BTLTpod's Year in Review 2022
The Big Tech Little Tech podcast started in the first half of 2022 as a "let's see how it goes" project between Shaun and Rick. Fifteen shows later & we're entering 2023 with great expectations...
2022: The inaugural season
Season’s greetings and a Happy New Year to you all.
Over the holidays, Shaun has been beavering away on the new branding for Big Tech Little Tech. You can tell he’s been heavily influenced by the festive spirit and his recent Christmas Market excursion to Germany.
Apart from the snazzy new red livery, nothing else has changed. You can still find the podcast on all the major podcast platforms.
🎙️ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Anchor | Pandora | Google Podcasts | Castbox | Deezer | Pocket Casts | Stitcher
🌎 For all show notes, background links and everything to do with the show, go to the Big Tech Little Tech website.
As Shaun and I prepare for our first show of 2023, here’s a reminder of all the topics and themes we discussed in 2022.
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Episode 1: magic carpets, Elon Musk and working from home
In our very first show back in May 2022, we started with the question, “can Elon Musk turn Twitter into a good business?” Musk hadn’t even bought Twitter back then and little did we know of what was to come!
We also covered AirBnB after it was reported that their workforce can work “wherever they are most productive”, according to CEO Brian Chesky.
Plus, the Ionic 5 EV, Breaking Dad, WeCrashed, cookies, and Ron Shevlin.
Episode 2: Bitcoin, TikTok, deepfakes, and the iPod
For our second show, we went crypto and talked about Bitcoin following the Terra Luna story. Which was the crypto scandal of the year before FTX became biggest scandal in crypto history.
A subject we return to often in the show is AI and for episode 2 we talked the good and bad about facial recognition, and who does the best deepfakes?
Plus, Google AR glasses, TikTok, Burt Reynolds as James Bond, the iPod (RIP), and what pixel pressure means (do you know?)
Episode 3: TikTok addiction, Sheryl Sandberg, and robots
By the 3rd show, we were getting into our stride and turned our attention to the addictive nature of TikTok. Which means we had to discuss China’s influence of the social media app that everyone is copying as well as the behavioural science around attention.
Plus, Sheryl Sandberg’s announced she was standing down and we take a look at her Facebook legacy. Shaun is a domestic god and loves to talk robots, especially those that are the home help robots.
Episode 4: Metaverse, VR headsets, Passkeys, and Apple Pay Later
By mid June we were onto show number 4 and welcomed out first guest. Charles Radclyffe came onto the show to discuss everything Metaverse, including use cases, ethics, VR headset adoption, and the case for reducing your carbon footprint.
Plus, we talked about heatwaves, passkeys, Apple Pay Later, and Heartstopper.
Episode 5: Amazon, Facebook memo leaks, and Apple AR-VR headsets
In our last show before our short summer break, our focus turned to one of BigTech’s BigFour - Amazon. It had been eighteen months since Andy Jassy had taken over from founder Jeff Bezos and we took a look at how he’d done, corporate overreach, Prime Day and Amazon’s move into drone deliveries.
Plus, the leaked Facebook memo was in the news, the Apple AR-VR headset rumours were flying around, and Rick was playing padel in Spain.
Episode 6: Litigious Musk, Facebook’s slide, Amazon Care, and England Lionesses
Mid August and we’re back. In a case of deja vue all over again, we start with Elon Musk’s latest ups and downs at Twitter (which he still hadn’t bought at this time).
We also looked at Facebook’s troubles, AI footballs, the brilliant Ted Lasso, and the more brilliant England Lionesses.
Plus, Rick finds out when he will die thanks to the Population.io website.
Episode 7: Amazon One palm authentication, BeReal, CyberOne, and great drummers
A recurring theme for Big Tech Little Tech is automation technology and how it impacts our daily lives. Which is why the story that Amazon were trialling the One payment system that uses your palm signature to authenticate transactions caught our attention.
The other topic of interest was the fastest growing new app in the mobile space, BeReal.
Plus we talked Xiaomi CyberOne, the latest tech news, and our favourite drummers. (BTW, I watched Whiplash again over Christmas with a drummer buddy of mine, still a great movie!)
Episode 8: NFTs, Artemis, Twitter abuse, and dessert dilemmas
As summer was coming to an end and autumn was fast approaching in the UK, it was time that we discussed the enigma that is NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. What are they? Are they a fad or the future? What’s the point of them? All good questions that we made a stab at answering.
Plus, we talked about Nasa's Artemis programme, Black Gold, Premier League Twitter abuse, and apple pie (custard or ice cream?).
Episode 9: Apple Far Out, wearables, AirPods, and desert island favs
Both of us are Apple afficionados and couldn’t miss the opportunity to talk about the recent Apple event, called Far Out, in which Apple updated the iPhone, the Apple Watch and AirPods.
We also discussed Meta’s massive European Union fine, Canoo EVs, wearables stats, spacial audio and some 50s jazz.
Episode 10: Young people’s data, Instagram, Peloton, and air fryers
At the end of September, we had our second guest as we welcomed Jeffrey Kluge to the show to discuss the topic of protecting young people’s personal data and their online safety in general.
Also, Instagram statistics, Peloton, air fryers, and our guest’s top tech innovation of the last 100 years. At the time, only Shaun had an air fryer, but we’ve both got one now - and we love them!
Episode 11: Online shopping, ecommerce giants, Siri, and subtitles
This was an interesting show all about the state of ecommerce and its future, the rise of fast fashion app Shein, and how Gen Z behaviour may affect retail habits.
Also, online shopping fraud statistics, Siri turns 11, Netflix subtitles, and a quiz about the original names of the world’s most familiar companies.
Episode 12: Health tech, What3Words, joint replacement science, and Interpol
For show 12, we went industry vertical and talked about healthcare, technology, and how invested Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet are in the future of health tech.
In other news, we covered an Interpol metaverse, What3Words, knee replacement genetic science, The Jetsons, Spanish goats and Halloween cocktails. Do you know what Shaun’s favourite tipple is?
Episode 13: Mastodon, The Infinite Conversation, surveillance, and Citizen Smith
Musk has now got his hands on Twitter and it’s all unravelling. Social media alternatives are all the rage and we look at the one that’s leading the chasing pack, Mastodon.
Also, the AI-powered Infinite Conversation, spooky coincidences vs surveillance capitalism, Christmas plans and Citizen Smith.
Episode 14: Generative AI, killer robots, delivery robots, and Christmas films
The day that ChatGPT was made public, we recorded our show about generative AI and how it’s influencing the worlds of writing, art, music and more. We even made AI music real time on the show.
Plus, we talk about Porsche’s entry into NFTs, San Francisco’s killer robots, Leeds’ delivery robots, Christmas films and Shaun read some AI poetry- can you tell the difference between the AI and the real?
Episode 15: Gadget gifts, ChatGPT, Apple Music Sing, and flying cars
The final show of 2022 had a Christmas theme, tightly coupled with technology as we gave a selection of fun tech gadgets you may find under your Christmas tree (even though one of them costs £250k).
Also in the show, we updated the genAI conversation with some stuff on ChatGPT and Shaun is all excited about Apple’s new karaoke feature.
Thank you
To all of our listeners and contributors in 2022, we thank you for your support and wish you all a happy, healthy and successful 2023.
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