 Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners. Thanks to all of you, including Ms. Music Teacher, James C. Smith, and Miranda Janell. Coming up on DTNS, Apple pays long, slow march, pays off. Our physical buttons better than touch screens and cars. We have differing views and streaming TV finally passes cable. This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, August 18th, 2022 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. From Deep in the Heart of Texas, I'm Justin Robert Young. And adjacent to everything else, I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. Good to have you adjacent to us today, Roger, who I have to say. Always. No one, no one adjaces better than you, Roger. He's the adjacentiest. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Google announced that over the coming months, it will roll out several updates to search aimed at making it easier for people to find helpful content created primarily for humans rather than algorithms by downranking low quality content that's designed to fuel traffic through search engine optimization. We all know what those links look like. Next week, Google will unleash its new helpful content update, which will also surface better quality educational materials, useful entertainment, shopping and tech related content. Security researcher Michael Horowitz posted findings that iOS still does not kill all existing connections when a VPN is launched. A company called Proton detailed similar issues back in March 2020, I think we talked about it on DTNS, showing that while all connections eventually seem to end up inside the VPN tunnel, some stay outside of it sometimes for hours after the VPN is launched. Most examples of these kinds of connections are things like Apple's push notifications. Horowitz found some connections to AWS though, those that were also persisting for a while outside the VPN. This is unlikely to cause a general security problem, but it would leave a user open to surveillance by their ISP or government, which is an issue if you're relying on your VPN for civil rights issues, being a whistleblower, stuff like that. It's possible that Apple being Apple believes that allowing some preexisting connections to exist outside VPN for a time is valid as a usability benefit because it might cause problems if they switch and they don't believe it reduces security. In the meantime, Proton suggests if you need that full VPN access, turn airplane mode on and off after connecting with the VPN and they say that should kill preexisting connections and get them to reconnect inside the VPN tunnel. NVIDIA once again expanded availability in its GeForce Now game streaming service at 1440p resolution at 120 frames per second. So you can now get those resolutions when using the service on Chrome or Edge browsers. That means you can use it on Chromebooks and in the Xbox's Edge browser. You still need to pay for the $20 per month RTX 3080 tier of the service in order to get it though. Bloomberg reported that developer Steve Moser found code within the Netflix iPhone app that indicates subscribers to Netflix's forthcoming ad supported tier will not be able to download content for offline viewing. He found a text string that reads downloads available on all plans except Netflix with ads. It also indicates that users would be able to personalize their ad experience and would not be able to skip commercials. This is all pretty early stuff though. Netflix's ad supported tier is not expected to launch until early 2023. Back in May, Embracer bought a large chunk of Square Enix including the Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kane and Deus Ex franchises. Now Embracer has bought Middle Earth, specifically Middle Earth Enterprises which handles most of the rights of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. And no, that does not affect Amazon's upcoming series called Rings of Power. Those rights are an exception. However, Embracer will get to make more Tolkien related stuff as of this partnership. It already makes Lord of the Rings themed board games under its Asmode subsidiary and you might expect it to talk about making games in Middle Earth, but instead Embracer wants to explore additional movies based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Golem, Galadriel, Eowyn and other characters. Yeah, so the video game company is talking about making movies. It's a whole... Isn't it crazy that Amazon didn't snap that up? They spent that much money on just the other notes? This just did. Amazon buys Embracer. No, I don't know. Yeah, I was gonna say. How did that one slip through their fingers? I bet there's a deal to license things from Embracer because Embracer doesn't have a production studio, but yeah, it's an interesting question. Yeah. Let's talk about Apple Pay, Sarah Lane. Let's do it. Apple launched Apple Pay eight years ago. That was back in 2014, people. It's been a while. Now, if you say, gosh, has it been that long? It's adoption was slow at first. Stately, even. According to Loop Ventures estimates, by 2016, so a couple of years into it, the percentage of iPhones with Apple Pay activated was 10%, not that many. The next year, 20%. Three years later in 2020, 50%. Now today, it's around 75% and rising. Retailers have progressed even faster in adoption. So the percentage of US retailers who took Apple Pay back in 2014 was 3%. So, you know, that goes to show you wasn't a lot of places you could do it. It's now 90%. Apple Pay has also taken more places online as well. So Apple's got people to use it. Merchants are using it. Merchants are accepting it. The next step is to get them to always use it. That is the way that we do it, in this particular establishment. The Wall Street Journal notes that credit cards are still used more often than anything at a cash register. So what do we think is holding back people from just using their phone when they have their phone in their pocket or their purse or the bag or. Let's pause to let our friends in Australia and other parts of the world laugh at the United States and say, yeah, I can't believe you're so far behind. We've been doing this for years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, I think it's interesting. I would have thought we would have seen a bigger spike in from 2020 till now than just 25%. Because I am under the assumption that the fact that when I go out now, I can pay with Apple Pay in so many more places is because of COVID because contactless was a big deal. But I wonder if it isn't just a bit of a cognitive bias that it was there before. I just wasn't looking for it as much because we're talking about activations, not use. That's the interesting part of this is people are still using their credit cards. They're just activating Apple Pay in slowly larger numbers than they do. Well, and I'm one of those people. I have my phone with me. I mean, 99% of the time that I'm ever outside of my own apartment. My phone is with me. Apple Pay is accepted at most of the merchants that I go to regularly. And yet I've also got my wallet. And so I just kind of defer to the old way of doing things. Well, but that's because you don't want to get into a situation where you're pulling out your phone and you look like a ding-dong because you're trying to touch the thing and it's not going to do anything. And you have to pull out your credit card anyway. Well, but when I use my phone, it works. It's I don't feel like a ding-dong. Until it doesn't. I mean, again, when you talk about human behaviors, it only takes one failure case to make you think twice about using it. And even now, despite the fact that there is gigantic wide adoption of this, like Tom said, 90% of retailers, it only takes one where it doesn't work for you to lead with your credit card the next time. There's no doubt that this is a bigger phenomenon now. But the real reason why it's become this is because of retailers not necessarily the desire for certain people that are more technically inclined to use it. And I would really put a lot of benefit to that on the square reader. Not only did it take a huge chunk of smaller merchants that would otherwise not invest in an enterprise level solution, but it also forced a lot of the enterprise level solutions to make sure that they had this good NFC technology that might not have been in the same kind of feature rich environment had there not been competition. You know, before we move on, just one thing about contactless stuff. And this is this also has to do with what cards you're using with Apple Pay. But let's say I use my debit card, which is one of the cards that I have linked to Apple Pay. You know, you still got to put in your pin number and that's not contactless. So it's kind of like I pull up my card or I pull up my phone. Which one you still have to put in your pin number with with an apple. Because I thought that that would just be the card you do. Yes. But even even the debit card with a, you know, Visa or MasterCard as it's interesting. Yes, it depends on the account. There are some debit cards that don't require that and some do, you know, so your mileage may vary. But yeah, that is a thing that happens out there. And yes, we know the end stands for number. Just let it rest out there. OK, gosh, I hear you. I hear you. Yeah, anyway. Yeah, take take all that credit to the ATM machine pin number. Yeah, OK, fine. You know what we meant. Let's turn to our own subreddit. A top daily tech news show dot reddit.com today is a submission by KV of an article from V Billigera, one of the biggest car magazines in Sweden. And my apologies to people who speak Swedish for my pronunciation of it. It's an institution in the Swedish car scene, having been around for more than 70 years and helping organize the European car of the year awards. Now, I tell you that because if you're not from the region, you may not have heard of them. And you may wonder why you would bother paying attention when they publish the conclusion of their test of human machine interfaces, AKA HMI's, AKA that stuff you use to control your car's air conditioning music, et cetera. Justin, what did they find? Well, Tom, they found that physical buttons outperformed touch screens. I know you could have told them that. But why would they believe you? Instead, they went out and got 11 current cars from different manufacturers and measured the time it took for a driver to perform several tasks while driving at 110 kilometers, AKA 68 miles an hour. Tasks included changing a radio station, adjusting climate control. And a 12th car, a 2005 Volvo V 70 without a touch screen was also tested. The drivers were given time to get familiar with the controls before they performed the test. They measured the task by the time it took the drivers to perform the same four tasks. So who did the best, Tom? The worst car was China's M.G. Marvel R, which took 44.9 seconds to do all four tests. Seem to have a long time. Yeah, that's that's that's a long time to be not paying full attention to the road in front of you. The best was, say it with me, the 2005 Volvo V 70, which had the all physical buttons. Yay, Volvo. That one took 10 seconds of the cars with touch screens, which is the rest of them. Romania's Dacia Sandero took 13.5 seconds. The Volvo C 40 took 13.7 seconds. And if you're interested, the Tesla Model 3 was somewhere in the middle of the packet, 23.5 seconds. And if you don't realize the Tesla controls everything from the touch screen, there are pretty much no physical knobs in that car. Well, you know, I was partially joking by congratulating Volvo because I have a Volvo XC 60. I'm a Volvo person. This is what I am, but I'm a touch screen Volvo person. That's that's what everything in that car goes through that touch screen. And, you know, you have variety of, you know, you swipe between panels and, you know, you've got your audio controls and all the all the things. And it works well for me. You know, it's kind of smudgy. Never really looks clean because you're touching it all the time. But I have no problem with a touch screen. But I also feel like this is also a conversation I've had with people in the past who were like, I want my physical keyboard. And that's why I prefer a blackberry over these stupid iPhones. You know, it's it's sort of the same idea. I don't think anybody is right or wrong here. Well, I do think that there is an element of tactile memory that we have from from interfacing with cars since we started driving them touch screens are a relatively new phenomenon there. But I would say the reason why it's easier to use is that by and large, car touchscreen UI sucks and it's sucked for a while. And and it's only very rarely that it gets better. There's a reason why Apple and and Android have gotten in the business of just having their own OS load up on these screens because the stuff that comes stock on most of these cars and new ones, luxury cars is hot garbage on on a on a plate of of disgusting, vile bilge. I mean, what like what what what do you hate about it so much? They're bad. They're bad. You wise. I mean, the one that drives a lot of cars. I guess. Yeah. I mean, just and thankfully now, it's actually a seamless experience for me. Because if I plug in my iPhone, it just loads up car play. So I'm always using the exact same interface that I have on my own. I'm using as well. Yeah. Yeah. So so next time, don't use car play next time. Just use whatever the stock version of of of the the the interfaces and they will guarantee you you will see why Android and Apple had to step in here. Well, OK, so every car manufacturer does things a little bit differently. I think what I like about my particular car is that there are there are lots of I mean, how often am I going into the settings to change my the what is it when it's the daylight savings time? No, no, it's your air conditioning. No, well, that will that. But that's what your tires change your oil. Yeah, give me money and hoses. Yeah, you know, you know, maybe make some dinner for my mother. No, the overhead display where you can kind of see like that sort of thing. It's like, how often am I really playing with those settings? Not often, but they're in there. What do you do to get a button for everything? What do you do to skip a song? Oh, it's on my steering wheel. It's a physical. Yeah, well, because I don't want to, you know, I'm trying to be safe. I'm just saying. But I have the option to keep your eyes on the road. The physical button is good because you can feel it. You don't have to look at it. A touch screen you have to look at. I mean, I also do a lot of, you know, the button for Siri. And then I just tell her to do it. I think that's the future of the of this is the touch screen is fine for when you're parked, you know, and you just want to do something. Yeah, most of it. You wouldn't want to do voice is the solution to this. If you don't want to have too many physical buttons, I think there should still be a few so that you can do something without even talking. But but yeah, voice assistance will will make this all a lot better once it gets good enough. I don't think that there's ever a reason to totally eliminate every physical button because for one thing, as much as I like carplay as I enjoy carplay, there have been multiple times where carplay has gone out and I just am staring at a black screen and now I am totally screwed. So if I had more than just my entertainment options and navigation running through there, boy, that'd be a sticky situation. Yep. Well, you know what you can do, Justin? You can go back to good old satellite terrestrial radio. Yep. I'll call in. I'll listen to the five o'clock traffic jam. Just say, you know, I got a bone to pick with these touch screens. Folks, if you have a thought on on this, are you a physical button person? Are you a touchscreen partisan? Or are you awaiting the voice controlled nirvana of the future? Email us feedback at Daily Tech News Show dot com. Back at the end of July, Netflix announced proudly I might add that Nielsen estimated that it was the most viewed TV service in the US ahead of number two, CBS. So this is Netflix saying we're better than that network. You know, network that you know and love so well. Nielsen has now released the rest of those numbers, giving a little bit more context, showing that Netflix is the leader in a broader trend. So what do they tell us on in July? For the first time, streaming platforms had a larger share of US viewing than cable or television. They had a larger viewing than broadcast television, but now they have a larger share of Kate than cable. Streaming represented 34.8 percent of viewing. Cable came in at 34.1 percent and broadcast at 21.6 percent. So if you combine broadcasting cable, it's still bigger for now. Nielsen also breaks down this report by service. If you're curious, who gets the most watching? Netflix does. It rose from 7.7 percent in June to 8 percent in July. Thanks, mostly to Stranger Things. YouTube had 7.3 percent, followed by Hulu with 3.6 percent. Amazon Prime Video with 3 percent and Disney Plus with 1.8 percent. The rest of the services had 1 percent or less. These numbers all apply to watching on a television. Just keep that in mind. They don't include mobile or web streaming. The headlines are blaring about this and it is a milestone. But you listen to this show, so you saw this coming. It seems inevitable at this point that streaming was going to pass cable. But it brings up the question, how long does cable and broadcast have left? Oh, Justin, want to take this one? Yeah, I mean, it depends on what we mean by cable and broadcasting because if we're talking about the channels, nothing is really going to change there. What we're seeing now is a lot of consolidation into the parent companies or they just have new customers that they can do what their business model has always been, which is sell the rights to air their programming on your platform. What I think is more interesting is the platforms. So anybody that is physically running cable to your house, your Comcasts and Verizon's and the like, those those outfits are really going to have to figure out what they're going to do. There's a reason why a lot of them have already kind of diversified beyond their core business and gotten into content like Comcast did with NBC and now Peacock, but those those old revenue streams, I think that we are we're coming to a close. And I would bet it's like we're going to see major shake up in that field, probably within the next five years. Most of the cable TV providers, at least in the United States, are also Internet providers. So their hope is they can keep the Internet side of the business booming and figure out some other way to supplement that old cable TV revenue. The efforts so far seem to be providing you streaming options on your cable box. So Xfinity Comcasts cable property is the great example of this. The Xfinity box comes with Netflix, with Hulu, with HBO Max, and then you can subscribe to them all through one bill. I imagine that the end game is, hey, you don't want the cable TV part of this anymore. Fine. We have a service that can go over the Internet that you can pay for and keep that same box and keep all your streaming services and keep the same bill. I imagine that's how they hope to keep some of that revenue. The question is, how many people are going to stay on that cable box long enough for them to capture them? Yeah, I guess being being a payment processor is probably the future for many of them. But I mean, are people going to keep paying for a cable bill? I know there are people who are like, I don't know why I just keep cable because I just want to have it. It's a security blanket. It's what I'm used to. But those people are getting older and some of them are dying. And yes, some people just like they like they like switching the channels. They like the grid. I mean, I'm one of those people. I it's sort of like why I still like radio. Sometimes I just want you to tell me what to watch and give me 30 options of things I might want to watch. And maybe given the time of day, I will want to watch it. But I also see you on the Internet now. I subscribe to YouTube TV because that is a cable alternative that basically gives me cable. Will I keep that forever? I don't know. But it is a security blanket. It very much is. Yeah, I just like no one. It's there in case I want to watch Sports Center at any time of day kind of thing. Most of the stuff is lost on me. It's money that I'm I'm paying for for content I will never ever watch. And I think that that, you know, that that's always been the thing about cables, like you have 120 channels. People say, yeah, but I watch four. I mean, we're all like that. So that, you know, that kind of if if everybody is honest with themselves of this is actually what I want, how much a la carte can I actually build for myself based on the other alternatives? Then, yeah, cable is not long for this world. But I think it's going to be a long road to get to that point. I wonder if we're about to see the cliff erode really fast because it has been a long road. And you're seeing football go to Peacock and Amazon and things that you don't need cable at all to get. Not even cable replacements like YouTube TV, right? We're seeing local news showing up on the Roku channel for goodness sake, where you don't even have to pay for it. You just get it streaming for free. This number to me, this fact that it ticked over and the odometer clicked and streaming is ahead, I think, I don't know. I think we may see one of those rapid changes that suddenly start happening faster than we thought. And your point with with sports, Amazon to me is the bigger story there than Peacock, because Peacock is rebroadcasting the NBC feed. Amazon, they might make a deal for bars or something like that. But by and large, this is going to come straight to you from Amazon Prime. The other element about this is the rise of free streaming entertainment. And we've seen it that you mentioned earlier with Netflix, a free V is another one. Yeah, but that's a gigantic growing industry that I think is going to start exploding some of these numbers. Yeah, I think I think the change is about to accelerate. I'm just going to call I would agree when this when this one falls apart, it's going to fall apart quickly and loudly. Well, when it does, if you happen to be in Japan, maybe you can raise a glass. The Japanese government wants young people in the country to drink more alcohol. You might say, what, how could that be? Well, little context here since the pandemic began. So not just in Japan, but certainly in this country, establishments that sell alcohol have been hit pretty hard by COVID-19 restrictions. As a result, sales have tanked. So let us introduce you to something called sake Viva. This is a campaign overseen by Japan's National Tax Agency, inviting people to submit ideas on how to stimulate demand among young people for alcohol through new services, whether that's promotional methods, products, designs, sales, techniques, all the things using artificial intelligence, maybe the metaverse applications are open until September 9th. So people can submit ideas to the tax agency. Finalists will be invited to a consultation in October and then a final tournament happens in November in Tokyo with the winner getting support for their plan to be commercialized. So, man, if you if you've got like a new sake line, this is your chance. Look, I'm willing to let go of my political punditry career, of my comedy career, of my writing career. I'm here by telling the nation, the great and proud nation of Japan. That I will give it all up so I can be the new sake themed Duffman. I'll just I'll just kick in the door and various establishments. I'll just I'll just be raising the glass. Hey, man, I've been to Japan. I've been to Tokyo. I've drank through Golden Guy. I know what's up. Let's come on Japan. Let's talk. Yeah. Instead of Duffman, Justin can be that Golden Guy. That's it. I'll paint myself gold and I will just do nothing. But but a rabble rouse until the whole nation is a bunch of drunkards. I tell you what I want. I want the I love the fact that they're like, hello, fellow kids. We want you to drink sake, metaverse AI. Yeah, it's like what? How does that happen in the metaverse? OK, I think Japan's Ministry of Health should have their own tournament to counter this and then the winner of that one face off against the National Tax Agency's winner in the metaverse. Yeah. All I can imagine is that now now all the salarymen have abs and like they're there, they've never been healthier. This is just a total disaster for the for the booze sales. It tickles me that the National Tax Agency is like, man, we are just not getting the taxes from the sake hammered here because people aren't getting hammered. So they're not getting hammered enough. Yeah. Well, but I mean, and I don't know. I mean, part of the funny thing about this to me is like, OK, well, we have COVID-19 restrictions. I mean, a lot of people all over the world are like, yeah, my local watering hole also was closed for a while. They didn't get my money. But but now Japan's like, now we need it. We need it in a strong force. So let's figure out how to really get the youth back into the into the game because they've all figured out other things to do. It's tradition, you know? Yeah, right. Exactly. Don't don't don't let the sun Tori go down in the land of the setting. Sun Tori sales. Let's check out the mail. Let's do it. John had some great feedback on our experiment week shows as many of you did. But John wanted to call out selecting solar in particular, saying Amos seems like a great interviewer. He sounds like so comfortable behind a mic. I've heard him so many times on GDI, but never in this particular role. He did an excellent job playing the straight man to Brian Hoffman's factual scripted statements. This was the show. I felt like I gained knowledge and actually enjoyed the most, especially I like the financial aspects of solar installation being included in the conversation. Yeah, 100 percent agree, John. Thanks for the honest feedback on all the shows that you sent. And Brian's knowledge combined with Amos's every man approach was just was just brilliant. It was it was a fun listen for me. It was one of those where I started listening because it's our show and I need to and just kept listening because I was enjoying myself. So I hope and I know Brian intends to do more of these kinds of things. And I hope they're able to to make that happen. In deed reminder, if you have feedback on anything that we do on the show, anything we talk about, anything we might talk about in the future, do send it our way. We love your feedback feedback at daily tech news show dot com. Thank you to you, Justin, Robert Young for being with us today. What's new in your worlds? Two things, I went to Wyoming and I covered the primary between Harriet Hageman and Liz Cheney. You can find that in the feed now. There was some really fun conversations that I had with not only the state party, but also what are the candidates in that race? One of the other candidates that was receiving votes. And also because I know that there's a natural crossover here. Your boy, Justin Robert Young will be on C-Span this weekend on Washington Journal this Saturday morning. So buckle up and see and get ready for to see my smile. I see how it goes. You get a guest from C-Span on PX three. One back rubs the other. I mean, I didn't know how Washington works. Yeah, this is I mean, am I being subsumed into the DC elite? You be the judge when I'm on Washington Journal this Saturday on C-Span. You'd be the literal judge. That's amazing. Well, we're certainly happy to have you on this show, Justin, as much as you'll have us. Also, thanks for our brand new boss, Nathan. Nathan just started backing us on Patreon. So Nathan, you get a big old round of applause. Yeah, thank you, Nathan. And yesterday, I gave a little extra piece of news because we had a new patron. So this this just an Apple podcast, new charts for top paid shows. Trying to push those subscriptions. So they have charts for the for all the shows, charts for the paid shows. And apparently Amazon podcast top of the charts for page Amazon podcast. Amazon has podcasts. Yeah, Amazon like like like they have TV shows on Prime Video. They also. Oh, it's not just like something called the Amazon. No, no, no. Podcasts from Amazon that are produced. Got it. I was like Amazon is a podcast. Well, all right, we'll check that out. Speaking of patrons, stick around for the extended show Good Day Internet. We affectionately call it GDI. It rolls right after the show. Concludes. You can catch our show DTNS Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern. Twenty hundred UTC. That's live. Find out more at DailyTechNewShow.com slash live and we're back tomorrow with Len Peralta and Rob Dunwood. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.