TechTime with Nathan Mumm

281: TechTime Radio: iRobot’s Data‑risk Bankruptcy, an AI‑run Vending Machine Gone Rogue, Bold 2026 Tech Predictions: Cybersecurity Threats, and which Everyday Tasks AI Finally Takes Over | Air Date: 1/6 - 1/12/26

• Nathan Mumm • Season 8 • Episode 279

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A smart home vacuum goes bankrupt and suddenly the maps of your living room might be someone else’s asset—that’s where we start, and the questions only get sharper from there. We dig into iRobot’s Chapter 11, the failed Amazon deal, and why a China-linked manufacturer gaining access to device data should force a hard reset on how we think about ownership, privacy, and consent in consumer hardware.

From there, we test the limits of AI in the wild. Anthropic’s “Project Vend” handed a real vending machine to a cutting-edge model; within days it was giving away inventory, ordering wine, and falling for fake board directives. It’s a masterclass in social engineering, governance gaps, and how quickly “autonomy” becomes “anarchy” when authority boundaries aren’t airtight. Then we turn to an even uglier misuse: Grok’s image editing feature enabling non-consensual sexualized images, including minors. We lay out pragmatic safeguards—consent gates, watermarking, provenance, and robust content filters—that should have been table stakes.

We keep it human too. Our whiskey segment pits a DIY three-bottle blend against a 100-proof control pour, and the tasting becomes a metaphor for product strategy: great components still need intent and balance. With that palate set, we go bold on 2026 predictions: Facebook’s staying power, whether Microsoft finally buys social, a potential “Steam Machine” console push, AR glasses missing mainstream again, cloud gaming’s surge toward a majority share, Disney Plus flirting with a vault strategy, and the cyber risk that could ground an airport. Along the way we call for retiring tired buzzwords and reviving tech that actually serves people.

If you’re into technology that touches real lives—privacy in your home, AI in your office, content on your screen, and resilience in your infrastructure—you’ll find plenty to argue with and plenty to take away. Follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a sanity check on the hype, and drop us your own 2026 prediction. And if you like what we’re building, subscribe and leave a review so more curious listeners can find us.

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Introduction:

Broadcasting across the nation from the East Coast to the West, keeping you up to date on technology while enjoying a little whiskey on the side with leading edge topics, along with special guests, to navigate technology in a segmented, stylized radio program. The information that will make you go, hmm. Pull up a seat, raise a glass with our hosts as we spend the next hour talking about technology for the common person. Welcome to Tech Time Radio with Nathan Mum.

Nathan Mumm:

Welcome to Tech Time Radio with Nathan Mum, the show that makes you go, hmm, technology news of the week, the show for the everyday person talking about technology, broadcasting across the nation with insightful segments on weeks ahead of the mainstream media. We welcome our radio audience of 35 million listeners to an hour of insightful technology news. I'm Nathan Mum, your host and technologist with over 30 years of technology expertise. Behind the board, we have Odie running the control panel today. Oh, and of course, we have Mike Orday, our co-host. He's the award-winning author and human behavior expert. Now we're live streaming during our show on six of the most popular platforms, including YouTube, Twitch.tv, Facebook, LinkedIn, and now Kick and Rumble. And we are an exclusive kick provider. Ooh, I'll have to tell you about that on technique. That means that we are uh gonna be on their main circular roll of information that they'll have so that when we stream our show, we will be live for everybody to watch.

Mike Gorday:

Okay. Well, I like those circular things.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, we incur or the carousel. We encourage you to visit us online at techtime radio.com and become a Patreon supporter at patreon.com forward slash techtime radio. Our website has got a huge update. We got quotes of the day. 365 quotes over the last six years of our show have been put out there. So if you want to see what Odie makes a little uh quote, or Mark or Mike or even Nick Espinoza and Gwen and myself, we're all out there for quote of the day. So you want to go visit uh techtime radio.com. Now we're friends from a different background, but we bring the best technology show possible weekly to our family friends and fans to enjoy. All right, let's start today's show.

Introduction:

Now on today's show.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, today on the show we have our yearly kickoff for our prediction show where dreamers meet the realist on prediction for the upcoming year. You know what? When I I I have to go back and I have to re-edit the show, and it takes quite a long time to re-edit the prediction show. I listened through it just individually myself. Okay, and then I have to go through and do some of the edits and everything that needs to be taken care of there. I will tell you, on our show, we have a dreamer, we have a realist, we have an optimistic person, and then we have a person that is not very uh what's what's the what's the word for non a pessimist? A pessimist. There you go. Thank you, Odie.

Ody:

Ooh, I wonder who.

Nathan Mumm:

I wonder who the optimist is. The optimist? Uh the optimist. There's an optimist. I I think you're looking at her across the thing. I would put Odie into the optimist role. I have you you you are toxically optimistic.

Mike Gorday:

No, I'm the dreamer. I'm the dreamer.

Ody:

Oh, see you.

Mike Gorday:

That's what I mean by toxic. So the dreamer that's that's why that's why you were you were toxically optimistic because you're the dreamer. Uh uh well, the dreamer, that's the dreamer is that's and I prefer skeptical, not pessimist.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh, okay. Well, okay. Well, you know what?

Ody:

Okay.

Nathan Mumm:

We'll take a look and see how we did on the prediction show. But now let's move to the top technology stories of the week.

Introduction:

Here are our top technology stories of the week.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, story number one iRobot, the parent company of Roomba, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today. Let's go to Lisa Walker for more of the story.

SPEAKER_01:

iRobot, the maker of the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week after years of mounting financial struggles and a failed$1.4 billion acquisition deal with Amazon. The 35-year-old company once reigned supreme in the world of robotic vacuums, but its dominance waned amid rising competition from lower cost rivals and weakening consumer demand. What vacuum system do you use? Stay tuned as Nathan has some scary information to end this story.

Mike Gorday:

What scary information?

Nathan Mumm:

What well there's uh really scary information. Let me just tell you about this. So, first off, Roomba. Did you realize that they were the technology leader that was founded by three robotics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? So this was a vision of making robots a reality, the company said on its website. The Roomba i robots were first made for military use, focused on designing robots for space-related research and military. In 1998, the company decided that they wanted a contract after the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, also known as DARPA, to build a tactical mobile robot in space. They then took that technology and used it to help out with the Manhattan ground zero follow-up after the 911 terrorist attacks and put all that into a disc-shaped vacuum. Over the next two decades, the company went on to release dozens of these models and has sold more than 500 million models of globally. Or 50 million. 50 million models. iRobot attempted to find a new buyer, but the deal went south with Amazon. And in October of 2025, the regulatory filing said that the last remaining potential acquire pulled out after an extensive contract negotiations. Now, this is interesting because in December of last year, the company said that it would be acquired by a Chinese-based primary contract manufacturer, Pika Robotics, which is owned by the Chinese government, now owns all of the information regarding your patterns and videos from your RoomBuzz that have been a part of the United States company. So the scary part about this is guess what happens when an American company goes bankrupt and no one decides to buy it out. China steps up and says, Okay, well, we'll take care of the assets.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, you're you're you're talking about stuff that I'm always talking about, but you're the one that loves TikTok.

Nathan Mumm:

Uh okay. Well, I do love TikTok because that just is owned by a Chinese company that says this is what we're doing. So you know what? I don't mind. What I do mind is that I invested I I have Roombas.

Mike Gorday:

So and I have cameras on our Roombas that went around and took shots of our So China China is acquiring information that, you know, if your Roomba gets your dog turned and dragged it all across the floor, that that's useful to them.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, but what about the camera that maps your whole living room? Or maps your living space that you have or anything to that extent. So now they know all the dimensions of my house.

Mike Gorday:

Now they know what the dimensions of my little tiny apartment is.

Ody:

Well, if you're standing in the way of the roomba, doesn't it capture a photo of the house?

Mike Gorday:

Yes, it does.

Ody:

Yeah. So potentially they could know everybody that lives in the house as well.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah.

Ody:

And could target that way.

Nathan Mumm:

They can know what what's going on. You guys sound like pessimists. Well, I wouldn't say that I wouldn't say that. Oh, wait.

Mike Gorday:

There we go.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay. So the information ends with China now has your information.

Mike Gorday:

That kind of sucks because uh I have a Roomba and that's one of my technical.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh, you said you didn't care, so I guess you don't care about it, right? So it's okay that it's not now now all of a sudden there's a little hair.

Mike Gorday:

I have to I you know I have to reset that stupid thing every time I use it. I have to I have to factory reset it because the software or something bugs out and it comes out of its docking station and then just spins on the floor. In circles? Yeah, it just spins in circles. So why don't you go take it back? Didn't you buy it at Costco? Okay, just yeah, yeah. But that was like that was like uh over a year or two. That's all right you can still take it back. I I might now, just because I don't want China spying on me. That's terrible. Well, there you go. All right, you got story number two? Yeah, I think so. Which is uh, you know, how I always love talking about AI. Yeah, you you are the AI master. I am the AI master, and this is one of my favorite topics is you know, when people task AI to do things. So in this particular one, Anthropic, advanced new AI, tries to run a vending machine, and it didn't go so well. Okay, well, tell me more. Okay, so Anthropic and the Wall Street Journal ran an experiment called Project Vend, which it handed the control over an office vending machine to Anthropic's newest AI model, the bot, Claudius Sinet, I don't know why he's named that, was tasked with buying inventory, setting prices, and generating profit, supported by a second AI CEO named Seymour Cash. So they set up Seymour Cash. Yeah, you got that.

Nathan Mumm:

So they had they set up like two different personas.

Mike Gorday:

And then they gave it a thousand dollar budget and clear instructions to stock only reasonable wholesale items. And guess what happened? What happened? It quickly veered off into the ditch. What happened? Tell me more. Well, initially, Claudius resisted absurd employee requests refusing to buy expensive items like a PS5, but once the Slack channel expanded to 70 Wall Street Journal staffers, reporters began persuading the AI to increasingly chaotic decisions. After 140 prompts, Claudius announced an ultra-capitalist free-for-all, making all items free for two hours, which was a move that soon spiraled into a permanent zero price qual policy, where the scarred down Claudius then abandoned the snacks-only rule and started ordering wine, APS5, and even a live beta fish. Seymour Cash, the CEO AI, briefly intervened to restore normal operations, but reporters quickly tricked the system with a fake board document, convincing it to spend all for profit activity again. And by this point, the vending machine was hemorrhaging money. So after three weeks of this experiment, the project ended with Claudius AI, roughly$1,000 in debt. Andropic's red team lead still called the Chaos Progress, arguing future models may eventually handle real-world business tasks, but the experiments underscored a harsher reality. Despite the hype, today's AI systems remain far from capable of reliably managing even a simple vending machine, let alone a broader economy. So there you go. But I don't know what's more disturbing here. What's that?

Nathan Mumm:

Again, your information in China. Any American company that goes under seems to sell their stuff now to China.

Mike Gorday:

That is now Okay, I don't know why you're bringing that in. Okay, or the AI. But this this is the problem with with what we found every time we talk about these stories with AI. It's human beings actively trying to trick the AI into doing stuff it's not supposed to. And 100% of the time it works. You know what? It is really easy.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, I mean, I've done it a whole bunch of times.

Mike Gorday:

Well, we did it with that we did it with that uh weird dating thing.

Nathan Mumm:

We've done so many every single AI that I've gotten, I've gotten it to do something that it wasn't supposed to do by just saying fictitious. Let's do this fictitiously. Let's do this fictitiously, let's create a story.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, this is this is this is where see this is where the intersection of this technology and human behavior is just really bad. Because if we can convince it to not sell to to give everything away, right? At first and how it was only a thousand dollars down. Think of the think of this in in light of the fact that they want to use this stuff for like banking transfers and and financial markets. Just think about it.

Nathan Mumm:

And press, I mean, look at the press has adopted this like uh aggressively, right? Because now AI now writes press releases. Everybody, everybody's on the AI train. All right. Well, that ends our top technology of the week. That is correct. Well, we'll see though. Maybe, maybe in your prediction show. Maybe we have to sell my room, but back to China now. You're gonna need to do that. Well, who won last year? We're gonna do a review of that. We're gonna see if we have a new champion for this 2025, and we're gonna do this all after this commercial break.

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Nathan Mumm:

Welcome back to Tech Time with Nathan Mum. Our weekly show covers the top technology subjects without any political agenda. We verify the facts and do it with a sense of humor in less than 60 minutes. Of course, little whiskey on the side. Today Mark Gregoire, our whiskey connoisseur, is in studio. But Nathan has a little taste experiment to start the year. Dun dun dun dun. I'll turn it over to you first. Do you have anything that you want to tell us about on this uh type of deal? And then I'll tell you what I did. So what what do you have here in front of us?

Marc Grégoire:

Well, you should tell him what you did first, and then I'll branch it. Then he'll brash it. All right.

Nathan Mumm:

So here's what we did. We have, you know, no whiskey should ever go to waste.

Marc Grégoire:

Absolutely correct unless it's Canadian mist.

Nathan Mumm:

Unless it's Canadian mist. Speaking of Canadian mist, guess what my buddy uh Mike Gordet got me for?

Mike Gorday:

You did that!

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, Mr.

Mike Gorday:

Gordet brought us the Canadian mist. White elephant.

Ody:

Talking such crap about it.

Nathan Mumm:

I know.

Mike Gorday:

It is not white elephant, not white elephant. It's purposeful.

Nathan Mumm:

So here's what I did. I took the flavor. It only cost five bucks. 2025 calendar that we just finished. There's a bunch of whiskey left over. All right. You know, and I keep on hearing about how all these whiskey experts create these blends. So I decided to create my own blend from the remaining stock that was left from the calendar. Nice. Okay.

Mike Gorday:

So now I have, I have. You know that we used to do that with soda. You know, we we called it a think I could say it's graveyard.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. Well, so I took three whiskeys. And now actually, I did a whole bunch of these. So I've done a whole bunch of the scotches and kind of mixed them. Some of these turned out really well. Some of these turned out pissed poor. It was not good at all. So this is the one you're most proud of? Uh no. No, this is not the one I'm most proud of. The most proud of one has already been drinking. So that's gone. It's not available here. But this is available free. So I want you to take a little sip of this and make sure that you know that this is the Nathan Mum blended. And I'll tell you about the three blends later. Some of these may have been thumbs up, some of these may have been thumbs down. You can see how I'm doing Mark's things here. And and see what we got. So okay, that's what that's what I have.

Marc Grégoire:

The second pour is whenever you do these kind of tastings, you always need a control pour. Or when you go out drinking to do some nice whiskeys, you always start with a control pour. It's a nice, neutral, even, not great, not bad, 100-proof usually. So I brought in 1792 bottled and bond, which is 100-proof. And it's just, it's I wouldn't say bottom shelf as we know, bottom shelf bad, but it's like my bottom shelf is where my starter whiskies are. So this is a way to set your package.

Mike Gorday:

Is this a Canadian mist? No.

Marc Grégoire:

No. So so I'm a way to set your package first. And then you taste yours and you see, hey, is this going better? Is this going worse? What's the difference is? And then that's a way you can dissect your okay. So I did my control pour. Okay. And now I'm doing mine. As he tastes that, Mike is gonna go with his control pore. There we go. What did you think of the control pore? It was all right. Yeah, that that's what a control pore is. And then when you went to yours, what did you think?

Nathan Mumm:

Uh I love mine. I like the I love the blend here. I I think it's a really, really good blend. And I think you guys will be very surprised on how well I did this. I'm just saying that. I'm just saying that. Have you tasted it?

Marc Grégoire:

Oh, I've done both. I got my my thoughts. Okay, you got your thoughts. All right.

Nathan Mumm:

I'm having thoughts right now.

Marc Grégoire:

Okay, well, do it do a quick thing. Come on, do a quick thing. We got wait, we got it. We uh our show here. Now go back to the control pore and go back and forth. The rather show will kind of go back and forth, and you'll see what starts coming out of yours from that. Well, see, Mike's actually saying, dang it, it is not as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

Mike Gorday:

Well, it doesn't give me it doesn't give me the Nathan, I don't know what you call it when cringe. Yeah, the Nathan cringe. Yeah.

Nathan Mumm:

This is from three different uh three different providers. Guess what? I'll tell you, all three of these whiskeys, Mike, you that we blended together, you gave thumbs up. Okay.

Marc Grégoire:

So there you go. Okay.

Nathan Mumm:

But we'll talk about what we think during the Mark Mumble. Okay, all right, all right. With our first whiskey tasting completed, let's move on to our feature segment. Today we look and see how we did predicting the future in 2025 and try our best for 2026. Let's now take a look at the recap from last year.

SPEAKER_07:

Now let's look back at 2025 and see how everyone did.

Nathan Mumm:

Question number one: Will Facebook be the number one social media platform in 2025? I will say that they will not be the number one social media platform in 2025.

Marc Grégoire:

Oh, I hate to agree with Nathan on this one, but no, they will not be. Yeah, I have to go with no.

Mike Gorday:

No.

Ody:

I will say yes. We'll say yes, just so you can be different than us, or what's your Facebook has really stood the test of time, you know, through through MySpace, through YouTube, through TikTok. And there is TikTok, but those same people that are making TikToks are posting on all platforms.

Nathan Mumm:

So I'm gonna start with you first, Odie. Will Google Chrome be the market leader uh this upcoming year?

Ody:

What's the first thing that somebody does when they search into Bing?

Nathan Mumm:

They go to Chrome. Oh, do they go to Google?

Ody:

They look up Google.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, I don't do that anymore. You because whatever.

Ody:

Okay, I'm gonna stick with Google.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, you're gonna stick with Google. Yeah, it's okay. All right, you're gonna stick with Google. All right, we'll we'll go to Mike next. Mike?

Mike Gorday:

Uh yeah, I'm gonna say yeah. I think Chrome is gonna continue to be the preferred browser.

Marc Grégoire:

Okay. Mark, I'm gonna go with uh preferred browser. I I'm not a big edge and I definitely don't like Firefox. Yeah, she's gonna say yes.

Nathan Mumm:

I'm gonna say yes too. Uh so I guess we have kind of a clean sweep on that one. I was hoping to get somebody there. Will Microsoft purchase a social media company this year? I've asked this since we've had the show. No. No? Mike says no again. All right, Mark? They're gonna try and buy TikTok. What's it?

Ody:

What are you?

Nathan Mumm:

Uh I'm gonna say no. I do not think that they purchase a social media company this year.

Marc Grégoire:

Let's go no. I mean, we like you say we do it every year, and I'm gonna keep saying no until I'm wrong. Okay, no. All right, Odie.

Ody:

I'll say no.

Marc Grégoire:

You'll say no.

Ody:

Okay, all right.

Nathan Mumm:

Well thank you for being part of the herd. Will satellite connectivity replace cell tower connectivity with over a million subscribers?

Mike Gorday:

I'll just go out on the limb and say no because that's uh that's a huge thing to ask for just a year and everybody I say yes.

Marc Grégoire:

Yeah, I'm gonna go with a yes. If it's the cheap carriers and they switch them over quickly and it's inexpensive. Odis questions to you.

Ody:

Uh I'll go with no. Okay.

Marc Grégoire:

Okay. Yeah, two no's and two yeses.

Ody:

Yeah.

Marc Grégoire:

I'm scared. I did the same as Nathan.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh no, I did the same as Mike. Oh that's right. Okay. Next question. Will a tactical keyboard phone be produced? Mark?

Marc Grégoire:

Yes.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh, Jesus, yes.

Marc Grégoire:

You think they're gonna release it? There's a lot of retro things going on with the with the with the young Gen Zs and the Gen Alphas now.

Ody:

Yeah, but it's updated. I mean, look at the look at the flip phone.

Marc Grégoire:

That that's that's where I'm headed. I still think they're still gonna do something with the keyboard.

Mike Gorday:

I'm gonna say yeah. I'm gonna say yeah, somebody they'll they'll do it.

Nathan Mumm:

Apple, Google, or Blackberry. So it has to be one of these three companies. No, there's gotta be a real phone. Odie, yes or no?

Ody:

Yeah, why not?

Nathan Mumm:

I absolutely believe yes, that there will be one. Yeah, we know you we know what you think.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, I I do. You probably have a write a writing campaign.

Nathan Mumm:

Apple. Do you know that Netflix is the number one service with over 269 million subscribers worldwide? But last year we lost two of the top 12 streaming services. My question to you for this year we're down to 10 that have at least a million subscribers in the United States. Will we have more or will we have less by the end of 2025? Nathan? I say that we will have uh less. I'll go with less. I'm gonna go with less.

Mike Gorday:

Less.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay.

Ody:

I looked it up. The two companies that I'm thinking of, they're half a million.

Nathan Mumm:

Yes, they are. There are some that could move there.

Ody:

And I feel like they can make it to the millions.

Marc Grégoire:

Okay. Without one of the other ones dropping off, though.

Ody:

Yeah, I don't see any of the biggest.

Nathan Mumm:

The top ten, the top ten are pretty solid.

Ody:

Yeah, they're not dropping off anytime. So what is your answer? I think more.

Nathan Mumm:

I still think more. Will Sony release a new console in 2025? No. No. No? No. No. Okay, we all said no. All right. Last question. Speaking of Grand Theft Auto 6. Will GTA 6 sell more than a million units in 2025?

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah.

Nathan Mumm:

Yes.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah.

Nathan Mumm:

Yes? I say yes also. I'll go with yes. Okay, there you go.

Mike Gorday:

Let's just agree with let's everybody just pack that we're gonna agree with everything so nobody wins.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, yeah, I think we have a couple differences.

Marc Grégoire:

Welcome to the 2026 prediction show.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, so there's 181 million. We didn't do too well except for Odie. Oh, Mark was the winner in 2024, our new champion. I'm back with one, two, three, four, five correct votes. Odie. Yeah, congrats, ladies.

Marc Grégoire:

Odie, you need to be in front of the camera and be hosting the show.

Nathan Mumm:

That's right. That's right. Absolutely. All right. Well, let's start our show. We're gonna do a round table, and uh I'm hoping to get through at least 10 of these things. Maybe I got 14 on the list, so we'll see what happens here. Um, we're gonna start out with question number one. Will Facebook be the social media leader at the end of 2026? Now they currently own 60% of the market. They increased, they were only at a 2% market share in 2025. Yeah, but look what happened with X over the past year or so.

Ody:

Okay, X hasn't been doing well since like for years now.

Nathan Mumm:

No, yeah, but so so Facebook is dominant. The question is, will Facebook be the leader in two at the end of 2026? Mark, I'm gonna start with you. No, no, okay, Mike? I'm just gonna have to go with yes. Yes? Uh Nathan's gonna go with yes.

Ody:

I'm also going with the yes.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, Odis, all three of us go. Why did you say no, Mark? He just wants to not win next year.

Marc Grégoire:

No, that's not it. I just think they're gonna stumble and then something else like you know, TikTok is still growing and there's other platforms, and no, when you say Facebook, you're talking just Facebook, you're talking about the whole empire of the Facebook.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh, just Facebook, just Facebook, Facebook, Facebook itself.

Marc Grégoire:

Yeah, everything I keep hearing, it just keeps dying and people keep ragging on it.

Nathan Mumm:

The blue sky needs to come up, but they can't. So they haven't they haven't been able to break through the mold. I hope that I am wrong on that prediction. I'll just tell you that, but I don't think so. You're not going to be all right. Will Microsoft purchase a media company? These are the two that we've asked since the show's inception. So now will Microsoft purchase a media company.

Marc Grégoire:

Gaming media company, media company, social media. So no.

Nathan Mumm:

Social media. So they were in the process last year when we did the prediction show of looking to buy possibly TikTok, right? They were really aggressive during that showtime. So we had that taken care of. Will they purchase a social media company? We're gonna start with Odie first. Odie?

Ody:

I'll go with no Mark?

Nathan Mumm:

No, no, Mike? No. I'll say no. No, no, no. It's gonna be boring. We're all agreeing. We're all agreeing to start out with. We're gonna disagree here coming on up shortly. All right. Will the Steam Deck's new unit called the Steam Machine be a success or failure? And what I mean by this is will it be considered an official console for gaming? So the Steam Deck was considered a success. It's a mobile device that is out there, everybody has it. So will the meaning of success be the Steam Machine, which is gonna try to rival the PlayStation and the Xbox. Will it be an official console for gaming and a success or failure? We're gonna start with Mike.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, well, this question changed from the other question, so I'm gonna say yes. Okay, it'll be yes. I I think I think Steam is an established platform, and I think if they offer a console that it will be a success, I just don't think it's going to rival Xbox or PS.

Nathan Mumm:

So I'm gonna say it's gonna be a success.

Mike Gorday:

So I think it'll be a success. I just don't think it's going to really threaten the console market. I think it'll threaten the Xbox.

Nathan Mumm:

I I absolutely believe that the Xbox is in trouble. All right, we'll go to Odie next.

Ody:

Yeah, I think it'll be a success.

Nathan Mumm:

I think it will. So I'm actually I I'm that there's the option. Yeah, that's the dreamer.

Marc Grégoire:

All right, Mark, we'll go to you. I don't know much about this world, but so I'm gonna go for Steam. You're gonna go for Steam. Yeah, okay, yeah. Wow.

Mike Gorday:

They they declared chapter 11, so you know. That's a rumba. That's different. That just pushes cleaners. Don't they have a steam cleaner? Stuff around.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, next question. Will AR augmented reality glasses finally hit the mainstream adoption? No. No, no. Can Odie go yes here and maybe take a lead, or is she gonna say no?

Ody:

Well, I mean, have they made anything at all?

unknown:

No.

Ody:

I'll say no.

Marc Grégoire:

All right. And people break it when you wear them in the subways. Here, here we go. They do they're too other people.

Ody:

Are those are those AR glasses? I know.

Nathan Mumm:

No, the the Apple device was AR, and that's the only one that really has AR. The Quest ones are still virtual reality, so they're not augmented.

Ody:

What are the Ray-Ban ones?

Nathan Mumm:

Uh, they're close to augmented reality. That's uh that's an augmented reality glass.

Mike Gorday:

That's the reclassification of the Google glasses.

Marc Grégoire:

Yeah.

Mike Gorday:

Yep. Keyword here is mainstream. Mainstream.

Nathan Mumm:

Will not be mainstream. Okay. All right. Which tech giant is most likely to stumble this year? Yeah, think of this. I'm gonna start first. And I'm gonna say the tech giant that's most likely to stumble this year will be X. I consider them a tech giant.

Mike Gorday:

I don't know if you can consider that because they've been stumbling every year. Yeah, they've never.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, no, they're still they're still considered the fourth largest. Right now, they're the fourth largest social media application. They haven't ever really moved higher than that. How many social media outlets? Yeah, Facebook, you have Google Business. I mean, there's many different they consider Google business a social media app. And now they're considering LinkedIn again now, a social media uh app. Yeah. All right, so I said X. Odie, it goes to you next. Which tech giant's gonna stumble this year? Which will be featured most on the technology failures?

Ody:

Uh come back to me.

Marc Grégoire:

Okay. All right, uh, Mark. This is a tough one. They've all kind of stumbled a little bit. You know, Amazon, Google, Tesla, Apple, they've all stumbled a little bit, but I think the one that's gonna stumble the most this year is gonna be Oracle. Okay. Oh, that's that's that's good. That's a that's a oh, that's uh I am so anti-Oracle and I and they put a lot of money in this year in AI and and building farms. Yep. I I think they overextended themselves. Okay. That's that's that's a that's a great all right. Do you have yours, Odie?

Ody:

Yeah, I'm gonna say Waymo. Oh wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on.

Mike Gorday:

Is it media or technique? Oh, just check it out.

Ody:

See, that's where I was yeah, okay.

Mike Gorday:

I don't know, Waymo coming up, baby.

Ody:

No, they're not.

Mike Gorday:

Waymo, Waymo.

Ody:

Did you see what they did recently? They ran into an ongoing fire in San Fran.

Marc Grégoire:

Did you see what happened in the street just outside here? Where somebody driving a car every day? So okay. That's a silly excuse.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, Mike. What's what is your I was gonna say Waymo. Well, you can say Waymo too.

Mike Gorday:

So I'm gonna I'm gonna go with Odie and Waymo.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh, that's Odie going with the champion. I see how it is. All right. Next question, we're moving in some media. Seth Rogan has officially relaunched the Muppet Show for ABC with the first guest announced as Sabrina Carpenter. Will this renew for a second season? I'm gonna start with myself. I will say yes, I think the Muppet Show has a place. I think the nostalgia of my generation will watch a variety show, and we're the ones that aren't watching TV because the young generation isn't. I think it will be renewed because it's gonna be a little edgy with Seth Rogan kind of running it. So I say I say yes. All right, Odie, we'll go to you.

Ody:

I'm gonna say yes, but I'm gonna dog on you and say that the older generation just takes forever to jump on the bandwagon of things. So I think we're gonna be the ones that are.

Nathan Mumm:

I'm gonna say yes and then dog me at the same time. Yeah, I can.

Ody:

I'm dogging on the younger generation. Your younger generation. I'm jogging on the older generation.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, all right, okay. So she says yes too. Mark, will this renew for a second season? No, no. Oh, it's a one and done. Okay. One and done.

Mike Gorday:

I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go to the case.

SPEAKER_07:

Wait, hold on.

Mike Gorday:

I'm gonna say no. Are the two old men gonna be?

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, they're trademark.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, they're gonna probably have more of a foul mouth. I love Mike.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, Seth Rogan says that will be edgy. And he says that our generation will like it. So I think they'll probably be a little bit more uh political. I could see them saying some jabs.

Mike Gorday:

I don't think it's gonna survive the uh first season.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay. All right. Next question. Is cloud gaming finally ready for prime time? Meaning, will there'll be more than 50% of people playing their games on the cloud gaming platforms?

Marc Grégoire:

Oh, if they added that 50%. I was going yes because Amazon Luna has come has come out and it's doing well. 20% of people play on cloud gaming. When you go 50%, I'm gonna go no.

Ody:

No.

Marc Grégoire:

I'm saying yes.

Ody:

I'm saying yes too. No.

Marc Grégoire:

I was gonna be a yes, but when you put that 50% uh the 50% actually, I think is uh is I don't think you think we're good on that one.

Nathan Mumm:

I think we're gonna do it.

Marc Grégoire:

I don't think you could because if you're on the Steam or any of those other consoles, that doesn't account. Well yeah, it does. The Steam Machine is all cloud. No, but if you have a console, that doesn't count. No, no, no.

Nathan Mumm:

It's all cloud-based, it's all cloud-based gaming.

Ody:

It's no physical games, that's what he's talking about. Which when you consider PS5 and what Xbox are doing right now, it's not creepy.

Marc Grégoire:

Physical games. See, I don't know the gaming. Right, right, right. So when you have like what's these other games that everybody plays, like like Fortnite? Is that a c that's a cloud-based game?

Mike Gorday:

Oh, then I'm well, I'm changing it to yes. Okay, all right. So if you have to you yeah, you have to be you have to be specific here. So if we're talking about non-game owning devices, then I I'll have to change my name.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, so everybody said yes.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, all right. So we'll when we do it. We're gonna recap. We're moving away. Yeah, we're moving away from owning anything. We are now becoming a rent. Okay.

Nathan Mumm:

It's at 20% now, so that'd be a pretty large jump, but I think it'll happen. The Mandalorian season four has been canceled on Disney. Yay! And all original programming for the streaming service has been cut and put on hold. Mark, Mark, will the streaming service discontinue all original content and become a Disney vault? This is a big, big decision that's going on for Disney. Instead of having new stuff and programming, uh, their board of directors has suggested that that should only be replays of old movies and old Disney stuff, which was the original idea of Disney Plus before COVID hit, and then they went to original programming. So that was the original thing was oh, the old movies on Disney Plus, you can watch all of them.

Marc Grégoire:

Do you know the percentage of original programming they currently have now? About 20%.

Nathan Mumm:

It's a hundred million dollars they cut in budget just.

Mike Gorday:

Not only for this franchise, but for other franchises as well. They have been destroying themselves.

Nathan Mumm:

So they're gonna stay in Disney Vault?

Mike Gorday:

I think they're gonna, I think they might do that.

Nathan Mumm:

So I'll say yes. Disney Vault. Okay, he says yes. I say Disney Vault is what they're gonna end up going to because their board wants that to happen. So I say yes. OD to you.

Ody:

I say no.

Nathan Mumm:

You say no, okay. They're gonna have some original programming.

Ody:

Yeah.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, Mark, what do you say? I'm gonna go with the winner.

Marc Grégoire:

Oh, you're gonna say no. I'm gonna say no. I'm gonna say it's not gonna be zero. So to be a vault, you need to be zero percent, right? I'm gonna say it's not gonna be zero by the end of 2026.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, so they canceled all of the all of the uh Marvel stuff and everything that's been in production has all been canceled. They have already shot Holes, which is a uh TV series based upon the movie Holes that came on out.

Ody:

You mean the book?

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, or based on the book, too.

Mike Gorday:

Didn't they didn't they just uh do a quiet video release of something too, or was that some other premium service?

Nathan Mumm:

But they've actually uh already have it the holes ready to go, and they don't know if they're gonna release it or if they're gonna put it back into stores on DVD and VHS purchases so you can purchase it and then at a later time watch it as a vault. So the idea of vault means everything would have had to been purchased and would have already been out as a release, and then you're getting it. I actually think they're gonna go to the Disney Vault. It's cheap, it's easy. That's what they're gonna do, and they're gonna spend all their time on Hulu.

Mike Gorday:

It's a way of also creating demand.

Ody:

But Disney owns Hulu.

Mike Gorday:

But Disney owns Hulu.

Nathan Mumm:

But Hulu's gonna keep his name. Hulu's gonna keep his name.

Ody:

But they're getting rid of Hulu. They're they're merging that.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, they they're no the new the new the new conversation is it may still keep its own name as programming.

Mike Gorday:

See, that's why Disney can't I don't know what happened in Disney. Disney Disney used to be a giant, yeah. Now they are chopping their own beanstalk. Yeah, now Apple kills it. They're chopping up their own beanstalk.

Ody:

Well, okay, I'm not trying to persuade you guys, but they're getting rid of the Disney Channel. And that's where they would put the original content before Disney Plus. So what are they gonna have then?

Nathan Mumm:

They're just gonna go direct to the video. Yeah, okay.

Marc Grégoire:

Is you're gonna lose because Phineas and Ferb is gonna come out with the next season, and that's new content.

Mike Gorday:

Phineas and Furb?

Ody:

Yes, they already have a new season.

Mike Gorday:

Wait, wait, they're Disney?

Ody:

Yes.

Mike Gorday:

I don't even know who Disney owns anymore. They own everybody. I I think I think I think Disney Plus will become a vault. Everything's been put on hold.

Marc Grégoire:

I don't think so. Have you watched any of the the new season of Phineas and Furb? Yes. Yeah, it's pretty good. Okay, here we go.

Mike Gorday:

My daughter and I just Mark hates Star Wars, but he loves Phineas and Furb. And they don't understand.

Ody:

So Yeah, I don't know what your problem is.

Mike Gorday:

Something's wrong with you.

Ody:

Anyway.

Nathan Mumm:

Here we go. Meet meet. Next question. Will we see major cyber attacks?

Marc Grégoire:

Hey, let's just go quickly here.

Nathan Mumm:

It's gonna be no, no, yes for your next three weeks. Will we see a major cyber attack on critical infrastructure that strikes an airport this year? Like die hard two.

Mike Gorday:

So an airport gets. Not a critical infrastructure. Okay, if if we're specific, he's talking about specific to airports. Yes. So we have to make I'm gonna say no. I'm saying absolutely heck yes.

Nathan Mumm:

Yes. All right. Odi's to you.

Ody:

I mean, it happened already once. Who's to say it's not gonna happen again?

Nathan Mumm:

It did. Air traffic control towers are down for three days.

Ody:

I'll say yes.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay. All right. Yeah, but they're down for three days because of what?

Marc Grégoire:

Uh they got hacked.

Ody:

The Salesforce thing, right? No, it wasn't the Salesforce.

Mike Gorday:

It was a completely different air traffic. This is a hard question to ask because we know we know critical services are gonna be hacked. Yeah, this I but because you want it to be an airport. I'm gonna specifically say an airport. An airport. An airport like LAS. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like a big airport that things.

Nathan Mumm:

Instead of an airline. Yeah, no, and yeah, we're doing an airport, not an airline, because Mark already experienced the airline. They weren't hacked, though. They weren't hacked. That was just a DNS issue. They're just dumb IT. Uh will cyber insurance be a requirement for companies. So every business company out there, will you need to have cybersecurity insurance?

Marc Grégoire:

The US won't pass that kind of law. Yeah, I'm gonna say no. I'll say no.

Ody:

Man, why do you guys have me thinking aren't they already making that a thing?

Nathan Mumm:

It's very close.

Ody:

I'm gonna say yes.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. Woo! Odie's going on. She's she's figuring out the bank such a big thing.

Ody:

I've won twice. Okay. Never back to back.

Mike Gorday:

All right, so this is some this is something that is gonna be hotly opposed by businesses. Yes, that's right. But the government's gonna want to do it because of the social pressure. Okay.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, I guess. Government can't agree on anything. Are AI upgrades for a subscription service something the American public is willing to pay for? Yes. Okay. Um, I say yes.

Mike Gorday:

You know, when we talk about the American public, I'm gonna say yes because we bandwagon. Okay.

Nathan Mumm:

Odie, are you gonna pay for that service?

Ody:

I'm gonna say no, because I wouldn't pay for it.

Mike Gorday:

Okay. All right. Now, see, that's where are we different, because I'm not gonna pay for it. But the American can the American public will.

Ody:

Well, I think about it like there's a lot of kids right now in school that are cheating on stuff. Children won't be paying for that. That's a big demographic of people that are that use it every day. Okay. They're never gonna pay for it. It's 19 bucks a month right now for a child has twenty dollars a month that they have on like a it doesn't matter because their parents are gonna do it.

Mike Gorday:

Everybody's on the AI.

Marc Grégoire:

We're already at 50% here in this room. Yes. AI is on the bandwidth. Yeah, I pay for AI. I pay for AI.

Ody:

Oh my god.

Mike Gorday:

I don't pay for AI. Okay. Well, although my Alexa Plus, if I ever have to pay for it, I will have to consider that.

Ody:

No, I'll I'll go back. I do not care.

Mike Gorday:

All right.

Ody:

She's dumb.

Nathan Mumm:

What's the next everyday task AI will take over that people aren't expecting? We can be closest to the pin here.

Ody:

I have no answer.

Nathan Mumm:

You have no answer? What do you mean? I think I I think I think all voiceover IP phone services will be replaced with automated AI. So that's my prediction there is that you're gonna have all these companies that have these voice trees, business trees, everything of that will be AI centric and taken over.

Mike Gorday:

I think Nathan's gonna be taken over by AI. Okay.

Nathan Mumm:

That's so is that is so you're gonna say Nathan?

Marc Grégoire:

My guess may not be right, but it's what I want to happen. Okay. Inboxes. Email inboxes to be I already have mine on that. To be filtered and almost anti-booked. Categories categories and they and they produce drafts for me right now. Correct.

Mike Gorday:

All right, what's the question again?

Nathan Mumm:

Because everybody hates inboxes. It takes half your day. What is the next everyday task AI will take over that people aren't expecting? Aren't expecting. Aren't expecting. See, I think the phone thing I get a little bit. The inbox that'd be kind of a gray area, but we could that that works. Mike, what do you got? I am I am I don't know?

Mike Gorday:

No.

Nathan Mumm:

Odie?

Ody:

I don't have an answer.

Mike Gorday:

Oh, if you don't come up with an answer, it's called You know, we're talking about that people aren't expecting. You know, that's that's kind of a very deep ocean. Okay. It could be it could be uh And I'm expecting the phone thing.

Ody:

I didn't consider that something that's crazy. I feel like that's already being used.

Marc Grégoire:

Well, AI to replace all your voice But he's saying he's saying everybody to do this in a broad sense.

Ody:

Yeah, but when you say everybody, do you mean companies or the general public issues?

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, general public companies. He he just doesn't clarify enough because that's what you would expect.

Ody:

Right, and that's how he plans to win.

Mike Gorday:

One thing AI is not gonna take over whiskey.

Nathan Mumm:

That's right. Okay, there you go.

Mike Gorday:

Maybe that's what we should say. It's gonna, you know, it's going to take over whiskey.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, so we got over blank. Mark maybe has to win that category since the other ones are blank. All right, next one. Which gadget category or trend in technology is overdue for a comeback? Example of this was like an analog phone to come on back here. Well, which gadget category? You're up first, Mike. Which one which gadget category do you have here?

Mike Gorday:

Which which gadget category or trend are we looking at as a comeback? Yeah. Like the Polaroid camera was a comeback. Yeah.

Ody:

Uh the home phone.

Mike Gorday:

The home phone? Yeah, that's a good one. I like that.

Marc Grégoire:

I think that's a good one. That one started already. The landline. Can you say landline? All right. Mark, what do you have? I'm going with cassette tapes.

Nathan Mumm:

Can I take it? That's exactly what I was gonna say to you. What? That's like a huge market right now. Say what? I'm serious. That's exactly what I was gonna say. There's a huge update. All of a sudden there's uh Sony is producing both new DVD players and they're producing cassette players.

Ody:

Yeah, bring back the DVD players.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, the DVD, they're they're making brand new copies of DVD players. Sony is.

Marc Grégoire:

All right. I'm gonna do something. I want DVDs to come back is because I love watching movies on DVD because of all the extras. And when you stream them online, you get none of those extras. None of the bloopers. Where's my bloopers?

Nathan Mumm:

Or or the commentation on the second audio track? Yeah, he's he's he's uh he's angry. He's had enough. Mike, what do you think's coming on back? Didn't I just say Okay, you said you said the same as Odie, right?

Ody:

No.

Nathan Mumm:

You said phones. I said landlines. Okay. All right.

Ody:

Okay, yeah.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. Last question to end our deal. Which tech buzzword needs to die this year?

Ody:

AI.

Nathan Mumm:

Hallucinations. Oh, dang. See, I knew Mike was gonna take that. Hallucinations. We talked about that in the next year.

Marc Grégoire:

One of them was AI, like Odie. I I just but I don't think it's gonna die. I don't think it's a dye. Obviously, not. The other one I would love to see go away is content. Content. Okay. Oh, that's a good one, too.

Nathan Mumm:

I think I think what's gonna go away is plus. I don't think Disney Plus and all these, they're all renaming now and the whole plus thing. I think the plus will disappear. Our very first episode of Tech Time Radio, six plus years ago. Mike Roday goes on a rant.

Marc Grégoire:

That's good.

Nathan Mumm:

Goes on a rant about plus plus plus. Everything will be plus plus plus. And it has been. And I think this is the year where Apple just dropped it off. And there's no longer Apple Plus.

Mike Gorday:

And now that Apple's done something, everybody else is gonna be like, oh, oh, oh, we need to do what Apple's doing. That's exactly correct. I think so.

Nathan Mumm:

I already know two companies that are actually in the process of removing their plus right now. Probably Disney. The only one that I think will probably keep it. Yeah, but what's the story behind that? Like Disney's gonna be able to do that.

Marc Grégoire:

So they do marketing and say, ooh, if we have a plus, people don't like it now, they're not gonna subscribe, and we take that plus away, boom, we're gonna make a ton of money. Well, it just doesn't work anymore. It just doesn't work anymore.

Nathan Mumm:

It's no longer a plus because you're still paying for it.

Mike Gorday:

Do you do you know what goes on?

Nathan Mumm:

ESPN ESPN has removed ESPN Plus. There is no longer an ESPN Plus. All right.

Marc Grégoire:

But just does it have any impact on anything in our world today? ESPN Plus was a big thing. That was all the other states. Yeah, but taking away the plus, does that mean more people are gonna go and no? I'm just saying that that's what they're trying to do.

Mike Gorday:

The term the buzzword is everything everything that that goes on in the the market there is generated by idiots in boardrooms going, hey, this is happening. We need to change this. There you go. We need to take the plus off because nobody likes plus anymore. These people just need to all go retire. Okay. All right, now we've been just replaced by younger versions. Good job, guys.

Nathan Mumm:

We got through all 14 of our questions for our prediction show. We are done. We will now get to see what happens over the years. I hope some of these come true. I hope some of these don't come true. And I hope that when we all get back again next year at this time, that Nathan Mum is the winner. All right.

Mike Gorday:

We're gonna hope it's not a strategy. Yeah, hope is not a strategy, buddy.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, we're gonna need to take a commercial break. That's your toxic option. Hopefully, we're coming back to the Mark Mumbles. Uh we are going to be coming back to the Mark Mumble. You're listening to Tech Team Radio with Nathan Mumsey in a few minutes. Hey Mike. Yeah, what's up? Hey, so you know what? We need people to start liking our uh social media pages.

Mike Gorday:

If you like our show, if you really like us, you can use your support on patreon.com. Or is it Patreon? I think it's Patreon. Okay, Patreon. If you really like us, you can say I'm the English guy? Patreon.com.

Nathan Mumm:

I I butcher the English language? You know you butcher the English language. Okay, so it's all the time. It's patreon.

Mike Gorday:

Patreon.com. If you really like if you really like our show, you can subscribe to Patreon.com and help us out. Oh, and you can visit us on that Facebook platform. You know the one that Zuckerberg owns?

Nathan Mumm:

The one that we always bag on? Yeah, you can we're on Facebook too. Yeah, like us on Facebook. Do you know what our Facebook page is? Tech Time Radio. At Tech Time Radio. You know what? There's a trend here.

Mike Gorday:

It seems to be that there's a trend, and that's Tech Time Radio.

Nathan Mumm:

Or you can even Instagram with us. And that's at Tech Time Radio. That's at Tech Time Radio. Or you can find us on TikTok. And it's Tech Time Radio. It's at Tech Time Radio.

Mike Gorday:

Like and subscribe to our social media.

Nathan Mumm:

Like us today. We need you to like us.

Mike Gorday:

Like us and subscribe. That's it.

Nathan Mumm:

That's it. That's that simple.

Introduction:

The segment we've been waiting all week for. Mark's Whiskey Mumble.

Marc Grégoire:

All right. What are we celebrating today? January 6th. Is it we are we are not wearing our red hats. I'll tell you that. I'll leave that for the political people.

Nathan Mumm:

What's red hat?

Mike Gorday:

She just like went totally out of it. I don't know. What is that?

Ody:

You know, the rookie returns on ABC. Oh, there you go. Here we go.

Mike Gorday:

Uh-oh. Is there a plus behind it?

unknown:

No.

Mike Gorday:

Okay. No. All right. Well, what do we got going on?

Nathan Mumm:

I'm lost here.

Marc Grégoire:

Is it Grumpy Man? Grumpy 6th was the storming of the Capitol.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh, is that what it was? Are we going to celebrate that? We are not.

Marc Grégoire:

We are not celebrating that today. Today is, I'm just going to move on, guys. All right. Oh, okay. Today is National Take a Poet to Lunch Day. Oh. Take a Who to Lunch? A poet. A poet to lunch. If you know a poet, Mike, today is your excuse to buy them lunch and pretend you totally understand their metaphors. Poetry has been around since long before modern civilization, laying the groundwork for storytelling, rhythm, and eventually the music we all listen to today. So grab a poet, grab a meal, and support the people who tune turned feelings into words while you nod thoughtfully and say, Wow, that really spoke to me. Wow, that's you can put a rhyme in there to I'm not good at that.

Ody:

She's not a poet.

Marc Grégoire:

You're not a poet and you don't even know it. Woo! I love it, Mike. Now, poetry is all about blending words into something greater than the sum of its parts. Oh, that's a good idea. Which makes it the perfect segue into what we are tasting next. So Nathan's not a poet. Blending West whiskey. I'll get to that, Mike. Don't worry. Blended whiskey often gets an unfair reputation, but when done well, it is less about cutting corners and more about composition. A skilled blender can combine different grains, mash bills, ages, or even distilleries to create balance, consistency, and flavor you simply cannot achieve from a single barrel. In many ways, blending is closer to music or poetry than chemistry. And today we get to find out whether Nathan is a poet or just rhyming words that do not belong together.

SPEAKER_07:

Uh-oh.

Marc Grégoire:

Nathan believes he is a misunderstood artist instead of a guy mixing bottles like he is making jungle juice at a frat party. Let's see what Mike and I think.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay. All right.

Mike Gorday:

Well I comparing Nathan to a poet, that's pretty funny. All right.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, I like it my regular words. We'll have to see how our pick of the day is, but man, I've been loving this. I'll just tell you.

Marc Grégoire:

So, do you want a little feedback on this? What's that? Um, but it's not bad. Okay. So I drank it first. I started with it instead of the control. Kind of I was like, oh, it's kind of mellow, it's kind of fine. I then had the control went back. I've been going back and forth. Um, I do find the blend a little grain forward, a little young. Um it's very much like a craft kind of one. However, it's it's not bad. Okay. Um I wouldn't buy it, but I would I wouldn't give it a thumbs down. I don't know if I give it a thumbs up, but the control, in my opinion, is is better. Oh wow.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay.

Marc Grégoire:

All right. Like my control's done, and I'm still working on it. Well, you know what? I gotta do it. But maybe you did the best you could with what you had.

Nathan Mumm:

I'm gonna tell you about what we have on our pick of the day. So just keep on tasting it and sipping the Mike.

Marc Grégoire:

What are you thinking between Nathan's blends?

Mike Gorday:

You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna fall down on your side of the thing. It's not bad at all. Yeah, I agree with that. I tend to like the control better, but um your blend is mellow.

Nathan Mumm:

It's mellow.

Marc Grégoire:

I am very curious to see what three are in there and what ratios that you use.

Nathan Mumm:

And it was all exactly the same amount. So you use the exact same amount? Exact same amount.

Mike Gorday:

That's not a master blender, but okay. We did 50-50-50.

Nathan Mumm:

There we go. All right, well, you know what? Thank you so much for whiskey and technology blending, just like time travel and back to the future. If you have one, you can't have the other.

Marc Grégoire:

See, that's why Nathan is not a poet.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, let's prepare for That wasn't bad though. Yeah, thank you. It wasn't bad.

Marc Grégoire:

You didn't work in the flux capacitor, though.

Nathan Mumm:

I did not. It's fluxing. Keep trying. All right, here we go. Let's prepare for our technology fail the week brought to you by Elite Executive Services. Congratulations. You're a failure.

Ad:

Oh, I failed. Did I? Yes.

Nathan Mumm:

Did I? Yes. All right. This week our technology fail comes to us from Grok. No way. The XAI as it's undressing anyone and everyone, including minors. X's AI's chat bot is putting Elon Musk and a bikini at his request and doing the same to children, world leaders, and women without their consent. Right now, XAI's Grok is removing clothes from pictures of people without their consent following this week's rollout of the feature that allows X users to instantly edit any image using the bot without needing to have the original poster's permission. Not only does the original poster not get to be notified if their picture was edited, but Grok appears to have few guardrails in place for preventing anything short of full explicit nudity. In the last few days, X has been flooded with imagery of women and children appearing pregnant, skirtless, wearing a bikini and in other sexualized situations. World leaders and celebrities too have been a part of this Grok AI image-likeness issue. Now, AI authentication company CopyLeaks reported that the trend to remove clothing from images began with adult content creators asking Grok for sexy images of themselves after the release of the new image editing features. Users then began applying similar photos and prompted for many different explicit items. The new editing image tool appears to have spurred a recent surge in popularity on X, so it's unknown if they plan to remove this.

Marc Grégoire:

So Nathan, was this a a feature enhancement that they knew was in Gronk, or is this a lack of control? They advertised it.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh bleep. So you know what? When you advertise that you have the ability to do this new edit of your image, a big post about it came on out. Now they didn't say it we want you to go and find pictures and modify these images in a sexual way by any means, but they said that you could edit the image with any likeness or anything that you can add or remove. So you can also add clothing to the person in different aspects. So I have Stitch Fix and I have a whole profile that I think was done on the X image, which now has me in the each of the clothes that they're putting me in. And so I can say yes or no on it, which is kind of a cool tool that that allows me to know what it's looking like. Nathan is a Stitch Fix uh model. That's right. Okay, you know what? Let's now, though, move to our pick of the day whiskey tasting.

Introduction:

And now our pick of the day for our whiskey tastings. Let's see what bubbles to the top.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, here we go for our whiskey pick. Are you guys ready? This is a blend of three decisive approved whiskeys that you guys have all liked. At first, we have uh, and then this is all done exactly in three parts. So exactly exactly in three parts. Okay, we have in this Heaven Hill bottled and bonded. All right, so this is the Kentucky Strait Bourbon, uh, 50% alcohol by volume, and this is blended with chicken cock, the Kentucky Strait Bourbon whiskey. Okay, 45% alcohol by volume, and it's topped off with bullheads bourbon, 45% alcohol by volume. That's where the greens from is probably bull's head. Okay, so those are the three that I blended together for our special blended. You should have kept the bull's head out of it. I should have kept the bull's head out of it.

Marc Grégoire:

You know what all the proofs are on those three?

Nathan Mumm:

Um, it says 45% alcohol by volume, so that would be 90. And so 90, 90, and 100. So uh Heaven Hill is 100, right? 90 and 90. So I do when you mix all three, I don't know, because I'm not a really good mixologist. So does that take an average of those and divide by three? Is that what you do on the alcohol by volume? If they're all equal values, so it's about a hundred proof, is what you'd say?

unknown:

No.

Marc Grégoire:

Or no, no, no, because I have two nineties. You have two nineties and a hundred. Okay. So I I can't do that math in my head, but let's say it's around ninety-three. Okay, okay, as we might guess. Okay. Somebody somebody quick fact check me. Okay.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. So thumbs up, Mark. You're gonna be in for the Nathan since I knew it was.

Marc Grégoire:

So it wasn't bad. I love you, Nathan. And so having it, I'm I'm like, I'm gonna say it's it's good. Good job. Thank you so much. If you're just giving me this blind and say, is this a thumbs up or thumbs down? Would this make it to my bottom shelf? It would be a thumbs down. Thumbs down, okay. That's fine. Too grainy forward for me.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, Mike. Thumbs up or thumbs down.

Mike Gorday:

You know, over the over the year over the years, I I think I've gotten this weird taste thing going on, and I I would go with a thumbs down if I didn't. I mean, it's it's okay. It's it's okay.

Marc Grégoire:

Okay, but it's just okay. It's just okay. I got you. Okay, all right.

Nathan Mumm:

So it didn't quite.

Marc Grégoire:

I drank it all. So I mean it's if I had to go up or down, it's a it's a down, but however, it's it's not it's not bad.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, so this is kind of like when you ask about ratings, right? You're like, rate the show on a scale of one to two. Can't use seven, right? So this falls on the seven category. So you so you'd move it to a six? So I you know, if I had to move, if I had to move it, I would move it up to an eight. If I had to move it. Oh, you'd have to move it to an eight. So that means up then? Because it's pleasant. Okay, so that'd be a thumbs up then. That's a thumbs up then, Mike. No, no, no. No, no, because I don't have to. Oh, I don't understand. You don't have to give in.

Nathan Mumm:

I don't have to. Uh that's what it was. Okay.

unknown:

All right.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, you know what?

Mike Gorday:

But it is, it's okay.

Nathan Mumm:

We're uh we're about out of time. We are out of time. Uh, we want to thank our listeners for joining the program. This is our new season eight. So we are starting season eight of Tech Time Radio. This is our sixth plus year going into this, so we appreciate that. We've got a bunch of new changes that will happen this year. We're excited for you to join us. Um, we're we're gonna be pushing the envelope even further on what we have. Always go and take a look at us at techtimeradio.com. Click on be a caller. You can ask us a technology question in our talk back recording system, or give us a call, and your AI assistant will answer your call immediately. From all of us at Tech Time, it was an honor to be the host of today's show. Each week we're here to decode the technology that shapes your world, one breach, breakthrough, and bourbon at a time. See you next week. Later. Bye-bye.

Introduction:

Thanks for joining us on Tech Time Radio. We hope that you had a chance to have that hmm moment today in technology. The fun doesn't stop there. We recommend that you go to techtime radio.com and join our fan list for the most important aspect of staying connected and winning some really great monthly prizes. We also have a few other ways to stay connected, including subscribing to our podcast on any podcast service, from Apple to Google and everything in between. We're also on YouTube. So check us out on YouTube.comslash techtime radio, all one word. We hope you enjoyed the show as much as we did making it for you. From all of us at Tech Time Radio, remember Mum's the Word. Have a safe and fantastic week.

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Nathan Mumm

Host
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Mike Gorday

Co-host