Meta's surprising innovations, crazy-real AI, and Alexa tips
Meta's surprising innovations, crazy-real AI, and Alexa tips
Plus, Admiral Grace Hopper on the future of computing, the decline of Intel, and what George Washington thought of the presidency
I’m David Gewirtz. Welcome to this week’s Advanced Geekery newsletter. It’s been an exciting week. Let’s dive in.
My articles
Let’s kick it off with a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.
Google's hidden AI tool turns your text into stunningly lifelike podcasts - for free. Listen for yourself: I've been studying AI for years, and Google's new AI podcast tool still astonishes me. Seriously, you have to hear this to believe it. But humans will beat the machines in the end. Here's why.
Meta takes some big AI swings at Meta Connect 2024: Meta's new AI features bring a combination of image editing, voice interaction, and real-time translation to the forefront. Learn how Llama 3.2 is reshaping user experiences across Meta's ecosystem of apps.
In a surprise twist, Meta is suddenly crushing Apple in the innovation battle: I never thought I'd say this, but Meta's announcements - from affordable Quest 3 headsets to updated Ray-Ban smart glasses - are a lot more exciting than Apple's right now.
5 handy Alexa routines I depend on every day - and how to build your own: Ready to unlock your Amazon Echo's true potential? Here's how Alexa routines can automate your home, simplify tasks, and save you time with just a few taps in the Alexa app.
What’s up with the charging station project?
A number of you have noticed I haven’t posted about the charging station project in the last few weeks. You wanted to know what’s going on. Here’s your answer:
I’ve been printing the shelf parts. This box contains the individual parts for one cube structure, of which there will be five in total. It took about a week to print all these parts. I have three parts sets done, which means I need two more.
Roughly speaking, each parts set consists of 14 3D printed main tiles, 13 3D printed tile connectors, 86 3D printed bolts and fasteners, and 21 3D printed tile-to-tile angle connectors. That doesn’t count the side-of-unit wall that will go up the full side of the cart. That’s probably another week of printing.
So, I figure I have about three more weeks of printing before I’m ready to tackle starting to put the thing together for real. Thanks for following along.
Must-watch YouTube
Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification. Admiral Grace Hopper has always been one of my heroes, and this week I found two great videos of her on YouTube.
This first piece was after she retired and was on Letterman. He was his usual annoying self, but Hopper held her own.
This piece is a 1982 lecture she gave to the NSA. A lot of what we do today is based on her work, but I had no idea she was this entertaining. Well worth watching, especially considering how much of a visionary she was.
As quite the contrast, this is a 45-minute interview with Mark Zuckerberg about the new Orion glasses and Meta’s work in AI. Also worth your time.
Interesting reads
And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth reading.
ZDNET’s Jason Perlow takes on the Intel question in this fascinating piece: The fall of Intel: How gen AI helped dethrone a giant and transform computing as we know it
NPR has an interesting article about George Washington’s view of the presidency.
Send in your projects
I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.
If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.
Both my EPs are now streaming
Available on all your favorite streaming services.
More clicky
I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:
House of the Head: home for my published music
ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects
Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!
Leave some comments
Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.
That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.
Have a great week!