also expensive
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Literally all these people going back to 1960s with satellites instead of cell towers. Trying to make it a new technology.
I just revived my old iPod XD
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Yeah, Cloudflare is doing some interesting things. But, for the most part those aren't consumer-focused services.
Perplexity is one of the worst of the AI offenders. Their crawlers don't respect "robots.txt" or other things that say that LLM crawling isn't allowed.
For self-driving cars, I'll give Google credit there. Their Waymo division is really making progress in self-driving cars. They didn't come up with the concept, but they're pushing the boundaries of what's possible.
OTOH, Tesla's self-driving is a joke. In fact, by calling their bullshit "full self-driving", they've forced the legitimate self driving car companies to use a different term. Tesla's self driving is so bad that it's hurting the rest of the industry and setting back the possibility of actual self-driving vehicles by years.
Boston Dynamics humanoid robots are cool, I'm not as impressed with their robodog though. But, from what I saw from Beijing last week, they're already way ahead of Boston Dynamics. Even when some of their bots were failing, the kinds of movement they were making before they failed seemed more advanced (and natural) than the Boston Dynamics bots.
I disagree with some of your choices, but you've got some good ideas too.
Perplexitys methods are bad but the concept of a natural language web browser is a completely unique thing and thats interesting to me. Its like when google enabled people to search "how to change a tire" instead of before where people searched with keywords.
Idk how you can say self driving tech is not cool. Even the worst self driving which is Tesla's is still very impressive. Telsa can drive autonomously through the street using only cameras. Is it perfect no but its still very good and its only a joke because of how good the competition is. That gives me a lot of hope for self driving cars.
As for that Chinese robot dog yeah I see the video that got put out, I dont think it blows away Boston dynamics version in anything but manufacturing costs. All the falling and all terrain movement the Chinese dog can do has been done by Boston dynamics for almost 5 years at this point.
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Perplexitys methods are bad but the concept of a natural language web browser is a completely unique thing and thats interesting to me. Its like when google enabled people to search "how to change a tire" instead of before where people searched with keywords.
Idk how you can say self driving tech is not cool. Even the worst self driving which is Tesla's is still very impressive. Telsa can drive autonomously through the street using only cameras. Is it perfect no but its still very good and its only a joke because of how good the competition is. That gives me a lot of hope for self driving cars.
As for that Chinese robot dog yeah I see the video that got put out, I dont think it blows away Boston dynamics version in anything but manufacturing costs. All the falling and all terrain movement the Chinese dog can do has been done by Boston dynamics for almost 5 years at this point.
Self driving tech is cool. Tesla's take on Self Driving is not cool because it's not effective.
Telsa can drive autonomously through the street using only cameras.
Sorta... a bit... in a way that will lead to an accident sooner or later. If they put LIDAR on their cars it would be far more effective, but Musk wants to be different. He insists on only using cameras even though you can't safely do self-driving with only cameras. Typical Musk, cutting corners and lying.
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Self driving tech is cool. Tesla's take on Self Driving is not cool because it's not effective.
Telsa can drive autonomously through the street using only cameras.
Sorta... a bit... in a way that will lead to an accident sooner or later. If they put LIDAR on their cars it would be far more effective, but Musk wants to be different. He insists on only using cameras even though you can't safely do self-driving with only cameras. Typical Musk, cutting corners and lying.
Yeah its dumb to not use lidar and elon musk sucks but the cars can self drive without a doubt. That self driving is impressive even if waymo is already doing taxi services with near perfect driving for the past few years.
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didn't find the post link again, so here is the account https://infosec.exchange/@Em0nM4stodon
There's plenty of p2p, decentralized and mesh radio tech to get excited about.
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A friend of mine asked me today if there were tech companies I was excited about. The context was more "companies that will grow" not "companies that are doing something cool". But, I was stumped because I had trouble thinking of anything in either category.
Looking at the MANA MANA (do dooo do do do) group:
- Microsoft: Always shitty assholes, but their stock price will probably keep going up until the AI bubble pops
- Apple: Nothing innovative since the iPhone, but their stock will probably keep doing well because of their duopoly status and the 30% rake on the App Store
- Nvidia: I used to like their video cards, but they haven't done anything innovative for gamers since ray tracing, and even that is barely used. When the AI bubble pops they're going to crash hard
- Amazon: Assholes who screw over anybody who sells things through them, abuses their employees, and the last "innovation" they had was their patent on one-click ordering. Since AWS is most of their revenue, when the AI bubble pops their revenue will crater.
- Meta: Renamed from Facebook because their thundercunt of a CEO thought the future was "the metaverse", an obviously bad idea from the start. The company only continues to be relevant because network effects cause FOMO and they have an advertising duopoly with GOOG, heavily betting on AI now, and will crash when it crashes.
- Alphabet: Their flagship service is terrible now, but they don't care because they have such an overwhelming monopoly on search. More importantly, they're part of a massive ad duopoly with Meta, so as long as they can keep you coming back, they'll keep making money. I can't remember them having any innovative ideas since PageRank back when they were founded. They're also all in on AI and will crash when it crashes.
- Netflix: It used to be that you only needed 1 streaming service, and it was Netflix. Now the Netflix catalogue is mediocre, and they're getting rid of things that actually made people like them, like allowing a family to share a password, and a truly ad-free experience. I don't see Netflix growing much in the future, and with how bad streaming is becoming, I expect more people to pirate instead.
- Adobe: You used to be able to own photoshop, and it was a good product. Now you have to rent it, and they're not even fair and honest about how the rental works. Acrobat Reader used to be a useful free utility. Now they keep enshittifying it. Will they keep making money, probably. Probably won't crash too hard in the future either, although they're a tech stock so when the AI crash happens they'll take some damage too.
It genuinely used to feel like many of the big tech companies were trying to solve problems for end users. Sure, they wanted to make money at the same time, but they actually did provide good services. Google search used to be unbelievably good. It would find the one page on the whole Internet that was the best one for your search. If what you wanted wasn't in the first 10 links, it probably didn't exist on the Internet.. Even when it had ads, the ads were small, clearly marked, and didn't crowd out the actual search results. Netflix had a great catalogue and a great UI and zero ads so it was worth paying a bit and not pirating. Paying a Netflix subscription used to feel like sending a message to the Old Media companies that they were dinosaurs who were on their way out. Apple's iPod and iPhone were really game changers. These days it doesn't seem like any of them really want to make your life better. Instead they want to act as a rent-seeking middleman between you and whatever you want.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, the only for-profit company I could think of that was doing innovative things that made life better for its end-users was Framework. I love that they're trying to make modular laptop, and now an innovative desktop. But, there have got to be others out there I'm forgetting, I hope!
they haven’t done anything innovative for gamers since ray tracing
Unreal Engine's Lumen (and equivalents in other engines like Cryengine) made 'full' RTX obsolete. I can look at random lighting in Satisfactory that looks like modded Cyberpunk 2077 now. Even full path tracing in 2077 (which runs at a slideshow for me, but I tested experimentally) is just... not really worth it, with everything the performance budget GI saves could be used for instead.
So there's that, and that's a pretty cool software innovation.
Honestly that's where the neat stuff is now; outside the huge companies. Especially in software.
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Yeah its dumb to not use lidar and elon musk sucks but the cars can self drive without a doubt. That self driving is impressive even if waymo is already doing taxi services with near perfect driving for the past few years.
the cars can self drive without a doubt
So can my sister's car for a few seconds if you put the cruise control on. But it can't self-drive safely, and neither can Teslas. But, my sister's car doesn't advertise the ability to self-drive. But, Musk pretends that Telsas can, which is extremely dangerous. He's killing people by muddying the waters and pretending his cars can self-drive safely.
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they haven’t done anything innovative for gamers since ray tracing
Unreal Engine's Lumen (and equivalents in other engines like Cryengine) made 'full' RTX obsolete. I can look at random lighting in Satisfactory that looks like modded Cyberpunk 2077 now. Even full path tracing in 2077 (which runs at a slideshow for me, but I tested experimentally) is just... not really worth it, with everything the performance budget GI saves could be used for instead.
So there's that, and that's a pretty cool software innovation.
Honestly that's where the neat stuff is now; outside the huge companies. Especially in software.
I hadn't heard about Lumen, but I'll look it up, thanks!
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A friend of mine asked me today if there were tech companies I was excited about. The context was more "companies that will grow" not "companies that are doing something cool". But, I was stumped because I had trouble thinking of anything in either category.
Looking at the MANA MANA (do dooo do do do) group:
- Microsoft: Always shitty assholes, but their stock price will probably keep going up until the AI bubble pops
- Apple: Nothing innovative since the iPhone, but their stock will probably keep doing well because of their duopoly status and the 30% rake on the App Store
- Nvidia: I used to like their video cards, but they haven't done anything innovative for gamers since ray tracing, and even that is barely used. When the AI bubble pops they're going to crash hard
- Amazon: Assholes who screw over anybody who sells things through them, abuses their employees, and the last "innovation" they had was their patent on one-click ordering. Since AWS is most of their revenue, when the AI bubble pops their revenue will crater.
- Meta: Renamed from Facebook because their thundercunt of a CEO thought the future was "the metaverse", an obviously bad idea from the start. The company only continues to be relevant because network effects cause FOMO and they have an advertising duopoly with GOOG, heavily betting on AI now, and will crash when it crashes.
- Alphabet: Their flagship service is terrible now, but they don't care because they have such an overwhelming monopoly on search. More importantly, they're part of a massive ad duopoly with Meta, so as long as they can keep you coming back, they'll keep making money. I can't remember them having any innovative ideas since PageRank back when they were founded. They're also all in on AI and will crash when it crashes.
- Netflix: It used to be that you only needed 1 streaming service, and it was Netflix. Now the Netflix catalogue is mediocre, and they're getting rid of things that actually made people like them, like allowing a family to share a password, and a truly ad-free experience. I don't see Netflix growing much in the future, and with how bad streaming is becoming, I expect more people to pirate instead.
- Adobe: You used to be able to own photoshop, and it was a good product. Now you have to rent it, and they're not even fair and honest about how the rental works. Acrobat Reader used to be a useful free utility. Now they keep enshittifying it. Will they keep making money, probably. Probably won't crash too hard in the future either, although they're a tech stock so when the AI crash happens they'll take some damage too.
It genuinely used to feel like many of the big tech companies were trying to solve problems for end users. Sure, they wanted to make money at the same time, but they actually did provide good services. Google search used to be unbelievably good. It would find the one page on the whole Internet that was the best one for your search. If what you wanted wasn't in the first 10 links, it probably didn't exist on the Internet.. Even when it had ads, the ads were small, clearly marked, and didn't crowd out the actual search results. Netflix had a great catalogue and a great UI and zero ads so it was worth paying a bit and not pirating. Paying a Netflix subscription used to feel like sending a message to the Old Media companies that they were dinosaurs who were on their way out. Apple's iPod and iPhone were really game changers. These days it doesn't seem like any of them really want to make your life better. Instead they want to act as a rent-seeking middleman between you and whatever you want.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, the only for-profit company I could think of that was doing innovative things that made life better for its end-users was Framework. I love that they're trying to make modular laptop, and now an innovative desktop. But, there have got to be others out there I'm forgetting, I hope!
wrote last edited by [email protected]Oh, and my controversial take:
Framework
I feel like Framework started something awesome and... is stalling?
The silicon they use is getting a little long in the tooth, and so is the engineering of the cooling, the screen quality... I get it, they're a scrappy startup, but it almost feels like they're stuck.
Meanwhile the Framework Desktop has awesome hardware, but is largely non modular by necessity and... not available in a laptop? And not very expandable as a desktop, not even with a dGPU slot. And expensive.
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I hadn't heard about Lumen, but I'll look it up, thanks!
wrote last edited by [email protected]Look up Crytek's SVOGI! DF did a fantastic, and brief, showcase: https://youtu.be/w31Ct25gJlI?t=446
Cryengine is back.
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the cars can self drive without a doubt
So can my sister's car for a few seconds if you put the cruise control on. But it can't self-drive safely, and neither can Teslas. But, my sister's car doesn't advertise the ability to self-drive. But, Musk pretends that Telsas can, which is extremely dangerous. He's killing people by muddying the waters and pretending his cars can self-drive safely.
Ok idc about defending tesla anymore. Self driving is cool tech and we can pretend Tesla's cant self drive.
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didn't find the post link again, so here is the account https://infosec.exchange/@Em0nM4stodon
New tech today is just worse tech. Each android update now is just shittier than the previous
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Oh, and my controversial take:
Framework
I feel like Framework started something awesome and... is stalling?
The silicon they use is getting a little long in the tooth, and so is the engineering of the cooling, the screen quality... I get it, they're a scrappy startup, but it almost feels like they're stuck.
Meanwhile the Framework Desktop has awesome hardware, but is largely non modular by necessity and... not available in a laptop? And not very expandable as a desktop, not even with a dGPU slot. And expensive.
I haven't been following them that closely. I hope they come out with new stuff soon though, because I really want them to succeed. Mostly, I want this concept to succeed though. So, if they stumble, I hope someone else picks up the baton.
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Look up Crytek's SVOGI! DF did a fantastic, and brief, showcase: https://youtu.be/w31Ct25gJlI?t=446
Cryengine is back.
Thanks for the recommendation, I added it to my queue.
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Ok idc about defending tesla anymore. Self driving is cool tech and we can pretend Tesla's cant self drive.
Sounds good.
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I'm excited for peer to peer technology, because it brings us closer to what the internet was originally supposed to be like.
I've recommended Keet (chat app) a bunch of times on lemmy earlier, which works really well and that is cool, but that is just a showcase of what's possible with p2p.
Streaming media, sharing files, communication, browsing wikipedia, etc etc - this can be done without spying middlemen or data centres in between. Some cool demos here 09:45 https://youtube.com/watch?v=BTCsSwCpGP8&t=776
Same!! P2p and self hosting is getting better and better!
I've been searching for an alternative chat platform for a while now and I'm yet to find anything I think I can use with friends and Grandma alike, ya know?
so hearing about this p2p keet app got me really excited!Sadly, after a bit of reading and such, I'm not so sure...
- play-store or github seem to be the only install methods
- the github is release-delivery only; source code doesn't appear to be public?
- Keet uses Holepunch's (the company behind keet) "HyperDHT", a distributed hash table, to connect peers. So it seems that, while the comms themselves might be p2p, the app still relies on some server(s) to facilitate their initial connection.
- good news (kinda) though! You can self host a 'p2p server'! But the phrasing on that doc page reinforces that the network itself isn't fully p2p= "Creates a new server for accepting incoming encrypted P2P connections"
- Installed it anyway just to see. Immediately prompted to enable Google's push notifications via MicroG
- the splash page of the app proudly announces "no servers!" - documentation says otherwise
- creation of a username first checks whether the username is available.... Where is that being checked? No servers, right?
I want this to be cool, but no source code and foggy talk about servers has my sus-dar goin off a little
if anyone knows more I'd love to be persuaded!! The app itself is definitely very beautiful and responsive 
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Same!! P2p and self hosting is getting better and better!
I've been searching for an alternative chat platform for a while now and I'm yet to find anything I think I can use with friends and Grandma alike, ya know?
so hearing about this p2p keet app got me really excited!Sadly, after a bit of reading and such, I'm not so sure...
- play-store or github seem to be the only install methods
- the github is release-delivery only; source code doesn't appear to be public?
- Keet uses Holepunch's (the company behind keet) "HyperDHT", a distributed hash table, to connect peers. So it seems that, while the comms themselves might be p2p, the app still relies on some server(s) to facilitate their initial connection.
- good news (kinda) though! You can self host a 'p2p server'! But the phrasing on that doc page reinforces that the network itself isn't fully p2p= "Creates a new server for accepting incoming encrypted P2P connections"
- Installed it anyway just to see. Immediately prompted to enable Google's push notifications via MicroG
- the splash page of the app proudly announces "no servers!" - documentation says otherwise
- creation of a username first checks whether the username is available.... Where is that being checked? No servers, right?
I want this to be cool, but no source code and foggy talk about servers has my sus-dar goin off a little
if anyone knows more I'd love to be persuaded!! The app itself is definitely very beautiful and responsive You raise a lot of points here, I recommend you join the community room in the app, you'll get every detail from the developers there.
they haven't opensourced it yet, but they say they will do so, and they have done so with all the components that keet is built on top of. So given that track record, I think it's just a matter of when.
I asked a developer about the dht, in this context a "server" is just a dht node that you can connect to with its public key (but agree it's confusing they use the same word). the wording might be confusing, but its definitively not what anyone understands as a server in a centralized network https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_hash_table
as i've understood, all push notifications on android has to pass through googles servers (but they are encrypted)
and they don't need a server to check for duplicates in usernames
so I recommend you continue to explore and ask around in the chat rooms, figure out if this is for you!
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You raise a lot of points here, I recommend you join the community room in the app, you'll get every detail from the developers there.
they haven't opensourced it yet, but they say they will do so, and they have done so with all the components that keet is built on top of. So given that track record, I think it's just a matter of when.
I asked a developer about the dht, in this context a "server" is just a dht node that you can connect to with its public key (but agree it's confusing they use the same word). the wording might be confusing, but its definitively not what anyone understands as a server in a centralized network https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_hash_table
as i've understood, all push notifications on android has to pass through googles servers (but they are encrypted)
and they don't need a server to check for duplicates in usernames
so I recommend you continue to explore and ask around in the chat rooms, figure out if this is for you!
Cheers for the response! Extremely excited to hear you've heard about open sourcing from the devs, I'm gonna keep my eye out for sure!! Excited to read about dht!
Thanks again for sharing the app!
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Cheers for the response! Extremely excited to hear you've heard about open sourcing from the devs, I'm gonna keep my eye out for sure!! Excited to read about dht!
Thanks again for sharing the app!
yea
the tech is really fascinating. Like yea, the p2p-approach introduces some new challenges, but it solves so many existing ones:For example costs. The more popular an app gets, the more traffic it gets, the more it costs to run it. I've heard telegram spends hundreds of millions of dollars on servers, with hundreds of developers.
P2P is the complete opposite. Keet is made by a small team, and the more people use it, the better it runs (because more peers can relay data). It can scale with no such restrictions.
someone should do the math of what would be the environmental impact if all communication went p2p instead of datacentres.
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yea
the tech is really fascinating. Like yea, the p2p-approach introduces some new challenges, but it solves so many existing ones:For example costs. The more popular an app gets, the more traffic it gets, the more it costs to run it. I've heard telegram spends hundreds of millions of dollars on servers, with hundreds of developers.
P2P is the complete opposite. Keet is made by a small team, and the more people use it, the better it runs (because more peers can relay data). It can scale with no such restrictions.
someone should do the math of what would be the environmental impact if all communication went p2p instead of datacentres.
Yeah I have been trying to read a bit more about DHT (good lord these are complicated, one video attempted to explain hypercubes??!
). It seems one of the bigger use cases is in torrenting! Which is fascinating, both from technical and security perspectives.From what I've learned, it's clear DHT is extremely scalable and resilient, which kicks ass! If it also brings inherent security benefits, I'd say this is a clear choice for a new messaging platform!!
I'll have to learn a bit more first though to be sure.What I can say is the app itself is GORGEOUS, and very responsive! The devs are also quite active in the community chat room, and seems to listen to (and have full intents to act on) user feedback, which is amazing!
