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Apple Looking to Expand Siri Languages

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple hiring Siri Annotation Analysts, as it apparently prepares to expand the use of its voice assistant, MacRumors. The countries covered include Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, amongst others.

Apple’s office in Cork, Ireland is hiring people fluent in Ukrainian, Hungarian, Slovak, Czech, Croatian, Greek, Flemish, Romanian, and as ThinkApple points out, Polish. Apple is also hiring people fluent in Indonesian and Vietnamese out of a Singapore office. As described in job listings, Annotation Analysts that work for Apple listen to and transcribe snippets of ‌Siri‌ conversations to evaluate ‌Siri‌’s responses… These kinds of ‌Siri‌ evaluations were previously done by third-party contracting companies but Apple brought the work in-house following a mid-2019 uproar over the way Apple used ‌Siri‌ recordings for evaluation with little notice to customers.

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Google, Fitbit Deal Looks Set for EU Approval

Charlotte Henry ·

Google’s bid to purchase Fitbit is set to receive EU approval, according to Reuters. It comes after the tech giant made a variety of concessions. It comes as the firms look to challenge Apple’s strong position in the wearables market.

Google said it had offered to restrict the use of Fitbit data for Google ads and would also tighten the monitoring of that process, confirming a Reuters report. The offer is based on a July proposal. “We’re also formalizing our longstanding commitment to supporting other wearable manufacturers on Android and to continue to allow Fitbit users to connect to third party services via APIs (application programming interfaces) if they want to,” Google said in a statement. Third parties will also continue to have access to Fitbit users’ data, with users’ consent.

Podcast

Astrogator and CEO Mike Loucks - BGM Interview

John Martellaro · · Add Comment

Mike Loucks is the CEO of Space Exploration Engineering (SEE), which he co-founded in 1995. He received a BA in Physics/Astronomy from Whitman College, WA in 1985 and an MS in Aerospace Engineering Sciences from the University of Colorado in 1991. He co-founded SEE corp. in 1995 after working as an operations and trajectory planning expert for Orbital Sciences Corporation.

The NASA Apollo missions and science fiction by Robert Heinlein got Mike interested and space and astronomy. Early on, he pondered becoming an astronomer but later decided that aerospace engineering was his true passion. We chatted about the founding of SEE and his work there. Mike then told me about the kinds of computer and software tools he uses for orbital and celestial mechanics and the role Macs have played in his life. Mike finished with some great advice for students who want to pursue a career in aerospace engineering.

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Plot Twist: Apple Also Has to Follow Google Play Store Rules

Andrew Orr ·

Google has updated its Play Store rules, saying that developers have to use Google Play’s billing system. From Daring Fireball:

Most reports are mentioning Spotify and Netflix here, but unless I’m missing something this policy change (or as Google claim, “clarification”) will also apply to Apple Music — the Android version of which charges users who sign up directly. The fact that Apple forces all subscription streaming services to use Apple’s in-app payments on iOS but doesn’t use Google’s on Android for Apple Music has been a source of much heckling.

I’m on the side of Apple in the Epic v Apple case, but if Apple has to follow Google’s similar rules for developers when it hadn’t already, simultaneously enforcing similar rules on its own side for developers, is hilarious to me. I hope that made sense.