 This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by you! We could not literally do it without you, thanks to all of you, including Chris Allen, Chris Smith, and Mark Gibson. Coming up on DTNS, Republicans and Democrats agree we want space internet. Why the real metaverse has been with us all along, and Microns struggle to find engineers who don't think Ram is just a fluffy animal. This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, March 17th, 2023. A portion of today's intro was written by ChatGPT. In Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. From Columbus, Ohio, I'm Rob Dunwood. Drawing the top tech stories from Cleveland, I'm Len Peralta. And I'm today's producer, Amos. Can you tell which part of the tease there was written by ChatGPT? Any guesses? Something about Fluffy Animals? It was about, yeah. Really? Engineers who don't think Ram is just a fluffy animal written by ChatGPT. But think of all the engineers who do feel that way. I feel that way. Yeah, you're not getting hired by Micron. All right, let's start with the quick hits. A European Commission filing shows that Microsoft offered remedies in an attempt to gain approval of its Activision Blizzard acquisition. The filing didn't offer specifics, but the company recently entered into several long-term licensing deals with pretty much every company, not called Sony, for access to the Call of Duty franchise. The EU will now seek feedback from competitors, you know, all those people who got those deals, before making its final decision on May 22nd. Writer sources say that the remedies will likely win EU clearance for the deal. Yeah, it's looking better now. Google's Project Zero security team disclosed that it reported 18 zero-day vulnerabilities impacting Samsung's Exynos modems, including four top severity bugs that could remotely compromise a modem with no user interaction. Bad bugs. Project Zero gave Samsung 90 days to patch the flaws. They told them 90 days ago no patches have been released. Samsung did confirm vulnerabilities in Exynos modems in a March security listing. Google said that users can mitigate this vulnerability by turning off Wi-Fi calling and voiceover LTE. Exynos modems are used in a wide variety of phones, not just Samsung phones. So you might want to go look at our link to TechCrunch, or somewhere else that you trust to get the link of all of the phones, because they include some Google Pixel models, some Vivo models, and even some connected vehicles that use the Exynos Auto T5123 chipset. Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 2 system on a chip designed for mid-range phones. Production was switched from Samsung to use TSMC's 4nm process, and the new chip also uses a faster Cortex-X2 for its main performance core. Qualcomm says it can reach up to 50% better CPU performance, and two times the GPU performance compared to its predecessor. The SoC also supports dual SIM, dual active, meaning that both SIMs can access 5G or 4G radios at the same time. Handsets with SoC are expected later this month. Belkin confirmed to The Verge that it has paused development of matter smart home devices, saying it will quote, take a big step back, regroup, and rethink its approach to the smart home. It says it hasn't given up on matter, it's just rethinking things. It will release WiIMO products that support matter when it can find a way to differentiate them. WiIMO could risk falling behind if other similar competitors do switch to matter as planned, because if you don't know matter makes it so that you don't have to worry what platform device is meant for, it'll work with almost everything. On the other hand, WiIMO is the first to blink on matter. May or may not be the last, we'll have to keep an eye out. When they say they're taking a big step back. That's a big, that's a big, they use the word big. Meta's paid verification program is now live for users in the U.S. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Instagram that the blue verification badge on Facebook and also Instagram offers proactive impersonation protection and also direct access to customer support. It'll cost you $12 per month through the web, 15 per month through iOS and Android because they're taking a little bit more of that cut. Verified members also get some stars each month that can be used to tip creators extra stickers for stories and reels so you get some bonuses. Meta brought verification to Australia and New Zealand last month. And that is a look at the quick hits. So Rob, tell us some good news. Well, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission or FCC has been busy. It finalized rules to require carriers to block text messages from invalid, unallocated or unused numbers. The rules also say carriers must establish a means for senators to inquire about the block text. Yeah, that's not all they did. The FCC also wants to set up a legal framework to make it easier for satellite internet companies, SpaceX, Link, AST, SpaceMobile to provide service directly to your phone. Right now, those companies have experimental licenses, but the FCC is asking for feedback on what the permanent rules should be. Now, this could be a little confusing. We mentioned that T-Mobile is working with SpaceX to allow texting in areas without traditional coverage. This kind of framework would allow them to do that more. However, the framework is different than what Apple and Qualcomm are doing. They're using Spectrum from Iridium and Global Star and using that for emergency text. They're not using existing 5G, so that's why you need some extra hardware to take advantage of the stuff from Qualcomm, like the Qualcomm hardware or Apple. SpaceX, Link and AST want to use Spectrum already used by cell phone companies, so that basically any 5G phone would work. You wouldn't need a newer phone. Pretty crudely, they want to turn the satellites into orbiting cell towers. FCC vote was unanimous, no partisan bickering. Rob, does this mean we're getting space internet? I hope so, because this is cool technology. What really gets me with this one is that it'll work on older devices. So you don't have to go get the brand new Samsung. You don't have to go get a brand new iPhone in order to be able to do this. So when you hit those dead spots, they may not be so dead as long as it's not, you have line of sight to the sky. So I'm all for this, and nothing hardly ever happens with bipartisanship. So that's a good thing too. Yeah, it does seem like they really want to make this easier. I rarely use the internet outside my house. So I hit a dead zone yesterday for the first time in a long time, and I was like, wow, I said that in Sarah, you're like, ah, I wish that was my experience. Every day, yeah. I mean, the Wi-Fi at my house as long as the power is on works great. But cell service, I have Verizon. But anybody who uses a T-Mobile, AT&T, a variety of other options, who ever comes and visits, I say, within 10 miles of my house, trust that your self-service will drop. And you will not be able to contact me. This would fix that. So Honk when you get to my gate, yes. I mean, it would potentially fix that. And that would be awesome. I can only imagine how many people live in rural areas, or areas that just for whatever reason, you got a dead zone, and you just get used to it. There are ways around it. You still live your life. But man, give me some satellite cell service. I'm ready. This does feel like a feel-good story. Am I wrong? I mean, Rob's thinking. He's thinking. He's like, hmm, what's wrong with this idea? I mean, I guess it's hopeful that on the- You've got commissioners from both sides of the fence. Yeah, on the political side, no one's like, here's why this is a bad idea, and I will block this. As I said, I'm all for this because people who don't understand what it is like to be like where you are, Sarah, and you don't have access to broadband or just cell signal, this goes a long way to fix that, to where basically Earth no longer has debts. Yeah, I mean, probably with some exceptions in geographies, you know, that's just blocky from seeing the sky, maybe. That would be it. That's all I could think of. Well, I know we all are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the metaverse. You might say, what is it exactly? Well, no one knows. But you know what? There's actually been one since 2003, and that is second life. It's a world where you create a virtual avatar and virtual stuff, and you can interact with other people and things within that world. It exists, and it works, and it has for some time. And people still populate it. In fact, it's profitable, making its money on the trade of virtual goods. So of course, it's been getting more attention as the whole metaverse buzzword is heating up again, and we all say, what will it do for us? Well, it exists if you live in second life. One limiting factor for second life has been that it's only available on Windows or Mac OS or Linux until now. A community director for second life's developer, Linden Labs, announced that a beta for a mobile version of second life will launch later this year. It's being built in Unity, so it can be released across iOS and Android devices. So, couple questions. Is this another possible future for the metaverse? Or is the bigger lesson of how Linden Labs survived for 20 years without a mobile app? Where second life is big, it's big. People have been rocking with this game, as you said, for 20 years. I actually, I know someone quite well who has built a business inside of second life. Two businesses, actually. One was just farming and creating malls and stores and stuff like that. And the other one is actually teaching conversational English to non-English speakers. So, it's amazing that this is stuck around, but I'm not willing to necessarily call this the metaverse. This isn't necessarily Zuckerberg's idea of what the metaverse was going to be, but it's something that is very sticky, so maybe he should take some signals from it. Yeah, that's the key, right? Yeah. I get your point, Rob, but at the same time, I'm like, what is a metaverse? If not, what is, like you said, a couple of friends are making a living within second life and have been doing that for some time. I used to live in this neighborhood of San Francisco that was right down the street from Linden Labs, which makes second life. So, I feel like I kind of knew, you know, you sort of see the employees around and it felt like a really big deal. Again, this was the better part of 20 years ago, and I haven't really heard about second life in a while. Not to say that people- I think that's what blows me away is that that story, Sarah, that you tell usually ends with, and then of course, that company got acquired slash went bankrupt. Yeah, or they just- Everyone laughed or- Yeah, or crashed and burned it. It doesn't exist anymore, or it pivoted to enterprise. But Linden Labs didn't do any of those things. Linden Labs just kept going with a solid community, less than a million people, you know, 800, 900,000, depending on when they reported users, but making money, staying viable by paying attention to your community to your point, Rob, that's a signal that Metta could look at if they really want to make something that is like a metaverse, right? There's only a million folks in here, but these are diehard second life users. I mean, we have heard of people who have gotten married inside of second life. We know people who literally, they're on other sides of the planet in the way they conversely with each other, literally daily, is through second life. So the stickiness of this has just been something that absolutely Metta should be taking a look at to see, okay, well, how can we get people that are just really into this platform? And as I said, it's just been one of those things to where for the last 20 years, they've just been running. Nobody's really been messing with them. They just been doing their thing. And the diehard fans are diehard fans. They really support this platform. I have to imagine that, you know, some folks at Linden Labs saying, all right, well, you know, we're under a million users, but you know, they've stuck with us. They like it here. You know, people are having fun and making relationships and at some times making money. Let's launch a mobile app because this whole Metaverse thing is going to come back up. And we already, you know, have proof of concept that this is a place that people like to be. I think they said in their video that they've been working on this for a long time. They just couldn't make it to their satisfaction. And they think they're close enough to doing it now. I think you're right. They probably got a little more motivated to work on it because there's more eyes on Second Life now than there used to be. That makes sense to me. But what I love is that they never had a VC or an investor pressuring them. You got to hit scale or we should liquefy. You got to hit scale or we should sell. I don't know why that happened. Maybe they did have that pressure and they escaped it somehow. But the fact that they were able to say like, yeah, our buzz faded. Our users declined from the big levels. But we were able to continue as a business and nobody said, well, you can't just continue stable. You have to grow or nothing. And they were like, no, we can just be. That's unusual, especially for a company located in San Francisco. You can make a business out of a thousand true fans. They got a million of them. So it's an absolute business. And I look at Linden Labs almost like the mom and pop that still strives even though they're right now in the street from Walmart. Yeah. And they're not panicking because they couldn't make a mobile app back in 2010 when mobile was hot. They're putting out a mobile app now because they're like, yeah, I think we finally figured out how to make it work well. And sure, were they, like I said, did they hurry up to make it work well lately? Maybe, for sure. Why not? Well, and to your point, Tom, about whether they had taken VC money or not, there are a lot of companies that say, they're not necessarily saying, well, how do we scale? Now we have to scale. Scaling so hard. Oh, no, we're not scaling fast enough. There are Linden Labs being just one example or a mom and pop store like your example, Rob, or the bookstore down the street from me type thing. It's like, you might just say, this is sustainable. We're happy with this. We like our community. We don't have to scale. Or at least that's not the first thing that you're thinking about every day. I'm not saying they didn't take investor money, but they were able to avoid that pressure that most people who do. Right, because that's usually why you have all these conversations about scale. It's like, well, no, we need more users. You know, how do we get the MAUs up? You know, that sort of thing. Yeah, I really believe that Linden took the route of, we don't necessarily need more. Can we just get the ones we have to do more in the platform? Yeah, or make them happier so they do more. Exactly. They make money and then we take a cut. Yeah. Who likes it? I haven't been in second life lately. It's probably been a couple of years, but like the last time I was in there, I was just like, wow, it's like, you can do a lot in here. It's like, oh, wow, they have this. Oh, they have that. It's a million people who really rock with that platform. If you've ever played any MMORPG or something, second life is kind of like that, but without the RPG part of it as much. You can kind of RPG whatever you want. There's not like, it's not Warcraft. It's not a call of duty or anything like that. I think more like the Sims almost. It's a little bit like the Sims, but even with fewer goals, you know, because it's so open world. Folks, if you're a second life fan, share your experiences with us. Let us know or just talk about any of this stuff in our Discord, which you can join by linking to a Patreon account at Patreon.com slash DTNS. Wall Street Journal has a story on Micron's challenge, finding skilled workers to fill the jobs at a chip plant that it's building in Syracuse, New York. Now you may say, why is Micron going to all this trouble to find chip workers if they don't exist in Syracuse? Well, because the U.S. passed the Chips Act, which gives them money to build a chip factory in the U.S. States like New York are providing subsidies. So that gives them money to build it in New York. So why did they even get those subsidies? Well, because it costs more to operate a chip plant in the U.S., and the U.S. would like to onshore chip building. So to subsidize the fact that it costs more to come back here, they give them a little money. Cost isn't the only challenge, though. Micron needs to find engineers. They hope to employ about 9,000 people directly. And as these companies often do, there's also contractors and suppliers involved to the tune of 41,000. So there's going to be 50,000 people involved in this plant once it gets up and running. That sounds great, right? From a pure jobs perspective, construction starts in 2024. They're going to start producing stuff sometime in the latter half of the decade. But there aren't enough skilled workers living in the Syracuse area. In fact, they've been declining. In general, folks 25 to 44 years old have declined 10% in the past 20 years. And while there are 70 companies in the chip industry in New York, it's not like they don't have a chip industry. There just aren't enough engineers to fill Micron's jobs. Other tech companies looked at Syracuse and decided not to locate there. TSMC went to Arizona, Intel went to Ohio. So Micron came in and said, let's rally the universities. Let's rally the colleges. They're getting them to expand engineering programs. Syracuse University is the obvious one. It's increasing engineering by 50% over the next five years to turn out more workers that hopefully stay in the area and work for Micron. They're also providing $10 million to K-12 schools to beef up STEM curricula. That's a little longer term, of course. But here's my question. Is this worth all of this effort? Rest of World had a story in January about US companies poaching talent from Latin America and Latin American companies having a hard time keeping engineers around because they all get jobs and work remote for American companies. If there are skilled workers available for cheaper elsewhere in the US or outside of it and demand for chips is currently declining, doesn't it make sense to build your chip fab in a place where it's cheaper? And does it make sense to build a new chip fab at all? Rob, what do you think? Is Micron gonna succeed or is this doomed from the start? I think they're going to, simply because the government is putting up enormous amounts of money to make this happen. Basically, we decided that we want chips to be made inside of our border. They're putting the money up. So one of the reasons that a lot of companies basically have left and gone overseas is because it was cheaper to do things other places. The federal government is now making, and even the local governments in New York are making it less expensive for Micron to run this factory, this foundry in Syracuse. So I think that it can work so long as they're getting the subsidies from the state and from the federal government. I try to think of, okay, because I live in the upper part of Silicon Valley, the northern part of Silicon Valley, where you've got lots of people who are highly skilled and want lots of jobs and there are plenty of them. I don't know the Syracuse area all that well. I know that certainly parts of upstate New York, like Rochester, right? It was known for Kodak back in the day. It's like a lot of people live there because that's where jobs are. And so on the surface, something like, all right, well, we're gonna go work for Micron. You get a lot of really smart kids coming out of college, but they wouldn't be kids at that point, but young adults makes a lot of sense, right? I wonder, what is the decline? I've declined this awesome job at Micron type thing or the idea of this awesome job. That's what I wonder about. What is that reason? Is it because it snows a lot there? Because they don't want to move there. They're like, I want to live where I live, right? Well, but what if they're already going to a local college? I mean, they're familiar with the area. There's not enough people there now. I think that's, they're trying to bring in more people, but they're not churning out enough of the students. So if they don't change anything, even if every engineer that graduates in the area sticks around, that's not enough. They need more than they're producing. Right, right, right. They have to bring in folks from other places. And I think that these are going to be relatively high paying jobs. People will be willing to move there to get these high paying jobs. There's, if you have the engineering degrees, it'll allow you to work in a foundry. There's only so many places in the United States where you can do that, where you can put the schooling that you have to use. So I don't necessarily see the location being that big of a problem. It is Syracuse, New York. It is not like the North Pole. I mean, it does get colder there. It gets colder without back up. But folks have strived in Northern New York for hundreds of years. So I don't see that as being an issue. I think what they're going to have to really focus on is getting into colleges, and the article says that they actually are getting into high schools as well, offering internships, going to HBCUs, offering centers there. There are things that micron can do to fix the issue of not having enough employees. And I wouldn't put it beyond the federal government to, if they need to, they might open up the number of H1Bs that you can get. Microns going to figure out how to make money with this. That's what they do. So I don't, I see issues, but I don't see any of them being unsurmountable. I think that this is actually going to work out because we've had these same conversations here in Columbus. Columbus is not necessarily the place that is going to attract high talent, but they're building a couple billion dollar building. I can see it from my house. I can't be a facetious, but literally it's like 10, 20 minutes from where I live. Yeah. I think it was important what you said to me earlier today when I was pointing out that, because again, if you try to get H1B visas increased, everybody's going to be pointing to all the tech layoffs and say, why should we bring people from overseas? We've got all this tech talent that just got laid off. And Rob, you had a really good observation about that. Yeah. So it is not about just tech talent. These are engineers. These are engineering positions. So a lot of the folks who are getting laid off right now aren't necessarily the most technical folks. They just happen to work for tech companies. These roles require hardcore engineering, hardcore STEM, and they're just, there aren't a lot of those folks. So there are just many of the people who are being laid off would never be applicants for this type of role. They just don't have the engineering chops for it. So once again, to work in these foundries, you really need to have strong engineering backgrounds. Yeah. Well, if you're going on vacation soon, you might be going to Columbus, Ohio. You might be going to Syracuse, New York. You might be going somewhere else. But sometimes by the time you get there and the vacation place of rest is not available to you, you need to kill some time. If that is the case for you, Chris Christensen has a couple good resources. This is Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler with another Tech In Travel Minute. You've just arrived at your destination, but you can't check into your Airbnb for a while or you have to check out and you want to tour around, but you don't want to do it with your luggage. What do you do? If you're staying at a hotel, you can leave it behind. But what if you don't have that option? They've got two apps for you. One is called Luggage Hero and the other one is called Bounce. And both of them let you find someplace near you that is set up to store your luggage. There's a charge for that, something like a dollar an hour or something like that. But you can easily search for places near you that you can store your luggage and then go off and do your tour or whatever without it. Luggage Hero and Bounce. This is Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler. I cannot tell you how many times this has happened to me where I'm like, well, I mean, I'm not going to go tour the Eiffel Tower with my luggage. Right. And you're staying in an Airbnb. There's no concierge at an Airbnb to chuck your luggage for you, right? Exactly. Yeah. Now, these are good trips. Good tips, rather. Tips for trips. For trips, yeah. luggagehero.com and usebounce.com, not the fabric softener. Let's check out the mailbag. So Matt, who says he's a listener from the Buzz Out Loud days, so thanks for your support over the years, Matt, says a moon photo being changed wouldn't be a big deal if copyright wasn't involved with photography. Matt is referring to our conversation earlier this week about Samsung's phones potentially adding some AI to moon photos and people saying, well, hold on a second. That's not the photo that I took. Matt says there's a line where if a photo was taken by a photographer and the phone completely changes it, then it's not a real representation of what the person photographed. It's one thing to use an image editing program to touch things up. But if the phone is doing stuff that an image editing program can't do or didn't do, then it's getting into the AI as generating a portion of the image and that's not traditional photography. Our society has not legally defined copyright when AI is generating some portion of a creative work. Oh, this is a good observation, Matt. Well done. Listeners at DTNS who heard our episode where we talked about the graphic novel that didn't get copyright protection for the images because it was made... I can't remember if it was exactly by mid-journey, but something like mid-journey. The copyright office said there's a difference between something like Photoshop or Illustrator where the outcome is predictable and you're in charge of it versus mid-journey where you just tell it to do something and you don't know what it's going to do. And Matt's pointing out how different is the moon texture stuff that Samsung's doing here. And he's right. Nobody, we haven't defined it. We don't know. All right. Let's get to Karen that says, Love the show just had to say you all had me in stitches with the chat GPT jokes and cat alarms. I'm referring to a good day internet yesterday. Yeah, I was talking about my Echo show. Yes, if you add the cat theme to your Echo show, you will be surprised and possibly delighted slash horrified. It depends on how much you like cats. If you didn't hear it, Sarah talks about how she was woken to the sound of yelling cats. It's the best story ever. You know, you can't make this stuff up. Love, love a good assistant. This is why you need to become a patron, folks. Exactly. Is this what you're missing, everybody? Oh, it's good stuff. All right. Len Peralta is not to be missed. He has been busy illustrating today's show. Len, what have you drawn for us today? You know, I got to say, I am I may be in the minority here. I'm not interested or excited for the metaverse. I wasn't really into Second Life when it came in. I did do Second Life for a bit, but it didn't hold my interest. So I got to say today's art is sort of kind of, you know, getting that vibe. I drew a gentleman here who is a second life user, let's just say who is excited for Second Life coming to mobile. He's like, whatever happened to my first Second Life? And there was a little computer in the back there where his first Second Life has passed away, unfortunately. Is there such thing as a Second Second Life? There's a third Second Life that we're all going to have to, you know, that's going to be the metaverse. Anyway, that image, if you're interested in putting that up in your cubicle or in your office or wherever you are, you can get it at my Patreon. Patreon.com forward slash Len. You get it immediately. It's right there right now. Or you can go the old-fashioned way and purchase it from my online store. It's right there on the front. And while you're at it, why don't you commission me for something? Because I am open for commissions right now and there's all kinds of giving things coming up in the next couple months. So keep me in mind. Order Len around. He'll do great work for you. I love to be ordered around. I've done it, yeah. Commission Len. You won't be disappointed. Please, thank you. Rob Dunwood. So glad to have you on the show today. Let folks know where they can keep up with your work. Oh, you can catch me on the Tech John, the Tech J-A-W-N, wherever you get your podcast. I'm joined weekly by Stephanie Humphrey and Terrence Gaines where we break down the week's tech news, but from the perspectives of African Americans. So please check us out at TechJohn.com. It's good stuff. It's good stuff. We also have two new bosses to thank. We're going to make a big deal out of it because it's St. Patrick's Day. And whether they're Irish or not, it doesn't matter. Becca and Neil both just started backing us on Patreon. Yay! Thank you, Becca. Thank you, Neil. So good to have you. Yeah, I was doing a Twitch stream, which I do sometimes while I prep DTNS, and I mentioned we didn't have any new patrons. If you want to become a patron, jump in. You'll get your name on the show. Becca and Neil both were like, oh, I've been meaning to do this. This was the nudge I needed. So thank you, Becca and Neil. You guys are the best. You are. You are. Going into the weekend with two new patrons feels pretty great. Now, Becca and Neil both get to stick around for the extended show, Good Day Internet, because they are patrons. And it is time for another Quiz Friday. That's right. The Tech Personalities Quiz. Strange and wonderful facts about the big personalities in tech. Come join us, patrons. You won't be... Wrong! We might be wrong. We'll see who wins the quiz. But just a reminder, our show is live. Of course, you can catch it anytime you like, but if you'd like to join us live, we'd love to have you Monday through Friday, 4 p.m. Eastern, 200 UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. We hope you all have a wonderful weekend. We'll be back Monday with Justin Robert Young joining us. Talk to you then. This week's episodes of Daily Tech News Show were created by the following people, host producer and writer Tom Merritt, host producer and writer Sarah Lane, executive producer and Booker Roger Chang, producer, writer and host Rich Strafolino, video producer and Twitch producer Joe Koontz, technical producer Anthony Lemos, Spanish language host, writer and producer Dan Campos, news host, writer and producer Jen Cutter, science correspondent Dr. Nikki Ackermanns, social media producer and moderator Zoe Deterding. Our mods, Beatmaster, W.S. Goddess One, BioCow, Captain Kipper, Steve Waterama, Paul Reese, Matthew J. Stevens, a.k.a. Gadget Virtuoso and J.D. Galloway, mod and video hosting by Dan Christensen, music and art provided by Martin Bell, Dan Looters, Mustafa A, Acast and Len Peralta, live art performed by Len Peralta, Acast adds support from Tatiana Matias, Patreon support from Dylan Harari. Contributors for this week's shows include Molly Wood, Chris Ashley, Patrick Norton, Scott Johnson, Justin Robert Young, Rob Dunwood and Chris Christensen. And thanks to all our patrons who make the show possible.