Showing 1 - 10 of 33
Chinese police bust counterfeit chip factory supplying hardware makers
Life, Puriward Sinthopnumchai, Published on 03/11/2025
» Police in the Chinese city of Shenzhen have reportedly busted a massive network involved in counterfeiting electronic chips, leading to a warning that consumers should be extremely cautious when purchasing parts for personal computers.
The hidden dangers of AI
Life, James Hein, Published on 24/09/2025
» There's going to be a lot on artificial intelligence topics this week so let's get started. For the time being, the most common way to leverage an AI product is using a prompt of some kind. To that end, you will see lots of posts on platforms declaring that they have the best god-level prompts for large language models (LLMs). A prompt is something like, "What are the top ten songs from Depeche Mode?", or "Draw me a picture of a frog on a toadstool in the style of Alice In Wonderland with vivid colours". The more detailed and nuanced the prompt, the better the desired outcome tends to be. As with everything in the computer world, there are bad actors looking to take advantage of this.
AI will overpromise and underdeliver
Life, James Hein, Published on 27/08/2025
» Let's start with a few brief comments on the current state of artificial intelligence. Specially targeted and trained AI models are improving. These are things like detecting something in an X-ray or hunting for potential chemical candidates for a compound to attack a specific condition. Generating pictures and videos is also improving rapidly, and by the end of the year the majority of people will not be able to tell the difference between the real thing and the AI fake. Large Language Models are still unpredictable and can give false or fake answers depending on the structure of the prompts, so be careful with the answer you get from these. The current corporate buy-in for AI is well beyond what it can deliver. This is driven by marketing, not the actual state of capabilities. My prediction is there will be a lot of out-of-pocket organisations of all types disappointed by results.
Beware the AI bots
Life, James Hein, Published on 04/06/2025
» I recently joined a Facebook group that supposedly represented Kat Timpf, a regular presenter on the Gutfeld! show. I posted a couple of comments and a couple of weeks later, I received a tag in social media purportedly from Dana Perino, a regular on the Fox show The Five. Initially this was a surprise. Why would a famous TV star want to chat with me? After a few chats, it became obvious something was off. The tag name in Messenger was just Dana Perino but the conversation had a few structural errors, not something a former press secretary would make.
Fractured bonds
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 28/04/2025
» Neo Sora's debut feature film Happyend envisions a dystopian near-future Tokyo under threat of an earthquake, which forms the backdrop of youth rebellion against authoritarianism. As it is followed by aftershocks that fracture personal relationships, Happyend is an ode to friends drifting apart at the mercy of larger forces, but still in the same universe.
Korean calm
Life, Pattarawadee Saengmanee, Published on 12/12/2024
» As the South Korean capital encountered its heaviest November blizzard in half-a-century, turning the streets into a sea of white, we headed south to Jeollanamdo Province where we were able to relish the warmer weather and stunning coastlines of the Land of the Morning Calm.
Bill has ways of forcing updates
Life, James Hein, Published on 22/05/2024
» If you are a Microsoft user, private or business, there is a site you should keep an eye on. Search "Microsoft end of life dates" and then select the result with the heading "Overview – Product End of Support and Retirements", associated with learn.microsoft.com. On the left-hand side there are years. Click on 2025, for example, and you will see that Office 2016 and 2019 products will no longer be supported after Oct 14 of that year. On that same date, Windows 10 will be retired. For both of these there will be no new security updates. For some, this will not be an issue, but organisations will need to take note as it means their security will be potentially compromised after a while. Even with Windows 10 still outselling Windows 11, Microsoft will be pushing people to upgrade over the next 18 months and for many, this will no longer be free. People and organisations tend to stick with what works and Microsoft doesn't like that, so it stops supporting older products. The site will tell you when you will start to be at risk and after that you can decide what to do.
YouTube hypocrisy deserves flagging
Life, James Hein, Published on 27/09/2023
» YouTube is behaving badly again. A prominent presenter I occasionally watch, who has millions of subscribers, has been demonetised, for some possible actions 20 years ago. This is not a commentary on potential innocence or guilt, but on YouTube's processes. There are people whose lives are supported by revenue from their presentations on YouTube. This ranges from small fries all the way up to the big fish like the one here. When an individual is demonetised they can lose the ability to support themselves. In this case allegations were made by the media, not the police or authorities, and at the time of writing there have been zero charges made. YouTube is essentially saying, bring us all your viewers so we can hit them with ads and we can make lots of money, but you will be getting nothing for your work.
Power corrupts – with help from higher-ups
Life, Patcharawalai Sanyanusin, Published on 13/02/2023
» I don't know whether our tourism will be affected by recent coverage of Taiwanese actress Charlene An's police extortion case. It made big headlines in Thai media for weeks and was reported in many international media outlets as well.
Easy on every road
Life, Jedd Sreshthaputra, Published on 07/11/2022
» The Ducati DesertX is a versatile bike that's been specifically developed to cope with the most demanding off-road conditions while being comfortable enough for touring purposes.