Frank Lloyd Wright homes (with the exception of the brick mausoleums he built in Los Angeles) really connect with me. That’s why I was fascinated by this article about RiverRock, a newly completed home based on one of Wright’s 1959 Usonian designs. This isn’t…
Continue reading →The Lab Report for April 25, 2025
In this week’s episode of The Lab Report: Perplexity’s new Voice Assistant, AirPods as universal translators, and Sparky shares practical uses for NotebookLM.
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Perplexity Voice Assistant Embarrasses Siri
I wrote yesterday that maybe Apple needs to buy Perplexity. To make my case, Perplexity released a voice assistant to their iOS app that makes Siri look pretty bad. I occasionally make quick videos for the MacSparky labs members that don’t go through the…
Continue reading →PowerPhotos 3.0 is Here
PowerPhotos 3.0 has officially landed, and it’s a big one. For the uninitiated, PowerPhotos is a utility that fills in the gaps in Apple’s Photos app. It’s long been the Photos utility of choice for many Mac power users, offering features like multiple library…
Continue reading →When the Machines Remember
Early in my experience with ChatGPT’s voice feature, my daughter walked into the room and I told it to say hello to her. It did, cheerfully, and it totally creeped her out. I turned the voice off. A week later, I fired ChatGPT back…
Continue reading →Focused 228: Time Surfing, with Paul Loomans
Author Paul Loomans joins Mike and me on this episode of Focused to talk about time surfing, a zen approach to keeping time on your side. This episode of Focused is sponsored by: Indeed: Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide using Indeed to hire great…
Listen & read notes →Perplexity Moves into Mobile
News broke this week that Perplexity AI is in talks to integrate its assistant directly into Samsung and Motorola phones. What’s especially interesting here is how this upends the usual Android assistant narrative. Google has been baking Gemini into Android with increasing urgency, and…
Continue reading →Black Boxes and Bad Habits
I had to chuckle when I read this Verge article about Meta’s attorneys botching their document redactions during the FTC antitrust trial. Having spent three decades in the legal racket, it was shocking to me how often lawyers (and their staff) were completely flummoxed…
Continue reading →Sparky’s Magic Button Masher
The Opal C1 Webcam is meant to be the webcam everybody actually wants to use. It\’s got tons of software features and a better lens system than anything you\’d find in most (all?) other webcams. It\’s time for me to kick the tires…
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Mac Power Users 793: Accurate, Not Boring
On this Mac Power Users feedback episode, Stephen and I revisit iCloud.com access and Advanced Data Protection, make confessions about recent setup changes, and answer a bunch of listener questions. This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by: Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase…
Listen & read notes →