 Coming up on DTNS Allison Sheridan plays rate the Apple rumor. Amazon promises to pay you up to $1,000 for defective products from third parties. And Xiaomi gets into the robot dog race against Boston Dynamics. DTNS starts now. This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, August 10th, 2021 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from the podcast, I'm Allison Sheridan. And I'm Roger Chang. The show's producer. Sarah Lane has the day off. But if you were listening to us on Good Day Internet, you heard us talking about solar power and batteries and why you can't get them in Alaska. But Allison getting her new solar panels. Get that wider conversation on our expanded show Good Day Internet. Become a member at patreon.com slash DTNS where you can join our top patrons like Alexander Nisev, Hector Bones and Tim Ashman. Thanks to you and everybody who supports us. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. TCL will release updated versions of its five and six series TVs with the same software running on Google's 2020 Chromecast. TCL says, don't worry. We're not transitioning to Google TV off of Roku OS. It just wants to offer consumers the choice of both. The TCL six series with Google TV will be capable of 4k at 120 Hertz. Plus for if you've got a PS5 and an RX box. And also comes with two HDMI 2.1 ports, one of which is eARC and two additional HDMI 2.0 ports topping out at 1300 bucks. TCL's Google TVs will also come with an always listening microphone for Google Assistant voice commands. But you do have the ability to disable that if you would rather just use the remote. Well, Venmo is rolling out a new option to allow users to buy cryptocurrency using the cashback they earned from their Venmo credit card purchases without transaction fees. Crypto options include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash through the new cashback to crypto option. Speaking of cryptocurrency, CNN reports that AMC announced it will accept Bitcoin for tickets and snacks at all US theaters by the end of 2021. AMC didn't specify how, but did say its theaters will also support Apple Pay and Google Pay for online purchases by the end of the year. Google made a few privacy and security announcements. YouTube accounts identified as belonging to those aged 13 to 17 will have autoplay turned off by default and video uploads defaulting to private. Users 18 years old and younger can ask Google to remove pictures of themselves from Google image search and child accounts will not be able to enable location history. For children of all ages, Google simplified its Titan security key lineup to a $30 USB-A key and a $35 USB-C key, both of which have NFC. And the Google One VPN is now, which comes as part of the Google One subscription, is now available on Android in Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Okay, how many of you immediately thought, I'm going to change my age to 14 to get these Google advantages? I think when you request an image removal, they'll know. Darn it. At DEFCON, Twitter revealed the results of its algorithmic bug bounty to find issues with its image cropping model. The top entry demonstrated the algorithm prefers slim, young, of light or warm skin color and smooth skin texture and with stereotypically feminine facial traits. The second place entry found a bias against people with white or gray hair, while the third place entry found it favored English over Arabic script in images. And Samsung announced a new wearable system on a chip, the Exynos W920, offering two Cortex A55 cores and a Mali G68 GPU, as well as a dedicated Cortex M55 processor for powering always on displays. Samsung claims it'll get 20% better CPU performance out of this new chip and 10 times better GPU performance than its previous wearable system on a chip. The Exynos W920 will support the new unified wearable platform coming from Samsung and Google. All right, let's talk about some new HP Chrome OS products for consumers. There's a 23.8 inch USB-C monitor certified for Google use with Chromebooks. Google has a program that says, yep, yep, this will work great with Chrome OS. Can deliver up to 65 watts of power to a laptop coming in October for $250. Allison, I know you're a fan of a USB monitor, so you might want to take a look. Yeah, I was looking at that. The price is pretty good for 24 inches. $250 is around what you get for the 15 inches, but it's only 1920 by 1080p, so it's 1080p. That's a really low resolution for a monitor that big, isn't it? I mean, it depends on how good your eyes are. Yeah, I guess. Ever since I had counter-X surgery, man, I can see everything. Yeah, yeah. There's also the Chromebook X211. That's an 11-inch tablet with a magnetic detachable keyboard and kickstand. It uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 7C system on a chip. Also has two USB-C ports, a microSD card reader, but no headphone jack. This one comes with a wireless pen in the box that attaches to the side with a magnet for recharging. First device that can use Google's cursive progressive web app. And the one catching everybody's attention, HP announced the Chrome base IO, spelled A-I-O. A Chrome OS desktop with a 21.5-inch 1080p touchscreen that you can rotate between landscape and portrait mode. It also tilts back 20 degrees, if you want. It's the rotating that seems to have everybody buzzing, though. Also has dual 5-watt speakers in the base, two USB-C, two USB-A ports, a headphone jack on this one, five megapixel camera for video conferencing, and they pack in a wireless mouse and keyboard in the box for you. Both the Chromebook X2 and the Chrome base IO start this month at 600 bucks. So the all-in-one, I think, is actually a pretty amazing product. That's a 21.5-inch monitor, but it's 2160 by 1440. So you've got a higher resolution and a smaller monitor. That's going to look really good, and being able to rotate it 90 degrees is definitely slick. I have the headphone jack, but, you know, taking it out of the Chromebook X211? Courage, right, Tom? Courage. Yes. And, you know, I mean, what better Chrome OS device to watch your TikToks on than one that you can... Rotate. There you go. I do have one question on the tablet. There isn't a separate tablet OS for Chromebooks, right? No, it's just Chrome OS, yeah. Okay. And Chrome OS supports touchscreen. My Chromebook I can do touchscreen on, even though it's a laptop. So, yeah. That's kind of nice. You don't have to actually care. You don't have to worry the apps are the same, everything like that. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of slick. All right, tell us what app Annie found. All right. The Analyst at App Annie found that in 2020, TikTok, speak of TikTok, was the most downloaded app globally, the only app in the top five not owned by Facebook. Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger rounded out the top five. Snapchat and Telegram each moved up a spot from 2019 to number six and seven, while Pinterest moved up two spots to get back into the top ten, and Twitter sank one spot to the tenth. China's like fell two spots from sixth to eighth, and line fell out of the top ten worldwide, though it moved to number one in Japan. Yeah, line's really interesting. It's a Japanese company that's been really popular in Korea and getting more popular in Japan, also I think pretty popular in Thailand, but just not keeping pace in the rest of the world is what this means to me. So it's staying popular in the places where it's popular, even improving in Japan, just not gaining any new users in new markets, whereas TikTok has conquered the world. I mean, we keep joking like this is the end for Facebook, but this is the point where it all turned. But these are the kinds of signs of something slowly losing its momentum and losing its popularity when it gets outdone by the new cool platform. Yeah, so line and TikTok are two totally different things. I mean, one is a video sharing app, and one is more of a chat app that's integrated in with payments and things like that. It's a little different. In my experience with line is it feels culturally connected to, you said Koreans love it, and I haven't actually talked to anybody in that, but our mutual friend Kaylee, when I talked to her, man, it's full of these crazy fun emoji and everything, way more than what culturally we would do in the United States. And I wonder whether that maybe is part of it. I don't know. You're not culturally emoji, Allison. You don't throw emojis at your telegram. I do, but not quite as flashy as that. But I have to say, man, TikTok is my happy place. I go there now when I've been doom scrolling in Twitter and I just need to wash it off me. I go watch a bunch of comedians, you know, people's lips in can comedians and babies doing funny things. And I just love it. It's the best thing ever. Well, I like it because it's where Gen X and Gen Z can have their dialogue about boomers and millennials in peace. Anyway, go check this out. It's interesting to see the trends from app Annie. Let's talk about Amazon, Latin third parties sell on its platforms, but if you had a problem with that seller's wares in the past, up until now, even currently, you got to go to the seller if you've got an issue. If your property was damaged by a device you bought, if you were injured by a device you bought, Amazon says you'll have to take that up with the seller. They sold you the product. They're liable, not us. And they're right. That's legally true. But Amazon just announced that starting September 1st, Amazon will take claims themselves. It will engage an independent insurance fraud expert to analyze the claims to make sure that they're valid. If the claim appears to be valid, Amazon will then work directly with the seller and the seller's insurance company on your behalf. If the seller abides by Amazon's policies, holds valid insurance, and the claim is less than $1,000, Amazon will just pay your claim on behalf of the seller. They want to make this easy. You get your money. The seller doesn't lose any money. Everybody goes home happy. If the seller rejects a claim that Amazon believes is valid, which could happen. Amazon's expert might go, yeah, that's a valid claim. The seller goes, wait, we don't think so. Amazon may still step in and handle the claim while the seller continues to defend their product against it. So Amazon will kind of go to bat for you. They might even pay you in advance. It depends on the situation. This policy is going to do two things. One, it will shield sellers from having to deal with frivolous claims. If you're a seller on the platform, you won't have to deal with every person who thinks they have a claim, even though maybe it's their fault or nothing bad happened or they're trying to defraud you. Amazon's going to step in and say, we'll handle all this stuff for you. It also simplifies the process for you. The consumer, if you have a valid claim, because you know to just go to Amazon, you don't have to figure out the third party and how best to contact them or are they in the world and all that. Amazon's going to handle every case without you having to find the seller. Amazon will also offer sellers product liability insurance through the Amazon insurance accelerator. Brilliant way to monetize this whole process to be like, look, you want to have valid insurance to take advantage of this program. Also, by the way, we'll sell you some valid insurance if you want to take part in this program. Amazon says that this whole thing goes beyond its legal objections and consistently on Amazon's liability for defective products sold through its marketplace. Some have said Amazon does have some liability. You may remember that last month, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission sued Amazon to get it to accept responsibility for recalling hazardous products sold through Amazon. Recalls aren't part of this, but it is an ongoing debate about how much responsibility Amazon has for something they allow someone else to sell on their system. Because remember, sometimes Amazon just hooks you up. The person ships it. You're just paying through Amazon. Sometimes Amazon actually stores the stuff in their warehouse. And that's where the Consumer Product Safety Commission was saying, yeah, but if you store it in your warehouse, you might need to be responsible for some recall efforts on it. Allison, what do you make of all this? Well, the first thing I wanted to clarify is this is not I got sent the wrong product or it broke. This is where it actually caused some sort of damage in some way. Is that right? Yes, that's right. We're not talking about returns. We're not talking about just getting a refund because you didn't like it or it showed up damaged and you're just trying to send it back. Amazon has a whole separate process for that. This is a process that offers customers supported the rare case of a defective product that causes property damage or personal injury. So it either broke my car or burned my arm, stuff like that. So it seems to me that this is a good idea of an investment on Amazon's part. It's definitely, I would think it's going to cost them some money to manage this. But it seems like the reputational damage of problems can be far, far worse. And obviously having regulators step in is always annoying for them. But my understanding of this is it would help them to just smooth things with both sellers and buyers. They don't want the sellers leaving and they definitely don't want the buyers leaving. So if they can be, it's almost like they're the what's it called when you don't go to court, you go to arbitration. It's almost like they're the arbitrator in between and they'll just clean up the mess. I'm real curious to know how big is this problem? Is this huge? It's probably big in dollar amounts, right? Like if somebody's house burns down or somebody gets sent to the hospital or dies. You're talking about big dollar amounts. It probably isn't frequent would be my guess. So high risk, low frequency. Yeah, yeah. And that brings up a few other reasons Amazon might want to do this. They can keep themselves out of court, right? If they're like, got to talk to the third party and the person's like, I can't get ahold of the third party. They're in Guangzhou, but I know where to get ahold of you Amazon and I'll sue you. This actually helps Amazon probably cut down on some court costs, to be honest. It also helps them identify bad actors. Easier if they're. Oh yeah, good point, good point. Bad actors of not of selling bad stuff and bad actors of people doing frivolous suits. And I like that there's $1,000 limit on part of it too. So that's basically they've created small claims court. Yeah. They're getting rid of a lot of, you know, death by a thousand cuts by doing that, saying, look, if it's less than $1,000, that's a rounding error on the Amazon balance sheet. You know, great. They'll, they'll, it's not even a rounding error. They'll take care of that. If it's above $1,000, they do say they may still step in sometimes. It all depends. Folks, with all that money you're saving now, I'm just going to pretend that that makes sense. You would like a DTNS hat, maybe, or a hoodie or a mask or a mouse pad. We have all that and more at the Daily Tech News show store. Brand new merchant there, by the way, with the new Daily Tech News show album art logo on it. We haven't sold those until now. So go check it out at dailytechnewshow.com. As you may know, Allison's Nacilocast has an ever so slight Apple bias. And there's lots of Apple rumors and reports swirling around today. So we thought it'd be fun to sort through some of those with her. First up, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He's not always right, but it feels like he's always right. Has a few inside tips about the next iPhone. Let's call it iPhone 13 for simplicity. A cinematic video feature will automatically blur backgrounds in video like portrait mode does, according to Gurman's sources. Pro res video recording, kind of like pro-raw, but for video will be helpful for editors. And a filter feature will be able to apply styles to elements of a photo, not just the whole photo. You know, you want to put bunny ears on your cat? I don't know, something like that. Probably more sophisticated. Gurman also reiterates previous reports that the next iPhone would have 120 Hertz refresh rate and a smaller display notch. iPhone rumors, Allison, what do you think? Well, I think it's very bold, if they do call it the 13, but portrait mode on videos, I think it's obviously likely to be a big seller because people love it. And it does a great job in still photos. I'm a little curious to see how well that works, because portrait mode can be really compelling on people. Not so much for other shallow depth of field opportunities, you know, like flowers. It's kind of dorky the way it does that. Pro-raw is, and pro res for video is interesting. Pro-raw is interesting in still photos for very specific reason. A lot of cameras take raw photos, and you can actually buy apps that will take raw photos with the iPhone. What pro-raw does is it, well, a non-pro-raw photo comes into the editor very flat and dim. It doesn't look as good as the JPEG would have. So you have to do a lot of work just to get it back up to where the JPEG would be. With Apple's pro-raw, they apply the changes that they would do to a normal JPEG, but then let you change the raw file from there. You can undo all those changes or tweak them from there. So pro-raw support for video works the same way that could be a great improvement, I think, for video editors. I think Roger had an opinion on this. Is that right, Roger? It doesn't look like he's jumping in, but I know Roger does work with a lot of video. Roger, do you have something to add? Well, so pro-raws in the video editing space, specifically Final Cut Pro, is a step below what you would consider raw video. In other words, it's a lossy compression video format that's higher than you would normally get with a non-edible video format like MPEG or AVI or Divx or anything like that. And the whole idea is that you make it as easy as possible to edit while at the same time keeping it within file constraints so you're not literally saturating the bandwidth in your device in order to edit. So this could essentially allow what... I'm sorry, Austin was alluding to, in that it will allow pro-grade features for people who want to edit without necessarily taxing out everything they need to do while at the same time giving the ability to tweak a bunch of things that you want to tweak without, again, having to go to a third-party app or anything like that to tweak it. All right, I'm going to break a rule here. I usually don't talk about supply chain reports because they're less reliable than Mark Gurman reports, but the Elec says Samsung is preparing to produce OLED displays for a new line of MacBook Pros, DigiTimes fanned the flames of rumors that Apple released 14- and 16-inch laptops with new chips, possibly mini-LED displays have entered production, and that a 16 or 17-inch MacBook Pro with OLED is expected in 2022. I mean, where there's smoke, there's fire, the fire is we're going to get a new MacBook of some sort, right? Right, Tom and I have been in sync in step for, I think, three generations in a row of our MacBook, so we're both chomping at the bit for 14 or 16-inch. The thing I would point people to understand why mini-LED is important is a fantastic episode of a show called Know a Little More. You might have heard of the host as a guy named Tom Merritt, and he explained what mini-LED is and learned why you might want to be excited about it, and that's how come I know anything about mini-LED. You know what? I actually have to refer back to my own notes from that episode quite often to be like, okay, what was the deal with the mini-LED? That's right, yeah. I'm glad that was helpful for you. Definitely, and can I have it now is what I'd like to say. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. Finally, something that is not a rumor, Parallels Desktop 17 will let Mac users run Windows 11 on your Mac. It works on both Intel and M1-based Macs, though, as with all Parallels installs, if you're on an M1, you can only emulate ARM-based versions of Windows, and Parallels 17 is now a universal app and supports Mac OS Monterey. Yeah, so the thing that's interesting about the ARM-based version of Windows 11 for me is that my understanding is that the apps need to be compiled to work under ARM, and what I can't find, and I looked all over the place before the show, is a list of, so what apps are compiled to work on Windows on ARM? Windows 11 allows you to emulate Intel apps to run on ARM. So if you're running Windows 11 ARM version on Parallels on an M1, Windows 11 will emulate an Intel chip for that app to run in the ARM version of Windows on an emulated Windows server within the virtual machine on your M1 Mac. Which is ARM-based. Which is ARM-based, correct. And by the way, I think there's no little more episode about ARM. I learned everything I know about ARM. I do want to back us up real quick to the thing on the, back on the iPhone possibly 13. The question about 120 Hertz refresh rate, Ken Ray mentioned on macOS candidate a survey by Cell Cell that said, of people planning to buy the next iPhone, 22% cited the 120 Hertz refresh rate as why? I find that hysterically, I find that comical. I believe I'll be able to tell the difference, but would I drop $1,000 for it? No, no. It's feature inflation in your head, folks. That's what it is. 120 Hertz is beautiful. It's buttery smooth. After you've had it for a couple of days, you're probably going to get used to it. So I don't know. You know what is funny though, since you brought that up? I went from the iPhone 10 to the iPhone 12, right? Nice jump. Yeah, it was a big jump, but it didn't feel like I made much of a jump. It's a snappier processor, certainly, slightly bigger screen, but it works the same way. And yet, even though I went all three years between those two phones, I kind of want the next iPhone anyway, and I don't know why. Maybe it's subconsciously the 120 Hertz. I don't know. All right, let's finish up with a robot dog. Xiaomi announced the CyberDog, an open source quadruped robot for developers to build on. CyberDog has NVIDIA's Jetson Xavier NX AI supercomputer inside, 11 touch and ultrasonic sensors, some cameras and GPS that all help it interact with its environment. It can follow its user, navigate around obstacles on its own, and identify posture and track faces. If you're like, hey, I need you to follow Allison in that crowd. Supposedly it'll have a good chance of being able to do that. Xiaomi will release 1,000 CyberDogs into the wild. No, it's not. They're going to release the 1,000 CyberDogs to engineers and robotics enthusiasts facilitated by a Xiaomi-created open source community. If you are approved to buy one, it'll cost you $9,999 yuan. That's around $1,540 US. The company also said it might build a robotics laboratory for future innovations, but if you're following the Boston Dynamics story, you'll look at this and go like, it's kind of like Spot, but that's a big step up for Xiaomi. Yeah, and having it be an open source project like they're going to do where they're going to put it out to developers. I mean, this is made for the DTNS audience, right? Come on, nerdballs, let's get some. And then send us pictures. Show us what you did with it. Yeah, if one of you can afford it and get accepted to be one of the people that gets one of these, definitely let us know. Feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com. We want to see some pics, pics or it did happen. I do like the idea, Allison, that this indicates that robot dogs, dog-shaped robots, let's say, because they're not really dogs. They're not like Ibo. Dog-shaped robots are now commonplace. Yeah, you don't even flinch, right? Yeah. Like, oh, another company is doing these now. Will we be in a world where little four-legged robots are just kind of prancing around in public spaces sometimes? And will they be able to dance? That's a really good question. And they don't need permission to dance. Well, they want to dance. They'll just dance. They can dance if they want to. All right, let's check out the mailbag. What do we got, Allison? All right, let's do it. Scott weighed in about our is the Apple TV pointless conversation from yesterday. He wrote, yes, I'm in the ecosystem, but the kids play Crossy Road Castle on it and all four can play together at once. Apple needs more games like that to be in a better position or to better position it as a PlayStation Xbox alternative. I maintain that this is part of their long-term plan. That's something you didn't mention, but we also use it for Fitness Plus, AirPlay, and all the other reasons you did mention because we're in the ecosystem. Versatility is a big piece of it if I had to sum it up in one word. There's really nothing I want to do on it that I can't. And Jay wrote, the only reason I could justify the price tag on Apple TV was privacy and security. I guess that's two. The first thing I did when I got my brand new Visio TV was update the firmware and disable Wi-Fi. I use Apple TV exclusively for streaming. I feel like the smart TV apps don't get updated often enough and all the streaming sticks out there, including Roku, are subsidized by advertising. Yes, yes, yes, what Jay said. You know, to Scott's point about the games, the reason we didn't mention it is apparently you are the only three people using it. It's very low usage on the gaming side, and so people don't consider it to be a deciding factor. Now, maybe that'll change. Maybe, Scott, you're just on the leading edge and it's going to rise. But Jay, I think you're right, Allison, is one of those people who is representing a lot of other people's feelings on this that this is the only one that isn't collecting data on me. Yeah, I'm right with Jay. I was yelling at my iPad yesterday when you were talking about it. We turned on our new Sony TV, updated the firmware, disabled Wi-Fi, and never looked back. Brian weighed in as well. Brian also said, yeah, the not tracking, not collecting data, not advertising, that's important to me as well. He also said, I switched to iPhone last year, got the Apple TV for AirPlay, and I loved the interface without ads, but also I noticed a huge improvement in sound quality over both the Roku and the Android TV. I have a mid-range receiver and a good set of 5.1 speakers, and I'm not sure how the ones and zeros from the streaming services get manipulated in the different streaming boxes, but the surround sound was definitely improved through the Apple TV. I also now love the lossless and spatial audio in Apple music through the Apple TV as well. That's, as I said yesterday, that's the one I think is going to be one that Apple's going to push is like superior quality, better picture, better sound, better integration into your home somehow. That's where I bet Apple starts doubling down. That and the privacy. I think you're right about the privacy. You know, they need to find that 120 Hertz refresh rate lingo to put on it somewhere so people will want it, right? Yes, buttery smooth. Well, they can do more than 120 in an Apple TV, right? There you go. Just blow everybody's mind. Keep those emails coming, folks. Feedback at DailyTechNewShow.com. We've got all kinds of good emails in there that we haven't even got to. So if you haven't heard yours read on the show, don't worry. We read it, and it may still yet be read. Thanks to our brand new boss. We got a new boss, Rob Weatherly. Just started backing us on Patreon. Thank you, Rob Weatherly. Folks, it's not a lot. We seriously appreciate new patrons. Patrons, young and old, but really gives us a jolt when somebody finally makes that moment to go like, you know what, I've been enjoying this for free for long enough. I don't want to hear the ads anymore. Let me become a Patreon and get it that way. So thank you, Rob Weatherly. And thank you, Allison Sheridan for joining us today. You've got some cool stuff going on. Tell some folks about it. The coolest thing I did in the last week was on my show, Chit Chat Across the Pond Light. My guest was DTNS Science correspondent, Dr. Nikki Ackermanns. I had her on to talk in depth about the work that she does and with headbutting animals and studying microconcussions. And she gets into dissecting things and the imaging that she does. And it was not only technically really interesting, it was delightful. She is funny, she's brilliant. I could not have had more fun. It was absolutely fantastic. Definitely look for Chit Chat Across the Pond Light with Dr. Nikki Ackermanns. That's great. Yes, if you're enjoying the Sunday Science supplement on the Daily Tech headlines feed, find out a little more about the voice behind it at Chit Chat Across the Pond, podfeet.com. We are live Monday through Friday, 4.30 p.m. Eastern, 20.30 UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com. Back tomorrow with Scott Johnson. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. I hope you have enjoyed this program.