Bad Voltage Bad Voltage

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we look to the year ahead (well, the 10 months ahead) and predict what will happen in the tech industry and the world in 2024.

2024’s predictions:


[00:00:00] Intro
[00:02:49] Jeremy: Sundar Pichai will not be CEO by end of 2024
[00:06:55] Jeremy: At least one major streaming service will be shut down, or acquired
[00:11:30] Jeremy: Elon Musk Sells X, or X goes public
[00:13:42] Jeremy: Bonus
[00:17:29] Stuart: Film studio to release movie with AI-revived deceased actor
[00:21:08] Stuart: Fusion reactor generates surplus power for practical use, ready for widespread deployment
[00:23:05] Stuart: A nuclear weapon is detonated
[00:26:23] Stuart: Bonus
[00:30:45] Jono: Tesla to release budget EV ~$30k
[00:35:22] Jono: Google Gemini will get shut down and replaced
[00:39:53] Jono: VR photorealistic avatars
[00:46:35] Jono: Bonus
[00:47:41] Gemini predictions
[00:49:23] Outro




We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!

Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!



https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×54-the-joe-dolce-music-theatre/12476

News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.

Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which in traditional Christmas style we look back on our predictions for 2024 and Jono whines about half points. More successfully than usual this year, admittedly.

Have a happy holiday season! We’ll be back in the new year.


[00:00:00] Intro
[00:01:44] Jeremy: Tiktok gets banned in the USA
[00:05:59] Jeremy: Hidden Crypto Risks in a Traditional Financial Institution
[00:07:17] Jeremy: Netflix gets acquired
[00:08:26] Jeremy: AI’s Swift Progress Hits a Clear Slowdown
[00:21:42] Jeremy: Web Splinters into Sino, Euro, and American Blocs
[00:22:09] Jeremy: Mastodon Peaks Early, Declines Afterwards
[00:24:28] Jeremy: Significant Equity Stake Acquired in Canonical
[00:25:29] Stuart: Texas HB20 Social Media Law Heads to and is Upheld by US Supreme Court
[00:28:01] Stuart: Global daily Twitter users will drop a minimum of 10% by the end of 2023
[00:29:53] Stuart: AI-Generated Song Enters the Charts
[00:33:40] Stuart: Apple to Permit Sideloading or Third-Party Browser Engines on iOS
[00:34:49] Stuart: Someone buys Netflix
[00:35:59] Jono: Meta to Announce Large-Scale Layoffs in Metaverse Division
[00:37:45] Jono: Twitter to Introduce Long-Form Video Platform with Monetization Options
[00:41:31] Jono: Anticipated Legal Restriction in US or EU for ChatGPT & Large Language Models
[00:42:56] Jono: Apple’s AR/VR Headset Earns Praise Despite Lingering Viability Doubts
[00:47:20] Jono: Potential Reasons for Trump’s Election Exit: Claims of Persecution or Legal Hurdles
[00:48:36] Jono: Bing Introducing ChatGPT-Like Features, Expects Substantial Growth
[00:53:51] Outro




We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!



https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×64-cassandra-go-home/12525

News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.

Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!

Jono Bacon and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which Jeremy is temporarily not present, website hosting issues are acknowledged and briefly discussed, and:



[00:00:00] Intro

[00:01:16] New York intends to have air taxis by 2025, including bonus London Illustrated News content

[00:10:23] Microsoft Teams announce upcoming 3D meetings in VR, including a Lex Friedman/Mark Zuckerberg interview

[00:24:32] As Nikki Haley pushes for “algorithm transparency” and banning anonymous accounts, we dive a bit into the murky waters of legislation of social media networks and what various governments want from that

[00:45:27] Outro





We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!

Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!



News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.

Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we do a bit of a deep dive into the (semi-)recent trend of finding new ways for creators to get paid. Patreon’s been around for a long time (but could be doing better), and the idea of making a thing and getting paid for the thing has been around for considerably longer, but it’s a relatively new innovation for platforms to encourage payments and share revenue with creators. Or is it? Is this actually new? Is this what was there already but in a superficially different outfit? And… will it work?



We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!

Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!

News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.

Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we revisit an old friend, Room 101, the place where all the things we hate should be banished. At least according to each of us: whether the other two can be so convinced is another thing entirely…



[00:04:07] Jono: All videoconferencing except Zoom

[00:11:04] Stuart: overly chummy email spam

[00:16:16] Jeremy: Influencers

[00:19:59] Jono: Marketing Gurus

[00:25:07] Stuart: “we are experiencing unusually high call volumes”

[00:29:26] Jeremy: Mozilla

[00:37:55] Jono: Men who wear scarves inside

[00:42:16] Stuart: “join our discord”

[00:45:25] Jeremy: a secret extra!





We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!

Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!



https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×54-the-joe-dolce-music-theatre/12476

News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.

Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which multiple minutes of pre-show work are awkwardly wasted, we haven’t got a sign on the roof, and:



[00:01:39] GPTBot is launched to crawl your websites and add their technological distinctiveness to its own model, and there is discussion of robots.txt changes

[00:11:08] MDN, the central resource for web documentation, added LLM stuff which caused a lot of pushback (and a Mozilla postmortem)

[00:24:30] Apple announce a new VR headset, the Vision Pro

[00:40:34] Instagram Threads starts up, Reddit is… hard to say, Bluesky seems to have not set the world alight… now that we’re a month or two in to all this, what’s going on in social media land? Everything’s all over the place

[00:52:13] $5 billion lawsuit with Google over incognito mode tracking moves closer to trial





We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!

Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!



https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×60-never-eat-shredded-wheat/12509

News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.

Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!