auxio

Graeme000 said:

Hopefully they're adding physical buttons back too. I test drove an XC40 a couple years ago while car shopping and had to quickly nix it from the list after trying to adjust the fan speed. The salesperson suggested I try voice control. Not likely. All touchscreen and voice control has been proven to be more distracting than physical knobs. 

Any need to look down at the console to either touch a screen, push a button, or turn a knob is distracting. I rarely use voice control at home, but couldn't live without it on the road now that it's gotten much better. Between that and steering wheel controls, I never need to look down at the console.

The only reason I didn't get a Volvo back when I was buying my car was that, in North America, they'd eliminated the V series from the lineup in favour of the XC. Assuming that everyone in North America wants "big, rugged" cars. Personally, I much prefer a nice sleek sport wagon which doesn't have an extra hundred pounds of "ruggedized" body parts and big tires which cause more fuel consumption. So I went with a VW sport wagon instead. Glad to see the V series back in the lineup now, and I like Volvo's attitude towards custom infotainment systems, so I'll certainly look at them next time around.

dewme said:

I never knew that green bubbles were such a source of anxiety and stigma. 

Apple is fine. Humanity is doomed. 

Much ado about Nothing

jdw said:

It's sad but unsurprising to see people squabble about how legalized theft (i.e., taxation) is distributed.  When somebody lifts your wallet and steals something from it, it's considered theft that is prohibited by law.  But when the government says it will do the same for the greater good, somehow that's A-OK.  Pro-tax people will come out of the woodwork citing roads, bridges, schools and all manner of glorious things legalized theft has funded and is continuing to fund.  But all those things, however good, still are paid for with stolen money.  "Stolen" in that it was taken without giving the tax payer a choice not to pay it.

You do have a choice not to pay anything: move to a deserted area of the world and live in a cave or similar shelter. Forgo all the comforts that have been afforded human beings through gathering together in groups and building things together (civilization) over the past 6000 or so years, and live by your own means. Only then can you truly say that you're not dependent on the work of others (and thus owe them something) to exist.

Look, I get that when you're surrounded by people who have scammed their way to the top in business and in government, and abuse those positions of power for personal gain, it's easy to get jaded. But the solution is to keep finding ways to prevent that abuse of power (i.e. get closer to government which truly represents the interests of people and not just the individuals within it) rather than completely eliminating government and truly having a world which is purely based on personal interests (power/profit). And don't get into that "invisible hand" which will align corporate interest with public interest, because for every case of government corruption you can point out, I can find the same with corporate corruption. And without laws, voting, public debate, public protest, and other democratic tools which can be used to get rid of corrupt governments, how do you plan on preventing that corporate corruption?

avon b7 said:

radarthekat said:

avon b7 said:

danox said:

OctoMonkey said:

and yet...  When my iPhone does a voice-text transcription of voicemail message, it spells my name wrong.  A whole lot of intelligence there!

Apple unlike their competition is working towards on device AI solutions and not the ET phone home AI. What’s implemented on the Apple Vision Pro begins with the M2/M3 chip working in conjunction with the R1 chip which knows what to do when you look at something or when you slightly rub your fingers together to execute a command, in short, it won’t be Googles (video boost) implementation where information is sent to Google HQ, and then bounced back to you after being scrubbed of personal information, I think the AI path Apple is taking is more private to the end user (on device).

On device, AI is more complicated because it actually requires a SOC chip combined with OS level software, and conversely requires a hell of a lot more time to design, engineer, and develop, designing something that works on a super computer back home at Google/Microsoft HQ does not which is why Google resorted to that method to cover for the shortcomings of the Tensor SOC in the Pixel 8 Pro which is five years behind Apple.

On-device AI has been around on phones for years now. Phones from Apple and every major manufacturer. All that has happened since then is that it can do more, faster and with improved accuracy.

Everyone is moving in the same direction and although there are good reasons for keeping some things on-device (privacy/latency) , there are also good reasons to shift things into the edge/cloud. 

Evolution has enabled my brain to make many decisions, take many actions and integrate much of the sensor data I take in without having to consult other minds (the analog analogy of the cloud).  I think Apple keeps this in mind during its development of on-device AI.  

Apple isn't doing anything different to anyone else in terms of on-device AI development.

Sensor data processing depends on many factors. Sometimes it will be preferable to have it processed on device or spread over multiple devices (and that might not even be a phone). Other times it will be edge or cloud or a combination of both. That will depend on the task at hand.

Let's not forget either that in certain use cases for 5G, the network itself is the sensor. 

I've always had the impression that Apple's on device AI was behind the competition in its scope simply because a lot of what has appeared at keynotes has been posterior to already implemented instances on other devices. 

The main reason why Apple would be behind is because they put privacy first. Machine learning (which is a better term than the vague "AI") requires massive amounts of data to get to the point of being accurate enough at any given task. The vast majority of tech companies simply check to see if what they're doing in regard to data harvesting is illegal, and if not, are happy to go forward with it. Especially if they're going to profit from it. They'll wait for legislators to eventually catch up and put laws around it. Then often find ways to skirt those laws.

Apple otoh, tends to take a look at the bigger picture: human rights, what is the effect of corporations (and often associated governments) having all of this information about people? Is it being used to manipulate human behaviour, and if so, where is that manipulation for profit/power taking us?

I often look back on the past (before my time even) where the people creating new technology were also studying philosophy, history, thinking about human nature and human rights, and considering the direction we're going based on a fundamental understanding of, and compassion for, humanity. I benefitted from the thinking of this generation growing up, and hope that my generation doesn't take us backwards by forgetting those fundamentals.

It's abundantly clear once you understand that Google is an advertising company, not a technology company.

Their bottom line relies on knowing as much about people as possible so that they're the best choice for companies which want to advertise their products online. Their core technologies: online services (search, mail, maps, messaging, YouTube, cloud storage), Android, and Chrome are simply vehicles for that. So of course they're going to continually look for ways to maximize the quantity and quality of that data. The same way Apple continually looks for ways to make their technology products more attractive to their customers.