What's hot and upcoming in the tech world.
Jesse Mulligan (00:00):
RNZ National. It's time for Tech Tuesday. Welcoming back for 2024. Dan Watson from Vertech IT Services. Hey Dan, Happy New Year.
Daniel Watson (00:10):
Happy New Year to you too. Jesse,
Jesse Mulligan (00:11):
Did you have a holiday from Tech?
Daniel Watson (00:16):
Oh, pretty much got away to the beach and made sure I was getting salty every day. It feels good. Yeah,
Jesse Mulligan (00:24):
Me too. Me too. But you had half an hour in Las Vegas. What's been going on over there?
Daniel Watson (00:30):
[00:00:30] Oh, every year there is the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and it's a massive opportunity for manufacturers to get out there and show what they've been working on and give people a sneak peek of what's either directly available now or soon to be. And there's all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas that sharp on that. I thought I'd just throw a few out there.
Jesse Mulligan (00:57):
Yes, please. So it's the first look at the future, huh?
Daniel Watson (01:00):
[00:01:00] Yeah, there is one where, you know how you got the little robot vacuums and some people like them and others see them as not very practical. You might have stairs or something like that. There is one in that just briefly, like nobody ever said, I wish my dryer robot vacuum washing machine and mop was all in one device. There is one of those, I won't go into that one. It just seems silly as, but there was one that is providing, essentially it's a standup, [00:01:30] looks like a normal vacuum cleaner, so you can use it as a normal vacuum cleaner with an upright handle on it. So you want to do a quick job but is also a robot cleaner and that's the Flexipro Robo Rock.
(01:46):
So it's a combination of vacuum and mop and robot. So it's essentially a wet dry vacuum like you might have in an industrial [00:02:00] workshop, which is quite common if you have spills, you use the wet vacuum to suck it all up and get it real clear really quickly. This does both. It's got 17 kilopascals of suction, which is pretty impressive. That's like an actual decent vacuum cleaner, which kind boosts way over the top of what you'd get from a normal little tiny robot vacuum cleaner that might pop out and trying to effectively suck up a few bits and bobs. This will actually do a real good job. So I'm looking at that. The price [00:02:30] and the release date hasn't come out yet, so we're just going to have to keep an eye out for that one.
Jesse Mulligan (02:37):
It doesn't look super futuristic. It looks like a stick vacuum cleaner really, and I see it's got a handle, but the idea isn't that you push it around yourself.
Daniel Watson (02:49):
Not always, but if you wanted to just do a quick job, you can. Whereas with a robot one you can't, it's like it's just going to do its own thing when it doesn't. So I thought that was pretty neat. The other neat thing, which [00:03:00] I think is great for Kiwis is the vasco translator E one and it's a translator, so it's an earpiece that uses AI and an app to translate currently 49 languages in real time. So imagine having the EFP in there and you're perhaps meeting some colleagues internationally, somebody speaking French, somebody speaking Polish, somebody speaking German. You will get translations [00:03:30] on the fly both on your app and your hand so you can read it as well as get it coming through your ear as well. Slight delay so that again, it's going to be released in Q2 2024. We don't have the pricing for it, but frankly that looks pretty damn cool.
Jesse Mulligan (03:50):
So If I'm wandering through a market in Budapest bartering for spices, I can understand them but they can't understand [00:04:00] me. But I don't know if I was single and went on a date in a foreign country, I could give them a pair of ear budds and I could wear them and we could converse.
Daniel Watson (04:13):
Happily. Yes, it's all about the mind, isn't it? Getting to know people and communication, right? I've found myself in situations where you just have very little shared language and it does dumb down your interactions because you can only really [00:04:30] mime your way through stuff. And the more that you can actually communicate thoughts and ideas, the better you get to know other people, which I think is one of the fantastic things about traveling. Get away from the tourist trail and actually get an opportunity to find out how other people live in their own communities.
Jesse Mulligan (04:47):
And I guess you could go along and watch a movie or watch local tv, that would be kind of cool. Yeah, I'm sure there are heaps of uses that you might not [00:05:00] think of at first. That's wicked. If they work well.
Daniel Watson (05:03):
It's only going to get better. And realistically these days you're never without some kind of internet coverage through 4G unless you're way up and the sticks, in which case you're probably not talking to too many people.
Jesse Mulligan (05:15):
So that's called the Vasco, V-A-S-C-O translator. Dan Watson with the best of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. What else have you seen?
Daniel Watson (05:25):
There's another interesting one. It is the rabbit R one. [00:05:30] It's $199 US dollars. It's a gadget that interfaces with all of your apps. It's kind of working as an agent between you and your computing devices. So as a virtual assistant uses AI itself. And the idea being that you can tell it just in human language what you want it [00:06:00] and it will work through your devices to say, order you an Uber or whatever you need. I think that is something that's really going to pick up in the future because it's quite hard to buzz through all the different apps that you have on the phone and everybody's got more and more and more and more apps over time having something that's going to be able to interface between all of them. So you don't actually need to learn how to use the apps because it does it for you.
Jesse Mulligan (06:29):
Struggling a little [00:06:30] bit. If I want an Uber, why don't I just go to my Uber app?
Daniel Watson (06:33):
Well, let's say a great aunt might be a good call for that. Where essentially they don't have to learn how to use the Uber that you've put on their phone. And I'm pretty sure that a lot of young people have had that frustration of that too. Be the tech support person for somebody who you've written down the instructions, you've put on a piece of card and you get called repeatedly. Maybe this is just my [00:07:00] experience of being in it, but this is the kind of thing that sits out your need to learn how to use the apps and does it for you. And I guess in the same way that some people are finding things like Google Nest and the what's the Siri, etc, you are requesting it of services and it does a search. This is getting a little bit more intelligent.
Jesse Mulligan (07:25):
As you said, if you treat it like a pa, hey...go [00:07:30] find that email about the dates to flight to Fiji and book it with a travel agent. It can follow your commands. You don't need to worry about going through the apps yourselves and doing it. I can see, once again, I feel like the potential might be more than I'm able to imagine, but that's the point of new tech, right?
Daniel Watson (07:53):
Yeah, it's sold out though. So the first run just flew off the shelves essentially at the show, and [00:08:00] they're looking for pre-orders now, which would ship in mid-March, which I think be an interesting tool. So that was the main lot. Oh, there's plenty of health devices that are coming out there, whether it's monitoring your blood sugars or rings that can take your heart pulse and blood sugars and sending that through to other devices, which I think is a bit of an obsession [00:08:30] in the states because probably not having universal healthcare, anything you can do, which keeps you away from a hospital is probably a great idea.
Jesse Mulligan (08:38):
And to convince your insurer, you're a good bet.
Daniel Watson (08:42):
Oh yes. I'd hate, that's probably a Black Mirror episode on that. There was a cute little y tooth brush, electric toothbrush. Right. I'm looking at it and I'm just fascinated that it claims you can brush all your teeth in just 20 seconds. You put the entire thing into your mouth, bite down, press the button [00:09:00] and dedicate 10 seconds per jaw top. And then the bottom
Jesse Mulligan (09:07):
Looks like a mouth guard.
Daniel Watson (09:10):
Yes. Yeah, yeah. I'd like to believe in it and I think that would be really good. It's not that I've got a problem with brushing my teeth, in fact I've stayed away from electric toothbrushes. But something that just does it all at once, it's probably going to do a lot better job than what I would do.
Jesse Mulligan (09:25):
In 10 seconds!
Daniel Watson (09:26):
In 10 seconds. Imagine what I'd do for the rest of the time in the day....?
Jesse Mulligan (09:30):
[00:09:30] Probably just scroll the internet for the next big thing. Dan, thank you. Great to chat to you. No worries, mate. And I've really enjoyed looking at some of these new products with you. Thanks so much and we'll catch you in a couple of weeks.
Daniel Watson (09:46):
Awesome mate.
Jesse Mulligan (09:47):
Dan Watson Vertech IT Services with the best of the Vegas Consumer Electronics Show in 2024.
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