Microsoft Enters Book Biz; Samsung Making XR Glasses Similar to Meta’s Ray-Bans; Some Bluesky Tips; Trump Names Project 2025 Contributor to FCC Chair

Posted: November 18, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Microsoft is jumping into the book business with their own imprint, 8080 Books. Geekwire.com reports that Microsoft is aiming for the sweet spot between the speed of social media and the lasting impact of books…planning to bring new titles to market much faster than traditional publishing allows. In the charter for the new venture, Microsoft says the goal is “to publish original research, ideas, and insights at the intersection of science, technology, and business, and in doing so, help advance the discourse and debate.” Normally, a publishing house takes 6 to 9 months to get from manuscript to market…Redmond is shooting for 90 days. By the way, why 8080 Books? If you see the logo it’s a hint…it is a hat tip to the 8080 Intel processors that  the first Microsoft software ran on.

Samsung has some new XR glasses coming out…looking at the second half of 2025 for a release date. According to 9to5google.com, they are being developed in partnership with Google, and they will share some of the specs with the popular Meta Ray-Ban glasses. OK, sorry about the specs/glasses pun! Samsung expects to sell 500,000 of the smart glasses. They will feature a 12MP camera and 155 mAh battery, about like Meta’s. What is unclear at this point is whether they will have a display or not. We do expect them to use Google’s Gemini AI, however. 

Millions have jumped to Bluesky and abandoned X. I cancelled X last week after 14 years on Twitter/X. Find me at clarkreidsf.bsky.social. The fledgling platform has ballooned from 9 to 15 million users just since the election. A lot of it looks like old Twitter…direct messages, ability to pin post and even videos up to 60 seconds. One thing I like is you can basically choose your own algorithm or moderation tools. They have a discover feed, but you can make a Following feed, a Popular with Friends one, and Mutuals…reposts by people you follow. I love the Following feed…it’s just a classic feed of accounts you follow in chronological order. What’s so hard about that, other platforms? It’s what most people want. You can also easily mute and block trolls, and there are these ‘packs’ people have built of accounts you might like to follow. You can pick those accounts a la carte, or choose them as a bundle to bulk up your Following feed quickly. Check it out.

In the parade of appointees Donald Trump has announced…most to the horror of those politically to the left and center, a new one is FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr as FCC Chairman. Engadget.com notes that Carr was the author of the FCC portion of Project 2025, and that he has previously argued in favor of punishing TV networks for political bias and regulating big tech firms like Google and Apple. The appointment doesn’t require the usual senate approval, since Carr has sat on the Commission since 2017.  The incoming president always gets to appoint a person from his party as Chairman. Here is a taste of what might be ahead from a post by Carr on X last week: “The censorship cartel must be dismantled. Broadcast media have had the privilege of using a scarce and valuable public resource — our airwaves. When the transition is complete, the FCC will enforce this public interest obligation.” It is worth pointing out out that unless Congress changes some law, the FCC can’t regulate the internet like Carr would like to.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Apple Intelligence is Live-Oh Yay; Google Working on an AI Agent for Chrome that Does Everything-Project Jarvis; Microsoft Accuses Google of Astroturfing them in Europe; Lucid Gravity Electric SUV Orders Open Next week

Posted: October 29, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

With iOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1, as well as iPadOS 18.1, we now have some of the features of Apple Intelligence. After messing with it a bit yesterday afternoon, I am a bit underwhelmed so far, but they noted in the pop ups that it is not nearly complete yet. The one feature I tried out that actually did what was claimed was in editing an email. I wrote a verbose fake email to send to another of my accounts and asked AI to make it more concise. It did fine at that. I tried using it in Text Edit, which I use all the time, but got a not supposed message. Today, I see the little logo, so will have to try it later. The picture editing…like removing unwanted items, works ok, but Android’s is better. I will try to have more later as they activate more features. By the way, there is a wait list to get Apple Intelligence. I signed up…while I was downloading the update to an iPad, I was accepted…the wait was only about 15 minutes!

Google has a Project Jarvis, a hat tip to Tony Stark of Iron Man fame. Androidcentral.com reports that it is supposed to automate simple tasks in Chrome while you are browsing the web. A limited test of Jarvis may be out in December, in conjunction with Google’s rumored release of Gemini 2.0. The Jarvis AI bot apparently can respond to a user’s commands by taking screenshots of their screen. It supposedly does this in order to ‘interpret’ what a user is doing before taking action. For example, Jarvis might click a button for you or fill in text fields with the requisite information. So far, reports have it that Jarvis ‘operates relatively slowly.’ In other words, it is light years away right now from working like Tony Stark’s fictional one in the Marvel movies!

Microsoft has accused Google of funding a proxy campaign designed to discredit it in the eyes of regulatory authorities and policymakers in the European Union and beyond. Engadget.com says this came in a blog post from Microsoft’s Deputy General Counsel. Microsoft claims Google has gone to “great lengths to obfuscate its involvement, funding and control” of the Open Cloud Coalition, a group of “cloud service providers, industry leaders and stakeholders” that says it’s committed to advocating for a “fair, competitive, and open cloud services industry across the UK and EU.” Redmond claims that Google has hired a lobbying agency in Europe to create and fund the organization. The accusations come after Google had reportedly attempted to derail an antitrust settlement Microsoft had negotiated with the Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE). In July, Bloomberg wrote that Google had offered the group €470 million to go forward with litigation against its rival, an overture CISPE ultimately rejected.

Lucid’s Air electric sedans are sure head turners, and are selling decently for a start up. Now Lucid has said they will start taking orders next week..November 7th specifically… for their flagship electric SUV, the Gravity. According to electrek.co, the base price will still be below the promised $80,000, but you won’t be able to get that lower priced model initially. The less pricy Touring model at $79,900 won’t be available until late 2025. The Grand Touring one, which you can order next week, will set you back $94,900. There will eventually be a high performance Sapphire model, but no date given for that one yet.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Microsoft-New Autonomous AI Agents; AirPods Pro Hearing Features; Ford Replacing EV Adapters for Tesla Charging Stations; Google Flights-New ‘Cheapest’ Tab

Posted: October 21, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

The Agents are coming, the Agents are coming! Microsoft has rolled out 10 new AI agents for its Dynamics 365 line of business applications. Geekwire.com reports that the tools can complete tasks autonomously in areas including sales, service, finance, and supply chain operations. Microsoft has dropped these in a preemptive strike against Salesforce’s new agents, which will bow on October 25th. Salesforce already has billboards up in San Francisco, touting its own agents. Microsoft showed off theirs at their ‘AI Tour’ presentation in London. Microsoft also said at the event that 60% of Fortune 500 companies are using its Copilot AI tech. Microsoft says it will make its new AI agents available in public preview for Dynamics 365 starting later this year and stretching into early next year. These AI agents come in a few categories:

Sales, including a Sales Qualification Agent and Sales Order Agent, designed to help prioritize leads and automate order intake.

Operations, including a Supplier Communications Agent and Financial Reconciliation Agent, which optimize supply chain and financial processes.

Service, including a Customer Intent Agent and Customer Knowledge Management Agent, designed to improve customer service by automating case management and updating knowledge bases.

Others include a Financial Reconciliation Agent that prepares and cleanses data sets for financial reporting; an Account Reconciliation Agent that automates the matching and clearing of transactions; and a Time and Expense agent for time entry, expense tracking, and approval workflows.

Apple made some fuss at the September hardware event about the AirPods Pro 2 hearing aid features. According to techcrunch.com, which got an advanced pair and the software, the hearing test feature is ‘painless.’ One would hope so! Hearing tests from an audiologist are painless. Instead of speaking to an audiologist or technician, with Apple’s home test you tap the screen when you hear a tone played. The test is visible from the settings menu when you have a pair of AirPods Pro 2 earbuds connected to your phone and in your ears. You may need to turn devices off in your room….the AirPods will even pick up an air purifier. The hearing aid feature will only be available to those who test as having mild to moderate hearing loss. One real issue that might put hearing impaired users off…real hearing aids have no problem making it through a full day on a charge. The AirPods Pro 2 can only make it 4-6 hours on a charge, before returning them to the charging case to charge back up. At $249, they are much cheaper than dedicated hearing aids, but 4-6 hours then no use for a little while may be a deal breaker. 

Ford had offered EV customers free NACS adapters for Tesla Superchargers. Now, the blue oval company is telling folks to stop using them. Engadget.com says there is a ‘potential issue’ that could reduce charging speeds and even cause charging port damage. Ford will send a replacement adapter ‘in the coming weeks,’ and customers will need to send back the defective ones…all at no charge to the customers. A number of other companies have made adapters for Superchargers, which use the NACS standard. So far none of them have issued recalls like Ford. 

Google Flights has a new ‘Cheapest’ tab. Bgr.com reports that it will display the cheapest routes for your trip..but may involve more work and more creative itineraries. In other words, you may save by longer layovers, taking red-eyes, or ‘self-transfers,’ a euphemism for rechecking your bags. You also may need to use multiple carriers or booking sites. That said, if you are in invariant skinflint, who squeezes every nickel until the buffalo poops, this is for you.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Open AI Sets Investment Round Record; Microsoft Sunsets HoloLens 2; iOS Privacy Change May Screw New Social Apps; Threads-More Time to Edit Posts

Posted: October 2, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

OpenAI has wrapped up its latest venture capital round, raising $6.6 billion dollars…that’s the biggest venture capital round of all time. Techcrunch.com reports that now OpenAI is valued at $157 billion. Total VC funds including this latest blast of cash brings OpenAI’s total raised to $17.9 billion. OpenAI has asked investors to avoid backing rival startups in AI like Anthropic and xAI. Trying to get investors to not hedge their bets seems like a fool’s errand. Elon Musk’s xAI raised over $6 billion, and is now valued at $24 billion…a long ways from OpenAI’s valuation. Anthropic has raised some $9.7 billion. 

Mixed reality headsets are all still too expensive, too heavy, and not quite good enough…save for Apple’s ridiculously expensive Vision Pro. Now, according to macrumors.com, Microsoft is dropping the HoloLens2 headsets. They will sell off the remaining stock and then that’s it. Microsoft will support security updates until the end of 2027, then support will end all together too. Right now, there are no rumors of a new HoloLens headset. My take is that Facebook is on the right track…until you can get things miniaturized enough to fit into a pair of Buddy Holly thick glasses, instead of a big headset…and price said glasses at the price point of a top smartphone or less…mixed reality vision gadgets will stay very much a niche item. 

A change in iOS 18 intended to provide better privacy for users may really take a toll on new social apps. 9to5mac.com says contact sharing is more restrictive than ever under iOS 18. Up to now, apps like Instagram or WhatsApp would request access to your contact and you could either grant that access or deny it. Personally, I always deny…I think it is not cool to share your contacts…many of whom are friends in real life…with an app you are on, so that company can pester them to join up.  iOS 18 makes matters a lot more granular than before. If an app requests access to your contacts post-update, you can select exactly which contacts you’re okay sharing….if any. This change will make it harder than ever for new social platforms to grow, compared to giants like Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, or TikTok. I look it this way….it’s like if you buy a car, and they ask you to write down all your friends who might be interested in buying one from that dealer, too…or a credit card that offers you a little cash for referring your friends and family. Go get your own prospects, you lazy bum new social apps!

Meta’s Threads platform has been slow of late at adding features, but has just bowed a nifty one. Theverge.com notes that you will now have 15 minutes to edit posts on Threads…up from 5 minutes. This does mean, however, if you have the fediverse switched on, you won’t see your post on other platforms like Mastodon for 15 minutes. Even though tripling time to edit, 15 minutes is a bit miserly compared to other platforms. X, for example, gives you up to an hour if you have a paid subscriptions. Mastodon lets you edit your posts at any time after they are published for free. Another feature add…Threads will now show you who follows you and likes your posts from other fediverse servers like Mastodon. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Windows Adding New AI Features to Copilot Plus PCs; Epic Sues Google Again & Samsung, Too; Apple Backs Out of Backing OpenAI; Cruise Dinged for $1.5 Million Over Hiding Pedestrian Crash Details 

Posted: October 1, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Microsoft has laid out what they are calling the ’next phase’ of Copilot, with a new design and features bowing. 9to5google.com reports that one is ‘Copilot Voice’ which is a new experience on mobile devices that is like Google’s Gemini Live. Another new feature is ‘Copilot Daily,’ which gives a summery of news and weather using the same voice as ‘Voice,’ and grabs from ‘authorized content sources,’ while ‘Personalized Discover’ helps guide users through Copilot features. ‘Copilot Vision’ will help you understand what you are looking at on your screen and let you ask questions. One might be why does Copilot think I’m so stupid, I don’t know what I’m looking at on my screen! Microsoft does say that the controversial Recall will be available starting next month….with new privacy and security measures in place. 

Epic won a case that had dragged on for 4 years against Google last December. Now, they are suing Google again, and also suing Samsung. According to theverge.com, Epic accuses Google and Samsung of illegally conspiring to undermine third party app stores. This suit flows from Samsung’s ‘Auto Blocker’ feature, that now comes on by default in new Samsung phones. While it’s turned on, it automatically keeps users from installing apps unless they come from “authorized sources” — namely, Google and Samsung’s app stores. Epic claims there’s no process for any rival store to become “authorized.” Epic complains that it now takes ‘an exceptionally onerous 21-step process’ to download a third party app store on a Samsung phone…although their own website says there are only 4 steps to do so. Some observers have pointed out that the Fortnite maker hasn’t shown how it has been harmed by the Auto Blocker. 

OpenAI has dropped their supposed altruistic roots, and has gone all in as a for profit company. They have been in the midst of raising some $6.5 billion more to pour into ChatGPT, and Microsoft is expected to pump another billion into the venture. Nvidia is also expected to be a major contributor to the latest round. One major player has backed out of investing in OpenAI though…Apple. Arstechnica.com says Apple still does plan to offer limited ChatGPT integration into an upcoming iOS update, but Cupertino also plans to support additional AI models like Google’s Gemini down the line…think of it as offering a choice of large language models kind of like you have a choice of web browsers. Famously secretive Apple gave no reason for walking away from investing in OpenAI.

Cruise, the self-driving subsidiary of General Motors, has to cough up $1.5 million in fines to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Techcrunch.com reports that the fine is part of a consent order signed that the company agreed to with the NHTSA over a pedestrian crash last year in San Francisco. Cruise left out the little detail in their report that the poor woman was dragged some 20 feet by the robotaxi. Cruise also has to submit a ‘corrective action plan’ outlining changes they will make towards better compliance. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Meta Connect Coming Up; Disney & Direct TV Finally Make Nice; US Moves to Crack Down in Temu; Microsoft Launches Copilot Pages

Posted: September 16, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Meta Connect ’24 is coming up on September 25th. The two day extravaganza will lean into AI heavily, of course, as Apple just did, and as Google and Microsoft are doing. Engadget.com reports that after dropping their expensive mixed reality headset…that was aimed at the crazy expensive Apple Vision Pro, Meta will focus on their augmented reality glasses…which are code named Orion. Unlike the Quest 3, which covers all your vision and uses cams to get you a low quality view of the world, Orion may be set for you to view the real world like through a regular pair of glasses…BUT with a layer of holographic imagery on top of the reality up ahead. The company plans to release a new pair of Ray-Ban smart glasses next year, that will have a small built-in screen along with the existing camera, speaker, and microphone. Most Meta-watchers also think we will see a stripped down version of the Quest 3 called the 3S. Meta is aiming to have this sell for $300-$400. It may at least partially replace the Quest 2, which has been priced at $299 for some time now. Naturally, AI will be woven into practically everything they show or mention…much like Apple. You can’t over-buzz that buzzword, apparently. 

After 2 weeks of blackout of ESPN, ABC, Disney+ and other Disney products, the House of Mouse and DirecTV finally cut a deal. According to variety.com, the deal was announced Saturday, and just in time for the first full day of college football on ABC and ESPN, not to mention the Prime Time Emmy show, which aired last night. All the Disney streams should be up and running on DirecTV now while the companies finish hammering out the final details. The new deal apparently gives users more flexible options for viewing. Meanwhile. DirecTV has boosted prices starting on October 6th.

The feds have proposed new rules that could make it harder and more expensive for Chinese e-commerce platforms like Tee Moo…or Teh Moo, depending on what you call it…to ship goods to the US. Arstechnica.com notes that the platform has been selling cheap goods using what is called the ‘de minimus exception’ that makes shipments valued at under $800 duty-free. Platforms taking advantage of the exemption can share less information on packages and dodge taxes. President Biden warned that “over the last 10 years, the number of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimus exemption has increased significantly, from approximately 140 million a year to over 1 billion a year.” The government would exclude the exemption for goods covered by tariffs under laws from 1974 and 1962.

Microsoft has unveiled Copilot Pages today. The feature is supposed to be a so-called ‘canvas for multiplayer AI collaboration.’ Theverge.com says Pages lets you use Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot and pull responses into a new page where they can be edited collaboratively with others. Jared Spatero, corporate VP of AI said “You and your team can work collaboratively in a page with Copilot, seeing everyone’s work in real time and iterating with Copilot like a partner, adding more content from your data, files, and the web to your Page. This is an entirely new work pattern — multiplayer, human to AI to human collaboration.” Pages is rolling out to Microsoft 365 Copilot customers today and should be available to all subscribers later this month.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.’

Grok Chatbot Trains on X User Data; Apple Intelligence Delayed Until October in iOS 18.1; DOJ says TikTok Collected User Data on Controversial Issues; Microsoft Will Make Windows Security more Mac-Like

Posted: July 29, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

The Grok chatbot Elon Musk has is apparently training on data from any and all X users. According to thenextweb.com, this could get Musk into trouble with the European Union. The data use may be in violation of EU rules. You can make sure you are not included in this. Go to settings in X, and look for a box that is checked by default…it says  “Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning.” This may violate the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. That law restricts companies from expanding data collection without telling users, and providing users a clear opt-out. 

Apparently Apple Intelligence won’t graduate in time to make it for the rollout of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. If you were all pumped about that shiny new iPhone 16 using Apple Intelligence, macrumors.com reports that you will have to wait until the operating systems’ first updates in October. Apple Intelligence should be released in the upcoming beta versions of the software, probably next week, but Apple must feel it isn’t quite ready for prime time yet. The upgraded Siri with AI was already scheduled to bow next spring. 

The Department of Justice went to court late Friday to ask the bench to reject the TikTok bid to have the law to ban it overturned. Engadget.com says the feds name national security concerns that include its alleged use of internal search tools to collect information on users’ views around sensitive topics. The government wrote in its filing that ByteDance has been using a search tool within their Lark suite of tools that “allowed ByteDance and TikTok employees in the United States and China to collect bulk user information based on the user’s content or expressions, including views on gun control, abortion, and religion.” The DOJ also argues in the filings that TikTok could be using the data to subject US users to content manipulation, and that their sensitive information could end up stored on servers in China. TikTok has denied the allegations.

After the CrowdStrike mess, Microsoft has indicated it will make Windows security more Mac-like. What does that mean? 9t5mac.com reports that Redmond will limit kernel access. Microsoft wrote about it on their IT blog. The company won’t be stripping away kernel privileges in a forthcoming Windows update. A shift like this will take significant time. But Microsoft’s direction for the future appears clear. Apple’s strict Mac security protocols don’t allow the same kind of kernel access to third parties as Windows does. This is why Macs weren’t impacted by the CrowdStrike outage. Let’s hope that another CloudStrike-type event doesn’t occur before Microsoft gets restricting kernel access in place. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

FCC Wants to Make Carriers Unlock Phones After 60 Days; SCOTUS Allows Administration to Jawbone Social Platforms; Amazon Now in $2 Trillion Club; Google Translate-Support for 110 New Languages

Posted: June 27, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

In a proposed rule, called in FCC lingo a ‘Notice of Proposed Rulemaking’, the Federal Communications Commission is looking to make phone carriers unlock phones from their service after 60 days. According to techcrunch.com, the Commission plans to further study how this will work out with current plans and phone buying trends. For years, carriers have subsidized phone prices if a customer signed up for say, a two year contract…and they made up the difference in the monthly payments for the phone plus the fees for the service. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wrote “When you buy a phone, you should have the freedom to decide when to change service to the carrier you want and not have the device you own stuck by practices that prevent you from making that choice. That is why we are proposing clear, nationwide mobile phone unlocking rules.” We should know more about the proposed rule when the full notice is published in July.

The Supreme Court yesterday tossed claims that the Biden administration coerced social media platforms into censoring users by removing COVID and election-related content. Arstechnica.com reports that the 6-3 vote found that none of the plaintiffs had standing to have brought the case in the first place. One individual was suing on behalf of his brother. Justice Barrett noted in the majority opinion that Facebook had actually been taking down false info about COVID and the election before the administration even asked them to do so. 

We’ve reported lately about the $2 trillion dollar companies, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Apple, and how Nvidia has passed up Apple, and even Microsoft for the top spot for a bit. Alphabet got into this high rolling club in April. Now, geekwire.com says Amazon has joined this rarified group of the world’s most valuable companies. Amazon stock is up over 30% this year, and over 50% the past 12 months. So there you have it….the top 5 most valuable companies on earth no longer include any oil companies, banks, or industrial firms…they are all tech: Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon. 

Google is adding 110 new languages to Translate. It’s the biggest expansion ever for Google Translate. Theverge.com notes that there were already 133 languages supported, so this brings the total up to 243 supported languages. A number of these languages are related to others, and Google used their PaLM 2 AI language model to help add them. One of the most requested languages was added…Cantonese. Issac Caswell of Google said “Because Cantonese often overlaps with Mandarin in writing, it is tricky to find data and train models.” Caswell also said that “about a quarter of the new languages come from Africa.”

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ’Technified’ for now.

EU Goes After Microsoft for Teams Bundling; Meta Replies Visible on Other Federated Platforms; Uber Locking Drivers Out of Apps; Apple Works to Automate iPhone Assembly

Posted: June 25, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

The European Union has called out Microsoft for breaching competition rules. Techcrunch.com reports that the EU has put out a formal statement of objections to what they call abuse of antitrust rules, due to bundling Teams with their cloud based suites for businesses…those would be Office 365 and Microsoft 365. The EU just opened an antitrust probe a year ago, after 2 years of complaints from Teams rival Slack. Microsoft did partially unbundle Teams last August (which wasn’t fully in place until April of this year), but the EU says Microsoft has to do more. The EU says the bundling of Teams gives Redmond a ‘distribution advantage’ over rivals like Slack and German platform alfaview. They also point to the lack of interoperability between Teams and rival programs. Microsoft was invited to respond to the charges, but as yet hasn’t acted. 

Meta is getting set to let Threads users like and see replies to their Threads posts on federated platforms. According to theverge.com, up to now, if you made a post on Threads that was syndicated to another platform like Mastodon…you couldn’t see responses to that post while still on Threads…you would have to head over to Mastodon. Now, you can see those likes and replies right in Threads…although to reply to a reply on Mastodon, you will have to actually log in to it. 

New York City has had a pay rule for a half dozen years that has made companies like Uber and Lyft pay the drivers even during idle time between fares. Now, engadget.com says for the past month, Uber has been locking drivers out of its apps during low-demand periods. Lyft has threatened to follow suit. At least one drivers’ union says it may consider a strike if the lockouts continue. The drivers, of course are mad. Some of them blame Uber for over-hiring…saying that is one of the main causes of the problem.

Apple has been concerned for years about over reliance on production of iPhones in China. Macrumors.com reports that Apple has instructed managers at Foxconn and other assembly partners to reduce the number of workers on assembly lines by up to 50% the next several years. There is already a significant amount of automation in the iPhone 15 lines, but some work is just too complex yet to automate. Cupertino has shelved some further automation for iPhone 16 due to a ‘high rate of defects.’ The goal doesn’t seem so much to cut humans to save costs as to be able to move even more iPhone assembly to countries outside of China, such as India, Vietnam, and Thailand.

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 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Microsoft 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. 

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →