AS HEARD ON: WGAN Mornings News with Matt Gagnon: When to Update, Elon Musk Neuralink project, and Autonomous Cars.

Good morning everybody!

I was on with Matt this morning and we started out with a question from a listener about Updates.  Then we discussed autonomous, self-driving cars and what they really are. Then we discussed one of Elon Musks' projects that when it comes to fruition is going to help a lot of people.  Let's get into my conversation with Matt on WGAN.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: Left it right there in the lane. So it was a two-lane road. This balloon car was sitting there and in the slow lane. Almost all of those cars that were supposedly auto driving, rear-ended it.

[00:00:14] Morning. Craig Peterson here, if you are someone who uses windows and you've been wondering whether or not you should do those updates well we had that question this morning on WG A N when we talked about that.  We also had a little chance to talk about a couple of different Elon Musk issues. So here we go with Mr. Matt, Gagnon.

[00:00:38] Matt Gagnon: Seven 36 WGAN morning news. Craig Peterson joining us now, Craig, how are you this morning, sir?

[00:00:44] Craig Peterson: Hey, good morning. A new little intro there professionally.

[00:00:49] Matt Gagnon: We like Mr. Voice to give us a new option sometimes. So it's good to have a good to have you on the program and good to have you announced properly.

[00:00:56] Craig, I actually have a pretty decent, at least the listener question to kick off things with you here. If you don't mind, I will warn you in advance. However, it is about windows 10.

[00:01:06] Craig Peterson: The answer is 42.

[00:01:09] Matt Gagnon: Oh, very nice. Yeah, that's a good reference. so the question that came into me this morning, and this is from a listener, Phillip, when windows 10 version 2004, that's the May 2020 updates. first came out. He tried to download it, but it was not a successful download.

[00:01:24] He then heard a whole bunch about bugs and a bunch of problems with this version and whatever. But now that it's been out for a few months, he wants to know whether or not it is good to download this, or whether or not he should wait longer.

[00:01:37] Craig Peterson: It's such a great question. It's always a problem you have with Windows

[00:01:41] Matt Gagnon: no, here it comes, here it comes.

[00:01:44] Craig Peterson: Yeah.

[00:01:45] Matt Gagnon: Throw out your Windows machine by a Mac, right

[00:01:48] Craig Peterson: Updates break badly or Mac, or maybe you could go to Linux or something, but the updates can break badly. So it's a really good question. It was terrible, the May update. The answer is right now, I would absolutely try to update.

[00:02:01]Before you update any time, any computer, even a Mac if you can believe that, man, make sure you have a good backup of the computer.

[00:02:11] Now, Windows has a new feature, that's been in there for a little while that allows you to hook up, a little external hard disk. You can just buy them anywhere, a little USB desk, and it'll go ahead and back up to that. You've got to configure it. Don't just plug in the disc and think everything's going to be wonderful. Unless you're using a Mac, in which case they said, do you want me to use this for backup? You say yes. Windows needs a little more configuration. Just in case the worst goes before you do that 10 May 2020 date, make sure you've got a very good backup. It's definitely time to do that update if you haven't done it already.

[00:02:46] Matt Gagnon: We're talking to Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us on Wednesdays at this time to go over what's happening in the world of technology. Speaking of interesting hardware, uplinks, the Neuralink. Elon Musk is out there talking about this an awful lot and apparently according to him, and of course he is a bit of a carnival barker in some ways, but you never know, could actually be true. He does say now that the neuralink is close to being ready for human testing. What is this all about, sir?

[00:03:14]Craig Peterson: He may be a pig farmer too. I don't know if you saw him on stage just last week.

[00:03:19] Matt Gagnon: But he's also very rich.

[00:03:22] Craig Peterson: He is. He had three pigs out there on stage last week and they have been using this neuralink implant in them.

[00:03:31] What it is. It's a device it's about the size around of a quarter and has a much. Thicker presence. and it was about a thousand wires in it that gets implanted in the skull. And apparently it can be done without general anesthesia. You just do a local and now you've got all of these probes in the brain and a lot of people are thinking, Oh my gosh, he's going to be able to read our brains, et cetera.

[00:04:01] Matt Gagnon: Yeah. This is definitely a science fiction movie waiting to happen.

[00:04:03] Craig Peterson: Big time. We've already had a few about this one. And what are you able to demonstrate with these pigs is at least one of them, who was a little shy coming on stage, never work with animals. Finally came out this neuralink had been monitoring the signals of the brain that it could see.

[00:04:21] Now, remember, the brain is chemical and electrical. The only thing that neuralink can pick up is electrical signals. It can only pick them up right there next to it. It can't go pick them up all the way across the brain. But what they were able to do is read that pig's movement of a leg. So it could see in the brain that the pig was moving the leg and a little bit more than that, but not much more than that.

[00:04:49] You might be asking, why? Does Skynet need this now?

[00:04:57] Matt Gagnon: Yes. I actually am asking that.

[00:05:00] Here's why think of all of these people who are locked in, quadriplegics, and worse people like one of the smartest minds that has ever lived Stephen Hawking. Now he, of course, had a little bit of a moment. He could be, he could move a little bit in his mouth and he used that to help interface him.

[00:05:20] Craig Peterson: But ultimately where this could be heading and what he's aiming for is to make it so that not so that we can just think of a question and get an instant answer. Google, if you will go out and searches the whole internet, but the ability for people who have a leg that doesn't work anymore, paraplegic, quadriplegic, people that are locked in. hen be able to interface with the outside world and maybe even walk again in some cases. So what we're so early on and all of this. I mentioned this before, but it brought a tear to my eye when I realized what was really going on here, that this is fantastic.

[00:06:04] Matt Gagnon: We're speaking with Craig Peterson. You hear him on this very radio station on Saturday at one o'clock, his show goes into all these issues and more in greater depth.

[00:06:13] Craig, the conversations we've had over the preceding, actually a couple of years, frankly, that you've been joining us, about auto-driving cars, is always interesting to me because I am firmly of the opinion that this is what my kids are going to be doing or I guess maybe at least my grandkids are going to be doing, in the next few decades. They're not even going to drive their cars anymore. There still are some things to iron out for problems though. There was apparently, a Tesla that had his autopilot on that hit a cop car and the driver was watching a movie at the time, which is exactly what's going to happen when everybody has an auto-driving car.

[00:06:48] Tell me more about the story.

[00:06:50]Craig Peterson: We've got to remember that there are very few auto-driving cars. If you have a Tesla, there's this misnomer about the auto-driving feature, right? Autonomous, it's really just fancy cruise control. That's all it is. You still have to have your hands on the wheels, you still have to be paying attention.

[00:07:09]A couple of weeks ago, I talked about this on the show, in fact, on Saturday at 1:00 PM and at the same stations. I talked about this on the show where we delved into it some more and. What they did is they put a car on the road. It was actually a balloon in the shape of a car.

[00:07:26] It was reflective to these sensors in these soldiers, all the tournament systems. And they left it right there in the lane.  It was a two-lane road. This balloon car was sitting there in the slow lane and almost all of those cars that were supposedly auto-driving rear-ended it.  We've seen this before, where these autopilots, if you will, cars rear end, even firetrucks. If you can imagine that. The reason for it is they make a basic assumption that's wrong.  That is if something is not moving if it doesn't detect it moving, it makes the assumption of, my sensor must not be quite right. It's gotta be off the road to the side, like a sign or something and it doesn't even bother slowing down. Matt. This is just another example of, in fact, the truth of this study this is happening in the real world. If you have one of these, whether it's the Cadillac system that works very well or a Tesla. All you can think about really is that it's just stuff, fancy cruise control, pay attention.

[00:08:39] In this case, There was a Nash County, deputy, and a trooper with a highway patrol. We went on this side of the road, responding to a previous crash when this Tesla and right into the deputies cruiser.  The good news is that everybody was okay. The deputy was thrown to the ground and the trooper, as well, as her car kind of pushed them over the side of the road. So it all worked out. Okay.

[00:09:06]Remember that, okay. these cars really are not fully self-driving

[00:09:11] Matt Gagnon: Craig Peterson. You hear him on Saturdays on this very station for a more in-depth. Look at all of these issues. Craig, we appreciate it as always. Thanks for joining us as you do typically do on Wednesdays and we'll talk to you again next week, sir.

[00:09:23] Craig Peterson: All right. Take care, Matt.

[00:09:24] Matt Gagnon: Thanks a lot. Alright, coming up next.

[00:09:26] Craig Peterson: Is me. Hey everybody, thanks for listening this morning or this afternoon or this evening, whenever you listen to it. I like this morning, it just has a nice ring to it. A great little phrase.

[00:09:36] So on Saturday we will be back and we are finishing up some of the changes you'll be seeing here about mid-month. And so that's the only couple of weeks away. I can't believe its September. Have a great rest of the week. We'll be back on Saturday. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye.

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