Daily Archives: 2024-07-26

Pixel 9’s ‘Add Me’ feature puts you in a group photo even when you’re not there

Source: The Verge - All Posts

Article note: From someone currently wrapping a PhD in computational imaging, doing a lot of image-synthesis work: That is fucked up, creepy, socially dangerous shit. One of my _hard rules_ for the methods I work on is that you never, ever synthesize an apparently natural image using data that wasn't present in the scene, because that is how you build a truth-bending, history-revising propaganda engine that Stalin could only dream of. The "AI" (because I guess we're calling every heuristic/non-deterministic algorithm AI right now until winter sets in again) folks lack of compunctions about that is really a pressing social issue.
A screenshot showing what appears to be the Pixel 9’s Add Me feature
Image: OnLeaks via Android Headlines

While there’s been no shortage of Pixel 9 leaks over the past couple of days, a new ad for the device seems to have leaked in full — and it shows off a new feature that makes sure you aren’t left out of a group photo.

The feature, seemingly called “Add Me,” appears in a leaked ad shared with Android Headlines by OnLeaks. The ad shows someone using a Pixel 9 to take a picture of two friends in front of a van. After snapping a shot, the photographer trades spots with her two friends, allowing her to get a picture in front of the van — only the Pixel’s display shows the phantom-like image of the two friends standing beside her. Her friend snaps a photo, and boom, she appears in the picture as if she were there the entire time.

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A hash table by any other name

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Huh, the "Someone has proposed a more performant cache-aware hash table for Linux Kernel use" article is _modestly_ interesting, but the discussion in the comments about the history of modified linear hashing and cuckoo hashing (similar ideas), how it shows up historically in GIRLS/Pick and such, calling out some bad analytic practices that are _super common_ in computing research, and discussing *where* these structures are actually used in the kernel and what pitfalls that might generate, are a great read.
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