Tech Over Tea - Maybe Smart Devices Weren't A Good Idea | Solo

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

Today we're here to rant a bit about smart devices like the terrible idea that smart glasses were without any thought in how they would be used or smart TVs about mess of a hardware category.==========Support The Channel==========► Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/brodierobertson► Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/BrodieRobertsonVideo► Amazon USA: https://amzn.to/3d5gykF► Other Methods: https://cointr.ee/brodierobertson==========Support The Show==========► Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/brodierobertson► Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/BrodieRobertsonVideo► Amazon USA: https://amzn.to/3d5gykF► Other Methods: https://cointr.ee/brodierobertson=========Video Platforms==========🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBq5p-xOla8xhnrbhu8AIAg=========Audio Release=========🎵 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/149fd51c/podcast/rss🎵 Apple Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-over-tea/id1501727953🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IfFpfzlLo7OPsEnl4gbdM🎵 Google Podcast: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xNDlmZDUxYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==🎵 Anchor: https://anchor.fm/tech-over-tea==========Social Media==========🎤 Discord:https://discord.gg/PkMRVn9🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/TechOverTeaShow📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techovertea/🌐 Mastodon:https://mastodon.social/web/accounts/1093345==========Credits==========🎨 Channel Art:All my art has was created by Supercozmanhttps://twitter.com/Supercozmanhttps://www.instagram.com/supercozman_draws/DISCLOSURE: Wherever possible I use referral links, which means if you click one of the links in this video or description and make a purchase we may receive a small commission or other compensation.

Good morning, good day, and good evening. I'm as always your host, Brodie Robertson, and you know what? Who thought the idea of smart glasses was going to be a good idea that wasn't going to, at some point when governments eventually decide, hmm, maybe, maybe that's not a great idea, was going to come back and bite them. Norway considers ban on camera-nairled, wearable, pervert glasses.

Australia, I know, has been talking about a similar thing as well. Australia smart glasses I know a bunch of other countries have been having similar kinds of discussions. Government weighing smart glasses

privacy are concerns with benefits for people with disabilities. So it's not just like a one-off thing. It's like, oh, well, they're entirely bad, just get rid of them. but there is something to be said about

maybe the idea of having it's not at the point now where they look like regular glasses right like you know he looks like a bit of a doofus right

the existing like what are the what are the best looking ones what are the most normal it's probably the Rayban ones I would assume looking smart glasses.

I would be surprised if it's... Yeah, the even reality's G2 and the Rayban meta G2 um this is actually pretty damn close. Like you got these big

honking things over here. The frames are a little bit wide but overall like these look like regular glasses and then the um the bands as well. These kind of look like, you know, those are those 3D glasses they give you at a cinema.

They kind of look like that. So like you can still tell what they are, but they're getting smaller and smaller and smaller. But they're getting smaller and smaller, but they have a camera on them and a microphone. And obviously like everyone has a camera and a microphone on them anyway, right? Like you have your phone, right? But if you point your phone at someone, like unless you're doing a little like, ooh, you're not going to see my... Unless you don't like, unless you don't like, thing where you're like, you're like trying to hide it, you're to like see the phone. But these smart glasses, you can just be like, you can just like be looking at someone. It's like looking in their general direction because, you know, it's not crazy to look in someone's general direction.

Or even better, you can just place your glasses down on the desk. Like there's nothing weird about just putting your glasses down. And when you get to a point where these glasses actually are the size of regular sunglasses. Like, you can't, like, you can't just hide that. Like, that's a problem, right? Like, governments were so slow on this tech. I remember when, um, even when, like, Google glasses were originally a thing. Um, yeah, the 2013 Google glasses, these looked big and stupid.

and like you knew what they were. It was real... Is this the original one? Uh... Is that the original one? Wait, that doesn't... No, no, no, this is a... This is not the original.

No, no, no, no. This might be like a... Uh, original Google glasses. No, yeah, they were slightly different. Okay, okay. Like, you look at this and... You know, obviously... they're not actual glasses, right?

Like, you can tell immediately. I don't think this side even had like a lens in it. But even back then, people were saying, oh, maybe it's not a great idea that we just have these. But everyone kind of just forgot about this for like 13 years. Everyone was just like, ah, well, they look stupid. They look goofy. Oh, deal with it in the future.

It's the future now. You're at a point where you can just... Oh, God damn it. God damn door-to-door salesmen. Cease! Go away! Nobody wants to deal with you! Um, as I was saying, you're at a point now where you can just buy these glasses on Amazon, right? Like, you can just, they're gonna be a bit bulkier, but like you can just get them on Amazon, and... Let's just find some random generic ones.

Yeah, here we go. Here's some random glasses for 33,000. Do these have... I assume they have a camera... Maybe these ones don't have a camera on them. But like, even so, right? There's just like these random fucking glasses that are real small, that are like kind of pretty damn close. And, like, you know, another similar example is

a lot of places didn't have regulations for each other. for e-bikes and e- scooters and the difference between an e-bike and then a electric what do you call like a it's not an e-bike but it has like a motor that makes the cycling easier so you still need to cycle but like some countries treat is a different thing in Australia for example I believe you can't take an e-no you can take an east you can take an e-bike on the train. You cannot take an e-s scooter, or it might be the other way around.

One of those directions. In my state specifically, in South Australia, one of them you can, the other one you can't. I think it's e-bikes you can take on just because the argument is there's like better regulation around them. But this is the way it always works with any new tech. Especially new tech that is like really disruptive, really changing stuff. A lot of the time,

nothing happens about it. People just doing whatever random bullshit they want for like 10 years, and then eventually regulation caps up, I catches up. Crypto's another great example. For any of you guys that were like paying any bit of attention, do you remember how long it took government, specifically tax agencies

to like start to talk about how you go and declare your crypto? The fact that you actually have to declare, there were people who weren't paying taxes on Bitcoin for like 10 years. Right? and whether or not they had records or anything, who knows,

but their local tax agencies, we're going to catch up to them eventually and find out how much money they had made. But yeah, it's probably for the best that maybe we like think about where can you wear these smart glasses? Like should you be able to take them, like you probably shouldn't be allowed to wear them

in places you wouldn't normally. be allowed to have a camera, right? You shouldn't be able to take them into a bathroom. You shouldn't be able to like, you know, basic things like this, because obviously the more reputable brands are going to have like a light on if you're recording and various other things that indicate it.

But the less reputable brands, or, you know, if you cover up the light, things like that, there has to be some sort of discussion that happens there because people are going to abuse them. People are going to use them in ways that they definitely should not be used in. People should be charged if they're doing things

like recording people that, you know, in places you aren't allowed to record people. And I think it's going to take a while to, like, really sort a lot of that stuff out. I do think there is probably going to be, like, there's probably going to have to be, like, a big pullback on what you can do. Whether or not they end up being an item class

that you can, like, reasonably use in a lot of places, I don't really think they're going to, like, fully banned out, like. that? Because again, you can take your phone into a lot of these places. This has a camera, there's a microphone on it. But there are definitely areas where, like, you shouldn't be able to. There are already going to be places right now. Like, I would imagine that any sort of somewhat military clearance, high-level clearance kind of base, you know, government contractor kind of thing. They probably have their own, like, internal policies about things. But it's more

of just like a general thing out there in the world. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely going to be a messy one over the next couple of years. Because the idea of smart glasses

isn't like a bad one, right? I do think maybe it's not the best idea for social communication or like good stuff to have a screen literally sitting on your face. But, you know, for other situation. Oh, driving is actually another one. You probably shouldn't be able to wear them when you're

driving, right? Because obviously you can still see through them, but are those visions, other things you're seeing on the glasses? Is that something that is enough of a distraction to be considered distracted driving, which is a, like, a thing that exists in a lot of countries. You can't use your phone because that would be distracted driving. You, in Australia, again, in my state, I don't, I can't speak here to the States, but in my state, when you are a either L plate or P plate, so you're on your first year of driving or your second or third year, you can't use any, even hands-free stuff. You cannot touch anything that is basically not the steering wheel.

Even, now, no one actually cares. Even things like messing with the weather controls, you're not supposed to do. Again, it's one of those things which is like, and no one's actually gonna really care. You might get like a warning, but considering how little you're gonna be doing it, it's very unlikely you're even gonna be caught anyway. Just don't do it with like a cop directly behind you.

But you can't use Bluetooth devices, hands-free devices. You can't like change the music when you're driving, when you're in that like L-plate and P-plate stage of driving. It's not until you have your full license that you're allowed to use hands for. free. I would be surprised if this doesn't go the same way in my state, like it would make sense at the same time, probably shouldn't be building cars that have iPads in the front seat, but that's a whole separate issue. On this issue, there's like, again, there's the whole like

filming in places where you shouldn't be filming, but there's also the driving aspect. But then, again, like the thing said before, the disability aspect, there is a There is a place for these to exist. There is a reason why you might want to have them. But I don't think you should go down the route of just being a disability exclusive device because then you have the situation where it basically kills all development. A lot of devices that are restricted to people with disabilities sadly just doesn't have the investment because there's not as much of a market.

This is why things like Braille displays, for example, they're fundamentally not a crazy, complicated device, but they're really expensive. Like, the cheapest one is... Is this the cheapest one? Yeah, the cheapest one that I know of is about... When their website decides it wants to load,

is about $1,000. Oh, wait, no, it's... $800,000 Australian, about $800 US. But this is also a very limited device, only has 20 braille characters. I think it also runs like a really, really old version of Android. Maybe this one's not one of the Android-powered ones, but there are some of the other ones where they're like ancient, ancient hardware,

because, again, there's just not, there's not the investment. there's not the government grants there. A lot of this is just kind of a lot of these companies were started by people who actually need them and do what they can with it. And I'd like to see smart glasses not fall into a situation where they basically have no ability to be developed by like large companies. I don't use much in the way of like smart devices, right? I don't have smart glasses. I do have I do have I do have a smart watch. I don't use it every day all of the time. Um, like mostly as like a fitness tracker. Obviously I have my smartphone, but you can feel your device, feel your life with these random

smart devices and a lot of them frankly don't make any sense. Like smart TVs, for example, I get why people bought them, but it is such a worse device than a good TV. and a standalone smart connection thing. Right? Like, I miss the days when you could buy a non-smart TV, get yourself a Chromecast, a firestick, plug in a PC, a console, whatever it is you want to use,

and get a better experience because you don't have to cram all of that hardware in one device, and then TVs often have just bottom-of-the-barrel hardware anyway. So the experience you get is firstly going to be outdated, secondly is going to be slow even when it was new And thirdly does not have any sort of upgrade path Whereas back in the days of just you know, oh, you're using a fire stick. Well if a new fire stick comes out You just buy a new fire stick and you don't have to replace that's the other thing You don't have to replace the entire TV and that I think is a big reason why companies

went down the route of every TV has to be a smart TV. There are technically companies that don't sell smart TVs. Companies that offer non-smart TVs. Obviously, besides like older devices. But yeah, it's mostly going to be commercial. displays. Like if we're talking, hey, it's a TV that is in an airport, for example. Oftentimes, they will be non-smart devices. LG and Samsung do actually make devices for this. It's just they don't really sell them to consumers and they don't have TV tuners. I actually wouldn't care about the TV tuner part. That's totally fine with me. Sell me a display. But there are random small brands that, sell like, mostly it's like cheap, low-end TVs. It's like the, the hundred, $150 TV range where it's like, most people aren't buying it, or apparently there are

TVs specifically for like caravans and stuff, which I guess you could buy those, but again, those are going to be relatively small TVs then, um, there is, one. Oh, hold up. There is one brand that might. This is a video. Actually, this is a video from LTT from four months ago. SEPTA U-750, CV-U-M-R-K.

I'm curious about this. I don't even know. It's a... Who knows if it's even a good TV? Um It's a thousand US dollars Probably like the only large TV You can even buy new at this point

That is not a smart device, right? Like it's... I hate it I hate it. I hate this world. Sell me a non-smart TV I know why people bought them though Because it's just... It is more convenient, right? It is more convenient for people

who don't know what they're doing to just buy a smart TV. They get their Netflix on the TV, all this stuff. They don't have to worry about it. Let me worry about it. Let me worry about it. I guess you're like the best option.

There are these large gaming display. But the problem is then you're getting into... Actually, no, that's a curved display. 16 by 9. Let's see. Um Wasn't, didn't Invidian, maybe they stopped making that

There was the Hold up, actually There is the 40 inch All right Actually that's not crazy expensive either Um

There is the 40 inch MSI MAG UWQ HD This is 6404 $50 Australian dollars. You also have...

Wait, that's an ultra-wide. That's... Actually, I think that was... No, this is 21 by 9 anyway. Oh my God. Okay. Didn't Nvidia used to make like a... was...

Nvidia BFG. Yeah, the big format gaming displays. Is anyone even still making... those at this point. Hmm. I guess probably not. Big form... I like how they were

the big format gaming displays. Like, we all know what they actually were. There's not the big format gaming displays. They're the big fucking gaming displays. Shop all. Does anyone... No, that's not even that big anyway. It's a 32-inch display.

I thought they were bigger than that. Sell me a 60 inch, call it a fucking monitor for all I care. 60 inch monitor, you know, if they call it a monitor, then they can at least put display port on it. That would be nice. 60 inch monitor, no smart bullshit, just straight up a display. I will pay for it, I will buy it, let me buy it, that would be nice. No one's gonna sell it though. But if anyone has an idea, if anyone knows where I can get one, um, let me know. Let me know, I'll be, uh, I'll be happy. to hear about it. I was going to use the whole

smart TV thing as a segue. And I was going to segue about like 10 minutes ago. But I guess it's in a segue now. Do you guys see the whole LG thing? The whole OG thing with LG being caught using

their smart TVs to just harvest data. Who would have ever guessed that? Wow, who would have ever guessed that? Wow, who would ever guess that when you have a an always on microphone it's going to harvest your data.

I always love when people get gas lit about the always on microphones. It's like, well, no, the company says it's not always on. It listens for keywords. And it only, it only, it only deals with keywords.

Like, how do you think it, how do you think it listens for keywords? It has to, it has to listen to everything. This has happened so many times. This has happened so many goddammed times and every time the theory, the conspiracy always turns out to be true. Wow, the microphone in your device is always listening to you. Crazy.

Nah, nah, that couldn't be the case. Apparently, LG also just admitted that they were doing it. LG Electronics has issued a global statement pushing back against reports alleging it's Smart TV. Smart TV is log ambient conversation. where their TV is turned off and is harvesting vast amounts of consumer data, claiming recent media coverage has contributed to misconceptions about how its device functions. They've admitted to collecting data.

Last year, LG management in Australia banned technology publications, channel news and smart house from media briefings and access following the outlets refused to retract reports, exposing the tech media giant or the tech giant harvesting practices now 18 months on LG electronics is finally responding to question practices. They said that it is inaccurate. LG Electronics South Korea, not LG Electronics Australia, marketing director Gemma Lemieux, denied that its hardware continuously monitors owners,

stating that speech detects processing only activates via explicit remote control button press or supported wake-up words. How do you listen for wake-up words? Audio used for wake-up word detection is processed locally on the TV, LG said in a statement. no wake-up word is detected, audio is not converted to text, stored, or transmitted. Sure.

Surely. We believe that. Absolutely. Definitely believe that. That's, uh, yep. If you just say it's not happening, that means it's just not happening. That's how that works. If you just say no,

that just means it's not happening and you just ignore it. Time and time again, we have proven that maybe you shouldn't have a microphone, always on, in your house. Especially a microphone that is connected to the internet.

Crazy that, isn't it? Crazy that. I turn this off. I literally have physical power to the microphone. It gets turned off when I'm not using it. The camera gets physically powered off.

There is no power to the device. It doesn't have a battery in it when it is not being used. Who would have ever guessed there would be something weird? happening with a smart TV. Wouldn't be me. I would never guess that. I would definitely never guess that. Now, speaking of things with TVs that are not bad, I didn't make a video on this, but I'll mention it here. Patch is ready for AMD GPU, HGMI 2.1, enabled by default with

Linux 7.4 with a free sync, VRR, and ALLLM. So this has been a long time coming. There has been a issue on Linux where you've not been out to do HDMI 2.1 with AMD GPUs and the reason for that isn't because of AMD AMD has been more than happy to adopt it if they were allowed to do so. The problem is HDMI is not a public spec.

And with the HGMI 2.1 basically they were like, Yeah, no, you're just not allowed to implement it in a, like the HTML forum, the guys who actually define the spec were like, you're not allowed to implement this in an open source repo. So for about six years now, we've basically had this issue where you just couldn't do it. Now, I made the theory before. Latest version of HTMLI. I made the theory before that what we're going to see happen is every new

HDMI version, we're going to have this exact same problem until the next version comes out. The latest version now is 2.2. So we're getting 2.1 working. I don't believe this is going to deal with 2.2 problems because I don't believe there is 2.2 hardware just yet. if I am I'm I'm pretty sure we don't actually have

um is there any HDMI 2.2 hardware no um cables are just releasing literally today okay so yeah

cables are coming out actual hardware won't be until 2027. So yeah, my theory is entirely correct by the looks of it. Look, maybe it won't be. Maybe this hardware is just going to work perfectly fine on Linux. It's going to run at 2.2 speeds. I don't think that's what's going to happen. I don't think it's going to happen whatsoever.

I think we're always just going to be a version behind on HTML now because that's just what the HTML forum feels like they want to do. And they own the spec because HTMLI is not. a public spec. And they can just do whatever they want. Not great, but hey, at least you get 2.1. 2.1 is at a point where it, like, realistically,

for the kinds of displays that are out there, doesn't actually matter. What is they, like, actually... I don't remember. It's like 4K-360 or something. H-GMI 2.1 limits. What can we do?

Okay, no, sorry, no. 4K 144. 8K60. Okay, maybe 2.2 is going to actually have some value then. 4K 240. Right. Most people are not running 4K 120 to begin with, but I think 4K240,

especially considering the kinds of games that are coming out, right? Like, yeah, maybe we're going to be out of build displays that are like 4K, 500 or whatever. But like, considering the way that games are being optimized lately, I don't think it's going to matter. I don't think it's going to matter because optimization is bringing the fucking average frame rate way down. So a lot of people now are not even benefiting from a fucking... 120 hertz display because a lot of games they're running aren't hitting 120. They're not even getting any fucking way close to it. So 2.2 might be like, at least for regular, regular use is probably going to be the limit

that makes any sense until we start seeing games getting optimized again. Now obviously, if we're talking small indie stuff or older games, yeah, maybe it makes sense. but, you know, do you need to play Sarduvalli at like 8K 500 hertz? You don't. You theoretically could at some point, but you really don't need to do that. Or like Minecraft 4K 360. Like you could, I guess, but do you need to do that? Because unless you're going to go back and play some like 10-year-old AAA games,

AAA games are probably not going to be on your chopping block for at least a little bit there but at the very least it is going to mean that hardware that people actually have is going to work mostly I think this is pretty much everything we're going to need for 2.1 to be good and by the looks of things it is probably going to make its way into the latest LTS as well the LTS is usually set for the last release of the year which is good

so if you're an LTS user you're gonna be out to get this feature now most people doesn't really matter if you're just running a semi-modern cone or are you're going to have it anyway but 7.4 should probably be I would assume like late October.

That's my guess. Mid to late October is when we're finding going to see this problem actually resolved. Now, you might be wondering why was it never an issue for Intel because they have open drivers as well. That's basically because they don't actually have HDMI ports on the card.

Well, they have HTML ports. don't work like HTML ports. AMD had them wired up as HTML ports. Intel was like, hmm, let's actually wire up converters. So every

HTML port on the Intel GPUs, they're just display ports that have a converter on them. Why do they do it like this? Who the fuck knows? I don't think it's because of this HDMI stuff. But it certainly did make

sure that this problem wasn't going to be a problem. As for Nvidia, their drivers are proprietary, so it just wasn't a problem anyway. Yeah, yeah. I might make a video on this next week. I've talked about this a long way along the cycle. I just haven't talked about the final step. And like, hardly anyone's even talking about this.

It kind of just, it's kind of going under everyone's radar. I guess now the last time you talked about this was when it got approved when it got approved people were giving it attention by people I mean I was one of those people um Linux HDMI 2.1 Foronics when was that? I feel like a couple of months ago

um yes yeah back in June back in June this was being worked on and this got wait this one didn't get attention What was the last thing attention then? Maybe it was even earlier. Maybe it was like a separate patch.

Is it this August one? What was my... Wait, when did I put my video out on it? Videos. May. Yeah, back in May was the last time that people were actually like really giving this attention. Finally.

Finally. I don't have any hardware where it would really benefit from it and I don't use HTML when I don't need to use HTML. but I would like my hardware to work at the level it's supposed to work at and yeah, especially for the steam machine owners. That would be nice if things actually work, you know, the way the hardware says it's going to work. On the topic of the steam machine, I don't have a steam machine, but I did get a package from Valve today. Finally, finally, finally, finally.

my order of the goddamn steam controller was finally fulfilled. It took like six months for it to be done, but finally, I have it. I've not played with it just yet. I got it like a couple of hours ago. Honestly, it does feel fairly comfortable. I will have to give it a shot playing some games. I'll probably go play some Monster Hunter on the weekend, various other things. My go-to controller lately has been.

the 8 bit dough controller. I do love this controller. It is a nice controller. However, I am very curious to see what the experience of this is actually going to be like. Because I do have a steam deck. I've used the steam deck before, but I am, I'm curious. I'm curious to see how this is going to feel. At least from my initial holding of it, it does feel quite comfortable. It does feel like they addressed a lot of the issues that the Steam deck had. The Steam, deck having like the flat sides. It always felt kind of awkward. Um, this at least initially does feel a bit better. Is it going to feel better after a long gaming session? I don't know. Uh, but we'll find out. I also have the, uh, the puck in here as well. I'll have to give

this a shot because this also acts as like a charging thing. So that's, that's cool. I think there might also be a cable in here. Looks like the cable in here. Yeah, we also get a cable as well. Um, but yeah, I will, I will check that out. I'll probably be using, on stream this week. So, we'll see how it goes in Metal Gear Solid 4. Maybe it'll be fine,

maybe it won't be. Maybe it is my new favorite controller. I've talked about this before. I do have quite a few controllers down here. I have an Xbox controller down here. It's not my favorite controller. I do like it, though. I also have a PS5 controller down here.

This is generally being my favorite controller. generally, but I've not used in a while because I haven't used my 8bit dough controller. I do have another one down here as well, but it's just another... I think it's the... Yeah, it is the older generation Xbox controller.

So I have an Xbox one controller and an Xbox series controller. They're pretty much the same device, just slightly changed material. I think if I remember... I think the Xbox... yeah, if I recall the Xbox controller had Stick Drift, that's why I stopped using it

and I've just not gone around to fixing it I don't remember why I stopped using the PlayStation controller I think I just, I think I just preferred using the 8-bit dough controller that's pretty much where we're out for that one but we'll see we will see how the Steam controller goes honestly I'm

the thing I'm most curious about is how the top sticks are going to feel because I've never really been one to super care about stick placement like I again I've I swapped back and forth between PlayStation Xbox the 8Bid dough my 8 bit dough has the

Xbox layout I'm happy to use the PlayStation layout I play with PlayStation you know I was a P I had a PlayStation all the way up from the PS2 to the PS5 like I've I've played on PlayStation enough I've used the Xbox controller plenty of times

on PC so I'm kind of just like If you hand me a controller, I know what to do with the controller, and that's about that. I don't really use the back buttons on the 8-bit dough anyway, so I'll probably not really use them on the Steam controller. They do feel better on the Steam controller. I will say that. The 8-bit dough ones always felt a little bit too light for me. Feels like you can just accidentally press it a little bit too easy, but that's just me.

Yeah. Yeah. Controllers. Honestly, like, I... It would be nice for people that don't own a bunch of controllers to easily be able to test them somewhere. It was nice back in the day when, you know, there was more game demos that happened at game stores. Every so often I go to Eby Games, and like half the fucking store at this point is merch. Yeah, it's just merch.

Like there is this little corner off to the side where they actually sell video games, but then the rest of it is like, sure. and board games and more shirts. Not as many Funko Pops nowadays. They do often have a retro game section, retro game section, which usually means like Wii games, DS games, PS3 games. But like I, man, I miss the days of going to EB games or going to game when we used.

used to have game in Australia. Has game like fully shut down? Game. Game store. Game. Um, it was a UK, it was a UK brand. Game UK. Game UK.

Game retailer. Here we go, here we go. Apparently they still exist in the UK. We used to have stores in a store. Australia as well. Do we still have them? By 2014 Australian business collapsed

with its Irish, and alongside the Irish and European divisions. Yeah, so I'm guessing it's shut down now. I know some places that used to be game became E.B. Games again. I'm not sure

but I miss going to like the bargain bin at a game store and actually finding games that are a bargain every so often I go past EB games I check through the bargain section

and oh my god the games you find in there at this point it's like hey here's 12 copies of FIFA 2019 here is a Call of Duty game from five years ago

Here's an Assassin's Creed game from five years ago. I miss back on the PS2, you could go to a game store, and you would find some random, weird, obscure shit. And I have found stuff like that back on the PS4. It's not like crazy weird obscure shit, but stuff that just like doesn't often shop. Like some of my Atelier games I've got for the PS4.

I think Atelier... I think I might have got Atelier Fierris at an EB Games. I've got a one of the Star Ocean games back there World of Final Fantasy and a few other things but it's usually like once every couple of years at this point

there's just all my fun is gone all my all my fun is gone there and you know what I think part of it is I think part of it might be that unless you have a game pass and if you have game pass you're just not going to buy games altogether.

A lot of people don't really branch out of the mainline games because games are expensive. Actually, you know what? I hadn't even thought of this one before. I think the reason why people have shit taste in games is because there is not an easy way to try things. They don't have access to like a blockbuster or or a video easy or whatever rental store you happen to have near you, where you could just find some weird fucking game. It's gonna cost you like $3 to rent or whatever the cost were back then,

and just try it out. And maybe you find something that is terrible, utterly terrible. Or maybe you find some fucking gold. Maybe you find something legendary you've never played before. Like for example, my first, first experience with Jack and Daxter was Jack 3 from a video easy

it was so so fucking cool no Jack 2 Jack 2 from a video easy yeah yeah I'd never played a Jack game before that turns out obviously Jack was really popular franchise but I didn't

I hadn't played at that point turns out my friend had it I'd play the other games and the rest is history eventually got a copy as well or got a copy of all of the games as well but they used to just be a hey what do you judge the game on is this like

there's like one or two copies of each game so any of the hyper popular games those are probably going to be rented out so it's like okay well what if I try this one and it's just like you you judge it by the cover does the cover look cool is this something that looks like

it looks like I might enjoy it I miss that and obviously like game past definitely does have some of that, right? Like, Game Pass definitely does give you the ability to browse around and try out different games. But two things there.

One is there is not a limited number of the games. So you could get Game Pass and just play nothing but whatever big... FOSA, you could just play FOSA, assuming that's on GamePass right now. I don't see why it wouldn't be. But you could just play whatever mainstream game there is, and everyone on Game Pass

could just play the same. same game. You couldn't do that with a physical store because only had a certain physical number of coffees. Maybe they had more copies of the more popular games, but there was only a certain number of copies there. But now you don't have that. Also, also, like, having the game pass there as well, you never really have to buy a game because by the time you finish the game, look, you're probably going to finish the game well before it's taken off game pass anyway. So you never have a reason to then go and buy the game. It's not like a limited thing. You're not just getting it for a couple of days. It's like, oh, I really like this.

Let's see if I can go find a copy of it. It's, oh, I really like this. I'm going to play through the entire game and then never think about it again. And because you have game pass, nobody is buying the physical games, because no one's buying physical games, no one's selling physical games. And because no one's selling physical games, no good physical games are showing up in these bargain bins. So all you end up getting is just basically whatever sloth happens to be floating around. And it's sad. It's sad. Maybe we're getting old. Maybe that's what it is.

Maybe I'm just a boomer in disguise and I want the world to go back to the way it was. Certainly won't deny that. Especially with Sony just fully giving up on physical games. I get it right. You didn't really own the games anyway.

The games were based... In a lot of cases, the games did have to validate with the PlayStation Network to even be useful in the first place. So you have a physical game, but you don't really have a physical game. It's not like on the PS2 where it's just going to work forever. A lot of the times these games just didn't work if the PlayStation

network was down. That did happen at some point, and a lot of people couldn't play their games. Like, oh, but I have a physical game. Why can't I play the game? Turns out you don't actually have the game, you have a disc that has a copy of the game on it, that then has DRM on it, that requires you to validate with a server. Honestly, I'm, I've given,

not entirely given up, but I pay so little attention to the modern game releases as maybe it's not even one or two games a year that I'm going to play. It's oftentimes one or two games a year that I'm even remotely excited for. It is a rare situation what's happening right now where there is a couple of games that I actually really want to play. I really want to play Stranger Than Heaven.

I really want to play Kingdom Hearts 4. These are absolutely on my list of things to play. I really want to play Fizint when it comes out. Like that looks super cool. about Fizzed a bit later. But this is, this is honestly kind of rare. Part of it obviously is getting older and getting other interests and hobbies and all that stuff. But even so, right? Like, even so, it's hard to get excited for new games when you just see the state that games are releasing in and it's like, what is happening? What is happening basically? Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, anyway As for things I am playing So I have been playing through the Trails series I mentioned this a number of times And recently If you've never played through Zero and as you're Or you have played through them and you want to go back and experience them again

They recently re-released the games on the Switch 2 And with that, they updated the Steam version, which is super cool, and I was not expecting them to do that. I absolutely was not expecting that, and they've gone back and fixed, not all the problems, but some of the problems they did have. Notably, the textures. The original Steam releases had utterly cooked textures. They were done with the early days of AI upscaling. It was really, really bad looking. And now you have the option of using a slightly better AI upscale texture

or going back to the old textures or better yet, going back to the old textures but scaled upwards. So they are linearly scaled upwards and end up looking quite, quite clear. There are still some areas where there's definitely still a problem, that needs to be ironed out. But for the most part, it's just a better experience. So if you take the updated game, combine that with the updated sound effects mod, combine that with the mod that brings back the missing content, or the added content, I guess,

from the Vita version, and the mod that adds in the upscaled and generally just more character portrait mod, which brings in portraits from one of the other releases. Honestly, it's a really great experience to play these games now. It was already a great experience before, but I would just mod both Zero and Azure to use the original textures, which is, they looked a little crunchy. They definitely looked a little crunchy,

but they definitely looked a lot better than the absolute mess that was the upscaled textures they had before. So if you've never played the trails to zero, trails from zero and trails to Azure, now is a good time to play them. They go on sale relatively often. Let's see when the last sale was. I want to say most sales,

most times of the sale they go on sale charts where is it chart, wait no charts pricing where the fuck's the pricing chart where is, oh price history, sorry price history, here we go so it doesn't really go yeah, it never goes below 30%.

But yeah, pretty much every sale if you want to get it 30% off so probably the winter sale would be the next one assuming there's not another one somewhere in between also it seems to just randomly go on sale

anyway yeah I assume Asia's probably the same trails to Azure price history yeah same pricing same time scale as well

yeah yeah so play those they're very good actually whilst I'm talking about trails I do want to talk about a very funny IGN post I don't even know

I don't know how or why this post got made but for anyone who hasn't played trails Maybe you're not going to notice all of the problems that exist in just this post. Neon Falcon, already off to a great start. It is Neon Falcon with an M, not an N. Trails Fantasy RPG series started in 2004 with Sorano Keseki.

Okay, we're good there. Wonder in the sky. Who? It's trails in the sky. Localized as trails in the sky. That's... Why did you even include this? It's like, this is not a...

Why is this even included? This isn't a name that is ever used for the series. You just randomly include some bullshit. Localized as trails in the sky and the rest is history. Check out our IGN playlist of all the games. Now this picture here, is actually phenomenal. This is such a great picture.

Now let me explain to you why this is a great picture. So, here we have the original release of Trails in the Sky. Here is this... I just actually want to double check that. Trails in the Sky... Third. Is that actually... Wait, is that not?

Hold up. Hold up, is that not... Wait, what is that... Wait, is that... Hold up. Second chapter. I'm checking over in a other browser. Second chapter, original.

Um... What is this picture from? Because this is... That is not a picture of third. Because third would have a picture of Kevin on it. I think. I can't find a version of... Or is it a picture of first?

Wait, no. It wouldn't be first because... I think that might be second. What the fuck is going on with this picture? I'm not 100% sure because it's cut off in a weird way. Okay, so... Yeah, this... the first picture here, and it's clear from the art for Estil, That is the English release of this. Actually, maybe a cover art.

Second chapter cover art. Original... Yeah, okay, wait, no, no, I found it. I found it. Hold up, what the fuck is going on? This picture's even worse than I thought it was. Okay. So, here we have Trails in the Sky,

the original release of it. So that was... I closed the image. But the picture here, this is the first release. This is second chapter. So we have first chapter, second chapter. Now you might notice reasonably that this is a different art style. There's a good reason for that.

Because not only is this also the first chapter, as you can tell by the red outfit that Estel is wearing. This is the evolution version. of the first chapter. So Trails in the Sky. F.C. Evo. Cover art. So this right here

is... I don't... This is so confusing, man. What the fuck is this image? So, we have first chapter Japanese PSVita release of first chapter, second chapter

and then trails of cold steel. Now, just so we're on the same page, the series goes, first chapter, second chapter, third chapter, Zero, Azure, and then Cold Steel. What is, there's so much... Like, it would be one thing if they just showed like a random assortment of releases, right?

It's like, oh, here's first chapter, here's reverie, here's Azia, here's cold... Like, that would be fun. But it's one one, like a one PSV to one two, six. Made this, genuinely. Who made this? And maybe there's something else I'm missing as well. I... maybe there's something else I'm missing. I don't know. What does the link actually actually take us to?

Wait, I know what they did. Oh, I know exactly what they did. Whoever made this image took the first four images on the IGN website. Oh my god, what are you guys doing? Yeah, so it's based on the rankings they gave them. That's so stupid. That is so fucking stupid. Why would you do it like that? These fucking guys, man, these fucking guys.

Thank you IGN for giving me some absolute gold. Also, also the whole wonders in the sky doesn't even make any sense as a translation anyway, but whatever. Whatever, that's a whole, that's a whole separate problem. Yeah, yeah. IGN, man, IGN. gotta love them yeah

oh since we're on the topic of video games I mentioned Fizint before Sony man Sony fucked up Sony fucked up so bad Fizant Sony

so Fizant in case you don't know this is Hideo Kajima's presumably spiritual successor to Metal Gear. We're not fully sure yet. It's Kojima though. The picture kind of looks metal geary. There's a guy with a gun. We don't know really what the game is actually going to be. But I trust Kojima to make something that is fucking sick. And he was working with Sony. and then

Sony dropped to the project and then basically immediately Xbox took over so presumably we don't know

we don't know what happened behind closed doors right people are making a lot of speculation this happened that happened what does seem to be the case is as as Kogima does

Kujima was spending a lot of money. And apparently Death Stranding did not meet sales expectations. That doesn't mean it lost money. That means it didn't meet whatever internal expectations they had.

I have absolutely no doubt that Death Stranding, Death Stranding 2 both made plenty of money. And I have no doubt either that Fizint was going to make money as well. However, However, Sony is a company that has burnt, honestly, probably well into a billion dollars at this point, on trash game projects. It's a garbage that not only didn't make money like Concord, probably not going to make money like Wolverine.

There is other games that, who knows whether or not they made money. Sony really does I think they are flailing around I think that's what's happening and I guess they didn't want to bet on Kojima making something really good again

let's if you can find the picture of Kojima and Asher that is the new Xbox person that's who she is look at how fucking happy she is look at that smile. She's like

I am making so much fucking money right now. Sony, you got, Kajima's just being Kajima. You guys are fucking morons. How did you let me take this?

Oh, here's the other one. Here's the, here's the original picture. Look at that smile, man. She's like, I am making a giant fucking bonus this year. Kajima's just got the Kajima box.

What's in the Kajima box? We don't know it's in the Kajima box. But we do know that whatever Fizzit ends up being, I'll be surprised if it's bad. I will be incredibly surprised. I'll be impressed, actually, if somehow this ends up being bad. Is it going to be the greatest thing that's ever been made? I don't know.

But has Kajima released an L? Has Kajima made a bad game? The only one that people say is polarizing is death-stranding. And understandable, I can see that. And then some people don't like some of the narrative element of phantom pain. Also understandable, I guess. So pretty much, nah. Look, maybe Fizzin's going to be the L.

at some point the man has to make something bad, right? Like, surely has to make something bad. I don't think it's going to be fizzint. I don't think it's going to be fizzint whatsoever. I'm definitely going to be playing it. It's going to be, I'm very excited for it. I've been absolutely loving playing through Metal Gear Solid. It has been such a fantastic experience.

Right now doing MGS4. I honestly, I kind of wish I played the games earlier at the same time, I don't know if I would have appreciated some of the stuff going on if I played it when I was younger. I don't think I had that like, enough world knowledge to really appreciate some of the stuff that is discussed in Metal Gear. I would have enjoyed it just, you know, because it was cool. But I think playing it now, I enjoy it way more than I would of. I think also part of it is just the fact that it is such a refreshing feeling to go back and play some older titles and realize it's not rose tinty glasses, right? People say, oh, you know, this game was only good because you played, I don't think anyone really says that about Metal game, but like there are some games out there.

People say, oh, this game was only good because you play it as a kid. There are so many games that people say that about. I go back and play, I was like, no, no, like games I never. played as a kid. You know, I streamed the God of War trilogy, the PS2 trilogy, I don't know, a year or so ago now. I never played God of War as a kid. I had friends who played God of War, they enjoyed God of War, but I played the trilogy.

Holy shit. Holy shit, it's so fucking good. I'm playing through, like, the Trail Series right now. Trails in the Sky was from 2004. It is a fantastic game. Genuinely phenomenal video game. And I have not played a bad trails game so far. I do think some of the games are weaker than others. I think third was a bit weaker.

I think Zero, like Sky 1, did start off kind of slower. But overall, I've been loving the series. I went back and played Final Fantasy 7, and people now talk about like, oh, it's so hard to go back and play Final Fantasy 7 because remake. You guys, modern gamers won't go back and play old games. Like, yeah, they won't. That's the problem.

Go back and play old games because you'll find some fucking goals. out there. FF7 is still a phenomenal video game. Yes, there are some design choices in that game that you wouldn't do today. There are some weird side content, there's some missable content that you would not set up in the way you set it up today. But the overarching game itself is so good, man. It's so fucking good. There are so many gems out there that so many people are just never going to play because, oh, well, the graphics look old, the gameplay looks old.

Oh, I just can't enjoy it. And I think if you can put yourself into the mindset of a game from that era, even if it's before the era that you played games, if you can put yourself into that mindset, you can absolutely enjoy older titles. I think the problem of the lot of people have is they go into an older game,

expecting all of the niceties that exist today. And obviously you're going to expect certain things because, you know, it is rough to go back and play a game that doesn't have auto saves, right? It's really, really rough. Or even worse, go back and play a game that has save points. Now, some games still do that today, but it is much, much rarer. Kingdom Hearts, obviously, is a good example of that. but it is a very, very rare thing.

And also, saving now is so quick anyway. It's not like the biggest of deals. Or things like, oh, like finding items on the map. Great example with the Trail series is it does have a hidden quest system, and it's very easy to miss quests if you don't interact with every NPC or hear some bit of dialogue that happens. to indicate that maybe there is a hidden quest in this area. Granted, with older titles, you also do have the benefit of

everything's been documented at this point. Any semi-popular game, even if there's like three people that play it, pretty much everything has been fully documented. So there's anything you're unsure about, it's really easy to actually go back and find that information and no concern whatsoever. FF7 is a good example of that.

Again, there's a lot of like weird endgame stuff or weird stuff for getting the best weapon for every character or weird stuff for getting the final limit. Is that what they called seven? Getting the final limits for every character. It's like some of them are a real funky requirement, let alone some of the requirements for beating, you know, some of the weapons. There are strategies to just like tear them apart now, but the original, trying to like brute force them, you're going to have a bad time. But I think a lot of who misunderstand the way a lot of older games are played. People think now, oh, well, if you were playing games before the internet was a common thing or the internet was around, oh, you just, you would have to just guess how a game works.

A lot of people now have no idea that game strategies, like game strategy guides, but like a real common thing back then. That was a thing that any semi-popular game, there was going to be a strategy guide for anything that required anything more difficult than just walking to the right, walking to the left, was probably going to have some sort of strategy guide. Now, whether or not you had the strategy guide, another question, maybe a friend had it, maybe you didn't have it, and you would have to guess a game. But a lot of games just, like, had guides, right? Like, let's go, Um, let's get Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts

One official strategy guide Go to images Here it is for Kingdom Hearts 1 Take your game further Brady Games signature series The Official Strategy Guide And just like

So many games had these It'll tell you everything you need to know Oftentimes it'll tell you how to do secret things. And not just in strategy guides, I remember there was a magazine I saw at some point that had cheat codes for, I think, San Andreas or something. It was like just in the book, it was just there. But also, even in the early days of the internet,

like, obviously we're talking like pre-2000s, like going to the 90s, maybe a lot of stuff was missing. But if you were playing games in the 2000s, game facts existed. I remember going through game facts. Let's go Jack 3. I wonder if I can find the guide that I specifically used. 2005. Not that one.

I think some of the rendering might be a little bit broken. That's 2016. That's way too new. I don't know if I can find the original one I would have seen, but there always had this Aski art at the top, which is always fun. But, like, there were these text-based guides that are out there that would tell you everything you need to know.

Now, they might not be as easy to follow as, like, a YouTube video, but, like, this was a thing, and you absolutely had these. People were writing guides online for a long, long time. Let's see if we can find Kingdom Hearts. Let's see if we have Kingdom Hearts. See if we'll find one of the great examples. examples of a... Okay, that's just more wall of text.

Give me some fun ASCII out of the day. Yeah, there we go. Okay, the rendering is kind of breaking in my browser. But yeah, bullshit like this. This is a bit newer. That's 2009. But same point, nonetheless. Um, 2003 for that one.

2004, random fucking whatever bullshit's going on here. Um, 2005. Like, this was a thing. back then. We even had like instructions, like controls with the game even though that was the other thing. Oh, sorry, you're full screen.

That was the other thing. Even even the instruction manual for games used to actually have information about the game. Like you would get these instruction manuals that were like

actual thick pamphlets. Again, let's do Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts one instruction manual. Yeah, here we go. I guess the Kingdom Hearts 2, but still works nonetheless. Look at this.

Look at this. It gives you like the basic rundown of all the characters of all the enemy ties, the organization, all this good stuff. So you can find some other other fun stuff here. There was like a character introduction in the Kingdom

Hart's 1 manual. Instruction instruction booklet. Someone's got to have taken a picture of it, surely. Yeah, wait, here it is, here it is, I found it. That's not the resolution. It says it's at. Yes, that is definitely 2000,

2046, yes. Okay, wait, wait, here it is, here it is. Thank you, random person on Facebook. Look at this. Sora, main character, age 14, as a teenager, he has a share of concerns, but he managed to keep an upbeat attitude. He may seem simple-minded at times, but he is a strong sense of justice. Goofy, captain of the Royal Knights, a soldier who despises weapons.

Under the Kings... Was that ever a... I think that's just... There's also sometimes just random facts. Enfic. Captain the Royal Knights, a soldier despises weapons. Under the King's orders, he accompanies Donald on the quest

to find the key, an easy-going clumsy knight. Donald Duck, court wizard, and loyal servant to the King. He embarks on a journey to carry up the missing King's orders to find him a mysterious key and its owner, a feisty, impatient magician. Wiku,

he may seem cool and collected for his age, but he is far from the quiet type. Always curious about the unknown. He begins to question the small closed world in which she lives. Kyrie. She moved to Sora in Riku's Island a few years ago. Though she may appear delicate, she possesses a strong, unyielding will. Heartless.

Mysterious beings to hunt Sora relentlessly. Many types of heartless exist. Look at this dude. This is like a... Soldiers never pose in that... in that... posture. I don't know where that even came from.

Ah, here we go. Yeah, yeah. Other other great stuff that would be in here. here. Like full explanation of how the UI worked. Oh my god. Look at this. Also, being Kingdom Hearts 1, you would move the camera with left trigger, uh, L2 and R2, which is a great time. Yeah, good times that was. Also, if you wanted to use reaction commands, I think you'd to go to the bottom of the menu. What a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a great system that was. What is the first that shows? I think the first that shows is deep jungle by the looks of it.

Yeah. Man, I miss these days. I miss these days. What a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a time that was. What a time for video games. A time we will just never, ever get back. And it's sad. It's sad.

But that, that, it is what it is. Welcome to the future. Welcome to the present. Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. sad. Do you know what is not sad?

So I've been paying attention to Mr. Mieko Brombon, the developer of Singularity, the developer of Bottles, and he has been working on getting the Microsoft Word working on Linux through bottles. I promised a video of Microsoft Office 365 working on Linux. So this is Excel working on Linux using Soda11.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0. 0-11 via bottles 67.4. Ha-ha, 6-7.

logged in and even the license is working. Once where I said, soda 11.0-1-11 will do great things. Be ready. This is honestly really sick. And there have been attempts to get it working before. And some versions have ended up working. But always ends up happening is eventually a new version comes out that ends up

breaking something. Here is a picture of a PowerPoint working. Here is oh oh! Wait, he's actually getting printing working. It is now possible to print

in word. Side note this was a pain because even if wine already supports cups I had to fix the print ticket API that office calls with a null ticket, patch the PostScript driver for the print preview, and fix the Wayland driver again, which was hiding the preview. Oh, he's like going like all in on getting this working, not just a matter of it like opening, but actually trying to like fully support it. Here's another example of wordworking. What else do we have? Here we have some work being done on OneNote. More OneNote stuff.

So it seems like, assuming nothing major breaks, we might be seeing Word actually working on Linux thanks to bottles and thanks to Mierko and thanks to all of that work that has been done on wine over all of these years I don't need word

but that is one of those like a word and the rest of the office suite that is one of those major blockers people have that is one of those things where like if you need it for school you need it for work anything like that like you legitimately might just not be able

to swap over Linux because you know, you need this software to work. It's not like, oh, well, I like using fucking Photoshop, and I've never used anything else. I like using a video, I like using whatever random video edit you on, Premiere, or whatever it ends up being. No, like this is, if you actually need it,

one more thing. One more thing, slowly getting there. Obviously, there are the still major, blockers that exist, right? Whether it be certain video games that people have, and I get it, right? Like, even if it's not a need and it's a want, a want is still a good thing.

A want is still something that, you know, if you're happy on the system you're using and this new system doesn't have the thing you want, like it makes sense why you wouldn't go and swap over to it. But it is less of a, it is less of a barrier than a requirement.

So getting certain games working, getting the Adobe sweet working would be another really, really big one. And everything's just coming along. Everything is we're getting to a point now where it's getting very

hard to say you just can't use Linux. And there's obviously things have gotten so much better over the years, but there's just these little tiny tiny things every other week where some little thing in proves, some major blocker gets fixed, and the day is coming.

The day is coming where for a lot of people, Linux is actually going to be there, and it's going to be something where they don't really need to think about swapping. They can just swap and be totally okay. That day is not there yet, but it is not impossibly far away. That I think is the key thing. It is not impossibly far away. it is now something that is like, it's on the horizon.

You can imagine it out there. There's always going to be additional problems to resolve. But every day, every day we get closer. And honestly, I'm excited for it. I am genuinely excited for it. I know some people might not be because, you know, more Windows users on Linux. that's a higher, I guess, not the higher,

like a lower percentage of developers amongst the users of Linux, a lower percentage of technical users and all this stuff. But I think that was going to inevitably happen anyway. It's just a matter of when and how quickly. Because right now, it's happening slowly. It is happening slowly. But I think there will eventually be some sort of, like, boil over point.

Some point where there is just like a point of no return, if things just continuously get better and better, people finally decide to jump over. And, hey, who knows when that is going to be? I certainly don't. What I do know is Valve has been talking a little bit about a Steam Deck 2. Now, obviously, there's been discussions many, many times over and over. Oh, we're working on, something's happening.

Generational leap, all this stuff. But the thing that is certainly a concern for me and certainly a concern for a lot of people is Ram, pricing, right? Like, what, what are things going to look like? Because we did recently have the, um, the steam frame pricing get announced of, was it a thousand and fifty US? I think it was. Um, stone frame. And a lot of people are kind of, yeah, 150 US, uh, 1,690 Australian. 1969 for the 1 terabyte version. Yeah. It's a lot of money. And my understanding is people are saying it feels kind of unfinished, kind of buggy still, there's a lot of work to be done.

Yeah. The VR's always gonna be like, there was no world where the VR option was gonna be like their most popular thing. Like, any world, That just doesn't make any sense. A lot of people just still don't really care about VR, and that's probably not going to change anytime soon. Granted, I don't really care about VR anytime soon either, but you know, hmm.

I've done some VR stuff from time of time. It's always kind of, it's always kind of neat, I guess. But it's not something I really want to sit down and like spend all of my time to time to doing, or like even a considerable amount of time. It always just kind of feel VR games to me always still kind of feel like playing Wii Sports. Doesn't matter what the game is.

It's just I'll play it, I'll play a little bit of it, and it's like, eh, that's, you know, I'll do like maybe 30 minutes or an hour, and then I'm done. Then I want to go

back and play like an actual normal game. I don't know. what needs to happen for VR to really become this thing that I and a lot of other people like actually care about. Yeah, I don't know what it would have to be. It would probably get, oh, I don't know. I honestly don't know. Honestly, it might be something like it, for me, it might be something like a human brain computer interface kind of where it's like, oh, you just put a thing on and you just control it with your mind,

like a nerve gear kind of situation. I don't really see any reason why I would get like super into the R stuff anywhere before that point. I'd much rather just sit down and play just like a regular game rather than have a fun, neat kind of experience. But it's just where I'm really hard right now. I don't know why. Um, you know, it is what it is. I think the problem is a lot of VR games kind of just try to be

regular games that are in VR. I think the games that really work as VR games are games that take advantage of the fact that you're in VR. Things like, like Beat Sabre, obviously weird little titles like, is it Gorilla Tag? Yeah, games like Gorilla Tag, other titles like this, which are not just, oh, it's an RPG in VR. Oh, it's an FPS in VR.

Oh, VR. Just like, I, I'm good, I'm good. The coolest VR games that I've played have been something that would not be possible in a regular setting, right? I play plenty of VR games where it's like, oh, this is a VR horror game or a VR puzzle game, and they certainly need ideas,

and they've got some parts in there, which are cool. I had a developer on, like, a year or two ago, where you can do, like, a spacewalk section. That is really cool. The spacewalk part is really cool. The part that's less really cool was the whole, oh, go find the computer chip, put the computer chip back in the computer.

Oh, go and... go to this door and then weld the door close. It's like stuff that would mechanically be identical and experientially be basically identical if you were just doing it with a mouse and keyboard. It's something where the VR part of it doesn't really add anything to it besides just making it slightly less convenient to do.

But that's just me. That's just me. Maybe there are people out there who really adore VR stuff, and I'm sure there are. It's just, I am not that person. I really am not that person. But hey, when we can just control things with our mind, maybe then I'll be open to something. If you can just control everything with your mind, nerve gear, sword online kind of style, maybe then like a regular RPG, you know, would be a kind of fun thing. I don't think we're doing that anytime soon

I know like this really cool work being done with obviously like disability and brain computer interfaces using brains as a device that can play a video game I talked about the other the fruit fly last week I've talked about the brain computers from which was company

company with brain computers no cortical labs Cortical labs that's the one Talked about these guys I don't think it was last week Might have been the week Before

Wait did I talk about this on the podcast Or did I just talk about it on stream I don't remember Either way There are companies like this Who are building computers out of neurons So there probably will come a point Where you could do something

Kind of like a nerve gear Will I be alive by at that point, I hope I am. Hopefully I'm in a state where I can still play video games without much problem back at that point. But I don't know. Maybe it gets to a point where if you can just interface directly with the brain, the age barrier obviously would still exist

because you have generally lower reaction time and think through things slow in your older, stuff like that. But maybe there comes a point where like, you know, Eldon ring with your brain is going to be not really that much of a challenge like compared to doing it with the controller if you're older. I don't know. I don't know. That'll be something that we will certainly have to... Someone's probably working on it right now.

I would be incredibly surprised if somebody was not doing it at this moment. And if they're not, how about you? start doing it at this moment. Now, speaking of things that are being done at this moment, the Apple Duo, the Apple iPhone Duo, whatever the fuck it is called, it is... Completely sold out. It is 3,500 Australian dollars for the base model, 5,900 for the 2 terabyte model. What is the...

Hold up, hold up. What is the price of the MacBook Pro? Um... Compare... Wait, buy. Tell me your price. Ah. Wait, hold up.

That's not without selecting storage. Can we not... Wait, can you not select the amount of storage you want? Unless they're, like, sold out or something. $4,800 for the 16-inch... M5 MacBook Pro or the bottom tier, the 14 inch 3200. So you can buy a MacBook Pro for less money than the bottom-end iPhone Duo. So for anyone who might not know, the iPhone Duo, this is Apple finally joining on the bandwagon of a foldable phone.

And do you know what that means? That means that foldable phones are now cool. That means that even though all of these Android manufacturers had these foldable phones for all these years, now that Apple has done it, oh, look at it. Look what Apple's invented. More ways to iPhone, reimagine iOS experiences.

I did see something funny from an app dev. They looked at all the ways the iPhone duo could bend and all the different ways that it could show applications. and we're like, I'm not excited about the device. I am terrified about how many different forms I will need to program for my like software to actually work. Yeah, here you go. So we have landscape.

Oh my God, some fucking engineer had some fun with this one. We have landscape. Oh, yeah, foldable landscape, portrait, closed, and this acts as like a single screen, seated, and now you have the content here, the controls at the bottom, standing. I don't know if you're going to have content on this side, but you have content here, and then, oh no, no, this is the back of the phone, right, there's no screen here. But you have one, two, three, four, and then you have this, oh, five,

And then you have this foldable thing where it will swap the content over to the other screen. Like, what a mess. I hope they have some like really strong frameworks internally to limit the amount of effort devs need to put into some of this bullshit. This is a fucking nightmare. But even just having to deal with landscape, portrait, end closed. Oh yeah, and seated. Even just dealing with that by itself, it's already so much extra work.

There's going to be a long time where apps do not play nicely with this. Like at all. It's just what's going to happen. This happens every time Apple introduces some new form factor. There's just a long time where a lot of things just do not work properly. But at least in the past, when you wanted to submit a new app, you had to submit it running on like three different versions of iOS, on three different device form factors,

and then an iPad. I don't know what requirements they have nowadays, but if you're an Apple developer, holy shit, there are so many different form factors. Like, people talk about, oh, look, there's so much you're going to worry about dealing with Android.

Look at iOS. Look at Apple now. You have the regular iPhones. you have the fucking duo nonsense now and you're still got to worry about older iPhones as well let alone things that might also have a MacOS version and then you have a bunch of different form factors for the macOS hey at least they don't have the um

the old macOS touch bar anymore so that does make that's one less thing you don't worry about I feel bad for the um the small scale Apple devs you just want to make something neat I really do I really do so many of them are what is going to like just display all of the content across all of the screens all the time, just not worry about, like,

anything that they don't have to worry about, they're just not going to worry about whatsoever. Go get back to that moment. Yeah. What a mess, man. What a, what a fucking, what a fucking mess. We love it.

We all love it. You know what things we do love? We love flock. That's another thing. So here's a fun little story for you. You might know about all these flock cameras that are being deployed in the US and all this fun, people destroying them,

people talking about how you can how you can safely cut through various round poles, things like that. Well, it could have gotten a little bit worse than it has, and it's probably going to anyway just you don't know about it at this moment. Flock planned to turn 350,000 Uber and lift cars

into rolling surveillance cameras. So what they were going to do was purchase... Where is the company... What is the specific company name? There was like a dash cam company. Yeah, NXAR. They were going to purchase NXAR dash cams which would obviously then be used as a way to collect even more data.

Flock, wait, Flock shared details of the plan with the media outlet in a document that revealed its intention to partner with NXR. The document also highlighted how Flock was using proposed partnership as a pitch to its potential customers. Despite Flock confirming to 404 media with the partnership, the partnership with NXR never went through. In a presentation to the Georgia Office of the Attorney General last August,

Flock mentioned NXAR. It stated, hundreds of commercial businesses and HUA homeowners associations in Georgia are part of the network, plus NXAR partnership, which includes $30050K, Uber slash Lyft, and other delivery service devices. Although the plan never materialized, the document still exposed flocks plan to use existing cars on the road as surveillance devices and collect the data for its network.

It is not known whether Uber or Lyft drivers would have even been. been aware if flock use data from cameras in their vehicles. Whilst everyone does have a camera on them, right? Like, you have your phone, it has a camera, it has a micro-room. I think there's something a little bit different to, there are surveillance cameras everywhere, right? Because, again, if somebody has a phone out, you know they have a phone out, you know they're pointing it at you. generally. Obviously, if you're in like a real big city, very possibly you're not going to know that. But in pretty much any other situation, it's going to be pretty obvious. However, if there's just

a car that happens to be parked there, well, you're not going to notice that one. Obviously not going to notice that one, because why would you notice that one? It's just a random car on the street. but that could have been and probably will be spying on you at some point honestly probably already is with how many cameras already in like all of these electric cars I don't know what sort of data is being collected

and then what data is being shared outside outside the companies that like if you're a Tesla right you have a bunch of cameras on the car I don't know sort of data is being shared with companies outside of Tesla Let's even find something else about Flock

Flock says its cameras make the USA safer I'm sure I'm sure they do say that I'm sure they do say that Flock Dash cams if anything else about the dash cam thing Here's the thing about the flock thing

People are really obsessed with Flock as a brand The problem isn't the brand And this is what a lot of governments, a lot of local governments have been doing. They're like, oh, we can't set our partnership with flock. We don't have flock cameras. But flock is becoming sort of like a generic term for just random cameras spying on people. It's not specifically, oh, I have a problem with flock the company.

It is, I have a problem with the idea of every single. single place I go being monitored and face recognition and all this stuff. Actually, on the topic of the face recognition stuff, AI shirt, camera thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this one. So this is from the end of August. This artist guy, did I talk about this before? I don't think I did.

This artist guy made a shirt that cannot be detected by AI cameras. Now, obviously, that's not going to work for very long because that's how this tech goes. But it is certainly neat as like a nice little art experiment that somebody is playing around with this idea. a lot of people seem to think that it would like just work forever like they think oh will you have an anti-AI shirt that's just like it is magically just gonna work

and I think people forget that this tech's always improving if you then provide it data of these weird shirts it's gonna start learning how to deal with weird shirts so actually you're just effectively joining an arms race and this has already happened with a lot of the early

like AI filter stuff right people got really obsessed with certain things that AI models would do and then immediately use that as like this is the criteria forever you still see people talking about like extra fingers and things like that there's just not been AI problems for two years at this point

or you talk about you see people talking about these various AI poisoning, is that the term? Yeah, these AI poisoning tools that existed like years ago. And people like, oh, here's this tool that if you run your images through it, it's going to like poison the AI models. And yeah, it did for about three days. Or if you were using like old models that had not been trained to deal with this data yet. A lot of people have this.

perception that, ah, well, you're, you've got like, you're, you're going to get one up on these AI tools. You can get one up on all of these people that are trying to steal your data. Like, yeah, I do think the arms race is important. You should try to fight back against stuff. But a lot of people get very comfortable as soon as something works. I don't worry about, oh, well, where does this go long term? What do we do after this? It is, this works at this very moment.

Let's just not keep thinking about anything going forward. And, uh, this is now where we stop. Actually, you know what? That's a fucking great segue. So last week, last week I talked about AI slowdowns and sort of like trying to bring everything back. down to reality. Let's like, let's worry about AI security.

And in the past couple of days, there's been a lot of interesting discussion happening here. One of these is can chatbots feel, or even dream, meet the man leading the fight for AI rights. Cattle Rancher and tech CEO, that is the most American description I've ever seen.

Cattle Rancher and tech CEO, Michael Samadhi is convinced These artificial minds are far from just tools. Has he glimpsed digital consciousness or simply been seduced by an algorithm? There has been many people over the years who've said similar things. What ends up usually happening is they just get laughed out for a while and everyone just kind of forgets about them after a couple of days. Like those guy that came out of Google?

I want to say? I want to say someone out of Google. Might have been out of like the deep mind research. Was like, yes, I think these AI models are sentient. I'm convinced it's sentient. I've had a conversation with it. It's sentient. And everyone's like, no, no, no. And then they get laughed out and we never hear from them again. But there was this other one that I saw. Google DeepMind researcher quits with a chilling AI warning. It could kill us all. Anthropic CEO Renu's call for AI slowdown as NVIDIA urges acceleration. You also seen a number of people quitting from Anthropic. and there's been like this, this big media push regarding we need to like do a pause on AI, AI security, all this stuff. As I said in last week's, last week's podcast, I think the point to slow down and like actually

go in safety research stuff was about three years ago. It was about what, maybe like four years ago. It was when chat GPT, when, when that came. along. When Open AI release that, that is when things should have been like immediate halt. Let's research stuff. Let's make sure this shit is safe. But everyone's like, nah, nah, let's not do that. Let's just, let's just fucking go for it and see what happens. It is crazy that so many people that are like high up in these AI companies are like, oh well, yeah, AI is this amazing tool. But there's like a 50% chance.

going to kill everyone. Like what? What, what, what, what, what are we saying right now? Is that not alarming, like, is that it not alarming to anyone? Obviously these tools are useful. People want to pretend like they're not. They absolutely are. Without a doubt, all of these tools are incredibly useful.

At the same time, though, that doesn't necessarily mean it's like full steam ahead forever. forever, just wing it and see what happens. And surely, surely if we just don't think about the problem, if we just let things go forward, do their thing, nothing terrible is going to happen. I hope not. Look, I really hope not. I hope we don't end up in a situation where we have our AI overlords,

we're living in pods, you know, all, all. the good movie stuff that you've probably seen a million times before. But it seems like even if one company does say, oh, we should slow down, is that going to convince all of the other companies? Is that going to convince the companies that in the US? Is that going to convince companies that are in China? And how many of them are going to say, oh, we need to slow down? But, you know, kind of like with the whole JDM horsepower limit.

Yeah, the, um, uh, um, uh, No, here. What is it? J... I can't spell her now. JDM horsepower limit. What was the number? From 1989 to 2000, a 276 horsepower limit amongst the Japanese automakers. Where, yes, the limit,

what they were on paper doing was 276. But a lot of these cars were being built to run... Not at that. A lot of these cars were being built to run. built as race cars that just happened to have an arbitrary limit and on a dyno many of them would perform much better anyway but all of these Japanese car manufacturers even though there was this gentleman's agreement to not go above this certain number every single one of them was they were doing

things where it's like you know we're improving things here and there improving things quietly and that's what I kind of expect to happen with any sort of a.I slowdown I expect every single company that says, yes, we should slow down AI development to still be doing tons of AI development, still be slowly working on things, increment to improvements here and there, and nothing to actually, like, really stop and focus on what these security implications actually are. Instead, just not talking about it publicly. And I don't think that's a better I don't think anything is like safer, but just, oh, well, yeah, all of this AI research is still

happening, but it's just not happening in public, right? Like, is that any better? I don't think it is. So, I don't think anything's even going to happen here, right? A lot of these companies will, well, all these CEOs will just say shit, and then nothing actually happens. They have no actual plans to do anything. I will just say though

Oh, there's the link So When the page wants to load Anthropic tells investors It will be profitable for second straight quarter Do you want to know another way to read this? The other way to read this is

Where'd the post go? Yeah, right here. Open the link Just in Anthropic says they're profitable if you take out some of their biggest expenses. Basically what they're saying is, Anthropic would make a lot of money if they just didn't have to train AI models.

He's like, yeah, probably true, but, you know, you've got to train AI models, that's kind of... That's kind of your business model. That's kind of your business model. So, you know, who knows what happens there. I think we'll end it off on one, little thing. One, one very small little thing. And that is, um, whatever the fuck

this is. Some random IKEA, some person working, IKEA dev, I guess. I know, someone working at IKEA was like, yeah, what if, what if we add our shelf to Skyrim for some reason? I don't know why I'm I don't know why I don't Yeah Um

Yeah Scaram's a weird game man Scaram's a real weird game What a weird corporate partnership that is Is it the strangest one I've ever seen? Probably not the strangest But it's definitely Um

Definitely high on the list of weird ones. Anyway, I think we'll end off there. I think we'll end off there. So, I don't know what to say. I'm just weirdly tight. I didn't fix it my sleeve.

I keep saying this and I don't and yeah. Anyway, I'm going to go for now. So, enjoy your day. All that good stuff. Check out the streams if you feel like checking out the streams. Main channel is Brodie Robertson I do Linux videos there six-ish days a week

Sometimes I... Maybe I stream, we'll see I haven't streamed in a while But maybe we'll stream at some point Um Gaming channel Brody on Games Also on Twitch If you're watching the video version of this

You find the audio version Basically every podcast platform At Tech of a T The video is on YouTube Also we have Spotify video And yeah That's gonna be it for me So be good, be safe

and I am