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The Rabbit R1 wowed the tech world at CES 2024 earlier this year, and it's now been confirmed that the first 10,000 of these little AI-powered gadgets are going to be heading to the first people who preordered them in the US and Canada from Sunday, March 31.

As per a Rabbit post on social media (via Engadget), the first batch of devices will start leaving the factory on that date, though they may take three weeks or so to get into the hands of customers, due to various international and US customs processes.

If you were one of the first 10,000 people in the US to get your name down for a Rabbit R1, you can expect it around April 24th, Rabbit says. Of course there's always the chance of further delays, but that's the current estimate.

According to the FAQ on the Rabbit website, the second batch of orders will be shipping in April and May, with the third batch heading to customers during May and June, for US and Canada addresses. If you're in the UK or EU, shipping is expected to start by late April.

If you're completely new to the Rabbit R1, it functions a little like a smartphone, only there's an AI assistant doing all the jobs that apps normally do queueing up music, taking photos, booking hotels, and so on and so on.

In fact, the Rabbit software is clever enough to interact with your mobile apps, once you've shown it what to do. It's an interesting new take on the pocket computer, and it's attracted a lot of early buzz in the industry.

We know the Rabbit R1 is going to be powered, at least in part, by the Perplexity AI engine: this means you'll be able to chat with the device in the same way as you would with ChatGPT or with Copilot from Microsoft.

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You can still order the Rabbit R1 from Rabbit for $199 (about 160 / AU$305), though it might be a while before you get it. Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu recently shared a demo of the device in action, if you want to get a feel of how it works.

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The first batch of Rabbit R1 AI devices will be shipping next week - TechRadar

Spring is in the air, the trees are starting to become more green and the weather is getting warmer in the northern hemisphere. As thoughts turn to picnics and outdoor adventure, why not turn to technology for inspirational ways to mark the changing season?

Google Gemini is an incredibly power artificial intelligence tool, but as with any tool, you can often suffer from the same blank page problem when opening it for the first time ever or even the first time in a day.

That is in part why I created the Prompt_Jitsu column. A way to share prompt ideas that anyone can try and possibly get inspiration to do something fun. This week I am turning to Google Gemini again, but with the idea of spring as inspiration.

Prompting any artificial intelligence chatbot can be hit and miss. More often than in the past, you do get exactly what youd expect, but sometimes it throws you a curveball. Check out our guide to using Google Gemini if you haven't tried this chatbot before.

Ive tested each of these prompts in the free and Gemini Advanced versions of the Google chatbot and they worked fairly well but if you get something completely obscure, Id love to hear about it.

We're going to start with an image prompt. Google Gemini can't generate images in the UK or much of Europe so you'd need a VPN, or the same prompt would generate a descriptive scene rather than a picture which can be fun.

The prompt I've picked: "Generate a colorful Spring-themed image featuring a picnic in a field of wildflowers."

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This will create a cartoon-like generic image of a picnic scene. You could further refine the prompt by replying to the images by typing something like "add the word Spring to the picture. If you put the word in " " marks, it will improve the text quality.

Next up, we need some food to go with that picnic. We're going to do this over a couple of prompts. The first is a simple one and will get a different result most times you try it although I've been wrong about that in previous weeks.

The prompt: "Suggest. delicious savory dish for a Spring picnic". Gemini should give you something like a salad, skewers or a frittata, and this is where prompt two comes into play, as this is not a "one shot" idea.

Next up you'll need to pick one of those recipes, or ask it to suggest some more. If you're happy say "give me the full recipe for x". In my case I asked for a full frittata.

The recipe required parmesan cheese, milk, eggs, thyme, oil, onion, asparagus, peas, goat cheese and herbs. The full recipe is on the Prompt_Jitsu GitHub repo.

We've got the picture and the food, now we need something else to do on the day. This is something Google Gemini can be good at, so I've asked it to "plan a perfect Spring day itinerary for a family with kids ages 5-12."

You can adjust the ages or even remove the kids part completely and ask for a fun day out on your own or with a partner. You could even use Gemini to plan a day with the boys or girls it should be able to adapt.

For me, it suggested that between 9 a.m. and midday we "embrace the outdoors" with a visit to a park or botanical garden and let the kids run free. After our amazing picnic, the chatbot said we should visit an art studio or pottery place for the afternoon.

After we wind down at home after a busy, fun-filled day, why not enjoy a story about the spring? This is something Gemini is very good at doing.

Use this prompt: "Write a short, whimsical story about a talking flower that blooms in the Spring." Or adapt it to suit your own circumstances, even putting the names of your children into the prompt. For example, have the chatbot call the flower after your kid.

I didn't do this and Gemini called the flower Primrose. She told of faraway lands where exotic flowers bloomed and of whispering rain showers painting the meadow green. You can read it on my GitHub.

After all that talk of talking flowers and from inspiration gained while being out and about in our fictional family day in the botanical garden, let's design a garden.

The prompt: "What are some tips for planning a successful Spring garden, including recommended plants and layout ideas?" This is another example where multiple prompts will be needed to get exactly what you want.

However, from a single prompt I got planning tips such as "knowing your zone, doing a sunlight assessment and preparing the soil," as well as the idea of planing seasonal vegetables and herbs. Gemini also said to plant tulips, daffodils and hyacinths.

If you want to get the best out of your garden though, check out this guide to preparing your garden for spring from Tom's Guide's homes content editor Cynthia Lawrence.

We all know that children don't get to sleep after the story, they always want one more thing. So why not a haiku about watching baby animals at play?

The prompt: "Create a Spring-themed haiku about the joy of watching baby animals play." You could swap baby animals play with anything you like what about watching monster trucks play or watching dolphins play?

Gemini gave me: "Soft chirps fill the breeze / Fluffy chicks chase butterflies / Spring's heart beats anew."

And for monster trucks: "Mud splatters like blooms / Giant tires churn earth reborn / Spring roars, a joyful wreck."

For this prompt, you want to make sure you've got the Google Maps extension turned on. To do this, click Settings, then extensions on the left-hand menu and toggle the Google Maps button to on.

We'll use Denver, Colorado as our location for this prompt, as there aren't many places to go hiking around me. The prompt: "I want to go on a scenic Spring hike this weekend. Can you suggest the top 3 hiking trails within a 30-mile radius of Denver, Colorado? Please provide trail details like length, difficulty level, notable features, and directions to the trailhead using Google Maps."

This will trigger the Google Maps extension, and Gemini suggested three top-rated hikes in the area, showed them as icons on a map and gave me all the difficulty level details. You can see my full interaction for this prompt on Gemini.

If you enjoyed the prompts this week why share your output with us and then try out aseries of Google Gemini prompt ideas or evenmake a story, song and imagesfrom previous weeks.

Go here to see the original:

7 great Google Gemini AI prompts to try this weekend - Tom's Guide

The concept of metamodernism isnt particularly well-known, but once you learn about it, you will recognize it everywherein pop music, in movies, in social media posts, in podcast conversations. Heres Eric Weinstein inadvertently articulating the spirit of metamodernism in a recent interview:

Metamodernism is characterized by oscillating between different perspectivesin particular, between postmodern irony and modern sincerity. To apply Eric Weinsteins terminology, its the view that you need to selectively access [contradictory perspectives] in different circumstances.

Weinstein didnt set out to present a metamodern perspectiveno more than Sufjan Stevens and Conor Oberst set out to write metamodern songs. The fact that Weinstein stumbled into these musings is simply indicative of the age we live in. To understand major shifts in culture today, its necessary to look beyond postmodernism and start discussing issuesincluding hot-button culture-war issuesin metamodern terms.

Postmodernism arose in the mid-twentieth century: after World War II, but before the floppy disk and the first computer games, like Pong. So, while postmodernism may give off a vague impression of being radical, hip, and visionary, in fact, its quite an old thing. In technology terms, it arose in the Stone Age. It has been around the block and is showing its rust and wrinkles. As early as the 1980s, writers and thinkers foresaw the death of postmodernism. And just consider how much culture has changed and technology has advanced since the 80s.

The current conception of metamodernism emerged in 2010 with the publication of the paper Notes on Metamodernism by cultural theorists Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker. The paper describes the experience of living in a world in which we feel comfortable oscillating between different perspectives and examines this new way of looking at things by discussing developments in architecture, art, and film.

For example, Vermeulen and Akker see the films of Wes Anderson as evidence of a recent trend in Indie cinema characterized by the attempt to restore, to the cynical reality of adults, a childlike naivetyas opposed to the postmodern smart cinema of the 1990s, which was typified by sarcasm and indifference.

Just as a metamodern analysis can help elucidate cultural shifts, it can also help make sense of recent developments in the culture wars. One example of metamodernism is the rise of the Satanic Temple as a legitimate player in culture war issues. On the one hand, the Satanic Temple is a cheesy social club that LARPs as a religion and ironically embraces stereotypical satanic imagery; on the other hand, it issues serious legal challenges to religious organizations that seek to effectively impose Christianity as the state religion in the US.

The Impasse Between Modernism and Postmodernism

The battlefield is indeed the university. How, then, does he characterize these two opponents?

If Christians can put up a monument to the Ten Commandments on government property, then Satanists can erect a statue of Baphomet next to it. If Christians can pass laws restricting abortions, then Satanists can open a religious abortion clinic. And if Christians can have after-school clubs, Satanists can too.

So, is the Satanic Temple a religious parody or a legitimate religion? Well, its both. Its simultaneously both a religious spoof and an organization that courts take seriously. Only the metamodern viewpoint makes sense of this.

Our culture has reached an odd juncture with regard to religion in general. Fewer and fewer people consider themselves to be religious, and, of those who maintain a faith, ever fewer regularly show up to a place of worship. And yet, religion is suddenly fashionable again. For example, in 2022, New York Times contributor Julia Yost described how, in a trendy neighbourhood in New York City, Catholicism is the new hip thing, partly as a rejection of progressive morality, partly as an aesthetic posture among the fashionable New Right.

This phenomenon goes beyond a single neighbourhood in New York. Its a vibe in the zeitgeist. For example, in January 2024, Gen Z writer Suzy Weiss was asked to predict cultural trends for the new year. On the topic of religion, she put it succinctly: Religion in. God is so in. Spirituality out. Bari Weiss, Suzys sister, clarified, Crystals are out, Catholic church is in.

How do you ironically embrace religion, a thing that claims to be so serious as to determine the fate of your soul in the afterlife? You do so by situating yourself within the metamodern framework.

The so-called trad movement is a similar phenomenon, in which highly educated urbanites are choosing to (semi-ironically) adopt traditional gender roles. As I have written previously, the bleeding edge of metamodernism might be a tradwife with a masters degree from UC Berkeley and a squealing baby throwing Cheerios across the room. A short skirt and a long jacket. A camgirl side-hustle and a cross necklace. A feminist who rejects Nth-wave feminism.

Its clear that the metamodern perspective has spread throughout the culture, but it hasnt yet been taken up by the commentariat. Unless you go looking for it, youll almost never hear about it. Although there are plenty of culture-war figures who seem primed to give voice to metamodernism, theyre all stuck in a never-ending cycle of critiquing postmodernism.

Consider a recent clip from a discussion between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson, The Issue with Postmodernism. The clip centres on a familiar gripe by Harris about the moral confusion of cultural relativism. Harris argues that its objectively wrong for Muslim countries to deprive women of basic rights.

Its hard to disagree with Harriss basic claim. Yet, its also true that all cultures (even those that are morally backwards) are incredibly complex, rich, and beautiful in their own rights. Its possible to relinquish the role of a moral judge for a moment and appreciate the culture of, say, Victorian England, or the Aztec Empire, or modern-day Iran, even though each of these cultures has plenty of elements that are not optimized for the flourishing of all citizens. In fact, most of us do this. We read about the Aztecs, for instance, with a strong sense of wonder and respect before it even crosses our minds to scrutinize the morality of any given social practice or religious tradition they upheld.

There are two contradictory views at play here: 1) cultural relativism offers a lens through which to value and appreciate all the rich and diverse array of cultures, across time; 2) a modern conception of human rights offers a foolproof argument for condemning governments that subjugate women. Metamodernism allows us to entertain both ideas at once and selectively apply them in different circumstances.

The subtext of the metamodern view is that postmodernism, while compelling, is incomplete. In a world in which there are no ground truths and no grand narratives, there can be no moral progress. And yet we all live our lives in accordance with strict moral truths and grand narratives. This is especially true of educated elites who are most sympathetic to postmodernism. As Harris observed to Peterson, the same people who cant condemn a Muslim nation for subjugating women will be morally outraged over a college student wearing an inappropriate Halloween costume.

So, yes, beat postmodernism over the head with modern moral indignation, but dont throw it out entirely. Embrace the muddiness of being a storytelling ape in a digital age in which God is dead but old-world religious practices areat least for the momentin.

And this is the hard thing, says Eric Weinstein, referring to the requirement to oscillate between contradictory perspectives. Anybody with multiple children knows that, with one kid youre saying, You cannot afford to take these risks; if you jump off something like that, think what you could do! While the other kid needs, Nothing ventured, nothing gained, come on!

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The Metamodern Shift in the Culture Wars - Quillette

COTTLEVILLE Amid our remarkably divided times, four school board candidates in the Francis Howell School District found a bit of common ground during a debate on Tuesday.

This election is going to be about teachers, said Steven Blair, a Methodist pastor and father of two.

He and Carolie Owens, a retired music teacher, are endorsed by the local affiliate of the National Education Association.

Blair and Owens didnt agree much with their two opponents during the debate, led by student journalists in the districts high schools. Adriana Kuhn, who owns a marketing company, and Sam Young, a retired U.S. Navy officer, are endorsed by the Francis Howell Families activist group, which has helped push culture wars in the district. Kuhn has brought partisan politics to the race, touting her support by the Republican Central Committee.

But all four candidates endorsed the idea that the election is about teachers increasing teacher pay and keeping them in the district, long one of the highest-ranked districts in Missouri.

How to get there? Thats another matter.

The debate, with pointed questions from the students, was a microcosm of the divisive battles that have embroiled school boards across the nation. In the past few months, the Francis Howell district has been divided by race, as the board rescinded an anti-racism resolution and then tried to cancel Black literature classes and Black history classes. The classes were reinstated, but not until a student-led walkout helped bring attention to the issue. Still, the board voted to erase the part of the curriculum dealing with social justice and political activism in Black history.

That action was a reminder that political activism and history cannot be divided.

Every single one of us is connected to political activism, Blair reminded his fellow candidates during the debate.

Young and Kuhn supported the gutting of Black history and Black literature classes. They talked about how bad masks were in the COVID-19 pandemic, and how its important for school boards to delve into the sorts of debates that decide who uses which bathrooms.

Some people thought it was a good thing that students walked out of school, Young said. I disagree with that.

The four candidates are battling for two seats on the school board. The election is unlikely to end the culture wars, as the winners will replace two board members who were dissenting votes in the curriculum discussions. One way or another, there will still be a culture war majority on the Francis Howell School Board after the April 2 election. Thats a bad thing if the goal is to stop teachers from fleeing, Owens and Blair said.

There are teachers who are leaving Francis Howell for other school districts, Blair said. Ive talked to the teachers. What they want more than anything else is to stop being attacked by the school board.

Nationally, there are signs that voters are tiring of attempts to turn school board votes into partisan elections. After a few prominent post-pandemic victories, including in St. Charles County and the Rockwood School District in St. Louis County, voters have generally moved away from more divisive candidates. In November, for instance, voters in several states Pennsylvania, Kansas, Virginia and Iowa rejected candidates who wanted to focus on buzz phrases like CRT and DEI.

In Francis Howell, theres at least agreement that the school board should be focused on retaining teachers. But ideas on how to do so give voters a clear choice between the two slates of candidates.

Were running against the NEA, Kuhn said of herself and Young.

Owens offered a retort: If youre running against the NEA, youre running against teachers.

Francis Howell North High School senior Lauren Chance talks with the media, along with her schoolmates, after the group led a walkout of students on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. The walkout was done to protest the Francis Howell School Board's changes to the district's classes on Black History and Black Literature and the board's earlier action to remove a previously passed resolution against racism and discrimination.

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Messenger: Is Francis Howell school board election about teachers or culture wars? - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

REDMOND, Wash., and SAN JOSE, Calif. March 18, 2024 At GTC on Monday, Microsoft Corp. and NVIDIA expanded their longstanding collaboration with powerful new integrations that leverage the latest NVIDIA generative AI and Omniverse technologies across Microsoft Azure, Azure AI services, Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft 365.

Together with NVIDIA, we are making the promise of AI real, helping drive new benefits and productivity gains for people and organizations everywhere, said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft. From bringing the GB200 Grace Blackwell processor to Azure, to new integrations between DGX Cloud and Microsoft Fabric, the announcements we are making today will ensure customers have the most comprehensive platforms and tools across every layer of the Copilot stack, from silicon to software, to build their own breakthrough AI capability.

AI is transforming our daily lives opening up a world of new opportunities, said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. Through our collaboration with Microsoft, were building a future that unlocks the promise of AI for customers, helping them deliver innovative solutions to the world.

Advancing AI infrastructure

Microsoft will be one of the first organizations to bring the power of NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GB200 and advanced NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking to Azure, deliver cutting-edge trillion-parameter foundation models for natural language processing, computer vision, speech recognition and more.

Microsoft is also announcing the general availability of its Azure NC H100 v5 VM virtual machine (VM) based on the NVIDIA H100 NVL platform. Designed for midrange training and inferencing, the NC series of virtual machines offers customers two classes of VMs from one to two NVIDIA H100 94GB PCIe Tensor Core GPUs and supports NVIDIA Multi-Instance GPU (MIG) technology, which allows customers to partition each GPU into up to seven instances, providing flexibility and scalability for diverse AI workloads.

Healthcare and life sciences breakthroughs

Microsoft is expanding its collaboration with NVIDIA to transform healthcare and life sciences through the integration of cloud, AI and supercomputing technologies. By harnessing the power of Microsoft Azure alongside NVIDIA DGX Cloud and the NVIDIA Clara suite of microservices, healthcare providers, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and medical device developers will soon be able to innovate rapidly across clinical research and care delivery with improved efficiency.

Industry leaders such as Sanofi and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, industry ISVs such as Flywheel and SOPHiA GENETICS, academic medical centers like the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and health systems like Mass General Brigham are already leveraging cloud computing and AI to drive transformative changes in healthcare and to enhance patient care.

Industrial digitalization

NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud APIs will be available first on Microsoft Azure later this year, enabling developers to bring increased data interoperability collaboration, and physics-based visualization to existing software applications. At NVIDIA GTC, Microsoft is demonstrating a preview of what is possible using Omniverse Cloud APIs on Microsoft Azure. Using an interactive 3D viewer in Microsoft Power BI, factory operators can see real-time factory data overlaid on a 3D digital twin of their facility to gain new insights that can speed up production.

NVIDIA Triton Inference Server and Microsoft Copilot

NVIDIA GPUs and NVIDIA Triton Inference Server help serve AI inference predictions in Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365. Copilot for Microsoft 365, soon available as a dedicated physical keyboard key on Windows 11 PCs, combines the power of large language models with proprietary enterprise data to deliver real-time contextualized intelligence, enabling users to enhance their creativity, productivity and skills.

From AI training to AI deployment

NVIDIA NIM inference microservices are coming to Azure AI to turbocharge AI deployments. Part of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform, also available on the Azure Marketplace, NIM provides cloud-native microservices for optimized inference on more than two dozen popular foundation models, including NVIDIA-built models that users can experience at ai.nvidia.com. For deployment, the microservices deliver prebuilt, run-anywhere containers powered by NVIDIA AI Enterprise inference software including Triton Inference Server, TensorRT and TensorRT-LLM to help developers speed time to market of performance-optimized production AI applications.

About NVIDIA

Since its founding in 1993, NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) has been a pioneer in accelerated computing. The companys invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined computer graphics, ignited the era of modern AI and is fueling industrial digitalization across markets. NVIDIA is now a full-stack computing infrastructure company with data-center-scale offerings that are reshaping industry. More information at https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq MSFT @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

For more information, press only:

Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications for Microsoft, (425) 638-7777,[emailprotected]

Natalie Hereth, NVIDIA Corporation, [emailprotected]

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit Microsoft Source athttp://news.microsoft.com/source. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsofts Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed athttps://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.

NVIDIA forwardlooking statements

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the benefits, impact, performance, features, and availability of NVIDIAs products and technologies, including NVIDIA Grace Blackwell Superchip, NVIDIA DGX Cloud, NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud APIs, NVIDIA AI and Accelerated Computing Platforms, and NVIDIA Generative AI Microservices; the benefits and impact of NVIDIAs collaboration with Microsoft, and the features and availability of its services and offerings; AI transforming our daily lives, the way we work and opening up a world of new opportunities; and building a future that unlocks the promise of AI for customers and brings transformative solutions to the world through NVIDIAs continued collaboration with Microsoft are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: global economic conditions; NVIDIAs reliance on third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test NVIDIAs products; the impact of technological development and competition; development of new products and technologies or enhancements to NVIDIAs existing product and technologies; market acceptance of NVIDIAs products or NVIDIA partners products; design, manufacturing or software defects; changes in consumer preferences or demands; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of NVIDIAs products or technologies when integrated into systems; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the most recent reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, including, but not limited to, its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on the companys website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

Many of the products and features described herein remain in various stages and will be offered on a when-and-if-available basis. The statements above are not intended to be, and should not be interpreted as a commitment, promise, or legal obligation, and the development, release, and timing of any features or functionalities described for our products is subject to change and remains at the sole discretion of NVIDIA. NVIDIA will have no liability for failure to deliver or delay in the delivery of any of the products, features or functions set forth herein.

2024 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, DGX, NVIDIA Clara, NVIDIA NIM, NVIDIA Omniverse, NVIDIA Triton Inference Server, and TensorRT are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject to change without notice.

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Microsoft and NVIDIA announce major integrations to accelerate generative AI for enterprises everywhere - Stories - Microsoft