A Canticle For Leibowitz

Summary

Tech Brew Ride Home – February 19, 2026

Episode Title: A Canticle For Leibowitz
Host: Brian McCullough & Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host
Podcast Theme: A brisk, 15-minute roundup of the most significant headlines and evolving trends in tech. Today’s show covers rapid-fire AI model updates, courtroom drama with Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s financial triumph, Apple’s AI wearables roadmap, and Microsoft’s futuristic data storage innovation.

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Main Theme

Today's episode delivers quick, insightful updates on headline tech stories:

• Google's release of Gemini 3.1 Pro and its implications for AI reasoning
• Mark Zuckerberg’s notable appearance and testimony in the ongoing social media trial
• Amazon officially surpasses Walmart as the world’s largest company by revenue
• Apple’s secret move toward AI-driven wearables
• Microsoft’s experiment in "Canticle For Leibowitz"-esque, millennia-proof data storage

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Google Gemini 3.1 Pro – AI Reasoning Gets Smarter

(Starts ~01:04)

• Release Overview: Google is rolling out Gemini 3.1 Pro, highlighting an upgrade in "core reasoning" for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.
  • Quote (Co-host, 01:07): “A step forward in core reasoning for AI Pro and ultra subscribers.”
• Product Evolution: Unlike previous mid-year upgrades labeled as ‘.5’, this is the first ‘.1’ version—marking faster iteration cycles (01:25).
• Performance Leap: Now available in Gemini App, NotebookLM, the Gemini API, and tools for developers.
  • Quote (Co-host, 01:45): “This model achieves an Arc AGI 2 score of 77.1%, or more than double the reasoning performance of 3 Pro.”
• Practical Impact: Improved capabilities for synthesizing information, visual explanation, and creative tasks.
• Deployment: Rolling out to more users, with preview access for developers to test ambitious "agentic workflows" before wider release.
  • Quote (Co-host, 02:35): "...continue to make further advancements in areas such as ambitious agentic workflows before we make it generally available soon."

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2. Mark Zuckerberg Takes the Stand – Social Media Trial

(Starts ~02:44)

• Key Testimony Focus: Zuckerberg questioned on Meta’s use of beauty filters, company’s decisions despite expert warnings about harm to teenagers—especially young girls.
  • Quote (Zuckerberg, 03:36): “I genuinely want to err on the side of giving people the ability to express themselves.”
• Company Dissent: Recognized that not all Meta employees supported the choice; dissent welcomed as part of company culture (04:14).
• Debate Over Causation: Zuckerberg notes lack of "causal evidence" for harm as his rationale, despite not holding a relevant degree.
  • Quote (Zuckerberg, 04:32): “I don’t have a college degree in anything.”
  • Quote (Zuckerberg, 04:40): “...I think I have a pretty good idea of how statistics work.”
• Engagement and Company Goals: Plaintiffs allege Meta prioritized “time spent” by young users; Zuckerberg pushes back, calls increased engagement an “aspiration” rather than a set goal (05:11).
• Underage Users on Instagram: Documents showed millions under 13 on Instagram; Zuckerberg claims the platform removes all identified underage users, and pushed responsibility for age verification onto Apple and Google.
  • Quote (Lawyer, 06:05): “You expect a nine year old to read all the fine print?”
• Retention Controversy: Raised by lawyers; Zuckerberg says words were mischaracterized, says not all in-development products are released (06:34).
• Courtroom Oddities: Judge threatens contempt for anyone using AI smart glasses (06:44). Meta staff were spotted with Meta Ray Ban AI glasses.
  • Quote (Judge Cole, 06:56): “You will be held in contempt of the court. This is very serious.”
• Meta Board Dynamics: Zuckerberg asserts he could reinstate himself if fired due to his voting power (07:14).
  • Quote (Zuckerberg, 07:29): "He is, quote, very bad at media, end quote."

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3. Amazon Surpasses Walmart in Global Revenue

(Starts ~07:41)

• Historic Revenue Milestone: Amazon reported $717B for 2025 vs. Walmart’s $713.2B, unseating Walmart from a decade-long top spot (07:41).
  • Quote (Host via Bloomberg, 08:03): “Amazon has officially dethroned Walmart...”
• Drivers of Growth: Not only e-commerce but also Amazon Web Services (AWS). Without AWS, Amazon would still trail Walmart.
  • Quote (Host, 09:21): “Without AWS, Amazon’s 2025 revenue would have been $588 billion...”
• Market Comparison: Amazon leads in web/mobile; Walmart dominates physical retail.
• Expert Perspective: Some analysts call the revenue win a “hollow victory” since AWS, not direct retail, made the difference.
  • Quote (Krithi Kaliman, 09:43): “Amazon didn’t beat Walmart in the retail game, it just beat them in revenue by launching a new business Walmart doesn’t operate in.”

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4. Apple’s Next AI Wearables – Smart Glasses, Pendant, and AI AirPods

(Starts ~11:38)

• New Devices in Pipeline:
  • AI-powered smart glasses (code-named N50),
  • An AI pendant (wearable on a shirt/necklace),
  • Camera-equipped AirPods (for live translation and more).
    • Quote (Co-host, 11:43): “Apple is ramping up work on smart glasses, a pendant... and AirPods with expanded AI capabilities...”
• Core Design: All devices use advanced Siri, leveraging camera systems for real-world context and tasks (12:01).
• Target Market & Features:
  • Glasses: Positioned upscale, with two cameras (for high-res imagery and computer vision), environmental context awareness, and Apple-made frames featuring premium materials.
    • Features: Real-world assistance (“What am I looking at?”), reading printed text, context-aware reminders, navigation using landmarks (14:09-14:45).
  • Pendant: Designed as "eyes and ears" for the iPhone, might have speaker for direct Siri interaction (15:06–15:23).
  • AI AirPods: Rolling out soon; rumor started in early 2024, now with advanced audio AI — live translation modes included (15:42).
• Development Timeline:
  • Glasses: Production targeted for December 2026, public release as early as 2027.
  • Pendant & AirPods: Sooner, but timing not set for all products.
• Competitive Position: Glasses directly pitched against Meta, Google’s wearable projects; progression from off-the-shelf hardware to in-house Apple design.

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5. Microsoft's 'Canticle For Leibowitz'-Style Data Preservation – Project Silica

(Starts ~16:07)

• Futuristic Storage: Project Silica stores digital data by engraving with femtosecond lasers into millimeter-thick borosilica glass (16:19).
  • Quote (Host, 16:19): “A thin slice of glass carrying an impressive load of data, all thanks to physics that sounds borderline magical.”
• Potential Longevity: Storage medium could last “10,000 years” (16:58).
• How It Works: Encodes data in “phase voxels” (3D data blocks) with a single laser zap, no ongoing energy cost.
• Archival Implications: Hailed as disruptive for researchers, institutions needing robust long-term data archives.
  • Quote (Researcher, 17:43): “There’s no ongoing cost...that’s actually a really big change.”
  • Quote (Host, 17:49): “This will change the way we think about keeping data and archival preservation.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Tech News’ Fast Pace:
  • Co-host (00:42): “Honestly, can we even keep up at this point?”
• Zuckerberg’s Self-Awareness:
  • Zuckerberg (07:29): “He is, quote, very bad at media, end quote.”
• AI in the Courtroom:
  • Judge Cole (06:56): “You will be held in contempt of the court. This is very serious.”
• On archival tech:
  • Host (16:19): “A thin slice of glass carrying an impressive load of data, all thanks to physics that sounds borderline magical.”

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Google Gemini 3.1 Pro AI upgrade: 01:04–02:44
• Mark Zuckerberg’s court testimony: 02:44–07:41
• Amazon overtakes Walmart in revenue: 07:41–10:00
• Apple's AI Wearable Devices: 11:38–15:56
• Microsoft Project Silica (Glass Data Storage): 16:07–17:50

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Closing Tone

The show closes on a whimsical note with an AI-generated “Gilbert and Sullivan”-style podcast theme, reflecting both the show’s fast pace and the underlying playfulness of Tech Brew Ride Home.

• AI Song (18:17): “The daily toil at last is done. We've pondered on the latest tech... So hear the joyful, jovial theme of the Tech Brew Ride Home a Happy Dream.”

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Summary:
This episode covered a whirlwind day in tech, from boundary-pushing AI and legal drama to game-changing market leaders, futuristic wearables, and digital preservation worthy of science fiction. For listeners wanting to stay a step ahead but only have 15 minutes, Tech Brew Ride Home delivers clarity, attitude, and a wink at tech’s absurd speed.

Transcript

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[Brian McCullough]

Welcome to the Tech Brew Ride home for Thursday, February 19th, 2026. I'm Brian McCullough. Today Gemini is getting with the increased cadence of AI releases.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Honestly, can we even keep up at this point?

[Brian McCullough]

A dispatch from the social media trial as Zuck takes the stand at long last, Amazon dethrones Walmart. Apple seems poised to unleash a slew of AI wearables and the new storage system to preserve data.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Cantikophor Leibowitz Style here's what you missed today in the world of tech Foreign

[Brian McCullough]

Google is rolling out Gemini 3.1 Pro,

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

which it says is a step forward in core reasoning for AI Pro and ultra subscribers. Quoting 9 to 5 Google in November,

[Brian McCullough]

Google introduced Gemini 3 Pro in preview

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

with Gemini 3 Flash following a month later. Google today announced Gemini 3.1 Pro quote for tasks where a simple answer isn't enough.

[Brian McCullough]

This 0.1 increment is a first for

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Google with with the past two generations seeing 0.5 as the mid year model. Update 2.5 Pro was first announced in March and saw further updates in May for Google I O Google says Gemini 3.1 pro quote represents a step forward in core reasoning.

[Brian McCullough]

The upgraded core intelligence that debuted Last

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Week with Gemini 3 Deepthink is now available in Gemini 3.1 Pro for more users. This model achieves an Arc AGI 2 score of 77.1%, or more than double the reasoning performance of 3 Pro.

[Brian McCullough]

This advanced reasoning translates to practical applications

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

like quote when you're looking for a

[Brian McCullough]

clear visual explanation of a complex topic,

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

a way to synthesize data into a single view, or bringing a creative project to life. According to Google, Gemini 3.1 Pro is

[Brian McCullough]

rolling out to the Gemini app today

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

as well as NotebookLM for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers. It's also available in the Gemini API

[Brian McCullough]

via Google AI Studio, AntiGravity Vertex AI

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Gemini Enterprise, Gemini Klee and Android Studio. For developers. Gemini 3.1 Pro is launch launching in preview to quote validate these updates and

[Brian McCullough]

continue to make further advancements in areas

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

such as ambitious agentic workflows before we make it generally available soon End quote.

[Brian McCullough]

Here's a dispatch from that social media

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

trial where Mark Zuckerberg took the stand yesterday. Quoting cnbc, Zuckerberg said that Meta consulted

[Brian McCullough]

with various stakeholders about the use of

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

beauty filters on Instagram, but he did not specifically name them. The plaintiff's lawyer questioned Zuckerberg about messages showing he he lifted the ban because it was paternalistic. It sounds like something I would say and something I feel, zuckerberg replied.

[Brian McCullough]

It feels a little overbearing.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Zuckerberg was pressed about the decision to

[Brian McCullough]

allow the feature when the company had guidance from experts that the beauty filters

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

had negative effects, particularly on young girls.

[Brian McCullough]

He was specifically asked about one study by the University of Chicago in which 18 experts said that beauty filters as

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

a feature cause harm to teenage girls.

[Brian McCullough]

Zuckerberg, who noted that he believed this

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

was referring to so called cosmetic surgery

[Brian McCullough]

filters, said he saw that feedback and discussed with the team and it came

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

down to free expression.

[Brian McCullough]

Quote, I genuinely want to err on

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

the side of giving people the ability to express themselves, zuckerberg said.

[Brian McCullough]

Zuckerberg echoed Adam Mosseri's previous sentiments, shared in court, that Meta ultimately decided to

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

lift a temporary ban on the plastic surgery digital filters without promoting them to other users. Defense attorney Marc Lanier noted that Facebook vice president of product design and responsible innovation Margaret Stewart said in an email

[Brian McCullough]

that while she would support Zuckerberg's ultimate decision, she said she didn't believe it

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

was the right call given the risks. She mentioned in her message that she dealt with a personal family situation that she acknowledged made her biased, but gives

[Brian McCullough]

her, quote, firsthand knowledge of the alleged harms.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Zuckerberg said that many Meta employees disagree with the company's decisions, which is something the company encourages.

[Brian McCullough]

And while he understood Stewart's perspective, there was ultimately not enough causal evidence to

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

support the assertions of harms by the outside experts. When Lanier asked if Zuckerberg had a

[Brian McCullough]

college degree that would indicate expertise in

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

causation, the Meta chief said, I don't have a college degree in anything.

[Brian McCullough]

I agree. I do not know the legal understanding

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

of causation, but I think I have

[Brian McCullough]

a pretty good idea of how statistics work.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Zuckerberg said the trial, which began in

[Brian McCullough]

late January, centers on a young woman who alleged that she became addicted to

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

social media and video streaming apps like Instagram and YouTube. The Facebook founder pushed back against the notion that the social media company made increasing time spent on Instagram a company goal. Zuckerberg was addressing a 2015 email thread

[Brian McCullough]

in which he appeared to highlight improving

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

engagement metrics as an urgent matter for the company. And while the email chain may have contained the words company goals, Zuckerberg said

[Brian McCullough]

the comments could have been an aspiration

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

and asserted that Meta doesn't have those objectives. Lawyers later brought up evidence from Mosseri, which included goals to actively up user

[Brian McCullough]

daily engagement time on the platform to

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

40 minutes in 2023 and to 46 minutes in 2026. Zuckerberg said the company uses milestones internally to measure against competitors and, quote, deliver

[Brian McCullough]

the results we want to asserted that the company is building services to help people connect.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Lawyers also raised questions over whether the company has taken adequate steps to remove

[Brian McCullough]

underage users from its platform. Zuckerberg said during his testimony that some users lie about their age when signing

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

up for Instagram, which requires users to be 13 or older.

[Brian McCullough]

Lawyers also shared a document which stated that 4 million kids under the age of 13 use the platform in the

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

U.S. the Facebook founder said that the company removes all underage users it identifies and includes terms about age usage during the signup process.

[Brian McCullough]

You expect a nine year old to

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

read all the fine print?

[Brian McCullough]

A lawyer for the plaintiff questioned.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

That's your basis for swearing under oath that children under 13 are not allowed.

[Brian McCullough]

Instagram did not begin requiring birthdays at

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

signup until late 2019. At several times, Zuckerberg brought up his belief that age verification is better suited for companies like Apple and Google, which maintain mobile operating systems and app stores. Zuckerberg later responded to questions about documents in which the company reported a higher

[Brian McCullough]

retention rate on its platform for users

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

who join as tweens.

[Brian McCullough]

He said lawyers were, quote, mischaracterizing his

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

words and that Meta doesn't always launch products in development, such as an Instagram app for users under 13.

[Brian McCullough]

During Wednesday's session, Judge Carolyn B. Cole threatened to hold anyone using AI smart

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

glasses during Zuckerberg's testimony in contempt of court.

[Brian McCullough]

If you have done that, you must delete that or you will be held

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

in contempt of the court, the judge said. This is very serious. Members of the team escorting Zuckerberg into the building just before noon Eastern time

[Brian McCullough]

were pictured wearing the Meta Ray Ban Artificial Intelligence glasses.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Recording is not allowed in the courtroom.

[Brian McCullough]

Lawyers also questioned whether Zuckerberg previously lied about the board's inability to fire him.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

If the board wants to fire me, I could elect a new board and reinstate myself, he said in response to remarks he previously made on Joe Rogan's podcast. During his interview with the podcaster last

[Brian McCullough]

year, Zuckerberg had said he wasn't worried about losing his job because he holds voting power.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Zuckerberg told the courtroom. He is, quote, very bad at media, end quote.

[Brian McCullough]

Amazon has dethroned Walmart as the world's largest company in terms of revenue, reporting $717 billion worth of revenue in 2025 compared to Walmart's $713.2 billion for the

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

12 months to January 31.

[Brian McCullough]

Quoting Bloomberg Amazon has officially dethroned Walmart as the biggest global company by revenue, a milestone attesting to the massive scale

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

the e commerce and cloud computing giant has achie since its humble beginnings in 1994 as an online bookseller in Jeff Bezos Seattle area garage.

[Brian McCullough]

Walmart, which had been the largest company by revenue for more than a decade, on Thursday reported sales of $713.2 billion

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

for the 12 months ending January 31. Amazon, which operates on a fiscal year

[Brian McCullough]

ending in December, earlier this month reported

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

2025 sales of $717 billion.

[Brian McCullough]

Bezos carefully studied Walmart founder Sam Waltman,

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

embracing many of his business strategies while building his company. Over the past decade, Amazon's has increased

[Brian McCullough]

at almost 10 times the pace of

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Walmart's, fueled by a shift in consumer spending from stores to websites and its rapidly growing cloud computing business. Amazon Web Services Amazon and Walmart compete

[Brian McCullough]

head to head for shoppers dollars Amazon is the biggest online retailer with its

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

website and mobile apps, attracting 2.7 billion visits each month. Walmart is the biggest physical retailer in the world, with more than 10,000 stores and shopping clubs globally. Both companies generate most of their revenue in the U.S. walmart is having more success developing its e commerce operation than Amazon is having in creating a physical stores business, despite its 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods Market.

[Brian McCullough]

But the revenue story is more about Amazon's dominance in cloud computing, a business

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Walmart doesn't compete in. Without AWS, Amazon's 2025 revenue would have been $588 billion. So its ascendance rests largely on the

[Brian McCullough]

importance of data centers as critical infrastructure.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

In the age of artificial intelligence.

[Brian McCullough]

This is a hollow victory, said Krithi

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Kaliman, executive director of the Retail Management Institute at Santa Clara University.

[Brian McCullough]

Amazon didn't beat Walmart in the retail game, it just beat them in revenue

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

by launching a new business Walmart doesn't operate in, end quote.

[Brian McCullough]

Just because your team is small, that

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

doesn't mean that they're not a target for bad actors.

[Brian McCullough]

Cybercriminals know that, but lean teams often lack the resources to prevent or respond to a breach. The good news is even the smallest teams can foil cybercrime 1Password provides simple security to help small teams manage the

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

number one risk that bad actors exploit,

[Brian McCullough]

which is weak passwords. Take the first step to better security by securing your team's credentials. Find out [e-mail] Ride so you can secure every login that's 1Password.com Ride

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[Brian McCullough]

Mark Gurman keeping Apple in the Headlines

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Quote Apple is ramping up work on

[Brian McCullough]

smart glasses, a pendant that can be

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

pinned to a shirt or worn as a necklace, and AirPods with expanded AI capabilities, according to people with knowledge of the plans. All three devices are being built around the Siri Digital Assistant, which will rely on visual context to carry out actions.

[Brian McCullough]

Each of the products, which will be linked to Apple's iPhone, depends on a

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

camera system with varying capabilities, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven't been announced. A spokesperson for Apple declined to comment.

[Brian McCullough]

The AirPods and pendant are envisioned as simpler offerings equipped with lower resolution cameras

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

designed to help the AI work rather than for taking photos or videos. The glasses, meanwhile, will be more upscale and feature rich in an all hands

[Brian McCullough]

meeting with employees earlier this month, Chief executive Tim Cook hinted that the company would be pushing hard into AI devices,

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

saying Apple is working on new categories of products that are enabled by artificial intelligence. We're extremely excited about that, he said. Cook added that the company was investing in new technology. The world is changing fast, he said. The smart glasses are planned to be positioned as an advanced offering in the company's AI hardware lineup. Intended to compete with Meta's camera equipped eyewear. They would include a high resolution camera capable of capturing photos and video.

[Brian McCullough]

Apple has made significant progress in recent

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

months on its glasses codenamed N50, and has recently distributed a broader set of prototypes within its hardware engineering division. The company is targeting the start of

[Brian McCullough]

production as early as December, ahead of

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

a public release in 2027. Employees say the company initially developed the hardware by embedding electronics and cameras into

[Brian McCullough]

the off the shelf frames from a

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

variety of popular brands.

[Brian McCullough]

Apple at one point even discussed relying on partnerships to launch the product.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Following a broader industry trend. Meta works with Essilor Luxottica while Google has team with Warby Parker.

[Brian McCullough]

More recently, however, Apple decided to develop its own frames in house in a

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

variety of styles and colors. Early prototypes of the glasses connect via a cable to a standalone battery pack and an iPhone, but newer versions have the components embedded in the frame. The design uses high end materials, including acrylic elements intended to give the glasses a premium feel. Apple is already discussing launching the device in additional styles over time.

[Brian McCullough]

The glasses will include two camera lenses, one for high resolution imagery and another

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

dedicated to computer vision, a technology similar what's used in the Vision Pro. The second sensor is designed to give the device environmental context, helping it more accurately interpret surroundings and measure distance between objects.

[Brian McCullough]

The goal is for the glasses to function as an all day AI companion

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

capable of understanding what a user is seeing and doing in real time. Wearers could look at an object and ask what it is and get assistance with everyday tasks. That could mean inquiring about ingredients in a meal, for instance.

[Brian McCullough]

Apple is also exploring more advanced uses.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

The glasses could read printed text and convert it into digital data, say by adding the information on an event poster directly to a calendar.

[Brian McCullough]

The device could also create context aware

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

reminders, such as prompting a user to grab an item when they're looking at the right shelf in a grocery store.

[Brian McCullough]

For navigation, Siri could reference real world

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

landmarks rather than just giving more generic instructions. The assistant could tell users to walk past a described building or vehicle before making a turn.

[Brian McCullough]

Of course, some users prefer not to wear something on their face, especially if

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

they don't already have glasses. Apple is aiming to serve that market with its other wearable AI devices, the pendant and the camera equipped AirPods.

[Brian McCullough]

Apple's industrial design team hatched the pendant

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

idea while working on the glasses before they had settled on a design for that product. The device is reminiscent of the failed

[Brian McCullough]

Humane AI pin, but it's designed as

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

an iPhone accessory rather than a standalone product. The Pendant would essentially serve as an

[Brian McCullough]

always on camera for the smartphone that

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

also includes a microphone for Siri input. Some Apple employees call it the eyes and ears of the phone. One area of debate for the product has been whether or not to include a speaker, which would allow users to hold back and forth conversations with the device directly. That means they could leave their iPhone in their pocket or bag and not wear AirPods.

[Brian McCullough]

The AirPods, though planned for as early as this year, have been in development

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

for a while, with Bloomberg News first reporting in early 2024 that Apple was exploring camera equipped earbuds. The company has steadily added AI features

[Brian McCullough]

to the product, including new live translation

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

modes introduced last year, end quote.

[Brian McCullough]

Finally, Microsoft is developing a new way

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

to store digits and therefore knowledge. Quoting Gizmodo Our knowledge of the past

[Brian McCullough]

comes from stone tablets and old parchment,

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

but thousands of years from now, our

[Brian McCullough]

descendants may learn of our lives from

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

a thin slice of glass carrying an

[Brian McCullough]

impressive load of data, all thanks to physics that sounds borderline magical. Today, Microsoft's project Silica unveiled the latest technological advances in what is essentially laser

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

modified glass storage for sensitive data described in a Nature paper.

[Brian McCullough]

The system, called Silica, works somewhat like a multidimensional cd, but the revolutionary, perhaps

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

strange aspect of the technique is that

[Brian McCullough]

it harnesses the properties of light to encode gigabits of data within a tiny square of borosilica glass roughly 0.08 inches or 2 millimeters thick.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

What's more, the material could theoretically last

[Brian McCullough]

10,000 years, potentially making it the ultimate storage device.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

Existing options such as magnetic tape, data storage all eventually wear out. Silica's primary innovation lies in its novel modification technique, which the team calls the phase voxel.

[Brian McCullough]

Contrary to Southampton's blueprint, phase voxels use differences in the phase of light wavelengths

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

to record data in voxels or a

[Brian McCullough]

three dimensional equivalent of a pixel.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

It only takes a single zap of the femtosecond laser to engrave the voxels onto the glass surface. The durability of Silica should offer huge

[Brian McCullough]

benefits for researchers, engineers, and more especially

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

as we live in an era of information overload.

[Brian McCullough]

With Silica, users can write the data into the glass, and then once it's done, then it's done.

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

There's no ongoing cost, one researcher said.

[Brian McCullough]

And when we talk to people, that's

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

actually a really big change.

[Brian McCullough]

This will change the way we think

[Tech Brew Ride Home Co-host]

about keeping data and archival preservation. End quote. Alright, I couldn't resist doing one more. I asked Gemini's AI Music Generator for a podcast theme song in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan, but I don't know, this kind of sounds a bit like something from the soundtrack of a Miyazaki movie. Maybe. Enjoy.

[AI Music Generator]

The daily toil at last is done. We've pondered on the latest tech and held our friendly chats in check. So hear the joyful, jovial theme of the Tech Brew Ride Home a Happy Dream. It's the Tech Brew Ride Home a Happy Dream. The Tech Brew Ride Home a Happy Dream.