Showing 1 - 10 of 10
Marketeers have simple choices
Life, James Hein, Published on 18/02/2026
» If you use a mobile phone for playing any games, then typically along with that comes all of the advertisements and marketing presentations. First however, there is the "free download", this means you can download it for free, install and run it. After that, things may not be free at all. This is to be expected as advertising is one of the few ways to make any income from the games being played by millions of people across the planet.
Will Tesla's camera-only autonomy prove its mettle?
Life, James Hein, Published on 02/07/2025
» I'm still not convinced that Tesla's camera-only approach will work well in all situations. According to a quick AI search, Elon doesn't like Lidar based on "cost, complexity, and philosophical disagreement with its necessity". Other manufacturers seem to have no problem with the first two of these and I challenge his last reason. I would have thought that a combination of available technologies would give you the safest options for all circumstances.
Rise of fake AI content
Life, James Hein, Published on 23/04/2025
» We have unofficially entered the time of the fake AI generated content. It's not perfect yet, but it's good enough to fool many people. I use a YouTube alternative, which means I have more time to watch videos across a wide range. In the last few weeks, I've noticed an increase in AI generated product that is fake. One standout is the Got Talent franchise where people have grafted AI generated acts with cuts from responses from the panel. They look great, like a woman transforming into a lion, but it's all fake. Even some of those cute animal videos are now fake. Why? More clicks so more income all based on fabricated videos.
Microsoft's quantum conundrum
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/03/2025
» If you've been keeping up with quantum computer news, you will have seen the Microsoft Marketing announcement on topological q-bits and a potential quantum computer in a few years. I was planning to write about this in some detail, but it turns out the reality may not meet the marketing. Surprising, I know, but the announcement implying Microsoft has q-bit technology ready to go and scale is speculative. They don't have any physical models, just some tests and a theory that has already been challenged by the physics community. It will take a while to go through all the published data, but the Microsoft quantum computer could be decades, not years, in the future, if ever.
Who checks the fact checkers?
Life, James Hein, Published on 30/08/2023
» The information landscape has changed a great deal over the past five years. Back in the 1990s, information exchange was mostly between academics and IT people. The majority of the information was accurate and typically scientific or technical in nature. The communication was polite and debates were just that, debates. It was an inclusive community, though in some cases you were required to stick to the topic at hand. Then came the social media platforms.
The reality of AI is less scary than the movies
Life, James Hein, Published on 17/08/2022
» I was talking to someone at work recently and mentioned the Palm Pilot. He never heard of it. Some of us remember it being released in 1996 before the smartphone and social media, and in the early days of the internet. It drove the creation of the smartphone, though the people at Intel at the time didn't see how a portable, hand-held device like this could become common. One of the founders and inventors was Jeff Hawkins who also founded Handspring and worked on the Treo that evolved into a very early smartphone with a camera, which this brings us to today's topic, artificial intelligence.
Big firms fuzzy on their AI thinking
Life, James Hein, Published on 28/10/2020
» Everything you see these days is AI enabled in some way, or according to the marketing they must be. Software, fridges, cancer detection and lots of other examples are all based on some kind of AI implementation. Google, Microsoft and all the big players are heavily invested in at least the buzzword, but the proof of delivery as promised is elusive.
Huawei facing tough time outside China
Life, James Hein, Published on 29/07/2020
» China, and in particular Huawei, is not winning these days. Huawei has some excellent hardware. Their latest phones are as good in many aspects as any other manufacturer. However, the fuzzy area is the company's links to the Chinese government. Huawei claims they are not directly linked to the government but many others say there are direct and nefarious links. Huawei recently lost their foothold in the United Kingdom as their 5G network has been disallowed or marginalised for the future. This leaves only Canada as part of the five eyes intelligence partners still supporting Huawei 5G. Other nations have also been hesitant to adopt the technology.
Words don't come easy to millennials
Life, James Hein, Published on 23/05/2018
» Next time you're in a restaurant or where people gather in small groups, sit and watch for a while. Note how many of the groups are silent, all doing something on their phones. When you find such a group, note how long they go without saying a word to each other. There is an interesting behavioural shift occurring in the phone-enabled world where casual conversation skills are being replaced by surfing, messaging and instant posting. It won't be too long before the best way to find out what the person next to you is thinking is to live feed their Facebook, send them an SMS or Line message, or heaven forbid a tweet.
Help kids navigate the social media roller coaster
Life, James Hein, Published on 31/01/2018
» A study has come out recently, confirming what we already know. Children spending more than an hour a day engaged in social media can make them less happy. Take something like Facebook for example. You post something, people read it then they give it a like and sometimes make a comment. Now imagine you are a young impressionable child somewhere under 18. You post something and get 50 likes. Sometime later you post something else and get 65 likes and feel better. Then the third time you only get five likes and some comments about how lame it was. Now you feel worse. Multiply this by a few hundred times and the emotional roller coaster can have someone with a developing emotional platform spiralling into their first depression.