AI keeps getting smarter. Google’s launch of Gemini, a multimodal AI meant to compete with GPT-4, included a revealing video of a conversation with the intelligence. Gemini, like GPT-4, can handle multiple modes of input, including text, code, image and audio. Its reasoning skills — based on what it is asked and what it sees alone — are stunning. When its human counterpart draws an electric guitar and drums, it suggests some hair metal and throws some on the playlist; it creates intuitive games on the fly and recognizes a magic trick; and it adds captions to a drawing based on what someone on a rollercoaster would be saying (“whee!”). Altogether, it’s a seamless assistant experience that has us asking: How much longer till it’s savvier than us?
Today we’re taking a look at a shark-bit dive watch, a fifteen-year-old bourbon and more. This is Today in Gear.
Today in Gear is our daily roundup of all the latest product announcements, drops and news from Gear Patrol Studios. Send your most pressing product questions to tig@gearpatrol.com.
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Our Editors’ Favorite Products of 2023
For as forward-looking as we are at Gear Patrol, we’re also a reflective bunch. Hence the GP100, our annual roundup of the hundred products our editors swooned hardest for this year. From Muppet-inspired timepieces to iconic vehicles re-envisioned for a new era, each product in this collection earned its spot by making an outsized impact on its industry — and product culture as a whole.
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A Cult Dive Watch Takes a Bite
Dive watch brand Squale has a small cult following because its watches are good looking, well-made and reasonably priced. They’ve added some to their panache with the 1521 “Watch Your Hand,” a special-edition collaboration with horological artist Romaric André, a.k.a Seconde/Seconde/. André “vandalizes” watches, and in this case, has imagined the classic caliber’s hour hand on the receiving end of a shark bite.
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An Underground Magazine Rises
Cafe Goblin ($25), a new risograph-print magazine made in Los Angeles, has released its first issue. Its narrator promises not to tell the truth — sometimes. Its blend of war stories, celebrity interviews and provocative art hearkens to our favorite classic magazines. Is it a twisted New Yorker or apocalyptic Playboy? Perhaps it’s just an intriguing survey of the bizarre. You’ll enjoy finding out.
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Fifteen-Year-Old Bourbon From Master Blender of the Year
To make Milam & Greene Castle Hill Batch Three, 2023 Master Blender of the Year Heather Green selected 20 barrels of bourbon aged over 15 years. Then she blended ‘em, bottled ‘em and put ‘em up for sale — and they sold out before you could read this message. Sorry, friend. Keep an eye out on the secondary markets, perhaps?
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A Great Guide to Great American Whiskey
Some gear isn’t tangible, but rather, usefully abstract. Fred Minnick’s 100 Best Whiskeys of 2023 list, for example, is entirely free and available online here. Don’t mistake Fred’s generosity: He is one of the country’s leading experts on booze, and this list is a very precious item indeed. As a guidebook to your upcoming whiskey pursuits, it will set you on a good path.
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