 This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners, thanks to all of you, including Rod Rego, Smith Sabata, John and Becky Johnston, and Chris Benetel. Coming up on DTNS, Metashare is its new mixed reality headset plans. Volkswagen is launching an app store for cars. And how do we keep kids from overdoing it on TikTok? This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, March 1st, 2023. From Studio Redbud, I'm Sarah Lane. From lovely Cleveland of the Ohio, I'm Rich Strafilino. In Salt Lake City, I'm Scott Johnson. And on the show's producer, Roger Chen. We are all here. We have lots of tech news to talk about, so let's get started with the quick hits. Google made Gmail client-side encryption available for Google Workspace Enterprise and Education customers. It previously launched a beta test for the encryption on the web back in December. It's now rolling out to everybody, at least in the Enterprise and Education tiers. The feature is off by default, so your workspace admin will have to turn it on. Once enabled, though, users will see an additional encryption option in any email compose window. OpenAI launched its premium service, ChatGPT+, last month. On Wednesday, it followed up with a new API that lets any business build ChatGPT into their apps, websites, products, and services. Greg Brockman, co-founder, president, and chairman of OpenAI tells TechCrunch that ChatGPT's AI is powered by the same model but behind OpenAI's ChatGPT. The API is priced at .002 cents per 1,000 tokens or about 750 words and includes non-Chat app experiences with Snap, Quizlet, Instacart, and Shopify as early adopters. While we've still got news from Mobile World Congress like the smartphone maker Techno, they showed off the Phantom 5 Fold, a horizontal foldable that starts at $1,099. It offers a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 Plus SoC, uses AMOLED 120Hz displays for both the main screen and the screen when it's folded, and it's rated for 200,000 folds, that's the same as Samsung's latest foldables. No word, though, on availability. Lenovo CEO Yang Quing Yang also confirmed in an interview that the new Razer is slated for this year, featuring an improved hinge design and new front cover display. In a letter to staff, new YouTube head Neil Mohan said, degenerative, rather not degenerative AI, tools for creators will come to them in the coming months. Now, he said that these tools could also expand storytelling, raise production value, virtually swapping outfits, creating a fantastical film setting. All sounds kind of interesting. He also said shorts will soon get a side-by-side layout feature to use with existing YouTube videos or shorts similar to TikTok's duets. And YouTube TV will also get the ability to view multiple NFL Sunday ticket games all at once. Well, the decentralized social media protocol Blue Sky, that's backed by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, released an app on the iOS app store, meant to serve as a showcase for its authenticated transfer protocol. The service remains an invite-only beta right now, so you can download it, but unless you have an invite, you can't really use it. Right now, the app is also pretty bare bones. It has a 256 character limit, may sound familiar, supports uploading photos, but doesn't have other niceties like lists or even direct messages. All right, let's get into Meta's plans for the future. The Verge's Alex Heath reports that Meta shared its four-year AR and VR roadmap with thousands of employees in Meta's Reality Labs division on Tuesday, the details of which was then shared with the Verge. Maybe, you know, it might have been a... Anyway, the Verge published it. According to the roadmap, the Quest 3 headset, this is forthcoming, code named Stinson, will come out later this year. So in 2023, expect a new Quest 3 claiming to be two times thinner, twice as powerful and slightly more expensive than the Quest 2, with a smart guardian feature to guide users through mixed reality experiences, basically meaning if you're wearing it, you can see the world around you rather than being totally immersive. Meta's VP for VR Mark Rabkin said that the company has sold nearly 20 million Quest headsets to date, and that there will be 41 new apps and games shipping for the Quest 3. I'm willing to bet Stinson as somebody's dog. Anyway, beyond this year, though, the presentation included that 2024 or in 2024, Meta will ship a more accessible, quote-unquote accessible headset code named Ventura, which it hopes will pack the biggest punch we can at the most attractive price point in the consumer VR market, they say. This would be allowed, or sorry, this would be followed by a headset code named La Jolla. La Jolla. La Jolla, for those who aren't me. Way out in the future, they say. It's California Towns, Scott. That's right. Somebody's cat, anyway. Way out in the future, aiming to provide photorealistic avatars. But don't leave out AR. They had some news there as well. Meta plans to release a second generation of its camera-equipped Ray-Ban Stories glasses this fall. And then in 2025, it plans to ship smart glasses with a viewfinder display. This would show things like incoming calls or you'd be able to use it for doing some like real-time translation and that kind of stuff. And that'll have a neural interface band to support hand gestures. There's also talk of a companion smartwatch that could come out at that same time to also help with kind of gesture support. Meanwhile, its true AR glasses will be internally launched in 2024 before a public launch in 2027, which I was shocked to find out is only four years away, actually. I mean, okay. So let's talk about this four-year roadmap. You know, things can change. But starting with the latest iteration of the Quest. So the Quest 3 headset, coming out to be two times thinner than the Quest 2, twice as powerful, but slightly more expensive. My first question is like, okay, well, we have the Quest Pro, which is quite a bit more expensive than the Quest 2. Quest 2 is, what, $400? Quest Pro is $1,500? And still, you know, you have a lot of even, you know, VR enthusiasts sort of scratching their heads, being like, what is the Quest Pro that expensive for? What, like, where do we think the Quest 3 needs to be? Well, it wouldn't surprise me. This is complete guesswork, but it wouldn't surprise me if Meta reversed the pricing on the 2. Keep it as a skew, but reverse the price back down to its $299, very lucrative entry point price. Yeah. And then launch the 3 at the $400 mark, maybe a little bit more, but somewhere in that range. If I were them, that is what I would do because it makes sense. I don't know what costs are, so I'm not the guy to make this decision, but it seems like you need a better entry level. You had it for a while, and then you lost it. So bring it back, get that price down again on the 2, have the 3 be competitive with what the 2 price is now, and keep the pro wherever it is for whoever that thing's for. But who is it for? Which is still kind of an open question. I don't know. I still don't know. Like, if we could all get one, I'm sure we'd enjoy it. I'm sure it'd be a wonderful device on our heads, and we'd enjoy all the things the pro brings to our lives. But I don't know who's trying to buy that for $1,500. I've got one at Studio Redwood because, you know, we like to try out things. And it is nicer than the Quest 2, I guess, in terms of it's more comfortable, yada-yada. But then when I hear medicine, we're going to roll out so many new AR VR experiences for the Quest 3. It's like, where are those experiences? Why are we waiting? Well, and that kind of plays into something that Rapkin said where, you know, he was saying that the Quest 2 basically like the early adopters really loved it and they got a ton of engagement. But the people who bought it, you know, kind of since the price hike or over the last year or so, they're, quote, they're just not as into it as the ones that bought it early. So I do think that is a, you know, like the experiences problem is something that they definitely want to address head on with the Quest 3. It's interesting to think where this will fall when it comes out later this year, right? Because we have PSVR 2, not exactly the same thing because you do have to have a console for that, but a fairly expensive headset, what it like, $550 right there. So if they can hit around that price point, don't need a console for it, they can say, hey, you can get this very similar experience. They're going to say it's going to be a very similar experience for the same money sans console. So you don't have to buy that. And Scott, I think you're spot on with the Quest 2 knocking that back down to the $299 price that it started at. But that is also, that was also part of the appeal, not just the fact that it was a self-contained VR headset, but it was not the $300 is no money. But it was enough that you could, okay, I'll take a, I'll take a lark on this technology and it's something I've always wanted to try. And okay, that's like, that's the one big Christmas present, right? You're going to buy the kids, right? When you get into that, like anything more than that, I do feel like is a much bigger ask and probably part of, you know, some of the problems that we've had. Going to that Ventura headset though, I think it's interesting. They're taking like, it sounds almost like the iPhone SE where they're like, we're going to have a price point that we're going to hit. We're going to jam as much as we can. You're like, we'll give you all the features that you might pay extra for. Hey, you're not going to have to buy the extra head strap. We'll get you the good head strap with it. We're going to put all like the value plus stuff into that, but we're going to hit, you know, whatever the, maybe a price difference between the $299 and a $550 or something like that. Again, I don't want to go too specific into prices because that's, you know, a year out and we're just speculating here at this point. Yeah, it's also important to note here, there are now many billions of dollars in the hole in this department. And they seem to be ready to keep going. Like this is going to be a lost leadership for them. It already has been. And you could argue that they are in the lead in terms of market share and, you know, availability and that sort of thing. Still kind of hard to get PS5s to match with your PSVR 2s, which just launched. And there's that whole issue. So I don't know, this to me is both showing commitment to the form and also seeming a little insane that they lost that much money. And they're going to keep going. I mean, I want them to, if they've got the money to spend, do it, I guess, Metta. But it's a lot. And this definitely feels like a rally the troops kind of presentation because and also stockholders to be quite frank. Because yes, this was for internal employees. But Metta of course knows that whether it's the Verge or Engadget or the information, they have people have sources all over the place. This is going to immediately get out. And this is to also inform people that are watching the company that, hey, we, you know, we didn't name ourselves Metta on a lark. We didn't like the Quest Pro is not just this weird thing. We have a hardware plan that we are going to hit with some pretty forward reaching technology, you know, looking for true AR by 2027 and that they're going to keep developing that space as well. You know, I definitely think this is a message to media and to internal employees where they're going to have some rough earnings coming up right now where people are going to be saying, Scott, just like you are. They ran through money. They're they're losing money in this division, their ad revenues, blah, blah, blah. This is a we have a plan. Here's what it is, you know, you know, keep the peace or hold the faith or whatever expression you want to throw out there. Well, and the whole listen, I mean, you know, I'm a quest fan have been for a couple of years now. That said, I think I like what I like. And I don't really use it for more than, I don't know, two or three apps regularly at a time. And for Mark Rabkin to say, listen, we've seen that early adopters like it because they're early adopters. But like people who got it for Christmas last year aren't really using it all that much. We need to figure out what, you know, what, what the play is here. Like, why do people want this? Like, it's not just some, you know, fun VR lurk. It's like, how will this help you? And I think a lot of mixed reality is supposed to help all of us. But then there are the early adopters like me where I'm like, I actually like immersive better. I don't really want the mixed reality thing until I get that killer app. And, you know, once I see it, maybe I'll change my mind. All right. Moving on to TikTok. TikTok wants kids to be safe. Or at least that's what the company is thinking behind the idea with new time screen controls that they're rolling out for users that are under the age of 18. Automatically setting a 60 minute daily screen time limit after which point those users who are under 18 would have to enter a passcode from a parent or guardian that's also connected to their account to keep watching for another 30 minutes. Now, if that is what everybody decides you're supposed to do, teens that turn off the limit and then spend over 100 minutes a day on TikTok will then be prompted to set a daily screen time limit. Yeah. And that's not all. TikTok also plans to add family paired linked or pairing linked accounts. The ability to set words and hashtags to filter out of, you know, their linked minors feed. So they're not seeing certain content. Parents can also customize screen time limits for different days of the week. Maybe the kids a little bit extra time on the weekends and set times to mute TikTok notifications for teens. You know, Scott, you've raised a few teens. This is kind of a broad swath of measures here to kind of be a little bit more friendly for parents. I guess, let's say you, you know, kids get around parental controls. Is this going to work? They do. So there's this whole thing I could go on and on about and only briefly say it at the end of the day when it comes to this sort of stuff, most of it comes down to what kind of relationship to you the parent have with the kid. And if it's one that's open and community, then you're going to get a lot further down the road without problems. Okay. So that aside, forgetting about that for a second when it just comes to like just raw nuts and bolts of how to control screen time in your house and that sort of thing. I went through this with Vine, Snapchat, Facebook to some degree. All of that stuff was a big deal for my kids in school. And while most of the time we try to sort of communicate around it and build trust issues around it, it is nice to have the tools. Regardless, I think parents should be given more tools to be able to say, here's what I want to do. And whether I get the kid to do it or not, or whether he's going around my back or not, at least I've got the tools there. And you and it just gives the parent more to work with. So I'm all for that. But one would assume that part of the reason that TikTok is doing this is because A, and I know this is a TikTok user, they're really good at what they do. They're good at keeping you there and keeping you there for too long. Just check on me last night at about 130. What was I doing? Looking at TikTok videos. So I'm part of the problem, but they're really good at it. Those algorithms are legit and they work. So I think that this is a good way to counter that narrative, whether it succeeds at that or not. It doesn't so much matter as it does. It's a little bit of a PR play to say, look, we've given you some tools now. So you have more control over what your kids are doing or what you're doing. Oh, it's a big one. It's a big one. For sure. And it's also it's also them saying, hey, don't forget about all the spy accusations and all this other weird stuff. Maybe just focus, focus over here on this cool thing we're giving you to have tools. So it's a little bit of PR on both sides for those guys. And there's no denying it. As a, you know, Scott, I know your kids are a little older, Rich, I know your kids are a little younger. I don't have any human children, but, you know, all all of these tools, I say, I mean, these aren't bad things to offer. I mean, sure, kids love to get around things, you know, and talk and code so that parents don't really know what they're doing, because that's what kids do. I don't think anything is wrong with this. Instagram recently rolled out some similar features designed to make sure that if you're, you know, young and impressionable, you're not on the platform all day long, even though clearly that's in the best interest of the company for you to be on the platform all day long. Yeah. So there's a little of like, okay, we're saying this, but we know you're going to do this. But we have the tools to make sure that, you know, if you're a responsible parent or guardian, you're making sure that, you know, nobody is wasting their life away on TikTok. But as you said, Scott, I mean, you know, adults do it too. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's what the thing that's not announced is we're going to make the algorithm worse. So you want to watch less because they have no interest in doing that. And again, their whole business is to create this extremely engaging or entertaining or whatever you want to call it, feed of content that you can endlessly scroll through till your brain melts. I do the one thing that really stood out to me though is I do appreciate like the ability to put the notification controls in the parents hand because I do think that has like an enormous poll, especially for I imagine a lot of kids like don't have a lot of like notification discipline, like I'm like a zero notification kind of person, but I also know like I pick up someone else's phone there's just a billion notifications. So any way to like, yes, they're still going to make the app. Kids like are still going to extremely want to use the app but give them at least less reason to make maybe want to go through that. Even I could also see that have applications like oh I posted something and like people are making like doing stuff I don't like with other content that I've put up, even just silencing that notifications could give if the kids going through like a bad experience could just even give them some space from that even though those notifications would still be there the next time they open the app like that to me feels like the biggest move there. But like the key is to make the algorithm worse which is what they're they're never going to do right. If you're a parent, if you're a non parent, or you have thoughts, anything that we talk about on the show, especially as it you know pertains to tick tock or anything else, you can email us feedback at daily tech news show.com is where to send those thoughts. All right, so for the last few years, if you wanted to run third party apps on your cars infotainment system, you were using your phone with carplay, maybe Android Auto, or maybe you owned a Tesla. Did something different all together. But in our in car rather operating systems are increasingly gaining traction. The manufacturer is saying we're just going to build it in. We don't want you to use anything else. Android automotive might sound like Android Auto, but rather than running off your phone it runs on the internal car hardware. And that's what car makers increasingly want you to use right Rich. Yeah, we've got a big name with some more details about how they're going to be integrating that the Volkswagen group they're the world's second largest vehicle maker so big deal that they announced that their new one infotainment stack will be built on Android automotive. With that it announced the system will support an app store. A lot of these systems that we've seen have like apps pre installed that you can choose to hide but this is going to have like a full third party app store. It'll launch on select new Audi models in the US and then they plan to also bring it to Porsche Lamborghini and Bentley down the road and imagine it will come to their actual VW line as well apps will be car optimized and include categories for things like music video conferencing. Whether charging gaming and smart home integration at launch will include apps for things like tick tock Spotify and Yelp with VW specifically saying it wanted to add in office functionalities as well in case you got too excited by tick tock I guess. But because of those new OS underpinnings though you know that like Android automotive is like your whole stack right that's going to control your instrument like run on your instrument cluster too much stuff. The app store won't be coming to existing models just uses a totally different system so it can't come to there but Scott. Are you excited to be you know installing apps directly on your car. Well it feels like we are at the cusp of perhaps a brand new ecosystem of app stores and the car manufacturers are finally up to speed to the point where they can kind of do this on their own and they're not having to. Kind of quickly and abruptly add things like car play and other services to their to their systems they'll do their own thing and there's been some of that in the past but they're all pretty bad. Like my I have a I don't even know what it is in our in our Volkswagen but I hate it. It's freaking awful. I think it's got Sony's name on it. Not sure what it's called but it's horrendous and I can't stand it. So I'm worried about that. I'm worried about the diversity of these shops are going to be range from pretty good to gnarly bad and I'd much prefer that they were unified in some way. I'm not saying I want Google and Apple to have all the fun. I don't want that necessarily but I don't love the idea of this diversity of well if I'm going to buy a car I'll say go buy a new EV a big part of my decision is going to be based on that because there's a very good chance that that system is going to be highly integrated into the other very Electronics based EV components of that car and like having an operating system on a computer. You don't want to be you don't want to go to a store and go well I really like how this computer looks but looks like it's running PS to from back in the old days. Like I don't I that's how that's going to feel I think a little bit and like buying a house for good internet I feel like I'll be buying a car for good store access and yeah. I don't know it's going to get weird before it gets better I think with my my current Volvo which supports car play which is what I use Volvo has its own you know navigation system and when I pull it up on my you know the The the center console screen I'm like God no carplay way better you know we got we got Google Maps we got Apple Maps we got you know I'm an Apple music user so there's that there's podcasts like that all makes way more sense to me but that's not what Volvo wants me to do that's just what Volvo was like this is how we can sell more vehicles right so the idea that there would be some sort of proprietary you know app system built into I know we're not talking about what we're talking about VW for this particular situation but you know the car manufacturers want you to use their systems because it kind of keeps you in the system it's an ecosystem like anything else and I just you know when I read the story earlier I was sort of like okay I get that but there are all these apps that are supposed to like you know surprise and delight you like ooh Tik Tok yeah it's like and Yelp I mean I guess if you were going somewhere you know and if you're a passenger rather than a driver then there are all sorts of things you can do but when it kind of got into like and you could also do zoom calls I was like are we hanging out in our cars more than I realized and I think some people are right in your Lambo you definitely want to be hanging out in your car to be fair so I'm taking all my Skype calls in there just for the flex but the other thing that though this is kind of the pendulum swinging back for the automakers because they were loathe to give up any control to a punny consumer electronics company I mean I remember like Toyota and Volkswagen took a really long time Toyota specifically of giving you any kind of integration with CarPlay Android Auto and stuff like that and all of them have basically bent the knee and said this is what consumers want we're going to integrate other than Tesla really and and giving you you know access to that and what they're able to do one it's a part of it is a safety consideration right like these auto makers do take their their mission of like you know keeping people safe and having everything you know kind of you know driver oriented not being too distracting admittedly installing Tik Tok maybe is not the best foot forward on that front but the other aspect of it is these are increasingly connected platforms that have connected services to them that can generate revenue for auto makers and it's essential for them to have more stuff running on the car that they can control I don't know how like I don't think Volkswagen is going to be taking like a like a commission on this I know Mercedes is kind of running their own and totally homemade in car infotainment system with an app store with an app ecosystem I'm sure they're going to be taking some commissions on that kind of stuff so a lot of it is about control control of data that's flowing in and out of your car that's not going to Apple or Google that's like that that's another major component to this as well and you can do the integration deeper you can have it on more displays it can be consistent you don't have to hold with Apple or Google's design guidelines like there there's a lot of elements of control that auto makers have been uncomfortable with with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay that they're seeing away and providing a benefit to consumers to make consumers say this is actually something I might want versus you know everyone just immediately plugging in their phone as soon as again to any car well if you happen to be sleeping in your car which you know that sounds like it's better than ever the Pokemon company announced its title Pokemon sleep way back in May of 2019 and you might have been one of those people saying what happened to that finally at Monday's Pokemon presents event the company announced it's coming to iOS and Android later this year Pokemon sleep lives the game it's not really a game but it's described as making you look forward to waking up in the morning and using your phone to monitor your sleep a lot of other apps do this already so not only can you observe Pokemon creatures and their own sleepy habitats that's kind of part of the fun but it'll put you in dozing snoozing and slumbering categories based on the data that it collects from when you're sleeping all of which are in you various Pokemon one unlockable sleep type is goofy sleep featuring a slow poke sleeping on its back if you also sleep on your back maybe you'll get the Pokemon the game runs with just the app alone you don't need anything but you know hardware related but you can also use the new Pokemon go up plus a plus service using it to trigger going to sleep waking up controlling the Pokemon go app and also has an alarm and level buys sung by Pikachu if you really want to go all in adorable it's so adorable yeah I do enjoy that this is kind of like if you grew up with like the Pokemon on your on your Gameboy you know back in like the 90s like you're now at the age where you probably just want to good night sleep yeah and I enjoy that the Pokemon company is wrecking I know I I I kind of love this because like from a gamification perspective what is the one thing you can't avoid doing sleeping you're probably going to check your phone as soon as you wake up and you're going to see that you have a new Pokemon as soon as you wake up like the cycle to me seems seems almost weird choice though it's a weird choice to pick Pikachu to sing anything to anyone I've I've listened to a lot of Pokemon voices over the years Pikachu is annoying on purpose and it's not the version you got in the movie with Ryan Reynolds I can promise you that he is not singing to you it is this annoying freaking whatever that is and all you have to do is go YouTube a little Pikachu saying you'll see what I'm saying so that's a strange choice other than that I'd like this as well why is it a jigglypuff on iOS I have used a variety of sleep apps over the years I'm going to guess that the Pokemon app is kind of you know monitoring my you know breathing and and sounds and you know rolling over as much as any any other sleep app would do that is this is good data you know if you care about sleep especially if you're like I'm not getting the greatest sleep of my life or you know I just want to you know just crunch some data and you know do that that whole thing just to add a little fun on top of it you know why not I'm telling you there's a Pokemon company executive that's a sitting there's like they got to sleep anyway let him play you know like let's gamify it yeah give him a yeah well Scott Johnson besides not loving Pikachu's voice what else you have to these days boy there's so many things in fact speaking of video games speaking to Pikachu and speaking of VR we do a lot more coverage these days on VR issues and also VR games and things that are happening in VR space on a little show called core it's a video game podcast we do each and every Thursday night you can get it wherever you get podcasts you can watch us live you can find details at frogfans.com and get the skinny on all things video games including virtual reality VR coming to you on core we also have a thank you and our thank you goes to our brand new boss Mitchell who just started back in us on Patreon thank you Mitchell we are on a streak on Patreon y'all and we are feeling pretty great about it thanks to everybody who directly supports the show speaking of patrons stick around for our extended show good day internet Rich is going to talk about new adventures and e-bikes and I will not spoil the Mandalorian I promise you that I will look at you very specifically though and that's how you'll know how I feel about it but you can catch our show DTNS is live Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. eastern 2100 UTC find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live we will be back doing it all again tomorrow with Chris Ashley joining us talk to you then this show is part of the frog pants network get more at frogpants.com club hopes you have enjoyed this program