Wes Davis

Former Weekend Editor

US Congress pushes warrantless wiretapping decision off until April next year

Wes DavisDec 17, 2023

Wes DavisDec 16, 2023

Don’t forget that (this specific version of) Mickey Mouse will soon be ours.

TechDirt published a helpful reminder yesterday that the 1928 “Steamboat Willie” iteration of the Disney character will become the people’s mouse on January 1st, 2024. The article also points to a Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain guide for using the early design.

You could take a page out of the Winnie-the-Pooh: the Deforested Edition playbook and create “Steamboat Willie: the Climate Change Edition,” in which Mickey’s boat is grounded in a dry riverbed. You could create a feminist remake with Minnie Mouse as the central figure. You could reimagine Mickey and Minnie dedicating themselves to animal welfare.

Mickey, Disney, and the Public Domain: a 95-year Love Triangle

[web.law.duke.edu]

Wes DavisDec 16, 2023

The 2023 M3 iMac looks like the last one on the inside, too.

iFixit published a video teardown today, and yeah, it’s a second verse, same as the first affair. Well, the video did call out that there’s one fewer CMOS battery.

iFixit didn’t give it a reparability score (the original model got a 2 out of 10), but did call out the “smart, repairable design” of its non-goopy screen adhesive.

Wes DavisDec 16, 2023

Microsoft says its newest compact “small language model,” Phi-2, is bigger and better.

The company has been working on training AI models on much smaller data sets comprised only of “textbook-quality” data, as part of its Phi models.

Microsoft says in a research blog that Phi-2, which is about twice as big as its predecessor, Phi 1.5, continues to perform on par or better than certain larger open-source Llama 2 models, including one with 13 billion parameters.

A chat session where Phi-2 identifies why a physics calculation was incorrect.

Phi-2 identifies an error in a physics calculation.

Image: Microsoft

Wes DavisDec 16, 2023

WhatsApp channels gets automatic album creation in the latest Android beta.

WABetaInfo spotted the feature. Like in individual and group chats, the app will automatically create albums whenever someone posts several pictures or videos in a row on Channels (WhatsApp’s Telegram-like broadcasting feature) for some beta users.

The image below, which WABetaInfo shared on X (formerly Twitter), shows what it will look like.

Wes DavisDec 16, 2023

Threads accounts will have to be public to show in the fediverse.

Instagram boss Adam Mosseri posted a little more about the plan to integrate Threads with the fediverse.

While responding to some skepticism about pushing posts out to other ActivityPub instances, Mosseri said only public accounts will show in the wider fediverse outside of Threads, and — though he said this isn’t fully decided — only after users “explicitly opt in.”

Adam Mosseri spells out Threads’ plans for the fediverse

Jay Peters

Dec 15

Threads will let you push fact-checked posts further down your feed

Wes DavisDec 13, 2023

GM thinks MotorTrend “misrepresented” its own executive’s comments about CarPlay and Android Auto.

Yesterday, we linked to a MotorTrend story paraphrasing GM infotainment head Tim Babbitt saying CarPlay and Android Auto can actually distract drivers. In an email to The Verge, GM communications director Anna Yu said his comments weren’t accurately reflected, calling Apple and Google “valued” partners. She added:

GM’s embedded infotainment strategy is driven by the benefits of having a system that allows for greater integration with the larger GM ecosystem and vehicles.