Month: March 2023

(credit: Ergonofis)

If you bought a standing desk, chances are you’re interested in the health benefits of, well, not sitting all day. Better posture, reduced back pain, and an increase in productivity due to a boost in mood and focus are among some of the top benefits of standing, according to a 2021 research paper published by the National Institutes of Health.

But without the proper equipment to support you while you’re standing, there are some health drawbacks compared to sitting. Those who stand have reported an increase in leg and foot pain and vein issues, including varicose veins, the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety reported. Experts recommend having the proper support to mitigate pain issues and frequently switching between standing and sitting to maximize the ergonomic benefits while reducing the risk of injury. We’ve compiled some of the best accessories to help get you standing safely and ergonomically while you’re working at your standing desk.

Anti-fatigue mats

Paired with comfortable, supportive sneakers, anti-fatigue mats help you take the pressure off of your feet, knees, and legs. When it comes to padded support for your feet, you’ll want to look for a thicker mat—some mats start at just 0.5-inches thick while industrial mats can be upward of 1 inch in thickness—though the actual footprint of the mat doesn’t really matter if you don’t intend to move around too much. These mats can come in several different colors and patterns to match your decor or provide a pop of color to your workspace.

Enlarge / The Apple Music Classical logo and app icon. (credit: Apple)

Apple is launching a version of Apple Music specifically for classical music later this month, the company announced today. The Apple Music Classical app, currently available for preorder in the App Store, will be separate from the main Apple Music app. But access to the service will be included with a $17-per-month Apple One subscription or most Apple Music subscriptions (excluding the basic $5-per-month Apple Music Voice tier).

In August 2021, Apple acquired a classical music service called Primephonic. If you're wondering why classical music might benefit from a dedicated app, this PCMag piece about Primephonic will answer that question for you: You could search for music not just by song title or its composer, but by the name of the orchestra that recorded it, or the person who conducted it, or information about soloists or other performers. Primephonic could also account for the different possible spellings of composers' names, among other features.

Perhaps most importantly for a streaming music service, though, Primephonic used a royalty model where payouts were based on the amount of time that songs were played rather than the number of times a song was listened to. Using a per-play model, someone who listens to a 15-minute movement of a Beethoven symphony would generate as much revenue for the artists as someone who listened to a 90-second pop song.

• 

  The first dynamic island clone. They're actually proud of this. [credit: Realme ]

A hearty congratulations to Android manufacturer Realme for being the first to clone the iPhone 14's Dynamic Island. It was a rough six months, but everyone at the Chinese OEM (a subsidiary of BBK, same as OnePlus/Oppo) pulled together and made this generic product.

The Realme C55 launched in Indonesia for around $195 and features a new "Mini Capsule" UI. When it's time to show a specific type of notification, this phone has two black bars that shoot out from the front camera lens, displaying more info than you'd normally get in a single status bar icon. It looks just like the iPhone 14's new Dynamic Island notification space. While iPhone's display dead space is due to it housing a bunch of FaceID sensors, there's no new hardware here (that will take a bit longer to copy), just a normal front-facing camera that turns into a giant pill.

Apple's end-to-end control over the OS and app ecosystem means all sorts of apps use the Dynamic Island notification motif, but Realme is just an Android manufacturer that makes an Android skin, so it looks like the only actual notification that shows up in the "Mini Capsule" is your battery status. Plug the phone in and you'll see some charging stats. With a low battery, the pill will get a red outline and warn you your phone's about to die. Realme also has plans for an update that will show a step counter and data usage.

Enlarge / Nicolaus Copernicus revolutionized science with the publication of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium in 1543. (credit: Sophia Rare Books)

Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus revolutionized science when he challenged the 1,400-year dominance of Ptolemaic cosmology with the publication of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) in 1543. His manuscript suggested that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the Solar System, thereby altering our entire view of the Universe and our place in it. Now, a rare, pristine first edition is up for sale for $2.5 million.

The high price tag is a testament not just to the historical importance of the work, but also to the clear provenance and excellent condition of this particular edition, according to Christian Westergaard of Sophia Rare Books, who is handling the sale. (He will be exhibiting the edition at the upcoming New York International Antiquarian Book Fair next month.) A similar copy with just a couple of repairs and a contemporary binding sold at auction for $2.2 million in 2008. But most first editions of De Revolutionibus that come up for sale have dubious provenance, fake bindings, facsimile pages, stamps removed, or similar alterations that decrease the value.

Noted Copernican scholar Owen Gingerich spent 35 years tracking down and examining every surviving copy of the first two editions of De Revolutionibus, ultimately locating 276 first-edition copies (of about 500 originally printed) around the world, most of them part of institutional collections. There are only a handful of editions from Gingerich's census (maybe 10 to 15) in the hands of private collectors, including this one. "It's the holy grail for me," Westergaard told Ars. "If you're going to handle a book in this price range, you want good provenance. You don't want it to suddenly be reported stolen from some library. You want it to be in Gingerich's census. In my opinion, this copy has it all."

Enlarge (credit: fermate/Getty Images)

OpenAI just announced pricing for businesses seeking to integrate its ChatGPT service into their own products, and it looks an awful lot like a 90 percent off sale.

It all starts with OpenAI, a former nonprofit that’s now gunning for riches as lustily as any Silicon Valley unicorn. The company has built a dazzling array of products, including the DALL-E image generator and the renowned ChatGPT service.

ChatGPT is powered by a system known as a large language model (or LLM), and it’s one of several LLM lines that OpenAI sells commercially. Buyers of LLM output are mostly companies that integrate language-related services like chat, composition, summarization, software generation, online search, sentiment analysis, and much more into their websites, services, and products.

Enlarge (credit: Discord)

Joining a recent parade of companies adopting generative AI technology, Discord announced on Thursday that it is rolling out a suite of AI-powered features, such as a ChatGPT-style chatbot, an upgrade to its moderation tool, an open source avatar remixer, and AI-powered conversation summaries.

Discord's new features come courtesy of technology from OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced a new API interface for its popular large language model (LLM) and preferential commercial access called "Foundry." The ChatGPT API allows companies to easily build AI-powered generative text into their apps, and companies like Snapchat and DuckDuckGo are already getting on the bandwagon with their own implementations of OpenAI's tools.

In this case, Discord is using OpenAI's tech to upgrade its existing robot, called "Clyde." The update, coming next week, will allow Clyde to answer questions, engage in conversations, and recommend playlists. Users will be able to chat with Clyde in any channel by typing "@Clyde" in a server, and the bot will reportedly also be able to start a thread for group chats.

Enlarge (credit: Discord)

Joining a recent parade of companies adopting generative AI technology, Discord announced on Thursday that it is rolling out a suite of AI-powered features, such as a ChatGPT-style chatbot, an upgrade to its moderation tool, an open source avatar remixer, and AI-powered conversation summaries.

Discord's new features come courtesy of technology from OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced a new API interface for its popular large language model (LLM) and preferential commercial access called "Foundry." The ChatGPT API allows companies to easily build AI-powered generative text into their apps, and companies like Snapchat and DuckDuckGo are already getting on the bandwagon with their own implementations of OpenAI's tools.

In this case, Discord is using OpenAI's tech to upgrade its existing robot, called "Clyde." The update, coming next week, will allow Clyde to answer questions, engage in conversations, and recommend playlists. Users will be able to chat with Clyde in any channel by typing "@Clyde" in a server, and the bot will reportedly also be able to start a thread for group chats.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft's Bing has never been in any danger of overtaking Google as the Internet's most popular search engine. But the headline-grabbing AI-powered features from the "new Bing" preview that the company launched last month do seem to be helping—Microsoft said today that Bing had passed the 100 million daily active users mark.

"We are fully aware we remain a small, low, single digit share player," writes Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi, driving home just how small Microsoft's share of the search market is compared to Google's. "That said, it feels good to be at the dance!"

Google doesn't provide daily active user numbers for its search engine, but StatCounter data suggests that its marketshare typically hovers just under 90 percent in the US, compared to 6 or 7 percent for Bing.