 Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners thanks to all of you including Daniel Dorado, Howard Yermish and John Atwood Coming up on DTNS Netflix says it wants to make games for your TV and PC, but it's not competing with consoles Meanwhile, Microsoft says it wants to make a mobile Xbox app store and it is competing with Apple and Google This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, October 19th 2022 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt in Salt Lake City I'm Scott Johnson I'm the show's producer Roger Chang. Jerry Ellsworth feels bad. She had to back out because some scheduling stuff Don't feel bad Jerry. We're gonna get Jerry on the show. So we look forward to that soon. It's gonna be a great talk Meanwhile, let's start today with a few tech things you should know the quick hits The USB implementers forum published the official spec for USB 4 version 2.0 This is not USB 5 nor is it USB 4 it is USB 4 version 2.0 And what that means is it lets you get 80 gigabit per second speeds over your existing passive cables So it's basically saying we're not really changing anything with the cables We're just making a new port that can send more data over it It can also allow for asymmetrical connections that can send a hundred twenty gigabits per second in one direction and 40 gigabits per second in the other probably best used for displays where you can send a lot of high quality data for a High-quality display and the display doesn't have to send that much data back to you devices with USB 4 version 2.0 ports aren't Expected for 12 to 18 months. Well, they're always changing that so get ready Cantalysis estimates that smartphone sales have dropped 9% on the year last quarter making it the worst quarter three numbers for the smartphone market since 2014 Even as the overall market shrunk the leaders grabbed a larger share of it Samsung grew its worldwide market share by 1.2 22% Apple rose from 15 to 18% of the market and Jami Well, they held steady at 14% followed by declining market share from oppo and vivo The blue sky initiative you may remember this it was formed by Jack Dorsey back when he was CEO of Twitter in 2019 has launched its decentralized social media protocol. It is called the AT protocol or the at protocol, you know, like the at sign Blue sky has developed an interoperational framework called lexicon that will connect apps and networks built on the at protocol A waitlist was created for people who wish to get the blue sky app Which will probably end up being the first piece of software to take advantage of the at protocol I'm genuinely curious about that excited to see what that ends up being me too Couple of noteworthy developments in the autonomous vehicle space and department Ikea has been working with Kodak robotics on an autonomous truck delivering furniture from a warehouse in Houston to a retail store near Dallas If the three-month pilot goes well, it may be extended and Expanded to other stores and warehouses and Waymo announced it will expand its autonomous taxi services to Los Angeles over the next several months Way already operates in Phoenix in San Francisco. Ooh, I might be able to get an autonomous taxi It's not gonna come to my neighborhood. I'm just scared to hear of it Vice reports that people in China are using Apple's airdrop to spread images denouncing the country's leadership If you're not familiar with China denouncing the country's leadership is a risky thing to do and it's not and that's mild on there A protest banner was hung from a bridge in Beijing last week and quickly removed And apparently a lot of these airdropped images show pictures of that banner and its protest message China's Communist Party is currently holding its 20th National Congress where it will select the party's central committee for the next five-year period and President Xi Jinping is expected to get an unprecedented third term China's government actively censors conversations on social media in the country, of course But it's real hard to control airdrop Unless they I don't know. What if they go after Apple and say hey exactly cell phones here with airdrop I don't know. That's kind of the only thing they could do really. Yeah The UK competition and markets authority released a partly redacted version of a Microsoft filing That says it wants to build an Xbox mobile game store The reason of course the CMA has Microsoft filing things is because of the investigation into Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard Microsoft argues that Xbox currently has no material presence on mobile and that mobile represents the largest segment in gaming and therefore They should let them buy Activision Blizzard because Activision Blizzard will help Microsoft create a game store That can compete with the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store Microsoft repeated in this filing its commitment to open app store principles Those principles were published earlier this year They they say they want to let developers run their own app stores on xbox mobile platform Offer their own payment systems within those apps Xbox cloud gaming is available on devices from logitech valve and razor But not on iOS Unless you use the browser because Apple has policies that don't let you put a cloud gaming service into its app store Unless you make an app for each individual game on the cloud gaming service, which seems silly Does to me as well I mean there's only another major player in this market who has even less of a footprint in mobile gaming and that's sony So on one angle of this that i've been thinking about today is how this is yet another Effort by microsoft to get out in front of this and do it before sony does it And kind of put sony on edge a little I feel like they're just sort of like hey We uh, this going on with game pass. Do you have a game pass answer? No Well, guess what we're also working on cloud gaming in a major way. Oh, you don't really have a good answer for that Well, we're also doing this and this and we're putting games on pc. I feel like they're always putting sony at least in this A recent couple of years they're putting them on their their heels a little bit And not giving them a chance to catch up. This is another way to do that. I don't think that's the only reason they're doing it I think that they're right about it being an untapped area for growth and potential For the company or for this division But it does in effect You know makes sony at the very least go to we need to be doing this Should we should we have a stronger take in mobile and um mobile is weird mobile came out of nowhere And it pulled the rug out from under traditional The traditional gaming world And I think everybody, you know forgets those long days ago the pippin days where we would make fun of apple And even later google for not being companies that are great at video games. The truth is They own the biggest platform between those two companies between android and ios They own the entirety of the mobile platform And they went from almost overnight a couple years you might say back in 07 08 They went from not having a piece of it to having all of it So i'm not surprised by microsoft's motivations here. It does seem like it took them along enough to get here The bigger question tom is What is this thing going to be will it be Hey, uh, click here to get angry birds xbox edition You can dress your angry birds up like master chief or something Like I honestly don't know what games they're going to do here. They have to they're they're mobile We we know that and then they say as much But what does that mean especially in ios where they can't have a store like a traditional store? I I'm a big fan of realizing having worked inside of big companies That big companies don't always know what they're going to do Until sometimes minutes before they announce what they're going to do I've literally been in situations where there were two plans on the table and as press conference scheduled And we weren't sure which plan was going to be announced So when we on the outside of these companies go, well, what are they really up to? I I try to remember that a lot of times the companies themselves don't know yet Uh, and especially when you're getting something that microsoft had to admit in a filing that was partially redacted So they were thinking well, maybe this won't even make it out into the public Uh, it's probably giving a vague sense of what it's going to do because it hasn't figured out all the details When you look at the fact that gaming on mobile makes up 51 of the market by some accounts When you look at the amount of money that is raked in by ios on mobile as well as android on mobile It makes sense that microsoft is going to have a team working on a mobile gaming strategy It makes sense that they would look at that and say well That can be pitched as a As competition to apple and google which helps us make our antitrust case like this will help us reduce competition But in the end Where is mobile gaming most likely to be favorable to microsoft stuff and it's on logitech valve and razor It's on it's that kind of mobile gaming which is android in a lot of cases So you could throw the android in there and and they can do an alternative app store like amazon does for android But i'm thinking what they what they really might be targeting which is less competition for apple Is is these kinds of mobile gaming platforms not necessarily phones Yeah, and you also just made a good argument for that logitech device, which i think a week ago or so Or right around when it was announced i sort of decried the high price given its capabilities It's mainly a streaming device This suddenly makes that device and devices like it including the you know the steam deck which i own as well much more interesting and much more Maybe closer to being as valuable as logitech would have you believe If indeed they'll end up being services on there like this one that may come from microsoft, which would really push Portability and gaming on that device not just with streaming, but maybe some original content that's designed for small screens That would really be a c change for them Um, is it enough to i don't know take whatever leadership position they want to take in that space and Again keep sony out of the mix. I don't know, but it's uh, it's going to be interesting to see this thing play out I'm very curious about it. Yeah me too. Uh, and I was getting all hung up I like how are they going to do this on ios and i'm like, oh, they're not They're they're only they're only saying that because it helps make their antitrust case But they're probably they're probably not worried about that Yeah, and the good the good news is like a game pass or excuse me game pass xcloud runs really well on ios But you have to do it through the browser. It's this janky method of getting it done I know they wish they could do differently there Um, but you know and maybe one day they will maybe somehow apple capitulates I don't know but for now it's going to have to be creative Well, that's the thing they could do a web version of their app store potentially although that's janky too And they may be just saying like we'll just hope apple figures out how to allow other stuff in there someday Maybe the pressure on them will One of the things we noted related to the apple ipad announcement yesterday was that the new 10th gen ipad Has a usb-c port But that new 10th gen ipad only works with the first generation apple pencil Which uses a lightning port to charge but scott has good news for you I do So as of and by the way, it was mind boggling that they did that but anyway As you mentioned yesterday, you can buy the lightning to usb adapter if you already have the first gen apple pencil An apple is bundling the adapter with the first gen apple pencil now Uh, but logitech has an answer for this and they've had this answer for a little while They've got an updated version of its crayon stylus that uses usb-c natively no more lightning. So that's cool. You won't need an adapter. It's also cheap. This thing is still 69 99 or 95 Which is 30 less than the apple pencil That is the meaning the original apple pencil the new one's a little bit more Anyway on the downside the crayon lists seven hours of battery life compared to apples 12 hours And the logitech crayon does not have pressure sensitivity. That being said i've used the uh the crayon It's a pretty good alternative, especially if you're like, hey, we're getting the smaller app ipad We're gonna have to have a pen no matter what you may as well get that one and use it Especially if it's just your kids they're learning how to draw or whatever it may be and pressure pressure sensitivity Doesn't really play into it for you note taking that sort of thing This is a great little device and I still think seven hours I may not be as good as 12 but the seven hours is pretty strong Your hand's gonna cramp up in seven hours, right? Yeah, what are you doing for seven hours anyway on there? You really shouldn't even even full-time illustrators if you're if you're really hardcore in your ipad pro You're not sitting there for seven and a half hours unless you get a hard deadline and even then These things charge very quickly And also the one the one advantage the crayon has over say The newer ipad or excuse me the pencil 2.0, which comes on the big 12.9 inch pros Is that you can plug it in while you use it if you were in a pinch Oh, because it's got a cable, right exactly so you can plug right in and have the tail end of that thing and keep going Whereas with the apple pencil your only option is to put it on the thing and let it charge for a while Thankfully, it's very quick take a 15 minute dog walk or something and you're good But but still there's some there's some other reasons to like it and I think maybe the money savings combined with You're getting a smaller model for this reason too. You're trying to shave a little money off that you don't need the higher end Uh, bam, you've got a solution bam. Yeah 97 x I don't get it though. I still don't understand why the apple 2 the 2 pencil 2 is not working on these things While meanwhile they got the horizontal camera yesterday added the better folio device Like the smaller ipad got bunches of upgrades The pro does not have the horizontal. It's got them too chipping it now, but no horizontal camera And this disparity between the two models My guess is there's a supply chain. Let's get rid of stuff moment happening here. That's it's it's definitely We can source these parts securely. So these parts are going into this model We cannot support the we cannot source these parts in as high enough amounts So we're limiting them to this model That's absolutely what it is including the support for the original apple pencil because you need different display parts, right? So, yeah, I don't know all the details, but it's got to be something like that I mean unless so so for those maybe wondering I come from an illustration background I still do that Half half of my professional time is spent doing art and I use the apple ipad pro and a pencil very frequently It's kind of my go-to for digital Art these days and I love it for that However, you might think well then scott, you're going to keep up on every update, right? Normally I do when there's a big update when they went to m1. I did it When they went to, you know Faster or the new pencil and they required a new ipad. I did it. These were big leaps in my opinion in terms of their functionality This m2 you'd think oh brand new chip this much percentage faster We know the m2 is a lot faster than the m1 blah blah blah I'm holding off Because these other things are a little bit weird and unless pro create comes out tomorrow and says hey, guess what 5.3 or whatever the new version is um is going to be You know 900,000 more layers possible and you're going to do it in this much time savings unless they go crazy with performance increases on the actual You know production of content on this thing I think this is the year to skip. I mean m2 sounds great, but they're just weird on the other stuff That's probably why they didn't do a big live stream, right? They're like, yeah, these these are just Upgrades to make them look more competitive when you go into the store to buy an ipad for the first time or to replace your old one Uh, it's the same thing as the as the iphone to be honest Although they've got more to talk about with the iphone Willie scott in our chat asked, uh, if this had anything to do with the eu forcing a switch to usbc I would think not In fact, if anything It's surprising that they went ahead and switched it to usbc when they don't have to yet They if if you're if you're apple and you don't want to switch to usbc You're going to wait until the day that that that law actually goes into force and you're going to put out as many products on Into the supply chain as you can With your older parts while you can because once they're in once they're announced once they're for sale You don't have to pull them for shelves even if they don't have usbc So I think this is just apple deciding to get ahead of it and they were going to do usbc either way Yeah, and I think phones are the ones you're going to see the the quick turnaround on that's the one you're going to suddenly see Usbc in your iphone 15s next year. Uh, I think you can almost guarantee it Folks if you want to join in the conversation on this you got some theories about the apple supply chain Do you work in the apple supply chain? And you just want to like drop a few hints join our discord You can do that by linking to a patreon account at patreon.com slash dtns Netflix subscribers rose by 2.41 million dollars last quarter 1.43 million of those came from the asia pacific region That's where they've continued to grow strong even in the downturn that they experienced But all markets grew this time even the us in canada barely Uh, us canada had the smallest growth at 100 000 subscribers, but it was still growth It predicts it will add 4.5 million subscribers this quarter. So basically double Just just a bed just less than double. Uh, what it did last quarter That is also going to be the last time we get a projection on users from netflix Uh, well, I want to clear up a little confusion. I've seen some people have netflix announced It's going to stop projecting subscribers every quarter Which means it will report its subscriber numbers like here's what we had last quarter But it won't predict what subscriber numbers will look like the next quarter So if you take this quarter as the example, they'll continue to say, oh, we added 2.41 million subscribers What they won't do in the future is say and next quarter we think we're getting four and a half million They're just gonna focus on money And in the audience report basically this this reminds me so much of when blizzard stopped telling everybody what they thought World of warcraft numbers would be and then they stopped telling us what they were Yeah, and it's because things topped out, right? It's like, uh, it's like you're leveling off Why why get people too excited about tiny numbers like relatively tiny numbers like a hundred thousand? That's a good point Netflix might do that. Yep. Well, netflix also thinks, uh, it will get double the growth this quarter because of big releases Like the crown a new season of the crown as well as the seasonal upsurge from the holidays And a cheaper ad supported tier launches in november You've heard that here on the show before but that isn't expected to add much money right away Interestingly enough or subscribers Particularly subscribers. They're like, yeah, we're not going to get a bunch of new people just because of the ad support Yeah, not not necessarily. Anyway, I think they might be wrong on that But I I think they're also safe to say it Uh, my personal opinions aside Anyway, the coming crackdown on password sharing won't go global until sometime in 2023 So there's that so a lot of the armchair analysis has proven to be off Password sharing in the ad tier are not desperation moves to save a failing company Netflix is even saying like, yeah, these things are just long-term changes there We don't expect them to make a material impact right away. And netflix also isn't talking about cutting spending Uh, this year it is spending 17 billion dollars on content and co-CEO Ted Serendot said, yeah I think that's about the right level, but they're not going to keep increasing it But they're going to keep spending 17 billion dollars on content Yeah, it's a lot and they'll keep doing it. Um Separate from the earnings report. I thought this was really interesting Fits within my wheelhouse as well. Netflix VP of gaming Mike Verdu Told tech crunch disrupt that netflix is quote seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering unquote And is getting ready to open its fifth gaming studio in southern california led by chaco sony or sonny rather Former blizzard ep of overwatch. Hmm, which is also having a bit of a moment right now Verdu said uh, quote for us delivering games to your tv or to your pc It's a value add like we're not asking you to subscribe as a console replacement So it is a completely different business model Uh, huh now the future of cloud gaming has been And forgive the pun cloudy since google announced the end of stadia coming in january But verdu specifically said he thought the problem with google stadia was the business model Uh, and it seems like he's trying to say look, we're not trying to get you to give up your xbox or your playstation We're just something fun You can add and and also play games on and 50% he said 50% of them are going to be originals I have no idea what this side of the netflix business is intended to be and I have learned In this in this video game thing that when I have no idea what netflix is doing It's probably doing the obvious thing that I don't think they're doing which is They're going they're going head to head with xbox cloud gaming. They're going head to head with nvidia G force now like they they are creating a full on pc cloud gaming business no matter what they say about Oh, well, it's not really that big a deal That's what they're doing. Don't you think I do but I also think it's important to note Where stadia failed and there look there's miles of stadia Conversation we could have and talk about all the reasons why it was weird But one of the core reasons was they locked in on a business model that was this We'll send you a dongle. It's basically a chromecast and we'll send you a controller And then you can use another controller if you want to too But those are the devices and then we're going to stream these games to you And you're going to buy them and you're only going to be able to play them here So if you want to play this $50 game you pay us 50 bucks and you stream it to your Your dongle and boom. There's your service The difference between that and microsoft is microsoft's like all right We have game pass the way you get cloud gaming is you subscribe to game pass ultimate And what that gives you is access to this huge library of games that are hours and third parties altogether Happily living in one ecosystem And you can play those on your pc you can play those on your console Or if you'd prefer Or in addition to you can play them on your phone or via any other streaming whatever a notebook or whatever You can stream these games these self-same games That gave people a lot of options where they didn't feel trapped by one way of doing a thing And also the fact that this is a subscription Makes it easier than plunking down 70 bucks every three weeks or whatever on a new title Which you may may or may not like and it's a subscription. You're already paying for 2.41 million more of you are paying for it Then we're paying last quarter, right? We're not they're not asking you to sign up for anything new They're not asking you to pay for anything new yet. Give them 10 years Uh, yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. Yeah, and that's I think that's the key difference here So will they be more like the stadium model or will they be more like Hey, we've already got these games and you can play them anywhere, but also you can stream them Like that's a big question. That's what nvidia does nvidia is not doing anything special other than saying Hey games you already own sweet You can stream them unless the company told us we couldn't do it which happens a lot You can't play blizzard games on there anymore, but it's different in that way. So whatever they're gonna do I'm pins and needles on it. I want to see I know this this is clever I I recently did a an episode I know a little more where I went back to an old insider secret script from cnet about streaming And noted that the top streaming services at that time, and I think it was 2007 Didn't include netflix It was all about like well, you can stream on aol You can you can stream from amazon unbox You can you can stream from some of the networks and this hulu thing that's new and then netflix has this thing I had forgotten that when netflix added streaming it was considered an inferior product. It was experimental And it was not charged for extra. You got it with your dvd subscription Notice a playbook there netflix saying like listen, we know there's lots of great cloud streaming here We're just a little company. We're gonna throw in some gaming if you like it. You like it Yeah, we've got five game studios. So some of these games you won't be able to get anywhere else We're gonna come right out of the gate with the original content instead of wait for house of cards this time, but We're not a threat to anyone until we're totally a threat because you already have netflix and now you're playing all these games Why not you're already you're not to pay anything extra for them and then netflix suddenly down the road says Hey, we're are gonna have to separate the streaming video from the gaming for a while But you can still get them both in this extra tier or whatever If it's successful, I think that's totally what they're doing now It's a slow and steady method that feels a little old school sometimes and a little less immediate, but I I don't know. I am more likely to use a netflix cloud gaming service than any other cloud gaming service because I already have netflix Yeah, see this is key that right there is key. Yeah, and there are a lot of you tom a lot of you There are so many of me just inside this one head Uh google ai has been shown off a project called i sim to real so the letter i dash sim number two real Built to react to fast-paced unpredictable human behavior That's that's a tough job for algorithms and robots The project uses simulation to speed up learning so they can do years of training in a few minutes And then tries the algorithm out in the real world so far So it's been done by a lot of people Here's where google did something cool to keep the real world data in the mix The team moves back and forth between the simulator and learning in the real world So when it learns in the real world it collects data And adds that to the model that it's going to use in the simulation so that the simulation is better So you're basically training the simulation. It's a bit like a gan Uh, the data collected in the real world training is used to improve the simulation Which improves the algorithm enough to learn new things when it goes back into the real world and it got really good at ping pong Uh, they used ping pong as a nice Unpredictable but still relatively constrained demonstration The result was a 340 hit rally, which let's be honest. I don't think I could do as a human Uh, so the human who did this is just as impressive to me as the robot to be to be frank But yeah, uh, this this thing has learned how to do Again, it's not trying to compete at this point Although they have some other parts of the project that are trying to figure out like can it learn how to place things and all of that But if it's it's being taught like just keep keep the rally going and it can do it Yeah, I feel like this this maybe shows my um My lack of experience in the ping pong world, especially the professional ping pong world, but That sounds like a 340 hit rally sounds insane to me. It sounds like an improbable thing to happen It's like four and a half minutes. Yeah, to me. This sounds like you're saying hey that football game was zero to 75 right as the fourth quarter ended but in a minute they came back And one that sounds like to me So I don't know if that's really what we're looking at here, but it's it's impressive I think when you're not trying to win it's easier to keep a rally going for a long time, but 340s I'll be honest. I don't think I can do it personally. No, no, I'm not sure I could give you a one hit rally to be honest I can do five Yeah, I can promise five Yeah, I think I can't promise I can't promise anything with ping pong. I'm sorry All right, all right, let's check out the mailbag tim the dba wrote in and said the gdpr Cookie regulation misses a major point about user surveillance and tracking. I don't look at missed it But here we go Tim said cookies can be used to improve user experience like set letting me stay logged in between sessions Gonna stop you right there tim gdpr doesn't prevent them from doing that functional cookies that let you stay logged in are allowed Those are not the ones that are that are part of the gdpr regulation So they can force those kinds of cookies on you. Anyway, let's get back to tim's email Tracking technology can be used to track my behavior across sites cookies can also be used for tracking But I believe what apple has shown is that people actually want to opt out of tracking not necessarily opt out of cookies All right fair point. You don't have to use cookies to track Tim says I subscribe to several news outlets because I want to support good journalism. Yes I know their advertisers also try to track me which I resent But they can do this both with and without cookies and I believe many people would like to opt out entirely of being tracked And are willing to pay for subscriptions if they replace ad tracking That is a very good point In that story we talked about it was european news outlets mostly in germany and austria saying well either agree to let us set tracking cookies or pay Uh, and then you can block the tracking cookies. I like what tim's going after here is Don't just say you'll block that you won't you'll let us block the tracking cookies promise not to track us at all If we're paying and that's that's that's a little added incentive to get me to pay and I think that's fair Yeah, it's interesting and I didn't really I'm glad he wrote in because your clarification and clarity on this cookies Used to improve experience like staying logged in is not part of this. I thought it was part of this So now there's always an option that says uh, you that's grayed out It's like, you know functional cookies cookies that are need that need to be set as a session cookie to make sure that you stay Log in and yeah, that makes the whole thing seem a little less overreaching because I was feeling like oh man They're really just the whole baby with the bath water. Is that we're doing here? No, no The baby is fine. The baby's like sitting in a cradle Keeping your session logged in the bath water that's been tracking you that stuff you can throw out Yeah, yeah, nobody wants that. Anyway, we can use that for and throw that water out dirty cookie blade bath water Anyway, thank you Tim appreciate the email keep them coming folks feedback at daily tech news show dot com And thank you scott johnson for being with us today. What you got going on these days? Well speaking of gaming When i'm not completely hooked on overwatch too, it's really got its claws into me somehow Didn't expect that but uh, I'm doing a show all about video games called core and I do it on thursdays At a little bit in the afternoon, but if you want to just get the podcast you can get that Anyway, go check it out frog pants dot com slash core We got we dive deep into a lot of the stuff we talked about today with these streaming services and What people are doing for cloud gaming and and so on if that stuff's interesting to you We'll definitely be hitting that this week along with games. We're playing and all the news around the industry Uh, people really like core. Maybe you will too. So check it out frog pants dot com slash core or search for it Wherever you get your podcast make it a core element of your listening Oh, it's a good core workout. You just did that. Well, that doesn't work really Hey, uh, especially thanks to jeremy rand one of our lifetime supporters for dts Thank you, jeremy for all your years of uh support We appreciate every single one of you patrons you we could not possibly do this without you And if you're out there listening thinking like oh man, I meant to become a patron Maybe I should come do I want to become a patron you're gonna get Extended versions of the show you're gonna get extra content that explains the world to you know a little more just comes free to patrons Uh, you get a column from roger. He'll have a new one coming out tomorrow There's all kinds of good stuff and you get into our discord where you can hang out and talk to other listeners And I pop in there as well. Uh, so don't Delay become a patron today and you folks who have already become patrons stick around for that extended show Good day internet. You can also catch the show live monday through friday 4 p.m Eastern 20 hundred utc find out more about that at daily tech news show dot com slash live Back tomorrow with lamar wilson. Talk to you then This show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frog pants dot com Hope you have enjoyed this program