mergeconflict222
James: [00:00:00] official. Everybody. Frank hates hardware. You heard it here for some rich conflict exclusive one more. Well, why are putting Frank on blast? 
Frank: [00:00:17] Wow. What a way to open? Just put me on the stand. Okay. So I. I'm not saying that I hate hardware. I'm saying I'm just not a little inspired by hardware right now. It's not on the top of my mind.
Uh, there's other things going on. There's a virus. There's, I'm always trying to, we release an app or something like that. I don't know. I just, haven't been thinking yeah. Stuff like that, you know? Uh, it's fall somehow. Summer's gone, I guess. Uh, so yeah. But you had a topic, you had a topic you're like, I'm inspired by hardware.
I'm like, what, what do you got? James? W what, is there any cool new tech out there? What am I missing? 
James: [00:00:56] Yeah, you know, I was pretty inspired by one of the recent conversations we had over on the Nintendo dispatch podcast. And you can go to Nintendo dispatch.com, shameless plug more, more, more, wow. And at the end of the day, Podcast last week.
I want to say, we talked about the X-Box series X and series S devices. I was lucky enough to wrap one of each. So that was like my. 
Frank: [00:01:24] This is gloating. This is glow. Okay. Look, I thought September was going to be an expensive month for me. So I wasn't, here's the truth. I'm depressed about hardware because I thought at the end of this month, I was going to have a new RTX, 30, 90, a new iPhone, and some other piece of hardware I totally forgot about.
And right, the Xbox, I was going to have three new toys to play with at the end of this month or whatever month it is now. I don't know, time doesn't exist. But I got none of them. So I think I'm just a little sad and that turns out you got, you got to what you bought too. 
James: [00:02:00] I got, I got a few, if you need, I got some extras.
If any, if you need a device, I can get you a device. Um, 
Frank: [00:02:05] you know, I've 
James: [00:02:06] yeah, I was okay. Before we actually get to our topic, which is cool. New tech. The reason I, this this happened is we were talking about a big debate versus series ass versus series X. Now I am a Nintendo person, right? My Nintendo switches right in front of me.
I've owned every single X-Box since the Xbox came out, I don't currently own one. Uh, because the TV isn't really a game zone. The office is more of a game zone and the Xbox has been quite large, uh, and it doesn't fit into my current. Situation where I've been really happy with a new X-Box because the series X is just a beautiful piece of hardware.
It just, it's just the vertical of it. It is beautiful. And then the series ASCE, which is the one that I'm personally getting, because I don't have 10 80, I don't have four K stuff. You know, it's also a spectacular Buderus. Daunting device. It's so tiny, right? It's like, it's about the size of my switch. It's almost like the size of a, of a Mac book menu, maybe like two of those.
And I'm just like, Oh, this, this can fit into my office. And I can game again on these monitors. So I did, you know, it's just not my first rodeo. I was telling Hanselman this, uh, in our, in our group team chat because he did not get one. Uh, and I said, listen, I've worked at GameStop. Since I was 15 until I was 25 or something like that.
And this is not my first rodeo. I know how to preorder stuff. I know how to get stuff. It's not inside baseball. It just, it's just, it's a series of having a vacation. It's a dedication. Yeah. Having every single tab open on every single. Um, website on Walmart on best buy on target and having all of your being logged in having all of your credit card information set, and just hoping and praying that your internet can connect yeah.
Their backend systems and time. So I did get some. Um, some systems and I usually attempt to always get more so I can give them to friends that I love who weren't able to preorder them, or just forgot that it was being released. So I'm all in on the series as in general. Um, and this had me thinking about cool new, awesome hardware, because like you, we were also, I had a big Apple event and we did an entire podcast on it.
I don't think either of us. We're like, ah, I'm going to go spend a bunch of money right now. Is that an accurate statement, Frank? 
Frank: [00:04:26] Uh, it's true. They announced a few iPads and some watch updates, but, uh, You know, the unfortunate thing is they've been releasing pretty good hardware for the last few years, and I have no real feeling need to upgrade or anything like that.
So it just hasn't been top of mind, but, you know, I was the whole reason I wanted that X-Box was for that 4k. So the whole, the thing that you're dismissing is the whole reason I wanted it, which is kind of funny. I really messed up and, uh, gaming. Over this virus time because I gave away my X-Box and it turns out there's a new star Wars, X wing game 
James: [00:05:04] out there.
Frank: [00:05:05] Uh, I spent. My whole childhood playing those ex Wayne games. It would be kind of fun to get that working. But what I decided to do is piece together a PC and try to get a steam working on it. So I'm going to build a gaming rig. I think that's what they call them. Right. I'm going to build a gaming rig. So, 
James: [00:05:25] yeah, that's good.
Yeah. My buddy, Jesse told me that the, the VR experience is the best of VR experiences ever had in his entire life on the PC version. So word. 
Frank: [00:05:36] I didn't even know that was a thing. So I've played a lot of VR space games and to a tee, they make you sick. Like I, I'm pretty strong. And the VR I, me and my stomach, we get along fine.
But man, those space games can kill you. 
James: [00:05:53] It's fascinating. Right? So there's all these new games, new hardware things coming out and September didn't stop with. Um, Apple and Microsoft doing big, and that's obviously Sony to PlayStation five stuff. But what we wanted to talk about this week is not just the Xbox, what kind of cool new tech things that we're excited about.
Cause there's a lot of events that happened and just other technology that genuinely has excited. And, uh, the first one I want to talk about here, Frank, because I know you and me, we love drones. I think that that's one thing that can be said, uh, 
Frank: [00:06:30] Yeah. I learned that I, I have two loves, uh, one is building them and the other one is getting the sensation of flight, which you don't really get that often.
So I don't actually fly a drone as often as I would like, but gosh, I like making them that is so much fun for me 
James: [00:06:48] that the drones. As soon as I lift off, I have the biggest smile on humanly possible. And based on the day that smile stays on the entirety of the time. Right. Or if, um, my drone decides to lose its reception and I'm like, where's it at?
And I can't see anything. Then my heart starts pounding and then I see it again. And then like this huge smile on my face. So yeah, 
Frank: [00:07:16] it's the thrill of the hunt. That part, the fun too. 
James: [00:07:19] Yeah, it is. Yeah. If you go to a place in which you're in big open field and you do a lot of stuff, uh, it's just, uh, an absolute blast and you know, you and I have both been up in different parts of Seattle doing some, some drone flying.
That was some of my favorite parts. Cause that smile. I just, I just told you earlier, we, uh, we've got e-bike for Heather, these Blix bikes, bikes, and I hopped on it. And I just, you know, hit the throttle was like, let's take this up to five, right? The fine I'm like going 20 miles per hour. I'm not doing. And he's like, this is so much fun.
And it reminded me of my first flight and my first one wheel experience. So those sort of they're magical moments, you know what I mean? 
Frank: [00:07:57] Yeah. You know, um, it's funny that you mentioned that bike because I kind of had that with mopeds spreads when I was a kid. And it's just occurring to me that the new electric bicycles out there are kind of like mopeds are finally coming to America.
You know, they've been around the rest of the world, but for some reason, we've just never had them here. And so it's great that, uh, the electrical revolution is happening. But yeah, uh, for me as the nerd electrician, I'm like, this is all because of the better batteries and better motors that we make nowadays.
So it's so much fun to see like all the new applications of motors and these batteries. It's funny because as I like shop around on Amazon for parts, for my robots, I want really high torque motors that can, you know, go forwards and backwards and are rugged and ideally sealed up. And they're all spare motors for.
Bikes and skateboards and scooters now. So it's commoditized like, but we're, we're living in the electronic world. I'm sure the prices will come down even further from here. 
James: [00:09:09] I was watching a video. I think it was from CNN or New York times. And it was this gentleman that said I bought my first E-box and I E bike.
And here's what I learned. And it was funny because I obviously assembled the bike, which was, I only took a few hours and it could have been faster now that I know what I'm doing. I could put it together in 30, 40 minutes probably. Um, And he, and he put it together and like at the charger was the same, this is rad power.
And this is Iowa. I have a black spike, but like the sh the chargers are the same. The batteries are the same. It literally comes with a toolkit. And it just, as a, as a little black bag that says toolkit on it, like all the parts are the same brands. It's crazy. But talking about our friends at Amazon before we get out way off topic, um, there was an exciting Amazon, um, ACO and ring.
Announcement talking about drones, Amazon, uh, electric things. What's the phrase, it's a future share. 
Frank: [00:10:02] I watched a science fiction video and they said I could buy one. And I wasn't sure if it was, I don't know, a new movie or something. Okay. So there's this creepy little flight. It's not creepy. I love it, but I have to call her creepy.
I just have to. It is creepy little box you can put in your living room and that top deep attaches and turns out wizbang, it's a drone zipping and zooming all around your house. Um, this is interesting on so many different levels, socio level security level. Electrical level. Where do you even begin with this thing?
Other than to say, just as a weirdo that I am, I absolutely love this thing. It got a lot of bad press on Twitter, but I'm just going to say it. I like the little drone. That's cute. It's like it's from star Wars. 
James: [00:10:54] I, we, uh, Heather and I were talking about, cause she hates it. I love it. Right. And I'm just like, well, what if, what if the new, the next generation will be.
Outdoor drones. And then your neighbors will have outdoor drones, like circle, circle, circling the houses. And the drones will start like getting upset at the other drones. And there'll be like this kind of battle for the airspace, your house. And I'm like, I want that so bad. I want this draw. I want to join and be like flying around, like docks on the roof.
And it's like waterproof. Right? It's like, no one can get to it while it's docked. Oh my goodness. It's solar powered. So you never have to worry about it. It's self-sustained Oh my goodness. Um, 
Frank: [00:11:29] Okay. So it's none of those things. No, it's 
James: [00:11:32] not. 
Frank: [00:11:34] So what it is, so it's a little drone and these are like the little toy ones that I always suggest people start with to learn how to fly a drone.
The cool thing though, is it's enough fully plastic enclosure. So you're not going to like ding your hand on a blade or anything. So that's cute. Um, it's about hand sized. Is that, is that the impression you got. I 
James: [00:11:55] believe we are a little bigger. No, I think, I think about hand size. I think it might even be smaller than that.
I think you could Palm Palm this in your hands. I want to say, 
Frank: [00:12:02] I think so small, uh, from the technological side, the interesting features of it were that it has. Purported wait a good camera on it, but that it's also, I'm not running into the whole walls and plants and the cat. Hopefully I'm sure the cat will attack it either way, but you know, let the spoils go to the Victor or whatever.
Um, I love that they think that they can get a drone to go around the house without crashing into things. It's, it's a real gamble, but as a control theory person, I'm like, let's do this. Let's, let's get this thing going around. I kind of want it just to see like my apartment. It's never going to survive in my apartment, but I want to see a try.
James: [00:12:45] No, I don't. I don't think so. Either hall. I mean, the video shows it through flying through hallways, doing the stuff. The thing it could do is. It could have you map your, you know, how the Roombas, they map the floors. 
Frank: [00:13:00] If it could map ones, the expensive ones, the old Roombas, the classic ones. I think I'm still the majority Roomba.
It turns out they're dumb. They just bounce off the walls 
James: [00:13:09] and this will not bounce off well would bounce off the wall. That would be bad. But my, my, I have to imagine that it would. And again, I could be wrong. And if there's a ring engineer, listening to the podcast, please go to merge conflict.fm and give us a email.
That'd be awesome. We'll have you on the show. Uh, what I think it may be doing is you can sort of map your house because it's easy for a drone. Right? My Maverick mini. I can put it in these quick zoom shots and it can literally fly back and fly back at you. Like it flies away from you and it flies right back to you.
Right? Because it can be like, I am going to fly at a 45 degree angle away for 150 feet. Right. It has all those sensors in it. So if it could do that in some way with the app based where it's at. Um, I dunno, because then if it's doing motion tracking and a Tudor comes in. I have a lot of fears for this always home cam, whatever it's called.
Um, but I also think it's the most amazing thing ever, so, 
Frank: [00:14:10] okay. So I don't have a fear because everyone's already buying IP cameras. There's the best security cameras out there. Uh, they're so simple. Now you have no idea what you're agreeing to, but somehow magically from anywhere in the world, you can check your home security camera, who knows how that's working, but magic.
Um, this is better than that. Sure. Like an actual fif if they see one of these, of course, they'll just smash it. I mean, yeah, of course. Yeah. I actually really loved in their video, the house that the thief was going into, I swear that drone was the most expensive, most valuable thing in that house. The rest of the house was empty.
I'm like, you should just grab that drone and run buddy, like good score. Uh, totally forgot what I was saying now. Got sidetracked. Oh, no. But those cameras have the problem of like, can really swively ones and the zoom is getting better, but you still technically need to put like three or four of them. If you want to actually cover your house and you have a big house.
Uh, whereas the little droney thing, if it's actually reliable and if the cat doesn't always attack it, then you can just take that for a spin. Whenever you're curious about what's going on in the house. I think that's good. 
James: [00:15:26] I am fascinated. If it'll be worth the tuner for $9, we have these  cameras inside and they're, you know, $30, you know, two K cameras.
Yeah. And they can rotate. The one is called a pan and zoom, and it can rotate nearly 360 degrees and a circle and up and down like a pitch of, you know, 180 and that's 40 bucks. It's bananas 
Frank: [00:15:51] 30, 40 bucks. And for what? The rest of eternity, you can live, stream it over the internet. 
James: [00:15:56] Yeah. That's so weird. 
Yeah.
Frank: [00:15:59] I don't understand the business model, but okay. 
James: [00:16:01] There is none. That's the thing keeps selling more of them. That's the thing. 
Frank: [00:16:06] So this is an improvement on that. I don't from the security angle, it would have to be an idiot thief to get caught by one of these things. But if you want to know, has the dog eaten the pie?
You know, it's kind of perfect for that. 
James: [00:16:21] I think so. I think that they, they say that you can check to make sure you close the doors. You didn't leave the oven on things like that. Um, Be really cool. I think that we're going to see a whole new generation, even more generation of, of, of different devices that really push the boundaries, uh, of, of being able to watch your house and your goods while you're not there, or when you're home.
That's also a fun thing to do too, by the way, you could just, I mean, I just want to sit there and I want the drone to just hover. Watch TV, 
Frank: [00:16:50] just watch TV from a way 
James: [00:16:52] there is, um, one of the halo games. One of, I think it was halo two, maybe one of the, there was like a little flying drone thing. They kind of followed you everywhere.
And that's what this reminds me of. 
Frank: [00:17:01] Well, I think we can just wait. And George Lucas, when he did the special additions and he threw in all those pleats, the drones around 
James: [00:17:09] that's all his fault. Uh, all right, let's get off of drones and let's get on to the Google, uh, launch after dark at night event thingy.
It's the pixel event slash nest audio slash Chrome cast event. I don't want to talk any about new pixel phones. Um, why. No, I think we did 
Frank: [00:17:27] a whole episode on Apple. And what Google does some fly by event. I didn't even know about this event, James full honesty here. It just totally escaped my radar. I don't know if I blocked the word Android on Twitter.
I have to check that, I guess. Um, 
James: [00:17:42] funnily enough, I feel like they're getting. Away from the words, Android, as much as they possibly can. A lot of these things, because I want to talk about first here, before we get to sponsor break is we'll do a new segment that we'll do sponsor that with you. Another statement, but I want to talk about the new Chrome cast with Google TV.
Not to be confused with Android TV, which also has Google TV on your Android TV. Do you see what happened? What's going on here? There's last second. 
Frank: [00:18:10] Yeah. Hi box series one app 
James: [00:18:15] naming is hard, iPad, 
Frank: [00:18:17] eighth edition. 
James: [00:18:19] Um, I I'm a big fan of the Chrome cast. I thought the Chrome cast was super duper cool. In fact, uh, Heather often gets upset that she cannot cast a tab to her, uh, to our new Apple TV, because we've made the full trifecta in the house.
And, um, maybe I do need a Chrome cast extra, but the. The cool part about Chrome Canada's always was that you could buy the stuff well, dongle, and then you could cast if you will, or shove content via your phone over. I thought that was always cool, but then very lacking. I love, you know what I love Frank.
I love a user interface. Ooh. A UI. So good. 
Frank: [00:19:02] It didn't need. So I had a, I have a Chrome cast because I have one friend that has an Android device and every so often they want to show a picture. This was back when friends were allowed at me. Uh, and I was always kind of. Amazed at how well it worked, it would just, you know, magically take over the screen and they would be able to share like a video.
And it did the crazy thing where it would hand off the videos. So then the Chromecast starts downloading it. I thought that's always been good, clever tech at a good price point. I wonder I'm out of Volvo dongles, which are the most. Popular these days. Cause we still have what the Roku is still technically one in there.
I think it's more expensive. The Chrome cast and then the, uh, Android, uh, that app, uh, fires stick thing TV, right? 
James: [00:19:49] Yes. I think that Roku is number one. I think. And then maybe Amazon 
Frank: [00:19:55] more of a DVR is it's more of a device. That's it's a different price class or do they have a 
James: [00:20:01] $30 model? Oh no. They had the Roku.
They have the sticks, they got the $30. We got 
Frank: [00:20:06] rabbis. 
James: [00:20:07] Heather's dad one. My mom also got one there. 
Frank: [00:20:11] They're great. 
James: [00:20:13] Yeah, you can't mess it up. It's just lots of free stuff. They got the free Roku stuff, all that jazz. Um, you don't need extra devices, extra things, extra accounts. And just as all the apps that has all the things, Roku was really smart because they built in Roku, tons of these cheap TVs and just really hit the market share.
But Android TV on the other side has not had that type of success. The Google has put out a few devices and a bunch of other manufacturers put out some cheap devices never took off and they rename things a bunch of times and Android TV has come a long way and. Um, Nvidia shield TV is the one that I have.
And that's sort of the number one device for having a graphical user interface. Now, the Chrome cast, I would say, it's not really know why they call it a Chrome cast because while it is a Chrome cast in vain, it has a remote and it has a graphical user interface now. And it's only $50 though. Um, which kind of amazing at the same time.
Frank: [00:21:14] I, you know, as a Apple TV user, I really appreciate good remote design because the Apple TV remote is terrible. It's the worst remote to this day, I'm still afraid of it. I pick it up and very gingerly tap around it edges to try to discern which end might be the touchy end that I'm not allowed to touch and which know has the buttons that I want to touch.
Even when you find the button end, you really don't know the orientation anyway. So I totally value that a they had to put the price up a tiny bit. To put a better remote in there. Cause I can't imagine any other reason why Google would want to raise the price. This is all to get you onto their services and such.
So, um, I watched this video that you sent me a recap of the event and my biggest takeaway was I really liked the colors and the style of the stick or what, what features am I, is it mostly that they added the user interface? Is that the big difference? 
James: [00:22:16] User interface and remote. The biggest thing on the UI is it, you know, on the Apple TV, you have to go into the Apple.
This is really confusing, but you have to go into the Apple TV app to get sort of the combined feed of everything. 
Frank: [00:22:33] Yeah, it's I, I actually, I don't understand the Apple TV aggregation system. I find it very confusing. I saw, I still go back to the old fashioned home screen. 
James: [00:22:43] That's what I do too, but here's what they've done is they said let's make that the default screen where it gives you all of the recommendations, all the things, and then underneath it are your app.
So you can go into, so. It's very similar to combining the Apple TV app and the home screen together. And, but then they also have tabs for life. Five movies shows, apps and more, right. Uh, so they, they sorta have built in YouTube TV, which is also not to become confused with Google TV. Because that's the Google for your TV, where the YouTube TV that's the live TV, which makes literally no sense, uh, Google one day we'll get it right.
But they they've, they've put that together. And this might be one of the nicest streaming devices I've ever set my eyes upon. I mean, I really want to get one, just to try it out. 
Frank: [00:23:32] It just occurred to me. They should just call it the YouTube stick. Put the YouTube stick in your TV, like everyone would, I understand what that is, you know, a good user interfaces where so much, uh, Amazon prime video watching app finally upgraded on my TV.
They had one of the worst video players. I think of all the video playing apps out there. And they recently updated, and it's not the best, but it's so much better than what it was before. And I think. And I think that matters. I think that's why we were saying like, the Roku is nice because the UI is responsive because they have a good layout.
The suggestions are correct. And that kind of thing, stuff. And now that I have one app for everything branded media empire, and the world, you can really play AB comparison, which one is better or which one is worse between them. So we're living in this crazy wild, wild West time where they're actually producing hardware.
I mean, what kind of weird media empires are these? So a lot of this is just, I feel like we're living in an animate world, the put in, I'm just having fun watching it, but at the same time, um, it's cool to see progress, especially on these, um, lower end cheaper devices. 
James: [00:24:53] I agree. And I'm also really big, not only into TV, but also into audio.
So I want to get over to the nest home pod is I'm going to call it, but first let's take a quick break. Thank our amazing sponsor this week. I circuit. Listen, are you okay? We'd have a realtime circuit simulator. What I circuit is for you, it's made by an amazing developer named Frank Kruger, the coast, the show it's the premier iPad, an iPhone app for designing and experimenting with circuits and Arduinos.
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That actually it's on this podcast with me. Thanks. I surrogate for sponsoring this week's pod. 
Frank: [00:26:01] Thanks. I circuit 
James: [00:26:03] by circuit. 
Frank: [00:26:04] It's really unexpected. Wow, James. Okay. I don't even know what they're doing. Trust that. That was amazing. All 
James: [00:26:11] right. Let's talk about a nest audio here, because like you, with the Chrome cast, the colors, I think the colors that Google picks are just.
Spectacular. In fact, um, Microsoft just released, um, the new surface laptop, a go device, and also another device tube. I forget what it is now, but that's the one I'm really excited about obviously. Um, and they also have spectacular. Colors like these, these vibrant, like nice blues and greens and like pinkish sands tone.
I just want him in my house. I just want them everywhere. They're not quite pastel, but almost, Oh, 
Frank: [00:26:50] it's a pastel. We are so living in a path that world, this is, this is going to look like the 1970s in 20 years. But whatever, the new 1970s who cares, um, yeah. Bill. Do you know, it's funny. I was just doing some, uh, history history watching on the YouTubes and they were talking about how well bloop what's an expensive color, no one had blue, and now you can have all the billion, different shades of blue, 
James: [00:27:16] so much blue.
I 
Frank: [00:27:18] keep staring at this remote. It's such a better design than the Apple, but I feel like it almost has the same mistake as the Apple. It's a metric on both directions and the button layout is symmetric. I think they might have made a little mistake, copying Apple a little. We much 
James: [00:27:36] here a little bit. I agree with that.
The back and home is always a confusing thing. Um, I feel like one of them should be bigger than the other one. 
Frank: [00:27:45] Yeah. 
James: [00:27:45] Yeah. Okay. 
Frank: [00:27:47] Yeah. You know, as an Nintendo user, you have awesome tastes, good control or layout. Why don't they just hire an Nintendo to make controllers for all these things? 
James: [00:27:57] One would assume well, because you know, they don't want you to use the remote.
They want you to use your voice. That's why there's a big button on there. And also the central part of their nest audio is that you speak to it. It's the home pod. It's the Google home. It's the, whatever they're calling it now. But, um, You know, I know that you have a home pod, an Apple home pod. 
Frank: [00:28:17] No, I don't.
I I've been sticking with the Amazon brand of home electronic. 
James: [00:28:23] I had, I had a series of the Google ones and they were, they were fine, whatever. Um, but I was always sort of impressed by the home pod because the home pod was all about audio first. Has delectable delightful audio, but this new ness audio let's talk about it really quickly here is it's basically the Google home, which, which I did have, but it's 75% louder and 50% stronger base.
Like they put all sorts of beautiful components and beautiful mesh on it. Um, I still don't want to talk to a device, I guess that's my thing. Cause I don't like talking to devices. Um, but my, my biggest part here that I really like is that I feel as though they've, they've doubled down on. Trying to take out Sonos is that they haven't now.
So you can connect all the rooms, everything together seamlessly there's no, there's no displays. There's no lights really on this device. It's just rarely seamless, integrated into your home. And I thought that that was just a nice little touch of this event. I 
Frank: [00:29:26] thought. Yeah, it's a little unfair too, because audio has always been kind of the purview of the operating system.
And, you know, the fact that anything Bluetooth works at all from a brand, that's not the manufacturer of the phone is kind of a miracle of engineering and we should all be appreciative for standards like that. But, um, audio routing, Apple just had a bunch of improvements to audio routing. It seems like every OS version, they try to improve audio routing because it's a tricky problem.
Um, I especially see it with even the Amazon devices. So I feel bad for Sonos a little bit because. Uh, this is such an easy thing for the operating system manufacturer to do right. And to do well and to add features and to iterate and all that stuff. Whereas the third party, people are stuck implementing the Bluetooth standard and hoping that Google also implements the Bluetooth standard and things like that.
Ah, good, good times. Good for Google. I'm curious. Are you going to buy one? See, the thing is I live in a tiny little apartment in a tiny little apartment building, and though I love music. I never turn it up very loud. And so all the solutions about like, look at our awesome bass. I'm like, well, aren't you lucky to be able to have bass in your audio?
Fancy people. 
James: [00:30:49] I had a really big house. Big huge rooms and different levels and all this stuff maybe, but I do not. So, uh, I, I don't like things listening anyways, so I'm not, no, we, we just have like little Bluetooth speakers connect to that we can do. Um, but yeah, I mean, I still think it's really nice. I think it's a mind boggling by the way, is that this thing has a quad core, 1.8 gigahertz processor and.
A machine learning hardware engine in it for a hundred dollars. And that is mind boggling. 
Frank: [00:31:25] Yeah. And this is it's up to all the Google services, 
James: [00:31:29] right? Yeah, yeah. Correct. Yeah. 
Frank: [00:31:31] Yeah. That's kind of a hot device. 
James: [00:31:34] I mean, as a capacitive touch control, it has wifi built in. Obviously it's got 
Frank: [00:31:41] a crazy world we live in.
Okay. I guess, I guess technology can be exciting. I'm getting out of my slump a little bit here. I love that. We just put like quad core processors of the things. I remember, like there was an Apple dongle that ended up having like the same processor as the original iPhone in a dongle. 
James: [00:32:02] Well, I remember, uh, I remember my last router, there was the night, the one of the first Nighthawk neck year ones.
And, and it had like a dual core, 1.2 gigahertz processors. I was like, why didn't I route or have a two point? Why is I router faster than my. I don't understand what's going on here. It's got these two gigs of Ram. Like why does my router have two years? Ray? What is it doing? 
Frank: [00:32:23] Like 
James: [00:32:25] that's crazy. 
Frank: [00:32:27] Keep looking at the, uh, new Chrome cast and w what kind of connector is that?
That's still an HTMI connector, 
James: [00:32:34] right? Single HDML. That's it. I'm power adapter. 
Frank: [00:32:37] Okay. So they, they did one nice change to it. As that. It actually has a little bit of a cable coming off of it because my Chrome cast has a very fine 30 degree bend in the HTMI connector where I've like jammed the TV against the wall or something like that after plugging it in.
James: [00:32:56] Well, it's almost, it's almost unfair, right? Because when you look at this, when you look at the tech specs of the, even, even the little kind of Chromecast, right. It has, you know, wifi AC Bluetooth built into it. Um, HTMI it has all these audio format support built into it. Um, tenant, a four K HDR up to 60 frames per second.
Um, who knows what the processor is. They don't tell you, but it's probably something super powerful. And, but it's a loss leader, right? That's what that's what these devices are, is, is it's hard to innovate in the space where, I mean, when, when Google and all these other companies and Amazon, they want to give it to you for free at cost.
So you buy their services. So, um, I'm not going to say that we're going to lose out, run innovation in the TV space, but I mean, We can't build one of these devices for under $50. You know what I mean? With a remote? Oh my 
Frank: [00:33:51] goodness. That's sad. I am still such a web O S proponent. I have a LGTV that just runs Webb out West, and everyone's always making fun of the TV.
O S and I think that's because they use Sony's, if I'm honest, which has a terrible operating system on it, whereas the LGTB is have web iOS, which is an absolutely delightful. Operating system that runs at 4k and has a good remote control for it. The thing that I find most frustrating about it is that these media empire, as I was discussing earlier, I'm looking at you HBO, refuse to release apps weapons.
So I have like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Hulu. But none of the others have apps. Like, so only those like top level ones. And so it's a little frustrating that, uh, the industry is so fragmented that you have to constantly play these games. Like whatever. I would like to live in a world where there were many operating systems, many apps, and they all worked on each other.
But I understand also as an engineer, why that's so difficult. 
James: [00:35:06] It's true. Yeah. It's very. Very fascinating. Yeah. A lot of the Samsung devices, some of the high end high end ones run. Tizen not all of them do. So it's a little bit tricky. 
Frank: [00:35:21] Yeah. Know, I don't even know about all the LGS or anything like that, but yeah, it's the media world.
It's so interesting. Especially now that we're all watching so much more TV than normal. 
James: [00:35:33] I used to be in it, so I know what's up, but let's get to the last one here, Frank, 
Frank: [00:35:39] this is, this is funny. This is funny because, because when you were pitching to me this episode, you're like, what technology is inspiring you and I had a good think about it.
And then you started telling me your ideas about, um, The new Chrome cast, the new hardware coming. I was like mine. That's true. And the thing that I'm thinking about, the thing that's actually been inspiring me, but you know what it is, it's a modern day, hot glue gun. That's, that's what it is, James. That that's, what's inspiring me these days.
James: [00:36:11] Okay. Well, I mean, I've definitely used glue guns before. What is the modern day glue gun or do you gluing together there? Frank? 
Frank: [00:36:20] You know what what's cool is, um, this happened maybe, uh, last year or the year before, it was like the hot Christmas item out there. And I might've mentioned it on the show, but I just want to give a double back shout out because I found it pretty useful.
Yeah. The idea is pretty simple. Take what we've been doing with three D printers and try to shove that into your hand. Hmm. Yeah. So the neat thing is it takes all the same plastics that, uh, you know, those, uh, long, thin pieces of plastic that you use in three D printers, you had can have that on your hand.
It has a little motor in it that feeds the plastic. It has a hot end, just like a hot glue gun. And it even has like the, the expensive ones have like, Oh, led screens with adjustable temperatures, adjustable feed rates, like all this cool stuff. Good ergonomics on the handle, all in the name of laying down some hot plastic onto a plate.
James: [00:37:23] Uh, I D I remember it was my buddy. I'll say as AMA gamma, buddy Jessie, funnily enough. Yeah, he was, I'm pretty sure a Kickstarter for the three doodler, I believe. Was he one of the original ones that came out maybe last year as is a big sort of, um, Kickstarter thing maybe was even two years ago. I don't know, but it was, it looks like a big.
Glucagon, but instead of putting a glue, it puts up plastic plastic. And what does plastic do at hardens? I guess, right. 
Frank: [00:37:52] Yeah. Okay. So let me describe why I'm excited about, so what you see on Amazon. Yeah. You can make these kind of ugly little 3d constructions. Like it's really sold as a toy. But, um, so what I often do is I make enclosures for electronics or I'm making robots and things like that.
That's what I use my three D printer for, but coming up with three D printing designs is a lot of work you're in a CAD program and, you know, doing all these like catty things and then inevitably you print it out, but then like something is slightly off. Uh, from what it needed to be. So now you gotta like recast it reprinted over eight hours.
What's great about, well, there's, there's that, and then there's attaching things to the plastic. So, you know, you can use screws and such. But I built your little, um, wedding gift and inside of your wedding gift is a ton of hot glue. It's terrible. Cause that was the best thing I had for like attaching things together.
Yeah. Now with these little, uh, 3d pens, they call them, I can use the exact same material that I made the case out of to build a new plastic structures, to hold electronics and things in to. The stuff. So when I'm built, it's like a really quick way to build robotic structures, to build electronic structures.
Uh, you can even get really soft plastic so that, you know, you can apply it to clothing and things like that to like softer things. So if you want to, um, Just attach things like, you know, it's like a modern day glue, but instead of glue, you're just forming plastic. So wherever plastic can be useful in that case.
So it's, it's such a simple concept. It's just. A modern day, hot glue gun, but it's taken advantage of the new technology of three D printers to make something that I think is actually really inspiring. And I love it as a new tool, 
James: [00:39:56] I think, and what's really need about me as a, as a Lego kid. I was, um, Doing, what was I stealing something?
Oh, it was giving a talk to a, um, um, a Lego group last week. And I talked about my love for Legos and building things. And I think the reason I, I, I became a developer. Uh, it was because I like building things and I like math. And I like how things fit together and, and your puzzle solving almost when you do that.
And, uh, but I'm not a creative. Okay. I'm a little creative, but I'm not a creative type. I broke it down into three. Segments here, Frank of who are you as a Lego person? So let me lay out the three alright types. Okay. Type number one. You're you're a Lego like free form. You're an end era. You're a free spirit, right?
This is the, this is the child that gets the big, they don't get the kits. They get the big block, the big bucket. Uh, I, I 
Frank: [00:40:56] had a suitcase as a kid. I had a giant heavy duty wooden suitcase. It was almost a chest and I would drag it out of the closet, slam it down on the floor. And I just had 
James: [00:41:06] all the pieces.
Correct. And. So that's the free spirit Lego creator. Now there is the, there is the, by the book leggler Lego or okay. This, this child that had to be a child. Man child, woman, child, whatever age you are, this Lego enthusiastic this person. Thank you, Frank. This person enjoys getting a set. Okay. And then they like to follow the directions and it tells them what to do.
And the meticulously put it together. In the end they have what's on the front of the box. Okay. As a second tier, 
Frank: [00:41:43] I've never understood those people ever. 
James: [00:41:45] The third tier of individuals are, are the tink tinkers, right? And these individuals sort of take Lego to the max. And I think that these are the. The robotic, you know, stuff that these are the technic individuals that they have.
They're kind of Legos, but not really they're the connects are kind of construction, moving parts. 
Frank: [00:42:06] You better, the building blocks of a design one could say 
James: [00:42:10] correct. And yes. Correct. So you are obviously the first. Child in that, in that Lego, uh, I'm assuming here maybe with a little mix of number three, apparently you don't like number 
Frank: [00:42:21] two, no number, number two.
Well, it was funny because I remember the day I found out Lego came in kit and I was like Lego coming kits. This is crazy who would buy that? Don't they have a chest full of Lego blocks. It's so much better that way. 
James: [00:42:37] So I am. Firmly in camp. Number two, I like to follow them the directions to the T I enjoy getting this beautiful, you know, set and going through the pages and, and, and just doing it now.
But that, that was the problem that I had recently with this Lego Mario set, because it's sort of like an interactive game, but you build. Different sort of sections of this path that Marie is supposed to play through. And, but then you're supposed to have a little bit of free spirit and come up with your own course.
I said, no, I want, I want to make what's 
Frank: [00:43:11] official course. 
James: [00:43:12] Yeah. One I want, and there's no directions on how to do that as I need to do that. And it was very upsetting to me, but here's the thing about these three 3d pens and why I bring up the Lego things because I'm on the three doodler that the three doodler, three new new ruler website and yeah.
I've never been fascinated by them because it is a free spirit, right. They always, and in the air, here's what they have. Frank create kits. They give you the blueprints for you to act out your creation. And put them together. So they have things like, um, house projects. We can do 3d houses, things you can do.
Flower bouquet kits. You can do sort of orbs that you can put like outside for like lights and stuff. Now, this is the stuff I want to make because I can follow directions. I can do that. That's the one thing I can do. Frank has followed through. 
Frank: [00:44:07] It's actually really fun. You can buy these Silicon mats that are like templates, and then you start building the different elements of whatever the heck you're building.
So if you're building a building, you would do some walls and a door and a roof and all that stuff. And then you. I keep calling it glue, but whatever you plastic it all together and it's fun. So it's, it's great because I satisfy the OCD nerd, part of me in my CAD design stuff, and then whatever the printer makes I pop off.
And I know that I can fix with the pen. Uh, with the more like creative fun side of me, like if it's missing a structure, I can build the structure with the pen. So, absolutely. I think you nailed it right there. It's the freedom of, I almost said freedom of expression and then I would have hated myself. So I stopped myself.
It's the freedom, freedom, Braveheart, their reference. 
James: [00:45:04] I like it. There, you have it. That is our. Cool. Cool. Newish tech extravaganza. I mostly want to talk about the Google event with a little bit of other cool Amazon events. Cause I feel like we do often and we had some good comp compliments from some of the recent Apple podcast event summaries that we did.
And I feel like often we just give Apple a lot of the love. So I wanted to sort of sprinkle. Some of the love and the recap and our thoughts and ideas, and some of these other events that are going on now, I will say I am so excited because Apple has given us not one fall event, but two fall events for us to do live podcasts on.
So yes, we will do a full breakdown of whatever. Apple event happens at whatever 
Frank: [00:45:50] does that hashtag question Mark? Yeah, October, 
James: [00:45:54] November, 
Frank: [00:45:55] next year. It's a weird year. Time doesn't exist. What happens? We'll do it. 
James: [00:46:00] There you go. Well, you can write into the show@mergeconflict.fm and let us know what. Cool new tech.
We should be checking out. Now we can talk about it on the podcast, but I'm going to do it for this week's podcast. So until next week, I'm James Monson. 
Frank: [00:46:13] I'm Frank Rivers. Thanks for listening.