Serendipity35

I blog here about technology and education, and sometimes about how those two industries cross paths. I'm the blogger. Tim Kellers is on the IT side of this. Though he had done some posts in the past, he is more often updating something or fixing something broken on his server or fixing something in some code. That is not my area of expertise, and I don't really want to know much about it. I just want it to work

In October, it wasn't always working. Posts that I had spent time writing just disappeared. The blog went offline. People told me that they couldn't access it because of security warnings. I stopped posting.

Tim was texting me messages about our .net domain. He created an alternate version at a .icu domain. I had to look up .icu, a top level domain I had never seen before. It means so logically that it is illogical, "I See You."

Tim told me, "That instance runs on different CPU architectures, so I want to do that manual sync first before I move the domain name over." Then he said, "I just synced your post to s35.net," and "I went through an SQL dump of the database and found a whole lot of image files with our very old nji.edu address prefixes. I changed them for a local test, and it looks like a whole lot of broken images are back online.  That string was replaced 554 times according to the log file." 

All of which makes little sense to me. And that's okay with me as long as Tim hangs around.

When I was in Europe in September, I told Tim the site was not working and giving me odd errors. "Just added the Privacy/Cookies/GDPR thing to s35.icu.  Next time you are in Europe, see if the site connects," he texted.

Serendipty35 is back. Tonight is Mischief Night here in Serendipity35land, and I'm hoping no gremlins are out there that will prank Serendipity35.

This week, OpenAI made news with its new browser, Atlas. Wth all their plans and a new cloud-based AI browser, they need to scale their computing power. Here is a news summary (AI-generated, of course)

OpenAI has announced a strategic multiyear partnership with semiconductor giant Broadcom to co-develop custom-built chips and infrastructure. The collaboration aims to deploy 10 gigawatts of specialized AI accelerators by the end of 2029—a staggering amount of compute capacity equivalent to the power consumption of approximately 8 million U.S. households. (Markets Insider)

This deal marks OpenAI’s first venture into designing its own in-house processors, with Broadcom tasked with developing and deploying the systems. The chips—known as AI accelerators—are optimized for parallel processing, enabling them to execute billions of operations simultaneously. These accelerators will be deployed across OpenAI’s facilities and partner data centers, using Broadcom’s Ethernet-based networking solutions to ensure scalability and efficiency. (Broadcom Inc)

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emphasized the significance of the partnership: “Developing our own accelerators adds to the broader ecosystem of partners all building the capacity required to push the frontier of AI to provide benefits to all humanity.” The Broadcom agreement is the latest in a series of megadeals OpenAI has struck in 2025 to secure the compute power needed for its rapidly expanding AI services. Earlier this year, OpenAI signed a $100 billion deal with Nvidia to deploy 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems, beginning in the second half of 2026. (Reuters) In another major move, OpenAI partnered with AMD to deploy 6 gigawatts of chips and received a warrant for up to 160 million AMD shares, potentially making it one of AMD’s largest shareholders. (The Motley Fool)

These deals reflect a broader industry trend: major tech players are increasingly investing in custom silicon to reduce reliance on Nvidia’s dominant GPU offerings. Companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have already begun developing their own AI chips, and OpenAI’s latest move places it firmly within this competitive landscape. While OpenAI has not disclosed how it plans to finance the Broadcom deal, analysts estimate that a single gigawatt-scale data center could cost between $50 billion and $60 billion. 

This latest partnership not only strengthens OpenAI’s technical capabilities but also signals a shift toward greater control over its hardware stack—an essential step as the race to develop next-generation AI systems accelerates.

OpenAI's new Atlas browser has an Agent mode, which allows it to navigate sites, fill carts, and perform real-world tasks. Can it do it well for you - and will you trust it to do it for you?

Elyse Betters Picaro, a Senior Contributing Editor at zdnet.com, did a shopping test. For Plus and Pro users (only on Mac IOS for now), it includes a powerful Agent mode so that ChatGPT can take over your browser, click around, and perform tasks for you.

She tried having it do an order from Walmart and reported the process and results. You put n a prompt, just as you would for any chatbot request. Unsurprisingly, the more specific the prompt, the better the result. (GIGO still lives!) Initially, she asked, "Order me wood putty, paintable caulk, and 2-inch screws from Walmart." In a way out of some sci-fi story from the past, the Agent took over the cursor and all while she watched.

Her test is enough of a cautionary tale that I have not tried a similar test myself at this point. Privacy fears...

Walmart's site created a hurdle (a language-selection pop-up) that blocked Atlas' Agent from continuing, even though she had it access to her Chrome data and Keychain. That's frightening, but consider that she had already given the key data to those two other companies. It couldn't log in to Walmart, didn't know her location or default store, even though she has ordered from them before. She revised her prompt (as we have all done) and on the third try she prompted: "Order me 5 wood putty, 5 paintable caulk, and one pack of 2-inch screws. I want them delivered to my house from the Malone, NY, location in an hour. I've ordered these before, so use my past purchases to find the right products and brands I use."

It worked. The agent used her purchase history, searched for the products in past orders, and added them to her cart. It didn't complete the order but paused at the checkout screen so she could select a delivery window, adjust the tip, and confirm payment.

Does this amaze you, excite you, or frighten you? I'm glad that others are testing it. I've hit the pause button.

OpenAI, maker of the world’s most popular chatbot, ChatGPT, launched a web browser, Atlas, this week. Will it make surfing the Internet smarter?

Atlas is available only for computers that run Apple’s MacOS operating system. The company plans to introduce a version for Microsoft Windows and mobile operating systems, including Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.

I tried it out on my iPad. It doesn't have a traditional address bar. You type the address into the chat window. That essentially removes competing search engines from the process. Google did something similar more than a decade ago with Chrome by integrating the browser and their search engine.

Atlas is very light on using your device's resources because all the heavy lifting is done in the cloud. 

The biggest criticism, or maybe it's a fear, that I've seen early on is that Atlas allows OpenAI to directly gather all user data that can train their future AI technologies. Microsoft (who clearly have a horse in this race) cautions that in exchange for this AI and lighter load, ChatGPT wants permission to watch and remember everything you do online. They say it "out-surveils even Google Chrome, and that’s saying something."

It not only keeps track of which websites you visit. It also stores “memories” of what you look at and do on those sites. It can even control your mouse and browse for you. It could complete an online order for you. (more on that tomorrow)

It is still early to evaluate whether Atlas’s AI capabilities outweigh its data gathering, but the privacy concerns are real and huge. Does OpenAI offer sufficient controls for managing what Atlas remembers? That's unclear. 

This has been the appeal of other browsers, especially DuckDuckGo, which emphasizes its privacy and is also a lighter browser than Chrome or Opera. (I consider Firefox to be somewhere between.) After all, your default browser is your entry point to almost all of your online surfing. (Yes, apps can bypass it.) But Duck Duck Go has a small percentage of the browser market.

Adding AI to browsers is not a new thing that OpenAI invented. Another lesser-known search engine, Perplexity, makes a browser called Comet. Google has added its Gemini bot to Chrome and will soon add "agent" capabilities that let AI do tasks for you, and Atlas has an“Ask ChatGPT” button that lets you chat with the bot about pages you’re viewing. You can ask it to summarize an article, analyze data, or revise your email draft.

OpenAI's response to concerns about privacy and data collection? So far, just a shrug.