Content
- Intel takes terrible revenge on Apple
- New / old Snapdragon
- Audio to text recognition from Microsoft Office
- Is it time to acknowledge that privacy is a thing of the past?
- Ecosystem “Sberbank”
- Instead of a conclusion
Intel takes terrible revenge on Apple
The situation with the fact that Apple stirred up the water by starting the transition to processors of its own manufacture, apparently, still terribly frightened Intel. The company sensed a threat and realized that potentially another paradigm shift was planned, after which it could lose a significant segment of the market and go into oblivion altogether.
While the company does not have an answer in terms of technology, they use funny jokes like the new advertising campaign “Go PC” (switch to PC).
I think everyone knows the series of videos “Mac vs PC” (campaign “Get a Mac”). Intel invited Mac actor Justin Long to admire a variety of Windows beeches on camera.
A whole series of videos has been released on Intel’s YouTube channel, demonstrating the advantage of the PC (read – Intel!), Considering that PCs are now 2-in-1 devices, while Apple offers to buy a tablet and a dongle for a laptop. (since there are not enough ports). Another video shows that you can hook up to three 13K monitors to the Dell XPS 4, and only 1 monitor to the MacBook on the M1. And on a Windows PC, you can play games and more cool solutions in general.
Perhaps Justin Long was offended that he was not invited to the presentation on November 10 when the M1 chipsets were presented. But John Hodgman, who played the PC, received a cameo. By the way, if you missed this moment, then here is the link (45:30):
Frankly speaking, Intel’s attempt doesn’t look good. I liked the Get a Mac campaign (which took place in 2006-2009 and partially influenced the fact that I wanted to buy my first MacBook), first of all, because there was a vivid opposition: a ridiculous awkward PC and a cool self-confident Poppy. And when I came home, including a PC running Windows Vista (Apple was worth paying Microsoft to release this OS), I clearly saw the correspondence of the invented images to what is in life.
Now, when I watch Intel ads, I have only a slight feeling of nostalgia for the memories of what cool videos were then.
Intel is trying to give Justin Long a role he has never played. He played the image of macOS, but at the same time, no one perceived this actor as an expert whose opinion was worth listening to. To be honest, I would not be surprised if I found out that in real life he was using Windows, not macOS.
Let’s see what Intel comes up with next, but so far it looks like a shot in the milk.
New / old Snapdragon
Yesterday there was a presentation of new smartphones of the new POCO brand, separate from Xiaomi. Smartphones turned out to be interesting in terms of price and characteristics. They cannot be called fundamentally new, since this is a direct or indirect redesign of existing products, but the price tag is more pleasant.
Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro came out with the “new” Snapdragon 860 chipset, which is a rebranded and slightly overclocked Snapdragon 855+ (2019 chipset). And the Poco F3 received the Snapdragon 870, which is a slightly tweaked Snapdragon 865.
Obviously, the point is in marketing and the crooked thinking of buyers who would start turning up their noses if they were offered a smartphone on a flagship chipset, but 2 years ago.
I touched on the topic, as I am not happy with what is happening. Against the background of a bunch of chipsets for the lower and middle price segments, flagships have always been distinguished by their simplicity. There is one most powerful chipset every year. Snapdragon 860 and 870 are apparently just the beginning, and Qualcomm will begin to produce variations, and to understand them, you have to break your head.
Audio to text recognition from Microsoft Office
I have already said that a function has appeared in the online version of Microsoft Word that allows you to recognize an audio file, with a breakdown into interlocutors and a time stamp. Unfortunately, it is currently only available for English.
Initially, the function worked well, but slowly, or rather, in real time. Half an hour of audio? Please wait half an hour.
I actively use the function and forgot to share everything. Microsoft has pumped over the technology (already for a couple of months), and 33 minutes of calls are recognized in 2-3 minutes. It turns out a neat file where artificial intelligence, for example, clearly recognized all 4 interlocutors.
Unfortunately, there is still a limitation that only 300 minutes of audio can be recognized per month. Given the ever-increasing volume of audio and video information, transcription is becoming more useful than ever, especially when it comes to work materials. For example, I will only listen to the podcast of Joe Rogan or “Disgusting Men”, because there the communication of the hosts and the manner of presentation are in the first place. But the conversation of analysts about the development and application of blockchain and cryptocurrencies in the banking sector, I will be glad to glance over with great pleasure.
We are waiting for the next stage, when there will be an algorithm that will not only recognize, but also analyze, highlighting the main thing. So that, for example, an hour-long conversation turns into a squeeze of 2-3 pages. In theory, you can also make the settings: only the very essence is on 1 page, the expanded version is 3 pages, all the important thoughts of the participants are 10 pages.
Algorithms for extracting insights from the text already exist, but at the moment they are more likely to compose a description that the text is devoted to such and such a topic.
Is it time to acknowledge that privacy is a thing of the past?
In the mass unconscious, the biggest fear of technology is that someone will find out personal information. This is not about passwords or bank card details. Consumers are afraid that Google or other similar systems will track them on the Internet and try to display ads that, in theory, should be relevant to their tastes.
According to research, approximately 20% of users between the ages of 16 and 34 use ad blockers.
Smartphone manufacturers, by the way, actively support this phobia. Some people get it funny. For example, Samsung, which is often reproached for advertising in the shell of smartphones, in its branded browser strongly recommended that I turn on an ad blocker to avoid being bombarded with ads. There is a suspicion that fears of the beginning of the XNUMXs are still exploited here, when heaps of advertising windows emerged. Samsung has allocated a whole separate tab in the browser for various blockers.
More scary than sharing information with Google can only be telling the government everything. And this fear is characteristic not only of Russians. People in all countries are desperately afraid of their governments.
Last week, Elon Musk, speaking via video link at the China Development Forum, promised that his cars would not transmit any information to anyone. First, the concerned Chinese public had to be reassured that the US government would not get hold of the information. Then Mr. Musk convinced that the Chinese government will also be left with a nose. The Chinese were worried that Tesla is equipped with a large number of video cameras, which means that it can send not only geographical coordinates, but also a full-fledged picture.
It should be emphasized that the Chinese government has banned the use of Tesla by the military and a number of key employees of government companies. And when it comes to certain categories of citizens, this is the right decision. Suddenly, enemies will see secret military bases that have not yet been seen from satellites.
But what are ordinary citizens worried about? Are they afraid that the state or advertising companies will find out which grocery stores their citizens go to? Find out about the presence of lovers and mistresses?
The fight for privacy is a direct demonstration of the flexibility and illogicality of the human psyche. For example, people are extremely stressed when they have to leave fingerprints for any government agencies. This often happens at airports or consulates. However, everyone without exception uses fingerprint scanners in smartphones. And there is a suspicion that the data from smartphones is much more accurate than those obtained from devices used in government agencies. Last time I handed over “fingers”, receiving “Schengen”. I had to tinker (and rubbed the fingers, and the reading area) before the device counted everything. By the way, out of the corner of my ear I heard a woman under 50, who was sitting next door, was very worried that she would have to leave fingerprints. To the question, apparently, of her husband (“what do you want?”) She replied: “What if what!” Informative discussion.
We are worried that there are many CCTV cameras around, and algorithms have learned to recognize even those who wear masks. At the same time, we absolutely do not worry that, moving around the city, one way or another, we find ourselves in the photo of those who take selfies or just photograph something.
The fear of being monitored by advertising companies remains incomprehensible to me. The fear of the state (any) with a powerful repressive apparatus aimed at suppressing dissent and everything that is not pleasant is still understandable.
However, the fact remains that every year there are more and more opportunities to follow and analyze the behavior of people without attracting their attention and without interacting with them. I wonder when it will come to the understanding that the car or smartphone are not the main sources of information?
Ecosystem “Sberbank”
This topic did not fit into the last issue of Echo, so let’s talk now. Sberbank shared financial indicators about its ecosystem for 2020.
So, Sber’s non-financial business includes the following categories:
- E-commerce: includes e-commerce and logistics services. The main companies are Sberlogistics, SberMarket, Samokat.
- Entertainment: video and audio streaming services and other media services. It includes the OKKO online cinema and other media assets of Rambler, SberZvuk, Soyuzmultfilm.
- FoodTech & Mobility: combines food delivery, taxi and car sharing services. The main companies in this sub-segment are Delivery Club, Kitchen in the District, Citymobil, YouDrive.
- Health: includes digital services in healthcare, such as telemedicine, online appointment with a doctor, house calls, remote patient monitoring, electronic medical records, and others. This sub-segment includes SberZdorovye.
- B2B services: non-financial services for legal entities, which include:
- Cloud services: storage and processing of information in cloud storage. This sub-segment includes SberCloud.
- Cybersecurity: services for the protection of personal and commercial data, protection against cyber attacks. This sub-segment includes BI.ZONE.
- Other services: marketing services, biometrics and other non-financial services for legal entities.
First, it’s worth saying that when the ecosystem and assets are fully mapped out, it looks very impressive. There is everything, including Soyuzmultfilm (and I was wondering where Sberbank got such a ridiculous animation for its Sberconf presentation).
Secondly, the revenue amounted to 71.4 billion rubles, and EBITDA – minus 11.9 billion.
Here, of course, a comparison with Yandex suggests itself, if you collect all the figures for 2020 from its financial statements, it turns out that the EBITDA of the service component (taxi, car sharing, Yandex.Plus, Kinopoisk HD, Yandex.Eda , Edadeal, etc.) – a loss of 10.5 billion rubles.
| Revenue (million rubles) | EBITDA (RUB million) | Note | |
| Taxi + FoodTech (Food, Shop) | 59430 | 5,214.00 | |
| Carsharing | 8525 | (1,777.00) | |
| Yandex.Market | 13867 | (4,113.00) | infrastructure investment loss |
| Auto.ru, Yandex.Realty, Yandex.Jobs | 5778 | 1,070.00 | |
| KinoPoisk, Yandex.Music, Yandex.Afisha, production center Yandex.Studio, Yandex.Plus. | 7807 | (3,735.00) | loss due to investment in content production and marketing |
| Self-driving cars, Zen, Geolocation Services (“Geo”), Edadeal, Investments, Yandex.Cloud and Yandex.Education |
11851 | (7,259.00) | Experiments |
| Total | 107,258.00 | (10,600.00) |
But a direct comparison would be incorrect. Sberbank bought ready-made businesses (for example, Eapteka.ru, which was renamed Sber Eapteka), while still having to actively invest in their development and integration, while Yandex builds itself, while actively investing. For example, the company attributes the loss of Yandex.Market to the fact that it is engaged in the construction of warehouse infrastructure, KinoPoisk loses money due to the production of content, etc. Well, the biggest loss relates to experimental programs with self-driving cars and new platforms.
However, on the whole, Sber’s activities are respectable, since, relatively speaking, in a year it has collected a similar set of services and reached indicators comparable to those of Yandex.
Pay attention to the year-on-year growth in the table. For example, the Entertainment sector (OKKO, SberSvuk, etc.) shot from 1.9 billion in 2019 to 7.4 billion rubles. Sberbank will teach Yandex how to do business.
Instead of a conclusion
In the last issue there was a story about the purchase of an NFT token for the Everydays – The First 5000 Days picture for $ 69.3 million.
Just in case, once again in simple words: someone bought a JPEG file for almost $ 70 million. I believe that many had only one thought – WHY? The picture was bought by two Indians, who decided to share on the blog why they decided to buy. It turned out that they were pursuing noble goals. Both got rich on cryptocurrencies and with their purchase, as they say, wanted to inspire other Indians and in general all non-white people that “people of color” can also be patrons and patrons of art.
Draw your own conclusions. I will not even try to assess what is happening in the world.
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