Thomas Ricouard:
Recently, there’s been much talk and fuss about AI, and whether or not it can improve your development workflow. I wanted to touch base about how AI and its implementation in Cursor have been significantly improving my speed and efficiency.
In short, Cursor is a fork of VSCode with many code editing AI-assisted features built in. If you’ve played with Copilot in VSCode, you might know what I’m talking about. Well, think Copilot, but ten times better and with many other useful features aimed at productivity.
This story is about how I’ve been using it and setting it up for my open-source project SwiftUI Mastodon client, Ice Cubes.
Previously:
Artificial Intelligence Developer Tool Ice Cubes iOS iOS 18 Programming Swift Programming Language SwiftUI Visual Studio Code
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy:
Fast-forward to today, and there are over 40 million Echo smart speakers in US households, with Alexa processing billions of commands a week globally. But despite this proliferation of products and popularity, the “superhuman assistant who is there when you need it, disappears when you don’t, and is always working in the background on your behalf” that Amazon promised just isn’t here.
Alexa is still mainly doing what it’s always done: playing music, reporting the weather, and setting timers. Its capabilities have expanded — Alexa can now do useful things like control your lights, call your mom, and remind you to take out the trash. But despite a significant investment of time, money, and resources over the last decade, the voice assistant hasn’t become noticeably more intelligent. As one former Amazon employee said, “We worried we’ve hired 10,000 people and we’ve built a smart timer.”
Via Dan Moren:
There was a real feeling of breakthrough to that original product, but—not unlike Siri—it feels like it never really moved a base level of functionality, despite all of Amazon’s efforts.
I think a big part of what has stymied Amazon in particular is trying to figure out where the Echo fit into its overall strategy. If Apple’s business is selling hardware and Google’s is selling ads, Amazon’s biggest might be shopping? But the shopping experience from the Echo has always been weird and less than ideal.
I can see why Alexa could be viewed as a disappointment, but I’m happy to have a device that does the basics really well. We have both an Echo and a HomePod in our kitchen, and everyone defaults to asking Alexa instead of Siri. We even tend to use it for music, even though it sounds much worse. Even though we don’t subscribe to Amazon Music, it has a higher chance of actually playing the requested song. The HomePod is for more deliberate music playing via AirPlay and for getting a second opinion when looking up information.
Nick Heer:
Siri remains software I distrust. Like Federighi, I would struggle to list my usage beyond a handful of simple commands — timers, reminders, and the occasional message. Anything else, and it remains easier and more reliable to wash my hands if I am kneading pizza dough, or park the car if I am driving, and do things myself.
Previously:
Alexa HomePod Music Siri
Ruffin Bailey:
I often buy from what at least used to be called the iTunes Music Store. The biggest advantage for me for doing so over, say, buying from Amazon or directly from the artist’s site (which I often do, or buy from Bandcamp if available), is that Apple Music will stream those songs for me even if I didn’t download them locally, so they’re accessible any time I have an Apple device (or Windows!) and a network connection.
Well, almost. It doesn’t work from my HomePod, you know, the device I spent a few hundred bucks on TO PLAY MUSIC.
As I’ve explained, this basic feature mostly doesn’t work for me, either.
On Apple’s HomePod feedback page, the most recent HomePod OS version you can select is 16.5. Mine, after searching the Home app for a while, is apparently on 17.6 and is downloading 18 now.
Music is no longer in Apple’s DNA. They just don’t care.
Previously:
audioOS audioOS 18 HomePod iTunes Store Music
Emma Roth (Slashdot):
Reddit just turned a profit for the first time. As part of its third quarter earnings results released on Tuesday, the company reported a profit of $29.9 million, along with $348.4 million in revenue — a 68 percent increase year over year.
[…]
Reddit’s advertising revenue grew to $315.1 million, while “other” revenue reached $33.2 million on account of “data licensing agreements signed earlier this year.” Both Google and OpenAI have cut deals with Reddit to train their AI models on its posts.
In a letter to shareholders, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman attributed the recent increase in users to the platform’s AI-powered translation feature. Reddit started letting users translate posts into French last year before expanding to Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German.
Dare Obasanjo:
Both Reddit and Netflix reaping massive financial benefits from user hostile moves like banning 3rd party apps and blocking password sharing is setting an interesting precedent.
Jack Raines:
Reddit’s daily users increased 47% year over year, and there was an interesting anecdote in their shareholder letter:
“Reddit” was the sixth most Googled word in the US. With AI slop increasingly prevalent, Reddit is largely seen as an source of human information and stories.
Previously:
Advertising Artificial Intelligence Business Google Gemini/Bard Natural Language Translation OpenAI Reddit Web
