The Peril of Less Intelligent AI: A Greater Concern than Artificial General Intelligence

Posted on March 10th, 2024

The AI phase we are currently entering, preceding the development of truly intelligent, AGI, could indeed mark the most precarious juncture in human history. In contemplating the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI), it's not the prospect of highly advanced, intelligent systems that should keep us up at night, but rather the less intelli...

Arm Based PCs

Posted on December 8th, 2016

(Update: Boy was I wrong on this one. Apple Silicon.) I had previously read some rumors about Microsoft running x86 emulation on the phone platform. With their recent announcement, It is interesting that they are going to try and do it with PCs first. I read a few articles on this, and it appears that the OS and all related components will be...

Evernote pricing changes - Fun with numbers

Posted on June 28th, 2016

In case you haven't heard, Evernote is increasing the pricing on its paid tiers and limiting its free tier to only sync with 2 devices. How 'could' this affect their bottom line? Let's run some hypothetical numbers. Changes: Basic - adds passcode, limits to 2 devices per account (web use doesn't count I don't think) Plus - was $3 month, $25 yea...

The muddy state of photo editing on iOS

Posted on April 26th, 2015

I was pretty excited to get iCloud photos set up so I could start syncing, sharing and editing on all my devices and macs. I have been having a good time cleaning up old photos on my iPad when I have a few moments to spare. But the honeymoon period has worn off - at least on the iOS side. Compatibility issues, inconsistent image pickers in 3rd p...

Mac Photos App Tips - Dealing With Video

Posted on April 16th, 2015

Video Users: Beware of the drag and drop As I start to incorporate the new Photos app into my workflow I'm learning a bunch of stuff the hard way. Here are a few things to know when dealing with video. A few years back iMovie and the older Final Cut Express didn't support AVCHD video directly so you had to go through some hoops to try and av...

Thought experiment – Intel powered iPad pro

Posted on March 16th, 2015

The Apple universe runs on rumors and speculation. There has been talk of Apple eventually powering their Macs with custom Arm processors. We have yet to see this but what we have seen is an incredibly thin and small retina MacBook based on the new Intel Core M processor. There has also been a lot of rumors of a larger iPad Pro. What if instead ...

My first 10 days with the iPhone 6+

Posted on October 1st, 2014

This is the first iPhone that I've bought on launch day. In fact I was able to get it within an hour of store opening due to the new reservation system. I've been using it a lot since I got it and here are some of my thoughts after my first 10 days of use. This is my first Phablet. Prior to the 6+ I was firmly in the one-handed phone user ...

How Microsoft could solve its Windows Phone app problem without giving up the farm

Posted on February 13th, 2014

Let’s face it Windows Phone OS is pretty nice. Even if you are an iOS or Android guy you have to admit that. The Nokia (soon to be Microsoft branded) phones are also pretty nice. So why don’t you own one? Well for most people the answer is that there are just not enough apps. So why don’t developers write more apps for Windows Phone? - Well beca...

Bitcasa Power Tip: Use Mirroring for large uploads

Posted on June 4th, 2013

Summary In this post I want to talk about Bitcasa and some of the issues the current desktop clients (Mac, 1.1. build 1106, Windows 1.1.0.0) have when copying large amounts of data to the cloud and describe a tip I've found for making the process a little easier and more reliable. The tip is most effective with the Mac client, but is useful ...

Getting Video into Evernote on iOS

Posted on May 27th, 2013

I regularly use Evernote to Video Journal. I like to record entries of around 5 minutes with the front facing camera on the iPhone. The problem is that the iOS versions of Evernote do not allow you to import video directly. Also the iOS photo app won't let you email video longer than 30 seconds - so you can't use your handy Evernote email addres...

John Marshall

Developer. Geek. Human.