A 3D Printer the Size of a US Quarter
Plus more details from Apple's WWDC
Hello friend,
Free preview week continues. Welcome to everyone! Hope you're enjoying the content.
Today's Big Story is focused on the details from Apple's WWDC announcement that weren't in the announcement. Mostly AI but some other bits and bobs around iOS and VisionOS as well.
There's also a really interesting chip technology that might instantly double the performance of any CPU. And a 3D printer the size of a US quarter.
Enjoy!
Tom
Also, IT’S FREE PREVIEW WEEK! All subscribers get every issue every day to see what the whole week looks like for paid subscribers.
Big Story
WWDC Follow-ups!
After the main keynote at WWDC, Apple always holds other sessions and issues press releases that add some further interesting notes to what they announced. Those extra details can be illuminating, so I've collected some of the ones that caught my eye here. The first half are some new takes on Apple Intelligence based on further details about how it's working. They are generally pretty positive from the experts in the AI world. I'll follow that with a list of some interesting features coming to the OSs that aren't AI.
Former Amazon AI Architect (now at Morgan Stanley) John Huang notes some of the details about Apple's three-party AI strategy.
The on-device Large Language Model runs on Apple silicon with about 3 billion parameters at low latency. It may well be the best on-device LLM in existence.
Apple has developed a vertical integration for off-device LLM use again with its own model. That wasn't entirely clear yesterday to some. When an LLM function goes off your Apple device, it's encrypted, goes to an Apple data center, to an Apple machine, is executed, and returns to your machine all while remaining encrypted. There are no third parties involved and the encryption means Apple won't see your request.
And the third part is the connection to OpenAI's ChatGPT, which is only available when Apple wants it to be from Siri or other iOS apps. It's not powering Siri, just offered in situations where Apple thinks it might be useful for the user.
Huang points out this means Apple doesn't have to give any money to Nvidia. It also means it can watch when users take the option to send a request to ChatGPT and use that knowledge to understand where to improve its own models. This is similar to what it did with Google Maps.
Huang thinks that Apple's LLM may be close to GPT-4 and on par with Meta. He also thinks Siri will improve so much that its widespread use will cause another ChatGPT moment where users will just start talking to their phones rather than opening apps, which might not be a good thing for app developers.
ZDNET's Jason Perlow wrote up some places where Apple's AI strategy falls short:
Its Responsible AI Principles are good, but a full ethical disclosure along the lines of what Adobe has published would be better.
It did not announce AI-accelerated server appliances at the edge, which would improve performance and reduce latency for less capable devices like the iPhone 15 base model and earlier. It may do this anyway and just not announce it.
Only one third party. We need more if it's to appear truly agnostic. This will have to come from individual developers at this point.
It would be good to hear about integrating WatchOS, Vision Pro, Apple TV, and HomePod with Apple Intelligence.
Simon Willison notes that Siri's ability to access your data and trigger actions could be used for prompt injection attacks. For example, a maliciously crafted message could be made that is long. You ask Siri to summarize, and the message gets Siri to forward a password reset email to them. Presumably, Apple has mitigations to this risk, but we don't know yet what they are.
Apple CEO Tim Cook did admit to the Washington Post that Apple's LLMs, like all LLMs, may occasionally "hallucinate" incorrect responses. He said, "I think we have done everything that we know to do, including thinking very deeply about the readiness of the technology in the areas that we’re using it in. So I am confident it will be very high quality. But I’d say in all honesty that’s short of 100 percent. I would never claim that it’s 100 percent."
OK, what about the non-AI stuff?
In the next round of OS updates, Apple ID will be renamed to Apple Account.
A few more updates to VisionOS not discussed in the presentation were support for remembering eye and hand setups for guest users for 30 days instead of having to retrain the headset every time you put it on. The Apple TV app in VisionOS gets five-screen multi-view, great for sports. And you'll be able to AirPlay from iPhone, iPad, or Mac to the Vision Pro. You'll be able to break out videos you see on the web into a free-floating video player. You'll also be able to rearrange Home Screen icons, use any Bluetooth mouse, and see a magic keyboard while working in the virtual environment.
With notification, you can record and transcribe phone calls in iOS 18. Transcription will be available in English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, and Portuguese.
There's a "rotate WiFi address" option that periodically changes the MAC address the network sees so that neither the WiFi provider nor others on the WiFi network can track you well.
"Apple staged the AI comeback we've been hoping for - but here's where it still needs work | ZDNET" https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-staged-the-ai-comeback-weve-been-hoping-for-but-heres-where-it-still-needs-work/
"Thoughts on the WWDC 2024 keynote on Apple Intelligence" https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jun/10/apple-intelligence/
"Tim Cook: Apple Intelligence may hallucinate, but has guardrails - 9to5Mac" https://9to5mac.com/2024/06/11/intelligence-may-hallucinate/
"Apple IDs are becoming Apple Accounts - The Verge" https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/11/24176140/apple-ids-accounts-wwdc-2024
"Apple skipped over the best VisionOS 2 updates - The Verge" https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/11/24175689/apple-vision-pro-2-wwdc-2024-keynote-best-updates
"iOS 18 will let you record calls — and tells everyone for their privacy - The Verge" https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/10/24175684/ios-18-record-calls-privacy-apple-intelligence
"iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia Add 'Rotate Wi-Fi Address' Option to Cut Down on Tracking - MacRumors" https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/10/ios-18-rotate-wifi-address/
More Stories
"Raspberry Pi is now a public company | TechCrunch" https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/11/raspberry-pi-is-now-a-public-company-as-its-shares-pops-after-ipo-pricing/
Raspberry Pi issued its stock on the London Stock Exchange Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, which values the company at £542 million, or about US$690 million. Last year Raspberry Pi brought in $266 million in revenue and $66 million in gross profit. The shares are only available for institutional investors until Friday. Raspberry Pi has sold 60 million of its tiny computers since it launched.
"BeReal is being acquired by mobile apps and games company Voodoo for €500M | TechCrunch" https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/11/bereal-is-being-acquired-by-mobile-apps-and-games-company-voodoo-for-e500m/
French mobile apps and game publisher Voodoo has acquired the social photo app BeReal. BeReal's co-founder and CEO Alexis Barreyat will leave the company after the transition. BeReal is the app that gives you two minutes to take a picture and share with friends at a different time every day. It has more than 40 million active users with large numbers of them in France, Japan, and the US. Voodoo is the maker of Helix Jump, Mob Control, Block Jam 3D, and Wizz.
"Google is ready to fill free streaming TV channels with ads - The Verge" https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/10/24175676/google-fast-ads-streaming-tv-network
Ad company Google is expanding its offering to include ad placement on Google TV-powered streaming boxes and smart TVs. The Google TV Network will let companies buy unstoppable video ads on more than 125 live streaming TV channels. Google says viewers of its Free Ad-supported TV Channels or FAST channels watch an average of 75 minutes per day.
"Flow claims it can 100x any CPU's power with its companion chip and some elbow grease | TechCrunch" https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/11/flow-claims-it-can-100x-any-cpus-power-with-its-companion-chip-and-some-elbow-grease/
Finland's Flow computing says its companion chip can double the performance of any CPU and with software tweaks potentially increase performance by 100 times. Flow calls it a Parallel Processing Unit or PPU. Current CPUs are serial processors; they do one thing at a time really fast. Flow claims to have figured out something theoretically possible that nobody else has done before. Its PPU performs nanosecond-scale traffic management to move tasks in and out of the processor faster so the CPU can use all its power simply on processing the bits rather than managing traffic. TechCrunch used the analogy of a chef that doesn't waste time changing knives or cleaning food because an assistant is doing that for them. This also means the CPU doesn't actually work faster, so no extra heat or power is used, it just works more efficiently. Flow's big achievement was to make this kind of system possible without having to change code or architecture on the CPU. Chipmakers would have to include the PPU at the chip-level design, so it's not something that can work retroactively.
Will they? Hard to say. Chipmakers would have to tear up five-year plans to do so. Even if one of them did, it would be years before the new design would come to market, and the technology is as yet unproven. Not to mention that the chip itself doubles performance. Further software tweaks would be needed to optimize how code uses the PPU-CPU combo to get the potential 100x performance boost. But with AI hungry for acceleration, there's a chance it's worth the cost and risk for some chipmaker. Maybe Intel, perhaps?
"World's first chip-based 3D printer is smaller than a coin — benefits from having no moving parts | Tom's Hardware" https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/worlds-first-chip-based-3d-printer-is-smaller-than-a-coin-benefits-from-having-no-moving-parts
Scientists at MIT and the University of Texas at Austin have developed a chip-based 3D printer. That doesn't mean a printer with chips in it; we have those. It means the printer is a single, millimeter-scale photonic chip about the same width as a US quarter. An off-chip laser powers it to emit beams of light into a well of resin to cure it into a solid shape.
Optical antennas modulated by liquid crystals direct the light so the printer has no moving parts. The system is similar to the one used by Lidar sensors in cars. In tests, it sits below a microscope slide which has a shallow well of liquid resin. The resin, designed to cure rapidly when exposed to the beam's wavelength, provides the material. Flat patterns can be printed in seconds. For demonstration, they printed the letters M, I, and T.
Eventually, they hope to configure a machine with the chip placed at the bottom of a well of resin. It could emit a hologram of light that cures an entire object in a single step. This could be used for printing custom medical components for surgeries or making rapid prototypes on a job site. The paper was published in the latest issue of Nature Light Science and Applications.
For Context
"Norway discovers Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals" https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/11/norway-discovers-europes-largest-deposit-of-rare-earth-metals.html
A mining company called Rare Earths Norway says it has discovered Europe's largest deposit of rare earth elements necessary for the creation of electronics in Telemark, southwest of Oslo. China either owns or controls the majority of rare earth deposits on the planet. The deposit includes an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of magnet-related rare earths which are used to make electric vehicles and wind turbines.
They're going to need a lot more discoveries to balance out China's 70% extraction of rare earths and 90% ore processing. But every little bit gets them there.
"AI and drone footage help accurately estimate protest crowd sizes - Rest of World" https://restofworld.org/2024/ai-crowd-size-brazil/
I find it fascinating that we're starting to see the use of the "AI" tools in the real world. This is the kind of thing that starts to settle the fears and gets people to understand the realities both good and ill.
"Spotify’s HiFi add-on could cost an extra $5 per month - The Verge" https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/11/24175980/spotify-hifi-add-on-cost-extra-lossless-audio-supremium
I'm guessing Spotify leaked this to the press to see how mad people get so they can adjust their messaging.
"Nintendo Switch Update 18.1.0 Pulls X/Twitter Support, Bringing It In-Line With PlayStation and Xbox - IGN" https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-switch-update-1810-pulls-xtwitter-support-bringing-it-in-line-with-playstation-and-xbox
And now no major game consoles have Twitter/X integration. I suppose it won't matter much to X honestly. Their desires lie elsewhere these days.
"Google brings Gemini Nano to more Pixel devices and enhances Recorder summaries" https://www.engadget.com/google-brings-gemini-nano-to-more-pixel-devices-and-enhances-recorder-summaries-160917592.html
The Pixel 8 and 8A get it.
"Temu Lures More Repeat Customers than eBay, Pressures Amazon - Bloomberg" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-11/temu-lures-more-repeat-customers-than-ebay-pressures-amazon
And the bill to ban Temu in......
Interesting Reads
"How battery-swap networks are preventing emergency blackouts | MIT Technology Review" https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/11/1093465/battery-swap-gogoro-taiwan-earthquake/
"Slack goes ARM64 on Windows. - The Verge" https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/10/24175618/slack-goes-arm64-on-windows