we're only a couple decade removed from the concept of owning a personal computer being a niche thing
― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 19 March 2018 23:49 (six years ago) link
Gak! disrupted my 1990s
― Karl Malone, Monday, 19 March 2018 23:54 (six years ago) link
true!I somehow include Dell in “tech” but they’re not by this definition. I don’t think they innovate in any significant way. They’re a commodity appliance company.
― mh, Tuesday, 20 March 2018 00:39 (six years ago) link
IBM probably manages to spend more on R&D than Dell still, despite their best efforts to become a company that sells nothing to nobody.
― valorous wokelord (silby), Tuesday, 20 March 2018 00:42 (six years ago) link
IBM does r&d but it’s the tiniest slice of their business Of the products they sell for $$$ to large corporations, software-wise, they bought 80% of it through acquisitions I use a bunch of their crap daily and the utility of most of it is being eclipsed by open source or more robust upstarts. I think one of their largest accounts is their message queuing server and associated software sales to wal-mart
― mh, Tuesday, 20 March 2018 01:10 (six years ago) link
not really the place to post this but my facebook quit lasted a whole three days. too much good stuff (all or mostly from ilxors) with an unspecified amount of me being lonely mixed in. don’t hate the players hate the game or something.
― map, Monday, 26 March 2018 04:01 (six years ago) link
4. https://t.co/QRfgwkNj80 Google creates an advertisement profile based on your information, including your location, gender, age, hobbies, career, interests, relationship status, possible weight (need to lose 10lbs in one day?) and income— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
Stunning that more people don't know this.
― Milking the Soft Power Dividend (dandydonweiner), Tuesday, 27 March 2018 22:18 (six years ago) link
I mean Google Takeout will wake most people out of their slumber if they are not lazy.
mh otm Watson & WebMQ are like the whole company now
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 27 March 2018 22:20 (six years ago) link
it’s so fucking weird, we were evaluating products implementing a certain enterprise authorization standard and IBM has one, but they integrated it into an appliance and none of the support pages have been updated for over five yearstheir “let’s get modern” approach for a long time was to just buy a company making a tool people need now, then never updating that product ever again. they aren’t alone in that approach but they’re one of the worst offenders. also, the appliance crap is exactly what hbo’s Silicon Valley show is parodying and they’re otm
― mh, Tuesday, 27 March 2018 22:41 (six years ago) link
They're basically unprecedented afaict
they're sears-roebuck
― j., Wednesday, 28 March 2018 01:00 (six years ago) link
hot take, no tech company should be "reminding" me of old posts or photos at any time ever. apple photos ffs just pinged "you have a new memory" with a shitty picture i've skipped over hundreds of times for a reason.
― map, Wednesday, 28 March 2018 04:06 (six years ago) link
https://mondaynote.com/mark-zuckerberg-thinks-were-idiots-638c64dfab12
― Milking the Soft Power Dividend (dandydonweiner), Thursday, 29 March 2018 21:03 (six years ago) link
mark zuckerberg otm
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 29 March 2018 21:14 (six years ago) link
People think Amazon has the most positive impact on society out of any major tech companyCEO Jeff Bezos’s decisions also have the greatest impact on their daily lives.
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 24 April 2018 23:43 (six years ago) link
lol tesla tho
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 24 April 2018 23:44 (six years ago) link
#branding #marketing
I feel like it’s almost anti-branding at this point that Apple actually does have decent security practices and a lack of interest in ads other than providing an app ads thing that developer companies demand
― mh, Wednesday, 25 April 2018 01:27 (six years ago) link
Facebook confirmed it has a confidential agreement with Aleksandr Kogan, the man at the heart of the Cambridge Analytica scandal
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, 25 April 2018 01:28 (six years ago) link
Facebook confirmed that it had a confidential agreement with Kogan, signed when he provided records showing he had deleted the app data.
He sent them this photo so it's cool
https://fthmb.tqn.com/qXdBnZMaMoz3YMtucYIsIINEW84=/768x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/delete_key_174896383-56a0193d3df78cafdaa01585.jpg
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, 25 April 2018 07:12 (six years ago) link
We live in an era where I can’t tell if this story belongs here, in the “quiddities & agonies” rolling how-fucking-useless-is-the-NYT thread, or some old Campbell Brown C/D thread I can’t be bothered to revive, if it exists at all, because there’s so search on Zing and laziness rules all:https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/technology/facebook-campbell-brown-news.htmlBut fuck Facebook, fuck “school choice” ghouls, and fuck “profile” stories about fake ass American Mendicants with fake ass shitty overpaid jobs. Fuck all y’all.
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 25 April 2018 10:49 (six years ago) link
Amazon hardly pays tax anywhere, systematically uses 'burn & churn' on its own employees, kills its competitors, has been making losses for decades to get here and now they finally make money, they don't even know what to do with it! Why does this company even exist? 🙄😡 https://t.co/Lmp0J2oVhw— Stonehead (@stonehead) May 2, 2018
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, 2 May 2018 08:56 (six years ago) link
pic.twitter.com/iJ3i9aT3uZ— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) May 1, 2018
Facebook closed 583m fake accounts in first three months of 2018
― Joe Gargan (dandydonweiner), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 19:16 (six years ago) link
And yet still not as horrible a tech company as Google.
― Joe Gargan (dandydonweiner), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 19:17 (six years ago) link
583,000,000? Would this put their claimed user base back under a billion?
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 19:20 (six years ago) link
one would think, at least for DAU
https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/
― Joe Gargan (dandydonweiner), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 19:26 (six years ago) link
Despite protests from employees, Google is still charging ahead with a Department of Defense collaboration to produce machine-learning software for drones... now a report from Gizmodo says "about a dozen" employees have resigned over the issue. https://t.co/y03rJkrTbJ— Ars Technica (@arstechnica) May 20, 2018
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Monday, 21 May 2018 03:47 (six years ago) link
"Don't be evil."
*attorney whispers in their ear*
"It has come to our attention that being extremely evil will probably be more profitable in the long run. All we do is spy on you and construct killer robots now, hope you enjoyed finding out who the dad on Alf was faster than ever before."
― 21st savagery fox (m bison), Monday, 21 May 2018 03:56 (six years ago) link
speaking of...
https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Monday, 21 May 2018 16:55 (six years ago) link
BREAKING: The ACLU has obtained records showing Amazon helping governments deploy a dangerous new facial recognition system that can track people in real time against huge databases. Our investigation: https://t.co/6aJ3Vjm21L— Matt Cagle (@Matt_Cagle) May 22, 2018
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, 23 May 2018 03:30 (six years ago) link
But Amazon may save The Expanse. They can recognize my face while I'm watching it and sell me whatever.
― Jeff, Wednesday, 23 May 2018 09:32 (six years ago) link
It's Netflix. I think they've had the worst effect on my life for the last year or so. So many shite shows. So much scrolling and time wasted on awful content that should never have been made.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Wednesday, 23 May 2018 10:31 (six years ago) link
there's a gradual, really sad development going on with amazon and their echo spot devices and advertising
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln9dGdIxTCE
so it's being sold to old people as an easy way to stay in touch with their family that their young tech-friendly descendants will definitely be into. and maybe there are a few families out there who are like this. but for most families, this hypothetical grandma/children/grandchildren call is going to happen exactly once, tops. the grandchildren will quickly learn to try to get out of it, or commit only to a handful of seconds a quick "hi grandma" and run away, at best. eventually she'll call and they'll stop picking up, but the devices will remain there as a constant reminder to grandma that even when she tries to communicate with her family in a more futuristic way, they are now too far apart to understand one another. amazon is the platform of choice for this newest painful phase of domestic self-realization!
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Friday, 25 May 2018 00:13 (six years ago) link
Amazon Echo is a horrible grease fire of shitty tech designed by thrown-together d-teams of overworked schmucks who have barely any idea what they’re actually supposed to be doing. Definitely put one in your house and let it listen to everything you say.
― El Tomboto, Friday, 25 May 2018 02:35 (six years ago) link
If I ever meet a person in my field who starts a sentence with “so my Echo...” I think I’ll just say “Oh, so you keep your compost pile in the dining room?”
― El Tomboto, Friday, 25 May 2018 02:43 (six years ago) link
“Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like ‘Alexa’. Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a ‘send message’ request. At which point, Alexa said out loud ‘To whom?’ At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customer’s contact list. Alexa then asked out loud, ‘[contact name], right?’ Alexa then interpreted background conversation as ‘right’.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/24/amazon-alexa-recorded-conversation
― lana del boy (ledge), Friday, 25 May 2018 08:05 (six years ago) link
couldn't afford a car so she woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like 'alexa'
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 25 May 2018 08:21 (six years ago) link
Karl Malone not otm imo re. grandma / grandkid interaction these days. my kids play jackbox over twitch with my mom. People in their 70s can be pretty tech-savvy.and tbh my kids call grandparents out of their own volition more than weekly, in addition to our weekly calls. My daughter came out to my mother before she did to me!
― droit au butt (Euler), Friday, 25 May 2018 09:27 (six years ago) link
and this isn’t unusual in my experience but I know ilx is not home for happy families so I’ll stop posting
― droit au butt (Euler), Friday, 25 May 2018 09:28 (six years ago) link
my coworkers at the end of the aisle got the alexa business starter pack and are wiring up some alerts and notifications from internal application statistics because someone higher up thought it sounded interesting
tbh having a few more flashing lights that are responsive when app infrastucture is crashing isn't a horrible idea
― (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ (mh), Friday, 25 May 2018 13:33 (six years ago) link
xpost
no, you're totally right, euler. the % of ilx posts that i regret immediately upon posting has slightly dropped over the years, but it's still up there. i was just projecting my weird family bullshit (which isn't even necessarily true in my own family! my niece and nephew love texting with my mom, for example). and even if it were true, it's not like the amazon spot is the first consumer device capable of reminding people of the difficulty they have communicating with their own family. sometimes i just post too much :o
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Friday, 25 May 2018 15:17 (six years ago) link
I use all kinds of digital communication things with my parents, who are definitely old enough to be grandparents now
my friends use facetime with their parents so they can video chat with their two year old all the time
― (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ (mh), Friday, 25 May 2018 15:26 (six years ago) link
my association with these kinds of home listening devices to amazon is apparently already outdated
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/report-google-home-overtook-amazon-echo-in-total-shipments-last-quarter/
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Friday, 25 May 2018 16:43 (six years ago) link
Amazon echo returned after it announced unprompted in silent middle of the night "here are some Santana songs" & cranked Black Magic Woman.— Philip Gourevitch (@PGourevitch) May 23, 2017
― ciderpress, Friday, 25 May 2018 20:32 (six years ago) link
i do that sometimes
― brimstead, Friday, 25 May 2018 21:11 (six years ago) link
"Amazon echo returned after it announced unprompted in silent middle of the night "here are some Santana songs" & cranked Black Magic Woman."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tfI9tTzlI0
― Arch Bacon (rushomancy), Saturday, 26 May 2018 00:32 (six years ago) link
personally i'm down with santana abraxas but if my amazon echo isn't hip enough to know "black magic woman" is a fleetwood mac song it has no place in my home
― Arch Bacon (rushomancy), Saturday, 26 May 2018 00:33 (six years ago) link
A Washington-based advocacy group that claims to be a voice for tech startups is actually a sock puppet for Google, according to a new report that itself is funded by a rival. https://t.co/25QAYcFtom by @ddayen— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) May 31, 2018
― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 31 May 2018 19:49 (five years ago) link
frequent Trump-suer, the Attorney-General of Washington, is suing Google and Facebook on a small scale for destroying Western democracy on a major scale
― we used to get our kicks reading surfing MAGAzines (sic), Monday, 4 June 2018 22:19 (five years ago) link
I feel like we need an opposite thread to this so we can congratulate Microsoft on saving open source
― El Tomboto, Monday, 4 June 2018 22:21 (five years ago) link
An open letter to @Facebook, @Twitter, @Instagram and @Experian regarding algorithms and my son's birth: pic.twitter.com/o8SuLMuLNv— Gillian Brockell (@gbrockell) December 11, 2018
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, 12 December 2018 05:23 (five years ago) link
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/what-sund4r-pichai-couldnt-explain-to-congress/577903/
Google’s admittedly liberal employees, Republicans said, must, somehow, be tinkering with search rankings. “You’re so surrounded by liberality that hates conservatism, hates people who really love our constitution and the freedoms it has afforded to people like you,” Texas Representative Louie Gohmert told Pichai. “You don’t even recognize it. You’re like a blind man who doesn’t even know what light looks like.”
― j., Wednesday, 12 December 2018 06:34 (five years ago) link
i don't exactly feel sorry pichai, but getting lectured about the truth by Louie Gohmert when you can't really respond must be the most agonizing thing on earth
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 12 December 2018 14:46 (five years ago) link
Where would Alice Walker even find antisemitic conspiracy theories? Well... https://t.co/lMU8h9ftWN pic.twitter.com/JdzpdWAa3Z— Malcolm Harris (@BigMeanInternet) December 17, 2018
― maura, Tuesday, 18 December 2018 01:55 (five years ago) link
I read that whole thing thinking it was Alice Waters
― Scam jam, thank you ma’am (Sparkle Motion), Tuesday, 18 December 2018 02:05 (five years ago) link
that's really weird and depressing
― omar little, Tuesday, 18 December 2018 02:15 (five years ago) link
uh
did she get like hacked or whatever like that one twitter lady
― j., Tuesday, 18 December 2018 02:16 (five years ago) link
if she was hacked, it was by people who've mastered google SEO
https://www.splcenter.org/20170118/google-and-miseducation-dylann-roof
google deemphasized specific sites named in this 2017 article after it made the rounds. but their engine still operates under the same principles.
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 18 December 2018 02:39 (five years ago) link
She said in the NYTimes that she’s reading a David Icke book, it’s not a hack. YouTube and social media claim another Baby Boomer.
― louise ck (milo z), Tuesday, 18 December 2018 02:42 (five years ago) link
Is there a thread on Theranos anywhere? I've been totally oblivious to the story up until now (not seen it/her on TV or anything) but have just finished the Carreyrou book and have loads of questions! I know there's a podcast starting today and a film in the pipeline...
― kinder, Thursday, 24 January 2019 20:22 (five years ago) link
discussed in detail on this thread: Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 January 2019 20:30 (five years ago) link
although you have to go back a couple years
cheers
― kinder, Thursday, 24 January 2019 21:31 (five years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/30/mark-zuckerberg-calls-for-stronger-regulation-of-internet
Fuck this clown. Disavowing all responsibility for the monster he has created whilst practically declaring it an institution worthy of protection.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Sunday, 31 March 2019 02:27 (five years ago) link
Qualcomm has been in the running for this prize for many years.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/how-qualcomm-shook-down-the-cell-phone-industry-for-almost-20-years/
A couple of crazy bits (and I've experienced these in my job):
Qualcomm's patent licensing fees were calculated based on the value of the entire phone, not just the value of chips that embodied Qualcomm's patented technology.
The other one that was nuts?
patent licensing terms requiring customers to pay a royalty on every phone sold—not just phones that contained Qualcomm's wireless chips.
― DJI, Thursday, 30 May 2019 21:09 (four years ago) link