S3E22

Want to see the Podcast Live? Go here!

https://youtu.be/_6LHEpBL3kE

Want to go to Europe but you just can’t afford it? Yeah, me neither.

So imagine you could be at your favorite place in the world in a matter of minutes. Or maybe you have a “list” of places you have always wanted to go. Well, Tech is working to give you ways to go all over the world and beyond via virtual reality or augmented reality. Say what?

https://www.morningbrew.com/emerging-tech/stories/2021/07/30/mixed-reality-transform-travel-industry-unexpected-ways-heres

So here are your buzzwords for this episode: Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Extended Reality. VR, AR, MR, and XR (I guess ER doesn’t sound right so they call it XR).

So VR, virtual reality-A computer simulation of a three dimensional world

Augmented Reality- when technology super-imposes computer images on top of your reality. My favorite example is Pokemon Go` or Google Lens, which is my favorite use of it so far, where it translates street signs in real time. Very cool.

Mixed Reality- a combination of a virtual world and a real world using computer imagery. 

Now combine all of this and the experience is called Extended Reality, XR. 

So our world hunkered down and we all hid in our houses and didn’t go anywhere for months. So tech companies started working on how they could make a way for us to go places without leaving our homes. Facebook bought Oculus (a VR headset company) back in 2014 for $3billion (US). So far other than releasing headsets and making folks lives difficult when they have issues with their Facebook accounts when using VR. By the way, want to speak to a human at Facebook and get help with your account? Buy a Oculus VR headset. They actually have human customer service and will help with a Facebook account, only cost you $300 US.

Anyway, companies want to give you a way to visit the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, all without you leaving home. 

And as we rush out to go visit everything now that Covid is over. Hahahahaha Anyway, so the issue is we are suddenly “over visiting” things such as the Great Barrier Reef, Coliseums of Rome, and National Parks in the US. This means we are accidentally destroying these places or we are leaving so much trash behind when visiting these places

https://www.emarketer.com/content/pandemic-pushed-xr-use-beyond-gaming?utm_source=morning_brew

https://www.comparethemarket.com.au/travel-insurance/vr-travel/?utm_source=morning_brew

These technologies may not completely replace travel but it can enhance our travel. We can learn so much about the places we visit using augmented reality. . Imagine seeing people dressed in time period specific clothing in augmented reality while we walk about great places. Or information bubbles pop out telling you about an artist or a work as you look at works of art in museums. Sadly I think of dystopian worlds where we are unable to go anywhere and this is our only way to “travel”.

Apple wants to scan your photos on your phone for Child abuse images. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/07/week-in-patriarchy-apple-privacy

So remember Apple’s iPhone is the privacy phone, right? So Apple wants to use artificial intelligence to scan your phones on your phone for child abuse and child sexual abuse images based off of a database of images given to it by authorities. While on the surface this sounds amazing and hopefully will help prevent child abuse of all forms, the concern of privacy advocates is, how does it make sure it doesn’t find false positives? What can go wrong? And worse, the bigger worry is this technology could fall into the wrong hands of bad actors. How do we do the right thing and at the same time prevent it from turning into a Big Brother scenario? How do we stop child abuse (and for that matter so many other forms of abuse) and yet not wrongly accuse people? Apple’s approach is to use a database of images supplied by legal authorities and Apple themselves would not actually see the photos but instead use an algorithm to compare images. So there won’t be anyone viewing the images to confirm except maybe the police when they get a warrant to search your phone. For me, I am okay with this but it is easy to say that when you know you have nothing to worry about. And if real abusers are captured and legally prosecuted, then again I am in favor of this. But again, if hackers can get their hands on this tech and use it for wrong. It feels a little like a cross between Big Brother and the movie “Minority Report”.

Google has released a new USB C version of their Titan Key. 

I have talked about Titan as my favorite way to secure my login with various sites especially Gmail. So you basically enable two factor and then this is your hardware way to do a code to get logged in.

https://9to5google.com/2021/08/09/new-titan-security-key/

Once I get my hands on one I will do a review.