Tech News Weekly Episode 291 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Jason Howell (00:00:00):
Coming up on Tech News Weekly, it's me, Jason Howell, my co-host Micah Sergeant, and we've got a show with two guests, two stories of the week. Pretty standard, right? First guest, Joe Maring reviews The Pixel tablet tells us why he thinks it's the worst pixel ever. Big words there, but he backs it up. Also, Sam Abul Samid talks about how Rivian is getting on board with Tesla's supercharger network. I think that's really big news. I review the one plus Nord N 30 5g, and Micah makes the case for Dolby Atmos. All that more. Coming up next on Tech News Weekly podcasts you love from people you trust. This is Tweet.

(00:00:46):
This is Tech News Weekly episode 291, recorded Thursday, June 22nd, 2023. This episode of Tech News Weekly is brought to you by Brooke Linen Summer is in full swing, and Brook Linen is here to help you swap out winter warmth for easy breezy comfort with their award-winning sheets and home essentials. Visit brook linen.com today and get $20 off plus free shipping on orders of $100 or more with code TN W and by ZipRecruiter. Did you know that hiring can take up to 11 weeks on average? Do you have that time to wait? Of course not. Stop waiting and start using ZipRecruiter. Ziprecruiter helps you find qualified candidates for all your roles fast. And right now, you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/tnw. Hello and welcome. Who? Hi. These weekly scared me. We just like suddenly appeared in the chairs. Maybe we should do one of those.

(00:01:44):
So yes, drop the, they'll be empty and then poof, we'll appear. Be like, I'm Mike. Sorry. This of course is the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news. I am one of the hosts of this show, Micah Sergeant, and I'm the other guy. I fill in the seat over here. Jason Howell. Hi, Jason. Hi, Micha. How are you doing? Oh, I haven't heard that one before. Bababa. <laugh>. That's good. <Laugh>. actually I do, I I do appreciate the Howell jokes there. There aren't very many, but when they happen, it makes me feel seen. Oh, good. Okay, good. That's good to know. It's all good. So I'm really excited to talk to this first guest because the Pixel tablet is Google's latest <laugh> latest attempt. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> to figure out tablets they've done, they've had a number of different attempts over the years, and always a little bit of a break, a little bit of a pause in between them. Well, now we're back again. Google thinks that it has the recipe for success this time. Joe Marring from Digital Trends thinks that Google is wrong. I, I think I can say that safely, right? Joe <laugh>? Yeah. That,

Joe Maring (00:02:44):
That, that's a pretty fair assumption. <Laugh>, that, that's way to cut to the Chase

Jason Howell (00:02:47):
<Laugh>. I mean, if, if your headline didn't already kind of cut to the chase, you called it the worst pixel ever. Oh no. We'll, we'll get to that <laugh> before we kind of spoil the water here. Let's start with the good stuff cuz there's gotta be some good stuff. You've, you've had a chance to spend a couple of weeks with the Pixel tablet. What are the things that you like before we get to all the rest of this stuff?

Joe Maring (00:03:11):
So, I love the, the concept of the, the Smart Display tablet combo. I mean, I've got, I've had smart displays throughout my apartment for years and years. I've had Nest hubs. I've had echo shows. And that idea of being able to, you know, I start a video on one, I want to, I have a plane while I'm cooking dinner. I want to take it with me to the living room or something like that. That idea is fantastic. And being able to have that on pixels when it's working. I want it to that, that whole design concept I think is really, really smart. And I think Google has a good foundation or a good basis for an idea here. And I would like to see them continue to, you know, try this more with a pixel tablet two or a pixel tablet three, because like, th this is like the most original, the most unique Android tablet I've seen in a long time. It's memorable. They're trying something new. They're addressing a real problem of, you know, when you're not using the tablet, it's not just sitting in a drawer. It's actually charged up all the time. It's ready to go whenever you want it. So that the core idea, I think is excellent. It's just how it all comes together, where it kind of falls apart for me a little bit.

Jason Howell (00:04:24):
Yeah. In some cases quite literally, maybe not a part but off of the base. But there's,

Joe Maring (00:04:29):
There's a, there is some falling ball

Jason Howell (00:04:31):
<Laugh>. Actually, it's funny that you mentioned that in your review because we experienced that just Tuesday co-host on all that Android went twit Dow had just received it. She had maybe four hours of use with it, with with her husband. And she was talking about the magnetic snap on the base, which to my mind at Google io seemed like a real kind of benefit to this thing. It was really satisfying. It snaps right into place. Po lines up the pogo pin. So you, so like you said, the tablet has a place to go, but she said, but what we noticed is, you know, the volume and the power is on top of the tablet, right? So when it's docked, if you wanna like, turn on the display or you wanna turn up the volume, you have to push the button and the magnet isn't strong enough. Oh my Lord. To hold the tablet in place, you also have to use your second hand. That seems like a huge miss.

Joe Maring (00:05:19):
Yeah. It, it's like the magnets are strong sometimes. Like when you, when you snap it on there and you want to take it off, you can't just grab the tablet and lift it off the stand. You have to kind of do like a twist motion. Yes. Or put one hand on the stand and take it off, which is, it's, it's good. You wanna see that. But it, it, it's the way the, the power button and the, the volume rocker are positioned to the far right corner of it. So unless you're holding onto the side and like making sure you're holding onto the tablet while you're pressing the button, it is way too easy to just press the, the volume button a couple of times and it just slides right off

Jason Howell (00:05:55):
Plunk

Joe Maring (00:05:56):
Lost track of how many times it's just fallen flat on the kitchen counter. Because I'm watching YouTube tv, I'm watching Disney Plus, I want to change the volume. I know that the, the Pixel tablet's on the counter again. So

Jason Howell (00:06:07):
It's, that seems like actually a pretty critical miss to me because when I think of a device like this, I think of it being out in the open somewhere. Not necessarily in the middle of a table, but like, if I picture my kitchen, it would be like sitting on the window sill or something. And if that were to ever happen, like on a, on a good day, that would land on the counter, which is not very far from the window sill, but probably on most days, that would go right to the floor. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And that display would not survive the fall. I'm, I'm just guessing anyways, it would have a high likelihood of cracking. That seems like a critical mis to me.

Joe Maring (00:06:44):
Yeah. I, I will give, I'll give Google credit. I mean, I again cannot keep track of how many times it's fallen on the kitchen counter, but the, the aluminum frame and like the coding they've put on the back have held up very well. So ideally it's not falling on anything, but it has survived probably over a dozen falls on the counter and it looks fine. So over a dozen, if you expect it to fall a lot, it's, it's gonna hold up. Okay.

Jason Howell (00:07:05):
A dozen in two weeks though. That's just, that's not good. It,

Joe Maring (00:07:08):
That's, yeah, that's not good. No

Jason Howell (00:07:09):
<Laugh>. As far as the dock is concerned, there's a speaker inside. I'm super curious to know kind of how it sounds. I, you know, I realize it's a single speaker. It's not like there's a full speaker system in there. Right. how does it sound?

Joe Maring (00:07:23):
Right. It's, it sounds perfectly fine. Ears of all the things, all the aspects of the charging doc. I, the, the audio quality is my favorite thing. I mean, it, it's obviously not as, not not as high quality sounding as like a full Nest hub Max or if you have a, a giant echo show like the Teen Inch or the a standalone smart speaker or something. But I mean, just for casual listening of YouTube music, apple Music Stream video while you're in the kitchen or in the living room or something like it, it sounds fine to me. Like, I think it sounds great. It's just my issue with the stand is beyond the magnets that once the tablet is off of it, it's basically just a hunk of plastic that doesn't do anything. You, you can't use the, the doc by itself as like a Bluetooth speaker. It doesn't function as a Chromecast target when the tablet's off of there.

Jason Howell (00:08:15):
What, that would be amazing. That would, you can't be the Hey. Yeah. What a bummer.

Joe Maring (00:08:19):
The, the assistant commands don't work when the tablet's off of there. It's okay. It's just on the plastic and it, it does not do anything. I

Mikah Sargent (00:08:25):
Didn't realize that. That's so disappointing to me. Yeah. I thought that it got to at least be a smart speaker when the, the p pixel tablet wasn't on there. Do you think that's something you, that could be changed in, in a, in a firmware update or, I mean, I don't know how much, you know, about sort of, sort of the, the hardware aspects of each, if talked about if there's chips inside of the, the dock that could make it into a at least a target, like you talk about an audio

Jason Howell (00:08:54):
Target would be nice because Yeah, that seems like a real miss. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>,

Joe Maring (00:08:59):
Right? Yeah. I, I, I don't know, I can't say with like, any confidence of like the, the hardware inside of it. Like if Google could just flip a switch with a software update and turn this thing into, into like a smart speaker, give it some added functionality. Like, it would be great to have the speaker itself be an assistant, be able to support assistant commands. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But I, I would happily live without that if I could just use it as a Chromecast target or even use it for a Bluetooth connection. Just the fact that when the tablet's off of there, you don't have a smart display, you don't have a smart speaker. So it kind of ruins the whole idea of having a tablet and a smart display into one. Because when the, the tablet portion's off there, you just have an Android tablet. You don't have a, a smart speaker still in your, your kitchen or your living room. It's just a, a nice looking piece of, of fabric and plastic. But it's, it's not gonna do much when the the tablet's not on it.

Jason Howell (00:09:52):
Yeah. At the end of the day, it is a dock that it is a dock that has a d like a dumb, and I don't mean to denigrate it, but it has a dumb speaker in it that ties into the tablet when it's connected. I would, I would be super surprised if there's an enough if, if they had thought ahead to put enough like smarts in there or a chip in there to power what you're talking about. I think if they went that direction, we would see it already. It would've been mentioned. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, they would've been mentioned it. Exactly. Right. Like, and you know, and for the future we have plans or I don't know what that is. Maybe a future version of the doc could do that, because that really makes a lot of sense. Why not put that to work? Well then let's talk about the tablet itself, because that's, that's the doc set the doc aside as you will when you take the tablet off of it. <Laugh>. what is it about the tablet that you don't like? Like as a tablet only device, if that were all that we were talking about, it sounds like outside of the design, maybe this isn't a very good tablet. Would that be your assessment? Why?

Joe Maring (00:10:48):
Yeah, that's, that, that's basically it. I mean, when you factor out the, the charging doc, which retails for about 1 29, 1 30, so that makes the tablet about 3 70, 3 80 as just the tablet portion. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <Affirmative> 60 hertz to like 60 Hertz LCD display does not look particularly great on an 11 inch display. When you have Lenovo with Android tablets with 120 hertz refresh rates for less than, than the amount of pixel tablet.

Jason Howell (00:11:18):
Our eyes are spoiled at this point. I think that's what I've realized in recent, in recent days even, that there was a time where HD video on devices started to happen and it was like, man, that looks amazing. And at a certain point you kind of can't go backwards. I think our eyes have have become so accustomed to the higher refresh rates at this point, that it's really hard when we see that 60 hertz. It's a total thing that you notice. So I hear you.

Joe Maring (00:11:42):
Yeah, for sure. And then like, also on the, not just the video side, but the, the audio side of things, there's four external speakers on it and on their own they sound great, but the way that they're positioned, and I guess the way the housing is for them with the frame, if you're holding the tablet just like a normal person with your hands on either side of it it, it completely muffles into distorts Oh. To of the four speakers, which should theoretically be a pretty easy thing to catch when you're designing this thing and prototyping it. But if you're watching movies or, or playing games with it and you're just holding the tablet, it, it does not sound good. Which is a shame because on their own, the, the four speakers can sound good. It's just if, if you're holding it like a normal person, you're constantly covering two of those speakers and it, it's not a good experience there. Mm-Hmm.

Jason Howell (00:12:33):
<Affirmative>. Yeah, I've, I've definitely had that experience too with, with devices like that. It's like, oh, and the way that I'm gonna use it, 90% of the time it sounds awful because I'm covering up the speaker port. Right. It sounds like exactly what's going on here. Another complaint that I've heard, I'm curious to get your take on this, has to do with kind of the software integration. Essentially, this device has two personalities. It is a tablet and it is also a smart home control device depending on if it's docked. But I think, and tell me what you think on this, that there's confusion with people who use this, depending on what they approach this device as being the, the the mo most priority use case. If you, if you look at this device and you say, oh, that's a tablet that also does smart home stuff, versus if you look at this thing and you say, ah, that's a replacement for my smart home controller, and it's also a, a tablet. Is there confusion there from, from using it? Like, it sounds like the smart home stuff doesn't do as much as like an actual Nest hub does. So people that wanted that are actually pretty disappointed. What's your take?

Joe Maring (00:13:42):
Yeah. There, there is, there's a lot of confusion there. I, one of the examples that stuck out to the, to me the most is just the different ways you interact with the assistant and the, the different commands it understands. So, for example, if you say open YouTube TV or open Disney plus, it's trying to open the Android version of that app. So if you're saying that you have to then unlock the lock screen with either a pin or your fingerprint, which adds another step that you don't really get with a standard smart display. But if you say, play a specific channel on YouTube tv or play this specific show, or move me on whatever streaming service, it then takes you to the Nest Hub Smart display version of that app, and it does play it without you needing to, to bypass the lock screen or something.

(00:14:33):
And there's no explanation for that anywhere in the setup. There. There's no clear direction from Google that, hey, different commands work differently if you're saying this or that. So just basic stuff like that, it gets easily confused if you're trying to talk to it as an Android tablet or if you're trying to, to it as a Nest hub. Similarly, if you're streaming a video and you're in an Android app for something and you say, set a timer or check the weather, you have to manually tap the screen to dismiss whatever answer to the question you ask, get that off of there and then tap again to resume the video. So it's, it, it, it's a lot of small quirks like that, not, not necessarily one major deal breaker, but it just adds up to a, a frustrating experience when it, it, it doesn't explain it to you of, if you're talking to it as a tablet, if you're talking to it as a smart display, and it's, again, a good idea. But there, there's a lot more work that needs to be done to iron out a lot of those bugs and kinks with the whole thing.

Jason Howell (00:15:35):
Refinement always. I would say in, in Google's hardware playbook refinement is always the challenge. The, the, the products have so much potential. They have certain certain use cases that are touted and, and people get excited about these things, but it's the refinement challenge that Google often has a real struggle with and kind of ironing those things out. And sometimes they can do that in, in, you know, with longevity with time. But by that point people have already like heard that it's a poor this because the experience was bad for so long. And, you know, it's kinda like the damage is already done. I wish the story was different for Google and hardware, but this is just time and time again what we see in a number of different directions. Folks should definitely check out Joe's article at Digital Trends digital trends.com. Joe Maring, it's a pleasure getting you on this show for a change. If people wanna find you and follow you online social, anything like that, where sh where should they go?

Joe Maring (00:16:37):
Yeah, I'm on a Twitter and Instagram both at Joe Maring one. And on Digital Trends, I don't have my byline on a lot of stuff, but I am, everything passes my edit desk. We, we do a lot of good editorials and, and stuff on there. So if I'm not posting tweets or or trying to use Instagram stories more often I'm doing lots of cool stuff on digital trends. So good place to keep, good places to keep up there.

Jason Howell (00:17:03):
Excellent. Joe, it's a pleasure talking with you again. It's been a while and I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Joe Maring (00:17:08):
Thank you so much. All right,

Jason Howell (00:17:09):
We'll talk to you soon. Enjoy your tablet. <Laugh> <laugh>, try. Woohoo. Okay. Up next, Micah actually spoke with Sam Abul Sam this morning about Vivian's big supercharger announcement. I'm really interested in this interview cause I thought this news was fascinating. That's coming up in a sec. But first, this episode of Tech News Weekly is brought to you by Brook Linen, which if you're having a hard time sleeping say hello to the reason that you won't be in the future. Does that make sense? Sleeping during the hot summer can be difficult to say the least. Whether you're trying to nap after fun in the sun, maybe you're struggling to stay cool at night. Brook Linens, award-winning bedding is here to help you. Linn's mission is to provide you with hotel quality, luxury betting delivered directly to your door at a fair price.

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Mikah Sargent (00:20:46):
Yes. So I was very excited to talk to Sam UL this morning about kind of the latest in ev car charging and Vivian's decision to join the new wave. So yeah, listen in. So you may have heard that Rivian has announced that it is hopping on board a certain charging standard, a certain charging adapter known as N A C S. It is only the latest of, of several car manufacturers to say that they have plans to adopt this technology or this, this standard. And I thought it'd be a great time to kind of get an understanding of what's going on there what these different adapters do, how they work, and who better to be able to answer this question than the wheel Barings host, Sam Abbu. Samid, welcome back to the show, Sam.

Jason Howell (00:21:54):
It's great to be with you again. Leika.

Mikah Sargent (00:21:56):
Good to have you here. And I can see you've got those adapters behind you. I was hoping, you know, I kind of find the whole ev charging situation kind of confusing, and I know that confusion you know, lack of understanding is one of those things that, that pushes people into fear, which then pushes people into maybe not making a choice to switch to something like an ev. So, could you start by kind of telling us what people can expect when they go to an EV charging station as it stands? Like right now, if I were to drive down the street to an EV charging station, what does that actually look like there? Can I charge a Nissan, is it the bolt or a a leaf Chevy? Yeah, Nissan Leaf. Like, what, what can I charge there? Not charge there.

Jason Howell (00:22:41):
Yeah. So the, the problem we've got with, with EV charging is, you know, it's still EVs in general. Modern EVs are still a relatively young concept. You know, if you go back to the beginnings of the auto industry at the turn of the, the 20th century, you know, we also had the same problem back then. You know, Mo most of us weren't around then and don't really remember that obviously. But there weren't standards yet for filling. Today. You go to a gas station and, you know, every gas, every vehicle has the same size fuel filler nozzle on it. And the, the pumps all have the same kind of nozzle on there to, to fill the tank. And the only difference being that diesel pumps or diesel nozzles are a little bit larger in diameter, so you can't stick diesel into a gas car.

(00:23:30):
Mm-Hmm. but with EVs, we're still in kind of early days of this. And so we've had a little bit of a standards battle, much like we had a decade or so ago with Blu-Ray and H D D V D and before that with beta Max and and vhs. So currently we have kind of three different standards going in in North America for charging connectors. The, the first one was what's known as Chatham mo, which was a Japanese standard that was developed before we started selling EVs in any volume here in the us. And that one has only been used here by Nissan for the Leaf and by Mitsubishi. And that's a, a larger connector. It was the first DC charging standard. That's, that one's going away. Nissan has even dropped that for its new Aria ev It's using CCS now.

(00:24:26):
So Chatham mode is gonna go away, but if you go to a charging station now, depending on where you go, if you go to a Tesla supercharger station, it's going to have a proprietary connector that was developed by Tesla. That looks like if you're watching the video stream, it's the one that's over my left shoulder mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and that it's a, it's a smaller slimmer connector with a slimmer cable on it. And that was developed by Tesla in the early part of the 2010s when there was no other DC fast charging standard available. The other connector is what's known as ccs, and that's the one over my other shoulder. That's the big honking connector. And if you go to any charging station except for a Tesla station, that's what you'll find there. Along with occasionally some, still some CHATO connectors.

(00:25:18):
That one was developed by a committee of the Society of Automotive Engineers as an industry standard. And that's been, that's being currently being used by everyone except for Tesla and the Nissan Leaf. Everybody else is using CCCs. The problem with CCCs well, more broadly the problem we've got with charging, you know, when, when, at my company at Guide House Insights, when we've done consumer surveys of barriers to EV adoption, the, the big things that people talk about as the, the main barrier, the main reasons why they wouldn't get an EV is the cost of the vehicle. Availability of charging, and time it takes to charge. Mm, well, availability and, and time it takes to charge. You know, there's a couple of factors there. One is the speed of the charger itself, and the other is when you get to the charger, is it even working?

(00:26:15):
And this is where Tesla has a huge advantage over everybody else. Companies like Electrify America, ev, go ChargePoint. The Superchargers have proven to be very, very reliable. Tesla does a good job of taking care of 'em. They've sold more EVs in North America than anyone else. And, and so they haven't, they've had an incentive to maintain their chargers and keep them in proper working order. If you go to anybody else's chargers, any of the CCS chargers, there's a pretty good chance that when you get there, the Charger's either not going to be working, you know, and this has nothing to do with the connector itself, but just, you know, whoa, part, part of the business thing, the charger's either not gonna be working or it's gonna charge way slower than you expect it to. And so that in turn has led to other automakers that are not Tesla. That, and that now includes Ford General Motors and Rivian. And my guess is by the end of the year, probably almost every other automaker to start saying, you know, maybe we should use the N A C S connector so our customers, our EV customers can go use the Tesla Superchargers instead. Because, you know, in order to overcome those barriers to adoption, the availability and time to charge, you know, if the, if you get to the charger and it's not working, that time to charge is gonna be infinite until you find

Mikah Sargent (00:27:38):
Another charger. That's right. Oh my goodness. And that's where that anxiety comes in of, of, yep. Hey, can I, can I charge it quick enough? Now I look behind you and I noticed that the the c c s charger is quite a bit bigger than the Tesla charger. Can you explain that? And then I'd love if, if you could go further and kind of talk about why one is faster than the other.

Jason Howell (00:28:05):
Yeah. So as far as the size of the connectors go these were kind of developed. The, the CCCs connector was kind of developed in two phases. If you're looking at the connector, you'll see the top portion of the connector is, it's a circular part of the connector has five pins in it that, you know, allow for current flow, you know, for the electricity to flow in and out of your, your battery. And also for communication between the charger and the vehicle. Cuz you know, unlike a gas pump that just has a little click off, when the, when the fuel gets up, the, the the filler neck for an ev the vehicle has to tell the charger, Hey, I'm done. You know, my battery's fully charged. You can shut off now. And it also has to communicate with information about things like you know, for billing and also for you know, what the state of charge is cuz it varies the, the charging speed based on how, how, how full the battery is.

(00:29:03):
That that first part of it was developed for ac charging, the kind of charging you do at home, you know, from either a one 20 volt or a two 40 volt connector at, in your home. And also that's what's known as level, level one or level two charging at that point in 20, in the early late two thousands, around 2008, 2009, when they developed that connector, there were no DC fast charging connect the chargers yet. And so later on when those started to come around, they developed an extension to that, and that's what you see as the bottom part of the connector with the two larger pins. And that allows you to charge much higher speeds than what you can do off of an AC outlet. So AC is, depending on how, you know, what your what kind of electrical service you have at home, it can be, it's usually somewhere less than 10 kilowatts.

(00:29:57):
But it can be, if you have a hundred amp service, you know, if you have a lot of power in your house, you can charge up to almost 20 kilowatts. DC charging with c c s can go up, currently can go up to 350 kilowatts and theoretically can go higher as well, although there's no vehicles that support that yet. And so it was kind of done in two parts, which is why it kind of looks like a kluge. They, they added on two extra pins for DC charging Tesla when they were developing the Model S, which came out in 2012 after the, the original AC charging connector came out, said, you know what, we're just gonna skip that. We're, we're gonna develop our own DC chargers. And they developed a, a proprietary connector, which earlier this year, they decided to rebrand as the North American Charging Standard.

(00:30:46):
Previously it was just known as the Tesla connector, and it's a much slimmer connector. It's a lot easier to use the, if you own an an EV today that has a CCCs connector and you've ever tried to plug one of those things in, it's bulky. You have to get it lined up just right to get it on or it won't go on. And, you know, if it's cold outside, the cables are really thick. If it's cold outside, those cables can get pretty stiff. Makes it even harder to, to, to maneuver. Or, you know, if you have physical mobility issues with your hands you know, if you've got arthritis or something, you know, maneuvering those things is, is not easy. And the, the, the, the Tesla connector, the N A C S connector is a lot easier to use. So manufacturers are now saying, you know what, we, we tried to work with the charging network companies like Electrify America and EV go, and it, it didn't work out.

(00:31:42):
You know, we, we counted on them to make their chargers more reliable, but it's not happening yet. And we want to give our customers, you know, the car, the drivers a better user experience, otherwise they're not going to buy all the EVs that we're planning to build mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And so they went ahead and, you know, when Tesla said, we're gonna open source the, the N A C S connector and make it, let anybody use it Ford and gm and now Rivian have said, we gotta, we gotta do what's right for our customers. And so we're going to switch over. We're gonna first build in support for charging from Tesla Chargers right into our vehicles. So they're gonna make some software changes next for starting in early 2024 and offer adapters that'll allow you to plug in the N A C S connector into a c a vehicle with a CCS charger.

(00:32:34):
And then in 2025 when the next batch of new vehicles come out, those are actually going to drop the c c s charger, the c c s connector entirely and only have the c the N A C S connector on there. And the hope is that you know, obviously nobody wants Tesla to have a monopoly on EV charging. The hope is that with, you know, manufacturers opening up their vehicles to use Tesla chargers, that the rest of the charging industry will step up and say, okay, we have to do a better job, or we're gonna go out of business. Right. And hopefully we see that happen over the next year or two.

Mikah Sargent (00:33:11):
Yeah. The the point that you made that really stuck out to me that I just wasn't aware of, was the worry that you end up going to a charging station that's not a Tesla supercharger location or a Tesla charging location, and that the, the devices might not be working, that you might not be able to charge there. That's not great. I, I know, you know, pretty close to where I live, there is a set of Tesla chargers and Yeah, you know, it's not covered or anything like that. It's not like a gas station in that way, but it is regularly used. There isn't a bunch of dust and, and leaves and everything and cobwebs all over everything. So somebody seems to be taking care of it to some level. And, and that, you know, I, I wonder how much of a role that first and foremost plays in it, but also something that was never made clear to me is the payment aspect of all of this. So if you have a Tesla and you go to a Tesla supercharged location, or Tesla, I don't know if there's a difference between a supercharge and a regular charge or what, but if you go to a place where it's Tesla branded chargers and you have a Tesla, is it like a reduced rate for what you're paying or is it the same cost? Does everything else, how does the, the sort of expenditure work for these different charging options?

Jason Howell (00:34:34):
So they haven't said specifically you know, how much Tesla's going to charge non-test users versus Tesla owners. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> but the presumption from the conversations I've had, it sounds like they're gonna charge the same rate to everybody. So the same per kilowatt hour rate for, for electricity. So that part should be fairly straightforward. The, as far as the actual payment goes, you know, one of the things you, you may have noticed if you looked at a supercharger, they don't have any payment mechanism. There's no screen on there, there's no card readers or anything like that. They do it all through, either through the Tesla app or through the vehicle itself. So when you get a Tesla vehicle, you create a Tesla account, you put in your, your payment information, you add, add your credit card on there, and then when you go to a a Tesla charger when you plug in a couple of the pins that are in that connector, communicate with the vehicle, get the, the identification number of the vehicle, and it charges your account, it just bills your account.

(00:35:37):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So there're, there's, it's, it's pretty straightforward. They've tried to do the same thing on the CCS side with a standard called plug and charge. Which, you know, does, is meant to do essentially the same thing when you, when you have an account that is tied to plug and charge, you plug in a CCCs charger, electrify America, and some other locations, and it communicates with your vehicle, identifies it, and then it just builds your credit card. Currently Tesla has converted some of their existing chargers with what they call the Magic Dock. That includes an adapter for ccs so that car ccs, EVs can charge from Superchargers to use those because you obviously don't have a Tesla account in the vehicle. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> you have to use the Tesla app and you just open it up and you select, you know, charge my non-test ev and then it finds your location, you tell it which of the chargers at this location you're using, and then you plug in and it just, it charges your, your credit card.

(00:36:42):
When Ford launched the Mustang Locke, which, which Leo drives a coup couple of years back, they created their Ford Pass charging network, which instead of building their own charging network like Tesla did, they aggregated multiple charging networks, including EA and EV Go and ChargePoint and others, all within this one interface. And so with your FordPass account, you put, you just, when you buy the vehicle, you put in your your payment information in the Ford Pass account, and it's the same thing. Got it. So you don't, you, you can just plug in and it should charge. So the, what they're going to do starting in early 2024 when they add support for N A C S is they will be adding in into the Ford vehicles and the GM vehicles and Rivian vehicles. They'll pro I, since Tesla doesn't have a PR department and they don't respond to questions from anybody anymore, <laugh>, they, they haven't for several years.

(00:37:42):
I can't be certain of this, but Right. The, the assumption is that Tesla will have an S D K A software development kit that automakers can then take implement in their vehicle that will communic, that will talk to, when you plug in a, into a supercharger, it'll plug it, it'll charge, it'll, it'll communicate with that charger and connect to whatever payment information you have set up in your vehicle and just start charging and, and bill you for that. Got it. The, the other thing, you know, one other thing that I didn't mention is that while we've had three automakers now announce their support for N A C S, most of the charger manufacturers and the charging network providers with the exception of Electrify America, which is owned by Volkswagen all the others have pretty much said, yeah, we are working on adding N A C S support to our in some cases that'll be through a retrofit. They'll just replace the cable with a different cable connector. In some cases some chargers have multiple cables on them, so they'll, they'll add an extra cable for N A C S. And they're building new chargers that have N A C S built in. So N A C S won't be exclusive to superchargers going forward. It'll be available from other charging network companies as well.

Mikah Sargent (00:39:05):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that was kind of my big concern. I know, you know, Leo was even more concerned about the fact that it was Tesla and that, you know sort of an Elon owned property would, would wipe over the entire country and have, but that wasn't my concern so much as the idea that, well, if you've got a Tesla, you don't pay as much. You know, these other folks get charged more. However that worked cuz Yeah. I mean,

Jason Howell (00:39:31):
That may s still turn not to be the case, we don't know yet. Right now for the Tesla chargers that, that do have the, the magic dock to that has the connect the adapter for CCCs, they are not currently charging more mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, we don't know what they're going to do in the

Mikah Sargent (00:39:46):
Future in the long run. Okay. and then I guess my last question for you and I, you, you, you kind of touched on it throughout but sort of in summary, why do you think perhaps that N A CS has one out? Is it most just Tesla's company doing, said, not really PR to talk to, but it seems like, you know, they've, they've done a good job of, of pushing this as a, as the standard. But is it mostly from that or is it just the fact that, you know, the cable is slimmer, the connection seems to be simpler? Or is it a mixture of all these things?

Jason Howell (00:40:25):
It, it's a mixture of all these things. You know, the, the biggest thing is the reliability. You know, and that is not necessarily tied to the, the ca the connector design. It's just that Tesla has done a better job of keeping their chargers working. And so other automakers want to give their customers the best user experience when they're charging. That means having support for Tesla superchargers longer term. You know, that the transition away from CCS to N A C S connectors for the other charging providers will also be a benefit for everyone. You know, it's ultimately this is going to be a better user experience for all EV drivers, especially as we start to really ramp up production and sales of EVs over the next three or four years. You know, up up to this point, you know, we've only got about 2 million EVs on the road in, in the US out of about 290 million registered vehicles.

(00:41:25):
So it's a very small percentage of vehicles that are, you know, unless you happen to be in some parts of California that are, that are electric. But if you look five, 10 years from now, that number's gonna be way bigger. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so, you know, in order for people to feel comfortable going to going electric, they're going to need to know that their experience charging an EV is going to be as good as reliable as their experience of charging or of filling a gasoline vehicle with fuel. And especially as you go forward you know, if you look out, you know, five or 10 years today, most, most of the EVs being bought by more affluent customers who are more likely to have ability to charge at home. So they do mo most people do most of their charging at home today.

(00:42:16):
But as you look further down the road as EVs get more into the used car market, which is what most people buy, most people don't. We sell three times as many used cars as used new cars in the US every year. Oh, wow. So most, most people never buy new cars. They buy used cars. And as EVs get into more into the used car market and you know, where they're more affordable, those a much higher percentage of those people live in a apartments, live in condos you know, or, you know, live in older single family homes, you know, in cities where they don't have offs, street parking to charge at home mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, they're gonna be reliant on public charging. And so it's gonna be really important that we have a really robust charging infrastructure to support those people as we make this transition away from gas to electric.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:06):
Got it. Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. Sam Hamid, I wanna thank you so much for taking some time to join us today to talk about this. If folks want to follow you online, of course stay up to date with what's going on. We're the places I should

Jason Howell (00:43:20):
Go. You can find me at my, my day job as a principal analyst at Guide House Insights where we do market research and I lead the transportation research team. You can also find me at Wheel Bearings Media for the podcast that I do with Roberto Baldwin and Nicole Wakeland every week. And you can find me on Mastodon and on LinkedIn and, you know, just Google me.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:43):
Awesome. Thanks so much.

Jason Howell (00:43:45):
Always a pleasure to talk to you. Micah, have a great day,

Mikah Sargent (00:43:49):
Great conversation there. I especially, I didn't know about the three times as many used Congress. Yeah, yeah. That, that

Jason Howell (00:43:55):
Got

Mikah Sargent (00:43:55):
My attention too. I was like, wow. I guess so. So yeah, pretty soon we are going to need to have more places to go and, and charge and the idea that you would go to a charging place and then the things might not be working there. Yeah. Was another, I didn't realize that for non Tesla owners. So this, this makes sense. But thank you Sam again for covering out some time. I know he was in the process of, of hitting the road for another ev situation he was doing. So always great whenever we have the opportunity to do chat in this case a little bit early today. Up next, we've got a phone review from Jason. Yes. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, I'm looking forward to the hands-on. But first, this episode of Tech News Weekly is brought to you by Zip Recruiter.

(00:44:39):
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(00:45:35):
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Jason Howell (00:46:37):
All right. Well, so a little bit of backstory. I had originally planned to do a phone review on the show on all about Android just a couple of nights ago on Tuesday. But it being the last episode of the show, at a certain point we're like, you know, we want this episode to be something different than, like, it's not

Mikah Sargent (00:46:56):
An everyday episode. Yeah,

Jason Howell (00:46:57):
Yeah, exactly. It's not an everyday episode. So I postponed the review of of the one plus Nord N 30. So I'm gonna review it today. So, you know, it's a little, it's a little taste of all about Android product review. Nice. In your <laugh> Tech News Weekly show. So, so what do I have here? I have the OnePlus Nord N 30 5G device. This is a definitely kind of a more of like a midtier low to midtier device coming from OnePlus. Oneplus has really been expanding their catalog and they've been leaning into the nod to kind of cover the, the lower price points. And you know, they, they do a lot of things right. There's also some complaints that I have about this device, which I'll get into a second, but you can kind of see the design. The, the back case here is a plastic, which I think with this phone, like I've gone through a lot of a lot of fluctuations around plastic design and phones, you know, early days when everything was plastic.

(00:47:54):
And we started to see iPhones come out with like the metal casing and stuff like that. I was like, oh, well I don't like plastic at all. <Laugh>, I want all metal. You know, and then, and then they really leaned heavily into those, those kind of hardier materials mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and now we're starting to see a return to plastics in the last handful of years. But good plastics, plastics where you're not, oh, that feels cheap, but oh, this almost feels like glass even though it's plastic. This is definitely not that kind of plastic <laugh>. This is a plastic that, as you could see, I am, I'm trying my best to not plant a single finger, a single fingerprint on this device. And yet, and yet <laugh>, I, I mean, it just doesn't matter. It gets all over the place. You see, you know, you see the bends, it just, it feels kind of cheap.

(00:48:39):
And I think the thing that I don't like about this plastic is like, I've been so careful with this thing mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, and within a couple of days it started picking up all these little micro scratches Mm. And little edges and everything like that. That's the kind of plastic that I have no problem complaining about. That's what you got in the M 30. But aside from that, you know, what else is there? There's a fingerprint sensor on the side, as you can see right there. It's embedded into the power supply. So you don't have to push the power supply in to, to wake it up. The problem that I've noticed with this is it's so, it's so flush with the side that if you aren't looking at it, it's very easy to be completely misaligned with where it actually is. And you know, it's not textured or anything.

(00:49:21):
It's really hard to find it. If the room is dark, you're gonna have a hard time finding the fingerprint sensor. Not only that, do the iPhone has the in display fingerprint sensor, right? No. No, it does not. No. I wonder if Apple's gonna do that times. Yeah, it may. Because, because here's the thing, here's what I've noticed is like so many Android, Android phones do that now. Uhhuh <affirmative>. And I've gotten really used to it. If my phone is down on a desk and I just want to get into the phone, it's very easy for me to just go, boop, and I'm in. Versus this, like, this is the first time in a while that I've had it embedded, like, into a frame or whatever. I had to pick it up and I have to do the, the thing. You know what I mean? Yeah.

(00:49:55):
It's just little things like that get, get a little annoying over time, but hey, you've gotta have some some trade offs. When you're talking about a $300 device, you do have a headphone port, so if you care about wired headphones, you got that. You do have micro SD card slot, some loud speakers. It does have nfc. So you can do mobile payments with this, which in this price category is not always a given. So that's a good thing. The haptics are awful. <Laugh>, like, it feels like a toy. It sounds like a toy. When the haptics go off, it's like, you know, <laugh>, it's, it's just, it's no good. And you don't get any water or dust protection with this. So be really careful. Don't

Mikah Sargent (00:50:37):
Even sneeze on it. Yeah. Just

Jason Howell (00:50:38):
Be really careful with this thing cuz you're gonna scratch it and the water is, is gonna destroy it. What's

Mikah Sargent (00:50:43):
Covering the lenses on the, the camera? Is it

Jason Howell (00:50:45):
Glasses? That is a glass? That is a glass. Is it? That is, that is definitely a glass. I'm not sure if it's like a gorilla glass or what it is covering the lens itself. The frame outside of the lenses is slightly raised. Mm-Hmm. So you get a tiny, tiny little micro inch of, or micro, I don't know what the meter Yeah, yeah. Micrometer. There we go of protection there. But I have heard other people complaining about it not being enough, you know, you know, and the way, the way it is with the, with the cameras, it's stable. Yeah. The little floppy thing on the ground. Anyways, that's just the design with the display. You've got a 6.72 inch 120 hertz display. So for $300 you get that high for high refresh. That's good. It's an l e d. Last year's model was an O L E D. Sorry, I've got a little bit of a reflection there. And the O L E D of course looks nicer. It also gives you, I think they

Mikah Sargent (00:51:35):
Switched to l e D this year.

Jason Howell (00:51:36):
Really great question. I mean, I think a lot of things changed between last year and this year. And this phone actually looks like another phone, which I'm not, I haven't had firsthand experience with. I think the, the feeling is that OnePlus took that other phone and just reskinned it for the US and got it. And put it into this family and, and it just happened to have the L E D versus the O L E D. So you don't have the always on display, which I find so helpful and beneficial. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> when I have that, that when I don't, it's like, okay. And then especially coupled with where the fingerprint sensor is. Yeah. If I need to know the time I have to pick up the phone, I have to unlock it to see it, versus just kind of seeing it on the desk or just tapping my fingerprint on it. So again, things like that. But brightness. Excellent. I would say pretty, pretty bright regardless of it. In fact, almost too bright for this demo Here. Let me take that down. There we go.

Mikah Sargent (00:52:29):
Did it come with that screen protector on the front of it? Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:52:32):
Oneplus does that by default. They ship with the screen protector on it. I actually like that a lot. So

Mikah Sargent (00:52:36):
The reason I ask is if it came with it, then that means it's designed that way. I noticed there's a notch at the top right of the screen protector. Do you know why that's

Jason Howell (00:52:44):
There? A notch at the top right? Oh, like right there. That's interesting. And it's, so you probably can't even see it on the video, to be honest, but it's a tiny little notch hidden within the, the kind of like slight bezel that is up there. I don't know why that's there. Wondering

Mikah Sargent (00:52:59):
If maybe there are proximity sensors or something.

Jason Howell (00:53:01):
Yeah, there must be. There must be some sort of a sensor, something happening up there. Either that or it's an easy way to peel it off. I, ah, which would be, would be strange because it's just as easy to go in through the side. That's a really interesting thing that I did not catch is why is that tiny little notch up there? There must be some sort of some reason. Yeah, yeah. Something up there. But performance wise, it's got a Snapdragon 6 95 5g, the same chip as last year, which I would normally ding it for. And I, and I could still ding it because, you know, from a longevity standpoint, I, I'm not always a fan of a year later using the same chip. However, at the same time, performance wise, I feel like this phone was really performant considering even that it is a year old. So there is that. I i, if you had told me it was a current processor, I wouldn't have batted an, I played, you know, a couple of games on here using it in, in regular day to day. I really didn't notice any slowdowns, anything along those lines. So that didn't bug me as much. Eight gigs of ram, which could be a lot worse. <Laugh>, to be honest.

Mikah Sargent (00:54:00):
Where does, so as a non Android, I, where does the, what is Nord then? I thought Nord was the processor. Is that not, what does NORD mean? No, just

Jason Howell (00:54:10):
A brain nod is, is just kind of the delineation for one plus's lower budget devices. Got it. Okay. It's the family of lower budget devices. Oh,

Mikah Sargent (00:54:19):
Okay. Okay.

Jason Howell (00:54:19):
Got it. And so any, any OnePlus phone that kind of falls into the Nord category is probably gonna be either their entry level, like you know, a hundred, 150 buck devices up to around like four 50. Something in that kinda lower to mid tier got essentially is what Nod is all about. Camera wise, you're not getting this phone. If you like your cameras 108 megapixel camera sounds really nice. You know, it's of course bend down, but I found the shots and I do have a couple of sample shots in the dock there that I, that I linked you to a photo album. I found those shots to be often pretty blown out at times, kind of flat colors. I did take this phone camping so there were plenty of opportunities. Dangerous. And it was dangerous, which is why I was even more upset that there were even any sort of markings in this before I even hit the campground. Cause I took such good care of it before then. Thankfully I didn't add too many more. Wow. Can

Mikah Sargent (00:55:12):
We click on that B one? Oh, the video too? Yeah. That's

Jason Howell (00:55:14):
Good. So yeah, I don't know if this is the normal shot. Sometimes Google Photos takes a second to ramp up to full quality. But yeah, this was just like, oh, check out a slow-mo is basically what that is. Nice to have the feature, not the best looking video in the world. The B shot that you saw, there is a macro mode and so they do have a macro lens on this and it's just really bad. <Laugh>. This was a bee that was inside our house. I was like at our dining room table and I looked down and right next to my elbow was this bee hanging out? Hello? I was like, okay. So I scooped it up and put it out outside and it flew away. But it was a perfect macro shot opportunity. And I mean that just, that doesn't look good.

Mikah Sargent (00:55:56):
Yeah. The focus is not

Jason Howell (00:55:57):
There. Yeah. Yeah. And I tried, I really tried to find the right focal length mm-hmm. <Affirmative> that it's just, you know, it's kind of a potato camera to be honest. But yeah, this is not a camera thirst phone by any stretch. What I will say that's a benefit here is the battery 5,000 million amp hour battery solid in my use. And in fact, to demonstrate that I had it fully charged when I left for our camping trip with my daughter on Thursday. Well, I, I took it off the charger in the morning at like five in the morning. Right. Then we went camping for two days and I came back on Saturday. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Saturday evening. When I went to plug it in, it was at 20%. Oh. I did not charge it at all. I navigated, I took all sorts of photos, you know, light texting and you know, very light apps while we were camping, Uhhuh.

(00:56:44):
Cause I try not to do that, but still it lasted. That's impressive. Yeah. Three like full days, you know, to go into the charger at the end of the day on Saturday. So I thought that was good. Not to mention OnePlus has been really big on their fast charging. So this includes a, a wired fast charger, 50 watts, which basically means zero to 100% in 45 minutes. Did you mention it? Does it have wireless charging? It does not have wireless charging. That is definitely a trade off. For the lower budget devices. Some of their higher end devices definitely do, but this one does not. Update wise, not good. One major update, three years of security. So when you're talking kinda lower specs and a year of update and, you know, you're not gonna get a ton of support here. So overall $300 definitely in that kind of budget category.

(00:57:31):
It's really hard to recommend the one plus NORD and 30 5G when you've got something like the Pixel six, right. Which was just marked down to $350. Much better camera system. Ole display IP 67 resistance, two years more os updates, as well as security updates to July, 2027. <Affirmative> by comparison, just for Faye $50 more. Now you get in a little bit of an outdated processor, but it's one year and it's Google's tensor, which is still, you know, I think it's a good trade off, I think is what I'm saying. For everything that you do get with the six A. So that's the Nord N 35 G always down to to review OnePlus devices. They've been a brand that I've been following very closely for as long as they've been around. In fact, they made it into the Hall of Fame on Tuesday's show.

(00:58:21):
But, you know, this device wasn't super impressive for me ultimately. So there we go. Not a bad color. It's too bad that the fingerprints are so Yeah. It's too bad you can't see the color through the wash of fingerprints on the back. Kinda makes it look like a cloudy texture, but no, they should ship those white gloves with it. Yeah. Right. Often, often OnePlus will ship out when they send out a review devices, they also send a case with it and I almost always throw the case right on there just cuz I, I don't feel comfortable with a phone that doesn't have a case on it. I know at some point I'm gonna destroy it. Yeah. <laugh> not yet though. You have not destroyed case. No, no, no. This thing's in great condition minus those, those does that little markings that tick me off. Yeah. So at least the plastic kind of makes it a little bit more grippy tacky. Yeah. Little tacky. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It's not a slippery plastic. That's a really good point. I think that's worth, you know, like, I'm, I'm even Yeah, check that out. You know, I don't know if you've got the shots coming Palming the phone. Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of holding it like that and it's staying in place. So there you

Mikah Sargent (00:59:20):
Go.

Jason Howell (00:59:21):
<Laugh>. All right. The one plus Nord and 30 5g. There you go. There's my AAA review on T nw. Cool.

Mikah Sargent (00:59:29):
<Laugh>. Nice.

Jason Howell (00:59:30):
All right. Up next Micah's gonna take a look inside Dolby

Mikah Sargent (00:59:35):
Atmos. Yes. So I thought this was a really interesting piece in the New York Times. It goes into a lot of depth and there's a little bit of a pun there about Dolby Atmos. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and kind of the state of Dolby Atmos right now for folks who aren't familiar, Dolby Atmos was first introduced as a way to kind of change the means by which movies and television shows could reproduce sound in kinda a novel format. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So the idea was that when you were watching something along with kind of the standard five one, or what is it, seven one now mm-hmm. <Affirmative> experience that there would also be some speakers kind of above you or sound, sound emitters above you. And so a person who's in charge of sort of audio engineering for a film could, could completely cover you in sound.

(01:00:36):
Yeah. Surrounded. And that was then taken and dropped into the music experience because the idea was let's look at how we can take music and sort of change the way that people consume music and think about music because we went from Mono. And for folks who might not know, I imagine many of our listeners and viewers know, is sort of the audio that is coming to you is one, one channel, one source. Right? So in your left ear and in your right ear, you are hearing the same exact thing. And then we took that and we changed things with stereo, where the left ear and the right ear could be hearing two different things. And some artists chose to take those, that opportunity to make what you hear in your left ear and what you hear in your right ear different, or in some cases just slightly phased to kind of change the way that things sound to us.

(01:01:41):
But since then, this piece kind of talks about how we've not seen a real change in music format since that time. There've been a bunch of different, not a bunch, but a few different attempts to make a difference. So Quadraphonic sound in the seventies, and then of course we have 5.1 surround sound in the nineties. And then 7.1. But despite all of the, the changes that took place there, there's not been another kind of hit. And these days the New York Times was speaking to several different specialists and you know, industry insiders about how these days we don't have the same experience as a whole that folks once did with music, where you would sit down and you'd either, and you guys were kind of talking about it before the show started, which I was excited about because you would sit down in front of your speakers or you would sit down with a pair of headphones mm-hmm.

(01:02:41):
<Affirmative>, and you would listen through an album and you'd listen through it again, and you'd listen through it again. And you'd do that over and over again and really like, live in the music mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And now largely music has shifted into this thing that people do experience while they're doing other things. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> that it's sort of a background. And, you know, you do get the occasional folks who it is a foreground thing for them, but for many people it's, it's kind of playing Yes. Exactly. Like John here in the studio. Yeah. but for many people it is this kind of, I do it and I'm doing all these other tasks and it, it kind of just is it, it accompanies you and they want to sort of add value back to music in the sense that it's cuz cause I don't want to I'm not trying to make the argument that music has lost its value.

(01:03:34):
It's still very valuable. But for a generation or for an overall sort of society that maybe ha is struggling to find the value that's there to give them a new way to find value in the music, and they think that this is the opportunity that spatial audio through Dolby Atmos is the opportunity to find new value. The problem is it requires kind of two things. One, hardware and software working together, but then also in some ways it requires an understanding of the listener of what all is involved in making it possible. Because once you have that education, then you can start to appreciate what an engineer is doing. So for someone like John Sina who does, you know, still bathe in music, so to speak he might listen to music and hear every single instrument and hear how the pianist brings forth their performance and hear how the engineer has chosen to mix what the guitar player is doing and all of those little things.

(01:04:50):
But a lot of that these days is lost. And so they feel like Dolby Atmos is an opportunity to refocus for folks to really understand the different aspects. And by adding this separation to the music where, you know, the, the, the engineer can target that the, the sound of the voices are coming from in front of you. The sound of the drummer is coming from the left. The sound of the guitarist is coming from the right and then other things are happening around you that, that will give people a new look into the way that music is being played, where you can go, oh wow. Lemme just kinda listen. Lemme tune into that part and, and understand holy moly, what this this provides. But what I thought was interesting on top of all of this is that in this New York Times piece, they speak to a, and I'm, I'm trying to find now they speak to an individual who is, here we go.

(01:05:58):
Susan Rogers, who was an engineer for Prince, left the music industry and I'm quoting from the New York Times left the music industry in the late nineties to become a cognitive neuroscientist. Dolby invited Susan Rogers, who again was once the engineer for Prince to the company's headquarters to listen to an Atmos mix of princes when Doves cry. And Susan Rogers had originally worked on that track. So as she's listening to, as Susan Rogers is listening to the music Rogers talks about that experience and talks about being a psycho acoustician, which is kind of a hard word to say. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and kind of talks about how the, it can be a little unsettling for a person because the way evolutionarily and biologically we are trained to be aware of threats. And, you know, they talk about how with vision things that are moving in our peripheral, we're able to see movement better in our peripheral vision.

(01:07:08):
It is because for years and years and years, we had to be aware of threats around us. The same thing applies to sound If sound is coming from behind us, if sound is coming from above us, it's not sort of in our mindscape this thing that's playing out in front of us. It can be unsettling and anxiety inducing. And what I like, and I, I wanna quote directly because this was, this really stuck with me. She also observed that music is a potent form of communication in large part because the cons conservatory phase, the, you know, where we're consuming the music happens and entirely in the listener's head, having clearer and more sound sources can actually make it harder to know what to pay attention to. So, while Roger said it sounded amazing, listening to when Doves cry, it was hard to, within her mindscape a assemble together everything that was playing, because there were all of these sources all at once.

(01:08:08):
And our brains kind of filter those things out. You know, if you're in a cafe, you may start to lose the sound, everyone that's around you as you're focusing in on something. Mm-Hmm. But if the sound is playing out around you, your brain might go, you know, it's Tara having trouble kind of collapsing everything and taking it all in as a whole. But she said, you know, I could get used to it essentially that, that it could be that I lose that anxiety that I have that, you know, you soon start to do it. I almost see it as an opportunity to experience things two ways. You know, if I've got an album I can listen through in the classic stereo format and then go back and listen through it in Dolby Atmos and get to feel out both of those options. Right.

(01:08:53):
That I get to hear it in my mind space as this easy to digest thing that plays out in front of me. But then afterward now I get to appreciate these little changes that the engineer made. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I wanted to ask you, cuz of course, apple Music has heavily invested in Dolby Atmos and in many cases has, you know, helped engineers to re-release tracks in Dolby Atmos. They've even put out some kind of guides and what are those called? It's whenever a project is kind of case studies they've put out some case studies where there're actual logic projects that you can hop into. You could download them today and look and see how an engineer does things. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But while there are other music streaming services that offer this, it's not as front of mind as I've seen with, with apple Music. Have you experienced any Dolby Atmos tracks and kind of what are your lar what are largely what are your thoughts on spatial audio given your background in, in music?

Jason Howell (01:09:57):
Yeah. I, you know, I have very mixed feelings about this, which sounds like <laugh> others in this article have big feelings about it too. I mean, I think have I experienced Atmos? I've experienced atmos more in a film setting than I have in a music setting. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I have experienced some atmos in music. I think when I'm doing it in headphones, I can't help but feel like it's more of a gimmicky thing than it is mm-hmm. <Affirmative> a you know, than it is something that I've suddenly had, you know, if there are two albums offered to me and one is Atmos and one is stereo, I have to, I absolutely always have to go for the Atmos. I'm not there yet. I'm not sold enough where that becomes my no-brainer decision. Yep. Right. I also think if you're not in headphones and you're listening to Atmos, that is a huge amount of complexity that is suddenly added into this experience that the more complex these things get, the le I mean, just plain and simple, the less traction it's going to get with the, you know, wide group of people that somebody might, you know, who's really behind Atmos might want for Atmos.

(01:11:03):
I just don't think you're gonna get the wide adoption of that technology and finding the space and implementing an Atmos, you know, setting that's perfect for sitting in the center of the room and listening to all of your favorite albums that way. Like, I think I, I appreciate that it exists mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and from a technological standpoint, from a mixing standpoint, like I'm, I'm curious about it. I'm, I'm, I'm continually curious about it, but I'm still not totally convinced. Yeah. I think it's really neat. And I've, I've experienced qua, you know, quadraphonic back in the day, the dark side of the moon in, in an actual quadraphonic setup that, that was pretty neat. But for me, like things like that, when it comes to music, if it's film, it's one thing. It, it feels very much like a utility that exists because it makes what's happening.

(01:11:52):
It ties what's happening on the screen into more of a reality space. Yes. When it's, when it surrounds you and comes from different directions and everything, there's a reason for it to exist. I understand that, that the reason for this to exist with music is, but we can put you in the middle of the the concert or in the middle of the band and you can participate there. But I don't know that I'm necessarily, like, when I wanna listen to a song, I don't know that I necessarily want to be in there. Yeah. I want, I want the final product the way it, the way it was originally intended. And sure, I'll check out the Atmos mix of it, but I'm gonna check it out as like an interesting thing. Novelty also a novelty. That's the word. Yeah. That's how I feel about Atmos is, is it's more or less, it's proven to me to be more of a novelty than something that I'm going to rely on or always choose, you know, it's, it's neat, but I also am perfectly fine with the way that I'm used to getting music. Maybe that makes me old man get off my lawn. But I

Mikah Sargent (01:12:55):
Guess, and that's me too, cuz that I, they talk in this piece about people being brought to tears listening to music in this spatial format. Sure. I've never had that experience. And I've done it in multiple ways. You know, the, the studio display has, it doesn't have the full set of speakers to do actual addressable Dolby Atmos, but they do a lot of the funny stuff to make that work. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I've listened there, I've listened obviously with AirPods Pro, which also do the funny stuff to make that work. And then I've also listened on a true Dolby Atmos sound system. This has been, you know, several years ago, and none of those times did it make me, you know, it didn't bring me to tears. Which kind of, it's like, oh man, I wish that, I kind of wish that it did. Yeah. Because then I could see why

Jason Howell (01:13:44):
There's so much Yeah. Then you would understand Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:13:47):
But bit more. It is not, it hasn't done that. And oftentimes I've found that I have a more powerful experience listening to the music when it's not being sort of phased and, and

Jason Howell (01:14:00):
Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:14:00):
Pulled apart and dripped everywhere. Totally. He doesn't have the same power when it's that way. And I've listened to lots of different, there's this playlist in Apple music that's, you know, spatial audio and it's songs from all sorts of genres. And I listen to all of them <laugh> and it's just, you know, I, I turn it on and I turn it off. I'm like, I kind of just want it off <laugh>.

Jason Howell (01:14:24):
Yeah. Right. Well, what it reminds me of, and actually an Anthony Nielsen and Discord mentioned this as well, you know, there were, there were features and stereos back in the day when, you know, like we'd get a receiver, you know, that would manage all of our sources and you could turn on like, concert hall Yeah. <Laugh> or you could turn on these different features. And it was D S P of course that was simulating a certain thing with the music, you know, this pre-programmed stereo music coming into it and then simulating a concert hall by adding reverb and doing, oh, Holly doing some sort of, you know, d s p kind of like re reassigning frequencies in different directions to enhance the stereo field and all these things. To me, like as, as someone who just appreciates music and wants to get as close to the source as possible Yep. Feel like distractions and feel like, why would I want that? Yeah. When I could listen to it the way the band or the producer or, you know, all of the above that created it, wants me to hear it. Yeah. Wanted me to hear it. That's how they heard it in the, the studio. That's how they heard it when they were mixing it and mastering it and doing all that. That's how I want it.

Mikah Sargent (01:15:27):
Maybe what we need to have is, and it's unclear to me, there may be some out there an album that is spatial first as opposed to Right.

Jason Howell (01:15:37):
Something created for spatial stereo

Mikah Sargent (01:15:39):
First that then they also mix and spatial Yeah. Something Yeah. Other than movies and, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. If, if there's, if there are there, you know, could be an album that from the get go, we're doing it spatial. Like, so that, that way I understand that at least then it is the engineer and artist's intent to take advantage of what's available Yeah. And put me in that space.

Jason Howell (01:16:02):
Yeah. Like if a band like Radiohead, and I don't even know if that's like a, a dated reference at this point, but they're a band that I could have seen, you know, back in the day doing something like this. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> saying, you know, what? We're going, this album that we're working on right now is produced for Atmos and you can only listen to it on Atmos speakers. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, that would be something that would get people to check it out. But even then, I still feel like it would still just be like a Oh, that was interesting. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, I'm sure there would certainly be some people that are like, oh, you've gotta listen to it. It's the most amazing album ever. You can only listen to it at most, but I guarantee you that limits it immediately just because that's a, that's a next step.

(01:16:40):
It complicates things. And I think when it comes to music, what we've, what we've really realized over the past 20 years is people have been drawn so close to simplicity and convenience mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, that they're willing to disregard quality, not enhance the quality, but disregard it in order to get closer to that convenience level. And this, I think, goes counter to that. And while I appreciate that it exists, I just don't think it's gonna happen. I don't think it's gonna happen to a large, large degree, you know, that it moves the industry in a completely different direction by and large.

Mikah Sargent (01:17:13):
No, I'm just thinking, I wish I was spacial

Jason Howell (01:17:17):
<Laugh>. So very spacial <laugh>. Anyway, that's great.

Mikah Sargent (01:17:23):
Everyone really should go check out. I mean, this is a really in depth New York Times piece. That's so good, Micah. I found it very very fascinating. I know I use that word a lot on my stories of the week, but I, I mean, that's the story of the week needs to be fascinating for me to want to check it out. Yes.

Jason Howell (01:17:41):
I'm so impressed by your joke. I'm still over here laughing <laugh>, I wish I was spacial. Just, that's just so perfect. I know. Anyways, that

Mikah Sargent (01:17:49):
Is, that is Dolby Atmos. And yeah I, I, this is one of those where I am curious to hear what other people have what other people's experiences have been with that as well. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:18:03):
Yeah,

Mikah Sargent (01:18:04):
Indeed. All right. I think that's the end of it.

Jason Howell (01:18:07):
That's the end of it. Tech News Weekly, another episode in the can TWIT TV slash tnw. Go there. We do our shows every Thursday. Publish to the site, of course, but if you go to twit tv slash tnw, you can subscribe. That is so incredibly important. Subscribe to our shows, you'll get 'em automatically. And we appreciate when you do that and you can find all the ways to do that at our site.

Mikah Sargent (01:18:30):
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(01:19:17):
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(01:20:15):
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(01:21:09):
So the way that you can help us out and make sure this keeps going is twit TV slash club twit. If you'd like to follow me online, I'm at Micah Sargent, or you can head to chihuahua.coffee, c i h Hua, h hua.coffee, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Check out again, hands on Mac later this later today, if you are a Club Twit subscriber typically you'll also catch me on Sundays for Ask the Tech guys with Leo LaPorte. I won't be there this Sunday but still tune into the show on Sunday where we take your questions live on air and answer them. And then on Tuesdays where I record iOS today with Rosemary Orchard, Jason Howell, what about you?

Jason Howell (01:21:50):
Well let's see here at Jason Howell on Twitter. Twitter social slash at Jason Howell. That Jason Howell on TikTok. I've been playing around with TikTok the last last couple of days. Yeah, nice. Trying to use TikTok, the way I use Twitter, you know, just as, as a change and see what happens. So, I don't know. It's fun. It's different. It's interesting. So that Jason, now you can find me over there. And then, yeah not, you know, all about Android is done, so I can't refer you to that, but I am working on a show about artificial intelligence. That's kind of my my task right now is to create something around this. And so I'm I'm working on that. If you have any ideas or thoughts on that, I'm certainly open to them. Jason, at twit tv or any of those, those channels, you can let me know. If you have any thoughts on kind of what you would look for in a show about artificial intelligence I'm open to thoughts and ideas. So send them my way. Big thanks to the Johns, both of them for helping us do this show each every week. Also to Burke behind the scenes. And thanks to you for watching and listening and subscribing. We'll see you next time on Tech News Weekly. Bye everybody. Goodbye.