Today’s episode begins by discussing electric vehicles. Marlo mentions the potential dangers of e-vehicles in accidents, including fires, and the need for better training and equipment for emergency responders to deal with such incidents. They also address the problem that electric scooters and bicycles often catch fire in urban areas and that firefighters need different protocols for these types of incidents.

The issue of electronic devices, such as cell phones and golf carts, catching fire due to faulty chargers is also mentioned. They advise that people should be careful when purchasing chargers, especially when buying from convenience stores, and to go for brand-specific chargers rather than the cheapest ones. A European standard has been passed which requires all devices to have USB-C and USB-E, which will force even American devices to adopt the standard, reducing the occurrence of fires. Marlo also mentions that the USB cubes used for charging devices are disappearing and being replaced by USB-C. They predict that by 2024, most devices will have USB-C, which will be a great thing for consumers, and advises people to get a USB-C cord now if they have the option.

Steve and Marlo also speak about Microsoft and Google are both pushing AI technology with the integration of AI into their search tools. While Microsoft is only now investing billions of dollars in AI, while Google has been doing so for years. AI technology is a fast-changing industry and its potential implications of it are unknown. While the technology is exciting, it is uncertain how companies will adapt, especially since there are still inaccuracies with AI and it is unclear how and if they will be fixed.

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Transcript:

And uh, Marlow, are you a little bit sore this morning? I, I, I have you fully recovered from, uh, the flag football game at the Pro Bowl on Saturday or Sunday? , were you, were you playing in that, uh, You were a goalpost, right?

Oh, yeah. I could , I could have, right? I mean, , I got, I got patted down once or twice. That’s it. Oh, there you go. Well, busy weekend in Las Vegas with the Pro Bowl being there. Uh, a lot of festivities going on. Uh, did you catch any of those? So I haven’t been, I’m actually done here for work, you know. Oh, it’s a boy crap existence.

You missed the flag football game. Oh, well, yeah, I know, I know. You know, I don’t even, wasn’t even well attended there. I got here yesterday. There’s nobody here. It’s just, I don’t know. I it’s really quiet right now. I, I didn’t even turn it on. I, I have no idea. I, I, if, if there were fans or anything, it was like, really flag football.

No, uh, not going there. Yeah. But, um, okay, so you’re in Vegas this week, of course. Uh, maybe doing a little filming for the new television show. Yes. But, uh, uh, you know, I gotta throw the little tech stuff in and, and of course you got a little excited when I told you I’m, I’m in the brand new Pole Star Yeah.

Volkswagen by Volkswagen. And I’m actually driving right now in the streets of Vegas talking to you from this. So the car is very quiet. I mean, it’s like an EV where it’s very quiet like most of the time. I don’t know if it’s even on . Um, I mean that is, that, that’s, that’s probably what’s weird about it.

You, you’re, you know, you stop. I don’t even know if I have it turned off when I park it in a parking garage. It’s just kind of weird in that regard. You walk away and go, did I shut my car off? I don’t remember. I, I don’t know. That’s exactly right. You know, I just came up with a great idea for a, for a franchise of radio stations.

Okay. Plays nothing but car.

So, you know, brilliant for sure when you’ve turned off your car, right? Well, yeah. Cause the radio goes off so you’re like, well my, my car must be off cuz I turned the radio off. , it’s brilliant. Tell you b but it’s a great car. It’s uh, it’s very responsive. I, I have a, I’m having a hard time adjusting to when I take my foot off the gas, it tends to, it slows down very, very fast.

Like I’m putting the brake on. I don’t even, I haven’t even touched a brake in the last 10 minutes. Well, that’s the thing with EVs and I find that out, uh, when I was, you know, I drive the lig nine energy council’s Tesla, every now and then for some things. And, and you, it’s kinda like old school when you, uh, downshift instead of hitting the brakes to let the transmission slow the vehicle down.

Yes, yes. That’s what it’s like all the time with an electric vehicle. Right. That’s exactly right. So if you’re not careful, you’ll give yourself quick whiplash, I think, because it’s just, it really does come to a stop pretty fast. Um, but, you know, I guess, you know, the thing that you were talking about before we came on here about, you know, more and more ev cause issues, don’t they?

I mean, it, it’s not just about the electrical grid and all that good stuff. Um, it really is about like, when they’re in an accident, they explode. Sometimes, you know, there’s fires. These are really challenging things for our first responders. Flooding. Flooding. So, like with Hurricane Ian, uh, it was talking with some firefighters down in Fort Myers and they’re like, yep, that house burned down and that house burned down and that house burned down because they had electric vehicles in the garage.

Saltwater and electric vehicle batteries do not mix. And they burn hot. Yes, they burn very hot. Actually, I was just watching. I don’t even get close to them. I was just watching a story, uh, this morning on national news about, uh, firefighters saying that they need more training, they need a more, uh, a different set of equipment.

Uh, they need a bunch of, um, influx in the training and finances and things like that that go along with this new electric, uh, trend we’re going into because they’re seeing a bunch of different fires. Great example locally. So like people will bring in their little electric scooter or little electric motorbike or electric bicycle and store them in their apartment in urban areas, and then they catch fire.

right? It different set of protocols for firefighters and first responders, um, locally that, uh, anybody is curious how, uh, Dvorak Motors had their little fire, uh, that was it. They were charging, uh, an electric golf cart, uh, that was a little scooter cart, uh, or a little motorcycle, uh, uh, golf cart and charging the battery that, that, that it blew up, you know, a lot of times with those too.

And, and not to cause alarm to people, but, but, uh, this happens with handheld, you know, your handheld devices too. They get warm, they, they blow up or whatever, and a lot of the fault is with the chargers that we use nowadays. So, and, and I’m not trying to sell people on buying an Apple charger, although I think Apple, they.

pretty much the corner, you know, on, on that. But if you own an Android, for example, you can buy these aftermarket chargers and they’re not the specs a lot of times, so they cause issues with the batteries, um, you know, in those phones too. So, uh, you have to be really careful that when you’re buying chargers, like if you lose yours and you’re in a convenience store and you’re like, oh yeah, I need a cable from my phone, or I need a new charger, you better make sure that they’re actually, it’s the charger you need for your phone because it can cause a lot of problems and don’t go with the cheapest one.

What happens like with golf carts and, and, uh, these scooters and everything else? I mean, it really is a problem. Yeah, that $3 cord, it could be very expensive. Go with the $19 cord, the, the one that goes with that device. Uh, you know, even from brand to brand. Um, I found this out once upon a time because I had switched phone brands on my cell phone and I figured, well, it’s the same connector, so a different phone brand, um, didn’t quite charge correctly for the new phone brand.

So even going from brand to brand, even though it was a certified charger for a cell phone, that always doesn’t make the difference either. You should go with the brand specific charger. Now this will get better as we move forward. By the way, so, uh, you know, we talk a lot about the European standards, uh, with other things, but there was a thing that was passed in Europe not too long ago about.

All devices have to have U S D C and E. Even Apple has to do this, and the reason is just because of kind of this issue.  and the fact that it’s really, really difficult, you know, to find the right court all the time. So what’s gonna happen is it’s, it’s gonna force even the phones that we have in this country to go to that standard.

And when that happens, you’ll probably have less and less. Of this scenario with fire and things, so that’ll be a good thing. Well, I, I just on my cell phone, my, my Samsung went to, uh, u s BBC a long time ago now. When I bought this phone, I had the option of not having a u s BBC if I had a different brand phone.

And I knew that was coming, so I actually intentionally went that way. But Apple was the worst. Apple was, uh, every new phone they came out with had a different charging configuration. Right. Uh, that drove people nuts from a consumer’s perspective, that was just not doable at some point. Yep, yep. And I think, you know, when, when I say US bbc, it’s actually, you know, like your phone now, um, you can probably plug it into like a U S B B to u s bbc, so you have that a little adapter that goes on.

That’s what’s going byebye. So, you know, even, even the charging devices themselves will have a u s BBC plugin. So it’s U s, BBC two u s, bbc. And when you have that, Then you can be pretty assured that you’re gonna get the charging experience that you need and that you don’t have to worry as much about fire.

Well, and that’s one of the things I’ve noticed too, is cuz everybody used to, oh, well, hand me a cube and grab a cube and plug in the USB into that to charge your device. Um, they’re kind of going away from that. The, the u sb cubes are, are starting to disappear where they’re actually the plugin to the u s BBC or whatever configuration they’re getting rid of the cubes.

Yes, yes. And I, I have a couple of those that, that actually have u s BBC on them. So if you have a C to C cord, that works pretty good too. Well, now I know where to go if I need to get one. There you go. Marlo, can I borrow borrow A U S B C cube? But how’s that gonna work when, uh, you start looking at, uh, multiple devices?

Because part of the, the rationale be between behind the, uh, usb, the regular USB plugin for cubes and other things was, you know, the integration between devices for computers, tablets, laptops, uh, phones, uh, it was kind of that universal lacrosse. I, I’m, I’m yet to see a u s BBC on a laptop, but they are out there and that will be universal as well.

So all of, all of our devices moving forward, uh, I’m guessing by 2024, uh, I’d say almost everything will have u s, bbc, it’ll be standardized, which is gonna be a great thing. So for com, for a consumer, say somebody that buys a phone every four years, if you have that option of getting that C now, do it now.

Yeah. So, you know, and, and the, the one argument that I make about this, and I, I think, I think the standardization is great. Cause, I mean, my, my cord drawer, and I’m sure you have one too, . Oh my goodness, it’s insane. Wait, wait, Marla, Marlo, that would be drawers, plural.  one in my office, one upstairs say that I have a closet downstairs.

That’s all it’s got is cords in it. I didn’t wanna go there, but thank you for, for reminding me of that. I was talking about me. Everybody’s got a, a junk drawer now we have a junk drawer of just cords. Then we have our regular junk drawer, and then I’ve got a, a cord drawer down because you can’t throw away cords.

You never know when you might need one. Uh, I’ve got a cord drawer down in my office. Uh, I’ve got one in the garage. I got a cord for everything. Everything right. So, so I like this. The only thing I don’t like about it is I, I’m afraid it’s gonna, um, slow down innovation in this space. , but you know, U SBC is fast and it charges very, very quickly.

I mean, when I, when I’m u s BBC to USBC on my Samsung 22, uh, I just did it this morning. I plugged into U USB first five and a half hours charge time is what I showed up on. I plugged it and then like, I don’t have five and a half hours of charges things. I drug my block out and plugged it in 42 minutes.

Yeah. So the significant difference, yeah, my, uh, my actually corded plugin charger that just has the u s BBC on the one end and then the plugin on the other that goes into the wall, uh, way faster. Way faster. Uh, the hard thing to find is the getting that configuration into your vehicle because I actually, uh, one vehicle I have to carry the, the charger and I’ve got a one of the little, uh, conversion, um, so you Oh yeah.

Plug it in. So, yeah, because. It won’t keep my phone charged. I can plug my phone in because, uh, the amperage on the cigarette lighter adapt. It’s just not high enough on an older vehicle. Yep, yep. Yeah. Interesting. Which, which is really interesting when you think about how much power your phone is using compared to that, what equates to a trickle charger coming from that, uh, cigarette lighter in that older vehicle, how much power your phone actually is using just to maintain.

And that’s not talk time or anything else, it’s just, it’s slowly losing power while it’s just plugged in as I’m driving down the road. Yeah, because I mean, your, your, your, uh, your device is being used to power your navigation and everything else. Yeah. Your car probably. So that’s wise. Um, I do wanna get into this, uh, AI stuff that’s going on Oh, yeah.

Chad GT’s been all over the place. Uh, there has been AI stories coming out of our ears over the last week. Yeah. And that, and, and really the last 24 hours, it’s just been going insane. So, And you’ve got bigger ears. So even more with you. What’s that? And you’ve got bigger ears.

So even more with you. I have That’s true . That’s true . So, so mi Microsoft, I think as we’re speaking, it’s having, uh, a big press conference. At least it was scheduled, uh, about the integration of AI into the Bing search tool or the Bing browser, right? Not to be outdone by this, uh, yesterday, late in the day, Google comes out and says they have their own AI that they were gonna be integrating as well called Bard, b a r d.

So Microsoft has been pumping billions of dollars in the chat. G P. . Um, and then now Google, which they’ve been, they’ve had artificial intelligence for three or four years already. Maybe even longer than that, but through developers, they could be, they could tap into it, but I suppose chat, G p t fast forward them a little bit to, to their announcement.

And they did this right in front of, of, uh, Microsoft’s that’s going on supposedly right now. The challenge is Microsoft, I dunno if you know this, but, uh, outlook went down yesterday, I saw that day, yesterday saw, so there’s been people for about 18 hours now that haven’t had email service and they are, uh, scrambling to try to get this fixed.

So that’s really interesting too. So I’m not sure if they’re gonna fix that first before they make the announcement on Bing, or if they’re just gonna do it at the same time. I don’t know. But anyway, see, I heard out, like went down because of a Chinese, uh, weather balloon. , any validity to that story?

Just a rumor. I may have just started it, but it’s a rumor. Next week when I get back, we’re gonna be talking a lot about that balloon, by the way, I have so many stories about that. Really? So, oh my goodness. Yeah. Anyway, uh, um, but next Tuesday’s, not national balloon day is it by any chance? Oh, go ahead. Next Tuesday’s.

Not national balloon day, by any chance. Is it ? It isn’t, but maybe it should be. Maybe it should be all right. Uh, yeah. But anyway, um, you know, so Microsoft of course is betting the farm basically on, on Bing here, and the fact that they’re integrating artificial intelligence into that search. Now, I don’t.

All of what that means. If you’re able, if, if it’s gonna be very similar to chat G p t, where, where, uh, you can just ask it questions and it’ll just give you an answer without going to a website. And if that’s the case, which I anticipated is everything that all of us have been doing for the past 25 or 30 years as far as search engine optimization and getting yourself to the top of those lists or whatever is gonna be obsolete, kick us to the curb.

Isn’t that something? Wow. And, and, uh, um, you know, this is gonna be a fast change with that.  and, uh, even myself still scratching my head about how I’m going to adapt to this. I’m excited about the technology. I just don’t know what it’s gonna do to some of the companies that I’m involved with. So it’s interesting to, to try to figure this out.

So my question is, from a technology perspective is have they fixed the, some of the in inaccuracies, if, if you ask ch uh, AI a question, you’re gonna get an answer, but it’s not always the right answer. So there’s a lot of filtration in that. I asked Chad g p t to gimme the top 10 musical influencers from North Dakota yesterday.

It gave me Allen Fitzgerald . So no, they haven’t pitched it yet. I asked for last night’s Powerball numbers. I got nothing. It’s uh. It didn’t work for me either.