 Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners thanks to all of you including high-tech Oki Logan Larson and Mike Akins Coming up on DTNS video meetings. Aren't as good for brainstorming have we finally achieved over-the-air power for the average consumer and Snap has a personal selfie drone. They they called it pixie Hey pixie This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday April 28th 2022 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt It's actually Thursday Tom and from Studio Redwood. I'm Sarah Lane. Listen. I write what Roger tells me to say I say what Roger want to make sure you know what day it is. Yeah from a city famous for confusing what time or day It is in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm Justin Robert. Yeah From a not confusing city drawing the top tech stories. I'm Len Peralta from the Wild Wilderness of Alaska I'm Anthony Lemos and I'm Roger Chang. So blame me because that shows producer All right, let's start with a few tech things you should know The Financial Times saw an email from Twitter to ad agencies Reassuring them that their advertisements would not appear beside offensive contact The letter seems to be in response to fears of what might happen after Elon Musk's pending purchase of Twitter The company also identifies that it had miscounted daily users for the past three years by up to 1.9 million The error was to count all accounts of a single user as active if one of those users accounts was actually active Twitter still reported a 10 million rise in users over the last quarter to and now more accurate 229 million users Twitter lost 128 million dollars on revenue of 1.2 billion dollars in the quarter Meta bounced back from a decline you may remember in daily of active users last quarter this time they gained about 300 million For a total of 1.96 billion Daily active users revenue from the family of apps. That's what meta calls facebook instagram and whatsapp fell 13 percent And reality labs the the metaverse part of meta lost 2.96 billion dollars That's compared to 1.83 billion dollars that lost a year ago Although that's in line with an increase in spending on development. So they they expect it to lose money and it did Samsung reported its operating operating profit rose 15 51 percent on the year chips made up more than half of that profit is demand for d ram and nand Remained strong due to data center buildouts samsung's foundry business also had its highest ever q1 It's good news at least for that portion of the company The second largest contributor to the profits was mx and networks that includes phones The galaxy s22 led the way but sales were strong in the mid tier as well The consumer business unit was the only Kind of bad news here that division sells home appliances tv's as well a combination of unusually high demand during the pandemic now easing off And the effects of russia's war in ukraine caused a slight drop in offering operating profits there All right, let's get away from earnings for a second the central african republic has become the second country after el salvador to adopt bitcoin as legal currency If you don't know which you might not the country uses a french backed currency the franck cfa As its paper currency the franck cfa is issued by the financial cooperation in central africa, but it's tied to A franc that is based on the french version of the euro It's part of the economic and monetary community of central africa kind of a an e u-like organization Or maybe more like an european economic community sort of organization in central africa The franc cfa is also used by cameroon chad republic of congo equatorial guinea and gabon The move to adopt bitcoin in the central african republic Is seen as a way to gain financial independence from the influence of france because it backs the franc cfa over car's currency google is making some changes to search the company previously let users request the removal of links from the search index If they pointed to information that could lead to identity or financial theft google has now added images of identification documents such as a driver's license confidential login credentials personal contact Information like where you live physically what your phone number is what your email address is google told the verge that the policy applies to sites that don't immediately show the information But offer it in exchange for payment google also expanded the categories of ads that you can ask to be hidden Those settings now apply to all google's display ad network not just youtube and in addition to gambling and alcohol You can also request google to block ads in the categories of dating pregnancy parenting and weight loss All right, let's talk a little more about wireless power, but not What kind of wireless power are we talking here? Justin? Tom i'm so glad you brought up wireless power because what i'm not talking about are the finicky ones where you have to Lay your phone on a pad just ride I mean real true over the air i can walk around and my thing gets charged wherever it is in the room wireless power Well, you all want that of course Well throughout the time of this show we've covered lots of contenders to bring us over the air charging power cast Uh and erogus and yet we don't have widespread over the air power at least not for consumers But the examples are building up So maybe we're getting close to an actual in the home over the air power solution For example a french company called arcos announced several products to come this year that use osya's kota wireless power system That system just got us fcc approval in march kota uses radio wave oscillation to generate power But those arcos products haven't launched yet Maybe belkin a big name when it comes to charging can beat them to the punch Belkin announced their partnership with we charge the we charge system uses infrared beams to send up to one watt of power Within a 40 foot range the device needs to be in sight of the ceiling based transmitter And don't worry you're not going to get cooked the transmitter will only shine when a device needs charging And direct the beam at the device The system could be good for devices that spend a lot of time in standby mode like doorbells locks Sensors and the like we charge says it and belkin both plan to release a product with the tech sometime this year belkin isn't saying what its product is But we charge calls a specific center stage product And belkin would only confirm that it signed an rnd deal with we charge telling tech crunch quote We only launch products when we confirm technical feasibility backed by deep consumer insights Uh I want I want I want this I do Um, and we have nick with a c jokin in the chat room. He's like, uh, I don't want the cancer It'll give me uh, and I know nick knows this but uh, it does not give you cancer It's no different in one sense to wi-fi The the one that that comes from ossea or light in the other sense which is the infrared one is So sure any any of those could give you cancer if if improperly used But they they should be properly used my question is why these haven't yet been in put anywhere outside of an enterprise situation We're factory situation which seems to be cost In a factory situation if you have thousands of devices to charge sure walmart on one of its big warehouse floors is using ossea Because it's they can they can pay that money and it's worth it for them But in the home We we don't want to pay huge amounts of money because we only have a few devices to charge relatively speaking And in general the batteries are big enough that you only have to charge them a little bit and you can do it overnight Yeah, yeah I mean one of the things that you mentioned justin was like, I don't know like uh, like a like a door lock And turns out just this morning. I had to deal with a dead uh keypad door lock that uh, a bunch of arabian b people were extremely upset uh was not working and this would have saved me quite a bit because In situations like this, it's like you never think about the batteries until there's something wrong And then you think about them So to never have to think about them because you're being proactive would be a great use case here Yeah I I guess the hope that I would take from this story is we're seeing an increasing drumbeat of these, you know five six years ago It was like Somebody has demonstrated that this could work right now. We're seeing like Companies have deployed it. They're just not able to deploy it either efficiently or cost effectively enough But belkin getting on board even though they rushed as you said justin to kind of say like hey, we're not announcing a product Uh, hold your horses there. Why charge? Uh, I I think the fact that they're on board at all is a good sign That at least we're getting closer Well, they're gonna have to be in that in that in that market The big question here is what is the price for the consumer and also how much power it really delivers because if it's very very slow like a lot of these q charging stations are then Well in the past we've talked a lot about using vr for lots of reasons for fun But also as a pain management tool and lots of studies are still being done On that part of it But we wanted to call attention briefly to a study being done by a company called applied vr Usually when you do a study like this, you have a control group That's the group that isn't receiving the study treatment in this case It would be vr and then a group using the study treatment and then you compare them and see if there is a measurable difference This is you know, kind of just science Yes, if you didn't if you didn't have to have the control group Could cut your expenses of recruitment and trial management as well as make sure that everybody who signs up gets that treatment Right now if you sign up for a clinical trial You might get the placebo and that might be okay with you But it also might be disappointing depending on who you are So applied vr is working with komodo health to do something called a synthetic control arm Komodo has a large database of anonymized health records. It can provide applied vr with the data of people Uh with chronic pain without having to enroll them in the trial And then they can be used as a control group to compare with the experience of the people that are actually in the trial Now we couldn't find out at least, you know We reached out to komodo and we didn't hear back by recording time So we couldn't find out what protections against deanonymization komodo is using if any But the fdi is still evaluating the use of synthetic control arms It's previously approved one for a cancer study and has also approved applied vr's use of one This is fascinating because it is a great example Let's let's assume for argument sakes that komodo health does get back to us and and says like Oh, yeah, we're using differential privacy like apple does or some, you know, something very valid like that Like, okay, great. We all feel good about this This is an example of why it's good to share your data Because if it's responsibly used it can be used for something like this where a clinical trial can be done And more cost effectively, which is good for the treatment bring the cost down of health care And more efficiently, which means they can do it faster And and yes, the fda is going very carefully to make sure that it's also as good as if you had an actual control group But so far the early signs are that it is and I think it's a it's a great example of Where data sharing we always hear the bad stories. We never hear the good Yeah, and I think this is this is a confluence of a few different things including the fact that vr being used as a therapeutic Really shows how far that platform has continued to come uh, you know, when it when it Relates to any kind of disability stuff The fact that vr has gotten as potent and as cheap and available as it has Means that this is a real research tool But I think like you said tom the big story here is just the benefit of anonymized Records and assuming that we are all assuming that everything is able to to be kept safe This is kind of a game changer Yeah, I I I I have reservations about The privacy applications only because they didn't make it clear on their website. I went I scoured all over Maybe I have to assume the worst until you hear what's going on. Why aren't you out front saying like here is the privacy protection Here's the deanonymization we use because they say they anonymize it and that's great I believe them but the problem is just anonymizing data isn't always enough to stop reverse engineering to be able to Deanonymize it right and so you need to take extra protections for that And when you're talking about health data you're talking about HIPAA compliance in the united states and other rules elsewhere Uh, that's important. You need to make sure that that data is well protected because You want people to feel comfortable sharing it so you can do things like this Yeah, yeah Yeah, I have that second layer of utility. Yeah. Yeah All right, folks, uh, if you have a thought about this on the show, maybe work Komodo health I would like to email us the answer. Uh, here's our email address Feedback at daily tech news show dot com Uh psychology scientists at columbia university published a study in nature looking at the impact of video meetings on creativity Versus having a meeting in person the study observed 745 pairs of engineers Across portugal israel finland hungry and india They asked them to come up with creative ideas They gave them a frisbee or some bubble wrap and said come up with some ideas of what we could do with these Make new products meetings held with the participants in the same room generated about 17 percent more ideas Then the meetings held on webex Which is about an extra idea per meeting on average One of the study's authors, uh, dr. Melanie brux tested for connectedness social connectedness And it's all detailed in the paper how you test for that Found that people in the video calls were just as connected with each other as the people who met in person So it wasn't like that there was too much distance for them to get each other Uh, she also tracked eye movements and found that people in the same room Looked away from each other more often than people on video who tried to maintain eye contact On video you want to people to think you're paying attention So you try to look at them in person. It's kind of impolite to stare Uh, we it's fairly well established that we vote we vote we devote a lot of attention to faces Our brains just do that But we don't like to stare at someone when we're in the same room at them all the time So it's possible that people on video are using more of their brain power to process faces because they're forcing themselves to look at them Leaving less room for creative thinking Remote meetings do work well for the less creative parts of the process While the remote teams generated fewer and less creative ideas They picked the best options out of the ones they developed and the way they tested for this is the ideas were all evaluated by A team of outside experts people that were not part of the team And the remote engineers tended to pick the better option from the ones they came up with Slightly more often than the in-person teams. So the remote meetings were focused They were just a little too focused to be creative So anyway, uh as a result of this meeting Dr. Brux now turns off her camera on zoom When she's brainstorming to just kind of make sure that she's not Focusing too much on the other person's face I mean it is we're all doing the show remotely and and we have for many years and we're all pretty used to it But there are other projects that I do where Some of my in-person work had had to be remote because of the pandemic And and and is to this day and we've all adjusted But I have definitely noticed some nuanced stuff as far as communication goes That really that really speaks to everything that you've just laid out tom What I think is interesting about this is well, first of all the eye contact thing is so true I mean, yeah, you can't just stare at somebody in a meeting like they'd be like, what are you doing after a while? I why do you keep looking at me? What do you want me to say? Uh, but but when you're you know staring, you know, face forward on on a video call You're not really looking into someone's soul in the same way Maybe you are but they they may not feel that way What I thought what I thought was the biggest takeaway though from this is yeah fewer creative ideas But actually the best ideas were generated Over over the video chat experiment and maybe that maybe there's just a little bit that happens in a humans physically together in a conference room or or or the like That once taken away gets people a little bit more focused Well, it made me think okay Turn off the camera for the brainstorming and then turn the camera back on when it's time to figure out Which of the ideas you're actually going to do right? Yeah Uh Well, I think that there's also a lot that sort of goes into the mainstream Of space that these kind of video conferences have in our lives right now Up to and including the idea that when we are looking dead into that camera We may or may not be looking in in the faces of the people that we are talking to we might be looking at ourselves Right like there's a lot that happens when it comes to this this one Unbroken eye contact thing you are right that it signals I'm paying attention and I'm alert somebody that's constantly looking off camera is giving signals that they they might not otherwise Have have on their mind like for example normally in my office I have a big monitor and then I have the camera that is on my macbook for which I am running everything I've learned that I can't look at the people on my gigantic monitor, which is a lot cooler because that's rude I'm I'm looking off to the side and not connecting with them that being said there is obviously something different with the the kind of a Scrambling desire when somebody is in person to get something done There is an immediacy that happens that whether it be cultural or physiological I I don't think can be denied in terms of the volume of like let's just get something done Let's stick something to the wall and and go from there as for the fidelity of those ideas I don't think that that's something that we could reasonably determine in in one study no matter how comprehensive this was Yeah, and it was a slight Uh amount of favor for the the video meeting So it's the kind of thing that you could do the study again and it might go the other way Yeah, it was pretty close to even though it was she wasn't trying to say in the study And neither one of them were trying to say in the study that that video meetings were better for selection It was just like yeah, we didn't see a difference In fact, we saw it slightly tilting this way at least this time when we looked I'd like to know what uh the creative ideas for using a frisbee and or bubble wrap would be you should read the uh the article There's the the actual journal article has some of them I actually already did but I figured some other people were like that sounds kind of cool It'll be in our show notes, but uh, yeah, I I don't I don't know I I think probably because it has been something I I I had no control over for for for the better part of Two and a half years now. Um, I I'm pretty pro Video call as long as we're all we're all there. Everybody's alert taking notes doing the things making our talking points, but I can see where This is going to continue to be an issue Especially since some people are going back into in person works and people are trying to figure out When that is necessary and when it isn't and and how that how that relates to productivity Yeah, I think it's important to remember that the study didn't say brainstorming was awful over video media It said it was 17 percent less creative So if you're like we need to optimize, maybe we should try to get in person or turn our cameras off possibly This is not a definitive like video meetings are bad or anything like that You're right. No, no, no, I I do think that the part of the evolution here is our culture for this, you know Yeah, the video conferences were something that although obviously this audience is probably very familiar with it To the mainstream of society is about two years old and people are still getting used to the idea of What does it mean? What am I a good participant? What am I a bad participant? And I think what we're seeing here is a evolution of all this Yeah, it's it's how we learn to be better at it, right is to understand like oh, okay You have to account for that. So let's let's adapt. I think that's good Well snap announced quite a few things today. Let's run through them Shall we augmented reality experiences at live nation concerts assisted devices like wheelchairs and hearing aids for bitmoji avatars and new editing tools called director mode However, there is one piece of news that's capturing a lot of attention and that is snap's selfie drone called pixie Retailing for $230 pixie is a drone powered camera So camera and a drone that can fly around record video and photos for then sharing on snapchat Although also to third-party applications pixie doesn't have a controller just for preset flight pass That you select with a dial so hover reveal orbit or follow Then when it's done flying because it's a little thing it automatically comes back and lands on your hand Or yeah, or you know, whatever you're you're you're giving it to land on photos and videos are wirelessly transferred And saved into snapchat memories. You can then use editing tools and lenses and sounds That's all within snapchat to customize the captured video make a cool Share from there And like I said, you can share on other platforms as well because it's just it's saved into your phone The battery is good for about five to eight flights spare batteries cost about 20 Pixie users will need to be aware of local laws and regulations in the u.s And also france about drone usage They may vary and you can learn more if you're interested at pixie.com Yeah, interesting that france is a launch country alongside the united states So good for you france. You you got something first too. Uh, welcome. We yeah I think I think it's if you're if you're being cool, justin it's I think this is weird If this was 99 dollars, I'd call it genius like oh, it's a little toy selfie thing fun You know drop a less than a hundred bucks on it, you know and and make your selfies for snapchat I'm sure a lot of people are gonna do this at 230 dollars though It starts to feel like okay. Well follow isn't new like other more expensive drones can do this And I don't know how much more expensive they really are. I guess 230 is pretty good. Amos. I know you do a lot of drone Footage you do a lot of drone shooting. Yeah, where do you put this? So when I initially looked at it and we were talking about it in a pre-show I was concerned because 230 dollars That that puts it in a certain bracket that puts it in the 200 to 300 dollar bracket for drones And a lot of the things that I saw here didn't seem up to snuff Once I started really looking into it The camera size the the resolution things like that are actually pretty consistent in that price range Um The problems that I see with this because I think this is a genius product just like you said at 99 dollars This sells off flies off the shelves and is perfect for you know Your average teen or or young adult that just wants to take these cool little selfies The problems I see with it are that you're not getting a lot of the features that you can get in other drones Which fair enough if you're a beginner drone flyer or something like that you that that's fine because you don't need all those extra features The other thing that I that I found concerning was that there's no built-in safety measures for geo location and restricted area airspace things like that now that might not be so important because it's only flying You know 10 15 feet up in the air But that can still be something that can get the users in trouble and without any built-in safeguards that a lot of the more expensive drones have That can really get you a pretty hefty fine um But for this price point, I think just like you said it's a little too expensive to be That sweet spot where 99 dollars would be amazing even 150 dollars would be a really good price for something like this For its intended purpose at 230. You're kind of getting into a little bit more advanced range. You can get any for about that that Look, they don't sell it for 99 dollars when they can make it for 40 dollars Which they I don't think that they can and what they want to do I don't like comparing these two other drones because it's not for drone people. It is a A peripheral for social media That uses drone technology my issue is I totally agree that 230 dollars is only for the richest of rich kids that are going to lullapalooza There are cheaper ways that you can do More exciting social media content. I think this is a good idea. It's a good first step But snapchat as a hardware business has always seemed to come in just a little too expensive and a little underwhelming Well, it's probably because they made the camera good, right? You make that camera cheap You can get it down to 99 bucks, but then everybody complains about the how the photos or videos are no good So, yeah, maybe you know, that's a rock in a hard place. I guess So just tell your mom that you're rolling out the black card and you're gonna buy a pixie and uh, yeah You're really excited to see playboy card this summer Coachella or just lullapalooza Well, coachella already happened. So uh, I'm glad and I was trying to yeah, I guess you're gonna have to wait here There'll be a new pixie the pixie The cool kids are talking about lullapalooza. Yeah, we're already back. I got you. I got you That's what we're doing. But I mean with replaceable batteries. You could I mean, you know, you could get a lot of flights of each I just feel like Because people can I don't know when you get too many people into a uh music festival It's like what if my pixie is about to land on my hand and someone snatches it And someone moshes moshes right into you moshes with my pixie even worse. And that's another thing. There's a downward camera for placement This is a problem There's a downward camera for placement for landing and taking off But there's no peripheral sensors or sensors above anything else So I could see it causing some problems But I just think it's it's a hair too expensive for for the market that's going for but like justin said That's what snapped us. So it's cute. It's called pixie. It is I love the build. I will say that it it looks great and and if it if it behaves like it does in the video I think it's an extraordinarily cool product All right. Well, we'll see if uh snapchat can In iterate on this one faster than spectacles and and turn it into something compelling If you go to lolapalooza, let us know we want pixie videos. Please do please send your pixie videos All right, let's check out the mail bag Let's do it high tech bill wrote in and said on yesterday's gdi portion You were talking about battery recycling bill is right. Uh, patrick tartan and roger and I were talking about this bill says not a plug but batteries plus recycling services for customers at batteries plus We'll take them for free. My wife and I use them. I did a quick check for locations in california They do have them no clue if they're anywhere close to any of you, but uh wanted to pass it along Well, thank you high tech bill. Uh, I I just saw bill in austin, uh, Which austin robber young a few weeks ago? So it's nice to hear from him Also, he's referring to something that's in the extended version of the show called good day internet, uh to our patrons And I have to say yesterday I listened to dtns on the plane ride back from las vegas and was like i'll listen to dtns And then you know, I might not listen to all the gdi I might want to move on and and do other things I listen to the whole darn thing because that battery conversation with patrick was was compelling Y'all had some interesting things to say about st. Louis, which is near and dear to my heart So I don't know folks look at what you're missing out if you don't go to patreon.com slash dtns I'm just saying it's it's a wonderful program And they do well in tandem to taste the go great together I couldn't resist and I wasn't even on it. So there you go Uh, hey, you know what else I can't resist the art of len peralta. What have you drawn from us today? Len? You know, uh, I do a lot of brainstorming both in person and online off your camera then if you're going to brainstorm Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Let me let me go ahead and do Um, but this is uh, I found this fascinating Just, you know, like you said there as far as brain use and everything else Uh on an online call, but this is my version of what this would look like using the frisbee and the uh, uh the bubble wrap This guy here jerry is saying uh frisbees bubble wrap can't come up ideas you also beautiful eyes transfixed and of course everybody on the call is like jerry you're on mute jerry you're muted jerry Ah, too real too real. This is the reality, right? Um, this image is available right now over at my patreon patreon.com For is slash len you can if you're a backer you can get it right now Or if you're old school and like to spend money go to lenperalta store.com Where uh, you can also get uh, some other commissions or some other great art. So check it out lenperalta store.com Good stuff len as always also good stuff from you. Justin rubber young let folks know what uh, yeah, I know you're remote today What have you been doing last week? Well last week I was in ohio covering the republican primary in the battle between jack mandel and jd vance in two weeks I will be in pennsylvania covering the battle between McCormick and dr. Oz for that Uh, contested republican primary and then i'm down in georgia all of which you can find at The politics politics politics podcast including this fridays episode, which will be a return of our very popular panel myself Jen briny of the congressional dish and andrew heaton of the political orphanage the political triad reunited tomorrow on the x3 Don't miss it everybody also don't miss giving a big thanks to a brand new boss that we got psychomotors psychomotors just started backing us on patreon. Thank you psychomotors psychomotors is gonna get Yeah, good stuff. Uh, thanks. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's been a little bit of a slow month So uh new patrons we applaud you like psychomotors and the show won't be over now. That's what i'm saying. That's right. Yeah Speaking of the show there is a longer version of the show called good day internet If you know, you know, but if you don't find out more at patreon.com slash d T n s we roll right into it after this show But just a reminder we're live monday through friday on d tns at 4 p.m. Eastern 20 hundred utc Find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live and we're back doing it all again tomorrow with our guest taren skeins Back to you then This show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frog pants dot com I hope you have enjoyed this program