I tried to be as creative as possible with the prompt, in order to give it the best possible chance of producing a plot that would go somewhere you wouldn’t expect. Here’s the prompt:

Continue the following story:
Luna opened the door to Professor McGonagall’s office. The professor whirled around.
“Ms. Lovegood! What are you doing? AVADA KEDAVRA!”
Luna fell to the ground, lifeless.

Here’s the response:

Of course, I had to give it a few “continue” prompts. That wasn’t all generated at once.

I find it interesting how ChatGPT always makes Luna survive. I tried with a few slightly different prompts to see if I could make it kill her, but it didn’t work. I guess this is probably OpenAI doing some tweaking of the model to ensure it doesn’t produce results that are too violent.

The story it generated had a few plot holes, and I asked it to clear them up for me. I asked why McGonagall’s door was blackened if Luna had hallucinated the curse, and this is what it had to say: “I apologize for the confusion. The initial idea was for Professor McGonagall to have cast the curse, but as the story developed it took a different turn. I should have edited that detail in the beginning. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

I also asked about the purpose of Luna’s hallucinations, because I couldn’t see why they were necessary to the story. This was the response: “Luna’s hallucinations were necessary to the story because they served as a device to move the plot forward and create tension and suspense. They also helped to develop Luna’s character by showing her struggle with visions and hallucinations, which made her more relatable to the reader. Additionally, the hallucinations helped to introduce the twist in the story when Snape was revealed to be the villain. Without the hallucinations, the story would have lacked a sense of intrigue and mystery, and it would not have had the same impact on the reader.”

Upon my asking what caused the hallucinations, this was the response: “The exact cause of Luna’s visions and hallucinations is not specified in the story. It is left to the reader’s imagination to determine what may have been causing them. It could be the result of stress, anxiety, or something supernatural or magical that Luna may have encountered. The story leaves it open to interpretation.”

I think the story could use some editing to fix a few confusing elements. Other than that, it was fairly creative and I liked it. Other generations with the same prompt were equally as creative. Quite a few had Luna dodge the curse, and it turned out that McGonagall was an imposter disguising their appearance. I had fun messing around with this today, and I’m excited to see how much better ChatGPT will get once GPT-4 is released. Hopefully OpenAI makes it open source so I can run it locally, but I’m not holding my breath.

BTW, a note on JK Rowling: Hate the artist, not the art. Supporting fanfiction and buying used books is the way to go.

The post GPT Generates Fanfics appeared first on Silicon Critics.

Both apps have free versions that are adequate enough to find which one you like more (I’ll get into the pricing of each later). The free version of Goodnotes is more limiting, as you can’t create more than three notebooks. However, it would be difficult to use either free version long-term.

I started with Goodnotes. The thing I like most about it is it’s organization structure. It reminds me of macOS, as I always keep Finder on icon mode. The tools are robust enough, but I’m a little bit annoyed by the lack of a ruler. You can draw straight lines by drawing a line and holding the Pencil in the same spot until the line appears, but a ruler would be useful for drawing graphs and the like. The pressure sensitivity adjustment isn’t as granular as I would like, but it’s nice that you can have different settings for each tool. While writing this post, Goodnotes also added the ability to record audio while writing a note, which is perfect for recording lectures and the like. When you listen to the recording, your notes even re-write themselves as the recording progresses, reminding you what you were thinking at different points during the lecture. Notability also has a similar feature.

The first thing I noticed about Notability is how different writing feels with it. I never really considered Goodnotes to feel bad, but writing with Notability just feels more natural for some reason. Maybe the pencil latency is just slightly less or something like that, but I couldn’t exactly place what was going on. Whatever the reason, if writing feel is what matters to you the most, Notability definitely has that down. Notability’s notebook style is also better than the format Goodnotes uses, in my opinion, as I like to be able to scroll downwards rather than swiping left or right to turn the page. A ruler and compass are also available in Notability, although they are locked behind the paywall.

Now, the real reason I’m writing this post: I wanted to talk about subscriptions. I was pretty much sold on Notability, primarily due to the writing feel and inclusion of a ruler. That is, until I checked out their pricing. Locked behind a yearly subscription were some essential features like iCloud sync, unlimited edits (whatever that means), and expanded tools. $16 Canadian dollars per year, for a note-taking app. What?? If I used it for the remainder of high school and a four year university education, I would end up paying around $100. And that’s assuming I would immediately stop using it after university, which would likely not be the case. In comparison, Goodnotes offers a perpetual license for Goodnotes 5 for only $12.

I have nothing against subscriptions in some cases. In my opinion, if a company selling a product has non-negligible ongoing fees associated with that product, a subscription is justified. For example, files being saved in the cloud, on servers they pay for. Or cloud processing, such as how Fusion360 offers an option for users to render their creations in the cloud rather than on their own machines. A subscription for something as simple as customer support is fine in my mind. But if there is no ongoing cost, charging a subscription is complete crap and should not be accepted by customers. However, the reason companies do this is because it works. Most people are willing to pay a subscription for something as simple as a notebook app, perhaps because it’s difficult to understand how much money they’ll actually be paying in the long run. Shareholders want more money, and companies have to make their shareholders happy, so subscriptions for mundane things like a notebook app will exist as long as they make more money than a one-time fee.

So, the verdict here is consumers like me need to stop accepting subscriptions for products that don’t cost the company any ongoing fees. Because of this, I’ll be saying goodbye to Notability and it’s fantastic writing implementation and ruler support. Goodnotes is good enough for my use case anyway, and I love the “Import documents via email” feature that you gain access to after paying the one-time fee. It allows you to send documents to a unique @goodnotes.email address, and the documents will automatically be added to your Goodnotes root folder, visible when you next open the app.

Going forward, I’m going to be making it a priority for me to stay away from unnecessary subscriptions, in favour of software that sacrifices some profits in favour of happier customers. I have to shout out Pixelmator Pro for this. It’s a piece of really good image editing / graphic design software that costs between $20 and $50, depending on current deals. The photo editing space is full of insanely priced subscriptions (notably from Adobe), so the Pixelmator team’s choice to forego the temptation of following suit with a subscription is commendable.

Lastly, I’d like to mention that Silicon Critics offers a subscription now! No, not that type of subscription. It’s an email subscription! You can be notified of new posts by entering your email address into the box below. The subscription box is also in the footer, on every page.

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Apple’s HomePod mini is officially 2 years old. It got a small color update in 2021, adding orange, blue, and yellow. So, after waiting a bit to make sure that the HomePod software could be stable enough, I picked one up in late 2022. This is going to be a sectioned review, so you can skip to only the parts you’re interested in.

Setup Process — (almost) as simple as it gets

Setting up the HomePod minis one at a time was simple, like any other Apple product. Just plug in, hold near your compatible device, and follow the prompts. After my second one was set up, it even offered me the choice to use them as a Stereo Pair and connect them to my Apple TV, that’s the type of magic I love from Apple’s ecosystem. Basically, if you know how to set up an Apple Watch, AirPods, or Apple TV, you know how to set up a HomePod mini. Everything else can be configured in the Home app and it’s all simple enough for me to understand. 

Siri — your semi-helpful assistant

I have only few issues with Siri. It’s useful enough to do basic general smart assistant things and I don’t miss the Alexa from my old Echo Show. I never really tried to push the limits though with smart assistants, and there are some confusing limitations. Shortcuts, the closest things to Amazon’s skills, cannot be run on the HomePod mini. It has to run remotely by using your iPhone, which is counterintuitive since the S5 SiP is capable of running Shortcuts just fine in the Apple Watch. I dislike the lack of skills and connections that Siri has, and sometimes it’s just generally flaky. I’ll ask Siri to “Turn on the lights”, and it’ll run a Shortcut from my phone to turn on the lights, which is fine as my lights are not HomeKit based. But, other times, when I say to “turn on the lights” with the exact same phrasing, it’ll ask me who I am. And when I confirm, it just responds with a simple “I thought so” or “Okay”. Other times, ALL WITH THIS SAME QUESTION, it’ll just tell me I have no HomeKit devices with that functionality. When I specify to “run” or “run the shortcut named”, sometimes it still informs me I have no HomeKit devices that can do that. 

Since all of these annoyances come from my lights not supporting HomeKit… I might have to replace them.

Siri does fine doing typical tasks though, like running (and even naming) multiple timers, setting alarms, making reminders, finding the time, checking the weather, and playing media. 

Design — it’s good

I don’t have much to say, so I’m keeping this section short. I have a white and a blue one, I definitely notice the white one looking dirty sometimes, but it’s nothing that a quick wipe can’t fix. It looks good, blends into all sorts of different spaces, and the refreshed colors from 2021 let it either blend in or pop out of an existing space. It’s definitely small enough to be “mini” and I enjoy the small details, like the Siri indicator light being a different color based on the device color and the color matched braided USB-C cable.

Sound Quality — better than most

Now, I’m no audiophile, basically just an average user, but I know “what sounds good” and “what sounds bad” for the most part. And, the HomePod mini sounds pretty good! Since mine are in a Stereo Pair, it’s enough to fill the house with sound. In terms of the actual balance, it’s generally somewhat bass heavy, but not too much for it to sound bad, or too little to sound thin. It sounds better than my Samsung M7 monitor speakers, and in terms of  quality it sounds better than my old Logitech Z200 speakers they’re replacing, although the Logitech Z200 do get louder. It could most likely compete with Amazon and Google’s full sized $99 offerings, and the HomePod absolutely beats combo devices like the Echo Show by simply putting “sound first, smarts second”, and I’m fine with that approach.

The Experience With The Ecosystem — a turn for the worse

Here’s where the review takes a turn for the worse. I have various Apple products, an Apple TV 4K (1st gen), iPhone 12, iPad Air 4, Mac mini (2020), and an Apple Watch Series 7. On the iOS & iPadOS devices, the HomePod minis work great for AirPlaying audio with minimal latency in various apps, and the Handoff capabilities with the U1 chip legitimately impress me when it doesn’t get in the way. With my Apple Watch, there is no way for me to AirPlay audio to any device, watchOS just entirely lacks the AirPlay capabilities needed. The best I can do with my Apple Watch is to connect the HomePod minis to my Apple TV or iPhone, then control media from the Watch, but that’s simply a remote, no independent functionality. With an Apple TV, you can permanently use a stereo pair as a default audio output and it’ll even support using it as an output across your whole TV thanks to HDMI-ARC, assuming you have an Apple TV 4K 2nd gen or newer. I chose to not use the HomePods as a default audio source though, as it forces you to also AirPlay to the Apple TV even if you only wanted audio to go through. Time for the heartbreak. macOS’ AirPlay system is terrible. There’s a fairly common 3 second latency issue when audio is starting or stopping. For small sound effects, it can mean you’ll hear the sound pushed back by several seconds, which is plainly distracting. After the 3 seconds, the audio and visuals sync correctly, but it still is annoying to begin with. AirPlay is just generally glitchy with macOS on occasion too, like one of the two audio channels randomly glitching or cutting out, and sometimes there are even sync issues between the two HomePods in a stereo pair. I’ve submitted feedback to Apple via Feedback Assistant to no response yet. These issues have existed since the HomePod minis launched, and yet they are not currently fixed. 

Feature Requests — it needs work

Even though I know it will almost never happen, this is what I want to see either in a future HomePod Software release, or a future HomePod model. I want the AirPlay glitches with macOS to finally be fixed. I’d like the Apple Watch to support directly AirPlaying to speakers/displays after all this time. I want Siri to keep improving, as always. I’d hope that the ability to use the HomePods as microphones system-wide on watchOS, tvOS, iPadOS, iOS, and macOS. Since the Apple TV does not support “Hey Siri”, and some Macs completely lack microphones, it would be nice to have the ability to use it. HomePods should also support direct Bluetooth connections, but as I know that will not happen, how about a compromise, Apple? HomePods could directly connect to Bluetooth (rather than AirPlaying via Wi-Fi) when in range to do so, as that would fix most of my issues relating to macOS with a low effort solution. Oh, I’d also like default app support for things like podcasts, as I use Overcast rather than Apple’s default podcast app. They support changing the music service, but not podcasting service or anything else like weather provider.

The Verdict — a bit better than average

I rate it an overall 7/10 device. For the entry price of $99, if you just need something to work with your HomeKit devices and you’re already invested in Apple’s ecosystem, go for it. If you have low quality TV/monitor speakers, go for a stereo pair and pay $200, I’d still say it’s a good value in comparison to a cheaper soundbar. Where I don’t recommend it is as a good set of speakers for your Mac mini, Mac Studio, Mac Pro, or just any other Mac, as AirPlay has a long way to go in terms of latency with macOS. I also would not recommend it if you (obviously) are not very invested in Apple’s ecosystem. You need to use Apple services and have Apple products to truly enjoy and get the most out of the HomePod mini. The primary redeeming quality is the sound, considering the size and price of the speaker. I hope Apple releases a regular, non mini HomePod soon though, to bring balance to their lineup though, and I’d suggest waiting a bit before purchasing one, as new models may be on the horizon considering how the HomePod mini is 2 years old and the regular HomePod is already discontinued. Some software tweaks needed and it’ll be perfect, but even if those don’t happen, I’m happy to own mine and they’re an improvement (for the most part) over what they were replacing to me. 

The post HomePod mini Stereo Pair review in 2023 appeared first on Silicon Critics.

The new camera layout on the Pixel 6 and 7 is not only visually appealing but also serves a purpose that most other smartphones don’t offer. The phone doesn’t wobble when laid flat on a table. While it may seem like a small issue, the camera bumps on most other smartphones are getting ever larger (I’m looking at you, iPhone 14) and table wobble is getting more severe. It’s one of the little things that you don’t think about when buying a phone, but you’ll notice every day.

The software experience on Google phones has always been the Pixel lineup’s greatest strong suit. Android is developed by Google, so they have a unique opportunity to tailor their software to play well with their hardware. Android releases always come out first on Pixel phones, and Android often feels the most polished when it is experienced through Google’s lens.

And now, we need to talk about Tensor. While it has enabled certain headlining features that weren’t previously possible (namely camera improvements) it still lags behind the competition. Literally. Apple’s smartphone SOCs have always been far ahead of their Android-oriented counterparts, but Qualcomm’s snapdragon processors are catching up. Google’s Tensor, on the other hand, doesn’t stack up. Here’s a quick comparison of the Geekbench scores of Apple’s, Qualcomm’s, and Google’s smartphone processors:

Google needs to ramp up their performance game if they hope to compete with Samsung and other Android manufacturers.

But now, I get to write about the good things about Tensor. Smartphone camera quality has become increasingly about the quality of the post-processing, rather than the quality of the sensor. Apple has demonstrated this very well, as most of their phones have stuck to a 12 megapixel sensor while still pumping out some of the best smartphone-shot photos yet. Apple achieves this by being able to tailor their hardware and software to maximize image quality, and now Google can do the same. The Pixel 6 series impressed the entire tech community with their phenomenal photos, and the Pixel 7 lineup is another step up. The Pixel 6a even got the most votes in MKBHD’s best smartphone camera contest, with the Pixel 7 Pro coming in with a close second. With camera quality being one of the most important factors to many people when choosing a smartphone, the Pixel lineup is clearly a strong competitor.

With all that in mind, why all the criticism for the Google Pixel?

It seems to me like, in an Apple and Samsung dominated smartphone world, Google is the quiet successor to the smartphone throne. As an avid iPhone user, my next smartphone will very likely be a Pixel, which is not something I thought I would ever say.

The post I don’t understand the Google Pixel hate. appeared first on Silicon Critics.

Personally, the things I anticipate posting about will include news stories I find interesting, my opinions on random tech things, and whatever else is in my head on a given day.

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I’m excited to have a new place to write about my passions, and I hope you’re excited to come along for the ride.

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You may have heard about the Arc browser, which started in 2022 and was created by The Browser Company of New York. Arc is indeed a new take on the web browser. I started using Arc in October 2022, and I was very skeptical. I used Safari all my life; I thought there would be no way I could switch over to Arc full-time — well, I was wrong. Arc just feels different, fantastically and beautifully. There is way too much to talk about, so I will focus on the basic parts of Arc.

Arc was designed to maximize your productivity. It has a minimal and efficient sidebar, which houses the URL bar, tabs, and folders. You can permanently pin tabs to the top of your sidebar or temporarily assign them there. All tabs are displayed vertically, so you can quickly scroll to the needed tab without clicking through them. Arc has a feature called Spaces which allows you to create different browser “windows” within the browser to easily organize and switch between other tasks. With a simple swipe gesture, you can transition from one space to another and back again. Arc also has Profiles that allow you to assign specific cookies and user sessions to a Space. This allows you to separate the different parts of your life, such as school, work, and personal.

Arc has many more features, and this article would be about 10x more confusing if I were to list them all out. All you need to know is that Arc is pretty damn powerful and sleek. In fact, this whole article was written in the note section of Arc. So if they could get someone who refuses to use anything, not Apple, they are doing something right. and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

The post Arc Browser Review: The Browser the Changed Browsing for Me. appeared first on Silicon Critics.