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Tech News Weekly 443: $2K Specs, $299 Meta Glasses
01:21:27
Snap's Foray Into Smart Glasses
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Coming up on Tech News Weekly, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of the Verge is here and she tells us what's new in matter 1.6 as our fabrics become more interoperable than a Tesla crash which has led to a federal probe after the death of a 76 year old, Scott Stein from CNET stops by. We kick off the conversation by talking about Meta and Snap's new glasses, but round things out with a frank discussion about the cost of tech right now and, well, the ongoing doing price hikes. All of that coming up on Tech News Weekly.
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Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is Twit.
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This is Tech News Weekly episode 443 with Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and me, Micah Sargent. Recorded Thursday, June 25, 2026 $2,000 Specs $299 Meta Glasses hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly the show wherever we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news. I am your host Micah Sargent and I am joined across the Internet today as I promised by Jennifer Patterson Tuohy. Welcome back Jen.
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C
Hello Micah. Happy to be here. Sorry, sorry to have been late. Like I wasn't here last week. A week late, A week late.
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A
But you still came and that's what matters. We're so happy that you're here. Always a good to chat with you. For people who are tuning in for the first time, welcome. This is the part of the show where we share our stories of the week. These are the stories that we find interesting and think all of you should know all about. So without further ado, let's kick things
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off with your story.
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Jen.
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C
Sure. Yeah. So the reason I wasn't here last week is because I was at a big event in Austin, Texas for the Connectivity Standards alliance, which is the group behind matter, the smart Home Interoperability protocol. And they had some big news to announce, lots of news to announce in fact. But the main sort of takeaway is what I wanted to just run down for everyone today because I've spent a lot of time chatting with you guys about Matter and Thread and this is a an interesting update and basically they've released the 1.6 spec of matter, which doesn't have anything exciting like new camera device. Well, camera Device Types was the most recent big exciting new device type coming to the standard. So the standard basically manages what types of devices can work in your smart home and it promises the concept is to be able to use your smart home device with any smart home platform you like, be interoperable so you buy A smart plug, a smart light and you can set it up and it will work with Amazon's a Google's Gemini, Apple Home, Samsung SmartThings Home Assistant should all work seamlessly. Anyway, so what they announced this with this launch, so no new device types, which is always seems a bit disappointing, but this actually was quite exciting and I'm burying the lead, sorry. Or I'm just building the tension. It's called joint fabric and isn't that a great name? I think I said in my piece that it belongs in a 1970s road trip movie more than in a smart home protocol. But. Tech companies naming not ever really the best solutions that come out of that. But anyway, the whole idea behind joint fabric is that now matter devices will join one single matter network in your home, which can then be controlled by any ecosystem you want. Multiple ecosystems if you want. So you can create a single smart home network and Amazon's a. Google's G Apple home can control it. This one network. What do you mean, Jennifer? Isn't this the way it always worked?
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Right? I thought so,
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C
yes. This, this is. This was the first question my editor asked me when I handed the piece and I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Previously and still currently, because this is a spec and it will be a while until it actually shows up in. Until it actually shows up in our homes. The way it worked is when you got a device and added it to Apple Home, Apple Home set up its own network called a fabric, hence joint fabric. Amazon A would set up its own fabric, Google would set up its own fabric. So you would have separate fabrics working in your home and each device would be on that fabric three times or on three fabrics. And that's why when you set up a device in Apple Home and then wanted to share it with Google Home, you had to go in, get a pairing code and send that code over to Google Home. And it was always a process. Now in theory, with joint fabric, you will be able to set up your device once on one platform and with prior authorization, it will just populate to all the other platforms you want it to. So it's just going to. It should make the whole setup process, which has been one of the biggest frustrations with matter much easier. And it means that you're in control of your network. Not, I mean it's not Apple Homes network, it's not Google Homes network. It's your home's matter fabric that you then choose who gets to control. And you can also revoke that control from say Apple or Google and not have to reset up all your devices. So it really does, does just make this a much. Well, I guess it should have been like this from the beginning, but there were many political reasons I think would be the nicest way of saying it that it didn't happen that way. But I think, you know, people have seen the light and finally this is, this is the solution to all of the many issues we've seen with matter devices trying to set them up with multiple platforms. So yeah, it was. There's a few other nice sort of quality of life updates in the spec and one other really kind of neat thing is NFC setup which will again goes to simplicity. Instead of having to scan a code, you should now just be able to tap your phone on the device. So the idea here is you buy your light bulb, you screw it in. So you tap it and then you screw it in so you don't need power in order to set up the device initially. And I have, as someone who's blinded themselves trying to scan matter codes powered on light bulbs, I realize there are solutions there that I didn't take. But it has happened. The idea now is that all the information for setting it up will be stored in the NFC chip tap and go. And then you can screw in your light bulbs or set up your wire in your light switches following the setup process. So yeah, these are. But again, word of caution, these are in the spec and it will take a while until we see it, especially the nfc because that actually requires a hardware update for several devices devices. Most, a lot of smart home devices don't already have NFC in, but some do like smart locks and such. So yeah, so it was exciting news for me. The big thing that this kind of indicated is that the platforms are still really working together to try and make matter successful. I had always had a slight concern that the longer we got into this collaboration between Apple, Google, Amazon, SmartThings, Samsung, that things might start to fray as companies work towards their own interests and which those interests can be competing. But this is sort of a step towards more unification. And I've been told that all the platforms are fully on board with this, but I did not get a timeline from anyone of when they're going to implement it. So watch this space figures.
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A
No timeline. I, you know, this has been promised for a long time from different, from different companies, from different groups. This idea like finally, finally, this is the time that they will finally all talk to each other finally. And it's always something that results in it getting pushed out farther and farther and farther. You with this one fabric, this one quilt joint fabric. This joint fabric. Thank you. If we have to say it that way, sure. I mean, that is what it's called.
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Why.
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Why should people or should they put their sort of faith in this as the solution? Is it like,
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I feel like there
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has to be a value proposition for everyone involved, the companies and the people. What is the benefit for the companies when it comes to this? We're looking at faster speeds because the joint fabric, you know, doesn't need to make as many hops. Are we looking at less troubleshooting that needs to take place? What makes this better?
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I think simplicity, that's. And that was one of the key promises of matter. You know, you just buy something, set it up and it will be easy. Easy to set up, plug it in and it'll be easy to set up. And that has not been the case. And that has seen matter adoption slow because of frustrations and confusion. You know, the IKEA incidents that we talked about a few episodes ago when IKEA had a lot of setup problems with some of their new products, matter over thread products. You know, simplicity has not shone through the matter standard to date. And this update is really all about focusing on simplicity, making it much easier. And if it is easier to use, more people will use it. And if more people are using it, the platforms will benefit. I think that's also that platforms, you know, they work closely with the partners like Ikea and Acara and all the other smart home manufacturers, and they are seeing so much pushback from users saying, this isn't working, this is complicated, this is difficult. And so, you know, for the smart home ecosystems to continue operating, they need the partners to create the devices. And so it's in their interest to make things work simpler and more easy for the consumer so that we're more likely to buy the products and use their platform. So it's a bit of a roundabout there. It's not a direct like, oh, this is going to make everything work faster. It's possible that we will see some speed increase, but you're generally using one platform at a time. So that's not necessarily slowing that process down when you're using the devices in your home, but it's much more about getting them onto your home network. And I think ultimately, and this is something I did see at this conference, that we, we may one day get to the point where we have in our home one matter fabric, one matter network, one thread network, and one WI FI network. And they are all managed from our main modem or ISP router. Like we don't need anything else. It'll all just coalesce into one space in our home. You can have more border routers if you want them because they're everywhere. I have like seven in my room because that's the promise of border routers. It's not a boring hub, it has other use cases. But yeah, I think the idea of just having one network for each element, thread, matter, WI fi, controllable from one device could make again this a lot easier for people.
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Well, we have to. Yes, as you said, watch this space. We will continue to. We will take a quick break but I do want to quickly mention I saw an article fly by of yours and it was the Thread app.
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C
Ooh, Thread tools.
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Yes. I have been waiting for that for so long just because I wanted more. I know a lot of people don't want, you know, insight into it and they're just like let it work how it does. But I'm a nerd and love that stuff and loved reading about your experience with it. Getting it myself and looking at. It's just fun seeing like all of the different lines between all of your different thread nodes and children and all that. It's so cool.
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It's like your children in your home.
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Everything's connected to everything. It's what it said it's supposed to be and is actually doing it. I love that.
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It's so cool to see. I know. And again, it's about simplicity and when you see that, you realize how not simple it all actually is behind the scenes.
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Yeah, it's really impressive.
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Did you see anything fun or learn? Like were you able to fit fix anything from it? Did you find it useful?
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I'm actually, I was going to email you and be like, can you share me with me the prompt that you made for Claude? Because I haven't done that yet, but I'm planning on doing that off of the start. I was able to confirm that one of the thread networks that I intended to be turned off was turned off. So I was happy about that. Like I didn't see it show up anywhere and couldn't get it, you know, couldn't find it. And that was because, you know, the stuff that I do is thread over Apple Home and Home Kit. Yeah, yeah, over Home Kit. And so I didn't want it to be via this other third party method. And yeah, anyway, it seemed like the network was shut off because that was a problem that I had. Nano Leaf had connected via. It was my router. It was at the time. And so I had a bunch of trouble with that in the initial stages and was able to fix it. And I was just like, did I actually fix it? And from what I could tell, yeah, everything was, was better. So. But I plan on popping it in with a little bit more and having it kind of look through and see is there anything here that, you know, I should know about? There were some lower quality signals.
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Yeah, that's what I noticed. Yeah, that was surprising. And I've been hearing that that can be to do with the device manufacturer's implementation. So it's, it can. You may find like you might have two, two thread smart plugs from two different companies near each other that have less, you know, one is stronger radio than the other. So that, that is, that's one kind of fun thing to do if you are looking to troubleshoot your network. Is that, that what one manual, one engineer called me is. It's our cell signal. It's like showing you like, you know, how close, how much closer you need to get because the signal will get stronger as you move it closer or move a border router or another router in between it and the device. So, yeah, I think, I think that will be useful. I think it's a lot of information for most people. But if you are interested, if you have no thread and you're thinking about getting a thread device, like a smart lock would be my primary recommendation at this stage because it battery life, that it can be used, you can just download it and it will just tell you if you have a thread border router, which is a really simple solution to that problem. Because people often ask me, can I use this? And I'm like, I have to go through a list.
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Do you have this, do you have one of these?
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This version of this? Because that version won't work, but this version will. And if you just download this app, it will immediately, if you give access to your network, say, oh, here's your border routers, if you have one. So that's a great solution if you're thinking about getting a thread device.
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All right, we're going to take a quick break before we come back with my story of the week. So I can tell you about our first sponsor of this episode. This episode of Tech News Weekly is brought to you by SimplyCX. It feels like every week there's a new AI tool platform, more breakthrough making headlines. What I'm always curious about is how these technologies are actually being used in the real world. That's the focus of Simply CX, a podcast from Microsoft. Hosted by Nicole McKinley, Microsoft's global customer experience leader, the show explores how companies are applying emerging technologies to improve customer experiences and solve real business challenges. In the latest episode, Nicole talks with Jess Lauren, founder and CEO of Global Objects, about photoreal digital twins and how they're being used across industries ranging from entertainment and education to energy and cultural preservation. It's a fascinating conversation about where immersive technology is headed, why trust and accuracy matter more than ever, and how digital experiences can create meaningful connections in an increasingly AI driven world. New episodes drop every other Tuesday. Find SimplyCX wherever you get your podcasts and tell them Tech News Weekly sent you. All right, let's head back to the show. We are joined this week by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and my story is this. This because this week federal regulators opened a new investigation into Tesla after one of its cars killed someone in a residential neighborhood. The story comes from CNBC's Laura Kolodney, who reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now looking into a crash in Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston, where a Tesla Model 3 barreled out of its lane and slammed into a home, killing 76 year old Martha Avia. Driver told local authorities he had been using Tesla's partially automated driving systems at the time. Tesla for its part, says the opposite, that the driver had floored the accelerator. Now Elon Musk publicly called the crash one. That quote makes no sense. None of these claims have been independently verified yet, which is exactly what makes this one worth digging into. So first and foremost, here's kind of what we know right now. There's a Tesla Model 3 that left its lane in a Houston suburb and drove into a house that did kill 76 year old Martha Avia. The driver, who's Michael Butler, was on the scene and was cooperating with Harris county authorities. He told them he had been using Tesla's partially automated driving systems when the car barreled out of its lane. And that is kind of the foundational fact set right? This is what we do know. There's a residential street, there's a fatality and there is a driver who is pointing to the software. But everything else has been contested. You know, I was watching a show called Hacks the other day and in it one of the characters was walking along and ended up getting hit by a self driving car. And it made me think about how many protections are in place when it comes to self driving vehicles in terms of how much recording is happening, how many human beings are involved in the process, all of the regulations and things like that that are in place and how that same thing doesn't app to self driving. Plus with self driving you have people who may be using it in ways that are contrary to what the programming suggests. Now Musk did say on X that the crash made no sense, saying that FSD full self driving drives slowly through neighborhood streets and this was a high speed crash. Tesla's VP of Autopilot got more specific. He said the driver quote, manually overrode self driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the Excel pedal, which reached 73 miles and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash. Now I find it interesting Jen, that this is being said in the first place. How do we know that that's true? Like how do they know that? Are they able to view the car?
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I mean you assume they are, right? They have access to all of this. It does. I think in our article about this it talked about how, how there are being the Verge. Sorry. How Tesla has traditionally been quite reticent to give law enforcement or legal lawyers and such access to the ITS data. But it's from what he said, it sounds like they exactly know what happened. Like the fact that they know his foot was still technically on the accelerator after the crash indicates they know exactly what happened and that if that's the case that sort of exonerates them. So you would have thought they probably would release this information because this unfortunately is a somewhat common occurrence for people to accelerate by mistake into buildings. It like seems to happen a lot.
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Yes.
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I mean, I don't mean just for self driving.
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Yeah, it's not even just self driving,
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just in general it seems to be something that happens as it's a bizarre accident that you see happen quite regularly. Yeah, you know, I guess people are mistaking and the fact that he breaking the. If he did, if this is right and they can verify it, if he did have his foot still on the accelerator, then he, it would you would assume. Assume he mistook the brake and the accelerator. But yeah, that's. So whether it's human error or full self driving error is obviously something they're still trying to work out. But to your point is that fully autonomous vehicles seem to have more restrictions and you know that's if, if you're going to have any autonomy in a vehicle. Having more of these restrictions obviously seems like the safer solution rather than especially because honestly the real problem when it comes to vehicles I don't think is technology. It's people.
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Huh. I mean Yes, I agree.
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We're not great. We're not great at driving.
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We are great at driving. We're not great at focusing on more than one thing, even though everybody wants to believe they are. We're all great multitaskers. No, we're not. And I was just learning about. There's, there's some studies that have looked at. When you're on the phone, when you're driving, your brain has a. It's sort of like designed to put you into the scene of the person that is on the phone with you. And so you end up kind of imagining yourself not where you are, but where they are and they're doing the same thing. And so you're sort of, of concept of space even changes whenever you're on the phone with someone. And so, yes, I agree, humans are a big part of that issue.
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I think.
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Even though in this case it is, let's say this, if it ends up being that this person did just simply confuse the brake for the gas and they did try to use full self driving as an excuse for why this happened and it wasn't true, then it's good that we've got the proof there for the that. That said, I do find it a little bit troubling that like, why, why did Tesla have access to this data? Do all Tesla drivers, are all Tesla drivers aware that at any time Tesla, like the company could maybe hop into someone's car and check that data? Like, are those records constantly being set? You know what I mean? We need to know that data stuff in the first place because I know, I think I covered it on the show before Mozilla. The Mozilla foundation did a big study on vehicles and collecting data.
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Yes.
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And there's a lot that's collected and I think that's kind of troubling that. I mean, I don't know the full details of kind of behind the scenes, but I'm like, did Tesla even contact this driver to be able to put this out there? Or is it technically that Tesla sees that it owns this vehicle's software? Because it technically does and can just pull that because it wants to and share that with the world and because, yeah, it's not. They didn't just share it with the police. It's a quote that we're able to see as well.
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Yeah.
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In a way that is in that privacy area where I can't imagine if someone, if I drive a Subaru, if Subaru talked to the local, you know, the local news and was like, well, Micah was drinking some Coffee while he was driving the other day. You know, like just whatever that happens to be. I find a little odd that they've got that much access to this person's vehicle to be able to say the pedal was pressed for this long and this and that. It's just kind of wild.
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Yeah, well, I mean, when I'm testing smart home devices and I have an issue and I'll call the company or message the company and they'll say, can you send us your logs? Can we access your logs? So, you know, I think it's, there's, with, there's no doubt that the data was there. And the question is, how easy is it for Tesla to. Or does it require your authorization? My guess is it probably doesn't require your authorization, but they should ask for it to make it look like there's some kind of, some, some kind of acknowledgment here that this is your data, not theirs. But in this instance, and you know, maybe they have exposed that now that they are, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they can easily access that data whenever they want. Though I think in general you would assume it would be either either disaggregated or anonymized. But in this case, they clearly wanted to exonerate the technology here, so. But yeah, it's, this is true of anything that you, you know, we've, we've meant, we've definitely said this on the show before, but if it's connected to the Internet, someone else can access it and most, and definitely the company. So yeah, it's something to be aware of for sure.
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Sure it is. Also, you know, we have to, we have to trust that the company is telling the truth about that, given that in the past the company, when faced with lawsuits, has lost data, has withheld data, has made it difficult for parties to get. Like attorneys had trouble getting some of the comprehensive electronic data that the cars generated. So how is it it that normally this is hard to get, but the moment that it works in your favor, you're able to just quote that out that I. Again, I don't. I find that troubling.
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Very fishy.
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Yes. And, and just to be 100% clear, it is as an aside to this sad story where this woman was killed. Obviously, if it is true that that is what happened, that this person just accelerated in and did this, then yes, it's to going good in this instance that we can know what, know what happened. But it is still troubling.
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C
I don't, I've never driven either in a, a full self driving or an autonomous vehicle. Although when I was in Austin one of those Z things came past and I did think about trying it, but I'm still. Would this be possible? Like I didn't think they could accelerate like that with. Isn't. Isn't that one of the restrictions protections. Yeah.
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That they, they're. They don't do sudden like.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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So if that, if this was because of the full self driving, you would assume there was some kind of malfunction that happened. Which if that's the case then we definitely would want to learn because potentially this could happen elsewhere. And there have been quite a few other instances of Tesla's driving into things. Right. I think someone posted something in the chat. Driving into a pool or. Yeah. So there, there's. If there's a malfunction there, you would hope that this is something that Tesla's going to fix. But right. Right now it seems like they're mainly concerned with making it clear that it wasn't the car's fault. So yeah, hopefully there'll be further investigation.
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That is the hope and that is the expectation that we are seeing a full probe from NHTSA to figure out what's going on here. And I think to add to the ongoing cases regarding full self driving and the promises and what we've got, there's a site, tesladeths.com that has been tracking fatalities for some time between 2013 and now. And we also of course have the. Yeah. The false advertising claims that are going on as well.
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So I wonder if I'd be interested if that site. Does it compare. Compare incidences of Tesla fatalities with other vehicles? Like a good question.
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Let me see.
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Because you know, with the number of safety elements to some of these autonomous or partially autonomous vehicles, you would wonder if, if they're actually on balance safer. But it's probably hard to tell just because of the critical mass. There aren't. I mean there are a lot of testers out there, but there aren't a lot of people using, using the full self driving. Right. Because that. You now have to pay a subscription for that. Is that.
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Yes, I think so, yeah. Huh. At least for the like robust model.
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C
Right.
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I don't see it in comparison to other. It just seems to be fully Tesla.
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C
Tesla bad.
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Yeah. 65. Oh, wait, okay, that doesn't make sense. Oh, I see. There's a. They do separate between Tesla deaths and Tesla autopilot deaths. So sometimes it's just accidents involving a driver, occupant cyclist, motorcyclist pedestrian.
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C
And it could have been any vehicle and.
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Yeah, exactly. Versus the autopilot deaths where they specifically are mentioning FSD as part of the issue.
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Yeah. Or part of the issue. Potentially. The issue.
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Potentially. There you go. Potentially. Oh, and it's not just the us. It also has the uk, Canada, Germany. Interesting. Anyway, this is another thing that we'll have to keep our eye on, particularly as we have these ongoing probes and lawsuits. Jennifer Pattison Toohey, it has been a pleasure getting to chat with you today. Always a pleasure. If people would like to keep up with the great work that you're doing. I just saw a video of you showing a certain Roomba video.
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C
Was it the one? So fun.
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So fun. I love seeing you as, as. Yeah, as Roomba guy was like, yeah, we didn't get a call about this,
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C
but yeah, that was. That was the latest ish episode of Version History, which is the Verge's history tech podcast. We did an episode on the Roomba, which is available now to view or listen. Listen on podcast or YouTube. And this is actually the second in the series this, the fourth season of version History and it is all smart home. So there's a few more coming up that I'll be on, including one about Philips Hue and one about the Nest thermostat and a couple other really fun ones. We, we did. We did the Clapper, so, so tune in for that. Go subscribe to the Virgin History podcast if you want to catch those. And also you can find all my work on the verge.com where I'm covering. There's a big story about matter that'll go out this week. And also the Google Home smart speaker that I've been reviewing, that should be. That should be on the site soon too. So, yeah, keep up with me there. And good, good to chat again, Micah. I won't be gone too long next week.
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A
Yeah, we'll see you again in July.
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C
Okay. Oh, you might see me this weekend, actually.
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Oh, that's true. Yes.
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I think. I think I might be on Twitter this Sunday.
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I think you may. That's what I heard. Anyway, rumors suggest.
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C
Yes.
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That you might be. All right, thank you.
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C
Bye.
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Bye. Bye. All right, we're going to take a quick break before we come back with the interview this week. I want to tell you about Zscaler bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. Zscaler is the world's largest cloud security platform. The potential rewards of AI are too great to ignore, but, well, so are the risks. Loss of sensitive data and attacks against enterprise managed AI Generative AI increases opportunities for threat actors. Sure. Which helps them to rapidly create phishing lures, write malicious code and automate data extraction. There were 1.3 million instances of Social Security numbers leaked to AI applications. So it's time to rethink your organization's safe use of public and private AI. Chad Palette, acting CISO at BioIVT, says Zscaler helped them reduce their cyber premiums by 50% while doubling their coverage and improving their controls. Take a look at this from Chad
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With Zscaler, as long as you've got Internet, you're good to go. A big part of the reason that we moved to a consolidated solution away from sd, WAN and VPN is to eliminate that lateral opportunity that people had and that opportunity for misdirection or open access to the network. It also was an opportunity for us to maintain and provide our remote users with a CAP Cafe style environment.
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With Zscaler Zero Trust plus AI, you can safely adopt Genai and private AI to boost productivity across the business. Their Zero Trust architecture plus AI helps you reduce the risks of AI related data loss and protects against AI attacks to guarantee greater productivity and compliance. Learn more@Zscaler.com Security that's Zscaler.com Security all right, we are back from the break and this year is shaping up to be quite a wild one for smart glasses, with just about every major tech company racing to put a computer right there on your face. In the span of a single week, two of the biggest players made their moves and the contrast between them says a lot about where this whole category might be headed. One is going big and bold and well, frankly expensive and the other is going broad and affordable and a little bit Hollywood. Our guest has been covering wearables, VR and AR for more than 15 years. Years. And has been right in the thick of it. Joining us to break it all down, you know him, you'll love him at CNET Zone. Scott Stein. How you doing Scott?
- [34:46]
B
Hey, good. It's good to talk to you, Micah. Last week I was hoping to talk about snap and then I was flying back from, from AWE in Long beach, which is where that announcement happened.
- [34:56]
A
Very exciting stuff. I mean, yeah, I want to kind of get into the sort of whole perspective. Taking a step back now that you've, you've been to some of these events and, and all the stuff that's rolled out. I mean covering this stuff for a while now. What do you think if you do think makes this particular moment in smart glasses feel different maybe compared to I don't know the Google Glass of yesteryear.
- [35:23]
B
Well, I'm starting to get a headache from all of it. But it's also that I haven't, like, I feel like I have a stomach bug today. So it's also that. But like, but I'm, it's, it's a lot, It's a lot for me and it's definitely a lot for anyone who, who hasn't followed it. So I'm taking that into consideration a lot. But yeah, in this Google Glass days, that was Google just being like, we're, we thought of an idea, but nobody else was really touching it outside of VR was still floating around here and there. But now everybody's in this. And the number of types of glasses that are out there have tremendously different functions and prices and it's not very clear from the outside side that what the differences are. And so, you know, a lot of the messaging on that gets super strange. But yeah, at the top end you have things that, aside from VR, which is still out there, kind of, you have at the top end like these augmented reality mixed reality devices that are putting things in the world with you that you're using your hands with. And it's, it's like the full, you know, Marvel, Tony Stark type of, you know, type of a thing as best people can do it. And that was like the magic leaps of the past. The Microsoft hololens.
- [36:37]
A
Oh my goodness. Hololens.
- [36:39]
B
Yeah. So like those are all kind of going for that stuff. And then Vision Pro does it, but in a VR technology form, but is mixed reality. Samsung Galaxy xr, but that gets me to Snap, which is Snap is doing augmented reality glasses for your face. But to me, they're a very different beast. They're fully standalone. They have unnamed processors that I'm very curious about what they are, but I've tried the developer versions and they put 3D things in the world with you. And the criticism is that they don't do it as well as you might hope. Or the viewing area is narrow. The viewing area on the new one's supposed to be bigger. Battery life is supposed to be significantly better. Meaning like four hours of mixed use, which means, who knows, it could be like an hour, hour or two. But the big thing to me is that we didn't get a chance to demo it. And so Snap was not ready to show what it was like. The only person who wore the glasses was CEO Evan Spiegel, who I talked with and saw after the event briefly and took a photo of him wearing them. But yeah, I'm super curious about that. Without knowing that, it's really hard to say, say how good they are even at that price, although everyone was totally kicking them on the design, the way they seem to crunch his ears and. And the price, which I get. But I don't think these are designed at all for the mainstream. Even though he did say that these are, you know, main consumer devices. Although he also couched it in the. The first Mac was very expensive and they can say it was like the vision, almost the vision Pro Pro justification on price. I'm more interested to see where they pop up in theme parks and concerts and things like that. You know, I saw a play back in February at the Shed in New York that was an augmented reality play with Ian McKellen and some others called an arc. And you had to wear magic Leap glasses with it. It was really cool, but it was like older tech, didn't work with my prescription. And I'm thinking, thinking, is Snap gonna have experiences with people where you could, you know, you go to like a immersive lunar experience or like future sleep no mores, and you put on those. And that may be how you experience it more than buying it, because I think that's a. That makes more sense in the current moment. But that's what I think about Snap. And then like you said, we've got all of the other companies doing things too. Why is.
- [39:07]
A
Why is Snap one of the companies? What do you think? Have you thought about why any level of. What is the word I'm looking for, any level of innovation in this space happened at that company? I remember the old Snap spectacles with a little spinning icon and it took video that was sort of like in a circle. They've been doing this for a long time. Is it just like Spiegel's interest or. Because, you know, when I think of Snapchat, I think of it being a back and forth, we send photos that disappear thing. But yet this is the company that's making kind of cool AR stuff.
- [39:48]
B
Yeah, you know, it's. I was hanging out with my family and my cousin, my niece and nephew were like, snap. I use them as my messaging thing. And I was like, yeah, they're making glasses. And they were like, what? So they. They really. I was like, yeah, I met the CEO. They. They were confused as well. So I know there is that question. It's clearly a big passion for him. He is one of those original founder type of creative people that you can see the spirit of what he wants to do. There's also the question of, I think, span of time. Niantic going way back with Pokemon Go. Evan Hanke, he wanted to do glasses and still wants to work, work on smart glasses and AR in a similar way. That company split its, its pieces up somewhat and is still working on some things, but, you know, the focus has shifted. AI, but that's still going to kind of be glasses. But I think also about Facebook, you know, like what in Meta, why Mark Zuckerberg has been so interested in it? Part of it, I think is personal curiosity, but obviously there's a business and I think this is also about companies trying to make a platform for themselves that can try to beat the phone or stand apart from the phone. And it's like this endless game that doesn't succeed. Well, because we all have our phones with us, you know, that is. And Snap is a company that became successful off phones. So I'm not saying that they're trying to ignore the phone, but they are definitely building something that is trying to, to work without a phone, but could connect with a phone. And I think that's part of it because phones also are very restrictive. The amount of freedom an app developer has is kind of limited by what the OS maker gives you. So even with Google's glasses that are coming out, which is another player in the space, they're using Gemini first. Eventually they might introduce other AI that are the primary ones ones. But you know, you, you, you have limits in terms of how much you. There's more freedom there for sure than Apple. But then the same thing on, on an Apple side, that Apple doesn't have glasses yet, but they have Vision Pro, they have watches, and everyone talks about, you know, it, you have restrictions in terms of like, even Metaglasses, like you can't go that deep into the os. And so, yeah, so a lot of times, even going back to the Humane pin which I reviewed, you know, like, that was a failure. A lot of these things are trying to leap out and be like, we want to live beyond it might be we want to live beyond the tyranny of the phone, but it's also we want to make a business, I think that has freedom from the phone. But I also think Snap is, I saw this too, that I think Snap is putting all its cards on the table because they've been doing this for so long and now a lot of companies really are coming out with smart glass classes. And Snap had spectacles way before Meta had Ray Bans.
- [42:47]
A
Yep.
- [42:47]
B
But Meta was the one that succeeded with it on a larger scale. So I think that they're like, you know what, maybe, maybe they want the stuff to get incorporated by another company. Maybe they're, maybe they just want to make sure they mention patents a lot. You know, it's hard to tell. Yeah.
- [43:05]
A
Think about that aspect of it.
- [43:07]
B
Yeah, there's, I'm sure there's chess going on with this, but I think it's a very like, people go, oh, is it real? Or whatever, but they have very real developer specs that I've tried a bunch of times and they're making a lot of real apps with creators. You know, that's where I give them a benefit of the doubt that it's not like when I first saw Magic Leap in Florida and nobody had seen their stuff before and you were like, is it real? Snap Been showing a lot of that stuff. But then it's the question of, you know, everyone's going, well, wait, how does that work? And Meta's totally on the flip side now, like you said, which is that Meta is going for a very mainstream approach and kind of similar to Meta Quest, they're pricing things one way or the other to get to be very accessible. And so that's the most important thing, I think, for Meta. And so it's like the quest got too, to, you know, kind of an artificial price of like 300, which now they've started putting the price back. Nobody could match that. It was like impossible. And the Ray Bans are hitting, you know, now they're not Ray Bans now. They're, they're unbranded glasses still made by SLR Luxottica, which is interesting, but they're skipping the Ray Ban and Oakley branding and they had the whole Meta group out there. It was a, it's a, it was a small but big announcement in that I hadn't seen Meta have this big a presence in New York for an event in a long time or ever. And Andrew Bosworth was talking about them and, and being pretty straightforward, he said it's about price, it's about, you know, the, the Ray band comes at a premium. So whatever deal they were striking with those was, was driving the price up. They're cutting it more and they're getting the $300, which is lower than they. They had ones at $300, but they were creeping, creeping up to like. The ones I'm wearing now are Ray Ban Blazer optics, which are like more prescription friendly ones that I really like these as a design, but they start at $500 and so yeah, these new ones are 300 and there's a Kylie Jenner model that's 400 which is like okay. But they want them like in stores, easy to buy, easy to work with a prescription. They haven't changed anything about the tech though, so that's interesting. And the, the thing I'm not okay with especially is they haven't changed anything about the privacy or AI.
- [45:35]
C
Yeah.
- [45:36]
B
Concerns we definitely. Yeah. I mean apparently the Verges Victoria song Alex Amel who I also spoke with, he apparently had said there are going to be changes coming with that. He did not say that to me when I was bringing it up to him exactly as far as I can remember. But I would imagine there are going to have to be changes. And, and, and then even how their AI it to me is a lot more limited than the AI that already exists that people are using let's say in a Claude or chat GPT.
- [46:06]
A
Got it. Is it local? You know Metas, you mean Metas. Got it.
- [46:11]
B
Metas AI. Meta's AI doesn't have any of the hookins or other things. Maybe people would be thankful about that that it can't do as many things. They mentioned agentic stuff that they were like oh yeah, we that think that's important and I'm sure they'll announce more hook ins and partnerships. But the problem is Google and Meta seem to be kind of a little bit. It's like a, like a quiet war. You know they're, they are. Google didn't want to do any app store on Meta's quest and Meta has not had a lot of Google app stuff. And so that the point is like which, which OS which will allow hook ins or what apps? You know, will it be OpenAI or would it be Claude or would it be something else or would it be fitness apps? I think and even accessibility. These things are actually serving a real purpose for people's vision. And they mentioned giving away I think it was like 130,000 pairs to like the, to veterans who are legally blind.
- [47:16]
A
Oh wow.
- [47:17]
B
Um, yeah. I mean that's a great, it's a great effort to do that and I know people who use them because they're the biggest, biggest and best ones out there now that can do that. But the now is the thing is Google's going to have ones that hook better into your I'll get to Google in a moment because that's like the one we haven't discussed. But, but meta, they also, I mean this was just a fashion event. You know they didn't talk about how they could improve assistance for people with other assistive purposes. I think that will also be coming. They have their developer conference in September, but it's also like kind of a smart time to launch them because they mentioned that glasses are a good thing to buy for the summer. That's when sales go up. And I kind of thought Google was going to announce its smart glasses now, so it's the right time to have glasses for the summer. But it's also interesting that they're trying to probably get a leg up on Google and and also have this time right after Snap. And you know, Snap is is a more peripheral company, but they definitely made waves for good and bad with their announcement that I think Met is aware of.
- [48:24]
A
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- [51:48]
B
How does this work? Yes, I think so. I totally agree. And also, also like first of all priced at 2195 I think the price is so I mean that's. They're not going to sell.
- [51:59]
A
No.
- [51:59]
B
Even if, even if it was like the most amazing thing that we knew for sure that price that's still going to.
- [52:06]
A
Yeah, right.
- [52:07]
B
That's an impossible price. But then in addition we don't even know how it functions. And then I kind of think about like the way a lot of these things launch like meta ray ban displays last year which were met as one with the neural band and they were incredibly hard to buy and didn't work with a lot of prescriptions and kind of almost felt like a phantom product launch. Like they were definitely, they definitely were out there but nobody saw them and not a lot of people got to get their eyes in them.
- [52:34]
A
Yeah, I didn't hear much about.
- [52:35]
B
It's like. No. And they're kind of. I'm sure they'll upgrade them this year and kind of. It's almost like a first beta product. I would imagine that's what's going to have to happen with with specs, which is that even though they're saying this is the first they mentioned. I mean early adopter is the answer. They kept saying that over and over again. Early adopters, this is people like kind of dev kit, you know, nobody wants to say dev kit, but, but something that could last. The big difference that caught my eye was battery life because the other ones, the only reported numbers were like 30 and 45 minutes of battery life, which is nothing. You know, like that, that will get
- [53:13]
A
so little battery life. That's ridiculous. Ridiculous.
- [53:16]
B
It's so. Because they have no external battery, it's all on the glasses, which is why the arms are thick. And I mean it could go to a battery pack and they probably would make sense. But they said this one will go for like up to 4 hours plus can recharge in the battery case, in the glasses case. The reason I'm saying that is because like even if it's just a real an hour to two hour functioning, that's enough to get you through an experience. And so if it's like a ticketed event or something, that's where I could, like that's what I'm saying. Like the other ones could not have lasted even to do a thing, but this could be done to do things. And maybe that's their way to test it. And dot dot dot it's like the underwear gnome thing. I know it's like that hot profit, you know, I don't know what happens after that. But, but the, but I think that I imagine that the, the reality of them will kind of roll out over the course of the year after because you know, who knows when they're specifically launching and when there'll even be demos. So. And we're already in almost July, so I hope I get to see them soon and talk about them. But it's weird.
- [54:26]
A
Kind of sick of company of tech companies charging me money to test their products. I, I can understand testing something for either a reduced rate or for you. You send it to me and I test it and I give you my feedback because it's my time, which I think, yes, I am allowed to say I am. There's like a little device from the folks who make pebble and little ring that you. It's basically like a little memo ring and. And I'm going to be testing that and I'm allowed to say that I'm testing and I'm allowed to like post a photo. But that's basically the extent of it. And that is chill because they are just sending it to me. I mean it is, it's probably the reason why I'm also part of the testing is because I pre ordered one. But see, that feels okay, right? But I think Amazon really popularized this with all of its day one products and everything in that space. And then all of the echo stuff they used to come out with. I still have a twerking bear somewhere. Um, and it's like this fee, you're. You're saying it's $4,000, whatever, 3,000, 2,000. All these prices are ridiculous.
- [55:43]
B
I just let you go, oh, all
- [55:45]
A
of these prices are ridiculous. And I don't know why. Like, that doesn't seem like an early adopter to me. That's like an early foster parent.
- [55:57]
B
Yeah, yeah, you're right. Like, this is like, yeah, that's a lot of money. This is not a small thing. Well, that's why. Why they may need to charge that to make it a reality. Like, I don't think that they're. I think a lot of these things are like trying to eek out the door as a, as a product. But yeah, I agree with you. I also feel like this is where these types of products. That's why I think about the location based experiences. It's like best. You're best testing these things by just going to a little, no commitment or lower commitment ticketed entertainment thing or event that that uses them. And then it's like, that's why I like immersive theater and immersive experiences. Because I go, that's a way to look at something. Like the smartest thing that that Oculus before, you know, did in the, in the early days, before meta quest days was those headsets kept popping up at art festivals. You know, they would be at Tribeca and Sundance. All those early days, I was looking at it in these cool pieces that they had made with people. And you'd like, look at few a film, you look at this and sometimes they'd be out there like little exhibits, and you kind of pop your head in and, and go, oh, that was cool. Yeah, like, and think about it. And I think that's exactly where this tech is right now, where it's like, I think you just want to kind of see it and go, oh, that was cool. All right, back to my life and just let people have it on that level because, like, what the heck are you going to do for $2,000 around your life? Like, you're, you're, you're not probably going to figure out what to do with it. But I do think that if you build experiences that could use it then I think those would be really fascinating. And then down the road, you keep saying down the road, but the smart glasses that are coming out right now for the most part are not augmented reality. They are not trying to really blend with the real world. And that's because the tech and the real world connections just aren't fully there yet. Not on a main. Not on a real mainstream. Like, you know, millions of people.
- [57:59]
A
Right. It passes enough that, yeah, millions of people are going to use it and that they're going to feel comfortable with it and then it's not going to seem safe. Yeah, right, exactly. Safe. And it's, it's early days and there's a lot of forget like grace that you have to give this stuff and that and like troubleshooting, you just have to do yourself a lot of the times too. And that. I think that plays a part in that now.
- [58:22]
B
Oh, yeah, go ahead. You.
- [58:24]
A
You've worn the developer spectacles over the top over time
- [58:31]
B
with.
- [58:32]
A
Let's actually expand this out a little bit further than just snaps specs. What is your kind of. What do you desire? Where do you think that AR glasses are going? That would make them a more mainstream thing, is it? Yeah, that, that's, that's the question.
- [58:50]
B
No, that's helpful. I was about to bridge into Google too. And so that actually incorporates both. Because they're a big part of what's coming that I have tried a lot of and their, their products are mostly coming this fall. But it gets to kind of there's an evolutionary tree which is like the last thing people want when they figure they're like trying to understand a product. I'm like, it's gonna have branches on it. But it's. I, I think I referred to the Vision Pro as like an archaeopteryx the other day, which is like the dinosaur bird of like not the thing Apple would want to hear it compared to, but like you eventually had birds and then like you had this archaeopteryx and it was like the. In between. Like you're.
- [59:32]
A
You know, I love this metaphor because that's sort of what I did said about it. I said it was, it was an early spacesuit.
- [59:39]
B
Yes.
- [59:40]
A
We're redesigning spacesuits now to make them smaller, slimmer, better. And so at the time you were looking at the f. The stinking moon, you were looking at the doggone moon, but you had to do so in this sort of big bulky space.
- [59:52]
B
Yes, right.
- [59:53]
A
Yeah. Yes, I get that.
- [59:54]
B
And it's exactly. So you're Getting into these like both like parallel evolution and like other things branching off. The reason I'm saying is because like VR, VR got pretty understandable for a while. Even if you didn't want to buy it. You were like, okay, it's that thing that looks like the big thing that you put on your head. You got the controllers, it does that thing, you move around. They all pretty much did that. Then came smart glasses which were like bubbling up and things like hololens magically were kind of like popping in there. Now it's, but now it's getting weird like because they're all, it's all kind of melting. Like I saw, I saw Vision Pro is like this where it's like Apple will not refer to it as a VR headset. It is a spatial computer now they're right. But it's also technically a VR headset. But you know, it ended as a spatial computer and it uses pass through, mixed reality, wherever you want to call it. But those types of things are getting smaller. I saw one from unseen realities on the show floor that was as small as a pair of glasses. Like, like almost visor. Like yeah. And you could see through, but see through, through the camera. And you know, it's like you plug it into your computer. It's not standalone. It's like, it's like. But that was like, oh, this is another weird evolutionary form like this, this is a visor, but VR but kind of its own thing. And then getting to Google. So Google has smart glasses like metas that do audio camera with or without display. Which is basically display is like a pop up kind of smartwatch for your eye, you know, basic notifications and some things. But then they have this other pair called xreal Aura that was called Project Aura that I've now tried three times versus zero for the, for the, for the snap specs not keeping count. But you know, it's like, that's where it's like I'm talking about real. Like the things I've actually, they're both real. But it's like the things I've actually demoed versus the things I've not demoed. So xreal Aura is fascinating because it plugs into a little processing puck like a phone. It's a pair of glasses like the xreal xreal display glasses that are out there. But it runs all the apps of Samsung Galaxy xr. So it runs like a Vision Pro, those things on it. So you see all these floating apps and it can run 3D VR type apps and it can use hand tracking. So I could do like I could run Google Maps and stretch the maps out and it's very interesting.
- [62:18]
A
It's an Android phone with or it's like a, it's like, it's almost like it was a VR headset that got turned into an Android phone. But then the Android phone became the primary and just. And I also do VR. I can also play games and I can. Okay, interesting.
- [62:32]
B
So the glasses are really cool. They are once again pretty amazing technology. Probably under $1,500 according to Xreal. Still going to be expensive but again kind of a developer kit but also a real product but they're going to work with everyday devices and this like you could use it as a plug in display. You could also use it it with the puck and run a lot of apps that are out there and actually use it to do work or other things. Kind of take it on the go with you. Basically to me it's like the Vision Pro on the go that I couldn't get. Although Apple's been supporting Google has not been supporting its Android XR ecosystem with apps that I can see as much as Apple has been doing with Vision Pro. For as much as I'd like Vision Pro to do more there are a lot of apps on it and Google needs to catch up. But it's fascinating and it's again a different evolutionary branch that is more of a plugin. You don't wear it all the time, you can see the world through them but it's got projected displays that kind of sit in the middle there. So they're not real glasses. They're not really fully see through. They're. They're semi see through and whereas you know, the, the ones that Snap is making are really see through except they're really big. And so yeah, so then you, and then Snaps, you know, and then you have, you have where. What's going on with Meta. And then you have some out there that only have displays and don't have cameras. And I don't even want confused at the. But it's like there are so many little smaller players in the space. I mean even reality, this is the interesting one that has, that doesn't have a camera but does have a display and has a ring. And so I think you're going to see lots of companies. Qualcomm was talking about making chipsets that are easier for eyewear makers to make these and bypass the big tech companies. So I think you're going to start seeing even more companies jump in and suddenly just to say, ah, we're making smart glass glasses and kind of like when smartwatches and wearable tech had like an explosion and you suddenly had like a million random smartwatches flying around and like Amazon would be full of them and you'd just be like what the heck is this one? And I think we're going to get to that point and see how it all like shakes out.
- [65:01]
A
Let's take a quick break so I can tell you about our sponsor. It is Framer bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. Your marketing website sets the the tone for your brand and it's the one touch point every single one of your customers has. If you still struggle to make small changes and simple updates, well, you're leaving opportunity on the table. That's why so many companies from early stage startups to Fortune 500s are turning to Framer, the website builder that works like your team's favorite design tool, framer turns your.com from a formality into a tool for growth, helping businesses build better websites faster and with real time collaboration. Collaboration a robust CMS with everything you need for great SEO and advanced analytics that include integrated A B testing, your designers and marketers are empowered to build and maximize your dot com. From day one I had an opportunity to try out Framer and I was very impressed with how many tools are available to me as a website designer that I am able to make sure my site works across mobile online that you know, if I want to use different purchasing tools I'm able to set those up very easily and some of that like behind the scenes developer stuff that you can't access on some builders, it's fantastic. Here changes to your Framer site go live to the web in seconds with one click and without help from engineering, helping your team reduce dependencies and reach escape velocity. Framer is an enterprise solution, worry not. With premium hosting, enterprise grade security and 99.99% uptime SLAs that give the world's leading brands like Perplexity, Miro and Mixpanel the confidence they need to build their websites in of front Framer. Whether you want to launch a new site, test a few landing pages or migrateyourfull.com framer has programs for startups, scale ups and large enterprises to make going from idea to live site as easy and fast as possible. Learn how you can get more out of your.com from a framer specialist or get started building for free today@framer.com TNW for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan that's framer.com TNW for 30 percent off. Framer.com TNW rules and restrictions may apply. The last thing I'll ask you about AR is where do you. And then I know we're going to talk just a moment about the price hike stuff going on right now, but where do you think we are culturally on wearables? Because sort of in the, in a microcosm, anecdotally, I know that there's some fear and concern, concern that people have if you are seen wearing some sort of like electronic pendant that is that thing recording me. The AI stuff is, is. Has people a little bit on edge right now. And then I can imagine that glasses you if you start to see like a weird. That's got a weird little jewel, right? That's not a jewel, that's a camera. Where do you think things are culturally right now? And do you think that companies are, are considering that? In the same way that we saw when Apple Watch first launched, Apple brought in fashion icons and things and now we've seen, you know, the Kylie Jenner of it all. Is that helping? Is that changing the culture? Are people going to be more comfortable? Because we all hold our phones out and record things all the time all around us. And so in that way, it's not that different, but we see it as different.
- [68:32]
B
Yeah, I agree with you on that. And it's also, also interesting because that is the argument that Bosworth was saying on stage, which was that, you know, it's also kind of a duck on the privacy discussion. But, you know, we're already doing this without privacy lights on phones. We're at least putting a privacy light on glasses. I actually agree with.
- [68:50]
A
I don't want the leaders of the tech companies saying that, but I can say it.
- [68:54]
B
Exactly, exactly.
- [68:55]
A
You need to be more focused on. But, but, yeah, no, sorry, go ahead.
- [68:58]
B
No, it's like not exactly. It's like not a great. I want to hear you're saying more productive than that. But then I also agree with it. But I'm also like, okay, but what are you doing to be aware of it? What can you do to kind of push things forward more? And meta's like a terrible first ambassador for this because their privacy questions and concerns, their history with that over the years, over decades or decade. And right now there have been a whole bunch of problems that have been popping up in the past, past year from them. And, you know, the privacy questions, you know, they'll lay it out and go, well, this is what's happening. It should be very clear. But it's still fuzzy to me. And it's obviously been fuzzy enough that there have been reports of problems popping up with third party moderators and things and so. And then where do they go further as people want to rely on these more? So like, I think people also have a lot of AI weariness. That's like an understatement. But like, that's like the understatement, you know, like yes, yes. They have a awareness. Like everyone's kind of frickin fed up about everything. And AIs AI glasses are an ambassador of AI. You know, like they're all connected to AI. So it's kind of like, oh, more of this. And so that is a problem. But then also I think the number of things we want to wear on us and charge gets exhausting. And the amount of money that people have to spend, it's like we're in a, we're in a. It feels like the beginning of a collapse with like the economic situation. Speaking of like getting into pricing and like. And so where does an extra device fit into this? I mean, meta smart to go cheap. This is a year to try to, try to bring prices down if you can. But, but to, you know, and their FSA and other stuff. You know, like you could use health stuff to get the lenses. And so it's kind of a unique item in that it, it rolls into kind of a sort of health area.
- [70:51]
A
Yeah.
- [70:51]
B
The way people would also get Apple Watch.
- [70:55]
A
Yeah.
- [70:56]
B
And smartwatches. I think that they're going to eventually get more assistive functions and more health functions, especially as Apple enters the space and Google. I'm waiting for Google to fold in Fitbit stuff, but they're saying like it'll come. But I'm like, you know, move fast because Apple's going to be right on your heels.
- [71:13]
A
Yeah. And they should be motivated to do that because people, especially at the end of the year, like, oh, I've got all this FSA I need to do something with. That's how I got my aura ring the first, first time.
- [71:22]
B
It seems like the number one killer app for the glasses, even though you wouldn't be using them for fitness tracking but to work, use them with your Fitbit. But I know that'll come. It's just, I think they're trying to get out the door with like the first wave of things. But like there's fun stuff you can do with them, but there's also functional stuff and there's also. Everyone's got their phone so like, the other thing is that these all have to work with your phone. They all have to assume you're going to work with your phone. They have to do something that's not annoying, not stupid, not creepy. And. And as far as AI goes. Yeah. So like, Apple has now got Siri. It's clearly being designed for glasses and other things. Like, it's. Yes, it's more like the others and the way it's built, but you know which one is the best option. Also, how expensive do they all get? Is like, is Siri going to be free if you get a phone is not going to be fully free? Are. You know, I think that's going to factor in too, because subscriptions might start kicking in for these like. Like as. As AI's models kind of crumble and these artificially low tiers for access become unsustainable. Then I imagine you see a kick up, right? You're going to see a combination of hardware prices going up and the subscriptions for AI going up. And that's where I'm like 2027, where it all collapses. I'm like, I don't know. That's. That's the concern I see now, getting into the Apple thing, because they're like the canary. They're one of the biggest canaries in the coal mine and that canary just. Just croaked a little.
- [72:49]
A
All right, to round things out here. Yes, let's talk about that. We. We were warned. Good morning. I have some bad news for you. Tim Cook said that the prices would be going up across a lot of Apple's products. And as of this morning, they had.
- [73:07]
C
Have.
- [73:08]
A
Whoa. I hit my microphone with the drama of the situation and I have to admit, you know, I knew it was coming, but it was a little depressing, particularly right after I saw the price for the Steam machine. And I've been thinking about just how expensive everything is right now and how it's only getting more expensive. And goodness gracious, what were your thoughts when you saw the price hike for even the beautiful darling the MacBook Neo go up by 100.
- [73:37]
B
I know. And speaking of Steam Machine. Yeah. Like that those reviews popped up. I'm actually about to dive into looking at one myself. But, you know, it's true. It's like, at these prices, it's like, who's going to be buying it? And then MacBook Neo? Well, that whole price story just disappeared, you know, like the whole like 500, 599. Nope, it's a $700 and up laptop, which doesn't quite have the same ring to it. That is not. No, I think that story has just kind of vanished because Apple had $700 M1 MacBooks and stuff. You know, it's a cute, it's a pretty device. But I mean I got really fed up this morning and we were all tracking these stories and figuring out part of the really annoying part was that Apple did not put out a clear public facing story or guide as to what prices went up, which is becoming the trend. I mean Valve just kind of dumps the prices out there. I mean Xbox did put out a statement that the prices are going up on Xboxes today so that starting August 1st. So actually that's a nice heads up. You've got till August 1st before the Xboxes all get $100 more expensive. But Apple just flipped the switch and you could be gaslit. You go up this morning and you go wait, what was the price of an iPad again? Wait, was it 449? Was it 349? Oh, it's 449 now. And like 1299 for the MacBook Air with a Vision Pro is now 36.99. And like not everything but Macs, iPads, HomePods, Apple TV. Yeah, these all got price jacked and Apple passed on that, that, that pain to us. And it is being blamed on data centers. I think there's the point where I want to, I feel like I'm getting all network in my mind where I want to like, you know, I'm just like, I want to like scream because I was talking about this on the radio Chicago and everyone should be furious about this because at this point not only the data centers and Apple is also pointing the finger. So I don't want to go where they're pointing the finger either. But it is like there's so much reckless building, there is so much that AI is being overblown with and now the prices on things that we have are getting ramped up. Probably the AI costs are going to ramp up too. And what the hell, like what, what is going on and why aren't companies, you imagine that a big company like Apple is able to negotiate a price for this. How are they not able to get a say in this? And are these prices for ram? Are the prices for RAM the same for the servers or are they getting a special deal? Or was that deal locked in before? I haven't been following that. But it's like what, what is going on? Exactly. Because if app Apple can't withstand this, right then everyone else, everyone Else is following suit. Prices on everything are going to go. They already have been. But like, everything feels like it's going up 15, 20%.
- [76:25]
A
And now so many more companies have permission right now that Apple has done it, it's like, well, okay, we can do it without feeling. And it's like, no, what if we all just held?
- [76:35]
B
And it's crazy. And it's like, whatever inflation rates are being claimed, like this is. These are increases of 15, 20% on things. And then I feel the prices rising in supermarkets. And it's like, are we just in like a 15 to 20% increase on everything? Because like, that's not. That is the end. That's. I think that's this system. This is where I feel like I'm a network point. It's the end. The system doesn't work anymore because I don't think anyone will be able to sustain buying stuff. My advice now is to wait. But if you wait on an Apple product, the price could go up even further. Right. Microsoft apparently said today that they expect the RAM prices to double again in 2027. Right. And I go, well, that's when the collapse happens. I'm sorry. It's like, it's not just going to be a solely simmering pot. Everything will fall apart with this. Because, like, people can't afford it. People already can't afford it. Gaming's a luxury. All these products will start being seen as maybe I'll get one in five, five years. Or I'll just kind of stick around with what I have. And then that fun thing of like, oh, buy a fun thing for the holidays. You're like, no, won't, no, won't, no. Sorry, but I'm buying eggs for the holiday.
- [77:48]
A
I'm buying a cake mix for the holidays. That's what I'm buying. Like, I can't. Can't do the rest of it.
- [77:55]
B
Learn some magic tricks, do some improv board games.
- [77:59]
A
I remember even like two, three years ago when we. This, now we're getting off topic. So we'll end it soon. But just even related to that, like, regularly doing gift giving amongst everyone in the immediate family, even though we live far apart, you know, and so like, they would send stuff our way, we'd send stuff their way. And the last few times, like, no, we did a Secret Santa. So you have one other person that you were, you know, doing this with. And as this stuff gets more and more expensive, I'm like, I can't even afford that.
- [78:33]
B
I know. I mean, it's scary. Yeah. With prices going up like this. If it's because of AI, my feeling is like I'm good with that AI. You know, that's. I don't know. Thank you. And I think that's how everybody kind of feels about this. That, you know, I better be really goddamn good to.
- [78:49]
C
To.
- [78:49]
B
To cause all of this pain and suffering. And, and, and Apple still has to prove itself with. With Siri. And I think this is a. I think they wanted to pull the band aid off. Plus, are prices of iPhones going to go up this fall? Probably. And I think this is only half the band aid being pulled off for Apple.
- [79:08]
A
Yeah, I think so. Well, Scott Stein, it is always a pleasure to chat with you about all the latest and greatest stuff that's going on. If people would like to keep up to date with you, of course they can head to cnet.com is there anywhere else they should go to stay up?
- [79:23]
B
You can follow me through CNET, you can follow me on bluesky LinkedIn and you can also check me out on Beehive on the intertwixed.
- [79:31]
A
That was perfect. That got everything. Thank you, Scott, and we'll see you again soon. Alrighty, folks. That brings us to the end of this episode of Tech News Weekly. The show publishes every Thursday at TWiT TV TNW, which is where you can go to subscribe to the show in audio and video formats. If you'd like to get all of our shows ad free, can I invite you to join our Club Twit tv? Club Twit is where you go to sign up. Or you can use that QR code in the top corner there. Doing so gets you access to our wonderful Club twit benefits. $10 a month, $120 a year. You will get access to every single one of the shows ad free. You also get access to our special feeds. We've got a feed that has behind the scenes moments. We have a feed that has our live coverage of tech news events. And we even have a feed that has our club Twitch shows like My crafting Corner, Stacy's Book Club, My New media club. Plus so much. Oh, also, Devenger Hardaware said that he wants to be on a future episode. So if you love Devendra, you got to check out a media club episode soon. Did I also mention that you get access to chapter markers? Yeah, that's right. That's a new perk for you as a member of Club Twit. And of course you get that warm fuzzy feeling knowing you're helping to support the work we do here on the network and you can talk to your best friends in our club Twit Discord. Fun place to go to chat with fellow Club Twit members and those of us here at Twit if all of that sounds good. Twit TV if you'd like to follow me online, I'm ikasargent on many a social media network. Or you can head to Chihuahua Coffee which has links to the places I'm most active online. Be sure to check out my other shows including iOS today, hands on Apple, Hands On Tech, and so much more that they all publish here on the network. I will see you next time for another episode of Tech News Weekly.
- [81:15]
B
Bye Bye.
- [81:28]
A
You can't reason with the sun. Trust us, we've tried.
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B
This summer, it's time to put that
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A
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B
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C
Edu Sci.
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A
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A
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to $15 per month required intro rate
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B
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