Daily Archives: January 7, 2025

The carbon emissions of writing and illustrating are lower for AI than for humans

Posted on by

[…] In this article, we present a comparative analysis of the carbon emissions associated with AI systems (ChatGPT, BLOOM, DALL-E2, Midjourney) and human individuals performing equivalent writing and illustrating tasks. Our findings reveal that AI systems emit between 130 and 1500 times less CO2e per page of text generated compared to human writers, while AI illustration systems emit between 310 and 2900 times less CO2e per image than their human counterparts. Emissions analyses do not account for social impacts such as professional displacement, legality, and rebound effects. In addition, AI is not a substitute for all human tasks. Nevertheless, at present, the use of AI holds the potential to carry out several major activities at much lower emission levels than can humans.

[…]

Source: The carbon emissions of writing and illustrating are lower for AI than for humans | Scientific Reports

Note: the graphs have a logarithmic y-axis

Neural Lab’s AirTouch brings gesture control to Windows and Android devices with just a webcam. Unfortunately charges huge subscription, dooming it to failure.

Posted on by

Some of the best tech we see at CES feels pulled straight from sci-fi. Yesterday at CES 2025, I tested out Neural Lab’s AirTouch technology, which lets you interact with a display using hand gestures alone, exactly what movies like Minority Report and Iron Man promised.

[…]

Neural Lab’s software is compatible with tablets, computers and really any device running at least Android 11, Windows 10 and later or Linux. The technology was developed with accessibility in mind after one of the founders had trouble keeping in touch with their parents overseas because navigating video conferencing programs was just too difficult for the older generation.

[…]

AirTouch tracks 3D hand movements and keys off of eye gazes to recognize intent, allowing it to ignore extraneous gestures. It currently supports nine gestures and customization allows users to program up to 15.

[…]

AirTouch is available now as a $30-per-month subscription for individuals (and $300 monthly for companies). Neural Labs says it takes just five minutes to install the software on any compatible device.

Source: Neural Lab’s AirTouch brings gesture control to Windows and Android devices with just a webcam

Yay except not yay because it’s a subscription.

HDMI 2.2 debuts, but not really, with an ‘Ultra96’ cable and not very impressive specs

Posted on by

About seven years after the HDMI 2.1 specification was introduced, the HDMI Forum has announced the next generation: HDMI 2.2, which will require new cables to take advantage of its most high-performance features. It will not require a new connector, though, thankfully.

Though the HDMI Forum is officially calling the new specification HDMI 2.2, the accompanying cable will also receive a new name: Ultra96. All told, the selling point of both the Ultra96 cable and HDMI 2.2 specification are the increased bandwidth, which doubles the HDMI 2.1 bandwidth from 48Gbps to a staggering 96Gbps. [me: not really very impressive considering it doesn’t allow much over 8k resolution]

At this point, however, the HDMI Forum is only talking conceptually about the new specification. Companies who are part of the new HDMI adopter program will receive the full specifications in the first half of 2025

[…]

Remember, HDMI 2.1 supports uncompressed single-display resolution of 8K at 60Hz with 8-bit color depth at 4:2:0 chroma, and the same cables support compression at 10K120 resolution at 12-bit color depths.

[…]

Alternatively, users have the choice of using DisplayPort, which was “upgraded” from DisplayPort 2.0 to DisplayPort 2.1 in 2022, tightening the specification for USB 4. In January 2024, DisplayPort added the 2.1a specification, whose bandwidth tops out at 80Gbps.

[…]

Source: HDMI 2.2 debuts, with an ‘Ultra96’ cable for tomorrow’s displays | PCWorld

So it’s not really there yet and will only support 4K at 480Hz and 8K at 240Hz. Too late and way too little.