Central Connecticut State defeats Binghamton 64-56Us Weekly has affiliate partnerships. We receive compensation when you click on a link and make a purchase. Learn more! Do you ever feel like your teeth look and feel dingy? We get it. Over the years, our teeth can lose their glimmer and shine, which is why it’s imperative to invest in whitening strips that can take the guesswork out of your dental hygiene routine. Erin Andrews , known for being an American sports commentator and TV personality, has a beautiful white smile that glows across television screens across the country. We found her favorite teeth whitening strips that will help you channel Andrews’ bright smile — and you can get them for under $30 at Amazon! These on-sale whitestrips are an effortless way to keep your smile glowing and looking bright! They feature hydrogen peroxide and have the look of a professional effect that won’t cost you $400! Further, they’re enamel safe and have Advanced Seal Technology’s no slip grip design that allows you to talk and drink water without worrying! To use these strips, you peel them off their backing. Then, apply the strips directly to your teeth. Finally, smile and repeat! It’s really that simple. While reviewing and raving over these whitening strips , one reviewer noted , “I use these 3-4 times a week on my old tea-drinking teeth. I get compliments about how white my teeth are all the time. To me, they just look nicer than before.” Another reviewer said , “I don’t know why I didn’t try these sooner. I was just skeptical that a system this inexpensive would work well. It works very, very well. The results are as good as the $500 teeth whitening kits I’ve purchased through my dentist in the past. You shouldn’t debate, just jump into whiter teeth. I wish I had done it sooner.” See it: Get the Crest 3D Whitestrips for $28 (originally $46) at Amazon! Please note, prices are accurate at time of publication but may be subject to change. Check our latest news in Google News Check our latest news in Apple News Not what you’re looking for? Check out more from Crest here , and don’t forget to scope out Amazon’s Daily Deals for more great finds!Even with technology taking over much of our day-to-day lives, board games still offer quality entertainment that can’t be beaten. Of course, the popular board games of today are a far cry from the games your parents grew up playing. Board games are perfect for encouraging your family to work together or for bringing your group of friends around the table for an evening. If you’d like to start up a weekly game night, let this helpful list of the most popular board games be your guide. Utter Nonsense Ages 8+ This game will have every player rolling in stitches with each ridiculous phrase that’s uttered. Combine crazy accents and hilarious phrases to impress the Nonsense Judge and win the round. The player with the highest number of wins ultimately wins the game, but the true fun of this card game is listening to your fellow players trying to say some of the most entertaining phrases of all time. This game is perfect for game nights or parties. Speak Out Ages 8+ This hilarious game is perfect if you have teenagers or are hosting a party with all adults. To play, you insert a mouthpiece that alters the sound of your speech, making every word sound silly. Set the timer and read one of the phrases on the cards and try to help your teammate guess what you’re saying. Speak Out easily provides hours of fun that even grandparents will love. Escape Room in a Box Ages 13+ What’s the next best thing to trying to break out of a room? Escape Room in a Box, of course. This thrilling, immersive game involves solving 2D and 3D puzzles in order to prevent a mad scientist from turning you and your friends or family into werewolves. Work together to escape your fate and use Amazon Alexa to enhance the experience. Codenames Ages 14+ This fun strategy game is perfect for anyone with teenagers. Form two teams and select a spymaster on each team. Using clues, spymasters try to help their teammates find all 25 of the agents they’re in contact with, hopefully without selecting the other team’s agents or running into the deadly assassin. This innovative game offers a challenging and rewarding time working together. Harry Potter Clue Ages 9+ Excite your kids on game night with this modern twist on a classic. Play as six recognizable Hogwarts characters — Harry, Hermione, Ron, Luna, Ginny or Neville — to solve the mystery behind a fellow student’s disappearance. It’s up to you to figure out who attacked the student, what bewitching spell they used and where it occurred. Watch out for the Dark Mark, moving staircases and secret passages as you travel along in this magical family game. Pandemic Ages 8+ If you’ve ever wanted to save humanity from a deadly outbreak, you’ll love spending an hour playing Pandemic. You and your teammates must fight to contain four deadly diseases threatening the human race. Players must learn to work with their teammates to control outbreak hotspots and treat diseases. Win the game by curing all diseases without wiping out humanity first. Catan Ages 10+ This tactical 60-minute game will push your imagination to its limits as you embark on a journey across Catan. Acquire crucial resources as you travel, build roads, buildings, and cities, and be wary of the ruthless robber and other players halting you on your own road. Through careful trading and clever decisions, you can lead your travelers to victory in this role-playing game of limitless possibilities. Play again and again. Every game is different. Ticket to Ride Ages 8+ Train lovers will enjoy this innovative board game which has won numerous awards. This cross-country train adventure game mimics the concept of traveling around the world in 80 days. Collect train cars and claim railways across the country. Players earn the most points by establishing long train routes and connecting distant cities. Each game takes roughly 30 to 40 minutes to complete, and every adventure is different. 5 Second Rule Ages 10+ This quick-paced game gives each player five seconds to name items on a certain topic. Although the topics are objectively easy —“Name 3 Mountains,” “Name 3 Types of Hats” or “Name 3 Super Heroes,” the pressure of the time crunch is likely to put you on edge. Race the clock and remain composed to win this game. You can even make up your own topics if you prefer. Half the fun is just hearing what other people blurt out, whether it’s relevant to the topic or not. Prices listed reflect time and date of publication and are subject to change. 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New Delhi: External affairs minister S Jaishankar is currently touring the US to meet members of the outgoing Biden administration as well as key players of Trump 2.0 to discuss the incoming administration's priorities and India's expectations for the next four years. ET Year-end Special Reads Top 10 equity mutual funds of the year. Do you have any? How India flexed its global power muscles in 2024 2024 was the year India became the talk of America Ahead of Jaishankar's visit, foreign secretary Vikram Misri held meetings with Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and Deputy Secretary of State for Management & Resources Richard Verma at Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department. ET was the first to report that Jaishankar and Misri will visit the US this month to engage with members of the incoming Trump administration . Among the agenda items for Jaishankar and Misri is the Quad Summit that India is scheduled to host in 2025, iCET, the situation in South Asia, Khalistani extremism and defence partnership , it is learnt. Discussions with the Trump team are likely to centre around the President-elect's focus on trade and tariffs , besides partnerships on technology, geopolitics and geoeconomics in the backdrop of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war. Ahead of Jaishankar's trip, US NSA Jake Sullivan telephoned Bangladesh interim regime chief adviser Mohammed Yunus and called for protecting 'human rights of all people, regardless of religion' in the backdrop of rising attacks on minorities. 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Two-way trade is expected to cross the $200 billion mark in 2024, he added. The number of Indian students in the US has increased from just 54,664 in 2000 to over 330,000 in 2023, while the population of the Indian diaspora is now over five million from 1.9 million in 2000. Verma said the Biden-Harris administration appointed a record number of 130 Indian Americans to senior positions. India today is the top military exercise partner of the US, he said, adding the US is the biggest source of remittances to India. A fifth of unicorns in the US have Indian migrants as founders or cofounders, Verma noted. It may be recalled that last week, the Biden administration slapped sanctions on four Pakistani entities, including state-owned flagship aerospace and defence agency National Development Complex, on charges of contributing to Pakistan's ballistic missile programme. Also, US principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, Campbell and Indian ambassador to the US Vinay Kwatra last week travelled to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to mark the significant progress that the two countries have made to strengthen space cooperation, including under iCET. (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel )Coatbridge Youtuber planning North Korea visit after meeting with drug lords and TalibanSeasonal jobs are reportedly shifting from retail stores to eCommerce fulfillment centers as businesses respond to consumers’ changing holiday shopping habits. While the number of seasonal jobs at retailers dropped from 564,000 last year to 520,000 this year, Amazon added 250,000 seasonal positions and UPS added 125,000, CNBC reported Tuesday (Dec. 24). The roles at Amazon and UPS are generally focused on fulfillment and delivery of online orders, according to the report . This shift in employment came as consumers continued doing more of their holiday shopping online. This year, three-quarters of American shoppers plan to buy at least half their gifts online, the report said, citing data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas . Consumers are expected to continue this trend, with the retail sector forecast to shrink by 0.2% each year over the next decade, per the report. Some 450,000 jobs are expected to be created by online shopping in the U.S. by 2026, according to the report . The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed eCommerce sales in November rebounding from a tepid pace in October as consumers filled up their online carts for gift-giving, PYMNTS reported Dec. 17. While overall retail sales surged 0.7% in November — ahead of a consensus forecast of 0.6% — the non-store retailer category, which includes eCommerce sales, was 1.8% higher. During this year’s Black Friday, 72% of shoppers made at least some purchases online , while only 28% of consumers shopped exclusively in stores, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence publication, “ Black Friday 2024 Report: Sales, Not Sentiment, Drives Black Friday Turnout .” The report found that in-store shopping remains significant but supplements online shopping. Fifty-six percent of consumers visited physical stores during Black Friday — a figure that was down from 57% in 2023 and 62% in 2022. In terms of seasonal jobs , Target said in September that it planned to hire roughly 100,000 workers for the holiday shopping season — a number that was in line with last year’s hiring levels. These openings are for the retailer’s stores and supply chain facilities, Target said, noting the need for workers to support order pickup, drive-up and product stocking needs .
CHICAGO – Sam Darnold threw for 90 of his 330 yards in overtime to set up Parker Romo's game-ending 29-yard field goal , and the Minnesota Vikings outlasted the Chicago Bears 30-27 on Sunday after giving up 11 points in the final 22 seconds of regulation. Darnold threw two touchdown passes, Jordan Addison caught eight passes for a career-high 162 yards and a touchdown, and T.J. Hockenson had 114 yards receiving for the Vikings (9-2), who remained one game behind Detroit in the rugged NFC North. Recommended Videos Caleb Williams threw for 340 yards and two touchdowns for the Bears (4-7), who lost their fifth straight and fell to 5-18 in one-possession games under coach Matt Eberflus, who is 14-31 in 2 1/2 seasons. Minnesota appeared to have the game in hand, leading 27-16 with 1:56 left after Romo kicked a 26-yard field goal. But the Bears weren’t finished. Deandre Carter made up for a muffed punt that led to a touchdown in the third quarter with a 55-yard kickoff return to the 40. Williams took it from there, capping an eight-play drive with a 1-yard touchdown pass to Keenan Allen. A 2-point conversion pass to DJ Moore made it 27-24 with 22 seconds remaining. The Bears recovered the onside kick and Williams hit Moore over the middle for a 27-yard gain to the 30 before spiking the ball. Cairo Santos made a 48-yard field goal as time expired. Chicago won the coin toss, but Williams was sacked for a 12-yard loss on second down, leading to a three-and-out. The Vikings took over at the 21, and Darnold led a 10-play drive, overcoming a sack and two penalties. Darnold connected with Hockenson for a 29-yard completion that put the ball on the 9. He took a knee and then Romo nailed the winner. Darnold surpassed his previous season high of 19 touchdown passes with a 2-yarder to Addison on the first play of the second quarter, and he made it 14-7 with a 5-yard score to Jalen Nailor late in the first half. He completed 22 of 34 passes. Aaron Jones ran for 106 yards and a score for the VIkings. Williams was 32 of 47 with a 103.1 passer rating in his second straight solid performance since Thomas Brown replaced the fired Shane Waldron as offensive coordinator. Moore caught seven passes for 106 yards and a touchdown, and Allen added 86 yards receiving and the late TD. Injuries Vikings: LB Ivan Pace Jr. (hamstring) and LT Cam Robinson (foot) left in the first quarter. ... Darnold missed two plays after he was hit by Gervon Dexter Sr. on a pass play with about 6 1/2 minutes. Up next Vikings: Host Arizona next Sunday. Bears: Visit Detroit on Thanksgiving. ___ AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
BOSTON (AP) — Forty years ago, Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie rolled to his right and threw a pass that has become one of college football’s most iconic moments. With Boston College trailing defending champion Miami, Flutie threw the Hail Mary and found receiver Gerard Phalen , who made the grab while falling into the end zone behind a pair of defenders for a game-winning 48-yard TD. Flutie and many of his 1984 teammates were honored on the field during BC’s 41-21 victory over North Carolina before the second quarter on Saturday afternoon, the anniversary of the Eagles’ Miracle in Miami. “There’s no way its been 40 years,” Flutie told The Associated Press on the sideline a few minutes before he walked out with some of his former teammates to be recognized after a video of The Play was shown on the scoreboards. It’s a moment and highlight that’s not only played throughout decades of BC students and fans, but around the college football world. “What is really so humbling is that the kids 40 years later are wearing 22 jerseys, still,” Flutie said of his old number. “That amazes me.” That game was played on national TV the Friday after Thanksgiving. The ironic thing is it was originally scheduled for earlier in the season before CBS paid Rutgers to move its game against Miami, thus setting up the BC-Miami post-holiday matchup. “It shows you how random some things are, that the game was moved,” Flutie said. “The game got moved to the Friday after Thanksgiving, which was the most watched game of the year. We both end up being nationally ranked and up there. All those things lent to how big the game itself was, and made the pass and the catch that much more relevant and remembered because so many people were watching.” There’s a statue of Flutie winding up to make The Pass outside the north gates at Alumni Stadium. Fans and visitors can often be seen taking photos there. “In casual conversation, it comes up every day,” Flutie said, when asked how many times people bring it up. “It brings a smile to my face every time we talk about it.” A week after the game-ending Flutie pass, the Eagles beat Holy Cross and before he flew off to New York to accept the Heisman. They went on to win the 49th Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day. “Forty years seem almost like incomprehensible,” said Phalen, also standing on the sideline a few minutes after the game started. “I always say to Doug: ‘Thank God for social media. It’s kept it alive for us.”’ Earlier this week, current BC coach Bill O’Brien, 55, was asked if he remembered where he was 40 years ago. “We were eating Thanksgiving leftovers in my family room,” he said. “My mom was saying a Rosary in the kitchen because she didn’t like Miami and wanted BC to win. My dad, my brother and I were watching the game. “It was unbelievable,” he said. “Everybody remembers where they were for the Hail Mary, Flutie pass.” Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-footballJohn Aberth: Vermont Fish And Wildlife Thanks Trappers, Shows Us Who’s Really In ChargeFormer Fresno State quarterback Mikey Keene is transferring to Michigan with one year of eligibility remaining. Confirming earlier reports, Keene posted an image of himself in a Wolverines uniform on social media on Monday. Keene passed for 2,892 yards with 18 touchdowns and 11 interceptions in 12 games for the Bulldogs in 2024. Fresno State opened the season with a 30-10 loss at Michigan on Aug. 31, with Keene throwing for 235 yards with one touchdown and two picks. Including two seasons at UCF (2021-22), Keene has completed 67.8 percent of his passes for 8,245 yards with 65 TDs and 28 interceptions in 39 games. Keene's competition for the starting job at Michigan includes incoming freshman Bryce Underwood, the 247Sports Composite's No. 1 overall player in the 2025 recruiting class. --Field Level Media
Former US president Jimmy Carter dies aged 100MUMBAI: India's insurance penetration, which is measured as a ratio of annual premium to GDP, dipped in FY24 for the second year in a row after touching a peak of 4.2% in the wake of Covid. According to regulator Irdai's annual report released on Monday, India's insurance penetration was 3.7% in FY24 compared to 4% in 2022-23. The insurance penetration for the life insurance industry marginally declined from 3% in the previous year to 2.8% in 2023-24. The penetration for the non-life insurance industry remained unchanged at 1% during 2023-24, as in 2022-23. While the share of insurance to GDP declined, there was a modest increase in per capita premium (insurance density) from $92 in FY22 to $95 in FY23. India's experience goes against the global trend, where insurance penetration in both life and non-life segments has risen, with the global average at 7% in 2023 versus 6.8% in 2022. During 2023-24, the life insurance industry recorded a premium income of Rs 8.3 lakh crore, registering a 6.1% growth which was slower than the increase in GDP. Private sector life insurers clocked a growth of 15.1% in premium, while the public sector life insurer recorded a growth of 0.2%. The life insurance industry paid total benefits of Rs 5.8 lakh crore in 2023-24, constituting 70.2% of the net premium. Benefits paid on account of surrenders/withdrawals increased by 15.3% to Rs 2.3 lakh crore in 2023-24, of which the public sector life insurer accounted for 58.4%. During 2023-24, the non-life insurance industry underwrote a total direct premium of Rs 2.9 lakh crore in India, registering a growth of 12.8% over the previous year. A significant portion of the increase was because of individuals paying a higher premium for health insurance coupled with growth in motor insurance. During 2023-24, general and health insurers settled 2.7 crore health insurance claims and paid Rs 83,493 crore towards claim settlements. In FY24, general insurers, including specialised ones, paid total claims (excluding health insurance) amounting to Rs 1,01,050 crore. Of this, private general insurers paid 55% (Rs 55,524 crore), PSU general insurers paid 32% (Rs 32,131 crore), and specialised ones paid Rs 13,396 crore (13%). As of March 31, 2024, investments made by the insurance industry stood at Rs 67.6 lakh crore, compared to Rs 60 lakh crore as of March 31, 2023, registering an increase of 12.6%. The share of life insurers stood at 91.1%, while general insurers (including specialised and standalone health insurers) constituted 7%, and reinsurers, including branches of foreign reinsurers, made up 1.9%. The share of PSUs stood at 69.5%, and the private sector constituted 30.5% during the same period. Ready to Master Stock Valuation? ET’s Workshop is just around the corner!
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Former has seen his idea of the Australian batting line-up getting some extra cricket in ahead of the second Test against India shut down. The top order of Nathan McSweeney, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne and to produce against India in the first Test in Perth as Jasprit Bumrah and co ripped through the order in both innings. In particular, Labuschagne has come under intense scrutiny for his form across the last 18 months having scored 10, 1 not out, 3, 5, 1, 2, 90, 6, 2 and 3 for an average of just 13.66 in his last 10 efforts. However, coach Andrew McDonald has appeared to back the Queenslander to find his form in Adelaide. Despite calls for changes heading into the second Test in Adelaide, Cummins and McDonald appear ready to back most of the players struggling for form. The only potential change appears to be if the allrounder can't back-up. However, former captain Clarke has called for the players to get some time in the middle between now and the first ball in Adelaide. The players were give time to go home, before heading into camp before the day-night Test. side, as revealed by , but appears unlikely to take that up. And Clarke has called for the players to play for the Prime Minister's XI to get time in the middle with Labuschagne and Smith particularly struggling for form and rhythm ahead of a vital second Test against India. "As a player when you're under the pump, and you're not making runs, the risk is there," Clarke said on The Big Sports Breakfast. "You go play club cricket, you could get a good ball and you can nick it ... but if the selectors are sticking with the same XI – if I'm out of form as a batter, I'm batting. "I don't care how big that risk is. Give me some time in the middle because I want to make runs in the next Test, not be scared to fail in the lead-up. "That is definitely a realistic option because you know you're going to get a bat. I'd be taking it before the second Test." However, coach Andrew McDonald said on Wednesday the players will not be featuring for the Prime Minister's XI, and instead will be given rest. “We feel that with the long summer ahead, the prep we’ve got in place ... we’ll be well prepared as we were leading into the first Test,” McDonald said. “They’ll have some hits when they’re back home, so part of the preparation will be when they’re at home as well as when we get to Adelaide. Bowlers will go through their work in terms of recovery.” While it appears very unlikely there will be changes in the starting XI for the Adelaide Test, the player under the most pressure in the Aussie squad is Labuschagne. The No.3 batter is averaging just 30.28 in Test cricket since February last year. In his last 10 innings, Labushcagne has scored 10, 1 not out, 3, 5, 1, 2, 90, 6, 2 and 3 for an average of just 13.66. However, coach Andrew McDonald has appeared to back the Queenslander to find his form in Adelaide. “We look at the way he plays, and when he’s at his best,” McDonald said. “And when we’ve seen him at his best he’s shown great intent at the crease. “That’s an ongoing discussion and that ebbs and flows in players’ careers, so at the moment he’s in one of those patches and no doubt he’ll be getting critiqued externally. But internally we’re really confident that, at his best, he’s the player that we need.”
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AI This is my fourth and last blog on digital storage and memory projections for 2025. The first two articles focused on digital storage and memory devices including magnetic tape, HDDs, SSDs as well as NAND, DRAM and emerging non-volatile memories. The third was an update on optical storage, since several optical storage startups targeting the archiving and digital preservation market came to the forefront in 2024 and appear to be poised to deliver prototype products in 2025 and beyond. This article will focus on developments in storage systems and software and their use in workflows as well as additional insights on the future of storage devices and systems. 2024 saw the recovery of the overall storage and memory markets, although NAND flash and SSD markets have had only a partial recovery this year with most growth in the enterprise and data center markets. In September 2024 IDC released a report stating that the worldwide enterprise external OEM storage systems are expected to grow an average of 4.3% over a 5-year period. IDC attributed the growth to, “Positive developments and drivers for growing demand include increasing demand for flash storage (typically, all-flash arrays) to support projects related to artificial intelligence, both for training and inferencing” and “increasing demand for flash media across both external storage systems and servers.” They also say that IaaS solutions are leading more companies to repatriate or planning to repatriate workloads from shared cloud to dedicated IT environments. On the other hand, IDC, in another September report , forecast that 2024 cloud infrastructure spending (computing and storage) will grow 48.8% over 2023. Much of this spending growth was due to the increasing costs for GPU servers. Actual unit cloud growth in the same period was 17.7%. Shared cloud infrastructure spending is expected to grow 57.9% Y/Y with dedicated cloud infrastructure spending growth projected at 20.4% Y/Y. Non-cloud infrastructure spending is expected to grow 11.7% Y/Y. Long term, IDC predicts spending on cloud infrastructure (compute and storage) to have a compound growth rate 18.1 from 2023-2028 and accounting for 76.4% of total compute and storage infrastructure spending by 2028 with shared cloud infrastructure spending being 78.6% of total cloud spending by 2028. Samsung’s Android 15 Leak—Bad News For Nearly All Galaxy Owners Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Release Date Leaks Samsung Slashes Galaxy Z Fold 6 Price In Early January Sale Developing AI workloads will have an impact on storage and memory demand. Eric Herzog, CMO at Infinidat, said that Enterprise storage infrastructure will take on a new role as the foundation for retrieval-augmented generation, RAG. RAG is a GenAI-centric framework for augmenting, refining and optimizing the output of AI models including large language models, LLMs, and small language models, SLMs). RAG can eliminate the need for continually re-training models, reducing the costs of these models and can reduce the incidence of AI hallucinations. Infinidat announced its RAG workflow deployment architecture in November 2024. Infinidat is also joining efforts to defend data stores from cyberattacks. As part of its data protection capabilities. At the first sign of a cyberattack an immutable snapshot is taken of data to automatically reduce the impact of an attack. Infinidat also projects growth in hybrid multi-cloud storage in 2025. This brings together on-premises/private cloud and public cloud storage resources to enable high levels of flexibility, cost efficiency and use case-specific solutions. AWS and Azure are able to assist with such efforts. Infinidat announced such services with AWS and Microsoft in 2023 using the company’s InfuzeOS software defined storage, SDS, solution. Infinidat also says that non-VM based virtualization and Kubernetes/container deployments will increase in 2025. Steve Leeper, VP of Product Marketing at Datadobi, says that, “The amount of unstructured data stored in both public cloud and private cloud environments will continue to grow. The impact of unstructured data management solutions that give customers the ability to manage data no matter where it is located will increase as the data in multiple environments accumulates. It’s no longer realistic to ignore the fact that, in most organizations, data lives in a hybrid environment and global data management is required.” In addition, he indicated that with the growth of unstructured data there is a greater need for data insights to create GENAI-ready data. Don Boxley, CEO and co-founder of DH2i says that AI can be used to create self-optimized high availability, HA, clusters, where, “AI eliminates...inefficiencies by continuously analyzing workloads and resource usage, allowing clusters to self-optimize and maintain peak performance without manual oversight.” He also says that AI-driven HA clustering can help maintain HA across different cloud environments by managing clusters spanning multiple providers. Boxley says that, “AI simplifies cross-cloud HA by dynamically analyzing traffic and distributing workloads intelligently across providers, ensuring seamless performance and responsiveness.” AI data demand will increase the need for archiving data. Gal Naor, CEO of StorONE says that, “The exponential growth of data in 2025 will significantly increase storage costs as organizations face the challenge of retaining cold data for extended periods. Although rarely accessed, this data must remain secure, easily accessible and cost-efficient.” In addition, “Auto Tiering storage solutions will dynamically migrate inactive data to low-cost drives while ensuring rapid access for future analysis, reducing overall costs without compromising efficiency.” Also, “With rising cyber threats, fast and cost-effective recovery will be critical. Intelligent architectures will store snapshots on economical tiers while ensuring immediate availability for recovery, enhancing both preparedness and cost management.” Skip Levens, Product Leader and AI Strategist for Media and Entertainment at Quantum, had some comments on AI growth in 2025 and its impact on digital storage demand. He says that, “In 2025, organizations that take a more pragmatic approach to AI—and its underlying data infrastructure—will be best prepared to fuel new insights and power discovery.” He also talks about who the winners will be, “Those who are leading the data race are the ones who are not only leveraging every scrap of their collected data for differentiated AI outcomes, but those who have an infrastructure and process in place for effectively doing so—managing, organizing, indexing, and cataloging every piece of it. They’ll produce more, faster, and better results than their competitors. In 2025, we’ll start to see who leaps ahead in this new ‘data and algorithm arms race.” Members of the Active Archive Alliance also had comments related to the growth of archive data to support 2025 workflows. Rich Godomski, Head of Tape Evangelism with FujiFilm NA Corp., Data Storage Solutions, say that, “Sustainable active archive solutions with intelligent data management capabilities can leverage ultra energy efficient and extremely cost-effective tiers of storage such as S3 compatible object-based tape libraries. This will be needed to offset the voracious energy consumption of truly cutting-edge and breakthrough AI applications as the AI age evolves in 2025 and beyond.” Paul Luppino, Director of Global Digital Solutions at Iron Mountain, said that, “Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize data storage and active archives by enhancing efficiency and accessibility. As data volumes soar, we can optimize storage management by predicting usage patterns and minimizing costs, potentially making decisions about how and where to store data at the point of creation. In the realm of active archives, AI can analyze and prioritize data, ensuring frequently accessed information is readily available while less critical data is stored cost-effectively. Automated classification, tagging, and indexing could simplify the search process, allowing for intelligent data handling.” Mark Pastor with Platform Product Management at Western Digital said that, “...disaggregated storage...has been proven to deliver the performance and capacity required to meet the requirements of demanding GPU-related workloads which are at the heart of AI and machine learning processes. Disaggregating storage from the server accomplishes two key things: (1) it enables storage to be shared across multiple servers offering greater flexibility and utilization of storage resources, and (2) demonstrations show that disaggregated storage delivers the performance needed to keep GPU processing fully saturated. Over time these external storage architectures will become standard with HDD for active archives and with flash for performance workloads and will ultimately migrate to fabric as opposed to SAS given the convenience and distance benefits of fabrics.” Jason Lohrey, CEO of Arcitecta also emphasized the value of fabric shared storage, saying that, “Businesses can maximize their existing investments and avoid vendor lock-in by leveraging a data fabric—an architecture that unifies cloud, disk, tape, and flash storage into a single, logical namespace. This trend towards virtualization allows for a more flexible approach to data management, enabling businesses to mix and match technologies to meet specific needs.” Ted Oade, Director of Product Marketing at Spectra Logic also talks about how archive storage practices can help create more sustainable AI workloads and create competitive advantages, “Modern tape storage is not only highly durable but also incredibly energy-efficient, particularly when compared to disk storage. By offloading cold data to tape in an active archive, data centers can free up energy for AI workloads, maximizing efficiency. As energy becomes a factor potentially limiting the growth of AI, businesses that embrace sustainable practices will gain a competitive edge in 2025 and beyond” 2025 promises increased demand for storage devices, systems and software to support the growth of AI data processing. AI will increasingly be used to make digital storage more efficient and safer. 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