 Coming up on DTNS praise and awards for lithium-ion batteries. Good news for pets in uber and hair-raising tales of fishing This is the Daily Tech news for Wednesday, October 9th 2019 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from studio feline I'm Sarah Lane and from Salt Lake City, Utah. I'm Scott Johnson and I'm Roger Chang the show's producer We were just having a rollicking conversation about bald people and why they should not be ashamed of it And you should also not pull their hats off to see if they're bald That's on good day internet become a member and get that episode and more at patreon.com slash DTNS Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Oh Play that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify before the US House Financial Services Committee on October 23rd in a hearing titled an Examination of Facebook and its impact on the financial services and housing sectors Questions are expected to focus on the Libra cryptocurrency as well as housing advertisements Epic games told the verge quote epic supports everyone's right to express their views on politics and human rights We wouldn't ban or punish a fortnight player for content creators Excuse me or content creators for speaking on these topics Unquote fortnight is available in China through a partnership with Tencent These state-run Chinese newspaper People's Daily accused Apple of endorsing and protecting rioters after Apple reversed a decision to block The HK map live app That's the one we talked about previously that takes info from telegram to show locations of police and tear gas usage on a map of Hong Kong The opinion piece from People's Daily said that approving the app made Apple an accomplice in protests in Hong Kong Analyst Mingxi Quo's latest report predicts that in Q1 of 2020 Apple will release an iPhone SE 2 and also an iPad Pro with a 3d sensor for AR support Quo also believes that Apple will release an augmented reality headset in cooperation with third-party brands and a MacBook with a Scissor switch keyboard and Q2 of 2020 as well. All right Oh and something that's actually happening right now from Apple is they sell the Microsoft Xbox wireless controller for 60 bucks Right there on the old Apple store website Apple added support for the Xbox controller as well as Sony's DualShock 4 in the latest major software updates for iPhone iPad Apple TV in the Mac ain't selling the DualShock 4 yet But there you can buy a Microsoft product once again right there at Apple.com. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty good Let's talk a little bit about lithium-ion batteries Scott. Sure real quick a correction earlier It's important to mention that Tencent owns about 40% of Epic Games overall Not just their partner in China before people send you emails Investor in 40% of the stock. Is that right? Yes Well, they basically absorbed 40% of the developer itself So they are a majority owner of Epic Games no matter where they are in the world So it's it's even making that story even more significant. I think that they're taking that particular stand Anyway for a different day the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to three scientists who work on lithium-ion batteries You know the stuff in your phone and everything else you have Stanley Whittingham developed the first functional lithium-ion battery John good enough. That's his name replace the titanium I can't say that right desulfide in the and the cathode and cobalt oxide to double the voltage produced Making it more powerful in other words. It wasn't good enough Anyway, I stole that joke from Tom. I have to give him full credit Not that it's a hard one, but anyway me Kiro Yoshina Yoshino rather house of the anode and petroleum coke making it safe for general use These three scientists will share the award at 97 years old good enough becomes the oldest laureate to receive a Nobel Prize in any discipline Yeah, I thought this was a really nice nice time to say something nice about lithium-ion batteries We all complain about you know the capacity of lithium-ion batteries and how you know occasionally they still do explode In rare instances and gosh wouldn't it be great if we had a different battery solution that wasn't lithium-ion? But imagine a world Yeah, I mean in when we look back on this time It'll be oh remember when we all used lithium-ion But there was a time before this before these scientists, you know all all all made something that Ended up creating technology that that people depend on and use every day And yes, it's going to get better over time and it already is but man at 97 years old John good enough becoming the oldest laureate to receive a Nobel Prize in any discipline good on you John More than good enough. Yeah, it's a well better better than I think it's really cool Because as much as we and Tommy said this earlier this morning on the TMS segment as much as we Not complain, but we kind of moan a little bit that battery tech hasn't gotten much further very fast Compared to other technologies and we just sort of are having to rely on the stuff that these guys came up with But if you think about it, it's still so much better I mean, I remember the Nikad batteries and I remember the garbage that came before that That I had the power devices with before we had better battery tech and it was a nightmare scenario So as much as I would love to see whatever the next step is pretty good step these guys make We may not think lithium-ion batteries are good enough now but Think about how many rechargeable batteries you have in your house right now and and those devices would not be possible with With Nikad batteries even in a lot of cases and certainly not before any kind of rechargeable battery came along Alright, I double-checked You are right 40% owner of Epic has 10 set but Tim Sweeney is still the majority owner At greater than 50 you had said 10 cent was a majority but always huge mean yeah He and that gives him the he's the guy behind the quote as well So it gives him a lot more power. I guess to say yeah Yeah, he is more than 50% so he controls the company Open Libra is an open-source currency platform formed by several blockchain companies and nonprofits Including interchain foundation and the Danish Red Cross as an alternative to Facebook's Libra Project open Libra is concerned that the Libra system while distributed is not Decentralized and because of that will enrich the few corporations that are part of the governance board Open Libra calls it a plutocracy that's going to benefit from this and says it quote aims to be technically move language and financially compatible Libra coin embracing what is powerful but also replacing what's concerning in a non adversarial way So it sounds like what open Libra wants to do is take all the open-source bits of Libra that that Facebook's project is going to Offer and create a system that can't be controlled by a small number of companies They're saying that's the one thing we really are worried about so we're gonna try to create a system that is open from that Well, and you know my gut reaction was sort of like or my first reaction anyway It was like oh this might actually be a better way that Facebook could go forward with Libra, right because they've They've had some cold feet But the cold feet are from big financial institutions that wouldn't necessarily have any interest in something like open Libra Yeah, you've got to make the companies feel like it's worth the profit for them to risk the regulatory scrutiny It's going to take to get into bed with Facebook. So sadly I don't think Facebook gets into open Libra, but open Libra is betting that Libra will happen They're saying we don't think Libra fails even with all the scrutiny And they're trying to say we want to make something better out of it We're gonna we're gonna ride in the wake of Libra and try to provide a counterbalance To me everything in open Libra is the stuff I like about Libra and the stuff I don't like about Libra isn't there So I'm kind of on board with this the thing is if you kind of need Libra to happen for open Libra to work I think oh So that's an interesting take you can't you can't have open it's kind of like you can't have open office There's an already an office you had to pay for To provide the open source option that's better for a lot of people I mean, it's not exactly the same because open office is a different code base Whereas open Libra is actually using some of the stuff like the move language that that Libra makes possible So it's even closer than that Let's talk about pets and transporting our pets Uber pet will become an option available in Austin Denver, Nashville, Minneapolis, St. Paul Philadelphia Phoenix and Tampa Bay all in the US starting October 16th now Uber currently lets drivers decide if they're willing to take pets On board so they can say yes or no drivers that don't may cancel rides after they've already been booked when they learn of the pets So Uber pet will cost three to five dollars more per ride unless the pet is a service animal Yeah, now this this is this literally Was the reason because before before now Uber again The driver reserves the right to say yes or no But you don't really was always a little bit clunky like you didn't really know if they were okay with it until you already booked the ride And if they weren't okay with it, well, that's fine It's their car but often, you know, if you're in a hurry that sort of thing this Single thing kept me from trying to live a car-free life Yeah, because it's not that most Uber drivers would even say no if you have your cat and a cat carrier And you're going to the vet or something like that, right? Yeah, but they could because if someone's allergic that driver may be like, you know What I'd love to take your cap, but I'm just gonna sneeze the whole time. It's not gonna be good. It's not safe I'm sorry. You'll have to get another car So this says if you don't want to worry about that you can still do it the old way You can still just book a regular Uber not pay the extra, but if you're like, you know what? I just want to make sure that I've got an Uber driver that's gonna be okay with pets They're giving you an option to pay a couple more bucks to get that reassurance. Yeah And when you think about like, well, you know, I mean, okay I mean, is this really that big a deal? Usually it's not but what if your pet has an emergency it has to go to like a 24-hour vet These are the sorts of situations where you can't have an Uber driver like coming to the house and be like I can't do this, you know, and and you wasting You know precious minutes or hours, you know trying to get to something It's the emergency part of it that has always Concerned me to the point that I was like you just need a car. You just have to have a car depending on where you live Of course, you know, I You could be within walking distance to your bed and maybe this wouldn't be an issue But you know, it also applies to like, I don't know go into the beach or all sorts of things I have questions that go My brain always does this but is it any different if I have a giant great dame Dane versus like a little, you know, I think it does. Yeah, I think I think that oh If you're paying no, it doesn't they're they're like is you're paying the extra money you get to bring your Okay, I pay the three to five bucks. They don't care if it's a poodle or a great dame It's that's the price. Yeah, the driver has said it's okay to have a pet Yeah, but it does matter when you're trying to, you know, perhaps get your dog on board the old-fashioned way And I know this because this has happened to me a couple of times where an Uber driver You know, you book the ride and then I call and say just you know heads up Got a dog. Is that okay? And they were like, yeah, sure How big, you know, I'm like 80 pounds and then it's like now That's actually not okay. Now. Here's the thing though. Should they be charging for this? I mean, I think having a service that that lets you sift to this is great But should it just be part of the option of like, hey, you know, I also want to select Quiet ride or something like that which they also put in a higher-priced tier by the way But you know should are you punishing pet owners by making them charge three to five dollars? Hmm. I mean if you're if you're big st. Bernard gets in my car and drops a deuter In the back seat, I'm gonna I'm gonna be glad that I at least got an extra five bucks out of those people I'm sure that's what this is for us to appeal. Well, dude. And also, do the drivers get an extra three or five bucks out of Oh, yeah, good point. That's the other question, right? Yeah Researchers from Fortinet have found an unauthenticated unauthenticated command injection vulnerability in four models of D-Link routers that could permit remote code Execution D-Link told Fortinet that the four vulnerable router models are end-of-life and will not receive updates to patch the vulnerability Two of the models were discontinued last year so less than a year old for lots of people when they bought them not discontinued and Three of them are still on sale on Amazon Despite being discontinued so people who don't realize might buy a router that is going to remain insecure This is unconscionable. There is no excuse for D-Link to not patch this. I understand security is expensive I understand end-of-lifing a model But if you just end of life to model you should still provide security updates for a period of time afterwards a router should last five to eight years not one or less Than one year. I find no sympathy for D-Link in this This is this is just something that they need to reverse course and it issue a patch for it If they don't reverse course, I am I've got D-Link hardware I will get rid of it and get something to replace it because I am annoyed and I don't mean this in some sort of Let's rise up and stick it to the man kind of way like straight up and I won't trust anymore That is bad bad business bad. I don't want to buy from a company that might stop supporting it next week I mean literally that okay. It's not next week. It's not that bad But in six months like someone who who bought a D-Link router last year in less than a year has had it end of life And now there's a security vulnerability And I think this is why it really sticks in my craw is router Vulnerabilities are one of the biggest ways that malware get into unsuspecting users systems routers need to be the safest Part of any device that you have they need to be the most bulletproof of devices They have been unconscionably insecure in the past for multiple reasons and they should be securing themselves more Not saying well, we just ended life that last year. So no, we're not gonna support it Yeah, not a chance D-Link. That's you either reverse that or I I can't imagine that it's just our voices that feel this way And it seems like at the very least being like well It's not for sale anymore would be at least a way that you might get around this But if if a router is for sale, I might buy it new and be like, okay, this is my new router Right, and now everything's gonna go to hell in a handbasket You're not gonna care that D-Link says well, that was just remaining inventory in the supply channel And they're not gonna communicate that to me at Best Buy They also have I mean I would just say I'm not saying everybody needs to follow Microsoft example in this But when they go end of life with a operating system in terms of support They do it way way in advance and then that's a huge amount of time between the time They they say they will and when they actually do the cutoff and even then we've seen in recent months in the last year They come back go. Oh, this one's bad enough. We're still gonna support that We're gonna fix that because this is bad vulnerability That's how you're supposed to do this and I can't believe I have to use that example to give these guys our time But D-Link get you pooped together. Yeah, if you don't reverse your position on this, you are the weakest D-Link. Goodbye. Yes. Goodbye Essential has tweeted a series of pictures of a new essential phone in the early testing called project gem And if you think that's a reference to size, you might be right The phone appears to have a long tall aspect ratio imagine for example a iPod mini The later generation iPod mini is a lot like this phone appears to have that a fingerprint sensor on the back a bulbus rear facing camera And a hole punch selfie camera code snippets indicate it runs on Android and a snapdragon 730 processor This thing looks weird and I I don't know who they're selling it to yeah, you know, it's funny I I my first reaction was like, oh, it's so long and then it's weird. It looks like a remote That's what it looks like now. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Okay, different form factors bring it on You know, that's let's keep innovating Maybe there is a way to you know, have a control panel that's sort of always on while you're looking at mobile sites The way that you would with another phone Okay, but my the first reaction is like, oh, it's it's not a large phone It's a thin long Small remote-looking phone is Scott we talked about this on TMS this morning and Scott pulled out or I guess Brian pulled out his iPod mini It was like yeah, no, that's that's what this looks like except all screen obviously this is I have still I don't use it anymore But I have the original essential phone. I Considered this to be one of the best Android phones of its time when it was released It was a solid phone worked great the minimal changes to Android they made made sense and it was otherwise stock and I loved it The attachments didn't really end up adding anything to it. I think that's part of the reason it didn't catch on But maybe they felt like well We just made a really solid phone and it didn't catch on so I guess now We've got to like try one of these crazy form factors and see what works Which I'm a supporter of people trying different form factors to see if there's something left But I'm not sure I'm getting this one right now. I get the foldable phone more than I get this one Yeah Oh, that's actually a really good thing to mention because this is this comes on the heels of all these foldable designs And and we're all kind of on the fence as to whether that's the future or not and you know, I like that kind of stuff I like when companies say hey, what if and then we either glom onto it or we don't I maybe I could be convinced here, but I just Phones have gone the other way They've gotten larger thinner and lighter but larger and the larger comes in the form of a screen Which gives you more screen real estate which makes these a more functional device for most people Going smaller thinner and that narrow. I just don't know who that aspect ratio And you know, it's funny that you mentioned foldable This looks like a phone that should be folded right you should be able to unfold it right because it's so long That you're like, oh that that would be kind of cool But you should also be able to fold it because otherwise it's it's just it's a strange form factor for a pocket Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it'll maybe it'll end up being unfoldable. They're like, haha, we fooled you all We'll find out. Well, folks, if you want to get all the tech headlines in about five minutes subscribe to dailytechheadlines.com Twitter thread today that got some attention on hacker news From Peter Gunst co-founder and CEO of legal IO about his experience with a rather sophisticated fishing scam that Almost fooled him. He put it out there as a cautionary tale. Here's what happened He received a call saying it was his bank's fraud department Now my first reaction is if I get a call from the bank I'm gonna say I'm gonna hang up and call you back on a phone number I know is you but he didn't do that The phone number had the right area code and three-digit prefix and he thought well, okay, I'll talk to him I don't answer the phone, but I guess Peter Gunst did so fair enough the caller asked for Peter's member number which he gave Realizing that the member number alone. You can't do anything with so he's like that's probably not risk-free Then they told him they were sending a verification pin He got a text from his bank with the pin code which he gave them over the phone They then read three recent transactions and asked him to verify if they were his and they were he's like Oh, well, this must be the bank. They're telling me transactions They then asked for the pin on his account in order to in their words put a fraud alert That's where Peter finally said no and What had happened was the caller used his member number to do a password reset and apparently with this bank Which is this is not uncommon One of the ways to do a password reset is to have a text message with a one-time code Sent to your phone number that you use to log in and reset your password. Well They did that and they tricked him into reading that number over the phone to them The way that's supposed to be secure is the text message only goes to you you put the number in and therefore We know it's you but the workaround was they were able to Use that because they got him to read the text message So then they got into his account and were able to read transactions They went to a statement and said okay We see three transactions and so that gave it a little more verity, right? Because how would you know that otherwise exactly? That was me if he had given them the pin They then could have transferred money out of his account and then he would have been screwed As it was he hung up immediately called his bank's fraud department and changed his password and everything was fine Wow, you got right up to the edge there on that one. Yeah, I mean we've talked about Various phishing schemes over the years. I know we've all either fallen prey or close to it I I certainly have it usually has to do with the IRS Because I don't know I'm just a I'm paranoid anyway about you know get your heart Yeah, I'm making sure I don't owe anybody money, but but yeah, there there are There are known schemes that are sort of laughable. There are schemes like this where you're like that is clever And I mean I I could have been duped. I mean, I don't know what bank he was using But this doesn't sound unlike the way that my bank would work the same way Yeah, if somebody calls me from a bank, you know, somebody called me from my insurance company this morning Like my first thing was like, what are you doing? Who are you? What do you want? Yeah, they were just like, oh you should get a flu shot But but you know there is you know, even if you err on the side of extreme paranoia these sorts of things do they They they they pass through and they fool a lot of people who who are pretty well versed in technology and understanding that these things do exist Yeah, yeah, there are some numbers out there from from pew about how prevalent this is right Yeah, in fact, it's not just fishing schemes, but it does give you a sense of How much people really do get kind of confused about a lot of the stuff that we have to look out for So pew research, uh, one of their they do studies on lots of stuff are a a recent study of just over 4 000 adults living in the u.s Conducted in june of this year Uh found that around 60 of us adults say that they know about fishing scams They know that fishing scams happen via email or text messages or social media or websites 15% say they don't know where fishing scams occur So it's not that they don't understand that they do occur. They just don't understand how to identify them So again, you know, you look at both those numbers You're like, okay, there's a good amount of people who are going to be fooled by these things Not because they're not smart because they don't really understand what's going on here, you know and and and uh, the the the the banks game that we just read would would would be difficult for anybody Uh, 29 of americans correctly named whatsapp and instagram as two companies owned by facebook 29 Think of all the people who don't understand You know who is owned by facebook and I think that that's you know, that was one of the uh, the The metrics where I was like, wow, you know, you can kind of In the work that we do you can kind of laugh about that and be like, oh, well people kind of know Don't they know a lot of people don't know and they don't necessarily care But they might care later, you know, depending on you know, how how these companies go 24 of americans are aware that private browsing or incognito mode only hides online activity From other people who might be using the same computer Doesn't mean that you're just private rousing and no one will ever see it So again, that's a small amount of people who should kind of know how those sorts of things work when it comes to your privacy Uh, about 63 of americans understand that cookies or text files that allow websites to track user sites Site visits and activities. Okay. All right. So there's you know, we've got some learning to do there 48 of adults demonstrated understanding that a privacy policy is a contract between websites and users regarding how their data will be used Again, that's less than 50 percent of people Understanding privacy policies, you know, there's again, there's you know, it's somewhat concerning 45 know that net neutrality refers to the principle that internet service providers should treat alt-traffic on their networks equally 30 of adults understand that a url That starts with hgtps means that the information entered on that site is encrypted That's not a lot. That should be a little higher. That should be a way higher. Yeah, right. Yeah 30 percent It's you know, you sort of that's the sort of thing where it's like, I mean, I'm always looking at that And I I prefer using a browser that's going to warn me anytime that I'm not on You know a site that that is encrypted. Uh, finally 28 percent, uh, accurately identified an example of two factor auth so that and that is perhaps The most glaring example of how much more I don't know public knowledge there needs to be about how how these things work I don't think it would it strikes me. It strikes me here that 60 know about phishing scams Only 28 accurately identified two factor authentication phishing actually has High awareness compared to a lot of this other stuff you were mentioning Well, I think people know. Oh, you know, they're they'll You better watch that email. They'll try to get you. You know, there are a lot of scams out there I think people are aware of that But yes, the fact that you can turn on two factor authentication To really help yourself, uh, privacy security wise is something that I think there's I mean, they're We got it. We got a lot more learning to do even with awareness of phishing As we saw this person that from from, uh, the CEO we were just talking about peter gunst He knows about phishing and almost got phished like just being aware isn't enough. That's right Yeah, I uh, just one time. I know we're almost out of times. I just want to add a tiny little thing to this I have a kid in the house. He's 19 He loves instagram. He can't stand facebook when I asked him why he says I don't like the company I said, you know Instagram's owned by facebook and he looked at me blindly for a while and I went, oh my gosh, he doesn't know So even this like really smart tech savvy kid and his family, which is very tech savvy We're always talking about this stuff. Even he didn't know so I felt like this little tiny little twinge of Father failure like I hadn't really let him Well, it's also like the principle, right? Like your son has has principles But at the same time he was like, oh really? Oh shoot I'm gonna have to rethink some of these things. I stoic squirrel said in the chat. You can't know everything Yeah, it's true. Um, but we will we will push forward. Uh, thanks everybody who participates in our subreddit They help us know things every day. You can submit stories and vote on them We'll read them. We will participate in them We might even put them in a show daily tech news show dot reddit.com We're also on facebook join our group facebook.com slash groups slash daily tech news show All right. 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