 Coming up on DTNS autonomous vehicles need to report more mishaps Facebook is back to its cloning tricks and the Microsoft Google truce is off This is the Daily Tech news for Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 in studio Redwood. I'm Sarah Lane It's all like city Ohio. I'm Rich Frappolino. Sorry. It's all like city. I'm Scott Johnson And I'm Roger Chang the shows producer. Listen, we're all very excited to be on the show today as you can tell Mainly me Scott Scott is pumped We were talking about listen Scott has a bad back give him a give him a break everybody. We're talking about that before the show also commutes and How they can vary and suck depending on how far you have to go if you want the wider conversation on our expanded show Good day internet become a member at patreon.com DTNS let's start with a few tech things you should know Slack released a new audio tool called slack huddles which lets users have real-time audio conversations inside slack with included real-time Transcription slack is also working on a video feature to let users record and play back video voice and screen recordings natively in slack planning to offer it to paid teams in the coming months The Google Play Store will require new apps to be published with the Android app bundle starting on August Starting in August of this year replacing APKs as the standard publishing format Google introduced Android app bundle at IO back in 2018 and it uses 15% less space than APKs with faster install times Shopify will reduce the commission it takes on its Shopify app store to zero percent for developers that make less than $1,000,000 on its platform as of August 1st with developers charge 50% on marginal revenue over that $1,000,000 mark so 1 million and 1 15% this will also apply to Shopify's theme store set to open to developers on July 15th With each platform treated separately in terms of revenue AT&T announced that all Android phones on its network will use Google's Android messages app for both SMS and RCS Services so T-Mobile made that same deal with Google back in March Which leaves Verizon is the only US carrier still to switch to Android messages by default AT&T will also support end-to-end encryption for RCS that Google's rolling out to all customers this year compared to SMS RCS which stands for rich communication services also has things like no character limits can send larger files can show typing indicators offers better group chats and Wi-Fi supports and According to documents obtained by Bloomberg Amazon filed a request with the federal with federal trade commission to recuse commissioner chair Lena Khan from handling antitrust Enforcement decisions involving the company because she has a history of criticizing Amazon as a threat to competition Amazon says Khan's previous statements conveyed to any reasonable observer the clear impression that she has already made up her mind about Many material facts relevant to Amazon's antitrust culpability as well as about the ultimate issue of culpability itself The FTC is currently reviewing Amazon's proposed 8.45 billion dollar acquisition of movie studio MGM. I love that Big tech says hey that person doesn't like us. She should be removed All right, let's talk a little bit more about anything that might be of interest to a nest owner Google confirmed it will provide a critical bug fixes and patches for nest devices For a minimum of five years after a product launches with nine to five Google noting that current nest devices like the nest cam indoor Are still maintained after six years So five years in the minimum here the company also said that every nest product released since 2019 has been validated using third-party security Standards with validation results published for review So yesterday you guys had a whole story about those Western digital drives and the the sort of going out of Support and then them becoming part of a botnet and then everybody's stuff getting erased and all the controversy around that and I couldn't help from that coverage to just think about how many items are in my home or in your home or anyone's home That are supposed to be internet of things devices that are supposedly supposed to be various levels of secure Lots of different companies. I've got webcams from one company webcams from another company and it occurs to me That eventually we're gonna run into this this kind of large scale problem about patches fixes out of life Dropping support no longer supported sort of world Where we're just sitting on a maybe a bit of a time mom or I don't know Maybe you guys disagree with me, but it feels a little a little precarious at the moment Well, we've already seen this in a lot more like white box IOT stuff like baby monitors and stuff That's just kind of repackaged, you know standard system on a chip kind of stuff and put out there where there was like no support at All and then all of a sudden they show up on show Dan or something like that So this is great that Google is providing a a minimum clear amount of support now This isn't from the point of sale. This is from the point of release So, you know if you're buying something later in its life cycle, but just as important as this I think is kind of what the what what is the process of when you hit that end of whatever the service, you know Whatever the support is going to be is it just gonna be a pop-up on your you know your nest or your Amazon Device that says hey, you're out of support, you know, please upgrade I think a lot of the times for like phones and and maybe like streaming media players and stuff like that a lot of times Like the functionality is no longer there that kind of you know Encourages you to upgrade usually when those devices are out of service But like that Western digital Example, you know Scott people are still getting a lot of good use out of those devices or you know At least have them on their networks with valuable data on them presumably So, you know when when these are still functional devices, but they are out of support The I think the issue becomes not just the years of support, but how do companies let people know? Hey, this isn't getting bug fixes anymore. We've seen the UK kind of They're considering a secured by design law that basically says Disclosing to consumers at the point of sale how much support they still have on these devices That is not law that is just being proposed right now and it's been going back and forth for a couple years So we'll see if that ever happens, but you know, it's the support is great But also what happens at the end to give consumers some kind of choice that doesn't feel like planned obsolescence either Yeah, part of part of this is The problem part of the problem is we go to Amazon and we go what am I looking for? Well, I'm looking for some kind of doorbell camera thing Do I get a ring or do I pay for this really inexpensive one from a brand we've ever heard of? Well, maybe I'll do that Not a lot of people are going which one is gonna offer the most secure and longest term this and they're gonna make Sure their servers of that and this and the other and all the data protection I need no one's thinking about that any more than they used to think about it when they bought a regular doorbell So now we're just into a period of time where some of these commonplace household accessories slash I don't know appliances are asking for access in a way that we're maybe not even sure we're giving and I feel like that's all just ooh I just it feels like a fuse and I don't want to over you know overstate the danger But all I know is I'm thinking a lot about the little things all over this house that I haven't really vetted So I appreciate Google's transparency here. It's like here's what we're gonna do minimum five years Okay, you know yes from the release not necessarily from the day that you buy it But when you think of something like a nest product, right? Like I got a nest thermostat upstairs. That's the sort of thing that you don't buy thinking Well, you know, I'm gonna upgrade pretty soon But the company wants you to do that this whole end-of-life thing is because the company is like In five years, there's gonna be such a better thermostat. Why would you even be using that stupid old one? Anyway, but that is a weird way to think of it when you buy something that's you know quote long-term whether it's a toaster or Laptop as increasingly becomes infrastructure in your home. It's easier to think that's a part of like the doorbell That's just part of my house, right? That's not that's not like necessarily tech I'm thinking I'm interacting with that's where the danger I think comes in when these devices leave support Well, let's move over to another place where there's a lot of danger sometimes anyway on our highways and byways the National Highway Traffic Safety administration announced a change in reporting requirements for autonomous driving systems Requiring makers of level two to level five driving systems to report incidents within one day of learning of a crash as Well as submitting monthly reports on all incidents Resulting in injury or any kind of property damage until now drivers assistance systems such as Tesla's autopilot have fallen into a Regulatory gray area where incidents don't require or receive further examination Level two driving systems must now report crashes involving a death or injury Treated at a hospital a vehicle towed away or an airbag deployment or even the involvement of a pedestrian or cyclist The NHTS a can issue fines of twenty two thousand nine hundred ninety two dollars per day For non-compliance or up to a hundred million dollars That's a that's a lot, but this is okay It's not that unrelated to the first article today that we talked about we we We are starting to see as we get further down the road with autonomous vehicles the need for I don't just mean Regulation and the government getting involved but the need for just some standards and rules and this just feels like more of that and I don't know how the Car makers slash systems makers are feeling about this, but yeah some some fines if you don't do it Well, and I think you know the Having level five autonomous. That's you know, that's full autonomous right like no driver. It's it's doing its own thing Say well, yeah those those you know incident should be reported, right? Yeah, and the administration saying yes And so should so should all of these levels of autonomy because if you're talking about something like Tesla's autopilot, you know great example where You know there there is We're we hear well Unfortunately all the time we hear of incidents where it's like well what happened back there, you know There's an autopilot feature a driver is supposed to be totally aware. No, what's up can't be checked out Can't be watching a Netflix movie in their lap kind of a thing But there are enough incidents to happen where the company certainly is like hmm Okay, you know we mess up did they mess up? What's the deal but this isn't always getting reported and it's not as if the company is Necessarily going to be at fault for every report, but I I I do think I don't know I mean, I I definitely err on on the side of Let's please Proceed very cautiously with all of the stuff even though people are bad drivers, too, you know, but it's you know, it's let's let's a Let's move to a solution that doesn't present its own set of problems and you know keep hitting pedestrians type of a thing but Yeah, the fines of the fines are steep I think that you know, yeah, the Administration is not messing around here saying you got to report this stuff to us. We want to know what's happening You know, even if an airbag gets deployed, maybe nobody got hurt Maybe no went to the hospital. Maybe the cops weren't called but what happened and why especially when you have these sorts of systems on board and I think this is a shift from Allowing maybe some of these self-driving companies to view these kind of instances almost like trade secrets where you know Waymo or Tesla will come out and say we've driven so many thousand miles and we've had you know So many incidents per miles driven and stuff like that But not you know giving us the broad strokes but maybe not getting into the nitty-gritty and whenever these instances do kind of come up the Idea that there's always this ambiguity, right? It's like, oh, are we gonna get the Tesla report on this is the NHTS a involved or other, you know Other federal agencies involved when we will we'll get some clarity into this and it leads and honestly it leads to a lot of Sensationalized headlines attempts where we don't know the full facts, but people are assuming oh this you know This car had autopilot so this crash it seemed inexplicable must have involved the system or something along those lines I also wonder if this is You know the NHTS a and kind of other regulars kind of getting ahead of saying okay We need to build if self-driving is going to be a thing We also need to build a public trust around this Very similar to air to early air travel in a lot of ways where when there are these incidents people need to you know Not see this first maybe in the media with a lot of unknowns being flown out there We need to have facts on the ground as soon as possible so that we can inform the public of whether these systems are actually safe or not Yeah, and Roger Roger pre-show had a really good comment basically said that You know more data is always better better data more data You can build better models more reliable models based on that data as long as everyone's a good actor in that data Yeah, like collect all the data you can but boy don't mess up and not report it or you're gonna spend a lot of money Yeah, I mean it's gonna take a while to get to 100 million, but that's a hefty fine for saying meant to send that report Didn't send that TPS letter Well speaking of collecting all the data Facebook launched its own subscription newsletter service called bulletin in closed beta Users will be able to post content on the web send it as an email and Shocker share it on Facebook the company won't charge writers a fee for bulletin at launch and writers retaining ownership of their work and Critically subscriber lists Malcolm Gladwell tan France and Aaron Andrews are among the first writers signed up for Signed up for this in the beta period This is obviously invite only right now, but you know Scott are you gonna be when this opens up? You're gonna be first on there for Facebook bulletin probably not I mean I so everybody that the hot thing does your at the moment for Newsletters and or blog posts and subscription newsletters and that sort of thing is sub-stack and this is being seen as a bit of a Shot over that bow doesn't doesn't doesn't surprise me given its quick growth that others might get involved It's also the least surprising thing on this planet to hear that Facebook is Quickly building something out based on somebody else's success. This is what they do So not a shock at all and also arguably the perfect platform for it. If that's what you want to do personally I don't think I would see too much of this is a big threat I mean basically what they're saying is some big name writers might join into this in the early goings But it's really the long tail. I care about where's the unique stuff the niche stuff the things I can't get anywhere else will they happen here when they happen at sub-stack will they happen at You know some other feed service Hard to say but my my gut tells me there's room for more and there's no reason why this is really all that big of a problem Really, I think the reason people are most upset and I said this I'm pretty sure I'll say it again I think they're angry that they they found a niche in the market that is a little bit of a throwback It's it's newsletters and blogging basically and it's kind of back and they have control over whether they charge or don't charge for it And it's a great community builder and all this stuff and it kind of pulls away from the social media that we're all getting a little tired of in terms of its mass and Now here comes big social media saying well We're also going to do one of those and I think that just puts people off It's like if you're tick-tock and along comes reels or if you're like snapchat along comes tick-tock or you know Whatever everybody nobody likes them fiddling around in there in their garden and that's I think that's all this is but in the end I think maybe that freak out will be a little wasted because People are there's room. There's room for more of this in this this little nichey space. I think it'll be fine Yeah, this was this was Facebook launching bulletins didn't actually make it into our show yesterday Could have but there were a lot of other news But boy between yesterday show and today show did I read a lot of people just I mean It was I just wailing like can you believe that Facebook so? Blatantly ripped off sub-stackage just have they no shame and it's like where have you people been? They have no shame that I mean yes companies clone other company features all the time I mean look at clubhouse right like clubhouse is a feature for everybody now But Facebook in particular and of course Facebook owned companies Do this and and have for years Facebook cloning other services and trying to bury it into the Facebook experience doesn't always work But I do think that something like bulletin It makes more sense when you've got a big network that is Facebook based It's kind of like why Twitter bought Review which is another sub-stack competitor earlier this year. I'm not totally sure where Twitter is going with that Haven't heard much lately, but same idea the company same will hold on some people hang out on Twitter You know to be able to reach their audience most effectively and be able to promote new stuff and you know To have a newsletter component is something that we would want of course Facebook would want this as well I don't think I mean sure if it looks and acts exactly like sub-stack You you know give a little chuckle, but the folks that will go with Facebook as The basis for some sort of a newsletter offering that they're offering later I think don't care about that. They just care about reaching folks. Where do you reach them? It will be interesting Given the regulatory headwinds that we are seeing now this appears to be kind of a separate service that operates well within Facebook But unlike adding You know a clubhouse style audio chat room to messenger and adding rooms which is building off an existing product. I will be I Wonder what the the regulatory reaction will be to this for a wholly new product squarely aimed seemingly at you know You Facebook would argue it's addressing a customer need. There's that there's clearly a lot of interest in newsletters You know competitive concerns is this is Facebook being the 800 pound gorilla in the room, right? Well on on July 3rd, which is the Saturday our science correspondent Dr. Nikki Ackerman's will be releasing a limited series of podcasts called seniors in tech in the series Nikki will interview seniors examining how technology has impacted their lives first episode is gonna kick off with Allison Sheridan You know Alice and she's on the show all the time here and how her job as an engineer served as a gateway to technology and also to podcasting so check your DTNS feed this Saturday July 3rd kicking it off seniors in tech Bloomberg sources say that Microsoft and Google will not renew a Non-aggression pact that's been in place since April of 2016 in which both companies agreed to a formal process an Internal formal process on both sides for handling disputes that might otherwise go to regulators when it comes to things like web search Cloud computing and artificial intelligence plus they want to settle they wanted to anyway settle outstanding patent issues And keep competition limited to software innovation. Hey, we got to compete But let's try to play nice anywhere we can before we get the regulators involved Sounds like this ongoing truce has not been working that well as of late The companies have publicly feuded over a proposal that would force Google to pay news publishers for content We've talked about that on the show reportedly also disagree on how technology for selling search ads should work Speaking of search ads some breakdown apparently started a couple of years ago when Microsoft Complained that Google's search ads 360 that lets marketers manage advertising campaigns across multiple search engines Wasn't keeping up with new and updated features in Microsoft's own search engine Bing Customers choosing Google spots because it was just easier as a result Microsoft saying well, hold on a second I mean if we're an option and you're ignoring our cool new features that doesn't seem like we're not a truce in 2020 Microsoft spoke with UK officials and regulators in some US states about this issue So Microsoft was was not just complaining. There were there was some There were some talks to be had Microsoft also took public issue with Google's refusal to comply with the planned Australian law Would have forced it to pay news outlets for content on its sites and apps feature Comparing Google's inflexibility to the ad-tech dispute Microsoft saying Google was hampering free and democratic discourse At the time we even talked about it on the show and said look at Microsoft I mean why is Microsoft even needing to chime in really here, you know When Microsoft isn't actually the company that's you know been been so anyone's going after for its part Google has come after Microsoft Specifically in the cybersecurity category warning customers that using just one vendor for too many parts of the software stack Microsoft in this case puts them at greater risk of hacking and a blog post Google's SVP of global affairs Kent Walker wrote quote As we saw with solar winds and a Microsoft exchange attacks proprietary systems and restrictions in inner Operability and data portability can amplify a network's vulnerability helping attackers scale up their efforts So alright, so both Google and Microsoft Seem to be you know coming at the other with a variety of nitpicks that that could have gone to you know a regulatory Decision long ago the fact that the two companies said let's you know, let's kind of minimize this handshake, right? I mean Under six years ago both Google and Microsoft both had new CEOs both CEOs may have said a lot of the past squabbles Which I mean are many between Microsoft and Google in the past Let's let's put some of this to bed and you know the companies are going in a new direction. That all makes sense Doesn't sound like it. It's going to be renewed though. No, it sounds to me like it's not sustainable I don't I don't I don't know how it is with companies this big and with companies with this many fingers and so many parts of The market like both Microsoft and Google and others Apple whatever I don't know how any of these people they might be able to have small victories of we're working together on this one thing And it's going to be cool for maps or whatever, but this idea that they would play nice in The very competitive search market at least in the case of being which is maybe the closest We've gotten to a mainstream competitor to Google since the 90s You know, they they they I think it's I think it's a really noble thing to want But I don't know how they ever expected to have it I don't think it's sustainable and it's it's a world where these two companies have to compete So you can only pretend so much or maybe you can just do it in small cases and then not in others It's a little like Apple and Intel or Samsung and Apple or anyone else who's Supplying some product on the side, but otherwise compete in another area like You just have to get your wins when you can and not not get to worked up when you can't and I think that's these Two how are they gonna do it? I do wonder though and Microsoft has so far Somehow despite being Microsoft flown under the radar with all the tech regulation talk that we've been hearing for the most part So the idea that they're they're you know opening the doors now to hey We're gonna go right to regulars not gonna try and resolve this you know with a with a handshake and a and a gentle CEO agreement or something like that I think Possibly, you know Microsoft has done a very good job of staying ahead of issues They're they're ahead on a lot of privacy Facial recognition I just kind of to just off the top of my head issues where they're they're out the head and trying to set The tone for regulation coming forward But with with all of the competition they now have when when it comes to cloud when it comes to productivity suites when we see Compared to 2016 where Chrome OS is you know as a as a threat necessarily to windows They're outside of search right where they're the number one and number two in the US at least There's a there's clearly a lot of places where hey, we want to sell all these services to all these people and It it could get pretty ugly pretty quickly Yeah, it's also not that I am super surprised that behind closed doors Very powerful companies made some sort of a handshake agreement Perhaps sign some things. I mean, I'm not really surprised about that but at the same time. I'm like How long did you think this was gonna last? I mean, you know what it comes you know Microsoft saying hey Google you're not giving Bing a fair shot It's like I mean on the surface. That's almost laughable, right because it's it's it's not on the surface Sarah I didn't mean it that that was actually I'm a poet and I didn't know it but Microsoft well done. Yeah, well another point Microsoft Microsoft's xCloud game streaming is now out of beta We talked about it on the show with the quick hit. I believe it's available now all to Xbox game pass ultimate subscribers For all of your browser based cloud game streaming needs Scott You've had a chance to play around with this. What have you thought with the initial experience? Yeah, I went kind of nuts with it yesterday. So when the announcement happened I was like, oh, this is nice I don't even know if they had announced previously that it was gonna happen or at least they did but it was very short notice it's still technically in beta but It was limited for a very long time to Android devices and it may have been a couple of the things with Windows But like mainline Windows browser support mainline support for Macs for iOS Other devices was not there yet including their own Xbox series SNX and the ones not even ready yet But the SNX Series of consoles didn't even have support for cloud gaming yet That it all changed yesterday and I tried it on everything to get a taste for it including an Xbox series X where the game I was playing via the cloud was literally on the hard drive as well but I wanted to know, you know, how does this thing perform and My cut my takeaways probably not gonna shock too many people But basically anything that had a Wi-Fi connection worked better than I expected but had some lag Input lag really I wasn't having video lag or artifacting or any other issues. In fact, I played a game Dirt 5 for example very frame rate intensive game on a console run 60 to 120 frames on a TV depending on What your TV is capable of in its native form in cloud form. I was getting 60 frames per second I wasn't getting artifacting and I was playing this on an iPad Pro with an attached one of these an Xbox one controller Which I just happen to have an extra laying around so I synced it to that and it worked pretty much flawlessly again the only noticeable thing I had was a little bit of controller lag and I think that's the doubling up of controller lag because with wireless controllers We already have one layer of Bluetooth lag is as good as it is these days It's still not perfect and then you tack that on top of we're streaming this game via the internet It's a little extra layer of input lag those two together creates something I think a little more noticeable than you'd like I think Stadia's got a better tech for handling that currently, but we are in beta here. So who knows I tried this with the phone tried it with an iPad tried it with an Android tablet also Windows Chrome browser Safari on a Mac all of these performed nobly no problems Wiring in your controller makes a massive difference. So you eliminate one of those layers of input lag potential And on the series X, which is the kind of the most interesting comparison. I think It was kind of one one to one a little bit of a noticeable lag again because we're using wireless controllers But it felt great and looked great and you'd have a hard time telling I wasn't playing the native hard drive version of that game So it does feel like in a mainstream way That this the cloud gaming is maybe here finally And it will be interesting to see what others do To make compelling arguments for their services right now You can do this for 15 bucks a month and you can play it on anything And even if you don't own an xbox you can play it and all those game pass games are available Um, I'll just say my first initial impressions with needed more time to test Pretty positive. Um, I came away from this thinking it was uh There's a pretty cool implementation of this without removing all the other reasons you might go to these games on your pc or on your console Now there's just like another third or fourth way to play it And you're not paying any extra to do it and that's kind of nice Yeah, I was super skeptical when they I just the idea of playing like a high-end game streamed through a browser like especially on like an ipad or something like that Super skeptical. So glad to hear that they've ironed out some of those kinks. I know You know, depending on the game, obviously the lag might not be as critical as something like dirt five or something like that But uh, it it's it's fascinating to see how quick this space has grown just even from Uh, you know, stadia to xcloud and all the support they can have there. Yeah All right, well chris christensen is finally taking some time for an international flight Here's his latest tip for anyone doing the same This is chris christensen from amateur traveler with another tech and travel minute I'm about to travel internationally again next week. I'm doing an international flight And as I said before in 2021 that's complicated But there's a resource that will help and it's from iata, which is the international air transport association The same people who give airports those three letter codes if you go to iata travel center Center spelled the uk way c e n t r e Dot com then you can find information about every country in the world and what their restrictions are Whether you can get in with what kind of test and who can't get in That will help you plan your travel. That's iata travel center Dot com and i'm chris christensen from amateur traveler Oh international travel. This is a great tip. Uh, I know a lot of people are Maybe going international this year. So, yeah, definitely check it out because Restrictions vary quite a bit depending on where you're going where you're coming from If you have any feedback for anything that we talked about talked about on the show or might talk about on a future Show or anything in between feedback at daily tech new show dot com is where to send that email We will be waiting Also shout out to patrons at our master and grand master levels Including miss music teacher james c smith and justin zellers also thanks to two brand new bosses count them to Russell scogs dad and corrie cussart both just started backing us on patreon. Thank you russell. Thank you curry Thank you. Thank you. Thank you and a big. Thank you to scott johnson scott Where do people find you if they are so inclined if they've they've never heard of the scott johnson media empire Where can they find more about it? Wow, uh, wikipedia. No, uh, they they can go to frogpants.com there They will find all kinds of podcasts and content Probably send it in and around some interest they have and if you like the video game talk earlier on the show And what I bring to it on wednesdays. We often have game stories on wednesdays Uh, then you'll probably really like a couple of the shows I have over on the network So give it a shot. That's frogpants.com and if you're trying to reach out to me directly You can find me on twitter. I'm over there at scott johnson We are over here on this show money through friday at 4 30 p.m Eastern 20 30 utc and you can find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live We'd love to have you join us live if you can we'll be back tomorrow Tom Merritt will be back as well and joined by justin robert young talk to you that This show is part of the frogpants network Get more at frogpants.com Diamond club hopes you have enjoyed this program