Magic Kingdom Fireworks

Magic Kingdom fireworks always impress! 🎇

Some thoughts on Apple’s New Vision Pro

Some thoughts on Apple’s new Vision Pro I’m surprised the FaceTime avatar isn’t your Memoji. I’m assuming it’ll be an option, but the 3D digital face thing has some room to improve. The hardware they’ve put into this thing is amazing! The screens, the cameras, the eye tracking, the M2 and R1 chips, just 🤯 When I saw the R1 I immediately thought car. I think Eye Sight (the outward facing screen showing the wearer’s eyes) is really well done and a key component to making this something you can wear and still interact with other people. Now some questions

Not as much smoke today as the past few days. Not sure how long it’ll last.

I wouldn’t buy a new car without #CarPlay to begin with, but if GM’s iOS app is any indication of their future infotainment systems, they have a long way to go!

The app is just terrible.

They plugged GPT-4 into Minecraft—and unearthed new potential for AI

Will Knight writing at Ars Technica (Apple News) The Nvidia team, which included Anima Anandkumar, the company’s director of machine learning and a professor at Caltech, created a Minecraft bot called Voyager that uses GPT-4 to solve problems inside the game. The language model generates objectives that help the agent explore the game, and code that improves the bot’s skill at the game over time. Voyager doesn’t play the game like a person, but it can read the state of the game directly, via an API. It might see a fishing rod in its inventory and a river nearby, for instance, and use GPT-4 to suggest the goal of doing some fishing to gain experience. It will then use this goal to have GPT-4 generate the code needed to have the character achieve it.

I’ve been using tab groups and have the sidebar always showing in Safari and it has changed the way I get things done.

#Safari #MacOS #iOS #iPadOS

Destiny 2: The Final Shape Trailer

OMG Cayde is back!!!

Here’s how long it takes new BrutePrint attack to unlock 10 different smartphones

Dan Goodin writing for Ars Technica (Apple News) The ability of BrutePrint to successfully hijack fingerprints stored on Android devices but not iPhones is the result of one simple design difference: iOS encrypts the data, and Android does not. Hopefully this is an easy fix for Google to implement, but then as usual, it would require that fix to roll out to all these phones.

The Google Pixel Tablet's ill-conceived charging dock might be its worst feature

Talyor Kerns writing for Android Police What’s more, when the tablet isn’t attached, the dock doesn’t do anything. On its own, it can’t take Google Assistant commands or play audio — all that is handled by the tablet. At the very least, Google should give the dock the electronics to put it on par functionally with something like a Nest Mini. I think this is the reason why the dock doesn’t make sense to me. If it did something when the tablet wasn’t docked, I might understand it a bit more.

Browser and OS Market Share Trends in the Mobile Age

Saw this over on Daring Fireball. Windows has lost a lot of market share over the last decade, very clearly to mobile (Android & iOS). The US chart was interesting as well, so I decided to check out Canada’s: Pretty similar to the US chart in that iOS has greater market share than Android (vs the global numbers). You can also clearly see iOS’s market share increasing while Android’s is decreasing. iOS is clearly the preferred mobile OS in North America. However, in every other region, Android is the dominant operating system.

A Brain Scanner Combined with an AI Language Model Can Provide a Glimpse into Your Thoughts

Allison Parshall writing for Scientific Americanican (Apple News) Now researchers have taken a step forward by combining fMRI’s ability to monitor neural activity with the predictive power of artificial intelligence language models. The hybrid technology has resulted in a decoder that can reproduce, with a surprising level of accuracy, the stories that a person listened to or imagined telling in the scanner. The decoder could even guess the story behind a short film that someone watched in the scanner, though with less accuracy.

Bungie is ready to ban XIM, Cronus cheaters from Destiny 2

Umar Shakir writing for The Verge (Apple News) The devices in question usually include the XIM, Cronus Zen, and ReaSnow S1. The third-party mouse and keyboard interfaces emulate a controller input, enabling users to reap the benefits controllers players have, like aim assist, but with the added precision and movement abilities you could otherwise only get with a keyboard and mouse. They can also execute scripts that enhance aim, fire rapidly, or add other unfair advantages.

Ahsoka Teaser Trailer

Really looking forward to this one!

Trials Win

I don’t play trials very often, but with how good Immortal is, I decided to hop in and start grinding for it. This was by far the biggest play of the weekend for me 🔥

GM is cutting off access to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for its future EVs

Andrew J. Hawkins writing for The Verge (Apple News) GM’s move to restrict access to CarPlay and Android Auto, which is expected to begin with the 2024 Chevy Blazer EV, will help the automaker capture more data on its customers’ driving, listening, and charging habits. It could also help inform future subscription products, as automakers across the board are seeking to generate more revenue beyond just selling cars.

Root of Nightmares

First clear of Root of Nightmares completed last night and I got the exotic! It’s a great raid, lots of fun!

Lance Reddick Dead at 60

RIP Commander. TMZ reporting.

Why can’t we “spring” forward in the middle of the afternoon on a Monday?

#Reeder is by far my favourite iOS/iPadOS #RSS reader. I love that it can use my iCloud account to sync rather than relying on a 3rd party service.

I wish there was a way to trigger an #iOS #shortcut when my phone disconnected from a Bluetooth device.

I’ve been enjoying #Destiny2 #Lightfall. The story isn’t perfect, but strand is a lot of fun, and I’m really enjoying the ramped up difficulty.

I love all my guardians equally

I love all my guardians equally 😂

/2023/destiny-lightfall-trailer-questions/Witness-traveller.jpeg

What is going on here?!

What is going on here?! I can’t wait for next week!

Supreme Court hears a case that could transform the internet

Cat Zakrzewski writing for The Washington Post (Apple News) Former president Donald Trump and President Biden have criticized the provision, calling for its repeal, but for different reasons. Democrats largely argue that Section 230 allows tech companies to duck responsibility for the hate speech, misinformation and other problematic content on their platforms. Republicans, meanwhile, allege companies take down too much content, and have sought to address long-running accusations of political bias in the tech industry by altering the provision.

Bloatware pushes the Galaxy S23 Android OS to an incredible 60GB

Ron Amadeo writing for Ars Technica (Apple News) Unlike the clean OSes you’d get from Google or Apple, Samsung sells space in its devices to the highest bidder via pre-installed crapware. A company like Facebook will buy a spot on Samsung’s system partition, where it can get more intrusive system permissions that aren’t granted to app store apps, letting it more effectively spy on users. Yikes.