Venture Step

Dalton Anderson (00:00.942)
Welcome to VentureStep podcast where we discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends, and the occasional book review.

When I was in middle school, I was under lots of pressure from my peers and girls for my lack of

iMessage capabilities when I was using an Android. And it would be a frequent topic of discussion, especially with the girls I was trying to speak with. Sometimes it was a big deal because I was the odd man out and I was a little different. And I think it's so funny that my children and my children's children will no longer have to be under

these kind of societal pressures. I'm so thankful for that. If you can't see me on video, I'm being sarcastic. It's not that big of a deal, but there is some type of pressure on kids to fit in obviously. And it takes a specialist type of someone to not fit in, right? Like when I was in middle school, I would wear a bright pink backpack just to stand out and to do my own thing.

and to go against the grain. And it's definitely not something that is typically associated with a male, the color of bright pink, like a baby pink. But I just did it anyways, because I wanted to be a little different. And being different comes with being called out. And so does so does the type of messaging app that you get you're capable of using natively.

Dalton Anderson (01:45.816)
for some reason in America. And if you're European or in Asia and you're listening to this podcast episode and you're like, what's going on? This is so confusing. It's because in America or the United States, people just use the native messaging app. They don't use WhatsApp. They don't use Telegram. They don't use any of these other third party apps. They just use what's on the app. Why that is, I don't know.

I think the other apps are superior, but that's really besides the point. So now under years of pressure from Google and recently over the last couple of years, governmental pressure for regulations and some studies that came out that

say the pressure of iMessage forces children to use Apple because they don't want to be made fun of and they want to fit in. so Apple has reluctantly enabled RCS on the phones, but I don't think they made it so it's the same color. Like if it's iPhone, iPhone, it'll be the same color, but if it's not, then you'll get the green text.

So it's not the white and blue, but it's better than nothing. So what is RCS? RCS is rich communication services and it's a protocol, texting protocol that

Dalton Anderson (03:27.102)
is the modern version of SMS. So SMS was created way back when and now we're sending lots more, or I'd say we're sending a lot more data, right? We're sending large videos, high fidelity photos. Back when SMS was created, we were really sending like low pixelated photos, texts. We weren't sending all these like emojis and GIFs and all these other things and long

high quality videos, those items weren't really on the list for SMS. And so RCS includes all these modern communication capabilities that phones are capable right now to do and what the future looks like as well. So it's just a better way to communicate because it reflects what people do now, not what we previously did.

So it was just a a modern texting protocol. Google owns it, owns the protocol with a couple other phone companies or, you know, they have like, they have like a, a board of people like there's Google, there's a couple others and they all banded together and said, Hey, we're going to make RCS and we're going to use it on our phones and blah, blah, blah. And Apple was like,

This sounds great, man, but nah. So they're like, we're good with iMessage and everyone else is like, like why, like iMessage and this doesn't have anything to do with you only enabling SMS when it's a third party. When I say third party, like if Android was texting Apple, Apple considers Android a third party, so it's SMS. So SMS, as said,

doesn't reflect our normal communication in this modern era.

Dalton Anderson (05:30.79)
So it causes issues with people. And I recently had a conversation with a family member and they're like, man, your phone sucks. And I was like, why do you say that? And they're like, well, the video looks like, I don't know, it looks like from 2000s or something. It's so blurry. And I was like, yeah, that's Apple's fault. That has nothing to do with the phone that I carry.

or my camera's quality and I'm pretty sure the camera's quality is very high. And they're like, what do you mean it's Apple's fault? And I was like, okay, well, this whole SMS and RCS thing, they had no idea. And I was like, okay, update your phone, go to iOS 18, go to your settings, enable RCS and come back to me. And they did the next day and they're like, wow, this is crazy. It looks so good.

I was like, that's RCS.

But today we're going to talk about RCS and I have been talking a little bit about RCS and then we're also going to touch on the new Pixel phone. You can see I've got in a case. Maybe I take it out of the case. But I have the Pixel 9 Pro, the non-XL, just the regular, because I think it's better to have a smaller phone. The issue with bigger phones is getting in and out your pocket. It's so big. Like it's almost at this point, it's almost a tablet.

And so I liked the smaller phone with the enhanced capabilities. And the only reason I would get a pro is because a pro XL or like a pro that's like a large phone is because they don't give you the option to get a smaller version.

Dalton Anderson (07:19.24)
And then I'm going to briefly go over this, this curious.

Pixel Buds, so I actually got the Pixel Pro 9 and then I got those Pixel Buds to demo and talk about for the podcast. And you see the buds are gone. And I don't know what happened to them. I used them like four times. And then I went to the gym and I went to open my headphones, put them in and they're not in the case anymore.

So I'm not sure. right. To TBD, TBD. But before we dive in, I am your host, Dalton Anderson. My background is a bit of mix of programming, data science, insurance, offline. You can find me running, my side business. I lost in a good book. You can listen to this podcast in both video or audio format on YouTube. And if audio is more your thing, you can find the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Okay, so RCS. RCS is the new protocol, as I was mentioning earlier in the episode show. RCS will enable you to communicate with your friends who are a bit cooler than you if you are on Apple. And if you are on Android, you can now communicate natively and don't have to get...

crapped on in the group chats or aggravate certain people, whatever. mean, it's not really explained, so I don't expect people to understand why it is the way it is. For the longest, Apple was paying Snapchat and Instagram, when I say Instagram, Instagram before Facebook was owned by Instagram or Facebook acquired Instagram.

Dalton Anderson (09:23.734)
they are paying them to not optimize the upload quality for Snapchat, Instagram, and they're intentionally paying them also to reduce the quality of the uploads. So Apple just looked better. there's like this additional societal lever on people. like you have Android, you're uploading your photos on Android, like they look so bad. how are you going to present yourself as

cool or slick or attractive when you have all these blurry photos.

Yeah, I mean, just the things that Apple did for one, their messaging app, and then the stuff that they did with social media. It's such an odd thing. Why?

I mean, it's clear why. mean, they want, they want a societal pressure for people to go to Apple. And I'm pretty sure it worked well. mean, majority of kids use iPhones. Majority of households use iPhone in America. When I was in Japan, pretty much everyone uses iPhones.

Korea, same thing, really. And if you weren't using an iPhone in Korea, you were using a Samsung. I saw some Googles, but not that many. Obviously Google's not that popular of a phone, so it's becoming popular, but it really isn't that popular. But I'm getting a little distracted here. Let's go over what you can get from enabling RCS.

Dalton Anderson (11:14.668)
Okay, so you'll be able to get.

Dalton Anderson (11:21.07)
full quality videos, you'll be able to get high quality images. You will also get typing indications, which I think is really cool. So now when I'm typing with a friend, I message and we're texting back and forth. They can see when I'm typing. I could see when they're typing and I'm pretty sure that also you'll have

Dalton Anderson (11:51.518)
read receipts if the person has read receipts on. So I would have to have it on my phone and they would have to have it on their phone. And then if we both have them on, then it will show you reads. If not, then it won't.

Dalton Anderson (12:08.554)
What's else?

Dalton Anderson (12:12.44)
Photos, videos, typing indications. and it also has modern encryption. So your texts are a little bit more protected than SMS.

So that's good. I mean, it's overall like a great thing for all the users. It was just a spat between large companies. It has nothing to do with us. No big deal. It's just better overall for the consumer. So it's a win because iPhone now uses a modern protocol versus SMS. SMS was really old. So it's better for them to use RCS when

texting third parties like Android and it's better for Android users because now Android can send videos and fully communicate with their Apple peers, which they couldn't before. And it was their fault apparently. I just think it's funny. Okay. So moving on to the next part is my experience with the Pixel 9 Pro.

And remember, I don't have the XL, I just have the 9 Pro. So let me just show you what it looks like in the case. So I have the perfect design case. mean, it's beautiful. This is such a slick case.

Dalton Anderson (13:46.894)
I'll show you the buttons. I'm not really a tech reviewer. I kind of talk about tech, but I got this phone to talk about on the podcast because it has all this AI stuff on it. So it's the buttons. They're like metal. I almost started an emergency call. It's my home screen. It's a dynamic view of the world and it changes where you're at in the world. And then it shows you when people are sort of turn on their lights and stuff. It's pretty cool. And then

Let's go. All right. So this is my home screen. All right. So next thing. So overall, like a very, very polished experience with the software. I've had the Pixel 4a and the Pixel 7 Pro and hold on. I'm going to take it. It's a tight fit. I'm trying to get out of the case so I can show you what it looks like. Okay. So let's turn this on.

So this is the poor... What are you doing?

Dalton Anderson (14:57.121)
my gosh.

Dalton Anderson (15:01.614)
Stop. Geez, I didn't ask it anything. So sometimes Google wants to talk on its own.

But overall, very beautiful phone. Like looks flagship. I know this isn't the best camera quality, because it's just a webcam that shoots in HD, and I don't think it has focused that well. But overall, such a beautiful phone. Such a beautiful phone. And it looks so nice with the green and the gold. Oof. Oof.

Okay, so it's very polished, right? Like it looks like a flagship, feels flagship-y. I think that's the biggest difference between the 4A. The 4A just felt like, I mean, all right, the 4A is cheaper obviously than the other phones. But that was my test. Like, am I interested in using Pixel phones long-term? Let me try 4A. Let me see what Pixel's all about.

and then upgrade from there. So I got to use 4A for, I don't even know, like 200 bucks or like $150 or something like that. And then I was like, wow, this is pretty slick. I like it. Not too bad. And then they came out with the 7 Pro and I had kept my iPhone, right? So I bought a used 4A and then I kept my iPhone that I had.

And it was like an iPhone 10 and it was having issues with the battery and like there was some stuff going on with the screen. So it was overall need to get scrapped. And then I asked Google, hey, how much would you give me if I traded this in? And they were like 650 bucks. I was like, sure, because my phone at the time, iPhone 10.

Dalton Anderson (17:02.102)
was worth probably about $75. So they gave me crazy amount of money for the trade in. So was like, sure, I'll do this seven pro. And so I did the seven pro, loved it. The only thing I don't like about it was so big, like it's so, like it was so big. Like I don't really like those big phones. It's just too much. Like it's a hassle to get in and out of your pocket. Why do I need a phone that big? Like why does it get a tablet? And that's

That's kind of my issue with a lot of these things is, all right, so you have these large phones and then at a certain point, those large phones are just tablets. And then you have these large laptops. Why, why are you mixing up these form factors? Like the form factor is a certain way because it has a certain function. Like we make a super big laptop, like a crazy large laptop. Then at a certain point it's just not a laptop. It's a

monitor or something like that. Like it's meant to be mobile. So we don't need a massive screen and all this other stuff. It's meant to do like quick work. And then if you want to do serious work, like connect it to a docking station or do something else. That's how I feel about large phones. It's like, right. At a certain point, just stop please. So I'm so happy that they provided a regular sized phone with the enhanced features.

But the main reason I got this phone and I'm looking down because I'm looking at my phone. The main reason I got this phone was this AI stuff. So there's a couple things. There is the screenshots app. There is like a proofreading thing like in your messages. And so there's those two. There's imagine and that's access to access in Google Photos. And then there's Pixel Studio. And of those

couple AI features and they're coming out with more. The biggest one they're coming out with is going to be the analyst researcher. I don't know what they're going to call the feature, but later next year they're going to come out with a analyst like researcher thing where you can give it complex tasks that might take hours to do for the AI. it might take you 30 hours to complete. It might take the AI five hours of compute time.

Dalton Anderson (19:29.592)
to do what you need to do. And it'll come back with a whole bunch of research and documentation and all this stuff. That's gonna be super cool. That was probably one of the main reasons I got the phone. I like, I kicked those things off. And I think for some reason it's tied to having the Pixel 9 Pro. I don't know why. It's definitely not gonna do that on your phone natively. So I'm not completely certain why they're doing that. I think they just want people to buy the phone.

And OK, so if we if we move over to the screenshots app, I don't really think it's that useful. It's supposed to auto process my screenshots, but doesn't process them automatically for some reason. So maybe I have to look at my settings, but I looked at my settings for this episode, try to figure out why it wasn't showing. There's not that many things you can select like there's literally one toggle. So I.

I'm not completely sure. One thing I do like about the screenshots app is that I don't have screenshots on my phone anymore. When I say on my phone, I mean in my camera roll, I don't like screenshots in my camera roll. So that's super cool. I like that. But as far as the usefulness of the AI and the utility I get from it, I get zero. Having this AI chip integrated allows you to do imagine, imagine me.

with photos and I would say it's insane. And it was insane when they demoed it too. this is what my backdrop looks like.

Like I've got to stop, sorry, that little light. And let me show you what it looks like when I have a full photo of it. Let's see.

Dalton Anderson (21:25.87)
So that's what it looks like, right? And then on my phone, asked it to reimagine my.

settings on my, let's see, I mean there's a lot of glare here. It's kind of hard to see.

Dalton Anderson (21:45.55)
There you go, that's perfect focus. And so I asked it to reimagine the back of my room and add some decorations. And it did. And I can't tell it's not a photo. Like I can't tell that's not real. And then it also did something else. So I have a plate of food from this local restaurant called like Caroline's. I just locked the screen. The photo of this local restaurant called Caroline's, like a Cuban cafe.

And I asked it to reimagine the food as a plate of rocks.

Dalton Anderson (22:26.134)
And it does it. It's so good. It's crazy good. It's literally identical.

Crazy, crazy, crazy. It's really hard for me to comprehend how good it is. And then you go to Pixel Studio, and I think Pixel Studio is gonna become similar to the screenshots app, like a Pinterest E-Vibe. Like on Pixel Studio and the screenshots app, you can pin, or they're calling it collections, I think is what they're calling it now. On your screenshots app, you'll be able to put your screenshots in certain collections.

You could say, make a, make a folder for me with all my screenshots of outfits of like the last five days or something. And then I'll put it a folder and then you can kind of decide what you want to do. But also in pixel studio, you can make outfits like this one saying lay flat inspiration for dark academia. And unfortunately I can't share my screen because this is only available on your mobile phone, but it make outfits for you. And it's very,

Instagram-y. You could publish this on Instagram and then have a similar outfit and be like, this is my outfit and go from there. It also reimagines or not reimagines, but has like a studio for living rooms. And I'll use that to help me, to help me decorate my room, I think, if I want to make changes. there's this. Can't really tell this is a fake or AI generated photo.

It's kind of hard to tell on my phone when I'm showing it to you, there's glare from the light coming down, but it's very realistic. You can't tell. You can't tell. that's the AI studio, Pixel Studio reimagined, I think is pretty cool and scary a bit at the same time. Like what can you do with that?

Dalton Anderson (24:36.15)
I'm using it for good, but you could definitely do some weird stuff. And then the screenshots app isn't very useful. Pixel Studio is OK. I think it's niche. It's niche. And everyone's launching with some kind of studio app. One thing I do like is the on-device Gemini. On-device Gemini is very good because when you're using

the live conversation feature with Jim and I, it's processing it like to the cloud and then coming back to you. And now it's processing it locally on your phone. So it's a lot faster and seems more natural, like your conversations. Let's see.

Dalton Anderson (25:24.194)
Hey, so I'm here talking about the Pixel 9 Pro. And I was wondering if you wanted to talk about some of the capabilities that you have that are now enabled because there's an AI chip in the phone.

Absolutely, the Pixel 9 Pro has some seriously cool AI features. Let's start with the camera. It has this awesome feature called Magic Eraser, which can totally remove unwanted objects from your photos. I'm talking people, power lines, even that random tourist in the background of your vacation pic. It's like having a magic wand for your photos.

Dalton Anderson (26:06.251)
Yeah, I don't know why you just stopped, but that's fine. Can you just give me like new features in a comet format? Like, all right. New imagine feature, comma. Here are some of the new features enabled by the AI chip in the Pixel 9 Pro. First up, the camera has a feature called magic eraser, which lets you remove unwanted objects from your photos. OK, maybe I click the screen and that's why you stop talking.

But I have to move on this is taking too long. So I'm gonna go appreciate you. Goodbye

Let me know if anything else comes up. All right, so that was a complete failure, but it is better. It's faster. It seems to be the same kind of thing. Like if I want to have an in-depth conversation, I'll use that. But if I just want a quick answer, I'll just ask it via text and use voice. Like I'll use my voice to type out what I want. And then,

get the response but if I want like a back and forth like I'm thinking about something or I need to conversate with someone besides another human, I'll use the live feature.

Dalton Anderson (27:24.288)
Okay, so I was also supposed to talk about the Google Pixel Buds. I only use them, I think three times, so I don't really want to talk about them. But I will talk about how I am devastated that they went missing. I have no idea where they went. And I will say that it's not very clear on their tracking. So when you first sign in and register your Pixel Buds, these are Pixel Bud Pro 2s. When you sign in and register,

it has you add the buds to find my, I don't know, find my device or something. Like Google's, Google's find my iPhone or find device, I think it's called. And so you use find device and you, and you register your pixel buds and it, and it shows you like your individual buds. So it makes it seem like you could locate the individual buds if they got lost.

Or at least record the last location is what I was thinking. So if you say you misplaced your buds, you left them somewhere, it won't necessarily give you a sound or something like that. But it'll say, you left your buds at the gym, or you left your buds at the convenience store. And you can see the last location where it was connected.

It doesn't do that for you, unfortunately. So when I was trying to find the buds, at first I tried to use Find My Device and the Find My Device doesn't work. It updates the Pixel Bud's location. there's separate sections, like there's one for the case, there's one for the left bud, the one for the right bud. It updates the location of the buds when you open the case. So it says, updated location just now.

and it's at your house. And I'm like, really? That's awesome. And I'm like looking around and then it's not here. And I brought my case with me, opened it up at the gym and it's like, you know, updated just now, the Pixel Buds, the gym. And so it doesn't actually record the location of the Buds, the last location of connection, which I thought that's what it was doing. What it's actually doing is it just updates the location.

Dalton Anderson (29:41.74)
the last time you opened your case, which isn't very useful when you're trying to find your buds because you can never find them. This doesn't help you. And after reading through some of the information, it only allows you to help you find your buds if the buds are connected.

Dalton Anderson (30:06.23)
Okay, but just think about this. that's like, all right, you're trying to find your keys, but you can only find your keys when they're in the car. And the car is on.

Okay, all right, I follow that logic. So I'm gonna try to find my, I can only enable find my keys when I'm in the car and the car is on. Okay. Okay, what about when my car is off and I need to get to my car and turn it on and I don't have the keys? Well, you're out of luck. So this kind of same gist is like why have a feature

that helps you find your buds if you can only find them when they're connected. If they're connected, they've got to be within 50 feet or something like that. I mean, I guess it's useful. Like if you were on a roller coaster and for some reason you had your headphones in and they fell out and they flew, you have to go find them. But a lot of times people aren't wearing headphones and doing those kinds of activities. They're running around, they're doing some errands, they're working out, they're

They're doing something like that, like something casual where they want to listen to a podcast like venture step, or they want to just relax and tan outside or they're at the gym. They're doing an activity where their headphones are going to fly like 200 feet somewhere else and they have to go find them. They're normally in your ears when you have them connected.

So I'm at a loss on why they did that. So at the moment, I can't find the Pixel Buds and I don't know if they were stolen or if I misplaced them. I've searched my room like four times. I've searched my backpacks. I've searched the garage. I've searched my car. All sorts of places. I've looked everywhere. I've looked outside. I've looked at the Lawson found of the gym twice.

Dalton Anderson (32:14.506)
I haven't found them. And if someone did steal them, it's great because they can't connect it unless they have a case and they'd have to buy a case. And I don't think they sell individual cases. They sell individual buds. So basically it's useless. But that makes my case useless too. So it's like stealing one pair of shoe or only one shoe of the pair. It ruins the whole pair. So I hope that my buds turn up somewhere.

Very sad that that happened. was looking forward to demoing those. But it is what it is. worst case scenario, push comes to shove. I guess I could file something or buy replacements. I don't know how much that costs or if that comes with the warranty of the insurance. I don't know. I'm not sure.

Okay, so that was the pixel buds. The next part is

What do I want to talk about next week? I have a lot of topics. There's been so much AI news coming out and I wanted to make sure that had the proper amount of time to look through it. Like this Claude API computer use. I really want to do a demo of that and scrape some stuff off the internet and try to fill out a form or do something like this. And for me to do that, I'll need to...

set up a virtual machine on my computer, I need to fiddle around with getting the code in the virtual machine and setting it all up. It's not a 10 minute setup. So there's stuff going on and I wanna make sure that when I talk about it, I could show you what it's all about and it's only available via API. And since it's basically like a virus on your computer and

Dalton Anderson (34:16.502)
doing all these things, it's highly recommended that you put it in a virtual machine because if you wanted to and just like ran rampant and didn't have the proper controls, which I'm pretty sure Claude shipped it with, but it is a demo. So things could happen. So it's basically beta.

Yeah, it could get bad. mean, they could delete your files, they could delete your software on your computer, they could reset your computer, they could do all sorts of stuff probably if you give it those permissions. And in the guidelines, it makes it very, very, very clear. Do not give the API full access to your computer. This is a demo. We do not know what will happen, so please do so at your own risk.

It's very important to run in a virtual machine, basically is what I'm saying. And so I'm going to set up a virtual machine. I'm going to use Docker. I'm going to download their demo from Git. They've got a nice demo. It's in Python, I'm pretty sure. And then it will make a interface on my screen. I'll be able to type in prompts and then it will kick off and do its own thing and search the internet and complete the task hopefully.

and you could see how it's completing the task, what it's doing, what it's thinking. It's really cool. So I want to show it, but I have to set up my API keys. got to apply. I've got to, I've to do a couple of things before I can do that episode. And then I have some other stuff. Meta came out with a notebook LM open source notebook LM, which is a Google's product that they've had for a while that they have not open source, which is fair. I Google open source is enough stuff.

But Meta is just open sourcing everything and they're just eating people up because their stuff is as good, but it's free and it's open source. Super cool. I love Meta with all their open source AI models and frameworks and the detail that they're putting into their research papers is something I haven't seen. Like the level of detail and the level

Dalton Anderson (36:36.472)
Just the level that those papers are is just hard to describe. Like you can read papers and then, yeah, like I guess I have an idea how to do it. Like those papers are like instructions, methodologies, how, I mean, step by step, how to do the exact same thing, which is kind of what a paper is supposed to be. You're supposed to have to be able to repeat.

and get the same results.

Dalton Anderson (37:10.35)
Well, for something so complicated, they don't necessarily go through like step by step how to do the same thing. But in those papers, it's very clear if you want to repeat the process, what they did and exactly why and what the other options are and why those didn't work. It's very cool, very cool. Love, love, love all the things that Matt has been doing, but they've been pushing out a lot of papers and new models. I think they did the notebook L.M. They

made a video model. think Google also came out with a new ImagineGen 3 that I want to talk about. And there's so many things that I have on the list and I just want to make sure I have the right amount of time to discuss them. But of course, I appreciate all the involvement in the comments that I've been getting, some of which has been positive, some not so much. But I would like to focus on the positive things. I'm going to call that out.

next episode, like some of the some of the key contributors on the show and some standout comments that I've gotten and some of that are thought provoking and interesting.

I've been a bit busy lately. I've been traveling. I just got back to America. I was gone for five and a half weeks. And now I'm here. A week before I was at the ITC, which is the InsureTech conference in Vegas. Now I'm back home. I had to take care of some work stuff over the weekend and get ready for the new year and get all the planning and resource planning taken care of. So I was a bit busy over this weekend and I was like, should I?

Should I do an episode or should I just relax? And I picked relax because I'd worked quite a bit over the weekend, so I just hung out. But of course, I'll see you next week. And I hope that you'll listen in. Wherever you are in this world, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Have a great day.