This Week in Tech 1066 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Leo Laporte [00:00:00]:
It's time for TWiT this Week in Tech. It's our annual CES wrap up and we have three great hosts who were at CES this year. Padre, Father Robert Padre, SJ, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from the Verge, and Jason Heiner. CES, it turns out, was a pretty interesting show this year. From robots that fall over to toilets that take pictures of your business. We will cover it, all of it, next on twit podcasts you love from people you trust. This is twit. This is TWiT this Week in Tech.
Leo Laporte [00:00:45]:
Episode 1066, recorded Sunday, January 11, 2026. A supercomputer in your pocket. It's time for TWiT this Week in Tech. Hello, everybody. Time to talk about the week's tech news. And of course, this week was ces. And so we have traditional yearly CES panel. Jennifer Pattison Tuohy is here.
Leo Laporte [00:01:09]:
She is a senior reviewer at the Verge and covered all sorts of stuff at ces. How many days at CES did you spend?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:01:17]:
Oh, gosh, I got there on Saturday and left on Friday.
Leo Laporte [00:01:19]:
That's too long.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:01:20]:
That's too long.
Leo Laporte [00:01:21]:
I'm sure you felt the same way.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:01:23]:
Yes.
Leo Laporte [00:01:24]:
One of our, one of our regulars, Scott Wilkinson, wears a pedometer at CES every year and covers 30 miles, typically. I mean, just a huge. Yeah, a lot of foot sore.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:01:34]:
Yeah, it can be pretty exhausting. But it's also like for a tech nerd, it's like the Oscars and Christmas and the super bowl all at once.
Leo Laporte [00:01:42]:
Maybe this year. Yeah. Also with us, Jason Heiner. He is former editor in chief at ZDNet, now editor in chief at the Deep View, which is an AI website and newsletter which you should subscribe to because it's free. And actually, Jason is making his second appearance this week. You called us from McCarran Airport at Vegas as you were leaving Las Vegas on Wednesday.
Jason Hiner [00:02:03]:
Yes, yes.
Leo Laporte [00:02:04]:
And we got a quick report. But now I want all the deets.
Jason Hiner [00:02:08]:
The full deal.
Leo Laporte [00:02:09]:
All the deets. And also with us, our annual reporter from ces, Father Robert Balassere, the digital Jesuit. Many years now, he's been. The only sad thing is in the. In years past, when I had a studio, you would come with a bag full of stuff of goodies.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:02:24]:
Yep, yep.
Leo Laporte [00:02:25]:
Where is that bag now?
Father Robert Ballecer [00:02:27]:
That bag is being raided by my parents. They like the blinky things. They really do. So they're taking.
Leo Laporte [00:02:33]:
Oh, good.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:02:34]:
But I did have a pedometer better on me and I did 43 miles this year.
Leo Laporte [00:02:39]:
Oh, gee.
Jason Hiner [00:02:41]:
Oh, I Thought the bag was going to be at an undisclosed location in Vatican City.
Leo Laporte [00:02:45]:
That would have been Robert's. Famous for wearing sandals. I hope you were wearing more better shoes.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:02:50]:
I had better shoes this year. Although there is only one thing in the bag that I Absolutely, positively, 100% will not share with anyone, and that is a. I don't know if I can even name it. It's an unreleased product that uses a brand new chipset that gives me a standalone supercompute data center.
Leo Laporte [00:03:09]:
In your pocket?
Father Robert Ballecer [00:03:10]:
No, no.
Leo Laporte [00:03:11]:
It come with a nuclear reactor.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:03:12]:
It's about the size of a, of a, of a book, but it's 256 gigabytes of memory connected to a next generation AI chip.
Leo Laporte [00:03:22]:
This is the next thing I bought the Framework desktop with the Strix Halo processor and 128Gigs for running local AIs. So this is the, this is the goal. This is where we're trying to go. I have to. Before we go any farther, though. Of course, AI and robotics were the talk of the convention this year, and we'll talk a lot about this. We also have Robert's Casey Kasem style. Top five picks from ces.
Leo Laporte [00:03:47]:
We'll start with number five and we'll end with number one later in the show. But before we do anything else, this is my pick from ces. Jennifer, you want to set this clip up?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:03:59]:
So I spent my week at CES tracking down humanoid robots that could do my laundry. I had an inkling that this might be a theme. And it turned out it. It really was.
Leo Laporte [00:04:08]:
In past years, those robots have not been so great. In fact, one of them I know was actually being run by a human at the home office.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:04:15]:
Yeah. So there was a. There's been a lot of humanoids in the news this year. It's been a big. Well, 2025 was a big year for humanoid robots coming into our homes and bipedal.
Leo Laporte [00:04:26]:
Two hands.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:04:27]:
Exactly. Most of them have been controlled, as you say, by someone remotely. And the sort of. The big thing here is, you know, the hardware looks like it's ready. Like, these robots are really impressive looking. The ones I met, quite a few of them could, you know, had really good dexterity. But the issue is the software. And to your point, and they're not autonomous yet, so they are, but not.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:04:51]:
And on the show floor they weren't.
Leo Laporte [00:04:52]:
Because for logistical reasons, noisy radio signals are terrible.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:04:57]:
Yeah. They can't kind of create.
Leo Laporte [00:04:58]:
You don't want to damage any humans. That kind of.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:05:01]:
Right. And one. They were most of them were being controlled by, like, experts box remotes from someone like the man behind the curtain. And the one that we're about to meet was actually being held up by carabiners on a big frame before.
Leo Laporte [00:05:13]:
Let's take a look. Yeah, it's like. It's like one of those Steadicams.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:05:17]:
Yes. This guy weighs 170 pounds. So he's. He's hefty and he's. He's from a company called Xeroth and he's called Jupiter. And he is designed to be a household robot. So.
Leo Laporte [00:05:29]:
See, this is what scares me, is if these aren't necessary, if they're not benign, it's like having a chimpanzee in your house. They have a lot of strength.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:05:38]:
Yes.
Leo Laporte [00:05:39]:
And if they're not fully controlled, they could hurt you bad. Well, watch what happened. This is. Jennifer was interviewing the robot.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:05:46]:
I guess Jupiter weighs 170 pounds and hurts when it falls on you, which it did.
Leo Laporte [00:05:55]:
No, I didn't touch it. Hot down. It fell on you.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:06:00]:
So I tried to reach as it came towards me. My instinct was to try and help it, you know, and stop it. And I put my hand out and.
Leo Laporte [00:06:08]:
Oh, my God, it's heavy.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:06:10]:
It really kind of tweaked my wrist. I, like, slacked my team. I was like, I need to file a worker's comp claim.
Leo Laporte [00:06:16]:
Oh, you could.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:06:17]:
It makes you. You're a humanoidist. Because if that was not a humanoid robot, you wouldn't have tried to catch it.
Leo Laporte [00:06:22]:
That's exactly right.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:06:23]:
I think you're right. I think you're right.
Leo Laporte [00:06:25]:
If it were a big metal box falling over, you'd have run.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:06:27]:
Just jump. I know. But yeah, it was. It was. And then they all rushed around it and it was. Oh, yeah, it was very sad. I felt very bad for poor Jupiter in this big moment.
Leo Laporte [00:06:38]:
You can catch that on Jennifer's many articles on the Verge. That video is also on the Verge's front page. And if you want to see the actual event, it was 3 minutes and 40 seconds in.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:06:53]:
But yes, there's one reason why they are not going to be in our homes anytime soon. I think the LG version, which we, you know, was also big news. The Cloyd with the wheels is a bit more realistic, except for if you have homes with stairs, that then becomes something of an issue. But yes, that was. It was a lot of fun meeting all these robots. And I actually walked around. I carried a bottle of laundry detergent the entire show, asking each one if they could open it, because I'M like, if you're gonna do my laundry deter.
Leo Laporte [00:07:26]:
That'S kind of critical.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:07:27]:
You have to open my laundry bottle. And none of them went.
Leo Laporte [00:07:30]:
None of them could open it.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:07:31]:
No one was willing to give it a go.
Leo Laporte [00:07:33]:
Sadly, we're using tide pods. Or did you have.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:07:36]:
No, see, that's what they all. That's what they said. We can just do pods. I'm like, well, I want you to open my laundry bottle.
Leo Laporte [00:07:42]:
What about the Downey? What about the Downy? You got to be able to open a bottle.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:07:46]:
If it's going to be a home robot, it's got to be able to do the pickle jar test. Right?
Leo Laporte [00:07:50]:
I mean, that's the thing.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:07:51]:
It felt like a kind of key. If it can't open a bottle, what is it going to be doing in my home? That's.
Leo Laporte [00:07:57]:
I feel so bad for your family because you bring these home.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:08:02]:
I showed the video to my kids and I was like, I showed them the switchbot one. I'm like, we're probably gonna have that in our home, like, in a few months.
Leo Laporte [00:08:13]:
I think the cats are gonna be a little more perturbed than the kids. They're old enough.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:08:16]:
The cats have gotten used to things because we have so many robot vaccines.
Leo Laporte [00:08:20]:
You still, like, last time you were on, you liked that vacuum cleaner that couldn't get under your bed, but was at least a little smarter than the iRobot.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:08:26]:
Dramatic. Yes. Yeah, I still like that. I think it's a great product.
Leo Laporte [00:08:31]:
Well, let's stick with robots for a little bit. Somebody's got to do a cut down of robots falling over. Because there were multiple occasions when, besides the one that hit you, of robots attempting backflips. And there was one, he did a backflip. He kind of got wobbly, stood back up, but then his hand fell off, which is not good as it happens. I mean, as it happens. Then there's another robot I remember just saw just. It just collapsed, like in a.
Leo Laporte [00:08:59]:
It was like pickup sticks. Like, not just like, like your robot fell on its face like a human would. This robot just went like a. Like a rag doll.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:09:09]:
Well, the one that just came running into the hall and started like punching people and then like punching in the air and then I think punched itself in the face and knocked itself out. My colleague caught that one on video. I haven't actually seen the video.
Leo Laporte [00:09:24]:
It's probably not good for us. Much human pleasure in the failings of these robots. Thinking.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:09:32]:
To a vendor in. In the west hall who had a robot out and she was telling me that they had turned off the more aggressive auto balancing features because unfortunately when you turn all of that stuff on robots, they, they'll try to move their limbs to rebalance when they're grossly off balance and it looks like they're punching, it looks like they're attacking. So they said as a, as a safety measure near other, near people, they turn those features off.
Leo Laporte [00:09:59]:
The, I think the leading robot company, at least in the US there may be some Chinese companies that are ahead of it is Boston Dynamics.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:10:05]:
Yeah. And they had Atlas, that Atlas, Atlas is not designed for the home. So I, Alice is very much designed for factories. Although they've hinted, hinted that there may be a home robot in its future. But. So we didn't, we didn't go visit Atlas because he, he can't do my laundry. But apparently its demo wasn't particularly impress. The reporting on the verge was, you know, he just kind of walked out there and turned around and walked back and.
Leo Laporte [00:10:31]:
Well, he's going on. So they've made a deal with Hyundai.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:10:35]:
Right. And it's going to be in the factory down the road for me. So I'm excited to go check in.
Leo Laporte [00:10:39]:
You can go look at it. Do the laundry at the Hyundai factory. Yeah, no, it makes sense because robots have been building cars for years. This is not new. Not humanoid robots. Jason, why are we so obsessed? Yeah, why are. Yes.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:10:53]:
I, I don't get that.
Jason Hiner [00:10:54]:
Why are we so obsessed with robots for humanoid.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:10:57]:
I mean, so much more functional. If you don't worry about making it a humanoid.
Jason Hiner [00:11:01]:
Yes. Form factor, the future of robotics. And I think maybe that's why they're getting a little bit of a rebrand and that CS was part of this and certainly 2025 was a big part of it of rebranding robots as physical AI, meaning that they're, you know, physical AI doesn't have to look like a human. Even the robot word robot has come to essentially mean humanoid robot to most people. And so ph AI means, you know, AI that is embodied in some way that in the real world that can do a number of things. And I'm going to, I'm going to say something that really impressed me and it's going to sound maybe a little bit boring. But there was in the Siemens keynote they talked about and I saw a demo of this in North hall. They had this PepsiCo robot that really, it was just it.
Jason Hiner [00:11:50]:
And I'll get to why it's actually revolutionary because it's going to sound dumb. It was basically a giant arm that picked up something from a skid, a product, either, you know, drinks or chips or whatever, right? Bags, boxes, cartons of them, and move them from one thing to the other. No big deal, right? That's been happening for a long, long time. Very cool. Or, you know, maybe not that cool, but what it was, was, the difference was they now have this digital twin. So when you combine AI with world models and physical physics models, what it can, you know, a lot of times it would take this robot in the past. You know, somebody would design it, One team would design it, the other team would sort of get it and figure out how to put it in the real world. It would mess up things and it would like, run into things by accident and they're like, okay, well we've got to put the angle higher and all that.
Jason Hiner [00:12:44]:
Well, with this, with this new model, these, this digital twin model, it's called Digital Twin Composer. This was something that was announced at the show. It can not only help you design a robot or, you know, physical AI of different kinds, but it can help you simulate using the world models that can help you simulate all of the things that it can do. And so with this robot arm, they, they said that when they brought it to CES to do the demo, they had never seen it before. They had not, you know, used it to, to set up what the demo was going to do, but they simulated on the world model. And so instead of what would have taken two days and two or three days and a bunch of eng. To like, you know, stage it and make sure it worked right, and all that took less than two hours because they had already done all of it, they were able to simulate all of it. And so that's going to enable them, with this sort of physical AI to deploy things in factories, in hospitals, in all kinds of assembly lines and other things much, much faster and at a much higher scale and for a lot cheaper.
Jason Hiner [00:13:54]:
And so sort of this influx of, of robotics about to happen now thanks to the combination of, of, of AI, but not just AI, but these sort of next generation models, these, these world models that are coming in probably going to be one of the big Trends of, of 2026.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:14:11]:
Yeah, that's what the guys I would, the, the interviews I did with the robotics roboticists was like these. They can't do what you want now, but very soon, using world models, they will just be able to watch you and then do what you do. So, like, you just need to show the robot how to do the laundry and it will then just do it like, they were saying that that's the sort of next step. And right now, I mean, Switchbot was the other humanoid robot that we got to interact with. And they showed me some videos of all the. They have, like a huge warehouse in China with tons of little rooms where they've just got the robots doing things like making beds, doing the laundry, making breakfast, like, just repeatedly to try and train them to do this. And then the thing that the Switchbot is the one. The one row.
Leo Laporte [00:15:01]:
Yes, the one row.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:15:02]:
Yeah, one row. That's the one. They say they're going to ship that this year for under $10,000, and that will be in our homes this year. But then the xeroth CEO told me that they train the robots on TikTok, which made me very worried.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:15:16]:
So the robots will be doing dances while folding your laundry.
Leo Laporte [00:15:21]:
You know, this is. This is a kind of. Was a. I don't want to say dead end, but this was the initiative some LLM AI companies took, which is to make tools that are human. Like, right. Like chat. That's basically what chatbots are. So it's like you're interacting with a human because they think that that's what we want.
Leo Laporte [00:15:40]:
But it turns out, at least in my opinion, the most useful AI, whether it's robot or LLMs, isn't emulating humanity, but doing specific tasks.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:15:50]:
Yeah, and that's what actually the end of my video summarizes. Like, we don't need a humanoid robot to do everything in our home. What we just need is the current robots we have in our homes to do, to be better at what they do and maybe do a little more. So I actually saw a robot vacuum style. Like, it looks like a robot vacuum, but it had a larger arm. And this was at the dreamy booth. And it could open the washing machine, load the clothes, move the clothes into the dryer, and then take the clothes out of the dryer and put it in the basket. And it had little cameras in it so it could actually sort the laundry so it could take, you know, it could see the whites and the colors.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:16:26]:
It could even like analyze the washing labels so that it could make sure it puts the delicates on and. Or the, you know, be able to do. So it's a concept robot, so it wasn't like something they kind of announced. It was just like in the corner of their booth, but it was like, this is. This makes more sense to me. And in theory, it could roam around the house and pick up clothes for you too. But yeah, like, you don't the idea. And I spoke to the CEO of Roborock as well, who's the robot vacuum manufacturer, and he made the same point.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:16:56]:
He said, we're going to make the robots that we have in the homes better at what they do, so they're very, very good. And then maybe give them some additional capabilities. So you'll maybe have two or three robots in your home doing your chores, but not just. Not one robot emulating you. Though what LGs Cloyd demonstrated, which is what I think is much more realistic and actually very much to your point, Jason, about being able to create, you know, personalize AI, bring AI into your home, is it could create. It could connect to all your smart home appliances and control them. So it doesn't need to open the washing machine. It can just tell the washing machine to open.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:17:43]:
Because it's a smart home hub. It doesn't need to. That makes more sense to make the dishwasher run. It just turns the dishwasher on using smart home connectivity. Same thing with the oven. So it can control all the appliances, and so it's sort of orchestrating them for you, just like your smart home hub is. And then it fills in the gaps that the robots can't do themselves, which is perhaps like putting the croissant in the oven or taking the laundry out of the laundry machine.
Jason Hiner [00:18:12]:
Jennifer, did you see the one that go. The one that goes up the. Take itself up or down the stairs?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:18:17]:
Yes. The robot rover. Yes.
Jason Hiner [00:18:20]:
I think that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:18:21]:
That. That was my pick of. My robot pick of ces. I was like this. We finally did it. A robot vacuum that can not only climb stairs, but it can clean them, too.
Leo Laporte [00:18:34]:
Yes. Because everybody's got perfectly clean floors, but their stairs are disgusting.
Jason Hiner [00:18:37]:
Stairs are a mess, right? The stairs are a mess.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:18:41]:
Yeah. So it can.
Leo Laporte [00:18:42]:
It's kind of cute. It's got, like, little lever legs. Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:18:47]:
And I did. I did a. Yeah, it can. It. It can leap as well. So it can kind of jump over things.
Leo Laporte [00:18:52]:
Now I'm scared.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:18:54]:
I don't know if I want to jump in robot.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:18:58]:
Just to get, like, over a transition between a room, because that's one of the challenges robots vacuums have in your home. They get stuck, you know, on high transitions or big, thick leg legs of chairs. So, yeah, this. The Robo Roborock Saros Rover. It's a concept, but they say it will be coming to market.
Jason Hiner [00:19:16]:
It'll come.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:19:17]:
And it. It goes up. It's quite slow, but not. Not really slow. Not as slow as the laundry folding Robot, but it climbs up the stair and then it lifts one leg up and pivots and then vacuums along the stair and then brings its other leg up, climbs up to the next step and it kind of on, it teeters on its wheels a little bit. A couple times I was thinking, oh, it's just gon going.
Jason Hiner [00:19:39]:
Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:19:39]:
But they say it has, the engine has like built in like braking and you know, so it can figure out where it is and not, not go backwards. Keeps going up. They didn't show it climbing down the stairs, they just showed it going down a slope. But they did before ces they did show us a demo video and briefings that did show it going downstairs as well as up. And it can also like lift one leg up and sort of clean along things. So I think the idea there is that maybe it could like clean other surfaces. Not just steps, but any kind of surface that's maybe, you know, like maybe even a table. Not that I don't know if you'd want your robot vacuum to clean your table, but you know, it could, it could get into different areas because, and this is Roborock president's point about making the robots that we have do more and do better rather than do everything, which I think, I definitely think is the way we're going with home robotics.
Jason Hiner [00:20:33]:
I was just imagining, you know, I think it was really good to have and eventually I'm sure these things are going to get good. They'll climb the stairs, they'll, they'll, you know, scale the stairs. They'll do all of, they'll clean, they'll.
Leo Laporte [00:20:42]:
Suck your face like the half life face suckers leaping into you.
Jason Hiner [00:20:47]:
That too, all of it. But, but I, I was just imagining having one of these and then you're like, you hear thump, thump, thump, thump. What was that? Oh, it was the two thousand dollar robot just fell.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:21:00]:
Yes. No, that's. Well, now has been a problem with robot vacuums from the beginning do.
Jason Hiner [00:21:06]:
It's very, very.
Leo Laporte [00:21:07]:
There's gonna be things like that for a long time where we have a little accident. Accidents.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:21:13]:
I mean personally I, I would, I would want robotics, I would want two robotic arms mounted to this to the ceiling in my dining room slash kitchen because they'll help with chores. I'd probably want an arm or two in the laundry room, but other than that I don't really need a robot following me around the house. Now those are the two places that are going to have the most use for any sort of robotic help. And those are the places where you can really easily define the tasks that need to take place. And I think fixed arms work so much better than trying to make it work with a robot that follows a humanoid or not.
Leo Laporte [00:21:50]:
Roborock is one of a number of Chinese companies that basically put Roombas out of business. Right. I mean, are the Chinese lapping us on all of this? Yeah, Dreamy.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:22:02]:
They're iterating a lot.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:22:06]:
Dreamy. So Dreamy came out in 2020, I think they launched their first robot vacuums in the US and they are now. So they had their first booth at CES maybe two years ago, and it was quite small, but like robot vacuum booth next to Roborock now they had two booths, one in the Venetian, one in the lvcc. And when I went, I went there to interview the President and the PR guy said to me, oh, we just signed the contract for our booth next. When you have the largest booth in the history of ces.
Leo Laporte [00:22:35]:
Oh my God.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:22:36]:
Not. Not our largest booth, but like the largest.
Leo Laporte [00:22:39]:
And they're pretty big booths.
Jason Hiner [00:22:41]:
Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:22:44]:
They had a car, they had wash appliances, they had smartphones. This is dreamy. They had smart home appliances, smart home devices. They had a whole like Dyson rip off room where with all the hair dryers, like they had everything. They're not just doing. Robots are their main thing, but they have become a huge multi appliance, kind of like robot robotics and household appliances like Shark Ninja and Rimba together. Plus, you know, Whirlpool and then cars going crazy. And I heard there was a really interesting article in the South China Morning Post.
Jason Hiner [00:23:20]:
Is that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:23:21]:
Am I saying that right? Just before Christmas saying that, and this is unconfirmed, but the dreamy CEO had sent out an email to all employees and was giving everyone an ounce of gold as a bonus.
Leo Laporte [00:23:31]:
Oh, my God, yes. What is that, 5,000 bucks or something? Wow.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:23:36]:
Back to the.
Leo Laporte [00:23:36]:
The heyday of cbs.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:23:39]:
They're doing very well.
Jason Hiner [00:23:42]:
Go ahead.
Leo Laporte [00:23:42]:
Sorry, Leo, I'm just. I shouldn't bring politics into this, but we've banned Chinese EVS because they're so much better than our evs. We've just banned all drones made outside of the US because we don't like it that their drones are so much better than ours. I am. This, this, this. It feels like you're putting a big target on your back when you say we're gonna have the largest booth in the history of ces. I. I don't.
Leo Laporte [00:24:09]:
There's nothing to say about it. I don't.
Jason Hiner [00:24:11]:
You know, two years ago, I remember the first when I was, I was still at ZDNet and we reviewed the first Dreamy. I think it was like one. It was their first big product. It was like the Dreame 40 maybe.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:24:23]:
Yeah, the L40. Yeah.
Jason Hiner [00:24:25]:
Thank you. And the crazy thing was it had really just come to the point where roborock had just taken over from Roomba as like they were clearly now the best, you know, they had the best products, they, they had the best pickup, the best sort of battery life, the best, you know, navigation, all of it. And it was like, wow, Roborock is, is the, you know, 800 pound gorilla. And dreamy came out with their first product and it was better than, than roborocks and is like ever since then Robo has just been, you know, scrambling to try to catch up and Dreamy. I was so impressed that how did they come out with their first product? Clearly they just looked at what all they were doing and they're like, oh, there's a couple of things that could be better and we'll just make those better. And, and it was better at almost everything, you know, with its first gen product.
Leo Laporte [00:25:12]:
Is there a security or privacy concern with this? I mean these, these autonomous devices in your house, Map cameras.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:25:21]:
They have cameras, yes, but the same sort of security issue you're going to have with having Amazon appliances everywhere. I mean any sort of autonomous vehicle in your home is going to have a map of your home. That's how it moves around. It's going to generate that. And a lot of that processing does not happen on the device. It's going to happen to the server that it's connected to on the other side of the cloud. So is there a security issue? Absolutely. What could you do with, with that information? I mean, you could do nefarious things, but people would have to really target you to do it.
Leo Laporte [00:25:54]:
So it makes more sense frankly for Amazon to look and see what furniture you have so they can show you the right ads than for the Chinese to look and see what furniture you have so they can invade our shores. I don't know. I don't know what I mean.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:26:07]:
And this is why the matic we mentioned earlier is one that I really like because it does all its processing locally. You don't need a cloud. There's no.
Leo Laporte [00:26:14]:
I like that, honestly.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:26:15]:
And if that's something you're concerned about. Yes, I, you know, Chinese manufacturers is, is there are. So ecovacs had a pretty bad incident recently, which is another Chinese robot vacuum manufacturer where their robot vacuums got hacked and they were like chasing People around and yelling at them in their houses, which is obviously terrifying. And there are like user metrics you can put on the robot so you can disable the camera. There are. Roborock actually came out with a whole line without camera. So if you, you know, you can still use the vacuums without having a camera in your home, they have like a pin in order to enable the camera and the camera, all of them when they are recording, because you can use them to like check in on your home. And Dreamy's.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:26:58]:
One of Dreamy's features is an narwhal, which is another one. There's a lot of them is they can go find your pet for you. So if you're out of the house and you want to check on your pet, the robot can go and look for the pet for you. But the robot will say as it's moving and recording, Live View enabled. Live view enabled. So there are lots of safeguards, I suppose, but ultimately anything connected to the Internet, you are going to have security risks. But now with matter, you have got the capability of using some of these devices. Just with a local platform, you obviously lose some of the capabilities because if you.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:27:37]:
So you could connect. I think Dreamy and roborock both work with matter, so you could just set up the robot via Apple home. Although if you want the mapping features, you do need to use the Dreamey app. So, yeah, there's still little ways to go until we can get local control of some of these devices. But I think that's the way we're going to see some companies coming out to sort of differentiate themselves because there obviously are concerns around that.
Leo Laporte [00:28:04]:
I do think the Dreamy Halo hair dryer, which isn't that great. I was using an award too. Why isn't that you there, though? I don't.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:28:14]:
There is a video of me. I used it because this wasn't plugged in. This was an unveiled.
Leo Laporte [00:28:17]:
Oh.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:28:18]:
It was just sitting there, but so I went to the Dreamy booth and got my hair dried by it.
Leo Laporte [00:28:22]:
It was for people who don't. Aren't seeing the video. This is a thing that is as tall as a human almost. I mean it's. It's a big arc that sits on.
Jason Hiner [00:28:29]:
The floor like half circle.
Leo Laporte [00:28:31]:
Yeah, yeah. Does air come out of the whole thing? No, just the top.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:28:35]:
Yeah. So no, it's the top.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:28:36]:
Stop.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:28:36]:
So you can.
Leo Laporte [00:28:37]:
This is a back to the stand hair dryer that we got rid of in the 60s.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:28:41]:
It is.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:28:41]:
Looks like that's like the Dyson hair dryer.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:28:44]:
Lots of young people. And I didn't want to say.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:28:46]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:28:48]:
Remember you used to go to the salon and you'd sit under the hood with all the other guys in curlers. And this is like that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:28:55]:
It does it. It reminded me of that a lot. It's got it. So it uses AI to track, like, movement. So in theory, the they told me.
Leo Laporte [00:29:04]:
Does it track your hair?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:29:05]:
You should be able to just.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:29:06]:
Just moisture.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:29:07]:
It tracks your head so you can move, and it follows your head. And also it moves around your head. Yeah. I'm gonna drop the link of me.
Leo Laporte [00:29:17]:
So it's rotating.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:29:19]:
Oh, my God. This is so. It's moving for you.
Leo Laporte [00:29:23]:
So instead of having to hold a blow dryer, which gosh knows is really an onerous task, and you don't have to go to a hairdresser to do it for you, you can have the dreamy halo dry your hair.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:29:37]:
Yeah. I need to pitch to defcon this year that we're going to create a village with nothing but these smart appliances and just let hackers go crazy. All the ways you could hurt a human inside this little village.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:29:51]:
No, it does have. It's a lamp. So the whole.
Leo Laporte [00:29:56]:
Of course it is, because why not?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:29:59]:
And then it also is. Sh. Shoots, like, moisturizing air. So it's supposed to, like, be a scalp treatment for you. Does it do sense at the end of the run?
Leo Laporte [00:30:08]:
Yeah, I see it on your Instagram.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:30:10]:
Like essential oils.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:30:12]:
Yes. Like that kind of thing. It's meant to make you feel JTP healthy. There's me.
Leo Laporte [00:30:16]:
And you went in with your hair wet. No, you didn't.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:30:19]:
No. And it also was just kind of so you could see it moving a little bit. It's like, because as you dry your own hair, you move.
Leo Laporte [00:30:26]:
You move it. Yeah. You don't want a big hot spot at the top of your head.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:30:30]:
Yeah. So it's moving for you. Yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:30:32]:
Then it's just an air. Air fryer. That's different.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:30:37]:
It was. It was. They said it's gonna be 700 bucks.
Leo Laporte [00:30:41]:
They say it's not available yet, but.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:30:43]:
No, but they showed the video of it of, like, you sitting on a couch, and it just kind of.
Leo Laporte [00:30:49]:
Jennifer, you're such a trooper. I can't believe you had to go around all of these different things.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:30:53]:
I mean, we're making fun of it, but it looks nice.
Leo Laporte [00:30:57]:
Yeah, it does. It's furniture.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:30:58]:
You could have a lamp.
Leo Laporte [00:31:00]:
It could be in your living room.
Jason Hiner [00:31:01]:
Yes.
Leo Laporte [00:31:02]:
Oh, that lamp. That's my hair dryer, too.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:31:04]:
Yeah.
Jason Hiner [00:31:06]:
I need to let the lamp. Hold on a second. I'll be right there. I'm gonna let the lamp dry my hair.
Leo Laporte [00:31:10]:
I could see buying this for my wife just as a gift, just. Just for us. I mean, it'd be a fun Christmas gift.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:31:17]:
Yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:31:18]:
And then my mom would use it to dry the kitchen.
Leo Laporte [00:31:23]:
Mom, why is it dreamy in the kitchen? All the rest, Rags trying all the stuff. Well, I do want to talk about the computer in your pocket, Father Robert. We'll get to that. There's so much to talk about. Chips. This was an interesting. It sounds like a very interesting ces.
Jason Hiner [00:31:40]:
It wasn't dull.
Leo Laporte [00:31:41]:
Yeah, not dull. There was a lot. Yeah, a lot. Jason Heiner's here from his brand new thedeepview.com. great to have you, Jason. Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from the Verge. Father Robert from the Vatican, the Digital Jesuit. Now, Father Robert has put together a countdown, a Casey Kasem style countdown of your top five gizmos from ces.
Leo Laporte [00:32:06]:
And we're gonna do it as Casey Kasem does backwards. So now starting our top five countdown of CES hits, here's number five from the show floor.
Jason Hiner [00:32:20]:
Hit it.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:32:21]:
Ces. What we used to call the Consumer Electronics Show. It's the mecca for industry professionals, engineers and those who are just interested in the latest and greatest in technology. Now, with millions of square feet of exhibit halls and thousands of vendors, it can be difficult to zero in on the technology that you're looking for. Which is why I did the hard work for you. I'm Father Robert Balaser, the Digital Jesuit and this is Padres top five from CES 2026. Number five, the Strut EV. Not everybody who needs a mobility I need it safely operate mobility device.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:33:01]:
That's the basic problem that led Singapore based robotics company Strut to create the ev.
Leo Laporte [00:33:06]:
To address that problem, Strut gave EV.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:33:08]:
A suite of sensors and processing that they call their EV sense system. It uses a combination of cameras, lidar, time of flight and ultrasonic sensors to give the system a 360 by 360 degree view of the environment around the EV. This allows not only see, understand and avoid people, hazards and obstacles, but also to autonomously bring its users safely to their destination.
Leo Laporte [00:33:30]:
I want this combined with the four.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:33:31]:
Motor active drive, motion and suspension system that will dynamically adjust torque. The EV works well on carpet, gravel, concrete, wet surfaces and the like. It tops out at 7 miles per hour, has a max payload of 350 pounds, can climb grades of 13 degrees, and has an all day replaceable cartridge battery that can charge from 20 to 80 capacity in 30 minutes. In co pilot mode, the EV Sense system smooths user inputs to prevent jerky motions and applies the hover chair from wall E to prevent collisions from driving into unsafe areas in three axes. This is for my plus mode.
Leo Laporte [00:34:06]:
And.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:34:07]:
The EV sense will automatically adjust the heading to get you there while going around any obstacles rules. Basically it's drive by. So I'm not driving it right now. I'm hungry. Oh, it's just in Pathfinder and they.
Leo Laporte [00:34:17]:
Say I'm hungry and it takes food.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:34:19]:
Full autonomous operation just can either use a map to point out where they want to go or they can use the context sensitive voice assistant for example say and the EV will showstoppers or pep kitchen at this was launch price and the 7,500msrp the strut EV is well below the average price for an advanced wheelchair wheelchair. It could be the perfect tech for those who need a little help getting around.
Leo Laporte [00:34:45]:
That's very cool. Now we're going to take all of these and put them together. There's a seven minute feature we'll put up on our YouTube channel on our Twit News YouTube feed so you can see all of them. But that was number five and Father Roberts hit parade and we will get to the rest.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:35:02]:
I was so enamored because I've been looking at nice wheelchairs for my father because he's having trouble moving around. But the problem is 7, 500 bucks.
Leo Laporte [00:35:10]:
Is a good price.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:35:11]:
It's a, it's actually, it's 5300 right now. It'll go up to 7, 500.
Leo Laporte [00:35:15]:
Oh, okay. Well, 53.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:35:17]:
But 15,000 is what I was looking at for a standard electronic motorized wheelchair.
Leo Laporte [00:35:22]:
Oh, that's great.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:35:23]:
The problem with that is if you can't drive it, if you don't, if you no longer have the ability to drive, you'll be driving into walls and the wheat into people. This will not let you.
Leo Laporte [00:35:30]:
You drive into a. Oh, that's fantastic. Wow. The only thing that's missing, I'll be honest with you, it needs a scissor lift. So you can say up and it goes. It goes up.
Jason Hiner [00:35:41]:
Wow.
Leo Laporte [00:35:41]:
That's all it needs. It just needs that and then done deal. If I could sit. Yeah, I could sit at the bottom of the stairs and it would just push me up the stairs.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:35:50]:
Now, now, Leo, one of the other things that I was thinking of is we have a retirement home for Jesuit priests in Los Gatos, California. And we had to ban scooters, mobility scooters, because the guys were running into each other.
Leo Laporte [00:36:03]:
Yeah, you know, we were, we were jousting.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:36:06]:
They were jousting. But when you live with someone for 60 years, you develop a lot of grudges.
Leo Laporte [00:36:12]:
Oh, they were intentionally running into each other?
Father Robert Ballecer [00:36:14]:
I think so. I think so.
Jason Hiner [00:36:16]:
Ramming each other. Wow. All right.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:36:18]:
We'll have more accidentally running over people's feet. It was weird.
Leo Laporte [00:36:22]:
We'll have more in our top five countdown with father Robert Robert, Jennifer Passatouille and Jason Heiner. Our show today brought to you by Redis, brand new sponsor, but not new to us because we've been using Redis for our website for 10 years at least. Redis is R E D I S and I think if you're a geek, you know the name is the real time data platform that powers ultra fast applications. We use it for caching, you can use it for data storage, for search, vector embeddings, AI workloads and more. With a global user community and adoption across startups to Fortune 5 companies, Redis continues to innovate on speed, scalability and developer experience. It's a very good experience. Ask Patrick, our engineer. Redis helps developers ship faster, scale instantly and keep apps blazing fast even under heavy load at the center of the platform.
Leo Laporte [00:37:14]:
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Leo Laporte [00:37:46]:
Extremely low latency and high throughput. That's important to us because you know, you go to a website, if it doesn't load in a second or two, you feel like something's wrong, you might even leave. It does automatic scaling, global availability. We have a global audience. You probably do too. Simple setup and a generous free tier. In fact, I want you to check out the free tier. Redis Cloud.
Leo Laporte [00:38:07]:
It's the real time context engine that gathers, syncs and serves the data you need to build accurate AI apps that scale. To learn more or try Redis Cloud for free, just search for Redis Cloud or you can go to their website. Redis IO R E D I S IO thank you Redis for years of making our website Ultra reliable. And for sponsoring this week in tech. So glad to have you in the twit family. All right, what is in your pocket, Robert? You got a supercomputer in your pocket. Really?
Father Robert Ballecer [00:38:43]:
I've got a super.
Leo Laporte [00:38:44]:
I can't.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:38:44]:
It's, it's.
Leo Laporte [00:38:45]:
You can't talk about it.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:38:46]:
NDA is attached to it, but let's just say it comes from the largest maker of AI chips in the world.
Leo Laporte [00:38:52]:
Okay, we know who that is.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:38:53]:
Okay, we know who that is. It's their next.
Leo Laporte [00:38:55]:
Do you have Vera Rubin in your pocket?
Father Robert Ballecer [00:38:58]:
Possibly, possibly.
Leo Laporte [00:38:59]:
She happy to see you.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:39:00]:
It's in the format of their Spark. So if you've seen their Spark, it is basically a mini data center in a box. This is using the newest of the processors. The two part that you can't mention.
Leo Laporte [00:39:14]:
I understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:39:16]:
Now the nice thing about it is we're going to be using it mostly for video creation. And you can do everything local. You don't even have to remotely touch cloud resources to be able to do it. And I can put together a 4k video lasting about 30 seconds in about 90 seconds. I mean the. So fast, it iterates so quickly. It's amazing.
Leo Laporte [00:39:37]:
And does it run the other software? It's not running Windows.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:39:40]:
No, no, no, no, no, no. This is all, this is all Linux. This. So it's a standalone server server that, that you can basically send prompts to. You can send prompts and it will continue to iterate. You could also load up your own.
Leo Laporte [00:39:51]:
LLMs so you can have multiple processes going at once.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:39:54]:
Exactly, exactly. So we've got this box, ostensibly it's for video, but also we. Where I work, my day job, we're in a place where we often have these conferences that have conversations that we call them internal forum, which means it cannot leave that room. It's not secret. It's just sensitive information. We cannot use any of the current popular translation services because they all require us to send those conversations away. That's a no go. So we're going to be trying to host our own small AI data centers that do nothing but real time translation.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:40:30]:
That's where this thing really comes in. It's where it's really going to shine. So I like this. It's a nice trend of taking just enough compute power. Power and putting it into your local network, your local campus so that you can do everything in house. I'm. I'm a big, big proponent of that.
Leo Laporte [00:40:48]:
Well, I am. Yeah. I mean honestly, I was talking before the show. Maybe we'll talk a little bit after the show. We'll certainly talk more about it on other shows like Intelligent Machines. But I am head over heels in love with Claude Code or Claude as French friends call it, Claude Code. And in fact I just ended up this morning paying for the max version, the 250 buck a month max version because I'm so blown away by what it can do. But ideally that's a lot of money.
Leo Laporte [00:41:14]:
Ideally I have a lot of hardware here. I could run this stuff locally for privacy reasons, for security reasons, for cost reasons. I would love something like Claude to run my household so I could see some real applications for this. Now. Now, this imaginary company that you can't mention the name of, do they envision it as a commercial only product or do they see a home use for it at some point?
Father Robert Ballecer [00:41:40]:
I mean it's going to be commercial only, but it will leak its way into enterprise. It's never going to make it into home, not in its current configuration. Just because even though it's far more efficient, it's still kind of power and water hungry. So you wouldn't want to do that.
Leo Laporte [00:41:58]:
What are you carrying? A pump and a reservoir with you in your backpack. How water, it's gotta be a sealed system, right?
Father Robert Ballecer [00:42:07]:
Yeah. To be able to get decent throughput on this thing for an enterprise, you would need to water cool them. In fact, we'll see that later on in one of the segments. But the blades, the data center that Nvidia set up in their suite in the Fontainebleau, it's amazing how much much they have to put cooling into the development of the solutions. It's no longer an afterthought. They have to have that upfront because these things are putting out so much thermal energy that if you're not thinking about that from the get go, it's just not going to work.
Leo Laporte [00:42:39]:
Jensen did do a quite a fun speech, talked a lot about all the new things. I'm not saying that this is an Nvidia product, but I'm segueing now to Nvidia. Sorry. Although Jason, Jeff Jarvis said he really wanted to interview Jensen's leather jacket. He's very impressed by.
Jason Hiner [00:42:58]:
Yeah, I mean the leather, the leather jacket, the black leather jacket is the new, the new black turtleneck is the new turtleneck. Yeah, for sure. I, I, I tweeted this one was.
Leo Laporte [00:43:08]:
Looked like alligator or something.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:43:10]:
He pulls it off though. He kind of does. Right.
Jason Hiner [00:43:13]:
Greg Brockman came on the, the president of OpenAI came on the, the sorry, the AMD keynote and he, when he came on, he came on in a black leather jacket. And I tweeted out. This is my most popular tweet of the whole show. I like breaking news. Greg Brockman has arrived at the AMD keynote in a black leather jacket. This is serious. And that was by far my most interacted with tweet of the entire show.
Leo Laporte [00:43:41]:
That's hysterical. Well, maybe it's the new look for the new billionaires. So we'll get to AMD in a second. Nvidia announced a new platform called Vero Rubin.
Jason Hiner [00:43:52]:
Yes.
Leo Laporte [00:43:52]:
I presume she is a computer scientist.
Jason Hiner [00:43:56]:
Space. Yeah, scientist.
Leo Laporte [00:43:58]:
Space scientist. Okay, this is, this is. Does this replace Blackwell or is this.
Jason Hiner [00:44:04]:
It does.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:44:04]:
This is the next generation Blackwell. Vera Rubin. So it's Vera Rubin. Vera is a cpu, Rubin is the gpu.
Leo Laporte [00:44:12]:
So, so there's a, there's a Blackwell in the room. Ruben.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:44:16]:
No, no, no, it's. It's a brand new chip, brand new piece of silicon. It uses NV Link 6. So it's double the bandwidth to each GPU and two GPUs are. Two Ruben GPUs are paired with each Vera CPU on the same piece of silicon.
Leo Laporte [00:44:28]:
The Ruben is the gpu. It's like a sandwich and the Vera is the cpu.
Jason Hiner [00:44:33]:
He said there's like six chip. This makes up essentially six chips. One of them is Vera, one of his Ruben and then there's four others.
Leo Laporte [00:44:40]:
Wow. The interlink and all that. The thing is she's an astronomer who reshaped how scientists understand the property of galaxies.
Jason Hiner [00:44:49]:
Yes, very cool.
Leo Laporte [00:44:50]:
The Ruben GPU, the Vero CPU, both built on TSMC's 3 nanometer process. But it's the bandwidth is the interconnect that is I think very important.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:45:01]:
It's amazing.
Jason Hiner [00:45:03]:
You know they were already double. Yeah, they were already had a huge lead, right. In AI chips like this is no secret. They have 90% market share. They have. If they stopped taking orders today, they have everything that they're going to make in 2026 is already sold. Right. So they have so, so much demand.
Jason Hiner [00:45:26]:
And that's why they're, you know, essentially been printing money for, for three years. And even with that, you know there are competitors trying so Trainium from Amazon, you have Google with their tpusc, you have AMD of course trying to also grab a piece of the market. You know the next biggest according to AMD. According to. Yeah, most places to Nvidia at 90% is AMD with 5%. And yet they, their next generation chip, this very Reuben chip We weren't expecting for about another six months. So this is kind of about six months ahead of schedule.
Leo Laporte [00:46:02]:
Well, it won't be out till later this year though.
Jason Hiner [00:46:04]:
That's right, it won't be. But we expected them to kind of announce the full details of it, you know, probably mid year.
Leo Laporte [00:46:10]:
One of the things that comes up for me is we see these companies, you know, Xai Elon Musk's company and Meta, of course, and Microsoft spending billions of dollars building these data centers with the latest chips that are now obsolete.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:46:28]:
It's worse than that, Leo, because we know for a fact, because of the power consumption of the Blackwell chips, that there's a very large percentage of the black belt chips sold that are not powered on. They can't power them on. So they bought them, they had an.
Leo Laporte [00:46:42]:
Overheating problem when they first came out.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:46:44]:
Exactly, exactly. So you've got a huge chunk that are doing nothing except waiting for more data center capacity. Well, if you look at how much more energy efficient the Vera Rubin is going to be over the Grace Blackwell, it actually makes economic sense to just no longer use the Blackwell chips that you've got in reserve.
Leo Laporte [00:47:05]:
Oh my God.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:47:06]:
Just buy all brand new Vera Rubin.
Jason Hiner [00:47:08]:
Chips now for the, this is for the. Especially for the folks who are on the leading edge of like training.
Leo Laporte [00:47:12]:
Yeah, you can send those Blackwell chips to, to us.
Jason Hiner [00:47:16]:
You'll take them, we'll take ebay, put them on ebay. You know what, we will sell those and they'll do.
Leo Laporte [00:47:21]:
That's not fully ingest at some point. Right. It might be a couple of years off. This is the thing that I find most interesting. Again, Claude, code is so good, but it's running off of anthropic servers trained with very, very expensive hardware. Probably being sold at a loss by anthropic. But this stuff trickles down.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:47:40]:
Yes, it does.
Leo Laporte [00:47:41]:
Right. Is it reasonable to think that in six months or a year or even if it's two years, I will have that kind of capability sitting on my desk here?
Jason Hiner [00:47:52]:
Very reasonable desk.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:47:54]:
And I mean the problem is they sell them in blades so they, they're completely.
Leo Laporte [00:48:00]:
I'll have a server closet. Okay, Well, I mean, no.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:48:04]:
How big is your server closet and does it have three phase power?
Leo Laporte [00:48:07]:
But you've got something in your pocket. Liquid cooling.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:48:10]:
Yes. So that's very special use case. So instead of putting it into a blade, they put it into a individual case.
Leo Laporte [00:48:18]:
Well, it's not tied then to the blade. You could do it in different ways. Right.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:48:21]:
I guess I'd like to see or not. Not.
Leo Laporte [00:48:24]:
I think there'd be more of a market for that than there would be for a robot. And it, I mean look, maybe those robots are going to cost thousands, maybe $10,000. Right.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:48:33]:
If, if for 90,000. 90, that's what one of the, the Jupiter, he said it would be. 90,000. Who's gonna buy that?
Leo Laporte [00:48:43]:
That's gotta be a kind of limited market.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:48:46]:
There are a lot of people who are going to pay a lot of money to have robots fall on them.
Leo Laporte [00:48:51]:
It'll be like a car, car event. Right? It'll be like a car. And will you need it as much as you need a car?
Jason Hiner [00:48:57]:
I mean Optimus, they talked about that, that essentially the price will be similar to a, to a car with Tesla, you know, Optimus. But, but you know the thing with, to your point Leo though, the, the chips, the thing is, is the, these high end chips are going to be, you know, essentially they do the same thing they. For training for. With a quarter of the number of GPUs. Right. Which is incredible for inference I believe. And father Robert can. Yeah, 10x inferences.
Jason Hiner [00:49:27]:
10x exactly. So, so, so 10x for inference, 4x for training. That's going to let you do so much more with the same amount of chips. Now one of the counter trends that's happening right now.
Leo Laporte [00:49:39]:
Before you go on. I got it because I'm, I, I need to know these terms. So when you create an LLM, you train it and that's, that's training. That's the first expense. Is that the most CPU or GPU intensive part of the process?
Father Robert Ballecer [00:49:54]:
Depends what kind of model you're making.
Leo Laporte [00:49:56]:
Okay. Okay. But if you're building, yeah. If you're building ChatGPT 5.2 or Anthropics Opus 4.5. Yeah, that's, that's the inference. Then you do a lot of post training and reinforcement learning and stuff. What's the inference? Is that what when I'm using it?
Father Robert Ballecer [00:50:13]:
That's so every time you ask something of an LLM it's generating an inference token.
Leo Laporte [00:50:18]:
That's so that's, that's the user cost. And is the user cost higher than the training cost?
Jason Hiner [00:50:24]:
It's not now, but it will be. Right. Remember, only 13% of the world, people in the world have actually used generative AI to this point.
Leo Laporte [00:50:33]:
Which is surprising because OpenAI says 800 million people use Chat GPT every month once.
Jason Hiner [00:50:39]:
Well, sorry, only 13% use it on a monthly basis. You know, have used it once.
Leo Laporte [00:50:45]:
Maybe I must be in the top 10 of 1% because I'm using it all day right now.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:50:53]:
There is one more spec that's important for the conversation and that is per watt, per watt of power used. Vera Rubin does eight times the work of Grace Blackwell. So eight. It is far more power efficient. Which again, that's why if you're sitting on a lot of Blackwell product right now, just waiting powered up, you would be looking at and going, you know what, in a year the, the Vera Rubin is going to be cheaper because the power costs are so much less.
Leo Laporte [00:51:19]:
As somebody in the flow connects pointing out in the chat room, remember the $6 million man was $6 million. So 90,000 is a deal. The counter trend though is we have the technology.
Jason Hiner [00:51:35]:
We're going to see, we're going to see that. I'm, you know, because it's so expensive to run AI, right? There's this real ROI problem for businesses. And so what we're seeing is small language models, SLMs and domain specific language models. There's a real move to using them and optimizing them. I did a story in December on this company, Neurometric AI that their whole thing is they're going to help you find the way to optimize your workload to a specific model. And you can, it'll be like up to like a tenth of the cost and higher performance. And so, and you can use older hardware, you could use Blackwell, you could use hardware two or three generations old. So you're still going to, it's not like Blackwell people are going to throw them in the trash or something.
Jason Hiner [00:52:24]:
They're still going to use them. They're just going to use them for smaller, you know, things where they don't need them as much.
Leo Laporte [00:52:29]:
In fact, this argues for less focus on these kind of generalized chat bots and more specific stuff. A medical AI, for instance, that would help a doctor with diagnostics that could be a smaller model, run much more inexpensively and really frankly be more useful and accurate because it just does that. Yes, that makes a lot of sense in the context of what we were talking about, this general purpose robot versus purpose built robots. It makes more sense. Not that you want a dozen robots running around the house all the time.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:53:02]:
Well, the sustainability question really has to be part of regular conversation. Yeah, it's terrible. You've got Elon Musk who is going to be spinning up a new 2 gigawatt data center. And remember, you lose about 1.8 gallons of water to evaporation for every ton of hour of cooling. That means for his 2 gigawatt data center, he's going to be losing about 79 million gallons of water a year.
Leo Laporte [00:53:31]:
He's very good that way. It's like a little AI himself. I mean look, golf courses probably lose that much as well. I mean we have to decide what we want to spend our water budget on and evaporate. Doesn't mean it goes away forever. It comes back down, down.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:53:45]:
But they are pulling from municipal water sources, so that's a problem. The, the Meta data center in Arizona, it's already pulling from a place that has very little water.
Leo Laporte [00:53:55]:
Right. I don't know why they're building these data centers in water deprived areas. Well, tax breaks I guess.
Jason Hiner [00:54:01]:
Meta is building one in Louisiana that's essentially the size of Manhattan and Hyperion, it's 2 gigawatts. So and it's going to scale up to 5 gigawatts and essentially the size, size of Manhattan. But the interesting thing, I did wonder this because it's, you know, LA is essentially a swamp. So I thought, well, the water is to get a hold of, suck it.
Leo Laporte [00:54:21]:
Out of the bayou. There's also power and unfortunately at least some of Elon's plants are running on natural gas, which is a horrible polluting form of energy. Although I, I what, what is interesting is all of this puts pressure purely economic, not necessarily environmental, but it has a same impact on these companies to become more efficient, to, to go to nuclear power and renewable power to use less energy, to use less water. And they seem to be doing that. Yeah, on Friday they got it.
Jason Hiner [00:54:52]:
But it just became, sorry, I'll just say Meta became the number one buyer of nuclear power in the US On Friday. They signed a huge, huge deal.
Leo Laporte [00:55:04]:
Like five more plans plants or something. Yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:55:07]:
Or you could do it the way that they're doing it here in Nevada, which is there's three data centers that are going in and they all have an agreement with Nevada Power that the cost of building the new plants, at least two to three new plants at a price of 1.2 to 2 billion a pop are going to be paid by the ratepayers, so.
Leo Laporte [00:55:24]:
Oh, that's good.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:55:25]:
That's fantastic.
Leo Laporte [00:55:27]:
Oh yeah. What could possibly go wrong there? Jeez. Yay. Well, there's some warring parties at all of this, but I think at least for now the world has said we want AI whatever the cost. So. AMD Lisa Su they have new, they've replaced or not replaced, but they're going to have a successor to the Strix Halo. Right. And new Zen 5 APUs.
Leo Laporte [00:55:58]:
AMD's. Is AMD lapping Intel in this?
Father Robert Ballecer [00:56:03]:
I mean, not lapping. They la. Intel done.
Leo Laporte [00:56:07]:
Done deal. They're, they're, Intel's in the dust. Although Intel's new processors are actually surprisingly good. But when it comes to AI, AMD is, is the, is the leader here.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:56:17]:
They're not as AI optimized as AMD's new chips. AMD and AMD Silicon has, they have a lot of headroom. So if they really wanted to push, they could, they could push intel out of existence.
Leo Laporte [00:56:29]:
But what about Qualcomm and, and, and its chipset, the Snapdragon? Is, is it competitive?
Father Robert Ballecer [00:56:36]:
I mean, arm. You've, you've played with ARM chips? Some, Some of them are competitive. Most of them are not.
Leo Laporte [00:56:41]:
Right. I, the Strix halo I have over here on my framework is great. I have an Apple Mac mini and Apple's done some pretty amazing things. And they have, have NPUs and they have unified memory and so they have some hardware that's pretty good for AI. Right. Nothing like.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:57:01]:
It all comes down to where Qualcomm is finding its profit center. Its profit center is not in super powerful intelligent devices, it's in all devices.
Leo Laporte [00:57:08]:
Right.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:57:08]:
And so that's where they're spending their.
Leo Laporte [00:57:10]:
R and D. Well, you know what else is getting smart Legos.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:57:16]:
Yeah, this was my favorite thing. I didn't put it in my top five, but I love, loved this.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:57:21]:
This was our best in show by far. Like no one disputed it at all.
Leo Laporte [00:57:25]:
Tell us about it. What is this is a smart brick.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:57:29]:
So sadly I didn't get to see it myself, but I heard everyone raving about it because it actually wasn't on the show floor. It was one of those like, you have to go, gotta have a meeting.
Leo Laporte [00:57:37]:
Booth, gotta go to the hotel.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:57:39]:
But Sean Hollister, who is our unofficial LEGO correspondent, just had a blast and there's a great video of, of him playing with the toys. But basically it just makes Legos come to life. So each brick. So there's special, these special bricks come in the set. There's I think three sets that are launching in March and they have Bluetooth. So it works on a little Bluetooth mesh, like a local Bluetooth mesh to communicate. They have NFC chips. And then what happens is when you put it in, say you put one brick in with like Luke Skywalker and R2D2 in a little in one of their jets, planes, spaceships, and it knows which, which character is in there and it can talk and respond like the character making noises like R2T do noises, and they can connect to each other.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:58:34]:
So there was one demo I saw where Luke. Luke's Darth Vader was talking to Princess Leia, and they were kind of communicating in a different language. So it's like everything that you did as a kid to make the toys talk to each other, but it actually doesn't now.
Leo Laporte [00:58:49]:
You don't have to do that anymore.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:58:51]:
It is exceptionally stupid. It is a waste of time, and I want them so much.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:58:56]:
So fun.
Leo Laporte [00:58:57]:
It's gonna sell to adults. Obviously.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:58:59]:
There's an X wing, and then there's the emperor's throne room. You need all three.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:59:03]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:59:03]:
So it's not A.I. we're not talking A.I.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:59:05]:
Here.
Leo Laporte [00:59:05]:
No, these are just.
Jason Hiner [00:59:06]:
No, they're like. Our product has no AI it's dumber than anything you have seen at the show. And it's also the coolest thing that you've.
Leo Laporte [00:59:12]:
It can measure distance and orientation, so it has accelerometers in it. So it's more than just NFC talking.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:59:21]:
Yeah. It never.
Jason Hiner [00:59:23]:
If you take the X wing noises.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:59:25]:
And you fly it around. Yeah. It whooshes.
Jason Hiner [00:59:28]:
It lights up and makes Star wars noises, which is.
Leo Laporte [00:59:31]:
But how. You know, the next generation is not going to know how to go, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. The skull toys are going to do it for you.
Father Robert Ballecer [00:59:40]:
The next generation can do their own thing.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:59:42]:
This is 45 minutes, like battery life.
Leo Laporte [00:59:45]:
So it doesn't take AAA batteries.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:59:49]:
No, it has a little. Comes with a little charger thing. You pop the bricks on the charger, so you get 45 minutes of play time before they have to be charged again. And. Yeah, I mean, it is. We saw a lot of AI in toys at ces, which is not a good thing.
Leo Laporte [01:00:06]:
No, in fact, not a good thing. Our own Senator Alex Padilla has introduced a bill in the Senate, U.S. senate, banning AI in Toys for kids.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:00:16]:
Yeah. And this. This is just a way of taking, you know, technology, taking the experience of playing with your toys to that next level that. That level you always wanted when you were playing with them as a kid. And I don't think. I mean, I'm sure. Sure there's some naysayers saying, well, yeah, but aren't you just destroying your own imagination? You can't use your own imagination. Don't have the toys do it for you.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:00:35]:
But you still are playing with them. You are still creating an experience with the toys. It's just a more augmented and with more fun and more engaging. So hopefully maybe keep kids away from engaging things online. And playing with engaging things in real life, it feels like a win win here, really.
Jason Hiner [01:00:54]:
I think that last point. I think that last point is the most important one because I had plenty of toys where. And my kids had plenty of toys where you had the button that made the noise of the ship, you know, and you. It didn't. It didn't mean you didn't make noises, other noises. Right. But. But it was more engaging and it becomes.
Jason Hiner [01:01:12]:
It can compete a little bit better in some cases with some of the. The digital.
Leo Laporte [01:01:16]:
You know, you put Palpatine on his chair and he plays.
Jason Hiner [01:01:23]:
Exactly the death march.
Leo Laporte [01:01:26]:
This is Sean, this is adult me.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:01:27]:
An adult me can afford all the toys that child me couldn't get.
Leo Laporte [01:01:31]:
So, yeah, that's. Who's gonna buy? You know what I love about this is LEGO lost the patent. You know, it expired for its bricks. So anybody can make LEGO bricks now, but they are innovating in ways that preserves. I mean, I'm sure this is patented. That preserves their advantage Edge. That's good. I'd like to see that.
Leo Laporte [01:01:48]:
That's nice.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:01:50]:
Yeah.
Jason Hiner [01:01:51]:
You know, the AI toys, we talked a little bit about this on. On Thursday, on Wednesday. Intelligent machines as well. But this was one of those that felt like all of a sudden, it's not like that there hadn't been them. There hadn't been AI toys before at ces. But while the sort of like, emotional support toy, you know, thing was really disturbing.
Leo Laporte [01:02:14]:
Tell us about that. You mentioned that on Wednesday, but a lot of people didn't see it. There are emotional support toys, multiple ones.
Jason Hiner [01:02:23]:
And yeah, there's this one that was like, essentially a sock with an eye that, like, follows you around the. It is, as silly as it sounds, that follows you around the room. It tries to learn what makes you laugh, what makes you smile. And I loved that. You know, we wrote about these very skeptically and said, like, look, putting all of these toys out in the world that are aimed at helping, you know, be emotionally supportive for your kids because they're trying to help support solve loneliness and isolation and that kind of thing. And we sort of question, like, doing all this before thinking through all the implications feels like it's pretty dangerous. And our audience responded 50% immediately. And this was an AI audience, right, that said, no, they wouldn't want this.
Jason Hiner [01:03:04]:
And then only 25% said, yes. And then the other 25 were sort of like, we're, you know, still trying to decide. And one reader wrote in so coherently, as said, you know, isn't the promise of AI that it should do more things for you and you can spend more time with your kids, not that you should, you know, buy emotional support toy for them. And, you know, let's face it, most.
Leo Laporte [01:03:27]:
Parents are looking for ways to spend less time so their kids, let's be honest. Right.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:03:31]:
I think the emotional support toys are also for the adults, though, like we saw.
Leo Laporte [01:03:35]:
Well, this is for old people, this one. And from the Mind With Heart, robotic is for elderly people who, you know, not only do parents not want to spend time with their kids, they don't want to spend time with their parents.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:03:47]:
There was one we saw called Little Milo that actually was picked as our best, most irrationally loved product at CES because it was so cute. And it was designed for people who can't have pets but would like to have a dog. And it's a little. It was tiny bit creepy. And a lot of the comments on the article were like, well, well, this is. I mean, it's made by a robot vacuum manufacturer from China. So just a little. Yeah, the Little Milo.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:04:16]:
But he was so cute.
Leo Laporte [01:04:17]:
What's he look like?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:04:19]:
He is a dog. It looks just like a dog. And remember the dogs from, like, the 80s that everyone bought speakers like Aibo, Sony's. No, no, no, no. Not even as robotic as that. Like, it looked. It was a dog that could kind of just go.
Leo Laporte [01:04:33]:
That's all you really need a dog to do, really, let's be honest, and.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:04:37]:
Move around and wag its tail. And this one, one can't even move. But the idea behind it is it's supposed to. I mean, it uses AI to kind of develop a personality based on how you interact with it and become an emotional support for you. And it's. It's meant for adults. It's not meant for kids.
Leo Laporte [01:04:53]:
Is this a market? Do you think that's going to take off?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:04:56]:
It seems. I think there is like it. There is. You know, one of the biggest epidemics in the world is loneliness. And we're seeing a lot of companies come out with products to help with things like aging in place or loneliness for elders who are living alone. It's not because they don't have the ability to leave the house, but they're just sort of stuck and lonely. They don't have people visiting them. There's one robot that I've actually been following at CES since 2018 that's very successful in its space called LEQ.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:05:30]:
And we've actually talked about LEQ on the show before, I think, and they were at ces Again this year. And they've been using AI to help the robot become much more useful to the person. Because the main point of it initially was conversation. It's one of the only proactive eyes on the market. So it prompts the person it's living with so that it's trying to get them to talk and communicate. Because if you're an elderly person living alone, you can. You don't speak sometimes for, you know, days because you're not. If you're not talking to people.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:06:05]:
So this, the idea behind this one is proactive. And with AI they're now using, they've turned it into more of a health agent that's actually fully monitoring the person and looking for any potential issues.
Leo Laporte [01:06:17]:
Oh, that's different.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:06:18]:
Connect with their health providers. So you connect it. You can connect it through the app with your health providers and it can help understand your. Not just your emotional issue, emotional health, but also physical health. Like, she only went to the bathroom. I don't know this because this is maybe a little private, but, you know, it could be something like she only went into the bathroom four times today maybe, or she went too many times today and this could be bad. This is something we need to relate to the health agent. You know, think proactive things to keep monitoring.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:06:48]:
I think they're. But, you know, in terms of having devices like this in your hand home. When I said this to the Eddie Q Guys, like, but isn't it kind of sad that we have to use a robot to do things like this rather than have people helping us? And he's like, yeah, if we could. If there were enough people out there to just spend time with the elderly, I would love to be put out of business, but there just aren't and people are lonely. And this is something he thinks and it has been shown to help. They did a trial in New York City for a couple of years. Years.
Jason Hiner [01:07:18]:
Yeah. When I was at znet, we actually worked on. We, we interviewed people who had used it. So. And they talked about the things they liked, they talked about they didn't like. It's a, It's a story from Sabrina Ortiz at Z Net that, that really interviewed people and on balance they found it quite useful and, and helpful and were wanting to keep using it after the trial.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:07:42]:
Yeah, it's.
Leo Laporte [01:07:43]:
It feels like it'd be better to get a dog though, than a robot.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:07:48]:
So we did, we did a.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:07:49]:
Hard to look after.
Leo Laporte [01:07:50]:
I guess it's a lot of work, right?
Father Robert Ballecer [01:07:52]:
Yeah, my, my day job has a lot to say about loneliness. And human interaction. And so we did, we did a limited study about four years ago and we, we took a bunch of these AI companions, put them into the hands of some people who needed some sort of companionship and it helped. I mean the, the test for, for neuroplasticity looked very, very good. You had people who were engaging far more than they would if they were alone. And surprisingly, the one metric that we really enjoyed was the fact that the residents who used these devices tended to reach out to, to real humans more than they would have otherwise.
Leo Laporte [01:08:33]:
That's interesting.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:08:34]:
So, so that was an interesting.
Leo Laporte [01:08:35]:
It's a kind of a wedge to kind of move them in that interactive direction.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:08:40]:
It's really true. One of the neat things about LEQ is they do between users, they do like a bingo night every Wednesday. So everyone with an LEQ plays bingo and then they also have these tours and they actually go live with a tour guide in a city like say, you know, at the Vatican or in Paris. And the tour guide is showing them around live. It has a little TV screen and you can actually ask questions and say, oh, look over. Can you move over this way so I can see what's over here? And like, so that it's really helping. It's not just a computer talking to you. It's kind of helping bridge a connection to people.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:09:14]:
I think, I think we're going to see more of this actually. The founder of iRobot, which went bankrupt this year, last year, his new endeavor, he hasn't gone public with exactly what it's going to do, but the name is Intelligent. Intelligent. Oh, it's Familiar Machines and Magic, the new robotics company. Familiar Machines and Magic. And I think, and I spoke with him, I interviewed with him on the Vergecast a while ago and he kind of hinted at how, you know, this loneliness epidemic could really be so help. We could help solve it with robot. Robotic companions.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:09:48]:
So I think we'll be seeing something from him along these lines too. So I think, yes, I think it is something that, to answer your question, Leo, it is, it is a trend going to see more of.
Leo Laporte [01:09:56]:
It's sad that we need it, but maybe we do.
Jason Hiner [01:09:59]:
Yeah, it is. And, and we shouldn't also try to find ways to do. Get humans involved too. Like one of the things that I do in my spare time is work with, you know, youth literacy programs. And one of the things we do with is getting kids, if they want to sort of find ways to make their community better. And one of the ways is often going and visiting, you know, People who, who are lonely, like in their community. Like, hey, can, can we, can we think of anybody, you know, who is, doesn't have many people to visit them and do it? So like, we should also find the human ways to do this in addition to the technology.
Leo Laporte [01:10:31]:
How much is Lil Milo the most irrationally loved project product on the verge?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:10:36]:
I don't believe there was a price or release date.
Leo Laporte [01:10:39]:
This is, and we should mention this as we do every year, that a lot of what you see at CES is pre release may never be released.
Jason Hiner [01:10:46]:
That's right. Now, we did see, speaking of pre release, products that have run into challenges, the company that did the Jibo robot, maybe the most famous CES robot of all time, which I owned, of course he did. I bought, of course you're Leo, you know, and. But they have another product and actually two of the most, maybe polished of these products that were especially aimed at kids were, were by them. And part of it was because one of the products they've actually had out for a while, it's called the Luka robot. L U K A so the LUCA robot is a robot that reads to kids. So it reads books. And they've already sold something like 10 million of these worldwide, I think mostly in Asia.
Jason Hiner [01:11:28]:
But the LUCA robot, there's a new version that has AI that they showed off at the, at the show. The LUCA robot not only will read to kids, can you put a physical storybook in front of them and it can read to them and it is very cute, but it also then can interact with them. Right. It's more uses AI to, to interact with them in terms of the storytelling. And then they had another product, the, this other product, the luca, it's like a tablet. It's essentially like a ruggedized tablet that has a camera on it and they can go around and it sort of you, it hangs around their neck. This is aimed at like I think like kindergarten or first grader sort of kids. They go around and they get in the real world and it works in like museums and things like that too.
Jason Hiner [01:12:15]:
They can take a picture and then ask questions of the things that they're, they're seeing. So they were pretty advanced. I was a little bit shocked at how advanced some of these things were. And these were one of the ones that, because they were so good, I was kind of asking them questions about privacy. I was asking about like, what models do you use? You know, where does the data go? They had good answers and clearly they had thought through some of that. And some of these products, their products are already in market. So that was good. But I still just had a lot of questions about, wow, getting kids sort of almost like addicted to sort of daily interactions with technologies.
Jason Hiner [01:12:56]:
You know, some of my, my question about that, what I wanted to have give that to a kid, you know, kindergarten or first grader, preschooler. I'm not sure sure.
Leo Laporte [01:13:07]:
It feels dystopian. It feels like 1984, a brave new world where children are raised in creches and you know, they don't, they have mechanical tenders and minders and so forth. But as Darren points out in our club Twit user group, if it solves a problem and we don't have another solution, maybe, maybe we say, oh yeah, it should be solved better. Yeah, but if we don't have another solution. Yeah, then better that than nothing, I guess.
Jason Hiner [01:13:32]:
Help fill the gap.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:13:32]:
Yeah.
Jason Hiner [01:13:32]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:13:33]:
Well, let's, let's continue with Father Robert's top five countdowns. We're going to go to number four now in the Father Robert kit parade.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:13:43]:
The best of seasons number four, the Densis Z1 exoskeleton. I first started exoskeletons five years ago and to say that they were early would be generous. The 2026 models are light, long lasting and far, far more comfortable. Of the units that I tried, the most comfortable and intuitive was the Densis Z1. Made from carbon fiber with a design that contours to your legs, the Z1 is a knee exoskeleton for those who suffer from joint pain. A single charge on its swappable battery will provide up to 9.3 miles of climbing assist during which time it will offload up to 150kg of weight, provide up to 20kg of lifting support and reduce stress on your knees knees making you feel up to 44 pounds lighter. I tested a Z1 at the Densis booth and it really is a strap in and use experience. I could immediately feel the assist while walking, standing and carrying.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:14:36]:
There is no input required aside from regular leg motions. And the device is smart enough to know how much to engage the assist function. At just over $1,000 a unit, it's a solid option for anybody who needs a bit more stability while walking, those who are standing for long periods of time time, and the outdoorsman who doesn't mind going a little Robocop.
Leo Laporte [01:14:56]:
It's kind of like a e bike for hikers. It, it is.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:15:01]:
You know, the first one I tried a few years back, it, it was cool because yeah, you felt like Iron man, but it was extremely clunky and it was not comfortable.
Leo Laporte [01:15:09]:
Right.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:15:09]:
The Z1 was the first one where I I, I thought I could wear this all day. I, I mean I look funny but I would totally wear it it all right.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:15:19]:
Our reporter Sean Hollister wore1 around CES the entire show both this year and last year, different models. He reported about it last year and then this year he wore the Wii Robotics one.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:15:31]:
I would totally do that. Oh my gosh.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:15:34]:
It's great for see. Yeah. I mean it helps because you're walking so much and yeah, he loved it and they the one he wore last year was quite clunky and the one he wore this year you barely even noticed it was on him. So there's def these are definitely getting a lot easier and actually it packs down into a little box like this big. So it's really easy.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:15:53]:
The Z1 it fits into a case that's like this big.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:15:57]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:15:57]:
So interesting.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:15:59]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:15:59]:
Kind of an unexpected area. Let's take a break. Got lots more to talk about. We're doing our CES wrap up with three who were there and one who was not and is very happy. Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from the Verge Father Robert Balisair, the digital Jesuit and Jason Heiner. His brand new publication covers AI the Deep View of AI and that's a free subscription if you go is it thedeepview.com subscribe.
Jason Hiner [01:16:29]:
The deep view.com yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:16:31]:
Very nice, very nice. Great to have all three of you. Our show today brought to you by hey Bit Warden. We love our friends at Bitwarden. It's the password manager I use and recommend. I'm of the strong opinion that if you're going to use any product that involves cryptography, it should be open source so that you know it's using good cryptography practices that it doesn't have a back door that really does what it says it does. That's Bit Warden, the trusted leader in passwords, pass keys and Secrets Management. 10 million users across 180 countries and more than 50,000 businesses.
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Leo Laporte [01:20:07]:
Bitwarden.com TWIT use it at business too. Bitwarden.com TWiT this is the only password manager I recommend. This is the one you should use. Bitwarden.com thank him so much for Supporting. This week in Tech, Meta showed its wristband. Now, they had this wristband. I know. Jennifer.
Leo Laporte [01:20:29]:
I think it's Victoria who uses the Meta Ray Ban display glasses. Victoria Song is a big fan of those. Have you tried those at all?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:20:37]:
No, I've. I've actually got. These are smart glasses, but they don't have.
Leo Laporte [01:20:43]:
What? Sneaky. Ah. Which ones? Which ones are you wearing?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:20:47]:
These are actually the Amazon Echo frames.
Leo Laporte [01:20:51]:
And do you like them or you just wear them?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:20:54]:
I actually got these specifically because I just wanted audio for me. I wasn't looking.
Leo Laporte [01:20:59]:
That's one thing metas do very well. That sound is very good on those.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:21:02]:
Yes.
Leo Laporte [01:21:03]:
Is it as good on the frame?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:21:05]:
It's fine. No, I think the metas are better. But I got these for 100 bucks.
Leo Laporte [01:21:10]:
That's a lot more expensive. And do you have your prescription in them too? So they're. They're your spectacles. Okay.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:21:14]:
They are. I use them as my glasses, and all I wanted at this stage was audio because I think at some point I'm gonna want what is coming with smart glasses. I just don't feel like we're there yet, so.
Leo Laporte [01:21:25]:
Yeah, I agree.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:21:26]:
My. My stop gap.
Leo Laporte [01:21:28]:
There's also the privacy concern.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:21:29]:
Heavy.
Leo Laporte [01:21:30]:
Of having a camera.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:21:31]:
Right.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:21:32]:
Yes.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:21:32]:
Would you be banned from taking those on a cruise. Cruise ship. Because I know most cruise ships are banning them now.
Leo Laporte [01:21:36]:
Yeah. Msc, I think, announced that they're not gonna allow them in public spaces. You can have it in your Cabin Royal as well. That's right.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:21:43]:
Camera. Yeah. I mean, because this doesn't do any recording. These don't do any recording. It's just like having. Speaking.
Leo Laporte [01:21:48]:
I think, you know, for years, museums said no cameras in the museum. We don't want to take pictures. But now everybody has a smartphone. How are you gonna ban that? I think we're just gonna have to get used to the idea that people are gonna be.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:22:00]:
Victoria took her Meta Ray bans to Italy and she. She wrote a story about seeing lots of Renaissance butts. And she used the Meta glasses to say, okay, tell me about this, but.
Leo Laporte [01:22:16]:
How many butts have I seen today? Better?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:22:19]:
And she said it was great for that. That experience, getting that information right to her without having to pull out her.
Leo Laporte [01:22:24]:
I love that idea. Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:22:26]:
Just say, tell me about it.
Leo Laporte [01:22:27]:
It's a tourist tour guide. Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:22:29]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:22:29]:
There were a lot of glasses at the show this year. Xreal was there. Of course, Google's got their xr. Were you impressed by any of them? Were any of them particularly something to write home about or Is it more of the same?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:22:44]:
So V said no, I didn't see all of them.
Leo Laporte [01:22:47]:
She was like, this is kind of.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:22:48]:
Her beat boring this year. Yeah, a lot of iterations I think. And like said I was sort of saying it's like we're still waiting to get to that next point. I saw a couple people testing one with like a little scroll screen, like what the metas are going to be doing and showing you and you have a little ring to scroll through what.
Leo Laporte [01:23:09]:
You'Re meta's Put a teleprompter now in their display so you can read ads. As I walk around the show floor.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:23:16]:
It would, I mean and you could see a lot of use case for that for you know, in business and for any sort of professional like having been able to pull up that kind of information right in front of you. But I just feels like from what I understand, I didn't see any of these devices myself because I was chasing robots. But is that you? That nothing's quite at that level where it's going to be mass market adoption yet.
Jason Hiner [01:23:40]:
There's still breakthrough. Yeah, none of them are ready to break through quite yet. I do think the Teleprompter 1 is pretty interesting for. So I use, used the. During this past year I used the even realities G1 and G2 products that have a teleprompter built in. And I used it in two things on stage where I had to sort of write, you know, some remarks and go up and say them and it worked great. I thought it was, it was very good. Nobody noticed that it was a teleprompter at least didn't say anything to me.
Jason Hiner [01:24:12]:
And several of them I asked, you know, and I told him like, hey, I was using. They're like, well no, I would never would have known.
Leo Laporte [01:24:16]:
Is it listening to you? How does it know what you're reading?
Jason Hiner [01:24:19]:
Yeah, so it's a, it's a teleprompter and it sort of automatically uses AI to, to, you know, automatically move it forward so you're not scrolling it yourself.
Leo Laporte [01:24:28]:
So one of the things I don't like about the meta is the display is just in one eye kind of down.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:24:33]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:24:33]:
Is it. How does the, how do the even displays do it?
Jason Hiner [01:24:36]:
Yeah, that one's in both eyes. So it's, it's monocolor though. So it's, it's, it's only green.
Leo Laporte [01:24:41]:
It looks like a green screen. Yeah, but that's fine, right?
Jason Hiner [01:24:43]:
It's fine and it's bright, it's much brighter. It feels Much brighter than the. I've also used the Meta Ray Bans display and the problem with it being in one eye is it does feel pretty washed out. You know, because of that you can turn it up really bright, but it's still not great.
Leo Laporte [01:25:00]:
One of the things I'm really interested in is, is the idea of having and this is why I'm interested maybe in the Meta as an AI assistant there to talk to, to ask questions of. I really want a heads up display so it can go. That's Jennifer Pattison Tuohy.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:25:16]:
You, you want the facial recognition.
Leo Laporte [01:25:18]:
I want face recognition. I want that store. Don't go in that store. That's a great place to get pho. That kind of thing. I want that kind of. Cause you know, as I become more and more enamored of AI, I kind of want to have it with me.
Jason Hiner [01:25:32]:
With you.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:25:33]:
That's one of the reasons what made me me why I pulled the trigger on the frames, even though these are kind of an older generation now, is it does have A plus. Oh it does, yes. So they brought it to the glasses and the buds and then also the, the bee is. I think it'll be coming.
Leo Laporte [01:25:51]:
Oh, you still have your bee? Yeah, Amazon bought them.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:25:54]:
I just got one at the show. They gave me one to try.
Leo Laporte [01:25:57]:
I got it a year ago when they announced a CES last year. Yeah, wore it for six months.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:26:02]:
I saw. You said in our Verge comments actually that you were getting rid of it.
Leo Laporte [01:26:06]:
Yeah, because Amazon bought it.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:26:08]:
I know. So I spoke to them about it at the show. The founder was there and Maria's great.
Leo Laporte [01:26:14]:
We'Ve interviewed her and very nice, very, very nice people and they say what that it's going to. We're not giving that data to Amazon.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:26:22]:
They. And they've added additional privacy and protection layers. Like no one can access any, any of the recordings, not even be. There's no, you know, they've reinforced their privacy because obviously there has been a lot of concern from users around that. But Amazon and B haven't announced exactly what's going to happen with B and Amazon, but it does seem fairly likely that we're going to see this sort of sink into the Alexa plus ecosystem sooner rather than later as another input method for their AI, which they're very much trying to take outside of the home, which they've been trying to do for, for a long time, but with not much success. But now it seems like I think they're, they're gearing up to be a competitor here.
Jason Hiner [01:27:05]:
Leo, if you Want, you know a good language model on a pair of glasses like so you have it access all. All the time. The thing is you don't really want the Metas because it uses Llama 4 and it's just not very good.
Leo Laporte [01:27:17]:
Yeah, yeah, I've tried it. No, I have the first generation.
Jason Hiner [01:27:20]:
Yeah but if you use the Solos glasses so S O L O S or Rokid R O K I D those you can both use GPT5 on so you have access to sort of.
Leo Laporte [01:27:34]:
The latest and they look pretty nice too. They're not bad looking glasses. These are the Solos.
Jason Hiner [01:27:40]:
They're very similar. They. They all look a lot like, you know the, the Meta Ray bands. Right. The original sort of black arrayments. Some of you know the Solos have different ones you can. You can use but you know.
Leo Laporte [01:27:54]:
Okay, that's a little geeky looking.
Jason Hiner [01:27:55]:
I admit they're pretty nerdy. I think the, the. The ones that even reality's G1s are probably NG2s are probably the best looking. They really. They are made designed by Swiss designers. They're made to be like premium glasses and so I find them sort of of is the best esthetically you know of the ones that are out there. The software is still catching up but it also will do. It has their own models and then it has.
Jason Hiner [01:28:25]:
You can use chat GPT essentially with it as well. But the software is. This hardware is amazing. The software is still catching up. I'm sure it'll get better. But the Solos and the Rokid the software works a little better on those two.
Leo Laporte [01:28:38]:
I should mention that the A Word plus Amazon's Echo AI system is now available on the website to everyone in early access.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:28:49]:
Their real push to. I said to take a Out of the home.
Leo Laporte [01:28:54]:
It ain't. You know what, it's not bad. One of our Echo devices got upgraded and Lisa, my wife was talking to it and was kind of wow. I'm kind of having a. She used to swear at the other one kind of having a nice conversation because it would follow up. You could. You can ask it more difficult questions. I notice Google's doing the same thing with their voice assistant.
Leo Laporte [01:29:16]:
They've added Gemini to it and of course part of the reason both are moving in that direction is because Apple at some point in the next few months we think is going to release Siri with that kind of capability. Probably based on Gemini white box.
Jason Hiner [01:29:29]:
Gemini. Yeah, they probably won't use Gemini as the word Gemini in it but you know.
Leo Laporte [01:29:35]:
Right.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:29:35]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:29:36]:
Siri couldn't get Any dumber.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:29:38]:
Amazon has a head start here and in terms of being in the home space, they launched that agentic AI version of Alexa a lot sooner than any of their competitors. And whilst the agentic elements are still a bit shaky, and I have tested a few of them, it does. It can actually do things for you, which is something that none of the others have really accomplished yet. Although the chances are they will get leapfrogged at some point. Here though, I think they use a variety of different models behind the scenes, so who knows? Exactly. I think Claude is one of the partners for Amazon.
Leo Laporte [01:30:17]:
I guess I'm all in on Claude now that I'm spending so much money. Yeah, I better use CL. I have them all right. I've had the $20 subscription for everybody, didn't pay for Grok. I have an un. A non consensual blue tick as. As Cory Doctorow calls it. But I still got Grok.
Leo Laporte [01:30:35]:
Brock is in a lot of trouble generating non consensual deep fake nudity at scale. At scale.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:30:45]:
That's impressive.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:30:46]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:30:47]:
In fact, they've been banned now from Indonesia, a number of countries. The US refuses to do anything about it. Apple and Google are getting a lot of heat because they, despite, especially Apple, despite its long standing rejection of adult content, has done nothing about the actual app in the App Store. And Elon's only response at first was to apologize and then now he says, well, you can't have it for free. If you want deepfakes, you're gonna have to give me money.
Jason Hiner [01:31:18]:
I mean, it does limit the number of users that can do it for sure, but it doesn't solve problem.
Leo Laporte [01:31:23]:
X is such a cesspool. Anybody still using X, get out while you still can't. None of you use X, do you?
Father Robert Ballecer [01:31:30]:
I. I haven't been on X for a year and a half now, I think.
Jason Hiner [01:31:33]:
Yeah, I mean it is still first. I know it's still a place where people announce things.
Leo Laporte [01:31:39]:
When Bob Weir passed, my wife said, did Bob Weird die? And I said, well, let me check. Where do you go? You go to X.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:31:46]:
There are still pockets as well of certain industries that kind of isolated themselves on X and they don't. They're not really involved with the, the Milan.
Leo Laporte [01:31:56]:
That's what you have to do is.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:31:57]:
Yeah. And so some things you do hear.
Leo Laporte [01:32:00]:
No evil, see no evil.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:32:01]:
Someone the other day who was saying, yeah, they would love to get off X, but the VC Twitter is still a huge space. So for journalists in particular, it's something.
Leo Laporte [01:32:15]:
That, well, we have an Excuse. As journalists we kind of need to visit the system.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:32:19]:
I don't really engage on it, but I do check.
Leo Laporte [01:32:21]:
Oh, I never engage. Yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:32:23]:
Security Twitter disassembled about a year ago.
Leo Laporte [01:32:25]:
A year and a half ago, as did Science Twitter. Science Twitter, I think. Black Twitter.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:32:30]:
I had it working properly because the little block bot that I had created, which would no longer work with the new version of Twitter by the way, it was fantastic at, at weeding out the most toxic users who would even remotely interact with my account, block them inside. But, but then that, you know, then he started to trying charging more for the API and that just became a non starter.
Leo Laporte [01:32:53]:
We are going to talk in just a bit about the toilet that looks at your poop. But every ces. Every ces, unless you know that's one of your picks, I don't know. Let's find out. Number three on the father Robert hit parade watch number three.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:33:11]:
The Jackery Solar marsbot. Imagine living off grid and never having to worry about properly placing your solar panels for energy capture. Capture that's possible with the Jackery Solar Marsbot, an AI enabled autonomous vehicle that is part robot, part power bank. At the top of the bot are six solar panels that are safely stored in the bot's hat that is held by a double axis arm that allows for 60 degrees of tilt. In that hat is a light tracking sensor that determines the optimal inclination of the solar panels for capture. The lighting system automatically rotates the bot and angles the hat before deploying its panels for up to 600 watts of power generation. When deployed, the unit's AI can waypoint to optimal charging locations, follow users and automatically return the bot to its charging station on overcast days or when its energy storage is full. The unit I played with has a 5,000 watt hour battery, a complement of USB C, PD110 and 220 volt outputs, and up to 3,000 watts of constant power.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:34:09]:
That's enough to keep a small off grid cabin fully powered for two days. Days even without additional sunlight. So it's, it's totally niche. I get it.
Leo Laporte [01:34:19]:
I get how can you generate with a little panel though. I mean it's not that 600 watts.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:34:24]:
600 watts.
Leo Laporte [01:34:25]:
But how long does it take to do that?
Father Robert Ballecer [01:34:27]:
Well, I mean that, that's the thing about the solar tracking. So rather than having to build your house or your cabin so that it.
Leo Laporte [01:34:33]:
Properly put that thing in the yard and then you move it in the.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:34:37]:
Yard and you let it, you let it go, go from spot to spot, always optimizing Its solar capture actually.
Leo Laporte [01:34:42]:
That's really cool.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:34:43]:
Yeah, it is neat. They, they actually, I mean that came out, they launched that a couple of years ago.
Leo Laporte [01:34:48]:
I'm not 24.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:34:49]:
They ever shipped though, right? Or did it. Well maybe announce it in 23, but yeah. It is a neat idea though. The thing that really caught my eye at CES from Jackery was the gazebo, the solar panels.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:35:02]:
Oh, the solar gazebo.
Leo Laporte [01:35:03]:
Yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:35:03]:
That was cool.
Leo Laporte [01:35:04]:
Okay. You know, I don't have any where to put a gazebo, but what. So this is, this is a. It sits outside and actually doesn't look like a gazebo. It looks like a little, little house out there.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:35:16]:
Yeah. And it has 2000 watts of solar panels and an integrated lighting and a pull down projector screen and outlets and you can put the jackary power stations in it so that you can basically.
Leo Laporte [01:35:27]:
So is it a man cave?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:35:29]:
What is it outdoor? Yeah, it's an out. Oh, it's an outdoor.
Leo Laporte [01:35:31]:
Oh, it's a. Oh yeah, yeah. You'd put it in your patio. Yeah, it's a, it's like a solar cover for your patio. I see.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:35:37]:
Yeah. So you just hang out.
Leo Laporte [01:35:38]:
Oh, that's clever.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:35:40]:
I know, but like 15,000.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:35:41]:
Oh, now Leo wants it.
Leo Laporte [01:35:43]:
Well, if you put in. We used to have. Our old house had 30 or 40 solar panels. It was much more than $15,000. But it was great. I mean we were off the grid. We had two Tesla batteries and I never had to worry. This is interesting.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:35:59]:
I think I've wanted to be off grid for a while. Just get a piece of land in the middle of nowhere, Nevada and I'm kind of getting into the, the renewables now, so.
Leo Laporte [01:36:09]:
So 2,000 watts, 10 kilowatt hours a day. Is that, I guess that's enough to you, you know, small house. Refrigerator. Could I have a refrigerator?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:36:21]:
I mean, so this isn't really for living.
Leo Laporte [01:36:24]:
No, no, no, I know, but this powers the house. House it's attached to. It's not right?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:36:28]:
No, I think it's just powering itself. Oh, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. I think it's just so that you can power your outdoor appliances and things.
Leo Laporte [01:36:38]:
Oh, I see. I want to power the house.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:36:41]:
The rule of thumbs is per person you're going to be budgeting about 2,000 watt watt hours a day. Oh, that would be enough to drive.
Leo Laporte [01:36:50]:
Your family of five could have exactly live off this. Yeah, well that's to live underneath the.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:36:55]:
Gaze in that respect. If you could plug it into your internal.
Leo Laporte [01:37:00]:
It looks like you could, yeah, looks like you could put it into your house.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:37:03]:
Especially like my house. I can't put panels on all of my.
Leo Laporte [01:37:07]:
I don't want to put them on the roof.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:37:08]:
Yeah, well, I also have too many trees. Like, we could only put panels in like a little corner. And now if I could put this in a sunny spot in my yard, I could get more power. Instead of, of just sticking the solar farm in your yard, you put a nice gazebo in your yard.
Leo Laporte [01:37:25]:
Yeah, I, yeah, does come up with.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:37:29]:
Some pretty innovative stuff.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:37:30]:
So yeah, I did like their. They've got a power station that it's not. You can't submerge it, but it is basically waterproof and that I kind of like because you're going to be using a lot of these out in the outdoors, so.
Leo Laporte [01:37:43]:
Right. See what else here. Oh, the Throne. What? Did I do my ad yet? Oh, I was going to do an ad. I'm sorry. Let me do the ad and then the Throne. Then we'll check out the throne. You're watching this week in tech.
Leo Laporte [01:37:59]:
Our CES episode. All the great stuff that may never make it to your house with Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, Jason Heiner and father Robert Balassair. Our showed it. Okay. It's coming from inside the house. Our show today, brought to you by this brand new sponsor. And I'm really excited. I don't even know if you know about this, Robert, but this is really cool.
Leo Laporte [01:38:24]:
Meter. Meter is the company building better networks. And it was created by two network engineers who really knew the pain points that network engineers face. Legacy providers, inflexible pricing, it, resource constraints. Right. You never have enough budget, stretching you thin, complex deployments across fragmented tools. The network is mission critical to the business. But as a network engineer, often you're working with infrastructure that just wasn't built for today's demands.
Leo Laporte [01:38:58]:
I want you to know about Meter. Newer company with a brilliant vision. It's got full stack networking infrastructure from the ISP to the hardware to cellular. This is why businesses are switching to Meter. Full stack networking that's built for performance and scalability. They design their own hardware, they write their own firmware, they build the software, they manage the deployment if you want them to, and they provide support so you can have everything from them come out and put the whole thing in and run it and everything to. I mean, you get your choice of how you want it. You know, you got your job, you set it up, they help you as a support team.
Leo Laporte [01:39:38]:
They offer everything from ISP procurement to security to Routing to switching to wireless to firewall. I talked to these guys, I was so impressed. You know, they'll go into companies, you know, it's not unusual for coming to acquire warehouses with their own kind of wireless infrastructure from you know, 2002. Right. They come in and they make it so. Not only so that the warehouse is fully operational, but it integrates with your existing stack back at the home office. This includes Power cellular if you need it, DNS security, they will help you with VPNs with SD WANs. And these multi site workflows really are a solution all from one company.
Leo Laporte [01:40:20]:
One solution. Meter. Meter single integrated networking stack scales from major hospitals. If you've ever spent any time in hospitals, you know it's the worst place for connectivity. Right?
Father Robert Ballecer [01:40:30]:
Right.
Leo Laporte [01:40:31]:
Meter solves that. Branch offices, you know, out in the boonies and you gotta get to the home office. Warehouses, large campuses, data centers. You know who uses Meter? Reddit, the assistant director of technology for the Web School of Knoxville. Perfect example. He said, we had more than 20 games on our campus between two facilities. Each game streaming via wired and wireless connections. And the event went off without a hitch.
Leo Laporte [01:41:00]:
We could never have done this before Meter redesigned our network. That's a direct quote. With Meter, you get a single partner for all your connectivity needs. That's nice too because if something doesn't work, the ISP doesn't say, well, it's not our fault. It's all part of the plan, right? From first site survey to ongoing support without the complexity of managing multiple providers or tools. Meter's integrated networking stack is designed to take the burden off your IT team and give you deep control and visibility. Reimagine what it means for businesses to get and stay online. And these days if you're not online, you aren't in business.
Leo Laporte [01:41:37]:
This is table stakes. Meter built for the bandwidth demand of today and tomorrow. We thank Meters for sponsoring. Go to meter.comtwit to book a demo. Now that's M e t e r.com twit to book a demo. This is the new standard for networking. Brand new, very exciting. Meter.comTwit I want you to check it out.
Leo Laporte [01:42:01]:
Meanwhile, the throne is checking out your poop. As Daniel Cooper says it Engadget. Who doesn't want a camera in their toilet? Now this isn't a whole toilet. This is just a camera you hook onto the side. We do see these every year at ces.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:42:20]:
Yes.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:42:24]:
Why is there demands and well, you.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:42:29]:
You can learn a surprising amount of very accurate information about the state of your body by what comes out of it.
Leo Laporte [01:42:37]:
So, of course, that's why doctors are always asking for samples, right?
Father Robert Ballecer [01:42:41]:
Exactly, exactly. I mean, it shows what your metabolic rate is. It shows if you've got any buildup of toxins, and if you can have a piece of technology that just sits in that receptacle all day, why wouldn't you? Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:42:59]:
I can think of lots of reasons.
Leo Laporte [01:43:02]:
I am shocked, shocked, Jennifer Pattison Toohey, that you don't actually have one of these in your lab.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:43:08]:
Yeah, no, I leave all that stuff to the Sean holster.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:43:14]:
If I followed you around with a little bag, you'd be okay with that, right? I mean, because that's. That's your beat. So.
Leo Laporte [01:43:19]:
So, no, no Best of CES award for the whoop for the poop toilet.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:43:26]:
I do think that the P1 from last year did win an award. There was one.
Leo Laporte [01:43:29]:
There you go.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:43:30]:
My things, you see thing.
Leo Laporte [01:43:32]:
Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:43:34]:
But yes, that this is, I mean, the measuring, the metrics, looking, you know, having every part of our body and movement moment tracked.
Leo Laporte [01:43:44]:
It's the quantified self, baby.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:43:45]:
Yes, that's what we mean.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:43:48]:
Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:43:48]:
And then you feed it all into your smart home AI, and then your home can kind of respond to you and say, no, do not take the big steak out of the fridge. It's bad for you. It's going to tell you what you're allowed to do now. And then we're all going to be in trouble.
Leo Laporte [01:44:04]:
I mean, really, we're all. Look, I mean, I wear an Apple watch. I wear a continuous glucose monitor monitor. I wear an aura ring. I mean, we're all, you know, kind of putting on these devices. I admit they're still a little bit less than, you know, fully operative, but we're getting there.
Jason Hiner [01:44:22]:
In fact, remember ChatGPT Health was just released this week, too.
Leo Laporte [01:44:27]:
Yeah.
Jason Hiner [01:44:28]:
Announced and not. Not fully released.
Leo Laporte [01:44:30]:
I want to hook that up so that you hook up, you put it on your iPhone and you hook it up to your Apple Health. Right. I signed up.
Jason Hiner [01:44:36]:
I haven't gotten it yet to. Yeah, multiple sensors. You can upload, you know, your test results to it. You can do all kinds of things. Now what they said is, you know, the Fiji Simo, the CEO of Apps, said that 200,000 people a month are already uploading their. And asking about health questions and uploading their data. I can say that I knew two people, people this past year who had something come up in their health. They essentially were going to have to get a.
Jason Hiner [01:45:16]:
An appointment with a specialist that was a month away. So they got sort of a negative indicator, right? And they were like, okay, we'll schedule appointment for the specialist where you look at. So they freaked out, right? Because like you do like, oh my gosh, you know, I've got something that's going to be terrible. And in both cases, these are two separate people that just reached out to me and told me this. In both cases they took, they, they went on their health portal, downloaded the test themselves, uploaded to Chat GPT in one case and Claude in the other case, and they said, you know, read this for me, should I be worried? And in both cases it gave them very detailed interpretations of the, of the.
Leo Laporte [01:45:57]:
Data risk there though, isn't there, of hallucinations, of inaccuracies? I mean, I don't.
Jason Hiner [01:46:01]:
Sure, yeah, but in both cases, but it was enough that before they went to the specialist they had cases, they were like a little relieved. And in one case, so the one was relieved and when she went to the doctor, when this person went to the doctor, they told them something very similar. The other one, when they went to the doctor, they shared that, that they were. And they said, hey, this is what I got from Chat GPT. And the specialist looked at it like, wow, that's pretty good actually. That's really, really, that's really close. Can you, can I, can you leave this with me, you know, so I can have a copy? And so it was, it was really interesting. So I guess my point is just that people are doing it already.
Jason Hiner [01:46:47]:
There are all kinds of reasons to be wary about uploading, you know, very sensitive data that could have, you know, very negative ramifications if it were leaked and someone accessed, you know, your health data to, to a source like ChatGPT. But you know, at the same time, we have to expect that this is coming not just from OpenAI but from all of the others you know as well. Oh yeah, Remember Google and Apple and Amazon and other have been trying to do things like this for years and get people to put all their health data in their ecosystems.
Leo Laporte [01:47:19]:
Yeah, well, or in your toilet, as.
Jason Hiner [01:47:23]:
In the toilet too. Uploading.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:47:25]:
Amazon wants to send everyone free toilets. They can have all that data for free.
Jason Hiner [01:47:32]:
So Razor blade scheme, moving on.
Leo Laporte [01:47:36]:
Jennifer, your favorite device of CES was the Akara smart lock. It's funny, I just replaced all my Acaras with Schlagen. Did I make a mistake?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:47:45]:
Which legs the code?
Leo Laporte [01:47:48]:
Yeah, it's a homekit enabled.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:47:52]:
Yes. You didn't make a mistake. That's a great lock. If you're happy with Apple Home key. That is.
Leo Laporte [01:47:57]:
That's what I wanted. I wanted to walk up to the door and have it open because you make a mistake. Yeah, I did.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:48:06]:
Fortunately. Well because the Schlage won't be able to do that. The new Schlage Schlage which they announced last year and still hasn't launched will be able to do it. But what is so special about the U400 is it's the first smart lock to support Apple home keys. Hands free unlocking.
Leo Laporte [01:48:24]:
That's what I wanted.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:48:25]:
Uses WB and that has. So this. There's two locks because I could do.
Leo Laporte [01:48:31]:
That with my car now and I really like that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:48:34]:
The same technology. Technology. It's exactly the same technology. And so this is just. So it was announced a couple of years ago that Apple was going to support this in home key. So it's the same concept as home key but the home key that you have with the Schlage tap.
Leo Laporte [01:48:49]:
Right. So yeah. Yeah. I don't.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:48:51]:
Nfc.
Leo Laporte [01:48:52]:
Yeah I don't mind tap because I'm a little nervous that the door will.
Jason Hiner [01:48:56]:
Just open lock when you don't want to.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:48:58]:
So this is.
Leo Laporte [01:48:59]:
Or long grenade.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:49:00]:
This is. Is what's taken a while for the technology to come out because obviously you've had it. But this is something you have in the car too is it does have directional awareness.
Leo Laporte [01:49:07]:
The UdWB makes a big difference.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:49:10]:
Yes. It knows that you are approaching from which direction you're approaching and actually when you set up the lock in a Cara's app or in the Home Apple home app there's a little. You can turn off approach from direction. So you can turn it. So it's just from.
Leo Laporte [01:49:24]:
I didn't know that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:49:25]:
From the front of the door.
Leo Laporte [01:49:26]:
Door. Don't come in from the side if.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:49:28]:
You want but you know my house, my path is along the side so I want that on. But you can control where it's detecting you from. But it. One of the key things is it does not open when you are walking from inside your house.
Leo Laporte [01:49:45]:
That's something I had to turn off in my car because my car. I'm above my. The garage right now. My car would unlock like you know all the time it was going beep beep beep. So I finally had to say and BMW just added this feature. Yeah. When I'm at home. Don't do that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:50:00]:
Yeah. So this. No, this is designed to. It will not unlock from. If you're anywhere inside the house.
Leo Laporte [01:50:07]:
Good. That's what I was worried about.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:50:09]:
And it will not unlock if you just walk past the house. It knows intent of directions so you.
Leo Laporte [01:50:14]:
Have to be walking up to it.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:50:15]:
Up to the door. And also it knows velocity. So if you're walking slowly, it will unlock a bit little, a little bit later like so it's going to unlock at the same time. No matter how fast you're moving, if you're running in and running to get in, it'll quicker. So you can what, no matter what, as you get to your door and open the handle.
Leo Laporte [01:50:35]:
That's cool.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:50:36]:
It's, it's, it's, it's very impressive and that's why I chose this lock because it's the first one that supports Apple Home key. But what's really interesting here and which is why it was more relevant at CES because Apple Home is quite a niche system still. Even though there's a lot of people that use it, it's still small. But Apple is part of a new protocol called Alero which is a smart lock standard that is going to bring all of the home key features that tap to unlock and the UWB hands free unlocking to any platform.
Leo Laporte [01:51:11]:
So Apple, Samsung and Google are involved.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:51:14]:
They'Re all part of this and all the major lock manufacturers a part of it as well. And it's specifically. And one of the big concerns people have about this obviously is well, if someone steals my phone, can they unlock my house? Well, if someone steals your key, can they unlock your house? I mean that isn't something that's going to go away. But the nice thing about a smartphone is you can remotely wipe it. Can't do that with a key. But you do. It does require you to turn off authentication, the facial recognition or fingerprint unlocking that you might have on your phone because it's not going to work with the whole hands free point is that you, not completely just for this lock.
Leo Laporte [01:51:57]:
Wait a minute, wait, wait a minute. When do I turn it off?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:52:01]:
So when you set up hands free unlock in Apple Home, it will say Enable Express mode, which you may have seen with the home key NFC feature, which means you can use this without authenticating by unlocking the phone. So because it's faster, you, you still have to have authenticated that you're, that it's your phone at some point within the last, I think it's 24 hours is the time window. So if you, you know, if your phone was lost for a while and someone picked it up, it wouldn't, they wouldn't be able to use it. But yeah, it does require you to turn off, turn on express mode which bypasses facial recognition or PIN code authentication. So if you are worried about it from that perspective then this is not a technology for you. But it is. I mean it is hands free. You do not need to touch your door other than to unlock it.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:52:53]:
But door manufacturers are working towards automatic opening as well. We've actually seen there was a new company that just launched last December called doma from the founders of August which was the first smart lock that had this hands free unlock capability but that used Bluetooth, WI Fi and GPS and three radios working together invariably meant it was not very accurate. But this is a very specific radio to antenna phone to lock technology that in my. I got to test this before CES and it was worked flawlessly. It was a really good experience. And what's great about this new standard O is it's bringing this technology to every platform and every manufacturer across handsets and locks. So it's not going to be just limited to Apple going forward.
Leo Laporte [01:53:43]:
Hallelujah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:53:44]:
Which is. Yeah. And it's a great example of how standards are working in the smart home to make the smart home a lot easier and more accessible. And it's not just for. For homes either. This could also be used for offices businesses. So you could just basically use your phone as a key for everything which. Yeah, I mean I can.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:54:06]:
There are obviously the other. The concern about security is hacking and they do. This is one of the reasons it's taken a really long time to launch this standard that. Well, not really long but they were supposed to launch early last year and it's now not launch. It's launching this quarter is. But they use asymmetric. I'm going to test my memory right here. It's asymmetric security.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:54:31]:
So it's not. So every time the code is sent between the two devices is different like.
Leo Laporte [01:54:37]:
The rolling code for your garage door.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:54:39]:
So you're not going to. Even if someone did manage to hack in and get the code the next time it's going to be different. So that should. I mean obviously once it's in the real world we'll see if there are any flaws, but they feel pretty confident. I spoke to the head of Valero at CES and they wouldn't give me the exact details yet because the spec hasn't been released. But they said they feel pretty confident that the security is is really high. And I said this is being developed by a number of companies so that we working and you know, for a lock manufacturer like Schlage and Assa Abloy And Yale quickset, they're all on board and they've. When I've spoken to them, they've all said that they feel like this is a real game changer for the smart lock space.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:55:23]:
So that was my pick.
Leo Laporte [01:55:25]:
Just bought the Schlage.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:55:27]:
Sorry, I don't think it'll work in my place because our locks have like seven pound keys.
Jason Hiner [01:55:36]:
Rotten iron.
Leo Laporte [01:55:37]:
I don't think that's.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:55:39]:
I mean, at this. At this point, I'm not sure that's retrofittable to the bc. BC buildings.
Leo Laporte [01:55:47]:
Yes.
Jason Hiner [01:55:47]:
Anything before the dark in your case means you could bludgeon another human being with it if they try to mug you.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:55:55]:
Our smart locks is. There's. There's a Jesuit brother standing by the door who will unlock it for you.
Leo Laporte [01:56:00]:
Or a Swiss Guard. A hel.
Jason Hiner [01:56:02]:
Smer than that.
Leo Laporte [01:56:03]:
Yes.
Jason Hiner [01:56:03]:
Much smarter.
Leo Laporte [01:56:04]:
Yes.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:56:04]:
Oh. Which, by the way, Leo. So I was very enamored by the anti gravity drone that was being displayed at ces. I. I really wanted to get one from my office.
Leo Laporte [01:56:13]:
Yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:56:13]:
And I got the expense approved. And then I got a message from a friend in the Swiss Guard who said, don't. Don't bring that.
Leo Laporte [01:56:21]:
No drones. Are they really from Switzerland, by the way? The Swiss Guard?
Father Robert Ballecer [01:56:25]:
They are. They are. Although there is a Filipino Swiss Guard two years ago. He was the very first one. You just have to be born in Switzerland. So his parents. Philippines. There you go.
Leo Laporte [01:56:34]:
Yeah, that's really. So they kind of on loan to the Pope from Switzerland.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:56:40]:
It's a choice. It's a choice assignment. So they only send their best. And the people who are a bit.
Leo Laporte [01:56:46]:
The best people in. In the best clown outfits.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:56:48]:
Precisely.
Leo Laporte [01:56:49]:
And.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:56:49]:
And the. The pay is not great, but it's completely untaxed and you continue to receive half of it for the rest of your life.
Leo Laporte [01:56:58]:
Oh, nice.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:56:59]:
If you complete your tour. So it's kind of nice.
Leo Laporte [01:57:02]:
That's pretty cool. What about this lock in that you have on your article? It looks like it's in a time tunnel. What is that all about?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:57:11]:
So that's a different smart lock. So this is another really interesting technology around smart locks is wireless charging. And this lock in was showing off a new type of wireless charging that it's using.
Leo Laporte [01:57:26]:
Because now that thing around it isn't just like for show. That's actually charging it. The time tunnel it's in.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:57:34]:
No, that was just for show.
Leo Laporte [01:57:36]:
Okay. It does look like it. Like that's how you go through that. And you all charged up.
Father Robert Ballecer [01:57:41]:
I was about to say. Wait a minute. That. So it's radiating stuff.
Leo Laporte [01:57:46]:
Is it, is it wireless charging?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:57:48]:
So if you scroll down, down in the article to the section where I mentioned the lock, there's a little picture. There's a picture and you can see the little puck. You have to click to the right.
Leo Laporte [01:57:59]:
Oh, it's got a little puck.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:58:00]:
It's a little puck, yes. If you click to the right, there's another image and the puck is plugged in. And then.
Leo Laporte [01:58:06]:
So that's reasonable because otherwise I'm putting in batteries every few months.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:58:10]:
That's the issue with smart locks right now. And that's why locks are limited right now. Because, because you can't. So you've seen, you've probably seen. And on the show floor this year, there were facial, on facial recognition 3D facial recognition locks. There were palm vein unlocks. This one, this lock in particular has so many different ways you can unlock with finger vein. Palm vein 3D recognition that the handle is a palm reader.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:58:37]:
So as you hold the door.
Leo Laporte [01:58:39]:
I like that. What's a finger vein though? Is that different from the fingerprint?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:58:44]:
Yes. And that's. The palm vein is the same, uses the same technology. So it's actually reading the blood, the blood running through your veins rather than the fingerprint. Because fingerprints can be, can be manipulated. They can be also.
Leo Laporte [01:58:59]:
Is there something unique about the blood running through my veins?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:59:02]:
The vein pattern is unique on your palm and your finger. So it's considered more accurate than a fingerprint. So but, but it has, so it has three biometric unlockings. It has two cameras, it has a, for the built in video doorbell and then it has the interior and exterior touchscreen which that with the cute little avatar. So you can create an avatar that greets.
Leo Laporte [01:59:24]:
Yeah, it's a cute little guy in there. Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:59:26]:
And the, but because it's got continuous like a regular door lock, if it had four double A batteries would last like a day day with all this technology. But because this one is widely charged, wirelessly charged, it can power, you know, it can do things that most door locks can't.
Leo Laporte [01:59:43]:
How long though? I mean do you have to put the puck on every day?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [01:59:46]:
So no, the puck sits with a 4 within a 4 meter range somewhere in the house. As long as it has line of sight, you just plug it in. So it is radiating, it's, it's using wireless infrared charging, optical charging, charging to just continually power the lock. And it said that if the, if your power goes out in the home and the lock is not being charged, it should last up to a week. Which is obviously wouldn't be good in real, you know, a regular use. But as long as if you were out of power for a week you, you have.
Leo Laporte [02:00:15]:
It'd be good like if your cat slept on the puck and kept it from charging, you wanted to keep working.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:00:20]:
It would still work for a while. Yeah. And so you know this lock itself is very expensive and it's also a mortise lock which most people aren't going to be using us. So that's the European style or the really fancy high end doors will have the mortise lock. It's. It's not a deadbolt basically. So it's, it's the sort of real mechanical. I think when you, when you go into like an apartment building quite often they have mortise door locks.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:00:46]:
So it's. They're more expensive, much heavier. It's. Yeah. Someone just dropped a picture of it in the chat. Chat that shows it has a lot. It's a different type of technology from a deadbolt. So you're.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:00:57]:
But they do have a deadbolt version. But what's interesting here is when you have wireless power there is so much more you can do with the technology in your door. And then this one does also support matter and they said they will have UWB support in the future too. So it would have the hands free unlocking. So lots of exciting things going on going on in the door lock space.
Leo Laporte [02:01:20]:
You might have a mortise lock in your Vatican housing. It's a kind of old fashioned kind of lock.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:01:26]:
No, seriously, our locks are embedded into.
Leo Laporte [02:01:28]:
Marble so you can have a marble mortise.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:01:33]:
Our house is really, really. Part of our house goes back 500 years and part of our house goes back. The new part of our house goes back 120 years.
Leo Laporte [02:01:43]:
Oh the new. The new quarters.
Jason Hiner [02:01:45]:
The new one.
Leo Laporte [02:01:45]:
Yeah, the new one, yeah. Now you could also get a why things body smart scale. I think I have the predecessor to this. It's got a handle that you hold while you're stepping on the scale.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:01:58]:
I have a body that should be part of the smart lock that should go outside and you just have to weigh in.
Leo Laporte [02:02:03]:
Checking your veins. Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:02:05]:
This is interesting because this was. And Victoria wearables were reporter was talking about this on our best of video that it's representing a kind of longevity. A shift from health tech to be about losing weight or tracking to tracking your immediate condition to be about longevity and making helping you sort of focus on health in the way that is going to help you.
Leo Laporte [02:02:32]:
Yeah. My, my body scan scale says I am 2 years old. Older than my.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:02:37]:
Chronological, Right? Yeah. And this, this is supposed. Supposedly does, you know, measures a number of metrics, but one of them is specifically through your foot sweat, which I.
Leo Laporte [02:02:50]:
Yeah, no, I do the foot sweat test. I don't know what it's telling me, but I know you have to stand on the scale and it's in it. I don't know. Is it sending electrical current through my feet? I don't. It's doing something.
Jason Hiner [02:03:05]:
Something, something.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:03:06]:
Leo, do you. Do you remember we had a. Why Things in the studio that broke.
Leo Laporte [02:03:11]:
I might have been my Y things.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:03:13]:
It might have.
Jason Hiner [02:03:14]:
Yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:03:14]:
Like 10, 10, 11 years ago it broke. And on. Know how we improved it?
Leo Laporte [02:03:19]:
Oh, my God.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:03:20]:
A small MP3 player so that when someone stepped on it, it would go.
Leo Laporte [02:03:26]:
Oh, you're too heavy. That might have been my old one because it was tweeting my weight for a while.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:03:32]:
It was, it was not app.
Jason Hiner [02:03:34]:
Oh, I remember that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:03:38]:
Yeah. I think this one is supposed to sort of. She was saying it sort of helps take away the focus on just your weight. Just weight more about other, other elements of your.
Leo Laporte [02:03:48]:
It does my heartbeat. It does. It does a little, you know, 32nd EKG, basically. But it always says this one, this.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:03:58]:
One is a non invasive metabolic health. So this is to do with. So maybe you don't have to use a toilet camera. You can just use.
Leo Laporte [02:04:06]:
I don't know how accurate though this can be with foot sweat. I mean.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:04:10]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, she said there is some. There is scientific evidence to back up some of this, but we'll see once she's had a chance to test it.
Leo Laporte [02:04:19]:
Victoria also liked this l' Oreal LED face mask.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:04:26]:
Yeah. Just because you could dress as Vecna for Halloween.
Leo Laporte [02:04:29]:
She said, yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:04:29]:
O.
Jason Hiner [02:04:32]:
There is, I, I will say, like, there's a, A really good scale. It's a Chinese knockoff company called Greater Goods that has like a smart scale.
Leo Laporte [02:04:40]:
I have their, their, their. Yeah, I have their blood pressure monitor. It's really good.
Jason Hiner [02:04:46]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [02:04:47]:
30 bucks.
Jason Hiner [02:04:48]:
They make really, really good stuff. The scale is like 30 bucks versus like 100 or 200 bucks.
Leo Laporte [02:04:52]:
Oh, no, like this, this Y things is 500 or 600.
Jason Hiner [02:04:55]:
500 bucks.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:04:56]:
Yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:04:56]:
Probably comes off the same assembly line. So. I mean.
Jason Hiner [02:04:59]:
Right, right. There's also that. There is also that. So anyway, it's five o'.
Leo Laporte [02:05:04]:
Clock. I'm kicking off. All right, you good guys, come on in here. You get the next shift.
Jason Hiner [02:05:09]:
So if anybody doesn't want to spend 600 bucks but wants to have like, you know, the, the Basics of. Yeah, the SMART scale that still manages to get your foot sweat. Yeah, digital digitally analyzed. Great goods. 30 bucks.
Leo Laporte [02:05:24]:
That foot sweat is a bioimpedance spectroscopy, if you'd like to know the actual name. Oh yes.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:05:30]:
Sounds really fancy.
Leo Laporte [02:05:31]:
Right on bis. The goal is to simulate the sweat glands I'm reading from Victoria's piece that are inside your feet with a tiny safe current. We measure. I, I do this. I don't know what it's telling me. We measure the human maximum activity response from those sweat glands. If the activity is high, high, it means your glands are healthy.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:05:53]:
It means that it's electrocuting you to make you sweat.
Leo Laporte [02:05:56]:
Actually it's good because I AM A type 2 diabetic and 1. As you know, one of the consequences of diabetes is that you, you can get your feet amputated because you don't have good circulation. So it's, it's actually good for it to test that. I don't know, I don't know how useful it is as a diagnostic anyway. I get on it every day and stand there, it feels like for an hour while it's measuring all that stuff.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:06:22]:
And says you're old together the information from your smart blood pressure reader from your smart.
Leo Laporte [02:06:27]:
Well, that's what I'm saying. Put it all in the chat GPT.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:06:30]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [02:06:31]:
And then I could say either my watch is stopped or you're dead. Let us go back to Casey Kasem. I think we're at number four on the board top. Well, actually it's number two. It's our fourth, but it's number two.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:06:46]:
In father Robert CES picks watch number two LG Mobility. Tucked away into the center of the LG booth on the show floor was their tech demonstrator for their mobility display solution. A combination of a transparent OLED display embedded into a windshield, the car's sensors, and an onboard AI that delivers important context aware information to the the driver. When I first saw it, I thought that it would be too much that the information would become a driving hazard. But it would appear that LG has put in the engineering time to make sure that only immediately usable and actionable data is presented to the driver. For example, potential hazards ahead, information about the vehicles surrounding the user, GPS directions presented by highlighting turn information, red light duration and enhanced vision in low visibility environments. In a vehicle that has full autonomous driving, the screen can switch to visual display displays that keep the users engaged and looking forward, helping them to keep at least a partial eye on the road while their vehicle has control.
Leo Laporte [02:07:49]:
That's really cool. Were there a lot of car products at ces? I know they took the cars out of the south hall.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:07:56]:
They're all in the west hall now.
Jason Hiner [02:07:58]:
That's the new fancy hall.
Leo Laporte [02:08:00]:
Oh, the west hall is. Oh, okay.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:08:01]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [02:08:02]:
Well, when we come back, we could talk a little bit about car, other car technology. You're watching our CES wrap up with father Robert Balaser, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and Jason Heiner. So glad you're here, especially our club members. Thank you for being here. Our show today brought to you by Delete Me. Oh, man. When you go online and you do a little search for your name, I don't recommend it. You will be kind of disappointed, saddened, scared by how much personal data, data is out there on the Internet.
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You do control it, you know, if you say, well, no, don't delete everything, just delete this. You tell them what you want, then they will go out, they will delete it. But this is why it's a subscription service. They continually monitor. They will send you regular privacy reports showing what they found, where they found it, what they removed. But it's not a one time service because these data brokers change their names, new ones spring up and frankly, it's a little bit of a sketch business, right? So they, even though you've told them, don't keep my information. They go, well, this is new information. And they'll start repopulating in the profile.
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The only way to get 20% off is to visit joindeleteme.com TWiT and enter the code TWiT at checkout joindeleteme.com TwiT and the offer code is twit. It really, really works. And I can say that from personal experience. Ah, okay. Well, cars was it? I don't know, Jennifer, you probably don't cover cars particularly.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:11:25]:
No, I didn't make it into the west hall at all actually because it's a Trek. But I did see the Dreamy car. Dreamy had a car.
Leo Laporte [02:11:33]:
Dreamy had a car. This is crazy. These companies are.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:11:36]:
I know.
Leo Laporte [02:11:37]:
Was it a home automation car? Does it drive around inside just a.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:11:41]:
Car and it didn't do much, much, but it was very green, which I liked. Our editor, Autumn Automotive editor picked. Was it the Mercedes?
Leo Laporte [02:11:52]:
Yeah, he liked the Mercedes, the self.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:11:54]:
Driving and he got to test it and he was really impressed with this new kind of Level two. Is it of the force?
Leo Laporte [02:12:02]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Level two is.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:12:05]:
That was the best.
Leo Laporte [02:12:05]:
Not. Yeah, I mean we, you know, not going to get anytime soon to completely autonomous vehicles. So the smart thing to do is to be reasonable about what you can do. This is Mercedes Drive Assist Pro. And Andrew Hawkins, who's a very good automotive reporter for the Verge, said it was the, it was the only thing there that they could actually test. They let him drive private partially autonomous driver assist. Everybody's being very careful since Elon's been sued and the state of California said you're not going to be able to keep selling Teslas if you keep saying it's autopilot. So everybody's being very careful about what they claim.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:12:49]:
Yeah, you know, west hall this year without byd. BYD actually did make a notable splash last year.
Leo Laporte [02:12:57]:
They were at CES last year, even though you can't buy them in America. America.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:13:00]:
They were there and they were Chinese IV maker.
Leo Laporte [02:13:03]:
Number one car maker in the world now.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:13:05]:
Yeah. So this year we had the Sony Alfea one, which they had last year. So it's just an incremental increase on the prototype. They had the Waymo Ojai, they had the Tensor Robo car, and then the b. The BMW ix3. I think that was the big one because they actually had part of the parking lot so you could go outside now. I. I wish they had done what Mercedes did.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:13:27]:
Must have been 20 years ago, they used to have the thing called the Mercedes test drive. They had taken over one of the parking lots, and it was actually a little course.
Leo Laporte [02:13:34]:
Oh, that's fun.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:13:35]:
So you could check out a vehicle and take it around.
Leo Laporte [02:13:38]:
Yeah. He actually went up to San Francisco to. To take a test drive.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:13:42]:
Yeah, he never comes to ces.
Leo Laporte [02:13:44]:
Oh, lucky fella.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:13:47]:
But, yeah, the BMW, I think, is the one that has Alexa plus in it too, right?
Father Robert Ballecer [02:13:50]:
Yes, it does.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:13:51]:
Yes. So I saw that they had that in the Amazon booth. You couldn't drive it, though.
Leo Laporte [02:13:56]:
Yeah. I will never turn on Alexa. My BMW, I use Apple's CarPlay. But the BMW voice is so awful. Some of these car voices, it's like, come on. This is not even close to the standard now.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:14:12]:
But the big announcement was that with every BMW ix3 that you buy, you get. I think it's 15 cases of Drakar Noir.
Leo Laporte [02:14:21]:
So at least you smell good as you're driving around.
Jason Hiner [02:14:27]:
You know, your.
Leo Laporte [02:14:28]:
Your Verge folks liked. Allison liked the. Everybody likes the Galaxy Z Trifold, the three.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:14:35]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [02:14:36]:
But I've heard some reliability issues with it, so I'm not sure you'd want to buy.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:14:41]:
If you fold it more than 10,000 times, probably you'll start to get some increasing. But, I mean, foldable tech is actually quite durable. If you want to damage it, you can. But if. If you're treating it gently, it lasts forever.
Leo Laporte [02:14:55]:
I'm. I have the Galaxy. The latest Galaxy Fold. Just the two, Fold the seven. It's quite nice. It's very thin. I am very excited about what Apple's gonna do. Rumored to be doing later this year.
Leo Laporte [02:15:10]:
I think that might be the one.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:15:12]:
Yeah. May I have. Doesn't say they had the. They had the.
Leo Laporte [02:15:15]:
The Samsung screen was there, which they took away.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:15:19]:
Did you get away?
Leo Laporte [02:15:21]:
Yeah, yeah. Did you get to see it before they took it away?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:15:24]:
We just saw it let an empty hole on this display where it was supposed to be.
Leo Laporte [02:15:28]:
Well, they weren't. Apparently they weren't supposed to be showing.
Jason Hiner [02:15:31]:
It but on that one for sure.
Leo Laporte [02:15:34]:
Yeah.
Jason Hiner [02:15:36]:
But the, you know the. Get the Z Fold seven the guy. I hate calling it that. The. The fold seven is the first one that's like okay when it's closed it feels like a regular phone and you're like great and then opens up so that it's so close it's like 90% of the way there. So I feel like this year, you know we get a lot closer and the Apple one will be you know I think really good. And the ones from you know the, The Honor Magic V5 was even a little better than the, you know the Chinese phones have been better for a couple of years. The Fold 7 is really catching up to them.
Jason Hiner [02:16:14]:
I did want to go back so I think this is going to be a big year for foldables. I do want to go back to one thing on the the cars at CS though was I think the most significant thing wasn't anything that was shown there because most of it was really all stuff we'd heard before seen before or it was not that exciting. But Nvidia announced the Alpha Mayo model. So it's a theory first chain of thought reasoning model and they released it as an open model. So a lot of the problems with for. For these vehicles is. And you kind of expressed it Leo. It's like it's not that they don't have the hardware to do it it's the software.
Jason Hiner [02:16:53]:
The software is. Is where a lot of the problems are. And Alpha Mayo in video that is by the worst open model that is.
Leo Laporte [02:17:01]:
The worst name name Alpa Mayo sounds like it's a dog food sandwich. What is Alp A L P A M A Y O.
Jason Hiner [02:17:12]:
I know, I know. It's a special kind of mayonnaise that you only can sound good only eat when you're in the. In the Alps or something.
Leo Laporte [02:17:20]:
So it's. It's safe reasoning based autonomous vehicle.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:17:24]:
It utilizes the power of the edge. So they had it at the Amazon booth in the west hall. It was one of the ventures and essentially they're trying to move away from the old foundational model where you had the huge LLM that did everything and they're allowing the local compute power to take over some of the specifics. So you take the foundational model but then you build in your driving habits the environment in which your car will normally exist and it's supposed to be a more efficient way to give your car self driving driving.
Leo Laporte [02:17:56]:
Okay, when are we going to see.
Jason Hiner [02:17:58]:
These world models too Right.
Leo Laporte [02:18:00]:
I, I do know that the Mercedes that we talked about has an Nvidia chip in it and Nvidia AI in it. When is Alpa Mayo gonna come to my car?
Jason Hiner [02:18:13]:
I know, I know. Alpa Mayo. So the thing is, is it's, it's, they're releasing as an open model, you know, obviously works on, on top of their home hardware. But it's gonna, this is gonna, I think help some of these car makers that are really struggling with the software side of things. Yeah, it's going to help them advance potentially, you know, a lot further. This is, this is definitely Nvidia saying let's advance this self driving car thing a lot faster, folks. And since you're struggling with it so badly, we're just going to give you all the technology. We're gonna, you know, the software to do it and we're going to make it available open, you can use our hardware to do it and we're going to streamline this so that we can speed up the development.
Leo Laporte [02:18:54]:
All of this Alpa Mayo, by the way, is one of the most conspicuous peaks in the Peruvian Andes. It's a mountain. Perfect.
Jason Hiner [02:19:02]:
Thank you for clearing up. That's the first I've heard it. That's the first I've heard it. Yeah, it's not a sandwich. But you know, the most interesting thing that happened in self driving cars, that it wasn't at ces, but it happened in the last month and I feel like it was a bit under the radar, was actually Rivian going all in on AI. You know, they announced this in, in December and they announced a couple specific things that are, that are really interesting. They've been, they've been working on this essentially for four years and they took the wraps off of it. They announced that they're making their own chip.
Jason Hiner [02:19:35]:
They have one of Tesla's former, you know, engineers that's now their head of Autonomous, they released their own chip. So they're sort of going to have all of their own processing power. Similar to Tesla, they are integrating lidar into the vehicle. Right. So one of the problem with the edge cases of self driving is that, you know, in the dark, in other things, radar and lidar, which Tesla vehicles don't have, it makes it really tough when it's in the dark, when it's raining, when you have sort of of these other edge cases, it's going to have that. It used to be, and Tesla said we're never putting lidar in because it's just too expensive, because it used to cost 10 to $20,000 to put LiDAR in the vehicle. But now it's only cost a few thousand dollars and it doesn't have those big giant spinning things on the vehicle anymore. It's actually looks like just above the visor, you know, of the car.
Jason Hiner [02:20:32]:
Car there's this little thing. So, you know, Rivian is taking this really far and essentially they said they're working toward level four autonomy.
Leo Laporte [02:20:42]:
That's true autonomy at that.
Jason Hiner [02:20:43]:
That's true autonomy that where you can send the vehicle to go pick up your kids, where you, it can drive you to the airport and then drive itself home and park itself, you know, in the garage. And so I thought that all of that stuff that they, you know, announced and they showed sort of some of the pathways way to doing that. And they're also about to release in this vehicle that is much more affordable under $50,000. The average new vehicle in the US is $50,000. So releasing an under $50,000 vehicles, huge would be, would be big for them. This could be like Rivian's, you know, breakout year. Similar like when Tesla released the Model 3. It feels like Rivian is building toward its sort of version of the, you know, the Model 3, but also, you know, autonomy, a pathway toward autonomy at the same time.
Jason Hiner [02:21:32]:
And they see their vehicles as potentially being able to be used as, you know, robo taxis, but also to be for people who want to keep a vehicle and use it and have autonomy in the sort of the level four sense, you know, that they have a path to that too. So I thought that was the most important one. They weren't at ces, but it hasn't gotten much airplane. And I think that one is worth keeping an eye on because Rivian has shown the ability to make really good vehicles and they really apparently have a very clear path on autonomy as well. So we'll see. It's a prove it moment for them in 26, but impressed by what they talked about in December.
Leo Laporte [02:22:12]:
They are overachievers over there at Nvidia. Aren't they just amazing. They're so dominant.
Jason Hiner [02:22:18]:
You know, who kind of feels like.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:22:20]:
This is their version of Google, Google's Pixel program, where they wanted to show the manufacturers what's possible with the tools that they, they're providing.
Leo Laporte [02:22:28]:
Right.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:22:28]:
So you know, you, you give this, this hardware slash software pack to a small manufacturer and you say what sensors do you have available? You do plug them in and see what happens. I love this idea.
Leo Laporte [02:22:40]:
What, what, what were you saying, Jennifer? What, what was at CES besides the.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:22:45]:
Donut light that the IKEA. They made their debut at CES. Have an IKEA.
Leo Laporte [02:22:51]:
Oh, what's that?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:22:52]:
This is IKEA's new Bluetooth speaker that costs $10.
Leo Laporte [02:22:56]:
Okay. Does it sound.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:22:58]:
It's pink. You can pair it with up to a hundred. It has a quick pairing button.
Leo Laporte [02:23:04]:
Oh, I like that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:23:05]:
I got to demo this. And they had 10 in their room. They didn't have.
Leo Laporte [02:23:09]:
Be fun to put this all over the house, though.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:23:11]:
I know. And then. Yeah, because so I was playing music through one, and then you just hit the little button on the. The top and the next one, and it pairs to that, and then you just press a button on the next one, and then you just end up with a hundred little tiny speakers singing.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:23:27]:
Out, as an agent of chaos, I approve of this idea.
Leo Laporte [02:23:31]:
Does it sound okay? I mean, they're very small.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:23:33]:
I mean, it sounded fine in the room going, no, not too tinny, but, you know, $10. A really fun gadget. And the main kind of thing thing, though, was the lighting and that. They've moved.
Leo Laporte [02:23:47]:
You love these donut lamps.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:23:49]:
The donut lamp.
Leo Laporte [02:23:50]:
What is it? The Farm Blix It Von Bleak Sit.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:23:53]:
Yeah. So this is. This was called the Calcip, if you look. But. So the big thing with IKEA this year is they have just announced that they're launching. They're moving their entire smart line to Matter Over Thread from Zigbee be, and they have a new hub. Well, the hub came out a couple of years back, but the hub supports matter and thread, and so it's just making their smart devices so much simpler. And obviously that's a key part of IKEA's value.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:24:22]:
Prop is inexpensive and easy to use. And now with this. This donut lamp, which actually came out, the first version came out a couple years ago, and it's viral. It's all. It was all over TikTok, and it was actually would sell out very quickly.
Leo Laporte [02:24:34]:
Do you have any in your. Your house?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:24:35]:
No. So they want. They gave me one to take back, but I'm like, I can't fit this in my suitcase.
Jason Hiner [02:24:39]:
It's pretty big.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:24:40]:
It's big.
Leo Laporte [02:24:41]:
Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:24:41]:
So I was like, I'll go with the tiny Bluetooth speaker. Thank you. So I'm hopefully gonna get one to try. But it comes paired with a Bill Racer remote, which is their new smart remote. Works over matter over thread, but when it. When you get it out of the box, it works. You can use the remote without needing any connectivity. You don't need to.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:25:01]:
To connect it to your WI Fi or do anything. It's got built in smarts so you can adjust the colors and the dimming and then if you want, you can connect it to matter platforms. So like use it with Apple Home or SmartThings or Google Home or Alexa. Just a much simpler smart home experience, which is the whole point of matter. That interoperability and ease of setup we will see once we get to try it. But they also had a bunch of of smart sensors that they just launched that are all super inexpensive. Everything you can buy. Like a smart light bulb, a color changing smart light bulb for.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:25:35]:
I think it's going to, they said it's going to be about $5, which is when you think back to when Philips Hue first launched.
Leo Laporte [02:25:41]:
Oh, it was 100 bucks.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:25:43]:
Yes. It's just the smart home is becoming so much more accessible and affordable and IKEA moving into this space and coming to CES for the first time in its history is kind of a big sign of that shift towards the mainstream here with, with the Smart Connect.
Leo Laporte [02:25:59]:
And just imagine how much fun you're going to have when people come over and you say, have you seen my Van Brickslide that's paired with the Beresa remote on the D Regira hub. And people will go, huh, yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:26:12]:
Are those inflatable or they, they look really cute.
Leo Laporte [02:26:15]:
Is it, is it a soft glow?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:26:17]:
Yeah, it sort of has like a frosted feel. Not frost.
Leo Laporte [02:26:21]:
I like that. It's an accent light. It's not a reading light.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:26:24]:
Right, exactly. But you can, you can do. There's multiple colors you can change it to. It comes when you pair it. The remote that it's paired to lets you cycle through like 12 different scenes that have been specially designed to fit to look good on the donut lamp. But then you can also choose your own as well as light. Warm to white light, warm to cool white light. If you want more.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:26:48]:
So you could use it for task lighting. I suppose if you, you can hang it on the ceiling so you could have like two donuts hanging behind you and that would be nice and.
Leo Laporte [02:26:55]:
Well, I'm thinking of it in my media room. It would be. I like, I don't want a bright light in there. I want to just kind of an ambient glow and it'd be kind of cool. Can you tie it to what's on the screen? You know you can get those ambient lights that do that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:27:07]:
Yeah. So those.
Leo Laporte [02:27:08]:
Hugh has something like that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:27:09]:
Hue has that. And actually Hugh came with a really interesting feature. If you have Hugh Hue bulbs, you will probably Be very interested in this. It's called Spatial Aware and it uses. So you, you basically get your phone and you map where your hue lights are in your home and then it can use. They've remastered their scenes to create, to create the way the light works in the scene to fit into your home. So for example, if you are doing a sunrise scene or a sunset scene, the lights in the front for example would be more sort of red and dim and the lights behind you would be darker and blacker to sort of really emphasize like the feeling of the sunset. And now if you ever use a Philips hue scene, if you've got say eight or nine hue bulbs around your room or some light fixtures, you'll find that one light over here is pink and then the light in the ceiling is blue and it's all a little kind of random.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:28:09]:
Whereas now they've switched with these, this new Spatial Aware feature, everything will be much more in tune with the way, and this was a quote from them, the way the lighting designer intended. So it's basically bringing really high end lighting design into your home. And I did an article on it with a video. It really is hard to describe. You have to see it to, to really understand the impact, but it is a big difference. So they would cycle through like this was what the old scene looked like. And then this is what it's like with Spatial Aware. And it's like night and day looks so much better.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:28:44]:
But you do need the new Hue Bridge Pro for it to work because it uses.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:28:51]:
Course.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:28:53]:
But it is because I've always struggled a little bit with smart colored lighting like you mentioned mentioned with the connecting to your tv. That's fun if you've got the right lighting setup to be able to kind of have a bit more of an immersive ambient feel. But, but just turning my light bulbs different colors in my sitting room doesn't always. I'm more like warm white and cool. White is great during the day, but multicolors never really worked. But this really makes it seem like wow. Actually I can see the purpose of having color changing lighting in my. Not just in the gaming room or not just in the TV room because it just makes it made the room just feel so much more sort of immersive and like enjoyable to be in.
Leo Laporte [02:29:36]:
So yeah, it's good for lazy husbands because I don't have to put Christmas lights up. We just have outdoor lighting. I can make red and green and now I'm done.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:29:45]:
There you go.
Leo Laporte [02:29:46]:
That was it.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:29:46]:
Yeah, I just, I just told my mom about that, that I could actually put up Christmas lights that could stay up the entire year. And I've never seen her enthusiastic about tech until I told her that. Really?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:29:58]:
Oh, my husband, too. My husband was a big fan of. When I said, here, we've got some permanent outdoor lights you can try, do you mean I don't have to climb up the ladder every day?
Jason Hiner [02:30:06]:
Exactly.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:30:08]:
But we'll have to see how long the permanent part actually lasts.
Leo Laporte [02:30:11]:
You've actually, you know what? I have to give you credit, Jennifer, because for a long time, home automation, especially at ces, was always like, oh, so close. But not, you know, oh, you know, who's going to really want to spend 15 hours setting all this stuff up and then it's obsolete the next week and then it doesn't work the week after that. But it's. I feel like looking especially at your article, the smart home gadgets that impressed you, we've come a long way that this stuff is starting to really kind of make sense. Is that right?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:30:44]:
Yeah. This really felt like the year the smart home kind of grew up. It was less about silly, crazy gadgets doing weird things in your home and more about here. We've made this stuff better and this stuff works, and this stuff will actually.
Leo Laporte [02:30:58]:
And it works together, which is a big deal.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:31:01]:
It is a great. It was a great show for smart home standards like Matter and Thread and Alero and even some Z Wave. And, you know, there, it's like this. Standardizing things in the smart home has made the issue of it interoperability getting closer to going away. And what that translates to is that manufacturers now can focus their efforts on making products less expensive, that do more, because they don't have to spend all of their time figuring out how to work with five different platforms, which, you know, for most of these huge manufacturers was a huge amount of work and often didn't work very well. So you ended up with frustrated customers. Now they've got a clear, solid connectivity layer that they can use that connects to all the different platforms. So it means that they can focus their efforts on more features, bringing better things to your smart home devices and making things less expensive.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:31:58]:
I mean, IKEA's new smart home products that they launched this year are less expensive than their old smart home products that they've had on the shelves for a few years. So it's really a sort of sea change as we sort of see the smart home become more mainstream. And I mean, nothing's more mainstream than Ikea, to be fair.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:32:15]:
So wouldn't it be amazing if IKEA was the company that finally made all those alliances worth it.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:32:22]:
Yes.
Jason Hiner [02:32:22]:
Well, this is good.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:32:24]:
So one there was. So I did a panel this year on a matter panel. We had Amazon, Google, Samsung, Samsung, Ikea and Akara were on the panel. And the IKEA guy and I had talked a lot about the bill said remote that I mentioned that you use to control the donut lamp and you can use it to control anything in your.
Leo Laporte [02:32:45]:
I believe that's pronounced.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:32:51]:
So the big issue though is that there is one smart home platform that does not support buttons in matter and that smart home platform is Google Home. And so the Google Home guy was on the stage and I teed up the IKEA guy. I was like, so what's, what's been great about matter for you and what have been some of the problems? Like have there been problems with the board from the platforms? And he didn't go for it. But, but this is, yeah, this is the, this has been an issue. No one understands why Google does not support buttons. But the guy, he did say to me afterwards, he said, I actually, I think he even posted it on LinkedIn. He said there will be once. Once all these.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:33:34]:
Once there are millions of buttons in people's homes. IKEA buttons in people's homes. I'm sure Google is going to start.
Leo Laporte [02:33:40]:
So what, when you say a button, what do you mean a button?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:33:44]:
So, okay, so you have smart light switches that supported in the standard. So on off button is a button is a wireless light switch. So essentially.
Leo Laporte [02:33:56]:
So it's not like a button, like just a button. It is a term of art for a wireless switch, basically.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:34:03]:
So it is. Well, it is a button.
Leo Laporte [02:34:04]:
I mean is it always a button?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:34:06]:
This is a button. This is a Philips Hue button.
Leo Laporte [02:34:08]:
Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:34:10]:
And the Bill Racer remote is a button. So it's, but it's a button because it's not what, wireless? Because it's not wired. So it can be.
Leo Laporte [02:34:18]:
Does Apple support buttons?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:34:19]:
Yes, Apple does, Amazon does everyone else just Google, just not Google. And this wireless switches are part a big part of the smart home because what's great about them is that you can control. So you can connect it to a light and have it turn the light on and off. But you could also connect it to lights in a different room or to your robot vacuum cleaner if you want to press the button and the robot vacuum cleaner starts, you can connect it to anything in your smart home. So it just gives you a lot more flexibility. And because one of the key issues with the smart home to date has been not having physical controls for things. There was too much reliance on voice which is hard and not always accurate.
Jason Hiner [02:34:59]:
Having delayed, sometimes it's delayed.
Leo Laporte [02:35:02]:
The delayed is really the most annoying thing. When you say lights on and nothing.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:35:06]:
And physical controls are so key in the smart home. I'm looking around because I have have buttons to show you but yes it makes a big difference to be able to control with physically because it's not just the person, the tech, the tech guru in the home that knows how to control the home. It's everyone in the home that needs to be able to control.
Leo Laporte [02:35:25]:
If you're going to replace switches you need to have something equally good.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:35:29]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [02:35:30]:
To replace it or better.
Jason Hiner [02:35:31]:
It's a pretty good anyways. Right.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:35:33]:
That's the point.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:35:33]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [02:35:34]:
But if it's not even as good then it's just a non stop. Yeah.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:35:37]:
Yeah. So buttons are like the. One of the. We see a lot of really interesting elements, innovations in buttons and you see like if you go into a really high end home and they'll have a. A panel like that looks like a switch but has like three different or four different buttons that are labeled and that's essentially that concept but without needing to wire it into your home. And you can control anything in your home. Turn, press one button and all your lights turn off and the shades go down. Press another button.
Leo Laporte [02:36:08]:
So that's instead of a display. I mean I, I thought that the stand like the high end was like an iPad or a big display hanging on the wall with switches. Not, not really. People want physical something that clicks especially.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:36:20]:
In homes high end and you feel.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:36:22]:
It in the dark.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:36:22]:
They don't want iPads. Yeah, you need something tactile. That's, that's interesting. That's the case as well. So we and buttons have sort of been on the verge of becoming a thing in the smart home for a while but have been frustrated by interoperability because it only really works. A button only works if it works with everything in your home. It's like if I can only turn on half of my lights because these ones don't work with Apple home. And this button, you know.
Leo Laporte [02:36:47]:
But how does the button know you program the button?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:36:49]:
Yeah, you program, you have a button.
Leo Laporte [02:36:51]:
Can you do multiple taps?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:36:53]:
So yeah, there'll be short, short press, long press, double press. There'll be. Yeah. So there'll be lots of different options based depending on which button you have. There are many, many options out there. But yeah it's basically something that can control another device. Wirelessly without being. You know, it's normally battery powered, so.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:37:12]:
And it's. I've had. I've been on a crusade for good buttons for years, so I really.
Leo Laporte [02:37:17]:
No idea. This wasn't. You're winning on my radar.
Jason Hiner [02:37:21]:
They're getting there.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:37:22]:
I'm getting there.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:37:23]:
There.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:37:23]:
I'm getting there. I'm excited.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:37:24]:
Wait, weren't we told that removing buttons was a bold visionary? Yeah, right, right.
Leo Laporte [02:37:29]:
There's more buttons. Look, she's got a whole bunch of.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:37:31]:
This is the bill.
Jason Hiner [02:37:34]:
Here it is.
Leo Laporte [02:37:38]:
No, no, they say, oh, there it is.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:37:40]:
Yeah, there it is.
Leo Laporte [02:37:41]:
Okay. So it's just. There's no words on it. There's no controls. It's just honor. It's just a switch.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:37:49]:
Switch. You push 2. There's one on a. One on the top and one on the bottom.
Leo Laporte [02:37:53]:
Okay.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:37:54]:
And this one's a fairly basic button.
Leo Laporte [02:37:56]:
How do people know what the button does?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:37:58]:
I mean, have one that has a scroll wheel so you can, like, raise your shades. Lower your shades, turn your volume up. Lower your volume. That is an issue.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:38:07]:
How.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:38:07]:
What it does is an issue. So if you put this on your wall, you can kind of. In your living room, you kind of assume, okay, it's a light switch. I press it and my lights turn. Turn on. I press and hold my lights dim. You know? But some manufacturers come out with little stickers so that you can like, put a little sticker on it, but that.
Leo Laporte [02:38:25]:
Tell you not in a high.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:38:26]:
Not great. No, I mean.
Leo Laporte [02:38:30]:
They'Re engraved. Oh, you can. You need a laser button engraver.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:38:34]:
Yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:38:35]:
With traditional buttons, you just push the switch and see what it does. Come on.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:38:39]:
Who knows what this is going to do, but this is placing a switch.
Leo Laporte [02:38:44]:
That goes up for on or down for off. And I have to say, in some countries, it's down for on and up for off. And that's extremely confusing. Right. But have you been to those countries?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:38:57]:
This can do so much more. That's. That's the difference.
Leo Laporte [02:39:02]:
Okay, let's take.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:39:03]:
And Also, this is $4, whereas the buttons you could have bought a year ago were $40.
Leo Laporte [02:39:09]:
I have Lutron switches all over my house.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:39:11]:
Yeah. So you have Pico remotes. Do you have Pico remotes?
Leo Laporte [02:39:14]:
I do.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:39:14]:
Those are buttons.
Leo Laporte [02:39:15]:
That's a button.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:39:16]:
That's a button. There you go.
Leo Laporte [02:39:20]:
I didn't even know I had the buttons.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:39:21]:
I guess a remote is the better way of saying, but it is. But it's remote kind of makes it diminishes the concept because you think you remote control one thing with A remote. Right.
Leo Laporte [02:39:31]:
I've lived here a year and a half and I still haven't figured it. Figure out what? What the buttons do.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:39:37]:
Leo, go push all the buttons.
Jason Hiner [02:39:39]:
It'll come.
Leo Laporte [02:39:39]:
I do. I push them. Like there's an on and off, and then in the middle there's an up and a down and it's just. It's. I'm confused.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:39:47]:
Have you tried double tapping? Double.
Leo Laporte [02:39:49]:
No.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:39:49]:
I didn't even know you could do all that.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:39:52]:
I don't think you can on the pico, actually.
Leo Laporte [02:39:54]:
Oh. All right, let's take a break because you've been very good, boys and girls. And now it's time for the number one CES gadget from Father Robert.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:40:07]:
Robert, number one, the Nvidia Rubin. Ooh, let's be clear. There is so much about AI, especially at ces, that is just noise in the hype cycle chamber. I ignore most of it because, well, there's only so many AI enabled appliances and dancing robots that I can take. However, as part of my day job has me analyzing the AI landscape for significant developments. There was one CES release that caught my attention above all else. Nvidia's announcement of their new Rubin platform and their Vera Rubin chips. The platform is actually a combination of six different components.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:40:43]:
The Vera CPU, the Rubin GPU, the NVLink 6 Switch, the Connect X9 Supernic, the Bluefield 4 DPU, and the Spectrum 6 Ethernet Switch Switch. By tightly integrating all six components, Nvidia has greatly reduced the bottleneck between each enabling rack scale integration. In layman's terms, all the silicon in a Rubin data center spends more of its time processing and less time waiting. In practical terms, vera Rubin is 3.5 times faster than Blackwell, requires 1/4 the number of GPUs needed for LLM training, and is 10 times more efficient in inference token costs. Again, for my day job, I'm most interested in the fact that it provides eight times the amount of inference computing power per watt. While AI still requires an enormous amount of power and water for data center scale operations, such a large increase in efficiency with a little tweaking of the silicon is an extremely welcome sign. That's it. While there was plenty of interesting tech at the show, these were my five favorite things.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:41:44]:
If you feel like I left out your favorite, feel free to reach out to me on blueskyadresj. Till next time, I'm Father Robert Balaser, the Digital Jesuit, closing up CES 2026.
Leo Laporte [02:41:57]:
Robert's entire report from CES is available on our will be available on our twitt YouTube channel on the news feed or if you subscribe to our Twitter news feed. I love the time lapse, especially the one everybody taking the picture. How did you do that, Robert? That's really cool.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:42:11]:
Well, so that's part of the CESB role.
Leo Laporte [02:42:14]:
Oh, it's good.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:42:15]:
I like it. Provide some decent, high quality footage.
Leo Laporte [02:42:18]:
That's incredible.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:42:19]:
I used to do my own time lapses, but theirs are top notch.
Leo Laporte [02:42:22]:
Yeah. And you don't want to leave a camera sitting there for hours. Anyway, that seems like that's not exciting. All right, we'll wrap up our CS coverage just a little bit with Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from the Verge, Jason Heiner from the deep view@thedeepview.com and Father Robert Balasser, the Digital Jesuit. Our show today, brought to you by Net Suite. Every business is asking the same question these days. How do we make AI work? For us, possibilities are endless. But maybe guessing is a little too risky.
Leo Laporte [02:42:54]:
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It can help you make fast AI powered decisions with confidence. It's because it's not just another bolted on tool. It's AI built right into the system that's running your business. So whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you stay ahead of the pack. Right now, get NetSuite's free business guide demystifying AI at netsuite.com TWiT the guide is free to you at netsuite.com TWIT that's NetSuite. Netsuite.com TWiIT we thank NetSuite so much for supporting this week in tech. Well, it sounds like this was a good CES to go to. Better than in other years.
Leo Laporte [02:44:19]:
Jason, you think?
Jason Hiner [02:44:21]:
I mean, you know, CES is on an upswing again, certainly because of AI. I felt like there were a number of years there, maybe at 2019, 2020. In 2020 was the super spreader event. That likely was what spread Covid the.
Leo Laporte [02:44:38]:
Last CES I went to.
Jason Hiner [02:44:39]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it really felt like CS was. Was contracting. It was trying to find its identity. And then. And then it felt like, in a sense, that there was a little bit of a death blow, you know, from the COVID era and would it. Would it bounce back? But really what has happened the last few years is, I mean, the show is up over 145,000 attendees. Again, there were 4,500 vendors there.
Jason Hiner [02:45:05]:
There were like over 5,000 press. So that was really the case where CBS has. And there is one stat that I saw on LinkedIn. Somebody in PR posted that 80% of the vendors now are either enterprise or they have consumer and enterprise prize.
Leo Laporte [02:45:25]:
See, that's interesting, because even though they don't call it that, maybe the Consumer Technology association was smart when they said, it's just ces. It doesn't stand for Consumer Electronics show, because it isn't just consumers by any means.
Jason Hiner [02:45:37]:
It's not. It really has become an AI show and an enterprise show. There's a whole pavilion that's enterprise. Now, obviously, the automotive piece has become a huge part of CS and has been for a while, with autonomous being the key. You know, for a while there, it was focused on really electrification, but it really is moved to be almost entirely about autonomous and. Or the. The market, like the accessory market and partner market for. For.
Jason Hiner [02:46:11]:
For auto. So all of that is to say that it is much more of a B2B kind of show than it's ever been. And that seems to be what has made it, you know, continue to grow and expand again. At the same time, there's still plenty of things like as. As father Robert and Jennifer have mentioned, like, there's still plenty of consumer stuff to be seen to be experienced there. This is the place that a lot of companies are now coming again to launch products, which had really been the case. That's where I was starting to wonder if it had a future, because people had stopped launching products at ces. They were launching them themselves, they were launching them separately.
Jason Hiner [02:46:51]:
They felt like it just got lost in the sea of things at ces. And so that's when it felt like it, you know, it was starting to lose some of its favor. But there were. There were consumer companies in addition to enterprise companies actually launching things and announcing them at ces. So it does feel like it's on an upswing. It has some new energy. I don't know if it was the best CES ever. There were years where I remember there were, like, huge launches, even 10 or 15 years ago.
Jason Hiner [02:47:18]:
The. I don't know if anybody remembers sort of a doomed product, but the Palm, they're. They're essentially the trail. The. The successor to the trio. What did they know before the tablet? The Palm Folio is like Palm Folio. The Palm fold.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:47:34]:
Leo.
Jason Hiner [02:47:35]:
Thank you. So that launched at ces, Right. So it was a huge. One of the biggest product announcements of the year. This is. I think it's the palm pre 2008 or 9, right?
Leo Laporte [02:47:45]:
The palm Pre. Yeah, I think you're right, Benito. That's what I was gonna say. Yeah, I love that Pre.
Jason Hiner [02:47:52]:
I did too, if it wasn't so stinking slow and the software could not work.
Leo Laporte [02:47:57]:
But.
Jason Hiner [02:47:58]:
But remember the charger, it had this, like, very. Like this charger that was like a little stone. You just put it on, like beautifully. Beautifully designed.
Leo Laporte [02:48:06]:
Was a gorgeous device.
Jason Hiner [02:48:07]:
Yeah, it truly was. But there was. There's not anything like that that's happening, you know, anymore, for sure. But. But there were a lot of things that were pretty real there. And so it is a show that is sort of regaining its. Its. Its.
Leo Laporte [02:48:23]:
It's interesting because, you know who wasn't there? Apple. Intel. Microsoft.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:48:29]:
Microsoft.
Jason Hiner [02:48:30]:
Intel is kind of there.
Leo Laporte [02:48:32]:
Who they partner up. Intel had a. Intel. Did they have a keynote?
Jason Hiner [02:48:38]:
No, but they, like, they were. They had. They had the wrap, the monorail. They had partner things going on.
Leo Laporte [02:48:44]:
Ads.
Jason Hiner [02:48:45]:
And you know who bought all the ads?
Father Robert Ballecer [02:48:47]:
Ohio. Ohio ads were everywhere.
Leo Laporte [02:48:50]:
The state of Ohio.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:48:52]:
The state of. Open your business in Ohio, move to Ohio. They were on every column going to the West Hall.
Leo Laporte [02:48:58]:
Okay. I never. I don't really think of Ohio as next Silicon Valley, but technology.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:49:05]:
There used to be a time when there was a CES blackout. For two to three months before the.
Leo Laporte [02:49:10]:
Show, there were no releases.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:49:12]:
Yeah, and then that started going away. I liked. I like that that's coming back. I like to be. Be surprised at the show. You know, I remember that the down year for me was maybe 15 years ago, where a quarter of the products were iPhone cases. And that was. Yeah, that was the rock bottom for me, for CEOs, and like, Jason.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:49:32]:
I think it's on the way up. This was better than last year. The traffic seemed to be more enthusiastic. The people were asking the right questions. Press were actually looking at things that might be future products. So, yeah, I actually walk away from most cess thinking not much here.
Leo Laporte [02:49:51]:
I thought it was interesting. Both Nvidia and AMD made big chip announcements. I mean, that's not where you think of them going to make those big announcements. But they did Computex or somewhere, but not there. Car manufacturers is there. Jennifer, it's amazing what has happened with home automation. That used to be. I remember there was a home automation pavilion in the back of the south hall or somewhere and it was all just a Tower of Babel.
Leo Laporte [02:50:21]:
Nobody talked to anybody else. It was zigbee and Z Wave and now it's starting to coalesce as a real technology platform that people are interested in.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:50:32]:
Sorry, a quick question to either of you two. Did you make it over to the Foundry?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:50:38]:
Only at the very end of the show. And I. Yeah, I didn't. What, what was the point of what.
Leo Laporte [02:50:44]:
What was the Quantum blue.
Jason Hiner [02:50:46]:
Oh yeah, so this. It was Quantum. So. So Quantum is like one of the next big things, but that it has its own. So Quantum Computing had essentially its own pavilion in the Fontainebleau, which is like the new sort of.
Leo Laporte [02:50:59]:
That's the new hotel. Yeah. The CES Foundation Foundry is where you see AI Blockchain and Quantum Innovation, they say.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:51:07]:
Right.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:51:08]:
It's kind of their blue ces, blue sky.
Leo Laporte [02:51:11]:
Yeah, basically.
Jason Hiner [02:51:13]:
Yeah, I did.
Leo Laporte [02:51:14]:
Was there a lot of quantum innovation at the foundry?
Jason Hiner [02:51:17]:
There was. So we, we reported on this in the Deep View. So Nat Rubio Licht wrote about this and interviewed a bunch of them, you know, and has followed the, the quantum thing. There are things that Quantum can do. So this is another area where some of this chip stuff, it's, it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out because there are things that take a lot of power, a lot of GPUs and all of that, whereas Quantum can do it in an absolute fraction of the. Of the time to do it. And so there are. But, but these are.
Jason Hiner [02:51:52]:
Obviously you're not going to use it to solve, solve math problems. You're going to use it to solve like the most, the hardest, most complex things. And so Quantum is very real in terms of when you know it's going to be a thing. It's like anywhere from sort of one to three years. But there are, there are companies that are actually commercializing it now. So this is no longer a lab project. There are companies that are getting a lot closer, no longer just IBM talking about it and a couple of others. It's getting pretty real.
Jason Hiner [02:52:19]:
And really with AI, there's a use to put it to before we just think we Used to think it was only going to be a security, a cybersecurity, you know, algorithms sort of thing. And, and with AI where there being really big computational problems to solve, it's going to have a reason for being and, and also a reason to fund it and to make it, you know, make the ROI worth it. So anyway, we do have a, we had a. It was in our newsletter last week and there's a separate story on the Deep View that, that details the quantum stuff.
Leo Laporte [02:52:52]:
Interesting.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:52:52]:
Wow.
Leo Laporte [02:52:53]:
So yeah, I mean that shows you that CES is still a cutting edge conference where you're going to hear about stuff that is actually relevant, not just new iPhone cases. There were. We didn't even talk about a lot of new PCs announced monitors. Verge picked the LG OLED monitor, which.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:53:12]:
Is a beautiful lifestyle.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:53:14]:
You know what we didn't talk about at all, what, which is the origin of CES is the TVs. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [02:53:21]:
Oh yeah, you're right. Normally it's all about TVs, isn't it?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:53:25]:
TVs. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [02:53:26]:
Was there any big G made a.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:53:27]:
New screen that's one millimeter thinner?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:53:29]:
Woohoo.
Leo Laporte [02:53:31]:
I keep waiting for micro LED to happen. I think that's the next technology. But maybe it's harder for them to get it working than people knew because they've been showing these giant micro LED screens for almost a decade now without any real consumer products.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:53:48]:
It's a great central hall is normally nothing but screens.
Leo Laporte [02:53:51]:
It's right. In fact, that's where the big main entrance is and there's usually a waterfall of monitors.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:53:57]:
Well, the really interesting thing was Samsung did not have a booth on the show floor.
Leo Laporte [02:54:02]:
What?
Jason Hiner [02:54:03]:
Yeah, it was in the Wynn. They had a. They had. They essentially had their own pavilion in.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:54:08]:
The wind and they had like a little like check in table in the central hall where you could go and check in to go over to the wind.
Leo Laporte [02:54:17]:
Did you ride the Elon's little underground.
Jason Hiner [02:54:21]:
Tube to get there?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:54:26]:
But it was, it was someone, one of the Samsung execs I spoke to said that basically they were fed up of doing well, not fed up, but they said they used to. So they had their big show floor booth, but then they would also have suites full of things in. In other areas. So they wanted to just put everything together and they said they couldn't get a big enough space.
Leo Laporte [02:54:46]:
They have so many products.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:54:47]:
Yeah. So that. So TCL took over their big space.
Leo Laporte [02:54:51]:
Oh, interesting.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:54:52]:
Which was kind of interesting because one of the stories, our new. We've got a new TV reporter John Higgins at the Verge, and he wrote a story about. About how TCL is kind of coming for Samsung and lg.
Leo Laporte [02:55:04]:
Yeah, well, they have been for a while. The Chinese manufacturers. It's funny, it used to be American manufacturers and then it was Japanese manufacturers, Sony, and then South Korea said, no, we can beat them. And it was Samsung and lg, which used to stand for lucky gold star and was in the back of the drugstore.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:55:24]:
And then they tried to rebrand it as Life's Good.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:55:26]:
Life is Good.
Leo Laporte [02:55:27]:
Life is good. Life is good. No, it's still lucky gold star to me. And now it's TCL and Hisense. The Chinese companies are coming hard after these guys with lower costs, lower prices and newer technology, although. Right. But my sense is that LG's panels are still widely agreed to be the best panels out there. And Samsung, they're the best.
Jason Hiner [02:55:49]:
Yeah, they're the best.
Leo Laporte [02:55:50]:
Yeah.
Jason Hiner [02:55:50]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [02:55:52]:
I. We didn't talk about the Lenovo expansion. Standing laptop screen. They've got these rolling screens. The key you. The Verge picked one of the keyboard computers. Was it the HP Elite? I can't remember which one you guys like?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:56:06]:
People are very excited about that. I'm surprised that idea hasn't happened sooner, honestly.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:56:11]:
When it's called the Commodore. Exactly. I know we had it at the beginning.
Leo Laporte [02:56:16]:
Is that for your top 20 tables?
Father Robert Ballecer [02:56:18]:
I don't understand. 200.
Leo Laporte [02:56:19]:
Yeah, yeah. I don't. I don't get. Get that. But at least PC manufacturers are trying new form factors and that's. That keeps it kind of interesting.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:56:27]:
Right now they're just trying to get memory. That's what they're trying to do.
Leo Laporte [02:56:29]:
That's right. Good luck with the RAM kids.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:56:32]:
Wait, I wasn't mean to ask you about that. Shenzhen, and they're begging. They're begging for allotments. I was asking about that Padre, like you said, that little box that you got from Nvidia has how much ram in it? 256 gigabytes. So that's like, what, $10,000? Computer. Computer.
Leo Laporte [02:56:47]:
Yeah, they bought all the.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:56:48]:
I didn't say it was from Nvidia, by the way, so just, just. Oh, right, right, right.
Leo Laporte [02:56:52]:
No, we don't know whose it was. I love my Framework desktop. It was 128 gigs of RAM and it was very pricey for that, but it would be double, probably double the cost today, which is amazing.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:57:04]:
I. I squirreled away about, what, half a petabyte worth of memory for some projects that I was doing, and. And then the memory prices went crazy and I'm seriously considering just selling it all and banking it until the memory prices come back.
Leo Laporte [02:57:20]:
You're doing memory arbitrage, aren't you? I knew it.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:57:22]:
Oh my goodness.
Leo Laporte [02:57:23]:
RAM arbitrage. Well, I want to thank you guys. You made this a very interesting show and you made CES sound like a very interesting event, which is in the past not always been easy. Thank you so much. Jennifer Pattison Toohey, senior technology reviewer at the Verge where she covers Smart Home at Smart Home Mama on the Blue Sky. Your husband will probably have something to celebrate a little later on tonight, so break out some champagne.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:57:52]:
Okay.
Leo Laporte [02:57:53]:
I'm just giving you a hint.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:57:55]:
My wife in the sported light.
Leo Laporte [02:57:57]:
When they. When, yeah. Get the buttons ready. We're ready to have a party. Break out out the buttons. And the little ten dollar speaker. Jennifer is a regular pate on Tech News Weekly with Micah Sargent every month. And we just love having you on.
Leo Laporte [02:58:17]:
Thank you, Jennifer.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [02:58:17]:
I'm on this Thursday? I think so lots.
Leo Laporte [02:58:19]:
Oh, wonderful. Well, listen, Thursday we'll have more CES information, maybe more buttons will make their appearance. Mr. Jason Heiner, it's always a pleasure. I really appreciate you giving us a couple quick preview on Wednesday on Intelligent Machines and the in depth preview. But that's because you're the EIC at the Deep View. Free to subscribe. I keep asking you that.
Leo Laporte [02:58:42]:
I don't understand how does that. How can that be?
Jason Hiner [02:58:45]:
I mean it's. It's a newsletter. That's our primary thing with about half a million subscribers.
Leo Laporte [02:58:51]:
Nice.
Jason Hiner [02:58:52]:
It's only been around for two and a half years. They've built something really amazing and. And I left ZDNet to come to the Deep View to work on covering AI every day and to build a next generation media company. So we're a newsletter today, but also lots more to come.
Leo Laporte [02:59:09]:
As usual, Jason, you're on the cutting edge. I think this is absolutely the future. Very, very exciting.
Jason Hiner [02:59:15]:
Thanks for having me.
Leo Laporte [02:59:15]:
Leo.
Jason Hiner [02:59:16]:
Always a pleasure to see you.
Leo Laporte [02:59:17]:
Always a pleasure. And Father Robert Balisaire, the digital Jesuit Padre SJ on Blue sky guy. Look at, look for his Jesuit pilgrimage app on iOS and Android too.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:59:31]:
And Android.
Leo Laporte [02:59:32]:
And Android.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:59:33]:
Yes. You can hear my voice if you listen to enough of those. The stories that come through the app.
Leo Laporte [02:59:38]:
Yeah, and. And the Flipper Zero that I gave you. Don't bring that to the mayoral inauguration. Apparently New York City's banned Flipper Zero. I just want to let you know.
Father Robert Ballecer [02:59:46]:
I saw that and that's a little strange. Although I've disguised mine cuz my Flipper now wears a clerical collar, so.
Leo Laporte [02:59:53]:
Oh. Oh. It's. It's been ordained. Well, anything you want to plug? Anything going on in the. In the world of Father Robert?
Father Robert Ballecer [03:00:03]:
A whole bunch going on. Just got back from the Holy Land and from the Middle East. The next couple of weeks, I'll be all over the Midwest of the United States and probably down in Puerto Rico, in Belize. Got to make a couple stops in South. South America. Probably heading to Venezuela.
Leo Laporte [03:00:19]:
Are you on a mission? Really? Going to Venezuela?
Father Robert Ballecer [03:00:22]:
There's a bunch of stuff that needs to get taken care of, so. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [03:00:25]:
Well, my goodness. Okay.
Father Robert Ballecer [03:00:29]:
So if you see me, it means I'm still alive.
Leo Laporte [03:00:31]:
Okay.
Father Robert Ballecer [03:00:32]:
Okay.
Leo Laporte [03:00:32]:
Yeah. Be careful in Venezuela.
Father Robert Ballecer [03:00:34]:
Wow.
Jason Hiner [03:00:35]:
Praying for you. Yeah.
Father Robert Ballecer [03:00:37]:
Yeah. Just different. It's different. But, Leo, it's always great to come back. It feels like coming home.
Leo Laporte [03:00:42]:
Yeah. We love having you on, Father Robert, all three of you. You're three of my favorite people. Catch Father Robert's full CES coverage on the twit news feed or on YouTube. Twitte.com twitnews. I can't remember, but anyway, go to YouTube.com twit you can find it there. Hey, everybody. Leo Laporte here with a.
Leo Laporte [03:01:02]:
A little bit of an ask. Every year at this time, we'd like to survey our audience to find a little bit more about you. As you may know, we respect your privacy. We don't do anything, in fact, we can't do anything to learn about who you are. And that's fine with me. I like that. But it helps us with advertising, it helps us with programming to know a little bit about those of you who are willing to tell us. Your privacy is absolutely respected.
Leo Laporte [03:01:27]:
We do get your email address, but that's just in case there's an issue. We don't share that with anybody. What we do share is the aggregate information that we get from these surveys. Things. Things like 80% of our audience buy something they heard in an ad on our shows or 75% of our audience are it decision makers. Things like that are very helpful with us when we talk to advertisers. They're also very helpful to us to understand what operating systems you use, what content you're interested in. So, enough.
Leo Laporte [03:01:56]:
Let me just ask you if you will go to TWiT TV Survey 26 and answer a few questions. It should only take you a few minutes of your time. We do this every year here. It's very helpful to us. Your privacy is assured, I promise you. And of course, if you're uncomfortable with any question or you don't want to do it at all, that's fine too. But if, if you want to help us out a little bit. Twit TV survey 26, thank you so much.
Leo Laporte [03:02:21]:
And now back to the show. Thank you, Jennifer, Robert, Jason. Thanks to all of you. A special thanks to our Club Twit members. Without your support, we would not be around, to be frank. If you're not yet a member, please do check it out. Twit TV Club Twit. You get ad free versions of all the shows and a lot of extras.
Leo Laporte [03:02:42]:
Our AI user group is really beginning. Very interesting. I think it's some of the best AI coverage out there right now and your support makes all that possible. Twit TV Club Twit. We do this Week in Tech every Sunday, 1400 UTC Pacific Time. That's 1700, not UTC, 1400 Pacific Time, 1700 East Coast Time. But that is 2200 UTC. And I say that because you can watch it live.
Leo Laporte [03:03:11]:
We stream this live in our Club Twit Discord, of course, for our club members, but also on YouTube, Twitch, X.com, facebook, LinkedIn and Kik. So if you want to watch live and chat with us live, visit any one of those sites between about 1400 and 1700 Pacific Time on a Sunday after the fact on demand versions of the show available at our website, twit tv twit or on YouTube, YouTube.com thisweekintech that's for the audio only, but it's a great way to share clips if you see something you want to tell somebody about. After the fact on demand versions of the show also available by subscription and it's free. Just find your favorite podcast client and subscribe. That way you'll get Twit the minute it's done. Thanks to our producer and technical editor, Mr. Benito Gonzalez. Thanks to all of you for being here and we'll see you next time.
Leo Laporte [03:04:08]:
Another Twit is in the can. He's amazing.
