mastodon - Link to source
Stephen Wolfram breaks down chatgpt, and it’s amazing writings.stephenwolfram.com/20…

What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work?—Stephen Wolfram Writings

Stephen Wolfram explores the broader picture of what's going on inside ChatGPT and why it produces meaningful text. Discusses models, training neural nets, embeddings, tokens, transformers, language syntax.
writings.stephenwolfram.com

mastodon - Link to source

As I suspected, high costs of hardware production to run on-device voice models, paired with difficulties to find hardware partners (which together resulted in high costs for the Mark II, as they had to rely on off-the-shelf components purchased at retail price) are among the reasons why #Mycroft is on its way to shut down.

But apparently there's a darker and more angering reason behind it.

The CEO mentions millions spent in a legal litigation with Voice Tech Corp., a "patent troll" that eventually dropped its charges, but only after costing millions to the startup.

I've done a bit of digging and I've found the text of the complaint: eff.org/document/voice-tech-co…. (Btw I've also found that this company has a single employee, acting as CEO, president and advisor, and not a single voice-based product ever released). And I'm quite horrified by what I've read.

Voice Tech Corp. accused Mycroft of allegedly breaking two of its patents - 9,794,348 and 10,491,679.

The title of these patents? "Using Voice Commands from a Mobile Device to Remotely Access and Control a Computer".

It's probably worth taking a look at one of these patents: patents.google.com/patent/US97….

A lot of text just to say "this patent is about any solution that can parse human speech to text, find if it matches a command on a computer, and execute that command if required". The whole solution can be summarized in a ridiculously simple flowchart diagram worth of a barely sufficient assignment from a fresh college student.

But that's all you need (with a lot of technical jargon to gaslight a largely untechnical audience) to make money out of anyone who eventually develops something that looks like your naive flowchart.

These patent trolls didn't go after Google or Amazon for implementing exactly the same thing that they patented, well aware that their legal teams would have eaten them alive for breakfast. But they weren't scared to go after a startup with limited funding, hoping to squeeze some money out of them - and maybe put them out of business, for reasons that are still unclear.

Eventually it's smaller businesses and open-source projects that get harmed by this patent weaponization strategies - exactly the kind of actors that you need to keep a level playing field. Big Tech has large shoulders to defend themselves from these attacks, and they proactively purchase smaller companies just to be able to weaponize their patents. But smaller enterprises are much more vulnerable. Even if the lawsuit is eventually dropped, or if the court doesn't find sufficient ground to sue the defendant, the money, time and resources the small enterprise invests in the trial is often sufficient to put them out of business. And that's not to mention the case where the defendant is not even a small business, but an individual contributor of an open-source project.

Have I already said that #patents in technology are a tragic mistake that needs to burn in a ball of fire? We're way past the point where they could encourage innovation. They are a legal weapon used to achieve exactly the opposite nowadays. Up to grotesque and sad situations like Voice Tech vs. Mycroft.

It's almost like Voice Tech patented the sketch of a car drawn by a 2-year-old, and then sued somebody for actually building a real car. How is this shit supposed to actually foster innovation?

news.fabiomanganiello.com/shar…

Voice Tech Corp. v. Mycroft AI Complaint

4_20-cv-00111-rk_1_primary_document.pdf
Electronic Frontier Foundation
#patents #mycroft
This entry was edited (2 years ago)
in reply to Pavel

mastodon - Link to source

Archos

Tak vyzkoušej náš mxchat, mám to přemostěný na Telegram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Discord... Mám tam už přes rok skoro celou rodinu, ale ty mosty jsem udělal, že musím používat v práci WhatsApp.
wiki.arch-linux.cz/books/eleme…

Element mxchat | Wiki Arch Linux CZ

Element je rozhraní pro textové, hlasové a video konverzace. Stejně jako protokol Matrix je klient E...
wiki.arch-linux.cz

mastodon - Link to source

ChatGPT is great – you’re just using it wrong
theconversation.com/chatgpt-is…

The pattern of getting a kick out of tripping up AI bots to make mistakes shouldn't make it a surprise if wrong data comes back. If you tell a child nonsense, it will repeat it later, too. Also see: Chappy :)


ChatGPT is great – you're just using it wrong

ChatGPT and other AI chatbots seem remarkably good at conversations. But you can’t believe anything they say. Sometimes, though, reality isn’t the point.
The Conversation

mastodon - Link to source

"One year on, Putin's perfidious plans continue to be foiled by the brave Ukrainian nation.

One year on, Russia is isolated from Europe and on the world stage.

One year on, Ukraine's dreams are stronger than ever. And they will prevail."

— President von der Leyen at the European Parliament Plenary debate on one year of Russia's invasion and war of aggression against Ukraine

in reply to Mikołaj Hołysz

mastodon - Link to source

Mikołaj Hołysz

Mastodon users are actually far, far more vulnerable than most other social media platforms. You can lose your account by getting suspended by your admin, which can happen on any other platform, but also by your admin being incompetent and/or dying in a car accident, their domain registrar taking away their domain, their ISP taking away their servers, hackers destroying the data with no backup plans, or possibly even Let’s Encrypt revoking their certificates.

mastodon - Link to source
Možná jste to nepoužili, ale možná to tak máte. Některé aplikace či služby používáte tak, že jste se tam přihlásili (a prvotně založili účet) přes Facebook, Google, Twitter, dříve i Google+, nověji Apple a ještě nověji také Seznam. 365tipu.cz/2023/02/15/tip2356-…

TIP#2356: Proč (rozhodně) nepoužívat “přihlášení přes Seznam” (Google, Facebook, atd) - @365tipu

Probíhající Konec API u Twitteru je dobrý důvod se vrátit k jednomu staršímu tématu. Probíranému v Sociální přihlašování? K čemu je to dobré. A na co si dát pozor. Tentokrát i pro tvůrce webů. Možná jste to nepoužili, ale možná to tak máte.
365tipů (@365tipu)

mastodon - Link to source
I have made myself promise to stay out of US politics on Twitter, but as someone close to this topic, I am going to hop in once to say it is unbelievably fucked up that someone would have to go through a mass shooting twice in a decade just because she wants an education.
---
RT @shannonrwatts
A survivor of the Sandy Hook School mass shooting in 2012 is a student at Michigan State University: “I am 21-years-old and this is the second…
twitter.com/shannonrwatts/stat…

mastodon - Link to source

Ingenuity is Doing Surprisingly Well

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter has completed almost 50 flights on Mars, proving that flying is a great way to explore the Red Planet. But the extreme Martian environment is wearing down the helicopter, taking it offline regularly, and slowly building dust on its solar panel. Engineers at NASA were worried they might not see many more flights. Recently, they were pleasantly surprised to see battery levels climbing again, allowing it to fly more frequently and keep itself warm during the frigid Martian nights.

mars.nasa.gov/technology/helic…

Sol 650 Z-Cam image inadvertently catches the solitary Mars helicopter as it struggles to stay warm Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS.

Perseverance's Four-Legged Companion is Ready - NASA

On May 3rd 2022 Ingenuity’s team of engineers and scientists got their first hint of the hardship to come when they opened their comm logs to find radio silence.
mars.nasa.gov

mastodon - Link to source
Twitter

Okay, people have been joking about it, but it's now official: Musk pressured Twitter engineers into pushing him to the top of everyone's feeds.

platformer.news/p/yes-elon-mus…


Yes, Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first

After his Super Bowl tweet did worse numbers than President Biden’s, Twitter’s CEO ordered major changes to the algorithm
Zoë Schiffer (Platformer)
in reply to Chris 🌱

glitchsoc - Link to source

Fifi Lamoura

re: Twitter
He's very definitely a clinical narcissist, brushing up against any reality that challenges his grandiosity is going to both enrage and crush him. He's an intensely needy narcissist too, probably because he's been so surrounded by people covering and kissing his ass for him constantly. He's likely incredibly easy to manipulate for anyone smarter than himself (which seems to be many people). He's basically Trump, these guys can be very interchangeable because they're ultimately all image and entirely hollow inside. (I suspect Musk finds it incredibly difficult, and probably quite terrifying and depressing, to spend any time alone.)

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Dear @Thunderbird ,
I know you are changing for the better. However while testing Thunderbird 111 daily I would like to see some gradual improvements so it becomes ready for most userf of Thunderbird 115 in terms of #screenreader #accessibility once it's declared stable.

Positive things I have noticed:

We have brand new message list that no longer renders all the messages in selected folder at once but only those that are visible on the screen and ready for the user interaction. From my point of view it looks similar to infinite lists on mobile platforms. Most importantly it almost fully elliminates enormous lag when browsing huge message lists on linux with #orca #screenreader running. I was curious enough and I have tested imap folder with up to 75000 messages inside.

It is still possible to use F6 and shift+F6 to move the keyboard focus from the folder tree to the message list and back.

Message list has headers that are used for sorting and a popup menu for setting up visible columns almost from the begining of Thunderbird existence. From now on these controls are finally accessible to screenreader users. And we are now able to configure sorting and show / hide individual columns.

We can still use ctrl+shift+k to show / hide the filter entry. Also there are accessible buttons alongside the filter entry that allow quick filtering the list such as labelled messages, messages with attachments, starred messages, messages from addressbook contacts, unread messages, even ability to keep the filter active when changing folders. Some of these features were already there earlier but now these are accessible to keyboard users including screenreader users.

Now features that need some polishing:

It appears we can now open individual message folders on a new tab / in a new window however this feature needs some fixes. For example when navigating using up and down arrow keys in the folder tree, pressing shift+F10 first moves focus to the parent folder and displays popup menu for that parent item instead of currently selected one.

When navigating in huge list new selection is not properly reported to assistive technologies while scrolling. For example press end to move to the last message. Now press up arrow key several times to navigate back a message and notice how screenreader is reporting new selection as it happens. Now press the page up key to move the selection by the larger increment. New message is highlighted but the selection changed event is not fired properly or it's getting mixed with some spurious focus event on an unlabelled pannel. Some screen readers are able to filter out these but I think it would be nice to address it at the source rather than working it around.

Now the main window has a lot of focusable controls and it is no longer comfortable to use tab and shift+tab to navigate. It would be nice if buttons were grouped in a toolbar like controls implementing toolbar pattern the way it's explained at
w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/t…

It's nice that ability to reconfigure message list columns is now fully accessible to keyboard and screen reader users however accessible name of each item in the message list does not yet respect these settings. Subject is the only content that is communicated to assistive tools when navigating in the list using arrow keys. This is major issue and will likely be considered as a regression if it won't be addressed before releasing the stable version.

When navigating in the list of messages it is possible to select multiple messages for executing actions on them. I am afraid the fact multiple messages are selected or not selected is not properly communicated to assistive tools. This is major issue for screenreader users.

It is no longer possible to use applications key / shift+f10 to inwoke a popup menu in the message list.

#Accessibility #screenreader #orca @Thunderbird: Free Your Inbox

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Really wild to lay off 8,000 people then go on a press tour about how you took a 10-day vacation and turned off your devices so you couldn't see the mean things people were saying about you. businessinsider.com/salesforce…

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took 10-day digital detox after layoffs

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told NYT he went to French Polynesia for a device-free trip after layoffs, and said the "digital detox" was "freeing."
Britney Nguyen (Insider)

mastodon - Link to source

Here's one of the lesser known ancient Chinese sayings. Still worth living by:

~~ Any day can be made better by synthesizing a kick drum with Geonkick. ~~
- Sun Tzu (most likely)

youtu.be/EtWSnbmdB9w
github.com/free-sm/geonkick

#MusicProduction #FOSS #OpenSource #Geonkick #Drums #SoundDesign #DrumSynthesis


GitHub - free-sm/geonkick: A free software percussion synthesizer for GNU/Linux

A free software percussion synthesizer for GNU/Linux - GitHub - free-sm/geonkick: A free software percussion synthesizer for GNU/Linux
GitHub
#foss #opensource #musicproduction #sounddesign #geonkick #drums #DrumSynthesis

mastodon - Link to source

Let us introduce you to an AweSIM couple❤️

Get 30 days of AweSIM prepaid cellular plan free with a new Librem 5 USA phone.

Check AweSIM and use the coupon code TRYAWESIM when you checkout.

Get the details here➡️

puri.sm/posts/try-awesim/?mtm_…

Try AweSIM with Your Own Pre-Configured Librem USA phone – Purism

Purism makes premium phones, laptops, mini PCs and servers running free software on PureOS. Purism products respect people's privacy and freedom while protecting their security.
Purism SPC

glitchsoc - Link to source

A new cool #3dprinted crates for AA an AAA batteries 😁🔋📦
thingiverse.com/make:1087721

Btw I have to recalibrate the printer. It took me 3 failed trials to get to this quite ok result.

A small crate with a design imitating a standard beer crate
Instead of beer bottles it stores 12 AA batteries or 20 AAA batteries
The same as beer crates, these battery crates are stackable.

Thingiverse - Digital Designs for Physical Objects

Download files and build them with your 3D printer, laser cutter, or CNC. Thingiverse is a universe of things.
www.thingiverse.com
#3dprinted

mastodon - Link to source

#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid today with 12 updated and 2 new apps:

* Kernel Flasher: flash, backup, and restore kernels
* Simple Raw Camera: a simple camera for Android

Enjoy your #free #Android #apps with #FDroid and the #IzzySoftRepo :awesome:


IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository

This is a repository of apps to be used with F-Droid. Applications in this repository are official binaries built by the original application developers, taken from their resp. repositories (mostly Github).
IzzyOnDroid App Repo
#android #free #fdroid #apps #AndroidAppRain #IzzySoftRepo

mastodon - Link to source

“Automated testing won’t solve web accessibility”
yatil.net/blog/automated-testi…

Eric carries my automated testing post to its logical conclusion, more explicitly than I did. He also points out where it can/should live in a process.


Automated testing won’t solve web accessibility · Eric Eggert

Over the past few years, accessibility companies have started to develop tools that claim to find accessibility problems automatically. Often the idea is that “automated testing is not quite there yet, but in a few years there will be a revolution”.
Eric Eggert
in reply to Adrian Roselli

mastodon - Link to source

Adrian Roselli

“Automation is not the enemy”
karlgroves.com/automation-is-n…

Karl argues a different point, which is not the opposite of Eric’s.

I agree automation is not the enemy, I also agree automation will not solve web #accessibility. It’s nice when #a11y practitioners agree on things.


Automation is not the enemy - Karl Groves

Before you read this, I want you to spend a few moments looking around where you are right now. Ponder, for a moment, the furniture you’re sitting on, the room you’re sitting in, and the computer you’re reading this on.
karlgroves@gmail.com (karlgroves.com)
#a11y #Accessibility

mastodon - Link to source
It's March 2, 2019: has the current podcast boom busted yet?rolandtanglao.com/2019/03/02/p… Fast forward to February 13, 2023 and yes it has! semafor.com/article/02/12/2023…

How Spotify's podcast bet went wrong | Semafor

Inside Spotify's turn away from podcasting, which has triggered a harsh winter for the small studios it helped support as they consolidate and lavish narrative productions wane.
Max Tani (www.semafor.com)

mastodon - Link to source

Let's celebrate: It's #ILoveFreeSoftwareDay! 😍

On #ValentinesDay we are saying 'Thank you' with a software donation to all open source developers out there. It's your awesome work that makes so many products so great, including Tutanota! ♥️🙏

tutanota.com/blog/posts/love-f…

Tutanota team celebrating I Love Free Software Day

Let's celebrate: It's I Love Free Software Day!

On Valentine's Day we are saying 'Thank you' with a software donation to all open source developers out there.
Tutanota
#valentinesday #ilovefreesoftwareday

mastodon - Link to source
Short, great, infuriating post by @andy about JS bloat and needing a performant website during an emergency situation. andy-bell.co.uk/this-is-why-pe…

This is why performance matters

I just had a power cut and wanted to check how long it would be out for. The UK Power Networks power outage tool is handy for that, but there’s a problem: I only had a 3G network connection and the…
Andy Bell
@Andy Bell

mastodon - Link to source
Dangerous Design: Why We Need to Think about Design Ethics / Kate Every #ID24 2022 youtube.com/watch?v=gN3sLpSqwu… #ethics #design

Dangerous Design: Why We Need to Think about Design Ethics / Kate Every #id24 2022

What do we mean when we talk about ethical design? And why is it important? This talk will give some concrete examples of where tech has gone wrong, and give...
YouTube
#ethics #design #id24

mastodon - Link to source
This week in @Podnews Weekly Review, @james and @samsethi talk about transcription for podcasts using Whisper.CPP.
Get a podcast app that supports transcripts here:
👉 podnews.net/article/new-podcas…

New podcast apps

New podcast apps for Podcasting 2.0
James Cridland (Podnews)
@Sam Sethi ⁂ @Podnews podcasting news :pn: @James Cridland

mastodon - Link to source
Drugs, homelessness, child abuse, sexual assault

I've just finished A Fish Has No Word For Water: A punk homeless San Francisco memoir by @violetblue. You may know her from The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy.

The memoir is searing. Just look at the first page.

And I didn't expect to learn all this about the history of AIDS or homelessness in San Francisco.

You can get it on Amazon etc. or direct from the author: digitapub.com/collections/fron…

#reading

Screenshot. Introduction. There are reasons for San Francisco’s homeless crisis, but no one remembers what they are. My mother was a hacker and Stanford engineering graduate. When I was a little girl, she worked as a radio signal jammer for a US government contractor in Silicon Valley. She was single, so she picked up a second job: negotiating the import and sale of cocaine from South America into the San Francisco Bay Area. My mother was a very popular techie and she took me to all the parties. Her clients made sure I had all the games and computer equipment others only dreamed of. I spent my days as a ten-year-old cutting and packaging large amounts of coke and watching my mother and her tech-elite companions unravel, until someone got shot and then everything fell apart.

A Fish Has No Word For Water: A punk homeless San Francisco memoir

Her mother was a hacker-for-hire and drug dealer to Silicon Valley's elite; after everything went wrong she was homeless and alone on San Francisco streets at the age of thirteen.
Violet Blue ®
#reading @Violet Blue

mastodon - Link to source
Are you sure you need an SPA? Probably not. "Why I'm not the biggest fan of Single Page Applications" matuzo.at/blog/2023/single-pag… Great points by @matuzo #webdev #spa #webperf

Why I'm not the biggest fan of Single Page Applications

Sometimes it seems like accessibility experts and other web professionals hate JavaScript. This might be true for some, but most understand that JavaScript can be useful for improving UX and even accessibility.
Why I'm not the biggest fan of Single Page Applications
#webdev #webperf #spa @Manuel Matuzović

DennisL reshared this.

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🙏 you to all #freesoftware enthusiasts, contributors, designers, developers, translators, advocates, users💛 Have a look for more inspiring messages to
@nextcloud @Blender @libreoffice @debian @AntennaPod #ilovefs
media.fsfe.org/w/p/u3Ep8hRP5vF…

I Love Free Software

We often underestimate the power of a simple Thank You. Free Software contributors do important work for our society and they deserve attention.
FSFE-Tube
#FreeSoftware #ilovefs @AntennaPod @LibreOffice @Nextcloud 📱☁️💻 @Debian @Blender 🔶

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