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Enlarge / From magnets we came, to magnets we return. (credit: Garner Products) There is the mental image that most people have of electronics recycling, and then there is the reality, which is shredding. Less than 20 percent of e-waste even makes it to recycling. That which does is, if not acquired through IT asset disposition (ITAD) or spotted by a worker who sees some value, heads into the shredder…

Enlarge / The 4th-gen Amazon Echo Dot smart speaker. (credit: Amazon) Alexa hasn’t worked out the way Amazon originally planned. There was a time when it thought that Alexa would yield a robust ecosystem of apps, or Alexa Skills, that would make the voice assistant an integral part of users’ lives. Amazon envisioned tens of thousands of software developers building valued abilities for Alexa that would grow the voice assistant’s…

Enlarge / An Intel handout photo of the Gaudi 3 AI accelerator. (credit: Intel) On Tuesday, Intel revealed a new AI accelerator chip called Gaudi 3 at its Vision 2024 event in Phoenix. With strong claimed performance while running large language models (like those that power ChatGPT), the company has positioned Gaudi 3 as an alternative to Nvidia’s H100, a popular data center GPU that has been subject to shortages,…

(credit: Getty Images) Apple has always had a strong preference that only its own parts be used in repairs, but only if they’re brand-new. Now, soon after Oregon passed a repair bill forbidding devices from rejecting parts with software locks, or “parts pairing,” Apple says it will allow for used Apple parts in future iPhone repairs. While noting that “pairing” is “critical to preserving the privacy, security, and safety of…

Enlarge (credit: Intel) Hardware sold for years by the likes of Intel and Lenovo contains a remotely exploitable vulnerability that will never be fixed. The cause: a supply chain snafu involving an open source software package and hardware from multiple manufacturers that directly or indirectly incorporated it into their products. Researchers from security firm Binarly have confirmed that the lapse has resulted in Intel, Lenovo, and Supermicro shipping server hardware…

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) AT&T is notifying millions of current or former customers that their account data has been compromised and published last month on the dark web. Just how many millions, the company isn’t saying. In a mandatory filing with the Maine Attorney General’s office, the telecommunications company said 51.2 million account holders were affected. On its corporate website, AT&T put the number at 73 million. In either event,…

Enlarge / A screenshot of AI-generated songs listed on Udio on April 10, 2024. (credit: Benj Edwards) Between 2002 and 2005, I ran a music website where visitors could submit song titles that I would write and record a silly song around. In the liner notes for my first CD release in 2003, I wrote about a day when computers would potentially put me out of business, churning out music…

Enlarge / A Google Axion Processor. (credit: Google) Google is joining the custom Arm data center chip trend. Google Cloud, the cloud platform division that competes with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, is following in the footsteps of those companies and rolling out its own Arm-based chip designs. Google says its new “Google Axion Processors” are “custom Arm-based CPUs designed for the data center” and offer “industry-leading performance and…

Enlarge / The Fairbuds and their replaceable components, including the notably hand-friendly, non-soldered batteries. (credit: Fairphone) Fairphone has spent years showing us that it could do what major phone manufacturers suggest is impossible: make a modern-looking phone, make it brazenly easy to open up, design it so battery swaps are something you could do on lunch break, and also provide software support for an unbelievable eight to 10 years. Bluetooth…