Kalakshar US

Following negotiations in Geneva, the United States and China have agreed to lower tariffs substantially for the next 90 days, the White House announced. The aim is to de-escalate the current trade war and allow both parties time negotiate to achieve a “sustainable, long-term and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship,” they said in a joint statement. 

The US will temporarily lower its tariffs on Chinese goods from 145 to 30 percent (10 percent plus a 20 percent fentanyl-related levy). China, meanwhile, will cut its tariff on American imports from 125 percent to 10 percent. It’s not clear exactly how that will affect prices of electronics goods coming into America from China like smartphones, computers, cameras and drones.

The news caused an after-hours stock rally with S&P 500 futures rising 2.8 percent and the dollar up 0.7 percent against other currencies. “We want more balanced trade and I think both sides are committed to achieving that,” said US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent. “Neither side wants a decoupling.”  

The effect of US tariffs on the price of consumer goods was brought home recently with the news that DJI had increased the price of its popular Osmo Pocket 3 gimbal camera from $520 to $800 over the past few months. Given the rhetoric between the nations and the sky-high tariffs imposed, such a substantial reduction comes as a surprise. “This is better than I expected. I thought tariffs would be cut to somewhere around 50 percent and this is much lower,” economist Zhiwei Zhang told Reuters.  

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/us-and-china-agree-to-slash-tariffs-for-90-days-120050454.html?src=rss 

Apple is reportedly planning to introduce a small but welcome convenience feature with iOS 19: cross-device syncing for Wi-Fi access portals. This is according to the latest Power On newsletter from Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman. The feature would address the annoyance of having to individually fill out pop-up forms to access public Wi-Fi on all your devices, like when you’re at a hotel. According to Gurman, “This new feature will let you enter that information on one device and have it synced to your other products.”

It’s one of several upcoming features Apple may show off at its Worldwide Developers Conference, which is set for June 9-13 this year. The event is expected to bring some major design changes to the company’s operating systems that should make for a more consistent look between its products’ software. Gurman also reports that AirPods may be getting a live translation feature, which we could see at WWDC alongside a revamped Health app.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/ios-19-may-bring-a-feature-that-makes-signing-into-public-wi-fi-less-of-a-hassle-210435303.html?src=rss 

As first reported by Politico, the Trump administration has fired the Register of Copyrights and US Copyright Office Director, Shira Perlmutter. The Register of Copyrights works under the Librarian of Congress — a title held most recently by Carla Hayden, who was fired earlier this week for her DEI efforts, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The New York Times. Perlmutter’s dismissal comes just after the office released a report that raised concerns about certain uses of copyrighted material to train generative AI. It’s the third in a series of papers published over the last year analyzing copyright law as it pertains to AI.

The Trump administration — particularly DOGE — has been pushing for broader use of AI. In April, the White House called on federal agencies to develop AI strategies and name Chief AI Officers that will “serve as change agents and AI advocates.”

In a statement released after news of Perlmutter’s firing came to light, Congressman Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, called the move “a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis,” saying, “It is surely no coincidence [Donald Trump] acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/trump-has-fired-the-director-of-the-us-copyright-office-195646724.html?src=rss 

Following backlash about a quietly added clause to SoundCloud’s Terms of Use that says users’ content may be fed to AI, the company says it’s “never used artist content to train AI models,” and insists it “has always been and will remain artist-first.” The outrage came after tech ethicist Ed Newton-Rex (via TechCrunch) spotted a change to SoundCloud’s terms that was made in February 2024 seemingly without notifying users. The updated text states that by using the platform, “You explicitly agree that your Content may be used to inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services as part of and for providing the services.”

In a statement to TechCrunch, a spokesperson said the update was only meant to “clarify how content may interact with AI technologies within SoundCloud’s own platform” and that the company “has never used artist content to train AI models, nor do we develop AI tools or allow third parties to scrape or use SoundCloud content from our platform for AI training purposes.” SoundCloud’s official Reddit account posted similar statements on the social media platform in response to users’ outrage, and both noted that SoundCloud added a “no AI” tag for artists “to explicitly prohibit unauthorized use.”

AI may be used for things like music recommendations, playlist creation and fraud detection, the company said. “Any future AI tools will be built for artists to enhance discovery, protect rights, and expand opportunities,” SoundCloud posted on Reddit. “We hear your concerns and remain committed to transparency, artist control, and fair use.”

Just a few months ago, though, SoundCloud introduced a suite of AI tools geared toward music creation, on top of three others it had announced earlier that year. That includes AI tools for generating remixes, new tracks, beats and singing voices.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/soundcloud-says-its-never-trained-ai-using-artists-work-after-getting-called-out-for-terms-of-use-change-174433356.html?src=rss 

It won’t make you a better gamer, but Samsung’s latest gaming monitor entices those hunting for faster refresh rates. The company’s newest Odyssey OLED G6, which Samsung claims is the world’s first OLED gaming monitor with a 500Hz refresh rate, is now available for pre-order in Southeast Asian markets, with a global rollout due to follow later this year. Samsung first announced the display, along with its sibling with 4K resolution called the Odyssey OLED G8, right before CES 2025 in January.

The monitor is up for sale in a silver colorway on Samsung Singapore’s site for around 1,500 Singapore dollars, or around $1,150. The Odyssey OLED G6 is expected to see its first shipments starting May 18. For certain gamers, a high refresh rate could mean the difference between life and death in competitive first-person shooters like Counter-Strike 2 or Valorant. With most professional gamers using monitors that have a 240Hz refresh rate, Samsung’s latest offering has more than double the speed to emphasize more responsive and smoother gameplay. Beyond its groundbreaking refresh rate, the Odyssey OLED G6 has a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution and a response time of 0.03ms for less motion blur and ghosting in fast-paced action games.

As with any OLED monitor, burn-in is a serious drawback that leaves a faint impression of a bright image even when the screen is blank. To combat this, Samsung includes its OLED Safeguard+ technology, which uses a cooling system to lower operating temps and a detection system that automatically reduces the brightness of static images like logos and taskbars. Samsung put its Odyssey OLED G6 up for pre-order first in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, and will roll it out in phases to other countries.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/samsung-has-begun-taking-pre-orders-for-its-500hz-oled-gaming-monitor-183151123.html?src=rss 

One of the ultimate goals of medieval alchemy has been realized, but only for a fraction of a second. Scientists with the European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN, were able to convert lead into gold using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. Unlike the examples of transmutation we see in pop culture, these experiments with the LHC involve smashing subatomic particles together at ridiculously high speeds to manipulate lead’s physical properties to become gold.

The LHC is often used to smash lead ions together to create extremely hot and dense matter similar to what was observed in the universe following the Big Bang. While conducting this analysis, the CERN scientists took note of the near-misses that caused a lead nucleus to drop its neutrons or protons. Lead atoms only have three more protons than gold atoms, meaning that in certain cases the LHC causes the lead atoms to drop just enough protons to become a gold atom for a fraction of a second — before immediately fragmenting into a bunch of particles.

Alchemists back in the day may be astonished by this achievement, but the experiments conducted between 2015 and 2018 only produced about 29 picograms of gold, according to CERN. The organization added that the latest trials produced almost double that amount thanks to regular upgrades to the LHC, but the mass made is still trillions of times less than what’s necessary for a piece of jewelry. Instead of trying to chase riches, the organization’s scientists are more interested in studying the interaction that leads to this transmutation.

“It is impressive to see that our detectors can handle head-on collisions producing thousands of particles, while also being sensitive to collisions where only a few particles are produced at a time, enabling the study of electromagnetic ‘nuclear transmutation’ processes,” Marco Van Leeuwen, spokesperson for the A Large Ion Collider Experiment project at the LHC, said in a statement.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/scientists-find-lead-really-can-be-turned-into-gold-with-help-from-the-large-hadron-collider-163431201.html?src=rss