IBM has announced its goal to build a 100,000-qubit quantum computing machine within the next 10 years in collaboration with the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago. MIT Technology Review reports: Late last year, IBM took the record for the largest quantum computing system with a processor that contained 433 quantum bits, or qubits, the fundamental building blocks of quantum information processing. Now, the company has set its sights on a much bigger target: a 100,000-qubit machine that it aims to build within 10 years. IBM made the announcement on May 22 at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. The company will partner with the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago in a $100 million dollar initiative to push quantum computing into the realm of full-scale operation, where the technology could potentially tackle pressing problems that no standard supercomputer can solve.

Or at least it can't solve them alone. The idea is that the 100,000 qubits will work alongside the best "classical" supercomputers to achieve new breakthroughs in drug discovery, fertilizer production, battery performance, and a host of other applications. "I call this quantum-centric supercomputing," IBM's VP of quantum, Jay Gambetta, told MIT Technology Review in an in-person interview in London last week. [...] IBM has already done proof-of-principle experiments (PDF) showing that integrated circuits based on "complementary metal oxide semiconductor" (CMOS) technology can be installed next to the cold qubits to control them with just tens of milliwatts. Beyond that, he admits, the technology required for quantum-centric supercomputing does not yet exist: that is why academic research is a vital part of the project.

The qubits will exist on a type of modular chip that is only just beginning to take shape in IBM labs. Modularity, essential when it will be impossible to put enough qubits on a single chip, requires interconnects that transfer quantum information between modules. IBM's "Kookaburra," a 1,386-qubit multichip processor with a quantum communication link, is under development and slated for release in 2025. Other necessary innovations are where the universities come in. Researchers at Tokyo and Chicago have already made significant strides in areas such as components and communication innovations that could be vital parts of the final product, Gambetta says. He thinks there will likely be many more industry-academic collaborations to come over the next decade. "We have to help the universities do what they do best," he says.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: People trying to use Discord are being asked to identify an object that does not exist. The object in question is a "Yoko," which appears to be a kind of mix between a snail and a yoyo. Multiple people have reported seeing a prompt to identify a Yoko when asked to solve a simple captcha prompt while trying to use Discord. The picture of the Yoko, as well as the other images in the captcha, appear generated by AI. Another user complained on Twitter that they'd failed to pass a captcha to log into Discord when it asked him to identify images of a puzzle cube. Again, the pictures appeared to be AI generated.

Discord's captchas are run by a company called hCaptcha. "The technology that generates these prompts is proprietary to our third-party partner and Discord does not directly determine what is presented to users," Discord told Motherboard. "While most hCaptcha interactions do not result in a visual challenge, many variants are used at any given time," a spokesperson for hCaptcha told Motherboard. "This particular question was a brief test seen by a small number of people, but the sheer scale of hCaptcha (hundreds of millions of users) means that when even a few folks are surprised by a challenge this often produces some tweets."

The issue with hCaptcha's strange AI generated prompts highlights two issues with machine learning systems. The first is that the AI systems require an enormous amount of human input to not be terrible. Typically image labeling is outsourced to foreign workers who do it for pennies on the dollar. The other is the issue of data drift. The longer these machine learning systems run, the more input they require. Inevitably, they begin to use data they've generated to train themselves. Systems that train on themselves long enough become AI Hapsburgs, churning out requests to identify incomprehensible objects like "Yokos."

Intel has proposed a potential simplification of the x86 architecture by creating a new x86S architecture that removes certain old features, such as 16-bit and some elements of 32-bit support. A technical note on Intel's developer blog proposes the change, with a 46-page white paper (PDF) providing more details. The Register reports: The result would be a family of processors which boot straight into x86-64 mode. That would mean bypassing the traditional series of transitions -- 16-bit real mode to 32-bit protected mode to 64-bit long mode; or 16-bit mode straight into 64-bit mode -- that chips are obliged to go through as the system starts up. [...] Some of the changes are quite dramatic, although the impact upon how most people use computers today would probably be invisible -- which is undoubtedly the idea.

Crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, one of most established and active players in the space, is going beyond just blockchain and highlighting a focus on a broader array of "frontier tech" that includes artificial intelligence, two sources with knowledge of the matter told The Block. From a report: The change is subtlety visible on the firm's website, with the company now calling itself a "research-driven technology investment firm" as opposed to one that specifically invested in âoedisruptive crypto/Web3 companies and protocols.â The revision appears to have gone live around May 3, according to the Wayback Machine that's operated by the Internet Archive. A line that said "we believe crypto will define the next few decades" was removed from the home page, which now makes no mention of web3 or blockchains. One source who was not authorized to speak publicly said the change didn't mean the company was shying away from crypto but rather highlighting its reach into adjacent areas.

Traders betting against Nvidia suffered massive losses as the chipmaker's stock surged to a record high after it forecasts sales that far surpassed the average analyst estimate. From a report: Short sellers are facing $2.3 billion in paper losses on Thursday alone amid the tech giant's 27% intraday jump, data from S3 Partners LLC show. That's pushed mark-to-market losses for the contrarian traders to $8.1 billion in 2023 as Nvidia's price has more than doubled this year.

YouTube is getting rid of Stories, a feature for temporary posts, beginning in June. Users won't be able to post Stories starting June 26th, and existing posts will expire after seven days. From a report: Stories were first introduced in 2017 under the name Reels and were available to users with over 10,000 subscribers. Similar to Instagram (which in turn lifted the concept from Snapchat), YouTube Stories disappeared after a set amount of time; creators could use Stories to post updates or behind-the-scenes content to promote their channel. But looking around today, it doesn't seem to have caught on -- access was limited, few creators seem to be regularly posting Stories, and the feature doesn't get much promotion even from YouTube. In the absence of Stories, YouTube wants creators to instead post content to other surfaces on the platform: Community Posts and Shorts. The company recently expanded access to Community Posts, a text-based updates feature, and added the ability to have posts expire after a certain period. Creators can also share polls, quizzes, images, and videos as Community Posts, which appear in a tab on channels.

Google's "Search Generative Experience" is a plan to put ChatGPT-style generative AI results right in your Google search results page, and the company announced the feature is beginning to roll out today. At least, the feature is rolling out to the mobile apps for people who have been on the waitlist and were chosen as early access users. From a report: Unlike the normally stark-white Google page with 10 blue links, Google's generative AI results appear in colorful boxes above the normal search results. Google will scrape a bunch of information from all over the Internet and present it in an easy list, with purchase links to Best Buy and manufacturers' websites. If this ever rolls out widely, it would be the biggest change to Google Search results ever, and this design threatens to upend the entire Internet. One example screenshot of a "Bluetooth speaker" search on desktop shows a big row of "Sponsored" shopping ads, then the generative AI results start to show up in a big blue box about halfway down the first page. The blue box summarizes a bunch of information harvested from somewhere and lists several completely unsourced statements and opinions about each speaker. In Google's example, users are never told where this information comes from, so they can't make any judgment as to its trustworthiness.

An anonymous reader shares a report: After song lyrics website Genius sued Google in 2019 for allegedly breaching its terms of service by copying its lyrics transcriptions in search results, the United States Supreme Court invited the US solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, to weigh in on how the US viewed the case. The question before Prelogar was whether federal copyright law preempted Genius' terms of service, which prohibits any of its website visitors from copying lyrics for commercial uses. Yesterday, Prelogar responded, filing a brief that sided with Google. She denied that Genius' case was a good vehicle to test whether copyright law preempted state-law contract claims and recommended that the court deny Genius' petition to review the case.

The key issue was that Genius' terms of service may not be a valid contract because website visitors don't have to directly agree to the website's terms and may not even be aware they exist. Because of this, Prelogar said it was unclear whether any court would find that Google -- or any visitor to Genius' site -- ever agreed to not copy the lyrics. Reviewing Genius' arguments, Prelogar said that the Supreme Court should not review the case because "there is little indication that any other court of appeals would reach a different outcome in this case." A Google spokesperson told Ars that Google continues to dispute Genius' claims it copied song lyrics. "The Solicitor General and multiple courts continue to find that Genius' claims have no merit," Google's spokesperson told Ars. "We include lyrics in search results to help you quickly find what you are looking for. We license the lyrics text from third parties, and we do not crawl or scrape websites to source lyrics."

Nintendo is facing a potential class-action lawsuit filed by a young gamer and backed by his father, alleging that the microtransactions in the mobile game Mario Kart Tour are "immoral." Axios reports: The suit calls for refunds for all minors in the U.S. who paid to use Mario Kart Tour's "Spotlight Pipes," which delivered players in-game rewards using undisclosed odds. Until last year, Mario Kart Tour players could spend real money to repeatedly activate the pipes, in the hope they'd randomly produce useful upgrades. The suit alleges that Nintendo intentionally made the game difficult to proceed in without paying, using "dark patterns," an industry term for tricking consumers, to steer players toward spending more.

The suit was filed in March but emerged on the federal docket last week after it was moved out of state court. Its plaintiff, identified as N.A., spent more than $170 on Mario Kart Tour microtransactions, via his father's credit card, which was linked to their Nintendo user account. "Defendant's lootbox mechanism capitalized on and encouraged addictive behaviors akin to gambling," according to N.A.'s suit. It states that minors are particularly susceptible to systems that involve surprise rewards. Axios notes that Nintendo "discontinued use of spotlight pipes in Mario Kart Tour last September, switching to a system that lets players directly purchase items offered in its in-game shop."

Waymo and Uber announced a new partnership today that will make robotaxis available via the Uber app in Phoenix. The Verge reports: A "set number" of Waymo vehicles will be available to Uber riders and Uber Eats delivery customers in Phoenix, where the Alphabet company recently doubled its service area to 180 square miles. The partnership was described as "multi-year," with the goal of bringing together "Waymo's world-leading autonomous driving technology with the massive scale of Uber's ridesharing and delivery networks."

Katherine Barna, a spokesperson for Waymo, declined to disclose the number of vehicles that would be hail-able through Uber's app, though she did share that the vehicles will not be exclusive to Uber. For example, Phoenix residents can also summon a Waymo vehicle through the company's Waymo One app.

At its Build 2023 conference this week, Microsoft announced Windows 11 will soon be able to run Win32 apps in isolation mode. XDA Developers reports: Starting [today], Microsoft is launching a preview of Win32 apps in isolation for Windows 11 customers. As the name suggests, it will allow users to run Win32 apps in an isolated environment so that they can be sandboxed from the rest of the operating system in order to further strengthen security. The idea is to leverage Windows 11's isolation capabilities to run Win32 apps in an environment where they don't have access to critical Windows components and subsystems. This will ensure that if someone runs a compromised Win32 app in isolation, it will be very difficult for an attacker to break through the sandbox and penetrate the rest of the system. This capability will be available in public preview for both enterprise customers and consumers.

Michael Larabel, reporting at Phoronix: AMD engineers have been working out many quirks and oddities in system suspend/resume handling to make it more reliable on their hardware particularly around Ryzen laptops. In addition to suspend/resume reliability improvements and suspend-to-idle (s2idle) enhancements, one of their engineers also discovered an easy one-liner as a small step to speeding up system resume time. AMD engineer Basavaraj Natikar realized a missing check in the USB XHCI driver can avoid an extra 120ms delay during system resume time. It's only 120 ms, but it's a broad win given it's for the XHCI driver code and part of their larger effort of improving the AMD Ryzen platform on Linux and this 120ms savings is from altering one line of code.

Meta employees received news Wednesday of the final round of previously announced job cuts, which affected thousands of workers in the company's business departments. Now, remaining staff are hoping an uncomfortable limbo at the company can end. From a report: The layoffs complete the bulk of the restructuring Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg announced in March to eliminate 10,000 positions. Initial reductions affected the company's recruiting and human resources departments, and in late April jobs in Meta's tech groups were slashed. Zuckerberg has said further cuts will come in only a "small number of cases" for the rest of the year, giving those people left a cold sense of relief.

The company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said the layoffs were necessary to improve efficiency, after over-hiring during the pandemic. Meta promised faster product development and decision-making that sent its shares up more than 100% so far this year. But employees said some important work and planning has been at a standstill. Notably, Meta is still deciding on its product roadmap for the rest of the year, while it sorts out resources following cuts in the tech group, a person familiar with the matter said. During the limbo, employees have been unsure who to collaborate with, how to shift responsibilities on their teams or who would be cut next, according to current and recently let-go employees, who asked not to be named discussing internal issues.

France has banned domestic short-haul flights where train alternatives exist, in a bid to cut carbon emissions. BBC: The law came into force two years after lawmakers had voted to end routes where the same journey could be made by train in under two-and-a-half hours. The ban all but rules out air travel between Paris and cities including Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux, while connecting flights are unaffected. Critics have described the latest measures as "symbolic bans." Laurent Donceel, interim head of industry group Airlines for Europe (A4E), told the AFP news agency that "banning these trips will only have minimal effects" on CO2 output. He added that governments should instead support "real and significant solutions" to the issue. Airlines around the world have been severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with website Flightradar24 reporting that the number of flights last year was down almost 42% from 2019. The French government had faced calls to introduce even stricter rules. Further reading: France Unveils Plan To Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions By 50 Percent By 2030.

An anonymous reader shares a report: I'm disappointed. I've been waiting for AMD and Nvidia to offer up more affordable options for this generation of GPUs that could really push 1440p into the mainstream, but what I've been reviewing over the past week hasn't lived up to my expectations. Nvidia and AMD are both releasing new GPUs this week that are aimed at the budget PC gaming market. After seven years of 1080p dominating the mainstream, I was hopeful this generation would deliver 1440p value cards. Instead, Nvidia has started shipping a $399 RTX 4060 Ti today that the company is positioning as a 1080p card and not the 1440p sweet spot it really should be at this price point.

AMD is aggressively pricing its new Radeon RX 7600 at just $269, and it's definitely more suited to the 1080p resolution at that price point and performance. I just wish there were an option between the $300 to $400 marks that offered enough performance to push us firmly into the 1440p era. More than 60 percent of PC gamers are playing at 1080p, according to Valve's latest Steam data. That means GPU makers like AMD and Nvidia don't have to target 1440p with cards that sell in high volume because demand seems to be low. Part of that low demand could be because a monitor upgrade isn't a common purchase for PC gamers, or they'd have to pay more for a graphics card to even support 1440p. That's probably why both of these cards also still ship with just 8GB of VRAM because why ship it with more if you're only targeting 1080p? A lower resolution doesn't need as much VRAM for texture quality. I've been testing both cards at 1080p and 1440p to get a good idea of where they sit in the GPU market right now. It's fair to say that the RTX 4060 Ti essentially offers the same 1440p performance as an RTX 3070 at 1440p for $399. That's $100 less than the RTX 3070's $499 price point, which, in October 2020, I said offered a 1440p sweet spot for games during that period of time. It's now nearly three years on, and I'd certainly expect more performance here at 1440p. Why is yesterday's 1440p card suddenly a 1080p one for Nvidia?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from STAT News: Amid what he called the worst youth mental health crisis in recent memory, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory Tuesday warning about social media's impact on developing young brains. "Through the last two and a half years I've been in office, I've been hearing concerns from kids and parents," Murthy told STAT. "Parents are asking 'Is social media safe for my kids?' Based on our review of the data, there isn't enough evidence that it is safe for our kids."

The advisory calls on policymakers and technology companies to take steps to minimize the risks of social media. "This is not going to be an issue that we solve with one sector alone," Murthy said. Policymakers, according to the report, need to develop age restrictions and safety standards for social media -- much like the regulations that the U.S. has in place for everything from cars to medicine. Specifically, Murthy would like to see policymakers require a higher standard of data privacy for children to protect them from potential harms like exploitation and abuse. Technology companies, meanwhile, need to be more transparent about the data they share, according to Murthy. He calls on companies to assess the potential risks of online interactions and take active steps to prevent potential misuse. He also suggests the establishment of scientific advisory committees to inform approaches and policies aimed at creating safe online environments for children.

The advisory also suggests families attempt to protect young people's mental health by developing a family media plan aimed at establishing healthy technology boundaries at home, such as creating "tech-free zones" that restrict phone use during certain hours or family mealtime. But Murthy noted that parents are already at the end of their rope in trying to manage how their children are exposed to and using this rapidly evolving technology. That responsibility has fallen entirely on them up to this point. "We've got to move quickly," he said. "None of us should be satisfied until we have clear evidence that these platforms are safe." The surgeon general's report comes two weeks after the American Psychological Association issued a health advisory on teens and social media use. The group noted the increased risk of anxiety and depression among adolescents who are exposed to discrimination and bullying online. "Other research has shown that adolescents ages 12-15 who spent more than three hours per day on social media face a heightened risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes compared to those who spent less time online," adds STAT News.

Facebook's parent company Meta is reportedly in discussions with augmented reality start-up Magic Leap to establish a multiyear agreement for intellectual property licensing and contract manufacturing in North America. While the partnership is not expected to result in a joint headset, Magic Leap's technology could play a crucial role in Meta's ambitious metaverse project as it seeks to compete with Apple's upcoming mixed reality device. The Financial Times reports: Magic Leap produces custom components, including high-tech lenses and associated software, which are key technologies that may be required to build a metaverse. Two former employees said Magic Leap's "biggest asset" is the sophistication of its "waveguides" -- technology that allows thin glass in front of the user's eyes to conjure up realistic images at different depths.

Meta sells nearly 80 per cent of all VR/AR headsets, thanks to its VR Quest models. But the market itself is small -- fewer than 9mn units sold last year, according to IDC -- a tenuous lead given Apple's expected entry into the market during its developer conference next month. The company told the Financial Times: "Given the complexities of developing true augmented reality technologies and the intricacies involved with manufacturing these optics, as well as the issues many companies experience with overseas supply chain dependencies, we have entered into several non-exclusive IP licensing and manufacturing partnerships with companies looking to enter the AR market or expand their current position."

Image support for Google Bard is now rolling out. 9to5Google reports: The latest update (2023.05.23) to Bard will return images (from Google Search) so you can visualize responses when relevant. For example, if you're asking for interesting places to visit, each listing will be accompanied by a picture (e.g., "what are some must-see sights in LA?").

Images appear underneath each bullet point with the site name and favicon appearing in the top-right corner. Tapping opens the link, while hovering over shows the URL with a right-click menu also available. Meanwhile, you can ask for photos directly like any other image search (e.g., "show me pictures of roses").

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Commercial Earth-observation companies collect an unprecedented volume of images and data every single day, but purchasing even a single satellite image can be cumbersome and time-intensive. SkyFi, a two-year-old startup, is looking to change that with an app and API that makes ordering a satellite image as easy as a click of a few buttons on a smartphone or computer. SkyFi doesn't build or operate satellites; instead, it partners with over a dozen companies to deliver various kinds of satellite images -- including optical, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and hyperspectral -- directly to the customer via a web and mobile app. A SkyFi user can task a satellite to capture a specific image or choose from a library of previously captured images. Some of SkyFi's partners include public companies like Satellogic, as well as newer startups like Umbra and Pixxel.

The startup is taking a very 21st-century approach to the Earth observation industry. SkyFi co-founders Bill Perkins and Luke Fischer emphasize that their company is focused on user experience and creating a seamless purchasing process for the consumer, contrasted sharply with what Fischer called "business models based on the '80s and '90s." "We're very customer-focused," Bill Perkins said on the TerraWatch Space podcast. "The industry is science-focused and product-focused."

The startup is targeting three types of customers: individual consumers; large enterprise customers, from verticals spanning agriculture, mining, finance, insurance and more; and U.S. government and defense customers. SkyFi's solution is appealing even these latter customers, who may have plenty of experience working with satellite companies already and could afford the high costs in the traditional marketplace. "Even though we have companies that are multibillion dollar corporations using our platform that could afford to have a multimillion dollar contract year with [any] public satellite company, they're being more cost conscious and that's where this offering of SkyFi comes in," Fischer said. "There is no and will never be a 'contact sales' button on SkyFi," Fischer said. "Because it just was ruining the industry." "I think of SkyFi as the Netflix of the geospatial world, where I think of Umbra, Satellogic and Maxar as the movie studios of the world," Fischer said. "I just want them to produce great content and put it on the platform."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Then, at some point, someone at Microsoft must have gotten fed up with rushing their .rar operations the way I have for 20 years and thought, there must be a better way. And so, under the subheading of "Reducing toil," we have a few helpful UI updates, then casually and apropos of nothing, this:

"In addition... We have added native support for additional archive formats, including tar, 7-zip, rar, gz and many others using the libarchive open-source project. You now can get improved performance of archive functionality during compression on Windows."