Marvin

chasm said:

Hire a person or three to write unbiased, accurate summaries based on them actually reading the stories = better solution for Apple (we expect this type of crap from Google)

Someday AI will be able to do accurate summaries. But if today isn't that day, don't use AI for a job it clearly can't yet do.

The volume of info is likely too high for human summaries for every news service in every country, every single day and they can't read summaries of personal messages for privacy. There could be a separate AI that checks the summaries for errors. This AI would compare the summary and the main text to see if there's a mismatch. At the very least, they should flag sensitive summaries that mention things like people dying, for human review. When personal messages get flagged for either sensitive content or the summary doesn't make sense, it can fall back to cropped text.

A news summary like "Brazilian tennis player Rafael Nadal comes out as gay." would get flagged as sensitive and raised for human review. Until the review is done, it can show an important sentence from the article cropped to fit the space.

9secondkox2 said:

hurting players simply because they want to play your game? who cares what OS it's on.

It's due to these being competitive multiplayer games. Cheating ruins the game as it affects the rankings:



They use anti-cheat software that tries to make sure there's no other software modifying the game to allow things like auto-aim and shooting through walls. When the game is run through compatibility software, either the anti-cheat isn't running or the software is being modified at a lower level in order to run, which looks like it's using cheats.

This is why a lot of these games don't get native ports as it's harder on some systems to run anti-cheat code at such a low level (kernel-level). There should be a way to tackle this at the OS level for all games though the same way video DRM is handled.

The OS can ensure that all of the memory used by an app isn't modified by another app at runtime, possibly using encrypted memory containers. To ensure the binary isn't modified on disk, they verify a hash of the files. In the rare case the methods are bypassed, they can review the player's activity online. It shouldn't need a custom kernel-level driver to verify software integrity, the OS provider should be able to guarantee this.

Maybe a sandboxed area of the OS that behaves like mobile operating systems would be an option and protected games run inside the sandbox. This would have an inaccessible filesystem.

AppleInsider said:

CodeWeavers CEO James Ramey said the company is reaching out to NetEase Games on the matter, asking if there can be anything done to allow macOS players to play the game. Ramey explains that this is ultimately NetEase Games' decision to make, but he assures the developers that Crossover is being used legitimately, not for cheating.

"I am sure that if we are successful that this will be widely announced," said Ramey. "Otherwise we will continue to plead our case."

NetEase Games, the operator of the game, has yet to comment on the incidents. AppleInsider has also contacted NetEase Games for clarification on its policies.

It is plausible that, if the game continues to be popular for a long period of time, a port to iOS could occur in the future. That port may open the door to a full macOS port as well, but that would still depend on the game's popularity.

For the moment, AppleInsider strongly advises prospective players of Marvel Rivals to not be tempted to run the game on Mac via emulation, until a developer-sanctioned method to play is available. 

NetEase has been lifting the bans:

https://www.ign.com/articles/marvel-rivals-dev-apologizes-for-mistakenly-banning-players-for-using-cheats

"“We sincerely apologize for this situation and want to assure you that we do not and will not ban players who are playing fairly and without cheating,” NetEase said.

The developer said it had made a list of affected players and lifted their bans. “We have identified the specific reasons behind these false bans and have compiled a list of affected players,” it said. “We have lifted these bans and want to express our heartfelt apologies for the inconvenience this has caused.”"

tht said:

Wow, unit numbers for the year. So, by TrendForces estimates, Meta sold ~7m units in 2024. If you assume ASP of $400, that's 2.8b. That's a nice number if Meta has positive gross margins on it. Meta Reality Labs division will have about 18b in losses in 2024. Have to wonder what they are spending the money on. Also don't know if Meta has sold more Quest units in 2024 versus 2023, 2022 and 2021.

Meta's earnings reports show revenue for Reality Labs:

https://investor.fb.com/financials/
https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2024/q3/Meta-09-30-2024-Exhibit-99-1_FINAL.pdf

Reality Labs
Q4 23 = $1b, $4.6b loss
Q1 24 = $0.4b, $3.8b loss
Q2 24 = $0.3b, $4.4b loss
Q3 24 = $0.3b, $4.4b loss

Roughly $2b revenue over those 12 months with a $17b loss.

This suggests around 5m units at $400 ASP.

Their revenue hasn't changed much between 2021-2024, losses are growing, over $50b total:

2021 = $2.2b, $10.1b loss
2022 = $2.1b, $13.7b loss
2023 = $1.9b, $16.1b loss

Zuckerberg says they sell hardware close to break-even or at a slight loss and aim to make money on software and services:

https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-said-apple-charges-as-much-as-can-hardware-2022-10
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/13/zuckerberg-apple-charges-as-much-as-it-can/

They'd need to scale to 100m users and be able to generate around $100 per user in a year as well as halve their losses for it to be profitable. It's probably going to be a while before this happens but it looks like it's one of Zuckerberg's passion projects so I expect he will keep investing in it until there's neural interface AR.

Apple will probably keep investing in it too but they won't throw $50b+ away in the process.

tiredskills said:

Really?  I slugged through the turgid first season, and then gave up after three episodes of the second.  It is high production value trash; bad, and not getting better.  I cannot take drama seriously when the quality of duct tape being supplied is meant to be a serious plot point.

Seems like an important thing to make an issue of:

https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a44459783/silo-season-1-finale-ending-explained-tape/

It's good that they have reasonable season limits for some shows and don't drag them on for 10 seasons like other networks. Maybe 40 episodes is a bit much for Silo, it probably could have been a bit more condensed but the high production values are nice with good actors.