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Category: mobile phones – Page 55

Alexa just got three new generative AI skills — here’s how to try them

Next on the list is a skill called Splash, which uses AI to create a song based on your description. With this one, you can tell Alexa to create any type of song or specify the genre of music you want. After playing a short excerpt, Alexa asks if you want to make any changes, such as adding lyrics. If you like the tune, you can then tell Alexa to send it to your phone for playback.

To use the skill to generate any type of song, say: “Alexa, create a song with Splash Music.” To include a genre, say: “Alexa, open Splash Music,” and you’ll be asked what style you prefer. For this one, I asked Splash to compose a song in the style of jazz. The result certainly wouldn’t win any awards at the next Grammys, but it showed promise.

Finally, the third skill is named Volley Games, an AI-driven spin on the usual 20 questions game. In this one, a friendly AI host challenges you to guess an object by asking the right ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions. After giving you the category, you’re prompted to ask each question until you hopefully guess the mystery item. Along the way, you can ask for hints if you’re stumped.

First functional semiconductor made from graphene

The first functional semiconductor made from graphene has been created at the Georgia Institute of Technology. This could enable smaller and faster electronic devices and may have applications for quantum computing.

Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology.

Semiconductors, which are materials that conduct electricity under specific conditions, are foundational components of electronic devices like the chips in your computer, laptop, and smartphone. For many decades, their architecture has been getting smaller and more compact – a trend known as Moore’s Law. This has enabled gigantic leaps in a vast range of technologies, from general computing speeds and video game graphics, to the resolution of medical scans and the sensitivity of astronomical observatories.

Apple’s China headache worsens as iPhone faces double-digit sales slump

The slow start from Apple’s latest offering recently expanded to a 30% year-on-year decline, Bloomberg reported, citing Jefferies analysts led by Edison Lee.

Apple isn’t likely to see its iPhone sales recover from this sluggish start, per Jefferies analysts, which forecast a double-digit drop in volumes for 2024. The company saw a similar decline in December, per Bloomberg.

Apple’s relationship with China has been under strain recently.

Revolutionizing Electronics: Physicists Achieve Major Advance Using Graphene Spintronics

Physicists at the National University of Singapore have innovated a concept to induce and directly quantify spin splitting in two-dimensional materials. By using this concept, they have experimentally achieved large tunability and a high degree of spin-polarisation in graphene. This research achievement can potentially advance the field of two-dimensional (2D) spintronics, with applications for low-power electronics.

Joule heating poses a significant challenge in modern electronics, especially in devices such as personal computers and smartphones. This is an effect that occurs when the flow of electrical current passing through a material produces thermal energy, subsequently raising the material’s temperature.

One potential solution involves the use of spin, instead of charge, in logic circuits. These circuits can, in principle, offer low-power consumption and ultrafast speed, owing to the reduction or elimination of Joule heating. This has given rise to the emerging field of spintronics.

Tesla Researcher Demonstrates 100-Year, 4-Million-Mile Battery

face_with_colon_three year 2022.

One of the biggest concerns about EVs is that the batteries will need replacing after a few years, at great expense. After all, your smartphone battery is likely to have seen better days within as little as three years. But a Tesla researcher is getting ready to kick this idea into touch once and for all, after demonstrating batteries that could potentially outlive most human beings.

Tesla enthusiasts are likely to have heard of Jeff Dahn already. He’s a professor at Dalhousie University and has been a research partner with Tesla since 2016. His focus has been to increase the energy density and lifetime of lithium-ion batteries, as well as reducing their cost. Dahn appears to have hit the motherload along with colleagues on his research team. In a paper published in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society, the group claims to have created a battery design that could last 100 years under the right conditions.

Dahn’s paper contrasts cells based on Li[Ni0.5Mn0.3Co0.2]O2 chemistry (“NMC 532”) to LiFePO4. The latter is the “Lithium Iron Phosphate” (aka LFP) chemistry that Tesla is currently using in Chinese-built standard Model 3 cars imported into Europe. The LFP chemistry has lower energy density than more widespread Lithium-Ion alternatives, but is cheaper, more durable, and allegedly safer, too. LFP can last up to 12,000 charge-discharge cycles, so beating it in this regard is no mean feat. Dahn’s NMC 532 cells showed no capacity loss after nearly 2,000 cycles. The paper extrapolates this out to imply a 100-year lifespan (they obviously haven’t been testing the battery that long).

A butterfly-inspired design to create crumple-recoverable electronics

Over the past decades, electronics engineers have created devices of various shapes and with increasingly sophisticated designs. This includes electronics that can be folded onto themselves, such as foldable phones, along with various other compressible devices.

Researchers at Ajou University and other institutes in South Korea recently introduced a new design for developing crumple-recoverable electronics, or in other words, electronics that can recover their original shape after being crumpled or compressed onto themselves to reduce their size. This design, outlined in a paper published in Nature Electronics, draws inspiration from the mechanism that allows butterflies to unfold their wings when leaving their cocoon.

“Nature is rich of different plants and animals, each of which survived by adapting and evolving in extreme environments,” Seungyong Han, co-author of the paper, told Tech Xplore. “Personally, I’ve always thought that by closely observing these phenomena, we can find clues to solve various problems in modern society. Also, by approaching this from an engineering perspective, I believed we could achieve results that may improve people’s daily lives.”

The Coming Age of Abundance w/ Peter Diamandis and Elon Musk

Elon Musk Discusses AI, Longevity, and Bots with Peter Diamandis.
Technology, innovation, and optimism are crucial for solving global challenges and crafting a better future for humanity.

Questions to inspire discussion.

What are the challenges of the next iteration of Starlink satellites?
—Elon Musk discusses the challenges and potential of the next iteration of Starlink satellites, including the need to emulate a cell tower on the ground for phones to accept the signal.

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