 Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners thanks to all of you including Chris Smith, Mark Gibson and Reid Fischler Coming up on DTNS Jerry Ellsworth tells us about tilt 5 and why focusing augmented reality makes it fun plus Matter is here. How good is it? And do you want to record everything you do on your laptop? Don't say no Maybe you do This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday November 3rd 2022 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from studio, Robert I'm Sarah Lane. I'm Justin Robert Young and I'm the show's producer Roger Chang Jerry Ellsworth is gonna join us in a little bit to talk about tilt 5, but let's start with the quick hits Netflix's ad supported basic with tier ads tier went live in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, the UK and the US that would be South Korea Netflix's support page notes that the tier isn't available on Apple TV at launch Although it says support is coming soon. Chromecasts prior to Google TV in the PlayStation 3 aren't supported and Netflix doesn't list Roku or Xbox consoles as being specifically supported They're just not listed on the support page. Yeah, not available in North Korea. Very Without a VPN anyway Metas big three platforms received some key updates. What's app launched communities which supports up to 1,024 users Very geeky number Offers admin controls subgroups large file sharing and 32 person video chats Communities are invite only and will not be viewable in search or discovery features So they're semi private Instagram announced it began testing letting users create their own NFTs on the platform Which can then be sold on Instagram using standard in-app transactions and Facebook expanded its Professional mode profile setting to all users which provides access to things like analytics monetization tools on a user's profile Previously only available on pages. This includes access to subscription only content monetizing in-stream ads in reels and stories and stars tipping Tick-tock updated its European privacy policy to say that its staff in the US in Brazil in Canada and Israel in Singapore and in China can access European user data. Now you might say, ooh, this is tick-tock What does this all mean that data remain stored in Singapore according to its head of privacy in Europe Elaine Fox Data will be subject to a series of robust security controls and approval protocols with methods recognized under GDPR The new policy goes into effect December 2nd Twitter announced it canceled the chirp developer conference previously scheduled for my mother's birthday November 16th The conference doesn't exactly have a grand tradition with the company It's only ever held two of them and the last one was in 2011 It's cut. I don't feel like it's a cursed conference Companies kind of busy with other things right now Although it's still awarded prizes for developer contests that it previously announced So you still got your prize. I hope you're I hope your mom is okay with this She wanted the day to herself If you're wondering whether people are actually leaving Twitter or getting punished for bad behavior or some combination of the two We have some numbers but Sentinel estimates that between October 27th and November 1st around 877,000 Twitter accounts were deactivated and 497,000 were suspended Twitter last reported 237.8 million monthly active users So relatively small numbers if you think of all the active users that supposedly are still using Twitter over the weekend Mastodon announced a record number of downloads Mastodon is a Twitter competitor That's gotten some attention as of late since then it announced that it saw over 230,000 people To 230,000 people yes joining Mastodon in the last seven days growing its active users 54 percent to 655,000 and that's the highest number it seemed to date Alright, let's talk a little more about matter the long wait is over It's all official after months of hearing about matter compatible devices the actual matter Standard is at hand the connected standards Alliance formally launched the matter smart home standard with 190 products certified or close to certification across categories like smart lighting plugs Thermostats light shades sensors and locks one of the big names on board at launch is the Phillips Hue bridge I'm an owner of one some of you are as well, which is now matter certified for where upgrade will arrive in Q1 2023 to make all existing and new hue lights and accessories automatically matter enabled Developers can also access beta firmware with support right now. Yeah, that's good stuff Amazon also a founding matter member as our Apple Google everybody is It's on board with a more graduated rollout It will add matter over Wi-Fi support on 17 Echo devices in December This means that updates won't support thread radios So it'll only be compatible with Android devices and usable by smart plugs bulbs and switches at least at first Ios and thread radio support is going to arrive But just not till early next year with plans to add more matter support to other Amazon hardware as well Amazon also demonstrated interoperability with Samsung's smart things letting you add devices from both platforms at once on your phones OS without needing to get the apps from either platform involved matter device makers will need to go through Amazon's Works with Alexa program if they want to get a works with Alexa WWE badge on product pages, but that will be done in tandem with matter certification So it's it's just for marketing and you'll get it all done at once Apple did a similar thing earlier this year Modifying works with Apple home kit to say works with Apple home and incorporating matter support at the same time And the matter standard isn't standing still as Tom mentioned I mean there's more rollouts to be done CSA president Tobin at Richardson told the Verge that company that the company expects The spec with new features and device types roughly Every six months the next update should come in March And it's already confirmed it will add four new device categories next cameras home appliances robot vacuums and energy management systems and announced today It will also add garage door controllers and electronic gates environmental quality sensors and controls like an air quality monitor Maybe you might have in your home and air purifier that sort of thing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors Ambient motion and presence sensing so that kind of gives you a better sense of oh, all right Here are all the potentially smart devices. I might have in my home going forward Yeah, the matter eventually will be the thing that makes it easy to just buy a smart home product And it won't matter who it's from you could just pick the one that you like the best And know it's gonna work because everything else is in the matter universe as well. All you'll do is look for that matter certification It's not there today today is the day we get the first round of products and and it reminds me of all the standards I've lived through in my life covering technology Bluetooth I remember covering in 1999 and everyone complaining like Bluetooth. Nobody supports it It's not very long range doesn't do this it doesn't do that Today Bluetooth still is at 100% there. I still have the same complaints, but it's pretty yeah But you can use it with so many more things and it works so much better than it used to It takes time it takes time for these standards to work their way through And matter will be no different it will it hopefully won't turn too many people off of it As it continues to expand and include more things to the point where at some point down the line You'll won't have to think about it anymore Honestly, it's only a pain for those of us already in the market, right? Of those of us who've already started to put smart home stuff in our house for the vast majority of people who haven't done this at all Now's the time right? It's just gonna get easier from here on in Because that's the thing about Bluetooth is that it largely was not only inventing its own range of products specifically wireless speakers and various different versions of earbuds but it was even as as built up as the telecommunications industry and the phone industry and the smartphone Everything the tablets were at the time. It's nowhere near the the UN level negotiations that happened Between the gigantic conglomerates the biggest companies in the world That need to come to a piece because they have understood that the balkanization of IOT devices which have been successful for them would be benefited if they were interoperable and so If anybody's frustrated that that matter right now is not moving as fast as they want If it moves at the same linear speed as Bluetooth Understand it's going seven times faster because the money involved is so much greater Yeah, I Struggle a little bit just because I'm not really in the market for any new smart home anything right now But I have quite a bit of it already going on in my house. Everything's running through Amazon's assistant You know, I've got the app, you know, I talked to her all day. It works pretty seamlessly However, there are certain product categories that I just I haven't I either don't need or I haven't bought yet And a lot of these companies aren't gonna necessarily be able to go through this And that's why a company like Amazon's gonna be like we all benefit we all benefit from these these the smart home devices talking to each other in an easier way and that has been the promise of matter for so long at the same time and I know especially a few folks who Think that I am sort of a smart home weirdo and say well So what how is this gonna help me if I already have like a smart light bulb that I can turn on and off with my voice type thing Well, it won't really But if you want to get a little bit more daisy chain robust Then it will because you can have lots of manufacturers that now can work together Yeah, you won't have to be like, oh, does this work with my thing because it just will yeah You don't have to worry about this this, you know, like oh, well, I'm in clan hue And so I must only buy hue devices right right by things that are made by Google or made by Amazon Now everything's gonna work together Eventually, I would mention don't walk into Home Depot right now and be like where are all the Where's the matter section you want to know what if you are in the world of internet of things and you're Demanding things to go faster and work easier together pump your brakes You are being very unrealistic considering the the trajectory of this technology from the very beginning relax relax Also Something that could help us relax is searching on desktop PCs, right? It's always it's always a fun time It's pretty robust kind of works both windows and macOS give back speedy responses Unless you have a computer like mine this morning to searches for files Increasingly we're seeing the use of machine learning that lets you search Contextually for even better results, but as good as that is it doesn't really capture Everything you're doing on your device. Oh, no, it doesn't and remember where there's a perceivable gap in consumer expectations There's a way for a startup to make a product at least that's what rewind AI is hoping It's offering a self-titled software product for Apple Silicon Macs claiming to keep a searchable record of everything You do locally on your machine and they mean everything you have quote seen said or heard All save locally on your machine index with OCR and speed trick mission It only slightly it's only slightly less ambitious than the momento a life logging camera back in 2012 That aim to capture every moment of your life. Oh, terrifying Okay, so what would you do with all the data that's being promised with this new service according to the demos You start by pressing command ship space again because this is Mac OS on Silicon Mac So this is something I could try on my laptop upstairs to bring up a search bar Where you could search for anything you've seen said or heard as well as a timeline of actions and apps also pulls results from any Transcribed audio or text that could be a zoom call or an email or a slack conversation It seems like it would take up all of your storage like Is that even if you wanted all of this data? How could you possibly store it all rewind claims? It can compress data up to 3,750 times without a major loss of quality Resulting in something around 10 gigabytes of data compressed to less than 3 megabytes of storage That could keep years of recordings if you were serious about this and this is something that you wanted and the data that is promised is true Kind of cool. I guess the demo only shows text results doesn't show replays of video So that might be part of the compression, but we'll see We will and rewind founder Dan Sorkner says our mission is to give humans perfect memory and compared rewind to a memory augmentation similar to a hearing aid for Well, hearing as for privacy concerns rewind says that all recordings are done locally and can be paused and deleted at any time Of course, they would say that not that they're lying, but no you would have to I I think the privacy concern here is pretty easy If you're if you're worried about Keeping any data of your own falling into the wrong hands. You might not want to record it in the first place But let's assume for the sake of the argument here that this is all going to be encrypted locally under your control Nobody else is going to get it because that's pretty easy to audit and make sure is happening It would be silly for rewind to go back on that that they would crash and burn not saying it's impossible But it seems unlikely so then it's a matter of do you want to do this? Is there a a worth in risking that it could fall in the wrong hands someday to you recording all of this? I'm a little I'm a little curious about that compression. I would like more details. They're very very sparse on the details But let's say that works too I've seen so many of these things you mentioned the memento Justin but there've been others where they're like we're just going to record everything and then you'll have access to it and People have generally said wow, that's cool and not adopted it If I if I might let me let me take you guys back into history When he was a senator from this the great state of Texas Lyndon Baines Johnson recorded Every conversation that he had on the phone and in his office He did this with seraptiously placed microphones and wiretaps It's a thing that he eventually moved to the White House when he went there It wound up getting Richard Nixon into some hot water. That's a different story The point is he did it when he was a senator because he never wanted to be Hoodwinked by somebody who is negotiating with him on what they promised him If they promised him something he wanted to know it and not have them show up two weeks later and say well As we agreed something other than what they agreed. He would always have a record. Here's the key He didn't just have a bunch of raw tape. He didn't certainly go back and listen to it He had his secretary every single night type up minutes of exactly what happened as if she were there in the room Taking them at the time Obviously, she had perfect recall because she was able to listen back to the recordings before they were eventually saved All of the recordings are not remarkable If you have the right secretary who is organizing things in ways that make your life better Then this is important. This is something that we will benefit from Right now The recording is unremarkable their ability to find a way to make it useful. I think we'll make it a product Yeah, I think uh that uh that uh the the example that you just gave Pretty good one when you're the president Yeah, you might want to have a record of things they're said. Well, it depends on who the president is, but But if you're me it's like Is the sign of uh, well, maybe these things aren't great after all Right, and I think I feel like wow gosh if I was You know in a profession if I was I don't know on some legal team where a lot of this stuff Really did matter, you know a little snippet here and there of something that otherwise Wouldn't be all that important to to the general public I could see where a company or even just a freelancer would ever say no No, this is this is actually really helpful for me Because I can just record everything and then go back and use what I need later because it's an official record I don't want this necessarily. I mean I kind of feel like I mean I have a terrible memory and I you know I closed tabs once in a while where I'm like I'm just never going to get that one back It is now in the ether somewhere So, yeah, it could it could be helpful But I think it really depends on what kind of person you are and how much record you like to keep Well and and the overhead right is is this is does this really compressed does this not get in the way? It does it doesn't slow down my system and is it useful? Can I actually find what I'm looking for in it when I need it? Is it as good as lbj's secretary? If it is then all right, you might you might win me on board You might win me over but up until now none of these things has worked as well as they have promised Maybe this is the exception. We'll see. Yeah Well folks, it is november 3rd and it's time to get our holiday gift card list in order This is a really fun thing we like to do every year each year We send every patron who wants one a holiday gift card with exclusive art from our very own lend peralta And we've got a really really beautiful one this year. We've seen mock-ups the team has seen it We're very excited for you to see it as well If you would like the card make sure that you're a patron and Check patreon.com slash pledges to make sure that we have your proper mailing address Do that by november 15th. Please to get the exclusive dts holiday card mailed from us to you. Thank you in advance When talking about augmented reality the uh mediquest pro might come up or hollow lens or maybe apples rumored headset Those often are the center of conversation, but they're not the only ones developing the technology and their broad based approach May not even be the best way tilt five has integrated ar into a tabletop gaming experience Jerry Ellsworth has joined us to talk about it. Jerry. How did this project come about? Oh, thanks for having me on um, this actually started back when I worked at valve software I invented the optical technique for this which is radically different than anybody else back then and Uh valve wasn't interested at the time doing it. So I just purchased the technology and started productizing it That's amazing. Uh, so I I like the focus that tilt five has which which first you first notice in the equipment because it's It's got a different set of equipment than people might be expecting. What do you get with tilt five? Well at the tilt five system you get the glasses which are super lightweight They have the widest field of view for an ar system out there We solve the virgin's accommodation issue that you know a lot of people have with vr where it kind of strange your eyes And then also with the system we have the magic wand which You know ironically looks a bit like a barbecue lighter, but that's not a mistake This is your six degrees of freedom input to the system. You can poke things you can pick things up But you can also hold it sideways like a game controller for more traditional Games and then part of our optical system is this board that you just fold out on the table It's completely passive, but that um reflects the light back into your eyes to the special material called retroflector And that's how we generate the light field that's so comfortable to look at So you're playing board games with this how do game pieces and cards fit in with the augmented reality part of it? Well our system's more than just board games So a lot of people naturally gravitate to that because there's a board piece of it So in fact about 80 of the games that we brought to the system are pure video games So action games and puzzle games and you know racing games things like that Um, but however, we do do really awesome things with board games So we have some platforms like table topia that has hundreds of board games that you can play completely digital But then we have some other platforms on there like battle map studio where you can build up these say d&d scenarios You can build your dungeons and you can actually put physical pieces down As you know your miniatures down and move them through the dungeon and the map can scroll by and it really adds to the the experience Also on that particular platform, there's some really cool stuff that you can do You know per player because you each get your own view into this You know holograms on your table you can have things like perception that's different between each player So one player might see the toxic smoke and the other people can't and the dm Of course, it's to see it all and that's that's the power of Augmented reality and does everybody have to be in the same room to play this? No not at all So we have a local multiplayer, um, which Is really interesting all games Even single player games can be spectated and you can pass controls around digitally But we can also connect game boards all across the world with almost any number of players coming in So if your friends can't come over for game night, you just link up game boards and with the built-in speaker and microphone You can just talk with each other and we're about ready to introduce some hand tracking. That's exciting So you'll be able to like point to things and you'll have avatars, you know Represent you can have your hands be telepresence and so that'll add to this like kind of intimate connection you have with your friends around the world So like you said, it's not just board games, but it's it's like it's like a game space Kind of yeah, it's this big volume of space where the magic happens like things are just spilling out across your table And that's part of our um, how we optimize the system You know, you mentioned oculus quest pro, you know, they had to make a lot of trade-offs with that It has a lot of utility, but the the ar aspect of it is really diminished Like you kind of feel like you're outside your body our system's different. So there's light fields in front of you We're not messing with what the world looks like in front of you. It's not like downgrading your world experience It's just adding this magic to it All right, so if people want to get ahold of one, uh, What's what what's the process? When is it going to ship? Do you have a price? What are the details? Oh my god, we've been shipping for like three months. So we did a Kickstarter a couple years ago, so Majority of those are already out unless you haven't sent us your address. Please do that if you're one of our backers We're trying to get you your kit We've been starting to transact new orders and send out kits and our systems to new customers We're a little backordered right now. So if you go to our website, you can put $5 down and we're about a two-month lead time on those right now The price for one kit is 359, but they get closer to 300 if you start buying our our group packs and Our system is really focused on group play So highly recommend getting two or three units so you can sit around the table and share things together Yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense that you want to get at least a couple friends, you know, perfect holiday present Maybe yeah, yeah, yeah Where can folks go to learn more about tilt 5? tilt 5.com all spelled out You can follow us on social media as well twitter and all the usual places under tilt 5 and You know have fun watching our communications folks Cut up all the time and put out terrible cringe worthy gifts And you can see all the latest games coming out. We have we have some pretty exciting announcements coming up We just announced settlers katon So that's in production right now. We've been taking a look at early builds of that in another game The we're adding a lot of features to those that make it more than just the original board game that you remember It's going to be a dynamic world you can reach in and poke the sheep and they're going to react and you can taunt your friends by doing things That's so cool. Yeah in the virtual space So there's a lot of stuff you can do between turns and then we have You know in the upcoming months we're announcing some pure video games that we've licensed that are coming to the system as well as There's over 50 developers creating various games for our system That's fantastic jerry. Thank you so much for talking with us about it. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you Yes, thank you jerry, uh, and yeah, thanks to everybody who uh, who Who dreams of trips around the world? And gives us fun advice for where we might want to go next you might say No, I don't know where i'm going next chris christensen just might have a good answer for you This is chris christensen from amateur traveler with another tech in travel minute I have a resource for those of you who are in trepid travelers who are planning on doing around the world trip I've only done one trip where I did around the world obviously with stops And that's the whole point of an around the world trip But if you're looking to do that kind of trip, there's a site that has been out there for some time And is the expert in that and that's air trex dot com They do other tickets that are long tickets multi stop tickets as well But for that complicated round the world ticket where you want to Make all these stops and not backtrack because that's the rules for the flights And see a lot of different countries on one ticket But many stops in many countries air trex dot com are definitely the experts This is chris christensen from amateur traveler around the world You know I I I was so pleased when chris suggested air trex because I haven't used it in quite some time But I traveled around the world for a year and I used air trex Now this was a different different different story back in 2006 When you you had to buy Plane tickets a little bit differently than you do today, but it's good to know they're still around and thriving Wow. Yeah, they're they're like heritage Web, yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, that was just a name and round the world travel round the world travel All right, let's check out the mail bag. Well, set the mail bag We're actually checking out something we sent to you in your mail bag indeed It's a mail bag of sorts So patrons probably already know this but if you aren't reading rogers two cents newsletter Great weekly thought provoking perk for our supporters, which we like to offer our patrons That's sort of the fun of being a patron In fact this week's post titled which way is gaming going was written by gen cutter who thinks a lot about this stuff And uh has a has a really good one. So do check it out if you haven't already Yeah, rogers two cents are three canadian cents this week from gen cutter Exactly It's a it's a really good overview if you're like I've been losing track of what is going on with the cloud gaming versus the mobile versus that gen just really breaks it down In a nice orderly way to say here's where we're at Here's what's actually happening Not not what everybody's been complaining about stadia. Blah. Blah. This is what's actually there. It's it's a good read Go check it out And indeed, uh, thank you to you Justin rubber young for being with us today Let folks know what you've been doing the last week or so Oh boy, I have been focused almost entirely on the midterm elections that happened Tuesday November 8th reminder to vote if you have not already early voting is available in almost every state, uh, however If you want to get caught up. We had our midterms for dummies episode last week I have my final analysis of everything that has happened as well as my predictions on what's going to happen This week on the politics politics politics podcast and then on Tuesday night If you go to px3live.com that is letter p letter x number three live dot com You'll be able to watch the midterms with a big live in studio coverage team consisting of myself Andrew Heaton Jen briney bryan brushwood, uh, bret weaver and uh, possibly some special guests. We don't know Go ahead on over there. That is px3live.com Tuesday November 8th We will begin our stream an hour before Polls close on the east coast put it on your calendars everybody not to be missed Uh, also, we're not missing thanking a very special supporter who's been with us for a long time Snow dog is one of our top lifetime supporters for dtns. Thank you for all the years of support snow dog I hope you're staying warm. No dogs. No snow snow dog understands the value that we give and has been giving us Value back and we appreciate that and everyone likes no dog Be the snow dog in your own life patreon.com slash dts We can only all aspire to be snow dog In our own lives, uh patrons stick around for our extended show a good day internet We roll right into it live after we finish dtns, uh, but just a reminder We are doing the show live. You might listen to us after the fact Maybe you watch it Well, you can catch the show live money through friday at 4 p.m. Eastern 200 utc you can find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live back again tomorrow with rob dunwood and lenn Peralta joining us talk to 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 program