In the News Archive
You may have noticed that starting today, I’ve been adding a dedicated link to the main story in every post on OSNews. Our old-fashioned 2001 method of “biggest link is main story” simply doesn’t hold up today as proper attribution, so from here on out every post will have a link marked by ↫ crediting the name and/or publication of the main linked article (or multiple where it makes sense). I’ve been unhappy with our attribution for years, and finally got my act together and settled on this solution. While I’ve had, in total, maybe no more than 2-3 complaints about this since I started in 2006 – it’s taken too long, and I apologise for that. Credit and attribution matter. For the curious: ↫ is part of the arrows Unicode block as U+21AB, titled “Leftwards arrow with loop”. I settled on it because the path of the loop and the arrow evoked a feeling of being yoinked back somewhere else, and that’s what a link does. Sure, I could’ve opted for a chain link or whatever, but that’s boring.
In a world where constant change is the norm, finished software provides a breath of fresh air. It’s a reminder that reliability, consistency, and user satisfaction can coexist in the realm of software development. So the next time you find yourself yearning for the latest update, remember that sometimes, the best software is the one that doesn’t change at all. While this is a nice sentiment, the reality is that software has become so complex, competition to cutthroat, and operating systems so changeful, that “finishing” software just doesn’t seem like a realistic and attainable goal anymore. The example used in the article, WordStar 4.0 for DOS, can only be “finished” because DOS doesn’t change anymore.
When I first heard about Be My AI—a new collaboration between Open AI and Be My Eyes, an app that connects sighted volunteers with blind people who need help via video call—I didn’t let myself get too excited. Be My AI promised to allow blind people to receive an A.I.–generated description of any photo we uploaded. This was a tantalizing prospect, but it wasn’t the first time a tech company had promised to revolutionize the way people with disabilities access visual content. Microsoft had already given us Seeing AI, which in a very rudimentary way provided a rough idea of what was going on in the images we shared, and which allowed us—again, in a fairly basic way—to interact with information contained in written texts. But the details were missing, and in most cases we could know only that there was a person in the picture and what they were doing, nothing more. Be My AI was different. Suddenly, I was in a world where nothing was off limits. By simply waving my cellphone, I could hear, with great detail, what my friends were wearing, read street signs and shop prices, analyze a room without having entered it, and indulge in detailed descriptions of the food—one of my great passions—that I was about to eat. I like to make fun of “AI” – those quotes are there for a reason – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be truly useful. This is a great example of this technology providing a tangible, real, and possibly life-altering benefit to someone with a disability, and that’s just amazing. My only gripe is that, as the author notes, the images have to be uploaded to the service in order to be analysed. Cynical as I tend to be, this was probably the intent of OpenAI’s executives. A ton of blind people and other people with vision issues will be uploading a lot of private data to be sucked up into the Open AI database, for further “AI” training. But that’s easy for me to say, and I think blind people and other people with vision issues will argue that’s a sacrifice they’re totally comfortable making, considering that they’re getting in return.
But even without filing lawsuits, artists have a chance to fight back against AI using tech. MIT Technology Review got an exclusive look at a new open source tool still in development called Nightshade, which can be added by artists to their imagery before they upload it to the web, altering pixels in a way invisible to the human eye, but that “poisons” the art for any AI models seeking to train on it. Excellent. This is exactly the kind of clever thinking we need to stop major corporations from stealing everyone’s creative works for their own further gain. I hope we can develop these poisons further, to the point of making these “AI” tools entirely useless. Get permission, or get poisoned.
The build has added a new separate “System Components” section in the Windows 11 Settings under the “System” menu. When one launches this System Components option, all the system applications appear under this section. This is a nice change, as it will make it easier to remove some of the garbage that comes with Windows.
China ordered officials at central government agencies not to use Apple’s iPhones and other foreign-branded devices for work or bring them into the office, people familiar with the matter said. In recent weeks, staff were given the instructions by their superiors in workplace chat groups or meetings, the people said. The directive is the latest step in Beijing’s campaign to cut reliance on foreign technology and enhance cybersecurity, and comes amid a campaign to limit flows of sensitive information outside of China’s borders. The move by Beijing could have a chilling effect for foreign brands in China, including Apple. Apple dominates the high-end smartphone market in the country and counts China as one of its biggest markets, relying on it for about 19% of its overall revenue. iPhones are, for all intents and purposes, a Chinese product. It seems odd they are afraid of a device that’s entirely built by Chinese people in Chinese factories owned by Chinese companies run by the Chinese government. An iPhone is about as American as a MAGA hat with a Made in China label, so why ban its use by Chinese government officials? The answer is obvious: because the west is banning the use of Huawei and other devices – even though those are made by the same Chinese people in the same Chinese factories owned by the same Chinese companies run by the same Chinese government as iPhones are. This is a tug of war between two superpowers, and western companies heavily reliant on China, such as Apple, is going to be facing some serious consequences.
From Ars Technica: As both a translator and a tech writer, this article touches upon a lot of aspects of my professional life. As a translator with a master’s degree in translation and over 13 years of experience, I can confidently say these AI-translated articles won’t be anywhere near the quality of a professional translation, let alone that of original content written in Spanish. Computers are actually not that great at language, and every time I play around with machine translation tools – they tend to be integrated into the various translation software suites I use – it’s barely passable as coherent text. There are things you can do to increase the success rate of machine translation. It’s crucial to write the source text in a very formulaic manner, using short sentences with basic sentence structure any primary schooler can easily follow. Avoid complicated clauses, literary devices, sayings and wordplay, and words that can carry multiple meanings. To further increase the success rate, make sure your writers reuse the same formulaic sentences in different articles, so the machine translation software can learn from earlier corrections. By the time you instilled all this and more into your writing staff, not only will they quit because writing in such a way is not engaging at all, it will also tank your SEO – something the kind of people who would fire translators to rely exclusively on machine translation would care about – into the ground. It wouldn’t feel natural, and nobody will enjoy reading it but computers. …it’s going to end up as AIs writing for other AIs.
This pedestrian bridge crosses I-494 just west of the Minneapolis Airport. It connects Bloomington to Richfield. I drive under it often and I wondered: why is it there? It’s not in an area that is particularly walkable, and it doesn’t connect any establishments that obviously need to be connected. So why was it built? There’s no possible way to tie this to OSNews, but it’s such a fun and well-written story it’s worth breaking character for. I’m not even making a smug comment about being Dutch and being used to the world’s best infrastructure and… Damnit. I failed.
Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 and Windows 11 has again flagged ChromeSetup.exe – the installation file for Google’s famous Chrome browser – as potentially harmful. Microsoft Edge’s built-in security feature suggests users delete ChromeSetup.exe and try Edge via multiple pop-up messages. Windows Latest understands Microsoft Edge 116 has incorrectly flagged ChromeSetup.exe as potentially harmful. This appears to be a mistake, and only some users see it. In our tests, we observed the error in one out of five Microsoft Edge 116 stable installations. A “mistake”. I’m sure it was.
Bram Molenaar, the original author, maintainer, release manager, and benevolent dictator for life of vim has passed away today. His family announced his passing through a message using Molenaar’s account. :q
Seven companies—including OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, Anthropic, and Inflection—have committed to developing tech to clearly watermark AI-generated content. That will help make it safer to share AI-generated text, video, audio, and images without misleading others about the authenticity of that content, the Biden administration hopes. It’s currently unclear how the watermark will work, but it will likely be embedded in the content so that users can trace its origins to the AI tools used to generate it. And how easy will it be for bad actors to just remove the watermark? If we live in a world where these tools can create new content out of stealing everybody else’s content, what’s stopping anyone from developing a tool to remove these watermarks? This feels more like lip service than a real solution.
I recently started a Pixelfed account dedicated to all the various pieces of (mobile) hardware I own. It’s still quite new, but the intention is to post photos of my Palm/PocketPC/etc. device collection a few times a week, with a short info blurb. The account will post no other content, so you won’t see photos of my food, sunsets, beaches, or other irrelevant nonsense. In case you aren’t aware – Pixelfed is the Fediverse equivalent of Instagram, in the same way Mastodon is the Fediverse equivalent of Twitter. You can follow my Pixelfed account either through Pixelfed itself, through Mastodon, or through many other Fediverse-capable applications and services. Of course, you can also just bookmark it.
The Verge: First introduced in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, HP Plus was built around FOMO right from the start. You get just seven days to claim your free ink, starting the moment you plug a new printer into the wall. Act now, and it’ll also extend your warranty a full year, give you an “Advanced HP Smart app,” and plant trees on your behalf. Because why wouldn’t you want to save the forest? Here’s one reason, as detailed in a new complaint by the International Imaging Technology Council (IITC) that might turn into a false advertising fight: HP Plus comes with a firmware update that utterly removes your printer’s ability to accept third-party ink. You have to buy “genuine” HP ink as long as you use the printer. I mean, complaining about printer makers is basically like shooting fish in a barrel, but somehow they always manage to find rockier bottom.
You don’t see a lot of good news about road safety in the United States. Unlike in most peer countries, American roadway deaths surged during the pandemic and have barely receded since. Pedestrian and cyclist fatalities recently hit their highest levels in 40 years, but U.S. transportation officials continue to ignore key contributing factors. In a February interview with Fast Company, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that “further research” is needed before addressing the obvious risks that oversized SUVs and trucks pose to those not inside of them. Happily, there is one area where we are making at least marginal progress: A growing number of automakers are backpedaling away from the huge, complex touchscreens that have infested dashboard design over the past 15 years. Buttons and knobs are coming back. Good. Now all we need is for all these popular YouTube car reviewers to stop drooling over these dangerous touch screens and we can get back a sense of normalcy in our cars.
The consumer-facing tech and EV companies all proclaim there’s no artisanally mined cobalt or child cobalt in their supply chains. So don’t fret, consumer. Don’t fret, shareholder. If that’s true, where’s all the cobalt going? Last year, almost 75 percent of global cobalt production was from Congo. It’s impossible for these companies to say they don’t have Congolese cobalt. And if it’s impossible to say they don’t have Congolese cobalt, it’s impossible to say they don’t have cobalt that’s not been tainted by child labor, forced labor, environmental destruction, public health catastrophes from mining pollution. Full stop. Rarely in history has the practice of preying on the weak been so severe, generated such profit, and touched the lives of so many. Every level of the chain is preying on some of the poorest and most heavily exploited people in the world. The world pays a hefty price for our way of life. And yes, I modified the title slightly.
Car companies have been increasingly using digital screens and soft-touch buttons in modern cars to save costs while looking ‘hi-tech’ – but Hyundai has committed to fight this trend for as long as possible. Speaking at the launch of the new-generation Hyundai Kona, Sang Yup Lee, Head of Hyundai Design, said the new model deliberately uses physical buttons and dials for many of the controls, specifically air-conditioning and the sound system. Lee said this is because the move to digital screens is often more dangerous, as it often requires multiple steps and means drivers have to take their eyes off the road to see where they need to press. Slowly but surely, it seems car makers are starting to see the light. A clean, button-less dashboard means nothing once it’s folded around your crushed skull because you couldn’t find the seat heating button without taking your eyes off the road and wrapped yourself around a tree in the process. Just another reason to get an Ioniq 5 if we had the funds.
In fact, the broken bar barely even exists anymore. In the days of DOS, the character used for the pipe symbol (on the DOS command line) or for logical OR (in C/C++, for example) used ASCII code 7Ch (124 decimal), which was rendered as a broken vertical bar by the fonts used at least by the IBM MDA, CGA, EGA, and VGA cards. But nowadays that is no longer the case. The same ASCII codepoint is rendered as a solid vertical bar in Windows 10 or Linux, and also shown as a solid vertical bar on contemporary keyboards. What happened? Who doesn’t love some great character and ASCII archeology?
Tech-makers assuming their reality accurately represents the world create many different kinds of problems. The training data for ChatGPT is believed to include most or all of Wikipedia, pages linked from Reddit, a billion words grabbed off the internet. (It can’t include, say, e-book copies of everything in the Stanford library, as books are protected by copyright law.) The humans who wrote all those words online overrepresent white people. They overrepresent men. They overrepresent wealth. What’s more, we all know what’s out there on the internet: vast swamps of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, neo-Nazism. Tech companies do put some effort into cleaning up their models, often by filtering out chunks of speech that include any of the 400 or so words on “Our List of Dirty, Naughty, Obscene, and Otherwise Bad Words,” a list that was originally compiled by Shutterstock developers and uploaded to GitHub to automate the concern, “What wouldn’t we want to suggest that people look at?” OpenAI also contracted out what’s known as ghost labor: gig workers, including some in Kenya (a former British Empire state, where people speak Empire English) who make $2 an hour to read and tag the worst stuff imaginable — pedophilia, bestiality, you name it — so it can be weeded out. The filtering leads to its own issues. If you remove content with words about sex, you lose content of in-groups talking with one another about those things. These things are not AI. Repeat after me: these things are not AI. All they do is statistically predict the best next sequence of words based on a corpus of texts. That’s it. I’m not worried about these things leading to SkyNet – I’m much more worried about smart people falling for the hype.
Here are some of the major cuts in the tech industry so far. All numbers are approximations based on filings, public statements and media reports. Many of the listed companies have experienced – and are experiencing – insane growth and financial success.
I occasionally do talks about curl. In these talks I often include a few slides that say something about curl’s coverage and presence on different platforms. Mostly to boast of course, but also to help explain to the audience how curl has manged to reach its ten billion installations. Curl is literally everywhere – even on another planet.
