Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Enter the twisted mind of ed Zitron. This is better offline.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: We're here in New York City, New York State, and
Speaker 2: we've got a great guest, Lisa Atichico from CNN. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us, Lisa on this horrible
Speaker 2: wet day, truly truly one of the ugliest days in
Speaker 2: New York history. But nevertheless, we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: consumer tech to then and everyone says, oh, Ed, you've
Speaker 2: got to be nicey, you've got to be like things more.
Speaker 2: But what's a gadget you've actually liked this year? Like,
Speaker 2: what's what's the stuff you've been enjoying?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's it's kind of funny because I feel
Speaker 4: like when I think about gadgets, I think about them
Speaker 4: two ways. There's one like the gadgets I would actually
Speaker 4: buy and that I actually use every day, and then
Speaker 4: two the ones that are I think interesting for what
Speaker 4: they say about the industry or that have been fun
Speaker 4: to write about and fun to cover, and for the
Speaker 4: things that I have enjoyed using this year.
Speaker 1: I would say it's a lot of the.
Speaker 4: Things you'd expect, like the Nintendo Switch to is a
Speaker 4: fun one. This year, the new Apple Watch, because I'm
Speaker 4: a big Apple Watch user, things like that, And then
Speaker 4: there's the other category of things that I think have
Speaker 4: been really fun to write about, and for that, I
Speaker 4: would say the Galaxy x are definitely stands out.
Speaker 2: So what is the Galaxy So that's the Vision prone too, right, Yes,
Speaker 2: So how comfortable is it? Stop there?
Speaker 4: I would say, I mean, none of these things are
Speaker 4: super comfortable, to be honest. It's still this thing that's
Speaker 4: bigger than a pair of glasses, bigger than something you're
Speaker 4: used to wearing on your face, so it's always going
Speaker 4: to be a little bit uncomfortable. I do think the
Speaker 4: Galaxy XR was like very easy to adjust and get
Speaker 4: to fit correctly for me. I feel like a lot
Speaker 4: of these headsets usually are a little too big for
Speaker 4: me or might like fall off my head.
Speaker 2: The Vision Crow I have a giant Bonce, giant giant
Speaker 2: head and that thing. Try to get that thing on
Speaker 2: was like balancing a cup of tea on.
Speaker 1: My head exactly. It's never it's never that comfortable. It's
Speaker 1: kind of weird. Yeah, I do feel like it was
Speaker 1: easy to adjust.
Speaker 4: It wasn't the most comfortable thing to wear, but I only,
Speaker 4: and I only wore it for like maybe about twenty
Speaker 4: minutes at a time, So I do feel like wearing
Speaker 4: it for extended use cases, the kinds of things that
Speaker 4: Samsung and Google think you'll use it for, like productivity
Speaker 4: and entertainment. I think that's I don't know how comfortable
Speaker 4: it would be to wear it for, like, you know,
Speaker 4: if I'm working on a project or watching a movie
Speaker 4: or something.
Speaker 2: To say, you wouldn't do like your actual work inside it, I.
Speaker 1: Would try it.
Speaker 4: I think it would just take some time to get
Speaker 4: used to, you know, wearing that thing for like an
Speaker 4: hour or longer.
Speaker 2: Because as like a vision pro truth and I think
Speaker 2: I mentioned this in person previously, but I can't use
Speaker 2: my vision pro right now. I can use it, but
Speaker 2: I can't update it unless you keep it on your
Speaker 2: head during the update, which is one of the most
Speaker 2: insane ideas ever. But I genuinely like that. When I
Speaker 2: was trying it, I was so tall because eighty five
Speaker 2: percent of the time, I fucking hate it. I just
Speaker 2: I really I was just like mad at it because
Speaker 2: like it would something would like my cat would brush
Speaker 2: my head and that it would be out of focus.
Speaker 2: But there were these times on getting it and be like,
Speaker 2: this is actually really cool. I'm like writing, I wrote
Speaker 2: a whole thing on it, like it was back in
Speaker 2: the earlier days of the show. I was like, I
Speaker 2: really like, this's got some music in the background. And
Speaker 2: then again like Babu my cat would knock me in
Speaker 2: the head because he's very affectionate cat to do now
Speaker 2: he's a lovely affectionate cat, massive part of the show.
Speaker 2: And then I'd need to readjust it and then I
Speaker 2: would start to get a headache. Did you did you
Speaker 2: find that the software was good on the Galaxy one?
Speaker 2: Like how was it in comparison?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there's a couple of big things that stand
Speaker 4: out to me. I think the Gemini integration is really good,
Speaker 4: and it should be because that's the one thing that
Speaker 4: Google and Samsung are kind of pitching as setting this
Speaker 4: apart from the Vision Pro and previous attempts at mixed
Speaker 4: reality and VR, but the idea that you can just
Speaker 4: look at something and ask a question about it. Like
Speaker 4: in my demo from October, I was looking at photos
Speaker 4: and Google photos, and yes, it's cool that you can
Speaker 4: look at them on a giant screen and everything, But
Speaker 4: for me, what felt like the new thing that this
Speaker 4: is bringing to the table is being able to look
Speaker 4: at that photo and be like, oh, where in the
Speaker 4: world those types of trees usually grow and can like
Speaker 4: that combination of like knowing what you're looking at without
Speaker 4: having to really specify. I do think the vision Pro
Speaker 4: is better at certain things like media for example, right,
Speaker 4: I mean some of the like spatial videos that have
Speaker 4: been created for the vision Pro are.
Speaker 1: Just like breathtaking when you look at them.
Speaker 4: But I don't I don't know that I would buy
Speaker 4: a vision Pro for that reason, but it is very impressive.
Speaker 2: It is the thing like even with both of them,
Speaker 2: they have the same problem where it's like this is
Speaker 2: a cool idea, like oh, I know where that tree
Speaker 2: is now, like great, but it's like practically within my
Speaker 2: life when am I sitting down being like when where's
Speaker 2: that tree from? Like where is the Yeah, where's the
Speaker 2: practical uses in With the vision Pro, it's like great,
Speaker 2: I can put this on my head and walk around
Speaker 2: with it. I can kind of see who is this for?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's the big question.
Speaker 4: And I feel like that's kind of at least for
Speaker 4: me when I try to look at Okay, what new
Speaker 4: products have been successful and did actually start a category
Speaker 4: and catch on with consumers, and.
Speaker 1: Which ones haven't.
Speaker 4: And the thing that I've kind of noticed is the
Speaker 4: ones I haven't or when you really try to kind
Speaker 4: of force a user behavior that isn't there. And sometimes
Speaker 4: I feel like that's what's happening with these headsets, is
Speaker 4: that the technology is very, very cool, it's very advanced,
Speaker 4: but it always feels like it's a step towards something
Speaker 4: more natural that we haven't gotten to yet. And you
Speaker 4: could say that about the Oculis Drift that came out
Speaker 4: more than ten years ago. In some cases, even the
Speaker 4: headsets today. I still feel that way about.
Speaker 2: And the Steam. Have you seen the Steam frame? We
Speaker 2: just add the valve.
Speaker 1: I haven't tried it. I've seen I don't think.
Speaker 2: I don't. I think I just had stay from games.
Speaker 2: Next is on and he tried it a bit. But
Speaker 2: it's with all these things, it's like I wish that
Speaker 2: have waited four years. Yeah, I wish that wait because
Speaker 2: there are those moments like you mentioned with the special video,
Speaker 2: where it's like, holy shit, like this is actually really cool.
Speaker 2: Like I watched like a basketball game on the Vision
Speaker 2: promo I'm like, this is this is actually.
Speaker 1: Hard until you try it right.
Speaker 4: And that's the things I don't feel like that many
Speaker 4: people are gonna have the opportunity to really try it
Speaker 4: at length, to work it into their lives. But yeah,
Speaker 4: the idea of like, oh my god, it really does
Speaker 4: feel like I'm sitting courtside right, Yeah, that's very cool.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is that even if it's just
Speaker 2: a big TV, that is cool. The problem is is
Speaker 2: you can just sit down and watch a television. He
Speaker 2: just turned the bloody thing on. I have. I have
Speaker 2: this Nebular X one projector, which I fucking like. It's
Speaker 2: like Anchor, It's so good soundpoll now, and I just
Speaker 2: got like a nice screen I pull up and that
Speaker 2: just even that it's like two or three minutes to
Speaker 2: diddling around. But I now have one hundred inch screen
Speaker 2: in my apartment. That's so much less work than the
Speaker 2: vision Pro because the vision pro is like constant maintenance,
Speaker 2: and I feel like if they waited, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it may in case a friend of the show, he
Speaker 2: suggests that this will just never happen. I honestly don't
Speaker 2: necessarily know if I disagree with him on this one,
Speaker 2: but it's like, I really hope it does. If it
Speaker 2: was just something like maybe out no, like a hat
Speaker 2: that just worked, that would be cool. But we're like, no,
Speaker 2: not even.
Speaker 1: Close right exactly.
Speaker 4: And I think that's kind of why a lot of
Speaker 4: these companies are kind of working towards these smart glasses instead.
Speaker 1: Because they are natural.
Speaker 4: They do feel like something you would wear, whether there
Speaker 4: was tech in them or not. But again, I feel
Speaker 4: like convincing people that this is something that's actually going
Speaker 4: to be more convenient might be difficult.
Speaker 1: Although I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, people who wear glasses might say, hey, I
Speaker 4: need new glasses anyway, and that looks cool.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll try it.
Speaker 2: The thing is with the smart glasses is I just
Speaker 2: have to wonder about the social problem because I know
Speaker 2: if one of my friends other than like Victoria Suga,
Speaker 2: came on wearing them, if someone was wearing them when
Speaker 2: I was like at a bar, I wouldn't want to
Speaker 2: look at them. I have to wonder how most people
Speaker 2: would feel about that.
Speaker 4: I think there's that that's an important part. I also
Speaker 4: feel like the interaction element is going to be weird
Speaker 4: socially because you're out, let's say, we're sitting here talking
Speaker 4: or we're at a cafe and we're talking about something
Speaker 4: and I'm like, oh, let me go look that up
Speaker 4: on my phone. If instead I were to say, I
Speaker 4: can just ask gem and I in my glasses.
Speaker 2: We're just staring dead eye right exactly. Well that Victoria's
Speaker 2: some from the virtual Tradition was showing, It's like when
Speaker 2: you're looking, it is this weird kind of dead eye,
Speaker 2: this dead eyed step, because you're just your eye is
Speaker 2: staring at the corner. And I just wonder, like, as
Speaker 2: cool as it is, what's the point of the smart
Speaker 2: glasses as well? Like I can I see the Vision
Speaker 2: pro as a more and even the Galaxy one as
Speaker 2: a more fundamentally sound idea than the glasses, because at
Speaker 2: some point it's like, okay, if I'm wearing glasses, like
Speaker 2: I need guidance where I'm going, I guess that's useful,
Speaker 2: But like, am I just putting this on versus Okay,
Speaker 2: I'll put on a helmet and watch a sports game.
Speaker 4: I think the way that icy glasses, if they do
Speaker 4: take off, the reason why I would almost think of
Speaker 4: them as like kind of like the way you think
Speaker 4: of AirPods and wireless earbuds like some that's on you.
Speaker 4: You can use it to listen to music, to take
Speaker 4: calls as you're walking, and then it also has that
Speaker 4: optional displays you can, you know, see where you're going
Speaker 4: or look at directions or whatever you might want to
Speaker 4: look at, like the time whatever. So kind of like
Speaker 4: bridging together like what you would use a smart watch
Speaker 4: for and what you would use wireless ear buds for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see that, and I just wonder as well,
Speaker 2: will Apple even bother will Google even like actually, if
Speaker 2: Google does it again, I have to respect them. After
Speaker 2: the whole Google Glass debacle, are they still around Google Glass?
Speaker 2: I want, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I don't know where the latest on Google Glass stands.
Speaker 4: I don't think they are. I know they kind of
Speaker 4: pivoted to enterprise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I wasn't That's why I wasn't sure
Speaker 2: if they'd done away, because I know Microsoft is basically
Speaker 2: killed HoloLens, but they have a very small enterprise division. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean at this point with I feel like I
Speaker 4: don't know for sure. I can't speak for Google, but
Speaker 4: it would make sense for them to I feel like
Speaker 4: focus more on Android x are and the future of
Speaker 4: that platform at this point, well, for me, take.
Speaker 2: It a slight change. The one thing I will say
Speaker 2: is this is an unpopular opinion. That can have my
Speaker 2: house for this one. I love the iPhone AS and
Speaker 2: I heard that they're delaying the next one to like
Speaker 2: twenty thirty seven. I'm very disapoint I'm very upset by this.
Speaker 2: I love the iPhone A.
Speaker 1: I do like it to me for it, no, I
Speaker 1: think it's a good phone.
Speaker 4: And for Apple, I feel like they don't you know,
Speaker 4: that's all they need is a good iPhone.
Speaker 1: People will buy it right.
Speaker 4: It doesn't have to reinvent the wheel every single time
Speaker 4: they come out with a new phone. I do think
Speaker 4: where Apple can struggle sometimes is when you have these
Speaker 4: in between models that are like not too different in
Speaker 4: price from whatever. The cheapest iPhone and the most expensive
Speaker 4: iPhone is like that. For whatever reason, this is just
Speaker 4: again my own observation, Apple's audience has a hard time
Speaker 4: latching onto like whatever that like in between models, whether
Speaker 4: it's the Plus or the Mini Air, it seems like
Speaker 4: it's hard for them to generate demand.
Speaker 2: It does kind of feel like a weird if I wonder.
Speaker 2: I hope, because the whole thing. It feels like I
Speaker 2: didn't think of it as an in between as well,
Speaker 2: because you're right, it feels like they would naturally try
Speaker 2: and make the main ones this thing, because that's the
Speaker 2: whole reason I like it. It feels like a smaller It
Speaker 2: feels like an in between between an iPad madia and
Speaker 2: an iPad. But I love I love the iPad Pro.
Speaker 2: I love having a very thin device, and every phone's
Speaker 2: getting fatter. It feels like, yeah.
Speaker 4: And I think we're at the point also where people
Speaker 4: aren't super wowed by how thin technology can get because
Speaker 4: we've been there for a while. So I don't think
Speaker 4: this premise of an iPhone Air really hit the same
Speaker 4: way the iPad Air did the way the MacBook Air did,
Speaker 4: And I think it's just kind of for that reason
Speaker 4: that we're desensitized to it. And I think Apple shoppers
Speaker 4: tend to fall into two categories. Either I had an
Speaker 4: iPhone for years and I'm not even thinking about what
Speaker 4: phone I have. I'm just going to get the next
Speaker 4: iPhone whenever my current one dies. And then you have
Speaker 4: the people that do get except about new iPhones, and
Speaker 4: those people do care about things like maybe not having
Speaker 4: an extra camera or you know, the best battery life
Speaker 4: or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's source of the camera's pretty bad. It's I've gotten
Speaker 2: around it, but yeah, it sucks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's I mean like I'm not I'm the person
Speaker 4: that takes casual photos all the time, and I think
Speaker 4: the camera's fine. I haven't been blown away by it
Speaker 4: in my own just you know, usage here and there.
Speaker 2: It does feel like we're approaching peak phone, though.
Speaker 1: Oh I feel like we've been there for a while.
Speaker 2: Like the iPhone seventeen, PROMACX whatever, it's just it's the
Speaker 2: same phone exactly.
Speaker 4: I feel like we've been at peak phone for a while.
Speaker 4: And I do feel like that's part of what Apple's
Speaker 4: trying to do here with the iPhone, airs show that
Speaker 4: it can make something that's different, that's unexpected, that's not
Speaker 4: just the same phone repackaged, and then.
Speaker 2: People hate it so now that now they don't know
Speaker 2: what to do.
Speaker 4: I do feel like, and this is a common argument,
Speaker 4: but I do feel like it's a step towards a foldable.
Speaker 1: iPhone, at least in my what I want. The technology
Speaker 1: needs to be.
Speaker 4: They need to engineer the phone differently for it to
Speaker 4: be foldable. It's not just about the crease and all that,
Speaker 4: but you have to think about the battery, the components
Speaker 4: and that, Like engineering wise, that was a big step
Speaker 4: forward with the iPhone error.
Speaker 2: I have to wonder as well if the reason they've
Speaker 2: jumped on the foldables is they're still very experimental Jerry
Speaker 2: Riggs everything. There was someone who did a review of
Speaker 2: a foldable and they made it like one of the
Speaker 2: Google ones that set on fire, and it just from
Speaker 2: like bending it too much. It's like, if we're still there,
Speaker 2: Apple doesn't want to touch this with a fifty foot pall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like foldables have gotten really good.
Speaker 4: I feel like Samsungs in particular, like because they have
Speaker 4: been doing this for so long, it's finally gotten to
Speaker 4: the point where the fold feels like a regular phone
Speaker 4: and that's really cool. But I do feel like it's
Speaker 4: still a subset of the phone market.
Speaker 1: Most people just want a new phone.
Speaker 4: But I agree, I feel like the minute there is
Speaker 4: a foldable iPhone, I'm going to buy one, mostly out
Speaker 4: of curiosity, but also because I really do enjoy using
Speaker 4: foldable phones and it does make the experience feel a
Speaker 4: little different. And this like the iPhone Air to me
Speaker 4: as soon as I picked it up, I was like,
Speaker 4: this just feels like a z flip that doesn't fold
Speaker 4: in half the shape the Galaxy Oh yeah, that's like
Speaker 4: the Galaxy flip phone one.
Speaker 1: And then of course Motorola has one as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know Michael Fisher missed Mauvel himself loves those things,
Speaker 2: and that's like the trifold ones as well. I love
Speaker 2: these crazy Chinese phones where it's like three giant things
Speaker 2: that you unfold probably breaks me.
Speaker 1: Just announced there was like last night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I want more weird phone me too.
Speaker 1: I want phones to be weird again.
Speaker 4: I had a Microsoft Kin back in the day, like
Speaker 4: the Samsung Juke.
Speaker 1: I had all these weird phones.
Speaker 2: Tell me about what what is the Microsoft Kin? I
Speaker 2: remember the name, but I don't remember what it was.
Speaker 4: So this was and this was like way before I
Speaker 4: was writing about phones. I was just like, this thing's weird.
Speaker 4: I want it. It was their social media phone.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so like your front screen now look at it.
Speaker 1: Yes, that was like peak weird phone.
Speaker 4: It like had this cover screen that would look like
Speaker 4: your Facebook and then you would open it up and
Speaker 4: there would be a keyboard on the inside. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had the second generation one, so that one looked
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 2: More like every one that looks like an egg.
Speaker 1: No, not the egg one, the other one that yeah
Speaker 1: that first time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they so they had one one that looked like
Speaker 2: a palm pre it looks like, and then one that
Speaker 2: kind of looked like a normal phone twenty ten as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what a what a classic twenty ten decision?
Speaker 1: Exactly. I loved it. I thought it was so cool,
Speaker 1: but it was so glitchy. And that's why I ended
Speaker 1: up getting rid of it.
Speaker 4: Was that, like the operating system just crashed one day
Speaker 4: and I just couldn't use it anymore. And this is
Speaker 4: before I really knew how to like troubleshoot things, and
Speaker 4: before I was really even interested in technology, and I
Speaker 4: just got it. I think at that point I finally
Speaker 4: switched to a smartphone. But yeah, I mean phones were
Speaker 4: weird back then and it was really cool and I
Speaker 4: kind of missed that. But I feel like foldable phones,
Speaker 4: to your point, are filling that void because if you
Speaker 4: look at the common thread between weird phones is that
Speaker 4: they're all trying to be some kind of like hybrid device. Yeah,
Speaker 4: like those phones of the twenty tens were like, oh,
Speaker 4: you still kind of want to use your keyboard, but
Speaker 4: you also want something that feels like a smartphone.
Speaker 2: And you know, my favorite was so I definitely the
Speaker 2: BlackBerry Storm. I don't know if you remember that as
Speaker 2: far as there was that weird generation when everyone was
Speaker 2: just trying something weird and there was this horrible, horrible
Speaker 2: BlackBerry where it was like haptic but it just felt
Speaker 2: like pressing into fudge. Yeah, so cool. But I just
Speaker 2: looked this up Samsung Juke What the looked like a
Speaker 2: key ring.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was supposed to be like an MP three
Speaker 4: player slash phone. It was weird, but also it came
Speaker 4: out at the point where you could already store your
Speaker 4: music on a regular phone. But I don't know, I
Speaker 4: thought it was cool and weird and it was so tiny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was so kind.
Speaker 2: Of love how small it is. It looks like a
Speaker 2: chocolate bar. Yeah, yeah, it like swings open. I I
Speaker 2: miss when we were doing weird shit with Fun. There
Speaker 2: was that weird there were.
Speaker 1: Just everyone Everything just looks like this now.
Speaker 2: Yeah everything's a brick, yes, And it's a shame. It
Speaker 2: feels like everything is just kind of normalizing around it
Speaker 2: when we need more weird shit. But I guess we've
Speaker 2: now seen what happens when you're actually, no, the iPhone
Speaker 2: at wasn't weird enough. That's the problem exactly.
Speaker 4: I think that that's you know, when I talk about
Speaker 4: those like in between phones, and I think what makes
Speaker 4: it hard to kind of really create a lot of
Speaker 4: demand for those phones is that they're not different enough.
Speaker 1: They're just in between, and they're not that different in price.
Speaker 4: And I think that's you know, a big part of
Speaker 4: what can make it difficult to kind of sell somebody
Speaker 4: on that it's not that much less expensive than the Pro,
Speaker 4: but it's thinner, so like do you it's and.
Speaker 2: Also there's still like one thousand dollars. These are not.
Speaker 1: Cheap, No, not at all.
Speaker 4: No, it's meant to be like a Pro that's thinner,
Speaker 4: I think, except you know, hardware is different obviously, and
Speaker 4: it's pretty fast.
Speaker 2: I like it a lot. It's just I'm annoyed because
Speaker 2: the camera is it's just shit enough. It's not that
Speaker 2: it's bad, it's like just a little bit worse. Like
Speaker 2: it can't really zoom. You have to digital zoom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it doesn't have a lot of zoom even digitally,
Speaker 4: it doesn't zoom in that far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird how little has happened with Apple in
Speaker 2: the last year as well, because they tried the Vision
Speaker 2: Pro and then they just went, uh.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I feel like the Vision Pro is one of those
Speaker 4: things that it's gonna I don't know. I feel like
Speaker 4: people were expecting it for a long time. The expectations
Speaker 4: were really high, and I think for Apple there especially
Speaker 4: high because they have this history of creating not necessarily
Speaker 4: being the first, but being the first to get people
Speaker 4: excited about a new category and show yeah yeah, and
Speaker 4: like show how this should be done, like with the
Speaker 4: smart watch, Like the Apple Watch was not the first
Speaker 4: smart watch by any means, but it.
Speaker 1: Was the first one that got kind of popular or
Speaker 1: popular enough.
Speaker 2: And they were smart enough to treat as a fashion item, which.
Speaker 4: Right, although that's not what it is at all now
Speaker 4: and it's so funny to see how that's not that
Speaker 4: they don't hear.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Multure was like a Vanity Vogue spread and
Speaker 2: they were really there was a ten thousand dollars Amaze one.
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh my god, I repect that.
Speaker 2: But I love that they tried that and they just
Speaker 2: walked away, just like, yeah, that's the sports thing now.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing is like, when you create a
Speaker 4: new category, it's really hard to predict to what people
Speaker 4: are actually going to use it for or what they're
Speaker 4: going to gravitate towards.
Speaker 2: I think they were doing it just for the marketing.
Speaker 2: I think it was literally just to get people to
Speaker 2: write about it.
Speaker 1: But also smart watches were so ugly back then.
Speaker 4: That's the other thing, is that the reason why there
Speaker 4: was the Pebble which I loved so much. Honestly, it looked, yes,
Speaker 4: they are back, you know. The original Pebble watch didn't
Speaker 4: look like anything special, but it was like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: it was.
Speaker 1: Like funky and weird.
Speaker 4: It was like had a monochrome display and I just
Speaker 4: loved And it's funny because I'm not usually this person
Speaker 4: like that cares about customizing things. But you could customize
Speaker 4: the watch face to be like literally anything you want
Speaker 4: and talk about like weird gadgets like I feel like
Speaker 4: that was also like not weird, but they had such
Speaker 4: a fun community around it that would develop all these
Speaker 4: custom watch faces and things like that, and it was
Speaker 4: just really it was a cool little device.
Speaker 2: I feel like that era was great. I realized there
Speaker 2: was a lot of fraud on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, but
Speaker 2: there was also just weird shit. And now that's all
Speaker 2: in China. Yeah, it's just GP you play with any
Speaker 2: GPD stuff You ever seen them? No, they just make
Speaker 2: gaming PCs, but the handhelds and they all cost they
Speaker 2: have one. It's cool, but it's also your like, you
Speaker 2: wacky sons of bitch. They're doing a handheld one where
Speaker 2: you have an external battery. It's just like, sure, why not,
Speaker 2: It's at that point why not? And they always make
Speaker 2: four million dollars on Kickstarter. I hope all of that
Speaker 2: money is not from criminal enterprises, and not suggesting it is,
Speaker 2: but every time. But it's just I wish that there
Speaker 2: was I'm sure that there are economic reasons. For sure.
Speaker 2: Someone was to shoot me an email about this. I
Speaker 2: wish we had more American firms willing to try share
Speaker 2: because it's toll right now. It's boring out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's things have looked the same for a long time,
Speaker 4: and you had like a brief moment in like the
Speaker 4: mid twenty tens, like twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, when Alexa
Speaker 4: was just starting to become really popular, and then everyone thought.
Speaker 1: The smart home was going to take off in a
Speaker 1: way that it never did.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: That yeah, that I'm thinking about like these.
Speaker 4: Different phases of like everyone's like, oh, this is gonna
Speaker 4: be the next big thing after phones, and like we
Speaker 4: still have not reached them.
Speaker 2: Well don't you haven't it? I mean to the point
Speaker 2: of everything being the same as well, it's like you
Speaker 2: buy you buy a Google device, it's called Gemini on it.
Speaker 2: You buy an Apple device, it's called Apple Intelligence. You
Speaker 2: immediately turn it off. It's just everything kind of feels
Speaker 2: and looks the same. And yeah, you watch a commercial,
Speaker 2: it's just more fucking Gemini. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: use Gemen. I still don't know why Gemini three has
Speaker 2: caused so much.
Speaker 4: It's the same, yeah, I mean it's like a sure,
Speaker 4: it's like a better version of the same.
Speaker 1: I've used it here and there. You know, I don't.
Speaker 4: I use AI a lot in like my like personal
Speaker 4: life or whatever, just to get things done. But it's
Speaker 4: not like I don't think we're at the point yet where,
Speaker 4: at least in my personal usage, I don't see that
Speaker 4: much of a difference between chat, GPT and Gemini in
Speaker 4: terms of what.
Speaker 1: I use them for.
Speaker 4: And I think it's that's one interesting thing I feel
Speaker 4: like about AI compared to a lot of the other
Speaker 4: products in our lives. Like when you have a phone
Speaker 4: or a computer, you're like, okay, I'm a Mac or
Speaker 4: a PC person, I'm iOS or Android. I feel like
Speaker 4: with AI, people do use different models for different things.
Speaker 4: I don't feel like people are loyal to just one
Speaker 4: all the time.
Speaker 2: I also think that it's the you know how I
Speaker 2: feel about AI, But it's also it's not clear what
Speaker 2: makes one different from the other, like with A I
Speaker 2: guess that's the case with phones as well, except phones
Speaker 2: don't just burn money every time you turn them on.
Speaker 2: But it's it's strange because this Gemini thing has really
Speaker 2: taken off stock market. You got people right, and you
Speaker 2: wrote this piece about like Google is the new leader
Speaker 2: in AI. No, it's good, but it's just like why,
Speaker 2: And I think it comes down to they mostly do
Speaker 2: the same. It makes me think people gonna love this.
Speaker 2: I think that like the only company that will even
Speaker 2: do llm's long term is Google, and then they'll just
Speaker 2: make it. They'll pull back the prices. But it's like, no,
Speaker 2: one can really explain what the difference is, and thus
Speaker 2: no one actually has any brand power.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think for Google it's an extension of like their
Speaker 4: business model. Naturally, like people use Google Search to find
Speaker 4: information and do things, and now people have started using
Speaker 4: llms for that, so of course it makes sense for
Speaker 4: them to do that, and they have an advantage in
Speaker 4: that sense. I think Google has that advantage, right that
Speaker 4: you have all these people that don't even know about
Speaker 4: AI are just going to naturally start using their product
Speaker 4: because it's Gemini and their models are now baked into
Speaker 4: almost everything, right, AI mode, everything else, you know, Open AI.
Speaker 4: I think their advantage has been that they were, you know,
Speaker 4: chatchipt kind of became a household name pretty quickly, so
Speaker 4: it's hard to kind of once any brand has that
Speaker 4: kind of like has made that kind of impression, I
Speaker 4: feel like it's hard to compete with that, or you know.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's why I see so.
Speaker 4: Much consolidation in the tech industry in particulars, because it's
Speaker 4: really hard to be that third, right, you have like
Speaker 4: one or two that are really big, and then being
Speaker 4: that third is really challenging.
Speaker 2: It's also there's little I feel like there's not really
Speaker 2: much reward for being first with this is what or
Speaker 2: even being the household name. You just burn a bunch
Speaker 2: of money. There was a story in the information that
Speaker 2: came out this week who this will run now a
Speaker 2: week after that, but where it's like open ay zone
Speaker 2: code read because of Gemini. It's like, and you read
Speaker 2: the article, it's really funny because there's a bit where
Speaker 2: it's just like step one, make Chad GPT's ans as better,
Speaker 2: Step two, make it able to do more, Step three
Speaker 2: make people like it. It's like, what have you been doing?
Speaker 2: What have you been doing the last six months? Honestly
Speaker 2: that maybe what Gemini three is. It's just that they said,
Speaker 2: I went what would make people use this more?
Speaker 4: Well, what's interesting is like you have kind of the
Speaker 4: opposite Like open ai and Google are in the opposite scenarios.
Speaker 4: They're like the inverse of each other. Like Google is
Speaker 4: already playing in so many different areas from search to
Speaker 4: owns to all these other products that shopping right, all
Speaker 4: of these things that we do every day online, and
Speaker 4: because they have that in place already, they can just
Speaker 4: kind of sprinkle AI into things as they go along.
Speaker 4: Open Ai had the opposite where they had this one
Speaker 4: like breakout AI service and now they're you know, kind
Speaker 4: of in this mode where they're like, hey, we're not
Speaker 4: just this one thing, We're the next big Internet company. Right.
Speaker 4: That's kind of what they're projecting based on all of
Speaker 4: these areas that they're trying.
Speaker 1: To expand into. So I think it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 4: Back years ago, the New York Times had that piece
Speaker 4: where Google was saying, we're in a code es GPT
Speaker 4: and now open AI, according to that article, is you know,
Speaker 4: facing that moment of its own.
Speaker 2: I just I also think that no one knows what
Speaker 2: to do with large language, but I just don't. I
Speaker 2: think at this point, so much money's going and you
Speaker 2: can't get a straight answer about out of any of
Speaker 2: them as to why you're using them, like in your
Speaker 2: personal life. I imagine brainstorming stuff or like looking stuff up.
Speaker 1: Like right, like stuff that I would probably use Google
Speaker 1: for exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's like if this ends with just Google
Speaker 2: managers to pull in the customers the open A I
Speaker 2: had and then ends up probably making it putting some
Speaker 2: of this away because it's too expensive, it's just like,
Speaker 2: of course, if this is that actually is probably how
Speaker 2: it ends with just like a large company destroying a
Speaker 2: startup and nothing happening. I hope so the sooner the better.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it is three years and we've not
Speaker 2: really had a proper use case beyond better search. It's strange,
Speaker 2: it's everywhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would agree in that, Like I do think
Speaker 4: it's moving fast in terms of like it started out,
Speaker 4: you know, the shift from just being able to answer
Speaker 4: simple questions to being able to like reason and whatever
Speaker 4: and think of these questions more.
Speaker 1: But to your point, that's not the use case. That's
Speaker 1: the technology.
Speaker 2: It's also just it's also just more search, Like it
Speaker 2: really is just knowledge search on instead of web search, right,
Speaker 2: And sometimes it gets it well, I'm.
Speaker 4: Sure, I'm sure you've heard this term more times than
Speaker 4: you would like. I even hate saying it because I
Speaker 4: feel like it's become such a nonsense buzzword.
Speaker 1: You could probably guess what I'm going to say.
Speaker 4: But AI agents are supposedly going to be the next
Speaker 4: step whenever this AI.
Speaker 2: I love this. Well, It's funny when you go and
Speaker 2: look at the term agent, it just means like chat.
Speaker 2: It really does just mean chato. Oh. Even you go
Speaker 2: back to twenty twenty three. That's so open a I
Speaker 2: defined it, yeah, but I loved I saw the statistics
Speaker 2: just like eleven percent it was AI agents. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: it wasn't. If you're just considering AI search agent, that's
Speaker 2: just search engines and that. I keep reading about these
Speaker 2: shopping integrations as well, but I can never make them
Speaker 2: work because I come and try, I go and try
Speaker 2: the Walmart with work. I managed to make it do
Speaker 2: something in Canva right, but it's like I could have
Speaker 2: just done that in Canva right.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing that's I think for me where
Speaker 4: a lot of the skepticism comes in is that I
Speaker 4: feel like we've been talking about these agents for years,
Speaker 4: two points since chat gipt came out.
Speaker 1: They're like, this is what it's going to These things
Speaker 1: are going to go and do stuff right.
Speaker 4: These things are going to do stuff for you, And
Speaker 4: I do think that could be really helpful, honestly, But
Speaker 4: I also have a lot of skepticism and concerns about,
Speaker 4: like I don't know, handing over anything that I remotely
Speaker 4: care about being done the right way to an AI agent,
Speaker 4: Like I'm skeptical that people are going to trust it
Speaker 4: enough to handle things well.
Speaker 2: It's also it doesn't seem to be able to do
Speaker 2: it is my big thing. But even when you looked
Speaker 2: at like the AI browsers from like, yeah, there's was
Speaker 2: a comment from perplexity in Atlas from open ai or whatever.
Speaker 2: When you look there's like this thing of the prompt
Speaker 2: injection attacks. I don't know if you've seen this. Yes,
Speaker 2: I could just get with just the website. If you
Speaker 2: use them on a website, the website could attack you.
Speaker 2: What I love, though, is the people who are innovating
Speaker 2: appear to just be criminals. The people who are like
Speaker 2: actually finding AI innovations are like Cambodian pig butchering operations.
Speaker 2: North I was North Korean. I heard this story the
Speaker 2: other day from a mate where it's North Korean people
Speaker 2: are using like in like hacker groups are applying to
Speaker 2: and getting American jobs. Oh really use and using deep
Speaker 2: called deep fakes for the know your customer stuff and
Speaker 2: like it's really fucking grow.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: It's just like no, everything I read is just like, man,
Speaker 2: there is innovation crime. Well, actually, Robert Evans of cool
Speaker 2: Zone Meter in twenty twenty four said that was the
Speaker 2: actual innovation. We're walkingto a restaurant. He said, no, that's
Speaker 2: where it is. It's like fraud, massive fraud.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, and I feel like anytime you have
Speaker 4: a new technology, the bad guys always find a way
Speaker 4: to make use of it before, you know, faster than
Speaker 4: the good guys.
Speaker 2: Do you think they are the only ones? Yeah, they're
Speaker 2: making I will say North Korean hacker groups, I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure are making more profit than open Ai, which is cool.
Speaker 2: I think that that's cool. I think I think that
Speaker 2: that's the world we deserve, honestly, and I think that's
Speaker 2: where we're heading towards. Because when you create a technology
Speaker 2: that you're not really sure what it does, of course
Speaker 2: somebody malign is going to use it to your own point, right,
Speaker 2: It's like, of course they're going to find a way
Speaker 2: around it. All right, As we wrap up, is there
Speaker 2: anything you're actually looking forward to in the tech industry though?
Speaker 2: Is there anything you're anything on the on the horizon?
Speaker 2: It's okay if there isn't.
Speaker 4: Honestly, there isn't really just one thing right now. I
Speaker 4: feel like, you know, all of this AI stuff is
Speaker 4: a little dizzying, and there's a lot of skepticism about it.
Speaker 4: But I will say, as someone who's been covering this
Speaker 4: industry for like a little more than ten years and
Speaker 4: a lot of that just being the same, I feel
Speaker 4: like it's been fun to write about something that it
Speaker 4: does feel new, whether for better or for worse, it
Speaker 4: is something that feels new and different. What am I
Speaker 4: looking forward to? I want weird phones again, That's what
Speaker 4: I'm looking forward to. I hope that phones get weird
Speaker 4: to get.
Speaker 2: I want things with hand cranks some. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: the play Date console, but I mean even the Nintendo
Speaker 2: Switch To was kind of safe.
Speaker 3: It's good.
Speaker 4: I like it a lot, but it's weird for Nintendo
Speaker 4: to do that. I feel like like doing.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 4: No, I have like almost every Nintendo console, but yeah,
Speaker 4: I feel like coming out with more of the same
Speaker 4: is not usually in their playbook. But the switch was
Speaker 4: so successful that they kind of had to people. Could
Speaker 4: you imagine if the Switch Too was entirely different and
Speaker 4: wasn't a better version of the same console.
Speaker 2: I feel like I do wonder if we're going to
Speaker 2: get a pushback on this eventually though, if people are
Speaker 2: just gonna we need some weird shit again, that's what
Speaker 2: That's what the energy I'm putting into the universe today.
Speaker 1: Yes, me too.
Speaker 2: So where do people find you?
Speaker 4: You can find me on I'm on X Blue Sky
Speaker 4: and threads at least said Chico, and you can also
Speaker 4: find my work of course at CNN dot.
Speaker 2: Com wonderful, and you can find me at Better Offline
Speaker 2: dot com. Subscribe to the newsletter, email me on my
Speaker 2: web verse. Thank you for listening, Love you.
Speaker 3: All, Thank you for listening to Better Offline.
Speaker 5: The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
Speaker 5: is Metasowski. You can check out more of his music
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