Google isn’t necessarily the seller, but Best Buy, Staples, Amazon, Walmart and Target could hash out a deal with Google (or Bing, etc.) for “insights”.

This post is posed as the next big step in internet pricing, not something necessarily happening today.

Today, it’s not standard procedure outside of some specific segments (that I know of, maybe airfare? But the data fed in is more limited) but tapping into the vast amounts of data we leak through the services we use is far too big of a gold mine for companies to overlook researching and tapping into. There’s a lot of things that need to happen (who supplies data? Google is the hypothetical here but what’s their price? etc.) but it’s absolutely feasible at scale.

Does RCS work reliably on Graphene? I thought Google was fucking with RCS quietly for those on custom ROMs or other things.

Not Just Bikes just put up a video about how fire-fighters and their trucks fight for wider roads while having larger trucks than the rest of the world. Perfect timing there.

Not formally banned but Halo TV show moment

They pivoted from serving the user to serving themselves. I still don’t know what big improvements have been made to 11 other than another coat of paint, some LLM features searching for a problem and the odd feature like that Android subsystem that’s being cancelled. Modern Standby is still being pushed which would rule out most new Windows laptops for me.

It’s not like I want something revolutionary, just a number of quality of life things would be nice without feeling like I’m fighting the machine. If I could search images on my machine with OCR like iOS Photos I would be over the moon but noone’s seemed to want to copy that.

i did not know about that, thanks so much!

Sorry to be the one but the privacy and freedom issue is independent of powertrain. Some earlier models before the automakers went upmarket with EVs were perfectly normal. Now the tablet-on-dash, telematics and other data collection has become pervasive in EVs but now it’s in full-force on ICE vehicles for quite some time. A Mach E and Colorado can both be, and have been, bricked by a bad OTA update.

Practicality though also will vary. If people were used to charging at home all the time, telling people that they have to visit a business to refuel every X days or Y miles would seem odd just because it’s quite different than people think is normal.

Woo hoo, Weapons of Math Destruction meet Weapons of Mass Destruction. (good book by the way)

I read about Apple looking to bring the spec up to par, but I suspect it has a higher chance of being a nothing-burger since carriers haven’t bothered with RCS and Google’s implementation is as controlled/proprietary as iMessage so it will be interesting to see how things go forward.

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(honestly I can also see the AI fad as a little less “extract more money” and more “make the investors think we’re doing something so they A. don’t lose their shit and B. think we’re high tech”)

There is RCS the standard, which isn’t really used - maybe Apple’s support will give it a boost. Then there is RCS + proprietary addons that is used, Google iMessage.

Men are usually immune to it’s worst effects as well 🥴

That would be semen.

See what kind of radio you have in there - if it’s 3G then you’re already set since it’s likely been sunsetted.

This applies to 4Runner’s but the gist may apply.

2019 and earlier MY have a 3G radio and that’s gone. 2020+ have a 4G radio that should be disconnected via phone call first before hardware mods.

Disconnecting the antenna on that vehicle only reduces cellular range but there is also a fuse that can be pulled but that will be very model specific so checking your manual/fusebox/online documentation may help. (in Toyota’s the only side effect is loss of microphone use for in-car calls)

An iPad Pro, specifically

🫡

There’s no easy one-stop solution since it can vary widely.

I would look at subreddits (yuck, reddit!), or dedicated forums for your model if they exist, you’d probably be surprised what’s out there. (Example, there’s Piloteers (Honda Pilot), Kia-Forums (Kia), 4Runners and Toyota-4Runner, etc. But information may be scattered.

First objective is figuring out if it’s even on your vehicle or applicable. Older 3G radios are done since the networks that connected to them are gone now. My '16 Kia had no cellular radio. Maybe you have an SOS button or they advertise a phone app to control your vehicle remotely?

Edit: And if you can’t find specific model/year information for your vehicle, you can look for information for related vehicles and see if it’s relevant. Ex: Honda Passport, Pilot, Ridgeline sharing a lot of engineering.

in this case that’s Toyota specific and it means likely loss of phone calls on the go (but nothing else) even though the data can’t leave your vehicle anymore. It all depends on how they wire up the system. Maybe it’s easier, maybe it’s tied to something random.

The antennae only likely won’t reduce range enough. Check for an opt-out procedure prior to purchase since that’s easiest, then look for what fuse powers the connection (also easy), but worse case, lay eyes on the module itself and evaluate.