 This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to all of you including Pat, Negrachea, Daniels, and Irwin Sturr Coming up on DTDS, AARP says gamers over 50 should be taken seriously. So we gathered some old people in Vegas to talk about it Plus Breal is letting you be slightly less real as long as you're real at least once on time. We'll explain This is the Daily Tech News Show for Monday, April 24th 2023 live in Las Vegas, Nevada I'm Tom Merritt. From the back of the Cuyahoga River, I'm Rich Strafilino. I'm Erlie, and I'm Scott Johnson And uh, who are you? And and I'm Roger the show's producer We also have with us Brian Ibbett hosted the long-running music podcast Coverville co-host of the Morning Stream Philipsac and soundography Brian Ibbett welcome. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here And if you hear bumps, thumps, echoes, and people saying things in the background It's because we're live with an audience in Las Vegas. Hello, everyone Yeah, it's live. It's really live Folks the latest update to Google Authenticator adds a new app logo and support for syncing two-factor codes with a Google account Let's start with the rest of the quick hits The financial time sources say six months ago ARM began work on a prototype chip based on its designs The team making the chip is reportedly led by the former designer of Qualcomm's snap dragon chips Kevork Ketchichan the team is also helping create performance and security improvements However, it does not appear that ARM plans to sell the chip itself instead They're using it just as a prototype to show customers what ARM designs can do You know when we talk about Netflix earnings and subscribers It can be kind of easy to overlook the fact that the service is still Extraordinarily popular to that point Bloomberg passed on some US TV viewing data from Nielsen and found some interesting findings Netflix accounts for seven to eight percent of all TV viewing in the US every month in 2023 may say, okay seven eight percent What does that mean? Well YouTube is the only other service that passes four percent in viewing time with people watching Netflix more than Hulu HBO Max and Disney Plus Combined Netflix also accounted for 70 to 80 percent of the 10 most watch shows every single week now competitors have Into some of Netflix's dominance when we're talking about acquired content We're talking about like maybe some some older TV shows that used to be on Netflix Maybe around other services Netflix still though does account for 50 to 75 percent of watch time in that category most weeks That is down from like 100 so interesting to note that in terms of subscribers paramount plus actually the fastest growing streaming service this year Adding seven and a half million subscribers between January and March Netflix in comparison added 1.75 million Yeah, so in summary The us supreme court has agreed to hear two cases regarding whether elected officials are allowed to block their constituents on social networks So just the people who had voted them into office Can you block the electorate in california two people filed a case when two members of the po way unified school district near san diego Blocked them on facebook and twitter now They were making repeated posts sometimes, you know 40 of the same posts and they were criticizing the school board members on issues of budgeting And how race is handled in michigan a person filed a case when the city manager blocked him for his criticisms regarding the handling of the pandemic Lower courts in california ruled in favor of the people in the school board case as both school board members used their social media accounts in an official Role the michigan case ruled that the city manager of port here on Was not acting in his official role when he blocked the person on facebook So they ruled in his favor So we got a split decision here generally courts have ruled that if an account is being operated in an official capacity It cannot block non harassing or non threatening accounts No previous cases however have been heard by the supreme court There was one against the president that they just decided not to hear they said it was moot The court also declined to hear an appeal from computer scientist steven taylor You may remember that's the one he filed against the us patent and trademark office when they declined to issue him a patent Well, not issue him a patent issue a patent to an ai that he created saying that the patent could only be issued to human inventors So they will hear the cases about blocking people in your electorate. They will not hear the one about giving an ai a patent Well, one of the most visible signs of the recent wave of big tech austerity in cost cutting has most of it around job cuts I mean, we've definitely talked about them on this show and they've been impacting most of the tech industry We're also seeing this impacting though real estate development CNBC reports that google pause construction on its 80 acre downtown west campus in san jose california google plan for the space to offer a lot of stuff 7.3 million square feet offices for a thousand housing units 50 thousand square feet of retail and cultural space and 15 acres of parks Of course, san jose mayor matt mahan characterized this as google reassessing the timeline for downtown west not Canceling it. We are not talking about canceling it. That's according to the mayor But he provided no revised timeline for construction I'm not talking about that either The us 9th circuit court of appeals affirmed most of a 2021 lower court ruling that apple's app store policies did not Violate antitrust law by barring third party app stores So apple won the second round it upheld a lower court ruling in favor of epic games within the scope of california's unfair Law epic had won that small part of it. So that stayed basically what happened in the lower court stayed unchanged apple changed policies after that first court ruling to allow out of app communications Basically, you can admit there are payment alternatives on the web It also lets reader apps like books photos news video Etc point users to the web to make payments Epic games began this case in 2020. It's now In their court so to speak on what to do that and that is a look at the quick ads All right, canadian musician grimes said on twitter sunday I'll split 50 royalties on any successful ai generated song that uses my voice Same deal as i would with any artist i collaborate with feel free to use my voice without penalty I have no label and no legal bindings This is in part to reaction to that drake weekend fake that came out last week The verge notes that experimental musician holly herndon has previously introduced her own artificial voice called holly plus She introduced that back in 2021 Anybody can upload an audio file and get it converted into a version sung by holly members of her dow That's a Cryptocurrency thing that can actually make money off them And of course if you didn't already hear about that track that I was mentioning drake in the weekend Universal music group has threatened to crack down on those although it is varied in how it has cracked down on those So it's interesting to see different artists taking different tactics on this technology Ibbett Yeah, you have a lot of experience with music rights and being able to play covers on coverville and such Yeah, i've heard of music rights and stuff. So yeah, what I like about what grimes is doing is not only she's You know making this great offer of saying else, but the royalties with you She's kind of saying she's drawing the line in the sand that says if you use my voice I want 50% of it. So it's it's kind of a nice way of saying it's a very nice way It's kind of like a little hidden way of saying that she liked to do that Do I want to hear you know a new john lennon song, you know with the ai do I want to hear You know artists have passed with um Songs that were using ai to recreate their voice to recreate their sound I think I think I just know in my head that it's fake and I'd be just disappointed by the whole thing As curious as I would be to hear the results. It would leave me feeling a little You know empty inside a hundred percent agree with that There's an artificiality to it that I don't think I could I could get with but even with living artists With living artists it gets interesting right because her saying use my voice. I get 50 percent. You get 50 percent. She's basically saying Yeah, go for it and and and we'll work together Something about that is really interesting and I don't know if it's because she's alive and can make this decision Or that she's a labelist and can make this decision Because a lot of labeled artists aren't going to be able to do this and I'm not right away until labels embrace the idea But I kind of like that because I want to hear what the collaboration ends up being If it's even truly can be defined as a collaboration I'm not sure you can even do that because if they're going to do it without really her knowledge Just pay her for the 50 percent Well, they'd have that she'd have to have knowledge to pay. I guess she would right But is it a true collaboration like a creative collaboration? I think what she's saying is with with a collaboration I pay 50 percent. So if you do this, I'll also pay 50 percent. She's not trying to say it's a collaboration How about living artists? I was just saying with yeah with living artists Do they have to provide kind of a brand guideline like these are words? I will not say in my songs So if you use ai to use to use any of these words or phrases or show walmart or something You know That's actually If you brought up a great point when you mentioned the word brand because this is what it got me thinking of is that You know we we you know in the early 2000s We saw music going from like product to service and this is almost like musician Like like very literally becoming a brand where it's like they're not even Involved in this it's like the brand of their likeness is being used by an ai to create that and and I like I think that's It makes sense for someone as kind of you know Grimes likes to try a lot of future-facing kind of things to kind of be ahead of the curve on this And it's also interesting that she's saying that This this is not like a situation where if you're uploading this to your soundcloud and it gets 10 listens Like she wants 50 percent of whatever you know for the 99 cents you sell it for What you know, whatever the case may be She's basically like if I hear about it and it's my voice then I want the 50 percent But only if it's going like huge It's not like which makes it very murky it probably even needlessly murky at that point But I thought that was well, but it's all being defined right now. That's right. Yeah, that's yeah That's it's going to get it'll get weird before it gets settled But uh and by weird I just mean somebody doing three ticktocks with a song They kind of collaborated with in their own head and didn't really do much else and got very few views No one's going to notice that it's not going to really go viral or maybe it will but it the potential is lower But when you go big then you have to start asking questions you have to start deciding well wait Okay, so you do get 50 percent, but I said these words are those the wrong words We take those out now like at what point do you negotiate? It just seems well. Yeah, we're making up the rules now Like is this more like a sample where the artist has control they can choose not to let you sample They can say well if you sample you have to pay me x amount and it can vary Or is this something that is more like a collaboration and at which point does the Person who uses the ai have to reach out to the artist and say Here's what I've created before I go by you know put it up online Some artist will any will anybody do that is the question Well, also ai people why what's to stop them from ai people people don't want to work with ai generate music What if their goal is just to do something in this style of grimes or in this style of I don't know m&m or something And they do that in the way that say uh the gallagher brothers sounded a lot like the beetles Um nobody everyone said hey, they sound like the beetles But nobody was saying the beetles you're gonna owe them money or whatever will that still hold here, right? You know, so I got a lot of questions about that. It's one thing when I intentionally say yes I was in fact imitating drake. I was this ai was trained on drake songs. It's meant to say drake It's another thing if you don't admit that you say it's drake. I try to say like, oh, no I don't know why it ended up sounding like drake. Yeah, right. Yeah complicated Well, another thing that's complicated is social networks. That's something breal is finding out You know earlier this month We're kind of are talking about, you know, maybe the bloom is off the rose for breal people kind of getting sick of authenticity So tom i'm curious you've been using the platform. Have you seen the issues with your fee personal? I've been using the platform for more than a year now, uh, and uh, if anybody doesn't know breal It's it's an attempt to be authentic So you get a prompt you have two minutes to post if you don't post within the two minutes You can still post you just won't be able to see anybody else's posts until you've posted So the idea is you want to capture what's happening? Authentically not stage something So if you post right with the notification You're playing by the rules But it is going to end up being a lot of people looking at their laptop Like just in reality because that's what a lot of people are doing most days If you wait to post it might be more interesting, but it's less authentic So I think that turns some people off wanting to post Or it causes some people to not play by the rules and always delay their post So they've been coming up with inducements to get you to play by the rules and post right away to keep the spirit of breal They added Spotify and Apple music integration To share what you've been listening to for example and rich they added something else now too Yeah, they're trying out this pilot for something called bonus b reels At least in the uk and they're trying to like split the difference here Kind of give you the best of both worlds If you post within that two minute window you get the notification you post within that two minutes You get two other uploads that you can do that day like at any time That'll just go into your feed They'll do the front and back camera kind of thing you get two of those if you miss it though You can still get a bonus, but it's only one So there's like a little bit of an incentive, but you're not like really punished there So it's an interesting idea. So, you know ibb it I'm curious would this make you kind of look at and post more on breal It it actually probably make me come back to breal So I first heard about breal almost exactly a year ago from tom here in the plaza Showing it to me in the bar downstairs And so I started going I some somewhere along the line six months in eight months and I fell off the breal wagon Um, but this might actually make me come back because I'm curious, you know about Seeing yeah, you know, I'm seeing a lot of people in garage bender in in Adobe audition editing stuff I happen to follow and share with a lot of podcasters So I see a lot of that stuff But then getting to see maybe a picture of them hanging out with their dog or Or outside going for a walk when they when they actually have something kind of interesting it would give some sort of Frosting to the the cake of the the original breal the here we go It's going to be a generic bound cake me working on a computer But now oh it's frosting you're taking the dog out for a walk Yeah, so that's interesting that gamified a little bit might not hurt my whole thing Almost exactly like you it was last year. I heard about it It was you who told us about it and I used it for about six seven eight months something like that and then This started happening. It would say Take a picture of what you're doing and I would do that and then it would say show us you on the selfie cam and I'd go No, I don't even hit a wall somewhere And I just don't fix that No, it doesn't fix that at all And so I wonder how much more I would use it because what often would happen is the times it wanted me Or would prompt me to do it. It's like I just got up my hair is a mess or I just feel gross Or I just don't want it to be like looking at my camera like, you know a big dope And so I quit using it in that way And I think that was the spirit of the thing the spirit of the thing is to be real, you know But I felt like sometimes I don't want to be real sometimes I just want to point that at the wall and that's my face and that's as good as you're going to get And they even scold you on there for it. They'll say a little bit. Yeah, they'll say by the way We really like seeing your face. I'm like, well too bad you're looking at the wall Where is everyone? I'm with Brian though. I think these are these are interesting ways to dig up interest and I My question has been not only engagement, which this this does address but also monetization What's what's be real's long-term plan? Is it to sell you more? Opportunities to take photos get a third get a third be real a day for x amount Does this mean also they're gonna have to shift the time? To earlier so that you've got time to use those additional be real. So yeah, because sometimes they will they'll come for a close together. Yeah, yeah Yeah, I I really love the concept. I feel like it just needs some some kind of special juice and maybe this is it They get them going rich. You're pretty good with the be real. Is that you're still into it. Do you even need this? Uh, yes, because there's definitely I mean, I don't need it My household needs it because there's definitely been times where it'd be like, oh man, we got kids t-ball game That's gonna be so fun. I hope that be real or like we're going to Hamilton tonight Like would love to have that be real right now and it's like, oh, it's me sitting at my laptop with the spreadsheet open again So it's like it just gets away from a little bit of the the on we of it all And I also think it would make the feet a little bit more scrollable because what I do like with be real is it's like a very In and out a transaction, right? You're like, all right. I can just scroll through in like two minutes I see what everybody's doing I don't follow that many people because I only want to follow people that I actually know in real life And like just a little bit more scrollability. I don't want to be like I don't want the the mechanics of like I have to be going back in there But I do like that. It just gives you like that little bit like okay. I can see oh walking the dog Hey, that's heartwarming, but also. Oh you went to a cool concert tonight. I am I am really glad you did that Yeah, so adding the stuff makes it more complicated and takes away from that aspect of it Yeah, I like rich's lifestyle of soccer and then go straight to the hamilton concert or the hamilton. That's my life every night Come on, you know I will say though. I think I be real might be feeling the need to juice their numbers They came out today and they announced they had two million daily active users I mean to me that sounds great But this comes the verge was saying that back in october their sources were saying that was basically their daily active users Back then so we have been covering a ton of explosive growth for them But they might be leveling out and looking for ways to get you know scott and ibb it to uh, you know Remember that they have the up to re be real For for for ibb it to actually have to log back in again, which you had to do which I had to do today In some ways it is literally they're asking you to do be real on be real. Yeah, I could definitely be real I know we get it. You guys get it. Okay I could definitely see them taking like a snapchat plus kind of approach to this where they don't necessarily Directly to bonus b-reals or whatever they're going to call it But it's like oh you get this and maybe you can do like a live photo where there's a video element to this Or you get experimental features like I've been thinking a lot about how they monetize Mark photos to stick around longer and other paying subscribers can see them or like animated reactions I bet a ton of people would like that, you know Maybe they can let us add ears cat ears and whiskers to our laptops that we're staring at in our b-reals They better not add ai because apparently the snapchat users are rebelling against them You don't want to mess with them. Uh, well folks if you have a thought about be real or anything else Give us an email. You know our email address. Oh, you don't well. It's feedback at daily tech news show dot com All right Well aarp or the american association of retired people as I like to prefer to call it Issued a study on gamers older than 50 years old Study estimated that 45 of people in the us older than 50 play video games at least once a month That's 52.4 million people, which is I think a lot There's also a bigger number than it was in 2019 and that 2019 figure was bigger than 2016 So we're seeing growing numbers of people over 50 playing them darn video games The amount of time people older than 50 play games has risen from eight and a half hours per month in 2019 To 12 hours per month in 2022. So almost a 50 jump definitely significant Sure, if we dig into the figures 73 percent are puzzle and logic games while 12 percent are playing Shooters so that's probably more than I would have thought but they spent an average of 49 dollars on games in the first Six months of 2022 which amounts to 2.6 billion dollars That is down though from 64 dollars spent in 2019 So more people playing games, but maybe spending less To to do this story just as we've gathered together three people who have played games And who are from from anything that i'm hearing older than 54 today show We are as you might expect in the city of las vegas, uh gentlemen I'd like to get your perspectives on this study. What what I didn't hear any of that Oh, thank you rich. Um, yeah, so, uh, scott with that big jump in gaming that that happened around the time you turned 50 No, uh, what's what's weird about this? It's easy for me to just see it from my perspective and I realize there's more to the AARP landscape to consider here in terms of who they're asking and who's actually going to respond I have a feeling a lot of Hardcore over 50 gamers Are probably not bothering with that that survey It could be wrong, but it just seems like something wouldn't be interested in Well, I mean, I would guess that they went did a random sample They probably didn't just survey AARP members. Yeah, entirely possible entirely possible um In my case I've been playing video games since I was six or seven and it's never really stopped and it's every day And it's too much maybe sometimes, but but my gaming habits are probably not they are on the upper End of the of the far out idea like that's nowhere close to the median there Um, I'm I'm more curious like brian as someone who when you and I talk it's often about hey I found this rad new uh solitaire ish game on on ios or something Hey, you should play it or whatever So we you and I aren't like shooters and strategy games and big rpgs and triple a games conversation We talk about the smaller stuff sometimes. So maybe there's something to this You know, I think so Yeah, for sure for me because when I was 40 guess what I played about 73 puzzle and uh Logic games and about 12 percent shooters. So um, I don't think my taste in games have changed at all Over the years at all I always tended to like puzzle games and and quick pickup and put down kind of games and and I'd save the First person shooters and the adventure games like that for when I had more time and and that sort of thing I I'd really be curious as to what they consider an over 50 style game to be They weren't they just said you're over 50. Do you play games? What kind of games do you play? Let me rephrase that what they think what they're what they think are targeted Um, you know what they think would attract somebody over 50 because a big part of this was them saying These these over 50 gamers don't feel like they're being targeted very well They don't feel like they're being talked to or advertised properly or the games aren't necessarily being made for them anymore Was some of the yeah, I think the survey was meant to be like, all right Let's let's see how many people in this cohort game What kind of games do they play and this release was saying hey folks You may not think of people who are older as playing games But the number of people who are older who are playing games is getting bigger As people who grew up with games get older So when it says only 12 percent new shooters what I would be interested in I didn't get a close enough look at the survey to tell is If you slice it a little closer Is it you know when you look at 50 to 55? Is it more like 50 or 60 percent that plays sure Because the people who didn't grow up playing shooters who are 70 80 plus They're less likely to be playing them because they never did right right right The other thing I think is important to note here is I think this sort of stuff is going to run out of runway pretty quick And the reason I say that is when you say 50 and older you're often talking about 80s and 90s kids Who were the first big generations to have this cultural phenomenon in their lives in such a major way We were the ones going to software, etc And waiting for the launch of the playstation one And we were the ones waiting for all of that and we're the ones that are really into Ecosystems like steam and xbox and playstation and everything else. I feel like I feel like that that this this kind of questioning 10 years from now It's going to be pointless because the 40 year olds are playing even more than we did Well, yeah, it's going to be about who's playing the brain implant game. Yeah, right, right? It's entirely whatever it is But it is interesting because as a kid you you could never imagine your your And or your uncle somebody in their 50s 60s even touching a video game You had your outliers like my grandma was 89 and playing arcade games. She loved it but that's rare And that's that's doesn't seem like an impossible idea that the old the olds don't like video games They don't understand it or its technology or whatever, but I feel like that's we're past it now So let's let's turn to someone who has much less joint pain than us rich. What do we miss in here? Well, I mean just just thinking about this I I don't know if 50 can be an intimidating number to some people, but I was like that's You know 1973 right like that is that is you were growing up like like you guys were saying in the golden age Of of like that that first second gen of video games You know it's harry nintendo like that kind of stuff when you were like in Prime kid years right like not even not even you know with disposable income or something like that so Really as what this says to me is like this is the start of video games being culture Just in general and scott perfectly to your point like this at this store This study becomes meaningless in 10 years when like everyone either grew up around it We're going to see all of our mass media turning to video games in in that way The one thing I am curious though about is that fallen spending like I mean, you know That's like not like we're seeing this huge uptick and like time playing People playing and then spending less is that just wider net? Gen X is just smarter. Yeah, that's all it is. I think I actually have a theory about that I think the theory is or the if i'm right about my theory is that there There are so many more free to play games that actually lead into their results about puzzle and You know thinking games there's tons of those logic games on free platforms now And so they're spending less. There's also lots of indies that match what those those categories are and those are 15 bucks. Those are 1799 I think that the the market changes in The depth of available content that's sub 69 dollars Has expanded exponentially even in the last five years So I if I had to guess that is the reasoning for that lower price And I would add to that I think people are also getting a little smarter with freemium right as we've learned the tricks to avoid like Paying a million dollars for donuts or whatever. We're better at knowing which ones are you know Whether marvel snap is a good example or not. We know that because we're all kind of communicating about because we're internet savvy Also, we all of those things rose together and I I don't know next 10 years from now. This thing means nothing to nobody I I would say this also could significantly be under reported because i'm sure if I asked my mom or asked my grandma You know, do you guys play video games? No, but I guarantee you they have 20 game apps on their ipad And they place out there a mahjong or like one of those fine again I didn't look close enough at the survey designed to tell usually they account for stuff like that They try to phrase questions in a way that that tees that stuff out Totally unscientifically who in our audience is willing to admit they are over 50 and plays video games. I'm curious That's a good amount of hands out there. Yeah, put your hands up. There's also some liar. You play sedoku. You do All right, let's check out the mailbag Yeah, we got a great email in from tim the dba. He's administering databases all day Thank us for the realistic view on the challenge of changing password managers and shared His story said when the last last pass breach happened He decided to switch to bit warden not uncommon response He says it wasn't the easiest migration, but we got it working Now here is where I might have been able to show you up about how easy it was to switch I went to cancel my last pass account and delete my vault from their servers and Whoops sometime in the past. I accidentally set up two automatic annual payments I paid up through 2025 being too frugal was for to waste out of paid service I'm still on last pass sigh, but he says thanks for your continued great coverage about ai tim Thank you so much. Uh, yeah, thank you tim That makes me feel a little better that a database administrator also Has has run into these these kind of problems. Thank you tim for for sharing that story with us And thank you, uh, scott johnson, uh for uh coming all the way to las vegas just to be on All was yeah, that's the whole reason. Yeah, no, I'm normally I'm here on wednesdays and wednesdays You know are my favorite, but I uh, I think maybe monday is pretty good this week Here's here's what I would like to tell people tomorrow here at this event But also internationally because the internet is a thing I'll finally finally be launching this kickstarter for the card game I made Over at dungeonmurder.com. It took a kickstarter forever for the approval process. Don't know why maybe there's a lot being submitted right now But the bottom line is uh tomorrow sometime. I'm working on the exact time But as soon as that drops, uh, I will blast that out. Let everybody know if you are interested in that at all Please head over to dungeonmurder.com for the details You can also follow me on twitter at scott johnson and uh, check out our live streams tomorrow if you're around Because you'll hear a lot more about it and we'll be playing the game here in vegas So i'm very excited about it And very happy to be able to tell your your listeners Fantastic, brian hibbet. What do you got going on? Uh, well here in vegas with a bunch of uh game show content that i'm producing But back at it when I get back to town at the end of this week for more coverville More uh the morning stream film sack soundography all the stuff that I produce on a uh and co-host on a regular basis Yeah, make sure to check out our morning show because it's been going since 2011 We're at like almost 3 000 episodes and it's a great time because morning zoo shows are terrible So we started one that is not terrible. Yeah free range morning. We're free range. No phony phone calls. No man of the box So check it out All right. Well also thanks. We have a triumvirate of new bosses today to thank over the weekend We've got jerry. We've got john and we've got steve makes our monday special Jerry john steve jerry john steve got a live audience applause. Well done jerry jerry That is what wait tom. It's always a live audience. Don't ruin the magic of podcasting anyway I mean a different live audience than normal. Thank you jerry. Thank you john and thank you steve Thank you all you are now patrons and as a patron you get good day internet the extended show stick around Because we're going to talk about what is going on with twitter blue Why are people who haven't paid or in some cases even still with us getting check marks? We don't know either and maybe we shouldn't care, but we're going to talk about all of that on good day internet stick around Remember you can catch us live on monday through friday at 4 p.m. Eastern 200 utc find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live We will be back tomorrow. See you then This show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frogpants.com Time and club hopes you have enjoyed this program