Periscope lenses have been available on smartphones for some years – but still aren’t common. Will Apple change that? CC-licensed photo by Judith Jackson on Flickr.
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On Friday, there’s another post due at the Social Warming Substack at about 0845 UK time.
A selection of 10 links for you. Submarine blue? I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.
Elon Musk let Russia scare him • The Atlantic
Anne Applebaum:
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The New Yorker has also described how Ukrainian soldiers abruptly lost their access to Starlink on the battlefield during a different set of land operations. Isaacson’s version of the maritime story implies that all of the drones in the operation washed ashore that evening. But recently in Ukraine, I met some of the engineers who helped design the unmanned sea vehicles, including an engineer who was involved in the first attempt to hit Russian ships in Sebastopol. They told me that not all of the drones involved were lost. Some returned back to base, undamaged.
Here is the part you might not have heard, or not registered: the same team launched a similar attack again a few weeks later. On October 29, a fleet of guided sea drones packed with explosives did reach Sebastopol harbor, using a different communications system. They did hit their targets. They put one Russian frigate, the Admiral Makarov, out of commission. The team believes that they damaged at least one submarine and at least two other boats as well.
And then? Nuclear war did not follow. Despite Musk’s fears, in other words—fears put into his head by the Russian ambassador, or perhaps by Putin himself—World War III did not erupt as a result of this successful attack on a Crimean port. Instead, the Russian naval commanders were spooked by the attack, so much so that they stuck close to Sebastopol harbor over the following weeks.
For their own security, I am choosing not to publish the names of the engineers. I was introduced to them by a tech executive I met on a previous trip to Ukraine, when I was writing about drone operations more broadly. This team has shown off its unmanned boats before, so I am not revealing secrets when I write that they are small, black, and hard to see on the water, and have a very long range—now more than 650 miles, the engineers told me.
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Of course the Russians who spoke to Musk led him up the garden path about what they would do. Because he’s an idiot and/or easily flattered/scared.
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2023 on track to be world’s hottest year on record, at 1.5ºC above pre-industrial • ABC News
Tom Saunders:
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This year is now almost certain to become Earth’s warmest on record after a hot July and August saw global temperatures reach the Paris Agreement target of 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels.
This is the first time the 1.5ºC threshold has been passed for more than one month, and only the second time it has ever been exceeded, behind February 2016.
Data released last week from Copernicus, a branch of the European Union Space Programme, shows August was 1.59ºC warmer than 1850-1900 levels, following a 1.6ºC increase in July.
The recent records have now lifted the year-to-date global temperature to the end of August to 1.35ºC above pre-industrial levels, just 0.01ºC behind 2016 — the current record holder, according to Copernicus data.
While the latter months of 2016 cooled off, global temperatures this year have been building, a trend likely to continue as El Niño develops further.
…The world’s waters have been so warm in 2023 that seven out of a possible eight months have entered the top 30 warmest on record, including four of the top five.
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A marker of failure, and inertia – in the form of resistance to change. But now the planet is changing, faster and faster. Wonder if some of the American politicians will argue that since we’re now already at 1.5ºC there’s no point trying to ameliorate it.
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Huawei watchers and the land of magical thinking • Digits to Dollars
Jonathan Goldberg:
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This weekend, the big news in certain circles was the news about Huawei’s new Mate 60 flagship smartphone and the seemingly miraculous Kirin 9000s chip that powers it. This chap has riveted everyone’s attention as it seems to raise questions about the efficacy of the US government’s restrictions on Huawei and China’s access to advanced manufacturing processes.
…We know that Huawei has been investing heavily in fabs in recent years. We saw signs of that in their investments in third parties, but it is also reasonable to assume they spent a lot of time and money working with SMIC [China’s chip fab] engineers, efforts that would not show up publicly. Critically, we do not know what the yield of this chip is and whether it is remotely profitable for SMIC. SMIC has been held to DUV machinery, cut off from ASML’s EUV machines by US actions. Their 7nm process is probably the limit of what they can produce without access to EUV. And let’s not forget that labels like “7nm” are marketing terms. In terms of actual comparisons what matters most is transistor density, and on this metric this source claims SMIC is about 10% behind what TSMC labels 7nm. There is a non-zero chance that SMIC is actually struggling to build these parts and is losing a lot of money in the process. (Again, we may never see this in their public accounts, as someone, somewhere is likely subsidizing this work.)
Most people assume that SMIC is pushing the boundaries of what DUV can accomplish. Unless Huawei and SMIC have made some incredible, secret breakthrough, this means there is no future for this process. Maybe they can squeeze out a bit more density for one more round, but beyond that they would be breaking the laws of physics. So while the Kirin 9000 is a real achievement, we are highly skeptical that this really changes anything.
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As Goldberg points out, those screaming about this chip showing the sanctions haven’t worked are essentially ignoring the reality, because doing so suits their own agenda.
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Twitter appears to throttle New York Times • Semafor
Max Tani:
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X, Elon Musk’s social media platform formerly known as Twitter, appears to be attempting to limit its users’ access to The New York Times.
Since late July, engagement on X posts linking to the New York Times has dropped dramatically. The drop in shares and other engagement on tweets with Times links is abrupt, and is not reflected in links to similar news organizations including CNN, the Washington Post, and the BBC, according to NewsWhip’s data on 300,000 influential users of X.
The drop in engagement in Times posts seems isolated to X: NewsWhip data showed that engagement with Times links shared on Facebook remained consistent relative to other outlets.
“There was a drop off in engagement for NYT compared to the other sites in late July/early August,” NewsWhip spokesperson Benedict Nicholson told Semafor.
Times employees had already taken note of the pattern, as high-profile attempts to share Times articles failed to travel on the platform. For instance, earlier this week, former President Barack Obama shared multiple New York Times articles on X about healthcare costs, which the service said reached fewer than 900,000 and 800,000 users respectively. The number was far lower than any other post shared by the former president since X began sharing that data publicly earlier this year — for comparison, a Politico link shared by the president got nearly 13 million views.
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Hanlon’s Law may apply, but Musk makes everything worse.
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Proust, ChatGPT and the case of the forgotten quote • The Guardian
Elif Batuman:
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The other day, I was looking for a quote in Proust, so I thought I would ask ChatGPT. Here’s how it went.
EB: Is there a passage in In Search of Lost Time when Proust talks about how love affairs repeat themselves, and says that when you’re writing about a love affair in the past, you’re often drawing inspiration from a different love affair in the present?
CHATGPT: Yes, there is a passage in Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time” (also known as “Remembrance of Things Past”) where he discusses the repetition of love affairs and the influence of present experiences on writing about past love affairs. The passage can be found in the first volume of the novel, “Swann’s Way” (Du côté de chez Swann).
In this passage, Proust reflects on how our present emotions and experiences often color our memories of the past. He suggests that when we write about a past love affair, we might unknowingly be influenced by the emotions and experiences of a current or recent love affair. This blurring of past and present emotions can result in the repetition of themes and feelings in our writing.
The idea of how love affairs repeat themselves and how we are influenced by our present experiences when writing about the past is a recurring theme in Proust’s work, as he delves into the complexities of memory, perception, and the nature of human emotions.
Please note that the specific wording and context of the passage may vary depending on the translation and edition of the novel. If you’re interested in exploring this theme further, I recommend reading “Swann’s Way” to experience Proust’s beautiful prose and intricate exploration of love, memory, and the passage of time.
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There’s a lovely meta-joke in Batuman’s efforts to pin down something “remembered” by a machine about a piece of work that is all about remembering.
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What does it cost to try to stay young forever? Inside the hyped-up world of anti-ageing • The Globe and Mail
Alex Cyr:
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Toronto’s Longevity House, a 9,000 square-foot facility that opened in 2021 and charges $100,000 for a lifetime membership, offers clients access to a suite of services such as red-light therapy, chakra therapy and electrical muscle-stimulation suits.
In the United States, startup Ambrosia started offering infusions of blood from teenagers and young adults in 2016, charging US$8,000 a litre, only to be shut down that same year after being dubbed unsafe by the FDA.
The dearth of robust scientific studies on these treatments is making some experts question their effectiveness and safety. Brett Finlay, a B.C.-based microbiologist and co-author of The Whole-Body Microbiome, says he wants to wait for results from clinical trials before believing in any trendy anti-ageing method. The problem, he said, is the length of time it takes to collect such data. One longitudinal ageing study from the Netherlands that set out to study the change in physical, emotional, cognitive and social functioning of people as they age has been continuing since 1992.
In the absence of data, Finlay fears that internet movements such as taking steroids for muscle growth or applying snake venom to wrinkles are motivating demand for quick fixes, which are clouding tried and true healthy practices.
“The truth is that we already have anti-ageing methods, but they are incredibly boring and hard: It is exercise, eating a balanced diet with lots of fibre, good sleep and cultivating a good community of people around you,” said Finlay, adding that these lifestyle practices have been shown to reduce stress and inflammation, which are correlated with some of the most prevalent causes of death such as obesity-caused illnesses, diabetes, cancer, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
“Trends and fads come and go, whereas science just plods along and slowly gives us answers.”
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Apparently Peter Thiel wants to be cryogenically frozen when he dies. I say, why wait? Anyhow, anti-ageing is reckoned to be a $63bn industry worldwide. Or you could follow Finlay’s rather cheaper advice.
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China sows disinformation about Hawaii fires using new techniques • The New York Times
David Sanger and Steven Lee Myers:
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When wildfires swept across Maui last month with destructive fury, China’s increasingly resourceful information warriors pounced.
The disaster was not natural, they said in a flurry of false posts that spread across the internet, but was the result of a secret “weather weapon” being tested by the United States. To bolster the plausibility, the posts carried photographs that appeared to have been generated by artificial intelligence programs, making them among the first to use these new tools to bolster the aura of authenticity of a disinformation campaign.
For China — which largely stood on the sidelines of the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections while Russia ran hacking operations and disinformation campaigns — the effort to cast the wildfires as a deliberate act by American intelligence agencies and the military was a rapid change of tactics.
Until now, China’s influence campaigns have been focused on amplifying propaganda defending its policies on Taiwan and other subjects. The most recent effort, revealed by researchers from Microsoft and a range of other organizations, suggests that Beijing is making more direct attempts to sow discord in the United States.
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Guess they’ll have to duke it out with the Russians trying to do the same. Also, why is China bothering with stuff that Marjorie Taylor Greene does for free using the interstellar gas in her head?
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August 2020: What is a periscope lens for smartphone cameras? • How To Geek
Harry Guinness in August 2020:
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There just isn’t enough room to add a 12mm lens to a phone that’s only 8mm thick. Unless you do it sideways.
A periscope lens works much like a periscope on a submarine. Light enters the front element and is then reflected 90 degrees by an angled mirror. It passes through any other lens elements before hitting the camera sensor and is then recorded as a photo. By changing the direction in which the light travels, longer lenses don’t have to be as deep because they can be wide.
For phone manufacturers, this is a serious advantage. It’s much more practical to find the necessary space for a longer telephoto lens horizontally than it is to shrink the sensor or make a thicker phone.
This way, manufacturers aren’t limited to 50mm-equivalent lenses with 2x optical zoom (or, at a push and with some dubious marketing, 3x). It makes 100mm- (around 5x zoom) or even 200mm-equivalent (around 10x zoom) lenses possible.
…Chinese manufacturers (Oppo and Huawei, in particular) have been playing around with them for several years. The five-camera Huawei P40 Pro+ has a 10x periscope telephoto lens that’s equivalent to a 240mm lens on a full-frame camera.
The more widely available Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra has a 5x telephoto periscope lens that’s roughly equivalent to a 100mm.
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So Apple’s three years late to this particular party, and is believed to be reserving this only for the top-end phone. However this article from May 2023 shows only seven phones you can buy, from five manufacturers, which incorporate periscope cameras. Maybe not that common, then.
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Qualcomm to supply Apple with 5G chips until 2026 under new deal • Reuters via MSN
Stephen Nellis:
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Qualcomm said on Monday it had signed a deal with Apple to supply 5G chips until at least 2026, at a time when the iPhone maker faces increased challenges in China and looks to reinforce its supply chains elsewhere.
The deal extends a relationship worth billions of dollars to Qualcomm for at least three years beyond what was expected and indicates Apple is not rushing out its own modem, despite moving all its computers to processing chips of its own design.
Qualcomm shares were up 4% in early afternoon trade. The company is the leading designer of modem chips that connect phones to mobile data networks. Apple shares rose 0.5%.
San Diego, California-based Qualcomm previously signed a chip supply deal with Apple in 2019, after the two companies settled a protracted legal battle.
That supply agreement ends this year, meaning that the iPhones that Apple is expected to announce on Tuesday would be the last phone debut under that deal.
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Well this rather puts the kibosh on those stories from a couple of years ago, such as this one in November 2021 that “At today’s Investor Day event, Qualcomm CFO Akash Palkhiwala said that Qualcomm expects to supply just 20% of Apple’s modem chips in 2023.” Clearly, Qualcomm and Apple have patched things up (or that the 2019 purchase of most of Intel’s modem division for $1bn has completely fizzled).
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Billpayers could miss out on £1bn a year in savings due to wind auction error • Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit
George Smeeton:
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Offshore wind costs reached a record low strike price of around £50 per megawatt-hour (in current prices) in the Contracts for Difference (CfD) Allocation Round 4 (AR4) auction held in 2022. Despite subsequent project cost inflation due to the post-pandemic economic recovery, the gas crisis, and rising interest rates, offshore wind remains around a third cheaper than forecast wholesale prices set by gas of around £100/MWh for the middle of this decade.
However, the Administrative Strike Price (ASP) that caps CfD auction bids was not adjusted to reflect this inflation for the AR5 CfD auction held this year. By contrast, the Irish Government allowed for supply chain inflation in its recent auction, which has successfully secured 3GW of offshore wind capacity at competitive prices.
As a result, out of the UK’s 5GW of ‘shovel ready’ offshore wind projects that could be delivered in the mid-2020s, it appears that none have bid into AR5 and all could now face delays. Had these projects been able to secure contracts, even with higher strike prices they would have paid back £1bn per year in the mid-2020s, a saving that could now be delayed.
Commenting on the results, Jess Ralston, Energy Analyst at ECIU, said:
“The key point here is that even with inflation, offshore wind is still about a third cheaper than gas power stations with the price of gas set to remain higher than before the crisis.
“The more renewables, the less gas you have to buy. By failing to back offshore wind, the Government has added around £1 billion a year to energy bills in coming years.”
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Easy to forget that it’s not a forgone conclusion that you’ll get the cheaper energy built; governments have to take the right decisions too. The UK government didn’t, here.
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
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