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Whether it’s politics or tech, we live in a polarizing world. Since Elon Musk took over Twitter and renamed it X, the platform has become an increasingly important tool in his political ambitions. This is causing many users to leave the service. X and other social media services are criticized for their algorithms that encourage hate and conflict, and for having too little respect for privacy. That’s why there’s a desire for an alternative service and, for a long time, many talked about Mastodon as the main challenger. Today, Bluesky is perceived as the most interesting alternative. The number of users is growing rapidly, too–reaching 30 million at the time of writing. If you’re looking to ditch X in favor of Bluesky, we’ll help you get started. What’s the difference between Bluesky and X? Bluesky is structured in the same way as X. Users write short posts, often accompanied by a picture or link. Like X, you follow people, companies, or organizations. Bluesky recently added support for videos and instant messaging as well. Beneath the surface, however, there are big differences. Bluesky’s technology is open-source, which means it’s more transparent than its competitors. And while services like X rely on a single company to control data, Bluesky has opted for a decentralized solution that puts you in control of your information. Users also have more control over the system’s algorithms, which should mean it doesn’t contribute to polarization and hate in the same way. Another key difference is that Bluesky is based on an open protocol, so the idea is to be able to share content and discussions between different apps much like sending email. How do I install Bluesky? Foundry On your mobile phone, open the Google Play Store (Android) or App Store (iOS) and search for Bluesky. Tap Install and select Open when the installation is complete. On your computer, open your browser and go to bsky.app. Here you can read other people’s posts directly without logging in. The Bluesky app is available for all devices, but in our examples we use the Android app. How do I register? Foundry If you already have a Bluesky account, tap Sign in and log in. Otherwise, select Create Account to create an account. Fill in the requested information and select your Bluesky name. Finally, you will have to prove that you are human and at a later stage you will have to confirm your email address. How do I create a profile? Foundry You will now have a chance to create a profile by uploading a photo or choosing an avatar. You can also specify topics you’re interested in to control the flow of posts. When everything is ready, finalize your registration with Let’s go. If you want to add more information afterwards, tap on your profile picture and select Edit profile. Where do I follow others? Foundry To follow other Bluesky users, tap the magnifying glass and type their name in the search window. Locate the correct account and tap Follow. New users will also find a link at the top of the app that says Find people to follow. As you can see, you’ll find more and more celebrities on Bluesky, including the Prime Minister of Sweden. Can I write my own posts? Foundry To write your own posts, tap the blue button with a pen. Write a text and press Post. You can also control how it is displayed and who can comment on it by pressing the globe at the bottom left. At the bottom there is also a toolbar to add images, videos, and more. Here you can also choose your language and see how many characters you can write. How does Bluesky work? Foundry 1. The menu View a shortcut to all features and settings. 2. Content Toggle between general content (Discover) and people you follow (Following). 3. Posts All posts are shown here and you tap to read more. 4. Comments Comment, share and do other things with a post. 5. Home Go to the Bluesky homepage (as pictured). 6. Users Search for users, follow them, and chat directly. 7. Settings Control notifications and open your profile page. Foundry 8. Feed Subscribe to content that interests you. 9. Write a post Write a post and press Post when you’re done. 10. Interaction Control how your post is displayed and who can comment. 11. Media Add images, videos, and more. Read...

OpenAI’s ChatGPT has removed the last barrier to using ChatGPT as a search engine, the requirement to log in. Now, it’s open to all. OpenAI launched the feature last fall, but required a login. Now, the feature can be used without the need for registration. ChatGPT Search is essentially just ChatGPT, and can be accessed at ChatGPT.com. But below the “Message ChatGPT” box you’ll see a small icon called “Search” that can be clicked. When activated, it will turn blue, signaling that the web search is active. In my tests, however, I didn’t even need to click the “Search” icon; when I typed in “What’s the most important tech news today?” I received a similar list of answers whether the Search icon had been highlighted or not. In both cases, ChatGPT used the web search to pull its responses. Essentially, this new ChatGPT search feature turns the ChatGPT interface into something like the Google Chrome Omnibox at the top of your browser: It can be used to type in the name of a web page, of course, but it’s also a search box. ChatGPT now doubles as a search engine as well as a general way to chat with ChatGPT. It’s worth noting that the “Log In” and “Sign Up” buttons still remain at the top of the ChatGPT web page, and logging in will continue to save a history of your chats. Signing up for ChatGPT’s paid programs will offer more sophisticated models. (ChatGPT reports that’s it’s using the “GPT-4” model, tuned for conversation and interaction.) The new functionality of ChatGPT places it in direct competition with Perplexity.ai, which also uses a combination of AI-powered search and the web to return responses. Compared to Googe’s Gemini, which also uses up-to-date sources for its results, ChatGPT has an edge in that it doesn’t disallow the topics of elections or politics. Mark Hachman / IDG Is ChatGPT’s search function good? It’s not great, but it’s not too shabby, either. To help offset concerns that it might be “hallucinating” results, ChatGPT includes footnoted links with its source material. When asked what the best processor was for 4K PC gaming, it returned a short, footnoted argument claiming that both the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 7 7800X3D were the two best choices, a conclusion I’d agree with. The links back to the original sources, however, we monochromatic and easily missed. I also found it a good choice if you’re looking for an ongoing summary of what the new Trump administration is doing to the government. A traditional search engine like Bing or Google spat out individual search results, while ChatGPT provided a summary and links. Like many, I’m still suspicious of AI’s tendency to get things wrong, and to slurp up content I and others have created without credit or a reference to the page. For deep knowledge, I’ll still use a search engine to find the sources of deep knowledge. But for a general overview, ChatGPT isn’t bad. Read...

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