I remember using ChaCha. Good times

Apple could easily do the bare minimum to keep regulators at bay while still keeping the experience as shitty as possible so that Android will continue to look bad. For example they could refuse to implement reactions or typing indicators, or they could even deliberately compress videos. I’m expecting the worst until we see otherwise.

It’s cool to see someone making a product like this. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to use phones more mindfully, and I had an idea for a concept very similar to this. So it’s cool to see that other people are on the same wavelength as me.

It would be cooler if the brick was activated by NFC instead of scanning it though. But maybe that’s an improvement they can make in a future version.

This article doesn’t make any sense. A project’s “success” can’t really be measured in any objective way like the article is implying. Even saying that a project is “on time” is a vague statement depending on the situation, and it’s not a good way to measure the quality of the end result or the efficiency of the development team.

As long as this is opt-in and users understand the risks, then I don’t have a problem with it. I wouldn’t use it on my personal PC, but it would probably be handy for my work PC. (Although my organization would probably block the feature for security reasons. So maybe it’s not actually that useful after all.)

damn I forgot about NFTs. That shit was funny

I ran into this issue while researching standing desks recently. There are very few places on the internet where you can find verifiably human-written comparisons between standing desk brands. Comments on Reddit all seem to be written by bots or people affiliated with the brands. Luckily I managed to find a YouTube reviewer who did some real comparisons.

I don’t see the problem here. Microsoft knows that people will freak out if Bing hallucinates something controversial that people will disagree with. If you care about the accuracy of the information you’re looking for, you should find primary sources, not use AI. AI often gets things wrong.

What’s with the bit about IQ tests? I haven’t heard of that as a right wing talking point.

How does this affect gaming? I don’t know much about this subject, but my understanding is that games don’t run well on ARM processors unless the game is made to support it natively right?

I must be way out of the loop, cuz I had no idea this was possible. So does this mean the Facebook app on my phone has permission to view all of my network traffic? Why do Android and iOS allow this? Shouldn’t that be a special permission that can only be granted explicitly?

I think this is a great thing. Algorithm-driven political content recommendations are a major reason why the US is so divided right now. If we reduce the amount of political content people see online (for everyone on the political spectrum) then I think that’s a great way to combat division. The upcoming election shitshow won’t be as bad if people aren’t constantly seeing content online designed to enrage them.

All I want is RCS on iPhone. I know Apple already said they’re working on it, but I hope legal pressure like this will force them to make the RCS/iMessage integration actually work well (instead of half-assing it which I assume is what they want to do, cuz they want their users to feel frustrated when texting their Android friends)

Great article. I agree with everything the author said.

“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience online has always been core to our work,” Google said. “In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we’ve built services and policies to give young people age-appropriate experiences, and parents robust controls.”

It’s ridiculous to design an app specifically to get children addicted, then say it’s the role of the parents to prevent children from getting addicted. The parents are literally the obstacle that Google is fighting against. The solution is to pass legislation that will force the apps to become less addictive.

No matter what Google does, people are going to come up with gotcha scenarios to complain about. People need to accept the fact that if you don’t specify what race you want, then the output might not contain the race you want. This seems like such a silly thing to be mad about.

I can’t speak for everyone, but for me personally, yes I feel like art is less interesting now. Over the past couple years or so I’ve found that I’m less impressed by art that I see online.

I’m not an artist, and I’m not someone who seeks out art to appreciate it. I’m just talking about art that I scroll past on the internet. I find it less interesting now. I assume that it’s all AI generated, and if it’s not, I figure it might as well be. It’s just not interesting to me anymore. The image generated by a prompt is no more interesting or thought provoking than the prompt itself.

I’ve never seen so many uses of the word “lemon” in an article before

The article says that Apple is still planning on making iMessage compatible with RCS, but isn’t Apple’s incentive gone if there’s no longer any EU pressure? How likely is it that Apple will cancel their RCS plans?

I’ve been thinking lately about how someone could use AI to make a “social network” site that works just like Facebook, except the user is the only real person and everyone else is AI. The AI users would respond very favorably to everything you post, and all of your posts would go viral. It would be kind of like an AI girlfriend, except instead of providing companionship, it would make you feel like you’re famous and popular. (I doubt Facebook would want to be associated with a product like that, but I bet someone will make something like that eventually.)