 Coming up on DTNS, Instagram unveils new algorithmic secrets. The feds bust criminals using an app that the feds made and E3 looms on the horizon, what to expect? This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, June 8th, 2021. From Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. In lovely Cleveland, Ohio, I'm Rich Drafalino. I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. And joining us today, Trisha Hershberger, TV host and prolific streamer, hello, Trisha. Hello, everybody. I like the prolific in front of streamer. I've been working really hard to stream more, so I appreciate that, Sarah. Yeah, I see you're streaming all the time. We're so glad to have you on the show today. Got a lot of news before the show. We were talking about high school and how it is a complex place to navigate when you're young and impressionable and how things change between freshman and senior year. If you want a wider conversation on our expanded show, Good Day Internet, you never know what you're gonna get on Good Day Internet either, but you can know by becoming a member at patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. All right. Well, Apple's Mac shipments in the first quarter experienced a year on your growth of 35.7% according to channel estimates. Sounds great. However, Apple's market share of the computer market fell from 25% in Q1 2020 to 19.5% in the same quarter this year, falling from first to second place with HP leading all vendors in the US with over 7 million devices shipped followed by Lenovo and Samsung reporting growth of 93 and 116% respectively. Google announced in a blog post that starting in September it'll make five search provider options visible on almost all Android devices when people are setting them up and also make participation free for eligible search providers which will be displayed in random order so that Google won't always show up first. The European Commission said the tweaks were positive following its 2018 order that Google offer more choice to rivals. Google's Stadia Game Streaming Service will launch on Chromecast with Google TV June 23rd along with a number of Android TV devices such as Nvidia's Shield TV. Unsupported device owners can opt into experimental support to play Stadia. All devices need a compatible Bluetooth controller or Google's own Stadia controller to play. Bitcoin's price fell almost 11% after a US government task force recovered most of the ransom paid to Darkside, the cyber criminal gang that launched a cyber attack on colonial pipeline. FBI investigators say they were able to access the private key of one of the hackers, Bitcoin wallets. And the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency or CESA has launched a vulnerability disclosure program allowing ethical hackers to report security flaws to federal agencies. The platform will allow civilian federal agencies to receive triage and fix security vulnerabilities and will also help CESA share information about security flaws between other agencies. All right, let's talk a little bit about some security flaws on the side of a cyber criminal operation. So the Australian federal police and the US FBI announced that a recent three-year joint sting operation dubbed Operation Ironside led to the arrest of more than 800 suspects in organized crime. All over the world. The authorities used the encrypted device network, an app called Anom, that's Anom with a zero, only available on customized phones that exclusively use the app as their only communication platform. So it's a phone, it's a burner phone, you're only doing one thing with it. There's no other information on this phone. Now this let authorities read up to 25 million messages in real time because the authorities were the ones behind it. Officials reportedly took control of Anom back in 2018 after access to the network was offered by someone who was a convicted criminal as part of a plea bargain for their lighter sentence. So it existed, Feds took control of it a few years ago and were running the whole thing. Now a key to distributing the app was Haqqan Ayik, identified as a key influencer by undercover agents. Those undercover agents, one of them or two of them, anyway, gave him access to a handset with the app. He did not know the Feds were behind Anom. Ayik then recommended the app to other criminal associates. Word gets around, people think this is a great network. They were reportedly more than 12,000 encrypted devices circulating on the black market using the Anom app to communicate which required a code from an existing user to get onto the service, kind of creates exclusivity, element of trust. You think you're kind of getting into a cool club. 300 criminal syndicates across 100 countries were reportedly using the app before authorities moved in. In the sting law enforcement seized three tons of drugs, acted on 20 threats to kill, and seized millions in cash and other assets. This was a big sting operation. Yeah, to sit on that for quite a time. And what's interesting, there's a couple interesting parts to this story. One is that we've seen a lot of calls from governments all over the world to kind of, hey, we need encryption backdoors. We need to be able to access these chat apps. I guess one way around that is to surreptitiously run your own and then seed it to criminal organizations to kind of get access to that. So that end of itself is interesting. The other thing though is kind of almost the gamification elements that helped to spread this in that, these were single use kind of burner phone devices that could only use this app, right? They weren't calling, they weren't texting, they were just using this app for communication, but it has like this clubhouse kind of invite code kind of feel to it, Sarah, like you were saying, that I think the pull of that works for apps to make you feel like, hey, I gotta be in on this. And I have to imagine, yes, it also was good for limiting the circle of people that could possibly communicate with you on this theoretically, if you're a criminal that's trying to stay discreet. But I have to imagine that kind of invitation basis had also some allure in and of itself as well. Yeah, I mean, clearly the network existed on some level before authorities quote, took it over, but to have 12,000 encrypted devices and many of those devices could kind of be traced back to one person, assuming kind of underground word of mouth stuff is, I mean, that's great uptake on an app. It doesn't even matter what you're using to communicate what you're using it to communicate for, but assuming that you say this is super, it's super safe, no one knows about this. Look, the phone doesn't even do anything else, this is it. That is pretty, that's some scale. Tricia, what do you make of this? I think that it just kind of goes to show for me how much the general population and how many of us take our privacy and security on our tech for granted. Like I'm sure that a lot of these people thought, oh, this is an invite only app on my burner phone that everybody that does what I do uses and trusts, so I'm good, right? And not really researching or knowing or even if there was a way to research who owned it, who was behind it, that kind of stuff. And I mean, I don't know, I think really quite brilliant on the part of the FBI to use technology in that way. And like you guys said, to sit on it for so long so that it wasn't just getting the early adopters of this app, it was waiting until it was a very large user base and then running with it. All right, well, yesterday's show was all about WWDC, that's Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, but it is a multi-day affair and there are always a few interesting tidbits that don't make it onto the keynote stage. So we thought we'd corralled some of these and let's kind of run through them here. First off, one of the big ones, iOS 15 lets the find my network located in iPhone, even when the device is nominally turned off when you select it like the power off option and the screen goes dead. A powered off iPhone stays in a low power state on iOS 15 and acts like an air tag using that same kind of radio that an air tag would and that low power draw. The setting can be turned off if you really want to power off your phone fully and you do get a warning notification when your phone goes into this low power state that it's going to be, at least for the first time that you're going to be getting it so you won't be surprised that your phone is trackable on the find my network. Apple gives you plenty of disclosure there, it seems like. Apple will also offer users the ability to stay on iOS 14. Even after iOS 15 ships in the fall and will still receive full security updates and bug fixes, previously only devices that couldn't upgrade to the latest iOS versions would get security updates. Sarah, I know this is a one that, I know a lot of people will probably be interested in. There's always people that say, oh, I don't want to upgrade to the latest version of iOS because they're worried about degraded performance or something like that. Letting people stay on there without sacrificing security seems like a big move to me. I have very on Apple too. It's usually Apple who says, listen, if your phone physically can't keep up, we'll give you some security updates. But Apple's saying, no, it's totally up to you. Basically, iOS 14 for the foreseeable future, still supported. You can chug right along if for whatever reason you're not keen on 15. I'm more interested in the find my network being able to find a phone after it is supposedly off. I think speaking of criminal activity, and I know it's only gonna give you so many hours of still being trackable because a battery will completely shut down after some time, but that in between period, if it were me, it's been a while since I've lost a phone, thank goodness, knock on wood everybody, but if I were to, I'm figuring that out within a few hours. So that's a great window to have. It's like, oh, where'd it go? I really need to know where that is. Does someone have it? Is it traveling somewhere? Or did I just leave it somewhere? And I mean, I'm not always the best about keeping my phone on full power either. So I love this. I hope I don't need it, but when I do, I'm glad to have it. Yeah, it's an interesting way. I wonder if someone will complain that, or if we'll hear criticism that, oh, this is using up my battery and Apple's taking away my battery, something like that. But some other tidbits out of WWDC, Apple's private relay that is included with the new iCloud Plus service will not be available in China, Belarus, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda, or the Philippines. China obviously is the big name there. There were a few China specific mentions in terms of Chinese language support for auto translation and that kind of stuff. So that's obviously a key market for Apple. A billion users tend to do that. Not necessarily surprising to see Apple's playing ball with China in that regard. Next up, Mac OS 12, Monterey, and iPad OS 15 will also add a low power mode, similar to the one that's offered on iOS, it will reduce screen brightness and reduce system clock speeds. Usually when you unplug a Mac, it actually will still run at full speed. So that's kind of new for that. And then TVOS will let users sign into TVOS apps using their iPhone and iPad, using Face ID or Touch ID, so you don't have to kind of clunkily add in or authenticate through another means. You can just use that already on there. Sarah, are you excited to use your face to get some TV apps unlocked? I guess. I tend to use the same TVOS apps over and over. But yeah, I mean, this is, I can see this being super helpful in certain situations. Tricia, I'm curious, did you follow WWDC much yesterday and did anything jump out at you if so? I am all Android and PC all the time. So I normally only kind of tangentially follow what's going on with WWDC. And I'll admit it, I am sometimes that person that just makes the snide remark about how Android's had it for years or something like that. Well, yeah, which is, yeah. I generally stay away from it. But I will say as far as being able to find your phone, I do use Android's version of that all the time. I constantly, I have several Android phones at any given time because I like playing around with, well, this phone's better for the UI, but this phone's better for the camera, you know? And I will misplace or set down and forget where I lost stuff all the time. So being able to use like my smart home speakers to locate my phone wherever it is is great. And I'm sure this is probably the way it was for Apple before they introduced this new low battery mode. But it'll just tell you the last GPS location of your phone for Android, if you're looking for it, like whenever it shut down, usually is enough for me to find it similar in my house. But I can see how that would absolutely be useful. So yay for the iFriends that are getting that new thing. Yeah, I mean, all kidding aside, I think these events, these keynotes, these announcements are good for everybody, especially me. Cause yeah, I have an iPhone. So anything that's iOS related, I might not use the feature, but I'm curious to know if it exists. And if it's new, I'm like, oh yay, new. And it's nice to have the Android community and others, you know, depending on what kind of devices we're talking about say, well, we've had this for a while and not even in a snarky way, just, yeah, this is a great feature. You're going to love it because... You're going to like it. Yeah, Apple has realized that it is helpful for other, for other OSes and that's why you have it. Yeah, absolutely. More tech for more people. There you go. Well, Instagram recently announced that it will change how it filters stories content, which previously preferenced original content over reshared posts. Instagram was basically saying, yeah, we want you to share your own stuff. So that stuff is going to get more attention. Instagram will now shift its algorithm to weigh both types of content equally. Instagram previously said that the ranking wasn't meant to suppress stories about particular topics or points of view. And that's something that it was getting called up for doing. Said, no, it's not happening, but weighing original content more heavily was resulting in some posts not getting the reach that users expected. Instagram head Adam Massari published the first of what are going to be several blog posts, kind of unveiling the curtain behind details about how algorithms work. Instagram's feed started out chronologically. You might remember in early 2016, you were just looking at what was most recent, but the company found that users weren't seeing about 70% of all posts in their feeds, including about a half of those from close connections. If you're posting more often and that sort of, it's chronological, we all know how that works. Massari now says that Instagram's content stream, its feed, explore, reels, all use their own algorithm with different parts of the app ranking content differently based on how people use that section. Content in the main feed and stories use signals about how many likes that a post has when it was posted, how many times you've interacted with the poster, how many posts a user has liked, previous interaction history with another user. All that stuff, it seems kind of obvious, but these are all factors that go into a single algorithm that works differently than another algorithm in another part of Instagram. The company predicts how likely a user is to spend a few seconds on a post or comment on it or like it or save it or tap on the profile photo. All that stuff comes into play because it all indicates interest. With content put higher in the feed accordingly. There's some other overall rules like if there are too many consecutive posts from the same user, some of those might get filtered out because then it doesn't seem like they're spamming you type thing. Explore content uses many of the same signals to match users who have liked similar content to use for post recommendations from accounts that you don't follow. So if you ever wonder why was this recommended to me, doesn't seem obvious, Instagram has its reasons. Reels use similar signals to serve up reels that you'll watch all the way through. Maseri also said the company doesn't practice what people sometimes accuse it of doing and that shadow banning, meaning my posts are getting suppressed for some unknown reason. He explained, when users see fewer likes and comments, quote, the truth is most of your followers won't see what you share because most look at less than half of their feeds. Now, Trisha, I know you're well aware of how algorithms work because we're all content creators and we have to navigate different platforms accordingly, does any of this surprise you on Instagram side? I mean, the surprising part to me is that apparently they're gonna start detailing for us what the algorithm looks like, that's cool. And I'm looking forward to seeing those blog posts. And I mean, I think we all, like you said, Sarah, generally had an idea that different parts of Instagram operate under different algorithms. I had known for a long time that shadow banning was not a real thing, even though people exist that it is, I think really what it is, especially for infeed, and it looks like from this news as well, also stories, that it's based on your engagement within that early set. So like for me, I look at the first hour, the first two hours that a post has been live. If it's engaging really well, you know that more of your followers are going to see that post. If it doesn't engage very well within the first hour or two, most of the people who follow your content might not even see it. So it kind of cannibalizes itself. So it's just, for me, the way I've always thought of it is really pay attention in the first couple hours and make sure that if there isn't a lot of conversation going on in the comments section to try to get in there and talk to people, respond to comments, like work that comment section so that it does get a little bit more interaction and then therefore Instagram's algorithm might show it to more people. But I mean, they're certainly right. You know, if only half of your followers or less are seeing the post because of the engagement that it received early on or however the algorithm is specifically prioritizing that content, if it's reels, it's watch time, et cetera, then you can't expect it to have crazy engagement because most of your people aren't even seeing it. But I do think that not only with Instagram but any content creation platforms, when the algorithms are constantly changing and being refined as content creators, you need to try to keep up with it as best you can. So anytime that a platform comes forward like this and says, hey, we're gonna lay it all out for you, to me, I'm like, hey, hats off. Thank you for that. Make it transparent. Please communicate with your creators because I feel like that helps the entire ecosystem. So I'm excited to see this news. Yeah, that's a really good point. I always joke that I'm terrible at self-promotion but really I'm just afraid of it because there's so many things I don't really understand, you know? And if you try a certain technique and you're like, wow, is it because people don't like me or because I'm just not good at the game, so much of the time it's because it's not that people aren't trying, they just don't really understand. So yeah, it's a really good point about letting folks in a little bit more, especially when you do use social media, not just for a cool photo that doesn't necessarily mean anything, but to wrote a new book. Maybe you're letting the world know about that or you made a cool video or there's something else that you're actually promoting. You had a really great episode of Daily Tech News Show and you want everyone to know about it. Exactly, yes. And you know, I like to think we do more days than not. If you need just the headlines, sometimes you don't have time for a whole DTNS episode and that is cool with us. I mean, we'd love to have you here, but also check out our related show Daily Tech Headlines, all the essential tech news in about five minutes at DailyTechHeadlines.com. All right, well E3 2021 starts this weekend, June 12th. Thankfully, Trish is here to give us a preview of what to expect. We've got scheduled press conferences from Microsoft Bethesda, Ubisoft, Nintendo and more rumors have been swirling about new consoles, new spin-offs, new installments of classic game franchises. So Trisha, what should we expect from this digital showcase? What should we expect is a very good question, Richard, because a lot of it's still up in the air. We know that we're having conferences all four days between June 12th and 15th, but on Monday, I don't think any of them have even announced their timing yet. Technically, E3 Media Week started yesterday, but from what I can see from everyone who did register as media, which there's still a conversation to be had there of, if we can all watch these conferences, what is the benefit to registering as media? There's not really much on E3 Media Week to get people excited, at least right now. So this year is going to look very different, I think. But in terms of rumors and expectations that I think a lot of fans have going into the event, myself included, I mean, we're going to see Microsoft Bethesda's joint conference. So now that Bethesda is part of Microsoft Studios, that's very exciting in terms of, is there going to be a new Elder Scroll announced? If it is, is it going to be a Game Pass exclusive? Same thing with Starfield, but really out of the Microsoft Bethesda conference for me, Microsoft has been making studio acquisitions like wildfire over the past couple of years, constantly getting kind of knocked for saying, hey, PlayStation has all these great exclusives, Microsoft, what are you doing? And so I feel like Microsoft has been playing a bit of the slow game, and this E3 is where we might see all of that pan out. Now that they've had these new studios for a while, what new titles and IPs can we look forward to? So that's what I'm hoping for out of that. Plus, of course, also out of Microsoft, anyone looking for Halo Infinite News, we, you know, might get some more updates on that that maybe go over a little better Oh, maybe. But then we know PlayStation's not taking part in the event this year, which is not a surprise after last year. And Nintendo, people are talking about is this where we're finally going to see the Switch Pro that's been so heavily rumored over the past year. I'm still hoping they call it the Super Nintendo Switch and not the Switch Pro, but that would be money, but I don't think it's going to happen. Let's see, also out of Nintendo, we haven't heard anything about Breath of the Wild 2 in a very long time. We'd love to see some announcements about Breath of the Wild 2. Now Nintendo has come out and said their E3 press conference is going to be software focused. So that might not be where we hear anything about whatever the next iteration of Switch hardware is, but you can keep your fingers crossed. I think Smash Bros folks always have something to look forward to out of E3, so we'll see what happens there. And as far as kind of other titles, like I said, there are a lot of other conferences announced. Some already have dates and times. Some have dates, but not times. Some are still to be determined when they're going to happen throughout that week. But a lot of us are looking forward to Elden Ring announcements. We'd love to see something on Elden Ring. We'd love to see more on Final Fantasy VII Remake Part II. There's rumors that the studio that made XCOM is partnering up with Marvel. So will we have some kind of Marvel XCOM game? So I do think even though a lot of us have virtual conference fatigue and a little bit of burnout there, I do think there's some exciting announcements to look forward to. And of course, not just E3, which is June 12th through the 15th, but June 10th, the Thursday prior, kicks off Summer Games Fest, which is Jeff Keely's event that will include the press conferences from E3 and continue all the way through EA Play, which is happening in July. So I really think we're going to have a summer full of video game announcements. And whether it's E3 specific, or this is kind of the last year we see a formal E3, I do think there's something to be excited about, despite, like I said, the virtual conference fatigue. Is there anything in particular that either of you are looking forward to out of the event and out of the week? I mean, personally, I'm a hardware junkie, so that Switch Pro, that's Super Nintendo, if they come out with that, I fear that goes the way of the Nintendo Revolution. But it's like too good to possibly exist. But getting a bigger OLED screen, to just kind of upping that hardware. I wonder if Nintendo is, they're kind of playing with the lead right now, so they don't need to rush into that. Also, there's a giant worldwide chip shortage that makes good will to the PlayStation 5 kind of up in the air at any given time. So I wonder if they're just slow rolling that, and that's why they're going to be software focused. But yeah, that's what excites me. Although, anytime you're getting any kind of like potential borderlands spin-offs I've been hearing about could be pretty cool. So, but yeah, give me some hardware. Yeah, Sarah? I mean, but well, before I actually wanted to ask you, Tricia, because you mentioned, well, or this could be like kind of the last E3 as we know it. And E3 has been, you know, pandemic year aside, because that was just a weird year for everybody. But E3 has changed a lot. And companies have pulled back on E3 announcements, preferring in some cases to just kind of make their own on their own schedule. Do you see E3 becoming its former, you know, the lion of gaming news, including hardware that people used to think of it as? Oh, that's such a hard, like, predict the future type of question. I think that if we can, once we can have in-person events again, if ESA does decide to go through with an in-person E3, I do think there's a magic and a charm to that and having lots of people gather in the same place to celebrate a specific passion. Now, does that mean that whatever this, you know, video game E3, whatever it becomes, it feels more like a PAX or a GDC in terms of like a fan community event as opposed to a big news event, maybe. Or maybe E3, as we know it, kind of just goes by the wayside and becomes a dinosaur. And we see more of like a summer of gaming type event like IGN or Jeff Keely Summer Games Fest are doing where each individual company has their time and has their moment and has their space to make their specific shows. I mean, we've seen PlayStation just did their Forbidden West one. What was that like a week or two ago? They just focused on Horizon Forbidden West gameplay and Nintendo's been doing Nintendo Directs with a lot of success for a while now. So maybe that is the future, but to me there is something magical about having everyone gathered in one place for a few days to celebrate everything video games and get all that in one time. And is it an absolutely wild time if you work in the games industry 100% but it sure is fun. Well, one thing that hasn't been much of an E3 rumor is the upcoming Playdate handheld console. During its Playdate update event, Panic announced that pre-orders for the Playdate would start sometime in July pretty soon. The company already announced that the pre-order price would be a little bit higher at $180 but coming with a season of 24 games to delivered each week rather than the originally promised 12. Some people are gonna be pretty excited about that. You got twice as many. Panic also announced a Playdate stereo dock accessory which can charge the console, offers a better speaker, has a pen holder, same retro 80s look of the Playdate with development of a pool suite FM music app underway. There'll also be a free browser-based development kit called Playdate pulp and the initial slate of games titles include work by the indie developers Bennett Foddy and Lucas Pope and the indie publisher Serenity Forge. What do we think, 180 too high or just right? I mean, for this, it's kind of a niche device and certainly they had no problems selling out their original pre-pre whatever kicks fundraising kickstarter thing that they had going on. They instantly sold that out last year or two years ago now. This, there's a niche market that's super excited for this kind of, it's not retro gaming, but it's like that black and white kind of Game Boy aesthetic, but modern games made by modern developers. There's a lot of cool capabilities in the Playdate. No one's had one in hand yet, but it seems like a good slate of games and kind of making it a little bit of a lifestyle product with that dock. I don't think, I think it's a pretty smart decision. Well, if you're planning a road trip this summer, amateur traveler Chris Christensen has a handy tip to make your whole drive a lot smoother. This is Chris Christensen from amateur traveler with another tech in travel minute. For those of you who decided you will be willing to leave the house this year to go on vacation, road tripping is very popular. Road trips to national parks are particularly popular and you may need a reservation, so check that out and also book your rental car in advance. But a great resource for planning your road trip is roadtrippers.com or the Road Trippers app. You can start by saying where you're going from and where you're going to. It will create an itinerary for you and then you can add on to that if you see something on their maps that is nearby and State Park, a museum or point of interest or whatever. And then you can also share that with friends who you might be going with to debate ahead of time where you may want to stop. That app again is Road Trippers and I'm Chris Christensen from amateur traveler. Thank you, Chris. If you have feedback on how apps have helped your travel or your planned travel for later this year, if you are being adventurous, do send us those suggestions. Feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. Questions, comments, we'll take it all. We'd like to shout out patrons at our master and grandmaster levels. Today they include Eric Holm, Carmine Bailey and Matthew Stevens. We'd also like to give an extra special thanks to Reed Fishler, one of our top lifetime supporters here on DTNS. Thank you for all the years of support, Reed. Yes, thank you, Reed. And thank you to Trisha Hershberger for being on the show. I know I'm super pumped for E3 now. So awesome to talk to you about that and all the tech news of the day. Where can people find more of you if they want to watch some quality streams? If people want to find more of me, I mostly stream here on Twitch, Twitch.tv slash Trisha Hershberger. YouTube is the same slash Trisha Hershberger. And then on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, I'm at that girl Trish with no I in the girl. So just that GRL Trish. And yeah, I'll be streaming later this afternoon. I'll do an indie games showcase. So if you like indie games, stop on by. And thank you guys so much for having me today. This was fun. Thanks for being here. Don't miss Trisha's stream. We're live Monday through Friday on this show. It's a stream as well. 4.30 PM Eastern, 2030 UTC. And you can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. We're back at it tomorrow with Scott Johnson. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Bob, I hope you have enjoyed this program. Hehehehe.