 Coming up on DTNS, Samsung cheaps out on the Galaxy S21 in a good way, a laser robot to make your surgery easier and the best of CES. This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, January 14th, 2021 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood. I'm Sarah Lane. From Oakland, California. I'm Justin Robert Young. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. We were just talking about the meaning of CES and how it's changed and where it fits in the culture and whether it's as splashy as it used to be. If you want that wider conversation, get our expanded show, Good Day Internet, become a member of Patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Google has finalized the acquisition of Fitbit. In the announcement, Google confirmed that Fitbit users health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads with the data separated from other Google ads data, a key to gaining European approval of the deal. The $2.1 billion acquisition was originally announced back in November of 2019. Ring, the makers of the Ring, doorbells and cams says it has fixed a security flaw in its neighbors app that was exposing the precise location and home address of any user who posted in the app. Ring launched neighbors in 2018 as a neighborhood watch app that let users anonymously share crime and public safety issues, including video taken by Ring, doorbells and security cams. Oculus will now let Quest 2 headset owners create up to three secondary accounts for anybody that they're sharing their VR headset with, including app sharing, allowing individual game progress and also achievements, all starting next month. Our original Quest owners, like me, will eventually get this feature too. If I had anyone in my house, that would be a lot of fun. All primary and secondary users will need to log in with Facebook accounts. That is something that is somewhat controversial with some Oculus users. Who could anyone? You're creating an account for Otis. That would be the best. Two years ago, the Video Electronic Standards Association, or VISA, published its DisplayPort 2.0 specs. That includes support for dual 8K monitors, dual 4K monitors with up to 144 hertz refresh rate and up to 16K monitors for single displays. The first DisplayPort 2.0 monitors were supposed to arrive in late 2020 and we would have seen a bunch of them at CES, I would guess. Well, they didn't. VISA told the Verge that DisplayPort 2.0 is working in new system chips and should appear in products later this year. The delay was caused by the pandemic. Developers and engineers could not convene in person where they do what's called plug tests, where everybody brings their stuff and plugs it into each other and sees if it's interoperable and they find out interoperability issues. VISA has a plug test planned for this spring in Taiwan to try to get that process going again. Microsoft announced its new OneDrive file storage service will soon have a 250 gigabyte limit that's up from the previous 100 gigabytes for all OneDrive users. The company says by splitting each file into chunks with each piece encrypted with a unique key was able to increase the storage limit and sync large files now uses a differential sync only uploading the changes that users make to an already stored file. So it's gotten a little bit smarter. Support begins rolling out at the end of this month. All right, let's talk about that Samsung announcement. Samsung Galaxy S21, 21 plus and 21 Ultra, all three available for pre-order now, shipping January 29th. The 6.1 inch S21 is the base model and all of these models are down $200 over the S20. So the S21 costs just $799, not $999. It has 120 Hertz refresh rate, full HD plus screen. So just 2400 by 1080. Snapdragon 888, though, in the US, outside the US, you'll get the Exynos. 3D sonic sensor, Gen 2, that bigger sonic sensor under the display, 4,000 milliamp hour battery. The base model starts with 8 gigabytes of RAM, 128 gigabytes of storage. Also has ultra-wideband, 5G, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, and somewhat controversial to some, a contour cut housing for the camera that tries to blend into the frame of the camera rather than just being a square bump. Otherwise, pretty much the same camera as last year, but with 30x space zoom, can shoot in 8K and pull stills. A vlogger view now does what the iPhone can do to let you do front and back simultaneous and see all three cameras, including telephoto, in a preview at once. They've got Corning scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass Victus on the front, but you're losing a few things. No SD card slot anymore. No headphones or charger in the box, just the USB-C cable. You can buy a 25 watt charger brick separately for 20 bucks. Coming in violet, gray, pink, white, or if you order directly from Samsung, you can also choose gold and red. Couple other models before we talk about this, the 6.7-inch S21 Plus, that sells for $999, you get a 4800 mAh battery, so a little more life. You get the Gorilla Glass Victus on the back, not just the front, and you can get it in violet, silver, or black. Again, golden red directly from Samsung. But the flagship is the 6.8-inch S21 Ultra. It's still $200 cheaper than the top line of the S20 at $1,199, but it ain't cheap. Base model starts at 12 gigabytes of RAM, 256 gigabytes of storage. You get a 5,000 mAh battery. The screen is higher resolution. Quad HD, 3,200 by 144. You can get the Exynos 2100 outside the US, along with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. And it's S-Pen compatible, at least for a kind of S-Pen. Not the battery S-Pen that you get with the Note, which is good news for Note users, because it probably means they're not getting rid of the Note. You can buy separately a $40 S-Pen that doesn't have a battery in it. The S21 Ultra also isn't going to have a slot for that S-Pen. If you want a slot, you got to buy a $70 case, which includes the pen and a slot in the case. It will work if you have a Note S-Pen with the battery inside. It'll work with the S21 Ultra, but the S21 Ultra isn't set up for the error gestures, so you won't be able to do that. You need a Note to do that. Another good news that you're probably going to see another Note model later this year. Camera gets a slide upgrade dual telephone lens system with 3X and 10X optical zoom, capable of 100X digital zoom, 12-bit color depth. They've also got a bright night sensor for low light, available in black and silver, or if you ordered directly from Samsung, Titanium, Navy, or Brown. Yeah, Brown. What can Brown do for your Samsung phone? Well, I'll give you a new cool phone. I don't know, these are particularly the Ultra. I mean, it sounds like a great phone. It sounds like Samsung has taken a look at the market and said, let's bring down prices a little bit. They cut a few corners in areas, you know, somebody out there is definitely going to be like, no SD card slot, crap, I really, really want that. But a lot of folks don't necessarily care, or they already have headphones. So the fact that the USB cable is the only thing, USB-C cable rather is the only thing that's bundled in. It could be a deal breaker, it likely isn't for a lot of folks, and the colors are nice. I don't, I've never totally gotten why anybody hates notches or a camera that bulges out slightly outside the back of the phone, but it sounds like Samsung is trying to take that into consideration and make it as flush as possible, even though that's not totally possible at this point right now with a big old multicam on the back of the phone. But you're looking for an upgrade, you like Samsung products, these give you some fairly affordable options. I mean, not cheap options, but certainly affordable. I will say, I appreciate them trying from a design perspective to alleviate my OCD worry whenever I lay my iPhone down, that I'm scratching the lenses on these beautiful, perfect cameras. So the idea that it is more flush is something that I can appreciate beyond the idea that by three years from now, we're just going to have phones that are totally lens filled on the back. We're just going to have, just the entire back will be nothing, but glass that you can take photos and videos with. Yeah, the big feature in these phones is the price, right? Here once again, like the Pixel, we've got a lower price, acknowledging that economy's not as strong, we didn't sell as many smartphones in the past year, so we might need to cut the price in order to sell a few more of these. Granted, $1,200 is still not cheap for a top of the line phone, but you can get into a Galaxy S21 at $799. Also still not cheap, but a lot more affordable, and that's really the big thing. Otherwise, minor improvements to the camera, most of those improvements are in software, and the pen, which is almost like a half gesture, where like, we're not going to give you a slide, we're not going to give you the one with the batteries, you can do the cool air gestures with you, but you can draw, you can draw on some stuff if you want. Yeah, I think that this is a push to say, if you haven't updated for a couple years, now, why don't you get the best one? It's never going to be cheaper than it is right now. It's still a fantastic phone, unless you care about the SD card thing, and you're that kind of a user, but in general, this is a pitch to refresh your line, refresh your phone this year, and price is a huge part of that. Yeah, it looks to me like they saved the money on the screen. They're like, let's go with a better refresh rate, so it's smooth, Qualcomm processor, so it's snappy. We're not going to have to resolution this time. Well, lest you think Samsung only announced some new phones, you're wrong, Samsung also announced the $200 Galaxy Buds Pro Bluetooth 5.0 earbuds with active noise cancellation. So if you're thinking about new buds, these are pretty competitive. Noise cancellation includes an ambient mode that lets you hear the outside world if you don't want it totally drowned out or you're on a run or the like. You can also have it recognized when you're talking and then lower the volume of music and activate ambient mode at that point. This works on Android, however, not iOS. So iOS users like me could certainly use the buds, but not in exactly the same way as the Android folks could. There's also support for 360 audio when paired to a Galaxy S21 device using Dolby head tracking technology. There's a low latency gaming mode and the buds will switch between devices automatically, such as going from your tablet to your phone when you get a call and that's where the call is coming from, et cetera. The Bixby voice assistant is integrated as well. The Buds Pro offer IPX7 waterproof rating, a wireless charging case with a USB-C connection. You get five hours of battery life with noise canceling on, 18 hours with the case charging, so that'll help a lot. Five minutes of charging gives you an hour of battery life so it happens quick and the Galaxy Buds Pro are available now in black, silver, and violet. Yeah, another interesting one where they used to support iOS in the previous Galaxy Buds and not supporting it here is a choice to say, you know what, we just don't wanna have to develop an app. We don't wanna have to develop the protocols to control it. You can use it because it's Bluetooth, but if you've got it set to a certain ambient mode default, it's gonna stay there on iOS. You're gonna have to use an Android phone to change those settings. And they probably, there were probably not enough iOS users to justify the development. I've got the Jabra's, they're the 65T, Jabra's up to 85T at this point, so I'm a couple generations back, but those were my first wireless earbuds I ever owned and they've got a companion app and there is an ambient mode which is really helpful. I mentioned jogging. When I'm walking around at night, I don't actually want noise canceling. I wanna be able to hear if there's a car coming up behind me or you know, sort of stuff. That all happens within the app. There's only so much you can do. You know, you're kind of going volume up and down and answering phone calls when your earbuds are in. So yeah, this sounds like, I mean, their Jabra's are actually, the new ones are more than $200, so Samsung's undercutting that a little bit. I'm just using that as an example because those are the ones that I use, but boy, did they come in handy. Anybody who's looking for a nice set of earbuds and I mean, if you're on iOS, sure you could use them, but if you're on androids, then you really want to. That's the way to go. Yeah, I'm a big believer in the AirPods Pro. This is $50 cheaper than that. Obviously, this is tailored toward the Android market, but presuming it works in the way that they are talking about. This is, you know, I think the future, especially as more and more phones don't bundle earbuds with stuff, the idea of you keeping your earbuds separate for multiple generations of phones or tablets or computers is more and more of a reality. Yeah, ticks all the boxes, like 360 audio, even provides you a little more control with that ambient note. So, you know, decent offering there. Finally, Samsung also announced Galaxy Smart Tag. What's that, you ask? It's a $29.99 Bluetooth Low Energy Dongle to track objects, pairs with Samsung Smart Things app, and only works when connected with a Samsung Galaxy device. Aha, here's Samsung doing its thing again. It arrives on January 29th. It doesn't use Ultra Side Band, as Samsung said, an Ultra Wide Band version called Tag Plus is going to arrive later this year for $39.99. Yeah, so I don't know why they're putting out a product without Ultra Wide Band, especially because they've been putting Ultra Wide Band in their phones for a couple of years now. The Galaxy S21 is not the first of the Samsung phones to have Ultra Wide Band, but that's what they did. They put out a Smart Tag that doesn't work as well, that only works with Galaxy devices, probably so they could bundle it in with Galaxy devices and get people used to using these things, and later on, they'll get the Tag Plus, which anybody could use with any Ultra Wide Band phone, theoretically. We'll see if they support that. Yeah, really, even without Ultra Wide Band, you could use it perhaps as a side band, if you wanna put a Smart Tag around your wrist or something like that. But yeah, I mean, this sounds like tile to me, it's certainly gonna come handy for certain stuff that you wanna keep track of. As this stuff gets cheaper, it will become more of a commodity, as the Ultra Wide Band stuff becomes more and more omnipresent. This in a very Samsung move is throwing everything at the wall and they're gonna see what sticks. That is the way of the Samsung. And if anybody's interested, the Bluetooth Low Energy version, the Smart Tag that they is available now, it's not gonna be as accurate because the Ultra Wide Band lets it connect to other Ultra Wide Band things. So that helps increase the range. You get a little less range when you're not doing that. Hey folks, what do you wanna hear us talk about on the show? We like the stuff we're talking about here, but we'd love to hear your ideas. One way to let us know is in our subreddit, submit stories and vote on them at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. It's actually the last day of CES. No! Yeah, I know, too soon. It's already over. We do have a few more things to talk about. And Engadget announced its annual official Best of CES awards. So let's go through a few of these. We're not gonna go through every single one and see what we think. The AMD Ryzen 5000 mobile CPUs is best of CES in 2021. Of course, as we've talked about previously on the show, the chip brings power and efficiency improvements to more than 150 laptop systems. And along with Apple's M1 increases competition in the laptop space. And during Good Day internet, Justin, you were pointing out that this is a bit of a canary in the coal mine about CES this year, that a chip won Best of CES. I think it may not be a canary in a coal mine. I do think that it is a sign that CES has in terms of popular culture. And I don't mean this in terms of the grander tech world because I do think this is a worthy pick for Best of CES if your criteria is, this will affect the coming tech year the most. It will. But usually in terms of popular culture, what happens is the new phone, the new television, the lamp that also makes coffee. Like these, and you can control it with your smart watch. That's what tends to move the curiosity. It is almost like somewhere between generational tech change and Chachki is the real sweet spot for CES. And this is a very prudent world, a prudent year for the coffee. Back to basics, back to practicality. No more rollable televisions, no more sling boxes, yeah. Oh please, as if there weren't a lot of rollable things this year. Well, but we're not gonna give them Best of CES, that's what I'm saying. Sure, sure. The People's Choice Award winner was also rather practical. Usually the People's Choice goes to the product that just looks the coolest, and not to say this isn't the coolest, but it's the Razer Blade 15 inch laptop with the NVIDIA RTX 30 graphics and 1440p, 165 Hertz screen. It's essentially the flashier version of giving Best of CES to a chip to say like, I'm gonna give it to something that has one of the cool NVIDIA chips in it. Doesn't have the AMD in it, though. Yeah, I mean, again, really good, really, really good laptop. Look at that, yeah. Well, yeah, and the people have spoken, right? Going back to basics, everybody. It's a virtual CES, and we're not gonna choose the one million dollar Kohler stillness bath. No, I mean it's the fanciest laptop or one of the fanciest laptops, but still it's a laptop, it's a gaming laptop. It's more of a, hey, this is a great product, I might get this rather than it's an amazing robot that maybe we'll see one day, but probably not. Can I ask you guys this question, as people who have covered CES for a very long time, do you think the fact that this was virtual and everything was watched via a screen affected the ability for media people to kind of be seduced by how cool things are when you see them with your own eyes? And yes. That's a big part of it. I mean, even though I often look around the show floor at CES when I'm going from point A to point B and I'm just like, what a waste of money, gosh, look at all the stuff. It still is, they're really bringing their A game and you do get sucked into, look, those Q-led TVs, they're just amazing, that kind of stuff. It is different being away, for me anyway. There's something to be said about being able to hold and manipulate the product or the technology that's being talked about that really kind of, oh, I get it, this is how it would work. Manipulate and be able to do it. I would imagine if you are Engadget or any other media company that's covering this, that when you're all gathering back together and you're saying, okay, well, what's your pick for best? What's your pick for best in show that you're gonna stick up for the product that you had a magic moment with, that you were like, but you wanna know what I just can't get out of my mind? Like Sarah mentioned, that Kohler bath, which by the way is really cool. And I, looking at it, I'm like, oh, that's a cool looking bathtub. And don't forget, Tim Stevens mentioned this last week on the show, they did send products to journalists. So some people did get to hold it and manipulate it like Roger's talking about, but that's a few people. That's not everything. Yeah, A, it's a few people. B, that's the review experience. But when you get something from a product, you're like, all right, company, let's see what you got here if you're trying to review it. It's not the like meet cute of why I was walking on the floor of CES when I finally laid eyes on my true love. And that's what I feel like some of the coverage of CES tends to be. Well, and the bigger company is, we'll have like Shaquille O'Neal there. And everyone's like, yeah, new TVs plus celebrities, that kind of stuff. It's different when you get something in the mail that isn't the same experience with the wow factor. Rolling up that television, you watching it on YouTube. It's true. It's true. It's just not the same. A few other category winners worthy of mention the Samsung solar cell TV remote that charges on solar light, indoor light, or, you know, if you want to be boring over USB, that's just practical. That's nice, right? Yeah, the Mercedes Benz Hyperscreen that we briefly mentioned earlier this week, 56-inch wide dashboard. Best to show in my book. And as Sarah is the person. I love it so much. I love it so much. Different than the Panasonic that we mentioned yesterday, the Mercedes Benz is not a heads-up display. It's the dash is turned into an LCD screen. And that's coming in the EQS luxury sedan. That's going to be a shipping product. Yeah, I mean, as our in-dash displays get smarter and smarter, you know, with those of us who have newer cars, from lots of manufacturers, this still, to me, I'm like, wow, really? It's the whole thing, you know? Like driver to passenger, the whole thing. The passenger even gets their own kind of stuff. And there are fewer menus that sedans are buried in because that's usually how you had to do it before. Even if it did a lot of stuff, it's like, I mean, how much are you really going to do that all you're driving? It is beautiful. I want it. And we've seen this before at CES, but this is the first time it's really actually coming in. Yeah, yeah, it's consumer focused. The Moudre band attaches to an Apple watch and adds gesture control. So you can do, you know, motion gestures at your watch. And it's the watch band, very elegant design. I think that's super cool. Yeah, that's a really, really cool thing. I mean, you got to look at the word Moudre, but otherwise it's very cool. Maybe it's just my slight reading disability, but I couldn't help but look at it and imagine it pronounced by jaw rule as murder. The Omron Vital site lets doctors monitor a patient's hypertension remotely. This one of the keys to this is it connects directly to the doctor over its own LTE connection. So it's more secure. It's not going to go over your Wi-Fi and out on the public internet. It's going to go on to a dedicated LTE connection out on the public internet, but not Wi-Fi and is recorded directly into your patient records. This is telemedicine. It's a big telemedicine thing. And Good Maps Explore is adding interior navigation. It's already available for visually impaired users for outside navigation, you know, walking around from street to street. But now it's going to offer step-by-step guides inside libraries, museums and government offices. Very cool. Can I just tack on real quick? Telemedicine. I think we are going to see even more of that next year. I think that that, we were talking in Good Day internet before this, the rise and fall of certain categories, some FAD, some not. IoT to me was the last great big kind of like rise and fall FAD and not to say that it's all gone away. Telemedicine. I think that that is, that is 2022 CES. A lot of companies are developing that stuff right now because it's a hot topic and they're going to bring it to CES next year. A few other CES products worth mentioning, Phillips Hue announced a wall switch module designed to turn your existing standard light switch into a smart switch for 40 bucks available this summer. That means it doesn't matter which way it's turned, you can still turn it off and on from your app. A lot of the ways that you modify that, if you turn the switch off, well, now it's not smart anymore. This actually is a module that goes in and is able to intercept the electricity. So it doesn't matter which way your normal light switch goes. It's only 40 bucks, use the light switch you have right now. BMW announced that its mobile car key tech digital key plus will work with ultra wideband on the iPhone using that U1 chip to let owners unlock their cars starting with the all electric BMW iX that launches later this year. And Samsung display showed a trailer for its Samsung Blade bezel, an under screen camera technology for laptops that allows you to have a really thin bezel across the top without sacrificing the position of the webcam. You could put the webcam where you want it because it's under the screen. Well, we were talking a little bit about medical advances earlier and here's another. Minimally invasive surgery, obviously advantageous because it limits damage to tissues. Laser microsurgery, great example, but can only be used on parts of the body in line of sight. Flexible robotics can access hard to reach areas, but they damage surrounding tissue more than lasers do. Robotic engineers at Harvard's Weiss Institute have designed a laser steering microbe to bring the best of both together. The device is much smaller than existing laser devices about the diameter of a drinking straw at six millimeters, pretty thin, and about 16 millimeters long. It uses three mirrors, which gives it a wide range of motion and high bandwidth, which means it cuts tissue fast, minimizing damage. That's a good thing if you're on the table. The laser attachment is in the process of being approved as an add-on for surgical endoscopies, the endoscopes. Endoscopy is a different thing. The scientists believe it could also be used for laparoscopy, gastroenterology, and ear nose and throat procedures like tonsillectomies. Would have liked that when I got my tonsils out many years ago. Yeah, quick and painless and tonsillectomy, I mean, not that they're horrible, but yeah, it could be better. Well, it wouldn't probably be painless, but boy, you know, probably quite a bit less healing to do. You know? Yeah. Yeah, this is a great advance and a positive story about saying like, well, we've got the robots and we got the lasers. If we can make the lasers smaller and put it in the robot, then we could make surgery less invasive. I don't think anybody's against that. Apologies to the please make surgery more invasive crowd out there. Yeah, I want a scar, darn it. All right, let's check out the mailbag. Let's do it. This one comes from Doug. He's just got some nice words for us and it made us feel warm and fuzzy. Doug says, just a quick thank you for the good day internet. Best of show a couple of weeks back. He's talking about our year-ender of GDI over 2020. Wasn't all bad, turns out. The year produced some fun moments. Doug says, I loved it. I don't normally listen to the segment. I play the show back on my Google home, but imagine my delight and laughter. Hearing about Roger's bridge jump suicide plot. I swear, it was funny. It was funny. Sarah's roller coaster Cologne preference and more of microwave frugalness. Also from Roger. Doug says, it was enjoyable. Thanks for all your hard work and keeping me informed every day. I've been a supporter from the start and we'll continue for years to come. You feel like my digital family that I never get to hug. Aw, yeah, thanks man. Really glad you enjoyed it Doug and Joe spent a lot of time putting that together. So for anybody who hasn't seen it, give it a shot. Maybe you'll like it as much as Doug does. Yeah, virtual hugs and high fives back at Doug. Yeah, for sure. And yeah, for those of you who don't listen, we're watch GDI, we're okay people when we're not talking about technology. You can go get the best of moments every month on our YouTube channel as well. That's worth doing. Indeed. And if you have feedback on anything we talk about on the show, listen, we love virtual hugs and high fives, but you might have a question or a comment or an idea or anything like that. Feedback at DailyTechNewShow.com is where to send that email. We like to shout out patrons at our master and grand master levels today. They include Hi Tech Oki, Johnny Hernandez, and Dr. X17. Also thanks to Justin Robert Young for being with us today. Listen, you know, CES politics, what a week. That is an understatement, Sarah. Obviously a lot going on in the world, but one of the things that I think might interest the DTNS crowd is the, what was reported as a hack of the now offline social media network, Parler. So to talk about that in the way that we need to do on PX3, we brought in a DTNS contributor, Darren Kitchen, hack five founder, and we not only talked about that and exactly what that was, which spoiler alert, not exactly a breach and has something to do with GeoCities if you have not read a lot about it, but also some more rudimentary elements of Infosec including how open the capital was during the riots that happened last week and just a real quick primer on SolarWinds if you have heard a little bit about it but aren't fully up to date on it. Go ahead and check out this Wednesday's episode of Politics, Politics, Politics, featuring Darren Kitchen of Hack Five. Yeah, we talked about the fact that it was a URL hack on this show, but what Darren mentioned in that interview that I didn't fully understand until I heard him talk about it was the role that Twilio played in making that URL hack possible. So you gotta check that out, folks. Hey, you want an ad-free version of DTNS? You're out there listening to the feed and you're like, you know, there's ads. That's fine, but it'd be cooler if there weren't. Support us on Patreon. You get your own personal RSS feed supported directly by you. Cut out the middleman. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash Patreon. If you can join us live, we are live Monday through Friday, 4.30 p.m. Eastern, 21.30 UTC. We do it Monday through Friday, everybody. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. We're back tomorrow with Allison Sheridan and Len Peralta. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. I'm in the club. I hope you have enjoyed this program.