I'm welcome back to Tech Talk I'm Ken Mingis executive editor of computer
world I'm here with Macworld's Michael Simon
and Juliet Beauchamp to talk about technology that we're thankful for and
you know given the fact that Thanksgivings coming up in the u.s. we
thought it a good time to think about some of the things that technology does
for us that we like as opposed to last month where we talked about technology
that scared us I'll start off I just want to talk about a couple things
number one wireless networking I am really thankful for Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5g
cellular all of it not in and of itself but for what it does what it allows you
to do I mean it basically allows us to be completely or I'm not completely
connected but well connected almost anywhere all the time used to just be I
can take my laptop to the couch and still get on the internet now it's I
mean it's enabled just a whole breadth of it's an entire mystery I mean it so
many things to take off I mean I remember I live in Rhode Island family
in North Carolina driving back and forth in the 80s and 90s and wanting to check
in with like mom saying you know I had to find a payphone somewhere you know
and and no idea where you know or in a storm you know it what's what's the
weather now I'm completely connected all the time you know there downsides to
that because maybe you don't want to always be connected all the time but or
you forget your phone is that what I mean cars are connected as well I mean
you know you've got a lot you've got you know my car is can show me real-time
traffic and so one of the things one of the main things and I'm thankful for and
it's over the last 20 years is wireless connectivity yeah let's put it that way
and you I mean I guess it's a I mean you know you picked a easy wireless
connectivity well I mean I'm gonna feel like I was gonna this is gonna sound
like I'm just piggybacking over yours oh well that's why would first I mean
mine is just basically convenience okay and it's you know some of it is is
Wireless all right so let's start simple okay wireless charging okay you know
forever we had to plug our phones and city's
little things micro USB is a pain get it in the right way the right attorney
right I mean USB C has helped because it's you know it's it's it's kind of
agnostic and lightning and all those things but it's still I go to NIT I go
to bed I pop my phone on a charger yep and it's it I wake up and it's charged
we now have phones will Samsung a couple other manufacturers have phones where
they actually work as a charge you can charge your earbuds you know things we
with it's much less likely for something to run out of power wasn't that long ago
when we had to carry a cable with us a wire with us run to an outlet ask
someone at a restaurant can I sit at that table because there's a plug nearby
we don't don't worry about that I mean that also to a factor of like improving
battery technology the fact that these these devices don't lose steam I mean
yes as much as they sure they're bigger I mean the battery is it bigger and
they're more capable sure but the fact that we can get a quick charge and you
know quickly you're right you know that the batteries fill up quicker yeah but
that we don't know if I forget a cable you know my car has a wireless charger
you know if I you know if I make my things in the other room I have a
wireless charger in the kitchen and the bedroom in it it's easy boom
10 minutes 15 minutes half hour and and you know there's wireless chart for
wireless charging technology that eventually will allow yeah true true
true why would you walk into the room and your device's charged up
automatically and we're a few years or maybe a couple of decades away from them
but the technology is possible it is out there now that's I mean that's all be
charged at you know 10 years ago when we talked about this it was never there you
know so yeah we will definitely get there we're just like radio waves and
and and cellular service our phones will always be you know it'll be like trickle
charges but it'll be enough yeah just we won't have to worry about them right it
just Topshop like every time yeah you had also talked about smart home tech
yeah so in in that convenient size from last episode where he got locked out of
the house we won't we visit that one but in general when it works yeah I mean
it's so I have Google assistant Siri all in various
places of my house I have smart plugs I had smart thermostats smart locks smart
lights oh I mean really gone the whole hog I
mean admins have like Siri in one room and I got Alexis when I moved into my
house two years ago I said to my mother I said I'm in charge of all this stuff
if you're doing it it'll be piecemeal but we're great well absolutely and
that's part of what I'm saying so I I can set up routines I can I say I don't
know if something's gonna go off if we have it but Alexa goodnight yeah when I
go to bed everything turns off yep the lights the plugs thermostat sets to a
temperature my alarm system isn't quite barrier because I have ADT no code if I
had a ring or a nest was that because ADT just it doesn't allow hook in do it
yeah it's like that's it's it's a skill so you have like it's not a device and
it's it doesn't clear IOT TT thing it might it might work if I haven't
explored that yeah just an option okay the routines are somewhat limited to
devices and certain a lots of things but right it works extremely well I say
Alexa turn on the Halloween lights and I have one smart plug in my whole lawn
lights up okay I say Alexa raise the temperature to or lower the temperature
whatever you know whatever I want to do I don't have to think about her what how
do I get all this done I say something it works my son ask Alexa every morning
was the weather he was talking and he was looking the the other week week we
saw a bobcat was coming but yeah so we saw a bobcat so he started asking Alexa
all these questions about bobcats cuz he was curious I mean it's it's just it's
amazing you know that we have these things at our disposal wherever we need
them that may or may not be listening to us all the time and we won't get into
that but they're there and they work and you can set up your poor your house to
you know be like legit smart yeah yeah I have to you know just to play off that
one second then I want to ask Juliet what she's thankful for but that you
know makes makes a point for me when I was like when I was a kid and I'm gonna
date myself now but I you know the waited till your don't yeah well when I
was again I was once a kid when I to learn you had a set of encyclopedias
world book encyclopedias Encyclopedia Britannica the salesman would come by
and sell them to you and I was fascinated as what's that I don't know
about salesmen but well I had a feeling they did door to door and if he wanted
to to learn and I was very curious as a kid I would just take a volume of the
encyclopedia and just thumb through it just just random shake everything it was
there when I know I know I was a nerd to geek whatever is true this was before
television oh no it was not it was better than television but I would look
through encyclopedias like that my point being that the amount of information
that is available at your fingertips because of convenience Wireless nests
and the Internet is absolutely astonished and current information you
printed it's out of date it will exactly current in real time and constantly
updating you know is mning in some ways I would love to have had that as a kid
so kids you young kids you know okay boomer thing here but appreciate it
because it's really wild Juliette yes I'm glad you're in on the okay boomer
yep terminology and I see I'm up I'm up on this stuff I was gonna say I mean
obviously wireless connectivity is huge and I he picked an easy one it's I know
so I mean I was gonna cop out and say I'm thankful for air I'm thankful for I
like to breathe all right yep um I was gonna pick an easy one and just say I'm
thankful for my iPhone over here but now actually that I think about it more so I
live in an apartment I have a roommate we have we don't have like a huge like
office set up but sometimes there situations in life where you need to
scan something or you need to do something that usually requires a big
piece of clunky office technology so what I'm thankful for our apps that can
make those sort of devices obsolete like scanning apps anytime I need to send
something to a landlord or send something to like I think I had to
probably scan stuff for I remember getting stuff for a job back when I was
in college and that was super helpful cuz I don't own a scanner and actually I
had to go to like an Internet Faye to scan something and pay like 25
cents a page that sounds old time ago it was in 2017 how much things have changed
and yeah so I just AM so I'm think I'm thankful for that but I'm also obviously
thankful for my phone it makes it's so easy to take fun pictures I get fun
pictures from my aunt of my adorable 9 year old cousin who just lost a tooth we
got tons of videos about that and it's just a really fun way that I mean even
he's a good example because I mean I'm when he was born there was no way they
were getting all these pictures and all these videos just on our phones so I
think my iPhone and obviously couldn't wireless connectivity but let's say
iPhone because I message just makes it makes everything seem smoother it's it's
a seamless experience yeah it really does and that you know and I guess maybe
we could we can talk about this as long as we want but that calls up one more
thing that I am thankful for that's new and that is and it goes with the iPhone
or or smart phones in general digital photography you know broadly and
specifically the computational photography the advances we're seeing
first you know from Google last year and then apples take on it this year the
ability to record you know the most mundane humdrum moments in life this is
going to be the most what's the word when when basically every formative well
it's transformative but I mean in terms of like if you want to know what culture
is and you wanted to know what life in ancient Rome was like you're very
limited in to how you can understand that but the vast the vast bulk of
photography and video and messaging and everything that is being taken recorded
shared and stored now if we don't you know blow ourselves up or you succumb to
a comet or an asteroid hitting the earth will make it easier for anthropologists
in the future to get a really good understanding of what life was like in
the early part of the 21st century like 90% of it is selfies and food shows it's
ok it is well that bill just figure we you know like to take pictures of
ourselves and eat
well that's the there is a lot of that going around but you know in
particularly the computational part of that now with you know with what's in an
an iPhone you know or the you know the latest pixel the ability to take not
just photos of anything but really good photos and and be able to either print
them up and frame them or hang on to them or share them or just keep 15,000
phones well it was on your phone I mean my digital photography life starts in
about 2000 I mean I remember when when Apple came it was some rebranded camera
that they came out with in like 98 or 99 and I had one and was stunned by the
ability to just snap a picture and it could be digital and you could do things
with it you could modify it send it whatever of course that's you know
ancient technology now but especially as we get to the holidays Thanksgiving you
know the first a year Christmas whatever holiday you celebrate family
get-togethers you know the ability to do the photography that we can do now is
worth is noteworthy yeah and you know you know you don't have to be as old as
Ken to remember a time knob and you know to take a photo you required like a
whole train of thought like our where's my camera is there is do I know my
memory card film whatever it is and now you take a phone out if something
happened you take your phone out of your pocket click boom and you know this has
implications for you know social justice I mean it's not just taking pictures
cute calming pictures of my son no it's it's remarkable that everyone at any
point has the ability to record what's happening in front of them from a
variety of angles I mean think about this I mean and this
is this is a little you know sad but you know if this sort of environment had
been around in 1963 John Kennedy basically the only real visual evidence
we have of that is one film the infamous approver film from one angle yeah but if
you had had people with smart phones and everything else in you know you would
have had an amazing picture of what happened there and that's true of you
know of basically any event in the world you know that just shows you how far
things have changed just in the last 40 or 50 years yeah it's I mean the quality
of the photos that we're able to take with the thing that always with us in
our pocket just remarkable and the ability to find
them yeah over the weekend I was I was talking to one of my friends that came
to visit me and he was telling me about the first time his son had a donut okay
like it's a stupid story but no and I said to him oh I have a great picture of
the first time you know Gabe when he might my son's name is Gabriel Gabriel
of Gabe when he was like two mm-hmm and I literally wanted to Google photos
typed up donut and boom it was founded out of a sea of like no joke like Fabi
17,000 fold and that's a really good point because what good does it do to
have all of these photographs and I think if you can't search and find
things quickly one of my parents but you know when I was growing up they had
boxes of photos we still all these things that you know what's in them
where they are they get lost they get stuck together they get degraded ha ha
ha ha yep and now like a moment's notice boom boom boom
you got that the phones can can analyze the entire thing in seconds or
milliseconds find it send it to you I mean and even something as simple as
that we take for granted now as soon as we take a photo our phones categorized
by who is in it so I know my wife my parents my son my friends and that's the
facial written it should be a you know which allows you to sort of search
quickly and you know decipher what you're looking at being thankful for
stuff often requires you know looking at things that we take for granted and that
is absolutely one of them yep got it good any final thoughts Juliet before we
wrap up before the hold oh no I don't have much similar to Google photos what
you were saying Mike I think one last thing I am thankful for is something
like Google Drive where I can have all of my information all of my documents
all of my photos all of my spreadsheets in the cloud and then I can access it on
my phone I can access it on my laptop my personal laptop my work computer and you
don't even have to pay for this stuff if you don't want to write you know you get
lots of space for free no you know even photos are free always free if you don't
care about you know the original quality which most people don't because it's
still pretty good at high quality still very good you know what to pay anything
yeah you know it's it's interesting this goes back to you in fact it seems like
you have the winning thankful I think of you thankful for
convenience everything we've talked about really goes back to convenience so
I'm thankful for that thanks all right great we're all
thankful here Michael thanks for being here Juliet thanks for being here
reminder please subscribe to our YouTube channel if you liked this episode
they'll be future episodes popping up routinely have a great holiday if you're
in the US and otherwise thanks for watching