While Sonos’s hardware remains popular, the rewrite of its app is universally unpopular. What was changed, and why? CC-licensed photo by The Unwinder on Flickr.
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A selection of 9 links for you. Use them wisely. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.
OpenAI just released SearchGPT. It’s already error prone • The Atlantic
Matteo Wong:
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On Thursday afternoon, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, announced a prototype AI tool that can search the web and answer questions, fittingly called SearchGPT. The launch is designed to hint at how AI will transform the ways in which people navigate the internet—except that, before users have had a chance to test the new program, it already appears error prone.
In a prerecorded demonstration video accompanying the announcement, a mock user types music festivals in boone north carolina in august into the SearchGPT interface. The tool then pulls up a list of festivals that it states are taking place in Boone this August, the first being An Appalachian Summer Festival, which according to the tool is hosting a series of arts events from July 29 to August 16 of this year. Someone in Boone hoping to buy tickets to one of those concerts, however, would run into trouble. In fact, the festival started on June 29 and will have its final concert on July 27. Instead, July 29–August 16 are the dates for which the festival’s box office will be officially closed. (I confirmed these dates with the festival’s box office.)
Other results to the festival query that appear in the demo—a short video of about 30 seconds—seem to be correct. (The chatbot does list one festival that takes place in Asheville, which is a two-hour drive away from Boone.) Kayla Wood, a spokesperson for OpenAI, told me, “This is an initial prototype, and we’ll keep improving it.”
…The demo is reminiscent of any other number of AI self-owns that have happened in recent years. Within days of OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT, which kicked off the generative-AI boom in November 2022, the chatbot spewed sexist and racist bile. In February of 2023, Google Bard, the search giant’s answer to ChatGPT, made an error in its debut that caused the company’s shares to plummet by as much as 9% that day. More than a year later, when Google rolled out AI-generated answers to the search bar, the model told people that eating rocks is healthy and that Barack Obama is Muslim.
Herein lies one of the biggest problems with tech companies’ prophecies about an AI change: Chatbots are supposed to revolutionize first the internet and then the physical world. For now they can’t properly copy-paste from a music festival’s website.
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This machine exposes privacy violations • WIRED
Brian Merchant:
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When you search for where to get an abortion, is sensitive data being tracked and collected? Unfortunately, very possibly so. Is an addiction treatment page or trans porn site exposing your IP address? Quite likely. Countless websites (truly countless—the scope, as we shall see, is nearly incomprehensible) are shipping private data about your web activity directly to the tech giants’ doorsteps. Thanks in part to the efforts of privacy researchers like Libert, we know this already, have known we’re being tracked for years—yet we lack knowledge of the specifics, and we lack agency, so this sea of privacy violations becomes another Bad Thing that happens on an internet teeming with them.
A lot of this leaking data is not just potentially embarrassing, or perhaps harmful to career prospects if it were to be made public, but outright illegal. Over the past half-decade, the European Union, a number of US states, and other governments around the world have enacted laws that restrict what kind of data websites can collect, or require a company to receive consent from a user before it does so. Every day, tech companies may violate those laws when, say, search engines and medical websites trample HIPAA by allowing search logs of users’ ailments to be tracked, documented, and sometimes monetized by companies like Google, or running roughshod over consent rules by turning a blind eye to advertising cookies embedded in publishers’ websites.
This, [Tim] Libert says, is why he developed webXray, a crude prototype of which he’s demoing for me right now. It’s a search engine for rooting out specific privacy violations anywhere on the web. By searching for a specific term or website, you can use webXray to see which sites are tracking you, and where all that data goes. Its mission, he says, is simple; “I want to give privacy enforcers equal technology as privacy violators.” To level the playing field.
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The webXray page is interesting – example searches include “pages on the CDC [Centers for Disease Control] website that expose visitor IP addresses to Google”. Very focused on Google. Now do it for Facebook/Meta.
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Hiker lost on US mountain ignored calls from rescuers because he didn’t recognise the number • The Guardian
Samantha Lock, in 2021:
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The hiker was reported missing around 8pm on 18 October after failing to return to where he was staying, Lake county search and rescue said.
Repeated attempts to contact the man through calls, texts and voicemail messages went ignored, according to a statement released by the agency.
Five rescue team members were deployed at around 10pm to search “high probability areas” on from Mount Elbert but returned around 3am the following morning after failing to locate the missing hiker on the 4401 metre-high (14,440ft) peak.
A second team set out at 7am the next day to search areas where hikers “typically lose the trail” only to discover the man had returned to his place of lodging about 9:30am.
The hiker told authorities he had lost his way around nightfall and “bounced around on to different trails trying to locate the proper trailhead” before finally reaching his car the next morning, about 24 hours after setting out on the hike.
Lake county search and rescue said the man reported having “no idea” anyone was out looking for him.
“One notable take-away is that the subject ignored repeated phone calls from us because they didn’t recognise the number,” the agency added.
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One would imagine things have only got worse in the three years since.
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Automakers sold driver data for pennies, senators say • The New York Times
Kashmir Hill:
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If you drive a car made by General Motors (GM) and it has an internet connection, your car’s movements and exact location are being collected and shared anonymously with a data broker.
This practice, disclosed in a letter sent by Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts to the Federal Trade Commission on Friday, is yet another way in which automakers are tracking drivers, often without their knowledge.
Previous reporting in The New York Times, which the letter cited, revealed how automakers including GM, Honda and Hyundai collected information about drivers’ behaviour, such as how often they slammed on the brakes, accelerated rapidly and exceeded the speed limit. It was then sold to the insurance industry, which used it to help gauge individual drivers’ riskiness.
…One of the surprising findings of an investigation by Mr. Wyden’s office was just how little the automakers made from selling driving data. According to the letter, Verisk paid Honda $25,920 over four years for information about 97,000 cars, or 26 cents per car. Hyundai was paid just over $1m, or 61 cents per car, over six years.
GM would not reveal how much it had been paid, Mr. Wyden’s office said. People familiar with GM’s program previously told The Times that driving behavior data had been shared from more than eight million cars, with the company making an amount in the low millions of dollars from the sale. G.M. also previously shared data with LexisNexis Risk Solutions.
“Companies should not be selling Americans’ data without their consent, period,” the letter from Senators Wyden and Markey stated. “But it is particularly insulting for automakers that are selling cars for tens of thousands of dollars to then squeeze out a few additional pennies of profit with consumers’ private data.”
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I tried Apple Vision Pro and it made me rethink everything • Macworld
David Price:
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I was surprised by how complex the fitting process is, and how tricky it can be to get set up with the optimal Light Seal and headband; a facial scan is supposed to help with this, but my first seal had to be sent back and replaced. Then simply tightening the straps up just the right amount so the weight is distributed comfortably across your forehead and cheeks is more challenging than you might expect, and took some time and various checks before everything was arranged exactly right. This might seem like a complaint, but I was impressed by the commitment and patience shown to make sure the product was at its very best for the demo.
Because it really was worth the wait. Using Vision Pro is an odd experience but an utterly immersive one, thanks to the carefully calibrated fit and exceptionally high-quality hardware. There were several moments in the demo where I gasped, or laughed, or looked around excitedly like a tourist, simply because the headset does such a good job of making you feel like you’re inside its media. The spatial home movies of strangers could have felt artificial (anyone who’s seen the troubling 1995 thriller Strange Days will know roughly what I mean), but the effect is so compelling that it made me think about my own memories and what it would be like to relive them in this format. It was oddly poignant.
…Apple’s patient assistant had to metaphorically hold my hand, since I suspect the interface would have been baffling without assistance. Moving over the years from iPod to iPhone, from iPad to Apple Watch, has always felt like a natural and intuitive evolution, but the Vision Pro is completely new.
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Like me, Price thinks that sports and similar passive content are going to be the real winners here. That, though, depends on Apple actually getting on and capturing some content.
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Steve Jobs knew the moment the future had arrived. It’s calling again • WIRED
Steven Levy:
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Steve Jobs is 28 years old, and seems a little nervous as he starts his speech to a group of designers gathered under a large tent in Aspen, Colorado. He fiddles with his bow tie and soon removes his suit jacket, dropping it to the floor when he finds no other place to set it down. It is 1983, and he’s about to ask designers for their help in improving the look of the coming wave of personal computers. But first he will tell them that those computers will shatter the lives they have led to date.
“How many of you are 36 years … older than 36?” he asks. That’s how old the computer is, he says. But even the younger people in the room, including himself, are sort of “precomputer,” members of the television generation. A distinct new generation, he says, is emerging: “In their lifetimes, the computer will be the predominant medium of communication.”
Quite a statement at the time, considering that very few of the audience, according to Jobs’ impromptu polling, owns a personal computer or has even seen one. Jobs tells the designers that they not only will soon use one, but it will be indispensable, and deeply woven into the fabric of their lives.
The video of this speech is the centerpiece of an online exhibit called The Objects of Our Life, presented by the Steve Jobs Archive, the ambitious history project devoted to telling the story of Apple’s fabled cofounder. When the exhibit went live earlier this month—after the discovery of a long-forgotten VHS tape in Jobs’ personal collection—I found it not only a compelling reminder of the late CEO, but pertinent to our own time, when another new technology is arriving with equal promise and peril.
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That “another new technology” being, in Levy’s view, AI. And that’s probably true, in a sense. But it’s hard to say that Jobs can offer us much more guidance than Douglas Adams’s quote about technologies.
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No, Southwest Airlines is not still using Windows 3.1 • OSnews
Thom Holwerda:
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A story that’s been persistently making the rounds since the CrowdStrike event is that while several airline companies were affected in one way or another, Southwest Airlines escaped the mayhem because they were still using windows 3.1. It’s a great story that fits the current zeitgeist about technology and its role in society, underlining that what is claimed to be technological progress is nothing but trouble, and that it’s better to stick with the old. At the same time, anybody who dislikes Southwest Airlines can point and laugh at the bumbling idiots working there for still using Windows 3.1. It’s like a perfect storm of technology news click and ragebait.
Too bad the whole story is nonsense.
…Let’s start with the actual source of the claim that Southwest Airlines was unaffected by CrowdStrike because they’re still using Windows 3.11 for large parts of their primary systems. This claim is easily traced back to its origin – a tweet by someone called Artem Russakovskii, stating that “the reason Southwest is not affected is because they still run on Windows 3.1”. This tweet formed the basis for virtually all of the stories, but it contains no sources, no links, no background information, nothing. It was literally just this one line.
It turned out be a troll tweet.
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But but but! While Holwerda is very happy to discredit everyone who believed this and didn’t check it (OK, guilty), he doesn’t go the extra step and answer the question: fine, so it’s not Windows 3.1. So which OS is it based around? We don’t know. Turns out the reason it wasn’t affected is.. Southwest Airlines doesn’t use Crowdstrike. (Thanks Seth F for the link.)
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New Zealand “deeply shocked” after Canada drone-spied on its Olympic practices—twice • Ars Technica
Nate Anderson:
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On July 22, the New Zealand women’s football (soccer) team was training in Saint-Étienne, France, for its upcoming Olympics matchup against Canada when team officials noticed a drone hovering near the practice pitch. Suspecting skullduggery, the New Zealand squad called the local police, and gendarmes located and then detained the nearby drone operator. He turned out to be one Joseph Lombardi, an “unaccredited analyst with Canada Soccer”—and he was apparently spying on the New Zealand practice and relaying information to a Canadian assistant coach.
On July 23, the New Zealand Olympic Committee put out a statement saying it was “deeply shocked and disappointed by this incident, which occurred just three days before the sides are due to face each other in their opening game of Paris 2024.” It also complained to the official International Olympic Committee integrity unit.
Early today, July 24, the Canadian side issued its own statement saying that it “stands for fair-play and we are shocked and disappointed. We offer our heartfelt apologies to New Zealand Football, to all the players affected, and to the New Zealand Olympic Committee.”
Later in the day, a follow-up Canadian statement revealed that this was actually the second drone-spying incident; the New Zealand side had also been watched by drone at its July 19 practice.
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As a result, Canada has been docked six points, which might mean it won’t make it out of the group stage to defend its gold medal. But would it have been worse if they’d been peeking through a gap in the fence? Does using a drone make the offence worse?
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What happened to the Sonos app? A technical analysis • LinkedIn
Andy Pennell:
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Sonos have been mostly in denial as to how bad things are, with the app release officially described as “courageous” – well, pissing off a sizable chunk of your existing user base could be called that, I guess. An immediate revert to the old version would have been my suggestion.
Also thanks to the device discovery problems, not only are existing users frustrated with the app not working, but new users who get their shiny Sonos device out of the box and then can’t get the app to work are just going to put it back in the box and return it.
The new app shipped with a lot of features missing from the old app (never a good idea), but over the last two months some of those features have returned in various updates. However Queue management is still AWOL, and that was a key Sonos feature. (It’s also a UX challenge, handling a list of over 30,000 items that can change at any time in a performant way).
While device discovery remains a crapshoot for many, the app store scores are likely to stay in the 1.0 range that they have fallen to in the last two months.
…As many have discovered, the Sonos speakers themselves are still working fine, despite the contrary impression the new mobile apps may give. You can verify this by using the official Desktop apps (which are feature-frozen), or third party software like SonoPhone (for iOS ) or my own Phonos Universal (for Windows/Xbox ). All of these apps use the UPnP APIs, which still work great, for the moment anyway. However, Sonos have stated that they want to deprecate their desktop apps at some unspecific point in the future. If they do, they can then remove UPnP support from the speakers, killing the entire third-party ecosystem built around their products. That would be “courageous” indeed.
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A great writeup of why the Sonos app has suddenly got absolutely terrible: they threw away both the front end and the back end for the rewrite.
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
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