C33 Technology

Gadgets

Thoughts on Apple Bloggers and Vision Pro Coverage

I posted this on Mastodon, but I figured I would cross-post it here as well. I wonder if we’re headed for a weird place with the #Apple Blogosphere (AKA the Apple Blog Mafia). All of the main players are talking about Vision Pro all the time and saying things like “I lose track of time in here!

The Simple Pleasures of a Mobile Office Whiteboard

I’ve built a lot of stuff for my home office over the last few years of working from home, but my current favorite is something so simple: A custom rolling whiteboard A couple of weeks ago I gave myself a Saturday challenge to take my existing old whiteboard and build a rolling stand for it only with materials I had in my workshop.

I Made Myself a JARVIS Over the Weekend

With some spare parts, a USB speakerphone, and my Home Assistant server, I was able to make a competent JARVIS for my home office over the weekend…and the exciting part is that it’s only going to keep getting better! Last year was the “Year of Voice” for Home Assistant, the open source home automation platform, and the team accomplished a ton of work that enables Home Assistant users to make their own voice assistants.

Social Media

Substack Needs to Decide If It’s Special or Not

Much has been written about Substack’s Nazi problem and it’s subsequent messaging that it’s OK with Nazis to the point that it will not remove any of them unless they are inciting specific violence. Our content guidelines do have narrowly defined proscriptions, including a clause that prohibits incitements to violence. We will continue to actively enforce those rules while offering tools that let readers curate their own experiences and opt in to their preferred communities.

TidyBot - A Cleaning Robot Configured via a LLM

I’m fascinated by the merger of robotics and LLMs so I was very excited to see the TidyBot project from Stanford, Princeton, Google, Columbia, and Nueva School. In this work, we investigate personalization of household cleanup with robots that can tidy up rooms by picking up objects and putting them away.

Could the Apple TV Work as a Local Server for a LLM-Powered Siri?

On the December 26th episode of “Accidental Tech Podcast” there was a discussion about whether or not a future LLM-powered Siri could run locally on a HomePod or if it would need to run in the cloud. I thought this was an interesting question, and while I agree with their ultimate assumption that Apple would most likely will either use the cloud or require an upgrade to a new HomePod version if they launch a LLM-powered version of Siri, I also think that the Apple TV could potentially play a role here.