 Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners thanks to all of you including Tony Glass Philip less and Daniel Dorado Coming up on DTNS Tricia Hirschberger is here to give us some ideas for gifts to give the video gamer in your life Plus the social network for meeting friends for dinner and why countries want you to work from their beaches This is the Daily Tech News for Monday November 14th, 2022 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt from lovely Cleveland, Ohio I'm the show's producer Roger Chang and joining us TV host and streamer Tricia Hirschberger is back Should I say that I'm from sunny Los Angeles as well. Oh, so like round it out. Yeah. Yeah I'm so excited to be here. Thank you guys for having me back. It's good to have you We're going to start with the quick hits Google moved its health connect app out of early access and into public beta on the play store Now you may recall when this launched it only supported Fitbit Google Fit and Samsung health It lets you kind of aggregate and sync between all of those services. Well, it's added some more integration So now you can sync your health and fitness data from Peloton aura weight-watchers my fitness pal flow life Some total outdoor active and prove Insight so a lot of big names Outside of maybe some of the more platform focused ones getting in on health connect Reuters reports that meta told employees Friday that it would stop developing its portal smart displays and develop smart watches the company already pivoted portal displays from consumer to enterprise devices and now it's going to stop selling them all together by The end of this year Bloomberg had reported that meta had already stopped work on its smart watch in May But now the program is officially stopped Alibaba did not share full sales results from its singles day shopping event for the first time saying Grandiose Lee that gross merchandise value was in line with last year 2021 sales reached 540.3 billion yuan. It's about seventy six point one billion dollars So probably still generated a lot of gross merchandise value, but they're not crowing about it Yeah singles day, so not what it used to be. It's like half state Platformers Casey Newton's sources say that Twitter eliminated about 80% of its 5,500 contract employees over the weekend cuts were are expected to impact things like content moderation and core infrastructure services The by now pay later FinTech company Klarna launched a price comparison tool in the US last month And it's now expanded that to markets in Europe including places like the UK and the Nordic countries Users will be able to shop and pay in the Klarna app Which will also show historical pricing data and recommendations So it'll let you know. Hey, maybe you should wait on buying that item or it's a good price right now This builds on Klarna's acquisition of price runner, which it closed on back in April I don't know. I get a vibe about Klarna. I could be wrong. It might be something to worth what I figured out the payments Let's talk a little more about making close friends because Once you're over the age of 12 When you're an adult it gets difficult Despite technology finding more ways to connect people the situation hasn't improved In fact studies have found that it might have even gotten worse the survey center on American life found in 2021 that 12% of people in the US couldn't identify a person they would call a close friend That's up from only 3% of people surveyed saying that in 1990 Yeah, and since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic We've seen some dating apps trying to move into finding platonic matches as well We've got bumble offering a BFF features all the way back in 2016 But that's all a huge increase in time spent on it in 2021 and match group acquired the South Korean social networking company hyper connect that connects people for platonic chance But TechCrunch just profiled an interesting new startup called 222 that says it wants to provide a way for more authentic connections Yeah, Deuces Wild 222 The service launched late last year coming out of a university funded project that was looking into predicting social Compatibility and groups of strangers this this reminds me of all those MIT robotics programs except it's about like connecting actual people This led the founders to create dinner parties inviting friends of friends But the guest lists were determined using psychological questionnaires fed into machine learning The founders essentially expanded that into a service where they have you fill out a questionnaire and the algorithm will then decide like Oh, you should probably have dinner with these people and they've been partnering with venues in Los Angeles to host events Yeah, and to get your algorithmic invite right now sign-ups are limited to those 18 to 27 At least at the moment rather than an app user use a type form workflow answering about 30 questions covering everything from Favorite movies music cereal preferences to more thorny things like political views and religious affiliation Once you put in your info 222 notifies you of events You've been selected for it says that data is encrypted But it also uses input data as part of a university social science experiment does disclose that So I guess my question is Trisha dinner parties as a service You interested Heck yeah, I think that sounds awesome. I I'm too old for their current age range, but if they decide to open it up a little I would be very hyped like this reminds me So the questionnaire portion of it reminds me of e harmony I'm not sure how much online dating everyone that's here did but I did a lot of it back You know before I met I found my person And e harmony makes you do all those Answer all those questions so that the algorithm or the matchmakers or whatever powers that be the brain behind The service can match you up with people you might be compatible with and I always really liked Online services that were more of like a group outing anyway So there's a little less pressure on it so you can just go out meet new people that you may or may not be compatible with But you know having a little extra Authority behind them thinking you'll be compatible with these people. I think could be really beneficial However, I was just talking about this on my twitch stream yesterday. I think it was Where it's some people said that sounds like a nightmare for introverts But could be really great if you're extroverted and looking to meet new people and with so much of us Living our lives online. I think getting getting afk every now and then to meet other people could be a great thing I don't know. What do you guys think? I see people in our chat saying like batfink. This is a horrible idea Which I say like well, you don't have to do it. It's not like it's the law, right? This is for people who are like, oh, I would like to do that I just don't have anyone to go get dinner with so how do I find those people and and to be frank It feels like it's less risky than than dating because dating is is heavy, right? That that's that's a lot of other things that it's meant to lead to Whereas a dinner is just like, oh, you know, maybe I'll make some friends and if not, you know, no big deal Yeah, and that was one of the things in the piece They kind of talked about like some of the health and safety aspects of this and they're like Well, everything's in a group setting So like you're always in a public place that all these are public venues that you're going to be meeting up in and you're not doing There's no like chat interface. You're like, yeah Yeah, and it's not like you have to chat with these people or give them any of your details or anything like that So that that removes a lot of like the creep factor that you can get on dating sites I just think it's One thing that really stood out to me is Just the fact that it eliminates so much of Like that tension of like especially like moving to a new city I know this was like one of their primary examples of Just being able because you have events like this already where you're going like hey We're gonna go to this tasting menu to sit at the group table And you will usually strike up a conversation with the person next to you because you're just in proximity And I think like being like, okay, you're still gonna have this experience. You're invited to it you don't have to go to it the price is super low to accept it too and Taking that away, but still providing that same experience that you might otherwise enjoy. I'm interested in this I don't know how they scale it though. That's the one thing like I'm kind of scratching my head here on this Yeah, I'm not sure I'm with you on that. I don't know how they would scale it to get it a little bit larger But I mean I always recommend to people and they're like, how do I meet new people to go and find people? You have things in common right with right like go to a local book club if you have a local gaming or hobby shop Like go play games, you know if you're into MTG or D&D or whatever like go play games and find other people You have things in common with so it seems to me like this service is just taking the Finding people you have stuff in common with part of it off your plate for you Yeah, so you're just going to the event. That's why I think it sounds nice Nick with the sea was saying how is this different from meetup.com and the difference is the algorithm, right? Like it you don't have to pick pick a meetup You you just go to the thing and the algorithm will have found people that are fun to be together Which that it's harder to do that. It's it's easy to be like I'm looking for a date So I'm going to the bar where people look for dates If you say I'm going to the bar where people look for friends Everybody's gonna be like sure you are you're just looking for a date, right? Like this this gives you a safe space to be like no no really this is just about friendship And what I would say about the whole introvert aspect to it is we say it's dinner parties as a service But each of these is catered like the events are catered to the audience that they are serving It's not like every single time you're going out to dinner right at the exact same restaurant regardless of whether it's a group of introverts It's a group of extroverts or whatever they talked about having concerts having quieter experiences So I'm assuming if they already know that like hey, we're gonna have a bunch of people where Social interaction perhaps is more a more of a draining experience that requires energy to put yourself out there They're not going to put you in a situation where you run Yeah, people bring the introverts together so that they don't feel pressured is could be a really good positive aspect of something like this Also, I would like to see this available for the 65 plus crowd I mean loneliness in in people as they get older is a huge problem and a health problem That that has been identified and so making a service like this. It's available for all ages. I think is really important Well rest of world org has a story up called Malaysia built a work-from-home paradise Now it's just needs people to turn up the idea is to attract digital nomads to fill the void left by Disappearances of business travelers because of the pandemic business travel as its own Fantastic little subculture and digital nomads. I guess has another one. Let's let's tap into them So in September Malaysia launched a visa scheme called DE ran to aimed at digital nomads who make $24,000 a year or more workers in IT and other all-digital work can stay for up to a year with the possibility of renewal and Bringing in dependence the program promotes for destinations as places with good connectivity and hospitality Yeah, so they brought a bunch of journalists including rest of worlds Journalists to the Kamar resort on Langkawi Island. This is one of those four locations It has good internet lots of cafes and restaurants that take credit cards, which is important when you're traveling Visa and MasterCard They've got service on the island from grab for ride hailing Air Asia flies there. So it shouldn't be too hard to get there And apparently they've gotten more than 2,000 applications for these new Malaysian visas as of early October Lots of content creators lots of software engineers UX designers Malaysia When they talk about it publicly is hoping to get people involved in AI and web 3 and sustainability But you know, they're getting people Well, and the thing is Malaysia isn't alone in creating special visas for digital nomads We've got countries like Estonia and they appear to be the first country to do so way back in 2020 If you want to do something first digital, I guess you start with Estonia Indonesia offers a six-month permit for remote workers and a second home visa for higher earners And then in September Thailand began offering a digital nomad visa that offers 10-year residency and discounted tax rate for foreigners Who make at least $40,000 a year? So, you know treasure be tempted to pack up and you know moving to Southeast Asia on an island somewhere soon quite move I definitely I would look into vacationing there Or maybe like an extended couple weeks day But it's hard. That's hard for me to say because I would say about 60% of the work I do is probably digital nomad life content creator streamer Although it would probably be hard to bring my two desktops over there. I'd have to buy new when I got there But the other part of the work I do is you know on sound stages and stuff here in Los Angeles So I don't know that I could fully up and go But if you are in an industry where you work from your laptop and can move anywhere I see this actually with a lot of my younger cousins who are right in that 20 to 30 age range just out of college entrepreneurial spirits wanting to do this digital nomad life all living in different countries and doing it successfully So I kind of think it's awesome that Malaysia has opened up to this. I think it's neat. What do you guys think? Are you willing to move? See the the tourist visa gets you 90 days, right? So you can kind of go on that as it is although technically you're not really supposed to work Or you're supposed to tell them if you're gonna work and all that sort of thing This is really like if you're willing to pack up that desktop and take it with you and and be there for months They're making it easy To me. It's like I just have too many routes here to just go and do that On the other hand, I have friends as well who do this In fact, I talked to Jen briny host of congressional dish who is a digital nomad She has gone to Portugal and Poland within like the last six months and spent extended amounts of time Living and working in those regions She is now back in the US and she has a few reasons why she hasn't gotten to a lot of the places that we just mentioned Starting with Estonia. It's fine print says that if you want the year-long visa You have to physically be in Estonia, but I think it was six months something like that So they're aiming to have people like come and stay and it's just so far north and I don't do winter That like six months in Estonia. I just like I can't the reason that we're focusing so intensely on Europe right now It's because we have the dog. I know some other digital nomads and they love going to visit Indonesia and Malaysia and there's like a bunch of different places super friendly to digital nomads But they're not as friendly to little tiny eight pound dogs Because you have to do quarantines and it's a whole process to bring a dog onto an island and our little pound puppy Cannot handle being in a cage for more than 10 seconds without losing her mind Yeah, so I thought it was really interesting to hear those other considerations from somebody who is like yeah I'm doing this But I'm maybe not picking those places because they haven't done the things that I need them to do yet to make it easy Yeah, and the other thing is I mean obviously, you know Digital nomad you're probably not doing that like if you have young kids I have a young family so like you know a five and a four-year-old that can barely get to eat a hot dog I'm probably not like lining up. I don't care how westernized the resort is over there You know in Thailand or something like I'll get them before you have they have to be in school though If you're gonna do it all right and then let alone the like 24 hours It's all trout like everything about it is a disaster for young families But I will say I know a lot of people especially like the IT consultant area that have done some form of digital No matter whether it's long term or it's like we did it for a year just to you know I was in between gigs. I was just doing consulting. So we bought an airstream and we just drove around and stuff like that But when you do that you can have a certain sense of Stability so if you even if you have you know, maybe an older child or you have pets and stuff like that That's easier to handle when you have Again when when you're still can be somewhat Domestic you can go to familiar places if you need to if you know if emergencies crop up and stuff like that What I think this is interesting is when I'm looking at the terms of these like a year, you know Estonia is like six months I feel like a lot of that is to try to track maybe not Estonia's case But like a lot of the snowbird audience where maybe I am someone that's driving around my airstream and I'm going through the you know Just drive around and I'm going through route 66 or whatever and then other weather's getting cold You know what I can park that somewhere I can put in storage and I can take off and spend six months in Thailand That doesn't sound like the the worst way to spend my digital Well, you could do the summer in Estonia and the winter in Thailand, you know Yeah, I love that musical. That's so good The old song summer in Estonia Enter in Indonesia Well folks, I'm gonna try to get Jim briney back on the show Roger's gonna talk to her and and get some of her tips and tricks for being a digital nomad because when you're a digital Nomad, you don't have the home base anymore. You you are on the road like that continuously So look for that in the coming weeks And if you have a thought about anything we talked about on the show Here is our email address send it to us feedback at daily tech news show dot com As we move closer to the start of the holiday shopping season, it just kind of fades in over time You might be wanting to know what to get for the gamer on your list or or maybe what to ask for if you are a Gamer because it could be tricky. I there are games, of course, but you may get those for yourself or So many of them are digital. Maybe you're like, I don't want to buy him a disc They don't use that anymore. You don't want to get him the wrong game Trisha, you not only play scores of games for your Twitch stream But you also have lots of hands-on time with a lot of gaming hardware besides games What are some good gamer gift ideas? Oh? I'm so glad you asked. I mean this is exactly what you were saying of do I get them the right game Do they already had this game? What if they don't like this genre of game? So my Probably top level that I always suggest for people because it's under that $50 price point where it's a sweet spot for gaming stuff is Game pass if you are buying for someone who is a PC or Xbox gamer Game pass and game pass for PC and game pass ultimate which is the hybrid of the two so you get to play games on Cloud games Xbox games or PC games game pass ultimate you can get a three-month game pass ultimate For about $45 it comes on a little card So you actually have something to put in the stocking if you're looking for a stocking stuffer But it's so nice because then you're giving three months of a full library of games That the person you're gifting it to can choose between so you don't have to worry about what they already have in their collection You don't have to worry about the genres they play It's like getting a gift card for them, but without them having to go do the gift card part, right? It's actually appreciated Yeah, you don't have to do the gift card part and it's like a gift card for it's essentially like a three-month library card for Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of different games that they can just at their will for that next three months do as they please so that's a Fantastic kind of good for everybody who's a PC or Xbox gamer Also, if you're looking for some hardware and you're shopping for someone that is a mobile gamer the Backbone or the Razor Kishi are both devices that do this So it's a device that stretches so that you get almost joy con like sides to your mobile device So you can play your mobile games You can play your cloud-based games that you're streaming or whatnot with a full handheld set and it thereby turns your phone Into a switch like device so for mobile gamers. That's absolutely awesome. They'll feature things like charge pass through And they make them for both iOS and Android so just make sure if you're shopping those You know what the gift recipient uses as their preferred mobile operating system That's a good one to think of and then if you're thinking of controllers again You know whether you're a PC gamer an Xbox Gamer or a PlayStation gamer. I have something for everybody I always like to recommend because it's tried and true and everybody loves it But for the PC gamer in your life the Logitech G502, I have the light speed wireless That's what I use on my streaming PC and it's really nice But it's a wireless controller. That's very very well rated Logitech is like the go-to for a competitive gameplay on PC as well as the G502 I don't I mean Tom. I don't know if you've reviewed this over yours, but the G502 has been like The trusted five out of five star review gaming mouse, I feel like for the decade It's like the C920 of gaming mice, right? Goes out of style 100% yes, and I like the wireless It's really fast no latency and it you know cleans up my desk space Plus if you forget to charge it you need to charge it It plugs in during right in the top and then you can just use it as a wired mouse while it's charging So it's not like you oh, I forgot to charge it now. I'm done For the Xbox gamers out there the elite series 2 is an amazing controller And for the PlayStation gamers out there the new dual senses For the ps5 come in a variety of different colors, and they're so pretty And so fun, and if you have not used a dual sense controller yet It's very hard for me to describe How different the haptics are on a dual sense and how it feels in the hand It's you know, it's one of those things that you kind of have to feel it to believe it if you will But it is leaps and bounds different than any other Haptics in controllers. I felt so those are all great I'm trying I'm trying to move a little quick because I know that we only have so much time Yeah, but there's so much good stuff if you're into headsets my best gift under a hundred dollar headset is Usually really anything from the hyper x cloud gaming headset line. These are so good That's the cloud 2 that we're taking a look at there But these are almost always priced under a hundred dollars even more so if you can find them on sale and they're lightweight They're comfortable. They have excellent sound quality, and they're very reliable So I always recommend those if you're looking for more of a luxury headset And you have a digital nomad that games maybe that you're shopping for the Alienware 920 h headset that I'm wearing right now actually Is a tri-mode connectivity headset so it connects over Wireless it connects over Bluetooth and it can wired connect either via USB-C or 3.5 millimeter So your connectivity options are not only very varied, but for example I like to keep the wireless dongle at home on my battle station So when I'm here gaming it connects very easily to my PC But I'll connect to my laptop via Bluetooth or I can easily plug into my switch via wired So it it works in a variety of situations without me having to do a lot to switch in between the two Which is awesome And then another one that's kind of is as universal or even more so Then game pass ultimate is more storage Every gamer out there needs more storage all the time Especially if you're trying to create gaming clips or content from your games More storage is absolutely key So whether it's an sd card or a micro sd card for something like the nintendo switch Whether it's a little portable ssd that you can plug into your playstation or xbox Or whether it's m.2 that you can install internal On your next gen consoles or in your pc These are so important to have the one caveat I will get if you are gifting this to someone thinking oh man my My you know cousin has a ps5 And I want to get the more storage for their ps5 for the next gen consoles xbox series x and ps5 If you get them in external ssd Chances are real good that they'll be able to save their games and uh run their Previous gen games off of the external ssd But they'll need to transfer that game file back onto the console's internal storage to run the game off of it So that's that's a reason that you might want to consider an m.2 That can be installed internally if you're shopping next gen consoles only But really more storage is a gift that everyone can appreciate because It's the worst when you get a new game and you have to uninstall a favorite that you hadn't finished yet Yeah, yeah, it's the worst the worst. It's the worst. So is there anything I miss that's on your list gentlemen That you're like this is what I need for my gamer heart this holiday season The one so the one thing I would say just real quick is we've seen a lot of like cloud streaming Uh, the stuff announced. I know logitech announced their own. Is that no go or is that? I need to know the audience for you do something like that Uh, if your audience or the person you're buying for has fast reliable internet service Then cloud gaming could be an excellent choice for them But is heavily reliant on your internet And I would think you'd still need to know what games work for them to Oh, I mean the library of games you can use between g-force now and uh xbox game pass cloud gaming There's so many games now that I really feel like you'll find a genre for everyone But it doesn't work awesome in every area if you're in an area and you have that High-speed reliable internet then it's really cool And that's where the backbone and the razor key she come in for your phone And if you love that and want to upgrade that then go for that logitech g cloud Yeah, I like that I love game pass ultimate is like an easy gift if anybody's in xbox and pc And I love the stealth of being able to ask your your ps5 or ps uh, yeah your ps5 Gift recipient, uh, what's your favorite color? Not no clue. I have no clue what you're getting Sneaky sneaky All right, well may 16th 2020 was still for many of us the height of covet 19 related lockdown So probably not a lot of fond memories when we're looking back, you know At our uh google photos and that kind of stuff, but it turned out to be a pretty fun day for the us space force It launched its unmanned x37 b space plane on that date and over the weekend 908 days later it landed successfully at nasa's kennedy space center making it the longest and its sixth overall mission The x37 b first started flying in 2010 We don't know much about its overall purpose since then what we do know about this current mission Is that deployed the falcon sat 8 satellite it also carried equipment to test converting solar energy to microwaves to transmit back to the ground Which sounds awesome and experiments to test space exposure on seeds for future interplanetary missions Yes space seeds the space plane last landed in 2019 after a 780 day mission a mere 780 days I mean, I know this isn't the first uh and and it's not even the first time they've gone more than a year But just the idea that they're they're sending these these solar Planes for years without anyone on board and they just fly around the earth You know, that's it's pretty impressive when you think about it Yeah, just someone's is cool. Does someone's job for like two years was like is the space plane still up? All right. Yeah All right, that's like that idea pat and kelly just sitting there trading off shifts. You know Space plane still up. Yep. All right your turn. Yep. Watch the next 12 hours Uh, that's amazing Uh, you know who else is amazing trisha hearse burger. Thank you so much. That was incredible. What a great rundown of info for folks Thank you for doing that Oh, man, thank you for having me. You know, I'm very passionate about gaming hardware So I can talk about that all day anytime where should folks go if they want more trisha in their life, which they should Oh Man, well if folks want to follow me on all the socials, it's at that girl trish with no i in the girl So just that gl trish, um, except for on twitch and youtube where it's trisha hearse burger And on twitch, I do an indie game showcase every tuesday, and i'm pretty much streaming four to five Days a week every week. So come on by and say hi fantastic. Thanks again. Well, thank you trisha And thanks to chris taylor who is one of our top lifetime supporters for dtns Thanks for all your years of support chris truly appreciate. Thank you chris All right, and patreons remember stick around for the extended show good day internet It's getting started in just like a couple of seconds. You don't have to stick around that long You can catch the show live monday through friday at 4 p.m. Eastern 2100 utc find out more daily tech news show dot com Slash live we'll be back tomorrow talking about media tech's latest chip announcements with shannon morse See you then this show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frog pants dot com Diamond club hopes you have enjoyed this bro