AI is changing the way photos are classified, photos or memories
26 September 2024
The iPhone 16, Apple’s latest smartphone, has arrived on shop shelves. There are four versions of the device: 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max. In time all will feature Apple Intelligence, Apple’s artificial intelligence (AI) offering, which will be “deeply integrated” into iOS18 and other Apple operating systems. From what I can gather, Apple Intelligence features will be rolled out over time, presumably by way of incremental updates to iOS18, and beyond.
One of the iPhone 16’s — specifically the Pro and Pro Max models — big talking points though, has been the inclusion of a physical shutter button (although Apple calls it “camera control”) for the camera. It means people will be able to tilt their phone into (what I’ll call) landscape mode, and have the device mimic cameras of old.
Of course, photos can still be taken in portrait orientation using the button. There are a number of other major new camera and photo settings, but Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, suggests the new camera/photo features alone may be reason enough to consider buying a 16.
There’s also speculation as to the difference Apple Intelligence will make to photos taken, going forward. A yet to arrive feature, called “Clean Up”, which like the “Magic Eraser” function on Google phones, will allow people to alter, with the aid of AI, their iPhone photos. They’ll be able to remove (and add) objects and people. It’s going to be a game-changer. So much so, that some smartphone images are being referred to as memories:
I asked Apple’s VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack about Google’s view that the Pixel camera now captures “memories” instead of photos, and he told me that Apple has a strong point of view about what a photograph is — that it’s something that actually happened.
This distinction is significant. Old school images, raw and unedited, recording an instant in time, will continue to be referred to as photos. This will be a journalistic application. Images edited by way of AI, meanwhile, will become more appropriately considered memories.
Clean Up or Magic Eraser can be used to remove that inadvertently photo-bombing stranger who strays into the background of a family group shot, thus preserving the memory of the moment as those present would like to remember it.
Photos or memories. It seems all very inconsequential, a small step even — I’m merely scratching the surface here — but another of the many changes AI technologies are bringing our way.
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artificial intelligence, photography, smartphones, technology, trends
Bringing everyone back to the workplace does little for company culture
25 September 2024
Amazon, the online retailer and tech company, has directed all employees to return to the office by early January 2025. Presently workers are required to be in the workplace at least three days a week. In a recent companywide announcement, CEO Andy Jassy says he wants to do away with the current hybrid working arrangement (being a few days at home, a few days onsite), in favour of having everyone back in the office.
Although Jassy outlined numerous reasons for the change in policy, he believes the move will strengthen the company’s culture. Company culture is a term that’s been bandied about — for what? — at least two decades now. It’s up there with other pitiful instances of corporate speak, including values migration and paradigm shift, but what does it even mean?
American writer and entrepreneur Laurie Ruettimann, probably summed it up best in November 2014, when she wrote:
I’ve been saying that your company doesn’t have a culture for years. You incorrectly apply the word “culture” to a group of people who behave a certain way because their lives are dominated by a few powerful figures in your office.
Isn’t it incredible, that ten years later, people still hold steadfast to the notion of company culture. The emperor’s new clothes, anyone? But a substantial body of research, conducted by PwC has concluded being present in the workplace does little for this so-called culture anyway:
The Big Four accounting firm conducted 13 months of research and surveyed over 20,000 business leaders, chief human resources officers and workers for its new Workforce Radar Report — and it found that hybrid workers feel more included and productive than those who sit at their company’s desk five days a week. “While many companies are pushing for return to office, it turns out that hybrid workers demonstrate the highest levels of satisfaction,” the report highlights.
It would be reasonable to think any findings made by an organisation such as PwC, particularly as a big four accounting entity, would be deemed noteworthy, but somehow I doubt that will be the case.
And for a definitely contrarian perspective on the subject of returning everyone to the workplace, read this Sentinel-Intelligence article.
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Intermezzo by Sally Rooney: early thoughts, reviews from critics
25 September 2024
I’m guessing a few people had a sleepless night on Monday/Tuesday, after getting hold of the new Sally Rooney novel, Intermezzo, at one of the midnight release events earlier this week. Book reviewers, meanwhile, were probably lucky enough to score an advanced reader copy (ARC), at some point beforehand.
Anyway, no spoilers here, just some brief excerpts from the thoughts of a few book reviewers. The consensus though, so far, being Intermezzo is different from Rooney’s previous three novels, but that’s not a bad thing.
Constance Grady writing for The Guardian:
Intermezzo is an accomplished continuation of the writing that made Rooney a global phenomenon.
Alexandra Harris writing for Vox:
I’m happy to report that Intermezzo is exquisite. While the experimental and polarizing Beautiful World stayed largely out of the minds of its characters, with occasionally chilly results, Intermezzo is all rich inner monologue, as deeply felt as Normal People.
Dwight Garner writing for The New York Times:
“Intermezzo” wears its heart on its sleeve. It’s a mature, sophisticated weeper. It makes a lot of feelings begin to slide around in you.
The crew at Melbourne based independent Australian bookshop, Readings, sound like they stayed up all night reading Intermezzo. Justin Cantrell-Harvey, a bookseller, described the novel thusly:
A slow burn that lingers with grief and ignites a longing for something just out of reach.
Laura Miller writing for Slate:
A casual reader (or dismisser) of Rooney might think all her books are the same. But her new novel is a darker, sadder departure from the formula — and it’s better for it.
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Playing Tetris may ease post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms
24 September 2024
Sara E. Teller, writing for Legal Reader:
The research, published in BMC Medicine, focuses on the use of video games, particularly the well-known Tetris game that has been around for decades, to help reduce intrusive memories, a core and sometimes debilitating symptom of the condition.
Invented in 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov, Tetris is a straightforward yet fun, video game. Anything that can help PTSD survivors, in any way, has to be a good thing.
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entertainment, games, health, psychology
Writing a book may be a health hazard, just ask a writer
23 September 2024
American writer and researcher, Gwern Branwen:
But how can I not want to write a book? And I get it: writing a book is sacred and unquestionable, the ultimate achievement for Western intellectuals — better than being arrested in a protest (because you don’t have to get sweaty), better than a PhD (because not so devalued), and better even than going to Harvard (because that mostly means you got lucky in admissions).
I’m no intellectual, but I’ve been banging away at a book manuscript for years, ten years actually. On the other hand, I’ve been writing here at disassociated, on and off, since the late nineties. But what do people I know ask about the most?
A book that may never see the light of day? Or a blog that is updated regularly, and has some sort of readership (excluding the neighbour’s cat)? Surprise, surprise, it’s not the blog.
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Your coffee order, a subliminal yet revealing, job interview question?
23 September 2024
Applying for a job, going through the interview process and what not, is much like walking on eggshells. Take one wrong step, and all your efforts may be for nothing. Even something as seemingly innocuous as the way you like your cup of coffee prepared, could be your undoing:
I won’t say what work we do, but it involves judgement and discernment. I keep thinking that if this person is making such bad decisions about coffee, what other bad decisions are they capable of?
I say play it safe in such a situation, and once you’ve been hired, then reveal your true coffee drinking colours. But if you do want your choice of coffee to reflect well on you, this PsychCentral article by Sian Ferguson, may be useful.
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Unfortunately, colonising Mars is not a great idea
23 September 2024
There’s the challenge. There’s the adventure, the pioneering spirit, of setting off to another planet. Not everything is, or should be, easy. But are those really the right reasons for wishing to establish a human colony on the fourth rock from the Sun, Mars?
Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars’s dead core? No? Well. It’s fine. I’m sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh. Well then let’s discuss something else equally realistic, like your plan to build a condo complex in Middle Earth.
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Be first in line for Intermezzo by Sally Rooney in Sydney tonight
23 September 2024
Tomorrow, Tuesday 24 September 2024, is the day Sally Rooney fans have been waiting for. That’s when the Irish author’s fourth novel, Intermezzo, is published. And from what I (and everyone else) can gather, anticipation is at fever pitch.
The good news, for some Australian fans of Rooney, is they don’t have to wait until bookshops open, as usual, on Tuesday morning. They can go along to Gleebooks, in the inner-west Sydney suburb of Dulwich Hill, late this evening, where Intermezzo will be on the shelves, on the stroke of midnight.
We don’t see too many midnight releases of novels, so I’m hoping that says something about how good book number four is…
Update: since queuing this post late on Friday, I’m advised the Gleebooks event is fully booked. Sorry, Tuesday morning, regular bookshop opening times, it is, I’m afraid.
Update II: For those who missed out on the midnight release this evening, Dymocks George Street, in Sydney CBD, will be selling Intermezzo from 8AM tomorrow, Tuesday 24 September 2024. A free coffee is on offer all day for anyone buying the novel.
I’m happy to cover for you, if you want to tell work you’re in a meeting with a content producer, for several hours while you go somewhere and read the book (thanks Sara).
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books, literature, novels, Sally Rooney
Another day, another problem with Voyager 1, solved
20 September 2024
Data the nearly fifty-year old deep space probe was returning to Earth earlier this year, was getting all scrambled up. But dutiful mission controllers sorted that out. This despite Voyager 1 being so far away that it’d take a day to reach, assuming we had a vessel that could travel at the speed of light.
More recently, Voyager 1 has been having have trouble using correcting thrusters that keep the probe’s antenna pointed at Earth. Fuel pipes to the aging thrusters have begun to clog up, rendering them inoperative. Mission controllers, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California, however have been able to re-activate another set of thrusters — unused in decades — and effect a fix.
As a result of its exceptionally long-lived mission, Voyager 1 experiences issues as its parts age in the frigid outer reaches beyond our solar system. When an issue crops up, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have to get creative while still being careful of how the spacecraft will react to any changes.
If you want a tricky problem solved, ask a mission controller from one of the automated space missions to help. And of course Apollo 13.
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astronomy, science, technology
LinkedIn is collecting user data for AI training
20 September 2024
Professional social network (assuming there’s such a thing) LinkedIn has started collecting user data to train its own AI bot.
No surprise there.
They’ve apparently auto opted all members in, whether they like it or not.
No surprise there.
Rachel Tobac, CEO of SocialProof Security, has posted instructions on how to opt-out, on X/Twitter.
I deactivated my LinkedIn account — after my then GP, of all people, invited me to join — well over ten years ago.
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artificial intelligence, social networks, technology, trends