So far, he’s made two brief appearances on Apple’s TikTok account. The first was on a TLDR video showcasing the Neo’s specs, while the second glimpse was captured by X user @m2macmini during a TikTok livestream called “Matcha Break with MacBook Neo.” In the video still, he’s seen working at a tiny desk with an even tinier MacBook Neo, drinking a cup of matcha. Since TikTok livestreams disappear immediately after the stream ends, we’ll have to wait until Apple runs another video featuring the little Happy Mac if we ever want to see him in action again.

Apple Music is rolling out a new metadata system called Transparency Tags, which indicates when AI has been used in the creation of music hosted on the platform.

The system covers four categories including artwork, track, composition (lyrics), and music video. Labels and distributors can begin applying the tags immediately. Apple describes the tags as optional for now, noting that if omitted, no AI is assumed.

Apple said it defers to content providers to determine what qualifies as AI-generated, and that it treats the tags similarly to genres, credits, and other existing metadata. The company describes it as a first step toward industry-wide transparency around AI-generated music.

With Apple's tags, there isn't a visible enforcement or cross-verification process in place. The system is completely voluntary, or at least it is for now. Whether labels and distributors will actually use it remains to be seen.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/24650125

Because nothing says "fun" quite like having to restore a RAID that just saw 140TB fail.

Western Digital this week outlined its near-term and mid-term plans to increase hard drive capacities to around 60TB and beyond with optimizations that significantly increase HDD performance for the AI and cloud era. In addition, the company outlined its longer-term vision for hard disk drives' evolution that includes a new laser technology for heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), new platters with higher areal density, and HDD assemblies with up to 14 platters. As a result, WD will be able to offer drives beyond 140 TB in the 2030s.

Western Digital plans to volume produce its inaugural commercial hard drives featuring HAMR technology next year, with capacities rising from 40TB (CMR) or 44TB (SMR) in late 2026, with production ramping in 2027. These drives will use the company's proven 11-platter platform with high-density media as well as HAMR heads with edge-emitting lasers that heat iron-platinum alloy (FePt) on top of platters to its Curie temperature — the point at which its magnetic properties change — and reducing its magnetic coercivity before writing data.

A new rocket startup to be launched Friday says it plans to soon become the first Canadian company to have the capacity to launch medium-payload satellites in space, filling in a potentially important niche in Canada’s defence.

The Toronto-based company has already raised $6.2-million from the Business Development Bank of Canada, a Crown corporation, and a range of private investors including Toronto-based Garage Capital. Canada Rocket Company says the capital that it has raised is the largest round of all-Canadian seed funding ever for a space and defence startup.

The Canadian market alone is expected to be worth about $1-billion between 2033 and 2040, Kolias said.

Canada Rocket says it expects to be able to able to produce the rocket architecture for light-lift vehicles by 2028 when it will have about 150 employees, and then scale up to produce a medium-lift rocket two or three years later.

I came across an old story from back in 2013, when the world was seemingly a little brighter, that I thought might be worth a share as we near the end of 2025.

Canadians have been raising a stink with the Bank of Canada about the new plastic bank notes.

Emails to bank officials from the public in the months after the polymer bills were introduced repeatedly ask whether a scent of maple syrup has been added to the notes.

The correspondence, obtained under the Access to Information Act, asks the bank to confirm whether a scratch-and-sniff feature has been quietly added.

Rumours of the maple-syrup scent got started on the internet soon after the first bank notes were introduced in 2011, and have persisted in YouTube videos, blogs and Tweets.

The bank insists it has not added a scent, maple or otherwise, to any of the new plastic bills.

But the maple myth is likely to persist, with some Canadians claiming the odour might be an unexpected byproduct of the manufacturing process.

The voters chose a minority government and expected the parties to work together, and I don’t think it’s right for Carney and his team to try to undermine that,” said Kofman. “But then I think of Poilievre’s stupid little face being told about one floor crossing after another and I giggle for about 10 minutes.”

But also:

Kofman went on to acknowledge his concerns that a Carney Liberal majority could force through a Western pipeline without any environmental or Indigenous consultation, before dissolving back into giggles picturing Pierre Poilievre’s sad face becoming a popular reaction gif used to denote “whiny pouting” across the internet.

If you haven’t gotten around to it already, Sunday is looking like it’s going to be a great day to be ready with your snow tires.

George Springer topped them all with a come-from-behind moment that will go down as one of the biggest homers in franchise history.

Springer hit a go-ahead three-run shot in the seventh inning and closer Jeff Hoffman struck out the side in the ninth to lift the Blue Jays to a dramatic 4-3 win over the Seattle Mariners on Monday night.

The victory gave Toronto its first AL pennant since 1993 and a berth in the World Series starting Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It was created in the 1960s by designer Jim Donoahue and adopted by the federal government in 1982 as its “official symbol of government.”

In one afternoon, according to Thomson, Donoahue designed what is now known as the Canada wordmark. He used Baskerville typeface, which he was fond of, and he thickened it as it was light and delicate and could fade in smaller reproductions. The “D” in “Canada” rose like a flagpole, so it was a perfect place for the flag to “fly off,” said his daughter Zoe Donoahue in an interview, echoing her father’s words.

[…] Donoahue did not receive a cent initially for the work he had done on the wordmark, as it was a byproduct of the advertisement project that had been commissioned, said Thomson. Thomson said the federal government later sent Donoahue a “nice letter” and a cheque for $1 to “formalize ownership.”

“I’m sure that it’s worth a lot more than that, but it was just the way the process happened,” Thomson added. The Treasury Board Secretariat couldn’t confirm that the federal government had issued Donoahue a $1 cheque, nor the exact year when the wordmark was created.

But Donoahue’s daughter, Zoe, recalled her father talking about it. She said he was never bothered by receiving a $1 cheque, and that he even “got a kick out of that. He laughed about it for sure.” She described her father as someone who loved the process and puzzle of design into his 80s and she said the wordmark was one of his greatest prides.

While western Canada starts/continues to burn over the summer this is a pretty good site that animates the smoke patterns of wildfires.