00:00.08
Andy Young
podcast where we discuss the latest tech trends for IT decision makers and small companies. So I’m your host, Andy.
00:07.34
Tim
I’m Tim.
00:09.73
Andy Young
And today we’ve got some exciting stories to cover from AI and gaming to some innovative internet solutions. So let’s dive into episode 68, Tim. Yeah.
00:22.80
Tim
Yeah, the first thing we’re going to talk about Super Mario Brothers AI benchmarks. Woo-hoo!
00:28.90
Tim
Our first story is about researching and using classic Super Mario Brothers game as a benchmark for testing AI capabilities.
00:37.26
Andy Young
This is kind of fascinating. You mean like the old school? Yeah.
00:42.32
Andy Young
So what makes like Mario suitable for this?
00:45.73
Tim
It’s a, the game’s diverse challenges clear objectives to make it ideal for assessing AI problems solving skills. researchers have created a framework called Mario GPT, which is large language models to generate and solve Mario levels.
01:02.93
Tim
That’s awesome.
01:02.92
Andy Young
No way.
01:04.65
Tim
Mm-hmm.
01:04.73
Andy Young
So yeah, you get to the end level, you know, you’re going to jump on a flag, I guess. And it’s like, oh, this is a challenge based on that. Because you think of like when you had to, like once you beat a level and you could speed run it, you know, you could be like, and so this is interesting. So how would this like translate over real world AI? Yeah.
01:28.03
Tim
It’s about the depth ability problem solving. If AI can navigate Mario’s world, can demonstrate skills that could be applied to more complex real world scenarios like robotic or anonymous systems.
01:41.60
Andy Young
That’s a good point. Yeah, get those. All right. So here’s Mario, you know, AB directional pad.
01:44.07
Tim
All
01:48.30
Tim
right.
01:49.28
Andy Young
Yeah. I mean, I guess there is that scenario. Some of once you really, really learn a system, well, it kind of can be distilled down to directional pad and AB.
02:04.17
Tim
Yeah, I was just thinking like all the skills like before. Oh, there’s something there. die. Reset. Dude, again. Right.
02:10.21
Andy Young
Yeah. Yeah. You know, was looking at screenshots on this and it’ll actually, I guess, take numerous attempts and then start to calculate how it got to you know, it’ll actually teach itself next levels, how to run better.
02:25.44
Tim
Right.
02:26.09
Andy Young
And this Mario GPT. Yeah. Yeah.
02:31.38
Andy Young
That’ll be wild. Do you think that, because right now you’ve got gamers, right?
02:33.89
Tim
That is pretty
02:35.52
Andy Young
They put their stuff out like, Hey, watch me speed run this course or watch me, you know, find all of the Easter eggs.
02:40.99
Tim
cool.
02:43.15
Andy Young
Well, AI do this now.
02:44.84
Tim
Probably. It’s going to so many scenarios it could It’s crazy how much calculations involve. And then it will save it for down the road for something else that’s almost similar to it.
02:56.52
Tim
So it’ll keep learning from it.
02:59.45
Andy Young
Man, you really realize at this point, like, we are at a stage where there are ample opportunities to improve systems with AI.
03:10.40
Tim
Yes, absolutely.
03:12.26
Andy Young
Yeah. And, like, sometimes solving problems is nothing more than a game. Huh.
03:19.17
Tim
Mm-hmm. Yep.
03:22.15
Andy Young
Yeah.
03:23.07
Tim
I mean, it learns from something and then it’ll come back and apply it. And then it’ll say, oh, we found another tweak we can make. It’ll fix that. Keep improving systems every day. It’s awesome.
03:35.35
Andy Young
It is. It really is pretty spectacular. And systems need improved. I think the latest gripe has been, this is a problem they need to solve, right? You pay for Netflix, you pay for Amazon Prime, all of these, and you could watch stuff.
03:50.16
Andy Young
But now, as you’re watching it, there’s ads where there used to not be ads, right?
03:54.18
Tim
so many stop it ad pause ad
03:58.42
Andy Young
You never had ads in Mario Brothers, I’ll tell you that right now.
04:00.82
Tim
next level
04:02.66
Andy Young
So that’s a good.
04:08.99
Andy Young
Yeah. Or Mortal Kombat.
04:11.59
Tim
yeah there’s several three options four options maybe i’d
04:11.53
Andy Young
Finish him. But first, watch this ad.
04:16.83
Andy Young
Yeah. No, none of that. But it does kind of segue into our next thing that we discovered is that YouTube last week, beginning of March, they threw out a new for
04:30.11
Andy Young
Because they had like YouTube Red, I think.
04:35.84
Andy Young
Yeah, but now they have this new one that’s about $7.99 per month.
04:39.29
Tim
That’s a good deal.
04:40.70
Andy Young
Yeah.
04:43.29
Tim
yeah, I mean, now they have the one that’s called premium light plan. It’s currently being tested in several European countries.
04:49.65
Andy Young
So like you got your, guess it’s regular YouTube premium. Yeah.
04:54.28
Tim
Right.
04:54.59
Andy Young
And then this is like a new cheaper one or what’s the deal there?
05:00.35
Tim
uh it plan focus solely on just ad previewing like the full premium subscription it doesn’t like include pictures like offload downloads and background play so there’s like yeah i can watch this movie but then instead the next movie oh it’s all ads or something
05:20.43
Andy Young
So that’s kind of crazy that, you know, personally, I think one of the better features is the background play function in YouTube, which, I mean, technically you can get around with some different browsers. Like I use Arc browser.
05:37.30
Andy Young
And so it actually has a mini window when you go to certain websites. So it’s running in a separate browser. So it’s technically never background. So it always plays.
05:46.75
Tim
Oh, right.
05:47.95
Andy Young
Yeah, so if you’re tuning into the 825 Technologies podcast on YouTube and you want it to play in the background.
05:54.60
Tim
We’re in the background.
05:54.80
Andy Young
Yeah. So, you know, that’s one of the big things that I look at. It’s like, oh, background play would be useful for $8 a month. No, ads would be useful for $8 month.
06:05.40
Tim
$1 more so it won’t be. Yeah.
06:08.54
Andy Young
Right?
06:09.46
Tim
Yeah.
06:09.50
Andy Young
Yeah. Yeah.
06:12.11
Andy Young
I can’t think of a reason I’d really want offline downloads for YouTube though.
06:15.99
Andy Young
So I could see that not being in there.
06:18.32
Tim
Yeah. I agree.
06:20.62
Andy Young
That is a, it’s an interesting proposition because Google makes their money on ads. So, you know, is it about eight bucks a month they make off of each user or do they make more than that per ads off of each user?
06:33.52
Tim
Hmm.
06:37.40
Andy Young
That would be an interesting thing to know.
06:39.12
Tim
I know, right? It is very interesting.
06:40.87
Andy Young
Yeah, how much are we really worth to Google? Yeah, what are we worth to you, Google?
06:46.62
Andy Young
Tell us.
06:47.79
Tim
Tell us, us how. It
06:51.06
Andy Young
Yeah. So for like a small business, do you think this has much impact on their marketing?
07:00.29
Tim
could, it could help, uh, but add,
07:05.52
Andy Young
Yeah. So it’s probably going to…
07:06.74
Tim
join us here and then there’s that.
07:09.62
Andy Young
Yeah. So like if you’re a business marketing, like putting ads on YouTube, it could cut down on your reach, I guess.
07:16.93
Tim
Right.
07:18.33
Andy Young
Yeah.
07:19.77
Tim
I mean,
07:19.90
Andy Young
Yeah. wonder if like on the light one, it just gives you the skip button more, more frequently or quicker. So if you had like really engaging content, you know, maybe they wouldn’t skip you or something.
07:32.95
Tim
you just had a full time employee just hit and skip for everyone.
07:36.98
Andy Young
Yeah. For everybody else’s ads.
07:38.92
Andy Young
Yeah.
07:40.67
Andy Young
Yeah, no, that’s, it could be interesting. It could be a problem.
07:43.42
Tim
It could help. Yeah, I mean, we’ll see how it comes out, especially if it comes North America.
07:44.94
Andy Young
Yeah.
07:48.28
Tim
So we’ll see.
07:50.03
Andy Young
Yes, that is the big question.
07:52.66
Tim
Mm-hmm.
07:53.32
Andy Young
And I do think that that’s fun to see as well. Just to take a quick side step, the EU and how they’re handling technology data and creating environments that are competitive for businesses, believe it or not, around ads.
08:08.99
Tim
Right?
08:10.75
Andy Young
Because if you could provide content, you know, for eight bucks a month, it means that there’s a room or an opportunity and room in the market for some other company to come in and create something like YouTube.
08:26.39
Andy Young
I mean,
08:26.80
Tim
I think it’s, yeah.
08:29.65
Andy Young
especially at eight bucks a month.
08:32.17
Tim
It’s not a terrible price, so…
08:34.71
Andy Young
No, no. And really, you’re not paying… As a company, you’re just the content provider and host. You’re not creating content, right? YouTube doesn’t necessarily make content. They just host your content.
08:46.91
Tim
Right? It’s like they’re not doing all the work. You’re doing all the work to get it out there.
08:50.73
Andy Young
Yeah. So there’s an opportunity then, you know, you could create a, me tube. I don’t know what that would be, but something that competes, but yeah.
08:57.67
Tim
I mean…
09:01.99
Tim
Something like that. That’s
09:03.34
Andy Young
Yeah. Innovation. It makes the world go round.
09:06.89
Tim
true.
09:07.87
Andy Young
Now I heard Lenovo had some new innovation that they just came up with.
09:11.72
Tim
Yeah, it’s a true story that Lenovo is now coming out with a new folding laptop display technology. I saw pictures of it. Yeah, I’ve
09:23.10
Andy Young
Yeah. Yeah. It’s been like, cause you’ve had it on phones now for two years. I think the Motorola,
09:29.04
Tim
seen Android phones and stuff to do it.
09:30.65
Andy Young
Yeah.
09:30.87
Tim
Yep.
09:30.85
Andy Young
And Samsung has a fold. Pixel came out with a fold this year, Pixel 9 fold.
09:36.77
Andy Young
So it’s getting to where these OLED or LED or whatever. Yeah, I think it’s, you know, predominantly that, not so much LCD.
09:42.66
Tim
some display
09:47.26
Andy Young
That’s kind of impossible. But you get these, all the, all these pixels now and they found a way to make it flexible. And so what, what’s like cool about Lenovo’s approach to this? What are they doing? That’s,
10:00.72
Tim
they i mean they have a 16 inch right now oled laptop display that can fold in half When folded, it transformed into a 12 inch clamshell device offering personality and for different use cases.
10:14.27
Andy Young
That sounds amazingly impressive. So that’s what I was just thinking.
10:17.59
Tim
Excuse me. You can be on my laptop. That’s yeah.
10:21.37
Andy Young
Like, you know, it’s the keyboard and then you’re like, what are you doing when we’re old? You’ve got an extra tall monitor. mean, really you’re rolling around with double monitors now in laptop.
10:32.72
Tim
That’s actually good. Yeah.
10:36.41
Andy Young
That’s a big game changer in my opinion. When do you think you’ll see that on the market?
10:41.38
Tim
They’re talking about releasing that probably later in 2024 and they’re calling it the first single screen folding 16 inch laptop. So.
10:49.30
Andy Young
Man, yeah, that’s pretty exciting. I wonder what the price on that’s going to be. I bet it’ll be in the high thousands.
11:00.08
Tim
Yeah, I’m thinking probably starting 1600 higher.
11:04.15
Andy Young
Yeah, probably. Because, you know, you think about the Lenovo Yoga. It’s in the 16s.
11:09.45
Tim
Right.
11:11.50
Andy Young
You get cheap ones for $1,200 that are like 16 gig RAM, but you’re like, yeah, any more.
11:12.41
Tim
Right.
11:16.88
Tim
Right.
11:17.14
Andy Young
you’re doing heavy use, you want to get 32 gigs of RAM. That’s harder to find on laptops, especially because they’re soldered RAM now.
11:24.80
Andy Young
So, yeah, you think about all that we’re packing into these computers now. You’ve got… DDR5 RAM soldered into these CPUs that also have an MPU that might be running a GPU on board, but might have a discrete GPU through NVIDIA or Intel or AMD.
11:48.59
Andy Young
It’s just getting, it’s getting insane.
11:52.65
Tim
yeah it yeah I’m just curious how the sticks are I mean see how it
11:53.67
Andy Young
Yeah.
11:56.03
Andy Young
It’s cool though. It does make I played around with, Yeah, that’s true.
12:05.16
Andy Young
played around with the Microsoft Co-Pilot, you know, where you can, it runs on your computer and can see your screen and can help you with stuff. And it was very lackluster.
12:16.52
Andy Young
was kind of unimpressed.
12:17.06
Tim
yeah
12:19.69
Tim
Oh, that’s too bad.
12:20.77
Andy Young
Yeah, it is. It is. I’m, I don’t know. Maybe my standards are too high. yeah.
12:27.88
Tim
Especially you play with it all the time.
12:30.17
Andy Young
That’s it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:31.10
Tim
But the only way to test it and let people know is we’ve got to find out how it is. You
12:35.08
Andy Young
That’s it. You play around, see if you like it. Yeah, who knows?
12:37.79
Tim
don’t like it? Move on.
12:39.27
Tim
Okay.
12:39.84
Andy Young
Who knows? Who knows? Yeah. Man, Lenovo, though, they’re doing a great job of staying relevant. And they still make an amazing laptop.
12:51.54
Tim
Yeah, we like them a lot.
12:53.00
Andy Young
Yeah, we really do. I think we probably recommend them the most of all laptops.
12:57.48
Tim
Yeah, I’m a big fan of Lenovo. Yes, absolutely. They’re well made.
13:02.83
Andy Young
Yes, especially for the price point, value-wise. It’s a good deal. Yeah. And, you know, oddly enough, we’re not getting paid to say that. We need to talk to Lenovo and be like, hey, you know, we’ll mention you on the podcast some more.
13:14.84
Andy Young
I’m sure they’ll see a giant bump.
13:17.27
Tim
Give us free stuff.
13:18.97
Andy Young
Yeah, they’ll see a giant bump in sales just from this mention.
13:21.51
Tim
It’s just for the Yeah, we take 5%.
13:24.00
Andy Young
Yeah, so anything you notice quarter one improvement in 2025, it’s because of us, Lenovo.
13:31.29
Tim
so
13:31.82
Andy Young
That’s right. And that wouldn’t be a bad deal. Speaking of improvements and things that just blow your mind, this is our final story.
13:41.97
Andy Young
But Google has created this project. It’s called Project Terra. And it aims at delivering internet connectivity kind of to remote places using light beams, not fiber optic, but light beams.
13:57.17
Tim
That’s cool. Yeah, this is fascinating project. Terra uses wireless optical communication technology to transmit data through light beams, similar to fiber optics cables, but without the physical infrastructure.
14:10.02
Andy Young
Yeah, so how effective has this been so far?
14:13.15
Tim
Testing Congo, has successfully transmitted nearly 700 terabytes of data over 20 days across the stretch of the Congo River. That’s crazy.
14:23.27
Andy Young
That is impressive. 700 terabytes in 20 days is, that’s impressive.
14:31.84
Andy Young
So, yeah, okay, let’s say we’ve got some, in Ohio, believe it or not,
14:32.13
Tim
That’s really good.
14:38.86
Andy Young
There are some remote areas of businesses where we might be driving for a little bit to get to some of our clients and they’re kind of out there and you’re like, this is a beautiful area.
14:50.14
Andy Young
But I can think of a handful of our clients that still are struggling with internet connectivity, right?
14:54.92
Tim
Oh, right.
14:56.58
Tim
DSL.
15:00.72
Andy Young
do you think?
15:02.03
Tim
Oh, man. It could potentially provide high-speed internet. They need it. traditional infrastructure is a challenge that costs are prohibited to install, opening up new opportunities, businesses in the region. So we definitely, definitely highly recommend it. If we could do that, it would save from digging. It will save from, you know, the costs it’s yeah.
15:23.56
Andy Young
Yeah. And man, you think of, yeah, in my mind, I’m running through this right now of like, well, I wonder what the range would be.
15:34.31
Andy Young
What happens if there’s a fog bank that moves in and it’s Google.
15:37.51
Tim
Right, while they’re doing stuff.
15:39.45
Andy Young
I’m sure they’ve thought of this, but it’s, it’s wild to think that you’d have basically these flashing lights.
15:49.12
Andy Young
You want to buy your window at night.
15:53.73
Andy Young
Just like, yeah.
15:55.73
Tim
Right.
15:57.05
Andy Young
Yeah. And then I wonder too, how easy would that be to intercept? You know, like there’s, there’s no physical control over that data.
16:02.73
Tim
Right.
16:07.54
Andy Young
Yeah.
16:08.31
Tim
Yeah, because in the, I mean, it’s a lot, it could be caught, bounced off. I mean, things, yeah.
16:17.01
Andy Young
Yeah.
16:18.29
Tim
I always wondered, like, how would affect if they have so many at once, it’s not interfering with each other.
16:23.36
Andy Young
Yeah, because I guess right now on the Congo, it’s just point to point, like one point to one point, back and forth.
16:28.87
Tim
Right.
16:29.00
Andy Young
But if you got one sender and numerous points come in…
16:31.99
Tim
Yeah.
16:34.49
Tim
hopefully, well, unless they have some kind of of encryption somehow in the light. I don’t know. That’s that’s way beyond that.
16:40.77
Andy Young
Yeah, in different channels. don’t know that it can move beyond point to point.
16:46.00
Tim
That’s true.
16:45.95
Andy Young
Maybe it could.
16:48.34
Tim
well,
16:48.05
Andy Young
But yeah, that’s a… That is a game changer, especially in remote areas.
16:53.17
Tim
right.
16:54.60
Andy Young
Yeah, because I wonder what a long range on that would be. You probably could easily get up to, you know, quarter mile.
17:06.57
Tim
That’s not bad.
17:07.79
Andy Young
Yeah, I think you could get, you know, potentially longer to.
17:10.09
Tim
Especially if you can bounce off each other’s, like if you want the internet.
17:13.44
Andy Young
Yeah. Well, and you think in the long range, it’s laser. That’s the light. So you could probably go even further based on the wavelength. You know, you get like the green wavelength that goes super far.
17:25.04
Tim
Yeah.
17:25.07
Andy Young
So you could potentially get miles, maybe five miles or something.
17:25.92
Tim
Hmm.
17:28.79
Andy Young
But then again, fog bank moves in. What’s that do to it?
17:30.98
Tim
Yeah. One. There’s a…
17:34.62
Andy Young
It’s like satellite. Your satellite’s out, you know. Big storm came through.
17:36.81
Tim
Like, shoot.
17:37.59
Andy Young
Sorry about your luck.
17:37.69
Tim
I was just watching the soccer game.
17:40.52
Andy Young
Yeah. But, you know, these remote areas that have no connectivity to get connectivity 260 days of the year instead of zero days of the year is still a win.
17:44.53
Tim
That’s better.
17:49.60
Tim
That is a win.
17:50.97
Andy Young
Yeah. No, that’s that’s insanely cool.
17:52.32
Tim
Mm-hmm.
17:54.82
Andy Young
Yeah, man. I’ll tell you, it’s never surprised me until recently how fast we’re moving now with advancements.
18:05.73
Tim
Mm-hmm.
18:06.34
Andy Young
I don’t know that in 1920, anyone would have been like 1925, somebody sitting around listening to their record player or phonograph and thinking, man, you know, in a hundred years, they’re going to be communicating with beams of light.
18:22.58
Tim
That’s pretty cool.
18:24.44
Andy Young
Yes. And not just communicating, but in seconds, being able to send thousands, if not millions of records, like phonograph records.
18:35.87
Tim
Wow.
18:36.03
Andy Young
In a second, you know, like that’s where it just like explode your brain.
18:38.99
Tim
There it goes.
18:41.10
Andy Young
Yeah, it’s nuts. It’s nuts.
18:42.42
Tim
Wow. That is crazy.
18:45.49
Andy Young
Which then begs the question in a hundred years, you know, our great grandkids hopefully will be wandering the globe or will they be wandering Mars?
18:45.74
Tim
Oh, man.
18:55.90
Tim
Hmm.
18:57.80
Andy Young
Yeah. Who knows?
18:58.51
Tim
Hmm.
18:58.48
Andy Young
Right.
18:59.16
Tim
Things to think about.
19:00.27
Andy Young
Yeah, I did this recently here. Somebody say, people group that’s ready to blast off to the stars will always be marked by high turmoil and tumult in their society.
19:17.89
Andy Young
And I was like, that’s true. Like, you don’t leave for the stars when everything’s wonderful.
19:19.72
Tim
Oh,
19:24.37
Andy Young
So in some ways you could look at what’s going on in the world today and be like, yeah, it’s, it’s terrible, but maybe it’s, it’s the discomfort pushing us to change and to become better in a lot of areas.
19:24.54
Tim
Mm-hmm.
19:32.10
Tim
It’s changed. Right.
19:35.22
Andy Young
So, yeah, but if we can, if we can transmit light and communicate, it does help with space communication potentially too.
19:35.54
Tim
Right.
19:44.67
Tim
Hmm.
19:45.72
Andy Young
Yeah. So, I mean, previously were talking 4g on the moon, you know,
19:48.61
Tim
Wow.
19:51.31
Tim
That’s true. I do remember that.
19:52.83
Andy Young
So now we’re talking.
19:54.43
Tim
going to always like Saturn. Just see how he’s going.
19:56.82
Andy Young
Yeah. Yeah. Lights out light all the way out to Mars.
20:02.25
Tim
Wow.
20:02.34
Andy Young
Yeah. Real, real time communication with our relatives on Mars. Wave of the future.
20:09.65
Tim
We’re over to okay. We’re fine. We’re way out here.
20:12.50
Andy Young
You have to pay $7.99 for the ad free version though.
20:14.58
Tim
Oh, yes. Yeah.
20:18.50
Andy Young
Oh man.
20:20.44
Tim
Just like video feed and the ad is…
20:20.59
Andy Young
Well, that.
20:22.55
Tim
We’re back.
20:24.72
Andy Young
We’re back. Welcome. Yeah, no, it’s naturally in there. So you have time to use the restroom, grab a snack, things like that. Pop some popcorn. Yeah. Oh, man.
20:35.53
Andy Young
Well, you know, we try to keep these tight and get people on with their day. So, I mean, this is big for episode 68. Like, And we’re wrapping up. And so we covered some cool AI developments with Mario GPT, streaming services, hardware innovations, new internet connectivity.
20:55.01
Tim
That’s right. I mean, from the Mario playing, internet delivery by light, tech world never ceases to amaze us. These insights always help our listeners make informed IT decisions for their small businesses. Tim.
21:08.12
Andy Young
Yeah. So until next time, this is Andy.
21:11.70
Andy Young
We’re signing off. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review if you do enjoy our show. Thanks for listening.
