Hey there, I'm just milady confetti here I am psyche than I am hey shady lady, and welcome to boss level. Podcast for repeat your conversations with gas have levelled up bringing an experienced to the table. We pick the brains of professionals, creators and bosses and industries across the globe, the hope our listeners achieve their own boss devil. We are not just creating a podcast but a game. A fight and engaged community. This into boss level. On I hurt radio at Apple Pie cast a reverie. You got your pockets.

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the battle for over the new Showtime series, from the creators of billions based on the true story strap and for Travis Callin Ex Wild ride there, Silicon Valley, with VC, Bilge, early and boy remember, Oriana, Huffington, writing, shot gun driven by disruption. Travis takes a win at all costs approach to transforming Ober into a multi billion dollar tech, tighten the changes the world, but every surge comes at a price Joseph Gordon Levitt called Chandler and let them and star in super pumped the battle for over now streaming. Beyond Showtime, the welcome to textile production from I heart radio.

Be there in welcome to text stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland, I'm an executive producer with Iheartradio and how the tech are you this time for a text up tidbits, probably going to be held longer, tidbits episode, I just don't know how to do short ones, apparently, but I wanted to talk out obsolescence- and this is because I read an article which I'll be talking about later in this episode. That really got me too. Thinking about it in kind of a big picture way, and I really want to talk about the dangers of obsolescence of of technology going obsolete and I've done a few episodes where I've talked about the these kind of things. I know I as actor and I did have a fun episode where we just talked about. You know technology that No longer is really relevant, but this goes beyond that I've also talked about this with

in connection to the right to repair and in case your new to that phrase. It refers to a movement in which consumers and some organizations are really pressuring companies to open up options for the maintenance and repair of their products that they produce so that you are not force as a customer to either throw out something that no longer works in and replace it prematurely or you have to jump through hoops to go through the courts. official channels to repair it, and we all know why companies want to build these kinds of systems that require users to go through official channels and it's all called revenue. If I make a widget and I sell my widget to you- that's good for me, you know, but it's only

that one time, because you bought your widget and then you're off on your merry little way. But if I also make sure that I build the widgets in such a way that only I am able to do maintenance and repair on those widgets, well, then you have no option but to bring the widget back to me when you need that kind of work done and then pay me a fee in the process. Or you have to throw away your broken widget, and maybe you are going to buy a new one from me. You know that's neither way I make money and when my widget company becomes a globe oh conglomerate, YO widgets around the world. I am end up creating a whole network of repair shops out there and each one has to pay me a hefty license fee for the privilege of being allowed to work on widgets, and I then provide the correct tools and documentation People can do that, but only if they pay me the licensing fee, so that independent role

shot shop down the road that you have a good relationship with. Well, they don't get access to any of those resources or do they might be equipped to do any work on the product or they might even be incapable of dairy, doing work of the product, because I've locked it away essentially and they're, not part of the system. So you can't go to them. So the writer of air movement essentially says it is unfair and anti competitive for companies to lock down their products so that you can't maintain and repair stuff yourself or to go to some one of your own choosing an we're seeing that kind of story play out across the world. Various governments are starting to pass laws to try and guarantee the right to repair, and this will also come into play with the concept of obsolete since so when I say obsolete since I am thinking of a few possible pathways that essentially lead to the same destination and the destination is that you ve got a product or maybe a service

that. No longer is receiving support from the company that created it. The product or service might still work, but There are better or at least more supported options that are out there and overtime time performance will diminish. So other words. Maybe you got a particular hardware gap, the company that made that gadget has gone out of business, and so you don't have any way of getting any replacement parts or anything, no one's making them, because the company that did make them is gone now. So, while it works, it's fine, but once it breaks down, you might be stuck with just a dead piece of technology, and this is a huge problem in tech in general and it's

so kind of what the tech industry is largely built upon, and that can be a really bad thing at the fact. It's kind of what your hype and product cycles are all built around, so I always they go back in the day when Steve Jobs was alive and he was master of the product presentation at apple, you can really, since audience, excitement in an apple presentation. Even if you were just watching that presentation on streaming, video you could just hence how excited the crowd was an Steve jobs come up on stage and pull out the latest Iphone or I bad or MAC or whatever, and gush about how it blows the doors off all the. Their technologies out there, either like introducing something for the first time like that. First, Iphone presentation way back in early two thousand seven or showing how the latest model has become an incredible improvement over

all past models, and everyone ends up going nuts, the crowd ate. It up and these were the same crowds who a year earlier would have gone Gaga over the previous generation of those products and so on. But now looks like they were ready to throw their current Iphone or Ipad or whatever into the garbage and rush out and buy a new one. now I am exaggerating a little bit, but only a little bit so back in two thousand fourteen Roger Edna of Recon Doug through some data and discovered that about forty five percent of smartphone owners were updating their phones. Every single, the year. Now, that's pretty incredible here in the United States back when the Iphone first came out, it was pretty standard to sign two year contract agreements with providers like self

providers, and it would lock you into that provider for two years, but as part of that, you, a debit, typically get a really big discount on phone models. So you're your phone choice was being subsidized. You weren't having to pay the full retail price for a phone which was considered to be a pretty nice trade off, because the up front cost was so much lower impact with a lot of phone plans. The phone would be part of the plan. You wouldn't be paying any extra now that money would be factored into your monthly bill, but that was monthly. It wasn't all up front and it was just a different world back. Then I bees days, you typically by your phone outright and then you have it added on to whatever plan you happen to have, or maybe you in switch plans is very different world, but yet back then get new phone often meant that you were agreeing to a two year contract and if you are upgrading

Every year, then, it's not we're renewing that two year agreement. Instead, you in to pay the upfront cost of the smartphone and keep it on the plan that you already had, or you are going to pay extra and cancel a plan. So It was pretty remarkable that still forty five percent of people of smartphone owners were actually going through that process here in the U S, because I mean it was not. It was, and it was a considerable investment, though that churn rate of forty the person of the owners upgrading every year that was great for apple. It was tough on consumer. and it was terrible for the environment still is, but it showed that the consuming public was a willing participant in this acceleration of obsolescence and I'm not even getting into the concept of planned obsolescence. That's when a company creates a product or

as for the company already anticipates, when it will stop supporting that service or when it will replace it, and that means that we already know from the get go that this thing that's going out has a limited lifespan and after that it's kind of buyer beware and I not even talking about that or the old technology. The stony only designed to last a couple of years, then breaks down, so you are forced to replace it. That's another element of US lessons, but have covered it before, but yeah. That also plays a role in this, but let's think about the consequences that follow the from this trend of needing to replace technology. Sophie Currently and how those consequences can play out now, I mentioned environmental impact that actually is really huge. The whole supply chain, from start to finish, has a massive environmental impact and it's rarely a good one

For example. Let's look at the very like beginning of the supply chain, so a lot of tech that we have requires stuff that it uses what we call rare earth metals rare earth metals consist of group of seventeen elements. The fifteen of them are land the night elements, the two others are not land the nights, but their frequently found in the same oars as the other land. The nights are an as rare earth, metals plies. All seventeen of the elements are classified as metals and unlike metals like iron. These elements appear as visible, loves and or you're, not gonna find out a vein of these land, the knives there are actually not that rare, not in the grand scheme of things. Most of them are: are more abundant in the earth's crust and say gold is, however, most of the time they are found in such low concentrations. That mining

would cost more than what you would get out of what you mind. so you would be losing money on the process. So it's not that there isn't a lot of these rare earth metals out there, but that it takes a lot of effort to get enough of them efficiently, It could profit. Now these metals are embedded in minerals and rocks. So you have to take several steps to get at the metals one way you could do this, as you could just you know, dig up a massive pit and you use explosive to break up rocks and you shovel up all the broken pieces, and you put these pieces through a process in which you Russia, the rocks down in use chemicals, to separate the metals from the minerals. Then you skim the metals away, and you use those and you're left with a lot of waste rock and chemical mixtures that you have to dispose,

properly and all that just to get it low concentration of those rare earth, metals we need a lot of those at not just for the tech industry, though that is, one that has a very high demand for these rare earth metals, but they're used in stuff, like batteries, for example, and as we shift more toward depending upon stuff like electric motors to power vehicles, the demand for rare earth. Metals is going to continue to rise dramatically. There also important for renewable energy systems like wind turbines, which is kind of ironic. When you think of the potential environmental impact of mining- but we also use them for stuff like catalysts to facilitate certain chemical processes or phosphorus to eliminate stuff like screens or use them to polish glass in order to produce high performing Optix. oh dairies around the world, depend upon rare earth. Metals is a critical component in high tech, military gear. Everything from GPS equipment to guided missiles,

So we need a lot of the stuff and, like I said, while there's d of it on earth. It isn't always found in high concentrations. So this leads us to the really ugly part of that situation. I'll talk about that after we come back from this break. Oh hey there, I'm just emulating confetti here, hi, I'm psyche- and I am a shady lady and welcome to boss level- Paul cast where we feed her conversations with gas have levelled up. Bringing an experienced to the table. Tat was always my response is like I'm like a unicorn here, Ray because he's not allowed oak like out of the closet- Gamer is supposed to say there has not been my favorites. I know a lot of them like it was like a battlefield there like these. These are cool police club here, no sorry, honey,

Is it a very dark corridor and our lotto light applauded rain. We pick the brains of professionals, creators and bosses and industries across the globe to help our listeners achieve their own boss level. We are not just creating a podcast, but a game of hide and engaged community. Doesn't Abbas level on I heart radio up apple pie, past or ever you got your past. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system, so you tapped by Bm to an silo your data and, with the help of ai start crunching, a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now, you're making smarter decisions, faster operating costs are lower and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feels like a million bucks. Let's create

smarter ways of putting your data to work. I B m: let's create learn more at I b m dot com fortune, favors, the bold, the strong, the brave for your business

break out of anything holding you back. You need business checking as brave as you are introducing Novo business, checking its powerfully simple, giving you all the features you need. An unlikely traditional banking model Novo has no minimum balances, no transaction limits and no hidden fees instead of a one size fits all approach. Novo is customize to your business, to save you time and free up cash flow with seamless integration to stripe shop, if I click books online and more sign up for Novo for free and joined the community of over one hundred. Fifty thousand fearless small businesses who found the customizable business checking solution that admires their bravery. Sign up your free business checking account right now at Novo dot C, o slash text off plus text of listeners, get access to over five thousand dollars and parks and discounts go to in o the o dot c o slash text off to sign up for free

Nobo, DOT, c o slash tech stuff Novo Platform incorporated, is a fintech, not a bank banking services provided by Middlesex Federal savings. F, a member f d, I c terms and conditions apply. Research shows that most homeowners are underinsured. Getting a quote. Online is fast when I click on a form and consider your personal situation, which can mean big in coverage at national advisory group, the licensed insurance advisors provide personalized recommendations. We do the legwork for you with customized options from top rated carriers licensed in all fifty states, with a ninety plus BBB rating trust, national advisory group to get the coverage, do you need at a priceless right, Rear s? Bed is that a one size fits all quote: go to energy insure dot com. Today, as in a g, I n S: U r e dot com, the ok to have a mining operation is large enough to get sufficient amounts of rare earth metals, and yet the operation has to be cheap enough so that it can be profitable.

Certain conditions need to be present, and one of those typically is a general disregard for the invite. meant putting environmental protections in place. You know taking care not cause damage and addressing problems as they arise, all those expensive and time consuming, and if your profit depends on keeping costs, and You'Re- probably not going to pay that much attention to environmental concerns means. A lot of rare earth. Metal mining operations are taking place in regions where there are lax or no environmental protections in place. Some places would forgo pretty much even the most basic environmental protections and would just start pumping stuff, like ammonium ammonium sulfate directly into the earth all in an effort to separate rare earth, metals from the rest of the soil and rock in there. This was a pretty common practice in China, for example, the chemical

can be environmentally hazardous in China. wasn't unusual to simply build wastewater pools to hold the run They were kind like massive above ground pools literally, and they would just hold the waste water and these Both frequently had little to no protection around them, meaning that if something were to disturb the pulls, the wastewater could potentially emanate the local area. Some of the waste materials are not just toxic but somewhat radioactive, which creates additional concerns, and I mostly using the past tense here, because in recent years China has started to address this this you working towards new ways to mine, rare earth, metals that are more environmentally responsible, but for a couple of decades that just wasn't case, and now there are regions in China where the the goals are having to tackle monumental clean up jobs that could take as long as a century to complete. Then

On top of the environmental concerns we have human rights concerns in places like the democratic, public of the Congo Mining operations or something run by violent militias which. Sometimes rely on forced labour to operate the mine, so slavery, essentially wild China is the main source for many rare earth metals. Some of them do also come out of Africa, and so our heavy dependence upon the materials helps support violent groups and human suffering, and that makes that obsolescence problem all the more critical right. I mean it's grim enough that we're having to deal with the consequences of our technological needs this way, but then to add with it the cycle in which we're encouraged to replace our tech frequently and make the problem worse. It exacerbates everything. It's it's pretty group gruesome when you think about it, and then

top of that for another environmental issue. What do you do with the old tech, the stuff that, when obsolete, if you can't repair it, which is still far the issue, you're not able to repair it or even if you did repair it, but it couldn't keep up with what you need it to do, because everything else has advanced beyond the capabilities of the hardware. What do you do with the hardware? The? Ideally, you would send it to a place where it could be recycled or the materials inside it could be reclaimed and then used in other materials. Other products down the line but a lot of it just ends up going to landfills and that's awful, especially when you consider that a lot of the stuff that goes into our tech is potentially nailed. It is toxic and could potentially contaminate the environment if it leaches out of the hardware. So again, this obsolescence issue is feeding into

the environmental crisis. And of course there are other things we should have to think about too, and these aren't quite as global a concern like they're, not like. I would you: environmental impact that almost gets to existential levels of of crisis, when rights violations, also obviously incredibly important, but there are some other- we have to remember as well. There aren't that critical in that same scale, but are still important, for example, there's the burden that companies carry when they go all in on a certain system. This is how we get we call legacy system. So let's use our high pathetically picture to understand this art, so we ve got this business and its business company. Does business stuff in the business world, in the nineteen sixties and of the company decides to purchase a brand new computer system in order to run certain critical,

Well, the operations that's going to free up people so that they only have to work an hour a day, at least that's what we all believed back in the day, it turns out that work will fill all the available hours, even if we offload some of the workload to machines anyway, the company's process these lean very heavily on this new technology. Some of the other made it now Ali's. Different special proprietary programmes have been written, and these very key functions arm who moved onto this machine now. Meanwhile, the company grows and expands. It adds to its services. It invests in new systems, but in an effort to be as efficient as possible. The company continues to rely on this older computer system to run that certain group of mission.

Critical processes because building a comparable new system to handle those tasks and then migrating everything over to the new system. Would be costly and time consuming so time goes on. now are at a point where modern systems aren't compatible with the older one at all, but You'll need to run those those old processes there still part of our business We might even be at a point where no one staff really has the knowledge that the company had relied upon in the past, So building a new version of the old system is even harder. Because no one remembers how the old one was built right. Do you had this loss of knowledge over time? This does happen in companies. So then the company continues to try and support the old computer system now, and I am sure computer system, this rain, this original process, because those processes are still important to the business and the cup.

It really has to scramble whenever the old computer system breaks down and all things breakdown overtime over gosh darn, it entropy so. This is not easy. By now, the company that produced the original computer system might be out of business or It may be. It is in business, bits long, stop supporting that piece of equipment. So you have no one to turn to when things go wrong in that case now this happens all the time, particularly for companies that have to build out really customized systems to handle stuff that might be unique to that one company. So every time they up raid, their processes or their systems management has to decide whether or not they should in Asked even more money to migrate stuff off of old platforms, or just to keep relying on the old ones and sometimes the idea. Migration really feels like you're reinventing the wheel, so it kind of is hard to go to different stakeholders in the company and say

as I know, we've already done this, but we kind of need to do it again on this new system so that we can operate with fewer risks that in and invariably someone's going to say well, what's wrong with the old one now the same thing holds true for tons of individual consumers to one of the things that always blows. My mind is when I look at the market share for various versions of the windows operating system. Now I know I'm talking about software in this case rather than hardware, but software does relate back to hardware, because one of the issues is, as operating systems get more complex. They require more advanced hardware to run. That means, if you are stuck with an older computer bright, you you can afford to buy a new one. Maybe don't have access to a new one. You could be in a part of the world where you have an the computer and that's that's as good as it's going to be for you. Well,

I have no real access to newer operating systems because your hardware isn't capable of running them, so you're stuck on the older models. I decided. I wanted to look at the distribution of current windows. It share, undisturbed computers, so more than eighty percent of those computers are still using windows. Ten, I should remind you that is not the latest version of windows, but it is by far the most popular version out there. however, point four and nine percent of deaths top systems are still using windows ex be now. I know point four: nine I said is tiny: it's literally less than half a percentage point, but keep in mind. Windows, XP, first came out in two thousand and one more than twenty years ago, and Microsoft ended all support for the operating system back in two thousand and fourteen. That means there have been no,

she's, no updates for about eight years, and there are a whole bunch of reasons why that means sticking with windows. Ex p is a bad thing, Interestingly, there still more folks using Windows Ex p. Then there are using windows, Vista Windows, Vista accounts for just point, one: nine percent of all desktop windows, machines and Vista came out in two thousand and seven there was actually meant to be the successor to Windows Ex B So you see how that went. Alright, I'm going to be ranting a little bit longer, but I should probably get a drink, so we're going to take another quick break. I I I be there. I'm Jess Molina confetti here hi, I'm psyche- and I am a shady lady and welcome to boss level. Podcast. Where we feature conversation the faster levelled up bringing an experienced to the table tat was always. My response is like I'm like a unicorn here ray

because he's not allowed to like out of the closet What gamers want to say, there's not people. I know a lot of them like it was like a battlefield they're like these. These are cool police club. Here, no sorry, honey. This is a very dark corner and our lot of light uploaded a brain. We pick the brains of professionals, creators and bosses and industries across the globe to help our listeners achieve their own boss level. We are not just creating a podcast, but a game of hide and engaged community. Doesn't Abbas level on heart, radio, up apple pie, past or ever you got your pockets.

what, if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system, so you tapped by Bm to an silo your data and, with the help of ai start crunching, a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now, you're making smarter decisions, faster operating costs are lower and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feels like a million bucks. Let's create, smarter ways of putting your dick to work. I B m: let's create learn more at I b m dot com fortune, favors the bold, the strong, the brave for your business.

Break out of anything. Holding you back, you need business checking as brave as you are introducing Novo business, checking its powerfully simple, giving you all the features you need. An unlikely traditional banking model Novo has no minimum balances, no transaction limits and no hidden fees instead of a one size fits all approach. Novo is customize to your business, to save you time and free up cash flow with seamless integration to stripe shop. If I click books online and more sign up for Novo for free and joined the community of over one hundred. Fifty thousand fearless small businesses who found the customizable business checking solution that admires their bravery. Sign up your free business checking account right now at Novo dot C, o slash text off plus text of listeners, get access to over five thousand dollars and parks and discounts go to in o the o dot c o slash text off to sign up for free,

Novo dot c, o slash text of noble platform incorporated as authentic, not a bank banking services provided by Middlesex Federal savings. F, a member Effie icy terms and conditions apply. Researchers have most homeowners or under ensure getting a corner line, is fast, but a click on a fork and consider your personal situation, which can mean big gaps, coverage at national advisors group Our latest insurance advisers provide personalized recommendations. We do the leg work, forty with customized options from top rated carriers places than all fifty states, so that any plus baby rating trust national advisory group to get the cover you need at a price is right, rear. That's or that a one size fits all quote: go to n a g insure dot com. Today, as in a g, I n S: U, r e dot com. Okay, before the break. My point was that people real

and computers running on windows. Xp no longer have support for that operating system. Microsoft does not supported anymore, and any vulnerabilities in the operating system are gonna stay there, no matter what there's no hope of the security patch. Now you could argue that, because the market share is so low that so relatively so few people are actually using windows, XP, no one would really bother to try and exploit a vulnerability. That is there any way, because the target population would be too small to make it worth your while, in other words,. you could create malware but you'll be hitting so few people. What would be the point that that is a an arguments? Security through obscurity, but when companies In support, it means folks can be left without options, and clear! I am not saying that companies are obligated to continue to provide support in deafened.

That would be unreasonable and, frankly impossible. Unless we all just collectively said yeah we're good, we don't. We don't need things. we need better than how they are right now, and you know that doesn't sound likely. So it's more that I just want folks to be aware of these consequences that these things happen and the plan for that to take that into account. So let's relate this back to that right to repair movement, so reason. It's so important to have the right to repair is because companies can and do and support for certain products. Whether they are hardware or software. Sometimes the company does this by choice because they want to focus on newer products, sometimes it's by necessity, because the company might just go out of business. So there's no one left to provide support.

But then what happens? If you depend upon that company's older product? What, if that's critical to your business? Well for small stuff, it could be an annoyance right, maybe a tiny hardship for you to go out and find a replacement. But, let's think about bigger things like massive pieces of equipment or more critically medical gear. So first, let's talk about heavy So some of the most passionate folks in the right to repair movement are farmers They want the ability to do maintenance and repair on farming equipment which they rely upon for their livelihoods and which, due to heavy use, can frequently require maintenance and rip. Arr by companies like John Deere, have essentially locked away

the ability to make those kinds of repairs so that you can only do them if you have the access and tools to do them and John Deere reserves that access to licensed repair shops and dealerships. That means, if you are a farmer and your equipment, breaks down, you can't fix it yourself. You have to. that to one of these licensed entities to get work done. You probably won't have many options in certain regions, which also means you're going to get walked into whatever the price to repair the the thing is right at that place you can't shop around. In the words you can't say: oh well, this repair shop gave me a quote of x thousand dollars. Let me go ask this other one.

You might not have those options. So it's the very definition of anti competitive this, but what of John Deer were to go out of business entirely? No, that's not likely to happen, but let's assume that dead. For some reason, if the equipment is all locked down with proprietary systems and if there's no way to is access to those systems. Then that equipment is obsolete. That doesn't mean the equipment just going to spontaneously stop working, but it does mean living on borrowed time, a formerly licence. Repair shop goes out of business in a region that could mean that farmers in that area have no local options when it comes to maintenance and repair which would put additional hardships on the farmers. So you can see how obsolescence paired with a proprietary approach to repair can be.

Billy harmful. Now the whole reason I decided to dedicate an episode to this. As I read a very upsetting piece in the I e spectrum and it's titled, their bionic eyes are now obsolete and unsupported, which sounds like science fiction, but is science fact. The piece covers the story of how a company called second sight, medical products developed, retinal implant systems that could restore some sight actually not even really restore but provide digital vision to visually impaired and blind people. It is not ultra high definition, resolution images or anything like that, but it would provide some visual capabilities to people who otherwise would be living without them, and by some I mean there were couple of different models, the first one had sixteen pixels.

vision. So imagine that your vision consists of sixteen blocks and those blocks can either be white, grey or black. That's kind of what people were experiencing the follow up to that had six. The pixels so a better resolution, nothing close to what we experience with typical human site, but still better than nothing in fact, significantly better than nothing if you're using it to help navigate your environment, avoid obstacles that sort of stuff, but in twenty twenty this company second sight was teetering toward bankruptcy and ended support for its Argus line of retinal

plants which meant that ever recipients Implant began to fail. There was no way there's no support. There's no support to address a failure. The recipient would become then the logical blind and again the implants did not just all spontaneously fail once the company gun to trouble, but as problems would come up for a person that person found they had few options available to them. Here's another example: because of the elements in these implants you couldn't go and get an mri done, because Mr I use is very powerful. Magnetic fields and elements in the implants could end up being damaged. It could end up damaging the patient's. You could damage the MRI. Quit that so before you ever done him our. I done you're supposed to contact the company and talk with them about this possibility, but with the company in financial turmoil and ending support.

There was no answer on the other end of the line, so it wasn't just that. The She was failing, but that when other things were cropping up, like health issues there was no way to chat with the company and work out an approach, so it gave very few options available to the people who had received one of these retinal implants they could have the implant surgically removed, but that process is obviously an invasive process. It's expensive and potentially quite painful. Typically, these implant surgeries are done under local and aesthetic, not like general. So for many of us when our attack those obsolete, it creates an inconvenience. You know it could be a signal an inconvenience depending on how far in you were like that? If you are one of the people who bought an hd dvd. air and bought an entire library of hd dvds thinking. This is the future of video when Did he dvd when, under your probably a little frustrated that you're stuck with his life,

I was never going expand beyond what you had and if your player breaks down it's kind of game. We're. But when we're talking about medical technology, this goes well beyond that. It becomes a real impact on quality of life or perhaps the ability to live it can be a life or death matter depending upon the technology. Second sight, by the way, the held a public offering and twenty twenty one. This was essentially an effort to raise more. Funds and to pursue the development of a new brain implant system called our Ryan, which is that the company has a very limited kind of pilot program where Have the array and system now the IRAN is not a retinal implant. It's a brain implant. It's also meant Provide artificial vision to recipients, so it is a vision system it involves a brain implant. So if you think a retinal implant is a risky thing to remove,

Imagine having a brain implant where you've had something surgically implanted into your brain, and the company responsible the technology is potentially going out of business. That is terrifying. oh for those six people who receive the Ryan implants so far, one has already chosen a habit, surgically removed, which could not have been in an easy decision. Second sight, the company continue to struggle thou. The initial share price of second sight when it had its public offering was five dollars per share, but in February this month the price had fallen down to a dollar. Fifty per share the founders, pretty much all laughed like all the leadership had stepped down. Almost all the employees were laid off. Almost all the equipment had been sold off at auction and now what remains of second sight is merging with a company called nano precision. Medical

and there is still a lot of unanswered questions regarding the Argus and Ryan products. So the question you like Is the merged company going to restore support for the Argus Retinal implants? I don't know the answer to that, although I feel like there's an ethical obligation to do So, but again we're not talking about whether or not your smartphone can support the of the late latest OAS here we're talking about actual vision. The second sight. Story also reminds us of the importance of standardization. There are companies out there in the biomedical space they're creating text that can provide digital vision to the blind, but it's not as simple as someone with a failing Argus two retinal implant going to a competing biotech company and getting a tune up right. They can't just swap out parts. These are all proprietary approaches, sometimes fundamentally different approaches to try and get the

result, and I feel the second sight story really illustrates the risks involved in adopting a technology. Now, if the pay off for that technology is significant enough like. If we're talking about a return of vision, you can Then singly argue to me that the risk is worth it right that risking the possibility that the company it creates the tech could go under and you are left with. Oh gee, that has a limited lifespan. There might still be worth it to you. I think that has to come down to the individual, but I feel that does help us frame what we should be thinking about when we evaluate any company's products and the more critical the product is the more closely we should look at the company, and it behoves us to ask really tough questions like what happens. If that company should go out of business, we're looking at all these companies talking about the metaverse right now with some of them offering

virtual real estate in virtual environments will want, questions I ask is: how likely are those environments to survive long enough? for whatever the metaverse ends up being to really be a a a real thing. You know not just bits and pieces STAR citizen style, but an actual full, cohesive and coherent thing or many things in the case of multiple meta versus or whatever. if you don't feel like that, one company is going to last the test of time. It makes no sense to buy virtual real estate that the company is providing Because the servers may just not even be on by the time there, anything useful to do in the metaverse, so that

The thing that I'm seeing right now like that's a though those are questions that I think a lot of people need to be asking themselves before they start getting into this virtual gold rush of the metaverse and web three and all stuff so yeah? This episode covered a lot of ground, but we all comes back to taking that big picture. Look when it comes to our relationship with technology. I feel it's our responsibility to to do that every now and then that back and to understand what our love of tech means not just to ourselves but to each other and to our environment and to people in other parts of the world. We need to be aware and understand that so that we, make decisions that makes sense and we're not just buying the next new shiny thing, because it's newer and shiny air than the stuff we already have- and maybe

taking a little more care when it comes to adopting tax. So we can make the price we pay actually worth it right. What if you go out and spend a couple of thousand dollars investing into technology and the whole thing goes Caput, it's not just that you lost a couple of thousand dollars which is already a big deal, but all those other prices are paid throughout the supply chain, the environmental price. All these things, that's part of it too, and that's why I think it's good to take this critical thinking and compassionate approach. Su, broaching tech. And you know I I'm someone who uses a lot of tech myself. I've got a smartphone. I've got a couple of different computers. I've got a tv and you know various components connected to it. So I am, I am part of the system too. I'm not saying this is some sort of techno hermit

The EU has decided to stand away from any technology whatsoever, I'm just trying to make it more of my process to take these sort of things into full consideration. Before I jump in on stuff, I feel like it's the responsible thing to do as a consumer. All right, that's it! For this episode, I'm going to jump down off the soap box. It's feeling like it's a little tall for me and if you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech stuff, please reach out to me on Twitter. The handle for the show is stuff, H S, W and I'll talk to you again really soon. The texts. is an eye heart. Radio production for more podcasts from I heart radio, the Iheart APP Apple pie,

Where were you listen to your favorite jobs? He there I'm just milady confetti here I am psyche than I am hey shady lady and welcome to boss level. Podcast refuse your conversations with gas to have levelled up, bringing an experienced to the table. We pick the brains of professionals, creators and bosses and industries across the globe to help our listening to choose their own boss. Double we are, I just creating a podcast but a game of hide and engaged community. This isn't a boss level on the Iheart radio, app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Karen is the proven expert in addiction treatment. Recent independent studies show that ninety four percent of current patients were still in recovery. Ninety days, post treatment, visit C, a r o n dot org slash, we'll carry real results, real care, real about recovery,

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