 Daily Tech News Show is made possible by its listeners, thanks to all of you, including Mark Gibson, Reed Fishler and Michelle Serju. Coming up on DTNS, what the EC is investigating Apple for this time, how much should you trust mental health apps, and the future of music now that streaming has won. This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, May 2nd, 2022 in Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. From Lovely Cleveland, I'm Richard Raffalino. And on the show's producer, Roger Jay. We have got some good stuff to talk to you about today, so let's get right into it with a few tech things you should know. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said that the company believes the ongoing semiconductor shortage will drift into 2024, until previously estimated the shortage would ease next year. But Gelsinger says the shortages have impacted chip making equipment, making ramping up new factories more challenging. Darn it, Pat Gelsinger, you ruined my prediction from the prediction show. Well, this is better news. During its earnings call, Qualcomm CEO Christian Amon said the company expects ARM based Windows laptops using tech from the company in Nuvia in retail channels by late 2023. Former Apple system on a cheer engineers system on a chip engineers founded Nuvia to build ARM based chips for servers. Qualcomm then acquired Nuvia in early 2021. The Embracer Group announced it reached an agreement to acquire three studios from Square Enix for $300 million. Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal. The agreement would also include intellectual properties owned by these studios including Deus Ex, Tomb Raider, Thief and Legacy of Kane. The deal isn't final yet, but expected to be completed in Q3 of this year. The information has a source that says Meta will release four virtual reality headsets by 2024, according to an internal roadmap that they got a sneak peek at. Meta already announced Project Cambria, that's a headset arriving this year. Project Cambria is rumored to cost $800, though a Meta spokesperson said it would cost significantly higher. So if $800 was too much, well guess what, you'll pay more. Cambria will run on Android and be marketed as a work device, hence the higher price. It's meant for the enterprise. Funston is the next one on the roadmap coming in 2024 and then two cheaper Quest devices, probably more in the consumer price range, will ship in 2023 and 2024 as well. The Verge found a new Microsoft support page detailing the Edge Secure Network, which is the cloudflare powered VPN service for Microsoft's Edge browser. Edge Secure Network, rather, offers one gigabyte of data used per month for free and requires logging into a Microsoft account to do that. The feature is still under development and Microsoft said it will roll out to the public as part of an overall security upgrade, but we're still not clear when. All right, so now we would like to tell you a little bit about what's happening with Apple and Europe, two best friends. Indeed, and Tom, I know you're pretty up on the story. So I'll just probably ask the question that I think a lot of people ask is the European Commission sent a formal statement of objections to Apple with the preliminary view that Apple is abusing its dominant position in the market when it restricts access to NFC chips for contact list payments. So what has Apple done that led to this decision? Yeah, Apple does let third parties use the and it does not, I should say does not let third parties use the NFC chip for contactless tap to pay payments. They'll they'll allow access to NFC for other things but not for payments. Only the Apple wallet has access for that. You can add a third party payment system to the wallet, you know, like your bank card, for example, but outside wallet, no competing apps can access NFC for payment. Those all run through Apple Pay. So if your bank doesn't support Apple Pay, well, then you can't add it to the wallet. And that means that only the Apple Pay system can be used on an iPhone for tap to pay and the like. So if you're listening to this and saying, hold on, didn't the EU charge Apple with antitrust over exactly Apple Pay last year? What's new about this? Yes, there's a lot going on between the EU and Apple and a lot going on between the EU and Apple about Apple Pay. This is separate from the statement of objection that the EU brought against Apple in April last year regarding in app payments for music subscriptions. Apple has required companies to use its in app payment system to sell music subscriptions in the app. I think we're all pretty familiar with that. That's part of what Epic is suing for regarding video games. And they limit what apps can say about alternative payment options, although they've been loosening up on that. So this is different than that. These are two separate statements of objections. Okay. So what is Apple saying in defense of the latest objection from the EU? Yeah, you could probably say this along with me, most of you, but Apple says its payment system is one of many available to European consumers. They point to PayPal, which has been very successful on iOS, even though it doesn't use NFC, but it's used as a mobile payment system throughout Europe. There's also mobile pay in Denmark, swish in Sweden, pay conic in Belgium. They're all more popular than Apple Pay in those particular countries. And Apple has also said many times that it limits third-party access to the NFC chip for payments to boost security. Apple told Ars Technica that a 2016 Europe report was evidence that because Android allows third-party access to the NFC, that it's susceptible to attacks that can compromise customer card info. There's a difference of opinion about this. There is a potential security vulnerability there. However, EC Executive Vice President Margaret Vestiger said that Europe's investigation did not find evidence of such a higher security risk. So at least the security part of this is not going to work in persuading the EC. So at this point, Apple can certainly afford to pay a fine, but what actually changes on Apple's side? Yeah, so the statement of objections isn't a finding. This lets Apple respond in its defense more formally than just like talking to Ars Technica. During its investigation, the EC could find that Apple does not violate antitrust rules. They're saying, we think you do, but let's talk this out. Apple would then, if they were found free, they'd go free. If they find that there is a violation, Apple would face a fine linked to how much it charges for its mobile wallet services. And they can be fined up to 10% of global revenue, but generally speaking, they won't be fined that much. Also, this is the first statement of objections to come from an investigation that started in June 2020, but it may not be the last. So even if they get out of this one, there may be others coming. So a few weeks ago, we heard about the EU's Digital Markets Act. Talked about it on the show. Is that affected by this ruling? Probably. Whatever it ends up being? Yeah, probably not. This investigation, at least the EC and Margaret Vestiger are saying might be finished before the DMA gets passed. However, the DMA would require equal access to operating system features like NFC for payments. So whatever they end up deciding here might be moot if the DMA gets passed. And it's like, well, even if we didn't find you violated any trust in the past, you got to open it up now. What strikes me about this is generally I'm for more openness. Like I feel like, hey, it allows for more competition. There's some weirdness though with the Europe's rationale for this in that Apple does have a 23% market share in Europe. Samsung is the top brand there. So solely with Android products at 29%. So they are not a dominant mobile platform. And as they point out in some European markets, they're not a dominant payment platform. I guess ultimately as a consumer, someone who uses Apple Wallet fairly frequently, I do think it's a very smooth product to use. Like if you can bring whatever comes out of this brings competition to there, as long as that doesn't interfere with that first party experience and that remains an option. Like as a consumer, that's what I'm most interested in maintaining, I guess, selfishly, I guess, out of all of this, right? Yeah, the weird thing about this is it's probably the least compelling, one of the less compelling cases against Apple, right? Because they aren't as dominant in tap to pay as they are with the App Store. Because you make the argument with the App Store that even if they're not the dominant used phone that the App Store has an outsized influence on developers. I don't know if you can say that about Apple Pay or not. My guess is the European Union might make some kind of redefining the market as the iPhone, as has been done with the Epic tried that it will be interesting to see how they define that market. Because frankly, I don't think they would have brought the statement of objections if they didn't think they could define the market as potentially big enough to be of concern. Axios recently looked at how lockdowns impacted online mental health services. Apps can put you in touch with an actual clinician on the one hand or focus more on well-being concerns. Just use chatbots and mood trackers and guided breathing and the like. One type of those seems to be a little better than the other. A 2018 paper in the journal Cognitive Behavior Therapy found that internet-based and face-to-face behavior therapy produced equivalent overall effects. It suggested that larger sample sizes be studied to verify that, but it looks like doing online but with a person therapy is pretty good. Looking at apps overall though, a 2022 paper from the researchers at University of Wisconsin-Madison along with Harvard Medical School and Brown University did not find that app intervention significantly helped people dealing with anxiety, depression, substance abuse or thoughts of suicide. So your mileage may vary and especially if there's not a person on the other end of the app, it may not be helping that much. You should also be careful which apps you install. There was a 2018 study in the journal Internet Interventions that found that fewer than half of 116 apps meant to treat depression had a privacy policy. That's incredibly concerning. Mozilla gave 29 out of 32 mental health and prayer apps that it looked at a privacy not included warning label because they collect large amounts of personal data but have vague privacy policies. And these don't even necessarily have to be HIPAA violations. It might be that they're not collecting the mental health part but your personal information is still valuable and they might be treating that poorly too. So it seems like apps that connect you with a certified professional are probably good although face-to-face is a sure bet. And apps that don't connect you with a person might be helpful in a complementary way especially if you're using them in conjunction with therapy with a person. But you should be extremely careful which ones you install and make sure that they're treating your personal info with respect. Gosh, yeah. As somebody who, I think we all struggle with mental health as the spectrum goes in various stages of our lives. I'll leave it at that but I've been pretty interested in some of these services. I certainly know people who are receiving various kinds of therapy completely remotely with great results. Not always but sometimes pretty great results and I think that's wonderful. It wasn't that long ago that I would have thought it would be kind of weird to like zoom with your therapist but that is our new normal. That said, any app that doesn't have a privacy policy is in my mind not the app for you but especially when it comes with this kind of very personal information that maybe it will never be used against you but I think that the vibe is to err on the side of caution here. Yeah and some of the things that the Mozilla report found were things like there was an app, I believe it was Talkspace that was using, they are a chat based like service to put you in communication with an actual therapist but that it does store transcripts of those and generate transcripts of those. So it's like on the one hand I imagine the therapist would need access to those if it's a continued interaction but also probably something you should certainly be aware of if you're going to be engaging that's very sensitive correspondence. Some of the other stuff is drawing in outside information about you like targeted tracking to serve you as within some of these apps. So again, it is definitely very sensitive information but what I think is interesting about these is, I don't think this has to be an either or I think some of these earlier studies that the study in cognitive behavior was kind of looking at how do these compare like in person versus internet based interactions with clinicians. And I think viewing them more as companions to it right like if a chat app with a therapist gets you to get more therapy if you need it if that's something you need. I think that's that's really amazing with the caveat that yeah these you know whatever privacy labels or whatever apps need to have in front and center to let you know exactly you know what the app is asking of you and what you were giving to this service which is you know ultimately what's a lot of these are. Okay, go ahead. No, I was gonna say it a lot of ways it's no different than any other app. You want to make sure it's treating your personal info with, you know, the way the way it should be treated, you know that it's treating it carefully and securely. Yeah, I think, you know, just my last thought on this is, when you take something like anxiety, it's I have anxiety, I have a lot of anxiety, why do I have it well I have it for personal reasons. We all kind of have these, you know, sure you might have this thing that is that is, you know, somebody says, yeah, I know what you got, you got anxiety, but why do you have it. And that's that's a very personal journey and that's the kind of data that people really need to was going to say hold sacred. That's a little dramatic but that is, yeah, it's something that you need to think about where where this data is going, who cares about this data and and what. How it's going to come back to you, you know, in often cases trying to sell you something but but it's just it's good to be aware. And yet, to Rich's point, I don't think that means you should just avoid all the apps, right, because no, you can use a reliable app that's going to treat your information. Confidentially, I mean, every therapist takes notes, right, you just trust that they're going to keep them confidential. An app should be no different. You should have vetted certified clinicians that you're dealing with that you know are going to treat your your information securely. And then if it's like, well, I wouldn't drive to see a therapist because it's too much trouble and I don't have time but I would do an app. Well, then, you know, the fact that the early results are that it's probably close. Yeah, right. Like it may be better than not doing it at all if it gets you the help you need. I have an anxiety disorder and I'm really glad that I was able to find a therapist that helped me learn how to deal with it early on. Or else I, you know, I might be in this situation where like, I don't know, I don't know if I want to deal with it and you need to deal with it and make your life better. Yeah. Well, we would like to make everyone's life better by talking about these kinds of stories. And to do that, we need people listening and supporting the show. So we have an idea on how to expand our listenership. If you have an idea about guests that we could have on this show from other podcasts or shows that would bring in new people because they're like, oh, my favorite host is on this other show. I better check out that show. Let us know. You can check out our guest survey at daily tech news show dot com slash survey. The idea is we're going to get a bunch of big name guests, fun guests, interesting people to talk to in a week later this summer and then just really like hope to expose our show to a bunch of new people. So head on over to daily tech news show dot com slash survey changes in the technology of music distribution have a long history in changing how music gets made. You write a different song when your main distribution channel is going to be sheet music versus when it's FM radio versus an iTunes download. Usually we see artists evolve over time and we see the effects of these format changes in new music, not necessarily their back catalog, that old back catalog stays on the sheet music or the 78. But Swedish musician Jens Lechman is going a little in reverse here, Rich, you've been following this story. What's happening? Yeah, so if you're not familiar with this little background on Lechman, he received a lot of buzz kind of in the indie pop indie rock scene in the mid 2000s. If you've never heard him just real quick kind of sounds like someone singing Burt Baccarac songs but with like kind of a moderate to severe head cold back in 2011. It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful monotone. I have no other way to describe it back in 2011. He did notice though he had a 2005 collection of EPs that put together into an album called Oh Year So Silent Jens and it disappeared from digital and physical storefronts. You just kind of couldn't buy it anymore. And there was no reason. His label Secretly Canadian didn't really say anything. He didn't really kind of mention it. And then the last month, Lechman teased that he was holding a funeral for his 2007 album Night Falls Over Corda Dalla, which is now no longer available for sale or streaming. So what happened? Why are we, why is he retiring all of these things? So aside from sounding like he has a head cold, but Lechman extensively, especially in his early work, a lot of samples and there were a lot of legal conflicts coming out over that. So Lechman says that many of them, the samples were taken kind of before he was a musician. He'd go to thrift stores, look through the bargain bin, find the 10 for a dollar LPs, bring them home and take samples off those. And a lot of those he just has no idea where to even start getting clearances. You know, people have passed away or labels no longer exist. So he doesn't even know really where to get clearances on how to even, you know, kind of get clear on these songs. So how would he bring them back then? If you can't, if you can't clear the samples. Yeah. So yeah, when I first saw the news, I was like, oh, no, I'm a young Lechman fan. If you can't tell, are these two albums just gone, you know, from streaming forever? Well, he's actually re-releasing these albums kind of under different names, same track listings and stuff like that. But with re-recorded versions of the songs, in most cases using original vocals when possible, but with new compositions instead of using the samples. And a lot of times like kind of re-architecting the song, kind of giving it a very different tone and virally. So there have been some other instances in music where people have re-recorded songs. You may think Taylor Swift has kind of been doing this. Sure. But in those cases, those were kind of to get master recording rights to that. Like there was more rights issues tied up into those. But what really struck to me is, you know, Lechman kind of bringing a new version of what would otherwise just be songs that, you know, kind of got lost in a legal mire going forward, which I think is really interesting. Yeah, it's fascinating. We have a magic in our chat says he should just wait for a cease and desist to find out. My guess is, and I don't know this, my guess is they did. They got cease and desist and then the label said, well, we don't want to get any more. You know, let's do preventative maintenance. Let's get rid of the songs before we get threatened with legal action because they're a small label. They don't have a lot of money to spend dealing with a bunch of cease and desist, which is why then you start over correcting and saying, well, even if we don't know where this sample should be licensed from, let's just not use it because we don't know when they'll pop up and we don't want to have to deal with that. It's fascinating to me, though, that he isn't able to re-record them, but he also doesn't seem to regret that. He seems to like the idea that he can recreate a new version of that song that otherwise would just be unavailable. I know he said in the story that people were coming up to him at concerts and going, hey, where do I get that new song? And he's like, that's not a new song. That's a really old song you just can't find anymore. Yeah, and people are hearing it live for the first time and it hasn't been streaming for 11 years now, which is probably before anyone was really even streaming to begin with. So yeah, really interesting and kind of got me thinking of is this going to be a way for the... I'm like a huge album fan. I did a radio show locally in town where I only played albums. I love the idea of the album, but the album is very much tied to like, hey, we need to release a product and needs to sit in a store shelf and then you need to be able to take that home and bring it home. That obligation is completely gone from streaming. And I think that as artists evolve as their musical styles evolve, I think that we could see more people not for legal reasons necessarily, but to be like, hey, we need to keep this fresh. Whether you want to call it a remix, whether you want to call it like a constantly evolving album to kind of... When your revenue as an artist also is tied to people streaming your songs, changing it, refreshing it, whatever you want to call it. Giving them new reasons to stream it. Yeah, exactly. I think it could be like a way that an album as a concept that is not fixed in time like you would need to with a physical product might be a way that that goes on going forward. I also think, I mean, there are so many artists who have access to a variety of musical tools, all the tools. So what it sounds like Lechman was doing, you know, in the early days was just like having some fun, you know, make him some good stuff. And he almost, you know, is a product of too much of his people liking his stuff too much where all of a sudden it turns into like, yeah, that was a sample I didn't have access to. I don't want all of this stuff to go away. I can recreate it so that I'm in the clear and, you know, everybody gets a little bit new life out of it. I love this idea. I mean, I guess you're boxing to a corner at this point, but it gives your fans some new life. And it's low cost to access. In the past, they would do live albums to give you a second look at a song. Right. But generally speaking, putting out an album was a costly affair. So you weren't going to put out a bunch of re-recordings of things you already do people liked. Whereas now it's easy for us to just be on a streaming service go, oh, an alternate version. Well, that's interesting. Let me give it a shot. I don't have to go into a store, buy an album, take it home, which is a bunch of impediments to trying out something like that. Well, if you happen to have a Fisher Price game and learn controller in your home, it's likely that there is a small child in your home as well. Although, you know, I'm just not going to, you know, it might be, it might be for you as well. But this is something that Fisher Price has put out for quite young children. Amater has turned this toy game pad that's designed for kids into a complete Xbox game pad that can play games like Elden Ring. Perhaps you've heard of it with special sounds for Konami Mote. And then Beck, also known as Ruudism, you might know him. New Zealand native Twitch streamer, pretty popular, has previously done stuff like this. Beat Dark Souls 3 with a single button Morse code controller. Also built a motion controlled lightsaber and force power glove for Star Wars Jedi fall in order. And also built his own flap waddle on honk controls for untitled goose game. And as hard as though the Fisher Price buttons still work. So if you're one year old is like, no, I like it the way it was before you can have both because the Arduino is set to piggyback off of the original inputs by being soldered directly to the pre existing board. Ruudism, as he's known, also transformed the Fisher Price slider as a mode selector that can let you have either a left or right analog stick at any given moment, as well as access to start select and guide buttons on a BNC. Can do it all, you know, as long as you're playing the appropriate games. The project started out as a joke. That's what Ruudism says. Deal Hunter, known as Wario 64 tweeted that the gamepad would be perfect for Elden Ring. Total budget was $20 that includes the controller, but Ruudism says that doesn't include the old 3D printer that he used to make mounts to keep the joystick and switches in position. So a little bit more than $20 and certainly some time and effort and a little sweat involved, but cool nonetheless. Yeah, this is hilarious. And I love that he, maybe it was a happy accident, but that he preserved the original sound effects so it can be like, you got your high score every time you press the up button. Yay! As a parent, I just like that the toy functionality of it is like just, nope, no, you can have it back kid. I'm done playing Elden Ring. Yeah, right. Yeah, they don't know the difference until it accidentally pairs and starts messing up your game. Yeah. All right, let's check out the mailbag. What do we got in there, Sarah? We got one from Robert who wrote, in regards to that paid Zen posture app that uses your camera to detect your posture. Something we talked about last week on the show. Robert says, I've been using a free Chrome plugin called posture reminder. It's nothing more than a timer with a toast message and a sound that reminds you to straighten up. That's it. It works for me and it's free. You know, I mean, I think there is something to be said for Zen's like posture modeling that helps you look at it and get the right posture. But if you don't want to mess with that or you can't afford it, I think Robert's idea here is like, get you most of the way down the road. Just reminding you to sit up straight is better than nothing. I love that. My Apple Watch tells me to stand up often and I'm like, shut up. Well, yeah, that's the balance. You have to want to do it. Yes, yes, exactly. We also want to thank some brand new bosses that we got over our weekend. Bill, Joshua, Christopher, Skyler and Dave all started back in us on Patreon. Thank you, Bill. Joshua, thank you, Christopher. Thank you, Skyler. And thank you, Dave. It could be you tomorrow that we're thanking, but big thanks to all those folks. It's been a minute. We appreciate it. Yeah, we really do. We're back. We're back, baby. There's also a longer version of the show. It's called Good Day Internet. Most of you know all about it. But if for any reason you'd like to learn more, patreon.com. You can find out more about our extended show. Just a reminder, we are live Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern 20 hundred UTC. You can find out more at dailytechnoshow.com slash live. Please join us live if you can. Otherwise, we're always on demand. We're back tomorrow with me. Come on for joining us up to then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. I hope you have enjoyed this program.