Amazon (AMZN.O) is planning a major revamp of its decade-old money-losing Alexa service to include a conversational generative AI with two tiers of service and has considered a monthly fee of around $5 to access the superior version, according to people with direct knowledge of the company's plans.
You could also argue Apple is heading in an interesting direction with on-device AI. Im ready to switch to Apple TV for fewer ads, as soon as they release a new version capable of on-device AI
Yeah, mighty tempting, especially since I wouldn’t need anywhere near that many. On the assumption the new improved Siri will need on device ai, I’ll go for it when they release that
HA is making good progress toward a home automation voice assistant, which is definitely cool, but I have read about where it works as a general voice assistant. Siri is a good general voice assistant and Apple is making good progress toward home automation, so I’d go in that direction too. As soon as a new HonePod comes out to support on-device AI, I’m in
On the one hand it worked. The cheap price introduced me to something I wouldn’t have bothered with. And the cheap price encouraged me to buy many. Now I count on it. But if it’s not cheap, I have no reason to pick that option
Yep, I’m already too far into the Apple cult, but if they release AirPod and AppleTV with in-device support for new Siri, I’ll be begging them to take my money
… and a Thread radio. I’m not sure what use Apple plans but I’m thrilled my phone has it and plan to get an iPad that has it
As always, while I support their claimed ideals, I can only see them as petty vandals who care more about attention seeking than their cause. They certainly won’t get any of my time or attention. If you’re against Big Oil, protest Big Oil and half the population will agree. If you’re intentionally seeking my outrage with unrelated crap, you got it: rot in jail
It opens my eyes to a bunch of attention seeking vandals who should rot in jail. It’s too bad we don’t have anyone willing to protest Big oil: I could get behind that
This is not scammy advertising where “any attention is good attention”. This is an important cause where we need to build support
They can afford to be unpopular to further the cause.
Sure, no donations, no popular support, they can just be marginalized and ignored as a bunch of extremists. Everyone cheers when the cops cart them off to jail. Yay for attention though
Those who are apathetic about the climate are still going to be apathetic, with a bit of rage
This is where they’re wrong, and where I’m especially frustrated when it’s a cause I agree with. All those middle ground or non-active people who could be wooed as supporters, will now dismiss the cause as a bunch of annoying kooks. Nobody caused change by driving away potential supporters
People don’t just go “a small group I hate cares about climate change so now I don’t care”.
No they don’t, but if I want to talk about the same cause to try to change people’s minds, instead I have to explain away a bunch of extremists and try to get them to take the cause seriously despite those extremists
Do you think some kids are going to be able to buy the support of politicians by outbidding the oil companies?
Politicians care about votes, money is just an easy way to get them. No, a bunch of kids by themselves brings nothing to the table. A bunch of extremists probably never gets to the table. Do you know what’s the only thing that may outrank those corporate interests? Votes. If you bring votes to the table they don’t even have to buy, you’ll get a response
Notice what’s being discussed here. You claim this type of action gets people talking but no one here is discussing their cause nor supporting it
My current company is the first one that does recognize Juneteenth as a holiday, so I assume I have a much longer work history than you.
I’m still not used to it existing so it totally slipped my mind and I would have accidentally come in to work, except one of the overseas guys pointed it out
Was it legal to own a slave who was a woman? Did women legally have the same rights as other women, regardless of skin color?
Clearly there weren’t equal rights, just as clearly as the end of slavery didn’t mean the end of racism, but this event is significant enough to stand on its own
Yeah, my office has a couple free chargers. It’s really not worth the fuss for me since I can charge at home and it’s a short commute but I’m happy to see there’s always a queue
It’s nowhere near as bad as you think. A level 2 charger is essentially an electric stove circuit, and the chargers are only a few hundred dollars. I had to do both this year and there really wasn’t a significant cost difference. I charge once or twice a week for a couple hours. It’s quite reasonable to install a level 2 charger if you have a single family house with off street parking
Or for like $150, I got a full set of adapters to charge pretty much everywhere. In addition to a regular outlet, I can plug into a 240v dryer/powertool/heater/ac outlet, or an RV outlet for a faster charge.
While I do have many charging stations nearby (and I’ll bet that’s far more common in the population than people who don’t), with a home charger, I’ve never had the need to use a public charger less than 100 miles from here
Or I got a fairly cheap set of adapters that also work for 240v dryer/power tool, and RV outlets. I ought to be able to charge by y vehicle pretty much everywhere
There’s no reason to need a garage. Mine is full of kids crap so I never park there, and just had the charger installed on the exterior p of my garage where it’s convenient to my car in the driveway. They’re all weatherproof and it’s not like someone is going to spend hours in your driveway charging their car to steal a couple bucks of electricity. Or, at least for Tesla, every car has a unique identifier, so you can configure a white list of allowed vehicles while blocking every phone else.
If I were expecting to buy a car for $1-2k, I’d expect it to be on its last legs, even for ICE. Unless you’re comfortable fixing it yourself, any significant repair is already not worth it
If you’re looking for a 10,000 pound vehicle, and are not one of a very small percentage that needs it, you have other problems. Yes, EVs are too heavy, but think like 20% heavier that on comparable, it’s not that bad. It’s only excessively huge inefficient trucks that are that heavy. My mid-sized SUV EV is a 4,000 pound explosive, thank you very much.
One of the benefits, if you’re able to install a home charger, is to never really have to think about refueling. Think of it like charging a phone and just get into the habit of charging over night. I need to recharge a couple hours per week, but I never have to go anywhere. When I get home, if the car is below 50%, I plug in. Then It’s always just ready to go without me ever waiting or going anywhere. So much more convenient than gas stations. Granted road trips aren’t as convenient but they’re also not as bad as people fear
I’d expect so. You have the right to remain silent. You do not have the right to destroy evidence. How is wiping your phone any different from running around your house flushing things?
And I don’t understand how this is not a better analogy for phones. Why doesn’t the contents of my phone have the same legal protection as the contents of my house? You may confiscate my key but I do not permit. If you have good reason and sufficient reason, do the damn paperwork and get a judge to sign off
It’s sort of there, but maybe more to protect from criminals than abuses of authorities. All of my bank apps require a second authentication to launch or even to switch back to them.
Granted I could turn it that off or set it to biometrics, but I leave it on PINs. A criminal wanting to steal from my bank account will need both my biometrics to unlock my phone and a different PIN per bank.
This even provides some protection from the $5 wrench they’d use. Sure, I’ll unlock my phone at the threat of real violence. But you won’t know ahead of time what banking app I have or even how many, so you may not get them all. Pay by phone may use the same biometric but I can likely dispute those charges after the fact
In the abuse of authority scenario, that may keep them out of my bank records but there are established paths to get that from the bank so they’re less likely to be interested. I’m sure they’re more interested in violating the privacy of my friends and family
I've been looking for a new job as a software developer. The huge majority of job listings I see in my area are hybrid or remote. I just had an introductory phone call with Vizio (which didn't specify the location type in the job listing). The recruiter told me that the job was fully on-site, which I told her was a deal breaker...
I have a pretty good hybrid situation, where it’s probably good for me to get dressed and out of the house twice a week. It helps that it’s only three mile commute with no traffic. I’d probably look for that, even if I don’t like going in.
That being said, we hire across many time zones and I don’t even work with local people so I’m not sure the point. Why is my company wasting money on a local office so I can be on Zoom all day, but can’t spend the travel budget even once for me to meet the people I work with (from Boston, I generally work with people in London, Toronto, Bangalore)
Worst was the first, I had no clue what I was doing and I’m pretty sure she couldn’t have enjoyed it. Despite being in similar friend groups, we both pretended it never happened and never spoke of it again. Now decades later we ran into each other. To make it worse, she recognized me but had to introduce herself to me. All that cringe came flooding back
Why celebrate a feature that was added for non-customers? Why celebrate a feature they were forced to add rather than chose to? Don’t get me wrong, I think this should have been done long ago, but what’s in it for Apple to waste some of their precious announcement time? The fallback mode of iMessages doesn’t fall back as far? Yay?
Or it’s great for society because they support text for every phone, even feature phones (do those still exist?) and it’s a good business choice for Apple to support more features for their paying customers
This is actually the thing that gives me most privacy assurance. My car company does offer this as an insurance product to themselves, transparently. Since they’re honest about this part of it, and have less profit incentive to those of us who don’t agree, I’m a bit assured that they are not motivated to sell my data to my actual insurer
Hi all. I have a 2 storey, ~1200 sq ft home in a hot climate. I have a single HVAC unit...central air and ductwork, electric AC/heat. There is no zoning to the system. The thermostat is downstairs....
Here’s a couple of cheaper ideas you can try before replacing your unit:
I have a smart thermostat that lets me configure the fan to be on X minutes every hour. Helps circulation, evens out temps
it has remote sensors, and I can tell it which to follow at any time or to average
I have partly closeable vents, so I can direct more heat downstairs in winter, more cool upstairs in summer. This is not as effective as dampers and you need to watch shutting down too much airflow, but it’s cheap diy that can make a difference
my brother swears by pointing a pedestal fan up the stairway
I was thinking of this - thanks, I couldn’t remember the condition. I’d want somewhat random information after a so it can’t become another version of racism
Honestly it seems like a no-brainer to me to put a solar panel on the roof of electric cars to increase their action radius, so I figured there's probably one or more good reasons why they don't....
I vaguely remember reading something about a Prius with solar panel on the roof. It was enough to run a small fan to keep the interior a little cooler. In theory it improved efficiency because the air conditioning had less work to do
Living in a walkable city means my weekly shop is a few hours of walking or biking instead of being stuck in traffic, and I'm only mildly tired afterwards since I use a bike with pretty large pannier bags. Since I have no car related costs I can afford more fresh food, a healthier diet, and I can afford to be more choosy about...
I don’t know about all the good ones, but yes, at my grocery, two of the three types of cucumbers sold are wrapped in plastic. I prefer the “normAl” cucumbers in bulk anyway, but occasionally get the English cucumbers or mini cucumbers despite them being 8n plastic
I feel like NYC is playing this game in easy mode. There are definitely many other places in the US where being carless is possible, but nowhere else with as many options
I do somewhat miss this, but a while back I moved to where I can own my own house with a bit of yard.
Carless can mostly work for Boston as well. In my case it was road trips and friends in the suburbs that made it difficult, but transit and walking was mostly easier than car. No Bodegas, though. Of course that was before Uber/Zipcar so it may be easier now.
Currently I live in a somewhat walkable town just outside Boston. We have a walkable town center focussed on a transit hub, and plenty of shops and restaurants. You could make carless work, if you lived a bit closer in than I am. We even used to have a grocery express near the train, that os similar to a bodega, but unfortunately died during COViD
Yeah, stay away from bread makers, they’re horrible. I got one during Covid and I would start it after dinner in a Saturday, and go play video games. This bread maker caused a good year of 4 hour gaming sessions b fore there was any leftover to put away. An entire effing loaf. at midnight. Every Saturday.
Amazon Mulls $5 to $10 monthly price tag for unprofitable Alexa service, AI revamp ( www.reuters.com )
Amazon (AMZN.O) is planning a major revamp of its decade-old money-losing Alexa service to include a conversational generative AI with two tiers of service and has considered a monthly fee of around $5 to access the superior version, according to people with direct knowledge of the company's plans.
Stonehenge sprayed with orange powder paint by Just Stop Oil activists ( www.theguardian.com )
If you ever wanted to read about fake druids vs. environmental activists, now's your chance.
Happy Juneteenth everyone! ( lemmy.world )
The return of pneumatic tubes ( www.technologyreview.com )
Why Americans aren’t buying more EVs ( arstechnica.com )
Too powerful for their Euro arteries ( lemmy.world )
[USA] Appeals court rules that cops can physically make you unlock your phone ( reason.com )
How many people actually want fully on-site IT jobs?
I've been looking for a new job as a software developer. The huge majority of job listings I see in my area are hybrid or remote. I just had an introductory phone call with Vizio (which didn't specify the location type in the job listing). The recruiter told me that the job was fully on-site, which I told her was a deal breaker...
What was your worst consensual sexual experience?
Please only consensual stories.
And it just seemed like any other show. ( lemmy.world )
Food: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Across the Supply Chain
From Our World in Data
Apple announced RCS with a whimper when it should have been a bang ( www.theverge.com )
Is Your Driving Being Secretly Scored? The insurance industry, hungry for insights into how people drive, has turned to automakers and smartphone apps like Life360. ( www.nytimes.com )
What is an experience of racism you have faced ?
Looking for some HVAC suggestions to better cool my stifling second floor
Hi all. I have a 2 storey, ~1200 sq ft home in a hot climate. I have a single HVAC unit...central air and ductwork, electric AC/heat. There is no zoning to the system. The thermostat is downstairs....
If human skin was sometimes completely patterned (eg. spots, stripes, etc.), what pattern (if any) would you want to have?
Why don't electric car manufacurers put solar panels on the car roofs?
Honestly it seems like a no-brainer to me to put a solar panel on the roof of electric cars to increase their action radius, so I figured there's probably one or more good reasons why they don't....
[discussion] This is what walkability means for me ( lemmy.world )
Living in a walkable city means my weekly shop is a few hours of walking or biking instead of being stuck in traffic, and I'm only mildly tired afterwards since I use a bike with pretty large pannier bags. Since I have no car related costs I can afford more fresh food, a healthier diet, and I can afford to be more choosy about...
I love making pizzas with my bread maker ( lemmy.world )
Been using my bread maker to make pizza dough and make pizza at home. Cheaper and more rewarding then ordering out.