203: Top Five and More From CES 2024

Matt and Sean talk about Matt’s visit to Las Vegas, CES 2024, and more.

Watch the Undecided with Matt Ferrell episode, 5 BEST Things I Saw in Vegas at CES 2024 https://youtu.be/LRYyj7VTR2I?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi4At-R_1s6-_50PCbYsoEcj

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00:00 – Intro & Feedback
07:43 – CES 2024 Discussion

On today’s episode of Still To Be Determined,  we’re going to be talking about Matt’s trip to   the strip. That’s right. Matt visited Las  Vegas to go CES 2024. And we’re going to   have a quick chat about the tech that  he saw, the hits, the misses. And no,  

We won’t be talking about his wife. We’ll  be talking about the misses in tech. Sorry about the confusion there, everybody. Hi  everybody. I’m Sean Ferrell. I’m a writer. I   write some stuff for adults. I write some stuff  for kids and I’m just generally curious about  

Technology. And luckily for me, my brother  is that Matt of Undecided with Matt Ferrell,   which takes a look at emerging  tech and its impact on our lives. Matt, how are you doing? I’m good. You’re firing on all  cylinders today with the bad dad jokes. That’s

Right. We’re recording this one a little  later in the day. So I have had all day   to kind of like. Get ready, get girded  up. Plus my son is now back at college,   so I really don’t have a place to be  expending all that dad joke energy.

Uh, my partner literally flees the  room when I start. So there’s only   you. That’s you and our listeners, our fine, fine listeners. Every listener is going  to put up with this. That’s right. Enjoy it, everybody. Before we get into  our conversation around Matt’s trip,  

We would like to revisit  some of our earlier episodes. As usual, I like to go back through the  mailbag and see what all of you have been   saying on our previous episodes and going  back to episode 201. This is Matt’s. Ask  

Me anything that he did. And there was  this comment from B Cooter who wrote one   suggestion I have regarding technology and  ways to incorporate it into our daily lives. Workplace charging. I think that workplace  charging will be a big driver of EV adoption.  

I think you and your channel would be a  perfect fit for exploring workplace charging,   how it’s being implemented, and the benefits  for the employer as well as the employee.   Workplace charging is the answer for apartment  dwellers who cannot charge at home overnight.

Is this something that you have seen? Is this  something And we’ll combine it a little bit   maybe with the CES discussion. Was there anything  in this vein at CES as far as like employers,   workplaces, tech that might be something  that would be running in the background,  

Not at your home or necessarily in places  like hospitals, malls out in the world,   but places specifically targeting the  workplace environment and the technology there. Yeah, I didn’t see any specifically at this CES,  but there is this tech out there for helping  

Workplaces set up, um, charging, uh, at kind  of scale across their parking lots so that   you could add it as a perk. Like you work for  us, you get free charging, or it could be you   create an account and you’re you’re charged  a small fee for the energy you’re using.

There’s also things I’ve been seeing in  Europe along these lines where office   buildings have bi directional charging put in so  their employees could sit there. plug their car   in it charges up but then the building and  the utility can tap into that kind of mass  

Battery of all these cars and then the owner  of those cars if they’re participating in that   get a little like discount or a little cash  back on their accounts for participating in   that so this is stuff that you’re starting to  see Kind of slowly kind of get some traction.

Um, for me, the bi directional stuff  is the one that’s most exciting,   but it’s also the one that seems to be for  some reason taking forever to kind of roll out. It makes sense that this, like you  mentioned, this being a kind of perk,  

The various things that workplaces  put into their. Practice around   transportation, like the pre tax, uh,  tax benefit of, um, commuting costs. Like I have the ability to, if I stock,  if I sock some of my paycheck away,   I can use that pre tax dollar  to buy my MetroCard in the city,  

For example. So it makes sense that you  might have a. Pre tax or tax free energy   benefit for employees who might be bringing  their electric vehicle to the lot. It starts   to cross into strange territory though, when  you think about what if you’re the one person  

Who doesn’t have yet an electric vehicle and  everybody else is benefiting from something. The lack of equity there might be a head  scratcher or a thorn in somebody’s side,   but I think that’s something that  will be ironed out in the wash as  

We move forward and this tech becomes  more and more, uh, pervasive. In all   these different ways. For sure. There  was also this comment from episode 202. This was our discussion around  wind turbines for the home,   a new approach. And this was built largely  around Matt’s conversation with Chris and Cheryl,  

Who are the heads of Harmony Turbines.  Where they are developing what they   think might be a solution to the problem of  high winds, size and scale. Uh, effectively,   their wind turbine looks a little bit like  a large coffee can folding in on itself.

It has this really unique design where the  arms open up, the canister effectively opens   up to catch the wind, but if it moves  Faster and faster in higher winds,   those arms slowly come back in, allowing for  the turbine to still operate in higher winds,  

Which as Matt’s video points out, is  a problem when higher winds normally   cause turbines to need to be shut down so  they literally don’t rip themselves apart. So Chris and Cheryl in their startup trying to  make a technology that is not only more resistant  

But more available to the homeowner. And there  were comments like this from Lord Dragon who said,   they seem to be on the cutting edge.  Congratulations to them. And also   comments from people like Ryo Kage who wrote,  I would love to have this tech on my property.

Even if it’s an outdated unit, it’s better than  what we currently have. Which is nothing. And I   think that’s an interesting take on this.  Did they talk at all about what they see   as the life cycle of this technology? I  got the impression that this technology  

Might actually last longer in their vision than  are more traditional windmill style turbines. And if that’s the case, unlike solar, I don’t  know that there would be a secondary market   for this kind of design. What did you think  in your conversations with them about that?

We didn’t address that specifically. Um, cause  I think it’s a little too early days for them   to say. Like, they were kind of cagey about what  it might cost, it’s because they don’t know yet. So, it’s the same thing with something  like longevity, but I’m pretty sure  

They would feel like these would last a  very long time. Components of it would,   that might need replacing because they’d  wear out, like some of the mechanical   parts might need to be replaced, but you  might not need to replace the entire thing.

So, it’s, there’s this, this kind  of thing probably does have a longer   lifespan than you might expect. Where the  horizontal ones. Maybe 10 years, 15 years,   uh, for these home sized ones, uh, if  they don’t fly themselves apart. Um,  

So it’s like, I, I wouldn’t be surprised  if these would match or beat that at all. On now to our discussion about Matt’s most recent  episode. This is his discussion around CES,   what he saw. He saw a bunch of stuff  that the video. It takes on a real have  

You ever wanted to go shopping in Blade  Runner feel. It was, it was a bit like,   Oh yeah, I’ll take the giant hologram  projector and, and install that in my home. The idea of a television, which is see  through until you need to actually use  

It. One of the things you didn’t mention is Okay,   it turns effectively into what might be  considered just like a large picture frame   on the wall. So it has that kind of like visual  impact where it stops being the thing you see,  

Which is not being used and turns itself  into something that looks more decorative. Is there any planning from anything you heard  at CES? Are they like, yeah, these could be   windows. I imagine the technology that’s going  in, you wouldn’t want it to have rain hitting it,  

But it seemed very amenable to like,  why not just make it a window? And this is the thing where it’s like, you  think about the use cases for this   and the first places that come to mind are stores.

It’s like, this makes. Perfect sense for like  a storefront or a window front, the middle of   an aisle where people are walking on both sides  of it or something like that. It makes perfect   sense. Home use, it gets a little, uh, dicey. Um,  some people I’ve talked to were like, you know,  

They have an aquarium. It’s like, imagine, you  know, that’s kind of in the middle of room. Imagine this is kind of away from the wall in  the middle of the room and you could have it, um,  

Or room divider where people have, you know, like  fireplaces that are two sided. So two sides of a   room. They’re separated by a wall. You could have  something similar like this. But yeah, this is   the kind of thing where I would absolutely imagine  seeing this in storefronts or windows, uh, first.

Um, cause it’s, like I said, for home use, I  have, I have zero desire for this thing ever. Um,   but I can see, I can see like a more of  a niche market for it than anything else.  

But I got it. I said it in the video. It  was eye popping to see it. In real life,   like when it came out on stage, I kind of  did a double take of like, wait, wait, what?

And then when I saw it in person, like I was  up close to it, it was just mesmerizing to   watch. But at the same time, I was just  like, yeah, I’ll pass. Yeah, I imagine

Like in my own trying to apply it to places that I  think would make sense in my life, I was thinking   similarly storefronts, um, you know, having the  ability to have a bunch of these in your front   storefront window and having an ad swirl away  and then literally be looking into the store.

So that like, you know, mattress firm suddenly  being like showing these people enjoying   mattresses and then it goes to a clear window  and you just see the showroom of, of mattresses. That kind of thing. Another use  case might be offices. It’s like,  

Imagine like my job before YouTube  spent a lot of time in conference   rooms and some of these conference rooms had  big windows overlooking out of the skyscraper. It’s like you could, instead of having  a giant TV. On taking up a wall,  

You could have the TV in front of one of  those windows, and when it’s not in use,   it’s just full daylight, everything coming  through. Right. But then when you’re having   a conference call, it goes opaque, and  then you have the image right there.

So there’s space and light, and it keeps things  bright and airy. For situations like that,   I can totally see that being a use case, too. I can only imagine what the price tag is, though. Oh, it’s gotta be so expensive. It’s really also kind of interesting  to think that the sales pitch is,  

Would you like to spend more money  on a screen than you normally spend? So when you look at the screen, you  don’t see the screen. That’s right.   Yeah. But we’ll still see your money.  Thank you very much. Look at the big  

Brains on Brad. What a sales pitch. So  you talked about things like there was   energy storage breakthroughs that were  being marketed, lots of modular stuff,   which seems to be trying to find a way to  branch, not only scale upward, but also downward.

And as somebody who lives in an apartment  where I don’t have the ability to say like,   Oh, I’ll put that in the garage. I’ll put  solar panels on the roof and stuff like that.   The apartment. Uh, the balcony solar panels,  the modular storage solutions. Do you see,  

You mentioned this briefly and I’d like  for you to just talk about it more,   the way that the trend seems  to not be hitting the U. S. to scale downward that way. Versus  other parts of the world where a lot of  

These products being brought to us by were they  being brought to CES by non U. S. companies? Is   that the trend where the companies that  are outside the U. S. have a market that   they see and in the U. S. they don’t. So  they don’t, they don’t follow that path.

Is that the kind of breakdown? This is pretty much. Think about it like a lot of Chinese  companies, um, there were imagine a factory makes   these modular systems and then they’re branded  with three or four different brands. But then   there are some Chinese companies that are  doing more boutique things just for themselves.

So most of the stuff I was saying  were Chinese companies, um,   Chinese manufacturing, that kind of stuff.  And I talked to one company, his name was,   uh, the company’s name was Mars Tech,  I think it was. And in talking to him,  

He was, the, the rep, uh, was saying. They  don’t have a distributor here in the U. S.   So one of the reasons they were at CES was  trying to find distributors for our market. So there’s all these technologies that are just  waiting to come in, but there’s just nobody to  

Sell. Uh, and they’re not going to build out their  own sales infrastructure because that’s a huge   amount of effort and work when these companies are  basically focused on technology companies. There’s   battery manufacturers that are just packaging  it up and they need somebody else to sell it.

The exceptions are EcoFlow and Anker, which I  talked about in the video. They have their own   distribution network. So they are the first ones  that are starting to kind of hit the US. But the   other aspect of the thing that’s slowing  this down isn’t just, I think, interest,  

It’s policy? Because the way these systems  work still kind of breaks my brain, Sean. Um, you get this battery pack, and  it has like a little inverter box,   so you plug The battery into this box  and then the box that plugs into just any  

Standard household outlet in your apartment.  And we think of outlets in our homes as,   Oh, energy comes out of the hole. Yes.  Well, energy can actually go back in too. Right. So just by plugging this thing into any  standard hous household outlet, you now are  

Backing up your apartment. You have two way power  going in and out. Now granted is 120 volts here in   the U. S. 15 to 20 amps. So you’re not going  to be able to go above that amount. So it’s,  

It’s not a ton of energy you’d be feeding back  into the outlet, but for an apartment, you may   not have a lot of stuff that you’d be running  on in a blackout or things like that anyway. So it’s just a fridge or something like that,

Right? It’s probably just fine.  There’s regulations around that   that are required to approve that. And  one of the first countries that’s doing   this is Germany. They have policies and  rules in place that people in apartments   can do this. But I was just, uh,  somebody pointed this out to me.

I think it was on Mastodon. Uh, there’s a YouTuber  that’s in Germany that’s done a lot of stuff about   this. I was watching a bunch of his videos  with like the auto translate on it. It was,   it was fascinating to hear how it’s breaking  down, but like, It’s kind of like, uh, here  

In the United States, if you want to  get solar in your home and you live in   a, uh, a homeowner’s association, a lot of HOAs  can go, nope, they’re ugly, you can’t get them. Apartment dwellers, I want to get  satellite TV. Nope, it’s an ugly dish,  

We don’t own our building. So policy had  to come in place that said HOAs cannot stop   you from getting solar. Apartment owners  cannot prevent you from getting satellite   TV. Right. Germany’s kind of in this weird  place where The size requirements of what  

You can get for your apartment, certain  sizes don’t need a landlord approval. They still need utility approval, but they  don’t need landlord approval and others do.   And so the Germany is starting to change some  of the rules and regulations. I’m hand waving  

This. I’m not giving exact details because  it’s still kind of wrapping my head around   it. But that’s part of the reason why  you’re not seeing me here in the U. S. because it’s, it’s kind of, the technology is  moving faster than. Yeah. Yeah. People can keep up

With it. Well, it’s a use. It’s a use  that is, was never envisioned when any   of these policies were being written and  regulations were being made. Nobody I mean,   our power grid is effectively now  like a hundred years old probably.

And so to think back to somebody saying  like, but what if somebody someday comes   up with a way of making their own power  and they want to feed it back into the   system? How do we handle that? Nobody  was thinking that. So it makes sense,  

But it also does then put the  onus on. Us, the end users,   to start pushing our representatives, reaching  out to them regarding this policy perhaps,   right to your local city council members, right  to your local legislators at the state level.

Start pushing the idea of like, we need  solutions here because if you’re going   to start having, if you’re going to  continue to do what we’ve been doing,   which is we effectively push the  environmental protection onto the end user,  

Then we as the end user need to ask for  these things. I’m not defending the idea   of the end user ultimately being the best  place for all that responsibility to be put. I don’t think it is, but that’s currently  largely what we have, and given that,  

It means use your voice. So if people are  listening to us and have been to CES and   saw these things and want to be able to  engage with them, start reaching out to   your policymakers and start asking for  the ability to do these kinds of things.

Was there anything that stood out as a,  huh, that’s interesting? But it didn’t   make the grade for your video. Was there  something that you thought I’ll revisit that   at the next CES and see if they’ve actually  been able to make it happen? Oh, that’s a

Hard question to answer. There was, there was  stuff I saw that was kind of like, really? That’s a thing? I liked, I liked in your video where you  were saying there’s a lot of stuff that  

Maybe will work for us. And it was a robot  that looked like its arms were made up of,   of macaroni pieces that were all super,  super bendy. And it looked like a giant,   weird jellyfish or octopus. And so I thought  I’d like that to make me a cup of coffee.

Yeah. Samsung and LG. Both have their own  little household robots that you can buy now,   that you can get. And they’ve  been making these now for years   and showing them off at CES, and  it’s like vaporware. It’s like,  

Look what the future could be. We have this  little robot that will roll around your house. It’s a ball. It’ll just roll around your house  and do stuff. And now Companies like Samsung   and LG are making them to actually  start selling them. So like it’s,  

It was vaporware a few years ago, but now it’s  like, Samsung is like, no, we, here’s our,   the one, here’s the iteration now that’s  actually going to be sold later in 2024. And I looked at those robots and I watched some of  the demos in person and I was just kind of like,  

Yeah, no. Because it’s like, what is the utility?  What is the utility of these things? It’s like,   they’re so limited in what they can do. It’s  basically like having an Amazon Alexa or,   you know, Google smart speaker or a HomePod  on wheels, essentially is what it is.

And so it’s like. Would you want  to come home, open your door,   and have a little robot wheel up to you and  go, Hey, Sean, welcome home. You’re like,   I don’t need you right now. Get out of my  way. I’m just trying to come in the house.  

And then it’s like trying to tell you what  you’ve missed over the course of the day. It’s like, no, I don’t need this like little  yippy dog or like little kids saying, mom,   mom, mom, look at this. Look at this. It’s  like this. You know what I mean? You don’t,  

You don’t need that. And that’s what these current  things are. Samsung’s had a projector in it,   which is kind of neat. And one  of the demos they showed was a   woman exercising and it’s projecting the  exercise routine she’s doing on the wall. Yeah, that’s great because she probably doesn’t have a TV.

But this is where it gets interesting. It’s like  she’s exercising in a workout room. And then she   sits down to do sit ups, and when she’s doing sit  ups, now she’s looking at the ceiling, and all the  

Robot did was just roll backwards, and now the  screen’s on the ceiling as she’s doing workouts. It’s like, okay, that’s neat ish, but yeah,  that’s not a, um, that’s not making me want   to buy this thing. It’s like, it’s just  a projector and smart speaker on wheels,  

And smart assistants at this point are kind  of useless. They’re, they’re barely useful   at this point. So it’s kind of like, it’s  like the cart before the horse a little bit. Right. So, uh. It’s something  I’m interested in. Robots are   coming. It’s just way too early days for that kind

Of stuff. Right. Do you think the version  of robots This is something I think about.   Are we trapped in our imaginations that have  been built largely around sci fi stories as   to what a robotic environment around us would  look like in the form of, here comes C 3PO.

And he’s going to help me by making  me tea and bringing me my paperwork   and checking in on me if I need anything  at the end of the day. Or are we going to   just have a lot of smart devices that are  going to be around us discreetly working  

Together in a way that you don’t see, but  it’s just like you want that cup of tea. And you say in your living room, I need a cup  of tea. And then when you go up to the kitchen,   the teapot has made itself a cup  of tea and we won’t have a Butler.

Okay. So my take on this, it’s going  to fly in the face if I know a lot of   like technologists that are very  gung ho. A lot of companies like   Tesla and others are trying to build  a humanoid shaped robot right now.

Like there’s a race to build one of  these things. And I get the rationale   because our world is constructed  for us. So, doorways and steps,   and it’s for our human form. So by making a robot  in a human form, they’ll make it easier for them  

To become more useful and utilitarian  to us throughout our lives. I get it. That feels like robots of Don and Isaac Asimov,  okay, that’s a hundred years from now where maybe   we get stuff like that. But for our lifetimes,  I am full in the camp of we’re going to have  

Boutique robots that are designed for specific  tasks. So my robot vacuum. It’s a robot,   didn’t need to be a humanoid shape, it’s just  a little disc that rolls around the floor. I actually just got, last week, I’m testing it  out now, a robot snowblower. It didn’t have to  

Be a humanoid shape, it just looks like a little  tank with treads and a big like blower in the   front of it. So it’s like, you can make things  that are going to make our lives more useful,   and they’re robots, but they’re more  utilitarian than they are humanoid.

I will admit that the sci fi  comedy nerd in me wishes, though,   that your Roomba was in fact humanoid  shaped. The idea of the robot coming   out of the closet to clean the floors and then  getting down on its hands and knees and going,   UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU is just really appealing to me.

And a robot snowblower that again, your garage  door goes up and a robot steps out and then just   starts like, picking up handfuls of snow and  throwing it as fast as it can off the driveway. We’re missing out on opportunities  for comedy, is what I’m saying. We’re  

Too focused on the technology. We’re  not focused enough on the humor. So,   what do we do about that? Who do I write about  that? Who’s the policy person I need to reach out   about that? Some comments on the video that  caught my eye like this one from Stover who  

Wrote in to say a deep dive into those new  high density solar cells would be awesome. There’s also this one which is a very, uh,  touching, uh, comment I think from James   Mayes who wrote in as someone who is hearing  damaged from the army. It has trouble with  

Speech discrimination in crowded spaces.  I would love to learn more about the OrCam   device. When you have hearing damage and you  can’t hear the person across the table from   you in a restaurant, you end up losing more  and more places where you feel comfortable.

The fact you might be able to solve the problem  in a way that doesn’t mean just being isolated   will be hugely impacting on so many people’s  lives. Thank you, James, for that comment.   That’s a very impactful. Uh, sort of great  use case scenario. And I’m wondering if that  

Ties into accessibility. And this came up in, uh,  between Matt and me in a different, um, context. The idea of accessibility, uh, talking about that,  not only on the channel, but incorporating it more   on the channel in the form of there are plugins  that are available that would make things like.  

Uh, subtitling, descriptions for, uh, sight  impairment, and also, um, transcripts available   for people who need to read the podcast or our  discussion instead of being able to listen to it. And, Matt, I wonder, how much did you  see around accessibility? At the show,  

Were there companies that were incorporating  accessibility into existing things, or were   there new products like these earphones that  seem to be really taking a stand and saying like,   there’s a very specific group of people  for whom this might be a key solution?

There was a lot. I didn’t get it. Let me say it  this way. CES is massive. And I was there for two   days out of an entire week. Um, I didn’t get to go  through the, there’s like a biotech health section  

That I didn’t even get to go into. Um, I didn’t  get to go there. There was probably countless   amounts of what you’re talking about there, but  like OrCam, there were some robotic companies   that had little robots that are assistive devices  for people who are unable to like pick things up.

Here’s a little robot that can go pick something  up for you and bring it to you. So there’s a lot   of that stuff that is kind of becoming. I think  commoditized would be the right word. It’s, it’s,  

It’s coming or it’s here already and it’s, um,  definitely going to help improving lives. I mean,   it was part of the reason why I  got really excited about Overcam   when I was walking through, it was a  little show after the expo had closed.

It was in the evening and I went into this  show and it was called Pepcom and I saw   that booth and was walking by. I was just  like, caught my eye of like, immediately,   Oh, this is interesting. This is going to help  actually improve people’s lives. And that’s the  

Tech I was trying to look at because, oh  my God, Sean, there’s just so much crap. It wouldn’t be the best way to put it  around. It was like finding the stuff   that looked like it was going to be impactful  was the stuff that was catching my eye the  

Most. And so this stuff is definitely  there. Um, I just, next year I want to   go and go for a couple extra more days.  And get into that health biotech section for this exact kind of stuff. The OrCam earbuds, were they designed  entirely around the use of It looked  

Like a plug in that goes in the bottom  of the phone, which helps with probably   firmware to be able to make everything run  properly. Because I imagine it has a Oh,   it’s okay. It’s about latency. So you end up  plugging that in and using that to be able to,  

Like we just talked about, you have  trouble hearing in a movie theater. So you have that, it’s focused in on the movie  screen, or you’re at a crowded restaurant and you   can’t hear the person across the table from you.  So you plug it into to them. Do the earbuds also  

Work just as regular Bluetooth? Earphones that  you could then Yeah, like disconnect the thing   and then just walk around and listen to music  or you know, have a phone call if you wanted to. I didn’t ask them about that. I assume the  answer would be no. Um, ’cause the earbuds,  

My understanding is they’re basically just kind  of like the earbuds themselves are kind of dumb   devices that are connecting to that dongle  plug in their phone plug. Okay. So it’s using   some kind of proprietary wireless  protocol that’s very low latency.

And the reason for that is all the processing  is really happening on device. And then radioing   back to the earbuds, um, because it’s, it’s  too much is going on for an earbud to be   able to do it by itself. So. If it’s going  back and forth like that, it would be very,  

If you were doing over Bluetooth or something  like that, it would be, there’d be this latency. So as somebody is talking, it’s like their mouth  would be ahead of what you’re actually hearing.   Right. So I think because of that, I don’t  think they’re like a duo it’s Bluetooth plus  

This thing. I’m, I’m assuming just based on my  conversation with them that it’s, it’s dedicated   to that dongle and that’s the only way to do  it, but you could use it to listen to music. There’s nothing that would  stop you from doing that. Right. Did they have a price point on it?

Uh, that was something I didn’t talk  to them about and I’m kicking myself,   but my guess would be it’s  going to be, uh, not cheap,   just knowing how this stuff goes, maybe a  few hundred bucks, uh, would be my guess.

For somebody that needs something like this, I  think it would be worth every single penny. And   on top of which Our mother has hearing aids,  and hearing aids is a, is a segment that’s   ripe for disruption. It is crazy expensive  for hearing aids right now. I’ve actually already

Started seeing stuff that’s about,  like, the hearing aid market. Tech that is built around that, that is  using phones as the plug in, and it is,   I think you’re right. It, that we’re, and that may  have a downside, there’s aspects to hearing that,  

Like, a doctor helping you fine tune. The  range that the hearing aid is working at   is critical for hearing aid. Again, our  mother’s experience, we know from, uh,   dealing with her that it’s a very  specific range that is impacted. Um, but I’m at the early days  myself of my partner saying to me,  

Why is the TV so loud? And it’s  because somebody can’t hear what,   um, so something like this for me might be  the Step before the full blown hearing aid, so well, there’s just really quick. There’s  something with um, This is not an Apple show.

The apple AirPods, there’s already, it  already can do some rough, you know,   removing noise and allowing human voices to  come through. It’s not like the the OrCam,   the OrCam was specific voices. Mm-Hmm. Apple’s  devices. Just as just human voices. So it  

Wouldn’t help you crowd bad. Yeah. But there’s  already assistive stuff in the operating system. I think Android may do this too, but don’t  quote me on that. Where you can go through   and. Turn on accessibility mode and it basically  does a kind of a pseudo hearing test with your  

AirPods in. And then after it’s done, it  creates a custom EQ profile to make up for   the frequencies that you’re low in. So just  already today, just with some of the devices   we already have access to, there are ways that  you can actually improve what you’re hearing  

Around you just with AirPods and other  earbuds that are already in existence. So it’s. Interesting. I’m very excited  for where this is all heading. It’s,   it’s going to make it better for you  and I. We just need this help later in our lives. And you’ve talked  in the past about Apple watches,  

Wearing them for tracking of health  concerns, but the tricorder that you saw,   and I’m going to call it a tricorder, I don’t care  what the company that’s making it is calling it. It’s a tricorder. We’re calling it a  tricorder. It’s a tricorder from now on. Uh,  

Something like that. Is that, was that promoted  as like home use or was that doctor’s office   use? Are they talking about This is home  use. So it was literally like Something   doesn’t feel good and you have the ability  to say like, okay, here’s my temperature.

Here’s what my blood pressure is.  And this thing is going to listen   to my heart and check my blood flow.  Like, stuff like that. Yeah. Well, just to kind of show how interested I am in this  tech behind me over my shoulder back here,  

There’s a tricorder replica and then you probably,  you probably can’t see it, but down on the desk,   I was a Kickstarter backer of a company that  created something called the Scanadu Scout. And it was this little disc, um, that  was a beta tester on it that you put it  

On your temple and hold your fingers on  it. And it would take your temperature,   do an ECG, do all this kind of like  blood oxygen level all in one go. Off   This one device and I got it I was like,  this is a tricorder. I got to get this.

Um, that tech didn’t actually become a product  for consumers, but the advances they made the   company spun it off into other things. This  withings thing that you’re talking about this   tricorder I saw is basically that in product  form that I was talking about. It’s meant for  

Home use. Imagine you have Like when we  were all in lockdown, like telehealth. So it’s like you have a, you could have a  doctor’s appointment. What are the things   they do to you when you go to the doctor’s  office just for a regular checkup? They take  

Your blood pressure. They check your blood  oxygen sometimes. They weigh you. They take   your temperature. It’s like they walk through  stethoscopes to listen to what’s going on. This little device does not all of that,  but most of it. So it’s like you could  

Remotely give access to your doctor on one  of those telehealth calls to this device,   and you could be holding the device against your  chest. And he could tell you to put it down lower,   then put it over here, and he could  literally listen to your chest.

From the comfort of his own office, you know what  I mean? So it’s, this is, I am super excited about   this deck. I’ve already kind of put my name  into the wait list for when, as soon as it’s  

Available to buy. Cause I, I want to try this  thing out. It’s really cool. I already feel bad for your cat. Hey Luna, you’re gonna be, you’re gonna be standing behind her with woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. She’s

A cat. In that vein, uh, David Gray  jumped into the comments to say The   earbud tech is getting extremely close to  the universal translator from Star Trek. So,   was there anything like that that you saw  that was like live translation, interactive,  

That it didn’t matter what language you spoke to  a thing, you would be able to communicate with it? Not that I saw there. Again, that’s actually built into  our devices today already. It’s like,   you can hold up Google Translate on your phone  and Speak to anybody you want, but there’s that  

Lag. They have to finish saying what they’re  saying, and then it translates it, and then   you say what you say, and then it translates  it back, and you’re having to show screens. Um, I did not see anything  where it’s like real time,  

Like you’re at the UN and have something  in your ear and you’re hearing a real   time translation. I didn’t see anything  like that. But oh, Sean, I so want that. Oh, yes. Me too. Me too. So, listeners,  

Was there anything that you saw in the video  that you would like to follow up more on? Or is there anything in our discussion that  you think we skipped a step and you’d like us   to revisit it? Jump into the comments and let us  know. And if you can’t think of anything specific,  

You can jump to the comments and just  say, Matt’s Tripped to the Strip. And,   uh, let us know what you thought  about the general discussion. Thank you so much for the comments. They  really do help drive the content of this  

Show. And they also help inform the content of  Matt’s main show, Undecided with Matt Ferrell.   Don’t forget his CES discussion. He asked again  and again, which of these techs would you like a   deeper dive in? So jump into the comments there  or here and let him know, and we’ll see those.

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