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Google games numbers to make AI look less thirsty

2 months 1 week ago
Datacenters' drinking habit exaggerated, claims report comparing apples to oranges

AI's drinking habit has been grossly overstated, according to a newly published report from Google, which claims that software advancements have cut Gemini's water consumption per prompt to roughly five drops of water — substantially less than prior estimates.…

Tobias Mann

Tinker with LLMs in the privacy of your own home using Llama.cpp

2 months 1 week ago
Everything you need to know to build, run, serve, optimize and quantize models on your PC

Hands on  Training large language models (LLMs) may require millions or even billion of dollars of infrastructure, but the fruits of that labor are often more accessible than you might think. Many recent releases, including Alibaba's Qwen 3 and OpenAI's gpt-oss, can run on even modest PC hardware.…

Tobias Mann

Search-capable AI agents may cheat on benchmark tests

2 months 1 week ago
Data contamination can make models seem more capable than they really are

Researchers with Scale AI have found that search-based AI models may cheat on benchmark tests by fetching the answers directly from online sources rather than deriving those answers through a "reasoning" process.…

Thomas Claburn

The Unix Epochalypse might be sooner than you think

2 months 1 week ago
Museum boffins find code that crashes in 2037

A stark warning about the upcoming Epochalypse, also known as the "Year 2038 problem," has come from the past, as National Museum Of Computing system restorers have discovered an unsetting issue while working on ancient systems.…

Richard Speed

AI giants call for energy grid kumbaya

2 months 1 week ago
Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI researchers warn of uneven power usage associated with AI training, and propose possible fixes

Researchers at Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI have issued a call to designers of software, hardware, infrastructure, and utilities for help finding ways to normalize power demand during AI training.…

Thomas Claburn

New Yorkers will soon be able to yell 'I'm walkin here!' to Waymo robotaxis

2 months 2 weeks ago
But it's just a test, as NYC still doesn't allow driverless for-hire cars

Waymo robotaxis are set to return to the streets of New York City after a four-year absence. But with a list of caveats longer than a Midtown bagel shop brunch line, Waymo's return isn't something for pedestrians to get nervous about yet. …

Brandon Vigliarolo

OneNote for Windows 10 support clock counts down

2 months 2 weeks ago
Just over 50 days until Microsoft pulls the plug

OneNote for Windows 10 is on the way out. On October 14, it will reach the end of the road support-wise, and anything left in it will become read-only.…

Richard Speed

Trump's gold-plated smartphone can't seem to decide which design to copy

2 months 2 weeks ago
Latest ad for the T1 looks suspiciously like a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra in a Spigen case

President Trump's personally branded wireless provider was supposed to have a "premium" Android smartphone – gold, of course – on the market by September, but it appears the mobile virtual network operator has yet to even settle on a design to steal.…

Brandon Vigliarolo

Saved you a click: Firefox 142 offers AI summaries of links

2 months 2 weeks ago
CRLite, link previews, and a llama-shaped surprise for devs

Good news, everyone! The new version of Mozilla's browser now makes even more extensive use of AI, providing summaries of linked content and offering developers the ability to add LLM support to extensions.…

Liam Proven
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1 hour 4 minutes ago
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