Items I happen to view each day. Science, Technology, Management, Culture, and Writing

    This is my day book for this week. It is a log of things I see on the Internet.

This week: 23-29 September, 2024

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• Israel-Gaza conflict continues and continues to spread
• Big Hurricane Helene hits Florida
• US Presidential campaign drags on

Monday 23 September 2024

Strong rumors that TSMC is moving away from its home of the island of Formosa.

What can you innovate in a smartphone? Apple tries to add something new via software.

Our Dept of Commerce is ready to ban imports of parts from China and Russia that will go into cars.

It is no longer enough to build a car, you have to be a software company, too.

Here come the "AI agents." The copilots are so 2023 or something and are being left behind.

Meanwhile across America, state legislatures are moving to do something so that AI doesn't run or ruin elections or something. It is all perception not reality. "Look at us, we are doing something! Please throw money."

Meta has succeeded in smart glasses. The secret is Ray Ban. They know that sun glasses are fashion items. Meta has put just enough technology in them.

Someone tries to remind people that there is a command line interface stil behind the scenes on Windows and MacOS.

The Harris Walz team is quite clear: don't talk to reporters. Don't answer questions. Just tell stories that the handlers had them memorize.

This is the bizarre story of finding a person missing fro 70 years.

This writer had a New York Times bestseller that was self published. Note, this is extremely rare. Don't plan on it happening.

Here are thoughts on editing and revising and about something the writer calls "deep editing."

Thoughts on writing a trilogy.

Well, this is supposed to work in attracting clients: write a quiz and get people's email addresses for your newsletter. I don't get it.

Great tile and a great concept to understand that (other) "Authors Are Assets, Not Competition."

This is a pretty good post on giving and receiving feedback on a piece of writing.

Tuesday 24 September 2024

Sam Altman, trying to fill the role of tech guru who knows everything now, proclaims that "deep learning worked" and unbelievable things to happen in a few thousand days.

Raspberry Pi has a fabulous financial report. They created the $25 single-board computer (or was it $50? whatever) as the most successful education project in history. Now someone is making a lot of money.

Our Federal government creates The Partnership for Global Inclusivity on AI (PGIAI) with some big tech companies. The project will maintain "an unwavering commitment to safety, security, and trustworthiness in AI systems." Okay, let's see.

Better watch out because Russia, China, and Iran are trying to influence the US elections. I guess this means they are running false campaign ads. Know of anyone else who doesn't quite tell the whole truth in campaign ads?

Meta to start using the voices of famous actors in its voice AI systems.

Our Congress sends legislation to our current President (remember him?) for signature regarding building chip-building factories. The law attempts to remove restrictions that other laws created. Yes, we have met the enemy and yes, it is us.

Having a firm grasp on the obvious, some researcher advocate for less hype and more sense regarding AI.

I'll just quote this, "SpaceX plans to launch about five uncrewed Starship missions to Mars in two years." Unmanned space travel is much, much easier than manned.

Out in the middle-of-nowhere Utah, work begins on a gigantic solar and batter storage project.

In praise of prompt engineering. At least they call it a skill and not a field of engineering.

Logitech shows its MX Creative Console. A few more gadgets to attach to the computer for better input when "creating."

Bellingcat has a new Online Investigations Toolkit.

Wednesday 25 September 2024

There is supposed to be a crypto ban in China. Chainanalysis reports that billion$ are still flowing.

Who are you hiring over the Internet? Are you hiring North Korean soldiers?

Meanwhile in Vienna (Austria not nearby Vienna, Virginia) Mozilla is in trouble for allegedly tracking users.

Researchers have an AI system that can solve all those annoying captcha things.

The Google camera car has been running around the world as Google updates the Street View photos in 80 countries.

Google pushes a big update to its Gemini AI systems. More better as long as you don't mind Google having your questions and its answers to your questions.

Meanwhile at Meta, Mr. Zuckerburg learns that one person's good charity is another person's political activism. I have to wonder how long it takes some of these adults to start acting like they are adults.

False memories? Well, one researcher learned yet another method of messing up ChatGPT. These are probabilistic not deterministic systems. If you don't like that, don't use them. Basic understanding of the basics is lacking in the great majority of this mess.

Some deeper thoughts on "the first wave of AI." Of course calling our current time the first wave of AI is a curious mistake, but some folks have to start sometime and now is just a good (or is it bad) time as any. Gosh, some of us old folks cringe at this stuff.

Let's begin and end with this, "You should never voluntarily hand your phone to a police officer."

Someone has a firm grasp of the obvious: this water treatment facility switched to manual operation. No cyberattack possible with that. Why doesn't everyone do this? Folks believe the sales pitches of, "Our system is secure. No one can hack us."

Some history on CompuServe which was started 45 years ago and connected people before there was an Internet.

Thursday 26 September 2024

Government agencies churning out expensive plans so that they meet the requirements of other expensive plans churned out by other government agencies. You can't make it up.

There appears to be some sort of brain drain at OpenAI as more of the founders leave the company. They made their fortune, so they want to do something else. Good for them.

The Project 2025 plan must be the most discussed plan that no one intends to use ever. I have an idea: I'll write an outrageous political document that no one will ever use. That way, I will be famous and people will buy copies of my plan so they can read it and tell everyone that it is outrageous.

Meta updates it Llama AI models. Some billion-parameter models are "small enough" to run on the bloated processors of some smartphones.

Our Federal Trade Commission promises to crack down on false advertising by AI companies. Now if they would just do the same with those companies that advertise...well, everything.

Meanwhile in Europe, there is now an AI Pact that companies pledge to do something gooder and better with AI. I wonder if the pact has a definition of "AI."

Meanwhile in Europe, Google files an EU antitrust complaint alleging Microsoft engages in unfair cloud practices. Don't you just love how successful American companies are always in court in highly regulated Europe. Perhaps this explains why there are so many successful American companies and so few successful European companies there are.

A study shows that many of the really large language models (RLLM?) give nonsensical answers and no one seems to realize that.

And at IBM, managers planned to replace thousands of people with software. Well, that hasn't worked, so the jobs may simply be going to India.

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence claims to have some smaller language models (still in the billions of parameters) that perform as well as the trillion-parameter models. Sigh. Why did practical solutions go away? What happened to practical system builders?

This product has "only 5,000 users." I wish I had 5,000 fans that paid me $5 a year. The definition of success has changed.

I guess this should be funny or something about how adult children are tracking their parents. There are worse things to do than to be close to the other generation.

Friday 27 September 2024

It appears that $8.5Billion of taxpayers' money will go to Intel later this year. Wow. That's a lot of dollars.

When did a $649 phone become a low-cost phone?

Starlink now claims four million subscribers. They are in the middle part of the S curve.

Google shows updates to its NotebookLM experiment.

I'll just quote this, "The Tor Project is merging operations with Tails, a portable Linux-based operating system focused on preserving user privacy and anonymity."

Strong rumors about the coming graphics cards from Nvidia. These things are supercomputers. And they draw a lot of power. We need to vent their heat out of the house like we do with the clothes dryer.

Want a real security camera for the house? The EufyCam S3 Pro costs a lot and delivers a lot.

Our NIST is changing its recommendations for passwords.

HP claims to have AI in its newest printers.

And our FTC is now cracking down on false ads from automation companies. Again, we hope the FTC will crack down on false ads for political campaigns, but that is doubtful.

A tale of bad company repair policies and bad intentions. Really folks? Come on. .....
Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
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Saturday 28 September 2024

Interesting, I've never heard the phrase "the laptop class" meaning those rich enough and fortunate enough to work from home. Elon Musk, who says many disagreeable things, has a point here about feeling entitled enough to work from home while asking many other people to not work from home. Still, this is a complex subject as every person working from home takes vehicles off the road to the benefit of those who have to commute. In the Washington D.C. area, it is all about the commute time.

OpenAI is a fascinating company. It could be the shining example of success leading to failure as its finances just aren't right.

Meanwhile in China, the rulers are trying to force local and smaller companies to avoid Nvidia processors and go with China-produced processors.

In one of those cases where no one will actually be arrested, our Dept of Justice charges two Russians with laundering billion$$$.

Upon further review, Microsoft's AI-Powered Recall feature of Windows 11 needed some further review. It was a screen video capture system that sent all the video to Microsoft's corporate servers. What a waste of bandwidth just to help you remember what you did this morning.

Google releases Contextual Smart Replies to Gmail. I guess these are better than out-of-context-stupid replies to Gmail or something like that.

In another case where no one will be arrested, our Dept of Justice charges three Iranians for stealing files out of the Trump Presidential campaign.

Meanwhile in Ireland, European regulators fine a successful American company $100million for something or other.

Folks at Apple learn that the movie business isn't so easy. They are changing how and how much $$$ goes to movie production.

Take some old film clips, take some old voice recordings, do some translation German-to-English, sum it up, generate some video, and you have Hitler giving his old speeches in English. The consumate politician, note how Hitler says things without really saying them. And then look at current politicians, most of whom are using these techniques.

The hotest consumer electronics product in the world is this Fujifilm X100V camera. Yes, a camera that is not in a smartphone. An actual camera.

Comparing the Dell XPS 13 with Intel processor versus Qualcomm processor.

I like this article. OpenAi was a research lab. Then they accidentally released a popular product. So now, they are trying to make a profit. It may not work.

Sunday 29 September 2024

Mr. Zuckerburg's wealth is over $200Billion (with a B). Of course most of it is on paper. If Meta flops, his wealth drops. Some call for taxing everything over a billion$. That would require Mr. Z to sell stock, which would cause the value of the stock to drop which would cause all the other shareholders to lose money. Let's see, a hundred thousand people lose money. That will bring equity and help the economy? I doubt it.

Meanwhile in Brazil, regulators extract $5million more from X before its ban is lifted.

A professor of finance ponders the influence of AI on stock valuations. If AI works well, he is out of a job. If AI flops, what did he write to confuse the software? First-world problems.

I like Seth Godin's blog post today. It is "Oh, look what I found," instead of, "LOOOK what I created!"

Researchers think they have discovered the path of the ancient Nile River and how that helped move materials to build pyramids.

Recent college grads are being fired quickly after being hired. The kids don't know how to act and cannot do anything. Pandemic education or just too much time on smartphones?

Someone has Linux running on a 4-bit Intel 4004 processor from 1971. Where did he find that chip?

Who is liable for building a bad system, the employer or the employee?