Good morning! This is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
In today's Techpresso:
🚀 SpaceX's plan to make Starlink 10x faster
☢️ Amazon to build small, modular nuclear reactors
🤖 Mistral releases new AI models for laptops and phones
📅 Qualcomm to put Intel acquisition on hold until after US election
👀 The New York Times tells Perplexity to stop using its content
🎁 + 9 other news you might like
🔮 + 1 handpicked research papers and tools
🚀 SpaceX's plan to make Starlink 10x fasterLINK
SpaceX has submitted an application to the FCC to make Starlink about 10 times faster, increasing speeds from 100Mbps to 1Gbps with small orbital and operational updates. The company aims to improve network performance by lowering the satellite elevation angle from 25 to 20 degrees, which will enable satellites to connect with more ground stations and maintain those connections for longer periods as they pass overhead. SpaceX is also upgrading the hardware on Gen2 satellites, incorporating higher gain, advanced beamforming, and digital processing technologies to provide more targeted and robust coverage.
☢️ Amazon to build small, modular nuclear reactorsLINK
Amazon will invest $500 million in building nuclear reactors to power its AI operations, partnering with X-Energy and Energy Northwest to install reactors with a total capacity of 5 gigawatts by 2040, as part of AWS's response to rising energy demands.
The planned deployment includes four advanced Small Modular Reactors in Washington state, expected to produce up to 960 megawatts, and a future project in collaboration with Dominion Energy to potentially add 300 megawatts in Virginia to address increased power demands.
This move reflects a broader trend among tech giants like Google and Microsoft, who are turning to nuclear energy for stable, carbon-free power, motivated by the need for reliable energy supply amid growing AI technology demands and limited availability of renewable sources.
🤖 Mistral releases new AI models for laptops and phonesLINK
French AI startup Mistral has released its first generative AI models, 'Les Ministraux,' designed for edge devices like laptops and phones, with two versions available: Ministral 3B and Ministral 8B. Ministral 8B is available for research purposes, while commercial licenses are required for both models; they can also be used through Mistral's cloud platform, with token-based pricing for usage. Mistral claims its models outperform competitors such as Meta's Llama and Google's Gemma in benchmarks, and the company is expanding its AI portfolio, having recently raised $640 million in venture capital.
📅 Qualcomm to put Intel acquisition on hold until after US electionLINK
Qualcomm is planning to wait until after the November US presidential election to decide on a potential acquisition of Intel, to assess how the future government might affect the antitrust environment and US-China relations, according to sources.
The complexities involved in acquiring Intel, coupled with intense scrutiny anticipated from global antitrust regulators, may lead Qualcomm to postpone any formal move until after the January inauguration of the new president, some insiders suggested.
A potential deal could become cheaper for Qualcomm if Intel's forthcoming third-quarter earnings reveal another significant loss, and ongoing considerations indicate that Qualcomm is yet to make a definitive decision about pursuing the takeover.
👀 The New York Times tells Perplexity to stop using its contentLINK
The New York Times has issued a cease and desist letter to Perplexity, an AI startup backed by Jeff Bezos, accusing the company of using its content without permission for creating AI-generated answers and summaries, which violates copyright law.
Perplexity is given until October 30 to respond to the letter, with the Times alleging the firm and its supporters have gained undue benefits from using the newspaper’s carefully curated journalism without a proper license.
Previously, the New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for training their AI models using over 66 million of its archived articles, and Amazon Web Services is also investigating Perplexity for similar unauthorized content scanning activities on Condé Nast publications.
Other news you might like
Internal blog post reveals Automattic’s plan to enforce the WordPress trademark using ‘nice and not nice lawyers’.LINK
Intel and AMD team up to stem the x86 bleeding.LINK
Motorola makes Rabbit R1 even more irrelevant, working on AI LAMs for phones.LINK
The 'godfather' of driverless cars says Tesla has a major advantage in the self-driving race.LINK
.ai TLD moves under the management of Identity Digital.LINK
Ex-Intel CEO Brian Krzanich gets blasted over landing a new job at automotive AI company.LINK
Former Palantir CISO Dane Stuckey joins OpenAI to lead security.LINK
Spotify criticized for letting fake albums appear on real artist pages.LINK
Tesla moves entire $765M Bitcoin stash to unknown wallets.LINK
Latest research and tools
Lisp: a programming language preferred for artificial intelligence research due to its flexibility, elegance, and simplicity in processing lists, making it a central tool in the field.LINK
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