 Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners. Thanks to all of you including Philip Shane, Paul Boyer and Brad Coming up on DTNS. Tech comes to board games, but there's still board games Chris Mancini is here to explain plus the first copyright test of text-to-image generators and James Earl Jones Hands-over Darth Vader's voice to a computer This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, September 26th 2020 till you in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt In lovely Cleveland, Ohio. I'm Richard Rappelino I'm the show's producer Roger Shane and joining us writer and podcaster Chris Mancini. Welcome back Thanks for having me great to be back has always always a lot of tech to talk about always a lot of tech Yes, we keep thinking the show's gonna be over and then they just they make more tech In fact, let's start with a few tech things you should know Netflix announced it established an internal game studio based in Helsinki, Finland Now you may say hey Netflix, they own some other game studios They own three other game studios, but this will be the first building games from scratch The studio will be led by a mark Marco Lastica who previously worked at Zynga developing Farmville 3 and before that in EA's mobile division Apple has confirmed it is assembling iPhone 14 models in India at a Foxconn facility near Chennai It's expected to go on sale in India later this year. This is part of Apple Diversifying where it assembles its phone that's Apple began assembling iPhones in India in 2017 but up until now that was only older generations. So they're now doing the current generation in India as well According to documents seen by Reuters The Indian government Proposed smartphone makers make hardware changes to support its regional navigation satellite system Otherwise known as Navic in addition to GPS by the start of 2023 Navic became operational in 2018 uptick has maybe not been where the Indian government wants it and so they're thinking about Putting in mandating it in smartphones Apple, Xiaomi and Samsung reportedly sought until 2025 to support Navic Citing higher research and production costs got to build the you know the radios to support all that The UK's information commissioners office has been busy lately Putting everybody on notice and the latest to get a notice of intent is tiktok The ICO said it has reached a provisional view I want to have more provisional views. I might think this. I'm not sure give me a moment Anyway provisional view that tiktok's app breached UK data laws between May 2018 and July 2020 According to the notice tiktok may have processed the data of children who were younger than 13 years old without parental consent tiktok has 30 days to respond to that notice and the New York time sources say tiktok and the u.s White House have drafted a preliminary agreement to resolve national security Concerns, but we don't have any details on that deal. It isn't finalized yet. So we'll keep an eye out for that Has it this been going on for literally years tiktok harps the information like why why are there still news stories? Like people are surprised Happening well, that's why it's a provisional view. Yeah, because they're not surprised. They're just Yeah, they're trying to decide what emotion fits. Yeah All right, and the international telecommunications union is a hundred fifty seven year old organization Originally formed to coordinate telegraphs across countries a noble mission indeed in 1949 to integrate it into the United Nations system It does not govern the internet despite headlines. You may read that's common misconception But it does have 193 member countries and 900 participating organizations So it could decide things that affect the internet simply because of all the coteries have agreed to it So who runs it has a lot of influence over the internet particularly over standards and interoperability and this week in Romania The ITU is choosing a new head to succeed China's Zauhu Lin who has led the ITU for the past eight years down to two people former US Commerce Department telecom expert Doreen Bogdan Martin and forever Russian Deputy Minister of Telecommunications Rashid Ismailov Hmm. Yeah It's not like I mean we've had China a person from China in charge of it for the past eight years And there's been pressure to do things, but it's not like one person. He just makes all the rules But which way they get pushed it makes a difference. Who's in charge? All right, let's talk about copyright. We're only just starting to get into the intellectual property implications of text to image Generation Open AI all of the algorithmically generated content out there, but we do have a few precedents We do have a few rules being made for one dolly two and some of the other text image engines say that you can use Generated images for commercial purposes. They just build that in gonna avoid that whole issue If you use it from us, you can do whatever you want sell it whatever that doesn't clear up all the potential issues though For instance, if my intellectual property is used in the data set to train the engine Does that give me any say in what it outputs? There's also lots of concerns about Whether the person who pressed the button really has the right to sell the image Those are the kinds of things behind Getty's recent ban on text to image generation from algorithms But we're getting another test a rich Yeah, so this kind of comes from the copyright perspective and we have some precedent for how kind of The US Copyright Office at least has dealt with AI back in 2019 They ruled that an AI engine cannot be the author of a copyrighted work something tied to Stephen Thaler with the work by the algorithm creativity machine so he tried to say that creativity machine was the author of a work and The ruling was upheld earlier this year so it took a while for them to You know hit the appeals board and they maintain that copyrighted works have to include an element of human Authorship not that they can't use AI tools, but an AI isn't a human So you need human authorship to get have a copyright in your name in the United States now Thaler has succeeded in this in other places in the world, but just not in the United States And we're talking about the United States Because of what happened with Chris Kastanova AI generated images can be used in a copyrighted work That's what rich was pointing out there and New York based artist Chris Kastanova received a US Copyright registration for the AI generated graphic novel or algorithmically when we say AI it's useless, right AI can mean anything This is an algorithm. This was one of those text image generator generated a graphic novel called Zarya of the dawn And that copyright is effective as of September 15th. So it has been granted it is in force Kastanova used the mid-journey commercial image synthesis service for the work and was clear in Registering the work that there was an assist from an algorithm Kastanova wrote the story Created the layout and shows how to piece the images together. So the human did a lot of work but Didn't alter the generated works in any other way. So the actual images you see came out of the computer Kastanova's graphic novel is available for free if you want to take a look at it You can find it at AI comic books comm This is definitely feeds into a is it a tool? Is it okay to use the tool? A lot of people are saying that the main character in this book Zarya of the dawn looks a lot like Zendaya Are we gonna hear Zendaya's people put a claim on this Chris? You make graphic novels. You you sell graphic novels How does this make you feel? Well, I mean this is an interesting thing because first of all, what what are the robots feel about this? I mean, what are they gonna say and once they take over they're gonna remember this, okay? But what's interesting is when you make the graphic novels obviously as a writer He still wrote them But it more affects the artists and the art and I would probably ask my artist what he thought But it really is an interesting thing because it's like well if the art and the style is created by the artist Or is it generated by the AI and it's because so many things go into a graphic novel between the art and the layout And the the lettering and all of those things It's a great question like what what is the the human contribution? What are the AI? I don't think we're completely there yet as far as like the AI making like a work of art Completely as far as like a book or a graphic novel like you know a still image sure, you know, but this kind of happened before I don't know if you remember that game The Last of Us when it first came out There was some controversy about whether or not that was Ellen Page's face for Ellie and Like there was there that kind of got you know a little bit of controversy there So especially when your AI main character looks like a famous actress that might also be a problem Yeah, that's the first thing I saw too Kostinova is obviously making a point here and very avali avali has said I want to test these waters That's why I did this. I think in practice You would still have an artist to help with layout to help with image selection to refine individual images In order to touch them up make them look exactly the way you look you want them to look you probably also might want to modify So they don't look so much like Zendaya see you don't get into that that situation Because it's not just are you trying to use someone's likeness the way it was at Last of Us This is also the idea that the algorithm was trained on images of Zendaya most likely, right? And so so there's that other side of the element as well And one thing it could do is also speed up an artist's work Like if the artist does the original drawings and style and compositions and then the eye AI kind of goes in and like takes different angles or positions of like what the artist is drawing so In a way, there's a real positive thing here if it could speed up because they let me tell you graphic novels and comics take forever to make and If there's like a computer way to speed it up without losing human element. I think that could be very valuable Well speaking of human elements as far as iconic performances go It's hard to name something more distinctive than James Earl Jones's voice of Darth Vader defining the character since 1977 but Jones is now 91 years old So many have wondered how the character would be portrayed after Jones can no longer perform the voice with the continuing Star Wars content plan since Disney bought the IP seems like a pressing concern at least for Disney, but you know comments, you know we You know what? Yes, we have an answer rather than task another actor with stepping into the role It seems the plan will be to simulate it With the Jones consent. He has signed off on this Disney has worked with a Ukrainian company Called re-speacher. They used archival recording And create and trained a proprietary algorithm to create new dialogue for Vader Focusing efforts to create Jones voice as it sounded in 1977 my guess is they they feel like if they need Vader to sound older they can do that But they they trained it mostly on his work from 1977 Now I I noticed this too. Oh, sorry go ahead. Oh No, you're well That's kind of the litmus test right is like whether people will notice this and a lot of people already have I was featured in the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series some of the scenes with there with I guess spoiler Darth Vader was Featuring the work by re-speacher and according to Lucas films Matthew would telling Vanity fair James did guide the algorithm's performance through many of these scenes. So still has a hand in forming the character We've also heard the tech for young Luke Skywalker in the book of the Feta, but Chris I'm curious In terms of hearing it in your reaction like did it did it pass the James Earl Jones a human test? You know, it's especially if you kind of know that it's not the actor you kind of have that little subconscious Bug in your mind. You're like, well, that's not really gonna sound like it and they do they sound close But they're still not the same as like hearing an actual human speed speak But you know when you you see how close people are getting like with it with re-speecher Especially with like the Mark Hamill stuff and with the James Earl Jones You know that we're getting closer to it actually being super close where it's almost indistinguishable But I'll give you a little bit of trivia about James Earl Jones's voiceover and what a great guy is Like I would work with audio designers and they would occasionally have James Earl Jones do voiceovers for like different spots and stuff and he would do them remotely and of course all the audio Designers would be like, oh, well, this is great. Can you record something for my voicemail or whatever or something? Because they would always ask because like, you know, it's because they would want that On her voice most like you see how cool this is so what James Earl Jones would do is he would say alright This is what it would cost me to do it. I'll do it for you for free But I want you to give that money to charity. Oh, wow So that's what he would do for all of those audio requests for voicemails I wonder if he is going to require re-speecher to do the same thing That would be great. Yeah Did you Chris did you know it was re-speecher doing some of Vader's Lines in Obi-Wan? I did not but I'm curious if you knew that I didn't but I suspected because I didn't know for sure because we had kind of gone through with Mark Hamill, but it was like it was on that bubble of like is it or isn't it well I think that's the key is when when when you saw Luke Skywalker show up in the Mandalorian you knew Okay, this is either gonna sound like old Mark Hamill or it's been processed right and when it didn't sound like old Mark Hamill You're like, okay, they processed it so that biases you you're already thinking like okay So this was synthesized. Does it really sound like him or not? Whereas in Obi-Wan. I remember thinking like wow He sounds really good like almost too good like almost not the way I would think James Earl Jones today would sound did they process it But I also did not know and so I think that's a truer test of how good it was when you aren't coming in with it going Well, I know they did something to it and whether you notice or not Here's the other big difference is you know, Mark Hamill and Luke Skywalker is a natural voice Whereas whenever you hear Vader's right, it's through a rebreather So you already have kind of that layer of like distortion which can also hide any Imperfections in the voice so you've got an image there, too Yeah, I think we're going I think where though like both in both of these instances We're still dealing with the actor is is still able to be involved in the Decretion of this character that they defined in so many ways But where I think and that's why I think when we're reading this I don't get like like I don't get like a weird uncanny valley even feeling like that because I was like, okay It's based on their voice. They're involved with it I think where it gets interesting and where a lot of these companies they're dealing with these long tail IPs are going to get to at some point Disney seems like maybe one of the first to get there is trying to keep You know these characters around and using these types of methods instead of doing recasting and where it gets to oh now We're dealing with the estate of this actor or and and the not not definitely the legality of that is I would think fairly clear I'm not a you know inheritance Expert or anything like that, but I think the perception of it is definitely different when we're we're talking about Actors that can still be involved with it and certainly both of these were by all accounts Versus, you know if if Grand Marf Tarkin's voice is you know brought back The same way as he was visually. I if there's a new Maltese Falcon movie, then you know like all right I don't know if that's Humphrey Bogart You know for a second I really thought Millennium Falcon even though you said Maltese Falcon Just because of the conversation But yeah, I in in the vein of all of that I think it is important that this is the precedent of Living actor says with my blessing with my guidance with you know my wishes. I will hand it over to the computer It is more difficult when the actor is already gone But I think this is a good precedent to follow to say let's not wait until they're gone And then have a big argument over whether this is okay, you know, let's let's line it up It may feel a little more of it to come to somebody like hey, so when you die You know But but you never know like even if people don't die there their voices could become you know changed by illness or Or just not able to get up and get around and do stuff like that And it's it's important to have a succession plan so to speak Yeah audio wise for sure. Yeah All right, let's turn it over to Dan Campos in Mexico City with an update on some tech That's helping players at this year's World Cup aficionados que viven la intensidad del food bowl This is NTX with some tech and sport news The FIFA announced the release of FIFA player where the actual football players will be able to view data related to day performance During the matches taking place in the Qatar World Cup The data will be synchronized with videos taken during the games in order to have the most efficient evaluation at key moments The information collected won't be available to the public But do the players themselves their clubs and some selected fear parries Currently our professional soccer leagues monitor their players using the EPTS the electronic performance security system Which uses wearables to collect information and was introduced in 2017 for more information about this check NTX latest episode back to you amigos Thank you very much Dan This is the though. It's cool about this is like for years all the sports games I've just been chasing this realism and this almost feels like the the continued video Gamification of actual like that's the opposite now and that to me is the most fascinating thing about all that's so cool Pretty soon. They'll be able to simulate the voices of the soccer players As they pretend they're injured Folks if you have a thought about something on the show, but you don't know our email address Let me fix that our email address is feedback at daily tech news show calm Recently on an episode of Star Trek lower decks the main characters who if you don't know live centuries in the future We're playing a board game that included holographic elements along with good old-fashioned game pieces and dice and and a board Now that may sound silly to you and lower decks is an animated comedic take on Star Trek so maybe it was but it's not far off to some of the things We're seeing now Chris. What kind of tech are we seeing in board games? You know, it's pretty amazing like I board games have seen a resurgence over the last couple of years And there's like different levels of tech as it goes into board games And there's always like kind of like the purists were like I don't want any tech in my board game But there's certain ways where it's like super beneficial like when you have a super complicated game like Gloomhaven, which we play a lot, but it takes a very long time to set up play and tear down even for like one adventure You can have what are called helper apps and the app will kind of keep track of like monsters hit points and The scenario that you're on and the rewards and all of them the player conditions and all of those things So it kind of helps you keep track of everything The other thing it will also do is kind of like hide information to make it a little more dynamic Like where if you're looking at the the scenario board it has everything that you're going to see in the adventure But the actual app can kind of hide those things and then the next level up Which is also really fun is like a game-like mansions of madness or return to dark tower Where the app is integrated actually into the gameplay where you can't play it without the app So the way you can look at it is like when we used to play dungeons and dragons But there was always a DM a dungeon master well that dungeon master is taken over by the technology So everyone could kind of play together and nobody has to actually be the dungeon master Which is really fun, especially in co-op games like return to dark tower You have a giant tower in the middle of the game, which is fun But the app does all the heavy lifting it tells you where to put the monsters and when the tower is going to Spin and what the victory conditions are and gives you quests It's integrated into the actual game play. So I really like that approach because it kind of Simplifies things and I know purists don't like it But I do because it it kind of takes that away from like alright, like well, where's the monster go now? I have to have a player that actually you know has to worry about the amuse But there's something on the horizon that I have only seen in videos, but it's super expensive But it's like kind of like the next level of board gaming and it's called AR gaming and there's a company called tilt 5 that is actually Creating holographic board games So what happens is you actually have a board and then you all wear AR glasses and the the games come alive Right actually in front of you now. It'll be a mix of classic games or new games But what's interesting about it is Where's the line then where it's just a video game or it's a board game? Like what tactile, you know Things that you can have like you can move pieces around and roll dice or is everything just gonna be like a wand in glasses And then which case okay, well, then it's then it's a video game. So it's an interesting dynamic For sure, and I'm very anxious to see where it's going Yeah, I I think one of the things that stoic squirrel brought up in our chat room now is that the the tech can be controversial If it's required to play now dark tower the original had technology in it So it it's kind of just carrying on the legacy there and it comes with the game But with the apps is there content? Do you run into controversy where people are saying no no no? I don't want to use apps because I don't want to have to use the app myself And if some people are using apps, then maybe that's that's gonna give them an advantage, etc Well, somebody's always angry about something on red. Yeah, there's always somebody but my gaming group were a little older So we're open to different ways of playing and I like playing it both ways Like I like the you know the super low-tech of a board game where you're turning over cards and moving pieces But I also like the AI assist in the AI that's basically controlling the game where you're playing against the the game in In an app so but and like I said the AR the tilt five stuff. I haven't seen yet I've only seen it in videos and it looks amazing I'm just not sure like you can't really tell like where what the experience is unless you actually do it So I'm very curious to see the problem is it's very expensive. So it's a bit of a buy-in to to try it out Well and to your point about you know kind of this line of video game versus board game I mean, I remember I mean even back in the ps3 days There was that PlayStation eye camera and they had that game eye of judgment, which was kind of the other side of this Which was hey, we have this incredible graphics processing software Let's point a camera at a bunch of car You know it was more of like a magic to gathering kind of card game like hard combat game But that idea of hey we can we can add this element to it Wasn't incredibly successful because I'm sure people are googling it right now But like that idea always fascinated me that like we can have that and if you can not require the set console And with a wired camera and all that stuff and it's you know if when AR glasses become more of a consumer good I can I can see that becoming Super exciting and I really think at the end of the day the technology is going to be used as tools And it's going to be really about the designers and the artist on how they use it where I feel like there's going to be an AR board game that's super boring and like a video game or there's going to be one that's absolutely Brilliant where it's going to be like the system seller where you can't play there's like no experience like it So I think it's really gonna be up to the creativity of the designers and that's one of the things that happen with dark tower I really felt like they mixed like the technology and the gameplay of like the old-school 80s dark tower like like super well Like it's not too complicated It's not gloomhaven, but it's complicated enough that it's fun to play and it's just you know It's just fun to have a tower in the middle of the board that's bluetooth connected to your Your tablet spitting skulls out at you. Yeah What's not to love right yeah Good clean fun Well it till five if people are curious You only have to have five dollars to reserve it, but the actual price will be $359 for one set of glasses, and you'll be very lonely if you only have one set So you're talking three fifty nine dollars for every person you want to play with right right mm-hmm. Yeah Well, that's enough of living in a fantasy world on a tabletop Let's move to a world where we smash things into asteroids Yes, our glorious present because let's face it if you're an enthusiast for either dinosaurs or disaster cinema from 1998 You know that a massive asteroid hitting the earth is an existential concern. That'd be clear There's no threat right now or indication that any asteroids are coming toward the earth Don't worry. Don't panic. Everything's fine, but NASA's double asteroid redirection test or dart Is being billed as a plan of a planetary defense test mission This will send a spacecraft traveling over 14,000 miles an hour to crash into the demorphos asteroid in an effort to alter its speed and orbit demorphos is about the size of the great pyramid of Giza so a nice Nice size asteroid all things considered in case you're worried. This should not knock the asteroid off its trajectory It wouldn't hit the earth nothing like that demorphos is a small asteroid orbiting a larger asteroid called Diddy diddy mos the impact should shorten its orbit around diddy mos by about 10 minutes a measurable amount Just enough first to check that all our calculations are fine No need to worry. Everything is fine. Go about your daily lives The dart spacecraft will send back imagery and data up until the moment of impact and its companion craft the Italian Leakea cub will also monitor the crash the collision expected at 7 14 p.m Eastern time on Monday the 26th it takes about 38 seconds for light to travel from demorphos to earth So there will be a slight delay now I know a lot of you will be listening to this after the impact and so we're so sorry. We got it so wrong Yeah, you know, I feel like you look at the timing of this is like well, why now We're doing these these tests and you could tell like the best way to tell if it's a real serious threat or not Is book a tour at JPL and when you're on the tour see how quickly people are moving back and forth and then you'll know Yeah, what's going on if your tour just gets canceled. Yeah All right, let's check out the mailbag We got a great one from Marty who wrote just finished the episode you were talking about in videos announcement and their use of the USD format for the metaverse wanted to say I work in live events and production and the USD format has been gaining traction Over the last year in our industry for media server projections XR Etc work for the reasons you described We were just talking a few weeks ago about adding support for it into one of our products And it looks like it's going to be the new standard moving forward So we'll see where it goes But wanted to mention it's already being used and growing in applications outside of the metaverse To that's great Marty thing. It's good to hear from somebody inside the industry saying yes The standard Nvidia picked has got some momentum elsewhere as well Yeah, definitely good to hear from the real world and then Thor sent us a message in Patreon he said just finished listening to GDI 43 61 and Since you were discussing the future of casting and the benefits of short form content I wanted to share my experience from the fountain and podverse podcast apps both apps support clips Users made clips that let you get a case of a highlight from a longer podcast Unfountain users can also like a clip by sending a small amount of Bitcoin Otherwise known as Satoshi's the app is also trying to incentivize listening and clip creation by awarding currency when listening love to hear thoughts about this and kind of The podcasting 2.0 spec if you check that out And there's some other cool apps that allow you to stream Currency to the podcast while you listen automatically other cool features of the interest keeping things short I'll leave the rest for you to explore. Yeah, thank you, Thor Appreciate you sending these along. We'll have links to both of those the podiverse and and fountain in the show notes I see a lot of these kinds of efforts. They're very interesting to look at And so I always watch to see like are they getting critical mass? Are they getting people to sign up and and so I'll keep an eye on these as well. Yeah, definitely Well, let's say a big thanks to Chris Mancini for being with us Chris. You've always got some cool stuff going on What's going on with you these days Absolutely been working on the new company white cat entertainment We're kind of like a boutique publisher of like books graphic novels and podcasts and the two podcasts Of course, one of them you've been on. What are you watching? We kind of go through like in entertainment who make entertainment and see kind of what they're watching movies and TV But the other one that I've been really happy with and been growing is the journeys of professor atwood Which is a podcast to kind of help people tone down anxiety help with insomnia and help them sleep And it's a narrative podcast where you don't have to do anything It's just I wanted to make something that could actually just help people where you listen to these stories about a professor who goes on these journeys And then it has a bed of sound effects and music that kind of like is almost like Technologically specific to help you relax and go to sleep So it's kind of a very very Calculated funny weird narrative journey that can kind of help you relax And who couldn't use a little bit more relaxation right now. So so that you need they're all free you can subscribe White cat entertainment. Yeah as you watch the asteroid get smashed into perfect That aren't coming there at all. Don't worry, but if you need to relax. We now know Well, it's Monday, so we always want to thank our new boss and we have a new boss Chad who just started backing us on patreon Chad you good Chad's the best you could be tomorrow's Chad patreon.com slash DT and s Patron stick around I can't imagine we're not gonna talk a little more about Vader and comic books and all that kind of stuff Good day internet has all that you can also catch the show live Monday through Friday 4 p.m. Eastern 200 UTC at daily tech news show comm slash live back tomorrow talking Raptor Lake with Patrick Norton talk to you then This show is part of the front pants network Get more at frogpants.com I'm in club hopes you have enjoyed this program