🎙️ Episode #16: Technology in 2023, Twitter rehab, Mui Board, and restaurant robots

Rick and Shaun rummage through the pundits' top tech forecasts for 2023, including metaverse, robots, cyber and wearables. Plus: post-Twitter life, Mui Board, Samsung's smart home electronics

Rick Huckstep

Jan 10, 2023

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Episode #16

You can find the Big Tech Little Tech podcast on all major podcast platforms.

What you can find in Episode 16

00:00 - Preamble

Are you a recovering Twitter user? Have you found a new way to discover news and other peoples’ views – perhaps on Mastodon – or are you starting the new year with a clean slate? Rick and Shaun have found Mastodon difficult to embrace, and Rick still holds a candle to Twitter.

“I’ve changed my view on this whole idea of decentralised social media, because the thing with Twitter is that it's one giant chat room, everybody's there,” says Rick. “And you've gone to this massive party and everyone that you're ever likely to want to see, dance with, chat with, find out from, overhear and listen to – you know, hear the gossip from – they're all in one place. With Mastodon, it's like lots of little rooms and you've got to decide which one you want to be in, and you don't know what's going on in the other room.”

03:23 - What’s interested us in tech

January means CES – the annual Consumer Electronics Show – which takes place in Las Vegas in the US. Our hosts will talk more about the show in episode 17, but Rick wanted to drop some interesting Samsung technology into this show. The company revealed the Bespoke AI Oven and Bespoke 4 Door Flex refrigerator. The oven can optimise settings based on what's cooking, and you can monitor cooking on your phone. letting you know when dinner’s ready. The fridge has a 32in display! Check out the videos below, courtesy of The YouTube Tech guy.

Exciting Shaun is the news that Mui Board by Mui Lab (previewed in 2017) may hit the market this year. Since Matter was launched as a smart home standard, Mui Board has come to life. The reason for this is that the company no longer has to spend time and money trying to integrate with multiple platforms. Simply put, Matter enables smart devices from different companies to communicate with each other.

07:32 - Tech News

Apple Japan is being charged 13 billion yen ( about $98m) in additional taxes for bulk sales of iPhones and other Apple devices to foreign tourists that were incorrectly exempted from the consumption tax.

A breakthrough surgical device called the iKnife can diagnose womb cancer within seconds. Researchers at Imperial College London tested it on 150 women and the results showed that it had an accuracy rate of 89%. The device is already used to treat breast and brain cancers and the team plans to launch a major clinical trial that could lead to widespread usage.

BMW has turbo-boosted its iX Flow concept. The car that could change its panels between white, black and grey now has a range of colours. The car uses E Ink’s low-power display technology. Who knows if the car will ever make it to market.

08:24 - What are the most popular technology forecasts for 2023?

It seems that everyone has been busy over the holidays making forecasts for 2023. The technology pundits have thrown their hats into the ring to predict what will take centre stage this year, and many pundits are lazily copying other pundits. We're not going to do that on this show.

09:30 All things metaverse (again)

Charles Radclyffe joined us to talk about metaverses in Episode 4. He described use cases in health and safety training that made a lot of sense.

Did you see the news about Microsoft, the US Army and Augmented Reality headsets?

14:47 Cybersecurity

Gartner says that 65% of the world’s population will have personal data covered under modern privacy regulations, up from 10% in 2020.

22:43 Robots, robotics and automation

Rick’s restaurant robot story. Ottonomy is showcasing Ottobot Yeti for last-mile deliveries. Robots in manufacturing, Drones and the last mile. RoboHood. Teching robots to paint!

30:04 What about health tech in 2023?

Wearables in health tech. Netflix, Nike and fitness. Netflix is streaming fitness content from Nike as part of efforts to attract subscribers and keep existing members engaged. Apple's health tech dominance. ChatGPT in healthcare. Jennifer Marichak wrote a piece on LinkedIn about how ChatGPT could improve patient communication, as well as language translation.

36:54 Outro

36:54 MacBooks vs iMacs

Will Rick switch to using a desktop computer instead of his disappointing M1 MacBook?

40:04 A word or two about our new look for 2023

Shaun was busy over the festive period working on the a rebrand for Big Tech Little Tech. What do you think about it?

Do you know “what matters” to Snap, Shopify, Spotify, Boots, & Footlocker?

This is the question that’ll be answered at Materia, a digital futures conference from TBD on 23rd February, 2023.

Followers of Rick will remember his recent interview with Paul Armstrong, the founder of the TBD conference, now in its 5th year. Paul will be speaking about 'what matters...?' at TBD 'Materia' on Feb 23rd with folks from Snap, Shopify, Twillio, Boots, PwC, some psychedelic experts and more.

Attendees say it's 'Like TED without the bs'.

Take advantage of this special 50% discount offer while tickets are available here:👇

50% Discount Ticket Offer

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