And to help you study and learn with this episode, we’re giving you some freebies. That’s right, 100% absolutely free study tools for everybody from around the world to use when studying with this lesson. They are the interactive transcript and vocabulary glossary. And you can get those tools just by clicking the link that’s in the description for this episode.

Plus, if you are a Culips member, then we’re also going to throw in a comprehension quiz that you can use to see how much you are able to understand from this episode. So Culips members, definitely check out the quiz, test yourself, see how you did, and let me know if you got, like, a perfect score.

Often there are some members from our community who flex their perfect scores on the Discord. And it always makes my heart full. It makes me happy when I see a bunch of people out there flexing their perfect scores from the comprehension quiz. So yeah, leave that in the member-only area of our Discord community so that I can see because I love to see it.

It’s good news whenever somebody gets a perfect score. Speaking of Culips membership, if you are ready to take a big jump in your English fluency, if you want to hit the next level, then we are here to help you. And what we do with our membership package is give you access to a bunch of tools and learning materials and lessons that we have designed to help you hit your fluency goals.

So, when you’re a Culips member, you will get access to our helpful study guides and interactive transcripts for all of our episodes, not just the bonus episodes, but all of our regular episodes. We’ve got hundreds and hundreds of amazing, interesting, and helpful English lessons for you to learn with. Plus, there’s more. You will get ad-free audio.

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We really like to try and give our members as much bonus content, as many helpful study tools as possible because guys, we are rooting for you, and we do want you to improve your English and hit your fluency goals. So that’s why we have created all of these amazing things to help you do that.

If you’re interested in supporting the podcast and taking your English to the next level, I highly recommend becoming a Culips member. And you can sign up and do that just by following the link that’s in the description for this episode or visiting our website Culips.com. And I think with those announcements out of the way, it’s time to get started with this episode.

Of course, we do have our weekly speaking classes this week as well, guys. But I don’t have the schedule in front of me for right now. So, you’ll have to check that out on our website. I’ll put the link in the description as well so you can check when this week’s speaking classes are coming up, what the topic is for that week. I don’t have the information at hand right now, unfortunately.

But yeah, check that out and please participate in this week’s speaking classes if you are able to do it, if it meshes with your schedule. Then that would be awesome.

So yeah, shout out to the speaking classes. And with that announcement out of the way, we’ve covered all of the news, all of the things that I got to talk about at the start of the show. And now we’ll get into my main story for this week, which is about trying out some new technology. So, without any further ado, let’s get right to it. Here we go. Enjoy.

I’ve got a question for you. And the question is: have you ever seen the future? Have you ever seen the future? Now, I’m not talking about the kind of supernatural, fortune-telling kind of future, you know, like maybe you’d go and see a psychic and get your fortune told and you can envision the future that way. That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking more about in a technological sense. Have you ever seen the future in a technological sense? And I think this question will make sense after I tell you this week’s story because I feel like this week, I saw the future and I saw what is coming up down the pike. This is an expression.

To see what’s coming up “down the pike” is kind of like where you can envision or see what will happen in the near future. And so, let me tell you all the juicy details about how I saw the future this week. And I guess I’ll start by saying that my wife works in tech.

And when you work in tech, of course, you have to be up-to-date and knowledgeable about all the newest hardware and software and tech updates that come out, right? Because if you don’t stay up-to-date, then you’ll fall behind. And what kind of technology company would like to fall behind? That means that they would go out of business, right?

So, my wife is always staying up to date with tech news and new developments. And honestly, I enjoy that too. I have an interest in technology. And I wouldn’t say that I’m really, really hardcore about reading every latest tech update.

I know some of my friends are really into technology and they’re people who read about, like, tech rumors and the latest hardware and software and everything that’s coming out. I’m not that hardcore where I’m checking every day about new tech news. But I do like to stay up to date and I do think I’m a little bit technical and I do enjoy following the latest technology.

Although maybe not as much as I used to. I used to be more into it and, you know, every time there was a new phone release or new computer release or something like that, I always wanted to try it out and see what it was like. Maybe it’s because to an extent over the last five, six years, maybe it feels like we’ve had a little bit of a tech slowdown.

Would you agree with that? I don’t know if you follow technology or not, but I don’t know, five, six, seven years ago, it seemed like every year the latest, greatest phone was such a huge improvement over last year’s model. But now it seems like we’re getting smaller upgrades and maybe the jumps in technology related to phones and computers are not as great as they used to be. I don’t know.

I’m kind of going off on a tangent here. But let me get back on track because with that being said, although maybe the jumps that we’re seeing in phone and computer technology aren’t as big as they used to, one place where I can definitely 100% attest that there has been a big jump in technology is with 3D headsets. 3D headsets.

Have you ever tried one of these 3D immersive headsets before? Until recently, I hadn’t been too impressed with them. I tried one, I think it was for the PlayStation 3. Do you guys remember I bought a PlayStation 3 a few years ago used off one of my friends? And I played it for a couple of weeks and then sold it again. I think I told that story on Culips here.

Well, when I had that PlayStation 3, it came with a 3D headset, and I played some of the 3D games on it. And it wasn’t bad. It was kind of cool, but it wasn’t like the kind of technology that really blew my socks off. Have you heard that expression before? “To blow your socks off”? If something blows your socks off, it means that it’s really, really, really incredibly impressive.

So that technology didn’t blow my socks off. I was like, yeah, it’s cool. But whatever. It was like, you know, when you put on a 3D headset, it’s heavy. It’s kind of hot. It’s uncomfortable and I just didn’t feel like playing a game in that kind of environment for a long time. I’ve also tried some other kind of gimmicky 3D headsets.

I remember one time I had this one that was made out of cardboard. It was like this cardboard headset and there was a slot in the front, and you could put your smartphone in the slot in the front and it somehow turned it into this kind of 3D experience. But it wasn’t really that great at all. And of course, who wants to wear a cardboard headset around? It’s just not very practical.

It’s kind of cool to show off the technology and be like, hey, we can do this with just a phone. But yeah, not practical in terms of actually using it for hours on end. But recently there has been a huge jump in this 3D technology, at least in my opinion. Because my wife was able to borrow an Apple Vision Pro from her company just to try it out for a week.

I guess they’re sort of lending it out to different employees at the company so they can try it out and just sort of get a glimpse for maybe what the future will hold for technology. So yeah, she was really lucky that pretty much only a little bit of time after her company bought the Apple Vision Pro, she was able to borrow it.

I’m not exactly sure how it worked, but she had to sign up and say yeah, I want to try this out, I want to borrow it. And I think a lot of people from her company did this. But she was one of the first people who was able to borrow it. So that was really cool. And she brought it home. I was expecting it to come in like this big box, but it was pretty small. Came just in like this shoebox-sized box.

I believe the Apple Vision Pro actually isn’t available for purchase in Korea. Correct me if I’m wrong. Maybe there are some Koreans listening or watching this episode, because we do do the audio and video, right? Maybe listening or watching using the Apple Vision Pro. And you’re like, hey, I bought this here in Korea. If I’m wrong about that, guys, please just correct me.

But as far as I know, I don’t think it’s for sale here in Korea. And so, somebody actually had to go to the USA and purchase this and bring it back. And it’s quite an expensive device. I’m not exactly sure of the exact price, but I believe it’s around maybe four thousand-ish American dollars. I’ll have to look that up after but it’s not a cheap device. OK, that’s essentially what I want to say.

And it’s also a first-generation device. Which means this is Apple’s first time creating this product and releasing this product. And usually in the tech world, a first-generation device means that it’s quite untested technology.

The company that’s manufacturing it, in this case Apple, they haven’t had like years and years of feedback, user feedback that they can use to, you know, tweak, and make changes and improve the product, right? This is the very first attempt at making this kind of technology. And so yeah, usually a first-gen product is a little rough around the edges. Maybe it’s not perfect yet.

Think about the iPhone. Apple’s famous iPhone that so many, probably 50 percent of people listening right now are using an iPhone to listen or to watch this episode. And yeah, I think we’re on iPhone 16 now, right? So, they’ve had 16 different generations, 16 different models to perfect and tweak and change and improve and upgrade the iPhone.

But the Apple Vision Pro, this is the first gen so it’s a little bit rough around the edges. It’s not quite perfect yet. Anyways, my wife brought it home and honestly, it kind of just sat in the box for a few days. Like, it seemed like, ah, you know, we want to use this, we’re curious about the technology, but also seems like it’s a little bit of work. Like you got to put this thing on your head.

You got to take it out of the box. You got to set it up, blah blah blah. And so, my wife brought it home I think on a Friday and it kind of just sat in the box on our shelf for the weekend. But then towards the end of the weekend, maybe Sunday evening, my wife was like, OK, let’s give it a try. I’ll have to see what this is all about.

Curiosity got the best of her and so she took it out of the box and got it set up. And I think I was in the other room doing some Culips stuff, actually working on some Culips content for y’all. And suddenly, I heard my wife exclaim like, “Wow! Oh my gosh! Amazing!” Kind of these sort of exclamations, right? And so, I came out and I looked at her and she looked so ridiculous.

Like, I don’t know if you guys have seen anyone wear one of these 3D headsets before, but it does look pretty ridiculous because you’re wearing this… It’s not quite a helmet. It’s like a strap that goes over your head and there’s one strap that goes over vertically and another strap that goes over horizontally. And then there are these goggles that are attached to your eyes.

And they look like a big pair of ski goggles, really, really similar to a pair of ski goggles. And so, it’s quite a large device that goes on your head. There’s a little speaker attachment that goes over your ear. And there’s a big power cord that runs out of the side and it goes down into a battery pack. This thing is powered by batteries.

So, you’re not actually plugging it into the wall, although you can do that. But it’s powered by batteries. So, you have this big battery pack that you can put in your pocket or something. But you do have to do something with the battery pack because it’s always attached to the device. You can’t really go cord-free.

So maybe that’s one thing that will be improved in future generations of the device. I’m not sure. But anyways, my wife looked pretty funny because she’s got this big headset on and of course, she’s in the 3D world, right? When you put this headset on, suddenly these glasses, I guess I’m not sure how the technology works exactly guys, but it’s like a 3D immersive experience.

Once you put this on, you as the user feel like you’re in this different world. Everywhere you look, you are immersed completely in the world. But from my perspective, I’m still just in the regular world. I’m looking at her and she kind of looks crazy with this big mask, ski mask type thing on her head, right?

And she’s moving her head, looking around, and she’s tapping her fingers together because the way that… You know, if you’re using a computer, you can click on an icon, right? We have to double-click on different icons to open applications on our computer.

Well, when you’re using the Apple Vision Pro, I guess the cameras that are in the device, they track your hands and when they notice that you tap your fingers together, then that’s the signal to open an application. So, she’s kind of sitting there like moving her head around a little bit, tapping her fingers randomly and just being like, “Wow! Amazing! Oh my gosh!”

But of course, I don’t really see anything. So, at this point, my curiosity was very piqued. I was very interested. I’m like, oh, I want to see too. Like, what’s going on? And so yeah, she finished her session. OK. I let her have a good look around. She did everything in there and yeah, she probably had it on, I don’t know, 30, 35 minutes or so.

But then after that time, she was like, “Ah, this is kind of a little bit heavy on my head and my face feels hot from keeping this device on.” So yeah, that’s kind of a nice thing when you’re waiting to try it out. You can’t, and maybe I’m getting to the conclusion here of this technology a little bit before I should, but it’s hard to wear for a long time.

That’s one of the things that I found. It’s hard to wear for a long time. But in this kind of situation, it’s nice actually because I was really like, I want to try it, I want to try it. And if it were super comfortable to wear for a long time, then maybe my wife would be like using it for hours, right? It would be difficult to wait for that long.

But because it’s a little bit uncomfortable to use for a long time, she didn’t use it for very long and then she let me have a try. And so, then it was my turn. There’s this calibration process that you have to go through when you wear it for the first time. And “to calibrate” just means to set it up so that it works optimally for you.

And so, when you put this device on your head, it’s really amazing guys, like suddenly it’s true reality. The current world that we’re living in just disappears and you’re in this completely immersive virtual world. And it feels extremely real. Like it’s just like reality gone and then you’re in this weird virtual world. When we were trying it out, it was daytime.

So, it was very bright and light in our house. But then the device was set to like a dark mode. So as soon as you put it on, you’re like kind of in this dark environment. And I couldn’t really see any light at all. It was very dark and immersive in that way.

And there’s this calibration that you have to go through to set up the device where you have to move your eyes in certain places so that it can track your eyes. And that’s how you navigate through the different menus. Like I said, you have to tap your fingers to open applications, to like click on them.

But you use your eyes actually almost like the mouse to navigate from one menu option to the next menu option. So, when you put it on for the first time, you have to go through this calibration and do all these different eye movements. But once it’s set up and you’re in, then yeah, it’s pretty incredible.

Now let me tell you about some of the things I did in this virtual world because this was just kind of a tester, right? It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t my wife’s. It was my wife’s company’s Apple Vision Pro. It wasn’t like I was going crazy downloading different apps or anything like that. Essentially, it was just to get a feel for it, like what this device can do and what you can do in the device.

So, I headed first to YouTube, I think, and I watched a YouTube music video. Actually, my wife was doing that. So, she had the YouTube already open with the music video. It was by this artist called Panda Bear, I believe. Panda Bear, cool musical artist. And she had one of his videos open already and it is incredible. Like, what’s the best way to describe it?

Have you ever been to an IMAX cinema or are you familiar with what IMAX is? It’s the really, really, really big screen video that you can watch. Like you can go to watch a movie on IMAX, right? And you see it with a huge screen, like two, three, four times bigger than a regular movie theater screen. That’s the IMAX experience.

It was almost like that. Like when I opened the music video on YouTube, and I made it full screen, it really felt like I was looking at this huge, gigantic screen. Even though it was just a few inches in front of my face, right?

It was like these goggles were hanging right off of my face, so it was just a little bit away technically, but the 3D effects and the way that it was working, I don’t know the way the software works, it makes the screen look absolutely huge.

So, you could watch the music video and you can grab the window and pinch it with your finger and thumb, and you can move it like really close or push it really far away. And the other thing that was incredible for my first encounter with this device is that you can change the environment you’re in.

So, you have like, the way that I had it set up was I had my music video playing on this massive screen in front of my eyes. But then this is like a 360 immersive experience, right? So, if you look to your side, you look to your right, you look to your left, you turn around and look behind you, this is all space and it’s not just black. You can select the different environment that you want.

And so, my wife had it set to the moon. Like I was sitting on the moon. So, I’m sitting on the moon, I’ve got this massive Panda Bear music video playing in front of me. And if I look to my left, if I look to my right, if I look behind me, then I’m just totally 100% sitting on the moon. You can look up and you can see stars in the sky. It’s incredible.

And there were these different environments. You could sit in Yosemite National Park, I believe was one. There was one in a forest. There were just these different natural landscapes where you could sit.

And even the speaker, like I believe when I was in the forest or the desert, maybe the desert at night, when you’re sitting in this place in the virtual world, the speakers are playing some sound as well. So, you can hear like just some breeze blowing a little bit, like very faintly in the background, which really sells it. It makes you feel like you’re in…

Like, it’s almost a little bit scary because it looks so hyper-real. Like you honestly feel like you’re in this environment. So, I’d look around, I was sitting in the dark desert at night. The wind is just blowing a little bit and I’d look all around me. I almost got a little bit scared like, what am I doing sitting in this desert at night? Like this is a place where I will die. I don’t have a tent.

I don’t have any food. I don’t have any water. Like it really, really felt quite real. So that was incredible to check out those different landscapes, to check the music video out.

The next thing I did was headed to the Apple TV store because my wife had said that there were some demo videos that you could watch to see what the kind of 3D video content that I think Apple is making, and then perhaps in the future more companies will make for this device as well. So, I headed to the Apple TV store, and I watched one of their demo videos.

Like it was just sort of, yeah, a demonstration. Like here’s our new 3D video technology. Check this out and see what you think. And so, I fired that video up. I think it was like a four-minute video clip or something. But again, I have to say it was absolutely incredible. I’ve never seen such realistic 3D video before.

The most impressive thing to me, they had like all these different video clips. There was one of an African safari where you saw the animals run by you. There’s like elephants and lions and tigers and all of those different African safari animals. And that was pretty cool. There were, yeah, a bunch of different video clips. There’s one of Alicia Keys, do you know that singer Alicia Keys?

She was in the studio singing right in front of you. And it honestly looks like she’s standing just a couple of feet away from you. She’s leaning up against a piano, all the session musicians in the studio jamming away and she’s singing. And it felt like I was just sitting right in front of her watching this amazing concert. It really felt real.

But the most impressive thing to me was that they had these sports. So, you could watch NFL football, they had Major League Soccer, I think. Oh, they had basketball as well, NBA basketball. And they showed, you know, like it felt like I was on the court with these basketball players while they’re passing the ball around, doing all these amazing dribbling tricks, slam dunking the ball.

And yeah, you’re watching them play in real time. But you can also move your head around and you can see like the audience behind you. It’s honestly like I was sitting courtside at the NBA game watching a live game. It was totally, totally cool. And it made me so excited for the future.

Like, oh my gosh, this technology is really going to change the way that we consume media and interact. Like, you know, I’m a massive National Hockey League fan. I love ice hockey and my favorite team, the Vancouver Canucks, they play all the time in North America.

I live in Korea, so I don’t get to see live games very often. But I was just sort of fantasizing and thinking like in the near future, maybe it’ll be possible for me to watch live games like this in a 3D headset. And it could be just like I was there in real life. I thought that would be so cool.

Another one of the demos was this little girl, like a toddler walking around and it showed her mom filming her. And then you could see the toddler walking around, that the video footage that the mom took. And I thought how cool would that be for parents too? Or pet owners, right?

If you could film your kids as they’re growing up in this 3D video format, film your pets, and then years down the road when your kids are grown up or whatever, you want to go back and you… It’s almost like reliving that moment in real life. Not just like the video or the photos that we have now. So anyways, I could probably go on and on and on about this cool technology.

But to me, that was the most impressive thing was the video. And yeah, after using it for like 20 minutes, I also had to take the headset off. It kind of pushes up on your eyes really tightly and it’s a little bit heavy. Although I think it weighs less than a kilogram. I think it’s around six or seven hundred grams.

So, the device is very light holding it in your hands, but when you wear it on your head, that’s when it does get a little bit heavy. So, I had to take it off after a little while to take a break. But what I saw when I was in that virtual world was extremely impressive and really got me fired up and stoked for what’s to come in the future.

And so, after our experience using the Apple Vision Pro and checking it out, my wife and I were really excited, and we talked a lot about it. And she said that the next thing that she wanted to try was a game. And one of her co-workers had recommended a game for the Apple Vision Pro. So, she got that set up. She had to download it to the device and got it all set up.

And again, she played it for the first time before me. And when she was playing it, you know, it does look ridiculous when you’re watching from the outside. Because this game was a kind of boxing game. So, she’s just standing in our living room, punching into the air wearing this headset. And it did look really, really funny to see her from the outside.

But when I tried it out after she was done and she told me, “Andrew, try it out, you know, put the headset on, get inside the game, open it up,” and you’re kind of this robot character and it was a boxing game, but you’re not punching another character or anything.

It was like these blocks that would come at you, and you had to break the blocks by punching them or avoiding certain ones as they came at you. And you’re this robot character, right? So, I’m in the game. It’s literally taking up all of my field of vision. Everywhere I look, I’m in this game. I’m in this really high-tech environment.

It looks like the future and I’m getting ready to punch these blocks as they come toward me. And I looked at my hands and my hands had totally transformed into these robot hands. So, I’ve got these robot hands and I’m smashing these blocks as they’re coming towards me. And yeah, it was pretty fun.

I was a little bit afraid because you really lose yourself in the physical environment, so I just did it gently even though my wife was by me, so I think hopefully she would warn me. But I was worried like I was gonna get too into this game and just punch the wall or something because you’re totally unaware of where you are actually in physical space once you have this headset on.

So yeah, that was a really cool experience. I didn’t play the game for too, too long. And yeah, games weren’t as exciting to me as the video was. I thought with the video, I feel like I glimpsed into the future, and it was really, really exciting. Where maybe like, this is the Apple Vision Pro first gen.

Maybe I don’t know, five, six, seven years down the line if they continue to improve this device and make it better, then definitely I think yeah, it’s going to be really, really exciting what the future holds with this technology.

I think right now at the present, the headset is just too heavy and too uncomfortable to wear for a long time. If they could shrink it down somehow, and of course, I’m no engineer, but you can sort of guess that maybe in the future engineers will figure out how to do this. And maybe instead of making it like this big ski mask, if it could be more like a pair of sunglasses or contact lenses.

Who knows if they could shrink it down to make it more comfortable to wear on your face? Maybe to improve the battery life so that you didn’t have to have this heavy battery pack in your pocket. And yeah, some little tweaks like that.

Then I think, I don’t know, it’s a little bit scary because you imagine that if it could be that comfortable and easy to use, then why wouldn’t everybody just use it all the time and people would be living inside the virtual world more so than living in the physical world? Also, of course, it’s pretty cost prohibitive right now. It’s a very expensive device.

I think, yeah, there’s no way that I would buy it at the current moment because it is very expensive and I think, yeah, it’s not something that I would want to be using for long periods of time. I could imagine that if I were to buy one, I’d probably use it for like a month and then it would be one of those things that just sort of sits in the back of your cupboard as the novelty wears off.

I know there are other companies as well. There’s a company called Oculus that makes a device and I’ve heard that the Oculus is actually pretty similar to the Apple Vision Pro, but it’s a fraction of the cost. It’s much, much cheaper. So that’s cool. I think there’s like a lot of room to grow with this technology. And yeah, I’m very excited to see what happens with it in the future.

Especially if they do live hockey games in 3D like the demo that I saw in the Apple Vision Pro. Then 100%, I would be very interested in purchasing one of these. And yeah, I could see just a lot of other cool, cool uses that you could do with this kind of technology in the future if it can be tweaked and improved and made a little bit better.

But I was really thankful that I got the chance to experience that. Shout out to my wife’s company for doing this for their employees. That’s really cool. And thanks to my wife for letting me pop into the Apple Vision Pro for a little while as well. Super, super cool to have that experience.

And yeah, so now you guys know what I meant when I asked you if you would ever had an experience like this where you think you saw the future. Because through this experience, I feel like I saw what is coming down the pike in terms of new 3D headset technology in the future. And my guess is that we’ll see this kind of technology become more and more commonplace as it improves.

It’s a big if though, right? If the technology can improve, if it can be more efficient, cheaper, lighter, and more user-friendly in terms of the user experience, then I think yeah, it will explode in popularity. But I’m not an engineer. I don’t know the limits of this kind of engineering feat that would have to be done.

So, if engineers can figure out how to build that kind of device, I think it will take off. But if it’s just sort of stuck in its current iteration, the way that it is in the moment right now, then maybe it won’t take off as much. So yeah, I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.

But at the end of the day, it was a cool experience and I’m glad that I got to have it. And another thing that I’m glad that I got to do today is spend a little time with you studying English. I hope you enjoyed this bonus episode.

And since you made it all the way to the end, since you put in the work, you put in the time, you put in the effort to improve your English with me today, I want to give you the completion code. You can leave a comment with the completion code on our YouTube page or Instagram page or Discord community.

And sharing that comment with me with the completion code will just show me that you made it all the way to the end. And it will show other Culips listeners from around the world that you made it all the way to the end. So, for this week’s completion code, let’s go with the word: “Glimpse.” Glimpse, G-L-I-M-P-S-E. Glimpse.

And “glimpse” means to take a little short, brief look into something. The reason I’m using this completion code glimpse for today’s episode is because I had a glimpse into what future technology may look like with the Apple Vision Pro. I got to use it for a little bit, and I was very impressed.

That was like a glimpse into what future technology may be like if this technology picks up and becomes more and more popular. So, leave your comments with the word glimpse. You can use just a one-word glimpse comment, or you could leave an example sentence and it will just show me that you made it all the way to the end.

So, everyone, I’m going to leave it here for today. Thank you for listening as always. Please have a great week up ahead. Take care. And as always, happy English learning. Goodbye.