They say experience is the best teacher. For teens in high school, it can be easy to let AI do all the thinking for them. Who can blame them? Learning is hard work and tedious.
Should kids learn the old-fashioned way, or is AI an unavoidable asset for education?
Some people are constantly chasing after the next new technology. They must have the newest iPhone, smartwatch, laptop: the fastest, the latest, the best.
But what about the people who look backwards instead of forwards. Vintage Computer collectors have made it their hobby to own and restore old technology.
For people who have a strong aversion to bad-tasting water, Ninja's HydraSense makes sense for you.
Are you a fan of a good fan? Switchbot makes a great one, but it comes at a high price.
We're discussing all of these topics on this week's Tech Tuesday.
Guests:
- Geoffrey Fowler, head of public engagement, Common Sense Media
- Jeffrey Brace, vice president and chairman, Vintage Computer Federation
- Russell Holly, director of commerce content, CNET
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to Tech Tuesday from All Sides with Amy Juravich, a show where we share stories about science, technology, and the future of our environment. They say experience is the best teacher. Unfortunately, new information can't simply be injected into our minds, even though at one time we all wished it could be, especially when we were going into a test we forgot to study for. For teens in high school, it can be easy to let AI do all the thinking for them, and who can blame them? Learning is hard work and tedious. AI is a topic of debate in all schools. Should kids learn the old fashioned way or is AI an unavoidable asset for education? There's a new survey out today from Common Sense Media's Youth AI Safety Initiative, and it gives us some insights. And joining us now is Geoffrey Fowler, Head of Public Engagement for Common Sense Media. Welcome to All Sides, Geoffrey.
Geoffrey Fowler: Well, hello.
Juravich: So the survey shows that 70% of teens ages 13 to 17 are using AI for schoolwork. Yet teens say only a third of their teachers have ever brought up AI to them. So how can this lead to some confusion for both teachers and students? You know, what's going on here?
Fowler: Yeah, well, AI has become ubiquitous in American education before we agreed on what it should and shouldn't be used for. It used to be, I think almost four years ago, chat GPT came out and the big worry was some early adopter kids are gonna use this thing to cheat. And now we have a really different frame. We have almost every American student saying, acknowledging it in a survey, like they'd say this themselves. That they are using AI for schoolwork. And many of them, the most interesting part is many of the also acknowledging they're using it for the thinking part of their assignments. So it's not just to get new ideas, which they sometimes do as well, but it's to like find the answer along the way. That's what 63% of them told us. So the thinking parts, that's where the learning happens. And so if. If thinking is being replaced by AI, we have a much bigger problem for education and for society.
Juravich: Yeah, okay, so that thinking part, I mean, so is it a bad thing? Like who decides whether or not the teen uses AI or not? No one can control them 24 seven of what they're deciding to put into the computer.
Fowler: That's exactly right. So nobody can really control kids 24-7. In fact, in our survey, we learned that lots of schools have bans on AI and they try to block certain URLs or apps on school devices or school networks. And we found that 44% of the kids who are using AI for school work told us they had had a AI tool blocked on the school network. But they just went and switched to a personal device instead and did the same thing. So bands aren't really working either if the goal is to really help students kind of navigate all of this in a constructive way. And that's where I think the real missing piece of this is, as you said at the beginning, teachers aren't talking with students about AI literacy. They're not helping them understand, okay, what is this thing good for What is it bad for? How do you stay safe on it? And that is a huge missing part of American education right now. We have the vast majority of students using AI tools or schoolwork, and only a tiny, tiny fraction of them talking with teachers about it.
Juravich: Yeah, okay, so, and also the students you surveyed, teens are saying that they're not using AI overtly to cheat. But we're gonna have to, I guess, talk about defining the word cheating, I get so. But 77% of the teens who report using AI for schoolwork, they report they're using it as a support tool. So can AI really help students, you know, brainstorm and understand new concepts? You know, what, yeah, talk to me about that, about using it a support tools.
Fowler: Yeah, so I would say that the survey shows teens have a really complicated view about AI. So they say two things at once, which might scramble our brains a little bit, but it's worth teasing out here. One, they say, yes, very often we're using it to replace thinking. And then at the same time, they also say, sometimes we use it in a way that doesn't replace thinking but is more of a support tool for us, right? It's more of way to help explain the assignment or dig into it. So, you know, even as they say that, they're not naive about what's happening here. They know, like, a significant chunk of them in our survey said, they know that when AI is around, they come up with fewer original ideas. Some of them said that they know when AI's around, they feel like they end up learning less. So, students have this complicated view as well that, like I need it maybe because I'm under so much pressure at school to get good grades to prove that I have a future. But then also I feel like maybe I'm losing something along the way. And the education experts that I work with at Common Sense Media think that kids probably are even undercounting how much they give up when they use these AI tools. There's all sorts of things about education that are not immediately obvious. For example, let's imagine a situation where a student turns to AI to get feedback on an essay. So they're having this ongoing conversation with a bot about what they wrote. Well, first of all, the bot could be wrong and it often is, or the bots are often designed to continually agree with you. That's part of the nature of this technology. So they end up making you feel like, oh yeah, you're doing a great job. This is really great. Now, imagine if that same student went through this process with a classmate instead. First of all they'd have to figure out how to actually engage with another person, which is a big part of growing up and learning. They'd have learn about how people have disagreements. They might hear things that are uncomfortable for them, but it's in this uncomfortable business that learning happens. And we don't want to lose that in American education just because AI makes it easy to like avoid having to talk to another person or AI makes seem like it has all the answers.
Juravich: Well, and to counter this idea of AI being used as just a tool, talk to me about, it's the job of the educators to explain things to their students, to teach their students. So how can they teach their students to use AI in the right way, especially if the educator themselves is still learning AI or hasn't even learned it yet.
Fowler: I know, you hit the problem, the nail on the head. So teachers are expert in things like, helping students understand literature. Now all of a sudden we've come to them and said, hey, you're supposed to be an expert in this new technology that frankly, people in Silicon Valley don't really totally understand yet. And that your students are probably like way more like good at using these tools than you are because they use them a lot more. Parents feel the same way as well. So it's a big. Thing to put on the shoulders of teachers who, by the way, society keeps putting everything on their shoulders that they have to fix for us. So they need help. So we're trying to do that. So Common Sense Media, the organization I work for, in fact, today we have launched a new curriculum which is free for students. And our curriculum is already used by about 70% of the schools in the US. And this curriculum offers lessons on AI literacy that teachers can do with students. And The focus really is on not just having like cut and dry answers, which is what AI makes you, you know, gives you, but rather on the sort of uncomfortable gray parts of living in a world with AI to have debates about it and talk about it. Because what we think is the number one thing that gets lost as more and more kids use AI is critical thinking. If they're just getting answers and being told this is it, then that's not what, you know that's not going to develop their brains. So that's the focus of this new curriculum.
Juravich: This is Tech Tuesday from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about teens using AI in school with Jeffrey Fowler, head of public engagement for Common Sense Media. Let's talk about that critical thinking for a minute because I have an example from my own life where middle schoolers were learning about like ancient Greece or ancient Rome. I can't remember exactly what happened, but they put the question into AI and AI spit back the wrong answer because it used. It gave them the answer for this Greek mythology thing from like a TV show or a movie. And the TV show and the movie had changed the character a little bit to make it more interesting, but it ended up being the wrong answer for like the actual worksheet because the actual worksheets was just ancient Greece. How do we teach students to double check?
Fowler: Well, exactly for the story that you just told. So first of all, this is super common and, you know, kids are used to thinking that something like Google is an authority, right? It's a source of truth. But now Google is unavoidable that it gives you an answer generated by AI. And often that AI answer is wrong. Or here's another way to do it. Ask the same question. Multiple times to the same tool and you'll get different answers when you ask it. So that's a really good exercise to do with the young people in your life, to do it with the students in your classroom, to do at home with your kids so that you can have that conversation about wait a minute, what is this technology? Is it really an expert in this thing? Does it really know everything? Or is it kind of making it up, winging it as it goes along? And so I think kids have to be walked through this and they have to talk about it with with people that they trust so that they can learn that lesson.
Juravich: I mean, the AI summary got me the other day, and I've been in journalism for more than 20 years. And I did double check it, and it still was confusing. I don't know what to do about these AI summaries.
Fowler: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up because the other truth is that we have stuck AI in ways that it is in places that kids are already hanging out online, and that is unavoidable. So, you know, you might say like, oh, my kid doesn't use chat GPT, but like every kid in America uses Google. Yeah, and those AI summaries, you cannot turn off on Google, schools cannot turn them off on school devices, either the AI summories or the AI mode, which is sort of the newer thing that they've integrated into it. And AI mode, like A, gives you answers, often wrong, and then B, will fully do your homework for you. So we're really asking a lot of young people to avoid taking shortcuts. I remember being young, most of our listeners can remember being young in some level. It's all about taking shortcuts if you can so you can spend time doing the things you want, but that is not necessarily good for your mental development.
Juravich: Talk to me more about this Common Sense Media curriculum. Is it for me? Is it just for teachers? Is it is it for the students? Like who do you want to access it and is it free?
Fowler: It is free, I will say that first. It is designed mostly for teachers to use in their classroom. We also have some professional developments, a material that helps teachers feel like they're getting up to speed on AI and sort of have the right frameworks to approach its role and unavoidable role in their classrooms. The lessons themselves are really interesting. They're like, they're focused on specific aspects of how AI and other sort of aspects of our digital lives fit with their lives. For example, one of the courses asks high school students to help develop an AI policy for their school. So they have debates about the very thing we were talking at the beginning, what is okay and what isn't okay as a use for AI. So they're thinking about and talking about how it's impacting their own education, their own learning. We also have one that's all about explaining how AI is designed to feel personal, but that is a design choice. So we're putting students in the driver's seat. So they're thinking about what it's like to make one of these products as opposed to just being the recipient of it. So the framework shift here is don't let AI drive you, you drive the AI and be aware of what it is doing and using it for your own need rather than letting it just take over.
Juravich: Is this something that a teacher could use just to help teach themselves, or is it a curriculum where you're hoping an entire school district takes it up and it becomes like the thing?
Fowler: We have both, so yes, it is a curriculum that we're hoping school districts all around America and the world take on, but then also we do have some professional development elements that are specifically for teachers to help them feel like they've got some literacy and can talk about this stuff.
Juravich: Yeah, what if the district is too big and slow and the teacher's like, I need this now this year, right? I need it yesterday.
Fowler: Indeed, they can go to our website and they can still get it. We have a pretty good track record of Common Sense Media of getting school districts to take up our curriculum where we're well trusted.
Juravich: Um, I did want to talk for a minute just about everything teens are facing. You know, there's, um, there is navigating deep fakes. There's social media, parasocial relationships. There's, social engineering going on. I mean, all of this is impacting teens. And now you had to put AI on top of it where the, the AI is it is the AI summary is giving them the wrong answer. Like how, what is a team to do here? How are they going to, how are they gonna survive this?
Fowler: I hear you and I have a lot of sympathy for young people, right? So here we are as adults, putting our hand on our hip and saying, those teens shouldn't be doing this. But meanwhile, they're watching us and they see us using these tools, right. They see their parents, they see their leaders, they see people in popular culture using AI and talking about it. So they think, well, they're using it. Why can't I? But of course, they don't understand There's a difference between a young person's brain and an adult brain. And so they get caught up in that. I also have sympathy because we've been talking about digital literacy or digital citizenship for like well over a decade now in the United States. And it used to be like very like technical things. It used to like how to make a long password that won't get hacked or how to protect your privacy online and those things all still matter. But what we're talking about with AI is actually kind of like comes around the other side of the circle. It's like how to protect your brain from from technology that would would stop you from using it. It's how to maintain or develop social skills so that you are prepared for the future. When, you know, yes, technology may. May do lots of jobs that existed before, but we still are gonna need humans who know how to interact with other humans and manage them and work creatively with them. So I feel like just the whole idea of digital literacy has really come full circle. The good news, I will say, is that a lot of young people already recognize that what they need for the future is not just specific technical skills. In the survey we've been talking about, We also ask young people. Like what is the most important skill to have for the future? And most of them said like the ability to work with other people, the ability read critically, and almost at the very end of the list of the things that they thought were important for the future was like specific using AI technologies, like specific, like having these specific tools. So that shows that at least some kids out there recognize that like the future is about being a better human. So we really have come full circle.
Juravich: Yeah, because like my last question was going to be, there's been a lot of talk of Chromebook remorse, schools leaned in too much, too much technology too fast, especially in the younger grades. But is the answer even for teens, just to have the conversations in classrooms remove all the technology and forget about writing a five page essay using AI, right? Just instead public speaking, a debate, interaction, that kind of thing.
Fowler: Yeah, the most important skills for the future are gonna be human connection. And so that's what schools need to focus on right now. Again, not like mastering specific technologies, which frankly are all gonna change in a year anyway. It's how to work with other people because that's one thing that we don't think the AI is ever gonna really be able to replace.
Juravich: We have been talking about AI and education with Jeffrey Fowler, the Head of Public Engagement for Common Sense Media. Thank you for your time today, Jeffrey. You bet. And coming up, we're going to talk about the growing interest in vintage computers. Think Apple One and Commodore 64. That is when tech Tuesday from All Sides continues on 89 7 NPR News.
Juravich: You're listening to Tech Tuesday from All Sides with Amy Juravich, a show where we share stories about science, technology, and the future of our environment. Some people are constantly chasing after the next new tech. They must have the newest iPhone, smartwatch, laptop, the fastest, the latest, the best. But what about people who want to look backwards instead of forwards? Vintage computer collectors have made it their hobby to own and restore old technology. Before the age of AI there were simpler computers whose users couldn't imagine the computers of today. And joining us now is Jeffrey Brace, Vice President and Chairman of the Vintage Computer Federation, a nonprofit with a mission to preserve computing history. He also is involved in running the Vintage Computer Festivals on the East Coast, the West Coast, and in Montreal. Welcome to All Sides, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey Brace: Welcome. Thank you very much, Amy.
Juravich: So your bio talks about some of your earliest computers and it notes that the Commodore 64 is still your favorite computer. Can you describe it for our radio listeners? Tell us what it looks like and why it's your favorite.
Brace: The Commodore 64 was an 8-bit computer. That means the microchip process data with 8 bits. Nowadays, there's 64-bit processors. It came out in 1982. One of the things with Commodore was its low costs. And so this machine had a combination of a lot of great colors and sound and low cost. So it was very popular. I had first gotten this as a home computer. Used from one of my brother's friends. And so it was great because it was discounted and I loved it. The first year, all I did was play games. And then after a year, I open, I said, what else can I do with this? And I opened up the user manual and I started to learn basic programming, which is an early programming language.
Juravich: And I'm sure that, you know, because of what you do, you still have your Commodore 64. Does it still work?
Brace: I still have it. Over the years, I've collected a lot more, unfortunately. Unfortunately, as the case may be. Hoarding is one of the attributes of some of us. I do have it available. I have actually many of them. It does still work. There are many of the that I don't have working because of different issues. Things break over the years. These things weren't designed to last. 40 years. They were designed to last a few years and by the next computer.
Juravich: What drew you into vintage tech? I mean, what draws you to these devices that seem from a bygone day?
Brace: So for me it was nostalgia. I had used it growing up and then I used one in college, I used a Macintosh SE30 in college. In general, everybody's different. For me it was nostalgia, I would fire up my computer once every summer and then it would put it away and then i was like well are there other people that collect these things? I'm interested in reliving these memories. Some people it's like it was a home computer, some people it was a work computer. And other people, it's, there are other reasons. They, it, things are very simple with these computers. You can get in there and repair them a lot more simpler than today's machines.
Juravich: Tell me more about the Vintage Computer Federation. Its mission says it involves education, outreach, conservation, and restoration. So that's a lot of different things to be involved in, but tell me more the Federation's mission.
Brace: So we started approximately in 2005. It was just a group of people who had met at the Triton Computer Festival and we wanted to relive what we had done. And now we are at a point where we have a museum in a 900 square foot space. We're hoping to expand through 7,000 square foot spaces. So we have museum where we can teach people. We have machines that are actually working. You can have hands-on, you can touch the computers, you can use the computers. We have repair workshops where people come together and they help each other repair these machines because it helps to have someone else that is interested in doing that. We have swap meets, which is buying and selling. It's become very popular. We also have the Vintage Computer Festival East, which usually in April every year. Uh, the last several ones we've had at InfraWage Science and History Museums is, which is where we are, which is our museum. Um, and people come together. It's, it's, its part, you know, learning about the history through people who have used them, uh, listening to talks, um, doing hands-on with either repairs or programming or, um modern, um single board computers. Uh, so there's a lot.
Juravich: Yeah. And at your Vintage Computer Festival, West, which you just mentioned, was in early August. One of the speakers was Steve Wozniak, one of the co-founders of Apple with Steve Jobs 50 years ago. Can you tell me what it was like, you know, to have, you know, he's known as Woz. Can have, like, his significance in the world of personal computing and, you, know, having him talk to you about this? Tell me about that.
Brace: Um, so it's a, it was a big deal to get him. He nowadays, uh, it's very difficult to get him to any talks, to show up anywhere. Um, in the early days it was easier, but now he's become, um, believe it or not, a vintage computer celebrity. You know, people think, Oh, I'm, I met, uh Taylor Swift or something like that. Like. It's almost to that level in the vintage computer realm that people love him, they're interested in him. He was, he had created the Apple One computer. So he was an actual engineer that created something and did something. So it was very exciting for us. We had certain connections that were able to get him there and only for a limited time. He, you know, he couldn't stay too long. So it was very exciting because not only is he significant in terms of the history, but he's very personable. People love to hear what he has to say, his stories. So it very exciting to have him there.
Juravich: At the festival, he talked about the growing interest in early computers, including the Apple One, which you mentioned he designed. Let's listen to a little bit of that.
Steve Wozniak: A lot of people just want to go back and learn, where did technology come from step by step? You can learn. One person can actually learn from those early stages, just of any of the computers, the mid-salter, the early processors, how they work, and how you set up something you could program and run programs on. So, education-wise, still, early computers have some retro value now.
Juravich: So to his point, talk to me about how revisiting old technology helps people understand how computers work today.
Brace: Well, as I mentioned, they're a lot more simpler. You can go in there and you can see the microchip. You can see, the capacitors, the resistors, you can actually do soldering. So it's much more simplified than today's computers. You can actually go in, you can understand the computer on a very basic level. You can repair them relatively easy. So some people really enjoy that even. Some younger people, I was like, you know, I'm 53. So I was like, You know, I was growing up with these things. And there's different people. But the younger people like I could say like 25 or under, why are they still interested in these things? It's because one, it's novel, it is very different than anything we have. But two, it it's simplified, you can go and you can learn about electronics and programming on simplest level and it's, whereas nowadays you have a microchip and it's like, you know, microscopic, the circuits and things like that. So, and you can't fix it, you just throw it away. With this, you can, some people like to try to attempt to program this or, and some want to just like be able to like understand it on a simple level.
Juravich: This is Tech Tuesday from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about vintage computer collecting with Jeffrey Brace, vice president and chairman of the Vintage Computer Federation. Now you're called the Vintage Computer Federation, but are you expanding into, you know, iPads, iPhones, you're old phones. Do you look at that stuff too? Are you sticking just with desktop computers and maybe laptops?
Brace: So that's a very good question, because the question really should be is, what do you call it vintage computing? What is a vintage computer? What classifies it? That's a matter of debate. It hasn't really been categorized exactly. You have vintage cars. They have different categories for what is vintage, what's antique, et cetera. It's not been codified and agreed upon, But... Generally, what we adopted was anything 25 years or older. In general, it's relative to what you are. So for me, vintage is the Commodore 64, maybe the Altair, anything before that. To some people later on, it was like, oh, a Pentium, Pentium 1, Pentium 2. And nowadays, Gen Z is like, Oh, you know, you have an iPhone from 2000. 7 or something like that. That's vintage. So it's all relative. We sort of keep moving the needle to what we collect and show off. But in general, it has to be something that's historic, something that is interesting. And that keeps changing because nowadays, you know, the original iPhone, that's worth a lot of money. But that's like 18 years ago.
Juravich: Oh, I was like, I might have one in a drawer somewhere, I should check it out.
Brace: Yeah, I didn't know that. So and now the Gen Z's into flip phones and things like that. So it's all relative to who you are, and that's it.
Juravich: Yeah, yeah. Well, because at my son's school, they had a museum last year and the requirement for the museum was that you had to bring something in that was unique and it had to be more than 20 years old. But they only picked 20 years and he brought in one of my little flip phones with like a keyboard. And so that just made me think like, I still have it, it obviously doesn't work. But it to think about something like, you know, one of my first cell phones being vintage or an antique. Yeah. Is there someone out there who's gonna make a definition for you, like vintage cars and antique cars, for these computers, or is it you guys, your organization, that's gonna do it?
Brace: Uh, that's a very good question. I think, um, in term, you know, if you look at history, it's all depends on who's the most influential. You can look at the Computer History Museum, which is where we, they, they help, they are co hosts with Vintage Computer Festival West's. They're proper partners with us. You, they might be able to say like, all right, we're going to define this because to me they're the Smithsonian of vintage computers. You go there, this is a great museum. They spend a lot of money and time and effort. They have paid employees. There's not a lot hands-on. You can listen to things, but you can't actually use the computers. But they might be one organization that might be able to do that because they at least have the clout and the different people that have actual jobs to do these things. We might be be able do it too. I mean, we're kind of like a. Volunteer organization. We don't have paid employees. Maybe. It depends on what people want to agree with, you know, who's who we're going to agree with, like, you know, different terminology, like people will say vibe coding, or somebody had come up with that term. So maybe we will, I don't know.
Juravich: Do you think in 50 years from now, someone will be talking about restoring their 2026 MacBook Pro? Like will this continue forever?
Brace: So that's a very good question. I've been thinking about this for a while. So it used to be the, we would have the people that were the creators, you know, the people that created the computers that, you know. And then now we're the people that are, you now they're dying off. They're like eighties and nineties and they're dieing off. So what's next? That's my generation, which is those who actually use the computers. And worked with the computers. Now, what's going to be after me in 20 or 30 years? And I thought about this. How long can we go with these vintage computer festivals? They started out, we started out the vintage computer festival in 1997 and we're still going strong. This is going on 30 years now. We had no idea this would be popular and continue being popular. That's my question is in 20 or 30 year I don't know. So I think it depends on what's the next generation. The ones that never grew up with these things, but they're interested in them because their difference, or they saw a YouTubers. I mean, that's one thing that YouTubers are kind of the future right now, because they'll talk about it. You have LGR and Adrian's Basements, and you have others, and they talk about these vintage computers. So, That's a good question. What's the next generation? It could be, yes, in 30 years people are like, oh, it's MacBook Pro. Look at this. This is so vintage. Look how small the screen is and look, it doesn't even have 3D on it or anything. It only has 4K. Wow, this is so antiquated.
Juravich: Talk to me about restoring vintage computers though, because I'm sure the parts that they need aren't made anymore. Can you only get them from other old computers? Like is that gonna be a part of the problem? Because earlier you mentioned that technology now is just so small and you can't fix it and you just end up throwing it away. So talk to me about restoring them in the parts.
Brace: So in a lot of cases, you can find some common parts. And in some cases, we have to order parts. And there are different places that you can order parts from. But they're slowly starting to not care of these things. So in all of cases it's OK. But now it starts to become harder to find certain parts and certain capacitors. And there's some that are very rare, which You, you can't find the parts. Or you can't find the documentation or the schematics on how to use it. But in general, you can find the parts for most common machines. The more rare ones, it's harder to find. What a lot of people are doing now is they're creating, I call it nouveau retro or neo retro, where people are creating modern devices like a Raspberry Pi that can interface with these computers and take the place of a floppy drive or a hard drive. Or a way to connect to the internet. So that sort of extends the life of it and it makes it a lot easier.
Juravich: We have been talking about vintage computing, computer collecting, and we've been talking with Jeffrey Brace, Vice President and Chairman of the Vintage Computer Federation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jeffrey.
Brace: Well, thank you. I appreciate your invitation.
Juravich: And coming up, we're going to talk about how to get better tasting water, and we're also going to learn about the best fan on the market. That's when Tech Tuesday from All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. This is Tech Tuesday. Sometimes trying to hydrate can be hard if the water you're drinking tastes bad. Some people might claim that water doesn't have a taste, but other people have strong aversions to bad tasting water. And if that's the case, Ninja's HydroSense will make sense for you. And then, are you a fan of a good fan? Well, SwitchBot is making a great one, but it comes at a high price. Joining us now to talk about water filters, fans, and more, we have Russell Holly, Director of Commerce Content for CNET. Welcome back to All Sides, Russell.
Russell Holly: Thank you.
Juravich: So there was a little bit of delay there, hopefully we're okay, but Ninja's new water filter looks a lot like its competitors, but it performs like a much more expensive system. So can you tell me about this quest for better tasting water? And are you a person who thinks water has a taste?
Holly: Water definitely has a taste. And you can go down a pretty expensive rabbit hole for home filtration systems that are not just the ones that sit on your countertop. Reverse osmosis machines can be up to thousands of dollars for ones that are directly integrated into your kitchen. And they can be very nice, but the price is quickly not an option for folks when there are other things at the grocery store that will cost under a hundred bucks and seem good enough. There really is a staggering difference in terms of what these things can filter out and what they don't filter out because what a lot of folks miss when it comes to some of these filtration systems is that some of the minerals that get filtered out are actually good for you. And being able to discern between those two things is something that Ninja claims to have done with this system. It has a ton of certifications for what it filters and what it doesn't filter. There's a really nice display on the front that lets you know that the filter needs to be changed and how it's measuring the particulate stuff in there. In one of the demonstrations that we got, somebody made a pitcher of Kool-Aid and put it in this system and filtered it out. And I genuinely could not taste the difference. To tested like spring water that I would have gotten from a bottle.
Juravich: It filtered out the Kool-Aid?
Holly: It filtered out the Kool-Aid, the sugar, like it did a very good job, it came out clear and it came out, if you had told me that that was water that had, you know, come from a bottle at the grocery store, I would have believed you having seen it be bright red, you know, 60 seconds before.
Juravich: It filtered out the color?
Holly: That's it. It came out clear.
Juravich: All right. Well, I'm sold. That's that's that sounds fantastic. But can I afford it? What it would tell me about this hydrosense. Yeah.
Holly: So the picture itself is $200, and replacing the filters is around $40. They claim that the filters will last about 120 gallons of use, and they have a subscription service on their site right now where if you commit to a certain number of months of those filter replacement, it actually brings the cost of the machine down to 160, which is putting it pretty competitive with other filtration systems that don't do nearly as much as this one does.
Juravich: What is up with the booming demand for water filters? I mean, I don't need to turn my Kool-Aid into spring water, but I'd like my water to taste better. So what is going on with the demand here?
Holly: I think it's a combination of things. I think trust in local water supplies has, you know, been a big topic of news conversations over the last decade. And so, you, with that comes, you kind of trust associated with what water is coming into your house. I think that, you an effort to be more conscious as people bring bottles with them everywhere with water means that you're not buying water in places, which means water has to come from you if you're, you know, taking it out of the house. I don't think it's any one particular thing. I think it just a level of consciousness that has kind of grown. Also in some places buying individual bottles of something there are taxes associated that make it more expensive to purchase single use things. So I think its a combination of things that leads to this kind of push to have better water that you are in some level of control of in your house.
Juravich: And you mentioned how good it does, and you watched it happen, so you believe it, but is there some sort of independent certification where someone with authority or credits can say, yes, this is doing a good job?
Holly: There is, there are actually several independent organizations that have certifications on this, including the National Sanitation Foundation. And you know, the big part of that is testing things like forever chemicals and microplastics and things that are going into these filters. The way that Ninja, the company explains it, is that instead of going for like a full, you know kind of strip every single thing out of this, they work really hard on specially designed carbon filters to make sure that things that supposed to be in our body make it make it weigh in which is how you get that conversation about water having a taste because what you're actually tasting are things like magnesium and things like that that are actually supposed to be in water and are good for us.
Juravich: Yeah, like there's a whole conversation about whether or not the city should be putting fluoride in the water. Does it leave the fluoride if your city says you should have fluoride in your water?
Holly: That's actually a really good question. And I'm embarrassed to say I was not prepared to answer that. I don't know for sure.
Juravich: That's okay, you don't have to know everything. What about, like, can it filter, you know, if I have a rain barrel and the rain is coming off my roof and you're only supposed to use that to like water your garden or whatever, or maybe not even your garden, just your plants, not what you're eating. Can it filter that and make it drinkable?
Holly: It can filter that and make it drinkable, though I suspect that the more contaminants are in your water when you put them in the machine, the less your filter will last. So I would imagine that that would be slightly more expensive in terms of replacing your filter, but I don't think that it would. Nothing about the demonstrations that we've seen suggest that that's something you can't do.
Juravich: Moving on to our next topic, in the heat of summer, a lot of people investigate fancy fans. And there's a new one that you pointed out to us from Switchbot that has more smarts than most fans, but it comes at a cost. So talk to me about the Switchbot has this new standing circulating fan. What makes you a fan of this fan?
Holly: SwitchBot as a company is almost more of a robotics company than anything else. They focus on smart home accessories that involve moving parts. So the thing that SwitchBOT is most known for and where it gets its name is a little tiny robot that will push buttons for you on things that aren't connected to the internet. My fie- I'll say has an overhead as it gets and so there's a switchbot attached to it that will push the button to turn it on at, you know, specific intervals throughout the day. So there are a lot of different things that this company makes that are the kind of tiny robotics for your home. And they've put a lot that smarts into this standing circular fan. It is a bunch of tech that you can access from.
Juravich: Oh, well, Russell, we're having some trouble with your work.
Holly: Wherever you are with your zoom video.
Juravich: Sorry Russell, we're having some trouble with your zoom. So I'm just gonna I'm gonna turn off my video you turn off your video that'll save us some bandwidth and Russell are you still there? You got it. All right. There we go. Okay, so tell me again Yes, back up a little bit and just tell me a little more about the fan
Holly: Yeah, so what Switchbot did was they took a lot of their home smart tech and they put it in this portable oscillating fan. This is something that can be plugged in, but it doesn't have to be. It runs on battery. It has a lot remote control functionally, including oscillation and, you know, speed timers and things like that. You can adjust the height. A lot of this stuff you don't get from portable fans. Portable fans tend to be kind of fixed pieces of plastic that you can move around. This ends up being a little different.
Juravich: Okay. And so you're a fan of this fan, but maybe you're a little bit less of a fan, of the cost of this fan. How much is it?
Holly: Yeah, as as portable fans go, this is around $100, which is a lot to ask for a portable fan. You can go on Amazon right now and get portable fans for you know, anywhere from 20 to 40 bucks. What you're paying for here is just the tech that goes into it. So if you want a good home circulating fan that you can also bring with you other places, and have it you know, kind of be compact when it does that, then this is a really good option. But it is you know something that you know comes at a cost.
Juravich: And I read that the fan is wireless, but can you also, like if it's not charged, can you plug it in and use it? And talk to me about that versus the battery life, yeah.
Holly: It does have a cord that comes with it that you can plug right in, and you could only ever use this as a home fan that is plugged in. The battery part is entirely optional. But if you wanted to bring it somewhere, especially if you are a big fan of fancy camping or glamping, then this is a good way to enjoy that.
Juravich: And do you like that the fan can also be used as a light? I saw, you know, you can put it next to your desk and that kind of thing, or I don't know if it's just gonna blow everything away all off your desk, but talk to me about the light part.
Holly: This has actually become more common in a lot of different portable fans, is including a light somewhere. Usually it's a separate light that you have a different button for for a lot the cheaper portable fans. But this is actually a ring light that is included inside the actual fan cage itself. And it looks really nice when it's on.
Juravich: And how quiet is it? Because I have a fan that is so loud, I need to get a new one, because it's just old and loud.
Holly: So when it's at its, you know, between kind of 10% and 60%, I would say that it is quiet enough that you could have and not be bothered by the sound. Once you get into some of the higher settings for this, you will notice it will have some sound associated with it, but it is quieter than a lot of the other portable fans that I have used, especially this year.
Juravich: This is Tech Tuesday from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about some recent tech news with Russell Holly, Director of Commerce Content at CNET. Moving on to our last topic, invisibility cloaks are not real, but what about invisibility patterns for AI facial recognition technology? Some facial recognition technology can be defeated by a colorful shirt. Tell me about this. It's like an invisibility cloak like the facial recognition technology Can't see you if you're wearing a certain pattern talk. Tell me this
Holly: This demonstration was really cool. This was happening at a security conference a little while ago where there was a camera that was doing what is called person detection. Person detection is a little different from facial recognition in that it tries to use AI to pick out human shapes and then it chooses whether it's going to start recording or something like that. A lot of home security cameras have this functionality that is different from facial cognition. And what this security tester did was he stood in front of the camera, the camera very click you know correctly detected that this was a person and then he held up a piece of art that was a series of repeating patterns to his chest his face was still visible his arms were still visible but this pattern that he had created made the software so uncertain that it dropped it from an 80% chance that that was a person to a 20% chance that it was a personal. It actually changed its decision in its reporting and said that it was actually not a person standing there. And this is something that the gentleman involved, this team has been working for a couple of years now to make a clothing that defeats some of this tracking software that we have kind of floating around in the world today.
Juravich: Okay, okay. So I understand it's more detecting a person, not a face. So the person detection, though, so this is a security concern, right? Because what you said was cameras turn on, some cameras will turn on if they need to be recording a person. But if, so, this guy has figured out a way to defeat that function.
Holly: Yeah, so a lot of security systems, the ones that are kind of always on, they function in steps. And so person detection is often the first step. If someone's coming towards your front door and they look like a person, the camera will turn on enough to notify that it's to detect a person. And if a person is detected, then it will start recording. But if that person detection doesn't happen, then the recording part doesn't turn on for a lot of these individual cameras. So in a way, it could be a way to defeat home security cameras by wearing a shirt that has very funny patches on it.
Juravich: Yeah, well I saw an image of the guy with the pattern and it reminded me of one of those old school magic eye books where if you stare at it, didn't it look like that to you too?
Holly: Absolutely. Yeah, it's a repeating pattern that is typically black and white. It almost looks like a repeating QR code in some cases. And the goal there is to just introduce enough information to the camera that it is impossible to make the distinction that that is a person without the person needing to go through a bunch of extra steps. The goal of this company is very much to have a button-up shirt that gets put on and those cameras don't record, which yes, does include some potential security risks for home cameras.
Juravich: So what, you said the goal of this company. So is the goal of this to defeat security? Are they trying to like rob a museum or something?
Holly: Sort of I mean, you know, we live in a world where they're everyone's recording something, you know, the the you know as you as you kind of wander around the the argument that is being made here is that you have the right to choose where you are recorded in public spaces and that and that this clothing is a way that accomplishes that without disrupting anything without breaking anything without you know causing any harm to to hardware or software it just and you know demonstrates a flaw in the way that this technology works right now which in a way could make it work better in the future, as companies work to try and defeat stuff like this in return. Kind of a build your better mousetrap kind of situation.
Juravich: Oh, interesting. Okay. Well, as the entire country begins to debate the uses of flock cameras and some cities have resorted to putting, you know, garbage bags over top of them, this would avoid the garbage bag because everyone can just dress in a funny shirt, right?
Holly: You could imagine a car covered in these same patches and, you know, would that have an impact on flock cameras we don't actually know right now.
Juravich: Fascinating. All right. Well, we're going to leave it there and leave people questioning it. We have been talking about water filters, fans, and patterns and person detection with Russell Holly, Director of Commerce Content for CNET. Thanks for joining us, Russell.
Holly: Thanks for having me.
Juravich: This has been Tech Tuesday from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. Thanks for joining us.