 Coming up on D TNS, the internet goes on a manhunt and again gets the wrong guy. Twitter opens the blue check mark for all to apply, but not all will receive. And Google opens a gift shop. I mean, an Apple store. I mean, they've got a retail store coming. This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, May 20th, 2021 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane from Austin, Texas. I'm Justin Robert Young and I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. You know, I do want to say Justin, it is nice that we're not all California when you're on the show now. Representing, yeah, you know, we can I'm glad to finally stand up to you. West Coast elites, third coast represent. Hey, folks, fly over country will be heard. If you want to hear about how my dad made military precision peanut butter and jelly, get the wider conversation on our expanded show. Good day, internet. We're just having a good time talking about all kinds of stuff. Patreon dot com slash D TNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Apple announced a number of new accessibility features, including a one on one sign language interpreting service called Sign Time for shopping and support sessions set to launch on May 20th in the US, the UK and France. Apple also brought a assistive touch to Apple Watch will introduce eye tracking support for onscreen pointer to the iPad with compatible my five devices later this year and add support for new bi-directional hearing aids. Scientists from TSMC, the chip maker MIT, the university and National Taiwan University published a paper in nature describing processes that use semi metal bismuth to make semiconductors below one nanometer. The process requires a helium ion beam lithography system. TSMC currently uses tungsten interconnects and Intel uses cobalt. So it would be a big change. The one nanometer process is in R&D production. That's research and development only. And is years away from being implemented at high volume, if at all. The next version of Chrome OS will feature full support for Linux apps on the platform, which previously launched in beta back in 2018. Chrome OS 91 also adds a new terminal app, better USB support for Linux apps and faster updates to the underlying Linux container. ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming announced he will step down from the role naming his longtime colleague and ByteDance's head of HR, Liang Rubou, as his replacement. Yiming will move to a key strategy position with ByteDance by the end of 2021 and remain chairman of the company. Snap announced Story Studio, an iOS app for creating and editing mobile videos. The app will pull trending data from Snapchat and Snapchat's TikTok competitor Spotlight to inspire creators to make content that others will like, popular content. Users can share videos directly to Snapchat or upload them into other apps. Story Studio content won't include a watermark to avoid other platforms demoting them in their algorithms. Snap also announced it would stop distributing one million dollars per day to its top Spotlight creators, instead distributing millions per month starting June 1st, but didn't really specify any more than that. Snap's latest gen Spectacles AR glasses are now up for pre-order. Plus, it's latest generation of a new VR camera feature that lets users try on clothes, accessories and makeup. Yeah, Snap's been saying it's a camera company for years. It's good to see that kind of becoming more of a real thing. Snap, I mean, their product rollout is unmatched. I really, I got a hand at them. They release a lot of products. All right, let's talk about a place to buy products, Sarah. Let's do it. Starting this summer, Google will open its first permanent physical retail store at its Chelsea campus in New York City. It's not a barge like the San Francisco Bay had for some time. It's also not a pop-up store. This is a real physical retail shop with employees and people coming in and looking at Google products. The store will sell a variety of Google hardware, like Pixel phones, Nest devices, Fitbit wearables and Pixel books, as well as serve as a pickup location for online orders. And there will also be in-store experts to help with troubleshooting repairs, setting up new devices and offering how to workshop. So very much the kind of store that we are understand exists with with other companies. But yeah, Google's Google's making it official. So wait a minute. Why isn't it an alphabet store if it's selling Nests and Fitbits? Fitbit and Nest are owned by Google. Google, not by Alphabet's. Yeah. Well, they're all owned by Alphabet, really. Nest used to be another bet, but they moved Nest back into Google. So yeah, you're right, Sarah. They're all owned by Alphabet, but they are. These are also owned by Google, particularly. OK, and Alphabet, I just want to make sure everybody's ready for all familiar brands for all the pen dance out there that always want to jump up like everybody knows exactly where which angels are dancing on the head of the pin of Google versus Alphabet. Please go ahead. Yeah, this smart move. I made a crack about it being a gift shop because it's on the campus. But honestly, this is this is a great move to try out a store idea. You do it in Manhattan, where you got a lot of foot traffic and you do it in a building you already control. And if you've been over in Chelsea, there's the YouTube space studio that's over there. There's the Google building. It is a it is a place where people walk around and shop. So it's not like, oh, I'd have to go on to a Google campus like you would in in California. You're just walking down the street. You're going to see a Google store. You might you might drop in. And if it goes well, then yeah, they might do this more places. Yeah, I mean, Google has a large presence in New York City. I know a few people who work at that campus and the idea that especially as, you know, Fitbit wearables, for example, we're talking about, you know, wear OS and more options for smart watches in the future and and, you know, then of course, pixel books, which is it's a great category to be like, you know, but what does it feel like, you know, how is it to type on that kind of stuff? I think this is a great idea. And frankly, when I read this news this morning, I was like, have we not done this yet? Really just thought it existed somewhere. And I just hadn't been there. I also wonder how long this has been in gestation, whether or not it's something that they planned on introducing earlier because this does seem about the earliest possible that anybody could announce a new physical anything and not on some level get a negative backlash to what should be at at at its worst, a boring or ho hum news, but hopefully joyous news that a new thing is going to come out. I think it is a good sign in terms of that. And also a good sign that there is Google Hardware because Google Hardware has not something that historically has been the biggest strong suit for them. And that is, I think, now fully shed. There should be a place where top end pixel phones are sold. Yeah, but if anybody's wondering, Manhattan just reopened, you know, indoor dining and all that kind of thing. So, you know, there there are people out and about on the streets of Manhattan in big numbers again. And this announcement comes with a whole section on COVID sanitization and how they're cleaning the store and all that all that sort of thing. There will be limited capacity in the store, etc. Oh, Internet. Last Friday, a fire broke out in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles County, reaching 1150 acres and causing the evacuation of thousands of people. Now, fires are not rare in California these days, but this outbreak was a little early in the year and during a cool even moist time of weather conditions. Helicopter pilots also reported they saw a man in the fire zone setting fires Friday night, but he disappeared. That's where the app Citizen comes in. The app debuted in 2016. You may remember it as Vigilante. It was banned from the Apple App Store. It rebranded and relaunched in 2017 as Citizen got accepted. Employees of Citizen listen to emergency communications in 20 cities and generate alerts about criminal activity in your area. And there's also a community element as well. Citizen has marketed itself as a safety app, saying it does not want users to try to solve crimes or run toward danger. Just be aware. Saturday night in Los Angeles, the second night of the Palisades fire, Citizen used a new feature, kind of a clubhouse like feature, called on air to show a photo of a man and give his name and offer $30,000 for information leading to his arrest. About 860,000 citizen users received that broadcast. Citizen on air host urged listeners to, quote, get out there and bring this guide at justice. And the police had told a residence association that they were looking for the man that was named by Citizen. The association itself had posted some info to next door in Facebook, but did not use the man's name or post a photo. So Citizen got that part of it some other way. Sunday, the man in question was briefly detained and then let go due to lack of evidence. Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, Lieutenant Jim Brayden, called the actions of Citizen potentially disastrous because it wasn't the guy. Citizen says it failed to follow its validation protocols. It's going to work on not letting this happen again. They did get a guy. Sunday, a resident saw a different man coming out of a trail head who appeared to need help. So he asked the security folks like, hey, check this guy out. Turns out that man was arrested and charged Tuesday with one felony count each of arson of a structure or forest and arson during a state of emergency. Now, that man has pleaded not guilty, but the Sheriff's Department think they got the right guy this time. Palisades Fire was at 66 percent containment and no structures had been lost as of this recording, if you're curious about that. But there was a guy, but good old fashioned legwork is what got the suspect, not citizen. Yeah. So we have our hall of fame of Internet sleuthing. I don't know if this one necessarily is more blunderous than Reddit attempting to find the Boston bomber subject and leaving a trail of doxxed innocence behind them. But I don't know if there is any app that should be pushing this particular function. I'm a citizen user. I used it in Oakland. I use it now here in Austin. I do find it to be valuable on some level for what they have employees doing on it, which is listening to police scanners and then reporting and pushing alerts on those police scanners. But then again, I also have a context for that because I used to listen to that as a reporter. Like I had to get used to in a newsroom just having the police scanner on at all times because that's how you would find out what news was happening. I don't know if beyond that bizarre trait because of my background, if citizen is necessarily even a good idea, I do know that that example is something that went too far. And we do need to be mindful of using these platforms as mob justice tools beyond how guilty we know some of these people could be. And citizen says they employ journalists. The LinkedIn social media profiles say, according to recode anyway, that they have employees from the Daily Beast, CBS News, New York Daily News. So these are people with experience with that. But even then, from a newspaper perspective, if you're going to put on the front page, find this guy and get him without the police saying that they need to bring him to justice, that's irresponsible too. It's irresponsible on so many levels. I mean, it's irresponsible to point a finger at somebody where you actually don't want a bunch of citizens involved in this sort of thing, especially when the app is like, OK, we're not trying to solve crimes. We're not trying to put you in danger. However, let's go get this guy. It's like it's mayhem. I mean, that's just I mean, to say like, yeah, we didn't really vet this one correctly is like that is a real understatement. I mean, there's also problems with that model where they're telling you, hey, there's a car crash right around the corner. Would you like to go live? Like that that I think inherently is kind of a problem. All right. Yeah. Wednesday's episode of the Apple, the epic Apple trial sealed with the fact that iOS locks down their ecosystem, but Mac OS does not. Apple's head of software engineering, Craig Federighi, took a stand to explain. He noted that far more people use iOS than Mac OS. So it's a larger target. Also, he asserted that people more casually download apps on a phone than they do on a Mac. He also argued phones are more attractive targets because they contain more personal data about you. But his explanation that received the most attention was the target audience. Apparently the Mac is a car and the iPhone and iPad are for kids or something. Let's just use Federighi's own words here. Quote, the Mac is a car. You can take it off road if you want and you can drive wherever you want. That's what you wanted to buy. There's a certain level of responsibility required. With iOS, you wanted to buy something where children can operate an iOS device and feel safe doing so. It's a really different product, end quote. Well, okay, that's almost exactly what he said. So is a Mac even safe at any speed? Craig says, quote, it's safe if operated correctly much like a car. If you know how to operate a car and you obey the rules of the road and are very cautious, yes, if you're not, I've had a couple of my family members who have gotten some malware on their Mac but ultimately I think that the Mac can be operated safely, end quote. It's a privilege and a responsibility to drive a Mac. Thanks, Dad Craig. Federighi made several quote-worthy statements calling the level of malware on Mac unacceptable, saying it's a high bar for consumer protection on iOS and noting specifically that there have been more than 130 types of Mac malware identified since last May, including one that infected 300,000 systems. Epic's lawyers noted that Apple markets Mac as being suitable for use by children and does not position iOS as safer or more secure than the Mac. So to the legal aspect of this testimony, what Epic is gonna try to show is that Apple has two different standards and why don't they use the standard they use on Mac on iOS? Apple's trying to say it's two different markets, that's why we have a different standard. Really, this is gonna hinge on the whole monopoly and is iOS a market unto itself? I don't know that this is gonna feed that much in and I don't know if any of this testimony really is gonna be determinative to the judge's decision on any of that. But boy, there are some juicy quotes in there when Federighi's talking about his family getting malware on their Macs. I mean, a lot of this too is, it's like, okay, the Mac is a car and the iOS devices are more for kids and you just have to assume there's just gonna be a lot of more weird stuff that's installed on the ladder. And yeah, some of that is true. It really seems more like price points to me. I mean, if you get the cheapest Mac possible, it's still gonna be more expensive than the cheapest iPhone possible, right? So sure, you can think of the Mac as like the slightly fancier vehicle that more adults can only afford to drive, but it's a bit of a stretch. I don't, I get what he's saying, but I think it's sort of a thin argument. It is a very fuzzy metaphor that I'm sure was rehearsed many, many times with many, many lawyers and that's what they came up with and that's what we're gonna get in this big high profile situation. I think it's very interesting that this is kind of the topic of conversation because Mac has rightly or wrongly had a reputation of safety back in the day. I wonder how much all that is going to change as a PC ownership continues to shift and change and what we think of as a PC continues to shift and change, but for iOS, I think their idea to lock that down, now extending to the store is a different story, but philosophically, I think that Apple learned lessons of where the Mac was going to go in terms of being as vulnerable as PC is to viruses as things kind of went along and that informed how they wanted to lock down things like their app store and make it a totally top-down situation as opposed to the Mac which has traditionally been a little bit more of a Wild West. Yeah, I mean, some of it's just where it's been and where it's going, right? Laptops and computers were a hobbyist thing. They were an enterprise thing. They were not a mass market thing and they still really aren't. I think for those of us who always use a laptop and a phone, it's hard to imagine not having both but there are a lot more people with just phones and no computer than you might expect and that is what Federighi's trying to say is like, there are plenty of people out there that just get by on a phone and they don't have the level of expertise that is developed when you have to use a computer. There's weaknesses in that argument but I think that's what he's trying to say and I don't think it's as outlandish as some people may think it sounds. And we think of those phone-only people as children. That is crevice. Phone-ly, you phone-ly people. Phone-ly, you phone-ly child. Phone-ly children. All right, everyone. Yeah. Hey, folks, if you are listening to this and going, man, what did Justin, Tom and Sarah's faces look like just now? Well, we have a video podcast, you could see. Go get the video RSS feed at dailytechnewshow.com slash subscribe. Hey, you want that blue check mark on Twitter? I've had it. Twitter has relaunched its public verification program. You'll need to meet the new verification criteria which includes being authentic, notable, and active in one of six categories, government, companies, brands, and organizations, news organizations and journalists, entertainment, sports, and gaming, or activists, organizers, and other influential individuals. That sounded like 12 categories but it was only six, yeah. It's only six. Trust us, it's very simple. The option to apply will show up in account settings sometimes over the next few weeks and you'll get a response within a few days. If you get turned down, you can reapply in 30 days. Twitter paused its verification program in 2017 when it was using it simply to verify that a person was who they said they were and verified someone, people, and verified someone people found objectionable. They announced that the new criteria which emphasizes nobility this past January, notability, not nobility. Oh, sorry, notability, notability. But I mean, it wouldn't hurt if you're a little noble. I'm just saying. Twitter says it plans to add more categories later this year including scientists, academics, and religious leaders. Twitter is also planning to overhaul the profile page to include things like a field for preferred pronouns and a label for automated accounts. You'll also be able to quote unquote confirm your account by email or phone and show that in your about page to prove that you are not a bot. I found the last to be the most interesting. Yeah, right, Sarah? I think you agree with me on that. I very much do. Listen, the verification stuff, the blue check mark, I have had one for a while. I don't really remember why. Did you ask for it? No, this is a long time ago. And honestly, I think it has to do with the fact that there's a somewhat popular Sarah Lane, who's a ballerina, who's not me. And at some point, there was a distinction that was made. And I got a check mark because my Twitter handle is at Sarah Lane. I really don't remember, but it's old news. But I know that over the years, there's been lots of mumbling and grumbling. Like Twitter does not make it clear why some people get it and some people don't. There's not an easy way to ask. Or there is an easy way to ask, but there's not an easy way to get a response. And then it's like Twitter saying, we're going to revamp this. Then they go silent for a long time. And now it's like, look, we're back with lots of categories. But not scientists or religious leaders. That's going to come later after the influential individuals that aren't in a category at all. I mean, it's more a mess to me. And also, it almost seems like if you really want this, you're probably in one of these categories or it could make a claim that you are. And what are what is the points? I think the original point of the blue check mark was there were parody accounts. And Twitter wanted a way to say, look, this is actually Richard Nixon. Oh, wait, he's dead. So none of these are real. But you know what I mean? This is actually Barack Obama. It was Shaq. Shaq came on the blackboard. Shaq was a big deal. And so they started the blue check marks. But that meant, because they were doing it manually, that they needed to make sure it was actually the person's account. So they could only do ones that they were sure were actual people, which meant they tended to be famous people, because that's the ones that were more likely to be parodied and the ones that was easier to figure out who it was. When they decided to say, let's do this for everybody, we have a system for verifying who you are, by that time, the blue check mark had come to be associated with famous accounts, because that's all they'd used them for. And it started to be seen as a prestige thing to get the blue check mark. So Twitter backed off on it and said, ah, we created a monster fine. All right, we're gonna create a blue check mark thing for no double people here. But also on the back end, we're gonna do a confirm your account, which is really what we wanted the check mark to be in the first place. And I think that's great that anybody will be able to have on their profile confirmed. Yes, this is me. I am not a bot. I really, all right, go ahead, Justin. No, that's all I wanted to say is that I went through this process before they shut it down. I think it was probably months before they shut it down, actually, judging by the timeframe here. And it was nice, it's nice to have. I would actually prefer to sell it. It would be great if it was transferable. That'd be great. I feel like- Your identity, your authentic identity was transferable. Well, no, just the check mark. Like, and then I'll try to get it again. I feel like this could be a hospital. It could be like an NFT thing. I haven't thought this through well enough yet. I would sell one. If you guys could sell it, you could sell your blue check mark as an NFT. No, no, no, no, not as an NFT. No, in the Twitter ecosystem. If you could sell your blue check mark, would you? All right. Well, Google has got some good news for you smart home fans. They're gonna update all Nest displays, speakers, and the latest Nest thermostat, not all the Nest thermostats, but the latest basic Nest thermostat to support the interconnected cross-platform smart home standard, MATTER. MATTER was formerly known as Project Chip, if you heard it covered as that. MATTER will let Google Assistant control any other device on the network that supports MATTER. That will mean that MATTER will be used for Google Assistant to control devices eventually from Apple, Amazon, Samsung, Huawei, Philips, Hue, Comcast, and more. Newer devices with thread support built in, like the Nest Wi-Fi, Nest Hub Max, and the second gen Nest Hub, can also serve as MATTER connection hubs. And Google will build MATTER support into Android, which will bring devices that use thread, but previously didn't support Android into the fold. That could eventually mean the Echo or HomeKit devices that support thread. Google's launching a directory of Assistant-compatible devices along with some video tutorials and is also adding support for WebRTC to reduce live video and audio latency. There's a lot of steps in all of this, especially from the non-Google device makers who have yet to have it be put in their devices. But Google's taken the first step of saying, we've got the support for MATTER in our devices now. So when the next wave comes from the other companies, they'll be ready. So by 2022, it may be possible to just be able to buy smart home stuff and know if it says MATTER on the box that it's likely to work with any of the other stuff you have at home. Yeah, that's so great. And be able to control them through a variety of apps on a variety of different OSs. Do you wanna use Assistant for Siri or Amazon? Fine, whatever you want. Yeah, I mean, I'm so jaded, I guess, that I'm like, I can't believe these companies are doing such a great thing. As a consumer, I'm like, they're making it so easy. Why would they do this? But it's because you end up selling more items overall. It just makes sense. I mean, as somebody who is currently outfitting a smart home right now, when I walk down the aisles and I see all these beautiful boutique things, I immediately shut myself off of one side of it because I've had to choose, but I had to pledge my oath to either Amazon or Google. So I just don't even look at the Google stuff because I've gone with Amazon. Now I'll be able to look at these products and fairly evaluate them, which I think is good for everybody. Yeah, I think they got to the point where the limit on sales is people being confused and being like, you know what? Fine, I don't even, I don't know. I don't want to buy into a market because not everything works and it's confusing. And so they can all increase sales by all interoperating and making it easier. Like, yeah, just go buy your thing and plug it in. You don't have to worry about what you got. Well, now that folks are not only traveling, but thinking about possibly traveling in the future, let's hand it over to Chris Christensen, our amateur traveler who has some excellent underwater photography tips. This is Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler with another Tech in Travel Minute. I often do recommendations on this and first I want to do a negative recommendation. I just came back from the Galapagos Islands and did a lot of underwater photography or was attempting to do a lot of underwater photography with iPhone cases, underwater iPhone cases. And I failed with two different ones that I brought. They just weren't that successful. We had much more luck with the people on the trip who had one of two waterproof cameras. One was an Olympus Tough and the other one of course was a GoPro. Anything after version eight is waterproof. While the iPhone is waterproof and many of the Android devices also waterproof and salt waterproof are not necessarily the same thing. And when you put them in a waterproof case, you often have trouble controlling them. And when you're trying to take a picture of a sea lion swimming around you, it can just be frustrating. So if you're going to do something like that, you may want a waterproof camera. I'm Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler. Yeah, it sounds like it's one of those situations where Chris didn't have the right stuff, but at least somebody did. So he's able to pass along some good info to us. That's great. And it's good for taking pictures of sea lions, which is always important. All right, let's check out the mail bank. Let's do it in your, Tom, latest editor's guest. You editor's desk, rather, although guests are sort of part of the story too. You asked for ideas on future limited series ideas. What could we kind of, yeah, like explain a little bit more about what you're looking for. So coming up in July, our new science correspondent, Dr. Nicole Ackermans, Nikki, who does the Sunday Science Supplement on Daily Tech Headlines, is going to do a series of interviews with seniors in tech because Nikki also does a great podcast of her own called Stories Granny Never Told You, where she interviews people about stories that they had never told their families and it's awesome. So we're going to have that, but for people with their technology stories and do them on the weekends for like three weekends in a row in July. So I was asking on the editor's desk for more of those kinds of ideas. Like, what other stuff would you like to hear? Well, Joshua had an idea. In fact, in fact, he was our first comment on Patreon. So Joshua, you get a gold story although we've gotten a few more since then. Joshua says, I've recently gotten into consumer radiation equipment as an eccentric hobby. Joshua says, Joshua says, while the industry is small, I have a new appreciation for the role that technology plays in ensuring we aren't exposed to dangerous levels of radiation in relevant circumstances, medical imaging mainly, although I'm more interested in nuclear facilities for obvious reasons because nuclear power is pretty cool. Joshua also mentioned he's interested in Oracle networks and their impact on businesses that normally would be completely divorced from sophisticated technology like crop insurance and how the rates are adjusted based on measurements made by Oracle networks. Joshua, you have opened my eyes to a whole new area of consumer technology I'd never thought about it before. Yeah, that's great, I love it. Thanks for the ideas. Absolutely, if you have ideas, you got questions, you got comments, you got photos you'd like us to look at, perhaps of your pets. It's been a while since I asked and I'd like to see them. Feedback at dailytechnewshow.com is where to send those emails. Also shout out to patrons at our master and grandmaster levels. Today they include Philip Less, Daniel Dorado and John Atwood. Special, special thanks to Kevin today who's one of our top lifetime supporters for DTNS. Thank you for all the years of support, Kevin. And by the way, Kevin also had an idea for a future limited show series and that has to do with exercise and how everything being goal-based might change the way that we're exercising in general. It was a really good one. Thanks to Justin Robert Young for being with us today. Justin, what's been going on with you and your new habitat? I feel like we need a special limited series on Sarah Lane's Jingle Writing because that was excellent and I would like to know more. Politics, politics, politics available. We actually were starting a new segment on Friday's edition of the show where throughout this kind of fallow period for election news at least for the next year or so, we're gonna go through some of the most epic, iconic and heinous negative ads of all time. We're gonna, it's a little bit more like Raise the Dead. So if you like some of my history deep dive stuff, this gives you a little bit of that. One negative ad at a time. We begin on Friday with the iconic 1988 Willie Horton ad or Weekend Pass is what it was actually called. But please go ahead and check that out. That is px3podcast.com. Excellent. We are live on this show Monday through Friday at 4.30 p.m. Eastern. That's 2030 UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. Tom's out tomorrow, but Rick Struffalino would be with us and Patrick Norton joins us as well. 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.