> Samsung has had their own store integrated into all their phones/tablets for a loooong time. ...where it's been roundly ignored by anyone with half a brain. The last thing the rest of us need is them trying to put it on non-samsung phones.

It's news because:

1) Reddit is shown to be heavy-handed (probably not especially new information to many people, but hey)
2) That the European laws designed to level the playing field between ordinary user and mega corps aren't working properly. $mega_corp is essentially half-arsing the responses they're legally required to give. If that catches the eye of the authorities, then it could mean mega fines to $mega_corp.

Mega fines are kinda useful to know about, even if you're not in the EU. Those fines have altered the behaviour of quite a few mega corps in recent years - not as much as some would have liked, I'm sure, but it's happened anyway. Sometimes we see $mega_corps trying to maliciously comply or whatever, which has ramifications for users everywhere. Say nothing of the business impact of receiving a huge fine (and the EU does tend to extract enough money that it makes the C-suite sit up and take notice, rather than write it off as a cost of doing business).

I know some here are saying "just get a new account at move on" - a reasonable view to take _if you're a powerless and unmotivated individual_. The EU tries to empower its people, so that doesn't apply quite so cleanly as it might in other places.

So yeah, not news about such and such a particle can be used to blast alzheimers out of taxi drivers brains or whatever, but at tech-adjacent at the very least.

Agreed - for anyone beyond home users, switching involves switching *everything*, not just a couple of laptops. You need to switch your people, the management of the laptops and all of the compliance over. If you also need to switch Office/Libreoffice/Google Docs and Outlook/Apple Mail/Gmail then you've got even more work to do.

I'd love Linux to be the answer here, but I'm not sure it is. I'd say you're probably best moving from Windows to Mac - a lot of people really hate macs, so there's that problem to overcome, but at least you can still get all the management and compliance tools (jamf or whatever). It's going to be a big project to redesign laptops to match all the stuff you've got in AD GPOs. Things get worse if you're going to dump Office too - and then you've got a load of user support to do as well. Again, the people doing it are going to need to know a bit about macs and windows - that's not as easy to find as a windows admin.

If you are already a mac shop, then the jump to linux is probably easier because at least you're aware of what a computer could/should actually be. It's still going to be a big job though.

IMHO, the costs are pretty big - and probably grow exponentially with the number of users you have. It's probably best done bit by bit - get the developers and techies off windows and onto macs. Then let anyone else have a mac if they want one. Then start prizing windows off the Stockholmers bit by bit.

The UK has the same, but mistakes do still happen - but they're usually found and dealt with pretty quick, not least because the make, model and colour of the vehicle are listed alongside the registration. It's possible there are two silver audi q4s with the number plates AB72ABC and AB12ABC (or AB22ABC, etc), but it's pretty unlikely (I don't know for sure, but I wonder if the DVLA who hand out the plates deliberately avoid such things?).

We also have a lot of ANPR (plate recognition) - you may consider it a surveillance problem, and it probably is, but the point being that our plates are getting read *a lot*, and yet somehow, we don't seem to have problems. The police don't use any private systems either. You do get private ones for car parks or whatever, but the cops don't routinely use them.

As for the cops, we're sorted there too. Ours will physically check the vehicle before even stopping anyone (seems like a basic task, can't imagine how anyone's getting this bit wrong?). Then they keep their dogs under control and ask "were you in the vicinity of XYZ between 7 and 7.30 last night?". Only if you're a "yes" for absolutely all of it will they do any arresting. Oh, and if you're the driver, you're even free to get out of the vehicle to talk to them - they won't shoot you for standing up. They don't publish your name after arrest either, so you can be arrested, let go and (probably) just go back to work - because of course, you're innocent until a judge decides otherwise. A "small" problem of mistaken identity or whatever doesn't immediately turn into a "ruin your life" kind of problem.

Our cops definitely have their problems - I mean some monumentally terrible problems, but it feels like we're way ahead on this sort of thing.

There was a case (in the UK) earlier this year of placing a bet that the temperature would go over (say) 25C in England. "official" temperatures are measured by a couple of organisations that use weather stations they own around the country - many of which are in airports.

This particular bet paid out because *one* temperature measurement went over 25C for about 20 minutes. The others nearby stayed well below, as indeed this one was before and after the event. Rumours have it that someone reached over the fence around the back of the airport and blew a hairdryer into the weather station for half an hour. The official temperature didn't go to 25C because the other sensors were too low, but somehow the single reading was used and so the bet paid out.

I don't know what the bet paid out, but let's say it was 10K, 20K, 50K or something - I think most people could be excused for (at least thinking about) pulling stunts like this if they could make that sort of money on through a simple bet. Whilst it's fraud, it's otherwise fairly harmless to the wider public. The people taking the bet probably don't like it and could/should prosecute anyone doing such things, but the general public probably mostly think "well, fair enough".

That sort of ambivalence doesn't come from setting some woods on fire though. Whatever you earn on that bet sure had best be enough to change your life completely, because if someone finds out you're likely to get shopped to the cops and then whatever you've got will come crashing down around you. As they say "don't go down for petty theft".

Yeah, I got that too.

> "I feel AGI is close at hand"

"...so I'm leaving because I don't want to see it through."

Google's making mistakes with their AI. Gemini is quite good, but their business around it is not. Permanently banning people for "violation of terms and conditions" but not saying how or what that means so they could ever correct their behaviour ain't cool - especially if all they've done is use Google's own products to try it out. It pushes people to using a whole slew of cheaper/free products, such as Deepseek or ollama models or whatever - say nothing of going to other "premium" brands such as Anthropic or whatever (which is arguably better than Gemini). It's probably all a symptom of dysfunction inside the company, maybe the sociopaths and game players have moved in?

Most people think Google is good at making software and systems, but sadly it really isn't (just look at some of their weird UX decisions). They're leaving room for someone else to come and eat their lunch.

That's true. It used to be that if you were rich you bought either a Merc or a BMW - and people were pretty partisan about it. Mercs were seen as being a bit "old money", whilst BMWs were seen as overly complicated and a bit gauche. However, either offered some top-notch engineering, a happy driving experience and lots of comfort, cool tech etc.

Now, Mercs are looking butt ugly and generally a bit "samey". BMWs are just toys for kids - that heated seats thing, and now this just says "sucker" more than it says "oh wow, look at that cool person".

That said, there are no "premium" cars left really. Sure, you could drive an Aston or a Rolls, but they're made for rich chinese and arabs with no taste. They don't have the refinement they used to have, nor do they really offer much you don't get in a decent family car. I guess cars have become commoditised, but no one told the manufacturers yet. The chinese brands are cleaning up, mainly because they answer to what people want - just /something/ to get from A to B. Doesn't really matter what it looks like, doesn't matter if it's a bit rattly, so long as it goes and stops - and is cheap. Ironically, if we all bought those sorts of cars, then there's be a clear place for the "premium" brands, albeit a much smaller market than they'd like, but an obvious one.

Oh no, I really *want* ads in my car for a film I'm never going to see. I mean, how freakin' cool is it that my car can send me *ads*. Advertising is so hard to come by these days, I'm practically gagging for it, so I'm really glad BMW has had the guts to lead the market like this. They've long been leaders in making cars for chavs and people that can't park or indicate, and they're really "going the extra mile" (see what I did there!?) with this cool stuff.

I'm going to go down the dealership this afternoon and *demand* they sell me a car with ads that play as much as humanly possible. I want them when I get in the car, I want them picture-in-picture when I'm backing up to park, I want them when I'm sat in traffic, I'd love to have them when I'm driving but the damn government's nanny state antics will probably put a stop to that. Hell, I'll even take ads for 18+ films when my kids are in the car. I preferably want ads for stuff I'm really not interested in - I mean, maybe they can 'turn' me into someone who wants to watch braindead rehash films? I dunno, but I really love BMWs forward thinking here, I just wish they'd go further with it - maybe charge me some "low monthly rate" to enable my cars ignition too while you're at it? While I'm sat there unable to drive because my credit card has expired... guess what!? Show me some of those beautiful ads. I love living in the future!

Said no one, ever.

Id' agree, but this morning I tried to log a ticket with Google Cloud support. It now gives you an AI to talk to instead of a support form to fill out. That AI pointed me to some log information, and the log AI actually pointed me at a solution - so no ticket needed to be raised.

So it *can* be made to work and be useful. If the ever-over-complicated GCP can be disentangled by AI, maybe booking a flight or fixing your broadband can be too...?

"did he?" is the right question to ask, and immaterial of his MBA or CEO job title.

He's stitched together a load of microsoft products to make a dashboard that a consultant told him would be useful, presumably with some sort of data behind it. Hopefully for him that data updates automatically so that next month his dashboard has updated too, but maybe not.

The other thing here is that he has definitely just vibe-coded this together. Sure, it's not vibe coding like an actual programmer might do it, but it's only as good as the prompt he used to make it - and my guess is he has no particular record of that prompt or context. If his dashboard needs a fix or change, it'll be a new prompt and an incremental change. So in that sense then, he's made something, but he's done no _engineering_. The lack thereof makes this a PoC at best, definitely disposable and not supportable. Maybe the equivalent of "that guy" who made a spreadsheet to solve some problem in the department - no one gets it, no one can fix it, and when the guy leaves, the "solution" leaves with them.

All in all then... nothing new or valuable. Fun to show off in meetings I'm sure, but that's about all. Probably worse in quality to microsoft's usual output - if you can believe that.

Right now I'm using a Mac for work. My previous place also gave me a mac (and a crappy windows machine, but hey...). In my entire career, I've never so much as seen a chromebook in an office.

Oh no, I tell a lie, a one-man-band consultant came in with a chromebook once.

So yeah, if kids are going to get anything, it would seem a mac is better than a chromebook. From a personal point of view, with either they get to see what a computer *could* be, which I hope will make them think "what the hell?" when they get handed a windows craptop in later life.

I spent the day at a client's (very nice) office the other day. It was mostly just to go say hello to a couple of people I work with, and it was nice to get out of the house.

At first I thought it was great - it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. There were meeting rooms all over the place, and some of those little 'pods' for one person, so it looked really decent. The desks were all height adjustable and the chairs were comfy. My colleague had a vertical monitor on his desk because he prefers it that way, my laptop charged by the monitor USB, the a/c was pleasant. Things were good and - oh yeah, free lunch too - very nice indeed.

But about 2pm... yep, "that guy" walked in. I could tell just by the way he walked. He sort of surveyed the room as if someone was sitting in his favourite seat. He then took an empty desk near me and put on his noise cancelling headphones. Then he got on a call. Charitably, because of his headphones, he couldn't tell how loud his voice was, but my god he was distracting. Since I was at client site, and since I was trying to be "accessible" I didn't put mine on, but otherwise I would have done - and then just slack-chatted with my colleague sitting opposite. That guy was talking most of the afternoon - just peachy.

It all reminded me just how futile office working is. Either you have small offices/cubes and then people are split up and aren't "collaborating", or you get one dick like this guy who ruins it for a dozen other people. IMHO, it's best done with a purpose - if your aim for the day is X, Y and Z, then go in to get those things done. If it's "just carry on working", then stay at home.

One day they'll invent software defined walls. Then you'll be able to just setup the space you need with the people you want and nothing else. Until then, though, WFH is best for me.

And the "AI Slop" button is already being used to silence voices someone doesn't agree with. You see, when you click the button, it's removed from your feed and sent off for human review (yeah right, more likely it's an AI reviewing it and then, maybe, a human). While it's in review, it won't appear anywhere else.

If you see something you disagree with, mark it as AI Slop. Extra bonus points if you can get your bot farm to all do the same thing. Suddenly the post you dislike will be held up in review so long that no humans will ever see it - and the poster will never know, they just won't see any "engagement" and wonder why.

Linkedin was never a fair an equitable social network, but this just makes things even worse. Ironically, it won't help them identify what's human and what's AI either.

LI is the only social network I still use. I persevere with it like I do with slashdot, mainly for the nostalgia and occasionally for the comments. What I can say with certainty is though, like slashdot, the quality of LI has declined sharply. The value of it is much diminished, as evidenced by "promoted" being marked on every second post. It's actually a terrible place to get a job too, so one wonders just how much longer it can really survive.

Yes, and they've doubtless spent some proper money getting this far - but they're only at the prototype stage (well, we assume so). Had they gone to production, then yes, that would have been royally stupid. You'd have thought after Google's product was named "glasshole" that Meta and Apple would know better, but perhaps not.

FWIW, there is some benefit in giving a department or group some "latitude" with regards to experimenting with products or whatever. That freedom can mean some really great new products, but it does also come with a risk that the money is wasted from time to time. Ultimately, nothing can kill innovation like a CFO only authorising spend on things they think are worth it - this was the opposite of that.

My suggestion is they just take the camera off and let us have a developer AR product. If someone could make a version of iTerm2 to go on it, I'd probably buy a pair (admittedly, they'd stay in my office and likely never leave the house, which isn't really what was intended).

You do wonder what the young will do when they're even just a bit older, if all they can lay claim to is being "an influencer". The smart ones will re-invent themselves numerous times I guess. Right now, I'm told, the ideal influencer is a late 20s, early 30s good looking female. That's a pretty small demographic from which to choose, and of course you don't stay in that age range for long, even if you are good looking.

As for making money, there's money from Youtube and the like - but that's just pocket change. The real money comes from sponsorships - you find a business somewhere, it could even be the local coffee shop, or maybe the local engineering company, a makeup company, a supermarket or whatever. They pay you some amount of money to include them in your next video/podcast/whatever. You either do a whole section on how you just can't get through a morning without some Buzz Coffee, or do a whole 'demo' of using their makeup products, or maybe you just mention them in passing, or flash their logo or whatever - I guess it all depends on what you contract with them.

Of course, the really "smart" influencers sell you stuff they own - dodgy business training courses or whatever, which are largely just a series of online videos, with some sort of in-person or video conference fluff every once in a while. They make it all up once, sell it dozens of times over for some decent money (and minimum ongoing effort), all promising that you could end up with their lifestyle if only you sit this course.

Then of course there's the 'manosphere' type blokes who buy agencies that find and promote (say) OnlyFans models. Then they feature those models in their videos, either directly interviewing them or perhaps just mentioning them as part of something else. Thus, those models do better, the agency takes their cut and you collect from the agency.

Ultimately, it always falls down to some sort of advertising and not traditional "honest" TV commercial or billboard style - much more like product placement or paid-for recommendation. In some countries (like mine), they have to display #ad if they're being paid to do or say anything in the video to try and make it a bit less deceptive.

But this story is about the smaller players - the ones with a relatively small following (what you might describe as an "achievable following"). They're arguably more "authentic" because they're not selling their entire lives like the "big" players. Hiring 100 smaller players could arguably be more effective because it's a form of astroturfing. It means the audience might hear about your product in one place, completely ignore it, but then gradually become interested because they hear about it again somewhere else and mistakenly believe "everyone" is talking about it now, "so it must be good".

This new trend suggests to me that the "big" influencers are losing their effectiveness. They've only really been at it for a few years and it's already coming to an end. The smaller players will likely end up with the same fate, but they've got a bit of time before that happens to collect some money. Sadly, they're unlikely to "rake it in" and become sufficiently wealthy through other means to carry on when the decline inevitably comes.