Tuesday, May 06
Daily News Stuff 6 May 2025
Alarums And Excursums Edition
Alarums And Excursums Edition
Top Story
- Microsoft has shut down Skype for good. (The Verge) (archive site)
I wish. It's still bloody working. I got a call from work fifteen minutes ago.
Tech News
- Dimension 126 isn't a place. (Quanta)
Strangely worded headline. Strangely worded article.
126-dimensional spaces allow for certain strangely twisted shapes, that are possible only in spaces with dimensionality of the form 2n-2 - so 2, 6, 14, 30, 62 - but disproven in 2009 for spaces with 254 or more dimensions.
That left only 126 dimensional space to have this property confirmed or denied, and now it has been proven true.
- Databricks is looking to acquire serverless Postgres company Neon in a deal valued at about $1 billion. (Upstarts Media)
Neon advertises its blazing speed with queries taking as little as ten milliseconds, which is miserably slow compared to running your own database and completely impossible if you are more than ten milliseconds away from one of their servers.
- Touchscreens are everywhere, but proper tactile interfaces have significant benefits. But what if your touchscreen could form its own tactile buttons on demand? (The Verge)
LG is planning to show off exactly that next week, with a new automotive control interface featuring a touchscreen that changes shape instantly to create buttons and dials for physical controls.
The demo is intriguing, though the unit displayed is rather bulky and it's not clear how much of that bulk is necessary.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: I'll stick with a comfortable zero dimensions, thanks.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:21 PM
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1
Touchscreens that move--ugh. Nothing like waiting for it to reshape itself while slow animations also take place. Hard pass. Plus, I don't want to rub a circular ridge to change the volume or channel of my radio. Bring back rotary encoders.
Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, May 07 2025 08:37 AM (1zWbY)
2
I am not sure if I want my touchscreen display to be more living than Keith Richards. Scratch that - I do not want my touchscreen display to be anywhere near living as Keith Richards.
The article does remind me of a debate I had many, many years ago on the Traveller Mailing List about the advantages of having tactile/physical fixed interfaces versus reconfigurable touchscreen in a military setting. I was skeptical about it back in the day and I have seen nothing to change that - Star Fleet might find it to be a good idea but I do not see real militaries regard it with nearly as much confidence.
Posted by: cxt217 at Wednesday, May 07 2025 10:48 AM (ZLF73)
3
Car manufacuters are just now starting to admit that moving all the controls to touchscreens wasn't a great idea.
My limited experience with them suggests that makers are using underpowered hardware, too. Cars are already too expensive so I hate to suggest throwing more CPU power at them, but good grief I hate laggy stuff.
My limited experience with them suggests that makers are using underpowered hardware, too. Cars are already too expensive so I hate to suggest throwing more CPU power at them, but good grief I hate laggy stuff.
Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, May 08 2025 12:43 AM (cRZ/R)
4
If 'you' don't hardware constrain the automotive industry's software development, they would probably be shipping even worse disasters. I blame CAFE, and CARB, adn figure that congress and California's government probably ought to be lynched for those. I think the aviation industry's 'everythign should be written in mishra C' might be extreme enough for unnecessary waste, but that looks better to me in comparison to smartphone integration with a heavy machine in the automotive case.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Thursday, May 08 2025 07:56 AM (rcPLc)
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