Showing all posts about technology
Brazilians flock to Bluesky after authorities block X
2 September 2024
Brazilians are turning to Bluesky — the microblogging platform founded by then Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey — in droves, following a ban on X in the South American country. The surge in signups however has prompted warnings from Bluesky that the service may experience outages, as a result.
But that seems like a good sort of problem for Bluesky. Things, meanwhile, seem to go from bad to worse for the X platform, now owned by Elon Musk. Late week, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge ordered local ISPs to block the platform, after the company refused to appoint a new legal representative there. Under Brazilian law, major social networks are required to have a legal representative based in the country.
It’s a sad state of affairs for the platform once known as Twitter. I joined in 2007, and made a number of acquaintances there, both in Australia, and elsewhere. Some people are predicting X will not see out the next two years. I’m not so sure of that, but there’s no doubting that the microblogging service is but a shadow of its former self.
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social networks, technology, trends, Twitter
404 Media are not going anywhere, but yes they are
29 August 2024
What we learned in our first year of 404 Media, by 404 Media. Has it really been a year?
Here we are a year later, and we are very proud and humbled to report that, because of your support, 404 Media is working. Our business is sustainable, we are happy, and we aren’t going anywhere.
When 404 say they aren’t going anywhere, it means they’re not closing down anytime soon. They are however going places, no doubts about that.
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The photorealistic AI-generation revolution is here
29 August 2024
Chris Welch, a writer for The Verge, on the new “reimagine” feature, that shipped with Google’s recently launched Pixel 9 smartphones. Long story short, “reimagine” allows someone to edit/enhance any photo, anyway they choose:
With a simple prompt, you can add things to photos that were never there. And the company’s Gemini AI makes it look astonishingly realistic. This all happens right from the phone’s default photo editor app. In about five seconds.
That’s quite the leap for generative artificial intelligence, one that’s going to leave the rest of us wondering if what’s depicted in a photo is actual or not.
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artificial intelligence, photography, technology, trends
Arthur C Clarke predicts some of the future in 1964
29 August 2024
Speaking in 1964, the late British author and futurist made numerous predictions, mainly relating to advances in technology, many of which were prescient. Clarke called artificial intelligence (no surprise there, coming from the co-writer of the 1968 movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey). He also foresaw the internet, working from home, and a favourite of mine, the concept of RSS.
The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that it will be absolutely fantastic so if what I say now seems to you to be very reasonable then I’ll fail completely only if what I tell you appears absolutely unbelievable having any chance of visualizing the future as it really will happen.
He was off the mark with some ideas. The demise of cities for one. But, give it time — perhaps centuries — and maybe he’ll be proved right. When Clarke’s comments were recorded in 1964, sixty years ago, the world was, of course, a vastly different place. That might explain the, let’s say, patriarchal lens, with which he viewed the future. It seemed to be all about men. Men will do this. Men will do that. No mention of women. No hedging of his bets, so to speak, by saying people even.
No futurist is ever going to predict exactly what will happen, but Clarke’s choice of words regarding gender do highlight how some things have changed for the better in sixty years.
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Arthur C Clarke, technology, trends
One Minute Park, One Million Checkboxes, win Tiny Awards 2024
29 August 2024
One Minute Park by Elliott Cost, has been named winner of the main prize of the Tiny Awards 2024, while One Million Checkboxes by Nolen Royalty, took out the multiplayer player gong.
One is your lucky number this year. Held annually since last year, 2023, the Tiny Awards recognise excellence in non-commercial websites designed by individuals and/or or groups of creators.
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awards, design, IndieWeb, technology
Facebook operates a little differently in Australia
28 August 2024
David Swan, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald:
Rampant celebrity cryptocurrency scam ads are as Australian as Tim Tams, koalas or the Great Barrier Reef, according to American Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who says the tech giant’s lack of focus on Australia has let scams run wild on its platform compared with other markets.
It’s always nice to be treated differently, particularly by the world’s largest social network.
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social networks, technology, trends
The first six months of Vision Pro by Michael Ball
27 August 2024
Matthew Ball, writing about the first six-months of Apple’s spatial computing, and — whether Apple likes it or not — virtual reality headset, Vision Pro:
The Vision Pro is clearly the most ambitious of their product launches since the iPhone, the first to be wholly developed under the purview of CEO Tim Cook (though various head-mounted display prototypes were underway as early as 2006), and reporting suggests that its viability was controversial internally (with some employees arguing that Head-Mounted Displays (“HMDs”) impart harm by isolating its wearers from other people and, ultimately, the world around them).
People have commented on this. Vision Pro might be an incredible device, but the experience while using it could only be described as immersive. Of course Apple did not spend almost a decade, and billions of dollars, developing Vision Pro, without that occurring to them.
There has also been discussion about less than impressive sales numbers. But the Vision Pro is a niche device. The cheapest models in Australia presently start at six thousand dollars, so no one, including Apple, will ever be expecting them to fly off the shelves. At least not in the same way as the iPhone. But if Vision Pro is of interest to you, Ball’s deep-dive article is well worth reading.
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iOS 18 will bring distraction free browsing to parts of the web
16 August 2024
News sites seem to be the worst, but they’re not alone*. You want to read a news item, but are assailed by a plethora of interfering popups of some sort. But a new feature in the soon to be released iPhone operating system, iOS 18, for Apple’s Safari browser, is a step in the right direction:
As the name suggests, Distraction Control is designed to cut down on distracting elements from articles and webpages, such as sign in windows, cookie preference popups, newsletter signup banners, autoplay videos, and more.
This is welcome news for anyone simply trying to browse the web, and obtain information. I’m not sure what other platforms (e.g. Android) have a similar feature, but distraction-free technology (not to be confused with ad blocking), needs to be more widespread than it is at present.
The other option, of course, for a distraction-free web experience, is to browse #IndieWeb, or independent websites, such as this one, for instance.
* we were looking for some chairs to buy, but gave up after three vendor websites threw an array of popups at us. We just want to buy furniture, leave us be.
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Threat of AI, demise of blogging, the world in February 2015
15 August 2024
Since re-booting disassociated in May 2022, I’ve been slowly (incredibly slowly) restoring selected posts from the previous version of the blog that was online between 2007 and 2017. The restored posts are tagged legacy, and also include a few posts written prior to 2007, going back to 2003.
On checking as I typed this, I see there are presently seventy-four of the old posts back here now. Considering there were about twelve thousand posts originally, bringing back selected older posts is taking quite some time. I don’t intend to restore every last old post though. Some of them are now quite irrelevant and out-dated, and many include an abundance of dead links and long gone URLs.
If twelve-grand seems a lot, many posts were link-blog style, one-sentence affairs. My priority, when time permits, is bring back more of the article-type posts, such as film reviews. Anyway, to get to my point, a couple of posts I restored from February 2015, a mere nine-and-a-half-years ago now, still seem surprisingly relevant today.
One was about an apparently AI powered then Twitter account, called INTERESTING_JPG, which, although now inactive, remains online. INTERESTING would “look” at popular photos, and describe what it saw. INTERESTING’s accuracy was so-so, to the say the least. While AI is certainly a trending topic today, the concept has of course been present for a long time.
The other post I restored, which was originally published on 16 February 2015, was about the apparent demise of blogging, and personal websites. This not quite four years after the #IndieWeb movement, which is very much based on blogs and personal websites, was founded in 2011.
So there we have it. AI and #IndieWeb, two ideas that been with us for quite some time, but are, in a sense, making waves today.
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artificial intelligence, blogs, IndieWeb, technology
Create an AI version of yourself on Instagram to do who knows what
14 August 2024
Maybe back in 2006, I was in a discussion with then Australian web designer Jen Leheny, on the then forums of the Australian INfront, a design community we had helped establish in the late 1990’s, about WordPress. I was still using static HTML files to run disassociated, but was considering migrating to the then much in-trend CMS.
Jen said something like: “WordPress is working for me while I sleep.” I was sold. A short time later, I commenced the process of converting disassociated to WordPress.
Fast forward to 2024. A new tool by Meta, being trailed only in America at present, allows Instagram (IG) users to create an AI version of themselves. This… clone, will, says Alex Heath, writing for The Verge, allow IG users “to talk directly with humans in chat threads and respond to comments on their author’s account.”
This will, no doubt, allow harried IG users, influencers particularly, to do two things at once. Create more content. Network. Attend meetings. Take of the business side of their operation. They’ll also be able to sleep, soundly I imagine, in the knowledge the AI version of themselves is working on their behalf, at the same time.
That sounds like the good news, the pluses, of the new technology. As to the downsides. Where do we begin? What, for instance, if an IG AI avatar suggests a follower do something inappropriate, or unlawful? What responsibility might the (human) IG account holder have in that event?
This comes back to what a lot of people see as the incorrect application of AI technologies, including American author Joanna Maciejewska, who would prefer AI did her housework, not her writing. Any IG AI “assistant” should have the same purpose. Shouldn’t the technology be working behind the scenes, rather than taking centre stage?
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