gnsk has added a photo to the pool:
HOUTEN (ANP) - Het is woensdag officieel de warmste 24 juni sinds het begin van de metingen in 1901, meldt Weeronline. De temperatuur in De Bilt steeg om 14.30 uur naar 32,8 graden en daarmee werd het oude record van 32,6 graden uit 2005 verbroken. Het is volgens het weerbureau het zevende datum-warmterecord van dit jaar.
Het landelijke record van 36,5 graden werd gemeten in IJmuiden in 1976. Dat record is woensdag niet verbroken. Wel komt het woensdag in de buurt daarvan met een landelijk record van 35,4 graden.
Weeronline zegt dat er mogelijk meer hitterecords volgen de komende dagen. Ook in andere Europese landen, zoals Frankrijk en Engeland, is het deze week "uitzonderlijk heet".
Gartner has slammed AI vendors' lack of transparency, saying developers are facing sharply increased costs from coding agents. Since the main AI coding agent vendors have shifted from seat-based licensing to consumption-based pricing, developer teams now face highly variable cost structures. Developer teams face an emerging problem of escalating costs, said Nitish Tyagi, senior principal analyst at Gartner. AI coding bills were leaping from $20 or $100 to $2,000 to $5,000 per developer per month, while in extreme cases, the bill might hit $20,000 in token charges. However, software engineering departments get little insight into how token consumption is calculated and billed, making it difficult for them to forecast and control costs accurately. AI coding vendors have not yet delivered built-in features to allow developers to optimize costs in AI coding agents, resulting in cost escalation, Gartner said. "None of the vendors have incredible features when it comes to cost optimization," said Tyagi. Instead, he said vendors were focusing on the concept of "tokenmaxxing" to "boost the high" of token consumption, suggesting that if developers increase the number of tokens, they will increase productivity gains. "There is no direct relation between the increase in token consumption and an increase in productivity gains," he said. Gartner recommends developer teams optimize token consumption and adopt strategies such as context engineering practices, where software engineers improve the input context provided to AI systems. Another recommended strategy is model routing, where engineering and platform teams direct simpler, high-frequency tasks to smaller models, using frontier models only for complex, high-value work "All of these things will improve the output quality, and, therefore, will increase the productivity gains as well, so while there is no direct relation between tokenmaxxing and productivity gains, there is a relation between optimization of token consumption with the output quality," Tyagi said. As a result of the lack of cost optimization tools among vendors and consumption-reduction strategies among users, AI development is in a situation where a developer's coding agents may cost more than they earn, at least in some parts of the world. Gartner predicts that by 2028, AI coding costs will overtake the average developer's salary due to rising LLM token consumption and the shift to consumption-based licensing models. "We're not saying AI token cost will be higher than every developer's salary on the planet, because US salaries tend to be higher than in India, for example. But current token costs are already more than most of the salaries in India," he said. However, the cost of coding agents does not vary according to where they are consumed, meaning AI coding costs for a developer in India may be equivalent to the salary of an engineer with four to six years' experience, Tyagi said. "We're not saying AI token costs will be higher than every developer’s salary on the planet, because US salaries tend to be higher than in India, for example," Tyagi said, adding that token costs do not vary by location, and in India they may already be equivalent to the salary of an engineer with four to six years' experience. ®
We start this week with Matthew’s story about a fascinating paper that argues if LLMs are sentient, then by those metrics so is the classic game Age of Empires II. After the break, Matthew tells us about a wild story out of Texas with a data center being built on land that was donated to be a park. In the subscribers-only section, we talk hacking and basketball.
Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.
- If AI Is Sentient Then So Is ‘Age of Empires II’
- A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Massive Data Center Instead
- Hackers Publish Knicks and Madison Square Garden Data Online
- Madison Square Garden Made Dossier on Activists Who Opposed Facial Recognition
europeanspaceagency posted a photo:
This is the largest high-resolution photo ever made of our Milky Way galaxy’s centre in visible light. It was taken on 23 March 2025 by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. Packed with more than 60 million stars, this image opens the door for scientists to confirm the existence of any exoplanet found in this region and measure its mass using tiny changes in starlight over time.
The galactic bulge – the central region of our galaxy – is a vast, tightly packed structure filled mainly with old, cooler stars, giving it its characteristic yellow colour. Seen from some 26 000 light-years away, Euclid observes the galaxy’s centre through a complex foreground of material along its line of sight.
This ultra-wide view towards the bulge reveals not only stars, but also seemingly empty dark regions. The dark patches are not devoid of stars: they mark dense, dust-rich molecular clouds that absorb and scatter light from the bulge behind them. As Euclid looks through two of the Milky Way’s spiral arms, it also encounters regions of active star formation, traced by newly formed, massive blue stars. Their intense ultraviolet radiation ionises surrounding hydrogen gas, producing the faint red glow clearly visible in one of the cutouts.
Click here to download the version of this image with the rough edges from the detector pattern.
Read more about this image here.
Explore this image at the highest resolution in ESASky.
[Image description: A dense field of tiny stars fills this square image taken by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. The lower and central areas are dominated by bright yellow and gold colours, forming a textured background similar to fine glitter or sand. Dark brown and black patches cut irregularly through the yellow regions, like ink stains or clouds of smoke. Toward the upper left, the colours shift to purple and reddish tones, blending gently into the surrounding star field. Small blue points of light are scattered across the image.]
Technical details: The Euclid galactic bulge survey was conducted in early 2025 using Euclid’s optical camera VIS (monochromatic, one colour). These are first and foremost Euclid images, defined by Euclid’s crisp resolution and spectacularly wide field of view; the colours were added using observations captured in the summer of 2025 with the Canada-France-Hawai'i Telescope's MegaCam camera (CFHT-Megacam) in Hawai’i. The colours captured by MegaCam are in optical light through three broad-band filters (u, g, and r) overlapping the very broad VIS band over the r-band. The appearance of the most luminous stars in these images looks different than those generated from Euclid-only images, with additional diffraction spikes and a subtle halo around the very bright stars. This a consequence of combining Euclid VIS data, for their sensitivity and sharpness, and CFHT-MegaCam for the colours. Subtle differences in optical design of the two telescopes become apparent for the brighter objects.
Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CFHT, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (CEA Paris-Saclay); CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
europeanspaceagency posted a photo:
This six-gigapixel view of the galactic bulge is the largest high-resolution photo ever made of our Milky Way galaxy’s centre in visible light. It was taken on 23 March 2025 by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope.
This version shows the full survey area, with edge effects from the 3x3 pointing pattern of Euclid's visible camera.
Euclid covered 4.8 square degrees of the sky with this image, corresponding to 22 times the area of the full Moon as seen from Earth. The image has been rotated counterclockwise compared to the celestial projection: north is to the left and east is down.
Read more about this image here.
Explore this image at the highest resolution in ESASky.
[Image description: A dense field of tiny stars fills this wide image taken by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. The image has an irregular, patchwork shape, with jagged edges and black gaps around the borders. The lower and central areas are dominated by bright yellow and gold colours, forming a textured background similar to fine glitter or sand. Dark brown and black patches cut irregularly through the yellow regions, like ink stains or clouds of smoke. Across the upper part of the image, the colours shift to deeper brown, reddish, and purplish tones, blending into the surrounding star field. Small blue points of light are scattered across the image.]
Technical details: The Euclid galactic bulge survey was conducted in early 2025 using Euclid’s optical camera VIS (monochromatic, one colour). These are first and foremost Euclid images, defined by Euclid’s crisp resolution and spectacularly wide field of view; the colours were added using observations captured in the summer of 2025 with the Canada-France-Hawai'i Telescope's MegaCam camera (CFHT-Megacam) in Hawai’i. The colours captured by MegaCam are in optical light through three broad-band filters (u, g, and r) overlapping the very broad VIS band over the r-band. The appearance of the most luminous stars in these images looks different than those generated from Euclid-only images, with additional diffraction spikes and a subtle halo around the very bright stars. This a consequence of combining Euclid VIS data, for their sensitivity and sharpness, and CFHT-MegaCam for the colours. Subtle differences in optical design of the two telescopes become apparent for the brighter objects.
Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CFHT, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (CEA Paris-Saclay); CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
europeanspaceagency posted a photo:
This image shows an area of the observations of the galactic bulge, made by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. The galactic bulge – the central region of our galaxy – is a vast, tightly packed structure filled mainly with old, cooler stars, giving it its characteristic yellow colour.
The area is zoomed in ten times compared to the full image.
Explore this image at the highest resolution in ESASky.
Read more about this image here.
[Image description: A very dense field of tiny, closely packed points of light fills the image. The colour is almost uniform, dominated by bright yellow and gold tones across the entire frame. Small white points appear slightly brighter here and there, with a few faint bluish points scattered among them. No large dark patches or strong colour variations are visible, giving the image a smooth, grain‑like appearance.]
Technical details: The Euclid galactic bulge survey was conducted in early 2025 using Euclid’s optical camera VIS (monochromatic, one colour). These are first and foremost Euclid images, defined by Euclid’s crisp resolution and spectacularly wide field of view; the colours were added using observations captured in the summer of 2025 with the Canada-France-Hawai'i Telescope's MegaCam camera (CFHT-Megacam) in Hawai’i. The colours captured by MegaCam are in optical light through three broad-band filters (u, g, and r) overlapping the very broad VIS band over the r-band. The appearance of the most luminous stars in these images looks different than those generated from Euclid-only images, with additional diffraction spikes and a subtle halo around the very bright stars. This a consequence of combining Euclid VIS data, for their sensitivity and sharpness, and CFHT-MegaCam for the colours. Subtle differences in optical design of the two telescopes become apparent for the brighter objects.
Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CFHT, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (CEA Paris-Saclay); CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
europeanspaceagency posted a photo:
This image shows an area of the observations of the galactic bulge, made by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. A dense molecular cloud in the foreground, called LDN 10, obscures the light from the galactic bulge (yellow).
The area is zoomed in ten times compared to the full image.
Explore this image at the highest resolution in ESASky.
Read more about this image here.
[Image description: A dense field of tiny, closely packed points of light fills the image. Most of the background is bright yellow and gold. A broad, irregular dark band runs diagonally across the centre, forming connected black and dark-brown patches. Brighter clusters of pale yellow and white points appear above and below this dark band, with a few slightly bluish points scattered throughout.]
Technical details: The Euclid galactic bulge survey was conducted in early 2025 using Euclid’s optical camera VIS (monochromatic, one colour). These are first and foremost Euclid images, defined by Euclid’s crisp resolution and spectacularly wide field of view; the colours were added using observations captured in the summer of 2025 with the Canada-France-Hawai'i Telescope's MegaCam camera (CFHT-Megacam) in Hawai’i. The colours captured by MegaCam are in optical light through three broad-band filters (u, g, and r) overlapping the very broad VIS band over the r-band. The appearance of the most luminous stars in these images looks different than those generated from Euclid-only images, with additional diffraction spikes and a subtle halo around the very bright stars. This a consequence of combining Euclid VIS data, for their sensitivity and sharpness, and CFHT-MegaCam for the colours. Subtle differences in optical design of the two telescopes become apparent for the brighter objects.
Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CFHT, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (CEA Paris-Saclay); CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
europeanspaceagency posted a photo:
This 16:9 cutout is taken from the largest high-resolution photo ever made of the centre of our Milky Way galaxy in visible light. It was captured on 23 March 2025 by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. A full view of the complete image is available here.
On the right side of the image, Euclid looks through the dense foreground of the Milky Way’s galactic plane, where thick molecular clouds appear as dark patches that obscure parts of the galactic bulge beyond. Moving towards the left, the view rises to higher galactic latitudes: the yellow glow of the bulge becomes clearer, with fewer and more isolated foreground clouds interrupting the starlight.
Read more about this image here.
[Image description: A wide, horizontal view shows a densely packed field of tiny stars. The left side is dominated by bright yellow and gold colours, with only a few dark patches interrupting the glow. Moving towards the right, the image becomes darker and more mottled, with larger irregular black and brown areas cutting into the star-filled background. Subtle purple and reddish tones appear toward the upper right, while small blue points of light are scattered across the scene.]
Technical details: The Euclid galactic bulge survey was conducted in early 2025 using Euclid’s optical camera VIS (monochromatic, one colour). These are first and foremost Euclid images, defined by Euclid’s crisp resolution and spectacularly wide field of view; the colours were added using observations captured in the summer of 2025 with the Canada-France-Hawai'i Telescope's MegaCam camera (CFHT-Megacam) in Hawai’i. The colours captured by MegaCam are in optical light through three broad-band filters (u, g, and r) overlapping the very broad VIS band over the r-band. The appearance of the most luminous stars in these images looks different than those generated from Euclid-only images, with additional diffraction spikes and a subtle halo around the very bright stars. This a consequence of combining Euclid VIS data, for their sensitivity and sharpness, and CFHT-MegaCam for the colours. Subtle differences in optical design of the two telescopes become apparent for the brighter objects.
Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CFHT, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (CEA Paris-Saclay); CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO