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Cake day: October 4th, 2023

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  • The tech demo is part of Microsoft’s Copilot for Gaming push, and features an AI-generated replica of Quake II that is playable in a browser. The Quake II level is very basic and includes blurry enemies and interactions, and Microsoft is limiting the amount of time you can even play this tech demo.

    Microsoft is still positioning Muse as an AI model that can help game developers prototype games. When Muse was unveiled in February, Microsoft also mentioned it was exploring how this AI model could help improve classic games, just like Quake II, and bring them to modern hardware.

    Okay, here’s a much-less ambitious use of existing AI technology that I think would be vastly-more-useful than whatever they’re off doing: how about just going out and using existing AI upscaling techniques and limited human interaction to statically-upscale the textures by maybe 2x to 4x, take advantage of more VRAM on newer hardware?



  • I mean, that splitter device cannot be USB compliant, if it’s giving more than 5V to a device that never negotiated more than 5V.

    I’d also guess that if it’s just silently feeding the second device from what the phone has negotiated, it’s probably not compliant in that it’s probably drawing more from its power source than the phone has negotiated – USB devices are responsible for indicating what they’ll draw.

    You could make that multiport device USB-compliant, but it’d require having the splitter be a DC-DC power source and having it negotiate some PD draw sufficient to power both devices.


  • There’s an already-extant ground-based vessel navigation system, Loran-C, though I’m sure that it’s possible to improve on it and I have no idea how much of the receiver hardware is still out there.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loran-C

    The introduction of civilian satellite navigation in the 1990s led to a rapid drop-off in Loran-C use. Discussions about the future of Loran-C began in the 1990s; several turn-off dates were announced and then cancelled. In 2010, the US and Canadian systems were shut down, along with Loran-C/CHAYKA stations that were shared with Russia.[2][3] Several other chains remained active; some were upgraded for continued use. At the end of 2015, navigation chains in most of Europe were turned off.[4] In December 2015 in the United States, there was also renewed discussion of funding an eLoran system,[5] and NIST offered to fund development of a microchip-sized eLoran receiver for distribution of timing signals.[6]

    The National Timing Resilience and Security Act of 2017, proposed resurrecting Loran as a backup for the United States in case of a GPS outage caused by space weather or attack.[7][8]


  • I’m sure not, but even without looking at any technical details, it will have at least a couple benefits:

    • First, it’s short range. GPS satellites are in geosynchronous orbit, which is a pretty high orbit. Wikipedia says about 22,000 miles away. For GPS, the jammer is going to be far closer than the legitimate signal.

    • Second, I’m guessing — though we’ll see — that this is going to be a civilian system, and I suppose that they could even try to mandate that militaries not use it. GPS was, from the beginning, a military system, and there are weapons being used in Ukraine that use it for guidance. Unless you’re solely out to be a dick — which isn’t impossible — probably not a lot of benefit to stomping on civilian-only frequencies.