 This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners and thanks to all of you including Brandon Brooks, Hector Bones, and Tim Ashman. Coming up on DTNS, Scott tells us what Xbox had to say in its developer direct, why one new model of MacBook Pro has slower storage than the old model, and what it means the chat GPT passed its MBA final exam. This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, January 25th, 2023 in Los Angeles on Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. In Salt Lake City, I'm Scott Johnson. And the show's producer, Roger Jinks. Oh, my friends, we've got game news, we've got artificial intelligence doing well on tests, better than I probably would have done. Let's start with the quick hits. Microsoft earned $2.32 per share in Q2 on revenue up 2% on the year, to $52.75 billion. It missed analysts' revenue estimates, but beat on earnings. Windows OEM and devices revenue both fell 39% on the year, with Microsoft predicting similar declines next quarter as well. Xbox hardware revenue fell 13%, while content and service fell 12%. On the growth front, intelligent cloud revenue increased 18% on the year, server and cloud services grew by over 20%, and Azure revenue jumped 31% on the year. Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions grew 12% to 63.2 million, while teams passed 280 million monthly active users. That seems like that cloud business was not a bad idea. Good job, Sacha Nadella. Honda announced that it would begin online sales of Acura electric vehicles later in 2023, with plans to exclusively sell Acura EV online in 2024. The carmaker said it's still finalizing details on the strategy, including how it's going to set the pricing. Garmin launched a new ECG smartwatch app available on the Venue 2 Plus watch in the US. This marks Garmin's first FDA-cleared app on this feature. This allows users to record 30-second ECGs and look out for signs of atrial for revelation. Exactly. Politico sources say European Union antitrust investigators plan to open an investigation into Microsoft teams, looking into if tying it to its office suite unfairly impacts competition. This investigation would be based on a 2020 complaint from, you guessed it, Slack. Last week, the Indian Institute of Technology announced a new mobile OS called BAROS, that's B-H-A-R-O-S, and India's Minister for Education and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Dharmendra Pradhan, demonstrated it this week. Pradhan claims that the OS shipped with no preloaded apps, shares no user data, and worked with private app stores. He also claims that the OS can't run malware, but didn't really provide any more details about why that's possible. Screen swatch of the OS show what looks like the Android keyboard app with design elements that look similar to Android as well. First of all, saying it's impossible to run malware is just a challenge to see how fast someone can get malware to run on it. Second of all, I'm sure it's going to be just as successful as the Chinese, Russian, and German versions of state-operated operating systems, which of course none of us have ever forgotten. May we never forget. Hey, previously on how Apple handles solid state storage, it's a really riveting tale, by the way. The base model M1 and M2 versions of the MacBook Air each offered 256 gigabytes of storage, but they did it in very different ways. The M1 version split the storage between two 128-gigabyte chips, and the M2, which is just out, used a single 256-gigabyte chip. That's not a problem for most uses that you might need these devices for, but it means you can't read and write simultaneously for or to the same chips or from the same chips. That can slow down transfers of large amounts of data and cause slower performance if the RAM gets filled up to compensate and the drive is used to just swap data back and forth. Well, now that same effect has happened into the MacBook Pro. The base level, 14-inch MacBook Pro running on an M2 chip, has slower read-write speeds than the older version with an M1 chip. Now, iFix noted that the M1 version had two NAND chips on the front of the motherboard and two on the back in the MacBook Pro. That is how they added up to be 512 gigabytes. They were each 128. Nine to five Macs Derek Wise opened up the new M2 MacBook Pro and noted that there's only one storage chip visible on the front of the board. He didn't look at the back, but it stands to reason that if there's one 256 chip on the front, there's probably only one 256 chip on the back. And once again, the difference here is not going to be noticeable in most uses except in those edge cases like Scott was talking about. Yeah, and this only applies to the base level 14-inch MacBook Pro with 512 gigs of storage. And ours Technica found that the M2 MacBook Pros with higher levels of storage like one terabyte or even more had faster internal storage speeds that the comparable M1 MacBook Pros. So, yeah, I think in most cases, this is a non-starter of something that would upset you. I think it's important to know, first of all, why it's like, oh, they didn't they didn't like, you know, do it on purpose necessarily. They're they're using a more efficient assembly using one chip. Unfortunately, it's not more efficient. It's almost like it's a side effect of like, oh, we had to use multiple chips in the design before. And that had the side effect of making it faster read write in some cases. But we didn't design it to be that way. We just had to do it that way. And now that we can get these 256 chips, we're just going to use those. And in the vast majority of cases, you're not going to notice. But yeah, if you were really pushing these things to the edge, you would notice. Here's the thing. It's only in MacBook Airs and the entry level MacBook Pro. So it's not the device that people are most likely to get if they are using these like extreme heavy duty cases, right? Yeah, I'm my concern is as an M1 Mac mini owner, been very happy with that thing. And I'm tempted to get the M2 mini over even the studio or waiting for a studio M2, because I just think this is a very capable little box, may as well call it the studio junior. I have some concerns that they would push that into desktop stuff. And that is where you might run into problems and see some drops in performance, where currently I, for example, when I do a live stream to a show, I am recording raw waveform audio at the same time that I'm recording raw video data. And those things are happening simultaneously to the exact same drive. I could probably work out a situation where I have externals or thunderbolt based drives or something doing some of that heavy lifting. But I still like the idea that we have the burden being shared. I don't know how many people are doing that kind of work with notebooks, which goes to your whole point that this may not be an issue for most or let's say some large percentage of users, but I could see why it would cause concern. Well, first of all, just just for anybody who wasn't paying close attention just now, you know, somebody cut you off on the highway or whatever, dogs barking at you. This doesn't apply to the Mac minis. This only applies to the base level MacBook Pro. But let me ask you this, Scott, if this ended up being a problem in some hypothetical world, but it was just the base level Mac mini as it is here. And it's like, oh, but if you get the terabyte Mac mini or anything bigger, you're not going to see this problem at all. Would you care? No, no, I wouldn't because I'm going to have to get a bigger configuration anyway. So you're absolutely right. Like what they probably found is it was a little redundant for the lower end models because people aren't using them that way. I don't know if they have data that says that they're using that way or not. But that's probably what Apple said. And for the people out there saying, but I would, we're with you. That's why it's important to know. But again, I don't think Apple is like undermining, causing a huge problem here. It's a very few cases that we're like, no, no, no. I only need 512 gigabytes. I only need the base level 14 inch MacBook Pro, but I absolutely do need to transfer data. You're right, Sarah. There's somebody out there that does fit that use case. It's just not very common. Yep. And it's still not like it's impossible to do it. It's just slightly slower than the previous version, in which case maybe you just want to buy the older one in that case. Yeah, that's true. I am excited about the new minis and I'm excited to hear this doesn't affect those. But you know, you'd like to be aware of changes like this, I think on the whole, even if you don't need it. So you can keep an eye out for it. Yeah. And watch for it and know that that's going on behind the scenes. Xbox and Bethesda held a 45 minute developer direct live stream today that ended 15 minutes before we started this show. So a little bit of scrambling. Big thanks to our producer, Roger, for taking copious notes on this. Of course, Scott, you were paying attention to this as well. What, if anything, was notable in this announcement? All right. Well, the big thing, they kind of had tempered our expectations prior to this. Microsoft got out in front of it on social media and said, look, don't go in there expecting huge, huge things. This is just sort of a little one. You know, we've got other stuff planned. They get their big starfield Bethesda event coming up still. So there's a lot to look forward to. But we did get a couple of things that were interesting for one, a game that was not previously announced as best I can tell or find and was not leaked, which is also kind of amazing in this day and age. And that is a third person rhythm action game called Hi-Fi Rush. And this is from Tango Gameworks. You're probably familiar with a bunch of their stuff. They usually do horror games, but this looks like a very colorful, very animated action game where you try to stay to the rhythm of the beat while you fight waves of enemies. And there's a story there. It looks like a lot of jaunty stuff going on. And here's the weird bit. We didn't know about it. And it's also coming out today, which we also didn't know about. So if you have game pass or would like to just buy the thing, this will be out on all the platforms tonight. That includes PC as well as their own Xbox consoles, no PlayStation, obviously. And so that was a big deal. Other stuff for the show, stuff we either knew about, maybe was highly anticipated, but we kind of knew what was up. Like Redfall from Arcane Studios. This is from Arcane Austin in particular. It's an FPS co-op shooter in the kin, you know, think of like Left 4 Dead or, you know, Dark Tide, some of these newer games where it's you and maybe up to three of your friends running around killing stuff. In this case, it's Vampires. It looks great. It will support single play as well. And Arcane doesn't make bad video games. So that is one that is still highly anticipated by a lot of people and we're expecting to see it on the 23rd. No, excuse me. That's not it. May 2nd, 2023 is when that's hitting the everybody's console. Then we had kind of a weird one in my opinion, Minecraft Legends, which looks like a hybrid MMO slash tactical slash action hybrid of some sort. But the idea is you've got some cross platform play, action oriented video game. You're building up cities. People can attack your cities, try to take them over. There is PVP cooperative and PVP, you know, player versus player stuff, teams of four players each. And it looks pretty neat. This is coming in April, April 18th. I'm not really a Minecraft guy. So this is not really super on my radar, but I'm sure there are a lot of people. This is a dumb question, but is Legends a completely different Minecraft experience? It is. So Minecraft is its own thing. There's also Minecraft Dungeons, which came out what, two years ago now, which is like a Diablo-like game where you're sort of soloing through a bunch of monsters. It's a more three quarter view camera thing. Very different play experience. This looks like that as well. And this was previously announced and known, but we didn't have a lot of details. So today was good for that. And I'd check out the bot if you want to know more, but it's like a new way to play in that world. And I think after now, two of these, I think the signal should be clear at this point that Microsoft's trying to make Minecraft more than just Minecraft. They're trying to branch it out and turn the IP into things that are maybe whole different experiences and retaining that Minecraft feel, that kind of low death blocky feel that they're going for. And that seems like they're definitely doing that here. Another big one here shown was Forza Motorsport. This is the next game in the series. And it is coming this year, though we didn't get a date, but definitely this year. This was mostly a tech demo. They showed a lot of really cool underlying tech stuff, including art and sound. You don't normally get at one of these. I actually appreciate that and like it a lot. Some players maybe like, when's a game coming out? And that's all they care about. But if you're really into high end racing and high end car stuff, this is going to be your jam, especially if you're on their platform. And then finally, the other one I wanted to mention was Elder Scrolls Online and MMO that I am fond of. I quite like it. They have a new expansion coming out called Necrom, new class and some new stuff. If you play the game, you already kind of know how that game works. What I thought was interesting here was this game is a known quantity. It's been out since 2014. And what was unique here was I feel like they were just advertising it to people who've never played it. And I thought that was just a little bit weird. They spent a little bit of time on, hey, here's our new content coming. But mostly we want to tell you, if you've never played this, think of the great times you had in Skyrim and all these other Elder Scrolls games. You can come and have those great times here and you can do it cross platform. And also we're going to have a limited time trial where all the content that we've previously released is free, this sort of thing. So anyway, they did give a June 5th announcement for the upcoming expansion. But this really did seem like a push of like, all right, Microsoft, you own a viable MMO now. It may not be Warcraft numbers, but it's good. What do you want to do with it? And I think what they want to do with it right now is like inform people that it exists more so that they can maybe check it out and see how it's matured. And I don't think that's such a bad idea. For the most part, that's it, though. No Phil Spencer, no talking heads outside of the devs. Just a brief 45 minute to the dot look at what's coming soon and in the future for Microsoft. Well, that is wonderful. If you want more about it though, head over to Core where I know Scott will be talking in more detail about it. And if you have thoughts about it and you want to tell to the world, including us, get in touch with us on social media, DTNS show on Twitter, Daily Tech News show on TikTok and DTNS picks with an X DTNSP IX on Instagram. Nvidia's broadcast software version 1.4 has a new update among a few appropriately titled eye contact that swaps out your realized for digital eyes that never stop looking at your webcam, even if you are not for anybody who might be watching the video version of this show right now, you might notice that I am looking down at my monitor. This would have me looking at the camera instead, even if I wasn't looking at the camera. Kotaku calls it very creepy. And one more sign of how unnatural you have to act online to become a popular streamer in 2023. The point they were making being that eye contact gives off the impression that the creator is engaged to maybe more than they actually are, even if staring at the webcam 100% of the time would be pretty impossible otherwise. Well, there's an argument that this kind of tech anyway could be legitimately a helpful tool for people that have some issues. People say autism or have a hard time keeping eye contact or find that more challenging. I have to admit, when I'm talking and thinking, when I'm broadcasting, I often am not looking at the camera. I look down, I look over, it's my brain working, and I don't notice that I'm doing it. So maybe, you know, people like that would benefit. Or maybe remote meetings would be more productive. Anyway, then they're their content creators who are just excited that eye contact will benefit their YouTube or Twitch streams without having to invest in a teleprompter or memorize a bunch of copy and that sort of thing. The old ways of doing this. Other depth updates to Nvidia's broadcast stuff include more video background options, plus a new tool for developers to integrate the SDK's powering Nvidia broadcast, known as Maxine, directly into their apps. I can tell you right now, as somebody who uses a lot of Nvidia stuff after seeing this demoed a few times, I'm actually really impressed with it. And where I think it will best be used isn't natural conversational shows like this one that we're on right this second. It's going to be for these YouTube shorts and things where someone is popping in and has a bunch of stuff to say, but is maybe not staring at the camera the entire time. Yeah, press for time. Yeah, whatever. The longer they sit there, the creepier it gets. Like I think in small doses, this is not so bad on the creepy factor. I think it's very impressive. But if you stood there and looked at me the entire time and barely blinked and never looked away, I would start to wonder what the heck's going on. It's creepy. It looks like someone's reading prompter, even when they're not. One of the tricks of reading a prompter that I picked up over the years was even though you're reading, look away from time to time, because if you don't, you just look like you're staring creepily at people. And that's what this does. I mean, yes, I think your right, Scott, that in short bursts like shorts or TikTok, it might not be as bad and you won't be long enough that you really get that creep factor. But yeah, when the eyes never leave the camera, it doesn't look natural. I don't know. I was impressed by the demo. I was like, I see what they're doing there. If you only saw the version of in this particular video, the man looking at the camera, I don't think it would seem weird. It would seem pretty, I mean, like he actually is looking at the camera. But you mentioned teleprompter, Tom. It's like, to me, this is really not different than that. Spoiler alert, lots of people who seem like they're just looking at the camera and just have so much stuff to say are actually reading things. So I mean, that's been going on for a long time. The fact that AI could make this easier in certain situations where people don't fixate on the creepiness of it, that's where it's cool. I agree. And it does seem a little tweakable. The video I saw of somebody reviewing the beta, he was messing with settings that made him occasionally blink more and look in different ways. And I think there's a tuning that can happen. It is in beta, of course. So there's a lot that could happen here. But I think they can get this to a place where you're not going to be able to tell the difference or you'll be able to switch in and out of it seamlessly. That could be really cool. So you could have presentations that are like, I just hit this little switch and now my eyes are squarely on you. But I'm actually reading over here. And then I hit that switch and without people noticing, you're kind of back to your normal eye movement. That would help a lot because don't forget, there's, you know, nonverbal signals we pick up. When someone's staring at you, it can be seen as aggressive. We're disconcerting. Actually, Jay Rom's saying when someone's staring right at you, my reaction is to look away. So this would make me not want to watch you if you stare at me too much. Yeah, it's also not going to be, we've brought up streamers here. And I don't think, I'm sure there's use cases for streamers, but streamers are the least use case in my opinion because I don't, if they're playing a game and they're being really engaged in that game, they are not looking into my eyes. But if this thing is staring into my eyes while they're reacting to being headshotted in Call of Duty, that's a really weird combo. I mean, I guess on the other end of, you know, this conversation is, okay, if you get used to not really having to engage in eye contact, sometimes I find intimidating, depending on the situation and life, then, you know, what does that say? Going down the road, some, I don't know. I mean, if I never have to do it, I'm probably not going to get any better at it. Right. I also, well, I mean, that's true of any technology, right? Like, oh, if we have Google search, we'll never remember anything. And it turns out it's never quite as bad as all that. I would like this to be able to replace my eyes, too. Like, if it could make me look at the camera, like, give me some different eyes, you know, cat's eyes, demon eyes. Well, then you just add like a snap filter or something, Tom, technology already exists. But just the eyes. I mean, the eyes are at the window to the soul, right? The eyes have it. Yes, that's right. The eyes have it. They do a lot. Please transition us. I will. Professor Christian Terwish of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School decided to give the final exam for his operations management MBA course to GPT three. And guess what? It passed with a grade of B minus. So, okay. He didn't get an A plus, but you passed. Terwish found it did really well at basic communications management, process analysis questions, but made mistakes at sixth grade level math. Wasn't good at handling more advanced process analysis questions either. However, chat GPT three did respond well to human hints and learned over time. So the hint was no longer needed eventually. Tarwish also had chat GP three create exam questions found found them well worded. Sometimes they were kind of funny, but they needed substantial adjustments before becoming usable exam questions. So let's talk about his takeaways, Tom. Yeah. So, Terwish thinks the experiment shows that we still need a human in the loop when the human was giving hints that did better. So in order to take best advantage of chat GPT three, it can't run things on its own. And a lot of people's reactions are like, if we just let this thing do stuff, well, don't don't do that. Don't rely on it. But then, but then you can get some good stuff out of it. He's not going to allow chat GPT three during his exams. It's usually like, yeah, bring your computer, open book, whatever. But he compared using chat GPT three to calling a friend for the answer. He he's like, yeah, you can use your laptop in class, but you can't call your friend on Skype with it. And same thing. He's like, you can use your laptop, but you cannot use chat GPT three. He says he will use chat GPT three when teaching case discussions in his classes in order to emulate consultants who sometimes come in and give compelling recommendations that are wrong. Because it was wrong. Sometimes he's like, this is perfect. It's very persuasive. It sounds like it knows what it's talking about, but it doesn't always. And having like a real human, right? Having the students be able to guess or tell like, wait a minute, he's saying something, but I'm not sure that's right. He said he will now need to come up with more challenging assignments. He's like, I'm going to let them use it in their assignments, maybe not on test, but in their assignments, and I'm going to push them to think more creatively as a result. Like, yeah, you can get chat GPT three to do that part. So now you have to take that and push it farther. I thought that was a really good recommendation as well. And he intends to use chat GPT three to improve his own productivity. Those test questions it created needed work, but he said even so it could probably cut his test creation time in half. Wow. I'm, I tended looked at the positive side of this. I don't know why everybody wants to freak out about. I'm not saying you guys, but I've heard this today. It's fun. People are freaking out. It's fun to freak out, but I like the idea that technology, you said Google earlier about, you know, searching was going to make us remember less. I think we were wrong about that. It just freed us up. It said, we don't have to remember all this because there's a giant repository of all the things you want to have at your fingertips so that you can now focus on this stuff and you can do more of this and more of that you couldn't do before because you were constantly thinking about this stuff over here. And I don't think this is going to be all that different. And if it pushes us in ways that says, oh, our current testing kind of stinks, the machine can just ace it. And I think we should do better than this. I think that's good for us as a species and as a people. So I'm all for it as weird as it can be and as freaky as some of these chat GBT three things are that you see every day. I don't fear it and dislike it the way I do art generation. It's all such early days too. It's like, you know, teachers being like, you know what, this is actually helpful for me. And here's why instead of this is the worst and it's going to ruin everything we've always done perfectly well before. Yeah, it's not all or nothing. All right, let's check out the mail bag. This one comes from Oomong who wrote in about our recent conversation about our podcast dying or not. What is with all the podcast decline numbers? Oomong says, I wonder if there's a trend where podcasts are released with the intention that they just have a short duration or number of episodes. For instance, I was listening to a podcast called After the Whistle, which was released during the World Cup and it was about each matchday. Once the World Cup was over, the podcast ended. No, that's a good question, Oomong. I see no evidence that that would in any way materially contribute to the huge drop in the number of podcasts we saw. There have definitely been limited run podcasts for almost the entire history of podcasting. So it's not new and I don't have a source on this, but my guess is there probably aren't any more or less of those kinds of podcasts than there used to be. So I don't think that contributes to the drop, but that's a great question to ask. Yeah, I've been doing this long enough too to know that having started and ended many podcasts in my time, there is this weird assumption that podcasting in the early days especially meant that you were just going to go in perpetuity and we're never going to end it. And I don't think it needs to be that way. It doesn't need to be any of that. Could be a one-off for all I care. Yeah, I mean, if you think of it in terms of a series, so many different kinds of series. It could be 60 minutes where you just do it for 60 years or a nine episode run. Yeah, and why not? There are a lot of those kinds of podcasts. Maybe there are more than there used to be, but I don't see that there are so many more that that would cause that huge percentage drop we were talking about. Tyler wrote in from lovely Cleveland, Ohio. I wanted to take a moment to express their appreciation for the show. Thank you, Tyler. As a long-time listener, I found the discussions on the latest technology trends to be both informative and entertaining. Your show has become a staple in my daily routine and has helped me get through my many long commutes. Thank you, Tyler. Happy to be along for the ride. Watch out for that puddle. I also wanted to comment on a security concern that was discussed in today's episode. During the segment on the potential for someone to exploit smart speakers by sending malicious commands through an answering machine, speaking them over the answering machine, I immediately considered that it's possible for someone to tell a smart speaker to make a phone call and then listen in through the speaker without the owner's knowledge. I hope that you will continue to discuss important security concerns like this in the future, as well as all the latest technology trends. Keep up the great work and thank you for all the entertainment and information. P.S. That email is good enough on its own, right? P.S. Keeping on topic with the episode, most of this message was written by chat G.P.T. P.S. Oh, Tyler. P.S. While the ideas are all mine, I couldn't find the right way to put them together, and I thought it was a great way to try it out for myself. Always look forward to hearing your opinions on the show. It always brightens my day, and I appreciate all of you. P.S. Oh, Tyler, that was awesome. P.S. You know, until we got to the end, I thought, well, Tyler is kind of, you know, he writes by the book, but very, you know, thank you for the praise, all the sentences made sense, and now, now I get it. P.S. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tyler, thanks to you and thank you, chat G.P.T., for the kind words. P.S. Thanks to you as well, Scott Johnson, for being with us today. Let folks know where they can keep up with your latest. P.S. Well, as mentioned earlier, we go pretty deep on the issues of video games during the week, and it's everything from industry top stuff down to what we're playing, and this Microsoft stuff is going to get hashed out. So if you want to hear that, that is on the show called Core. We do it every Thursday night. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for Core or go to frogpants.com slash core and we would love to see you there. We also have a brand new boss. Mr. Happy Mac has joined us on Patreon. Thank you, Mr. Happy Mac. Glad to have you. Oh, thank you, Mr. Happy Mac. I'm glad you're happy. I was like burgers, computers. What could it be? Maybe both. Mr. Happy Windows. I'd be happy to. You're welcome to. Happy Windows. Come on in. Speaking of patrons, do stick around for our extended show, Good Day Internet. We roll right into it when DTNS wraps up. But just a reminder, DTNS is live. Run it through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern 2100 UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. We're back tomorrow talking about section 230 with Justin Robert Young. Who else talked to you then? This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Timing Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.