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Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps
iPhone 15 camera
I sprung for a new iPhone 15. The camera sold me and it’s all that I hoped for and more.
Flickr Batch Organizer
Flickr launched in February, 2004. I created an account and started uploading photos in March, 2005. So I guess I’m a long-time user. My primary photo repository is the Photos app on my MacBook (mirrored in my iCloud account): 2,449 photos. I make some effort to only save “keepers.” Flickr is where I post photos I’d like to share with the world. All under Creative Commons license for unrestricted use. I have about 2,500 photos in my photostream organized into albums and collections.
This 12 minute video (I know, too long) is a very cursory explanation of how I use Flickr’s Batch Organizer to manage photos.
“A quick and sobering guide to cloning yourself”
I recently stumbled upon a Substack article by Ethan Mollick, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, titled “A quick and sobering guide to cloning yourself.”
“With just a photograph and 60 seconds of audio, you can now create a deepfake of yourself in just a matter of minutes by combining a few cheap AI tools. I’ve tried it myself, and the results are mind-blowing, even if they’re not completely convincing. Just a few months ago, this was impossible. Now, it’s a reality.”
As a former radio guy I was more interested in the audio portion of Professor Mollick’s experiment.
“Clone a voice from a clean sample recording. Samples should contain 1 speaker and be over a 1 minute long and not contain background noise. Currently works best on US-English accent.”
I created an account at 11ElevenLabs, picked a voice and uploaded some text from my blog bio.
For $5 a month (first month free) you can synthesize your own voice. I uploaded a recording of me reading that same bio.
Finally, I pasted in some text from one of my blog posts and my voice was “cloned.”
Just to be clear, the first audio is one of their “voices.” The the second audio is a recording of my voice. The real me, if you will. And the third audio is the synthesized Steve voice. I’m not sure someone could tell the difference. I sort of prefer the synthesized reading over my own. In two years (?), this technology will be so good it will be nearly impossible to tell real from cloned.
DJI Avata
The virtual reality thing (as I understand it) hold no appeal for me. But I would be willing to strap on some goggles for a drones-eye-view of some interesting place. This is already a thing, yes?
My friend George recently got his hands on the DJI Avata, a pricey ($1388) little drone you fly with goggles and a joystick.
Reminiscent of William Gibson’s simstim. “…recorded sensoriums, like racing a black Fokker ground-effect plane across the Arizona mesa tops; diving the Truk Island preserves.”
Jitterbug
I found this in the back of a kitchen drawer. I don’t recall owning this so it must have been Barb’s. “The Jitterbug Flip2 is designed to be easy to use, with big buttons and a large screen. It’s the only flip phone with Amazon Alexa, so you can make calls and send texts using just your voice. And for help in emergencies, the Urgent Response button is right on the keypad.” I especially like the YES and NO buttons. Early version of the “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” icons.
The phone was (and still is?) aimed at the older market, but who doesn’t need an Urgent Response button from time to time? The red button on the new version of the phone?
Some might recall that I dabbled with the idea of a simpler phone a few years ago.
Rotary Dial Cell Phone
Blocking spam calls and texts
Like everyone else, I am constantly bombarded by telephone spam calls. Blocking the numbers does no good because they have an infinite number of bogus phone numbers.
Yesterday I downloaded AT&T’s ActiveArmor app (free) and it has been blocking calls that previously got through. One spammer used a dozen different numbers within a matter of seconds.
Five handy Google Maps features
iPhone 13 mini
I’ve never been a fan of the ever-larger phones so I almost pulled the trigger on one of the new iPhone SE’s Apple announced last week, until my buddy suggested I take a look at the iPhone 13 mini. Didn’t know there was such a thing but it was just what I was after. Smaller phone with lots of features. Arrives tomorrow. (The photo compares the 11 and the 13 mini)
I was at the Apple event in 2007 when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. I resisted getting an iPhone when they came out. I’d had a Tracfone since 2005. $19.95 at Wal-Mart and it lived in the glovebox of my car. In 2008 I broke down and bought an iPhone and bought the new model ever couple of years. iPhone 3GS (2009); iPhone 4 (2010); the first iPhone SE (2016); iPhone XS (2018); iPhone 11 (2020).