Feed aggregator

Coffee Prices Post Largest Annual Jump Since 1997

Slashdot.org - Fri, 09/12/2025 - 14:10

US retail coffee prices surged 21% year-over-year in August, the largest annual increase since October 1997, according to Thursday's Consumer Price Index. The monthly 4% jump marks the steepest rise in 14 years. Trump administration tariffs on major coffee exporters -- 50% on Brazil, 20% on Vietnam, and 10% on Colombia -- are driving costs higher as 99% of US coffee consumption relies on imports. J.M. Smucker plans its third price increase this winter for Folgers and Cafe Bustelo brands after raising prices in May and August. New Orleans chain French Truck Coffee has implemented a 4% tariff surcharge. Starbucks expects peak cost impacts in 2026 due to its advance purchasing practices. KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk predicts prices will exceed historical records as Brazilian tariff effects reach retail shelves.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Everyone Is Making Smart Glasses Now

Slashdot.org - Fri, 09/12/2025 - 13:30

Smart glasses development has expanded beyond Meta, Google and Apple to include dozens of manufacturers across three distinct categories, UploadVR reports. HTC launched its Vive Eagle glasses in Taiwan this month at $550, while Solos' AirGo V2 arrives in Q4 2025 for $300. The market segments into displayless models featuring cameras and AI assistants, heads-up display glasses providing contextual information overlays and true AR glasses capable of spatial object positioning. Chinese manufacturers dominate the sub-$100 segment. Snap plans consumer AR glasses for 2026. Amazon is reportedly developing two HUD models targeting delivery drivers and consumers for mid-2026 release.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Opendoor Board Chair Says Company is 'Bloated,' Needs To Cut 85% of Workforce

Slashdot.org - Fri, 09/12/2025 - 12:40

Keith Rabois, co-founder and newly minted board chair of Opendoor, said remote work and a "bloated" workforce have been a drag on the online real estate platform's culture, as he vowed to slash headcount. CNBC: "There's 1,400 employees at Opendoor. I don't know what most of them do. We don't need more than 200 of them," Rabois told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Friday.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is Making 'Significant Investments' in Training Its Own AI Models

Slashdot.org - Fri, 09/12/2025 - 12:13

A anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft AI launched its first in-house models last month, adding to the already complicated relationship with its OpenAI partner. Now, Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says the company is making "significant investments" in the compute capacity required to Microsoft's own future frontier models. "We should have the capacity to build world class frontier models in house of all sizes, but we should be very pragmatic and use other models where we need to," said Suleyman during Microsoft's employee-only town hall on Thursday. "We're also going to be making significant investments in our own cluster, so today MAI-1-preview was only trained on 15,000 H100s, a tiny cluster in the grand scheme of things." Suleyman hinted that Microsoft has ambitions to train models that are comparable to Meta, Google, and xAI's efforts on clusters that are "six to ten times larger in size" than what Microsoft used for its MAI-1-preview. "Much more to do, but it's good to take the first steps," said Suleyman.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AI-generated Medical Data Can Sidestep Usual Ethics Review, Universities Say

Slashdot.org - Fri, 09/12/2025 - 11:02

An anonymous reader shares a report: Medical researchers at some institutions in Canada, the United States and Italy are using data created by artificial intelligence (AI) from real patient information in their experiments without the need for permission from their institutional ethics boards, Nature has learnt. To generate what is called 'synthetic data', researchers train generative AI models using real human medical information, then ask the models to create data sets with statistical properties that represent, but do not include, human data. Typically, when research involves human data, an ethics board must review how studies affect participants' rights, safety, dignity and well-being. However, institutions including the IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital in Milan, Italy, the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) in Ottawa and the Ottawa Hospital, both in Canada, and Washington University School of Medicine (WashU Medicine) in St. Louis, Missouri, have waived these requirements for research involving synthetic data. The reasons the institutions use to justify this decision differ. However, the potential benefits of using synthetic data include protecting patient privacy, being more easily able to share data between sites and speeding up research, says Khaled El Emam, a medical AI researcher at the CHEO Research Institute and the University of Ottawa.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

10 examples of our new native image editing in the Gemini app10 examples of our new native image editing in the Gemini appKeyword contributor

GoogleBlog - Fri, 09/12/2025 - 11:00

A new Google DeepMind image editing model, fondly known as Nano Banana, is now in the Gemini app, giving you more creative control to blend and edit photos. Here are 10 …A new Google DeepMind image editing model, fondly known as Nano Banana, is now in the Gemini app, giving you more creative control to blend and edit photos. Here are 10 examples of what it can do.

Categories: Technology