Episode 304: Emerging Technologies

Show Summary

Rob Cairns and Ryan Waterbury talk about emerging technologies.

Show Highlights:

What technologies are becoming big.
AI.
Apple and what it does.
Competition in business.

Show Notes

Hey everybody, Rob Cairns here and today I’m here with my semi regular lately but regular co-host Ryan Waterbury and we are going to have a chat about emerging technologies. How are you today, Ryan?

I’m finally doing good. The New Year was off to a little bit of a rocky start with, you know, the usual midwinter health issues and then winding up a lot of new business, which is always a good thing, so. Yeah, in the.

It sure, it sure is.

Yeah, in a good space, but really busy.

Good, good, good. Me too. And you know, we’re just chat, came about. We were actually sitting around bannering around again, like you and I often do. And we thought we’d. I was telling you about how I had gone to an Apple Pencil, a third party one, and I’ve actually gone to a keyboard on my iPad which will shock a lot of people. Because most people know I’m a staunch Android and Windows guy, but that’s another story for another day. And we thought we’d talk about emerging technologies and you had some ideas. And let’s start with kind of. Some of those go ahead.

You know, it’s kind of interesting, you know, when you talked about Apple and I’m just going to start there today in my newsletter and I talked about, you know, monopolies are terrible and how in technology we rarely see. The government have to step in and break up monopolies because there’s natural competition with the rate of evolution with products, and I know you had mentioned you got an Apple Pencil and it’s not an Apple branded one. It’s a third party one at conference on a lot of the third party.

It is.

Stuff, and sometimes some of the third party stuff has features that are beyond what Apple’s offering, which is nice.

Yeah, in this. In this case, the cost difference was 120 bucks Canadian believe it or not. The the third party pencil was about 30 bucks Canadian dollars and I think the Apple Pencil retails for about 1:50. So you know there, there was reason to try a third party one at this point.

Yeah, Apple had, I mean. When you when you talk about Apple, I mean just defining them. They’re they’re not a hardware company, but you know, and people need to realize that they’re a software company that has very specific hardware requirements to run their software. And when you start thinking about that, a lot of things make more sense. And you know, when we talk about competition and being on the Apple train, we we have to talk about the App Store and there’s a lot of hint from developers with what you can put on the App Store as far as compliance and if you are selling a product there, they’ve got a 30% tax or Commission that. Apple right off the top.

And that’s and that’s the big one. And it even includes things like in app purchases. So for for example. If you go get an audible app, which is an Amazon company, do you know on the Apple App Store audible has disabled purchasing anything through the app? You actually have to go. And Google is the same way. You actually have to go to the website, purchase the product and then download it to the app because they don’t want to pay the 30% Commission.

And you know one thing I touched on today in my newsletter. The EU has been doing some pushes for privacy, which I think is good, and now they have the Digital Markets Act, which has has pushed Apple again. And you know, on another one they’ve told Apple enough with your Lightning port. We need to do USBC just like everyone else does. As a standard they have the capability, they just don’t want to do it. Part of it’s backwards compatibility, I get it, but there’s a big push from the EU against Apple that says, hey, yeah, you should do some things with. Normal standards and you know, allow some competition. So third party markets may start appearing and third party apps you know will be more easily installable on iOS. On that note kind of trickling into another. Monopoly holder Google. They’re developing an iOS browser. Obviously, based on their Android Chromium and Chrome, which doesn’t use Webkit, and that’s been a firm thing that Apple has put their foot down on and said you need to do this.

Yeah, right.

So it’s nice to see some competition really coming from from some of the big guys.

And and since we’re talking about web browsers, not to hijack my own podcasts, but. I will. Let’s jump into. Did you know that Internet edge, which is Microsoft browser now has AI capabilities which are testing for Edge and that they’re not quite available in candy yet. But if you get on the Edge, beta builds? You can actually test some of that AI stuff, so isn’t that an interesting merger AI in the web browser?

So not just in the web browser, but Microsoft has gone all in with open AI and they’re they’re going to start offering chat, GPT like features within Microsoft. Outlook, you know Edge and a lot of it’s in beta, but they’re coupling it with Bing. Now why? I mean that that’s a huge thing. We know Google’s pretty much got a monopoly on search, where 75% of search queries in North America go through Google. You know, and and they’ve done a really good job to be the best at answering. You know users queries. But they have, you know, no competition. So a lot of people are getting better answers and better results from chat, GPT than, you know, doing a Google search and maybe going like for me as a developer, I go to stack exchange A. Lot of times. I can type the same query in to chat GPT just to double check my code and I’m getting great, great results back in PHP, JavaScript, you name it. It’s been a fantastic tool, so when that that gets coupled with. Thing that’s actually a true competitor to Google, that may even surpass it with its ability to generate. Proper answers that people are actually looking for.

No, I I agree. And Chad GPTS’s an interesting. Product in itself, I don’t know if you. Card I I did a quickie where I posted it on my business blog. I did a chat GPT for WordPress security and said what do you need to do. It gets some basic stuff really well. I also did a second one, which I’m going to post letter and day on my personal blog just for fun. And I I chose. An athlete who was Ken Dryden and said give me kind of a synopsis of. What chat GPT saw, and it was actually pretty good for a start, so I thought so, and we’ve even seen cases where there was a guy. And I forget his name, Steve Gibson on security Now podcast mentioned it where he used chat cheat chat GPT to write the code to show people how to get stuff out of LastPass and close the account and then use chat GPT to write the UI as well for that. So, and apparently for coding, it’s really good. I’ve yet to try it, so it’s just so interesting.

Yeah, it it’s very interesting. And I was having a conversation on on slack on the Beaver builder slack where another developer and extender had, you know, talked about getting a great result when he had had kind of hit a brick wall with. A jQuery question. And it came back with, you know, exactly, you know, the solution and the code almost perfectly written. And I said it it’s been great when I stumbled across something, it gave me a couple of variations on PHP. But but what we both kind of talked about and agreed with is that it’s a crawler. And it’s crawling spots like Stack Overflow, where people have posted these answers and it’s compiling a lot of these answers. So one danger that we, you know, really both saw was. There’s going to be less engagement on some of these forums and individual sites that have original human generated content. So at a certain point. It These sites that are rich with information now will have less engagement and stop being able to be crawled. So you know A is new. So we’re you know, where does it go? But that was one of the one of the things that we really. We’re touched on.

It’s so true, and one of the things I would say to people is chat. GPT is really. A glorified search engine. When you think about it like I know, I know I’m being simplistic, but there’s that and then we’ve got some of these new cool photo AI products that are running around that allow you to generate photos or, you know, generate variations of photos or things like that. There’s some really interesting things going on in that space as well, don’t you think?

The Pixel 7 commercial that aired last night during the Super Bowl I’ve I’ve seen some things and variations about it and have a a pixel, so I’m aware of it. But you know the the Photoshop content aware fill function that a lot of US designers. Know about. It’s it’s there in the handheld where you want to crop out that guy that photobombed your engagement photo. Lassoo around him hit click and it fills in with appropriate pixel perfect content around sharpens your photos and that and this is just the simple part. Of the AI. Generating completely new photos with other AI generators out there, there’s some room to grow. I’ve seen some of the results. They’re not great yet, but it it’s amazing at. The quality and the content creation that an individual person has access to now where you know as a small business owner, I think over the next couple of years. The competition with these AI products is going to allow more individual businesses to be even more successful than they were even a couple of years ago.

Yeah, it’s true. I was looking at an interesting one or a couple interesting ones. They’ve even got AI software for doing voiceovers right now. So if you’re some. Give you an example. While I was looking at was for a podcast chat I’m doing and one of the things I was looking at is how well these AI products are for doing a quick voice over instead of paying a voice over expert. Now let me tell you they’re not perfect, but they’re certainly getting there and it’s just so interesting. To look at.

I mean, even bringing some of the audio cleanup, uh, it’s seeing a review on using, you know, especially when we get started in podcasting and producing our own content. A lot of times we don’t know if it’s going to go really well, so we don’t do the big investment on the high end equipment and you know there there’s a a quality break there where you can get good quality equipment for a low dollar. But there there are some things to be lacking. One of the AI tools that I’ve seen is cleaning up audio and giving it that. Studio auto tuned quality and these tools aren’t very expensive at all, you know, so you know, professionals have been using auto tune for years and you know, but now the the the tools are coming to the masses, which are fantastic.

Not at all, not at all, but. So true and and in audio there’s one that comes to mind that I use called auphonic and what it does is it takes the AI and takes an audio stream and levels out the audio. So if you’ve combined multiple audio streams, it levels it out, and that’s all AI generated. So that’s pretty amazing. What’s going on there? So let’s switch gears again and this one might cut your catch. You off guard a little bit, but if we’re talking emerging technologies, let’s jump away from the web sector and let’s go look at the auto sector for a minute. And there’s some really cool stuff going on in cars right now, things like. Apple Airplay, Google Play and things like that, and then you look at all these computers in the cars these days. And honestly, in automobile these days, it’s just a glorified MacBook or PC. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I mean that was one of the things that really struck me. When, you know, listening to our US state of the Union, where just quoting the number and I’m not sure how accurate it was, but hundreds of chips that are in cars. Not just for the entertainment pieces, but you know, for the control for all-wheel drive cars to give you smooth acceleration through a curve and better power transfer. It’s just it’s just amazing that. You know your car. You’re right. It’s a glorified computer now, and we’re not even talking about EV technology. It’s just the technology within the cabin. And you know, the drivability of every car has advanced immensely and. You know, I look at 20 years ago and. You were just starting to see power Windows standard power lock standard and things like that. Now we’re looking at, like you said, syncing your phone with, you know, Android Auto mode. Same thing with your iOS device where you have CarPlay it it’s just amazing and I don’t think that that evolution will stop anytime soon.

No, it it’s getting. It’s getting really, really interesting. And I mean, we’re even seeing it around the home. We’ve all got things like video doorbells, many of us we do in this House. We’ve got things like. Fridges that can automatically order your item when your shelf gets low, believe it or not. We’ve got things like security cameras that are now come way down in cost and it just kind of goes on and I mean. There’s something for everybody. If you want to go down that rabbit hole.

Yeah, I mean, not just for ease of use, but one of my clients actually was able to use his ring camera to identify someone that was trying to break into his home because the the guy didn’t know that there was a ring there and you know. So there are tons of uses for these technologies, from safety and security, which is well beyond just the everyday convenience that we’ve really touched on.

And some of these conveniences, if people are have accessibility issues or disability issues can even be more important because it it just makes their life even that much easier.

Oh, absolutely. You know, a lot of times advancements in technology are to solve a particular problem and it. I think the more that we have these tools that can solve programming and engineering problems faster, the more of these everyday problems to help people with accessibility issues learn faster. I mean audio books. And you know, AI to do voiceovers and transcribe your writing are easy to do now. And you know, those things used to be expensive to hire. The right person to read your book and do a proper recording in a studio to have it available. You know, months down the road. Now you AI generate your content, edit your own content in to make sure it has your own voice. And you click another button and. It’s fully audio transcribed done.

And and an example of an existing product that’s been around for years that already has that without going to AI products like DESCRIPT and other dot AI. Well known is Microsoft Office. Most people forget that. With your Microsoft account and your subscription, you get so many hours of transcription a month and all you got to do is upload the file and the way it goes. I mean, and these are products that are already out there without even having to pay for something else is pretty amazing when. You think about it.

Oh, absolutely. You know, and I’ve been working on a a website for a couple of years now, a large nonprofit. Conversion to WordPress and the user base is older, so a lot of them kind of got savid to zoom, which is easy, but I use Google me because you know I pay for it. I don’t want to pay for another account for video conferencing, but it does so many of the same things. And even from the transcription now to be able to have a virtual whiteboard where not even, I mean we’re thousands of miles apart and you know, recording this podcast. We could do the same thing in Google me it you know on a meeting and have a whiteboard to mark up ideas just like we would in a regular business office.

You know, it’s pretty incredible moving forward in the 2023. What do you, what technology interests you or excites you the most?

That’s a tough one. You know, I I think a year ago we were probably squabbling about Gutenberg and complaining about that, you know.

We still are.

At least you are.

But I you know, to look at that in the small space, but you know, Google has had their own AI for. And they hadn’t released it for good reason. But I think you know, those technologies were search technologies. And assistive technology is are probably going to be the hot things for at least the next six months and those things affect my business and my ability to do my job more effectively than any of the other technologies out there.

For me, it’s probably interesting enough off the board. Is drone technology the things they’re starting to do with drones? They’re using them in defense mechanisms. My interest in drones is taking photos from the air. I actually have a drone sitting almost beside. I’m waiting till spring till to launch it. I purchased one for with a couple cameras so I can actually shoot footage from the air and that kind of excites me because you’re going to get some shots. You’re using, they use drone technology outside the Super Bowl last night. Do some of that being used to not already use it in the earring, but they did use it outside that whole technology. Just kind of. Is really interesting.

Oh, absolutely. There’s a local bar restaurant in my old neighborhood, Bryant Lake Bowl, that hired a videographer that does specialty drone footage and not only being a bar restaurant, but they have a small bowling alley and. Uptown to be able to do a full walkthrough via the drone all the way through back behind you know the bowling lanes where the pins are set up and then back through the bar and out the front was just amazing and made for really cool video so. There’s one to Google if you want to see a great example of drone video footage.

Yeah. And 11 caveat, that’s right there that most people don’t realize or don’t pay attention to depending on the type of drug you get and the height. Whether you’re in Canada or the US, you might have to have a certificate from the federal government before you fly such drones. So before you go out and get one, take the time to find out what the regulations are. And please don’t fly them near an airport. That just causes other problems that we don’t need to get into with the state of the world right now. You know, that’s the other.

And, you know, make sure your drone doesn’t look like a weather balloon either.

No, and and don’t fight over the latest U.S. military base. That would be a bad idea, too. Sure, it would get kind of shot down. So is there anything else you want to mention about emerging technologies today, right.

You know the the big things, you know, we’re just the the competition and the the search area, the fact that a lot of clients that I bring on for SEO. Even if they have a great Google business profile, they completely forgot about, you know, Bings business profile and now there’s apples business profile and as a safari user on a Mac. It pushes maps first, so especially now that they have their own business profile, those need to be filled out. And, but more importantly, it’s nice to see competition for Google and, you know, see these new technologies push these companies to do things better. And offer better products at a better price rate considering inflation is out of control for consumers. So I think we all win in the end.

No, I I would agree with you. I think it’s gonna be a really interesting year and then some if somebody wants to get a hold of your run, what’s the best way?

On all major social media platforms, at one dog solutions, you can find my website at onedog.solution. And if you want to e-mail me, it’s Ryan dot Waterbury@onedog .solutions.

And make sure if e-mail Ryan you ask him about his two office workers who. Seem to be working hard again today. How it never changes.

No, they’re they’re continual slackers.

They’re good to go, suckers. Thanks, Ryan. Have a great day today.

Hey, you too.