Jetpacks Are Overrated

We're wrapping up the show to consolidate the Byteside podcast network into our core show, Byteside!Search 'Byteside' in your podcast app or hit the relevant link below to add it to your app of choice:Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/itunes/1482077503Overcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/overcast-podcast-player/id888422857Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1482077503Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzA0NzA5ZTVkLWU0ZTQtNDk0Ny1hYmNmLTYyZDM3MmIyZTFiNgSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/43tUBmO4DknkGbd4Hw9dlbRSS: https://rss.acast.com/bytesideAnd get loads more written content at byteside.com.Thanks so much for tuning into the show – we've got a lot more in store, but all distilled into the one true podcast feed... Byteside. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When you hear the name Blackberry, most people will think back to its dominance of the early era of smartphone tech before touchscreens arrived and changed the game. But the company transformed itself over the past decade and one of the areas it is now leading in is embedded computing systems for vehicles.Sarah Tatsis is Senior Vice President of the Advanced Technology Development Labs at Blackberry and is constantly thinking about what's coming next in embedded systems so this week we've had the chance to catch up with Sarah to discuss what BlackBerry is up to in this area and what the promises are for the future of technology and particularly data out there on the road. We chat about how vehicle data can be put to better use, how in-car information systems will improve, and of course how to protect this data while making it more useful. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

There's a big difference between a product marketed 'for gamers' and a product that has genuinely been designed for gaming, so this week I'm talking to two key team members on a recent product launch to get a solid insight on which column the new Optus Gamer Plans really sit in. No surprise, if they're willing to come on the show, they're feeling confident they've designed something that is the real deal and, once you hear the story I think you'll get a good feeling about it too, especially once you factor in tools like Game Path. But let's not jump ahead!I'm talking to Steven Manichanh, Senior Product Development Manager and Clive Dickens, VP of Product Development. Clive joins us part way through the conversation, so I kick things off asking Steven to hit that important question and help alleviate the gamer scepticism head on. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This episode is sponsored by IBM, and I'm speaking with Wesley Allen, Business Leader for IBM Cloud Platform in ANZ.We're specifically digging into the discussion of hybrid cloud and the role it has to play in the enterprise. Over the past year in my wider work I've spoken to a lot of IT leaders about digital transformation and it's clear that people are seeing that there is a lot more to life than either full on-premises or a full lift and shift to the cloud, so it's important to get a grip on the nuance in how use a hybrid design to solve problems in a way that suits your specific needs. We talk about scenarios, risks, misunderstandings, and key questions to ask when designing the right solution. Wesley brings a lot of insight and experience to the discussion so it was great to get his time for the show. Let's dive in. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We speak to Diya Jolly, Chief Product Officer at Okta, about the growing importance of getting 'digital identity' right in the decade ahead and the lessons learned on this front over the past year. We spoke during the Oktane21 event where Okta announced its latest product updates, but this conversation focuses on getting the tools and standards right across the industry and how digital identity is taking on importance across society, not just within business environments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We talk to Ryan Richards, Global Product Marketing Director at Sonos, about the new Sonos Roam, the new portable speaker about to join the Sonos line up. It's aiming to compete in the most hotly contested slice of the audio scene – why do they think they can win there and how does this serve as a gateway to the wider Sonos experience?Plus we look at their Ikea partnership and their new music services to find out how the bigger picture at Sonos is going in 2021. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A big chat with founder and CEO of Kogan, Ruslan Kogan, on his company's 15th anniversary. We first met around 2 years into the growth of kogan.com and thanks to those nostalgic connections he said yes to a rare interview to look back on the journey so far. From his failed effort to launch one of the first Android phones in the world to his media battles with Gerry Harvey, we explore some of the company's big moves and the business lessons he's learned on the road from upstart to IPO and beyond. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I've always had a soft spot for Steel Series. Back in my early freelance days I did a massive round up of gaming headsets for Atomic magazine – shout out to the old school Atomicans out there – and I was blown away by the quality of what Steel Series served up with its original Siberia v1. A wide soundstage, a comfortable design, and crisp, clear game audio so you could hear what felt most important in the heat of the moment.I actually still have that headset in the house and it's used regularly by my kids. Unlike many other headsets over the years, the materials have hardly aged a day. No crumbly ear pads. They just keep doing what they do.So yeah, always a soft spot for Steel Series. And now, over the past few months, I've been using the spiritual successor of the Siberia line, the Arctis 9 wireless headset. With wireless we've clearly stepped forward into the modern era – and I'm a noted wireless headset skeptic, for those who've listened in the past. But the Arctis 9 wireless has truly won me over.The fundamental victory here is seamless dual-channel wireless over 2.4GHz wireless to a USB dongle and Bluetooth at the same time. 100% life changing for me at my desk.I work on an iMac for all of my daily grind work across my publishing and podcast work routines, and at the same desk I have my Windows PC setup for gaming. I love my setup. I love being surrounded by screens. But it's always been a pain to switch back and forth between headsets for different tasks. Even trying to leave the iMac mostly on internal speaker mode and the PC on headset leads to feeling split between worlds. What's 'inside' my head right now vs 'outside'? It's far from ideal.The Arctis 9 wireless has made this feel truly seamless. The battery life claims 20 hours and for the most part I've found that I've needed to charge roughly every other evening, which seems about right given I generally work long hours.On first setup I found the headset would keep shutting itself down from one connection or the other all too quickly, which seemed like a power saving function that was more annoying that useful. But once I dug into the Steel Series Engine software controls I found I could adjust the inactivity shutdown timer and also set Bluetooth to auto-startup so that it always connected to the iMac anytime they're switched on.The settings also allowed me to set the surround sound and stereo profiles – whether for gaming, or to mimic a large or small room environment, or for using the DTS 7.1 surround sound profile – and bass and dialogue enhancements were also here. I'm never sure about those surround sound emulation setups but I've found the sound stage of these headphones to be really nice for gaming and general use, while I do find the EPOS headsets I've reviewed recently and headphones like the AirPods Max are superior for serious music listening.I love switching bass enhancement down to ZERO because too many gaming headsets get carried away on that front, while having dialogue enhancement has felt nice, especially for clarity of speech when playing online with friends.The settings also included equaliser presets – flat, bass boost, reference and a smiley option that basically boosts the top and bottom end because hey, why not paint a smiley across your equaliser for kicks.I mentioned earlier that I work long hours and I've found this to be a seriously comfortable headset. The soft elasticated headband system keeps the weight feeling just right and the ear cups sit lightly on the ears. They are not trying to do serious sound isolation and that's just the way I like them.Though I largely work with a desk mounted Rode mic for a lot of my needs, I've found the retractable mic has done a perfectly fine job when gaming with friends and the odd video conference where I haven't switched on my podcast desk. A physical toggle button and red light makes it clear... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We speak to two of the co-founders of BuildBee, Matt and Leanne Connolly, about their company and its place in the 3D printing ecosystem as they prepare to push BuildBee software out across the globe. BuildBee has worked on solving problems of IP protection to make it easier for a company to sell a single print of a 3D item, as well as ensuring a 3D printer delivers the best print possible. The future of supply chains get a lot more interesting – especially in a pandemic – when we take out the shipping and move to local production. It all points to the importance of companies like BuildBee in our future, so it's great to talk to this Wollongong, NSW, team about their place in it all. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week Google announced it would end its unlimited free photo storage service. There’s obvious reasons for doing so, and Google argued the case in its blog post announcing the decision.It’s annoying and will force a big shift in our relationship with photo storage and backups of all kinds. Many will maybe panic at the idea that the future of where they put their photos is uncertain. If you have to pay, should you reconsider where you store them? What is in there now will be given the ‘doesn’t count’ treatment so you don’t have to move them… but do you really want a split library of the history of your life?So many cultural issues attached to reorganising our digital archives in this context. But the biggest question should probably look closely at what Google did to the photo storage industry when it offered free photo storage in the first place.If Woolworths started offering free milk there would be uproar over anti-competitive behaviour, because the local corner store can’t afford to wear a loss like that. It has caused its own problems that the big supermarkets have offered very cheap milk – but free? The consumer watchdog would step in.Yet, like in so many other contexts, the digital world always accepts the idea that offering genuinely valuable utility services for free is OK for the big guys to do. If some other company wanted to try to innovate in that space, well they’d better be able to convince people why it’s worth paying for the service – because it’s OK that other companies offer that same base function for free.I used to use Smugmug and Flickr, and those companies had their key features and options that they tried to make their attractive proposition for 'Pro’ customers to pay a monthly fee. But with Google, we all had the account, and it was so easy to just say “Yes” and watch it all vacuumed into one place without a major fuss.Today I pay Apple for my photo storage alongside still having a second home for backups at Google Photos. But I’m sure many Android users have made this their home.If five years ago someone had said “free storage until we decide we’ve killed enough competition and we’ve copied enough of their features that you will find it easiest to just pay us instead of try to move it all somewhere else” would as many people have said yes? Maybe. We’ll never know.Control the storage, control the customer in so many ways. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We've got a special double episode of Byteside to share over the next two days. In the last show, Seamus Byrne and Alice Clarke looked at the Xbox Series X (and Series S), with both having review units over recent weeks. This time it's the PlayStation 5's turn! What's the future of PlayStation look like? How is the new DualSense controller? And we wrap things up by looking at the 'Xbox vs PlayStation' question and how the console market looks for the new generation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We've got a special double episode of Byteside to share over the next two days. Seamus Byrne and Alice Clarke discuss and debate the merits of the new Xbox Series X, with both having review units over recent weeks. What does the future of Xbox look like? And what about the new controllers? Should you be running out the door to knock people over to find one? Or is it OK to wait? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Seamus interviews Michela Ledwidge, a virtual production director who has just helped Harry Shearer launch an album of satirical songs with Shearer shifting from his famous roles of The Simpsons and Spinal Tap into the tweeter-in-chief, Donald Trump.If it isn't freaky enough to watch these videos and see just how uncanny the deep fakery can be, especially when you have a voice artist like Harry behind the performance, the whole thing was produced across the great Pacific divide during coronavirus lockdowns.We talk about where it started, how it was produced between two Australian production companies (Michela's Mod studio and another Australian team, Electric Lens Company), how you manage directing a motion captured performance like this remotely, and what it means for the technology to be capable of pulling something like this off today.It's a fun and insightful conversation on the future of all kinds of digital production opportunities in a field where Mod has become a world leader in how to push the boundaries of what's possible.You can find the videos at Harry Shearer's YouTube channel and the full album, The Many Moods of Donald Trump, is on Spotify or wherever you get your new music.https://www.youtube.com/c/HarryShearerYT4U/videos See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We catch up with Andres Jessen and Maya Sand-Grimnitz from Epos Audio, the new gaming headset brand has formed as an offshoot of the former Sennheiser Gaming sub-brand. We talk about building a new brand in a competitive space like gaming headsets, building the right reputation and partnerships, and what tech factors they believe set them apart. Plus why calling your mother is a great way to test your new headset. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From the aggressive subscription pricing for Xbox All Access to the buyout of ZeniMax Studios, it all fits the mission of getting every fan of Xbox to commit to a monthly Game Pass. That's what Microsoft has become – deliver value and depth that makes customers keep giving you money.In this episode Seamus walks through two recent newsletter columns that bring together his thinking on all the Xbox news and how it shows they're chasing a different strategy altogether than Sony with its PlayStation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today's episode is sponsored by IBM, with Dane Gambrill stopping by for a chat about the hardware and AI systems that support major sporting events like the US Open in 2020. With fans now watching remotely, digital interaction becomes a much bigger part of the fan experience. We dig into how Watson AI has helped create smarter highlights packages, improve the crowd effects and make better digital assistants to give us better and easier access to the event online. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Australian news media bargaining code is trying to solve the wrong problem. It's a Band-aid on an ulcer. We need digital advertising regulations to hold the mega ad platforms accountable for the scams they treat as customers, and to not use the excuse that they're too big to avoid being held responsible. Scale drove down ad values. The lack of regulation allows cheats, scams and liars to flourish. And fixing both would give the premium, trusted media industry a fighting chance at a real future instead of offering table scraps. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We speak to Brian Swift, Head of Product at SafetyCulture, an Australian unicorn startup that is using everything from the simplest print out checklists to internet of things sensors to help people run better safety procedures and risk management in their businesses. It's niche, but it's genuinely helping to enable better, yep, safety culture in the businesses they support.We dig into how they decided on which problems to solve and how their technology is a great demonstration of what the promise of the internet of things can really do. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We've talked virtual and augmented reality a few times over recent times. I guess it's on my list of things that are not all that overrated, but perhaps misunderstood. So today we're talking to a VR practitioner about how they're working in augmented reality and putting it in the real world with some help from smartphones and even 5G tech.Simone Clow is the CEO of Virtual Immersive, a company that produces a lot of commercial VR and AR content for companies to create cool experiences on phones or in stores and at special events.Simone came to the immersive tech industry from a long career in visual effects production for film and TV, and co-founded Virtual Immersive in 2017. She's got lots of interesting thoughts on where we're at now and where things might go next and the potential for 5G at offloading a lot of the heavy lifting to make our VR and AR gear more comfortable to use. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Just as Seamus was getting serious about an exit strategy, activists started hitting Facebook where it really hurts. Is it better to leave? Or to engage in the protest from within? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Seamus looks at the big news from the WWDC 2020 keynote, analysing his top new feature picks and exploring the potential of some new ideas. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is a great wireless headset for gaming and at a great price point for the quality on offer. But Seamus can't help wonder if every wireless solution is really solving the cable problem if it's introducing a separate charging problem along the way. And somehow he makes it about brushing his teeth too? Anyway, just listen, you'll get it by the end... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

There’s a lot more tech inside this unit than any Sonos speaker ever before, and it has upgraded styling in both black and white that fits with the modern era of their speaker range. Everything about it feels ready for the next era in living room entertainment and even without the Atmos experience the Arc delivers a lot more than the Playbar as a raw audio upgrade.This is an entirely worthy successor for the Sonos Playbar, and it does raise the bar so that Sonos has a flagship home entertainment soundbar that is primed for the 4K era and beyond.If you already own a Playbar, don’t go rushing out to upgrade until your TV will help you get everything out of its latest features. But if you already have an eARC TV it’s an exciting time to step up.If you’ve never pursued audio excellence in your living room and you enjoy a lot of audio even when the TV is switched off, this is the new soundbar you’re looking for. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ellen Broad is a boardgame designer. But that’s not actually why I’m talking to her. The boardgames was something of a byproduct – her main focus is being a rather brilliant thinker on all things data and AI.In her career, Broad has worked for governments and UN bodies to help plot the future of data, digital issues and AI ethics, and she has also worked for Australia’s digital transformation and innovation body, Data61.She has worked as the head of policy for the Open Data Institute and today she is a Senior Fellow at ANU’s 3Ai Institute. You can also buy her book – Made By Humans: The AI Condition.(This episode first ran on Uplink, but is now available here as Jetpacks takes priority in the Byteside podcast network.) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This tri-band AC2200 mesh router is a perfectly workable unit with some nice features but in this review Seamus gets seriously annoyed with some very short power cables and points out why this is actually a critical flaw in a product that is all about positioning units just where you need them in the name of creating a great wifi experience. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Passwords. People hate them. But people can't live without them anymore. And they usually have to be dragged kicking and screaming toward doing something better than reusing passwords on 50 different sites... but there is a better way these days.Yubico and its Yubikey is one of those better ways, with a hardware dongle you can use to improve your authentication for many sites and in the process reduce how often passwords are required -- sometimes they aren't even required at all.So, this week I'm talking to with Alex Wilson, he's the Director of Solutions Engineering for APAC and Japan at Yubico. We caught up on Password Day - one of those excellent made up holidays, but in this case it *is* a good excuse to highlight something that I know far too many people keep pretending is OK when it really, really isn't.Be vigilant, update your f'ing passwords. And hopefully Alex Wilson can help encourage you toward a future where your whole experience with passwords gets much, much easier. The excuses are done with. Just get on with it. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today Seamus speaks with Distinguished Professor Genevieve Bell AO. She's a cultural anthropologist who spent two decades at Intel and is known as one of the most important thinkers on technology and culture. She returned to Australia in recent years to create an entirely new school of research at ANU, named 3Ai.We explore the aims of the new school, why it matters, and what the big issues are for technology in society today. And like any conversation with Professor Bell we get anecdotes from the past to help us understand that where we're going next isn't all that new... if only we can learn from the history lessons that can help pave the way...Find out more about 3Ai: https://3ainstitute.cecs.anu.edu.au/[This episode originally aired on Byteside's Uplink podcast] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I first got a taste of virtual reality back in 1992 when the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney had the Dactyl Nightmare VR game on show. I queued for about an hour, I played this blocky 3D game with terrible physics for 5 minutes and it was over.We've all wanted good VR for a long time, and we've all wanted easy VR for a long time. Having both is hard, but each new product helps us get closer and closer to that dream.HTC has been at the forefront of VR hardware since it launched the HTC Vive system back in 2016 in partnership with Valve. I've had my own setup since that year in my own home and I love it. I know we're not quite there with ease of setup, but the experience is great and I love sharing it with friends and family any chance I get.Last week I got to catch up with Thomas Dexmier, the Country Manager for HTC for Australia and New Zealand, and talk about the state of their hardware right now and where it's heading next, as well as how they see software, hardware and network platforms working together to get us to that future where VR becomes an every day activity for more than just enthusiasts like me. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

TwelveSouth, famous for stylish iPhone and Mac accessories, has released a dongle that turns any audio input/output into a Bluetooth connection for any Bluetooth device or headset. Seamus walks through the options it makes possible and the features that make this clever device a winner. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Seamus talks to Ed Pullen, Regional Marketing Director for Dataminr to discuss the company's real-time AI event and risk detection system. It's running everywhere from newsrooms to corporate security departments, helping companies find the information they didn't know they really need to know to stay ahead of the risk curve.We talk examples of the kinds of events the system can detect, how it's finding this information from structured and unstructured data sources around the world, and what it says about how we search for and manage decision making in the digital world.Dataminr sponsored this episode of Jetpacks Are Overrated. Having said that, I don't ever intend to say yes to a sponsorship if I didn't think the product was interesting and worth talking about. But a big thank you to Dataminr for supporting the show! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Seamus gets his (rather polite) rant on about 8K TV. Why you don't need it in your living room. Why it's just not viable on multiple fronts. But why this also means it's a brilliant time to buy a television! Because a 4K TV is likely to be the longest lasting television purchase you’ll make since the cathode ray era.Here's a great guide to the science of TV sizing and resolution:https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationshipAnd here's a Hollywood study showing that there was no discernible difference for our eyeballrs:https://www.techhive.com/article/3529913/8k-vs-4k-tvs-most-consumers-cannot-tell-the-difference.html See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A fascinating chat with Marc Rogers, head of cybersecurity at Okta and long-time leader of SecOps for legendary hacker conference DEFCON. We talk about the CTI League, an amazing collective of hackers helping to secure hospitals and take down bad actors aiming to use COVID-19 as a security threat. Plus a look at the future of passwords and where authentication is going next.Want to help CTI League? Here's the link to all the details: https://cti-league.com/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Information is at the front line of so many of today's battles. Fighting the good fight by tracking down the coronavirus and trying to stop it in its tracks, but also wrecking the digital town square with disinformation. There's a lot of work to do, and a lot of empathy required, to ensure we come out the other side of it all better than we were before this started. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Google. Microsoft. Apple. Zoom. All the rest of you out there doing calendars. The coronavirus crisis is the perfect time to give us our time back. Reset the defaults. 5 minutes at a time. It’s good for today, it’s great for tomorrow. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We're all discovering together what tech can and can't help with right now. Part tech. Part culture. But keep at it. We'll smooth out the troubles and we will get through this. Stay smart, be safe. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Wondering what the deal is with 5G? We visited Optus HQ in Sydney to put a lot of the big questions to Harvey Wright, the Head of 5G at Optus, to help understand what's happening right now and in the years ahead. How the roll out is going, his ambitions for fixed 5G, and when people realistically should buy 5G hardware. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I spent a week scanning 5,000 old photos with the Epson FastFoto F680W scanner. It taught me a lot about what I should try to take pictures of, and how I should take them. It was a good scanner too! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Exploring Apple's growing efforts to defend privacy, not just as a question of better securing our data, but in stopping it from being collected in the first place.It's more than rhetoric. It's not just a feature anymore. It's becoming its own service and it could make the whole web a better place for everyone - not just people who own iPhones.Check out the Maciej Ceglowski article, "The New Wilderness":https://idlewords.com/2019/06/the_new_wilderness.htmCheck out my article for the Australian Financial Review on the Sign in with Apple announcement at WWDC:https://www.afr.com/technology/technology-companies/apple-takes-a-bite-out-of-facebook-and-google-s-surveillance-duopoly-20190607-p51vk5 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Seamus talks to the Aussie developers behind two award winning apps, Streaks and ProCreate. Quentin Zervaas from Crunchy Bagel, the maker of Streaks and Outcast, and Jess Clarke & Michael Shaw from Savage Interactive, the maker of ProCreate.We talk about the value of attending a big developer event like WWDC, and how they've taken on the world from Adelaide and Hobart to become some of the most respected app developers in their respective categories.Find Crunchy Bagel's apps here:https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/crunchy-bagel/id1084571682Find Savage Interactives apps here:https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/savage-interactive-pty-ltd/id363433636Find more shows from Byteside at https://byteside.com/And catch Seamus on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/seamus See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on Jetpacks Are Overrated, a conversation about the state of passwords. From biometrics to two-factor authentication, there’s a lot of new tools in the mix that might lead some to feel like there will be a version of our future out there on the horizon where we can finally stop having to remember so many damn passwords!This episode does NOT sell you such a promise, unfortunately, but it does take a close look at where we’re at with the whole idea of being authenticated online. And the good news is that while passwords are here to stay, we’ll get asked to type them in less and less often.My chat today is with Alex Salazar, Vice President of Product Strategy at Okta, which is a company specialised in digital authentication. They help companies simplify logins by offering tools like single sign-on across a whole bunch of web services, or making it easier for companies to use their tools to improve how they let their users login, all that kind of thing. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I’ve got a short and sweet chat this week, looking at the state of AI adversaries and challenge systems in video games. Not from the perspective of ‘can this AI beat the humans’, but instead from the idea that AI could do a lot to enhance our enjoyment of game experiences if we start applying it in new ways.At a recent esports event, the Intel Extreme Masters in Katowice, Poland, I had a chance to have a quick chat with Frank Soqui (So-ki), Intel VP of Gaming, about where AI is heading to better challenge players of all skill levels. And, ultimately, how this feeds into a lot of great use cases for smarter AI systems on our home PCs. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

One device for everything. Can it be done yet? Will it ever really happen? It's such a perennial question as we continue to iterate through the smartphone era. As screen sizes and interfaces change. As the processing power falls into step with laptops. As peripheral and add-on screen options make it easier to adapt to the needs of any given environment.Samsung's recent smartphones - Galaxy S8 through the latest Note 9 - offer us the DeX system for plugging your phone into a screen, keyboard and mouse at a desk - turning the handset into a full-fledged ChromeOS style experience.Does it work? I spent a few days using it as my desktop replacement to find out.Find Seamus on Twitter: @seamusEmail us: jetpacks@byteside.comCheck out all shows from Byteside at byteside.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week I spend some quality time with a Kogan 49-inch 32:9 SuperUltraWidescreen monitor and decide whether or not one really, really big screen is better than working with two separate monitors. From work to gaming, how does this fit into making a daily life at a desk better?The monitorhttps://www.kogan.com/au/buy/kogan-49-curved-329-super-ultrawide-144hz-hdr-monitor-3840-x-1080/SizeUp by Irradiated Softwarehttp://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/AquaSnap by Nurgo Softwarehttps://www.nurgo-software.com/products/aquasnapFind Seamus on Twitterhttps://twitter.com/seamusEmail the show: jetpacks@byteside.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Seamus Byrne speaks with Chris Charla, Director of the ID@Xbox program, that helps independent game developers sell their games on Xbox One. Plus some elevator pitches from some of the indie devs we spotted at PAX Australia.Find Chris Charla on Twitter: https://twitter.com/iocatOr contact Seamus on Twitter: https://twitter.com/seamusGot any thoughts on the show you want to share? Send to jetpacks@byteside.comCheck out another show, 'The Scrapyard', about all things Blizzard games. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sometimes when we talk about shiny new technologies, we focus so much on what’s new about it, we can forget to think about whether or not it’s actually going to do anything useful or beautiful.On this show we’ll review cool new things in practical ways, we’ll talk to innovators about what truly drives their thinking, and we’ll offer advice on putting your tech to work in the best way possible.This is the tech show about stuff that really makes life better.Welcome to Jetpacks (Are Overrated). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.