Hey guys, I'm Riley. I go on the internet where tech news
gonna make me lose my mind up in here, up in here, so you don't have to.
Apple finally launched the Vision Pro, and while even the most positive reviews
from media outlets earlier this week had a tinge of cynicism, early impressions from customers
who just got their $3,500 headsets for the first time
are mostly positive in an uplifting example
of post-purchase rationalization. My fit, why?
My cost, sunken. After all, they're now using what Tim Cook called
tomorrow's technology today, a phrase rendered false as soon as it's uttered,
and which also doesn't explain why the Vision Pro's persona avatars
look so much worse than Meta's photorealistic codec avatars.
Yeah, yeah, those aren't available yet on Quest, but the demos look so much better, okay?
Just let me have this. Speaking of which, Meta took the opportunity to piggyback off the Vision Pro launch
with an update for their Quest headsets. You know, the ones that are a fraction of the cost.
The Quest 2, 3, and Pro now support playing back stereoscopic spatial video
recorded on an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max,
something Apple may regard as morally wrong, and there's a couple new pinch gestures
because Apple's patent on basic human hand stuff fell through.
The Quests can also now use game pads in the browser for cloud gaming,
but on the other hand, the Vision Pro now has an unofficial YouTube app
thanks to Christian Selig, the developer of the Apollo Reddit app.
And no, those two things aren't related, like this segue to our next topic, AI.
AI News is a dime a dozen these days, but Google, Amazon, and actually Apple
made some noteworthy announcements this week. Google's barred chatbot can now use
the tech giant's own Imogen 2 model to generate images,
although it declined to generate an image for CNET's article on this story,
but did generate an image of itself as a blonde cyborg,
so thanks for that. This tech is gonna change everything.
The other future. Google is also adding generative AI chat to maps,
which looks like a genuinely useful way to get info about a place that doesn't involve
digging through an endless slideshow of photos, as long as that info isn't hallucinated nonsense,
causing you to show up to an Indian restaurant in a sombrero.
But at that point, the wrong restaurant thing is the least of your problems. I just love the culture.
Meanwhile, Amazon announced Rufus, a chatbot rolling out in beta
that will help customers shop on the platform, overrun by products named,
I cannot fulfill this request, it goes against open AI use policy.
Yeah, AI stuff is still a mess, but that's only because Apple hasn't come in
to fix it yet. That all changes this year, according to Tim Cook himself.
During the company's earnings call yesterday, Tim said they're putting a tremendous amount
of time and effort into AI, and they're excited to share the details later this year.
Now, he's either talking about the company's research, getting LLMs running on iPhone hardware,
or an Android version of you that will treat your mom better than you ever did.
You haven't even bought her an iPhone yet.
You pathetic insect. She birthed you, ungrateful wretch.
Reviews for the Samsung Galaxy S24, S24 plus,
and S24 Ultra are also out, with reviewers praising the lineup's new
complimentary AI features, like circle to search and on-device translation.
But the hardware is where some are finding flaws,
which makes sense given that in at least one area, the phone's actually got a downgrade.
The Ultra's stuck with a 5X optical zoom instead of 10X.
As if on cue, in steps, the frustratingly named company Nothing,
with its first major product announcement, I can remember,
since they thought they had solved iMessage on Android. That lasted for like a day,
which just didn't think it was that complicated. Anyways, all of a sudden, they launched the Nothing phone 2A yesterday,
which has been rumored since December, a Pixel A series-esque,
more budget-friendly alternative to the $600 Nothing phone 2.
The company didn't reveal the 2A's price, design, or release date,
but just knowing it's out there makes me feel a bit better.
And that's not nothing. I won't apologize.
$600 for nothing? Quick bits, man.
They just get you right. They just get you right there.
Come on, man. Wi-Fi company MorseMicro
has published a record-breaking real-world demonstration
of their Halo-based microprocessors,
showing that they create Wi-Fi networks capable of maintaining video calls
at a distance of 1.8 miles. Three kilometers.
Ultra-long-range Wi-Fi signals usually aren't powerful enough to load media.
Never mind maintaining a video call, but even at its farthest range,
the connection maintained a minimum speed of one megabit a second,
despite the test taking place in a busy, populated area.
This could be a game-changer in the practicality of massive city-wide Wi-Fi networks,
making your excuses to your mother about why you haven't called all the more infeasible.
Tim is gonna come and take her from you.
She deserves so much better. The browser company has announced
more AI-powered features for its Arc browser. And would you believe me if I told you
that they actually look kind of cool? Because you shouldn't, but let me tell you anyway.
Arc's Instant Links feature skips the search results page entirely,
scanning for the best handful of links and tabs, and opening them for you immediately.
Live folder is a Google Alerts-like feature, except instead of keywords,
it scans the web for content relating to topics you like.
When something new comes up, it throws it in a folder and notifies you.
Arc's Browse For Me results webpage generating feature
is also coming to desktop from iOS, where it launched earlier this week.
And altogether, it seems like the browser company just really wants to knock a chunk out of Google search
business by not forcing people to deal with pop-ups. And I don't see the problem here.
The FCC will be voting on whether robot calls using AI-generated voices
should be officially recognized as illegal under an existing law from 1991,
which bans the use of artificial and prerecorded voices
in non-emergency calls without written permission from the call recipient.
That was already illegal. These kinds of robot calls have spiked over the past few years,
including a recent voter suppression effort that used a fake Joe Biden.
The real one was busy. He's got stuff to do. Likely created using 11Labs software
to discourage voters from participating in the New Hampshire primary
and save their votes for the November election,
which is just not how votes work. They expire if you don't use them, just like milk.
You got one vote, don't use it on that. Japan plans to introduce a new six-month residency visa
for digital nomads in order to make it easier for high-skilled remote workers, consultants,
and online content creators to live in the country,
despite not being employed in Japan. The government is currently taking public comment
but hopes to launch the program in March. In order to be eligible, you must be a millionaire,
but only a Japanese millionaire making over 10 million yen a year
equivalent to around $68,000, which is still, it's a bunch.
Currently, over 50 countries offer digital nomad visas,
most of which allow significantly longer stays with far less stringent income requirements.
I mean, if you've got a visible means of support other than your legs,
you can just hang out in Germany for three years, maybe give up the anime, get really into techno dance.
Welcome to Germany. You dance like you're from here.
And according to a new study published in Science, researchers have developed a new machine learning model
that mimics the way children learn language.
How did they do it? Well, by strapping a camera to a toddler's forehead
and feeding the resulting audio and video to an AI like a baby let's play, like a baby IRL stream.
The birth rate is declining and that's a problem because we need more physical constructs
to strap the AI onto. By seeing the world through a small child's eyes,
or at least a small child's forehead, the AI was able to make associations between words
and objects the same way a cute little human larva would.
Hopefully demystifying a process that once upon a time all of us went through,
but none of us remember. So can you prove it?
What happened? But I know you'll remember to come back on Monday
for more tech news, just like you remember everything I ever say to you.
You're gonna do great on next week's quiz sport.