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Bytes & Backpacks

Adventures in Tech & Travel Exclusively upbeat news from the world’s forests, hills and meadows, with a sprinkling of digital minimalism. newsfromthewoods.substack.com

technology places & travel

All Episodes

21:53

Bytes & Backpacks #125 🦌

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2025/11/02

I ordered a robot to take care of us at home. Does it still sound like science fiction? It can collect laundry, do the washing, empty the dishwasher, tend the garden, fetch beer from the fridge... Pre-orders for its humanoid robot Neo have started – you can get one for $500 a month (with delivery in the US sometime next year), which is a very attractive price tag. Will it be a revolution? Or is it just hype?So far, it looks like most of the robot’s activities are controlled remotely from a

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14:15

Special Issue: What could the AI assistant of the...

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2025/07/19

I spent a long time thinking about how to share with you what a future wearable device might look like—a pendant, glasses, connected to your phone and other personal gadgets—powered by artificial intelligence and granted access to most of your personal information. Something similar to what OpenAI is working on right now. What would it be like to have a personal assistant with access to all the data you own—and more, collected through wearable electronics?Eventually, I realized the easiest way to

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12:53

Special Issue: Digital drugs in our children's pockets 💊

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2025/07/06

Do you know what cigarette companies in the 1950s, Las Vegas casinos, and your favorite mobile game or social network have in common? They all use the same psychological tricks to keep you hooked. The only difference? You’d hardly sell cigarettes to kids today, while we happily put digital dopamine dealers into their pockets—with a smile.Sean Parker, former president of Facebook, put it bluntly:“We knew exactly what we were doing. We were exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”And as it

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34:14

Bytes & Backpacks #117 🏖️

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2025/07/01

AI continues to dramatically shake up the entire world. It's one of the few technologies that's developing directly for everyday users. Unlike the internet or apps, it didn't emerge from government, military, or corporate environments, but we're adopting it extremely quickly in our daily lives. Thanks to AI, other fields are starting to wake up too. AI experts around the world are being bought up like the best football players (Meta reportedly now offers some people signing bonuses of up to $100

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8:21

Bytes & Backpacks #116 ☀️

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2025/06/15

Business & Technology 👨‍💻* They claimed to have a tool that could program brilliantly, but then it turned out that instead of smart AI, they employed hundreds of Indians who quickly fulfilled user requests.* Popular robotics development platform Hugging Face introduced two of its new robots.* AI could be able to predict diseases and health conditions just from your voice.* IBM plans to have a substantially more usable quantum computer by 2029. Wow.* Tech celebrities used to be Steve Jobs or Tim

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13:16

Bytes & Backpacks #115 ☄️

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2025/06/01

Jony Ive, one of the world's greatest design legends, the man behind the iPod, iPhone, iMac, and AirPods, "met with Sam Altman in a San Francisco café" (CEO of OpenAI) and they agreed to create the device of the future together. There's speculation about a smart pendant that will record what's happening around you, will always be with you, and will be your assistant. It actually makes a lot of sense - imagine having artificial intelligence with you 24/7 that hears everything happening around you,

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12:26

Bytes & Backpacks #114 🐛

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2025/05/18

When I read the latest news from the world of artificial intelligence, I am increasingly convinced that we are approaching the end of websites. People are no longer interested in the process of searching for information; they want the direct result that something like ChatGPT provides. Google has experienced a decline in the number of users using search on Apple platforms for the first time in history. Meanwhile, OpenAI is excited about potentially buying Chrome (in case Google is broken up), is

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5:21

Bytes & Backpacks #113 🧠

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2025/05/04

It's all about artificial intelligence, data centers full of AI graphics chips, but what if all of this is already outdated and the future belongs to biological computers? Sounds like science fiction, right? But then you stumble upon an Australian startup developing something called Synthetic Biological Intelligence (SBI) - a computing platform where laboratory-grown living neurons connect with a silicon chip. Their latest commercial product, CL1, is described as "the first biological computer on

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5:29

Bytes & Backpacks #112 🐻

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2025/04/19

It's starting to get a bit cliché to begin every newsletter with artificial intelligence, but there's no way around it, I apologize. Let's skip what's new in the last 2 weeks, or we'd never get past the introduction. What's resonating most on the internet is the AI 2027 prediction, which "nicely," quite realistically and credibly depicts what Earth will look like in 2035. It will be an interesting planet where humans no longer live. The prediction comes partly from Daniel Kokotaljo, who left OpenAI

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9:06

Bytes & Backpacks #111 🤯

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2025/04/06

I love technology, innovation, and everything around it. When I was 13 (back in 1994), I started publishing my own magazine called Computer. I think that was the same year when the "big" Computer magazine from CPress started coming out. I bought an issue and found some inaccuracies in one of the articles. I took a piece of paper (yes, I didn't have email or internet yet) and wrote to the editorial office about their mistake. A few days later, I received a letter from the editor-in-chief saying I was

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9:25

Bytes & Backpacks #110 🦉

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2025/03/15

Two weeks ago, I sold all the stocks and crypto from my portfolio. It had quite a big response on Twitter. Why did I do it? Am I afraid of what Trump might still do? Yes. Am I afraid that Trump could eventually be the cause of bitcoin's end? A little. But the main reason is continuing to search for property abroad and my uncertainty about the future development of tech companies. I've always only invested in companies that I at least somewhat understood. In the coming years, several technologies

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22:54

Bytes & Backpacks #106 🇺🇸

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2024/12/28

Why the American flag in the title of the last Bytes & Backpacks of 2024? Because on January 9th, I'm flying to Silicon Valley, so if you sense the aroma of sequoias in the next few issues, that's perfectly fine.Across the pond, we want to bring our idea of transforming disabilities into superpowers, our smart Welcomo kiosk (not just) for building access, and we'll explore opportunities in energy, where in Europe we manage field technicians and underground gas storage facilities.Do you know anyone

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13:36

Bytes & Backpacks #102 🐺

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2024/12/19

Some of you may have noticed that one issue of Bytes & Backpacks did not arrive two weeks ago. I apologise for that, my family and I went to Greece for our fall vacation (Santorini at the end of the season and with no people was very nice!) and somehow things didn't work out. The effort was there, but the sun, views, tzatziki, octopus-I have one big change with the new issue. I'll try to make the Bytes & Backpacks a little more concise and divide it into categories. Times are fast and even the lazy

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12:01

Bytes & Backpacks #101 👓

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2024/12/01

Glasses, that's what this is all about. Smart glasses. There have been several failed attempts over the years - remember Microsoft Hololens or Google Glasses? But today, thanks to developments in technology, we're slowly getting to the point where it's all starting to work. I myself got a pair of smart glasses from Meta this summer (made by Rayban) and I have to say that it's probably the most usable device yet in the augmented reality field. They can even make dioptric ones, as the glasses

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4:05

Bytes & Backpacks #100 🍾

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2024/11/09

100 issues published and soon to be 4 years of spending all day every second weekend writing Bytes & Backpacks. What was the beginning? The desire to leave social media, but also the fear of losing touch with my "network".In these hectic times, I appreciate every time I read the Bytes & Backpacks and every e-mail you send me makes me very happy.OpenAI has had the largest investment round in its history - not just its own, it is the largest investment round ever. It raised an additional $6.5 billion,

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8:14

Getting a second home abroad - is it a good idea or not?

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2024/10/15

It's been five years since we acquired a second home by the sea. Although I live in a beautiful place in NP Czech Switzerland in a nice village with a great community, it has always been my dream to occasionally escape to the sea and live there for a while. Not to be confused with vacationing. Simply having a second home.After five years, I'll try to write down some wisdom and, most importantly, experiences. What surprised me, both pleasantly and unpleasantly. This is a public episode. If you would

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14:25

Bytes & Backpacks #99 🪼

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2024/10/12

Cars, we're still dealing with cars. Gasoline? Diesel? Electric? But the much more interesting change in the whole market is happening somewhere else. Waymo's self-driving taxis (owned by Google) have driven over 35 million miles, are operating in several major US cities, and already make over 100,000 trips a week. Completely self-driving, no one sits inside except the customer in the back seat. They have become a major tourist attraction in San Francisco, but more importantly, data shows that they

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11:35

Bytes & Backpacks #98 🦟

Bytes & Backpacks ·

2024/10/06

Yes, we’ve changed our name from “News from the woods” to “Bytes & Backpacks”. I Hope that you’ll like it! Also, we have a podcast version!Disabled athletes get much less media attention, of course, but my admiration for them is perhaps even greater than for able-bodied men and women. Check out a selection of photos from the BBC.Kids are back at school and parents will be dealing with "screen time" again. Half an hour a day?An hour? Two? An endless quest to find balance. Banning kids from cell

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