Hacker News with Generative AI: Computing

Back to the Future with Gordon Moore (thechipletter.substack.com)
Sometimes the whole world can change in a weekend. It certainly seems that way today as the most recent DeepSeek models have apparently upended the whole ‘AI industrial complex’.
Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Computing
16 points by mooreds 5 days ago | 0 comments
Work at the Mill: The story of Digital Equipment Corporation (abortretry.fail)
Kenneth Harry Olsen was born on the 20th of February in 1926 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and he grew up in nearby Stratford.
History, Technology, Business, Companies, Computing
170 points by rbanffy 10 days ago | 95 comments
HP's Z2 Mini G1a packs more power into a mini PC than you'd ever need (pcworld.com)
You probably haven’t seen HP’s Z series of computers unless you’re working in an office with some “big iron,” packed with high-end hardware and specialized designs. But HP’s new Z2 Mini G1a, shown off at a pre-CES presentation, caught my attention in a big way. It’s a mini desktop PC with some of the most powerful parts available.
Mini PCs, Hardware, HP, CES, Computing
18 points by transpute 13 days ago | 9 comments
RISC-V Mainboard for Framework Laptop 13 is now available (frame.work)
We’re happy to share that DeepComputing’s DC-ROMA RISC-V Mainboard for Framework Laptop 13 is now in stock and shipping in the Framework Marketplace.
RISC-V, Hardware, Laptops, Open Source, Computing
4 points by fork-bomber 16 days ago | 1 comments
Colossus, the first large-scale electronic computer (colossus-computer.com)
History, Computing, Electronic Computers
24 points by marcodiego 16 days ago | 14 comments
Integrated magneto-optics with ultra-high endurance for photonic inmem computing (nature.com)
Processing information in the optical domain promises advantages in both speed and energy efficiency over existing digital hardware for a variety of emerging applications in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Photonics, Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Science
9 points by pizza 18 days ago | 0 comments
Analyst firm say DeepSeek has 50000 Nvidia GPUs and spent US $6B on buildouts (tomshardware.com)
Nvidia GPUs, Artificial Intelligence, Hardware, Data Centers, Computing
14 points by heresie-dabord 18 days ago | 3 comments
Zusie – My Relay Computer (nablaman.com)
I amuse myself by constructing a computer almost entirely out of relays.
Hardware, Computing, Electronics, DIY Projects
133 points by xk3 20 days ago | 31 comments
Any Key (wikipedia.org)
In computing, "Press any key to continue" (or a similar text) was a historically used prompt to the user when it was necessary to pause processing.
Computing, User Interface, History, Legacy Technology
4 points by MrJagil 21 days ago | 0 comments
WristPC Keyboard (l3sys.com)
L3 Systems has developed the WristPC Keyboard for portable and wearable computer applications.
Wearable Technology, Hardware, Input Devices, Computing
15 points by yamrzou 25 days ago | 5 comments
Moore's Law may be coming to an end. What happens to AI progress if it does? (2023) (asteriskmag.com)
Moore’s law may be coming to an end. What happens to AI progress if it does?
Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Moore's Law, Computing
4 points by 0xKelsey 30 days ago | 1 comments
It's time to make computing personal again (vintagecomputing.com)
How surveillance capitalism and DRM turned home tech from friend to foe.
Computing, Personalization, Technology, Surveillance Capitalism
695 points by mariuz 32 days ago | 351 comments
Apple joins UALink consortium with Intel and AMD to take on Nvidia AI dominance (9to5mac.com)
Apple has officially gained a board seat on the Ultra Accelerator Link Consortium, a group of more than 65 members developing next generation AI accelerator architecture.
Artificial Intelligence, Hardware, Computing, Apple, AMD
7 points by thoughtpeddler 37 days ago | 0 comments
Getting an all-optical AI to handle non-linear math (arstechnica.com)
A team of MIT researchers figured that if you had a chip that could process photons directly, you could skip the entire digitization step and perform calculations with the photons themselves. It has the potential to be mind-bogglingly faster.
Artificial Intelligence, Optics, Hardware, Computing
97 points by LorenDB 39 days ago | 16 comments
Nvidia CEO says his AI chips are improving faster than Moore's Law (techcrunch.com)
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says the performance of his company’s AI chips is advancing faster than historical rates set by Moore’s Law, the rubric that drove computing progress for decades.
Nvidia, Artificial Intelligence, Moore's Law, Computing, Technology
24 points by belter 43 days ago | 7 comments
Kids can't use computers and this is why it should worry you (2013) (coding2learn.org)
The truth is, kids can't use general purpose computers, and neither can most of the adults I know.
Education, Technology, Computing
44 points by ColinWright 48 days ago | 90 comments
Reversible Computing Escapes the Lab in 2025 (ieee.org)
This weird information-theory concept has become a power-saving chip
Reversible Computing, Computing, Energy Efficiency, Hardware
17 points by pseudolus 48 days ago | 0 comments
I was wrong about the ethics crisis (cacm.acm.org)
The ethics crisis in computing was “launched” in 2018. In March of that year, The Boston Globe asserted, “Computer science faces an ethics crisis. The Cambridge Analytica scandal proves it!” This was in response to the Techlash,a where Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan described Silicon Valley executives as “moral Martians who operate on some weird new postmodern ethical wavelength” and Niall Ferguson, a Hoover Institution historian, described cyberspace as “cyberia, a dark and lawless realm where malevolent actors range.”
Ethics, Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Technology
285 points by bikenaga 53 days ago | 432 comments
LLMs are everything that it wrong in computing (crys.site)
For decades corporations have been doing anything in their power to make computers worse.
Computing, Criticism
62 points by lr0 55 days ago | 57 comments
Why Did Early CD-ROM Drives Rely on Awkward Plastic Caddies? (hackaday.com)
These days, very few of us use optical media on the regular. If we do, it’s generally with a slot-loading console or car stereo, or an old-school tray-loader in a desktop or laptop. This has been the dominant way of using consumer optical media for some time.
Hardware, History, Technology, Computing
9 points by rbanffy 59 days ago | 0 comments
CUDA Moat Still Alive (semianalysis.com)
SemiAnalysis has been on a five-month long quest to settle the reality of MI300X. In theory, the MI300X should be at a huge advantage over Nvidia’s H100 and H200 in terms of specifications and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). However, the reality is that the on paper specs as given below are not representative of performance that can be expected in a real-world environment.
Hardware, AI, Performance, Benchmarking, Computing
221 points by pella 60 days ago | 172 comments
Million GPU clusters, gigawatts of power – the scale of AI defies logic (theregister.com)
Million GPU clusters, gigawatts of power – the scale of AI defies logic
Artificial Intelligence, Computing, Hardware, Scale
6 points by rntn 63 days ago | 0 comments
Classic Computer Magazines (archive.org)
Computing, History, Magazines, Archives
30 points by walterbell 64 days ago | 10 comments
Measuring hardware overhang (2020) (lesswrong.com)
How can we measure a potential AI or hardware overhang? For the problem of chess, modern algorithms gained two orders of magnitude in compute (or ten years in time) compared to older versions.
Artificial Intelligence, Hardware, Measurement, Computing
10 points by philipswood 66 days ago | 1 comments
What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018) (twobithistory.org)
The story of Microsoft’s founding is one of the most famous episodes in computing history. In 1975, Paul Allen flew out to Albuquerque to demonstrate the BASIC interpreter that he and Bill Gates had written for the Altair microcomputer.
History, Programming, Computing, Software
355 points by mitchbob 66 days ago | 129 comments
Apple Working on Giant Foldable iPad (bloomberg.com)
Apple’s new vision for the future of computing is a giant, iPad-like foldable device. Also: The company rethinks the mouse, its next AirTag will have a new chip that lets you find items from farther away, and a shift to in-house Wi-Fi chips will kick off next year. Apple also is planning satellite and health upgrades for its smartwatch.
Apple, Foldable Devices, Technology, Hardware, Computing
11 points by tosh 67 days ago | 6 comments
The saga of the color brown in the early years of the PC (2023) (blogspot.com)
History, Computing, Design, Color Theory
92 points by susam 69 days ago | 29 comments
Lightmatter – The photonic (super)computer company (lightmatter.co)
Photonic Computing, Hardware, Startups, Computing
8 points by LorenDB 69 days ago | 1 comments
Raspberry Pi 500 makes an 8GB Pi 5 into a compact, inexpensive desktop PC (arstechnica.com)
One of the selling points of the Raspberry Pi 5 (released in October 2023) is that it was fast enough and had enough memory to be a credible general-purpose desktop PC, if not an especially fast one. For Pi-as-desktop enthusiasts, the company has a couple of new pre-holiday announcements. The biggest is the Raspberry Pi 500, which fits the components of an 8GB Pi 5 into a small keyboard-shaped case for $90.
Raspberry Pi, Hardware, Computing, Desktop PCs
18 points by jnord 73 days ago | 8 comments
Raspberry Pi 500 review with Raspberry Pi Monitor and teardown (cnx-software.com)
The Raspberry Pi 500 keyboard PC is just out along with the 15.6-inch Raspberry Pi Monitor and received samples from Raspberry Pi for review a few days ago.  I’ve had time to play with both, so in this review, I’ll go through an unboxing of the kit I received and report my experience with both the keyboard PC and monitor.
Hardware, Raspberry Pi, Reviews, Computing
10 points by zdw 73 days ago | 4 comments