 This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by you, the listener, thanks to every single one of you, including Logan Larson, Mike Acons, Norm Physicus, and our brand new patron, E-Sigma. Welcome E-Sigma. Get just towards that goal. On this episode of DTNS, when from Android Faithful is here to unpack everything Samsung unfolded during Unpacked and Soul. Plus, Mastodon is big enough to have grown-up social network issues now. Aw, we're so proud. This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, July 26th, 2023 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Secret Bunker, I'm Sarah Lane. And the show's produced for Roger Chang. And joining us, Android developer and a host on the Android Faithful podcast, Wendway Dao, welcome. Good to be here. It's so good to have you. We're sort of meeting for the first time today, but I feel like I know you from watching Android, so it's great to have you. I know it's really good to be here. Does everyone say it's like longtime fan? Like really, you know, I mean, if it's not tried to say that, I'm saying it's longtime fan. No, nobody ever says that. Thank you. Long time fan. We love praise. Let's be honest. Bring it on. Bring it on. Good. All right, let's start with the quick hits. Apple released updates to iOS and iPad OS 16.6 and also Mac OS 13.5 to fix several actively exploited security bugs, plus a handful of other security fixes for problems that were reported but not known to be exploited in the wild. No new functionality was mentioned as Apple shifts focus to newer operating systems currently in beta. iOS and iPad OS 17 and Mac OS 14 Sonoma are expected to be released in September or October. Microsoft's rolling out its redesign of the Xbox home UI. If you've got the Xbox series X series S or Xbox one console. So the tile sizes get a little smaller and they're pushed down a little more so you can see those wonderful backgrounds. Floating UI will give quick access to games and apps game pass search and settings. If you don't see it today don't fret it's rolling out slowly to users over the next couple of weeks. Open AI Google Microsoft and Anthropic have formed the frontier model forum coalition to develop evaluations and benchmarks for AI as well as promote best practices and standards. The goal statement says that the forum wants to promote responsible development and also collaborate with policymakers and academics while supporting development of applications to meet society's greatest challenges. Alphabet released its earnings on Tuesday indicating revenue was up 7% on the air led by Google Cloud ad revenue rose 3%. Alphabet also reported that more than 2 billion people logged in monthly watch YouTube shorts. That's up about a half a billion over the last time they gave us that number. Also, they wanted us to know that 150 million people in the US watch YouTube on their television instead of on a phone or a tablet. I would be one of those people. Also in positive financial news Microsoft reported net income rose 20% on the year led by Dynamics 365 up 26% and office commercial up 12%. Microsoft is still number two to Amazon web services when it comes to the cloud. But the company noted it is number one in AI based cloud services. There's almost no competition. All right, let's talk about it. The big one, the big news. All right. Yes, Galaxy unpacked happened much earlier today, depending on where in the world you are. Samsung held its event in Seoul. The first time the company has held an unpacked announcement in its home country. There were four big ones. We got the Galaxy Fold 5, the Galaxy Flip 5, the Galaxy Watch 6, and the Galaxy Tab S9. So let's start with the Galaxy Flip. This was the smaller of the two foldables, but it was getting a lot of attention ahead of time, Tom, because everybody thinks that flip phones are back. Are they? Yeah, big news with the Flip 5 is the cover screen that that's the screen you see when it's folded up is big. It's 3.4 inches. That's up from 1.9 inches in the Flip 4 also has the new flex hinge, which has a teardrop construction so that it folds flat. The price didn't change. Flip 5 starts at $999, just like the Flip 4, shipping August 11th. Juan, what did you think of the Flip 5? I actually am really excited. I was not. So for anyone who isn't a viewer of or listener of Android Faithful yet, I've actually been a Samsung user for about a couple of years now, which is very odd. As an ender developer, generally we're contractually obligated to hate Samsung for various reasons, which I could go into. But I've been a convert because of the Z Fold, you know, Z Fold 3 and Z Fold 4. And I kind of feel like I'm a big phone kind of person, like a large screen kind of person, but I do think the Flip 5 is super, super interesting. So hardware side, you know, obviously the biggest change is the cover screen, which is so it's been so fun to watch the, what do you want to call them? Do you want to call them clamshell foldables? Do you want to call them flippables? Like I've heard both, but whatever the nomenclature you want to use. I'm with flippable. Yeah. So it's kind of been like a, you know, an arms race or a cover screen race between, you know, Oppo and like Samsung and now, you know, Razer with their Razer Plus with like the full, you know, the very sexy, full, you know, even like with punch out cameras cover screen. And I think that the Flip 5, while in my personal opinion is not quite quite quite as cool with their flex window as the Razer Plus. I do think it's super compelling. And I do think it falls into this really interesting use case that is starting to kind of come up with these larger screens of, hey, you can totally use this phone, you know, close and it's like you could do most things with it. So I think that in terms of the hardware, that's the most interesting thing. Like the specs getting bumps and everything else like that is kind of like well and good, but you know, it's not something that would, you know, make me rush out to buy one. But I do think the other side of flippables and foldables with Samsung, which is kind of important now because I've been doing this for like, you know, four years now, right? So the hardware is at a, you know, decent place. Is that a decent place, right? There's always, I mean, obviously like with the, the, what is it the flex hinge and everything like that. They're small and to moderate changes, but what's really going to sell, you know, these experiences is the software. And I honestly really like what they've done with the, you know, the flex window, the flex cam, all of that like kind of software experience, I think is what is super intriguing about it and is what is actually going to make me want to pre-order one. And I actually really, really do. I actually really, really do. So I think the Flip 5 is super compelling and especially given that the Flip 4 I think was just wildly popular and really drove like the, for me, super surprising, you know, I forgot how many millions of, you know, units of flippable or foldable phones that got sold last year. I think it was like some crazy number a year of year. It was like some, you know, multiple X of, you know, foldable sold. I think, I think it's a good iteration on the Flip 4 and like refining the actual user experience. So I love it. I'm probably going to pre-order one. I can't believe I'm saying that, but I'm excited. And you have a pixel fold. So would you switch or just kind of use both or So I would probably drive, I would probably use both. I'd probably use the, I'm going to experiment with, I would, presuming that I get it. I'll probably use the Z Flip 5 as like a daily driver and go around with it. Because one thing that is scary about carrying around an $1,800 phone, especially, you know, if you're not a case user, like I believe Tom, you said you're not a case user. But even with the case is the fact that it's $1,800 or maybe 900 if you trade it in and that's a lot of money to fall on the ground. And, you know, obviously being a genuine device is not very durable. So I think a flippable phone that folds flat is actually a pretty good use case for daily driver. So I'm going to try that and see if, you know, just going to today, I can make it by on just the cover screen and casual flipping open. So yeah. The razor is dust resistant. And the flip is not flip is more water resistant than the razor. But Well, I live in Colorado. So I might be better off with a razor. I do have actually. Yeah, where's the water here? I mean, really. Yeah, I think it'll be interesting. I do have a razor plus which I haven't driven yet. So I might have to do like a side by side comparison and see how they they feel. But I think it'd be interesting to go back to a smaller phone for a daily driver. Yeah, I like the convenience of that. I especially well, new cycles are new cycles, but you know, this whole thing of like, you know, flip phones, you know, we're back in the 90s again, flip phones are just more interesting than they used to be. They used to be that form factor because that's what they were. And now, you know, we've all enjoyed I'm also not a case user, which is why I shattered my iPhone every four months. But, you know, the whole idea of being able to have various screens and have different form factors within a relatively small single gadget is a great idea. I'll be curious retro as much as it's just kind of cool. I'll be curious how often you run into something where the the cover app doesn't work as well because it's got that smaller screen. I know some of them are optimized, probably the ones you use the most are optimized, but not all of them are going to be. Yeah, and I think it's a good point there because I keep saying like a thing. I think I saw one like like click baby headline was like, Oh, like everyone's buying like iPhone users are wanting to buy the Motorola razor. Yes, that phone. I was like, No, it's not that phone. It does flip but I think there's other things interesting to like the, and there's a lot of focus on with both the flip and the fold of like the idea of being able to kind of tent it and use it as like a mini laptop or as a tripod or all kinds of things like that. And to be honest when I've taken my foldables out into the wild and people see me using it like I take dance classes I record like you know me dancing badly to choreography and dance class. And the thing that really gets people is, you know, yeah it's a flip and so it's cute this was like, there's a nostalgic, you know, kind of that tactile tangible kind of feeling that we kind of miss with candy bar phones. But there's also, you know, the little things that, again, like they talked about like being able to kind of use it in different ways and having again like this kind of tenting, you know, different, like it's like a mini laptop and a tripod all in one and I think that does kind of add a little to the flipable, you know, on top of the flipable nostalgia, which they did play up a lot. Yeah. Well, speaking of form factors. Let's talk about something you touched on already when the galaxy z fold five that's the flagship phone from Samsung it had not a lot of changes the processor expected to get an upgrade to the snapdragon gen to that happened. And it also got the new flex hinge, which means it can fold flat. It's a little thinner because of that 13.5 millimeters still thicker than the pixel folds 12.1 millimeter but we're, you know, splitting hairs here. You did mention that $1800 price. This will be shipping on August 11. I saw a couple hot takes from people saying that's outrageous it should not cost this much when what do you think I'm kind of torn. And actually we talked about a little bit about this on Android faithful yesterday with Max Weinbeck and he didn't make a point that you know supply chain issues and costs in the economy. So, I, I totally see why it's you can reason with me why it's still $1800 I am not happy about that as as a person who loves foldables and who went right from the three to the four. I think that for the changes that we have barring costs, I don't, I don't think it's very compelling for someone like me already has a full to upgrade. And yeah, 1800 is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a phone. That being said, if you do not have you know this, you know, a passport, we'll call it a passport style foldable, you know, like the fold of whichever fold you pick. I don't know. I still think it's a very hard sell and it's going to be a particular kind of person, you know that is number one is able to access his phone, and that would actually consider, you know, given that they do have $1800 just bear or, I guess maybe $800 if you can get a subsidized whenever we see what the carrier subsidies are. I still think it's a hard sell I will say though, and this is kind of something that I'm learning in retrospect so I was lucky enough to get a z fold three through a Google like feedback thing. It has replaced my laptop in a lot of ways, like I actually very rarely use my personal laptop which is kind of a big thing as I'm a developer and a gamer and just you know like part of the generation that I'm and that I normally would live with my laptop welded with my arm. So it is so I guess there's an argument there for if you're looking for something to replace maybe your laptop and your phone. There's a compelling case there but yeah I don't like the price at all and I wish it would go down. And with other options, you know out there being slightly cheaper or even the same price. Not it I don't I don't agree. Yeah, it did feel like Samsung's treading water a little bit with this little bit, little bit. All right, let's finish up with the non foldables. Real quick we have two new galaxy watch models watch six and the watch six classic, both running on wear OS for with the one UI watch skin, and the classic brings back the popular rotating bezel watch six starts at $300 classic at $400. You want one of these on your wrist when I am actually not a watch person. I do have a fitness tracker. I use whoop. And I like things that are that are not, you know, they, I'm not really a watch person, especially a watch a wear a wear a watch person because I just haven't felt like it fit my lifestyle but I am super interested because they really so I'm so number one. I love the rotating bezel by the way if you watch Samsung unpacked probably got the biggest cheers, I think, other than kind of like all the flippable I feel like the rotating bezel got the biggest, you know, applause. Yeah, so people wanted it back and I do think that they actually the classic version with that rotating bezel does appeal to me because again, I kind of like tactile thing is why I got flippable phones. I was like a library user in the day. So I think that hits itch and I do like the emphasis that they place this time on fitness and really trying to make it basically an Apple Watch with you know like body comp they're adding body comp and blood pressure monitoring and ECG. And they're trying to make this emphasis on, you know, being your health lifestyle, you know companion and hopefully integrating it better with like their, their flavor of the Android ecosystem. I do think it's compelling I do like a lot of it and I do kind of like the direction they went with it and I do like the model so I might be tempted I might try it if if the opportunity comes to me. I don't think this is like a oh my gosh take my money please which the Pixel Watch felt like a little bit to me last year when they announced it. There felt like something and it might be as a bias as an Android Dev and as an Android user towards Pixel. Again, but I think it's compelling. I think it's great I do think there's a good leap and I do think they're going in the right direction with with again emphasizing user experience software and trying to like fit this watch in your life in a healthful way. Wait, so I will wear one if someone gives me one. Me too. Finally, same me three. I already wear Apple watch. Finally tablets three models of the s nine at 11 at 12.4 and 14.6 inch models, all now with ammo led displays and 120 Hertz refresh rates, also shipping August 11 starting at $800 and going up to over $1,200. When can I ask you again, want one? No. I think this is the same theme of, you know, bumping up the specs a little bit. Okay, so the good thing is like the base model is OLED. I think actually these are all dust and water resistant. So, I suppose if you don't have a tab already and you are using it in more rugged, you know, kind of applications which there are really good things like if your productivity, if you're using these in a business situation with warehouse, all that is important for the regular person, especially one that already has an s eight. Kind of it's again just a little bump and is it worth another $800,000 $1,200. I don't know. So no, not for me. I feel like if you've been waiting for one, maybe knows the perfect time. But yeah, unless it is a totally read refashioned tablet that no one's ever seen before, you know, the phone stuff is exciting right because it's like new form factor is they're doing some interesting new things, you know, with tablets. If you're not in the market for one, I think it's a tough sell tougher. Yeah, but good announcements overall. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a packed event. Unpacked even. I've been trying to make an X going to give it to you joke for some time. Hey, everybody. I kind of already did it. The company formerly known as Twitter changed its official handle to at X just the letter X. It's part of its rebrand. That Twitter handle is now inactive. The bio reads this account is no longer active follow X for updates. Twitter support Twitter dev. Twitter dev isn't actually active anymore. Twitter API are now support X developers and just API with the new X logo included in the profile picture. The company seems somewhat committed to this rebrand really depends on what you're using to access X. I'm going to try not to call it Twitter this is tough. A few things you know Twitter Japan Twitter India haven't been renamed yet but you know stranger things have happened. You might say all right well we already know this what's exciting about this. The owner of the at X handle is a photographer named Jean Wang, who I actually know he's been in the San Francisco tech scene, as long as I have been a Twitter user since 2007. You had a lot of people saying who's the owner of the X account is the owner going to, you know, get a bunch of money from the company to, you know, to get the handle back, are they just going to take it from him. He tweeted because they're still called that yesterday all as well that ends well. His new handle is X 1234567898765. So that's a clever thing that I don't really understand but okay. Terms of the deal not disclosed by the company but Wang did tell TechCrunch that he was his account was taken without warning he was not financially compensated for it, but that the company offered to give him a tour of their headquarters in San Francisco. And some merch. And some merch. Sure. I mean I don't know how much X merch there could be right now, unless it's old Twitter merch that they're just trying to upload. Maybe that's what. With a sharpie like drawn over it. That's what I was thinking too. Gosh, I don't know. Or electrical tape. I don't know. In an X shape. The, you know, the show, the show goes on over it. They lucked out in getting, getting someone with a fairly good sense of humor about this. He does not seem upset. He's not, you know, putting him on blast. He's like, well, all's well that ends well, I guess. As far as I know is, you know, a real nice dude who has a really cool job, you know, doing a lot of photo and video stuff. So, you know, best of luck to you. X 1234567898765. So can we take it from you instead of X gone give X did take it from you. Oh, yeah. Not going to give at all. Well, give a merch. Yeah, we're going to give you the tour, going to give you the tour. Whoa. Well, folks, if you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show, you might want to know where on X to get in touch with us. And that would be at DTNS show DTNS SHOW W also DTNS show on mastodon at mstdn.social daily tech news show on tiktok and DTNS picks with an X DTNS PIX on Instagram and threads. Well, mastodon, as Tom just mentioned is getting popular enough that some of the usual problems of large social networks are beginning to show. I mentioned yesterday, study finding child sexual abuse material also known as CSAM on some mastodon instances. Today we're talking about a more familiar issue of law enforcement wanting data from a social network, but it's a little different because it's mastodon right Tom. Yeah, so in this case, it's, it's, it's the kind of thing that you might see if they were wanting data from a server but in this case that's not what was going on. In May, the FBI was investigating alleged crimes committed during a protest. It obtained a warrant. So that's important to know they had a warrant and rated the home of someone suspected in this investigation and seized all their electronic devices. So crime possibly committed, got a warrant, took took all the electronic devices in the house as part of that warrant. None of this was related to mastodon. They weren't actually seeking any information from mastodon. They just took all of this person's electronics. However, among the devices it seized was one that that person had been using to troubleshoot the server for a mastodon instance of a group called collectiva and on that device was a three day old and unencrypted copy of the database for that mastodon instance. So this confused me a little bit because a lot of the headlines were saying they seized a server. They didn't go into a data center and sees a server. It wasn't even a server being used in that house. It was a copy of the database unencrypted being used to troubleshoot. In that database was data for around 8000 active users of that instance, which includes things like their email addresses IP addresses and hashed user passwords. The EFF argues that seizing all devices in a case like this is overbroad. That's not new. That's just something they're like this is an example of the overbroad seizure of property. It does not appear that anything related to the mastodon instance was relevant to the case being investigated. So they didn't need to get this information. Now law enforcement agencies have policies and procedures to isolate data needed for an investigation and then ignore the other data either discarded from any copies they make or just give it back. However, it is also legal when you have a warrant to use data you collected for some other purpose. So it's not impossible that they would look at this data and go, Oh, well now that we're looking at it, we can do this. The FBI did not respond to PC Mag's request to comment one way or the other on this case. It's a learning curve, right? This is the EFF saying, Hey, folks who use mastodon, you should be aware that this could happen. Folks who are running mastodon instances, you need to step it up and have the same kind of solid privacy policies that the bigger guys have as well. So it's a bit of a wake up call. In this case, there's probably not going to be any fallout from it because the FBI doesn't seem to be interested in that particular server, but you never know. I mean, wouldn't the FBI be able to argue we're investigating a crime and people could have been talking about it on mastodon and now we have to look through all this stuff. They could but they didn't, right? That's important to note is like, sure, that's why I said this could be like wanting to look for information and going and seizing the devices. It just wasn't in this particular case. But they could now that they have the data and it was unencrypted and they legally have the right to look at it, they could find a new case that wasn't even related to this case. So this is why mastodon probably needs and an encryption for DMs. That's one thing the EFF called for. But also people who are running instances need to have solid privacy policies. The EFF provides templates for that so that you can make arguments in court that stuff should be thrown out because it wasn't part of a case or wasn't properly obtained. There needs to be transparency reports the way Twitter and Facebook and all of them have done for years. It's it's mastodon growing up and being like, Hey, you can't just run a server in isolation these days. There's a lot of people being federated here. Mm hmm. Well, on Tuesday, nine research institutions representing Czechia, Germany, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK began work on the European Space Telescope also being known as EST. It's a large aperture solar telescope features a 4.2 meter primary mirror. The images of its kind in Europe this guy is big and a newly formed EST foundation is going to lead the project through its next phase. A new legal entity called the European Research Infrastructure Consortium or Eric will oversee the telescopes construction and operation you might say, Well, what does it do if it's so big and so great. The point of the telescope is to examine the magnetic and dynamic coupling of the solar atmosphere. You know, around the sun that can better explain things like solar flares and coronal mass injections ejections rather that can affect technologies on earth like satellite navigation power grid operation broadcasting all things that affect most of us. Yeah, solar flares are scary, because we can't always predict when they're coming and we don't always know what they do. So, so finding out more of them, more about them so that we can be prepared. Because you know, there's, there's all these apocalyptic stories of like a solar flare could potentially just take out all the satellites and suddenly there's no more communication around the world, etc, etc. Yeah, we would take a while to get them all back up there. I mean the satellites are already trying just not to run into each other. Solar flares on top of that. Yeah, this this is cool though. I love that it's called Eric to. Yeah, Eric Eric Eric's running the EST. Yeah, you know, we believe in you Eric good stuff. Pat on the back for Eric. All right, let's check out the mailbag. Let's do it Lee wrote in about the idea about getting scanned by an orb getting your eye versus scan. This is in reference to world coin to prove that you're a human and you know you have only the eyes that you have. Is it more sci-fi dystopian than anything with machine learning, having someone store my retina scan seems like a privacy issue, scarier than most. Lee says I don't tend to be a conspiracy theorist, but I'm sure it's the machines trying to identify the humans for elimination, rather than humans trying to show that they aren't a bot or aliens. Hard to tell so soon. You know, Lee, you say you're a conspiracy theorist, but then you wrote things that sound very much like the kind of thing with this but yeah, you could go take it in a few different directions. And then I so so I went and looked it up on the world coin site. The world coin site says, by default, the images of your iris are immediately deleted once a code is created. So they scan the iris, turn it into a code, you know, like a hash code and associate it with your world coin account and then they get rid of the scan itself. So all you have is that code, unless you opt into something called data custody. So you can choose to let them keep that iris scan, opting into data custody will decrease the probability and frequency that you would need to re verify as algorithms change. So in other words, if they improve the security of their algorithm, you might have to go get another horrible appointment and update your scan, unless you give them custody of it. And then you wouldn't because they'd have the image still. That's how they get you is what I'm guessing Lee is saying right now. The world ID signup process is only intended to verify uniqueness. They have not previously signed up and received a world ID. It's not meant to verify who you are. So they're not interested in keeping the retina scan for that reason. Or the iris scan. Does this is this weird you out when a little bit just because I so I wanted to make a pun about the eyes have it or do they have the. Yeah, I mean, it only scares me because I am a developer and I, I don't need to like, you know, say anything or make implications against, you know, world coin anything else. It's just that I'm always nervous because I know what working on, you know, kind of services are like and mistakes happen. And so I, I don't want to like inflame like, you know, conspiracy theories or anything, but there's always a little trust and follow through with, you know, them promising that they'll delete the data and I'm sure like I'm sure they're making all the best efforts, but I do think it's it's always like a risk to put your data out there that but either by intention or unintentionally, it doesn't. It ends up somewhere you don't want it to so I don't I don't think I don't think it's wrong to be a little nervous about it and it always kind of squicks me out a little bit but hey, you know, same at some point we also we gotta trust each other, maybe not. I don't know. I mean, if you trust Sam Altman's world coin, then you would hope that that delete me folder gets deleted. You know, in a timely fashion. Yeah, I mean, convenient sake would say I just keep it then. And I don't have to keep scanning my eyes. I mean, yeah, I guess if you're not everybody's going to, you know, do the data custody thing at least you know it's being kept then. Transparency is better than whoopsie whoopsie sorry we still had all your scans for the last two to three years. Oh, that drive was supposed to be wiped. I'm so sorry. The FBI raided my house very has nothing to do with this, but now they have your eyes. But they did seize my world coin or unencrypted. Well, when it's so good to have you on the show today, and to meet you. So let folks know where they can keep up with the rest of your work. Yeah, it is lovely to be here again big time big time fan long long time and big time fans so I am an Android developer that's my day job. I also give technical talks about Android stuff so in case you're interested about that. You can find my talks videos of those talks and associated like code examples that I do on my website randomly typing calm, which has all my other things. I also host every Tuesday at 5pm Pacific 8pm Eastern, the wonderful and very, very new Android faithful podcast which is your weekly source for Android news hardware apps and more. And of course I bring my extremely Debbie perspective to things. And yeah, if you see someone who's called Queen code monkey on the internet on the social social networks that's probably me so you can follow me there. Excellent. And if you would like to hear us talk some more well become a patron. And if you're already a patron stick around you get the extended show good day internet we're going to talk more about unpacked. And before that I want to mention that Ken Pillanel is added again with a way to make first gen AirPods pro cases repairable stick around for that. Reminder you can catch the show live because we do record it live Monday through Friday at 4pm Eastern 20 hundred UTC. You can find out more at daily tech news show dot com at slash live. And we're back doing it all again tomorrow with Rob Dunwood. Talk to you then.