Last week, a package showed up at my door. I’m used to packages coming to my door (obviously) but this one was particularly interesting. It came in an unmarked box truck and required myself and the driver to get it out of the back and into my house.
This, my friends, is a 98-inch television. It is by far the largest TV that’s ever been inside my house, shattering the previous record of 65 inches. It’s from my friends at TCL who emailed me to let me know that this particular TV, a member of the baseline S5 series, is on sale for $1,000 off its asking price of $3,000, bringing it down to $2,000.
That’s quite the deal for a TV of this magnitude, so naturally, I had to try and procure a review unit of my own. Sure enough, they agreed to send me one and I’ll be publishing a full hands-on piece on ZDNET sometime next week.
I’m saving my full thoughts on the TV for that particular post, but I did want to touch on what it’s like living with a 98-inch television. Living in a single-family home that’s by no means a mansion by the sea, there’s nowhere to put a TV of this size, so we had to get two folding tables to prop it up on and completely block our mantle and fireplace, while our 65-inch TV hangs out in the corner.
It’s a bit unwieldy, but we’ve gotten used to its presence. Our couch can’t go back any further than it is now, so we’ve gotten to see the TV up close and personal. On the plus side, everything you watch feels way more immersive than any conventional TV, ranging from the likes of cinematic masterpieces like Oppenheimer to cable television shows like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
This 4K, 120Hz, Google TV-powered behemoth will reside in my home for a little while longer until a) my article is done and b) we figure out how to repackage it and send it back to TCL. The packaging itself was complicated to sort out, and it was impossible to lift the lid straight up in our living room due to our drop ceiling. We’ll likely have to take the whole thing outside—or at least into some other room—to wrap it back up for transportation back to wherever it came from.
Rubber ducks and Google Gemini
You may have heard of the controversy that Google’s generative AI model, Gemini, found itself in this week. It was found that the model was overcompensating for an apparent lack of diversity in AI-generated images, with the most famous example being soldiers of all ethnicities in Nazi rallies.
Ars Technica has a great article covering the whole story which I recommend checking out. But being the good journalist that I am, I wanted to explore where some of Gemini’s limits might lie in what it’ll generate and what it won’t. So, I decided to think of a bunch of different historical figures to see if the model would generate images of them, but as rubber ducks.
My takeaway from this completely unscientific and inconclusive test? I’m surprised at the level of hypocrisy Gemini demonstrates when generating rubber ducks dressed as soldiers from different territories and periods. It’s also a little strange the historical figures it chooses to generate and which it won’t; I couldn’t get any rubber ducks to look like Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but I could get some that look like MLK, Nixon, and Reagan.
Again, this means absolutely nothing. But it was kinda fun to see what it would spit out anyway.
Here are some screenshots of the results I got back.
What else is going on?
I have a lot of reviews in the pipeline, but I can’t tell you about them all. What I can say is I’m reviewing the Galaxy S24 Ultra from Samsung (finally), as well as the Withings ScanWatch 2, some neat pillows from Purple, and—eventually—a pizza oven. Oh, and a few more country singles for Country Central.
Yep, I’m finally starting to spread my wings beyond just endless tech reviews, which is really nice. I love a challenge, and writing about pillows and the latest Redferrin EP are just that. Expect a lot more content like this in the near future.
Thanks for reading, as always.