Paul Stenhouse: Tech expert on the slow Olympic swimming pool in Paris, Apple's AI software

The Olympic swimming pool in Paris is slow... is the tech part of the problem? 

It certainly isn't helping. Only one world record had been broken as of August 1st, which the unusually shallow pool is being blamed for. It's 2.15 meters deep because when it was starting to be built in 2017, it only had to be over two meters. Now the minimum depth is 2.5 meters, but the recommendation is for 3 meters. 

Also not helping: the underwater cameras. They contribute to the choppiness of the water, and also don't help the water settle between races as they continue to move and reset. 

 

Developers are getting their first look at Apple Intelligence 

The reviews are... fine? Not all the promised features have been delivered yet. One reviewer says it's a "slightly smarter Siri". There are bits of AI sprinkled throughout the Apple apps. 

In the Mail app there's a new section of your inbox with AI-suggested important emails, a summarize button at the top of each email, and when you highlight text you can select "writing tools" to have AI do proofreading, make suggestions, and summarize. 

The search tool in the Photos app now uses AI to understand more complicated requests. You can ask for pictures of a particular person wearing glasses or all the food you ate in Iceland, all in natural language. 

But these new features might not ship with the new iPhone? 

It may not make the deadline to be included. Apple does have a way to update the OS while the phone is still in the box (which is a crazy piece of tech!) so that may happen, or folks who buy a new phone will need to upgrade their software later. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Atb You're what's Saturday Mornings. I'm Francisco with you until
midday and it's time to talk tech now, and I'm
joined by Paul Stenhouse.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
How are you, Paul, Hey, good morning? Don't well?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Have you been loving the Olympics? Watching the Olympics?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Oh? Yeah, I mean so, I'm in New York And
let me just say, basically, no other country on Earth
exists when you're watching the coverage of the Olympics in
the United States, it's all Team USA, all the time.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's just feel free to jump on iHeartRadio and listen
to our Sports Gold Boys and they'll be able to
fill you in with what's happening with the New Zealand
team occasionally if you need an update. But there's been
a bit of controversy around the swimming and whether the
French created a slow pool because it's about three feet
it's not as deep as the Tokyo Pool, which was

(00:59):
about three feet deeper than what we have in Paris,
and that's been causing a bit of problems with water
and movement. But tech is also been playing a part.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
In this, Yeah, because as as the TV coverage gets better,
they want more what cameras, and there are more cameras
underwater than probably ever before, and they move like robots.
And they're saying that not only as part of the
problem obviously that the pool is shallower. You know, the
minimum depth now is two point five meters that they

(01:27):
want a pull to be. The recommendation is over three.
This one's only just over two meters deep, two point
one five meters. In fact, that these cameras are moving
around and that adding to the choppiness of the water,
and the water is becoming so choppy that the water
doesn't settle between races as you would typically expect it to,
so then you get chop upon chop and it's sort

(01:48):
of a compounding problem.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
And so the underwater camera is how much movement are
they adding to the to the mix aside from the swimmers,
because they're making obviously they're probably responsible for the majority
of the movement, aren't they.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yes, yes, I think it's just another finger being pointed
right as just like another factor. But can we talk
about the fact that the swimming pool is a huge
feet of engineering, like that's teken upon itself. Right, it's
basically freestanding inside a stadium, and for the first time
we have ends and teens and teens of thousands of people,

(02:21):
significantly more people in watching the swimming than ever before,
and some of the swimmers have said that they have
loved it. The crowd's vigor, it's noisier. They can even
hear the crowd underwater. It's fun to watch.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
I think they've got a solar panel farm on the roof. Really, yeah,
I think so. I think I think it's all being
you know, they're using the soul of energy to run
it in things and so look, apart from the fact
that it was just built slightly different depth than everybody
would have liked, it's awesome.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, it really started building it in twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Though, well, you do have to get you do have
to get organized if you're going to hold the Olympics,
don't you. But it does remind me a little bit
of I don't know if anyone ever saw it, but
there was a satirical comedy that came out just before
the two thousand Olympics called The Games and starred New
Zealand to John Clark, and it was absolutely hilarious. It
was kind of like behind the scenes of a city
getting ready for the Olympics and doing just this building
all these things. And they built one hundred meter track,

(03:15):
but it wasn't quite one hundred meters, as you can imagine.
That was hilarious. Anyway, let's move on to Apple Intelligence.
Developers are getting their first look at this.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, so Apple, I don't know if you can hear
the thunder out here, but there's a rather wild storm
rolling through New York City. But yeah, craziness. It's been
very hot and humand and this is what happens at
the end of the day. But the reviews are coming
in and they're only okay. Basically, Apple puts out these
developer releases ahead of the big launchers, and not all
of the promised features have actually been delivered yet. One

(03:45):
reviewer had just basically called it a slightly smartest Sury,
which isn't a great sign yet. But there is apparently
still more to come. And there's sort of AI sprinkled
throughout the Apple apps. In the mail app, for example,
there's a new section at the top of the inbox.
The AI goes in and looks at what might be
important and brings that up to the top for you.
There's a summer as a button, so you can push

(04:07):
that and it will give you all of your emails summarized.
And there's also some features. If you highlight text, you
can then go to writing tools and have the AI
do things like proofreading or making suggestions or summaries, pretty
standard AI fear these days. In photos, this is actually
pretty neat. You can actually just type things that you
want to find, like you could say, for example, show

(04:29):
me Francesca and a blue hat at the Eiffel Tower,
and it will actually go in and find all of
those things. With the reviewers are saying pretty good accuracy,
which is quite nice.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
So when can we expect this in use?

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Wow, that's the hard part, right. So these features they
believe will be in for the release of the new
operating system, which comes out with the new phone. But
the fancy of features, there's reports that it may not
actually make the deadline to be included with the new phone,
so you'd have to buy a new phone and then
you'd have to go and do your update to get
the later stuff. There is some very cool tech that

(05:06):
Apple can actually wirelessly update the operating system while the
phone is still in the box, completely unopened. Kind of cool,
so they may go through that process. Otherwise you may
have to do the update.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Thank you so much, Paul. Good to catch up with you.
I'll let you go and watch that thunderstorm roll past
out the window.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, Listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.