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Hello from the future! Fine, I’m very much writing this from the present where I’m battling a cold, but this week I have tales of living with a robot, plus news of virtual personal trainers and rocket launches to give us space internet. See, the future! But also LaserDiscs. (Remember them?) Let’s do this…
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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: MIKE CHESLIK/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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What a few weeks it’s been in my house. Amazon’s Astro moved in and, well, introducing a rolling robot to two little kids and a dog was about as chaotic as free-sample time at Costco.
Wait, Astro-whatnow? Oh, Amazon made a home robot it’s currently selling to select customers for $1,000. I’m not talking about yet another Alexa-enabled speaker you put in the corner. I’m talking a full-fledged, three-wheeled autonomous robot that rolls around the house looking to help.
I tried my best to capture the adventures we had with Astro in my column and video this week. The video, which we shot over the two weeks and modeled after a reality show, brings to life Astro’s capabilities—and annoyances—particularly well. You can watch it here.
Astro is jam-packed with cutting-edge tech: a screen to display its big cute eyes and do other tablet things; microphones so you can talk to it; cameras so you can check in on your house when you’re away; tons of sensors so it can carefully navigate around your home and deliver things from room to room.
You can look at this all in two ways:
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“The Jetsons”
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Astro is the early days of our own Rosey, the ultimate home helper and family companion. (Yes, Astro was the dog in “The Jetsons” but Amazon wouldn’t confirm any relation.) Astro wants to guard the home, deliver beer to the living room and more. Unlike Rosey, it doesn't have a way to grab items or clean anything. Still, as I tried to find jobs for Astro, I could glimpse a future usefulness.
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“Black Mirror”
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All those sensors and cameras pointed around your house and at your family? The ultimate surveillance state is here. Or maybe it’s that kid’s robot from that Miley Cyrus “Black Mirror” episode: It looks adorable but then goes rogue. (OK, it’s probably not that.) But you do look at Astro and wonder, why am I letting this megacorp’s powerful tech into my personal space? (Amazon did a lot to protect user security and privacy, and I detail some of it in my review.)
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Which is it going to be? A bit of both? I just know machines will continue to help us in unexpected ways, so I love testing the latest, most promising robots. Plus, it’s fun. Read my review and watch my video, then if you have thoughts, email me.
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Amazon to the Stars
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While Mr. Musk adds to his endeavors on Earth, Amazon is chasing him into the satellite internet space race. The company’s Project Kuiper aims to provide internet access to us earthlings via low-orbit broadband satellites. Mr. Musk’s SpaceX Starlink service already has more than 1,900 satellites. (Here’s a good Starlink video I worked on.) Amazon announced that it has bought 83 space launches from other companies—including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin—to put satellites in orbit over five years.
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Peloton Guide: Not a HITT
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Just when you thought you could phone in those lunges at home while no one’s watching, Peloton puts a camera in your living room to check your form. The $295 Peloton Guide displays workouts on your TV but also acts as a digital mirror, reflecting your activity on the screen and helping you make sure you’re doing the exercises correctly. My colleague Nicole Nguyen has been testing it. Spoiler: It’s pricey and kinda meh compared to the competition, which she also reviewed.
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I was reminded of something when reviewing Astro: By default, Amazon’s Alexa keeps a record of all your interactions with it. It saves all the audio after you say “Alexa” or whatever wake word you’ve assigned it. However, you can tell Amazon you don’t want to save any recordings or limit the amount of time they’re saved—either three or 18 months.
To make this change, open the iOS or Android Alexa app and tap More at the bottom right. Then, tap Settings > Alexa Privacy > Manage Your Alexa Data > Choose how long to save recordings. Then make your selection on this screen:
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CREDIT: CORDILIA JAMES / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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One note: Amazon says these recordings help with Alexa’s ability to understand and respond. It warns that deleting recordings may degrade Alexa’s smarts.
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PHOTO: CHANCE SHIRLEY
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Chance Shirley from Birmingham, Ala.
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Pioneer LD-8380 LaserDisc Player
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Best I can recall, I got my first LaserDisc player around 2002.
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My favorite thing about LaserDisc players is they let us look back at the first generation of hi-fi home video. My least favorite thing about them is that they can be difficult to repair because replacement parts haven’t been made for a long time!
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Years before it was available on DVD, my wife gifted me a LaserDisc copy of “Hearts of Darkness,” a documentary about the making of “Apocalypse Now.”
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I have two players: a Sony and a Pioneer. The remote control doesn’t work on my Sony player, which is a shame because it’s huge with all kinds of buttons and knobs. Otherwise both are working about as well as they were 20 years ago.
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📷 Got an idea for a throwback? Reply to this email with a photo of your old tech and tell us why you loved—or hated—it. 📷
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Got questions about your digital life? Reply to this email with them!
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I’m worried that by using a password manager, I’d be putting all my eggs in one basket for someone to hack. What can you do to prevent a master password from being stolen? What happens if an employee of the password manager decides to mine user credentials? —Steven Massee from West Hurley, N.Y.
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Truthfully, I think about this almost every time I add another important piece of login information to my password manager. But there are a few reasons I trust the system:
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Most reputable password managers, including Dashlane, which I’ve long used, encrypt password data on your device and in the cloud. Basically, your passwords are encoded in a way that only authorized parties can read them. Additionally, you can require biometric authentication (Apple’s Face ID, etc.) in order to access the password manager app on your devices as extra protection.
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Ultimately, a password manager is WAY better than using weak passwords or, worse, the same password everywhere. As I constantly tell everyone in my family: USE ONE NOW!
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I’m a newsletter N00b and want to know what you think! Reply to this email and share your feedback and suggestions.
This week’s newsletter was curated and written by Joanna Stern and Cordilia James in New York.
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