thatadamguy · TEXXR

I'm mostly *grateful* that Apple's doing this, but with two caveats: - Airpods last, what, 3-5 hours on a charge? That's not nearly enough juice to get most hearing-impaired folks through the day. - I worry that people may try Airpods, be underwhelmed with how it helps them hear in challenging situations and then be put off the idea of hearing aids. …

2024-09-10 View on X

9to5Mac

Apple announces an AirPods Pro 2 hearing health software update to add features like a “clinical grade” hearing aid mode and a clinically-validated hearing test

Apple has announced some new hearing health related features, coming as a software update for AirPods Pro 2.

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Disagree. In the vast majority of cases, realtime ‘news’ is a bug, not a feature. Unless you're escaping a fast-moving hurricane or are in a war-zone, why not wait until actual, vetted news gets published in the next days or a week? In nearly every situation, there's nothing you can do in the meantime that's useful. …

2024-07-15 View on X

The Verge

X's trending topics surfaced conspiracy theories around the assassination attempt on Donald Trump; YouTube and Facebook primarily directed users to news outlets

Conspiracy theories about the shooting at a Trump rally began surfacing on X shortly after the news broke this afternoon …

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Disagree. In the vast majority of cases, realtime ‘news’ is a bug, not a feature. Unless you're escaping a fast-moving hurricane or are in a war-zone, why not wait until actual, vetted news gets published in the next days or a week? In nearly every situation, there's nothing you can do in the meantime that's useful. …

2024-07-15 View on X

Business Insider

Tech leaders, including Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, and Mark Zuckerberg, condemned the July 13 Trump assassination attempt

Lloyd Lee / Business Insider :

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Apologies for perhaps being a bit overly blunt, but the vast majority of people I see decrying Threads' approach in this context are... journalists and misc commentators who focus on politics. Anecdotally, most people I know are delighted that Threads is not leaning into politics and hard news. We all get enough of that from quite a few other online and offline sources and appreciate Threads as a bit of a respite overall.

2024-07-04 View on X

Platformer

Q&A with Adam Mosseri on Threads' first year, not leaning into political content, driving engagement, focusing on real-time content, the fediverse, and more

and even Threads is warming to it Leo Grieco / Proactiveinvestors UK : Meta's Threads hits milestone but lags social media giants Sean Tilley / We Distribute : A Beginner's Guide t...

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I'm biased (because I worked [way down the chain] under Liz and quite respect her), but... this seems like a well-written, thoughtful, and useful post to me.

2024-06-01 View on X

9to5Google

Google explains AI Overviews' viral mistakes and updates its systems, including “better detection for nonsensical queries” and limiting satire and humor content

Google scales back AI search answers after it told users to eat glue https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Nitasha Tiku / @nitashatiku : breaking non-trump news from @GerritD. Google...

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I'm biased (because I worked [way down the chain] under Liz and quite respect her), but... this seems like a well-written, thoughtful, and useful post to me.

2024-05-31 View on X

9to5Google

Google explains AI Overviews' viral mistakes and updates its systems, including “better detection for nonsensical queries” and limiting satire and humor content

Google this afternoon published a long response about AI Overviews and their accuracy.

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Respectfully disagree. Google and FB have both sent enormous amounts of free traffic to online news sources. Newspapers were dying long long before Google News and FB. Young people haven't subscribed in ages, Craiglist (that evil :checks notes: Not Big Tech company) “stole” …

2024-03-02 View on X

Bloomberg

Meta plans to deprecate the Facebook News tab in the US and Australia in early April 2024 and stop signing deals for traditional news content in those countries

it was begun for hookups, parties, and puppies but readers and publishers added news in their own posts. News came to depend on Facebook for links and audience — that's why publis...

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I've been a fan of the Arc Browser for a long time; it's my primary browser on desktop! But there's a narrow line between innovation and hubristic destruction, and I'm worried that the associated CEO has crossed it. I mean, you know what else users want? Everything to be free! …

2024-02-11 View on X

Engadget

Arc Search's Browse for Me feature, which creates custom webpages with search result summaries, faces a backlash over concerns about losing monetizable traffic

Pranav Dixit / Engadget : Threads: @thatadamguy , @fabiobracht , @paul_rietschka , @mcwm , @ezra , @crumbler , @drewharwell , and @jstaal X: @brianfagioli , @bilalbudhani , @gerge...

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Well, this is surprising and disappointing: Google users who are part of a family plan can't use Gemini Ultra unless they... er... break up with their family :-( “You can sign up for a new Google One AI Premium membership only if you decide to leave the family group...”

2024-02-09 View on X

The Verge

Google debuts Gemini Ultra 1.0, its largest and most capable LLM, renames Bard as Gemini, debuts a dedicated Android app, and plans to add Gemini to its iOS app

its multimodal genAI engine Alexey Shabanov / TestingCatalog : Gemini takes over Bard: Google's AI with a dedicated Android app Mike Viray / Phandroid : Google Finally Launches its...

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I've been increasingly frustrated with the NY Times for a variety of reasons over the years, but their clear bad-faith here (essentially falsifying evidence) makes me even more likely to cancel my longstanding subscription. There are valid debates to be had about AI laws and ethics but man the NY Times is a terrible no-good plaintiff.

2024-01-09 View on X

OpenAI

OpenAI responds to The New York Times' lawsuit: training is fair use and there is an opt-out, “regurgitation” is a rare bug, and NYT “manipulated” its models

written evidence (LLM0113) Dan Milmo / The Guardian : ‘Impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says Ryan Daws / AI News : Copyrighted data...

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Two key points about this situation: 1) OpenAI offers an opt-out option for any publishers that don't want their content used in training. NY Times availed themselves of this option in Aug 2023 but still sued OpenAI afterwards. 2) One or more of the alleged examples of copying (particularly re Wirecutter) were, essentially, staged... and included the NY Times plying ChatGPT with literally paragraphs of copied text as a prompt. Not something ANY user would do, logically or practically.

2024-01-09 View on X

OpenAI

OpenAI responds to The New York Times' lawsuit: training is fair use and there is an opt-out, “regurgitation” is a rare bug, and NYT “manipulated” its models

written evidence (LLM0113) Dan Milmo / The Guardian : ‘Impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says Ryan Daws / AI News : Copyrighted data...

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I'm disappointed that mas.to is currently blocking Threads though thankfully it's more of a wait and see vs FU from the server admin

2023-12-16 View on X

The Verge

Adam Mosseri details Threads' fediverse plans, including following non-Threads accounts, showing replies from other platforms, and follower portability

The head of Instagram says a full integration with the fediverse could take ‘the better part of a year.’

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With such gobsmacking recurring denseness*, it's hard to imagine that Elon was ever remotely smart about anything. But I remind myself that there are still talented scientists who mistakenly believe vaccines cause autism and undoubtedly liberal arts graduates who think Africa's a country. …

2023-10-30 View on X

TechCrunch

Elon Musk says X posts corrected by Community Notes will be “ineligible for revenue share” in order to “maximize the incentive for accuracy over sensationalism”

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch :

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Another day, another “WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN???” misguided push. Unclear how much of this is sincere vs. just craven political opportunism. Look, I find infinite scroll and excessive default notifications annoying, too, but designed to evil'y threaten kids well-being? …

2023-10-25 View on X

CNBC

A bipartisan group of 42 attorneys general sue Meta in the US, alleging that Facebook and Instagram features are addictive and aimed at kids and teens

- A bipartisan group of 42 attorneys general is suing Meta, alleging features on Facebook and Instagram are addictive and are aimed at kids and teens.

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Completely agree. I spent literally hours and hours over a couple of nights having an absolute blast with DALL-E 3, and ended up making an album of my favs so far: http://go.lasnik.net/... All but the first 7 I think are from DALL-E 3 :)

2023-10-24 View on X

Platformer

Hands-on with DALL-E 3: suggests more detailed prompts, restrictive, denies art requests in the style of living artists, and shows how quickly AI is improving

Casey Newton / Platformer :

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A reminder that Marc is the fellow who wrote a “Time to build!” essay around the time he and his wife frantically fought the building of additional housing near them. The same guy who is infamous for having an itchy Block finger on Twitter, plugging his ears/eyes against anyone with even a respectfully-expressed but slightly-dissenting opinion. …

2023-10-17 View on X

Fortune

Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto lists trust and safety, sustainability, and tech ethics as “enemies”, says AI is “our Philosopher's Stone”, and more

In a 5,200-word manifesto published by the venture capitalist and billionaire Marc Andreessen on Monday …

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Wow. Basecamp posts a manifesto, basically: - This is a dictatorship. Consensus is for losers. - Our work is 100% transactional. Do a job, get paid. No more, no less. You're a replaceable cog, not a human being. - Yes, we're angry and defiant, and we want the world to know! https://twitter.com/...

2021-04-27 View on X

Jason Fried

Basecamp's CEO announces a ban on “societal and political discussions” at work, saying the company does not need to solve or even chime in on social problems

At Basecamp, we treat our company as a product. It's not a rigid thing that exists, it's a flexible, malleable idea that evolves.

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Stop this (really really dumb) simulation, I want to get off. https://www.techmeme.com/...

2021-03-08 View on X

The Verge

After Jack Dorsey promoted an auction on the site Valuables for an NFT of his very first tweet, the bids for “just setting up my twttr” reach $2.5M

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Stop this (really really dumb) simulation, I want to get off. https://www.techmeme.com/...

2021-03-07 View on X

The Verge

After Jack Dorsey promoted an auction on the site Valuables for an NFT of his very first tweet, the bids for “just setting up my twttr” reach $2.5M

Apparently you can actually sell your tweets as NFT — Jack Dorsey, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of Twitter …

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@sathish__ @stratechery You're overlooking the entertainment and social connection aspect. Not everything is about information :)

2021-02-16 View on X

Stratechery

Clubhouse, which centralizes creation and consumption into a feedback loop, will do for audio what Twitter, Stories, and TikTok did for text, images, and video

To what extent are new companies, particularly those in new spaces, pushed versus pulled into existence? Last week I wrote about how Tesla is a Meme Company:

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