 Coming up on DTNS Uber lets drivers set their own fares a dialysis machine You can wear and travel with and should facial recognition be banned This is the Daily Tech news for Tuesday, January 21st 2020 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from studio Redwood I'm Sarah Lane and I'm the show's producer Roger Chang Our dear friend Patrick Beja was called away right before the show sadly He helped prepare the show, but he won't be available to do the show. We'll miss him We were just talking about all the great TV shows that we've been watching and movies and stuff on good day internet If you want that wider conversation good streaming picks in there. You got to get it patreon.com slash DTNS Let's start with a few tech things you should know a Canadian court is conducting hearings on the potential extradition of Huawei chief financial officer at Meng Wenzhou To the US on charges of bank fraud Meng has been free in on bail in Vancouver since December of 2018 was what was prohibited from leaving the country Meng's lawyers argue that the case rests on sanctions violations and Canada did not have the sanctions in question Against Iran at the time of the alleged Violation the alleged crime must be illegal in both countries to meet the requirements for extradition The US maintains that the charge is bank fraud not sanctions violations at all YouTube TV has become the first television service to arrive on the Sony ps4 Since Sony announced it was shutting down its own service PlayStation view as of January 30th So nine days before it shuts off if you're a ps view watcher on the ps4 You can switch to YouTube TV YouTube TV cost $50 a month Which is the same as Sony's cheapest PlayStation view plan Samsung electronics named Rho Tay Moon as the new CEO of its smartphone division Outgoing CEO DJ co will continue to head Samsung's IT and mobile and communications divisions Ro will reportedly focus on building Samsung's reputation for device quality and to further expand shipments into India and also China Ro has been with Samsung since 1997 an oversaw development of Galaxy mobile devices Disney planches Plus is gonna launch a week early March 24th in the UK Ireland France Germany Italy Spain Austria and Switzerland streaming service will cost five pounds 99 per month or 59 pounds 99 a year Disney Plus launched in the US in Canada back in November and also launched in the Netherlands as a testing ground first So now we're getting a few more countries to enjoy baby Yoda I miss Patrick on days where I have to pronounce people's French last names But French president Emmanuel mecca Announced that he will suspend a planned digital tax in the country and that France will work with the US to avoid a rise in Tariffs the digital tax which is now suspended until the end of 2020 would apply a 3% levy on revenue from digital services Earned in France by companies with revenues of more than 25 million euros That's about 28 million US dollars in France and 75 million euros worldwide 750 million year What did I say you said 75 which yeah, no a little bit. No 750. Okay Finally, so knows will stop providing software updates and new features for its oldest products starting in May We knew this was coming but now, you know when that includes Sonos zone players the connect connect amp anything manufactured between 2011 and 2015 the first generation play five the CR 200 controller and the bridge Sonos says customers can keep using the products after support ends or Replace them with a modern Sonos product at a discount. Remember, there's that whole discount thing where they disable the old one If you get the discount, I got a couple play fives. Oh, I knew this was coming So it goes. All right, let's talk a little bit more about this uber thing Yeah, let's uber is testing a new feature that lets some drivers in California set their own fairs when picking up passengers at airports in Santa Barbara Palm Springs and Sacramento. Those are all smaller ish airports But they they there's a fair amount of people coming it out of there a source told the Wall Street Journal that drivers can set fairs in 10% increments up to five times the uber base fare California's passage of assembly bill five now requires companies to treat workers as employees rather than independent contractors if Operations are deemed controlled by the company uber has argued that this is a technology platform That connects riders with drivers. They're not a transportation company. And so drivers aren't part of its core business Yeah, when you may have heard us talk about the three-part test It was it was a court decision before and now it's been enshrined in law And essentially it says look if if you're If they're doing things for your business that your business does if they're replicating what your business does Then you have to treat them as employees. So what uber is trying to claim is well Our business is just hooking riders up with drivers Our business isn't driving people around and so they're attempting to show that by adding. Yeah, these new features And Yeah, the drivers, you know, they can set their own fairs if they so choose and that I Don't know. I mean whether or not you think that ubers in the right by doing this I see where the company is going here because they don't want to pay the benefits, you know And you know give sick time to to to a roll tax all of it Yeah, it's the people that they consider independent contractors and that's how it's been this entire time, you know, it would be it would be a financial Issue for the company which is trying to be profitable and isn't actually yet But I wonder as a writer because I use uber and Lyft, but you know, I use uber often How that really, you know, how does that? How does that look to me? Let's say I arrive at Palm Springs. I want to get a ride I you know, do I see a, you know, a You know a cornucopia of drivers each with their own rates and figure out well How quickly do I need to get to my destination? That isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as the choice is there and it's and it's obvious to me and it's visual But I don't know what that looks like compared to the way that the app works now Yeah, the way I more describes it It creates a bidding system where drivers who set the lowest price are more likely to get a customer first Drivers with higher prices get matched with riders as the demand increases So if there's a glut of drivers, then I guess that makes sense I'm always as a dry a rider going to get the lowest price available But as a rider, what if there aren't that the situation I face more often is there aren't that many drivers and if If so uber uses like your loyalty level because they have a loyalty program You know how many other riders in your area are requesting things they use a lot of stuff to determine what Driver you get assigned and if you've got one driver that would normally be assigned to you That's five minutes away, but has a higher price than a driver. That's 15 minutes away I mean, which one do I get and which one do I want? I don't even sure do I want to wait 15 minutes to get the lower price kind of depends on how much cheaper It is than the guy's five minutes away. I guess it kind of reminds me of buying flights these days Oh, yeah, it's not just about what flight is cheapest. It's like are there, you know, hey, you know I don't have to connect somewhere as they're gonna be a long layover is the airline, you know One of my favorites all of that stuff It's I mean an uber is legitimately if you said Anybody can use uber to be a driver or a rider and when we really are just connecting them It would be a service. There are services like this that exist for taxi companies that services are not the taxi company They're just the software provider So ubers trying to inch down that road and say hey taxis get to set whatever price they want And the companies that operate their software that aren't the taxi company aren't responsible So we want to be classified like that We want to be considered just a software provider for a bunch of independent contractors Which a lot of people forget that's actually uber started by matching up the black car drivers who are Independent contractors often sure yeah writers and then started saying well Why couldn't we do this for anybody who has a car and that's when they started to get in trouble? So It there's a lot of questions about well, how do I as a writer not get screwed by this But I suppose the answer is that's why they're doing it in a very limited test in very limited areas In very limited situations to kind of figure out how that works Six sources tell Reuters that Apple dropped plans to let iPhone users fully encrypt backups of their devices using iCloud After the FBI complained that the feature would harm investigations iCloud backups to iPhone backups rather to iCloud are encrypted But Apple has access to the encryption keys and can and can share them when legally required to do so Apple says it keeps the keys to help users who get locked out of accounts and you know They're you know stuff like that in 2018 the Financial Times reported sources who said that Apple was working on a plan To offer end-to-end encryption meaning it would no longer hold these keys This hasn't happened a former Apple employee told Reuters legal killed it for reasons you can imagine Meaning pressure from the FBI a source in the FBI said that Apple was convinced of law enforcement needs Yeah, so we've got three reasons. We've got Tim Cook in 2019 saying well one of the benefits of you know Keeping the keys ourselves is helping people from getting locked out of their their iCloud Situation and man we have a lot of people who have problems with iCloud. So that's a reasonable thing There's also the inside source saying no the FBI was putting pressure on him at San Bernardino They're having all these backroom talks and so Apple saying you know what fine We won't proceed down this room because we have another reason why so let's just back off That's possible too and the FBI saying we just convinced them that it's important to help fight the bad guys I mean sure that actually plays a part in it James from Irvine wrote in and said I bet the usability concern was a big factor in the Decision not just pressure from law enforcement. I have to say I kind of feel like it's all three. It's it's you know It's like a perfect storm Yeah You can also choose as you know because there have been a couple situations where Apple has said listen We're working with law enforcement. They can access iCloud backups of you know iPhones that were suspected to help us be able to figure out an investigation You know some of them, you know with with lethal results and that's all fine and good You know a user can also choose not to have an iCloud backup. So that's not exactly Apple saying well You know, we're letting you this is just the way that we're letting you so it's not it's not it doesn't all work the same way But it does it isn't interesting It's an interesting Admission I guess on Apple's part that they They do you know kind of go with this whole kind of data privacy for the consumer first But not always well and and it the damning thing about this is that the source was saying they were going to offer the option And my guess is to get around the the user problem because yeah, you can do your backup on your own But it's difficult and for a lot of people it's just what my mom has an iPhone and she would never back this up on her own She needs iCloud to have her backup. It's the only way that works for her My my guess is Apple would have provided an option where you could choose the end to an encryption as long as you Acknowledged I won't be able to recover my my password if this if I forget it I'm guessing that's where they were going and they backed up because of FBI pressure And the reason this story is being leaked now is because they're getting pressure from the US government to go farther And they're like, you know what? Let's just leak out what we've done so far and get the pressure back on the government because people won't like this Even if it does make Apple look bad At a media event last week Microsoft CEO Sacha Nadella explained his vision for Microsoft in the 1920s. I'm sorry 2020s He focused on cloud and how Internet of Things will greatly expand to the number of devices Analysts estimate there are about 22 billion connected devices right now and estimate that the number will reach 50 billion between Sometime between 2025 and 2030 depending on who you ask Nadella said to this group and I quote if there's going to be 50 billion end points Windows with its billion is good Android with its 2 billion is good iOS with its billion is good, but there is 46 billion more So let's go and look at what that 46 billion plus four looks like and define a strategy for that and then have Everything have a place under the Sun So in other words if you're like wait, I don't quite follow that Nadella is saying Yeah, we've got a billion of the 50 billion with windows and we've got a bunch of software on Android and Apple So we're good But we really need to be looking on how to serve those other 46 billion end points and Nadella said He sometimes wonders if he should call windows as your edge And I think that is an insight to how he thinks about this all of this helps explain why Microsoft makes otherwise confusing Partnerships like Amazon for voice services. Why didn't they compete with Cortana? Why did they integrate? Samsung on Android, why are they putting their software in partnership with Samsung instead of making their own device when they're making their own device? Why are they using Android and Sony and cloud services for gaming people are still like freaked out like why is Microsoft revising cloud services for Sony's online gaming. Well, this is why because they don't consider themselves to be competing on the edge The edge is just there to bring people into the tent to use the cloud services And they want to be there for all 50 billion devices at some point this sounds a lot like what we're seeing with The smart home and companies saying alright, you know, there's there's there's two There's too many devices out there that don't talk to each other well enough and we're all gonna suffer If they talk to each other better then we're all gonna make more money because we're gonna sell more devices Same same idea here really. Yeah. No, it's that is definitely part of it Which is like we need to be the people providing the data that goes to the devices Not trying to control the pipe on how it gets there or it's not gonna work for anybody Let's go back to the 1980s. Shall we you mentioned 20s In the 1980s research showed how you could cover the entire planet with internet connectivity with just four Satellites. Yes, they were talking about it that long ago Unfortunately gravity keeps pulling at satellites meaning they have to keep an energy source on board to keep them in place Meaning somebody's got to pay for that it costs money to do that most satellite internet projects Therefore use thousands of smaller and cheaper satellites in lower earth orbit new research published in nature Communications by engineers that nonprofit the aerospace corporation Propose an interesting solution a more circular Orbit would take advantage of the pull from the sun the moon and the earth to keep four satellites in orbit for 6000 days 16.4 years one successful model orbits on a 48-hour period at 42,000 miles covering 95% of the planet with downtime at no more than 80 minutes per day The satellites need 60% less propellant than typical configurations, which would require would reducing the cost Yeah, so a typical configuration is is pretty expensive because it's elliptical But this new circular orbit that they've modeled they had two successful orbits One was not quite as comprehensive as the one at 42,000 miles Would would make it feasible to do this it brings the cost into a range where it might be worth doing The problem is it's never gonna be good for for gaming or video streaming because you've got like a second delay It's it's it's a pretty long lag, but it's for data processing and for just general connectivity It might be useful the other thing is we've got all these products putting thousands of satellites into low-earth orbit because That's cheap relatively speaking and It's redundant. So if one of your thousand satellites fails no big deal You you your network stays up and you launch a couple to replace it if you've only got four and one of them fails Well, then you lose significant connectivity So you have to build in that redundancy But I guess if you're down to four you could launch eight and it's still you know got double the redundancy. So I don't know I don't know There's some skepticism about whether this is going to change anybody's mind about low-earth orbit versus high-earth orbit or You know about going 42,000 miles But it is very significant that someone has done the math and said actually this would work This would bring the cost down and it'll be I'll be curious if anybody decides to go after this and forgive me for you know not understanding Orbits in space as well as as well as others, but would this Possibly work the way that planes work where you've got smaller planes And maybe there are more of them that are that are that are flying lower than some of the larger planes And there are fear of them flying higher and as long as there is a system to make sure that nobody's colliding You actually end up you well in in the plane situation You're taking more passengers more places But in the satellite situation you have more connectivity across the board Yeah, sort of I mean the principle of why you have bigger planes and fewer of them higher It has to do you know roughly speaking with the cost And and the cost isn't the cost isn't just launching It's the amount of fuel you have to carry with you which makes it heavy All and you know and maintaining position and all of that. I don't think collisions is is a big issue yet There's a lot of people warning about like hey if we keep doing this, we're going to have to worry about collisions But I don't think that's that's necessarily the key issue with the with the four satellite It's more like people just didn't think it was feasible I just didn't think that you could afford to do it and now somebody showed like hey, this would make it affordable Tech in Asia reports on startups working on a wearable dialysis machine to help people who need kidney treatment Travel around you wouldn't have to sit in a hospital for sometimes up to half a day startups in this area include sweden's triomed wearable artificial organs here in the united states nanodialysis in the netherlands and singapore's awok awak awak received breakthrough device designation from the usfda last year to expedite development and review And awak's artificial kidney has a pump and a disposable cartridge that filters toxins It does something called peritoneal dialysis or pd You probably know about hemo dialysis. That's the one that takes the blood out of the body cleans it and puts it back in That's not how pd work pd injects a solution That absorbs the toxins which it then removes and that makes it a little easier to adapt a wearable device So because you have a cartridge That the user can have for seven to ten hours a day processing about two liters of solution each hour And then once the cartridge is expired and the solution is it can't bring in any more toxins anymore Replace it the device is tested safe in 2018 In a clinical trial conducted at singapore general hospital further trials are expected in 12 to 18 months after which awak might launch in singapore competitor trial med completed its trial in 2018 So it's kind of on the heels and nanodialysis says its company expects to launch a product in 2022 So definitely in the next couple of years we might see one or more of these And i would love somebody from our audience who either has firsthand experience with dialysis Or or or knows somebody who has Because uh to to weigh in on this because on the surface This is amazing to me to not have to have something extracted and then put back in Just to have something put in kind of you know clean up stuff and then and then and then and then uh pulled back out sounds Great and i know it is extremely debilitating and limiting to have to go through dialysis treatment And so this this has to be really good news in the you know the scientific Um In in science for for this arena. Yeah, my mother-in-law Is no longer with us, but she had to uh deal with this for years and she could travel But it was limiting because she had to make sure she could find a place to go in and do dialysis And you know, she really couldn't spend a lot of time because she had to spend so much time in dialysis This would have changed her life. So it's huge 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 A new york times investigation reports more than 600 us law enforcement agencies use facial recognition for from a company called clear view ai clear view Basically made a really good image search engine They scraped more than three billion images from sites like facebook youtube and venmo to create a database And law enforcement can now upload a picture to the system Which will return matching pictures and links to where those images are hosted It's reverse image search for people's faces Which then allows law enforcement to figure out what the identity is the new york times says police have used the system to solve Several crimes already the problems with facial recognition generally not just with clear view are false positives The ai isn't perfect. Uh one report here says the clear view ai is about 75 accurate Bias and recognition systems often carry through the biases of the creators So you may have it match people based on their race More inaccurately than others And there's always the potential for doctored images to lead to wrongful arrests In a draft document from the eu obtained by politico last week a three to five year ban On the use of facial recognition because of those problems has been suggested for public spaces In other words private or public organizations could not use facial recognition outside the lab Had a conference on monday google ceo sundar pachai Suggested a temporary ban on facial recognition similar to what the eu is suggesting Something also recently suggested could be immediate said pachai But maybe there's a waiting period before we really think about how it's being used So he doesn't commit to the three to five year period that the eu is but he's saying maybe there should be a ban Microsoft president brad smith has argued previously earlier than any of these folks december 2018 that government should regulate facial recognition He called for that a long time ago But in response to the idea of the eu ban, he told npr The only way to make it better is actually to continue developing it So he says we shouldn't ban it because it won't get better if we don't try it out in public He believes there is a responsible way to use it in public smith has called for legislation that mandates impact assessments for using the technology Notifying the public when facial recognition is in use so some transparency and a requirement that people give consent to the technology's use When entering a premises Those are all similar to other proposed ec requirements besides the ban So we've got an interesting situation development where google Who is saying look this shouldn't be allowed to be used and there there's there's a reverse image search out there Which i guess google probably has technology like that too And that that should be shut down But you've got brad smith who historically has been very much fighting on the side of the user in a lot of these things Including facial recognition saying you know what a full-on ban might be going too far Yeah, I I I am of the mind that this is not always a bad thing facial recognition as the technology evolves You know like brad smith says it it's not the the the idea of like we don't know how it How it works well enough yet. We should not use it. I don't think that that's actually the solution I think that there should definitely be limitations on going inside any Any anything that is not public land and not knowing that this is happening That is one thing sort of like being photographed. You know just in general, right? There are different rules for that sort of thing I think that The idea that catching a bad guy based on Something that can be reverse image searched based on facial recognition out in the wild is not always a bad thing But the false positives are where it gets really tricky Maybe this becomes something that Can never be used solely on its own to solve a crime or convict somebody of something Maybe it's you know, it's some supplemental evidence. Maybe you know, kind of like a lie detector test Not sure. I'm just kind of shooting from the hip here But uh, but yeah, it's it's uh It is a tricky thing because it's very powerful technology But again in the wrong hands or with people who don't understand it well enough or again have biases It can be dangerous The problem is scale This this is not new technology. Uh, the the ability to to put an image into something even google and say Hey, show me other images like this has been around for decades The problem is is is the fact that this is now good at it That there are more pictures of people than ever Uh and that when you were uploading your pictures to facebook and venmo You didn't think about this as a consequence. No one did no one thought Oh, I wonder if this could be used to catch me in a crime, right? Uh, people are just sharing their photos So it's it's got people in the back foot because of that They're like, wow, this has gotten good really fast and we don't like it But it hasn't gotten good enough To make people feel confident that it won't be misused So it's it's kind of caught in the middle where it got good enough to be scared of but not good enough to trust And because of that You need to have a nuanced approach to it and say this can be used for good Do we trust that it will and the prevailing sentiment these days is no We don't trust that technology companies or the government will use this for good So you get people wanting it to just be banned even though I Agree that breadsmith's not wrong that there is a way possibly to use it responsibly Nobody trusts that it will be and so the slippery slope ends up being the victor here Where people say I don't care what you say I don't trust you that it's going to be used responsibly I'd rather it not be used at all And unfortunately with that kind of prevailing public opinion I'm not sure that this can be used until cooler heads prevail decades down the road And once you enter something like Venmo into the conversation, it's like, okay, that's about financial transactions My my face And also my financial transactions all also become that's a whole other privacy thing It wasn't like oh, sarah was here at this time at this corner, you know on a busy street It's a little bit more of oh private information and what what that profile picture might have been And how that data gets extracted for purposes again that might not be for my best interests Yeah, uh, it's it's it's something where I you know, there's a lot of fear around it people I think Assume that it's being abused and there's no evidence that it's even really being used that widely I mean, we've got 600 police departments out of millions of police departments using it. It's not that wide We don't have any evidence in this new york times story that it was abused just the fear that it could be abused I'm not trying to minimize those fears I'm just saying there's a lot of people condemning this as being abused before We actually have seen it even be fully implemented and in that kind of in that kind of situation You're not going to get widespread acceptance of this and trying to force it into being implemented Is just going to get people angry. Yeah Hey, thanks everybody who participates in our sub or reddit. You never make us angry You can submit stories and vote on them at daily tech news show reddit.com You can also join in the conversation in our discord 24 7 lots of chatters Good folks where you can join by linking to a patreon account at patreon.com Dtns All right, let's check in with the amateur traveler who has some tips on making the most of limitations of technology on flights This is chris christensen from amateur traveler with another tech in travel minute a recent survey by snow software talked about how technology has impact the travel process and certainly things like apps and websites and Wi-Fi on airplanes have improved the process But over half of travelers said that they've had technology issues with travel And the leading issues were things like fluctuating prices and frustrating and slow websites Now the frustrating and and slow websites is certainly a problem of the people who made those websites But the fluctuating prices is really the way the travel industry works So that's not what I would expect to be solved Anytime soon, but you can also take advantage of that by getting on one of the many email lists There are that offer travel deals I'm chris christensen from amateur traveler You know, I I almost forgot as an addendum to our facial recognition story government officials in sujo in china's anhui province Released pictures of people wearing night wear outside with their name and id number and other information calling it uncivilized behavior Sujo is entering a national civilized city competition and has banned its citizens from wearing pajamas outside Because they don't they they want to win this competition Chinese citizens. This is this is interesting. Chinese citizens complained online that there is nothing wrong with wearing pajamas in public Chinese citizens complained online news story. Chinese citizens complaining online about a government policy specifically Bigger news story and officials in that city have now sincerely apologized and said of course we should protect residents privacy In a country where public surveillance is the norm Where it is assumed that this kind of facial recognition is used Legally in china, but but legally to suppress things that would not be suppressed in other countries It's really interesting to see a public backlash against the use of facial recognition in that case Especially, you know calling it night wear. That's a little limiting Some of us like to wear pjs all day. That's my fault. Oh, that was you. Um, but uh, but yeah Hey, listen, it's uh, you know, this is not this is not indecent exposure This is comfy. You know, I I love a good sweatpants Little fancy sweatpants on a saturday not a problem. You'll see me around town I will not wear my pajamas outside, but I will I will fight for your right to do so, sarah Thank you, tom. I appreciate that. Hey, shout out to our patrons at our master and grand master levels You can all wear your pjs around us at any time of the day including brad schick paul boyer and dustin campbell And we have new patreon reward merchandise to celebrate six years of d tns Lemperalta created a special logo that we've got on a mug on a t-shirt the t-shirt is really like Smooth, I've been wearing it as pajamas. It's very nice There's also a poster and a sticker depends on what level you're at You just got to stick at that level for three months find out more at patreon.com slash d tns slash merch You know, I've got a patreon shirt that I am wearing Here but has also been worn as pajamas because it's real soft and supple our email addresses feedback at daily tech news show dot com If you've got feedback on anything we talk about we would love to hear it We're also live monday through friday 4 30 p.m. Eastern. That's 21 30 utc And you can find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live back tomorrow with scott johnson talk to you then This show is part of the frog pants network get more at frogpants.com