Woah. The final episode of season four! Join us for the party:
We talk about augmented reality Ikea apps and ELON…
Last week we forgot to talk about the new ARkit in iOS 11. Basically, it turns any iPhone or iPad into an augmented reality armed powerhouse. Check out this cycling route app that a developer put together extremely quickly:
My bike ride in AR. (Unity + ARKit + Mapbox + Strava) pic.twitter.com/g2uVwVlM3h
— Adam Debreczeni (@heyadam) June 7, 2017
Apple adding podcast analytics to their Podcasts app
Really like the Apple executives (Phill Schiller, Craig Federrici)
The Verge published a book excerpt about “the secret origin of the iPhone” and it’s a great read – https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15782200/one-device-secret-history-iphone-brian-merchant-book-excerpt
Tim Cook admits that Apple is “focused on autonomous systems” – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/cook-says-apple-is-focusing-on-making-an-autonomous-car-system
Travis Kalanick taking leave of absence from Uber: https://twitter.com/i/moments/874677333789159425
Board member resigned this morning. Uber is a mess.
THE MUSK ZONE
Few people know that we started Tesla when GM forcibly recalled all electric cars from customers in 2003 & then crushed them in a junkyard
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2017
US govt testing by @NHTSAgov finds Model X to be the safest SUV in history by significant margin https://t.co/zAdb5FQPEI
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 13, 2017
Worm grows two heads in space – https://www.livescience.com/59461-worm-grows-two-heads-in-space.html
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Hey Sam and Shannon,
Just saw this and wondered if you had tried it out yet. Sounds like an Alexa that is not always listening. I have so far resisted assistants that are always monitoring. But is Alexa like Siri in that it answers questions or is it just for shopping? I guess I am foggy on AI avatars and their associated devices and overlords- Alexa on Echo for Amazon, Siri on Apple devices for Apple, Google? on Google Home for Google?
Sorry – I was referring to the Amazon Dash Wand.
Hi John,
The new Amazon Dash Wand that was announced today does have Alexa built in. You need to press a button to get her to start listening to you. Since it’s a battery-powered device, it does not listen all the time, otherwise it would kill the battery too quickly. Another limitation of the new wand is that you cannot play music through it, which is there because of the battery constraint. Listening to music through a wand probably isn’t the best experience, anyhow.
There is another Alexa device called the Echo Tab. It’s like a portable, battery-powered smart speaker. When it first came out, you needed to push a button to get Alexa to listen to you. After a while, Amazon updated the software to make it listen all the time.
If you’re worried about snooping microphones in your house, it might be best to avoid these things completely. One day Amazon could theoretically send out a software update that made the wand listen all the time.
I bought the new wand today to take advantage of a deal they were running for Prime members. It was $20, and after I receive it and register the product, I will get $20 awarded to my Amazon account. Too cheap to pass up!