Ric Ford:
Apple’s exhorbitantly-priced Mac storage comes with impressive benchmark claims but has some serious, hidden bottlenecks in certain scenarios, as do other SSDs. David Harry illustrated this clearly in a video, using Activity Monitor as a novel window into dramatic SSD slowdowns when moving large amounts of data to an Apple internal SSD from a third-party Thunderbolt 5 SSD.
He actually finds that the external SSD, connected via Thunderbolt 4, is faster at reading than the MacBook Pro’s internal one. Write performance drops once the SLC cache is full.
Howard Oakley:
In normal use, there are three potential causes of reduced write speed in an otherwise healthy SSD:
- thermal throttling,
- SLC write cache depletion,
- the need for Trimming and/or housekeeping.
[…]
To achieve their high storage density, almost all consumer-grade SSDs store multiple bits in each of their memory cells, and most recent products store three in Triple-Level Cell or TLC. Writing all three bits to a single cell takes longer than it would to write them to separate cells, so most TLC SSDs compensate by using caches. Almost all feature a smaller static cache of up to 16 GB, used when writing small amounts of data, and a more substantial dynamic cache borrowed from main storage cells by writing single bits to them as if they were SLC (single-level cell) rather than TLC.
[…]
Keep ample free space on the SSD so the whole of its SLC write cache can be used.
SomeTechGuy:
The price on added memory and SSD capacity on the otherwise excellent Mac Mini is horrible. I wanted to avoid paying the apple tax on that storage, so I am using an external SSD and it means I can get twice the storage for less than half the price. But I wanted to find out what it would mean for performance, and I couldn’t believe what I found.
The Mac mini also has Thunderbolt 4, but he finds it limiting performance. The internal 256 SSD seems to be slow, despite what was reported earlier about it using multiple chips like the larger versions.
Previously:
Activity Monitor Mac Mac mini MacBook Pro macOS 15 Sequoia Solid-State Drive (SSD) Storage Thunderbolt
EFF (Hacker News):
When the New York Times reported in late 2005 that the NSA was engaging in spying inside the U.S., Mark realized that he had witnessed how it was happening. He also realized that the President was not telling Americans the truth about the program. And, though newly retired, he knew that he had to do something. He showed up at EFF’s front door in early 2006 with a simple question: “Do you folks care about privacy?”
We did. And what Mark told us changed everything. Through his work, Mark had learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) had installed a secret, secure room at AT&T’s central office in San Francisco, called Room 641A. Mark was assigned to connect circuits carrying Internet data to optical “splitters” that sat just outside of the secret NSA room but were hardwired into it. Those splitters—as well as similar ones in cities around the U.S.—made a copy of all data going through those circuits and delivered it into the secret room.
Iain Thomson:
The evidence he gathered and shared led to two lawsuits that exposed the extent to which US citizens were being spied on by their own government in the post-9/11 world. Klein faced legal pressure, death threats, and the constant fear of ruin, to get his story out and tell the public what was going on. But Klein regretted nothing.
[…]
He went to one newspaper, which strung him along for months promising a big front-page splash and then spiked the story. Other media outlets refused to touch it, although he did get some TV time (see below). Having heard about the EFF, which also had the bonus of being in San Francisco, he decided to drop in unannounced.
[…]
He wrote a book about his experiences, Wiring Up The Big Brother Machine And Fighting It; it’s a cracking read.
Previously:
AT&T National Security Agency (NSA) Privacy Rest in Peace The Media
Amazon:
You can opt out of sending voice recordings to the cloud for devices that can process the audio of your Alexa requests locally (Echo (4th Gen), Echo Show 10 or Echo Show 15) or supported devices that are able to communicate with the devices in your house on the same network (Echo (3rd Gen), Echo Dot (3rd Gen), Echo Dot (4th Gen), Echo Dot (4th Gen) with clock, Echo Dot (5th Gen), Echo Dot (5th Gen) with clock).
[…]
Some Alexa features and capabilities such as Adaptive Listening, Live Translations, Dynamic Language Switching, and Reading Sidekick are unavailable when Do Not Send Voice Recordings is turned on.
Alexa will still send audio to the cloud for features that require the transmission of audio, such as when you make a call or send a message or announcement via Alexa. And, if you create a voice ID, the audio recordings used to teach Alexa your voice will be sent to the cloud. Alexa will also send audio to the cloud if you enable Alexa Guard, including for Smart Alerts and emergency calling with Alexa Emergency Assist.
I was not aware of this feature, but it turns out that my Echo Dot supports it. As far as I can tell, recent versions of Siri already do this on iPhone—HomePod presumably doesn’t have enough processing power—sending only transcripts of the text to Apple. An ongoing issue is that many of these requests seem like they could be processed locally but are instead sent to Apple.
Scharon Harding (Hacker News, Reddit, Slashdot):
Since Amazon announced plans for a generative AI version of Alexa, we were concerned about user privacy. With Alexa+ rolling out to Amazon Echo devices in the coming weeks, we’re getting a clearer view of the privacy concessions people will have to make to maximize usage of the AI voice assistant and avoid bricking functionality of already-purchased devices.
In an email sent to customers today, Amazon said that Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon’s cloud. Amazon apparently sent the email to users with “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” enabled on their Echo. Starting on March 28, recordings of every command spoken to the Alexa living in Echo speakers and smart displays will automatically be sent to Amazon and processed in the cloud.
[…]
Amazon is forcing Echo users to make a couple of tough decisions: Grant Amazon access to recordings of everything you say to Alexa or stop using an Echo; let Amazon save voice recordings and have employees listen to them or lose a feature set to become more advanced and central to the next generation of Alexa.
Amazon’s explanation for the change is rather disappointing. The main issue is apparently a more powerful Alexa Voice ID that can’t run locally, but I’m not sure that people really care about that.
Pieter Arntz:
Basically, the processing requests that rely on AI features can’t be done within the limited processing power of the Echo device itself. This means that voice recordings will be sent to and processed in the cloud.
[…]
This change confirms existing fears about user privacy with the implementation of the generative AI version of Alexa. Due to financial losses that came with Alexa’s operation, Amazon introduced the AI-powered Alexa+ which has far more capabilities and should generate more cash-flow. Alexa+ is based on several major language models such as the in-house development Nova, and Claude from Anthropic.
Previously:
Alexa Amazon Echo HomePod iOS iOS 18 Privacy Siri
Christina Petrova:
The first DMA browser choice screens started rolling out in the EU in March 2024. Since then, they have slowly started appearing for:
- New and existing Android smartphones and tablet users with Chrome pre-set as a default browser (though rollout has been fairly inconsistent)
- New and existing iOS users with Safari as their default browser, who have iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 or later iOS versions installed on their device (initial roll out in iOS 17.4 was poorly designed)
[…]
Firefox daily active users in Germany alone have increased by 99%. And in France, Firefox’s daily active users on iOS grew by 111%.
[…]
And we’ve found that when people choose Firefox via a DMA choice screen, they stick with it.
Via Nick Heer:
I have confirmed with Petrova these numbers reflect growth in iOS users only. They are impressive, but my interpretation of statistics like these is that one often finds percentages used like this when neither actual number is very large.
I would have liked to see a comparison vs. usage in countries without the DMA.
Previously:
Android Digital Markets Act (DMA) European Union Firefox France Germany iOS iOS 18 Web Browser
