Technology
Gadgets & Gizmos: Ticketless train travel, a hypersonic ramjet plane & AI actors
In this episode of Gadgets & Gizmos, hosts Steve Kaplan and Simon Rose explore the latest innovations in transportation, including ticketless train travel, a groundbreaking hypersonic ramjet plane...
Gadgets & Gizmos: Ticketless train travel, a hypersonic ramjet plane & AI actors
Technology •
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Interactive Transcript
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Is it a gadget? Is it a gizmo? No, it's gadgets and gizmos with Steve Kaplan and Simon
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Rose.
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Well, I've got a story for you for once. I've just read in the paper.
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Oh, if we go on a… We remember a few years ago we talked about Samsung and the phones,
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which their new phones, which they designed so well that they gave them to journalists
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and they were caught fire. We're not all, but a lot of them caught fire and journalists
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tend to write about things like this. Well, we've moved on from phones to smart rings
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and some guy who was flying back from Frankfurt to Manchester had one of these smart rings
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on his finger and suddenly it felt rather tight and then he realized he couldn't get it off
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and apparently it overheated and when he told the staff about that this, we're not getting
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on our plane then mate, and then he rushed off to hospital, they spent half an hour reusing
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his finger so that it would become smaller and then managed to get the thing off eventually.
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But apparently somebody else on Reddit said they'd had a sort of similar problem.
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The guy said it hadn't been charging properly for months, but according to the US Federal
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Aviation Administration, they issued a warning in this month, said there were ever more
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cases of people who should have lithium, iron, battery, powered things in their overhead
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lockers in their luggage and they get smoke all sometimes even fire.
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Calls by would have been thermal, thermal runaway, I believe it's called.
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Thermal runaway, is that right? Well, I mean, I take a my iPhone and my iPad and battery
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pack with me, of course, and they all have lithium battery. If my watch has a lithium battery
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in it. Yes, well, it may not be very long before you're going to put you in, they'll put
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you in.
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That's for even more dangerous. So I don't know what is about Samsung. I mean, I have,
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you heard of Apple devices catching fire. I don't think I have. I haven't. But Samsung
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seemed to have still, I was given the alright electricity is apparently the industrial electricity
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is highest in the developed world and that are domestic electricity is the second
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highest. Pretty soon we'll need these things just to keep us warm. Throw a, throw a
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Samsung fire on the phone on the fire, dear. That's one of the winter. Right, what have
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you got for us? Well, from planes to trains. Oh, there we go. There's an off the cuff
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segue train fairs, train fairs are complicated and there are apps like train line that will
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split a journey into multiple fairs to find you the cheapest way of getting from A to
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B. But it is, it is difficult to work out for yourself. Well, the Department of Transport
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has an idea and they are doing a trial from Harrogate to Leeds where they are tracking
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people's phones. So when you get on the train at Harrogate, indeed leads if you go in the
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other direction, then you tap a button on the, on the app and it lets the DOT know that
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you're boarding the train and then when you get off the train, those you got off the train
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and then it works out the best fare and charges you at the end of the day. Which means you
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don't know how much you're paying until you get home and find you paid it. That's true,
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but just deviating slightly from trains, I realise the other day that happens in a lot of
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places now. You go and buy drinks at a bar, they don't tell you how much they pay, they
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just hold out the machine. Usually you cannot see the amount on it and I just realise I
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have no idea, is it what is the etiquette? Should you say do you mind if I just have a
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look at the screen and check what you're charging me? It always shows the amount on the
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screen. Yes, but they don't trade your glasses. No, no, it's not that at all. You don't
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see the screen because it's the other end that they have shown that they point towards
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you to where your card goes. I mean, right, some of them, some of them, you put it on
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top, but a lot of them are on the flat end, you know, the narrow end. Yes, that's right.
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And you don't see the screen, they can see the screen, but they're holding it in their
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hand. So I want to know, you know, can you say, do you mind telling me what it is? But
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as for trains, I mean, do we trust the train companies to charge the right amount? And
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why are they so complicated? I don't ever remember Scholar Combs and Watson when they consult
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Bradshaw saying, oh, we can pop down there by two o'clock with soft news at the other
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end of the country saying, well, I don't know, no, we've got to spit the fairs. I mean,
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that was just the first, second and third. And that was it. It was. It was. So why is it
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so complicated? And third has gone completely. Yes, it's all third now or slightly less
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bad third if you're first. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, well, okay. I'm not going to lead Zor,
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however, because the other problem I have with the train phase is that I think I remember
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I had to head somewhere. That's wrong. I can't have broken down. So I had to get it recovered
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back home and then head to the station and leap on. I had a quick look at things on there.
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And I could get trains from I think you used to know some pancreas. So I thought, well, the best
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one I can get is going to be used to. So I got to used to. Couldn't actually see the train listed
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on the board. The queue for the ticket office was absolutely enormous. So I'm going to go to
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the machine. And I got a ticket going to where I want looked at the board again, not a train
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there at all. So I've just been in news and stations, given me a ticket. Eventually, I realized
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by going online that it has sold me a ticket for another station. I had a hair off as a pancreas
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to get on the train that it had sold me a ticket for. That which didn't seem very. Yes.
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No. Right. I've grumbled a lot. What are you going to grumble about? You have grumbled. Well,
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it's a great way. It's a great way. It's a great way. It's a great way. But not as far as planes.
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Are we going for a plane-strained storm of yours? Yes. Yes. We have. Oh, no. You're trying to do
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that. Now you're going to change the order of things. I'm going to do what I can. Okay. The sound
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area was broken back in 1947. Macron is the name for the speed of sound. And when you get a sonic
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system, which is a very clumsy name, but it was neatly abbreviated to Atlas. Okay. Well,
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that's quite good. Yes. Yes. I think they could have found a better way of abbreviating that.
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Let's put there we go. Yes. It's a hypersonic plane, which they say can go above Mac 5, which is
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remarkably fast. So hypers just more than supers. Oh, hypers much more than supers. That's
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like a hypermarket. It is bigger than the supermarket. I suppose so. Yes. And it is a solid fuel
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ramjet engine, which means it has no moving parts. So air is drawn in at the front by impellers,
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which compresses itself by inertia and then heats up. And the heating up is enough to make it
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a fuel and burn to make the thrust. So I mean, there's lots of moving parts on the plane. I mean,
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the passengers were one thing, but also very. Yes. Yes. Yes. But I mean, the engine has no moving parts.
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So there's in theory, less chance for it to go on and it'll go jolly fast. That's
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extraordinary. I mean, can this be used for other things or just for planes? Because an engine that
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has no moving parts, answer me quite a good idea. It does depend on air being taken in at the front
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at very high speed. So it's probably not the M1. No, possibly not the M1. Okay. Okay. Well, that's
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going to, but does it then presumably every time it passes the sound barrier, you get pooms.
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The zoomly you do. Which tend to annoy people? Yes. They do. And brake windows occasionally and
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things like that. I don't think they still do. They brake windows. Maybe they do. You say, well,
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there aren't that many planes that go beyond them. No, not say not commercial planes. Anyway,
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but we will find out. Okay. Right. So we've had planes, we've had trains. We're still up in the air
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now with drones. Oh, okay. Can't do automobiles. Okay. I'm not talking about the nice little drones that
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you have in your, with your camera in so you can film things as you're sitting down. Or even the
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awful noise of bagpipes. I'm talking exactly. I'm talking about the drones that are missiles.
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Right. I had at the enemy. The Leonadas is an anti-drone device, which has demonstrated recently
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that brought down 49 drones with a single shot. Who is very clever? Yes, that is clever.
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It's Leonadas, as you will recall, was the Spartan king who held off the Persian invasion and
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the battle of the Mopi-Lai. I'm not sure I had remembered that, but okay. No, no. And
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education as well. And that sounds pretty impressive, but perhaps not as impressive as the Apollo
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high energy laser weapon, which will be it to Hulu, which is Scandinavian for hello. It is. It's
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an Australian anti-drone device that can bring down 200 drones, not always one shot, but running
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on its own batteries. It has an internal power supply that powers up to 150 kilowatts, which is
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an awful lot, 150 single-watt fires, right. Or 50 kettles. And they say that it lasts for 200 drones
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before you need to be charging. So you don't need to be somewhere you can plug it in. You just take
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it out on the battlefield with you. I mean, not with you, obviously, but with soldiers. Yes, fine.
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And then when you've done the 200 drones, you've got to go all the way back home again or have long
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lead. Or have a very, very long lead. Or maybe it takes fuel and you can have a generator. I'm
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sure they thought of that and there's a way of doing it. In fact, they could just have a generator
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anyway, couldn't they? Yes, so who imagined the drone? I mean, we talk about drones almost
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more now on the battlefield than we do. You know, floating above your kayak or whatever you're
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using your drone for. And from what we talk with planes and trains and drones,
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finally two automobiles. Oh, excellent. And we're talking big automobiles. We're talking
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the kind of trucks that are used in mines. And the trouble with the trucks and mines, they're
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very, very big, but the mind, the surface that they're going on is always very rough because it's
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a lot of stuff that has recently been brought out of the mine. And the tires were out.
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Are they have to change the tires on these trucks every six months or so, which is very expensive?
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Well, a pretty hefty jack as well, I'd have thought. And a pretty hefty jack.
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Company called Global Air Silinber wheels, which is quite a stealthy voluntary name from
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Arizona, have come up with steel tires, which sound like they're going to be very bumpy, but it's
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rather clever because the steel is a kind of steel lattice. And it's a drum and then it's held up
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by nitrogen fill cylinders. So that it has, it's squishy. That's probably a technical term for
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squishy. How can I tell them what it is? Okay. Right. And they say that this could save $7 million
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over the lifetime of a single truck. So obviously I don't know why they're buying their tires,
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but not the same place that I do. They don't have to shift the money.
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Oh, well, that's fantastic. I'm trying to think what the technical term for squishy is,
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malleable, not quite. No, there is a technical term. If anyone out there knows, please don't write
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it. No, they're all rushing off to buy these steel tires. They obviously are, yes. And the
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mining trucks, yes. I know. Well, they are quite big those mining things. They are very, very big.
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And from planes and trains and drones and cars, we're taking to the water. Okay.
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With the Orca WX-3, which is an electric jet ski. Now, we've talked about electric jet skis
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here before, but this one takes three people. So you can take your family on it if you have a fairly
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small family. Yes, yes. We've selected members of your family on it. Had a tow hook for water skiing.
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And the really clever thing is it has an 80 minute runtime and charges up in just 30 minutes.
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So you can do your 80 minutes and then you can have your picnic on the beach, assuming that there's
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a PowerPoint on the beach. Yes, yes. And you can plug it on. A variable for order now from
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Tiger Motors T-A-I-G-A Motors.com for about $24,000. So not one I'm going to be getting any time soon.
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No, no, no. So it's got pretty powerful for three people underwater skier. Yeah.
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Impressive, impressive. Well, they're just pulls just from home with a more gadgets and gizmos. Very soon.
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This is Simon Rays. You're listening to gadget and gizmos with Steve Kaplan telling us the latest in
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the tech world. Now, people who are doing podcasts, if they're outdoors or if they're interviewing someone
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outdoors or in a crowded environment, you need a good microphone. And if you're filming someone on your
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phone, which most people frankly do these days, you need a microphone that is separate from your phone.
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Otherwise, it's going to pick up all the ambient sound. And that's not going to help very much.
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Well, there is a new device. It's from a company called MayoNo, M-A-O-N-O. It's called the T-5
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wireless microphone. It has an 80 decibels signal to noise ratio. Don't quite know what that means.
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No, no, me. Sounds quite good to me. Yeah. But it has intelligent, they say, noise cancellation
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and the whole load of voice filters. And it does seem to be actually very good indeed.
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It has a nine hour battery life. And in the little box, which also charges up the devices,
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are three things. There's a receiver that plugs into the bottom of your phone. And then there are two
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little microphones. And the microphones are clip on. They're about an inch in diameter and quite thin.
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And you can clip them onto your clothing or you can attach them by magnets onto clothing or you
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can even wear one round your neck. And as I say, you get two of these in the in the pack. And it looks
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like a very, very good idea available now for 67 pounds. It's a decent microphone. That's
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staggering, me jeep. It is, isn't it? Yes. Well, I have ordered one. Actually, I've ordered two
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because they come as a pair from me, oh no, M A O N O dot com. And it looks like a jolly good
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thing coming from overseas, five dollars shipping, which is actually a bit of a bargain.
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You don't need to be a modern equivalent of the seahorses that used to be advertised in comics
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when we were kids. Two so too good to be true. And the extra specs. Yes, the extra specs.
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The thing is, I never even met anybody who'd ever sent off for one.
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No. So we didn't even know we knew it was a con, but we didn't know what sort of con because nobody
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ever got no applied somebody of a conscience. What about these things where you can build a model
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model of HMS bounty in, you know, a thousand weekly parts? And presumably after a while, people
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stop buying the magazine that comes with it. Do they carry on publishing it just for the half
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dozen people who are determined to complete the whole set? I don't know. I don't think I've
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seen any of those. Oh, yes, they used to be very popular. Oh, they're still like, you'd get
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a magazine that it has a bit of a ship or a some other model inside. Well, they're a bit bad if
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you missed the first issue or two. It would. You'd have to, we probably get back issues. Maybe when
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they stop publishing, they just let you buy the whole kit. You're tempted on. That's the one
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that really gets you. I want more the seahorses or extra specs. Let's move on. Let's
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I am. Now, you've played in bands. I play in bands. And if you have a guitarist in a band,
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they have to bring with them not only their guitar, but their amplifier because every amplifier
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has a different sound. Can I just reassure this? The sort of bands I play and do not use amplification.
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I'm going off to Bolton this weekend to play in what you might call a band, but there will be
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amplification. So I'll take your word for it. You'll play the cello, aren't you? Yes.
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No. Okay. Well, not that kind of band, but those with amplification and guitars.
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And the guitar amps are big and heavy and cumbersome when they're not only bringing the amp,
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but they often bring a whole rack of effects pedals as well. There is a new device that could put an
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end to all that. It's called the Larva Studio. And it is a guitar amp with a built-in speaker.
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And it's quite small. It's about the size of a couple of shoe boxes. Right.
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It has 30 vintage and modern amp models built into it. So they have cloned
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30 different amplifiers. They can choose what kind of sound you want. It has 40 effects pedals
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built into it. So overdrive distortion, tremolo chorus and all that kind of thing.
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It also has an 8-track looper. So you can sort of play a bass part and then on top of that,
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you can add your chords and with that you can add a solo. And then five more parts that you can
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put in if you like the loops. It has hundreds of backing tracks in it and drum patterns and a
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multi-track recorder. So frankly, everything a guitarist could ever want. And it has a screen on
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the top. And the screen is flat on the top. But it tilts up so you can view it from just about
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any angle. I think it goes up to 80 degrees or thereabouts. And that sort of position.
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It sounds very good. It sounds very good. A 5,840 Hong Kong dollars, which is not nearly as much as
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it sounds, but a 560 pounds. So not an impulse purchase. But if I were a guitarist, I would be
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looking very seriously at getting one of these because I think it looks like a fantastic thing.
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And if you are a guitarist, you have until the 9th of October to get your pledge in on Kickstarter,
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called Larva Studio. And they say that they will start delivering in November. So they obviously
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have actually made this thing. Sounds good. You're a bit worrying, isn't it? Do you actually have
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have that fear when you send off of these crowdfunded things that nothing will ever turn up? If you
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ever had a bad experience, actually do have a few of them. I have had a few bad experiences.
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One of the worst ones was a bike rack to go on the back of your car, which was an inflatable
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bike rack. So it cushions the car. And the bike sits on it, which they actually made, then found
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it wasn't certified for use in the EU. And then went that a business. Which is a real shame,
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because I thought that was a good idea. Anyway, moving on from there. Who goes to all that
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effort without checking that things actually deal to use? Well, they obviously didn't check.
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Well, why would they? They didn't. It's legal in the US where they did actually ship.
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Moving on to, yes, the next face of Hollywood, Tilly Norwood. Tilly Norwood has appeared in
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promos and she's a little girl next door kind of character, quite pretty, but not overly sexy.
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She doesn't exist. She is the first AI actress to be signed up by a real talent agency from
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a London company called Particle Six. And that the acting profession are up in arms. How do you
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might expect? Saying what is going on? I'm trying to find her on on on Lonnie. And I could find
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promos for her, but at no stage could I see her either acting or talking, but maybe I was looking
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the wrong place. Did you? I did. I saw her, I saw a program about her, which was entirely AI
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generated. And she appeared in that maybe that's the one you're taking off. And the program was
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utterly convincing. I mean, they looked like real people, they sounded like real people, but
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none of them existed. If I were an actor, yeah, I would be up in arms about this as well.
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Getting a little nervous. We've already had writers, we discovered ITVs now using AI to write
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stuff and to come up with program ideas. The actors are going to be replaced. Yes.
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Apparently the one profession, the thing AI won't replace, what I've had experienced,
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I've recently seen it, sewage and drainage engineers. I was telling this guy that he
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quite understood why. Right. Well, what now? Now we move on to Facebook and Instagram, which have ads.
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And Meta is launching an ad free version. You could not have ads on Facebook and Instagram.
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£2.99 if you buy it through Meta, £3.99 if you buy it through your smartphone, because of
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if you buy it through your smartphone, you are paying a hefty one-two Apple.
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Oh, yes. A month I'm assuming that is it? That's a month, yes, indeed. And there's been a big
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row over personalized ads and then using your data without your permission. And there was a
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big legal dispute a few years ago with a woman called Tanya Ocarol, who saw ads for motherhood
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and pregnancy shortly after she found out she was pregnant. So she would have mentioned this,
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two from friends and then got targeted ads based on what she was saying to people on Facebook and
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Instagram. Yes, but you were a spooky one and that didn't you? Do you remember telling me once you
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went to the doctor and told me something, you didn't even put anything on Facebook and then you
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were getting targeted as you couldn't work out how they knew. No, that's absolutely right.
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That was a long time ago. It was. It could have been coincidences. It could be...
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People often say Facebook is listening to you while you have it turned off, but I don't think it is.
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I mean, if they're listening to me, it'll be what should we have for supper? We had sausages last
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night. Yes. We got potatoes left. Yes, yes, yes. Well, I mean, now that I close down Amazon
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Fresh, they won't be pushing potatoes much longer. They won't. No, no. I'm sorry about Amazon Fresh,
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right? Yes, I did. Amazon Story, is it right? Amazon Prime. I mean, you and I like Amazon Prime.
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We're not only free delivery, but we get Prime TV, which has quite a lot of good programs on it.
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And we get, as we have announced, one free, audible book a month. Well, a lot of people are saying
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that they have been misled. Amazon Prime, what? Tricked, indeed. I'm Amazon Prime, which they do.
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And they have recently put their hands up and said, yes, okay. And they have breached a settlement
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with the US Federal Trade Commission. Two and a half billion dollars is the fine. A lot to you and
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me probably chicken feed to them. I think two and a half billion is probably quite a lot even to Amazon.
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We don't get those class actions over here in the same way, do we? No, we don't. That Swedish
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is top. Well, pass they could give us a proportion of that. And then we won't see them.
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Well, we could always suggest it. And was it if you're listening? Mr. Bezos?
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Thank you, Steve. That's great. That's it. Though for this week for Gadget and Gismo, we're back with more
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the same next week. Is it a Gadget? Is it a Gismo? No. It's Gadget and Gismos with Steve Kaplan and Simon Rose.