I am with Mike Rockwell in my confusion about the limitations of Lock Screen widgets in iOS. It seems plausible for there to be design intent, but it is hard to see why I should not be able to place a rectangular widget on the right-hand side and place an Obscura camera button to … | Continue reading
Juli Clover, MacRumors: Apple with iOS 17.1 and watchOS 10.1 introduced a new NameDrop feature that is designed to allow users to place Apple devices near one another to quickly exchange contact information. Sharing contact information is done with explicit user permission, but s … | Continue reading
Recently, you may recall, Elon Musk amplified some antisemitic conspiracy theories on the social media platform he owns and, notably, is its most popular user. Which conspiracy theory? Well, it depends on how far back you want to look — but you need not rewind the clock very much … | Continue reading
For the seventh year, the Pudding is holding its Pudding Cup for cool non-commercial web projects. Three winners get $1,500 each, and the submission deadline is this coming Thursday. If you made something on the web this year that you thought was even a little bit neat, you shoul … | Continue reading
Kate Knibbs, of Wired, profiled Matthew Butterick — who you probably know from his “Practical Typography” online book — about a series of lawsuits against major players in generative intelligence: Yet when generative AI took off, he [Matthew Butterick] dusted off a long-dormant l … | Continue reading
You are probably sick of hearing about OpenAI palace intrigue; I am, too, but I have a reputation to correct. I linked favourably to something published at Fast Company recently, and I must repent. I have let you down and I have let myself down and, happily, I can fix that. On Mo … | Continue reading
Jessica Lyons Hardcastle, the Register: FBI director Christopher Wray made yet another impassioned plea to US lawmakers to kill a proposed warrant requirement for so-called “US person queries” of data collected via the Feds’ favorite snooping tool, FISA Section 702. […] “A warran … | Continue reading
Ina Fried, Axios: OpenAI said late Tuesday that it had reached a deal in principle for Sam Altman to return as CEO, with a new board chaired by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor. The last five days of news sounds like the setup to a crappy rendition of the “Aristocrats” joke, … | Continue reading
CEO of Eight Sleep Matteo Franceschetti: Breaking news: The OpenAI drama is real. We checked our data and last night, SF saw a spike in low-quality sleep. There was a 27% increase in people getting under 5 hours of sleep. We need to fix this. Source: @eightsleep data Eight Sleep’ … | Continue reading
I would like to think I try to keep up with Canadian news, but the progress of Bill C–244 slipped my attention — and it seems like I am not the only one. Introduced last February, the bill passed unanimously in October, a legislative milestone celebrated by the likes of Collision … | Continue reading
Chris Hannah: We’ve gone from having small local communities, to what can feel like at times, having the entire world in your living room. It’s probably why some people just make their online presence completely private. Because then they can control the scope of their interactio … | Continue reading
Eric Newcomer: My understanding is that some members of the board genuinely felt Altman was dishonest and unreliable in his communications with them, sources tell me. Some members of the board believe that they couldn’t oversee the company because they couldn’t believe what Altma … | Continue reading
OpenAI: The board of directors of OpenAI, Inc, the 501(c)(3) that acts as the overall governing body for all OpenAI activities, today announced that Sam Altman will depart as CEO and leave the board of directors. Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, will serve as … | Continue reading
Ina Fried, of Axios, with the scoop: Apple is pausing all advertising on X, the Elon Musk-owned social network, sources tell Axios. We have all had the experience where we have paused something and forgotten to resume it. These things can happen — and, in this case, this is somet … | Continue reading
Professional editor John Buck spoke to former members of Apple’s Advanced Technology Group to gain an insight into the inner workings of this secretive team. The result is a compelling 400-page book called “Inventing the Future, Bit by Bit”. “You got everything exactly right whic … | Continue reading
On October 27, 2022, Elon Musk acquired Twitter. Last month, CEO Linda Yaccarino acknowledged her employer’s contributions in a blog post titled “One Year in, the Future of X Is Bright”: October 27 marks the one-year anniversary of this platform under new ownership and management … | Continue reading
Lance Ulanoff, TechRadar: RCS or Rich Communication Services, a communications standard developed by the GSM Association and adopted by much of the Android ecosystem, is designed to universally elevate messaging communication across mobile devices. Even though Apple has been work … | Continue reading
I am not sure when iOS 17.2 will be released, but it comes with a great new feature for the Action Button — it can trigger a translation feature. It uses the most recent selection from the Translate app; there is no way to choose which language to convert to from within the widge … | Continue reading
Ted Johnson, Deadline: Members of a special House committee fired off a letter to Apple, questioning whether the decision to end The Problem with Jon Stewart was due to concerns over the company’s relationship with China. […] The committee is asking for a briefing by the company … | Continue reading
Eyal Press, the New Yorker: In June, an appellate court ordered the N.Y.P.D. to turn over detailed information about a facial-recognition search that had led a Queens resident named Francisco Arteaga to be charged with robbing a store. The court requested both the source code of … | Continue reading
Harry McCracken wrote a great profile of Marques Brownlee for Fast Company: Brownlee, who turns 30 in December, has come a long way since he began shooting videos about tech hardware and software in his family’s suburban New Jersey home at age 15. (He uploaded the results under t … | Continue reading
Tripp Mickle, Ella Koeze, and Brian X. Chen, New York Times: But since 2017, iPhone repairs have been a minefield. New batteries can trigger warning messages, replacement screens can disable a phone’s brightness settings, and substitute selfie cameras can malfunction. The breakdo … | Continue reading
This book has no rumours in it, all the action takes place outside 9–5 and Jony Ive isn’t mentioned. However, it is assembled bit by bit so this is the perfect home for an exclusive look at Apple and its secrets. Inventing the Future is based on never-before-conducted interviews … | Continue reading
Has the rapid availability of images generated by A.I. programs duped even mainstream news into unwittingly using them in coverage of current events? That is the impression you might get if you read a report from Cam Wilson, at Crikey, about generated photorealistic graphics avai … | Continue reading
Online privacy isn’t just something you should be hoping for — it’s something you should expect. You should ensure your browsing history stays private and is not harvested by ad networks. By blocking ad trackers, Magic Lasso Adblock stops you being followed by ads around the web. … | Continue reading
What was it that Steve Jobs said? The only problem with Microsoft is that they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste, and I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way. Imagine taking that as a compliment — as a directive. ⌥ Permalink⌥ Permalink | Continue reading
It is not every day that a company launches a new kind of device, let alone from high-profile ex-Apple employees. Well, after years of speculation and teasers, Humane is ready to begin selling its A.I. “pin”.1 You can think of it as the answer to the question what if you could we … | Continue reading
Adam Gabbatt, the Guardian: Jezebel, a feminist US news site, was shut down by its owners on Thursday, with 23 people laid off and no plans for the outlet to resume publication. G/O Media, which owns Jezebel and other sites including Gizmodo and the Onion, announced the closure i … | Continue reading
Some ex-writers from Kotaku launched a new site: Welcome to Aftermath, a worker-owned, reader-supported news site covering video games, the internet, and the cultures that surround them. Aftermath exists in the same realm as Defector and the Autopian, both of which were created b … | Continue reading
A little over a year ago, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued Kochava, a data broker, for doing things deemed too creepy even for regulators in the United States. In May, a judge required the FTC to narrow its case. Ashley Belanger, Ars Technica: One of the world’s largest mob … | Continue reading
I was reminded of Nikita Prokopov’s classic post today — “People Expect Technology to Suck Because It Actually Sucks” — in much the same way I think of it many days but, and especially, today. These are all things which happened today from when I woke up: I grabbed my phone off m … | Continue reading
U2 is not my band. I have never been to Las Vegas, and it does not seem like my kind of city. I am more of a standing-space-in-a-gross-nightclub kind of concert-goer. But these photos from Manton Reece make me want to see just about any show at the Sphere. I had not heard of this … | Continue reading
Dan Milmo, the Guardian: Microsoft’s news aggregation service published the automated poll next to a Guardian story about the death of Lilie James, a 21-year-old water polo coach who was found dead with serious head injuries at a school in Sydney last week. The poll, created by a … | Continue reading
Cam Wilson, Crikey: People searching Adobe Stock are shown a blend of real and AI-generated images. Like “real” stock images, some are clearly staged, whereas others can seem like authentic, unstaged photography. This is true of Adobe Stock’s collection of images for searches re … | Continue reading
The past week in Apple product news has been made more interesting by the meta commentary about its October 30 presentation which was, as noted, shot on an array of iPhone 15 Pro Max,1 and edited on Macs. In the behind-the-scenes video released shortly after the presentation, it … | Continue reading
If you want to know what absolutely disingenuous A.I. regulation looks like, look no further than Elon Musk who, in March, was among the signatories of a plea to pause development of these technologies. Thanks to Mike Masnick for this first link. Jyoti Narayan, Krystal Hu, Martin … | Continue reading
Brian Heater, TechCrunch: If you’ve been waiting on a new 27-inch to upgrade your desktop setup, maybe consider the new 24-inch iMac or a Mac Studio instead. Despite reports to the contrary, Apple this morning said it won’t be releasing a larger screen all-in-one desktop. If you … | Continue reading
Want to experience twice as fast load times in Safari on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac? Then download Magic Lasso Adblock — the ad blocker designed for you. It’s easy to setup, blocks all ads, and doubles the speed at which Safari loads. Magic Lasso Adblock is an efficient and high … | Continue reading
Ian Betteridge wrote a good counterargument to the general thrust of Steven Sinofsky’s post about the A.I. regulation executive order: There is a myth in Silicon Valley that innovation is somehow an unalloyed good which must always be protected and should never be regulated, lest … | Continue reading
Natalie Sherman and Peter Hoskins, BBC News: Sam Bankman-Fried, who once ran one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, has been found guilty of fraud and money laundering at the end of a month-long trial in New York. The jury delivered its verdict after less than five … | Continue reading
There has been a wave of artificial intelligence regulatory news this week, and I thought it would be useful to collect a few of those stories in a single post. Earlier this week, U.S. president Joe Biden issued an executive order: My Administration places the highest urgency on … | Continue reading
April King’s daughter dressed as a frustratingly accurate Siri for Halloween. Excellent. ⌥ Permalink⌥ Permalink | Continue reading
John Herrman, New York: But it’s worth paying attention to which, and whose, problems these companies are trying to solve with AI. Amazon is attempting to address an issue for sellers and for its own advertising business: Clickable “lifestyle” ad imagery is expensive to hire for … | Continue reading
Aaron Gordon, writing at the remaining shell of Vice: For the last three months, I’ve been trying to find an answer to a basic question at the heart of this theft wave: Why didn’t the U.S. follow Canada’s lead and mandate immobilizers, too? If it had, either around the same time … | Continue reading
Jose M. Gilgado: In a world where constant change is the norm, finished software provides a breath of fresh air. It’s a reminder that reliability, consistency, and user satisfaction can coexist in the realm of software development. There is confidence in being able to say a piece … | Continue reading
Emma Roth, the Verge: YouTube is broadening its efforts to crack down on ad blockers. The platform has “launched a global effort” to encourage users to allow ads or try YouTube Premium, YouTube communications manager Christopher Lawton says in a statement provided to The Verge. “ … | Continue reading
Davey Alba and Leah Nylen, Bloomberg: Google maintains a firewall between its ads and search teams so that its engineers can innovate on Google’s search engine, unsullied by the influence of the team whose goal is to maximize advertising revenue. But in February 2019, testimony a … | Continue reading
Even if you do not believe the results of Geekbench tests are representative of real-world performance, it is clear Apple’s system-on-a-chip lineup has written an extraordinary story for its own products. Its effects are unsurprisingly reminiscent of the switch from PowerPC to In … | Continue reading