May 30
Drones Damage Moscow Buildings As Russia Continues Relentless Bombardment Of Kyiv
Posted in: Today's ChiliThe drone attacks, which Russia has blamed on Ukraine, have brought the war to civilians in Russia’s capital for the first time.
May 30
According to the latest audit from NASA’s inspector general, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket designed to take astronauts to the Moon is substantially over budget and far behind schedule. NASA’s spending on the Artemis Moon Program is expected to reach $93 billion by 2025, including the $23.8 billion already spent on the SLS system through 2022. That sum represents “$6 billion in cost increases and over six years in schedule delays above NASA’s original projections,” says the report.
One of the issues has been integrating older NASA technology with newer systems. “These increases are caused by interrelated issues such as assumptions that the use of heritage technologies… were expected to result in significant cost and schedule savings compared to developing new systems for the SLS,” the audit states. “However, the complexity of developing, updating and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated.”
The Artemis Moon mission project was based on the Constellation program, launched in 2005 with the goal of returning to the Moon by 2020. Following its cancellation, the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 mandated construction of the SLS and required the repurposing of existing technology, contracts and workforce from Constellation.
– Mat Smith
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NVIDIA’s generative AI lets gamers converse with NPCs
It replies to natural speech, though the responses are… stilted.
NVIDIA
NVIDIA’s Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) technology could allow gamers to speak naturally to non-playable characters (NPCs). The company revealed the tech during its generative AI keynote at Computex 2023, showing a demo called Kairos. The dialogue is rather wooden, but feeding voice-based interactions could be an interesting new dynamic in games. It uses NVIDIA NeMo tech for building, customizing and deploying large language models customized with lore and character backstories while using guardrails to protect against inappropriate conversations. It also deploys a speech recognition and speech-to-text tool called Riva, along with NVIDIA’s Omniverse Audio2Face “for instantly creating expressive facial animation of a game character to match any speech track.” Check out how it looks below.
Tesla will open its Supercharger network to other EVs in Canada
Nearly 3,000 EV chargers are also coming to apartments and offices.
The Canadian government revealed Tesla will open access to some of its existing Supercharger network to other brands’ EVs. This will start later this year with a pilot route between Ottawa, the capital, and Sudbury. There will be 750 opened stations by the end of 2025, and “at least” 350 of those will be speedy 250kW Superchargers. That performance is important, given the focus on long-distance travel. The government is teaming up with partners to help install nearly 3,000 EV chargers in multi-use residential buildings, offices, public places and fleets. The majority of the chargers will be Level 2 with around 100 faster Level 3 outlets.
WhatsApp test brings screen sharing to Android phones
It’s reportedly rolling out to more users soon.
WhatsApp’s newest update takes a page out of work-centric video call platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The messaging app is adding a screen-sharing feature that will record and display the contents of your screen with whoever is on the other end of the video call, according to WABetaInfo. Screen sharing is only available to select Android beta testers right now but should roll out to more users in the coming weeks. However, it might not work on older Android models, bigger group calls or with people who don’t have WhatsApp’s latest version.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-nasas-sls-rocket-is-already-6-billion-over-budget-111519603.html?src=rss
May 30
Black Nun Whose Body Shows Little Decay Since 2019 Death Draws Crowds To Rural Missouri
Posted in: Today's ChiliSome say the preservation of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster is a sign of holiness, while others say the lack of decomposition may not be as rare as people think.
May 30
“She looked like a ragdoll,” Delaney Irving’s mother described footage of her daughter’s victory at the annual competition on Cooper’s Hill in Brockworth.
May 30
A 54-second clip honoring fallen American soldiers prompted a backlash on Twitter.
May 30
Mick Mulvaney, the onetime acting White House chief of staff, envisioned how the next presidential election will go down.
May 30
Colorado Teen Flouts School Policy, Wears Mexican And U.S. Flag Sash To Graduation
Posted in: Today's Chili“Always stand up for what you believe in,” said Naomi Peña Villasano, who was barred from wearing the sash but did so anyway.
May 30
At Computex 2023 NVIDIA and MediaTek have announced a long-term partnership in which the two semiconductor giants will first collaborate on in-car infotainment hardware. MediaTek will be responsible for developing an SoC (system on a chip) or primary processor, which will include an NVIDIA RTX GPU chipset which can be thought of as a sub-unit located on a separate die but included in the same package as the rest of the SoC.
While most consumers know NVIDIA because of its gaming GeForce GPUs, MediaTek is itself an electronics juggernaut. It powers vast numbers of smartphones, ChromeOS laptops, and intelligent devices everyone has heard of.
Recently, MediaTek introduced Dimensity Auto, a hardware platform for always-connected vehicles, and this partnership with NVIDIA will augment the capabilities of that platform. NVIDIA’s GPUs can be particularly beneficial for Dimensity Auto Cockpit, the graphics-intensive human-machine interface that uses multiple displays, cameras, and sound recording to interact with passengers.
NVIDIA DRIVE is also part of the partnership, according to NVIDIA. DRIVE goes beyond infotainment and encompasses self-driving as well. However, it looks like DRIVE IX will be the primary focus of this partnership. That’s part of DRIVE OS, which focuses on full-cabin interior sensing and human interaction.
This partnership could be immensely beneficial to both parties as NVIDIA has not only become the de-facto sole “arms vendor” in today’s AI war, it has also worked hard to enable a considerable part of the AI development workflow with its impressive software suite which is tightly integrated with its hardware architecture.
NVIDIA has effectively built a somewhat practical and growing moat that would-be competitors must cross to compete. Why do you think Intel is building discrete GPUs? The endgame is not the gaming market, but that step is deemed a necessary waypoint on the road to data center GPU-powered AI.
And yes, some non-NVIDIA hardware could likely compete regarding power efficiency in inference workloads, but that’s where NVIDIA’s software might be a significant barrier for them.
At the same time, MediaTek has the know-how, experience, means, and channels to deliver a powerful solution to car manufacturers. What’s fascinating is that such solutions are aimed at “premium” vehicles and “entry-level” ones, according to the announcement. The first products are expected to roll out in late 2025, so let’s wait and see!
MediaTek and NVIDIA To Power In-Car Infotainment and Human Interactions
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May 30
The conspiracy theorist lawmaker’s holiday Twitter post had a key problem.
May 30
The Yankees turned back to the clock to their childhoods on “the worst defense you will see in MLB all year” against the San Diego Padres.
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