Intel’s Cooper Lake microarchitecture is aimed to replace the company’s current Cascade Lake offerings, and it might be bringing along some new tricks for machine learning and artificial intelligence thanks to Facebook. According to reports, Facebook has been working closely with the semiconductor manufacturer, collaborating on a feature known as Bfloat16. If utilized correctly, the new partnership could allow for upcoming machines to accelerate their A.I. processes.
Expected to be released sometime in mid-2019, Cooper Lake offers an upgrade to Cascade Lake, offering Core i7, Core i9, and a range of Xeon processors with Intel’s 14nm microarchitecture. Based upon Intel’s Whitley platform, Cooper Lake CPUs are said to offer higher octa-channel memory bandwidths and an I/O upgrade from PCIe 3.0 to PCIe 4.0 for faster device interfacing. The new offerings are aimed at PC enthusiasts and those running server applications.
With Facebook having its fingers within the machine learning cookie jar for quite some time, it is not as surprising as one might first initially think that the company is working alongside Intel. The newly included feature known as Bfloat16 allows for machines to express information with a total of only 16 bits rather than the standard 32-bit number format. What this means in real-world scenarios is that machines could now convert information faster.
The average consumer may not be aware of how much A.I. processing their Windows or Mac machine currently employs, but functions such as speech recognition and image identification, require the latest machine learning processes. Every time you power up your favorite photo app and allow it to find similar faces, it is utilizing your CPU for an A.I. workload.
But, why might Facebook get involved with Intel’s design process? It is not hard to see why a company such as Facebook would want to see a chip produced that can better handle A.I. workloads. Many of the features that we use on Facebook, down to how our newsfeeds are personalized, rely on machine learning. Intel and Facebook teaming up together could result in more efficient chips being designed for the process, also allowing for Facebook to run its server infrastructure more efficiently.
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.