Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Better Offline. I am, of course
Speaker 2: your host ed Zittron and we are in a very
Speaker 2: intimate podcast studio on like ninth Avenue and it's a
Speaker 2: wonderful day. The last episode we got lost, but it
Speaker 2: will not be happening this time. All of you are
Speaker 2: very kind with the notes you sent. One of you said,
Speaker 2: why don't you take a back up? Thank you. We
Speaker 2: never thought of that. It's not like there was another
Speaker 2: issue that could have happened in the fucking radio station. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Today we have a wonderful gizmos and do Dad's episode.
Speaker 2: On my right, I have the wonderful Michael Fish and
Speaker 2: mister Muball himself.
Speaker 1: Nice to be back. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to have you here. Alex Cran's the
Speaker 2: wonderful gizmo and gadget queen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm so excited to talk about the gizmos.
Speaker 2: Me too, And I'm knocking my phone over. That's staying
Speaker 2: in the episode. That's where my elbow goes, and there
Speaker 2: we go. That's what we do before every episode. And
Speaker 2: Kyle Barr of Gizmoto is here as well.
Speaker 4: Hello exists, and.
Speaker 2: He does exist. So this episode actually came from an
Speaker 2: idea of I told you all this now went on
Speaker 2: Amazon typed in gadgets because I was like, I haven't
Speaker 2: like I mostly spend money on like diet coke and
Speaker 2: occasional baseball games and flights and like weird protein snacks
Speaker 2: I don't really like. So I was like, you know
Speaker 2: what I want? I want some dude ads. I want
Speaker 2: to see what gadgets are going typed in gadgets into Amazon.
Speaker 2: Fuck all appeared. It was like phones and laptops. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't need a new phone or laptop. I'm happy
Speaker 2: with those. I want something weird and stupid. And I
Speaker 2: genuinely was like, wait, why is it so hard to
Speaker 2: find these? You go on a text site these days
Speaker 2: it's all about fucking AI. So I brought you all
Speaker 2: together to talk about the weird stuff you've been looking at.
Speaker 2: And Michael, one of my favorite things you do is
Speaker 2: you've been the flip phone foldable advocate, and honestly, I'm
Speaker 2: deeply jealous raw on Android. I'm so addicted to our message,
Speaker 2: but so much.
Speaker 1: Fun you have.
Speaker 2: So you've got you've got a device in front of you.
Speaker 2: I do and the Honor Magic V five, which you
Speaker 2: cannot buy here.
Speaker 1: One of the world. You cannot buy it here.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: One of the world's thinnest foldables, the thinnest foldable if
Speaker 1: you decide to lie about it in your spec sheet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's gorgeous. Yeah, and this thing is and obviously
Speaker 2: we'll have links in there. But this thing is. You
Speaker 2: can see the crease, but you can't really when you're
Speaker 2: looking at it now. I find these things magnificent. I
Speaker 2: realized that they're imperfect, but I think they're just lovely.
Speaker 2: And there's rumors that Mark German was tweeting earlier about
Speaker 2: Apples foldable. Please do it, Please do the Apple.
Speaker 1: That's all I want co sign Yeah, big agree.
Speaker 3: I mean I want this, but not Android and sold
Speaker 3: in the United States. Yeah, and no huge camera bump.
Speaker 1: Oh see I like the camera bump. I think it
Speaker 1: gives it all kinds of characters. I mean, slap a
Speaker 1: big with the quad areo a quad stuff or whatever,
Speaker 1: Slap a big one of those.
Speaker 2: So this thing has a giant circular like blob coming
Speaker 2: out of it, like a moon crater, like the size
Speaker 2: of a thing you would stick like a phone onto
Speaker 2: a magnetic phone thing like a fairly large circle. I
Speaker 2: prefer that to the weird boils coming off my eye
Speaker 2: camera and you get a case on, so you've now
Speaker 2: got like a raised bit with three and I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't like that. I don't think it looks good.
Speaker 3: I like that it captures all of the lint.
Speaker 2: Yes, anytime I put it in my pocket, there's a
Speaker 2: bunch of crap and also just a new thing for
Speaker 2: me to scratch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the best.
Speaker 2: I think that that. What we're running up against, though,
Speaker 2: is we're approaching the limits of the current interfaces we have.
Speaker 2: I think that we are the current tablet phone interfaces
Speaker 2: and the current laptop phone interfaces are just kind of
Speaker 2: maxed out. And I'm wondering if the next thing is
Speaker 2: just foldables and extendables and all this shit not. According
Speaker 2: to Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Zuckerberg has he has
Speaker 2: reimagined his AI department four times in the last year.
Speaker 2: It's so cool. I love that this. He's going to
Speaker 2: apparently release a wrist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, No, he's doing the risk stuff so for
Speaker 3: better tracking.
Speaker 2: What is so do you have any idea, Alex what
Speaker 2: he's doing?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So his whole conceit until AI came around, was
Speaker 3: that the metaverse was going to be the next big
Speaker 3: thing he's he's since changed his tune except for presumably
Speaker 3: at what does it connect back in next month. And
Speaker 3: one of the things he's doing is making it easier
Speaker 3: to track. You track your hands and stuff when you
Speaker 3: put on these headsets, whether it's the Apple Vision Pro
Speaker 3: or the the Oculus, which is cool, Yeah they're cool,
Speaker 3: But when you put them on, you do hand tracking,
Speaker 3: and it's kind of like okay, but not great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like good enough for some like games like
Speaker 5: but even then you're just still using the controllers anyway, right.
Speaker 3: And and this this this bracelet and you know we've
Speaker 3: seen this before. I think Leap did it like ten
Speaker 3: years ago. Oh yeah, but it really is. It's meant
Speaker 3: to just be better at tracking you and tracking your
Speaker 3: hand booth.
Speaker 1: To be clear, you have to be in VR for
Speaker 1: this to mean anything, right, you have to first have
Speaker 1: on your head.
Speaker 3: Be wearing glasses. That happened, That's that's a whole thing.
Speaker 3: But they're they're moving towards the one day when they
Speaker 3: can do the glasses. But we've been they've been everyone's
Speaker 3: been promising glasses for ten years.
Speaker 1: But props though we have to I have to say
Speaker 1: they're the ray bands are outstanding for a content capture.
Speaker 1: I think we all agree on that they're They're really
Speaker 1: really good from a phone call perspective for listening to music.
Speaker 2: Phone cool work well the phone.
Speaker 1: It's just it's a Bluetooth connection to your phone, just
Speaker 1: like earbuds.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, because you've got the putting my hands
Speaker 3: in front of that mic. Take that back. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: because you've got the microphones in the nose piece of
Speaker 3: the glasses, so it listens really really well and you can.
Speaker 1: Hear music using the glassy little speakers shooting into your ears.
Speaker 1: Over They're really really good and some of the best
Speaker 1: phone and love this.
Speaker 3: Yeah it's cool, but it's also meta.
Speaker 1: Well. The tragedy of it is that those are practical
Speaker 1: benefits that we all love about them, and they have
Speaker 1: a pretty good camera, but Meta refuses to market them
Speaker 1: as such because they want to market them as an
Speaker 1: AI tool. So it's like, no, you got to use
Speaker 1: meta AI to ask what you're looking at? And what
Speaker 1: what's the best pool shot I can get on the Bible?
Speaker 1: Like no, shut up.
Speaker 2: I love that fucking use cases well because it's like
Speaker 2: I don't walk around being like what the fuck is that?
Speaker 2: What the fuck is that?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 2: Just like, sorry, everyone, this is my first rodeo. Like
Speaker 2: I'm just like constantly surprised by everything. Yeah, but I
Speaker 2: hate that it's them. It's the onion thing, the worst
Speaker 2: person you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, has a pretty good point.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, Kyle, you you actually talking of glasses.
Speaker 2: You were looking at this Insta three sixty thing.
Speaker 4: Yep, when you were wearing these.
Speaker 2: Robotic glasses, it was like connected to a drone. No,
Speaker 2: this thing, I will link to it in the notes.
Speaker 2: This thing looks fucking cool.
Speaker 5: So those glasses that almost make you look like Cayman Ryder,
Speaker 5: like that Japanese superhero, it's all part of this giant
Speaker 5: apparatus from Insta three sixty. You know they make three
Speaker 5: sixty cameras, Okay, so what are they gonna do when
Speaker 5: they make a drone? Well, they just slap a three
Speaker 5: sixty camera on it, okay. But then they also add
Speaker 5: the pair of goggles that's similar to the DGI goggle
Speaker 5: that you already can get, but this one makes you
Speaker 5: able to kind of look around in a three sixty space.
Speaker 5: As you're flying around, you literally can turn around and
Speaker 5: see below, you see above, you see whatever is happening
Speaker 5: around you. Is cool as far as like flying around, Uh,
Speaker 5: you know, it's there's other drones like FPV drones, which
Speaker 5: also have like a lot more maneuverability to capture first
Speaker 5: person view. So it's almost like your you can do
Speaker 5: flips and stuff when.
Speaker 3: You're in a video game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so cool.
Speaker 5: So but this one is is more just like experiential.
Speaker 5: You can say it's like a quote unquote immersive. That's
Speaker 5: the word they like to use, but I prefer to
Speaker 5: just say you're you're you're a big floating head in
Speaker 5: a glass jar high above the.
Speaker 3: Ground video games. That's just that's awesome.
Speaker 2: I like it, even though I know in your review
Speaker 2: you like it's imperfect, there are issues, and actually what
Speaker 2: were the issues you read?
Speaker 5: So, I mean it's not like the Best Flyer. There
Speaker 5: was problems when you're trying to bank, it'll just stop.
Speaker 2: What does what do you mean by banking?
Speaker 5: When you're trying to turn Oh, like, uh, this isn't
Speaker 5: actually a product yet, it's not out in the open
Speaker 5: it's going to be in like twenty twenty six. This
Speaker 5: is just like the first iteration, and they're trying to
Speaker 5: show it off to people, and they're really trying to
Speaker 5: make it like a thing. It's also going to cost
Speaker 5: like probably more than two thousand dollars. I can already tell.
Speaker 2: I can't hate the thing is. This is not meant
Speaker 2: to be like for everyone. And I'm glad someone's doing
Speaker 2: something different so much. You can look around a bit
Speaker 2: if you go, like going in a weird canyon or something. Oh,
Speaker 2: fly it like above something like. I like that. I'm
Speaker 2: glad that there's something happening.
Speaker 1: Yes, because sorry, no, no, no please. I just covered something
Speaker 1: that is almost exactly the opposite of this, right where
Speaker 1: this is this total immersion thing that you use outside.
Speaker 1: And I just got done covering Terminal, which is this
Speaker 1: little tablet for the home.
Speaker 3: I hate that thing.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm excited to hear why you hate. Hold on,
Speaker 1: let me tell you what it is. Terminal. Take out
Speaker 1: all the vowels, because it is in fact two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. And you put this in your house, It's
Speaker 1: like a one hundred and fifty bucks or something. It's
Speaker 1: just an e ink screen that gives you ambient information
Speaker 1: throughout the day. It's like one of these Google Home
Speaker 1: or Amazon things that has a screen, except the screen
Speaker 1: is much less distracting, and it is it only refreshes
Speaker 1: once every five minutes, and it doesn't listen to you,
Speaker 1: doesn't do anything like that. It just tells you the weather,
Speaker 1: tells you when the next train is, tells you how
Speaker 1: many city bikes at your desk.
Speaker 3: But it doesn't always refresh, and so you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's not going to rain, and then you just go
Speaker 3: outside and you're like, well, whoops.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're right, because it's it's this very hackery thing.
Speaker 1: Not only do you have to tell it like it's
Speaker 1: not like an iPad where you're like, okay, refresh every
Speaker 1: five minutes. It's like, okay, now you have to go
Speaker 1: in and tell all the tools you added that you
Speaker 1: want them to refresh every five minutes too. It's like
Speaker 1: a Pebble smart watch circa twenty twelve. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: well we've got a tweak it a message.
Speaker 3: You have to tweak it so much. But it was
Speaker 3: I don't know, I really wanted to like it, but
Speaker 3: the slow updates and it's just it's very hackery, and
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm much old today. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was just I appreciated it. I liked having
Speaker 1: to put the effort in because here's the thing. I
Speaker 1: take the ferry everywhere, right, I don't take a subway
Speaker 1: because I don't have a subwey in my house. But
Speaker 1: to do that you had to like go get the
Speaker 1: API yourself from the Fairy website and like plug it
Speaker 1: in and do that.
Speaker 2: That's insane.
Speaker 1: It was fun, though, you want a nerd out, I'm nerding.
Speaker 2: Okay, now this is great. No, you're right, I know.
Speaker 2: I like this whole thing. And is it super customizable?
Speaker 2: So it just requires the API?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean depending on what you want to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's like what one hundred bugs.
Speaker 2: Hundred and fifty, Yeah, it's just a little any subscription no, wow.
Speaker 2: So is it when you say the API from the ferry,
Speaker 2: do you can you code? Did you have to code
Speaker 2: it in or is it just you give it a
Speaker 2: total like API token and it refreshed that day.
Speaker 1: Doing kind of stolen stolen valor for nerds because I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: you're just follow the instruction of the thing. And copy
Speaker 1: your paste of That's fine.
Speaker 3: Someone smarter than us has come back that I love.
Speaker 2: I put a table of contents into my newsletter today
Speaker 2: and I had to like learn get my editor to
Speaker 2: do the HTML and then explain how it works. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is That's part of being online. It's like learning
Speaker 2: standing on the shoulders of giants. Like like, you get
Speaker 2: two kinds of reeditors. You get the one that's just like,
Speaker 2: I'm just a casual racist, and then you've got the
Speaker 2: one which is like, I'm actually the in homebrew on
Speaker 2: PlayStation portables, and I'm like in the middle of you too.
Speaker 2: I like the idea, but as ever, I'm like, what
Speaker 2: shit do I actually need to know every few seconds
Speaker 2: other than like what the last thing someone posted was?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think if I were if I was like
Speaker 3: a YouTuber, if I was doing that sort of stuff,
Speaker 3: I probably want it more. I'm just in my house
Speaker 3: smoking weed. So it's like, I just need to know
Speaker 3: am I going to get rained on when I go
Speaker 3: sit on the deck. And it's sometimes good at that
Speaker 3: And I haven't plugged it in in at least.
Speaker 1: A month, give it another ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll plug it in when I get home.
Speaker 2: This actually reminded me of something that you've posted about
Speaker 2: Kyle as well, which is the GPD Win five, which
Speaker 2: is a one of Cranz's favorite industries, the little the
Speaker 2: portable PC things. It's so fun because we're talking about
Speaker 2: like real just like rinky dnk shit. It has an
Speaker 2: external battery. Yep.
Speaker 5: So imagine you know, you got your steam deck like handheld,
Speaker 5: except you know, the battery life keeps dying. You're like, oh,
Speaker 5: that sucks. If only it had a bigger battery. Well,
Speaker 5: they have a bigger battery. It's just attached to a cable.
Speaker 5: You just you have to you can slap it onto
Speaker 5: the back of it.
Speaker 2: Have you held it yet? No?
Speaker 5: No, I mean a lot of these companies, like you know,
Speaker 5: a lot of the jankier handhelds are all like China
Speaker 5: based companies. Oh yeah, they're all just like cranking them
Speaker 5: out routinely, like GPD. This is the fifth one.
Speaker 2: So I have the GPD in wind four. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it is I love it and I fucking hate it.
Speaker 2: It is so large. It is so much larger than
Speaker 2: It doesn't feel as large until you've used it for
Speaker 2: one minute and you're.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, but it scratches that itch, doesn't it?
Speaker 2: Oh it does. It feels just like a PlayStation portable
Speaker 2: if I take three of them together. But I went
Speaker 2: and watched the video and this thing just for for
Speaker 2: the on in this ship is just a Windows tablet
Speaker 2: in a PlayStation portable handheld for and it's cool when
Speaker 2: it works. You can play Hades two and it looks great,
Speaker 2: feels great.
Speaker 1: They took the keyboard off this year. It's not it
Speaker 1: doesn't a keyboard, no Q.
Speaker 2: So that's why I swear there's one with a keyboard
Speaker 2: you can slide up that feels like. I'm pretty yeah.
Speaker 2: And I like GPD by the way, because they do
Speaker 2: just crank out these insane looking like, yeah, you've got
Speaker 2: a ten and ten point four inch tiny laptop with
Speaker 2: the worst keepboard you've used in the world. It sucks,
Speaker 2: but it rules, and you're like, ooh, why did you
Speaker 2: make this? Who's buying this? And it's like every Kickstar
Speaker 2: is ten many that you're like, ah, criminal enterprises.
Speaker 3: No one is buying these things, but we are all
Speaker 3: loving that.
Speaker 2: I love that they're experimenting. But I actually this is
Speaker 2: my Contrussia. I don't mind the external battery.
Speaker 4: I don't either.
Speaker 5: Is the weird thing, because okay, I've I already have
Speaker 5: to do that, like with my switch to I just
Speaker 5: rew there's a case that I got that has the
Speaker 5: external battery. You slap it onto the back and now
Speaker 5: it's lasting four hours instead of two. You already kind
Speaker 5: of have to do that with a lot of these handles,
Speaker 5: unless you're just sitting at home playing it on your
Speaker 5: bed where you have the cable right next to you
Speaker 5: and you're like, I'm running lout, plug it in and
Speaker 5: go do something else or something.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, you get the ten foot USBC cable. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then you get the even longer power cable and
Speaker 3: you plug everything together and you suddenly got twenty feet
Speaker 3: of reach.
Speaker 2: Right. I've seen I've I seen a few people derisively
Speaker 2: talking about this external battery situation. It's like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I love my rog x ally, I really do, but
Speaker 2: the motherfucker if you leave it, it's like you hit
Speaker 2: sleep and it just you're like, this will sleep, and
Speaker 2: you come back in an hour and it's dead. It's
Speaker 2: just a world cup.
Speaker 3: Wait, well that's because the windows machines really struggle with
Speaker 3: powering down.
Speaker 1: Like I'm just gonna say, I'm glad nothing has changed
Speaker 1: in Windows for the last twenty years.
Speaker 3: Never Yeah, it will never change. Windows will always be
Speaker 3: the most inconsistent handling of power.
Speaker 2: I think Microsoft is truly evil. I think like they
Speaker 2: have like such an open goal here with handhelds. They
Speaker 2: have companies. I know that they're doing an Xbox rog
Speaker 2: ally x and I saw fucking Tom Warren on the
Speaker 2: verge go for the first time. You just hit a button,
Speaker 2: you go to Windows. Actually, Tom, you could do that
Speaker 2: with all the rocks. Fucking but it's just like they
Speaker 2: they're like, we're releasing a special Xbox. Did we change
Speaker 2: Windows in any way? Fuck you customer? Yeah, piece of shit. Well,
Speaker 2: and usually we laid off everyone who did that.
Speaker 3: I will say, usually it's not Microsoft's fault. It's usually
Speaker 3: these other companies are just not building the drivers and
Speaker 3: stuff to properly handle power management. But it was also
Speaker 3: Microsoft's fault because the Xbox rog what I didn't even
Speaker 3: hear about this.
Speaker 2: Tell me more you didn't hear it.
Speaker 5: It's it is basically a l weird like handheld. Yeah,
Speaker 5: there's the Xbox grips that come along with it.
Speaker 2: The Okay, so according to I want those grips so bad.
Speaker 4: So this is the thing.
Speaker 5: You don't even need to get the new one, really
Speaker 5: the grips. Well no, because if you want the grips
Speaker 5: and you have to get the new one. But the
Speaker 5: whole like thing with it now is that they've changed
Speaker 5: the software. They're saying that they've limited enough a number
Speaker 5: of stuff on the back end so that it should
Speaker 5: run better, it should sleep better, so it should be
Speaker 5: better with power management. And this is a lot of shoulds,
Speaker 5: right because none of us have actually, you know, put
Speaker 5: it through its space is like over a long term.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: I just think that Microsoft is trying, but they're doing
Speaker 5: it so late, and it's coming off of like a
Speaker 5: bunch of stuff that happened recently with Xbox that made
Speaker 5: them look really bad.
Speaker 4: So they look like they're trying too hard.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: They had a handteld. It was long rumored. I remember
Speaker 3: Tom was covering it at the verge, and then they
Speaker 3: just abruptly killed it because they realized.
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure how far along that was even.
Speaker 3: Well, my understanding was this fairly far along, but they
Speaker 3: were entirely dependent on Streaming to handle it. They go
Speaker 3: they go to them yeah, game pass is great. I
Speaker 3: use it on my steam deck, but it's not great
Speaker 3: enough to do it that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when not they get Yeah, this actually reminds me.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you about this. At some point
Speaker 2: you said something about g force now in stall, and
Speaker 2: I've seen stories about this. What is this g force
Speaker 2: now install thing? Crans?
Speaker 3: I mean, I just know g Force now. You tell me.
Speaker 5: Okay, well, okay, g Force now they just released an update.
Speaker 5: So g force now is a streaming service. You have
Speaker 5: to play your own games versus like you know, other
Speaker 5: like xboxes cloud gaming thing where you can use their games,
Speaker 5: and like you're paying for the service.
Speaker 2: This one.
Speaker 5: You're paying for the service to use their servers to
Speaker 5: download the games and play them remotely. They've just added
Speaker 5: a thing where supposedly you'll be able to just kind
Speaker 5: of use your whatever games like not even on their list,
Speaker 5: as long as a developer opts in whatever that really means,
Speaker 5: if they're already opted in probably uh, then you can
Speaker 5: just rent out space on their servers to download that
Speaker 5: game and then basically just have a Shadow PC to
Speaker 5: play those games.
Speaker 3: Are interesting that's been going. I mean, there was a
Speaker 3: company Shadow that's exactly what I'm still around.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're just really expensive there, and.
Speaker 3: I mean in video. The reason they're likely doing this
Speaker 3: is they have a lot of server space. They have
Speaker 3: a ton of server space because it's in Vidia, and
Speaker 3: they've currently made everyone's four Oka four oh one k
Speaker 3: beautiful crik now for now for at least the end
Speaker 3: of this month, till Wednesday.
Speaker 1: We know that.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, that's why they're doing it, is they
Speaker 3: have all the server space, and it's like, why not
Speaker 3: make a few extra bucks because it's not like it's
Speaker 3: not going to be a huge money driver for them,
Speaker 3: but there are people out there who want to play
Speaker 3: their games remote. They used to be able to do
Speaker 3: that when it first launch.
Speaker 1: Yes, that'll get a little more popular once we get
Speaker 1: one of the more gadgety elements of phones back, which
Speaker 1: is this. Remember Samsung Decks, this sort of desktop simulator
Speaker 1: that lets you use your plug your phone into a
Speaker 1: monitoring keyboard and mouse, and well it's been just decrepit
Speaker 1: and gathering dust for ages. It hasn't been updated in
Speaker 1: a meaningful way in a long time. But now that
Speaker 1: Android Google's building it into Android sixteen. Is this kind
Speaker 1: of mode that will not require you to have a
Speaker 1: Samsung phone. You can have any Android phone running FRO
Speaker 1: running sixteen. One of the things I did was, I
Speaker 1: thank you for reminding me about Shadow, because I forgot
Speaker 1: last time I reviewed Samsung Decks. I used Shadow to
Speaker 1: play like Titanic Adventure, Out of Time and other CD
Speaker 1: Rohm classics from my youth, and it was absolutely great.
Speaker 2: But wait, wait, wait, what does decks actually do.
Speaker 1: It's so you plug your phone into a monitoring keyboard
Speaker 1: and mouse and you do not USBC, SBC whatever, and
Speaker 1: then it just creates a desktop environment like it like Windows,
Speaker 1: except it's Android. It's your fine, so you don't have
Speaker 1: to find a Wi Fi hat, You've reready got a
Speaker 1: se connection. You don't have to move your files to
Speaker 1: it because your files are already on your phone.
Speaker 3: Atrix promised us this fifteen years and Trix Variety.
Speaker 2: And Atrix four G Yeah, they never trust that fucking guy.
Speaker 2: Well actually was good now that they've got the.
Speaker 1: Race Razor Ultra, we love that. We love a wooden phone.
Speaker 3: And thank you Lenovo Wooden.
Speaker 1: Indeed it's wood on it. You got wood, You got Alcantara.
Speaker 1: If you want to get a really gross overnight and
Speaker 1: then what fake?
Speaker 2: What do you mean gross?
Speaker 3: Like yes, yeah, alcantara is is like a fabric and
Speaker 3: that was what they put on the palm rest for
Speaker 3: the surface. And it can get dirty.
Speaker 2: Because it's one just flipping out of a low razor.
Speaker 3: But like two months in after you do like a
Speaker 3: New York summer, it's just going to be so disgusting
Speaker 3: on the front.
Speaker 2: No one will ever drop it like just absorbs all.
Speaker 3: But you know then it's your You've got a nice patina.
Speaker 3: No one will ever touch it because they'll be disgusting.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, I think it's great and I will
Speaker 2: say it. I want Apple to do this fucking flip phone.
Speaker 2: I want him to do something different. I'm tired of
Speaker 2: I want my I have the most giant phone. I
Speaker 2: occasionally go back to the smaller iPhone. I hate it.
Speaker 2: I want the big one again, except I want an
Speaker 2: even bigger one. I want Apple to do foldables so bad.
Speaker 1: I don't need to wait for a photoble. I got
Speaker 1: just the thing for you. Ever use clicks for the iPhone?
Speaker 1: I have a clicks I have a click disclosure.
Speaker 2: I am a co founder click co found I bought
Speaker 2: when I sent you a picture of me using which
Speaker 2: I appreciate it and I.
Speaker 1: Hear that makes it big. Just use that and it
Speaker 1: makes it click you too.
Speaker 2: No, the thing is, I don't have a trouble typing
Speaker 2: on the phone at all. I just want the screen.
Speaker 2: I would like my screen to be twice the size.
Speaker 3: Well, you could just carry an iPad.
Speaker 2: I do carry an iPad, and I love the iPad pro.
Speaker 2: I really do take photos. I'm not my dad, my dad. No,
Speaker 2: I love my dad. He pulls out his iPad many
Speaker 2: and it's just like the most like it's no, No,
Speaker 2: I love it. I love the fact that he's into
Speaker 2: the iPad because I got him as the original iPad
Speaker 2: whenever like the second. No, it's the first iPad many
Speaker 2: they released. And my dad, I love hearing this and
Speaker 2: he loved it. He uses it all the time, and
Speaker 2: I consider like that the best sign of technology.
Speaker 1: If like like like an.
Speaker 2: Older person who's just a regular person who does like
Speaker 2: a business job and like listens to the radio and
Speaker 2: watches the news, Like what are their use cases with it?
Speaker 2: And the fact that he picks it up and uses
Speaker 2: it like as a pic, as a as a picture taker.
Speaker 1: That's the term picture taker.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think it's lovely, and I think it affordable.
Speaker 2: And look it's me, he's photographing me, and that's actually
Speaker 2: really cool. And this is yeah, And I get back
Speaker 2: to my thing that the UX situation. We're just at
Speaker 2: the limits of the current UX.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 2: And also my controversial opinion, which is the vision pro
Speaker 2: is amazing when it works.
Speaker 3: It's so heavy it is.
Speaker 2: But when I say when it works, I mean we're
Speaker 2: talking four percent of the time. Have I told any
Speaker 2: of you what's happened with my vision progress? So I
Speaker 2: got told my good Matt Bambike, who told me that
Speaker 2: Metallica was on the vision prom like a big, heavy
Speaker 2: thing that's kind of lost its way and we're not
Speaker 2: really sure why we engage with it. Sounds like Metallica.
Speaker 2: So I get this thing, I put it on. It goes.
Speaker 2: You need to update the fuck it. Okay, I'll update.
Speaker 2: I have that shit all the time. I let it
Speaker 2: start downloading, I pick it up, I put it down,
Speaker 2: I pick it up, the UX doesn't load again. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you have to keep this thing on your fucking head
Speaker 2: while you update it. Yep, it's like a fifteen minute
Speaker 2: long update. This feels like just the easiest thing in
Speaker 2: the world for them to fix, and it's just it's
Speaker 2: so annoying because there are there are like several minutes
Speaker 2: at a time when I'm using the Vision Pro when
Speaker 2: I can make it work, which is not at the
Speaker 2: moment where I'm just like, damn, this feels like the
Speaker 2: few It's a giant screen. It like I can grab things,
Speaker 2: and then like the headset moves three centimeters. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: now it's out of focus.
Speaker 3: Have you used to quest like this?
Speaker 2: I have the Quest three and it's just like even
Speaker 2: then my strange skulleah, like lots of people love measuring
Speaker 2: my skulls reasons, but it's just like the Quest three
Speaker 2: doesn't feel right, but it feels better than this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But the Vision Pro has these moments, and I think
Speaker 2: it's just because the it's less about the Vision Pro
Speaker 2: more the idea of yeah, an interface that we could
Speaker 2: reach out and grab and move around with our hands.
Speaker 2: It makes sense and it works when it works, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't work very often, and it's just the problem
Speaker 2: is is every article is either this is the most
Speaker 2: amazing thing, which is not, or it's this completely sucks,
Speaker 2: which it does a lot of the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where it's in a journey.
Speaker 2: I wish all the money if from AI had gone
Speaker 2: into this, not because I think it would be particularly successful,
Speaker 2: but we get we get somewhere too quicker.
Speaker 3: It did go into it at Meta, it didn't go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, forty two billion dollars went into experiments doing air quotes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that's what Android X are is supposed
Speaker 5: to be. Right, it's going to be first Samsung's Project
Speaker 5: Muhan is just going to be you know, one Apple
Speaker 5: Vision Pro but with Yeah, it's so Samsung's making a
Speaker 5: Vision Pro. It's gonna have very similar like micro oled displays.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's going to go the full
Speaker 5: like four K four K or whatever bullshit, but it'll
Speaker 5: just be like, you know, it'll be Android's version of
Speaker 5: Apple's Vision OS. It's just going to be a little
Speaker 5: bit more AI focused because it's all full of Google.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Because I was using these Vichua glasses if you heard
Speaker 2: of these, Yes.
Speaker 4: I've used them these weirdly in.
Speaker 2: Just put them on you have a USB. It doesn't
Speaker 2: try and be fancy enough, and you just have a
Speaker 2: couple you put in your phone and you have them
Speaker 2: on your glasses and it looks pretty big.
Speaker 5: That's that's the best thing about Like, yeah, I like
Speaker 5: air glasses because I just like secondary screens. It's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 5: you know they're good for a plane. They're just a
Speaker 5: little bit expensive, but yeah they do what do you
Speaker 5: need them to do?
Speaker 2: Then I put it on the plane, I'm like, ah, right,
Speaker 2: I don't want to look straight ahead. But it was
Speaker 2: just like me, just like this is cool. Can I
Speaker 2: move it to Nope, this is attached to my fucking face.
Speaker 2: But there is something here, I swear to.
Speaker 3: God, no, there is something.
Speaker 2: There's so much more here than Generative AI. Like with
Speaker 2: General AI have not had a goddamn moment of peace
Speaker 2: in two years, but also not a goddamn moment where
Speaker 2: I've been like okay, I kind of I kind of
Speaker 2: see it. And there were moments with the Vision. There's
Speaker 2: moments with the Quest where I've been like, okay, like
Speaker 2: horseshoes and hand grenades. Yeah, Steam game where you can
Speaker 2: just like pick up guns and it's like extremely realistic
Speaker 2: and it just feels so good and it's satisfied, like
Speaker 2: exactly the kind of moment that you're like, this is
Speaker 2: great fun technology. I fucking love the future. The same
Speaker 2: thing when I I remember when I got the original
Speaker 2: iPhone on singular wireless in Penn State, and I remember
Speaker 2: the moment of like, Wow, I don't have to wait
Speaker 2: for my voicemail. Wow, I can just type out and
Speaker 2: I can move apps. This is cool. Those moments are
Speaker 2: there with XR and VR. I'm actually like, I'm not
Speaker 2: like a fantasist about it. Most of the shit sucks.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I think Google is going to say is
Speaker 3: that they've invested in AI so that the AI can
Speaker 3: go and actually fix all of the problems that the
Speaker 3: brilliant scientists and researchers haven't been able to do, to
Speaker 3: actually make a pair of good looking XR glasses that
Speaker 3: you can wear on your face.
Speaker 2: That it's so funny.
Speaker 1: Well, so I spent almost the entirety of last CEES
Speaker 1: looking at displays because I was going to cover other things,
Speaker 1: and then I very quickly realized the most interesting stuff
Speaker 1: on the floor was was eyeglasses for ar you know, applications,
Speaker 1: and I used the even realities g one. If you
Speaker 1: used these one of these, these are some very normal
Speaker 1: looking glasses that if you're a Harry Potter fan, you're
Speaker 1: you're really a fan of them, because they can't make
Speaker 1: you look like that. But they don't look like they
Speaker 1: have tech in them. In fact, the first ad I
Speaker 1: saw for them, I did not believe that they existed.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you guys are just hitting me with a
Speaker 1: render and this is vapor where it's never going to launch.
Speaker 1: And so I'm on a friend's head and I'm like, what,
Speaker 1: wait are those they? And you put them on and
Speaker 1: they have us monochrome wargames esque like green text.
Speaker 2: Displace these on Instagram. Dude.
Speaker 1: They are and they look they do very few things,
Speaker 1: but they do them all pretty damn well.
Speaker 2: As Chris fvelasco, the legend of it was, I was
Speaker 2: talking about them and they're great.
Speaker 1: I kept wearing them for weeks after the review and
Speaker 1: what they do and caveat I'm a sucker for notification
Speaker 1: dashboards terminal smart watches. This takes your smart watch, puts
Speaker 1: it on your face and so if you're just interacting,
Speaker 1: you're fine, and then you look up and then you
Speaker 1: have a little dashboard you have to look up. No,
Speaker 1: you can set it so that if you get a
Speaker 1: notification that pops up right in front of your so
Speaker 1: if I'm looking at you, I'm actually reading my messages
Speaker 1: and that's creepy, So I keep that off.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm the other way around though, where I'm like,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want this on all the time, but if
Speaker 2: I could look up just to take a look, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because if I see a notification, I want to chew
Speaker 2: on it. Yeah, I want to take a look. What
Speaker 2: you go for me? Absolutely? And I love this. And again,
Speaker 2: is this super useful? It's useful? Is it too expensive?
Speaker 2: I assume yes?
Speaker 1: Probably.
Speaker 2: I forgot how they look like.
Speaker 3: You have to wear a leather duster with them whenever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's that's the thing. So this is my
Speaker 1: main complaint with all the other stuff you're talking about,
Speaker 1: is like the I'm sorry, I always bring out XP
Speaker 1: real just to like beat on them, but like great technology,
Speaker 1: but when you wear it, it's it is x reel.
Speaker 1: You put on sunglasses, but you have like four inches
Speaker 1: of I don't know, foam between them and your eyes,
Speaker 1: Like they just ride so damn high and they're just
Speaker 1: just because of the what is x rel They're like
Speaker 1: what you just described for airplane viewing. They're like, you know,
Speaker 1: wearable displays for years, but they're.
Speaker 4: Also working on an XSAR thing for Android.
Speaker 1: Are they yep? Okay, that means display technology that doesn't
Speaker 1: require like you know, you would working.
Speaker 2: Vision pro by. Now, if they'd put the four hundred
Speaker 2: billion dollars into this ship, like that's the that's the
Speaker 2: actual thing. If they wanted to invest in the future,
Speaker 2: even if it's not xr VR, if they put hundreds
Speaker 2: of billions of dollars into the next interface, and their
Speaker 2: argument would be, oh, yeah, well, AI is the next
Speaker 2: interface because you can just talk right, No, I can't. No,
Speaker 2: I can't at all. I have a British accent. Do
Speaker 2: you know I have to have British Siri sometimes because
Speaker 2: sometimes Siri just because I don't.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I don't. A lot of my family has
Speaker 3: really strong Southern and Texas accents. It's incredible, like it
Speaker 3: has not nothing has improved from when Google first and
Speaker 3: out first issued like voicemail where we would transcribe it.
Speaker 3: Nothing's improved, Siri, Android, any of them. If they've got
Speaker 3: a really strong accent and they're talking like dish, no, no,
Speaker 3: my god, it's not nonal fucking work.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, just tie it out. You have to
Speaker 2: people in the South and people in love Baltimore.
Speaker 1: Just fuck just absolutely fun giving that food question. Actually,
Speaker 1: did you know that when you go to Europe the
Speaker 1: Android dictation engine changes.
Speaker 2: No GDPR I sum or something like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. All I know is when I'm
Speaker 1: in Europe and I'm trying to type and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I'll come to you period, it says period. I have
Speaker 1: to say no, I'll come to you full stop.
Speaker 2: Oh that makes more sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty smart.
Speaker 2: If you go around in England being like period, people
Speaker 2: don't look at this at the end of every sentence like, oh,
Speaker 2: you seem fine. But it's I do think though that
Speaker 2: this is this is a very dread infused time. It's
Speaker 2: very doom ory. But then I see these little folded
Speaker 2: I see the fun device. I'm like, that's industry does
Speaker 2: actually have other things. It's just I think we might
Speaker 2: have maxed out software. I think we may have reached
Speaker 2: the limits of what software can do based on what
Speaker 2: we have as computing devices.
Speaker 3: I'm sure, yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's not fully at the limits, but I'm
Speaker 2: just saying as far as consumers go with using stuff.
Speaker 2: But what do you think, Alex I would.
Speaker 3: Say that it is more laziness of the large companies,
Speaker 3: the Apples and the Samsung's and the Googles and the Microsoft's,
Speaker 3: the Lenovo's, I mean, well, the Lenovo actually they have fun. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Lenovo's actually really good at like we're going to experiment,
Speaker 3: and they're Chinese company.
Speaker 4: They're always trying something you.
Speaker 3: Know a lot of but the primarily these American companies
Speaker 3: making gadgets and stuff, they don't try. All of they're
Speaker 3: interested in is how can I get you to replace
Speaker 3: what you have in two years?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: That's it. And instead of being like, how can I
Speaker 3: get you to replace what you have in two years
Speaker 3: by completely redefining the entire industry, they're like, now you
Speaker 3: can use magnets, it's longer, and it's like, well, that's cool,
Speaker 3: But am I really going to upgrade my phone just
Speaker 3: for that? I might, No, people in this room might.
Speaker 1: I definitely would, but but you're right, but with.
Speaker 3: The people outside of this room, anybody.
Speaker 1: Have a case for that.
Speaker 2: It's also I think they've tried to do everything with
Speaker 2: one device, which is great, but that's where you bump up,
Speaker 2: like the limits of entertainment I think are we're reaching,
Speaker 2: especially because watching I'm done with people telling me to
Speaker 2: watch I don't know how people watch like full movies
Speaker 2: on their phone. Even the biggest, most hug just for
Speaker 2: they're young.
Speaker 3: They stirred it.
Speaker 2: No, I mean I mean older people too. I mean
Speaker 2: I've just met people and it's like on like a
Speaker 2: six inch phone and it's like, what the fuck? This
Speaker 2: is worse than an app.
Speaker 3: My brother did that. He watched Sinners like on his
Speaker 3: pad and he's like, why does everybody like Sinners? It's
Speaker 3: not very good? And I was like, how'd you watch it, like,
Speaker 3: you know, in the middle of the day with the
Speaker 3: lights all on on my iPad? And I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: of course you didn't like it. Hell yeah, did it together, sir?
Speaker 2: Watching The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Detroit too,
Speaker 2: that was a good fun I like the droid too.
Speaker 2: That was And also, just to be clear, you can
Speaker 2: do experiments that suck. I did also try the BlackBerry
Speaker 2: Storm back in the day. With It's like it was
Speaker 2: a screen where you could just like do happen. It
Speaker 2: was like you could press it felt like you were
Speaker 2: pressing in, but it felt.
Speaker 1: It didn't it flowed down a button.
Speaker 2: It felt bad. It felt like it was a slightly
Speaker 2: harder version of poking some like Greek yoga. It was,
Speaker 2: which is not the sensation I want? While typing like
Speaker 2: a clunk to it.
Speaker 3: That was the one that, like BlackBerry was like, this
Speaker 3: is gonna save us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was that big. It was so it was
Speaker 2: like the homomobile of funds. It's fucking wrong. I love
Speaker 2: them for how bad it was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were like, we're gonna we don't need this
Speaker 3: multi touch stuff.
Speaker 1: We got this, Yeah, we got you want your screen
Speaker 1: to move?
Speaker 2: Do you ever want a screen that feels that makes
Speaker 2: you feel bad every time you touch it? And everyone
Speaker 2: else is like we're working on that with different ways.
Speaker 2: It's I also think that the it's nice to see
Speaker 2: here that there's some fun as well because the AI
Speaker 2: stuff and I'm not gonna make this a big complain
Speaker 2: first about AI. You got the rest of the episodes,
Speaker 2: but there's something joyless about large language. It's not fun.
Speaker 2: I'm not using any of it and being like, oh,
Speaker 2: how whimsicll like, oh you're having They don't seem like
Speaker 2: we're haven't they're having fun. We're not having fun at
Speaker 2: least with some dorky, insane fun. You're like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: what are you good fun?
Speaker 3: I mean the vibe coders. The vibe coders are having fun.
Speaker 2: Though they're not read the Vibe coding Reddit. It's a
Speaker 2: bunch of people talking like they've been captured by North Korea. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's straighted. Be like, I love doing this every day mice.
Speaker 2: I've put three months of my life and thousands of
Speaker 2: dollars into this, and I have eight paying customers.
Speaker 3: It's the best thing in the world.
Speaker 2: It's so funny. And you you read and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't get how this happened. And someone will be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you don't read code. You can't understand how this cat
Speaker 2: well I asked it to tell me. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's the problem. But it's like, there's nothing dorky
Speaker 2: or funny about it. Even the meta verse was more
Speaker 2: fun than this.
Speaker 4: It was more fun to make fun of it.
Speaker 3: Like the metaverse. That first time you put on that
Speaker 3: stupid Windows headset and you had your big Windows playhouse
Speaker 3: and you go and you put a giant dinosaur in it,
Speaker 3: and then you ask your coworker to try on the
Speaker 3: headset and they're like, why the hell is a giant
Speaker 3: dinosaur staring at me? Like that's fun, but you can't
Speaker 3: do that. Yeah, it's it's hard to troll people with AI.
Speaker 3: I mean you have to, like you really have to
Speaker 3: think about it.
Speaker 2: That's the thing, though. People trolled a little hard. Because
Speaker 2: what I also enjoyed was watching during the metaverse, regular
Speaker 2: journalists be like I'll check cut this VR chat thing
Speaker 2: and just like getting the worst people online. A bunch
Speaker 2: of people dressed as knuckles just doing racism constantly, just
Speaker 2: like endless races. And if you're thirteen year old, Yeah,
Speaker 2: just thirteen year old saying the worst sheet you've heard
Speaker 2: in your life, and like I'm here from a business magazine.
Speaker 2: It's like, fuck you, piece of shit. No, it's great.
Speaker 2: I think the journalists need to see the real Internet occasionally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you can't do that with You can.
Speaker 2: Just do that with the Internet. You've been able to
Speaker 2: do it for decades. It's just but the metaverse also
Speaker 2: you saw some people try some weird shit. You saw
Speaker 2: a lot of grifters and all this crap, like whatever,
Speaker 2: but it was like at least someone was having fun.
Speaker 2: Mark Zuckerberg was lying, but also people didn't really full
Speaker 2: ask the metaverse. I wish that they had put this
Speaker 2: kind of money into it, because we would have got
Speaker 2: one really shit thing and one really funny thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean they to an extent they did
Speaker 3: put the money in, Like apples, Apple spent a lot
Speaker 3: of money.
Speaker 2: I don't think they did that because of the metaverse.
Speaker 2: I think that they were planning it anyway.
Speaker 3: Really, I think I always felt it was like, we
Speaker 3: need to play catch up. Everyone is talking.
Speaker 2: They've been Yeah, I can see that Apple, But I
Speaker 2: refuse to believe it's been two three years. Well it
Speaker 2: came out twenty twenty four. I don't think they've only
Speaker 2: been working on it two years. Maybe they don't accelerated.
Speaker 3: Out they've been.
Speaker 2: They've been working on it for Steve Jobs would have
Speaker 2: fucking killed them. Can you imagine Steve Jobs finding about that.
Speaker 2: He would have beaten someone to death with the willows.
Speaker 5: Wasn't the idea that they were creating glasses first, and
Speaker 5: then they're like, this is the step towards the glasses
Speaker 5: and now well there was all that talk whether or
Speaker 5: not they're actually making a glass. Now they're back on
Speaker 5: whether or not they're going to be smart glasses or
Speaker 5: ar glasses. It seems silly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everybody was like, okay, and this, this is the
Speaker 3: dumbest part of the generative AI moment is ten years
Speaker 3: ago everybody was like, we're going to have smart glasses,
Speaker 3: but they are going to be you put them on
Speaker 3: and you talk to somebody because Alexa is doing it
Speaker 3: and there's in Siri and all of this, So we're
Speaker 3: going to do it just like this. It didn't work
Speaker 3: because we don't know how to interact audio wise with
Speaker 3: computers and stuff. It's not just like it is in
Speaker 3: Star Trek. It's actually more complex, right, you have to
Speaker 3: consider multiple users and stuff. So everybody's like, okay, how
Speaker 3: else can we do this, Well, we'll do the metaverse
Speaker 3: and we'll do these ar glasses. And then they were like, wait,
Speaker 3: we can't figure out how to make these glasses small enough,
Speaker 3: with battery life, with good vision, Like, we can't do
Speaker 3: all of that. And then Generative AI came out and
Speaker 3: there was everbody's like, you know what, we're gonna do
Speaker 3: that Alexa.
Speaker 2: Shit again, I love that as well, because Alexa didn't work.
Speaker 2: It still doesn't, and they were like, well, we'll make
Speaker 2: a new one that works worse. Yes, and it's I
Speaker 2: haven't have any of you used Alexa plus yet no?
Speaker 4: Yeah, not only in demos.
Speaker 2: Damn I was I really when I read about that,
Speaker 2: and they're like, it's worse and it can you can
Speaker 2: be like, yeah, make me a recipe for like chicken
Speaker 2: pasta and it will tell you it. And I just
Speaker 2: think that people need to accept the voice is not
Speaker 2: a good interface just in general. I don't think it
Speaker 2: needs to be perfect perfect.
Speaker 3: There's so much more training of ourselves.
Speaker 2: Right because like you, I don't want to be trained.
Speaker 2: I want to use the thing, but you.
Speaker 3: Are trained, Like we're all trained. We're trained to use our.
Speaker 1: Phone limited use cases like you know, turn the lights on,
Speaker 1: to turn to open the garage door or whatever like.
Speaker 1: But but beyond that, to your point, like it's it's
Speaker 1: required to be usable by such a wide squath of
Speaker 1: humans that it's almost important.
Speaker 3: We all want to do it, just like start absolutely.
Speaker 2: I also think it has a very flat view of tasks.
Speaker 2: I think that most people think that it's going to
Speaker 2: be well, people like Sunda Pushai or Andy jasse think
Speaker 2: that people go into the house and go and I
Speaker 2: will do that, and I will do this, not me.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what about the YouTube? What about the chrome thing? Oh?
Speaker 2: I just breathe this off. Well now why fuck? I'm
Speaker 2: meant to send an email? Send an email? Okay, Fuck,
Speaker 2: I've got the information for the email. Shit, why am I?
Speaker 2: Why is it so fucking hot in here? I need
Speaker 2: to make it cold in it? Fuck? It's how to
Speaker 2: put this YouTube back on?
Speaker 3: Yeh, you can't multitask at all.
Speaker 2: Right. It also just can't do any context switching. You
Speaker 2: cannot do it.
Speaker 1: And I will do something which I think would be
Speaker 1: ten amount of suicide on any other day. I will
Speaker 1: defend an LLM on your podcast. Okay, I feel like
Speaker 1: it's probably a good mechanic for training these things to
Speaker 1: do exactly that, because I have found the one enjoyable
Speaker 1: bit of using lllm's I've found is that I'll talk
Speaker 1: to Gemini Live a lot, because I'm very used to
Speaker 1: as we all are, doing a Google Voice dictated search
Speaker 1: for what I'm looking for. But I love that Gemini
Speaker 1: lets me talk to it like my brain actually works,
Speaker 1: like thinking about this thing. It's like a wrench, but
Speaker 1: it's not. It's like a ratcheting socket that's probably not
Speaker 1: ratcheting anyway. It's a vacuum cleaner adjustment, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And then she'll be like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: totally got it here, here's what it is. But that's
Speaker 1: and then her return to to be fair, we will
Speaker 1: be twenty percent wrong, but at least she's gotten me.
Speaker 1: I'm with you.
Speaker 2: This is the use case of llms, which is they
Speaker 2: are better at inferring meaning from what we say, and
Speaker 2: they have found a way to do that, which is
Speaker 2: just better search, which gets back to the thing that
Speaker 2: you were saying, Alex about how these companies are lazy,
Speaker 2: because why does it Why didn't Google have this ten
Speaker 2: years ago? How are there no other ways to do this?
Speaker 2: And why is Google still not really like this? In
Speaker 2: the search engine part, you have to go into Gemini
Speaker 2: and even when you you can't type in to Google
Speaker 2: search that kind of thing. Now when you try and
Speaker 2: I will type in like cite the information a term,
Speaker 2: and it will be like, I don't fucking know, man,
Speaker 2: because I didn't write dot com. Yeah, because it is
Speaker 2: just I don't know what possibly could cite colon the
Speaker 2: information mean, oh you had a dot com. It's a website.
Speaker 2: My bad, Like I'm only worth We're only a market
Speaker 2: cap of four trillion dollars. Fuck you.
Speaker 3: Well, they would say you should be using Chrome to
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: Answer Chrome, No, I wasn't. I'm still in Chrome a
Speaker 2: little bit because certain websites don't work because we live
Speaker 2: in the future.
Speaker 3: I tried to switch to Coggy's mobile browser. Worst experience.
Speaker 2: I switched to Firefox, and I hate it.
Speaker 3: It's sometimes some things just work better.
Speaker 1: I live in Chrome. I guess where I'm I mean,
Speaker 1: especially since Pocket died. Now I have to use Chrome
Speaker 1: from my mobile bookmarks and it has on passwords. It
Speaker 1: has oh man, that's actually another thing.
Speaker 2: Just really grinds my giars. Bookmarks are the same. Still,
Speaker 2: I don't use bookmarks because I'm chaotic, and every time
Speaker 2: I save something, I forget where I saved it.
Speaker 3: I just assume I'll remember everything.
Speaker 2: I actually no, I genuinely, I genuinely do, Like I
Speaker 2: remember no same, Yeah, and it works out.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh my god, I remember everything but
Speaker 1: exactly the wrong time. No, I remember everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I should look at it as long as I
Speaker 2: have the weirdest cues, like several words. If you read
Speaker 2: my notes from my newslet that they're insane. It's like
Speaker 2: three set three broken sentences with like a question mark
Speaker 2: and a type up. I'm like, that's sixteen thousand words, babe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, all I didn't have this on my list,
Speaker 1: but there's a gadget for that.
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: The plowed or plod ai recorder things? Right now?
Speaker 3: What is this thought?
Speaker 1: They work pretty well, and in fact, you could say
Speaker 1: they work too well. They make a little cart credit
Speaker 1: card size thing. It's very thin, it's very impressive. It's metals. Now,
Speaker 1: this is the notepin. This is the thing that works
Speaker 1: too well. They had a bug. You want to know
Speaker 1: what the bug was? What was it that fucker would
Speaker 1: record when you didn't ask if to. I have four
Speaker 1: hours of me snoring at C on the note and
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, guys, you have to fix this
Speaker 1: because it's the one thing that can't do. And they're like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: we were replacing those affected units. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm so sorry though, Now that isn't impossible to
Speaker 2: buy device in the review, anyone, I said, anyone who
Speaker 2: knows that happened to you, I wouldn't be able to
Speaker 2: buy it.
Speaker 1: Nope, I don't trust it.
Speaker 3: You probably have because we all have phones, and phones
Speaker 3: have definitely done that too. I more than once had
Speaker 3: my phone just be like, I'm sorry, I didn't catch that,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I was on the fucking toilet.
Speaker 3: I didn't need you to catch that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my I like my home pods, but they do
Speaker 2: occasionally hear me and just go like, I don't know
Speaker 2: what that means. It's like, yeah, I was. I was
Speaker 2: screaming to myself, thank you.
Speaker 3: I was just watching TV.
Speaker 2: I was just mad. I was just saying some of
Speaker 2: the words that I say inside when I am upset.
Speaker 5: Even the PS five, the PlayStation five has that ability.
Speaker 5: You don't know it because nobody enables it, but it
Speaker 5: actually works. You can like talk into the controller and
Speaker 5: control the PS five that way. And I turned it
Speaker 5: on and I just keep forgetting to take it off.
Speaker 5: And now I'm just like, I'm just talking with my brother,
Speaker 5: and then the PS five is like, are you sure,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, what do you mean?
Speaker 2: No, PlayStation five? That's why I'm talking. I don't know,
Speaker 2: and I just I want them to do more fun things.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad I the fact that you, Michael have
Speaker 2: this flip phone out. I keep looking at it being
Speaker 2: like this, but there's the trifold, now, ru we love
Speaker 2: the trifle.
Speaker 3: It is actually doing a lot of these Chinese companies
Speaker 3: are doing really interesting innovating. Huawei is doing it, Lenovo
Speaker 3: is doing it. Apple is like, we'll get there in
Speaker 3: five years after everyone else has done it, right, we
Speaker 3: can like test it there.
Speaker 2: And one thing I will say is you can't do
Speaker 2: contiguous between the wind.
Speaker 1: So yeah, when you're running to a side by side,
Speaker 1: well exactly that kind of Android demands you like you
Speaker 1: select your focus. Yeah, so you can't be doing it
Speaker 1: both at once.
Speaker 2: And that's the weird thing like Apple used to like
Speaker 2: they had the Apple High five. They used to take
Speaker 2: fun risks and then Steve Jobs would kill the family.
Speaker 2: Is if everyone involved.
Speaker 1: Well they and they failed at a risk. They air
Speaker 1: air air dock yeah yeah, yeah, the charging power.
Speaker 2: So far the listeners. There was this thing that now
Speaker 2: exists in nineteen different forms where they were going to
Speaker 2: do this block where you could put your air pods,
Speaker 2: your Apple watch and your phone. And they would talk
Speaker 2: about it every few months and they'd be like, it's
Speaker 2: just around the core. They announced it like it was
Speaker 2: like a big thing. They announced the malt Gumman would
Speaker 2: just put out it's like, no, it's not gonna and
Speaker 2: it was. It just they just canceled it one day
Speaker 2: and then Anchor and several hundred other companies.
Speaker 1: Well it was different ahead, it was different.
Speaker 3: So so what Apple was trying to do was like
Speaker 3: take those those coils, the charging coils, and stack them
Speaker 3: on each other so it's one real small spot so
Speaker 3: you could throw it on anywhere on the pad and
Speaker 3: it would charge, whereas everybody else is like you have
Speaker 3: to have your little spots. And I love I've got
Speaker 3: I've got one and it's great. I use it all
Speaker 3: the time. But air power would have been slightly cooler
Speaker 3: except for it was like melting things.
Speaker 1: They couldn't figure it out one way or.
Speaker 2: Wow, costomers a.
Speaker 3: Melted a hole in my phone.
Speaker 1: Oh but now we have like mag safe obviated the
Speaker 1: need for it, right, because the magnets are better for
Speaker 1: end Like it's like, you don't it doesn't matter that
Speaker 1: you need to like discreetly place it because the magnets
Speaker 1: are gonna put it there. Anyway, and that's better. For
Speaker 1: a reason.
Speaker 2: I will say, there is an anchor thing I have
Speaker 2: at home I don't replace out of spite, which is
Speaker 2: it's one of the things where the Apple Watch component
Speaker 2: flips up, so there's the circle except that thing. There
Speaker 2: are so many times I put it on, it just
Speaker 2: does not stick for some reason. Every time it happens
Speaker 2: to a piece of shit. Do I replace it? Fuck? Now,
Speaker 2: you I paid my fifty dollars and I will get
Speaker 2: every dollars worth ten years later. I will replace it
Speaker 2: when I throw it from the window.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's like all my gan chargers.
Speaker 2: Now is cool? We really genuinely.
Speaker 3: I mean that's how you know it's a bunch of
Speaker 3: like nerds who love gadgets because we're all like yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And if you've not heard of gallium, and I tried
Speaker 2: to mention it before, it's the thing where they basically
Speaker 2: found a way to make plugs smaller and batteries smaller.
Speaker 2: I actually have like these amazing anchor things. That's just
Speaker 2: all this cool shit that came out of it.
Speaker 3: And you Green makes really good stuff too, you Green, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you Green? There.
Speaker 2: I thought they were just the slot brand.
Speaker 3: No they're real people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but they're one on my bag right now, and
Speaker 4: they're actually.
Speaker 2: Good because I've looking for Anchor alternatives just because I
Speaker 2: like melting Yeah, No, I like hank A melting things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they got recalls.
Speaker 3: Things have gotten a little more expensive, you green, and
Speaker 3: there's a few others.
Speaker 2: But I like Hanka.
Speaker 1: So they committed the ultimate sin long ago for me.
Speaker 1: The same thing all birds did. The same thing everything
Speaker 1: company does that that that achieves scale is they go
Speaker 1: from building something interesting looking in a fun color with
Speaker 1: a weird shape, like ah, no, eighty percent of people
Speaker 1: by the boring black rectangles. So now that's all we're
Speaker 1: gonna shape. Anchor's variety is black or white.
Speaker 2: I go, I somewhat disagree. Oh come, just because of
Speaker 2: the nebul the right swam which she talked about. Is
Speaker 2: this insane, like three thousand dollars projectory and you can
Speaker 2: put it in a weird angle and it will still
Speaker 2: keystone in They do claim it's like, oh, you hit
Speaker 2: a button and it just works. Not for me. I
Speaker 2: am the person you should bring every new thing to
Speaker 2: before you say that, because it will break everything.
Speaker 3: Is there ever been a projector that just works?
Speaker 2: But it does. It gets about as close you can.
Speaker 2: It sets up in like a minute. You can keystone
Speaker 2: it at the weird that angles is fucking cool and
Speaker 2: it looks weird and it's like really nice and like
Speaker 2: the wireless speakers just working this how much it's three
Speaker 2: thousand fucking dollars.
Speaker 1: It's so expected good news. If you google it, you
Speaker 1: will get your first three results are cheaper alternatives that
Speaker 1: they're being paid to be put there. Nice.
Speaker 2: When I bought my GPD for whim four, I ended
Speaker 2: up getting scammed by Google AD I had some and
Speaker 2: I it was just I was buying it. I was
Speaker 2: excited to get it, and I saw and I am
Speaker 2: so resilient to these things, so I was like mad
Speaker 2: at myself. Yeah, I emailed fucking GPDY. I emailed Google.
Speaker 2: I was fucking I was like, listen to me. Fuck no,
Speaker 2: I was, And to be fair, GPD got back to
Speaker 2: me like, holy shit, like we're going to contact Google.
Speaker 2: Google did not. GPT was actually very concerned because it's
Speaker 2: like the whole price. Yeah, and it was just like
Speaker 2: a Chinese guy's Gmail as well, like he had a
Speaker 2: faked a perfectly good GPD website.
Speaker 3: Did he just mail your box.
Speaker 2: No, I canceled the payment like it would put it
Speaker 2: on a credit card. Because these things happened, I haven't
Speaker 2: for a long time. I was quite embarrassed. But now
Speaker 2: I like Anchor and they occasionally we'll do something on
Speaker 2: the Nepular X one. However, Yeah, they are mostly just blokes.
Speaker 2: They have them in different collars.
Speaker 3: Now, I mean the batteries I have, it's like mint green.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean Anchors, Anchors, like you know, charging brand.
Speaker 5: It's just kind of stayed. But like all the other
Speaker 5: ship they're doing with all their other sub brands, because
Speaker 5: now they have like twelve uh you know, they have
Speaker 5: that UV printer that's really cool.
Speaker 2: What is this?
Speaker 5: So UV printers they basically use a UV light on
Speaker 5: UV activated ink.
Speaker 3: To like thermal printers.
Speaker 5: Kind of, but there's less heat involved since it's just light. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so you'll like, it'll just you can technically print on
Speaker 5: almost anything. And it can print in three D quote unquote,
Speaker 5: so if you like, you know, you're looking at oil painting,
Speaker 5: it has those like raised edges where you know, the
Speaker 5: oil thickens, it can technically do that. It's really it's
Speaker 5: really cool and I got to use it. I printed
Speaker 5: out a meme on a on a little magnet and
Speaker 5: it looks really nice. I can't wait to actually try
Speaker 5: it out more.
Speaker 2: It's lunches this thing.
Speaker 4: It's probably around like thirteen hundred dollars. No, it was
Speaker 4: more than that.
Speaker 2: It's like but that like a good three D printer.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, No, is this like one of those printers
Speaker 1: that I saw a number of years ago that it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a mouse and you like run it
Speaker 1: over the surface you're printing.
Speaker 5: On or No, this is a big unit, but it's
Speaker 5: like other UV printers are like gigantic and this is
Speaker 5: like a tabletop one, which is why it was like
Speaker 5: big in the maker space for like a hot minute.
Speaker 5: I don't know where it is right now, and I've
Speaker 5: been trying to get a review unit in and anchor.
Speaker 4: If you're listening, please.
Speaker 2: I actually do have a question for all three of you.
Speaker 2: I keep seeing things on Kickstarter, but I haven't touched
Speaker 2: kickstar in years because of all the shit. Is it
Speaker 2: trustworthy still? Is it still dodgy?
Speaker 1: And on who you're going? Like some companies, big companies
Speaker 1: will use Kickstarter to validate the market, like Uni Herts
Speaker 1: is famous for this if you want an interesting phone,
Speaker 1: Uniherts is there for you. They make all the like
Speaker 1: BlackBerry revivals, all the ones. You're huge. They have a
Speaker 1: screen on the back for no reason. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know you'd love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Try Every launch they do is on Kickstarter, and they
Speaker 1: you know, I think they also use it as a
Speaker 1: pr thing because they know they're going to exceed their
Speaker 1: goal in the first day.
Speaker 2: But this is in twenty thirteen, anymore. Try I run a
Speaker 2: pof I know that doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, yeah, you'll see that with like it's
Speaker 3: it's mainly the big brands. The smaller brands, I would
Speaker 3: still be still yeah, because it's you just run into this.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just the practical nature of building.
Speaker 1: Catchet hardware is really difficult, can confirm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's only going to get more difficult over
Speaker 3: the next because of the tariffs and stuff. Absolute especially
Speaker 3: Americans are going to have, you know, until we get
Speaker 3: manufacturing in the United States again, it's.
Speaker 2: Going to be a chance. I look forward to that day.
Speaker 1: There is one that I actually invested in, which is
Speaker 1: technically a gadget. Now this I was going to save
Speaker 1: this to the very end because no one could possibly
Speaker 1: care about this, but they didn't follow the moon landing
Speaker 1: program in the sixties.
Speaker 3: Tell me more.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is a watch. It is called the d
Speaker 1: Sky moon Watch Sky, and it is not a smart watch.
Speaker 1: It is not a it's not an LCD and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. What they took. There's an Apollo guidance computer
Speaker 1: from the moon capsule and they shrunk it down to
Speaker 1: the size of a watch.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah.
Speaker 1: It is not just an aesthetic reproduction. It is literally
Speaker 1: the same computer replicably, so you can program it with
Speaker 1: like old sixties noun verb, you know, combinations and what
Speaker 1: I love, My favorite thing about it is, you know
Speaker 1: in the sixties you didn't have LEDs. Well, we have
Speaker 1: to have LEDs in the watch to do stuff. They
Speaker 1: came up with color filters to make the LED match
Speaker 1: the incandescent bulbs of the sixties.
Speaker 4: Like it's looks like an celloscope kind of.
Speaker 3: Like I also need this, but I'm going to get it.
Speaker 2: That's what I said the minute I saw I.
Speaker 1: Think eight hundred ninety bucks or something like.
Speaker 3: That, but our website it's six hundred and fifty nine pounds.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The Americans, Yes, yes, yes, Yeah, anyway, I'll let
Speaker 1: you know if I get it, because I have backed it.
Speaker 2: But what does it do?
Speaker 1: It telltales at the time. It looks cool. It also
Speaker 1: it also is the guidance computer, so you can program
Speaker 1: it to It is limited by your imagination and your
Speaker 1: coding ability if you know nineteen sixty nine era code.
Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, which I do.
Speaker 1: But it's all open source so you can actually do
Speaker 1: whatever you want with it, which is really fun. It
Speaker 1: also has GPS for some reason, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know what else.
Speaker 2: Okay, while we're there, it's yeah, I'm so glad. I
Speaker 2: wasn't sure coming into this weather we'd have more do deaths.
Speaker 2: It seems like there's still a healthy but there's just
Speaker 2: not in America. No good stuff here. Yeah no, sorry,
Speaker 2: you can get it here, but it's not American companies
Speaker 2: that seem to be driving this, like anchors Chinese.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I've.
Speaker 2: Got a couple actually, please please, I genuinely like to know.
Speaker 1: You want to pabble Okaya back because people are so
Speaker 1: tired of their regular watches.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's just they're never should have died, You
Speaker 3: never should have died. There they're doing e ink watches again.
Speaker 3: They start shipping this month. I definitely ordered both.
Speaker 2: How much did they cost?
Speaker 3: You know, they're just watches.
Speaker 1: Well, they're smart watching.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're smart watching. They've got they've got they've got
Speaker 3: you know, they've got heart rate monitors in them. They
Speaker 3: do notifications, Bluetooth Bluetooth, Bluetooth is and it's and it's
Speaker 3: just it's just a watch and you can you know,
Speaker 3: they have a very robust user community.
Speaker 2: That's the killer and apps and such.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, so that was the thing that I mean,
Speaker 3: Pebble was the first one doing apps on a watch,
Speaker 3: and they did it well and people liked it, and
Speaker 3: then they sold, right.
Speaker 1: They sold a Fitbit who was then who were then
Speaker 1: bought by Google.
Speaker 3: Immediately and it just di it killed it and the
Speaker 3: guy got it back, got the right couple back and
Speaker 3: he's like he's just out there making cool as hell watches.
Speaker 1: Yes, And and I think the user community is the
Speaker 1: is the thing because all these I love a smart watch,
Speaker 1: but the ones from Google and Apple are kind of
Speaker 1: soulless of necessity because their corporate products and the wider
Speaker 1: consumer exactly where's the Pebble is? Like, Wow, who made
Speaker 1: this weird Ostrich watch face that's like, oh some guy
Speaker 1: in Denmark. No, that's cool.
Speaker 3: I mean the Pebble watch. My best friend, she goes
Speaker 3: to Orange Theory. She she's like very, drinks her Starbucks very.
Speaker 3: I love her, but she does not give a ship
Speaker 3: about smart watches. And she's not gonna care about the Pebble.
Speaker 3: If I told her about it, she'd say what, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and where's an Apple watch that cares about it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: And it's just a perfect gadget.
Speaker 2: And how much was again.
Speaker 4: Launched something?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And he's only making small batches, so it has to
Speaker 1: it could be cheaper, but he's.
Speaker 3: Only doing how much I spent on these watches?
Speaker 1: Right, that's a credit cards.
Speaker 3: Spent a lot exactly. I already paid for it all,
Speaker 3: so it's not past Alex's problem. I just get free
Speaker 3: stuff now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I think exactly. That's how it works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, boy, any other American American? The Light Fund, the
Speaker 1: Light Company.
Speaker 2: I didn't get a chance to watch a video.
Speaker 1: What trash friend you are?
Speaker 2: Okay, well I watched it. There's only one person I
Speaker 2: have telegram for you.
Speaker 1: Don't even use that anymore. Don't lie that I don't
Speaker 1: accuse it.
Speaker 2: That's why I missed your messages. But AnyWho, So wait,
Speaker 2: so this light phone was it good or bad?
Speaker 1: The light Phone three was a very well it was
Speaker 1: a very seven out of ten experience because it was
Speaker 1: basically half unfinished when I was covering it.
Speaker 2: What does it do?
Speaker 1: Exact very little. It does lets you do phone calls,
Speaker 1: text messages, and then a handful of apps that are
Speaker 1: meant to keep you as disconnected as possible. You have maps,
Speaker 1: you will never have email, you will never have social media,
Speaker 1: you will not have a web browser. But like things
Speaker 1: to get you from point A to point B except
Speaker 1: right now. No payments, no lift, no Uber, none of
Speaker 1: that stuff. So it made life very difficult. I tried
Speaker 1: it for two weeks. I found I had to carry
Speaker 1: an iPad many along with me, which the light phone
Speaker 1: does generate a hotspot, so you can use that's cool,
Speaker 1: like you know, if you want to pop up on
Speaker 1: a laptop. I really enjoyed experimenting with that lifestyle again
Speaker 1: of reverting to the late nineties when we had to
Speaker 1: decide to be online, yeah, and then decide to be offline.
Speaker 2: Well, I decided to be online all the time, it's
Speaker 2: not really sure. Well for all of us, Yeah, sometimess
Speaker 2: this thing is it? What kind of screen? Is it?
Speaker 2: Like a black and white screen?
Speaker 1: So that is it's in my opinion, it's shining achievement,
Speaker 1: Like this is an un remarkable piece of hardware. I
Speaker 1: love picking it up. It is like if you blue
Speaker 1: up an Apple watch to you know, by four exercise
Speaker 1: and made it out of black metal and glass and
Speaker 1: put a knob on the side to control your brightness.
Speaker 1: And the screen is black and white, but it has
Speaker 1: this diffusion filter on it. It does have a camera
Speaker 1: with a nice chunky duel stage shutter button.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay camera though, it's.
Speaker 1: Actually better than I expected to be honest, But it's
Speaker 1: black and white. Sorry. The display is O lead, so
Speaker 1: it is a black and white interface and when you
Speaker 1: fire the camera, it activates the color O lead.
Speaker 2: This thing so cool? Yeah yeah, but also it's like
Speaker 2: the opposite of what I want, is it. I'm I'm abnormal.
Speaker 2: I need to be I love I love being connected always,
Speaker 2: but I am like a problem.
Speaker 1: Try it. Try it. The second weekend, I was like,
Speaker 1: I get it. I get people who like talk about
Speaker 1: presence and intentionality. I hadn't gotten it.
Speaker 2: But I also have to steal wool of the Buddha.
Speaker 2: If I need to focus on people, I can just
Speaker 2: not look at my phone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think that's what's it like to have restraint.
Speaker 1: I don't know, unfamiliar with.
Speaker 3: I think this is the thing we see though from
Speaker 3: American gadgets. There's a lot of the American gadgets are
Speaker 3: about disconnecting. They're about taking a step back, and as
Speaker 3: we all look at our.
Speaker 1: Phones, I was, but that is the minimum.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, it's about how do we disconnect from Google?
Speaker 3: How do we disconnect from our corporate overlords, how do
Speaker 3: we disconnect from social media? Those are the things driving
Speaker 3: a lot of American ingenuity and gadgets, which is like cool,
Speaker 3: but culturally like a where are we as a culture?
Speaker 2: The driving point I also understand, Like that is cool,
Speaker 2: but it's also sad, Yeah, because it's very I get
Speaker 2: the sense the other countries and they look at technology,
Speaker 2: they see like oh like regular people like, oh, what
Speaker 2: could it do for me next? And that one's like
Speaker 2: there is a fucking way that I could stop using
Speaker 2: versus like kit in the top list from bi business Side,
Speaker 2: a few years ago. I think this thing is like,
Speaker 2: I love my phone. Stop trying to get me off
Speaker 2: my phone. YEA, make my phone better. And I kind
Speaker 2: of subscribe to that. And I know I'm a freak
Speaker 2: for like liking the phone and being online and all
Speaker 2: the time. But nevertheless, it's like the sense of I
Speaker 2: want to get away from big tech. I want to
Speaker 2: get away from my phone. I wanted to do all this.
Speaker 2: It's very sad, and also they're clearly building towards it
Speaker 2: by making oh, we'll just control the shit for you. You
Speaker 2: have no control, you have no industry over this.
Speaker 1: So there's a flip side to this, and then I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stop talking about phones. There's another philosophical approach done
Speaker 1: by a company called the Minimal Company, the Minimal Phone. Now,
Speaker 1: they are much smaller than Light They're also have some
Speaker 1: problems fulfilling orders. I think their customer service whatever. But
Speaker 1: their phone is a good idea because the phone it
Speaker 1: does the opposite of the lightphone. It gives you all
Speaker 1: the apps you want, but the display is in ink,
Speaker 1: so you don't want to use any of them, but
Speaker 1: you can if you need to, like Uber, which I
Speaker 1: needed a billion times on the lightphone or didn't have
Speaker 1: it as right. Stuff that was really really cool. The
Speaker 1: minimal phone idea is a very cool one, and I'm
Speaker 1: a nerd for this, but they put a quardy keyboard
Speaker 1: on there, which I also like.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that's just cool.
Speaker 5: Tcls making a phone, well, they made a phone last year.
Speaker 5: That's their NXPT paper phone that you can't get in
Speaker 5: the US. Yeah, and you can like swap it between
Speaker 5: a fake like e paper screen and to a Yeah
Speaker 5: it's not it's not actually the paper, I know, but
Speaker 5: it looks it has like a kind of like you know,
Speaker 5: sheene to it that makes it look less.
Speaker 2: Or you can just.
Speaker 3: Go and spend ten dollars on a Matt glass for
Speaker 3: your phone. That's that's what I did because I looked
Speaker 3: at that stuff and I was like, oh, this is cool.
Speaker 3: I'll just put matt glass on my phone and I
Speaker 3: get the exact same experience.
Speaker 1: I should I would stop talking about phones, but you
Speaker 1: just made me think of another one.
Speaker 2: My podcast talk about the phone. I don't ca.
Speaker 1: Fair Phone six.
Speaker 2: What is this?
Speaker 1: I have not paid attention to Fairphone almost at all
Speaker 1: because it's been about repair ability, right, which is important.
Speaker 1: But I don't really care about it, So okay, uh
Speaker 1: fairphone has a big neon green switch on the side,
Speaker 1: and when you flip it down, it turns from a
Speaker 1: regular Android phone into a dumb phone. And I like
Speaker 1: that physical trigger because yeah, you can do it with
Speaker 1: the custom launcher. Yeah, you can do it through umpteen
Speaker 1: software options. But having a switch seems to suggest more
Speaker 1: intentionality is required of you. Well, and switching out of
Speaker 1: it it feels like more friction, a little more for.
Speaker 3: It's a little more friction, but it's also less friction
Speaker 3: in the setup, right, Like true, Yeah, because if you
Speaker 3: know you can do that with an iPhone, you were
Speaker 3: going to spend a very long time digging around with
Speaker 3: your iPhone to get.
Speaker 2: To that point. Yes, I think a lot of these
Speaker 2: problems come down to the fact that just notifications have
Speaker 2: become an invasion of our privacy. That when you look
Speaker 2: at your phone, it will be like, hey, it's Etsy again. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you bought one thing seven years ago. You didn't delete
Speaker 2: this app. Do you want to look at Flowers?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And you just like leave me the fuck alone and
Speaker 2: and apples just like we don't give a fuck.
Speaker 3: And New York Times used to do breaking news for everything.
Speaker 3: They just like every damn thing. They'd be like, you know,
Speaker 3: Beyonce is going to be in New York? Great? Why
Speaker 3: is that you.
Speaker 2: Can't fix this as well? With the phone. It's the companies.
Speaker 2: They've made it worse, and they make it worse every day.
Speaker 3: And we'll give you.
Speaker 1: You have to do way too much work to do it.
Speaker 1: To your point, you have to do way too much tweaking.
Speaker 2: You can't tweak the notifications.
Speaker 1: Well if you have an Android phone, if you can.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the thing where my message on a
Speaker 2: fucking Android.
Speaker 3: You want to be able to go to your phone
Speaker 3: and just say fix it. And Google keeps promising that
Speaker 3: and have they delivered?
Speaker 4: I mean speaking of the fair phone.
Speaker 5: Like, there's a Framework is making really cool laptop. I
Speaker 5: was just thinking, I really really like Framework and like
Speaker 5: I don't. Framework's laptop where all you kind of have
Speaker 5: to do is like you get a bunch of the
Speaker 5: parts and you slot slot in the SSD, you slot
Speaker 5: in the RAM and you kind of put the screen
Speaker 5: bezels on and then you put the keyboard on.
Speaker 4: You screw everything in. It's like, oh it's a laptop now,
Speaker 4: you you built it.
Speaker 5: I mean it's it's fun because the company makes it
Speaker 5: really easy to do, so you make yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 5: like you make yourself feel smart even though they literally
Speaker 5: put everything out there for you and you just did it.
Speaker 5: But it also means you can repair it, YadA, YadA YadA.
Speaker 4: But I like, yeah, you can upgrade it.
Speaker 5: I like the feeling of like ownership, because half the
Speaker 5: problem with ownership is that I don't feel like I
Speaker 5: actually owned the thing. I bought the thing, and they're
Speaker 5: managing my life for me. They're putting all the software
Speaker 5: on it that I don't want. They're putting this program.
Speaker 2: Change how you use it with UX updates.
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5: So I want to own the thing by like controlling
Speaker 5: what goes into it. And I feel like I want
Speaker 5: more products that have that ability to just like I
Speaker 5: can just control the hardware at least if not the software.
Speaker 5: Like if I could control both, I'd be in a
Speaker 5: happy place. I'm more nerdy. But imagine if like every
Speaker 5: laptop had that ability to just like take off the
Speaker 5: back and like just swap things around.
Speaker 3: But you're seeing that in gaming laptops for a long time.
Speaker 3: When the framework came along, right.
Speaker 2: Like a few of them you can still swoop around.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, some of them, although some of them are
Speaker 5: more soldered on, like some of the smaller fourteen inches
Speaker 5: are we still kind of.
Speaker 3: One of the tricks here is just for for laptops,
Speaker 3: order the business laptops because they usually have much more
Speaker 3: upgradeability because the big companies are like, no, we're not
Speaker 3: going to pay you that much for RAM. We will
Speaker 3: replace the RAM ourselves, or you will die and never
Speaker 3: get our business, and so they fix it for them,
Speaker 3: Like that's why you see that from Dell and Lenovo others.
Speaker 1: On the build your own stuff Kyle, do you follow
Speaker 1: the or does anybody follow the cyber deck building community?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what is I have a blast if you if
Speaker 1: you want to have a gadget, you know binge, I
Speaker 1: would say just google cyber deck builds on YouTube.
Speaker 3: It's basically people are trying to like relive the Neuromancer
Speaker 3: book and they're just building cyber decks for there.
Speaker 2: Is a cyber deck.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: All right, you don't know William Gibson so.
Speaker 5: Narrowmancer kind of like that whole cyberpunk era aesthetic, the
Speaker 5: high idea of but like cyber deck, it's like you
Speaker 5: literally plug into the internet. You know, you have this
Speaker 5: this deck that you and you sit down in a
Speaker 5: chair and you plug yourself in and you're literally a
Speaker 5: body and it's like the whole like idea of a
Speaker 5: metaverse kind of stems from this, except it's.
Speaker 4: A lot more grungy and a lot more punk.
Speaker 1: Right, So the deck itself is like part of it
Speaker 1: is like it's personalized to you, right, like you build
Speaker 1: it yourself, so a lot it takes the form in
Speaker 1: modern day with what we can do of like little laptops,
Speaker 1: like kind of like the GVD stuff, right, except.
Speaker 2: What is the functionality of a cyber deck though?
Speaker 4: What's it meant in modern day? It's just basically with
Speaker 4: a little laptop, it's just to be cool.
Speaker 5: But the idea is that you're doing it yourself and
Speaker 5: it's your own and you're making it like I mean,
Speaker 5: I don't know, like are they are they using like raspberry.
Speaker 1: Pies, like stuff built in a raspberry pie or something
Speaker 1: like that. But if you want functionality, the the meshtastic
Speaker 1: is another good thing to look fantastic. That is, like
Speaker 1: these little pocket terminals that are being built around what
Speaker 1: I had to look it up. An ESP thirty two
Speaker 1: system on a chip, which enables a lot of cool stuff.
Speaker 1: And a meshtastic network is like node to node. You're
Speaker 1: not on the Internet necessarily, Like each phone or each
Speaker 1: terminal is its own is a node. So what did
Speaker 1: Jack Dorsey just dropped an app for this?
Speaker 2: God? I mean if chat, he's dropped several Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: dropped a lot of things.
Speaker 1: But that's an app for the iPhone. And like if
Speaker 1: we all had Bitchat, we could talk to text each
Speaker 1: other without connecting to the Internet. Like it's a direct
Speaker 1: peer to peer.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: And the meshtastic like there's a lot of handheld hardware.
Speaker 1: They all look like blackberries that are all really cool.
Speaker 1: They're a little mini cyber deecks And it's just to
Speaker 1: utilize that network. And you again, you can build your
Speaker 1: own a lot of the time if you're more skilled
Speaker 1: than I am.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to wrap it here and I want
Speaker 2: to end with a message though, everyone should go and
Speaker 2: support Steve Burke of games Nexus, who Bloomberg is being
Speaker 2: fucking him up by doing bullshit. YouTube DMCA is coming
Speaker 2: on the show next week. This is a ridiculous situation.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg should be fucking ashamed of themselves, the legal department,
Speaker 2: and everyone involved the journalists set, including at Bloomberg, should
Speaker 2: see this as an offense against journalism and not giving
Speaker 2: him support is tantamount to not having solidarity with your peers.
Speaker 2: Steve is doing some of the best work out there,
Speaker 2: and I realize it's kind of a grim thing. But
Speaker 2: one of the reasons I love all three of you
Speaker 2: is you, really, in the same way as Steve, get
Speaker 2: into this stuff and actually know it and love it
Speaker 2: and are excited about it. And I think that that
Speaker 2: is a dying art within journalism, especially within tech. And
Speaker 2: I hope everyone's enjoyed this episode because I certainly fucking
Speaker 2: have so much. It's nice to talk about stuff and like, sure,
Speaker 2: there's bad things going on and it can be kind
Speaker 2: of grim out there, but there's still people making dorky
Speaker 2: little innovations out there, and it's worth remembering that the
Speaker 2: tech industry is not all bad, which does not mean
Speaker 2: that AI doesn't fucking suck. Bing Bong Michael, Where can
Speaker 2: people find you?
Speaker 1: They can find me on YouTube at the Mister Mobile,
Speaker 1: tgmrimbi Le or threads at Captain two Phones. It's Captain
Speaker 1: the Number two Phones, MS Kranz in.
Speaker 3: Most places, Alex H. Krans Blue Sky Threads all those places.
Speaker 5: And Kyle you can go to goodsmoto dot com and
Speaker 5: just look at the review section because it's me and
Speaker 5: like two other guys.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, you can find me of course at Better
Speaker 2: offline dot com and on the podcast you're listening to.
Speaker 2: Please subscribe to my newsletterer and hit the premium as well.
Speaker 2: We will have some really fun episodes coming up. We've got,
Speaker 2: of course, the interview with Steve Berken, Games next US
Speaker 2: next week. I will work out a monologue later today.
Speaker 2: I am really loving doing the show. Things are about
Speaker 2: to get spicy. I have the spiciness in the air,
Speaker 2: So looking forward to the next two episodes as things
Speaker 2: begin to collapse, because that's where we're going. Peace out everyone,
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and
Speaker 2: composer of the Better Offline theme song is Metasowski. You
Speaker 2: can check out more of his music and audio projects
Speaker 2: at Matasowski dot com, M A T T O.
Speaker 1: S O W s ki dot com.
Speaker 2: You can email me at easy at Better Offline dot com,
Speaker 2: or visit Better Offline dot com to find more podcast links.
Speaker 1: And of course my newsletter.
Speaker 2: I also really recommend you go to chat dot Where's
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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media.
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