 Coming up on DTNS apples and hot water for its app store and a Foxconn factory plus thoughts on the Fitbit Versa 2 and the new Panasonic Toughbook This is the Daily Tech news for Monday September 9th 2019 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from studio the line I'm Sarah Lane and I'm the shows producer in the corner Roger Chang We were just talking about our very disappointing weekends on good day internet But also a little bit about scarab beetles So if you're interested in that, we'll make throw around our thoughts on the upcoming Apple announcement for this show though We're gonna save that for tomorrow, but you can get all that and more get the wider conversation at patreon.com slash DTNS let's start with a few tech things you should know Daimler announced that it has begun testing autonomous trucks on Virginia highways in partnership with startup torque robotics Which Daimler recently acquired a majority stake in freight liner cascades as they're known equipped with LiDAR sensors cameras and radar And Torx self-driving software will have drivers and engineers on board to pull trailers with added weight to simulate loads near Torx Headquarters in Blacksburg, Virginia The vehicles are said to be level four by the Society of Automotive Engineers, which means full autonomy The Texas Department of Information Resources noted that the 22 agencies in Texas hit by a ransomware attack on August 16th We're able to restore service by August 23rd Just took them about a week attackers had breached a third-party service Provider to be able to get into the networks and install the ransomware on the agency's hard drives and had demanded a total of two and a half million dollars amongst all 22 agencies in order to unlock it But the agencies had an incident response plan that was executed immediately with support from 10 Government agencies and they were able to recover without spending a dime The Texas DIR recommends blocking inbound traffic from Tor exit nodes as well as outbound network traffic to paste bin Along with the usual practices of multi-factor authentication limiting administrator rights stopping spearfishing all that as a result of their experience with this recovery a Source tells publication Electric that a partner of Tesla working on a new battery cell is making a lithium-ion battery cell with a next generation single crystal NMC cathode and a new advanced electrolyte the technology reportedly could power an electric car for over 1.6 million kilometers or 1 million miles, which is two to three times longer than Tesla's current battery cells and Just an hour or so ago attorneys general from 48 US states the territory of Puerto Rico and the district of Columbia So 50 attorneys general total announced an antitrust investigation into Google now remember There's a Department of Justice investigation into Facebook. There's a Department of Justice investigation in Amazon and Google There's a New York State's attorney led investigation into Facebook. There's a lot of these going on. This is the latest one 50 attorneys general Investigating Google Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton made the announcement from the steps of the US Supreme Court trying to be all dramatic the investigation will focus on advertising practices, but Other points of inquiry may also be included in fact during the press conference other attorneys mentioned things like looking into search ranking or protecting personal information attorneys general from California and Alabama are the only ones from the United States states not involved Alright, let's talk a little bit more about that Apple thing I mentioned Apple says it adjusted its app store algorithm in July to De-prioritize Apple apps and search results Though it would admit it hasn't fully fixed the issue Apple apps come up above non Apple apps in multiple search categories Apples Phil Schiller says it's not corrected yet, but it is improved Apple says it's not Manipulating the search results to increase its own apps rankings It happens as an unexpected result Attributed to coming up in search for common terms for instance the podcast app for Apple is named podcast So it's much more likely to show up. It's also attributed to Being grouped by maker because Apple makes so many apps That if you have a lot of apps, you're likely to come up higher in the search rankings when those apps are grouped together Then you would individually Also, Apple's apps are popular with Apple's crowd because they like Apple things Apple says the algorithm examines 42 different signals So it's complicated to figure out Exactly why Apple's own apps would get favored the change came partly in response to reports by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Both showing Apple apps seeming to have an edge in Apple app store search results Oh Well, okay, so number one Apple saying like well, there was nothing wrong But we're changing things just because but we didn't do anything wrong in the first place is very Apple Second, you know people saying well, you know Apple realize that there was an antitrust issue going on here and are making Steps to remove it get that as well at the same time Apple is in the business of making apps that would be surfaced when people look for apps that You know that that is part of the iOS experience that Apple would provide so It's a little bit of a gray area, right? Like okay. Well, yeah I mean, you don't want to surface that's that ahead of all of your competition But at the same time wouldn't Apple think that they were ahead of the competition Well, yes and no I First of all, I don't think this is just because of antitrust the antitrust complaint by Spotify was about the revenue share Yes, they've been very public about how they think Apple is also Preferencing its own search results and that certainly wouldn't help Apple in their case with the EU But the Spotify complaint in the EU is specifically about the revenue share And so I don't think this has to do with just that I think it more has to do with the bad press I also don't think Apple is saying we didn't do anything wrong I think what they're saying is we didn't do it on purpose. We didn't make our own app show up And now we're just better Well, yeah, I that's kind of that is a bit and that is a very Apple thing to say But yeah, I and I believe them. I think they probably knew this was happening And they didn't mind this so much until it became bad publicity But I don't think that it's necessary for them to have spiked the results it makes sense that if you have 42 signals and some of them are popularity that well Guess what? The Apple users gonna download Apple apps a lot more often than other apps because they trust Apple because that's why they have The phone in the first place and yeah, Apple's very good at optimizing search for their own platform that they run One would expect so the names of their apps are gonna show up higher because of that naturally It's it's another example to me of why you can't just say well algorithms are impartial We'll leave it to them You've got to curate it and I saw a tech crunch column arguing that if Apple really wants to solve this They should just present their own apps separately from the search results in Apple and have search results for independent developers and Results for Apple made stuff and I don't think that would actually hurt Apple in any way Here are all the results that you might get from third parties and here are the official operables Yeah, yeah exactly like I don't think I'd mind if I did a research for podcasting apps and Granted I'm trying to design user interface here, right? So and which is always fraught with peril and UX designers hate it when content people like me do that but Imagine there's the main category just has Spotify and a cast and downcast and pocket casts and pocket cast is right there at the top and then to the right It's like oh, but Apple also has these apps that do that same thing and maybe it shows podcasts now I don't know Apple music or something right. I'm fine with that I think other people would not be fine with that because they'd say well now Apple's putting themselves at the top of every search page So maybe you have to have a separate section. Maybe you just have a note that says hey There's also apps from Apple here. There's not a solution to this. That's gonna make everybody happy Yeah, well what? What may or may not make you happy Is my next live with that segment which is about smartwatches and FitBit's Versa 2 is one of the contenders In fact voting is open now for for anybody who who goes for our patreon page However, the verges FitBit Versa 2 review has some pros and some cons Which I think you know might play into this a little bit the pros include it's comfortable lightweight design week-long battery life very good has a nice bright screen great fitness and sleep tracking features and Handy voice replies especially for Android users. However, there are some cons which include how changing the straps very cumbersome as well the always-on display lacks custom Customizability and Amazon's assistant integration not seamless. In fact, the verge says it's downright pointless at times The Versa 2 goes on sale on September 15th for $200 So if people don't know Sarah just did a live with it segment We'll talk about it a little more later But live with it is our series where she spends three months with a piece of technology and then reports back What it's like to actually live with it and the next one's wearables like she said you can go vote on What she's going to live with in the wearables category one of which is the Versa 2 sounds like the Versa 2 would be a good Fitness option, right? I mean some of those I look at this and I think that the pros outweigh the cons like okay voice assistant Doesn't work. I never use Siri on my Apple watch. Anyway, always Changing straps like one strap is all I'm gonna change the strap There are certain there are certain things I agree with you Tom that right where I'm like, yeah, that doesn't really bother me but it does matter it does factor in and and yeah, the Versa 2 is the front runner in our voting You know for being honest, so it is you know, it's interesting to me because this is something that I'm going to live with very soon You know whether it's a Versa 2 or or one of our other options Five to seven day battery life. I love that. Oh, yeah, but not everybody looks at these specs and thinks the same as I do Man that is great. The battery life is great the always on display lacking customizability Again, it is very difficult for me to weigh in on that having never been a smart watch owner before What the verges overall review was that you know what I took away from it was this is a great fitness tracker This is a dumb smart watch and I personally I know the difference because we talk about it on the show But I don't know the difference in day to day use so that is you know It's it's a really good indicator for me of what you know somebody who I you know The verge obviously I trust their their benchmarks what they think tech crunch They took the the position that this is a great $200 smart watch It's not a great $400 smart watch But hey since you only had to pay $200 for it that makes sense and the Apple watch is you know $300 to $400 so it's not really comparable to that but I know I know we got lots of opinions in fact somebody already wrote in and because of the voting Express their opinions about the Versa to Armando Said if you want to track your run or bike ride or whatever it is you do outside You'll need to carry your phone so that the Fitbit app on your phone can track your location. He doesn't like that Versa to Fitbit as a whole doesn't play nice with Apple health. That's pretty much true of everything that isn't an Apple watch Fitbit won't share its data with Apple health app So if you own an iPhone and want to see all your health data in one place then any Fitbit devices and on starter if you get other Info from another instrument or get data from something that does share with Apple health Then you'll have to pop back to see all your info in other words He's like he wants it to be an Apple health that it's not obviously This is only an issue if you're in the Apple ecosystem, but that doesn't account But that does account for quite a few people there are third-party paid options around this But it sometimes means jumping through unneeded hoops Most other health trackers do work with Apple health But Fitbit has remained staunch in its stance to protect your data So yeah, and we we had some feedback last week in Friday show that echoed this sentiment as well And yeah, I mean as an iOS user it does matter. Yeah, all right So patreon.com slash DTNS you'll have to scroll. I'm so sorry I know some of you can't find anything to scroll you'll have to scroll down to find the poll But we promise you it is there a version of the Vivaldi browser for Android is now out in beta Like on the desktop new tabs will open to a grid of customized bookmarks called speed dials You can use custom nicknames to search with multiple search engines beyond your default Let's say your default is duck-deck go But you want to search with Google you could make g your nickname and then put g and then your search term You can also take notes in the browser that you can keep in the browser So you don't have to go into another app You'll be able to sync all that from your desktop install to with end to end Encryption now not everything from the desktop Feature-wise is in the Android version of Vivaldi yet Verge points out the ability to stack tabs into one tab for instance doesn't appear to be there But then it's a beta You know, I think a lot of people forget that there are more than one or two choices of browser out there There's there's not only Firefox and Chrome and Safari Microsoft Edge, but there's also opera. There's Vivaldi and a bunch more Tom and Roger do either of you use Vivaldi on the desktop on a regular basis. No No, I did I yeah, in fact, I have it here installed I was using it to manage a patreon. That's kind of the way I do it I keep a patreon logged in on each browser. So I don't have to constantly log in and log out And I that's a it's a patreon for a show that hasn't been in production. It's on hiatus So I kind of stopped using Vivaldi because of that. I'm like, you know, that's silly I should find another reason to use it and and maybe this is it. Maybe this is the thing to get me going That's that's my take on Vivaldi. Well, sure It sounds like for anybody who is using Vivaldi on a regular basis for the desktop features coming to Android for those of you know, who are using desktop and Android as well that will Get close to the feature set that's they were used to already Yeah, but yeah, there's anybody out there that does use Vivaldi We'd love to hear from you feedback at daily tech news show calm. Why you like it I'm gonna make a point to start using it more. Yeah, I mean hey, we could do a show Truly based on how was your life like using this new browser for the last week? In fact, that's actually a really good idea But that's neither here nor there moving on Microsoft unveiled a redesigned to-do app for desktop and mobile meant to replace Wanderlist you can flag messages from Microsoft based email accounts to send a task list Look at assigned to assigned to me lists from Microsoft planner and also integrate to do with Microsoft launcher on Android You can also add tasks from Amazon voice powered devices through Cortana There are also customizations or the interface including the Berlin TV tower background from Wanderlist Microsoft promises list syncing across Android iOS Mac Windows and the web and yeah I'm actually excited about the to-do app. I like its integrations I like the idea that I could use my Amazon Echo to add things I love clock cross-platform or I don't have to decide or think about What devices I have to choose whether I want to use something? Granted if I had a Google home, I wouldn't feel this way and I do have a Google home But I also have an Amazon Echo, so it's not perfect, but I like that On the other hand, none of us are Wanderlist enthusiasts. I actually did use Wanderlist for a while We were using it on Sword and Laser to do some planning But Veronica Belmont my co-host on Sword and Laser took me off our Wanderlist thing this weekend In response to this change where Wanderlist is going away and a lot of people out there are saying yeah No, Microsoft to do that's great. I'm sure at some point you'll have all the features. I like a Wanderlist You know what? I like Wanderlist. You know what? I'm using Wanderlist You know what? I want to keep using Wanderlist So they got really excited when Christian Reiber said hey, let me buy it back I don't know that it's so easy as it might appear for Microsoft to just say yeah Sure, we'll just give you your 200 million dollars. Give us the 200 million dollars or whatever it was we paid for it back Veronica and others Wanderlist You know diehards. What was the main issue? Well, the main issue is that I mean, I think with I don't want to speak for Veronica I have no idea why she really did it, but the main issue for most people has been that we are People are used to Wanderlist and they don't overlord Microsoft was changing the name of Wanderlist to Microsoft to do. I think there'd be much less There's any change on the Internet's gonna bring a bunch of people upset But I think there would be much less outcry about it because it would you wouldn't have to move to a different app What's happening though is Wanderlist was built on Amazon web services And for whatever reason Microsoft made the decision that it was too difficult to port it over to Azure and they want They're to do list app to run off of Azure because they're Microsoft So they took the knowledge from the Wanderlist team They took the engineers from the Wanderlist team and they had them create a new app That's in their mind as good as Wanderlist But you know when people are like, yeah, but I'm already here. I'm already on Wanderlist They don't want to move. I like the way it works plus anytime you change features Of course that makes people uncomfortable. So you kind of multiply all those things together. I think that's why yeah Panasonic announced the Toughbook 55 with a modular design for replacing components So you just pull some stuff out put some stuff back in Makes it easy to swap things even on the go when you're out in the field out on modules include more ports If you just need a bunch more ports dedicated graphics Fingerprint reader second storage drive. You can't have all of those at once But you can decide which of those you want to have and you can pull them in and out Of course the RAM is replaceable drives or quick release and the keyboard is also modular You can pop that thing out if it goes bad and replace it Batteries can be hot swapped for an estimated 40-hour battery life. The Toughbook 55 has 8th Gen Core i5 and i7 chipsets available along with USB-C HDMI 2.0 and Bluetooth 5 Also has a 4-mic array now for better voice recognition 1,000 net touchscreen up to 64 gigabytes of RAM and max is out of two terabytes of storage and Important for a lot of people that use this book wireless access includes worldwide p.180 data service and AT&T's first net platform for emergency responders starting price for the Panasonic Toughbook 55 is $2,099 they don't have prices on the add-on modules yet. Well as somebody who If I'm around enough people on the go they go what is wrong with your laptop? And I'm like what do you mean? And they're like it looks like it's been through hell And I'm like yeah, that's just because it's you know, it's my road warrior. I love the idea of this I love the idea of modular swappable keyboards You know in addition to you know the kind of the more interesting innards this is It's priced quite well honestly considering that it seems like it it's The the specs are good. I mean Toughbook first came along back in the early 2000s when when we were all at tech TV And I remember feeling like it was a little bit overhyped It was mildly more durable, but maybe not worth the price I think they've done a lot with this product line over the years to really tailor it to people who work construction sites emergency response firefighting Working out in the field where it's not about whether this thing can survive a drop from a bridge necessarily it's about does it hold up like you said, you know Does does it does it go out of service because you're just using it under rough conditions? And I think they've done a pretty good job of of toughening this up to the point where The the durability is not the big selling point on the Toughbook 55 It's as durable as the last one But they're really pushing the modularity to say like what yes, it's tough enough to survive out on your construction site But what you need is flexibility You need to be able to hot-swap a battery because you're not around a power source when you're out of the field You need to be able to put more ports in there when you need it and be able to swap that out for another hard drive When you need it and that's what they're delivering. Yeah, absolutely I mean all the specs on paper is is like That's what I expect out of my current laptop and this is cheaper than me buying my current laptop now Yeah, or twice because it breaks. Yeah, exactly that too Just paid $600 to get my display fixed even though it should have been under Apple warranty Not at all and wait about that Bloomberg reports that Apple and Foxconn Confirmed that Foxconn exceeded Chinese labor laws on the number of temporary staff that is allowed to use So here's the deal the confirmation came in response to claims from the group of China labor watch Chinese law says you can't have more than 10% of your staff be dispatch workers That's another term for temp workers China China labor watch claimed that temps made up between 30 and 50 percent of Foxconn workers at a plant in Zengzhou Apple said that the percentage of temps exceeded its standards and is working with Foxconn to resolve the issue Foxconn said it discovered the violation after our operational review and China labor watch Also made other claims which Apple says are false The company says it has confirmed all over time and compensation is appropriate Yeah, China labor watch had a person inside of Foxconn And and this is the report that they made based on that person's observations The only thing that Foxconn and Apple are copying to is yes It looks like there were too many dispatch workers too many temps There were also claims that overtime wasn't paid Compensation wasn't paid properly That that people were forced to work overtime that they shouldn't have been allowed to work and Apple says nope We don't see any evidence of any of that This is a tough one because on the one hand Apple can can can cover its tracks and say hey, it's not us. It's Foxconn We're doing our best to to make sure that they're following our rules But you know we we have to look at them and and we we wouldn't be having them do it if we were doing it ourselves, right? But that can either be an excuse or a reality Why Foxconn continually seems to be under accusation for these kinds of things. I think is the question Yeah Foxconn a Track record that we've followed very closely on the show as have many others It is yeah, I mean, it's hey listen There were things went on to the radar whether or not it was intentional or not It is definitely out in the open now. So I mean, that's that's that's a good thing. Yeah, and you know It's it's whistle-blowing groups like China labor watch that can hold the feet to the fire at Foxconn I do believe that Apple doesn't like these things to happen Obviously, they certainly don't like the press, but I think they would rather Foxconn just follow the rules But I Don't know how much more they could do to force Foxconn to do this at which point the the question becomes well Could Apple say well, we're going with someone else or could they say well? We're going only with Foxconn locations that aren't in China because that seems to be where you end up Writing rough shot on the rules at least so far Foxconn has a lot of other plants in Brazil, India, Vietnam, etc So could they do that? Yeah, is it easy? Well when we saw the tariffs being slapped on China a lot of people did the math and said not easy not impossible, but not easy So that's why you haven't seen Apple pull the rug out from under Foxconn But instead try to clamp down and say we're gonna keep looking at oversight Every time you say we're gonna we're gonna keep putting oversight and you have another one of these claims rise up that is confirmed Right, they're not even denying this one about the temps. It makes you wonder how long Apple will put up with that Yeah, yeah, it's it's funny You think all right well accompanying the size of Apple like shouldn't they just have more people on the ground in these third party Partners that are extremely important to Apple's bottom line to make sure that this isn't happening And yes, maybe that will be the case going forward Maybe Apple needs to take more control of you know the this sort of thing going forward But it is not the only company that we regularly report on being like well a really really important Partner of this big big company did something that the big big company now says for sorry Well, and that's my point is they've already said we'll put more people on it We'll put more oversight at a certain point There's a limit to what you can do without just running the factory yourself, right? The point of having a contractor is you don't have to be watching over them all the time So yeah, well folks if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes Be sure to subscribe to daily tech headlines comm and Thanks to everybody who participates in our subreddit you can submit stories of vote on them a daily tech news show Dot reddit.com facebook.com Daily tech news show let's take a look at the mail bag Let's do it Hosea wrote in and said just following up on the mention of fancy zones from Windows Power toys project We talked about this last Friday with Allison Sheridan. Hosea says Allison mentioned She'd love to see better window management on max. Hosea says I'd like to pass on two different options better snap tool and Magnet better snap tools to smidge better for my MacBook Pro because of some quirky work issues But I've used both and both are excellence. Oh This is so cool, and I know Allison likes to play with with new toys. So I forwarded this along to her I'll let you know if she gets back to me what she thinks, but thank you for that Josiah. That's pretty cool absolutely Yep, yeah, I was gonna say Jeff in Pennsylvania also wrote in in response to the live with it about Your experience with living with smart bulbs Yes Jeff had some great feedback And and he is in many that have given us great feedback and keep it coming. It's been great Jeff says in my experience I find it much better to get bulbs with a dedicated hub over Wi-Fi based bulbs he was speaking in reference to me using hue bulbs which do use a bridge and life-x bulbs which connect to my Wi-Fi Connection with without the need of a bridge Jeff says the reason being more Wi-Fi bulbs you add the more devices on your network and Consequently the more congested your Wi-Fi network will get and potentially bugging down your router Would probably take a lot of bulbs for this to be a problem But I think it's a factor people need to consider Jeff also says a Smart bulb versus smart switch is important I started off with a hue bulbs quickly found an annoying limitation if the switch is turned off You lose any ability to remotely control the bulbs for lamps not on the switch not a huge issue But as somebody who wants to expand their smart lighting It becomes a concern whether our guests or house or pets that are who may inadvertently Turn off a switch and therefore you lose the ability to program or control your life Finally Jeff says the other factor with smart bulbs versus switches is cost a few smart bulbs here and there not that bad However, if you start replacing all the bulbs in a room It can get pricey pretty quickly even with just the basic on off dimmable bulbs a smart switch Usually costs about 20 to 40 bucks depending on what model you can you get and you can control all the lights at once And the lights can be controlled normally if the internet or smart assistant is down That's also a very good point Jeff Jeff says I personally went with Z waves Which is for local control and they work really great especially with the GE switches Yeah, but you can't control the the tone of the color you can't do flicker You can't have a dance party with a smart switch unless you're just hitting that button over and over again So I don't know folks if you want to get the full story to what Jeff is responding to You have to be a patron right now patreon.com slash DTNS Scroll down and look for the live with it that posted on Friday. If you're not a patron just hang in there By the end of this week by Saturday that live with it episode will go public for everybody same place patreon.com slash DTNS Thanks to all of our patrons You're the best and just want to remind everybody speaking of live with it that we do have voting going on right now For my next live with it segment. We've narrowed the topic down to smart watches We've got four contenders in the running We have a front runner at this time, but you never know what's gonna happen in the next week Please do you vote voting is open to everybody and while you're over there at patreon You might want to look at our suggestions for new rewards that we want to start in October Let us know if there's anything in there. You just can't live with get it live with it Yeah, you can find the proposed patreon reward changes at daily tech news show comm slash patreon Hey, I have this feeling that you have some feedback for us And you know what I've got good news feedback at daily tech news show comm is where to send that feedback So that we read it and respond to it and care about it and it makes us all better people We're also live Monday through Friday 4 30 p.m. Eastern. That's 20 30 utc Please join us if you can tell a friend find out more at daily tech news show comm slash live Apple announcement tomorrow with Patrick Beija talk to you then This show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frog pants comm