I’m joined by guest co-host Paul Lawler for this special podcast recorded in-person and outdoors at a restaurant on a bay. Paul had a Mongolian Beef Bao sandwich and I had a Wonton Min noodle dish.
We discussed two of Paul’s recent interesting tech purchases starting with the ChessUp chess board with on-board AI; chess pieces that, when touched, cause the boar to light up to show legal moves in one mode and best moves in a second mode; an enhanced cloud AI; and the ability to play either the AI or another human.
We also discussed the Bambu Lap P1S 3D printer that is ready-to-print right out of the box with a build volume of 256 x 256 x 256 mm (a bit over 10 inches in each dimension or roughly 1024 cubic inches)
A bit of inside baseball about this podcast: Paul and I were sitting in an outdoor dining area next to a bay while recording this podcast. It was a breezy day and there were a number of people speaking while passing by. We were using a pair of wireless lavalier microphones using an iPhone 14 Pro running the excellent $4.99 Just Press Record app. The audio was cleaned up using Adobe Podcast Enhance and pitch corrected using the open source Audacity software.
For this podcast Jon Westfall and I are joined by guest panelists Steve Hughes, Sven Johannsen, and Don Sorcinelli.
We briefly discuss the new Google devices announced during the October 4 Made By Google event and more time on the new Tensor G3 software enabled features: Video Boost, improved Night Sight, Audio Magic Eraser, Best Take, and Magic Editor. We debate Magic Editor’s impact as it lowers the bar to create memories that never were.
We finish the podcast with a series of mini-rants including: Google’s trade-in value for old iPhone vs. recent Pixel models; Google’s alleged 7 years of support for the Pixel 8 series; Is the new Microsoft Outlook for Windows 11 that replaces Calendar and Contacts really better? And, finally, the ever increasing prices for streaming services.
In this podcast I spent the first 4 minutes solo explaining how the first 9 minutes of the podcast audio was lost while using Adobe Podcast Studio beta (emphasis on “beta”) and briefly summarizing the discussion Jon and I had about Google sunsetting its podcast app in 2024 and a side discussion about NPR’s odd regional subscription pricing.
For the remainder of the podcast, Jon Westfall and I discuss the Meta (Facebook’s parent company) AI chatbot, MacOS Sonoma’s features of interest to us, an Adaptive Audio oddity when using the AirPods Pro 2nd generation earbuds, and the new Withings Body Scan Scale.