 Daily Tech News show is made possible by you right there listening. I'm in your ear. Hi. How's it going? Thanks to all of you, including John and Becky Johnston, Chris Benito, Steve Aderola and brand new patrons. Everybody welcome in Flo Antonio, Hoosier Diva, Caleb and Anthony. On this episode of DTNS, YouTube rolls out a redesign for creators. But is it any good for us viewers? Plus why Walmart bought Visio and Lamar Wilson explains why you need the right size tablet, not the biggest, maybe the biggest, but not the same. This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, February 20th, 2024 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from Studio Animal House. I'm Sarah Lane also on Los Angeles. I'm Lamar Wilson and I'm the shoes producer Roger Chang. Also in Los Angeles, it's the Los Angeles day. Oh, yeah. It's like honey. You know, it's about time. Los Angeles got some representation in the world of media. I wonder what Dr. Dre is doing. Maybe he could join us. Great day. Let's give them a let's give them a let's give them a little. Lamar, calm up. I don't know. Later this week. I need a script. Meanwhile, let's start with the quick hits. Eleven countries teamed up on Operation Chronos were resulting in the arrest of two operators of LockBit ransomware, as well as the recovery of the keys to unlock victims encrypted files. Authorities also seized more than 200 cryptocurrency wallets. French and US authorities also issued three international arrest warrants and five indictments against other members of the operators of LockBit. Two of the indictments are against Russian nationals. Operation Chronos was headed by the U.K. National Crime Agency and coordinated by your your a poll and your just the US FBI, Japanese police and the UK's NCA and Europe have developed a LockBit 3.0 ransomware decryption tool available to anybody at NoMoreRansom.org. LockBit has been used in tax on Boeing, the UK Royal Mail, car company Continental and most recently Bank of America. Sony's PlayStation portal does one thing, stream games from your PS5. And if you don't have a PS5, it's not terribly useful. However, it does have some local storage. So two engineers from Google decided to make it a little more useful, developed PPSSPP. Don't try to figure out the acronym. It's an emulator to run games for defunct PlayStation portable. The old PSP, the old Sony PSP on the new PSP, the PlayStation portal. The developers showed it playing Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories. Andy Wayne, one of the developers said it took him about a month to get the software to work and required no hardware modification. Just lots of sweat on the software. Wayne says they need to do more work before they can release it to the public. They want to, you know, show up some videos maybe this weekend. Meanwhile, in other Sony news, analysts think Sony might be gearing up to release a decidedly non-portable PlayStation 5 Pro later this year to help prop up sagging console sales. PPSSPP is a beautiful palindrome. Just pointing that out. Easy to remember. Yeah. Adobe has added some generative assistance to its Adobe Reader and Acrobat applications. The new tool can summarize PDFs and answer questions about what's in those PDFs. While other large language models like chat GPT can also do that. This is built into the software that you're using to read the PDF. So no need to upload it to a separate tool. The Assistant is in beta and available now on Acrobat and coming to Reader over the next few weeks. Adobe eventually plans to release a subscription plan for the tool as well. Samsung announced expanded support for AuraCast, A-U-R-A. That's a Bluetooth feature that lets multiple headsets like lots of headsets access audio from one source think TV at the gym. Everybody in the gym can, you know, connect their Bluetooth headphones to the one TV. That means older devices, though, are getting support for AuraCast. That includes the Galaxy S23, the Tab S9. They will join the S24 and Galaxy Buds 2 Pro and a bunch of high end smart TVs from Samsung in supporting the feature. Samsung also announced live translation coming to the S24 and Galaxy Buds rolling out globally. So they've rolled it out in some markets, but it's going to come to everybody. And Samsung's surround sound 360 audio is also expanding to include Neo QLED and OLED televisions. Tinder is expanding its increased user verification requirements to Brazil, Mexico, the US and the UK. In addition to a short video used to verify photos that photos that you're using to, you know, I don't know, day people are accurate. The expanded system also requires identification like a driver's license or a passport. The system has been in testing in Australia and New Zealand, and verification is optional on Tinder. But the company says if you're a verified user, you have more matches and you're safer from things like romance scams. Well, over the next few weeks, YouTube is going to roll out a redesign to creator channels. So when you look at the channel, you'll see a big old subscribe button right up at the top. It'll be easier for you to find it. It'll be right next to a play mix button. If you don't want to try to figure out what to watch, you can press that and it'll shuffle a bunch of top content from the channel. And that will all be up in front of a new 16 by nine channel banner edge to edge that'll look great on a television screen. YouTube recently announced that top creators watch time on TVs had grown 400 percent over the last three years. So they are trying to tweak that design to be more TV friendly. Lamar, you were on YouTube early, establishing your channel there. You have a much more wide ranging strategy these days, I know, with TikTok and Instagram Reels. But, you know, you're still posting over there on YouTube. What do you make of this change? It's interesting. Every few years, YouTube tends to slap on a new coat of paint on the site. And, you know, it can be refreshing. It's nice to see something new. I don't I think there's some creators who welcome changes like this. You kind of I kind of think of my MySpace days where all of us could could tweak our page in different ways and make it our own thing. You know, but then Facebook came along and got the more popular and they didn't let you do that. And we were all kind of OK with it. So I don't know if the audience cares as much about this as I think some creators will. Me personally is like, oh, great. I get to I got to figure out how to make yet another banner and make sure it has all these all these, you know, things that are so it can be seen on TV, but it can also be seen on tablet and also can be seen on phone. And and it's like, OK, great. We got I have to do this again. So the only the other I mean, I think it's fine. I think some of the other features, the remix button seems really cool. Maybe some discovery of some new content. I just think these slaps of paint that they put on there are fine. But I really wish that's the cynical part of me just really wish they would focus more on like we still got some moderation issues to take care. We still got better discovery of talent and creators. We got, you know, there's, you know, and I know multiple things can happen at once, but it just seems like when when those things aren't taken care of, hey, look, here's something shiny and pretty. That's my slightly cynical take on coming from the creator side. Obviously, yeah, you're sort of like, all right, and I got to make a new banner and this and that what I thought was really, I don't know, it kind of blew me away was the fact that, again, top creators, not all creators, but there are a lot of people watching YouTube content on traditional television sets. And that is that that's just a different experience. I would say more of a, you know, kind of kickback and maybe maybe watch some longer form things. Or I don't know, you know, watch your playlist on your couch type thing, but not on your phone. So I think this is designed to be more of a pleasant experience for, for, for those of us who actually like watching stuff on the TV rather than a mobile device. Yeah, watching YouTube on the television has become pretty regular for us. And sometimes it's long form stuff, but sometimes it's before we watch a TV show, we watch a bunch of three or five minute things that we like. But the one frustration I have, yeah, it'd be great to make the subscribe button easier for people to find as a creator. DTNS has its own channel. That's great as a consumer. I want to be able to find that subscribe button easier when I find a channel I like, but how do I get to the channel? Like this is to your point, Lamar, like, was this the first thing you needed to fix? Because right now it's really tough to get to the channel of a video you're watching. You have to like scroll up and then highlight this and then press that. And then it starts to play another video and then you got to hurry up and highlight the channel. Like there are some other priorities, even just in the UI. I wish they would fix first. Yeah. And most people will never see your channel. I watch 90% of my YouTube viewing that I watch. I watch a few hours a day, probably on average. And I love the TV app, but I rarely go to people's channels. And channels is where all the pretty banners would be. I can't tell you the last time I saw someone's banner on something, you know, because it's if you watch it in video, it's not going to show that now they have some recommendations all the time. Right. That's what most of us do. Right. And they got some cool features. I like that you can scroll comments now on TV. You didn't used to be able to do that. Like very comfortably on the side. So I can like re comments and things while I'm watching a longer form video if I want to tell the people's perspective. So there's some cool things about it. I like that they're adding new features. I just don't know if those things translate to the audience saying of feeling more satisfied. Especially when it comes to like the banners and things like that. Well, Walmart announced it will acquire TV maker Vizio in a deal valued at $2.3 billion, a move designed to help boost Walmart's advertising business through Vizio's smartcast operating system. Vizio has more than 500 direct advertiser partnerships due to its Vizio platform plus business, which the company says now accounts for most of the company's gross profit. Walmart already has an existing on ONN in house brand of TVs, but owning Vizio will help the retailer better compete with affordable smart TVs from the likes of Amazon and Broku. Now, groceries account for about half of Walmart sales, but also have thin margins. CNBC also notes Walmart has sacrificed profit in the last couple of years by investing quite a few, quite a few dollars in the billions to build out its digital operation. So new revenue streams can help offset Walmart's heavy spending and boost profit, if all goes well. Lamar, this sounds a little like Amazon. Should Amazon be worried? No. Sorry, I don't mean to be, yeah, no, I think, I think Amazon will be just fine. This is coming for someone. I have a Walmart plus subscription. I like Walmart. I don't see this being a problem. Like you mentioned, they have an existing brand on that's been there for a while, Vizio. Yeah, and like I said, and Vizio is a well-known brand. I have a Vizio TV. Vizio has had some problems in the past, like they were the ones at least, you know, out there, out there getting getting the most attacks because of the ad, the ad thing where you like is tracking you on your TV personalized ads. And Walmart now wants to basically do the same things, you know, and now it seems like, oh, it's OK now because we're used to it because I think you mentioned earlier Tom, the other brands do this as well. You're like, it's not just Vizio. No, every smart TV does this. Every smart TV operating system does it. Vizio had had some controversy around disclosure of it, but what they were doing was not particularly unusual. It was just the terms of service weren't weren't telling you all the things that we're doing. Gotcha. Yeah. So yeah, I think Amazon would be just fine. They have so many brevity strengths. That's crazy. You know, the whole the whole I happen to know somebody who works that for Walmart digital. So, you know, I was hitting him up earlier today, like, tell me everything. And he was like, I mean, it's kind of what it sounds like. You know, the Vizio business for us helps us advertise in places that we just can't advertise otherwise. You know, how many how many pieces of, you know, something that you would find in a Walmart retail store can advertise to you. Television, great option. So yeah, that's what's going on here. Yeah. And then Walmart advertising its own stuff is the smallest slice of this. What they want on Vizio is to sell ads to other people. Yep. And that's where they're coming into competition with Amazon, because Amazon is also wanting to sell ads to other people, not only on Amazon.com, but but also on the fire TV OS and placing ads elsewhere on other websites. You can you can have Amazon traffic ads and websites can use Amazon to traffic ads, which is really what I think is going on. Walmart's not getting into competition with Amazon so much as Walmart is saying we want ad revenue. We want to sell ads. We want ad revenue to be a big part of our business now. And that's really interesting. When you think of the fact that Google is facing questions about whether it can continue to bring in ad revenue with AI, possibly reducing search traffic. And there's a reduction in search traffic for other reasons too. People just going to TikTok and Reddit directly and things like that. So there is more competition in the ad market now than ever. And it's interesting to see as maybe search declines as the place for advertising, Walmart sneaking in and saying, you know what, one of the big growth areas for advertising in the future is going to be the television interface. It's going to be showing you an ad while you're clicking around whatever platform you have. So let's get one of those platforms. So is this going to be kind of like the this is not exactly a perfect analogy. I was thinking of like the McDonald's model where, yeah, you know, they're really in real estate, but they happen to make burgers, you know, is Walmart going to be like, yeah, we're actually an advertiser, but we happen to sell groceries. I mean, they'd like that. Yeah, yeah, it's that may or may not end up being the case, but it's like Amazon's a cloud company, right? Like AWS is the biggest part of their revenue. These companies do more than one business. Yeah, you have to keep that in mind. Walmart has other businesses too, besides retail, but they would like this to be a growing part of it. And they I'm wondering if they regret selling voodoo now to NBC because that could be another part of this. Yeah, it seems like a way to get some of that back. I mean, listen, I don't even know where a Walmart is near me. I'm sure there is one in Los Angeles somewhere. I'm not going in there, but OK, it's in Torrance. Great, you know, still not on my way to anything. So probably not going to Walmart anytime soon, but I'm in the market for a new TV. Price is right on the Vizio. Now Walmart has me as a consumer. Well, that's an interesting part of this, too, because we mentioned the on brand. I'm curious. I think high sense might make the on brand for Walmart. But I wonder if they will for much longer, right? Because Walmart owns that name so they can just switch who makes it and it would make perfect sense to have Vizio start making the on brand TVs. And then you'd be buying either a Vizio or an on brand TV or they might just retire the on brand because Vizio's are pretty much a bargain brand to begin with. Yeah. Well, Lamar, it was so fun to have you on Apple Vision Show with me and co-host Eileen Rivera yesterday. If you're sitting there wondering, what is Sarah talking about? We do a new show myself and Eileen Rivera host a brand new show, Apple Vision Show, and we talk about all things Apple. Is it the Vision Pro? Is it about foldable iPhones coming in the future? Is it various sizes of iPads? The I know Lamar has a lot of feelings about every week. We do our thing and we would love you to join us. Join us every week at AppleVisionShow.com. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's talk a little bit more about those iPad sizes, Lamar, because the iPad line has become a little I don't know if I want to call it confusing, but it can be a little bit of a, you know, you you're crippled by choice. You have screen size, CPU power, you have price, all things to consider when buying a new unit. While people equate bigger with being better, not always the case with the iPad. So let's talk about what you did recently. You swapped an iPad mini for an 11 inch iPad Pro only to come back to the mini. So what's going on there? Yeah, the song Baby Come Back started playing in the background. No, so yes. So I own the latest iPad mini. I think it's the sixth generation from not mistaken. It had that for about a year. So a couple of years back during the pandemic and I loved it. I love the form factor. Yes, I'm a person who uses a Pro Max phone, but I still wanted something a little bit larger, you know, just for those those cany crush moments. Don't judge me. I love playing that on there. And you and lots of other people. Yeah, absolutely. And do another work with it, you know, but then the the Pro came out and I love the Pro. The Pro was I got the 11 inch one. And by all accounts, everything on it is better, better screen, better refresh rate, you know, 120 Hertz and M2 chip. Face ID is superior, in my opinion, to the touch ID. A lot of people don't agree with that. But so by all accounts, it's a better one. But what I found is that it was just I wasn't using it. It was heavy. It was heavier. And I was like, but still I was like, but I do like that form factor. What is the problem? I think I discovered that my 16 inch MacBook Pro was the issue because my MacBook sits in front of me most of the day, even if I'm not in my office. I bring it down on a TV tray having in front of me. So that size and then trying to go grab an iPad didn't seem. They didn't see the match up. It was they were too close to each other. It was too close, sounds like. Yeah, they were too close. And and so after it, it just was collecting dust. And it wasn't getting used, even though it is the better one and a more powerful one. So I decided a couple of weeks ago to go back to the iPad mini and I instantly just refilled back in love with it. So, you know, people on video or I'm holding or on audio, I'm holding it here. And it's what I what I use this for. I'm a comic book reader, the digital. So that and novels, self-help books. This, to me, is such a one handed, easier format for those things. And also and also playing, you know, Apple arcade games. I'm trying to think of some other, you know, just I would say more reading, more multimedia. I don't really do video as much with it, because I have if I'm in my living room, I get a big TV in front of me. So I'm not really doing much of that. But for consuming any kind of reading or games, it's so light. Now, is it as fast as that? No, it has a chip. It's by all accounts, it's in a fewer device. But what I found, guys, is that, you know, I guess the the moral of this story is that, you know, just just because it's, you know, the iPad Pro is better because it's fancier. It doesn't mean it's better. It doesn't mean it's better. You know, I I really I would. But, you know, and I found out I was looking at some Reddit posts. A lot of people have the same dilemma and they were finding that they were going back and forth, too. So I thought this would be kind of helpful to tell people about this, you know, this dilemma, because it's it's tough. You always want the best thing when you especially when you're in tech. And this is not the best thing. But guess what? It's the best for me. Yeah. And I think that's what counts. So the fastest chip isn't always the best chip for you. Like, don't don't make your decision just on that. I think that that makes sense. You you noted a lot of entertainment uses for this, but you're using it in your work, too, right? Oh, yeah, I use it as a I don't call it a teleprompter, but you know, I have it like behind the camera propped up so I could read notes. And I couldn't do that with the bigger one because they would get in the way of the camera. Little things like that. I it's in the kitchen with me for recipes and, you know, things like that, again, digital books, but but for work is very, very useful. You know, it's it's funny. I I you mentioned having the pro max as, you know, the the larger iPhone and because of and I I do as well. I just can't imagine going back to any smaller phone at this point in my life. But because of that, the iPad mini has always felt like a strange bridge device where I'm like, it's slightly bigger than my phone and it's an iPad, but I could just have a bigger iPad. And, you know, I I I think we're all different in that way. Yeah, I thought I thought the same thing and until the MacBook came in, I count because I started, you know, if I leave if I leave the MacBook up here and I went and I just say, hey, downstairs, I'm going to use my I would have been using 11 inch every single day. That would have been, you know, I would have got the keyboard been perfect, but I didn't. So it was just it was just hard to justify that in my in my head. Well, it's interesting, because I'm sure somebody out there might be thinking, well, but wait a minute, you could have used the 11 inch tablet the exact same way you're using the mini. Why didn't you? I think the main answer is feels better. Feel the feel. It's yeah, it's it's lighter. It's it's weird. I find it easier in my eyes to read. Easier to hold easier. It feels like a book. When I want to read a novel, I want to read a self-help book. It feels like I'm holding a book. I'm a first generation Kindle owner. I had the first kindle and I love that form factor. And so I resisted the larger kindles when it came out because I'm like, no, that's too big. I don't want a magazine reader. I want a book reader. Well, and maybe psychologically, too, there's something to be said about a form factor that doesn't feel like a computer. I mean, it is a computer, clearly, but something that's a little different from that MacBook Pro that you sit down and use for certain stuff. I'm definitely I'm there on that. As soon as you add a keyboard to that tablet, suddenly you're like, well, I should just use my MacBook, right? Exactly. That's what happened. And I was like, I might just bring that down because I can get I can I mean, you know, I just get things done fast. I can multitask on iPads, obviously. But it's just it's just a few more steps. I'm like, my my MacBook is right there. Why am I? Why am I making this hard? So I just focused it. But here's what I wanted to know. I want to know from your listeners and your viewers, like, do they have this kind of dilemma? And let's put the you know, you're not an Apple user. Let's put that to the side. Maybe. Yeah, yeah, there's all kind of you look at the, you know, there's an Amazon Fire tablet and that's hugely popular. A lot of parents buy that for their kids and a lot of them buy it for themselves or to like manage their smart home. You know, there's there's different uses for the for those smaller tablets. And I'm wondering, you know, you mentioned a tab, right? A galaxy tab. Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm just curious, you know, what's the percentage of people kind of facing the same dilemma and maybe made the decision? It's like, you know, I like this form factor. Yeah, it downsizes your tablet. You know, you don't need all the rooms, you know, it's just just more, more parts of your tablet to have to keep clean. Yeah, it's just, you know, time to move out. It's a smaller form factor means less cleaning. What's screened? Yeah. Don't wipe down. All right, let's check out the mail bag. Let's do it. Michael wrote in in response to the top five computers that found a second life as gaming consoles and said, wait, was the Nintendo family computer Famicom not a computer before it became a game system? That is that is correct. I mean, it's a computer in the way we were just talking about how tablets are also computers because they've got chips in them. But yeah, it was never really touted as a computer. The way the computers in this top five were the computers in this top five were meant as home PCs, home personal computers that you could, you know, do spreadsheets on Famicom was never really marketed that way. It was, it was, it was, I guess it was kind of marketed as a family computer, but it was always a game console first, first and foremost. I don't remember this thing. The Famicom was just the original Nintendo, right? Like they only called it the Famicom in Japan, Japan. For that reason, because we in the US, we would have been like, this isn't a computer. This is a game console. Why are you calling it that? And I said, oh, our mistake. It's an entertainment system. The Nintendo Entertainment System. Well, speaking of entertainment, Lamar Wilson, you entertain people far and wide every day. Let folks know where they can keep up with how to be entertained by you. You can follow me at Lamar Wilson as Lamar with two hours at all the socials except X. And if you want to know more about me and biography and all the places, you go to Lamar.tv. That's my website. Appreciate it. Indeed. And check out Apple Vision Show where they're talking to Lamar about the Apple Vision Pro because you have an Apple Vision Pro, right? I do. Oh, yeah. And that also changed some reading down yesterday. It was really fun. Great. Yeah, you look because we now know where the laptop and the tablet fits in Lamar's life. If you're like, OK, how's the Apple Vision Pro fit in that? Go check that out. AppleVisionShow.com patrons. The conversation does not end here. Stick around for the extended show, Good Day Internet. There's a Korean pizza chain out there claiming to use robots and AI and it's expanding. It's succeeding. It's showing up in more parts of the world. We talk about how much that might be true that it's using robots and AI and whether it matters when the chain is super successful. Just a reminder, you can catch our show live because we do it live Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern 2100 UTC. You can find out more at Daily Tech News Show dot com slash live and we're back to when it all again tomorrow. Hope you'll join us. The DTNS Family of Podcasts, helping each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.