OpenAI has its own search engine now. ChatGPT can "choose to search the web based on what you ask, or you can manually choose to search by clicking the web search icon". It's for ChatGPT Plus users only now, free users will get access "over the coming months". There's also a Chrome extension to set ChatGPT as your default search engine if you're keen. I had a quick shot and it seems like the usual ChatGPT stuff, but it can grab more recent information off the internet rather than simply a static pile of info it was trained on - very similar to Bing & Copilot. The usual AI can't be trusted disclaimer still applies, but is it that much different to the slop Google's search results serve up these days?
Microsoft's announced pricing for a Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) subscription for personal use when they stop updating the OS in October 2025. For US$30 you'll "Critical and Important security updates for Windows 10; however, new features, bug fixes and technical support will no longer be available from Microsoft". Dunno how to sign up for it yet or if it'll be a thing past October 2026. Also in Windows related news, Microsoft is delaying its controversial Recall feature again. It'll now be in the December Insider's preview so Microsoft can take "additional time to refine the experience". They also re-iterated that "Recall will not be mandatory on Copilot Plus PCs, and will be an opt-in experience that can be fully removed".
Lifted this one straight from the excellent Garbage Day newsletter: "WIRED has a story out this week that you need to read. Facebook is not only allowing militias to use Groups to organize anti-democracy operations ahead of next week's election, the platform's new AI features are auto-generating Pages for them to follow. Far-right militias are organizing ballot box burnings, recruiting supporters, and training for an armed uprising. And they are doing it on the biggest social network in the country and Meta knows about it. ". Come on Zuck, at least try and learn from your mistakes bro.
Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.
One of the main reasons we sent Perseverance to Jezero crater was to be able to explore the spectacular river delta that splays out across the landscape on the crater's western floor. That delta is heavily eroded and appears to have been much larger earlier in Mars history. Indeed, a number of people on the rover team have speculated that several mesas and hills that are quite far from the main delta might be remnants — leftovers that haven't fully eroded away yet — of those much larger original delta deposits.
One such remnant, seen in this Mastcam-Z enhanced color photo mosaic from sol 63, is informally dubbed "Kodiak" by the rover team. Kodiak is located a few kilometers due west of the rover's landing site, and it has been notoriously hard to photograph well. This is because most of our most favorable imaging opportunities come in the afternoon when the need for heating is minimized and after other high-priority daily engineering activities are completed. This means that when we look west toward Kodiak in the afternoon we're looking into the Sun. This washes out the contrast in the photos and hides many of Kodiak's geologic features in the shadows.
Finally, though, in late April, we were able to negotiate some early morning imaging time with the rover engineers. We knew that if the Sun was low in the east the lighting would be optimal for photographing Kodiak in the west. On sol 63, then, Perseverance and Mastcam-Z woke up early — around 8:15 a.m. local time — and took this great shot of this beautifully illuminated mesa. We took the photo using our "RGB" filters (called filter L0 and R0), but I decided to enhance or exaggerate the colors to bring out more subtle color detail. So while this is a "false color" view unlike what we would see with our own eyes if we were there, to me it is just artistically stunning. Kodiak in the early morning sunlight is much redder than both the blueish rocky plains in the foreground and the dusty, ruddy walls of the crater rim in the background. The colors and geology of Kodiak as revealed so far by Mastcam-Z and other remote sensing measurements from Perseverance support the idea that this might indeed be an ancient remnant of a once-larger delta… I hope we get the chance to drive over there and find out! (Mastcam-Z)
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