Another 'old man and modern tech' thread

[toprob]

I had a look through this subforum to see how long ago I posted about tech, and the last post was all about AI images. I did quit that because of the cost, but I will probably check back when summer is over, just to see how things are progressing.

I've never had anything to do with ChatGPT, the new AI text tool, but I am looking forward to a Bing search update which will let us talk to Bing in a more natural manner. I guess we'll all be using something similar one day, but I really have no interest in understanding how it works:) My son asked ChatGPT to write a story about a Kiwi bloke who met a Colombian woman while overseas, and he was freaked by the fact that it named the pair after him and his Colombian wife.... well, a different spelling for his wife, but now he thinks AI knows too much about him!

One thing which worked out well recently is my upgraded Chromecast. I think I've talked about this before. Being able to 'cast' all my TV apps to the TV certainly made life a lot easier, and I used the original Chromecast for a few years, but since it relies on my phone to cast, my old phone was starting to struggle battery-wise, so I grabbed one of the new Chromecasts with Google TV. This bypasses the phone completely, letting me browse all my subscription services using a remote, and even lets me use speech to find what I'm looking for. Well, sometimes it works well, most of the time it cheerfully plays some random Youtube clip, so I don't use voice much.

So for $59, from the Warehouse, I get to choose anything I want using a great onscreen interface, and I haven't had to pick up the TV or soundbar remote since I started using it. The Chromecast turns the TV and soundbar on with a single button, and I can control the volume using the remote, so I've forgotten where I keep the other remotes. So this is really an example of tech which was great when it first appeared, but has been tweaked to be a complete solution simple enough for an old bloke like me. It's even become my default Spotify music player, as the soundbar is probably the best speaker system in the house.