Microsoft’s Airband Initiative is supporting fiber connectivity in Africa. (Liquid Intelligent Technologies Photo) Microsoft says it’s partnering with a fiber-cable connectivity venture called Liquid Intelligent Technologies to bring high-speed internet access to an additional 20 million people in Africa by 2025. The collaboration is part of Microsoft’s Airband Initiative, which aims to help extend broadband coverage to 250 million people living in unserved and underserved areas of th ...read more

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept The Complete Award-Winning Luminar AI Bundle comes with the photo editing software, 3 template packs, and a photography ecourse. Luminar AI is an intelligent photo editor with an intuitive workflow and one-click solutions for complex tasks. With more than 100 tools powered by artificial intelligence, Luminar AI helps you make complex edits fast. Retouch portraits and create captivating magazine quality landscapes without spending hours and lots of effo ...read more

Substack, a publishing platform known for its newsletter service, announced this week that it had crossed the 2 million paid subscription mark. Given the wealth of historical data we have concerning the growth of paid subscribers at Substack, the number got our attention. Substack’s simple business model also makes it possible to generate a few gross transaction volume and revenue guesses for the company, which we’ll explore. The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. ...read more

TechSpot is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. Why it matters: Linux has become the backbone of many technology standards and software products. In the traditional desktop space, however, the open-source kernel is anything but a successful. If the suggestion about a "universal" app store for Linux distros gains enough support, things could change fast. Some influential people in the open-source community are pushing for the adopti ...read more

TechSpot is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. Why it matters: Astronomers have previously complained about satellites partially blocking images from ground-based space telescopes. However, visible light isn't the only part of the electromagnetic spectrum astronomers observe, nor is it the only place satellites can threaten their work. Precautions may need to be taken to protect radio observations. A group of researchers has start ...read more

from the there's-no-do-no-harm-requirement-for-cops dept Facial recognition tech needs more work. It’s not great. Even when it’s good, it’s still pretty bad. While it performs well when identifying people not often considered to be criminal suspects (middle-aged white men), it’s far less accurate when identifying everyone else (minorities, women). Cops don’t often see what the problem is. Their job usually involves harassing/arresting minorities, so anything that lends itself to bus ...read more

For all the focus on carbon pollution produced by shipping and aviation, some of the most challenging to abate will probably be residential buildings. In the U.S., housing units stand an average of 130 years before they’re torn down, according to a recent study. Homes and apartment buildings built 100 years ago, or even 30 years ago, are woefully underprepared for the energy transition. More often than not, their major mechanical systems rely on fossil fuels, their electrical systems a ...read more

Users can create AI-generated content with the tone and style of their brand. (Typeface Photo) A new generative AI startup with ties to Seattle just raised $65 million from Microsoft’s M12 and others to help enterprises produce content. Typeface emerged from stealth mode Monday and unveiled its new platform tailored for businesses to create content ranging from product images, blogs, social media posts, job listings, and more. The San Francisco-based startup uses natural language proce ...read more

Meta announced today that it’s adding support for longer Facebook Reels of up to 90 seconds, along with some new creative tools. Up until now, Facebook Reels were limited to 60 seconds. The changes come several months after Meta launched support for longer Instagram Reels of up to 90 seconds. The expansion followed TikTok’s move into YouTube’s territory with videos that can be up to 10 minutes in length, instead of just three. The company is also rolling out more creative tools, inc ...read more

Ever since AMD introduced Zen, all CPUs based on the architecture have shown that they are especially sensitive to memory speed, as well as other timings. Using faster RAM could give a sizable increase in gaming performance, especially in cases where the game is very CPU-demanding. So it's time to see how the Ryzen 9 7950X3D fares when using a variety of memory kits, with different bandwidths and latencies. Zen and its DRAM Sensitivity When we carried out this type of test with the Ryzen 5 590 ...read more