 Coming up on D T N S Netflix is definitely getting into gaming, but that may not mean what you think it means plus reading the brain to let a paralyzed person talk and T S M C sees the light at the end of the chip shortage and it was inside themselves. This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, the 15th of July 2021 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from Studio Redwood. I'm Sarah Lane from Austin, Texas. I'm Justin Robert Young. Roger saying the shows produce. We were just talking about Sarah's no good, very bad beach trip and the importance of batteries in your key fob. If you want to get that conversation, become a patron and get good day internet, patreon.com slash D T N S. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Valve announced it's handheld seven inch gaming console called the Steam Deck comes with Steam OS Linux, but Valve says you can run third party software and operating systems on it so you could install Windows, for example. It has a custom AMD GPU with eight R DNA to CPUs and up to 1.6 teraflops of performance. Facebook announced that it'll start offering Facebook pay outside its own platform first available to Shopify vendors starting in August. Like Apple Pay and Google Pay Facebook Pay lets users enter their payment information once for convenient payments later. Facebook previously announced it won't take a cut of revenue until 2023 to get creators to use Facebook Pay versus Apple Pay or Google Pay. During a demonstration of how businesses can sign up for Windows 365, a screenshot showed a price of $31 per month per user for two virtual CPUs and four gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage. That's third up from the bottom in Windows 365 12 announced configuration, so you get an idea on price, although Microsoft isn't officially announcing pricing until launch on August 2. By comparison, Amazon WorkSpaces offers two CPUs, four gigs of RAM and 50 gigs of storage, $35, and Citrix offers its cloud PCs at around $30 a month depending on contract and number of users. WhatsApp launched a private beta for multiple device support, letting a web version of WhatsApp securely sync directly to other users no phone needed. While a web version of WhatsApp had been available, it still required a connection to a smartphone to handle encryption keys, but not anymore. Google added new features to the third beta release of Android 12, including using the front-facing camera and face detection to determine device rotation. The beta also supports creating scrolling screenshots for longer items like web pages. Alright, let's talk about Netflix and gaming. We covered this a little while ago when we thought it would happen, and now we got some confirmation. Netflix announced. It has hired Mike Verdu. It's going to be the position of vice president of game development. So it's not ambiguous. We know what Mike's doing at Netflix. He's developing games. Verdu previously was VP of content for Facebook Reality Labs where he oversaw Oculus Studios, acquired a lot of developers there. And before that, he was VP of mobile at EA and president of studios and COO at Zynga. So a lot of mobile gaming experience in his background. Bloomberg sources say Netflix may add games as a category inside Netflix. So we're not talking about licensing somebody to make a game that you put on iOS. We're talking about games inside your Netflix app right alongside documentaries and stand-up comedy. In the rows of stuff you look at, this is expected to maybe happen within the next year at no additional charge. Just be part of what you get. In its last earnings call, Netflix CEO Greg Peters said that people who love Netflix shows want to immerse themselves more in the stories and the characters, saying, quote, we're trying to figure out what are all these different ways that we can increase those points of connection. We can deepen that fandom. And certainly games is a really interesting component of that. And there's no doubt that games are going to be an important form of entertainment and important sort of modality to deepen the fan experience. Now, Netflix has already done interactive storytelling like Bandersnatch. It's licensed mobile games for Stranger Things. And keep in mind that Netflix's January 2019 earnings report a couple of years ago said, quote, we compete with and lose to Fortnite more than HBO. So they kind of telegraphed it back then. Although keep in mind also that in 2017 CEO Reed Hastings said, we're competing with sleep and they haven't hired anyone to bring sleep in the Netflix or anything like that. We compete with things that you do while alive, not just HBO. Breathing, yeah, all of that. But no, it does seem like they're serious about gaming. And what's your best guess based on what we know now of what that means? Justin. So number one, put into context some of those quotes that a lot of the times that Netflix says things like that, it's because they want to brush off criticism that they do not submit to any kind of rating system. And they don't want to get into direct competition when they're happy with the amount of money that they're making. Then that's nobody else's business exactly how, you know, who's watching what they'll let you know if they want you to know this is very interesting. Netflix's game from the very beginning back when they were slinging DVDs to me in my college dorm room has always been about making sure that you never drop that subscription. And this is yet another example of how to do it. What I'm curious about is the genre of game that they would look to develop. And immediately what comes to mind is the idea of a lot of these story games that have been very, very popular on Steam and PC and even mobile. You know, the studio behind them telltale have its own kind of doomed and troubled history, but I could very much see games that are not necessarily even spin offs of the IP that they have. But wholly original concepts that they're creating that maybe don't make it fully into a scripted series or movie. But now you have an ability that you can put this stuff together for yourself. I think that this is a wide open space for them and be it using your remote control or on your smart device. I think that there are a lot of interesting things that they can do. Yeah, I mean, it's somebody who's not doing a lot of streaming of games. I have to assume that Netflix isn't going to introduce much hardware here. It's Netflix after all, right? So it's like, yeah, if you have a subscription, now there's this other tab where there are all these games and we make it really easy to play a game that might be based on your favorite series that you found on Netflix. All that great stuff. But how much would this appeal to someone who's really into gaming but has a limited budget and might choose an offering like this over something else? I think that this is not about gaming at all. This is about fandom. I would pay attention to what Greg Peters said because they're not only doing this, hiring a person to do game development, but they're also hiring someone to do podcasting. And I bet we're going to see some other unexpected interesting hires over the next couple of years where Netflix, and this is where I actually differ with you a little bit, Justin. Netflix is interested in getting people excited about its properties, right? The idea of having properties like House of Cards was a big deal. Then the idea of having properties that had fandom like Stranger Things was a big deal. Now Netflix is like our product is not going to be streaming. Our product is going to be fandom. That's my guess. That's what I think this points to is they want to. They don't have them yet. They kind of have it in Stranger Things. They kind of had it in a protean phase with other things. They want to create franchises that are big and dominant and last like a Marvel does now. That's their goal. And this is just one small step in getting there is, oh, well, let's create games that bind you to what we're doing. And that's where I differ, Justin, is I don't think they'll make new franchises with the games. I think they will, though, tell stories that maybe they wouldn't have told in the main line. I wish we could figure out a verbiage here that we could make a bet because I think that Netflix's brand is the new. It is the thing that you have not loved before. And then all of a sudden you fall head over heels. And while the easiest thing that they could do was skin a bunch of random stuff and tell new little interactive chapters of already established IP that they have created. I think that the real future for them is to lead in this space. And even if it's just in this kind of interactive storytelling that they've already done with Bandersnatch to create new fun and interesting things that you can go in and interact with. That I believe is their real bread and butter. That being said, again, they've got what I had always heard was that for Netflix, you are always three months away from canceling at the earliest after you like or interact heavily with the thing. You watch a thing, whatever that is. The latest stand up comedy special, a true crime documentary, whatever that is. It's your three months away from canceling. Games are just another thing that once you get through all the stand up and once you get through watching that big legacy television show that Netflix has the rights to this month. And then you watch the original movie and then you watch the new Shonda Rhimes thing. If there's a game for you, then you're still another three months away and keeping that ball in the air is Netflix's entire operation. I think my theory can work with your construction, which is, yes, we want to keep you three months away. And deepening the connection to our existing franchises is the way to do that. Yeah, well, I think they're going to put a bunch of those out there. I do think that they are just immediately... I think we can both agree on that. They're going to have to do a lot of experimentation before they can really say we have these franchises because they don't have them now. So let me put it this way. I think the thing that will hit for them is an original IP. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, said Wednesday it has sued Amazon to recall hundreds of thousands of hazardous products distributed on Amazon's platform. Their products included 24,000 carbon monoxide detectors that failed to work, around 400,000 hairdryers that lack required shock protection, children's sleeper garments that are at risk of fire, stuff like that. The commission voted three to one to, quote, force Amazon to stop selling in these products, work with CPSC staff on a recall of the products, and directly notify consumers who purchased them about the recall and offer them a full refund. Amazon has said it removed the vast majority of the products in question from its store and issued refunds. Amazon also says it did not have enough information from the CPSC to take action on the remaining products. The company also offered to expand its capabilities to handle recalled four products, recalls for products sold by third parties. The CPSC said it did not consider the actions sufficient, however. This is something that's fascinating, mostly because Amazon has created the illusion in the minds of consumers through great effort on their part that Amazon is the everything store. You can always go there. It's always available. Much of it is deliverable within two days. That is the concept that they have created and they have made their business on top of it. What we all experienced during the pandemic when Amazon effectively was the lifeline for many people that did not want to leave their house is that that has limitations. Like anything else, supply chains can choke out certain things. All of a sudden you can't get masks or the kind of mask that you want. You can't get certain elements of toiletries maybe to your area of the country quite as easily or the delivery times are going to take longer than they were otherwise. The way that they do this, especially in the third party game, is to allow effectively anything to be listed there. And there are sellers in that store that complain daily about not only shoddy competitors into their vertical that are offering things that are way less quality for an undercut price, but also straight out knockoffs that are stealing photographs and are listing things in ways that are not appropriate if not illegal. Amazon is famously slow to take those kind of things down because their allegiance is to the customer that's browsing on their phone that wants to buy a thing and is able to do that as easy as possible. This is a natural outgrowth of it. And I do believe that it is time for them to pay the piper. Moderation at scale. It's hard on YouTube. It's hard on Facebook. It's hard on Amazon. Yes. Yeah. I think that I think that's that's a bottom. What Amazon's doing is saying like, Hey, we got most of it, you know, for Internet at scale. That's pretty good, right? And the CPSC is like, we don't care if you're the Internet. We want all of it gone. If it's going to catch on fire, you don't get to you don't get to sell it. I also feel like the CPSC is it's not a rationally asking of something from Amazon here. It's like, you got to do better. You got to notify people in a better way about recalls. And and and try to, you know, prove that there's at least a little bit more effort going forward. I don't think anyone saying 100% of things on Amazon should they should never fall into this category. Well, they shouldn't. But it's some things are just going to happen. You're going to have to be reactionary. That is being said though. Amazon said we got almost all of them and the CPSC said not good enough. We want you to get all of them. I also like between what Amazon's efforts are and this is colloquially from from knowing people who are this is their business. And they offer products like even in just responding to out and out. This is a false listing that is selling a knockoff of my product and using my photos Amazon is very slow to so a trickier case like this, where it might be something that is just not doing what it was promised to do or be possibly dangerous to review. I think that there is probably more that they that that Amazon more effort that they could undertake in my opinion. All right. Tell us about what's going on with the chip shortage. We got any good news there, Justin? Oh, Tom, you want to know what I got a little sunshine peeking through that dark cloud China's Bureau or National Bureau of Statistics reported integrated circuit output in the country rose 43.9% on October and May China still short of the self-sufficiency in chips though as imported chips also rose 29% in the first half of 2021 over the previous year in June China imported 551.9 billion semiconductor units twice its domestic production for that month and Chinese car manufacturing dropped 13.1% in June compared to last year because of the shortage in chips. However, there is good news. Yeah, that's sunshine TSMC said in its earning call Thursday that it expects its chip shortage to start to ease up in the next few months as it increases production of automotive chips TSMC expects to increase output of the microcontrollers used in cars by 60% at the end of the year. The company has not only been adding capacity but negotiating with other clients to free up existing capacity. None of this includes capacity coming from new plans being built. Now TSMC still expects a broader chip shortage to last into next year. Okay, so maybe a little ray of sunshine but mostly from TSMC for their bottom line, like it does look like the chip shortage is going to continue into 2022. But if you don't see TSMC meet this forecast that would be a pretty, you know, that would be bad news. If TSMC meets this to say like, oh yeah, now will increase by 60% then you're like, okay, this should go away in 2022. A friend of ours who orders products from China that involve chips was told anecdotally that not only do you need to be getting in your orders for next year in right now, you should probably get your orders in for the year after as well. Just because yes, it's getting better. Nobody knows how fast better is and nobody knows what the tech landscape is going to look like in two years where people are going to need these kinds of chips. We know enough to know that prices and availability on certain products are going to change because of it and have already. So the good news is it is getting better. And beyond that, we'll wait and see. Well, I know what you should do this weekend. You should catch the third episode of the mini podcast series Seniors in Tech, hosted by our science correspondent, Dr. Nicky Ackermans. In episode number three, Nicky interviews former high school French teacher Sandra Foster, who taught herself how to operate and fix Macs and then ended up being tech support for her school. Find it on your feed this Saturday. A study out of the University of California at San Francisco funded by Facebook and published in the New England Journal of Medicine called Project Steno demonstrates a brain computer interface a BCI that can turn attempts at speech into words on a screen. The team led by UCSF neurosurgeon Dr. Edward Chang implanted electrodes into the part of the brains motor cortex that controls the vocal tract and your tongue. They put this in a man who had become paralyzed at age 20s in his 30s now. So he did know how to speak, but he's unable to speak because of the paralysis. A machine learning algorithm had been trained on the patient imagining saying 50 common words nearly 10,000 times. It wasn't able to say them, but they told him imagine saying hello, imagine saying I'm et cetera, et cetera. The algorithm correctly interpreted the impulses about 40% of the time. Not that great. However, adding a language model to the algorithm increased the accuracy to 75%. That was workable. So a question like how are you today could appear on the screen and the patient would be able to respond. I am very good. Each word popping up on its own. The responses could show up in real time at the pace of about 15 words per minute. Now it's unclear if the brain activity that is detected and used by the algorithm to create words comes from thinking about saying the word or the actual impulses that are being sent to the muscles or some combination of both. But the lead author of the study, Dr. David Moses said that it can't read your thoughts. It can only sense brain activity specifically associated with engaging in the behavior of speaking, moving the muscles, moving the tongue. The research will continue without funding from Facebook though, because Facebook reality labs is shifting its focus from head worn interfaces to wrist worn devices. This technology that Facebook got when it acquired control labs detects electrical signals in the muscles to detect movements which could lead you to be able to do things like draw bow in VR without having to hold a controller. Just be able to tell what you're doing, which is great for VR and AR input. But where does that leave critical advances in the clinic, these medical advances like brain computer interfaces. Facebook says it will make its noninvasive optical head worn brain computer interfaces available as open source projects and offer access to prototypes. And they think they'll be able to get funding for Project Steno as well. I always love to see these stories. I just think that it's so fascinating and probably even an under reported story and I love that DTNS has as always done a good job of following and tracking them and bringing them to light of exactly the massive steps forward for disability. You know, tech that has happened and this is, I think, you know, in many ways a kind of holy grail for certain elements of our world. Yeah, there were a few headlines this morning that I read about the story and it focused on you. Facebook's a bandit in this brain project, you know, so you might think, Oh, well, it didn't work or it's, you know, they don't care or whatever it is. It sounds like Facebook is saying, listen, we're going to focus on other stuff, but this is definitely research that that can be used elsewhere. I, of course, my brain, my brain immediately went to, well, hold on a second. Okay, so let's say I'm using this technology and the technology is pretty good. And I'm thinking, you know, Tom says, how are you today, Sarah? I'm having the worst day ever. And I say, really good, but I'm thinking a really bad day. It's important that you don't, you know, accidentally get my true thought, right? Because I would have to think about, yes, either mouthing the word goods or maybe perhaps writing it or whatever that muscle is that denotes my actual, the thought I want you to hear, not necessarily all the thoughts. So I think the idea here is that like you, if you were to use this, it would be you in another room that you could hear Tom and you would be saying, Tom, I had a great day. It would know the muscle reaction. Yeah, yeah, that's right. To what was, what was that? So Tom in the other room would only hear the voice that was coming out of this, of this program. I don't know, fascinating and awesome. I'll tell you what they, this is less world changingly important, but certainly for folks who enjoy watching things on the internet. It is specifically sports. It's probably going to be something that you want to hear. Disney plans to spread sports around amongst its digital properties rather than keeping it all on its ESPN shingle Sunday night. Baseball is coming to ABC. Some NHL games will be shown on Hulu and NHLs out of market streaming package will move to ESPN plus more Wimbledon coverage will come to ESPN plus in 2024 and in 2026. When Disney gets the Super Bowl for the first time in 20 years, it plans to broadcast it on multiple networks with different presentations. Some will offer different camera views. Others will celebrate future celebrities or athletes commentating ESPN has offered 14 different broadcasts for college football championships. Specifically, that was the number that they did this year. ESPN has grabbed up rights recently and has all four major U.S. sports and press for the flexibility to offer games on alternate outlets like plus and Hulu has traditional cable subscriptions to ESPN drop. Disney needs to find an avenue to keep sports fans watching and playing. And what I would say the big play here is making sure they get that bundle of ESPN plus Disney plus and Hulu instead of picking and choosing. Tom, where have we heard about ESPN and bundles before? Oh, yeah. No, this is ESPN short version ESPN exists because they got the cable operators to not only pay them to carry every version of ESPN but create as many versions of ESPN as they could get the cable operators to stomach. So ESPN to only happens because ESPN is already successful. They bundled it in to the cable operators. Well, guess what? We're cutting out the middle man going straight to you. Now you have to be the cable operator. You have to pick up Hulu and ESPN plus in the bundle if you want to get all the games. And I think this is really fascinating to watch. Anybody who watches sports knows that right now ESPN plus is mainly made up of other people's broadcasts, right? The local broadcast of the Mets game, which you would see locally on cable in New York is on ESPN plus in the rest of the country. What ESPN is doing here is saying we want to actually carry our own broadcasts on ESPN plus. So that's going to happen where you're like, Oh, I can't even get this anywhere else. I can't get MLB at bat. I've got to get ESPN plus. The other thing that's real fascinating is right now if the game goes long on ESPN and the other game that ESPN was going to show right after it is delayed, they'll put it on ESPN to or even sometimes it might show up on like MLB network or something like that. This is fascinating, which is if that game is going long on ESPN, the game starting after it will be on ESPN plus. So if you want to be able to watch all the games right from the start, you might need to subscribe to ESPN plus or I don't know. Maybe they'll stick it on Hulu, which case you'll need the bundle. And then what's very fascinating about this is the idea that ESPN plus has become the subscription to get the other subscriptions. So what they've done with some of the big get all the games packages like they're going to do with NHL is similar to what they've done with UFC, which they've very much gone all in on and really saved their bacon during the pandemic. And that is if you want to watch the big Conor McGregor versus Dustin Poirier three fight, you have to already have an ESPN subscription ESPN plus and then get the the pay per view through ESPN plus. That's going to be the same thing here. Basically, what they would Disney wants to do is if you're into original programming kids programming big ticket blockbuster stuff or sports, which by the way is pretty much what every consumer in America is one of those four, you should get the bundle because it's going to be there for you. I like the idea of multiple versions of the Super Bowl. I mean the Super Bowl or any big enough for you know people should care. You know, I think to myself, okay, well that sounds like a huge mess. But the Olympics has had some success with that in the past. Being able to say, oh yeah, I watched my favorite celebrities version of the show, but I still saw the show. But it was something unique where Tom and Justin and I can talk about it the next day and be like, oh yeah, my experience was different at that point of the game that we're all talking about now. It sounds kind of fun. Viacom did that to some success where they did like a women's oriented version of the broadcast and a kid's version that showed on Nickelodeon. And I think that's we're going to see everybody doing that, not just ESPN. ESPN did did pioneer this specifically with college football. They've been doing this for years and years, but they've done great. They had like all their offbeat kind of personalities in one broadcast, including a costumed Bill Walton, who if you've ever familiar for his broadcasting style is elevated. I say euphemistically and would go on these random rants. Also a very college football coach heavy broadcast. This is going to be great. But also if you have not looked up all the touchdown graphics that they did during the Nickelodeon broadcast of an NFL playoff game last year, please go look them up. It was awesome and hilarious. All right, let's check out the mail bag. This one came in from Mike, who said, I just want to thank you, Sarah, for getting me hooked on Supernatural. Oh, Mike, I'm glad you like it. He says, I didn't think I could get a decent workout playing a video game, but I have been using Supernatural on my Oculus Quest two for a month. And it's so fun. I forget I'm working out. Mike, I feel exactly the same way. That's why I like it. I used to go to the gym after work says Mike, but our office has been closed since March of 2020. So this is the perfect replacement. Wow. That's great. Look at your help. You're helping people stay healthier, Sarah. This is amazing. Yeah, you're welcome, everyone. But yeah, I have the I have the exact same feeling the the Oculus. I just have the original, you know, so you're already you've already won up to me, Mike, but once I realized, OK, this is definitely something that 45 minutes that I might have gone to a gym to do. You know, I might have gone outside, but maybe it's bad weather, cold or raining or whatever. There's just to have that home gym without having to build a home gym. It's not for everybody. It's not like a whole gym, but it's something where you've got a lot of variety and it can be really fun if you like that VR thing. If you have feedback or you want to thank me for anything because I love getting thanked. That's all good feedback at daily tech news show dot com is where to send those emails, questions and comments always appreciated. Shout out to patrons that are master and grand master levels, including Dr X 17 Dustin Campbell and Tim deputy. And guess what? We have three brand new bosses. I know we're three three for three. Johann Stenhall, Dan Ballendorf and Patrick Quirk. I'll just start it back in as on Patreon. Thank you, Johann Dan and Patrick. That's that's incredible. Can we think we can get four tomorrow? They might shoot in too high. Oh, listen, I say shoot for the stars. And see where you keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for that Patreon button. Everyone. Now, we are actually up over last month, which usually at this point in the month, we're not. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Everybody who's backing us on Patreon every single day and today, especially Johann Dan and Patrick are our new favorites. Will you be our new favorite tomorrow? We'll see. Yeah. Yeah, maybe there'll be four of you. Thank you to Justin Robert Young. You can only have one Justin Robert Young, but but you you do the work of four men. I try. I work hard for the people, Sarah. And among the projects that I do is something that I'm very, very, very proud of. And that is the newly rebranded, reminted Brian Brushwood and Justin Robert Young comedy project now titled Great Night. If you ever watched the be live show or NSFW show on the twit network or night attack, which was what our initial independent version of it was, then you are going to love what we have done with Great Night. The big addition is me and Brian are in the same city. So we have a set. It is well lit. It is well shot. It is super fun. We have only done three episodes of it so far. But here's the really great part. Unlike any other time in our history, the episodes that we do on Tuesday nights all come out in three separate episodes, the pre show, the show and the post show within hours of when we are done. We are trying to make sure that this feed, the podcast feed is something that people really likes. So I'm coming to you guys, the DT NS faithful to say if you ever gave the show a shot and liked it and for whatever reason fell off. Now's the time to get back in. Go ahead and find it wherever you find your podcast. Great night. We are live on this very here show Monday through Friday at 4.30 p.m. Eastern 20 38 seat. Find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live. We're back with Darren kitchen. Talk to them. This show is part of the frog pants network. Get more at frog pants dot com. Hope you have enjoyed this brover.