We all know that our data floating in the cloud is being kept, monitored, analyzed, and sold. Tell Alexa your hopes and dreams, how perhaps you are having trouble sleeping, and he'll blab to Jeff Bezos about it. Maybe Jeff uses that gossip to sell you a better mattress.

Google Assistant and Cortana (RIP) are both blabbermouths, too. It's not unreasonable to think Siri rolls with the same crowds. But I'm not so sure. Most of what you tell Siri never leaves your phone. Even for processing your voice, it's all done on your iDevice.

Listen, I get it. We live in a capitalist world with faceless shareholders and petulant billionaires. Why would Apple be any different? Part of me knows that enough time passes and my foot will eventually reach my mouth. But right now, based on the information available, it's clear that Apple is killing the cloud as we know it. And it's doing so in favor of on-device computing and storage.

Anything that floats in the air is encrypted and out of Tim Cook's reach. That's an incredible feat. It shows a path for tech companies to profit without soaking themselves in our data. Will Amazon or Google ever give up their data addiction? Likely not. But start-ups sprout every day.

Over the last few years, Apple has favored on-device computing and encryption:

1. Siri processes on-device
2. So does dictation
3. And the Neural Network
4. Our files live on our devices first
5. All our stuff in iCloud is encrypted

Plus, iPhones increase storage every year like clockwork. We can get 2TB mobile devices. That's wild. I mean, it's overpriced like hell, but it's still amazing.

iCloud has essentially become a traffic guard that directs our digital lives from one iDevice to the next. And it never asks, “How's your day, hot shot?” That seems like a good thing.

Note: This post is mainly rushed thoughts. I'll keep adding and polishing.

Type: #Note Re: #Apple #Technology

Meta also did not use private chats on its messaging services as training data for the model and took steps to filter private details from public datasets used for training, said Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg, speaking on the sidelines of the company's annual Connect conference this week.

Emphasis mine.

This is a neat little trick. A reasonable reader, or someone not completely cynical, may think the term “private chat” just means chats, which are private in nature.

But Facebook / Meta doesn't believe chats are inherently private. Privacy is an opt-in feature on Messenger. You must explicitly switch on the end-to-end encryption. Only then will Meta agree to keep out of your user data.

From Facebook's help center:

A secret conversation in Messenger is encrypted end to end, which means the messages are intended just for you and the other person – not anyone else, including us.

So, when Nick Clegg, Meta's President of Global Affairs, goes on record to say the company's AI doesn't train on “private chats,” it reads like a benign statement. But, it's impossible to decipher how Clegg is using the term— as an adjective, or part of a noun with a precise technical meaning.

It's possible that the term belongs to Reuters, as “private chat” isn't directly quoted. But I find that to be a weird liberty for a journalist to take in a published interview.

Okay, I know it sounds like I'm splitting hairs but, in five years when an exposé breaks, and Zuck is invited to another congressional hearing over privacy concerns, that phrasing gives him an out.

Zuck can be like “we didn't mean private, we meant Private™. Then some congressperson with a hundred grand in Meta stock can throw up their hands and be like “who's to say, case closed.”

I know of at least one other situation where this type of wordplay occurs.

Ever been pulled over by a cop and they ask “mind if I search your car?” They specifically ask like this because you're likely to respond with “yes” or “no.” And because of the way the question is phrased, both potential answers can imply consent to search.

“Mind if I search your car?” “No.”

You may've meant “no you can't search my car,” but a cop can argue to a judge that they thought you meant “no, I don't mind.” The reverse is true with the answer yes. “Yes I mind” and “yes I give you consent” are both plausible interpretations.

It's a neat little trick.

Type: #Note Re: #Meta #Privacy #Technology

From How a startup full of ex-iPhone talent is trying to make phones obsolete:

Humane is trying to realize the promise of “ambient computing” — an artificial intelligence-driven computing experience that’s personal and contextual — by building a software platform and hardware line that doesn’t rely on screens.

Go on...

Humane was founded by Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri, ex-Apple employees who played major roles in the creation of both the iPhone and iPad.

Two ex-Apple employees who want to make a (presumably) better AI assistant than Siri? Okay, I'm listening...

At Humane, their stated goal is building technology that's “familiar, natural, and human,” betters the human experience, and is “born from good intentions.” The company believes “we all deserve more from technology,”

Here it comes...

Chaudhri also stresses that Humane is focused on “trust and privacy from day zero.” You should have control over what your technology knows, “your data should be owned by you and only you.”

Oh, fuck off lol.

I'm so tired of the “better tomorrow” promise from snazzy tech start-ups. These “privacy from day zero” promises cannot be kept in the longterm. Not if they want VC funding. Not if they want to go public. Not if they build their empire on techno-capitalism.

But please, continue.

the company is building screen-free ambient computing hardware, and a platform for it to run on, possibly with Android as a starting point...

El Em Motherfucking Aye Oh.

Emphasis mine.

Type: #Note Re: #Privacy #Siri #Technology

I've used the feature a dozen times so far, and while its my favorite new feature by far, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Siri isn't a particularly smart virtual assistant by any measure. So, it's no wonder that it struggles with all the variables of the written word.

Type: #Note Re: #iOS #Siri #Standardization #Technology

Discuss...

Siri doesn't seem to consider context when choosing the pronunciation of word with multiple potential pronunciations. Apple's voice assistant also lacks a certain cadence in its delivery; a type of flair one may expect from, say, Stephen Fry reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Siri's shortcomings as a voice actor got me thinking— shouldn't there be a markup standardization for this sort of thing? Some kind of metadata that communicates pronunciation, emphasis, etc. to AI readers?

It turns out, such a standardization is in the works from the W3C.

Specification for Spoken Presentation in HTML describes two approaches for markup attribution: multi-attribute and single-attribute.

My realization that a standard is in the works (because of course it is, for accessibility reasons) brings up more questions.

One, why hasn't Apple pushed for this, or even a proprietary public solution, for spoken presentation attributes? Or, have they and I'm missing it?

Two, is this type of attribution considered a matter of formatting? Because if so, is it possible to incorporate these attributes in Markdown? I'd love to give my articles a little voice direction without diving into the markup, or without adding to WYSIWYG editors already clunky interfaces. But, perhaps its far too early to say.

But damn, how great would it be to listen on demand to articles, essays, and books, as the author intended. And imagine if, once that ability is widely adopted, Stephen Fry sold his voice for AI reading instead of the technology companies screwing him out of work.

What a pleasant experience that would be.

Continuing down the rabbit hole

Stuff I learned after posting this article:

The W3C has Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) which is an XML-based standard (like RSS?).

Amazon uses SSML for Alexa. Microsoft uses it for Azure AI services.

Interesting related links:

https://popey.com/blog/2022/10/blog-to-speech-in-my-voice/

http://library.usc.edu.ph/ACM/CHI2019/2exabs/alt08.pdf

Created: September 29, 2023 Future revisions?: Unsure

Type: #Note Re: #Technology #Design

Twitter was one of the first social media companies to brand user interactions within the platform— tweets, retweets, hashtags— that was all Twitter's wildly inventive dev team.

Twitter's user interface is so incredibly well-structured, with such a strong design language, that it feels as natural as the multi-touch screen it lives in. Companies, to this day, shamelessly copy everything Twitter does.

When mobile websites started gaining popularity in the early 2010s, Twitter released Bootstrap, one of the first responsive front-end frameworks, for free. Today, millions of websites are built on Bootstrap because how well structured it is. I learned how to code using Bootstrap and I still use it often.

Twitter has one of the best logos ever created. It’s iconic in its simplicity and thoughtfulness. It was one of the first to consider mobile interfaces, designed to be recognizable no matter the size.

All this to say, to watch the brand fall victim to the antithesis of good design is gut-wrenching. I can't think of a worse death for the bird app. Elon bought something beautiful, and his instinct was to destroy it. It almost feels as if he's punishing it for achieving something he could never have achieved on his own— good taste and measured execution. You wonder if the only reason he hasn't destroyed Tesla is because he has shareholders to tell him no.

I want Twitter to die. Not because of what it was, but because of what it has turned into. Twitter deserved a dignified death. Elon denied it that. He snuffed it out in the ugliest way possible.

Creation: 7/25/2023 Last Evolution: —