US military disabled ad tracking on troops' devices following reports of targeted attacks by enemies

Serious stuff! Essentially any and each personal wearable computer device worn by a soldier anywhere in the world could be exploited/spied on by adversaries.

Notice this article is only about government issued devices.

Notice the two articles do not report which country is behind this neither does the letter by the US Senator (e.g. China, Russia, North Korea). Why this secrecy?

"The U.S. Department of Defense has disabled advertising tracking on troops’ phones and computers as part of an effort to protect them from threats that target their locations, according to a letter shared with Sen. Ron Wyden.

Per a letter shared with the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Wyden said that the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command have all disabled advertising tracking across their government-issued devices. ..."

US military disabled ad tracking on troops' devices following reports of targeted attacks | TechCrunch

US military turns off ad trackers on devices amid Middle East targeting reports

Apple bets big on AI users running local models on their personal computers

Good news! This could become a next trend coming to personal computers!

"Apple updated its Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips, with the M5 Ultra offering up to 4.3 times the peak AI compute performance of the M3 Ultra, according to Apple.

The M5 Max configuration has an 18-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU, and up to 128GB of unified memory, while the 

M5 Ultra scales to a 36-core CPU, an 80-core GPU, and up to 512GB of unified memory for running large language models entirely on device. ...

the 512GB memory configuration arrives in late October. ...

The larger memory pools and clustering support for both devices let developers run bigger open-weight models on-device instead of paying for cloud compute."

Data Points: Ox Alpha is a multimodal GLM model by Z.ai

Apple introduces new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra — the ultimate desktop for on‑device AI and the most extreme pro workflows (original news release) "Apple’s most powerful Mac raises the bar for local AI with up to 4.3x faster performance, more advanced graphics, up to 512GB of unified memory, and extensive connectivity"

The many annoying design flaws/features of a new HP laptop

I would never have imagined that my latest laptop could have so many annoying design flaws and features! It is the HP - Envy x360 2-in-1 14'' display.

Here is a long, incomplete list:

1. The power button is placed next to the delete button. On my previous Dell laptop, the power button was at the top right above and clearly separated from the the keyboard.
2. You get an electric shock from time to time when you touch the keyboard.
3. The power socket is located almost in the middle of the keyboard base on the side of the keyboard right next to a similar outlet. Should it not be placed near the corner of the keyboard base like my old Dell laptop?
4. When resting the laptop on my bare legs it catches my leg hairs from time to time. Very shoddy manufacturing by HP. My previous Dell laptop did not do this!
5. The sensitivity of the keys of the keyboard is lousy. You have to exercise too much pressure when pressing a key. The keys also make scratchy noises when pressed down (shoddy manufacturing).
6. The backlight feature of the keyboard is a gimmick and may turn out to be serious problem when the backlight stops working. My old Dell laptop also had a keyboard backlight feature, but I rarely if ever needed to turn it on. With my new HP laptop, I constantly and very frequently have to turn on the backlight as soon as the ambient lighting is not sufficient.
7. The touchpad is way too large making up more than 15% of the keyboard base. HP also failed to delineate with a visible short line to separate the left and right click button.
8. The display is attached in a flimsy way to the keyboard base and the display swivels too easily.
9. The sheathing of the power cable is also annoying. It has a texture like made of fibres. It looks old fashioned.

A sorely missing laptop technology

When will a laptop computer be able to place the cursor on the location of the screen where my eyes is focusing on?

It happens way too often that the cursor appears somewhere on the screen where I did not intend the cursor to be.