Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Be there, everyone, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tex Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, and today we're
Speaker 1: gonna do something a little different. Rather than have a
Speaker 1: co host on or an interview, I wanted to do
Speaker 1: an episode where I really responded to listener mail, but
Speaker 1: I haven't done that in a while, and we have
Speaker 1: a lot of questions that can be answered within the
Speaker 1: context of a single episode. So we're actually gonna do
Speaker 1: a couple of these where I'm going to answer some
Speaker 1: of these questions. And if you guys ever have questions
Speaker 1: for me that you would like me to answer, whether
Speaker 1: it's going to be a full episode or just a
Speaker 1: quick question that you're curious about, send me those questions.
Speaker 1: That address that you can send them to is tech
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com, and I will
Speaker 1: of course repeat that at the end. So let's get started. Now.
Speaker 1: A lot of the questions we have here actually come
Speaker 1: to me through Facebook. The Facebook tech Stuff page is
Speaker 1: a great community. If you haven't already checked it out,
Speaker 1: you should go take a look. And so I'm going
Speaker 1: to respond to some of these. So first is from
Speaker 1: Simon on Facebook, and Simon wrote smart watches views and opinions?
Speaker 1: Are they truly a fulfillment of a niche in the market, or,
Speaker 1: as I have both heard and suspect, are they a
Speaker 1: product that is looking for a solution? I for one,
Speaker 1: will never own one, as my day to day life
Speaker 1: work especially, will never allow something as delicate and expensive
Speaker 1: as that to be on my wrist. Nobody I know
Speaker 1: once one either. Well, my answer to you is that
Speaker 1: smart watches certainly do have an audience out there. I
Speaker 1: think that the the concept of them being a solution
Speaker 1: that's looking for a problem is probably fairly accurate. But
Speaker 1: I felt the same way about tablets, So it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a problem solution issue. It may just be one
Speaker 1: of those things that's an implementation that appeals to people. Now,
Speaker 1: I say that as someone who owns a smart watch.
Speaker 1: I own the Pebble smart watch, which, as smart watches go,
Speaker 1: is is, you know, fairly modest. It doesn't have all
Speaker 1: the bells and whistles of some of the more recent
Speaker 1: smart watches, but it does have notifications on it. I
Speaker 1: can control music playing on my smartphone through my watch.
Speaker 1: I can accept or deny I call using my watch.
Speaker 1: It will alert me to anything coming through has a
Speaker 1: little vibrating motor, so I can feel it on my wrist,
Speaker 1: which is great. I've reached that point in my life
Speaker 1: where I no longer notice if my phone is vibrating
Speaker 1: in my my pocket, and when I don't have my
Speaker 1: phone in my pocket, I experienced phantom vibrations against my legs.
Speaker 1: So having a watch where I actually had feel it
Speaker 1: against my wrist is very helpful. What's more, I don't
Speaker 1: currently own more than one smart watch, but I have
Speaker 1: two that are on the way to me, assuming that
Speaker 1: the projects ever get to the point where they can
Speaker 1: actually shop. There were a couple of different crowdfunded projects
Speaker 1: I backed that will eventually result in me getting a
Speaker 1: new smart watch, assuming that they they are ultimately successful.
Speaker 1: I have it. I have a lot of faith in them.
Speaker 1: But the two that I have waiting for me are
Speaker 1: the Craos Meteor, which is a voice and gest your
Speaker 1: control smart watch, and the Agent smart watch. Now, the
Speaker 1: common thread between all of these is that they will
Speaker 1: work with different operating systems. They pair with a smartphone,
Speaker 1: but you don't have to have a specific type of
Speaker 1: smartphone to pair with them. UH and that really appeals
Speaker 1: to me. I like the idea of having these kinds
Speaker 1: of technologies that will work with lots of different options,
Speaker 1: so that way I'm not nailed down to a single
Speaker 1: one that's gonna come into play a little bit later.
Speaker 1: And by a little bit later, I mean right now.
Speaker 1: Because on Twitter a user who I just have the
Speaker 1: user name and the handle, which is g t r
Speaker 1: f r K eight seven eight seven, who asked what
Speaker 1: were my thoughts on the Apple Watch. So I'm recording
Speaker 1: this the same week that Apple had its big announcement
Speaker 1: of the new iPhones and the Apple Watch, so the
Speaker 1: date of this recording is actually the eleventh of September two. Now,
Speaker 1: I think that some of the elements of the Apple
Speaker 1: Watch are really really cool. That user interface that they
Speaker 1: have where you use the dial to navigate through it,
Speaker 1: that looks like it's very smooth. It's a smart way
Speaker 1: of going about it. I mean, you don't want to
Speaker 1: really have a touch screen interface as your primary way
Speaker 1: of interacting with a smart watch because it's just it's
Speaker 1: too small of a screen. Just by putting your finger
Speaker 1: on the screen, you're obscuring so much of it that
Speaker 1: it's really hard to use no very simple controls like
Speaker 1: a play or a pause. That's okay, but if you're
Speaker 1: trying to select between apps, it's a little more problematic.
Speaker 1: I think they really nailed it. However, the physical design
Speaker 1: of the watch, the actual way the watch looks, doesn't
Speaker 1: do a whole lot for me. I don't find it
Speaker 1: really appealing. I love the idea that has swapp dorble bands,
Speaker 1: so you can change those out depending upon what sort
Speaker 1: of look you're going for. I think that's great. I
Speaker 1: love that idea of customization. I'm not a fashionable guy.
Speaker 1: Anyone who knows me will tell you as much. But
Speaker 1: the idea of being able to use the same watch
Speaker 1: in different contexts by swapping out the bands is appealing. Also.
Speaker 1: I think there's some other cool things like the Apple
Speaker 1: pay system, which is that wireless payment method. It works
Speaker 1: with the Apple Watch as well. You can use the
Speaker 1: watch to help pay for things, and the way that
Speaker 1: they've implemented security is interesting. You have to enter a
Speaker 1: pin in order to make the first payment, so you've
Speaker 1: got your watch on you enter the pin that authorized
Speaker 1: the watch it to make the payment. But from that
Speaker 1: point forward, the watch will continue to allow you to
Speaker 1: make payments until contact is broken between the watch and
Speaker 1: your skin. So if you take the watch off, it
Speaker 1: will no longer be able to pay for things, which
Speaker 1: makes it much more secure as long as someone doesn't
Speaker 1: chop off your arm. So word to the wise. Um
Speaker 1: other things that I think are cool. The health tracking
Speaker 1: technology is pretty neat. It's not the only smart watch
Speaker 1: to do that, but it's always cool to see that. Uh,
Speaker 1: the fact that it's required to do you have to
Speaker 1: have either an iPhone five or later to pair with it.
Speaker 1: That's the part I ball cat And it's because it
Speaker 1: you have to be in the iOS system in order
Speaker 1: for this watch to work. And if you're already invested
Speaker 1: in that system, that's great. There's no necessarily, that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a problem. You can just jump on and grab
Speaker 1: one if you've got the money to do it. But
Speaker 1: if you are not in that Apple ecosystem, then suddenly
Speaker 1: this watch gets really super expensive instead of just expensive.
Speaker 1: The watch is about three dollars. Now, as far as
Speaker 1: watches go, that's really not that crazy expensive. You have
Speaker 1: regular non smart watches that are fashioned watches that will
Speaker 1: be three or four times that amount of money. I
Speaker 1: don't own any of those because I don't spend that
Speaker 1: kind of crazy money on accessories, but is not outside
Speaker 1: the realm of expectation for a really nice watch. However,
Speaker 1: if you are not inside that Apple ecosystem already, you
Speaker 1: also have to go out and buy an iPhone, So
Speaker 1: that's at minimum around two hundred bucks plus the monthly
Speaker 1: iPhone bill, so that starts to get to be a
Speaker 1: really expensive watch. Again, if you're already invested in the
Speaker 1: Apple space, then you can kind of separate the smart
Speaker 1: watch from the purchase of the iPhone because you already
Speaker 1: have one same sort of thing with other smart watches.
Speaker 1: If you already have a smart phone, then a smart
Speaker 1: watch can sort of look at like its own individual purchase.
Speaker 1: But if you're not in that ecosystem, you have to
Speaker 1: take all of those costs into account, and that's where
Speaker 1: it gets really expensive. And that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why I don't like being locked down into it. So
Speaker 1: those are my thoughts on that. Moving on, Catherine, who
Speaker 1: works in our office, actually asked me what I thought
Speaker 1: of the iPhone six, so she has to listen to
Speaker 1: this episode to find out. I wouldn't tell her in
Speaker 1: the office. I think it's a strong device. It looks
Speaker 1: like it's a nice evolution of the the form. It
Speaker 1: doesn't look like it's spectacularly different. You know. The larger
Speaker 1: screen space is nice. If you really want to go
Speaker 1: super crazy with the iPhone six plus, you can, and
Speaker 1: you need that extra space. That looks to me like
Speaker 1: it's a little larger than what I would be comfortable carrying.
Speaker 1: But the iPhone six in general looks really nice. It's
Speaker 1: it's thinner than previous generations, which is nice. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it has that camera. I love the iPhone cameras. I
Speaker 1: don't own one. My wife phone's an iPhone and the
Speaker 1: picture she takes are gorgeous, and it's for two main reasons. One,
Speaker 1: the technology and software in the iPhone are fantastic as
Speaker 1: far as the picture taking quality goes. And to she's
Speaker 1: a good photographer. Um My pictures never look as good
Speaker 1: for the reverse of those same two reasons. So if
Speaker 1: you get the iPhone six plus, I think the optical
Speaker 1: image stabilizer is awesome. I love that. It's not the
Speaker 1: only smartphone in the world to have one of those,
Speaker 1: by the way, but an optical image stabilizer is different
Speaker 1: from a digital image stabilizer. It actually can physically move
Speaker 1: within the framework of the phone itself and help cancel
Speaker 1: out jitter and movements so that you get clearer pictures.
Speaker 1: So that's a nice addition. I think it's if someone's
Speaker 1: looking to move from an earlier generation of iPhone to
Speaker 1: the six, uh, I think there's enough reasons to do it,
Speaker 1: assuming that you are not having to pay like some
Speaker 1: crazy cancelation fee that then I might say, you know,
Speaker 1: wait until the next one. That's the nice thing about
Speaker 1: these iPhone generations is that if you skip a generation
Speaker 1: for the most part, after the four or so, it's
Speaker 1: not that big a deal. Um, It's it's you know,
Speaker 1: it was the earlier iPhones where the different generations were
Speaker 1: uh larger gaps were between those generations, like the technologically speaking,
Speaker 1: that's when you really wanted to upgrade year over year.
Speaker 1: If you had the money these days, I would say wait.
Speaker 1: And you know, if so, if you had an iPhone
Speaker 1: five and it's gonna be another year before your contract
Speaker 1: is up, I don't think there's anything specific that would
Speaker 1: require you to move to the iPhone six unless you
Speaker 1: wanted the Apple pay uh wireless payment stuff. And I'll
Speaker 1: talk about that. In a second, we have someone who
Speaker 1: asked us about that. So moving on to the next one.
Speaker 1: Ryan on Twitter said, the iPhone goes big. Is that
Speaker 1: a bold move or is it too late to the party.
Speaker 1: So here's the interesting thing I think about this strategy.
Speaker 1: You see some companies come out with a line of
Speaker 1: products where they're trying to hit all the possible iterations
Speaker 1: of that product at once. So you'll see tablets come
Speaker 1: mount in multiple sizes. That way, the consumer can decide
Speaker 1: which size fits best in his or her lifestyle and
Speaker 1: they'll go after that. One. Apple goes about this the
Speaker 1: opposite way. Apple will come out with a single size,
Speaker 1: tell you this is what you want, and then consumers
Speaker 1: go after it. And then after they've gotten that that
Speaker 1: consumer base, over the years, they've started to introduce different
Speaker 1: form factors. So that's where you get things like the
Speaker 1: iPad many and now they can attract new people to
Speaker 1: buy the iPad as well as folks who already own
Speaker 1: an iPad going out and buying the new form factor.
Speaker 1: And it works really well for Apple. So they're taking
Speaker 1: kind of the opposite approach of the other companies that
Speaker 1: let everything become available at once and it's worked for Apple,
Speaker 1: so I think, Uh, I don't think they're too late
Speaker 1: to the party. I think that this is just in
Speaker 1: line with Apple strategy. Whether or not the iPhone six
Speaker 1: will plus the iPhone six plus will ever be considered
Speaker 1: a great phone, I don't know. It's like I said,
Speaker 1: it's a little large for me. I don't think it
Speaker 1: would be a very comfortable fit for for me on
Speaker 1: a day to day basis. However, I do like a
Speaker 1: lot of the features in it, so it'll like I think,
Speaker 1: it will depend upon the user experience for the individual person.
Speaker 1: Next we have Michael from Facebook who said, uh, do
Speaker 1: I know why Apple would stay with an eight megapixel
Speaker 1: camera on the iPhone six? So why why would Apple
Speaker 1: do that? Why wouldn't they upgrade? Uh? And the answer
Speaker 1: I have is that the images that the iPhone takes
Speaker 1: tend to be really good already, and megapixels don't matter
Speaker 1: as much as you might think they do. Megapixels are
Speaker 1: important if you are going to be blowing an image
Speaker 1: up to a much greater size than what you would
Speaker 1: typically have on your phone or maybe even a desktop computer.
Speaker 1: So if you plan on displaying an image on a
Speaker 1: big screen, television, or you're going to be printing out
Speaker 1: a poster sized image of something, you want to have
Speaker 1: a camera that packs in a to megapixels because then
Speaker 1: your resolution is going to be higher and you won't
Speaker 1: have these artifacts that you would see in a lower
Speaker 1: resolution photograph show up in that representation. But if you're
Speaker 1: not doing that, if you're sharing images mostly on phones
Speaker 1: or on social networks, things that are not going to
Speaker 1: be typically larger than your average computer monitor screen, you
Speaker 1: really don't need to upgrade those megapixels that much. That's
Speaker 1: not really that important. Uh, it doesn't help the quality
Speaker 1: of the image. It just helps the resolution. So other
Speaker 1: things that are really important, our color representation and brightness
Speaker 1: and contrasts, those kind of things which have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the number of megapixels involved. It has everything
Speaker 1: to do with the sensors in the camera itself. So
Speaker 1: I think they're fine unless we get into a world
Speaker 1: where everyone wants to view their images on their eight
Speaker 1: inch television at home, and if you have one of those,
Speaker 1: invite me over, then I don't think it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a big deal. So I think that's why they didn't
Speaker 1: bother with upgrading it, because it's not really you know,
Speaker 1: I guess you could upgraded it just so that you
Speaker 1: would have the the ad copy to say now it
Speaker 1: has a twelve megapixel or sixteen megapixel camera in it,
Speaker 1: but it's just not necessary. We've got more listener mail
Speaker 1: coming up in just a second, but let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsor, Audible dot com. I
Speaker 1: love this service. Audible is offering our listeners a free
Speaker 1: audiobook of your choice than a free thirty day trial membership.
Speaker 1: Just go to audible podcast dot com slash tech stuff
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Speaker 1: to audible podcast dot com slash tech Stuff. That's audible
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Speaker 1: And if you're looking for a recommendation, I can't think
Speaker 1: of anyone better than Neil Game and one of my
Speaker 1: favorite authors and one of my favorite readers. His voice
Speaker 1: is mesmerizing, really pulls you into the story, and I
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Speaker 1: go check that out. Audible podcast dot Com Slash tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: Next from Reuben on Facebook and full Disclosure. I know
Speaker 1: Reuben personally, He's a great guy, he says. Seeing as
Speaker 1: the new iPhone is the talk of the town, I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear about Apple Pay and security concerns. With
Speaker 1: the recent celebrity nude hackings via Apple accounts, do we
Speaker 1: want to keep all of our financials there too? This
Speaker 1: is a great question how secure is this payment process?
Speaker 1: So first we have to understand exactly what's going on
Speaker 1: with this Apple uh system, and it's a little tricky
Speaker 1: because we don't know all the details. What Apple has
Speaker 1: said is that they are not storing credit card information
Speaker 1: on their servers. So this means that if hackers target
Speaker 1: Apple servers and try to steal information, they're not going
Speaker 1: to get user credit cards as part of that. Also,
Speaker 1: when you make a purchase with Apple Pay, it's doing
Speaker 1: so with a one time security code that's dynamically generated
Speaker 1: based upon your actual credit card number. That one time
Speaker 1: security code is what is transferred to the vendor. This
Speaker 1: means that the vendor, the person that you're buying stuff from,
Speaker 1: never gets your credit card number. They just get that
Speaker 1: security code, and then that represents the sale the you're
Speaker 1: you are transferring funds to this vendor for whatever it
Speaker 1: is you're buying. So that the nice thing about that
Speaker 1: is if some target, some hacker targets a a system
Speaker 1: like a home depot or or target, both of which
Speaker 1: have been hit by hackers recently and had credit card
Speaker 1: information stolen, um, then you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: your credit card getting compromised. All they're going to get
Speaker 1: is a security code that has no other connection to
Speaker 1: your credit card that they are able to see. Now,
Speaker 1: the question remains, how are these payments actually processed, because
Speaker 1: ultimately something has to link that security code that is
Speaker 1: generated by your phone to your credit card, otherwise no
Speaker 1: one would know who to charge when you were purchasing something. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: Apple has said that all the information stored on a
Speaker 1: chip encrypted on a chip in the phone itself, so
Speaker 1: again it's not going to Apple servers. So what I
Speaker 1: suspect is happening is that the credit card company in question,
Speaker 1: for example, Visa, has the formula to generate the one
Speaker 1: time codes based on the credit card number and can
Speaker 1: reverse that process so that it under it knows who
Speaker 1: bought what when? So when the vendor has processed the
Speaker 1: payment for whatever it is that you wanted to buy,
Speaker 1: that security code is then processed by Visa, which can
Speaker 1: run it backwards through the encryption process that created the
Speaker 1: security code in the first place to find out who
Speaker 1: it was that made that purchase and and charge the
Speaker 1: appropriate card. That's the guess, because Apple has not, to
Speaker 1: my knowledge, actually said this is the way this is
Speaker 1: working in the background. But if that's true, then the
Speaker 1: only real target for hackers to aim at our credit
Speaker 1: card companies, which are pretty good at fending off attacks.
Speaker 1: And ultimately, you know that's you have to have your
Speaker 1: trust go somewhere so it If this is true, then
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about people targeting Apple and
Speaker 1: getting your credit card information. Other stuff that stored on
Speaker 1: Apple servers may still be vulnerable, but your credit card
Speaker 1: information will not be among it. So great, correct question, Ruben,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Now we are done with the Apple stuff.
Speaker 1: If all of you are sick of Apple, don't worry
Speaker 1: the rest of the episode. No more Apple, I think
Speaker 1: if I might mention it in passing, but there are
Speaker 1: no more questions as far as I know, So next
Speaker 1: is from Cody on Facebook who said is the government
Speaker 1: keeping us from getting jet packs? Which I assume was
Speaker 1: a facetious question, but I'm going to answer it seriously
Speaker 1: because I think when we all talk about the future,
Speaker 1: the question where's my jet pack? Is never far from
Speaker 1: our minds. So two things are really keeping us from
Speaker 1: getting working jet packs, And one is the technology building
Speaker 1: a jet pack that works efficiently and safely, so in
Speaker 1: other words, you won't have to refuel it every couple
Speaker 1: of minutes and it won't set you on fire. These
Speaker 1: are two big important things that any good jet pack
Speaker 1: needs to be able to do. The other would be
Speaker 1: government regulation. So assuming that we get to a point
Speaker 1: where a consumer jet pack is in fact a possibility,
Speaker 1: that some company has created one and is selling them
Speaker 1: to people, I'm sure we would see the government get
Speaker 1: involved and start to put regulations on here. You would
Speaker 1: probably be required to have some sort of pilot's license,
Speaker 1: assuming they would even allow such a product to be
Speaker 1: legal in the US in the first place. Uh. The
Speaker 1: reason for this is because you're essentially turning human beings
Speaker 1: into projectiles, and for the safety of both the person
Speaker 1: using the jet pack and everybody and everything around them,
Speaker 1: there would have to be regulation. I can't imagine a
Speaker 1: world where such a thing hits the market and the
Speaker 1: government doesn't immediately react. Uh, the f a A alone
Speaker 1: would get involved. So I don't think the government is
Speaker 1: currently keeping us from getting jet packs, but it might
Speaker 1: in the future, assuming that the technology ever evolves to
Speaker 1: the point where it could be a practicality. So good question.
Speaker 1: Next from Himanshu on Facebook. When we have watches from
Speaker 1: Citizen the Eco drive with extremely long battery life, why
Speaker 1: can't the same be replicated in mobiles? Instead of competing
Speaker 1: like juveniles on trivial features like screen size thickness, why
Speaker 1: can't mobile firms come up with battery enhancement solution or
Speaker 1: maybe even replacement was say solar panels or piece of
Speaker 1: electric sensors, ETCETERA great question. So, battery technology has been
Speaker 1: a real problem of thorn in the side of engineers
Speaker 1: for years. It's one of those things that is a
Speaker 1: source of frustration. It illustrates that Moore's law is very
Speaker 1: effective at predicting how powerful a computer processor will be
Speaker 1: over time, that every two years you'll essentially double the
Speaker 1: power of the computer processor. But there's no correlative for
Speaker 1: batteries and the reasons that batteries rely on physical properties
Speaker 1: as in the actual laws of physics and chemistry, batteries
Speaker 1: produce electricity through chemical reactions, so we're limited by the
Speaker 1: physics of those chemical reactions. You know, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: get more electrons from this same chemical reaction than you
Speaker 1: did two years ago. Uh. You can tweak little things
Speaker 1: like the actual chemicals involved, but that's a difficult thing
Speaker 1: as well. You have to figure out all sorts of
Speaker 1: factors like how much do the chemicals cost, how dense
Speaker 1: are they, how heavy are they? Uh? Are they safe?
Speaker 1: Could it be a hazard if the chemicals if the
Speaker 1: battery were breached. All of these things play apart in considerations,
Speaker 1: and ultimately you're just going to see incremental improvement. You're
Speaker 1: not going to see a huge leap. Now there aren't
Speaker 1: people working on some incredible technologies that could potentially boost
Speaker 1: battery efficiency quite a bit, but these are all sort
Speaker 1: of long shots at the moment. We don't know if
Speaker 1: they're going to pan out into a kind of technology
Speaker 1: that will become affordable enough to be part of consumer tech.
Speaker 1: As far as relying on something like solar panels or
Speaker 1: piece of electric elements. It's not really realistic for most
Speaker 1: types of electronics because they don't produce enough electricity to
Speaker 1: run or recharge those electronics in a reasonable amount of time.
Speaker 1: The surface area alone for solar panels that you would
Speaker 1: need to run something like a smartphone. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about charging it, I mean actually running it full blast,
Speaker 1: like you're scrolling around and checking out the internet. Uh,
Speaker 1: you would need so many solar panels that would just
Speaker 1: make the technology unwieldy. And also you would be reliant
Speaker 1: upon having a good, uh good access to sunlight, which
Speaker 1: not all of us have. So the it's it's a
Speaker 1: real issue, you know, power is a real issue for
Speaker 1: electronics in the future. And that's why you see a
Speaker 1: lot of these improvements going towards the efficiency of the
Speaker 1: electronics themselves, because, as it turns out, it's more realistic
Speaker 1: for us to improve the efficiency of the electronics, that is,
Speaker 1: for us to boost the battery power. Moving on down on,
Speaker 1: Facebook says what are the advantages of curved surfaces? Alright,
Speaker 1: So with phones, I don't think there is one. I
Speaker 1: think really the most the biggest advantage is that it
Speaker 1: lets a a manufacturer set their product apart from other products.
Speaker 1: It looks different from everything else, and therefore it gets
Speaker 1: a lot of attention. But practically, I don't think there's
Speaker 1: a whole lot of advantages to using a curved phone.
Speaker 1: For example, Uh, there's some curve phones that have said
Speaker 1: that it creates sort of a panoramic view if you're
Speaker 1: if you're watching a movie and landscape. I think such
Speaker 1: a thing has got to be negligible. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: it being a real game changer. For something like a television,
Speaker 1: A curve surface might actually be a little useful. It
Speaker 1: might help increase the view ability from angles like off
Speaker 1: to the side of the TV. I have a television
Speaker 1: in my living room that's visible from the kitchen, but
Speaker 1: because it's a flat screen TV, and because the kitchen
Speaker 1: is almost uh ninety degrees away from the viewing area
Speaker 1: of the screen, it's not a great view. A curve
Speaker 1: surface would give me a little bit better view of
Speaker 1: what was going on, at least on the right side
Speaker 1: of my television in in my case, so I could
Speaker 1: see that being a big benefit. But ultimately, I think
Speaker 1: flexible displays are where it's at. I think curve displays
Speaker 1: are a stepping stone towards flexible displays, where we'll be
Speaker 1: able to actually fold old or roll up displays or
Speaker 1: create really interesting form factors that can mold to different
Speaker 1: shapes and sizes so that you know, we we can
Speaker 1: suddenly turn all sorts of different things into a display.
Speaker 1: So I think the curved UH services are just really
Speaker 1: a step toward that. Next we have this one from
Speaker 1: Donovan from Facebook who says, what do you guys think
Speaker 1: might be the next great technological breakthrough? And he gives
Speaker 1: some examples of previous ones like telescopes, cell phones, radio,
Speaker 1: and so I think there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: potential technologies that could become the huge breakthrough of the future.
Speaker 1: Part of this is a little difficult to gauge simply
Speaker 1: because a lot of technologies in reality evolve over time.
Speaker 1: If you listen to our episode about the Mythology of
Speaker 1: Area fifty one that are recorded with Ben Bolan, you
Speaker 1: heard me talk about how most technology, most inventions are
Speaker 1: in fact the product of years and years and years
Speaker 1: of work UH from various people. When ultimately you have
Speaker 1: an inventor put a bunch of work in and pull
Speaker 1: a bunch of ideas together to create something that then
Speaker 1: changes the world. But it's way more complicated than just
Speaker 1: saying this guy had a brilliant idea and then made
Speaker 1: this awesome thing. And that being said, the technologies I
Speaker 1: think that are probably the super sci fi technologies of
Speaker 1: the future that could really shake things up. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got the Internet of Things. That's a growing field
Speaker 1: right now. Whether or not that ever matures into something
Speaker 1: truly transformational remains to be seen. But the idea is
Speaker 1: is really really compelling. The idea of all these different
Speaker 1: sensors and actuators and computers and even robots that are
Speaker 1: on the micro scale, tiny tiny things all over the
Speaker 1: place that are detecting different changes in the environment, including
Speaker 1: our interactions with the environment, and then send in commands
Speaker 1: so that the environment responds to those changes in ways
Speaker 1: that will benefit us. That's a great idea. I mean,
Speaker 1: imagine that you are walking into your house and your
Speaker 1: house is reacting to your presence by doing everything from
Speaker 1: setting the temperature to your favorite level of comfort, something
Speaker 1: that the nest thermostatic can already do, to turning on
Speaker 1: music that you really like when you get home after
Speaker 1: a hard day. Maybe it's even picking up on your
Speaker 1: health signs to figure out what kind of mood you're
Speaker 1: you're in, so that the music is exactly what you
Speaker 1: would want the one day when you come home, it
Speaker 1: might be something really soothing, and another day, when you
Speaker 1: come home and you're ready to get all jazzed up,
Speaker 1: it might be much more fast paced music. These are
Speaker 1: the sort of basic ideas that the Internet of Things
Speaker 1: would love to be able to do, or at least
Speaker 1: the people developing it would love the Internet of Things
Speaker 1: to be able to do this sort of stuff. And
Speaker 1: it's certainly still in the future if it's going to
Speaker 1: happen at all. This is not the way the technology
Speaker 1: works right now, but I see that as a transformation.
Speaker 1: One another one is workable fusion. Now, nuclear power plants
Speaker 1: depend upon fission right now. Fission, of course, is when
Speaker 1: an atom is split into two smaller atoms. Fusion is
Speaker 1: when you fuse two atoms together, making a heavier element
Speaker 1: in the process, and both methods produce energy. But fusion
Speaker 1: is one of those things that we've really been working
Speaker 1: on for a long time to try and figure out
Speaker 1: a way of getting more energy out of that reaction
Speaker 1: than it requires to put into it. So in other words,
Speaker 1: we confuse stuff now, but usually it requires us to
Speaker 1: expend more energy than we're going to get out of
Speaker 1: the process, so it's a losing proposition. Now, there have
Speaker 1: been some really promising results in recent experiments where it
Speaker 1: looks like we could, at least in theory, have a
Speaker 1: few incidents where we get more energy out than we're
Speaker 1: pouring in. Now, the next step is to make it
Speaker 1: sustainable so that it's a reaction we can do over
Speaker 1: and over again, it's not just a one off. And
Speaker 1: this could be a new way of generating lots of electricity,
Speaker 1: which would be fantastic. It would be a revolution in
Speaker 1: the way we generate electricity, so it can really change
Speaker 1: the world. And then there are some other ideas like
Speaker 1: quantum computers, the idea of using quantum bits or cubits
Speaker 1: to do computing. Again, this is not for all types
Speaker 1: of computing. It's for very specific applications. But this would
Speaker 1: completely change cryptography, so we would have to rethink the
Speaker 1: way we do security. We would have to come up
Speaker 1: maybe using quantum cryptography to make sure things are secure um.
Speaker 1: So that's certainly something that we have to keep an
Speaker 1: eye on whether or not we can ever make quantum
Speaker 1: computers stable enough to be reliable is another question, because
Speaker 1: anyone who studied anything about quantum physics knows the closer
Speaker 1: you look at it, the more likely it'll all fall apart.
Speaker 1: And finally, my last one is self reconfigurable modular robots.
Speaker 1: I love these things. So think of a robot that's
Speaker 1: made up of lots of other smaller robots, not necessarily
Speaker 1: human in shape or size. It could be lots of
Speaker 1: different shapes, but these little modules, these individual robots, each
Speaker 1: can act independently of one another, or they can all
Speaker 1: act together and form different shapes and perform different tasks.
Speaker 1: And it all depends upon what the task is. So
Speaker 1: one task might require the robots to make a really long,
Speaker 1: skinny shape, and so they'll configure themselves into that formation,
Speaker 1: or another one might require them to form like a
Speaker 1: ball and they'll do that. Uh. This sort of work
Speaker 1: could eventually lead to robots that are able to complete
Speaker 1: practically any task by reforming to the right form factor
Speaker 1: that's ideally suited to complete it. And I love that idea.
Speaker 1: Whether or not that ever makes it into consumer tech
Speaker 1: is another question. Entirely. We might just see that in
Speaker 1: things like automation for manufacturing processes, which is great. One
Speaker 1: of the big problems with automation is that if you
Speaker 1: change your product, then you have to change the system
Speaker 1: to react to that product, because otherwise it's going to
Speaker 1: be going through the motions for something totally different that
Speaker 1: it was not, you know, that was designed to do specifically,
Speaker 1: you have to redesign the system to work with a
Speaker 1: new product. If you have a a robot system that
Speaker 1: can redesign itself on the fly, then you don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about that. It saves a lot of time,
Speaker 1: it saves a lot of money. It means that product
Speaker 1: prices come down as a result, so it could really
Speaker 1: transform the world. So great question, Thanks so much for it.
Speaker 1: And finally from Kyle on Facebook. Why have tablets taken off? Now?
Speaker 1: I remember them coming out a while back and I
Speaker 1: thought they had potential but then faded away. So okay,
Speaker 1: uh I lied. I have to mention Apple. Apples the reason, guys.
Speaker 1: Apple is the reason why tablets have become popular. Apple
Speaker 1: did the same thing with smartphones. They created a smartphone
Speaker 1: that really appealed to a specific section of the consumer market.
Speaker 1: Before the iPhone, smartphones were really just held by executives
Speaker 1: and bleeding edge early adopters. Otherwise, no one had a smartphone,
Speaker 1: they all had cell phones. Uh. But the iPhone created
Speaker 1: a user interface and an experience that was really compelling,
Speaker 1: and that's what brought people over, and that's what led
Speaker 1: to things like Android and other competitors starting to come
Speaker 1: out with different user interfaces that also added to that.
Speaker 1: The same thing is true with tablets. There were tablets
Speaker 1: before the iPad. We've done episodes about this, about how
Speaker 1: many different tablets there were. I think we did one
Speaker 1: that was just on the history of Windows tablets, which
Speaker 1: go back well before the iPad ever came out. But
Speaker 1: it was Apple that created again that user experience that
Speaker 1: was really compelling, and that is what in fact drove
Speaker 1: tablet sales. Allowed other developers to come out with competing
Speaker 1: products that were also compelling. So I don't own an iPad.
Speaker 1: I own I own an Android tablet, which I'll talk
Speaker 1: about in another episode. So uh, I think, I think,
Speaker 1: really that's that's the end of that story. That's just
Speaker 1: where it goes, is that without Apple, we probably would
Speaker 1: be in the same place where tablets just would be
Speaker 1: a very niche market and most of us wouldn't own one. Well,
Speaker 1: that wraps it up for this episode of listener Mail.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys have enjoyed it. Again if you
Speaker 1: have any questions for me, whether it's a short form
Speaker 1: question that I can answer in a format like this,
Speaker 1: or it's something that you would like a treatment with
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Speaker 1: about how a technology works, or a company or personality
Speaker 1: in tech, or just a concept you want to have
Speaker 1: explained thoroughly. Let me know, send me a message my
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