Is Google still chasing frontier? Seems like they haven't had a "Pro" model in forever. I think a good niche for them would be right where they are now.

They are. They were supposed to release 3.5 Pro over the summer but haven't because of persistent architectural/technical issues allegedly. Which is better than releasing it in that state imo.

Their AI leadership team has taken some hits recently too, in the form of departures. I believe when they get their bearings they will be competitive again. 3.8 Flash has been a great model for me.

These are native speech-to-speech models, so I think they've decided not to do that anymore.

Same. I use Luna for research/scout/test subagents, Sol for coordinator, Terra for delegate, and Astra high for review and simplify. Even with Astra in there, it’s fresh context, and I’m consistently amazed by how far I can stretch my $20 subscription with really good results.

Why do you use Sol for the coordinator? Does it also do planning and design? Because otherwise you are cranking Sol turns on very mundane orchestration jobs.

what harness?

Raw isn’t an image though, it’s pre-image. And we have an open raw format already. DNF I think. With pretty decent adoption.

You are thinking of DNG which is more of a container format. It can use multiple image formats internally to record the actual image, one of them being JPEG-XL.

iPhone raw images are actually a jpeg xl inside the DNG.

True. I would love to have lossless images (and video) out of my devices still. Not as a replacement for RAW but as a middle ground between RAW and lossy JPEG.

Not for quality reasons primaily but because keeping the first stages of the processing pipeline and the archival branch lossless solves some headaches.

We have to apply some weight to the fact that one is open, one isn't, right?

EDIT: Oh! Of course. AVIF is based on AV1. For some reason I was thinking HEIF the entire time I was reading the article. Man... withdrawn!

Really good read, btw. Very good points.

AVIF is royalty-free, & SVT-AV1 and libaom are open source.

Edit: saw you corrected. Much appreciated!

SVT-AV1 is also more than just open source in name only; development and discussions happen in the open; with many community forks that’s now getting upstreamed/merged.

It is a true open source project; not just an open source license.

SVT-AV1-PSY was the first fork, and I created it. When the project matured, the maintainers reached out directly to get things merged – I can confirm it is a great project with great people who are very easy to work with.

AVIF _is_ AV1 in the HEIF container.

(.heif is sometimes used as a file extension generically, but HEIF is itself a container that can support various payloads.)

Both are open I think.

Same. Have a Kickstarter one that’s been going strong ever since.

Too wide to fit in anyone's pocket, but the ratio is the sine of 45 degrees! Seems like a very non-Apple thing to do, honestly. My jeans don't care about math.

It’s the size of a passport, which does fit in most pockets.

I just put a passport in my pocket, and it did fit. It's a lot thinner, and bends a bit... but yeah, maybe it will. Interesting.

For me it's fitting the damn thing in my pocket. And unfortunately, width is the main limiter there, making this far WORSE than any other, despite the smaller screen. I can't imagine what this thing would do to your jeans. Apple needs to sell tiny man satchels with this thing.

Agree. The comparison to a passport is ludicrous since a passport can be curled around your leg when it's in a pocket where this obviously cannot.

Passports aren't actually very comfortable in the pocket even then. They are clunky things.

Of all the marketing to complain about, this seems super tame. Wait until you see "gluten-free tortilla chips" at the supermarket. :D

As somebody w/ Celiac, you'd be surprised. Many a time I've been poisoned by normal gluten free things being tainted by poor manufacturing lines, or companies mixing in other product. Tortilla chips with gluten, Hashbrowns/Potatoes coated with wheat flour, so many things are made not-gluten-free for no reason.

There is always a reason and it usually has something to do with money. We really need to find a cure for Celiac 'cuz wheat is just too ingrained in our culture to be removed. (pun not intended, but also not removed so...)

Some brands use wheat to make the chips more crunchy. Just like IHOP puts wheat in their scrambled eggs. McDonald's uses wheat in their french fries. They stick wheat everywhere.

There are tortilla chips that do contain gluten, or are cross-contaminated with it. A gluten-free label means they guarantee <20ppm gluten in the product. That’s useful info!

Passive voice is so annoying. The LLM is the subject. We don’t need to jump through a bunch of hoops to hide that because it makes us insecure otherwise.

Language is a tool too, and if there’s a word that suits an LLM better than “I”, it certainly isn’t “it”. Astra and Fable aren’t hammers.