December 19, 2025 • 27 mins
Are you a gift go-getter, or a holiday procrastinator? This week, Karah spoke with Kyle Chayka, tech writer for The New Yorker and author of the book “Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture”. They talk about his gadget gift guide, how analog products are back in style, and why books are his preferred gift of choice. Oz also shares the hottest toy of the year: a console that helps the whole family stay active.
Additional Reading:
- The Hottest Toy of the Year Is Made by a Tech Startup You’ve Never Heard Of
- A Holiday Gift Guide: The Newest Strangest Gadgets and Apps
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. This is tech stuff. I'm
as Valoshian and I'm Cara Price, and you may be
able to tell from both of our nasal voices that
it's the holiday season. It's that time of year, and
we bring you a special holiday episode.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
That's right, we are bringing you a rundown of the
best tech gifts to give all the people in your life,
from your in laws to your frenemy.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We're going to hear what The New Yorker's Internet Culture
columnist Kyle Chaker recommends.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
And I will be reviewing the present I gave to
myself this holiday season, the Meta ray band glasses.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
All of that on the Weekend Tech. It's Friday, December nineteenth.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hello Cara, Hi ass, How are you other than a
little bit nasal?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
A little bit nasal, but otherwise very excited for the
time of year. Love holidays.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I love the holidays. Ding ding ding ding. I'm curious
when you gear up to go gift shopping, do you
look at gift guides for inspiration or do you just
like go for it.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You know, I don't have kids, so I have three
people to whom I gift Both of my parents who
I give wine, Yes, and my wife would I give
whatever she asked for what I had surprise gifts. But
then I was like, you know what, You're always going
to like the thing more if you've chosen it, so
let's just do that.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So I'm not a huge gift guy.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I like you.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
But on the other hand, I like gift guys because
I like to know what's up.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I also like to know what other people are interested,
you know what. And I think that like.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
There is a good distillation of the culture.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I think, absolutely it's a distillation of the culture, and
I think it's sort of a nice year in review.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Absolutely. Have you heard of something called The Next Playground? No?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I have not.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I hadn't either, but it took the number one spot
for Amazon's Toys and Games category on Black Friday. My god,
I've basically been out of stock since then because there's
so much demand for it.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
And what is it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
It's a console. It's a gaming console but with no controllers.
So it basically looks like a Rubik's cube that lives
under your TV, and it has a camera and the
camera basically watches you and it connects to the TV.
So the TV becomes a game screen and you're playing
in augmented reality. You're basically moving shapes.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Family AR.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
It's family AR, and kids are absolutely obsessed and they're
dancing around in front of the TV, moving shapes on
the screen. And parents love it because feel slightly less
guilty watching their kids interactive TV than they do just
locked into the phone.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
That actually does appeal to me, because my obviously devisive
choice is a phone, which makes me completely Sedentaryah.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Imagine all the fun of your phone on a big screen.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That's amazing. That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
It actually began the company next as Believe it or not,
an AI powered tool to analyze and improve basketball shot maker.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I always love those stories where it started as one
thing and ended up being something else.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It turns out that there wasn't enough demand for kids
to true optimized their boss care.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
They weren't good enough kids.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, they weren't enough good kids. So they pivoted a
couple of times and ended up building the hottest console
in America. It's marketed exclusively at families with young children,
and it's much cheaper than mainstream consoles. Two hundred and
forty nine dollars to buy it. And then of course
Daniel subscription of eighty nine dollars.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
But still, I mean that's for the entire family. Fun.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah, that's amazing. The pictures of the pictures of I
mean it really it looks it looks fun. It looks
like an engage.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
You buy this for someone.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
If I had kids, I would definitely buy it.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
It sounds really fun. Well, I got myself a little
tech item this year.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
You did.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, that I've been kind of coveting and I've been
covering it. One because I look so good in glasses,
and two because fortunately or unfortunately, I am a meta
super user. I'm on Instagram constantly, I'm on my phone constantly,
and I was curious about wearing my camera in my glasses.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
This is the meta raybend glass.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
This is the meta ray band.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
You're wearing glasses right now.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
These these they these are not there. These are not there,
And I'm going to take them off and I'm going
to give you my honest review. Mike is looking at us,
our producer, He's like, okay, look good. Well they're ray bands.
They're ray band wayfarers.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
And there's no hint from where I'm sitting that you
are a cybi right now, just like no one lost.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I just want to be clear, and this might be
a little less exciting. I do not have the ray
band metaglasses that have ar filter in the eye. There
are ray band glasses where you're putting it on and
it's literally telling you, like where you're going in the world.
So this is simply a camera in my glasses. Okay,
here are the features that it has. You can basically
not be on your phone and take like incredibly high
(04:44):
quality video and pictures of anything that I'm looking at
in the room, Like right now, just took a picture
of you. Wow, literally and.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
It went, yeah, yeah, that's wound me.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I guess the previously I'm going to take a picture
of you. There we go. What I'm doing here is
I'm just pressing a button on my frames.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And both a noise and light witch flashes.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Like right now, I'm taking a video of you, and
you can sort of see it. It's a long hold yeah,
and the light flash light flashing, and then I let
go and it stops. Now what I could do is
that I could take that photo of you and type
in a prompt to Meta AI, which is the software
that goes along with these glasses.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So you have an app which is attached to the glasses.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
That's correct, that's where the pictures go. So I can
say in the app, make oz dance around the studio
with the photo that I just created, and lo and
behold Meta AI, much like Sora, will create a video
of you dancing around the studio and it's a very
hyper realistic AI rendering of you dancing. The thing that
(05:48):
I want to try here is such a cool feature
that I just tried very recently, which is the AI
translation feature. You speak German a little bit, so right now,
what I can do with these glasses is as I'm
wearing them, basically what's gonna happen is You're going to
say something to me in German, and my headphones which
are in this these glasses, are going to read them
(06:10):
back to me in English.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yes, Hello Libakara, as Futek there does send here so
samon houter.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Hello dear Kara. I am very pleased that we are
here together today.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
That's what I said.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I mean, that's crazy. Come on, that's incredible, and it
set it into my ears.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
That is unbelievable. One more time, h Ishbinambisi and.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I'm a little sick today, and I'm a little sick today,
and so are you. That's like the un that's pretty cool.
You have to say, I have to be honest, and
I am like, obviously the opposite of a technoskeptic. I
found like I embrace this technology so wholeheartedly. But you know,
it's funny. Before this, I'm not going to go off
(06:57):
on too much of a tangent, but before this, I
was talking to one of the wonderful iHeart producers, Katrina Norvell,
and she was very much like, you know, it's just
meta co opting your time, just meta co opting your time.
And I said, you know what.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
It's fun. It's really fun.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
It's really fun to surprise and delight my mother with
a photo of her sitting in a chair and saying,
please make my mom sing and dance to me in Spanish,
and it.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Does that with a photo that's as similar to the
next cube. It's like, yeah, this kind of ability to
sort of manipulate your reality live in a way which
also allows you to engage other people. It just is fun.
It is. I do have a more serious question, please,
why did you give them to yourself and not to me.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Because I want them fair enough. I wear them all
around town. I just also think it's fun, you know what,
for someone like me who is constantly taking out my
phone as like a reflex. This is really for people
who are trying to take photos and take video and
not be on their phone now of course.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
But do you actually use them in real life yet?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
No, not really. They're still a kind of gag for me,
and I think they will remain as such.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
But if you had kids, if I had kids, if
you have kids, the mission of your life is.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Interesting though, that like technology kind of or having a
child brings you around to a technology that you're kind
of left out of if you don't have children, Like
I would never buy the next Cube for myself. I'd
be dancing around my apartment alone. It'd be very weird.
It'd be very weird. So I would buy you these.
I think. I don't think this is something that your
wife wants.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I don't. I don't think so. But I mean I
just in general, and if you bring a presence to
the studio for yourself, I think it'd be you know,
it'd be nice for me as well.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Sorry, I had an orange juice from press juice. Sorry,
if you want that, that can't really do anything for you.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Okay, I forgive you because I know you brought me
another gift, which is the gift of a conversation with
Kyle Chaca.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I did. I did. I'm very excited to tell you
about a gift guide that really piqued my interest, which
was written by the one Kyle Chaka. He is a
staff writer at The New Yorker. He writes about tech
and Internet culture in a column called Infinite Scroll name
by the way, it's a great name. And he also
wrote a book that has a great name, which is
called Filter World, How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Today, I'm bringing
(09:08):
you this interview with him because he wrote to me
the best gift guide on the Internet, Wow, and it's
focused on the newest, strangest gadgets and apps.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I actually read the list too, and I thought it
was great. And what I thought was very interesting about
it was not just the individual products that he featured,
but this kind of frame that he had, which is,
there's a crazy moment happening where chips and screens and
other component parts have never been cheaper, and so basically,
whatever you can dream, you can manufacture in China in
(09:39):
thirtys It turns out a human sized robot servant, which
I was hoping you brings to.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
This that I was gonna say, I should have actually
bought you the twenty thousand dollars Neo Home robot, which
he actually didn't endorse because I think it's only available
for pre order. As I said, it's twenty thousand dollars.
But it's a great example of the types of things
that Kyle is marveling at right now, the surrealist phase
personal technology, where sort of anything you can dream of
you can build. This is exactly what inspired Kyle to
(10:07):
write this gift guide, So I'll just let Kyle take
it away.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
My criteria for this was funny tech kind of It's like,
not the optimized gadget. It's not the latest or release
or the most powerful thing. It's like that thing that
you don't know exists, and when you buy it, you're like, Wow,
I'm so happy that that some factory in China has
melded these tech gadgets together. And that's how you get
(10:34):
the swipe touch screen vape that gives you social I'm
obsessed with the Swipe.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I'm obsessed with the swipe and doesn't have weather.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
It has weather, it has Spotify.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
When you're vaping outside, you need to know what the
weather is.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
It's also not that expensive, no fifteen dollars.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
It just made me think that maybe you can put
a touch screen on anything, like.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
An he likes to put a touch screen on this
cup of coffee.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Yeah exactly, you can.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
And then I could run ads on it would be
like Taxi TV.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Yes, ads on your coffee cup. Feels like a twenty
twenty five innovation.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
This might have just created something.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Yeah exactly, But I think like the swipe vape and
this Noasuma mini projector that I bought for fifty dollars
for like a rental house weekend, that those are the
patron saints.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And were you a king for that projector?
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Like yeah, yeah, it worked amazingly. Yeah, and the projector
runs Netflix itself.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
It's incredible.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
It blew my mind and I was like, wow, this
is this is now banal like technology that I would
have found miraculous as like a twelve year old, let
alone like a thirty year old now exists and is
delivered to me for fifty dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
That is incredible.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Well, This was also the appeal of doing this gift guide.
Like the gadget is a really fun category, right, and
like the gadget is the fun version of technology. And
I feel like we no longer have fun on our
phones or our laptops, so we need other devices to.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
To actually have fun with. I really liked the books
the books m I actually run like a big Instagram
book club, and I'm a big reader, and I was
just curious if you could talk a little bit about
the books.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah, the books. I actually don't know if it's books
or books. I would assume because it is a good
reading device. But it's kind of like an iPhone sized
or a smartphone sized e ink screen that can run
a lot of apps. It can be a kind of
replacement phone, but it's also just like a nicer reading
device that fits in your pocket. So instead of you know,
(12:37):
scrolling through TikTok or loading the New York Times games
or whatever, you can read e inc and save your
eyes and your brain.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Kyle, can you remind me what e inc is.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
E inc is a physical screen with physical pixels in it,
So instead of like a digital screen lighting up with
different colors, an e ink screen is made of little
physical gold bits that switch from white to black or
different colors as the case may be now, and like
e ink is another one of those things that has
advanced hugely in recent years, and we just don't you
(13:11):
don't necessarily know, Like if you're not keeping up with
these weird new gadgets, you don't know that there is
better e inc out there.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Now.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
You're not keeping tabs on the e ink space.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Yeah you are, though, I am, because it's very interesting.
Like this other device I listed, the Daylight, It's like
a very colorful, very smooth, high refresh rate e ink tablet,
and it's just so interesting, Like that's I didn't know
that that existed and now it does.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I also saw that you recommended my favorite worst advertised
AI device, the friend Penn.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Yes, yes, that was I recommended it to give to
your enemy or your frenemy. So maybe it's a passive
aggressive gift.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
I feel like if you're giving someone an AI companion,
you're kind of implying something negative about them, like maybe
they could use it. Well, here's here's an idea. Maybe
instead of giving someone an AI chatbot, you can just
text them a lot like, yeah, you could see the chatbot.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
It's a similar thing. Yeah, and also if you give
sycophantic advice, then you're definitely chat gybt. But what is
the friend exactly?
Speaker 3 (14:24):
It's this little pendant.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
It's a kind of like rounded thing that hangs on
a necklace around your neck, and it listens to your conversations,
It listens to your surroundings, and it texts your phone.
So this the AI independant, listens to everything, translates it
into language, understands it in whatever way it's capable of,
and then kind of commentates on your life. But as
(14:48):
people who have tested it found out, it's actually very
mean to you.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Like it.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
It's not a nice chatbot.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
No, it's not a nice chatbot, So it'll kind of
mock you for what you do every day.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
That's something that I kind of want to get someone.
Then if it was mean, that would not would be
like that wasn't my problem. I didn't really check it out.
I just thought the idea was cool.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Yeah, it is the kind of thing that you want
to play with and try out but not have to
pay for.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Maybe that's that's why you would give it as a gift.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So I just got Meta ray bands, and I have
to say I went into it being very skeptical, I think,
because I was like, why do I want Instagram in
my glasses? And I have to say that, like, I
actually found them to be a lot cooler than I
thought I would.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
I mean, it seems like the inevitable future, Like I
think we are tired of our phones, and VR seems
like a dead end to me. I mean, Meta has
already disinvested from the metaverse, so I think the only
answer is to put digital information over your view of
the real world and the way that we already basically
(15:57):
do by like staring at our phones we walk around.
So it does seem a little inevitable, and I expect
that in a year or two will be much farther
along that path. The translation features seem really wild to me,
like the real time translation.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
That even the music in the ear is very cool,
and that's like, so, I mean people always have air pods,
like this is nothing new. There's just something interesting about
music coming out of your actual glasses.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
And that's like, I feel like that's what makes a
great new gadget. It's like a thing that you didn't
think was possible in this little physical form, and that's
what the iPhone was. But it hasn't been that for
like a decade.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
To think of the iPhone as a gadget and not
a necessity, it's not as a sort of necessary appendage
of life is so like to I mean, originally it's like, ooh,
look at this gadget I have. Now it's like, if
you don't have the gadget, you don't participate in modern society.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
You are not alive.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Actually literally budget it's so crazy.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Yeah, so that's why we like funnier gadgets or goofier gadgets.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
After the break, Kyle and I discussed the best anti
tech technology for all the Luddites in your life Stay
with us. You have a section in the guide about
streaming services. For someone who has so many streaming services,
(17:24):
I actually never considered giving a streaming service as a
gift because it's a recurring it's kind of a recurring cost, which.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Yeah, yeah, you're putting someone on the hook a little bit,
but you're also like subsidizing it for them.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
But so you said that, just I wanted to quote
something that you said, and the piece that giving someone
a subscription to a new streaming service is a little
like buying them a membership to an art museum. It's
a hint that their cultural consumption habits could stand a
little improvement. Does your judgment of other people's taste and
form your gift giving? Would you say?
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I think so?
Speaker 4 (17:59):
But in a positive way, like like I don't want
to give someone something that they are not going to like, right, right,
But it's just like not in their zone. Like I
wouldn't give a membership to an art museum to someone
who I knew did not like art. Yeah, you have
to know what you're getting into. Like some people are
crunchy Roll people for anime, some people are BritBox people
(18:22):
for detective series.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
First of all, have you given a streaming service as
a gift?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (18:27):
So my wife and I gave her parents, my in laws,
a Criteria subscription for a year.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That's a bold gift.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It is.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
But they watch a lot of streaming television, so they're
they're always running out of movies.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
And you're like, here's some movies that you may not like.
As older parents of my wife, I try.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I respect their taste though, Like they're my mother in
law took a class on Hitchcock films recently, so it's
like a kind of it's aspirational but not out of
the range.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Let's say, what was their reaction being given an intangible gift.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I think they liked it.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
They were like this email log in.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Well we did.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
We added it to their television while we were there.
But I think I don't know intangible gifts. I kind
of grew up with that a little bit. It's kind
of like, you know, an IOU or like you're gonna
get whatever bike you want or something like that. So
in a way, I feel like it fits.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
The IOU, though, is like the least sincere gift to me?
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I do I agree with that?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
What is your favorite streaming service? Just out of curiosity?
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Oh man, I really like a Doggio, which I also
put in the in the gift guide. It's a classical
music streaming service and I don't know anything for music. Yeah,
it like makes it easy to navigate, and I mean
now on Spotify it is so awash with AI garbage.
It's like I can't I can't navigate it. And at
(20:00):
least on a Dodgio, you know that these are all
humans like.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Playing classical music. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
You're in no doubt whatsoever that this is a real
thing from real people, which nowadays is kind of a
scarce commodity.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
That's cool.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Nugs you could also get for a very specific friend,
And I think it came out of Phish concert.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Tapes originally interesting.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
And so it's like a jam band's live performance streaming service,
slash archive Nugs, nugs, nugs dot.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Net as it has to be.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
At it's definitely a dot net.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I was really taken by your anti technology technology section,
and like on the show this year, we talked a
lot about, you know, how important it is to decrease
your screen time and how like unplugging is actually this
luxury now like it's almost like things that help you
unplug our luxury goods.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Yes, that's totally true.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
And so I was curious, like, when you were putting
this together, what made you decide to make this a section?
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Honestly my own experience, Like, I think this year has
been a year of anti technology tech for me as
I've tried to find ways to get off of screens
more often. Yeah, and some have really worked for me,
And so I kind of thought, what is the more
expanded sense of anti tech technology.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
You mentioned Brick.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, Brick is really popular.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Have you used Brick?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, And can you give me a quick description of
how brick actually works.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
You set it up on your phone. In the app,
you select which apps you want to block for yourself,
and then you activate the blocked apps by tapping the
Brick that you have in your house. And so once
you tap it, it's locked, you tap it again, it's unlocked.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Do you use Brick?
Speaker 4 (21:50):
I use Opal, the Opal app, which just like blocks
apps on your phone and has this kind of interface
for getting you off social media during the workday, for example.
Like I found that that really worked for me and
I could contain it within my phone. But you know,
brick for the for the real addicts or the person
who locks their phone in one of those clear lock
(22:13):
boxes on a timer, Brick would probably be really good.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
You also put a digital camera. Can you talk a
little bit about that, the FUJIFILM slash half.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Yeah, there's been a whole rash of digital cameras lately
that mimic film and.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Kids are using them like the kids are using them
like crazy.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Huge trends. There's a huge expanded market for quote unquote
vintage digital cameras, which were just like the avant garde
things that I played with as a kid in the
early two thousands. But the Fujifilm has been really on
this trend, and they have these cameras that mimic film
formats and film aesthetics, and they also look like film cameras.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
And you like, you like the Fujifilm one.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yes, yeah, they're really great.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Do you find that people like interacting with you? They're
just like, on a personal basis or on a reader basis,
are like, please give me more analog.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Mm hmm. For sure.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
They want analog experiences. They want irl stuff, They want
buttons and switches and not just touch screens.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
So I think there's a big urge toward that.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Isn't that so interesting?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:20):
I mean I think we're all sick of screens and
fictionless digital interaction, and we realize how bad it is
for us and how bad it is for the world
at large.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So part of the interest in analog is like, actually
in creating a more friction filled experience for the user.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
I think, so slowing down, making it a little harder
to do things or more complicated to do things, and
that slowing down forces you to think about the act
more well.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I just have one question about books. Do you, as
a writer like to give out book recommendations?
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I do. I really like to give books as gifts.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Books being the ultimate analog object.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
And a great representation or fulfillment of taste, because you
are saying, I know this book is good, and I
think it will work for you from your personality and worldview.
So the right book gift communicates a lot.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Was there any book that you would be giving out
this year other than your own?
Speaker 4 (24:18):
I have given this one book a lot, which is
in praise of Shadows by Geni Trio Tanazaki, and it's
this Japanese novelist who wrote an essay in nineteen thirty
four I want to say about what it was like
when Tokyo started adding electric lights and how electricity and
(24:39):
trains and industrialization changed the culture of Japan from his
own personal perspective, and I just feel like it's this
tiny book, it's really beautiful, makes a perfect object gift.
So I've given out probably a dozen copies of that
over the years.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
That sounds like a very good gift. Is there any
gadget that I left out that you were like, this
is I was so excited to put this on the list.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
I think this whole range of.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Semi illegal emulator video games where you like buy a
little fake game Boy, but all of a sudden it
has like ten different consoles and a thousand games on
it for like one hundred dollars or less.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I think that that's kind of you know.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Twelve year old me would have freaked out so mind
blown by yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, the retrosnap Play or
the Amber Nick RG forty XXV. The other thing I
liked about doing this guide was that the names are
so random and crazy.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
They're crazy, That's what that was my favorite thing about
reading it. It seemed like a McSweeney's article, I'll be honest, but.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
It's like it's all the same phenomenon. I think because
like these gadgets have these spammy names because now it's
just like a thing you click on on Amazon right, Like,
it doesn't the brand name doesn't matter, the maker doesn't.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Matter, fifty care. It's like a fifty word title of
a Yeah, the thing that you're buying.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Everything should be named by SEO. It just fifteen inch
eat ink screen high battery power, loaded with one thousand games,
color purple, shiny devices like I think, I think that's
the epitome of naming. Actually it should just be literal
and a string of twenty words.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Big computer for traveler, fifteen fifteen inch, fifteen inch mouse
for Traveler and robot dog.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Yes, just wide monitor, curve, display tower, Mac shiny black,
two hundred and fifty six gigabyte.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
This is a great mad libs.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
I mean, the touchscreen, vape, social media alert, disposable, whatever
is that. It's just it is a mad libs of
technology and it's real and it.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Really is it Really it's kind of fun that you
can buy a mad libs of technology. Yeah, well, thank
you so much, Kyla. Really appreciate you taking the time
to talk to me today.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Thank you. This is very fun.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
That's it for this week for tech stuff. I'm Kara
Price and I'm as Voloscan.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
This episode was produced by Elisa, Dennis Tyler Hill and
Melissa Slaughter. It was executive produced by me Kara Price,
Julian Nutter, and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Novel
for iHeart Podcasts. The engineer is Mike Cascarelli and Jack
Insley makes this episode. Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Join us next Wednesday for a roundup of our favorite
Internet trends of twenty twenty five with writer and podcaster
Ami not Too So. We round up our favorite Internet
trends of twenty twenty five, brain rot and otherwise.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
And please do rate and review the show wherever you listen,
and reach out to us at tech Stuff Podcast at
gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
We want to hear from you.
From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. This is tech stuff. I'm
as Valoshian and I'm Cara Price, and you may be
able to tell from both of our nasal voices that
it's the holiday season. It's that time of year, and
we bring you a special holiday episode.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
That's right, we are bringing you a rundown of the
best tech gifts to give all the people in your life,
from your in laws to your frenemy.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We're going to hear what The New Yorker's Internet Culture
columnist Kyle Chaker recommends.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
And I will be reviewing the present I gave to
myself this holiday season, the Meta ray band glasses.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
All of that on the Weekend Tech. It's Friday, December nineteenth.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hello Cara, Hi ass, How are you other than a
little bit nasal?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
A little bit nasal, but otherwise very excited for the
time of year. Love holidays.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I love the holidays. Ding ding ding ding. I'm curious
when you gear up to go gift shopping, do you
look at gift guides for inspiration or do you just
like go for it.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You know, I don't have kids, so I have three
people to whom I gift Both of my parents who
I give wine, Yes, and my wife would I give
whatever she asked for what I had surprise gifts. But
then I was like, you know what, You're always going
to like the thing more if you've chosen it, so
let's just do that.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So I'm not a huge gift guy.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I like you.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
But on the other hand, I like gift guys because
I like to know what's up.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I also like to know what other people are interested,
you know what. And I think that like.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
There is a good distillation of the culture.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I think, absolutely it's a distillation of the culture, and
I think it's sort of a nice year in review.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Absolutely. Have you heard of something called The Next Playground? No?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I have not.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I hadn't either, but it took the number one spot
for Amazon's Toys and Games category on Black Friday. My god,
I've basically been out of stock since then because there's
so much demand for it.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
And what is it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
It's a console. It's a gaming console but with no controllers.
So it basically looks like a Rubik's cube that lives
under your TV, and it has a camera and the
camera basically watches you and it connects to the TV.
So the TV becomes a game screen and you're playing
in augmented reality. You're basically moving shapes.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Family AR.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
It's family AR, and kids are absolutely obsessed and they're
dancing around in front of the TV, moving shapes on
the screen. And parents love it because feel slightly less
guilty watching their kids interactive TV than they do just
locked into the phone.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
That actually does appeal to me, because my obviously devisive
choice is a phone, which makes me completely Sedentaryah.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Imagine all the fun of your phone on a big screen.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That's amazing. That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
It actually began the company next as Believe it or not,
an AI powered tool to analyze and improve basketball shot maker.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I always love those stories where it started as one
thing and ended up being something else.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It turns out that there wasn't enough demand for kids
to true optimized their boss care.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
They weren't good enough kids.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, they weren't enough good kids. So they pivoted a
couple of times and ended up building the hottest console
in America. It's marketed exclusively at families with young children,
and it's much cheaper than mainstream consoles. Two hundred and
forty nine dollars to buy it. And then of course
Daniel subscription of eighty nine dollars.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
But still, I mean that's for the entire family. Fun.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah, that's amazing. The pictures of the pictures of I
mean it really it looks it looks fun. It looks
like an engage.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
You buy this for someone.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
If I had kids, I would definitely buy it.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
It sounds really fun. Well, I got myself a little
tech item this year.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
You did.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, that I've been kind of coveting and I've been
covering it. One because I look so good in glasses,
and two because fortunately or unfortunately, I am a meta
super user. I'm on Instagram constantly, I'm on my phone constantly,
and I was curious about wearing my camera in my glasses.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
This is the meta raybend glass.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
This is the meta ray band.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
You're wearing glasses right now.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
These these they these are not there. These are not there,
And I'm going to take them off and I'm going
to give you my honest review. Mike is looking at us,
our producer, He's like, okay, look good. Well they're ray bands.
They're ray band wayfarers.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
And there's no hint from where I'm sitting that you
are a cybi right now, just like no one lost.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I just want to be clear, and this might be
a little less exciting. I do not have the ray
band metaglasses that have ar filter in the eye. There
are ray band glasses where you're putting it on and
it's literally telling you, like where you're going in the world.
So this is simply a camera in my glasses. Okay,
here are the features that it has. You can basically
not be on your phone and take like incredibly high
(04:44):
quality video and pictures of anything that I'm looking at
in the room, Like right now, just took a picture
of you. Wow, literally and.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
It went, yeah, yeah, that's wound me.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I guess the previously I'm going to take a picture
of you. There we go. What I'm doing here is
I'm just pressing a button on my frames.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And both a noise and light witch flashes.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Like right now, I'm taking a video of you, and
you can sort of see it. It's a long hold yeah,
and the light flash light flashing, and then I let
go and it stops. Now what I could do is
that I could take that photo of you and type
in a prompt to Meta AI, which is the software
that goes along with these glasses.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So you have an app which is attached to the glasses.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
That's correct, that's where the pictures go. So I can
say in the app, make oz dance around the studio
with the photo that I just created, and lo and
behold Meta AI, much like Sora, will create a video
of you dancing around the studio and it's a very
hyper realistic AI rendering of you dancing. The thing that
(05:48):
I want to try here is such a cool feature
that I just tried very recently, which is the AI
translation feature. You speak German a little bit, so right now,
what I can do with these glasses is as I'm
wearing them, basically what's gonna happen is You're going to
say something to me in German, and my headphones which
are in this these glasses, are going to read them
(06:10):
back to me in English.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yes, Hello Libakara, as Futek there does send here so
samon houter.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Hello dear Kara. I am very pleased that we are
here together today.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
That's what I said.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I mean, that's crazy. Come on, that's incredible, and it
set it into my ears.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
That is unbelievable. One more time, h Ishbinambisi and.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I'm a little sick today, and I'm a little sick today,
and so are you. That's like the un that's pretty cool.
You have to say, I have to be honest, and
I am like, obviously the opposite of a technoskeptic. I
found like I embrace this technology so wholeheartedly. But you know,
it's funny. Before this, I'm not going to go off
(06:57):
on too much of a tangent, but before this, I
was talking to one of the wonderful iHeart producers, Katrina Norvell,
and she was very much like, you know, it's just
meta co opting your time, just meta co opting your time.
And I said, you know what.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
It's fun. It's really fun.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
It's really fun to surprise and delight my mother with
a photo of her sitting in a chair and saying,
please make my mom sing and dance to me in Spanish,
and it.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Does that with a photo that's as similar to the
next cube. It's like, yeah, this kind of ability to
sort of manipulate your reality live in a way which
also allows you to engage other people. It just is fun.
It is. I do have a more serious question, please,
why did you give them to yourself and not to me.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Because I want them fair enough. I wear them all
around town. I just also think it's fun, you know what,
for someone like me who is constantly taking out my
phone as like a reflex. This is really for people
who are trying to take photos and take video and
not be on their phone now of course.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
But do you actually use them in real life yet?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
No, not really. They're still a kind of gag for me,
and I think they will remain as such.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
But if you had kids, if I had kids, if
you have kids, the mission of your life is.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Interesting though, that like technology kind of or having a
child brings you around to a technology that you're kind
of left out of if you don't have children, Like
I would never buy the next Cube for myself. I'd
be dancing around my apartment alone. It'd be very weird.
It'd be very weird. So I would buy you these.
I think. I don't think this is something that your
wife wants.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I don't. I don't think so. But I mean I
just in general, and if you bring a presence to
the studio for yourself, I think it'd be you know,
it'd be nice for me as well.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Sorry, I had an orange juice from press juice. Sorry,
if you want that, that can't really do anything for you.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Okay, I forgive you because I know you brought me
another gift, which is the gift of a conversation with
Kyle Chaca.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I did. I did. I'm very excited to tell you
about a gift guide that really piqued my interest, which
was written by the one Kyle Chaka. He is a
staff writer at The New Yorker. He writes about tech
and Internet culture in a column called Infinite Scroll name
by the way, it's a great name. And he also
wrote a book that has a great name, which is
called Filter World, How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Today, I'm bringing
(09:08):
you this interview with him because he wrote to me
the best gift guide on the Internet, Wow, and it's
focused on the newest, strangest gadgets and apps.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I actually read the list too, and I thought it
was great. And what I thought was very interesting about
it was not just the individual products that he featured,
but this kind of frame that he had, which is,
there's a crazy moment happening where chips and screens and
other component parts have never been cheaper, and so basically,
whatever you can dream, you can manufacture in China in
(09:39):
thirtys It turns out a human sized robot servant, which
I was hoping you brings to.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
This that I was gonna say, I should have actually
bought you the twenty thousand dollars Neo Home robot, which
he actually didn't endorse because I think it's only available
for pre order. As I said, it's twenty thousand dollars.
But it's a great example of the types of things
that Kyle is marveling at right now, the surrealist phase
personal technology, where sort of anything you can dream of
you can build. This is exactly what inspired Kyle to
(10:07):
write this gift guide, So I'll just let Kyle take
it away.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
My criteria for this was funny tech kind of It's like,
not the optimized gadget. It's not the latest or release
or the most powerful thing. It's like that thing that
you don't know exists, and when you buy it, you're like, Wow,
I'm so happy that that some factory in China has
melded these tech gadgets together. And that's how you get
(10:34):
the swipe touch screen vape that gives you social I'm
obsessed with the Swipe.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I'm obsessed with the swipe and doesn't have weather.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
It has weather, it has Spotify.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
When you're vaping outside, you need to know what the
weather is.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
It's also not that expensive, no fifteen dollars.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
It just made me think that maybe you can put
a touch screen on anything, like.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
An he likes to put a touch screen on this
cup of coffee.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Yeah exactly, you can.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
And then I could run ads on it would be
like Taxi TV.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Yes, ads on your coffee cup. Feels like a twenty
twenty five innovation.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
This might have just created something.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Yeah exactly, But I think like the swipe vape and
this Noasuma mini projector that I bought for fifty dollars
for like a rental house weekend, that those are the
patron saints.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And were you a king for that projector?
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Like yeah, yeah, it worked amazingly. Yeah, and the projector
runs Netflix itself.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
It's incredible.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
It blew my mind and I was like, wow, this
is this is now banal like technology that I would
have found miraculous as like a twelve year old, let
alone like a thirty year old now exists and is
delivered to me for fifty dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
That is incredible.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Well, This was also the appeal of doing this gift guide.
Like the gadget is a really fun category, right, and
like the gadget is the fun version of technology. And
I feel like we no longer have fun on our
phones or our laptops, so we need other devices to.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
To actually have fun with. I really liked the books
the books m I actually run like a big Instagram
book club, and I'm a big reader, and I was
just curious if you could talk a little bit about
the books.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah, the books. I actually don't know if it's books
or books. I would assume because it is a good
reading device. But it's kind of like an iPhone sized
or a smartphone sized e ink screen that can run
a lot of apps. It can be a kind of
replacement phone, but it's also just like a nicer reading
device that fits in your pocket. So instead of you know,
(12:37):
scrolling through TikTok or loading the New York Times games
or whatever, you can read e inc and save your
eyes and your brain.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Kyle, can you remind me what e inc is.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
E inc is a physical screen with physical pixels in it,
So instead of like a digital screen lighting up with
different colors, an e ink screen is made of little
physical gold bits that switch from white to black or
different colors as the case may be now, and like
e ink is another one of those things that has
advanced hugely in recent years, and we just don't you
(13:11):
don't necessarily know, Like if you're not keeping up with
these weird new gadgets, you don't know that there is
better e inc out there.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Now.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
You're not keeping tabs on the e ink space.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Yeah you are, though, I am, because it's very interesting.
Like this other device I listed, the Daylight, It's like
a very colorful, very smooth, high refresh rate e ink tablet,
and it's just so interesting, Like that's I didn't know
that that existed and now it does.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I also saw that you recommended my favorite worst advertised
AI device, the friend Penn.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Yes, yes, that was I recommended it to give to
your enemy or your frenemy. So maybe it's a passive
aggressive gift.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
I feel like if you're giving someone an AI companion,
you're kind of implying something negative about them, like maybe
they could use it. Well, here's here's an idea. Maybe
instead of giving someone an AI chatbot, you can just
text them a lot like, yeah, you could see the chatbot.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
It's a similar thing. Yeah, and also if you give
sycophantic advice, then you're definitely chat gybt. But what is
the friend exactly?
Speaker 3 (14:24):
It's this little pendant.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
It's a kind of like rounded thing that hangs on
a necklace around your neck, and it listens to your conversations,
It listens to your surroundings, and it texts your phone.
So this the AI independant, listens to everything, translates it
into language, understands it in whatever way it's capable of,
and then kind of commentates on your life. But as
(14:48):
people who have tested it found out, it's actually very
mean to you.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Like it.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
It's not a nice chatbot.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
No, it's not a nice chatbot, So it'll kind of
mock you for what you do every day.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
That's something that I kind of want to get someone.
Then if it was mean, that would not would be
like that wasn't my problem. I didn't really check it out.
I just thought the idea was cool.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Yeah, it is the kind of thing that you want
to play with and try out but not have to
pay for.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Maybe that's that's why you would give it as a gift.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So I just got Meta ray bands, and I have
to say I went into it being very skeptical, I think,
because I was like, why do I want Instagram in
my glasses? And I have to say that, like, I
actually found them to be a lot cooler than I
thought I would.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
I mean, it seems like the inevitable future, Like I
think we are tired of our phones, and VR seems
like a dead end to me. I mean, Meta has
already disinvested from the metaverse, so I think the only
answer is to put digital information over your view of
the real world and the way that we already basically
(15:57):
do by like staring at our phones we walk around.
So it does seem a little inevitable, and I expect
that in a year or two will be much farther
along that path. The translation features seem really wild to me,
like the real time translation.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
That even the music in the ear is very cool,
and that's like, so, I mean people always have air pods,
like this is nothing new. There's just something interesting about
music coming out of your actual glasses.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
And that's like, I feel like that's what makes a
great new gadget. It's like a thing that you didn't
think was possible in this little physical form, and that's
what the iPhone was. But it hasn't been that for
like a decade.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
To think of the iPhone as a gadget and not
a necessity, it's not as a sort of necessary appendage
of life is so like to I mean, originally it's like, ooh,
look at this gadget I have. Now it's like, if
you don't have the gadget, you don't participate in modern society.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
You are not alive.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Actually literally budget it's so crazy.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Yeah, so that's why we like funnier gadgets or goofier gadgets.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
After the break, Kyle and I discussed the best anti
tech technology for all the Luddites in your life Stay
with us. You have a section in the guide about
streaming services. For someone who has so many streaming services,
(17:24):
I actually never considered giving a streaming service as a
gift because it's a recurring it's kind of a recurring cost, which.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Yeah, yeah, you're putting someone on the hook a little bit,
but you're also like subsidizing it for them.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
But so you said that, just I wanted to quote
something that you said, and the piece that giving someone
a subscription to a new streaming service is a little
like buying them a membership to an art museum. It's
a hint that their cultural consumption habits could stand a
little improvement. Does your judgment of other people's taste and
form your gift giving? Would you say?
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I think so?
Speaker 4 (17:59):
But in a positive way, like like I don't want
to give someone something that they are not going to like, right, right,
But it's just like not in their zone. Like I
wouldn't give a membership to an art museum to someone
who I knew did not like art. Yeah, you have
to know what you're getting into. Like some people are
crunchy Roll people for anime, some people are BritBox people
(18:22):
for detective series.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
First of all, have you given a streaming service as
a gift?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (18:27):
So my wife and I gave her parents, my in laws,
a Criteria subscription for a year.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That's a bold gift.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It is.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
But they watch a lot of streaming television, so they're
they're always running out of movies.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
And you're like, here's some movies that you may not like.
As older parents of my wife, I try.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I respect their taste though, Like they're my mother in
law took a class on Hitchcock films recently, so it's
like a kind of it's aspirational but not out of
the range.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Let's say, what was their reaction being given an intangible gift.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I think they liked it.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
They were like this email log in.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Well we did.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
We added it to their television while we were there.
But I think I don't know intangible gifts. I kind
of grew up with that a little bit. It's kind
of like, you know, an IOU or like you're gonna
get whatever bike you want or something like that. So
in a way, I feel like it fits.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
The IOU, though, is like the least sincere gift to me?
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I do I agree with that?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
What is your favorite streaming service? Just out of curiosity?
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Oh man, I really like a Doggio, which I also
put in the in the gift guide. It's a classical
music streaming service and I don't know anything for music. Yeah,
it like makes it easy to navigate, and I mean
now on Spotify it is so awash with AI garbage.
It's like I can't I can't navigate it. And at
(20:00):
least on a Dodgio, you know that these are all
humans like.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Playing classical music. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
You're in no doubt whatsoever that this is a real
thing from real people, which nowadays is kind of a
scarce commodity.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
That's cool.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Nugs you could also get for a very specific friend,
And I think it came out of Phish concert.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Tapes originally interesting.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
And so it's like a jam band's live performance streaming service,
slash archive Nugs, nugs, nugs dot.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Net as it has to be.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
At it's definitely a dot net.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I was really taken by your anti technology technology section,
and like on the show this year, we talked a
lot about, you know, how important it is to decrease
your screen time and how like unplugging is actually this
luxury now like it's almost like things that help you
unplug our luxury goods.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Yes, that's totally true.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
And so I was curious, like, when you were putting
this together, what made you decide to make this a section?
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Honestly my own experience, Like, I think this year has
been a year of anti technology tech for me as
I've tried to find ways to get off of screens
more often. Yeah, and some have really worked for me,
And so I kind of thought, what is the more
expanded sense of anti tech technology.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
You mentioned Brick.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, Brick is really popular.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Have you used Brick?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, And can you give me a quick description of
how brick actually works.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
You set it up on your phone. In the app,
you select which apps you want to block for yourself,
and then you activate the blocked apps by tapping the
Brick that you have in your house. And so once
you tap it, it's locked, you tap it again, it's unlocked.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Do you use Brick?
Speaker 4 (21:50):
I use Opal, the Opal app, which just like blocks
apps on your phone and has this kind of interface
for getting you off social media during the workday, for example.
Like I found that that really worked for me and
I could contain it within my phone. But you know,
brick for the for the real addicts or the person
who locks their phone in one of those clear lock
(22:13):
boxes on a timer, Brick would probably be really good.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
You also put a digital camera. Can you talk a
little bit about that, the FUJIFILM slash half.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Yeah, there's been a whole rash of digital cameras lately
that mimic film and.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Kids are using them like the kids are using them
like crazy.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Huge trends. There's a huge expanded market for quote unquote
vintage digital cameras, which were just like the avant garde
things that I played with as a kid in the
early two thousands. But the Fujifilm has been really on
this trend, and they have these cameras that mimic film
formats and film aesthetics, and they also look like film cameras.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
And you like, you like the Fujifilm one.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yes, yeah, they're really great.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Do you find that people like interacting with you? They're
just like, on a personal basis or on a reader basis,
are like, please give me more analog.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Mm hmm. For sure.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
They want analog experiences. They want irl stuff, They want
buttons and switches and not just touch screens.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
So I think there's a big urge toward that.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Isn't that so interesting?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:20):
I mean I think we're all sick of screens and
fictionless digital interaction, and we realize how bad it is
for us and how bad it is for the world
at large.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So part of the interest in analog is like, actually
in creating a more friction filled experience for the user.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
I think, so slowing down, making it a little harder
to do things or more complicated to do things, and
that slowing down forces you to think about the act
more well.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I just have one question about books. Do you, as
a writer like to give out book recommendations?
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I do. I really like to give books as gifts.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Books being the ultimate analog object.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
And a great representation or fulfillment of taste, because you
are saying, I know this book is good, and I
think it will work for you from your personality and worldview.
So the right book gift communicates a lot.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Was there any book that you would be giving out
this year other than your own?
Speaker 4 (24:18):
I have given this one book a lot, which is
in praise of Shadows by Geni Trio Tanazaki, and it's
this Japanese novelist who wrote an essay in nineteen thirty
four I want to say about what it was like
when Tokyo started adding electric lights and how electricity and
(24:39):
trains and industrialization changed the culture of Japan from his
own personal perspective, and I just feel like it's this
tiny book, it's really beautiful, makes a perfect object gift.
So I've given out probably a dozen copies of that
over the years.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
That sounds like a very good gift. Is there any
gadget that I left out that you were like, this
is I was so excited to put this on the list.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
I think this whole range of.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Semi illegal emulator video games where you like buy a
little fake game Boy, but all of a sudden it
has like ten different consoles and a thousand games on
it for like one hundred dollars or less.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I think that that's kind of you know.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Twelve year old me would have freaked out so mind
blown by yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, the retrosnap Play or
the Amber Nick RG forty XXV. The other thing I
liked about doing this guide was that the names are
so random and crazy.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
They're crazy, That's what that was my favorite thing about
reading it. It seemed like a McSweeney's article, I'll be honest, but.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
It's like it's all the same phenomenon. I think because
like these gadgets have these spammy names because now it's
just like a thing you click on on Amazon right, Like,
it doesn't the brand name doesn't matter, the maker doesn't.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Matter, fifty care. It's like a fifty word title of
a Yeah, the thing that you're buying.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Everything should be named by SEO. It just fifteen inch
eat ink screen high battery power, loaded with one thousand games,
color purple, shiny devices like I think, I think that's
the epitome of naming. Actually it should just be literal
and a string of twenty words.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Big computer for traveler, fifteen fifteen inch, fifteen inch mouse
for Traveler and robot dog.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Yes, just wide monitor, curve, display tower, Mac shiny black,
two hundred and fifty six gigabyte.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
This is a great mad libs.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
I mean, the touchscreen, vape, social media alert, disposable, whatever
is that. It's just it is a mad libs of
technology and it's real and it.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Really is it Really it's kind of fun that you
can buy a mad libs of technology. Yeah, well, thank
you so much, Kyla. Really appreciate you taking the time
to talk to me today.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Thank you. This is very fun.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
That's it for this week for tech stuff. I'm Kara
Price and I'm as Voloscan.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
This episode was produced by Elisa, Dennis Tyler Hill and
Melissa Slaughter. It was executive produced by me Kara Price,
Julian Nutter, and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Novel
for iHeart Podcasts. The engineer is Mike Cascarelli and Jack
Insley makes this episode. Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Join us next Wednesday for a roundup of our favorite
Internet trends of twenty twenty five with writer and podcaster
Ami not Too So. We round up our favorite Internet
trends of twenty twenty five, brain rot and otherwise.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
And please do rate and review the show wherever you listen,
and reach out to us at tech Stuff Podcast at
gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
We want to hear from you.
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