emilprotalinski.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

I'm watching White Lotus Season 1. My wife is away on vacation and is already on Season 3 so the goal is to catch up before she's back. I'm going to thread my thoughts as I go.

submitted 10 hours ago • 2 comments

RIP, Skype. Microsoft says it will shut down Skype on May 5, 2025. Skype launched over two decades ago on August 29, 2003. It was so straightforward to use that my grandfather installed the app, set up his account, and demanded that my father get on so they could talk internationally for free.

submitted 17 hours ago • 0 comments

GPT-4.5 is here, but it feels forced. OpenAI's releases seem more reactive than proactive. Two weeks ago, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman promised GPT-4.5 was weeks away and GPT-5 was months away. So far, he’s on schedule, but there are some notable caveats: openai.com/index/introd...

submitted 23 hours ago • 0 comments

Flying out of gate A1 feels important.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Amazon's new Alexa+ is not a streaming service, despite its name. It will cost as much as one, kinda. Alexa+ is a generative AI update to the AI assistant coming in preview in March 2025 for $20 per month or free for Prime subscribers: www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

What's the issue? I bet this reverses any good will Apple got from its nonsense $500B + 20,000 US worker announcement.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Amazon acquires Zoom in 3, 2, 1...

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

The new $600+ iPhone 16e is a bigger deal than you might think. Apple also discontinued the $429+ iPhone SE. So, the iPhone 16e is now the cheapest and smallest iPhone. The thing to pay attention to, however, is not the price and size, but what is and isn't inside

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

RIP, Humane. The Ai Pin is finally dead. HP plans to acquire Humane's assets for $116 million, wind down Humane's Ai Pin business, and add Humane's team as an AI-focused division: www.bloomberg.com/news/article... This was always going to be the outcome: It was just a matter of time and price.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Elon Musk has offered to buy OpenAI. The AI industry really is a drama magnet. A group of investors led by Musk made an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI. The offer is meant to complicate CEO Sam Altman's plans to convert OpenAI to a for-profit company.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Amazon's Q4 2024 earnings report disappointed. Are you getting a feeling of déjà vu? You may have seen Alphabet's earnings report earlier this week and noticed the same pattern: too much capex and too little cloud.

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

Google wishes this Gemini would just go away.

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

I pay for Gemini as part of whatever Google One subscription, so of course I don't have access to this yet.

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

Alphabet's Q4 2024 earnings report disappointed. Too much capex and too little cloud. Here are the YoY numbers: abc.xyz/assets/a3/91... Investors saw that cloud revenue growth might be slowing again and sent the stock down.

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

OpenAI has launched Deep Research. Powered by OpenAI's o3 reasoning model, the AI agent scours the internet and gives you back a report (only available to its $200/month ChatGPT Pro subscribers). Sound familiar? Google also has a Deep Research model, which you can access for $20/month.

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

I still think this acquisition should happen.

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

This was surprising at first glance, but it likely reflects moves from the two biggest self-driving taxi companies: 1. Waymo is now a robotaxi operator in California, more than a tester. 2. GM shut down Cruise. I'd love to see a comparison of these 2024 numbers against other states and countries.

submitted 27 days ago • 0 comments

Apple's Q1 2025 is a reminder: this is not a growth company. And that's okay. If more people are actively using Apple devices, Apple can upsell more people to use Services, which is much more profitable than selling hardware. Thus Apple can keep printing more money.

submitted 28 days ago • 0 comments

Do you want Starlink on your phone? You may need to switch to T-Mobile. Apple has reportedly been working with SpaceX and T-Mobile to add Starlink support from iOS 18.3. T-Mobile is already testing the feature with some subscribers, and it's even opened the beta to Android 15 users.

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

Did DeepSeek burst the AI bubble? The Chinese AI lab has tanked US tech stocks. Here's a quick recap of the past week. The market loves to overreact, both to the upside and the downside, so we won't know for a while if this is just another blip or the beginning of an AI bear market.

submitted 32 days ago • 0 comments

Will 2025 be the year of agents? OpenAI is betting on it. The startup has released a "research preview" of its Operator AI agent, which can do web-based tasks for you, like buying tickets, booking restaurants, or ordering groceries. Agents with full browser access could enable many new use cases.

submitted 35 days ago • 0 comments

TikTok is not going away on January 19. Sure, the US Supreme Court unanimously upheld the TikTok divest-or-ban law, saying that free speech rights must yield to concerns that Chinese control of the app creates a national-security risk for the US. TikTok will survive at least this weekend.

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

Could Elon Musk save TikTok? Don't hold your breath. What's better: Chinese-controlled social media or Musk-controlled social media? We're just days away from TikTok US being banned in the US, assuming ByteDance doesn't sell it by January 19 and SCOTUS doesn't save it.

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments

Meta is killing its fact-checking program. Mark Zuckerberg says Meta will restore free expression on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, including by replacing its fact-checking program with a crowdsourced Community Notes feature similar to X's. Zuckerberg is pandering to Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

submitted 52 days ago • 0 comments

RIP Hulu + Live TV. Long live Fubo. Disney is combining Hulu + Live TV with Fubo in a new joint venture, of which Disney will own 70% and Fubo will own 30%. This deal will make Fubo the second biggest digital pay TV provider, at 6.5 million subscribers, right behind YouTube TV, at 8 million.

submitted 53 days ago • 0 comments

Is Siri spying on you? Not necessarily, but Apple has admitted defeat. The company agreed to pay $95 million to settle a class action lawsuit claiming it recorded private conversations after its users unintentionally activated Siri and then shared the data with third parties, such as advertisers.

submitted 56 days ago • 0 comments

2025 tech birthdays TikTok: 9 OpenAI: 10 Lyft: 13 Snap: 14 Instagram: 15 Uber: 16 Bitcoin: 16 X: 19 Reddit: 20 YouTube: 20 Facebook: 21 Tesla: 22 Google: 27 Mozilla: 27 Netflix: 28 Amazon: 31 Qualcomm: 40 Apple: 48 Microsoft: 50 AMD: 56 Intel: 57 Sony: 79 HP: 86 Samsung: 87 IBM: 113 Nintendo: 136

submitted 57 days ago • 0 comments

The incentives are all wrong. Dating apps need to be redesigned from the ground up for dating, or just rebrand as hookup apps.

submitted 66 days ago • 0 comments

Best Buy, you high?

submitted 67 days ago • 1 comment

Would you buy an Apple version of Amazon's Ring? Apple wants to put Face ID on your front door. The company is reportedly working on a smart doorbell system with advanced facial recognition that can wirelessly connect to, and unlock, third-party smart locks: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

submitted 67 days ago • 0 comments

Would you subscribe to an iPhone plan? Well, too bad. Apple has reportedly halted a project to offer an iPhone hardware subscription service, which had been in development over the past two years: www.bloomberg.com/news/article... Apple is scared of regulators scrutinizing subscription fees.

submitted 71 days ago • 0 comments

If this wasn't part of 12 Days of OpenAI, I'd say the startup was running out of ideas.

submitted 72 days ago • 0 comments

Will SCOTUS save TikTok? The January 19 deadline is suddenly not the most important date. The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear emergency arguments from TikTok, ByteDance, and content creators on January 10, 2025. It seems like time is running out for TikTok, but anything can still happen.

submitted 72 days ago • 0 comments

Remember when Amazon banned WFH? Some employees are getting a temporary exemption for a hilarious reason. Unfortunately for Amazon, and fortunately for some employees in New York, Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, and other locations, the company doesn't have enough office space for all its employees.

submitted 73 days ago • 0 comments

Would you buy a foldable iPad? You might get your wish in 2028. Apple is reportedly developing an iPad that unfolds into the size of two iPad Pros side-by-side: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet... I bet leaks next year will reveal which will arrive first: a foldable iPhone or a giant foldable iPad.

submitted 74 days ago • 0 comments

Generative AI hallucinations in math are particularly frustrating.

submitted 75 days ago • 0 comments

Startup: Would you still invest in me if I was a worm? VC: How much do you want?

submitted 77 days ago • 0 comments

If it doesn't hallucinate, is it even generative AI? So much for Apple Intelligence being better than other generative AI suites.

submitted 77 days ago • 0 comments

Google Glass is making a comeback, kinda. Android XR is challenging Apple's Vision Pro and Meta's Ray-Bans. I'm not sure Google will succeed where Microsoft with HoloLens, or even Google itself, have already failed. Still, at the very least, Apple and Meta will get some much-needed competition.

submitted 77 days ago • 0 comments