Smart gardening firm’s shutdown a reminder of Internet of Things’ fickle nature

AeroGarden, which sells Wi-Fi-connected indoor gardening systems, is going out of business on January 1. While Scotts Miracle-Gro has continued selling AeroGarden products after announcing the impending shutdown, the future of the devices’ companion app is uncertain. AeroGarden systems use hydroponics and LED lights to grow indoor gardens without requiring sunlight or soil. The smart gardening system arrived in 2006, and Scotts Miracle-Gro took over complete ownership in 2020. Some…

October 14, 2024
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Asahi Linux’s bespoke GPU driver is running Windows games on Apple Silicon Macs

A few years ago, the idea of running PC games on a Mac, in Linux, or on Arm processors would have been laughable. But the developers behind Asahi Linux—the independent project that is getting Linux working on Apple Silicon Macs—have managed to do all three of these things at once. The feat brings together a perfect storm of open source projects, according to Asahi Linux GPU lead Alyssa Rosenzweig: the…

October 11, 2024
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Trek CarBack bike radar lets you know when cars are approaching

“Car back!” If you’ve ever been on a group bike ride, you’ve no doubt heard these two words shouted by a nearby rider. It’s also the name of Trek’s new bike radar. For safety-conscious cyclists, bike radars have been a game-changer. Usually mounted on the seat post, the radar units alert cyclists to cars approaching from behind. While they will work on any bike on any road, bike radar is…

October 11, 2024
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Are Tesla’s robot prototypes AI marvels or remote-controlled toys?

Two years ago, Tesla’s Optimus prototype was an underwhelming mess of exposed wires that could only operate in a carefully controlled stage presentation. Last night, Tesla’s “We, Robot” event featured much more advanced Optimus prototypes that could walk around without tethers and interact directly with partygoers. It was an impressive demonstration of the advancement of a technology Tesla’s Elon Musk said he thinks “will be the biggest product ever of…

October 11, 2024
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AMD unveils powerful new AI chip to challenge Nvidia

On Thursday, AMD announced its new MI325X AI accelerator chip, which is set to roll out to data center customers in the fourth quarter of this year. At an event hosted in San Francisco, the company claimed the new chip offers “industry-leading” performance compared to Nvidia’s current H200 GPUs, which are widely used in data centers to power AI applications such as ChatGPT. With its new chip, AMD hopes to…

October 11, 2024
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Intel’s Core Ultra 200S CPUs are its biggest desktop refresh in three years

Intel’s 14th-generation desktop processors were a mild update on top of a mild update: a barely faster revision of the 13th-gen Core CPUs, which were themselves a modest tweak to 2021’s 12th-gen Core processors. The new Core Ultra CPUs (and their underlying architectural changes) were exclusive to laptops. Today, that changes: The Core Ultra 200S processors (codenamed Arrow Lake) will bring to desktops many of the changes Intel has made…

October 10, 2024
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Amazon, Apple make a deal to offer Apple TV+ in a Prime bundle

Apple TV+ will now be available as an add-on in Amazon Prime Video bundles, and users will be able to watch Apple TV+ films and shows in Prime Video apps and devices without downloading a separate app, the two companies announced. The offering from Amazon promises to give users the option to stick with a familiar app and manage payments through one billing system. Despite considerable media buzz and critical…

October 10, 2024
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Join Ars in DC for infrastructure, cocktails, and spycraft on October 29

After a great event last month in San Jose, Ars is switching coasts for October and descending in force on our nation’s capital. If you’re on the East Coast and want to come hang out with Ars EIC Ken Fisher and me while we talk to some neat speakers and learn some stuff, then read on! Continuing our partnership with IBM, Ars presents “AI in DC: Privacy, Compliance, and Making…

October 10, 2024
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Maze of adapters, software patches gets a dedicated GPU working on a Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi owners have always been prone to coming up with elaborate, technically-interesting-but-practically-questionable projects, and Pi enthusiast Jeff Geerling has an exciting new submission to that canon: an old AMD Radeon RX 460 GPU, connected to the Raspberry Pi 5’s PCI Express bus and managing to play demanding titles like Doom 3 (2004) and Tux Racer at a crisp 4K resolution. Geerling’s maze of adapters, software tweaks, and workarounds is a testament…

October 9, 2024
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