What if you had smart clothing that could measure your effort – but also was washable? CC-licensed photo by Tyler Read on Flickr.
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No post today at the Social Warming Substack. Perhaps next week?
A selection of 9 links for you. Stretched. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.
Report reveals internal chaos behind Apple’s Siri failure • MacRumors
Hartley Charlton:
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More than half a dozen former employees who worked in Apple’s AI and machine-learning group told The Information that poor leadership is to blame for its problems with execution, citing an overly relaxed culture, as well as a lack of ambition and appetite for taking risks when designing future versions of Siri .
Apple’s AI/ML group has been dubbed “AIMLess” internally, while employees are said to refer to Siri as a “hot potato” that is continually passed between different teams with no significant improvements. There were also conflicts about higher pay, faster promotions, longer vacations, and shorter days for colleagues in the AI group.
…Apple started a project codenamed “Link” to develop voice commands to control apps and complete tasks for the Vision Pro, with plans to allow users to navigate the web and resize windows with voice alone, as well as support commands from multiple people in a shared virtual space to collaborate. Most of these features were dropped because of the Siri team’s inability to achieve them.
The report claims that the demo of Apple Intelligence ‘s most impressive features at WWDC 2024, such as where Siri accesses a user’s emails to find real-time flight data and provides a reminder about lunch plans using messages and plots a route in maps, was effectively fictitious. The demo apparently came as a surprise to members of the Siri team, who had never seen working versions of the capabilities.
The only feature from the WWDC demonstration that was activated on test devices was Apple Intelligence ‘s pulsing, colorful ribbon around the edge of the display. The decision to showcase an artificial demonstration was a major departure from Apple’s past behavior, where it would only show features and products at its events that were already working on test devices and that its marketing team had approved to ensure they could be released on schedule.
Some Apple employees are said to be optimistic that Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell can turn Siri around.
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This is another bombshell landing on Apple’s AI ambitions. Another part of the report suggests that the software group under Federighi amassed a huge number of its own AI/ML engineers – implying that the AIMLess group (they’re never going to live that down unless they absolutely blow the doors off within a year) simply wasn’t trusted to get anything done.
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Meta whistleblower alleges work with China on censorship • BBC News
Lily Jamali:
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A Meta whistleblower told US senators on Wednesday that the company undermined national security in order to build a $18 billion business in China.
At a congressional hearing, Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former global public policy director at Facebook, said she watched as executives decided to provide the Chinese Communist Party with access to the data of Meta users, including that of Americans.
Meta has disputed Ms Wynn-Williams’s statements. “Sarah Wynn-Williams’ testimony is divorced from reality and riddled with false claims,” said Meta spokesman Ryan Daniels.
Mr Daniels said CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been public about the company’s interest in offering its services in China, but added. “[T]he fact is this: we do not operate our services in China today.”
Meta does, however, generate advertising revenue from advertisers based in China. [Oops! – Overspill Ed.]
During her testimony before a Senate judiciary subcommittee, Ms Wynn-Williams also alleged the parent company of Facebook and Instagram worked “hand in glove” with Beijing to build censorship tools aimed at silencing critics of the Chinese Community Party.
Specifically, she said Meta capitulated to China’s demands that it delete the Facebook account of Guo Wengui, a Chinese dissident living in the US.
Meta maintains it unpublished Mr Guo’s page and suspended his profile because it violated the company’s Community Standards.
“One thing the Chinese Communist Party and Mark Zuckerberg share is that they want to silence their critics. I can say that from personal experience,” Ms Wynn-Williams said during her testimony.
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Senator Josh Hawley said Meta has threatened to sue Wynn-Williams for $50,000 for “each material violation” of her non-disparagement agreement. Meta “declined to directly respond” when the BBC asked it whether she’d be sued for talking to Congress.
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Speaking truth to tech gods: I return to TED • How to Survive the Broligarchy
Carole Cadwalladr:
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In 2019, I gave a talk at TED that created waves: first at the conference, then on the internet and then, convulsively, in my own life. TED is Silicon Valley’s sacred ground. It’s the most consequential tech conference in the world and, in 2019, my talk entitled “Facebook’s role in Brexit – and the threat to democracy” was a break with normal service. It was the first time, a speaker had implicated Silicon Valley directly in the political tumult of 2016. It ricocheted out of the conference and across the internet where it’s now been seen five million times. And, most cataclysmically of all, it precipitated a lawsuit that devoured my time, energy and health.
This week I returned.
It was a big deal on any number of levels. For me, personally, for TED, and, I believe, or at least, hope, for Silicon Valley. I got to send a message to the leaders of these companies from a platform that is inside the temple. I’ve lost my voice and I feel like I’ve lived through a tornado….but with the knowledge that it’s one I’ve chosen to unleash.
TED has just released it as the first talk from the conference. I got to name what is happening for what it is: a coup. I call the Silicon Valley companies who attend this conference and even sponsor it, collaborators who are complicit in a regime of fear and cruelty. And I accuse Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who is talking here on Friday not just of data theft but data rape.
There’s so much to say and I will write more soon but for now I’d be so grateful if you watch it and share it with your families and friends. In spite of everything, I’m grateful to have been given this platform and to be able to communicate what I believe are vital truths but I have paid a price for doing this work and the last week has been a rollercoaster of emotions: doubt, self-questioning, denial, overwhelm, fear.
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Cadwalladr has gone through the most incredible mental assault course since that first talk. And The Observer, for which she wrote, is now owned (mostly?) by Tortoise rather than the Guardian Media Group. (Thanks Ian C for the link.)
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Court document reveals locations of WhatsApp victims targeted by NSO spyware • TechCrunch
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai:
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NSO Group’s notorious spyware Pegasus was used to target 1,223 WhatsApp users in 51 different countries during a 2019 hacking campaign, according to a new court document.
The document was published on Friday 4 April as part of the lawsuit that Meta-owned WhatsApp filed against NSO Group in 2019, accusing the surveillance tech maker of exploiting a vulnerability in the chat app to target hundreds of users, including more than 100 human rights activists, journalists, and “other members of civil society.”
At the time, WhatsApp said around 1,400 users had been targeted. Now, an exhibit published in the court document shows exactly in what countries 1,223 specific victims were located when they were targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.
The country breakdown is a rare insight into which NSO Group customers may be more active, and where their victims and targets are located.
The countries with the most victims of this campaign are Mexico, with 456 individuals; India, with 100; Bahrain with 82; Morocco, with 69; Pakistan, with 58; Indonesia, with 54; and Israel, with 51, according to a chart titled “Victim Country Count,” that WhatsApp submitted as part of the case.
There are also victims in Western countries like Spain (21 victims), the Netherlands (11), Hungary (8), France (7), United Kingdom (2), and one victim in the United States.
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An antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission • Penn Today
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more common viral diseases also contribute to global health challenges and economic costs. For example, seasonal influenza epidemics occur annually, causing a substantial global disease burden and economic losses exceeding $11.2bn each year in the United States alone. Meanwhile, herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1), spread primarily through oral contact, infects over two-thirds of the global population and is the leading cause of infectious blindness in Western countries.
Low vaccination rates for influenza viruses and the lack of an HSV vaccine underscore the need for a new approach—one that targets reducing viral loads at the sites where transmission occurs. And for viruses like these, which are transmitted more efficiently through the mouth than the nose, this means focusing on the oral cavity.
Now, in a study published in Molecular Therapy, researchers at the School of Dental Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and collaborators in Finland, have done just that.
Building on their previous work—now in clinical trial—showing that a similar approach was able to reduce SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 patient saliva or swab samples by more than 95%, Henry Daniell, W.D. Miller Professor in Penn’s School of Dental Medicine, and collaborators tested the ability of a chewing gum made from lablab beans, Lablab purpureus—that naturally contain an antiviral trap protein (FRIL)—to neutralize two herpes simplex viruses (HSV-1 and HSV-2) and two influenza A strains (H1N1 and H3N2). The chewing gum formulation allowed for effective and consistent release of FRIL at sites of viral infection.
They demonstrated that 40mg of a two-gram bean gum tablet was adequate to reduce viral loads by more than 95%, a reduction similar to what they saw in their SARS-CoV-2 study.
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Nice flex: AI-powered smart clothing logs posture, exercises • Cornell Chronicle
Patricia Waldron:
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Researchers at Cornell have developed a new type of smart clothing that can track a person’s posture and exercise routine but looks, wears – and washes – just like a regular shirt.
The new technology, called SeamFit, uses flexible conductive threads sewn into the neck, arm and side seams of a standard short-sleeved T-shirt. The user does not need to manually log their workout, because an artificial intelligence pipeline detects movements, identifies the exercise and counts reps. Afterward, the user simply removes a circuit board at the back neckline, and tosses the sweaty shirt into the washing machine.
The team envisions that SeamFit could be useful for athletes, fitness enthusiasts and patients engaged in physical therapy.
Most existing body-tracking clothing is tight and restrictive or embedded with chunky sensors, according to Catherine Yu, a doctoral student in the field of information science and lead researcher on the project.
“We were interested in how we can make clothing smart without making it bulky or unusable,” Yu said, “and to push the practicality, so that people can treat it the way they would usually treat their clothing.”
Alternatively, athletes can choose fitness trackers, like smartwatches or rings, but these are extra devices that people may not want to wear while exercising, and can’t track movement across the entire body.
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Not feeling sufficiently bullied by your smartwatch? Have we got something for you.
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France to tighten mobile phone ban in middle schools • The Guardian
Angelique Chrisafis:
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France is to tighten its ban on the use of mobile phones in middle schools, making pupils at the ages of 11 to 15 shut away their devices in a locker or pouch at the start of the day and access them again only as they are leaving.
The education minister told the senate she wanted children to be fully separated from their phones throughout the school day in all French middle schools from September.
Élisabeth Borne said: “At a time when the use of screens is being widely questioned because of its many harmful effects, this measure is essential for our children’s wellbeing and success at school.”
In 2018, France banned children from using mobile phones in all middle schools – known as collèges. Phones must remain switched off in schoolbags and cannot be used anywhere in the school grounds, including at break-time.
Schools have reported a positive effect, with more social interaction, more physical exercise, less bullying and better concentration. But some did report a few children would sneak into the toilets to watch videos on phones at break.
Now the government says it is necessary to go further, fully separating children from their devices for the entire school day.
This enforced “digital pause” – as the French government calls it – has been tested in a pilot scheme in about 100 middle schools for the past six months, with children giving up their phones on arrival – placing them a locker or box, or in a special locked pouch that can only be unlocked by an electronic system at the school gates as they go home.
Devices are banned in primary schools.
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They must be watching Adolescence and thinking “quoi?“
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Trump administration backs off Nvidia’s ‘H20’ chip crackdown • NPR
Emily Feng and Bobby Allyn:
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When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attended a $1m-a-head dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week, a chip known as the H20 may have been on his mind.
That’s because chip industry insiders widely expected the Trump administration to impose curbs on the H20, the most cutting-edge AI chip U.S. companies can legally sell to China, a crucial market to one of the world’s most valuable companies.
Following the Mar-a-Lago dinner, the White House reversed course on H20 chips, putting the plan for additional restrictions on hold, according to two sources with knowledge of the plan who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The planned American export controls on the H20 had been in the works for months, according to the two sources, and were ready to be implemented as soon as this week.
The change of course from the White House came after Nvidia promised the Trump administration new U.S. investments in AI data centers, according to one of the sources.
American lawmakers have been pressuring the Trump administration for weeks to place stricter curbs on cutting edge technology related to artificial intelligence. In February, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., jointly called for export controls on the H20 chip after Chinese tech company DeepSeek unveiled a breakthrough AI chatbot that stunned the world in January.
The Trump administration’s decision to allow Chinese firms to continue to purchase H20 chips is a major victory for the country, said Chris Miller, a Tufts University history professor and semiconductor expert.
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Miller’s reasoning: China is “critically reliant” on Nvidia’s chips.
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American Disruption • Stratechery
Ben Thompson:
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The key distinguishing feature of a better plan is that it doesn’t seek to own supply, but rather control it in a way the U.S. does not today.
First, blanket tariffs are a mistake. I understand the motivation: a big reason why Chinese imports to the U.S. have actually shrunk over the last few years is because a lot of final assembly moved to countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, etc. Blanket tariffs stop this from happening, at least in theory.
The problem, however, is that those final assembly jobs are the least desirable jobs in the value chain, at least for the American worker; assuming the Trump administration doesn’t want to import millions of workers — that seems rather counter to the foundation of his candidacy! — the United States needs to find alternative trustworthy countries for final assembly. This can be accomplished through selective tariffs (which is exactly what happened in the first Trump administration).
Secondly, using trade flows to measure the health of the economic relationship with these countries — any country, really, but particularly final assembly countries — is legitimately stupid. Go back to the iPhone: the value-add of final assembly is in the single digit dollar range; the value-add of Apple’s software, marketing, distribution, etc. is in the hundreds of dollars. Simply looking at trade flows — where an imported iPhone is calculated as a trade deficit of several hundred dollars — completely obscures this reality. Moreover, the criteria for a final assembly country is that they have low wages, which by definition can’t pay for an equivalent amount of U.S. goods to said iPhone.
…I get the allure of blanket tariffs; politics is often the art of the possible, and the perfect is the enemy of the good. The problem is this approach simply isn’t good: it’s actively detrimental to what should be the U.S.’s goals. It’s also ignoring the power of demand: China would supply factories in the U.S., even if the point of those factories was to displace China, because supply needs to sell. This is how you move past disruption: you not only exert control on alternatives to China, you exert control on China itself.
Fourth, there remains the problem of chips. Trump just declared economic war on China, which definitionally increases the possibility of kinetic war. A kinetic war, however, will mean the destruction of TSMC, leaving the U.S. bereft of chips at the very moment that A.I. is poised to create tremendous opportunities for growth and automation. And, even if A.I. didn’t exist, it’s enough to note that modern life would grind to a halt without chips.
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Thompson thinks there is, broadly, a coherent vision somewhere in the cloud of Trump’s tariff announcements. My only wish is that he imposed a word limit on himself: sometimes he over-quotes from himself. (Sure, I’m a fine one to talk. Even so.)
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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. |
Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified
The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 