spheric

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spheric
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  • Tim Cook confirms that Apple has been working on generative AI for years

    sphericspheric
    GerfnitAuthor said:
    My primary problem with Siri is it doesn't remember context. So if I ask about where someone lives or the address of a company and it gives me the answer, I can't request, "Take me there" because it doesn't know what "there" means. I'm afraid I've gotten spoiled by GPTchat engines with which I can make backward references.
    Oh hell yes. 

    100% real exchange (albeit in German), tried a dozen times: 

    "Hey Siri, call Hansi, mobile"

    "I don't have a mobile number for Hansi. Do you want to call landline or iPhone?" (bonkers #1)

    "Call iPhone." 

    "Okay! Whom do you want me to call?"

    That eventually changed (after YEARS) and finally started working some time this spring. There's a bunch of things that make Siri completely and utterly USELESS in German, though — and that's definitely a language problem, because switching Siri to English for test purposes worked —, that I've pretty much entirely stopped using it except for reading messages to me and occasionally making a call. 

    I can't imagine wanting a HomePod that's built around (German-language) Siri. 
    elijahgbyronlwilliamlondon

  • Twitter loses half its ad revenue, still weighed down by debt

    sphericspheric
    mikethemartian said:
    jfabula1 said:
    mikethemartian said:
    The previous owners of Twitter must be laughing their asses off.
    That’s what this legacy car makers are doing when Mask started Tesla, who’s laughing now??
    Tesla and SpaceX probably have really great teams that get the work done in spite of Musk interfering and not because of him. With Twitter you get to see his on hands management skills and it is a shit show.
    There was an anonymously sourced interview with a SpaceX employee that pretty much said exactly that. They had people “working late” in the offices even when there was literally nothing to do — actually gaming, with their monitors turned away from the cubicle doors and windows — just so that Musk could satisfy his fantasy of everybody going “above and beyond”. He was routinely confronted with irrelevant decisions, so that he felt in charge, while not given the chance to hinder actual development. 

    Twitter shows well what happens when people with money think they know better, rather than knowing to pay people who actually DO know better. Instead, he fired everyone competent who didn’t leave on their own. 
    tmayronnwatto_cobrabaconstangdav

  • Jony Ive designs $60,000 turntable for Scottish hi-fi pioneers

    sphericspheric
    timmillea said:
    jimh2 said:
    Words are inadequate to express my bewilderment.
    If you are unfamiliar with the high end audio world then the price of this product is a shock, but what you do not know is the high end audio world has no problem paying insane dollars chasing perfect sound. Interconnects and speaker wire costing thousands of dollars, supports for holding speaker wire above the floor, amongst a ton of snake oil. There is no question that as you move up the cost chain there are improvements but they diminish fairly quickly when you move much above $10K. The improvements are there, but most would not care. The craziest waste of money I have seen is a network switch being sold as an "audiophile" switch. It is a relabeled cheap switch that is sold for more than $500. You have to go to an audio forum to see how insane the claims are. 
    The CD standard, 44.1KHz, 16 bit per channel, uncompressed, was chosen by committees of experts over many years as the 'perfect' reproduction (not recording) standard, vastly superior to vinyl in every way. Almost all adults can't hear anything above 15Khz and do not have 96dB (=16 bits) of hearing range. If you want the inferiority of vinyl, simply apply a vinyl filter to degrade the audio. Then, domestic wiring cable has solid copper conductors with a higher spec than 'high-end' speaker cable at a fraction of the price. Still there are the pretentious and those with more money than sense who will forever pay more for some advertised advantage or kudos. The king always has clothes in the audio world. 
    That’s kind of true, but it misses the point. 

    Yes, vinyl is technically inferior to digital audio in every way — at the high end since the mid-90s, when the first really good CD players (the CD12 by Linn, and the Karik/Numerik, also by Linn) hit the market. It took another decade and a half to trickle down into consumer audio — where what happens AFTER the DAC is usually a disaster, anyway. 

    But that, as I say, misses the point: for almost fifty years, music was MADE for those technical limitations. From the very microphone setup, through preamping, compression, effects, tape selection, through mixing and mastering, every single decision and setup was made with the knowledge in mind of exactly what each step would do to the sound, and how it would sound on the finished vinyl. 

    And since 1972, the Linn Sondek LP12 has been (one of) THE reference turntable(s) that every producer and record exec has benchmarked against. 

    They knew how a hot master would affect inner-groove distortion and how the limiter would slam the vocals on the lathe, and how the distortion would give the vocals an edge that could cut through on the radio or on a sub-par stereo. And this knowledge infused the entire process (it still does — I need to make completely different choices for bass sounds during composition, or stereo reverbs during mixing, for example, when I know that something will be released on vinyl). 

    So this really isn’t about „superiority“, but about getting as close as possible to reproducing what those guys put to tape, sixty years ago. Which is where remasterings make little sense, and where first pressings etc. really do. 

    There are lots of people who actually claim that vinyl is superior fidelity. They’re full of shit. If they prefer the sound (as many do), they prefer the LIMITATIONS of the medium — the frequency limits, the dynamic compression needed to fit the material between noise floor and needle distortion, and the organic distortion introduced by those limitations. Also, there is a ritual aspect to vinyl that does make it wonderful and magical. 

    Buying newer stuff that was specifically produced for digital reproduction falls into that world. But, as I suggested, there is plenty of stuff being produced specifically with vinyl in mind. 
    jony0baconstang

  • Apple, Google confirm new EU 'gatekeeper' law applies to them

    sphericspheric
    tmay said:
    Do we really want the EU designing phones that are built overseas? Probably not. 

    If the phone you describe is so desirable, how about the EU fund its manufacture, in the EU? Would it be cost effective, and would it sell?
    Okay, let's do exactly that. 

    We'll fund its manufacture by allowing sales to generate about $50 billion in revenue every year.  

    Deal? 
    williamlondon

  • Apple, Google confirm new EU 'gatekeeper' law applies to them

    sphericspheric
    spheric said:
    rob53 said:
    Why does everything have to interoperate? I buy Apple products. I don’t buy Google things. I made a choice to buy Apple-only products. What business does the EU have telling me I have to use, or allow to use, other products? What product has the EU improved? None that I know of. They’re just doing a huge money grab. 
    The point is that it's YOUR CHOICE that keeps you buying Apple products, and the quality of THEIR products. 

    Not the fact that they make it extremely difficult to choose a different manufacturer's product, even if their products progressively go to shit, because they make it impossible to export the data you've sunk into their services and use it on any other brand's devices. 

    Because at that point, you don't have a choice but to keep buying their products. 

    You have to realise that this doesn't apply just to Apple — it applies to ANY manufacturer who might invest less and less into building shittier and shittier products, while holding their customers hostage. 
    Okay, so why not force all car manufacturers to be compatible with each other, like using compatible infotainment systems, compatible tires, and compatible engines? Do you like to be consistent? Just asking.
    Because no car on this planet offers storage for ANYTHING of yours that you cannot readily and easily remove and place in another car. 
    Any data you put in is either synched from your phone or on physical media/devices — and removed once you take the phone or the USB stick or the CD or whatever with you. Any possession you bring into the car can be taken out and placed in any other car, built by any other manufacturer on the planet. 

    This is NOT about components of the device. This is about what YOU bring into the device — YOUR DATA. 

    This legislature isn't forcing anyone to allow other manufacturers' engines, but about letting you actually take your luggage, your umbrella, and your phone back out of the car when you want to use a different car. 

    Incidentally, every tire I've ever bought would have worked on other brands' cars, as well, and every infotainment system I've used offered to work with regular radio stations and when it allowed me to connect my phone or iPod, I could still just take them with me when I left the car, and use them just like that in other manufacturers' cars, any time I wanted to. 
    muthuk_vanalingamchutzpahwilliamlondonFileMakerFeller