 Coming up on DTS, the Microsoft duo is here, but for who? Oh, the world's supply chain begins to split in two and plant based eggs that leave chickens alone. This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, August 12th, 2020 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from studio Redwood. I'm Sarah Lane and Salt Lake City. I'm Scott Johnson from Southern California. The show's producer Roger Chang. We were just talking about Zeus and his relationship with superheroes on good day internet. If you want to get more of that conversation, you got to become a member at patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. The Wall Street Journal reports that TikTok exploited a bug in Android to collect Mac addresses, a hardware identifier, without notifying users. The practice ended last November, supposedly. Mac addresses are often used by advertising services to track user behavior across apps and websites. TikTok says the current version of its app does not collect Mac addresses. We'll see. Electronic Art says it will add more skin tones and hairstyles to the game Sims 4. Very popular version of that game, by the way, in response to black streamers and others from the Sims 4 community asking for better representation. Sims 4 executive producer Lindsey Pearson also said it is a priority for the team to fix current problems with some skin tones in the game, adjusting the quote blotchy artifacts and ashy tones on quote added in previous updates. Waze updated its Android and iOS apps to notify users worldwide if they're approaching a railroad crossing and there's a reason why back in 2016, the National Transportation Safety Board asked tech companies for the feature after a truck driver collided with a train while using Google Maps. Google owned Waze's volunteer map editors verified railroad crossing data provided by organizations and rail network operators like MTA Long Island Railroad Amtrak, the Railway Association of Canada, the Secretary of Communications and Transportation of Mexico, Waze had to rely on its local map editors alone in some other parts of the world. This is the stuff of nightmares as a person who hates train tracks anyway. Thank you Waze. Dropbox announced an upcoming password manager secure vault for sensitive files and computer backup features back in June, all of which are now available to global users. Although it depends on what tier you're on, Dropbox Passwords will only be available on its plus and professional plans. Dropbox Vault is only available for plus and family plan users, but computer backup is now available for those on all tiers including Dropbox's free basic plan. Song lyrics service Genius sued Google for displaying its version of song lyrics and search results without credit. Genius has used alternating styles of apostrophes to identify its versions. Tuesday, US Federal Judge Margot Brody ruled that Google's scraping of the lyrics was not copyright infringement since the lyrics belong to the composer, not to genius. Yeah, genius move there. Sorry, go ahead. Damn you, Tom. Twice in two days in a row. What are you doing to me? I'm just kidding. It's just synergy. Motorola sent out media invites for an event, invites for an event on September 9th and the invite promises to flip the smartphone experience once again. Well, okay, so it's a foldable. Yeah, got it. All right. Let's talk a little more about the fractured supply chain. Foxconn reported better than expected earnings. So we start with some good news here. Net profit for Foxconn rose 34% over the last year driven mostly by Foxconn's computer and server business. So they were assembling a lot of servers. Consumer products, which is the part of Foxconn that includes smartphones dropped 15% as you might expect. Foxconn does forecast a decline of revenue this quarter. This is going to be the biggest hit quarter, though a new iPhone is expected to boost Foxconn results next quarter. So they're going to bounce back. However, here's the big news. Foxconn chairman, New Young Wei said the company is working on separating its U.S. and Chinese supply chains. Company is investing in plants in other parts of Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam, Mexico, Brazil, other places. They've got a plant in Wisconsin, for instance. Lou said the percentage of the company's products made outside of China has risen from 25 to 30% and may continue to rise. I think he meant to say will continue to rise because Lou did say China's quote days as the world's factory are done. Dang. Yeah, that's some shade right there. I have to admit something kind of quick here. I'd learned something today in our pre-show. I'd actually toured Foxconn factories in China back in the early aughts and I was under the impression because they told me there that they were founded in China. And before the show, you guys informed me. No, they're founded in Taiwan. Oh, Taiwan. Yeah. Hanhai is the original name of the country. They sometimes go by Foxconn, sometimes by Hanhai, but same couple. So they were just giving me, I don't know what they were doing. They're just giving me a lot. There's a little, the backstory there is China considers Taiwan part of China. So if you're in China and they're talking about where Foxconn was founded, they'll say it was founded in China because they consider Taiwan part of China. Yeah, good point. Yeah. Well, okay, so from just from a shift in thinking kind of thing, a big, that's a big statement days as the world's factory are gone in China. That's crazy talk or at least it sounds crazy because that's just been the way for a really long time. Do you think that's real? Like do you think they really mean like we're going to shift away from China in a massive way? Certainly Foxconn plans to, but well, and Foxconn's a big company. And if Foxconn can do 25 to 30% of its business outside of China already, I do believe that it will continue to rise, especially when you make statements like that. China, you know, world factory, listen, there are a lot of factories in China. It's not going to end tomorrow, but if, if other companies follow suit, then that this is, you know, it's a big move. Yeah, seems I will add one bit to it is that the the cost of labor in China has progressively gone up for the past five years. So the kind of economic equation that used to exist a decade ago in China no longer exist as the, as, as basically the working age population gets older. There's fewer working people in the country. Prices are salaries go up. A lot of companies are looking, finding ways to cut costs and that would mean moving to cheaper labor areas like in Southeast Asia, India of the locations. Yeah, here, right? Happened in America, happened in Japan. So maybe it's China's turn to, I mean, the trade pressure isn't is accelerating things. The pandemic is probably accelerating things too, but Roger's right. Like it was already getting expensive. So Vietnam was already starting to look like a, a, a good alternative. India looking like a good alternative with some subsidies. Brazil looking like a good alternative. So yeah, not, not surprised. So what does this mean for China, Sarah? Yes. Lest you think China will say, all right, I guess we had our day. Nikei Asian reduced sources are saying that Chinese chip companies QXIC and HSMC have each hired more than 50 former TSMC engineers since last year as China builds up its domestic chip supply and cuts reliance on foreign suppliers. Both companies are led by X TSMC executives and are developing a 12 and 14 nanometer chip processes. China has the world's most new and planned chip plants and will top all other countries in spending on chip making equipment in 2020 and 2021. Chinese chip companies have been luring away top engineering talent in Taiwan and South Korea with lucrative packages. Nikei sources also say that TSMC employees were offered packages as high as 2.5 times their annual salary and bonuses. So we've seen this happen in Silicon Valley, right? You know, the most recent example I could think of is Tesla and Apple and people, you know, swapping back and forth and accusations of poaching. It's not a surprise to me that China wants to build up its chip building inside when there is so much pressure to not sell to Huawei, for instance, right? But they've got a long way to go. 12 and 14 nanometer chip processes are several years behind. That said, don't count that as the end of the story because China has a history of starting from behind, throwing money and labor at a problem and building it up until they catch up and sometimes surpass. They've done it in AI. They've done it in a few other arenas as well. So, you know, this is just the beginning of that. It is interesting to me, though, that these, whether these could end up being like other businesses that China makes where they start by serving China and then start selling to the rest of the world. That's how China became the world's factory. At this point, they're building the chip processing because the chip processing is moving out of China. So there isn't that expectation that eventually all this investment will pay off by selling to the rest of the world. I don't think that's what feels different here. It feels like an insular move. More of a we're making these for ourselves and we're going to not use all you folks are you folks are leaving. So we're going to do our own thing. That's different than we're going to catch up and then make a better thing and then sell it to the world and have it be cheaper and more accessible and whatever. So yeah, this is like a this is a flip from that for sure. Yeah, I mean, it's not as if the Chinese market isn't isn't huge. There's obviously a huge opportunity here. But to not be and listen, if we're talking a few years down the road, the global situation sometimes hard to say. But let's say that the trend does move the way Foxconn is seems to be leading the way in and which is bringing the workforce out of China and to different regions. Then yeah, you kind of go. All right. Well, with all of this R&D that's going on inside of China and it sounds like it's it's pretty aggressive. Yeah. Where do you where do you go from there? I mean, there's certainly regions in Africa and you know the Middle East that you know might come to mind. But it it's a it's a bit puzzling. Yeah. Yeah, they definitely could sell to Africa in the Middle East. They definitely could could potentially sell to India. Although India likes to have stuff built inside, but maybe these Chinese chip companies eventually get big enough to build plants elsewhere, right? That that could be part of those two. This smells like a global shift all around to me a little bit something smells something does smell sometimes it's the back of your car driven by Uber drivers. No, it's just kidding. Uber CEO Dara Kasa Roushaya goes or shahi man. I was sure I nailed it anyway told MSNBC that Uber may have to shut down service in California until at least November. If it's forced to classify drivers as employees San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Shulman issued a preliminary injunction Monday that Uber and Lyft must classify their drivers as employees. Uber and Lyft both have 10 days to appeal the injunction which both companies intend to do. Crow a shower. Have you say it argued that making drivers employees would require such extensive changes that Uber would have to shut down to retool. He also said they might return with fewer drivers higher prices and a smaller coverage map focused on urban centers. I apologize on behalf of Daily Tech News Show to Dara Kasa Roushaya but this is a this is a good this is a this is a this is a threat. This is a good move by Uber I suppose from Uber's point of view to say hey if you're going to force us to make these folks employees California with your law then we will have to shut down Uber. Sarah I mean obviously you're in a situation where you're not in an Uber area anymore but I'm we're in a situation where people are using Uber. I don't know this has the impact that it would have had. I mean they're using Uber for delivery of food but not so much for the riding around. Yeah when I first read this threat which I agree it is I was like really we're going to you know I mean they're not shutting down they say they might have to shut down because they simply can't transition into a company that has you know a bunch of W2 employees overnight and I suppose that's true because it's a very large company and there's all sorts of you know municipalities that they have to deal with in different regions but and yes I don't I don't think I've taken an Uber since I left LA and that's just because I don't know I mean I could get one but it's just way less convenient and I'm in just a different situation in my life now but nobody's taking Ubers anymore. And so when I think about if I lived back in LA or say San Francisco you know two areas where it's where it's a huge thriving company and platform and life was normal I might be like three months like that would kind of suck I mean I could use lift I suppose but lift might have a similar problems on its own or figure out something else but but I don't know how many people are up in arms right now because you know Uber has taken a huge nosedive as far as riders go because nobody wants to be again in close quarters inside in the back of someone's car yeah I would say you could switch from Uber eats to Postmates and DoorDash but aren't those companies also facing the same situation they're just not getting as much pressure that's like are those guys in the same boat they probably are right because you're still talking about they're just not getting sued by by several cities Attorneys General and the state of California they're not that big I guess and then also you never I mean who knows what other states and other cities end up doing when they watch this and see how it pans out because I know there's others are probably itching to do something similar some yeah so yeah good luck to everybody in California I will say that that while this is being used as a threat and there's no mistake about that Cozer Shah he doesn't go on MSNBC to say this if he doesn't want to have an effect there is reality behind it taking and thousands and thousands of independent contractors and converting them to full-time employees is a tall order in an operation this large and an expensive one you now have to onboard them you have to pay payroll tax you're not going to be able to afford to pay as many of them as you could before because you have to pay for benefits and payroll tax and all of that sort of thing on top of it remember payroll tax isn't just the tax that comes out of the employees check it's also tax that the company has to pay just for the privilege of employing someone so this is going to increase cost it's going to increase complexity they probably do have to shut down for a period of time and so that's why I say it's a smart move for uber because it makes sense to say well this is going to have a horrible impact on us let's use that let's use that to drum up support and higher prices for consumers on the other side of this isn't going to make anybody happy either and and just think of the complexity of because the whole idea is like you're an uber driver you could drive in lots of places because that's the beauty of it right well if you're an employee and you leave California and you move to I don't know Colorado and taxes are different there and you got to deal with that person individually but the whole point is that they should be able to be mobile that gets weird weird in a way that uber is not ready for well director Martin Scorsese is ready for a new multi-year deal with Apple TV plus that he just signed it to produce and direct film and TV projects orders reports that Scorsese's next film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro called killers of the flower moon will be distributed in theaters by Paramount there was a lot of speculation that Paramount thought this was just too costly and they were going to give the whole thing to Apple TV but they're not they're going to distribute it in theaters and then after it's done with its theatrical run it will come to Apple TV plus but after that Marty Scorsese has his friends call him I hear is going to be directing other projects for Apple TV and I think this shows the shift of Apple TV after the success of Greyhound to say oh we should do more movies we're not going to shut down the TV series we're making but movies are a good thing for us to get into I think they're a little bolstered at the moment too for all the nominations they got for the Emmys I think that surprised them but they ended up doing kind of well there not that that reflects on single standalone although that's TV not movies right you're right you're right but that that idea that their service served up some being taken seriously potentially award-winning stuff puts them in the park with Hulu and Netflix and others who have enjoyed that kind of critical and you know award success so I'll go wherever he goes because I just like Scorsese movies a lot and it really doesn't matter to me where he's at the only question is you know whether it's a service I truly subscribe to and if not you get on there for a month you watch his stuff you get out and it's still cheaper than seeing a movie in a theater so I'm down for whatever Scorsese wants to do yeah me too when I heard multi-year deal I was like awesome just keep doing things I mean it's if you don't like Martin Scorsese that's one thing and he certainly likes to work with the same actors over and over and the Irishman was really long but that all said I think this is a huge boon for Apple TV plus and I look forward to seeing what they what they get up to yeah first to Caprio film since oh six we figured since the departed first of DeCaprio and DeNiro together since oh right right right so that'll be that'll be good to see well it's the last time he also worked with the Caprio as a director Scorsese I mean so the fact that they're gonna get all together again and have some rad thing happen I mean this is my jam so I honestly he could have made a deal with Fubo and I'd go so it's fine go wherever you want and who knows what the theatrical window is gonna look like by the time the stuff starts coming out but the fact that Apple TV does play nicer with the theaters is probably a boon for somebody like Scorsese who wants to have big theatrical releases the Irishman didn't get as big of a theatrical release because Netflix didn't respect the 90-day window well I want to ask you both if you think plant-based meets like the impossible burger or perhaps beyond burger are cool yes old news come on we gotta have something you're so right Tom you could you could feel my setup from through the computer those are the darlings of CES past my friends because the new frontier is plant-based eggs that's right you heard me a Mumbai startup called Evo Foods is taking proteins from legumes and other plants to create a 100% plant-based liquid egg doesn't have any cholesterol doesn't need antibiotics no chickens that's huge Evo says that the protein content is the same as a natural egg as is the texture and taste but Evo is not the only company to be doing this another company called just has already sold 40 million plant-based eggs and India's plant made also sells plant-based scrambled eggs Evo's liquid egg is due to launch in October prices will likely be about 60% higher than natural eggs but expected to fall as production scales up and hopefully people buy them India Indonesia Vietnam and Brazil are also considered lucrative markets for plant-based foods yeah so that this is a this is a startup area of food science that that's heating up no pun intended heating up your scrambled eggs like an egg right got it but yeah India being a big market is what Evo is banking on right because just foods is already selling these in the U.S. and other places so Evo wants to move in on the vegan and vegetarian market in India which is a big one and potentially other places as well and we continue to see kind of the intermarriage of technology with with plant-based foods for some reason because of the I guess because of the technology and science that's needed to make it yeah I needed to make it taste good because that's it's like a lot of companies could do this but only you know you're not always going to get it right yeah to me that's 100% the thing I mean I'm looking at this from his personal point of view as I can if there's if these egg plant-based eggs taste good the way that impossible meat and other meat products have gotten better and I don't feel like I'm eating something weird every time I eat an egg I am all down with this like no problem bring it on I would rather have plant-based everything if it tasted as good as the you think it's you know faking so yeah just just have it be good and that's the trick if it doesn't taste good or it tastes like a you know like mowing the lawn or something weird like that I'm out I can't I can't eat your weird plant-based eggs at that point now yeah I was a go ahead Tom another thing that Mayor Watt in our chat room is saying is that you have to eat it within seven days or it starts separating and comes out in chunks that that it that doesn't like keep as long as as an actual egg so that's a problem he's talking about the just food version of this I don't know maybe evil be better sure and I mean as somebody who really loves a fried egg you know and I take great pride in how I very rarely break a yolk this would be this would be a different version of an egg you know you get the egg taste maybe and maybe it tastes really great but it's a different experience altogether but as somebody who I was once a you know staunch vegetarian and there were a lot of like meat alternatives and there weren't any egg alternatives but I certainly would have tried them at the time you know a lot of that stuff is it just it's kind of nasty and you want to do the right thing and particularly when you think about the fact you know that the farming industry you know if it moved to a plant-based situation rather than something that's all poultry can benefit people in many other ways whether or not you care if it's real eggs or not that it's it's it's an exciting future yeah we like to bring you the exciting future here folks sometimes you don't have a full 30 minutes for it that's okay get all the tech headlines each day in five minutes daily tech headlines dot com the other exciting future is foldables Microsoft's dual screen Android device the Surface Duo is available for pre-order now for $1,399 dollars arriving September 10th not going to accuse me of not being excited about this product the Surface Duo has to 1800 by 1355.6 inch 60 Hertz OLED screens now when you unfold it those screens connect to form an 8.1 inch workspace but it's not a single screen like with the Samsung Galaxy fold because there's still the hinge in the middle and Microsoft's like we're not trying to be that we're not trying to to have a foldable screen we're just trying to make a bigger workspace the displays are both gorilla glass as a result because they don't have to bend and they work as side by side mob monitors essentially it's 4.8 millimeters thick so not very big that's when it's open of course it folds up it's 9.9 millimeters even then it's not too bad also the widest ever Android phone as ours Technica pointed out 93 millimeters wide that is bigger than even the biggest galaxy note that ever existed it uses 11 megapixel camera that can record 4k video at up to 60 frames per second runs on a Snapdragon 855 last generation processor not the 865 6 gigs of RAM not a lot 128 or 256 gigs of storage has LTE not 5G but maybe you don't care and two batteries one under each screen that combined for 3,577 milliamp hours the specs aren't top notch they're okay but they're not top notch also as a fingerprint reader support for surface pen all Android apps can run on it and there are surface duo made apps and an API out for developers to make more of them that take advantage of the dual display and could like put the keyboard in one side or no taking in one side you know and and and get use out of that form factor but as I mentioned it's a thousand three hundred ninety nine dollars and while that's not as expensive as the Samsung Galaxy fold it ain't cheap yeah it feels like a test to me because at that price and at these specs you're going to find out real quick who your buyers are and and will extend past the people who just have to have the coolest latest gadget or a total Android heads and have to have every model ever made or love Microsoft stuff or whatever does it extend much past that the two most exciting products I've ever seen come out of Microsoft is honestly this I think is really cool but the specs are too low and there's not a great argument for use case for me in the case of their surface studio I had the same feelings oh man this looks made for me but the specs were terrible and it performed poorly so and it was expensive so in both cases I feel like I'm being priced out and I'm not exactly sure where I want it why I would want this but maybe they're on to something I don't know I look at it and think it seems like a gimmick and it's a little weird and I don't well it's a new form factor right and so to have made the you know the form factor what it is and I agree it looks really cool the hinge in the middle I'm like that's preferable to me the foldable thing just it they all seem very precious and like they're they're going to break over time even though I don't really know what I'm talking about but this feels like a better workhorse and I like having two screens that are running independently the one single camera that was the first thing that struck me is like oh well okay not maybe not the end of the world but slightly weird when people are used to more than one and the battery life that isn't super impressive you're running two screens so even though Microsoft says oh you're going to get what 15 hours you know on a charge that may or may not be true we'll wait to see how you know some of the reviewers feel all about this but yeah that price 1400 bucks for something that is a really neat gadget and stands out from the rest but isn't totally proven yet is that's too tall of an order for me yeah I think Microsoft is putting this out as a trial to see what it's good for let's get it out in the marketplace let's see what people use it there will be enthusiasts who will buy it there will be enterprises we can convince to try it out in certain situations let's find out what it is good for and then we can improve on it and I don't condemn them for that that's a very typical thing to do with a first-generation project like this and I agree with you Sarah I think not having a foldable screen is probably a good call at this point because foldable screens are not quite there yet but I think where it's going to fall down is in the software because if you're just using regular Android apps it's awkward you don't have a keyboard on one side and your app on the other unless they have made a special version of the app and not that many of them have been made yet so when you first get this a lot of your your usage is going to be you know fitting a square peg in a round hole so to speak and it also doesn't it doesn't really address if you're a Microsoft fanboy this isn't a window this isn't a Windows device right like this is pure Android and so yeah but it's Microsoft skin so it's going to have all your office stuff on there it's going to feel like a Microsoft device I think so but it's definitely not going to feel like Windows is what I'm saying so if you if you come at this thinking I'm going to get the full Windows portable experience I think that's you're not and they're not claiming that obviously it's not like a thing they're saying but I don't know this is for someone I'm just not sure it's me well if you're sure it's you we'd love to hear about it in our discord people are popping about all sorts of tech stuff all the time you can join by linking to a patreon account at patreon.com slash dtns let's check out the mail bag I think that's a wonderful idea John wrote in and said on a recent episode you talked about how it's becoming less important to discuss raw speed and network connections and more important to discuss latency I'd like to take that one step further and say that in most cases it's actually jitter not late latency that's a bigger issue jitter being how quickly the latency is changing and by how much or the difference between a consistent 100 milliseconds of latency versus 50 milliseconds of latency and then 250 milliseconds of latency and then 500 and then 10 and over and over again that spike would I expect be far more annoying to both the network and the users that said it's a more difficult metric to explain and advertise well it looks like I have definitely going to put latency on the list of topics for season two of know a little more because because people are very interested in this and John that's a great point jitter is a bigger part of latency for a lot of people and a lot of uses than just the latency itself shout out to patrons at our master and grand master levels including Chris Allen Mike Akins and Tim deputy also patron Degracia a Daniels asked us to give a very happy birthday shout out to his wife Kristen Macdonald birthday August 12th and son K.O. birthday August 13th Oh happy birthday Kristen and Kyle Yay you get applause to while that applause is going we also like to thank Scott Johnson would fade it out just at the right time Scott Johnson what's been going on in your world well I just want to take a moment here once again and talk about the new project from Tom and I called current geek chronicles it is a rad thing we put together and we are now in full production our Kickstarter funded we are in the middle of building this thing out and we're really excited about it moreover we have a schedule to announce soon so expect something soon on that front and you can find all of this when it hits at current geek.com if you're already a listener to the show and you've got whatever podcast after you use it doesn't matter you've already got the feed if you don't have the feed it's freely available on all the services and all the apps so just go search for current geek grab it and when chronicles episode two hits you'll be ready episode one's already there if you haven't heard it but we're really proud of this we can't wait for people to try it out so go check it out current geek.com current geek on Twitter and of course Tom and I will be talking about it all the time so watch for more of that Hey folks I don't know if you've noticed but we have a store and that store sells lots of DTNS stuff in it like a like a mug or or maybe a hat or I don't know maybe a mask maybe I'm wearing one right now you can go look around and see if any of that stuff for you at dailytechnewshow.com slash store and if you'd like to send us an email well we would love that as well our email address is feedback at dailytechnewshow.com you could be like John and maybe we'll read your email the next show we're live Monday through Friday 4 30 p.m.eastern 2030 UTC find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live back tomorrow with Justin Robert Young talk to you then this show is part of the frog pants network get more at frogpants.com Bob hopes you have enjoyed this brover