Thoughts
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Security Best Practices When Using AI to Write Code
Read more →At Mindgrub, the engineering team, like many, has found itself wondering just how good AI is at writing code. What do these things really know, and can they make us better, strong, and faster? I’m here to tell you that it is pretty good, in some cases damn good. If you need a quick code […]
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A world without CarPlay
Read more →Whenever I rent a car, I have a straightforward request. Please support Apple CarPlay. It is single handily the most important thing for me in the next car I purchase or rent. That makes GM’s news to discontinue support for CarPlay and Android Auto on its future electric vehicles seem so crazy. I’m not the […]
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Is AI the end of Search Engine Optimization?
Read more →In testing the new crop of AI ChatBots, I noticed a consistent and fascinating trend, hunting for search results really sucks, and I want someone to tell me what I want. I want the AI bot to give me the answer. Not Bing or Google result pages or yelp listings. Tell me what I want […]
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Is ChatGPT a Big Deal?
Read more →For the last few weeks (maybe months), OpenAI and several of its products have been in the press. If I knew nothing, this was the first time anyone had ever experienced AI or witnessed the immense amount of AI-based products we have consumed as customers for years. It’s not as if demos have shown AI ordering […]
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Apple Maps Ready for Business?
Read more →How many of you remember the great Apple Maps debacle? In the business books of major failures – Apple Maps must sit in the top 25. I never stopped using Apple Maps, but I did bounce between Google Maps and its sister product Waze, and weirdly, along the way, Apple Maps got good. It got really […]
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You hear me?
Read more →Since StarTrek TOS I have imagined living in the future. Talking with a computer conversationally and using our words to do anything sounds like a dream come true. Amazon Alexa’s introduction gave us that possibility with the first viable form of voice control. Even before Alexa, I’ve been a die-hard speech command lover through tools […]
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The Bank Unbundling
Read more →The big news in the finance industry is Wells Fargo, the number 1 player in the housing market, making a decision to pull back on mortgages and focus on a more profitable slice of the market. This may sound like a sign of a weakening economy, which is true, but this continues a long trend […]
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CES 2023 Recap
Read more →I last attended CES in 2020; shortly after, doors closed worldwide. After a two-year hiatus, I had no idea what to expect and feared the conference would lack the thrill it used to have. I must say CES did not disappoint and Mindgrub’s return to Vegas was a thrill we will not soon miss. CES […]
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Did Southwest’s Tech Fail?
Read more →Many news sources cite Southwest’s lack of investment in technology at its scale. I’m an outsider here, so I can only speculate how this happened, but I find the finger-pointing at technology to be a bit like a Jedi mind trick. What makes Southwest Airlines so unique is the back-of-napkin concept they proudly celebrate during […]
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Secure Software
Read more →Reading about Anker’s recent security issues has been interesting. In reading I came across this great comment on The Verge’s article : “why did this happen at all when Anker said these cameras were exclusively local and end-to-end encrypted?” and “why did it first lie and then delete those promises when we asked those questions?”Occam’s […]
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What Security?
Read more →Every year all Mindgrub employees are required to complete our annual security training. This year we switched it up and moved to the well-received KnowBe4 training curriculum. Watching and completing the ~45 min eLearning session seemed a bit surreal this holiday season. After all, LastPass completely failed, a house representative-elect lied about everything, and Anker […]
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Migrating
Read more →My friend recently made the big shift from Android to the iPhone. As I celebrated her finally joining the blue text messages club and her ability to join family albums, use share play, and so many other iOS features, we had to start with the very first step. Migration. I’m not the average Apple customer. […]
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It Wasn’t Me
Read more →Arstechnica has an amazing piece on the dystopian possibilities of AI images and deep fakes. As the article notes – deepfakes have been a reality for years, but AI takes what was a skill and makes the process so simple that anyone can channel its uses for good (or primarily bad). It opens up a […]
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Google Analytics 4
Read more →Google Analytics 4, or GA4, is a reimagining of the analytics platform for a world that is post page views. Many of us still think of web traffic in older terms like hits, pages, and sessions – however, the mobile space and rich internet applications have changed how the web works. Imagine Instagram and think […]
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The Paywall
Read more →I share article excerpts with friends and family frequently. Sometimes it’s something fun like a Buzzfeed listicle, but most times, it’s an article relevant to shared interests or recent conversations. Paywalls almost always put a huge wrench in this, to the point that a good friend asked if I could share a synopsis or quote […]
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DALL-E
Read more →DALL-E and the world of generated images have captured the attention and imaginations of many. When I first watched the video, humans need not apply; close to 8 years ago, the technologies felt possible but still distant. DALL-E alerts you with a flashing red light to how far we’ve come over a relatively short period. DALL-E is […]
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Alexa
Read more →The recent layoffs by Amazon targeting its device unit have sprung up many articles on Amazon’s inability to monetize Alexa – especially knowing that Amazon’s strategy has long focused on selling devices at cost and making revenue from its greater ecosystem. While sold at a cost, Kindle is a gateway product to Amazon’s extensive library of ebooks. […]
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Welcome to the metaverse
Read more →When Mindgrub announced our move to the metaverse, we wanted to explore the many sprouting virtual worlds and determine where to plant our virtual roots. The way people talk about it, the idea of a metaverse sounds like one world or one place you can enter to access a broad land of virtual content. The […]
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The algorithms did it
Read more →Over the weekend, I read a piece on algorithms running the city of Washington DC. Articles like this frustrate me in their ability to take a word that once felt clear and make it crowded and confusing. Algorithm even when used correctly represent such a broad and vast definition that using the word necessitates a […]