 Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners thanks to all of you including Jeffrey Zilx, Tony Glass, and Phillip Less. Coming up on DTNS, why would Instagram want to show NFTs? We'll tell you. A car that can stop without brakes, and what Apple could do to unleash augmented reality innovation. This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, May 9th, 2022 in Los Angeles on Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood on Sarah Lane. And on the show is producer Roger Chang. We are going to work without brakes on this episode. We're going to tell you about a car that works without, but it has brakes, but it has a different kind of brakes anyway. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chavez declared a state of emergency after cyber attacks from the Conti ransomware group hit multiple government agencies. Conti actors initially claimed to have attacked Costa Rican agencies last month, impacting digital services from the Treasury, the Ministry of Science, Innovation, Technology and Telecommunications, and the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, among others. Bleeping Computer observed Conti published most of the 672 gigabyte data dump that appears to belong to Costa Rican agencies. If you like OLED screens and non-standard laptop keyboards, well, ASUS has two new laptops for you. The ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED iterates on ASUS previous dual-screen keyboard in the front laptops. This time the pen-enabled 12.7-inch secondary touchscreen tilts up 12 degrees as you open it for easier reaching, and you can also use it as a customizable tool panel for Adobe software. The ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED starts at $2,000 and available soon. Then there's the ZenBook Pro 16X OLED, which keeps the keyboard in the back, but raises it up, tilts it up 14.5 millimeters, 7 degree tilt for better airflow. That's needed for its Intel i9-12900H CPU and, of course, the Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU packed into this laptop. We don't have word on pricing exactly, but it will start around $2,600. Amazon's Wondery Podcast Studio became the first studio to offer some shows in Dolby Atmos surround sound, although this is limited to Wondery Plus subscribers. Dolby said it's actively working on other platforms to add more Atmos podcasts as well. Well, in other podcast news, the Interactive Advertising Bureau reports that podcast ad revenue grew 72% on the year in 2021 to $1.4 billion, projecting this will go to $4 billion by 2024. We didn't grow that much here. Yeah, it's like, where's my cash out? Remember April 2014, Sarah? I do. It was a simpler time. It was. People didn't hate Facebook nearly as much as they do now. No, no, certainly not. It wasn't even meta. Facebook launched a feature called Nearby Friends in April 2014 that was, at the time, greeted as kind of cool way to find out if your friends were, well, nearby. These days, the idea of sharing location with Facebook and letting it share it with others, even your friends, kind of seems like a non-starter. After eight years, Facebook is shutting down nearby friends. Your location in history and background location will shut down May 31st, disabling nearby friends as well as weather alerts. And your previous location information will be completely deleted automatically on August 1st. So if you want to export it for your own personal record keeping, or if you want to preemptively delete it, you'll want to log in before August 1st. Facebook will continue to use location information for things like personalizing your ads, letting you check into events and a few more use cases, but it will not be doing it for nearby friends or weather alerts. I, you know, everybody likes weather alerts, right? Got weather apps for that. I suppose so. So Ben Snyder, who wrote in about this back at the end of March and Gadget now reports that Lincoln College in central Illinois will close on May 13th in part because of a ransomware attack. Back in autumn of 2019, it had record enrollment, but the pandemic caused the enrollment to be withdrawn or deferred in large part. A lot of colleges have the same situation. Well, Lincoln was holding on until it was hit by a ransomware attack in December that affected admissions, enrollment, and also fundraising. It took until March for the data to be restored, at which point the college realized it would need a donation or some sort of partnership in order to continue operation after the spring semester. That has not come yet. So it looks like the 157 year old college will shut its doors. Greenville College, back when it was Greenville College, used to used to play Lincoln College in sports and stuff. Sad, sad to see that. All right, let's talk a little bit more about NFTs on Instagram. Adam Misery announced Instagram will start testing support for digital collectibles and NFTs with select creators. Let's talk about how this is going to work, Sarah. Okay, so those that are in the test are going to be able to share NFTs that they've either made or they've bought in the main feed or in stories or in messages. So at launch, Instagram will support NFTs on Ethereum and Polygon blockchains and Flow and Solana support is supposedly coming in the future. Rainbow trust wallet and MetaMask wallets are also on board at launch if those in the know are using any of those. Now a lot of folks are probably thinking, how does that even work? What does that even do? So in a stunning display of right clicker mentality, I will ask the question for you all. Sarah, how is that different than posting just a screenshot? Yeah, well, it's a common question. Yeah, this is just the beginning for Instagram. So according to Misery, who's the head of Instagram, the idea here is to give creators a chance to show off what they got and maybe get people interested and maybe get people interested in buying something. But to buy an NFT from them, you'll still have to go off platform. So it's really a showcase rather than a marketplace. So when you see an NFT from a creator on Instagram, it'll have a little mark, some sort of a check mark that says digital collectible. And then in the description, it'll say something like this collectibles an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain, learn more, and then you can bounce out and go from there. Okay, so it's connecting it really I could put a screenshot up, but then I might have faked the screenshot this this way you have a little bit of a chain of trust like this is the actual NFT. Okay, I got it. So this is just the first step to get Instagram into the NFT space. As start small and learn from the community that that's where his words he indicated more features that might actually help creators make money would be on the way though Instagram is not taking any money right now. So that's Instagram. There was also some talk about other meta platforms. Yes, Mark Zuckerberg perhaps you've heard of him Meta CEO said that NFT functionality would come soon to Facebook, possibly other apps in the Facebook ecosystem. Zuckerberg said that meta was working on augmented reality NFTs to use for stories content that would be powered by Meta spark AR platform. He also said, you can put this kind of digital art into 3D spaces and project it onto physical spaces as well. And that actually, you know, I, I, I wrap my I try to wrap my head around NFTs as much as possible. I don't own a single one, but that that whole kind of like make it something that I, if I enjoy looking at it as an art piece I can put it on my wall. That's kind of cool. Yeah. And that's the thing with NFTs my position on them is there's not much there now I own one NFT it's Len Peralta's I did it to kind of help us both test how that worked and when he first started putting them up that way. But I don't think there's there's anything there yet there might be down the road. But that's the problem with Zuckerberg he's saying yeah, someday you'll be able to do this on Facebook and someday you'll be able to project them onto your wall and stuff so there's a long way to go between now and there. I think what Instagram's doing when it struck me was like it all the stories seem to be indicating that the the NFT market is kind of deflating which is a natural correction it was way overheated now it's deflating seems like an odd time for Instagram to launch a new feature around NFTs. But at the same time it's very much a toe in the water of like this is just a way to authentically display art related NFTs. And so we will will test the waters with a very you know like a dozen or so creators see how it goes that way it is easy for them to back out of this I guess. Yeah, the NFT, the NFT space is it's interesting because I feel like at first it was like, well this is the brave new world everybody has to get their NFT and you know a lot of us were kind of like, hmm, all right. Yeah, I mean, what what does it get me I don't understand. Some people that were into it from the beginning and that's great, but you had you had a lot of players and that you know as as any emerging technology goes, you're going to get a lot of those players drop out, decide that it's not worth the money, you know, or outright fail, but it doesn't mean that the NFT space isn't a viable space and for at least you know, if I'm thinking of scrolling through my Instagram feed which I do, you know, at least once a day. The idea that I would discover NFTs, even if it's not all a built in process that is within anything that meta has made at this point is it's for discovery alone. It's interesting just the way that you would discover new artists or music or dancers or you know all the all all the other things that you know perform online. It helps combat that problem where I'm going to use rough percentages let's say 90% of the NFT hype out there is BS, but 10% of it's actually pretty cool and I think what Instagram is trying to do is like let's find 1% that we are sure are legit and cool and as you see they're not working with OpenSea on this they're being very selective with their partners so if there's a way into NFTs, you know, gaining more legitimacy and fighting back on that perception of fraud and abuse. This would be one of the ways into that if it works. Well, the next web did a really good job highlighting the release of a new vehicle by the French automaker DS automobiles. That's the luxury arm of Citroen. It announced the DS E tense. That's a prototype EVs, just a prototype, but it only uses regenerative braking. Now EVs for years have featured regenerative braking. First time I drove a Tesla I was like, this is crazy. I don't have to use a brake, but it's mainly been used to supplement traditional discs and brake pad systems so so we're clear. Explain, Tom, if you can why regenerative braking is different and what it actually does. Sure. Yeah, that's that's what I do. So in a traditional braking system, you're using discs and brake pads to create friction to slow the car, right? You're putting that that thing against the drum and being like, let's slow you down that creates energy mostly heat. And that heat just dissipates into the air it's wasted regenerative braking in an electric vehicle is using the motion of the cars rotor as the generator. When you accelerate the car uses battery energy to turn the rotor to move the car, but when you regeneratively brake when you let off the accelerator that energy is then recaptured and used to charge the battery. So the rotor is slowing down the car, but building up energy as it turns lots of EVs do this when you let off the accelerator so it's sometimes called one pedal driving. Those cars even Tesla's also have disc brakes as a backup though for emergency stops. Okay, so the intense vehicle doesn't have another braking system and that makes it more efficient. Yes. Dot dot dot. Having only regenerative braking will put more juice back into the vehicle's battery. That's for sure. And it could do a lot to improve air quality to this is part that I certainly didn't think enough about till I read this next web article. But a 2019 UK environmental agencies report found that 55% of all roadside traffic pollution comes from non exhaust particles. We always think of exhaust as being the pollution, but the majority comes from other things and brake dust is one of those things. Brake dust makes up 20% of non exhaust, meaning as you're applying that brake drum, it's grinding off bits of the brake and that just goes out in the air and accounts for 11% of all roadside traffic pollution. Well, okay, this sounds like a super great technological move. So when is it coming? Oh, yeah, we've probably got a while. DS Automobiles definitely sees this as a proof of concept. This is a concept for regenerative braking as the sole method to slow down a vehicle. There's a lot of stuff needs to be done before you rely on this. They have to make sure it can in fact replace emergency braking, how it's going to apply torque to different wheels without brakes, anti slip traction control, all that kind of stuff you get in a brake pad system. They need to figure that all out. So basically what they're saying is they have a concept for this and they think they can get it taken care of. But they haven't got it taken care of yet. So we have a little more work to be done. I just wanted to add real quick that. Oh, hello. Hello, Roger. Hello. I just want to add that if they if they pull it off, this would be great. Unfortunately, as with all things details, the devils are on the details and unfortunately they're not too many details in this. I have been speculating perhaps that they place the motors in different locations than in your traditional EV, which would in some ways address some of the issues that you pointed out, especially when it comes to things like traction control, where your car's computer literally just taps on the brake on one of the wheels in order to stabilize it from, you know, from to slow it down a little bit. So if you're on a slippery road, say it's like sleet or something, you're not sliding off of it. But it is one of those holy grails because I mean, there's nothing that really stops a car as well as friction between a brake pad and a disc brake. Yeah. And the rotors, the rotors are using friction too. It's just not does it's designed for charging the motor or delivering power from the battery. It's not designed for braking. So they're trying to make it do something else too. It's it's a it's a fancy way of saying that we used to do what engine braking used to do, except that we can use that to get some positive energy backflow into the battery. But it is it is a really cool concept. I really hope they they can detail more about the technology that underpins what they've done because I can't figure it out for just yet. Well, I think that's because it's a concept, right? I think it's I don't think it's unfair for you to ask that question for sure. But I think they are not at the point where they can tell you all the details. They're like, we think we have a way to do this, but we need to actually do it. We need to actually create a prototype to do that. It's the difference between a concept stage and a prototype stage, right? So correct. Hopefully they can figure it out. Like you said, if you've figured it out or you have a thought about something else on the show, send us an email. Email us feedback at daily tech news show dot com. In terms of rumored Apple products, of which there are many. Apple's reported AR glasses. We've been talking about the rumors for some time on the show really only takes a back seat. To the supposed Apple car, which may include regenerative braking, but at least in terms of how long we've been hearing reports about the two. We don't really know much about what's happening over there, but unlike automotive efforts, Apple's never been shy about its enthusiasm for AR. Last year CEO Tim Cook told I justine, I'm AR fan number one. Supposedly meaning that, okay, Apple's taking it seriously in some capacity, but protocols. Janko Rockers recently made the case that Apple might be holding back AR development. So what do we think that would be based on? I mean, lots of companies are working on AR. Why not Apple? Yeah, yeah, and Apple is working on AR. They're a force at AR. In AR kit was developed as an API back in 2017 with iOS 11. So we've had a good five years of Apple baking in AR support on the software level. And it's not like Apple is just leaving AR plans in the hands of third party developers. It's actively development. Mark German reports that his sources say Apple has about a thousand engineers working on augmented reality and particularly an augmented reality headset. It's rumored that it might come out this year, but there's one place where Apple doesn't have any AR presence and that's on the web. That's what Janko Rockers is talking about. Safari on iOS doesn't have any support for web based AR. You want to do AR, you have to use AR kit and you have to go through an app. And that's kind of a break on development since we're talking about breaks. Well, okay, so you might say, so other companies are doing this. Why is it not all? Yeah, everybody else has web. If you're like, well, well, is Apple the only one? No, they're not. Yeah, I mean, yes, yes, they are. They're the only one not installing web support for AR. Web standards for VR have been around for a while. Web VR 1.0 API was released in 2016. Web XR superseded that in 2018 because it could handle mixed reality, not just VR, augmented reality and virtual reality. And the wider XR industry has largely adopted it. You can find it in Chrome. You can find it in Samsung's own browser. You can find it in Opera. You can find it in Firefox. You cannot find it in Safari or WebKit for iOS. And in case you don't realize it, all browsers on iOS have to use Safari's WebKit engine. So no WebXR support in WebKit means no browser on iOS can support WebXR, not Chrome for iOS, not Opera for iOS, none of it. Given Apple's market size, that dissuades a lot of developers from syncing time into web-based augmented reality initiatives. So one might say, all right, having digested this content. Is this just Apple doing the thing that they do where they force people into their own walled garden and imposing open standards? Yeah, it does sound like that. But consider this. Apple sits on the World Wide Web Consortium's immersive web group. That is, among other things, developing WebXR. Apple is sitting on the group that develops WebXR. And in fact, in February, Apple made a big push to include a new HTML element for displaying 3D content in browsers to be part of WebXR. So they were sitting kind of idly by for a while, but now they're out there pushing for things to be included. Apple seems to be participating a little more recently. George Tech Professor and WebXR pioneer Blair McIntyre pointed out to protocol that WebGL and WebRTC, two other open standards for graphics and audio calls, both were not supported by Apple until suddenly they were. They came when Apple had a product that needed them. So maybe that's what we're seeing with WebXR. When the Apple augmented reality headset comes, we might see Apple do an about face on WebXR. And that that would make sense that they would start to push for more things and take a more active role if they are going to release an augmented reality headset later this year. For anybody who's like, OK, hold on. What is AR going to do for me on the mobile web? We have a good example here. Yeah. So right now, I mean, AR kit and all that stuff is like, oh, you can you can go into your Amazon app and you can like say or Wayfair. I think does this too. I want to see how this piece of furniture looks in my in my room. Yes. And you can do that in the app. One doesn't know how many other things people would be using that sort of functionality for on the web if it felt worthwhile to develop it for the web. If if iOS WebKit supported this, a lot of developers might be trying stuff and some of them might catch on in ways that we didn't realize until a bunch of them tried it. But it's one of those chicken and egg things right now because Apple doesn't support it. Once Apple supports it, I bet you see an unleashing of people trying out different stuff. Well, it sounds, pardon me, like typical Apple kind of Apple saying we're not ready. So we don't care about who would like to who would like to play around with us in iOS until we've got our own flagship product to to, you know, to trot out. It's typical Apple insular this Apple secrecy. Apple like we're only going to do it if it benefits us, not Apple greed. A lot of people immediately assume Apple wants to make more money off the app store. That's why they're doing this. I don't not saying it doesn't play a part, but I don't think that's the main part here. Apple does support plenty of open standards that might not be in its best interest. Otherwise, I think it really I think you'd nailed it. It's just Apple saying, oh, we'll do it when we want to on our time. And if you're if you're out there saying like, well, why don't people just develop for apps? Because if you want someone to try a new feature, there was numbers from pretty big monster that said making someone click, which would be on the web. You lose 50% of your audience. Oh, you want to try this nifty new feature click 50% of your audience is like, no, I don't want to click. If you want them to install an app, you lose 95% of your audience because people are like, yeah, definitely. Don't have to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Well, more than 10 years after Duke Nukem Forever's 2011 release, we'll remember where we were footage of a 2001 build of the game has emerged online. Duke fan site Duke for posted the details over the weekend and the person who leaked it or the people who leaked it claim to have a full build of that 2001 version of the game and posted clips of gameplay footage, including a 2001 E3 demo of the game that is fully playable. So, you know, it seems pretty legit. Also, full source codes involved adding they're going to leak all of the content coming up next month. Oh, the anticipation once again builds. It's funny. We you and I were talking about this earlier in the day and you were like, what, why was this such a big deal? Right. Yeah. And I both kind of hit on the idea of like, it was a big deal because it wasn't real. And it was a big disappointment because reality never lives up to the legend. And it's like, So, I mean, was the 2011 game just not very good like lackluster? I mean, it was fine, I guess. But it just there was so much anticipation built up over those 10 years that I don't think anything they could have done would have lived up to it. Yeah. And so now you can prepare to be disappointed all over again. Well, I don't know. I mean, maybe that maybe that 2001 version is just really great. Maybe it is. And you know, and Duke Nukem will will will will gain new life after all. Maybe it's literally appealing forever. All right. Let's check out the bell bag. All right. We got a good one from Allison Sheridan, a frequent guest on the show. Allison wrote in said on Friday, we're talking about using VPNs to assist in the case of government shutdowns. One of the problems with choosing a VPN is that most top 10 review sites for VPNs are actually using affiliate links. So it can be difficult to find an unbiased resource to choose consumer reports has released a white paper on the strengths and weaknesses of various VPN offerings. They started 200, narrowed it down to 51 and then chose 16 for further analysis. The white paper is filled with graphs. You can see at a glance how the 16 fared along with text to explain in depth where they fell short. There's a bottom line where they narrow it down to four. And that met all of their criteria the best. So I'm going to test those four and choose one also links us to to to the report so you can check it out for yourself and our show notes. Yeah, there's some some very good security related VPN testing. I know Shannon Morris has a favorite and I'm not remembering it off the top of my head right now. CNET PC Mag are trustworthy places to look at at VPN vetting. But this consumer reports paper is is another another good resource and I think what Allison is demonstrating here is it can be difficult to find an unbiased resource. If you don't, if you just accept everything in a Google search, right. What you need to do is narrow down and say who do I trust? Is it CNET is a PC Mag is a consumer reports and and those are all trustworthy organizations that you should find. So thank you Allison for sending that along. That's very cool. Absolutely. Tony responded to our recent conversation about QR codes and how they work best. Tony says our local pub slash hotel now has QR codes on the tables. You scan the code which takes you to the restaurant's website where you can order your food and drinks, not just the menu. You then put in a few details with your phone saves. Your table number is already pre filled because you're scanning it on your table. Then you pay for your order on the phone with either a credit card paypal or Apple pay. I imagine Google pay is also accepted, but it was not offered as an option because I was using an iPhone. So he's thinking there's some auto detect going on. Your order is then delivered to your table. No waiting in line to order. No waiting for the waiter to waitress to come to your table to ask if you'd like more drinks or desserts or coffee. This was the first for me and I rather liked the experience. In fact, I ordered extra drinks and coffee just for the fun of it. As I am in Australia tipping was optional, but I was also able to tip various set amounts or a percentage of my choice. I definitely want this. If I have to do the QR code, I want this. I want to be able to do it all. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds pretty friction free. So all the servers out there, you are important. This doesn't take the server away. Server has to still work and bring you food and still gets tips. This is the best of all possible. I think there's just maybe a little less conversation that's going on. When you drop off the food, you can have conversation if you want or not. You're just kind of, you're talking about the weather at this point because you got a little bit more time. Yeah. I am a huge fan of this. I mean, obviously at a high end restaurant where you want the waiter to tell you about the specials and make recommendations, like maybe you still want that personal touch. But in a pub, you know, situation where you're like, I'm not here for the conversation. I just want to order. Right. Yeah. It's perhaps a little bit simpler as far as, you know, you kind of know what you want. You know what you want to eat. You know what you want to drink. You might want to have dessert and it all, it all kind of happens behind the scenes. And like you said, you still have to have wait staff. Yeah. How else is it unless you got robots, right? I get to you, but, uh, well, that's, that's probably going to be another version of this. I, one of my least favorite parts of eating out is when you're waiting for them to bring you the check. You're like, I want to give you my money. I'm ready to pay. And they're just like running late or running slow, having the ability to just pay when I'm done. Invaluable to me. Well, and, and it goes both ways, right? We've all been at a restaurant where they're obviously busy. They've got, they've got a certain amount of reservations and they're kind of kicking you out. Oh, I never mind if they give me the check early. That's fine. I never mind that. I just, I just, I feel like this is just, this is a, this is a way to just kind of keep the whole thing flowing a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to thank two new bosses that we got over the weekend. Those bosses are Andrew and Rob. They just started backing us on Patreon. So thank you, Andrew. And thank you, Rob. Yeah. We, we especially appreciate folks jumping in and backing us on, on Patreon these days. So we, we make, we make just imagine us like dancing and balloons falling every time you, you become a new patron. Every time, every time. Yeah. It's like, it's like my birthday. So please don't let me down. There's a longer version of the show called Good Day Internet. It starts right after DTNS. It's available at patreon.com slash DTNS. For those in the know, we'll roll right into it now. But just a reminder, we're live Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern, 20 hundred UTC. You can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. And we're going to be doing it all week. In fact, we'll be tomorrow with Lamar Wilson. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.