CES 2019 Tech, Movie News, and Windows 10 Updates

Hey, it's David Kaye, voice of Beast Wars Megatron

and TFA Optimus. You're listening to the Geek

Cast Radio Network. You're tuned in to Steve

Megatron on Altered Geek. Hello and welcome to

Altered Geek. I'm your host, Steve Megatron Phillips,

and in this episode of the podcast, well, I'm

flying solo. For a number of reasons. It's been

one of those weeks where I've been extremely

busy and kids have been sick and yeah, so it

seems to be the time of revivals or continuations

thereof. And I say that because we've recently

gotten, because I'm a little behind, a Men in

Black international trailer. which looks rather

interesting for a reboot continuation since the

third film kind of taking place in the UK and

then we get the news that Star Trek 4 from Paramount

is shelved for the most part because yeah there's

really nothing going on there and then the fact

that there's Jason Reitman, Ivan Reitman's son

teased a new Ghostbusters movie taking place

after the second one so it'll essentially be

a third in the line totally disregarding the

new reboot from 2016 which unceremoniously flopped

due to fan backlash refusing to go see it or

give it a shot now granted I felt that the jokes

and in the movie itself wasn't quite up to par

but the original movies weren't perfect either

So there is that aspect, which just makes it

ridiculous that everybody's throwing a hissy

fit over the film. But the trailer did look interesting.

It showed somebody trying to mess with a broken

proton pack, not really showing anybody in particular

because it was probably just kind of a staff

member kind of playing around. And then they

showed the wind blowing and then the Ecto -1...

sitting on the ground kind of rusting. The rear

end of it just shows up and then that's the end

of it. I don't know, it could be interesting.

We'll see how well this takes off, as it were.

And then speaking of revivals, Supernatural on

episode 300, they're touting an epic reunion.

Now granted, I haven't watched the show in a

while, so I'm going to be a little behind. But

they're bringing back Jeffrey Dean Morgan to

play John Winchester, which is the father who

died in season two to save Dean because the brothers

have this penchant for dying every season or

getting taken over by some angelic or demonic

being. So it'll be interesting to see how they

wrap him in the show, because they'll actually

have the entire family back together, because

the mom they brought back two seasons ago is

kind of like a gift from the darkness, which

was kind of ridiculous in of itself. But I don't

know I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what

they do with it If nothing else, I'll check it

out for that that alone. I would hope that they

would keep them around in the universe, but I

sincerely doubt it Unless they kind of leave

it open which would be preferable But I guess

time will tell on that and then finally the thing

that myself and booth ninja Michael Powers talked

about a while back was the Motorola Razr folding

phone, which was finally unveiled, or the knowledge

of it. They're saying that, and this is publicly

now, it's not just some random website or anything,

they're saying that the Motorola Razr may return

as a foldable phone for $1 ,500, which is ridiculous.

And the funny thing is, is the Motorola Razr

V3, which is the one I had when I had Verizon,

it was actually the only phone I had on Verizon

before I switched to Sprint and then AT &T. And

then it was kind of dethroned by the iPhone because

smartphones were the thing after that. And I

gotta say though, I love the style and the futuristic

look of the original Razr, just in the fact that

it reminded me of a communicator from Star Trek.

So I Missed the original phone. I don't know

if I could actually go back to the original phone

though And then the folding phone thing it remains

to be seen how well this takes off now granted

$1 ,500 I could buy a pretty souped up PC for

that cost Fix like a number of things in my house.

I could buy actually two I could probably buy

three laptops for that or I could buy a Mac For

that price like for a phone for one phone for

a device. It's not It I honestly can't find the

value in it Spending that much like I'm having

our time spending or wanting to spend two to

eight hundred dollars on a new phone now I'm

still using a four almost five year old galaxy

s5 smartphone because one it still functions

granted the battery life just blows chunks and

I've had a replacement and it still doesn't last

very long. But it kind of makes me wonder if

we're outgrowing the items faster than what we

need to. I guess it's just the new hotness, gotta

catch them all, gotta upgrade. But I guess that

it's going to be obviously the natural progression

of the original Razer. I'm wondering how much

of it's going to retain the style of the original

one when it's all said and done because I sincerely

doubt people are going to want the bottom of

the clamshell of the original Razer where it's

not a usable screen of some sort. So I'm wondering

how well they're going to do this and how well

it's going to emulate the original phone. with

its long and thin form now that Lenovo owns it.

So yeah, we'll see. We'll see how well. But I

guess Motorola's kind of got a patent on some

folding smartphone design that they since put

into place in June featuring a heated central

hinge that would heal imperfections in the OLED

screen caused by the bending. Well I'm Interested

to see how well that works. It makes you wonder

how long it's going to work And in like Mike

said it's it's another gimmick and so like I

honestly don't know like don't get me wrong if

the price was right I would get one but It's

it's not gonna be cheap at all Which means that

the other phones should drop significantly with

everybody trying to get on this gimmick And then

that's when I'll jump ship to a new phone. But

it's touted to be around $1 ,500, according to

various sources, while the Samsung Galaxy Foldable

is supposed to be like $2 ,500. Which, why? Why

would somebody do that? Like, I just, I don't

understand that. But I guess that's kind of the

difference between myself and somebody who's...

trying to get the latest and greatest of everything.

Now, one of the fun things that came out, they

had CES last week, and the entire industry was

all over it. So Google unveiled an instant translator.

Yeah, a universal translator. It sounds a lot

like Star Trek at this point. So I guess that,

you know, in regards to their Google Assistant,

they're trying to have this new built -in feature

called the interpreter mode. So basically what

it is is a new feature that is a rollout as an

update over the next couple of weeks on Google

Home devices and Smart Display. So if you're

in a foreign country or meeting with a person

who does not speak the same language as you,

the Google Assistant can be used as a translator

or more so as an interpreter to order to get

real -time translations of words and sentences

as in when you speak in the form of voice output

as well as text on screen to aid the conversation,

which is kind of cool. It also kind of breaks

down that language barrier of having to learn

a new language or say something incorrectly and

offend somebody and say something completely

wrong Because let's face it English is about

the only language where you It kind of is what

it is and there's like multiple meanings for

everything and whereas like everybody else has

like kind of more normalized speech patterns

But anyways the interpreter mode can be triggered

by saying hey Google be my French interpreter

or Spanish interpreter or whatever So if you

want to translate it From or to French or replace

with any language you want and yeah, so But there's

been a lot of tech that's that's been touted

over the last year or two of translator tech

and interpreter tech and For Google to be finally

getting on this bandwagon is kind of a big deal

at this point But it should be it should be very

impressive when this this gets rolled out I'll

be looking forward to seeing because I'm sure

there'll be YouTube videos of it like crazy Although

it might be fun to to get the Google home And

then ask it how to say things in a different

language just to see what it says So some more

interesting things that came up at CES was Samsung

Introduced its first micro LED display. Yes,

there is such thing as a micro LED and if you're

not familiar with that It's like a very It's

basically the LED but it's very small and then

It's supposed to have some kind of a significant

improvement over standard LED televisions it's

It's hard to say whether it's gonna like really

take off It could be just another one of those

like gimmicks That that kind of get thrown into

the television world, but it only time will tell

but regardless They showed it off at CES And

they used a 146 inch television to show it off.

And yeah. Now another interesting thing that

came out too was Bell Nexus. It's basically an

air taxi. It's got the vertical takeoff and landing

structure. So it's got like kind of a wing structure

with the helicopter. propellers and it looks

kind of like a helicopter, albeit differently,

and very much like a flying car, to put it lightly.

So Bell, best known for building helicopters

for 80 years, made its futuristic concept easier

to visualize by building a full -size glossy

black, slightly intimidating version of its proposed

five -seater flying machine and dropping it in

the middle of the transportation section of CES.

It looks epic. It's like a cross. They say a

cross between an electric helicopter and a person

sized drone and has six duct fans that sit horizontally

for liftoff, but then rotate to a vertical orientation

for efficient forward flight. And they hope that

it'll convince people that flying cars really

are coming soon. Again, we'll see. They're hoping

to have this in production. Full force by like

2025. So we'll see what happens It's always interesting

to see what comes out of CES because there's

a lot of innovation But there's also a lot of

things that are there before its time So I'm

very interested in in how this this plays out

to be honest and I just I love tech And then

then of course there's a new TV by Vizio. It's

the SmartCast, and so basically how the voice

assistants aren't compatible with multiple things.

The Vizio is one of the first companies to change

that process by making it able to connect to

Alexa or Google and Siri by showing off its SmartCast

3 .0 and saying that the latest edition of its

TV interface will work with Google Home, Alexa,

and Apple's Siri over AirPlay 2. No matter what

voice assistant you use, you can stream apps,

adjust the volume, cast video, control smart

home devices, and perform an ever -escalating

number of tasks on Vizio TVs. But they're saying

that there's going to be an update for new and

old TVs later this spring to do this, which is

kind of cool that you can do that. in the first

place. I mean, it's crazy how much stuff is powered

by it. My father -in -law tried out his Google

Home, and he has lights hooked up to it. He has

all kinds of equipment hooked up to it, whether

it's smart bulbs or smart plugs. Yeah, it's quite

interesting to see how far we've come into that

Star Trek realm with technology. They're also

touting that basically 5g you might as well just

forget about it for right now because they're

saying that They're saying that it's gonna change

everything and everybody's talking about it and

everybody's predicting everything and all these

crazy Capabilities and proclamations that are

coming out Basically they're saying now that

you know to see a real 5g wait another year because

yeah, the devices designed to receive them and

the speed and the data signals won't be a reality

for at least a year while the next generation

cellular standard holds the next capabilities

for the 5G. So they're saying that a lot of these

demonstrations are very misleading and Basically

boasting that over the first offer a 5g network

even though they they really aren't because there's

a lot of Just basically the equipment's not fully

there yet and fully integrated Because they're

saying that we should be able to have like Verizon

5g home internet with They're saying that 5g

connected devices should have like speeds of

900 megabits per second and or up to in powering

You know Qualcomm having having new chips that

would be powering 30 plus 5g smartphones that'll

they'll launch in 2019 and so We really haven't

had anything come out yet. That's gonna utilize

it. And so I do kind of agree with that but I

guess they're saying that That they're they're

touting that there's gonna be 10 gigabits per

second to your phone, which is 600 times faster

than 4g and 10 times faster than Google's fiber

That would be awesome especially, you know, if

you're downloading movies or you want to like

a 4k film from from Netflix or You know if you're

powering something that's on a vehicle or Just

a variety of things. It just remains to be seen

what they're gonna do with it once it actually

comes out Yeah, but AT &T's got their smartphones,

some of their new Samsung and LG is saying 5GE

in the phone's status bar, which is evolution,

not actually. It's supposed to signal faster

speeds, however it doesn't. And Verizon has been

called out for, you know, it's 5G or new radio.

It's not even... Fully 5g so it were a little

bit of ways before that before that comes But

yeah, I mean it's it's crazy the stuff that that

comes out of CES I always enjoy looking at all

the the crazy contraptions and I'm still Still

not excited for driving cars, but that are automated

But it's it's coming and eventually if they can

get like things like 5g and all these these satellites

all kind of Squared away We'll see what happens

on that front But yeah tons tons going on With

that whole that whole system like Hyundai showed

off like a walking car at CES where essentially

like it stands up like it's a small model car

and it you can activate robotic legs to walk

at three miles per hour over rough terrain so

it literally can climb a five -foot wall and

jump a five -foot gap what reasoning you'd need

to use that I don't know but it could be helpful

if you were you know trying to Get somebody across

something if there's like a natural disaster

an emergency And then that's kind of why they

developed it in the first place is for that kind

of scenario but they're saying that the The lot

of the concepts which they may or may not make

it into production. It's great to think of new

ways of mobility But it's kind of interesting.

It's kind of interesting. So that'll be something

that we'll have to look forward to seeing if

it actually takes off And then Amazon Prime,

I think we talked about this last year, they're

saying that there's a way that they'll be able

to deliver it to your garage with a key by Amazon,

like a delivery service where they can physically

put it in your garage instead of having it in

your front door and get taken. So basically it

would be calling an Amazon key or key by Amazon,

because everything's by Amazon. But but it's

kind of it's it's Basically like a key for business

service for the most part at the moment but the

integration is the Amazon owned ring home security

app and in -garage delivery using chamberlens

connected garage doors and new Schlage in code

Wi -Fi connected locks Added to the key program

and other smart locks by Schlage Yale and Kwikset

And it'll be interesting to see how that takes

off. I don't know if a Lot of people are gonna

subscribe to that like I personally and I agree

with some of the reviews of thoughts on it of

that it's kind of intrusive and I personally

would not want some stranger dumping stuff in

my Garage or walking in my garage But yeah, I

don't know it's it's I don't know how well that's

going to take off, but I can imagine if you're

in a high -going area, you may not want people

just walking up and taking your junk off your

porch and stealing it. So, you know, like Flint.

LG also has a groundbreaking roll -up TV that's

going on sale this year. It's a 4K TV that rolls

up, and yeah. Expensive expensive expensive expensive.

No, thank you But yeah, it's it's it's supposed

to have you know, the the regular design they

showed off a 65 inch rollable prototype it's

yes with a 4k OLED TV and It'll it'll go on sale

in the spring it's gonna have a hundred watt

Dolby atlas speaker for built -in audio um but

uh yeah it's it's got some kind of um a setup

very similar to um when when you see those displays

at conventions when people have their their posters

standing up with like the the uh the mount in

the back of of the the posters that kind of fold

up and everything so what it does is essentially

it'll it'll slide into this this base which will

essentially turn into a table after all is said

and done, and then the back will slide over and

cover it up so that it completely encases where

the TV went. But yeah, they've also got a mode

on it called line mode. where the display will

drop down so that only about one -fourth of the

panel is showing, and they say that basically

you can use it for, you know, music, so that

you can just see what you're playing, and that's

about it. It's gonna have support for Alexa voice

controls as well as Google Assistant and things

of that nature. I don't know, I'm interested,

but that's gonna be one expensive puppy there.

There's they're gonna have a ton of HDMI USB

in the back from what they show and it looks

like connects to the box not to the To the TV,

but it's gonna have a ton of chips and tons of

HDR color It's supposed to be basically like

a signature box of of how it sets up But that

that thing is gonna be about eight grand to start

out And they're gonna start rolling those out

around March. I guarantee you're not gonna see

many people Having these things And then for

some reason they're making a big deal at MasterCard's

dropping its name from the company logo which

And then Intel of course has has a new processor

which is coming out it's supposed to be like

the ninth -gen CPUs very very very very small

pretty powerful They're 10 nanometer processors

dubbed cannon Lake So Or ice lake its new ice

lake design Which is what they're calling it

now It's supposed to be out for the holidays

later this year and they're saying they're gonna

have AI compatibility Gen 11 graphics connectivity

with Wi -Fi 6 Thunderbolt 3 10 nanometer architecture

in like higher performance very integrated and

ongoing. So these are gonna be on their new Core

i3s and Core i9 chips, which I didn't know we

were on the ninth generation of these Core chips,

because I think I'm on the fourth gen on my computer

here. And it, I mean, it runs great, but. Still

like I didn't realize that I was that far in

the Stone Age Because I know that they're in

DDR4 now for memory and I have DDR3. I just recently

plugged in And this is the other thing too Since

we last spoke on the podcast. I recently upgraded

My computer to the latest version of Windows

10 now. There's a couple reasons for that I did

it because One, it's a security issue. It more

so had to do with that more than anything else.

Plus my IT friends were ragging on me about it,

about thinking in the Windows XP realm. And so

I did the upgrade and it had like three versions

of Windows to upgrade over top. The benefit of

doing so though, there were benefits to this.

It allowed me to free up a lot of space on my

C drive. Now granted, I moved my, I did manage

to pull out, I don't remember if anybody remembers

this story or not, but I ordered my first solid

state hard drive from Amazon like a couple years

ago. And it was a Kingston 120 gig, you know,

like 40 bucks at the time. You can get I think

500 for like 60 now. But it didn't come and then

so I contacted them they overnighted me one two

weeks later my other one shows up So I Anyways,

I've had this thing in the box for a while forgot

why I never used it Found an old 160 gig hard

drive in my computer that doesn't work. I think

it was my old C drive and then So I plugged this

in, moved my Google Drive contents over to that

drive so that it wasn't on my C drive. So that

freed up a little bit of space. And mind you,

I only had 10 gigs free at the time. So I installed

the update. I managed to free up 28 gigabytes

of Windows garbage from the 1500 series version

of Windows 10. Now mind you, we're on like 1809

or something now. So we've had like three or

four different versions of Windows 10 since then

with anniversary updates and everything else.

So I managed to clean up a lot of that using

the new built -in disk cleaner and it was able

to scrub it clean. And then I was able to use

it again because on my 500 gig hard drive that's

my D drive, I had about 40 gigs of Windows garbage

from when I had Windows 7 installed on there,

but it won't let me delete it. And it was able

to help me with that, too. And so I was able

to, again, all the way around, I was able to

free up a lot of space. So anybody that's hesitant

on getting off of an old version of Windows 10

at this point, there's really no reason to stick

with the old one. And this is coming from somebody

who fought it for as long as possible. The only

thing I had an issue with when I upgraded was

I lost my sticky notes app, which you can get

again, but I lost all the notes I had on there.

So bummer. And I lost my ability to record initially,

but I didn't know it until I went to do a recording

on Tuesday. And then I had these MME errors and

was unable to record anything through either

microphone. on any software, whether it be Skype

or Adobe Audition or Audacity would not record.

Spent an hour and a half messing with it. Come

to the conclusion, I install K -Lite codecs from

like Kaza or K -Lite codecs anyways, installed

them, everything came back, functioned brand

new. So I say that to basically mean that If

you're having problems, there's always a way

around it So just yeah, so just watch watch for

that in the future So I guess that's gonna round

it out for this episode of alter geek Next week.

We will have two episodes on Wednesdays for the

next coming weeks. We'll have guest interviews

Releasing one a week every week That that I conducted

So, I hope you guys enjoyed those, and in the

meantime, get altered. Get geeky with The Altered

Geeks, and if you have any questions, comments,

suggestions for a future episode, be sure to

drop them in the comments on the new GeekCastRadio

.com or on Twitter, at AlteredGeek or at SCP

-21. So until next time, get altered. Get geeky

with The Altered Geeks. I know I said this. See

you next time.