Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode.

Of the IA Castle DOE's.

And we have Taylor, aren't Hi, Taylor.

Hi, Michael.

And we have Alicia Geary. Hi, Alicia.

Hello.

Hello.

All right, well, it's been a very eventful week in technology. We've got a bunch of tech news, and a lot of things have happened, so let's get into it. Google had their event this time, and we got Pixels, we got new devices and new watches, and we have three topics today, but I want to start with that one. So let's get into the we got new Pixel watches. Well, first off, did you guys watch the event?

I watched part of it, and then I had to go to a client meeting.

I didn't.

Okay, so, Alicia, you have android. So what devices do you have that are Android?

I have a Samsung Galaxy S 23 Ultra and I have a Galaxy Watch five, which is Android Wear.

Okay, so you have the Watch Five sorry, galaxy.

Galaxy watch four.

My bad. I didn't know if you had one of the Pixel watches or the Galaxy watches.

No.

So Google did announce a new Pixel watch, and what's interesting about it is it is very much Fitbit. Like, there's a lot of talked I think they had the person that runs Fitbit on stage this time.

Yes, they did.

So that was very interesting to hear them talk about Fitbit. And it's like I've told people, I feel like they're allowing Fitbit to actually Fitbit again.

That's kind of funny, Michael, because I've never heard of Fitbit. I mean, I've heard of it, but I haven't heard it being talked about in such a long time, and so it kind of brought me back because my mother and a whole bunch of her friends used to have Fitbit a very long time ago. So it's very interesting that it's coming back.

Yeah, fitbit has always been around, but I can't help but notice there's a bit of a marketing slowdown with them because they don't really advertise themselves anymore. You just kind of know Fitbit. If you buy Know, it's not necessarily like they're not trying to rake in new users anymore because of their Google collaboration and the fact that Google bought them out. I've noticed that Fitbit is also very like, it's not Fitbit anymore. It's not Fitbit's personality anymore, if that makes any sense. So it's really nice to see Fitbit being Fitbit, regardless of if Google owns them or not. However, I do see partnerships being much easier with Google now that Fitbit is allowed know, take the reins a little bit more than they were agreed.

And it's very interesting because we don't really get to see a lot of companies in Google be themselves as much as they were before they were acquired. So I think it's nice that Fitbit is being allowed to be themselves again, and I hope that continues. It sounds like they're releasing their own trackers, like health trackers again. So that's pretty exciting. It's just one of those things that as time goes on, we'll see more and more what they do.

You see, the funny thing is, Michael, they have been releasing their own trackers. That has not that, it's just that not as many people are keeping track of Fitbit anymore because Google bought them.

And you don't hear about it in the news.

Yeah. And you don't hear about it in the news. However, they've been releasing their own health trackers and their own watches. But it's just not as out there as it was and as it will be.

Yeah. It doesn't make as big a headlines as whenever it comes with a Google event. And I feel like that needs to change, that they need to be able to make their own announcements and be prevalent. But it's very cool to see them have such a big voice at the event. And that was really to talk about. The Pixel Watch two, and it looks like a nice watch. Android Wear, all the things, I didn't get the pricing, but they're going to ask you. They look like nice watches. I'm still going to stick with my.

Apple Watch, of course, but for Android people, it'd be nice to have yeah.

The funny thing is, a lot of people forget that Android Aware still syncs well with iOS.

It does.

It doesn't sync as well, but it still syncs very well. And it allows you to use Google Assistant in places that you wouldn't normally use Google Assistant. If you are the type of person that doesn't necessarily mind stepping out of the ecosystem, it still is an option. Two enemies working together, and that's good to see.

I do have pricing on the watches. I just did a quick Google search and it seems like they're a lot cheaper than the Apple Watches. The first one is the WiFi variant is 349. The pixel. Watch two LTE, version 399. So it seems like it's affordable.

Okay.

Yeah. And I can't help but notice with Apple, you are kind of paying the Apple Tax because I'm looking into prices for Apple Watches because I have to replace my Galaxy Watch. I don't really think that Galaxy Watch really works very well with Apple devices. But I was looking into and even like the lowest level model is like 599. With apple care.

Almost.

With apple care. Yeah. The Apple Watch Se is cheaper. I believe it's 350.

It doesn't have everything I want.

Right. But it is an option for right.

It doesn't have the blood oxygen and all that kind of stuff that my Samsung Watch does.

Yeah.

I could buy the watch.

Eight. Yeah. Who knows how much that is now?

It's usually $100 less than the usual standard version. Yeah. But they call it the Apple Tax and I gladly pay it. I'm a sucker for Apple products. Although I have to say some of the Samsung products can be pretty expensive, too. Like the Galaxy Tab s eight that I have. S Eight Plus was not the cheapest device.

Yeah, but I've noticed that Samsung and Google are not very hard to find deals on with Apple, no matter where you purchase it. Maybe in some tech stores they might be doing a sale, but that's not on Apple's part.

That's true.

It's really hard to find deals on.

Apple products apple.

Unless you're a student or a teacher. So I don't know, it's just difficult.

Yes. So we got the app, the I was about to say Apple Watch, the Pixel Watch Two, and it's an update, so it's worth looking into. It's supposed to be a pretty nice watch. And then they went right on to, I believe, the phones. And we got the pixel eight and the pixel eight pro and again, as usual, the pros are the ones to go with. And in the past, I've never really been a fan of the camera bar on the back of the Pixels, but I have to say, I don't mind them this year. The Pixel Eight looks like a very nice phone in that Bay blue color. Have you seen that one, Alicia?

Yeah, it's really nice.

It's a very nice shade of blue on a pro phone. I'm totally down with that. And they have the new tensor g three. I think they called it Chip, which is pretty nice. Interestingly. With Google, they have okay, camera technology, but most of what they do is software related. And they showed off some features and you can go and watch MKBHD did a review of all these features and you could go and see how they work, but it's mostly software. So what are y'all's views on this? Do you think that a phone should be based more on software or hardware?

I don't really think it matters as long as the two work together and complement each other, and they work very well.

I have to agree with Alicia. I think companies have their different strengths, and some people may prefer, well, I just don't want the latest hardware, but if I can get the best software in the industry, I'll pick that some people are vice versa. So, again, every company has their strengths, and I think that's what makes each company.

You know, the one thing that I feel like on this new hardware is they are talking about software. And Google is very much, send us your data and we'll make something better out of it. But what are they doing with that data? It's software, but a lot of it's done in the cloud. And I really am always hesitant to like, okay, what is Google doing with that?

You mentioned I know this takes us off the camera, but I know you mentioned something about a large language model that auto corrects your stuff, but everything you type is going into the cloud. And you said you didn't really like that. Do you mind explaining why?

Sure. So what Alicia is talking about is the new Gboard. The Google keyboard has autocorrect. So as you're typing, it's sending what you're typing into the cloud up to Google servers to use AI to make better predictions using a large language model, kind of like Chat, GPT or Bard, and then sends back suggestions to correct those. Apple does something similar, but it does everything on device in iOS 17. And I feel like the iOS approach is much better. It may not be the best, but just think about what hackers do. They use what are called keyloggers, and they log every key press that you type on your computer, and they can do nefarious things with it. Same with Google. I mean, who says they're not keylogging your passwords? Who says that Gboard is not looking at everything you type? I would hope they wouldn't, but what.

If there's some I said you don't know what they're doing.

Right. And so everything that you type is going up to the cloud to be processed, sifted through and everything else. Kind of like your email at Gmail. And so remember Google, we are their product, we are not their customer.

Okay, yeah, good point.

So everything Google does just makes me very hesitant to say, well, what am I giving up when I'm using this? And it's always know, interesting to me. Does that kind of answer your alicia yeah.

Yeah.

So that's one of the things with software that always there's even this new night sight mode that's coming on the Google Phones and Video Boost, I think it's also called two features, okay? And the way it's going to work is you take your video and you do your nighttime stuff and it sends it up to Google servers, and then it enhances it and sends it back down to hey, hey.

Now, nobody wants to know what you do at.

But, you know, it's meant for like if you're outside at night walking around, you're taking video, those kind.

Of know, I know what it's meant.

Know, but it's kind of one of those things know? You're sending that up to Google and they're going through every bit of data, and they probably have in their terms. I mean, I could be wrong because we have not read the terms yet, because all this stuff still hasn't come out. We can use this for AI purposes, so where is the limits on this stuff? And that's why I also am just a fan of iOS, because everything's not done quite as much with software, but it's done with hardware on the appreciate.

Where'S the appreciation with privacy? Where did that go? Because there was a time where Google prided themselves, know, being private, like making sure that people couldn't access your stuff. Where did that go?

I don't really feel like Google. I mean, they've talked about wanting to have privacy, all those things. They still talk about it. They even make it difficult for developers to ship an app that's not private, but when it comes to them, those rules don't always apply. Right. So Google talks about being privacy centric, but that's not really, in my view, what they're known for. They're more about let's make things easy for the user to use so that we can get more data. And that's why search engines like DuckDuckGo and others came around, is so that you wouldn't be given so many ads. And I believe even they are starting to not be as privacy focused. But there's a lot of search engines that have come around so that you don't have to worry about your search history and all that being used to sell you things. So that's the thing with Google. And then MKBHD also made a very interesting video on Can You Trust Google? And Google made a very bold claim at their event this year, and they said that the Pixel Eight will be getting updates for the next seven years wow.

Which would outlive the phone.

Most likely outlive the phone. But there's a website, I don't know what you can look at MKBHD's video, but there's a website that lists everything that Google has killed. And I don't remember the name of the program that he mentioned, but this was kind of a big one. I had no clue about google wanted to do two years ago, basically the same as the iPhone upgrade program, where you can get a Pixel and then every was it two years ago or one year ago? I don't remember. But you could get a new Pixel phone every year and then pay it off over 24 months. And you could pay it off over 24 months or upgrade every year. Well, within 24 months. They killed it.

Oh, sorry. That's crazy. I did find the website that they were talking about. It's called killed by Google.

Kind of goes with made by Google.

Yeah. And it has just using a screen reader, it has over 293 items just on the first page, and Jamboard was the most recent casualty.

Jamboard? Yeah. They still have the app.

So I just thought I would research that for you all. So. Yeah, killed by Google.

Did you use jamboard, Alicia?

No, but I used to.

Well, not anymore. Yeah, and that's what a lot of people are saying, is they got in the habit of using all these things and now they're gone. So can you trust Google to even keep to seven years? Because they could just say, well, we're not going to keep this anymore. I mean, Google Domains is on that list.

Snapseed, I'm looking at you kill off snapseed. It's not used, it's not needed. There are too many programs out there that do much better than snapseed. I'm sorry.

Well, I thought they rolled a lot of those features into Google Photos.

Yeah, but they still have the snapseed.

So it's kind of one of those things that Google just kills off nearly as many products as they so yeah.

It'S like, why do you keep killing off these things? Know? There's so many things that have already been killed, at least in my view, I can't stadia we have Google Duo. I have a whole list of them on my screen right now.

They didn't really kill off Google duo. And the reason why I say that is because they just wanted to make things more refined and they rolled it into Google Meet. I kind of like that better.

Honestly. They technically killed it off because it is no longer a thing. It became Google meet.

Yeah, it became part of Google meet.

Google Podcasts is dead because they made it into YouTube podcasts.

G suites dead. But that's been dead for a while.

Well, they renamed it to Google Workspace.

Yeah. This went from talking about the Made by Boulevard to talking about everything cooled, they've killed off.

Well, I mean, that's part of it is Google just kind of became Google.

Chat, but I think Google Aloe was honestly cooler than Google Chat.

Yes.

Add some things from Google Aloe and then I think Google Chat will be better.

Yeah, but that's one of the things with all of these products, is what is going to last, what's not. Is the Pixel Eight going to last all of this time, the seven years it will. Yeah.

I'm skeptical.

And I mean, they could decide to kill Android. I mean, I don't think they ever.

Will, but no, I don't either.

But that's their biggest money maker.

They wouldn't date actually, that is not.

Their biggest well, it may not be.

Their biggest money maker, but it gets them more data.

Search is their biggest money maker and their biggest data.

Yeah, but all of that comes from, like, if you really think about it.

Actually a lot comes from iOS.

Okay, but if you really think about Mean yeah, because Apple pays, like, really big money to make sure that Google is able to use Safari.

No, reverse.

Reverse. Okay, well, anyways all right, well, anyways, I can't tell you how many times I have gone to my phone and I haven't even bothered to load up the search engine. I've just gone into that search bar at the top of my phone and just typed something in and it took like, two like, that's got to be something. And all Google products are automatically installed on every Android device, YouTube included, search included, chrome included, everything included, all things included. Except for maybe Google Docs sheets and slides.

As long as they're Google play certified.

Yes, exactly.

Like, you won't see the Google Service or Google Apps on, like, a Kindle fire.

Yeah, right. But it's the quickest, easiest access for everyone to be able to use all of their services and give more data, get more data, things like that. So if they killed off android, where would they go then?

Right, well, again, I think know, and it's interesting because there's actually a very big trial going on about Google's monopoly on search, and that could be a whole nother conversation, but it's just interesting just to see where Google is when they make promises compared to a few years down the road, if they keep those promises. So we'll just have to see and we'll keep people updated. But these new Pixel phones, I always tell people my favorite Pixel was the Pixel Three. And I haven't really cared for many of the designs since the three models came out. And this one genuinely looks nice. I actually like the design. So my next Android phone, I really have liked Samsung, but it might be a Pixel. I try to have both iOS and Android just because I like to keep up to date. Well, I'm an app developer, I need to test on Android. That's kind of a given. But I also like to keep up to date on how things work between the different operating systems as well.

Right.

Okay. So I guess the next thing oh, there is one other device that they did announce, and that's the Pixel Buds Two. Yes, and those look pretty nice. They have more AI, they have clearer call quality, things like that. And they reduced the latency and they even cited gaming for that. So that's going to be interesting.

Let me be real with you. I don't really think people like the pixel buds.

One.

There was not very many good reviews on the Pixel Buds One.

Yeah, I mean, they sounded okay. I didn't play with them for very long, but I thought they sounded okay.

Yeah, they sound okay. I mean, I used them when I was in class. But they don't sound know they're just your standard earbuds, but they try to be Google branded. Well, that's kind of what I think.

I think they sound good, but they're meant to work with Android and they're supposed to kind of be the competitor to the AirPods. And I think they do a lot of AI, try to do a lot of AI with them. So I think that's kind of where they try to push those. They try to push everything with AI at Google. That's kind of their thing.

You see, I kind of feel like with the Google Pixel Buds, I feel like they tried too hard in some areas and didn't try hard enough in others.

Well, and I kind of feel like that with a lot of bluetooth earbud.

Manufacturers and none of those areas. I'm talking about blue sound, I'm talking about the operation of them and how they work and the AI going into them and things like that. I feel like they tried too hard in some areas and not hard enough in others. The sound was one of those areas that they didn't try hard enough in.

Well, the pros from what I remember, they sounded pretty good. They sounded decent. The pixel buds pro. But I don't know about the phone calls and all that kind of they, they announced the three products. They're kind of like apple. They did three products at that event. They talked about the magnifier or the features for people with low vision or that are blind for what do they call that? Whatever frame where it would help you get lined up for a selfie or for pictures, things like that. At the event. That was neat.

But Apple's been doing that for a little while.

Yeah, but Apple sometimes by the time it says face centered, it's already like moved.

Okay, this is more stable.

I think Google's maybe slightly more stable because they're using some of the same technology that's in Lookout, which quite frankly, is one of the best reasons to have an Android phone. That is an amazing app in my opinion.

And it's free.

It is free. Kind of like seeing AI and others are free on iPhone. But I feel like Lookout does a really good job if you're walking around to tell you what you're coming up to and things like that. But I just feel like it's a nice phone and I feel like it's going to just see if it stands the test of time. One thing I do like, though, is some of the new assistant features that's coming on that phone. And one of those is the new call screening features where the Google Assistant can answer with a human sounding voice and say that it's answering for somebody and where would you like to forever?

That's been around forever.

Not that, not this.

They've updated it, yes, but they've added a lot more features to it. It's a fully redesigned version of and so it can answer like a Ups call. And the person's like, I'm here with a package for so so, and, and it said, OK, let me get a hold of them and see what they would like to do. And then the person said, OK, and then it waited for a minute and it said, they told me to tell you to put it on the porch. And that's pretty cool.

The Google literally ask the person, yes.

I think an alert comes up on their Android phone that says, this is a Ups driver that just called you. Where would you like them to put the package?

And then they responded with the porch.

Text, or however they responded and sent it back. And the assistant responds with its voice. There's videos online where you can actually hear this happen. It's really neat.

I'm going to have to type it. Okay. I wish Android or Apple would do the same thing. Man, that would simplify my life.

Do you guys remember whenever there was a video probably like Google IO or something, but the Google Assistant was using a very human voice to book a haircut appointment for someone.

Yes.

When is that going to.

Yeah, I don't know that they rolled that out to everybody, but this sounds even more natural. It's very interesting, but I wonder if.

The business has to activate the Google Duplex, I think it's called.

No, the user does google Duplex.

That's what it's called. It's crazy. This is the only thing I've remembered at Google events.

Okay.

I don't really remember things at Google Events. I only remember things that will literally help me automate my life, and that's one of them.

And these are only available on Pixel phones.

Oh, I know. That's sad.

Dang it.

I know.

But one thing that's not is new Google Assistant features. And the feature I'm talking about is called Assistant with Bard.

Yeah.

I've been waiting for that.

So they are announcing Google Assistant with Bard, but wait, there's more. It's coming to oh, it won't be able to be used the same as the S Lady, but if you have the Google Assistant app, then you could use it. Actually, you know, an interesting thing, I.

Have noticed that there's not an app for Bard, so I feel like this would make a lot of things easier for people to use Bard.

Is Bard any good?

It's getting better. Yeah, it's getting better. But also if you have an iPhone 15 Pro or Promax, you might be able, if Google Assistant has a shortcut, to activate Assistant and have it start listening. You could set your action button on the 15 Promax for Google Assistant. Well, your side button would still be S Lady, but your action button would be Google Assistant, and I'm pretty sure you can do that.

Like I said, I like S Lady, but I prefer Google Assistant. It's just a lot easier to communicate with and it actually listens to instead of S Lady who thinks it knows what you want.

Right, that is a possibility. Like, if you're wanting a neat feature on the iPhone 15 Pro Max or Pro, you could just hold down your action button and possibly talk to Google Assistant. That is very android esque. You all yeah.

Really?

So I'll have to play with that. I've been playing with some things where if I have my Play Music Focus Mode turned on, it will go to my next track, whatever I'm listening to. I really love that.

Focuses are really cool.

Yes, and then you could just use your Focus Mode menu and Control Center to change what your action button does. It's really neat. So there's so many cool tech things that we're able to do now based on our phones. It's just up to your imagination of what you can even think about doing. So let's talk about something that is very interesting to me, and that's the fact that I got access to Blue Sky. And if you guys aren't familiar, blue sky is basically the Federated version of Twitter. It's kind of like Mastodon, but Twitter and it's made by the creator of Twitter or the CEO at the time, Jack Dorsey, and a few other folks. And it really has the potential to be a very neat platform. I think it's really cool. The issue that it has is nobody's on it. Nobody.

I think that's with purpose. Yes, I was telling you that I think that's with purpose because they don't know how it's going to do quite yet. So they're slowly releasing it out to people. And by slowly I mean very slowly. Come on, blue sky. But there's nobody on it because they don't want a bunch of people on it right now. And I feel like whenever it rolls out to the public, it will be much more popular considering what Uncle Elon is doing with Twitter. I'm sorry, X.

I don't think it's going to be Twitter levels of popular. And the reason is, for one, people have already been talking about the culture on Blue Sky and because of that, people have already kind of made their own assumptions and thoughts about Blue Sky. And that kind of happens with mastodon. All the others, mastodon is a little more of a natural. Anybody can join it. But everybody always says mastodon is hard, so we don't want to mess with it.

Yeah, right.

I was one of those people, remember, it took me like 2 hours to get my account migrated over to and.

You know, I think a lot of people are not having to migrate accounts. But even then, even it's so difficult, it's knowing where to sign up, what you should do and things like that. It's kind of interesting though, if you really think about it, because reddit is very similar. You have one account but you have hundreds of subreddits and it's like, well, where should I post this, where should I talk?

Reddit's hard for me to even grasp. I think mastodon would be too if I didn't have like Michael and others.

But I also like reddit. I post on there a lot.

Do you?

And I post in a lot of yes, yes.

See, I've always been meaning to try out Reddit until they pulled their shenanigans like Elon did with Twitter and now I'm not too interested in messing with it.

But yeah, that's a whole other thing because I think social media is just going down. I don't know. Well that's a whole other topic.

I think people are figuring out where they want to be. And I've always wanted to try out Blue Sky just because it's something different, right? It's something new and shiny and you know, me and new and shiny.

So what kind of people are on blue sky, Michael?

So there are a lot of people that are into tech, but I've seen it's. A lot of people that like to talk about Blue Sky, but also a lot of authors, a lot of very famous people are there because obviously they know people. That know people that know people. So they get invite codes.

Okay. So it's just a lot of famous.

People really right now, very popular people. But the interesting thing is that Blue Sky is very searchable like Twitter or Facebook, I can type in somebody's name and typically find them. Whereas on Mastodon and other places I need to kind of know their username or somebody that's talked about that person on Mastodon. So the discoverability is quite nice and they do have text search which Mastodon is just now rolling out.

Yeah, that's awesome.

It's kind of a nice ability to find content and things like that. But in saying that though, I want to mention that it's not without its problems too.

What are some of this?

So the app is buggy and I could go to the top menu and view my profile and it hasn't updated. And then I go to the profile tab and it has different so I.

Have a hypothetical for you, okay. And I've been pondering this. Imagine if there was a world where Facebook Federated and it became decentralized, interesting. I have a hypothetical for you. What do you think it would be like if Facebook federated and became unsetralized?

I think it wouldn't change if Facebook did. I mean, your hypothetical isn't very hypothetical because anybody that has an Instagram will soon be federated through threads.

Okay, but that's Instagram, not Facebook. That's Instagram, not Facebook. And Facebook is federated with Instagram. But if people don't use Instagram, what if Facebook Federated itself?

Interesting.

So if Facebook Federated and are you saying became part of the Fediverse with.

Right, you're right.

Well, a few things would happen. For one, most server administrators would block it, which they're already doing to threads net, which I don't agree with. But for two, it would put a lot of strain on information coming into Mastodon servers and other servers around the Fediverse because it would have a lot more data because you're looking at several billion people. Right.

Okay.

Sorry.

Michael, would you block Facebook?

Until I had a reason to do so.

Okay, so no, until you had a reason to do so.

Right, right. But Facebook is such a different thing because Facebook is so algorithmic. I mean, Instagram and threads are as well. But the way Facebook works is so different. There's no such thing as like a page on Mastodon or things like that. It's just all accounts, which is why Instagram does so well as threads. But it's kind of interesting because Instagram has more users. I thought I heard like 1 billion users or something crazy like that because within the first week they had over 100 million users on threads. That's a lot of people. That's like one third the size of Twitter in a week. So it's kind of why so many people do not want threads on Mastodon or be able to see threads on Mastodon because all of that traffic would come into servers. Like it would be like you could get real hateful negative posts in that or in Mastodon. Mastodon has always been well known as you follow certain rules in the Fediverse, well, you would have people promoting you'd have businesses, you'd have all these things. Here in Austin, it's kind of interesting. We have a highway and I'll get to the point in just a second here we have a highway where only regular traffic can drive on that highway. So cars, vans, SUVs, minivans pickup trucks, no, 18 wheelers because they don't want to add more congestion on that highway that's inside of town. So they either have to take the other interstate coming into town or they have to find another route around town instead of going down that highway. Mastodon is kind of like that. Mastodon is they want the individuals, they want the small businesses. That's kind of how Mastodon was built so it wouldn't be algorithmic and go too close to capitalism and ad based promotions. But that's also its downfall too. Right? So if Facebook, Federated and Decentralized, I think that most of Mastodon and the Fediverse would really have some things to say and it would not be a positive experience. I personally would like it because man, if I could just be Mike Doey's at Techopolis social everywhere and anywhere, that'd be awesome. I'd be so happy.

Yeah, instead of having to check so many different know Facebook and well, X.

We know, I mean, even going back to the topic, Blue Sky, they have At Protocol, which is different from Activity Pub. But you want to know what's interesting? That a lot of Blue Sky and others need to recognize. At Protocol is not part of the W three C standards activity Pub is. So that's something to think about too. The W three C adopted activity pub, which is what Mastodon is built off of. We have Peertube, which is the YouTube equivalent. We have pixel fed, which is the instagram equivalent. We have even Bookworm which is the goodreads alternative. All in the fediverse.

Wow.

I have a bookworm account over at Bookbookworm Tech. So yeah, it's just interesting. If you have an invite, check out Blue Sky. There is accessibility issues. There is an iOS app alternative called Graysky. It's in Test Flight right now and it's an accessible version of Blue Sky. And interestingly, there's also a kind of a server that you can add to the Mona app called SkyBridge. What is it? What's? The URL. SkyBridge Fly dev and it lets you add your Blue Sky account to Mona. It's really neat. It's a very interesting system. I've followed 63 people. I have seven followers over there currently at the time of recording. It's very interesting. And you only have a 300 character limit, which is less than the Mastodon 500. So it's pretty interesting. Do you guys have any final comments before we move on to the last topic for today? No all right.

I don't think so.

Cool. Okay, so I want to talk about the thing that Michael Babcock made me.

It's probably your pick for the week.

I don't know. It might be. It very well might. And to be honest, I haven't picked a pick so far.

Me either.

We'll see what happens. I might flip a coin if I come up with something else in my head. Pick something random. Kind of leave some suspense for the end. All right, so the thing that Michael B. Got me to buy is a replacement to the backbone of our radio stations infrastructure. Now, when I say that, don't worry, Iacast Radio will stay around. It's not going anywhere. Just relax, it's all good. But we will be replacing the radio station in a week or so. And we might even do it sooner and you just won't even know. But with this new system, it'll be a little more expensive. But we'll be able to put our schedule of events on a web page, which is so cool. So if you ever want to know our schedule, you'll be able to go to the Iacast.net web page and look at it. Imagine that. So we'll have that we may have a better echo skill. We will have all new ways to listen to the radio station and things like that might be a little clearer. And it's very exciting. It's very exciting. It'll be easier for us to upload media because right now we're kind of behind on the radio station. And that's my fault. I just haven't been thinking to upload files because it's quite the process to do that. Now we just upload them, or when we do post production, they'll get uploaded to the radio station. That is so amazing. It's like set it and forget it. But even more, we have DJs so people could come in and even do shows and talk about the podcast that they're on before they even play the podcast, which I think is totally cool. And we can do news talk. They even have a partnership with Podcast Co, which we don't use. But it's kind of neat because you can take your News Talk and upload it to there or mix Cloud or other places. And they have integrations with Zapier and all kinds of stuff. So this service is called Radio co we were using live 365. And this is really nice. I'm pretty excited about it, so be on the lookout for that and some other cool things coming to Iacast Radio. Really super excited. I need to finish editing a podcast today and posting it. And that's going to be the I got he told me about this this morning. I said, oh, I've got to go look at this. Because we've been quite limited on how we can schedule content and do things on the radio and this fixes that. So it's very and hey, even even our blind users who use screen readers like Taylor can even do things with it. So that's really exciting, right, Taylor?

Yeah, because the last one, it was a very arduous process. And in fact, during this episode, I was doing some more accessibility research on the platform because I couldn't wait till after the episode. That's how excited I am, folks.

So that's fantastic. Well, I think that's going to be all of our topics for today and we will be back next week. But before we go, as we always do, Alicia, do you have a pick for this week and more? Can people find you online?

I do have a pick for this week, and it is the Soundcore Motion Plus Bluetooth speaker. I purchased it last week and I have been playing around with it this week, and man, is it a great value for money. Great sound speaker. It's advertised to be hi fi. I don't know how true that is. I can't tell you how true that is. But it's also waterproof and submergeable. I love it for good peace of mind. It's a great shower speaker, it's a great party speaker. It fills a room. It's amazing. $100. That's cheap for a premium Bluetooth speaker like that.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that's my pick of the week. How about you, Taylor?

Well, how can people find you online?

Oh, yeah, that's right. How can people find me online? All right, blind one lives at Macedon.

Social no, sorry, you updated.

Yeah, that's right. Blind one lives at Tecopoulos Social on Macedon. Blind one lives on discord. Blind one lives on pretty much everything LinkedIn at Alicia Geary. Facebook at Alicia Geary, and I don't know if I'm missing anything. Oh, mycopywriter.com.

Fantastic. And now, Taylor, do you have a pick for this weekend?

Man, I knew you were going to ask that question. So, you know to I don't really have anything else. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to go with the Radio Co pick. The reason we're gonna do that is because it is so accessible, it is easy for me to use, and I just could not wait to play with it more after this episode. Hence why I was trying to sneak in some research. So I am super excited to be on it, and I'm even trying to find a broadcasting solution for Windows. So if anybody has any ideas, please email us at our feedback address, feedback at iaccessibility [email protected].

Iacast net.

That just shows how much I know, folks.

Or hashtag iacast on.

Where can people find me? Well, you can find me everywhere. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel. So that's Taylor art. You can find me on mastodon at Cayarndt at Techopolis. T-E-C-H-O-P-O-L-I-S social. And I am also on Facebook, and I'm still on X, but who knows how long that will be. And I'm just everywhere. And also, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. I'm trying to get to 3000 watch hours, folks.

Thanks.

Wow.

Yes.

Subscribe to Taylor's YouTube. You'll get some great content, I promise. Everybody's waiting for my pick because I said it would be random, it could have been radio, co it could be something else and it's something. So my pick for this week is a new TV show. Well, not a new TV show, a new season of a TV show. And that is Loki season two.

I didn't even know yet.

Yes, episode one has come out.

I got to go watch it.

I'm a huge Marvel Comics fan. And season two, episode one was fantastic. Oh, man, it was last. The first season was amazing. And this one's already started out to be incredible. So just the first episode was like, whoa. It was a ride. It was a wild ride. So Loki season two was fantastic. The first episode was really good and there's even an in credits scene, so make sure you stay for that. As for where people can find me online, I am Mike DOE's at Techopolis, Social and Mastodon. I'm Michael Doeies on Facebook. You can email me at mikedoeys. That's [email protected]. And you can find me all over the web. Just do a search if you want to find the podcast. Like Taylor said, [email protected]. And we're all over the web as well. Our website is iacast Net and you can find us there if you ever want to listen to the radio station. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, iacast Net listen, we'll get you there. And in the I Accessibility app, which is getting an update pretty soon.

Teasers. Teasers.

Yes, we're all teasers.

If you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to us on your podcaster. Podcaster. Podcaster. That's the word I was looking for. And make sure to write us a review on your podcaster if it supports it. Podcaster. I did it again.

Yes, you did.

And if you really like content enough, share it with a yep. Yeah.

And subscribe to our YouTube while you're at Yep.

Yeah, that too. If you're not subscribed. Subscribe.

Yep. Subscribe to us on YouTube. Like our videos, we appreciate it. It helps discoverability. And we're always going to be back next week with new episodes, so stay tuned. And also, just a reminder, subscribe to the Iacast network feed. We have all of our podcasts on the network on that feed, so check that out and be prepared for possibly more than one piece of content a day. So that is something to look forward to. If you really like our content, where.

Can they find it?

Michael, just like you said in your favorite podcast app of choice.

All right, then.

Yep. So with all of that being said, this has been a very long outro. Thank you, everyone, for being here and we will see you on the next IA cast. Bye, everyone.

Bye.

Thank you for tuning in to the IA cast. We hope you enjoyed the show and found the conversation to be insightful and informative. If you have any feedback or comments, we'd love to hear from you. Please send us an email at [email protected]. You can also follow us on Twitter at iacast network to stay informed about new episodes and other updates. Don't forget to check out more great podcasts on the Iacast Network iacast Net. Thanks for listening and we'll see you again soon.