elijahg

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elijahg
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  • Gaming and AI are in Mac's future, even with low memory capacities

    elijahgelijahg

    loopless said:
    It is NOT BS.  Unified memory is a huge advantage.

    I have a 16GB 14" M1 MacBook Pro, and a  Dell 32GB Windows 11 Core I7 laptop. Both with SSD's.  I use them for software development.
    The Windows 11 machine is bumping up against its memory limits (at which point the performance tanks)  earlier than I have problems with the MacBook when doing a similar set of tasks. For example, using QT Creator and Visual Code, then building large code bases and with lots of other apps open at the same time. 
    And lets not talk about the various "blue screens" that still seem to plague Windows.
    I looked at upgrading the Dell's memory  but it has CAMM memory that costs $1000 to upgrade - so don't be complaining about Apples prices!
    Windows is hideously inefficient with RAM. Doesn't excuse Apple from still only supplying 8GB as standard though. If you need a VM for example,  that will eat all of the 8GB straight up. 

    32GB Dell CAMM RAM is £422. Apple charges £400 for just 24GB memory on the 14" MBP (which is actually, really only 8GB because the other 16GB doesn't go in the bin when you specify 24GB), the Dell is cheaper (which is not really a surprise, dell is junk).

    Why people still desperately defend Apple's nickel and diming on things like this I have no idea, when there are plenty of other areas where Apple is in fact good value that they can use as the argument instead. Another one: the 14"MBP comes with a 70w PSU. To upgrade to the 96W one is £10. A whole £10 on a £1900 machine. Why bother with that extra SKU, it's completely ridiculous and means if you want the 96W PSU, it's a 2 week wait for delivery or pickup because it is special order. Some idiot at Apple decided that was actually a good idea. Much like they were still including an incredibly sluggish 5200RPM HDD in the 2019 21" iMacs for £1200. They were a joke.

    This kind of crap gives people so much ammunition when they say Macs are not good value, and people here defending it are just as stupid as whoever decided to charge £10 extra for that PSU.
    VictorMortimerCheeseFreeze

  • Gaming and AI are in Mac's future, even with low memory capacities

    elijahgelijahg

    CheeseFreeze said:
    Of course we all know this is BS. The real reason is that Tim Cook wants us to climb the spec ladder. A memory upgrade is probably a better choice versus upgrading cores or even moving from a Pro to Max.
    It is this 100%. Same with SSD upgrades, it does not cost Apple £200 to add an extra 512GB chip to the board, more like £6-7; if that. And you can't even justify that it helps pay for macOS or Apple Silicon research that does into those chips, because Apple does not make their own memory. No doubt there will be plenty here that will still try and defend that though and make themselves look gullible and stupid. Apple RAM and storage is a massive rip off.
    zeus423VictorMortimerDead_PoolCheeseFreeze

  • Gaming and AI are in Mac's future, even with low memory capacities

    elijahgelijahg
    byronl said:
    We've been hearing this for like 10 years lmao. I'll believe it when I see it.
    For about the same amount of time there's been only 8GB RAM in Macs by default too.
    byronl

  • Apple has new App Store rules, business terms, and sideloading conditions for EU developer...

    elijahgelijahg
    I said years ago this would happen if Apple continued as they were, and many of the less… pragmatic here laughed at that said nope never. Well here we are. Apple forced other’s hand. Will be interesting to see how it turns out for users, and if the supposed invasion of malware will happen as those with a rather less balanced view predicted. I doubt it somehow. 

    I do think there will be less use of things like Apple Pay though, forcing card users to use the NFC features in the provider’s app. And that will be crappy, no doubt. 
    Alex1N9secondkox2muthuk_vanalingambyronl

  • Apple to sell Apple Watch with blood oxygen detection removed to bypass ITC import ban

    elijahgelijahg
    tht said:
    MplsP said:
    Wait…doesn’t this just disprove Apple’s argument that they’ll suffer irreparable harm?

    tht said:
    And so it goes. 

    Gurman is rumor-mongoring that Apple is working changing how the measurement works to clear the patents in question. 

    My pet theory is they will only use 1 LED emitter and overdrive it to provide enough light. This would require getting a new calibration data set, so it takes time. 
    Pulse oximetry requires a minimum of 2 wavelengths.

    It's spectroscopy. You can do it with 1 LED:

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026269217305232
    Towards a novel single-LED pulse oximeter based on a multispectral sensor for IoT applications
    "we propose a novel approach combining a single led and a Buried Quad Junction photodetector, i.e. a multispectral sensor. With this fundamental modification of the pulse oximetry principle, we reduce the modifying effects introduced by the aforementioned sources of inaccuracy by using a single led. Results from in vivo measurements, show that the three tests of the proposed system's precision falls within the commercial tolerance of 4% SpO2%."

    I'm just some Apple fan doing a search and this paper from 2018 was the first hit. I assume the experts in this field already knew this going back 10 years before this paper was published and perhaps waiting on someone to do the work (or they did the work and was unpublished); and if they knew, that meant someone was already thinking about it 20 years before that, if not 40.

    There is a difference with current times in that you don't need precise theory or high S/N, you just need a lot of data. Feed the data in an ML model, find the driving parameters, then you have a trained model that does 95% of the job.

    Using ML models might be the only way to get blood glucose measurements through spectroscopy. Just waiting to see what they come up with.
    You can do it with IR only, but the bright green LED is much more accurate. IR is significantly lower power though.
    Alex1N