Read Before Monday #2

Another busy week, eh? Thank you all that subscribed the newsletter so far. The feedback has been amazing. Clearly shows that you're interested in getting these snippets of news with my ... biased take.

This week is all about the intersections of data, visualizations, generative models, and storytelling, for art creation. Yes, about cars - Apple cars, to be precise - and those disappearing buttons that we need to operate them, and don't get me on the electric car longevity. We're also diving into CyberGenAI, pondering how we can stay protected and secure in this new world of generative innovation. Plus, we've got the latest from instant banking transfers - only for EU. And for those who've been running Android apps on their Windows machines, there's news you might find bittersweet - ARM is coming!

It's a packed week, full of advancements and shifts that promise to redefine our interaction with technology, from the way we drive to how we safeguard our digital existence.

Bloomberg resumes the downfall of Apple's Car, they believed they could create a self-driving car that surpassed the competition. This ambition, however, led to the project's downfall - first problem. Apple aimed to create a car with no steering wheel or pedals - that's weird! This proved too difficult and expensive to achieve. Apple also lacked experience in the car industry.

• My take: Making cars is a tricky thing. It requires a new production line, new distribution networks, support systems and above all local supplier's access. Yes, Tesla built successful factories around the world, but Apple aims for higher profit margins. Integrating Apple technology into infotainment systems, such as those by VW and BMW, could revolutionize the experience, though cross-border functionality and reliability might pose challenges.

Researchers have created the first generative AI worms, which can spread between AI systems and potentially steal data or deploy malware. These AI worms can infect other AI systems that they interact with, similar to how computer worms spread between computers. This raises concerns about the potential dangers of increasingly interconnected and autonomous AI systems, as these worms could be used to launch new types of cyberattacks.

• My Take: CyberGenAI is going to be a thing. Period. We know that we need to control prompt for injection, bias, toxicity and sentiment - just to name a few areas. Then we obviously need to have transparency in the inference, so that the workflows can be auditable for compliance and governance. Even Cloudflare has launched the GenAI Firewall to identify and prevent these situations in the future.

The European Union has enacted a regulation making instant payments in euros available to consumers and businesses within the EU and European Economic Area. It aims to reduce reliance on third-country financial institutions and infrastructures. Now money transfers will happen within 10 seconds at any time, including outside business hours, within the same country or to other EU member states.

• My Take: when I was working for the Portuguese state bank (CGD) and working on the Home and Corporate Banking platforms, payments weren't immediate, the "24h service" was unavailable between 1am and 6am for batch processing (mainframe fault!), so finally, 20 years later, we can have a regulation for live transfers. Which reminds of DORA and maybe I'll put a NAT video about it :)

The article is about data visualization and features a designer named Shirley Wu. It discusses her creative process and how she creates data visualizations that are both beautiful and informative. She uses code, design, and art to communicate information. Her work has been featured in publications like The Pudding and The Guardian. She recently started working in 3D and created a visualization of the 51 female Nobel prize winners and their accomplishments.

• My take: I love data visualizations! Few years ago, I did several talks about data and the art of presenting it visually. For me, the reference was Gestalt Psychology and then Nicholas Feltron. But having the data isn't enough, never was and people get bored, so you need to tell a story that tells the data - now the other way around! So obviously Hans Rosling has both two worlds and can tell stories with data.

More physical buttons in cars! The Verge says that car manufacturers in Europe are being encouraged to use more physical buttons and dials and fewer touchscreens. This is because using touchscreens can be distracting for drivers. The European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP) is introducing new safety rules in 2026 that require cars to have physical controls for things like indicators and wipers to get a 5-star safety rating. While these guidelines are not mandatory, car manufacturers take them seriously because they are used to advertise the safety of their cars.

• My take: I'm the old muppet that really hates 'everything' is on the screen kind of car. Actually, my BMW has lots of buttons, my desk has a Stream Deck - with lots of buttons - and I edit my NAT videos with a specific editor keyboard. The move towards more screen-based controls feels misguided. The tactile experience of driving should not be compromised for digital minimalism. But it also feels that electric cars nowadays are just a gimmick, not durable enough and presented like a phone - you have it for a couple of years then replace with the newer model. There's no expectation to pass the car from one generation to the younger generation, just because it won't survive, wasn't made for that longevity.

Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive is the recent artwork made by using a large dataset of natural imagery, that Refik Anadol calls "Large Nature Model". He's using AI to raise awareness about climate change. The art is generative and constantly changing. Refik believes AI art can be a bridge between the natural world and the digital one.

• My take: For me - someone with a civil engineer background - it's interesting to see how LiDAR and photogrammetry are being used to create this type of art! We currently have LLM models making art, such as AlphaFold,?that can determine the shape of a protein in biological organisms or?HyenaDNA, which is trained on the human genome, but Refik "model" is "literal, physically environmental nature".

Stable Diffusion 3 is a new text-to-image generation system that outperforms other systems in typography, prompt adherence, and visual aesthetics. The system uses separate sets of weights for image and language representations, allowing for better understanding of text. Stable Diffusion 3 uses a new architecture called MMDiT, which combines image and text data. This allows for better understanding of text and improved image generation.

• My Take: it's new, it's fresh, but above it all, SD3 can run on consumer hardware - like this cutie. Which is great news for everyone that can't buy the best and fastest GPU and CPU. It's quite amazing how this can achieve better typography, prompt adherence, and visual aesthetics than other text-to-image generation systems.

Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) on March 5, 2025. This means you won't be able to run Android apps directly on Windows 11 after that date. The Amazon Appstore for Windows 11 is also being discontinued. As of March 6, 2024, you won't be able to search for or download new Android apps through the Microsoft Store. Existing installed Android apps will continue to function until March 5, 2025. You can still use and update these apps until the official end of support. This move affects any app that relies on WSA. This includes games and other programs that you previously downloaded from the Amazon Appstore.

• My take: Microsoft hasn't provided a specific reason for ending support. Some speculate it might be due to low usage or challenges with app compatibility. But looking at recent developments on the ARM X86 'Roseta', which now includes the capability of running unmodified x86 and x64 apps through emulation, only missing now major apps being native to ARM - one can hope.