Al Zone Media.

Hello, and welcome to Better Offline.

I am, of course your host ed Zittron and we are in a very intimate podcast studio on like ninth Avenue and it's a wonderful day.

The last episode we got lost, but it will not be happening this time.

All of you are very kind with the notes you sent.

One of you said, why don't you take a back up?

Thank you.

We never thought of that.

It's not like there was another issue that could have happened in the fucking radio station.

Anyway, Today we have a wonderful gizmos and do Dad's episode.

On my right, I have the wonderful Michael Fish and mister Muball himself.

Nice to be back.

Thank you for having me.

I'm so happy to have you here.

Alex Cran's the wonderful gizmo and gadget queen.

Yeah, I'm so excited to talk about the gizmos.

Me too, And I'm knocking my phone over.

That's staying in the episode.

That's where my elbow goes, and there we go.

That's what we do before every episode.

And Kyle Barr of Gizmoto is here as well.

Hello exists, and.

He does exist.

So this episode actually came from an idea of I told you all this now went on Amazon typed in gadgets because I was like, I haven't like I mostly spend money on like diet coke and occasional baseball games and flights and like weird protein snacks I don't really like.

So I was like, you know what I want?

I want some dude ads.

I want to see what gadgets are going typed in gadgets into Amazon.

Fuck all appeared.

It was like phones and laptops.

I'm like, I don't need a new phone or laptop.

I'm happy with those.

I want something weird and stupid.

And I genuinely was like, wait, why is it so hard to find these?

You go on a text site these days it's all about fucking AI.

So I brought you all together to talk about the weird stuff you've been looking at.

And Michael, one of my favorite things you do is you've been the flip phone foldable advocate, and honestly, I'm deeply jealous raw on Android.

I'm so addicted to our message, but so much.

Fun you have.

So you've got you've got a device in front of you.

I do and the Honor Magic V five, which you cannot buy here.

One of the world.

You cannot buy it here.

No.

One of the world's thinnest foldables, the thinnest foldable if you decide to lie about it in your spec sheet.

Yeah, it's gorgeous.

Yeah, and this thing is and obviously we'll have links in there.

But this thing is.

You can see the crease, but you can't really when you're looking at it now.

I find these things magnificent.

I realized that they're imperfect, but I think they're just lovely.

And there's rumors that Mark German was tweeting earlier about Apples foldable.

Please do it, Please do the Apple.

That's all I want co sign Yeah, big agree.

I mean I want this, but not Android and sold in the United States.

Yeah, and no huge camera bump.

Oh see I like the camera bump.

I think it gives it all kinds of characters.

I mean, slap a big with the quad areo a quad stuff or whatever, Slap a big one of those.

So this thing has a giant circular like blob coming out of it, like a moon crater, like the size of a thing you would stick like a phone onto a magnetic phone thing like a fairly large circle.

I prefer that to the weird boils coming off my eye camera and you get a case on, so you've now got like a raised bit with three and I don't know, I don't like that.

I don't think it looks good.

I like that it captures all of the lint.

Yes, anytime I put it in my pocket, there's a bunch of crap and also just a new thing for me to scratch.

Yeah, it's the best.

I think that that.

What we're running up against, though, is we're approaching the limits of the current interfaces we have.

I think that we are the current tablet phone interfaces and the current laptop phone interfaces are just kind of maxed out.

And I'm wondering if the next thing is just foldables and extendables and all this shit not.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Zuckerberg has he has reimagined his AI department four times in the last year.

It's so cool.

I love that this.

He's going to apparently release a wrist.

Yeah, yeah, No, he's doing the risk stuff so for better tracking.

What is so do you have any idea, Alex what he's doing?

Yeah?

So his whole conceit until AI came around, was that the metaverse was going to be the next big thing he's he's since changed his tune except for presumably at what does it connect back in next month.

And one of the things he's doing is making it easier to track.

You track your hands and stuff when you put on these headsets, whether it's the Apple Vision Pro or the the Oculus, which is cool, Yeah they're cool, But when you put them on, you do hand tracking, and it's kind of like okay, but not great.

Yeah, it's like good enough for some like games like but even then you're just still using the controllers anyway, right.

And and this this this bracelet and you know we've seen this before.

I think Leap did it like ten years ago.

Oh yeah, but it really is.

It's meant to just be better at tracking you and tracking your hand booth.

To be clear, you have to be in VR for this to mean anything, right, you have to first have on your head.

Be wearing glasses.

That happened, That's that's a whole thing.

But they're they're moving towards the one day when they can do the glasses.

But we've been they've been everyone's been promising glasses for ten years.

But props though we have to I have to say they're the ray bands are outstanding for a content capture.

I think we all agree on that they're They're really really good from a phone call perspective for listening to music.

Phone cool work well the phone.

It's just it's a Bluetooth connection to your phone, just like earbuds.

Oh yeah, yeah, because you've got the putting my hands in front of that mic.

Take that back.

Yeah yeah, because you've got the microphones in the nose piece of the glasses, so it listens really really well and you can.

Hear music using the glassy little speakers shooting into your ears.

Over They're really really good and some of the best phone and love this.

Yeah it's cool, but it's also meta.

Well.

The tragedy of it is that those are practical benefits that we all love about them, and they have a pretty good camera, but Meta refuses to market them as such because they want to market them as an AI tool.

So it's like, no, you got to use meta AI to ask what you're looking at?

And what what's the best pool shot I can get on the Bible?

Like no, shut up.

I love that fucking use cases well because it's like I don't walk around being like what the fuck is that?

What the fuck is that?

What is it?

Just like, sorry, everyone, this is my first rodeo.

Like I'm just like constantly surprised by everything.

Yeah, but I hate that it's them.

It's the onion thing, the worst person you know.

Yeah, has a pretty good point.

But the thing is, Kyle, you you actually talking of glasses.

You were looking at this Insta three sixty thing.

Yep, when you were wearing these.

Robotic glasses, it was like connected to a drone.

No, this thing, I will link to it in the notes.

This thing looks fucking cool.

So those glasses that almost make you look like Cayman Ryder, like that Japanese superhero, it's all part of this giant apparatus from Insta three sixty.

You know they make three sixty cameras, Okay, so what are they gonna do when they make a drone?

Well, they just slap a three sixty camera on it, okay.

But then they also add the pair of goggles that's similar to the DGI goggle that you already can get, but this one makes you able to kind of look around in a three sixty space.

As you're flying around, you literally can turn around and see below, you see above, you see whatever is happening around you.

Is cool as far as like flying around, Uh, you know, it's there's other drones like FPV drones, which also have like a lot more maneuverability to capture first person view.

So it's almost like your you can do flips and stuff when.

You're in a video game.

Yeah, that's so cool.

So but this one is is more just like experiential.

You can say it's like a quote unquote immersive.

That's the word they like to use, but I prefer to just say you're you're you're a big floating head in a glass jar high above the.

Ground video games.

That's just that's awesome.

I like it, even though I know in your review you like it's imperfect, there are issues, and actually what were the issues you read?

So, I mean it's not like the Best Flyer.

There was problems when you're trying to bank, it'll just stop.

What does what do you mean by banking?

When you're trying to turn Oh, like, uh, this isn't actually a product yet, it's not out in the open it's going to be in like twenty twenty six.

This is just like the first iteration, and they're trying to show it off to people, and they're really trying to make it like a thing.

It's also going to cost like probably more than two thousand dollars.

I can already tell.

I can't hate the thing is.

This is not meant to be like for everyone.

And I'm glad someone's doing something different so much.

You can look around a bit if you go, like going in a weird canyon or something.

Oh, fly it like above something like.

I like that.

I'm glad that there's something happening.

Yes, because sorry, no, no, no please.

I just covered something that is almost exactly the opposite of this, right where this is this total immersion thing that you use outside.

And I just got done covering Terminal, which is this little tablet for the home.

I hate that thing.

Oh I'm excited to hear why you hate.

Hold on, let me tell you what it is.

Terminal.

Take out all the vowels, because it is in fact two thousand and eight.

And you put this in your house, It's like a one hundred and fifty bucks or something.

It's just an e ink screen that gives you ambient information throughout the day.

It's like one of these Google Home or Amazon things that has a screen, except the screen is much less distracting, and it is it only refreshes once every five minutes, and it doesn't listen to you, doesn't do anything like that.

It just tells you the weather, tells you when the next train is, tells you how many city bikes at your desk.

But it doesn't always refresh, and so you're like, oh, it's not going to rain, and then you just go outside and you're like, well, whoops.

Yeah, so you're right, because it's it's this very hackery thing.

Not only do you have to tell it like it's not like an iPad where you're like, okay, refresh every five minutes.

It's like, okay, now you have to go in and tell all the tools you added that you want them to refresh every five minutes too.

It's like a Pebble smart watch circa twenty twelve.

It's like, okay, well we've got a tweak it a message.

You have to tweak it so much.

But it was I don't know, I really wanted to like it, but the slow updates and it's just it's very hackery, and I was like, I'm much old today.

I don't know.

Maybe it was just I appreciated it.

I liked having to put the effort in because here's the thing.

I take the ferry everywhere, right, I don't take a subway because I don't have a subwey in my house.

But to do that you had to like go get the API yourself from the Fairy website and like plug it in and do that.

That's insane.

It was fun, though, you want a nerd out, I'm nerding.

Okay, now this is great.

No, you're right, I know.

I like this whole thing.

And is it super customizable?

So it just requires the API?

Yeah, I mean depending on what you want to do.

Yeah, and it's like what one hundred bugs.

Hundred and fifty, Yeah, it's just a little any subscription no, wow.

So is it when you say the API from the ferry, do you can you code?

Did you have to code it in or is it just you give it a total like API token and it refreshed that day.

Doing kind of stolen stolen valor for nerds because I'm like, no, you're just follow the instruction of the thing.

And copy your paste of That's fine.

Someone smarter than us has come back that I love.

I put a table of contents into my newsletter today and I had to like learn get my editor to do the HTML and then explain how it works.

Yeah, this is That's part of being online.

It's like learning standing on the shoulders of giants.

Like like, you get two kinds of reeditors.

You get the one that's just like, I'm just a casual racist, and then you've got the one which is like, I'm actually the in homebrew on PlayStation portables, and I'm like in the middle of you too.

I like the idea, but as ever, I'm like, what shit do I actually need to know every few seconds other than like what the last thing someone posted was?

Yeah, I think if I were if I was like a YouTuber, if I was doing that sort of stuff, I probably want it more.

I'm just in my house smoking weed.

So it's like, I just need to know am I going to get rained on when I go sit on the deck.

And it's sometimes good at that And I haven't plugged it in in at least.

A month, give it another ago.

Yeah, I'll plug it in when I get home.

This actually reminded me of something that you've posted about Kyle as well, which is the GPD Win five, which is a one of Cranz's favorite industries, the little the portable PC things.

It's so fun because we're talking about like real just like rinky dnk shit.

It has an external battery.

Yep.

So imagine you know, you got your steam deck like handheld, except you know, the battery life keeps dying.

You're like, oh, that sucks.

If only it had a bigger battery.

Well, they have a bigger battery.

It's just attached to a cable.

You just you have to you can slap it onto the back of it.

Have you held it yet?

No?

No, I mean a lot of these companies, like you know, a lot of the jankier handhelds are all like China based companies.

Oh yeah, they're all just like cranking them out routinely, like GPD.

This is the fifth one.

So I have the GPD in wind four.

Yeah, and it is I love it and I fucking hate it.

It is so large.

It is so much larger than It doesn't feel as large until you've used it for one minute and you're.

Like, oh, but it scratches that itch, doesn't it?

Oh it does.

It feels just like a PlayStation portable if I take three of them together.

But I went and watched the video and this thing just for for the on in this ship is just a Windows tablet in a PlayStation portable handheld for and it's cool when it works.

You can play Hades two and it looks great, feels great.

They took the keyboard off this year.

It's not it doesn't a keyboard, no Q.

So that's why I swear there's one with a keyboard you can slide up that feels like.

I'm pretty yeah.

And I like GPD by the way, because they do just crank out these insane looking like, yeah, you've got a ten and ten point four inch tiny laptop with the worst keepboard you've used in the world.

It sucks, but it rules, and you're like, ooh, why did you make this?

Who's buying this?

And it's like every Kickstar is ten many that you're like, ah, criminal enterprises.

No one is buying these things, but we are all loving that.

I love that they're experimenting.

But I actually this is my Contrussia.

I don't mind the external battery.

I don't either.

Is the weird thing, because okay, I've I already have to do that, like with my switch to I just rew there's a case that I got that has the external battery.

You slap it onto the back and now it's lasting four hours instead of two.

You already kind of have to do that with a lot of these handles, unless you're just sitting at home playing it on your bed where you have the cable right next to you and you're like, I'm running lout, plug it in and go do something else or something.

You know.

Yeah, you get the ten foot USBC cable.

Yeah, and then you get the even longer power cable and you plug everything together and you suddenly got twenty feet of reach.

Right.

I've seen I've I seen a few people derisively talking about this external battery situation.

It's like, I don't know.

I love my rog x ally, I really do, but the motherfucker if you leave it, it's like you hit sleep and it just you're like, this will sleep, and you come back in an hour and it's dead.

It's just a world cup.

Wait, well that's because the windows machines really struggle with powering down.

Like I'm just gonna say, I'm glad nothing has changed in Windows for the last twenty years.

Never Yeah, it will never change.

Windows will always be the most inconsistent handling of power.

I think Microsoft is truly evil.

I think like they have like such an open goal here with handhelds.

They have companies.

I know that they're doing an Xbox rog ally x and I saw fucking Tom Warren on the verge go for the first time.

You just hit a button, you go to Windows.

Actually, Tom, you could do that with all the rocks.

Fucking but it's just like they they're like, we're releasing a special Xbox.

Did we change Windows in any way?

Fuck you customer?

Yeah, piece of shit.

Well, and usually we laid off everyone who did that.

I will say, usually it's not Microsoft's fault.

It's usually these other companies are just not building the drivers and stuff to properly handle power management.

But it was also Microsoft's fault because the Xbox rog what I didn't even hear about this.

Tell me more you didn't hear it.

It's it is basically a l weird like handheld.

Yeah, there's the Xbox grips that come along with it.

The Okay, so according to I want those grips so bad.

So this is the thing.

You don't even need to get the new one, really the grips.

Well no, because if you want the grips and you have to get the new one.

But the whole like thing with it now is that they've changed the software.

They're saying that they've limited enough a number of stuff on the back end so that it should run better, it should sleep better, so it should be better with power management.

And this is a lot of shoulds, right because none of us have actually, you know, put it through its space is like over a long term.

Uh.

I just think that Microsoft is trying, but they're doing it so late, and it's coming off of like a bunch of stuff that happened recently with Xbox that made them look really bad.

So they look like they're trying too hard.

Right.

They had a handteld.

It was long rumored.

I remember Tom was covering it at the verge, and then they just abruptly killed it because they realized.

I wasn't sure how far along that was even.

Well, my understanding was this fairly far along, but they were entirely dependent on Streaming to handle it.

They go they go to them yeah, game pass is great.

I use it on my steam deck, but it's not great enough to do it that.

Yeah, when not they get Yeah, this actually reminds me.

I wanted to ask you about this.

At some point you said something about g force now in stall, and I've seen stories about this.

What is this g force now install thing?

Crans?

I mean, I just know g Force now.

You tell me.

Okay, well, okay, g Force now they just released an update.

So g force now is a streaming service.

You have to play your own games versus like you know, other like xboxes cloud gaming thing where you can use their games, and like you're paying for the service.

This one.

You're paying for the service to use their servers to download the games and play them remotely.

They've just added a thing where supposedly you'll be able to just kind of use your whatever games like not even on their list, as long as a developer opts in whatever that really means, if they're already opted in probably uh, then you can just rent out space on their servers to download that game and then basically just have a Shadow PC to play those games.

Are interesting that's been going.

I mean, there was a company Shadow that's exactly what I'm still around.

Yeah, they're just really expensive there, and.

I mean in video.

The reason they're likely doing this is they have a lot of server space.

They have a ton of server space because it's in Vidia, and they've currently made everyone's four Oka four oh one k beautiful crik now for now for at least the end of this month, till Wednesday.

We know that.

But but yeah, that's why they're doing it, is they have all the server space, and it's like, why not make a few extra bucks because it's not like it's not going to be a huge money driver for them, but there are people out there who want to play their games remote.

They used to be able to do that when it first launch.

Yes, that'll get a little more popular once we get one of the more gadgety elements of phones back, which is this.

Remember Samsung Decks, this sort of desktop simulator that lets you use your plug your phone into a monitoring keyboard and mouse, and well it's been just decrepit and gathering dust for ages.

It hasn't been updated in a meaningful way in a long time.

But now that Android Google's building it into Android sixteen.

Is this kind of mode that will not require you to have a Samsung phone.

You can have any Android phone running FRO running sixteen.

One of the things I did was, I thank you for reminding me about Shadow, because I forgot last time I reviewed Samsung Decks.

I used Shadow to play like Titanic Adventure, Out of Time and other CD Rohm classics from my youth, and it was absolutely great.

But wait, wait, wait, what does decks actually do.

It's so you plug your phone into a monitoring keyboard and mouse and you do not USBC, SBC whatever, and then it just creates a desktop environment like it like Windows, except it's Android.

It's your fine, so you don't have to find a Wi Fi hat, You've reready got a se connection.

You don't have to move your files to it because your files are already on your phone.

Atrix promised us this fifteen years and Trix Variety.

And Atrix four G Yeah, they never trust that fucking guy.

Well actually was good now that they've got the.

Race Razor Ultra, we love that.

We love a wooden phone.

And thank you Lenovo Wooden.

Indeed it's wood on it.

You got wood, You got Alcantara.

If you want to get a really gross overnight and then what fake?

What do you mean gross?

Like yes, yeah, alcantara is is like a fabric and that was what they put on the palm rest for the surface.

And it can get dirty.

Because it's one just flipping out of a low razor.

But like two months in after you do like a New York summer, it's just going to be so disgusting on the front.

No one will ever drop it like just absorbs all.

But you know then it's your You've got a nice patina.

No one will ever touch it because they'll be disgusting.

Yeah right, yeah, I think it's great and I will say it.

I want Apple to do this fucking flip phone.

I want him to do something different.

I'm tired of I want my I have the most giant phone.

I occasionally go back to the smaller iPhone.

I hate it.

I want the big one again, except I want an even bigger one.

I want Apple to do foldables so bad.

I don't need to wait for a photoble.

I got just the thing for you.

Ever use clicks for the iPhone?

I have a clicks I have a click disclosure.

I am a co founder click co found I bought when I sent you a picture of me using which I appreciate it and I.

Hear that makes it big.

Just use that and it makes it click you too.

No, the thing is, I don't have a trouble typing on the phone at all.

I just want the screen.

I would like my screen to be twice the size.

Well, you could just carry an iPad.

I do carry an iPad, and I love the iPad pro.

I really do take photos.

I'm not my dad, my dad.

No, I love my dad.

He pulls out his iPad many and it's just like the most like it's no, No, I love it.

I love the fact that he's into the iPad because I got him as the original iPad whenever like the second.

No, it's the first iPad many they released.

And my dad, I love hearing this and he loved it.

He uses it all the time, and I consider like that the best sign of technology.

If like like like an.

Older person who's just a regular person who does like a business job and like listens to the radio and watches the news, Like what are their use cases with it?

And the fact that he picks it up and uses it like as a pic, as a as a picture taker.

That's the term picture taker.

Yes, I think it's lovely, and I think it affordable.

And look it's me, he's photographing me, and that's actually really cool.

And this is yeah, And I get back to my thing that the UX situation.

We're just at the limits of the current UX.

I think so.

And also my controversial opinion, which is the vision pro is amazing when it works.

It's so heavy it is.

But when I say when it works, I mean we're talking four percent of the time.

Have I told any of you what's happened with my vision progress?

So I got told my good Matt Bambike, who told me that Metallica was on the vision prom like a big, heavy thing that's kind of lost its way and we're not really sure why we engage with it.

Sounds like Metallica.

So I get this thing, I put it on.

It goes.

You need to update the fuck it.

Okay, I'll update.

I have that shit all the time.

I let it start downloading, I pick it up, I put it down, I pick it up, the UX doesn't load again.

Yeah, you have to keep this thing on your fucking head while you update it.

Yep, it's like a fifteen minute long update.

This feels like just the easiest thing in the world for them to fix, and it's just it's so annoying because there are there are like several minutes at a time when I'm using the Vision Pro when I can make it work, which is not at the moment where I'm just like, damn, this feels like the few It's a giant screen.

It like I can grab things, and then like the headset moves three centimeters.

Yeah, and now it's out of focus.

Have you used to quest like this?

I have the Quest three and it's just like even then my strange skulleah, like lots of people love measuring my skulls reasons, but it's just like the Quest three doesn't feel right, but it feels better than this.

Yeah, But the Vision Pro has these moments, and I think it's just because the it's less about the Vision Pro more the idea of yeah, an interface that we could reach out and grab and move around with our hands.

It makes sense and it works when it works, but it doesn't work very often, and it's just the problem is is every article is either this is the most amazing thing, which is not, or it's this completely sucks, which it does a lot of the time.

Yeah, where it's in a journey.

I wish all the money if from AI had gone into this, not because I think it would be particularly successful, but we get we get somewhere too quicker.

It did go into it at Meta, it didn't go.

Yeah, forty two billion dollars went into experiments doing air quotes.

Yeah, I mean that's what Android X are is supposed to be.

Right, it's going to be first Samsung's Project Muhan is just going to be you know, one Apple Vision Pro but with Yeah, it's so Samsung's making a Vision Pro.

It's gonna have very similar like micro oled displays.

I don't know if it's going to go the full like four K four K or whatever bullshit, but it'll just be like, you know, it'll be Android's version of Apple's Vision OS.

It's just going to be a little bit more AI focused because it's all full of Google.

Yeah.

Because I was using these Vichua glasses if you heard of these, Yes.

I've used them these weirdly in.

Just put them on you have a USB.

It doesn't try and be fancy enough, and you just have a couple you put in your phone and you have them on your glasses and it looks pretty big.

That's that's the best thing about Like, yeah, I like air glasses because I just like secondary screens.

It's like, oh, okay, you know they're good for a plane.

They're just a little bit expensive, but yeah they do what do you need them to do?

Then I put it on the plane, I'm like, ah, right, I don't want to look straight ahead.

But it was just like me, just like this is cool.

Can I move it to Nope, this is attached to my fucking face.

But there is something here, I swear to.

God, no, there is something.

There's so much more here than Generative AI.

Like with General AI have not had a goddamn moment of peace in two years, but also not a goddamn moment where I've been like okay, I kind of I kind of see it.

And there were moments with the Vision.

There's moments with the Quest where I've been like, okay, like horseshoes and hand grenades.

Yeah, Steam game where you can just like pick up guns and it's like extremely realistic and it just feels so good and it's satisfied, like exactly the kind of moment that you're like, this is great fun technology.

I fucking love the future.

The same thing when I I remember when I got the original iPhone on singular wireless in Penn State, and I remember the moment of like, Wow, I don't have to wait for my voicemail.

Wow, I can just type out and I can move apps.

This is cool.

Those moments are there with XR and VR.

I'm actually like, I'm not like a fantasist about it.

Most of the shit sucks.

Yeah.

Well, I think Google is going to say is that they've invested in AI so that the AI can go and actually fix all of the problems that the brilliant scientists and researchers haven't been able to do, to actually make a pair of good looking XR glasses that you can wear on your face.

That it's so funny.

Well, so I spent almost the entirety of last CEES looking at displays because I was going to cover other things, and then I very quickly realized the most interesting stuff on the floor was was eyeglasses for ar you know, applications, and I used the even realities g one.

If you used these one of these, these are some very normal looking glasses that if you're a Harry Potter fan, you're you're really a fan of them, because they can't make you look like that.

But they don't look like they have tech in them.

In fact, the first ad I saw for them, I did not believe that they existed.

I'm like, you guys are just hitting me with a render and this is vapor where it's never going to launch.

And so I'm on a friend's head and I'm like, what, wait are those they?

And you put them on and they have us monochrome wargames esque like green text.

Displace these on Instagram.

Dude.

They are and they look they do very few things, but they do them all pretty damn well.

As Chris fvelasco, the legend of it was, I was talking about them and they're great.

I kept wearing them for weeks after the review and what they do and caveat I'm a sucker for notification dashboards terminal smart watches.

This takes your smart watch, puts it on your face and so if you're just interacting, you're fine, and then you look up and then you have a little dashboard you have to look up.

No, you can set it so that if you get a notification that pops up right in front of your so if I'm looking at you, I'm actually reading my messages and that's creepy, So I keep that off.

I'm like, I'm the other way around though, where I'm like, I wouldn't want this on all the time, but if I could look up just to take a look, Yeah, because if I see a notification, I want to chew on it.

Yeah, I want to take a look.

What you go for me?

Absolutely?

And I love this.

And again, is this super useful?

It's useful?

Is it too expensive?

I assume yes?

Probably.

I forgot how they look like.

You have to wear a leather duster with them whenever.

Yeah, no, that's that's the thing.

So this is my main complaint with all the other stuff you're talking about, is like the I'm sorry, I always bring out XP real just to like beat on them, but like great technology, but when you wear it, it's it is x reel.

You put on sunglasses, but you have like four inches of I don't know, foam between them and your eyes, Like they just ride so damn high and they're just just because of the what is x rel They're like what you just described for airplane viewing.

They're like, you know, wearable displays for years, but they're.

Also working on an XSAR thing for Android.

Are they yep?

Okay, that means display technology that doesn't require like you know, you would working.

Vision pro by.

Now, if they'd put the four hundred billion dollars into this ship, like that's the that's the actual thing.

If they wanted to invest in the future, even if it's not xr VR, if they put hundreds of billions of dollars into the next interface, and their argument would be, oh, yeah, well, AI is the next interface because you can just talk right, No, I can't.

No, I can't at all.

I have a British accent.

Do you know I have to have British Siri sometimes because sometimes Siri just because I don't.

Oh no, I don't.

A lot of my family has really strong Southern and Texas accents.

It's incredible, like it has not nothing has improved from when Google first and out first issued like voicemail where we would transcribe it.

Nothing's improved, Siri, Android, any of them.

If they've got a really strong accent and they're talking like dish, no, no, my god, it's not nonal fucking work.

Oh my god, just tie it out.

You have to people in the South and people in love Baltimore.

Just fuck just absolutely fun giving that food question.

Actually, did you know that when you go to Europe the Android dictation engine changes.

No GDPR I sum or something like that.

I don't know why.

All I know is when I'm in Europe and I'm trying to type and I'm like, no, I'll come to you period, it says period.

I have to say no, I'll come to you full stop.

Oh that makes more sense.

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

It's pretty smart.

If you go around in England being like period, people don't look at this at the end of every sentence like, oh, you seem fine.

But it's I do think though that this is this is a very dread infused time.

It's very doom ory.

But then I see these little folded I see the fun device.

I'm like, that's industry does actually have other things.

It's just I think we might have maxed out software.

I think we may have reached the limits of what software can do based on what we have as computing devices.

I'm sure, yeah.

I'm sure it's not fully at the limits, but I'm just saying as far as consumers go with using stuff.

But what do you think, Alex I would.

Say that it is more laziness of the large companies, the Apples and the Samsung's and the Googles and the Microsoft's, the Lenovo's, I mean, well, the Lenovo actually they have fun.

Yeah, Lenovo's actually really good at like we're going to experiment, and they're Chinese company.

They're always trying something you.

Know a lot of but the primarily these American companies making gadgets and stuff, they don't try.

All of they're interested in is how can I get you to replace what you have in two years?

Yeah?

That's it.

And instead of being like, how can I get you to replace what you have in two years by completely redefining the entire industry, they're like, now you can use magnets, it's longer, and it's like, well, that's cool, But am I really going to upgrade my phone just for that?

I might, No, people in this room might.

I definitely would, but but you're right, but with.

The people outside of this room, anybody.

Have a case for that.

It's also I think they've tried to do everything with one device, which is great, but that's where you bump up, like the limits of entertainment I think are we're reaching, especially because watching I'm done with people telling me to watch I don't know how people watch like full movies on their phone.

Even the biggest, most hug just for they're young.

They stirred it.

No, I mean I mean older people too.

I mean I've just met people and it's like on like a six inch phone and it's like, what the fuck?

This is worse than an app.

My brother did that.

He watched Sinners like on his pad and he's like, why does everybody like Sinners?

It's not very good?

And I was like, how'd you watch it, like, you know, in the middle of the day with the lights all on on my iPad?

And I'm like, well, of course you didn't like it.

Hell yeah, did it together, sir?

Watching The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Detroit too, that was a good fun I like the droid too.

That was And also, just to be clear, you can do experiments that suck.

I did also try the BlackBerry Storm back in the day.

With It's like it was a screen where you could just like do happen.

It was like you could press it felt like you were pressing in, but it felt.

It didn't it flowed down a button.

It felt bad.

It felt like it was a slightly harder version of poking some like Greek yoga.

It was, which is not the sensation I want?

While typing like a clunk to it.

That was the one that, like BlackBerry was like, this is gonna save us.

Yeah, it was that big.

It was so it was like the homomobile of funds.

It's fucking wrong.

I love them for how bad it was.

Yeah, they were like, we're gonna we don't need this multi touch stuff.

We got this, Yeah, we got you want your screen to move?

Do you ever want a screen that feels that makes you feel bad every time you touch it?

And everyone else is like we're working on that with different ways.

It's I also think that the it's nice to see here that there's some fun as well because the AI stuff and I'm not gonna make this a big complain first about AI.

You got the rest of the episodes, but there's something joyless about large language.

It's not fun.

I'm not using any of it and being like, oh, how whimsicll like, oh you're having They don't seem like we're haven't they're having fun.

We're not having fun at least with some dorky, insane fun.

You're like, okay, yeah, what are you good fun?

I mean the vibe coders.

The vibe coders are having fun.

Though they're not read the Vibe coding Reddit.

It's a bunch of people talking like they've been captured by North Korea.

Yeah, it's straighted.

Be like, I love doing this every day mice.

I've put three months of my life and thousands of dollars into this, and I have eight paying customers.

It's the best thing in the world.

It's so funny.

And you you read and they're like, yeah, I don't get how this happened.

And someone will be like, yeah, you don't read code.

You can't understand how this cat well I asked it to tell me.

It's like, yeah, that's that's the problem.

But it's like, there's nothing dorky or funny about it.

Even the meta verse was more fun than this.

It was more fun to make fun of it.

Like the metaverse.

That first time you put on that stupid Windows headset and you had your big Windows playhouse and you go and you put a giant dinosaur in it, and then you ask your coworker to try on the headset and they're like, why the hell is a giant dinosaur staring at me?

Like that's fun, but you can't do that.

Yeah, it's it's hard to troll people with AI.

I mean you have to, like you really have to think about it.

That's the thing, though.

People trolled a little hard.

Because what I also enjoyed was watching during the metaverse, regular journalists be like I'll check cut this VR chat thing and just like getting the worst people online.

A bunch of people dressed as knuckles just doing racism constantly, just like endless races.

And if you're thirteen year old, Yeah, just thirteen year old saying the worst sheet you've heard in your life, and like I'm here from a business magazine.

It's like, fuck you, piece of shit.

No, it's great.

I think the journalists need to see the real Internet occasionally.

Yeah, but you can't do that with You can.

Just do that with the Internet.

You've been able to do it for decades.

It's just but the metaverse also you saw some people try some weird shit.

You saw a lot of grifters and all this crap, like whatever, but it was like at least someone was having fun.

Mark Zuckerberg was lying, but also people didn't really full ask the metaverse.

I wish that they had put this kind of money into it, because we would have got one really shit thing and one really funny thing.

Yeah, and I mean they to an extent they did put the money in, Like apples, Apple spent a lot of money.

I don't think they did that because of the metaverse.

I think that they were planning it anyway.

Really, I think I always felt it was like, we need to play catch up.

Everyone is talking.

They've been Yeah, I can see that Apple, But I refuse to believe it's been two three years.

Well it came out twenty twenty four.

I don't think they've only been working on it two years.

Maybe they don't accelerated.

Out they've been.

They've been working on it for Steve Jobs would have fucking killed them.

Can you imagine Steve Jobs finding about that.

He would have beaten someone to death with the willows.

Wasn't the idea that they were creating glasses first, and then they're like, this is the step towards the glasses and now well there was all that talk whether or not they're actually making a glass.

Now they're back on whether or not they're going to be smart glasses or ar glasses.

It seems silly.

Yeah, everybody was like, okay, and this, this is the dumbest part of the generative AI moment is ten years ago everybody was like, we're going to have smart glasses, but they are going to be you put them on and you talk to somebody because Alexa is doing it and there's in Siri and all of this, So we're going to do it just like this.

It didn't work because we don't know how to interact audio wise with computers and stuff.

It's not just like it is in Star Trek.

It's actually more complex, right, you have to consider multiple users and stuff.

So everybody's like, okay, how else can we do this, Well, we'll do the metaverse and we'll do these ar glasses.

And then they were like, wait, we can't figure out how to make these glasses small enough, with battery life, with good vision, Like, we can't do all of that.

And then Generative AI came out and there was everbody's like, you know what, we're gonna do that Alexa.

Shit again, I love that as well, because Alexa didn't work.

It still doesn't, and they were like, well, we'll make a new one that works worse.

Yes, and it's I haven't have any of you used Alexa plus yet no?

Yeah, not only in demos.

Damn I was I really when I read about that, and they're like, it's worse and it can you can be like, yeah, make me a recipe for like chicken pasta and it will tell you it.

And I just think that people need to accept the voice is not a good interface just in general.

I don't think it needs to be perfect perfect.

There's so much more training of ourselves.

Right because like you, I don't want to be trained.

I want to use the thing, but you.

Are trained, Like we're all trained.

We're trained to use our.

Phone limited use cases like you know, turn the lights on, to turn to open the garage door or whatever like.

But but beyond that, to your point, like it's it's required to be usable by such a wide squath of humans that it's almost important.

We all want to do it, just like start absolutely.

I also think it has a very flat view of tasks.

I think that most people think that it's going to be well, people like Sunda Pushai or Andy jasse think that people go into the house and go and I will do that, and I will do this, not me.

I'm like, what about the YouTube?

What about the chrome thing?

Oh?

I just breathe this off.

Well now why fuck?

I'm meant to send an email?

Send an email?

Okay, Fuck, I've got the information for the email.

Shit, why am I?

Why is it so fucking hot in here?

I need to make it cold in it?

Fuck?

It's how to put this YouTube back on?

Yeh, you can't multitask at all.

Right.

It also just can't do any context switching.

You cannot do it.

And I will do something which I think would be ten amount of suicide on any other day.

I will defend an LLM on your podcast.

Okay, I feel like it's probably a good mechanic for training these things to do exactly that, because I have found the one enjoyable bit of using lllm's I've found is that I'll talk to Gemini Live a lot, because I'm very used to as we all are, doing a Google Voice dictated search for what I'm looking for.

But I love that Gemini lets me talk to it like my brain actually works, like thinking about this thing.

It's like a wrench, but it's not.

It's like a ratcheting socket that's probably not ratcheting anyway.

It's a vacuum cleaner adjustment, you know what I mean.

And then she'll be like, oh, yeah, I totally got it here, here's what it is.

But that's and then her return to to be fair, we will be twenty percent wrong, but at least she's gotten me.

I'm with you.

This is the use case of llms, which is they are better at inferring meaning from what we say, and they have found a way to do that, which is just better search, which gets back to the thing that you were saying, Alex about how these companies are lazy, because why does it Why didn't Google have this ten years ago?

How are there no other ways to do this?

And why is Google still not really like this?

In the search engine part, you have to go into Gemini and even when you you can't type in to Google search that kind of thing.

Now when you try and I will type in like cite the information a term, and it will be like, I don't fucking know, man, because I didn't write dot com.

Yeah, because it is just I don't know what possibly could cite colon the information mean, oh you had a dot com.

It's a website.

My bad, Like I'm only worth We're only a market cap of four trillion dollars.

Fuck you.

Well, they would say you should be using Chrome to do it.

Answer Chrome, No, I wasn't.

I'm still in Chrome a little bit because certain websites don't work because we live in the future.

I tried to switch to Coggy's mobile browser.

Worst experience.

I switched to Firefox, and I hate it.

It's sometimes some things just work better.

I live in Chrome.

I guess where I'm I mean, especially since Pocket died.

Now I have to use Chrome from my mobile bookmarks and it has on passwords.

It has oh man, that's actually another thing.

Just really grinds my giars.

Bookmarks are the same.

Still, I don't use bookmarks because I'm chaotic, and every time I save something, I forget where I saved it.

I just assume I'll remember everything.

I actually no, I genuinely, I genuinely do, Like I remember no same, Yeah, and it works out.

And I'm like, oh my god, I remember everything but exactly the wrong time.

No, I remember everything.

Yeah, I should look at it as long as I have the weirdest cues, like several words.

If you read my notes from my newslet that they're insane.

It's like three set three broken sentences with like a question mark and a type up.

I'm like, that's sixteen thousand words, babe.

Yeah, well, all I didn't have this on my list, but there's a gadget for that.

What is it?

The plowed or plod ai recorder things?

Right now?

What is this thought?

They work pretty well, and in fact, you could say they work too well.

They make a little cart credit card size thing.

It's very thin, it's very impressive.

It's metals.

Now, this is the notepin.

This is the thing that works too well.

They had a bug.

You want to know what the bug was?

What was it that fucker would record when you didn't ask if to.

I have four hours of me snoring at C on the note and I was like, hey, guys, you have to fix this because it's the one thing that can't do.

And they're like, oh, yes, we were replacing those affected units.

Yeah.

Well, I'm so sorry though, Now that isn't impossible to buy device in the review, anyone, I said, anyone who knows that happened to you, I wouldn't be able to buy it.

Nope, I don't trust it.

You probably have because we all have phones, and phones have definitely done that too.

I more than once had my phone just be like, I'm sorry, I didn't catch that, and I was like, I was on the fucking toilet.

I didn't need you to catch that.

Yeah, my I like my home pods, but they do occasionally hear me and just go like, I don't know what that means.

It's like, yeah, I was.

I was screaming to myself, thank you.

I was just watching TV.

I was just mad.

I was just saying some of the words that I say inside when I am upset.

Even the PS five, the PlayStation five has that ability.

You don't know it because nobody enables it, but it actually works.

You can like talk into the controller and control the PS five that way.

And I turned it on and I just keep forgetting to take it off.

And now I'm just like, I'm just talking with my brother, and then the PS five is like, are you sure, and I'm like, what do you mean?

No, PlayStation five?

That's why I'm talking.

I don't know, and I just I want them to do more fun things.

I'm so glad I the fact that you, Michael have this flip phone out.

I keep looking at it being like this, but there's the trifold, now, ru we love the trifle.

It is actually doing a lot of these Chinese companies are doing really interesting innovating.

Huawei is doing it, Lenovo is doing it.

Apple is like, we'll get there in five years after everyone else has done it, right, we can like test it there.

And one thing I will say is you can't do contiguous between the wind.

So yeah, when you're running to a side by side, well exactly that kind of Android demands you like you select your focus.

Yeah, so you can't be doing it both at once.

And that's the weird thing like Apple used to like they had the Apple High five.

They used to take fun risks and then Steve Jobs would kill the family.

Is if everyone involved.

Well they and they failed at a risk.

They air air air dock yeah yeah, yeah, the charging power.

So far the listeners.

There was this thing that now exists in nineteen different forms where they were going to do this block where you could put your air pods, your Apple watch and your phone.

And they would talk about it every few months and they'd be like, it's just around the core.

They announced it like it was like a big thing.

They announced the malt Gumman would just put out it's like, no, it's not gonna and it was.

It just they just canceled it one day and then Anchor and several hundred other companies.

Well it was different ahead, it was different.

So so what Apple was trying to do was like take those those coils, the charging coils, and stack them on each other so it's one real small spot so you could throw it on anywhere on the pad and it would charge, whereas everybody else is like you have to have your little spots.

And I love I've got I've got one and it's great.

I use it all the time.

But air power would have been slightly cooler except for it was like melting things.

They couldn't figure it out one way or.

Wow, costomers a.

Melted a hole in my phone.

Oh but now we have like mag safe obviated the need for it, right, because the magnets are better for end Like it's like, you don't it doesn't matter that you need to like discreetly place it because the magnets are gonna put it there.

Anyway, and that's better.

For a reason.

I will say, there is an anchor thing I have at home I don't replace out of spite, which is it's one of the things where the Apple Watch component flips up, so there's the circle except that thing.

There are so many times I put it on, it just does not stick for some reason.

Every time it happens to a piece of shit.

Do I replace it?

Fuck?

Now, you I paid my fifty dollars and I will get every dollars worth ten years later.

I will replace it when I throw it from the window.

I mean, that's like all my gan chargers.

Now is cool?

We really genuinely.

I mean that's how you know it's a bunch of like nerds who love gadgets because we're all like yeah yeah.

And if you've not heard of gallium, and I tried to mention it before, it's the thing where they basically found a way to make plugs smaller and batteries smaller.

I actually have like these amazing anchor things.

That's just all this cool shit that came out of it.

And you Green makes really good stuff too, you Green, Yeah, you Green?

There.

I thought they were just the slot brand.

No they're real people.

Yeah, but they're one on my bag right now, and they're actually.

Good because I've looking for Anchor alternatives just because I like melting Yeah, No, I like hank A melting things.

Yeah, they got recalls.

Things have gotten a little more expensive, you green, and there's a few others.

But I like Hanka.

So they committed the ultimate sin long ago for me.

The same thing all birds did.

The same thing everything company does that that that achieves scale is they go from building something interesting looking in a fun color with a weird shape, like ah, no, eighty percent of people by the boring black rectangles.

So now that's all we're gonna shape.

Anchor's variety is black or white.

I go, I somewhat disagree.

Oh come, just because of the nebul the right swam which she talked about.

Is this insane, like three thousand dollars projectory and you can put it in a weird angle and it will still keystone in They do claim it's like, oh, you hit a button and it just works.

Not for me.

I am the person you should bring every new thing to before you say that, because it will break everything.

Is there ever been a projector that just works?

But it does.

It gets about as close you can.

It sets up in like a minute.

You can keystone it at the weird that angles is fucking cool and it looks weird and it's like really nice and like the wireless speakers just working this how much it's three thousand fucking dollars.

It's so expected good news.

If you google it, you will get your first three results are cheaper alternatives that they're being paid to be put there.

Nice.

When I bought my GPD for whim four, I ended up getting scammed by Google AD I had some and I it was just I was buying it.

I was excited to get it, and I saw and I am so resilient to these things, so I was like mad at myself.

Yeah, I emailed fucking GPDY.

I emailed Google.

I was fucking I was like, listen to me.

Fuck no, I was, And to be fair, GPD got back to me like, holy shit, like we're going to contact Google.

Google did not.

GPT was actually very concerned because it's like the whole price.

Yeah, and it was just like a Chinese guy's Gmail as well, like he had a faked a perfectly good GPD website.

Did he just mail your box.

No, I canceled the payment like it would put it on a credit card.

Because these things happened, I haven't for a long time.

I was quite embarrassed.

But now I like Anchor and they occasionally we'll do something on the Nepular X one.

However, Yeah, they are mostly just blokes.

They have them in different collars.

Now, I mean the batteries I have, it's like mint green.

Yeah, I mean Anchors, Anchors, like you know, charging brand.

It's just kind of stayed.

But like all the other ship they're doing with all their other sub brands, because now they have like twelve uh you know, they have that UV printer that's really cool.

What is this?

So UV printers they basically use a UV light on UV activated ink.

To like thermal printers.

Kind of, but there's less heat involved since it's just light.

Yeah, so you'll like, it'll just you can technically print on almost anything.

And it can print in three D quote unquote, so if you like, you know, you're looking at oil painting, it has those like raised edges where you know, the oil thickens, it can technically do that.

It's really it's really cool and I got to use it.

I printed out a meme on a on a little magnet and it looks really nice.

I can't wait to actually try it out more.

It's lunches this thing.

It's probably around like thirteen hundred dollars.

No, it was more than that.

It's like but that like a good three D printer.

Oh yeah, No, is this like one of those printers that I saw a number of years ago that it's kind of like a mouse and you like run it over the surface you're printing.

On or No, this is a big unit, but it's like other UV printers are like gigantic and this is like a tabletop one, which is why it was like big in the maker space for like a hot minute.

I don't know where it is right now, and I've been trying to get a review unit in and anchor.

If you're listening, please.

I actually do have a question for all three of you.

I keep seeing things on Kickstarter, but I haven't touched kickstar in years because of all the shit.

Is it trustworthy still?

Is it still dodgy?

And on who you're going?

Like some companies, big companies will use Kickstarter to validate the market, like Uni Herts is famous for this if you want an interesting phone, Uniherts is there for you.

They make all the like BlackBerry revivals, all the ones.

You're huge.

They have a screen on the back for no reason.

Oh yeah, yeah, you know you'd love it.

Yeah.

Try Every launch they do is on Kickstarter, and they you know, I think they also use it as a pr thing because they know they're going to exceed their goal in the first day.

But this is in twenty thirteen, anymore.

Try I run a pof I know that doesn't work anymore.

Yeah, but yeah, yeah, you'll see that with like it's it's mainly the big brands.

The smaller brands, I would still be still yeah, because it's you just run into this.

I mean, it's just the practical nature of building.

Catchet hardware is really difficult, can confirm.

Yeah, and it's only going to get more difficult over the next because of the tariffs and stuff.

Absolute especially Americans are going to have, you know, until we get manufacturing in the United States again, it's.

Going to be a chance.

I look forward to that day.

There is one that I actually invested in, which is technically a gadget.

Now this I was going to save this to the very end because no one could possibly care about this, but they didn't follow the moon landing program in the sixties.

Tell me more.

Okay, this is a watch.

It is called the d Sky moon Watch Sky, and it is not a smart watch.

It is not a it's not an LCD and all this stuff.

What they took.

There's an Apollo guidance computer from the moon capsule and they shrunk it down to the size of a watch.

Oh my god.

Hell yeah.

It is not just an aesthetic reproduction.

It is literally the same computer replicably, so you can program it with like old sixties noun verb, you know, combinations and what I love, My favorite thing about it is, you know in the sixties you didn't have LEDs.

Well, we have to have LEDs in the watch to do stuff.

They came up with color filters to make the LED match the incandescent bulbs of the sixties.

Like it's looks like an celloscope kind of.

Like I also need this, but I'm going to get it.

That's what I said the minute I saw I.

Think eight hundred ninety bucks or something like.

That, but our website it's six hundred and fifty nine pounds.

Yeah.

The Americans, Yes, yes, yes, Yeah, anyway, I'll let you know if I get it, because I have backed it.

But what does it do?

It telltales at the time.

It looks cool.

It also it also is the guidance computer, so you can program it to It is limited by your imagination and your coding ability if you know nineteen sixty nine era code.

Of course, yeah, which I do.

But it's all open source so you can actually do whatever you want with it, which is really fun.

It also has GPS for some reason, I don't know.

I don't know what else.

Okay, while we're there, it's yeah, I'm so glad.

I wasn't sure coming into this weather we'd have more do deaths.

It seems like there's still a healthy but there's just not in America.

No good stuff here.

Yeah no, sorry, you can get it here, but it's not American companies that seem to be driving this, like anchors Chinese.

Yeah, well, I've.

Got a couple actually, please please, I genuinely like to know.

You want to pabble Okaya back because people are so tired of their regular watches.

Yeah, no, it's just they're never should have died, You never should have died.

There they're doing e ink watches again.

They start shipping this month.

I definitely ordered both.

How much did they cost?

You know, they're just watches.

Well, they're smart watching.

Yeah, they're smart watching.

They've got they've got they've got you know, they've got heart rate monitors in them.

They do notifications, Bluetooth Bluetooth, Bluetooth is and it's and it's just it's just a watch and you can you know, they have a very robust user community.

That's the killer and apps and such.

Yeah, right, so that was the thing that I mean, Pebble was the first one doing apps on a watch, and they did it well and people liked it, and then they sold, right.

They sold a Fitbit who was then who were then bought by Google.

Immediately and it just di it killed it and the guy got it back, got the right couple back and he's like he's just out there making cool as hell watches.

Yes, And and I think the user community is the is the thing because all these I love a smart watch, but the ones from Google and Apple are kind of soulless of necessity because their corporate products and the wider consumer exactly where's the Pebble is?

Like, Wow, who made this weird Ostrich watch face that's like, oh some guy in Denmark.

No, that's cool.

I mean the Pebble watch.

My best friend, she goes to Orange Theory.

She she's like very, drinks her Starbucks very.

I love her, but she does not give a ship about smart watches.

And she's not gonna care about the Pebble.

If I told her about it, she'd say what, Yeah, and where's an Apple watch that cares about it?

Yeah?

And it's just a perfect gadget.

And how much was again.

Launched something?

Yeah?

And he's only making small batches, so it has to it could be cheaper, but he's.

Only doing how much I spent on these watches?

Right, that's a credit cards.

Spent a lot exactly.

I already paid for it all, so it's not past Alex's problem.

I just get free stuff now.

Yeah, that's what I think exactly.

That's how it works.

Yeah, boy, any other American American?

The Light Fund, the Light Company.

I didn't get a chance to watch a video.

What trash friend you are?

Okay, well I watched it.

There's only one person I have telegram for you.

Don't even use that anymore.

Don't lie that I don't accuse it.

That's why I missed your messages.

But AnyWho, So wait, so this light phone was it good or bad?

The light Phone three was a very well it was a very seven out of ten experience because it was basically half unfinished when I was covering it.

What does it do?

Exact very little.

It does lets you do phone calls, text messages, and then a handful of apps that are meant to keep you as disconnected as possible.

You have maps, you will never have email, you will never have social media, you will not have a web browser.

But like things to get you from point A to point B except right now.

No payments, no lift, no Uber, none of that stuff.

So it made life very difficult.

I tried it for two weeks.

I found I had to carry an iPad many along with me, which the light phone does generate a hotspot, so you can use that's cool, like you know, if you want to pop up on a laptop.

I really enjoyed experimenting with that lifestyle again of reverting to the late nineties when we had to decide to be online, yeah, and then decide to be offline.

Well, I decided to be online all the time, it's not really sure.

Well for all of us, Yeah, sometimess this thing is it?

What kind of screen?

Is it?

Like a black and white screen?

So that is it's in my opinion, it's shining achievement, Like this is an un remarkable piece of hardware.

I love picking it up.

It is like if you blue up an Apple watch to you know, by four exercise and made it out of black metal and glass and put a knob on the side to control your brightness.

And the screen is black and white, but it has this diffusion filter on it.

It does have a camera with a nice chunky duel stage shutter button.

Yeah, okay camera though, it's.

Actually better than I expected to be honest, But it's black and white.

Sorry.

The display is O lead, so it is a black and white interface and when you fire the camera, it activates the color O lead.

This thing so cool?

Yeah yeah, but also it's like the opposite of what I want, is it.

I'm I'm abnormal.

I need to be I love I love being connected always, but I am like a problem.

Try it.

Try it.

The second weekend, I was like, I get it.

I get people who like talk about presence and intentionality.

I hadn't gotten it.

But I also have to steal wool of the Buddha.

If I need to focus on people, I can just not look at my phone.

Yeah.

Well, and I think that's what's it like to have restraint.

I don't know, unfamiliar with.

I think this is the thing we see though from American gadgets.

There's a lot of the American gadgets are about disconnecting.

They're about taking a step back, and as we all look at our.

Phones, I was, but that is the minimum.

Yes, you know, it's about how do we disconnect from Google?

How do we disconnect from our corporate overlords, how do we disconnect from social media?

Those are the things driving a lot of American ingenuity and gadgets, which is like cool, but culturally like a where are we as a culture?

The driving point I also understand, Like that is cool, but it's also sad, Yeah, because it's very I get the sense the other countries and they look at technology, they see like oh like regular people like, oh, what could it do for me next?

And that one's like there is a fucking way that I could stop using versus like kit in the top list from bi business Side, a few years ago.

I think this thing is like, I love my phone.

Stop trying to get me off my phone.

YEA, make my phone better.

And I kind of subscribe to that.

And I know I'm a freak for like liking the phone and being online and all the time.

But nevertheless, it's like the sense of I want to get away from big tech.

I want to get away from my phone.

I wanted to do all this.

It's very sad, and also they're clearly building towards it by making oh, we'll just control the shit for you.

You have no control, you have no industry over this.

So there's a flip side to this, and then I'm gonna stop talking about phones.

There's another philosophical approach done by a company called the Minimal Company, the Minimal Phone.

Now, they are much smaller than Light They're also have some problems fulfilling orders.

I think their customer service whatever.

But their phone is a good idea because the phone it does the opposite of the lightphone.

It gives you all the apps you want, but the display is in ink, so you don't want to use any of them, but you can if you need to, like Uber, which I needed a billion times on the lightphone or didn't have it as right.

Stuff that was really really cool.

The minimal phone idea is a very cool one, and I'm a nerd for this, but they put a quardy keyboard on there, which I also like.

Oh, yeah, that's just cool.

Tcls making a phone, well, they made a phone last year.

That's their NXPT paper phone that you can't get in the US.

Yeah, and you can like swap it between a fake like e paper screen and to a Yeah it's not it's not actually the paper, I know, but it looks it has like a kind of like you know, sheene to it that makes it look less.

Or you can just.

Go and spend ten dollars on a Matt glass for your phone.

That's that's what I did because I looked at that stuff and I was like, oh, this is cool.

I'll just put matt glass on my phone and I get the exact same experience.

I should I would stop talking about phones, but you just made me think of another one.

My podcast talk about the phone.

I don't ca.

Fair Phone six.

What is this?

I have not paid attention to Fairphone almost at all because it's been about repair ability, right, which is important.

But I don't really care about it, So okay, uh fairphone has a big neon green switch on the side, and when you flip it down, it turns from a regular Android phone into a dumb phone.

And I like that physical trigger because yeah, you can do it with the custom launcher.

Yeah, you can do it through umpteen software options.

But having a switch seems to suggest more intentionality is required of you.

Well, and switching out of it it feels like more friction, a little more for.

It's a little more friction, but it's also less friction in the setup, right, Like true, Yeah, because if you know you can do that with an iPhone, you were going to spend a very long time digging around with your iPhone to get.

To that point.

Yes, I think a lot of these problems come down to the fact that just notifications have become an invasion of our privacy.

That when you look at your phone, it will be like, hey, it's Etsy again.

Yeah, you bought one thing seven years ago.

You didn't delete this app.

Do you want to look at Flowers?

Yeah?

And you just like leave me the fuck alone and and apples just like we don't give a fuck.

And New York Times used to do breaking news for everything.

They just like every damn thing.

They'd be like, you know, Beyonce is going to be in New York?

Great?

Why is that you.

Can't fix this as well?

With the phone.

It's the companies.

They've made it worse, and they make it worse every day.

And we'll give you.

You have to do way too much work to do it.

To your point, you have to do way too much tweaking.

You can't tweak the notifications.

Well if you have an Android phone, if you can.

Yeah, and that's the thing where my message on a fucking Android.

You want to be able to go to your phone and just say fix it.

And Google keeps promising that and have they delivered?

I mean speaking of the fair phone.

Like, there's a Framework is making really cool laptop.

I was just thinking, I really really like Framework and like I don't.

Framework's laptop where all you kind of have to do is like you get a bunch of the parts and you slot slot in the SSD, you slot in the RAM and you kind of put the screen bezels on and then you put the keyboard on.

You screw everything in.

It's like, oh it's a laptop now, you you built it.

I mean it's it's fun because the company makes it really easy to do, so you make yeah.

Yeah, it's like you make yourself feel smart even though they literally put everything out there for you and you just did it.

But it also means you can repair it, YadA, YadA YadA.

But I like, yeah, you can upgrade it.

I like the feeling of like ownership, because half the problem with ownership is that I don't feel like I actually owned the thing.

I bought the thing, and they're managing my life for me.

They're putting all the software on it that I don't want.

They're putting this program.

Change how you use it with UX updates.

Yeah exactly.

So I want to own the thing by like controlling what goes into it.

And I feel like I want more products that have that ability to just like I can just control the hardware at least if not the software.

Like if I could control both, I'd be in a happy place.

I'm more nerdy.

But imagine if like every laptop had that ability to just like take off the back and like just swap things around.

But you're seeing that in gaming laptops for a long time.

When the framework came along, right.

Like a few of them you can still swoop around.

Yeah, yes, some of them, although some of them are more soldered on, like some of the smaller fourteen inches are we still kind of.

One of the tricks here is just for for laptops, order the business laptops because they usually have much more upgradeability because the big companies are like, no, we're not going to pay you that much for RAM.

We will replace the RAM ourselves, or you will die and never get our business, and so they fix it for them, Like that's why you see that from Dell and Lenovo others.

On the build your own stuff Kyle, do you follow the or does anybody follow the cyber deck building community?

Oh?

Yeah, what is I have a blast if you if you want to have a gadget, you know binge, I would say just google cyber deck builds on YouTube.

It's basically people are trying to like relive the Neuromancer book and they're just building cyber decks for there.

Is a cyber deck.

Oh my god.

All right, you don't know William Gibson so.

Narrowmancer kind of like that whole cyberpunk era aesthetic, the high idea of but like cyber deck, it's like you literally plug into the internet.

You know, you have this this deck that you and you sit down in a chair and you plug yourself in and you're literally a body and it's like the whole like idea of a metaverse kind of stems from this, except it's.

A lot more grungy and a lot more punk.

Right, So the deck itself is like part of it is like it's personalized to you, right, like you build it yourself, so a lot it takes the form in modern day with what we can do of like little laptops, like kind of like the GVD stuff, right, except.

What is the functionality of a cyber deck though?

What's it meant in modern day?

It's just basically with a little laptop, it's just to be cool.

But the idea is that you're doing it yourself and it's your own and you're making it like I mean, I don't know, like are they are they using like raspberry.

Pies, like stuff built in a raspberry pie or something like that.

But if you want functionality, the the meshtastic is another good thing to look fantastic.

That is, like these little pocket terminals that are being built around what I had to look it up.

An ESP thirty two system on a chip, which enables a lot of cool stuff.

And a meshtastic network is like node to node.

You're not on the Internet necessarily, Like each phone or each terminal is its own is a node.

So what did Jack Dorsey just dropped an app for this?

God?

I mean if chat, he's dropped several Yeah, that's dropped a lot of things.

But that's an app for the iPhone.

And like if we all had Bitchat, we could talk to text each other without connecting to the Internet.

Like it's a direct peer to peer.

I like that.

And the meshtastic like there's a lot of handheld hardware.

They all look like blackberries that are all really cool.

They're a little mini cyber deecks And it's just to utilize that network.

And you again, you can build your own a lot of the time if you're more skilled than I am.

So I'm going to wrap it here and I want to end with a message though, everyone should go and support Steve Burke of games Nexus, who Bloomberg is being fucking him up by doing bullshit.

YouTube DMCA is coming on the show next week.

This is a ridiculous situation.

Bloomberg should be fucking ashamed of themselves, the legal department, and everyone involved the journalists set, including at Bloomberg, should see this as an offense against journalism and not giving him support is tantamount to not having solidarity with your peers.

Steve is doing some of the best work out there, and I realize it's kind of a grim thing.

But one of the reasons I love all three of you is you, really, in the same way as Steve, get into this stuff and actually know it and love it and are excited about it.

And I think that that is a dying art within journalism, especially within tech.

And I hope everyone's enjoyed this episode because I certainly fucking have so much.

It's nice to talk about stuff and like, sure, there's bad things going on and it can be kind of grim out there, but there's still people making dorky little innovations out there, and it's worth remembering that the tech industry is not all bad, which does not mean that AI doesn't fucking suck.

Bing Bong Michael, Where can people find you?

They can find me on YouTube at the Mister Mobile, tgmrimbi Le or threads at Captain two Phones.

It's Captain the Number two Phones, MS Kranz in.

Most places, Alex H.

Krans Blue Sky Threads all those places.

And Kyle you can go to goodsmoto dot com and just look at the review section because it's me and like two other guys.

Hell yeah, you can find me of course at Better offline dot com and on the podcast you're listening to.

Please subscribe to my newsletterer and hit the premium as well.

We will have some really fun episodes coming up.

We've got, of course, the interview with Steve Berken, Games next US next week.

I will work out a monologue later today.

I am really loving doing the show.

Things are about to get spicy.

I have the spiciness in the air, So looking forward to the next two episodes as things begin to collapse, because that's where we're going.

Peace out everyone, Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Metasowski.

You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T T O.

S O W s ki dot com.

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