grundlos

[Stephan Detjen @stephandetjen]

Ohne gerichtliches Verfahren, im Namen deutscher Staatsräson: Studierenden aus EU Ländern und den USA soll in Berlin Aufenthaltserlaubnis wegen Protest gegen Krieg in Gaza entzogen werden.

https://t.co/ttjjSmaVkT via @ft

[grundlos @_kramsee]

@dax_werner Vom Brandenburger Tor ein Katzensprung und mit einem wieder aufbaunenden Spaziergang durch den Tiergarten zu erreichen: Die Siegeseule. ✨🦉✨

[Sterling Crispin 🕊️ @sterlingcrispin]

I spent 10% of my life contributing to the development of the #VisionPro while I worked at Apple as a Neurotechnology Prototyping Researcher in the Technology Development Group. It’s the longest I’ve ever worked on a single effort. I’m proud and relieved that it’s finally announced. I’ve been working on AR and VR for ten years, and in many ways, this is a culmination of the whole industry into a single product. I’m thankful I helped make it real, and I’m open to consulting and taking calls if you’re looking to enter the space or refine your strategy.

The work I did supported the foundational development of Vision Pro, the mindfulness experiences, ▇▇▇▇▇▇ products, and also more ambitious moonshot research with neurotechnology. Like, predicting you’ll click on something before you do, basically mind reading. I was there for 3.5 years and left at the end of 2021, so I’m excited to experience how the last two years brought everything together. I’m really curious what made the cut and what will be released later on.

Specifically, I’m proud of contributing to the initial vision, strategy and direction of the ▇▇▇▇▇▇ program for Vision Pro. The work I did on a small team helped green light that product category, and I think it could have significant global impact one day.

The large majority of work I did at Apple is under NDA, and was spread across a wide range of topics and approaches. But a few things have become public through patents which I can cite and paraphrase below.

Generally as a whole, a lot of the work I did involved detecting the mental state of users based on data from their body and brain when they were in immersive experiences.

So, a user is in a mixed reality or virtual reality experience, and AI models are trying to predict if you are feeling curious, mind wandering, scared, paying attention, remembering a past experience, or some other cognitive state. And these may be inferred through measurements like eye tracking, electrical activity in the brain, heart beats and rhythms, muscle activity, blood density in the brain, blood pressure, skin conductance etc.

There were a lot of tricks involved to make specific predictions possible, which the handful of patents I’m named on go into detail about. One of the coolest results involved predicting a user was going to click on something before they actually did. That was a ton of work and something I’m proud of. Your pupil reacts before you click in part because you expect something will happen after you click. So you can create biofeedback with a user's brain by monitoring their eye behavior, and redesigning the UI in real time to create more of this anticipatory pupil response. It’s a crude brain computer interface via the eyes, but very cool. And I’d take that over invasive brain surgery any day.

Other tricks to infer cognitive state involved quickly flashing visuals or sounds to a user in ways they may not perceive, and then measuring their reaction to it.

Another patent goes into details about using machine learning and signals from the body and brain to predict how focused, or relaxed you are, or how well you are learning. And then updating virtual environments to enhance those states. So, imagine an adaptive immersive environment that helps you learn, or work, or relax by changing what you’re seeing and hearing in the background.

All of these details are publicly available in patents, and were carefully written to not leak anything. There was a ton of other stuff I was involved with, and hopefully more of it will see the light of day eventually.

A lot of people have waited a long time for this product. But it’s still one step forward on the road to VR. And it’s going to take until the end of this decade for the industry to fully catch up to the grand vision for this tech.

Again, I’m open to consulting work and taking calls if your business is looking to enter the space or refine your strategy. Mostly, I’m proud and relieved this has finally been announced. It’s been over five years since I started working on this, and I spent a significant portion of my life on it, as did an army of other designers and engineers. I hope the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and Vision Pro blows your mind.

[Matthew Green @matthew_d_green]

It is time to give up on computers altogether. https://t.co/R4NdsQVYK1

[isis agora lovecruft (they/them) @isislovecruft]

in cruel, cruel and tragic twist of fate, my long-awaited—nay! long-destined Sword, inscribed with the sacred motto of The Conspiracy, has arrived to me by courier, alas seven nights since the Mages of The Academy performed The Change upon me, now i await as yet too weak to wield

[grundlos @_kramsee]

s/o @inessenziell

[Sergio Pereira @SergioRocks]

I've interviewed several people who got laid off recently.

One thought seems to emerge in all of them:
- "I'll never again join a company that self-describes as a family!!"

Some reports are sobering:

[grundlos @_kramsee]

@kateboss5000 Ich habe gestern ein normales belegtes Brötchen bei einem Bäcker gekauft: 4,15€.
Leider den Preis erst gesehen als der auf dem Kassendisplay stand.

[grundlos @_kramsee]

@kateboss5000 Ich war im letzten Monat in Paris und da kostet ein Baguette 80 Cent.. Das ist suuper weird.

[Robert Graham @robertgraham]

April "Fools Day" started from the Catholic tradition of breaking out into dance every April 1, a practice they still observe. Pope Francis demonstrated his moves this morning to reporters.

[SwiftOnSecurity @SwiftOnSecurity]

Wow

[Lilith Wittmann @LilithWittmann]

Ihr habt auf https://t.co/GzGY4rGqaS euer Geld beantragt und musstet euch dafür eine nutzlose #bundID anlegen?
Die wieder loszuwerden ist aufwendig - bis jetzt.

Aber Dank https://t.co/tR6NIwR3LZ könnt ihr eure BundID jetzt in unter 30 Sekunden löschen lassen. #einmalzahlung200

[Florian Gallwitz @FlorianGallwitz]

Flugzeuge fliegen nicht wirklich, weil sie keine Federn haben.

[grundlos @_kramsee]

@yungparmigiano @inessenziell Bei uns hat man das mit einem Lähmer erzeugt.

[Pavel Mayer @pavel23]

My first impressions with GPT-4: It is slower than GPT-3.5, so I assume it is larger.

It does not know that it is GPT-4 if you ask it, and it has no newer training data than GPT-3; newest data seems to be from September 2021.

It seems more potent regarding some math and logic.

[grundlos @_kramsee]

@minut_e Congrats! It's nice to see you doing such an amazing job and likewise seeing so many people appreciating the effort and work. :)