One of the key elements of Appleβs A-series and M-series chips is the System-on-a-Chip (SoC) design which tightly integrates all the components within a single package. This includes both CPU and GPU.
But a new report suggests that the M5 Pro chip may take a different approach of having more separated CPU and GPU in order to improve performance and boost production yields β¦
Honda and Nissan have officially confirmed rumors that they're pursuing a merger, the companies wrote in a joint press release. Each would continue to operate under its own brand, but with a new joint holding company as parent. If Nissan-controlled Mitsubishi also came on board, the combined group would become the world's third largest automaker by sales volume and have a net worth of up to $50 billion.Β
"Today marks a pivotal moment as we begin discussions on business integration that has the potential to shape our future," said Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida.
Integration talks are still preliminary, but the companies are pressing forward. "We are still at the stage of starting our review and we have not decided on a business integration yet," said Honda director Toshihiro Mibe. However, he added that the companies aim "to find a direction for the possibility of business integration by the end of January 2025." After that, they hope to have a "definitive agreement" concerning business integration by June 2025. Approval must come from each company's shareholders and is subject to Nissan executing a turnaround.Β
Nissan and Honda previously announced plans to work together on EV components and software development, but the joint company would be far more integrated. According to the press release, the plan includes: standardizing vehicle platforms; unifying research and development teams; and optimizing manufacturing systems and facilities. All of that is usually designed to cut costs, so it could spell significant layoffs in Japan and elsewhere.Β
Nissan's Titan pickup lineup
Nissan
Though the two companies sell comparable vehicles like Nissan's Rogue and the Honda CR-V, some synergy seems possible. Nissan sells large pickup trucks and SUVs in the US that Honda doesn't offer and also has more experience in EVs and plug-in electric vehicles. On the other side, Honda has relatively stable financials while Nissan has been struggling in the market, particularly at home.Β
Of course, Nissan is already in the Renault-Nissan-Misubishi Alliance. Nissan and Renault hold a 15 percent voting stake in the other, and all three sold a combined 10.6 million vehicles worldwide in 2017, more than any other light vehicle manufacturer at the time. The Alliance is also one of the largest EV makers in the world, with over 1 million units sold since 2009. If Nissan and Honda merged, it's not clear what would become of the Alliance.Β
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/nissan-and-honda-officially-announce-plans-to-merge-143834962.html?src=rss
TOKYO, JAPAN - DECEMBER 23: Nissan Motor CEO Makoto Uchida (L) and Honda Motor CEO Toshihiro Mibe (R) attend a joint press conference on December 23, 2024, in Tokyo, Japan. Nissan and Honda announced they have begun merger negotiations, aiming to create the world's third-largest automotive group to compete with rival EV manufacturers such as China's BYD and the US-based Tesla. (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)
Although the details remain in flux, the transition team reviewing NASA and its activities has begun to draft potential executive orders for changes to space policy under the Trump Administration.
Sources familiar with the five people on the team, who have spent the last six weeks assessing the space agency and its exploration plans, were careful to note that such teams are advisory in nature. They do not formally set policy nor is their work always indicative of the direction an incoming presidential administration will move toward.
Nevertheless, in trying to set clear goals for NASA and civil space policy, the ideas under consideration reflect the Trump administration's desire for "big changes" at NASA, both in terms of increasing the effectiveness and velocity of its programs.
Michael Kratsios appearing at the Web Summit in 2019. | Photo by Rita Franca/NurPhoto via Getty Images
In a pair of Truth Socialposts on Sunday, Donald Trump announced a set of picks for his administrationβs tech policy team that will report to David Sacks, Trumpβs βAI and crypto czar.β The picks include Michael Kratsios, who will lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) if confirmed by the Senate.
Kratsios, who served in Trumpβs first term as the White House chief technology officer, also briefly held an acting undersecretary role at the Department of Defense near the end of the term. He later became a managing director at Scale AI and has been helping lead Trumpβs tech policy transition team.
The President-elect also picked his former deputy CTO, Dr. Lynne Parker, as Executive Director of the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology. Directing the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets (AKA the βCrypto Councilβ) will be former college football player and unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate Bo Hines. Advising Trump on AI policy as part of the OSTP will be Sriram Krishnan, who has extensive Silicon Valley experience, with roles at Andreessen Horowitz, X, Meta, and Snap.
Sacks is close with Elon Musk, who Trump has charged with gutting the US government as part of the not-yet-established Department of Government Efficiency β and who recently helped send Congress into chaos by posting relentlessly to stop a US spending bill.
There have been consistent reports that we can expect a future iPhone to offer a variable aperture lens within a year or two, but thereβs been disagreement about whether the new feature will launch in the iPhone 17 or iPhone 18.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously said the major camera upgrade was coming to the iPhone 18, while The Information pointed instead to the iPhone 17. Kuo has now doubled-down on his earlier prediction β¦
Robert Eggersβ Nosferatu gets at the heart of what makes vampires an eternally fascinating fixture in our sexual imaginations.
Even if you havenβt seen F.W. Murnauβs original Nosferatu or read Bram Stokerβs Dracula, those stories have undoubtedly shaped your ideas about vampires. They werenβt the first tales about undead ghouls rising from the grave to suck the blood out of the living. But by presenting their monsters in such wildly innovative ways, they became a blueprint from which countless subsequent tales took inspiration. Writer / director Robert Eggers knows that his Nosferatu remake would be hard-pressed to scare audiences who cut their teeth watching a multitude of Draculas and demon hunters menacing one another on the big and small screens.
But rather than trying to work around that obstacle with experimental riffs on vampire lore, the new film accepts it as fact while inviting you to imagine what it might have felt like to experience this kind of disturbing story for the first time when they were new. You can feel Eggers working to conjure an atmosphere of psychosexual dread, and you can see him using modern filmmaking techniques to create haunting visuals evocative of early 20th century cinema. Though it cleaves very close to the original while incorporating elements from other vampire classics, this Nosferatu puts far more focus on the interiority of its central heroine as she grapples with her deep-seated longing to be taken by an avatar of death.
βVampireβ is not a word that many people are familiar with in Nosferatuβs depiction of 19th century Wisborg, Germany, but after years of being tormented by psychic visions of a shadowy presence, Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) is no stranger to living in fear of the supernatural. Despite her constant feeling of being misunderstood, Ellenβs days are filled with joy thanks to her realtor husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) and best friend Anna Harding (Emma Corrin). But Ellenβs nights of sleepwalking through her deathly quiet mansion are harrowing because of the way a mysterious voice from within beckons her to give in to her darkest, most unsettling desires.
Even when Ellen is awake, she can sense that somehow, somewhere, something is watching and waiting for an opportunity to make her its own. No matter how much Ellen insists that danger is afoot, though, all her loved ones can see is a woman on the brink of a mental breakdown. Itβs much easier for Thomas and Annaβs husband, Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), to dismiss her fears as symptoms of a wandering uterus rather than consider whether there might be more to her premonitions. Itβs even hard for Anna β a mother to two young girls β not to assume that Ellenβs troubles are rooted in the fact that she and Thomas have no children of their own. But Ellen and the sinister voice in her head both know that, while sex is definitely on her mind, having kids is not.
Nosferatuβs depiction of Ellen is one of the clearer examples of Eggers combining aspects of the 1922 film and Stokerβs novel to create a new take on the character that feels both true to the source materials and deeper than the sum of its parts. The moviepresents Ellen as the kind of woman who, even without her visions, would still feel smothered by the misogynistic social norms of her era. Ellenβs powers are an innate part of who she is, as is the way they often send her into fits of moaning that, to onlookers, read as explicitly orgasmic.
Ellen struggles to remember or articulate much of what she experiences during her nocturnal premonitions. But Nosferatu spells it out plainly as it first shows you how Transylvanian Count Orlok (Bill SkarsgΓ₯rd) is the one calling out to her through their seemingly inexplicable telepathic connection. The mechanics of Ellen and Orlokβs bond is another detail that Eggers has retooled just enough to make it work as a point of intrigue. Itβs obvious that this is a film about a vampire who wants to sink his teeth into an unsuspecting womanβs flesh. But Nosferatu cleverly leaves you wondering how, exactly, Orlok first came to know about his latest target.
Establishing that link early on adds a delicious layer of dread to Nosferatuβs story as Thomasβ presence is requested in Transylvania, where heβs meant to assist an βeccentricβ nobleman purchase a new home. We can see that Orlok is orchestrating some kind of elaborate plan to insert himself into Ellenβs life, but whatβs fun is the way none of the filmβs characters have any frame of reference cluing them in to the fact that theyβre dancing through the motions of a classic Dracula period piece like Tod Browningβs 1931 adaptation.
Contemporary horror movies about people who donβt know standard horror movie beats are frustrating because they pull you out of the fantasy. Eggers previously worked around that by focusing his films on characters planted firmly in times when their fears of the surrounding world and their own feelings could give rise to creatures they had never seen before. This Nosferatu is doing something similar, but because its story stays so true to the original, it also feels like Eggers is encouraging you to appreciate it as a thoughtful remake rather than a film trying to reinvent vampires.
This becomes clearer as Nosferatu shows you more of Orlokβs ability to project his shadow across Europe to menace Ellen with promises of untold pleasure. On a technical level, itβs clear that Eggers is creating scenes that Murnau could have only dreamed of, but you also get the sense that this is exactly the kind of alarming energy that made Max Schreckβs Orlok so frightening when he first appeared onscreen. To that end, this Nosferatu works hard to make you feel Orlokβs presence more than it actually tries to show you what he looks like as his plans begin taking shape. Heβs lurking in Ellenβs mind but also in Thomasβ fears that he might not be able to satisfy his wifeβs needs.
SkarsgΓ₯rdβs Orlok is skincrawling once the film gets around to fixing the camera squarely on his face, but much of the countβs essence is channeled through the way Depp and Hoult inhabit Ellen and Thomas. Ellen vacillates between terror, shame, and arousal to make you feel exactly what kinds of designs Orlok has. And Thomasβ guileless confusion when he encounters clearly supernatural things speaks volumes to Orlokβs ability to misdirect his unsuspecting victims.
While Nosferatu isnβt trying to shock you with its plot or gory deaths, it does want to impress you with its arresting visuals. Weβve seen Eggers work in black and white before, but the way Nosferatu frequently shifts into a near-monochromatic palette of blacks and blues is a brilliantly artful trick evocative of blood draining out of a face in fear. Those moments help make Nosferatu feel like a uniquely inspired presentation of vampires as beings of darkness. But beyond their aesthetic beauty, they also highlight the extent to which Eggers has crafted Nosferatu as a tribute to films from Murnau and Browning.
Itβs rare to see a remake that so effectively celebrates its predecessors while also realizing its own distinct vision, but thatβs what is going to make Nosferatu an instant horror classic when it hits theaters on December 25th.
Nosferatu also stars Willem Dafoe, Ralph Ineson, and Simon McBurney.
A lawyer defending an alleged distributor of Anom, the encrypted phone company for criminals that the FBI secretly ran and backdoored to intercept tens of millions of messages, is pushing to learn the identity of the confidential human source (CHS) who first created Anom and provided it to the FBI starting the largest sting operation in history, according to recently filed court records. The government says it will provide that identity under discovery, but the CHS may also be revealed in open court if they testify.
The move is significant in that the CHS, who used the pseudonym Afgoo while running Anom, is a likely target for retaliation from violent criminals caught in Anomβs net. The Anom case, called Operation Trojan Shield, implicated hundreds of criminal syndicates in more than 100 countries. That includes South American cocaine traffickers, Australian biker gangs, and kingpins hiding in Dubai. Anom also snagged specific significant drug traffickers like Hakan Ayik, who authorities say heads the Aussie Cartel which brought in more than a billion Australian dollars in profit annually.
Court records say, however, that if this defendantβs case goes to trial, the lawyer believes Afgoo will be the βgovernmentβs key witness.β
βGiven the CHSβs central role in the investigation and relevance to the prosecution, the government is obligated to provide his identity and particularized information about him,β the motion to compel discovery, filed by defense attorney Patrick M. Griffin in November, reads. Griffin is representing Alexander Dmitrienko, who prosecutors indicted along with 16 others. Lawyers for three other defendants also joined the motion. Those defendants are Seyyed Hossein Hosseini, Aurangzeb Ayub, and Shane Ngakuru.
In 2018 Afgoo, who had previously sold phones from companies popular with organized criminals such as Phantom Secure and Sky, approached the FBI with a proposition: Would the agency like to take control of Anom, an embryonic encrypted phone company Afgoo was developing, for use in its own investigations? In exchange Afgoo received $120,000 and nearly $60,000 for expenses, and the possibility of a reduced sentence for charges they were facing, according to an affidavit written by Nicholas Cheviron, one of the FBI agents that spearheaded the Anom operation.
The opportunity for law enforcement was staggering. They could put a backdoor into Anom to read all of its usersβ messages, and once criminals started using the devices, observe and disrupt drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, public corruption, and assassinations all over the globe. Anom eventually grew to more than 12,000 devices and collected more than 27 million messages.
βThe CHS was an active participant in the alleged conspiracy; indeed, acting on behalf of the government, he was its principal organizer, promoter, and technician. In fact, it appears he worked closely with the government when it created the Anom device. As such, he is a percipient witness with first-hand knowledge of many of the relevant facts and a participant in numerous forms of communication with one or more of the defendants,β the motion continues. Pointing to previous precedent, Griffin adds information about the CHS is required for the defense to fulfill its obligations under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
βAs to timing, trial is fast approaching, and given the worldwide scope of this case, the defense needs time to adequately prepare, including developing impeachment material for the CHS, who undoubtedly will be the governmentβs key witness,β Griffin writes. That trial is slated for March.
π‘
Do you know anything else about Anom, Sky, Encrochat or another encrypted phone company? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at +44 20 8133 5190. Otherwise, send me an email at [email protected].
Griffin is seeking Afgooβs real name; any aliases; their full criminal background including arrests, charges, and convictions; details on any compensation or benefits they received as part of being a CHS; any promises, agreements, or understandings between them and the government, including immunity, immigration benefits, or sentencing recommendations; records showing whether theyβve ever been untruthful or unreliable in any case; information about any psychological or substance abuse history that could impact their reliability as a witness; and all communications between the government and the CHS, among other things.
The reason for seeking this information, Griffin says, is that the defense βis entitled to investigate his background and prepare a vigorous cross examination.β
According to Griffin, in an October meeting the government indicated it would provide the CHSβs name and other details, but did not provide a date at which it would do so. Hence the motion for discovery, which also requests other information about Anomβs operations. A government response filed shortly after said βthe government has already advised Dmitrienko that it will be providing discovery relating to the CHS. The government will identify the CHS in advance of trial.β On December 13, the court granted the motion for discovery in part.
Joshua Mellor, one of the main prosecutors on the Anom cases, told 404 Media in an email that βif the case does go to trial, we will have to reveal the identity of the CHS.β
βIt would first be revealed in discovery and then in public court if the CHS testifies,β he added.
The defense has already obtained significant discovery, including technical documents on how the Anom system worked and a massive trove of Anom messages, according to other court records.
The motion for discovery also explicitly mentions my book DARK WIRE, which revealed many new details about the Anom operation. βMr. Dmitrienko is informed and believes the government secured a private jet to deliver a large shipment of Anom phones from the United States to Western Europe to fulfill demand it created after shutting down the Sky system of encrypted devices. (Discussed in the book Dark Wire and raised at our last motion hearing; the government did not dispute undersigned counselβs recitation of this incident and presumably would have if it were untrue.),β the court record reads. That scene of the book was based on my conversations with FBI officials.
This glossary includes the most common terms and expressions TechCrunch uses in our security reporting, and explanations of how β and why β we use them.
Yet another major investment is going down in the travel sector, underscoring its ongoing rebound after the Covid-19 pandemic. Prosus, the tech conglomerate controlled by Naspers, is paying $1.7 billion to acquire Despegar, one of the biggest online travel agencies in Latin America, to scale up its operations in the region. Despegarβs board of directors [β¦]
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