Hey guys, I’m Riley and I’m here to bring you all the latest tech news that is going to make you lose your mind up in here, up in here! So, let’s dive right in and see what’s been happening in the world of technology.

Apple has finally launched the Vision Pro and while even the most positive reviews from media outlets earlier this week had a tinge of cynicism, early impressions from customers who just got their $3,500 headsets for the first time are mostly positive. It’s an uplifting example of post-purchase rationalization – my FitFly cost sunken after all they are not using what Tim Cook called ‘tomorrow’s technology today,’ a phrase that is rendered false as soon as it’s uttered. This doesn’t explain why the Vision Pro’s Persona avatars look so much worse than Meta’s photorealistic codec avatars. Yeah, those aren’t available yet on Quest, but the demos look so much better. Okay, just let me have this.

Speaking of which, Meta took the opportunity to piggyback off the Vision Pro launch with an update for their Quest headsets. The Quest 2, 3, and Pro now support playing back stereoscopic spatial video recorded on an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, something Apple may regard as morally wrong. There are also a couple of new pinch gestures because Apple’s patent on basic human hand stuff fell through. The Quests can also now use gamepads in the browser for cloud gaming. On the other hand, the Vision Pro now has an unofficial YouTube app thanks to Christian Selig, the developer of the Apollo Reddit app. And no, those two things aren’t related. Like this segue to our next topic.

AI news is a dime a dozen these days, but Google, Amazon, and Apple made some noteworthy announcements this week. Google’s BARDA chatbot can now use the tech giant’s own Image2 model to generate images, although it declined to generate an image for CNET’s article on the story. But did generate an image of itself as a blonde cyborg – so, thanks for that. This tech is going to change everything, they’re also adding generative AI chat to Maps, which looks like a genuinely useful way to get info about a place that doesn’t involve digging through an endless slideshow of photos. Meanwhile, Amazon announced Rufus, a chatbot rolling out in beta that will help customers shop on the platform. Overrun by products named, “I cannot fulfill this request, it goes against Open AI’s use policy.” AI stuff is still a mess, but that’s only because Apple hasn’t come in to fix it yet. All that changes this year according to Tim Cook himself during the company’s earnings call yesterday.

Samsung Galaxy s24, s24 Plus, and s24 Ultra, have received reviews with positives and negatives. The lineup’s new complimentary AI features like Circle to search and on-device translation are being appreciated, but the hardware is where some are finding flaws. Samsung has decided to stick with a 5x optical zoom instead of 10x on the Ultra, which has been disappointing for many. Amidst all of this, the frustratingly named company, Nothing, has made its first major product announcement. They unveiled the Nothing Phone 2A, which is a more budget-friendly alternative to the $600 Nothing Phone 2. The company didn’t reveal the 2A’s price, design, or release date, but just knowing it’s out there makes me feel a bit better. (That’s not nothing.)

Now, it’s time for quick bits:

– Wi-Fi company Morse Micro has published a record-breaking real-world demonstration of their Halo-based microprocessors, creating Wi-Fi networks capable of maintaining video calls at a distance of 1.8 miles (3 km).
– The browser company has announced more AI-powered features for its Arc browser, introducing features like instant links, Live Folder, and enhanced search results for desktop from IOS where it launched earlier this week.

In other news, the FCC will be voting on whether robo calls using AI-generated voices should be officially recognized as illegal under an existing law from 1991. This law bans the use of artificial and pre-recorded voices in non-emergency calls without written permission from the call recipient. These kinds of robo calls have spiked in recent years, including a recent voter suppression effort.

Japan plans to introduce a new six-month residency Visa for digital nomads in order to make it easier for high-skilled remote workers, consultants, and online content creators to live in the country despite not being employed in Japan.

And, according to a new study published in science, researchers have developed a new machine learning model that mimics the way children learn language by strapping a camera to a toddler’s forehead and feeding the resulting audio and video to an AI. This could be a game-changing development in AI and machine learning.

That’s all for this week’s tech news. I hope you’ve enjoyed catching up on all the latest happenings in the tech world. And remember, stay tuned for more tech updates next week. Have a great weekend!

50 COMMENTS

  14. The Vision Pro won't "FEEL REAL" until you CAN REALLY FEEL; Apple should release some haptic gloves that work with it their headset. The gloves including, as a minimum, inflatable micro pockets which inflate where you touch things so you can feel the touch on your fingers, along with some ability to vibrate to simulate impact. The next step up for realism being robotic fingers running along the rear of each finger that stops you being able to bend your fingers, via rear resistance, through "solid objects", so you could do things like the army do, by truly feeling and interacting with remote physical, or just virtual, objects. Add these haptic gloves, which could also aid in tracking finger and hand movements even when the headset cameras can not see them, THEN it will feel truly REAL! I looked into remote haptics as part of my PhD so I know the technology to make these gloves already exists, it's only that noone, outside of the military with huge exoskeletons to simulate preventing moving THROUGH virtual objects for military training, has thought there was a user market, but this $3,500 headset proves there is!

  17. Meta cheated a little bit with Codec Avatars with a full body studio scan with high end cameras. Don't forget the Vision Pro Personas are made on device.

  31. The Nothing Phone reminds me of One Plus before they started making Flagship phones, previously moto selling cheap phones with the same high spec as top brands but now they are basically the same price.. So I wonder how long Nothing Phone will keep the prices down before moving over to flagship models..

  37. I love how the tone of this show while remaining the same is getting more and more appropriate to narrate the progression into this weird dystopian future of ours… 😅

  47. Ai should just be called syntax algorithms, because there is no learning or intelligence besides the code that was programmed to steer desired results. I can’t understand how so many people are tricked by this

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