 Vicki Poole started supporting independent tech news directly today be like Vicki become a DTMS member at patreon.com DTNS This is the Daily Tech news for Tuesday June 25th 2019 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and in Finland I'm Patrick Deja and I'm the show's producer Roger chain Sarah Lane is on assignment. That means someone gave her an assignment and it wasn't us so she couldn't show today But she will be back on Thursday. She'll be out tomorrow as well But we have lots of thoughts lots of legal stuff FedEx suing the u.s. government Australian judge saying you can sue people for letting other people post things on facebook We also have a solar car If you have a lot of euros that you can buy let's start with a few tech things you should know T-Mobile will launch its 5g service in Atlanta Cleveland Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York City June 28th I should say part of those cities June 28th for use with a samsung galaxy s10 5g The s10 5g however only supports the millimeter wave spectrum. That's what this 5g service uses However, the s10 5g will not be compatible with yet to be implemented 5g service from t-mobile on future low and mid band Frequency so not future compatible Google is accepting applications from g-suit customers to better test the ability To mark non google files for offline access in google drive Testers can only access the files in chrome Telegram added new ways to add contacts in its app users can now add Nearby users from the contact screen provided the other user is in proximity and also has the same screen open And you can now open a chat with someone without having to know their phone number The app now supports location based group chats letting users create local groups that anyone in the area can join Interesting could this be used in protests in some places? I know telegram is very good with that crowd. Yeah US house financial services committee chairwoman maxine waters announced the committee will hold a hearing on facebook's project libra On june 17th the us senate banking committee previously announced a scheduled hearing on the cryptocurrency on july 16th did i say june i meant july it's both july 16th and 17th Libra's co-creator david marcus is expected to testify at both hearings And most of what he will say is calm down. We haven't built it yet. No, that's not our plan calm down We haven't built it yet. No, that's our plan for some variation on that Let's talk a little bit about what is going on between facebook and france Uh, uh, france's minister of digital affairs. Cedric. Oh, that's his actual last name. Oh It's one letter He's based south korean. I think one of his parents is south korean. Maybe that's why it is possible I have to admit. I didn't realize that part of his heritage Anyway, cedric. Oh said facebook has agreed to give judges Identification data for some french users suspected of hate speech facebook has previously given french judges identification information related to Violent and terrorist acts when french judges formally requested it facebook resisted handing over information Related to hate speech violations as it is not compelled to do so under u.s french legal conventions and worried Countries without an independent judiciary system would abuse that privilege Oh says facebook is only doing this for france Yeah, so this is interesting facebook willing to say all right in your case france We will go ahead and honor your laws even though we don't have to even though there's a treaty that protects us from having to do this And it's not something we do in other countries As long as you go out there and make sure everybody knows we're only doing this for france. Okay turkey china Well, there's no facebook in china, but hong kong, whatever. Uh, we're not doing this anywhere else Um, that's this they're calling this the first of its kind too. Do you do you think that's true as far as I know It's true It seems so I mean the the the identification information we're talking about is Probably ip addresses, uh, which allow police organizations to identify the people further maybe some additional information also As we mentioned it is it has been done before in cases of terrorist Acts, uh, which is I think understandable and most people in the audience. I'm guessing would agree with these kinds of Of disclosures It you have to remember In france hate speech is regulated pretty heavily It it is not quite on the level of terrorism But it is something that we take quite seriously and so the issues with Facebook's and other social networks Immunity for commenters who would Spew hate was very deeply felt Um, so I suspect this was something that was Worked on for a while by cedric. Oh and other officials Like, uh, the the former deputy prime minister of the uk is now in charge of this sort of stuff for facebook And apparently he and oh are the ones who hatched all of the details of this right um And you know, there are the things that facebook and the french government are doing like examining the algorithm and stuff like that, but um my point which i'm trying to to um show is I suspect uh Mainly american or maybe english or other uh nationalities listeners might think wow. This is one step too far Um Hate speech has taken very seriously around here and I suspect in germany. It might be the same thing as well Yeah, hate speech. I know some u.s listeners particularly will say well, what is hate speech? How do you decide what it is? That's not fair Uh, I don't think I think that's not the point here, uh, france as patrick just explained Is not new to regulating this kind of speech you may or may not agree with how they regulate it But that's the law in france and facebook is making an extra effort to comply with local law in a democracy Without and eroding the ability to not comply with laws They don't have to in places where they don't feel comfortable doing so I mean, it is an interesting president for other countries which might say well, you do it for france Why don't you do it for other uh for us? Um, but it's also important to note that In the case of france who decides what is hate speech judges It's the judiciary system that will tell facebook. We decide we have decided this comment is hate is hate speech Please tell us who said this so it's not facebook deciding themselves Right, it's it's the it's similar to getting a warrant is having a judge review this and say yes Okay, you're justified in asking for this identity. We'll let we'll let it happen Uh fedex has sued the u.s government monday saying it should not be held liable for inadvertently shipping products That violate u.s restrictions on chinese companies. Uh, this has happened twice and china's not happy about it fedex Returned an attempted shipment of a huawei p30 phone By a british journalist from pc mag who was just trying to send it to one of his colleagues in the united states Uh fedex says the denial of shipment was an operational error. Okay Uh, they got confused with the huawei name on the package even though it's not illegal for a british journalist to send His huawei phone to another british or another journalist in the u.s Uh a previous package destined for a huawei address in asia was misrouted an error by fedex to the united states That caused a lot of upset Feelings in china fedex fears it may because of these two instances be added to china's Entities list as a result. That's a list that china has created to say if these people are not following our laws You know if they're abusing Or unreliable in following our practices and procedures We'll block their operation fedex doesn't want to lose their operation in china china's foreign ministry has asked fedex for a full Explanation they haven't said anything about putting him on an entity's list and fedex's lawsuit says that export rules and i quote Essentially deputized fedex to police the contents of the millions of packages it ships daily Even though doing so is a virtually impossible task logistically economically and in many cases Legally so essentially fedex saying look we're getting in all kinds of trouble trying to apply your rules because we don't want to be held liable We need to sue the u.s. Government to Determine that we wouldn't be liable if we make mistakes so that we don't have to keep getting into these problems This is really interesting in itself If you allow me to go there already. I think it's even more interesting when you compare this um policy applied to physical goods to the kind of policies some people would like facebook to apply to Digital content of course, it's not the same because as roger mentioned before we started the show It's not physical things when you're talking about comments on facebook but When you read the virtually impossible task logistically economically and in many cases legally Yeah, I think it applies and I think a lot of people will look at this and say well. Yes, of course facebook Sorry fedex can't be expected to do all this and then you talk about facebook and they're like Raw, but face computers. Yeah, exactly. Uh, yes We can imagine opening boxes and checking manifests is a lot more difficult But but in fact the the number of posts on a social network Uh Way outscales the number of packages to the point that it's probably an equally difficult problem So you have fedex and facebook complaining in the same way Uh about how to get that job done We're not letting either one of them off the hook when we say that it's just a very interesting comparison, right? Similarly an australian judge has given dill and voller the right to sue media companies over facebook comments written by Readers about him. Let's try to follow me here. Voler Uh had a video shown on the australian broadcasting corporations four corners program in july 2016 of him being mistreated in prison However, voler has been in and out of juvenile detention. Uh, you know, it doesn't have the squeakiest clean background So there have obviously been other stories about him and voler is now suing news corp Fairfax media, which is now nine and sky news australia for defamation the reason is because users of facebook made false and possibly defamatory comments on stories about voler that these news agencies published on facebook So they publish a story a user goes to their facebook page writes a comment And voler is holding the media company responsible for what the user posted now follow the logic here Just as steven rothman found that the media companies could be considered the publishers of the comments in a legal sense as the companies could Delay reader comments and monitor if they were defamatory before releasing them to the public now facebook doesn't have a delay function But there was testimony from a social media expert named ryan shelly That you could put a filter of the 100 most common english words on your posts And that would hide them so that you could review them before Unhiding them justice rothman also said the use of facebook pages is not about freedom of speech Because a facebook page is meant to promote commercial interests So the case now moves to an actual defamation trial This was just whether voler had the right to sue the media companies were saying no, he doesn't even have standing to sue We didn't publish the comments But the media companies can also appeal justice rothman's decision, which I expect they will Yeah, it's a weird one. I understand the logic of the decision except for the part that it all hinges on the Possibility for these companies to hack together the moderation Filter that seems very unwieldy Um I think I could see these uh companies Treated as using this for commercial interest. So it's not so much a a need for information issue Uh, and then they Have the possibility of moderating these comments, which they do That you don't need to go through that hacking thing But justice rothman's decision Hinged on the fact that they could have delayed publication because the media companies were saying well shoot You're putting us in the position of having to judge what's defamatory or not from what other people are saying And and that would mean going and reviewing all these and rothman said well, you could just delay him from being posted So you only post the ones you're sure about Right, but they and that requires a hack which is a part of facebook system Which other social media experts said yeah, that's not really that effective Right, but I I I mean They would need to go and review them whether it is before or after Uh, the their publication maybe legally it has a ton of importance and that dictated uh, justice rothman's decision But from my point of view if they go in and and review them and delete some of them or hide some of them They still kind of could be considered to be acting as publishers for those comments Because so I can see how that yeah, yeah, exactly. So I can see how he would come to that decision. I think that moderation thing is is a little bit of a weird part of the whole Conversation, but but I think he needed it. Uh, if I if I mean he needed it because Uh, without that then it's more like facebook. It's more like a safe harbor situation So he had to show oh, but you could have stopped them, right? Because because with defamation if you moderate after the fact you're still liable for the time that it was up I suppose but I guess it could have been Said that they made a good faith effort to go and moderate them as quickly as they could or it It just seems to me like he's he needed that Legal argument crotch to make his ruling, but that's just my interpretation regardless Um, they are being judged now. They are being sued on Comments that they didn't themselves Post and that's I think the most interesting part of this story and it opens the door for Publications on a facebook page which they manage to be responsible for what other people say in comments in general And I think that is an interesting shift in where we put their responsibility For defamatory or otherwise, you know, potentially illegal comments Usually I think we would have said well, it's facebook's responsibility now. We're talking about the Administrator of the page. Oh, yeah, facebook has safe harbor. They're like, we're not responsible for what people post on our platform Otherwise, we can't exist as a platform. We will try to moderate it, but we're not responsible for it Yeah, but you know how how much people want them to moderate and twitter Yes, but legally they still have shelter to say we can't be sued for what somebody else said, right? Right, right? That that is quintessential. That's that's quintessential to facebook being able to operate Even if they make good faith efforts to moderate So you do you do need to have that safe harbor for this platform to exist at all But what this justice is saying is in the case of somebody operating on facebook now they're acting Like it's a letter to the editor kind of situation Yeah All right, tell us about linkedin Axios report axios axiom. I'm not never sure how to read this one. Maybe it's one of the three musketeers Um, they report that linkedin will announce changes to its feed algorithm made over the last 12 months that services Professional content according to sources one change involves elevating a post close to a user's interests That needs engagement rather than promoting a post already going viral interesting one. Yeah, uh, there's also More likely to generate Elevating content more likely to generate comments and reactions based on shared niche interests or proximity of network connection The algorithm will also prioritize posts using mentions or hashtags to draw people in This is this is interesting Because it's linkedin saying gosh just making everybody click and go viral Isn't good user experience and we just came to that conclusion on our own There wasn't a big outrage against linkedin For this sort of stuff because they're they're a different situation. They're a different content platform I'm not saying that this is you know the kind of result that could be applied to every other social network out there But I thought it was significant that a social network came to this conclusion on its own Yeah, it's definitely an interesting uh an interesting one It might be as you said that this is very specific to linkedin and that it would work for them And maybe not for others, but it feels like the um the the common wisdom about algorithm and surfacing Um content you would be interested in was well, we push the thing that is getting reactions already and the snowball effect is unavoidable What they're saying is Actually, if we push content to you that you specifically are interested in even if they aren't things that have been getting a lot of Engagement, then you might have a better experience. Maybe that's something that could be Looked at maybe they're already looking at it, but looked at by you know the likes of twitter and facebook That could be a different approach. Yeah All right back in 2013 2015 and 2017 students from einhoven university of technology in the netherlands won the cruiser class races in the world Solar challenge in australia with their stella series of solar racing family cars That's a class of car in europe doesn't mean families were in the cars while they were racing them Some of those students started a company called light year in 2017 to make a consumer solar car and the first prototype The five-seater light year one has been unveiled with plans to deliver to customers in 2021 The car's roof has five square meters of solar panels that charge the battery up to 12 kilometers of range per hour It doesn't sound like a lot, but hold on the battery can go 725 kilometers. It's about 450 miles on a full charge So it's got big range the tesla model s has a range of 370 miles And the light year one also supports other regular plug-in charging 60 kilowatt of fast hour That could add 507 kilometers of range per hour So you don't have to rely on the solar panels to charge that's supplementary Pre-orders are available now. You have to put a deposit down of 119 000 euros not cheap The expected starting price is 149 000 euros The first hundred orders have already been reserved You can reserve future blocks, but you don't know when they're going to ship first hundred are expected to ship in 2021 This is definitely a prototype. This is definitely the first attempt at this. It's way too expensive They aren't making a lot of them But the idea that you know, uh, I drive to work I park the car in the parking lot and I don't have to plug it in because over my eight hour work day 12 kilometers of range per hour is enough to charge me back up to full and let me get home It's a really interesting, um Approach and it seems like it would make sense, but I've also read a lot of Not contradictory opinions, but supplemental opinions about does it really make sense? It seems like if you don't have charging stations Everywhere it is indeed a nice bonus But for example the idea that putting solar panels on your roof if you happen to be living in a place where you can do that, of course Not only allows you to charge that car In the the evening in the night, but also provides electricity for your house So that is something to take into consideration It's it's Still an interesting approach We recently had to buy a car because my wife is We live far away from Helsinki. She's driving there a few times a week We wanted to hybrid and turned out hybrids are not great for a long Highway trips. So that didn't really make sense um, really but Yeah, it's they they were like a kind of hybrids that we can yeah gas and plug in hybrid Gas and electric not plug in because I have a hybrid from 2002 and I use it for long range trips all the time But that's it. Okay. Well, I mean it works But you lose the advantage of the hybrid because the battery is tiny So it works a lot better in cities at least the ones we were looking at. Okay. All right And and this one could be interesting also because of the the fact that the range can be Uh so good is Great in cold countries because you lose Maybe a quarter or maybe more of the range in cold countries because the temperature affect the batteries Right. Um, and in that sense the fact that you can recharge it With the the solar panels helps Potentially a lot I'm guessing unless it's the part of the year where you don't have the sun coming up Well, you still have a little bit of sun. It's not, uh, it's not, you know, but The opposite part of it is that the other part of the year you have a lot of sun So it can actually recharge during the night without you plugging it in Yeah, I mean the I feel like this is a lot a lot of ways a proof of concept right 12 12 kilometers of range per hour. I don't think it's nothing I think there are some scenarios where that is practical But it is certainly not necessary like you said, uh, but it's kind of showing. Hey, this is what we can do now Imagine if we keep going and improving, uh, what we might be able to add to this Also, there's some some really interesting efficiencies in the way they built the car roger that I know you noticed Uh, well, I mean this car was designed At least based on the kind of the early specs that we we can see It's really designed for maximizing the amount of, uh, power you can get not just the power but The the length of time. I mean they they give a stated of a zero to 100 kilometers Roughly about 10 seconds which is about zero to 60 in 10 seconds. Not very fast Not even for like another economy car is pretty slow Um, they use in hub or in wheel motors, which means that the motors for the car are actually in the wheels where the tires Are and that has some benefits and that you can rid yourself of all the mechanical complexity of having a drive shaft and Constantly velocity joints and a bunch of stuff you keep the suspension more simple The offset is that it makes to ride a little more Um uncomfortable because you're adding unsprung weight to the tires So it's definitely a bunch of trade-offs But I mean if they can get it to a decent mileage and get the price lower It definitely could be seen as a Definitely seen as a viable car although I will stress at this point in time seems more like a niche car Than an actual like I'm going to replace my everyday commuter car Yeah, I'm not spending 149 two thousand euros to replace my and that's That's part of the of the issue isn't it because they have to build it so light that it seems it would drive the price up They have to drive it light to make it light because of the Issues with batteries and and autonomy Um So will they be able to bring the price down? Enough if those constraints are also there. I I don't know. It seems like It might be possible, but a much simpler solution Would probably be to have cars That have better batteries and it seems like the technology is progressing slowly But we're kind of getting there. Um, I don't know it's I wish it would work It seems a little bit gimmicky and too much, you know I wouldn't go so far as calling gimmicky myself, but it is definitely niche And it is not It is not the solution like you say Yeah, I mean you nailed it the better battery tech is what needs to happen to make this accessible to everyone and cheaper Uh without having to you know spend 149 thousand euros so that you can make the car light enough that it gets enough range that This matters, but or better Or a better solar panel tech, you know if that gives you More Yeah, yeah, for sure. And maybe that's where they're going with this is like this is the first round We'll see Hey folks, if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes Be sure to subscribe to daily tech headlines dot com big Thanks to everyone who participates in our subreddit You can submit stories and vote on them at daily tech news show dot reddit dot com and Join in our facebook group facebook.com slash groups slash daily tech news show before we get out of here today Patrick you've been playing around with the ipad os beta now that it's out for everybody. What do you think so far? Um, it's it's pretty cool. Um, there are some good things and there are also some things I am not yet convinced of First off, uh, I'm not gonna fault it for crashing. It does crash quite a bit, but um, obviously it's still a beta so That doesn't factor into my considerations, um The the thing that's the most impressive is actually the pencil. I don't use it a lot But it's a gen one pencil And I could feel a little bit of latency in the previous version with this one Honestly, it's like drawing literally on paper. I don't Feel the latency at all and this gen one is slower than gen two with the new iPads, so I'm guessing it's it's mind-blowing on or maybe it's just the same because I don't feel the latency anyway now um, and uh So that's a really cool one a surprising thing is the memo g's are actually pretty fun And the stickers that put them in different positions and essentially they make They make emoji Positions and faces out of your memo g and that's quite fun very personalized. It kind of Solved the issue of having different types and you know inclusiveness and all of that Well, it doesn't matter. You have your own and you can make whatever you want with it. So that's pretty cool um, one thing which I'm a little bit Unsatisfied with is the multitasking works pretty well, but the gestures, you know, copy cut and paste When you have you want to use it. I'm using it on a 10.5 inch iPad pro If you have two apps opened at the same time and you want to cut and paste stuff it's Probably you're also going to have the keyboard in there and that leaves Very little real estate for you to do those gestures. So I might get used to it, but for now, it's a little bit finicky Um, and also the swipe keyboard doesn't work on the full keyboard It feels like it works when you you make it tiny, which is great But I haven't I don't think I've managed to make it work on the small on the big one Maybe that's a bug or maybe I don't know how to do it. Yeah, but overall pretty cool Not as it as awesome as I hoped it would be though well, uh Once once the the corks are worked out, uh, we want to hear if you've replaced your laptop with it Let let us know. Uh, I can answer now. I haven't not yet All right, let's Let's check out the bail bag t filling them in discord Uh t l filling them in discord said I laughed a week or so ago when no one could think of a good use for the 292 inch samsung display as soon as I heard it. I immediately said that's a video wall Think of every power plant control room you've ever seen in a movie These days many utilities use large screen installations for situational awareness where everyone in the room can see if something's going wrong These routinely run hundreds of thousands of dollars The 100,000 hour rating is roughly 11 years of continuous use That's a little low for these things, but hopefully that will improve And then alan from the cornfields of southern illinois near to my home Says rarely do I get to share my podcast with my wife, but she's a 30-plus year stylist And I wanted her take the basic supplies hair dye foil and such would be a real boon Easy to make a list and just order of course We're talking about amazon getting into direct to business hair supplies stylus supplies barber supplies The fads i.e. shampoos conditioner and such they get from suppliers might be a little more problematic Stylists make their living on chemicals not on haircuts and styles that being said my wife and the rest of the shop Are flocking to amazon She wanted me to mention that we are rural and 30 minutes away from a crappy beauty supply store And an hour away from a less crappy beauty supply store. This is a big deal for her Thank you alan and thank you patrick beija. What you got going on to tell people about today? I guess a couple of things first if you speak french, um, and you want to listen to a french Explanation of libra and you haven't had enough We did a full report with a couple of experts or yellow hayon and uh fabrice croiseau On le rendezvous tech so go check that out if you're interested if you're into video games pixels just came out a few days ago Um yesterday actually and we talk about e3 and a bunch of things that happened there If you can't wait for mvgb, which is coming soon. Uh, go check out pixels. It's also show and that one is in english so Folks if you want to help keep us independent you need to back us on patreon We give you some perks for it. Uh our commercial free rss feed all kinds of stuff Our goal every month is to get one more patron than last month and here we are Six days five days away from the end of the month Uh, and we need 14 patrons to push us over So if you've been out there on the fence or maybe you left us for a while and you're like, uh, you know what? Maybe I should come back now's the time a dollar a month That's a nickel a day if you can afford a nickel a day to help us out It'll help us get to our goal at patreon.com slash dtns Our email address is feedback at daily tech news show dot com We're live monday through friday 4 30 p.m. Eastern 2030 utc You can find out more about that at daily tech news show dot com slash live back tomorrow with scott johnson. Talk to you then Bye The club hopes you have enjoyed this bro