And you're always a friend and you're not always there, well that is true I'm always somewhere I think I've been around a lot I'm only traveling I think one or two more times the summer so I'm mostly around. Mostly there. Before we get started I wanted to thank our mutual friend, Swenya Hansan for joining us last week and for letting me grill him about his new Microsoft Surface Pro co pilot plus PC. It was very educational for me and I, well we'll see how we'll see how things work out but it was very educational for me. You know the one thing I wanted to mention John that the sort of big deal about all co pilot plus PCs. It's a budget, you know, AI, an S, if you will, and of course with the recall feature being pulled from co pilot plus PC for privacy concerns etc. The one most important feature is gone. The recall recall recall, exactly. And that was an interesting idea that Microsoft just, you know Microsoft are experts at thinking they know best, and then getting blindsided by people's very logical complaints and so this is one of those things where if Microsoft had, I don't know, perhaps run this by anyone outside their bubble at all in the last, I don't know, five years, they might have been able to get some feedback and have been told hey yeah that's a cool feature. Maybe you should make it opt in, or maybe you shouldn't enable it in the enterprise unless it's specifically enabled by a policy or something like that. That would have I think made people a lot less worried about it or a lot less concerned about it but because Microsoft decided in their typical fashion to push it and basically say yeah this is what we're doing. So they ended up having to yank it completely which it would have been nice if we had had the option for it once we knew what it was, but sort of like you find out what it is, and then two minutes later it's what we're just not giving it's anyone. Yeah, like you know you don't like it well then you can't have it at all you know. And in fact you know knowing, well maybe not knowing it's not the right word but being aware of the potential privacy problems with the feature. I was planning if I bought a copilot plus PC I was planning not to log into financial institutions. And you know and things that basically are you know, like not log into things like Amazon where I can spend money. And I thought that was just to protect you from buying things. I didn't think that was having anything to do with copilot. But, but that was my that was my plan right I mean and there's flaws that plan like what if you log into your Microsoft account would you have to do. Which you know gives you some exposure what if you log into a Google account it gives you exposure. But I had a plan I don't know if it's a great plan but I had a plan of you know how to protect myself until I could figure out how we call really work. And so I was thinking that option away so, oh well. But anyway thanks again. Microsoft is basically if you don't love me at my worst you don't deserve me at my best. Oh boy. Anywho today is mostly a Google talk. A lot of Google ish kind of things. But before we do I wanted to note since John and I primarily Mac users. These days but when I have a computer open it's often a Mac. Open a eyes chat GPT software for the Mac app is now available everyone according to this article from 9 to 5 Macs. So if you're a chat GPT fan and apparently it's free so I don't exactly know how that works. I assume you still need a subscription if you want faster responses blah blah blah. But there you go chat GPT for the Mac app is available. I've been using everything through the web so not a big deal. And hardly is chat GPT I usually use it via Microsoft co-pilot which uses chat GPT as it's underlying AI engine. Yep. Is this a rant or no it's just a sort of immemorial you know again the Google hunger games. We have a lot yet another player and so Google won VPN and you have to pay for this. I paid for this. So I was a freeloader. So Google won VPN is a VPN that was part of the Google one subscription. You have to pay some fee you know it was pretty reasonably priced I think it started at like I forget like $20 a year. And it goes up depending on basically your storage but Google one VPN was part of all the tears. And then and it was only two years old so it was it was a young and. And so that shut down earlier this month and I finally got my and this doesn't really replace it. But I finally got the June Android update on my Pixel 7a on June 25th which is pretty darn late usually the monthly security updates appear around the first week of the month. So this was like weeks late but so between the time that Google one VPN died and this update appeared with VPN by Google. Notice the phrase shift appeared I had no VPN from Google available for my Pixel phone I have a paid for VPN that I could have used but I was just annoyed and didn't use it. So this is only available for the pixels and I think it's only from the maybe the seven series to the current series the eight series. That is available, turned it on June 25th EA. You know I didn't check to see if it's available my pixel tablet as you go check but for sure in the 70 I will check that after the podcast and report back in the blog. So anyway there's the pixel 70 in addition to that got some. Let me rephrase that it did not get some new stuff. The June update included new stuff for the pixel eight series which was you know introduced earlier this year. But my one year old seven a got none of these new features. So I'm not even going to mention I'm so so so annoyed by the typical of Google's updates. They will you know the Apple anti Apple people going to say well you know the new the new Apple iOS. What is going to be 18 features coming this fall are only going to be available for I think the 15 and up. So, but that's very initial for Apple usually they provide backward feature compatibility for more than one generation, but this I will admit this AI stuff I guess is a whole new ball game because of the requirements for an NPU. But in here and I'm still annoyed. Because I don't like AI or not. It's it's really difficult sometimes with Google to want to play with their ecosystem if you're so enmeshed like I am in the Apple ecosystem or and I would assume any other ecosystem is that Google's ecosystem moves very fast, which is its strength and also its biggest weakness. And so if you don't you know you can get lucky with it more than you get burned by it but when you get burned, you really get burned by it. Yes, and I have the scorch marks to prove it. So, and that said speaking of more stuff I won't be able to get access to some I again my seven days actually a little bit more than a year old it's a year and two months old I think so, you know, it's a. It's a it's a senior citizen at that age, and it's not getting the new features available made available this month on the AIDS getting it. And now we're learning next month on August 13. So two weeks from now, Google is having what's being called a surprise hardware event. I don't know if I like the most surprises scary. Pixel nine and presumably some other things will be announced hardware will be announced and presumably there will be more features announced it out with a with a phone that's less at that point less than a year and half old. Yeah, which is super annoying, super annoying, any rate. So, you know, I should check the blood my blood pressure. Now, one thing that was kind of interesting from Google is I got a I think I got an email or something just a few days ago saying hey, there's this thing called Google workshop lab work sorry Google workspace labs, and you can sign up and, you know, maybe we'll give you access. And so I signed up for workspace.google.com labs dash sign dash up. So I signed up for Google workspace labs I got access immediately to my, you know, surprise and delight. So I signed up for Gemini in workspace, which includes, you know, all the usual players Gmail drive Doc sheets meet and so now when I go into any of those apps in the web, I don't think I see these features if I log into the sorry, not apps. If I log into these services on the web and in the browser I see, you know, all kinds of pop up saying hey, you can do this and that another thing. But if I log into the not log in if I use a mobile app on say a pixel tablet, you know, or an iPad and I don't think I see these features but in any case so I've, I signed up for that and I started. I'll have links to getting started for people interested. I should also notice a new thing called Google vids, the ideas, and I thought it was going to be separate service to create videos, you know, kind of like, like how we can create still images, but really what it's a way to create presentation videos. So it creates a template for you. And so like I want to create a template of, or I want a template for creating a video presentation of, you know, some project and it'll help you build that and it's the interesting thing is it's not separate from those sheets and it's part of Google Docs. So it's actually built into a feature in Google Docs. In fact, I think I could make a presentation. Oh, I should try that. I should make a presentation out of our show notes. Maybe I'll try that after the podcast. So the other thing I wanted to mention related to that is. So my background, and for those, John, to a screenshot of me for it because Google Meet will not let me look at myself on the screen, except in a thumbnail. The background behind me today is not the usual one is a beach near my home. But today this was created inside of Google Meet using the Gemini workspace feature that I'm testing. And the prompt for it was I wrote it down futuristic looking office room, and it created for thumbnails and I selected this one because I thought look kind of neat. And so that is generated by this Google workspace, or Google Gemini workspace feature. So I thought that was pretty cool. That was pretty neat. There's a lot of features, but a lot of them don't work the way I thought, like for example, one of the things you can do is in Google Drive, you can ask it to do things like summarize, you know, files, or the contents of files so I have to summarize all of the files that begin with mobile these podcasts in the file name, because all are and it told you that you didn't need all of them. Yeah, basically, it's a well here five. We have hundreds of notes that John and I and so are others. It might seem like we only made five, but we actually do have topics and things that we talk about. So it was very interesting looking at what it came up with. And apparently we talk about certain things a lot like my 10 years on mobile views apparently that comes up enough that it makes it into this list. And the iOS 17 standby mode. I barely remember I was talking about that one. That's probably me. Yeah. Yeah. So electric scooters versus e bikes I think that came up once or twice. Yeah. I think Google might want to look at the definition of the word all and the definition of the word, you know, frequent. Yeah. No, well, you know, it's, and that's why we test these things right that's why we try them out as in early adopters. It's been pretty interesting. I, I'm not sure I'd pay for this. It's $20 a month for the current Google workspace. Gemini, you know, whatever for Google wanders is an add on to the Google Google one subscription, which is only $100 a year at for the two terabyte level. I'm not sure if he's holding something but I'm not sure what it's like a cat. I'm holding, I'm holding a guinea pig. Oh guinea pig. Yeah, a sick guinea pig. Oh, no, he's he's got a respiratory infection. Oh, and it's made him. He's not able to smell things well. And I've been giving him antibiotics, but his house is getting cleaned right now so he's with me. Let's go up a little higher for the camera. Look at that. I like the coloration. Looks like our my late rabbit pepper. Yep. So he's like you would never ask. You never really think about it. Can you pick having a cold but he's got one. I've heard our rabbit sneeze or something that approximates a sneeze. She sounded like a sneeze to me. What's a guinea pig's name? Fudge. Fudge. Anyway, so we got more. I think the guinea pig was more interesting the Gemini's discussion of our show notes. Yeah, I found it. I find most animals work with their show notes. We should, we should, mobile, mobile pets, mobile views. Yeah, mobile pet views. There has to be a pet that's mobile. So, you know, your giant tortoises that rarely move. We can't talk about them. They're not very mobile. Yeah, yeah, yeah. CnM and Ease. No, you know, I guess they kind of wave around. But you're extinct dinosaurs. We probably can't talk about them. They don't move that much. And they make bad pets. Yes. Well, anyway, so I, it's, it's sort of interesting. I'm not sure I would pay $20 a month for it. That I'd probably say no. We're still working. You know, if I was still, if I was not retired, I might consider the one that you pay for the, the Microsoft. Yeah, go pilot. Obviously. Pro, I think it's called or something. Not to be confused with plus, which is their PC. Good old Microsoft Davis. Yeah. Anyway. Okay, so that's kind of interesting. And I might paste in some examples of some of the side notes. I see. So what happens is in Google Docs with John and I are using right now for the show notes. It, it, Gemini shows up as a sidebar in a right. And it's given me a summary of this, this show note, which is actually longer than our show notes, I think. And, and the option to rephrase, refine, summarize, again, I guess, or in a specific format. Oh, that's interesting. I should try that later. Or you can ask questions of it. So this is enter a prompt here. By the way, I find it interesting that the AI guru's society is prompt instead of question to, you know, to indicate how you should ask a question of these things. I guess, I wonder why is prompt and more precise. You're prompting them for an answer versus asking them a question. Oh yeah, because it couldn't, it doesn't have to be a question. You could be making statement like make a blah, blah, blah. Okay, fine. I get it now. I understand. All right. And looks like the guinea pig is. Yeah, we'll see if the guinea pig will eat, since he's having, okay, yeah, he's definitely eating that. Good. So since he's been having trouble finding things that have fuzzy pieces of hay that are his favorites. Okay, just brought me a bunch of them. So, that's a good sign. Well, well, we're talking, we can, we can watch a guinea pig eat. Yes. Can he pick some sounds right? They kind of squeak. Yeah, he can presumably when he's not, you know, second, not having respiratory issues. And not happy with me squirting antibiotics into his mouth. He really just like that too much. No, I've done it at rabbits. They are not happy campers when you do that. Yeah. Okay, so that was kind of my, my take on the world this week. It's been, it's been mostly Google ish kind of things. So I think you had some, did you have a rant? Yeah. Well, I have an interesting observation that we can talk about. Okay. So Apple Pay was announced and rolled out nine years ago in 2014. Wow. Contactless payments kind of predate it, even though Apple Pay was one of the first major ones in the United States. I remember I had a little gizmo 12 years ago that actually if you held it up near a mag reader and hit a button, it would emit. Basically, pulse that would emulate the card swipe and you could, I actually used it on a few vending machines. Yeah, I've had credit card readers. So that's been around for a while. And yet, today, when I go to a shop and I do live in a small town, but even when I go to some of the larger places I go. And I pay with my Apple Watch, people look at me like I just did some sort of sorcery. It just blows their mind. And I think, well, you know, and even when I'm in a larger city that uses the people are using contactless payments, they're generally doing it through their iPhone or through their device. They're not doing it through their watch, which is interesting because they have to pull their device out and their watch, you know, they have an Apple watch on their wrist. I can see it there and they don't use it. Me too. I don't use you anyway. Last night, I was at a restaurant in town. And so one of the things that I found interesting is adoption of this is also dependent on the hardware that people have, you know, they. So the major point of sales systems have slowly been rolling out new hardware over 10 years and most of them now comes with contactless. So I've noticed a lot of vendors now have contactless payments. They just don't realize they have them, and I'll use them there and I'll shock them because it's the first time they've ever seen someone use it in their store. But last night was a new one. I got a, we went to a restaurant. That's a local establishment, not a chain. And I got a receipt that had a QR code on it. And the QR code was from toast, which is their point of sale provider. I scanned it. It brought up a web clip app on my iPhone. I paid the check and was done in, you know, 20 seconds. Right. And could have. And it basically said you can leave if you like. And I like down the waitress to make sure she knew that I pay because it was like, no one is doing this here. So I don't want anyone to get worried, you know, right. But it got me thinking a lot about how contactless payments are very common in a lot of the world. But yet in the United States, it's very much hit and miss. We have some places where I'll go when I travel and people are using contactless payments quite a bit. Other places, you're the only one that has ever walked in the door to use it. So I wanted to talk a little bit and just get your thoughts on why you think we haven't adopted that as much as I haven't. Yeah. And I'm curious why you don't as well. So, what's your personal reason for not adopting it. I never think about using it, even though it's on my wrist. In fact, I think I paid with my iPhone contactless at a local supermarket by accident. I wasn't intending to. I was bringing just bringing the store, you know, app up to show them a QR code to scan. And then I must have hit a button that did the mobile payment and it paid it and we're all happy and you know we're done. But that was by accident. And so even using my phone for that is unusual for me. I think it's because I'm old. I don't know. Well, and it is interesting to think about just not thinking about it. For me, I think about it. I just naturally like the idea that I don't have to reach in my pocket. So, for example, at the grocery store, it's really convenient. I can wander off. I can punch in my phone number for my loyalty card, or I can actually scan that off my watch as well. And then when I'm done, just hit a button and tap my watch and I'm done as well. So I find that just really convenient because I'm not fishing around for things. But maybe you're right. For some people because it's such an automatic motion to pull out your wallet or pull out a phone or pull out something that you've never really thought about. Yeah, I don't actually have to go through this motion. By the time you think about it, you already have your wallet in your hand or you already have your phone in your hand. You know, and I will say for me specifically, contactless payments is actually a new thing, even with a credit card. And I'm not talking contactless with a device. I'm just talking to my, you know, my little piece of plastic. Until recently, like maybe a year ago, my credit card from a very large, well known, you know, establishment. Did not have an RFID. It was just a mag strip and a mag strip. And in fact, way back, as you mentioned in other places, way back in, let's see, 2016, eight years ago, when my daughter was doing a study abroad in the UK, I went to UK with this same, I stuck with the same credit card for many years now with that credit card. And I remember using, I think I was using it because, oh, it didn't have a foreign transaction fee, which some cards do and some don't. And so I would go up to pay for, you know, something in a, I was, I think I was in summer and I would think I was in London with my daughter. And I would go up to pay and I would sheepishly go, I have to swipe this and look at me and go American. Yeah. Because I knew if I were from Japan, I would be modern, right? I would not be this, this, you know, Jurassic technology user. And so they kind of smiled knowing like, oh, yes, you primitive people, you know, you feel so sorry for you. You know, just doing contactless payments. I barely trust my credit card so I'm not. It's a matter of trust, too. I don't trust ATMs. Did I ever tell you that story? There is a story though that has made it frustrating for you. When I worked for a very large phone company, I got to study how the ATMs work. And I decided they were not secure enough for me that this is many years ago. I'm sure that's a lot of it has been fixed. But I was, hey, I was not sure it was secure enough for my status to my satisfaction and be. It could eat your card during the power outage. And I know that's happened for a fact. So I know that's not just speculation. And so I said, no, I'm not going to use an ATM ever in my life. And I never. No, no, let me rephrase. I did use it before I saw that design. Well, and the funny thing, I guess about contactless that I've noticed is that in general, contactless payments are more secure. And people still, you know, pull out a credit card that has numbers on it that people can read and has, you know, the ability to be left behind where your watch probably will not be. Right. But one thing I have noticed in recent year, like literally in recent year or maybe 18 months where I've gotten some cards, you have expired and replaced. The numbers are no longer in the front. Yeah, I just got to the last one of my cards that actually have raised numbers. Yeah, is now gone and the numbers are on the back, which I think is fine, because it was honestly sometime during the George W Bush administration that I last saw. Someone do an imprint of a credit card using. How about that. Yeah, I don't think we've needed to have those raised numbers for quite some time. And yeah, that's right. And you would get like a carbon copy as your receipt. Yeah. Memory retail in 2000 in 2001. And I think I had to use one of those one time. Right. Precisely. And that was in 2000, 2001. And I don't think I saw them used at any other point, you know, since that time. Yeah, those, that was the reason why they were raised numbers. And why, but it is interesting that persisted for so long. So what do you think would get people using contactless in the United States? Or so maybe what would do it, you know, maybe if you got some kind of reward, you know, for like six months to year, saying, you know, if you do this for six months. Or if you continue to do it for six months, or a year, you know, we will blah, blah, blah, you know, get some kind of reward. You'll get $10 or something. And presumably at the end of that, that those six to 12 months of encouraging you and enticing you and rewarding you for doing something, it would become a habit. And you'll just keep doing it just because you're just used to doing it at that point. Well, that's definitely what Apple has done with the Apple card where you get 1% cash back if you use the physical card, but 2% if you use contactless. Oh, I didn't know. Yeah, that is one of the things they've tried and a few other places I have seen do some some work with that course. The problem is then publicizing it to the point that people notice it and care to use it. Right. And it also has to be clear at the, you know, point of sale that, you know, we provide this service because I think most places do now, but there might still be a few, you know, that that do not. My, my cousin-in-law ran a shoe store for many years, a family shoe store, and they've recently sold it, I think, but, but she had a, I think she had a modern cash register, but she also had a hand-pranked cash register. And, you know, everybody found it amusing and blah, blah, blah, until there was a huge power. And other vendors couldn't take payment. And she said, "Oh, no problem. I've got a hand-pranked cash register. We're good." Yeah, that was the other thing I fondly remember from when I worked in retail was, you know, when the registers went down, you know, I still had where I was at in the store, we did not have, we weren't on the central POS system. So we actually had a standalone cash register, so I could still sell things when other people couldn't because mine was, you know, reported manually at the end of the night, and those are the things. So it is interesting the differences over time, and I do think if we were to advertise in some of those, that could potentially work. Well, I tell you what, since you have shamed me, I won't make an effort to try to see which of my local stores that I go to regularly provides specifically Apple Watch payment, very via an Apple Watch, and I will try it next time. Yeah, take a look, because I think you'll be surprised. I know in my local area, 10 years ago, nowhere took contactless payment, no more took Apple Pay when it rolled out, and now I would say 90% of the businesses take it, whether they realize it or not they take it. So you can use it, but they might not even realize that the last time that they got a new point of sale system, from scare or toast or any of these other Shopify, all any of the companies out there in that space. They've been adding it in anyway, because people do like to tap their cards, they don't, you know, want to insert or swipe if they can, I do see people doing that. Right. And that's the same technology. Yeah, even though they might think you're a wizard, but, oh, one thing I do want to point out, you know, with all these skimmers that have been found in various places. In fact, I think there's a, there's a large scale effort. Somewhere in York, NECA the US and Southeast, I think there's like a large scale effort to literally go out and find you know like the US Treasury Department of somebody's going out to look for all these skimmers that are, you know, they've been just kind of slotted into the otherwise letters, you've been a payment thing so it's good not to stick your card and stuff. Yes, at least use an RFID card, if not actual phone watch. Yeah, the other thing. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to say to wrap it up. Anyone who has been listening our fives of listeners, if you have not tried using contact lists around in your area because maybe you're in a middle of nowhere and you go no one uses it anyway. And you might be surprised. There might be some places out there that are using it. What was I going to say? I can't remember now. Oh yeah, contactless payment. The other thing I think is, is just the sort of the negotiation when you do run into, you know, a vendor who claims you're using magic to be with your watch. Have you ever gotten pushed back? I have, but it wasn't with contactless payment. It was actually what the vendor had a reward program that use QR code. And if you had their app and you wanted to book a book a payment card to it, you could swipe your QR code and it would actually have the payment information as long, along with your rewards information. And I did that, and I went in one day and I showed my QR code and the reader read it and the POS system just processed everything through it applied my rewards it paid for the order. And the person who was at a fast food location, the person who was processing it looked at it and her brow furrowed and she was very confused and then she voided out the order. And then it didn't go through you need to do it again. So then I did it again and the same exact thing happened. And she then called over a manager and said, well, you know, he's, he throws the QR code, but then the system says it captured the payment. And it must be broken. And I looked at the manager and said, you know, it can hook a payment card onto it, right? That's what I did. The manager looked at me and went, Oh, you, you did. Well, but I guess it's right. So it was just two people not believing their own technology. Right, right, right. They hadn't been read into the system, so to speak. Yeah, they didn't get the POS overview or whatever, you know, the QR code overview. So one thing I did want you to get mobile payments and magic. I remember I was at a conference in San Diego, about 10 years ago I think it was 2014 maybe 2015. It was of all things the Esri GIS geographic information special, whatever whatever conference because I was doing a lot of mapping back then. And I was in a, what hotel was I in. I was in a nice hotel, whatever it was. And it had a, you know, like many hotels do it had a Starbucks on the first floor and a ground floor, as you know, as part of the amenities there. And it was the first time I'd seen a mobile payment option at Starbucks. And so I remember downloading the app and I'm standing outside. It was mobile payment, you know, to mobile order, I should say, mobile order and payment to order my Starbucks, which I'm 10 feet away from, just to see how it worked. And it was pretty close to magic. I remember being very impressed 10 years ago. I was also impressed because just a few years earlier, like maybe 2010 Starbucks got Wi-Fi in some other restaurants, which I also considered semi magic or quasi magical. It's amazing what's happened in just the last 10 or 15 years. That's like I completely forgot about that whole carbon paper on the raised numbers of the credit card. That's hilarious. I also remember when we used to write social security numbers on our checks. Oh yeah. And it was required for whatever reason. Phone numbers, social security numbers. And I think there were, there were people that, you know, in their check address would have their phone number and I'm sure someone also put their social security number there when they used to let you order checks. And so, yeah. So, you know, student IDs and colleges up until about 2000 2001 where you're supposed to be number. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, I'm so old. I remember, you know, I remember grad school when we had a, not only, I should know, then you see that some really cool stuff. But yeah, we had, I think our social security number was a student ID and our student ID card was also a bus pass for the bus system around town. So that was pretty cool. Just hop on any bus and show you student ID and not pay. So that was great. I used it a lot. Okay. That is about it. Again, I want to thank Swen for putting up with all my questions last week and make good use of that information. Go take a look at the Google workspace Gemini testing. It's free, not right now. Again, the background behind me. It's built using that. And we will talk to you next time.
