Kozminski Techblog

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Windows – the most used Operating System on PC among users worldwide. According to the statistics, about 70-76% use Windows as their OS. And it is no wonder Microsoft creates excellent OS, and people love them because of their stable work and reliability. For example, the latest version is Windows 11, which is indeed good. It guarantees good work and provides a lot of options and features. But recently, it became known that Microsoft is currently working on a new version of OS. There are no official announcements, but I summarised all the leaks and want to share them with you.

According to insider information, the new version will also be known as “Next Valley”. It is going to be a significant release, not just an update of the older version. The presentation is planned for March. During the announcement, people can get familiar with the latest Microsoft OS.

The date of release is planned for 2024. That means that Windows is coming back to the “every 3 years” new version system

About features. Next Valley is going to be redesigned. A lot of customization options and features. As it is known from Microsoft ‘Dev chat’ leaks, we should expect new innovations to the user’s desktop. For example, a floating taskbar or separated taskbar floating segments. Also, in the latest version, it is going to be a Microsoft-branded messenger and a new file manager. Dynamic wallpapers are also one of the innovative features. They should somehow react or change while being interacted with.

But all of that was mostly visual changes. However, it is planned to make Windows OS more optimized. This is required for compatibility with all kinds of PCs, Laptops and even tablet devices.

The best news is that Windows 12 may be powered, or at least related to Artificial Intelligence. It can be run by the computer itself or from cloud storage. It can help in a vast field of tasks, simplify the work and make the usage of OS even more comfortable. But, in this regard, the price for Windows 12 may change too. For example, it would become a subscriptional one. This also will upset pirated users because of the absence of AI in pirated versions. Now approximate predicted price is:

• $139.99 for Windows 12 Home
• $199.99 for Windows 12 Pro

But please remember, all of this is still unapproved information, and everything may change in the future. However, it was still interesting to delve into the topic and look at some leaks. We will see the actual facts only when Windows 12 seese the world, so all we have to do is wait and expect.

Sources:

https://www.lifewire.com/windows-12-news-and-rumors-6753587

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/microsoft-accidentally-revealed-a-ui-design-prototype-for-the-next-version-of-windows-at-ignite-2022

Windows 12 Release Date – Features, Requirements, Beta Version

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Humanity have always theoretically known the importance of saving the nature, all its species and their diversity. But practically, we started to pay attention only when we had experienced problems the hard way. Conference Of the Parties – has recently (19.12.22) approved a deal to save a third of the planet for the flora and fauna by 2030.

COP 15 – 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The place of holding was changed from China to Montreal, Canada due to the Covid-19. So the last meeting, which unironically was called ‘Nature’s last chance’ went from 7th to 19th December 2022, and on Monday 19th The Kunming-Montreal biodiversity agreement was finally signed up by almost 200 countries. The main goals that this agreement has, are:

– Restore 30% degraded ecosystems globally (on land and sea) by 2030

– Conserve and manage 30% areas (terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine) by 2030

– Stop the extinction of known species, and by 2050 reduce tenfold the extinction risk and rate of all species (including unknown)

– Reduce risk from pesticides by at least 50% by 2030

– Reduce nutrients lost to the environment by at least 50% by 2030

– Reduce pollution risks and negative impacts of pollution from all sources by 2030 to levels that are not harmful to biodiversity and ecosystem functions

– Reduce global footprint of consumption by 2030, including through significantly reducing overconsumption and waste generation and halving food waste

– Sustainably manage areas under agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, and forestry and substantially increase agroecology and other biodiversity-friendly practices

– Tackle climate change through nature-based solutions

– Reduce the rate of introduction and establishment of invasive alien species by at least 50% by 2030

– Secure the safe, legal and sustainable use and trade of wild species by 2030

Green up urban spaces.

This is a direct list of key global targets the agreement has. Source: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_7834

Is it a perfect deal? Obviously it is not. The COP15 agreement is NOT legally blinded, that means that part of obligations are rather informal. We all obviously are strive to save our planet and its nature, and this deal is a great growth over almost 9 years in this direction. Chine, as a country that was in charge of the summit, prepared the draft of agreement on Sunday 18th. The Democratic Republic of Congo had an objection towards signing it up. Their argument was based on contributions to fund conservation in developing countries. Despite it, the decision was successfully made.

Georgina Chandler – is an employee of UNFCCC twitted about this event from her perspective, as a worker, right after The Kunming-Montreal biodiversity agreement was signed up:

I am too exhausted to tweet about the outcomes of #COP15 other than to say we have a new Global Biodiversity Framework. Its not perfect by any means – but my goodness if we achieved our commitments globally by 2030 – imagine what the world might be like? @RSPBNews @UNBiodiversity

— Georgina Chandler (@gchandler23) December 19, 2022

Generally, remarks of famous eco-activists and figures who lead nature recovery communities are positive. For example, Sue Lieberman from Wildlife Conservation Society said that it has “Positive elements”. The Green Party welcomed the deal as well. However, Tony Juniper described it as “weak” in his twit:

End game in Montreal, but plans too weak, including 30% target, which now not 30% protected on land & 30% on sea but 30% overall. Also species content too weak on extinction & abundance. Calls for ambition on finance must be matched by stronger ambition for Nature recovery #COP15 pic.twitter.com/mO2gWOR9B1

— Tony Juniper (@TonyJuniper) December 18, 2022

Currently, many think it is not a finish point in this case, but just a fundament point for a better future. We’ll see the process and progress of next COP summits, and will hope they know how to save our nature 🙂

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64019324

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_7834

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2022/12/press-release-nations-adopt-four-goals-23-targets-for-2030-in-landmark-un-biodiversity-agreement/

https://news.sky.com/story/cop-15-delegates-agree-to-protect-30-per-cent-of-the-world-by-2030-12771245

https://www.unep.org/un-biodiversity-conference-cop-15

https://www.cbd.int/cop/

https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/historic-outcome-cop15-chance-keep-our-planet-livable-generations-come_en

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Chat GPT is an Open AI (Sam Altman, Elon Musk and other investor’s non-profitable organization) creature, that was released on 30th of November 2022. It is a language model which can create answers to any of your question or tasks. One of the features are direct maintaining to user’s request, also chatbot remembers previous answers in conversation and can rely on them.

To prove its strength, we can ask Chatbot about its own abilities

ChatGPT has a really unexpectedly wide range of functions. You can ask to write an essay or a code on Python, Java, C++ and other programming languages. Of course having a dialog is the main function of this bot, it will switch to comfortable for user language and give information for any questions. Also, it is possible to receive an advice or detailed answer with scenario of different events.

As a project, this chatbot is a logical extension of GPT3.5. Currently, it is free to use and don’t have such restrictions as DALL-E2 in number of requests. But when Musk asked how much does average chat costs, Altman responded that they would have to monetize ChatGPT due to huge amounts being spent on calculations.

No wonder that new OpenAI’s project furiously attracted people’s attention in social media. Mostly because of new type of natural, human-like responds from the bot. The demand on service is huge, even now. In his tweet, Sam Altman informed that the number of users has reached 1 million.

ChatGPT launched on wednesday. today it crossed 1 million users!

— Sam Altman (@sama) December 5, 2022

As it known, ChatGPT is not an AI, it is rather a program aimed to give answers based on information it has in databases. It means chatbot isn’t learning and evolving during the conversation by itself. However, when Elon Musk found out that language model is also using Twitter database as a source of knowledge to form answers on, he immediately stopped it, due to the fact that:

“OpenAI is no longer open-sourced and non-profit, and it should eventually pay for this knowledge.”

Source: https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/staff-writers/9-things-to-know-about-chat-gpt/

Overall opinions about ChatGPT are quite positive, and many believe that it can have future in different scopes of activity. But there are also people who think that it may harm less experienced internet users, who would not recognize that information was generated by a bot and may be wrong. Others are concerned because think that chatbots can replace humans in the future. However, one of Amazon employee Jason DeBolt assured that this is not true in his tweet:

For those who think this will put engineers out of work, it won’t. It will massively increase productivity/leverage of engineers who already know how to use various languages, tools, and API’s. It will decrease demand for engineers who don’t know what’s going on under the hood. https://t.co/ywONMwke45

— Jason DeBolt ⚡️ (@jasondebolt) December 1, 2022

Sources:

https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/staff-writers/9-things-to-know-about-chat-gpt/

https://religionnews.com/2022/12/12/chat-gpt-open-ai/

https://twitter.com/sama

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI

https://twitter.com/jasondebolt

https://mezha.media/2022/12/07/chat-bot-chatgpt-prodovzhuie-dominuvaty-v-sotsialnykh-media/

https://chat.openai.com/chat

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It is hard to disagree that AI is in the peak of its development, as of now, and this trend only goes up. This is evidenced by almost every article that represent the evolution of artificial intelligence.

Also, a significant factor of that, is AI now accessible to everyone who would like to try. It is no more a thing you can only read about. There are plenty of services free to use, however even paid one usually cost around $5 per month. In comparison, that’s the same price as for YouTube/Spotify Premium month subscription, so it’s really not that much.

Of course, Artificial Intelligence is widely used, but let’s look at it from a regular internet user perspective. Even now AI services can be divided by those which fully generate, and that change your image. As an example, I want to introduce you a website that turns your image into a realistic anime-styled sketch. It is a Chinese neural network developed by Tencent. “Different Dimension Me” is extremely new – it was launched on 27th of November 2022 on the Tencent QQ platform, but already very popular among social media community. It is known that generator core is “STABLE DIFFUSION AI” and it is using “img2img” script.

No wonder why it became very viral in social media in a matter of hours. “Different Dimension Me” will change you, your cat or even a meme image into a cute anime character. The website rapidly became popular not only on Chinese social media, but all over the world. Currently, tweets with ai-generated pictures get reposted thousands of times. That obviously only lead new people to website, and make network more popular.

However, as is known, nothing works perfectly. And neural network faced troubles with pictures of black people. I, personally, strongly believe that there is no racism, just AI is not ready enough, and requires some updates. There are some examples on internet memes that were tried to proceed through the AI network.

Does it have practical use? It’s a moot point, right nowt. But it surely could be a perfect start for some big project that may change the whole game, for instance in multiplication industry. If AI becomes able to create an animation instead of pictures, it will definitely be a breakthrough.

In conclusion: The “Different Diversion Me” is a phenomenon, which signalizes that AI industry does not stand still and evolving.

P.S Thank you for reading! Attaching the best ai-generated images I have found, and must share with you.

References:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/different-dimension-me

https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2022/12/05/what-is-qqs-different-dimension-me-anime-generator/

graph

youtube video where I took the references