Latest! Greatest?

They say the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. (Likewise for women and girls, but the first iteration rhymes.) And nowhere is that more apparent than at the annual Consumer Electronics Show. After two years of reduced size due to the pandemic, CES returned to Las Vegas with a vengeance, showcasing products from over 3200 exhibitors. The multitude of goodies showcased didn't have to make sense: they just had to have a switch, a battery, a chip and most likely all of the above, and they made it to the exhibit floor. 

The stuff on dispaly fell into a few broad categories. There were products that are available now or will be very soon which stretch the existing state of the art, and for which you would gladly lay down your Gold card. There are those which certainly look like they could be winners, but exist only as pre-production prototypes or proof-of-concept models, and will be a long time coming to Target. And there are those that fall into either of the two categories aforementioned, but make you wonder who thought this was a good idea. You decide which of the following goes where.

In the pushing the existing envelope department, LG showed a 97-inch TV that has a better screen and faster response time, but so did others. What sets the Zero Connect model apart from competitors is that, other than power, it requires no hard wires. It has a transmission box you can put out of site for cable, sound and the like, so the TV can be put anywhere. Likewise, JBL's Tour Pro 2 wireless earbuds have more microphones and better sound response, but it's biggest innovation might be the case they come in, which has a screen on it that enables you to control them. No more tapping twice on the left or once on the right or fiddling with an app on your phone. 

As always, there are those items which are certainly cutting edge even if you have to wonder if that edge needs cutting. There's the BMW iX Flow, which sports electronic ink panels on the exterior so you can change the color and displays patterns as you drive. Twinkly has a new set of lights for your Christmas tree that not only sparkle, but can be mapped to play video content. Hasboro's Selfie Series toy takes a scan of your head and puts it on an action figure, so you too can save the galaxy. And Bird Buddy take a camera and marries it to birdhouse, so you can see who is living in your backyard. It also automatically identifies what species is making a nest and keeping you up. 

For a while the tech word of the day has been "smart." Add connectivity to an existing device, write an app for your phone that controls it, and any dumb appliance can be made more intelligent (if that's what you want). The GE Profile Smart Mixer takes a stand mixer and marries it to a scale and timer all controlled by an app. The result is a device which streamlines baking and cooking. Also gaining that adjective is an oven by Samsung, that becomes intelligent with the addition of a camera inside. While you can use it to watch your souffle rise (or fall), the camera optimizes temperatures and cooking times based on what it sees happening, even recommending settings based on the type of dish you are putting inside. And the Masonite M-Pwr front door integrates lights, a lock and camera/video doorbell right into the door itself. And yes, it includes a backup battery so you can still get in during a power failure ("Honey, did you remember to charge the door?"). 

Literally hundreds of other devices that one-up the state-of-the-art were on display. But the smart device of most interest in our house is from South Korea-based 10Minds. Their Motion Pillow has a little Alexa-looking box that goes on your nightstand and listens to see if you start to snore. If you do, it activates small airbags in the pillow that changes its shape, raising or lowering your head to hopefully to quiet you down. That said, as Stephen Colbert pointed out, it's worth noting that any pillow can be a snore-silencing pillow, if you're willing to do the time. No technology needed. 

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Marc Wollin of Bedford likes gadgets. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Bot Me

I wrote this. I sat at my computer and pounded the keys until I had a column, the same way I have more than 1400 times in the past. But like many things, technology is now offering a replacement that is cheap, efficient and wholly without the need for a human. In this case it's ChatGBT, an artificial intelligence program that can write and respond in natural language. Backed by partners like Microsoft and their billion-dollar investment, it's showing how machines are evolving to do more of what was once thought to be possible only by people.

To see it in action, I gave it a prompt: write a fun essay about chatbots. What comes next is all machine, not me. I'll come back at the end. Ready. Set Go.

As I sit here and type this, I can't help but chuckle to myself at the thought of chatbots. They're like robots, but without the cool metallic exterior and ability to lift heavy objects. Instead, they're just little digital beings that live inside our phones and computers, waiting for us to type a message their way.

But what do chatbots even do, you might ask? Well, that's a good question. You see, chatbots are programmed to carry out specific tasks, like answering customer service inquiries or helping to schedule appointments. They're supposed to make our lives easier by handling the mundane tasks that we humans don't want to deal with.

But let's be real here: chatbots are basically just a bunch of algorithms masquerading as humans. They're like the ultimate party crashers, showing up uninvited and trying to blend in with the crowd. And let's be honest, they're not very good at it.

Have you ever had a conversation with a chatbot? It's like trying to carry on a conversation with a brick wall. They just keep giving you the same canned responses, no matter how hard you try to engage them. It's like they're programmed to ignore everything you say and just stick to their script.

And don't even get me started on the language they use. It's like they were designed by a team of robots who were trying to mimic human speech, but ended up just making a hot mess of it all. "Hello, how may I assist you today?" Um, I don't know. How about you start by not sounding like a robot?

But despite all their flaws, chatbots just keep on trucking. They're like the Energizer Bunny of the digital world, always chugging along and trying to be helpful. And as annoying as they can be, I have to admit that they do have their moments.

Like the time I tried to order a pizza through a chatbot and ended up getting into a heated debate about pineapple as a topping. Or the time I tried to book a hotel room and the chatbot kept asking me if I wanted a view of the pool. "No, I just want a room to sleep in. I don't care about the pool." "Would you like a room with a view of the pool?" "I already said no!" "Excellent choice! Your room with a view of the pool has been booked."

Geez, talk about stubborn. But despite their annoying quirks, I can't help but feel a little bit fond of chatbots. They may not be the most advanced form of artificial intelligence out there, but they're still trying their best to make our lives easier.

So here's to you, chatbots. Keep on keeping on, even if you drive us humans a little bit crazy sometimes. Just remember to always stay true to your roots as robots and never try to pass yourselves off as human. We'll always know the truth.

OK, I'm back. Me again. That is, well, scary. I did nothing but type "go," and in under a minute that's what came back. The question is this: can you tell it was a machine? Not quite my voice, but not too far removed. And it will only get better and better. Revisit that last line: "Never try to pass yourselves off as human. We'll always know the truth." I'm not so sure. As for now, I can still check that box when I go online that confirms I am not a robot. But it won't be long before, to paraphrase an old commercial, you'll have to ask: is it real? Or is it Chatbot?

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Marc Wollin of Bedford wrote this. Honest. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

More and More

How many pairs of shoes do you have? Maybe you have "lots" or "a bunch" or "a heap." What about coats? Cans of coffee? Books, pictures or socks? There's a good chance in each case that you don't know the exact number of items, and so resort to generalizations. But if push comes to shove, you could line them up, and use your fingers and toes to get a total. You might be embarrassed, but could definitively (and sheepishly) say, "Yes, you got me: I have 10 pairs of running shoes."

However, regardless of the total, you could at least get one. As you look to other areas, the numbers get much larger and the labels change. Collective nouns like crowd, troupe or pile don't offer the precision needed. If you count the storage space on your phone, you have to quantify it way beyond ones and twos, indeed beyond tens and hundreds. In the early days of computers they talked in terms of thousands using the shorthand prefix kilo. As technology improved and capacity went up, those thousands became millions, and the prefix mega became table stakes. Then millions became billions, and now you measure your phone's filing cabinet using the prefix giga.

For most of us, those numbers may be the largest we ever have to deal with. That said, it doesn't take much to take the next step. To put a more modern sheen on the famous observation by the late Senator Everett Dirksen, a giga here, a giga there, and pretty soon you're talking about a lot of data. As we add up pictures and videos and countless downloads of movies, TV shows and TikToks, Dirksen's real money becomes real terabytes, then real petabytes of information. 

All of these prefixes and words are shorthand for the exponentially large numbers which underlie whatever you are talking about. Expressed as "ten to the X," they denote a one with a number of zeros after it. So kilo is ten to the third or 3 zeros, while mega is ten to the sixth or 6 zeros. Giga has nine, tera has 12, peta has 15, and on and on up the scale. And while it might be more than you need to total the boxes of pasta in your pantry, it's the stuff needed to track an accounting of stars or molecules without resorting to writing out one and 21 aughts. 

Until recently, the top of that scale was yotta, which was ten to the power of 24, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. While the numbers could certainly get bigger, there was no convenient way to talk about them. But now the United Kingdom's National Physical Laboratory has suggested an extension to the International System of Units. They suggest that if you have more than 1000 yottas of something, you refer to it as a ronna (ten to the 27th), and if more than 1000 ronnas you call it a quecca (10 to the 30th). Either way, that's a hella of a lot of stuff (that's an unofficial name, by the way).

As they say with any new word or phrase, the challenge is how to use it in a sentence. Here's a use case: rather than saying the earth weighs 6000 yottagrams, you will now be able to say it weighs just 6 ronnagrams. The bottom line doesn't change, and yes, it's the most inside-baseball discussion possible, but it makes somebody happy.

Of course, you could just keep going higher and not have a name for it. Or maybe not. Several years ago I was tracking an important delivery sent via FedEx and was surprised to get a notice that it got there on the same day I sent it. I called in to make sure there was no problem, and that my package hadn't been lost. When the agent punched it up, she said it was still in transit, that the notice related to another delivery sent by someone else. When I queried her about the alert, she said that it happens sometimes, as they had to reuse some numbers as they were running out. I paused before responding: "I'm pretty sure that's impossible. You can't run out of numbers. Just add one more." I don't have quecca years of experience, but I'm pretty sure I was standing on firm ground.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford thinks he's pretty good at math. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

What's Next

They say in finance that past performance is no guarantee of future results. Still, it's worth looking backwards to try and learn from what happened, and use that as a window into the future. By that metric, if the past 12 months tell us anything, it tells us that the new year will consist of more puzzles, we'll be switching salad dressings, and we're moving our desks out of the corner and towards the window. Oh, and we need batteries. Lots of batteries.

Let's start with puzzles. Perhaps born out of the pandemic need to find things to do on our own, games and puzzles continued their growth. As an industry, the electronic gaming industry seems to have no ceiling: global gaming is estimated to be worth $321 billion by 2026. To be sure, the big money is in the video variety, with sophisticated titles like "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" and "Elden Ring" generating millions of dollars in 2022. But if you rank games not by revenue but by number of plays, you might be best served by looking at Google search results to how many are looking for tips and tricks. And there, the number one term searched for the past 12 months was "Wordle." Note that while you may like "adept," "clamp" or "audio" as your starting guess, researchers at MIT say a 15th century helmet is your best shot. Play "salet" and you can usually win within just 3.42117 guesses.

On to condiments, and once again crowd sourcing tells us a lot about ourselves. Perhaps best placed to inform in this area is Uber Eats, with 81 million users the most popular food delivery service. And what were we collectively asking them to bring to our door? According to the "2022 Uber Eats Cravings Report" the number one delivery combo was burritos and cheese. That finding is echoed in a similar report from rival Grubhub, who said they delivered 4 million of the Tex-Mex staple. As to condiments, according to the Uber report, "Customer's desire for ranch dressing has dramatically dwindled. While pre-pandemic requests for 'ranch,' 'extra ranch' and 'side of ranch' topped the charts for most requested special instructions on Uber Eats, these requests now don't even crack the top 20."

As to our homes, the National Association of Realtors surveys what we are doing in design, furnishing and style. Driven by the pandemic, there was a huge movement towards home offices. As a matter of practicality these were tucked away in corners, under stairs and in repurposed closets. But as work from home as gone from an emergency one-and-done necessity to a regular thing, the survey finds that we can't stand to be stuck in these "cloffices" any more. And so the trend in 2022 was to move our desks out of the closet towards the window, and hang the coats back where they belong. Now if only we could start a movement not to have unmade beds in the rear of the Zoom shot.

Finally, no matter who you are, where you live, your politics, class, race, gender, sexual orientation or any other demographic data, you likely shop at Amazon. With more than 12 million products, it is easily the largest online retail store worldwide. The market research company eMarketer reports that Amazon has nearly half of the entire eCommerce market in the United States, edging out Walmart and eBay. That makes them the perfect proxy to reveal what we all need. And if you look at the not one, not two, but top five products across all categories on the site, all are batteries. Amazon basic AA and AAA models in various packs beat out Crocs (number one in shoes), mascara (number one in beauty and personal care) and Apple AirPods (number one in electronics). As Henry Kissinger said, power may be a great aphrodisiac, but you gotta have fresh cells.

There's more that 2022 has taught us. Men are wearing more black loafers, and police departments are using more electric vehicles. Sweatsuits have gone upscale, and telemedicine is here to stay. The bigger question is will any of these trends continue into 2023. As you read this, the tallying has already begun. Have you logged in to order your first burrito of the year?

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is hoping to wear brighter socks in 2023. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.