 Coming up on DTNS, UPS starts an airline, US states win a small net neutrality victory, and secret Zuckerberg tapes. This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, October 1, 2019 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Feline, I'm Sarah Lane. And from the place where my child woke up at three in the morning last night, so I'm exhausted. I'm Patrick Bishop. And I'm Roger Chang, the show's producer. We were just talking about how you have to move to the country to get gigabit, since Patrick has it. And Sarah will get it when she moves to the country. And Roger and I stuck here in the city with slow internet. That's the way of the planet. Corrections. I don't have gigabit. It's only 200 megs or 250. So close enough. Yeah, not that. Yeah. If you want to get that wider conversation about that, you got to get good day internet. Become a member at patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's get into a few tech things you should know. Speaking at an event in Zurich, Mark Lau Branson, the head of Swiss financial supervisor, FINMA said that he is more worried about projects which develop in the dark corner than he is about Libra, which he said is being done transparently. He said Libra would be under strict rules that apply to banks, including anti-money laundering laws, but added we're not here to make such projects impossible. How much is he getting paid? No, I actually agree with him. Japan's last pager service Tokyo Tele Message shut down its service on Tuesday. If you were then 1500 subscribers remained most in the health industry. Sunday, a Tokyo funeral company set up a tent near a railway station so people could lay flowers and pay their respects. A photo of a pager displayed the message 1141064 Japanese pager code for We Love You. GoPro announced two new cameras, the Hero 8 Black, a 14% lighter version of the Hero 7 Black with six microphones, improved HDR, video stabilization and wind noise reduction, and the Hero Max with two lenses that can record 5.6K video in 360 degrees, can live stream in 1080p, and automatically backs up to the cloud. Those are your new heroes. And Bloomberg reports that House Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nidia Velazquez plans to invite representatives from Facebook, Amazon, and Alphabet to answer questions about how the companies may affect small business competition. The committee hearing would happen in late October or early November. All right, let's talk a little bit more about your right to repair. Indeed, the European Commission has issued new standards going into effect in 2021, requiring appliance makers supply spare parts to independent professional repairs for up to 10 years. The parts have to be accessible with commonly available tools and replaceable without damaging the product. The new rules also require appliances to be more energy efficient. The new rules apply to refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, displays, including TVs, lighting, electric motors, external power suppliers, vending machines, power transformers, and welding equipment, so not smartphones. The Verge said something about servers being required to update firmware, but I did not see that in the official EU Commission FAC, so that might be in a different part of the ruling somewhere. But right to repair, limited to professionals. A lot of people are kind of you know, covetching about that because they want to repair it themselves. It doesn't mean that they can't issue parts to non-professionals, it just means that the rules only require them to make them available to professionals. It's also, I mean, if that is a requirement and the tools you have to use or you, yeah, you have to use are commonly available, it seems like it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for someone who really wants to repair something to manage to get them to get that thing, I suppose. Yeah, but it's not easy, right? It's not the law, so yeah. It seems like a reasonable, it seems to me like, not just reasonable, but it seems to me like this is something that should be, should exist or machinery like these kinds of things. Maybe TVs, it could be argued whether or not it should be repairable over 10 years, but I think five to 10 years should, you should have a possibility of repairing an appliance you get. Yeah, it's kind of taken us from the other extreme of products tending to be disposable, which is not good either and moving it back that way. I guess there could be some bad sides to reducing innovation because companies don't want to have to keep parts in supply that they might want to do otherwise. You would see that in smartphones. Smartphone makers would complain a lot about this. Yeah, I think things would need to be a little bit different if it was to apply to smartphones or more innovative tech, but this is not the case. We're talking about household appliances that are a little bit less techy. Well, speaking of tech on a different scale, the US Federal Aviation Administration or FAA granted UPS's Flight Forward Drone subsidiary a part 135 standard certification last Friday, which makes the UPS the first licensed drone airline in the United States. The licensed let's pilots fly drones beyond line of sight. Also, UPS says it can expand delivery by drone and campus settings like hospitals and universities through residential delivery is still though residential delivery is still years away. UPS plans to double drone flights from its Raleigh, North Carolina's Wake Med Health and hospitals and begin adding new campuses. Alphabet became the first company to get FAA certifications or a single pilot drone operation in Blacksburg, Virginia. Other companies have received experimental certifications as well. Yeah, so this isn't the first commercial use at this point, but it's a milestone when we were talking years ago about the FAA dragging its heels. The idea was that we would be left far behind and while the FAA still, I think, is rightly criticized for going slowly, maybe more slowly than they need to. This is happening in pace. Yes, we're seeing other tests in other parts of the world that are more advanced and more down the road than the tests we've had in the US, but this is a big step. Yes, Alphabet, with its wing subsidiary, is doing this in Blacksburg, but only one pilot. So UPS gets to say we're the first multi-pilot and or airline that uses drones. This is going to be interesting. It's not widespread burrito delivery everywhere yet, but it's a step along the road. I think that's an important point actually. When we think about drone delivery, we always immediately go, our brains go to, oh, I'm going to get my thing delivered to me, but as this puts into focus, this is not the use that makes the most sense the most quickly. The urban delivery that is going to be the most useful for with these drones is to specific centers like campuses and hospitals. And that's much more achievable, I feel, than getting your pizza to you flying through the air. Although they are getting you your burrito in Australia, I'm just saying, like it is happening. Sure. You can't deny it. Sure. Yeah. But yes, but. US Federal Appeals Court upheld most of the FCC's 2018 repeal of the open internet guidelines with some exceptions. The FCC's preemption directive, which would have forbidden states from imposing their own net neutrality rules, was struck down. The FCC can still preempt a state law, but has to do it on a case by case basis. And to do that, that means they have to do a fact intensive inquiry. They can't just try to prevent all potential rules at once. The judge said that's too far. You're you're trampling on on the state's right to regulate itself. You have to prove why a state's rule would cause problems with other states. You can't just blanket get rid of all potential state rules. The judge has also remanded portions of the repeal to the FCC for more justification. But it's a little bit bureaucratic because it didn't vacate the rest of the order. So everything else but the state preemption remains in effect. The increased justification requires FCC to apply to to implicate to look at implications on public safety effects on regulation of pull attachments and effects on the lifeline program. So it has to document why it's doing that, but it doesn't have to stop doing it. The decision could be appealed to the full court of appeals and probably will be eventually it could end up in the US Supreme Court. So this isn't the last we're hearing about that. Mozilla, one of a coalition of companies, public groups and states that brought the suit said it may appeal. So the FCC is considering this a victory, even though they lost on the state preemption. But Mozilla for sure is saying we want to get more of this repeal overturned. Does that apply to the state or cities or other administrative levels ability to create their own ISPs or telecom infrastructure? No, this doesn't have to do with that. Yeah, this is the preemption. This is strictly net neutrality. The preemptive direction in the open Internet order said no state can make a law that makes our guidelines too strict or contravenes them. So it basically made the FCC order the law of the land in every state. And the judge said you can't do that. If some state makes a law and you think that it's, you know, has implications for other states as a federal agency, you can go and improve why those implications are bad and have it overturned. But you can't just stop states from making any potential law. That has to do with net neutrality guidelines, particularly it doesn't have to do with municipal Internet. Right. Seems like a reasonable way to look at this whole issue. I'm sure some people will disagree. I think Mozilla would disagree with you, saying like no, leaving net neutrality off the table is not okay with us. We want to get this whole thing overturned. I meant the part where, you know, the federal court is saying, well, you can't just say no, you can't do anything. You have to justify it. That's the part. I don't think a lot of people expected that to stand up to judicial scrutiny, although there was a two one decision by this three panel district court and one of the judges wanted to leave it. So who knows? We'll see. It's going to get appealed, is my guess. This is not the last we'll hear about it. All right. All right. Well, the US Trade Representative's office has denied tariffs exemptions for five parts of the Mac Pro, the optional wheels, a circuit board for managing input and output ports, a power adapter, a charging cable, and a cooling system for the processor. All now would be subject to the proposed 25 percent tariffs, which may go in effect in December. Apple previously received exemptions for 10 items used in making the Mac Pro. Apple recently announced it would continue to assemble Mac Pros in Austin, Texas. Yeah, I think this one is easy to misunderstand because it seems like the story is Apple won exemptions in exchange for making the Mac Pro in the US, and then they turned around and changed the deal on them. I don't think that's what happened. My guess is Apple knew they weren't going to get these five tariff exemptions, knew that that cost was acceptable either because of efficiencies in the supply chain or because of discounts from the supplier. They knew that they could swallow a 25 percent tariff on the charging cable and the power adapter. And so this was all negotiated ahead of time, is my guess. And they said, look, if you give us exemptions on these 10, we can handle the potential 25 percent cost on the other five, and then that will allow us to make them in the US. I don't think Apple agrees to make these in the US, which they weren't going to do. They were going to make them in China. I don't think they changed their mind, agree to make them in the US, thinking they were going to get exemptions for the five that they didn't. I think they knew that. So do you think they went back to assembling them in Texas as kind of a deal to not get more tariff? No, I think it was all negotiated at once. They said, look, if we're going to make them in the US, we can't pay 25 percent tariff on these things. And who knows? Maybe it was 12 and then they agreed to get it down to 10 or whatever. But at some point, they said, okay, if we get the exemption on these 10, then we can do it. That's my guess anyway. That's the only reason. I think it's worth a little more explanation of this today, is that there is a narrative that you could see this the way it was reported as being backwards from what it is. I think they delayed announcing these five non-exemptions until this week, hoping people would have stopped following the story and they wouldn't get as much uptake on it. The other thing is these are denied, the US Trade Representative denied them because they're easy to replace. You can get them anywhere. So if they're not getting them through China, that could be another reason. Apple may say, yeah, we didn't get exemptions for the charging cable we were supplying from China. So we'll change and start supplying it from Vietnam. That could happen too. We don't know if it's happening. But just because they didn't get the exemption for these five items doesn't mean they won't find a lower cost way to procure them. Google's duplex, you might recall, uses an AI voice assistant to help people book tables at restaurants and make haircut appointments. At Google I.O. last spring, web orders were announced and a test of that system is now rolling out to movie ticket booking sites. Do Google Assistant in Chrome? If you're in the test, when you search for a movie, you'll get times and options for a purchase. Some take you to a website, but you might see Google Assistant prompt you to buy tickets. Then duplex will take you to the site with an assistant tab that will ask you simple questions like how many tickets you might need or filling out forms for you, et cetera. Kind of getting smarter and smarter. Yeah. I mean, what do you make of this, Sarah? It's not the duplex like magic of it's talking to someone over the phone that we've seen demonstrated and scaring people. But it is doing something I think legitimately more than just a form filler because it's walking you through the system. It's making all the clicks and it's only asking you for information when it's something it shouldn't be deciding. Like is this price okay? Is this the right number of tickets and where do you want to sit in places that have a signed seating? Well, and I think that the sort of like, are you going to a movie theater? Are you getting a haircut? These are like, there's precision that has to go on with those sorts of situations where duplex works really well. How much are we going to see duplex working for the rest of our lives? I'm not totally sure. Like, I don't know if you have to get your tires changed or something. Like I can think of other situations where this would actually make a lot of sense, but I'm not sure how much this would be a part of my everyday life. Well, if it works well, I think it takes away the hassle of figuring out forms. And so what it does essentially is translate your relatively natural language desire into a series of operations on a web page. And I think there's great potential in that. If it actually works, you don't have to worry about scrolling through the thing and finding the right fields. And you just say, okay, I want a reservation for this or tickets for that movie there. And it just does it. And I think there is definitely value there. Reading the article somehow before I saw the picture, I thought Chrome, maybe it's desktop Chrome. And it isn't. It's Android. It's from on Android. But there's no reason it couldn't do it on the web, you know, the desktop version. No, and it can do it on the desktop. But it's just that the demonstration showed mobile because these days, most people use everything, but it's not implemented yet. But it could come. I had just never considered that duplex or, you know, web duplex, however they call it, could make the jump from Android to non-Android users and any OS user. It could be on Windows, on Mac, I guess, maybe even on iOS. I never really thought about that. Yeah. And I think this is the kind of mundane use that will make people sneer and go, I can't fill out a form myself. How lazy is that? This is useless. And yet is the use that people will make more use of than the more whiz bang, calling a restaurant and talking to it and making reservations? Because this is where AI shines on a really ordered situation that it can do faster than you. How many of us have filled out a form? Press submit only to see the little red notice like you didn't fill out this form and you're scrolling around like, oh, I didn't put my telephone number. Okay, hold on. When you've got duplex, which knows your name, your address, your phone number, your birthday, all that stuff because you've allowed it to, you're not going to miss any of that stuff. And things just get smoother and faster. And if any of this technology over the past 20 years has taught us anything, small savings in time often are valued in very large amounts, even though they seem silly on the surface. I mean, if we don't know this on the web by now, we haven't learned anything. Literally Google in all of those companies are shaving off fractions of seconds. And when we try to go to a site, if it takes more than five seconds, then God, I don't need to do that. So well, folks, we want to save you time too. That's why we compress all the days tech headlines into about five minutes as part of daily tech headlines.com. Go get it. We're back to talk about the verge obtaining secret audio. Not of anything secret audio that happened at a company wide. Only thousands of people heard it. A very small percentage of the population of planet Earth. No, the verge obtained recorded audio of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaking about a variety of topics during two open meetings with employees in July, probably all hands types of meetings. The two open meetings were on multiple subjects. The verge has a very nicely formatted breakdown of the essential highlights of these leaked recordings. It feels very much like they found the Watergate tapes presented. Can I like to point that out a little bit because you're joking about the fact that it's secret and maybe people who aren't who aren't seeing that article aren't understanding why we're getting that vibe. The design is excellent, but it is like almost redacted type of graphics and the face of Zuckerberg plastered in multiple places with different colors. It feels like something that is a scoop on a secret recording. I actually thought initially it was like, oh my God, it's implicating him in something he didn't want to get out. To be fair, the title of the article is all hands on deck, but it's a tiny little bit misleading. There are some theatrics going on there. Let's go through the major revelations and talk about how blockbuster we think they are. The biggest one getting the most attention is the subject of breaking up Facebook. In the audio, Zuckerberg says, you have someone like Elizabeth Warren who thinks the right answer is to break up companies. If she gets elected president, then I would bet that we'll have a legal challenge and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge. And does that still suck for us? Yeah. I mean, I don't want to have a major lawsuit against our own government, but look at the end of the day, if someone's going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight. Now, what's interesting is I read that to you just now in a particular way, which is slightly different than the way you hear it in the Zuckerberg audio that goes along with this story. And I think that's part of what makes the difference here is Zuckerberg doesn't sound like an evil maniacal CEO. He just sounds like a normal person more so than he does when he's on stage at events. So this sounds very reasonable when you hear him say it. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren did respond in a tweet saying, what would really suck is if we don't fix a corrupt system that lets giant companies like Facebook engage in illegal anti competitive practices, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So she's not backing down on that. But Zuckerberg did also say in the leaked tape, breaking up big tech companies would make election interference more likely in his opinion, because companies wouldn't be able to coordinate and work together. What do you guys think of this one? You know, you mentioned Zuckerberg saying like, well, if you listen to it, you know, he kind of sounds like a rational dude. He kind of always sounds like a rational dude. I mean, I have never once heard Mark Zuckerberg speak and been like, whoa, Mach-Evillian stuff going on. And I don't know. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold the company's feet to the fire in certain instances, but none of this really sounds, I don't know, too out of control. Let me play a little snippet of it. When she gets elected president, then I would, I would bet that we will have a legal challenge and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge. So it's, so it's, so basically it's, and so does that still suck for us? Yeah. I mean, I don't have to, you know, have a major lawsuit against our own government. Now, what I like about playing that is you get not in the transcript, that long bit where he's like fumbling around for what he wants to say next, which fundamentally humanizes this to me anyway. I mean, honestly, yes, absolutely. I think this is just a dude answering a question about his company and everyone's company. He's talking to people who are employed by that company. And what he's saying, honestly, I understand that this is kind of can be portrayed in a way that or shown in a way that is a little bit ominous. But he's just saying, if the government wants to break up our company, we're going to challenge that decision in the courts. That's all he's saying. That's it. And, and why would else would you expect? Right? Yeah. Would you say, Oh, yeah, I think, you know, Zuckerberg being like, well, if Elizabeth Warren is president, then we'll just roll over. Like, of course, obviously, like that's that's something that is. So I think there isn't a lot of substance to at least that specific quote. I think there isn't a lot of substance. And it's the kind of thing that is easy to make into more than it is. All right. I'll quickly summarize the other revelations here. One, just a substantive interesting piece of news. They someone asked them about confronting TikTok. And he said that Facebook is focusing on its video sharing app lasso to confront TikTok. And it would test it in markets where TikTok is less prominent like Mexico to start with. That just seems like like a smart strategy. Libra, he said was Facebook trying a more consultative approach on big projects. So not just show up and say, all right, we're launching this, here's a product, but rather like take some time to talk with regulators ahead of time. That's kind of the way we've seen it on this show. So kind of went along with our guests there. Someone asked about buying control labs, which which does the brain VR interface. And he said, yeah, it's for VR and AR. They're not going to do brain surgery or implants. He's like, we don't need that congressional hearing. He literally said that. And then regarding the controversy about contractors who do moderation complaining about stress. He said some of the reports were a little the reports were a little over dramatic, but the company is working on technology to minimize harms for human moderators. So that was the only time where he started to skate on the edge of saying something I thought was controversial, calling it over dramatic. But if you listen, he's saying the reports about it were over dramatic. And everything else he says is about actually addressing the problem. Although I think the CTO did step in at that point and say, yeah, no, we're totally wanting to take this seriously. Well, thanks to everybody who participates in our subreddit. You can submit stories and vote on them at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. We're also on Facebook. Join our group, facebook.com slash groups slash daily tech news show. All right, let's check in with Chris Christensen, the amateur traveler who has a tip on avoiding babies on American Airlines, if that's your bag. This is Chris Christensen from amateur traveler with another tech in travel minute. American Airlines is doing something different with their seatmaps for their planes for your flight, which is allowing you to know where infants are sitting so that you can avoid them. Or as a friend of mine put it, allowing parents who have small children to be avoided by those grumpy people who don't like them. Don't be too surprised if other airlines follow suit. I think some people are going to like this change. I'm Chris Christensen from amateur traveler. Oh, I don't know. So who is going to want to be close to the baby that I think it's a it's a we have a saying in French, a false good idea like an idea that sounds good, because the effect is only that you're going to piss off the people who see they have to be close to the baby and who don't have a choice. And anyone who can not be close is going to choose not to be. I'm not sure it's such you pay extra to not be near the baby. That's how that ends up. I think I guess so. All right, let's check out the mailbag. Let's do it on the topic of retraining. We got a really cool email from a listener working in an auto manufacturing facility who says I began my career as an advanced manufacturing technician straight out of high school. I joined a program that set up and sponsored by my employer when I went to school for advanced manufacturing technology. I also worked a minimum of 24 hours a week in our facility getting on the job training. I could take the things I learned in class and immediately see the uses for that information on the plant floor. Our company selects a certain number of people each year to participate in this program at our facility. But they've invested heavily in the schools to which we went. The company has invested millions in training equipment and facilities on school campus for all to use. Although our company only takes a limited number each year, the programs created for us are available for others to take as well. And many do. I had many classmates and other manufacturing facilities. Many of my classmates weren't straight out of high school like myself. They joined the program to be retrained to get skilled and to get high paying jobs. Our company does not only do this at our facility but all over all over North America. Many companies are getting involved. And I'm living proof that these companies, at least in my experience, are pushing hard for training programs that not only benefit them but manufacturing and industry as a whole. And he also said in his email that as more automation happened, more jobs were added because automation meant they could make more products and work on more features. At least that was his experience. That was interesting. Thank you for sending that along. Absolutely. And thanks to everybody who participates in our mail bag. You're the best. Also, thanks to Patrick Beja. Patrick, what's been going on in the last week since we saw you last? I would say that Pixels has been chugging along the show that I do about video games. And oh my God, are there lots of things happening in the world of gaming right now. It's crazy. And it's awesome. And I'm loving it. If you want an easy way of staying informed, if you're a gamer, whatever the level, it's understandable and fun. Go check out Pixels on your podcast app right now. I think you'll enjoy it. We have new Patreon rewards. Become a member of DTNS and get a peek at our show rundown as we're working on it. Get some behind the scenes chats and more. And on November 1st, everybody who is at the $2 level or above will get a PDF copy of the official DTNS Good Day internet cookbook with recipes from us, the show hosts, contributors, and some of the listeners. You can sign up right now at patreon.com slash DTNS. If you have feedback for us, we'd love to hear it. Our email address is feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. If you'd like to join us live, well, we'd happy to have you. We're live Monday through Friday, 4.30 p.m. Eastern. That's 20, 30 UTC. And you can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com Back tomorrow with Scott Johnson. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com.