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At the recent Hot Chips 2024 symposium in Stanford, California, Intel highlighted its latest advancements in AI technology, covering data centers, cloud computing, edge, and PC applications. 

A key moment was the introduction of the industry’s first fully integrated optical compute interconnect (OCI) chiplet, which is designed to enhance high-speed AI data processing. This is something the company has talked about previously.

This new technology aims to improve AI data processing by offering increased bandwidth, lower power consumption, and better scalability for future computing infrastructures. The OCI chiplet, co-packaged with an Intel CPU, supports 64 channels of 32 Gbps data transmission over 100 meters of fiber optics. This innovation is intended to meet the growing demands of AI infrastructure, particularly in high-performance computing (HPC) and data centers.

Advanced packaging

Saeed Fathololoumi, a photonic architect at Intel, noted that the OCI chiplet “is expected to address AI infrastructure’s growing demands for higher bandwidth, lower power consumption, and longer reach.”

Intel's approach to integrated optics, as highlighted in a slide shared with ServeTheHome, focuses on using silicon photonics to enhance Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs). This involves advanced packaging for heterogeneous integration and close coupling of optical engines with hosts like XPUs, enabling the development of new systems and applications.

Another slide, shown below, goes into further detail, showing how Intel's 4 Tbps (8 Tbps bi-directional) Silicon Photonic Integrated Circuit (IC) supports both parallel and serial host interfaces, optimized for power efficiency and compact size. It includes features like ring modulators, Germanium photodetectors, and V-groove passive fiber coupling, making it ideal for high-volume silicon photonics platforms.

(Image credit: Intel/Hot Chips)

Pere Monclus, CTO of Intel’s Network and Edge Group, said, “As AI workloads intensify, Intel’s broad industry experience enables us to understand what our customers need to drive innovation, creativity, and ideal business outcomes. The OCI chiplet is a key part of our strategy to meet those needs with groundbreaking technology.”

Intel’s emphasis on the OCI chiplet reflects its commitment to maintaining a leading position in technological innovation, even as it faces strong competition in the AI sector. While companies like Nvidia have seen significant growth driven by AI demand - reaching a market cap of $2.928 trillion - and AMD has increased its market cap to $240.44 billion, Intel has not experienced similar gains.

Currently ranked 182nd by market cap at $94.24 billion, down from a peak of $502 billion in 2000, Intel is aiming to regain its competitive edge but might it be too little, too late? 

A comment under ServeTheHome’s coverage makes an interesting suggestion: “It is products like this that make me think AMD should bite the bullet and buy out Intel. Keep the networking and optical, keep the software, definitely keep the marketing dept, definitely keep the dept of unacknowledged product design/support dirty deeds. Sell off the CPU and GPU divisions, maybe somebody in the EU or South Korea wants them.”

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President Biden has accelerated the US effort to rein in China’s technological advancement by implementing tighter controls on quantum computing and semiconductor goods. Advanced chip making tools and other semiconductor technologies are crucial for artificial intelligence applications.

The US Department of Commerce announced the new rules, and cited ‘national security and foreign policy reasons’ for the move. The restrictions cover worldwide exports, and the Bureau of Industry’s Alan Estevez confirms,

“Aligning our controls on quantum and other advanced technologies makes it significantly more difficult for our adversaries to develop and deploy these technologies in ways that threaten our collective security”

Race to the top

The new rules mean that any company exporting certain technologies will need a license from the US government to do so, giving the government the opportunity to restrict sales to countries in alignment with its foreign policy goals.

The Center for Strategic and International Sales assessed, “The success of US controls is likely to depend on the ability to harmonize US restrictions with those of key allies, whose export controls differ substantially from those of the United States, resulting in substantial gaps."

Restrictions on chip sales and services have already been in the works with the US leveraging authority in hopes of influencing Japan to limit their exports. China threatened retaliation to this, as both the US and China look to dominate in what seems to be evolving into a battle of attrition between the two superpowers.

China currently leads in tech research and in chip spending, and is reportedly close to the development levels of the lead manufacturers, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. As AI continues to develop, semiconductors and other valuable tech components

Via The Register

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South Korea is investigating sexually abusive deepfakes allegedly shared on the messaging platform Telegram. Officials say the company is complying and has removed some content.

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Maykol Fares embarked on a perilous journey to ask for asylum in the US. Now he faces a new test of courage: the Merry-Go-Round.

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China's Foreign Ministry says the only exception will be for families who are adopting the children or stepchildren of blood relatives in China.

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Earlier this week, the United States White House unveiled a new initiative, called Service for America.

This initiative, created together with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Personnel Management (OPM), aims to get more people interested in cybersecurity, and thus help bolster the overall cybersecurity posture in both public, and private sectors.

In this context, cybersecurity jobs are being pitched as serving the country: “Throughout our history, generation after generation of Americans have stepped up to meet the challenges of their day, protecting and serving our Nation in a variety of ways,” the announcement on the White House website reads.

Filling the gap

“Every day in our Nation, we Americans find ourselves up against bad actors in cyberspace, whether they are foreign Governments or cyber criminals. It is crucial that we have a strong cyber workforce to address these threats and strengthen our resistance to them.”

The initiative is described as a “recruiting, hiring, and engagement sprint” which will connect Americans to “good-paying, meaningful jobs” in cyber, technology, and artificial intelligence. That sprint will include multiple career events taking place in September and October, as well as different seminars for job seekers to teach them how to apply for a federal government job. Finally, there will be week-long workshops from NIST on exploring cybersecurity careers.

There are currently some 500,000 open cyber-related jobs in the United States, the White House claims, adding that the number is only going to grow, with the growth of products, services, artificial intelligence, and more. The White House also says that there is a misconception that cyber jobs are only reserved for people with a computer science degree and a “deeply technical background” while, in truth, the jobs are “available to anyone who wants to pursue them”.

More details about the initiative can be found on this link.

Via The Register

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So-called ‘dumb-phones’ lacking the bells and whistles of modern smartphones are building up a cult following amongst techies who want to live a life that’s more free from the distractions of social media and mobile gaming. But taking the plunge can be a daunting step, which is where TCL’s affordable new NXTPAPER phones announced at IFA 2024 come in.

The TCL 50 NXTPAPER and TCL 50 Pro NXTPAPER 5G phones boast hardware and features you wouldn’t be totally surprised to find on a Samsung, Google or Apple smartphone. We’re talking 6.8-inch full-HD 120Hz displays, a 108MP rear camera (and for the Pro a 32MP selfie camera, which is only 8MP for the base model), 8 GB of RAM, 256GB and 512GB of storage respectively, and even a Microsoft designed AI – though the devices lack the power for onboard AI translations or summaries so everything is handle off-device in the cloud.

But on the side of the phone you’ll find a slider, and flicking it transforms your phone from full-color to effectively a black and white ereader.

(Image credit: TCL)

In this mode the TCL 50 NXTPAPER phones transition to using e-ink to minimize eye strain, increase their max battery life to seven days, and adopt a minimalist design with a much less cluttered home page – which is decorated with only the specific apps you choose.

You can enjoy the dub phone lifestyle when you need to cut out distractions and focus on a task, and then return to the modern conveniences of the fully-fledged smartphone experience by moving the slider back.

The basic model is only launching in the EU at the time of writing, but the TCL 50 PRO NXTPAPER 5G is coming to the UK, EU and Latin America at £279.99. There’s no word on a wider global launch for now, but if you’re keen on trying the dumbphone lifestyle but aren’t convinced you want to commit quite yet we’d recommend keeping an eye out for these new TCL phones.

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Targeted Victory’s largest client is the Republican National Committee. It’s now fielding inquiries for X about Elon Musk’s standoff with Brazil.

As the likes of Russia, Iran, Myanmar, and other authoritarian states keep heavily censoring the internet, the demand for VPN services has never been higher.

This is why the US now urges Big Tech to better support circumvention software. On Thursday, September 5, the White House met with representatives of Amazon, Google, Microsft, Cloudflare, and civil society activists to pledge the offering of more digital bandwidth for government-funded internet censorship evasion tools – Reuters reported.

The pitch for "discounted or subsidized server bandwidth" comes from the Open Technology Fund (OTF) to meet the fast-growing demand for VPNs. The US-backed organization supports technology projects aimed at countering online censorship and combating repressive surveillance. 

The need for VPNs

"Over the last few years, we have seen an explosion in demand for VPNs, largely driven by users in Russia and Iran," the OTF's President, Laura Cunningham, told Reuters.

Both Russian and Iranian authorities are reportedly busy building higher and higher fences around their national internet. When surfing the Kremlin's RuNet, for example, the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and X cannot be accessed unless using a VPN, alongside an ever-growing list of websites and content. Internet in Iran is among the worst worldwide for connectivity, and experts blame the government's censorship boost for it.

Online censorship is actually on the rise globally. According to Access Now's annual report, governments continued to use communication platform blocks heavily in 2023. Specifically, they impose or maintain 53 platform blocks across 25 countries, up from 39 blocks in 29 countries the year before. Nine months in, 2024 is set to continue this worrying trend.

A VPN (virtual private network) is the perfect tool to bypass such government's imposed blocks. That's because it spoofs your real IP address location. In this way, it tricks your internet service provider (ISP) into thinking you're browsing from a completely different country within a few clicks and grants you access to otherwise blocked websites or applications. 

In 2024 alone, one of the best free VPNs on the market, Proton VPN recorded usage spikes in 12 countries as users sought to bypass government-imposed internet restrictions. These include Brazil, Venezuela, Turkey, Myanmar, and Pakistan.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

As mentioned earlier, OTF specifically supports those VPN services designed to work in the countries that most restrict access to the free internet. 

Since the spike in VPN demands following the invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration boosted the budget for its funding of anti-censorship tech. Yet, OTF still struggles to juggle the needs of 46 million people a month currently using US-backed VPNs with the cost of hosting all that network traffic on private sector servers.

This is why the organization is now asking tech companies to play their part in supporting the fight for an open web.

"For a decade, we routinely supported around nine million VPN users each month, and now that number has more than quadrupled," said Cunningham. "We want to support these additional users, but we don't have the resources to keep up with this surging demand."

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Ahead of Apple's much-vaunted It's Glowtime iPhone 16 event, taking place this coming Monday September 9, (starting at 10am PT/1pm ET/6pm BST… which is 3am September 10 AEST), Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has given his clearest affirmation yet that two new sets of AirPods are coming – and two almost certainly aren't. 

Gurman has shared his biggest and most detailed AirPods predictions yet, in his latest Bloomberg missive, ahead of the upcoming Apple event next week. Is this concrete evidence of impending AirPods? No, but it's pretty conclusive you trust the noted Apple expert – and most people do where iOS products are concerned. 

So what exactly did the tech analyst disclose? Here's summary of what Gurman has prophesised (there's plenty to get through)… 

Two new AirPods: the big predictions

• Apple is, says Gurman, readying two new AirPods models to supersede the entry-level, (aka AirPods 2019) second-generation earbuds and mid-tier, third-generation model (also known as AirPods 3). 
• Both new versions will apparently look similar to the AirPods Pro (it's unclear whether Gurman means the 2019 original Pros or the AirPods Pro 2) and include a new case, USB-C charging and "improved audio quality".
• Apple will reportedly distinguish the two new AirPods models by giving the mid-tier version a more premium case with a speaker, thus making it easier to locate with Apple’s Find My feature, plus noise cancellation "to match the AirPods Pro".
• One major new focus for AirPods, says Gurman, is a "bigger push into hearing health". Apple has allegedly been attempting to make AirPods a viable replacement for hearing aids, and a device able to conduct hearing tests. The Cupertino giant is prepping to announce these updates – codenamed Yodel – but Gurman adds that "they’ve suffered some delays and may not be available until later".
• A new version of the AirPods Pro "remains in the works" according to the expert, featuring an upgraded design and improved ANC. But we won't see them Monday. Why? Gurman tells us that what sounds to us like the AirPods Pro 3 are "due as early as next year". (Boo!) 
• Finally, Apple's allegedly been working on updated AirPods Max headphones that'll be available in new colors and switch the Lightning connector to USB-C to comply with the latest EU laws. But with plenty of current AirPods Max inventory on hand, Gurman thinks the AirPods Max 2 will also "be coming later" – ie. not on Monday… 

Anything else? Actually, yes… 

Interestingly, the Apple tipster also reports that a few weeks ago, "Apple discovered a bug in the upcoming AirPods that made the earbuds quickly drain battery life". The issue was apparently attributed to software and was resolved prior to factories shipping out the units.

Regular readers may also remember we told you about AirPods Pro 2 getting an update for gesture support, for calls/control ahead of the full iOS 18 launch. The smart money says we should be getting a launch date for that feature on Monday. 

Look, we shouldn't be surprised about any of this: Apple's biggest AirPods launch to date was prophesized earlier in the year, and a dual AirPods release would be that. 

Yes, it's sad that we probably won't see AirPods Pro 3 or AirPods Max 2 on Monday, but come on, it’s been well over two years since the launch of Apple AirPods 3, the most recent earbuds from Tim Cook's behemoth (because we don't count the September 2023 addition of a USB-C case charging port, agreed?), and we'll take two pairs of ice-white buds over nothing at all, thank you very much. 

Pricing? Gurman hasn't specified, but given that the AirPods 3 currently sell for around $179 / £169 / AU$279, somewhere in that ball-park for the mid-tier option seems fitting. 

The entry-level set? Impossible to say for sure, but wouldn't a $99 / £99 / AU$149 price point – something to rival the hugely popular Nothing Ear (a), say – be refreshing? 

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