Luma introduced Luma Agents, powered by its new âUnified Intelligenceâ models, designed to coordinate multiple AI systems and generate end-to-end creative work across text, images, video and audio.
Blog Posts
Blog Posts
Illinois Suggests Yearly $500 Charge for Electric Vehicle Owners
dependable means of transport, a growing number of drivers are shifting to EVs. One primary incentive for choosing an electric vehicle is that they are typically less expensive to operate and fuel compared to conventional gasoline vehicles. However, this could change in Illinois if a new legislation is enacted.
Recently, Senator Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) introduced Senate Bill 3566, which seeks to modify the Illinois Vehicle Code to raise the yearly registration fee for EVs by $320. Should it be approved, this extra cost would take effect on July 1, 2027. Adding this to the $151 that EV owners currently pay each year to renew their registration, the total would amount to $471 … for the initial year. The legislation also allows for the possibility of raising the surcharge, indicating that EV owners might soon find themselves facing over $500 in annual registration fees.
Although the set $320 extra surcharge might not sit well with some drivers, it isn’t entirely compulsory. Kind of. The bill also suggests an alternative fee assessed by the new “Road Usage Charge Program,” which permits EV owners to pay 1.5 cents per mile up to a maximum of $320 instead of the yearly registration fee. However, those choosing this option must meticulously track their travel distance and report their mileage annually. Additionally, similar to the surcharge, the charges from the Road Usage Charge Program will undergo annual adjustments and increases.
Illinois would become the state with the highest electric car registration costs
<div class="slide-key image-holder gallery-image-holder credit-image-wrap" data-post-url="https://www.bgr.com/2116423/illinois-bill-raise-ev-car-taxes-500-dollars/" data-post-title="Illinois Wants To Start Charging Electric Car Owners Almost $500
Five Creative Ways to Utilize the USB Port on Your Router
Fia Nuralifia/Shutterstock
Most contemporary routers are equipped with one (or several) integrated USB ports. These are frequently ignored, given that devices like smartphones, laptops, televisions, and tablets connect wirelessly to the router. Many users typically have just a power adapter and LAN cable plugged in, and this configuration commonly operates without issues. However, with those extra USB ports, you can enhance your router’s capabilities beyond the usual Wi-Fi setup to include functions like wireless backups, wireless printing, file sharing, and more.
It’s important to note that not every router is capable of all these features. Some are restricted to basic storage sharing and device charging, while others can perform more sophisticated functions. You can easily confirm this by referring to your router’s manual or checking the router’s admin interface. If it offers options such as USB Storage, Media Server, or Print Server, your router is equipped for these capabilities, and that unused USB port can be put to a variety of innovative uses.
Print wirelessly with legacy printers
Fia Nuralifia/Shutterstock
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Showcases Distinctive Design to Rival Pixel 10a
Nothing has unmistakably alerted the Pixel 10a with the new Phone 4a Pro
If aesthetics are a crucial aspect of a smartphone for you, it’s likely that London-based Nothing has caught your eye. Founded by ex-OnePlus Co-founder Carl Pei, the brand has prioritized design to differentiate itself, and its most recent release, the Nothing Phone 4a Pro, upholds this principle.
Unveiled today in London, the Phone 4a Pro stands as the most refined Nothing smartphone to date, both in terms of hardware and design. It boasts some of the finest specifications yet seen in a Nothing device, but also illustrates the company’s readiness to adapt its design based on customer feedback.
The outcome is a smartphone that showcases an impressive design, with one notable exception. I recently had a hands-on experience with the Nothing Phone 4a Pro in London, and here’s what I discovered.
The Phone 4a Pro boasts a remarkable design
Make no mistake: the Phone 4a Pro features the finest design of any Nothing Phone to date. In contrast to the Phone 4a — more on that later — which (re)introduces the Glyph bar, the Phone 4a Pro reinstates the Glyph Matrix display from last year’s Phone 3, while addressing all major criticisms of that version.
The two main issues with the Phone 3, which was the first to substitute the Glyphs with a dot-matrix display, were that activation of the display required pressing a button, and its small size made it easy to overlook. The Phone 4a Pro resolves both issues with a larger Glyph Matrix display that’s straightforward to see, enhancing its functionality.
I appreciate how the Glyph Matrix display now integrates seamlessly into the camera design, unlike the Phone 3, where it seemed like an additional feature. This also emphasizes the cameras, marking another domain where Nothing has enhanced its A-series devices with this latest release.
The Phone 4a Pro offers an impressive camera on paper
<p(Set at $499 or £499, the Nothing Phone 4a Pro is intended to directly compete with the Google Pixel 10a. In addition to its eye-catching design, the Nothing Phone 4a Pro’s camera may pose a challenge to the Pixel 10a.
Google’s latest entry-level Pixel sports a single 48MP camera, and while Google excels at software processing, it’s hard to envision how it can rival Nothing, as the Phone 4a Pro is equipped with a 50MP main camera, an 8MP ultrawide lens, and a 50MP periscope telephoto lens that provides 3.5x optical zoom, and up to 140x zoom.
Indeed, it’s more than merely hardware, and I will need to extensively assess this camera, but this configuration could establish a new benchmark for affordable
STM32U3B5/C5 Ultra-Low-Power MCU Boasts 640 KB RAM, 2 MB Flash, and HSP Accelerator for Battery-Free AI Processing – CNX Software
STMicroelectronics has added two members to the STM32U3 ultra-low-power Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller family: the STM32U3B5 and STM32U3C5 MCUs get more sources with up to 640 KB SRAM and 2 MB flash, as well as an HSP (hardware signal processor) accelerator to run AI/ML workloads without batteries, just using energy harvesting. The new chips are still clocked at up to 96 MHz, benefit from a near-threshold design (down to 0.65 V), allowing a power consumption of just 117 Coremark/mW in active mode, and can operate up to 105°C ambient temperature. They come with one additional group of interfaces, bringing the total to four SPI and I2C, two I3C and CAN-FD, and five UARTs, as well as five more 16-bit timers, for a total of 10. The STM32U3C5 also includes a cryptocore to accelerate encryption and decryption operations, and supports the CCB (Coupling and Chaining Bridge) hardware security feature, both of which […]
The post STM32U3B5/C5 ultra-low-power MCU features 640 KB RAM, 2 MB Flash, and HSP accelerator to run AI without batteries appeared first on CNX Software – Embedded Systems News.
Roblox Uses AI to Censor Chats
Roblox is using AI to alter the content of chat messages on its platform in real time using a new feature rolling out today. Real-time chat rephrasing goes beyond the current filtering for banned language, which replaces certain words and phrases with “#” symbols. Now, Roblox says those words and phrases can be “translated into […]
Netflix Acquires Ben Affleck’s AI Filmmaking Company InterPositive
Affleck says he wanted to “preserve what makes human storytelling human, which is judgement.”
Oura Acquires Gesture Recognition Startup Doublepoint
The company believes its next phase of wearable AI will be powered by a combination of voice and gesture.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei May Still Be Negotiating with the Pentagon
Anthropic’s $200 million contract with the Department of Defense broke down due to disagreements over giving the military unrestricted access to its AI.
Meta Sued Over Privacy Concerns of AI Smart Glasses Following Workers’ Review of Sensitive Footage
Lawyers say Meta’s marketing materials promised privacy and user control over sharing footage. But an investigation found that subcontractors are reviewing footage from customers’ glasses.
