On Computers

My great-grandfather was a Cherokee, according to my mom. So I’m one-eighth, I figured. But Ancestry.com and 23andMe say I have no Native American ancestry. Who’s right? To find out, I used MyHeritage’s new GAIA service, powered by artificial intelligence. First I asked it to research my great-great-great-grandmother Jincey Bales, on my mom’s side. GAIA found several family trees that listed her parents’ and siblings’ birthplaces as Red Clay, Tennessee, the last capital of the Cherokee Nation in the eastern United States. One tree lists her as “Tsinvsi,” a name that appears to be Cherokee. Her dad, John W. Craig, is labeled “Cherokee” in another family tree. Yet another tree labels a Craig of the next generation as “Cherokee.” Another […]

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Filed under: AI, batteries, gadgets, Internuts, phones, wearables | No Comments »

My brother-in-law loves WhatsApp for sending photos to his friends in France. Now there’s something new to try. WhatsApp now lets you enjoy video calls with people who don’t have WhatsApp accounts. It’s much like Zoom, but you get unlimited minutes for free. Only the person starting the call needs a WhatsApp account, and each video call can include up to 32 participants.  Start by sending someone a WhatsApp link, which opens in a browser like Chrome, Safari, or Edge on their computer. Participants may want to open links on their phone’s browser instead, but Meta says it’s designed for computer use. After clicking, you’ll enter a waiting room. The host will admit you when they’re ready. Like Zoom, WhatsApp […]

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Filed under: AI, Amazon, apps, how-to, Internuts | Comments Off on WHAT’S UP WITH WHAT’S APP?

Google Playground creates games for you, and also lets you play free games that others have created.  I first tried someone’s game involving a dragon jumping on clouds to claim golden eggs. Then I asked it to create a game for wordsmiths. Before doing so, however, I asked ChatGPT to come up with a list of words that rarely go out alone. For example, you might describe someone as “uncouth,” but rarely “couth.”  Likewise, you might say you are feeling “overwhelmed,” but never “whelmed.”  A preteen boy might be “unruly,” but not “ruly.” You get “discombobulated,” but not “combobulated.” Next, at Playground.Google.com, I chose the brainless option, which lets artificial intelligence do all the work. “Create a word game where […]

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Filed under: AI, gadgets, Google | Comments Off on MAKE YOUR OWN GAME WITH AI

When Google Gemini replaced Google Assistant on a reader’s Android phone, her favorite morning routine disappeared. “Until Wednesday all I had to do was say ‘OK Google’ and it would give me a good morning, tell me the weather and the time and a joke, and read me the news,” Sheila said. “A pox on them all for changing my routines.” Almost as bad, Alexa changed its voice. “Am I too old for all this?” she wondered. “After all, I learned to talk by listening to Franklin Deleano Roosevelt’s fireside chats on an old-fashioned radio console.” No way. She followed my instructions perfectly. To go back to Google Assistant on an Android phone, first open Settings, go to Apps, then […]

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Filed under: AI, Internuts, robots, wearables | Comments Off on AI BLUES

My late husband Bob tried to get hyperbaric oxygen therapy for his diabetic foot ulcers, but he couldn’t get an appointment. The only center near us reserved its chambers for emergencies such as carbon-monoxide poisoning, decompression sickness, gas embolism, severe crush injuries and certain kinds of infections.  But an unusual technology is coming to the rescue for these stubborn sores. It uses fish skin as a wound dressing. Sound crazy? It isn’t.   A company called Kerecis starts by taking skin from North Atlantic cod, removing the fish cells, sterilizing the skin and freeze-drying it, while leaving the skin’s microscopic collagen framework largely intact. Doctors rehydrate the sheet and place it over or into a wound. This serves as a temporary […]

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Filed under: AI, Apple, health | Comments Off on WHEN WOUNDS WON’T HEAL

When an old high school friend reached out to me through Classmates.com, I had a fascinating discussion, thanks to input from Google Gemini. First my friend Stephanie and I reminisced about the good old days on the high school newspaper staff. One time, some sang “Tea for Two,” while others pounded on their desks to the beat, pulled the blinds up and down rhythmically or used a ruler as a baton to add to the merry mayhem. Meanwhile, our mild-mannered teacher ignored everything. He wasn’t even that mad on the day when students set up the whole classroom on the street, complete with the American flag in its holder. Or when a few guys locked me in the dark room […]

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Filed under: AI, Apple, art, Google, wearables | Comments Off on ART AND AI

I love the debates at OpentoDebate.org. But if I’m short on time, I use Google Gemini or ChatGPT to summarize the exchange and tell me which side made the stronger case. In one titled “Is America Ready for a Four-Day Work Week?” the majority sided with economist Juliet Schor. That’s because she presented stronger, data-backed evidence from numerous corporate pilot programs that showed immediate benefits to both employee well-being and corporate productivity, Gemini said. She also said that the four-day work week will probably evolve naturally before it’s mandated by law. Her rival, journalist Joanne Lipman, pointed out that many executives, especially in the artificial intelligence community, claim they want a shorter work week but constantly push for longer hours […]

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Filed under: AI, health, Internuts, photos | Comments Off on AI FOR DEBATES

I didn’t expect Google Gemini to be business savvy. But it taught me how to get my money back from an unscrupulous chiropractor. I was roped into paying over $3,400 for back adjustments I didn’t need and foot therapy I did. Somehow the guy convinced me that an invisible malady would overtake my back if I didn’t endure 24 sessions. Although I was fooled by the X-rays of my spine, Gemini wasn’t. It said that my variation from the norm was so slight that the way I was standing might have contributed to it. Besides, I have zero back pain and no stiffness. “The spine adjustments sound like a scam, and nothing to do with your problems. They are just […]

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Filed under: AI, Amazon, drones, health | Comments Off on GEMINI SAVES THE DAY

When my niece recently applied for a PhD in physical therapy, she needed ChatGPT’s help to consolidate a list of 20 varied work experiences. That’s when she ran up against a paywall. It may seem like the instant you start uploading documents, creating images or analyzing data, the paywall appears. But ChatGPT now offers unlimited texts and chats if you keep it casual. If it does ask you to pay, just switch to another AI service, such as Google Gemini, Google AI Mode or Microsoft Copilot. What about Claude? If your queries are complex, Claude AI may ask you to come back in five hours. For example, when I wanted to translate a professor’s memoir into Korean, I’d barely started […]

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Filed under: AI, health, robots | Comments Off on AI FOR FREE

When a reader clicked the “Ask Gemini” button in Google Chrome and asked a question, it froze before giving him an answer. “Was it because I was using the free version?” he wondered. Nope. When Gemini freezes, it’s a bug, not a paywall. It could happen when you ask unusually long or multi-part questions. To get around it, ask again and this time, keep your question short. But if you want, you can upload up to 3000 pages to go with it. Just don’t go beyond 24,000 words if you want Gemini to remember the whole chat before it responds.  Google Calendar Trick When I asked a podiatrist’s office to send me my X-rays, I got an authorization form that […]

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Filed under: AI, business, Google, Internuts, inventions, science, spam, video, web | Comments Off on FROZEN GEMINI