The iPad has just turned 15. So has it lived up to its promise? And what, exactly, was that promise? CC-licensed photo by void-oo on Flickr.

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There’s another post coming this week at the Social Warming Substack on Friday at 0845 UK time. Free signup.

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A selection of 9 links for you. Ageing. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.

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White House evaluates effect of China AI app DeepSeek on national security • Reuters

Andrea Shalal, David Shepardson and Kanishka Singh:

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U.S. officials are looking at the national security implications of the Chinese artificial intelligence app DeepSeek, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday, while President Donald Trump’s crypto czar said it was possible that intellectual property theft could have been at play.

The National Security Council is reviewing the app’s implications, Leavitt said. “This is a wake-up call to the American AI industry,” she added, echoing Trump’s comments from a day earlier while also saying the White House was working to “ensure American AI dominance.”

Investors sold technology stocks across the globe on Monday over concerns the emergence of a low-cost Chinese AI model would threaten market dominance of U.S.-based AI leaders such as OpenAI and Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google.

White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar David Sacks was asked on Fox News if there was intellectual property theft involved in the rise of DeepSeek.

“Well, it’s possible. There’s a technique in AI called distillation, which you’re going to hear a lot about, and it’s when one model learns from another model,” Sacks said in the interview.

“I think one of the things you’re going to see over the next few months is our leading AI companies taking steps to try and prevent distillation … That would definitely slow down some of these copycat models,” he added.

During his administration, former President Joe Biden placed a wide range of export restrictions on AI chips and the equipment used to make them, hoping to hamper AI development in China.

Trump said on Monday the Chinese app should act as a spur for American companies and added it was good that companies in China have come up with a cheaper, faster method of artificial intelligence.

“The release of DeepSeek AI from a Chinese company should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win,” Trump said.

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Oh noes the AI may have used content from.. another model? Stop, you copycat!
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iPad at 15: hit or a miss? • On my Om

Om Malik:

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Over the years, it’s fair to say the iPad has suffered from a subpar operating system experience. There has been a distinct lack of popular and hit applications. Still, one can’t ignore the amazing hardware and its true capabilities. If only there were more interesting apps — not games — that tapped into what Apple packs into it. The device has been a playground for new technologies — screens, LiDAR, M-class silicon, for example.

Still, there is no denying that for children and elders, the iPad is a perfect computer. Children, in particular, seem to be intuitively drawn to it, swiping and interacting with ease. Giving my mother an iPad and seeing it open up her world has been a joy to watch. I am sure that sentiment is shared by others with aging parents. Not surprisingly, those of us who have grown up using desktop computers struggle with the elegance, simplicity, and constraints of the iPad.

I fell in love with the iPad the minute I played with it. I still am! It reminded me of a slate — on which I learned to write from my grandfather. That slate was very analog. “On January 27th, when I first picked up the iPad, I was that 4-year-old boy again. I felt like I was getting that old slate of mine one more time,” I wrote in my first (but not last) essay about the iPad.

Still, my first impression of the iPad was that it was device “made for the consumption of digital media: games, music, photos, videos, magazines, newspapers and e-books. Sure, you can use it to check your email or work on a keynote, but the iPad’s primary purpose is to help you consume the ever-expanding amount of digital content on offer.”

Looking back, I think I might have gotten that right.

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Great for kids and older users unfamiliar with computers and people who just want to watch stuff? Yes, but nobody had been filling that gap before.
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Google Maps will rename Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America in US • The Guardian

Dan Milmo:

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Google has confirmed it will rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America on Google Maps in the US, after an executive order from Donald Trump.

It will remain the Gulf of Mexico in Mexico, while users outside of the US and Mexico will see both names on Google Maps. The Alaskan peak Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, will also be changed to Mount McKinley in the US in line with Trump’s executive order on 20 January.

“We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government,” said Google in a post on X.

Explaining the different labels for the gulf in the US, Mexico and the rest of the word, Google added: “When official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. That applies here too.”

…Google has applied the same locale-based labelling conventions to other locations subject to naming disputes. Outside of Japan and South Korea, the body of water bordering both nations is listed as the “Sea of Japan (East Sea)”.

In 2012, Iran threatened to take legal action against Google over its decision to drop the name Persian Gulf from Google Maps and leave the waterway between Iran and the Arabian peninsula nameless. The body of water is now labelled “Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf)” in other countries.

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Trump’s impatience with everything is quite the spectacle. But Google is, as the previous examples point out, just choosing to go with the path of least political resistance, as it has done in the past.
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Middle East becomes fastest-growing renewables market outside China • Financial Times

Malcolm Moore:

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Until this month, the oil-rich United Arab Emirates had modest ambitions when it came to renewable energy: to install roughly as many solar panels each year as the UK.

But then Masdar, the country’s state-owned renewable energy company, decided to make a splash at a huge trade fair in Abu Dhabi.

In front of the UAE president, it announced it would build a $6bn 5 gigawatt solar plant backed with more than 19GWh of battery storage — the largest such project ever attempted. 

When it starts in two years’ time, its batteries will give the country a constant output of 1GW, enough to power more than 700,000 homes without having to rely on gas-fired plants when the sun is not shining.

“This will transform renewable energy into baseload energy,” said Sultan Al Jaber, the chair of Masdar. “It is a first step that could become a giant leap.”

As the UAE was revealing its new solar project, Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, announced a joint venture that would start producing lithium, a key ingredient for batteries, as early as 2027.

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It’s taken a very long time, but maybe the Arab oil states are realising that it’s not going to be eternal.
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UK energy storage slows down as Ireland pipeline gains traction • Energy-Storage.News

Cameron Murray:

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With another record-breaking year in global energy storage deployment, the UK and Ireland saw diverging trends. The UK’s energy storage market seemingly slowed down in 2024, compared to Ireland’s strong growth.

In the UK, over 30GWh of battery energy storage system (BESS) planning applications were submitted, with over 35% coming from the last quarter alone: whereas in Ireland, despite having less than four times the capacity submitted, there was a 63% rise in new capacity submitted compared to 2023.

…However, energy storage is still a growing industry. Several large projects have been announced and are in the TEC register (remaining in the pre-planning stage). This slow-down in applications could possibly show that developers are now focusing on the build-out of projects. Some notable applications in 2024 included NatPower’s Teeside Green Energy Park with a capacity over 1GW.

The number of large projects is staying at about the same level: in both 2024 and 2023, around 23% of applications submitted were for BESS projects over 100MW. But the proportion of >100MW projects in the overall capacity submitted decreased by 10 percentage points, showing that 2024 saw developers prioritising larger projects.

By country, England maintained the most applications at 62%, followed by Scotland at 21%, then Northern Ireland and Wales. Wales also saw the largest increase in applications in 2024, growing 150% from the prior year; the county is ramping up its energy storage plans with the 1GW Rover Way Energy Storage projects both submitted and approved last year, and the overall capacity submitted nearly quadrupling from 2023. The country with the highest average capacity per site was England at 167MWh/site.

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I wondered to myself if home installations are having any impact. Answer: not yet:

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home BESS installations had a record-breaking year, with 20,044 installations completed – over quadruple the number of BESS installations in 2023. The average installation cost for home BESS saw significant and somewhat votatile change, ending in a £72 increase in average installation cost between January and December 2024. Across 2024, the average cost of a home BESS installation sat at £8,035, a 13% decrease from 2023’s average of £9,343.

Notably, more remote areas of the UK appear to be some of the most interested in home BESS installations, with the Isles of Scilly and the Shetland Islands topping the table for regions with the highest percentage of homes with BESS installations at 0.78% and 0.7% respectively. Just behind these island regions is the Moray region of Scotland, on the northeast coast of the nation, which, at 185 home BESS installations, has a 0.44% installation rate for battery technology.

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As Trump dumps clean energy, fossil fuels lose their grip on Europe • Forbes

David Vetter:

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As U.S. president Donald Trump promises to “drill baby drill,” new figures from Europe show fossil fuels are being pushed out of the EU’s electricity system, with solar energy generation overtaking coal power for the first time.

Hot on the heels of Trump withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement and stopping American offshore wind projects, energy research group Ember announced Wednesday that clean energy sources generated more than 70% of the EU’s electricity in 2024, while electricity generation from fossil fuels fell 8.7% to comprise just 28.9% of the total.

Significantly, solar power rose 21.7% to generate more than 11% of the EU’s electricity, while a fall in coal generation led to the most polluting fossil fuel producing just 9.8% of the total.

“Fossil fuels are losing their grip on EU energy,” said report lead author Chris Rosslowe, commenting on the release. “At the start of the European Green Deal in 2019, few thought the EU’s energy transition could be where it is today; wind and solar are pushing coal to the margins and forcing gas into structural decline.”

Not including nuclear power, renewables rose 7.6% from 2023 figures to generate almost 48% of European electricity last year. The rapid drop in the use of fossil fuels, meanwhile, caused EU power sector emissions to fall to 585 million tons of CO2—less than half the peak of 1,218 million tons seen in 2007.

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Great – now can we have more nuclear plants too please? Although if we get enough batteries in homes, maybe that means we can balance demand better.
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Sky News to overhaul newsroom around paid-for content • Financial Times

Daniel Thomas:

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Sky News has unveiled plans for a root and branch overhaul of its programming and newsroom aimed at creating a model of premium paid content to safeguard its future from an existential threat to traditional TV.

In a speech to staff on Tuesday, David Rhodes, executive chair of the Comcast-backed news broadcaster, laid out a strategy dubbed Sky News 2030 that will reshape its digital-focused service over the next five years to attract new audiences willing to pay for news, according to people familiar with the matter.

Rhodes told staff that the business’s revenue streams were “largely stagnant” given a reliance on advertising and sponsorship, the people said, prompting the need for new income streams centred on subject hubs that will offer paid products from podcasts and newsletters to events and live shows.

This is expected to include some subscription-based services where premium content is held back for paying customers. While its traditional 24-hour linear TV channel will continue to be important, Rhodes said priorities and resources would be shifted to these premium content tiers.

As with most linear channels, Sky News is struggling to arrest a steep decline in traditional TV audiences, putting pressure on revenues as advertising moves online and where viewers increasingly use social media platforms such as YouTube and TikTok.

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Everyone is struggling to make news pay – but for video-based news, their lunch is absolutely being eaten by all the video-capable services. This is going to be brutal. How will CNN and all the others adapt?
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UK weighs making Netflix users pay licence fee to fund BBC • Bloomberg via Yahoo

Ellen Milligan and Ailbhe Rea:

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The UK is considering making households who only use streaming services such as Netflix and Disney pay the BBC licence fee, as part of plans to modernize the way it funds the public-service broadcaster.

Extending the fee to streaming applications is on a menu of options being discussed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office, the Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named discussing internal government deliberations.

Alternatives under discussion include allowing the British Broadcasting Corp. to use advertising, imposing a specific tax on streaming services, and asking those who listen to BBC radio to pay a fee.

The government is the early stages of examining how to overhaul the funding of Britain’s public broadcaster when its current 11-year charter ends on Dec. 31, 2027. Ministers are looking to either retain and alter the current television license fee model or scrap it and instead fund the BBC through alternative models such as taxation or subscription. That’s because viewing habits have changed as users gravitate toward on-demand services.

The talks are sensitive because the UK’s national broadcaster is often viewed as a key vehicle for the country’s soft power around the world. But the BBC — which is committed to maintaining impartiality in its editorial output — also frequently faces criticisms of bias from both the left and right of the country’s political spectrum.

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Tricky. A levy on streaming is the most like the licence fee as it currently stands – a levy on television watching. Advertising would be unpopular. Demanding a radio licence fee faces all sorts of problems because almost everyone has one, and you’d struggle to know whether people had paid or not.

Also if this is the “early stages”, they’d better get a move on. Three calendar years is going to zoom by.
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‘Stamp out paper mills’ — science sleuths on how to fight fake research • Nature

Anna Abalkina, René Aquarius, Elisabeth Bik, David Bimler, Dorothy Bishop, Jennifer Byrne, Guillaume Cabanac, Adam Day, Cyril Labbé and Nick Wise:

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Certain research fields seem to be particularly susceptible, namely those in which the number of possible experiments far exceeds the available scientific resource. Fields we know of include non-coding RNAs in human cancer and crystallography — vast numbers of different RNA combinations and crystal structures can potentially be investigated. In chemistry, 44% of papers that are retracted owing to fraud are published in crystallography. There are sure to be other fields.

Paper mills are already exploiting large language models (LLMs) to avoid plagiarism detectors and AI image generators to mass-produce papers. One preprint9 suggests that at least 10% of all PubMed abstracts published in 2024 were written with LLMs — although it is challenging to differentiate between papers from mills and those by legitimate authors who want to improve their writing. We predict further exploitation of AI-generated images to produce figures in future paper-mill products. These are likely to be difficult to detect. Journals can help by promoting open science and demanding the raw data for studies — the more information is available about papers, the easier it is to spot new tricks by paper mills.

We’re often asked to speak at universities and conferences, and consistently come across academics and PhD students who have never heard of paper mills. By preparing people to recognize and call out fake research, the scientific community can build up immunity against paper mills.

Everyone involved in disseminating and digesting research — editors, publishers, students, authors, funding organizations, institutions, bibliographic databases and governments — needs to understand what paper mills are and know how to spot the telltale signs of fake papers. Anyone can learn to look out for image falsification or duplication in papers in their field, as well as for nonsensical text or equations, problematic references and reagents, irrelevant citations and implausible co-authorships. Free tools such as the Problematic Paper Screener10 developed by one of us (G.C.) can help researchers to spot papers that might be fraudulent.

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Paper mills, of course, are networks of publications which offer fake peer review or sell authorships or generally don’t do what scientific publication demands.
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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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Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified