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Leave it to Deion Sanders to come up with an idea for the College Football Playoff that nobody has really mentioned yet: Pay the players for making the tournament, and pay them more when their teams win.If they do that, then “now it’s equality, now it’s even and every player is making the same amount of money,” the Colorado coach said.Sanders and former Alabama coach Nick Saban talked to The Associated Press as part of their unveiling of a new Aflac commercial that rolls out this week with a storyboard ripped from today’s headlines: It opens with Sanders complaining: “This game has gotten out of control. All the money. All the unpredictability.”He is talking about health insurance, of course, and the commissioner he wants to see run it isn’t Saban, but that kooky duck who wears the same powder-blue sportscoat as the two football legends.It’s an endorsement that Sanders says hits home after his recent diagnosis with bladder cancer, from which he says he is fully recovered.“I’ve been walking with my coaches over a mile” after practice, he said ahead of Friday night’s season opener against Georgia Tech.. “Exercising, lifting.”Saban will be back on the set with ESPN in his second year of “retirement” after leaving the Crimson Tide, where he won six national titles. He insists he wants to help college sports find its footing, but not via a commissioner job that was floated last year with his name coming up as the ideal fit.“I don’t want to be in that briar patch of being a commissioner, but I do want to do everything I can to make it right,” he said.He and Sanders agreed that there needs to be more structure around deals players sign. Since July 1, schools have been able to start paying up to $20.5 million each to their athletes over the next year under the House settlement alongside third-party NIL deals that have turned some players into millionaires.Saban said he believes that forgotten amidst all the hype about name, image, likeness deals deals Sanders says are a joke because “there are only three or four guys who you might know their NIL, and the rest you’re just giving money to” is what happens to the vast majority of these players after they leave school.“For years and years and years as coaches, and when we were players, we learned this, we’re trying to create value for our future,” Saban said. “That’s why we’re going to college. It’s not just to see how much money we can make while we’re in college. It’s, how does that impact your future as far as our ability to create value for ourselves?”Currently, conferences whose schools advance to the 12-team playoff receive $4 million for making the bracket, with payments increasing for every round they win.Saban said Sanders’ idea about spreading the wealth with an NFL-style playoff bonus structure for players (winners of the Super Bowl got $171,000 last year) sounded like a good idea to him. He also had no love for proposals coming out of the Big Ten that would give that league and the Southeastern Conference multiple automatic bids.“The NFC East has the Cowboys, Eagles and Giants, they have the biggest fan bases of anyone and they have to play their way in,” Saban said. “Everyone should play their way in. One year, a conference might get five teams in, another it might get three. But there’s no (scenario) in any competitive venue where you get a guaranteed playoff spot.” 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-football Eddie Pells, AP National Writer
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China’s Alibaba has developed a new chip that is more versatile than its older chips and is meant to serve a broader range of AI inference tasks, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The chip, now in testing, is manufactured by a Chinese company, in contrast to an earlier Alibaba AI processor that was fabricated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the report said. Alibaba did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Chinese tech and AI companies have been focusing heavily on homegrown technology at a time when leading AI chip giant Nvidia has faced regulatory issues in selling its products in the country. Nvidia’s H20 chip, the most powerful AI processor it is allowed to sell in China, was effectively blocked from sale in the market earlier this year by the Trump administration. While the U.S. last month allowed Nvidia to resume sales of H20 to China, Chinese firms have been working on processors that could substitute H20. Beijing has also put pressure on tech giants, including Alibaba and ByteDance, over purchases of the H20 chip. Nvidia developed the H20 specifically for China following U.S. export restrictions on its other AI processors in 2023. The H20 does not have as much computing power as Nvidia’s H100 or its Blackwell series. Alibaba is China’s biggest cloud-computing company and is among the top customers of Nvidia. Separately, on Friday, the company reported a 26% jump in revenue in its cloud computing segment for the April-June quarter, beating market estimates, on the back of solid demand. Deborah Sophia, Reuters
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Oregon could become the second U.S. state to require electric vehicle owners to enroll in a pay-per-mile program as lawmakers begin a special session Friday to fill a $300 million transportation budget hole that threatens basic services like snowplowing and road repairs.Legislators failed earlier this year to approve a transportation funding package. Hundreds of state workers’ jobs are in limbo, and the proposal for a road usage charge for EV drivers was left on the table.Hawaii in 2023 was the first state to create a mandatory road usage charge program to make up for projected decreases in fuel tax revenue due to the growing number of electric, hybrid and fuel-efficient cars. Many other states have studied the concept, and Oregon, Utah and Virginia have voluntary programs.The concept has promise as a long-term funding solution, experts say. Others worry about privacy concerns and discouraging people from buying EVs, which can help reduce transportation emissions.“This is a pretty major change,” said Liz Farmer, an analyst for The Pew Charitable Trusts’ state fiscal policy team, noting “the challenge in enacting something that’s dramatically different for most drivers.” Oregon’s transportation woes Oregon’s transportation department says the budget shortfall stems from inflation, projected declines in gas tax revenue and other spending limits. Over the summer, it sent layoff notices to nearly 500 workers and announced plans to close a dozen road maintenance stations.Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek paused those moves and called the special session to find a solution. Republican lawmakers say the department mismanaging its money is a main issue.Kotek’s proposal includes an EV road usage charge that is equivalent to 5% of the state’s gas tax. It also includes raising the gas tax by 6 cents to 46 cents per gallon, among other fee increases.The usage charge would phase in starting in 2027 for certain EVs and expand to include hybrids in 2028. Should the gas tax increase be approved, EV drivers either would pay about 2.3 cents per mile, or choose an annual flat fee of $340. Drivers in the program wouldn’t have to pay supplemental registration fees.Drivers would have several options for reporting mileage to private contractors, including a smartphone app or the vehicle’s telematics technology, said Scott Boardman, policy adviser for the transportation department who works on the state’s decade-old voluntary road usage charge program.As of May, there were over 84,000 EVs registered in Oregon, about 2% of the state’s total vehicles, he said. Hawaii launches program Under Hawaii’s program, which began phasing in last month, EV drivers can pay $8 per 1,000 miles driven, capped at $50, or an annual fee of $50.In 2028, all EV drivers will be required to enroll in the pay-per-mile program, with odometers read at annual inspections. By 2033, the program is expected to expand to all light-duty vehicles. Questions about privacy and fairness In past surveys commissioned by Oregon’s transportation department, respondents cited privacy, GPS devices and data security as concerns about road usage charges.Oregon’s voluntary program has sought to respond to such concerns by deleting mileage data 30 days after a payment is received, Boardman said. While plug-in GPS devices are an option in the program, transportation officials anticipate moving away from them because they’re more expensive and can be removed, he added.Still, not everyone has embraced a road usage charge. Arizona voters will decide next year whether to ban state and local governments from implementing a tax or fee based on miles traveled after the measure was referred to the ballot by the Republican-majority Legislature.Many people don’t realize that “both your vehicle and your cellphone capture immense amounts of data about your personal driving habits already,” said Brett Morgan, Oregon transportation policy director for the nonprofit Climate Solutions.Morgan added that road usage charges exceeding what drivers of internal combustion engines would pay in gas taxes could dissuade people from buying electric and hybrid cars. Already, federal tax incentives for EVs are set to expire under the tax and spending cut bill recently passed by the GOP-controlled Congress.“We are definitely supportive of a road usage charge that has EVs paying their fair share, but they should not be paying extra or a penalty,” Morgan said. Claire Rush Associated Press
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