Hello and welcome back to the Friday edition of Take Five, where we analyze and dissect the top tech headlines and share my opinions. Be sure to tune into Pulse: The Heartbeat of America on YouTube, where I cover my favorite tech headlines, teen culture, exclusive interviews, and react to trending content. Let’s jump in.
Snapchat Spectacles Powered by Snap OS 2.0
The Snapchat app just got a refreshed look with glasses on the icon. Why? Snap has released the new Snapchat Spectacles powered by Snap OS 2.0, now available for preorder. These glasses “overlay computing directly on the world around you, allowing you to interact with digital objects the same way you interact with the physical world, using voice, gesture, and touch.” They cost upwards of $2000, and limited information is available so far. What we do know is that they feature AR (Augmented Reality) overlays that let you see virtual elements in the real world. According to the BBC, they offer a 4-hour battery life and have a bulky design.
In my opinion, this isn’t going anywhere if those specs are accurate. A 4-hour screen-on time is already bad for a smartphone, but it’s unacceptable for a device that’s supposed to have the capability to replace parts of your phone experience. Top apps teens actually use, like Instagram, will most definitely not be on Snap OS 2.0. And if the AI on the glasses is just the baked-in Snapchat AI from the app, not a single person is going to use it. Snapchat AI is heavily censored, with short and mostly useless replies. The glasses do let you browse the internet and record videos, which is cool. But at launch, it will most likely be limited to first-party applications rather than established ones like Google Chrome. The AR games will probably be trash too. Can you name a single AR game you’ve played in the past five years that you actually remember? This tech has been tried before and will most likely fail.
TheTechBoy Prediction: Smart glasses are cool, but integrating a decent AI assistant and camera while leveraging the power of the phone you already have like Meta Glasses or Rokid glasses that can use DeX is far more useful than a full computer on your face, at least in the 2020s.
YouTube Settles Social Media Addiction Lawsuit
Speaking of social media platforms (and I use that term lightly — YouTube is not social media in any sense), YouTube has settled a lawsuit over social media addiction. Per CNBC:
“The terms of the settlement of the state court lawsuit were confidential, the lawyers said on Tuesday. The suit named four defendants — YouTube, Meta’s Instagram, Snap Inc.’s Snapchat, and ByteDance’s TikTok — and the remaining three companies are still set to face trial in July.”
In my opinion, this case is useless. Sure, they’ll tell some sob story about a teen who got “addicted” to social media growing up, including YouTube, but this is absolute nonsense. I liked (and still like) reading growing up. You could say I was addicted to books, but I never once sued the publishers. No one sues TV channels for being “addicting,” much like YouTube. It is in the interest of these companies to create fun platforms that people want to use. They should not be forced by law to intentionally make their platforms worse. On a moral level, I oppose parental control applications past a certain age, but I would support individual parents making those choices rather than forcing ID verification, limited scrolling, or face-scanning age limits to use the internet. The internet has always been social. The first message sent on the internet was “lol” (it didn’t mean “laugh out loud” at the time, but still). From ARPANET to BBSes to YouTube, the internet has always been a place to connect and share information. The idea that this is some unprecedented danger is nothing but virtue-signaling nonsense.
Netflix Requires Unique Email per Profile
Ars Technica reports: “Netflix now requires every user profile to be tied to a unique email address.” Ars Technica, of course, has some of the worst commenters on the internet. people who believe everything should be free, hate AI, hate “big tech,” etc. This is clearly a move to prevent password sharing. When I read the article, I scrolled straight to the comments because I knew exactly what I’d see, and I was not disappointed. People are whining about having to pay for streaming. Hot take: I don’t understand why that’s such a bad thing. Do you expect the platform to be free?
“Why am I paying to make my software worse again?”
Watching ads isn’t even that bad in my opinion, you can easily ignore them. One commenter said, “Why am I paying to make my software worse again?” as if Netflix is a charity and account sharing doesn’t cost them money. There were some people who were pro-change, though, and happy they wouldn’t have to share 2FA codes with their spouse.
Owl AI Launches Tool for Sports Broadcasters
According to Sports Business Journal, Owl AI is set to launch a new tool that will give sports broadcasters new talking points live based on game data. This is very interesting. I believe more jobs in media will be created with artificial intelligence. This can help with research, and this is exactly the kind of thing that should be pushed rather than AI “slop” content and people cheating with artificial intelligence. Prior to reading this, I didn’t even realize this was possible. This is very neat, especially when you think about the massive amount of data that needs to be imported to run software of this magnitude.
Wing Drone Delivery Expansion
Wing is expanding, per Grocery Dive. The drone delivery company that has a partnership with Walmart. This is incredibly cool and introduces new problems that people are going to have to solve. Complex mapping systems combined with Walmart’s advantage of a physical store network over Amazon should make this an interesting battle for air dominance in the 21st century. So freaking cool. God bless and Tech Talk To You Later!!!
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