 Coming up on Daily Tech News show, it's checkmate for iOS jailbreaking. The end of Google Play music is nigh, and we get to the bottom of streaming fatigue. This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, September 27th, 2019. In Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Feline, I'm Sarah Lane. Also in Los Angeles, I'm Lamar Wilson. Drawing the top tech stories all the way from Cleveland, Ohio, I'm Len Peralta. And on the show is producer Roger Chang. We were just talking quite a bit about water absorption, as well as naming our new Patreon tier on Good Day Internet. Speaking of Patreon tiers, the way to get Good Day Internet, if you want to spend a little more time hanging out with us, is to go to patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Logitech agreed to acquire Streamlabs in a deal worth $89 million in cash. Streamlabs makes Streamlabs OBS a popular streaming front end on Twitch and other streaming platforms, which the company claims is used by 15 million streamers. This complements Logitech's webcam business and its 2018 acquisition of blue microphones, both of which are also popular with streamers. HP announced Chromebook X360 12B and X360 14B convertible laptops. The 12-inch 12B supports the Universal Stylus Initiative, the first open standard stylus protocol. Should I say that three times fast? The 12B will start at $359 and a 14-inch 14B is $370 more, both available later this month. HP's rechargeable US side pen arrives in November at $69.99. Hey everybody, settle down. The Galaxy Fold is finally on sale in the United States, starting at $2,000. It's just five months later than originally planned after those test reviews brought Samsung back to the drawing board. So the Galaxy Watch Active 2 released today, in case you're keeping track. Got another data breach for Friday, DoorDash announced that a data breach on May 4th exposed data on 4.9 million customers, delivery workers and also merchants. Customers who joined DoorDash after April 5th, 2018 weren't affected by the breach. Names, email and delivery addresses, order histories, phone numbers and hashed and sold passwords were stolen, as well as the last four digits of a customer credit card and merchant bank account numbers. So, you know, it's a significant breach. Driver's license information on 100,000 delivery drivers also exposed. A spokesperson for DoorDash blamed the breach on an unnamed third-party service provider. Which apparently they stopped using after April 5th, 2018 is my guess. Guess who's part of it? Me too, man. All right, let's talk a little more about a test Facebook is doing, Lamar. Yeah, Facebook is testing hiding reaction and video view counts on Facebook Post in Australia. Now, the creator of a post will still see the number of likes and other reactions, but it'll be hidden from other users. Everyone will still be able to see who interacted with the post and can also see comment counts and at the most common reactions they can see. A similar test on Instagram has been running since April, expanding to six countries in July. Now, can I just real quickly, just as a content creator, I need help with this one because I don't see the point of this. I'm not sure who they're protecting, what feelings they're protecting here. I need help with it because I don't get it. That's because everyone likes your stuff, but we're all not that lucky. Or handsome, yes. Yeah, yeah. The idea is that people see other people's like counts and get miserable, like, I don't have as many likes as them. And then start just posting in order to try to get likes. And what Facebook is saying is like, no, we want people to have substantive posts. We don't want it to be a competition. So if you don't or if you aren't easily able to see how many people are liking someone else's post, then you won't be as likely to feel bad and post crappy stuff. You also will be potentially more likely to post more because it doesn't matter as much the fact that you're not getting as many likes as the next guy. But I think that that's actually what Facebook is thinking of here. It's they would like to, you know, they'd like to just spur more engagement because people aren't feeling bad about themselves. It's not so much about who feels bad about themselves. It's that they want people to be engaged. But when they were feeling bad about themselves, they were posting more to try to keep up with that. Yeah. So wasn't that good? I'm not sure. I'm not sure whether this will make them post more or not. But it is it is a it is a test to see if it actually creates a healthier, more substantive posts. And it's a test. We'll see. Yeah. A new iOS exploit called Checkmate. That's Mate Spelled M8 could lead to a permanent unblockable jailbreak on hundreds of millions of iPhones, according to researcher AXIEOMX. The exploit is the boot ROM vulnerability, allowing hackers to access deep enough that Apple would be unable to block or even patch out with a future software update. This is the first boot ROM level exploit publicly released for an iOS device since the iPhone 4. So it's been a while. It works on the iPhone 4 S to iPhone 8 and iPhone 10. So A5 through A11 chips for now, though, this is known as a tethered exploit. So it's only triggered over USB. But possibilities include Apple no longer having control through software updates or we vote signatures to get rid of this downgradable iOS devices that could easily be rolled back to previous versions of the software dual booting between multiple versions of iOS and others. Now, just like with the alternative app store yesterday, not everybody's going to do this. We don't even have a jailbreak yet. It's a matter of time before somebody figures out how to make a nice jailbreak out of this. But that's not what AXIEOMX did. He just found the vulnerability and put it out there. This is one that I think Apple would want to fix. I was arguing that Apple might not bother with the operating with the alternative app store because it's not a security vulnerability. This is a vulnerability. Now, it's a vulnerability that you have to have physical access to the phone to get. It only applies to older chips. So and it's going to be harder to fix because it's in the boot ROM, which means you'd have to have physical access to the phone to update it as well. But it is the kind of thing that Apple is more concerned with, usually. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, Apple is more concerned. What does Apple do for something like this? I mean, they would have to push out. They would have to push out a software update that would update the firmware in the bootloader, again, which would require people to tether their phones. And a lot of people I mean, I haven't plugged in my phone for a software update in years because it's over the air. So maybe there's a way to do an over-the-air firmware update of the bootloader. I'm not going to say that's impossible, but that's not usually the way it's done because of security concerns. Yeah. Yeah, man. I think we're just we're looking at a potential jailbreak of older phones. And the fact that we have have it only through the A11, it's not going to affect the 10S. It's not going to affect the iPhone 11 means that Apple may not bother with it, which would give, you know, White Hat hackers a great chance to play around with this. Though Apple's security research program is going to give like custom jailbroken phones to security researchers anyway. So there's not as much demand on the White Hat side of things for this anymore either. Yeah. I'll just say real quick, I didn't have a comment, but like, yeah, they say what 90 percent plus update their their phones to the latest up, you know, software. So their percentage, the work, the work require versus their percentage that might get affected, plus having to be tell their I grew up, you probably just won't be worth it for them. Yeah, I mean, how about desktop robotic arms? How about it? Who wants one? I do. This is one of my trends to watch. Desktop robotic arms are starting to look like drones did in their early days, and we're getting some products out there on the market from multiple companies, marketing them to do things like calligraphy, hold a hairdryer, butter your toast. I mean, we're still waiting on the killer app here, trust me. But 33 year old Shandong University graduate, Liu Peichao's Shenzhen Yue Jiang technology wants to develop smart robotic arms for everyday life. Yue Jiang started as a Kickstarter in 2015 and sells the robot, I'm sorry, DoBot Magician for 10,000 Yuan. That's about $1,400 US and 16,999 Yuan for a more advanced model. That's about $2,400 US, marketing it as an educational device for students to code on and learn to develop. But Yue Jiang wants to market these for just home use eventually. So this is their way into the market. And students from the University of Tokyo working with connected robotics adapted a Yue Jiang arm to be a breakfast-making machine currently being used in a Japanese hotel as a test. Tech in Asia notes that there's another Shenzhen based factory selling its desktop robotic arm in more than 80 countries right now as well. So this, I challenge you to think about, OK, if you had a desktop robotic arm that was easy to use, what would you want it to do? You know, when I first was like, right calligraphy doesn't come up in my house all that often, but I'll tell you, holding a hairdryer is actually very annoying. Oh, you think about it? Yeah, I'm like, it's actually heavy and it's hard on the wrist and the whole thing. There are use cases for this. I mean, the mic that I'm using is sort of a desk clamp type thing. It's like, there are a lot of scenarios where I'm like, OK, this could be something that's sort of part of my little, you know, my daily routine, buttering my toast. Yeah, the kitchen stuff actually. Holding vegetables for cutting, maybe. We're actually cutting them. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Your hairdryer 100% for me, 100% all the time, every day. I will add, if you have a little workshop where you do things like soldering or you fix things, having an extra pair of hands, even if they're clawed, super helpful because one of the things, especially if you solder stuff, one of the things you need to do is manipulate the item that you're soldering. And it might be easy for you just to hold the iron and hold the solder while the robot turns the item or the robot holds the solder and you turn it and, you know, it moves with it. I mean, there's just I could think of like, you know, if you could get rid of the claw and you just attach my monitor on it, then it can move the monitor any time I need it for a different position. And that's the thing about these, especially the one from you, Zhang, is that they are available with swappable ends. You can put different ends on them to make them do different things. So it could do all this stuff that we're talking about. I really want one to like, because I don't have friends. So like when I play video games, I need to have someone sit next to me and play with me with a controller that can hold. I'm serious. You want more than just a computer-controlled opponent. You want someone, you want an arm sitting next to me. I want an arm there with their arm processor in it. For all the tech. Arm with arm. I like it. Send us your thoughts, folks, because I think this really feels like quadcopters did, you know, several years ago. I remember seeing the first quadcopter shown at CES and thinking, okay, that's cool, but what's it good for? Well, guess what? We figured out what it's good for. Delivering groceries. Just delivering burritos and sticking a camera on it. So let us know what you think the robotic, the desktop robotic arm might be good for, feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. I am now hungry. You mentioned burritos. Google announced that all of its authorized Android 9 and 10 devices will have YouTube music pre-installed in place of Google Play Music. Google requires certain apps to be installed in order to get access to Google first-party services. Google Play Music will remain available for download in the Google Play Store. Google said in 2018 that a plan to transition users from Play Music to YouTube Music once feature parity was reached as early as the end of 2019. And may I be the first to tell you that feature parity is nowhere near close. Yeah, it's not there yet. Which is why I stopped using YouTube Music. I really wanted to love it. I had nothing against it. I'm already paying for it because I have YouTube Premium. And it's just, I'm an iOS user, but I found Google Play Music to be really good. Like it really knew me, really understand what music I like. And it's just the YouTube one is just not ready yet. And a weird thing is when I listen to music, it comes up in my YouTube watch history because it's a video. And so there's a lot of little, there's a lot of things they need to fix with it. And I looked at the Reddit form about this and I'm not the only one that is not happy about that. It's just not ready. Well, although you said you looked at a Reddit form so people being not happy isn't terribly surprising, but... Very true. Yeah, I think above the normal Reddit background rage index, people are unhappy. Yeah. I, as a Google Play Music user, have been a little nervous about this and hopeful that YouTube Music would eventually just be Google Play Music. Just change the branding and give me everything. That's great. I'd love that. They added the ability to play your local files in May, which is a nice step forward, but I really want that online locker that Google Play Music has available in YouTube Music. And there's no sign of that coming anytime soon, but most people don't use Google Play Music. And this is a big step forward for Google to say, no, we are confident in YouTube Music being our music brand going forward. So we are changing the default install with millions of handsets across the world to give you YouTube Music instead of Google Play Music from the get-go. So if you're worried about them backing off of YouTube Music, this is a sign that they're absolutely not going to do that anytime soon. Yeah, just interesting, like you said, Lamar, that it's not just the same service, but renamed. YouTube Music makes more sense naming-wise. Absolutely, absolutely. But yeah, I mean, if it was sort of like, ah, well, you know, get to feature parody and then no one will even know the difference. You're like, meh, you didn't, though. It just doesn't feel like the same company is working on this. I'm like, you all are probably sitting in the same desk or right next to each other, but you won't talk to each other. It's infuriating that Google is like this. It literally is like two different companies are working on it. Put a lunch together. Come on. If only any other large company had the same problems that Google does. No, it's only Google. Yeah, just Google. Hey, speaking of music, the latest beta of Spotify's iOS app tells users to tell Siri to play songs, lets users tell Siri to play songs, albums and playlists from Spotify itself. The feature doesn't work on the Apple Watch because Spotify doesn't have a watch OS app yet, but the Verge said it had trouble playing podcast too with the iOS app, see means to search for music instead of podcasts. Yeah, Siri has lots of problems with lots of things. This is a beta app of Spotify. So let's not rush to judgment and it's not out. Spotify isn't promoting it. So maybe it'll fix the podcast thing by the time they launch it. Verge thinks it'll come out in a couple of weeks, we'll see, but it is a big step for Apple to say, yes, we are going to allow another music service to be launched from Siri. I mean, that's too long and coming in my opinion, but I'm glad it's coming. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Spotify has got the, you know, the lion's share of users. I mean, Apple music isn't far behind, but this is something that, you know, Apple saying, listen, it's better for us to allow people to get used to using Siri for something like Spotify rather than keep them from it. Yeah, absolutely. Well, folks, if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes, there is one place to go, dailytechheadlines.com. All right, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that sources say Apple plans to release feature length films and theaters prior to making them available on Apple TV Plus. That's not a shock. Theatrical runs would probably last just a couple of weeks, making them eligible for the Oscars. And Apple hopes the approach will attract top directors and producers to projects if they know that their movie can be nominated. Sources say Apple's first major theatrical release would be Sofia Coppola's On the Rocks, sometime in mid-2020. Apple also intends to have documentary The Elephant Queen in theaters. That is part of the November 1st TV Plus launch, but it doesn't matter whether it goes online first or not, what matters is can you get it in theaters? And landmark theaters have been pretty amenable to this, a lot of independent theaters are amenable to showing these movies. So they just need to meet the qualifications of the award grantors, whether it's SAG or Merrick's Choice, People's Choice Awards, or the Oscars, whatever. I don't think this is shocking. I would have expected them to do this. If you follow Netflix and Amazon and everyone have done, they all want their movies to show in theaters even if it's a limited run to qualify for awards. So to me, I'm not looking at this and thinking, wow, Apple showing movies in theaters, although it does seem a little weird. It does put us back into the mind, however, that Apple TV Plus is going to be a serious other streaming service. And I'm already seeing the reactions of people who are like, oh, that's right, another one. I don't want to pay for this. I don't care if you get it free with a new Apple device. I don't want to buy a new Apple device. Streaming fatigue is the bigger story to me because man, everyone has an opinion on it. Billy Steele over at Engadget has a story out today, a very well-reasoned post about why this is also frustrating. He calculates for himself to get the stuff that he wanted. If money were no object, he would need at least $133 to get all the stuff he wants to watch. And with people going like, man, I used to pay $9 for Netflix and I felt like I got everything I wanted, that is a lot more money. However, in 2018, the average US cable TV bill was $107. It's probably not gonna go down or if it does go down not much from that. So if you look a little closer at some of the things that Billy Steele included in is $133, you have to ask yourself, well, if I have a cable bill of $107, I would still have to pay for some of these. Netflix isn't part of your cable bill. There's $12 probably right there. Special sports services like Fox Soccer Match is one that he mentions, probably not part of most people's cable bill. So that's an extra cost. All of those sports related services like MLB at BAD or NFL or the NFL Sunday ticket, those are all extra above that average $107 for most people, even movie services like HBO or above your normal cable bill. So then $133 starts to feel like, well, I guess I'm not saving money, but I'm probably gonna be spending about the same. Now, despite what people say, it may not be the cost that's really the frustrating thing. We had a great debate about this in our Discord's master channel for people who support the Patreon at the master channel and Anne C.B. and I, we were having a disagreement, but I think he finally hit on in the real problem. Anne C.B. wrote, I honestly think it's the effort that goes into signing up and managing a new thing. If all of these services work together and acted as add-ons for each other, I don't think people would be talking about subscription fatigue. If it was quick and easy to manage, I think people wouldn't have a problem with adding CBS or Disney Plus or Hulu or Netflix or vice versa. It's the idea of having to manage four to five apps and remembering what to watch and where that is that turns people off. Lamar, what do you think of that? I feel like to solve this, if we just had one company that would take all of these channels and put them together across this one service and charges one price, that would completely solve this problem. No, seriously, though, I agree with his sentiment. That is, we haven't even started subscription fatigue yet until Disney Plus comes out and what is the HBO Max Infinity War? And Peacock, yeah. Yeah, like once next year happens, oh my God, I think that's gonna be the tipping point. Yes, I can afford it, but again, money is not the issue. It's working out, working out watch this again. Is that DC? Is it on DC Universe? Is it on HBO Max? Is that a Disney Plus as a Disney channel? Or do I need to go to the Disney app? And it's infuriating to have to think of all that and some people are gonna throw up their hands and say, forget it. I'm gonna pick my one thing I like and just one network and just watch that. Or just go back to cable. Well, I mean, Apple is one of several companies who want you to manage your subscriptions through a single place. TVOS is a great example of that. You're trying. Yeah, do people do that? Well, I don't know. I mean, yes, with mixed results, some people do. I think what's also interesting about this is, okay, so there's gonna be some original movies coming out, big stars, big names, big directors, production houses that are highly respected, that are going to be associated with Apple TV Plus. The theatrical run, sure they're gonna make some money, but that's not really the point. The point is to have, to be considered for future awards. That whole thing, and trust me, I am an award show fan. I watch them all, even if I don't care about who's winning or whatever. I love award shows, but that is such a relic of a bygone era at this point. I wonder how long this is going to be part of a model that the modern companies have to agree to in order to be considered on that level playing field with the old guards. Now, I really agree with that. Before Tom added this other element, I was literally gonna comment that, again, I don't like award shows myself, but I'm not against them at the same time. They have their place, but the idea that they have to run something in this antiquated, and we're supposed to be digital and new, and on your phone and instant, then you have this theatrical run, and it just feels like you're just going against it. I'm not really for that. Apple seems to, I mean, they have Steven Spielberg, they have Oprah, they have all these top people. It seemed like they should be able to hold on their own. Yeah, but no, the way they got those top people was those top people knowing that, well, I'll be able to get an Emmy or an Oscar for this. Now, the Emmys is easy. The Emmys, you don't need to go, take your thing and put it somewhere, but the Oscars particularly want to differentiate TV movies from theater movies. And on Netflix, if it just shows on Netflix, how do you do that? How do you say which is a Oscar level movie versus a Emmy level made for TV movie? And the only way to do that is to have it show up in theaters right now. I think you're right, Sarah and Lamar, both, that eventually that will go away. But Spielberg himself was campaigning to change the requirements to make it stricter to make them do 90 days in a theater to get an Oscar nomination. Oh, I remember. So I don't think we're anywhere close to that system changing anytime soon. That's 20 years from now, somebody will go, why do we make them go in theaters? We should just have some other criteria, but I don't even know what that is. You know, going back to the idea of the cable bill being, you know, let's call it 110, right? 110 a month. Yes, a few years ago, the whole promise was, oh, we can just pay $10 a month for just a few things because those are bloated subscriptions that people don't actually want. You pay for a bunch of channels that you don't watch. Okay, well, now we're getting to the point where, and it depends on what you care about and what your stack is going to be, but you might get up to that point or further depending on what you wanna watch, but is that okay with a lot of people because it is actually a group of channels that you have picked and choose and you care that you want to pay for that. So I wonder how people will feel about like, what is the threshold at that point? No, my, and this is where I tie into Anne C.B.'s argument. My argument for a long time has been, yes, but you have control. You don't have to pay. With cable, you had to pay your cable bill to get the things you wanted. There wasn't a lot of choice. Yeah, there might have been a couple of tiers, but basically you had to pay for a lot of stuff you didn't want. We're shaping up where you don't. If you don't care about what's on Disney Plus, you don't have to buy it. It's not gonna be bundled in if you don't want it. Same for Netflix, same for Amazon, same for CBS, same for Tubi, same for all, and on and on and on. You don't have to have all of them. You can control it. There's another Engadget article today, kind of helping people walk through the idea of, oh, sign up for Netflix for a month to watch the thing you want, then cancel it, sign up for a different thing so that you're watching multiple channels, but you're not paying for them when you're not using them. But to go back to NCB's argument, I think it really is we need a service that's not you pay one price, but you have to get everything, but will let you manage everything from one place because psychologically we don't like multiple categories that we have to think about. Like, wait, where is it? Who am I paying? What am I doing? And they used to be, ah, I can't get that streaming. I have to get cable to watch it. Those days are gone. Now pretty much everything that you can get on cable is available streaming. And then there are things only available streaming, right? The tide has turned the other direction. So now we're in the position where Amazon, Apple, Roku, even Voodoo are starting to create these platforms of we wanna be the place that takes all your subscriptions and makes them easy to manage for you. And we're just seeing the earliest beginnings of those. None of them have all the services. None of them have all the features you want for your bill management, but that's gonna be the next big wave in cord cutting is the people trying to be the platform that says we will help you make sense of all this, know where your shows are and which ones you need to pay for and cancel the subscriptions that you don't. Yeah, it's funny. I feel like Hulu was trying to bring everything together and now they're part of, you know, Disney for the most part. So, you know, that's not gonna be a thing. I think Amazon channels is probably closest to what you're talking about, Tom. I think even closer than Apple TV, in my opinion. Yeah, Apple TV channels too. Roku's doing a similar thing too. So, you know, there's a lot of people trying. Yeah. Hey, thanks everybody who participates in our subreddit. A lot of TV stories and others there. You can submit your stories and vote on others to help them get on the show, dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. We're also on Facebook, join our group, Facebook.com slash group slash Daily Tech News Show. What's in the mail bag, Sarah? Oh, Tom, I'm glad you asked. Chris Christensen, our amateur traveler, he writes and gives us lots of regular updates on traveling. But he also wrote in, based on a conversation we had the other day with Roger and prescriptions glasses and that they're expensive and there's a whole thing going involved. Chris says, someone needs to introduce Roger to zennyoptical.com or one of the other web-based companies. You can even do a virtual try-on. I'm maybe four pairs of glasses into this and it's a great solution. That's zennyoptical.com. I will look at it. So this is the one thing I neglected to mention now that I think about it. I'm actually limited to the type of glasses frames I can select because I have such a extreme prescription that what I need would not fit for every pair of eyeglasses frames, which is why my frames tend to be in the two, the $300 range. And then my lens is that, let's just say it averages around five to 600 bucks for a pair of glasses. The question remains, Roger. Yes, I will look at it. Are you going to take the zennyoptical challenge? I will take a look at it and see if it, part of it is I don't know if all those frames will fit. Just say yes. You just say yes and try it out. Doesn't mean you have to buy the frame. No, no, I understand it. Just try, just try. I will try it and I will have to do my prescription. And report back to see. Yeah, if they're like, nope, didn't work, then we'll know. Let's check in with Len Peralta who's been illustrating the show. Len, what do you got for us today? Well, you know, you talked a lot about streaming services and I wanted to kind of draw something that felt like how I feel about everything here. It's, yeah, this is called stop the streaming please. And I am really not looking forward to November because I've got to make some serious decisions. I still subscribed to cable, yet I also still get Hulu and Netflix. I am planning on getting Disney Plus, but it's like overwhelming. You know, it's so overwhelming. And I think this image sort of exemplifies that and how I feel about it. So I don't know how about you guys feel, but it's... You scored another homerun, man. It's so good. It's so good. This is hard about water. This is liquid death. Right here. It is liquid death. Exactly. Wow. Bring it all back. Lamar, the high five, man. Nice job. Yeah, the solution is some kind of like culligan water dispenser. That's the platforms. But right now, this is how everybody feels. Really encapsulated the mood of the world right now, I think. Exactly. And I think I should rename this to liquid death. That's a great thing. So, yeah, available right now. Patreon, patreon.com, forward slash Len and also my online store, lennproldstore.com. Thank you, man. Thank you, Len. Also thanks to Lamar Wilson for being with us too. Friday's in a row. Good streak. I have nothing to do with my life. No, I love being here. I do, I love being here. Well, we love having you too. Let folks know where they can keep up with the rest of your work. Yeah, my main hub is YouTube. I just posted a video a couple of hours ago about what's on my iPhone 11 Pro Max Infinity war, whatever it's called, I forgot. But yeah, people are actually interested. I give some app suggestions on what I have on my phone and what's running, do some app arcade stuff. So yeah, you wanna check that out? That's YouTube.com slash Lamar Wilson. I'm Lamar Wilson everywhere across the socials. Hey folks, if you didn't know, we're changing our Patreon rewards October 1st. Brand new spanking rewards coming October 1st. If you wanna get a sneak peek about what will be arriving on that day, head to dailytechnewshow.com slash Patreon. We love your feedback. Have I mentioned we love your feedback? Oh, if I didn't, we do love your feedback. Feedback at dailytechnewshow.com is where to send those emails. If you can join us live, we are live Monday through Friday at 4 30 p.m. Eastern, that's 20 30 UTC. And you can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. See you all Monday. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com.