Reviews of Humane's AI Pin are now live. As I expected, you can't trust the answers this thing provides or the actions it does based on how it interprets your command. Just like ChatGPT, Gemini or CoPilot, you're regularly given responses that sound true but when you actually pay attention to what it is saying, are wrong in a way that you probably won't realise unless you already know the answer - that's useless at best, dangerous at worst. The AI Pin also runs really hot and shuts down randomly, the projection screen is impossible to see in a bright environment and is slow to respond to commands. If you believe that one day LLMs/AI will be reliable (that's a big if), then Humane's AI Pin is a very early alpha version of what the future might hold.
This might be common knowledge, but Apple has a form of DRM on various iPhone and iPad parts so you can't, for example, take a camera from an iPhone with a busted screen and use that camera in an iPhone with a stuffed camera. It's something indie repair joints and environmentalists have complained about for years but now that the US state of Oregon has passed laws banning this practice, Apple has announced it will start taking steps to stop doing it. It's unknown how old of an iPhone they'll allow this to work on, and we don't know which parts they'll permit to be re-used, but it's better than nothing.
I adore the Internet Archive and I think a few of you know this because you sent me a link to this story on Wired about them "backing up" an entire country. The IA has worked with the Aruba government to host a digitised version of its "National Library, National Archives, and other institutions including an archaeology museum and the University of Aruba". Those institutions provided the content and digitisation work, while the IA provided software and expertise that was beyond the small island nation's capability. You can check it out in the Aruba Collection. God bless the Internet Archive for providing a haven on the internet for this kinda stuff.
Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.
There has been talk of hackers everywhere in the media for some time now. And when people say "hackers" in this country, they usually mean members of the Chaos Computer Club Hamburg and its offshoots. Be it the DM 130,000 coup at the Hamburger Sparkasse or the various appearances on Tagesschau, Frank Elstner and elsewhere: they have been widely reported on. Here, for the first time, is a book about them. Not only about the how of hacking, but also about the why. (retroGfx / Internet Archive)
📻 You Took Everything - Mrs. Piss
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