San Francisco (The Hawk): It's possible that the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros from Apple won't be available until next March.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman now forecasts a March debut, contrary to prior claims that said Apple may deliver the new gadgets by the end of the year, according to The Verge.
The launch of the new MacBooks is anticipated to occur simultaneously with the launches of iOS 16.3 and macOS Ventura 13.3, which are anticipated to occur in early February and March, respectively.
Gurman asserts that additional evidence that the enhanced line of MacBook Pros won't be introduced this year may be found in the company's most recent earnings call.
While Apple's chief executive officer, Tim Cook, asserted that the company is "set" with its product portfolio for the Christmas season, chief financial officer Luca Maestri is of the opinion that Mac revenue will "drop dramatically" in December.
The MacBook Pros, which the tech giant unveiled in October, increased Mac revenue by $10.9 billion, but it doesn't seem like the business anticipates the same this year.
The M2 Max processor would reportedly contain 12 CPU cores and up to 38 GPU cores, an improvement above the M1 Max's 10 CPU cores and up to 32 GPU cores, according to rumours, the article stated.
(Inputs from Agencies)

It's possible that the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros from Apple won't be available until next March. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman now forecasts a March debut, contrary to prior claims that said Apple may deliver the new gadgets by the end of the year, according to The Verge.

Apple may not release new MacBook Pro models until next March

New Delhi: Pakistani actress Kubra Khan has threatened to sue YouTuber Adil Raja for defamation after a video in which he said that four "top models and actresses" had illicit relationships with former top generals.
"I stayed quiet initially because obviously a fake video isn't going to take over my existence but ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Do you think random people can point fingers at me and I'll sit quietly and take it?" Khan wrote on Instagram and Twitter on Monday.
Raja, who describes himself on Twitter as a geopolitical analyst and rights activist, released a video on December 31, 2022, in which he made several sweeping statements against the former top leadership of the army, reports Dawn news. One allegation was that four "top models and actresses" would fraternise with the former officials as well as with politicians.
He was unable to substantiate his claims with proof other than claiming it was revealed to him by "sources", Dawn reported.
He also mentioned the initials of the four women he was making the claims about -- MK, MH, SA and KK or AK. The confusion in the last set of initials was compounded when he claimed to have said AK after Khan's tweet.
Amid widespread speculation on social media of who the actors he mentioned could be, given the initials, Mehwish Hayat and Sajal Aly also posted messages slamming " baseless insinuations" and "character assassination", Dawn reported.
Aly has also responded to the social media posts tarnishing her character as well as of other female actors, reports Samaa TV.—IANS

 Pakistani actress Kubra Khan has threatened to sue YouTuber Adil Raja for defamation after a video in which he said that four "top models and actresses" had illicit relationships with former top generals.

Claims Emerge That ‘Top Pak Models & Actresses’ Had Illicit Relationships With Ex-generals

Dehradun (The Hawk): One week compulsory training course on "Role of Agroforestry in Land management" for officers of Indian Forest Service organized by Extension Division, ICFRE - Forest Research Institute (FRI), Dehradun sponsored by Ministry of Forests and Climate Change, Government of India, New Delhi concluded today. The training programme was included a field trip to Gurukul Narson near Roorkee where the participants interacted with progressive farmers and came to know about Poplar based agroforestry and other agroforestry models along with their financial value. The training had 12 sessions on different aspects of agroforestry like agroforestry policy, its implementation issues, role of agroforestry in meeting national and international commitments, bio-engineering measure through agroforestry, potential of medicinal plants under agroforestry, bamboo based agroforestry, climate changeresilience through forest and tree plantaion, challenges in agroforestry implementation, developing domestic carbon market, rehabilitation of degraded land, raw material augmentation, etc.  The valedictory session of the training programme was held today. Ms. Richa Misra, IFS, Head, Extension Division welcomed all the participants to the valedictory session and invited Dr. Renu Singh, IFS, Director, ICFRE-FRI to address the participants.  A panel discussion was also conducted on the theme "Improvement in the working of Forest Departments - need for career development through training and improvement of skills" under the Chairmanship of Dr. Renu Singh. The panelists included Dr. Jagmohan Sharma, IFS &amp; Ms. Richa Misra, IFS. The panelists and participants spoke on the importance of training in the career of the officers.  The Director, ICFRE - FRI, distributed certificates all trainees. A total of 12 officers of Indian Forest Service participated in the training. The training programme was coordinated by Dr. Charan Singh, Scientist-F under the guidance of Ms. Richa Misra, Head, Extension Division and Course Director of the training programme.  Other team membars including Shri Rambir Singh, Scientist-E, Ms. Vijaya Ratre, Assistant Silviculturist, shri Ved Pal Singh, Scientist-D Shri Kiran Kumar, Technical Officer and others did a commendable work to make the training programme successful.

One week compulsory training course on "Role of Agroforestry in Land management" for officers of Indian Forest Service

One Week Compulsory Training For IFS Officers On 'Role Of Agroforestry In Land Management'

Los Angeles: Jennifer Lopez believes that there are a growing number of on-screen roles for older women in Hollywood, and the singer-actress is keen to continue working for many years to come.  "It has changed a lot, and I think it’s appropriate. As you get older and you have more experience, you become a richer human being and you have more to offer. The idea of, ‘There’s nothing really valuable about watching a woman over 30’ is so ridiculous, it’s the opposite of right. It just makes me laugh."  "People have realised that women just get sexier as they get older. They get more learned and more rich with character. All of that is very beautiful and attractive, and not just physically, but on the inside, the beauty that you gain as you get older, the wisdom you gain," she told ELLE's December/January 2023 Women in Hollywood issue.  Lopez hasn't made any retirement plans, and she doesn't plan to slow down anytime soon, either, reports femalefirst.co.uk.  The 'If You Had My Love' hitmaker, who is married to actor Ben Affleck, explained: "I see myself working (as long as) I want to. I don’t know what that age is. It might be 70, it might be 80, it might be 90, I don’t know. But I know that it’s there for me if I want it and I want to create it."  “That has always been the mindset that I’ve had: to never let anybody put me in a box because of where I was born, where I’m from, what age I am, anything like that. Those boundaries don’t exist for me."
—IANS

Jennifer Lopez believes that there are a growing number of on-screen roles for older women in Hollywood, and the singer-actress is keen

Jennifer Lopez says 'Women get sexier as they age'

Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh) [India]: Ahead of the consecration programme to be held in Ayodhya on January 22, even foreign countries have witnessed an increase in demand for replicas of the Ram Mandir models in Ayodhya. Aditya Singh, owner of the factory that is involved in the manufacturing of Ram Mandir models, said while speaking to ANI, "We have been doing this work for the past three years. Earlier, the orders used to come from within India; now they are coming from outside, as well as from multiple departments like the police, court, electricity department and CBI branch. There is a demand for models among saints and for marriage functions as well."

<div style="text-align:left;"><img src="https://thehawk.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/r1.webp" alt="Ram Mandir models" style="height: auto;width: auto"/></div>

"And now the demand for the models has become so great that even people in foreign countries are seeing it and demanding it. We got a call from America saying that they wanted a Ram Mandir model. We sent them all the details and they said that they wanted a bigger size, which they will order through the ships," he added.

<div style="text-align:left;"><img src="https://thehawk.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/r2.webp" alt="Aditya Singh from America" style="height: auto;width: auto"/></div>

Speaking about the size of the order received from America, Aditya Singh said that the model is going to be eight feet long and about four and a half feet wide and its height will be about five feet.
"The price of the model will be between Rs 90,000 and Rs 1 lakh," he said. He further said that the craze for the model among people has increased ever since the construction of Ram Mandir started, which also resulted in a 10 percent increase in the business.
Speaking on the increased demand for the models, BJP MP from Ayodhya, Lallu Singh, said, "The increase in demand for the Ram Mandir model even in foreign countries shows how Lord Ram resides in the hearts of the people around the globe. This has also provided employment opportunities for workers over here."

<div style="text-align:left;"><img src="https://thehawk.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/r3.webp" alt="BJP MP from Ayodhya, Lallu Singh on Ram Mandir" style="height: auto;width: auto"/></div>

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to attend the installation of the idol of Ram Lalla at the grand temple on January 22. Preparations are underway in full swing for the event, which will draw dignitaries and people from all walks of life. Vishwa Hindu Parishad on Tuesday also invited former deputy prime minister LK Advani and Union minister Murli Manohar Joshi for the grand consecration of the Ram Temple.
Amid the preparations, the residents of the temple city are delighted over new avenues of income from donations received from tourists coming from India and abroad in exchange for the hospitality offered to them.
—ANI

Ahead of the consecration programme to be held in Ayodhya on January 22, even foreign countries have witnessed an increase in demand for replicas

Demand for Ayodhya's Ram Mandir models increases in foreign countries

Jan 07 (The Hawk): Our classrooms, once vibrant cauldrons of curiosity and exploration, have become suffocating chambers of standardized tests and rote memorization. We cram children's minds with facts, dates, formulas, churning out human calculators instead of nurturing young Einsteins. But the greatest weapon in humanity's arsenal lies not in regurgitating textbook data, but in the boundless fields of creativity, imagination, and empathy. It's time we stopped treating education as a factory assembly line and started cultivating the gardens of young minds.   The current system, fixated on metrics and benchmarks, stifles the very qualities that define human ingenuity. Where are the paint-splattered Picassos of the future, their fingers still sticky with the residue of creation? Where are the budding writers, weaving tales of wonder in their cluttered notebooks? Their voices are drowned out by the monotonous drone of lectures and the incessant ticking of test clocks. We've reduced learning to a zero-sum game, where a missed multiple-choice question erases the spark of a nascent idea.   This isn't just about test scores; it's about the kind of adults we're shaping. Creativity allows us to break free from the rigidity of thought, to envision solutions where none existed before. Imagination fuels empathy, the cornerstone of a compassionate society. We need doctors who can not only diagnose ailments but also feel the patient's pain, engineers who design not just for efficiency but for human well-being, leaders who build bridges, not walls. These qualities will not bloom in the sterile labs of standardized tests.   This is not a call for chaos, but for a symphony of minds in perfect harmony. We need rigour, yes, but also the freedom to question, to challenge, to create. It is imperative to equip our children not just with facts, but with the tools to navigate the uncertainties of the future: the critical thinking to solve complex problems, the empathy to build bridges across divides, and the imagination to dream worlds they can bring into being. The stars that light our way were born not in sterile labs, but in the fiery furnaces of creativity.  The future demands not just knowledge, but wisdom. Not just facts, but empathy. Not just robots who can regurgitate equations, but human beings who can connect, create, and navigate the complexities of a rapidly changing world. It is time to tear down the walls of our outdated educational system and build a new one, brick by brick, with imagination, empathy, and the boundless potential of our children at its heart.
 —Vijay GarG Retired Principal Educational columnist malout

Our classrooms, once vibrant cauldrons of curiosity and exploration, have become suffocating chambers of standardized tests and rote memorization.

Time to Tear down the walls of our Outdated Educational System 

New Delhi (The Hawk): New research has developed a modern analogue for pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs) of Kaziranga National Park that can help in the interpretation of the past vegetation and climate in a region. Climate change is a dynamic process for the periodic vegetation shifts in a region. Nevertheless, the national parks are highly protected areas for the biodiversity conservation. The extreme and unpredictable weather, and an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, is one of the prime drivers for the biodiversity loss in National Parks. In these circumstances, the precision in future climatic assessment is important and requires rigorous climate models which are built utilizing modern and past climatic data inputs which emerged from well-dated proxy based palaeo-reconstructions. The Kaziranga National Park (KNP) in Assam, a corridor for immigration of members of the Indo-Malayan fauna into the Indian sub-region, is a critical reserve for tropical species, having served as a gene reservoir for these taxa during glacial periods. With this in mind scientists from Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP), an autonomous institution of DST have developed a modern analogue dataset based on pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs) from different vegetation settings across the Kaziranga National Park of Assam for the interpretation of the past vegetation and climate in a region. This study evaluates both the strength and weaknesses of the biotic proxy and assesses how reliably modern pollen and NPP analogue can identify different ecological environments and could be used as a baseline in interpreting Late Quaternary palaeo-environmental and ecological changes more accurately in this region. Modern pollen analogue being a prerequisite in this high precipitation tropical region for deciphering the past and future climatic scenario, the palaeo-ecological data would assist in better understanding the sustainable future projections in and around the national park. Compared to single-proxy interpretation, the combination of pollen and NPP can reveal more detailed information and strengthen subsequent palaeo-environmental reconstructions. The research is the first holistic approach towards developing modern pollen and NPP analogue that would be an accurate reference tool for the past herbivory and ecological studies in the tropical region of northeast India. The study published in the journal Holocene for the first time helps in identifying marker pollen taxa recovered from the surface soil samples in relation to the different vegetation and land-use from Kaziranga National Park. It could help public and wildlife management agencies to understand the association of flora and fauna especially herbivores in National Parks to conserve it for the current and future prospect, thus informing the National Biodiversity Mission.

New research has developed a modern analogue for pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs) of Kaziranga National Park

Tracking Pollen From Soil Of KNP Can Interpret Climate & Vegetation Change & Help Inform National Biodiversity Mission: Study

By Anna Draffin, Gary Dickson and Maia Germano for The Conversation
Melbourne: Public interest journalism was already under significant stress in Australia. And now the pressure is ratcheting up even further.  While still experiencing the pandemic’s aftershocks, the industry has simultaneously been hit with the increasing cost of doing business, rising costs of living and declining advertising spend. All of this has made it harder to report the news that matters, educates and informs.  With Meta announcing last week it will not renew its commercial agreements with news outlets in Australia – worth an estimated AUSD 70 million per year – it’s not an understatement to say it’s been a bad time for journalism.  Where news in Australia is vanishing  Public interest journalism is a vital service in a healthy democratic society. It creates social cohesion, informs decision making and strengthens democracy.  The funding provided by tech giants under the agreements made as part of the landmark News Media Bargaining Code in 2021 provided a significant source of revenue for media companies.  One regional news company estimated in its submission to the Regional Newspapers Inquiry that once the agreements were fully implemented, the revenue would fund up to 30 per cent of its editorial wages.  But as that money dries up, it’s clear Australia’s public interest journalism sector must find a new way to survive and thrive. And that method must be supported by data that clearly identifies the areas of Australia most lacking in comprehensive, accurate journalism.
The Public Interest Journalism Initiative (PIJI) has been tracking public interest news production in Australia since 2019, and our research reveals a clear divide across metropolitan and regional audiences and markets. Regional and remote areas of Australia have fewer news outlets generally, compared to areas along the east coast and around capital cities.  Overall, PIJI has identified almost 500 changes in news production around Australia since 2019, with the majority of these being contractions. This includes media outlets closing, shrinking their services or ending their print editions.  But the decline is not limited to rural and regional areas. Our data also identify thinning in metropolitan markets, with 135 contractions compared to 61 expansions. However, the data also suggest the nature of the changes in metropolitan markets is different from that of regional markets.  Fifty-three per cent of contractions in major cities were local suburban newspapers ending their print editions and shifting to digital-only delivery. And just over a third of contractions were outlets that ceased operations altogether, a share that has been steadily increasing.  In regional areas, we’ve seen more substantial changes with outlets closing (51 per cent of regional contractions) or decreasing their service by cutting the frequency of publications or the level of output (21 per cent).  The shifting of content from print to digital represented just 16 per cent of the changes seen in the regions.  Concerningly, we have also identified areas where news is completely lacking – so-called “news deserts”. According to our latest quarterly data, there are no print, digital or radio local news producers in five Australian local government areas.  Excluding radio, we could not identify any print or digital local news outlets in 29 local government areas.  Many of those areas are regional and remote areas – highlighting once again the discrepancy between metropolitan and regional news coverage.  More data on the industry is vital  This data also underscores where future support should be directed.
Local and especially regional news urgently needs support in the face of significant industry upheaval and transformation. There is a clear need for long-term engagement and collaboration between government and researchers – both independent and government-based – given the complexity of issues facing the industry.  Longitudinal data and independent analysis will be of the utmost importance in this. Analysis must be at arms length from both government and industry, but should engage with each side, informed by daily practice and policy.  Impartial, third-party research will also assist with understanding and assessing the impact of any policy interventions, as well as tracking and informing industry transformation, whether that be changing business models or new start-ups.  We have known this for some time. In April 2022, the Regional Newspapers Inquiry pointed to the need for core, longitudinal industry data.  This is why PIJI has gathered timely data on market changes in news production across Australia, the location of these outlets and how they are connected with one another. This assists communities, researchers, industry leaders and policymakers to better understand the health of Australia’s news media landscape.  Such data can provide the impetus for policy decisions that will support news businesses and producers. Innovation is sorely needed in this area to address journalism’s broken business model.  What could help?  One potential new avenue of revenue would be the development of a not-for-profit journalism sector in Australia.  This has been repeatedly recommended in parliamentary and regulatory inquiries over the past decade. There is evidence from overseas, particularly the United States, to suggest a not-for-profit news sector would increase media diversity and address the lack of commercially viable options in investigative journalism or less-represented geographical, cultural and linguistic markets.  The Productivity Commission’s inquiry into philanthropy appears to be giving this option some consideration; its draft report, released last year, proposed extending deductible gift recipient status to public interest journalism. PIJI would welcome the support this could offer news producers and outlets.  There is also potential in commercial measures like research and development tax rebates for public interest journalism. Again, we can be guided by success overseas – Canada implemented a similar rebate system a few years ago.  Evidence and a clear focus on the role of news as a public good must lead the way in identifying paths forward to service our communities.  (Anna Draffin is Professional associate, University of Canberra; Gary Dickson is Research fellow, University of Technology Sydney; Maia Germano is Sessional tutor, The University of Melbourne)
—PTI

Australia's journalism sector is at a crossroads, with funding cuts and the digital transition challenging its survival.

Meta’s lost revenue huge hit for public interest journalism already reeling from cutbacks

Apple is in talks to build Google's Gemini artificial intelligence engine into the iPhone, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the situation.
Apple also recently held discussions with OpenAI and has considered using its model, the report added.  Apple and Google are in active negotiations to let the iPhone maker license Gemini, Google's set of generative AI models, to power some new features coming to the phone's software this year, Bloomberg said.
The two parties have not decided the terms or branding of an AI agreement or finalised how it would be implemented, the report added.  It is unlikely that any deal would be announced until June, when Apple plans to hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, the report said.  Apple, Google and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside business hours.
—Reuters

Apple discusses licensing Google's Gemini AI for the iPhone, considering OpenAI's models for upcoming features.

The Hawk

Tag : Models

Apple may not release new MacBook Pro models until next March

Pankaj Sharma

Tag : Models

Apple may not release new MacBook Pro models until next March

Pankaj Sharma

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