The integration of advanced camera technologies and artificial intelligence into our daily lives is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, fundamentally altering both personal privacy and media production. From a $500 Dyson toothbrush equipped with a camera to track oral hygiene to the controversial expansion of Flock Safety’s surveillance network monitoring pedestrians, connected lenses are becoming ubiquitous. Meanwhile, the media and hardware landscapes are shifting rapidly, marked by an Xbox program offering digital licenses for physical discs and Apple's upcoming Mac updates enabling professional-grade Genlock synchronization. These leaps highlight a critical moment where creative convenience collides with profound surveillance and ownership concerns.
Paul and Dave, joined by producer Jeff Kidd, navigate these developments with a blend of technical excitement and cautious scrutiny. While they marvel at the democratization of professional tools - like GoPro’s new $700 cinema camera setup and the ability to host web applications directly via ChatGPT Sites - they remain deeply skeptical of the surveillance implications tied to modern hardware. The hosts' final verdict emphasizes that while localized processing and accessible technology offer incredible creative empowerment, consumers must remain fiercely vigilant about what devices they allow to record their lives and who controls their digital libraries.
Key Topics
The Democratization of Cinematography: GoPro's introduction of a $700 cinema camera equipped with a micro four-thirds lens mount represents a massive leap for independent filmmakers. By integrating professional-grade interchangeable lenses into an accessible ecosystem, creators can achieve studio-quality visuals without exorbitant costs. This move signals a broader industry trend where high-end production capabilities are placed directly into the hands of everyday videographers.
Surveillance Creep and Consumer Hardware: The deployment of cameras in unexpected consumer goods, such as a $500 AI-enabled toothbrush, alongside the expansion of Flock Safety networks, underscores a growing surveillance creep. As municipal tracking systems transition from reading license plates to monitoring pedestrian movements, the boundaries of public and private tracking are rapidly blurring. This shift raises critical questions about data ownership, consent, and the hidden societal costs of internet-connected hardware.
Apple Brings Genlock to the Masses: Apple's upcoming Mac Mini and Mac Studio updates feature powerful new silicon and introduce Genlock capabilities for multi-camera synchronization. Traditionally reserved for high-end broadcast setups and costly external hardware, Genlock allows multiple video feeds and computer graphics to sync perfectly without screen tearing. Integrating this natively into a consumer-level desktop dramatically lowers the barrier for complex, professional video production and live event streaming.
The Phasing Out of Physical Media: The ongoing transition toward a purely digital media ecosystem is accelerating, highlighted by a new Xbox initiative to offer digital licenses in exchange for authenticating physical game discs. As consoles increasingly ship without disc drives, true, permanent ownership of physical media continues to erode. This transition forces consumers to grapple with a future where their digital libraries are entirely dependent on corporate servers and revocable licensing agreements.
Mentioned in the Episode
- CMAC
- Harry Potter TV Show
- Logo Contest
- GoPro MISSION 1 PRO ILS
- FLX AI Hub - Webinars
- FLX AI Hub - Workshops
- Android Motion Assist & Find My
- Dyson CameraJet
- Cities terminate Flock contracts at record pace in August
- 404 Media
- Apple introduces new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
- Built-in Genlock makes the Mac Studio a boon for professional video production
- Tim Cook steps down…New CEO
- ChatGPT Sites
- Screen Recorder App
- TXTEDTR
- Gemini Spark
- XBOX disc-to-digital insider roll-out August 31st
Transcript
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Jeff Kidd Can I ask, is, are we wearing these shirts every time? Paul Engin I don't know. I just wore it today. Jeff Kidd Because I didn't have mine, and I don't want to be left out. Dave Ghidiu You did not get the memo? But, but you, but you're wearing it, so what's the- Jeff Kidd Well, I borrowed from somebody else. Dave Ghidiu Oh. Jeff Kidd But- Paul Engin I didn't talk to Dave. It was just a coincidence, but we just got the shirts to wear. Dave Ghidiu No, we've been texting all week. Every day we're like- ... "We're still, we're still doing the plan, right? We're gonna-" Paul Engin But we're not telling Jeff. Dave Ghidiu We're not telling Jeff. Yep. Paul Engin Surprise. Jeff Kidd Just between the two of you. Paul Engin This is my surprise. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Jeff Kidd Well, luckily I had a spare, sort of. Paul Engin Welcome to The Immersive Lens, the podcast exploring the technologies reshaping how we live, work, and learn. Dave Ghidiu From AI and virtual reality to creative media and design, we are diving into the tools and ideas shaping our connected world. Paul Engin My name is Paul Engen. Join us as we uncover the people and ideas driving the next wave of interactive experiences. Dave Ghidiu And I'm Dave Gudue. This is The Immersive Lens. Paul Engin And we're joined again, yet again- Dave Ghidiu Yes Paul Engin ... by the one, the only, Jeff Kidd. Jeff Kidd Thanks for having me back. Dave Ghidiu All right. By popular demand. Paul Engin That's right. Oh, my gosh. I get stopped all the time- Dave Ghidiu All the time Paul Engin ... about how much we love Jeff, so. Dave Ghidiu I'm like, "Jeff who?" Paul Engin You know? I... Exactly. Exactly. Unbelievable. Jeff Kidd What can I say? Paul Engin So, um- Jeff Kidd I have a face for podcasting. Paul Engin But I, I do wanna say, uh, Dave, I went, um, I got to experience, uh, Jeff in the wild. Um- Dave Ghidiu Okay Paul Engin ... it was like a safari. It was pretty amazing. Um, he had me, uh, kind of observe him in the CMAC. He, he runs the CMAC- Dave Ghidiu Oh Paul Engin ... um, internship- Dave Ghidiu And the CMAC is the big... I- is it called an amphitheater? It's like the outdoor- Jeff Kidd It's like the amphitheater. The- Paul Engin Yeah Jeff Kidd ... am- it's the amphitheater that's located here on campus. Dave Ghidiu Okay. Paul Engin Yeah. And, uh, we have an awesome program, um, that gives students opportunities to intern and, uh, direct and work the videos, uh, for the acts that perform there. Jeff Kidd You're gonna have to get better at... You're gonna have to come up with your thing. Paul Engin I get- Jeff Kidd So we, there's, we take our studio cameras that are, uh, um, the TV studio over to CMAC, and they hire eight of our students. And if an act requires video, then we show up and put the cameras out there. Dave Ghidiu Really? Jeff Kidd And all the screens, if you've never been to CMAC, there's screens everywhere. A couple that are all just right above the stage that point out to the lawn, TVs everywhere, and we provide that signal. Paul Engin Yeah, so I got to experience the adventure of, uh- Dave Ghidiu Was it, was there... Were you there for a concert? Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu Which concert? Paul Engin The Jerry Garcia experience- Dave Ghidiu Oh, yeah Paul Engin ... with the, or, uh- Jeff Kidd RPO Paul Engin ... RPO, yeah. Dave Ghidiu Was Jerry Garcia there? Paul Engin You know, everyone was asking that. We had to- Dave Ghidiu Was it too soon? Paul Engin ... inform everyone that, uh- Dave Ghidiu Too soon? Jeff Kidd Passed away in the ni- early '90s. Dave Ghidiu Oh, 1994. Yeah, he was, uh- I, I, I heard them, like, so Katie's office is right there, and she's like a... Like, I can hear them warming up all day whenever- Jeff Kidd Oh, yeah Dave Ghidiu ... you hear the sound, the sound stuff. Jeff Kidd Sound check. Dave Ghidiu So I'm jealous, because I like Jerry Garcia. I like the Grateful Dead. I like, uh- Paul Engin But it was really- Dave Ghidiu It was a good conference or good concert? Paul Engin You know what? It was, it was an, it was an awesome experience, 'cause it was so cool. So this is the end of the season, so... And I was telling Jeff this. I didn't see them at the beginning of the season, but I pictured how they were at the beginning of the season. They were very independent. Like, they came, they, they knew to get the cameras, set up cameras. Like, it was just there for questions at this point. Like, they were so self-sufficient. So it was so cool as, as an instructor or professor to see... And again, you saw the full growth, but, uh, but just me going there, I was like, "Oh, my... This is so... These guys are, like, rocking it. Dave Ghidiu Oh. Paul Engin This is, oh, so awesome." So- Dave Ghidiu Well, congratulations. Jeff Kidd Thank you. Paul Engin You're doing a good job. Jeff Kidd And Paul's like, "So you don't do anything?" Paul Engin No. He, he- Jeff Kidd I'm paraphrasing, but he's like- Paul Engin No Jeff Kidd ... "So you don't direct? Like, you don't..." I said, "No, they do, they do everything." I mean, at this point in the year, I just kinda stand by and like, "Hey, Jeff, this still isn't working," or whatever. I'm like, "Okay, I'll go check it out or whatever." Paul Engin Which means he's doing an amazing job. I, I- Jeff Kidd Yeah, yeah, fair Paul Engin ... I mean- Jeff Kidd Thank you Paul Engin ... it really is, like... Uh, but you are, you're going, and there's always some... And I'm su- again, I'm gonna go to another one. But it looks like there's always anomalies that happen, and you always need to be like, "All right. Why aren't, why don't we have this camera control? Why, why isn't this happening?" And, like, nuances, and this is where experience comes in, and I think this is something that we talk about o- o- on occasion. Dave Ghidiu Expertise maybe? Paul Engin Yes. But, like, you know, the moisture of the, um- Jeff Kidd So yeah, it's, it was very humid. Paul Engin Very humid. Jeff Kidd One of the most humid days- Dave Ghidiu Oh, my gosh. Paul Engin It's like Jurassic Park these days. Jeff Kidd Yeah, yeah. And I was... And we have an air-conditioned room. So obviously when you come from a nice cool room- Dave Ghidiu Mm Jeff Kidd ... out into humidity, these lenses just got covered in moisture. Dave Ghidiu Oh, I didn't even think about that. It's like- Paul Engin And so, so we, we put everything on, and it's, it's like, um, it's still wa- like, kinda fogged out. And I, and I'm like, "Should we take it off and, and wipe it?" He goes, "Paul, it'll... It..." 'Cause, you know, show time's in, like, four hours. It's like- Jeff Kidd Yeah. Paul Engin You know- Jeff Kidd We get there three hours before the doors open. Paul Engin Yeah, so- Jeff Kidd So we're there very early Paul Engin ... it, uh, uh- Dave Ghidiu Gotta be there early for that. Paul Engin Yeah, so it clears up, and sure enough, like, as... By the time the show hit, clear, ready to rock and roll. Dave Ghidiu What- Paul Engin So- Dave Ghidiu So let me ask you a, a question. Like, what about the opposite? So it's like a, a cool fall day, and then the camera is, gets warm. Is there any condensation there? Like, are those other challenges you have to deal with? Jeff Kidd Yeah, sometimes. Dave Ghidiu Oh, my gosh. Jeff Kidd It really just depends on, like, the timeframe. Like, Paul technically is like, "You, why wouldn't you wipe the lens off?" Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Jeff Kidd Like, "We gotta get going," right? But, but I'm just like, "Well, I don't want there to be streaks on the lens. Like, you can do it as best you can," but I'm just like, "If I just leave it, it will eventually clear up- Dave Ghidiu Wow Jeff Kidd ... and it won't be as... There won't be spots on it or anything like that." So it's like I'm just not gonna touch it. Paul Engin Yeah, and you don't have to worry about messing with the l- yeah. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Jeff Kidd You don't gotta touch the len- Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd Yeah, I don't want to do that. So, but- Paul Engin But anyway, I just wanted to give kudos to Jeff- Jeff Kidd Yeah Paul Engin ... 'cause- Jeff Kidd It is... There's... I tell you k- kind of what Dave's talking about, what changes throughout the summer is- For our s- front, our center camera, um, the sun sets and that can get hit with the worst glare right as the concert's gonna start- Dave Ghidiu Oh Jeff Kidd ... 'cause it's like 7:00, 8:00. Dave Ghidiu The golden hour, yeah. Jeff Kidd And I can't do anything about it. Dave Ghidiu You can't control the sun? Jeff Kidd I can't control the sun, no. Dave Ghidiu Well- Paul Engin Jeff, that's something we can work on, okay? Jeff Kidd Okay, thank you Paul Engin Those are steps that, um Jeff Kidd Yeah. Paul Engin But anyway, kudos to you, Jeff. I just wanted- Jeff Kidd Thank you Paul Engin ... to mention that. Jeff Kidd It's a great program. Paul Engin Kudos. Jeff Kidd It really is a great program. Paul Engin Um, and then you wanna remind our listeners about the, these shirts we're wearing and the issue we ran into? Dave Ghidiu Yeah, so all three of us are wearing sh- the, the Immersive Lens shirts, but there is no logo. It is just text. Just a reminder, folks, there is a logo contest. You can go to the immersivelens.com. Right up at the top it says challenges, and then there's a link to the logo e- the logo challenge. You can submit a logo, and you will get swag if you are selected. Right now there's three submissions. Paul Engin There's another one coming. I already had someone contact me. Dave Ghidiu Oh. Paul Engin They- Dave Ghidiu Mystery Paul Engin ... they gave me a breakdown of, like, what they were thinking, and I'm like, "Can you just, like, sketch that out and submit it?" So h- if you're listening, can you sketch that out? Dave Ghidiu Oh, mys- mystery artist- Paul Engin And, uh- Dave Ghidiu ... out there Jeff Kidd And I have one too, that- Dave Ghidiu Well- Jeff Kidd 'Cause my father was a, is a, a s- a self-taught Photoshop graphic artist from the '90s, and at the concert, uh, just was like, "I'm gonna text my dad." I'm like, "Dad, you should do the, you should do this." Dave Ghidiu Yeah, he could win. Jeff Kidd And- ... he s- like, immediately sent me something. Says, "Gemini came up with this." Dave Ghidiu Oh. Jeff Kidd And I was like, "Oh, that, that's great. I kinda thought you'd wanna stretch your legs a little bit." 'Cause he's, he's well retired. He's gonna be almost 80. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Jeff Kidd He's almost 80. He'll be 80 in a month. Dave Ghidiu Stretch those Photoshop legs. Jeff Kidd He's like, "Gemini's faster." This is, this was faster. I was like, "Okay, then." Dave Ghidiu Mm. Jeff Kidd So I'll submit that. Dave Ghidiu Very good. Jeff Kidd I'll submit that on his behalf. Paul Engin Yeah. So definitely, uh, submit your logo ideas. And again, they don't have to be polished or finished. They could be sketched. They could be, uh, written out in a doc and submitted, and we can look at what, what you were hoping for and- Dave Ghidiu Well, to submit you actually have to submit an image. Paul Engin Is it an image only? Dave Ghidiu I th- I think I- Paul Engin Or a doc or file? Dave Ghidiu I think, I think I made it so it had to be an image. Paul Engin All right. Dave Ghidiu May- maybe it is. Paul Engin Well, I take that back. You can export your Word doc as a image. Dave Ghidiu Okay, yeah. Paul Engin Screen cap. Dave Ghidiu Screen shot. Okay. So- Paul Engin We can do workarounds. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin But go, go to the immersivelens.com and, uh, submit your logo. Dave Ghidiu Do it now. Paul Engin Go, go. Jeff Kidd And it runs for technically one more week. Dave Ghidiu Till September 15th. Jeff Kidd Yep. Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd And then we'll give, then a, then two podcasts from now is when we'll talk about it. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Yes. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin That sounds right. Dave Ghidiu Oh, yeah. Paul Engin That sounds right. Dave Ghidiu We'll do a deep dive. Paul Engin Yes. Dave Ghidiu Maybe the winner will be a guest. Paul Engin Ooh. Jeff Kidd Oh, okay. Dave Ghidiu I'll sweeten the deal, folks. Paul Engin Oh my gosh. Dave Ghidiu Tell your friends and family. Paul Engin And enemies, yeah. Oh, by the way, I can tell you this shirt, uh, if we, we haven't talked about it- Jeff Kidd Immediately. We, we should talk about it on air. Dave Ghidiu It does say- Paul Engin Yeah Jeff Kidd ... we really should Dave Ghidiu ... okay, so the shirt just says, "Tell your friends, family, dot, dot, dot, and enemies." And then on the back it has a QR code. Paul Engin With the, the immersive lens. But literally, Jeff and I that day walked from our, here to the front door, which is just, like, a hallway, and we got stopped twice. Jeff Kidd Yep. Paul Engin And they both were like, "Wait, what are we gonna tell our friends and enemies?" Jeff Kidd Yes. Paul Engin And then we both had to turn around, and people were taking pictures of the QR code. Jeff Kidd Yes. Paul Engin So- Jeff Kidd Viral Paul Engin ... yes. I think that it is, um, you know, just engaging enough where people are, like, curious, you know? Um- Dave Ghidiu Stay connected, stay curious. Paul Engin That's right. That's right. Dave Ghidiu The, the, it all... B- by the way, can you imagine how many people would stop you if you had a logo on there, like a sharp, crisp logo? Paul Engin Mm. Dave Ghidiu Oh my gosh. Paul Engin But anyway, great job. Jeff Kidd But leave it, I think they'll put the logo on the front still. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Jeff Kidd Have, when we turn around, then the logo and the QR code are there. Paul Engin Or even on the shoulder. Jeff Kidd Or like a, yeah, something small like that, yeah. Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd Yep. Dave Ghidiu All right. Paul Engin All right. Dave Ghidiu Do you have a hot take, Jeff? Jeff Kidd Well, Paul and I kinda have a dual one. Dave Ghidiu Oh, okay. Jeff Kidd So a conversation came up while we were at CMAC. Uh, I don't remember how it came up. What were we talking about? Paul Engin You were, you just mentioned it, and I was like, "Wait, what?" Jeff Kidd Oh, yeah. Paul Engin Are you being serious? Jeff Kidd I was just like, is you- Paul Engin I thought it was AI. Like, you were like- Jeff Kidd No, no Paul Engin ... oh, so and so. Jeff Kidd I was just like, "Oh, you..." I said, "Are you a Harry Potter fan?" He's like, "Yeah," like, books and the movies. Like, yeah. I was like, "You know they're rebooting it, right?" He's like, "What?" Paul Engin As a TV show? Jeff Kidd As a t- series on HBO. Paul Engin Yeah. And, and I thought he was joking, and then I, I was like, "Why are they re..." Like, I said, "Oh, are they gonna do a be..." I, in my head I'm like, "Oh, they're gonna do, like, before, like, when, um- Jeff Kidd Prequel Paul Engin ... yeah, like, V- when Voldemort was- Jeff Kidd Sure Paul Engin ... in school and- Jeff Kidd Oh, I remember what it was. They, they announced that, um... Oh my God, I just for- I can't remember his name. The guy who played, portrayed- Dave Ghidiu Daniel Radcliffe Jeff Kidd ... no, no, no. The guy who portrayed Voldemort is coming back as Voldemort. Dave Ghidiu Oh, Ralph Fien. Paul Engin Oh, Fiennes. Jeff Kidd Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Paul Engin Yeah, Ralph Fiennes. Dave Ghidiu Ray Fine. Paul Engin Ray Fine. Dave Ghidiu Bleh, bleh. Jeff Kidd Right. Dave Ghidiu Bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh. Jeff Kidd Uh, he's coming back, and I showed you the article, and you're like, "Oh, that, that's cool." I'm like, "No, no, no. Like, this is awesome." He's like, "Well, why?" And that's how we got on the topic of it. Paul Engin Yeah. So I, I don't know, uh, but this is now being a debate in my house. I have, uh, half the house saying, "Why are they rebooting it? The original is the best." Dave Ghidiu Money, money, money. Paul Engin Yeah. But then we were just talking about it, and Jeff brought up a really great point. If you wanna- Jeff Kidd Yeah, so I- Paul Engin Yeah Jeff Kidd ... I agree. Like, you know, the books are the books. The movies are the movies. I mean, defined a generation. Um, I saw all the movies when they came out. I get it, but, uh, 'cause I didn't read read the books. I, I listened to the audiobooks of them. There's a ton of stuff that they left out. Dave Ghidiu That's true. There- Jeff Kidd Tons of stuff Dave Ghidiu ... yeah Jeff Kidd ... and- Dave Ghidiu And a TV show will give them the space to do that Jeff Kidd ... oh, yeah. Like, it m- you know, one book, you know, I don't know how many episodes the series is gonna be. I'm sure it's out there, but, you know, let's say it's eight or nine episodes. That's a way more... And that's, if they're an hour long- Dave Ghidiu Yeah Jeff Kidd ... that's eight to nine hours versus two hours. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Jeff Kidd That's a lot. And I remember, we were just talking about this too, 'cause again, I didn't read the ser- I didn't read the books before I saw the movies. I read them after. It still felt so... When I saw the Goblet of Fire, which is the fifth book, fifth movie, it was, like, breakneck speed. Like, and it's the Quidditch match. It's like this sports thing. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, because those books get longer and longer. Jeff Kidd Oh, they get longer and longer and longer. Yeah, and it's just like, "Let, let the match begin," and then just smash cut to after. And it's just like, the pacing of it was like, ooh, we're, we're losing a lot here. So I think from that aspect we're gonna get... It's like the Lord of the Rings extended editions, right? Dave Ghidiu Yep. Oh. Jeff Kidd It's, I actually think the Lord of the Rings theatrical versions are better movies, but the extended editions give you way more lore, way more details. It's the same thing with Harry Potter. Dave Ghidiu All right. Well, I'll, um, I'll... I, I actually, I, I like HBO, and that'll be the next streaming service. I gotta catch up on The Pit, and, um, there's another J.K. Rowling series, uh, The, um, Strike- Speaker 4 Ralph Fiennes is the actor. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Speaker 4 Oh, no. Dave Ghidiu Yes, it's pr- I think it's Finn. I think it, it's Ray Fine is how it's pronounced. Speaker 4 Oh, no. That's, that's- Dave Ghidiu It's Ra- Ralph Fiennes is how it looks, I think. Anyhow. Speaker 4 Ralph Fin- yeah. Yeah. A- Dave Ghidiu Yeah. There's a number of shows on HBO that I wanna watch. Speaker 4 Wanna get the- Dave Ghidiu And I just listened to a, a podcast series about, uh, Harry Potter World and the theme park. It makes me wanna go, 'cause I love- Paul Engin Oh, we- Dave Ghidiu ... any immersive theme park. Paul Engin We went, we went there. It is... They fi- I mean, Universal finally is stepping up, and it is crazy good. Like, it, it's worth going. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin It is amazing, especially if you love Harry Potter. And all our kids, you know, we grew up o- they all grew up on it. We went to the, to s- get a wiz- the wand selection. I mean- Speaker 4 It's supposed to be, like, super immersive. Like, you feel like you're there. Paul Engin Oh, it is... The kids just... And again, it, they're all older now. I don't know how they... But growing up with it, it was awesome. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin It was just so cool. Um, but what's your hot take? We gotta keep moving. We gotta go, go, go. Dave Ghidiu My hot take is the, uh... two of them, the FLX AI Hub, we are doing a fall series of, of webinars and a fall series of in-person workshops. Now, the webinars are free. It's the f- uh, second Tuesday of every month, and the first one c- is coming up. It's, uh, actually next week. So, if you listen to this on Monday, it'll be on Tuesday, and it's about how to, uh, prevent AI slop. So, if you- Paul Engin Mm Dave Ghidiu ... use AI stuff, this is just things to kinda keep your eyes out for. And then the workshops are sporadically throughout the fall, Friday mornings, 9:00 to 12:00. They cost $99 each or for $399 for the season pass. And the first one, we're gonna do, like, vibe coding. There's gonna be... A- actually, Paul, I think you're doing a, a webinar and a workshop. Paul Engin Yeah, doing a local, uh, LLM, uh, workshop. Dave Ghidiu Okay. Paul Engin And then a webinar on, um, video creation and video use- Dave Ghidiu Awesome Paul Engin ... with AI. So. Dave Ghidiu Awesome. Paul Engin Yeah, definitely go check it out. You can go to- Dave Ghidiu FLCC.ai. Paul Engin Oh, nice. Dave Ghidiu Yes. Paul Engin Hey. Dave Ghidiu Yes. Paul Engin All right. And we'll have a link in the notes to it as well. Dave Ghidiu Yes, sure. Paul Engin So. Dave Ghidiu Sure will. Paul Engin Um, awesome. All right, so we're gonna get into some headlines, uh, and we're gonna try to limit this to two minutes. We'll see how we do. Dave Ghidiu All right, start the, start the timer? Paul Engin Uh, yep. And wait, now, is it two minutes for the person to explain it or for the entire conversation? This is what I wasn't sure about. Dave Ghidiu Well, I think, I think we sh- maybe- Speaker 4 Uh Dave Ghidiu ... oh, Chef, it looks like you wanna- Paul Engin Oh, oh, oh, no Dave Ghidiu ... weigh in on it. Speaker 4 No, I just... I mean, if we could actually get... See, my thing is, if it's very technical, there's a lot of exposition that we kinda have to get through. Paul Engin Set up. Speaker 4 Like, mine do. Like, mine do have a lot of exposition. Dave Ghidiu Oh my gosh. All right. Here's, here's what- Speaker 4 'Cause they're technical Dave Ghidiu ... here's what we'll do. Paul Engin Two and two? Dave Ghidiu No. W- w- that's... Okay. Yeah, we can do two and two. Two and two. Paul Engin Okay. Well, what were you thinking? Dave Ghidiu No. Paul Engin What? Dave Ghidiu Two and two. Paul Engin No, you were thinking something else. Speaker 4 What were you gonna say? What were you gonna say? Dave Ghidiu Well, uh, I say we sh... Two and two is fine. All right. Speaker 4 Oh. Dave Ghidiu Here we go. Paul Engin I, I shouldn't have said anything. Speaker 4 Now I gotta... Now I'm just gonna kill it. Paul Engin I know. Speaker 4 I wanna hear what he, what he said. Dave Ghidiu Who wants to go first? Speaker 4 Dave, you go first. Dave Ghidiu Okay. So, uh, Android and iOS have had kind of a convergence. They're usually always pushing each other to, um... The Android will come out with something, then Gemini comes out. Or, uh, then, uh, Apple comes out with, and then Apple comes out with something. So, just a callback to the motion assist. Remember you were talking about the car sickness? Paul Engin Yes, yeah. Dave Ghidiu Android now has that on Android 17. And the other thing that I thought was fascinating, they just dropped a whole bunch of features. Paul Engin See, and I'm gonna interrupt your two minutes- Dave Ghidiu Okay Paul Engin ... because I- Dave Ghidiu I'm marking it Paul Engin ... I just did a 24-hour drive to take my son up to Manitoba. Jack, hello. Uh, he... And I used it, 'cause he drove half of it, and so I u- and it worked. It really did work. I'm, I, I was pleasantly... You know how I said I've never actually tested it? Dave Ghidiu Yeah, yeah, that's- Paul Engin I got to test it. Dave Ghidiu All right, the proving grounds. Paul Engin And it worked. Okay, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Dave Ghidiu To Manitoba. International trip, it worked on. Paul Engin That's right. Dave Ghidiu Um, and the second thing that I thought was interesting is, so both Apple and, uh, and Android have the find my, find my phone, find my whatever it is. Gemini now lets you... Uh, Gemini, which is their AI assistant, lets you, uh, dictate where you were leaving important things like your passport, and that goes in the portfolio now. So when you go to the website for, like, find my phone, it has all these things that you have said, like, "I put my passport in my sock drawer," or whatever. Paul Engin Oh. Dave Ghidiu So you can, you can verbally tag where you were putting stuff, and then it's all in that one spot, which I thought was kind of interesting. Paul Engin And it's all tied to your login? Dave Ghidiu Mm-hmm, of course, yeah. Paul Engin To your Google login. Dave Ghidiu Yep. Paul Engin All right. Dave Ghidiu All right. Paul Engin Very cool. Dave Ghidiu That's my... Look at that, 30 seconds left. Paul Engin Wow. Dave Ghidiu All right, I'm done. Paul Engin And I inter- and I interrupted. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Yeah, no, and you interrupted. Speaker 4 What's your son's full name? Paul Engin Jack. Speaker 4 Yeah. Paul Engin Is it just- Speaker 4 Is it just Jack? Paul Engin Yeah. Speaker 4 Oh, okay. Paul Engin Yeah. Speaker 4 I don't know, 'cause, like, my father's name is John, and in the '50s you didn't call people by their names. It's- ... it's Jack. They, everybody calls him Jack. Paul Engin No, it is a... Yeah. Speaker 4 And I wanted to call my son... I kinda wanted to do the same thing for my son, so his name is Jackson. Paul Engin Oh. Speaker 4 And then as he got older, I wanted to call him Jack as, like, an homage to my father, and I never, I just didn't do it. I just, I was just, I was just curious if it was just Jack. Paul Engin So it's just Jack then, yeah? Dave Ghidiu But my dad is John Richard, and so s- when the, when I was growing up, when the phone rang, peop- and people would call him different names for different eras. Like, it was John, then it was Rick, then it was Ricky, then it was Dick, then it was Richard. So, like, whenever I picked up, they'd be like, "Is Richard there? Is Ricky there?" And I would- I knew exactly, like, what, what decade th- that was from. Speaker 4 Oh, that's funny. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin So can I just, and to piggyback off of... Be careful if you mention kids or other people- Dave Ghidiu Why? Why? Paul Engin ... 'cause then they get jealous. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Because I had two of my kids saying, "We know who Dad's favorite is," 'cause they were mentioned. So- Dave Ghidiu Well- Paul Engin ... Sabrina- Dave Ghidiu Okay, I was gonna say Paul Engin ... hi. How are you? Dave Ghidiu Oh. Paul Engin Love ya. Speaker 4 I will, I will p- uh, we, he talked a lot about, you talked a lot about your daughter, because why? What was at the concert? Paul Engin W- um, wait. Speaker 4 What instrument does she play? Paul Engin Oh, that was... I don't wanna mention her name, because then it's gonna stick. Speaker 4 Yeah, but now- Paul Engin But- Speaker 4 ... I'm trying to give her s- some equal time. Paul Engin Oh, man. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Speaker 4 That's all Paul Engin ... no, no, no, no, we, I gave her too much time. I gave the other- Dave Ghidiu Oh, no. Okay, sorry. All right, all right Paul Engin ... I gave the other two- Dave Ghidiu Okay, never mind Paul Engin ... I can't mention it. Dave Ghidiu Never mind. Paul Engin But yes, you're right. Dave Ghidiu Next, next episode. Paul Engin Yeah, next episode. Dave Ghidiu Never mind. Speaker 4 Yeah, just repeat it. All right, who's going next? You go, you go, Paul. Paul Engin All right, so, um- Speaker 4 Two minutes on the clock. Go. Paul Engin So what do you guys think about a $500 toothbrush? Dave Ghidiu Uh, I think it's $499. Jeff Kidd Is this one of... Okay- Paul Engin With taxes. Come on Jeff Kidd Okay, yeah. Paul Engin All right. Yes, so, um, would you buy one? Dave Ghidiu Well, does it have cameras in it? Paul Engin It does. So Dyson just released a... I mean, I'll be honest with you, it looks like a pretty sweet toothbrush. They call it the Camera jet, um, and it's got, um... It- it's got a bunch of things. It's got a camera that can record. It's got, um, irregular brushing, so, uh, you get a better overall brush. And it's got flossing, so it shoots, so it can detect if there's stuff on your teeth, and it will floss dynamically as you- Dave Ghidiu So it's like a Waterpik almost? Paul Engin Yeah, but it's, it's even... Well, you know, it's better than a Waterpik. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin But- Dave Ghidiu Is- is it AI-enabled? Paul Engin It is AI-enabled, and it does... So it tracks it, and you can record your... Like, on your phone you could see... And it actually, like, on the phone on the app, you can see where areas you might have missed on your teeth. Dave Ghidiu Does it, does it actually feed the camera stream to your phone? Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu Oh, that's terrifying. Paul Engin Yes. So they literally said you could live stream your, your tooth- your, your brushing every day. Dave Ghidiu Well, well, I like oral hygiene. Like, I think it's important, but I don't know if it's 300 or $499 important. Is it? Paul Engin But what if it saved you $5,000 of teeth repair in- Dave Ghidiu Yeah, that's a good value proposition Paul Engin ... uh, you know. Dave Ghidiu That's- Jeff Kidd ASMR Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Jeff Kidd Maybe. If there's, there's audio with the- Paul Engin So, I mean- Jeff Kidd ... the camera Paul Engin ... so I would love to try one out and see how it is, but I can't just... Yeah, like to your point, it's tough to justify- Jeff Kidd And he gets a MacBook Neo, you get the toothbrush. Paul Engin No, I want... Wait a minute. Whoa, I don't know about him. Dave Ghidiu Same price as- Jeff Kidd Immersed Dave Ghidiu ... same price. Paul Engin But- Dave Ghidiu The... I spent $150 on a toothbrush once, and I thought it was good, but I don't know that I'd even do it again for that toothbrush. So for $500, I don't know, maybe I would. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll... You know, I have a dentist appointment next week, so I'll talk to my dentist about it. Paul Engin I was gonna say, I'd be curious to see what actual, like, professionals think about- Dave Ghidiu Yeah. I don't know, 'cause that's kinda like, you know, "Here's the video of... Here's the app. Watch my brushing." Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu And they can analyze, like, "You need to brush this way." Like, maybe they can give you a breakdown, like, "You're, you're brushing your teeth wrong." Jeff Kidd It is true. Like, me, because I'm right-handed, maybe my right side is less, and I'm like, "Oh, okay." If, if I can get, like, demonstrable evidence that I need to be spending more time on, like, the right side of my mouth. Paul Engin And that's what it does. Like, they showed the app. So the app, like, let's say you didn't get all the way back. You'll see on the app that says you're miss- you gotta go back and- Dave Ghidiu Yeah Paul Engin ... and so it gives you the data. We talk about data with the watch. It, it's really cool data on things people don't think about. But, um, I thought that the concept of knowing, like you don't, you don't need the dentist to tell you, "You gotta get back there more." Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Your app will be able to tell you that right off the bat. And they don't need to tell you to floss because it does that. It, it, like, encompasses everything the dentist tells you to do, I guess is my feeling. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Here's the thing. Uh, and we only have 67 seconds left on this. Paul Engin All right. Yep. Dave Ghidiu So Jeff, do you have anything you wanna say? 'Cause I'm just gonna go- Jeff Kidd Go for it. Dave Ghidiu Okay. So I don't like these internet-enabled, AI-enabled devices because they can be bricked by the company, sometimes on accident, sometimes on purpose. And I don't believe in paying money, especially $500 for a device where maybe Dyson's like, "You know what? We're gonna go to a subscription model now." Paul Engin Oh, that would stink. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. And they're like, "If you don't pay the 2- $29.99 a month, you can't even use your brush anymore." So, like, I am really dubious of this type of stuff. And Samsung, for instance... Uh, and I could see a world, and I, I actually respect Dyson. They, they do a lot of nice stuff. But Samsung just started putting ads on the screens on their smart fridges, and you can't opt out. And I'm like, "Come on." What if Dyson is like, "Hey, we have bone conduction technology. We could pipe ads in through the toothbrush while you're brushing." Paul Engin FYI, this is coming from Dave who uses Google, which is entirely could be bricked in one second, and he has no control over it. Dave Ghidiu Look at that. We gotta go to the next topic. Paul Engin Do you know Dave Ghidiu We ran out of the two minutes. Paul Engin FYI. Dave Ghidiu We're sticking hard, sticking hard to the two minutes. Paul Engin Oh, no. Right. Dave Ghidiu Sticking hard to the two minutes. All right. Jeff Kidd Uh-huh. Dave Ghidiu So Jeff- Jeff Kidd Yep Dave Ghidiu ... ready, go. Jeff Kidd Yeah, we hit it. All right. So GoPro has launched a, um, sort of a cinema camera. Um, it allows you to mount for the first time your own... Not, not your own, but custom lenses to it. So getting... Try not to be too technical. It's a Micro Four Thirds camera mount. Dave Ghidiu Oh. Jeff Kidd Now, not Micro Four Thirds sized sensor. Um- Dave Ghidiu I don't know what you're talking about Jeff Kidd ... I know. I'll, I'll get there. Dave Ghidiu Okay. Jeff Kidd I'll get there. Uh, so Micro Four Thirds is a type of... It's just a, um... Usually it, it refers to a sensor, but it's also a camera, a lens mount. Um, Panasonic, for example, like their Micro Four Thirds cameras, uh, they're very popular in the video world. Um, and so the idea is like you buy a GoPro, like at Walmart or Best Buy or whatever, it's just an all-in-one thing. Whereas this is kinda geared more towards, uh, cinema, like actual cinema- cinematography. Um, you attach the lens to it. And for $700, $700 you can- Dave Ghidiu You could buy a toothbrush for that. Jeff Kidd There- Toothbrush... Well, you could buy the toothbrush and a bunch of probably, you know, pay for the, the two, um- Dave Ghidiu The subscription Jeff Kidd ... accessories and this, a subscription. Yeah, right. Um, so this is pretty... This is huge in, in the camera industry. So, like, again, I'm the, the, the kinda camera guy of the three of us. Um, this is huge for that price. $700 for a cinema. Like, we're talking 8K, 30 frames a second, 4K, 240 frames a second. Um, that's huge. And uh, there's a YouTuber that, uh, is a small YouTuber that I watch. Um, his channel is called Camera Conspiracies. He is, does a lot of unbi- He's very unbiased. He rarely gets sponsored by anybody. They s- sometimes send him stuff. He had a video breakdown that was very good. He compared it to other action cameras and stuff, but he's like, "This is not an action camera. This is GoPro's best product by far." Paul Engin So are you thinking this is for video and for photography? Like, it's gonna replace a DSLR or mirrorless camera and a camcorder? Is that what you're thinking? Jeff Kidd It, it, less f- maybe less photography, but it could. I see it, again, more for video. Um- Paul Engin Oh, I love the setup on- Speaker 5 And is, is this going to save them? Isn't GoPro, like, on the verge of bankruptcy? Jeff Kidd So there's, there's some controversy with GoPro right now, too. Uh, they... I, I don't have the article pulled up, uh, but I'll find it and I'll put it in here. I knew this was gonna come up. Uh, they, they are now... Uh, not- they weren't acquired, but they're now partnering with a, with an AI company. Like, they, they, they, like, co-own... Like, these two companies are now one. And there's- I do think this is kinda like GoPro's kinda, like, last stretch. Like, their stock was, like, a dollar a share- Paul Engin Yeah Jeff Kidd ... um, just before this came out. And when they announced this and they announced their, the acquisition of this other company, um, or they combined the two companies, their stock did go up. But the caveat is it's AI, which people are, you know, leery of, and it's, like, government contracts. Paul Engin Mm. Jeff Kidd So it's kind of, like, not ideal. It's not consumer-type stuff. But- Paul Engin Yeah Jeff Kidd ... you know, I don't wanna, didn't wanna get that deep into it. But yeah, this is kinda like we're, you know, they're... You know, when you think of an action camera, you don't say action camera, you say GoPro. You know, we've, we've, we've been buying GoPro for years. We did switch over to Osmo. I think it was the Osmo Action 6 just to, 'cause we're kinda getting into their larger cameras, like, their, like, their vlogging-type stuff, and I wanted to t- to try their c- their action cameras, too. But this is... I do think this is kinda like their last, like, big push, um, to kinda get back, you know, into it with this cinema camera. But again, i- when we buy cameras, s- y- 700 doll- I mean, you still have to buy a lens, you know? It does not come with a lens for $700. But for our cameras, they're twi- y- know, twice that, three times that without a lens. Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd 2, 3, $4,000 for this. Paul Engin The ability to have interchangeable lenses is, is huge. I mean, now you can really cater your... You have... You're buying the body, and now you can cater the lens toward whatever you're trying to do with that, um, camera. So, um, this really elevates, this really elevates it, um, to, uh, I would say professional grade. Jeff Kidd Yeah. The, this... And again, price. Price- Paul Engin Yeah Jeff Kidd ... price for what you get. 8K 30 for $700. Paul Engin All right. Jeff Kidd This is wild. Paul Engin Well, I- Speaker 5 What's that? Does that, are we two, is it two minute two? Paul Engin That's the, that's the other two minute. Jeff Kidd That's, that's, yeah, we're good. Yeah, that's two and that's that. Speaker 5 We got two and two. Paul Engin You, go ahead, Dave. Jeff Kidd So cool stuff, cool stuff. Speaker 5 Is it my turn? Jeff Kidd Yeah. Speaker 5 Uh, yeah. You, you guys have a lot more points than I do. Jeff Kidd Oh, okay. Well, I just wanna talk about Flock cameras. Speaker 5 Oh, okay. Jeff Kidd So Flock cameras, in case you haven't, uh, heard this on the news, uh, Flock's the company. They've been around for a while. They, they started with license plate cameras, and they make, uh, all sorts of deals with, like, municipalities, and then you start seeing all these Flock cameras going up. And they're supposed to only scan your license plate, but, uh- Paul Engin Oh, look at this. He's cheating. Jeff Kidd Oh, my gosh. Paul Engin He didn't even hit start the timer. Speaker 5 This is ridiculous. Jeff Kidd And, uh, a n- a num- th- there's been so many issues with this where, uh, for instance, um, th- that they are now tracking people who are walking and their gait. They're looking at your car and, like, if you're traveling with people re- like, religiously, or if there's patterns. They're doing so much more surveillance than they were originally supposed to be, 'cause it was supposed to be just license plate reading. And so now municip- and they're finding that, like, a lot of law enforcement are using it, I think famously, to, like, stalk their, like, exes. Um, but they're also, they're not supposed to be giving the, the information because of law to federal agencies, but they are. So there's all these things, and now all, um, 404 Media, which is a, a independent journalism, has been really, they've been following Flock for years. And, and municipalities are... I can't go a day without reading about, like, another municipality that's dropping their contract. So that's good. I like independent journalism and I like, uh, not living in a surveillance state. Paul Engin And, and that was the same company that Ring, during the Super Bowl, said, "We can help you find your pet." Jeff Kidd Yeah. Paul Engin And it backfired. Jeff Kidd Yeah. Well, Ring has had their own surveillance issues and, like, giving data to law enforcement and all sorts of other things. Not that that's bad, but, like, not telling people that, like, "We're taking your personal video." So anyhow, so I, I was, I was happy to, uh, to see that because, um, I'll always advocate for, um... Paul Engin Some level of privacy. Jeff Kidd Yeah, some level... Paul Engin Hey. Jeff Kidd Oh, look at that. Two minutes. All right, next topic. All right, I'll go again if you, if you- Paul Engin Yeah Jeff Kidd ... if you want me to. Okay. Um, so this is kind of a twofer. Um, Apple announced their next generation of desktop, uh, Mac Mini and, um, the Mac Studio. Uh, the Mac Mini can come with either an M6 or an M5 Pro, and the Mac Studio can be M5 Max and M5 Ultra. And- Speaker 5 And is M6 Pro the latest, the most recent benefit? Jeff Kidd No, so it's just M6. I know, that's- Speaker 5 Okay Jeff Kidd ... don't wanna get in the weed. It's just, it's just M6, that this all is kind of confusing, and then M5 Pro. Uh, the specs are higher on the Pro, but the 6 is a newer chip. Speaker 5 Okay. Jeff Kidd Um, and for us, uh, the, uh, Max and the Ultra chips are great for, like, what Paul does with graphic design. Or not graphic design. Um, the 3D modeling and that's it. For me, video editing, all the different effects and stuff like that. That's huge for us. Um, and that's great. And they were, they were overdue for... The Ultra was overdue. They were still on the M3 Ultra. They skipped the M4, and now they're on the M5, so that's great. But the very, very niche thing, which is gonna be... So this is gonna be really tricky for me to explain- ... is it includes Genlock. Now, Genlock nobody needs. Like, you go, you at home, no one's gonna need it. Here at the college, we don't need it. But in video production, that's huge. Paul Engin What is it? Jeff Kidd So Genlock is you have a multi-camera shoot, let's say. Speaker 5 By the way, you are such a camera nerd. Jeff Kidd Yeah. Well, hey, this is, um, the, the, my first episode was- Paul Engin But I love it Jeff Kidd ... just the camera guy. Speaker 5 Oh, that's true. I forgot about that. Jeff Kidd Um- Paul Engin But I, but I love it. Jeff Kidd So, yeah. Paul Engin So t- tell us what Genlock is. Jeff Kidd Okay. So, like, uh, like, in my TV studio for example, I've got three cameras, and any other source that you introduce is theoretically not gonna be in sync with the cameras. Everything's kinda coming in at a different timing and at a different speed, basically. And in the old days, what you used to do is you would have a box that would generate a signal, and you connect all these devices to that device and it just creates, "Okay, this is the signal, this is the signal that we're syncing to, so everything's all the same." Right? Pretty straightforward. Now, in the- In the, like, video, like we were, like, the video wall world, like the stuff at CMAC, like those, the t- the- Paul Engin Yeah Jeff Kidd ... video panels and stuff like that, I'm basically sending them a c- signal from a computer. That's technically not the same timing as those panels. So if you have multi-cameras and computers kind of all trying to sync video, it's not... There's gonna be tearing and things like that. Or if the camera's moving while the video, while y- you're looking at that screen, there's gonna be tears in it. And so theoretically, these new Macs, if y- when we come out of that Mac to a monitor or to, if we're using it to build these big panels, like you see at football stadiums or- Paul Engin Yeah Jeff Kidd ... concert venues, stuff like that, it should h- be in sync with the other video equipment in th- in that, in that space. So there's gonna be no tearing. Everything's gonna look good. Paul Engin And that's gonna come on the Mac? Jeff Kidd Yeah. Complete- And the, the crazy thing is, like, that's wild. Why did they do that? Who asked for that? Paul Engin It's so, too much effort for- Jeff Kidd It's, yeah, that's a lot of effort for something that's very niche. Paul Engin Well, I- Jeff Kidd No consumer needs that. Nobody does. Paul Engin But it, it sounds like they know who their audience is. Jeff Kidd But that these are- Paul Engin Yeah Jeff Kidd ... pro computers. Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd Yeah, that's huge. Paul Engin That's cool. Jeff Kidd Yeah, so that's, that's what- Paul Engin That, that's just for the Studio. Jeff Kidd Like, for my S- Paul Engin Mac Studio, the- Jeff Kidd Oh, I thought it was the pro, the Mini 2. Paul Engin Oh, is it the Mini 2? Jeff Kidd I th- I think it was the Mini 2. Paul Engin Okay. Okay. And those Studios only c- they start at, like, 5 or, like, $10,000 if you wanna get one of 'em. Jeff Kidd No, it's not. I mean, it's higher than it used to be. Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd I will say that. And then, um, this is kind of rel- relevant to Dave, and I guess th- y- they've always been kinda used for clustering. Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd Like, buyin'- Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd You know, they, they were, they were out of stock for a, oh, a while now. Paul Engin For a bit, Claude. Yeah. Jeff Kidd You could cluster these, even the little Mac Minis, they're clustering. Now it's even more so. Like, they're actually kinda designed to be clustered. Paul Engin Oh, got it. Jeff Kidd Like, five of them specifically are designed to be clustered. Paul Engin Mm-hmm. Jeff Kidd So there's that. Also, my s- my other kinda point is, because we're talking about Apple, is Tim Cook has officially stepped down as CEO. I can't think of his name. I'll just open the article. Uh, it's a, more of a hardware guy. Oh, that's m- I clicked the wrong thing. Paul Engin Yeah, so- Jeff Kidd Uh, where is it? Yeah. Oh, I think I clicked the- Paul Engin And I, I saw Tim Cook- Jeff Kidd I think I copied this. Yeah. I, I can't think of his name. I'll look it up. Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd Can someone look it up for me? Who the new CEO's name? Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd John. Paul Engin John. Jeff Kidd John Turnus? Paul Engin Turnus. Yeah. Jeff Kidd Yeah. Yeah. Um, didn't want... You know, I don't have much to say about it other than I think Tim Cook did a great job. Paul Engin Is, is there an event coming up? Jeff Kidd Uh, oh yeah. That, I'm, about this. I'm saying, like, that's- Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd And that'll be his first event, so the ne- the, in a week, I think, from now. So I think it's Tuesday. So the day after this episode comes out is their us- their typical fall product launch for their iPhones and, um- Paul Engin And maybe the whole- Jeff Kidd ... maybe other stuff, and probably the Ult- you know, we're still s- calling it the Ultra, and that's, it'll be a week from today- Paul Engin And I think they- Jeff Kidd ... whenever we're recording this Paul Engin ... I think Tim Cook did his final announcement with these Mac Pro, the, the launch of those. Jeff Kidd That's true. That would be his final product launch. Paul Engin Like, I think he did his... Yeah. Jeff Kidd That's true. Paul Engin Um, and it's interesting, and I, I'm gonna do two seconds on this 'cause I think it's important that Tim Cook was a service guy, and he really elevated the service for Apple. Um, all the, you know, Apple TV- Jeff Kidd Mm-hmm Paul Engin ... um, all, all the services that they have, um, in place now. Um, and I, and I think now we're moving back to hardware, so the, that, um, John, uh, Turnus is gonna be- Jeff Kidd Yeah Paul Engin ... more focused on that. Jeff Kidd That makes sense. Apple has always blown me out of the water with their hardware, and their software's always been meh. Paul Engin Yeah. La- uh, lately it's been, yeah. Jeff Kidd Well, not since the, b- the M series. That was a game changer. Paul Engin Yeah. Oh- Jeff Kidd That changed everything for them Paul Engin ... their hardware is so good. So good. Jeff Kidd Yeah. Paul Engin All right. So, um, I have, uh, I don't know if you guys saw ChatGPT Sites. Um, this is a, uh, in ChatGPT now if you click on Sites, um, you can actually create and they will host these sites. So you can code your sites. You can- Jeff Kidd Like make an app? Paul Engin App, yeah. And, and it will be hosted, and you can share that URL with a- anybody. And, and I was like, "Oh, but, you know," l- I know this is silly, but for me I'm like, "Well, how much data can they do and how much..." Like, you know, what, what does this support? Jeff Kidd Is this for paid plans or- Paul Engin Paid plans. Jeff Kidd Okay. Paul Engin Yeah. Paid plans. Um, and so I guess it stores up to 10 gigabytes of storage. Jeff Kidd Per site? Paul Engin Um, for database storage. Jeff Kidd Per site? Paul Engin Per s- oh, good question. Jeff Kidd Or per user? 'Cause- Paul Engin I think it's probably per user. I couldn't imagine per site 'cause- Jeff Kidd Yeah Paul Engin ... that's a lot. Jeff Kidd Yeah. Paul Engin Um, but it, it says, uh, no fixed storage limit, which was... I was like, that's pretty... So I might play with this a little bit to see, um... Traditionally, if you, if you're trying to run a website, you're, you're uploading it to a host that you have to buy, and, um, you know, uh, all the websites you go to, you're developing it, uploading it. And this is all done right in an interface in ChatGPT. So, um, I, it's definitely something that I wanna explore a little bit. But to your point, I don't know if I wanna get locked to a subscription, 'cause then if you are done with your subscription- Jeff Kidd What happens to the site? Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd And- Paul Engin Or you have to download it or migrate it. Jeff Kidd Well, yeah, and the hard part there is, like, if, if I own the domain, like davegadou.com, it doesn't matter who I'm paying for hosting. I own the domain. Paul Engin Right. Jeff Kidd But if you start deploying an app through ChatGPT and then you stop paying, that, what happens to that URL? It's a dead link now. Paul Engin Right. Or can you redirect or maybe redirect to this URL? Jeff Kidd Yeah. Paul Engin I don't know. Jeff Kidd Oh, that's probably the smart move- Paul Engin Yeah Jeff Kidd ... obviously. Always, always thinking. Paul Engin But something that we can explore, uh, more of. But I just wanted to bring it up 'cause I think, uh, it's an interesting concept that everything can be stored on there. Jeff Kidd Yeah. And, uh, speaking of vibe coding, uh, uh, actually, I don't know. Jeff, did you wanna say anything about this? No, go ahead. Okay. So, um, that, uh, so you're essentially vibe coding and then you can host it. Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd So my hot take is, so I've been using the Mac Neo quite a bit lately, especially 'cause I can put Claude on it and I've started using Claude Cowork like it's my freaking job. Paul Engin Mm-hmm. Jeff Kidd And I love it. And one of the things that I've been doing is I'm designing a course, and I, I wanna record my desktop and my face, like a video, you know, like all the vloggers do. Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd And you can't do that. This is really confusing to me. So iMovie, which is a software for editing, does not record, and QuickTime Player, which is software for playing movies, records. But you cannot record both streams at once, unless I don't know what I'm doing, which is a distinct possibility. So I use Claude Cowork, which develops right on your computer- Dave Ghidiu And I made an app called Screencaster. Check this out. Uh, so, uh, I- I'll put, like, a, a video of me using this on the website. Paul Engin Mm-hmm. Dave Ghidiu Um, it allows you to, uh, screencast both your face... So there's two windows here, what I'm actually recording and then the control panel. So if I had an external monitor, I'd just put the control panel- Paul Engin Right Dave Ghidiu ... on the next one. So I made, like, little hotspots where I can put my video, um, just by clicking on it. Paul Engin Your, the image of your, your face, you mean. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dave Ghidiu So the desktop is being recorded, but then I also have this. But then I was like, oh, I wanna be able to change the shape- Paul Engin Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... of the video- Paul Engin Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... or block the video or even have a pop-out, um, video down there or have, like, full screen. Paul Engin Holy cow. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. And then I was like, but you know what also would be cool, is like, what if I could have a pre-roll- Paul Engin Mm Dave Ghidiu ... like, so I do the three, two, one movie thing. Paul Engin Little countdown. Yeah. Little countdown. Dave Ghidiu And then I have a button. Whenever I'm presenting, I can just make confetti come down over the screen. I can have, uh, fireworks. I can have, like, hearts come up from the screen. Um, I can even put my, a logo or whatever I want in the lower corner. So now I have this whole control panel that... And all this is a website. This is just, like, it's, you can install- Paul Engin Web-based Dave Ghidiu ... you can install it right on your computer right now. Paul Engin It's web-based. Dave Ghidiu It's, m- Paul Engin It's, it's- Dave Ghidiu It's, it's a downloadable, it's a PWA. Paul Engin Okay. Dave Ghidiu So, like, my... It's, it's, it really is a website, but I package it as an app. So if you go to screencastr, Screencastr, .app, you can install it. Paul Engin S- Dave Ghidiu Yeah Paul Engin ... C- Dave Ghidiu And- Paul Engin ... R-N- Dave Ghidiu CSTR.app Paul Engin CSTR.app. Dave Ghidiu And you can install it, and it turns right into an app, which is real nice, 'cause then you can put your own keyboard shortcuts in there. So you s- see the install button up at the top. Paul Engin Yeah, yeah. Dave Ghidiu And it becomes an app. So I started do- doing all these apps. I made a text editor because I need it to be cross-platform and I want certain key bindings. So you can go to txtedtr.app for my text editor, and you can just install it. It's all lightweight. I don't track anything. Um, so I've been using Claude Code, or I'm sorry, not Claude Code, Claude Cowork to do this. And then I started using Claude Cowork to do all sorts of other things. And now, so Claude Cowork will, can, like, you give it a folder on your desktop and it can do whatever you want. Paul Engin Do whatever you want, yep. Dave Ghidiu Um, which is really nice. So then I was like, Google also rolled out Spark, which is the same thing, but the difference is Spark runs in the cloud. So if you have Google Drive folders, you can have Spark do kind of the same thing. So w- we wrote an OER textbook for our sec- information security class, and a- we wrote it pre-pandemic, so a lot of the examples are, like, 2018, 2019. So I just tasked Spark with saying, "Go through every chapter, and, um, go through every chapter. Get rid of any, any example that's over five years old. Find new examples. Put annotations in there." So, like, now I have these agents just running... And when I say agents, it's not hard. I'm just like, "This is what I want you to do," and it does it. It's fascinating. Paul Engin This is gr- this is amazing. Dave Ghidiu This is amazing. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu This really is amazing from what I'm seeing. Paul Engin Now, and just so you know, OBS, that's what we use. Dave Ghidiu I, and I downloaded OBS. Paul Engin Okay. A- and, and so you can, that you... But this is so cool. Now you can customize this to exactly what you want. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. So if I don't want, like, hearts coming up, maybe I can turn it to, like, a turtle that goes across. I can do whatever I want. Paul Engin And so you have an option here for different modes. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Paul Engin So you can separate your video capture- Dave Ghidiu I- Paul Engin ... and your screencast. Dave Ghidiu Yes, which is really what I wanted to do, because sometimes I want my whole face, sometimes I don't want my face, sometimes I want my face and the screen. Paul Engin Yeah. Dave Ghidiu So, and now you can get two different streams. And you can actually capture the audio separately too if you want. Paul Engin So can I ask you, 'cause I know we are only 32 seconds. So Google Video, I tried to use it. It looked like they got rid of the embed option. Dave Ghidiu Google Vids? Paul Engin Yeah, Google Vids. Dave Ghidiu They, they did not get rid of the embed option. You can still embed it. The difference is it auto-plays. So I wrote an app, and you, uh, put the... I'll show, I'll show you afterwards. Paul Engin Okay. Dave Ghidiu But it puts a title card in place of it. So w- if you embed it, it places the title card, and then when you click play on the title card, then it loads the video. So you can control when it starts playing. Paul Engin All right. I'll have to work on you with 101 Vids. Dave Ghidiu I coded that too. Paul Engin Awesome. All right. Dave Ghidiu All right. Paul Engin Jeff, you, we got, I think, one more each, and then we gotta call it. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, we gotta bounce. Okay. So, uh, this is sort of a follow-up. The, the, the Xbox disc-to-digital- Paul Engin Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... insider rollout. I mentioned this in a c- a few episodes ago. Speaker 5 Insider, you heard it here first, folks. Dave Ghidiu Yep. Speaker 5 This is a breaking story. Dave Ghidiu I'm not an insider. Speaker 5 Do, do, do, do, do. Dave Ghidiu I'm not an insider. But this rolled out this week, earlier this week. Um, so just to kind of recap really quick, um, PlayStation is getting a lot of heat right now because they announced that they're gonna stop making physical discs, and a lot of people are upset about that. And Xbox responded to that by saying, "Not only are we gonna keep doing that, when, when you have a physical copy and you insert it into your, in your console, a digital license will be permanently, uh, um, tethered to your account." So if you have a physical copy, you... Thank you. You, you own it. And why that's a big deal, it's a big deal to all of us because I don't think it's ha- it hasn't happened to me, I don't know if it's happened to you guys, but if you've bought a movie, like on Amazon or on Apple or whatever, you technically don't own it. They can pull that- Paul Engin Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... they can pull that. Speaker 5 Kindle too. Dave Ghidiu Uh, sure. And, you know, just because you bought it, if that service, maybe the contract with that- Paul Engin You bought the license. You didn't buy it Dave Ghidiu ... yeah, you, you, you don't own it. Unless you have a physical copy of it, you technically don't own it. That can get pulled at any time. It's happening to gamers. They own a game, and then that company goes under, or it's like, "You know what? We don't wanna pay for these servers anymore, so we're gonna shut it down." It's like, well, I bought the game. I wanna be able to play the game. It's ha- it's more of a gaming thing than a, than a movie thing, but it's, this is huge, f- that Xbox is kinda like, "No, we're gonna keep supporting this." And their new CEO is really going hard with this. She's like, "No, I, we are going to support this." And over 800, 8, uh, 800 games are already, like, listed as supported with this. Speaker 5 So they will have discs? Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Speaker 5 Wh- which is nice, 'cause people like to resell them or let their friends borrow them or something like that. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, yeah. If you wanna borrow it, then- Speaker 5 Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... if I, you give me, Dave, you give, I'm gonna borrow, I'm gonna borrow your game, then that license will then transfer to me. Speaker 5 It almost feels like you're leasing versus owning. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. Speaker 5 And now you're back to owning. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, with they're- Speaker 5 Yeah Dave Ghidiu ... trying to fight that, and that's huge. That's really, really huge. Speaker 5 Good. Dave Ghidiu So it's not out yet. That's why it says it, it- Speaker 5 Good for Microsoft, doing something nice after cutting 33% of their workforce. Dave Ghidiu Okay. Speaker 5 For Xbox. Dave Ghidiu Well, it's Xbox. That, I'm not- Speaker 5 Yeah. Dave Ghidiu I didn't say Microsoft. So that's great. That's kind of a follow-up. So that's it for me, and I had 26 seconds left. Speaker 5 All right. And you, go ahead, Dave. You go. Paul Engin No, it's, we, we gotta get going. Speaker 5 All right. So, um- Paul Engin Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today, but, um, we'll do another session like this probably every other week, so this way, um, we can stay current with, uh, what's happening out there for all of you. Um, so that's all the time we have for today. I'm Paul Langan, and I wanna thank Jeff Kidd for coming again. Speaker 5 Yeah. Paul Engin And, uh, now Dave and I hear all about Jeff all the time now. Speaker 5 Oh, my God. Paul Engin So here we go. Speaker 5 Yeah. Paul Engin It continues. Speaker 5 Yeah. And I'm Dave Gudue, s- second fiddle or third fiddle to Jeff Kidd. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Paul Engin God, here we go. Speaker 5 We love our folks. Paul Engin And folks, share this with friends, families, and enemies. Speaker 5 Enemies. Paul Engin Until next time, stay curious, stay connected, and thanks for looking through the immersive lens with us. Speaker 5 This episode was engineered by Hugh Laird, who actually let me borrow his headphones today, and they're quite nice. I might not give them back. Paul Engin Oh, sorry, Hugh. Speaker 5 I hope he's not listening. Paul Engin And the shirt. I'm, I am wearing Hugh's shirt- ... for the record. Speaker 5 I don't have anything of Hugh's. Hugh, you didn't give me anything. I needed something blue or something. I don't know. Paul Engin You have his re- you have his respect. Speaker 5 Oh. Paul Engin No. Speaker 5 All right. Paul Engin Out of the three of us, he probably respects you the most. Speaker 5 Man. Paul Engin All right. Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College Podcast Studios, located in beautiful Canandaigua, New York, in the heart of the Finger Lakes region, offering more than 55 degrees, certificates, microcredentials, and workforce training programs. Speaker 5 Thank you. Public relations and communications, marketing, and FLCC Hub. Paul Engin Eager to delve in the passion to s- cover exciting immersive opportunities at www.flccc cccc c- c- c-.edu Speaker 5 That's a lot of Cs. Just keep hitting C, folks, till they get there. Paul Engin Yeah. That's part, that's part of our mission with FLCC. We're connected. Speaker 5 For a second, I thought, "Uh, do they want me to do it?" Like- Paul Engin We're, we're... You can do that if you want. Speaker 5 No, no. Paul Engin Okay. We're committed to making education accessible, innovative, and aligned with the needs of both learners and employers. Speaker 5 The views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Finger Lakes Community College. Paul Engin The music by Den from Pixabay. Jeff, read us out. Speaker 5 This is The Immersive Lens. Such a good voice. That's why people like him. Paul Engin Maybe, yeah. Speaker 5 That's, that's, yeah, that's your- Paul Engin Someday we'll get there. Speaker 5 Again, face for podcasting. Paul Engin Thanks, Hugh. Speaker 5 Thanks, Jeff. Paul Engin See you.
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