 Coming up on DTNS, Blackberry phones will go away. Again, Google wants to pick your best photos, print them up and mail them to you, and how the fallout from the coronavirus might affect your ability to get tech stuff and services. This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, February 3rd, 2020 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. Also joining us today, Nate Langson, London-based tech journalist and host of the Tech's Message podcast. Nate, welcome. Thank you very much. I'm very pleased to be here once again. I forgot to send you a Daily Tech News show promo for Tech's Message this weekend. So in recompense, I made you stay up late and be on our show. Thank you for doing that. It's always my pleasure. Always, Tom. We're going to talk a little bit about one of Nate's articles related to the coronavirus that he wrote up this past weekend and some updates to it as well. Also, we were just talking about playlists and what your music playlist say about you on Good Day Internet. Become a member and get that wider conversation at Patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Apple announced it'll be providing special coverage of the 2020 presidential election in the United States starting today with news and analysis from sources including ABC, CBS, CNN, 538, Fox News, NBC News, ProPublica, Reuters, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Time, USA Today, and others. I've never heard of them. West Virginia Governor Jim Justice plans to sign a bill this week that would require all counties in the state to provide an online ballot marking device for voters with physical disabilities. It's kind of unclear what this app will be. Would it be just to print it at home? Would it be to send your votes over the internet? West Virginia currently uses the smartphone app VOTES for military and overseas voters. Secretary of State Mac Warner said he is waiting on a security audit of the VOTES app before approving it for further use. Both Roku and Fox reached an agreement that lets Roku continue to offer seven Fox Sports channels on its platform just in time for the Super Bowl. Already ended, but they reached an agreement before that happened. Last week, Roku had announced that its agreement with Fox had expired and was being forced to remove the apps to which Fox said not true. MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory issued a paper describing a cheap antenna and transmitter called R Focus meant to be used to turn walls or any surface really into a signal booster for things like Wi-Fi. The R Focus smart surface runs a few cents per antenna and can either reflect the signal or pass it through if you want to amplify it or you want to extend it. It's meant to help boost signals in homes and warehouses to help low-power IoT devices achieve more range. All right, let's start by talking about Blackberry, Sarah. Oh, let's. TCL announced that it will no longer have the rights to design or manufacture Blackberry branded phones after August 31st of this year, 2020. Existing phones will still be supported and the Blackberry brand is also currently licensed to the OEMBB, Mara Puti in Indonesia, and Optimus Infocom India Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh. TCL has rights to the brand in all other regions since December of 2016. At CES this year, TCL announced a line of phones under its own branding. Phones are a very small part of Blackberry's current business as it stands now, which includes Silence AI based security and ad hoc emergency communication systems, QNX, and Blackberry Enterprise Server, among others. Yeah, so this isn't like it was when Blackberry first was having problems where the phones were the biggest part of what was then called RIM. They have transitioned into an enterprise business and a security-based operating system business, an embedded systems business with QNX. Licensing out the Blackberry names to TCL was just another line item on their revenue income. And my guess is they weren't getting as much out of it as they thought it was worth and might shop it around. I mean, Nate, do you have any guesses on whether we'll see Blackberry phones elsewhere after this? I mean, the brand keeps coming back, well, brands, that is, keep coming back across the board. You look at what's happening with the Sega Genesis Mini, the NES Mini. We've seen Nokia make a comeback. We're seeing rumors of what Motorola is doing again and bringing exactly some of its brands back. So why not Blackberry? It's not like it wasn't a beloved name. Yeah, under TCL, it has less than 1% of the worldwide market. So it's not like it's been going gangbusters out there, which is probably part of this as well. Maybe it's just over. Maybe Blackberry is now an enterprise company and it doesn't need to have any phones with its brand name out there, no matter who makes the name. Yeah, it's the Yahoo Pipes of the smartphone world. Oh, man, Yahoo Pipes. Ray, gotta bring up Yahoo Pipes. I love Yahoo Pipes. Me too, Sarah, me too. I used to get GeoCities links to you through Yahoo Pipes on my Blackberry back in the day. Such a throwback in time. Google Photos is testing a monthly photo prints subscription program that will send you 10 automatically selected prints for $7.99 a month. The four by six prints are printed on matte white cardstock with an eight inch border, eighth inch border. Google Algorithms pick which photos to print from everything you've taken in the last 30 days because it's a monthly service. But you can choose to have them picked in one of three themes. There's mostly people in pets, not pests, mostly people in pets, mostly landscapes, and a little bit of everything, which is basically the catch all category. You can also edit the selections before they get printed each month. So you have a little control here. The service is currently invite only. If you open Google Photos and see a banner, you can sign up for it. Otherwise, there's no way to get into it. But this is for people who want this. If you just want to choose what gets printed, you can actually print them yourself for like 25 cents. It's actually cheaper. This is for people who think, oh, I would love it if it just decided what my best photos were and sent me copies of them. I love the idea of this in theory. In execution, I think, okay, well, if I get a bunch of photos, even if it kind of picks photos that I would have liked, you know, that that's the whole idea of the algorithm, right? Like mostly people in pets, okay, it's like me and friends and my pets and that sort of thing. Well, okay, I have a bunch of four by six photos that I need to put somewhere. There's a lot, kind of asked of me on the other side of it, that is, you know, do I put it in a photo album? Do I put it on the wall? Do I frame them? That's another added cost. And I don't think that this is a bad idea. I just think it would be, this would be a great idea for me in theory and then a tough sell and execution because I'd be like, now I have to put all these photos somewhere. They just end up in a box. I know, because I love this idea, but I know if I signed up for it, I would get these every month, look at them and go, that's cool and put them in a box with the rest of my photos. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny because and I'm, you know, some people are picture framers and some people aren't. I mean, I definitely am, but I've gotten to the point now where I'm like, what's the last picture that I had printed? Something that was taken digitally, right? That's in a cloud service somewhere that I liked enough to I want a physical copy. I want to frame it. I want to put it up somewhere where I look at it every day. It's been a while. Yeah. And it's still a really nice thing, but I wonder when I go through my actual old photos that all kind of stop in 2004, whether I should have printed more of these, but they're still there. I still have digital versions that can print them wherever I want. I mean, Nate, does this matter to you? I just got me thinking about what happens on my Apple Watch, which is I use Apple photos rather than Google photos. And every two or three weeks, it'll put it on this day sort of thing. And it is so frequently a photo of me and an ex-girlfriend. It's like, if this was to happen with pictures, my wife would probably be like, yeah, Nate, you seem to have had some photos of Poppy printed and sent to the house. Why? But if it took from the last 30 days, so you'd be safe from that. Right. Unless your life changed very dramatically in the last 30 days, which, you know, that's still going to happen every once in a while. I know what you mean, though, Nate. There are definitely, you know, the on this days where I'm like, 2012, what a year that was. And, you know, I'm not going to print out that photo. But I do like the idea of this. I just feel like without there being frames also bundled into this. And even then, you still have to find a place on your wall kind of thing. And I'm not trying to say people should because you can do that with photos. You can actually order them framed and have them sent to you. So if that's your thing, then you probably should just do that. Right. Yeah. I was really excited about this because I liked the idea of Google telling me which of my photos were worth it and then sending me printouts so I could look through them. But you're right. I don't know what I would do with it after that because I wouldn't bother to go around and make such a funny thing because back in the day, you know, the best photos, you want to put them up somewhere. Yeah. These are great photos. And now we're like, oh, it's on my phone. It's fine. I'll have to put it on my wall. Okay. Let's talk about driving. Digital artist Simon Weckert created a virtual traffic jam on Google Maps using a wagon filled with 99 smartphones. Little red wagon. Google confirmed to nine to five Google that this dense collection of phones showed Google Maps a high concentration of users moving slowly in a small area seemed to the platform that a bunch of people were in this space. Then it caused the artist, the road that the artist was on, to be marked in red saying, okay, we've got traffic jam here. Let's get let's reroute these people. And then routed other users around it to avoid the congestion. According to a Google spokesperson, quote, we've launched the ability to distinguish between cars and motorcycles in several countries, including India, Indonesia and Egypt, although we haven't quite cracked traveling by wagon. We appreciate seeing creative uses of Google Maps like this as it helps us make maps work better over time. Yeah, this was in Berlin, apparently. So Google Berlin office has a sense of humor, it seems like, to say like, yeah, you know, we hadn't thought of anyone bringing 99 smartphones in a wagon down the street. So our systems weren't prepared for handling that. I don't think this is a practical attack on Google Maps accuracy. Most people aren't going to bother to find 99 phones all running Google Maps and and put them in a wagon. But I suppose it is something that Google could use to try to help it refine like, okay, if someone's spoofing our system, how can we detect that? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know where Mr. Simon found all of those phones that actually had cell service to the point where this could be carried out. But assuming that Google could, if they were sort of like, something seems a little bit off depending on, you know, the traffic that normally would be in this region. So, you know, is there an accident? What's going on? If you see a bunch of pings from a specific point to the point where you're like, that doesn't seem right. These aren't cars. There's something else going on here. It will make the platform better over time. And I guess GPS isn't precise enough to be able to tell that these phones are all in exactly the same place, one little red wagon on a Berlin street. It just thinks like, oh, there's there's a lot of cars. 99 would probably be too many cars to fit in that road, though. Maybe that would be. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There you go. But yeah, it was an interesting little stunt. I found it amusing. I don't know that. I mean, I'm using the list. You're the one who's getting rerouted. Yeah, or really exciting if you're the one who doesn't believe in Google Maps and we're like, see, I've been telling you guys this road is empty. Apple updated its support page to now offer on site repair for devices through an Apple authorized service provider called Go Tech Services on site, meaning they'll come to your office or your home. Mac rumors reports that the service is available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston and Dallas. Booking an appointment starts on the Apple website, but then is routed through Go Tech Services website. And it's the only way you can get to that part of the Go Tech Services website is through the Apple website. It's unclear what repairs are available. Mac rumors was able to schedule an iPhone screen replacement, but not a battery swap or other device repairs like iMacs, Verge had the same experience. And of course, there is an onsite visit fee that may be charged when you book here an appointment. So it may cost a little more, as you might expect, than a regular service appointment into the Apple genius bar or something like that. But Nate, it seems a little disappointing that this starts with iPhone repairs, which are the easier thing to haul around. You think they'd want to start it with iMacs, which are kind of a pain if you need to bring them into a store. Well, that was going to be my first question was why iPhones? I mean, Apple, for one, put so much marketing effort behind being a green and sustainable company. And I would have thought that driving a van to an iPhone is far less green than driving 100 iPhones in a van to a repair center. So I don't really get that side of it. If it was an iMac, Mac Pro, that kind of thing, that makes a little more sense. It's a real pain to cart those things across town, I'm sure. But what I don't quite understand is this GoTek services. Why that name? Is that a company that already exists over there? I don't I'm not familiar with it. So it's such an un Apple name, isn't it? It's somebody, it's not an Apple company, though. So maybe Apple's like fine, you can you can be GoTek. It's an authorized service provider. I mean, there are several of them that Apple uses, at least in my area. But yeah, I mean, it's definitely a third party company. I'm with Unate when you really think about the the digital footprint type aspect of this, probably not the greenest. But I mean, who's going to complain when you're like, ah, I cracked my iPhone and somebody comes to your house and in an hour and fixes it. But again, like you said, Tom, this seems really limited. In fact, the last couple of times that I've had to go into the genius bar were for, excuse me, MacBook Pro situations doesn't seem like this is covered yet. But if it gets there, I will be on boards because that is a whole big old hassle. And you know, I actually recently went in to have them look at my Apple pencil because it's got a hairline fracture down the side. And I would feel extremely guilty calling somebody out in a van to come and look at my pencil saying, yeah, buy a new pencil. I mean, for someone who doesn't have easy access to transportation, maybe as homebound, I could see some advantages there. I'm not suggesting that that's why Apple is even doing this. But I'm just looking for, you know, the possible upsides to this. My guess is they're starting with iPhones because it's easier to carry around the equipment to repair an iPhone than it is to carry around all the equipment you might need to repair all potential Apple products. And this is a good place to start. Potentially, they would will widen this out if it proves successful. The rocket launch startup Skyrora reported its first successful stationary ground firings of its 3D printed rocket engines that used Ecosine, which is kerosene derived from waste plastic. Skyrora says it can create 600 kilograms or about 1300 pounds of Ecosine from 100 kilograms of plastic resulting in 1000 kilograms. 1000 kilograms. Thank you, Tom. A plastic resulting in 45% fewer emissions from then kerosene with the benefit of not having to be cryogenically frozen, making it easier to store for long periods of time. The rocket will eventually power the final stage of the 72 foot Skyrora XL launch vehicle designed to deliver multiple payloads to separate orbits ranging up to 500 kilometers. Sorry for the insta correction, but 1000 kilograms of plastic is way more impressive, I think. No, you're right. This is really interesting in lots of ways. It's a company that's not getting as much press as SpaceX, which when you got Elon Musk, you're going to get more press. And it's a company that is doing something more interesting with its fuel that is cheaper, at least to store, and more environmentally responsible in that it's taking plastic out of the system and causing fewer emissions. I'm curious, Nate, if you pay attention to rockets enough to really have an idea of whether you like this or not. I do pay huge attention to rockets. I have a giant space telescope in the other room, but it's mostly for rockets to places we'll never ever get to. I've recently, and it is, I'm afraid to say quite recently, I've become very aware of my contribution to waste plastic and it's really started to bug me quite a lot. So on one hand, this really appeals the being able to do something good with plastic. And just as a very recent example today, I was delivered half a cucumber from Amazon Prime Now that was wrapped in plastic, that was then wrapped in plastic. And I uttered a particular expletive when this came out of the bag because it just was like, it could have been the poster cucumber for the problem that we have with plastic. Why half a cucumber? Because, well, good question. I ordered two cucumbers and they sent me four half cucumber portions, each wrapped in plastic twice for my giant African land snails. So it was just so ridiculous, absolutely crazy. So yeah, turn it into fuel for a rocket and let's make good with it. Yeah, and more companies being able to do, I mean, what they're going to be able to do is put small satellites in low-earth orbit. They're not going to do all the things like going to Mars and stuff like that, but more companies doing this means more capacity, means it gets cheaper, means the ability to do more things. Obviously, we've talked about the need to make sure that those orbits are clear and we're not causing more space debris and that's become a problem as well. But it's good to see more companies involved in this. Yeah. Hey, folks, if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes, be sure to subscribe to DailyTechHeadlines.com. A Reuters source says Foxconn could see a big production impact. Big is a quote from Reuters here. If it's Chinese factories stay shut down for a second week due to the coronavirus. Lots of factories in China stayed closed after the Lunar New Year holiday because of the coronavirus. Foxconn halted almost all production and will stay halted until at least February 10th, depending on the location, on advice from the Chinese government. Foxconn has been using its factories in Vietnam, India and Mexico to fill in the gap, but the source was telling Reuters a halt beyond February 10th might disrupt shipments to customers like Apple. Apple won a Foxconn's biggest customers. However, Reuters also reports that not all the factories are staying closed in China. Huawei took advantage of a special exemption for critical industries to resume production of goods Monday in the southern city of Guangdong. That's also where Foxconn is shut down. Yangxi memory technologies in Wuhan, which is where the coronavirus outbreak originated, has not ceased production at all. They say they don't have any infections. They're being very careful, but they're still working. TSMC competitor SMIC has also not shut down and TSMC says it's going to start resuming its production February 10th. As a result of all this uncertainty, analyst Ming-Chi Guo has now revised his iPhone shipping estimate for Q1 down by 10% to 36 to 40 million units. Part of that is not selling as many iPhones in China right now because no one's out shopping and stores are closed, but also because of the delay in manufacturing that a lot of these companies are facing. Meanwhile, Airbnb is advising its hosts around the city of Wuhan that as a result of the coronavirus outbreak in the area, it should activate its extenuating circumstances policy to let hosts and guests cancel reservations without charge, warning them to pay close attention to the epidemic, but letting hosts decide whether to accept guests. Nate, this brings us to your Bloomberg story from Friday, where you tested this to find out, hey, could I, as a UK citizen, book a room in Wuhan? Yeah, and the funny thing is that wasn't even the story about Airbnb that I was really pursuing at the time. At Bloomberg, when an executive editor calls up and says, what is our angle on a global epidemic, you have to think very quickly about, okay, what conversations have I had with people recently that may result in a story that we should be chasing up. And I started following up something related to Airbnb, but wasn't related to being able to book. And I just thought as part of the reporting process, I should at least see what Airbnb's app and what advice was being given out to travelers. And I got as far as being able to confirm a booking and thought, this is really quite strange. It's not even been mentioned that there's a health outbreak. It's not been mentioned that there are travel restrictions. There's been no advice given to me at all. So I went through the entire booking process, paid credit card was was billed, and got all my confirmations through without a single word. And I would look to some other hotel chain websites, I looked at a variety of other places. And all the ones, the other ones that I looked at, except for booking.com had had warnings, you know, either these hotels are closed, the Hilton hotels in Wuhan both had said they weren't accepting bookings until at least mid February. So Airbnb to me just looked like it wasn't either bothering or to make this clear, or it was but not to anyone outside of China who could still inexplicably book accommodation. And I ended up getting into a little conversation with the hosts that I otherwise would have been staying with because I booked with them, told them I was a journalist, of course, and what I was doing via Google Translate, which was a very interesting process. And they said the reason for staying open was because there are a lot of stranded people in Wuhan that are not able to leave. And they are doing it sort of as a bit of a public service to stay. And I thought, well, that's fantastic. That's great. I have no sort of moral issue with anyone doing that. What I had a problem with was the fact that I could sit in a London office on a UK IP address and go through the whole process book even be offered promotions on the cost of the booking without even a line that said, hey, heads up, you might die, you might contract a virus, you might just not be able to play and get in. And I thought that was pretty bad. So yeah, so that's sort of the crux of the story. And what I did find most humbling, if you like, is that over the weekend, when I did the same checks again, and I know Airbnb had been aware of my story, I saw that they have now added in warnings when you search for places to stay in Wuhan. So I can't take full credit for this, but it was certainly a coincidence if it was something else. Yeah, I did a search this morning just, okay, if I wanted to go there tomorrow and stay for a week, two adults kind of thing, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of listings. The banner up top was pretty prevalent. But again, I was kind of looking for it at this point. But if it had not been there before, I think that makes a big difference. And I think it's the company to be like, listen, there's a real health crisis going on here. And if you're traveling here for whatever reason, and again, a platform like Airbnb who's just connecting two parties together, that is on them to at least acknowledge this. Yeah, and that was the difference because the banner just wasn't there for days while this was being declared an emergency. And then it was eventually, which is good. So it's good resolution, but a bit of a bit of a delay to get it there. I was thinking about this too. And I'm not excusing Airbnb when I say this, I'm trying to think, how does this happen? My guess is somebody thinks, well, you can't even fly there from most places right now. Certainly, every news agency is talking about this. And if Airbnb is keeping open to help people in Wuhan who are stuck without a place, they might just assume that anybody who went there would be going there for that reason. That doesn't mean they shouldn't have been there. I also wonder if maybe the Hilton's and other hotels were being used by the government as housing for people, and therefore we're forced to say we're not taking bookings right now because those rooms are now reserved for other purposes, for emergency personnel, for construction workers as they're building hospitals and that sort of thing. So I was just trying to come up with possible reasons why this would happen. But in the end, I think Airbnb seems to have agreed, yes, it should have had that warning up there for people. Yeah, definitely. And the final thing that I would say on this is that if you look at it the other way around and imagine somebody had booked a place in Airbnb, managed to get in, contracted the virus and died. What the backlash would have been when someone said, well, this was booked through Airbnb and nobody even mentioned it. You know, that would be a scandal that could seriously, potentially rock elements of the business. Obviously, that didn't happen. And I don't suspect it would have been easy for it to happen. But technically, it could have. So I was glad to see that at least over the weekend, they stepped up and changed it. Well, stories that you're interested in, we would love for you to submit to our subreddit. You can submit stories and also vote on others at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. You can also join in the conversation in our Discord, lively as ever. You can join by linking to a Patreon account at patreon.com slash DTNS. All right, let's check in with Chris Christensen, the amateur traveler who wants to pass along a possibly good universal power supply option for your next trip. This is Chris Christensen from amateur traveler with another tech in travel minute. I've got a gadget for you this week. And this is not one that I have tried, but it's recommended by a friend and fellow travel podcaster, Mark Peacock of the Travel Commons podcast recommends the Mojix Bagel universal travel power strip. This one looks rather odd. It is a round power strip. You plug things into the outside and in the hole in the middle of this bagel looking device, there's a universal plug that can plug into different power in different countries. And so it gives you two things. And once it gives you that power strip that lets you plug in all your devices while you're traveling, but also lets you adapt to the different plug designs in different countries and different currents seems like a very useful device to have on your travels. And I'm Chris Christensen from amateur traveler. That is nifty. And we're looking at the Amazon page right now, 49 bucks. So, you know, not super cheap, but I don't know, I find that I find that appealing. The all in one aspect. Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's check out the mailbag. Oh, let's do it. Jonathan writes in and says, I just saw my first Bitmoji TV episode this morning talking about Snapchat. Jonathan says, wasn't a drastic difference from Bitmoji stories, which I've been following for a while on Snapchat. I did like it though. It continues to be a good balance of novelty and levity. I think it'll continue to gain steam as the masses tap through short, silly plots, starring our favorite social media stars ourselves. Keep up the great work. Yeah, I actually watched mine while driving around with my niece and her dad this weekend. We were there for a birthday, not her birthday, but we were there for her mom's birthday actually. And my niece looked at it was more interested in playing with my baseball hat than watching it. But I found it mildly amusing. And it certainly was a kick to see my own Bitmoji and my friend Veronica's Bitmoji in there, you know, being zombie presidents and hanging around with Randy Jackson on reality shows. It was clever. I could not get. I don't know. It has not rolled out to my version of Snapchat yet, which was a little bit disappointing because I would have liked to weigh in. But I don't know. Yeah, I'll keep looking. You have to go find it and subscribe. I think that may be one of the problems. I mean, I tried pretty hard. And you couldn't find it. Yeah, couldn't find it, you know, under the discoverer, which I found lots of other interesting snap things. But I went to a tech crunch article and clicked on a link that took me to the subscribe page from my phone. So I don't know how else you find it. That's a very good point. Hey, shout out to patrons at our master and grandmaster levels. Maybe you snap. Maybe you don't, including Juan de Hernandez, Jonathan Price and Michael Eakins. Also, thanks to Nate Langston for being with us today. Nate, it's been too long. Where do people keep up with the rest of your work? Well, I would be remiss for not saying bloomberg.com, which is where I am a technology editor. So all of my stuff goes there. So please do check that out. And my story as well is on bloomberg.com. But I also do my podcast, which I'm sure regulars of this show have heard the various promotions over the last few years for, which you can find at uktechshow.com. We have new Patreon reward merchandise as well. Celebrate six years of DTNS with Len Peralta, created art on a mug or a poster or a t-shirt even or a sticker. All depends on what level you're at. You just have to stick for three months and then it's shipped to you as long as you tell us what your address is. Go to patreon.com slash DTNS slash merch. Our email address is feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. We're also live Monday through Friday. That's 4 30 p.m. Eastern 2130 UTC. You can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. Back tomorrow with Patrick Beja. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com.