On Computers

Given that I went to five colleges, it’s not that surprising that I switched phone services four times in four years. I would never have left Tracfone but for a mighty snafu. When I got tired of using an ancient iPhone, I had the clever idea of  moving my Tracfone SIM card to an Android phone without mentioning it to Tracfone. ​A​ year later, my account disappeared. So one day, I was left high and dry without the means to summon a Lyft. Though I couldn’t complain after ​​12 months of free ca​ll​i​ng, Tracfone’s tech support couldn’t figure out what to do with me, so I moved on. I think their support is better now.  After AT&T and Xfinity, I […]

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Filed under: AI, environment, phones | Comments Off on CHANGING PHONE SERVICE AGAIN

Google offers two venues for AI chats, “AI Mode” and “Gemini.” Which is best?  Googling the question, I went right into AI Mode. “Gemini is sometimes lazy, and may skip searching entirely, relying on outdated internal training data due to overconfidence,” it said. It may also “hallucinate web citations.”  But Gemini is great for deep-dive tasks, multi-step reasoning, coding, complex writing, and file analysis. It can be used as a stand-alone app or at gemini.google.com. If you use the Chrome web browser, click the Gemini button to let it see your screen and answer questions. For instance, you could open a page in Wikipedia about quantum mechanics or Fred Astaire, then click the Gemini button to start a discussion. Gemini […]

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Some lawyers abuse AI, by allowing it to cite fake cases. But BrentWorks has a solution.  Unlike AI, its “CiteSentinel” tool doesn’t guess if a case is real, then lie about it when confronted. It cross references cases against verified legal databases, by scanning a legal brief and identifying every string of text.  Here’s one it would have caught before it ever went to court. In 2023, a man sued an airline after a metal cart struck his knee. His legal team used ChatGPT to generate arguments. The result was six fake citations. Even so, the team couldn’t resist turning to AI again when the judge asked for verification. Later, they had to pay a $5000 fine and send a […]

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Filed under: AI, Internuts, kids, news, passwords, photos, trends, wearables | Comments Off on AI AND THE LAW

There are now artificially intelligent reviewers inside the Amazon phone app that can chat with you about Amazon products. They’re folksy and fun. To test it, I tapped the app on my phone, then looked up the Ninja Kitchen System, a blender and food processor in one. After I tapped “Hear the Highlights,” my AI hostess introduced herself, then introduced Sofia, an AI culinary expert. While they were talking, I tapped the raise-your-hand icon to ask a question. “Are the reviews good?” I asked and up popped a “you’re next” sign. “Joy’s asking about the reviews,” the hostess replied. “Do customers actually like this thing?” The culinary expert said that 83 percent of Amazon buyers thought that the Ninja was […]

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Five-dollar chocolate bars and $15 bottles of olive oil. What gives? Chocolate prices hit record highs in 2024 due to dry weather in West Africa. Extreme droughts in Spain and Italy caused the price of olive oil to double. Could AI help? You bet. Just as ChatGPT was trained on billions of words, “Botanic,” offered by Living Models, is trained on DNA, the language of plants. It may sound corny, but Botanic “gets” corn. It also acts as a bud to your spud. For example, drought and rising temperatures in Idaho and Washington led to smaller yields and lower-quality potatoes. Botanic can help with that. Currently, it takes about eight years of trial and error to develop a new drought-resistant […]

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Filed under: AI, Amazon, Android, business, education, inventions, trends, weather | Comments Off on AI CAN HELP WITH GROCERY PRICES