 Coming up on Daily Tech News show a hologram of you that speaks another language how we learn to stop worrying and love face app Plus the future of brain computer interfaces getting closer This is the Daily Tech news for Wednesday July 17th 2019 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from studio feline I'm Sarah Lane from Bicentennial Salt Lake City. I'm Scott Johnson and from a hot LA County area I'm the show's producer Roger Chang. We were just talking about old social networks, clerk, pounce, path. If you want to hear more about that get the wider conversation on our expanded show Good Day Internet by becoming a member at patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start the show with a few tech things you should know. Google executive Karen Batia told the US Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday that the company has terminated Project Dragonfly which was investigating ways to offer search in China It had been reported to have ended late last year, but Google had not publicly confirmed it until now Well, let me tell you about video games Nintendo updated its main switch console this on the heels of their new light console They announced about a week ago with promised battery life of 4.5 to 9 hours versus the current 2.5 to 6.5 By the way that 6.5 never really reached in my house While Nintendo did not announce specs the verge points out the FCC filing indicates Nintendo's plan To up there they have planned to update the switch of the new system on a chip new models of the switch with extra battery life have Her life has serial numbers beginning beginning with xkw longer life means a longer play DJI announced a new Ronan gimbal for mirrorless cameras called Ronan s compact or Ronan sc Lighter that's the important part 2.4 pounds about 41% lighter than the Ronan s which came out late last year The Ronan sc is made of aluminum magnesium steel and composite plastic. You can take it apart to fit it in a bag It can carry up to 4.4 pounds on it and the battery for the gimbal last up to 11 hours That's a little less than the Ronan s which was 8 pounds in what it could carry and 12 hours of battery life The DJI Ronan sc is available right now for $439 or you can get a pro bundle with some accessories for $539 Microsoft announced that AT&T will use its Azure Infrastructure and move most of its 250,000 employees to Microsoft 365 productivity and security services That's a lot of folks sources tell CNBC that the multi-year deal is worth more than two billion dollars The companies are also joint developing tools for artificial intelligence and high-speed 5g wireless and plan to announce additional Services later this year. That's what Microsoft is doing with AT&T right now But they've been showing off a little bit about what they plan to do in the future, right Scott? Yeah, this is really cool so Microsoft unveiled a combination of Azure AI technologies and Neural text-to-speech during a keynote of the Microsoft inspire partner conference in Las Vegas that creates a digital version of a speaker Whose speech is translated into another language in the original speaker's voice. So imagine somebody standing there. They're talking You then get a translation of that for some other language Spanish Japanese whatever in this case Japanese and boom There's a version of her standing there saying those words in her voice not a real time though No, no and not sync to her lips either although I suspect that's coming to but anyway to show it off Microsoft use Julia White a company executive for Azure Speaking at a keynote and translating her speak her speech rather into Japanese You'll need a hollow lens to see this although the video expresses it pretty well You'll need access to mixed reality capture studio with proper lighting and high-risk cameras to make it But it's a peek into what's possible in the future. I think it's super cool. I went and watched it the the Translation was it sounded like her speaking Japanese like that was her tenor her tone her pitch and It was very convincing and very cool And a little shout out to gamers when she put her hand out at first and had a green hologram of herself in her hand It was very much a halo Look-in moment and people play halo and I'm talking about but we are getting closer and closer to a future where this is just happening Podcasts will be done like this. Tom will translate to any language we want Image of us standing there doing it Yeah, the interesting thing we've talked before you may remember we talked before in DTS about separate research not Microsoft research to take your voice Translate it but use your voices characteristics in taking that text to speech and Translating it into something that sounds like you speaking another language. So Microsoft's doing something that isn't brand new But they sounds like they're doing it pretty well And then they're matching it up with a hologram to make it give it a little extra sauce. I'm not sure exactly how Practical this is especially if it's not real-time, but I suppose eventually you could be having Hologram meetings avatars using your Holo lens. Everybody could be speaking different language and if they get to that real-time ability Everybody would hear everybody else in the same language. So it's got a lot of promise for the future and certainly made a great Demo at a conference. Well, even if even if there was something, you know, we talked about this being translated into Japanese Okay, let's say there was a keynote that was getting lots of buzz and I really wanted to watch that keynote Well, I don't speak Japanese so I would need it to be subtitled. That's really my only option right now So something like this maybe, you know, even after the fact if it gained enough traction is is a really cool option Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is you don't really need the hologram for that, right? But yeah, sure the hologram part is definitely just kind of frosting on that cake But I also I didn't see anything that indicated how well this was translated. So I guess there's still that I'd love a Japanese speaker to listen to that and tell me if it sounded right or not There I have questions about that translation technology is cool, but it's not always a hundred percent there. So Neat though on the surface looks really cool Well, as expected the EU competition Commission formally opened an antitrust investigation into Amazon The company allows businesses to sell on its marketplace But Amazon uses that sales data to then inform its own offerings, which then compete against those smaller sellers that's where people have an issue in response to a separate German investigation Amazon will change its terms for sellers starting August 16th The company no longer gives itself unlimited rights to terminate accounts without justification and may give 30 days notice Amazon will also let European disputes be handled in more than just Luxembourg Where it has been in the past? Restrictions on what sellers can say in public were also reduced the new terms will apply to Europe North America and Asia Austria has dropped its independent as investigation as a result of these changes as well Yeah, so it's not a big surprise that the EU is Officially launching the investigation what they're trying to find out is because Amazon sells its own products in the same marketplace Where it lets other people sell things Are they abusing that dominant position because those sellers don't have a lot of other places to sell? Are they taking the data from the small people the small businesses that sell? They're not small people small businesses that sell And then and then figuring out how to compete with them and either drive them out of business or in some cases in the past They would just tell them to go away like we're gonna sell this product now Not you and kick them off the platform this German the separate German probe will stop them from doing that second thing They will no longer be able to just kick them off for no reason. They'll have to give a reason They'll have to give them 30 days notice. So that's good. I Don't know how much that will change the EU investigation of this which will still be about are you abusing your dominant market position to Outcompete the businesses on your own platform Yeah, also, I've never understood how the Amazon you know the Amazon choice label that we get. Yeah How was that term and I'd loved it I'm now that's not part of this investigation, but it made me think of it Like if I go by a nylon braided lightning to USB a cable, which I had to do recently They give me a big a bunch of search results But the number one search result is Amazon choice then there's this bestseller than then there's other ones with different brands and stuff I often know what brands I want. I look for anchor or something, but this Amazon choice one came up from a brand I've never really heard of I Don't know how they choose that but that feels like bumping in front of everybody in line a little bit That feels like cutting in according to business insider a product marked Amazon's choice is an item that many buyers have purchased and were Satisfied with as told to Amazon through reviews data. Okay. Well, if they've got that data, then I guess maybe they're safe there But but it's also in many cases undercutting a similar product from that company that you were probably looking for Scott Because I had the same thing I had to do over the weekend I had to buy some cables sort of emergency at the Amazon stuff and and yeah, it's sort of like Okay, I can see where this this does feel like Anticompetitive behavior. So what happens like do prices get fixed? Can you never, you know, give me an HDMI cable for under a certain amount that, you know The smaller seller has has deemed is the appropriate price Let's not confuse Amazon choice and Amazon basics because you're Amazon choices Amazon saying this is the one most frequently reviewed. Well that people buy according to our algorithm Which often is the Amazon basics thing, right? Which makes you suspicious. Then there's Amazon basics, which is We found out that people were selling these these braided HDMI cables for five dollars So we went and ordered a bunch because we're Amazon and we're selling them for four dollars now and undercutting their market And that's what the investigation is and hopefully the results of all this will show us that we can trust them with this Because I do trust it. I see that badge and I go, oh, well, I feel pretty good about this if Amazon likes it For good or for bad That's that's the kind of trust they're building and if they blow that that's that's real hard to earn but again That's not what this investigation is a total. I yeah, I don't want to confuse the two. I keep doing that But but yes, like just straight up across the board We'll see what happens because what I want is a trustworthy Amazon out of all of this because I buy a lot of stuff There this purely is me as the consumer and and this is basically whether they're driving the some businesses off the platform Which you'll never notice because they replace that business with something that hopefully is just as good But you know, it's not fair for them to do that if they're abusing their position Hey folks, have you been inundated recently online with photos of your friends? Simulated as old people. Thank face app, which has been around since 2017. It's gone viral before This is not its first rodeo But it resurgent in popularity over the last week also got another round of fear about what it has with your data Which also has happened before with this exact same app But whatever the verge points out that iOS researcher and CEO of Guardian firewall will straffic Looked into the network behavior of face app found that the app does not upload your entire camera role as some people claimed But that it will upload single images to an Amazon web service server with your authorization To apply filters server side researcher Jane Wong saw the same thing You may not realize you're giving that authorization that could be part of the problem face apps parent company CEO Yaroslav Goncharov told the verge the photos are uploaded to save bandwidth and get deleted not long after that's a little vague But hopefully that's true also of issue face apps privacy policy says it may use people's user names names and likenesses for commercial purposes That's freaking people out But I found out that the sandwich shop Rayburn Sam Rayburn sandwiches also has those exact same terms of service It's kind of boilerplate stuff out there always sounds crazy out of context But a lot of websites have the same sort of wording. However, what could turn into a problem for a face app Potentially a separate lawyer Elizabeth Potts Weinstein thinks the terms that allow data to be transferred to any of the company's locations is Not GDPR compliance and face app is operating in Europe. So they have to comply with the GDPR So can we well, yeah, there's the thing. I will say this for their second viral explosion Something has changed. I use this app in 2017 and it wasn't as good as it is now at giving me Yeah, they kept updating the app between the last time used it in this time Yeah, it's just that technology has gotten freaky good. Yeah Terms of service who owns my data. This is all important. I guess for people to argue about I'm here to say I don't want to see what I look like when I'm a hundred and freaking five years old because it seems too accurate And I think they're on Instagram and you look great. Oh my gosh, dude. No Like I look like the crazy guy at the old folks home They have to strap down and not let it was jarring. I'll be honest I actually didn't do it because I don't want to see what I look like Not so much that I'm worried about what face app is doing with my data because I've already used it to turn me into a man Previously But it's funny because there are a few things going on, you know people saying whoa hold on Russian company red flag No, you know ha ha and and and you're sort of like, okay Well, I mean, it doesn't mean that every company that might build an app that is based in Russia is like out to get you Even if you think that other people in Russia are out to get you so there's there's some of that going on and also As Tom mentioned the terms of service people go, this is crazy if you really read it Well, you know what you're not reading a lot of terms of services then because you've you've probably Signed up for an app that has a very similar terms of service and it just didn't register the same way And so this is something that all of a sudden seems Really dangerous and really nefarious. They have all our photos. Yeah, and and that that that is somewhat widely done Already worldwide non-exclusive fully paid up royalty-free unrestricted perpetual irrevocable fully transferable assignable and fully Sublicensible right and license to copy reproduce edit modify distribute transmit translate display perform publish sell adapt create derivative works from and otherwise use your content How dare you Ray burns dot com I Mark Brownfield are over a boing boing posted a link to a company AI portraits who like will turn your face into a a sort of artistic portrait take today Their privacy policy is your photos are sent to our servers to generate portraits We won't use data from your photos for any other purpose and will immediately delete them I like that privacy policy that that would settle everyone's mind. It's also simple. Yeah simple stuff like that Just plain English. Let's just go and tell me what you're gonna do. Even if it's to steal it be plain about it Yeah, like I don't care, but yeah, that's pretty boilerplate. We're all gonna be fine for different reasons and The thing is is that the the the fear uncertainty and doubt about what this app might do with with your data later on By selling it to a third party perhaps or a state organization Okay, that could happen. I mean, it's it's not that they won't happen necessarily, but but that's You could you could again you could say that about you could say that about a lot of services You're already using yeah, and and to people in Russia who don't do bad things We know there are many of you Vinovat nice. Yeah, duh French start up a stonely launched a new service that tries to solve the often frustrating steps of contacting customer support agents When you have issues with a service and often in those times you're very very upset already So they let small companies easily create modules that surface relevant content so that customers can then understand and solve issues Themselves kind of walking through some steps a stonely module could be embedded on any page or a blog and work like a deck of slides With buttons to jump to the relevant slide Relating to the issue that you might have and companies can incorporate guides without writing any of their custom code So that sounds great. Yeah I mean this is tempting for for me to do to help people out with stuff because it's like Oh, I won't have to spend it's not even that I can't code I don't want to code right and a lot of people don't want to code either So if you can do something faster that means you're more likely to create something that will then help your customers and man I'm so frustrated with those those companies out there that that still rely on forum threads to be their support Which are always unsatisfying. I rarely find a forum thread where I go. Wow. This was a clear concise way of solving my problem Yeah, I'm with you on that one in many cases someone's like yelling into the void help and then and then you see like Four other people have the similar issue and like and then it just dies It hasn't gotten better with other forms of that either like YouTube videos are great on how to do stuff Discord groups and slash groups are great like the communities have moved to new Homes but finding and surfacing the stuff you need has not gotten any easier. Maybe more complicated than ever So this sounds cool. I like it. I also like the name stonely. It's a cool name Well folks if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes Be sure to subscribe to daily tech headlines calm I did that to prove it's not a green screen Neuralink a company founded in 2017 told the New York Times it is working on a technology to improve human brain computer interfaces Neuralink is developing fine threads about a third of the diameter of a human hair Which could be implanted with less impact to brain tissue than the current methods Which often involve electrodes or other kind of larger sensors the company intends to begin publishing peer-reviewed papers on its work That's great. I mean they have papers right now. They're not peer-reviewed, but they want to start doing that That's one of the reasons they're giving this interview Co-founder max hodak said near-term uses for the technology could include control of prosthetics reversing hearing and vision loss the company is pursuing a collaboration with Stanford neurosurgeons They'd like to start doing some controlled, you know approved human testing as early as next year a demonstration of the technology on a Rat showed ten times the data transfer of the best sensors previously According to Bloomberg and co-founder and Neuralink CEO Elon Musk Of course is talking about someday using such technology to achieve symbiosis with an artificial intelligence But don't let that stop you from believing there doesn't mean my car will share my brain Yeah, he's like we'll merge with the AI even if they're benign will know that's the best way to survive Someday Elon someday you're not wrong, but there are also really practical benefits to this technology and it sounds very promising Yeah, I'm I think this stuff's really cool And I also do think he's probably right about the far-flung future. That's his job is to be a visionary That's partly why Elon Musk is who he is so keep on doing that Elon Musk But the technique that technology is currently constituted. I would love to see human studies I'm ready for my implants. I've said this for years. I'm ready for things that augment my life But you know who's even more ready or people who need it like now for things you mentioned like vision loss and hearing loss And that sort of stuff these these this represents huge steps forward and Getting peer reviewed and moving toward human trials and all of that as part of that I'll worry about me interfacing with my car in another decade. That's fine Yeah, I think this is a This is a really interesting company I don't want to come off as sounding like it's it's the first to ever do this all the technologies It's talking about have existed in other arenas other researchers other companies This isn't brand new, but it does sound like they have a good approach to improve them and improve them Maybe a little faster than we thought They haven't done it yet But at least my take is Neuralink is worth watching More so than maybe a hyperloop or another Elon Musk associated venture Might be as much as I would love the hyperloop to come to reality It seems to have stalled a bit in the past few years whereas Neuralink is using technology that's proven It's not like from the ground up a brand new Approach to things and I think that that makes me more confident that this might turn into something Let's ask the rat how it feels Roger. Oh Wow, I can't I joke. I love Roger. It's God's birthday. He's a little punch Like consider friends, that's how that's real, right? That was your one Scott Scott and they're both like oh, yeah Let's you know that implant stuff into my body not a problem these you know It's it's it's a third the diameter of a human hair Nothing, but I would like to know how the rat feel. Yeah, and and honestly That that's an important point because right now to implant their technology They do say they need to drill a hole in your skull Which if you need if it's going to improve it's good if it's gonna restore your vision or it's gonna give you control of a prosthetic limb Perhaps you might be willing to do that. That is a riskier surgery They do think they will be able to implant these in the future with laser Drilling which would be safer more precise Less invasive than you know drilling a hole in your skull again Not the trepanation doesn't have a long and storied history, but I wouldn't have it done Whereas pinpoint holes to put some fibers in and and and also they hope to be able to make this wireless There's a lot of they hope to be easier. Don't get me wrong like it's still not here But they're all based on technologies that have been shown to be able to work They just need to make them work together make them work at scale make them work better This could be something that the kids are all doing in 20 years getting their their neuro of blink in implants And us old people are trying to decide if we really want somebody shooting lasers at our skull to be able to catch the latest Cool technology. Well, that's the question. I always ask myself is okay if you if you if there is a prosthetic that that you could use better because of technology like this it were Vision loss or something where you're like, oh, wow, this is this is really great for accessibility Then that the the technology is is is great in my book already But yeah, how how will the kids be improving themselves just for fun later on when the technology gets to that point That's always the question. It's and it's sometimes it's cost prohibitive to even know what that's gonna be until it comes Down to a point that everybody can afford it or it becomes not a luxury item or not a luxury choice But a common thing that you can get and who knows like for me It's about near-field communication and your brain being able to tell Something to do something without you having to verbalize it or that you haven't did to do anything else there are people who are who are just in a bed and can't move and can't do anything and Giving them that the power to control more of their world this way Seemed so amazing how kids will use it a hundred years to text their friends while they're supposed to be paying attention in class I don't know chances are something like this would replace what class is to begin with So it feels like it's too far-flung to figure that out, but in the near term I think there's some huge benefits for people that are here now Yeah, the real silver blade asked the question that Elon Musk is is answering It could this be used to for accelerated learning or downloading knowledge into the brain directly And that's what he's talking about is Eventually probably 50 or 100 years down the road. Maybe maybe not quite so much You you could have direct connection to artificial intelligence to information and bring it into your mind Before we move on real quickly Netflix announced its earnings. We usually we don't pay as much attention to this stuff as we used to but Netflix announced global subscriber growth that missed predictions and That's significant the company's overall growth for paid subscribers did climb by 2.7 million worldwide But lost a hundred thirty thousand in the US So that it's a big deal because there's been a lot of faith that Netflix would continue to grow and grow and grow and I think This is going to probably Out of proportion cause a lot of people to cool down on on Netflix So we'll take a look at that in a little more depth tomorrow, but that's that's just happening right before the show here If you've got Netflix stories or other stories You could submit them to our subreddit not only submit But you can also vote on other stories that your peers have submitted at daily tech news show dot reddit comm We're also on Facebook join our group if you haven't yet Facebook comm slash groups slash daily tech news show Let's check out the mail bag. We got some good responses to our Conversation yesterday on Grammarly the first one comes from Erwan saying Concerning the short subject on Grammarly you guys talked about yesterday. I think that you view the app I think you view that this app as not necessarily useful Because English is your mother tongue. I'm French. Yes, I was born ready. We all are shout out to Patrick But I also discovered this app when I moved to the UK I learned to English by myself and Grammarly helped me tremendously to improve my spelling and my grammar I paid for the pro version for a year Which gives very good perks and helped me for some cover letters for example, but also personal use I find it a bit expensive though The bottom line is the app helped me discover new words new ways of expressing myself in a language That is not the first one that I learned and I still use it today And I'm very grateful for both the app to and towards the person who helped me discover it I wish it could be available in other languages since I'm learning Portuguese now But sadly didn't find any equivalent. Thanks to all of you for my daily shot of tech news and laugh with the GDI nice I I thought I expressed that the app was incredibly useful yesterday So that kind of took me back, but it's a good point nonetheless And and Gary had a similar point about using it To help you if English is not your first language. So a couple of people weighing in on that Erwin and Gary Thank you very much. I think those are both really good points Uh, I I would like it to just kind of help improve my writing in general But but I hadn't even thought of that use case. So that's cool. Absolutely Then Chris wrote in and said the crux of the issue with Monaco using Huawei for 5g Which we talked about yesterday Is that telecommunications there was nationalized and then later privatized to monaco telecom That was granted a monopoly over all landline mobile and internet communications And it is technically illegal in monaco to arbitrage Much like situations that have risen in india. I feel like wait, what's that? Here we go That creates a bit of a pickle for those of us visiting monaco who'd rather not have our communications monitored by the government Voice over a IP is expressly forbidden as arbitrage. In other words, you're you're breaking the monopoly by using VoIP Uh, but I believe that the going consensus is that multimedia sharing like webx or zoom are not considered competing With monaco's telecom and therefore not arbitrage Luckily, most of the private yachts coming into port there have satellite internet much like cruise ships and airplanes Such that any incidental arbitrage occurring while in the waters goes unmonitored. Yes This is certainly a first world problem, but it does create practical challenges for conducting business securely while in country It's an awesome place to visit, but beware that one will be paying disneyland prices for everything while there Yeah My first reaction was a focus on him. Uh, just kind of casually throwing out the yacht solution To the monaco issue, uh, but hey, I just got a satellite internet on the yacht People are welcome in the dtns audience. Uh, and and chris does, you know, he does say look I know this is a first world problem, but it's an interesting insight in monaco that I certainly never would have had Yeah, I picture. Is it okay that i'm picturing him in like, uh, one of those white, uh, Super light cotton suits Chris didn't say he was on the yachts. So I don't know I'm picturing him. He's got a fancy drink. He's got that really kind of, uh, Miami vice looking suit on and Real low lots of lots of hairy chest and some cool glasses. I think chris is a cool dude and it's all in my head Yeah, I uh the one time I've been to monaco I I went to the casino in monocarlo, which is sort of it's all one big place And it was it was like a lot of us tourists sort of like looking at each other like, what do we do? What do we do? Do we play a hand? Um, that's where the minimum bets were like really high. So I didn't but yeah, that was anyway That's my that's my takeaway. Chris may have inspired me to uh, create a higher new level on patreon for those Who who use their yachts more often? Yeah yacht dwellers show yourselves. Maybe just christopher cross creator of one of the greatest yacht rock songs of all time sailing So I that's what I'm gonna always take me away Yeah, you know where I've always wanted to be uh, perhaps we could have a Yacht rock themed level on our patreon Perhaps we'll think about it. Let's do it. Yeah ride like the wind Uh, thanks to everybody who wrote in a really really great mail bag this week. Keep it coming guys We love to hear your feedback. Also. Thanks to scott johnson for being with us today on his birthday No less scott let folks know where they can celebrate with you tonight Well, not only am I hearing my birthday. I was here long enough to know that sarah knows more about christopher cross hits than I was aware of And that's fantastic Also, there's lots going on on the site despite the birthday. I don't really take this day off So if you want to find great content check it out at frogpants.com And there's plenty of it shows podcasts live stuff live streams video game things art things It never ends at frogpants.com if you want to follow my daily musings you can find me at uh, scott johnson on twitter About five years ago yahu approved season six of community Back when yahu thought it could make tv shows, uh, if you want more of these kinds of flashbacks co-executive producers on our patreon get a bonus show once a month looking back at our lineups of yesteryear Sign up right now patreon.com slash dtns Our email addresses feedback at daily tech news show dot com. We're also live monday through friday 4 30 p.m 2030 utc find out more until a friend daily tech news show dot com slash live back tomorrow with lamar wilson doctor then This show is part of the frogpants network Get more at frogpants.com The timing club hopes you have enjoyed this bro