The Tech Conversation is Underway!

Week of April 49-May 4

Woohoo! I made it to the end of the week! Why is that worth celebrating? Because I feel like I’ve been working like a MAD MAN to get on the other side of the Techsploder Podcast debut episode. Once I turned yesterday’s premiere episode around, I realized how exhausted I was and took the rest of the day off with my girls. Honestly, I should probably give myself the weekend too. So after I write this newsletter update, I’ll be off the grid until Monday! But before that happens…

Techsploder Podcast #1: Tom Merritt

I am so happy and excited to have Tom Merritt, my decades long podcast mentor and friend, as the first chat on the Techsploder Podcast. My goal continues to be “less interview, more conversation” and I think this was an excellent model of that. Tom and I share memories of the early days of Buzz Out Loud, the spark that lit Tom’s technology fire at a young age, the importance of community in the work we do in podcasting, and he drives home the point that “the more things change, the more things stay the same.” Plus, he answers a Patron question about his own content feeding into AI training data sets and what it means for his own content in the future.

SUBSCRIBE: http://www.techsploder.com
DONATE: http://www.patreon.com/JasonHowell

Nothing Phone 2a Review: Two Months With a Budget Beauty

I took a long time to review the Nothing Phone 2a, having spent 60 days with the device. I’ve taken an insane amount of pictures with the camera setup. I’ve relied on it for practically everything, and I’ve grown accustomed to the glyph lighting system, the interesting and unique design style, and the mid-range processor. After all this time, I can say with certainty that Nothing created a pretty excellent mid-tier phone… with some caveats. The processor won’t let you down ENTIRELY, but you will notice it in a few mission critical ways. But hey, it’s a $350 device! So did Nothing make all the right tradeoffs to nail this price point? I’d say so. Just know what you are getting yourself into.

SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/@techsploder?sub_confirmation=1
DONATE: http://www.patreon.com/JasonHowell

Android Faithful #42: Down the Rabbit Hole

Mishaal Rahman BROUGHT IT this week on the show, and in real time! One of his sources leaked to him an APK for Android that seemed to be the entire Rabbit R1 launcher which all but confirmed that the R1 is in fact an Android device running an Android app. This alone isn’t significant, many hardware devices out there do this. That’s the beauty of AOSP. But its relevant because it seems to directly address the ongoing scepticism of some critics of standalone AI devices like this. They often ask “why couldn’t this just be an app?” Turns out, it IS!

During the show, in real time, Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu responded to Mishaal on X (Twitter) to deny… and confirm the Android roots. Which was… kind of confusing, really. Anyway, this story made big news this week and it was awesome being a part of it in real time.

We also discussed Samsung’s next Galaxy Unpacked event in Paris, Pixel Tablet and Pixel 8A rumors timed perfectly with the fast approaching Google IO, how Wear OS is picking up steam in the wearables department, and more!

SUBSCRIBE: https://androidfaithful.com/episode/down-the-rabbit-hole
DONATE: https://www.patreon.com/androidfaithful

AI Inside #15: Should It Just Be An App?

Mishaal shouldn’t be the only one to have fun with the Rabbit R1 story. Jeff Jarvis and I discussed the core question being thrown around: Do these AI hardware devices justify their existence YET? We both agree that they don’t do much right now, and might not in the near term, but we both feel like this category of devices is highly likely to develop into SOMETHING substantial in the coming years and these are just the growing pains of an evolving new type of technology. Similar in many ways to the smartphone way back when!

Also, we discussed Amazon’s Q chatbot getting a wide release for AWS users, content licensing deals (the good and the bad), OpenAI’s new “memory” functionality, and studying how babies learn as a way to develop new kinds of AI systems.

SUBSCRIBE: https://aiinside.show/episode/should-it-just-be-an-app
DONATE: https://www.patreon.com/aiinsideshow

May the Fourth Be With You!

I don’t have a whole lot else to share. As I said, I plan to spend the rest of this weekend with my kiddos. Today is May fourth, it’s raining cats and dogs outside, and our calendar is surprisingly empty. So I have deemed today a “movie day!” We will watch something from the Star Wars cannon, I will show them the first Lord of the Rings (something I’ve been waiting for the right moment to do), and who knows what else. Thank you ENDLESSLY for your support, yall. I have some interesting new ideas that I’m going to be working on starting Monday which you’ll see on the YouTube channel later in the week. Always trying new things! Thanks yall!