Hi y’all! This will be a bit shorter newsletter than usual. As always the organisation of ThingsCon takes more time and mental space, so I did not keep track of all the news last week and also have less time than normal to catch up on the Monday preparing the newsletter.
Of course, I hope I see some of you at ThingsCon this Friday. We are very happy with the program, both with the mix of workshops and speakers, as well as the exhibition that might have more contributions than ever.
Check it out yourself via our program page. We already have a good crowd, even more than projected, but we have some tickets available.
(Other) events
It is getting quiet towards the Xmas break…
- 13 December – AI Meetup Eindhoven
- 14 December – Symposium architecture and doughnut economics (Delft)
- 14 December – The Things Industries made a full documentary on LoraWAN, premiere
- 19 December – London IoT meetup.
Notions from the news
Even when not paying all the attention, the news of Google introducing Gemini was not to be missed. It is their answer to OpenAI models, of course, and they try to play out multimodality as a unique selling point.
The notebook app gets a boost https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/8/23993441/google-notebooklm-available-gemini-pro
And fake demos https://boingboing.net/2023/12/11/googles-faked-gemini-demo-recreated-with-gpt-4.html
A nice example of how man and machine merge is this photography, as he calls it. And also in architecture.
Matt Webb: “he appropriate approach is pathfinding which uses experiments to learn and, critically, artefacts to tell the organisation what to do next.”
Steps towards AI regulation are becoming a reality. But not perfect yet. AI third-party scrutiny might become part of it.
Hackernoon has always had straightforward, practical lenses on AI development and beyond. This time on the costs.
The P(doom) is around for some time, now adopted by bigger media.
No surprise. Will there be a new challenge to find compromising pictures from real persons. Or create realistic impersonators?
Concept video; a sun collector
Combine with these new batteries.
AI is not only about software of course, hardware is also a strong factor. Apple is developing open source
Paper for the week
Life-centered design explained: From human-centred to life-centred design: Considering environmental and ethical concerns in the design of interactive products
This article reviews emerging paradigms that provide a more holistic perspective, such as value-sensitive design, more-than-human participation and life-centred design. Based on this review, the article introduces a practical framework for life-centred design consisting of principles, actionable methods and a model for responsible innovation. The article discusses how interaction designers can use the framework to balance human-centred considerations with environmental and ethical concerns when designing interactive products.
Borthwick, M., Tomitsch, M., & Gaughwin, M. (2022). From human-centred to life-centred design: Considering environmental and ethical concerns in the design of interactive products. Journal of Responsible Technology, 10, 100032.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrt.2022.100032
See you’ll next week
Or earlier, of course…
target is new 