The Tech Ranch

STEVE

Uh, this is quite extraordinary. Of course this is one of the big songs from Armageddon where they had to go to an asteroid. Go to an asteroid and blow it up because it was gonna hit earth and kill us. Well, that didn’t happen in the movie. Just pieces. They saved the world. And now NASA’s working on saving the world, they went to an asteroid actually an asteroid revolving around another asteroid.

MARLO

Yeah, asteroid. So they called, they called this Mission DART – double asteroid redirection. So this is slamming a satellite into an asteroid just to change the direction. I mean, it doesn’t have to be much, right? I mean, 100th of one degree at a million miles is a lot. I mean, if you were to go from Bismark to Fargo and you changed a trajectory by one 10th of one degree, you know, over that 200, you’d probably end up in Mayville or something.

STEVE

I wanna give a little background to this too. So basically the satellite was the size of a refrigerator and they kind of missed, they were trying to shoot for dead center. They were 55 feet off. 

MARLO

Oh my goodness. I was trying to find out how many miles it traveled. You know, 10 months in space traveling at whatever, 40,000 miles an hour or whatever they’re going at. And then to head an asteroid 10 months later and only be 55 feet off, that’s the fact that we know that ths little asteroid rotated around this other big asteroid and we could actually shoot something at it 10 months in advance and hit this thing is just unbelievable to me. Well, and then of course it gets to, well what about aliens? Right. I mean, if you’re, if you’re a believer in that, and now we take out their, or we, we, we’re now shooting rocks as somebody else’s planet . Now we’ve declared war on somebody else. Right. I, I mean, you know, this is, this is where the conversation was going this morning.I’m like, you have got to be kidding me. 

STEVE

Like the movie Battleship. 

MARLO

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There you go. There you go.

STEVE

Independence Day. 

MARLO

Oh my goodness. Yeah. I’ve seen this thing. It’s crazy. It’s kind of like who’s invading us? I mean, it just looks that way. Right? Well, you could just position those in a way that they would actually spell something – E.T. ‘s coming from home, but I can, I can see that coming. Our planetary defense system is now activated. 

STEVE

I thought that was Skynet. 

MARLO

It’s planetary defense.

STEVE

Planetary Defense System, Yes. They got that launched back in November. The eventual evolution of Space Force, which kind of was started because there’s a space race going on again. Uh, but eventually that would morph into Star Fleet. Protect the earth. Really? 

MARLO

And I just had a little smile on my face when I’m driving by that, the fact that there’s a sign out there that says Space Force this way. Yeah. 

STEVE

And you don’t think Star Fleet’s coming? 

MARLO

Of course. 

STEVE

Well, yeah. Yeah. It was in the movies. 

MARLO

It was in the movies. 

MARLO

They postponed Artemis because of a leak somewhere. They rescheduled. That was postponed. And it was postponed to the 23rd of September, and then they postponed it to today, So the 27th of September. They actually pulled Artemis One off the launchpad yesterday. Because of the weather. Wow. 

STEVE

They have been bad.

MARLO

But you have to feel bad for NASA. You really do. I mean, I think everybody’s so excited about getting Artemis launched and, and now that it’s ready, and then here comes a hurricane. I mean, my goodness. The timing of it is just impeccable. So they’re gonna have to, I don’t even know when the next launch window is here.

STEVE

We do have to talk about electric cars. Well, so when you’re looking at an electric vehicle, summer performance versus winter performance and climates like ours, greatly degraded. So up to 60% degraded. 

MARLO

How long does it take to charge the car?

STEVE

Well, that’s the question. Depends on what you’ve gotten. Depends on the charger now. 

MARLO

That’s correct. 

STEVE

So when I was mayor, that one of the things we went after, some Volkswagen grant with their settlement. And that’s why we have two high speed, the, the fast charging stations right here in Bismark,  

MARLO

Once you were told what they are, it’s like going up and buying a car that says it’s got 30, that it gets 30 miles per 30 miles per gallon. So there’s a new charger coming. And this charger claims that they can charge a hundred kilometers, whatever. Which would be what? Miles?  Well, right about 67 miles, something like that. Then three minute charge to go 67 miles total charge under 15 minutes. So that’s what they’re claiming. And this is actually being launched right now. 

STEVE

Now is this a universal charger? 

MARLO

Universal charger, yeah. 

STEVE

So it doesn’t matter what vehicle you have. 

MARLO

For now. I mean, who knows what it’ll be? I mean, it’s like USB ports, right? Somebody’s gonna come up with something better and then they’re gonna say, This old port that you have can’t handle this kind of juice. Are we gonna push through it? Kind of like USB-C compared to USB mini and stuff, whatever in the past. So I think it’s interesting that they’re working on that.

STEVE

It’s interesting to me that they’re working on charger technology versus battery technology. 

MARLO

So the battery technology is being worked on as well–

STEVE

–but not as quickly. There’s, there’s some constraints with working on the battery. So their solution is, Okay, well let’s get a faster charger. 

MARLO

You know, my stance on this, I think the electric vehicle, I think it has its place, I do believe that combustion engines will continue to thrive moving forward because I think there’s other alternatives that are coming that people don’t know about yet. And when that happens on a large scale, then it’s not really gonna matter anymore. As far as the fuel that you use, 

STEVE

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads. 

MARLO

That’s correct. Airborne electric vehicles gets kind of exciting to me. You know, it’s not the, it’s not the ground based vehicles that excite me about this. It’s about the fact that we’re going to the air and that we’ll be able to charge those vehicles rather quickly to get us around town or short hopper flights.

STEVE

Over a hundred thousand recalls, Tesla. Apparently there’s something wrong with their window. So when the window rolls up, there’s a little sensor in there. It’s kinda like a garage door. So you can’t get things stuck in the window, like your finger. Or your head. So, and the sensor goes, a little pressure sensor, and it’s supposed to lower the window so it doesn’t go up all the way and. Injure somebody. Apparently that’s had an issue, which the part that was interesting to me was they’ve sold a lot of Tesla. 

MARLO

So is this the first recall on a Tesla? 

STEVE

I don’t know, but Tesla’s like any other vehicle. Cause I just had a recall on my Ford. So yeah, Not that I’m a fan of Fords oh, you know, just to wrap up on the electric car thing. So I’m not the biggest Ford fan all the time. 

MARLO

Right. I noticed that. 

STEVE

However, a friend of mine got a new Ford Lightning. Holy crap. Is that cool? Yeah. That’s a cool truck. Yeah, that’s a really cool truck. 

MARLO

So this is interesting. Insurance companies are charging upwards of 20% more for electric vehicles repair costs. I just assumed. That after they had enough data that the insurance cost on electric cars would go down because they’re the, the working parts, you know, they’re just a lot less of them, the maintenance part of it. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here. So they’re citing fires.

STEVE

Oh. So which ironically, remember I mentioned I had my Ford, I got a recall notice on that as well, right? For the front blower motor, which could cause fires. 

MARLO

China’s been flooding the market within their, in their country with EVs, with electric vehicles. They had reported over a thousand electric fires last year in their electric vehicles. So I think they’re using, I think insurance companies are using that data in determining that. They’re charging more for insurance on, on electric vehicles. I just as, I don’t know why I thought it would be less. I just assumed it would be–

STEVE

I did too. I’m thinking about the safety stuff. Because you’re going to see a bunch of vehicles. That wind across the country that are being sold. And you have to be very diligent. If you’re buying a used vehicle and you think it’s too good of a deal to be true, it probably is. 

MARLO

So what I think is what’s happening, if you’re in an accident or whatever else in a combustion engine, that’s not a big deal because you know, you have a bumper that gets replaced or whatever. When a car catches on fire, I mean, the whole thing goes, they have to total the car. So it’s not a $3,000 replacement or whatever. It’s 60 or 80 or a hundred thousand dollars. 

STEVE

And have you ever had to rewire a car? 

MARLO

Oh my goodness. I can’t even imagine it. 

STEVE

It’s the biggest rat’s nest. 

STEVE

James Earl Jones, right? Darth Vader. Yep. Voice of Darth Vader. 91. 

MARLO

He, he really doesn’t – I just saw him in something. He does not look 91. That’s what’s amazing about it. He looks pretty good. 

STEVE

Although, it’s funny cuz when Field of Dreams came out, he looked old then. Yes. But. 91 and well think about it. Star Wars, I mean, he was well into his career when Star Wars first and that’s 70?  A New Hope was the first one, and Yeah. So one of the things with, if you saw Rogue One, then you saw that Carrie Fisher was in that. And you and I have talked about 3D and the holographic, holographic performances. And what that, you know, the big one, of course. Whitney Houston. So this kind of crosses some lines there. What Disney had done because they have the right to all the Star Wars now, but they have the ability to continue on a character. So Carrie Fisher who passed away, Princess Leia was in Rogue One. And it’s been in some subsequent Star Wars movies. Because they have the rights to her likeness as the character. James Earl Jones just signed over rights, signed a contract, which is good for his family because now there’s royalties at nauseam. But just signed over the rights to the likeness of his voice and his character. Vader will live forever. 

MARLO

I wonder if he’s the first person, cuz everything you’ve talked about now, like Whitney Houston, Carrie Fisher, Carrie died unexpectedly. I wonder if James is the first one who’s actually living that has signed a contract that beyond – he actually was part of the deal, yeah. See that’s what’s interesting to me about this cuz you know, we’ve talked about Whitney Houston, you can actually go watch a Whitney Houston concert right now you’re in the audience watching her as a holographic image with other dancers and singers with her on stage. You pay money for this. I’m assuming that a percentage of that is going to the estate to Whitney’s family or what have you. But that was all done after she passed away. This whole thing. 

That’s what is really, it just really interesting to me that and, and what, what will this do to open up doors for a lot of, maybe even us, Steve, I mean, is there a possibility that you and I, I’m not talking about, on radio for example, or television or things, but maybe other things that we have done that they can use our likeness, use our minds, use our whatever, that when we’re not on this planet anymore, that we cont we can continue because of AI to, you know, could I, can I record something? Can I create my own ai, for example, and somebody can use my voice as for, for a voiceover in a commercial 50 years to now?

STEVE

The dangerous part of that is what is what if it’s something that you’re not in favor of when you were alive? And then they take, um, some creative licensure with it and. So then you’re promoting something that maybe you were dead set against. Although I can see Marlo promoting an ad for feminine hygiene products,  or something. What if it’s something you wouldn’t normally sign up on? 

MARLO

So I suppose in this instance with, with James Earl Jones, I mean, it’s about a set the slightness to the character character and that character isn’t gonna probably move far beyond, 

STEVE

Darth Vader’s Darth Vader. You’re pretty much constrained to what the character. Is in that series. 

MARLO

But I do believe that what we’re talking about here is possible and you, you would probably have to set up some type of constraints within the paperwork that I’m not, you know, I’m, I’m this way politically and not this way, so you can’t use my voice for these things.

STEVE

And you know, for products, these are the products I would endorse. These are the products I would not endorse. You’d probably have to really spell that out. Yeah. 

MARLO

But if you think about it, if you’ve got that contract and you, cuz you’re famous. So down the road, 50 years a product that’s not even invented yet that you never even thought of.

STEVE

So do you, do you leave it in the hands of your management firm? I don’t. That would make those decisions for you. I mean, it’s just, this is kinda weird when you think about this. Do I trust my wife-

MARLO

It’s really interesting. 

STEVE

This is a short film, Fabian Seltzer, he’s a filmmaker from Germany and he’s kind of got into all of this AI stuff and he’s now making some science fiction films. He’s making a series, which I’m kind of wondering where it’s gonna show up. Is it Hulu, Netflix, or It’s gonna show up somewhere.  But it’s predominantly created with ai. That’s the platform. But so you mentioned Dolly. Yeah, D A L L hyphen E. He’s actually working with Dolly. There’s a Dolly too. And I didn’t even know what Dolly was until you brought it up and then it’s in the article I was reading, but although I didn’t know what that was, but you can make films down with ai and you and I got talking a little bit about some of the AI stuff during the break on where it could go.

MARLO

So Dolly is an MIT AI image generator. I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget exactly what it is. , I mean, I know what it is. I’ve actually used it before. Uh, so you can tell, you can go to the website and you can sign up for an AI tool. It’s an AI tool. You can sign up for this AI tool.

I think it’s kind of in beta yet. So you need an image. I need an image of a gopher smiling, drinking a glass of chocolate milk. Type that in and it, the AI will actually create a smiling gopher with a glass of milk and it’ll probably give you, you know, 50 or a hundred different examples that it comes up with. You click on the one that you like and then it, then it goes and does this thing and makes, makes a photo quality all kinds of stuff. So probably the more famous one is the astronaut riding a horse. And somebody just typed in astronaut riding a horse and within a couple of seconds or a minute or whatever, you have all these choices of images of an astronaut riding a horse.

I mean, it would have to be staged and or somebody would have to draw this for me. It would take, you know, a lot of planning who’s got time for that stuff anymore. So I think Dolly, there’s a place where this could be used, you know, for those type of things. And I’m sure it’ll be a subscription type of thing when it’s available. So, and people are making movies out of this now, which is incredible. I mean, I suppose you would probably have to create a series of images. I’m trying to think of how they would do this, but I, you know, there’s gonna come a time when you’re gonna have an idea for a movie. And you’ll type it in, or a book.

I’ll type in an idea and I’ll see what it comes up with and then I’m like, oh, I can, I can build something off of what it came up with, something I didn’t even think about.  So that’s what I use it for. But it can create articles. That’s what’s crazy about it. It’ll actually –  I can type in Five Reasons to come to North Dakota, to visit North Dakota in the winter. Right. A listicle that’s what most people read nowadays are lists online. Right. Okay. So it would come up with this list and it would write a little bit about them. And it’s actually readable and, and maybe not the greatest in the world, but I’m sure some topics it’s probably really good

MARLO
So it’s just so you’d understand. I mean, the Hubble is still running. The Hubble runs on image. It just has lenses, you know, so optical lenses go back because it must be 20 years old.

STEVE

Right? At least. Yeah. So think of the technology from then, which I remember when that went up and that was the best thing since sliced bread. Technology was cutting edge. Nothing like it. It was gonna be phenomenal and now fast forward 20 years. You can almost take good pictures with your cell phone.

MARLO

So the web telescope is an infrared telescope, right? So it’s not using optical lenses. It’s actually polling images using infrared and measure. But, they just pulled an image from a star 400 light years away and a planet around it. Iisn’t that something?

STEVE

It’s a big planet. Two and a half times the size of Jupiter. Uh, but it’s interestingly  half times larger, but that’s not the question that you just, I mean, the aliens are bigger.

MARLO

Maybe they’re stronger because the gravity, gravity is different so when theycome to earth, they’re super beings. Just like Superman. 

STEVE

Well, it’d be kinda like, uh, the locker room scene at the end of uh, Men in Black. Yes. Yeah. They’re in the little locker. The aliens are ginormous!

MARLO

You really believe in this. What happens in movies eventually comes true. Don’t you? 

STEVE

It does though! It really does. There’s a lot of proof to it. There’s no doubt about it. I mean, just from the tech side, look at all the cool stuff that shows up

MARLO

And then some engineer is like, you know, Probably possible, you know, the next thing you know, we got cell phones and we have driverless or driverless cars and you know, all of this stuff, flat screens for televisions. I mean, you think about the early days of sci-fi, you know, and, and, uh, all of them were flat screens and of course they had to mock that stuff up they basically built these huge panels around these CRTs or whatever that had, you know, they’re huge, but they look like flat screens. 

The next thing you know, we have flat screen televisions. And, and now of course, it’s almost all holographic. So if you ever watch, you know, like the new Star Trek TV shows or whatever, these images that you’re looking at are disappearing in the air, and that’s gonna be what’s next. You’re just gonna have a, a little device that will that’ll project an image into the air and somehow you’ll see it.

STEVE

it’s kinda like the, uh, holographic concerts they’ve been doing. 

MARLO

Everyone Loves Raymond. They were showing that as a holographic image and I could go right up to it and put my hand right through Ray. Really. It was crazy, but yet it looked pretty real, you know, I, I wouldn’t say it’s like looking at you I’d say it was more like looking at Yoda in Star Wars, you know, when it pops up. It was interesting. And I was looking at that, thinking that, you know, sometime in the future, our televisions are not gonna be mounted on a wall. It’s just gonna be a coffee table that when you turn it on, an image will be projected above it – that type of thing. You don’t have to position all your furniture in a specific way around your television. You can just put it wherever and put the coffee table in the middle of the room and everybody can see it that way then.

STEVE

Wow. Well that changed the decorating industry. That will be amazing. 

MARLO

It’s a whole new world.   You should start on that. Now. 

STEVE

What would I put on that wall though? That’s the question? Interesting. 

So speaking of, uh, of the new telescope. The infrared telescope. Um, and that just went up a couple years ago, which is cutting edge on the infrared side of things. Um, what’s the lifespan of that because they didn’t expect Hubble to be lasting. 

MARLO

No. And in, and in fact, um, if you remember right when Hubble went up, it had an issue right away and some, and somehow, or another, I think one of the lenses was misaligned after it went up and they were able to fix that remotely, which is pretty impressive.

STEVE

Yeah, because they were talking about doing a space shuttle launch just to fix it, just to try to fix it because I mean, you know, what was it 200? I don’t remember. But the cost of the Hubble telescope was huge. Just astronomical to put this thing up there and then it gets up there and because of something that went wrong one of these, one of these lenses off a little bit.

You know, on social media. One of my favorite places that I follow is the NASA page. The NASA page is amazing. Because they post all this stuff. So with the new web satellite, that’s up there now, he longevity of some of this technology that they’re putting up in space is far out living expectations.

MARLO

Yeah. I think, you know, I think NASA is really good about, you know, with what they come out. That’s like anything else, I guess, you know, if you wanna look like you’re a hero, say it’s gonna last two years and then it really lasts 10 and I think NASA is a master at that. 

STEVE

Well, they figured out that’s how the funding keeps coming from Congress. Which NASA is the one government agency that generates revenue. 

MARLO

 I think we should put all of our money into. All of our taxes should go to NASA  and then let them make, make money. They make money and then they can fund the rest of the government. That’s how I see it. 

So, SpaceX is, is building a network, uh, for cellular service to space – Starlink. Yeah. And, uh, now there’s a brand new satellite and just to put it into perspective, satellites are usually fairly small because, and light, because you gotta get ’em up. They just launched 1 3300 pounds, which is huge. 

STEVE

It’s a monster satellite. 

MARLO

So scientists are already starting to complain about all the stuff we have in orbit now, because going back to the satellite, it’s making it very difficult to see into space from earth without all the clutter. There’s a lot of light pollution and clutter so like a lot of times they’ll take TimeLapse imagery, uh, of space. And the problem with that is when you’ve got all the satellites, those wind up as being light streaks on the photographs, right? So there’s this brand new 3,300 pound satellite, uh, called Blue Walker 3. And they think it’s gonna be the brightest thing in the sky other than the moon. So, if you’re out navigating the forest, there’ll be a new north star. 

STEVE

That’s amazing. How frightening though. So how many pieces of space debris do we have floating around out there right now? That have not hit the earth yet?

MARLO

200,000 pieces.

STEVE

Holy crap. 

MARLO

So 200,000 pieces between one and 10 centimeters 0.4 to four inches. They don’t track those. 

STEVE

Well, those they figure burn up and that’s correct when they hit the atmosphere. Anyway, that’s correct.

MARLO

Right. So they’ll eventually hit the atmosphere. The thing is that we keep adding more to it. Uh, as of 2021, the United States surveillance network was tracking more than 15,000 pieces of space debris larger than 10 centimeters. Well,  when I sit on my deck and I look straight up, when I’m looking at the sky, I always see stuff. I always see, you know, like rocket bodies or, uh, the international space station, the Starling stuff is becoming quite a thing. 

STEVE

Now we’re coming back from, uh, well, if you think with all these particles and all this small junk, um, We should see more shooting stars. And I just saw one on Friday night. Yeah. But was it an asteroid or was it right? 

Jason sent us a little article this morning. He wanted your take on this. So, Amazon says sad workers can shut themselves in despair closets. So, apparently Amazon has had a bunch of suicides from depression and all sort of things. And, there’s actually a couple tech businesses in the region that have these. So DigiKey is based outta Minnesota, and Microsoft they have these rooms, they’re they’re despair rooms. You can go scream as loud as you want, and nobody’s gonna hear you. It got me thinking about sound quality rooms in the ergonomics that go into a room. Yeah. And the tech that’s involved with that.

MARLO

So like, you know, the Marvel movies and whatever, when you see, um, you know, people jumping up and then they have these scenes behind them. They’re getting away from the green screen. And they’re bringing in the stuff so that when you shoot the stuff, it’s actually appearing behind you and, and it’s, it’s just unbelievable. So I’ll have to show you some images of what I just looked at. And there’s one room that they have that the L E D screens shaped into a cone. And then when you get to a certain point, it’s like, you’re in a sound cone as well. And then you cross this line and. It’s just incredible. It’s like, everything is just amplified in this cone. So it’s very similar to what you’re talking about. 

STEVE

If anybody was ever to build a theater again, you’d probably build it in the shape of a cone, uh, something similar like that.

MARLO

Have you ever been into some of these places like these outdoor amphitheater type of scenarios? 

STEVE

Yeah. Really a lot of places, movie theaters, again, a great example. Haven’t optimized the natural acoustics that are out there. 

MARLO

That’s, that’s always a thing, right? If you, if you fill the room with 200 bodies or 500 bodies, the acoustics change, right. A lot because now you’re absorbing sounds.

STEVE

That’s pretty cool. So acoustically, I mean, you talk about the tech side getting into some of these acoustically safe spaces. And now you start thinking about the acoustics and things like this that are dealing with mental health. 

MARLO

So does it talk about the scenario of that? Because people can go into these despair rooms, blow off steam and then they’re, they’re feeling better. And is there some proof to the fact that this helps them or I’m, I’m trying to figure this out. 

STEVE

Not in the article I read, but, it’s just an emotional release, which most people don’t do in public because it’s not right or proper, or you don’t wanna see your coworker while you melt down.

MARLO

I think they should have a bunch of letters. So you can, I could write the word, Steve, and I could just take my bat and blow off a little steam. 

So I thought we’d wrap up the show today with the top nine technological trends of 2022.

So, nine on the list is cybersecurity, which makes sense. Surprised that it’s not higher. It’s surprising to me too, because I think most businesses need to take that pretty seriously. I would imagine it’s not higher because a lot of people just don’t take it seriously yet. So I think that’s probably why 

Eight is 5G. Um, I’m also surprised that it is low on the list, but what, 6G is already, you know, announced and who knows what that’s gonna take to get set up for that. 

Seven is the internet of things. Some of us are familiar with things. Yeah. Alexa. Your refrigerator, your, you know, smart things. Yeah. Your furnace, your light bulbs. Those are all internet of things. Attacks nowadays are a lot of them coming from the internet of things. Why did your website fail? Because I had a million light bulbs trying to talk to it. That’s why.

Six is blockchain. That’s interesting that that’s lower on the list as well. Uh, because of cryptocurrency.

Five is virtual reality and augmented reality. So, that makes sense. Four is quantum computing. We’ve talked about this a lot and that is starting to come to fruition, a quantum computer when you and I get our hands on it will be a million times faster than the computer we have now. Isn’t that something?

Three is edge computing and that’s, that’s a step beyond cloud computing. Two is robotic process automation. So RPA, so robotic process automation, you see more and more of this, like, like in fast foods, the robots that are flipping burgers and stuff.

And I think the first one is related to artificial intelligence and machine learning. It’s the same scenario. These are things that people, jobs that people don’t wanna do or whatever, and machines are starting to take over in those spaces. So, those are the top nine things.

STEVE 

So the brain implant thing, Um, the brain implant thing. I had a friend that sent me an article on it and he was asking some questions. I’m like, don’t you watch sci-fi movies? It’s called Cerebro. Everything comes to fruition. That’s in a sci-fi movie.  Star Trek and all of ’em. 

MARLO

So I haven’t seen this particular article you’re talking about. Is that the one where they’ll be able to fly aircraft and things or because you can think a thought and it’ll actually do it

STEVE

Now here’s the geopolitical side of this, in the past. Cause there’s a lot of different directions you can take that,  I mean, you can genetically engineer soldiers for quicker response. We’re probably gonna get fighter jets that don’t have people. 

So we’re talking about space, and the Elon Musk thing. It brings up a bunch and I mean, a bunch of different social norms and, and questions. And just so the friend of mine was like, well, you know, if you think about it, Cerebro. Things come from sci-fi movies, but there’s a nefarious side and there’s an opportunity to do a lot of good stuff.

This is back to the political science social stuff. In the past, if you were gonna do some research like this, it would’ve come out as a medical study because you’re going to help stroke victims or people with brain injuries and, and they would do it. There’s none of that. None of that. This time we’re gonna do this cuz we’re gonna try to improve people, do you get the difference? But 10 years ago, seven years ago, it would’ve been under the guise of something medical. We’re gonna improve people’s lives that way.Something culturally has changed where, okay. 

We’re not gonna put this veil on it. We’re just gonna, no, we’re gonna, we’re gonna improve people. . So that’s a big leap. We’re gonna give you the warm, fuzzy side.  

MARLO

So this is amazing too. There’s a device that has come out very similar to what you’re talking about. What’s the name of the movie? Cerebro? I’ve never seen the movie really. What movies is it from?

STEVE

Yeah. With Wolverine and—

MARLO

Oh, so I’ve never been a big fan of those, 

STEVE

Really? 

MARLO

You’re talking about Patrick Stewart and that was the device he put on his head. You know, I’m a big fan of his because of Star Trek, but I’ve never got into that. I can’t remember the name of the movies. 

So you’re paralyzed, right? And there’s now a device that’s coming out. That’s very much like Bluetooth where your back has been broken. It can actually, you put this device on both sides of where the break is at and it will communicate, the spine will communicate with each other again, really? 

STEVE

Okay. The Bluetooth thing is that’s legitimate medical. That would be a huge breakthrough. 

MARLO

Uh, this, this device that’s just coming out and, and, uh, I think we’ll give a lot of hope to a lot of people in the world too. So anyway, wow. So Artemis – the ship’s name is Orion, uh, but there was Apollo one, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, of course. so next one will be Artemis two, Artemis three. 

STEVE

So we’re talking sci-fi stuff, I think automatically Men in Black. And the thing to save the world was on Orion’s bells. 

MARLO

That’s correct. 

STEVE

And then you start talking Artemis, which was a very bad Will Smith movie.

MARLO

Artemis launches on Monday. We will be, if, if everything goes, according to plan, we’ll be in, will be in space for 42 days. We’re, we’re gonna be out there for 42. And, and this is so 1970s, but we’re gonna be splashing down in the Pacific. And I’m sure, I’m sure Elon is thinking what, why aren’t they just landing on a pad somewhere?

So after this is done, we will be cleared to go to space in the Artemis, or we’ll be cleared to go to the moon in the Artemis with man. Spacecraft So the Artemis Two will be cleared. If this goes, according to plan Artemis, two will be cleared to take people to the moon. We probably haven’t had a sensor ray ever. Like what’s gonna be going around the moon now on, especially the dark side, 

STEVE

The dark side’s been rather, yeah. Dark, not a lot of information about it, but I’m wondering because there were some rumors earlier this year floating around. The Chinese doing some stuff on the dark side of the moon and some say that they want to claim it. So is that the impetus for this? Do you think? Has this fired up the program going, whoa, wait a minute. We need to find out what they’re doing over there on the dark side of the moon. And we need to plant another flag. 

MARLO

I think. I think all of the above. But there’s a lot of talk about, uh, um, that, that a country is going to claim it, we have a bonafide space race going on again, and it’s not just between countries. It’s between. Public and private sector as well. So I mean, there’s, you know, there’s Space X there’s, Virgin there’s. There’s oh, blue space blue, uh, with Amazon. But we have this, we, this race going on. Uh, and a lot of it is to it. It’s basically a race to Mars because, 

STEVE

Well, that’s the end game.

MARLO

That is the end game. 

STEVE

I’ll be able to count all the little Chinese at the secret base. 

MARLO

So it’s interesting. Right. Um, so yeah, that would be fun. I would love to see the text. 

STEVE

But now you gotta remember it, it, it, it, there could be something going on with Chinese there’s a bigger picture involved with going to the moon. So the moon is needed as a jump off point, whether it’s for exploration or for a manned mission, um, or. stockpiling for building supplies because the mission is to get to Mars and, and then after Mars—

MARLO

it just makes the most sense. We would have to probably build some type of major space station, so, so there’s, there’s been that talk, but most people talk about building some type of livable facility on the moon. And that will be the jump off point to go to Mars eventually. I’m , I’m just thinking about, uh, you know, the job that it creates, right? So you’re, you’re the person, your job is to bring supplies to the moon. So every week you kiss your significant other goodbye, and I’ll see you in a week, honey, 

STEVE

How the heck is that gonna work? 

MARLO

Can you imagine what this is gonna be like? Right. So it’s funny. 

STEVE

Oh, instead of a CDL, you need a what?

MARLO

What kinda license do I need to go to the moon with? Yeah. So there’s space tourism. And there’s a couple of companies and hotel chains that are actually looking at putting a hotel in space that will actually float around the earth. These are all things being planned right now. 

STEVE

I’d do that in a heartbeat. 

MARLO

I would do it too. I mean, I’m not gonna get to space as an astronaut, I’m guessing or as a passenger, but I think if I could buy a ticket, you know, and then floating, you know, go to go. Star Trek is just crazy with the stuff that’s come from those movies, 

STEVE

But go back, go back even further. Forbidden planet. Sci-fi ish technology that was like, wow, that’s really cool in a movie. 

MARLO

Somebody dreamed about it. And some engineer takes a look at that movie and they’re like, I could, that’s possible. Yeah. Let’s make that happen. 

STEVE

The Musk can help. 

MARLO

That’s what I’ve heard.

I’m gonna go through the top 10 inventions that have come out of NASA. And by the way, it’s only the top 10. You’d be stunned. There are hundreds and hundreds down there. 

I think we’ve been out there for a while. 

It’s been a while. So this should be. All right. So the top 10. Memory foam so memory foam in the early 1960s, the aeronautical engineer named Charles Yost worked on technology designed to make sure that the Apollo command module and its astronauts could be recovered safely after landing.

That experience came in handy four years later, when Yost was tapped to help NASA’s, uh, research center developed airplane seating that could absorb the energy of crashes and increased passengers, chances of survival. And that has turned into memory foam, which we all use in love. Memory foam came from NASA. 

Anti-corrosion coatings. One challenge with space exploration is that equipment must withstand radical conditions from the heat of rocket exhaust to extreme cold in.

Arterial vision came from NASA. The ability to look in your arteries, you know, like with, see if you have plaque building up in them or whatever came from NASA. So the result was arterial. vision software can be used with ultrasound equipment to perform a noninvasive examination of a patient.

Cochlear implants for the hearing impair. That one from NASA in the late seventies,  coco implants for the hearing impaired. And that has changed the lives of so many people. I know a couple people who have the implants. 

So this one is interesting. Scratch resistant, eyeglass lenses. This is important because in 1972, the FDA.  uh, declared that all sunglasses and prescription lenses be shatter resistant. So until that time eyeglasses were glass.  What would happen is if they were to break, shards of glass would end up in your eyes, right? So it was a significant health hazard to have eyeglasses on at the time. We don’t even think about it anymore. So there you go. So you can thank, thank all the eyeglasses that we wear nowadays to, um, to NASA. 

The thick solution called emulsified zero balance. Iron can be injected into the groundwater where it neutralizes toxic chemicals that pose a threat to the environment. The technology transitioned easily into commercial markets with chemical manufacturing, oil companies purchasing the solution to remediate land contaminated with toxic matter from their businesses.

So they developed a pump. Uh, insulin dependent diabetes also known as type one, uh, diabetes result of technology known today as an insulin pump has helped monitor the health of people living with diabetes since the late eighties. Next is life shears—

STEVE

Like the jaws of life. 

MARLO

That’s correct. 

And so NASA had to develop a way to, in case of crashes or whatever, because you’re dealing with mangled much mangled, more, probably sold in a car crash. Right? So the jaws of life came along because of it in 1994, a type of cutting equipment that comes in handy during emergency and rescue situations.

The LASIK surgery. Technology used to track astronauts eyes during periods in space, in order to assess how humans frames of reference are affected by weightlessness has become essential for use during LASIK surgery.

This is a big one. Solar cells out of need to power space missions. Their biggest invention by the way that they claim is water filtration.  oh yeah. So water filtration in the seventies, NASA developed filtration systems that utilize I iodine and cartridge filters to ensure that astronauts had access to safe tasteless water. The filtering technology is now standard across the world. 

Wireless headsets. Along with two airline pilots who invented a prototype of a wireless headset, NASA built a light hands, free communication system, which would allow astronauts to communicate with teams on earth. There’s, there’s so many ways that you can make a wireless headset. Now, Bluetooth just happens to be the most popular. 

The big one I wanted to get to is the phone or our cameras and our phones. Isn’t this something. So in the 1990s, NASA jet propulsion laboratory meant to delight miniature imaging system that required little energy in order to take high quality photographs from space. This technology has become standard in cell phone and computer cameras. 

STEVE

Amazing. We talked about that before, you know, take your cell phone camera and take a picture of the night sky. The resolution is amazing.

MARLO

So here’s a couple other ones real quick – 3d food print. So they’re coming up with cartridges that you pop the cartridge in and then you program it to, you know, be like an orange paste or whatever it is for a dessert. And it will actually create that.

Computer mouse. Was invented by NASA really while searching for a way to increase interaction with onboard computers and allow users to perform tasks like manipulate data,  

Marlo

It’s an in person type of thing. But when you really think about the technology, I mean you, you can basically program it to do whatever you want. I mean, you think of each. Each light that’s on that drone is like a pixel on your television screen. Right. And imagine how, or, or like an LED sign and now they can do this in the sky so they can make the flag wave in the sky, or they can take a company logo and paint it in the sky. Or they can pretend they’re a cloud floating through the sky. I mean, it’s incredible.

Steve

I do that all the time. Yeah.

Marlo

Hey mom, that’s a dinosaur up there! Well done. It really is.

Steve

But, part of the technology with this is, it’s called swarm technology, right?

Marlo

Yeah, and, and this is probably, you know, one of the nice uses of swarm technologies as opposed to the killer drone.

Steve

Yeah. And, and attack stuff that you that’s the military application, that’s the military. That’s probably where more people are familiar with that term.

Marlo

Yes. And, and, you know, swarm technologies are being used around our Naval. Boats right now, for example, because of imagine the ability to—

Steve

Detonate a missile coming in before it gets there.

Marlo

Well, and they, they can take, and the technology – swarm technology – allows you to take like every lifeboat that’s on the aircraft carrier and drop it in the water and, and actually have an on-man perimeter around the boat. And if there’s, if there’s like a gunship coming at you, you can actually 

take these boats and just take ’em right to that and, and not put anybody in harm’s way. it’s amazing. And how do you shoot down or take out a hundred boats coming at you?

Steve

You don’t.

Marlo

That’s the point and, and, but it’s scary at the same time, because if we have this technology, now this will be something that everybody else will have sometime in the future. So then there’s anti-swarm technologies being developed as well. Uh, I just feel like we’re Star Wars, drone war type of scenario. Right. It just seems like we’re getting to that point.

Steve

Right. Somebody’s gonna set off an EMP and that will be that,

Marlo

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is, that is a potential, you know, for taking out swarms is, is a smaller EMP type of burst, you know, that would disable not the entire area.

Steve

Yeah. Small directional bursts, right. Because that technology’s there somewhere. So let’s go back to the friendly side of things with the swarm technology. So light shows and. Really cool America’s Got Drones. I can see, see it right now.

Marlo

Wouldn’t that be cool to have five eight companies show up, develop, you know, we, we developed the guidelines for this show and then some evening the whole Bismarck, Mandan community could come out and watch five to eight of these shows and vote on which one they thought was the most popular, uh, and see what they come up with. I think we would be stunned and amazed. So on the, on the other side of swarming technologies too, uh, pollinators, are you familiar with this?

Steve

Okay, so there’s been a lot of talk about bees um, bees getting. It’s decimated and, and they’re not sure why in North Dakota. Yeah. So there’s, they could fill a roll of bees, butterflies. Yeah. Moths.

Marlo

So you, you can have these, these like miniature drones that will buzz around in a field and, you know, they have the technology that they can zero in on, on, and then they land in the flower and then they just move to the next one and move to the next one. Help with the pollination. You know, it’s really interesting, uh, that we’re coming up with maybe a little bit of a manmade solution to this. 

The other thing that’s interesting, you know, a lot of it is, I don’t know if you know this. But there’s a lot of theory around the waves that we use for our cell phones. And you know, there, of course there’s a lot of talk about, you know, pesticides and how that may be impacting the bee population as well. it’s probably a combination of a bunch of things. It’s kind of a find out if you’re interested in this technology or not type of scenario.

Steve

Right. Dip the toe in the water.

Marlo

Yep. That’s exactly right. They find out. You know, we talk about privacy concerns, safety concerns, all of these things are talked about. Um, there’s a parade of, of leaders in the field of, of UAVs that come through and talk about these different things.

You know, we have a lot of representation from Enel energy, or is it Enel?

It’s E N E L. One of these days, I need to ask them how they pronounce the name of their company, but, uh, they’re really big in, into wind energy, of course, in the state and, and other parts of the country and drones of course, are an important part of that for them, for inspection. Yeah. So, they’re a really big proponent of this, so it’s really, really important to these industries to make sure that our young people are, you know, getting versed in this technology. Uh, because it really plays an important role in energy as we move forward and, and, you know, and other things in this state, uh, I mean, I think agriculture and UAV, uh, go in hand. I mean, precision agriculture is such an important thing now and gonna become even more important as we move forward.

Yeah. It’s just unheard of anywhere. Great story. And that’s where I came to the, the understanding that UAV is just a platform. So precision agriculture could be precision mapping. In the oil field or inspections for a wind turbine or power lines or pipelines. And that’s where a lot of that took off in the energy sector in North Dakota was out of that program that we had that discussion. And it all stemmed from precision agriculture.

Well, and I mean, you, you think about over a quarter of land, for example, I mean, the, the theory in the, or what they used to do in the past, you just spray the whole field. Right? Well, that’s a lot of land, lot of chemicals, right. You have, you have, uh, micro, micro climate that are going on in that field. I mean, there might be a scenario where a shower came through and only one third of it got a little bit of rain while the rest of it did not, or vice versa. And, and, and that one third of the field now has more. Type of insects on it or whatever, you know, right. This is what happens in this. So, so I think precision ag is really really important it does very, just adding that in there to think about, um, I’m just thinking even blue collar work. Right? 

So instead of you painting a 14 story building, you’re now running a drone, that’s up there with the sprayer equipment that goes back and forth. I mean, so you don’t have to be on a scaffold or a ladder or anything like that, which is dangerous. I’m just throwing scenarios out here, anything to do with height that we can’t normally access.

Steve

So, or the guy that has to clean the, uh, hose with the camera on it, that you have to run you. Well, you don’t have to touch the walls. You don’t have to touch any of that drone.

Marlo

That’s right. That’s right. So I think you really have to think more broadly when it comes to, these are the things that we can do now, precision a and all this stuff, but as drones get stronger and, uh, and robotics become better, I think there’s gonna be all kinds of uses with drones that we haven’t even dreamed up yet. 

So it’s almost like playing a video game for the people who are racing these drones. You know, when you have a drone. That’s you know, 17 inches wide and they’re taking it through 18 inch hula hoop type of scenarios, right? You’re like how in the world are they even flying through these things and fast? 

This is like NASCAR in the air.

I truly believed that by the year 3000, we would have some type of flying vehicle that would be somewhat readily available to the general public. You know, now granted we’re 20 years later than that. Couple years actually. I mean, everybody always asks me, well, what happens if you run into another flying car or whatever, we have figured this out on a flat surface of ground or of earth, right? There was much more space when we went up into the sky. I mean, you set these things up and you never have to worry about running into anybody or anything.

But I guarantee you that you could fly it from where you park your boat to the river and down the river a little ways. I mean, you’re within the hundred foot or 200 foot cap of flying these things around; actually it’s 400. Uh, but that’s really interesting. That’s crazy interesting.

In less than two decades, the smartphone has become more than just a mere communication tool. All of us now use it as an irreplaceable part of our everyday lives. Whether it’s to get work done or just for entertainment purposes, our smartphones have gone above and beyond the call of duty every time. With that in mind, the smartphone has also rendered certain objects and activities obsolete on its rise to being the all-in-one juggernaut it now is. Here’s a look at some examples the smartphone has bulldozed on its way to the top.

Getting the groceries

With the likes of Amazon and Walmart also now playing ball (perhaps begrudgingly), going to the grocery store is now unnecessary thanks to the solid number of delivery apps available. Just pick the items you would need and a designated person will deliver the items right to your door. In a natural progression from food delivery, groceries are now an option to be delivered in the home for people seeking to practice social distancing measures, or for users who just aren’t in the mood to do any errands. 

Expanding your circles

Mark Zuckerberg’s company has gone from a little communication tool into a pure social media powerhouse that finds itself flirting with the idea of the Metaverse. While we wait for that concept to truly take hold of the general public, Facebook has evolved into quite the formidable business tool. With the ability to add friends up to the thousands, one can maximize this to include people from different business circles and even walks of life just to get their name out there. A more hyper-focused version of this initiative is LinkedIn, which for lack of a better description, is plainly “Facebook for business”.

Access to a wealth of knowledge

Decades ago, most families had sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica as prized possessions in their homes. As a treasure trove of knowledge that could be passed down to generations, it’s as if you wouldn’t be caught dead without it. However, as technology evolved (and continues to do so), owning books of this caliber is now obsolete. Britannica crawled so that Microsoft’s Encarta could walk, and eventually so that Wikipedia could run. With information changing at a ridiculously fast rate, knowledge-themed books nowadays only provide snapshots of a certain time period. For those obsessed with never being out of the loop, our phones can search for literally any topic on the web and save us the embarrassment of not knowing who invented what (or who’s trending and why).

Planning the route of your roadtrip

There’s no need to pull up a foldable map that’s three times the size of your head anymore when out on a getaway. Thanks to the likes of Google and Apple, maps can now be zoomed in and out in the palm of your hand. This provides us with never-before-seen convenience, providing different walking and transportation routes for literally anywhere in the world you want to go. While some may argue that certain technological advancements hold us back, one look at our smartphones’ map apps proves that there’s some progress that benefits us all.

Writing stuff down

The most startling, surprising and perhaps even baffling change thanks to our smartphones is the slow decline of pen and paper usage. With every smartphone having been equipped with their own Notepads, anyone from the most skilled authors to the most meticulous shopping list planners can find use for this revolutionary app. 

Electronic bag-tagging gets on everyone’s cool side

With Co-Host Steve Bakken and Special Guest Latoya Johnson

When boarding an airplane, we’re all prone to losing all our baggage. While we may have the innovation that is the Apple AirTag, it’s quite pricey and not many would be willing to fork out the dough for such a product. Enter Alaska Airlines with a solution of their own. Thanks to an electronic bag tag program, Alaska’s put itself ahead of the game when compared to other airlines and has made the lives of would-be passengers easier while doing so. 

Tagging one’s bags is a fairly easy process and won’t cost anyone extra, and most important of all, it could all be done through the phone! This takes convenience to the next level and other airlines have to want to play catch-up now at this rate. It’ll be interesting to see how the future of air travel will continue to evolve for even the smallest steps such as these can be a big help in terms of the overall experience.

A new age of workers upon us?

In very unfortunate news, the layoffs in the tech sector have continued to grow. The likes of Shopify and Snap have taken it upon themselves to lay off their workers in the double digits, while the big boys such as Tesla and Microsoft are no longer willing to compromise when it comes to work-from-home situations. Now that the world is slowly going back to normal, most workers have found a rejuvenation in the home setup and do not want to go back to the offices. Tech companies may have to find new ways to lure more aspiring works to get out of their homes, however, what they could end up looking for may be somewhat of a game-changer altogether. 

With the rise of McDonald’s kiosks all over the world replacing front counters little by little, this begs the question – is automation on the horizon? Will the difficulty of getting human workers to work minimum wage at McD’s end up with robot chefs making us Big Macs? It’s hard to say. It seems we’re still far away from that notion, yet inching closer to it with each passing day. This makes automation a real possibility on the horizon. 

Drones ready and willing to give a show

As much as robots are threatening to replace humans when it comes to stable jobs, are we also seeing drones replace fireworks when it comes to night-time entertainment? Drones are obviously more versatile when compared to their noisy counterparts, being able to spell out letters and form logos with relative ease. Essentially, they’re light shows taken to their logical extreme, and their existence could turn fireworks into a passé art form. Only time will tell if this ends up true, but with drones already being able to deliver packages and food, it could be a matter of time before they end up as full-time replacements for pyro.

Not enough juice for Tesla chargers?

With now over two million of them being used in the United States (and that number steadily going up over the past five years), electric vehicles are now a normal sight to see on the road. They have integrated into the ecosystem of the road very easily, and no longer are they the black sheep when compared to traditional, gasoline-fueled vehicles that have been the norm for ages. However, the elephant in the room involves their charging stations – there are only 55,000 of them in the country. 

A typical scene one would see everyday is the lines that pile up when around these charging stations, with as few as eight chargers in one place and the amount of cars falling in line reaching double digits. This proves to be troublesome now and will continue to be so the more people join in and buy their own EVs, and it’s an issue that’s not so different compared to what gas stations faced when they were new. 

Tesla owners wishing to just get a charger for their homes can choose to fork up the money, with a Level 2 charger reaching up to $1600, but to some that may not seem as a worthy investemnt as logically, there are also chargers outside. However, as we’ve seen, right now the numbers aren’t enough. While creative ideas like the Powerwall may serve as short-term solutions, all the companies dabbling in the EV field right now have to come up with long-term answers or risk draining out customers’ patience. 

Battle of the Map apps

DC vs. Marvel, Star Wars vs. Star Trek, Sega vs. Nintendo… we’ve all seen our fair share of all-out battles throughout history, two sides waging war with one another to prove who brings forth the superior product. When it comes to today’s tech, the biggest question today is simply “Who’s better?” between Apple and Android, the two juggernauts that are part of every smartphone’s DNA. Both operating systems have their own plethora of apps as well, but if you’re having trouble deciding which is better for you, here is a quick rundown of their respective Map apps – with more apps highlighted on this episode of Talk of the Town. 

Both Google and Apple have their own dedicated Map apps available for use when the need arises. Whether it’s figuring out how to get to your next function or if you need directions for your next road trip, these Map apps are blessings in disguise. In terms of availability, Google Maps has the unanimous edge – it’s available on both Apple and Android devices. Apple Maps, however, remains exclusive and because of this is only locked in for use in iOS devices. 

When it comes to their respective interfaces, Google Maps is unfortunately a cluttered mess. There are buttons and toolbars present that interfere with the way you view the map and overall it could be a tiresome experience if you’re rushing to get the latest info on your route. In contrast, Apple Maps has a very linear and minimalist presentation. It keeps the essential things on your screen and doesn’t bother with clutter that could distract you from concentrating on your route. 

Upgrading your car in the weirdest way

The modern world of gaming has seen its fair share of microtransactions. As the Internet and digital life becomes more fully ingrained into the world, video games have started to stray away from its innocent and easygoing plug-and-play nature. Nowadays, whether it’s making a character look good cosmetically or wanting to gain an edge against the competition, microtransactions have become the norm in place of old school methods such as cheat codes and in-game unlockables. Mobile games are also no stranger to this with these little purchases being the lifeblood in the free-to-play economy they’ve enshrined themselves in. 

With all this as context, would you believe that this practice is also starting to bleed in industries not related to gaming? In what can only be described as a surreal turn of events, BMW is at the forefront of the auto industry’s foray into microtransactions. Need For Speed, this is not. For 18 dollars a month, you can upgrade your car to have heated seats. For heated seats. That’s quite the surreal proposition and it might not bode well for the future of cars. The dreaded question everyone would be to afraid to ask but might as well ask now is – what’s next? Wiper activation? Air conditioning? Truly scary times we would live in if that were to happen so maybe it’s wise to hold on to our future “dumb cars” while we still can. 

One small step for scammers, one giant leap for illegal cash flow

Scammers know no ways and embrace no restrictions when it comes to their pursuit of cold, hard cash. Many unsuspecting web-surfers have been duped by scammers in continuously ingenious – and terrifying – ways that would make Ponzi blush. A most recent development in the world of scamming has come in the form of taking out small payments from your account. As we use our debit and credit cards to make payments each day, scammers find ways to siphon out single-digit transactions from users all over the world. 

You may think that losing three to five dollars isn’t a big deal as it’s just the same price as a cup of coffee after all. However, the secret lies in its frequency. They’re recurring payments and unless one takes the initiative to check their transaction history or balance their checkbook, these hits will just keep on coming. Scammers are sitting pretty for the time being but here’s to hoping that there will be preventive measures against unwanted and unwarranted transactions in the future.

Nothing more than noise-tifications?

It’s hard to believe that 15 years ago, the constant dinging you might hear from all the notifications on your phone didn’t exist! Somehow, the entire human race survived without the endless sounds coming from all the apps on our phones. It’s as if it’s a competition from all these apps to get your attention, and the result is always a civil war from within your own device. There are some measures to lessen or remove this bombardment entirely (such as turning off notifications for specific app or activating “do not disturb” mode) but this seemingly puts our lives on pause, it seems. How much do we really miss out on if we decide to not let our apps entertain us – or more morbidly, entertain our apps? I guess the result depends from person to person. However, it’s clear that we could all use a break from our phones from time to time, no matter what walk of life we may come from.

Taking fishing to a DEEPER level

To the traditional enjoyers of the hobby who like to catch a big game, fishing is one activity that has eluded the world of technology – frankly because it didn’t need it. All you needed was some bait, your trusty rod and you’d be good to go. However, thanks to the company DEEPER, they’ve found a way to make sure technology isn’t a hindrance to your fishing habits. Instead, it’ll make them even better. 

DEEPER employs Smart Sonar technology, you can get to see the best positions for catching fish once you connect your rod to your smartphone’s Wi-Fi connection. As surreal as that sounds, the devices do indeed use Wi-Fi and treats itself as a hotspot of sorts. This means the chances of one catching a lot of fish will drastically go up. 

We’re living in an ever-changing world where the proliferation of smart devices has been at a steady pace. We’ve seen everything from egg trays to wine bottles get off the ground and given rebirths as Internet-dependent objects. The fishing rod is just one of these everyday objects that have been given new life and hopefully, a longer shelf life and deeper potential (no pun intended). 

Way too many “phish” in the sea

From the other side of the spectrum comes the kind of fishing that is generally frowned upon and that’s fishing with a “ph”. 

Phishing, simply put, is when attackers that are up to no good pose as legitimate institutions, websites or individuals to attempt to get your information. They can be quite convincing (and more so by the day), but a thorough look at what letter, link or e-mail they might have sent can pretty much give them away. After all, the traditional phishing scam is never truly free from grammatical or spelling errors. 

Phishers work overtime and maybe even more than regular employees do, sending fraudulent e-mails on the clock in an attempt to lure unsuspecting victims. Unfortunately, the age group most affected by these scams is senior citizens, who are none the wiser that they’re being duped. Some phishers even go so far as to include e-mails or links that implant viruses on your computer without your knowledge. 

As a result, companies like Western Union have gone all-out on verification processes – even including blood samples! It’s quite the inconvenience for all of us and it’s a part of how these companies seek to shoo away scammers moving forward. Here’s to hoping that as technology and security improve, more advancements are made to keep phishers from acquiring very valuable information. 

The Zuck embraces the Meta

Facebook has been undergoing quite a reinvention the past few years. No longer having undivided attention on the social media giant alone, Mark Zuckerberg’s company has bought the likes of WhatsApp and Instagram as a means to diversify its portfolio. Its newest method of reinvention has been to fully embrace the concept of Metaverse by changing its company name as Meta. This is a move that would be met with ridicule if ever they decide to walk back on it, but it looks like the newly-christened Meta is going all the way when it comes to the Metaverse. 

This does beg the question – what is the Metaverse exactly? It’s both clearly defined yet because it’s still in its infancy, it’s something essentially limitless. The Metaverse is not too different from the concept of an “alternate universe” we see in fiction. Thanks to a wearable device such as VR goggles, we can immerse ourselves in a second reality made functional by the Internet. We can get to hang out with our friends at the park, be in the middle of the ocean with undersea life, or watch a movie in a theater-like setting without even leaving our homes. 

All eyes are on the Metaverse at the moment and the world is eagerly awaiting what its fate will be. Will it be the concept that moves the Internet – and society as a whole – forward, or will it be a flash in the pan that was simply conjured up too soon for technology to fully embrace it? Only time will tell, but for Zuckerberg and his company, it looks like it’s what they choose to be attached to (for better or for worse) for the foreseeable future.

It’s hard to believe that cameras, specifically the ones used by smartphones, have evolved at such a fast pace. It was only a little more than a decade ago when the main reason for owning a phone was communication, and cellular phones paved the way for BlackBerries which were mainly for sending e-mails. When the iPhone came out in 2009, it changed our perception of what a phone could be like and that includes its cameras. Nowadays, whether it’s for documenting memories or gathering content for one’s social media accounts, cameras are one of the most important features of a smartphone and have stepped up as an irreplaceable part of the package. 

Siri gives you Knowledge at your fingertips

It seems like the best advancements have not arrived yet when it comes to smartphone cameras, as more add-ons and innovations that improve the overall quality of cameras continue with each new generation of devices. With the release of Apple’s iOS 15, it’s now possible for your phone to identify what’s in your picture thanks to geolocation. For example, taking a picture of a tree or a flower will lead you to information about what you took. Siri Knowledge uses searching the web and apps you already have on your phone to give you the most accurate information possible. 

It’s obvious that this will only be the beginning. Could we see the likes of animal or person identifiers thanks to Siri Knowledge down the road? It might sound surreal now but it’s definitely the next step logically. There might come a time Siri and our cameras can tell things apart better than we do!

But, first — let me take a selfie…

One of the most fun things to do with your phone camera is to take selfies! It’s no secret that that’s what the front-facing cameras are for. Here are three useful tips to get the most out of your selfie-taking!

1. Hold the camera up at 45 degrees

Contrary to popular belief, there is a right angle to hold your cameras when taking a selfie. If you want the best angle possible, then you would want to hold it at 45 degrees in front of you! Use pouty duckfaces at your own discretion.

1. The timer is your best friend

If you’re unable to push the button to take a picture, you can always set a timer. These timers usually last 3 seconds and are perfect for when you have to set the camera just right. If you’re with a bunch of friends or at a family reunion, giving everyone 3 seconds to prepare and show their best smiles will be a life-saver!

1. A secret lies with the down button!

A little known fact when it comes to the volume buttons on our phones is that the down button (the one you use to minimize the sound) can be used to shoot a picture for you! If pushing the bright button at the lower part of your screen isn’t your thing, the down button gives you a more freeing way to take your photos. Plus, you can continuously push it and photos come out at a faster rate!