DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Stunning Webb telescope image shows closest star-forming region
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth, is seen in a composite of separate exposures acquired by the James Webb Space Telescope using the NIRCam instrument released July 12, 2023. The Webb telescope, which was launched in 2021 and began collecting data last year, has reshaped the understanding of the early universe while taking stunning pictures of the cosmos. Rho Ophiuchi is only about a million years old, a blink of the eye in cosmic time. The Rho Ophiuchi images shows how Webb gives us a new window into the formation of stars and planets," Pontoppidan said. The orbiting observatory was designed to be far more sensitive than its Hubble Space Telescope predecessor.

Persons: James Webb, Klaus Pontoppidan, Alyssa Pagan, Handout, Webb, Pontoppidan, Hubble, Bill Nelson, Will Dunham, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: NASA, ESA, CSA, REUTERS, Wednesday, James Webb Space Telescope, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Hubble, Telescope, Thomson Locations: REUTERS WASHINGTON

☆ Webb telescope’s first anniversary image reveals the birth of sunlike stars
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

CNN —The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a stunning new image of the closest star-forming region to Earth, located 390 light-years away. The release of the image marks the first anniversary since the space observatory began observing the universe. “Webb’s image of Rho Ophiuchi allows us to witness a very brief period in the stellar lifecycle with new clarity. The most powerful telescope ever sent to space, Webb launched on December 25, 2021, and NASA shared its first set of scintillating images on July 12, 2022. Both have served as the targets of other telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope in the past.

Persons: James Webb, another’s, ”, Klaus Pontoppidan, Webb, “, Bill Nelson, “ Webb, Nicola Fox, Eric Smith, “ Webb’s, Jane Rigby, NASA’s, “ We’ve, we’ve, — Organizations: CNN, Telescope, Telescope Science, NASA, Astrophysics Division, NASA Headquarters, Hubble, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Locations: Baltimore , Maryland, Greenbelt , Maryland

☆ Oracle's cloud business, which runs TikTok, could be hurt the most from Biden's new proposed restrictions for China
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-06 | by ( Julie Bort | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Most US cloud companies won't be too hurt except perhaps Oracle, which runs TikTok. US cloud computing companies are about to be the latest target in the discord between the Biden administration and China. That loophole involves cloud computing companies. They merely have to pay for cloud computing services offered by the largest cloud providers. Chinese companies have plenty of local cloud providers to use for their cloud computing needs, like Tencent and Alibaba Cloud.

Persons: Biden, Bernstein, Mark Moerdler, Moerdler, Moerdler isn't, Ampere, Larry Ellison, Joe Biden, Julie Bort Organizations: Morning, Oracle, Wall Street, Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, TikTok, Nvidia, supercomputing, AMD, Twitter Locations: China, Beijing

☆ Microsoft says it looked at acquiring Zynga but opted to go bigger with Activision
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Zynga was originally for the Facebook hit social game FarmVille, before eventually expanding into mobile games, largely through acquisitions. Prior to the Microsoft offer, Activision met with a financial firm to work on topping Take-Two's purchase of Zynga, CNBC reported at the time. Spencer didn't say when Microsoft was in talks with Zynga, and the company wouldn't provide further comment. Spencer said that after the company went to Zynga, he worked with Microsoft finance chief Amy Hood to look for mobile opportunities. Activision grew its portfolio of mobile games with the 2016 acquisition of King, publisher of Candy Crush Saga.

Persons: Phil Spencer, Justin Sullivan, Spencer, Spencer didn't, Tencent, Amy Hood, King, Candy Organizations: FRANCISCO, Microsoft, Activision, FTC, Activision Blizzard, Zynga, Federal Trade Commission, Facebook, FarmVille, CNBC, Sony, Apple Locations: CALIFORNIA, San Francisco , California, San Francisco

☆ Alibaba appoints Joseph Tsai, Eddie Wu to succeed Daniel Zhang as chairman and CEO
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Laura He | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Hong Kong CNN —Joseph Tsai, executive vice chairman and cofounder of Alibaba Group, will succeed Daniel Zhang as chairman, according to an announcement by the Chinese tech giant on Tuesday. Eddie Wu, chairman of Alibaba’s e-commerce platform Taobao and Tmall Group, will succeed Zhang as chief executive officer and replace him on the company’s board of directors. Following the transition, Zhang will continue to serve as the chairman and CEO of Alibaba’s cloud unit. “I am grateful for the trust of the Alibaba Group board of directors and am honored to succeed Daniel as Alibaba’s CEO,” he said. Zhang was appointed by Alibaba as CEO in May 2015, eight years after he joined the company.

Persons: Hong Kong CNN — Joseph Tsai, Daniel Zhang, Jack Ma, Eddie Wu, Zhang, ” Zhang, Wu, “, Daniel, ”, Alibaba, Ma, Masa Son Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, Alibaba, Alibaba’s, Tmall, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, Ant Group, Alibaba Group, University of Hong Kong, University of Tokyo Locations: Hong Kong, Beijing, Japan, China

☆ Exclusive: Amazon's cloud unit is considering AMD's new AI chips
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The remarks came during an AMD event where the chip company outlined its strategy for the AI market, which is dominated by rival Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O). While AWS has not made any public commitments to use AMD's new MI300 chips in its cloud services, Dave Brown, vice president of elastic compute cloud at Amazon, said AWS is considering them. Nvidia does sell its chips piecemeal but is also asking cloud providers if they are willing to offer an entire system designed by Nvidia in a product called DGX Cloud. Brown said AWS had declined to work with Nvidia on the DGX Cloud offering. AWS started selling Nvidia's H100 chip in March, but as part of systems of its own design.

Persons: Nvidia's, Lisa Su, Su, Dave Brown, We're, Brown, Stephen Nellis, Kim Coghill Organizations: FRANCISCO, Web Services, Devices Inc, Reuters, Nvidia Corp, AMD, AWS, Nvidia, Oracle Corp, Thomson Locations: San Francisco

STOCKHOLM, June 6 (Reuters) - Swedish startup evroc, which is backed by EQT Ventures and Norrsken VC, plans to raise and invest 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) over the next couple of years to start operating two "hyperscale" data centres. Led by serial entrepreneur Mattias Åström, evroc plans to keep the data within Europe. It has raised a seed round, and plans to build eight hyperscale data centres by 2028, three software development hubs and employ over 3,000 people. It will use a technique called "eco load balancer" which will move data processing between evroc's data centres based on where renewable energy is most readily available and affordable. "When there is sunshine in Spain, we move data processing to Spain; when there's wind in the Netherlands, we move data processing there," Åström said.

Persons: Mattias Åström, Åström, Supantha Mukherjee, Hugh Lawson Organizations: EQT Ventures, Norrsken, Reuters, Thomson Locations: STOCKHOLM, Europe, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Northvolt, Stockholm

☆ Alibaba plans to list cloud division as quarterly revenue misses expectations
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

In this article BABABABA Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNTAlibaba Cloud, the cloud computing subsidiary of Alibaba, unveiled its ChatGPT-style product Tongyi Qianwen during the 2023 Alibaba Cloud Summit on Tuesday morning. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAlibaba announced plans to spin off its cloud division as a separate, publicly traded company, while the e-commerce titan's quarterly revenue missed expectations. In its Thursday report, Alibaba said it plans to spin off its cloud division as a newly listed company, subject to restructuring certain assets, liabilities and contracts, and regulatory approvals. Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said Alibaba's cloud spin-off plan was a "no brainer strategic move that we believe adds to the sum of the parts valuation on BABA." "We believe this was a step in the right direction for the Alibaba story," Ives told CNBC in emailed comments Thursday.

☆ Amazon Web Services salaries: See how much engineers, analysts and hundreds of others at the cloud computing giant were paid before layoffs
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

See how much Amazon paid employees across the AWS business in 2022. Amazon Web Services' hiring has hit a low point. Insider combed data from that office, which authorizes hiring non-US employees and then publicly releases the data. Insider sorted through the hundreds of disclosed salaries that represent engineers, product managers, and more, to find out what the cloud giant was paying employees last year. Here's a breakdown of what AWS paid its developers, product managers, analysts, and other key roles through the end of 2022:

☆ Astronomers spot the biggest cosmic explosion ever seen, and it's 100 times the size of our solar system
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

This enormous fireball, which is about 8 billion light years away, is approximately 100 times bigger than the solar system. While it's not the brightest flash ever seen, it is "by far the most energy released" from a single explosion, Wiseman added. This may be a black hole slurping up a cloud of gas and dustThe world's first picture of a black hole, unrelated to this story. One theory is that explosions could emerge from the black hole to stop gas from falling into the black hole. Right now, the explosion is so bright that it's not possible to see a galaxy around the black hole.

☆ Watch the moment a cosmonaut tossed a bag of parts into space but NASA said the space litter is harmless
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Jessica Orwig | Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Technically, it's space littering. About 6.5 hours into the spacewalk, Prokopyev tossed an 11-pound bag of leftover equipment into space. Basically, space littering is like if someone came along after the electrician, burned the bag, and discarded the ashes. —International Space Station (@Space_Station) May 4, 2023We're not saying that space junk, in general, isn't a problem. In fact, multiple times a year the space station fires its booster to push itself out of the path of incoming orbital debris — and for good reason.

☆ Webb telescope spies evidence of hidden planets around nearby star
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

The revelation of the Fomalhaut’s two inner rings has suggested that planets hidden deeper within the star system may be affecting the dust belt’s shape. Stars form from gas and dust, and then a ring of leftover material called a protoplanetary disk orbits the star, where planets are born. Once the planets form around a star, debris belts form and become shaped by the gravity of the planets. Studying the dust belts can help unlock more of the secrets behind how planetary systems form. “I think it’s not a very big leap to say there’s probably a really interesting planetary system around the star.”

☆ A sustainable planet is possible with the help of cloud tech. Here's how an Asian partnership is working toward the future.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Sponsor Post | Created Insider Studios With Tata Communications | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Alibaba Cloud, in partnership with Tata Communications, is developing digital solutions for a sustainable future. Alibaba Cloud's partnership with Tata Communications is built on a mutual understanding of the critical importance of sustainability for everyone. The partnership between Alibaba Cloud and Tata Communications has helped build a robust and elastic cloud infrastructure. "Seamless and intelligent hyperconnected ecosystems are how we power cloud giants like Alibaba Cloud to do what they do best." Together, Alibaba Cloud and Tata Communications are creating a futuristic vision for how businesses and people can live, work, and communicate.

☆ AMD beats on the top and bottom lines but is still a second-half story. Here's why
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Zev Fima | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The good news: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) first-quarter beat on Tuesday revealed a likely bottom in its struggling PC business. The not-as-good: The chipmaker won't resume the kind of growth we're used to until the second half of the year. Here's why: Management sees some "modest" data center growth in the second quarter, but demand remains suppressed as a result of ongoing cloud optimization efforts. Outlook AMD provided an outlook for the second quarter of 2023 that was slightly below expectations. Ultimately management expects sequential growth in client and data center to be offset by "modest declines" in gaming and embedded.

☆ Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet deliver slower cloud growth. Here's how AI could reverse that trend
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Paulina Likos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

As more and more businesses of all sizes continue their digital transformations, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet aim to be there to provide cloud solutions. However, those gains quickly evaporated as the post-earnings call got underway and Wall Street learned of slowing cloud growth in April , the first month of Q2. The company is now using AI as a tool to accelerate cloud growth and gain share. The Club's take: Microsoft demonstrated impressive cloud growth given the difficult macroeconomic backdrop for the quarter. We hope to see a reacceleration in cloud growth along with profitability momentum.

☆ What’s next for SpaceX’s Starship after a dramatic first launch
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Michael Sheetz | In Michaeljsheetz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Starship launches for the first time on its Super Heavy booster from Texas on April 20, 2023. Soon after the launch, SpaceX began the process of cleaning up the launchpad and assessing the damage to its infrastructure. Fish and Wildlife Service disclosed this week that the Starship launch started a 3.5-acre fire on land owned by Texas' Boca Chica State Park. A SpaceX Starship prototype stands in a bay at the SpaceX Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas on April 18, 2023. As with any rocket-development program, and especially the largest ever assembled, SpaceX's timeline for the next Starship flight is likely to evolve and change.

☆ SpaceX to spend about $2 billion on Starship this year, as Elon Musk pushes to reach orbit
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Michael Sheetz | In Michaeljsheetz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The SpaceX Starship lifts off from the launchpad during a flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on April 20, 2023. Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty ImagesElon Musk expects SpaceX to spend about $2 billion on its Starship rocket development this year, as the company pushes to build on its first launch earlier this month. "To my knowledge, we do not need to raise incremental funding for SpaceX," Musk said. As for the dramatic first fully stacked Starship rocket launch on April 20," the SpaceX CEO said, "The outcome was roughly in what I expected, and maybe slightly exceeding my expectations." He put the probability of reaching orbit with a Starship flight this year at "probably" 80%, but espoused that he thinks there is a "100% chance of reaching orbit within 12 months."

☆ Amazon is the growth laggard of the cloud industry now
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Amazon said cloud revenue trended down by 500 basis points in April, suggesting year-over-year growth of 11%. The three largest cloud companies reported results in recent days and the growth picture for Amazon Web Services is, well, cloudy. Microsoft's Azure cloud unit grew sales by 31% year over year in the first quarter, while Google Cloud reported a 28% increase. So that suggests a year-over-year growth rate of just 11% for the early part of the second quarter. AWS is still the largest cloud provider, but if Microsoft continues to outgrow Amazon every quarter, the gap will narrow.

Fish and Wildlife Service. Damage to the launch pad, the floor of which was largely demolished during liftoff, was visible in photos of the aftermath. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Fish and Wildlife Service findings. The April 20 launch was days after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted SpaceX a license to launch the Starship via its Super Heavy rocket booster. REUTERS/Joe Skipper 1 2 3The report by the Fish and Wildlife Service, part of the U.S.

☆ SpaceX’s Starship Kicked Up a Dust Cloud, Leaving Texans With a Mess
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Livia Albeck-Ripka | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As the most powerful rocket ever built blasted from its launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas, on Thursday, the liftoff rocked the earth and kicked up a billowing cloud of dust and debris, shaking homes and raining down brown grime for miles. In Port Isabel, a city about six miles northwest where at least one window shattered, residents were alarmed. “It was truly terrifying,” said Sharon Almaguer, who, at the time of the launch, was at home with her 80-year-old mother. During previous launches, Ms. Almaguer said she had experienced some shaking inside the brick house, but “this was on a completely different level.”Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Starship exploded minutes after liftoff and before reaching orbit. Near the launch site, the residents of Port Isabel, known for its towering lighthouse and less than 10 miles from the border with Mexico, were left to deal with the mess.

In this article ANET Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNTSompong_tom | Istock | Getty ImagesThe rise of ChatGPT has sparked another national conversation about artificial intelligence. That has poured more fuel on an arms race that has been going on for years in AI. Today, the device is barely functional after the company shut off a host of services last year. The largest cloud service providers, or hyper-scalers, today each have millions of servers in data centers scattered across the country. The company produces network switches for large data centers that enable connectivity between devices in a network.

☆ Amazon cranks up AI competition against Microsoft, Google with new cloud tools
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world's biggest cloud computing provider, on Thursday jumped into that race with a suite of its own proprietary AI technologies, but it is taking a different approach. ChatGPT creator OpenAI, for example, offers a similar service, letting customers fine-tune the models behind ChatGPT to create a custom chatbot. The Bedrock service lets AWS customers test-drive those technologies without having to deal with the underlying data center servers that power them. "It's unneeded complexity from the perspective of the user," Vasi Philomin, vice president of generative AI at AWS, told Reuters. Those underlying servers will use a mix of Amazon's own custom AI chips as well as chips from Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O), the biggest supplier of chips for AI work but whose chips have been in tight supply this year.

☆ Russian volcano erupts, spewing out a vast cloud of ash
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Summary Shiveluch erupts in Russian far eastAsh shoots up 20 km into the skyVast ash cloud in Russian far eastAviation warning issuedResidents trudge through ash driftsVLADIVOSTOK, Russia, April 11 (Reuters) - One of Russia's most active volcanoes erupted on Tuesday shooting a vast cloud of ash far up into the sky and smothering villages in drifts of grey volcanic dust, triggering an aviation warning around Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. The Shiveluch volcano erupted just after midnight reaching a crescendo about six hours later, spewing out a ash cloud over an area of 108,000 square kilometres, according to the Kamchatka Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Geophysical Survey. "The ash reached 20 kilometres high, the ash cloud moved westwards and there was a very strong fall of ash on nearby villages," said Danila Chebrov, director of the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Survey. He said the volcano would probably calm now, but that further major ash clouds could not be excluded. Scientists posted pictures of the ash cloud billowing swiftly over the forests and rivers of the far east and of villages covered in ash.

☆ A.I. could drive $7 trillion in global growth in 10 years, Goldman estimates. Here's how to play it.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Pia Singh | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Within that, generative AI has a total addressable market of $150 billion, Goldman said. We believe Generative AI can streamline business workflows, automate routine tasks and give rise to a new generation of business applications," Goldman analysts wrote in a recent research report. But generative AI is able to produce new content such as text, video, images or computer code — putting it a step ahead. "Generative AI tools have far-reaching implications across industries, from enterprise software to healthcare, financial services and more," Goldman said. With the tech giants already incorporating it into their products, Goldman sees generative AI boosting sales, productivity and product innovation.

☆ Microsoft, Google, Amazon Look to Generative AI to Lift Cloud Businesses
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Tom Dotan | Miles Kruppa | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Tech giants are touting new artificial intelligence tools that they say will revolutionize work, learning and creativity. They also have something else in mind: rejuvenating sales in their cloud-computing businesses. The three largest cloud companies— Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google—have put the potential of new, so-called generative AI at the center of their sales pitches to try to capitalize on the explosion in interest in applications like the viral chatbot ChatGPT.

Search resuls for: "St Cloud"

25 mentions found