tech

The Technology Facebook and Google Didn’t Dare Release

The Technology Facebook and Google Didn’t Dare Release:

In the last few years, though, the gates have been trampled by smaller, more aggressive companies, such as Clearview AI and PimEyes. What allowed the shift was the open-source nature of neural network technology, which now underpins most artificial intelligence software.

Understanding the path of facial recognition technology will help us navigate what is to come with other advancements in A.I., such as image- and text-generation tools. The power to decide what they can and can’t do will increasingly be determined by anyone with a bit of tech savvy, who may not pay heed to what the general public considers acceptable.

[Oy.facial re]

A look at Apple’s new Transformer-powered predictive text model

A look at Apple’s new Transformer-powered predictive text model:

Apple wants a model that can run very quickly and very frequently, without draining much of your device’s battery. When I was testing the predictive text feature, suggestions appeared almost instantly as I typed, making for a great user experience. While the model’s limited size means it wouldn’t be very good at writing full sentences or paragraphs, when it exhibits very high confidence in the next word or two, they’re likely to be good enough to suggest to the user.

[Making progress one little step at time…]

Google and HTTP

Google and HTTP:

The web is a miracle

Google has spent a lot of effort to convince you that HTTP is not good. Let me have the floor for a moment to tell you why HTTP is the best thing ever.

Its simplicity is what made the web work. It created an explosion of new applications. It may be hard to believe that there was a time when Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter etc didn’t exist. That was because the networking standards prior to the web were complicated and not well documented. The explosion happened because the web is simple. Where earlier protocols were hard to build on, the web is easy.

I don’t think the explosion is over. I want to make it easier and easier for people to run their own web servers. Google is doing what the programming priesthood always does, building the barrier to entry higher, making things more complicated, giving themselves an exclusive. This means only super nerds will be able to put up sites. And we will lose a lot of sites that were quickly posted on a whim, over the 25 years the web has existed, by people that didn’t fully understand what they were doing. That’s also the glory of the web. Fumbling around in the dark actually gets you somewhere. In worlds created by corporate programmers, it’s often impossible to find your way around, by design.

The web is a social agreement not to break things. It’s served us for 25 years. I don’t want to give it up because a bunch of nerds at Google think they know best.

The web is like the Grand Canyon. It’s a big natural thing, a resource, an inspiration, and like the canyon it deserves our protection. It’s a place of experimentation and learning. It’s also useful for big corporate websites like Google. All views of the web are important, especially ones that big companies don’t understand or respect. It’s how progress happens in technology.

Keeping the web running simple is as important as net neutrality.

[Anything open is inherently better than anything closed. I tell you 3X.]

Scrypted

Scrypted:

Scrypted can bridge most cameras to the three major home hubs: HomeKit (including HomeKit Secure Video), Google Home, and Alexa. Scrypted streams are fast, low latency, and have rock solid reliability.

Cameras: Unifi, Amcrest, Hikvision, ONVIF, RTSP, Ring, Arlo, Nest/Google, Tuya, Reolink, and more…

[Hmm…]

Run OpenTelemetry on Docker

Run OpenTelemetry on Docker:

At this juncture in DevOps history, there has been considerable hype around observability for developers and operations teams, and more recently, much attention has been given to help combine the different observability solutions out there in use through a single interface, and to that end, OpenTelemetry has emerged as a key standard.

[Nice to see OTel gaining traction.]

Announcing Auth.js

Announcing Auth.js:

Announcing Auth.js! 🔒Authentication for the Web.

– Brand new `@​auth/core` package,
– Runtime/framework agnostic
– Web standard APIs
– Builds on NextAuth.js conventions/API
– Decoupled from Next.js & Node.js.

We’re adding official support for new frameworks…
Starting with SvelteKit! 🎉

Today, SvelteKit 1.0 was announced, and we thought that
this is the perfect opportunity to let everyone know what we’ve been working on.

[Hmm]

Bloomberg: Apple planning to change course, allow third-party app stores and more – Six Colors

Bloomberg: Apple planning to change course, allow third-party app stores and more – Six Colors:

The usually well-sourced Mark Gurman at Bloomberg with the scoop:

Software engineering and services employees are engaged in a major push to open up key elements of Apple’s platforms, according to people familiar with the efforts. As part of the changes, customers could ultimately download third-party software to their iPhones and iPads without using the company’s App Store, sidestepping Apple’s restrictions and the up-to-30% commission it imposes on payments.

If this pans out, it’s not only a groundshaking change to a major chunk of Apple’s Services revenue, but also a 180-degree change to what has been probably the most contentious element of the company’s business. Apple hasn’t, of this writing, confirmed the plan.

[🍿]

Crowned CBN Grinding Wheels

Crowned CBN Grinding Wheels:

Crowned CBN (Cubic Boron Nitride) grinding wheels provide a precise, clean, and cool-running alternative to bonded abrasive grit wheels. We worked with Woodturners Wonders to design a wheel specifically for hollow-grinding chisels, plane irons, and other woodworking tools. Joel has long been a proponent of hollow-grinding chisels and plane irons, because it makes honing so much easier. However, for many folks even high-quality bonded abrasive wheels are too dusty, difficult to maintain, or challenging to dress.

[Time to try these.]

Apple advances user security with powerful new data protections – Apple

Apple advances user security with powerful new data protections – Apple:

Apple today introduced three advanced security features focused on protecting against threats to user data in the cloud, representing the next step in its ongoing effort to provide users with even stronger ways to protect their data. With iMessage Contact Key Verification, users can verify they are communicating only with whom they intend. With Security Keys for Apple ID, users have the choice to require a physical security key to sign in to their Apple ID account. And with Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, which uses end-to-end encryption to provide Apple’s highest level of cloud data security, users have the choice to further protect important iCloud data, including iCloud Backup, Photos, Notes, and more.

The below is a nice touch… I dig it!

Apple introduced two-factor authentication for Apple ID in 2015. Today, with more than 95 percent of active iCloud accounts using this protection, it is the most widely used two-factor account security system in the world that we’re aware of. Now with Security Keys, users will have the choice to make use of third-party hardware security keys to enhance this protection. This feature is designed for users who, often due to their public profile, face concerted threats to their online accounts, such as celebrities, journalists, and members of government. For users who opt in, Security Keys strengthens Apple’s two-factor authentication by requiring a hardware security key as one of the two factors. This takes our two-factor authentication even further, preventing even an advanced attacker from obtaining a user’s second factor in a phishing scam.

[Making security easy is really hard. That 95% is pretty amazing outside of corporate you-don’t-have-a-choice settings. Allez!]

Abstraction is Expensive – Speculative Branches

Abstraction is Expensive – Speculative Branches:

Ideally, you would like all of the abstractions you use to have aligned goals with your system. If you can buy a dependency that aligns with your goals, that’s great. If not, you will likely have to “massage” your dependencies to be able to do what you want. This is the first time an abstraction costs you. If you use the wrong database schema (or the wrong technology), you may find yourself scanning database tables when a different schema would do a single lookup. For a non-database example, if you make an electron-based computer game, it will likely be unplayably slow (but you will be able to build it in record time!).

[Abstractions can be a complete drag…]