Microsoft Concerned About OpenAI Helping Apple to Fix Siri; Amazon Gets FAA Permission to Fly Delivery Drones Further; Mining Lithium from Fracking Wastewater; Stem Cell Treatment Appears to Cure Type 2 Diabetes
Posted: May 30, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, diabetes, insulin, technology Leave a commentAs we have reported, OpenAI is working with Apple to make Siri work better…which Siri sorely needs. Reports have come out saying that Apple has been negotiating with OpenAI for a year. Now, 9to5mac.com reports that Microsoft is concerned about this partnership and how it might affect their own deal with OpenAI. Apparently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman met recently with Microsoft CEO Nadella to discuss their reservations about the Apple deal. As Microsoft’s deal for a cut of OpenAI profits…which they got after investing $13 billion in the startup…means they will make money on an Apple-OpenAI deal, the downside for Microsoft is that Apple’s AI capabilities will directly compete with Microsoft’s. Hey, I thought in capitalism, competition was supposed to be good!
Amazon has gotten Federal Aviation Administration permission to fly delivery drones beyond the visual sight line. According to engadget.com, this will allow the online giant to fly further and expand delivery drone service. Amazon says this will allow them to get deliveries to customers more quickly and with a larger selection of items. The breakthrough for flying beyond the ground based operators or spotters’ line of sight comes from Amazon’s new “onboard detect-and-avoid technology.” Amazon has discontinued drone shipments around Lockeford, California, but is expanding around College Station, Texas….and has now added deliveries to the West Valley area in the Phoenix metro.
In an amazing discovery, researchers from the National Energy Technology Laboratory have found that wastewater produced by fracking wells found in the Marcellus Shale area in Pennsylvania may hold enough lithium to cover 38-40% of the current domestic consumption! Arstechnica.com says that right now, the US relies on imports from Argentina, Chile, and China to fully handle its lithium needs. Lithium, of course, is a crucial element for lithium-ion batteries like those used in electronic devices and especially in electric vehicles. A key will be the economic feasibility of extracting lithium from wastewater at the scale needed. Another issue is that the wastewater would still be highly toxic…with salts, metals, and radioactive elements.
Doctors in Shanghai, China have apparently successfully cured a 59 year old patient’s type 2 diabetes. Bgr.com reports that they used stem cells from the patients blood to ‘kickstart’ the pancreas into producing its own insulin. The patient was taken off insulin at 11 weeks, and they later reduced oral drugs. The pancreas continues to produce. The patient is still free of insulin now for 33 months! Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a similar stem cell treatment from a Chicago-based company for type 1 diabetes. It may be a while before this sees mainstream medicine, so Apple and Samsung are full speed ahead on incorporating blood sugar measurements via their watches.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
OpenAI Board Learned of ChatGPT from Twitter; Apple Looks to Black Box AI Cloud Data for Users; Founder Calls for ‘Memetech’
Posted: May 29, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, News, openai Leave a commentI had originally done a story about a company starting with G, and how there was a large leak about their search algorithm, but after an hour of checking, they hadn’t ok’ed the video…a subtile way of censoring it looks like. Anyway, you will have to check elsewhere for that info. Sorry.
After all the drama of the OpenAI board canning CEO Sam Altman, then hiring him back, more trickles out about what was going on. With ChatGPT being hyped as the biggest thing since fire or electricity, it turns out OpenAI was kind of a snake pit. According to arstechnica.com, in an interview with ‘The Ted AI Show,’ former OpenAI board member Helen Toner said that the OpenAI board was unaware of the existence of ChatGPT until they saw it on Twitter. She went on to share that many at OpenAI were afraid to cross Sam…partially in fear that the company would fall apart. Toner’s main argument is that OpenAI hasn’t been able to police itself despite claims to the contrary. “The OpenAI saga shows that trying to do good and regulating yourself isn’t enough,” she said. This doesn’t bode well for the so-called ’Safety Committee’ formed at OpenAI being able to police anything.
Although rumors have Apple doing a good deal of their AI right on the latest iPhones in order to keep your data secure, it is expected that at least some information crunching will be done in the cloud. The Information says that Apple plans to process AI applications in a virtual ‘black box’ in the cloud…one that even their employees will be unable to access. This is probably pretty accurate info, as it comes from 4 former Apple employees who worked on the project of integrating AI into Siri. Apple has been working secretly on AI for 3 years, but are still considered to be playing catch up with Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft.
Oh, here’s what we need….better and easier to modify and send memes. As a heavy user of memes, even I have to be skeptical. That said, Alex Taub, a founder of a number of tech startups says it’s time to disrupt the meme ‘industry.’ Techcrunch.com reports that Taub notes that memes are a key component of our online communications. He also says of course it isn’t a necessary thing….but goes on to say that neither are smart refrigerators! Taub says most people that use memes have a meme folder…yep, have a huge one myself. He forsees a program to catalog your memes so you can pull and send an appropriate one to a friend or post it in a good moment. Not just one to talk, Taub has launched Meme Depot…which will be a comprehensive archive of any meme imaginable! Right now he is funding Meme Depot from his past ventures, but expects if it takes off he will make some money from it either by subscription or ads…just like most of the rest of the internet sites do.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Google May Partner with TSMC on Pixel 10 Chips; Musks Raises $6 Billion for his xAI; All AI is Beta-Apple May Admit It; Bioprocessor from Human Brain Tissue-Uses Million Times Less Power
Posted: May 28, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Android, Google, News, technology Leave a commentSome sleuthing has uncovered evidence that Google may be planning to use Tensor chips made for them by Taiwan Semiconductor, the same firm that furnishes chips to Apple for their mobile devices and M series computers. Androidpolice.com reports that the TSMC chips will be showing up in the Pixel 10 phones next year. The Pixel 9 phones will be out this fall, still powered by Tensor G4 chips from Samsung. Expect the Pixel 9 phones to emphasize more AI features.
Over the weekend, it was announced that Elon Musk has raised an additional $6 billion for his xAI startup…and its Grok chatbot, that Musk says is an edgier version of ChatGPT. According to theverge.com, the big cash came from Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and a Saudi prince. Musk has said he would “prefer to build products outside of Tesla” when it comes to AI and robotics unless he gets more control. Tesla shareholders will start voting this week on whether to restore Musk’s $56 billion pay package ahead of its annual meeting on June 13th. A substantial surge from the shareholders, led in some cases by some major holders that together have more stock than Elon, is opposing giving him $56 billion after big losses from a sales decrease first quarter.
In his PowerOn Newsletter, Mark German says that Apple may choose to label its upcoming AI features iOS 18 as beta or preview. They also did this when they launched Siri years ago. Some might argue Siri is still beta…I certainly would! 9to5mac.com goes on to comment that truthfully, ALL AI should be categorized as beta. There are still numerous instances of what the industry euphemistically calls ‘hallucinatons’ by AI systems. In starker terms, it lies and makes stuff up. One outrageous example from earlier is the lawyer that wrote a brief with ChatGPT, and it included citations from cases it had made up…which the court and opposing counsel quickly pointed out. Another that was just taken down by Google was an AI overview of presidents. the AI said the US has had 42 presidents, and 17 of them have been white. It may be a while yet before AI takes over the world.
FinalSpark, a Swiss startup, says it has made the world’s first bioprocessor. Bgr.com reports that the device incorporates what they call 16 human brain ‘organoids.’ The claim it uses a million times less power than traditional processors. FinalSpark also says the bioprocessor is capable of learning and processing information. Anyone else getting the vibe of the humans used for batteries in the Matrix movies? They have dubbed the system ‘wetware,’ as it is a mix of biology, software, and hardware. The trick now will be seeing if they can scale it up to a large enough system to actually be marketable. AI and human tissue…yeah, I am definitely getting a Matrix vibe…hope Neo is out there somewhere to get us out of this jam.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Microsoft Outage Took Down Copilot, ChatGPT, DuckDuckGo-Now Over; Spyware Found on US Hotel Check-in Computers; AI Disclosure Required in Campaign Ads-FCC; Leaked Samsung Repair Contract-Privacy Concerns
Posted: May 23, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, Google, iPhone, Samsung, Tech Leave a commentAn outage linked to Bing’s API took down search for ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, DuckDuckGo, and other platforms starting at about 3AM Eastern was finally resolved by 11 this morning East Coast time. Theverge.com reports that Bing’s own search engine was also affected. The outage primarily affected users in Asia or Europe, but also hit the US to a lesser degree. If you were caught in a maddening loading loop and were unable to load search results earlier today, now you know why. As of this webcast, Microsoft was still trying to isolate the root cause…but at least service is restored.
It’s always a bit rattling to come across something like this: a consumer grade spyware app has been found running on the check-in systems of at least three Wyndham hotels across the United States. According to techcrunch.com, the app is called pcTattletale, and it covertly captured screen shots of the hotel booking systems…including details about guests. It gets worse…due to a security flaw in the spyware, the screenshots are available to anyone on the internet! A security researcher has alerted pcTattletale of the bug, but they apparently haven’t responded. The manager of one of the hotels didn’t know the spyware was on their system…others have not responded. Wyndham Hotels are a franchise, so hotels are independently owned and operated. Just one more way for people’s data to get grabbed and misused.
The FCC Chairwoman is proposing a rule requiring disclosure of content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) in political ads on radio and TV. Reuters says that the Commission is to vote on the proposed rule….which it should be pointed out just requires disclosure in candidate or issue ads…it does not ban AI content. Also worth noting—the rule would require on-air and written disclosures and cover cable operators, satellite TV and radio providers, but the FCC does not have authority to regulate internet or social media ads or streaming services. The Commission has already acted to battle misuse of AI in political robocalls.
Samsung has been selling self-repair kits for its latest handsets like the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5. That’s cool, but apparently Samsung is demanding customer info from repair shops before they can get the genuine parts. Androidpolice.com notes that lots of people like to use third party repair shops. The info Samsung is allegedly requiring under a contract with shops includes the customer’s name, contact information, phone identifiers like an IMEI number, alongside details of the customer’s complaint. Channeling Ron Popiel, ‘but wait…there’s more!’ Samsung requires shops to “immediately disassemble” devices brought to them that have been repaired using aftermarket parts in the past, and “immediately notify” Samsung about it. If a third-party repair shop doesn’t do its part, it gives Samsung grounds to terminate their agreement, essentially leaving the shop without easy access to the tech giant’s repair parts. So far, Samsung hasn’t clarified this situation…does the customer get a partially disassembled phone back…or get it back at all? This is not cool.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Britain Already Scrutinizing Microsoft’s New AI Recall Feature; Amazon Alexa Getting Big AI Upgrade-But for a Fee; Spotify Rolling Out its Own Font; Humane for Sale After Smart Pin Flop
Posted: May 22, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Music, News, Spotify, technology Leave a commentMicrosoft just announced to great fanfare the new AI Recall feature that will be spotlighted in their new generation of tablets and laptops. According to gizmodo.com, Recall, uses AI to build a “photographic memory” of a user’s laptop activity that they can then search. In other words, Recall constantly takes screenshots of a user’s activity on the computer, whether they’re searching for new recipes online, watching videos, or using apps. This could be good or creepy…your choice…but now, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has told BBC it is reaching out to Microsoft for more info. An ICO spokesperson told the Beebe that companies must “rigorously assess and mitigate risks to peoples’ rights and freedoms” before launching new products, especially those that are potentially invasive. I’d say that a system that records every single thing you do on your computer probably qualifies as invasive!
Amazon is readying a big AI upgrade to Alexa. This will probably be nice to have, as all of the assistants need to get better….looking at you, Siri. If you can’t wait to try it, here’s a little fly in the ointment…Amazon is going to charge a separate subscription on top of the $139 it already whacks you for to be a Prime member. CNBC reports that Amazon has refused to comment on the additional fee so far. If you want to give it a test drive for free while it’s still being tested, you can tell your Echo unit “Alexa, let’s chat,’ and Amazon will notify you when you can access the preview. With Google already getting its Gemini AI assistant out, and Apple about to upgrade Siri with AI at WWDC in June, the race is on to get to smarter…or at least less stupid…assistants.
Spotify now has its own bespoke typeface…and it is rolling out today. The platform thinks Spotify Mix will improve the experience for your eyeballs. Why call a font ‘Mix?’ Well, theverge.com says Spotify is claiming the name is an homage to the “dynamic and evolving nature of audio culture over the years.” Spotify says “We subtly incorporated the shapes of sound waves to evoke a rhythmic feel. The combination of sharp angles and smooth curves gives the typeface a distinctive character that feels quintessentially Spotify.” Why do I feel like an ad agency wrote that? Although Apple used the Chicago font years ago, even mighty Apple has stooped to using fonts used by we mortal users.
You may recall the hype and fanfare around the AI Pin from startup Humane. It was a pin you could query and get answers via AI, and it even projected some on to your hand. The little jewel ran $700 plus $24 a month for a subscription. Well, TechCrunch.com notes that Humane has now put itself on the block for between $750 million and a billion. Not bad for a company that had raised $230 million from some big tech hitters, and got so much buzz…then laid a big ostrich-sized egg with the pin. Besides being pricy and in search of a market, the pin allegedly had overheating and battery life issues. Need a big write-off right now, and looking for a hip sounding company with a failed product…here’s your chance!
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Biggest Announcements from Microsoft Build; Apple COO in Taiwan Locking Down NexGen Chips;Scarlett Johansson Slams OpenAI for Mimicking Her Voice; Porsche Invests in Startup For Better Cold Weather Battery Performance
Posted: May 21, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Apple, Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft, technology Leave a commentMicrosoft just held a special event leading into Build 2024, and announced updates of Surface devices, and also teased some major developments in AI. Theverge.com reports that Microsoft CEO Nadella announced a new category of computers called Copilot Plus. The new units will run Arm based Snapdragon X Elite and Plus processors from Qualcomm, and down the road will run Intel and AMD chips. Microsoft claims Copilot Plus PCs will be 58% faster than the M3 MacBook Air. Besides Microsoft’s own Surface line, Copilot Plus devices are coming from Lenovo, Dell, Acer, Asus, and HP. One of the major AI features available within Copilot Plus PCs is Recall. The new tool runs locally on your device and logs everything you do on your computer, allowing you to search for and retrieve the content you’ve interacted with. That makes it possible to uncover a conversation you’ve had in apps like Discord, or even a specific PowerPoint slide you were working on. Copilot is getting OpenAI’s new GPT-4o model, which lets the AI answer questions based on what you see on your screen. So how much? The 13 inch Surface Pro starts at $999.99, and comes in blue, black, beige, and platinum. A new Surface Laptop 6 has 13.8 and 15 inch display options, and the lowball price model is also $999.99, with the same color choices as the Surface Pro.
Apple COO Jeff Williams has reportedly been to Taiwan, working to lock down a supply of the upcoming 2 nanometer chips from Taiwan Semiconductor. According to macrumors.com, the COO and the president of TSMC discussed custom AI chips built on the chipmaker’s 2nm process…due to go into production next year. The iPhone 15 Pro runs on the A17 Pro chip, which is a 3nm chip from TSMC. The smaller footprint allows more transistors to be packed into less space, increasing both efficiency and performance. Even the latest Apple M4 chip is using the 3nm process. TSMC projects a 10 to 15% performance gain and power consumption reductions of up the 30% with the upcoming 2nm chips compared to the latest 3nm ones.
Last fall, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI called Scarlett Johansson and pitched her on being the voice of the ChatGPT 4.0 system. The actress says she declined the offer after “much consideration and for personal reasons,” but when OpenAI demoed GPT-4o, the company’s latest large language model last week, “my friends, family, and the general public all noted how much the newest system named ’Sky’ sounded like me.” Engadget.com says that apparently Altman had called her 2 days before the debut and asked if she would reconsider…then put out the product before she could respond. The net is, Johansson hired an attorney, and now OpenAI is ‘pausing’ the use of “Sky”, the voice that sounds like Scarlett. Apparently it isn’t a clone of her voice, but another voice actor…and OpenAI claims it doesn’t mimic her voice. This is why SAG-AFTRA fought so hard in the strike last year for clauses it won that give actors, voice artists, and broadcasters under the new contracts the right to refuse a voice cloning, and if one is agreed to, a reasonable payment for the use of a person’s voice.
It is pretty widely known that EV battery packs drop pretty dramatically in performance in very cold or very hot weather. Now, Porsche has invested in a startup that claims their tech will make cold weather charging and performance more reliable. TechCrunch.com reports that South 8 Technologies has developed a method of filling batteries with pressurized, liquified gas electrolyte instead of a liquid one. The cold weather issue occurs because the low temperature makes the liquid electrolyte thicken. This should avoid that issue, and as a bonus, South 8 says they think it wall cut the cost of lithium ion batteries by some 30%! That’s huge, because with EV’s, the battery costs about a third of the entire vehicle! The South 8 Tech also reduces the size of the battery pack. Porsche is mainly excited about the cold weather improvements at this point. Lots of improvements are in the pipeline for EV batteries, and they can’t get here too soon!
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Apple-Accessibility Eye Tracking for Recent iPhones & iPads; Google Opens Smart Home to Everyone; OpenA Chief Scientist Leaves; FTC Warns Car Makers About Selling User Data
Posted: May 15, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, Google, News, technology Leave a commentApple has announced new accessibility features. The biggie is built in eye tracking for iPhones and iPads. Engadget.com reports that devices with the A12 chip or later will gain the ability to use the front facing camera to navigate software without additional hardware or accessories. When enabled, people can look at their screen to move through elements like apps and menus…then linger on an item to select it. Another thing they are adding is vocal shortcuts. AI on the device creates personalized voice commands. You could maybe use Yo, and Siri will…or may…understand and then perform the shortcut or task you associated with the shortcut word. Voice control and color filters are coming to the interface for vehicles, making it easier to control apps by talking and for those with visual impairments to see menus or alerts. To that end, CarPlay is also getting bold and large text support, as well as sound recognition for noises like sirens or honks.
Google has announced it is opening API access to its Google Home Smart home platform. Now, according to theverge.com, any app maker, whether smart home related or not, can access the more than 600 million devices connected to Google Home and tap into the Google Home automation engine to make what they are calling smart solutions for users. Any device that uses the Matter protocol or which says Works with Google Home will be accessible.
Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder and long time chief scientist has left the building…and company. Techcrunch.com says that CEO Sam Altman posted on X about the departure last night. Altman called it a very sad day, and praised Ilya as having easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field,” and he also called him “a dear friend.” The big brained chief scientist is reportedly planning on working on something he called ‘personally meaningful.’ Ilya did say in a statement that he is leaving OpenAI with the “belief the company will build artificial general intelligence — AI capable of accomplishing any task a human can — that’s “both safe and beneficial.”
A warning has come out for automakers that sell connected cars…that’s virtually all of them these days. It’s from the Office of Technology of the FTC, and they said in a statement that Companies that offer such products “do not have the free license to monetize people’s information beyond purposes needed to provide their requested product or service.” Arstechnica.com notes that the FTC went on to say Just because executives and investors want recurring revenue streams, that does not “outweigh the need for meaningful privacy safeguards.” This sounds like a shot over the bow to car makers that the feds will be coming after them if they don’t stop peddling car owners’ data to all sorts of data brokers and other third parties.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Google I/O Recap; Open AI’s New GPT-4o; Feds Investigate Waymo Driverless Cars; Apple & Google Bow Cross-Platform Anti-Tracking
Posted: May 14, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, gemini, Google Leave a commentGoogle made a flood of announcements today during the 2 hour I/O Keynote. Of course, it was all heavy on AI. 9to5google.com reports that Google Lens will now get the ability to search with a video. You can shoot a video, ask a question about something in it, and the AI will try to find appropriate answers on the web and serve them. The new Google AI model is Gemini 1.5 Flash. That’s supposed to be a reference to its quickness, not to the old Adobe Flash Player, or the comic book character, or someone running naked across a stage…although that might have gotten some shock value into the presentation today! Anyway, Flash is multimodal, and just as powerful as Gemini 1.5 Pro according to Google. They have also doubled 1.5 Pro’s context window to 2 million tokens. Gemini is being rolled out to the sidebar in Docs, Sheets, slides, Drive, and Gmail when it gets to paid subscribers next month. They claim it will be a general purpose assistant in Workspace that will fetch info from your drive, help you wrote, or give you reminders.
Google also touted Project Astra is a multimodal AI assistant that the company hopes will become a do-everything virtual assistant that can watch and understand what it sees through your device’s camera, remember where your things are, and do things for you. The Google answer to OpenAI’s Sora is a new generative AI model that can output 1080p video based on text, image, and video based prompts. Google is also bowing a custom chatbot creator called Gems that you can customize. Circle to search now can help solve math problems…it won’t do it for you, (so school kids can’t use it to cheat) but will break down problems into easier steps. Something that will affect everyone is AI Overviews…formerly the ‘Search Generative Experience.’ Yep, Google is dropping more AI into their bread and butter search engine.
Yesterday, getting the drop on Google somewhat, OpenAI released GPT-4o, a new flagship AI model. According to techcrunch.com, it is a rolling release and will hit developer and consumer facing products over the next few weeks. What is it? Well, according to OpenAI, it provides GPT-4 level intelligence but improves on GPT-4’s capabilities across text and vision as well as audio. OpenAI stressed the importance of voice and vision as the large language model interacts more with people…so be sure to say and think nice things about our coming AI and robot overlords. One interesting wrinkle…you can interrupt it as it is giving you an answer, and ask more or clarify, and the chatbot will theoretically be able to handle that.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been hot on the case of GM’s Cruise vehicles, which had to stop operation in San Francisco after a series of accidents. Now, the feds are looking into ‘unexpected behavior’ by Waymo self-driving cars. Arstechnica.com says that some of the incidents were reported to the government by Waymo, and others came from the public. The feds are looking into what they call single-party crashes into “stationary and semi-stationary objects such as gates and chains” as well as instances in which Waymo cars “appeared to disobey traffic safety control devices.” This initial probe is the first step before the NHTSA can issue a potential recall. Earlier this year Waymo voluntarily recalled some 400 self drivers after back to back crashes in Arizona.
As has been promised since last year, Apple and Google are finally rolling out cross-platform anti-tracking ability. Apple has had this feature for a couple years…it aims to prevent someone using one of their Air Tags to track or stalk someone else. Engadget.com notes that Apple and Google have been collaborating to make it possible to spot and end this kind of behavior across Apple and Android devices, to protect users from unwanted Bluetooth trackers snooping around on them. When an unknown Bluetooth device is seen moving with someone over a period of time, they’ll get an alert that reads “[Item] Found Moving With You,” no matter which platform the tracker is paired with. Apple and Google are rolling out the capability in iOS 17.5 and across Android 6.0 and later devices starting today.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Chrome Looking to Add AI Features; Disney+, Hulu, & Max Bundle May Cut into Netflix; Apple Vision Pro Used for Keyhole Surgery; Dell Reveals Big Data Breach
Posted: May 9, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Apple, Tech, technology, vision-pro, VR Leave a commentAI continues to be the buzzy area of tech that seems to be drowning out all other advancements at the moment. Now, 9to5google.com reports that Google Chrome…which already has 3 generative AI features out in the wild…is planning to bring the tech into Chrome even more. They are touting it as being able to make ‘typical actions you do every day—using tabs, using Search, writing in forms, reading webpages—a little easier.’ A spokesperson didn’t elaborate on the using search or reading webpages, which is a bit tantalizing…or maybe scary…depending on how accurate the AI turns out to be. Of course, there is ‘Help Me Write,’ which every single platform is pushing right now. If this appeals to you, great. If you have writer’s block, all the better. For now, some of us…myself included…know what we want to write and how we want it to come out on the page, and further, over audio and video.
Here’s a bundle that may give Netflix something of a run for its money in streaming. Disney and Warner Brothers Discovery have announced a Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle. According to bgr.com the package that will be available for purchase from any of those platforms’ individual websites, and in both ad-free and ad-supported versions. This will give cord cutters a huge selection of great entertainment channels all in one place: ABC, CNN, DC, Discovery, Disney, Food Network, FX, HBO, HGTV, Hulu, Marvel, Pixar, Searchlight, and Warner Bros. I would say the lede is buried in this announcement, but actually it isn’t IN the announcement…what’s the price? Well, they haven’t disclosed that yet…and that will be key to the success of this massive bundle.
When it was first rolled out, I noted in one of these reports that I really thought Apple would be happy with the Vision Pro headsets if just early adopters and industry bought the devices. Now, a truly pro use indicates that we may be seeing more of that. It isn’t remotely a mass market, but Apple has so much money and such a range of devices, they can afford to wait for the mass market…probably until a lower price Vision Pro comes out. Appleinsider.com says that the headset is being adopted by surgeons now to perform operations on patients. In India, the headset has been used to perform more than 30 procedure so far. The doctors are using it to perform laparoscopic surgeries…sometimes called ‘Keyhole’ surgeries. Instead of watching a camera inserted into the patient, the docs see it on the Vision Pro. They are saying the response time is instantaneous. More and more pro use of the $3500 Vision Pro will just help drive users to want to buy whatever Apple calls the cheaper version, which I expect to see within a couple years.
It seems like these have gotten to be so frequent as to make us numb, but people have to stay concerned and vigilant. Yes, it’s another data breach. Dell has just disclosed one that is more creepy than most. TechCrunch.com reports that this breach includes customers’ names and physical addresses! It also includes “Dell hardware and order information, including service tag, item description, date of order and related warranty information.” If it is a consolation, at least there weren’t any email addresses, phone numbers, or financial or payment info. Dell doesn’t believe this is a ‘significant risk’ to customers. Well, only physical safety…I guess to computer companies, that seems peripheral compared to electric information.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
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