Apple Vision Pro impressions, SanDisk honors Black History Month, and new OnePlus smartphones

• Apple’s mixed reality headset, called Vision Pro, is now available. I catch up with Luke Richey at Gravity Jack to talk with us all about it. Hint: He thinks it may change the world!
• In celebration of Black History Month, we learn about the “Afrofuturism Edition” of SanDisk’s Extreme Portable SSD (solid state drive), with the awesome Brian Pridgeon
• A pair of new OnePlus smartphones are now available – and garnering quite a bit of buzz. We talk with Marcel Campos from ONEPLUS North America.
• Thank you to Intel, Visa, and Western Digital, for your support!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by theever changing world of technology? Check it
Out can help make some sense ofit all. Breaking down geeksbeak into street
speak. Technology columnist, author,and TV personality Mark Saltzman covers consumer technology
each week for every listener, Marktackles the latest news, reviews, and
how toos to help you understand what'shot, what's not and why. Hey

(00:24):
everyone, welcome to tech it Out. This is episode three thirty two.
Hope you're all doing great today.It was a busy week in tech with
the new Applevision Pro Mixed Reality headsetnow available, which we'll get you this
hour. By the way. Alsothis week, Google unveiled its chat GPT
killer called Google Gemini that was formerlyreferred to as Google Bard. And also

(00:47):
this week and on Thursday, andspeaking of AI US regulators, the FCC
declared scam robocalls made using voices createdwith ai as illegal. You may have
heard about Joe Biden sounding messages thatwent out to so many people that was
fake. On that note, wedid talk with True Caller last week on
this program about its free app toblock robocalls and spam calls. On today's

(01:11):
tech it Out, we will kickthings off with OnePlus to learn about its
pair of new value priced smartphones thatimpress in the features department. That's for
sure offering a lot of bang forthe buck with its one plus twelve and
the even more affordable Android phone.The one plus twelve are. After that,
As hinted at earlier, we'll talkabout the just released Apple Vision Pro

(01:34):
headset from Apple, which fuses virtualreality with augmented reality. So we'll chat
with the head of a company calledgravity Jack about that, and finally on
tech it Out, sand Disc willjoin us this hour to celebrate Black History
Month with a new themed external drivethey have that's really cool. All of
this and more on an all newtech it Out powered by Intel, which

(01:57):
I'll tell you more about shortly.But let's officially kick off this week's show
with our first interview. A pairof new smartphones are garnering quite a bit
of buzz. In fact, IGN, a popular magazine for tech and games
and movies, they wrote, andI quote, Samsung's new Galaxy S twenty
four lineup already has something to worryabout. End quote. The author was
referring to the one plus twelve andone plus twelve are now available and joining

(02:22):
us to share what's newsworthy about themis Marcel Campos. He's director of Integrated
Marketing Campaigns at OnePlus North America.Hi Marcello, good to chat with you
for the first time. In fact, Hi Mark, I'm glad you'll be
here. Great. Now, beforewe talk about the new one plus twelve
and the one plus twelve R,please tell us a bit about the company,
which just turned ten. From whatI understand, happy birthday. Oh

(02:45):
yeah, thank you, Yeah,ten years old, right, just like
my son Turnstein, I won't sayall well. One plus is a company
that is focused on tech goods,mainly on the smartphone area. I think
when we start, we have avery distinctive promise from other competitors is to

(03:06):
always bring what we call a flagshipkiller or a flagship level product with an
experience of a flagship device like Superutra, high end something like that, at
a very competitive price, so tryingto make it really fair for the end
users. And we kind of extendthat for all our products, no matter
if we are the buds, theearbuds like we have it, or other

(03:27):
products that we are bringing in tothe market to the North America, all
of them we try to be verycompetitive in price and bring the best technology
possible. Got it all right,So competitive features compared to the competition,
but at a more aggressive price point. Kind of best of both worlds is
what you're aiming for with the OnePlusbrand. And I think the new one
plus twelve and twelve are are noexception. Talk to us about these new

(03:49):
devices. Why don't we start ifwe can Marcel with the one plus twelve,
what are its key features? Oh, the twelve is the brand new
device we just brought to North America. It's what we call all rounded flagship
experience without break the bang. Solike we're gonna have all features you can
find on flagship devices. You're gonnahave three cameras stele A photo cameras with

(04:12):
sixty four megapicks, so main cameraswith Sony sensor with fifty megapicks. We're
gonna have a screen that is liketwo K resolution super bright by the way,
with four thousand, five hundred andnights, so if you go out
on the sun, you're gonna seeit perfectly like no other. A lot
of RAM up to sixteen better brandin fact, a lot of storage five
hundred twelve so we've got a lotof options, but I think those products

(04:35):
they stand out by battery performance,prosser performance because it has the new snap
Dragon eighth gent three, and alsothese charging speeds because we steal the fastest
charging speeds by wired devices with likeeighty watter charging speed, which is a
lot our competitors. The best theycan do right now is forty five what's

(04:57):
in North America, So we arealmost double that number. But also we
are bringing to the market the fiftywhat wireless charging and fifty what wireless charging.
It's kind of crazy bring this deviceto a very different position regarding any
of all the other comparitors we gotin the market right now. Even our
wireless charging speed is faster than thewired charging foreign compeditors. So I think

(05:18):
the twelve it's really impressive in termsof performance in all areas. And what's
the size of this Android device isthe sixt eight inches device, so it's
like a big screen. It's funnybecause we call these kind of devices now
we have to have a name forthis kind of devices. There are so
many devices in the market right differentform factors like the foldables, the flips,

(05:40):
and now we call this normal kindof device of candy bar. Right,
that's because it looks like a candybar. And how much does the
one plus twelve costs before we moveon to the twelve r Oh? Yeah,
the one plus twelve starting with twelveget Vita ran two hundred and fifty
six of storage starts at seven ninetynine in US one zero six y nine

(06:01):
in Canada. Those are the startingprice, and you can have something really
cool that work both to twelve andtwelve A that we're going to talk in
a minute. I believe you cantrading any phone in any condition and get
one hundred dollars off in US andone hundred and fifty dollars off in Canada.
So don't matter which phone you have. If it's that old grandma phone,
if it's a landline phone, ifit's a broken phone, you're old

(06:24):
Nokia taking us on your garage.You can trade in and get one hundred
dollars off in US and one hundredand fifteen Canada. That's great. Are
you joking about the landline or you'lltake a landline phone? Not joking at
all. Wow, shap your landlinephone. That's hilarious. Well, that's
great, Okay, So that's theone plus twelve aggressively priced despite its strong

(06:46):
feature set, and that charging speedis crazy for both wired and wireless.
Agreed. We are chatting with MarcelCampos. He's director of Integrated Marketing Campaigns
at one plus North America. Oneplus is one word, capital O and
capital P. There's also the newone plus twelve are what are the key
differences between this device and the oneplus twelve. Well, that's a good

(07:06):
point. Both we consider flagship devices, but I believe the twelve is,
like I mentioned, the out roundedflagship devices. The twelve are is for
those who want to be more walletfriendly, and we call it internally and
also externally, we are saying thatto many of our colleagues on media,
this is the real flagship killer.It has this processor of last year,

(07:28):
the top processor from the last year, the snap Dragon Agent two, which
can run any app available on thePlaystore right now, in which of all
of the games you can play inthe max settings possible. So it's still
very competitive processor, but also hasprobably the biggest battery you ever packed in
a device. It's five thousand,five hundred million fair battery, which is
huge and definitely can take you totwo days of users without any kind of

(07:53):
compromise. How many real world hourscould you say that could yield. I
know, it depends on what you'redoing on the phone, but let's say
it's just web browsing or something.Yeah, web browsing is going to take
more than two days there? Ohwow right, yeah, yeah, I'm
saying like real user, you know, like when you are taking pictures or
make some movies and browsing the internetlike you mentioned, or watching something on

(08:13):
YouTube or any other place, orNetflix movies just to use like normally,
it can easily take you to thesecond day full Suday. That's impressive.
So a huge battery in the twelveare up to two days depending on what
you're doing. Of course, yes, depends on what you're doing, but
come on, five thousand, fivehundred million pairs battery is a lot.
Yeah, you can do whatever youwant, TikTok, whatever whatever you want

(08:35):
normally and can take you to thesecond day easily until the end of the
day. And how much is theone plus twelve r Marcel? So here
goes the most important feature in myopinion about this device, because this device
is for people who really want toyou know, get the flagship experience,
but without really expending a lot ofmoney for that. So it's a super

(08:56):
fast device with the best technology possible. Starting four ninety nine in US with
the eight gig around one hundred andtwenty eight storage, and Canada is going
to be the eight gig one hundredand twenty eight six six nine Canadian dollars.
So this is very very impressive.And that thing that I just mentioned,
the tradeing any Phone any Condition onehundred dollars off in the US one

(09:18):
hundred and fifteen Canada, also appliesto this device. So this device you
can consider as starting as three ninenine if you apply the tradeing any Phone
any condition. Wow wow, veryaggressive pricing. Indeed. And before we
wrap up, Marcel, you didmention some accessories earlier, wireless charging and
wireless earbuds. Yes, you canhave the We call it like fifty what

(09:39):
book wireless charging because it's how webrand it. But it's like super fast
speed of wireless charging never seen before. So definitely we work with the GI
one and g chwo charging capacities.There's not a problem because it's retro compatible.
But also we are bringing the oneplus buds three, which is a
new earphone Thrue wireless, nice cancelingon the device. You can have it

(10:05):
for ninety nine dollars in US orone hundred and thirty nine Canadian dollars,
which is a very aggressive price fora high end sound level earbud. Yeah,
that's like a third the price ofsome other leading wireless earbuds with those
features. So again, price iscertainly a big story here, Marcel.
And finally, where can we learnmore? Well, we can go to
OnePlus dot com and also you canfind those products best buy and also at

(10:28):
Amazon dot com, OnePlus dot comas well as Amazon and best Buy.
Marcel, great to chat with you. Thank you so much for talking to
us today, and congrats on thelaunch of the pair of new devices.
Very exciting. It's great to talkto you, Mark, Thank you very
much. Thank you to Intel foryour support on tech it Out. The
Intel Core ultraprocessor represents the largest shiftin Intel CPU design in more than forty

(10:50):
years, adding generative AI capabilities tothe laptop. This makes accessing your data
more personalized, faster, and moresecure than leveraging the cloud. Get immediate
results by asking your computer something likeshow me the email where I was promised
to raise or where are my weddingphotos? The AIPC is here. More
is at Intel dot com slash CoreUltra. That's Intel dot com slash Core

(11:15):
Ultra. When we return on Teckit Out, we're going to learn all
about the Apple Vision Pro Mixed Realityheadset with gravity Jack. Stick with us.
We'll be right back. Listen tocheck it out whenever you want to
find the check it Out podcast,did I too, or wherever you get
your podcasts, Welcome back to checkit out. With the launch of the

(11:43):
Apple Vision Pro Mixed Reality headset earlythis month, it's a perfect time to
have Luke Ritchie on the show.Dubbed the Godfather of augmented Reality, whose
company gravity Jack holds several KEYAR patentsand is also responsible for the first AR
toy and Verus AR or augmented Realitybrowser. Luke is the founder and chief
visionary Officer at gravity Jack. Lovethat title. Thanks for your time,

(12:07):
Luke, good to chat with you. Yeah, thanks Mark for having me.
I appreciate it. Before we talkabout what to expect this year,
including Apple's Vision Pro, which Ihad a chance to test drive, let's
first explain what augmented reality is orAR, and also tell us about your
work that earned you that moniker ofgodfather of AR. That's awesome. Oh
so, I personally don't call myselfthat, but I have heard it before,

(12:31):
just in regards to that. We'vewe were very very early in the
AR space and really the first todo mobile AR and our patents specifically.
There's a lot of stuff happening withAR, but we drove stereoscopic computer vision
as kind of the method of trackingand seeing the world. So that's why
people call me that. I wouldn'tnecessarily call myself that though, Okay,

(12:52):
fair enough, don't be humble,but I get it. But yeah,
you know, I think guard listenersknow what virtual reality is. Where you
put on a head said and youdon't see the real world around you.
You are sort of whisked away toanother time and place, and it's tied
to head tracking, so when youmove your head around and what you see
is also tied to that. Soit's very immersive. But AR is a
kind of a different animal. Ohabsolutely. I mean, if you think

(13:13):
that you you were born into aworld where you were already computing with three
D objects, now imagine you know, there's this world where the content that
you know is coming from the internet, subject matter experts, all kinds of
content can now be placed into thatsame space that you've been operating in your
whole life. And so that's wherethings are going to appear on your table.
You're going to be at your kitchenand your recipe will be floating above

(13:37):
you, but it'll also be noticingif you're using them too much salt combining
it with AI specifically. So thisthis world where everything is about to change
in digital content is about to beincluded in the analog that we all live,
and that's what's actually about to happenwith they are all right. So
AR or augmented reality, is whereyou wear a headset that lets you see

(13:58):
the world around you, or youcan hold up your phone and through the
camera lens you can still see theroom that you're actually in for real,
but there's digital information super imposed ontop. Right. It's as if you
can see, for example, ifyou're playing a game like Pokemon Go,
it'll look like there's a Pikachu characterin the same room, we're on the
same park bench that you're sitting on, because it's digital information layered on top

(14:18):
of the real world, or itcould be information instead of an image like
you said it, you know,might get a pop up like a recipe
or something like that, but it'slayered on the real world environment. That's
the key I guess distinction between ARand VR fair And I think what they'll
also do too is, like specificallywith the Apple Vision Pro, it'll be
hard to actually tell to a degree, you know, with some content what's

(14:39):
real and what's yeah, super cool. I can attest to that. I'm
not sure if you've had a chanceto play around with it. But before
we talk about Apple Vision Pro,yeah, tell us a bit more about
gravity Jack. I hinted at yourtoy and browser. And I also heard
that Nolan Bush Now, who I'veinterviewed in the past for one of my
first books about game design, he'son your board as well. He was,
of course the founder of Atari andhe started the Chuck E Cheese franchise.

(15:01):
Yeah, that was actually an amazingthing to actually get him on our
board. So, gravity Jack,we're the oldest augmented reality agency in the
United States. You already mentioned someof our first We were the first to
do a physics engine and augmented reality. We do agency work for places like
Meta. We're currently in a fundraisingand an expansion of our company to do
a game for ourself called War Tribeof Binyama, that video game. When

(15:24):
we showed up to Nolan and hewas not on our board at the time,
it took me months to get tohim. But once I did,
I showed him this the game andthe mechanics, and it took about,
you know, thirty minutes to reallytake him through what we're doing. And
he said, this is this isrevolutionary. No wow, the video game
and the shit. And I actuallyI got chills when we said that,
because when you have the father,the true father of all video games,
Yeah, say that to you,You're like wow. So that's what we're

(15:46):
working on right now, is thegame, which is amazing. I'll can
ask you about War Tribe of binYammen a little bit later, but that
was a good overview of what gravityJack does. Let's now pivot and talk
Apple Vision Proki is out now inthe US to start what is it exactly?
For those who have heard the phrasemaybe in the news or you know,

(16:07):
on their x feed, their Twitterfeed, but they don't know what
this is. Apple is just amazingat doing transcendent things that actually I call
them generation jumpers, where you know, people that maybe never use a computer
could use an iPad and the iPhoneand that simple experience. The Apple Vision
Pro is a headset what we callon a headbound and display in the industry
that you wear on your face,and it's going to be primarily in home

(16:30):
and in office experiences. Because it'stethered, there's some attachments to it.
And what you'll do is you'll actuallyuse your home as your computing environment,
your gaming environment, your entertainment environment, adding that digital content into your space.
And this is it's step one inthe experience. But what they've done
really is we knew in two thousandand nine this would happen. We actually

(16:51):
wrote out a timeline of the entireindustry. We were one hundred percent accurate
on it, except for the timeframe. We're totally wrong on how fast it
was going to come. But therewas a demarcation point that we marked and
it was two things. It wasan in home oriented set of hmps YEP
head mounted displays YEP YEP head mounteddisplays that would be ar primarily, but
it would have likely a knob thatwould turn it all the way up to

(17:12):
VR and it would be high resolutionand full field of view. We actually
thought that it might come from Apple. I did guesstimate that it would be
about twenty sixteen twenty fifteen, soagain the timeline was way off, but
it was. It's really neat tosee this happening because from our chart that
we drew, this is actually thepoint where everything changes, where people experience
this thing and they're like, whoa, this is amazing, and there's a

(17:36):
thousand patents tied to it, andit really is remarkable. Just to sort
of paint a picture since this isaudio. When you don the headset for
the first time, these icons appearin the room like sort of above you,
hovering or floating above you in theroom that you're in, and it
kind of looks like a home screenon an iPhone or an iPad. But
when you look at the different iconslike photos or mail or Safari for web

(17:59):
browsing. Because or is eye tracking, the headset knows what icon you're looking
at. I have to do istap your forefinger to your thumb together like
you're pinching to open that application.More with gravity Jack about the Apple Vision
Pro. When we return on techit Out, I want to follow Mark
Google Mark with a C and Saltzmanwith a Z breaking down geeks peak into

(18:32):
street speak. This is check itOut. Check it Out with technology columnist,
author, and TV personality Mark Saltzman. Welcome back everyone to tack it
Out. We are chatting about thenew Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset,
which just debuted last week. Weare chatting with Luke Ritchie, dubbed the
godfather of augmented reality. His company, gravity Jack, is creating content for

(18:53):
Apple Vision Pro, and if Imay before we continue the magic, you
know Apple, I'll give them creditwork credits. Due is in the user
interface and the experience, and it'sso smooth to go through content, whether
it's entertainment like watching a movie thatseems to be like you're really there,
including interactive virtual reality which is alwaysfun, to the spatial photography and videography

(19:15):
where you're playing back like a wholemovie and I got chill's feeling like I
was right there in someone's memory,you know, even with spatial audio where
someone was talking to the left andyou can hear a child's laughter to the
right. It was like I wasbrought to that exact moment. It was
so magical. So, yeah,this is a pretty crazy. Even reading
text, I was impressed with howcrisp the text was like to read.

(19:36):
Now, I don't know if peoplewant to wear a heavy headset and connect
to a battery pack for a firstgeneration product, you know, it's pretty
wild. Absolutely, we sound likeApple fanboys, which I you know,
I'm fairly tech diagnostic, but Ithink they just did an amazing job.
I mean, like Apple, doesthey really really think through experience. One
thing to add to what you said, the spatial video. That's one of
the things that we believe is oneof the massive changers because when you watch

(20:00):
a YouTube video or you know fromtraining to an emotional response to a music
video, your brain actually responds ina very specific way. Now, if
you're at that concert, or ifyou're in front of that teacher or at
a psychologist's office, you actually havean emotional response, which does not it
doesn't look the same on the brainscans even with the same content from two

(20:22):
D to three D. So there'shuge things coming just even in the mental
health space, training space, learning. As soon as you're got a z
access the spatial video capability. Ourbrains literally process it like we're there.
So that magic you're feeling is reallybecause other than scent and touch, there's
the only two sensible perceptions that aremissing from this experience to trick your brain.

(20:44):
I was also impressed by the waythat you don't need a an Apple
Vision Pro headset to capture that video. I'm thinking, like, who's going
to want to wear that at afamily gathering or you know, Christmas morning?
But now with starting with iPhone fifteenand going forward, you can use
your phone capture it and then youplay back in the headset. We're chatting
with Luke Ritchie. He is thefounder and CVO chief visionary Officer at Gravity

(21:07):
Jack. This is a company thatcreates augmented reality content, whether it's for
entertainment purposes. They've also got clientsincluding Meta formerly Facebook and all the work
that they're doing. We'll talk aboutthe Metaquest three headset in a moment,
but just to wrap up about AppleVision Pro, Luke I made a comment
that you seemed impressed with it froma technical standpoint, but what about from
a sales perspective? How do youthink it's going to do. I mean

(21:29):
it's like, what thirty five hundredto start. Yeah, Well, and
then they sold out within hours,you know, of their pre order which
I was literally up at five amordering and is it true? It was
about two hundred thousand pre orders?Are you kidding? Thirty five hundred to
pop? Well, it's the thingis and that's just the start. Really,
what's going to happen is when peopleexperience it from you know, they

(21:51):
try their friends or whatever, they'regoing to realize I don't need screens.
I don't I'm not even going toopen my MacBook. It's going to change
the way we compute. I mean, we've expected this for two years,
like we've known, but we've beenwaiting for this specific device. So let's
explain that. Because when you wearthe Apple Vision Pro headset and you open
up, say a word processor,you can actually type in front of you
on a virtual keyboard and the textpops up just so it's kind of like

(22:15):
having a computer like you don't reallyneed. Yeah, I mean, unless
you don't want to wear this thingon an airplane, fair enough, but
it kind of replaces a full computer. Yeah, And you think as the
convergence of AI really starts to takeeffect, you know, managing making sure
everything's accurate, voice recognition, evenintention and the fact that it's watching your
eyes. You know, it's goingto be able to measure, it's going
to your ABP. A Apple Visionpro is going to know what you're about

(22:38):
to do even before you're doing it, just by the intention and the movement
of your body or even the placeyou are inside your home. So there's
these really cool experiences that we don'teven have yet that are just right around
the corner. Also, which soI don't think they're going to be able
to keep up with the man personally. All right, So you think it's
going to be a commercial success becausethere's a lot of naysayers out there,

(22:59):
I'm one hundred percent saying that,Oh wow. Okay, And speaking of
the meta Quest three, what doyou think about this headset that debuted a
few months back. It also nowhas augmented reality capabilities and not just virtual
reality like the Metaquest two did orvery limited AR you could see I think
through the headset, but it wasgrainy and black and white with the previous
generation, but now it's colorful.You can play games and all that with

(23:22):
both virtual and augmented reality. SoI'm not going to slam the meta oculus,
you know, quests three, becausewe're reference developers for that platform,
like actually some of the example codeis our code for other developers. It's
also ten percent of the price ofthe Apple Vision Pro. Yeah, exactly.
And I do think there's a differencewhen you approach making headmount of display

(23:42):
an HMD for VR versus AR,in the way you're going to interact with
the content, and even what theprimary purpose of the platform is, you
know, is it entertainment, learning? Training? Those servicings VR it right
now, there's this small chasm betweenAR and VR. There really is a
world where very soon and it's justgoing to be like I said, turning
the dial up to be in VR. But I think Meta has done an

(24:03):
amazing job of creating a great VRexperience, and Apple has done an amazing
job creating an amazing AR experience,And there is a convergence coming, but
that's a little ways down the road. I wasn't going to ask you about
this, but what's your take onthe whole rise and fall of the metaverse?
Like kind of dead but Billions wasthrown at that two years ago.
So I am of the mind thateventually that both these technologies will almost make

(24:29):
geography obsolete. That's a little waysdown the road. So you don't think
metaverse is dead. It's just tooearly. Yep. That's that's my viewer,
okay, And I don't want toput words in your mouth, Luke.
Any other thoughts on how mixed realitywill come into its own this year.
I think the masses are going toactually now understand the possibilities for augmented
reality when they start experiencing the AppleVision pro I think content is going to

(24:52):
boom. The fact that you cancreate content with facial video just from an
iPhone is it's going to change Instagram, It's going to change everything. But
I think that change is going tobe really what's going to be realized in
twenty twenty four. And being inthe augmented reality space since two thousand and
nine with some of the earliest it'sa good place to be this year.
Finally, So even without the barrierof entry being cost for I think for

(25:14):
most people out there, what aboutthose who don't want to wear anything on
their face, They just simply willnot wear a headset that worlds a little
farther off. I mean to getto the micronization we need to where it's
just like a pair of glasses.There's a number of technologies that have to
be developed, including battery life.But really, how do you offload compute
fully? And you can't even doit at the cloud because of the time

(25:34):
it takes to get to the cloud, so you have to have compute in
a locality. So I know peopleare working on some technologies that offload compute
to like devices that are not usedin those sort of things, but that's
farther down the road. I thinkthey just will. They'll almost have to.
It's it's like people that don't likesmartphones, but they still have to
use them. Yeah, but it'sa small little rectangle in your hand compared

(25:55):
to wearing these giant goggles. It'snot light. It doesn't even include the
battery. You're still tethered to likean iPhone sized battery beside you. You
know, again, first generation fine, but for those who are going to
spend thirty five hundred bucks and up, and not to mention, you probably
need an iPhone for the full experience. So that's another fifteen hundred or so.
Anyhow, you got my point.A couple more minutes with Luke when
we returned, then sand Disc talkswith us about Black History Month. We'll

(26:18):
be right back with more Check itOut, breaking down GeekSpeak into street speak.
Check it Out hosted by Mark Saltzman. You are listening to teck it
Out before we chat with sand Disc. A couple more minutes with Luke.

(26:41):
Ritchie from gravity Jack about the AppleVision Pro mixed reality headset. Tell us
about that original augmented reality game alittle bit more called War Tribe of bin
Yamen. It is designed for AppleVision Pro. Is it coming this year
or twenty twenty five, twenty twentyfive, and we're so we're in the
process of developing it. We're alsoin process to do a financial raise,
both private and public for that.It was actually the game we defined in

(27:04):
two thousand and nine, So wewrote our patents around this game that we
wanted to be able to do andlike what technology would have to be there,
what events and so it is mobileand Apple Vision Pro, So there's
this kind of movement that we expectacross both platforms. On the Vision Pro
side, you know you might beseeing your whole scene, and on the
mobile side, that's where we're actuallydoing some of the geo stuff and some

(27:26):
of the outdoors types of activities.Again, it is that it's the way
we got no Old Bush, Noalfounder of Retire to join our board was
when you actually saw our mechanics videoand it was hit him, not me,
that actually called it revolutionary. SoI was like, yes, I
mean to have your childhood hero literallyyou know, put his Reverer stamp on.
But one of the more important thingstoo than it does, is there

(27:47):
is a play to earn component insideit that it actually provides essentially a crowdsports
mechanism for digital work through gamification thatwe believe will actually systemically and generationally change
groups of people in poverty and movethem into productivity. And so there's a
there's a very you know, socialgood aspect to this, but it's it
doesn't feel like it as you're playingthe game. You just it's just integrated

(28:10):
with the core mechanics. Well,we'll have to have you back to learn
more about that, because that soundsreally interesting to me. It's been great
chatting with you. Luke. Ritchie'sbeen our guest. He's the founder and
chief visionary officer at gravity Jack.What's the best place to learn more about
your company, gravityjack dot com.That's Everything's there, all right, gravityjack
dot Com. All the best,Thank you, Mark. All right,

(28:30):
this is really cool. One ofmy favorite tech companies, sand Disk,
whom I trust my data with,is doing something special for Black History Month
with an afrofuturism edition of its extremeportable SSD or solid state drive. To
tell us all about it is BrianPridgin. He's director of product Marketing at
Western Digital, the parent company tosand Disk. Welcome back to the show.

(28:51):
Brian, good to chat with youagain. Thank you for having me.
Mark good to talk to you aswell. Now, before we chat
about celebrating inclusion and a special newSSD or solid state drive to commemorate it,
please tell us a bit about sandDisc. Well, most people know
us Mark for our storage devices.We are a memory storage company. Think
about all that digital stuff we havethe pictures, the music, the video,

(29:17):
the business files, the personal files. Today we have more digital stuff
than ever before. Yep. Soour business is to help consumers like you
and me store share, enjoy thosethings safely and even create more memories.
To store on digital content. Soit really comes down to we are all

(29:38):
about protecting your precious memories. BecauseMark, if you lose that digital content
that you have on your phone,on your computer, it's gone. It's
gone forever. Great point. Andeven if you upload content to the cloud,
once you stop paying for that subscriptionservice, you're without your data.
Like a lot of people don't realizethat when they start, you know,

(29:59):
so having offline, reliable, highspeed backups at my fingertips and that's why
I was saying off the top,Brian that I always trust sand Disk because
without reliability, there's nothing there.I know, you make SD cards,
USB thumb drives, solid state drives, which we're going to focus on today,
and I love this new themed one. So without further Ado, let's
hear about the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSDafro Futurism Edition and how it's tied to

(30:25):
Black History Month. Absolutely, thankyou, Mark, and you're right,
we're the world's most trusted brand whenit comes to storage. That's what we
do right. Our engineers, ourtechnologists are dedicated to bringing you the world's
most reliable storage. And what we'redoing now for Black History Month, this
new product is totally different than anythingwe've ever done in the past, and
essentially what we're doing is we're creatinga world's first, one of a kind

(30:47):
creator's toolkit. The goal is toinspire creativity from current and future creators.
This project is part of a broaderinitiative called Community Creations, and our goal
is to build deeper, richer relationshipswith communities. Taking our leading technology,
we're changing the look the feel ofthe product, and then we're also adding

(31:11):
content to the product to draw morefolks into the conversation. So when you
think about this product, the AfrofuturismEdition, first thing that you noticed of
this drive it is very different onthe way it looks. We're featuring a
manga character called Cast. That's Cast. It's part of our whole afrofuturism concept.

(31:32):
There's an artistic aesthetic of Wakanda andwhat afrofuturism means, but also Afrofuturism
is an ideology that envisions a worldwhere you use your imagination to think about
some things that haven't been done,utopian societies or leveraging technology and leveraging science
fiction to come up with something that'struly unique and at the same time from

(31:56):
a cultural aesthetic, it is Afrofrom an Afro perspective, but the futurism
side is what are we doing toinspire the next generation of creators and to
unleash their imagination. So getting backto this character, Cast, she represents
creativity, culture, ingenuity, passionin stem science, technology, engineering,

(32:17):
and mathematics to fight against the world. This is the backstory that I'm giving
you now. Cast is using herSTEM technology to fight against the world that's
been taken over by AI. Soit's it's kind of a really, really,
really interesting story and it comes fromthe Clockstricker series. So we're really
pleased to have her as the leadcharacter on the front of our drive and

(32:40):
she says there's a quote from hershe says, my technology exists to help
people, and you can see herthere. She's distinctly a black African character.
She uses her stem technology to developthis prosthetic hand that's actually her secret
weapon. And so we're really proudto be able to feature this world's first
product and using her as our symbolfor imagination and what the future could look.

(33:06):
Black Love It More with Brian Pridgenfrom sand Disc on teck it out
when we return. Follow Mark Saltzmanon Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram
listen to check it out whenever youwant. We're chatting with Brian Pridgen,

(33:28):
director of product marketing at Western Digital, the parent company to sand Disk.
We're learning all about its Afrofuturism editionof a new extreme portable SSD or solid
state drive, just in time forBlack History Month. I love the inclusion
and diversity message, Brian. Notonly is Cast a black character in this
afrofuturism themed drive, but as youmentioned, the prosthetic arm as well.

(33:52):
Love it and it's tied, asyou said, Brian, to the manga
series Clock Striker, So you've gotCast on the outside and then under the
hood of this special edition SSD.I understand there's exclusive content as well from
digital artists and producers, as wellas six months free of Clip Studio pain
X. Can you tell us aboutboth of those? Absolutely, We're including

(34:13):
some content inside the drive so whenthey purchased their product, when they open
the box, already loaded on thedrive is going to be content. The
subscription to Clip Studio Paint is asix month subscription and that's the world's leading
Anime and Manga creators tool. There'salso something really interesting that we put into

(34:34):
what I talked about before understanding inclusionand diversity. We've included a piece on
how to draw diverse manga, andit focuses on things that we often don't
think about, such as hairstyles,skin color, facier expressions. So there's
a piece in the Drive as wellcalled how to Draw Diverse Manga. There's

(34:57):
also a book that were really proudto be able to include. It's a
book from an author named David Georgeis called Black Boy Create, and he
really chronicles his journey and sets outessentially a tool kit in a path for
other folks that want to be creativeand how to be creative and really how
to establish your brand and things todo to be successful. So that's inside

(35:21):
the Drive as well. In additionto that, there are several sneak peak
releases from Saturday Am, the leadingmanga diverse manga publisher, and so they've
given us a few sneak peak releasesthat were also including Inside the Drive.
And just to bring everybody up tospeed, Brian SanDisk Extreme. As the
name suggests, these are more ofyour durable drives, right, I mean

(35:43):
they're faster, they can withstand allthe sort of the bumps and grinds of
everyday life, including for content creatorswho take this on the go. That's
very, very true, and whatyou want to think about for all of
your listeners out there, as wesaid before, we all have more digital
content than ever before. And forthose of us that are on the road,
that are traveling from office to office, from classroom to classroom, from

(36:07):
studio to studio, we want tohave the content with us. So you
need to make sure whatever device youstore your digital content on is durable.
So when it comes to things likewater resistant, dust resistant, drop proof,
this drive being the SANDUS Extreme givesyou that as well. Brian.
I've had SanDisk drives go through thewashing machine and my data is fine.

(36:30):
Don't encourage anyone to do that onpurpose, but just so you know,
I can definitely attest to that.So with Extreme, we're talking high performance,
extra durability, password protection, fiveyear warranty, automatic backup, all
the things that you would want.And what about capacity? How much data
can you store on these drives andhow much do they cost? This limited
edition drive comes in one terabyte andthe price is one twenty nine ninety nine

(36:54):
and you'll find it through our WDCWestern Digital Store, but you'll also find
an invest buy and a few othermajor retailers, all right, So you
can go to sanddisk dot com andthen there's a best buy drop for this
device one twenty nine for one thousandgigs or one terabyte for this special Afrofuturism

(37:15):
edition with a unique outside as wellas inside with extra content, software and
content from digital artists. So verycool stuff, Brian, and we encourage
everyone to come to the site.There's so much more information you can find
out about what we're doing to makeour products more approachable, to make them
more consumer friendly, to solve yourproblems. All right, Thanks again,

(37:37):
Brian. Always great to catch upwith you. Thank you, Mark.
I look forward to hearing from youagain. Hey, I want to give
a shout out once again to Intel, the title sponsor on tech it Out,
as well as acknowledging Visa and theirwork in the security or anti fraud
department, which I'll get to ina moment. But first, Intel Core
Alter processors brand new to the market. They represent the largest shift in Intel's

(37:58):
chip design in more than forty yearsaccording to the company, why they're adding
Generative AI or gena AI capabilities tothe laptop itself so that makes accessing your
data more personalized, faster, andmore secure than leveraging the cloud. The
AIPC is here. More is atIntel dot com slash Core Ultra. And
speaking of computers, when you're shoppingonline, remember to use a secure payment

(38:22):
method like a Visa, which iswhat I use because of zero liability buyer
protection. If there's ever a disputeyou did not get what you bought or
was damaged, Visa's got your back. There could be no half measures when
it comes to cybersecurity, which iswhy Visa takes an aggressive and multi layered
approach to combating the rising thread ofmalicious software and other threats. Read more

(38:43):
about Visa and how securing the world'spayments is priority one at Visa dot com
slash Security. Hey, have agreat rest of your day everyone. Hope
you enjoyed this program with sand Disk, Gravity Jack and the work they're doing
for Apple Vision Pro and OnePlus,and I look forward to catching up with
you next weekend for another episode ofTeck it Out. Bye bye for now.