TikTok Sells Its US Arm - DTNS 5169

0:00This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, December 19th, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, give you the important context, and help each other understand. Today, Justin Robert Young talks with Tom about the agreement to sell TikTok's U.S. operations. And Jason has a first look at the Rayneo X3 Pro XR smart glasses. I'm looking at them right now. I'm Jason Howell. And I'm Gwyneth Waddell. Let's start with what you need to know with a big story. And boy, what a big story it is. The news broke just last night, Thursday evening, that TikTok's CEO sent a memo to employees with details on a newly signed agreement to create a joint venture to handle part of TikTok's U.S.

0:45operations and avoid a prohibition on distribution there. Now, Tom Merritt sat down with Justin Robert Young from the Politics, Politics, Politics podcast to go over the details and some of the political implications. It's a little long, but it's very detailed. So let's dive right in. Justin Robert Young, thanks for joining the show. Always a pleasure, Tom. Oh, my gosh. And what a pleasure it is to finally have this story maybe not put to bed, you know, but it's been a long three-year journey. when you go all the way back? More than that. No, I mean, all the way back would be the first time that it was flooded with banning it, which was closer to 2020.

1:28So yeah, we are at a half a decade of discussing what to do with this meddlesome TikTok. Well, we're not going to go all the way back in the story, but in case you really missed it, the United States has a law on the book that specifically says TikTok, although it could be applied to other companies, we'll see if that ever happens, that says that ByteDance must divest, they can't own more than 20%, which will come into the story in a minute, of TikTok after January 22nd, 2025. And the U.S. has put out an executive order saying, we're not going to enforce that law until this date. And then they kept pushing the date down the road until they figured out a deal to divest enough of TikTok in the U.S.

2:21to satisfy the law. The president gets to decide under the law whether it's satisfied the law or not. And apparently he says, yes, I am satisfied. We have got info from a memo sent by TikTok CEO Shu Chu to employees saying an agreement has been signed. That deal is set to close January 22nd, which would be one day before the current executive order would expire on non-enforcement. And the deal will be called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which, Justin, you know that I've been going on and on about, like, there is already an independent entity that handles the data storage of U.S. users. It's managed by Oracle.

3:07It exists in Texas. If you've heard of Project Texas, that's USDS. TikTok offered this and said, here, freaking put CFIUS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., as the board members. Take it. And the U.S. didn't do that. But apparently they're using that. In fact, Chu called it out in his memo. They are using the existing USDS as the basis for this joint venture, hence the name. So it's not new. This new joint venture will continue to manage data storage of U.S. users, but it will add independent ownership, finally. and content moderation and quote unquote algorithm security. So we are getting an actual independent USDS fund.

3:51USDS was the result of the first TikTok. It was the first olive branch from ByteDance, right? Yeah, the first when there was a question about whether or not it was going to be banned in that 2020 pandemic era, this was the result. okay, we will allow you to keep operating if you store data in America. That's Project Texas. Then you had everything that popped off a few years ago, increased worries that the algorithm was something that was the real menace. It wasn't the data. It was the algorithm. And the algorithm them was something that was programmed from outside of the United States. And so that is what this remedies, at least according to the powers that be that an ownership where, you know, it was Oracle and other moneyed interests that are aligned with Oracle, that did not want TikTok banned because they had investments in TikTok from the very beginning, We're always going to have the inside track to own a U.S.

5:00version of it. And it appears that now we have finally landed the plane after the executive order, which I don't think that there's much of an argument to say, illegally delayed the enforcement of this pretty clear law on the books. I want to get to that. I want to get to that. I need to set aside my frustration, though. Just let me get this out. So far from what I've read, only the Financial Times acknowledged that USDS existed in their coverage of this. But yes, Oracle's getting 15%. Silver Lake gets 15%. MGX gets 15%. And 5 % goes to unnamed other investors. A lot of people think Rupert Murdoch might be in there.

5:44But that will be the managing partners of this new joint venture. 30.1 % will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors. Those are a bunch of non-Chinese companies. Some are in Ireland, some are in the United States, some are in Hong Kong and Singapore. Well, I guess Hong Kong is actually Chinese, but they're not mainland Chinese investors. They get to keep a chunk of it because they're ByteDance investors. And then ByteDance gets to keep 19.9%, which keeps it under the law, which says they can't have 20%. There will be a new seven-member majority American board of directors. However, Justin, TikTok Global in the U.S.

6:23will continue to manage global product interoperability, certain commercial activities, including e-commerce, advertising, and marketing, and reportedly keep up to 50 % of the profits. So TikTok U.S. will still exist as a ByteDance company and it will do all the money making stuff and give 50 % to this USDS joint venture. Here's the key. The algorithm, that's what Justin just said. That was the thing like, okay, we've got US data stored on Oracle servers now, but what about that algorithm? The algorithm will continue to be provided by ByteDance. It will be retrained on US data. So the algorithm will be managed by ByteDance.

7:08It'll be handed over to this joint venture, which will then retrain it on U.S. data. So the recommendations are based on U.S. data, not on worldwide data. And Oracle will be responsible for auditing and validating that that is in compliance with the national security terms of the law that required them to do this whole dance. And that is what started all of this. What started all of this was a lot of political activity, specifically revolving around the election and the activities in Gaza, the military activities in Gaza, that began to worry elements of the American government. And then TikTok, who has, you know, had the best of times and the worst of times in terms of PR and trying to fight for their lives here.

8:03The worst of times was them pushing their users to call their Congress people and therefore revealing exactly how powerful their user base was. And that spooked Congress. That's what got this moving forward. Now, since then, they, I think, have done an exemplary job of pointing out positive elements of their communities, not only small businesses, but also you might have seen advertisements for BookTok, for example, essentially telling parents, are you wondering why your kids are reading books? It's us. We're the ones that are connecting them to literature that they wouldn't otherwise. We're not so bad after all.

8:46What this deal does is essentially removes, and I think, Tom, even you and I have disagreed on exactly how much of a question mark of Chinese control, either active or possible, of the algorithm can affect the end product for American users. This removes that. So now you don't have the worry, as was said by many people on both sides of the aisle during some of these congressional hearings, that golden shares in ByteDance or government pressure on a Chinese company in China means something different. And they could lean on whoever it is that would change the algorithm, no matter how much TikTok has said that that's not possible or that is not probable.

9:35We now have removed that possibility. Have we? Well, I mean, it's going to be retrained by Americans. So now at least an American company is going to have to say they are in charge of it. But it's still the algorithm created by ByteDance. So if you believe that ByteDance could hide some nefarious stuff in the algorithm now, why wouldn't they in the future? And it's like, oh, it'll be retrained on U.S. data. Maybe that'll make it even more effective at swaying U.S. opinion. You know, this is not really a technical solution, obviously. This is a political blame game solution. And so now if something goes wrong, you have Americans that you can yell at and not a foreign company for which you do not have control of.

10:20And that, to be totally honest, is a lot of what people wanted. They want people in America for whom the American government can pull their card. I think somebody is going to try to say, yeah, but ByteDance still gives the algorithm. I want to yell at them, too. But there may be enough fog here to keep that from catching on. Is that what you're thinking? It just puts Americans on the hook. And that's what they want. They want surface area that they can go. The average person will say, well, it's run by Oracle. So if there's a problem. No, I think Congress. Now, if Congress wants to yell at somebody, they can call Larry Ellis in it.

10:53They can call Silver Lake in. They can call people that are American citizens to answer for why X or Y is happening. They could not do that before. Yeah. How different do we think this will end up being for users? The interoperability is still handled by TikTok Global U.S. Division. So it should show you all of the things from the rest of the world. It'll just recommend them differently because the algorithm will be trained differently.

11:25Well, you have to wonder whether or not the things that were getting people really mad about TikTok weren't just kind of current events. driven. We have not seen the same kind of reaction to TikTok over the last year, despite the fact that it was operating illegally, which would otherwise normally be a thing that people would jump up and down and scream and yell about. Yeah. Because there hasn't been an election. There has been a reduction in at least the frequency and the violence of what's happening in Gaza. So we have seen less interaction about that. And TikTok has been less in the center of it.

12:06Now, does that mean that at some point up or down the chain of the algorithm, things were more about fantasy book talk and less about current events or have the current events just been less interesting to people? I don't know. But if you were to say the output of TikTok, while still popular will be like 2025 and not 2024 or 2023, then yeah, I think everybody will say, wow, I don't know. Why were we so mad about TikTok? I'm really glad that American company owns it. Yeah. The midterms will be the test, right? Next November. If something happens on TikTok, it'll be interesting to watch what the reaction is.

12:52Or maybe, like you said, Maybe it'll be calm waters. Yeah. The fear was always China and Taiwan. I mean, if you're going to look at this from the State Department perspective, the worry was that China blocks Taiwan or puts boots on the ground in Taiwan. And then all of a sudden on TikTok, you hear all about how Taiwan is actually the bad guy or the United States brought this on themselves and they are amplifying dissident voices that split the American public to, you know, stand up and defend Taiwan on some level. that that's been the worry and now at the very least if that happens larry ellison shows up in congress and not suits you yeah uh well justin thanks uh for for bringing the political insight uh to this discussion uh i i don't think it'll be the last time we talk about it honestly i kind of think it will be i kind of think i think there'll be one more time because it's going to go into effect and then everybody's going to debate be debating whether it's different or not for a little bit that that's my guess well the other side of this is whether or not tiktok is kind of you know ready to be supplanted yeah it's been the cool thing for a while the kids that grew up with tiktok are now in college or they're starting their careers which means you know are are the middle schoolers that are saying six seven is is that is are they going to find their own place to to build their culture that tends to be the case in our modern social media world we've seen the rise of apps like Sora and we don't know where this AI future is going to go is it more in that direction is TikTok now gasp for the olds Ah, Skibbity is all grown up now.

14:58Well, when we find out what the 6-7 generation is going to prefer, we will definitely want to talk to Justin Robert Young about the political implications and the technological implications. If you want to keep up on what's happening in politics and be like me, it's my first stop on either Sunday night or Monday morning to find out, like, what am I going to hear Washington talk about this week? It's Politics, Politics, Politics hosted by Justin Robert Young. Justin, where should they go to get it? TakePoliticsSeriously.com. Thanks, man. Thank you. All right. I mean, you don't get bigger than this.

15:33I can't help but think that like this story is still, you know, completely done. But do you feel any sense of relief, whether you agree with the decision or not and the way this played out? Like, do you feel any sense of relief that maybe like this is a story that we can kind of move on from a little bit? I'd like to think so, because it felt like it had to go somewhere. Right. Especially that it's TikTok. I think any other company, I think that's what's so unique about this is that it's TikTok. It's become, for better or for worse, a very ingrained part of our current, you know, society of our current, you know, everything.

16:10And so it had to happen. And I think because of like the usage of it, something like not terrible. So to put it very simplistically, I don't think TikTok was ever going to go away. But I do find it really fascinating that this is the solution they came up with. And this is what we're going for. I mean, I might be a little naive or maybe I'm just not seeing the specifics of the politics or legality of it. But it seems very unique to me in my tech life to see something like this happen. But again, because it's TikTok, it kind of makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. Totally agree. All right. We got a bunch of other stuff.

16:46Let's roll on. Before that, we want to make a little bit of time to let you know that DTNS, this right here, is made possible by you, the listener. We want to take time to thanks, to thanks, to send thanks to Erwin Sturr, Ken Hay, and Philip Shane. Thanks and thank you. There's more we need to know today. Let's get to the briefs. Well, Samsung announced the new Exynos 2600, or as I often pronounce it because I have trouble with this word on Android faithful, Exynos 2600. It's first two nanometer gate all around smartphone chip. All right, we're going to give you a little bit of spec soup because it's good for you.

17:25It uses a 10-core ARM V9.3 CPU with one 3.8 gigahertz C1 ultra core, three 3.25 gigahertz C1 Pro cores, and six 2.75 gigahertz efficiency -tuned C1 Pro cores. All right, so what does all that soup get you? Well, Samsung says it can deliver up to 39 % CPU performance compared to the Exynos 2500. It also has a boost to on-device AI performance with a 113 % increase in NPU capability. The Eclipse 960 GPU also doubles compute performance. So this chip supports cameras up to 320 megapixels with zero shutter lag, 108 megapixel shots, 8K at 30 frames per second, and 4K at 120 frames per second HDR video, and more at 50 % less power to achieve it all.

18:41Exynos chips have a history of heating issues, though. So Samsung also added a heat path block to tackle that challenge in future devices. Expect versions of the S26 series to run with this chip next year. Yeah. So GAA or gate all around. I was like, what the heck does that even mean? Actually, there's a lot in here that people were like, OK, what does any of this mean? But the GAA, I wanted to call that out. It's a transistor design where the control actually wraps around the electrical pathway as a way of simplifying it. Basically, it means faster speeds, less battery, cooler operation, all things you really want out of a processor upgrade like this.

19:21Right. And I mean, we talk about this stuff on Android Faithful all the time. I think the longstanding thing around Exynos processors in Samsung devices, at least here in the U.S. centric view, is, OK, so then will we see the Exynos processors in the devices that Samsung releases here? And Samsung even mentioned in this, you know, they're they're basically communicating up front. At least some Galaxy S26 phones are going to get this in select markets. So I don't think it means that Snapdragon is going away anytime soon here in the U.S. Qualcomm has some serious like mind share and market share when it comes to the processors here and notability.

20:03But interesting nonetheless. I mean, it sounds like a very capable chip. Yeah, I actually did study transistor and semiconductor like processes and how they're made in school. So honestly, this sounds like really cool tech. You kind of think that certain things just are basic building blocks and never get any better. But no, no, it's still it's still going. They're still shrinkifying all these to different nanometers or I don't know what's below nanometers. But it'd be really interesting. And like you said, the real thing here is what their strategy will be for how they distribute different versions of the S series with the X-NOS or with the Snapdragon.

20:39So we'll see. But it could be something. Two nanometer process. That's a tiny, tiny little process. Very tiny. Show tiny. I think it shows the Samsung's, you know, they're still playing ball here as far as this is concerned. So are you ready for another story where I'm guessing if anyone is like me, you won't recognize half of what I'm about to say? That's part of why I put this in here, because I was like, you know what? I want to be edumacated on the TikTok U.S. awards show that took place at the Hollywood Palladium last night. they crowned food critic and former MMA fighter Keith Lee as creator of the year apparently he does some really cool things with like recipe videos and stuff and has revitalized restaurants in the process 16 categories in total were up for grabs creators from comedy sports live streaming of course there was a rising star award that went to Jeremiah Brown which is a name that I actually do recognize because my daughter watched Love Island USA and Jeremiah Brown is one of the guys on Love Island USA.

21:51He's alumni there. Storyteller of the year went to Teenie Younger. TikTok for good award given to the Valentin brothers, twins who use their kind of comedy to, I guess, shine a light on social issues, social causes. And then video of the year went to Bretman Rock, who has, I went to Bretman's TikTok feed. And I mean, almost all of Bretman's videos are filled with chickens. It's kind of pretty standard for, you know, what they do on TikTok, by the way, as far as I can tell anyways. I couldn't find the video that he got, that they got video of the year for, but there you go. Do any of these names ring a bell to you, Wynn?

22:32okay i was so proud okay i was like you i i'm not very much on tiktok so i i was thinking okay great um no this is also a story for me but i actually do know keith lee and i feel like this is the time when a young person at uh a job told me hey uh asked us hey did you guys know that mark warburg mark warburg used to be a rapper um i feel like somehow the inverse of that has taken place because i actually have seen videos of keith lee and i believe as an mma fighter no no no as a food critic so it's the opposite i know him as the food critic i had no idea he was an mma fighter um there was an infamous video that i watched intensely where he ate some sushi that looked very much like it had a active worm in it sorry to if you're listening to this during lunch but i i have heard a i believe this is the person i'm thinking of that he's gotten a lot of props for reviewing all kinds of food and not just like high-end restaurants or things like that but just mom and pop places, mom and pop places, sorry, something just fell, mom and pop places, like small places.

23:31So, and he really being very authentic about it. So I've heard a lot of good positive things about it. So that's cool. Someone I actually know, I might have to watch more of his videos and hopefully not sad ones with bad stuff in your food, but no, I'm very proud. I do know one person sort of, but by accident. Super curious to like run this by my my daughter, my older daughter, she probably knows all of these very, very, uh, very familiar with them, I'm guessing. So I'll have to remember to do that. YouTube has permanently removed two high profile channels, a screen culture, Ooh, and KH studio, which collected more than 2 million subscribers with AI generated movie trailers that were often convincingly believable.

24:12In some cases, the creator's videos outranked official studio uploads in search. Earlier this year, YouTube demonetized the channels, requiring them to add language to their uploads to disclose that their content was not official in any way. So YouTube says the bans fall under its spam and misleading metadata rules. It's notable that the timing coincides with Disney's recent deal with open AI soar and related cease and desist over AI use of Disney IP on YouTube. Both channels leaned heavily into using Disney properties as their subjects, sometimes splicing real footage into their own AI generations.

24:51And I said, ooh, early, because I have accidentally clicked on a screen culture trailer more than a couple of times. Thinking that it was a legit trailer? Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's some stuff that is like really obvious, like, oh, a sequel to this movie, which doesn't seem likely. But I've done that like a couple of times and been like, oh, crap. Which is why I said that. So yeah, I mean, it is a problem. And yeah, I've seen that too. It's like, oh my God, 3 million people watch this. Do we all think that this is, it's insane. Um, so yeah, I mean, I wonder if, you know, the people that are following, I, you know, it's probably a mixture.

25:24It's probably some people that are like, Ooh, I had no idea this movie was coming out and that they fall, you know, they like fall for it if you want to call it that. And then there's probably a lot of people that are in on a joke and they're just like, you know what? I just want to like, look at this alternate universe thing where the, you know, the Malcolm in the middle motion picture is the thing that actually exists, you know? And so I'm, I'm a little torn on it, but I get it because of the IP implications. I also think YouTube and Google are in a really weird position right now when it comes to AI, because on one hand, they're in this position to enforce rules like this.

25:59They're being taken to task by Disney for IP and things. And so they're put in a position where they have to enforce rules around this and trim the AI generated fat, as it were. On the other hand, Google and YouTube are also diving like knee deep into AI content driven tools. Like I just got a notice just the other day in YouTube Studio, which is the app that I as a creator used to like manage my own content on YouTube. It's the official app by YouTube for a new mobile app that I hadn't heard of. That's entirely based around creating AI generated content for YouTube. and apparently it was in Android beta for a year, just, you know, came out for iOS.

26:44I wish I had written down the name. I should have written down the name so I could tell you what it was. But anyway, so it strikes me as kind of interesting that like on one hand, they're like, no, no AI generated stuff, except here's some tools to make AI generate stuff. No, that's a really fair point. And I'm with you, I think, as like someone who's been in fan culture a long time, you know, we have, there's a wonderful history of people making their own trailers for things and in very creative ways. And as you said, like I would love a, you know, some alternate universe where we actually did get, say, for example, a Henry Cavill Wolverine movie or something like that, right?

27:20And like, there's a wonderful history of people making that happen just for us, just to dream. But that this new generation of AI is kind of... Makes it too believable? Yeah, it's like too believable. and it can be used for ill. And I'm sure that, you know, the fact that to lend to the more, I guess, punitive actions of YouTube and such, that, you know, there is a trickiness. I feel like sometimes, you know, just like how it's polite to put spoiler warning on content that you're going to spoil. I think it's polite sometimes to put fan trailer on something like that, like something obvious. But it does seem, in my opinion, that a lot of these places are just looking for views, looking for views, looking for, for, for that count to go up and then that engagement.

28:08So kind of omitting certain things and maybe just like either subtly or purposely misleading people is a thing. So it's weird because yeah, AI, and I can see it both ways. So we had discussions about this, how wonderful it can be to create with AI, especially if it's just for your own enjoyment, for your own joy, or just to express something within your side, inside of yourself is just another tool of creativity, but we haven't sorted out the whole other side of it yet. So No, we have not. No. And so we're in these weird places where I wouldn't say hypocritical, but very opposing things are happening both at large and within the same company.

28:43Yeah, it's complicated. That's for sure. And finally, some quick headlines that are just good to know if you want to understand the news in the future. Well, Connor Hayes, head of Threads, told Alex Heath that the Fediverse is in maintenance mode for the social network, meaning it's supported but no longer a breakout priority, while Meta focuses on improving the core app instead. And I know a lot of people will be upset by that because Fediverse was kind of a big selling point. It was kind of, yeah, it was a huge selling point. So that's interesting. Instagram is fighting back against hashtag spam.

29:15They're captioning, or sorry, they're capping captions with those hashtags to a total of five targeted hashtags. So you won't get that wall of hashtag anymore. I don't know what Instagram would be without them, but we'll see. Interesting. Smart Things just became the first smart home platform to turn Matter's new camera standard into its go-to with an update rolling out this month. All right, by Samsung. Riot Games denying reports that a League of Legends sequel, that would be League of Legends 2, is coming in 2026. They're saying there is no League 2 in development, but they are confirming a major overhaul of the current game.

29:55That's planned for 2027. I don't know. It makes sense to me. LG is backing down from the seemingly forced placement of Microsoft's co-pilot app on some LG smart TVs. LG did clarify that the icon acted as a shortcut for launching the chatbot in a browser and didn't represent an embedded application. At least for a sec, I guess. Well, those are the essentials for today. Let's dive a little deeper into XR Smart Glasses. Yeah, why don't we do this? So, um, so just to be clear upfront, uh, the folks at Ray Neo, they sent me their new X3 pro XR glasses and I've been, you know, I got them a few days ago.

30:35So I've been wearing them for a couple of days. Of course, none of you can see that is the case because this is an audio podcast, but I am wearing them right now. Um, and you know, I, I went, I went for a couple of dog walks wearing them. I wore them around the house. I cooked a meal. I did all sorts of stuff. so far. So my first impressions, kind of a mixture of genuinely impressive technology, some very real adjustment moments as well. And, you know, I'd say they're pretty comfortable. You can forget that you're wearing them. They kind of have that look of like, okay, they're mostly normal glasses, but they're maybe a little chunkier.

31:14So, you know, and you can see the cameras on them. There's a binocular display, binocular full color display. So you've got like this, you know, full color micro LED, I think 16.77 million colors. So it actually looks really good. It's really sharp, very bright, 6 ,000 nits of peak brightness. I was outside when it was really bright outside and could see everything on the screen. 30 degrees field of view. So not, you know, super duper wide, but, um, you know, it's got a Snapdragon AR one gen one, uh, processor inside a Sony IMX six 81 camera for shooting, uh, 4k video and taking images. And it's capable of doing up to nine minutes of video record, uh, in the software and, you know, live translation, 76 grams of weight.

32:04I'm just kind of loading you with a couple of the specs up front, but first of all, I'm wearing them when, and, you know, given that no one can actually see me wearing them on the audio podcast, do they look okay? If you were to describe them, do they look all right? They definitely. Okay. So if I was looking at you really quickly, they look like some, let's call them more academic-y kind of glasses. I would definitely notice the thicker, um what are the things sides sides uh and if i was looking closely the the cameras that are right smack in the middle give me a if this is not a two dated reference uh revenge as a nerds vibes with like the you know like the big chunk like a big piece of tape yeah but it's together but it's giving me that vibe but but but it's black so it's not white but yeah um i think if i looked quickly i wouldn't notice them but when you kind of take more than like about a 10 second glance it's very obvious that something's going on with these glasses.

33:01Also, the lenses or the lens, what do you call them? Lenses, the glass part, the lenses are quite reflective in a way. They're very reflective. And yeah, because I know you have like lights and like your monitor, like reflecting at your glasses, but they are pretty reflective, almost distractingly so. Yes, no, they are. That is one of that is definitely one of my impressions is, wow, these suckers are super reflective, not just on the outside looking at me, right? But on the inside looking out, you know, things reflect on the inside too. So there is a bit of a haziness when I put this on, even though the lenses, for those who can't see them, are not like sunglass lenses.

33:42They're just normal lenses. But, you know, that kind of reflective quality kind of makes it a little hazy in that regard. But, yeah, I mean, you know, it's kind of hard to describe technology like this because it's very much an experiential sort of thing. But, you know, if I was to describe it, you know, it is the binocular displays on the inside. They sit a little bit lower than your eyeline. So if you imagine, you know, you're walking straight forward where you're looking, the display is not. It's kind of below. So which is good because it doesn't directly block where you're looking necessarily.

34:20You kind of have to look downward a little bit to see it. But at the same time, I noticed while I was walking my dogs the other day and wearing them, A, I noticed that I couldn't bring myself to make eye contact with everyone while I was walking. Like, I got to get over that, I realized. But it was really hard for me. I was like, oh, no, I'm wearing these glasses. They're going to know. They're going to be like, why are you videotaping me? And I'm not. But even though the display doesn't block your direct line of sight, if you're looking at them, and even though when you're looking at them, you understand that you can see through what you're seeing on the screen, your attention shifts to what's on the screen versus what's in front of you.

35:03And I had a couple of times where I was doing that for control or whatever. I was like, yeah, I know I can see everything, but I kind of can't. My brain isn't registering that I'm seeing everything when I'm out walking and I'm interacting with the display. And that could be dangerous. Yeah. So it's, you know, and I'm starting to get really curious about this form factor and what it means in a daily life lived experience. And so this is one of the first times, you know, outside of Google's Project Astra demos where it's a highly controlled environment. Now I can wear this out on a dog walk and see like, you know, does it bring with it any impact?

35:42Like positive or negative, possibly negative when the impact is me running into a phone pole. But, you know, like what do I actually get out of it? And that remains to be seen. It's still very early. I think it's a wonderful point because, you know, there's a lot of models coming out that had the monocular display, which I think as someone who hasn't tried any smart glasses, I've just tried like heads up displays, like full headsets. I kind of assumed that, oh, wouldn't I want like both eyes? Like, wouldn't that give me like, you know, we always want more screen real estate to throw stuff up on.

36:17So I kind of assumed that monocular would be an inferior experience to the binocular experience. But I hadn't thought of that, but I think that would totally happen to me too, to be honest with you, that, you know, especially if something is very like interaction intense, like a little bit, like a little bit more requiring of your intention, attention, it wouldn't be unfamiliar, like dissimilar to people that, you know, we say, you know, well, when we say to people, you shouldn't walk just staring at your phone, you know, don't, don't, don't cross a crosswalk while staring at your phone, but the same idea, but just this time the screen is just in the glasses as opposed to something that you're holding.

36:52Totally. So it's the same, the same dang thing. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I don't, I don't know that there's a whole lot of distinction in my short time with these so far. I don't know that there's a whole lot of difference between walking and staring at my phone versus walking and looking at the interactive elements on the glasses. Yes, there is a see-through element, but it's all about where your attention is, is what I'm noticing. And when I've got my phone, it's easy to know where my attention is. It's on the phone. I'm holding it up. It's right there. When you've got glasses, it's like, it's easy to kind of be lulled into this, I think, false sense of security of, oh, but I see everything, so I'll be fine.

37:31But, you know, I had a couple of moments where I was like, dude, don't look at the onscreen stuff. Because when I do that, I put myself at risk when I'm out here for a walk. And yeah, I don't know. I'm going to be curious to see how that plays out long term, you know, if and as more people get technology like this on their face, you know maybe that becomes prohibitive maybe that becomes the thing that keeps this firmly in the early adopter slash you know very very small niche category which it very well could be long term i don't know yeah i mean it's so funny because i think most of these demos that we've seen have been the headset where you're not really going anywhere the worst hopefully the worst is you might bump your couch or something but then i i love i i i'm so fascinated by now this under there's this kind of realization that, oh, maybe, and obviously immersive experiences are different than even what you're experiencing now.

38:26But this idea that an immersive heads-up display might actually not be that good of an idea if not done very carefully. And that translating certain things to a heads-up display is right in front of your eyeballs might not actually work in the way that we hope it would. And I'm totally like the gears are turning right now. That's that's I really appreciate this feedback because, oh, shoot, you're right. That is a thing. Well, now and now I'm realizing as we're talking about it, there's a difference between what I'm seeing here, which is just, you know, displays that that appear in front of my eyes.

39:03Like, I don't know that there's I don't think that there's any sort of anchoring to the real world with these glasses. But when we look at the Aura glasses by Xreal that we talked about a couple of weeks ago, potentially those have more interactive elements to the real world. And maybe that ends up being necessary in order to keep us dialed in with the real world because then it's not a screen that's in front of us. It's interactive elements that tie into the real world. So we're not pulling our attention away from the real world in order to interact with it. you know. Anyways, these costs, they're pretty expensive.

39:38They're$12.99,$1 ,299. They just came out, at least here in the US. I think they've been out in China for a little while. I did want to note just real quick, Rayneo made a 8 % off coupon for their site. If you decide, hey, I want to try this. I'm an early adopter. Super easy to remember, Jason. I'm not throwing that out there for any reason other than the fact that if you actually think you want to buy these, that gets you 8 % off. There you go. But I'm definitely going to be spending more time with these. I've got others that I can't talk about right now. I've got plans while I'm at CES next month to check out this category.

40:18I'm kind of going deep on smart glasses right now. And so I'll have more to say in the coming weeks and months. Oh, speaking of CES though, y 'all, if you are headed CES like Jason, you can meet you could probably see him and other folks from dts like tom rob amos and katie data and more of uh and more at a because there will be a meeting on wednesday january 7th at 6 30 p.m at the resorts world of food court so yeah come on hang out with the folks they got stickers they got tech talk uh to participate in with y 'all so yeah please come join the dts crew again that's Wednesday, January 7th at 6.30 p.m.

40:56at the Resorts World Food Ports.

41:02We end every episode of DTNS with some shared perspectives. And today it comes from Stim. Stim, actually. Stim says, I love that discussion of my name. I love that the discussion of my name got left in. Such a fun listen for me. And I appreciate the way you both handled it. It's a nickname with ties to some very close college friends who I don't get to see much these days. So it's always great to hear it mentioned. Nothing but positive vibes from the whole thing. Thanks, Tom and Huyen. Yeah, yesterday I read Tim's name as Tim because I thought Tom had added an extra S as a typo in the script. And we had to, Tom, very kindly and concisely let me know that it's actually pronounced Stim.

41:45Stim. And of course I introduced as S-Tim. So there's like a bunch of different ways to say your name, Stim. stim but it is stim but yeah now you've officially heard them all i think all right well what are you thinking about do you have some insight please share it with us feedback at dailytechnewsshow.com yeah big thanks to justin robert young thanks to stim for contributing to today's show and thank you for being along for daily tech news show you can keep us in business by becoming a patron at patreon.com slash dtns

42:21This week's episodes of Daily Tech News Show were created by the following people.

42:51editing, our mods, Beatmaster, Wscottis1, BioCow, Cap Kipper, Steve Guadarama, Paul Reese, Matthew J. Stevens, aka Gadget Virtuoso, and JD Galloway. Mod and video hosting by Dan Christensen. Music provided by Martin Bell and Dan Luters. Art by Len Peralta. Acast ad support from Tatiana Matias. Patreon support from Bobby Wagner and our guest this week, Justin Robert Young. And thank Thank you to all of our patrons who make the show possible.

43:32Happy holidays and sending good vibes to the DTNS extended family.