 This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by you, the listener. Thanks to all of you, including Norm Fasikus, Chris Allen, Chris Smith, new patrons, Bob, a vote for Molly, another vote for Molly, Daniel, Skymaster for Molly, Travis, and Earl. On this episode of DTNS, Molly Wood explains why repairing devices is good for the climate, plus Google and Meta are about to shut off news in Canada. Sorry, Canada. This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, June 30th, 2023 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Who Even Knows Where? I'm Sarah Lane. From Oakland, California, I'm Molly Wood. Drawing the top tech stories from Cleveland. I'm Len Peralta. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. Molly is here. We did it. Voting works, everyone. We did not hit the full 4,000 paid and increased patrons we wanted, but we definitely got enough that we weren't not going to have Molly on. So here's the deal. We're going to commit to Molly every other month based on what we got. But we're going to keep the push going into July. So if we get to that 4,000 paid patron goal in July, every month, I'll be back on. And in the meantime, Molly's here. This is going to be like a teaser to get those of you who are on the fence over the fence, hopefully. Exactly. Just just just under the fence over the fence. However, you get careful while doing that. That's a good point. Yeah, carefully. All right. Let's start with the quick hits of the verges. Alex Heath sources say that meta will test a new ad type with a small number of Android developers that will let users in the EU directly download an app through the ad. Meta doesn't plan to take a cut of in app revenue in this pilot stage, at least not at this time. The EU's Digital Markets Act goes into effect next spring, requiring Apple and Google to both open up their mobile platforms to alternate app download methods. Wednesday, attackers tweeted screenshots of email addresses, application, access and internal system credentials indicating a ransomware attack on TSMC, the chipmaker. The thread was then deleted and the group posted a demand for $70 million or it would leak the stolen data. TSMC says an incident at one of its hardware suppliers, KinMax Technology, leaked, and I'll quote from TSMC, information pertinent to server initial setup and configuration. Now, TSMC says it did not affect any customer information or operations and TSMC has now terminated its data exchange with KinMax. WhatsApp announced it will roll out a new chat transfer feature letting users quickly transfer messages and attachments between phones without using cloud backups. The feature works on devices running the same operating system. So a user scans a QR code, initiates the fully encrypted transfer and hopefully if all works well, that's how it works. YouTube began running a small experiment globally, they say, that shows a warning to people using ad blockers. The warning tells users that the video player will be blocked after three videos and it further advises users to add YouTube to the ad blockers, allow list or just subscribe to YouTube premium. So you don't have to say any ads. Twitter appears to have locked down content in some form such as viewing tweets or user profiles if you aren't logged into your user account. Now, I tried this on a variety of web browsers and third party apps with interesting results. But the issue appears to affect both web and mobile access for the actual Twitter account. This may be a technical issue, maybe a deliberate issue. Twitter has yet to make a public announcement as of this recording. It's hard to tell sometimes with that company. All right, Thursday, Google joined Meta in saying it will remove Canadian news from its platforms in response to Bill C18, AKA the Online News Act. Google will also end its existing deals with Canadian publishers. The main deal it had was Google News Showcase, which licensed news from more than 150 Canadian publishers. That program will end when the bill becomes law later this year. Meta is also ending its fellowship program for hiring journalists at Newswire, the Canadian press. Now, if you go use Google or Facebook right now, you won't run into these restrictions yet. They haven't given a timeline, but they said they will start them before the bill goes into effect, before the law goes into effect. Molly, what do you make of this particular version of this fight? Right, because it is important to note that this is not the first fight like this that has happened. In fact, it's there have been many, I think, versions of this most recently in Australia. I think that these platforms are going to I understand both sides of this argument on some level. These platforms are going to have to figure out a better solution. Blocking news, I don't think is a viable long term strategy. And frankly, I don't even think it's something that they necessarily want to be a part of. I don't I'm not 100 percent sure what the resolution is, but you can't sort of destroy journalism in an effort to not pay for content that you're using that has already destroyed journalism, you know. Sarah, like, yeah. No, no, I listen, I'm not disagreeing with you, Molly, at all. I think I think you're right. A company like META, META doesn't want to do this. META has been forced to do this. META is sort of like, huh, OK, what's our retaliation tactic? If this isn't it. And I don't think there is one. You know, I've kind of been thinking about this, you know, since we were talking about this when it pertained to Australia last year, and it's like, I don't really know what a large company such as META, but there are others, does in a situation like this instead of saying, OK, we're out of there because we're in so many other markets. So like, this is not going to, you know, you know, destroy us. Well, I mean, they could pony up, right? That would be the other thing is to pay for content. Yeah. On the other hand, they're they're not being asked to pay for content. They're being asked to pay to link. And I think that's worth noting here, because what has happened in the past is the argument was, well, you're carrying the important part of our news, the snippets, right, the subject. And that is what's stopping people from coming to our website. I feel like maybe that's overstated. I think there's lots of reasons people aren't going to news websites, including incredibly increased competition. But that said, certainly doesn't help. So I can see an argument to say, well, if you're going to use part of our copyrighted material, you need to pay for it. I get that. But what then happened is Google said, well, fine, we'll just carry the headline in the link. So then it was you can't use headlines. Then they're like, great, we'll just carry the link. And then it was, well, you can't link. Suddenly making someone pay to link to something feels like that is not what the web is supposed to be about. And I think that's just a symptom of the breakdown in this situation, which is I do think the news publishers need these platforms more than the platforms need the news publishers. I think that the platforms know they'll take a small hit if they stop news content from being carried, but it won't be enough to really cause them any pain. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a dig on Canada at all, but I assume that Matt is like, I mean, if this was across the board globally, then we'd have to talk about, you know, have a different conversation. But otherwise, OK, let's play a game of chicken. Yeah, that's where that's what I mean when I say, though, that I think they're going to have to figure something out. And I think what they likely need to figure out is a global program for most likely paying news publishers. And while I agree that charging for links is not a great strategy, it is. I also agree that it's a symptom of how bad things have gotten and how publishers have been, you know, because like, let's not forget that it's not as though it's been an accident that Google and Facebook have sort of sucked up all of the oxygen around publishing. They have lured these publishers to their platforms. They have in certainly in the case of Metta over and over and over misrepresented the advertising efficacy. They got newsrooms to pivot to video on mass for that platform. And then it turned out that the metrics in the economics on which that was based were were basically made up, right? So like there's culpability here that leads me to think that more countries than just Australia and Canada, Canada, Canada are going to make laws like this. So that at some point, if these sites want to say, we're going to ban all news from our platforms, then they themselves end up with a content problem because that's what we're going there for. And the end result is kids keep getting all the news on TikTok like they already are. Yeah. Morning console reported in February that 14 percent of Gen Z adults in the U.S. turned to TikTok first for news. I take that as an indication that this may be fighting the last battle, not the current battle. This may be fixing a problem that will not be relevant very soon, which is typically what happens by the time government gets involved in something. So it may be that you you make Facebook and Google pay for news at a time when people stop going to them for news. We're about to see a huge sea change in search, and we don't even know what it's going to look like at the at the end of this chat GPT barred revolution. So if you really want to be talking about where people are getting their news and are going to get their news in the future, I don't think it's Facebook and Google. I think I think you need to be looking at other platforms. Well, it could be if they don't screw it up. That's what I'm saying. I think even if they everybody was kumbaya and will pay for news, I think that's dwindling. I really do. I think like that's that's the old way of doing things. And it's it's not going to disappear overnight, but it's it's going to continue to be reduced. I mean, we might ban TikTok. So there's that too. Sorry, Sarah, go ahead. No, I mean, that was actually going to be my exact point. How many times has a friend said, oh, I just look for news on TikTok? Where I'm like, what on TikTok? That used to be the way that people would tell me, oh, I just find news on YouTube and I'm like, on YouTube? The place where people, you know, upload skateboard videos. Ah, we're in a different world, everybody. OK, so let's talk about ByteDance's new strategy. TikTok is, you know, perhaps in, you know, a banned situation in the US already banned in India. But the company has other apps slowly gaining an audience and also widening appeal. The company's Instagram like app Lemon 8 Lemon number eight launched in the US earlier this year and was number one on app charts back in April. Yeah, and ByteDance just released a closed beta in the US for a new app called Ripple. It's an invite only app for music creators. So this is to help you start making music that then they can keep in their system and use on TikTok, I guess. You hum a tune and it turns it into an instrumental with piano, drums and bass. Now, the output only matches the length of the hummed sample. You're not going to get it to make an entire track out of a couple of bars. It also doesn't generate lyrics, but it is a way to kind of get a baseline, so to speak, and a piano and a drum line down and and start sparking that creativity. It's interesting. It is. And you might say, OK, well, I mean, how many people really care about Ripple? Well, a lot of people do. But not the only music arena that ByteDance is dabbling in another app that is by dance created called Resso, R-E-S-S-O, launched in 2020 in India, Brazil and Indonesia. Straight ahead music app with a focus on niche sub genres with unsigned acts. All of those markets are interesting because all of those markets have a variety of, you know, a very robust music community, but also with a lot of sub genres, depending on language you speak, et cetera, et cetera. So late last year, word league that Resso was negotiating with several major music labels in an effort to enter more than a dozen new markets with some speculating that Resso could even be re-branded as TikTok music if that expansion was successful. We don't know, but we're kind of seeing some some some some beginning some some beginnings of this. So Sensor Tower reports that as of last month, more than 250 million people had downloaded Resso even after the Indian government banned TikTok in 2020. It has risen up, especially in Google Play Playlists. Hmm. Very interesting. Yeah, this feels like it's competing with SoundCloud. The ripple part of it. It feels like SoundCloud is a place people think of where you go and when you're unsigned, when you go to experiment, when you're trying to break out and nobody's really taken that from them. SoundCloud's been on death's door for years. You know, people have been predicting it was going to go under and it hasn't. It does feel like it's smart for bite dance to get into this. And it's bite dance's way of of hedging their bets if TikTok does get banned in elsewhere beyond Montana. Well, and, you know, the whole, yeah, the whole comparison to SoundCloud and, you know, who is it good for? I mean, if something goes viral on Resso and then becomes viral on TikTok, then it goes back to being more viral on Resso because they're all part of the, you know, the same ecosystem. I think, you know, from what I know of TikTok, this makes perfect sense. There may be an issue, you know, with it opening up in different markets, but particularly the markets that have sub-genres, niche genres for music. You know, Brazil, India and and Indonesia being very good examples of that. You know, SoundCloud really never had much of that going on. And maybe that was because they were before their time. TikTok is doing like a lot of things right here, not least of which is understanding that the creator economy has global potential. And I think that's a place where you could argue that to a lesser extent, YouTube, but certainly Meta and Instagram have have dropped the ball a little bit. It's also very smart for them to diversify into other apps that aren't that don't have kind of the name recognition for good or for ill as TikTok. At the just seems extremely clever and like a backdoor way to capture even more audience and even more creators early and get them into this ecosystem and have them just be hooked. Yeah, the best thing going for TikTok right now is that it is the place where hits are made. You you the the band Cupid or I'm sorry, the band 50 50 made the Hot 100 with one of their first songs. It was off their second album. They were on a very small label and Cupid took off on TikTok and it it would turn it into a hit. And now like Warner is fighting with the original label to try to like steal them away because they're so successful on TikTok. So TikTok bite dance going like, well, even if TikTok starts to suffer outside of India and Montana, we got other ways that we can we can monopolize music is a really smart move. Folks, if you've got thoughts about this, are you a member of 50 50 and would like to give us the inside scoop? Please email us feedback at daily tech news show dot com. That is the email address to send it to this week on everybody in the pool. Molly Wood talked to I fix its kyle means about the right to repair and how it's important in reducing climate change. So it's not just good for your pocketbooks, not just a responsible thing to do to stop waste. It actually can help in larger things. Molly, what are what are some of the things you were learning from Kyle? Yeah, I mean, I love Kyle and I have been learning from Kyle for years. But this is one of those kind of perfect examples of a thing you didn't necessarily realize was a climate story. But in the way that everything actually is, this is a big one. So Kyle pointed out this phenomenal quote. He said, you know, we dig a mountain out of the earth every day to make smartphones one and a half billion of them every year. We make one and a half billion smartphones a year. A mountain theory every day. And we dig up a mountain every day. I mean, if you think about the raw materials that go into our glass, it's cobalt, it's nickel, it's lithium for batteries. It's zinc, you know, I mean, it literally is just like metal after metal after metal. And it's, as he pointed out, pure energy to make these things. He also told me that consumer electronics are among the most, if not the most carbon intensive products that we make. And most of the energy is making the chips because it's like this big energy intensive fab. And you're just sort of like scraping and scraping and making everything like micro and then it has all of those elements into them. And then only 20 percent, fewer than 20 percent of consumer electronics are recycled. So it's this kind of like it's bad on the front end because it's super carbon intensive to make these devices. And every time you get a new one, it had to be created. And then it's terrible on the back end because when they end up in landfill and the vast majority of them do, sadly, then they leech all of that stuff back into the environment. And I feel like there are two big things that immediately want to happen. One is let's find sustainable ways to power these plants, right? And that's that's a bigger problem than I can solve. And it's a problem that the entire world is working on. So OK, what about recycling? Let's let's actually recycle these things better. And I've seen some slow progress on that. But is there is that too big of a problem, too? Well, the good news is that he told me that the recycling programs by Apple and other manufacturers like Best Buy, where you can go and trade in a device to be recycled, those actually do work. That's OK. That's not like a it's not recycle washing. So that is great news. And I actually do think that as some of the supplies of these raw materials get more constrained or more expensive because they're going to all get sucked up by like EV batteries and grid scale power batteries, that it will start to be cost effective, more cost effective even for manufacturers to try to recover as many materials as they can from these devices. So that's good. It's just that people have these collections of old things around the house that, you know, don't work and there's no good reason. Like basically the chip almost never fails. It's the battery that dies. And the and the fact that you can't open things up easily and just swap out that battery means that everybody, you know, so many people have like a drawer full of iPods. And at some point they just chuck them. Yeah, because it's easier because we don't make it easy. You have to you have to work to do a thing that you're not going to profit directly from. And so, yeah, it makes sense to me that that becomes a problem. I do tend to think that personal solutions are often shoved out there as a way for people who work at scale to avoid responsibility for what they do. That could be much much more effective than than individual solutions. Did you get a sense of if all of us decided to like work to repair our items or push for the ability to make it easier to repair our items that it could make a big difference? You know, it does, actually. And I would push back on you a little bit on that because I do think that the other thing that happens is that people say, well, I can't do anything. My individual action doesn't matter because it's a collective problem to which I always respond. What do you think a collective is made out of? However, in this case, I also have stats. If every American, this is from Kyle Wiens. If every American kept their phone for an extra year, it would be the equivalent of taking 600,000 cars off the road. As far as emissions go in terms of emissions. Yeah, as far as emissions go. So it's it's also, you know, I mean, everybody in the pool is my framework for solving problems, which is like everybody do something and all of it matters. It genuinely doesn't because the thing is that you become not only a person doing that, but you become a model. You become an influencer, like be cool and carry an old phone. Or just keep your phone a little longer, you know, find somebody who can repair it. Repair is getting easier to do. Make make a push for some right to repair or all of those things sound like they would be options for people who want to help. Or 100% traded in when you are going to get rid of it, like traded into a recycling program when you're going to get rid of it. Actually, Kyle, it was very interesting. Kyle said that the best thing you can do, the single best thing you can do is again, I mean, it's sort of great because it's like save the planet by being super lazy. Just keep your stuff, like don't get a new thing. But to or be, he said the best thing you can do is sell it for as much money as you can possibly get, because you'll be happy about that and your incentivized to sell it and then someone else uses it. Yeah, that's even better than a trade in. If you really have to have a new thing, then sell your old device. Make sure someone's using it. And then get a new one. Well, if you want to hear more of Molly talking to Kyle about this stuff, hear it from Kyle's mouth directly, go get everybody in the pool. If you haven't already, it's in your podcatcher of choice. And you can find out more about all of that and get Molly's newsletter at mollywood.co. Well, speaking of, I don't know, cars, emissions, Volkswagen owned Electrify America and EV maker Polestar announced this week. They will add Tesla's North American charging standard or NACS plugs. Now, this follows recent announcements by Ford, GM, Rivian and Volvo that they will also switch to the standard. Kind of good for people on road trips. Standards body SAE International also announced this week it will expedite work to develop a standard around NACS with Hyundai, Stellantis and Volkswagen itself in talks with Tesla, leaving Volvo, Lucid and Toyota as outliers. We're going to get Bodie on the kilowatt podcast who has been with us before. He really knows his car stuff to join us July 14th to explain why this is all happening and what it means for EV owners. Yeah, but it's kind of been stunning to see all of these companies fall in line so quickly. The first one that announced this was interesting. And then it seemed like it was an avalanche after that. Yeah, this is a huge deal. I mean, this is just an absolute triumph of private infrastructure, which is a bummer, especially if you don't love the idea of giving Elon Musk more money. However, that infrastructure exists and it is it is crucial to adoption. Like, I'm so excited about this. I have a Polestar. The only bummer to me is that it won't go into effect until 2025. Yeah, yeah. But this is a huge deal. I mean, it is genuinely a huge deal. The only way that you can feel confident because I had a Tesla for six months before the Polestar, you could drive. I mean, I could drive that thing anywhere in the country because there would be Tesla infrastructure now. Not only is there not high speed charging infrastructure, but it is not well maintained. So if you're driving any other EV across the country, it's just like a prayers up situation. And that's the CCS standard, except for Toyota, which is on a whole different thing. And the CCS standard is the one mandated in the Congressional Act that passed, the Infrastructure Act. I can't remember what they're calling it this week, but it was the it was the Inflation Reduction Act, I think, when it was first passed. But that mandated the CCS standard to get subsidies. And yet any CS bucked that trend and made these deals. It's kind of unexpected. I think it's just because everybody knows how long it's going to take to get that infrastructure built. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, let's check out the mailbag. Let's do it. This one comes in from Thor. This is in response to our conversation yesterday about redacting things and whether it's better to do it on paper or electronically. Thor says in that discussion on shredding and redacting information on paper and more generally, how to keep information private. I'd like to share the reason I give for why I try to have as much info encrypted or stored on my own devices as possible. It's not so much that I have something to hide, but that it's harder or impossible to take information back if I realize there's something I didn't want to share, putting it, putting it even more simply. It's easier to keep information private than to remove public information. Since I can't know the future, I feel I'm better off holding my card a little closer to my chest. That was a really fun conversation on GDI yesterday. If you're not a patron, you won't be able to get to it easily. But if you are a patron and you haven't listened to it, Rich was talking about some of his experiences having to redact things at jobs in the past. Yeah, particularly, you know, you know, working for lawyers. Yes, you know, things do happen. And yeah, I mean, there's not look at politics, not a perfect assessment for this. So so, yeah, here we are. Well, Len Peralta has been busily illustrating where we are. Len, what have you drawn today? Well, first off, it's just great to see Molly on Molly Friday. I have to kind of say it's been great to have her on. And, you know, just before the show started, I was over on the other side of my office and I was holding some old iPhones. I think I had a first generation iPhone. So I don't I've never thrown away my iPhones. They still have them here. So I'm doing my part to save the environment. I'm out of the landfill. I'm keeping them out of the landfill. And so I wanted to kind of do something that was very environmentally friendly. And that's where this image comes from. It's Molly saves the woods. You have the right to repair your devices, says Molly. I've said it's like she's like she's like mother nature, sort of, you know, kind of telling her. Are those the Twitter birds around her head? There's one. There's one tweeting and another saying Blue Sky. There's one skeeting. Let's keep it. Oh, my God, help. I never thought of Molly. So I'm changing the name of the podcast. And there you go. Very good. If you're interested in this image, if you're a fan of Molly or if you're a fan of my art, you can go to my Patreon, patreon.com forward slash Len at the detain us lever lover level. This gets this image to you immediately or you can go the old fashioned way. Go to my online store, Len, parol, the store.com, where you can also commission me. I'm looking for commission. So please hit me up. Well, speaking of Molly Wood, we're so glad to have you on the show. Molly, let folks know where they can keep up with your latest. Oh, you guys are the best. This is the best show. Mollywood.co is where you can get my newsletter. There it is and stay up to date on all of the various things that I'm doing. And then everybody in the pool, the podcast episode has seven episodes, seven whole episodes, so you haven't missed much. Go to your podcatcher and subscribe. Next week, we're going to be talking about hydrogen fueled airplanes. So it is it's going to be a good one. Patrons, stick around for the extended show. Good day, Internet. It's Friday and we have another round of proust questions from Roger. We get to the heart of who we really are as people by talking about what phones we use. Seriously, this is going to be fun. You got to you got to stick around for that. Oh, Friday is always fun. But just a reminder, you can catch DTNS Live Monday through Friday, four p.m. Eastern, twenty hundred UTC. We do it every weekday. Find out more at Daily Tech News Show dot com slash live. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. We're back on Monday talking about the big summer game announcements with pressure. Hershberger. I'll miss it. This week's episodes of Daily Tech News Show were created by the following people, host producer and writer Tom Merritt, host producer and writer Sarah Lane, executive producer and Booker Roger Chang, producer, writer and host Rich Truffilino, video producer and Twitch producer Joe Kuntz, technical producer Anthony Lamos, Spanish language, host, writer and producer Dan Campos, science correspondent Dr. Nicky Ackermans, social media producer and moderator Zoe Dettarding, our mods Beatmaster, W. Scottis 1, BioCal, Captain Kipper, Steve Godorama, Paul Reese, Matthew J. Stevens, a.k.a. Gadget Virtuoso and J.D. Galloway, mod and video hosting by Dan Christensen, music and art provided by Martin Bell, Dan Looters, Mustafa A, A-Cast and Len Peralta, live art performed by Len Peralta, A-Cast ad support from Tatiana Matias, contributors for this week's shows include Justin Robert Young, Scott Johnson and Molly Wood. And thanks to all our patrons who make the show possible. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. The Frogman Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.