 Coming up on DTNS products from AT&T's home internet to Niantic's Pokemon Go have changed how they work to adapt to changes brought on by the coronavirus What are those changes? What effects will they have and what other things might change how they work? This is the Daily Tech News for Friday the 13th of March 2020 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from Studio Redwood. I'm Sarah Lane and from Ohio. I am Rob Dunwood And I'm the shows producer Roger Chang We were just talking about high school reunions. We were talking about Sarah's upside-down experience of getting Airbnb reservations instead of having them canceled on her That's all part of good day internet if you want the wider conversation become a member at patreon.com slash DTNS Let's start with a few tech things you should know Microsoft has decided to make its build developer conference a digital conference May 19th to the 21st The event had been scheduled to take place in Seattle and apple announced its worldwide developers conference or WWDC will be held online in June with the usual keynote and developer sessions Delivered over the internet apple didn't announce specific dates But cnet has a handy page keeping track of all the events being canceled because the list is growing or suspended or delayed All of them. We'll have a link to that in our show notes Discord is easing the limit on its go live streaming service from 10 people at a time to 50 So if you're a teacher you can conduct classes co-workers can collaborate and groups can meet remotely The latest windows 10 Insider preview build includes support for cross-platform copy and pasting to samsung galaxy z flip and to the s20 phones using your Excuse me using the your phone app Additionally, s20 users can send and receive rcs messages on windows 10 when using samsung messages as their default With notifications red on windows marked as red on the phone And microsoft released an emergency patch to fix a flaw in the server message block protocol We told you about that earlier this week That's the one that would let specially crafted packets execute code on client or server machines with a warmable attack Which of course could spread quickly The flaw was limited to smb version 3.1.1 And only affected 32 and 64 bit windows 10 versions 1903 and 1909 microsoft recommends windows 10 machines update as soon as possible If unable to patch right away microsoft recommends turning off smb compression and blocking port 445 as a mitigation So it's good that they got that fixed my windows rebooted on its own and patched that right away, which was good Let's talk a little bit about People taking a bad advantage of a bad situation Yeah, pretty unsurprisingly because you know humans security firms reported rising attacks using covet 19 as a way to trick victims Into running malware campaigns often impersonate the world health organization and the u.s centers for disease control and prevention Security company agari told tech crunch. It found a corona virus themed business email compromise attack designed to trick companies Into paying money to a different bank than usual due to the corona virus outbreak And we know most of the people in our audience Are are good at avoiding phishing schemes, but this is a time when your patterns are broken You're paying attention to things That that that are covet 19 With a little more attention and maybe a little more panic Then you might so it's just just a public service message to be extra aware of when you get that cdc email Is it really from the cdc don't click on a link type in a link all all the usual best practices apply But but you know this this is the time when they're going to try to take advantage of you Being out of your comfort zone in the way you do things All right, the cdc would probably never email you anyway unless you are already Corresponding with them and you know that it would be a legitimate email from them So just be careful and watch out for that kind of stuff I got a phone voicemail from la county yesterday and I immediately was suspicious I was like one is this about it turned out it was an actual all it said was like You know la county is recommending social distancing wash your hands all the all the normal stuff that we've been hearing But I was like wow, that's that is unusual and that's what starts to break your patterns when you're like Oh, that would usually not happen. So you it's kind of you know, raise that awareness a little bit extra Firefox 74 has announced its facebook container add on and will prompt users to install it upon updating Users can use the container to log into facebook without being tracked Installing the extension closes your facebook tabs to leach your facebook cookies and logs you out of facebook and after When you log back into facebook, it keeps all cookies isolated from the rest of your browsing That means you won't see like buttons and bed embedded comments or be logged in Automatically into facebook pages unless you choose to do so This is so handy if you hadn't added this on uh before you definitely want to take advantage of them prompting you to do it Because if yeah, honestly, and I'm not trying to kiss up rob The only reason I ever go to facebook anymore is to go to the smr podcast page and and see what's up there like I I I don't want to be logged into facebook all the time. So having the ability to say yeah, just lock that off Don't let it affect other pages is is good for me This when I read this actually made me say, huh, there's a reason to use firefox because i'm the same way I don't really use facebook my wife and my mother-in-law Asked me all the time Did you see this on facebook and literally I will have to go log into it to see it because unless I am on The smr facebook group or another group that I that I fancy. I'm just not in facebook um So to me this is almost like just making um like incognito incognito mode for facebook all the time except for when you don't want it to be Um, which is which is kind of nice because you know, I don't want to always be in um, you know Private browsing, but I don't want facebook tracking me everywhere. I go across the internet. So I like this It's a little bit of the best of both words, isn't it because incognito mode will just forget everything This will this will remember if you want it to if you're like, no, I do use facebook to log into this particular site So remember that and but keep it separate from everything else. Let's see. I like it. It's pretty nice Uh apple began gradually reopening apple stores across china over the last several weeks The company confirmed that all 42 stores are now reopened in the country Apple had begun closing stores in china in early february to help stop the spread of covet 19 So this is this is good news. This is good covet 19 news And it's poor it's it's easy to dismiss it as like well That's happening over there in china if you're not in china But it's helpful in a lot of ways it says things are starting to get back to normal in a place that was hit harder by it And it gives you a a bit of a timeline I mean, it's going to act differently in different parts of the world for so many different reasons But it's good to know that in the place where it originated where they didn't know it was coming They closed stores in february and were able to open them all by march 13th I I don't want to you know be overly optimistic about that But I think that's that's important to kind of calibrate your expectations. I guess Yeah, I mean as stores and restaurants and businesses and gatherings and events and you know, we're we're hearing About closures as if the world is shutting down, you know country by country and you know to have a little perspective like of as you said Tom, I mean this is where this all originated. It's where the you know, some some concerns started to grow And sure here it where I live where we all live in the u.s Totally different place But in many ways it was sort of like china was a few weeks ahead and we were starting to see ripple effects across the world So one can hope that those ripple effects will also go the other way Yeah, it's nice to see that there is another side there There is the other side of this and china clearly it was first there So they want to be the first to get out of it So we know that there are going to be better days to come for us Yeah, a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel, huh? Yeah, that is good The verge notes that supply chain analytics company trend force expects a drop in laptop shipments in february of 48 percent Over last year due to labor and material shortages and restrictions on transportation Trend force also expects smartphone production to drop 12 percent this quarter Smartphone production is expected to be affected for one two three months Gartner supply chain expert kore cozy told the verge that even raw materials like steel copper and aluminum Have been disrupted as well And he doesn't think the effects will go away within one quarter Lot of this is as a result of just-in-time production Which doesn't build up inventories that can be used during an interruption Stortages of electronics across the board and automobiles should be expected as well Yeah, maybe we should have done this before the good news story. Yeah, right It's like now that we've now we've built you up. Let's let's get back to reality Because because this is the other side of it, which is the effects will go on even once everybody in the affected areas Are back to work and and getting back to normal It'll take some time for the supply chain to catch up For for materials to get back in the system and nobody really knows exactly how long that's going to take Yeah, this is this is especially Concerning is not really the word but it's like kind of sad because right now with everybody working from home With like, you know in ohio where you know schools are closed here This is probably something that's going to happen in other states here pretty shortly Um, you know people need computers laptops phones so they can do their remote teleworking tell the school Tell the learning all that kind of stuff. So um, yeah, there definitely is a disruption Um as uh corona virus spreads around the world Well, what's you know the thing to think about is that it isn't just oh these guys are back in the factory and they're making the parts and you know They're they're coming out. Uh, that's what tom was saying. It's shipping. It's getting the supply of raw materials But it's also getting someone to drive the stuff over to the docks and then having a ship available That you can put the container on and then someone on the other side Ready ready to pick that up and then distribute that. I mean they're all I was listening to this uh an npr story on from from a guy down in long beach who who runs one of the The poor uh receiving areas and he's going like it's a very long chain. It isn't just a simple Yeah, three steps. There's literally 12 different areas where things are Are being affected currently Yeah, I mean when you when you talk about supply chain, we all know what the what that means But you know, we have a fox gun story from yesterday, right? Like fox gun says hey things are going pretty well We are pleasantly surprised by uh our factories kind of being up and running again and you sort of go cool Okay, we're everything's fine Well getting all of those components to various places that they need to go somewhere else in the world by ship by air Yeah, once it gets to another country and a dock then who's touching it are there shortages of employees at those places? I mean it is it's a pretty complicated process Yeah, it's uh, you know, I think we're all old enough to remember when stores actually used to have store rooms in the back When if there's something wasn't on the shelf you could go to the back to get it And I remember this is a few years ago asking a question. Hey, can you go check in the back and it's like, sir? We don't have a back Everything that's how they tell how old you are when you're one of those people goes. Can you check in the back? They're like Yeah, yeah, that doesn't exist anymore Uh, yeah, I keep in mind like if uh, if there's not enough demand for a raw material Uh, the companies that make it don't keep making it because like you say they're used to just in time inventory They may not have anywhere to store it So they they ramp down and then once the demand comes back it takes time for those raw materials to ramp back up also Parts makers, you know Foxconn may be back to full capacity But if they can't get the parts from the parts makers in other parts of china or in korea Uh, then that does capacity won't be able to put out what it can So, I mean, I think we did a good job of talking about all these different Aspects of the supply chain from the materials to the parts to the assembly Uh, to the shipping, you know, it's it's it's going to take a while for this is a fairly finely tuned Unbalanced system and it's I'm not saying it's not going to come back It's just it's not going to all just snap back into place. It takes a little while for that engine to run back up Niantic announced it's making changes to the game mechanics of pokemon go to prioritize experiences That can be enjoyed in individual settings Habitats will be increased so that trainers can see more monsters nearby while playing closer to home Hatching eggs will require fewer steps and pokey stops will drop gifts more frequently Niantic already already announced the canceling of several real world events in the game And that the upcoming special research adventure will only include tasks that can be completed by individuals Yeah, so this is an interesting one He in a in a world where the recommendation In a lot of places is don't go out if you don't need to if you do go out stay a couple meters away from each other You know pokemon go is telling you the opposite So this this is actually responsible to say like, you know what? Let's give you some incentives to keep playing inside if you're really into the game Let's let's make it more enjoyable for you to comply With healthy behaviors. I think that's good Yeah, I mean, it's like what what would the alternative be for niantic to say well Everyone's gonna stop playing the game, right? They of course the company's not gonna do that So this is smart or get blamed because they didn't change anything and people are going outside to play pokemon go Because they had a big event that that was drawing them out, right? Oh, yeah There clearly was a lawyer who probably had their hand in this and said hey, we cannot have people gathering together over this game that would not be a wise financial Decision for us to continue having people get together like that Well, we got a few other companies changing their behaviors in the face of this unprecedented pandemic But before we get to that I want to remind you to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes Stay on top all this stuff subscribe to daily tech headlines dot com AT&T kind of stunned me yesterday announcing it would suspend all Broadband data caps in the united states AT&T already offers some unlimited plans, but others faced caps of 150 gigabytes terabytes a month This is the home use. Uh, this is this is for your home internet This doesn't affect the wireless plans at least not that I've seen but A pretty big change and and a pretty important one for people who are going to be working from home now Charter is offering free spectrum broadband and wi-fi access for 60 days to any household that has a student K through 12 or college That do not already have a spectrum broadband subscription at any service level if you already have it They're not going to give it to you, but if you don't have it and you need it They'll give it to you And if you're less than 100 megabits per second, they will give you a faster plan Comcast is now letting qualifying low-income customers sign up for 60 days of their internet essential service That's a low-income program at no cost So if you're new to that program you don't have to pay for it for 60 days And comcast is boosting broadband speeds for all internet essentials customers from 15 up to down to 25 up Three down megabits per second My guess is they were probably getting ready to do this anyway So this was a nudge to just go ahead and do it because they're going to maintain those speeds going forward Verizon announced thursday. It's spending an additional 500 million dollars on network infrastructure investment That's taking them from 17 to 18 billion dollars to 17.5 to 18.5 billion dollars So it's not a huge percentage But rise in also says it has not seen a measurable rise in usage yet So they want to get ahead of that and finally the usfc c chairman Ajit pye introduced the keep americans connected pledge Which asked telecommunications operators not to terminate service for the next 60 days To waive late fees and to open access to public wi-fi hotspots to anybody who needs them The pledge also encourages isps to suspend data caps and prioritize healthcare facility connectivity All major us isps have signed up to the pledge. That doesn't mean they've all dropped their data caps But they've all pledged to do all of these things. We'll see if they follow up on it Rob This is Interesting because a lot of the things that i should pie is calling for Were legal requirements over none of the previous internet guidelines that were repealed not too long ago Yeah, isn't it funny how But doing the right thing is doing the thing that you were already doing but uh Yeah, you know, I can say this I like all the news all the way from at&t all the way down For a big reason like so i'm in ohio schools are canceled here for the next three to four weeks um And one of the things that they found here in ohio is that there are a lot of lower income students who Don't have home internet. So if you have to do Home learning, but you don't have home internet. How do you do home learning? It was actually more of an issue than making sure that they had a phone or a Tablet or something that they could do the home learning on was it do you actually have connectivity at your house or you can connect? So this all goes towards that because you know, it would be disruptive to have students literally out of school for a month And they can't do their work because they can't get online to do it So this goes a long way to help with that and I think the other carriers absolutely need to you know You know take this same stance and catch up to this because you know We're in a crisis right now and these are things that definitely will help The charter one is a little curious to me now If you are already a charter subscriber And you have kids in the house charters like well, you just keep paying If you don't have any internet charters like we're going to help you out if you've got kids in the house But what if you have another provider who's also giving you a deal? Well, wait, what do you mean if you have another provider? This doesn't apply to you. You're not a spectrum customer then Right, but I mean anybody who doesn't already have a spectrum broadband subscription could be anybody That doesn't have a broadband spectrum subscription. Oh, I see what you're saying. Well So you have AT&T. Let's say or Verizon, right? Could you go to spectrum and say, hey, I don't have your your Yeah, your eye. Yeah, I guess so And there there probably will be some people who would do that But my gut tells me that the overwhelming majority of people would see that as a hassle that they're just not interested in I'm going to I'm paying for internet that I have and I don't know if you're okay with it But you definitely have it and I'm going to cancel that and move over to this thing that I can get for free for Two months. That's probably just a hassle that's not even worth making the phone call to find out if you could do it Well, and then have to have somebody come out to your house potentially and all that, you know People are going to be less likely to want that to happen right now, too So I I looked at this and especially if more isps do follow the pledge and drop the data caps temporarily Uh, I can dream that they will all realize Wow, it really really doesn't make a difference I know they all know it doesn't make a difference and it's just a monetization thing But maybe they'll realize that there are better ways to monetize Artificial data caps ever the optimist. I'm just saying, you know, I'm just putting it out there in the universe, Sarah It's true. Well or I I don't know I I think it's a stretch for the companies to be like, you know what? Let's just be the good guys going forward, you know, now that the crisis is over But but it could be more of public pressure saying like, hey, listen This was all perfectly fine to do You know There's no reason to start gouging people for for very little reason as you were doing in the past Because we've all seen how that, you know, the transparency kind of fell apart. Maybe they're maybe that angle. There are some likes there I see it as once you get people used to something both customers and and the companies Uh, they may realize that it's more trouble and it's worth to get rid of it The billing department may say, you know, we're bringing in just as much money now the 60 days is over As we were before because people are sticking around, you know, let's let's not add the cap back You know, let's I don't know. I'm just saying I don't think they'll do it out of some Like newfound sense of of charitableness But the habit building that they would never have taken A chance on on even trying this You know could have an effect. That's all I'm hoping for Yeah, I think you're also seeing a lot of mbo mvno's are actually really starting to offer true uncapped unlimited bandwidth So, um, it's you know, it's probably in their better interest to start offering this as well to keep them on your more expensive plans That you know, um, literally, you know, who was it? Yeah, who mobile just came out And it's unlimited for 40 bucks a month. That's not bad So, um, you know, I think that you probably want to see this stick around Not because as you said that they think it's the best thing to do It's just because it's like the thing we need to do to keep people paying us I wonder what other kinds of services Could get on this bandwagon could could start. I mean, obviously dropping data caps Or or providing faster service, you know, we're seeing examples of both of those here Our examples of this providing free wi-fi Is listed here as on the pledge I I just wonder, you know, and and we are seeing Already, uh, microsoft teams offering higher capacity We're seeing a lot of the video conferencing folks giving people more features. We talked about discord upping the group live I mean, I'm trying to think if there's anything else left Where you might expect a company to say, you know what? We're gonna also do x y or z to help They could potentially for For streamers provide like, you know, for the next couple of months We'll give you access to the premium stuff that you normally would have had to upgrade to just for just temporarily When you say streamers, what do you mean? I mean like the hulu or yeah, okay? Yeah streaming services, right? Sorry streaming services where it's You know, they give you something nice for two months and so like after two months and you know, whatever You're gonna get some customers out of that too. Yeah Like I'm totally addicted now. I'm gonna go pay right over the cost right Well, would we see hulu give their hulu with ads available for free for 30 days to help you out stuff like that Yeah, yeah, and that way it's it's doing a good thing But it's also like and if you're halfway through bingeing that show that you ended up really liking well Then once things turn around a little bit, maybe you know, maybe we'll keep you for a fee But without it being mandatory for anybody. I mean, that's all It's just that's just a good look for a lot of companies. I've noticed. I mean across so many industries There there's a lot of creativity that you're seeing. Uh, there was a a uh a restaurant in seattle I guess a upscale restaurant I I'm not familiar with it because I haven't been to the city in a while and they said we're shutting our restaurant down No one's coming. We don't need to find dining right now We're gonna open up like a pop-up bagel shop kind of like like a drive-thru type thing You know where you can get food and and have you know little to no contact with anybody else and and just just just really creative solutions for the everyday person that that really make a lot of sense instead of just shutting down or Or pretending that the problem doesn't exist or complaining that it's all been so disrupted that your business model isn't working Yeah, that actually is going to you know go a long way to help their workers too Because they still you can still pay them to do something. That's right You know, I know I know, you know, the the biggest industry is you know Any service business is going to take a hit while we're having this uh, you know this pandemic So um, if you can do things like that that are kind of smart and intelligent and keep your people working I'm all for it I got one more for you As as more and more movies are being delayed fast and furious nine delayed till next year moulin Delayed for you know a certain amount next. Yeah, no time to die already delayed And and just almost all the movies in the next month Have been put off have been delayed some of sometimes still like september october I wonder if the pressure will now be On the studios to find a way to bring in some money in the meantime theaters like amc theaters is cutting their capacity They're not going to allow any theater to have more than 250 people in it And the smaller theaters will only be sold at 50 capacity to allow for that social distancing But they don't want to close because Well, they need the money. Yeah, but there's not going to be any movies to show. So This is where I think what if they finally come to the table with the streamers Or with their own streaming service amc has their own streaming service Or maybe with fendango and fendango now and the movie theaters and say let's get some of these movies out there into homes Uh, and we'll have it'll be a limited time thing You sell it through the theaters so the theaters can still make some money out of it And and we maybe I don't know maybe we bring in Amazon prime or uber eats to deliver you some popcorn and stuff But but be able to make Some money because what people want right now if they're stuck in their house is entertainment And this is a perfect opportunity for the theaters to Broker that deal that says let's actually get these movies in front of people in some cases We definitely were wanting some entertainment. I was watching a spike ball tournament on esp and 11 last night What spike ball? I'll be a facetious spike spike ball is literally like a trampoline and you take a ball and you hit it down into the Really it is uh, it is it is basically it's the hacky sack of the 90s. It is They're playing it all well not now because college campuses are closing But it is like intramural college campus thing. It is a big thing. I remember I was uh Uh driving past bouldering university and they literally had a field of people playing this spike ball game Wow If you're if you're stuck at home and you can't play spike ball You can join our discord conversation going on 24 7 you can join by linking to a patreon account at patreon.com Slash dtns. Let's check out the mail bag Let's do it. George in the uk wrote in and said wanted to give you some insight on my experience at the workplace given the current COVID-19 situation as of writing this email the uk government is still in containment mode and have not advised the public to restrict their Movement I work for a huge media agency. We have provisions already in place Should the situation change the company has already switched to a more flexible approach to working hours over a year ago to move with the times We've been issued laptops and access to vpn connections already set up Working at the ad operations department. All of our systems are web based files are already saved in the cloud So uh, George says I agree with sarah's comment about how the situation could well be the dawn of a more wider acceptance of remote working in helping productivity Here here george here here. Yeah, thanks for the insight george and keep these coming If you've got an interesting experience that's it's a little different And and you can give us some insight from where you are and how you're dealing with it send it to us feedback at dailytechnewshow.com Absolutely and shout out to patrons at our master and grand master levels including john johnston christmuth and jelph wilkes Len perlton could not be with us today. He apologized, but he did do art To go along with today's show and I have to say it's one of his best yet I'm really sorry. He's not here to receive the compliment directly, but it's called life paused It's a phone screen with those words on it life is paused with the pause button And uh, it just it really does kind of sum up how everybody's feeling these days So if you want to see that art go to lemperaltastore.com and you can find it there and uh, you can also buy it there In fact, if you're a member of his patreon at patreon.com slash len, uh, you you can actually get this already Or you can buy it, uh, and it's it's worth getting and and helping them out at lenperaltastore.com Thanks to rob dunwood for being with us today rob. What's been going on in your world? I know you're a busy man We are back to regular podcasting on the smr. Padcast We've had a full crew for the first time and nice probably a couple of months And you know had a couple of personal tragedies with some of the hosts on the show So uh back to podcast in there and I'm just loving that I can do all this stuff from my house And I only have to wear a shirt that looks nice on the top and I can be in sweats Midsmax socks and mitsmatch house shoes on the bottom Uh, yes, uh, you you you know the professional secret as we do. Yeah, exactly. It's good stuff, man Uh, thanks everybody for supporting us. Uh, I I feel incredibly lucky that I can continue to do this job Uh safely from home as I have for six years because you folks make it possible Uh, and we know there's going to be some rough times for people and some people may not be able to support us But if you can support us, uh, and and you are supporting us We especially thank you now more than ever All of the folks who are giving anywhere from a dollar to to a lot more We really really appreciate every single one of you patreon.com slash dtns And we appreciate your feedback We want you to have a voice the third our email addresses feedback at daily tech news show dot com If you can join us live, that's monday through friday 4 30 p.m. Eastern 2030 utc and find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live Back on monday talk to you then This show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frog pants dot com I hope you have enjoyed this brover