 push by Administration at the top to lean that way they started bringing in movies originally it was like Aliens and stuff like that and it was a conscious effort because they wanted to sustain the convention beyond just comic book aficionados and enthusiasts because they knew that would eventually kind of Plateau and then start dipping because it's a very age Specific demographic and so they try to start bringing other things in but now It's come to the point where a lot of the larger studios whether it's TV or film use it as kind of a springboard To announce a lot of their stuff because they they're they're basically promoting to a receptive audience They're hoping to kind of do the whole social meme thing where people say like oh check out the new dexter or bubble It's gonna be awesome. I went to the panel But it's a victim of its own success. It's gotten too huge. It's gotten too unwieldy There are issues of course with overcrowding, which is why they said a hard limit on tickets even though some people have Privately said that they probably exceed what they actually have in terms of allowable bodies into that convention hall because if they did the Fire marshal would come and close it and everyone would be in Incredibly annoyed and pissed sure One and I hear that a lot of the studios are second guessing themselves as far as their presence there I mean you saw that with Big name companies like when Disney Marvel is not going to comic con in a major way It's because they're not seeing a huge return It's like it almost doesn't matter if they go to the con or if they don't so I think you're gonna see this kind of wave crest and crash and what will happen is the Smaller movies that could benefit from that word of mouth where people aren't just going to automatically go see the movie at this point Those are the ones where comic con will be the launching point So I would argue like Guardians of the Galaxy even though it was a major film and it was from Marvel because it was such a niche title within Marvel Comics they kind of needed the comic con presence to get people excited Because who the heck wants to go see a movie with a talking raccoon in a tree in it? Well, you know, it's it's curious because Disney is definitely going to be rolling out their own convention. Well, they already do They're gonna do it with because now they own Marvel and they have the Lucas the Empire I Mean, it's it's weird because all these cons are great when I was like You know ten years ago because there weren't up until like the mid-2000s They weren't heavily attended by a large a swath of the broader community like this, you know Community but now it's become such a thing that you know, where's the world is literally? basically bought out every convention in every major city in the US and not like where's the world Philly or was a world Chicago and they're all various levels of okay But there's so many right now But even the smaller ones are not getting kind of their overflow like I wanted to go to emerald city comic-con and someone's like Yeah, it's kind of getting really crowded and bad there because everyone that used to go to comic-con But couldn't because either it's gone expensive Because the hotels are constantly booked and you have to get like a hotel seven miles away Yeah, I'm going to the smaller ones, but in that turn kind of crowds Crowds up those events as well. So I want to go to one still and I still like attending them, but it's just Not feasible especially with a kid like I don't want my kid to be sandwiched between You know an obese Thor and a slightly aged man of steel Hey, I turned out okay. Yeah Both of you both of you turned out wonderful And Scott two of my co-workers were at Salt Lake City comic-con. Oh, we're they yeah Holly and Tracy of stuff. They miss stuff. You missed in history class. They did some panels Awesome. Yeah, that was a busy weekend. We had Baltimore dragon con solid comic-con. You had What's the wig went up in Canada fan fest Expo your fan Expo, right? Yeah, there was some other Something else. We had one It's like the most packed conference weekend of all time. Yeah, I don't know what was going on I want it. I want to go to fan Expo at least once It's actually amazing that any of these cons can get guests because they're all competing over the same pool of people No kidding. It's the only one of them can get like we got not Shatner That's a last year. We got a we got Shatner That's it was Mark Hamill was there and he had he ended up selling out the jazz arena because they was so much demand to hear him and Man not since original Star Wars is that guy had that kind of attention Mark Hamill. Yeah. Yeah, he is It's you know, he's one of those people you fake him that fell off the radar But he went into I don't know if it's lucrative, but he wouldn't do a decent career of doing voice Yeah Yeah, I think he did great with it. He's got Scott. Are you talking about the guy from Corvette summer? Yeah, the one from Corvette center to bang this face up that guy. Yeah. Okay. Now. I know who you're talking about The voice of the Joker, you know the one The animated Joker He was also he also cameoed cameoed on the original flash and then the new flash Yes, he was the trickster. Yes. Oh, right, right. I remember when he was in the original the the original TV one That was such a such a campy show and I loved it. It was great I heard that they went with the flash Because at the time that was the one of the few special effects They've they thought they could do reliably for an for episodic TV show, right? There wasn't too much to do you could draw red streak lines to indicate that someone ran through somewhere really fast Right, you just have a fan to blow dust and papers indicating rapid speed has been achieved Yeah, you didn't have to have anyone fly or pick up tanks or anything like that. That's awesome But it was How is it? Oh, it's a great period TV It's kind of weird because TV kind of waxes and wanes between Some moments of brilliance and then it kind of levels into a weird valley of crapton like when Every show and every network was some spin on a reality TV show. Yeah No, I I worked for Discovery So did I But oh boy we can talk I Can't because I signed that little doc, but I will say that the best Reality show I ever enjoyed was What's what's the surreal life where they took all those B actors out retired like Eric Estrada and Gary Coleman They put them in a house together. Yeah, I thought it was great. Yeah, that'd be all right They did a charity event where What's his name Ron Jeremy and wait who's vanilla what's vanilla ice is real name is It's a dumb thing Van Winkle. Yeah, it's Van Winkle or Van Winkle or something And they had to basically they took over a Mel's diner and I guess Ron Jeremy and I've been honest for cooking in the back And you know Gary Coleman was upfront as a host and pretty bring everyone in and seating them And I heard they're really got a little cards that the that customers write in the suggestion or your feedback A lot of people's like, oh, I wouldn't have eaten here if I knew Ron Jeremy was cooking and Ron Really depressed it's like really He's just like what you know the one thing I'm known for is the thing that people know me for Yeah His name was Robert Matthew Van Winkle. Hey, I was right. Yep, Robert Matthew Van Winkle. He's like three years older than me He's a what's I'm gonna say about him there's something to say about him and what was it now? I forgot. Oh I was gonna say you mentioned Gary Coleman. He died here in town like not far from here. Oh, that's right He he fell he fell from a You fell from a ladder, I'm sorry It's really weird isn't this really nice place near us not really near us probably an hour and a half away, but it's called Santa Quinn and he had a house out there and Really liked it here and was super mean to everybody didn't want to talk to anyone It was like real reclusive and he fell off some stool hurt himself They branched rushing the hospital. He died the next day or something gosh. It was intense It almost made me want to yell what you talking about Willis, but that wasn't appropriate at the time He is the only one Left no, he's still got the brother, right? He's around. No, that's what I'm saying No, I mean like But Todd Bridges is the only one left. Yep, you're right Like this is Gary died Gary Coleman lives on in Avenue Q. So oh My gosh, Todd Bridges is 51 years old He lives in You know what he looks pretty good for 51. I'm not gonna lie I think he knew if he you know people made a big deal about is like Well, who's he was arrested for drug possession or something. Yeah, but I mean compared with the rest of him. He was pretty I think he he was he was on the straight narrow relatively speaking. I'm not saying you been working pretty consistently To and in Hollywood, maybe not in things, you know about or care about but Like he's got six projects in post-production He's got work from all the way back all the 2000s The only real gap is like an 89 to 96 kind of range where there wasn't much well good for him Yeah, let's say way to go That being everything about being a kid actor sucks. I'm always had him put him in put him in stranger things season two Yeah, there you go nailed it He could be a storekeeper and he could say what are you talking about? Talking about what you talk about Demogorgon Conrad Bain, that's who that was he died in 2013. He was 89 years old. That was mr. Drummond. Yep Conrad Bain that sounds like I am a wealthy tycoon that Strip mines lands and faraway locations to get at the precious oars. Yeah Like he's a supporting character and there will be blood. Yeah, you know, great. Come in check Yeah Yeah, I'm looking through here. There were a lot of spinoffs from that Whole facts of life came from that I forgot about that. Did you ever see that? that that Document where it shows how all the different TV shows are connected to each other through various cameos and mentions No, there's this there's this project and this was years ago when it started but it just showed like how like it was like a television universe and it would have TV episodes connected so like Obvious ones like Mork and Mindy is connected to happy days because Mork showed up on happy days before there was a Mork and Mindy show and So they'd start saying like if you take this these are all these TV shows exist within the same universe because of these connections to each other and I loved it I thought it was a fascinating project where someone had gone through and Whenever yeah, oh, it's yeah, it's I can't remember what the name of it is now I'll have to see if I can hunt it out. It's like we're expecting Joni vs. Chachi to show up on the Levern and Shirley. Oh Yeah, I'm gonna go to Mork and Mindy though. Didn't that actually happen? I think that happened Speaking of happening the show Yeah, we got let me hide myself here and let you guys go at it Everything's in place. Oh, I'm on the wrong. No, that's the right one Hold on Okay, that's the closing song The opener Okay, I think we're good recording on this end Roger, so we're all good there I think we're good Johnny you need anything else you all set. I'm all set. Hey Here goes then Chat room high and welcome it begins in three two one. Oh wait volumes off False alarm three two one Why isn't it playing the Daily Tech news show is brought to you by listeners like me to find out more of it's the Daily Tech news show Dot com slash support Hello everybody welcome to the Daily Tech news show I'm Scott Johnson sitting in once again on Tuesday September 6 2016 for Tom Merity is still in Asia It'll be about back this weekend. We can't wait for him to get home joining me today a very special guest someone I work with occasionally on this program and I'm very excited to be doing it again Ladies and gentlemen, it's Jonathan Strickland senior writer for how stuff works. What's going on? Hey, Scott's great to be back Online streaming live with you. I'm so happy that I could be part of this I think whenever we get together Magic happens. Yeah, it's a good combo. It's like Let's think of the great combos and in history in tech history even let's say You're kind of in a way. You're bailing us out because you're a good guest for me I'm bailing Tom out today So in a way you're the Bill Gates to my Steve Jobs in like 1989 or whatever was or 95 whatever So nice, there's your little combo there or you're like the You know, I don't know I can't think of anything else You're like Linux to my Unix or something like that. I was like everyone I was thinking of was a Steve Jobs one I'm I was the act to your jobs. I'm eyes to your jobs. I'm Wow, well, hopefully you're not my ex-wife to my jobs or Jonathan is great to have you here now tomorrow quick reminder folks I'll be back here again doing this all over again and tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern time in New York City Sony's expected to show off the top secret ps4 slim as well as the possible high-end ps4 Currently has a code name, but we think we'll get a real name right now. It's Neo, but we don't know Sony said today that they'll be streaming it on their website. There's also maybe a big Apple thing tomorrow So a lot to cover on Wednesday, but before all that How about headlines? All right, let's dig in MS power user is reporting that Microsoft is working on a slack competitor called Skype teams, you knew this was coming It's interesting because you're seeing you're seeing slack and apps like oh, I don't know discord going the other direction where they're kind of a Collaboration tool first and then a voice and video client. That's kind of going the opposite way for Skype Anyway slack, which is of course a messaging app for team collaboration was considered for acquisition by Microsoft for eight billion dollars But then those plans were shelved Skype teams will feature similar features to slack But also include threaded conversations allow video calls in the channel or privately the ability to schedule online meetings in office 365 integration like everything else they seem to do office 365 is there Microsoft plans to launch launch the service initially With office 365 subscribers and then grow it from there I can tell you this John if it's not free at the basic level and Have much of this the the functionality they're talking about this will not pick up in any sort of wide adoption Because outside of the connectivity with other Microsoft services I don't see how this is a very compelling product as compared to slack Which as itself as a free product for the most, you know, most people who use it is a really strong answer to what people need Yeah, it happened. You think they'll do well with it I think Well on the enterprise side for for more established enterprise may be but I think anyone who has jumped on this this Trend is already on slack. So it's kind of the problem of How do you convince a an entrenched user base to switch from one service to another? I don't know that Microsoft can do it. Also. I think to me this whole thing I'm old and so as an old person Slot slack frightens and confuses me I Look at slack and I think wow I remember when I used this and it was called Google Wave and I loved it and now everyone's using slack and I Watch as slacks just start scrolling by and I think man I miss asynchronous communication where I could avoid answering somebody for up to like half a day But that's the one thing email still kind of has an advantage in right like I can an email and go All right. Well, I'm gonna deal with that tomorrow I look at a slack and I go if I don't deal with that now or at least star it or market or something It's gonna get lost in the ether and if I'm on the free platform and we've got a ton of users It's gonna eventually get thrown out the back end because that's kind of how that works marbles in marbles out Yeah, so so yeah, you make it eat some point the ephemeral nature Of slack notifications is a little bit frightening, but maybe maybe that's gotten me more Attached to it like maybe I'm actually using it and I am quite a bit in fact It's kind of changed my professional life in a lot of ways Maybe that's just because there's a built-in urgency and I have to respond I think for it depends on what you do right like I could see it being very useful for a lot of teams that have to Communicate with one another. They're working on a project together I My world. I'm a writer Primarily I interact with my editor. So putting in a big collaborative communication tool. I mean we have slack I've used it it almost becomes yet another distraction for someone who works my job So it actually becomes an impediment to getting stuff done as opposed to something that actually makes it easier If I were producing more shows I mean, I essentially write and pot and record podcasts, but I don't have to produce them I don't have to organize them with the exception of occasionally getting someone on a show to be a guest Maybe then I would find it more useful So really I just I'm just the bald old guy who's like I don't understand this technology Well, then it sounds like no matter when this gets released like a slack like a slight can Skype together Slack and Skype together finally like is the great union Skype teams will be your answer perhaps. We'll see I don't know Maybe Skype should be better in general before they're better at something else. Yeah moving on snapchat join Bluetooth special interest group SIG yesterday SIG as an early adopter or as just an adopter they call not an early adopter I'm what you call an early adopter It's in a move the financial time says only make sense of the company plans on producing a wireless device This being snapchat financial times also notes the company has acquired a our headset startup vengeance lab and Hired new staff from nest ring canary Sphere oh and GoPro to name a few and speculates that snapchat may be working on wireless a our goggles Now let's just park our brains for a second Okay, think about this if you are a small chat platform that made most of your early splashes the place where teenagers could Do dubious things and not be found out and have the message go away when they're done and Then you become saying that's what they're known for not necessarily what they were used for But this they're known for and then they graduated on to a little bit more of a mainstream platform and celebrity started using it and and became more Cache a to use snapchat and then the old started using snapchat and Snapchat seems to at every turn surprised me They've they came out of nowhere and they've slowly built this thing that continues to grow and have Dedicated legion of fans. Why not a platform like that getting into the potential hardware business especially if you're talking about augmented reality and A device that is all about going out into the world and put in stupid overlays and and weird facial stuff on yourself And why not extend the experience that way with a with a piece of actual hardware John? So you're saying put on a pair of AR glasses so that when you look around Everyone has those stupid puppy dog faces and the giant tongues rolling out of their mouths when they talk to you Yeah, that's the weird thing it almost it almost turns the camera around because as it stands right now when you're Doing a selfie conversation story whatever and you're putting that dumb dog thing on your face or whatever is the you know The the filter du jour that week Face swapping of their friends or whatever. This is now being prepared to send out to everybody else an AR experience is not what others are seeing you doing. It's about what you are seeing in your view So right he seems counter counter to what snapchat is it seems like it takes What snapchat is and kind of ignores a little bit and says all right Well, this is gonna be your way of taking in that information Maybe this is how you'll take in other people's stories or I don't know like it's this is all way Speculative because who the crap knows like we any of this means, but if it turns out they're working on some hardware I don't really know what the application. Well, I mean we've also snapchat story has been a story about Going away from what originally defined the service, right? Just as you were pointing out like originally the service was all about Posting something that had a limited shelf life and after that was over it was supposedly gone forever So it allowed you to share something and it's kind of like a live show, right? If you're not there to experience it you're you're out of luck And if you are there then you get to participate in the magic that is that live? Performance same sort of thing with snapchat if you were alert at the time when it went up You had a chance to see whatever that was and you got to be a part of that story And if you weren't then no luck, but we're seeing snapchat get further and further away from that so maybe using this hardware and Turning the camera around like you say in fact makes sense because they're just Venturing out further from what their core service used to be personally If this becomes a thing I want them day one to have an overlay where it's like you are rowdy Roddy Piper putting on the sunglasses in they live So that when you look around all you see are like the alien critters that you know are Really manipulating everything from behind the scenes so that kind of feeds into a great dystopian paranoia And I'm all out of gum. I'm all in on that dude. Yeah My vote ours Technica reports that a tweet from a well-known smartphone leaker Evan blasts suggests that I never say it right ha Huawei I wish they just you know what they ought to do as a company put a W in front I know that makes me a dumb American, but I'm just saying anyway They're building a new 7-inch tablet for Google the Nexus 7 successor will come with a 4 gigabyte Ram capacity and will be released before the end of the year if the rumors are to be true This comes after last week's reports about Google hardware Then happening October 4th featuring pixel smartphones new Chromecast and daydream VR hardware Huawei is a good Manufacturer they have proven out to make some nice hardware and they've done really well in China and other places I would not mind at all if this was Google's choice for the hardware this time But it's interesting to see them continue this trend and I and there's probably some quotes somewhere where they said They were always going to do this, but I just like that every time there's a new Nexus release You kind of have to guess who the new hardware maker is it's like they're spreading the love around hey Motorola You can have this one. Oh LG and please make this phone and hey, yo, Yahweh Why don't you give us a little bit of the tablet love? There's something about that that feels very Let's get around the fire and you know have s'mores and stuff to me It is interesting because you get to see each different slightly different take on creating the flagship product for Google and obviously we're seeing that again Transition we're seeing the nexus sort of transition into the pixel There's still some question about what is fuchsia and what will fuchsia end up doing with the Android? Landscape that's further down the road. We don't necessarily know the answer to that right now I Have no objection to any manufacturer getting in on this game. I like the idea that we could end up seeing Really great implementations Simply because it's a different company and it's their take on trying to provide the best experience Sometimes that's gonna work out for us. Sometimes it won't but I like it more because it gets the sort of competitive and yet cooperative atmosphere and it means that companies can actually try really hard to Outperform the previous generations as opposed to being like one company just iterating over and over again If there's no other market forces in play The improvements you can see end up being sort of lackluster. Yeah, I would agree with that I'm a fan of the nexus line generally speaking and I think Google's very careful about this So I think this is probably a good choice. I really like the nexus 7 So anxious to see how this all pans out BBC news reports that 10 aviation Associations in the EU. That's the European Union for those keeping track included the European cockpit association That is a rad organization In the international air transport Association have issued a joint statement calling for registration for small drones to address key Safety concerns around the use of drones and controlled and uncontrolled airspace Other requests include mandatory training and certificate for or certification rather for drone operations technical performance limitations To increase or excuse me restrict the drones flight envelope and integration of recreational drones into model aircraft flying regulations and increased enforcement of all of these ideas now the interesting bit here is They're essentially calling for every drone of every kind. That's the subtext here to be a A registered sort of What's the word? What do you call them when you when somebody puts their wants to regulate there you go Regulated device no matter how big or how small even those stupid little buzzy ones you pay 30 bucks for at the mall They they they make it sound like they want even those to be registered. Is that a is that a bridge too far? I mean I Like the way we do things in the United States in that we have it where it's over a certain weight limit you have to have it registered for multiple reasons and Really this in the US this was something that a lot of the the hobbyist organizations came together They're the ones who drafted the rules. They're the ones who recommended adoption of the rules specifically so that Operators would use best practices and avoid creating situations that would encourage the government to come in and Create regulations of its own that everyone has to agree with Essentially, it's everyone say yeah, it's the Wild West, but if we behave pretty okay they're not gonna send the law in after us and I think that's kind of what you're starting to see over in the EU is these organizations are Suggesting registration because with the very high profile near misses that have been happening in Europe with aircraft like like actual commercial aircraft and drones They want to make sure that that they Draft this stuff out before you end up having entire hobbies declared illegal because some people are being very Irresponsible with the way that they are operating their their drone It's you know, it's alike. It's like I don't know I always think of the video game industry when this stuff comes up and in the early 90s when they Basically banded together and said all right look we're getting to the point where you can play Mortal Kombat and rip a guy's head off And that's clearly mature content and we probably ought to have some way of letting Parents and consumers know what they're getting into so rather than wait for the government to do it wrong and I'm not this isn't me saying government does things wrong all The time but hey, how about we as an industry get our heads around this? How about we come up with a rating system that not only works to those ends but keeps Further regulation away so that we can continue to innovate and do what we need to do That sounds a bit like what they're trying to do there the only the only worry I would have is that you can still go too far even as Industry-led groups to take things too far and I hope that they don't I worry about my drone flying brethren out there Who are who are? You know reasonable people trying to do reasonable things and at the end of the day I'm also aware that there's some cracker pot right now. Maybe even listening to this show I don't know not making any judgments, but maybe he's listening to the shows thinking I'm gonna fly my little bitty drone into an airplane engine this weekend because that sounds funny It's like I know those people exist. So we got to think of ways to sort of Balance this but I hope it is the industry that figures it out and can prove it out before we have to have You know but like you said before this stuff be basically becomes contraband Well, and the nice thing is that when it's a various organizations that are defining the rules It's not impossible to join those organizations and have a voice in how those rules are drafted as opposed to when it goes to a government agency where likely those conversations are gonna happen without any Without a significant amount of input from people who it's directly affecting so if you're able to get involved early on and be able to to really stress the responsible use of these these aircraft then It shows good faith and it keeps that from becoming the next big like drone control issue Even if it eventually gets there, it'll slow the tide a little bit Uh Hey, check this out the British repair shop bite BYTE apparently got its mitts on an Apple to watch or an Apple watch to an apple to now Hey, I'd pay good money for an Apple to watch. I want an Apple to GS watch. Ah, I want an Apple to E watch I know what I want Anyway, they got their hands on a display from one of these new watches that have yet to be announced So again, we're still working in room your territory, but apparently this is helping confirm them The component they took the component did a tear down video released it this morning Mac rumors Reports the bite was able to remove the displays cover glass and touch panel using extreme cold So beware in the Arctic I suppose of buying you Apple watch anyway bite is quoted as saying on the display is quote of the most Advanced display of its kind unquote with incredibly thin build that incorporates cutting-edge technology Tomorrow so we may find out what the crap that thing is, but I guess that's exciting. I've been As a consumer of Apple products I've been waiting for an iteration on the on the watch before I have any interest in it and then this one might be the one So yeah, my wife has an Apple one watch My wife has the original Apple watch and I may keep an eye out and see if this could be a nice anniversary gift for her because It sounds like the advances are pretty pretty cool. It sounds like there might be a GPS sensor in there as well the fact that It's also interesting that even though the display is thinner and it allows for a more thin build The actual watch itself is about the same thickness and that's because the battery is larger Which means you don't have to worry about these various new components draining the battery life Faster and making it a really cool gadget to wear for three hours I'm always a big proponent of this idea of taking your thing whatever it is a phone watch whatever and Making it as thin as you can but not making it thinner and just instead filling that space with as much battery power as possible Yeah, it is the one thing that no matter what we do no matter what model we move to and there's I mean I've just some examples of improved battery life Certainly Android had some real rough days in the beginning with battery life If it was a bad time and now you can get really good battery life on an Android phone iPhones are fine, but if there's anything we can always use more of and we never have enough of it's You know battery longevity So if they are gonna make it thinner and still have it be essentially the same form factor Totally fine with that if you're filling the rest of it with more battery Yeah, it's not like that Apple watch is this huge clunky thing that sits on your wrist and weighs down your arm So I think I think in this case. It's the right way to go. I agree with you entirely on this Scott Well, good. I like to be agreed with entirely Only few if you agree with me partially got no time for you The myth mother's myth myth busters build a team say that 20 times fast to grant in Mahara carry Byron and Tori Belichi if you miss those guys, I got some really good news for you They're coming to Netflix in a tweet Saturday Tori Belichi said the show is called the white rabbit project And it will debut glory globally on Netflix December 9th deadline reported the three hosts follow Alice in Wonderland's example and go down a rabbit hole to investigate weird events in pop culture science and history early topics include super power tech If it does exist doesn't really Criminal heists jail breaks and unusual war weapons However, unlike the on the myth busters way over there. There will be no busting of myths the white rabbit project Is different says Carrie Byron. She also tweeted that the white rabbit project will be produced by beyond television productions That is the same company responsible for myth busters and as many people know season before Last or was it mid-season? I can't remember now that build team was let go a little unceremoniously I thought and kind of out of nowhere And we knew the show was winding down in general But everyone thought that was a little odd and as far as anyone know there knows there was no like On-set problems or anything like that. It was more of a producer's maybe a cost issue who knows But I am very happy to see them moving on and doing something else. Yeah, me too I'm very curious to find out if Jefferson airplane will do their theme song Wouldn't that be great one pill makes you larger Yeah, I I'm really excited about this I like the idea that it's not too far removed from what they were doing before but given a slightly different context It also opens up to all sorts of different kinds of experimentation some of it reminds me of stuff that Some youtubers have been doing for a while where they take like superpowers and they say all right well clearly We don't have superpowers, but what could we do with technology and science that would most Approximate that super power in real life. I hope that that's the kind of thing we're gonna start seeing from this show as well Yeah, it feels like it feels like the show is basically a YouTube YouTube channel with funding Platform or at least a bigger starter platform I mean he also I mean Netflix is just on a roll when it comes to producing original content There's a lot of stuff out there that Netflix has brought Over the last couple of years I mean, you know, they've obviously been hitting it out of the park with stuff like House of Cards and Orange is the New black, but they've been really doing some great work with a couple of you know Exceptions Fuller House for example When now listen, we know there's a whole generation of you who love that that thing but good luck to you And it's great, and I'm glad you But I'm with like documentaries There's been great comedy specials Animation like they're getting into all sorts of things and I'm happy to see them in the kind of reality TV I want which is science based kind of discovery channel-esque sort of approach to this stuff Right, but I'm not looking forward to is the eventual sort of big brother style thing that they end up doing because you know That's coming. Yeah, I I love the idea that we're getting some of that really that curiosity focused programming the idea of Is this possible if not why not or if it is what do we have to do in order to achieve it that kind of thing? I love those programs and I'm very very anxious to see the first couple of episodes of this to see how it turns out The nice thing is it's Netflix, right? We're gonna get a whole season at once Yeah, that's absolute truth. Well, we love these stories today including that one big Thanks to Oscar buzz out loud the tadpool everyone who participates in the subreddit You guys know who you are submit your stories and vote for them at daily tech news show that reddit Com and that is the end of the headlines All right Got a quick discussion topic here. There is an article on tech crunch titled to this. It's my favorite title of the week We're at peak complexity and it sucks Now before I get into some of this, I know that you disagree with some points made in this article and I want to get to those But a couple of a couple of quotes here or I think are important to read for example This one says technology can either be applied at the core or at the edge and they're talking about sort of existing businesses existing commerce Companies have been around for a long time. They're now faced with new technologies And he goes on to say and a generation of leaders consciously or unconsciously have placed it In new units in innovation labs in all manner of bit-sized chunks all on the periphery meaning on the outside of the core business The new has actually been marginalized and if it's a way of thinking That could it's a way of thinking that could threaten them new thinking has been something to process not a new core of opportunity Do I to ideate around? I don't know what that means. Does that just mean have ideas around? Yes It's a terrible use of a word. They should never use it strike it from Anyway, it's also I'm sure it's real But anyway, it's as if managing a slow decline into their retirement was their aim not unleashing potential to repel their businesses into the future If you boil it down the argument is that if you're an existing company Let's use airlines for example because the article did And it says alright, you've got a weird combination right now of people standing behind green DOS looking screens. They're about eight inches wide typing on keyboards and Using the phone to switch your flight around but to get to the airport that day You did something entirely on your app from a train somewhere in the middle of nowhere using LTE coverage And so you've got this like amazing real technology or new technology over here on this one side that let the whole thing happen in the first place and now You're at the airport fighting Archaic methods of getting stuff done I agreed with this article almost entirely and I think it's it makes a very important distinction between complicated and complex Those are two very different things And he is his argument is that things are too complicated and for no reason and partly because people are just scared of it and they don't like the change and young businesses like oh, I don't know Uber and I don't know I can't give anything else right now But all all the companies you can think of like Airbnb and those kinds of companies It's like they have a fresh slate to draw on they have the technology now So everything's based on it and that's where they put their stakes and they're exploding old companies are like I don't know what to do with this new stuff I guess we could have an idea machine over and you know one of our offices and see how that goes So where do you where do you disagree with this because I know you don't there's some of this You're just not buying so in the interest of full disclosure My wife works for a major airline and she works on the website side of things she works in QA so she Very much familiar with this issue because again the stuff that a consumer sees on the web is Very different than the stuff a ticket agent would see on that You know line command style terminal that you were talking about just a second ago And even that is different than the stuff you would get on an app where it's it's tried to they try to make it as simple as possible Here's the problem. I have a lot of the companies. They're talking about have these big legacy systems And the reason they have legacy systems is not because the companies don't want to move on to something more Sophisticated and more elegant. It's because The legacy system is what works It's what does all the work for the company and to recreate that would be such a huge investment of both time and money and then beyond that in training your workforce to use that new technology and But just the testing alone to make sure that it all works properly and that there's not going to be any kind of Miscommunication on the technology side of things. It is a monumental task. It may end up being one that Absolutely, do you think it comes down to this like it's a cost It's a cost thing and it's a risk thing and that's it because if you said to me Hey Scott, my name is John Strickland and I'm gonna start a new airline today. Oh, what's that about? Well, we're gonna fly people all over the place and oh, well, how are you gonna do that? Well, we're gonna base it on today's cutting-edge technology. Well, of course you'd do that You wouldn't say I'm gonna go with an old mainframe made in the 50s And and I'm gonna build a bunch of green terminals and put them all over the place You're not gonna do that because why because you're establishing it now not then so is this just purely a Well, we bought all this copper wire Fiber sure looks neat and all but we got to use this stuff. We put in the ground. Is it that I mean? It's that but again going to the complicated versus complex When when they brought up air airlines in this particular article, I really sat up and took notice because There's nothing I can imagine that is more complicated a business to run than a major airline I'm talking like global airline because every single element you have is Important and if any one element fails It has a Cascading effect through the rest of the business right if a flight from LA to Atlanta is now is never able to take off Then not only do those people not get to Atlanta But everyone in Atlanta who was gonna get on that flight to fly to Chicago now their aircraft has been taken off the line So there have to be computer systems to handle all of these different Scenarios so that you can figure out. Well, how can we reroute what aircraft do we have that are not in use? What crew do we have who we who can actually fly this because we have customers who are in Atlanta? They paid for a ticket to Chicago the folks in LA. We're gonna try and take care of them. How do we get this to work? They have built this over decades on Systems and just to there's not an easy way for you to port that over Even if you have brand new equipment if if the computer fairy appeared out of nowhere and waved a magic wand and Gave a whole bunch of free Technology to these major airlines. There's no guarantee that they would be able to incorporate that on any You know on any foreseeable timescale because it's just too massive an issue There's there's inertia that's been built up over decades of business So I think what happened was my objection was raised because the specific example in this article the general thought then a lot of these companies are just Utilizing technology along the edges and it doesn't permeate into the core business I agree with that with the airline industry in particular. I Think there are so many pieces in play that it's not a totally fair thing to say It would just it I think the author might underestimate how monumental a task it would be to Transition from the existing system into a new one. That's a good point companies are different places I'm gonna agree with you on this point. I don't think there's a magic wand for this There is no way to do this overnight. There's no way to do this inexpensively everything We've talked about costs a lot of money He asked questions like this would hotel reception desks if they were to start today Would they be large stationary units that host bulky desktop computers to get your registrations done? No, they wouldn't if you started fresh today It'd be a guy walking around and with a with a phone in his hand and doing everything You know while you're standing and waiting in the in the lobby or something Or you'd line up to much smaller kiosk or something like that. He's right about that. Yeah, he's saying is in practical terms Spend millions of dollars Marriott and rip out all of your stations take all that stuff out the software You've managed to make me for years rip it all out at once and then spend all the money It takes to get the new system into place. Here's the other thing he forget So I will agree with you that that is that's something the article seems to just forget is a thing And not every company has got huge cash reserves to make a giant turn over like that Or wants to invest in something like that because maybe they need to invest elsewhere So I totally get that but then here's the other side of it. What do you do? What do you tell them that same hotel in 20 years? Gosh, I can't believe you guys are still walking around with phones Where's your VR haptic suits like all the other small businesses that are cropping up and building themselves on this new technology? Everybody's new technology is somebody else's old technology two decades later so Either your company has to be able to survive a cycle of constant Evolution and iteration on the technology front Or you're gonna have this problem where people like well We've got what works we need to stick with that for as long as we can before we have to invest in this again This article kind of ignores all of that which I think it's a little you have to have a transition plan, right? You have to have like a multi-year transition plan and you have to reconcile the fact that by the time you are done Transitioning especially for these big big companies like Marriott's a great example Well, you think well to do that with one hotel. That's no big deal Marriott owns hotels all around the world and if you want to be able to have a global rollout of this technology That is an enormous investment, right? That is as huge and you have to make sure that it works properly Otherwise you may make an investment that and something that ultimately hurts your business, so You have to have these multi-year plans and you reconcile the fact that by the time you're done with the transition the technology You're brand new technology that you've rolled out is already obsolete Because you can't stay that close up to date on the really really big companies Smaller ones, you know, they have a lot more maneuverability They have a lot more flexibility the larger ones they trade in on their reputation So for example 20 years in the future if I go to Marriott and I look at their old Terminals that they're still using I might think to myself. Well that technology is out to date But man at least they don't have those robotic bed bugs that that other super cool hipster hotel has with all the touchscreen stuff Yeah, no, it's a good point. I think I'm landing in the middle somewhere I'd love the idea of companies being more forward thinking about getting themselves where they need to be with technology But I don't think it's as simple as just saying they need to there's a lot more to it Yeah, you have your own thoughts out there You want to send those in make sure you send us your emails feedback at daily tech news show Dot-com and we'll check it out. Also. Don't forget send your picks of the day in to the feedback of daily tech news show Dot-com we didn't do anyone one of those today, but if you get a minute, it won't hurt now Roger may jump in on this final Email we've got today. I don't know so Roger if you do you feel free to pop in buddy But we got an email from Yaru in Malaysia had a few comments about Friday's show trying to remember who hosted that day Hmm. Oh shoot. It was me. All right. He says this I think it's not exactly fair to compare old devices to new ones in terms of longevity. Usually the older devices are much more expensive Even after adjusting for inflation also doesn't this contradict what you said on Wednesday show about the newer electronics All lasting longer Yeah, it kind of does. That's the funny thing. You're I will not argue that point. I would I made this point Wednesday that phones are lasting longer The we're in the longer more dimension less, you know diminishing returns sort of space when it comes to video game consoles and graphics technologies we're just getting a lot more out of what is cutting edge today than we used to and We're not seeing quite the You know the turnover effect that we used to and then on Friday I kind of contradicted that But I also think we talked on Friday about specific markets. We talked about refrigerators should be a thing You don't have to pay for once a year You shouldn't have to get a television every year. You shouldn't have to The example of the iron that my grandma had and gave to me that still works that she bought in 1953 As opposed to the crappy g1. I got the last of me like six months and broke I think certain markets there may be a little bit of that pre-planned sort of obsolescence built into it But anyway, yeah, like like AR VR headsets. That's going to be that's going to be the big thing moving forward Right. Those are going to be the ones that you're going to see that rapid cycle Yeah, you're going to have to right like if they well if it follows if it falls in the footsteps of phones at all In terms of innovation rate, you're going to see first models like whoa Wow neat next model is going to be like, oh my gosh half the size Way better fidelity Half the power being you know, whatever and then the next one it's bigger fill the view the you see no edges Now you're wearing them in public and no one even knows like that's going to happen fast and furious assuming that the market continues to adopt Um and and costs of components go down and all that stuff like it did with phones I don't if you remember, but you know the original android phones and certainly the iphone were ridiculously expensive When they launched and that's changed quite a bit. So So yeah, he's he's got these interesting points, but he basically concludes by saying Uh, I think the discussion on friday show was a good one But I have to agree with some if not all the conclusions and recommendations Perhaps someday modular phones, which is something I wanted to talk about real quick will be possible But it doesn't look like a viable option anytime soon Uh and not one that would be popular in game changing anyway so he's talking about the idea of modular phones and Sort of the the lego brick approach to building a phone That is not an idea anyone will embrace and I would just remind this Uh listener and others That my example here would be this I remember when people told me that all in one devices were never going to happen They were too much Average at all things not good at any one thing. That was always the complaint So if you wanted to organize your life, you would buy a palm pilot if you wanted to have a phone You'd buy a motorola, you know flip phone or whatever and if you wanted to get A decent fax machine you'd have to get this brand and I'm going to get this kind of printer And never get a scanner printer copy or together because those three things are never great together You need all separate devices This was the common thinking for a very long time And now we have devices that finally figured it out and they are truly Masters of all the things that they want to do and you're doing all their all these things in one place You're connected there. You're you're browsing there. You're typing there You're submitting there you're doing all the things it would normally do with multiple devices So all I would say is this isn't so much about modular phones never being a thing This is about a company not yet figuring out how to do it best. So roger pipe in. What do you think? So, I mean, I agree with yaru on some of the points But I will say that I mean the main thrust of the discussion was that We have developed Essentially and the reason why he brought in the cars he mentioned yaru mentioned We brought in the discussion of car manufacturers is that they were one of the first large Companies to hit upon the idea of if we change a minor aspect of our automobile Whether it's completely cosmetic for example fins on the Cadillac And we market that as brand new you need to have it People kind of push forward and within two years will buy by themselves a new car because they want the latest and greatest And the argument isn't that there should be no innovation that should stop completely Is that there shouldn't necessarily be a reason to upgrade from year to year all the time For every for for for every you know for every new phone You need to upgrade to that no rather it should be that you get a phone and it should work As it was intended to do For the life of the product there should not be any kind of software update that suddenly blunts Its performance or its capabilities because you're kind of pushing people to get The next big thing that the company is producing in the same way with appliances Whirlpool doesn't suddenly send out an update then turns your washer into a crappy washer Like it can no longer get out the the the grass stains out of your jeans after you play touch football Because they want you to upgrade to a new washer Even though that's kind of what they're trying to do with a lot of their connected technologies It's that as an appliance says the durable good It should last you at least five years before you need to do it I have a I had a pc next to me that I put together in 2008 It ran until last year when I upgraded pretty much all the parts except the power supply In the case itself, and I spent about 800 bucks I think that was kind of the along the lines of what we were talking about in terms of Modularity for cell phones in that hey, you know what the processor works great It's still more than capable of running all the applications I need on the phone doesn't run every application, but just the ones I actually need And then you know what I could use a bigger bed I can pop that out and add it as a separate addition instead of necessarily buying Completely encapsulated shrink wrapped phone that I can't do anything with is one of the big gripes against The galaxy seven was that hey, you know what I cannot add a micro sd card to expand the storage space I'm stuck with 32 or the 16 gigs if I want a big, you know, larger phone I'll have to upgrade to the next one And so really the argument was against kind of a corporate philosophy of consumer electronics Where we'll just we'll we'll iterate very slightly because it keeps the cost low Cost low for us But we'll sell to you as a g bit g whiz Brand new feature that you need to have and you're going to punk down another 600 bucks So, you know, they can buy another boat for the kid part of the problem is they use the software updates as The the fin on the back of the Cadillac in other words The phone and the hardware are fine But and they'll even say well, you've got an iPad 2 or you've got a nexus 3 or whatever Sorry camp with the latest version of android on it or camp with the latest version of iOS on it But it'll still run the previous version. So you're good and that's That is yes, maybe a way of saying What that device is capable of you are still getting to use it in that way You just can't upgrade to a better operating system But by doing that they're saying you can't have the coolest thing that's out now Or they lock it down. So you can't put an alternative os or a third party os on your phone That's filled with bugs because you can't upgrade the you can't upgrade its os because it's too old and you're forced to buy anyone Yeah, exactly your window your windows machines only in a renex p. Sorry, and I know that's big piece of swiss cheese, but All those windows 10 people over here will buy a new computer and everything be fine John you want to weigh in on this? I mean So many points that you've made so far that I really agree with one of the one is that you know You talk about how the modular phone. Maybe it's not a bad idea. Maybe it's just an idea that isn't quite ready yet That to me is like the story of half. Maybe half is being too conservative of google's projects where They come out with something and you could tell they've got an idea there But maybe it's maybe the marketplace just isn't ready for it or conditions just aren't right for it I going back to the cars analogy A lot of cars you can end up switching around options and and customizing your car to a a certain degree You know, you can't turn one model of car into a another model of car magically But you can make a lot of different little options To see that kind of work its way to phones would be interesting And really to go all the way back to the when iphone was introduced And I know this because I just watched The 2007 mac world presentation where steve jobs came out One of the points he made at the very beginning was how He didn't want to have a plastic Keyboard attached to the iphone because he that that limits what the iphone can do right? You can only use the buttons that are there because they are physical buttons And anyone who makes an app for the iphone would have had to have mapped their application to these Buttons, even if that wasn't the ideal Interface for that app by getting rid of the buttons and allowing the whole screen to become an interface suddenly you open that up It's funny because I I think the whole modular approach is that same spirit It's that same idea. It just goes beyond your interface with an app to everything about the phone And that's where you see apple say Well, maybe not that far that might be going a bit too far for us Yeah, well, they're just not there yet Like I said, even apple could get there But they we've got to get to a place where we're not talking about well I really wish that wasn't so loose and shaky on the end that new modem thing I put on there I wish that battery pack Wasn't making it so much heavier like like all of those things feel clunky and weird And we're just not to a place yet where certainly not apple and not even most android manufacturers are going to be interested in doing something modular because There's no standard to it and until somebody comes up with a I don't mean a standard everyone has to stick to But a standard of excellence and quality like how great that kind of thing can be They don't think tablets in 2003 when those running windows xp at a thousand degrees and breaking all the time Versus a nexus 7 or an ipad pro today It's worlds apart. Well, what's the difference time and iteration? We just need time and iteration Yeah, I mean you got to you got to figure out the best practices so that you you know where to go and what to avoid You have to have a system in place where you can build a really good phone out of all these various components And not feel the need to like be a power user where suddenly your phone weighs 400 pounds because you had to have that That 375th module had to fit on there so that you can have absolutely every possible Feature that the phone could support Because you know there are the we know people like that who they're going to think That they need to overclock their phone the way they would overclock a pc And by just adding every single bell and whistle. I mean I don't scott. Have you ever gone on to like a PC build site and just thought I just want to see what would happen if I chose The top option in every category How expensive would this machine be? Yeah, you'd cause a brown out in your neighborhood, but Yes, nonetheless you the temptation is is there and there will get there man And there will be if there'll be an option for my mom who just wants it to work And there'll be an option for the tweaker who wants to go crazy with every possible thing Yep, and we're going to get there and it'll be it'll make sense But it was just not there yet. So yeah, I agree big thanks on the uh feedback Big thanks to roger also of course for popping in on that if you have any thoughts on that or anything about today's episode Send your thoughts over to feedback at daily tech news show.com We are happy to always take them. All right. I got a quick audio clip to play. This is uh, A quick note from uh, james thatcher Preview of what's coming up on the next tech in trade. Hey everybody It's big jim and I just want to jump in and let you know that a new tech and trade podcast has been published It is over on our feed which you can find on itunes on google play music And on pocket cast if you don't subscribe to one of those feeds you can go to the trade nerd That's the trade nerd And we will be able to go to the podcast section and you can find it right there at the very top So thank you guys very much I didn't want to put it in this feed because it's running about 16 minutes And I didn't want you guys to come after me with knives and pitchforks Pitchforks pitchforks. Yep. That's it. Bye pitchforks Gotta watch out for those pitchforks Never throw your pork now. I want barbecue. I know right actually great name for barbecue place pitchfork You heard it here first Huge huge thanks goes to jonathan strickland today for joining us here Of course senior writer for house stuff works and many other projects Where can we find more john strickland on the internet sir? house stuffworks.com now Dot house stuffworks.com which is our news oriented site fw thinking.com That's the forward thinking site and you can find me on twitter at john strickland j o in Strickland. Well, it was a pleasure having you. I hope we get to do this again sometime soon Big big thanks to everybody who supports the show patreon.com slash dtns Uh or buy a mug on the store tell a friend Submit headlines daily tech daily tech headlines.com is a great place to find the other little mini show tom does Where it's most of the day's headlines in very short form So you can check that out there Details at daily tech news show dot com. Of course our email address is feedback at daily tech news show dot com Catch the show monday through friday for 30 p.m. Eastern at alpha geek radio dot com and diamond club dot tv Visit the web daily tech news show dot com tomorrow's guests. Lloyd case and peter wells and me We'll see you then This show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frog pants dot com Diamond club hopes you have enjoyed this bro And scene Awesome great job Good show I gotta get you on uh tech stuff sometimes scott. I need to uh have you on and talk about the frog pants network I would love to do that That would be super keen as the kids say back in 1928 I'll email you Yeah, that'd be great. Just email me anytime. Yep. I'd love it So roger so much great. How long didn't mean to go so long, but we're gonna a tiny bit long I'm sorry. I'm I always I always make these shows go long. It was all good content. All good Uh, let me see titles. Uh, you're my blank to my blank Uh, next one is comp peak city So basically emerge of complex and peak. It's complexity stupid. How strict them works with slack The computer fairy simplifying tech is complex Peak complexity versus cost of tech Uh, microsoft takes up the slack Microsoft takes up the slack. Not bad. Yeah, I like that one John Strickland is old That was early Yeah, the revolution will be incremental like takes the slack You're my blank to blank try to figure where that came from. I don't know. Yeah That was at the very beginning where we were talking about the great pairs. You're my steve jobs to My bill gates to my steve jobs That's you got to flicks busters comes in coming in second come peak city Come peak city. Oh, yeah complexity and peak. Yeah, it's a complexity stupid. I do like it's the complexity stupid It's very uh bad. That was not bad Yeah beat master Flexors Give it a couple more seconds See, um, john, thank you so much. You were a great help. I know especially after a long labor day weekend Oh, it was fine. It was fine. Yeah. No, this was good. Um Gave me a reason to come into the office today typically on tuesdays I would work from home, but my home internet is uh For anyone who listens to the the show I do with ias act are a podcast without pretense They know that my home internet is completely unreliable and has been for about five months. Oh, we're good Is it cable mode or is it fiber? Uh, it's a cable modem. It's uh, you know, I don't want to say the name of the company it rhymes with bombast And uh, I know them. Yeah Yeah, so we've I've had technicians out multiple times. We've swapped out equipment Honestly, I think at this point, uh, my guess is that well, there's one there's a neighborhood issue I think But comcast keeps telling me there's not although every time the technician comes out He's like no the note is going crazy, man. It's not just you So I don't know what that is, but uh, the other issue is that It gets hot here in atlanta. I don't know if you know that Uh, and I think that the heat is causing an issue where my my cable the where the cable comes into the house Where it's joined right there at the junction box Uh, that wall faces east By 11 by 11 a.m That connection starts getting squirrely and I think what's happening is the expansion is making the connectors no longer work connect Yeah That's my and I don't know how to fix that. Uh, apart from maybe just dumping ice water on On it every every hour. I mean you could splice yourself a new cable and And join them, but I'm not sure if comcast would Be happy if you did that. Yeah, I don't know. Well, google fiber is in atlanta and it's slowly making its way to my house so Well, once you get it, let us know how it works because I would love to pester google I think we're actually possibly getting it here at the office, which will be cool It's it they're you know, they're doing it throughout the city neighborhood by neighborhood And I'm technically in the pre planning Section where there's not a a pre construction stage. So I'm I'm probably at least another year away Before they get to that assuming that they stick with fiber and they don't go with a wireless strategy at that point All right, let me it's the complexity stupid wins All right Let me uh say goodbye to everyone on uh the alpha geek radio. Thank you for listening see you tomorrow be lots of Hopefully cool stuff. I don't know apple has a as a way of Potentially disappointing. I don't know. Well, whatever they set the bar a little high now. It's hard to do it All right, see you guys tomorrow and then And uh, thank you Viewers and everyone in the chat room stop in the broadcast. No all right