Gadgetory

hey my microphone hey on Wednesday May 10th episode 225 of the 359 podcast I'm BBG and in the house for what is an alleged repeat of 4/20 we have been Cox Ruben and Alfred and good morning quit whining good morning what does it have to do a 420 okay it's like we're talking about weed today did we talk about weed on 4/20 I I mean no I'm saying I have the date 420 Oh what does 4/20 have to do if we'd come on I'm already feeling pretty tight right now shut it down everybody okay so Alfred wrote quite a few pretty impressive stories and so leaning on you will be leaning on you for the podcast today we're going to be talking about a vending machine that you includes biometric scanner so you could potentially verify age and therefore buy weed and booze like through a vending machine like a normal person like a normal person and also our second part of our series on West Point this one focused on the cyber defense exercise that's an annual competition to do like mock cyber defense wargames I guess is what you could call it also a little bit more on the echo show and a plug to Microsoft build which is going on right now as always send in your questions and comments BVG we'll get to as many as you can at the end of the show without further ado let's podcast in three two welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred aying a company called American green machine is developing a smart vending machine that could develop oh sorry that could dispense weed and beer thanks to biometric scanner that could verify someone's age it's not available to the public yet but it could be a quicker way to dispense way too expensive beer at the ballpark alfred you got a chance to check out this thing what did you think I mean I think it's pretty interesting that it can like cut people off after they've gotten too much so at a stadium if you go and buy like five beers from like one side of the stadium and then the bartender there's like you know you're not give we're not giving you any more dream look pretty wasted yes that but then you could go to the other side of the stadium where there's another barré there and then that person doesn't recognize you just buy more beers from that guy yeah but like that's the whole point of these machines whereas like it recognizes you based off who you are and you're laced on your account yeah and you're like biometrics so it doesn't have a fingerprint reader it has a vein reader where it doesn't like stab in it's like a infrared laser that scans your insides kind of like an x-ray but not as intrusive mm-hmm and it scans your veins which is oh you know more unique than your fingerprints are like identical twins like still have like different veins on the inside my mind is blown yeah so it bases it off of that so it's able to like kind of like limit you and it follows you on your on your account so like if I go to one vending machine on one side and I go to the other vending machine it know like hey dude like we cut you off after like five drinks yeah but like how soon is this going to get to the public well they're aiming to get this in dispensaries and you know stadiums and casinos within the next like two months or so they're in talk sweet they're in talks in places in like San Francisco Las Vegas and like the tri-state area and like New York Connecticut New Jersey as far as like dispensaries goes it's it's like kind of an easier way for them to like store it in there and then like people who can come like after hours like they don't really need like a guy working there and like Manning security for it and all that stuff the challenge is that they can't do with a credit card yet so it's like either cash or like debit for now because dispensaries like are a cash operation right that that's gonna be kind of frustrating and they don't they don't tell your age by like your fingerprint or anything like that though it's it's kind of like a bar where there's there's a person you have to get an account set up by a physical person so you still have to go and like show your ID first and then that person sees your ID sizi is like okay let me make an account for you and then after that you don't have to show your ID anymore you can just go and put your finger in and get the marijuana sweet what could possibly go wrong Alfred you also wrote about the cyber defense exercise at West Point it's an annual competition that requires cadets to build a server and protect it from NSA hackers what was it like being there I mean it's really cool what they're doing for like military cadets to kind of learn about cybersecurity and cyber defense because it's such an important aspect of you know warfare your future yeah pretty much I mean you look at all the hacks that happen just like the last year alone and you take a look at you know what these cadets are doing as cool as it sounds though it like was not like that like crazy like whatever you you man I was I was defense I was there with you and it was it was kind of chill while we were there but you know it tends to go up and down also wanted to mention there's a startup called nucleus which claims that it basically its idea for a touchscreen enabled intercom got ripped off by Amazon with the echo show are you buying that do you see some similarities there I mean I think I was the same shape but I don't buy that at all like to say that like oh they stole our idea to have a screen like no right right like its Alexa enabled it's got a touchscreen it's got an intercom plus Amazon is its biggest investor okay but my point my point is that like you know how like Ford is like announcing their whole like car like Alexa enabled car okay yeah imagine like if like after like a year or two years from now Amazon comes out with like their own like Alexa enabled car they're not before it's not gonna be like oh they stole our idea for a car it doesn't make any sense okay like it's a screen okay it's a it's a screen it's a car last we just wanted to mention that we are covering Microsoft build which is going on right now expect to see more Cortana scales a bunch of AR and VR stuff check that out if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNET I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Aang thanks for listening so we've got a question in the chat from Matthew doctor he says how big is the company that will be storing our biometric data will it be nationwide and how secure will they keep our information so we have a legitimate concern about this like ah I thought we're just gonna crack jokes all day now I know that that was a legitimate considering quite when it was asking about they didn't have their CTO on deck for me to like kind of probe into a little bit more but they basically said it's as secure as we can make it which I feel not right it's supposed to be nationwide it runs it basically runs on the cloud but the thing is that their Wi-Fi data entry point is that's not their own security so these are these vending machines are connected to the cloud and they have a thing in the back that you can either plug in Ethernet port into or a like a moat like a Wi-Fi card kind of thing like a Verizon or like t-mobile 18 whatever really just any kind of like mobile hotspot kind of thing that makes it connect to the cloud but the problem with that is that that's basically the onus is on the vendors in that it's like if I bought one of these vending machines and I personally put in a Wi-Fi card where all this data all your biometric data all your account information all that is going online and it's connected definitely to you because you're like vein data and all that stuff and I just don't set a password for it like that it could be a problem yeah that's on so it tell me if I'm wrong about this but if some of my information is going to get stolen I feel like I'd rather my vein data get stolen okay well it's not really not about that though the issue is that it like because it's tied to your account it's kind of like your Amazon where like it remembers all the things that you've ordered mm-hmm so I mean it doesn't have my credit card on file yes I mean it should but it's got your veins on file this is analogous how Blade Runner got start with that relic ins that's not the point though lighter you go you're right that's what I was trying to get the point isn't about like oh just because it doesn't have your credit card information you look at like a dispensary in like Nevada that had their like logs of people that like use their dispensary like leaked online hmm and then it's just like okay well this person like smokes like this much weed and then this person like bought like that's the thing there's the risk of like that data being leaked where it's basically you know Oh like been bought like 20 pounds of weed from this dispensary last have you bought weed I hope you're not watching mom I don't like I definitely I I know yeah it's it's a lot away I wouldn't really care that much if people had my vein data number one and number two if they knew how many beers I drunk drink what does he do like it's like been bought 20 pounds of alcohol tabacco think we need to rework your measurements look at the imperial system right still the only way I'm doing it so we have a few back and forth in the chat about whether this is a good idea or a bad idea just from the distribution standpoint like whether or not you agree or disagree with a drug paraphernalia is beyond this conversation this is about does this make it more secure does it make it more liable does it Italy makes it more would you be interested in hear from you if you are in fact a then this is by no means some kind of like confession do you think that you would use a system like this if you were to allegedly uh purchase these substance it makes it more reliable and BP seemed like I'm like a vendors like standpoint where basically like you buy one of these machines and it's like twenty thousand dollars which is a lot of money but like you compared to like the salary of like a like a pharmacist or like a bartender and it's only it's like five hundred dollars a month for like okay wait a minute is this an automation story I mean you put in bartenders and pharmacists out of work because I can't get on board with that well yeah I also go to any missions anything about a lot of my subs yeah yeah I put my finger in it just like a regular bartender wait Matthew dad also asks how long until the first weed then the machine is knocked over and stolen with a pickup great that's a very point great point I asked them about that and then they basically said like well wouldn't they rather steal like any team that has cash in it I'm like well it has marijuana but the other thing is they have a camera up front on it and it's always connect as a cloud so that data is like always there which is another creepy aspect of his machine because it's like wired for like facial recognition so like if it sees like a man or a woman going up to it it'll like serve up like a different ad based on like what gender it is which or age and I'm like oh that's cool that's totally normal I have very feminine features so I hope that I don't get the wrong ads we have a number of people in the chat who think like let's just stick with the old way of doing this sure and it's luck it's an idea what is the point what is it's a novelty right now what is the point of CNET if not to just tell you all the stuff that were that's minion development and some of its going to stick item if it isn't I can see this being used in like some kind of like pharmaceutical aspect not like the kind of pharmacist where you need like you know a proper amount of dosage or anything like that but like robitussin or like tylenol and things like that because like a lot of like pharmacies will cut off like if you try to buy like X amount of coughs here because you're trying to do like cough syrup things like 20 pounds of cough syrup I love dark seer things but you're not allowed to buy a certain amount or like some amount of like certain kinds of medicine so that was just called doing puffins when I was growing yeah yeah the thing is the thing is is that like I could go to like one CVS and like walk over like across town it's like take the train to a write to like Queens and then go to another one kind of thing and then lexing you know I have 20 pounds of cough syrup so things with this is that like because it knows based off like your veins like print that like it would effectively be able to block you from like all their machines yeah it's like one of them I think the most viable use case for this is in a stadium because there are tons of lines especially between innings or during like half time or something those lines get really really long it's really frustrating and annoying if you can get weed at a football game now know I'm talking about the beer part so if you could do faster dispensing with that that would just help out the folks I don't think that it's different yet Ricky Oz got a movie theater right but I don't think that it would get rid of the people behind the counter it's not like automation would all of a sudden replace them they're already like completely flooded with orders this would just speed things up a bit more and actually allowed to stadium to potentially get more more beer sold and Danny Green does point out that it'd be easy to abuse this you can just you know call over your buddy and shove your finger in here we're good to go yeah totally great I mean yes I did not think about in advance of saying it here then brought this up to me before but like I mean you can do you can literally do the same thing with like a human being where like you can ask somebody to go if you're not 21 you can ask somebody to go to the store and buy beers for you so I mean that nobody has ever done that yeah history of mankind Danny Green expands on this there's an issue to buy marijuana like that because it's a it's federally illegal to sell so again we're still waiting for the states to kind of roll out and get on board and synchronize right that's why it's like we touch base that's why it's cash-based on and if the system is access to phone lines or internet there could be a federal problem so essentially we're looking at our you know getting hunted down very good point and then any green and very always a steward very good last name for this type of conversation yeah I don't get it okay god Alfred uh Chris Wesley old buddy Chris Wesley says yes I feel like there's going to be a lot of legal hoops I'll have to jump through just to get this even going and that's very true like I think we're in Colorado that's why they're starting slow with you know like their like weed is obviously a part of it like even with their name like American green machine but like I think they're focusing on the things that they can do legally now with like right the Medicare I mean like medical marijuana that at its own or viable option create points out um yeah for now it's a novelty they also they also like told me like oh you can also buy like maybe we're also thinking about maybe putting like sex toys in there or like viagra and I'm like why would I want my why would I need my own magic scanner yeah why would I want my vein associated with that I think the only reason to hand over your biometric information for something like this would be for like age age restricted items sure so like sex toys doesn't really strike me as like why would like or viagra or something like those two examples don't really like make as much sense to me all right change in direction a little bit before we get out of here today beefy tech is asking for a shout out shout out the beefy tech shout out to beefy - they're just handing out shoutouts like yeah of course I call the shots here okay okay that's two beefy tech so we were talking about what was the name of the Seco competitor again nucleus the nucleus so beefy tech wants to know what do we think of this new echo design that the nucleus is competing with specifically the what we are reaction to this Amazon I would say I will say that Amazon totally could have gone with a different shape but because it does look exactly like the nucleus oh really now that we're not doing the formal podcast no I'm saying I'm saying that they copied them say like they're arguing like oh they copied us because they put a screen on I'm like there's different arguments to be had here we're like maybe come up with a different form factor for your screen we all ripped it off from the Jetsons yeah yeah I guess but I I think the the most problematic part about this is that and I mentioned this in my story Amazon has been a partner with nucleus Amazon is an investor Amazon engineers works with nucleus to develop the nucleus and then they created what the nucleus people would argue is essentially a copycat how can they copy something that they helped to develop I mean that's and there one day I'm not even going to answer that why are we already having a conversation about copy at this Amazon thing just became aware yesterday we just became aware of it you know it's like saying like well for copy Chevy or vice versa however the hell that word look I it's it's very hard to say exactly going to be other edited fake a turn phone magnified video phone manufacturing that's called competition yes that's the basis of capitalism like that's gas I don't know I mean I think this is a serious like step back it's it's like a 30-person startup that has to now go up against Amazon and Amazon may have like just completely squashed their business so you know to a certain level I empathize with you know this is the small business people that run nucleus that thought that they had a good partner with Amazon and now they're they're pretty jaded and annoyed that they feel like their ideas got stolen going back to the initial question as far as what do I think of the form factor of the am is it the echo show I don't think it looks nearly as like as it should I mean like why is it such a big chunky item I almost feel like maybe they should have been able to like have you put it on the wall so it doesn't take up you when you bring up like the Jetsons I think of it it's like a very like retro futuristic thing it looks like something like I traveled back into like 1950 and then like I want to like World's Fairs like this is what will be in the future like videos looks really stupid now like it you have a phone is it does the same thing as your phone and like it is basically a house smartphone like imagine if you had your phone just stuck it right dock at home at all times that your new landline it's say me yeah and it's such a step backwards I have a land like we can make calls on it now you know what else you can make calls on your phone it makes no sense like the phone feature which I will admit is kind of cool on the on the echo or like when I have that at home oh I'm actually excited to do that when I get home tonight yeah but like to buy a whole new product just for that like if you have an echo already like awesome that's like a great like additional feature but like to spend like to shell out like 230 dollars to do that when like you literally carry something like this in your pocket at all times is completely absurd to me I don't like the exit I mean I'm not I'm pretty indifferent to it but I like the idea of having something that's designed to be there to hold my recipes to show me tutorials like I like the cook so that is very appealing to me but again like I said I already mounted the nuke on my refrigerator so as I just grab my I just look at that like follow that along a little bit bigger screen yeah help though when you're trying to you know use both hands that hook and so on and so forth by the way I do want to caveat that none of us have actually seen this product correct person so we're looking at photos just like you all are we're probably not going to get one into the office for another couple weeks because it doesn't ship until June 28th so my initial impressions are that this doesn't really look very sleek but at the same time I haven't had a chance to like hold it you know put it on my kitchen counter so after me I do want to throw that disclaimer out after we discussed it yesterday it made me think like maybe they wanted to kind of fade into the background they don't want it to be a centerpiece like that could very well have been a design choice on their part because everything else you know like the echo dot it's very minimal they wanted to kind of you know just see can you come part of the furniture and you know they want the large screen but they don't want it to be gaudy maybe that was an intention I mean I think voice assistants in the home are like really cool and like I have mine enjoy mine I just I think the one with the screen and like being one another like video chat and all stuff I think it's gonna go the way of like the tablet where like I think people are going to buy it I think people are gonna like it I think it's really cool but like the upgrade cycle is gonna be like super slow and then like the people are just not gonna be buying very good 93 years very good point 2 3 yeah like the the replacement cycle for something like yes especially no age the form factor could be like 7 years yeah like once you have it like what we really think about how people replace to land their their landlines back when they had landlines like you buy one and that's it yeah yeah that's that's what like that's the way this is going for that for the names on low maybe it has I'm sorry so close it up for the day we kind of lightly touched on this yesterday but do we think that this is going to encourage even more in-home development for Amazon smart fridge smart vacuum I don't know in a word yes yeah yeah I mean you have to learn the clock is ticking until you get like an Amazon IKEA bundle like a full home build we talked about this yeah Amazon house you just move in and it's a house and like one of the I I think one of the ships 22 days if you have Prime one of the smartest ways to think about this too is that you're essentially paying Amazon 230 dollars to have a screen that goes directly to Amazon right in front of your face in your kitchen or your bedroom or wherever else you want it and there is no other retailer out there that can offer that to you there's not a Walmart comm device in your house right just there to sell you Walmart stuff expanding on one more comment from beefy tech asking about what's up at the new fire TV I think that the next logical step for them now that they've put this video phone in the kitchen is to finally just manufacture and Amazon fire TV like an actual TV television set yeah there's not a lot of money maybe like a fire broke a minute but you're talking about oh yeah Roku in a collision set right like a Injun regard where somebody else right and if I could easily do that but I think that's an another logical step where just becomes part of the ether you know you had the TVs with a built-in DVD player now in the TV be the built-in fire stick it could happen I think that's a logical move for them but that's just speculation I like to see what what Google comes out with now Apple may come out with its own you know voice assistant smart speaker I mean like in a lot of ways Amazon you know here's the footsteps behind them there's a lot more competition coming down the pike as far as these different smart speakers are concerned imagine Sagi brings it all home for us I think the echo show is just a bigger way to funnel customers to buy more on Amazon there you go but Elio ain't wrong shout out to imagine saggy let's wrap it up all right oh that's my job you doing okay the 359 podcast is available on iTunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud Feedburner google play music and see net baby of course on CNET alright we'll be back tomorrow thanks everybody for watching we'll see you around thanks everyone have a good night you