Baidu, one of China’s most prominent AI companies, launched the Xiaodu AI Glasses at its Baidu World 2024 conference in Shanghai on Tuesday, declaring them to be the “world’s first native AI glasses powered by a Chinese large language model.” The Xiaodu AI Glasses feature first-person perspective photography, real-time mobile Q&A functionality, calorie tracking, an object encyclopedia, visual and audio translation, and intelligent reminders.
At the main forum, Baidu’s founder Robin Li said the daily use volume of the company’s ERNIE Foundational Model has exceeded 1.5 billion, growing 7.5 times in less than half a year. Baidu’s chief technology officer, Wang Haifeng, revealed that ERNIE Bot’s user base has now reached 430 million.
Why it matters: Baidu’s AI glasses integrate AI software and hardware, while the rapid growth of ERNIE Bot’s daily usage and user base shows the increasing adoption of AI-powered technologies in China.
Details: Baidu’s AI glasses will be launched in the first half of 2025, according to the company.
Weighing 45 grams, the Xiaodu AI Glasses feature a 16MP ultra-wide camera with AI-powered anti-shake, offer up to 56 hours of standby time and over 5 hours of continuous use, and can be fully charged in just 30 minutes.
The glasses combine a four-microphone array and custom open-design sound leakage prevention speakers. Notably, the glasses can recognize the direction of the sound source, distinguishing between noises made by the wearer and others.
Baidu’s AI glasses enhance the user experience by freeing up hands and offering a first-person perspective for capturing key moments while traveling, the company claimed. Integrated with Baidu Maps and search functions, the glasses enable on-the-go access to historical and cultural information in travel scenarios. Combining visual and location-based technologies, the device functions as a “walking encyclopedia” for real-time exploration and learning, according to Baidu.
Context: At the event, Baidu announced a range of new AI technologies and solutions to accelerate the boom of AI applications, featuring iRAG (Image-Based Retrieval-Augmented Generation), a new technology designed to tackle hallucinations in image generation, and Miaoda, a no-code tool that empowers businesses and individuals to create applications.
Leveraging Baidu Search’s vast collection of hundreds of millions of images and the company’s strong foundation model capabilities, iRAG enables text-to-image models to deliver hyper-realistic visuals while also reducing the cost of image production.
One of China’s biggest social media stars Li Ziqi returned after a three-year hiatus by releasing two new videos on YouTube and Chinese social media platforms. She had stopped posting after a dispute with her former company.
Li is one of most well known influencers in China, and once held the Guinness World Record for the most subscribers to a Chinese-language YouTube channel. Before halting her media work, she had nearly 50 million followers on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. Her YouTube channel, now with 20.1 million subscribers, features life in rural China where she creates handicrafts and cooks for herself and her grandmother. Since July 2021, Li was silent on all social media platforms. In the same year, it was revealed that Li had been involved in a trademark and revenue dispute with Weinian, her former company, which led to a suspension of her work and break from posting. The dispute, which lasted nearly two years, was resolved at the end of 2022. Li has since regained control of the “Li Ziqi” brand, which had been registered by Weinian.
Following the release of her new videos, the hashtag “#李子柒回归#“(Li Ziqi’s Return) topped trending topics on Chinese social media. On YouTube, the videos garnered 5 million views within 24 hours, despite her three-year absence. Li’s YouTube following remains strong, with over 20 million subscribers.
good news everybody! GraalVM will now support jcmd, which allows you to bring diagnostics and monitoring of native images even closer to the Hotspot experience. JFR, heap dumps, thread dumps, JMX, and NMT are already available!
Hi, Spring fans! Welcome to another installment of This Week in Spring! It's the 5th of November, 2024, and, um, I - an American - am desperately trying to keep calm and carry on. I did everything I can do (VOTE!), and so it's with considerable enthusiasm that I dive into this week's (hopefully distracting) roundup!
Hello r/technology! Lauren Goode, Michael Calore, and Zoë Schiffer here! We're the hosts of WIRED's new tech podcast Uncanny Valley—an insider look at the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley. Whether it’s the latest skirmish between tech CEOs, the rapid expansion of generative AI, or the mysterious departure of high-ranking employees from high-value startups, we’ll explain why these matter and how they affect you. Let's get questioning (and we hope to answer as much as possible!)
Spring Modulith 1.3 RC1, 1.2.5, and 1.1.10 released. The RC has several cool new contributions, including one from my friend and teammate Cora Iberkleid introducing an archiving event publication completionm mode; and one contribution from me, that supports externalizing events with Spring Integration MessageChannels. Nice! Get the bits now!
The 13 June “Ramstein” meeting is part of the NATO Defence Ministers’ meeting. According to the published agenda, a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council on the defense ministers’ level will also be held today.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov will participate in both events. It is the last ministerial meeting before the NATO summit in Washington in July. Over these two days, ministers are expected to come to agreements on issues that will be formally approved by the leaders of the Alliance countries in a month.
The priority is the sustainable long-term support of Ukraine. This includes strengthening NATO’s role in coordinating military assistance to Ukraine and conducting training for its Defense Forces.
Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visited Hungary and held talks with Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The visit’s purpose was to persuade Budapest not to block new initiatives to help Ukraine, as unanimity among NATO members is required for their approval. Hungary said it would not block the decisions but would not send funding or its troops to Ukraine.
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According to Nazar Voloshyn, a spokesman for the Khortytsia Operational-Strategic Grouping of Forces, Russian actions became “extremely active” starting on 10 June in the Chasiv Yar area. The enemy has almost continuously stormed the town with the aid of tanks and other armored vehicles.
Voloshyn stated that the occupiers are also trying to conduct assault operations supported by aircraft and drones. Russians are actively using unguided air-launched rockets and deploying unmanned aerial vehicles in the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, according to him.
Situation in Chasiv Yar as of 13 June 2023. Map: Deepstatemap.
Despite the onslaught, Ukrainian defense forces have successfully held their positions and even reinforced them in certain areas, the spokesman said. As of the early hours of 13 June, five combat engagements had already taken place – three Russian attacks were repelled near Andriivka, while two clashes were still ongoing near Ivanivske.
While the situation remains “somewhat tense”, the invading forces have suffered significant losses, according to Voloshyn. Over the past day alone, 90 Russian troops were killed and 138 wounded in this particular sector of the front.
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The UK Government has announced a new package of 50 sanctions designations and specifications aimed at degrading Russia’s ability to fund and sustain its illegal war in Ukraine. The measures, announced while Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attends the G7 Leaders Summit in Italy, are part of coordinated action with the UK’s G7 partners to support Ukraine.
These new sanctions target various entities and individuals involved in Russia’s war effort. Notably, the UK has imposed its first sanctions on vessels in Putin’s “shadow fleet,” used by Russia to circumvent existing sanctions and continue trade in Russian oil. The UK is also targeting suppliers of munitions, machine tools, microelectronics, and logistics to Russia’s military, including entities based in China, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, and Türkiye, as well as ships transporting military goods from North Korea to Russia.
Furthermore, the sanctions crack down on institutions at the heart of Russia’s financial system, such as the Moscow Stock Exchange, in coordination with the United States, which designated the exchange a day earlier, on 12 June.
UK Prime Minister Sunak emphasized that the UK will “always stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine in its fight for freedom,” and that “cutting off [Putin’s] ability to fund a prolonged conflict is absolutely vital.” British Foreign Secretary David Cameron stated that the sanctions are “starving Putin of the revenue he desperately needs to fund his war chest and making it harder to supply his war machine.”
According to the press release, sanctions have deprived Russia of over $400 billion worth of assets and revenues since February 2022, equivalent to four more years of funding for the invasion. The UK has sanctioned over 2,000 individuals and entities under its Russia sanctions regime, including 29 banks accounting for over 90% of the Russian banking sector and over 130 oligarchs and family members with a combined net worth of around £147 billion or $187.6 at the time of the invasion.
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The Ukrainian border guards received evidence pointing to an illegal art dealing in progress. The relevant information was forwarded to their Polish counterparts who confirmed the initial tip. The two border agencies, together with Dutch officials, then launched a joint operation to recover the artwork.
On Ukraine’s territory, the Dutch Embassy’s liaison officer was involved in the effort. As a result, the stolen 17th century painting by the Dutch master Jan Linsen (1603-1635) has been successfully located in an apartment in Poland and seized.
Law enforcement detained the perpetrator and pressed charges. The individual will be remanded in custody for three months as the investigation is led by the District Prosecutor’s Office of Kraków, Poland.
A Ukrainian man has been charged with dealing in stolen property and could face up to 10 years in prison. A local border guard spokesperson noted that the recovered painting is now safely stored at the Royal Castle in Kraków.
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In a letter to EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell seen by Reuters, dated 11 June, the ministers stated that the “free movement of holders of Russian diplomatic and service passports, accredited in one host state, across the whole Schengen area is easing malign activities.”
The ministers, from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, and Romania, said that intelligence, propaganda “or even preparation of sabotage acts are the main workload for a large number of Russian ‘diplomats’ in the EU.“
While expulsions were acknowledged as important, the letter stated that the threat remained.
“We believe the EU should strictly follow the reciprocity principle and restrict the movement of members of Russian diplomatic missions and their family members to territory of a state of their accreditation only,” the ministers said, adding that “this measure will significantly narrow operational space for Russian agents.”
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A Chinese AI content creator has challenged cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology over its use of an image of a woman wearing an ancient costume, which he claims he created via an AI model to showcase a “partially redrawn feature” on the company’s search engine.
The argument between creator DynamicWang and 360 Security escalated as the two parties failed to settle, with the company’s vice president Liang Zhihui saying it is willing to resort to legal action.
Repaint photo at 360 Security’s AI products launch event(Left); Original image by creator “DynamicWang”(Right). Credit: 21jingji Credit:21jingji
Why it matters: As the emerging technology of artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to create content, authorship attribution lacks a clearly defined legal framework.
Details: Even before DynamicWang publicly asked 360 Security to apologize over the alleged copyright infringement on June 8, the firm was in the midst of a public opinion storm, this time over its perceived disrespect toward women. When founder Zhou Hongyi introduced the repainting function at the company’s AI product launch on June 6, he used “sexy” as a prompt to ask the AI-powered search engine to redraw a woman’s breasts of the female in the controversial picture, which DynamicWang since claimed was based on his AI-generated work.
The creator said 360 Security should acknowledge the infringement and compensate him with a symbolic RMB 1 ($0.14). He said the firm “stole” the image generated by his self-trained AWPortrait model.
According to Liang, the author made a request to the company that he wants 360 Security paid him ten times the model price, together with the cost of compensation.
Local media outlet NBD quoted DynamicWang as interpreting the price to use his model as RMB 4,499 is for small- and medium-sized AI startups. This was not the price set for public-listed 360 Security, the creator said.
Each side has its own version of the story. While the creator mentioned compensation and apology were “prerequisites,” and buying the model was optional, Liang said purchasing the author’s AWPortrait model for ten times the price was “beyond our knowledge,” according to a WeChat screenshot of his conversation with DynamicWang. The current argument between the two sides is whether DynamicWang owns the copyright to the images generated by the model he trained.
In his latest Weibo post late Wednesday, the creator introduced himself as a photographer whose images are posted on Unsplash, Getty Images’ free gallery site, and that the training data he used to feed AWPortait model included his photography and Unsplash images, which he says means there are “no copyright issues” on his side.
Context: In January, the Beijing Internet Court granted copyright protection for an artificial intelligence-generated image, ruling that the image involved had an element of “originality” due to the plaintiff inputting multiple prompts and adjusting the parameters before generating a picture of a young woman through the text-to-image AI model Stable Diffusion. The ruling was seen as the first such AI-generated image copyright infringement case in China.
Why it matters: The rapid evolution of AI technology across multiple sectors has driven a surge in demand for advanced process chips. Increasing orders from major clients is expected to further push TSMC to innovate and develop advanced manufacturing processes.
Details: Currently, TSMC’s 3nm lineup includes N3, N3E, N3P, N3X, and N3A, according to the Economic Daily News report.
N3E, which entered mass production in the fourth quarter of last year, primarily serves AI accelerators, high-end smartphones, and data centers. N3P is expected to enter mass production in the latter half of this year and will become the preferred chip process for mainstream applications including mobile devices, consumer electronic products, base stations, and networking by 2026. N3X and N3A are designed for customized demands such as high-performance computing and automotive clients.
The latest high-end chips this year are all adopting the 3nm process, according to Chinese media outlet Icsmart. Apple will introduce the M4 series processors this year and is set to release the next-gen A18 series processors for its new iPhone16 series this September. Later this year, Qualcomm will launch its flagship mobile platform Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, while Nvidia is set to unveil the RTX 50 series graphics cards. AMD will release the fifth-gen EPYC Turin processors in the second half of the year, with plans to launch the MI350 series next year.
TSMC, as the exclusive supplier of Apple’s A-series processors for the new iPhones, will see a significant increase in demand for related 3nm orders. Apple’s iPhone 16 series this year is expected to increase sales volume by 5% year-over-year to 92-95 million units, the Economic Daily News report forecasted.
To ensure stable supply over the next two years, TSMC’s strategy is to convert some of its 5nm equipment to support 3nm production. Industry sources indicate that TSMC is likely to up its production of 3nm wafers to between 120,000 and 180,000 a month.
Context:The total production value of the top ten semiconductor foundries in the first quarter reached $29.2 billion, a decrease of 4.3% compared to the previous quarter, according to market research firm TrendForce.
In the first quarter, TSMC led with a revenue of $18.85 billion and a market share of 61.7%, followed by Samsung with $3.36 billion and an 11% market share. Shanghai-based chip foundry SMIC took third place with $1.75 billion in revenue and a 5.7% market share.
Russia carries out repeated indiscriminate aerial attacks on settlements near the frontline, possibly to demoralize the residents and depopulate the areas.
According to the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office, the bomb impacted residential buildings, injuring five local civilians – a 65-year-old man and four women aged 63 to 88 years old. They suffered head injuries and multiple lacerations and were hospitalized to receive medical treatment.
Aftermath of Russia’s aerial bomb attack on Kostiantynivka, Donetsk Oblast, on 10 June 2024. Photo: Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office.
At least 13 apartment buildings sustained damage from the powerful blast wave, with shattered windows and broken glass throughout the residential units, according to the report.
The Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into the attack for violating the laws and customs of war, which carries a maximum penalty of 12 years imprisonment.
The KAB-500 guided air bomb weighing 370-560 kg depending on its variant, can carry a 250-380 kg warhead.
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The Azov Brigade, recognized for its determined yet ultimately unsuccessful defense of the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol during the early stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, is considered a highly effective combat unit. At the end of the siege of Mariupol, Ukraine ordered the remaining troops in the steel factory to surrender to Russian forces for survival, leaving over 900 in captivity as of early May this year.
Back, in 2015, the US House passed an amendment barring Azov from using the US arms, based solely on media reports labelling Azov as a “neo-Nazi” and “fascist” unit. The image of a “Nazi unit” was amplified internationally by Russian propaganda outlets and was even used by Russia to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the claims that Ukraine allegedly needs to be “denazified.”
Now absorbed into the Ukrainian National Guard as a formal unit since 2015, the brigade, originally a volunteer militia, will have access to the same US military assistance as any other unit.
“After thorough review, Ukraine’s 12th Special Forces Azov Brigade passed Leahy vetting as carried out by the US Department of State,” the agency said in a statement, referring to the “Leahy Law” that prevents US military assistance from going to foreign units credibly found to have committed major human rights violations. The State Department found “no evidence” of such violations, its statement says.
Lifting the ban had been a top priority for Ukrainian officials, who argue that the brigade could have defended Azovstal more effectively in 2022 with access to US equipment. Additionally, members of the brigade were also prohibited from participating in training sessions organized by the US military.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has frequently cited the racist and ultranationalist allegations against the Azov Battalion to support his claim that Ukrainian fighters and their leaders in Kyiv are neo-Nazis. The shift in US policy is likely to reignite those Russian critiques, the Washington Post notes.
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