Apple's Knowledge Navigator - are we there yet?

Like many Apple users I'm keen to see how an upgraded Siri, rumoured to be coming this year, works. Right now Siri is way behind competing speech handling agents. It can turn lights on and off just fine but ask it anything more and it either searches the Internet or asks ChatGPT.

Back in 1987, Apple published a ground breaking vision for how human computer interaction might work in the future. It was commissioned by then CEO, John Sculley, and it not only predicted AI agents but even the Internet.

This morning I was chatting with SmartFriend™ Tony about Clawdbot/Moltbot and he mentioned Knowledge Navigator. We are now very close to this futuristic vision. Not quite there, but it is within reach. ChatGPT helped me create this feature list.

Achieved:

• Voice-activated assistants
• Retrieving and summarising information
• Video calls and collaboration
• Making and managing calls/messages
• Touchscreens and tablets
• Text-to-speech and speech-to-text

Not as envisaged:

• We don't use an animated person's head as our assistant - probably for the best

Not quite here yet:

• Deep contextual long-term assistant memory - Apple announced this two years ago but didn't ship
• Fully autonomous, multi-step tasks with actions - Agents promise this.

What a remarkable vision of the future Sculley and Apple published almost 40 years ago. I hope the Siri team is taking a look.

CYD Internet radio

Recently I've been playing with the Cheap Yellow Display boards. They are an ESP-32 on the back of a 2.8 inch LCD display with touch. One of the most interesting projects is an Internet Radio. Source code is here.

The boards have quite a range of devices already in place such as an RGB LED and an audio amplifier, other I/O is nicely taken out to sockets on the edge. (I've upgraded my 3D case design to add holes for these). I've just got it working:

You'd think it would be possible to use the on-board audio DAC with the speaker driver but unfortunately the I/O is shared with one of the touch screen lines. An external audio DAC should be used.

I changed a few of the constants to use the pins available on my version of the board (The USB-C one) as follows:

// On the USB-C CYD

const int I2S_BCKL = GPIO_NUM_18; // BLU --> BCKL | // 26 |

const int I2S_WSEL = GPIO_NUM_19; // YEL --> WSEL |UDA1334A // 25 | when using spkr output

const int I2S_DOUT = GPIO_NUM_23; // RED --> DIN | // 27 |

// also GPIO_NUM_27 BLK

// 3.3V RED VIN

// GND GRN GND

Other changes I made included the screen rotation and time zone for my area.

It's now playing lovely classical music, although it's a bit glitchy for some reason. My touch screen doesn't seem to be working so I plan to figure that out next. Thanks to John VK2ASU for the prompt to work on this.

Tech Talk on ABC Radio - Artificial Intelligence is the wrong name

Do you think the term Artificial Intelligence is being misused for things which aren't intelligent at all?  

Have we come to trust the output too much, partly because of the name? Could we have fallen for a marketing trick? 

Prediction market odds are increasingly being reported as news, what are they and can they be gamed?

Communication failures during the recent Victorian fires, why the big ABC AM stations are an important backup in times of emergency.

Peter Marks, mobile software developer and technology commentator from Access Informatics, joined Philip Clark and listeners to Nightlife with the latest tech news. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/nightlife/nightlife-tech-talk-with-peter-marks/106276236 

Starlink residential lite is enough for me

I've been very happy with Starlink after NBN dropped the ball here and drove me away. Until now I've been on the Residential Full plan at AU$139 / month. Most of my computers are connected over Wifi and here's the speed test I was getting:

I decided to try Residential Lite which is said to be a lower speed and lower priority in busy times. Here's what I get now:

Still pretty good. My guess is that the busy times when I might see reduced speed due to congestion would be in the evenings when people are streaming video but so far I haven't noticed it.

I do see a bit of buffering just after a YouTube video starts playing on the Apple TV box but I saw that before and assume it's some networking mis-match. Lengthy multi-party Zoom calls work as well as before.

Residential Lite is AU$99 / month so that's $40 a month freed up for ham radio bits.

FreeDV net - 12 on frequency but poor conditions

A good rollup this morning but few stations could actually hear many people. Very warm here in south eastern Australia. Jack, VK5KVA said he had 42.7C yesterday (108.86F) and the only cooling was a ceiling fan. We're expecting about 34C today.

Stations on frequency: VK2AWJ, VK2GMH, VK3JCO, VK3KEZ, VK3PCC, VK3SRC, VK3XCI, VK5KVA, VK5MH, VK7DMH, VK4IKZ, VK5RA and me, VK3TPM.

It's time to upgrade the home to Matter and Thread

We have some simple home automation here. Lights come on at sunset and go off again later. Some lights we turn on or off by calling out. Nothing fancy. Mostly these were done with Wifi connected switches via whatever app they need which is hooked in to Google home and Apple Home.

In the past it's been a struggle to configure new devices, often having to try over and over again. Some of them tend to drop of the Wifi network at times. Zigbee based mesh networking is an alternative but requires a hub to link to your network.

Happily Apple, Google, and the manufacturers have come together and agreed on a standard for setup, status and control called Matter and a mesh network called Thread. My local electrical store didn't have any Matter + Thread devices but, guess what, the old stock is on special! I ordered some bulbs on line.

If you're buying, make sure you see these little icons on the box:

Adding the "accessories" to my Home was the best experience I've ever had. Open the Google or Apple Home app, scan the 2D barcode on the device, plug in the device and in seconds it had been found and added. There is a link to a manufacturer's app but there's no need to install it or use it for control. 

You might think that a Wifi to Thread radio hub might be needed but happily Apple has been quietly building Thread in to many of their products for years. Thread is in Apple TV, HomePods, iPhone 15 and later, iPads (M4 Pro, M2 Air), MacBooks (M3 and later). I was pleased to learn that starting with iOS 18 newer iPhones can directly control Matter devices over Thread radio locally without needing Wifi or internet. This makes the experience fast and reliable.

Google has been doing a similar thing and Thread routers are in the Nest Hub (2nd gen), Nest Hub Max, Nest Wifi, Google TV Streamer (4K), and is expected to be in the Pixel 10 phones. Android version 15 or later supports Matter.

3D printed box for USB-C CYD (Cheap Yellow Display)

I've been getting in to the CYDs which have an ESP-32 attached to a 2.8" touch screen. Recently I bought some new versions with a USB-C connector and wanted a case. Pretty happy with how it turned out.

The design is done in OpenSCAD which I now feel very comfortable with. The design files and STL for the box and lid are available here on Thingaverse. 

FreeDV net - poor conditions but a good roll up

Quite a few stations on the frequency this morning but only a few could talk to each other. Seen were: VK2AWJ, VK2BLQ, VK2CJB (who was heard while using a dummy load!), VK2DWG, VK2GMH, VK2VCO, VK3FAR, VK3FFB, VK3JCO, VK3KEZ, VK3KR, VK4APF, VK4YA, VK5ABE, VK5KHZ, VK5KVA, VK3PCC and me, VK3TPM.

Macedon Radio Club annual picnic with lots of radio

My local radio club, the Macedon Ranges Amateur Radio Club, held its annual picnic day and several of us brought along portable radios and antennas.

There was an interesting collection ranging from a uSDX up to a very new Yaesu portable radio.

I brought my trusty KX3 which has a great advantage in these conditions of having a very readable LCD display compared to the more fancy rigs.

Perhaps one day Electraft will update the KX3 or KX2 to add a USB port for audio and control so we can more easily do digital modes.

A lovely day in Victoria today.