Category Archives: News

Source: Ars Technica

Enlarge / Google continues to change what it means to be the "Google" search engine. (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Google I/O has come and gone, and with it came an almost exclusive focus on AI. Part of the show was an announcement for Google Search that was so huge it was almost hard to believe: the AI-powered "Search Generative Experience (SGE)" that the company had been trialing for months is rolling out to everyone in the US. The feature, renamed "AI Overview," is here now, and it feels like the biggest change to Google Search ever. The top of many results (especially questions) are now dominated by an AI box that scrapes the web and gives you a sometimes-correct summary without needing to click on a single result.

AI Overview is a bit different from the SGE trials that were happening. First is that AI Overview is a lot faster than SGE. For some popular queries, it seems like Google is caching the AI answer, which should help with the high cost of running generative AI. For queries with cached overviews, you'll see the AI box load instantly, right along with the initial search results pop-in. SGE responses would come in word by word, like they are being typed by a person. When you aren't getting a cached result, you'll see a blank AI overview box that loads in with the search page, which will say "searching" while it loads for a second or two. Other times Google will try loading an AI Overview and fail, with the message "An AI overview is not available for this search." (As if anyone asked.)

Left: The default results show no webpages at all on the first screen. Right: The "Web" filter looks like Old Google. (credit: Ron Amadeo / Google)

When Google decides you've got an AI-appropriate query, it now takes a lot of scrolling to see web results. Google scrolls infinitely, so there are no "pages" anymore, but let's consider a "page" to be a full browser viewport height: The first page is an AI overview that takes up half the screen and then another answer box extracted from some website. Page two is a "People also ask" box suggesting other queries, then one search result, then a box for videos. Page three is the bottom half of the video box, then a "Discussions and forums" section with Reddit and Quora posts. It's not until page four and miles of scrolling that we get the traditional 10 blue links. This list isn't even counting an ad block, which would appear first normally. I've yet to see an ad block and AI overview at the same time, but I'm sure that's coming. Despite pushing AI Overviews live into production for everyone on the most premium spot on the Google Search page, Google still notes that "Generative AI is experimental."

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Source: The Verge - All Posts

This is not a joke: Google will now let you perform a “web” search. It’s rolling out “web” searches now, and in my early tests on desktop, it’s looking like it could be an incredibly popular change to Google’s search engine.

The optional setting filters out almost all the other blocks of content that Google crams into a search results page, leaving you with links and text — and Google confirms to The Verge that it will block the company’s new AI Overviews as well.

“Isn’t every search a web search? What is Google Search if not the web?” you might rightfully ask.

But independent websites like HouseFresh and...

Continue reading…

Source: OSNews

After Broadcom acquired VMware, there’s been a steady stream of worrying or outright bad news for people using VMware products at home, for personal use, as enthusiasts. The biggest blow to the enthusiast market was the end of perpetual licensing, forcing people into subscriptions instead. Finally, though it seems we’re getting some good news.

The most exciting part is that Fusion Pro and Workstation Pro will now have two license models. We now provide a Free Personal Use or a Paid Commercial Use subscription for our Pro apps. Users will decide based on their use case whether a commercial subscription is required.

This means that everyday users who want a virtual lab on their Mac, Windows or Linux computer can do so for free simply by registering and downloading the bits from the new download portal located at support.broadcom.com.

↫ Michael Roy on the VMware blog

This is definitely good news for us enthusiasts, and it means I won’t have to buy a cheap VMware license off eBay every few years anymore, so I’m quite satisfied here. However, with VMware under Broadcom focusing more and more on the enterprise and squeezing every last penny out of those customers, one has to wonder if this ‘free for personal use’ is just a prelude to winding down the development of enthusiasts’ tools altogether.

It wouldn’t be the first time that a product going free for personal use was a harbinger of worse things yet to come.

Source: Hacker News

Source: Hack a Day

Some coffee snobs might call this sacrilege. Cold brew is supposed to take a long time — that’s part of how it gets its characteristic smoothness. But a group of engineers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) have figured out a way to cut the time down from several hours to a mere three minutes, using ultrasonic waves.

Typically, the cold brew coffee process takes between 12 and 24 hours. Enough time to steep the grounds and extract the flavors without the benefit of hot water. This is how it differs from iced coffee, which is brewed hot and poured over ice.

Interestingly, the UNSW Sydney engineers’ process uses a typical prosumer-grade espresso machine and involves blasting the portafilter with a transducer and a horn. This transforms the coffee basket into a sonoreactor. Sound waves at a frequency of 38.8 kHz are injected at multiple points through the walls, generating acoustic cavitation within. You can read all about it in Ultrasonics Sonochemistry.

That’s not even the most exciting part. The study found that this arrangement is capable of doubling both the extraction yield and caffeine concentration, compared with non-soundblasted samples. The team sent samples of the coffee off to be evaluated on aroma, texture, flavor, and aftertaste. Although the one-minute extraction samples received similar ratings to a 24-hour brew in terms of flavor and aftertaste, they lacked the intensity and dark chocolate aroma of the longer brew. But the three-minute extraction samples scored quite highly in all areas, suggesting that the average cold brew drinker wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

Would you like to roast your own beans at home? You can use a popcorn popper, but you might get tired of semi-uneven roasts and upgrade to a DIY wobble disk roaster.

Source: Hacker News

Source: Ars Technica

Enlarge / An American Airlines Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner preparing to take off at Barcelona-El Prat Airport in Spain on May 1, 2024. (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating whether Boeing failed to complete required inspections on 787 Dreamliner planes and whether Boeing employees falsified aircraft records, the agency said this week. The investigation was launched after an employee reported the problem to Boeing management, and Boeing informed the FAA.

"The FAA has opened an investigation into Boeing after the company voluntarily informed us in April that it may not have completed required inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes," the FAA said in a statement provided to Ars today.

The FAA said it "is investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records. At the same time, Boeing is reinspecting all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet." The agency added that it "will take any necessary action—as always—to ensure the safety of the flying public."

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Source: The Register

When bad management meets bad software, even great hardware is useless

Retrospective  Ten years ago Microsoft absorbed the handset division of Nokia. The world's biggest operating systems vendor was going mobile in a big way, and buying the erstwhile world leader in mobile phones to ensure its success.…

Source: Schneier on Security

Lots of complicated details here: too many for me to summarize well. It involves an obscure Section 230 provision—and an even more obscure typo. Read this.

Source: Hacker News