Speaker 1: From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. This is tech stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: as Valoshian and I'm Cara Price, and you may be
Speaker 1: able to tell from both of our nasal voices that
Speaker 1: it's the holiday season. It's that time of year, and
Speaker 1: we bring you a special holiday episode.
Speaker 2: That's right, we are bringing you a rundown of the
Speaker 2: best tech gifts to give all the people in your life,
Speaker 2: from your in laws to your frenemy.
Speaker 1: We're going to hear what The New Yorker's Internet Culture
Speaker 1: columnist Kyle Chaker recommends.
Speaker 2: And I will be reviewing the present I gave to
Speaker 2: myself this holiday season, the Meta ray band glasses.
Speaker 1: All of that on the Weekend Tech. It's Friday, December nineteenth.
Speaker 2: Hello Cara, Hi ass, How are you other than a
Speaker 2: little bit nasal?
Speaker 1: A little bit nasal, but otherwise very excited for the
Speaker 1: time of year. Love holidays.
Speaker 2: I love the holidays. Ding ding ding ding. I'm curious
Speaker 2: when you gear up to go gift shopping, do you
Speaker 2: look at gift guides for inspiration or do you just
Speaker 2: like go for it.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have kids, so I have three
Speaker 1: people to whom I gift Both of my parents who
Speaker 1: I give wine, Yes, and my wife would I give
Speaker 1: whatever she asked for what I had surprise gifts. But
Speaker 1: then I was like, you know what, You're always going
Speaker 1: to like the thing more if you've chosen it, so
Speaker 1: let's just do that.
Speaker 2: Of course.
Speaker 1: So I'm not a huge gift guy.
Speaker 2: I like you.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, I like gift guys because
Speaker 1: I like to know what's up.
Speaker 2: I also like to know what other people are interested,
Speaker 2: you know what. And I think that like.
Speaker 1: There is a good distillation of the culture.
Speaker 2: I think, absolutely it's a distillation of the culture, and
Speaker 2: I think it's sort of a nice year in review.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Have you heard of something called The Next Playground? No?
Speaker 2: I have not.
Speaker 1: I hadn't either, but it took the number one spot
Speaker 1: for Amazon's Toys and Games category on Black Friday. My god,
Speaker 1: I've basically been out of stock since then because there's
Speaker 1: so much demand for it.
Speaker 2: And what is it.
Speaker 1: It's a console. It's a gaming console but with no controllers.
Speaker 1: So it basically looks like a Rubik's cube that lives
Speaker 1: under your TV, and it has a camera and the
Speaker 1: camera basically watches you and it connects to the TV.
Speaker 1: So the TV becomes a game screen and you're playing
Speaker 1: in augmented reality. You're basically moving shapes.
Speaker 2: Family AR.
Speaker 1: It's family AR, and kids are absolutely obsessed and they're
Speaker 1: dancing around in front of the TV, moving shapes on
Speaker 1: the screen. And parents love it because feel slightly less
Speaker 1: guilty watching their kids interactive TV than they do just
Speaker 1: locked into the phone.
Speaker 2: That actually does appeal to me, because my obviously devisive
Speaker 2: choice is a phone, which makes me completely Sedentaryah.
Speaker 1: Imagine all the fun of your phone on a big screen.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: It actually began the company next as Believe it or not,
Speaker 1: an AI powered tool to analyze and improve basketball shot maker.
Speaker 2: I always love those stories where it started as one
Speaker 2: thing and ended up being something else.
Speaker 1: It turns out that there wasn't enough demand for kids
Speaker 1: to true optimized their boss care.
Speaker 2: They weren't good enough kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they weren't enough good kids. So they pivoted a
Speaker 1: couple of times and ended up building the hottest console
Speaker 1: in America. It's marketed exclusively at families with young children,
Speaker 1: and it's much cheaper than mainstream consoles. Two hundred and
Speaker 1: forty nine dollars to buy it. And then of course
Speaker 1: Daniel subscription of eighty nine dollars.
Speaker 2: But still, I mean that's for the entire family. Fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. The pictures of the pictures of I
Speaker 1: mean it really it looks it looks fun. It looks
Speaker 1: like an engage.
Speaker 2: You buy this for someone.
Speaker 1: If I had kids, I would definitely buy it.
Speaker 2: It sounds really fun. Well, I got myself a little
Speaker 2: tech item this year.
Speaker 3: You did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that I've been kind of coveting and I've been
Speaker 2: covering it. One because I look so good in glasses,
Speaker 2: and two because fortunately or unfortunately, I am a meta
Speaker 2: super user. I'm on Instagram constantly, I'm on my phone constantly,
Speaker 2: and I was curious about wearing my camera in my glasses.
Speaker 1: This is the meta raybend glass.
Speaker 2: This is the meta ray band.
Speaker 1: You're wearing glasses right now.
Speaker 2: These these they these are not there. These are not there,
Speaker 2: And I'm going to take them off and I'm going
Speaker 2: to give you my honest review. Mike is looking at us,
Speaker 2: our producer, He's like, okay, look good. Well they're ray bands.
Speaker 2: They're ray band wayfarers.
Speaker 1: And there's no hint from where I'm sitting that you
Speaker 1: are a cybi right now, just like no one lost.
Speaker 2: I just want to be clear, and this might be
Speaker 2: a little less exciting. I do not have the ray
Speaker 2: band metaglasses that have ar filter in the eye. There
Speaker 2: are ray band glasses where you're putting it on and
Speaker 2: it's literally telling you, like where you're going in the world.
Speaker 2: So this is simply a camera in my glasses. Okay,
Speaker 2: here are the features that it has. You can basically
Speaker 2: not be on your phone and take like incredibly high
Speaker 2: quality video and pictures of anything that I'm looking at
Speaker 2: in the room, Like right now, just took a picture
Speaker 2: of you. Wow, literally and.
Speaker 1: It went, yeah, yeah, that's wound me.
Speaker 2: I guess the previously I'm going to take a picture
Speaker 2: of you. There we go. What I'm doing here is
Speaker 2: I'm just pressing a button on my frames.
Speaker 1: And both a noise and light witch flashes.
Speaker 2: Like right now, I'm taking a video of you, and
Speaker 2: you can sort of see it. It's a long hold yeah,
Speaker 2: and the light flash light flashing, and then I let
Speaker 2: go and it stops. Now what I could do is
Speaker 2: that I could take that photo of you and type
Speaker 2: in a prompt to Meta AI, which is the software
Speaker 2: that goes along with these glasses.
Speaker 1: So you have an app which is attached to the glasses.
Speaker 2: That's correct, that's where the pictures go. So I can
Speaker 2: say in the app, make oz dance around the studio
Speaker 2: with the photo that I just created, and lo and
Speaker 2: behold Meta AI, much like Sora, will create a video
Speaker 2: of you dancing around the studio and it's a very
Speaker 2: hyper realistic AI rendering of you dancing. The thing that
Speaker 2: I want to try here is such a cool feature
Speaker 2: that I just tried very recently, which is the AI
Speaker 2: translation feature. You speak German a little bit, so right now,
Speaker 2: what I can do with these glasses is as I'm
Speaker 2: wearing them, basically what's gonna happen is You're going to
Speaker 2: say something to me in German, and my headphones which
Speaker 2: are in this these glasses, are going to read them
Speaker 2: back to me in English.
Speaker 1: Yes, Hello Libakara, as Futek there does send here so
Speaker 1: samon houter.
Speaker 2: Hello dear Kara. I am very pleased that we are
Speaker 2: here together today.
Speaker 1: That's what I said.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's crazy. Come on, that's incredible, and it
Speaker 2: set it into my ears.
Speaker 1: That is unbelievable. One more time, h Ishbinambisi and.
Speaker 2: I'm a little sick today, and I'm a little sick today,
Speaker 2: and so are you. That's like the un that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: You have to say, I have to be honest, and
Speaker 2: I am like, obviously the opposite of a technoskeptic. I
Speaker 2: found like I embrace this technology so wholeheartedly. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's funny. Before this, I'm not going to go off
Speaker 2: on too much of a tangent, but before this, I
Speaker 2: was talking to one of the wonderful iHeart producers, Katrina Norvell,
Speaker 2: and she was very much like, you know, it's just
Speaker 2: meta co opting your time, just meta co opting your time.
Speaker 2: And I said, you know what.
Speaker 1: It's fun. It's really fun.
Speaker 2: It's really fun to surprise and delight my mother with
Speaker 2: a photo of her sitting in a chair and saying,
Speaker 2: please make my mom sing and dance to me in Spanish,
Speaker 2: and it.
Speaker 1: Does that with a photo that's as similar to the
Speaker 1: next cube. It's like, yeah, this kind of ability to
Speaker 1: sort of manipulate your reality live in a way which
Speaker 1: also allows you to engage other people. It just is fun.
Speaker 1: It is. I do have a more serious question, please,
Speaker 1: why did you give them to yourself and not to me.
Speaker 2: Because I want them fair enough. I wear them all
Speaker 2: around town. I just also think it's fun, you know what,
Speaker 2: for someone like me who is constantly taking out my
Speaker 2: phone as like a reflex. This is really for people
Speaker 2: who are trying to take photos and take video and
Speaker 2: not be on their phone now of course.
Speaker 1: But do you actually use them in real life yet?
Speaker 2: No, not really. They're still a kind of gag for me,
Speaker 2: and I think they will remain as such.
Speaker 1: But if you had kids, if I had kids, if
Speaker 1: you have kids, the mission of your life is.
Speaker 2: Interesting though, that like technology kind of or having a
Speaker 2: child brings you around to a technology that you're kind
Speaker 2: of left out of if you don't have children, Like
Speaker 2: I would never buy the next Cube for myself. I'd
Speaker 2: be dancing around my apartment alone. It'd be very weird.
Speaker 2: It'd be very weird. So I would buy you these.
Speaker 2: I think. I don't think this is something that your
Speaker 2: wife wants.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think so. But I mean I
Speaker 1: just in general, and if you bring a presence to
Speaker 1: the studio for yourself, I think it'd be you know,
Speaker 1: it'd be nice for me as well.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I had an orange juice from press juice. Sorry,
Speaker 2: if you want that, that can't really do anything for you.
Speaker 1: Okay, I forgive you because I know you brought me
Speaker 1: another gift, which is the gift of a conversation with
Speaker 1: Kyle Chaca.
Speaker 2: I did. I did. I'm very excited to tell you
Speaker 2: about a gift guide that really piqued my interest, which
Speaker 2: was written by the one Kyle Chaka. He is a
Speaker 2: staff writer at The New Yorker. He writes about tech
Speaker 2: and Internet culture in a column called Infinite Scroll name
Speaker 2: by the way, it's a great name. And he also
Speaker 2: wrote a book that has a great name, which is
Speaker 2: called Filter World, How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Today, I'm bringing
Speaker 2: you this interview with him because he wrote to me
Speaker 2: the best gift guide on the Internet, Wow, and it's
Speaker 2: focused on the newest, strangest gadgets and apps.
Speaker 1: I actually read the list too, and I thought it
Speaker 1: was great. And what I thought was very interesting about
Speaker 1: it was not just the individual products that he featured,
Speaker 1: but this kind of frame that he had, which is,
Speaker 1: there's a crazy moment happening where chips and screens and
Speaker 1: other component parts have never been cheaper, and so basically,
Speaker 1: whatever you can dream, you can manufacture in China in
Speaker 1: thirtys It turns out a human sized robot servant, which
Speaker 1: I was hoping you brings to.
Speaker 2: This that I was gonna say, I should have actually
Speaker 2: bought you the twenty thousand dollars Neo Home robot, which
Speaker 2: he actually didn't endorse because I think it's only available
Speaker 2: for pre order. As I said, it's twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: But it's a great example of the types of things
Speaker 2: that Kyle is marveling at right now, the surrealist phase
Speaker 2: personal technology, where sort of anything you can dream of
Speaker 2: you can build. This is exactly what inspired Kyle to
Speaker 2: write this gift guide, So I'll just let Kyle take
Speaker 2: it away.
Speaker 4: My criteria for this was funny tech kind of It's like,
Speaker 4: not the optimized gadget. It's not the latest or release
Speaker 4: or the most powerful thing. It's like that thing that
Speaker 4: you don't know exists, and when you buy it, you're like, Wow,
Speaker 4: I'm so happy that that some factory in China has
Speaker 4: melded these tech gadgets together. And that's how you get
Speaker 4: the swipe touch screen vape that gives you social I'm
Speaker 4: obsessed with the Swipe.
Speaker 2: I'm obsessed with the swipe and doesn't have weather.
Speaker 3: It has weather, it has Spotify.
Speaker 2: When you're vaping outside, you need to know what the
Speaker 2: weather is.
Speaker 3: It's also not that expensive, no fifteen dollars.
Speaker 4: It just made me think that maybe you can put
Speaker 4: a touch screen on anything, like.
Speaker 2: An he likes to put a touch screen on this
Speaker 2: cup of coffee.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, you can.
Speaker 2: And then I could run ads on it would be
Speaker 2: like Taxi TV.
Speaker 4: Yes, ads on your coffee cup. Feels like a twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five innovation.
Speaker 2: This might have just created something.
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly, But I think like the swipe vape and
Speaker 4: this Noasuma mini projector that I bought for fifty dollars
Speaker 4: for like a rental house weekend, that those are the
Speaker 4: patron saints.
Speaker 2: And were you a king for that projector?
Speaker 4: Like yeah, yeah, it worked amazingly. Yeah, and the projector
Speaker 4: runs Netflix itself.
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
Speaker 4: It blew my mind and I was like, wow, this
Speaker 4: is this is now banal like technology that I would
Speaker 4: have found miraculous as like a twelve year old, let
Speaker 4: alone like a thirty year old now exists and is
Speaker 4: delivered to me for fifty dollars.
Speaker 2: That is incredible.
Speaker 4: Well, This was also the appeal of doing this gift guide.
Speaker 4: Like the gadget is a really fun category, right, and
Speaker 4: like the gadget is the fun version of technology. And
Speaker 4: I feel like we no longer have fun on our
Speaker 4: phones or our laptops, so we need other devices to.
Speaker 2: To actually have fun with. I really liked the books
Speaker 2: the books m I actually run like a big Instagram
Speaker 2: book club, and I'm a big reader, and I was
Speaker 2: just curious if you could talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: the books.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the books. I actually don't know if it's books
Speaker 4: or books. I would assume because it is a good
Speaker 4: reading device. But it's kind of like an iPhone sized
Speaker 4: or a smartphone sized e ink screen that can run
Speaker 4: a lot of apps. It can be a kind of
Speaker 4: replacement phone, but it's also just like a nicer reading
Speaker 4: device that fits in your pocket. So instead of you know,
Speaker 4: scrolling through TikTok or loading the New York Times games
Speaker 4: or whatever, you can read e inc and save your
Speaker 4: eyes and your brain.
Speaker 2: Kyle, can you remind me what e inc is.
Speaker 4: E inc is a physical screen with physical pixels in it,
Speaker 4: So instead of like a digital screen lighting up with
Speaker 4: different colors, an e ink screen is made of little
Speaker 4: physical gold bits that switch from white to black or
Speaker 4: different colors as the case may be now, and like
Speaker 4: e ink is another one of those things that has
Speaker 4: advanced hugely in recent years, and we just don't you
Speaker 4: don't necessarily know, Like if you're not keeping up with
Speaker 4: these weird new gadgets, you don't know that there is
Speaker 4: better e inc out there.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: You're not keeping tabs on the e ink space.
Speaker 4: Yeah you are, though, I am, because it's very interesting.
Speaker 4: Like this other device I listed, the Daylight, It's like
Speaker 4: a very colorful, very smooth, high refresh rate e ink tablet,
Speaker 4: and it's just so interesting, Like that's I didn't know
Speaker 4: that that existed and now it does.
Speaker 2: I also saw that you recommended my favorite worst advertised
Speaker 2: AI device, the friend Penn.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, that was I recommended it to give to
Speaker 4: your enemy or your frenemy. So maybe it's a passive
Speaker 4: aggressive gift.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I feel like if you're giving someone an AI companion,
Speaker 4: you're kind of implying something negative about them, like maybe
Speaker 4: they could use it. Well, here's here's an idea. Maybe
Speaker 4: instead of giving someone an AI chatbot, you can just
Speaker 4: text them a lot like, yeah, you could see the chatbot.
Speaker 2: It's a similar thing. Yeah, and also if you give
Speaker 2: sycophantic advice, then you're definitely chat gybt. But what is
Speaker 2: the friend exactly?
Speaker 3: It's this little pendant.
Speaker 4: It's a kind of like rounded thing that hangs on
Speaker 4: a necklace around your neck, and it listens to your conversations,
Speaker 4: It listens to your surroundings, and it texts your phone.
Speaker 4: So this the AI independant, listens to everything, translates it
Speaker 4: into language, understands it in whatever way it's capable of,
Speaker 4: and then kind of commentates on your life. But as
Speaker 4: people who have tested it found out, it's actually very
Speaker 4: mean to you.
Speaker 3: Like it.
Speaker 2: It's not a nice chatbot.
Speaker 4: No, it's not a nice chatbot, So it'll kind of
Speaker 4: mock you for what you do every day.
Speaker 2: That's something that I kind of want to get someone.
Speaker 2: Then if it was mean, that would not would be
Speaker 2: like that wasn't my problem. I didn't really check it out.
Speaker 2: I just thought the idea was cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is the kind of thing that you want
Speaker 4: to play with and try out but not have to
Speaker 4: pay for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's that's why you would give it as a gift.
Speaker 2: So I just got Meta ray bands, and I have
Speaker 2: to say I went into it being very skeptical, I think,
Speaker 2: because I was like, why do I want Instagram in
Speaker 2: my glasses? And I have to say that, like, I
Speaker 2: actually found them to be a lot cooler than I
Speaker 2: thought I would.
Speaker 4: I mean, it seems like the inevitable future, Like I
Speaker 4: think we are tired of our phones, and VR seems
Speaker 4: like a dead end to me. I mean, Meta has
Speaker 4: already disinvested from the metaverse, so I think the only
Speaker 4: answer is to put digital information over your view of
Speaker 4: the real world and the way that we already basically
Speaker 4: do by like staring at our phones we walk around.
Speaker 4: So it does seem a little inevitable, and I expect
Speaker 4: that in a year or two will be much farther
Speaker 4: along that path. The translation features seem really wild to me,
Speaker 4: like the real time translation.
Speaker 2: That even the music in the ear is very cool,
Speaker 2: and that's like, so, I mean people always have air pods,
Speaker 2: like this is nothing new. There's just something interesting about
Speaker 2: music coming out of your actual glasses.
Speaker 4: And that's like, I feel like that's what makes a
Speaker 4: great new gadget. It's like a thing that you didn't
Speaker 4: think was possible in this little physical form, and that's
Speaker 4: what the iPhone was. But it hasn't been that for
Speaker 4: like a decade.
Speaker 2: To think of the iPhone as a gadget and not
Speaker 2: a necessity, it's not as a sort of necessary appendage
Speaker 2: of life is so like to I mean, originally it's like, ooh,
Speaker 2: look at this gadget I have. Now it's like, if
Speaker 2: you don't have the gadget, you don't participate in modern society.
Speaker 3: You are not alive.
Speaker 2: Actually literally budget it's so crazy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's why we like funnier gadgets or goofier gadgets.
Speaker 2: After the break, Kyle and I discussed the best anti
Speaker 2: tech technology for all the Luddites in your life Stay
Speaker 2: with us. You have a section in the guide about
Speaker 2: streaming services. For someone who has so many streaming services,
Speaker 2: I actually never considered giving a streaming service as a
Speaker 2: gift because it's a recurring it's kind of a recurring cost, which.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you're putting someone on the hook a little bit,
Speaker 4: but you're also like subsidizing it for them.
Speaker 2: But so you said that, just I wanted to quote
Speaker 2: something that you said, and the piece that giving someone
Speaker 2: a subscription to a new streaming service is a little
Speaker 2: like buying them a membership to an art museum. It's
Speaker 2: a hint that their cultural consumption habits could stand a
Speaker 2: little improvement. Does your judgment of other people's taste and
Speaker 2: form your gift giving? Would you say?
Speaker 3: I think so?
Speaker 4: But in a positive way, like like I don't want
Speaker 4: to give someone something that they are not going to like, right, right,
Speaker 4: But it's just like not in their zone. Like I
Speaker 4: wouldn't give a membership to an art museum to someone
Speaker 4: who I knew did not like art. Yeah, you have
Speaker 4: to know what you're getting into. Like some people are
Speaker 4: crunchy Roll people for anime, some people are BritBox people
Speaker 4: for detective series.
Speaker 2: First of all, have you given a streaming service as
Speaker 2: a gift?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: So my wife and I gave her parents, my in laws,
Speaker 4: a Criteria subscription for a year.
Speaker 2: That's a bold gift.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 4: But they watch a lot of streaming television, so they're
Speaker 4: they're always running out of movies.
Speaker 2: And you're like, here's some movies that you may not like.
Speaker 2: As older parents of my wife, I try.
Speaker 4: I respect their taste though, Like they're my mother in
Speaker 4: law took a class on Hitchcock films recently, so it's
Speaker 4: like a kind of it's aspirational but not out of
Speaker 4: the range.
Speaker 2: Let's say, what was their reaction being given an intangible gift.
Speaker 3: I think they liked it.
Speaker 2: They were like this email log in.
Speaker 3: Well we did.
Speaker 4: We added it to their television while we were there.
Speaker 4: But I think I don't know intangible gifts. I kind
Speaker 4: of grew up with that a little bit. It's kind
Speaker 4: of like, you know, an IOU or like you're gonna
Speaker 4: get whatever bike you want or something like that. So
Speaker 4: in a way, I feel like it fits.
Speaker 2: The IOU, though, is like the least sincere gift to me?
Speaker 3: I do I agree with that?
Speaker 2: What is your favorite streaming service? Just out of curiosity?
Speaker 4: Oh man, I really like a Doggio, which I also
Speaker 4: put in the in the gift guide. It's a classical
Speaker 4: music streaming service and I don't know anything for music. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it like makes it easy to navigate, and I mean
Speaker 4: now on Spotify it is so awash with AI garbage.
Speaker 4: It's like I can't I can't navigate it. And at
Speaker 4: least on a Dodgio, you know that these are all
Speaker 4: humans like.
Speaker 2: Playing classical music. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4: You're in no doubt whatsoever that this is a real
Speaker 4: thing from real people, which nowadays is kind of a
Speaker 4: scarce commodity.
Speaker 2: That's cool.
Speaker 4: Nugs you could also get for a very specific friend,
Speaker 4: And I think it came out of Phish concert.
Speaker 2: Tapes originally interesting.
Speaker 4: And so it's like a jam band's live performance streaming service,
Speaker 4: slash archive Nugs, nugs, nugs dot.
Speaker 2: Net as it has to be.
Speaker 3: At it's definitely a dot net.
Speaker 2: I was really taken by your anti technology technology section,
Speaker 2: and like on the show this year, we talked a
Speaker 2: lot about, you know, how important it is to decrease
Speaker 2: your screen time and how like unplugging is actually this
Speaker 2: luxury now like it's almost like things that help you
Speaker 2: unplug our luxury goods.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's totally true.
Speaker 2: And so I was curious, like, when you were putting
Speaker 2: this together, what made you decide to make this a section?
Speaker 4: Honestly my own experience, Like, I think this year has
Speaker 4: been a year of anti technology tech for me as
Speaker 4: I've tried to find ways to get off of screens
Speaker 4: more often. Yeah, and some have really worked for me,
Speaker 4: And so I kind of thought, what is the more
Speaker 4: expanded sense of anti tech technology.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Brick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Brick is really popular.
Speaker 2: Have you used Brick?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And can you give me a quick description of
Speaker 2: how brick actually works.
Speaker 4: You set it up on your phone. In the app,
Speaker 4: you select which apps you want to block for yourself,
Speaker 4: and then you activate the blocked apps by tapping the
Speaker 4: Brick that you have in your house. And so once
Speaker 4: you tap it, it's locked, you tap it again, it's unlocked.
Speaker 2: Do you use Brick?
Speaker 4: I use Opal, the Opal app, which just like blocks
Speaker 4: apps on your phone and has this kind of interface
Speaker 4: for getting you off social media during the workday, for example.
Speaker 4: Like I found that that really worked for me and
Speaker 4: I could contain it within my phone. But you know,
Speaker 4: brick for the for the real addicts or the person
Speaker 4: who locks their phone in one of those clear lock
Speaker 4: boxes on a timer, Brick would probably be really good.
Speaker 2: You also put a digital camera. Can you talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about that, the FUJIFILM slash half.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's been a whole rash of digital cameras lately
Speaker 4: that mimic film and.
Speaker 2: Kids are using them like the kids are using them
Speaker 2: like crazy.
Speaker 4: Huge trends. There's a huge expanded market for quote unquote
Speaker 4: vintage digital cameras, which were just like the avant garde
Speaker 4: things that I played with as a kid in the
Speaker 4: early two thousands. But the Fujifilm has been really on
Speaker 4: this trend, and they have these cameras that mimic film
Speaker 4: formats and film aesthetics, and they also look like film cameras.
Speaker 2: And you like, you like the Fujifilm one.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, they're really great.
Speaker 2: Do you find that people like interacting with you? They're
Speaker 2: just like, on a personal basis or on a reader basis,
Speaker 2: are like, please give me more analog.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. For sure.
Speaker 4: They want analog experiences. They want irl stuff, They want
Speaker 4: buttons and switches and not just touch screens.
Speaker 3: So I think there's a big urge toward that.
Speaker 2: Isn't that so interesting?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I think we're all sick of screens and
Speaker 4: fictionless digital interaction, and we realize how bad it is
Speaker 4: for us and how bad it is for the world
Speaker 4: at large.
Speaker 2: So part of the interest in analog is like, actually
Speaker 2: in creating a more friction filled experience for the user.
Speaker 4: I think, so slowing down, making it a little harder
Speaker 4: to do things or more complicated to do things, and
Speaker 4: that slowing down forces you to think about the act
Speaker 4: more well.
Speaker 2: I just have one question about books. Do you, as
Speaker 2: a writer like to give out book recommendations?
Speaker 3: I do. I really like to give books as gifts.
Speaker 2: Books being the ultimate analog object.
Speaker 4: And a great representation or fulfillment of taste, because you
Speaker 4: are saying, I know this book is good, and I
Speaker 4: think it will work for you from your personality and worldview.
Speaker 4: So the right book gift communicates a lot.
Speaker 2: Was there any book that you would be giving out
Speaker 2: this year other than your own?
Speaker 4: I have given this one book a lot, which is
Speaker 4: in praise of Shadows by Geni Trio Tanazaki, and it's
Speaker 4: this Japanese novelist who wrote an essay in nineteen thirty
Speaker 4: four I want to say about what it was like
Speaker 4: when Tokyo started adding electric lights and how electricity and
Speaker 4: trains and industrialization changed the culture of Japan from his
Speaker 4: own personal perspective, and I just feel like it's this
Speaker 4: tiny book, it's really beautiful, makes a perfect object gift.
Speaker 4: So I've given out probably a dozen copies of that
Speaker 4: over the years.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a very good gift. Is there any
Speaker 2: gadget that I left out that you were like, this
Speaker 2: is I was so excited to put this on the list.
Speaker 3: I think this whole range of.
Speaker 4: Semi illegal emulator video games where you like buy a
Speaker 4: little fake game Boy, but all of a sudden it
Speaker 4: has like ten different consoles and a thousand games on
Speaker 4: it for like one hundred dollars or less.
Speaker 3: I think that that's kind of you know.
Speaker 4: Twelve year old me would have freaked out so mind
Speaker 4: blown by yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, the retrosnap Play or
Speaker 4: the Amber Nick RG forty XXV. The other thing I
Speaker 4: liked about doing this guide was that the names are
Speaker 4: so random and crazy.
Speaker 2: They're crazy, That's what that was my favorite thing about
Speaker 2: reading it. It seemed like a McSweeney's article, I'll be honest, but.
Speaker 4: It's like it's all the same phenomenon. I think because
Speaker 4: like these gadgets have these spammy names because now it's
Speaker 4: just like a thing you click on on Amazon right, Like,
Speaker 4: it doesn't the brand name doesn't matter, the maker doesn't.
Speaker 2: Matter, fifty care. It's like a fifty word title of
Speaker 2: a Yeah, the thing that you're buying.
Speaker 4: Everything should be named by SEO. It just fifteen inch
Speaker 4: eat ink screen high battery power, loaded with one thousand games,
Speaker 4: color purple, shiny devices like I think, I think that's
Speaker 4: the epitome of naming. Actually it should just be literal
Speaker 4: and a string of twenty words.
Speaker 2: Big computer for traveler, fifteen fifteen inch, fifteen inch mouse
Speaker 2: for Traveler and robot dog.
Speaker 4: Yes, just wide monitor, curve, display tower, Mac shiny black,
Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty six gigabyte.
Speaker 2: This is a great mad libs.
Speaker 4: I mean, the touchscreen, vape, social media alert, disposable, whatever
Speaker 4: is that. It's just it is a mad libs of
Speaker 4: technology and it's real and it.
Speaker 2: Really is it Really it's kind of fun that you
Speaker 2: can buy a mad libs of technology. Yeah, well, thank
Speaker 2: you so much, Kyla. Really appreciate you taking the time
Speaker 2: to talk to me today.
Speaker 3: Thank you. This is very fun.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week for tech stuff. I'm Kara
Speaker 2: Price and I'm as Voloscan.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Elisa, Dennis Tyler Hill and
Speaker 1: Melissa Slaughter. It was executive produced by me Kara Price,
Speaker 1: Julian Nutter, and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Novel
Speaker 1: for iHeart Podcasts. The engineer is Mike Cascarelli and Jack
Speaker 1: Insley makes this episode. Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song.
Speaker 2: Join us next Wednesday for a roundup of our favorite
Speaker 2: Internet trends of twenty twenty five with writer and podcaster
Speaker 2: Ami not Too So. We round up our favorite Internet
Speaker 2: trends of twenty twenty five, brain rot and otherwise.
Speaker 1: And please do rate and review the show wherever you listen,
Speaker 1: and reach out to us at tech Stuff Podcast at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: We want to hear from you.