 Hey, welcome to the video people watching the video. I'm Tom. We're on the video. I Should come up with a you a standard way to start these videos now that so many of you are watching them More those numbers come the bigger. Yeah Tamar Sandell is with us today. She's gonna talk about tech history Yep, that's me. Hi Tamar. Hi Start pushing all these other buttons. All right Yes, that's right strike it rich in our chat room says of course you guys are talking about apricot computers Yeah, we were discussing the replacement of fruit orchards with fruit companies in Silicon Valley Oh, that's right and Yeah, I find this this topic we're gonna talk about fascinating the sort of like I I remember when the ipad well, I don't I want to save some of it for the show but I remember when the iPod came out and In my head comparing it to the Walkman Mm-hmm, and I remember also when the Walkman came out just how badly I wanted one and Looking back it really didn't do anything It was kind of the Walkman was probably more the same to what happened before it just smaller Yeah Whereas like the iPod and like later the iPhone were sort of more like bigger leaps Yeah, but they're all kind of like branches on the same tree. Yeah, they're all kind of in a line That trend that darn transistor just Ruined everything for whip makers Well, just created this World where you could have this tiny thing with you and seemed tiny anyway at the time Yeah, and you could take it wherever you wanted and that seemed huge. Yeah, I remember that I really should save this for the show But I just remember that first cassette recorder that my dad got and was like look You don't have to well It was a competition with his uncle with my uncle Harry his brother who was all into reel-to-reels Yeah, and he was like don't need to mess with all those real reels check this out Yeah, well, he was right and turn the yeah, he really was Well, I think I spent the first five years having a Walkman Recording the records and reel-to-reels that we had two tapes to listen to in the Walkman. Yeah That's so funny Remember not being able to get a Walkman. I had to get a Kobe. Oh Man out it's like and and you know this this is not it This is a theme because I had to wear the JC penny Fox shirts not the brand name penguin They last buying whatever looked like a Nike shoe. Yeah, I don't remember shoe-wise I definitely didn't have Nike's though. It was laugh. This was totally me growing up. Yeah I think I was converse mostly actually so it was at least a brand name Actually back then converse for cheap and Well, cuz sports was important so you needed good shoes for that Versus I grew up in San Jose where my dad in tech was like we need the Walkman. Yeah, right? You can't have converse forget that why that's not important shoes. You need high-tech audio equipment. That's awesome All right Let's get this show on the road before we do the show already without doing the show. Here we go This is the Daily Tech news for Wednesday, June 29th 2016 I'm Tom Mary joining me today. Mr. Scott Johnson as he does most Wednesdays. How are you Scott? I'm fine I'm better because it's Wednesday. I love these times that we have together Tom. I am very excited we've got some great top stories to talk about and also joining us to discuss the roots of our mobile technology Amateur tech historian Tamar Sandel is with us. Thank you tomorrow. Hi Great to be here. We we already started getting into the topic before the show talking about Walkman and Cassettes and iPods and all of that. So we'll get to that in a bit. Let's start off with a look at the top stories Facebook published a document explaining changes to how things show up in its news feed the post by VP product management news feed Adam Moseri Emphasizes that user interest and friends and family are priorities over publisher and other Advertiser needs after friends and family Facebook tries to prioritize items that inform and entertain based on Behaviors such as likes and clicks Etc Facebook is also encouraging people to use unfollow hide See first other options like that to get the news feed to work the best for you Facebook does expect the changes may cause reach and referral traffic to decline for some pages So Scott, they're essentially saying we know this will hurt the people who monetize all of their content and make us all the money But users first because if we don't have the users, we don't have anything to sell the publishers. That's pretty good PR I think this is probably why Facebook has continued to grow and does as well as it does despite what some people may think about the service They've done a really good job of algorithmically curate curating everything that you see these days And I think it's probably just fine I heard a story yesterday from a fan. So take this for whatever level of journalistic integrity this has but told me that they had a Friend whose son wanted a Facebook page parents said no so he curated a Page under a different name faked his age all the stuff you do when you're you know a silly preteen or teenager created this this page he's under 13 and Didn't put any personal information about where he lives or any of the stuff that could lead back to him Or have his parents find out he had it two days later He shows up in the kind of recommended people for you to follow list on the parents page with a picture Oh, who's this person that says we should we should get with so it was clear that a lot of these other Factors are playing a role in how we're finding each other retaining each other and seeing what each other are saying on our feed So to me this isn't shocking at all. I kind of like the idea that it's users first if that's what they really mean If I sound skeptical is because you know, I know this does more complicated than simply that but but but yeah, you know At least it's not them just saying yeah, we're giving all your data everybody and we don't care about nothing. So sorry. We're Facebook Live with it. Yeah, I think the thing that really Surprised me was in the engineering post them lining out in a public post. Yes This may cause reach and referral traffic to decline. They didn't say it could have impacts on they didn't try to fudge it They're like, no, this is gonna reduce your reach and referral We're really sorry, but we think it's that important and it and I don't think it's altruistic and Certainly, they're going to play it for the PR bump that they can get but it is Facebook Acknowledging something that I think companies have struggled with for a long time Which is you have to go for the long-term good of your product to make sure that you keep those short-term Benefits around if you go for the short-term benefit of pumping up your numbers You'll you'll look great this quarter, but you may end up as the next MySpace or Friendster And I think that's what they're trying to avoid. Yeah, no in a way. They're just doing what say Google did Not too long ago when they started doing it now They do it continually but they're always changing the way their search works so that people can't gain this system and end up Having way more people find their site than should be And doing, you know crazy SEO things that are a little bit Sceesy on the back end. They're always trying to make that, you know a better experience for users Even though potentially this means lost revenue, so it's it's the right thing for them to do Tomar, do you do believe Facebook that they're users first? I think to the extent that any like major media company is users first. Yeah But I do think that there's a large focus on like quality user Experience rather than just like blasting. So that's sort of the the shift is more like we want like the best eyeballs on the best Products or we want to make sure people are paying for the best access. So it sort of puts them above other streams So they're in they're in meetings with with their major Revenue generators saying look, I know we're saying this up front, but this is how it's gonna still work for you Yeah, like there's an it they're trying to spin it as an advantage Which is sort of believable because they want to make sure that they're getting the right info to the right people Google's project is zero researcher Tavis Ormandy also happens to have the coolest name at Google in my opinion Says they found vulnerabilities in 25 Symantec products including Norton antivirus that old chestnut some of these vulnerabilities could be triggered by emailing a file and With that doesn't mean any user interaction at all is what they're saying Symantec has published fixes for all of these vulnerabilities Ormandy's Chided Symantec for allowing its unpacker to have kernel access and using seven-year-old code in need of updates That's all part of its decomposer. It's a yeah decomposer library. So kind of going after Norton or Symantec a little bit saying guys Update your stuff. Yeah, Tavis Ormandy In the opposition to our previous discussion about doing what's good for PR I mean I guess this is good for PR for Google But I don't I think Tavis Ormandy just goes after things when it hits the 90 days He lets people know it in this case. It wasn't even the 90 days They waited until Symantec had fixed the vulnerabilities and then let people know it and when he let him know it He didn't let him know it politely. He said look this this is really bad what you did here Like this this should not have been a thing But I am glad that Google is allowing project zero to go out and find these vulnerabilities and get them fixed That's fantastic I'll agree. Hey, it's official Windows 10 anniversary update will arrive August 2nd So if you were wondering about that blog post that blipped out yesterday that we mentioned They have made it official now and they didn't change the date. So Windows 10 if you're if you've got it You will get that update on August 2nd Amazon announced today that they will begin offering Prime members discounted unlocked smartphones with pre-installed Amazon apps So like Amazon video the Amazon shopping Kindle etc. They'll also have lock screen ads similar to what they do with their e-readers So but the special offers will show up on two devices sold with their branding Sold without their branding. So there's no Amazon branding on these These are just stock devices from Moto G for a hundred fifty dollars and the blue R1 HD for fifty dollars The only difference between this and other versions of these phones is they have the Amazon pre-installed and the ads on the lock screen They both appear on the lock screen as well as below lock screen notifications Although those can be swiped away Amazon did not announce a release date the release date for the regular versions of these is July 12th. So one assumes that's when they'll come out on Amazon as well We talked about this a bit this morning Scott, but it is it is interesting to say oh I can get a Decent phone for a really cheap price with ads on it. It's a big step for Amazon to say yeah We are not coming out with another fire phone right now. We are not coming out with a phone that runs our fire OS we're coming out with an Android phone with Google services on it And we're taking the Microsoft tactic of just pre-installing our own stuff. Yeah Basically if there was a way to visualize a big giant nail in the proverbial coffin of the fire phone Series and thinking that they might take a second stab at it. This has to be it I'm saying look this is an inexpensive way to do it. These are true Android devices These aren't a forked version of what we do with the fire phones or fire tablets I assume fire tablets will continue to be there and do okay. They seem to be doing okay I see a lot of those in the wild They haven't updated them in a while, but that may be coming That may mean nothing, but it may mean that they're pulling away Maybe this is a business they thought they wanted to get into they wanted to compete with iPads and with Android nexus tablets and that sort of thing And maybe they're just like you know what guys let's stick to where our competencies are We've done amazing things with Alexa. We've got great things happening still with Kindle and other fire TV They they're selling decent numbers of fire TV box So why not I mean to me this to me the writing was on the wall That was an embarrassing product launch it went real real real bad for them It makes sense to me that a company like them where they need to keep at this at the pace of business Just start selling great phones you have a less expensive option put your stuff on it You kind of have a everybody wins scenario and you're still competing in a way with these other guys You were trying to compete with so it kind of seems like it works for everybody I think that's great tomorrow Is it worth 50 bucks of savings to you to put up with ads on your lock screen? Probably I do it on a Kindle fire right now So if I really needed a cheap phone They're often good for like the it's not my iPad fire. It's not my good phone You know, it's my bad phone or my cheap phone. I'll turn it out your secondary phone. That makes sense actually Yeah, and even then you know look there there needs to be I think mainstream alternatives that aren't just I Can get this weird Chinese knockoff through Ali Baba or something it'd be nice to be able to go to Amazon and say Here is an Amazon quote-unquote Amazon endorsed Preloaded phone that is true Android that are good phones These aren't garbage phones and they're substantially less expensive than a brand new iPhone the latest Galaxy phone So I don't I don't see how this is bad for them at all In fact, this probably should have been their first strategy And I and I feel like this is just what they're gonna settle into and this is what we'll see from now on from them Yeah, and honestly, I like I would like them to do this I liked that the Kindle app was available everywhere I didn't have to actually buy a Kindle device to get the ability to read Kindles And I don't read on a Kindle device anymore But I still buy lots of Kindles because of that whereas Amazon video I kind of steer clear of because they're like well, we're not gonna have it on phones Okay, we'll have it on phones, but not on tablets, okay? We'll have it on tablets, but not but you have to use the Amazon like that that just kept me like I don't know where I can get it anymore. I'm just not gonna bother with it. Yeah There's an openness to Kindle as an ecosystem There's an openness to Echo as an ecosystem and that Openness did not seem to extend to phones and tablets for some reason. This seems like a bit of a reset So I think that's good Uber will now use information gathered from drivers phones to send a weekly scorecard So get ready to be judged everybody speeding alerts and reminders to take breaks that kind of stuff as well the uber app for drivers will use the The gyro and accelerometer and GPS to collect data, so they're gonna use every possible data point Uber's been experimenting with looking at the data to confirm complaints about aggressive driving Monthly reports sent to drivers in some markets resulted in 10% reduction in harsh breaking The feature will roll out in 11 cities across India and the United States I love the idea that they will tap into Literally tap into movement data to see how her key jerky their their trip was that's amazing to me Well, yeah, and just to help them understand that they're you know help them become better drivers I can see some drivers being annoyed like come on man speeding happens If I'm not speeding on certain highways, I'm going to be endangering my passengers Like I don't need a speeding alert when I'm going along with the rest of traffic on the 405 or whatever, right? So I can see the downside to this too. Yeah, I did it's also this I Know I'm wrong to do this and you'll be the first person to tell me this It's partly why I enjoy our relationship because you're often having me crawl down from great heights when I have opinions on stuff like this But I feel like we're still waiting for some terrible terrible terrible uber story like I don't there have been terrible uber story And there have been don't get me wrong some of that stuff has been real bad Yeah talking about like a systemic broad problem that hits all at once or something like that I feel like I'm just waiting for that shoe to drop and I probably should stop thinking about it that way Well, what what else do you need to happen? You need to happen to have like Thousands of uber drivers do something horrible at once like I know I well I don't want any of it to be honest I'd like it all to go very smoothly But there's a little piece of me that's still shocked that we are totally cool with the situation and it To better explain that Just the idea 15 years ago if you said hey What do you think it would happen if the world just suddenly given everybody gave everybody drive or rides and cars? And we had little devices that would like make sure all the paying payment stuff worked out It would sound insane. How is that different from a taxi driver? I don't know why it's just some there's a disconnect for me Where a taxi driver is like there's that business they drive a yellow cab. They picked me up that's been the relationship for as long as I've been on this planet and Now we have this new one where it's that guy's got a Celica. I need to drive somewhere. He's in the neighborhood Let's do this. Well, and that's why especially in India But even in parts of the United States and elsewhere They are pushing for background checks and to say look you can't just let anybody do uber X There's there's uber and there's uber X and I think that's also part of the problem uber Started as ride sharing now. It's ride hailing It really isn't just any more too much of that anybody who has a Celica Becomes an uber driver. That's true. It's just such a I don't know such a weird new kind of ecosystem I don't know why it's a Celica either. Yeah, I don't know either. I don't know why I pulled that one out It's actually more like what color is the Celica? It's like he's on ultimus all the time. It seems like Tomar, do you take Lyft or uber or anything like that? Yeah, I've taken uber quite a bit although I find the advantage of their new technology it reminds me of my 17 year old stepdaughter who's learning to drive and like I think that parents would love to be able to just know how well their own kids are driving if Everywhere they take their phone They can see even if they're not driving even if their friends driving them around you see like you were with a bad driver today There's a new app like in development for parents everywhere Based on like using you know speed geolocation and all that to figure out like where not just where your kids are But how well they're driving? Yeah If that exists email us feedback at daily technician.com because 16 year old is about to get his license. I would really like that app Sony CEO cause her eye told investors it has started a robot organization Inside of Sony they started it back in April to provide Emotionally compelling experiences So think pepper soft banks pepper robot everybody's trying to get into this game here I also expects the PlayStation VR which launches in October to lead a future area of growth and Continue the robust games business that Sony is pretty much relying on for their profits right now Also hoped that dual-lens cameras might slow the slide and sensor sales that has been going along with the slide and smartphone Sales Sony also announced you stream will no longer be an option for streaming gameplay from the PlayStation 4 after August 1st You stream broadcast will no longer be viewable in live from PlayStation either Sony will continue to support twitch YouTube and daily motion though And while Sony wouldn't confirm the number of PlayStation views subscribers Bloomberg says sources tell it Sony has signed up more than a hundred thousand subscribers for that service since March 2015 It's not a lot if you consider there are 50 million PlayStation Owners now. I know that's worldwide right say that but but here even in the US that seems like a small There's like a hundred million cable subscribers Yeah, a little bit less than that now, but yeah, this is a drop in a bucket I suppose in the in a relatively fresh cord cutting world. This is this is progress if you're sort of for that It may be seen. I don't I guess I don't see it as a failure It feels like maybe it's a bit of a loss leader in a way for them To kind of complete their services. It isn't just a game machine. It's these other things But the thing that didn't surprise me about any of these announcements was them Cutting you stream off Mainly because I don't know anyone's who's using it for that for gaming anyway I mean you see me have plenty of other ins and outs, but nobody's using it It's all twitch all the time and if you're not that you're a refugee in YouTube using YouTube live streaming and after that What are you doing like it just seems like a much smaller horse race than then you stream could fit into And you stream seems to have pivoted toward the enterprise as their future So it may have been just as much their This decision as well to say, you know, it's not worth us Supporting this anymore because that's not where the majority of our users are either. Yeah, also a quick note on VR PlayStation VR if this does well enough this holiday season and there's a lot of the expectations pre-sales were really strong There's a lot to there's a lot of reason to think this is gonna go well for them I would like to see Sony at least consider the idea of Working on some VR projects that are not tethered to a console that are We're along the lines of gear VR or something a little more portable or standalone devices that Those not as interested in games but interested in 360 video or VR experiences that aren't necessarily games Yeah, but why they don't on vio anymore. They don't have a division that does that you're right They don't have any of that stuff So this would be like a new thing for them like a new product standalone I what I want. Yeah, I guess what I'm telling you Thomas. It doesn't have to be Sony I want somebody working on standalone VR technology that just gives me a headset not a bunch of cables Maybe my phone if that's the screen we have to you. Yeah, there's a few of them out there. There's the Microsoft Holo lens There's open source VR. There's a couple others I can't bring to mind right at the second that are trying to do the standalone. Yeah I'm looking forward to that. That's the future. We're all heading for folks. Not this big cable. That nightmare we're dealing with now I was negative. I didn't mean it to be Get off my lawn VR Nintendo Shigeru Miyamoto told investors the company did not display the Nintendo NX console at E3 because it is concerned about copycats This is not the first time they've said this by the way The NS is expected to arrive in March of 2017 Miyamoto also said Nintendo has the core technology for VR But wants to release quote something that can be played for long periods carries value and is affordable I happen to agree with him and Gadget notes that in a slide presentation Nintendo said it is shifting focus from expanding the gaming population to increasing exposure of Nintendo's characters and game titles Everything about that is standard Nintendo stance The copycat thing is the thing they've had fears about in the past None of this is I mean it's news, but none of it is shocking at all This is kind of their their modus operandi and they'll always work this way in my opinion Unless they have a severe change in corporate culture, but this is kind of how they roll Well, and to your point about you wish Sony would would come up with some kind of standalone VR Nintendo is not having any VR and they're they're essentially signaling like we don't think we can make something parents will like yet Mm-hmm. That is what they're saying and they're also saying it's hard to leverage their lucrative incredibly lucrative IP The the things the properties that they have the names that they have under their umbrella Including Miyamoto himself Are enough to propel Nintendo into the future however they decide they want to make their future And so they are not the kind of company that needs to stop what they're doing and attach to trends when they've tried to do that in the past It's hurt them That is just that isn't to say they don't always succeed with their weird offshoots like the Wii U is largely considered a bit of a failure The Wii however was a enormous success for them. I'll I'll be it sort of a short one I'm very excited to see what they do with this next but them relying on the strength of their IPs and The incredible value that their own internal development brings them It just feels fine to me that they're not announcing VR I don't need them to be on this bandwagon, but does that mean that VR isn't ready yet? Before you answer that this afternoon HTC confirmed to the Verge that it has established a wholly owned subsidiary called HTC Vive tech corporation So it's within HTC, but it's now sheltered So if you do a deal with HTC Vive tech corporation say as a game developer You don't have to worry that HTC will go out of business because of bad phone sales because it can be spun off Already as of wholly owned subsidiary and they're gonna have them develop their VR business So HTC is doing the opposite of Nintendo and saying VR business is the only business That's worth anything for us right now. It's almost as if the phone business isn't working out for HTC in the way that they Oh, no, nothing that they're doing is working out when I say it's not worth anything I'm overstating it obviously, but yeah This is the this is the bright spot for them and a lot of people were saying they could boy the rest of the company But instead they've sort of sectioned it off so it won't sink Yeah, not only that they've got because they've kind of tied their wagon to steam VR which is built on an open-source form of VR and Steam is way or steam of valve is very very much into making sure that Hardware developers and software developers have everything they need to do what they need to do and rumor is at valve A third of that company is now working on VR and VR projects and some of that may be interfacing with HTC and other companies working on future headsets That ecosystem seems really if not Robust at the very least determined and that determination is pretty palpable So I say this is probably a really smart move for HTC and they've established themselves as a quality hardware maker for VR People look at that device and say yeah way to go We didn't know you had it in you and if they can keep that up I'm very much looking forward to whatever their next iteration is but tomorrow Are you gonna buy any of these or do you already own one of these yet? I don't but I'm also curious how this might tie into what you're talking about before with enterprise and VR I think it's like people like to talk about the flashy like gaming and all this like you know sort of super consumer end But I feel like that's this other sort of unexplored platform that I feel like until that becomes another area for you know Business functions every day requiring VR. It's still gonna be a little bit more like flash and pan come go PR moves here and there and then like until it's like basically boring like until it's a fax machine It's all kind of like touch and go touch and go. Yeah, that's really Bob's complaining that Jane didn't clean the VR headset last time She used it Exactly getting VR dust everywhere. I will share one quick anecdote I was at a dental office this week at a dental appointment and I had to have a filling 3d Not printed but milled and the way they do these they do them right on sign it's super cool and my dentist sits down at this big screen and After they've taken a bunch of pictures with a wand in my mouth where the tooth supposed to be They are presented on screen with a really good 3d model of the tooth And they get to now kind of tweak it and mold it make sure it's gonna fit exactly right Within this like virtual mouth in there and he's doing it with a track ball and a and a click pad Which seems super weird that that's not a mouse or some other way, but it immediately hit me You could easily like easily put on a headset take a couple of Vive controllers and do what he's doing in a way I'll be far more detailed zoom in zoom out walk around that thing I mean may not be practical as it stands right now for position detection in a small dental office, however It was immediately obvious to me what you said that that the that the corporate and sort of You know medical world there are ways to start using this stuff like right away It isn't just we're gonna be doing virtual surgery across the country or some sci-fi idea I mean just like practical things. They're already doing but in a much better way and man There's got to be so much money in that that guy he paid a hundred grand or more for that system Yeah, so why not pay as much for the next one now do it in your real quickly We finish it out the top stories Microsoft is offering what is essentially a free Xbox one with the purchase of a Surface Pro 4 You have to buy both, but then you get a $299 discount for buying both And that's the price of the Xbox one You also have to be either a student a parent of a student or a faculty member It starts today and runs until August 14th Scott. You just thought this was humorous It cracks me up because they're saying hey, here's this device the Surface Pro fantastic computing device You're gonna take this to school and you're gonna learn all kinds of stuff And you are gonna get great grades and graduate top of your class way to go. What's your major? Oh, by the way? For free over here. You can have this thing that will distract you from all that other stuff And you'll end up, you know dropping out except I'm studying game design Scott. So this is perfect for me Too many game designers. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, thanks to everybody who submit stories in our subreddit daily tech news show Dot reddit.com in there today amongst all of y'all is TG stellar captain Kipper flying spatula Betue the condolce Philip Shane and more get in there and vote daily tech news show dot reddit.com And that is a look at the top stories Alright today June 29th is the ninth anniversary of the launch of the iPhone And it coming up in October. It'll be the 15th anniversary of the launch of the iPod And so when we think mobile devices, this is what we think about we think about phones We think about music devices But many of the features of the modern smartphone have their roots in much earlier Music devices that didn't let you get to pick the songs because they were radio Before the 1950s tomorrow, you didn't carry audio and video with you. This is relatively new in human history Yeah, for you know, 50 plus years prior to the transistor radio people actually had to sit down with a really big box or cabinet like a piece of furniture and Play records play phonographs listen to the radio It was something you did at home kind of like many people probably remember TV in the 60s 70s and 80s That's what radio was. That's what music was. It was very much like sitting on the couch sitting at home with a big box That was really big So what made that change what what what was the thing that brought us to like? Hey, you can actually you can take this AM radio radio station around with you Yeah, so you have the development of the the development of the transistor itself in the 40s Which was originally more designed for military usage. It was really expensive and They decided to start putting it in radios as a way of sort of showing it off It was really like a almost a PR move. They did it in time for Christmas in 1954 It was really expensive and not really good when it first came out But the idea caught on and in about 10 years it went from being like about a in today's dollars over $300 purchase to something that was more akin to like 30 to $50 purchase so it suddenly went to be really accessible and Simultaneously TV took over the big box radio now became the thing that you could take with you Well, and at the time a lot of people were thinking TV was going to eventually kill radio Do you think this is one of the things that saved it? It definitely did along with You know over time you also have the development of FM But that came a little bit later in terms of rising with you know different music styles But at least in the 50s and 60s Having more of the early rock music that played well on the tinny AM like say the Beatles like high pitch Kind of just need a basic, you know beat played really really well in those little devices that everyone could carry with them especially young people That's interesting. I'd never considered the idea now it rings true in my head that the Beatles Style of early music especially the the later stuff you could make different arguments, but the early stuff did very much seem to be perfectly suited for that kind of Technology I had never really considered that before and later they messed around with like stereo in a way that a lot of Other bands weren't as well. I hadn't really thought about it This is this is a band that is so influential and so important in the history of rock and roll That they also either knowingly or not rode right along with the changes in the technology Would you would you say that you're it? Yeah 1960 1963 Beatles You know all the early sort of British invasion even kind of like late 50s like all of that sort of Early rock was like perfect to be played on What we would now consider kind of a you know sort of low-fi device and Similarly, you know over time later the Beatles switched over to that sort of high fidelity like really good stereo system But they definitely rode the wave all of those sort of late 50s early 60s bands their music, which was sort of you know Key baseline tinny kind of like light guitar Kind of high-pitched voice all was like perfect for the transistor radio well and another thing that I think affects that is Solitary listening I I had forgotten until we were preparing for this and you pointed out that yeah people had Headphones that they wore over their ears, but transistor radios. Maybe they had a little thing They say that you stuck in one ear, but mostly you just listened to them out in the open It wasn't till later that headphones became an essential part of mobile Technology, yeah, there was actually like an anti headphone movement that happened when they first came out because with a little square device and an earpiece it looked a lot like the hearing aids of the day and People didn't want other people to think for better for worse that they were using a hearing aid So they sort of ditched the earplugs and they might hold it up to their ear or they would put it on a on a shelf But the only time people ever used the heads the sort of earphone piece was either for secret listening So nowadays we think oh people take their iPhones to bed. Oh, this is so horrible People took their transistor radios to bed kids teens and would secretly listen with that head that sort of headphone They would also, you know do all kinds of other things to hide their listening, but generally It was kind of more public. Yeah I wasn't allowed to stay up too late on a Sunday night But I would go with a very small radio with a single earpiece one ear and listen to dr. Demento on Sunday nights in seventh grade or whatever and It was because I could like suddenly this this portable thing was available to me It's no different today than me going alright I need to watch the Game of Thrones finale But I've also got kids in here watching Seinfeld on Hulu on a television I'm gonna just watch this on my iPad and over in the corner because I don't know what HBO is gonna show me this week Yeah, you know in a way. It's just moved to video like that same kind of Ability is there we've got a TV that's thinner than a book in our hands and has a 12-hour battery life And it's kind of insane if you think about it that way I used to I used to steal my dad's Silver transistor radio and earpiece and a flashlight so that I could listen to American top 40 Which wasn't on until 10 p.m. After I was supposed to be asleep, and then I would write down all It was the only way for me to get the top 40 back of the day. That's crazy The other thing that I think is interesting that you pointed out tomorrow is that before transistor radios? devices were expensive and You fixed them if they broke you got a new crystal or you you took it into a repair shop and These days you get a lot of people complaining like why don't people try to fix anything anymore? It's because these Devices became so cheap. It wasn't worth it anymore. Yeah, it was partly a factor of cost It was also designed. They actually started designing transistor radios so that they you couldn't open them or that you couldn't open them easily and in the past people would like open up the Cabinet with the radio to fix and that was just a thing that you or your neighbor or a professional did but between the sort of ease of Replacement like it was cheap and the difficulty of opening it up to fix it It really sort of shifted the consumer electronics model to be more like oh Now radio devices or now like a lot of these sort of new texts that were developing it just became disposable It was easier to replace than to repair It was like that's true now of phones You always hear people say well wouldn't it be great to have replaceable batteries in our phones and others say well I'd rather have a phone that doesn't rattle or doesn't come apart when I drop it or whatever because I'm just gonna replace this thing in a Year anyway, like his from historic From a historic perspective. I feel like we are echoing a lot of that stuff again today Yeah, a lot of pretty much almost everything that someone has written either to complain about or to like celebrate about the Whatever the iPhone the iPod the tablets has been written for at least 50 to 60 years about Probably a radio if not a walkman or a boombox like it's pretty much been covered like every major sort of warning Concern or heralding by the companies the exact words The same images that they use has been repeated like about every 10 to 20 years about a new technology for the last 50 or 60 years So somebody like you's got a good handle on the history of all this You have a more historical perspective on these trends and when they come and go When you hear a shock piece or some link bait or something about new studies suggests Nexus phones are giving us all cancer or whatever, right? You probably see them through just slightly different eyes than the rest of us. I tend to say like wait about Two years for the like hype fear or whatever and then wait about ten years for them to say it in the exact same words about another thing That's absolutely true. It's absolutely well, and you were mentioning before the show cars have gone through this evolution Where there were cars that were trying to be like the locked down transistor radios that made them hard to repair So you'd have to go to the dealer and now because cars have software the manufacturers some sort of moved on to protecting that Yeah, I mean cars are an example where a lot of people really enjoy like modding out cars And they kind of don't really care if you like physically change them But they freak out if you try to touch the software So nowadays like they're less inclined to can be concerned about opening up a physical hood as it were They're really concerned about you like touching anything that involves software like that's the new sort of like They don't want you to access that at all Yeah, I know a lot of farmers have run into that with with combines and tractors and and things like that as well There was a whole controversy over John Deere saying you can't fix your own tractor anymore And that did not sit well with a lot of people Yeah, it's it's funny how like fixing things used to be sort of what you or your friends or Professionals did and now it's like either nobody does it and you get a new one or send it back to the factory They don't want you to see how they open it up You think people freak out about automated cars or at least the idea of automated cars for similar reasons They don't it's once again another layer of self-control being taken from them Yeah I think people like to think that they would open up their phone to fix it if they had that ability Like when you were saying they want to be able to open it up I think that they say that they want to be able to open it up But most people don't really want to learn to fix every single thing in their home They really just want the ability to do so. Yeah, the same with the cars. They want the ability to control it Or you know, they like the idea but reality is like they want to drive They just want the right to ignore the option. Yeah, just have the illusion You have the illusion that you can do something about it is right I want the self-drive button to push, but I will never use it. Yeah All right, well, let's finish up with a couple of emails here regarding gray markets We talked yesterday about particularly game codes being resold before they have actually been used and Installed and the controversies around that Jay from Frankfurt Germany says, please don't promote a new digital rights management site for games on my PC I have steam origin you play already installed so I can play all my games and even that mostly only if I am online So no chance on a train But there are tools that are easier like gog.com's galaxy that is optional DRM is bad and fraudulent codes should be blocked from selling rather than having new DRM and then Alan said an example That is similar to the game codes you talked about yesterday are digital download codes for movies that come with DVD and Blu-ray There are also promotional codes that are given away with other merchandise and occasionally even sold at discount prices Although that's rare. So while these codes aren't usually sold directly the similarity is that there is a large gray market for these unused codes Movies have strong DRM just like some games But there can be fraud around of the purchase that obtain the code and that's really the the key to it Yeah, also, I'm can I just say I'm totally with Frankfurt Germany's own J Yeah, I don't want we don't we have enough layers of this I think I'm okay with the current ecosystem anymore that and I my PC gaming days perhaps would be numbered Already is a little oppressive Well, that is it for this episode of the Daily Tech news show tomorrow Sandell. Thank you so much for joining us Yeah, thanks. It was really fun. Where can people find more of what you're up to? You can find me on Twitter at T for tomorrow like the drink tea, which I love and I write about all sorts of stuff including suburban mom stuff tech and other things T e a f o r t a m a r and we'll have it in the show notes as well Go follower twitter.com slash tea for tomorrow Scott Johnson. What do you got going on? Billings of things too many to it say so I'll just say this if you like daily content Like you're listening to DTNS because you like a daily tech news show It's in the name for heaven's sakes and you're thinking I need I need some other daily entertainment might I point your Squinties at a little show I host every day with my friend Brian of it With guests like Tom Merritt and others called the morning stream and you can find details on that show happens every Monday through Thursday twice on Thursdays In fact at frog pants comm slash TMS for short and follow me on Twitter at Scott Johnson as always Thanks for everyone who supports the show. 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That's twenty sixteen DTNS You can find that link in the show notes as well Our email address is feedback at daily tech news show comm you give us call five one two five nine daily That's five nine three two four five nine catch the show live Monday through Friday 430 p.m. Eastern at alpha geek radio comm or diamond club TV and visit our website daily tech news show comm We'll be back tomorrow with Justin Robert young talk to you then It's part of the frog pants network get more at frog pants comm Club helps you have enjoyed this brover That was an excellent show. Thank you tomorrow. Yeah, you're welcome. That's fun. Oh good. I'm glad you had a good time really good See he had nothing to be nervous about you're right. It was great It's the next time you should be nervous What should we call the show Roger titles, can you hear me? Yes, I can If you go to showbot TV you can actually see all the titles that people submitted during the show SHOW BOT TV and then top of the list is Si man tech get it Facebook Facebook likes its users Where Facebook YOLO who's also got my lawn VR New tech same as the old tech virtual tooth fairy The cycle of tech Adam is a hun I had this admiz on Android Android phone Android that's not bad Norton is a virus heard that before Yeah, but it's a different Norton Norton goes viral You know on VR parental espionage apps I'm looking forward to those Don't judge a good cycle of tech is kind of good Yeah, I like that that talks about the main discussion You could talk about tech history all day. Yeah, that was fun Love that stuff It's almost like you have a book and I drew pictures for it. It is in fact We should have mentioned that during the show should yeah, I don't know why we didn't think of that Zuck fights for the users Tron I don't know I there's nothing here that jumps out at me other than cycle of tech which because it's related to the discussion story Why how the Walkman? How the Walkman improved your life or the how the Walkman? how cheap radios I Can only think of things that are really long. Oh Let me see how cheap radio. It's what I wrote for the description how cheap radios paved the way for the technologies on the mobile It's really good You go site the cycle of tech I guess but I feel like there's something better and yeah, no, it's like How cheap radios made the iPhone possible the circle of tech's life Hmm, there has to be something something a little more more biting Well, I I love the idea of coming up with something that is that idea though of what has come before well is coming again Sort of Battlestar Galactica final episode sort of well. Yeah Because we do human beings just repeat man. We just repeat. It's what we do. Oh, yeah, it's because it's Every few generations or so everyone kind of forgets the lessons and then we make some Big war and then a big dumb something or other and then there's gonna be another hands across America I guarantee you within the next generation. What does everyone just hold hands as a sign of national unity? Never heard of that before What is quarters? I'm sure most people I mean how many people in the chat room even know what hands across America is Have the 45 how many people know what a 45 is We're not talking about a firearm either. No Right good point Tom's talking about beer I Am totally doing that. I'm gonna go at the circle of tech unless you guys have anything else The tech loop the tech carousel Tech loop sounds more like a bad podcast name Welcome to the tech loop. Here. We are at the tech loop. I'm Scott. We're a report on things from one infinite loop and beyond Here we will We've heard of a new technology called a web browser It's called mosaic. It allows you to display pictures dynamically Imaging on your screen. Think of it as kind of a gopher with pictures. There you go Gopher Netscape world you're talking about I'd do all that use go tomorrow. Do you have any title preferences? I don't know. I was gonna suggest something about like your pieces and Something I don't know. We're all like y'all still have them. They never go away From earpiece to earbud Yeah, you're from your piece to beats by Dre or can't do that beats by Dre How beats by Dre or hearing aids became Let's just call it beats by Dre there's your Yeah, just out of nowhere for no reason. Oh Dre beats your bit your pieces. I like that though I like that dangling something about being in your hand like that's the other thing if you look I didn't talk about this But if you look at the old ads for transistors, they're all like like this like like this It's like here's the picture of the thing. Look how small it is in my hand Hold it like and then when the iPod came out It was also like the hand like in your hand in your hand like for scales everything, you know technology Oh technology needs to fit the hand or tech will fit the hand or the tech at hand the tech at hand I think that's too high concept It all needs to fit your hand you need to grip it kung-fu grip tech or it needs to be secretly listening to dr. Demento, right? It's like whether it's dr. Demento or like I kind of like that Listening to dr. Demento not bad Whatever it's like you're not allowed to listen to that's what these things are great for or watching or whatever Secretly listening even if you cut it short. That's pretty good Secret listening Also sounds like a bad podcast name. Yeah Welcome to see who We're the NSA and this is our podcast. I Spelled dr. Demento like the doctor who like oh you did. Yeah, I people with DEM ENTO, right? Yeah, secretly listening to dr. Demento. I like that. All right The thing I used to do it's better than secretly listening to Casey case Oh See I was a geek you're embarrassed. I was I was trying to track the top 40 I was it's I was it's so Obsessed with charts and what the top charts were and it was the only way for me to get that because I remember the Walden books at St. Clair Square 25 miles away would sell billboard magazine But that was the closest I could get to actually getting my hands on the charts So listening and writing them down was the next thing there was no web Yep Fact when the web came along I was still excited to find that billboard had a website and I could get the charts Oh, I am going down a serious YouTube rabbit hole now Tomorrow, thank you for that because now I am planning all these old transistor radio ads and there are some winners in here Yep. Yep. I Back in the day when I did research there was a lot a lot of that in my life Wow They're all like 2495 and That right in your pocket a radio in your pocket. Yeah, my pocket. Yeah, this is fantastic Yeah, that was the other thing with the Walkman is the non earbud headphones Like the outside ones like that was sort of like whoa Because yeah They were all tiny and then they got big and then they got tiny again I get that sport. I still have it. It works I have a sportsman Walkman the ones that were yellow and like resistant to rain or whatever the one that was a little clip Well, there's a weather stripping. Yeah, I had like rubber at it I'll totally work still and his sealed rubber kept and everything But it came with these headphones that were over the head, but they were like earbuds on the end Yeah, I remember I had I had them for my car disc man. I loved those Those were my favorite headphones. They didn't sound all that great to my ears They were terrible, but at the time I thought they were the bomb Well, there are a lot of women in robes sitting around listening to transistor radios. Yes. Yes, also another good title Right now it's like moms on their iPhones at home like not watching the kids and then it was like listening to your soap operas on the Radio not watching your kids like the circle of tech and again Motorola really wrote on that Send some of those links to Roger, maybe we could throw them up on the stream this whole search thing in slack Roger got it So Google in search that I did The circle of tech President's dirty in here, right? No. Well, no, you have safe search on no Roger No, I never had surf stage on but even if surf stage that even if you do It's just the search is transistor radio ad and there are some sexist portrayals, but nothing's like okay It but it's more like hey, it's the 50s. Look at this gal. That's not sexist. That's it This woman's clearly not even running a bikini Remember when there was a time where you could not show a woman's belly button and so that's why women Transistor radios rule the earth Actually men were not allowed to show their belly buttons either. That's why the pants in the 40s and 50s were like Yeah, that's true. It's too risky to risk a famously jack jack par lost his job on the tonight show because he said water closet That's right. Well, it's not even a that's such a dumb word to get fired over Yeah, also lots of pockets in those ads But like in reality, they were slightly too big for real person pockets Like it was like five by six five by four So they were like not actually really for your pocket at least when they first came out Yeah, had to be some kind of like painter painters pocket with like extra wide for brushes or something this thing would fit It would still overalls. Well, I had to be basically drawn because no one actually sewed anything like that. Yeah, right The irony is though. Oh, you know, you know, what's weird is this these radios totally remind me of the Voli radios What Tivoli Tivoli that whole kind of design I'm not gonna buy your thing. It totally has this very similar kind of look and feel to it Well, people said that when the first iPod came out because they chose like the click wheel So like the vertical with like a circle that didn't have to be a circle at all There were like a ton of people when it first came out that were like Oh, they're like recalling the transistor radio look with like the circular speaker 1960 I wouldn't surprise me because they were also Apple was really into what's that called where you try to make You I look like a real thing like leather buttons or Skeumorphic you morphic. Yeah, it's that I think that may have been a little bit of that It was like modern meets you morphic and boom right pod, right? It seems like something job Remember when pocket when something was called pocket. I was I was like it does not fit in a pocket like That that used to be a thing where I'd see pocket and I'd be like I would immediately not believe it Yeah, it's like saying an iPhone 6 plus can fit behind your ear Not quite a quite but I could make an ad that would show it look at those calculators Trying to find the old 1960s like There was a mechanical calculator that used to be that used to advertise as being Pocket it's like this here it is Or that that was one of the things that used to be sold all the time of the back of National Geographic And you would put the numbers in and you would turn it and it would output the There but it was it was advertised as being so small you could put it in your pocket. That's amazing I feel like Tom Hanks should find the location of the tomb of Jesus's wife with that or whatever that looks like It's a codex. Yeah, I think my my grandpa had one of those he was an accountant and that looks really familiar That's what you just you set the numbers right here and then what I think on the reverse side or whatever at the top Is your output? That's a that's before that's before you had transistors Well, all right, so our show is public published. It's also public Thank you all for watching or listening and As we should have mentioned earlier Go check out the year in tech history at Tom married books comm illustrated by Scott Johnson. Yeah, good time You'll find a lot of these things. We'll talk to you later humble about this sort of stuff. It's fine