 Coming up on DTNS, Congress asks for lots of emails from Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. MIT engineers create the blackest material yet. And Nicole Lee has thoughts on the new HTC Vive Cosmos VR headset and the state of VR in general. This is the Daily Tech News for Friday the 13th of September 2019 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Feline, I'm Sarah Lane. Here to draw tech from Cleveland, Ohio, I'm Len Peralta. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. As I mentioned, Nicole Lee, senior editor and gadget in joining us today. Welcome, Nicole. Happy to be here. Thanks for coming and sharing your VR insights with us. No problem. We were just talking about Kenny Rogers chicken a little bit. Also, quite a bit about lots of other things, including a three foot long sandwich that Sarah just ate on Good Day Internet. If you want to find out more and have some fun listening to us do that to become a member at patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Well, it wasn't a sandwich, but Google began rolling out automatic Android device backup to Google One storage subscribers. This includes text, contacts and apps as well as original quality photos, videos and MMS. All backups are managed through the Google One web console. Mozilla announced Firefox premium support. A $10 a month subscription that provides enterprise level support for the browser, including a dedicated enterprise customer portal, private bug submission options with guaranteed response times, proactive notification of critical events, and service level agreement management tools. All those enterprisey things that administrators like to have. The Firefox browser remains free if you're an individual, you don't have to pay to use the Firefox browser. In fact, if you're an enterprise, you don't have to pay to use it. But remember, the Firefox browser relies largely on community driven support. So this is a chance for an enterprise that's rolling it out to get a higher level of support than that. Apple's allowing developers of App Store apps to offer a grace period of six to 16 days for last subscriptions. This gives Apple more time to collect payments for auto renewing subscriptions that may have failed because of a change of address or credit card expiration dates. Developers need to opt in and build server side support to implement the grace period in their apps. Apple play a supported grace periods since 2018. If we're keeping track, Google's vice president of news Richard gingers announced that the search giant made a change to its algorithm to give an advantage to original reporting. The idea is to keep the source article of a story highly visible for a longer period of time in search results. Google also updated its search rater guidelines asking people who rate stuff to rate original in depth and investigative reporting as very high quality as well as to take the publisher's reputation for original reporting into account, including journalistic award one and stuff like that. This doesn't exactly address what I talked about in my editor's desk this week on Patreon, but it does hit a small portion of it. Interesting. All right, let's talk a little bit more about what's going on with that US house. I don't know if it's a subpoena, but it's a firm request. OK, lots going on here. The US house. Judiciary anti-trust subcommittee knew I was going to get that wrong has requested that Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet and Apple all hand over certain emails by October 14th. The requested information includes organization charts, financial reports, and any documents that they've produced for earlier anti-trust probes by the FTC or the Department of Justice. In particular, the letters ask the following. Alphabet is asked for executive emails discussing Google's acquisitions, the company's search algorithm and actual or post suspension of apps from the Play Store. Amazon is asked for emails about the retail book market, acquisitions and ranking products. Apple is asked for emails about a crackdown on parental control apps. It's deal with Amazon. It's practice of introducing software that replicates popular third party apps. And finally, Facebook is asked for emails about acquisitions, data collection app Onavo and how and why it cut off companies like Vine from its social graph back in the day. Representative Gerald Nadler said that the information would help the U.S. Congress determine, quote, whether they're using the market power in ways that have harmed consumers and competition. This is like a greatest hits of concerns, right? We have all of the things that everyone has ever seen in a click bait headline being requested at once. It's a journalist's dream. If any of this stuff is publicly released, just because the subcommittee gets it doesn't mean they'll make it public record. There are certain ways that they can keep stuff confidential. And I'm sure these companies will try to keep all of this as confidential as they are allowed to do so. But it is very thorough and very widespread. Nicole, I don't know how much you've been following a lot of this stuff, but it does it does seem through in the sense that each company has been asked to give specific things that that company, a government organization would want to know from that particular company. I think it's strange that it's all bundled in like this, the fact that all of these different companies, I mean, I know they're all tech, right? But they're kind of different parts of tech. Like Apple is a very different company from Facebook and so on and so forth. So yeah, it is like a it's like a greater it's like a greatest hits. But it's also like an all you can eat buffet where it's like all kinds of things. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I don't know. I mean, these are four different investigations. You're absolutely right. And and there are different letters going to each company, but they are definitely bundling them together in one announcement to get the biggest bang for their buck, right? It's a way to get attention for sure. But also it's just I don't know, it's a strange strange thing to see all of these companies together in one thing. And, you know, and some of this stuff has already been proven to maybe not be as bad as people thought or litigated in the court of public opinion, so to speak. But at the same time, the US House, if it wants to do a thorough job, needs to look into all of these things, if it's going to get to the bottom of it. Just, you know, remember, accusation is not guilt. Just because they're asking for emails about the search algorithm doesn't mean they have already decided that the search algorithm is in violation of antitrust. It means they want to find out more to determine whether it is or not. This also isn't the be all and end all of this. The FTC and the Department of Justice have split these companies up in their own investigations. So in some ways, this is a little bit of theater because the real punishments and the real investigations are coming from those executive agencies, not from the subcommittee. This has a lot to do, I think, with the overall, like you say, theater and the on the ongoing slash oncoming battle between the government and the so-called big tech, right? And the responsibilities thereof. And it's going to be a big deal in this election coming up, all of those things. So a little bit of a preview of that, I think. Justin, Robert Young has been saying for a long time that beating up on big tech is going to bring you big points, no matter what party you're in. Goldman Sachs projects a 16 percent stock hit to Apple and they're part of their justification for that is the way Apple will account for free services on its hardware, because Goldman Sachs anticipates that Apple will continue the practice of accounting for service revenue as a deduction from average revenue per unit. So if you're in the finance industry, you're probably like Tom, that's not exactly right. But if you're not in the finance industry, you're probably like Tom, I have no idea what those words mean. So let me try to explain. Instead of accounting for, say, a thousand dollars of revenue from the sale of one iPhone, the way Apple previously has been accounting and the way Goldman Sachs expects them to account is to say nine hundred forty dollars of revenue was generated from the iPhone. But we gave away a free year of Apple TV plus, which is worth sixty dollars. So we're taking sixty dollars of that a thousand and reporting it as service revenue, not only reporting it as service revenue, but deferring that revenue monthly because that would have been a year subscription that we got five dollars every month for. Now that could lower Apple's reported profits in a single quarter from hardware, right, because now you're reporting nine hundred forty dollars instead of a thousand dollars, but it wouldn't raise service revenue by the same amount because that sixty dollars times however many they sell is divided over twelve months. However, in a statement to CNBC, Apple said, we do not expect the introduction of Apple TV plus, including the accounting treatment for the service to have a material impact on our financial results. That is a statement meant to calm people who buy their stock. It does not clear up how they're going to account for this, though. And if I I find this very interesting and something that's good to know in case that those earnings reports did look a little wonky, that could be why. It's I mean, I'm not a big I'm not I'm not like a financial guru or anything, but maybe part of this is that, you know, assuming that they're accounting for this free service, maybe the idea here is that the sales of the device will make up for the so-called, you know, revenue deferment and all that. Right. Well, yes, unless you're looking at margin, if you're looking at margin, that's broken down per unit, right? So so that's definitely going to go down. If they do it this way, Apple's not saying they're not going to do it this way. They also wouldn't have to do it this way unless they want to make their service revenue look better, especially look better over a long term. Apple's good at long term thinking. Maybe they're willing to weather a little bit of a reduced average revenue per unit for one quarter in order to by the end of the year say, look at our great big service revenue. So good to keep in mind in any case. Discord is phasing out game bundles that it launched last year for its $9.99 per month or $99 annually Nitro subscription service. Discord said in a statement, while we in some of you love these games, the truth is the vast majority of Nitro subscribers didn't play them. So after careful consideration, we won't be hitting. We won't be hitting continue when the contracts come up for renewal. The Nitro Games catalog will be removed on October 15th. We were we were speculating in our in our prep meeting about whether anyone we knew was upset about this and we couldn't think of anyone. But obviously, yeah, yeah. Someone at least some some of you that Discord mentioned. But yeah, I I. I had forgotten this was a feature. I didn't know this. Well, I keep seeing Nitro subscriptions and it's like, add cool things to your server, get get points, get get more server properties. And I'm like, OK, maybe I'll do a Nitro subscription for the DTNS server and Discord. I never once saw remember seeing them talking about the games part of this. So that maybe maybe just wasn't very popular. I think that's probably the end that part of this. But yeah, Nicole, I mean, you're paying engineers to keep something running that you're not paying for with enough subscriptions. Whenever I hear whenever I hear Discord mentioned in any podcast, in any portion of that, I was never here Nitro next to it. So that's probably part of it, too. I mean, I thought it was kind of clever for Discord to want to become a place where maybe you would keep your games, but also very good of them to be like, hey, guess what? It's not working. You're going to find another way to keep paying the bills. And they seem to be doing that. I don't feel like this is going to threaten Discord's existence or anything. Finance ministers from France and Germany said Friday that the Libra cryptocurrency poses risks to the financial sector and monetary sovereignty. A lot of headlines are saying and they're going to block it. Well, they said they might block it unless those risks can be explained. So kind of you want to water down that headline a little bit. They said the Libra project blueprints failed to convince them that the risks will be properly addressed. And if they aren't properly addressed, then they wouldn't be allowed. But that kind of makes sense. Doesn't make for a flashy headline. A spokeswoman for the European Commission told Reuters that with the publicly available information on Libra, it is currently not possible to say which exact EU rules would apply. So really, Libra saying, yeah, we want to meet with regulators and give them more details, we've got more details coming is really just that. Libra saying, yeah, no, wait, we'll tell you, they are going to get the strictest possible regulation. Europe's back is up about this. The United States back is up about this. So they're not going to let Libra slide by with light regulation. And the EU right now doesn't have specific regulations on cryptocurrency, so they can't just point to something that applies to other systems like this, because it's so new. Here's an interesting fact that may help you understand Europe's attitude here and why they're so hostile. The European Central Bank is working on a long term plan to launch its own public digital currency and real time payment system known as TIPS. That would let consumers use electronic cash without needing a bank account or other financial intermediaries, kind of like Libra. So I feel like this is lit a fire under the ECB to be like, you know what, we really need to get this project off the ground and get some support behind it. That definitely colors the response from the EU, if they're planning on their own digital currency. So, OK, besides besides sternly worded quotes like, you know, we just laid out how much does this mean Libra may not be able to launch in a huge market like the EU? Listen, if it were just about technocrats looking at rules, I would say Libra is going to find a way to meet the regulations. They are they are bending over backwards to say, yes, we will do what is needed to be done to meet regulations. We're not trying to get away with anything. But given the fact that Facebook is involved with Libra and every government hates Facebook, I would say they're going to do everything possible to roadblock this and make it very difficult, which makes the likelihood of Libra happening reduced. I'm not saying it's zero by any stretch, but it's definitely reduced. Well, zero now, anyway. When are we going to see this launch? I'm curious more than anything. Well, Libra wasn't going to launch till next year anyway. At the earliest. So, yeah, yeah, we're getting close. Well, this is a story that I think all going to be a little bit happier about MIT engineers have developed a material made of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes that absorb more than ninety nine point nine nine five percent of incoming light. And it all happened by accident. The engineers had been experimenting with ways to grow carbon nanotubes on electrically conductive materials like aluminum for increased electrical and thermal properties. But when experimenting with chlorine etched aluminum foil, they were surprised by the change in color. The discovery is being displayed at an art exhibit at the New York Stock Exchange for the new material wrapped around a two million dollar diamond. Practical uses include smarter blinders to reduce optical glare and telescopes. This course reminds me of the restaurant at the end of the universe by Douglas Adams, where a musician spending a year dead for tax reasons has the blackest possible paint job on his car. And the engadget story about this from Rachel England points out that this is an arms race. This isn't the end. There was a Vanta black from Surrey that was ninety nine point nine six percent. And they contacted engadget after the story came out and said, by the way, we have a new black that's going to surpass this. You just wait and see ten times less light and all other super black materials, including Vanta black. Yeah. So the blackest black. The blackest black that was ever blacked is that, you know, I mean, we joke about the fact that it's super black and all that, but this is something that has some pretty impressive uses. Telescopes in space, obviously, get rid of atmospheric interference, but there can still be optical interference from the edges. And if you can put blinders around that are super black that don't allow anything in that that kind of precision is necessary and stuff like that. Hey, folks, if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes, be sure to subscribe to daily tech headlines dot com. And we're back to talk about tech crunch reporting that smart hard hat developer, Dacri, has closed its headquarters, laid off employees and plans to sell off its assets earlier this year, augmented reality headsets start up Metta sold off its assets. Osterhut Design Group is reportedly selling off its patents. Even Microsoft and Lenovo are focusing their augmented reality efforts on the enterprise these days. A sure way to make the tech press say your product is dead. See Google Glass. But in the midst of all that, as we mentioned yesterday, HTC released the updated HTC Vive Cosmos, which is shipping October 3rd for 699 bucks. And the big deal with the Cosmos is you don't need the external sensor boxes. It has six inside out sensors on the head. Nicole, you got a chance to play with the Cosmos. Let's start with your feelings about it. But I also want to talk about what you think the state of all this VR stuff is, but start with what you thought of the HTC Vive Cosmos. Sure. So the Vive Cosmos, the big difference between when there are so many differences between this and the original vibe, and this is supposed to be the replacement of the original vibe. This is like, I think the original vibe is coming to its end of life pretty soon. So this is supposed to be a replacement to that a successor to that, if you will. It's so much better. Like it's like night and day better. Like the feel of it is so much more comfortable. I wear glasses and with the original vibe, it was kind of a pain to put it with my glasses on and with the new one, it was like so much room around my eye area for my glasses was very comfortable. It fits in really well and the goggles, the eye area flips up so that you can sort of flip in and out of realities pretty quickly. There's also a pass-through camera, so you don't have to flip it out to sort of switch between the real world and the virtual world. The software is also kind of kind of big news, too, because instead of using Steam VR, it uses HTC's own software system. So it is HTC's own Vive reality software. They have a very good onboarding system where it's a tutorial system. So like, even if you don't know a thing about VR, if you wear it, it will walk you through the different steps or how to use the controllers. The controllers are really good, too. The big thing with the Vive Cosmos is that it doesn't use external sensors. Like you said, it has its own inside-out tracking. It has these like six cameras on the front of it. So it just sort of does the 300 plus 10 degree tracking all on its own. It does still near PC to tether. So that's kind of still there, but mostly for like power reasons and that kind of thing, which is understandable because you're in the state of VR, which we'll get into, I'm sure. And it was great. Like it was the other thing that was I think is the best thing about it is that it has the 2880. I'm going to look this up. 2880 by I think 1600 or something resolution, which is the highest resolution of any VR headset out there. So like that's like the difference between the two is like stunning. Like I could in the original Vive demo, you could kind of see the whale. It was pretty impressive. Like the blue whale sort of like flying past your swimming past you was pretty impressive. But with the new Vive Cosmos, the 2880 resolution, it was like you could see it's like wrinkles, you could see little warts around the whale's eye. So it was just like super detailed. The difference between you know, 720p and in 4K. Like that kind of like stark difference. 2880 by 1700, is that right? 2880, I'm going to look it up because I wouldn't want to get this wrong. But I believe it is. Sorry. 2880 by 1700 pixel resolution. That's an 88 percent increase over the original. That's huge. That's a big job. That's huge. 90 hertz refresh rate, 110 degree field of view. So it's like this is like the best VR display I've seen yet. And you know, being in that environment again, very, very comfortable, very lightweight. That was really good. I did like a VR dance game, which was kind of silly. But it was fun, you know, and it was very accurate in terms of tracking where my hands were. So all those kinds of things were, I think, very good. Yeah. So it sounds great, right? It sounds like it's something that is going to improve. Certainly on the original HTC Vive, we had to set up a bunch of things everywhere. Even though it does have to be tethered, those cables have been managed down. I think everybody really wants cable less. And there's not as high a resolution options for that. But there are options for that. But as I said, it does seem like the augmented reality, virtual reality world is shaking out. We're seeing a lot of startups, as I mentioned, start to close up shop. We're seeing some consolidation already. That's something you usually see when an industry has matured. It doesn't feel like this industry has matured, does it? It's so to so just sort of look back on it. The first VR, the first consumer style VR headset debuted like three years ago, 2016 almost. So it's been three years. That's and to be fair, a lot, a lot has actually happened in three years. Moving, going from that really dark, heavy thing to the where we are now in terms of the lightness and portability of VR headsets. And let's remember like this is not the only VR headset. There are also standalone headsets like from Oculus, for example, like the I can't remember the name, but I think I'll call it Quest, I believe. Yeah, so that's that's that's like no wires at all. And again, not as high quality, not as high resolution as the Y Cosmos, but it's VR, right? It's something it's cheaper to more affordable. Because that's the other downside is the Y Cosmos is around like seven hundred dollars or so, so that's six hundred dollars or so. So it's pretty expensive, it's kind of high up there. The key really is to me, anyway, is content. Like the key to me is like getting content to be out there. And along with the price of the Cosmos is six months to 12 months subscription free of this Viveport Infinity, which is like unlimited, unlimited VR content. And that's a really kind of a big deal in terms of getting people sort of comfortable with VR in general. So that's kind of a key thing. You mentioned those enterprise, the Decree, for example. AR headsets is way too early. Like I don't think it's too enterprise heavy right now. Even the Magic Leap, which is like, you know, the hottest AR headset company out there, even that's kind of like not really in the public sort of. So I think AR is harder because they don't have to benefit. I feel like with VR headsets, you have the benefit of like, oh, VR games, you can play video games with it, right? OK, that sounds kind of cool. So that's that's that's an entry point. Whereas with AR, it's like, what do you use AR headsets for? Like, what is this? What what is this for? And I think they've never really solved that like, like sort of solution for AR headsets just yet, I think. Well, I think they have. They've solved it as it's an enterprise tool, if you're out in the field and, you know, doing something like that, right? So I, you know, I also think a lot of people look at VR and go, what is that for? You know, and it also has a lot of enterprise stuff. But there is more of a gaming base for it. My prediction, my feeling, not even a prediction, my feeling is VR and AR are going into that deep wilderness that PCs went through in the late 80s and early 90s, where they're mostly for business. They have some consumer uses, but they're still kind of niche. And at some point, something will emerge that give them massive popularity and break them out like happened with PCs. So we just have to wait and see what that is. Yeah. And, you know, with the Vive Cosmos, it was really interesting how the tutorial setup and the software setup was very much designed to bring in newbies, like new commerce VR. It was designed to be like, what is this? Or you do it, you press this to go there. And it was like designed to sort of like on board people to the concept of VR. And because of that, a lot of the experiences were like, you know, traveled through a virtual museum and like play a little car. Like it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't very like hardcore gaming, but content. It was like very like, you know, like visiting museums and things like that. Well, real quickly, before we move on, Sarah, there's some some news that news so rarely happens in the tech world while we're doing the show, but this did. Especially on a Friday, Friday the 13th of all, Friday's movie pass announced, yes, recently that it shutting down its service on September 14th. So that's tomorrow. Company said to subscribers in a notice that it was ending the service because efforts to capitalize movie pass were not successful to date. Parent company, Hellos and Matheson analytics has said that it has formed a review committee to see if there's a possible sale of all or at least some of the assets. We will try to contact both subscribers to find out how they feel about this. Shut down. Boom. Yeah, you know, believe me. Movie pass surprised me with how long it lasted. I was expecting this story six to nine months ago. So, you know, have to have to give them credit for that. Thanks to everybody who participates in our subreddit. You get full credit every day. Submit stories and vote on them at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. If you're part of our Facebook group, but you get credit too. Facebook.com slash groups slash daily tech new show is where to join in on the fun. Let's check out the mailbag. Let's do it. Brian wrote in and said, it seems like Nintendo had anticipated Sarah's concerns. This was yesterday since Ring Fit Adventure includes a silent mode that doesn't require you to lift your feet off the floor, which would avoid that stomping complaint from neighbors that I had mentioned on yesterday's show. It was why I stopped playing dance. Yeah, I mean, real talk, that was an issue, right? Yeah, yeah, I was and they weren't even wrong. I was like, I'm so sorry, you're right. I've been jumping around on your head. I think you should have realized that a company headquartered in Kyoto, so close to Tokyo, where most people live in apartments with lots of neighbors. This this would be an obvious feature for them to include, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, so thanks, Brian. That is a good tip and thanks to everybody who contributes to our mailbag. Yeah. And by the way, you still move around when you're in silent mode. You just don't stomp your feet. All right, let's check in with Len Peralta, who has been illustrating the show. What have you drawn for us today, Len? Well, I'm still trying to work out the details of how to share on Skype. But this, you know, this is an image that I couldn't let pass, because I think this might be of all my Friday appearances, might be my first Friday, the 13th appearance. Oh, wow. And and this is showing that VR, you know, is not dead. It is a it's alive and well. As a matter of fact, the person I drew is so into it. He says, you says, VR is dead. It's a Friday the 13th. I'm alive and well, enjoying some VR with my best friend. And his friend is over in the corner. I believe not doing well. It might be dead. And Jason is there kind of taken over. Jason with a hockey mask. Yes, Jason. Jason Voorhees. Jason Voorhees. Yeah, VR. I love it. I had a friend had to clarify that. Yeah, so this is available right now at patreon, patreon.com forward slash Len or you can get it at my online store at Len for Halloween Party now. Yes, or your Friday the 13th party. There you go. Len for all to store dot com dot com. Thank you, Len. Excellent art as always, Len. And also thanks to Nicole Lee for being with us on this spooky Friday, the 13th, Nicole. Hopefully you'll be staying safer than the hard work displayed later on today. Let folks never think you can keep up with your work. You can just go to Engadget.com or follow me on Twitter, twitter.com slash Nicole. And folks, please, please, please. If you have time today, Friday the 13th, go check out our proposal for a new Patreon tiers, we're going to be solidifying that today. And Monday, we'll post up what the new tiers will be. Our reward tiers will change starting October 1st. So all the rewards delivered at the end of September on October 1st. Will be the same as they are right now. But starting October 1st, new patrons will get new rewards. And of course, ongoing patrons will get change rewards as well. So if you want to know what those chain proposed changes are and have a chance to have your say about it, this is your last day to do it. We've been taking feedback for the past two weeks at DailyTechNewsShow.com slash Patreon. Our email addresses feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com. Keep that feedback coming. We're also live Monday through Friday for 30 p.m. Eastern. That's 2030 UTC. And you can find out more at DailyTechNewsShow.com slash live. Back Monday with Dr. Kiki from This Week in Science. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at FrogPants.com. The retirement club hopes you have enjoyed this program.