Speaker 1: Welcome to Text Stuff production from I Heart Radio. Pay
Speaker 1: there and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. And how
Speaker 1: the tech are you. Well, we've gotten to the end
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two. This is the final new episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff for twenty twenty two. We will have
Speaker 1: a classic episode tomorrow, there will be a rerun on Monday,
Speaker 1: and then we're back at it. But to end out two,
Speaker 1: I thought we could look ahead to next year a
Speaker 1: little bit. I mean, we spent almost two weeks looking
Speaker 1: back on two. What's next? Now? Before I get into it,
Speaker 1: this is not a full on predictions episode. I used
Speaker 1: to do predictions episodes, but they are so much work
Speaker 1: and most of the time come up bust or at best.
Speaker 1: I I either predict something that is so obviously going
Speaker 1: to happen that really anyone would say, of course because
Speaker 1: that's where things are headed, or I'm way off base um,
Speaker 1: and then the following year I have to do a
Speaker 1: follow up episode to say how did I do? So
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do any of that. Instead, I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about some of the things were likely
Speaker 1: to see or at least we have a good chance
Speaker 1: of seeing. But we just have to remember we are
Speaker 1: also in a world where pandemics can happen, nations can
Speaker 1: invade one another, and billionaires can wreak havoc for no
Speaker 1: darn good reason. So it's hard to count on anything
Speaker 1: being certain at this point. Now, I will say I
Speaker 1: read a few articles that have made some predictions fore
Speaker 1: and they made me think that I'm possibly way off track. So,
Speaker 1: for example, there's an article in Forbes that argues that
Speaker 1: we're going to see some serious, compelling development on the
Speaker 1: metaverse next year. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't
Speaker 1: doubt the companies will continue to work on the metaverse.
Speaker 1: In fact, meta at this point is essentially fully committed,
Speaker 1: like they can't back out without losing or without just
Speaker 1: having said the money that they've invested is a complete loss.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that's going to happen. Other companies
Speaker 1: are also pushing hard, right, We've seen other companies getting
Speaker 1: into the space or have been in the space. I
Speaker 1: just I still find it hard to imagine the metaverse
Speaker 1: as being more useful or practical than the way we
Speaker 1: access digital services and online content today. So in other words,
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is I can't see the metaverse doing
Speaker 1: online presence better than the methods we have right now.
Speaker 1: And if it's not better, it's just different and more inconvenient.
Speaker 1: I don't see it going anywhere. That's kind of the
Speaker 1: block I'm hitting. And I know I'm not alone in this.
Speaker 1: I know there are some other journalists who feel the
Speaker 1: same way. There's some who a very gung ho on it,
Speaker 1: like this Forbes piece was. But let's break it down.
Speaker 1: The promise of the metaverse is to make a persistent
Speaker 1: online world, ideally where we could do things like work, shop, play, socialized, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Not every vision of the metaverse incorporates augmented reality and
Speaker 1: virtual reality or mixed reality for short, but many do.
Speaker 1: In fact, I would say most have that element worked
Speaker 1: into it. There are companies working to create virtual office
Speaker 1: spaces where people can collaborate and interact as if they
Speaker 1: were in the real location together for example, and in
Speaker 1: some use cases I can understand that approach, like having
Speaker 1: a virtual conference room where you can bounce ideas off
Speaker 1: each other. That might be easier if you have like
Speaker 1: a virtual presence than your typical on screen video call
Speaker 1: would be maybe it's It's kind of hard for me
Speaker 1: to say, because y'all, my only collaborates Torii, except this
Speaker 1: week it's it's Joey. Thanks Joey. But Tari typically is
Speaker 1: my only collaborator. And the way this show works is
Speaker 1: that I record into a little tin can and then
Speaker 1: I send all those zeros and ones to Tari, and
Speaker 1: Tari makes them sound more gooder, and then Tari pushes
Speaker 1: them out to your talkie boxes. And that's how this
Speaker 1: show works, uh to to pull away the curtain. So anyway,
Speaker 1: my point is I don't actually do that much collaboration
Speaker 1: in my job, so this is probably creating a bias
Speaker 1: for me, right, Like, I'm looking at it through the
Speaker 1: lens of how I do work. Maybe if I were
Speaker 1: more collaborative, I might be bemoaning the shortcomings of video
Speaker 1: calls and say that if only we had a virtual
Speaker 1: conference room, this would be so much easier. That might
Speaker 1: be the case. I just don't know. Um it's hard
Speaker 1: for me to imagine that though, because here's the thing.
Speaker 1: We have seen virtual worlds that have tried very of
Speaker 1: this in the past and they just never got mainstream adoption.
Speaker 1: Second life is the perfect example. So Second Life is
Speaker 1: not as fully immersive as most visions of the metaverse are.
Speaker 1: You control an avatar on your computer using like keyboard
Speaker 1: and mouse or maybe a controller, and you're typically doing
Speaker 1: it from a third person perspective, so it's not like
Speaker 1: you're walking around and everything is is surrounding you. Nothing
Speaker 1: like that. In your actual field of vision, You're you're
Speaker 1: looking at a computer screen. But several companies got really
Speaker 1: excited about the idea of having a quote unquote real
Speaker 1: presence online, so not just a website, which was the
Speaker 1: boring old fashioned way, but a virtual storefront that customers
Speaker 1: could walk an avatar into and interact with. And a
Speaker 1: lot of businesses rushed to Second Life. And while there
Speaker 1: was and still is a devoted group of people who
Speaker 1: use Second Life, second Life never became the new version
Speaker 1: of the Internet, Like that's kind of how it was
Speaker 1: hailed back in the day, and it just never became that.
Speaker 1: And I suspect the metaverse will suffer a similar fate. Again,
Speaker 1: it's through my perspective, so I could be totally wrong,
Speaker 1: but part of it. What has me skeptical about this
Speaker 1: is that emphasis on a R and VR. There are
Speaker 1: some really big obstacles in the way if companies hope
Speaker 1: to have millions, hundreds of millions of people PLoP on
Speaker 1: headsets and engage with online material. So one of the
Speaker 1: big challenges is comfort. You have to have headsets. They're
Speaker 1: going to be comfortable enough to wear for long periods
Speaker 1: of time, at least the length of like an all
Speaker 1: hands meeting. And I don't know about you, but sometimes
Speaker 1: some of our all hands meetings can stretch to four days.
Speaker 1: That's what it feels like at times. Gosh, I hope
Speaker 1: my boss doesn't listen to this. You also have to
Speaker 1: find ways to minimize issues with things like motion sickness.
Speaker 1: You know, some people are just more prone to that.
Speaker 1: As I get older, I get more prone to motion sickness.
Speaker 1: So I am certain that after just a few minutes
Speaker 1: wearing a VR headset, I'd feel pretty gross, and I
Speaker 1: don't think I would be really productive in a brainstorming
Speaker 1: session if I was yakking all over myself throughout the
Speaker 1: whole meeting. But another challenge is cost. VR and a
Speaker 1: R headsets are expensive. In fact, a couple of them
Speaker 1: got more expensive because just this past year, Meta increase
Speaker 1: the price of the quest to models. Each of them
Speaker 1: went up by a hundred dollars. We already have a
Speaker 1: digital divide where people who are unable to afford stuff
Speaker 1: like a personal computer and internet service are progressively ostracized.
Speaker 1: They are being pushed further and further to the boundaries
Speaker 1: of of especially you know, fully developed nations, uh that
Speaker 1: they're having a harder time participating in those societies. I
Speaker 1: imagine that will become way worse if people's start following
Speaker 1: the lead of these big companies and migrate towards a
Speaker 1: metaverse approach. In fact, we've got plenty of science fiction
Speaker 1: stories that touch on that very concept. Meanwhile, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: back on the past about some initiatives that companies really
Speaker 1: tried to push on people that just didn't go anywhere,
Speaker 1: Like three D television. Do you remember that. What was
Speaker 1: it like maybe twelve or thirteen years ago where every
Speaker 1: new television being shown at trade shows like ce S
Speaker 1: was a three D TV. And then there was this
Speaker 1: really hard push from television manufacturers and movie and TV
Speaker 1: studios for consumers to adopt and embrace three D television,
Speaker 1: and it just didn't happen. Most people didn't want to
Speaker 1: have to keep up with the glasses or have to
Speaker 1: put on a headset just to be able to watch television.
Speaker 1: Active three D glasses were an even tougher cell because
Speaker 1: with active three D glasses you had to remember to
Speaker 1: charge them or else you'd end up having to wait
Speaker 1: to watch Avatar or whatever until your glasses were charged up.
Speaker 1: So three D TV got a big rejection, and some
Speaker 1: of the reasons for that rejection are the things that
Speaker 1: I think are gonna happen to the metaverse. That's why
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical. Also, this vision of using the metaverse as
Speaker 1: the future of online activity seems weird to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems very Hollywood. If you remember movies and like
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, they would often show quote unquote hackers,
Speaker 1: uh as if they were maneuvering through a first person
Speaker 1: dungeon crawler a computer game. I'm sure you've seen films
Speaker 1: like this where someone is hacking into the system and
Speaker 1: on their screen it's this three dimensional environment that they
Speaker 1: are maneuvering through in order to hack the system, because
Speaker 1: that's more interesting than guessing some passwords. And you know what,
Speaker 1: maybe that is the future. Maybe I'm just too shortsighted,
Speaker 1: but I also think back to how I still access
Speaker 1: my computer today. So the uli I rely upon is
Speaker 1: mouse and keyboard. Personal computers have been things since the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies with keyboards. The computer mouse joined computers in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, and nothing has replaced keyboard and mouse.
Speaker 1: There have been things that have augmented it and supplemented it,
Speaker 1: and of course for accessibility features there are people who
Speaker 1: rely upon alternatives to keyboard and mouse, but for the
Speaker 1: mainstream that just there's nothing that's replaced it. The closest
Speaker 1: you can come as with mobile devices and touch screens,
Speaker 1: but for your basic computer, you're still using keyboard and mouse.
Speaker 1: So I get the feeling that the metaverse is a
Speaker 1: solution that's looking for a problem, that it's trying to
Speaker 1: say this is going to be better than the way
Speaker 1: we have been doing things. But I have yet to
Speaker 1: be convinced. All that being said, I do think we're
Speaker 1: still going to see companies do development in the space.
Speaker 1: I expect that development might be scaled back quite a bit,
Speaker 1: partly because of the economic situation that the world is
Speaker 1: in right now. So I think that because we're seeing
Speaker 1: companies pair or back, either putting on hiring freezes or
Speaker 1: even layoffs. We're probably gonna see a slow down in
Speaker 1: development for the Metaverse, since I think there is a
Speaker 1: general lack of excitement around the Metaverse from the mainstream,
Speaker 1: not on the business side. You still have businesses going
Speaker 1: bonkers for this because they're hoping for a big payoff,
Speaker 1: but from the mainstream of not seeing it. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: not looking the right places. I just don't think it's
Speaker 1: going to be an easy road for the Metaverse. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's where we'll eventually end up, but I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be a pretty hard one. I think three
Speaker 1: will be a fairly quiet year in that regard, barring
Speaker 1: some massive, crazy, unforeseen circumstance that changes things. Um Also,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll need to pay attention to Meta's earnings calls,
Speaker 1: which I know are boring, but that can give us
Speaker 1: an indication of what investors think about Meta's commitment to
Speaker 1: the idea of the Metaverse and progress or lack thereof.
Speaker 1: If we see like a massive drop in investor confidence,
Speaker 1: that could have a huge impact to the Metaverse as
Speaker 1: a whole. Okay, we've got a lot more to talk about.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break. We're back. So another thing
Speaker 1: that Forbes article predicted. I'm really picking on this Forbes article,
Speaker 1: but they predicted serious development around Web three and blockchain
Speaker 1: based services, and again I remained skeptical. The spectacular crash
Speaker 1: of cryptocurrency in two and n f T s as well.
Speaker 1: I think dealt a huge blow to the Web three crowd,
Speaker 1: and a lot of Web three businesses are being, uh
Speaker 1: conspicuously quiet right now. I also genuinely do not understand
Speaker 1: the value of the Web three coach. Like the metaverse,
Speaker 1: Web three feels like there's this group of extremely enthusiastic
Speaker 1: tech business people who are saying, we need another gold mine,
Speaker 1: we need something that is going to take off like Gangbusters,
Speaker 1: and they're trying to make it happen. I go back
Speaker 1: to mean, girls, you know, stop trying to make fetch happen.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna happen. Maybe Web three will happen, but
Speaker 1: it will happen through force of will, I think, rather
Speaker 1: than a genuine need for Web three. In fact, I
Speaker 1: don't see Web three really solving anything. Everything I have
Speaker 1: seen suggests that Web three will essentially do what we
Speaker 1: already do. It's just going to do it in a
Speaker 1: different way, but not necessarily a better way. Some might
Speaker 1: argue it does it in a worse way, that it
Speaker 1: could be a slower, more clunky way. Now, a few
Speaker 1: people argue that Web three is going to shift online
Speaker 1: services so that the big tech companies will no longer
Speaker 1: dominate the space. Companies like Google and Amazon and Meta
Speaker 1: will lose a lot of the troll they have because
Speaker 1: they will no longer be the gatekeepers for online commerce
Speaker 1: and activity, and that this will be some sort of
Speaker 1: democratized approach with Web three. But y'all, that's what the
Speaker 1: Internet was. Okay, that's what the Internet was. The Internet
Speaker 1: was a democratized approach. Okay, that's what the Internet was.
Speaker 1: It's not like the Internet was designed so that there
Speaker 1: would be these pillars that would dominate the Internet. That's
Speaker 1: That's not the Internet's fault. That's a symptom of capitalism that,
Speaker 1: you know, some companies are going to be extremely successful
Speaker 1: and then they will come to dominate their respective markets.
Speaker 1: That just happens in capitalism. That's not I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that's a bad thing. I'm just saying that's a symptom, right,
Speaker 1: that that happens, because that's the way capitalism works, and
Speaker 1: it favors the companies that do well, and then they
Speaker 1: are able to do even better. Web three might strip
Speaker 1: the you know, control of the Internet away from the
Speaker 1: elias and tech, but those glasses would just be replaced
Speaker 1: by new goliaths, presumably the entities that are charged with
Speaker 1: being stewards of the blockchains that are underlying Web three.
Speaker 1: So you still have centralized pockets of power. It's just
Speaker 1: different pockets of power. So again, maybe I'm way off
Speaker 1: base here. Maybe we will have a massive Web three
Speaker 1: development spurt in three, maybe it will democratize the web.
Speaker 1: I'm just I don't believe it. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: beyond skeptical. I flat out do not believe that is
Speaker 1: where things will go. If Web three becomes a thing,
Speaker 1: I do not believe it will be a democratized, you know,
Speaker 1: utopia of online presence, because that's what the Internet was
Speaker 1: supposed to be. So again, it's it's not like the
Speaker 1: Internet was always the way it is now, and that
Speaker 1: seems to be the way Web three tends to be
Speaker 1: framed as if this is the solution. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: the Internet was the solution. We just did and take
Speaker 1: care of it. Properly to prevent things like the consolidation
Speaker 1: of power. Of course, it's also possible I'm just sliding
Speaker 1: further into old man yells at cloud territory, and I
Speaker 1: accept that. I'm okay with being a grouchy old person.
Speaker 1: I don't have any problem with that. I'd rather be
Speaker 1: that than the alternative. So anyway, let's talk about something
Speaker 1: that we might get in after many years of speculation,
Speaker 1: and that's Apple's ARE headset, or more accurately, now it's
Speaker 1: mixed reality headset. So for years there's been speculation about
Speaker 1: Apple launching an a R headset and attempting to create
Speaker 1: a market for a ARE the same way that Apple
Speaker 1: turned the smartphone into a consumer device. Apple has a
Speaker 1: very well earned reputation for defining form factors, not inventing them,
Speaker 1: but refining and then defining them. Like other companies might
Speaker 1: innovate a new technology, but Apple is the company that's
Speaker 1: own to perfect them. So like the iPod was not
Speaker 1: the first MP three player, the iPhone was not the
Speaker 1: first smartphone, the iPad was not the first tablet computer,
Speaker 1: and so on, but each of these devices succeeded in
Speaker 1: the consumer market where predecessors either outright failed or they
Speaker 1: hit a plateau and didn't go any further. So the
Speaker 1: question is can Apple do the same with augmented reality. Well,
Speaker 1: that remains to be seen, but we do know that
Speaker 1: Apple has already made some significant compromises in this quest.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, no quest is met as headset in
Speaker 1: its journey anyway you want it, that's the way you
Speaker 1: need it, and its journey to marketing a R headsets. So,
Speaker 1: for example, from early interviews with him Cook that touched
Speaker 1: on a arm, it seemed pretty clear that the goal
Speaker 1: was to create a lightweight pair of a our glasses
Speaker 1: that would be ideally indistinguishable from any other pair of
Speaker 1: stylish eyeglasses or sunglasses. So the wearer would be able
Speaker 1: to see the outside world clearly through transparent lenses, and
Speaker 1: then the augmented reality data could be projected onto the
Speaker 1: lenses themselves, enhancing or augmenting if you will, the wearer's
Speaker 1: view of the world. But that's not what the first
Speaker 1: generation of Apples glasses are going to be like. And
Speaker 1: that's because the tech just isn't at the point where
Speaker 1: Apple can do that, where the components can be miniaturized
Speaker 1: to that degree where the lenses can be clear enough
Speaker 1: up to be able to project the data in ways
Speaker 1: that are helpful but not obstructing your view. All that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. We're not there yet. So Apple's first
Speaker 1: generation ARE glasses are said to be a totally enclosed headset,
Speaker 1: so more like a VR headset, so there's not a
Speaker 1: transparent view to the outside world. Instead, you have forward
Speaker 1: facing cameras that will feed live video into the screen
Speaker 1: inside the headset, so the person where ing the headset
Speaker 1: will still see the world around them, but it will
Speaker 1: be through a live camera feed as opposed to transparent window.
Speaker 1: Apple still reportedly plans to develop true ARE glasses, but
Speaker 1: we're not likely to see those until at least or so.
Speaker 1: Some places I saw predicted maybe four. I think that's
Speaker 1: being incredibly uh aggressive. I just don't think that's going
Speaker 1: to happen. Maybe it will. If it does, that would
Speaker 1: be super awesome. I would love to see it, because
Speaker 1: I actually really like the I like a R more
Speaker 1: than I like VR. Um from a personal use not
Speaker 1: not in a general technology sense. I definitely see the
Speaker 1: value of VR in specific use cases. It's just again,
Speaker 1: I get motion sick if I use VR too much.
Speaker 1: But a R is a slightly different story, and I
Speaker 1: can see a lot of things that I could use
Speaker 1: a R four that would be really helpful. But if
Speaker 1: you step outside my personal preferences, I think a R
Speaker 1: and V are equally important. Anyway, company has held off
Speaker 1: on a R for a really long time, and meanwhile,
Speaker 1: companies like Meta and Microsoft have been kind of establishing
Speaker 1: a real space in mixed reality. So Apple doesn't want
Speaker 1: to hold off too long, or else it will be
Speaker 1: fighting an uphill battle. Plus, Apple hasn't had a true
Speaker 1: breakaway hit product in a while. The company's established product
Speaker 1: lines do well, but Apple fans have been hoping for
Speaker 1: something really new the same way that the iPod or
Speaker 1: the iPhone took the world by storm. The Apple Watch
Speaker 1: didn't quite scratch that itch for Apple fans at large.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is a very popular product in its
Speaker 1: own right, but I didn't get the sense from people
Speaker 1: that the Apple Watch was like a uh, take your
Speaker 1: breath away kind of product the way the iPhone was
Speaker 1: or even the iPad. So can Apple make mixed reality
Speaker 1: more of a mainstream technology? Well, you'd think by now
Speaker 1: that I would learn never to doubt Apple. I famously
Speaker 1: dismissed the iPad before it came out, and boy howdy,
Speaker 1: I could not have been more wrong about this. So
Speaker 1: I will say this, if a company can make mixed
Speaker 1: reality attractive to consumers, Apple is the company I would
Speaker 1: suspect would be able to do it. I still have
Speaker 1: my doubts, but if the company can demonstrate a really
Speaker 1: compelling use case for augmented reality or mixed reality, and
Speaker 1: if the headset doesn't look like a clunky mess, maybe
Speaker 1: they'll have the secret sauce and this will be the
Speaker 1: thing that pushes mixed reality further into the mainstream, which
Speaker 1: would be a huge bonus for all those companies that
Speaker 1: are working on the metaverse. I'm just not I just
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. I'm doubtful. But again I
Speaker 1: was doubtful about other Apple products and I was just
Speaker 1: wrong every single time. So we'll see. What we will
Speaker 1: not see next year is an Apple car. So Apple
Speaker 1: has also long been rumored to be working on a
Speaker 1: car concept, and for a while the company was focusing
Speaker 1: on building an autonomous vehicle, like, you know, like a
Speaker 1: truly autonomous car. We're talking about a vehicle that doesn't
Speaker 1: even have steering controls or an accelerator or breaks or whatever.
Speaker 1: Uh not that, or at least not the ones that
Speaker 1: humans would be able to access. But reportedly Apple shifted
Speaker 1: its focus. It paired back on the very difficult engineering
Speaker 1: challenge of making a reliable and safe autonomous car and
Speaker 1: instead started to work on an electric vehicle design. However,
Speaker 1: where it is that we're not likely to see that
Speaker 1: kind of product until or so at the earliest. So
Speaker 1: no Apple e V this year or this coming year,
Speaker 1: which is is unfortunate. Also, before I go to break,
Speaker 1: I want to mention there are some games that are
Speaker 1: meant to come out in two that instead we should
Speaker 1: see in That includes the zombie smushing game Dead Island Too,
Speaker 1: the long awaited and long delayed pirate games Skull and
Speaker 1: Bones from Ubisoft, the Harry Potter game Hogwarts, Legacy Butthes
Speaker 1: does New I P Starfield, where you've got people asking
Speaker 1: for the next Fallout game or the next Elder Scrolls game,
Speaker 1: but we're getting Starfield, and there's a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about what that game is going to be and whether
Speaker 1: it will be any fun. Nintendo's Legend of Zelda Tears
Speaker 1: of the Kingdom is supposed to come out next year. Uh,
Speaker 1: the Left for Dead, but it's vampires game called Red
Speaker 1: Fall is supposed to come out next year. And hopefully
Speaker 1: these games will stay on their new schedules and actually
Speaker 1: come out next year. But honestly, I always would rather
Speaker 1: a game be delayed so that developers can fix problems
Speaker 1: and make it better than to have it released quote
Speaker 1: unquote on time, but then have to wait for the
Speaker 1: numerous patches that follow in order to make the game,
Speaker 1: you know, fun to play. Now, They're also supposed to
Speaker 1: be a lot of other games that will be coming
Speaker 1: out in which I'm kind of excited about. I don't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of time to play games, and
Speaker 1: the games I played tend to be kind of there.
Speaker 1: They're eclectic. Vampire Survivors is one that I've been playing
Speaker 1: for a bit and then got back into because there
Speaker 1: was a whole bunch of new material released for the game,
Speaker 1: so I'm trying to unlock everything in there. I'm like
Speaker 1: maybe four things away from completing it. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't get a whole lot of time to play it,
Speaker 1: but I still like to learn about them. Okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take another quick break when we come back we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the trade show that is right around the
Speaker 1: corner and the sort of stuff that journalists are expecting
Speaker 1: they will see at that that show. I will not
Speaker 1: be there, so I'll just have to live vicariously through them.
Speaker 1: But first let's take this break. As I said before
Speaker 1: the break, c e S is right around the corner.
Speaker 1: This show, which is also known as the Consumer Electronics Show,
Speaker 1: is a huge trade show for the consumer technology industry.
Speaker 1: Mostly it's companies that create products that are meant for consumers.
Speaker 1: Some of them are more like components companies, so they
Speaker 1: make stuff that end up being incorporated into the products
Speaker 1: of other companies. And then you've got some other like
Speaker 1: trade organizations that do exhibits there and stuff. Like I
Speaker 1: said before the break, I'm not going this year. That
Speaker 1: was my decision. Uh, it's just really hard for me
Speaker 1: to be productive at c e S unless I have
Speaker 1: a whole team with me to help plan and execute everything.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm not good enough to be able to
Speaker 1: manage my time properly so that I get the most
Speaker 1: out of it. So often by the time I come
Speaker 1: back from c e S, I'm frustrated that I didn't
Speaker 1: do enough, So instead, I'm going to cover it remotely
Speaker 1: this year. But anyway, we do know a bit of
Speaker 1: about some of the stuff that's going to be shown off.
Speaker 1: That includes some flying car prototypes, not unusual. We've actually
Speaker 1: seen those at ce s in the past. So essentially
Speaker 1: these usually look like a giant quad copter, like one
Speaker 1: of those consumer drones that you can buy, but instead
Speaker 1: you know, scaled up to the point where a human
Speaker 1: being could sit inside the cockpit of one. Well, I
Speaker 1: suspect we will not be seeing consumer vehicles take flight
Speaker 1: anytime in the near future. There are numerous companies that
Speaker 1: are looking to use similar technologies as a kind of
Speaker 1: taxi service, particularly to and from airports. There are numerous
Speaker 1: companies that are you know, marketing themselves as a flying
Speaker 1: taxi for that kind of thing, and I suspect that
Speaker 1: some of the stuff we will see at CES will
Speaker 1: fall into that category. I'm also sure that we're gonna
Speaker 1: see lots more electric vehicle designs because more and more
Speaker 1: governments around the world are passing legislation that is putting
Speaker 1: a deadline on the sale of new vehicles with internal
Speaker 1: combustion engines, saying after such and such date that will
Speaker 1: be illegal. You cannot sell a new internal combustion engine
Speaker 1: vehicle on the market. Used car sales will still be allowed.
Speaker 1: It's not like internal combustion engine vehicles as a whole
Speaker 1: will be outlawed, but that you know, you can't sell
Speaker 1: new ones, and so that's really going to put an
Speaker 1: emphasis on electric vehicles in particular. So manufacturers are responding
Speaker 1: by innovating in the e V space, except maybe for Toyota,
Speaker 1: which has really held onto the hope of relying upon
Speaker 1: hydrogen to either fuel call cars directly or use in
Speaker 1: fuel cells. Uh. I think that might actually be a
Speaker 1: sunk cost fallacy situation at this point, because Toyota continues
Speaker 1: to say, oh, with the e V thing is that's
Speaker 1: gonna be a bubble um. That might be wishful thinking
Speaker 1: on Toyota's part. On the computer front, we are likely
Speaker 1: to see some prototype devices that are really neat but
Speaker 1: will likely never go into production. I'm thinking about several computers.
Speaker 1: I've seen it past c e S events where you
Speaker 1: had like multiple screens or interesting configurations. There was like
Speaker 1: a couple of them that were tablet computer laptop hybrids
Speaker 1: that were really cool that never came out. We had
Speaker 1: other ones come out that were never quite as interesting
Speaker 1: as the original prototypes were. So of course, sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: these prototypes are just shown off in order to test
Speaker 1: out certain features that may or may not make their
Speaker 1: way into future products. So I get it. It's not
Speaker 1: that the companies are pulling the wool over eyes are
Speaker 1: saying this is definitely gonna hitch store shelves, but rather
Speaker 1: we're experimenting with different features. This is what came of
Speaker 1: those experiments that may or may not find their way
Speaker 1: into products. If it makes sense down the line where
Speaker 1: it is, there will be a lot of focus thrown
Speaker 1: to laptop computers. Again not super groundbreaking news. Their laptops
Speaker 1: have consistently been a focal point at recent c E
Speaker 1: S shows. I think laptops have been on the standard
Speaker 1: PC for a lot of households outside of the you know,
Speaker 1: like the super serial gamers and live streamers out there.
Speaker 1: We also might see some announcements regarding laptops that have
Speaker 1: the previous generation of GPU hardware built into them, which
Speaker 1: could actually win over some of those gamers who aren't
Speaker 1: you know, sold on getting a forty eight or But
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of backlash on video about those anyway,
Speaker 1: that's a matter for a different podcast. However, I also
Speaker 1: expect that we're going to see displays and monitors that
Speaker 1: will have features built into support stuff like video conferencing
Speaker 1: like that. That's been a thing for a while. I
Speaker 1: just think it's gonna be more of a highlighted feature
Speaker 1: in the displays that we see out of ce s
Speaker 1: this year. Now, big tech companies are still pushing to
Speaker 1: get people back into the office, but other businesses have
Speaker 1: chosen to stick with either a hybrid or remote work approach,
Speaker 1: which has pushed a surge in development on video call technologies,
Speaker 1: and I feel it's gonna be reflected in some of
Speaker 1: the products at CES. I think we're going to see
Speaker 1: more displays that have advanced built in cameras and microphone capabilities.
Speaker 1: We'll probably also get some more VR and mixed reality headsets. Now, again,
Speaker 1: I remain unconvinced that this particular technology is ever going
Speaker 1: to be as widely adopted as say computers or mobile devices.
Speaker 1: I just don't think it's ever going to be quite
Speaker 1: that level of popular. But certainly I think the market
Speaker 1: does have room to grow, and you know, it's always
Speaker 1: nice to hear about advancements in VR, whether it's in
Speaker 1: reducing headset weight, increasing comfort, increasing resolution and processing power,
Speaker 1: or developing a wider library of content for the devices.
Speaker 1: I think that's critical. You've got to have stuff for
Speaker 1: people to do or else there's no reason to buy
Speaker 1: the hardware. I just I know that I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be buying it because they make my tummy go
Speaker 1: all flippy floppy. Something else that will will definitely be
Speaker 1: at CES because it's always there will be TVs, lots
Speaker 1: and lots of t vs. Now, I haven't really heard
Speaker 1: any scuttle butt on what could be the big push
Speaker 1: in television's at C E s. In past years, there
Speaker 1: have been very notable trends. Like I mentioned earlier, more
Speaker 1: than a decade ago, it was three D. Before three D,
Speaker 1: it was things like little web icons they were on
Speaker 1: your television. After that that got kind of morphed into
Speaker 1: smart televisions a little later. Then we had things like
Speaker 1: HDR and high refresh rates. We had oh LED q
Speaker 1: D O LED screens, which was introduced last year. Really,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll get more of a widespread adoption of q
Speaker 1: D O L E D this year, or maybe there
Speaker 1: will be some other element or feature that will emerge
Speaker 1: in televisions and become the trend. It's possible we'll see
Speaker 1: more TVs sports eight K resolution. Eight K has been
Speaker 1: shown off at previous e S events, even back when
Speaker 1: I was still going, which was several years ago. Now,
Speaker 1: I saw eight K televisions. They were prototypes, they weren't,
Speaker 1: you know, consumer models. But there's not really any eight
Speaker 1: K content that you can access. So it doesn't really
Speaker 1: make sense as a consumer to buy an eight K
Speaker 1: television because there's nothing natively eight K that you can
Speaker 1: watch on it. A lot of eight K TVs will uh,
Speaker 1: you know, upscale videos so that it's at eight K resolution,
Speaker 1: but that's not the same thing as watching native eight
Speaker 1: K content, and there just isn't really any of that.
Speaker 1: It's the same sort of problem they had early on
Speaker 1: in the h D days and in the four K days.
Speaker 1: Like this is just the way of things. It will
Speaker 1: take a while. I'm also skeptical about whether or not
Speaker 1: eight K provides that much more of a good experience
Speaker 1: over four K. This could be the limitations of my
Speaker 1: own physical ability to see, but I just don't It
Speaker 1: doesn't come across as being superior to me, unless you're
Speaker 1: watching it on a truly enormous screen and you're sitting
Speaker 1: three inches away, then you could really tell you like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't even see the pixels. Okay, well that's great.
Speaker 1: I mean you're staring at Daniel Craig's nostril as you
Speaker 1: watched Glass Onion, and maybe that's where all the secrets
Speaker 1: of the movie are. But I just don't see the
Speaker 1: appeal personally. I don't think it's I think it's more
Speaker 1: of a way for a TV company to say, look,
Speaker 1: this is a higher number, so it's more better, so
Speaker 1: buy it, And I just don't. I don't buy it. Now.
Speaker 1: One thing we are likely to hear a lot more
Speaker 1: about at CES is matter, not like matter as in
Speaker 1: the stuff that has mass, but rather matter as in
Speaker 1: the standard that has been created for smart home connectivity.
Speaker 1: So one of the biggest headaches for consumers who wanted
Speaker 1: to adopt smart home technology in the past was this
Speaker 1: lack of interoperability between different devices, so a lot of
Speaker 1: smart home solutions were essentially closed off ecosystems. Now, if
Speaker 1: you didn't mind that all of your component it's needed
Speaker 1: to come from the same company and rely on the
Speaker 1: same user interface for interoperability, then you didn't have a problem.
Speaker 1: But if you preferred to pick and choose the elements
Speaker 1: that best suited your lifestyle, things got more complicated. Your
Speaker 1: smart home could start to feel less smart, or maybe
Speaker 1: you'd start to feel less smart as you try to
Speaker 1: interact with your two or three or more user interfaces
Speaker 1: in order to control all the various smart devices within
Speaker 1: your home. Well, the Matter Universal Standard is an approach
Speaker 1: to solving this problem. It's meant to serve as sort
Speaker 1: of a common foundation for smart home applications and simplify
Speaker 1: the user interface issue and make interoperability between different devices
Speaker 1: more seamless. So Matters specifications weren't solidified until this past October.
Speaker 1: So there's a pretty real expectation that CE three will
Speaker 1: have a lot of devices with Matter and Mind and
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. So some stuff I think will likely
Speaker 1: be talked about a lot next year now that we're
Speaker 1: moving away from CS. I think we're gonna talk a
Speaker 1: lot more about the debate around generative AI. We got
Speaker 1: that launched at the end of this year, Like that
Speaker 1: conversation started already, but I think it's going to become
Speaker 1: a bigger one. In because seeing AI programs create images
Speaker 1: and text that's at least approaching or in some cases equaling,
Speaker 1: human achievement brings up some really tough questions. And these
Speaker 1: aren't new questions, mind you, a lot of people have
Speaker 1: been asking these questions for years. But now the questions
Speaker 1: are really pertinent because we appear to be nearing the
Speaker 1: point of no return where machine generated content could potentially
Speaker 1: be indistinguishable from human created stuff. So my guess is
Speaker 1: we're going to see a few more examples of people
Speaker 1: really pushing the boundaries of what generative AI is capable of.
Speaker 1: They may or may not try and pass that off
Speaker 1: as a human created piece of art or or authorship
Speaker 1: or whatever, or maybe a combination, and then maybe do
Speaker 1: the big reveal that oh, in fact, a machine made this,
Speaker 1: or maybe they don't do the reveal, maybe they try
Speaker 1: and pass it off as if it was their own wheels. See,
Speaker 1: we'll also see more stories about teachers frustrated that their
Speaker 1: students are relying on AI to do stuff like complete
Speaker 1: complete writing assignments. That's already happening. I saw a news
Speaker 1: item about that just the other day. I'm sure we're
Speaker 1: gonna see more artists and authors express concern about what
Speaker 1: this means for the arts in general and for their
Speaker 1: careers in particular, and I think all of these are valid.
Speaker 1: I also hope that these conversations evolve into ways where
Speaker 1: we can make sure that AI development and AI use
Speaker 1: is done in an ethical and fair way, and that
Speaker 1: such tools augment rather than replace humans. But that's gonna
Speaker 1: be a really big conversation. I think that will get
Speaker 1: elder in three. Like I said, it's already started, but
Speaker 1: I think it's going to become more prominent in the
Speaker 1: coming year. There's a lot of other stuff we could
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, things like well cryptocurrency make a
Speaker 1: recovery in three I honestly don't know. I don't think
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency is is headed for the you know, the pits.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna die next year that I
Speaker 1: don't know that it's going to have a huge recovery.
Speaker 1: I think we'll probably see some valleys and some hills
Speaker 1: in its value as we go along, unless there's like
Speaker 1: another huge failure in the cryptocurrency world, like if finance
Speaker 1: were to go down, that would be catastrophic at least
Speaker 1: in the short term for a lot of crypto companies
Speaker 1: and a lot of cryptocurrencies, but I don't know that
Speaker 1: that's going to happen. I think it would be I
Speaker 1: think it's a long shot, honestly, So I think cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: is probably going to be fine for three It might
Speaker 1: even have a recovery in tree h I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe for some people it's been irrevocably damaged in their
Speaker 1: eyes and they'll never invest in it. But the proponents
Speaker 1: for cryptocurrency are very passionate, so I don't count it
Speaker 1: out just yet. Uh, there are other things we can
Speaker 1: look at, but I think this is a good starter
Speaker 1: for things to think about for the next year. As always,
Speaker 1: I advocate that y'all exercise two things above everything else
Speaker 1: when you start thinking about tech and just you know,
Speaker 1: generally life, which is critical thinking, ask questions, question the
Speaker 1: answers you get. Don't be satisfied with simple answers. You
Speaker 1: need to really understand what's going on and compassion. Compassion
Speaker 1: for others is incredibly important. Keep in mind not everyone's
Speaker 1: trying to pull one over on you. Like, just because
Speaker 1: you're being critical about stuff doesn't necessarily you mean you
Speaker 1: think people are trying to trick you. In some cases,
Speaker 1: it may be that a person has is communicating in
Speaker 1: a way that doesn't connect with you, and so you
Speaker 1: have to ask questions so that you both understand what
Speaker 1: the other is saying. So that's important, but to do
Speaker 1: it with compassion is also important because you don't want
Speaker 1: to just be in jerk. I've been a jerk in
Speaker 1: the past. I'm sure I will be a jerk in
Speaker 1: the future. I try to keep in mind this compassion thing.
Speaker 1: I'm also working on it all the time, so I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to say that I'm the perfect person with
Speaker 1: with critical thinking and compassion. I'm not on either count,
Speaker 1: but I try to keep that in mind. I think
Speaker 1: it's going to be important for three uh and I
Speaker 1: hope you have a happy New Year, that you are happy,
Speaker 1: you're healthy, you're safe, your friends and family are around,
Speaker 1: and you can celebrate the end of the beginning of tree.
Speaker 1: I look forward to talking with all of you next
Speaker 1: year about all things tech, whether it's specific technology, is
Speaker 1: people in tech, companies in tech, trends in technology technologies
Speaker 1: affect on us, in our effect on technology. All of
Speaker 1: that will continue next year, and I will talk to
Speaker 1: you again in twenty three. Tech Stuff is an I
Speaker 1: heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.