DAILY NEWS

Stay Ahead, Stay Informed – Every Day

Advertisement
WORLD
The Wall Street Journal reveals Apple’s profit-making techniques by using graded chips to push low-priced products to grab the market | International | Central News Agency CNA
jackminion 0



Please agree to our privacy policy to enable news listening. (Central News Agency, San Francisco, comprehensive foreign news report on the 18th) The Wall Street Journal reported that while most electronic device manufacturers are being hit hard by rising costs, Apple in the United States has been able to launch low-priced new products such as MacBook Neo and iPhone 17e to grab the market, relying on the reuse of defective chips that have been used for many years. The report pointed out that Apple (Apple) has long been admired by consumers for its high-end price products, but its new entry-level notebook computer MacBook Neo is priced at only US$599 (approximately NT$18,900), and preliminary sales data show that this product is very popular. Although the MacBook Neo is equipped with Apple’s A18 Pro chip, which is the same chip as Apple’s high-end smartphone iPhone 16 Pro launched in 2024, it has been reduced from 6 cores to 5 cores. The Wall Street Journal said that this shows that Apple can retain some A18 Pro chips with a defective core for future use, because the defective core can be deactivated, and then such chips can be used in other lower-priced devices and still work very well. In fact, Apple is using the chip industry’s approach of finding ways to squeeze profits from less efficient processors, by binning its supply into “good”, “better” and “best” products, similar to how it sells eggs, gasoline, diamonds or hotel rooms. Analysts pointed out that this industry strategy, which has been in place for decades, was originally just to make the best use of chips, but now it has become the basis of Apple’s product line design strategy, allowing it to be accurately segmented to achieve effects that smaller rivals cannot match. In addition to using the flexibility of self-developed chips to launch lower-priced iPhones and Macs, Apple also leverages its strong supply chain advantages to reuse chips to engage in price wars and attract new users. The MacBook Neo, for example, is cheap enough to poach consumers who might otherwise buy a Google Chromebook or other desktop computer (PC). The iPhone 17e is also equipped with a “graded” chip and is cheap enough to attract users who originally used phones equipped with Google’s Android operating system. Market research companies Counterpoint and International Data Corporation (IDC) both said that due to the sharp increase in the price of memory and storage devices, it has become unprofitable for Apple’s competitors to sell lower-end products. On the other hand, Apple has an advantage in comparison and can seize the market by launching lower-priced products. Tim Culpan, a supply chain analyst who has written an article analyzing MacBook Neo chip orders, said: “If you can continue to use things that are not up to the highest specifications, in addition to saving time, money and reducing waste, you can also sell them to many customers that you might not otherwise be able to reach.” As long as Apple adds new users to its device products, it may add buyers for its services such as cloud storage iCloud and the App Store, and this type of business is also more profitable. The Wall Street Journal analyzed nearly 200 pages of Apple filings and found that since 2021, six versions of Apple’s A-series chips have been used in lower-priced devices with one less core count, while full-core versions were initially installed in higher-priced iPhones. However, people familiar with Apple’s supply chain revealed that the MacBook Neo is now so popular that even the remaining chips that were originally reused are running out, forcing Apple to place an order for the new A18 Pro in the near future. However, because Apple has only one supplier of its most advanced chips, TSMC, and TSMC is struggling to cope with the crazy demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. Therefore, as Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at Tianfeng International Securities in Hong Kong, said: “Apple no longer enjoys the (supply) flexibility it had in the past, and pressure is beginning to appear.” (Compiled by Zhang Zhengqian) ) 1150518 Support the Central News Agency’s choice to stand with the facts. Every donation you make is a small amount of sponsorship to download the Central News Agency’s “First-hand News” APP to get the latest news in real time. The text, pictures, and audio and video on this website may not be reproduced, publicly broadcast, or publicly transmitted and used without authorization.



Source link

WORLD
Animal hazard countermeasures in many places in Japan use AI to detect bear infestations | International | Central News Agency CNA
jackminion 0



Please agree to our privacy policy to enable news listening. (Central News Agency, Tokyo, 16th, comprehensive foreign news report) According to a Japanese media survey, among the 815 cities or wards (secondary administrative regions) surveyed across Japan, 685 regions have allocated funds for animal hazard countermeasures, accounting for 84% of the total. Some places use monitors equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) to detect bears in the hope of preventing damage. “Nihon Keizai Shimbun” recently investigated the 2026 budgets prepared by 815 secondary administrative regions across Japan to understand the status of responses to wildlife hazards. Among the budgets that have been prepared, measures to prevent intrusion such as installing electrified fences, purchasing box traps and other capturing equipment, and paying hunters are the most significant. In Hokkaido and Tohoku, more than 90% of local governments have prepared relevant budgets. All interviewed municipal offices in Hokkaido have prepared relevant budgets, and local specific countermeasures against species such as bears and deer are more prominent. In order to deal with wild animals such as brown bears and Ezo deer, Sapporo City in Hokkaido has allocated approximately 218 million yen to establish an early warning mechanism using drones and other means. Muroran City and Yubari City are evaluating and formulating capture reward systems. Local governments such as Tendo City in Yamagata Prefecture and Kamo City in Niigata Prefecture have chosen an “advance deployment” approach to subsidize the felling of fruit trees that attract bears to establish buffer zones between humans and wild animals. Toyama Prefecture’s Tonami City, Ishikawa Prefecture’s Haza City and other places have decided to adopt monitors equipped with AI functions in the hope of preventing victims. Some areas have begun to make good use of AI to detect the presence of bears. The Miyagi Prefecture government, which belongs to the Tohoku region of Japan, considered the increase in bear sightings and previously issued a “bear alert” for the entire prefecture. The Sendai City Government, where the Miyagi Prefectural Government is located, has allocated 297 million yen to deal with wild birds and animals, including Asiatic black bears, and promote relevant measures to deal with bears that appear in urban areas. In addition, in order to supplement the personnel responsible for capturing wild animals, many places have expanded the recruitment of talents with hunting licenses and subsidized people to obtain hunting licenses. In Western Japan, where there are fewer cases of bear damage, the focus is mainly on preventing damage to farmland caused by wild boars, deer, and monkeys. Preliminary statistics from Japan’s Central Ministry of the Environment show that in 2025 from April 1 last year to March 31 this year, 238 people were attacked by bears in Japan, and 13 of them died. Both the number of victims and the number of deaths hit a new high. More than 60% of these cases occurred in six northeastern counties. Moreover, in the year 2026, which starts on April 1 this year, it is expected that there will be more related cases in many places in Japan than in previous years. (Compiled by: Yang Weijing) 1150516 Support Central News Agency’s choice to stand with the facts. Every donation you make is a small amount of support to protect press freedom. Download the Central News Agency’s “First-hand News” APP to get the latest news in real time. The text, pictures and audio and video of this website may not be reproduced, publicly broadcast or publicly transmitted and used without authorization.



Source link

TECH & AI
Meet the Sad Wives of AI
jackminion 0



Though things keep changing, some analyses suggest that women are about 20 percent less likely than men to use generative AI. “It’s a function not of gender per se,” Rodgers suggests, “but of the occupations that women hold.” Women are disproportionately represented in jobs—education, health care, social services—that right now use AI less. The result could be a compounding disadvantage. Over time, it means less access to the boom’s financial rewards, more responsibility for the domestic labor it generates.And what happens when it doesn’t work out for the men? Many, if not most, won’t make it in AI, a lucrative but volatile business. “With job loss comes some depression,” Rodgers says. “Within the household, if one person is going through adverse mental health effects around job loss or uncertainty, the other naturally becomes the support person.” The cruel irony, for some sad wives, is that the moment their husband does leave AI, whether by choice or by force, there’s no relief. Now he’s home. Spiraling. Now she’s managing that too.It was nearing the end of my therapy session. I had been rambling for 50 minutes about the mental load, the changing hormones, whether my postpartum depression could really just be traced to the fact that it took longer than anticipated to fit back into my jeans. Then my therapist interrupted and asked what exactly my partner did for work again. “Oh,” I said. “Well, he’s head of AI at his company.”What she said next, I had to write down. Her client base, she allowed, is almost entirely women—women whose husbands, more often than not, are in some way professionally adjacent to AI. And it’s affecting their relationships. The pressure to keep up means zero boundaries at home. The very masculine energy of it all. And the constant fighting, which is about something bigger than them. He’s off in another world, a world of prompts and benchmarks and epiphanies, while she’s firmly in this one.The resentment builds quietly. Several of these sad wives, my therapist added, have turned down job opportunities in AI themselves. Not because they weren’t qualified, but because it’s hard to raise kids and disrupt civilization at the same time.Princess Diana famously said there were three people in her marriage. For the sad wives of AI, the third is a chatbot. I spoke to a few other family therapists, and they agreed with mine: The phenomenon is getting worse. “It’s a lot of tech wives,” one said, sighing. “A lot of tech wives.”A tiktok meme has been making the rounds recently: young women at their laptops or doing their makeup, captioned something like, “Working so hard so my man can work on his AI startup that loses $30K a month.” The comments section stands in solidarity: “I’m ded.” “Yas queen.” “Just so he can have ‘founder’ in his bio.” I tried to reach out to some of these women. None bit.I should also say I didn’t bother speaking to any of the actual husbands for this story. I’m sick of hearing from the men of AI. So many of us are. They have podcasts and Senate hearings and magazine profiles and probably a group chat with the president. They’ve been talked to—and I can’t stress this enough—enough.



Source link