 Coming up on DTNS Spotify leaps ahead in the streaming music race uber money is now a thing and lab grown meat that eats more like a steak This is the Daily Tech news for Monday, October 28th, 2019 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt Roger change the show's producer Sarah Lane is not going to be on the show today. She is Dealing with the fires up in her new area. She moved over the weekend and immediately had to evacuate the area She's doing fine. She is she's safe But there's there's a lot of logistics to deal with with what's going on up there right now So please bear with us as we we get by without Sarah possibly for another day or two We'll see we'll see how it goes in the meantime though We're very pleased to have senior editor at Engadget Nicole Lee joining us on the show. How's it going Nicole? Hey, how's it going? Happy to be here Hope everything works out well with Sarah and everybody else living in Northern California in California in general Yeah, now we were talking a lot about the fires both down here in Los Angeles and up in San Francisco We were also talking about Beef and pork if you want either or both of those conversations and more of course subscribe To good day internet at patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know Alphabet announced it fell short of analyst estimates for Q3 Attributing the miss to increase spending by Google on marketing and hardware deployments Alphabet reported a net income of 7.07 billion dollars or $10 and 12 cents a share Analysts expected $12 and 44 cents a share So that's quite a bit of a miss 12 $10 and 12 cents a share and 9.19 billion dollars in revenue compared to $13 and 6 cents a share last year Apple released iOS iPad OS and TV OS 13.2 today The TV OS version is mainly bug fixes But iOS 13.2 adds active noise cancellation to control center support for new Unicode 12 emojis about 230 of those The deep fusion feature for iPhone 11's that was shown off in the announcement as well as the ability to opt out of sharing Siri recordings as well as delete your old ones and a delete option is now available when you long press on an icon from the home screen Friday the US Department of Defense announced that Microsoft beat out Amazon for the joint enterprise defense infrastructure or Jedi Contract which will see Microsoft work with the Pentagon to modernize infrastructure with cloud services Microsoft will provide data analysis host classified military secrets and secure cloud storage switch the department to office 365 software for email and calendar and it's estimated to bring in about 10 billion dollars to Microsoft over the next decade Microsoft beat out IBM Oracle and significantly Amazon for the contract Microsoft Recently beat out Amazon for an infrastructure deal with Walmart as well Amazon want to deal with the CIA in 2013 and was expected to win this government contract as well Amazon may challenge the awarding of the Jedi contract in court. We'll see An internet attack has knocked out more than 2000 government and private websites in the country of Georgia and taken that country's National TV network as well as one other TV network off the air the origin of the attack is unknown though Some websites were replaced with images of Georgia's former president Mikhail Sakashvili Who gave up his Georgian citizenship in 2015 to become governor of Odessa in Ukraine? Microsoft updated the Xbox all-access plan in the US UK and Australia to include an upgrade path for its next-generation Hardware service starts at $20 a month in the US includes an Xbox one s all digital edition bundle Membership to Xbox live gold and Xbox game pass with tiers to receive an Xbox one s console for $23 a month and Xbox one x Console for $31 a month. You can also trade in the included Xbox for the next-generation Projects Scarlett console available at that top tier after 12 months and for the lower tiers after 18 months The revised plans will be available starting October 29th in Australia at Telstra November 5th in the UK at game and Smith's Toys and November 18th in the United States from Amazon And sources tell Reuters alphabet has made an offer to acquire Fitbit Google makes wear OS, but doesn't produce its own wearable hardware sources said There's no certainty that the negotiations will lead to a deal But apparently Google trying to buy Fitbit. We'll see if Fitbit wants to be bought I'm something to follow in the future days. All right. Let's talk a little more about Apple Looks like we're not gonna get a second Announcement from Apple at least certainly not in October with only two more days to go and because Apple announced the launch of Airpods Pro with a press release Airpods Pro come with three sizes of flexible tips so you can have a better ear fit There's a transparency mode that lets you choose to hear your surroundings Or you can choose to use the built-in noise-cancelling microphones to not hear anything in your surroundings The Airpods Pro costs $249 shipping October 30th I think a lot of people expected this to be part of a second announcement Some people thought they might hear it at the September announcement, but Apple just coming straight to market with this Nicole Yeah, and I think it's Definitely, so this is my theory that it's timed to come out the same time as Amazon's earbuds that they announced not too long ago and Amazon's earbuds if you will recall are the same kind of Concept of like those true wireless earbuds and they have they don't have Noise-canceling, but they do use Bose's noise reduction technology in those earbuds and I don't think they're after look after look at it But I don't think they're quite as expensive as Apple's models or Apple maybe it's like oh Ours is better because ours have you know noise-canceling and you have to you know It blocks out more sound or something so it sounds as if it's somewhat strategic timing in of when they're releasing it But you know, they could have been planning this for months. I mean, I don't really know But I imagine there was some flexibility in the timing on this stuff, but but only within a few months I would imagine my guess is they they just decided they didn't have enough else to announce in October With Apple TV plus launching November 1st and maybe this being the only other thing Maybe that MacBook Pro that 16-inch rumored MacBook Pro is just it's not ready Uh, that's just disappointing because I'm sure a lot of us were looking forward to getting a new MacBook I think it knows some of us. I guess me I guess I'm pretty mean that statement Are not really happy with the current generation of MacBook Pros The keyboard complaints and all of those things. So I was really looking forward to a new MacBook Pro and Maybe they'll squeeze one out by the end of the year, but it doesn't seem like it. It's already in November and then December and then This is the new year. So yeah, it doesn't look like it. Maybe they'll have like a march event or something like a spring Yeah, they often do for like for an iPhone se So somebody would announce a new laptop then yeah Or maybe they'll just come straight to us with the press release. I don't want that that's that's fine That's fine. I don't I don't need a big old event. So um this airpods like I am Maybe it's interesting to me because they're like a hundred dollars more more or less, right then the current iteration and whether or not That's whether or not the features of the noise canceling and all of those things. So whether that's enough To persuade people to pay the hundred dollar premium For that those features. I'm not sure if they are but I don't know what your thoughts are on that Yeah, they are Apple Apple fans aren't terribly price sensitive and this isn't outrageous So I'm guessing yeah, you're going to see a lot of people snap these things up And and they're still selling the original airpods if somebody doesn't want to pay that much So I I think apple will be fine with this to be honest Spotify reported subscribers rose to 113 million by the end of september. This is bad news for apple It says it is adding roughly twice as many subscribers per month as apple music Spotify also reported earnings of 36 cents a share Analysts had expected Spotify to report a loss of 29 cents a share Revenue rose 28 percent that just beat expectations But I guess Spotify must have cut kept costs down more than was expected Because analysts had expected a loss on about the same amount of revenue Overall though, this is this is great news for Spotify. They're going gangbusters Yeah, and I've heard I've seen reports saying that some of the investment in podcasts were actually Was really helpful on Spotify's end of things. Um, it seems so anyway Yeah, no, they were they were attributing a lot of the uptake or a lot of the the uh, at least the usage Of that of that subscription level to the fact that they had a lot of podcasts and they're getting a lot of people using podcasts So so it's a little bit of circumstantial evidence, I suppose, but it seems And also I feel like Spotify just has that I guess legacy because they've been around longer and that's that usually helps with these kinds of things and apple music You know for a long time they were compatible with a lot of other services or other devices That you couldn't play apple music on your Alexa or whatever like whatever it was And that maybe have that may be like limited the usage or uptake on apple music Yeah, I think that's part of it's part of its perception, right? A lot of people don't realize that you can get apple music on things that aren't made by apple at all And even then people are like well, I guess I've heard you could get it on android and did I hear it's on the echo Is it on the google home? No, I don't think it's on the google home Or is it can I get it on windows like yeah spotify? There's no question people like oh, yeah, I can get spotify It doesn't matter There's a little bit of mixed messaging and there's confusion and I think apple just Does not seem to get their marketing right in terms of when it comes to music and devices So I mean in a way, I understand it because they want to market their own thing They want to sell home pause and they want to sell like, you know So I understand it, but also like it's not great for the services Well, and if apple needs to pivot to services, which it has said it does then it needs to not be sacrificing uptake For selling hardware that's done some and we're seeing them doing that with the apple tv app coming to roku and fire tv But it just doesn't have that perception yet Uber announced a new division called uber money. No, it's not a cryptocurrency The new division uber money is making a digital wallet As well as handling the debit and credit cards that uber already offers The idea is to provide bank account options for drivers worldwide Uber has been testing a no-fee debit card in the us and a few other markets Has something with that called instant pay which is now used for about 70 percent of driver payments in the us The idea is you can spend the money you made that day on your uber routes immediately with that debit card These products are not aimed at riders Though uber says it believes it might expand these sort of products to riders in the future Uber has also been testing offering micro loans to drivers in brazil india and peru A micro loan would be like I need a loan to fill up with gas at the beginning of the day So that then I can go and drive around and make money to pay back that loan And hopefully a little extra by the end of the day And the uber wallet will be made available for both drivers and riders to store Money in and integrated with apple pay and google pay So what so what's the benefit of me using an uber wallet versus those other options you mentioned like apple pay and It's most for the drivers right My payment comes into uber wallet and then I can spend that out to apple pay immediately Which is what they're saying. I can do or google pay That's huge advantage like I I immediately see the advantages to drivers Maybe I don't know if there's points that would that I could acquire in the wallet You know some kind of uh, you know building up a credit in there for faster payment Yeah, I'm not seeing the rider Advantage as much here and and to uber's credit that's not where they're targeting uber money right now Right and honestly it does sound like it makes a lot more sense perhaps in drivers in areas where Maybe they have a harder time going through the traditional banking routes like you mentioned some of these other countries So in that sense, it's a little easier. It's a little bit more seamless to use this uber money option Versus a traditional banking option Yeah, I know in a few countries, but pakistan is the one I remember off the top of my head Cash payments are the most popular way to do uber and you may not even realize in some countries that cash payments are even offered By uber, but in some places you wouldn't be able to offer uber service without it So there's a system that allows you to pay for your uber with cash and uber Does that because they need to in order to operate in those areas, but they'd rather not So so getting drivers banked and maybe yeah, and maybe that that explains the rider part of it too Maybe if riders can transfer some money into do an uber wallet Because they don't have apple pay google pay or even a credit card Yeah, but they could transfer money in there that that could help riders in those situations too It's kind of like a not really cryptocurrency, but kind of the digital cash Is an option. It's it reminds me quite a bit of wechat Yeah, the chinese app where you have to have a chinese bank account to do this But but people use it to just store money and pay for things constantly whether whether they've got money stored in wechat or not But it's something they can do if they want to so I think it's smart for uber to get into that because they they seem to have plans to become more than just a ride hailing app And certainly have you call the ride hailing up. They're very uber sensitive about yeah They want to be a platform for for not and not even just for transportation for for lots of things So so having a finance part of that is important paying for your uber eats with your uber money Right and then you know after that's been around for a while Then you might start to be able to pay for other things with your uber wallet That's how we chat started right it used to just be about transferring to your friends And then shops started to take it and and you're off to the races Nvidia launched two new shield tv boxes running android tv both run on the faster tegra x1 plus processors Nvidia says they're about 25 faster than the tegra previous processors The shield tv boxes both have ethernet micro sd and support for dolby vision hdr Nvidia now upscales hd to look closer to 4k when necessary The new pro version of the shield tv has twice the storage of the other version So 16 gigabytes And it has three gigabytes of ram the regular new nvidia shield tv has two gigabytes of ram The pro also comes with two usb 3.0 ports and Can support plex media server the shield tv pro costs $200 and the regular new shield tv costs $150 I will turn to our producer roger chang now who is uh among us I believe the most enthusiastic supporter of the shield tv roger you love your shield tv don't you my shield tv because it that's um It's possibly one of the best android purchases i've made in a while Yeah, well it is definitely the premier android tv box out there. There's a lot There's a lot of android tv boxes out there. I have a channel master that runs android But roger as you were saying in our precia They're they're kind of quirky and they're all basically underpowered whereas shield tv Even your old shield tv you say run runs very smooth So one of the one of the things about uh the shield tv was that it was kind of a device that was originally supposed to be a portable gaming handheld And that and that didn't really take off as well as nvidia wanted But they managed to create a set top android tv device out of it using innards um, and it's proved to be extremely popular with diy home theater Enthusiasts because it allows you to run anything that runs mostly on android even if it means side loading But a lot of people run plex media server. A lot of people run Cody off of it and it's proved incredibly robust. I've managed to run not just all my shooting ups um, but it's also allowed me to access a lot of my online or not online, but online storage content And you know what you know outside of you know being a great console to play retro video games on It really is seamless like there's enough horsepower in it that it does everything Pretty well like it's not like you're not gonna play You know you place all your content well You can access all your content in some fashion very well And i'm amazed that they're not and they're not more competitors to the android shield or at the nvidia shield Nicole have you used the shield much? Have you played around with that? No, I mean i'm familiar with the android tv platform. Um, and uh, it's always it's always been interesting to me on why android tv hasn't This doesn't seem to be as top of mind for people as let's say A roku or even a fire tv box, which is you know pretty popular I think and um, I wonder if because there is that perception that nvidia shield is a gamer thing and I wonder if There is still a little bit of a adoption issue with like the whole android tv name I'm not entirely sure but no i've played around with it. I've used it It does seem like a very user friendly interface. Um, it does it's compatible with almost every other It's compatible with like who is compatible with you know, youtube tv and all of the the services that you want on your set-top box But yeah, and I love that you can use they can see like hey google turn on this and turn off that and that's really good To use like your voice to control things and so I don't know It'll be interesting to see for me to see if like this new android this new this new shield tv pro If that will take off in any way Yeah, it's almost like nvidia runs into the same problem as apple where people perceive this to be a game box In fact, someone immediately was like yeah, but can this play g-force now like that's what people think rather than Comparing it to an apple tv for instance because it's similarly priced and g-force now Works really well if you have a decent uh internet connection Um because I've played at least five titles on it and it's pretty seamless. It works pretty pretty darn well You know it hasn't worked perfectly yet is lab grown meat. It's a potential meat alternative Uh, this one's made from actual animal cells. It's not like the beyond burger impossible burger Which is made of plant-based substitutes lab grown meat says we'll make actual Meat, but we'll just grow it in a dish. So it so we're not actually affecting any animals The problem is the cells when you grow them in a lab don't have the collagen that you have in your natural muscle tissue So instead of being those nice striated fibers lab grown meat ends up kind of mushy well scientists at harvard university Tried growing cow and rabbit muscle cells on a scaffolding made of food safe gelatin Uh that was spun into fibers and bonded to the cells using enzymes So that they could just scoop it up and it would have more of that fibrous structure Scale still an issue for this. Uh before this becomes a practical alternative to steak, but they made some progress Uh, they basically said that the the consistency is somewhere between a burger and a steak So they're getting closer A lab grown burger right now, uh is kind of mushy and the company that is most famous, uh for the like $350,000 Lab grown burger says they think they can get their burger available for $10 by 2021 That's still way more expensive than a beyond burger or an impossible burger. So this isn't practical yet They're making progress Towards being able to just grow actual meat now There's questions about whether this actually confers a health disadvantage because you know eating plant based materials Can be considered healthier. Although there's a lot of oil in these beyond impossible burgers So maybe there's some room for debate there, but it certainly isn't Using the rainforest, you know, it's not it's not using the the land To to be grown and if they can get it to scale it wouldn't wouldn't be harming any actual animals, right? Yeah, and I think it's really interesting, right? Like what like what what do you what do we think when we think of sustainability? um, you know impossible burger beyond burger their big point is that no, it's it doesn't Doesn't burn as much greenhouse gases to make our to grow our soy or to grow our wheat proteins or whatever it is and that's probably the case, but Would growing meat in a lab would that use far less greenhouse gases? Maybe. I mean, I don't know what their processes are Perhaps it's just like, you know doing things in the test tube or something. I don't really know the process there Maybe it's not as strenuous and maybe that will be less Carbon offsets that kind of thing, but I also want to think about like I wonder like if you're a vegetarian does that change your mind? But would you like would you eat meat if it was not from an animal? I've heard all kinds I've heard all kinds of answers to that and and that is one really important part about this particular Development is food safe gelatin is made from animals. So if you are a vegetarian That is very strict about those sorts of things like gelatin You will not want to eat this lab grown meat because it has gelatin So you're you are having to harm an animal to get the gelatin And and so it kind of undermines one of the you know It saw it makes that question easier to answer for a vegetarian whereas if the gelatin was synthetic And maybe they'll come up with a food safe version that's synthetic Then then we're back to that conundrum of like well, I'm not it's not actually me, but it's kind of me. Yeah, exactly Yeah For me, it'll be interesting to see whether they can get the cost down because I know that cost is still an important consideration Oh, that's a huge. Yeah Yeah, I mean $10 is a lot of money for burgers. Uh, this goes from being a novelty At $10 to to being if it can be cheaper than beef then all the people are saying they're disgusted And they prefer real meat will go right for it, but it has to be cheaper for that to happen It has to be cheaper and it has to taste good, you know, like other those are the two options So gotta have that consistency, right? Right China has passed new regulations for cryptography that should go into effect January 1st 2020 The law requires attention, uh through secrets To use core and common encryption So state secrets anybody any institution that's protecting state secrets must use core and common encryption Institutions working on encryption must establish management systems that guarantee security Though state managers will not be allowed to ask for exclusive info like source code. There are some limits on that The new law also encourages commercial development and use of encryption But such products quote must not harm the state's security and public interest So while the state institutions can't automatically demand the source code On the other hand in China anyway, if you're making a commercial product There's a lot of wiggle room for you not to be able to do end-to-end encryption because you must not harm state security and public interests Uh, and you cannot offer any kind of encryption as a commercial product to consumers without approval of the state The law was announced at the same time as reports that China's central bank is closer to launch of its own digital currency Uh, this was something that mark zerkerberg mentioned in his testimony to the u.s. Congress about libra last week Monday at shanghai the head of the people's bank of china's technology department lee way Urged commercial banks to step up their application of blockchains to finance and the people's bank of china Proposals are very similar to libra except they're state managed whereas libra was going to be managed by a collection of private companies Yeah, uh, you know I think it's it'll be interesting to see what china does going forward the cryptography because though they have not a great history Uh with you know privacy and security They're not no for respecting privacy as much. I guess it's kind of That seems to be the the common opinion of china But you will get a different answer if you ask people in china people in china feel like their privacy is protected It's an interesting conundrum because it's it is somewhat objective There there is less privacy from the state in china objectively, but it's also sometimes somewhat Cultural where people go. Yeah, but I also want that's okay, but I want certain privacy to still be protected It's a really interesting situation I do uh, I I do think that I think yeah, go ahead No, I always want to say that uh, it's interesting that the comparison of libra was also interesting to me as far as You know because libra is not looking so hot right now without everything pulling out But uh, so maybe maybe china's doing they're going the right route here I think For china for the government of china coming up with a state run cryptocurrency that makes uh payment systems faster And cheaper is a great idea That's why libra wants to exist is to make payment systems faster and cheaper And china can make it happen within its borders whether it'll get accepted outside of china's borders I find highly unlikely That's you know, even though zuckerberg's trying to raise it as a scare threat But it is whether whether people allow Libra to do it or not I I think somebody will and probably should be allowed to try some kind of system like this Worldwide and I'll be interested to see if anybody fills in the gap of libra or if libra can resurrect itself from the almost dead Which is kind of where it is right now Hey, folks, if you want to get all the tech headlines each state about five minutes be sure to subscribe to daily tech headlines.com Thanks to everybody who participates in our subreddit You can submit stories and vote on them at daily tech news show dot reddit.com and facebook.com Slash group slash daily tech news show We check in with the mail bag Because we had so many great responses from folks about why they might want to speed up or slow down Netflix playback based on the story on friday that netflix is testing such options for folks lauren and byron both want to speed up video To fit in more watching for different reasons one of them has a kid one one just wants to fit in more on the train Matt speeds up netflix with a chrome extension when he's evaluating a pilot episode Or he hits a particularly slow episode in a series if he's like, I just want to get through this part Allison sheridan pointed out that slowing down is great for instructional videos If you're uh, you know doing a software install or fixing a toilet and you're looking at a youtube video It's always good to just slow it down so you can catch it instead of having to constantly rewind Professor met cath says slowing down videos of his lectures helps english as a second language students retain more info And he also noticed that speeding up videos of his lectures Helped people with english as their first language retain more info. So it all it all depended on where you sat Jay said he would like to slow down fight scenes in martial arts shows So he can just see all the strategies and the impacts a little wusha slow down there I love that And kevin and phil were among people who speed up so videos so they don't get distracted For for multiple reasons. So thank you everybody For for sharing all these wonderful reasons There's I've got so many examples now of why you might want to speed up or slow down a netflix video Nicole does it occur to you that you would want to use this feature if they rolled it out widely? It depends on the show. If it's like a really slow moving documentary, maybe Uh, I might want to just speed it up a little bit so that speed up past the boring The animal attack And then you can I don't know about speeding up speeding up is the one not entirely sure what I would do But slowing down I can I can see the point you know when you can you know slower so I can hear what's going on But I'm not sure about speeding up Well folks, thank you for sharing keep on sharing your insights at feedback at daily tech news show dot com Shout out to patrons at our master and grandmaster levels including brad schick Dr. Carmine M. Bailey and mike mclaughlin and thanks again to coli for joining us No problem Well, if people want to find out what you're up to because I know you got lots of holiday gift guides coming up at Engadget and stuff like that Where should they go? Yes, so we have tons of buying guys gift guys coming up I go to engadget.com. We'll roll them out sometime in probably end of november Something like that to for all your black friday shopping needs It occurs to me that you have a long history of helping out with holiday gift guides for technology outlets. So Yes Yeah, these these should be pretty good since nicole is involved in them You're gonna have to check them out folks. Uh, also, we have a new patreon reward We have several new patreon rewards if you've never used our patreon You can get a commercial free version of the show Both dtns or good day internet But also if you sign up right now at the two dollar level or above You will get a pdf copy of the official dtns cookbook with recipes from the show hosts and even some listeners So go sign up right now if you're at the old dollar level You might want to increase to the two dollar level in the next couple days and get that cookbook That's patreon.com slash dtns Our email address is feedback at daily tech news show dot com We're live monday through friday 4 30 p.m. Eastern 2030 utc You can find out more about that at daily tech news show dot com slash live Got a little change in the schedule scott johnson will be with us tomorrow and then patrick bezia on wednesday Talk to you then This show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frog pants dot com Bob hopes you have enjoyed this brover