December 23, 2025 • 21 mins
(December 23,2025)
ABC News tech reporter joins the show for ‘Tech Tuesday.’ Today, Mike talks about the best and worst gadgets of 2025. 2025 was the year of the ‘cranky consumer.’ Colleges oversold education, now they need to sell ‘connection.’ Why Japan is obsessed with KFC for Christmas.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI AM six forty Handle here.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
It is a Tuesday morning, December twenty three, and be
prepared for lots of rain, record breaking depusty on'll memute
that devastating rain here in southern California. Boy, what a
Christmas that's going to be. Okay, let's move over into
a fun or funner topic. We've been pretty serious all
(00:33):
morning long. Mike Dubuski is ABC Tech REPORTERI is with
us and love talking to Mike.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Mike. Good morning to you. Morning Bill. How are you? I
am good? And you're out of New York right?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Okay, So while I was going to pour down here,
what's going to happen up there?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Are you looking for some horrible weather too?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well? It was snowing this morning, actually, which was pretty
significant because like the city itself has not seen major
snowfall in a couple of years, and it's not major snowfall,
but it like was given us a little inkling. It
was like, okay, maye, maybe it's going to be, you know,
if not a white Christmas, a whiter Christmas than it
has been in years past.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Fair enough.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay, all right, the best and worst gadgets of twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Let's just get through.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I always uh defer to the worst, of course, because
I'd rather start with the worst.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Ah, absolutely the worst gadgets right as.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, you know, in the holiday spirit, let's start with
the worst gadgets of twenty twenty five. So I've got
two on the list for you, two kind of big
news stories of the year. Let's start with Elon Musk's
Grock chat bot. This is basically Elon Musk's version of
chant GPT. It comes from his artificial intelligence company, and
in the last year they've begun integrating Groc, this chatbot
(01:44):
into what used to be called Twitter, which is now
called x So you're seeing this chatbot show up on
this social media platform in a pretty big way. Well,
in the Midsummer we saw Elon Musk give this directive
for Grock to not shy away for politically incorrect statements.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
This whole cell of Groc is that it's the fun one.
It's the one that's gonna tell you stuff that you know,
chat GPT would be too you know, kind of uptight
to tell you. Well, unfortunately this had a sort of
unexpected impact when groc began posting all forms of hateful
and anti Semitic content on x even at one point
calling itself mecha Hitler. And if I if something calls
(02:26):
itself mecha Hitler, I'm gonna put it on the loser's
side of the list. I think that's fair to say.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So that's one, but you're gonna use But you're gonna
use it, well, not necessarily. I'm not using grock. You
gotta pay to use grocs. All right, Let's go another one,
Another horrible one.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Another horrible one would be the Friend AI pendant. This
is another AI device, but it's a it's an actual gadget.
This is one hundred and twenty nine dollars necklace that
you can buy, and it has a little pendant on
it that's like the size and shape of a Mento
kind of and it has a little microphone in it
that is designed to listen into your conversations and whatever
it is you might encounter in your day to day life.
(03:04):
The idea here, according to the company Friend, is that
this behaves like a friend. It's going to send you,
like quippi one liners to comment on what it hears
throughout the day and just basically be a small companion.
Well maybe no surprise there. Reviewers were very quick to
bash this device. They said that the AI misheard or
misinterpreted things, that it was just kind of annoying or
(03:26):
sycophantic at times, and that generally this kind of marks
an invasion of people's privacy because you might be talking
to someone who doesn't know that you're wearing an AI
pendant that is listening to their every word and might
comment on it later. If the reviews of this were tough,
the social backlash to this device was even Tougher friend
made a big push into physical advertising with billboards and
(03:50):
you know, physical advertisements and cities across the country, including
here in New York City. Well, it was hard to
find a Friend ad that was not vandalized or in
the process so being actively vandalized. In fact, here in
New York City there were several events that were pre
planned on social media for people to go out and
specifically vandalize and make fun of this one product.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Great stuff, all right, you know what, I don't worry.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I don't want to interrupt you, but I am because
we only have a couple three minutes left, and we
really want to get into the best gadgets of twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, the easy part here is that they're all kind
of centered around the same theme. I've got three on
my list. One is the Nintendo Switch to a very
hot gaming device from this past You're probably the biggest
gaming device of the year. This is a device that
you can play as a handheld or you can plug
it into your TV to have a more console like experience.
Brand new generation this year, they've already sold more than
(04:42):
ten million units, so it's doing something correct. Apple came
out with the third generation of the air Pods Pro.
These are there in ear earbuds that added some interesting
features like a translation feature that you know, if you're
talking to someone who speaking a different language, it will
live translate in your ears.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Brands with it all.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
It's very cool and brings with it all the stuff
that people like about the AirPods already, which is good
sound quality and good active noise cancelation. And then the
third one I have on the list is the new
Nissan Leaf, an electric vehicle from Nissan now has more
than three hundred miles of range and is going on
sale hitting dealer lots really right around now for about
thirty thousand dollars, significant given that there is no longer
(05:19):
a federal incentive to buy electric vehicles that expired at
the beginning of November, and the average new car cost
in the US is hovering around fifty thousand dollars. The
theme between all three of these gadgets is that these
are existing products, right, A Nintendo Switch, Apple AirPod Pro,
and a Nissan Leaf. They've been around for several years
(05:40):
that the latest generations don't screw it up right. They
add some nice little quality of life features here and there.
The Switch gets a bigger screen, the Airpod's pro get
this live translation feature. The Nissan Leaf gets more range.
But at their core, theyre's still the things that people love.
They've ridden that to a lot of success.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Okay, let me ask you.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The one that fascinates me because I enjoy traveling whenever
I can. Is this air pod with the translation feature.
If I get this right, I am speaking to someone
as they are speaking to me in Italian or Finish
or whatever. In real time, I'm hearing what they're saying
in English or in near real time.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, So it takes maybe a second or two delay
for the AirPods to hear what the other person is
saying and then do the act of translating. But it
is close enough, according to the people who review it,
to like carry on a relatively normal conversation.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Now now, but you have to speak their language correct, I.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Mean, there is no well so supposedly, if you have
your phone hooked up to do this properly, you can
speak back in English and on your iPhone it will
display whatever the you know, Italian equivalent of what you're
saying is.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
It's really really cool.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Now, there's some stuff to clean up around the edges.
It's not going to be a perfect translation one night
percent of this time, but it's pretty aren't close.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Right, Like I understand, uh, you know, using the word
pianist is is very difficult or talking, you know, going
to the store, buying furniture at sofa king. Okay, we're done, Mike,
thank you, we'll talk again. Greatly, appreciate it as always.
All right, all right, here's something weird going on and
(07:21):
it has to do with consumerism. And I'll tell you
what's really strange is we are really concerned about affordability.
That's a that's a given all right, even the Trump
administration as well as Democrats, I mean, everybody is talking
about GEEP. Prices are going up very quickly, and affordability
(07:42):
now is sort of the mantra.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Across the board politically.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Okay, so we're concerned about it, and our confidence level
is dropping like a rock.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Fair enough. At the same.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Time, the economy is doing unbelievably well. Unemployment is going up,
the stock market is at record high. The GDP a
gross domestic product, which is the growth of the economy,
is now at four point nine percent, the largest it
has been, way beyond expectations, and so who knows what
(08:20):
the hell is going on? Uh, it's we're infra ride
or maybe you know the Some economists are talking about
the bubble it has to burst.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well it hasn't.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I mean I remember when the uh, when the stock
market was at twenty thousand, and it couldn't go beyond that.
I mean, it was gonna drop. It was gonna drop,
and then it climbs, and it climbs and it climbs.
How about bitcoin? Who would have thought, I mean, who
would have thought bitcoin can reach one hundred and twenty
six thousand dollars for a bitcoin and it first came out,
(08:54):
a penny would buy you several bitcoins.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So we don't really know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
We've got high prices, a fragile job market because of
AI and the economy in general, anxiety about the tariffs,
which are mixed messages which I believe in a whole
lot of believer or not doing anybody any good. The
reality is, as the President says, foreign the company, the
(09:22):
countries are paying the tariffs that we're tariffing.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's not true.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
We pay the tariffs for those of you that have
tariff goods. You tell me who you write the check to, right,
what do you mean you write the check? Yeah, the
governments or the companies coming out of China don't write
the checks we do, And so no one really knows
what's going on. If I had to guess, I think
(09:49):
unemployment's going to increase. I do believe the bubble is
going to burst. But then again, who am I other
than the most desperate person out there in terms of
where the future is going, Because, as you know, even
when it's really really good, my life is we're just
around the corner to being really really bad. So life
is bad when it's bad life is bad when it's
(10:12):
not so bad, and life is bad when it's great.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Well that's not true, because I am a realist.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I just know the next month it'll go into the toilet.
But the reality here is, you know, all kidding aside,
I don't know how much kidding I do, actually is
that none of this makes sense. It's the weirdest economy going.
All right, fie, I am six forty handle here it
(10:40):
is a Tuesday morning.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
By the way, great song, cono.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
It goes right into my topic of what the university's
colleges are over selling and there are they over selling education? Well,
certainly parts of it, and universities now are looking at
twin crises. AI being one of them, is eroding their
(11:07):
monopoly on instruction. Where universities used to be able to
help you navigate the world in terms of critical thinking,
in terms of even the studying part, it's not the
same anymore. AI has absolutely wiped out a lot of
(11:29):
what colleges and universities have to offer. And considering the
expense of AI, or excuse me, the expense of colleges
of a university education, now we're talking some real serious
thinking and choosing among potential college students and parents. Well,
(11:50):
the other thing that's going on right now is high
levels loneliness historically, So if higher education is going to
justify itself, it has to confront both of these realities
AI and just loneliness that the students experience. Particularly since
we had the pandemic, people were studying at home, and
(12:14):
by the way, home studying remote studying does better than classroom.
You learn more, you learn in a quicker amount of time,
and it's more comprehensive. But the problem is you don't
have the socialization and we're finding out and these are
studies coming out that missing.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
That is a real problem.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
One of the things that college does is students get together.
You go to the student union, you hang out it
before and after classes, you talk to people, and that
is part and parcel of going to class, of discussing
ideas of expanding your world.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
None of that happens with AI.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
We know people are getting far more lonely than they
ever have for all kinds of reasons, one of them,
especially students, one of them being that they're never talking
in anybody.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Same thing with people that are in the workforce.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
We just don't talk to anybody We don't socialize when
I'm in studio. There's four of us, and do we
do much talking between the breaks?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
We don't.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
When I'm at home, I talk to my dogs, which
by the way, is a much better conversation than I've
ever had in studio.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
But you're welcome. But there is a sense of loneliness.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Michelle, who has been our executive producer for I don't
know how many years now, Michelle, we used to have
a room full of people.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Oh yeah, we used to have a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Now after the show, I'll go over where she sits
and it is an empty football stadium.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I mean there's nothing there.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And you know, have you felt a sense of loneliness
at work?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
No?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Okay, not me personally, because I'm I just I don't
ever really feel lonely.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
I'm not over.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I'm good with time with myself.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Now, so am I.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
But only for just a few minutes at a time,
and then that parts over, and then I go back.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
To hating myself, hating the people around me.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
But even I'm not particularly a people person, and even
I feel fairly lonely when I come there to the studio.
It affects me. It does affect me because here I'm
in the studio, in my studio at home this morning,
I expect to be my myself, and frankly, I am
looking at the rest of the crew that I am
(14:41):
working with. I look at Amy, which I can't in
the studio because she's behind that glass in the broadcast booth.
I look at Will who, which is a real pleasure,
I might add. I look at Will and he I
never see him, Michelle, I would never see uh.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And of course Kno, I unfortunately do.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
See And when Neil is here, I either see him
or when he's in his studio at home, I look
at him. So actually I'm less lonely being by myself
broadcasting than I would be in studio. However, we don't
talk during the breaks where we normally do.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Amy.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
When I'm in the studio, Amy comes in during the
breaks and bothers the hell out of me, you know,
and I'll say things.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
She'll come in and say something and.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Oh, you know, react, get out, and then she goes
back to her news the newsroom. How big is the newsroom, Amy,
the booth, Yeah, it's we call it the newsroom, of.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Course, it's about four Well, it's bigger than that.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
It's really small. You can't be claustrophobic. It feels like
you're in a small elevator.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
It's not that small.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It's pretty small. But that's our case.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
News room, well, this is the news booth. The news
room is down the hall.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Which doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Well, it's still there. There's nobody.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
That's an empty room. That's right.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Like KYF I will used to be up in the air, right, yes,
and that was KFI in the sky, in the sky. Yeah,
now it's and they won't even admit it. We're KFI
on the ground. They won't even let you say that anymore.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
They won't. Okay, all right, we're done with that.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
So, uh, what do they do in Japan for Christmas? H?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Surprise surprise?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You know if the national Uh, we do turkey right
across the country. Sometimes ham and traditionalists will do a goose.
If you have read a lot of Charles Dickens, Uh,
you know what they do in Japan barrels of Kentucky
Fried Chicken. Their turkey is KFC. And it all started
(16:58):
a fascinating story. There is was and still around. I
believe a guy who opened up he was the general
manager of the first KFC in Japan and Tokyo. That
was nineteen seventy and so in the store he heard
a couple of Americans talking each other, this was during
(17:19):
the Christmas season, and how they missed having turkey for Christmas,
and he went the light bulb went off, and he said,
you know, how about a Christmas dinner of fried chicken?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
How could that be? Wouldn't that make a fine substitute.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So that year, first year the KFC opened up, he
began marketing his party barrel as a way to celebrate Christmas. Now,
Christmas is not religious at all, because the Japanese are
not Christians for the most part. In nineteen seventy four,
he took the marketing plan national across all the KFC's
(18:01):
which at that point were now being built in Japan,
and it was called Guri Sumasu niwa Kentucky or Kentucky
for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Very interesting guy Allahada.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
He went to Harvard educated, He went through the company
ranks because he's obviously very bright. Became president and CEO
of Kentucky Fried Chicken from nineteen eighty four to twenty ten.
And when he opened up that party barrel. When he
first started selling that party barrel, it almost immediately became
(18:40):
a national phenomena. And according to an associate professor of
marketing at Amalon School in France who has actually studied
the KFC Christmas in Japan as a model for a
promotions campaign, he said, it philled devoid because there was
no tradition of Christmas. KFC came in and said, you
(19:02):
know what, We're going to have a tradition of Christmas.
Now the Japanese knew that. Of course the Christmas existed,
but there was no tradition. Well there is now, and
what is it. It's a bucket of chicken where everybody sits
around and they all who gets the biggest pizzas pieces
of chicken? And he sells a family sized meal sized boxes.
(19:25):
Now this is interesting. Okay, you know you can buy
a Christmas dinner at the supermarket. They'll give you They
do that for passover, to just buy the entire meal.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Right, go to Honey Bake, They'll give you the entire meal.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
There they do an entire meal around buckets of chicken, cake, wine,
the whole shebang. So if you ever go to Japan
during Christmas time, you will see people ordering up chicken.
As a matter of fact, if they don't order it,
it advance, uh, and people just go in. It's like
(20:03):
a Honey Baked Ham store during the holidays. When you
don't have a pickup, that line goes out the door.
Matter of fact, when you do have a pickup, the
line goes out the door. All right, guys, we're finished.
That's it for a Tuesday morning. Tomorrow, we are all back.
It's my last day until the first of the year,
so it should be a fun Wednesday, and Michelle will be.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Here and we're all going to be here. And Will
You're not here tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Nope, But I'm going to get KFC.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Oh, yes you are.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
I'm so hungry for KFC right now.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Okay, when are you coming back January? Yep? Oh, just
like guy. Okay, so we're gonna do the show without
you tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
You got the the Heather Brooker.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, and I like Heather. I'm not going to say
she is so much better than you are.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
But you don't have to Bill, you don't.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Okay, Okay, fair enough? And Kno's back tomorrow. Will is
back tomorrow. I assume Michelle is back tomorrow and I
will be here and we'll I'll get a fun story
about the Christmas Sleigh of Santa Claus and how tracking
them all over the world started well here in the
United States, and of course it's become international. It's a
(21:12):
great story. I'll share that with you, among other ones.
This is KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI AM six forty Handle here.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
It is a Tuesday morning, December twenty three, and be
prepared for lots of rain, record breaking depusty on'll memute
that devastating rain here in southern California. Boy, what a
Christmas that's going to be. Okay, let's move over into
a fun or funner topic. We've been pretty serious all
(00:33):
morning long. Mike Dubuski is ABC Tech REPORTERI is with
us and love talking to Mike.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Mike. Good morning to you. Morning Bill. How are you? I
am good? And you're out of New York right?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Okay, So while I was going to pour down here,
what's going to happen up there?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Are you looking for some horrible weather too?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well? It was snowing this morning, actually, which was pretty
significant because like the city itself has not seen major
snowfall in a couple of years, and it's not major snowfall,
but it like was given us a little inkling. It
was like, okay, maye, maybe it's going to be, you know,
if not a white Christmas, a whiter Christmas than it
has been in years past.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Fair enough.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay, all right, the best and worst gadgets of twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Let's just get through.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I always uh defer to the worst, of course, because
I'd rather start with the worst.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Ah, absolutely the worst gadgets right as.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, you know, in the holiday spirit, let's start with
the worst gadgets of twenty twenty five. So I've got
two on the list for you, two kind of big
news stories of the year. Let's start with Elon Musk's
Grock chat bot. This is basically Elon Musk's version of
chant GPT. It comes from his artificial intelligence company, and
in the last year they've begun integrating Groc, this chatbot
(01:44):
into what used to be called Twitter, which is now
called x So you're seeing this chatbot show up on
this social media platform in a pretty big way. Well,
in the Midsummer we saw Elon Musk give this directive
for Grock to not shy away for politically incorrect statements.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
This whole cell of Groc is that it's the fun one.
It's the one that's gonna tell you stuff that you know,
chat GPT would be too you know, kind of uptight
to tell you. Well, unfortunately this had a sort of
unexpected impact when groc began posting all forms of hateful
and anti Semitic content on x even at one point
calling itself mecha Hitler. And if I if something calls
(02:26):
itself mecha Hitler, I'm gonna put it on the loser's
side of the list. I think that's fair to say.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So that's one, but you're gonna use But you're gonna
use it, well, not necessarily. I'm not using grock. You
gotta pay to use grocs. All right, Let's go another one,
Another horrible one.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Another horrible one would be the Friend AI pendant. This
is another AI device, but it's a it's an actual gadget.
This is one hundred and twenty nine dollars necklace that
you can buy, and it has a little pendant on
it that's like the size and shape of a Mento
kind of and it has a little microphone in it
that is designed to listen into your conversations and whatever
it is you might encounter in your day to day life.
(03:04):
The idea here, according to the company Friend, is that
this behaves like a friend. It's going to send you,
like quippi one liners to comment on what it hears
throughout the day and just basically be a small companion.
Well maybe no surprise there. Reviewers were very quick to
bash this device. They said that the AI misheard or
misinterpreted things, that it was just kind of annoying or
(03:26):
sycophantic at times, and that generally this kind of marks
an invasion of people's privacy because you might be talking
to someone who doesn't know that you're wearing an AI
pendant that is listening to their every word and might
comment on it later. If the reviews of this were tough,
the social backlash to this device was even Tougher friend
made a big push into physical advertising with billboards and
(03:50):
you know, physical advertisements and cities across the country, including
here in New York City. Well, it was hard to
find a Friend ad that was not vandalized or in
the process so being actively vandalized. In fact, here in
New York City there were several events that were pre
planned on social media for people to go out and
specifically vandalize and make fun of this one product.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Great stuff, all right, you know what, I don't worry.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I don't want to interrupt you, but I am because
we only have a couple three minutes left, and we
really want to get into the best gadgets of twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, the easy part here is that they're all kind
of centered around the same theme. I've got three on
my list. One is the Nintendo Switch to a very
hot gaming device from this past You're probably the biggest
gaming device of the year. This is a device that
you can play as a handheld or you can plug
it into your TV to have a more console like experience.
Brand new generation this year, they've already sold more than
(04:42):
ten million units, so it's doing something correct. Apple came
out with the third generation of the air Pods Pro.
These are there in ear earbuds that added some interesting
features like a translation feature that you know, if you're
talking to someone who speaking a different language, it will
live translate in your ears.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Brands with it all.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
It's very cool and brings with it all the stuff
that people like about the AirPods already, which is good
sound quality and good active noise cancelation. And then the
third one I have on the list is the new
Nissan Leaf, an electric vehicle from Nissan now has more
than three hundred miles of range and is going on
sale hitting dealer lots really right around now for about
thirty thousand dollars, significant given that there is no longer
(05:19):
a federal incentive to buy electric vehicles that expired at
the beginning of November, and the average new car cost
in the US is hovering around fifty thousand dollars. The
theme between all three of these gadgets is that these
are existing products, right, A Nintendo Switch, Apple AirPod Pro,
and a Nissan Leaf. They've been around for several years
(05:40):
that the latest generations don't screw it up right. They
add some nice little quality of life features here and there.
The Switch gets a bigger screen, the Airpod's pro get
this live translation feature. The Nissan Leaf gets more range.
But at their core, theyre's still the things that people love.
They've ridden that to a lot of success.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Okay, let me ask you.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The one that fascinates me because I enjoy traveling whenever
I can. Is this air pod with the translation feature.
If I get this right, I am speaking to someone
as they are speaking to me in Italian or Finish
or whatever. In real time, I'm hearing what they're saying
in English or in near real time.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, So it takes maybe a second or two delay
for the AirPods to hear what the other person is
saying and then do the act of translating. But it
is close enough, according to the people who review it,
to like carry on a relatively normal conversation.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Now now, but you have to speak their language correct, I.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Mean, there is no well so supposedly, if you have
your phone hooked up to do this properly, you can
speak back in English and on your iPhone it will
display whatever the you know, Italian equivalent of what you're
saying is.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
It's really really cool.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Now, there's some stuff to clean up around the edges.
It's not going to be a perfect translation one night
percent of this time, but it's pretty aren't close.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Right, Like I understand, uh, you know, using the word
pianist is is very difficult or talking, you know, going
to the store, buying furniture at sofa king. Okay, we're done, Mike,
thank you, we'll talk again. Greatly, appreciate it as always.
All right, all right, here's something weird going on and
(07:21):
it has to do with consumerism. And I'll tell you
what's really strange is we are really concerned about affordability.
That's a that's a given all right, even the Trump
administration as well as Democrats, I mean, everybody is talking
about GEEP. Prices are going up very quickly, and affordability
(07:42):
now is sort of the mantra.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Across the board politically.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Okay, so we're concerned about it, and our confidence level
is dropping like a rock.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Fair enough. At the same.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Time, the economy is doing unbelievably well. Unemployment is going up,
the stock market is at record high. The GDP a
gross domestic product, which is the growth of the economy,
is now at four point nine percent, the largest it
has been, way beyond expectations, and so who knows what
(08:20):
the hell is going on? Uh, it's we're infra ride
or maybe you know the Some economists are talking about
the bubble it has to burst.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well it hasn't.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I mean I remember when the uh, when the stock
market was at twenty thousand, and it couldn't go beyond that.
I mean, it was gonna drop. It was gonna drop,
and then it climbs, and it climbs and it climbs.
How about bitcoin? Who would have thought, I mean, who
would have thought bitcoin can reach one hundred and twenty
six thousand dollars for a bitcoin and it first came out,
(08:54):
a penny would buy you several bitcoins.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So we don't really know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
We've got high prices, a fragile job market because of
AI and the economy in general, anxiety about the tariffs,
which are mixed messages which I believe in a whole
lot of believer or not doing anybody any good. The
reality is, as the President says, foreign the company, the
(09:22):
countries are paying the tariffs that we're tariffing.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's not true.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
We pay the tariffs for those of you that have
tariff goods. You tell me who you write the check to, right,
what do you mean you write the check? Yeah, the
governments or the companies coming out of China don't write
the checks we do, And so no one really knows
what's going on. If I had to guess, I think
(09:49):
unemployment's going to increase. I do believe the bubble is
going to burst. But then again, who am I other
than the most desperate person out there in terms of
where the future is going, Because, as you know, even
when it's really really good, my life is we're just
around the corner to being really really bad. So life
is bad when it's bad life is bad when it's
(10:12):
not so bad, and life is bad when it's great.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Well that's not true, because I am a realist.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I just know the next month it'll go into the toilet.
But the reality here is, you know, all kidding aside,
I don't know how much kidding I do, actually is
that none of this makes sense. It's the weirdest economy going.
All right, fie, I am six forty handle here it
(10:40):
is a Tuesday morning.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
By the way, great song, cono.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
It goes right into my topic of what the university's
colleges are over selling and there are they over selling education? Well,
certainly parts of it, and universities now are looking at
twin crises. AI being one of them, is eroding their
(11:07):
monopoly on instruction. Where universities used to be able to
help you navigate the world in terms of critical thinking,
in terms of even the studying part, it's not the
same anymore. AI has absolutely wiped out a lot of
(11:29):
what colleges and universities have to offer. And considering the
expense of AI, or excuse me, the expense of colleges
of a university education, now we're talking some real serious
thinking and choosing among potential college students and parents. Well,
(11:50):
the other thing that's going on right now is high
levels loneliness historically, So if higher education is going to
justify itself, it has to confront both of these realities
AI and just loneliness that the students experience. Particularly since
we had the pandemic, people were studying at home, and
(12:14):
by the way, home studying remote studying does better than classroom.
You learn more, you learn in a quicker amount of time,
and it's more comprehensive. But the problem is you don't
have the socialization and we're finding out and these are
studies coming out that missing.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
That is a real problem.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
One of the things that college does is students get together.
You go to the student union, you hang out it
before and after classes, you talk to people, and that
is part and parcel of going to class, of discussing
ideas of expanding your world.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
None of that happens with AI.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
We know people are getting far more lonely than they
ever have for all kinds of reasons, one of them,
especially students, one of them being that they're never talking
in anybody.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Same thing with people that are in the workforce.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
We just don't talk to anybody We don't socialize when
I'm in studio. There's four of us, and do we
do much talking between the breaks?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
We don't.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
When I'm at home, I talk to my dogs, which
by the way, is a much better conversation than I've
ever had in studio.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
But you're welcome. But there is a sense of loneliness.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Michelle, who has been our executive producer for I don't
know how many years now, Michelle, we used to have
a room full of people.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Oh yeah, we used to have a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Now after the show, I'll go over where she sits
and it is an empty football stadium.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I mean there's nothing there.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And you know, have you felt a sense of loneliness
at work?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
No?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Okay, not me personally, because I'm I just I don't
ever really feel lonely.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
I'm not over.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I'm good with time with myself.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Now, so am I.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
But only for just a few minutes at a time,
and then that parts over, and then I go back.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
To hating myself, hating the people around me.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
But even I'm not particularly a people person, and even
I feel fairly lonely when I come there to the studio.
It affects me. It does affect me because here I'm
in the studio, in my studio at home this morning,
I expect to be my myself, and frankly, I am
looking at the rest of the crew that I am
(14:41):
working with. I look at Amy, which I can't in
the studio because she's behind that glass in the broadcast booth.
I look at Will who, which is a real pleasure,
I might add. I look at Will and he I
never see him, Michelle, I would never see uh.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And of course Kno, I unfortunately do.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
See And when Neil is here, I either see him
or when he's in his studio at home, I look
at him. So actually I'm less lonely being by myself
broadcasting than I would be in studio. However, we don't
talk during the breaks where we normally do.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Amy.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
When I'm in the studio, Amy comes in during the
breaks and bothers the hell out of me, you know,
and I'll say things.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
She'll come in and say something and.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Oh, you know, react, get out, and then she goes
back to her news the newsroom. How big is the newsroom, Amy,
the booth, Yeah, it's we call it the newsroom, of.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Course, it's about four Well, it's bigger than that.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
It's really small. You can't be claustrophobic. It feels like
you're in a small elevator.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
It's not that small.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It's pretty small. But that's our case.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
News room, well, this is the news booth. The news
room is down the hall.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Which doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Well, it's still there. There's nobody.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
That's an empty room. That's right.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Like KYF I will used to be up in the air, right, yes,
and that was KFI in the sky, in the sky. Yeah,
now it's and they won't even admit it. We're KFI
on the ground. They won't even let you say that anymore.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
They won't. Okay, all right, we're done with that.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
So, uh, what do they do in Japan for Christmas? H?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Surprise surprise?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You know if the national Uh, we do turkey right
across the country. Sometimes ham and traditionalists will do a goose.
If you have read a lot of Charles Dickens, Uh,
you know what they do in Japan barrels of Kentucky
Fried Chicken. Their turkey is KFC. And it all started
(16:58):
a fascinating story. There is was and still around. I
believe a guy who opened up he was the general
manager of the first KFC in Japan and Tokyo. That
was nineteen seventy and so in the store he heard
a couple of Americans talking each other, this was during
(17:19):
the Christmas season, and how they missed having turkey for Christmas,
and he went the light bulb went off, and he said,
you know, how about a Christmas dinner of fried chicken?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
How could that be? Wouldn't that make a fine substitute.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So that year, first year the KFC opened up, he
began marketing his party barrel as a way to celebrate Christmas. Now,
Christmas is not religious at all, because the Japanese are
not Christians for the most part. In nineteen seventy four,
he took the marketing plan national across all the KFC's
(18:01):
which at that point were now being built in Japan,
and it was called Guri Sumasu niwa Kentucky or Kentucky
for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Very interesting guy Allahada.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
He went to Harvard educated, He went through the company
ranks because he's obviously very bright. Became president and CEO
of Kentucky Fried Chicken from nineteen eighty four to twenty ten.
And when he opened up that party barrel. When he
first started selling that party barrel, it almost immediately became
(18:40):
a national phenomena. And according to an associate professor of
marketing at Amalon School in France who has actually studied
the KFC Christmas in Japan as a model for a
promotions campaign, he said, it philled devoid because there was
no tradition of Christmas. KFC came in and said, you
(19:02):
know what, We're going to have a tradition of Christmas.
Now the Japanese knew that. Of course the Christmas existed,
but there was no tradition. Well there is now, and
what is it. It's a bucket of chicken where everybody sits
around and they all who gets the biggest pizzas pieces
of chicken? And he sells a family sized meal sized boxes.
(19:25):
Now this is interesting. Okay, you know you can buy
a Christmas dinner at the supermarket. They'll give you They
do that for passover, to just buy the entire meal.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Right, go to Honey Bake, They'll give you the entire meal.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
There they do an entire meal around buckets of chicken, cake, wine,
the whole shebang. So if you ever go to Japan
during Christmas time, you will see people ordering up chicken.
As a matter of fact, if they don't order it,
it advance, uh, and people just go in. It's like
(20:03):
a Honey Baked Ham store during the holidays. When you
don't have a pickup, that line goes out the door.
Matter of fact, when you do have a pickup, the
line goes out the door. All right, guys, we're finished.
That's it for a Tuesday morning. Tomorrow, we are all back.
It's my last day until the first of the year,
so it should be a fun Wednesday, and Michelle will be.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Here and we're all going to be here. And Will
You're not here tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Nope, But I'm going to get KFC.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Oh, yes you are.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
I'm so hungry for KFC right now.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Okay, when are you coming back January? Yep? Oh, just
like guy. Okay, so we're gonna do the show without
you tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
You got the the Heather Brooker.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, and I like Heather. I'm not going to say
she is so much better than you are.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
But you don't have to Bill, you don't.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Okay, Okay, fair enough? And Kno's back tomorrow. Will is
back tomorrow. I assume Michelle is back tomorrow and I
will be here and we'll I'll get a fun story
about the Christmas Sleigh of Santa Claus and how tracking
them all over the world started well here in the
United States, and of course it's become international. It's a
(21:12):
great story. I'll share that with you, among other ones.
This is KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The Bill Handel Show News
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