Can You Disable Spotlight and Siri in macOS Tahoe?
https://eclecticlight.co/2026/01/16/can-you-disable-spotlight-and-siri-in-macos-tahoe/
#HackerNews #macOS #Tahoe #Spotlight #Siri #Disable #TechTips
This is the script of my national radio report yesterday discussing how AI data centers are damaging communities, and now are damaging everyone who buys computers by massively driving up the cost of a critical component. As always, there may have been minor wording variations from this script as I presented this report live on air.
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Well, we've talked before about the flood of massive new data centers being built around the country, that many communities are pushing back against now -- data centers mostly to support AI services that nobody asked for and most people don't want. And we continue to see new pushes by those Big Tech Billionaire CEOs and their politician supporters to force AI into everybody's lives in every possible way no matter how much damage they do.
It was just announced that Apple is going to use Google's Gemini AI models for Siri. Google itself is rolling out a pile of Gemini AI features in Gmail to "scour" -- that's the word I saw them use -- your email in ways that personally I'd recommend you refuse and disable when they're offered to you. Don't click that horrific little four pointed star when it shows up that says "Try Gemini" when you hover over it!
Oh and by the way, Google AI Overviews, which are so prone to wrong answers and misinformation, were found to be spewing incorrect and potentially dangerous answers to important medical question searches and Google had to back those off very recently after an outcry. Oh yeah, and OpenAI wants you to feed your personal medical records into a health-oriented version of ChatGPT. What could go wrong, huh?
My recommendation for now is Just Say No to all this AI Slop. These giant AI data centers can ruin areas wherever they're built -- often originally pristine rural areas. They suck up massive amounts of electricity and can push electric rates up for everyone in the region. They can slurp up massive amounts of water for cooling and make existing water prices and water shortages worse. They can cause noise and air pollution from generators, and word now is that many want their own little nuclear reactors for power with the obvious issues of dealing with the waste and potential terrorism.
But now Big Tech has found a way to cost us more money even if you don't live ANYWHERE near a data center! The crush of so many new gigantic data centers is causing the supply to virtually collapse of a critical computer component, used in one form or another by all computers and computing systems, pushing up prices enormously. This component is DRAM, Dynamic Random Access Memory. This isn't like sdcards or other forms of memory that maintain their data without power. The amount of DRAM on a system is one of the basic specifications, today often 4 gigabytes or 8 or 16 or more. This is the actual high speed working memory of the computer where the operating system and programs and apps actually execute. In early days of computers working memory was tiny little magnetic iron doughnuts strung in a complex grid of x, y and sense wires. But for many decades now working memory has been solid state components, either soldered directly into computers (including devices like smartphones of course), or on sticks that can be soldered in or made removable via sockets.
And there have been many generations of DRAM over the years as this kind of memory got faster and denser in terms of capacity. So it's easy to see how shortages and price increases for DRAM being triggered by Big Tech AI's insatiable desire to take over everything is now having such a wide impact on the entire electronics industry.
AI wants our electricity, our water, our personal information, and so much more to churn out deepfakes, wrong answers, and other misinformation, all to benefit that handful of Big Tech Billionaires.
Of course it's up to every individual to decide if they're voluntarily going to participate in this mess when a choice is offered. But more and more that choice is being eliminated, and the reality continues to be that without serious legislation to reign in AI abuses and force Big Tech to take responsibility for the damage that AI causes, the situation is only going to rapidly get worse. It's already bad, but unfortunately when it comes to damage from AI, we haven't really seen anything yet.
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Apple picks Google's Gemini to power Siri
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/12/apple-google-ai-siri-gemini.html
#HackerNews #Apple #Google #AI #Siri #Gemini #Technology #News
Joachim
boosted
I'm not sure when this changed, but yelling "whose phone is this" and "I'm being pulled over" at siri no longer disable biometrics on iOS 26.1. This means the only methods of quickly turning off biometrics are to set up SOS and tap the side button 5 times or restart your phone. Restarting is much stronger anyway since it wipes the decryption keys that are loaded after the first unlock. Plan accordingly if you use finger or face unlocks and are wary of law enforcement.
#iPhone #siri #biometrics #cybersecurity #apple
I'm not sure when this changed, but yelling "whose phone is this" and "I'm being pulled over" at siri no longer disable biometrics on iOS 26.1. This means the only methods of quickly turning off biometrics are to set up SOS and tap the side button 5 times or restart your phone. Restarting is much stronger anyway since it wipes the decryption keys that are loaded after the first unlock. Plan accordingly if you use finger or face unlocks and are wary of law enforcement.
#iPhone #siri #biometrics #cybersecurity #apple
Apple AI Chief Retiring After Siri Failure
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/01/apple-ai-chief-retiring-after-siri-failure/
#HackerNews #Apple #AI #Siri #Retirement #TechNews #AILeadership
I don’t dislike #Siri as much as other people. But sometimes it can be funny.
#Chicago got around a foot or more of snow over the weekend. When it’s this high, Watson has trouble pooping in the backyard unless we shovel out a spot for him.
Sometimes when he goes, Jess and I text each other that “we have lift off!” 😆
Taking him out just now, I did speech-to-text with my Watch and… well. 😆 #Lyft #Apple
KI-Update: US-Jobless-Boom, Meta will bauen, DSGVO in Gefahr, Siri mit Gemini
Das "KI-Update" liefert werktäglich eine Zusammenfassung der wichtigsten KI-Entwicklungen.
#DSGVO #GenerativeAI #KünstlicheIntelligenz #GoogleGemini #Journal #KIUpdate #Facebook #Siri #Wissenschaft #news
Stefano Marinelli
boosted
Great.
$dayjob MacBook forced to update to Tahoe. This "liquid glass" interface is a pile of wank.
I checked settings and both Apple Intelligence (sic) and Siri are disabled and yet there's 8 "Siri" apps running in the background:
com.apple.siri.embeddedspeech
SiriSuggestionsBookkeepingService
SAExtensionOrchestrator
siriinferenced
SiriAUSP
sirittsd
siriactionsd
siriknowledged
And 5 "Intelligence" apps:
IntelligencePlatformComputeService
intelligenceplatformd
knowledgeconstructiond
intelligencecontextd
intelligentroutingd
Why are these still running if I've supposedly disabled them in settings?
Great.
$dayjob MacBook forced to update to Tahoe. This "liquid glass" interface is a pile of wank.
I checked settings and both Apple Intelligence (sic) and Siri are disabled and yet there's 8 "Siri" apps running in the background:
com.apple.siri.embeddedspeech
SiriSuggestionsBookkeepingService
SAExtensionOrchestrator
siriinferenced
SiriAUSP
sirittsd
siriactionsd
siriknowledged
And 5 "Intelligence" apps:
IntelligencePlatformComputeService
intelligenceplatformd
knowledgeconstructiond
intelligencecontextd
intelligentroutingd
Why are these still running if I've supposedly disabled them in settings?
GUESS WHAT???
I was on a walk in a nearby neighborhood, and I saw a poster advertising a pumpkin patch event in a local park. I asked Siri, "Where is blahblahblah Park in blahblahblah?" where the second blahblahblah was the city I was in. Siri promptly came back with the address.
That's not the amazing part. HERE'S the amazing part. On a lark, I then asked Siri, "How long would it take to walk there?" and it answered, "About 5 minutes." Seriously. It answered a follow-up question!!!
Voldria poder utilitzar #AppleIntelligence o #Siri en #català en els meus dispositius però no és possible per aquest motiu.
En els dispositius d'Apple pots configurar el català com a llengua del sistema des de fa anys però que jo sàpiga, #Apple no està fent res per portar el català a Apple Intelligence i Siri i ningú està pressionant Apple per a que ho faci i ningú ho ha fet mai, ni els partits suposadament independentistes.
Si trio "espanyol" sí que puc però no em dona la gana.
