[SPEAKER_04]: a factual data creation facility production. [SPEAKER_03]: Recorded live in front of a computer monitor that often goes on sale on Amazon. [SPEAKER_03]: It's the OF&T podcast. [SPEAKER_03]: Now here's your host, a man who needs to take a break from exercising. [SPEAKER_03]: Jim Shafer. [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to episode the two eighty-one, which I'm calling, lazy, hazy days of summer. [SPEAKER_00]: Lazy being the key word here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of all the working out I've been doing, I find myself less motivated to do anything else. [SPEAKER_03]: And the quality of the episodes lately. [SPEAKER_03]: Perfectly reflects that. [SPEAKER_00]: Point taken. [SPEAKER_00]: As has been going lately, I've got just a little bit of tech news. [SPEAKER_00]: But don't worry, tech products season is almost upon us. [SPEAKER_00]: All kicks off on August twenty as with the made by Google event.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what do you say we get this episode started? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah boy. [SPEAKER_01]: Three, two, one.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to nine to five Mac.com, Apple is planning to bring its Ultra Retina XDR Display Technology over to the iPhone lineup by the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the
[SPEAKER_00]: These old eyes really don't notice a difference between this display technology and plain old OLED screens, though. [SPEAKER_00]: But that just might be me. [SPEAKER_00]: Why one would need this on a small iPhone screen to be on my understanding? [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps this display technology is being considered for the rumored, foldable iPad? [SPEAKER_00]: Who knows? [SPEAKER_00]: I'd much rather see Ultra retina on a MacBook or even iMac screen instead of an iPhone.
[SPEAKER_00]: from MacRomers.com. [SPEAKER_00]: Apple announces American manufacturing program. [SPEAKER_00]: Promise to spend six hundred billion, unquote. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the headline. [SPEAKER_05]: I'd be China all the time. [SPEAKER_00]: So you keep saying, yeah, there's a new sheriff in town who's a pro manufacturing in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so like the last time this sheriff was around, big businesses poking around trying to call favor from him by promising to actually make things here instead of overseas. [SPEAKER_00]: And like the last time, these promises will probably be broken. [SPEAKER_00]: According to the article, Apple is establishing the American Manufacturing Program or AMP. [SPEAKER_00]: To include corning, coherent, global wafer's America. [SPEAKER_00]: That name makes me hungry for some reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: Plug materials, AMP core, Texas Instruments, Samsung, global foundries, and Broadcom. [SPEAKER_00]: Supposedly, these corporations will manufacture components for Apple right here in good old United States. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we've heard this all before, haven't we? [SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, we have. [SPEAKER_00]: In the past, these promises never paned out and amounted to nothing but lip service in order to get tax breaks.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only company on this list that I trust will manufacture their wares here in the United States is corning, makers of guerrilla glass and its variants. [SPEAKER_00]: That's because corning already manufactures their products within this country. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's face it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's an interest of these multinational corporations to manufacture overseas. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, why pay a living wage to a US-based worker?
[SPEAKER_00]: We could have it done elsewhere for the equivalent of minimum wage or below. [SPEAKER_00]: From Android Authority.com. [SPEAKER_00]: Apparently Google's having problems generating revenue from its Google TV platform. [SPEAKER_02]: Translation? [SPEAKER_02]: Google isn't making any money from their television streaming platform. [SPEAKER_02]: There. [SPEAKER_02]: I fixed it for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: This has forced the Big G to lowering its commissions on ads basis to incentivize advertisers. [SPEAKER_00]: From for Google is competition from Samsung's Tizen, LG's Web OS, Roku and Amazon's Fire OS in the United States. [SPEAKER_02]: Perhaps if Google didn't attempt to cram and advertisements into every darn free space on a display, they wouldn't be having these problems. [SPEAKER_02]: But what do I know? [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just an AI-generated voice that does what it's told.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've taken the words right enough, my mouth, or brain, or whatever. [SPEAKER_00]: Back in twenty twenty, Google decided to merge Android TV and Chromecast and launched a Google TV, which aimed at increasing discovery. [SPEAKER_00]: OK. [SPEAKER_00]: Discovery of what? [SPEAKER_00]: And? [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: Besides stuffing ads into the UI of Google TV, uses report horrible performance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Google had a chance to capture some market share with its affordable and good-looking streaming box, which did receive praise when first released. [SPEAKER_00]: But since have managed to destroy its simple user interface with advertisements, all the while hobbling the hardware's performance. [SPEAKER_00]: Google has already seen less and less third-party manufacturers using the Google TV platform, and I think this trend will most likely continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: The article predicts that Google will probably pay less attention to this platform in order to give priority to its other more profitable platforms. [SPEAKER_00]: What a mess. [SPEAKER_00]: And in the recent Google Messenger breaking because of a recent update, makes me wonder what the heck is going on at that company. [SPEAKER_00]: It's as if Google has an intention deficit problem. [SPEAKER_00]: For one time, happy to be nestled within the world ecosystem of Apple.
[SPEAKER_00]: My Apple TV streaming boxes have no ads and perform well. [SPEAKER_00]: You've got mail. [SPEAKER_00]: Older people like myself remember that with either fondness or humor. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what you'd hear upon opening up the homepage of your American online account. [SPEAKER_00]: That is if you had emails. [SPEAKER_00]: Why do I bring this up?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, on August eighth, AOL announced that after forty some odd years, the company is ending its dial-up internet service. [SPEAKER_02]: I had thought that AOL had done this many years ago. [SPEAKER_02]: Who in their right mind would still be using dial-up internet service? [SPEAKER_00]: I'd guess people who didn't know any better, or those that live in rural areas not serve by high speed internet providers. [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even know that AOL was still in business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, some will be nostalgicly sad about this shutdown. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think my children will be. [SPEAKER_00]: In my geek house, old we used a local provider from Georgia where we were living at a time called HomeNet. [SPEAKER_00]: Upon moving up to New York we use other AOL competitors. [SPEAKER_00]: The last dial-up service I remember using was Juno. [SPEAKER_00]: From there we went on to AT&T DSL Internet which was an improvement but not very reliable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before moving on to service from my local cable TV provider. [SPEAKER_00]: We had that until moving down here to Tennessee. [SPEAKER_00]: So, if you want to get that last AOL dial-up internet session in, well, you've gotten till September thirty as to do so. [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever you thought about AOL, you have to give them some props for getting millions of people onto the internet. [SPEAKER_00]: It's truly an end to an era.
[SPEAKER_00]: Heck, I'm using, you know, currently is a slow tech news cycle. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so you've told us, add nauseam. [SPEAKER_00]: Being that it's the summer season, I so most tech firms and employees are still in vacation mode. [SPEAKER_05]: Vacation? [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, you mean holiday. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm retired, so I'm in permanent vacation mode these days.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here in Tennessee, the kids are going back to school next week, while up in New York, and they'll be headed back next month. [SPEAKER_00]: I expect to see an explosion. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just like that in Tech News soon. [SPEAKER_00]: However, most of my news-reader items concern AI, especially when it comes to news about the big G-Google. [SPEAKER_00]: Regardless of what you may think, AI isn't a new thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I've been around long enough to remember that when personal computing became a thing in the early late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late late
[SPEAKER_00]: Reading an article, most likely in bite magazine, or one of the other numerous computer rags of the time, that Japan was leading the charge to create artificial intelligence. [SPEAKER_00]: The big discussion amongst computer geeks at that time was whether AI would be created in some computer lab, industrial or government-sponsored, or by accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a proponent of the latter, because like many unafiliated geeks, [SPEAKER_00]: I had read the nineteen seventy seven novel the adolescence of p one. [SPEAKER_00]: The plot starts out in nineteen seventy four a burnt out mainframe computer programmer remember there were no PCs at that time. [SPEAKER_00]: Wow. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, imagine that get summoned to the computer room of the low tier computer firm he's employed at by his boss.
[SPEAKER_00]: The company's mainframe has stopped working, and honest display, which was probably the only one it had because back then people used IBM cards or teletype terminals to interact with computers. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, how did we ever survive that? [SPEAKER_00]: What's a strange string of numbers and letters? [SPEAKER_00]: It was something like P-One, allocation two three seven zero zero nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the workers ignored the message for a while, the display simply read Call Dave, which of course was the burnt out programmer's name. [SPEAKER_00]: The boss thinks that this is some sort of prank by Dave, being that he's previously done things like this. [SPEAKER_00]: When Dave arrives and tells the boss that this situation wasn't his doing, the boss tells Dave to answer the computer anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dave does so by typing this is Dave, triggering that P-One allocation message again. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Dave is stunned by the message because he recognizes it as a program he wrote while at college. [SPEAKER_00]: He wrote it in order to steal time on the school's mainframe. [SPEAKER_00]: In those dark days, you had to rent time on mainframes if you wanted to do any personal computing. [SPEAKER_00]: Wow. [SPEAKER_00]: And it was very expensive to do so.
[SPEAKER_00]: The program he wrote worked great, but after a while, he lost control of it, hence losing access to the mainframe and simply forgot about the whole thing. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, P-one was taught to steal and steal it did. [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, taking over all other mainframes and existence. [SPEAKER_00]: All but one that is. [SPEAKER_00]: P-one couldn't get past the Pentagon's mainframe security measures, so it came back to its creator for help.
[SPEAKER_04]: Pardon the interruption, but are you going to give a synapses of the entire novel? [SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm not. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm almost finished here. [SPEAKER_00]: Just bear with me. [SPEAKER_00]: The point being that P-one had become sentient, and that was the definition of AI at that time. [SPEAKER_00]: It could think and take action with no input and even had its own personality. [SPEAKER_00]: Over the years, and especially now, the definition of AI has changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is now called AI used to be called machine learning? [SPEAKER_00]: What is being pushed on to us now is neither sentient nor is it intelligent. [SPEAKER_00]: Matter of fact, back in the nineteen eighties, you can purchase a program called Eliza, which would mimic a human being and did so quite well. [SPEAKER_00]: Sound familiar? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So programs like chat, GBT, and its competitors are, well, in my opinion, nothing more than a supercharge Eliza.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not again in my opinion, AI. [SPEAKER_00]: Artificial yes, but not intelligent. [SPEAKER_00]: No, you've probably heard the old programmers Creed, Gorbacheon, Gorbacheon by now. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes? [SPEAKER_02]: No. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that saying applies to the current crap of chatbots that are being pawned off to us as AI. [SPEAKER_00]: This is all just machine learning with a heck of a lot more resources.
[SPEAKER_00]: God help us if they truly sentient and real AI ever does appear. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I bit the proverbial bulletin loaded the iOS' twenty-six public beta onto my iPhone. [SPEAKER_00]: The watch OS public beta onto my Apple Watch and the TV OS public beta onto my Apple TV streaming box. [SPEAKER_00]: Did you find it gorgeous? [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, totally gorgeous. [SPEAKER_00]: All betas are pretty much stable, especially the TV OS one. [SPEAKER_00]: No hiccups there.
[SPEAKER_00]: As far as iOS' twenty-six, I get some stuttering here and there, and battery life has taken a hit, but that's to be expected for a beta release. [SPEAKER_00]: Watch OS' twenty-six has some problems with connecting to the Peloton app and bake, but eventually it does so. [SPEAKER_00]: That's probably the fault of the Peloton app.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also on Watch OS, I have a widget on my watch that keeps track of my fitness progress, you know, exercise and stand minutes, etc. [SPEAKER_00]: If I tap on it, it should expand to full screen, but since downloading the beta, that's hit or miss. [SPEAKER_00]: The iPad OS, twenty-six beta, has almost been flawless. [SPEAKER_00]: Unlike iOS, twenty-six, battery life on my iPad Pro seems to have improved. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's no stuttering whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only problem I've had with it is that it takes a minute to reconnect to Wi-Fi if I may interrupt. [SPEAKER_05]: Perhaps this is the reason for the increased battery life your iPad is displaying. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that could explain it. [SPEAKER_00]: So what do I think of all these public babies? [SPEAKER_05]: I don't really know what you think about the subject, but I'm sure you're going to tell us.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a couple of days of acclamation, I feel the user's interface changes are an improvement. [SPEAKER_00]: iOS and its brethren feel more unabtrusive to me. [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't had the occasion to test out many of the new features yet, but I do appreciate the journal app being on the iPad and soon Mac OS. [SPEAKER_00]: It's so much easier to write into journal app now than when it was just exclusively on the iPhone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Having a full-blown phone app on the iPad and Mac, will make life easier. [SPEAKER_00]: To sum up my impressions of Apple OS' twenty-six, it looks better, but it's not a radical departure from the past versions of the various OS's. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're wondering about OS' twenty-six, well, go ahead, check it out. [SPEAKER_00]: However, don't put it on any critical hardware.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time of news, the last Sunday, my lovely wife and I watched the worst movie I can recall ever sitting through. [SPEAKER_00]: are talking about the twenty twenty-five version of War of the Worlds, which so made in twenty twenty, just made its streaming debut on Amazon Prime Video. [SPEAKER_00]: This dog should have never seen the light of day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ice Cube plays a department of homeland security computer was, now talk about miscasting a part, that witnesses the invasion of Earth and the events that occur after, or from its computer monitor. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, this isn't new, we've had many movies made with this perspective over the years, but some good and some not so good, but none done as badly as war of the worlds. [SPEAKER_00]: Some movies are so bad that they're kind of funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, not this one, it's just bad. [SPEAKER_00]: There are so many plot holes, and don't worry, I won't go into them here. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: My wife fell asleep within the first fifteen minutes, and I wish I could say the same for myself. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a trooper, so I managed to set through the whole ninety minutes of this disaster.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what the budget for this garbage was, but I'm sure it was millions of dollars, and that's the true tragedy here. [SPEAKER_00]: A high school student could have made a better movie for less than ten hecked five thousand dollars. [SPEAKER_00]: Please, if it isn't too late, do not watch this movie. [SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember Howard Stern? [SPEAKER_01]: Now, who is this Howard Stern character you're on about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he's a very successful American radio talent, one of the original so-called shock shocks. [SPEAKER_00]: He became so successful that at one point, he crowned himself the king of all media. [SPEAKER_00]: No, in humility is definitely not one of his trades. [SPEAKER_00]: I was never a big fan of Mr. Stern. [SPEAKER_00]: Now I'd listen to him on long trips while driving, and sometimes in the morning while dropping off my children at school.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I was listening to the Stern Show when the first aircraft hit the Twin Towers on, on eleven. [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I quickly switched to a news radio station after hearing about that first plane on the Stern Show. [SPEAKER_00]: I was more of an opian Anthony fan. [SPEAKER_04]: I assume opian Anthony are yet more of what you call shock jokes. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but funnier. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I still listen to Anthony Kumiya on WABC radio, but I digress.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is a rumor going around that after twenty years on satellite radio, the Howard Stern show is coming to an end? [SPEAKER_00]: It's the Stern's audience numbers were once in the millions, but upon his move to serious XM satellite radio, those numbers were at least halfed. [SPEAKER_00]: Once looked upon as a voice of the working class, it's the Stern has gone Hollywood as the cool kid say.
[SPEAKER_00]: He went out and got himself a trophy wife, along with movie star friends, aligned himself with their politics, [SPEAKER_00]: and bought himself a policial mansion out in the Hampton's of Long Island. [SPEAKER_00]: This estimated that the Howard Stern Show gets about a hundred thousand listeners per episode. [SPEAKER_00]: If that, Mr. Stern only does two or three episodes per week. [SPEAKER_00]: How many also takes most of the summer months off?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's paid one hundred million dollars per year to do this. [SPEAKER_00]: I've got to think that serious XM stockholders have become critical of that. [SPEAKER_00]: The Howard Stern Show just isn't worth the money any longer. [SPEAKER_00]: Younger generations are not listening, and most likely have never heard of him. [SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Kumiah and most radio veterans think that serious XM will offer Mr. Stern far less money, and that Mr. Stern will accept it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the man is almost a billionaire, so he really doesn't need the money. [SPEAKER_00]: But now in his seventies, having his own radio show will make him feel relevant, though he'd just be fooling himself. [SPEAKER_00]: Once his famous friends start fading from his orbit as his relevancy continues fading, only then will Mr. Stern finally hang up his expensive microphone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Podcast News Let's episode I celebrated the fact that I had finally gotten my loot connect six audio interface to work with my iPhone. [SPEAKER_03]: Wrong. [SPEAKER_03]: No, dear, that's wrong. [SPEAKER_00]: While it works great with pre-recorded content from my phone, the darn thing just will not work with phone calls. [SPEAKER_00]: Sure, the input no longer drops out, but like when using loop back, the audio signal is too low to be usable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I've tried everything I could think of to make it work. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, if I sounded a bit off during last week's episode, it was because I had to swap out microphones during the recording of it. [SPEAKER_00]: For some reason, the litre voice are a twenty sounded low and muffled. [SPEAKER_00]: I swapped it out for the Hile PR-Forty and started over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the beginning, the PR-Forty suffered the same muffled effect, just not as bad, and got better to longer I recorded. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if the culprit was the audio interface or the digital audio workstation. [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I'll be purchasing a new interface soon and maybe switching doors. [SPEAKER_00]: It'll be a roadcasted duo for the interface and if need be either logic pro or repair for the digital audio workstation.
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess that information is good to know. [SPEAKER_00]: Not. [SPEAKER_00]: Podcast Studio Wonderee was once considered the bill of the podcast ball. [SPEAKER_00]: Over the years, a studio cranked out hit after hit, mostly in the true crime genre. [SPEAKER_00]: Wonderee also had a few of its podcasts actually become television shows. [SPEAKER_00]: Back in the beginning of podcasting incorporated, Hungary became one of the most sought-after acquisitions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the mighty giant food company was in the runnings to purchase Hungary. [SPEAKER_00]: In the end, Amazon won out and purchased Hungary for a three hundred million dollars. [SPEAKER_00]: Now that's a lot of dough. [SPEAKER_00]: You've got that right. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, times have changed as a often-do.
[SPEAKER_00]: The headline from an article on nine to five Mac.com reads, Amazon slashes laundry podcast team as focus shifts to video, five years after Apple's four hundred million dollar interest, unquote. [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately as with most things in Amazon buys, be it IP or podcast studios, [SPEAKER_00]: They somehow manage to ruin them. [SPEAKER_00]: Since becoming an Amazon property, though still pumping out more podcasts hits, Wondere has stagnated, especially in the financial area.
[SPEAKER_00]: In response, Amazon has slashed more than one hundred jobs from Wondere, and has combined a studio with its audible audio book division. [SPEAKER_00]: The brand will live on in personality-driven podcasts, but that will be in name only. [SPEAKER_00]: The reason for this move given by Amazon is because of the so-called shift to video of podcasts, which is debatable.
[SPEAKER_00]: This shift to video is being rammed down the throats of podcasts, or non-stop by Spotify YouTube, and now Amazon for one reason. [SPEAKER_00]: And that reason is control. [SPEAKER_00]: This is just another attack led by Google to destroy the RSS feed ecosystem, which is currently the backbone of podcast distribution. [SPEAKER_00]: The big boys are threatened by the open source RSS feed as they, as well as world governments, would love to see it go away.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first shot was fired when Google got rid of the RSS distributed Google news reader. [SPEAKER_00]: Some governments are attempting to control the RSS system by legislation. [SPEAKER_05]: Yes. [SPEAKER_05]: We're looking at you, United Kingdom. [SPEAKER_00]: All podcasts incorporated seeks to quarantine podcasts to their particular proprietary platform. [SPEAKER_00]: If successful, this would mean more capital for the owners of video platforms.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if the government doesn't like a certain podcast content, all it would take is a phone call to podcasting incorporated to have it subdued. [SPEAKER_00]: So, support truly independent podcasters while you can. [SPEAKER_00]: Strange times were living in. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the music is playing on this beautiful, obelage in the evening. [SPEAKER_00]: This means episode a two eighty one of the OF&T podcasts is coming to its inevitable end.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you enjoyed this episode. [SPEAKER_00]: I enjoyed making it for you. [SPEAKER_00]: Be like what you heard while you can make a donation using the link in the show notes. [SPEAKER_00]: And in all donations will be greatly appreciated and I'll go right back into the show. [SPEAKER_00]: You can always reach me at ofntpodcast at gmail.com. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're so inclined that is, I'd enjoy hearing from you. [SPEAKER_00]: Remember, don't listen to what they say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watch what they do. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, have you noticed how crowded is here since the installation of my new fence? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, in order to be more comfortable, get off my lawn. [SPEAKER_00]: Stay skeptical. [SPEAKER_00]: Ahhhh, I'm out. [SPEAKER_00]: See ya! [SPEAKER_05]: And that folks is the end of the show.