Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jothan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and how the Tech Area. It is time for the
Speaker 1: tech News for Thursday, January six, twenty twenty two, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna focus a lot on c E S in
Speaker 1: this episode. So we're gonna look with a at a
Speaker 1: roundup of some of the interesting things, uh that I
Speaker 1: learned about at C E S two. Full disclosure, I
Speaker 1: didn't go to c E S. I mostly was following
Speaker 1: the reporting of others and you know, kind of looking
Speaker 1: at all the different stuff that companies were promoting. But
Speaker 1: I did not attend. I thought that it was irresponsible
Speaker 1: for me to go, not projecting that on anyone else.
Speaker 1: Everyone has their reasons about going or not going, so
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to apply that to everyone. I just
Speaker 1: felt it was the wrong decision for me. But in
Speaker 1: Tuesday's episode, I mentioned Samsung's remote control that can harvest
Speaker 1: energy from WiFi signals. Very similar to a lot of
Speaker 1: other wireless charging technologies, but this one is really cool
Speaker 1: because you don't have to set it down on like
Speaker 1: a special pad or anything. It's it's just harvesting energy
Speaker 1: from WiFi signals on its own. That to me is
Speaker 1: super cool. And I also I think I talked about
Speaker 1: smart kitty litter box that connects to stuff like Amazon's Alexa,
Speaker 1: which sounds silly on the surface of it, but I
Speaker 1: actually think it's kind of a cool idea. However, obviously
Speaker 1: there's a lot more we could talk about, so I
Speaker 1: figured I would go through some of the things I
Speaker 1: came across and I thought were interesting and talk about those. Now,
Speaker 1: keep in mind, this is the tippy tippy top of
Speaker 1: the iceberg that is c E s. You could just
Speaker 1: follow the announcements from one company and spend a week
Speaker 1: talking about it. So this is by no means the
Speaker 1: best of the best or anything like that. It's just
Speaker 1: the stuff I found interesting. And we are going to
Speaker 1: go in a particular order. It's called alphabetical, So we'll
Speaker 1: start off with the Amica robot. Amaca has spelled a
Speaker 1: M E c A. A video of Amica was posted
Speaker 1: on Twitter back in and it went viral. You might
Speaker 1: have seen it. It had a very expressive robot in it.
Speaker 1: Ce S was the first time I'm aware of where
Speaker 1: a larger audience was able to see Amica in the
Speaker 1: robotic flesh. I guess Amaca comes out of a company
Speaker 1: called Engineered Arts and they build a robot as quote,
Speaker 1: the world's most advanced human shaped robot representing the forefront
Speaker 1: of human robotics technology end quote. The big deal with
Speaker 1: Amica is that it has a very flexible and really
Speaker 1: expressive face with like eyebrow ridges and lots of points
Speaker 1: of movement around the eyes and the mouth, so it
Speaker 1: can give very human expressions. So Amica can make these
Speaker 1: really compelling facial expressions, and Engineered Arts calls it a
Speaker 1: development platform. So in other words, this is kind of
Speaker 1: a starting point or a stepping stone, which could be
Speaker 1: one of the paths that lead us to robots interacting
Speaker 1: with us within human spaces. But the folks that Engineered
Speaker 1: Arts are very quick to point out that that future
Speaker 1: is still a pretty good ways off. Amaca is a
Speaker 1: great example of using robotics to mimic human expression, but
Speaker 1: a lot of other pieces have to fall into place
Speaker 1: before you've got a robot capable of navigating through human
Speaker 1: spaces safely. For example, having a robot that can natively
Speaker 1: understand what expressions to pair with different kinds of data.
Speaker 1: That starts to get pretty complicated. Like if you were
Speaker 1: to incorporate, say a smart speaker in a robot like Amica,
Speaker 1: and you were asking it to give you news, and
Speaker 1: maybe the news is pretty dark and disturbing. You don't
Speaker 1: want Amca looking all cheery and happy while delivering that, right,
Speaker 1: that would be a disconnect. These are things that are
Speaker 1: you know, going to take time for us to really
Speaker 1: suss out. But in the nearer term, a robot like
Speaker 1: Amica could be used as like a point of information.
Speaker 1: For example, like you could go perhaps into an office
Speaker 1: building and behind a desk, you might see a robot
Speaker 1: that looks like Amica that's able to give you directions,
Speaker 1: answer basic questions about the building and the tenants in
Speaker 1: the building, perhaps um and to be able to create
Speaker 1: expressions that are human like. Now, that kind of robot
Speaker 1: would be stationary. That drastically simplifies the requirements needed for
Speaker 1: the use case. Right, they don't have to throw what
Speaker 1: doesn't have to get up and walk around? Uh, Because
Speaker 1: you know, the more the robot needs to do in
Speaker 1: order to fulfill whatever the job is, the more complicated.
Speaker 1: The design has to be. However, when you look at
Speaker 1: videos of robots from say Boston Dynamics, it only takes
Speaker 1: a little imagination to combine those capabilities with the really
Speaker 1: expressive amica and to think, yeah, you know what, it is,
Speaker 1: the robots world, and we're all just living in it.
Speaker 1: One of the neatest computer designs I saw coming out
Speaker 1: of c S two was the a sus zen Book
Speaker 1: seventeen fold. Now, as the name suggests, this is a
Speaker 1: seventeen technically seventeen point three inch foldable computer. So when
Speaker 1: folded like a laptop, so that you have you know,
Speaker 1: an upper half and then the desktop half. The top
Speaker 1: screen measures twelve and a half inches, and the bottom
Speaker 1: half can act as a virtual keyboard. You can have
Speaker 1: an on screen keyboard there. You could also pair it
Speaker 1: with a Bluetooth keyboard and either operated like your standard
Speaker 1: laptop with the Bluetooth keyboard position on top of the
Speaker 1: lower folded portion, or you can unfold the screen and
Speaker 1: use a little backstop, turn it on side and it
Speaker 1: serves as a desktop monitor. So this is another hybrid
Speaker 1: device that can perform like a tablet, a laptop, or
Speaker 1: a desktop PC. It can also serve as a multi
Speaker 1: screen display all on one screen. Now, I am notoriously
Speaker 1: negative about touch screen interfaces for computers, but if I
Speaker 1: were to go for one, this is probably what I
Speaker 1: would gravitate toward. I find it pretty interesting, it's versatile,
Speaker 1: and I gotta admit it's also kind of pretty. Uh.
Speaker 1: The o led screen is a big part of it
Speaker 1: being pretty. It's also a big part of how it
Speaker 1: can be foldable in the first place. Asus says the
Speaker 1: launch should be sometime mid year. Uh they hepefully said
Speaker 1: the year in question would be two, so sometime in
Speaker 1: the middle of this year, but there is no price
Speaker 1: information as of yet. Get ready to hear that particular
Speaker 1: phrase on repeat throughout a lot of these stories. One
Speaker 1: thing that I have started doing more since the pandemic
Speaker 1: started is to spend time at this quiet little how
Speaker 1: that that I occasionally occupy well outside of Atlanta, and
Speaker 1: I just look out at nature. The place I go
Speaker 1: to has got a lot of birds around it, and
Speaker 1: I've gotten kind of into bird watching. I just recently
Speaker 1: got a pair of inexpensive binoculars to kind of dip
Speaker 1: my toe in that. And that's why I feel I
Speaker 1: have to talk about the bird Buddy smart bird feeder,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's a bird feeder with smart technology, which
Speaker 1: I know it sounds ridiculous. It sounds just as crazy
Speaker 1: as a smart kitty litter box, But like the kitty
Speaker 1: litter box, this thing has convinced me that I want one. See.
Speaker 1: It's a bird feeder that has an incorporated battery powered
Speaker 1: camera inside it, and the camera can take images and
Speaker 1: video of the birds that visit your feeder and send
Speaker 1: them to a connected app that's on your smartphone. And
Speaker 1: it's that connected app that I really love because not
Speaker 1: only do you get to see the little birdies as
Speaker 1: they come to visit your bird feeder, you go alert
Speaker 1: saying hey, there's a bird there. The app will actually
Speaker 1: identify the types of birds visiting your feeder and we'll
Speaker 1: give you a little bit of information on them. So
Speaker 1: it takes a picture and then identifies the bird based
Speaker 1: on the picture and tells you, oh, well, this is
Speaker 1: the bird. You know, the kind of range that it
Speaker 1: lives in, the kind of foods it likes. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a gamification system in the app. You
Speaker 1: can you know, collect virtual cards of the birds that
Speaker 1: visit you and you can try and catch them all, except,
Speaker 1: of course you're not catching birds, you're feeding them. The
Speaker 1: app also contains hints on how to attract more birds
Speaker 1: to the feeder. Uh. And this was an extremely successful
Speaker 1: Kickstarter project before they went to c S. Kind of
Speaker 1: reminds me of Pebble in that regard, r I p
Speaker 1: Pebble And Uh. They're now taking pre orders for bird feeders,
Speaker 1: which are, as you might have guessed, pretty expensive that
Speaker 1: we're talking two dollars for one, and that's technically a
Speaker 1: fift discount off the what is projected to be the
Speaker 1: final sales price when it does launch. The shipping is
Speaker 1: scheduled for June of twenty twenty two. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: ordered one. I know, I know it's crazy in a
Speaker 1: way to spend two hundred bucks on a bird feeder,
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I'm like, it's pretty neat. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I like the idea a lot, and I kind
Speaker 1: of want to support this company to see what else
Speaker 1: they come up with, because I love the idea of
Speaker 1: being able to observe nature without disturbing it. That's really
Speaker 1: my go to on this. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I got a little swept up in it. Well, if
Speaker 1: you were to visit c E S you would know
Speaker 1: or you would soon find out that the North hall
Speaker 1: of the Las Vegas Convention Center is where you see
Speaker 1: most of the car stuff. One car innovation shown off
Speaker 1: during c e S was BMW's i X flow e
Speaker 1: ink tech. Alright, So e ink is the technology that's
Speaker 1: in a lot of your basic e book gadgets, like
Speaker 1: think of your old, old, old school kindles before they
Speaker 1: became tablets. So it uses a pretty simple principle in
Speaker 1: which you have els under the screen and they're filled
Speaker 1: with electrically charged pigments, typically white and black pigments, and
Speaker 1: you manipulate them with electric fields that either you know,
Speaker 1: that move them to either the surface of the display
Speaker 1: so that they're right up against the back of the screen,
Speaker 1: or they're moved back behind it where you can't see it.
Speaker 1: So let's say you've got negatively charged black pigments and
Speaker 1: positively charged white pigments. Well, opposite charges attract, so you
Speaker 1: could use a positive electric field to pull all the
Speaker 1: black pigment to the top of the cell and you've
Speaker 1: get yourself a black image on the screen. Well, e
Speaker 1: INK displays consists of tons of these cells, each filled
Speaker 1: with these electrically charged pigments. The i X flow body
Speaker 1: tech with BMW takes this concept and applies it to cars,
Speaker 1: So you can have a BMW that has a body
Speaker 1: that can actually change color on demand. The model on
Speaker 1: display at c e S could go from white to
Speaker 1: black and black to white, and could e in display
Speaker 1: changing patterns. So you've got a paint job that you
Speaker 1: can change whenever you like. You can even have it
Speaker 1: essentially be animated as you're driving. So this isn't just
Speaker 1: flashy though. It is that it can also be practical
Speaker 1: when you want to do stuff like reflect light or
Speaker 1: absorb more light depending upon weather conditions. BMW also says
Speaker 1: it's working on a color version of the tech for
Speaker 1: future vehicles. I have no idea how well this will
Speaker 1: hold up to wear and tear, and I imagine if
Speaker 1: you're in a traffic accident, it could be a little
Speaker 1: more expensive to repair than your typical body and paint job,
Speaker 1: but it's still pretty neat. We've got some more ce
Speaker 1: S stories to talk about and a couple of other things,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break. Okay, we're back now.
Speaker 1: If you've dipped your toe into home automation. You know
Speaker 1: that it can get a little bit frustrating if you're
Speaker 1: not all in on a single ecosystem. Um the devices
Speaker 1: and systems typically work pretty well within their own system,
Speaker 1: but they don't always play well with each other if
Speaker 1: you mix and match. In fact, sometimes they can't communicate
Speaker 1: with each other at all, and that gets very frustrating
Speaker 1: when you're trying to you know, kit out your automated home.
Speaker 1: We've seen some movement to try and address this issue. Google, Amazon, Samsung,
Speaker 1: and Apple formed a group called MATTER that will launch
Speaker 1: later this year. The naimes to standardized technologies across home
Speaker 1: automation devices. But to confuse matters a little bit, we
Speaker 1: also now have the Home Connectivity Alliance or h c A. Samsung,
Speaker 1: by the way, also joined the h c A as
Speaker 1: well as MATTER. Maybe Samsung can be the liaison between
Speaker 1: the two standards alliance groups anyway. Other members of the
Speaker 1: h c A include g E, Train, Residential, and electro Lux.
Speaker 1: So we might slowly be moving toward the world where
Speaker 1: consumers can just freely choose which components from which companies
Speaker 1: they want to integrate into their automated home set up
Speaker 1: without having to worry if they're all compatible. It's no
Speaker 1: fun if you've got like a dozen different hubs connected
Speaker 1: to your Internet system and you have to use like
Speaker 1: three different types of smart speakers to interact with them,
Speaker 1: and remember which one controls the lights versus the air
Speaker 1: conditioning and all that kind of stuff. People just want
Speaker 1: their stuff to work, right, That's that's all we want.
Speaker 1: We just want our stuff to work, and we want
Speaker 1: to be able to pick which devices go where. So
Speaker 1: I think that's a good move. Now, those of it,
Speaker 1: y'all who who know what I look like, you might
Speaker 1: be surprised to hear my next ce S takeaway, which
Speaker 1: is the Loureal Color Sonic. This is device used to
Speaker 1: dye your hair from home without dealing with unpredictable results
Speaker 1: and all the mess that home dying jobs typically encounter.
Speaker 1: At least that's the sales pitch for the device. Now,
Speaker 1: the device looks a bit like an elect tronic brush. Uh.
Speaker 1: They have bristles that oscillate, and in between the bristles
Speaker 1: there are little nozzles. The device also has a space
Speaker 1: where you insert a cartridge of hair dye. Then they're
Speaker 1: gonna have something like forty different colors when they actually
Speaker 1: launched this thing, which will be in twenty three. The
Speaker 1: device pushes the hair dye through those nozzles that are
Speaker 1: interspersed with the bristles, and the nozzles zigzag while the
Speaker 1: bristles oscillate, and you just brush it through your hair,
Speaker 1: so you you know, it's like you're doing just a
Speaker 1: once over through each section of your hair with this thing,
Speaker 1: and then you wait about half an hour, then you
Speaker 1: rense it out and voila, says Loreal, you have a reliable,
Speaker 1: consistent home hair dye job. This device is not scheduled
Speaker 1: to launch until twenty three, like I said, and I
Speaker 1: do not know how much it will cost, nor how
Speaker 1: much the cartridges will cost. I do know that they
Speaker 1: say that for most hair dye jobs, a single cartridge
Speaker 1: will be sufficient to do the full job. And for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you might not even use up
Speaker 1: all the dye that's in a single cartridge, and you
Speaker 1: can just hold on to that and use it for
Speaker 1: a future application so that you're not having die go
Speaker 1: to waste. Uh. Seems pretty simple, at least as simple
Speaker 1: as brushing your hair, which I admit I have not
Speaker 1: done in about twenty three years, so it's possible that
Speaker 1: it's trickier than I remember. But whatever, Okay, y'all, I
Speaker 1: live in Georgia, and even without the issues of climate change,
Speaker 1: we rarely see significance amounts of snow. You're talking like
Speaker 1: maybe an inch or inch and a half. Possibly we
Speaker 1: see more ice than snow, which is way worse. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't get a less snow here. And since the
Speaker 1: weather this week the first week of January was hovering
Speaker 1: around seventy degrees fahrenheit, I suspect it might be a
Speaker 1: while before I get another big snowfall in my life.
Speaker 1: But for y'all who do see snow, maybe you would
Speaker 1: be interested in the Moonbike's snowbike. So yeah, it's an
Speaker 1: electric bike for the snow kind of like a paired
Speaker 1: down snowmobile. The handlebars steer a ski that's in the front,
Speaker 1: and the whole thing is propelled with a battery powered
Speaker 1: snow tread that's in the back half of the snowbike.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised to see something like this in
Speaker 1: a James Bond film, only I don't know that it
Speaker 1: lives up to Bonds, you know, very demanding specifications It's
Speaker 1: two thirds the size of a normal snowmobile, and according
Speaker 1: to Moonbike's CEO, the bike can hold up to two batteries.
Speaker 1: You can mount two different batteries in it, and each
Speaker 1: battery provides up to one and a half hour's worth
Speaker 1: of writing time. Again, that's according to the CEO. I
Speaker 1: saw other people suggest that it might be closer to
Speaker 1: like forty five minutes, which is a significant smaller amount
Speaker 1: of time, like half the time. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I haven't actually tested these. But unlike a lot of
Speaker 1: other stuff at c e S, this is a product
Speaker 1: that's actually launched right now. You can order one here
Speaker 1: in the United States and expect delivery before the end
Speaker 1: of January. Now, if you're wondering how much it costs, well,
Speaker 1: it'll set you back at minimum around bucks. That's eight thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars. That's without adding a second battery or
Speaker 1: other options. It also doesn't include taxes, so you will
Speaker 1: be actually paying more than that. But hey, if you
Speaker 1: got around you know, like ten grand to burn, and
Speaker 1: you've got a ton of snow to tool around in,
Speaker 1: maybe this could be your new toy. I think it
Speaker 1: sounds pretty neat, but it's obviously meant for you know,
Speaker 1: someone else, like not me. And our next two items
Speaker 1: are all about virtual reality, and you know, VR has
Speaker 1: had a real slow burn as far as mass adoption goes.
Speaker 1: Part of that might be because traditionally VR headsets are
Speaker 1: bulky and uncomfortable to wear. In fact, the first time
Speaker 1: I ever wore a VR headset, it was supported by
Speaker 1: cables from the ceiling in order to take some of
Speaker 1: the weight off of the user, because otherwise it would
Speaker 1: just been too heavy. Plus I think I was like
Speaker 1: twelve at the time. It probably would have crushed me.
Speaker 1: I was, I was a wee up of a lad.
Speaker 1: But Panasonic is introducing a lightweight headset called the Megan
Speaker 1: X VR glasses. Megan X is really hard for me
Speaker 1: to say. It looks like Megan the name Megan followed
Speaker 1: by X. So if your ex's name Megan, maybe it'll
Speaker 1: be easy for you. Anyway. These glasses weigh in at
Speaker 1: about half a pound or just over eight ounces. The
Speaker 1: glasses look kind of like those sunglasses you see that
Speaker 1: have the shields around them that blackout light from the sides.
Speaker 1: I always think of Judge Doom from who framed Roger
Speaker 1: Rabbit or David Tennant's Crowley from Good Omens, the television adaptation. Anyway,
Speaker 1: these obviously do not have transparent lenses because it's a
Speaker 1: VR headset, it's not an augmented reality headset. And there
Speaker 1: are speakers embedded in the frames of the glasses. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's bone conduction or if it's just
Speaker 1: regular speakers. Um. And the frames actually do fold, so
Speaker 1: the the ears pieces do fold down like a classic
Speaker 1: pair of glasses do. And the display in these things
Speaker 1: is no joke. It's able to project five point two
Speaker 1: K resolution video with high dynamic range a K a
Speaker 1: h d R, which you know, provides those really vibrant,
Speaker 1: lifelike colors. And there's some stuff we don't know yet,
Speaker 1: like we don't know when it's going to be launched,
Speaker 1: we don't know how much it are gonna cost. We
Speaker 1: don't know whether or not they're going to be wireless
Speaker 1: or if you're going to be tethered to a PC
Speaker 1: in order to use them. Obviously, that's another big barrier
Speaker 1: to adoption for VR. Most people aren't too keen on
Speaker 1: having to be connected to a device. It limits your movement,
Speaker 1: so that's you know, the price, the weight, and tethering
Speaker 1: I think are three big barriers to mass adoption, but um,
Speaker 1: you know, this one looks pretty cool. I'm still not
Speaker 1: sold on VR becoming mainstream just yet, but this could
Speaker 1: be a look into a future that maybe could see
Speaker 1: more widespread adoption, at least among the those of you
Speaker 1: out there who could afford it. I don't count myself
Speaker 1: among those, by the way. And the other big VR
Speaker 1: story out of c e S is the PlayStation VR
Speaker 1: two and the VR two Sense controllers. Uh. This system
Speaker 1: is designed specifically for the PS five, which I'm told exists,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's still really hard to find one.
Speaker 1: The headset provides four K video with HDR and a
Speaker 1: one degree field of view. The display is an O
Speaker 1: LED display, and Sony says that the frame rate should
Speaker 1: be between ninety two one hurts. Frame rate is how
Speaker 1: many frames are presented to you per second. Generally speaking,
Speaker 1: you want a lot of frames to give a nice
Speaker 1: smooth experience. You want around at least sixty hurts typically
Speaker 1: for like the high end gamers, so hurts is good.
Speaker 1: It's also got eye tracking technology built into it, so
Speaker 1: not only can the headset track the way you turn
Speaker 1: your head, you can also detect what your eyes are
Speaker 1: looking at. That could potentially be useful for future game
Speaker 1: developers if they can find ways to incorporate eye tracking
Speaker 1: features that are a natural fit for the game. Obviously,
Speaker 1: just throwing it in there to throw it in there
Speaker 1: that never works out. We've seen it fail with stuff
Speaker 1: like the connect. But if you can find a way
Speaker 1: to incorporate it in a way that is fun and
Speaker 1: makes sense, maybe includes like accessibility features for people who
Speaker 1: otherwise would have trouble playing these things, I think that's great.
Speaker 1: The Sense controllers have haptic feedback. I always just think
Speaker 1: of that as a good old rumble pack and adaptive triggers,
Speaker 1: so in other words, the tension on the triggers can change.
Speaker 1: So Sony said, imagine that you're drawing an arrow in
Speaker 1: a bow. You might actually feel the resistance and the
Speaker 1: trigger to represent the resistance you would feel as you
Speaker 1: start to draw the bowstring back. Sony will be releasing
Speaker 1: a Horizon game for this system called Horizon Call of
Speaker 1: the Mountain, and it will be a VR showcase for
Speaker 1: this particular system. It was actually developed for VR from
Speaker 1: the beginning, so it's not a game that's been adapted
Speaker 1: for VR, but is this often the case with gadgets
Speaker 1: at c e S. We have no release date or
Speaker 1: price for it yet. I expect we'll hear a lot
Speaker 1: more of it later in the year. Sony typically holds
Speaker 1: one or two big events virtual events at least throughout
Speaker 1: the year, so I'm sure we'll hear more about it then.
Speaker 1: All right, we have a couple more stories to go
Speaker 1: before we get to that. Let's take another quick break.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like the metaverse was all over CEES
Speaker 1: this year. Actually followed a Twitter thread that was documenting
Speaker 1: different examples of booths that incorporated the phrase or the
Speaker 1: term metaverse in them, sometimes with no real obvious connection
Speaker 1: to anything that you might think of as a metaverse,
Speaker 1: but it is definitely out there in terms of marketing
Speaker 1: and buzz. As for anything practical, that's a totally different matter.
Speaker 1: But some stuff that frequently gets lumped in with the
Speaker 1: metaverse did get shown off at c S, namely n
Speaker 1: F T S. Samsung is the culprit here and they
Speaker 1: showed off their two thousand, twenty two connected TVs that
Speaker 1: will support art n F T S. N F T S,
Speaker 1: by the way, that's non fungible tokens if somehow you
Speaker 1: have avoided the term up to this point. And n
Speaker 1: f T I can really represent anything digital. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be like a digital piece of art that
Speaker 1: you look at. It could be anything digital. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a certificate of ownership. Like if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen those commercials where you can own a star
Speaker 1: and you get a certificate that says you're the owner
Speaker 1: of the star. I would argue that n f T
Speaker 1: s are pretty much the same thing as that. So
Speaker 1: what does this mean practically? That is hard to say
Speaker 1: because digital goods, being digital, are really easy to copy
Speaker 1: and distribute. So you have ownership of something that you
Speaker 1: don't actually have. You don't have control over it, you
Speaker 1: have ownership of it. It's it's a weird thing. It's
Speaker 1: also you know, it's not like a one of a
Speaker 1: kind physical work of art, right where there's only one
Speaker 1: of them that exists. All the rest are copies or
Speaker 1: prints or whatever, but only one true one exists and
Speaker 1: it can inhabit a physical space. The tokens just represent ownership.
Speaker 1: But Samsung TVs will let you display the n f
Speaker 1: T art that you own in your home, so you
Speaker 1: can show off those eight cartoons to all your guests
Speaker 1: as they walk through your classy high rise penthouse apartment.
Speaker 1: That's just the way I imagine enough T people living. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then you get to explain to your guests why
Speaker 1: you paid tens of thousands of dollars for eight cartoons.
Speaker 1: More on that later in this episode. Also, apparently you'll
Speaker 1: be able to purchase and sell n f T art
Speaker 1: through Samsung's televisions. And can you tell that I hate
Speaker 1: this already? For the record, I don't mind thinking of
Speaker 1: n f T s as a way to support an artist,
Speaker 1: at least not, you know, on the surface of it.
Speaker 1: But then after artists sells in n f T, I
Speaker 1: don't think you're supporting the artist anymore like that. That's
Speaker 1: that one point of sale, right the artist sells an
Speaker 1: n f T representing something they've created, they make money
Speaker 1: off of it. You have supported the artists. But then
Speaker 1: let's say you turn around and you sell the n
Speaker 1: f T you bought for, say twenty bucks, and you
Speaker 1: sell it to someone else for a hundred bucks, and
Speaker 1: then that person turns around they sell it to someone
Speaker 1: else for a thousand bucks. And this keeps on going
Speaker 1: until the bottom falls out. Well, the original artist only
Speaker 1: sees that first twenty bucks, right, It's not like they're
Speaker 1: getting kickbacks of all these other sales, and so you're
Speaker 1: not really supporting the artist. I would argue, it's really
Speaker 1: more of a speculation engine that just keeps going until
Speaker 1: it falls apart. At least that's how I see it.
Speaker 1: And maybe I'm one of the blind who isn't releasing
Speaker 1: the promise of n f T s. That's how they
Speaker 1: come across to me anyway. Uh, Samsung is letting you
Speaker 1: show that n f T art on your television and
Speaker 1: we'll let you look at the metadata and everything. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: The other reason I'm not super crazy about n f
Speaker 1: t s is they're built on top of the Ethereum blockchain,
Speaker 1: and at least as of now, Ethereum is still on
Speaker 1: a proof of work model of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency mining,
Speaker 1: which means it plays into the conspicuous consumption of electricity
Speaker 1: and thus is a contributor to stuff like carbon emissions
Speaker 1: and climate change. Not really crazy about any of that anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Samsung TVs are r l in on that. Something else
Speaker 1: Samsung did was they finally got into the o LED game.
Speaker 1: See Samsung TVs for a while have been based on
Speaker 1: l e ED technology, and they have created their own
Speaker 1: tech called q LEAD that stands for Quantum Dot l
Speaker 1: e ED displays. But this year Samsung showed off TV
Speaker 1: screens and computer monitors using oh LAD technology while incorporating
Speaker 1: the quantum dot technology with it. With an oh LAD screen,
Speaker 1: every single pixel, that is, every single point of light
Speaker 1: you see on the screen is its own back light,
Speaker 1: so you can you can illuminate an individual pixel and
Speaker 1: not illuminate anything else. So oh LAD screens are able
Speaker 1: to show off scenes that have really dark colors like
Speaker 1: true black, in a better way than traditional l e
Speaker 1: D screens can. Traditional l e D s have a
Speaker 1: backlight for the whole shebang. That means that some light
Speaker 1: tends to bleed through l e D screens, so you
Speaker 1: can't really display true blacks on screen very effectively. They
Speaker 1: typically come out as more of like a dark charcoal gray,
Speaker 1: uh so, so you don't get good contrast with really
Speaker 1: dark sequences. I have had really bad experiences trying to
Speaker 1: watch Batman movies on l e ED displays because of that.
Speaker 1: So I don't know how much these televisions and computer
Speaker 1: monitors are going to cost. My guess is it will
Speaker 1: be a heck of a lot. We're talking on the
Speaker 1: premium side of technology, oh lad. Screens are still expensive
Speaker 1: in general, much less so than they were just a
Speaker 1: few years ago. I mean a few years ago you
Speaker 1: were talking about tens of thousands of dollars. It's much
Speaker 1: less than that now. But my guess is that the
Speaker 1: q d O LED screens are going to be super
Speaker 1: prisy when they first come out and limited to the
Speaker 1: real high rollers out there with the crazy home theater setups.
Speaker 1: And finally rounding out our c S segments, Sony has
Speaker 1: introduced an suv, which just seems like a weird series
Speaker 1: of words to say. Sony is known for its consumer
Speaker 1: electronics like televisions and Walkman's and such, but an suv. Well.
Speaker 1: Last year, Sony showed off an electric car concept called
Speaker 1: the Vision S, but the company made it clear that
Speaker 1: the car was simply a prototype and it was never
Speaker 1: going to go into production. The company was not going
Speaker 1: to get into the car business right then and there.
Speaker 1: It was more of a platform upon which Sony could
Speaker 1: display numerous technologies that could be incorporated into vehicles made
Speaker 1: by other companies. This year, Sony introduced the Vision s
Speaker 1: O two and electric suv. It's also act with Sony
Speaker 1: Technology Moreover. This time, Sony exacts say the company is
Speaker 1: considering the possibility of going into production with this suv,
Speaker 1: so there's no commitment. So my guess is that the
Speaker 1: chances of Sony actually producing the s O two are
Speaker 1: pretty low, but there is a chance. Sony did announce
Speaker 1: the formation of a new subsidiary called Sony Mobility Incorporated,
Speaker 1: which will be in the business of developing and producing
Speaker 1: electric vehicles. So Sony is getting into the electric car business.
Speaker 1: They have created a subsidiary just for that. So if
Speaker 1: the Vision s O two never materializes as a consumer vehicle,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we will see cars and SUVs descended from
Speaker 1: the s O two is design in the future. The
Speaker 1: prototype that they showed off included sensors and systems for
Speaker 1: autonomous driving, though again I hastened to add, no one
Speaker 1: has developed a fully autonomous vehicle yet, but again it
Speaker 1: was kind of a showcase Sony technology. Okay, that's the
Speaker 1: c E S round up. Let's talk about some other
Speaker 1: news before we conclude. Uh, well, one thing is that
Speaker 1: Google continues to give its employees reasons to be angry
Speaker 1: at the company. Google is a publicly traded company. That
Speaker 1: means that the company has to file documents with the
Speaker 1: Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC in the United States
Speaker 1: and include stuff like you know how much revenue they generated,
Speaker 1: what their expenses were, what are the executive salaries? That
Speaker 1: kind of thing, And a recent SEC filing showed that
Speaker 1: Google has given a group of four executives a pay rise.
Speaker 1: They went from a salary of six fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a year to one million dollars a year each, with
Speaker 1: a potential bonus of up to two million dollars plus
Speaker 1: company shares worth millions more. Now, that alone might not
Speaker 1: be enough to upset humble Googlers, except only a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago. In the dying days of one, employees
Speaker 1: were told that the company was probably not going to
Speaker 1: issue employee raises to compensate for inflation, so there was
Speaker 1: not going to be a salary adjustment to help employees
Speaker 1: deal with the fact at inflation is a thing. So
Speaker 1: your average Google employee isn't getting a raise or pay adjustment.
Speaker 1: But these four executives are seeing their salaries nearly double.
Speaker 1: It is not, as they say, a good look. France
Speaker 1: also isn't giving good looks towards Google and also Meta
Speaker 1: slash Facebook. French regulators have issued fines for both companies,
Speaker 1: citing issues with the companies using cookies to track user
Speaker 1: activities see in France, especially really in the European Union.
Speaker 1: In general, citizens are supposed to have full control over
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, over their information. They're supposed to
Speaker 1: be able to opt out of cookies and having their
Speaker 1: data tracked and leveraged, and it's supposed to be easy
Speaker 1: and transparent. But the regulators say that both Google and
Speaker 1: Meta have failed to meet those standards. In Google's case,
Speaker 1: the fine amounts to around a hundred fifty million euros
Speaker 1: that's about a hundred sixty nine point five million US dollars,
Speaker 1: and then a slash Facebook faces a fine of six
Speaker 1: sea million euros or around sixty eight million dollars. Moreover,
Speaker 1: the two companies have three months to fix things and
Speaker 1: remove those cookies, or at least give French citizens options
Speaker 1: to opt out that aren't buried in settings menus and
Speaker 1: made very difficult to find. If the companies failed to
Speaker 1: do that, then they will get find one thousand euros
Speaker 1: per day that they failed to meet those standards. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: in the United States, there is a move to push
Speaker 1: for data privacy laws that sound to be similar to
Speaker 1: the ones under g DPR in Europe. The argument mostly
Speaker 1: centers around how social network sites like Facebook have served
Speaker 1: as a way to radicalize people and to spread misinformation,
Speaker 1: even though presumably that is not the intent of those companies. Basically,
Speaker 1: the argument goes like this, These companies collect user data
Speaker 1: to determine what to serve to those users to keep
Speaker 1: them on the platform as long as possible. The content
Speaker 1: served to users starts to push them to increasingly radicalized
Speaker 1: groups and facilitates the spread of misinformation. The platforms scoop
Speaker 1: up the cash because their concern is just keeping the
Speaker 1: folks on the sites for as long as possible. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter to them what is being shown to those
Speaker 1: users to make that happen, So, say the advocates, what
Speaker 1: is needed are more stringent data privacy laws that would
Speaker 1: prevent companies from vacuuming up personal details left, right and
Speaker 1: center and give the power back to the individual to
Speaker 1: decide what they want and don't want to share with
Speaker 1: these companies and how it gets used now that undercuts
Speaker 1: the entire system and it protects user privacy. This is
Speaker 1: an interesting angle to take see. Over in Europe, the
Speaker 1: general message was g d p R is about protecting
Speaker 1: citizen privacy and giving them, you know, more agency. Here
Speaker 1: in the US, it's being framed more about curtailing radicalization
Speaker 1: and the spread of misinformation. Anyway, while there's a movement
Speaker 1: a way to push for those regulations here in the
Speaker 1: United States, there are a lot of steps that have
Speaker 1: to be taken before we ever see anything like that
Speaker 1: actually happened. And then a couple more stories. Russia's space
Speaker 1: program had a bit of a whoop see this week. Actually,
Speaker 1: the whoop see happened last week, but the ultimate consequence
Speaker 1: of the whoop see happened yesterday. Namely, Russia launched an Angara,
Speaker 1: a five heavy lift rocket which was carrying a pur
Speaker 1: Si or per C a p E R S E
Speaker 1: I my Russian is non existent. Anyway, They launched an
Speaker 1: upper stage booster as a test mission to test that booster,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately the test was a failure. Uh the Angara
Speaker 1: lifted off as it was supposed to, but when it's
Speaker 1: separated with the upper stage, the upper stage failed to
Speaker 1: attain orbit, so it didn't get high enough to avoid
Speaker 1: falling back to Earth, which it finally did yesterday. It
Speaker 1: launched late last week, but the the the the uncontrolled
Speaker 1: descent of the upper stage happened yesterday, several pieces plunging
Speaker 1: into the Pacific Ocean in an uncontrolled re entry, which
Speaker 1: is the nice space way of saying a crash. And finally,
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that we would talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about n f t s. One thing I did
Speaker 1: not think we would hear a lot about with n
Speaker 1: f t s would be art heists because it's a
Speaker 1: digital token, right, it's a representation of ownership. I didn't think, oh,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a heist thing. And I guess
Speaker 1: you could break into someone's home or their office and
Speaker 1: try to steal a physical hard drive that holds the
Speaker 1: wallet that contains those n f t s, but then
Speaker 1: you have to figure out how to get access to it.
Speaker 1: Now it turns out I am way too shortsighted. Hackers
Speaker 1: using phishing techniques were able to steal fifteen n f
Speaker 1: t s from a an art uh gallery owner named
Speaker 1: Todd Kramer. These n f T s, which included ape
Speaker 1: cartoons from the board Ape Yacht Club, which is why
Speaker 1: I was referencing apes earlier. They were valued at more
Speaker 1: than two million dollars because, and I cannot stress this enough,
Speaker 1: n f T s are stupid. Anyway, the hackers gained
Speaker 1: access to Kramer's n f T wallet through fishing and
Speaker 1: then went on to sell those n f T s.
Speaker 1: They had control of them, so they went ahead and
Speaker 1: sold them. And n f T platform called open c
Speaker 1: that's s e A helped Cramer out and froze the
Speaker 1: stolen n f T s on the market and helped
Speaker 1: him retrieve at least some of them. But even that
Speaker 1: action has caused a stir in the n f T community.
Speaker 1: See if a platform can intervene and prevent or reverse
Speaker 1: n f T transactions, well then that whole decentralized, unregulated
Speaker 1: market thing kind of starts to fall apart. So ironically,
Speaker 1: the fact that Kramer was able to retrieve at least
Speaker 1: some of his n f T s might mean that
Speaker 1: we could see confidence waiver with n f T s
Speaker 1: as a whole, and the value of that collection could
Speaker 1: take a hit. Then again, maybe it won't. Maybe it
Speaker 1: really will just go to the moon and the only
Speaker 1: person who will be left out will be me. But
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm okay with that. I don't mind
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong about this. I worry about it. I
Speaker 1: worry that a lot of n f t s are
Speaker 1: just scams, and that the ones that are quote unquote
Speaker 1: legit are just scams in in waiting, like they weren't
Speaker 1: necessarily intended to be scams. But I think that I'm
Speaker 1: I'm worried that there won't be any there there, and
Speaker 1: then it will all fall apart and people will lose
Speaker 1: a lot of money. I'm hoping that the people who
Speaker 1: lose a lot of money are people who kind of
Speaker 1: deserve to lose a lot of money. But my worry
Speaker 1: is that, you know, good people who got suckered in
Speaker 1: will be the victims of this, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to see that happen. Okay, that's it. That's the news
Speaker 1: for a Thursday, January six two. This was a long
Speaker 1: one for a news episode, but we had a lot
Speaker 1: of ce S stuff to get through. If you have
Speaker 1: suggestions for topics I should over in future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, please reach out to me on Twitter. The
Speaker 1: handle for the show is text stuff H s W
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff
Speaker 1: is an I heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.