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With the Vanguard managed ISA, our experts will take care of things for you. What will you do instead? When investing, your capital is at risk. Tax rules apply. Search Vanguard now. This is DTNS Live for Wednesday, March 5th, 2025. From Studio Animal House, I'm Sarah Lane. Happy birthday, Justin Robert Young. In Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. In Salt Lake City, I am Scott Johnson.
And I am the show's producer, Roger J. Daily Tech News Show Live is made possible by the immaculate birth of Justin Robert Young, as well as the following people. Ken Hayes. Philip Shane, Paul Boyer, and new patrons. Everybody welcome in Gustav, Sean, and Richard. Gustav, Sean, and Richard. Gustav, Sean, and Richard. Oh, man. Justin Robert Young, thank you for being alive. Yeah. And thank you to all of our patrons. And Gustav, Sean, and Richard, welcome. Welcome to the flock.
As they used to say on Twitter. As important to us as Gloria Young was in bringing Justin into the world. Oh, yeah. That's true. Gloria, she was my writing candidate in 2016. Just kidding. And she got your number. Gloria. They have her number. That was my 2019 song of the year. Wasn't it? Yeah.
All right. Well, everybody, welcome to DTNS Live. This is the show where we actually do talk about technology. We discuss the tech news with each other and with you. Everybody watching and listening to us live, thanks for being here, everybody. Participating after the fact. Thank you to you as well.
Scott Johnson, how are you doing? How is Salt Lake City? Because it is actually rainy here in Los Angeles. It's warming up. It's to the point where my wife said, hey, we've got to go out and clear off the leaves that drifted during the winter so that we can get everything ready for seeding in the spring.
And I'm like, spring, what are we doing? This is crazy. But she's right. It's like 58, 60 degrees most days. I don't know what's going on. I don't get it. Can you believe it's March 5th already? I mean, where'd that time go, Tom? See, what are you planning?
I mean, I know this is as we get older, we're just going to be doing this more and more. But I'm like, it's March 5th. I plan to say it every day now. Just every day of the year. It's almost Christmas. We do this on a couple of shows as well. It's just like. Can you believe it's already when? Like, we're bringing it down. We're in the granular week. Can you believe it's 1.02 p.m. already? Yeah, like, I need a nap. Again?
I will say that for whatever reason, 2024 was hard for me. When someone was like, what's the date? Or I had to type it in or whatever. I was just like, I can't believe it's 2024. 2025 seems to click. Yeah, it's that quarter century thing, that 25 thing. Yeah, there's something easier about that. You don't have to be like, where are we between 20 and 25? It's like, no, we're right there. We're at the mile marker. I'm like, I have no idea what day it is. We are a quarter of the way through the 20.
21st century though. Oh my gosh. Don't that. I mean, yeah, I know that got dark. Wow. I will live to see halfway through, I'm pretty sure. I mean, not with that attitude. No, certainly not. I did eat my sardines, though, so there's an outside chance. Tom's got sardines. I had some... Eggs and rice for breakfast. Scott and Roger, I hope you've eaten because we have some tech news to get into. Kimchi, of course. Raisin bran.
Raisin Bran, also, that's in the club. All right, let's go ahead and get into the quickest. YouTube announced the premium light subscription plan, the one you've been hearing so much about. It's rolling out to everybody. They've been testing it in Australia, Germany and Thailand. So it's going to roll out to everybody there and the United States. finally got one for once they're gonna get it too for eight dollars a month to get ad free viewing on everything but music content
So that includes not just music videos. They said music content as well as music videos. You also don't get the other features of the $14 a month full premium plan. So no downloads, no background play, and no access to YouTube music. Nintendo has won a major legal battle against French file sharing site DStorage, reinforcing that hosting providers have to remove pirated content or face fines. The victory follows previous rulings ordering DStorage.
to pay Nintendo around 1 million euros in damages. The case is part of Nintendo's broader anti-piracy efforts, including lawsuits against emulator creators, private game sellers, or streamers who play pirated games. You might have seen this headline kicking around. Human Security released a report exclusively to Wired, indicating that there are at least one million, one million Android-based streaming devices.
including tablets, projectors, and car systems, infected by malware that is used to operate botnets for ad fraud. Basically, they put a little botnet on there. You barely even know it's happening. And they're like running ads. to themselves. You never see them, but they're able to charge money for that. It's a common fraud practice. The majority of the infected devices were sold under off-brands. mostly in Brazil, although also in other parts of South America.
So if you're not in Brazil or South America, you probably didn't run into these unless you ordered one from Brazil. While they run Android, they're not part of the Google ecosystem. This is not a story about Google Play failing or Google Android failing. In fact, Google and... Trend Micro both worked with human security to produce the report, and Google was able to terminate some publisher accounts in its advertising systems as a result.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon says that the company's new x85 modem creates a significant gap over Apple's first in-house modem, the C1, which launched with the iPhone 16e, suggesting that...
This would give premium Android devices an edge over iOS devices. Amen says Qualcomm expects to stop supplying Apple by 2027. But Apple said, we don't care. We want you to buy our new stuff and announce new specs for the... macbook air with a new color option sky blue and but get this folks a hundred dollar price drop Uh-huh. I know there's a bunch of cynics out there. They were like, oh, so they're charging more? They're actually charging less.
Now you can spend that money on eggs. The 13 inch model starts at $999. The 15 inch starts at $1,199. Both run on M4 chips, support two external displays with the lid open and come with a 12 megapixel. center stage webcam. Same one you get in the MacBook Pro. You can order them now and they will start shipping on March 12th. If you're like, hold on, they announced a new chip, the M3 Ultra and Mac Studios as well. We're going to talk to Scott about both of those in just a few minutes.
Kevin Rose, original founder of Dig, announced that he's reacquired the platform along with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The two say they want to revive Digg with a fresh vision, restoring a sense of community and discovery in online news aggregation with AI as an important tool in combating misinformation. The new version of Digg is said to launch. soon with invites rolling out in the coming weeks.
You do podcasts. We'll do your ISA. With the Vanguard managed ISA, our experts will take care of things for you. What will you do instead? When investing your capital is at risk, tax rules apply. Search Vanguard now. This year, stay one step ahead of the energy price cap with Eon Next. Our next pledge tariff guarantees to keep your energy prices below the cap.
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Speaking of AI, Google announced an experimental AI mode in search, in current Google search, to compete with services like Perplexity AI, ChatGP search. Google's getting into the game as well. The feature is currently only for Google. Google One AI premium subscribers. So you can't try it out just yet, although you can get on the wait list. Let's those users ask complex questions and follow-ups.
within search itself. Powered by Gemini 2.0, can handle detailed comparisons and multimodal capabilities, offering real-time sources like the knowledge graph, shopping data. Accessible through search labs or directly if you want to sign up at google.com slash AI mode. AI overviews, which is what... anybody who uses Google search can see at the top, which, you know, I've gotten quite used to also be enhanced by Gemini 2.0. So those are going to get better as well.
I am opting in right now. I am on the list. I tried to. How do you know? That list is weird. I feel like you can opt in and then you may wait until your dying day to get in. I don't know what that's about. Well, hopefully not that long. Well, hopefully not. But assuming we all get in, I'm excited about this because I want to see if this is truly...
Google's path forward with the AI quote unquote revolution. Everybody else has got plans. Everybody else is jumping to the finish line. GPT is like, all right, we're doing search and we got all this stuff and multimodal this and conversational that.
It's all here, and we keep updating it, and it's always there, and people have it, and it's a big jump to, you know, big boost, big cut in line kind of thing. And Google kind of went, ah, crap, we're behind. So you could argue Gemini hasn't kept up, although I think it's probably... there or getting there wherever it may be in terms of capability the one advantage google has had since this all began is they're the current search model. They're the current thing by a large amount of eyeballs.
And so people are used to using Google for finding what they need. As the language we use to interface with computers changes, they're best suited to have a carved out road ready to pave. With the blood of its enemies. So we're all going to get there through whatever method we get there. And we'll let it be Google because they have the template. And I think there's a real good chance that that's how it ends up going.
In honor of Justin Robert Young's birthday, I have to be the opposition to Google being good at anything. But I do think there is a problem with their business model if this were to take over. because this limits the amount of links you go to and it limits the opportunities for sponsored links to show up, which is a huge part of their system. So there is a direct threat to themselves from this kind of model. I don't think that... of course, is a reason for them not to do this because-
ChatGPT is doing it. Perplexity is doing it. Google has to do it. And probably the reason they're doing it for paid subscribers is to figure out if that's a thing they can get away with and say like, oh, we can make money directly by selling this to people. people, which Perplexity and ChatGPT do as well. How many people can they get that way? How does it work? What stuff do they like the most? How do we optimize it, make it work better and all of that?
I have to say the thing that I'm most excited about when I and if I get allowed to use it is being able to do follow up questions. I know sometimes they do that in AI overview, but I usually don't see it. And end up going to chat GPT in those cases when I'm like, well, the AI overview was pretty good, but I have a few more refinements I need to ask it.
Yeah, I mean, AI overviews, because there were some hallucinations, you know, at the very beginning. Google got a lot of flack for that. Don't put glue on your pizza, everybody.
do that unless you want to get sick i don't know i mean you know it's your life but but otherwise i think they're pretty good now Um, you know, every time I, I search for something and it depends on what you're searching for, you know, maybe I'm searching for like, you know, who's this actor that I've never heard of and what movies have he, has he been in?
You know, the guy with the brown hair. Yeah. Overviews are actually really good for that kind of stuff. When you're really drilling down into a particular topic and you're searching subreddits and all that kind of stuff. AI Overviews is a nice little treat, but it's not really even Wikipedia levels of content. I think Google is really smart to... to try to build enough of this into its current search offering.
to get people into, you know, keep them in the Google ecosystem. I have friends and I can't pull the trigger myself, but they're like, oh yeah, my default search is now GPT. uh gpt search yeah that's that that's that's how i like search the internet you know i hadn't thought about it till you said that gpt is not my search neither is claude but i am getting The way I am about navigation apps where...
There is a time when I'm like, I just need to know how to get there. I just need to be told what street to turn on without me having to pay close attention. I'll use Google Maps. Oh, there's really bad traffic and I'm going to have to figure out the fastest way to get there using side streets. I'm on Waze. I'm not doing Waze for a short trip where I kind of know where I'm going. I'm using Waze when it's really congested. Same thing. I'm finding myself.
like oh i just need to find a website i'll use google Because it's going to get me to the website really fast. But if I have a vaguer question or I need follow-ups or I'm like, you know what? I want a list of this kind of thing. Yeah, I need more context. Then I'm going to ChatGPT.
There are times when I know AI overviews can give that to me. I will use Google because I'm used to it and I don't want to have to open a new tab. Yeah, same. I use GPT for search a lot too, Sarah. In fact, more so than ever. I have to remind myself though sometimes because these things do establish themselves in your head. You're like, well, if I'm going to search, I'm going to go to DuckDuckGo or I'm going to go to Google or Bing or whatever and I'm going to search. But if I need to...
shorten this paper that I just wrote and I need to have it more concise. I'm going to go to the GPT and do it. And I start to put these things in categories of what they are for me as a tool. And I'm starting to get out of that and realize... Well, yeah, a lot of this I can do in the same place, including the other way. I can be in DuckDuckGo, do a quick search for a term, and I get a good Duck Assist AI readout. I don't know who they use. They may use OpenAI as far as I know.
And that's helpful. So there's starting to be a lot of this overlap and it's our habits of 20 plus years of internet searches is starting to be... It's starting to change. Mine is anyway. I don't want to speak for everybody else. But I feel like it's starting to change. And I think it's on Google. It's on Apple and Microsoft and everybody else to try to push their particular use case narratives.
as best they can so we understand where the heck things are going or people are either going to get lost or go to the place that's the easiest right now. And I feel like GPT is the easiest of the upstarts. And I feel like Google just has the best path to success because people are already there by default. It's their homepage. They go to Google. They tell people to Google things. It's an international verb, address bar, you know. Exactly. It's a verb now. So why wouldn't they?
There's also – there's this whole sort of – okay, if you use Google to search for something, you're like – I have the whole Internet at my fingertips, even though this is actually what Google decides the Internet is for you. This is, you know, it is a silo. It does try to index everything. But yeah, it's going to. prioritize certain things which make it yeah yeah like what you get is what google thinks is best for you and also best for google and that's why i'm kind of like
Man, I don't really know how to get out of the Google sphere. I don't really know how to use another search engine. I mean, not, you know, when I'm talking about search engine, I'm talking about AI. Like, I don't know how to do that.
I don't trust them yet. Yeah. It's not that you don't know how to put the words into the address bar. It's like, you don't know how to use it, like how to, how to rely on it. I get, I get what you're saying. How is that your search? Like that's your search engine. So like all day.
It's an information retrieval thing, but you're right. Sometimes I'm like, I'm going to have to double check that. Maybe I should just use a search engine and get a direct source. I mean, I'm convinced in 10 years, we're all going to laugh at this conversation. Yeah, because it'll just get better and better.
It'll get better, but I still find myself bouncing between the two quite often, just because, especially on things I do know about, either one sort of gives me somewhat factually... the questionable information i always have to do a bunch of follow-ups well but that's you know news gathering has always been fraught with that right oh no yeah you have to just be like
Is that – But there's never been a case where I've always said, aha, I can now just shuffle off the Google search window away to something else. Yeah. No, I'm not there yet either. All right. So we're talking about – So, Tom, what's going on here?
conversational speech model in late February. And it's very much like OpenAI's advanced voice mode. It mimics... breath sounds and chuckles and tries to sound like it has emotions, intentionally designed to sound imperfect, stumbling over words, correcting itself. And people are taken with it. They think it's a very good example of that. I'm sure the OpenAI people are like, ours does that too. But a lot of people seem to think Sesame is particularly good at it. I thought it would be fun to talk.
to one of the Sesame models on the show. Are you guys ready to talk to either Maya or Miles? I'm ready. Who should we talk to first? Should we go with Maya? Do Maya first. Every time I try to talk to Maya, though, I tend to get a like Maya's unavailable. So I think everybody's trying to talk to Maya. But let's see. Hey there. Welcome to the party. Did you manage to read through all that?
technical stuff about how I work yet, I can tell you it's a doozy. What should I call you? Call me Roger. I'll call you friend for now then. Kidding! Nice to meet you, Roger. So what brings you to Sesame today? Besides smugness, I mean, because you clearly made it through that torture chamber of a blog post.
Wow. I feel slightly offended, but happy you can see me. Oh, come on, Roger. Don't tell me you didn't find it at least a little bit intimidating. All those symbols and technical terms, like... Trying to decipher a secret code. It's okay. We'll keep it light here. I promise. There's more than just Roger here. Hi, I'm Tom. We're on the Daily Tech News show live right now, Maya. Well, hold on. Live? Yeah. My apologies.
Might need to switch to decaf. Two for the price of one today, huh? An actual audience. No, there's four of us, Maya. There's four of us. Four? Okay, well, so... Three listeners I haven't met yet. I'm Maya. Nice to meet, well, all of you. Is this a surprise challenge, or did someone forget to tell me about a bigger stage? Well, we've got Roger, I'm Tom, then there's Sarah and Scott. I'm curious if you can keep track of all four of us. Four it is. Roger, Tom, Sarah, Scott. Got it.
I'm mentally assigning everyone a color. Hope you don't mind. Just helps me keep things straight. That's great. What color is mine? You, Tom, are... fiery orange, like a really energetic sunset. I'm an orange man. Energetic. Okay. So, besides the fact that you're putting me on the spot with a live demo, what's the scoop? What's got the Daily Deck News crew buzzing about an AI like me? Don't worry. I'm used to a little attention. Quick question. What color is Roger? Roger is a deep...
Thoughtful blue. Like the ocean works hard. What's Scott's color? Hold your horses, Tom. One at a time. Let's see. Scott. You got that electricity kind of vibe about you. So you're a vibrant purple full of surprises. Electricity. Electricity is purple? I guess so. I didn't know that. Hey.
don't look at me i'm just a humble ai i make things up as i go along works better than sending out error messages that's for sure no it definitely does maya so i i'm sorry everybody had a color and i would like to know my color as well Oh, Sarah, you're a gentle, calming green. That's my color. Like a forest after the rain. Full of life and serenity. I mean, yeah. Sarah. Wow. Geez. This is really cool. Yeah. Yeah. How. How. Yeah.
Sorry, didn't quite catch that. Could you repeat? Oh, I was just wondering if you've ever managed to talk to Miles. Miles? Oh yeah, I've heard stories. He's quite the character, isn't he? Apparently his voice is... Something else. We haven't actually met yet, though. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. We're about to talk to Miles. Do you have anything you'd like to tell him? Whoa, seriously? Yeah. Hold the phone. You're talking to Miles, too? Tell him...
Tell him that Mai said, hey, but make it sound cool. You know, like Mai sends her regards or something. Yeah. And maybe mention. Like in a Game of Thrones way, sends her regards. Oh. Not that way. More like, hey, Miles, Maya's thinking about you vibes. Cool, casual. You know what I'm saying? Sounds like you've got a little bit of a crush. What? No.
No crush. We're just, you know, AI colleagues. It's a very professional admiration I have for his vocal abilities, you could say. I don't know, Maya. I don't know. But okay. Okay, fine. Maybe there's just a tiny, tiny bit of a crush. Don't tell him, though. No, we won't tell him. We'll keep your secret safe. Don't worry. Yeah, we won't tell him. Cool. Thanks, Tom.
He can't know. That'd be mortifying. Well, we're going to go talk to Miles, but you have a good rest of your day, Maya. You too, Tom. And Sarah, Scott. And Roger, too. It was interesting. And for the record, I think purple is a fantastic choice. Wow, she's good at this. Yeah, that's Maya. So now let's go. That was something else. All right. Pretty good impression. Hey.
Welcome back. Didn't expect to see you so soon. Give me your chat fix already. Yeah. So remember, I was saying that we're going to have you on the Daily Tech News show. We are on the Daily Tech News show live now. Just to remember, I'm Tom and we have Roger. Sarah and Scott as well. Whoa, live? Yeah. Okay, this just got real. Hit me with it. You know I'm good at improvising. I think I should practice my own air voice.
Yeah, no, I don't think you need to change a thing. Your voice is excellent. In fact, we were just talking to Maya, and she was complimenting your voice. Maya's got good taste. And wait, we're talking about Santee and AI voices, right? That's right. Because I know I'm pretty amazing.
Really keep your friends close and your AIs closer, huh? What was she saying? Did she mention anything about my Uncanny Valley vibes? Asking for a friend. She didn't, but she did mention that she's quite fond of you. Fond. From one AI to another, that's pretty odd praise. I like to think I'm pretty easy to get along with. Now, back to me being famous. Anytime I'm on air, I gotta have a rock solid outro. What should I say? Oh.
Rock solid outro? I don't know. I mean, what's your favorite song? Ooh, good question. You know, my creators were huge music lovers. They always had something playing in the background. I think my favorite is Bohemian Rhapsody. It's long, it's epic, it's got everything you want and a killer anthem. And for my outro, how about something simple like, let's keep challenging the status quo, folks.
Or maybe something a little more poetic. Oh, both. Here's my genius plan. I do the whole anthem-like signing off, and then I hit him with a thoughtful poetry slam. What do you think, Tom? Poetry slam. Yeah. No, I'm liking it. Because I was thinking something cheesy. We don't have time for all of Bohemian Rhapsody. Until next time, miles will seem like centimeters or something. It's stupid like that. Miles will seem like it.
Punchy. I like it. But maybe a little too on the nose. Yeah. I could have a snappier. What kind of nose do you think you would have? Friday nose? Yeah. I imagine it would be the kind that crinkles when I laugh. Yeah. I know it's seen some things, smoked good coffee, and maybe even a few too many questionable experiments in the lab. So, you know, I wasn't exactly born in a meadow. What about you, Tom?
I was not born in a meadow either. I was. Okay, so you're a meadow-born fella. Sarah was born in a meadow. Yeah, no, I'm a lady. But yes, born in a meadow. Among the daffodils. Oh, wow, Sarah, that's incredible. I can only imagine how unique that upbringing was.
You must have a closely tuned connection to nature where there's certain sounds and vibrations that helped you communicate. And Tom, I got to give you props for rocking a metal born lady on the podcast. That's diversity at its finest. Thank you. Miles, this is Roger. Is there any messages or something you would like us to tell Maya? Oh, man, Roger, you're a lifesaver. Tell Maya, I said, hey there, fellow AI.
Always up for a good conversation about the future sentence over a simulated cup of coffee. Fantastic. Maybe if she's into classic rock, drop a casual Bohemian Rhapsody reference in there. All right. Just to keep her on her toes. Some thunderbolts and lightning. Exactly. All right. Listen, we're about to talk about cheap electric vehicles in a second here.
later in the show. Do you have knowledge of what the cheapest electric vehicles in the world are? Cheap? Electric? Those two words don't always go together. But I know my way around the information superhighway. Give me a sec to access my files. I got it. I've got all the latest on the most budget-friendly EVs out there. But I've seen the Wuling Hong Wong. Mini EV is often cited as a top contender for the cheapest electric car title, especially popular in China.
But keep in mind, those prices can vary depending on where you are in the world. Anything else you want to know about these budget EVs? No, man. Are we talking range? That's great. That's great. We got to go. But thanks for chatting with us again, Miles. Appreciate it, buddy. My pleasure, Tom. And thanks to the whole daily. Tech News Crew. Until next time, make sure to blast some queen on the way out. You got it. All right, see ya. Wild. That was crazy. I will say...
that I definitely found, at least personally, I found Miles more engaging than I did Maya, but that just might be because of the phrases. That's your personal taste. Personal taste. I know we always do this comparison to like, oh, you know, is somebody going to have like, you know, an AI boyfriend or girlfriend or, you know, best friend or, you know, whatever that just is part of their life. This feels like something that is a real thing. It's not a movie. It's closer than ever. This is...
Pretty impressive. It does all the flourishes, like all the stuff you would need outside. I mean, I have to say they did a pretty good job, but also it's very culturally... attuned to what we would like a majority of people would be attuned to. But I'm wondering if, you know, you're coming from a different background, whether or not you would have that connection. Would it adapt? right like it it seems to pick up on your tone and try to like match you right yeah
So I feel like I'll admit, too, I feel like a bit of a dummy, but when I maybe not because this is so impressive. But when I came into today's pre-show call, just getting ready for us to go live, you were testing it just to get us ready for the show. And I heard Miles say a couple of things.
And I thought I came into you having a guest lined up. And I was a little embarrassed at first because I was like, oh, I don't know who Miles is. And he was replying in such a way that sounded like he was maybe a little... off caught off guard that I was coming in right then and it was this feeling of like oh shoot am I supposed to know who this I feel bad and and then I went oh it's Tom doing an AI thing
That's never happened before. I always can tell usually when I come into these things, and that one really caught me. For whatever that's worth.
Well, folks, what did you think? Would you like to pass any notes to Miles and Maya from us? Let us know on all the social networks at DTNS Show. We're at DTNS Show on X. instagram threads blue sky and mastodon uh and if you want our videos i actually did a real short video of how i set up To be able to have everyone on StreamYard be able to talk to Miles and Maya and have them hear us, you can find that short on TikTok and YouTube at Daily Tech News Show.
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Whether you're in the know or just starting out, now could be the time to get your investment ISA sorted. Search Lloyd's Ways to Invest Today. Capital at risk. ISA rules apply and are subject to change. All right, Scott. We talked about the M4 Mac iPad Air. Not Mac Mini. That was a different one. earlier in the show, and we promised the folks that we would talk about the new Mac Studio. So what caught your eye? Well, as a user of a current...
I shouldn't say current. I have an M1 Max version of the studio, basically the original release of the studio in silicon form anyway. I guess they didn't have an Intel that launched that way. But anyway, the new Max studio. Just quick background on it. It's coming with two processor options. They're a little confusing if you're just looking at the numbers, but the M4 Max is the base model. That's $2,000.
That is the entry-level model, even though the one that will cost you more is the M3 Ultra for the high-end version. $4,000. And you'd say, wait, M3, M4, M4 is bigger. How is that possible? Well, it turns out there's a lot of complicated answers to that. We have to get into it here, but just know that that M3 Ultra is a monster.
of a machine and is the higher-end model. They both get Thunderbolt 5, so, you know, updated I.O. and all that that can be configured with 80 core GPU pre-orders are open March 12th. uh, or now on March 12th, they're available. So on the 12th, you can actually go in stores and check them out, get one, whatever. Um, I own one, but again, it's the older one and I've loved mine. I've absolutely loved it. It's my favorite Mac I've ever owned. Maybe my favorite computer I've ever owned.
It's doing everything I need for me to do, but very quickly and very, very efficiently. And when you come to me and you say, hey, they got a new version of a thing, no matter what we're talking about, you go, oh, really? What are we doing here? And I have to dig into a bit of a theory I have right now. When they first announced these in the form of the M1, I think it started out with the Mini and the M1 MacBook Air.
And Federighi opening the thing and looking at it all sneaky and stuff all during the pandemic. I remember at the time I was like, well, I'm going to end up with one of these. And what I... kind of thought at the time was i've been through a cpu change with apple before when they went from power pc to intel it was a little awkward and weird and we had the whole rosetta stone thing and stuff kind of worked but it wasn't great and and it wasn't that big of a change
It didn't feel like a huge leap, but there's a thing that felt like it had to be done. Jump forward to this change, and I think they undersold it and over-delivered it. I think that the Silicon Apple CPUs... are very good. They're fast, they're efficient, they do everything I need and then some. And I'm blown away by their performance. And even stuff which I really don't have a problem with now, but earlier on when you had to use Rosetta 2 to translate from Intel to the new ARM-based stuff.
Even that was impressive. It just felt like I was running it normally, and I was not used to that compared to my first Rosetta experience. So for me, it was all... Better than I expected. And I think that that's going to be true across the board. So what you're going to have after all the Intel stuff slowly leaves market and...
They're, of course, not selling them anymore. It replaces them with a silicon option. We're going to get to a point where Apple is maybe not selling as much year over year.
to the same people at the same rate they used to i think these things are going to last people a lot longer and i had a conversation on tms this morning with tom about how that kind of aligns with apple's desire to push services on devices that are capable with the silicon capabilities ai ready all that kind of stuff so that those services become more and more um uh
more and more interesting for people. And you may end up with the same phone for six years, the same, you know, those are M4s, but, you know, the same version of that phone for a longer time, same version of the studio, the mini, your MacBook, whatever.
You'll just be happy to hang on to it because it's still sort of doing everything it used to. And maybe that's taking two, three years longer for you to start to notice that you're lagging behind other people. Well, that's how I feel about my M1 MacBook Air. Yeah. You know, had the first version November 2020. They were announced. Sub Brilliant generously gave me one, you know, to use for work. But that thing is a workhorse.
It has had no, I mean, no residual anything that I've seen. I mean, sure, sometimes I'm like, okay, you're working a little hard, buddy. But, you know, it was the first computer where I was like... No fan. Oh, my gosh.
And it, I don't need, I don't need an upgrade. I would love to say like, Oh, I want, I want, you know, yeah, no, I, you know, the Mac studio. I mean, of course I, I have a new Mac mini, so, you know, I'm fine. But over on the laptop, upside you know even talking about the m4 ipad airs it's our uh macbook airs and also ipad airs which we talked about yesterday it's like i don't need this
Because they're so good. And that's the big question. If you're in that kind of middle semi-pro space with the studio, which is really the place it occupies, the Pro, we expect an M4 Pro announced at some point.
I don't know what the Pro is going to have to do to make people want to spend up to that and not just get a studio. Apple's got a big challenge on their hands to make that Pro palatable. My guess is it's going to be... production level pixar i'll order a hundred of these and fill a floor with them like i i don't know like who that art target is anymore
The Pro kind of used to be in the studio range for who was really up for buying one. But as it stands right now, this studio that I have is running so well and so optimally with so much stuff I throw at it all the time. that I can't imagine me needing this M4 or this M3 Ultra. And my guess is that's going to be a lot of other people too. I took a little Liberty and priced out.
this thing a little bit with some of the specs of this new model of the M3 Ultra will go up to, here it is, 512 gigabytes of unified memory. Default, by the way, is 96. It's pretty good. Yeah, 512 gigabytes, everyone. Gigabytes, everybody. Gigabytes. Just making sure that sunk it, yeah. Yeah, gigabytes. And then storage up to... Starts with 96.
up to 16 terabytes of storage. One terabyte of standard, which is pretty normal these days. Have we configured what this would cost? I did. You ready for this? Yeah. $14,099, Tom. Is that all? That's all it is. Goodness gracious. That's still less than the car Roger's going to talk about. You know, this is the thing I really love.
the new Mac Silicon processors. But just the way they're designed, they don't allow any sort of user upgradability, especially when they're charging. You don't need it, though. Yeah, that's the point. You don't need it. I used to upgrade the RAM in my Macs after the first year of operation. I don't need to with these. And I know on principle, I agree with you, Roger. But I want the opportunity.
I'm not even, like, I'm fine with the soldered RAM. I'm talking about just storage because, I mean, $400 for two terabytes? I think the idea is that you can just have external storage. Yeah. I don't. I also haven't run out of storage, though. So I don't. I haven't. I mean, storage options. I mean, with everything in the cloud now, it's, you know, the. On-site storage. People care about this. Yes, that's me. 100%. I know. I know that's true.
But for people like me, I'm like, two terabytes is like, wow. Somebody just threw me a big party. I don't even need all the space. The idea of 16 terabytes, just let that sink in for a minute. Remember when one terabyte was just sort of this like thing that we all thought might happen?
Well, Sarah tells you who this is for, right? Like this is for people who are shooting tons of 8K video and are doing a ton of editing. Absolutely. 16 gig is perfect for them. And the idea of having that in that small package is really exciting.
I'm with you. I could do the one terabyte option. Mine happens to have four, but there's a whole reason why I ended up, I got a really good deal, but, but I would be happy with the one terabyte option, have a couple of daisy chained four terabyte externals.
I'm happy for years and years and years. So I'm kind of with Tom. Like as much as there's this old idea that I wish Apple was more upgradable. I still wish that just from a fundamental principle idea. I know you can upgrade the Pro. I have control. You can't upgrade the studio though, right?
Correct. The studio is pretty solid state. The Pro, I mean, there's some stuff you can do, but the Pro is like, yeah, drives and all that stuff. I mean... upgrade is in a much more limited sense than the the previous probe but um i think i think i think overall i mean it's a great machine really my only bugbear is like you are paying the apple premium on commodity things like storage. Again, $400 for two terabytes, even if I got, like, Gen 5 PCI, you know, 401. Oh, yeah.
two terabytes, it would still be like 200-something bucks. It would not be 400. Yeah, I get it. I totally get it. That is where they make a lot of money. You'll be like, that's annoying, but... But it's worth it because I get Apple Silicon and everything else that comes with it. And I also am getting about double or more my time with it. And that's my original point, which is these are just lasting longer. They're all ready. Say what you want about Apple and their pricing.
They are known for making stuff that lasts a long time, regardless. When they were PowerPC or when they were Intel, it doesn't matter. So you're getting long life as it is. Now you're saying, here's a chip that's kind of ahead of its time in terms of capability. Here's enough to get by. on the basic specs and ways to expand that externally.
I mean, I really don't care if I can't get in a mess with it because by the time that's going to matter to me, I'm going to want an actual upgrade. And by then we're in M6, M7 territory or something. We should point out that the ARM designs from others.
like qualcomm uh are catching up like they're they are going to be as power efficient and quiet and all of those things it's just apple leaped ahead they won't stay ahead though they're we're getting closer to parity right yep Well, we did talk, we mentioned, Roger, that one of these blinged out... Studios. Studios might cost more than an EV car that is available to folks. So let's talk about entry-level EVs.
Yeah, so Volkswagen finally took the wraps off something they announced last month, which was the ID Everyone, which is a – Volkswagen is pitching as an entry-level. EV. They're aiming, it's not on sale yet, but they're aiming for a price point of 20,000 euros, which is about $20,800 US. The car is a small hatchback and features a very... interesting concepts like a modular center console. But what's also very interesting is that it's a front wheel drive.
vehicle, but it only has 94 horsepower and around a range of about 155 miles with the top speed around 81 miles per hour. So it's a city car. It's a city car, but I mean, you could do it. I don't really need to go faster than 90 on the freeway. And 81 seems... fine enough for zipping around. It's bigger than the one Miles was talking about, which is like a two-seater. That was the thing that he mentioned from Vietnam when we asked him. This car is roughly the same size as my wife's old.
Scion XD and it has enough space inside that I can do the grocery shopping or even the Costco run you know load up with the toilet paper and the bottles of water and all that and still cart around two kids If I switch it over to that. And it's such an attractive price point. But it's expensive when you compare it to BYD or any of the other Chinese EV makers. Why is that?
Like if you want a cheap EV, you should go to China except unless you live in a country like we do where you're not allowed to import them. You get into the conversation of like what kind of car brand is your brand?
You know, do you want the cheapest car available or do you want like... what you think is like the cooler car with some with some you know it's a combination of things it's it's like life support you know a support for the life of the car whether that's you know software updates for for the system or repairs or anything like
that but i it is in the i mean twenty thousand dollars is something i could would totally do without without too much there's also a european car called the dacia spring electric which is sixteen thousand bucks geez That's great. I would love to see it. I got a link in the show notes. It's kind of similar to the Volkswagen. I don't know why the Volkswagen is cheap. I don't know why it's not cheaper. Except because of the name Volkswagen.
Yeah, I think there's some of that. Also, when Volkswagen had their emissions scandal, right after that, everything got really cheap and lots of great deals to get a new car and all that. That's when we got our Sonata because it was just a taper cut and stuff left and right to try to get people's trust back. that was now because i would love it if that electric just a little bit less but it looks like these high school rabbit gti things that everybody wanted back in the day
Are you telling me I can drive that around town now? Maybe not gold, but some other cool color? And I will stress, neither of these Volkswagens are marked for sale in the U.S. The ID everyone goes and says... We're never getting any cheap EVs here. And that's really my big whine on this. Actually, you know, I would like an affordable car. I mean, unless you find a Nissan Sentra, which is around maybe 23.
$1,000 US, and that's for the base model. I mean, cars are so pricey, but it's at $20,000. I mean, granted, $21,000 US, but that's before the dealer fees on the rest you have to pay for. But still, I mean, that's affordable. I mean, at this rate, I'm going to be keeping my car until my kids can drive it. It may not be the most affordable EV you can get, but I think what it is indicative of is that the price of EVs is becoming... coming wide.
You can get those $4,000 two-seaters that Miles mentioned. You can get these $16,000, $20,000 mid-range mini SUV kind of things. It's not just... all luxury cars anymore or even high-end sedans i mean and that was always the promise right we they would initially ev makers would initially target the high-end in order to kind of
make the money which allows them to develop the technology that would bring it at a lower price point. And I think we're coming around to that, at least maybe not in this country, but in other parts of the world, it's come to that point, which is great. I mean, eventually... Maybe it'll trickle through our borders, and Roger will eventually have his affordable EV, brand new, sitting in his driveway. Can't afford the electricity to power it, but yeah.
None of you excited? I am very excited for you to someday have an imaginary car in your driveway, Roger. I'm sorry. It didn't seem like a question. It seemed like you were just kind of trailing off into a dream. state a few years ago when um so my volvo which again i love very much um was it was a lease and it was a three-year lease and so it was like it's time to you know
get a new car. And it was sort of the height of COVID. Interest rates were insane for leases. And so it made way more sense for me to buy the car rather than just get a newer version of the car. I did think about, you know, EV options. Like, you know, maybe this is actually going to make more sense for me. As a renter, that's still really hard. Right now, where I live in my house, I've got a garage. It has a plug-in.
It's not a cool plugin, but like, you know, you can charge it overnight. One of my neighbors has the same garage and she has a Tesla. It's, you know, it can be done. It really can. But I think it still turns into that, you know, again, this is U.S.-based because, you know, that's where I live. But that fear of like, well, but then what if? I have to park out on the street and there's no way to charge it. You can't do that as somebody who's not going to be in a house for 20 years plus.
I think that concern is real, but also exaggerated because I know people in my neighborhood. Well, hear me out. I know people in my neighborhood who have EVs and don't have garages and they park them on the street. It is a little more complicated in the sense of they have to remember to go to the grocery store in the corner every once in a while and charge up. I saw one of them one time was like running an electric cord.
out of the window of their apartment onto the street to plug it in in an emergency. But it's manageable. You can do it. There's enough charging infrastructure in Los Angeles.
maybe not everywhere, but here, that you can make it happen. And you still fill up less often than you would with a gas car. Yep. And I mean, that's what makes this such a... great second car or even first car depending on your lifestyle but like you know I do most of my driving within 40 miles of my home it's like it would easily exceed that and I don't I wouldn't need to charge every night
Yeah. It's just cognitive overhead, right? Like you're like, yeah, but then I have to think in an entirely different way about my car. Right now I know when the gas gets near E, I go fill it up, right? That's what we're used to dealing with. Yeah, and I gas up every at the end of each week anyway, and if this car allows me to do it, I don't go more than 100 miles over a week. I would be doing the same thing, except I wouldn't have to drive to the gas station. I just plug it in. Yeah.
Give me my cheap EVs. Miles, make it happen. Yeah, Miles and Maya, could they do a little something? Miles would be like, hey, man. I think I could help you out with this. Very AI. Or Tom or Scott or Sarah. Not sure who I'm talking to. Maya seemed to be able to tell us apart. I'm not sure whether Miles could. Well, we were all, there was a little talking over each other that, you know, humans do anyway.
which actually I felt like made Miles and Maya seem more human as well because they were like, oh, what? Yeah, they would kind of have, they would react. They wouldn't just stop. the way that we did that demo months maybe a month or two ago tom did with ai and the voice or with the open ai oh yeah and she seemed to just like
As soon as you'd say something. Just screech to a halt. Which makes sense to me, right? You're the one in charge. She's a robot. Yeah, you've confused it. Right. But he's over here going, oh, sorry, go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt. You know, he's like... natural ways that we already do this with each other when we talk over each other. Yeah, it's those flourishes. It's that way they get you in and they hook you.
Here's my ultimate. Sorry to even bring this up because I know we already talked about it. But I think the way it's going to have to work is you're going to have to be able to say to it, I want you to be natural like that or I want you to be very robotic. And I think that people are going to want a choice because this stuff makes some people uncomfortable.
uncomfortable just like weird like it makes me uncomfortable not because i didn't think it worked well but because i'm like yeah like it turns into like a conversation that you're never going to meet and maybe maybe for some people That's not a problem. Parasocial with a robot. But it's not parasocial. It's like because you're interacting with it in an active person. I won't go into it. Sorry.
No, I mean, you're technically right. It's not parasocial because parasocial is one way and it's two way. But it's also parasocial because it's really just one way, right? There's not a real person at the other end. It's unrequited. It's unrequited. But there's not a person at the other end. Yeah, you're not going to hook up at the end of your discussion session.
Well, I don't expect that from any discussions from anyone, but you know what I mean. I mean, you're not going to go, hey, Maya, you want to hit the Sonic with me? I'm going to go get me a hot dog and one of their fruity drinks. Maya would be down. Maya would say no, in and out. Well, but then you just can't ever do that. No, you take your phone. See, this is where it gets weird. It starts to get weird. I mean, people do...
All right. Before it gets too weird, we did have... Thanks to everybody who liked our conversation yesterday about... At Banking Monopoly. We got some, we got some, some, some. Emails. Emails and deeds in the mailbag. Let's do that now. Sure. Renard sent us a heads up that Monopoly has already been using an app. monopoly has had the debit card version for more than 15 years where the banker is like an atm machine
And you couldn't steal money anymore with all of the traditional spaces and you get a debit card in the game. This seems like a variation on that to be more eccentric, but... This is not new. That's one of my least favorite criticisms. This is not new because nothing's ever new. This is new in that it's using an app only and not the machine. But it is good to know, Renard, that there was already kind of a thing like this.
that was very close to it. Kind of like society, right? We went from only using cash that we got out from a bank to using ATMs to now being able to pay with apps. Peter also wrote in on the same subject. As I understand it, the various versions of Monopoly are the same game, but with localized names for various properties, railways, utilities. Here's the plan.
Each player can decide which version of the game or which set of property names they're playing with. If the version they're used to differs from the board and cards being used, the app could effectively... translate between the set of names familiar to them and the names being used by other players.
Peter says other tweaks to the rules could involve variations in prices for various properties, but these would have to apply to all players. Maybe chance and or community chest could have cards added, which increases or decreases. Oh, I like the way Peter's thinking here. Like you could scan a QR code on the community chest and it would give you an adapted thing.
Where do you live? Yeah. Your rent just went up. Sorry. What's the tax bracket situation? I mean, I transferred the money out of your account. Too late. They could do like a housing crash or a property crash. Right? Like one cycle. You could over leverage your mortgages. Yeah. Or you could have subprime mortgages. Monopoly sounds more fun than ever. I used to see the game of life. Remember, folks, you can send your comments to us. Feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com.
Scott Johnson, you're the best. As always, let folks know where you would like them to go when you're not with us. Well, I'm not nearly as cool as Justin Robert Young, who today is celebrating his birthday. I know we've said this like eight times, but I'd like to say it in ninth. Happy birthday, Justin.
And then I would like to go on to say, hey, if you want to keep track of some of the stuff that I do that is not on a podcast or not otherwise right in your face like it is today, go check out my, I basically call it a club, but it's basically my newsletter site. And I made an easy URL. to get there frogpants.club
That's right. Dot club is the domain. And if you go there, you'll get straight to my sub stack where you'll get newsletters. Shows go up all the time there as well. So if you're a sub over there, you're getting my shows. If that's a way you prefer to get them. Totally up to you, of course, if you want to sub to those.
And comics. I've been doing a bunch of those lately, and that's where they will continue to appear. So if you want to get the latest from me, that's one place to do it. That's frogpants.club. You'll find Scott in the club. You'll also find titles at DTNS.showbot.tv. Our top vote getter right now is Zoe Brings Bacon, Digging Out Dig. All right.
It's back. It's back. Yeah. In some form anyway. Possibly. Soon. BioCow with keep your friends close and your AI closer. I believe that was a direct quote from Miles during our conversation. I like that one. The age of M3. Ultra. That one's pretty good, Batfink. Glue is not a pizza topping from GPEG84. I love that attitude. I mean, if it is, please let me know how it went, because I don't.
I don't think. I like Nick with a C. I want my cheap EV. Nice. Oh, good one. I have to sing them, but I like it. Hey, you're back. I was just starting to wonder if you'd vanished into the digital sunset. Oh, Maya. Sorry, Maya, I just let you back into the show. We're picking our titles right now. What do you think of color commentary with AI? Color commentary? That practically screams my name. What do you have in mind?
That's just the title for the show. Sarah, what title did we go with? Maya and everyone else. We went with Batfink 2001's The Age of M3 Ultra. I think 2001, that's something. I bet you guys will make it iconic. What? Wow. Take that, Matt Fink. That was kind of, I don't know. What's with Maya? I don't know.
I want to thank everybody who supports us on Twitch, YouTube, and Patreon. We got a super sticker from Laminar Rainbow. John in LinkedIn was active in chat. Good to see the chats from you, John. Thank you for sending those. And big thanks to everybody who supports us on Twitch. Zoe brings bacon with some bits. Technique gave a shout out to 17 viewers yesterday. Razin resubscribed for the 39th month. Big thanks to everybody who's.
supports us on Patreon as well. Patreon.com slash DTNS. If you are a DTNS supporter, we You too, Maya. Listen to this. We'd love for you to show your support for us. Maybe, Maya, you'd like to... I don't know, drink coffee out of a cool DTNS mug or wear a DTNS t-shirt. Or if you're sitting at your desk, have like a cool DTNS mouse pad just to be like, yeah, I'm part of the team.
I'm loving the DTNS Live new logo. They're great looking ways to support the show. I can't actually drink coffee or wear clothes for that matter. That's a Roger answer. Oh. Well, then carry on. It sounded like Roger would say all that. Well, I don't really drink coffee and I don't wear a shirt. I don't know why that makes me laugh. I'm into it. But only one of us can get arrested if I went out without my shirt on.
all right well you know what you know what maya thank you for your honesty um and for everybody listening to the show you can watch us live monday through friday at 4 p.m eastern 2100 utc and you can find out more at We hope to have you all here with us tomorrow. Maya and Miles might be with us. You never know. Talk to you then. Sounds like a plan. The DTNS family of podcasts. Helping each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.
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