According to Bloomberg’s new report it turned out that Apple is going to sell iPhones and iPads as a part of a hardware subscription service, moreover this changes may happen already the next year.
Several years ago Apple slowly started to push their consumers towards buying recurring subscriptions as a new way of profitable revenue streams. The examples can be Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple News Plus, Apple Fitness Plus, and Apple Arcade. Moreover a lot of these services have been already connected together in Apple One bundles.
The price of subscription will not be calculated simply in a way that the total price will be divided by 12 or 24 month. It will be undecided monthly cost, linked to a user’s existing Apple ID account, with the possibility to upgrade to new hardware as it’s released.
So basically picture is going to look like that: people are renting iPhones or iPads and while using the devices they have to pay, and when they decide to stop using it, devices must be returned back.
Most probably Apple is just looking for a way to cut out the so-called middle man and expand its installment-based payment offerings to other products. This actions will stop people of paying percent for other services. But the question is if this type of payment will be accepted and liked by customers.
It was the third week after Russia invaded Ukraine, when president Volodymyr Zelensky appeared in a video with a speech addressed to Ukrainians to surrender to Russia: “I ask you to lay down your weapons and go back to your families. This war is not worth dying for. I suggest you to keep on living, and I am going to do the same»
It’s hard to believe that Zelensky could have said something like that, right? Sure, this video was claimed to be fake as the clip was quickly identified as a Deepfake.
Moreover, there was another video of Vladimir Putin declaring peace in Ukraine. And again yes, this video is also fake.
Not long ago Facebook and YouTube calmed that they removed Zelensky Deepfake.
Just imagine, in 2017 nobody heard about Deepfakes, which have power to be and sound like whoever in the world. But know Deepfakes are too realistic. Look at this video and see for yourself.
This person is not real Tom Cruise and the whole video is fake. Super realistic, right? And know think about how many and Chaos Deepfakes may create in the future as it becomes more and more advanced.
As deepfakes get better, researchers and companies are trying to keep up with tools to spot them.
Abd-Almageed and Lyu use algorithms to detect deepfakes. Lyu’s solution, the jauntily named DeepFake-o-meter, allows anyone to upload a video to check its authenticity, though he notes that it can take a couple hours to get results. And some companies, such as cybersecurity software provider Zemana, are working on their own software as well.
Let’s just hope that one day Deepfakes will not cause any serious problems. But it is a good example of how technology may play against as. At first people developed Deepfakes and now we have to struggle with it.
The Matrix – film which is widely known all over the world. The first part was released in 1999 and grossed 171 mil $ only in USA, total box office gross of over $465 million worldwide. Moreover the movie’s ratings are still breaking records. But what made the film so successful? Despite many factors like shooting quality, directing, casting and etc., plot is what really made a huge impact on the success, a fantastic key idea of virtual reality.
And now imagine that virtual reality is closer day after day. Facebook spends billions of dollars to create a metaverse – a virtual world where people can interact with each other and with digital objects through their avatars, using virtual reality technologies.
In order to make you fully understand the real desire and intention of creation virtual reality world, Mark Zuckerberg announced on October 28 that Facebook had changed its name to Meta.The goal of Facebook’s rebranding is to cement the company’s connection to the new Metaverse project, the “metaverse” that Zuckerberg sees as the future of the internet.
Billions of dollars have already been invested in Metaverse. At least $10 billion this year alone. The funds will go to Facebook Reality Labs, a division of Metaverse that will develop hardware, software, and content for AR and VR. Among the implemented projects of Facebook Reality Labs are the Oculus Quest virtual reality glasses and the Portal display. Now Reality Labs employs 10,000 people.
In metaverse instead of profile there will be your own avatar and instead of news feed there will be social hubs were people can gather to share news, gossips and play games. Comedy clubs, discos, meditations, many game worlds and more – all these will be possible in metaverse.
Just imagine: a virtual world where you can do the same as in real one after only putting virtual glasses. A new world were actions are faster and easier to commit.
All these things are pushing to think about how metaverse will influence our lives and the future of our development. Will a new word substitute the one we leave in? Will people be less connected with the reality? Won’t the new world look fake? And is it only a begging of new era of communicating, interaction and way of life?
I would only say that all this thing about metaverse makes me feel unsure and doubtful. Why should we run from reality? Why should we substitute real feelings and communication? And why should we live like in this serial called «Black mirror»?
From my point of view, technologies should make our real life easier, but they should not replace the reality.
It is a tool that identifies tornadoes from far away and was created in 1842 by Christian Doppler thus the name given to his invention.
Initially, in the 1940’s it was used in military activities and required large analog filters to obtain data which was the main hindrance for the general activities of the military, for example using it only allowed military planes to conduct operations at night. In the 1970’s Doppler radar no longer needed large analog filters which resulted in it being more open and useful to other fields. Modern doppler systems are good with ground surveillance and are used by police to check speeding vehicles to weather pattern detection.
Mainly focusing on weather pattern detection especially tornadoes, a more specialized form of doppler radars called pulse-doppler radars are used here and they work by bouncing back radio waves in the air back to the radar large doppler radars, can even pick up waves from raindrops and hailstones to bugs and dust. After these frequency waves are obtained by the doppler radar it converts it into data in form of location and intensity of the weather pattern. This then shows the meteorologist the forecast in form of the speed and direction of the wind and rain.
Research at the severe storm research center of Georgia tech research institute has created a warning decision support system that uses Advance image processing combined with artificial intelligence and neural network to improve the warning and lead time of severe weather catastrophes, thus resulting in a 50% increase in lead time.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov confirmed that the lorry with the Starling dishes has arrived in Ukraine to help the country to fight with Russian aggression.
Stepan Veselovskyi, chief executive of Lviv IT Cluster says that currently internet services in most Ukrainian cities are working well but it will be important for businesses to have a contingency plan if networks fail.
Alp Toker of NetBlocks cautioned against seeing Starlink as a substitute for phone networks and broadband: “Starlink can provide connectivity by creating a personal hotspot for people who are in the vicinity of the device. So this is very useful for journalists, for resistance groups or the elected government.”
From my point of view, Starlink is a future for Ukraine and Ukrainians. People could experience something new and it will help a lot in stopping the aggression from the Russian side. Thank you, Elon Musk!
Google has decided to test the possibility of allowing developers to use their own billing systems on their apps, with Spotify being one of the first to be granted the opportunity.
Allowing such feature would allow users to pay or subscribe through the app rather than having to go to an external website from the developer. In this case users will be given the choice to subscribe to Spotify through the app using either their Google Play wallet, or Spotify’s own billing method. Under this new agreement Spotify will be charged less than the standard 30% commission, but the final figure has not been announced at this time.
I believe that the move is beneficial to both companies and will most likely lead to change in the app market, if this method proves successful it will allow more developers the ability to adopt this feature. Having the ability of using your own billing system is a big advantage and useful tool for developers. In the past when using Apple’s App Store, if users wanted to purchase a Spotify subscription they were required to pay £12.99 due to Apple’s 30% commission, Apple also didn’t allow the possibility of Spotify telling users to subscribe outside of the App Store system to pay less, which it was later ruled that the move was in breach of the EU Competition Law, following this Spotify stopped the ability for new users to subscribe with Apple, and to use their website instead. This move from Google will help to avoid problems like this on their platform, and may later push Apple in a similar direction of it proves to be a competitive advantage for Google.
Nowadays, VR techs are actively developing and in the next article one of such cutting-edge technologies will be described. The Emerge Home system is a breakthrough, which allows you not only to immerse yourself in the world of virtual reality and metaverses but also to feel the inner virtual space with bare hands. It is not just a VR set that allows you to see the 3D objects in the virtual worlds or games, but also to interact with them, to sense their shape, and help the user to get as much VR experience as possible, transporting him or her into the virtual world with just a few clicks.
The Emerge Home system is currently at the development stage, and its VR kit consists of two main tech components and a mobile application.
How does everything work?
The first tech component that helps the user to enlarge his VR experience is a VR headset (Emerge Home Quest 2 app).
The second component is the Emerge Wave-1 desktop device that conveys a physical experience with breakthrough technology. Sculpted ultrasonic waves on the surface of the system create a field in the air up to three feet above the device itself and allow users to interact with virtual objects. Moreover, the system itself is similar in size to a thirteen-inch laptop.
For the final step, the user has to install a dedicated Emerge Home mobile app, which allows him or her to connect the devices, customize the avatar and set a Center environment. Moreover, this application is capable of sending messages, creating rooms, and inviting your friends before gathering in the metaverse.
Based on research conducted by the National Research Group, It can be concluded that more than half of potential customers (78% of respondents) claim that when communicating with people virtually, they lack the opportunity of physical contact, and this cutting-edge VR system can significantly improve the situation.
However, there is a high risk that, in the nearest future, live communication, which is an important factor in human interactions, will be replaced by such kinds of technologies.
Any breakthrough in science is valuable. Some people may find it useful, while others may see it as technology that brings more harm. However, Emerge’s expertise can help the science and progress of virtual reality, and not only facilitate human interaction but also lead to new innovations that follow.
Tiktok, originally known as Musical.ly, has been entertaining children and young teens since 2014. With over 1.2 billion monthly active users, it is one of the biggest online platforms, offering videos ranging from lip-syncing videos, to storytime clips. However, not only did Tiktok catch the interest of the youth, but also from teachers and professors, and therefore, a rising number of educational videos are being posted on a daily basis.
A recent “Space“s article from September 1, 2021 states that “teachers are transforming the ever-popular mobile video platform, TikTok, from a nuisance to the ultimate learning tool“. With Covid-19, teachers had to come up with ideas on how to continue online schooling while keeping it interesting. As the App is known for its entertaining purpose, teachers use it in multiple ways. For instance, they upload summary videos on the topics discussed during class, with the aim of being able to refer back to it in case a student was not able to attend. In addition to that, they have the opportunity to ask questions in the comment section. Secondly, teachers can use Tiktok as an assignment tool. They can ask questions, which the students can only answer if they duet it.
Now, it might sound all fun and students might be more inclined to participate in assignments given that they associate Tiktok with being “cool“ and “funny“, however, the question rises whether there are any downsides to using this social media app for educational purposes. According to the Technical University of Denmark, the continual barrage of information has the potential to shorten our collective attention span. Given that Tiktok offers an endless number of videos, lasting up to 3 minutes, and its users can switch from one video to the next whenever wanted, the attention and interest shortens. In other words, the research scientist Philipp Lorenz-Spreen expressed that Tiktok users have a constant desire for new videos, which makes them change between video-clips more rapidly. In accordance with a questionnaire from the article “Has TikTok Made Our Attention Spans Shorter?“ and “Is TikTok shrinking students’ attention spans?“ many interviewees pointed out that their attention span changed in multiple ways. For example, respondents prefer not to watch long videos (10-15 minutes) anymore, because they lose focus already after a few minutes. Furthermore, Steve Kelman from The Business of Federal Technology states that this decrease in concentration commitment results in weaker performance at school, difficulties in carrying out tasks, forgetting information and much more.
My final thoughts regarding this issue are that I do believe that Tiktok is a good tool to keep a student interested, especially in times of Covid where education takes (mostly) place online. It is a fun platform especially for young people, however, given that according to interviewees, Tiktok does contribute to a decreased potential to focus. And even though it is not scientifically proven, I believe that there should be limits to the usage. Teachers and professors might use it from time to time but not continuously, because from personal experiences I agree that it decreases my attention and even contributes to the Tiktok “addiction“.
References:
Gudenau, S. (2021, November 17). Is TikTok shrinking students’ attention spans? The Oakland Post. https://oaklandpostonline.com/38875/features/is-tiktok-shrinking-students-attention-spans/
Iqbal, M. (2022, February 24). TikTok Revenue and Usage Statistics (2022). Business of Apps. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/
Jaeger, G. (2021, September 1). From Nuisance to Learning Platform – How Teachers are Transforming TikTok into an Edtech Tool. Spaces. https://spacesedu.com/en/tiktok-as-a-teaching-tool/
Schwab, K. (2021, April 12). TikTok is a thriving learning community—and may be the future of education. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90624117/tiktok-future-of-education-learning
Wikipedia contributors. (2022, March 19). TikTok. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok
Chatbots, online translators, text generators, and grammar checkers – these are a few of many modern applications of artificial intelligence language models. The most popular and advanced models like GPT-3 or BERT are claimed to “understand” human language. Unfortunately, these solutions are not open to the public. Why? Because mainly big corporations like Google, Microsoft or Huawei can afford to access enormous computing resources and have researchers to develop them.
?According to the official paper of GPT-3, it would take 355 years to train this AI model on a computer equipped with one of the most advanced graphics cards.
Open-source solution
To tackle the problem of the centralization of hyper-advanced AI models, hundreds of researchers from all around the world have gathered to bring an open-source solution to the public. Independent research and industrial volunteers formed a collaborative project called BigScience and created an enormous language AI which will complete its training in 4 months – anyone can track the progress in model training here: click!. The model is predicted to be excellent in performing various language-related tasks in 46 languages ?.
Implicationsof open-source
Currently, most advanced AI owned by hi-tech companies can be accessed by individuals, but one who wants to use them either needs to match specific conditions or pay for the access. One of the reasons is that the organizations that own AI solutions like GPT-3 still don’t know all of the potential misuses that could harm people and thus, want to control the purposes their solutions are used for. However, the new AI model created by BigScience collaborative community is most probably going to be open to anyone. It means that its use-cases will not be controlled.
Governments should join the collaboration
Hyper-advanced AI models can solve many problems and bring enormous value to society. In my opinion, collaborative projects like BigScience show that sooner or later, hyper-advanced AI solutions will be available to anyone. That’s the reason why I believe that governments should look into the problem of harmful applications of AI and establish a law to prevent such cases. Hopefully, that would encourage at least some hi-tech corporations to share their resources to help in democratizing advanced AI safely!
Reading Time: < 1minuteImage retrieved from Getty Images
Just two days ago, Brazil’s Supreme Court banned the popular messaging service, Telegram in hopes of stopping the spread of fake news and hate speech leading up to the presidential elections later this year.
However, I believe that this may not be the most effective way to stop the spread of fake news as netizens can still flock to other social media platforms and continue to spread misinformation and falsehoods. And in order to successfully combat the spread of fake news, it must be a joint effort between both the social media company and the government. However, this might be an issue in this situation as Telegram is “notoriously known for its stance of not cooperating with judicial and police authorities in several countries”, this can be seen from Telegram’s unresponsiveness as it did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to its press team. Thus, the government could have reached out to other more responsive social media companies as these companies would have valuable user data which the government does not have, and the government could leverage this data to find the root cause of the fake news, ultimately nipping the problem in the bud.
All in all, fake news spreads like a virus and we should stop the spread of fake news before we are faced with a full-blown pandemic.
