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Amazon Web Services (AWS) just kicked off its Las Vegas-based re:Invent conference with a stream of announcements, most of which involve the year’s most popular technology, AI. These news items, taken as a whole, give us a sneak peek at the company’s long-term goals for artificial intelligence platforms.

First of all, AWS unveiled its latest-generation of AI chips intended for model training and for running trained models. Trainium2, which is obviously for model training, has been designed to deliver up to 4x better performance and 2x energy efficiency when compared to its forebear. Amazon promises these chips will allow programmers to train models quickly and at a lower cost, due to a reduction in energy use. Anthropic, an Amazon-backed OpenAI competitor, has already announced plans to build models using Trainium2 chips.

Graviton4, on the other hand, is more for general use. These processors are based on Arm architecture, but consume less energy than Intel or AMD chips. Amazon promises an increase of 30 percent in general performance when using a trained AI model embedded within a Graviton4 processor. This should lower cloud-computing costs for organizations that regularly employ AI models and offer a slight uptick in speed for regular users just looking to make some fake photos of Harry Potter at a rave or whatever.

All told, Graviton4 should allow AWS customers to “process larger amounts of data, scale their workloads, improve time-to-results and lower their total cost of ownership.” It’s available today in preview with a wider release planned for the coming months.

Typically, when a company announces new in-house chips, that spells trouble for current third-party providers like NVIDIA. The company is a huge player in the enterprise AI space, thanks to companies using its GPUs for training and its Arm-based datacenter CPU Grace. Instead of eschewing the partnership in favor of proprietary chips, Amazon is further cementing the relationship by offering enterprise customers cloud access to NVIDIA’s latest H200 AI GPUs. It’ll also operate more than 16,000 Nvidia GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips expressly for NVIDIA’s research and development team. This is a similar approach to its chief AI rival, Microsoft, which also announced an enhanced partnership with NVIDIA at the same time it revealed its proprietary AI chip, Maia 100.

Amazon also announced a new business-focused AI chatbot called Q, a name that was likely inspired by the Star Trek demigod and not the Trump-adjacent conspiracy peddler. It’s described as a “new type of generative AI-powered personal assistant” and is specifically designed to help streamline work projects and customer service tasks. It can be tailored to suit any business and offers relevant answers to commonly-asked questions. Amazon Q can also generate content on its own and take actions based on customer requests. It’ll even customize interactions based on a user’s role within a company.

It’ll exist on communication apps like Slack and in text-editing applications commonly-used by software developers. To that end, Q can actually change source code and can connect to more than 40 enterprise systems, including Microsoft 365, Dropbox, Salesforce and Zendesk, among others. Amazon Q is currently available in preview, with a wider release coming soon. It’ll cost anywhere from $20 to $30 per user each month, depending on available features.

So what have we learned here? Amazon is betting big on AI, like everyone else. More specifically, it’s battling with old cloud rival Microsoft to be the go-to company for enterprise-based AI. It’s also using AI to continue its dominance in the cloud computing space, hoping to minimize any increase in market share for Microsoft and other players like Google and Alibaba.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-says-its-next-gen-chips-are-four-times-faster-for-ai-training-200028416.html?src=rss 

Ayaneo has been teasing its Macintosh-inspired PC for a few weeks. Now that the AM01 is available for pre-order, the company has revealed the prices and specs. While some had been hoping Ayaneo would use similar chipsets to those found in its powerful handheld gaming devices, it has opted to use older AMD APUs. On the plus side, the company has priced the various AM01 configurations pretty fairly.

The mini PC starts at $149 for a configuration with an AMD Ryzen 3 3200U, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. That’s an early bird price, and this version will later retail for $199. Configurations with a Ryzen 7 5700U APU start at an early bird price of $219 for a barebone unit and stretch up to $379 for a model with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. Ayaneo notes that the AM01 is expandable up to 64GB of dual-channel DDR4 RAM and 2TB of M.2 solid state storage. There’s also a SATA 3.0 interface that supports a 2.5-inch SDD or HDD.

The Ryzen 7 5700U variants have Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, compared with Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 on Ryzen 3-powered units. Ayaneo keeps the AM01 cool with the help of a large fan and four copper heat pipes.

On the connectivity front, there’s one USB-C 3.2 Gen1 port, three USB 3.2 Gen2 ports and one for USB 2. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack, while the machine runs on DC power. There are also gigabit Ethernet, DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 ports. Ayaneo says the AM01 can output video in 4k at 60fps and it’s compatible with dual-screen setups.

All of this comes in a compact case that measures just over 5 inches (132mm) wide and tall and just over 2.5 inches (64.5mm) thick. Adding to the AM01’s portability, it weighs slightly over a pound (486g).

You can personalize the mini PC with magnetic decorative elements. In other words, you’ll be able to swap out the badge on the bottom left of the machine (the same spot where the Apple logo is on the Macintosh). Ayaneo will include a bunch of stickers too, so you can decorate the non-functional “screen.”

The AM01 comes with Windows 11 Home Edition pre-installed, as long as you opt for a configuration with RAM and an SSD. Ayaneo says the Ryzen 7 APU can handle mainstream online games and “mild” AAA titles. Its AYA Space tool can handle tasks like bringing all of your games from different storefronts together in one place, limiting the framerate and adding a performance overlay.

Although it’s generally worth exercising caution when it comes to products promoted on crowdfunding platforms, Ayaneo effectively uses Indiegogo as a storefront. It’s not looking to crowdfund the AM01. In fact, the mini PC is pretty much ready to roll. The company says the AM01 is slated to ship in December, so the mini PC should start reaching customers over the next few weeks.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ayaneos-macintosh-inspired-mini-pc-starts-at-149-with-internals-to-match-184717612.html?src=rss 

Many companies give away free plugins in honor of the holiday season, but Universal Audio is taking things a step further. The audio giant is giving away free Volt 2 hardware interfaces with the purchase of a yearly subscription to its Spark plugin platform. These interfaces typically cost $170, so this is a pretty great deal for beginners, as the hardware plus the Spark software is pretty much everything you need.

Spark subscriptions are also on sale for the holidays, at $150 instead of $240, though this price point is fairly common. The end result? You pay $150 and you get a year of access to every available plugin on the service, plus the Volt 2. Not bad. The company’s subscription-based Spark platform allows access to dozens of popular UAD plugins, from iconic compressors like the 1176 to virtual instruments like the company’s Minimoog reproduction.

As for the Volt 2, this diminutive audio interface features a pair of TRS / XLR inputs on the front and associated gain control knobs. There’s a phantom power button for condenser mics and a proprietary Vintage Mode that runs the signal through a simple tube preamp emulation. These interfaces are powered via USB-C, though ship with a 5V jack for when you’re plugged into an iPad or another mobile device.

In our official review, we praised the Volt 2 audio interface for its low noise floor, simple controls and low latency, particularly when compared to rival Windows-based products. The biggest con was the price, which is normally the case for UAD products. Now that it’s down to $0 for this promotion, that worry has dissipated.

This isn’t the first time that UAD has leveraged the holiday season to give away free hardware. The company used to hand out free Satellite DSP accelerators to run its plugins with the purchase of higher-priced hardware items like the multi-channel 4-710d preamp and compressor.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/universal-audio-is-giving-away-volt-2-audio-interfaces-with-spark-subscriptions-182131900.html?src=rss