January 11 & 12, 2025 Show Notes
Special CES Edition
🎙️ Show airs live
Saturday: 10:05am-Noon
🔁 Rebroadcast
Sunday: 1:05pm-3pm
🎧 Podcast
Anytime
Your crew this weekend:
L-R: Alan Perry, Rick Publicover, Ricky Winter, and Kyle Wilson
Ricky Winter
Tech Experience Manager at London Drugs in Tillicum Centre
store 250-360-0721
Kyle Wilson
Colwood-based IT Specialist, Wikipedia Administrator & Business Insider contributor
X & Instagram: @KWilsonMG
1) An iPhone/iPad bug-fixing update has been released
Contrary to what we'd been expecting, iOS/iPadOS 18.2.1 does not contain any security fixes, only bug fixes. Apple says the update is aimed at fixing bugs and enhancing performance by improving system stability and addressing user-reported issues. Some of the key fixes include:
- Improved Camera Functionality: Issues such as stuttering, blank screens, and oversaturation in photos have been addressed, ensuring smoother camera operation and better image quality.
- Enhanced User Interface Responsiveness: Apps now load faster, and transitions between screens are more fluid, reducing lag, and providing a better overall user experience.
- Fixed Wallpaper Display: A bug causing oversaturation in wallpapers has been resolved, restoring accurate color representation.
In addition to these specific fixes, users have reported slight improvements in benchmark scores, indicating enhanced system performance. Devices also seem to run cooler during extended use, suggesting better resource management.
3) Admin software used by school boards in six provinces (but not here in BC) experiences data breach
PowerSchool, a widely used administration software platform, has experienced a breach that may have compromised what is being described as "sensitive" information about students after the service experienced what it is describing as "unauthorized access" between December 19 and 23rd, 2024. The affected provinces are Alberta, Ontario, Manitoba, and the Maritimes.
2025 Consumer Electronics Show
The International Consumer Electronics Show is the world's largest trade show, and is the place each year where tech inventions and innovations are unveiled.
CES 2025 drew more than 141,000 people from +160 countries.
More than 4500 exhibitors — including about 1100 startups — were spread across 2.5 million sq. ft. of displays in 12 halls at three Las Vegas convention centres. That's more than five times the space of all of Mayfair Centre!
Below, in no particular order, are the items that stood out to us as we toured CES 2025, and spoke with the inventors and innovators.
Items start at #10, so the numbers don't get thrown-off if we add more above!
10) Aiphonia privacy headset by Skyted
This privacy headset was truly mind-blowing during our demonstration. It allowed Ricky and Alan to stand right next to Zained Khalladi, yet not be able to hear what she was saying to Kyle over the headset. It works by having the user whisper and using artificial intelligence to boost the volume and clarity on the other end so that the other person can't even tell that the other person is whispering. The headset is expected to come to market in March at $300 CAD. More info at Skyted.io
Skyted silent solutions
Skyted Mobility - Skyted silent solutions
Skyted Mobility The go-to headset for Silent calls on the move Discover the Skyted 320 Skyted is proud to introduce the headset Skyted 320, a pioneering solution in the world of mobility and connectivity. With our exclusive Ultra Low Voice Headset, Skyted redefines clear, Silent calls, delivering seamless communication wherever you are—whether soaring through the […]
11) Sony announces preorder availability of the Afeela electric car
Originally a prototype announced at CES 2023, the Afeela 1 became available for presale starting January 6th, subject to a $200 USD deposit. It will first come to California and Nevada, with plans to "gradually expand into other states." According to Sony, "Afeela personal agent proactively talks to you providing useful info to help you” make best use of the product."
The Afeela will come in two editions: Origin and Signature. The Origin will cost $89,900 USD and the Signature costs $102,900 USD. Both come with a complementary three-year subscription to the Afeela personal agent, a spatial sound system, and 5G connectivity.
12) HP 5" Slide and Negative Scanner
If you have a lot of slides and/or negatives to scan, HP has unveiled a small and easy-to-use scanner witha 5" screen that, with the push of a button, converts them into high-quality 13MP digital images stored an an SD card, which can be used to transfer them to a computer, tablet, or phone.
Once the scanning is done (2-3 seconds per scan to capture the image), the HP Slide and Negative Scanner can also double as a tabletop digital photo frame.
It'll be available in stores and online for $250 CAD starting in the spring.
13a) Nékojita FuFu hot beverage-cooling AI mini-robot
If your coffee, tea, or soup is too hot, just place this little washable silicone-covered Nékojita FuFu AI robot from Yukai Engineering in Japan on the rim, push the button that is its tail, and it'll blow cool air across the surface until its the temperature you like! The battery will cool up to six beverages before needing to be recharged via USB-C…recharging only takes about an hour.
It should be available online in May for $20 to $25 USD.
13b) Fuzzy and cuddly Mirumi AI pet
The Mirumi AI pet from Yukai Engineering is a cute robotic pet mascot designed to look at passersby and hide its fuzzy face, just like how a shy toddler might. As the company describes it, it's "designed to recreate people's joyful experiences of noticing a human baby" and "Mirumi moves its head in several different ways to express its curiosity, bashfulness and other baby-like qualities and emotions." The people that we saw trying them on — including Ricky — couldn't help but smile. Crowdfunding for these should start in Autumn 2025 and it's expected to have an early-adopter price of about $80 CAD.
For more info, join their newsletter at Mirumi.UX-XU.com.
Ricky Winter laughs after Hiroko Sato from Yukai Engineering puts a furry Mirumi robot critter on him and it starts to move and turns to look at Alan Perry.
14) Screen and lamp that overcome dyslexia
A French company called Lili For Life has developed a lamp and computer screen with a variable refresh rate that lets people with dyslexia read text without the words all being garbled. The screen is estimated to cost about $1000 CAD when it releases during the first quarter of this year. The lamp is currently available and costs about $450 CAD.
Lili For Life General Manager Bertrand Descours demonstrates their dyslexia-correcting monitor.
15) Tonies toys to help keep kids entertained and off screens
With more than 200 audio-equipped figurines to choose from, Tonies were one of the hottest gifts for young children during the 2024 holiday season. You play by placing a RFID-enabled Tonie (named after the daughter of the inventor) atop the player, which starts it telling stories and playing games. You tap on the side to go to th next track, You can also record your own songs and stories for your kids or grandkids. Your first pack, which includes the player, costs $129 CAD and additional tonies — complete with their own stories and games — are $25 CAD.
They're available in Canada through Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Indigo, and Toys R Us.
Madi Howeth demo's a Tonie on the air on "Tech Talk" (the black cord is running to Alan's audio gear so listeners could hear the sound produced by the Cookie Monster figurine).
16) Self-driving John Deere tractors, orchard sprayers, dump-trucks and mowers
With millions for farm, orchard, quarry and landscaping jobs unfilled (including half the farm jobs in California), John Deere is using AI technology to build self-driving equipment which farmers and fruit, vegetable, and nut growers say they need in order to stay in business. Their passion and dedication was on full display — and wait till you see the size of the self-driving gear!
Alan and Rick Publicover talked with Matt Potter, Deere's Director of Robotics and Mobility Technology, in front of Deere's massive new 2nd-gen self-driving tractor
17) Hisense unveils huge new RGB local-dimming MicroLED TV's
Hisense is continuing to make huge-screen TV's affordable, while also further boosting the image quality, unveling a 100" RGB local dimming microLED set that is twice the brightness of other brands, but still has ultra-dark blacks and rich colours. They have also unveiled other more-affordable huge-screen sets that are 20% brighter but use 20% less power. Hisense s now the #1 selling brand in 87" and above TV's.
18a) Loomos AR glasses
LOTS of new smart glasses hav been unveiled at CES, but most of them frankly aren't very good.
Rich DeMuro, the Tech Reporter for KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, and the host of the "Rich On Tech" radio show on iHeartRadio in the USA, has a pair of the 2nd-gen Meta smart glasses, and was looking to see if anything better was out there.
The only one he liked was the Loomos smart glasses, from Sharge, which record full 1080p video clips up to 5 minutes at a time (Meta glasses record up to 3 min.), and their AI service is ChatGPT (Meta glasses run on Meta's own Meta AI), which worked well. They're cheaper, at $325 CAD, and can be ordered with a wide variety of prescription strengths. Here is Rich wearing them as we chatted on the air…
More info on the Loomos Smart Glasses by Sharge at Loomos.ai and find Rich's tech posts at RichOnTech.tv, and his podcast, "Rich On Tech" on any podcast platform.
L-R: Alan Perry, Rich DeMuro, Rick Publicover, Kyle Wilson, Ricky Winter
18b) Amazon Echo smart frames
Amazon has released Echo Frames, which use Bluetooth to allow you to give Alexa (on your phone) any of the commands or questions that you can give the Alexa app or an Echo device.
The glasses, which can have almost any prescription added, are $350 CAD, and can be ordered on the Amazon app or website.
19) Pocket expresso makers
OUTIN, the makers of the bestselling pocket expresso markers, have unveiled a new rechargable Nano model, which will heat the water and brew up to five shots of expresso per charge. Obviously, you have to add the water, and load either ground coffee beans or K-pods…
The Outin Nano is $220 CAD on Amazon.
But, they're about to get some powerful new competition, from Wacaco, whose new Picopresso NS2 model is lighter, uses Nexpresso, and will cost $160 CAD when it launches in March…
20) VLC media player demos real-time subtitles + translation at CES
Jean-Baptiste Kempf, president of VLC's parent company VideoLAN, told The Verge that there are plans to add support for more than 100 languages. “What’s important is that this is running on your machine locally, offline, without any cloud services. It runs directly inside the executable.” There is currently no timeline stated for the public release of this feature.
In related news, this week VLC media player celebrated its six-billionth download.
21) Nvidia's new RTX5090 video card uses AI to provide vast jump in performance at a fraction of the cost
By using AI to generate two pixels for each original pixel, Nvidia is dramatically boosting the speed and quality of video generation, while lowering the cost.
Their groundbreaking new RTX5090 video card will cost almost $3000 CAD when it becomes available for purchase at the end of the month, but it'll deliver twice the speed of the RTX4090 which it replaces, for less than half the price!
Other Tech News
Items start at #30 this week, so the numbers don't get thrown-off if we add more items above!
Tip: if an item in these Show Notes has the icon on the right in the upper-right corner, you can click/tap on it to make the additional info open in a new tab.
30) US Supreme Court has expressed skepticism toward TikTok's arguments against the app being banned in the USA.
TikTok, one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, is set to be banned from the US market effective January 19th unless the U.S. Supreme Court stays the law. President-elect Donald Trump has asked the Court to stay the law to give his incoming administration "the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case."
CTVNews
U.S. Supreme Court skeptical toward TikTok arguments against looming ban
U.S. Supreme Court justices indicated skepticism on Friday toward a challenge by TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance to a law that would force a sale or ban the widely used short-video app by Jan. 19 in the United States in a case that pits free speech rights against American national security concerns.
31) Meta stops fact-checking partnerships, goes to "Community Notes" model
Meta chie f executive Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday that Meta would be ceasing its fact-checking partnerships in favour of X's model of "community notes". This decision has led to concerns about the potential rise in health mis and disinformation.
34) We've also started compiling a list of our favourite phone apps
The "Our Favourite Apps" list — which will have a lot more added in the coming weeks — is on our home page, and you can also get to it by going to Tech-Talk.ca/apps.
35) AI search engine Perplexity partners with Tripadvisor
Perplexity, an AI search engine, has partnered with Tripadvisor that will see more information added about hotels. Users will now be presented with an organized list of hotels, complete with summary about why the search engine picked them, backed up with information from Tripadvisor.
Here are a few of our iPhone shots capturing CES 2025 in Las Vegas…
Toyota's CES news event was an elaborate event attended by a SRO crowd of more than 1500 media…
Nvidia's amazing 95-minute keynotesaw 12,800 people pack the Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas…
Not to be outdone, more than 18,000 people, including several thousand Delta employees, packed The Sphere for Delta CEO Ed Bastien's eye-opening keynotemarking the airline's 100th anniversary, showcasing their people, and how they're going to use AI to dramatically improve the flying experience…
The Sphere displayed special CES imagery on the outside…
One of our few breaks from CES was to tour the Neon Museum, where dozens of casino signs from the past are bing preserved, restored, and illuminated…well worth a visit (reserve a spot) if you're in Vegas…
We each walked a total of about 50km during the week! Here are our iPhone step counts…
Ricky
Rick
Kyle
Alan
…and finally, our "Sign Of The Week"…
submitted by Peter Young from Priority 1 Computers
And so it goes…