CategoryTechnology

Queensland launches digital drivers license app

Great that Queensland Government has launched an app for driver’s licenses. Nice of them to say this “We worked with our counterparts in other Australian states that have digital licences, to ensure we learnt from the way they developed and released their apps. But odd to also say this: “Queensland’s Digital Licence app will set the standard for mobile driver licence apps...

Crazy valuations part 734

Always tricky to understand valuations… we’re in a high interest rate period and yet AI startups are (selectively) breaking through and still getting crazy valuations. Recently Perplexity got a half billion valuation, even though current ARR is just $3M (note: revenue, not profit). That’s 150x It’s easy to ridicule, but then I’m reminded of DHH’s...

More AI Lawsuits

At some point – pretty soon I suspect – we won’t even find AI related lawsuits (like this recent one) newsworthy.

They’ll just be common place.

Like most other legal matters involving copyright.

AI aint cheap

Regarding GitHub Copilot, as per Paul Thurrott’s article which is getting shared around (probably because the original report from the Wall Street Journal and we can’t share that (it’s behind a paywall): GitHub Copilot costs $10 per month to subscribe to as an individual developer ($19 per month for businesses) But costs Microsoft around $30 per month to provide (via Open AI...

Mobile phones banned in NSW public schools

As of this week (the start of a new term) mobile phones can’t be used during the school day by students in NSW. This applies to high schools (primary schools already had this in place). This applies to public schools (ie not private schools). From the government announcement: “The ban is one of a number of measures the Government is putting in place to improve the classroom...

Using Spotify to launder money

Wow, gotta hand it to criminals, they sure are imaginative… makes me wonder why the don’t just go legit, with innovative thinking like this they could be very successful… Essentially the process is: Gang related rappers sets up song on Spotify Gang pays 3rd party companies for fake streams of those Spotify songs (ie similar to how you can pay 3rd party companies for fake Likes...

Meta trained AI on FB and IG posts

Nothing to be surprised at here I don’t think: Meta Platforms used public Facebook and Instagram posts to train parts of its new Meta AI virtual assistant, but excluded private posts shared only with family and friends in an effort to respect consumers’ privacy, the company’s top policy executive told Reuters in an interview. Meta also did not use private chats on its messaging...

Blue Light glasses are probably useless

Summary from this Guardian article: there doesn’t seem to be much benefit from wearing blue light filtering glasses. Or for that matter, reducing your screen time before bed. At least not due to blue light emissions anyway. But reading something stressful, or watching something exciting… that will likely impact your sleep no matter how much blue light is involved. I have a few friends...

Meta AI quietly grows, while Jasper declines

Wow. Meta just keeps rolling out the releases this year. This week Llama 2 expands with Llama 2 Long and rubs shoulders with ChatGPT 3.5 Turbo (not 4.0 to be clear) and Claude 2 in terms of context windows. Meanwhile, Jasper feels the heat and lowers its projections and internal valuation (to $1.2B). This, hot on the heels of OpenAI announcing a staggering internal valuation (of $90B) the other...

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