The dreams of TV makers that they could persuade us all to buy 8K TVs have collided with the reality that.. we are fine with 4K. CC-licensed photo by JC on Flickr.
You can sign up to receive each day’s Start Up post by email. You’ll need to click a confirmation link, so no spam.
A selection of 9 links for you. This should be a hacking joke, really*. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.
The TV industry finally concedes that the future may not be in 8K • Ars Technica
Scharon Harding:
»
Technology companies spent part of the 2010s trying to convince us that we would want an 8K display one day.
In 2012, Sharp brought the first 8K TV prototype to the CES trade show in Las Vegas. In 2015, the first 8K TVs started selling in Japan for 16 million yen (about $133,034 at the time), and in 2018, Samsung released the first 8K TVs in the US, starting at a more reasonable $3,500. By 2016, the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) had a specification for supporting 8K (Display Port1.4), and the HDMI Forum followed suit (with HDMI 2.1). By 2017, Dell had an 8K computer monitor. In 2019, LG released the first 8K OLED TV, further pushing the industry’s claim that 8K TVs were “the future.”
However, 8K never proved its necessity or practicality.
LG Display is no longer making 8K LCD or OLED panels, FlatpanelsHD reported today. Earlier this month, an LG Display representative told FlatpanelsHD that the panel supplier is “taking a comprehensive view of current display market trends and the trends within the 8K content ecosystem… As our technical readiness is already complete, LG Display is fully prepared to respond immediately whenever the market and customers determine that the timing is right.”
LG Electronics was the first and only company to sell 8K OLED TVs, starting with the 88in Z9 in 2019. In 2022, it lowered the price-of-entry for an 8K OLED TV by $7,000 by charging $13,000 for a 76.7in TV.
FlatpanelsHD cited anonymous sources who said that LG Electronics would no longer restock the 2024 QNED99T, which is the last LCD 8K TV that it released.
LG’s 8K abandonment follows other brands distancing themselves from 8K. TCL, which released its last 8K TV in 2021, said in 2023 that it wasn’t making more 8K TVs due to low demand. Sony discontinued its last 8K TVs in April and is unlikely to return to the market, as it plans to sell the majority ownership of its Bravia TVs to TCL.
«
I thought that technology (or TV) companies tried to persuade us that we would want 3D TVs, and that failed too. So we’ve reached a sort of technological endpoint for TV: 4K is all anybody wants.
unique link to this extract
See through the architectural BS • AntiRender
Magnus Hambleton:
»
Upload an architectural render. Get back what it’ll actually look like on a random Tuesday in November.
No sunshine. No happy families. No impossibly green trees. Just cold, honest, depressing reality.
«
The examples provided are terrific (wet streets, leafless winter trees, cloudy diffuse light), and using this should be compulsory for all future architecture projects. Hambleton says it’s “powered by AI and disappointment”, which seems pretty accurate.
unique link to this extract
I test drove a Chinese EV. Now I don’t want to buy American cars anymore • WSJ
Joanna Stern:
»
The Xiaomi SU7 Max—like other Chinese-made cars—is effectively blocked from the U.S. market. And yet, late last year, I spent two weeks test-driving one of China’s hottest cars around the mean streets of New Jersey. A friend who previously worked at Xiaomi bought the car and got a temporary permit to drive it in the U.S. He generously let me take it for an extended spin.
My time with the car confirmed what experts in the auto industry have long been saying: Holy crap, China is winning the digitally enhanced electric-car race.
Chinese EV makers such as Xiaomi, BYD and Geely have earned global accolades because their cars deliver longer battery ranges and deeply integrated digital platforms. We’re talking software that feels smooth like a brand new smartphone, not a screen you have to jab five times to load a map. Plus, they often cost tens of thousands of dollars less than Western competitors. In Europe and Mexico, they’re blowing past Tesla and other EV rivals.
“The competitive reality is that the Chinese are the 700-pound gorilla in the EV industry,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told me in an interview last year. “There’s no real competition from Tesla, GM or Ford with what we’ve seen from China.” Even Farley, after driving a Xiaomi SU7, said he didn’t want to part with it. The company is now rebuilding its EVs, starting with a $30,000 pickup, to compete directly with what they have seen from China.
I didn’t understand it all until my Xiaomi tryst. I fell for the SU7 Max inside and out, and now I’m left wanting what I can’t have—at least for now. There are growing signs Americans might not have to wait forever to experience China’s superior take on the EV.
…As Americans, we don’t live in the Xiaomi universe. It’s like if Apple had actually built the long-rumored Apple Car and everything just…worked.
«
It even hitches into Apple CarPlay, which is more than Tesla (or, I think, Rivian) does. (Article is free to read.)
unique link to this extract
EV adoption leads to rapid and significant cuts in air pollution, new data shows • The Driven
Joshua Hill:
»
In a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal, researchers from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC) have reported the first statistically significant decrease in nitrogen dioxide linked to zero-emission vehicles.
While there have been a number of studies promising improvements to air pollution levels associated with EV adoption, virtually all these studies have been based on projections of benefits rather than actual improvements.
Using measurements of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) air pollution from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) aboard the European Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) satellite, the researchers were able to show a reduction in NO₂ levels corresponding to the uptake of EVs across California.
The researchers found that for every 200 ZEVs added in California between 2019 and 2023 there was a corresponding 1.1% reduction in NO2 levels.
The research builds on a 2023 study by Keck researchers that suggested ZEV adoption was linked to lower air pollution levels, based on ground-level monitors, though at the time the results were not definitive.
The same research team has now been able to confirm the link thanks to high-resolution satellite data which detects atmospheric NO₂ – a pollutant released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and which can trigger asthma attacks, cause bronchitis, and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke – by measuring how the gas absorbs and reflects sunlight.
“This immediate impact on air pollution is really important because it also has an immediate impact on health,” said Erika Garcia, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine and the study’s senior author.
«
California has high adoption of EVs due to various financial incentives. And it certainly needs to reduce air pollution caused by cars.
unique link to this extract
Backseat software • Mike Swanson’s Blog
Mike Swanson:
»
What if your car worked like so many apps? You’re driving somewhere important…maybe running a little bit late. A few minutes into the drive, your car pulls over to the side of the road and asks:
“How are you enjoying your drive so far?”
Annoyed by the interruption, and even more behind schedule, you dismiss the prompt and merge back into traffic.
A minute later it does it again.“Did you know I have a new feature? Tap here to learn more.”
It blocks your speedometer with an overlay tutorial about the turn signal. It highlights the wiper controls and refuses to go away until you demonstrate mastery.
Ridiculous, of course.
And yet, this is how a lot of modern software behaves. Not because it’s broken, but because we’ve normalized an interruption model that would be unacceptable almost anywhere else.
…One of the most bizarre contradictions in modern software is that the people building these engagement systems don’t like them either!
Ask anyone who works on onboarding popups, feature tours, lifecycle messaging, or in-app announcements how they feel when an app interrupts them mid-flow to announce something they didn’t ask for. The answer is almost always the same.
They hate it! Or at least they’re annoyed.
Find me the telemarketer who likes being called during their own dinner. The job exists because it works enough in aggregate, not because anyone enjoys being on either end of it.
So why does it keep happening? Because inside companies, the incentives are clear and the measurements are easy. You can measure clicks and track whether they led to a “completion.” You can measure whether a nudge led to the next step in the funnel.
«
Very fun essay. He seems to put a lot of the blame on Apple’s push notifications, dating to 2009. But if Apple hadn’t, someone would have.
unique link to this extract
Polish grid systems targeted in cyberattack had little security, per new report • Zero Day
Kim Zetter:
»
The intruders were able to easily access numerous systems at the affected facilities because the systems were configured with default usernames and password and did not use multi-factor authentication that would have helped keep intruders out even if they discovered the default credentials.
The attackers were in the heat-and-power plant’s network at least five to nine months before they unleashed malicious code on more than 100 of the plant’s workstations that was aimed at wiping files and rendering the systems inoperable. Luckily the wiping triggered an alert in an intrusion-detection system, which succeeded to halt the wiping before it could destroy the systems. This wasn’t the case at the wind and solar farms, however, where a wiper did succeed in rendering inoperable some devices used for monitoring and controlling grid systems.
Despite this, the attackers were never able to disrupt power, though it’s not clear if this was their end goal. But even if the attackers had succeeded to disrupt electricity generation at all 30 sites that the attackers had accessed, investigators say based on the combined amount of energy these sites produced it “would not have affected the stability of the Polish power system during the period in question” had the attackers succeeded to cut power. This is in contrast to previous statements by Polish officials that the attackers were in a position to cut power to 500,000 users had they tried to do so.
The new information comes in a detailed technical report issued on Friday by Poland’s Computer Emergency Response Team, which provides a more expansive look at how the coordinated attack unfolded and the poor security that enabled it.
«
Cost overruns and delays force Saudi Arabia to rethink Neom • The Observer
Ruth Michaelson:
»
The 2029 Asian Winter Games in Saudi Arabia have been postponed. They were due to be held at a desert ski resort within Neom, a futuristic city state under construction on the Red Sea.
Neom has become a boondoggle of epic proportions. The estimated $1.5trn development is a key plank of Vision 2030, an ambitious plan by the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to wean the kingdom off oil. But beset by cost overruns and construction delays, the project
• has been under financial review since last year
• could be dramatically scaled down; and
• reflects the broader difficulties affecting the Saudi economy.…At its heart is a 500m-tall mirror metropolis called The Line. Stretching for 100 miles and designed to house nine million people, it has no roads and will be connected by a high-speed railway. It incorporates a $140bn ‘hidden marina’ for cruise ships.
Sceptics have long doubted The Line’s feasibility. Now it is reportedly being scaled back and there has been talk of mass layoffs. Another project under review is Trojena, a ski resort dusted by artificial snow and adorned by a crystal skyscraper. It was supposed to be ready by 2026 but has been delayed by engineering snafus.
The only completed part of Neom is Sindalah, a luxury yachting island resort. Despite a launch party in 2024, it is still not open to the public. MBS reportedly questioned its value for money. Neom’s chief executive Nadhmi al-Nasr departed shortly afterwards.
«
In the same vein, I am scaling back my plans to build a staircase to the Moon.
unique link to this extract
A Paris timeline, from the 3rd century BC to Macron’s era • Substack
This is a video post; it’ll take less than three minutes of your time, and shows how Paris went from a few dwellings on the sides of a river to a capital city encircling the original base.
unique link to this extract
Removing Tahoe’s unwanted menu icons • Rogue Amoeba
Paul Kafasis:
»
Tahoe’s menu icons are distracting. Their tiny size and monochrome nature make distinguishing between icons difficult even on Retina displays. Apple’s implementation of menu icons across the operating system is simply not good.
Attaching icons to only key items is an idea with some potential, and in the initial Tahoe release, only some menu items had icons. Nevertheless, the inconsistencies in indentation and usage that [Jim] Nielsen and [Nikita] Prokopov pointed out led to ugly and confusing menus.
Tahoe updates have made things worse, by cramming in more and more icons. It now seems Apple intends for every menu item to have an icon, which just doesn’t scale. The result is unhelpful clutter that makes scanning far more difficult.
We often take a wait-and-see approach when it comes to Apple’s design changes, and we have not added any menu icons of our own on Tahoe. However, Apple has forced dozens of icons into our applications’ menus. We don’t love the result.
The random icons Apple littered about haphazardly made our menus uglier and less usable. Illustrative examples can be found in Audio Hijack and Farrago, which each contain “Import” and “Export” menu items. In Audio Hijack, Apple placed an icon on the “Export” option, but not on the “Import” option. Meanwhile in Farrago, neither item got an icon at all.
In addition to being inconsistent, Apple’s approach feels uncharacteristically heavy-handed. In the past, the company might have led by example in their own apps, while encouraging developers to follow along. But rather than WWDC sessions to educate and assist, they employed an overzealous tactic of running a search and replace on third-party apps, which has produced poor results.
Since the release of Tahoe, we’ve been stuck with the unattractive menus Apple has imposed upon us. Recently, however, we found we could do better. Thanks to inspiration from our old pal Brent Simmons, we can remove the clutter that’s been foisted upon our apps.
«
This is novel: I can’t recall third-party developers figuring out ways to get around a bad interface implementation that Apple has foisted on them.
unique link to this extract
| • 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: 2600 baud was a frequency used for “phreaking” of touch tone phone systems, and 2600 is the name of a famous hacking magazine.
The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 