Hello and thank you for listening to my various radio and video spots you can find out about in more detail here.
Here’s a short list of the topics offered to the various radio stations I appear on, and below, are the topics again, but with all the detail you can devour, so please read on!
1. An analyst says the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which is expected to offer a longer zoom than the 3x zoom users are familiar with, will be delayed by 3-4 weeks compared with the other three iPhones, so why is this the case?
2. The voice of Nintendo’s Mario – Charles Martinet – will retire after 27 years – “it’s a-me, Mario” will get a new voice, with Charles to become a Nintendo ambassador.
3. Parallels Desktop, the software Mac owners use to run Windows virtually on their Macs, so they can use programs designed for Windows at the same time as they run Mac programs, has just had a new upgrade to version 19, so what’s new, and why would a Mac user want to run Windows programs anyway?
4. Global research and analyst giant Gartner has placed “Generative AI” at the “peak of inflated expectations” in its annual “hype cycle”, which means the technology is yet to sink into the “trough of disillusionment” before it then evolves and improves into the “plateau of productivity”.
5. Elon Musk news: Not just content with wanting to block the ability of Twitter/X users to block people from being able to read posts or interact with you, which you’d think is a pretty important safety feature, Musk now wants to remove the “headlines” from news articles when users or news organisations share them on X.
6. Google’s popular YouTube streaming service went down this morning, but it’s now back
7. LibreOffice, the free alternative to Microsoft Office for Windows PCs, Macs and Linux, has now reached version 7.6, and is available for free download.
8. Thousands of people are taking up new uncapped satellite broadband in rural and regional Australia, according to the NBN company, and Michelle Rowland, the Australia Federal Communications Minister
Here is the longer version of the stories above with all the context:
1. An analyst says the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which is expected to offer a longer zoom than the 3x zoom users are familiar with, will be delayed by 3-4 weeks compared with the other three iPhones, so why is this the case?
This is said to be because Sony, which makes the camera sensors for Apple, just won’t be able to get the image sensor components to Apple on time, pushing the delivery out to the first or second week of October.
Apple has had delays before – the iPhone X shipped a couple of months after the iPhone 8, there were delays with the iPhone 12 mini and the Pro Max.
This is the world we live in, sometimes delays happen, but this year it’s just meant to be the iPhone 15 Pro Max, with the other models expected to be available as per normal.
2. The voice of Nintendo’s Mario – Charles Martinet – will retire after 27 years – “it’s a-me, Mario” will get a new voice, with Charles to become a Nintendo ambassador.
Charles Martinet, the voice actor behind Mario, will retire. Now 67 years old, he first voiced Mari in 1996. For the Super Mario 64 game, while also voicing Mario’s brother Luigi, and the bad guy known as Wario.
Nintendo said in a statement: “Charles is now moving into the brand-new role of Mario ambassador.
“With this transition, he will be stepping back from recording character voices for our games, but he’ll continue to travel the world sharing the joy of Mario and interacting with you all!
“It has been an honour working with Charles to help bring Mario to life for so many years and we want to thank and celebrate him.
“Please keep an eye out for a special video message from (video game designer and Mario creator) Shigeru Miyamoto and Charles himself, which we will post at a future date.”
3. Parallels Desktop, the software Mac owners use to run Windows virtually on their Macs, so they can use programs designed for Windows at the same time as they run Mac programs, has just had a new upgrade to version 19, so what’s new, and why would a Mac user want to run Windows programs anyway?
Parallels Desktop 19 has arrived! Some of the features:
If your Mac has a Touch ID fingerprint reader, you can now use that to securely log into Windows, meaning password-less sign in, which just adds another level of security.
The virtualisation software is fully compatible with macOS Sonoma, the next version of the macOS software that is due to arrive in September or October as a free upgrade.
Virtualisation software also lets you run virtual copies of Mac OS, Linux, and different versions of Windows, should you need to or want to experiment with Linux.
You get better support for graphics and CAD programs, you can copy and paste text and files between macOS and Windows, you can play games only available on Windows, you can run the Windows versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint, with Excel in particular having some features on Windows that aren’t on the Mac version, and you can see Windows programs right on the Mac desktop – you don’t have to switch between the Windows and the Mac desktops if you don’t want to.
I always say that running Windows on your Mac is a smoother and better experience than running it on a Windows PC, so if you’re a Mac user and have to run specific Windows programs, or want to support family members who aren’t yet on a Mac, Parallels Desktop (a $99 per year subscription) is an excellent way to do it!
4. Global research and analyst giant Gartner has placed “Generative AI” at the “peak of inflated expectations” in its annual “hype cycle”, which means the technology is yet to sink into the “trough of disillusionment” before it then evolves and improves into the “plateau of productivity”.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is positioned on the Peak of Inflated Expectations on the Gartner, Inc. Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2023, projected to reach transformational benefit within two to five years. Generative AI is encompassed within the broader theme of emergent AI, a key trend on this Hype Cycle that is creating new opportunities for innovation.
“The popularity of many new AI techniques will have a profound impact on business and society,” said Arun Chandrasekaran, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “The massive pretraining and scale of AI foundation models, viral adoption of conversational agents and the proliferation of generative AI applications are heralding a new wave of workforce productivity and machine creativity.”
The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies is unique among Gartner Hype Cycles because it distills key insights from more than 2,000 technologies and applied frameworks that Gartner profiles each year into a succinct set of “must-know” emerging technologies. These technologies have potential to deliver transformational benefits over the next two to 10 years (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2023
“While all eyes are on AI right now, CIOs and CTOs must also turn their attention to other emerging technologies with transformational potential,” said Melissa Davis, VP Analyst at Gartner. “This includes technologies that are enhancing developer experience, driving innovation through the pervasive cloud and delivering human-centric security and privacy.”
“As the technologies in this Hype Cycle are still at an early stage, there is significant uncertainty about how they will evolve,” added Davis. “Such embryonic technologies present greater risks for deployment, but potentially greater benefits for early adopters.”
Four Themes of Emerging Technology Trends
Emergent AI: In addition to generative AI, several other emerging AI techniques offer immense potential for enhancing digital customer experiences, making better business decisions and building sustainable competitive differentiation. These technologies include AI simulation, causal AI, federated machine learning, graph data science, neuro-symbolic AI and reinforcement learning.
Developer experience (DevX): DevX refers to all aspects of interactions between developers and the tools, platforms, processes and people they work with to develop and deliver software products and services. Enhancing DevX is critical for most enterprises’ digital initiative success. It is also vital for attracting and retaining top engineering talent, keeping team morale high and ensuring that work is motivating and rewarding.
Key technologies that are enhancing DevX include AI-augmented software engineering, API-centric SaaS, GitOps, internal developer portals, open-source program office and value stream management platforms.
Pervasive cloud: Over the next 10 years, cloud computing will evolve from a technology innovation platform to become pervasive and an essential driver of business innovation. To enable this pervasive adoption, cloud computing is becoming more distributed and will be focused on vertical industries. Maximizing value from cloud investments will require automated operational scaling, access to cloud-native platform tools and adequate governance.
Key technologies enabling the pervasive cloud include augmented FinOps, cloud development environments, cloud sustainability, cloud-native, cloud-out to edge, industry cloud platforms and WebAssembly (Wasm).
Human-centric security and privacy: Humans remain the chief cause of security incidents and data breaches. Organizations can become resilient by implementing a human-centric security and privacy program, which weaves a security and privacy fabric into the organization’s digital design. Numerous emerging technologies are enabling enterprises to create a culture of mutual trust and awareness of shared risks in decision making between many teams.
Key technologies supporting the expansion of human-centric security and privacy include AI TRISM, cybersecurity mesh architecture, generative cybersecurity AI, homomorphic encryption and postquantum cryptography.
5. Elon Musk news: Not just content with wanting to block the ability of Twitter/X users to block people from being able to read posts or interact with you, which you’d think is a pretty important safety feature, Musk now wants to remove the “headlines” from news articles when users or news organisations share them on X.
Musk posted yesterday: “If you’re a journalist who wants more freedom to write and a higher income, then publish directly on this platform!”
The thing is though, how is that possible? You need 5 million impressions a month to share in ad revenue, and that’s US only for now, and you need a large following to be able to charge for subscriptions, I’ve personally applied for that, but months later, I’m still not approved.
Removing headlines from posts is problematic because it is the headline that draws your attention to want to click. Just having an image and the URL is not the same, although creators might be able to get around that by making an image that contains the text of the headline.
Musk has also been using a URL shortener to thriller and limit traffic to Instagram, Threads and publications like The New York Times.
Especially with the initiative to soon block users from blocking people, which apparently will also stop people from being able to block advertisers, the jury is still out on whether Elon Musk is improving Twiter/X, or destroying it.
6. Google’s popular YouTube streaming service went down this morning, but it’s now back
Not even the mighty Google is able to prevent outages, with its incredibly popular YouTube service reporting “something went wrong” and not letting users search, while telling other users they were “offline”.
Google hasn’t explained what caused the problem, but the site is now back. It’s also a reminder that YouTube videos aren’t always guaranteed to be available forever. You can use YouTube video downloading software – there are paid YouTube video downloaders like the one from Softorino that let you make a copy of your favourite videos, so if they are ever deleted, erased or otherwise disappear, you’ve always got your own copy.
It’s also a good time to realise there are there video streaming site out there like Rumble, Odysee, Vimeo, Bitchute and others.
7. LibreOffice, the free alternative to Microsoft Office for Windows PCs, Macs and Linux, has now reached version 7.6, and is available for free download.
LibreOffice is a powerful and free office suite, a successor to OpenOffice(.org), used by millions of people around the world. Its clean interface and feature-rich tools help you unleash your creativity and enhance your productivity.
LibreOffice includes several applications that make it the most versatile Free and Open Source office suite on the market: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing).
8. Thousands of people are taking up new uncapped satellite broadband in rural and regional Australia, according to the NBN company, and Michelle Rowland, the Australia Federal Communications Minister
Almost half of all Sky Muster Plus customers in rural and regional areas have taken up new uncapped satellite broadband made possible by the Albanese Government’s investments to deliver a better NBN, according to Michelle Rowland.
Since its launch on 1 June, more than 21,000 homes and businesses have signed up to the new Sky Muster Plus Premium service which offers customers uncapped data 24 hours a day and faster speeds of up to 100 Mbps.
The service responds to increasing demand for more data and faster speeds from satellite users caused by the growing use of video streaming, and people working and studying from home.
The uncapped service has been enabled by the Albanese Government’s $480 million investment to upgrade the NBN Fixed Wireless network. The upgrades are moving around 120,000 premises from satellite to fixed wireless, freeing up capacity on Sky Muster.
The Sky Muster Premium product complements the Albanese Government’s commitments to improving NBN technologies in regional areas, including by investing $2.4 billion to expand full-fibre NBN to an additional 1.5 million premises – over 660,000 of which will be in regional areas.
The product was launched following a trial over 10,000 Sky Muster Plus customers earlier this year that reported greater user satisfaction when customers could access increased evening speeds and uncapped data.
NBN Co is now consulting with industry on the introduction of more uncapped data plans at lower price points and further improvements to speeds.
Further information about Sky Muster Plus Premium product is available at www.nbn.com.au/skymusterplus
Quotes attributable to Minister for Communications, the Hon Michelle Rowland MP:
“Whether you live in a capital city or in the bush, access to fast, reliable and affordable broadband has never been more important.
“The Albanese Government is committed to reducing the digital divide to ensure our regions can reach their potential – including by boosting broadband speeds.
“The strong take up of NBN Sky Muster Premium is further proof of the growing demand for data across rural Australia, and the importance of continuing to evolve the NBN.
“Across the Sky Muster, fixed wireless and fixed-line networks, the Albanese Government is dedicated to improving the NBN to give Australian businesses and households access to the 21st century communications infrastructure they need and deserve.”
