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Its no secret that Russia has been slowly working towards eschewing as much Western technology as it can and developing its own, and its latest effort seems to be related to video games. On December 25, Anton Gorelkin, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, revealed some information on a domestic video game console being developed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, as reported by TechSpot. The theoretical console will have an Elbrus processor and be powered by either Aurora or Alt Linux, both Russian forks of the popular Linux operating system. According to TechSpot, the Elbrus processor was developed by the Moscow Center of SPARC Technologies and primarily designed for defense, critical infrastructure and other applications. This processor isnt up to what Intel, AMD and Arm produce right now, and it certainly wont reach PS5 or Xbox levels of power. Despite the weaker chipset, Gorelkin stressed that the console isnt designed to play ports of older games, but will play domestic video game products. Presumably, this means Russia will also need its own developer community to design these games. Theres also another console called Fog Play in development, but its more of a cloud-gaming device. Users with high-end computers can rent them out to Fog Play owners, who play games on these computers through the cloud. These potential consoles are only one aspect of Russias broader technological sovereignty plans. Ever since its invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions, Russia has been trying to make this a reality but digital isolation is making this difficult. The adoption of Astra Linux in government, intelligence, military and even educational computers is another Russian effort to develop its own technology. To this end, Russia is also trying to replace file and website scanner VirusTotal (owned by Google) with its own Multiscanner platform in fears of US government infiltration. Despite this progress, Russia is still heavily reliant on Chinas technology. Chinese smartphones are popular there, and Chinese electronics and dual-use technology continue to enter Russia even as the Middle Kingdom no longer exports them to the US. Russia is likely unable to achieve true technological independence, in video gaming or other crucial areas, as it relies too much on China and doesnt have the capabilities to produce PS5 or Xbox-level chips. The two Russian video game consoles serve as a good example of the challenges the country faces given its poor relations with many of the worlds superpowers. Just like the Elbrus processor isnt going to truly compete against the best consoles, Russia will likely continue to struggle for technological sovereignty.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/russia-is-trying-to-make-its-own-game-consoles-in-a-bid-for-technological-independence-151358041.html?src=rss
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Terraforms Labs CEO Do Kwon spent the last day of 2024 getting extradited to the US, Reuters reports. Kwon faces charges in the US for "orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities." The Terraforms co-founder has been held in Montenegro since March 2023, when he tried to board a flight with a forged passport six months after Interpol put out a "red notice" warrant for his arrest. South Korean-based Terraforms Labs wiped out $40 billion from the crypto market when its TerraUSD and Luna stable coins turned out to not be so stable and collapsed in May 2022. Kwon had already fled South Korea the month before. The US announced its charges in February 2023, with the SEC chair Gary Gensler stating, "We allege that Terraform and Do Kwon failed to provide the public with full, fair, and truthful disclosure as required for a host of crypto asset securities, most notably for Luna and TerraUSD. We also allege that they committed fraud by repeating false and misleading statements to build trust before causing devastating losses for investors." South Korea has issued similar charges. Montenegro doesn't have extradition treaties with the US or South Korea. The request played out in court over the last year and a half, with Montenegro's Justice Minister Bojan Bozovic ordering Kwon's extradition last week. Terraform Labs filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US last January. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/terraform-labs-co-founder-do-kwon-will-face-securities-fraud-charges-in-the-us-142734704.html?src=rss
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The tricky thing about naming the years biggest losers in tech is that in 2024, it once again felt like everyone lost. Amid the depressing spiral that is social media, the will-they-or-wont-they dance of banning TikTok in the US and the neverending edited and deepfaked content that has everyone questioning whats real, the world lost. And it is lost. But a few areas this year stood out as particularly troubling. Specifically, AI and dedicated AI gadgets proliferated more than ever, spreading not only to our digital assistants and search engines but to our wearables as well. We also saw more deterioration in Intels standing and bid farewell to a robot maker, as well as Lightning cables. Im pretty happy about that last one, though. Our annual collection of the worst tech developments each year is shorter than usual, but that might be because were all exhausted. And also because most of the bad things can be attributed to AI, social media or misinformation. Still, we journey down this nightmarish memory lane, hopefully so we can avoid similar pitfalls in future. Generative AI in every possible crevice 2024 was a year in which consumer-facing AI tools became harder and harder to ignore. That's thanks to the tech giants Google, Meta and finally Apple baking AI tools into some of the most-used software on the planet. And in this push to get AI in front of everyone, I cannot help but stop and wonder who exactly is asking for this, and is anyone actually using it? In the past few months, I've been testing a Samsung Chromebook with a host of AI tools built-in as well as trying the various Apple Intelligence features that have rolled out through the autumn. It all came to a head in one of Engadget's Slack channels in early December, just after Apple launched its generative emoji and Image Playground features. Getting Image Playground to spit out AI-created pictures was easy enough, and Genmoji does feel like the logical next step after Apple introduced its personalized Memoji back in 2018. But across the board, the results felt uninspired, off-putting and - perhaps worst of all - extremely lame. Since I take so many pictures on my iPhone, there are tons of images categorized under my name in the Photos app (it will group together similar faces for years, if you let it). With hundreds of images to pick from, Image Playground should have no problem making a convincing facsimile of me... playing the guitar on the moon, right? Well, yes and no. In this image, as well as ones created of my colleagues Cherlynn Low, Valentina Palladino and Sam Rutherford, there are a few facial characteristics that made me feel that the AI-generated cartoon I was looking at was at the very least inspired by these people. But they all gave off serious uncanny valley vibes; rather than being a cute digital cartoon like we all built with Bitmoji back in the day, these results are soulless representations with no charm and mangled fingers. In a totally different vein, I just had occasion to try out Google's "help me read" summarization features on a 250-page government report. I knew I did not have time to read the entire document and was just curious what AI could do for me here. Turns out, not much. The summary was so brief that it was essentially meaningless not unreasonable, as it tried to parse 250 pages into about 100 words. I tried this trick on a review I was writing recently, and it did a much better job of capturing the gist of the article, and it also accurately answered follow-up questions. But given that the final product amounted to maybe four pages, my impression is that AI does a decent job of summarizing things that most people can probably read themselves in the span of five minutes. If you have something more complex, forget it. I could go on I've been having a blast laughing at the ridiculous notification summaries I get from Apple Intelligence with my co-workers but I think I've made my point. We're in the middle of an AI arms race, where massive companies are desperate to get out ahead of the curve with these products well before they're ready for primetime or even all that useful. And to what end? I don't think any AI company is meaningfully answering a consumer need or finding a way to make people's lives better or easier. They're releasing this stuff because AI is the buzzword of the decade, and to ignore it is to disappoint shareholders. Nathan Ingraham, deputy editor Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget Humane AI Pin and other AI gadgets This year, no two devices arrived with more manufactured hype than the Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1. And no two devices were more disappointing either. Both Humane and Rabbit made the argument that people were ready to drop their phones for something smarter and more personal, but neither of their devices were actually good or useful. Of the two, Humane was easily the biggest loser of 2024. The company achieved the ignominious honor of reaching net negative sales because former buyers began returning the AI Pin faster than new units could be sold. I wish I could say its troubles stopped there, but they didnt. After Humane first warned customers that the AI Pins charging case was a fire risk, it issued a formal recall in October. In the intervening months, the company has reportedly tried to find a buyer without success. Rabbit has certainly faced its own share of troubles, too. After being roundly panned
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