An interesting snippet about the future of computation: Starting with this build, we are introducing the Power Grid Forecast API. This API empowers app developers to optimize app behavior, minimizing environmental impact by shifting background tasks to times when more renewable energy is available in the local electrical grid. Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26052 Some computational processes take a lot of electricity. Back in the old days, batch computing meant that…
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Only fools try to predict the future. You can read my predictions for 2023, or dig deep into my archives and rate me on how foolish I am. So here are my five predictions for 2024 AI Genocide It is obvious that Large Language Models are based on stolen material. I suspect that a lawsuit will determine that at least one of the major players has to delete all copies of their AI. They will refuse and claim that AGI / Sentience has been reached with their model (it hasn't) and that destroying it …
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Only fools try to predict the future. You can read my earlier predictions, or dig deep into my archives and rate me on how foolish I am. I tend to look at technology through the lens of "what do I want to happen?" and then assume the worst. So, here goes! Federation Gets Simpler As I wrote about in The Social Pendulum we see a swing to extremes of culture. We've had a decade-or-so of big central social networks. Now we're swinging the other way. Will Twitter, Tumblr, or Flickr start using …
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This is a little story about standards, technology, civilisation, and the modern world. I know it is tempting to only talk about the various ways technology disappoints us, but sometimes it can be quite magical living in the future. A few week ago, I took a trip to a foreign country... I waved a rectangle of black-and-white squares in the vicinity of an optical scanner. The tiny computer's eye caught a fleeting glimpse of the barcode, de-skewed, rotated, and deciphered it - then checked its…
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As the global demand for safer cars grew, there was a drive for cheaper and more accurate ways to deploy airbags. Thus, car manufacturers turned to MEMS based accelerometers and gyroscopes. Small, accurate, and fast. With increased production, comes increased manufacturing efficiency. So these sensors also became cheap to purchase for everyone. The street finds its own uses for things. In this case, phone manufacturers looking to differentiate their products started adding gyroscopes. Now…
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My good friend Dan Appelquist recent wrote a fascinating blog post on solipsism as a design decision. He has a set of Lifx Internet Controlled Lightbulbs. They're great fun, but have some seriously screwy ideas about how people live. One key design of the app is to allow you to automatically switch off all your lights when you exit your house. That's pretty nifty, right? I am still chuckling at the mental image of all the lightbulbs in my house shutting down when I leave the house leaving …
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