Google is launching GoogleBook, a laptop with Gemini AI built-in. I'll pass.
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But Google is also "re-imagining" the mouse pointer. It's using AI to predict the context of the mouse pointer to interpret your voice command properly. This is getting closer to the technology seen in the old Corning video A Day Made of Glass. Hard to believe that was made 15 years ago, which the iPhone was still in its ascendancy.
This is the Gillian Tett article that is making the rounds. I just found out about it recently.
Ouch. I guess the fears were true. People can pass the tests and get their degree, made possible by chatbots, but they lack the skills that the degree is supposed to signify that they possess.
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All the demons hiding in your AIs. I wasn't aware of this, but with the frontier models, there does appear to be a tendency for them to be attracted to certain topics. So much so that Codex for GPT-5.5 had to explicitly tell the LLM not to focus on such topics. Some are relatively benign but some are disturbing. What is the origin of this behavior? They are called demons or attractors, but whatever they are, people don't talk about them much. It's just swept under the rug. The Loab attractor is intriguing, and would make a great horror story, except that you'd have to explain it first, and that would away much of the punch. People would just think it was too outlandish to be plausible. The Wikipedia article on Loab is even more disturbing.
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It's good to see that the prevalence of dementia has been decreasing over the years. The data is from northern Europe. Hopefully it reflects efforts to improve brain health. But whatever it is, it's better than the alternative.
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Mozilla had a head start on all the other tech companies. Why did it not thrive? I still think the ouster of Javascript creator and Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich in 2014 for specious reasons, was a major reason for its downfall. Brendan has done well enough afterwards, but probably could have done more for Mozilla if he stayed. Waste of talent.
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Everything tech eventually gets sleazified. Some browser extensions exist just to collect and sell your data. This is an add for LayerX, which purports to protect you from this. I wish they listed all the apps they knew about that were bad players.
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How embarrassing. Beware what you tell your AI chatbot. It’s not a shrink – it’s a snitch. How many people don't know this already?
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Alzheimer's disease drugs don't do very much. And yet they cost a lot. Profit for the drug companies.
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The New York Times Got Caught Using AI Hallucinations in Its Reporting. Yes, this is a very big deal, and shows how far the once-great newspaper has fallen. Enshittification happened there, too.
Back then, however, academic dishonesty was constrained not only by codes of conduct but by the amount of effort it required. A student who wanted to cheat had to go to the trouble of finding someone who would let them copy their answers.So now, there will be proctors during in-person exams.
The internet and the shift to doing work on computers rather than by hand dramatically lowered the barriers to cheating.
Yeah, Princetonians weren't necessarily more honorable. It was just that nobody wanted to let someone else benefit from their efforts.
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40%-plus of Portland residents are considering moving. If it weren't for low-interest mortgages that some people want to hang on to, it would be higher.
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Mayor Bye-Bye has a problem. Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s budget deficit nears half-billion dollars, raising threat of taxes and layoffs.
And Seattle-area prices jump nearly 5% from a year ago. And of course, Seattle Times blames it all on Trump. Of course.
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Starbucks cuts more jobs in Seattle. 61 more corporate jobs cut. And they still say they aren't moving their corporate HQ from Seattle. Yeah, right. Still think the rumors are "like, super-overblown", Mayor Bye-Bye?
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