AirPods Pro 2
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!In September 2024, Apple released a software update for the AirPods Pro 2 and their 2024 counterparts the AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 4. That software update gave the two-year-old AirPods Pro 2 a super power that seems to have escaped the notice of many people not into tech. There hasn’t been that much fanfare about them. At least not anything close to the excitement of the original AirPods received during their 2016 debut. I, however, have never wanted to own AirPods like I do now.
The latest generation comes with a feature that would not excite you unless you have ever suffered hearing degradation, like I do: the AirPods have a hearing health feature. In effect, the AirPods are cheaper hearing aids. Even going for 850,000 Uganda Shillings, the AirPods Pro 2 are still much cheaper than professional hearing aids which cost upward of 3,000,000 Uganda Shillings on the low end.
If the feature works as advertised, the AirPods Pro 2 will be an unbelievable impressive quality of life improvement for anyone who gets them. I know I’m.
Drive a Tesla car
Hybrid cars have been on Ugandan roads for at least ten years now. The first hybrid car I ever saw was a Toyota Prius hatchback along Entebbe Road, just after Najjanankumbi. The owner was an early riser, like I’m.
I knew the day would come but I was still taken aback when I saw with my own eyes a Tesla on Ugandan soil, pulling up to Café Javas, City Oil petrol station in Kamwokya in 2024. I have not been able to get it out of my head since.
I could not help wondering the user experience of a Tesla car owner in Kampala. Where do they charge it from? Doesn’t its alert system go crazy in the chaotic traffic conditions on our roads that defy rules and logic? Is a Tesla, with our high electricity tariffs, really cheaper as a daily driver than a petrol or diesel guzzler? What happens when it needs maintenance?
My 2025 bucket list includes driving a Tesla on a Ugandan road.
Language Translation Models
The last two years have been dominated by talk of the wonders of Artificial Intelligence exemplified by the wonders of what Chat GPT can do. A.I is supposed to be poised to change computing, and our lives, forever.
Market giant Google (which prefers to be called Alphabet lately) even seems to believe that AI could herald the end of its run as the number one tech company in the field of computing if it does not catch up to the advancements. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly issued an internal memo to that effect describing the situation as needing code red response.
Ugandan social commentator and thinker Timothy Kalyegeria is convinced that AI is going to render many professions obsolete with no need for human oversight. I think A.I is overhyped.
What I do not think is overhyped are the recent advances in language translation models. It is increasingly possible that you can travel to a country whose language you cannot speak but comfortably get by as long as you have a smartphone able to translate what is being said for you. A number of African languages have been added to the Google data base including Uganda’s most spoken dialect Luganda.
Quite soon, the terror of being lost and tongue tied in a foreign land could be eliminated forever. I’m getting my passport ready. This is a feature I have to try out.
High speed trains in Kenya & Tanzania
I have never wanted to travel on any of the trains ran by Uganda Railways Corporation. The aged carriages with hard bench-like seats, rust everywhere and the juddering ride do not appeal to me at all. I get that experience unwillingly every time I use a matatu anywhere in Uganda.
With just as many problems and failings as us, Tanzania and Kenya have somehow made headway in modernising their rail transport. Kenya and then Tanzania have gone so far as to import high speed trains for their tracks. Kenya has the Madaraka Express which runs from Nairobi to Mombasa and reaches a top speed of 120km/hr. Tanzania’s electric high speed train service runs from Dar-es-Salaam to the capital Dodoma at a top speed of 160km.hr. Yes, I said electric train. Such a service exists here in East Africa and Tanzania was the first to bring it in August 2024.
I have seen the videos, the pictures and the tweets. I would like to experience it all myself now.
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