Jetpacks Are Overrated: a technology show

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.

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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?

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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