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Kodak Warns It May Go Out of Business

2 weeks 2 days ago
After over 130 years in business, Kodak has warned it may not survive. From a report: The Rochester, New York-based Eastman Kodak Co. offered a bleak picture of its financials in earnings reports and filings, tracking a second quarter loss and sending shares tumbling in early trading Tuesday, Aug. 12. The iconic brand said in Monday, Aug. 11 government filings that there is "substantial doubt" about the company's ability to continue, as it faces more than $470 million in debt and slashes its pension plan in an attempt to remain afloat. "Kodak has debt coming due within twelve months and does not have committed financing or available liquidity to meet such debt obligations if they were to become due in accordance with their current terms," the company said in its filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. [...] In its most recent earnings report, Kodak said its consolidated revenues were $263 million at the end of the quarter on June 30, a decrease of $4 million since the same period last year. Gross profit decreased 12% compared to last year's second quarter end, Kodak disclosed, and its cash balance sits at $155 million, marking a loss of just under 23% since the end of December. Jim Continenza, Kodak's Executive Chairman and CEO, said tariffs have not had a "material impact" on its businesses, noting the domestic production of many of its products such as printing plates, film, inkjet presses and inks and pharmaceutical ingredients. Kodak's chief financial officer David Bullwinkle said in the company's Aug. 11 statement it plans to focus on its advanced chemicals and materials sector moving forward, and said the cut to its retirement program is going toward paying down its debt. He said the company expects to "have a clear understanding" by Friday, Aug. 15 of how it will meet its debt obligations. "For the second half of the year, we will continue to focus on reducing costs today and converting our investments into long-term growth," Bullwinkle said.

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BeauHD

Doctors get dopey if they rely too much on AI, study suggests

2 weeks 2 days ago
A tool can become a crutch

When doctors use AI image recognition technology to spot and remove precancerous growths known as adenomas during colonoscopies, the detection rate is higher. But take the AI away, and their rate drops to below where it was in the first place.…

Thomas Claburn

Google's Gemini AI Will Get More Personalized By Remembering Details Automatically

2 weeks 2 days ago
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google is rolling out an update for Gemini that will allow the AI chatbot to "remember" your past conversations without prompting. With the setting turned on, Gemini will automatically recall your "key details and preferences" and use them to personalize its output. This expands upon an update that Google introduced last year, which lets you ask Gemini to "remember" your personal preferences and interests. Now, Gemini won't need prompting to recall this information. As an example, Google says if you've used Gemini to get ideas for a YouTube channel surrounding Japanese culture in the past, then AI chatbot might suggest creating content about trying Japanese food if you ask it to suggest new video ideas in the future. [...] Google will turn on this feature by default, but you can disable it by heading to your settings in the Gemini app and selecting Personal Context. From there, toggle off the Your past chats with Gemini option. Google will roll out this feature to its Gemini 2.5 Pro model in "select countries" starting today, before eventually bringing it to more locations and its Gemini 2.5 Flash model. Google will also rename its "Gemini Apps Activity" setting to "Keep Activity," which will use "a sample" of your file and photo uploads to Gemini to "help improve Google services for everyone" starting on September 2nd. If you've disabled the previous setting, the new "Keep Activity" setting will be disabled too. There's also a new "temporary chats" feature in Gemini to preserve privacy. "Temporary chats won't appear in your recent chats or your Keep Activity setting," notes The Verge. "Gemini also won't use these chats to personalize future conversations, nor will Google use them to train its AI models. Google will only save these conversations for 72 hours."

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Tsunami forecasting about to get a lot faster thanks to El Capitan super

2 weeks 2 days ago
The world's most powerful known supercomputer stretches its legs with some life-saving science

Eggheads working on El Capitan, the world's most powerful publicly known supercomputer, have developed a new tsunami forecasting system that could dramatically improve response times in coastal communities.…

Tobias Mann