Link Log

A.I., Lost in Translation ⇥ theverge.com

Victoria Song, the Verge:

I became the family Chewbacca. Family would speak to me in Korean, I’d reply back in English — and vice versa. Later, I started learning Japanese because that’s what public school offered and my grandparents were fluent. Eventually, my family became adept at speaking a pidgin of English, Korean, and Japanese.

This arrangement was less than ideal but workable. That is until both of my parents were diagnosed with incurable, degenerative neurological diseases. My father had Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. My mom had bulbar amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Their English, a language they studied for decades, evaporated.

This is one of those heartbreaking essays that will sit with me for a long time. It is nominally about how Humane’s wearable gadget struggled with translation features, but it is so much greater, as you can surmise from the quote.

Mother Earth Mother Board ⇥ wired.com

After I linked to Josh Dzieza’s long report about subsea cable repair, I got an email from Joshua Ochs who pointed me to Neal Stephenson’s 1996 essay, published in Wired, about the laying of the FLAG cable.

There is some poetry here. The only way I read that original article, published it, and then received that email is because of all of this infrastructure. I may be writing this on a laptop with no wires coming out of it, but that is not really how I am connected to the internet. Instead, one cable after another has carried my bytes.

If you have not read it before, I think you should set aside some time for it. But do note: it is over forty thousand words. You should still read it. Also, there are parts of it which have not aged well — from predictable cultural perspectives, to a comparison made of the demise of the Library of Alexandria which will make you double-take the dateline. And I recommend spending time with the whole thing because it is amazing.

Tim Maly, writing for Nieman fifteen years after its publication:

The dot-com world’s dangerously myopic narcissism was visible to those with the right kind of eyes, and “Mother Earth Mother Board” is 42,535 words of emergency optical surgery. Stephenson wants to show you that everything’s been done before, only crazier.

The essay is apparently a legendary work but, as with so many critically lauded things, it escaped my field of view. If you have time this weekend, do not let it escape yours.

Tim Cook’s Southeast Asia Tour Is Taking Him Through Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, and Maybe Malaysia ⇥ kompas.id

Mediana, Benediktus Krisna Yogatama, Mawar Kusuma Wulan, Kompas (as translated by Safari):

Indonesia is a destination country visited by the boss of the technology giant company Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. The second visit has been announced by the Minister of Communication and Information Budi Arie Setiadi since mid-March 2024.

[…]

Apple has an obligation to build four [developer] academies, namely in Bali, Batam, Surabaya, and South Tangerang. The total investment value reaches Rp 1.6 trillion.

[…]

Regarding the construction of the factory, Agus said that his party would encourage it because Indonesia already has a factory of cell phone components such as batteries or cables, so that Apple can use domestic products.

I saw a few conspicuous cars waiting at the VIP terminal of Jakarta’s smaller airport yesterday. Turns out the private jet carrying the Apple entourage arrived just a few minutes after my discount flight took off. Practically rubbing shoulders over here.

Anyway, that tipped me off to the plane’s tail number and, based on its path this evening — local time — Cook and company have just landed in Singapore. It seems plausible to me Cook could also visit Malaysia to open the country’s first Apple Store, which looked close to finished last month. Thanks to Just Another Rakyat for that tip.

Meanwhile, Apple and Epic Games are fighting again, this time in a court in Melbourne. Perhaps Cook is also on his way to participate in that. There sure is a lot going on in Southeast Asia and Australia right now.

‘I Love My Phone So Much I Wish I Could Stare at It More’ ⇥ businessinsider.com

Katie Notopoulos, Business Insider:

But then there’s the other, more existential argument against phones: We are spending all our free moments with a screen shoved in our faces, mindlessly scrolling for dopamine and ignoring the world around us. Time spent on your phone is bad; time spent doing anything else is good.

This argument I just can’t get on board with. I love mindless scrolling; I find it immensely enjoyable. I love flipping through TikTok, browsing tweets, poking around Reddit. I’ll pop into the group chat. Maybe if I have some extra time, I’ll go to my happy place and watch some movie trailers on YouTube.

I thought this was a good rebuttal to the seemingly constant moral panic over how much we use screens. Notopoulos is careful to disclaim she is writing as an adult “with a fully formed frontal lobe” and this advice probably does not apply in the same way to children.

I do not think we should consider this kind of debate settled one way or another. I think it is reasonable to ask whether it is a good idea for everybody to carry everywhere a slot machine for their feelings. Social media platforms are incentivized to increase time spent and user retention, which they can juice by making nicer products and through sneaky design patterns. It seems like grounds to worry about phone use if it is impacting other aspects of one’s life, like if they are forgetting to take care of themselves or do household tasks because they spend so much time on their phone.

But if you reading on your phone instead of reading a newspaper, or watching a YouTube video instead of watching a show on TV, what are you actually doing differently? Those seem like interchangeable activities.

Government Spyware Is Another Reason to Use an Ad Blocker ⇥ techcrunch.com

Omer Benjakob and Eliza Triantafillou, Haaretz:

According to the documents, in 2022 Intellexa presented a proof of concept for a system called Aladdin that enables the remote infection of a specific mobile telephone device through online advertisements. This is the first time it has been revealed that a company outside of Israel has developed such a spyware tool – which was considered the cutting edge of Israel’s offensive cyber. At that time, in Israel, the Defense Ministry was actively working to prevent Israeli companies from marketing identical spyware tools abroad.

[…]

It is not known what happened to Aladdin. It is possible it was never developed or if it was, if it was ever actually sold. Adint systems are considered extremely complicated to develop and maintain over time, and it is not clear if Intellexa moved ahead with trying to develop it into a working product and if they ever pitched it or sold it.

This was described by Intellexa as a near zero-click solution, in that it only requires someone to be using a web browser for their device to be affected; it does not require someone to tap on an ad. iPhones were apparently not affected by this zero-click ad infection capability, and required at least one tap, but that is barely comforting considering how frequently I accidentally tap on ads in third-party apps on my iPhone.1

Via Zack Whittaker, TechCrunch:

Online ads help website owners, including this one, generate revenue. But online ad exchanges can be abused to push malicious code to a target’s device.

[…]

While no phone or computer can ever be completely unhackable, ad blockers can be effective in stopping malvertising and ad-based malware before it ever hits the browser.

The technology described by Haaretz is clearly among the most cutting edge and it seems unlikely any random person would be caught in its net. The whole point, after all, is specific and targeted malware delivery — something which, as with surveillance, is possible thanks to the way online advertising works. While there are many ad blockers available for browsers, including site sponsor Magic Lasso, there are no user-friendly answers for in-app ads on iOS, many of which use the same networks and technologies as those in browsers. This is an unfortunate limitation of the way iOS works.

  1. This is not really the point of this post, but it seems like something changed a few major iOS versions ago and I now find myself accidentally tapping way more often. This is especially noticeable when I am just trying to stop an in-progress scroll. ↥︎

Deep Sea Cable Repair Technicians Keep the World’s Communications Afloat ⇥ theverge.com

Josh Dzieza, the Verge:

[…] It’s a truism that people don’t think about infrastructure until it breaks, but they tend not to think about the fixing of it, either. In his 2014 essay, “Rethinking Repair,” professor of information science Steven Jackson argued that contemporary thinking about technology romanticizes moments of invention over the ongoing work of maintenance, though it is equally important to the deployment of functional technology in the world. There are few better examples than the subsea cable industry, which, for over a century, has been so effective at quickly fixing faults that the public has rarely had a chance to notice. Or as one industry veteran put it, “We are one of the best-kept secrets in the world, because things just work.”

I bet this essay appears on a good many best of lists at the end of the year. It is tremendous. Necessary reporting well-told and richly illustrated. Normally, I find these kinds of high production value presentations more distracting than they are helpful, but this is exactly the opposite. A wonderful exploration of the kind of quiet profession that makes core parts of life possible for everybody else.

Microsoft’s ‘Enviable Advantages’ Cover Up Its Security Failures ⇥ wired.com

Eric Geller, Wired:

Microsoft’s almost untouchable position is the result of several intermingling factors. It is by far the US government’s most important technology supplier, powering computers, document drafting, and email conversations everywhere from the Pentagon to the State Department to the FBI. It is a critical partner in the government’s cyberdefense initiatives, with almost unparalleled insights about hackers’ activities and sweeping capabilities to disrupt their operations. And its executives and lobbyists have relentlessly marketed the company as a leading force for a digitally safer world.

While one part of Microsoft is busy creating headlines for imminent A.I.-powered election propaganda on behalf of the Chinese government, another is failing to protect its own systems from breaches allegedly by Chinese state groups. This is not solely a U.S. problem, either; lots of governments worldwide rely on Microsoft’s products and services.

Music Discovery Begins to Stagnate When We Turn Thirty ⇥ statsignificant.com

Daniel Parris:

Reading these studies proved an existential body blow because I am 31, apparently on the precipice of becoming a musical dinosaur. I like to think I’m special — that my high-minded dedication to culture makes me an exceptionally unique snowflake — but apparently I’m just like everybody else. I turned 30, and now I’m in a musical rut, content to have an AI bot DJ pacify me with the songs of my youth.

Patterns like these seem to be everywhere. Our learning capabilities fossilize, and everything from music to food to society begins to feel uncomfortable. It seems important, I think, for us to fight that tendency for ourselves and be willing to embrace new and different things. Music seems like as good a place as any to start. Keep trying new stuff.

Update: Only slightly related but just read, Lydia Davis’ “How He Changed Over Time”.

Humane A.I. Pin Reviews ⇥ mjtsai.com

I was perhaps a little optimistic about Humane’s A.I. Pin. It seems like an interesting attempt at doing something a little different and outside the mainstream device space. But the early reviews have dampened any of intrigue I may have had.

In its current guise, it is a solution in search of problems. It does not even have a timer function — the one thing I can count on Siri to deliver. For someone with a disability, something like this could make a lot of sense if it worked reliably and quickly, but it seems like it is too finicky.

Facebook Did Not Censor a Critical Column, but It Still Erred ⇥ kansasreflector.com

Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector:

Facebook’s unrefined artificial intelligence misclassified a Kansas Reflector article about climate change as a security risk, and in a cascade of failures blocked the domains of news sites that published the article, according to technology experts interviewed for this story and Facebook’s public statements.

Blake E. Reid:

The punchline of this story was, is, and remains not that Meta maliciously censored a journalist for criticizing them, but that it built a fundamentally broken service for ubiquitously intermediating global discourse at such a large scale that it can’t even cogently explain how the service works.

This was always a sufficient explanation for the Reflector situation, and one that does not require any level of deliberate censorship or conspiracy for such a small target. Yet, it seems as though many of those who boosted the narrative that Facebook blocks critical reporting cannot seem to shake that. I got the above link from Marisa Kabas, who commented:

They’re allowing shitty AI to run their multi-billion dollar platforms, which somehow knows to block content critical of them as a cybersecurity threat.

That is not an accurate summary of what has transpired, especially if you read it with the wink-and-nod tone I imply from its phrasing. There is plenty to criticize about the control Meta exercises and the way in which it moderates its platforms without resorting to nonsense.

The World of Shein ⇥ nplusonemag.com

Nicole Lipman, N+1 magazine:

But both things can be true. SHEIN might be singled out as the worst fast-fashion retailer because the United States fears and envies China and has a particular interest in denigrating its successes, and it might be singled out because it is, in fact, the worst: the greatest polluter, the most flagrant IP thief, the largest violator of human rights, and — arguably worst of all — the most profitable. SHEIN has shown the world that unsustainability pays. Together with the companies that will follow its example of ultra-fast fashion, SHEIN will accelerate the already-rapid acceleration toward global catastrophe.

Consider the volume of critical press coverage, for decades, documenting outrageous practices in any number of consumer industries — fashion, technology, whatever — and then consider how those same industries, and even the same businesses, continue to grow and thrive. We now live in a world of Shein, Temu, and Amazon, all of which are the exact opposite of the values we claim to hold, yet are hugely popular and growing. The worse they are, the more they are rewarded.

See Also: Michael Hobbes’ deep 2016 investigation, for the Huffington Post, about the “myth of the ethical shopper”.

A Review of the Fairphone Fairbuds ⇥ theguardian.com

Speaking of repairability, Samuel Gibbs reviewed, for the Guardian, the new Fairphone Fairbuds:

The Fairbuds cost £129 (€149) and are designed from the ground up to be as sustainable as possible, combining fair trade and recycled materials with replaceable parts that can be swapped in and out with a standard small screwdriver.

[…]

The earbuds have a little door hidden behind a silicone sleeve, which opens to reveal a small button battery ready to be replaced once it wears out. The design seems so simple you wonder why no one has tried it before.

Gibbs noted an audio sync issue which the company says it was working on. Otherwise, these seem to be perfectly fine true water-resistant wireless earbuds with approximately similar battery life to Apple’s AirPods Pro.

It turns out I am currently in the market for a new set of wireless earbuds. My second-generation AirPods are down to just a few minutes of usable battery charge, and I have been reluctant to buy another set because of the fixed lifespan owing to the glued-in battery. I am sure there are ways these are less good than AirPods but, for my priorities, I think these are the right trade-off. Sadly, they are not yet available in Canada.

Apple Says Used iPhone Parts Will Be Permitted in Device Repairs, Unless They Are Stolen ⇥ apple.com

Apple, in a press release that does not once contain either of the words “Oregon” or “regulation”:

Today Apple announced an upcoming enhancement to existing repair processes that will enable customers and independent repair providers to utilize used Apple parts in repairs. Beginning with select iPhone models this fall, the new process is designed to maintain an iPhone user’s privacy, security, and safety, while offering consumers more options, increasing product longevity, and minimizing the environmental impact of a repair. Used genuine Apple parts will now benefit from the full functionality and security afforded by the original factory calibration, just like new genuine Apple parts.

Apple goes on to say that parts calibration will soon be done on-device, and goes further to provide a genuinely good use of pairing: if parts are scavenged from iPhones with Activation Lock enabled, they will be “restricted” in some way.

This all sounds pretty great and, it would seem, entirely triggered by regulatory changes. But it also seems to me that it is designed to challenge the parts pairing section of Oregon’s right-to-repair law (PDF). Specifically, this portion:

(b) For consumer electronic equipment that is manufactured for the first time, and first sold or used in this state, after January 1, 2025, an original equipment manufacturer may not use parts pairing to:

[…]

(B) Reduce the functionality or performance of consumer electronic equipment; […]

A clause a little later in the same section does not oblige manufacturers to “make available special documentation, tools, parts or other devices or implements that would disable or override, without an owner’s authorization, anti-theft” features set by the device owner. It looks like the total meaning of the law is that Apple’s anti-theft features would be prohibited in Oregon because doing so would reduce their functionality. That is my non-lawyer reading, anyway: it creates an understandable reason for pairing, and grounds for Apple to fight it. Just a guess, but I bet this comes up later.

Third-Party Web Browsers Report Growing Mobile Market Share in E.U. ⇥ reuters.com

Supantha Mukherjee and Foo Yun Chee, Reuters:

Independent browser companies in the European Union are seeing a spike in users in the first month after EU legislation forced Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft, and Apple to make it easier for users to switch to rivals, according to data provided to Reuters by six companies.

The early results come after the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act, which aims to remove unfair competition, took effect on March 7, forcing big tech companies to offer mobile users the ability to select from a list of available web browsers from a “choice screen.”

I was skeptical about the efficacy of a browser ballot screen, but I guess I should not be surprised by this news. It turns out people may pick other options if you make the choice more prominent.

Via Ben Lovejoy, who covered the report for 9to5Mac but, as of publishing, has not linked to it, and writes:

Other browser companies claim that the process is convoluted, and provides no information on any of the browsers listed. They say this means iPhone users are more likely to simply pick the name they know, which is most likely to be Safari.

I have seen others suggest people may be picking third-party browsers because they are unclear about what a web browser is, or are unsure which one they want to use. I can see legitimacy in both arguments — but that is just how choice works. A lot of people buy the same brand of a product even when they have other options because it is the one they recognize; others choose based on criteria unrelated to the product itself. This is not a new phenomenon. What is fascinating to me is seeing how its application to web browsers on a smartphone is being treated as exotic.

An analogy some have turned to — including me — in describing the difference between first- and third-party apps on the iPhone is that it is something like the difference between store generic brands and national name brands. This has been misleading because users have not, in the case of competitors to first-party apps, been placed in a neutral starting position.

It has so far been a little bit like entering a store where they give you a basket of house brand products and you have to decide which third-party options you want to add or exchange to the basket. Someone needs to really care in order to make the effort. Now, because of this ballot screen, the market is a little more levelled, and it seems some users are responding.

Claims Form Open for Canadian iPhone Battery Class Action Settlement ⇥ cbc.ca

Over the past several years, consequences have been slowly dripping out regarding Apple’s decision to silently curb iPhone performance in cases of poor battery capacity. First, the French competition authorities fined the company, then Apple settled a U.S. class action. In March, the Canadian equivalent class action suit was settled.

Alisha Parchment, CBC News:

Current or former iPhone 6 and 7 users in Canada can now submit a settlement claim for a class-action lawsuit that could pay up to $150 to eligible users of the affected devices.

For clarity, it also covers current and former iPhone 6S and iPhone SE (first generation) owners. If you have owned one of those devices and can find the serial number, you can process a claim, or opt out, until September 3. Quebec residents are ineligible.

Automattic Adds Beeper to Its Portfolio of Cross-Platform Messaging Acquisitions ⇥ techcrunch.com

Sarah Perez, TechCrunch:

WordPress.com owner Automattic is acquiring Beeper, the company behind the iMessage-on-Android solution that was referenced by the Department of Justice in its antitrust lawsuit against Apple. The deal, which was for $125 million according to sources close to the matter, is Automattic’s second acquisition of a cross-platform messaging solution after [buying Texts.com][bt] last October.

Matt Mullenweg:

A lot of people are asking about iMessage on Android… I have zero interest in fighting with Apple, I think instead it’s best to focus on messaging networks that want more engagement from power-user clients. This is an area I’m excited to work on when I return from my sabbatical next month.

Seems like a smart way for Beeper to become better resourced, and a bet by Automattic on more legislation like the Digital Markets Act enabling further interoperable messaging.

In a Lawsuit, a Former TikTok Employee Claims to Be a Source for Various High-Profile News Stories, and Makes Some Truly Bananas Claims ⇥ wired.com

Louise Matsakis, Wired:

[Zen] Goziker worked at TikTok for only six months. He didn’t hold a senior position inside the company. His lawsuit, and a second one he filed in March against several US government agencies, makes a number of improbable claims. He asserts that he was put under 24-hour surveillance by TikTok and the FBI while working remotely in Mexico. He claims that US attorney general Merrick Garland, director of national intelligence Avril Haines, and other top officials “wickedly instigated” his firing. And he states that the FBI helped the CIA share his private information with foreign governments. The suits do not appear to include evidence for any of these claims.

Here is a copy of Goziker’s complaint and it is quite the read, as you can probably imagine. He alleges, without evidence, corruption between members of the Biden administration trying to gain political favours from TikTok executives, effectively placing himself as the central character in a complex geopolitical plot.

Perhaps more believable is Goziker’s claim that he was the source for the recordings reported on in June 2022 by Emily Baker-White, then at Buzzfeed News, in an article pretentiously framed as the “TikTok Tapes”. While the story’s accuracy is not affected by a bloviating source, it sure makes me more concerned the clips were taken out of context. To be clear, I have no evidence of that and I am sure Baker-White was diligent in reporting out the story.

Delivery Workers’ Hazards ⇥ restofworld.org

Zuha Siddiqui, Samriddhi Sakunia, and Faisal Mahmud, Rest of World:

To better understand air quality exposure among gig workers in South Asia, Rest of World gave three gig workers — one each in Lahore, New Delhi, and Dhaka — air quality monitors to wear throughout a regular shift in January. The Atmotube Pro monitors continually tracked their exposure to carcinogenic pollutants — specifically PM1, PM2.5, and PM10 (different sizes of particulate matter), and volatile organic compounds such as benzene and formaldehyde.

[…]

Although pollution can affect anyone exposed to it, delivery riders are particularly vulnerable owing to the nature of their work: They are outside for extended periods of time, often on congested streets, with little shelter from the smog.

These are obviously among the most extreme examples of what delivery workers’ lungs endure. Conditions similar to these are common across Southeast Asia and South Asia, but are not limited to those regions. According to IQAir, many cities in South Africa are dealing with dangerous levels of pollution, and winter months are particularly hazardous in Chile.

Back in the United States, John Oliver spent the main portion of the March 31 edition of “Last Week Tonight” talking about delivery workers. I have to wonder how any of these supposedly revolutionary “gig” jobs will last in their current form.

Update: Corrected to reflect that July is, in fact, winter in Chile. What a silly mistake.