Tech Made Fun | Tech Podcast By SK NEXUS

TMF 014 - Vision 20..24

February 23, 2024 Saqib Tahir Episode 14
TMF 014 - Vision 20..24
Tech Made Fun | Tech Podcast By SK NEXUS
More Info
Tech Made Fun | Tech Podcast By SK NEXUS
TMF 014 - Vision 20..24
Feb 23, 2024 Episode 14
Saqib Tahir

Join our Discord Community: https://sknexus.com/discord/
Subscribe to the newsletter: https://sknexus.com/subscribe/
Note: Generated subtitles may have some errors since the Podcast is in Urdu language.

The podcast makes a return - 2 years later. In this much anticipated episode we go over the much anticipated product by Apple - the Apple Vision Pro (saying Apple is must, no joke).

Hosted by Saqib Tahir

Support the show: https://support.sknexus.com/

Main Topic Highlights:

Apple Vision Pro reviews are in.

Spec highlights:
- Apple M2 chip for OS and graphical processing
- Apple R1 chip for camera, sensors, and microphones processing
- Per eye 4k display - 3-4 feet focus distance
- Spatial audio system
- 3D cameras
- 2-3 hours of battery life
- Optic ID iris scanning
- More than a dozen camera and sensors
- 3,500 USD starting price

Following are references for you to read:
Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not
Apple Vision Pro Review: A Mind-Blowing Look at an Unfinished Future
Apple fans are starting to return their Vision Pros
Apple’s website stating out of USA terms - Read FAQs bottom of page

Important PSA for Pakistani audiences with a hole burning in their pocket willing to buy Apple Vision Pro is in the episode. Please listen through to be aware of the caveats of being a Pakistani Apple Vision Pro owner - timestamp 15:15

Google’s AI now goes by a new name: Gemini
The 25million USD$ deepfake scam
Feds Want to Ban the World’s Cutest Hacking Device. Experts Say It's a ‘Scapegoat’
The Canadian government wants to ban Flipper Zero-type hacker tools to combat car theft
Florida lawmakers vote to restrict children's access to social media
As B2B startups shut shop or scale down, Bazaar too struggles to tide over current crisis


Support the Show.

As always -
Thank you for listening, please send any questions or feedback to podcast@sknexus.com
See you next time.

Check out our free Career & Business Resources: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sknexuspk/extras
If you're looking to upskill - check out our Discord server: https://discord.sknexus.com/

Keep the show running: https://buymeacoffee.com/sknexuspk

Show Notes Transcript

Join our Discord Community: https://sknexus.com/discord/
Subscribe to the newsletter: https://sknexus.com/subscribe/
Note: Generated subtitles may have some errors since the Podcast is in Urdu language.

The podcast makes a return - 2 years later. In this much anticipated episode we go over the much anticipated product by Apple - the Apple Vision Pro (saying Apple is must, no joke).

Hosted by Saqib Tahir

Support the show: https://support.sknexus.com/

Main Topic Highlights:

Apple Vision Pro reviews are in.

Spec highlights:
- Apple M2 chip for OS and graphical processing
- Apple R1 chip for camera, sensors, and microphones processing
- Per eye 4k display - 3-4 feet focus distance
- Spatial audio system
- 3D cameras
- 2-3 hours of battery life
- Optic ID iris scanning
- More than a dozen camera and sensors
- 3,500 USD starting price

Following are references for you to read:
Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not
Apple Vision Pro Review: A Mind-Blowing Look at an Unfinished Future
Apple fans are starting to return their Vision Pros
Apple’s website stating out of USA terms - Read FAQs bottom of page

Important PSA for Pakistani audiences with a hole burning in their pocket willing to buy Apple Vision Pro is in the episode. Please listen through to be aware of the caveats of being a Pakistani Apple Vision Pro owner - timestamp 15:15

Google’s AI now goes by a new name: Gemini
The 25million USD$ deepfake scam
Feds Want to Ban the World’s Cutest Hacking Device. Experts Say It's a ‘Scapegoat’
The Canadian government wants to ban Flipper Zero-type hacker tools to combat car theft
Florida lawmakers vote to restrict children's access to social media
As B2B startups shut shop or scale down, Bazaar too struggles to tide over current crisis


Support the Show.

As always -
Thank you for listening, please send any questions or feedback to podcast@sknexus.com
See you next time.

Check out our free Career & Business Resources: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sknexuspk/extras
If you're looking to upskill - check out our Discord server: https://discord.sknexus.com/

Keep the show running: https://buymeacoffee.com/sknexuspk

Welcome to Tech Made Fun where we promise to cover tech news weekly and then record an episode for two years. So if you missed, there was an extra episode last week. You can check that out. Why am I doing this podcast alone? But that being said, let's get into today's topics. So the big news that you might have heard from the title, we're gonna go over Vision Pro. Now the purpose of this is that this is a very different kind of Apple product. And I want to spread a little bit of awareness about this which are some caveats. Which I think, again as I said, this show is more for the Pakistani or Asian audience and these things maybe are not covered that well which Western reviewers do or do online news articles. So I just want to talk about those things. Before I do that, let's go over some of the spec highlights. So as you may know about last month, Apple released Apple Vision Pro. Some of the specification highlights which are that M2 chip It has like one of the first VR headsets with two full on processors. So it has an M2 chip which is used in their laptops and it is also used in processing or your graphical processing or vision OS is running. It has a dedicated Apple R1 chip because it has some 12-13 cameras, sensors, microphones are installed everywhere inside, left, right. So for that, a dedicated chip that handles all the data. The most interesting thing is that it has a per eye 4K display. What that means is like, I think 23 million pixels or something stupid like that is in it. And right next to your eye, it is the highest fidelity display in any VR headset from today. And again, Apple calls it a special computer, but we're just going to call it a VR headset because that is what it is. And yes, spatial computing is there. It is a really good pass through because high resolution displays, lot of cameras, dedicated processing. It has the best pass throughs in any VR. So pass through basically, those who don't know, that's what happens when you have to wear such a big headset that blocks your eyes. So to see the outside world, there is a mode call in all VR headsets, which is called pass through mode. Traditionally, most of the first VR headsets came, like MetaQuest or Valve or any other, Valve. Uh, it used to be like a very bad shaky black and white image. Just enough that you have to go to the bathroom or kitchen to catch something. So you do it. It used to feel very laggy. And you must have seen this on your phone too. Open your phone camera and shake around the phone very hard. And you'll see that it takes a little time to catch it up where your actual camera is directed. The pass through in the Apple vision pro is very responsive. It has a 12 millisecond response time. So you can see the world of the buyer through the cameras and screens almost in real time. And what that means is that you don't need to take off your headset again and again. You can function, go home, do your work, wash the dishes, cook. Some people are doing this because it has AR functionality. So basically one of the coolest demos I saw was that one person is in the kitchen. different things like chicken for boiling, onion for tempering, and dedicated timers on top of that. On different dishes. So that visual representation of this, this one stays for 5 minutes, this one stays for 2 minutes, this one stays for 1 minute. Very cool stuff in that sense. So yeah, like revolutionary breakthrough. Moving on, it has like two to three hours of battery life. Probably the biggest downside of the Vision Pro. And that too is external battery, which I don't have to carry around. It's not inside the headset. It has like iris scanning for, you know, security. Lastly, the biggest thing is the starting price of 3500 dollars. 3500 dollars is obviously a stupidly expensive price and 99.99999% for people, it does not make sense to buy this first ever Apple device. And before like people go on and like over judging or anything like that, see, the first device of Apple is is just testing waters. The first iPhone didn't even have an app store. It was a $500 smartphone. It was very expensive at that time. People used to use $500 phones. iPad, same thing. Apple watch, same thing. Airpods, same thing. The first generation almost always either fails or is killed very quickly so that its V2, V3 comes out. So in this too, I'm pretty sure the iPad one is a closer example. So what is the expectation that the Vision Pro will keep for a couple of years. And then it will disappear silently and a new version will come in which all the drawbacks will be tackled. But you know, till $3,500 is a big, big price jump from any computing device. Your average laptop is a good laptop for $1000 these days. You get a very good average smartphone for $600-700. And I'm talking about dollars because the power is going up and down every day. So it doesn't make sense. Anyways, pros and cons. Just to summarize is like, as I said, The revolutionary thing in this is like the eye tracking because there are so many sensors, you just look at different things and you control them. This is better if you go watch someone's review and they can demonstrate by sharing the screen because I don't have 3500 dollars. But the good things about this was as I said, the display is very good. In this, eye tracking, hand tracking, control is very revolutionary in its own way. But there are some challenges to that, we will discuss later. Well, the experience that Apple has, Apple software is much better and it's very limited, but it's very streamlined. Like it's very natural that everyday users don't need to be very technical or tech-savvy. They can use this VR headset and mostly use it. Obviously there is a learning curve that not everyone can do, but out of the most VR headsets out there, there are some meta quests. This one was meant to be easy on boarding. big buttons, big UI elements and it's very natural to use. There's no controller you have to get used to. Your fingers are your controllers. And for most people who are just sitting and doing things, it's great. Last good thing it has is it has a very unique way of working with your Mac ecosystem. So if you have a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, you can project one display, only one, probably due to bandwidth limitation. You can visualize a big display of it. Does it happen that you have a laptop? There will be a button on it, you will click on it. There will be a big display in your virtual reality. Your laptop screen will be dimmed. Okay. That, and then you can use laptop or mouse and keyboard to control that screen plus all the other vision OS native apps. So one screen for Mac and rest you can have other apps open, which so far most of the iPad apps have not made their own apps. So that is a very like, you know, those who want a very expensive monitor replacement, it is. like a very good replacement device for those kinds of people. If you go watch every review and if you go read everything, is it expensive? Yes, 3500 dollars is very expensive. But it is, is it overpriced? Not really, because I will never buy this. And most probably if you want to listen, you will never buy this either. So it's not for us. But for people who want that, I want to do computing, I travel a lot, I sit in a train, I sit in a boat, I have a lifestyle of being rich and they want to bring along like a 100 inch TV with them everywhere. It's worth it. And if you look at some of the tech prices at that scale, which have such good fidelity, $3500 is not that much. Again, there are some trade-offs which like, if someone asked me, okay, take this$3500, would you still buy it? I would be like, no. Unless these three things are fulfilled, then maybe in a magical world where you can get a free $3500, I will buy it. So for me, there are three massive trade-offs, which again, I haven't seen. Uh, so much discussion is happening, so that's why I'm listing them. Number one, some quality of life things. These are like the, as I told you, battery life is very less. Uh, MKB is a very good video to live in, like, shared experiences are not there yet. And One thing I want to add is that it doesn't have multiple input support. So even though your hand tracking and clicking with your fingers and gazing is very fancy, it works really nicely, but it's still an extra input. So, sorry, whenever you are using a computer, you are using a mouse or keyboard, I will press A on the keyboard. My eyes can be somewhere else, my eyes can be somewhere else, but pressing A will make the keyboard type A. Clicking on the mouse will make the keyboard click. I don't need to be looking at... where I'm clicking or where I'm typing. But in vision OS, because it's controlled by your eyes, so someone put it in a really nice way that see, usually mouse and keyboard are input devices for the computer and your eyes are the input devices for your brain. But in this, your eyes are playing a dog role. First of all, you have to look at the same direction where you are inputting. And then you have to keep an eye on that. Because naturally you have to... we don't look at the thing where you are using keyboard or mouse, you are looking here and there, here you are half done. But in VGOS, it is very important to look at that thing directly. And it is very like, you know, for fast-paced input, it's very slow. Because it's an extra step, every time you need something done, you need to be directly looking at it. And that is like really slow. You have to pause between everything. So, with multiple input support, I mean, I think keyboard and mouse are there, but any controller... or some single-handed device would be more useful for VR because Mr. Bagri has VR Headset controllers and I think Apple should make one for this also because they will have to. And if you think that they won't, look at the iPad. When iPad came, it was a touch only device. So if I'm not quoting incorrectly, Steve Jobs said that we will never use a pencil or any stylus on this. And then what do you know, after 2-3 years, the artist said, brother, his pictures are good, the colors are good, but I need a stylist for accurate painting and accurate work. So I think, Vision OS may be because accuracy and those who are interested in productivity matter, they don't want to be let down by their gaze. So for a normal user, it's fine to control with the gaze, but the power user will need that I need control over everything. Second trade-off, which is I understand that I had already mentioned that what is your computing going on here? What I mean by that is, look, there is an M2 chip in it. M2 chip is a full on computing chip. And this is happening in the iPad as well. There is an M2 chip in the iPad as well. But the OS is so limiting that you can't work with the computer on it. Yes, there are a couple of apps that you can open and do something dedicated. But that multitasking, all-tabbing, professional workload. I don't know anyone who professionally only uses iPad. They might use it in their workflow. I say that iPad is a really good workflow integration device. You are already working on it. You have already replaced a couple of things and started using iPad in your workflow. But I don't know anyone who only uses their whole work on iPad and doesn't use a computer or doesn't have a computer. Avigdha OS also has the same issue. I know it's the first version and everything and all the iPad apps. technically supported, but it's a very bad experience because those iPad apps weren't built for Vision OS and Vision OS, as I said, you're doing everything with your eyes, so for that, touch targets are very big, which is not the case with iPad apps. So it's actually not that optimized. So even though Apple is saying it's spatial computing, it's not. It's basically a glorified iPad for your eyes, which you can watch movies and shows on, and other things like that. Netflix app is not there yet. That's what I have a problem with it, that there is no computing. And as far as you can put a Mac display, you still need a MacBook Pro for it. So you can get a vision pro for $500, a MacBook Pro for $2000, and then you can spend $5000-$600 on it. Then you can properly compute on it. That too with one display, one display of Mac, which again, in many cases, you see a 16-inch MacBook Pro display, that is still better fidelity wise than this. Cause you know, 16 inch screen, much more condensed, much more high qualities. There are more issues in VR even though it's such a, it's a very good VR display, but it still has issues. It's not perfect. And I don't want to go into those technical details. Last but not least, the trade-off is that when Apple announced Vision OS, Vision Pro, they said, before telling the pricing, they gave a big joke that if you buy a very good TV, then it will cost around $1500. You buy a very good sound system. It will cost around 500 dollars. You buy a very good computer, it will cost around 1000 dollars. And blah blah, and this will replace all of them for the single price of 3500 dollars. But here's the thing. I don't know how you use your TV, but I also install a computer on my TV. I also have my PlayStation installed sometimes. Sometimes I have installed apps on my native Android OS. There needs to be output support. There are 1200 HDMI ports and you can use it by using different things. Why isn't that here? Like again, it's possible because look, your battery pack has a USB-C port and there is enough pass-through support and enough power in the M2 chip that it can easily take input. So if I'm sitting and like I want to play my PlayStation 5 on the GenOS, why can't I do it? Like make a dongle, Apple is already winning in making dongle. And if this was like a brand new chipset or something, new platform, I would be like okay, there is a platform limitation or a chipset limitation. But there is M2 and we already know that in M2, there is enough capability that it can support this thing. So if you want this to be a TV replacement, which it can be for a solo person, who doesn't live with anyone and lives alone, could be a really good TV, would probably be the best TV experience they'll have. If I can't plug in things like my PlayStation or my computer, like Windows, if I can't use Windows, for example, it doesn't make sense like TV like you, it's not that old fashioned that you just have to watch TV and watch movies and shows. People play games on TVs, people connect computers to TVs. I know people who leave photos on slideshows. So yeah, like these are a couple of trade-offs which I think if they are covered, then maybe someone will come and give me $3500 tomorrow, I'll take this. But honestly speaking, in the next 3-4 years, in this amount, I'd rather buy a gaming laptop. plus a MacBook pair, plus a cheap TV and a PlayStation 5. And I think they won't be worth 3500 dollars if I use some things. So yeah, it's important to say that some people compare new and rare prices with the use. It always frustrates me. Yes, if I use some things, I can buy the whole set up for 3500 dollars. Which will be a much better experience than what Vision Pro offers right now. Last thing I want to address here is, Pakistan is a very good country. Whenever there is a product that is very viral or famous, people start posting ads on Facebook and Instagram saying that if there is no pre-order, there is no book, if this is not there, then that is not there. And there is a lot of own on it, there is a concept of own here. So this is worth $3,500. The conversion rate of this is around Rs. 10-11 lakhs. On top of that, there are books worth Rs. 13-14 lakhs. I would like to tell you, please if you are in Pakistan, don't buy this through someone else. Because literally Apple is not selling it outside the US. If you go to Apple's own website, I'm also going to turn on the narrator mode and I'll read it out to you. If an international customer purchases Apple Vision Pro in the US and then tries to use it abroad, how does their experience differ from a US based customer? Now the answer to this is that Apple Vision Pro only supports US English for language and typing and English for Syrian dictation, which is okay, we speak English. The app store requires an Apple ID with the region set to the U.S. Now to set the app store in the U.S. you need an American debit card and an address. So you can't do that if you don't have the power. Then purchases on the Apple Music and Apple TV app require an Apple ID with the U.S. region and the U.S. region, I think you can't use Apple TV in Pakistan and Apple Music, maybe you can. I'm not exactly sure, but yeah, Apple TV definitely can't do that. And then the main thing is The Apple Vision Pro has a focus distance of 1.3 meters. So if you can see without the glasses for 1.3 meters and you can read comfortably, it will be a fine experience for you. Even if your glasses are on, but you remove them, you can see 1.3 to 1.5 meters correctly, then you won't need lenses. But otherwise you will need correction lenses, which at this time is only selling Zeiss on US prescriptions. So as it says, for customers with vision correction needs, Zeiss will only accept vision prescriptions written by US I care professionals and will only ship to US locations. So the biggest one is like Apple's, I have read all of it, I have told you what the limitations are, but there are more limitations on this. If you order Apple vision pro, you need to do like a face scan. Okay. And face scan, they will check your fit because the Apple's, the one that is behind, there are lighter sensors, they check your fit and the shape of your face. And then they recommend you that you should get a light seal cushion of this size, a light seal of this size, a band of this size and then your order is custom made. So this is unlike any other Apple product that you go to the store and say that I want an iPhone, which one is this? The 512GB box that they bring and they bring it to you. This is not like that. If you listen to someone's reviews, the people who bought it, they first go to the Apple store, get their own fitted and then go back to the store and literally their box is packed. according to the things they need, the light seal, the cushion, the band size, according to that, the box is packed in the back of the Apple Store. Given that, you think for yourself, how can you buy this in Pakistan? If you buy it, someone will give you something of their size. And you can buy all those things extra, but they cost $220, you will get them from somewhere. And let's say you arrange all of them, you are very rich, you have spent 15-16-17 lakhs. then half of the things won't work here because there is no US account. And if you have a US account, even if it is closed, just because of regional limitations, half of the things won't be of any benefit to you. I already say that iPhone has become less and less of a value in Pakistan because there is a lot of PTO tax on it. Secondly, half of Apple's services don't work here. Apple Maps doesn't work here. Apple Music doesn't work here. Apple TV doesn't work here. Siri is giving you the wrong answer half the time. So there is already an issue. with like Apple services. In Vision Pro, it doesn't make sense that you have to buy something like this in Pakistan. By spending 17-18 lakh rupees, which even Netflix doesn't have. So Safari will be browsing, that too with a glitchy laggy experience, because it is not so optimized. So yeah, these are some of the things I wanted to give warning about. The device is good, it's revolutionary. I'm very excited about it. I wrote an article on my website a long time ago when it was announced. But... I think there are too many caveats with it right now that Apple has also sold 1 million units for production and I will be very surprised if they sell those 1 million units because if you haven't heard the news, already many people have picked up their headsets and used them and in the 2-week return window they have started returning them. A big wave. Influencers live in the generation, they have taken 3500-3500 dollars, made 30-40 shorts and then returned them. Moving on, talking about return. Google's renaming of Bard. So if you're living under a rock, I don't know, since the last two years or one and a half years, chat GPT, chat GPT is happening. And Google finally had the response a while ago, they had taken out Bard, which was a kind of cool name, if I'm being honest. Chad GPT and co-pilot was better. It had some personality, but unfortunately, they recently renamed BART to Google Gemini and Gemini was like the company behind everything without getting into too much detail. But basically what happened with BART was that there was a lot of scandal at the release. And BART was showing bad information, low confidence. and all that. It's very common in tech. They changed the name just to be like a fresh outlook. You know, oh, we are a new company now. We have a new direction. So they just didn't rename Bard Gemini. They made Gemini part of their Google One subscription. So if you're an Android user or a Google One user, now you will see that there will be a Gemini subscription option which is not available on mobile. You can only use it in the web interface. They're just trying to run away from the Bard name and going to the Gemini name. And Gemini will gradually come in most countries as the new competitor to CoPilot. And CoPilot also did this, see, first it was open that it was a chat GPT. Microsoft had made it a Bing chat. And then from Bing chat, it became Bing GPT, I think. And now they have named it CoPilot and now they are doing CoPilot in everything. So CoPilot versus Gemini seems to be the final branding that's going to stick. for these AI LLMs. Let me know if you're interested into LLMs and if there are any questions you have, because I'd love to discuss those. And as I said, with this new format, which I'm doing alone, I do want this to be more conversationalist format going forward. I'm just covering the news, it's going to get boring after a couple of episodes. But if you're listening to this on YouTube, easily comment below, or otherwise you can just always email to me. I think it's podcast at sknexus. Anyways, moving on. Deepfake, if you know, has been going on for the past 10 to 15 years. I don't know, it's been a long time. I remember this deepfake, when Tom Cruise's deepfakes came in the beginning, for some reason. But recently, one of the biggest scams in history, has happened with deepfakes. So I just wanted to cover this in an educational format. What is deepfake? Deepfake basically is that if you are a human being and your likeness online or offline, which is very popular these days. By likeness, what do I mean? You have a lot of pictures of your face, your body, your arms, your hands, your likeness, your physical likeness, you have pictures of that on Instagram or Facebook. Here, let's say you have pictures of it offline and someone acts it out, someone takes it from you and then the likeness of your voice. So, the way I am recording this podcast, there is someone on my internet 15-20 hours of audio, which is not that much, but let's say someone has 100-200 hours of audio, someone broadcasts in this way or has a lot of call recordings. So you can use that to train an algorithm that is almost one-to-one with the face and voice, sounds and looks like that person, like something on a video call. So what will happen? I will open a video camera webcam. and I will talk on video call like, you know, we are talking on Zoom or Google Meet. But instead of seeing my own face and hearing my voice, I will see the face of the person I am defecting to and his voice will come. And what happens in video calls is that most of the time, it's just the face, there is not much hand movement, there is not much environmental interaction, so it looks very convincing, right? So this is what happened, recently there was a scam of 25 million dollars. Just to give context, how much will it be in Pakistani rupees? 25 million dollars, I think it's around 30 crores per month. So 30 crores, 25, my math doesn't go up that much. It's a lot. There's a loss in the Arabs, so that's what happened. A man called the CFO to transfer the money. The CFO says, I can't do it without approval. So the whole board got up on the call. Okay. And board, uh, the company that is the board of member different, which is a high ranking officer in the company, without succession. Making this episode, he just called a call to the CFO. All the high ranking members were sitting at the company. They all said, yes, sir, give him the money. He is our own guy. What happened? We are all approving the call. So transfer $25 million. He said, okay, all the people are sitting on the call. Call recording is big. I have proof. He did it. Later it was found that all those people were deepfaked. So not only one person was deepfaked, he had deepfaked the entire board. And which is very convincing. Think about it, here you will often hear that easy money scams are there. Oh, your child is in jail, I am telling his uncle, if I have to do that, I am telling his friend to sell it for 10,000 rupees. So that has become quite common now. Those who are a little in the know, they do not fall for that scam. But let's say, tomorrow your mother's call comes. Then your father calls, then your sister calls, then your brother calls. When the whole family calls and asks for 10,000 rupees, we all say that it's necessary. Then even you being a techno fool, who knows everything about scams and spams, I'm pretty sure 99% of people will say that yes, the whole family calls, it's the same number, it's the same voice. So legit, maybe 10,000 rupees is needed. So yeah, this is just to say that your deepfake and all this has been advanced, so just be on the look out in the next year or two. Okay. Lastly, a little bit about the rapid fire topics because the episode has become a little long, I think. Number one would be that Canada, this is related to deepfakes, Canada has started an initiative that there is a flipper zero device. I think it's called flipper or flipper zero. So basically a small, you understand, you have this Arduino. or your Pi, which Pi is it? People will shoot me if they hear this. I can't remember the name. But okay, whatever your Pi type device is, this is an Arduino type device. These are basically small learner tools that your scriptors or developers or coders or even hobbyists use to do different things in Krabask. So Flipper Zero is a similar type of a... I don't like calling it like a hacker learner tool because that's... branding and marketing, so now in that problem, it's mostly like a small device, which, you know, helps you learn scripting and helps you learn basic exploits and all this as like a hobby or as like a test. So obviously, whatever Flipper Zero can do, it can be your Linux installed laptop or off the shelf hardware, I can do it from the market. But Flipper Zero, because it's packaged like this and its marketing has been made like this, it's a hacker, guys, a hacker, hacker. So the Canadian government said, brother, ban it, otherwise people will steal cars. So like Flipper Zero CEO, he said that cars cannot be stolen because its technology is limited. And now all the cars that have come since 1990 have rolling codes. They are not in Pakistan, I'm pretty sure. But anyway, the thing to say is that it's just, it has become an infamous branding. And I don't think the device is actually that, they say that much of a risk. Cause if you are banning this, then you might as well ban all computers. Cause the person who has ill intent and really wants to do this work, he was already doing a few things on a small Android phone on a Linux computer. Flipper Zero is actually, I think a good tool because it increases awareness and learning. And more people are aware that, okay, these things work like this, so how to protect yourself against it? So I think this mentality of banning is not good. regulate it, limit it or do it like this. Which is harder to do, not easy to do always. I am not always saying that it should be banned. But yeah, like it's kind of disappointing that a country like Canada thinks like this because usually when we hear that ban it, a country like Pakistan comes to us and says to delete all social media or ban your Twitter or ban all media. And it's kind of sad like ban I don't think is the answer in many cases, but might be an answer of what I just mentioned. Social media. So next topic, in Florida, they are saying that a bill is being passed or I don't know how the legal system works, but basically there is a big movement going on that social media should be banned for children under 18 years. Again, as I just said, ban is usually not the right way. But being in the tech world, let me assure you, for the past 5-10 years, we have tried a lot to regulate, but companies always find a way to exploit small children. And they have to addictions on it, algorithms are designed in such a way that they are using Facebook all day, Instagram, even games like PUBG. And some of them are good games, don't get me wrong. And I am not against gaming at all, I am a gamer myself. But some of these apps and games are actually very exploitative in the last couple of years. And China has initiated it first of all, they have put a lot of pressure on it. That you are less than 18 years old and you can play games for an hour a week. And you have study time and their TikTok is forcing educational videos. So America is also doing something about this. In Florida, this movement has started that social media should be banned for people under 18 years. So the definition of social media is that any platform on which there is UGC, user generated content, okay? So if there is no user generated content, then social media will not be there. Now I don't know where YouTube falls in this. Because YouTube is making YouTube videos on user generated content. It's a little difficult. Not everyone is sitting and making YouTube videos. But then again, because of TikTok and short, everyone is making it. So what qualifies as a user generated content website? I don't know. I hope YouTube isn't banned for under 18 because again, YouTube is a very educational source also. And YouTube makes it very easy for you that you don't see any nonsense. Whereas on Facebook or Instagram, the UI is as such gets very hard for you to control your feed, even though if you follow or do something. they have hidden the following few videos, hidden everything, notifications are also random and so on and so forth. And it's just that vertical scrolling nature, infinite scroll mechanism, which is more dangerous. Whereas on YouTube, in shorts, yes, that's an issue. But again, I think I might be biased or something, but social media, as I said, now I'm in software development, seeing how social media is built. how it's optimized and its premise that people who want to hook, I don't see any reason why people should keep it on for less than 18 years. In fact, in Pakistan, it's less than the university because here we have 18 year old students who graduate from the university in terms of responsibilities. And last topic, talking about universities. Today I saw the first episode, I am trying to segue the topic. I will get better, I promise. But layoffs at the market. I'll put a link. You can go read it as always. As much as I have talked about it, I will try to put the links in the show notes. The startups that you have in Pakistan for the past 6 months, 1 year, 1.5 years, are basically dying. And the primary reason being is that they were investors. Investors invested their money. Now investors have left. And why aren't investors coming? A lot of different reasons. But the most common is that the inflationary situation is going on all over the world. tech issues are everywhere, tech industry issues are everywhere. And because of that, your massive hiring started. Now, massive firing has started. And from the last airlift, I think this moment started in the startups ecosystem. And now, what are the startups in Pakistan? Like, yeah, believe me, I am a product manager. I am in this space. I don't know that there might be 10 startups in Pakistan that are self-funded. And What do you say? All this is made by yourself and you have made it popular by yourself. Like if I have to say, and you might hate it or not like it, I think apart from Park Wheels, I don't have any other examples in my mind. There might be others, I might be wrong. Feel free to correct me. But to my exposure, apart from Park Wheels, I don't see any self-funded startup. If there is someone else, like a Sada, they have also made an investment. Almost every startup has made an investment and they are going towards selling. Or they... they say, they are going towards acquiring or they are doing fly-offs or they are closing down. It's kind of a sad situation in the startup ecosystem. So usually when we used to do this podcast last year, not last year, two years ago, we used to talk about business in a positive highlight. Because back then, there was positive news in business. Unfortunately, there is very little positive highlight in business these days. So I'll try to keep this to a minimum, maybe just to give a little touch in every episode. But let me know. As I said, there's another extra episode. Go listen to that one if you want to know what will be the new format and everything. But I want to make this more conversation style format. And I want people to send their questions and answer them. Kind of like, ask and be swag inspired. I'm not ashamed to say that, but like in a tech perspective, right? And I think that would be a really nice direction where we can take this. But tech news coverage. plus some conversation and some experimentation on my part also. We will discuss some topics from next week where I will talk about some random things that might be off point. And then there is a small group, I will ask them to submit some questions and I'll try to answer those on the podcast. So yeah, as always, thank you for listening. Send any questions, feedback, suggestions, taanay menay, complaints at podcast at sknexus.com and see you next time. Anyways, I have to correct my Urdu-English accent. Bye-bye.

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