UAE’s Falcon 3 challenges open-source leaders amid surging demand for small AI models

UAE’s Falcon 3 challenges open-source leaders amid surging demand for small AI models

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More The UAE government-backed Technology Innovation Institute (TII) has announced the launch of Falcon 3, a family of open-source small language models (SLMs) designed to run efficiently on lightweight, single GPU-based infrastructures. Falcon 3 features four model…

Could a Fed Rate Cut Help Mortgage Rates Fall? Today’s Mortgage Rates, Dec. 17, 2024

Could a Fed Rate Cut Help Mortgage Rates Fall? Today’s Mortgage Rates, Dec. 17, 2024

In 2024, prospective homebuyers watched mortgage rates rise, fall and then rise again. Many hoped the housing market would open up when the Federal Reserve finally began lowering interest rates in September. Yet mortgage rates have remained high due to converging macroeconomic factors: strong economic data and concerns over President-elect Donald Trump’s potentially inflationary policies. Mortgage rates surged over the past…

Nvidia’s New $250 ‘Jetson Computer’ Lets Hobbyists Play Around With AI Locally

Nvidia’s New $250 ‘Jetson Computer’ Lets Hobbyists Play Around With AI Locally

Nvidia has released a new $249 version of its Jetson computer meant for running artificial applications locally. The palm-sized Orin Nano is said to double the speed and efficiency of its predecessor at half the price, and it can process roughly 70% more computational tasks, according to Nvidia. The Orin Nano is ideal for hobbyists…

Best Bird Feeders With Cameras, Tested and Reviewed (2024)

Best Bird Feeders With Cameras, Tested and Reviewed (2024)

Birding is one of life’s great joys. Birds are so beautiful, and they’re fun to watch, but you have to keep your distance to not scare them away. Smart bird feeders—that is, bird feeders with cameras and connected apps—give you a close-up view of your backyard birds through captured images and real-time live views (as…

SoundCloud introduces a cheaper plan for artists

SoundCloud introduces a cheaper plan for artists

Music streaming platform SoundCloud announced Tuesday that it is introducing a new, cheaper paid plan for artists simply called Artist, while renaming its Next Pro plan to Artist Pro. The new basic tier will cost $39 per year and put some limits on features like track amplification, distribution, monetization, and AI mastering. Artists subscribing to…

Cambridge Analytica scandal still lingering on as Meta settles with Australian users

Cambridge Analytica scandal still lingering on as Meta settles with Australian users

The stench of Cambridge Analytica is still hovering over Facebook, as parent Meta just agreed to pay 311,000 Australian users AUD $50 million ($31.7 million) over the scandal. The settlement with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) comes after a four-year dispute with Meta and follows a $725 million award in the US,…

Rates Decline for Prospective Buyers: Current Mortgage Interest Rates on Dec. 17, 2024 – CNET Money

Rates Decline for Prospective Buyers: Current Mortgage Interest Rates on Dec. 17, 2024 – CNET Money

CNET editors independently choose every product and service we cover. Though we can’t review every available financial company or offer, we strive to make comprehensive, rigorous comparisons in order to highlight the best of them. For many of these products and services, we earn a commission. The compensation we receive may impact how products and…

Antibodies Could Soon Help Slow the Aging Process

Antibodies Could Soon Help Slow the Aging Process

Normally, antibodies are protective proteins produced by our immune systems to fight bacteria or viruses. Their strength comes from their specificity—when you get ill, B cells in your immune system undergo an exquisitely precise process of accelerated evolution, rapidly optimizing antibodies that bind precisely to whatever is making you unwell, without sticking to any of…

Alphabet-backed Indian lender files for IPO

Alphabet-backed Indian lender files for IPO

Alphabet’s CapitalG-backed Aye Finance, a lender focused on India’s micro, small, and medium enterprises, is seeking to raise $171 million from its initial public offering, it disclosed in a filing Tuesday. The offering comprises a $104 million fresh share issue and a $67 million secondary sale by existing investors, with proceeds aimed at expanding the…

Geopolitics and AI will affect the chip industry in 2025 | KPMG

Geopolitics and AI will affect the chip industry in 2025 | KPMG

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More AI technology is making semiconductor leaders more optimistic about 2025, but headwinds could come from geopolitical and talent retention concerns. Those are some of the predictions in KPMG‘s 20th annual Global Semiconductor Outlook report from the…

Waymo will start testing its driverless cars in Tokyo next year

Waymo will start testing its driverless cars in Tokyo next year

Waymo will deploy its driverless cars in Japan and will test its technology in another country for the first time. According to CNBC, the company will begin testing its Jaguar I-PACE vehicles in Tokyo in early 2025 and expects to remain in the country for an “extended period.” During the vehicles’ experimental phase, which will…

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answer and Help for Dec. 17, #289

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answer and Help for Dec. 17, #289

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Connections puzzles. It took me an embarrassingly long time to connect the title of today’s Strands puzzle with its topic. The title of the puzzle is, “It’s…

Brian Cox Is Totally Cool With Anthony Hopkins’ Greater Hannibal Lecter Fame

Brian Cox Is Totally Cool With Anthony Hopkins’ Greater Hannibal Lecter Fame

In a new interview tied to The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim that ends up being mostly about Succession (perhaps unsurprisingly), Brian Cox spoke about what it was like to be the guy who played Hannibal Lecter on screen first… a few years before Anthony Hopkins’ Oscar-winning performance in The Silence…

MidJourney’s moodboards let you make multiple custom AI models

MidJourney’s moodboards let you make multiple custom AI models

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More MidJourney, the popular AI image generator with more than 19 million users (including several of us at VentureBeat), has introduced new features to enhance user customization. Today, the small company launched Pinterest-inspired “Moodboards” and support for…

NASA’s new Webb telescope images support previously controversial findings about how planets form

NASA’s new Webb telescope images support previously controversial findings about how planets form

NASA says it was able to use the James Webb telescope around ancient stars that challenge theoretical models of how planets can form. The images support that haven’t been able to be confirmed until now. The new Webb highly detailed images were captured from the “Small Magellanic Cloud,” a neighboring dwarf galaxy to our home,…