A thousand experts have warned about artificial intelligence, but I’m having too much fun to stop.

Using Google Bard, I typed: “I have five days in London. What should I see?” The first day of the Bard’s itinerary included a hop-on, hop-off bus tour, a visit to the Tower of London and a boat ride on the river Thames. It was almost as good as travel expert Rick Steves, without the detail.

I also asked the Bard to write a program, in the programming language Pascal, to figure out the day of the week for any date going back thousands of years or into the future. The code arrived in seconds. By the way, Christopher Columbus set sail on a Friday, using the old Julian calendar.

Turning to poetry, I asked the Bard for a paean to potatoes in the style of a Shakespearean sonnet. It ended with the lines: “You are the potato. And I love you.”  Asking AI.com, which uses ChatGPT, I got better verse, which ended with: Oh, lovely spud, we sing thy praises high. Thou art a gift, a blessing from the sky.”

The Bard has been criticized for not being as comprehensive as either ChatGPT or Bing AI. But Google is switching to a much larger language model, called the PaLM LLM, which uses around 600 billion parameters. That’s about 425 billion more than it was using before.

You can also get product recommendations from the Bard, AI.com and Bing AI. When I asked them, the Bard and Bing AI got down to precise models of phones and computers, but AI.com gave general tips and a list of popular brands. I appreciated the fact that Bing kept the conversation going by asking me about my specific needs. When I told it I didn’t want to spend more than a thousand, it came up with different suggestions than it had before. But all three services were helpful.

After joining the waiting list at Bard.Google.com, it took me only a week to get on. I wonder if some day “I Barded” will be as common as “I Googled.”

Share Your Screen

There’s a built-in share-screen feature on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.

First, get on a FaceTime call. Next, open the document you want to share and tap the “share” button in the app where you created it. Next, choose “send copy” or “collaborate,” and tap the person you’re in a call with. Now they can see what you’re seeing.

App  Happy

“Reading Mode” is a free app for Android phones and tablets. It’s helpful when the text on a website is too tiny.

To install it, tap on the Google Play store and search for “Reading Mode.” After installation, enable it by tapping “Settings,” then “Accessibility.” Look for “Reading Mode,” and tap it. Then, whenever you’re on a website, tap the tiny figure of a human in the bottom right corner of your phone screen. It will instantly switch to a more readable text.

To get reading mode on an iPhone, open Safari, tap the “AA,” then tap “Show Reader.” You can also tap “Use reader automatically.”

App Happy: Package Pick-Up

If you find returning packages a hassle, consider a new app called “Returns on Demand.” For $7, a driver will return packages to the Post Office, UPS store and Fed Ex in one pick-up. The first package pick-up is free.

Speaking of returns, Amazon has started warning consumers if they’re about to buy a frequently returned product. This may help keep stuff out of landfills. According to CNBC, six billion pounds of returns end up trashed every year.

Tuned to Yesterday

An injured friend of mine was stuck in bed with no TV in the room. I suggested old-time radio dramas. Google or Alexa will play them for you for free.

To try it, I said: “Hey Google, play the ‘Tuned to Yesterday’ podcast from NPR,” and it started up with a story called “Behind the Locked Door,” on my Google smart speaker. If you don’t have a smart speaker, you can get the same results by tapping the microphone next to the search bar on your Android phone and uttering the same command. On an iPhone, ask Siri. Or you could use a device with Amazon Alexa built in. If you don’t have one, download the Alexa app on your phone or tablet from the Google Play or Apple App store.

Besides old-timey thrillers, the podcast “Tuned to Yesterday” has programs like “The Whistler,” “The Jack Benny Show,” and “Gunsmoke.” Or maybe you’d prefer NPR’s “Book of the Day,” which brings an author on the air. My favorite podcasts are “Planet Money,” “The Indicator,” and “This American Life.” Click on “the list” at ThisAmericanlife.org to find their best. I’m captivated by the true story of two babies switched at birth.

Calendar Search

Find stuff on your Google calendar by clicking the magnifying-glass icon at calendar.google.com, then click the drop-down arrow to expand the search. I typed the word “flight,” chose a date range, and found all my flights going back to 2015.

Internut

“Agility Robotics Introduces New Digit Robot.” Search on that phrase to see a remarkable video of a warehouse robot, an upgrade to last year’s $250,000 model. It now has a head with eyes that blink to signal its intentions.

 

 

 

Filed under: AI, apps, Google, word processing