Bytes & Backpacks #115 ☄️

Jony Ive, one of the world's greatest design legends, the man behind the iPod, iPhone, iMac, and AirPods, "met with Sam Altman in a San Francisco café" (CEO of OpenAI) and they agreed to create the device of the future together. There's speculation about a smart pendant that will record what's happening around you, will always be with you, and will be your assistant. It actually makes a lot of sense - imagine having artificial intelligence with you 24/7 that hears everything happening around you, can remember it all, has access to your computer (which it can control for you), your phone... And this assistant isn't just a clever, socially adept, and pleasant lady at a desk. She's quite smart. She's actually graduated from all universities, has multiple degrees in all currently known fields, and has read everything humanity has ever written. When you think about it, we can already do 2/3 of this today, and I'm really curious if this partnership can pull off the most difficult final part. But who else, right? Apple is working on making Siri able to play a song by Pokáč, Google is working hard not to lose its search business, Microsoft is working around the clock but still somehow running and catching up to an accelerating train...What could possibly go wrong, right? Just the official photo together looks like it's from another Black Mirror episode. Sometimes I wonder if the guys in Silicon Valley are just making fun of us... Check out the video below too, it's a beautiful tech bizarre.Business & Technology 👨‍💻* Contact lenses with infrared vision.* Meta knows quite a lot about us. Meta is getting into military contracts.* Anthropic released new models that are quite interesting. They can work independently on a task for up to 7 hours. But bigger uproar was caused by mentions that the models are starting to show tendencies to report you when you're doing something illegal or refuse to shut down when you want to terminate them.* Remember the fly advising Jiřík in Goldilocks? We have it.* Google introduced Veo3, which can create videos. Nothing new? Well, Veo can do it complete with effects, dubbing, sound... Here are a few examples:Travel 🧳* He traveled to all countries in the world without boarding an airplane.* The Greek Peloponnese will become a hiker's paradise. 1,700 kilometers of trails will be created here.* Yachting isn't just yachting.* Oregon's coast is one of the most beautiful coastlines I've ever seen. Take a look.Do you like Bytes & Backpacks? A lot? You can buy me a coffee! ☕️Nature ⛰️* I've written before that I don't believe humanity will start living sustainably (unfortunately). We'd rather invent technologies that will pull us out of trouble.* How many kilometers can a butterfly migrate? Units? Tens? Hundreds? Or 15,000?* When you're rescuing a bear, you have to become...a bear.* Salmon from mushrooms.* A few great photos from the wild.Unclassifiable 🧠* First color photographs of a black hole.* LegoGPT will create a model for you on demand.* When you wake up tomorrow morning, better check out your window to see if you don't have an ocean liner in your garden.* Do you like karaoke and have no one to sing with? Try Smule.* This year's ranking of the world's happiest cities.Tips 💡What I'm reading: The Cafe on the Edge of the WorldWhat I'm listening to: Outrun by SteeldriversWhat I'm watching: What if is on Youtube!Interesting app: 0Photo greetings 📷View from my favorite "fire watchtower" in Bohemian Switzerland 💚.Thank you very much for your support and have a great day! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newsfromthewoods.substack.com