs 220g, has a 3000mAh battery charged via USB-C and includes a gyroscope, real-time clock (RTC), and analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for expanded project possibilities. Its security features include a Trust Anchor with CC EAL 6+ certification and accelerated cryptographic capabilities.

Kickstarter backers will be able to benefit from super early-bird rewards when the project goes live shortly, with pricing for the Mecha Comet starting from $159.

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• OneBlood suffered a cyberattack in July 2024, and has now concluded its investigation
• The analysis has shown OneBlood lost sensitive information on some customers
• Names and Social Security numbers among the details taken

OneBlood, a nonprofit medical organization crucial for the operations of healthcare firms across the Southeastern US, has confirmed it lost sensitive donor information in a ransomware attack.

In July 2024, OneBlood suffered an attack causing an IT system outage and resulted in 250 hospitals activating critical blood shortage protocols.

The move disrupted services across multiple US states, with the organization operating at a ‘significantly reduced capacity’ - meaning whilst OneBlood continued to collect, test, and distribute blood, it had to return to using manual labelling process, which significantly slowed work. The attack also meant surgeries and treatments were impacted across several states as OneBlood looked to get back up to speed.

Names and SSNs

Now, BleepingComputer has published a data breach notification letter that OneBlood allegedly started sending to affected individuals, describing what happened, and what kind of information the attackers compromised.

“On or around July 28, 2024, OneBlood became aware of suspicious activity within its network,” the letter reads. “Our investigation determined that between July 14 to July 29, 2024, certain files and folders were copied from our network without authorization. On or about December 12, 2024, we completed our review and determined that the affected files contained your information.”

The company said the thieves stole people’s names and Social Security numbers (SSN) - but as organizations usually collect a lot more information than this (such as postal addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, demographic data, health information, and more), hackers having stolen “only” names and SSNs could be seen as a silver lining.

Still, even this is enough to engage in phishing, identity theft, and other forms of cybercrime. We don’t know exactly how many people were affected by the incident, but it's best to invest in some identity theft protection tools.

Even though there is no evidence of the data being abused in the wild, OneBlood is providing affected individuals with free credit monitoring services for a year. Users have until April 9 to activate the service, it added, stressing that they should also keep a close eye on their bank statements for suspicious transactions.

Via BleepingComputer

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Apple is reportedly still working on an AI health coach, almost two years after we first heard about it. The report comes from journalist Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter, published Sunday 12 January, in which he mentions (alongside news of the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and SE 3) that: “The company also is increasing its ambitions in the health realm."

Gurman continued: “Apple is planning a revamped health app — as well as an AI-based coaching service — and added capabilities for AirPods. That includes heart-rate monitoring and sensors to measure other health data.”

The news about Apple’s AirPods getting heart rate monitoring is exciting, but the AI health coach is also an enticing nugget of information. It sounds as though the AI companion is likely to live on the iPhone’s Health app, rather than on the best Apple watches. Details are scarce at this point, but other wearables like Oura have AI advisory services in beta, allowing users to ask questions about their habits and having the AI respond using data collected by your wearables.

This is not the first time we’ve heard of Apple’s plans: way back in April 2023, I reported on Apple reportedly developing an AI fitness coach, codenamed Quartz.

The AI coach was said to be able to track emotions via the Apple Watch, although we’ve not heard a peep about the functionality since then. It’s likely now that the Apple Intelligence rollout is in full swing, we could see a first version of this functionality in September 2025, alongside the iPhone 17.

Analysis: Still a bad idea?

AI felt like it was in its infancy a couple of years ago, and I wrote about the prospect of an AI fitness coach with some trepidation. I was afraid that it would hallucinate, offer unhelpful or downright dangerous workout ideas, and health advice that hadn’t been vetted by an expert. In many ways, I still am.

However, after seeing AI infest every corner of the tech world, and trying several such dedicated services like the Oura Advisor chatbot available with the Oura Ring 4, I’m convinced this is simply the way the industry’s going to go, and steps will be taken to ensure the software is safe to use.

I’m not convinced they’re all that useful, especially to experienced exercisers, but I can see the potential - for example, recommending workouts from Apple’s Fitness+ service and tweaking recommended bedtime suggestions based on your sleeping habits, all wrapped up in cosy language like Strava’s encouraging Athlete Intelligence feature.

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