If it’s Thursday it’s time for the Top Tech News of the Week, Week, eeek! I’m on with Mark Starling, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week’s top tech stories: bottom falls out of CryptoPunk NFTs, iPod Touch retires after 21, and Google teases new AR glasses. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern by tuning into WWNC on the iHeartRadio app.
CRYPTOPUNK SOLD IN NFT FIRE SALE: IS THIS THE END?
If it’s not, it should be. The digital gods giveth, and earlier this week they tooketh away. Earlier this week, the CryptoPunks Twitter Bot (I feel a certain kind of way about reporting breaking news from a bot), tweeted that the CryptoPunk NFT sold on Monday for $139,000. Not a bad sum for a computer generated image, but its last trading price was $1.03 million in October. That’s one-tenth the last value. This news has caused speculation that the NFT market is starting to cool off. Speculators think the digital image NFT market is over. I think there are some really great applications of the technology. Purchasing digital art in hopes of a rise in value however isn’t one I think is.
Meanwhile, don’t forget to pick up one of the absolutely, only 5 of a kind, First News 570 NFTs.
IPOD TOUCH RETIRES AFTER 21 YEARS
The iPod is one of the most innovative products of all time. I remember when Apple teased its phone and MP3 player leanings with a joint Motorola phone/music player product. Apple released the iPod shortly after that project in 2001. It could hold an unwieldy at the time, 1000 tracks of music. In 2007, the same team that built the iPhone, built the iPod Touch. An iPhone replacement for kids who don’t need a phone but one (like my 11 year old) that played only music and installed non-dialer apps. Apple is discontinuing the iTouch this week and will sell the while supplies last. It’s last update came in 2019. I’ve never owned one since I had the phone, but the device was a handy replacement for prototyping and is a great music player. It will be missed.
GOOGLE TEASES NEW GOOGLE GLASSES
Keep trying until it works. Technology companies have been trying to bring computing to eye glasses since the early 90’s. Google has been trying to ship its glasses concept since the mid-aughts. Their first release was met with ridicule, but they may have finally found their stride. Showing how ordinary tech has become, Google’s I/O conference was this week to little fanfare. There, Google teased it’s new Google glasses concept that looks like regular, ordinary glasses. The devices features augmented reality driven translation. It might be the killer app for a glasses based device without turning into a privacy issue. Google hasn’t specified when, or if, the glasses will be made available. I’m hoping they will be, because my eyesight is showing its age.