 Coming up on DTNs, Facebook tweaks the news feed again. Everybody's doing Clubhouse or AR glasses and why NFTs are disappearing. This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, March 31st, 2021 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. Salt Lake City, I'm Scott Johnson. I'm the show's producer, Roger Cheney. We were just talking about tornadoes, earthquakes, spam and more on Good Day Internet. If you'd like to get that wider conversation, become a member at patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Hitachi announced it intends to acquire the digital engineering services company Global Logic for $9.6 billion. The deal is expected to close in July pending regulatory approval with Hitachi hoping it will strengthen its IT, energy, industry and mobility businesses. Despite restrictions from the United States, Huawei reported 3.8% revenue growth in 2020, almost entirely from within China. Revenue fell 11.2% in the fourth quarter though, showing that the effect of restrictions was continuing to grow. In fact, the US increased restrictions to stop chip supplies in September. And Huawei had to rely on existing inventories to make phones and sell its Honor smartphone brand. So that probably explains the Q4 number. Most concerns in the US about Huawei are about its networking equipment, not its handsets, and the networking business was hit the hardest. The firm's networking business grew 0.2% in 2020, so basically flat. Instagram launched a new feature called Remix that lets users record their reels alongside a video from another user. And yes, if that sounds familiar, this is a ripoff of TikTok's popular duets feature, because people like to use it. Remix has been in public testing for some time, and some Instagram users may already have access. Can we say they remixed Remix? Apple Maps now shows travel guidance from the airport's council international on an individual's airport's place card. This will show mask requirements, health screenings, and quarantine guidelines before taking off and landing at a destination with links to official airport guidance as well. The US Pentagon announced that Microsoft won a contract to build at least 120,000 custom HoloLens augmented reality headsets for the US Army. For the Army, Microsoft calls it the Integrated Visual Augmented System, or IVAS, and it can display a map and a compass, also use thermal imaging to reveal people in the dark and assist with aiming. A Microsoft spokesperson tells CNBC the contract could be worth up to $21.88 billion over the next 10 years. Who wants to hear a story about non-fungible tokens? Me! Motherboard posted a story earlier this week about multiple occurrences where someone bought an NFT and then the thing the NFT referred to disappeared, and everybody was like, wait, I thought the whole point of NFTs is that you could never change the record. You need to understand a few things about NFTs to make sense of all this. NFTs, as I just said, stand for non-fungible token. That means it's like a cryptocurrency, but you can't spend it. It's not currency, it's not fungible. However, it does use a blockchain, which is a digital ledger that is extremely difficult to alter, so difficult that banks are starting to use it for some kinds of functions. Now, nothing is fully secure, but a blockchain can be very secure, very resistant to tampering. So all that means is that NFTs are an official record of ownership that pretty much can't be changed. The digital item you buy is not unique. Other folks may have copies of the art or the song, etc. You are the recorded owner, though. That's what the NFT gets you. It's similar to numbered collectibles in the real world, where number one is exactly like number 1200, except for the number, but if you have number one, you get the bragging rights of owning number one. A couple other things to be aware of. You need to be careful who you're buying your NFT from and on what platform you're buying it. Becoming the official recorded owner of Jack Dorsey's first tweet won't be nearly as impressive if you buy it from me instead of Jack Dorsey, or if the Jack Dorsey you bought it from is an office manager in Highland Illinois, not the CEO of Twitter. It's just not the same thing. You want to make sure you're buying it from the official source. So you need to buy from verified users to make sure you're getting it from that official source, or the record is meaningless. The record will be there, but it doesn't mean anything. Platforms like OpenSea and others are constantly trying to prevent fraudsters from using their platforms. OpenSea does verification. In fact, when Peralta took a while to get verified, so that people could be sure, oh, I'm really buying from Len. There's another problem, though, and that's what motherboard is covering. So back to the disappearing NFTs. The NFT is just the record, not the item. So it's not the record that's disappearing. If you're like, I thought this blockchain was hard to alter, it is. NFTs, however, can incorporate the digital item into the record, but they usually don't. Instead, the record on the blockchain usually just includes a URL pointing to where the digital item is hosted. Now, that may be fine with a tweet, probably not going anywhere. But if it's just pointing to my web server with the art that I sold you, well, I control that server. Now, that may not be a big deal because NFTs aren't about copy prevention. They're just about bragging rights. So your record is still there. But if the record only includes a link, the page could go away either through incompetence, accident, malice, or something else. In fact, some NFT marketplaces like OpenSea can shut off the reference to the URL in their system when you're looking at the collection you bought, if they find that the seller was violating the law, maybe selling an item they didn't have the rights to, for example. In that case, the URL might still be there in the record and it might still resolve to the thing you bought, but the marketplace won't show it in your collection when you're logged into its platform. And so you'd have to do a bunch of extra work to try to find it. Of course, there are other reasons for disappearances, sometimes delays in how the transaction gets processed can make it seem like something is not there and then it shows up later. So some of the people claiming their stuff disappeared just needed to wait a little longer. Similar things happen with variants of Ethereum coins being used as described in the motherboard article where if you're using a variant, maybe it's hard to find it on the blockchain. Like in all things, the upshot of all of this is buy or beware in the NFT market. It's possible to do it safely, but you can't just assume that it's being done safely when you enter. Wow. So that was great. I have to tell you this, Tom. We talked about it a little bit pre-show. I'm going to say it again. You helped me understand NFTs a little bit. I've been dabbling in possibly putting some stuff up, been a little bit back and forth on it, started the process in a couple of areas, getting some money in there, getting a marketplace set up, and then not for a bit because it seems like there's a little backlash happening right now. So this story is maybe part of that, but it seems to be spread between like the most ardent fans I have of NFT that are also artists are just singing its praises all day long and can't say enough about it and are bombarding their social feeds with nothing but NFT discussion. And it's a little crazy on that end. And then way over on this side, I have a whole bunch of people who are like, do not go anywhere near NFTs to the point that some of them say, don't even talk about it or I'm not going to mute you on my social media. You better say it FL, not NFT. Right. Yeah, like not into it. And some of them are just straight up like, you know, all the arguments. It's ruining the environment too. These don't really work. It's scambait and this is just early. Everybody taking low hanging fruit and eventually you're going to get hosed. And it's honestly made me just a little bit, not gun shy, but I'm not ready to pull the trigger until I see some of this kind of flesh out. It feels like not bubbly, but that kind of feeling of like, what's this market doing? Oh, it's bubbly. Yeah. Just let it kind of, you know, let me see some semblance of normalcy before I pull that trigger. Well, you've got this combination of the concept of an NFT is really new. Even for us on our show, it's like, okay, no, we're talking about this all the time because it has a lot of hype and we're seeing some stuff evolve really quickly. And so you've got sort of that frenzy aspect of it. And then you've got actual artists who are like, or people who would like to be, you know, buying NFTs from a variety of creative people being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is happening here? Where is the trusted place that I go? Am I going to get ripped off the same way you might buy, like, I don't know, fake Nikes on the internet, right? Happens all the time. The blockchain thing isn't going to solve that necessarily. But like you said, Tom, you have to look back at the source and figure, okay, what am I buying? How much does it mean to me? Does the price seem fair? And who is it coming from? And then you can get the things that you want. Yeah, I think think of it this way. I just realized this. It's a permanent record of you falling for a scam, right? Do it wrong. So make real sure before you create that permanent record of your purchase that you're not falling for a scam had not even thought of it that way. Well, let's move on to Facebook where they're making some changes you might like. Or maybe you won't. I don't know. Facebook announced a couple of new features. A feed filter bar when I'll show up at the top of your news feed, at least on mobile with access to your most frequently used filters. If you're on Android, you already have this. iOS is coming soon. You're able to get the news feed as the algorithm intends a feed based on your favorites or ordered chronologically by most recent, something we've been begging for forever. This is now available on Android as I mentioned very soon to iOS like Twitter. You can now limit who comments on one of your posts. Your choices are everyone, friends or just people and profiles that you mentioned in the post. So very Twitter like in that way. What I hope is that this not only succeeds and people are stoked about it, but it bleeds over into their other property Instagram, which could really use a chronological listing once again. Oh man, I remember when Instagram went algorithm and I was so mad and I got over it because what am I to do? You know, call up Zuckerberg and be like, change it back. But on Facebook, I had this situation this morning where I don't go to Facebook every day, but I try to check in a couple of times a week because that's where a lot of my friends and family members and stuff hang out. And there was a post right at the top from a friend who had posted something. It was like a, it was a personal family thing and it was really important that I saw it. That's where she was sharing it with folks. And the reason it was at the top of my feed was because it had gotten a lot of engagement, comments, likes, hearts, that sort of thing. But even if it hadn't, I would still want to see that. And that's what I want to see at 8 a.m. when I log into Facebook is what's happening right now. But it's been so long since I've thought of Facebook in a way that I can do that. I wonder how many people will take advantage of this and think of it more like the Twitter option of, yes, breaking news. What just happened? Honestly, the chronological feed is one of those things that a lot of people very loudly say they want, but most people don't use. That's what we found on Twitter, statistically speaking. And it's probably going to be true at Facebook as well. That said, I think this should be an option because you want to be user-friendly. And there are a significant number, even if it's a minority, of people who want that. So let them have it. Come on. Well, moving on to AR. Heard of it? Kind of a big deal. Or maybe we'll be as we go along. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that in the next several months, that's all he said, Apple may make an announcement for a mixed reality headset. There have been some rumors swirling around about when that's going to happen. It seems to be happening, but we don't exactly know when. Gurman says, if so, this would be Apple's first major new device since the Apple Watch in 2015, which is a big deal to Apple, obviously. But he also notes, Apple doesn't want to make a big product announcement like this at an online event. WWDC will be an online event for its second consecutive year. So who knows? But it's probably pretty unlikely that we're going to get any sort of announcement, even though there have been a few rumors around that based on the little Easter eggs that Apple sends out. Also, in the same vein, the information sources say that Snap is developing a new pair of spectacles that will operate as an AR headset with integrated displays aimed at developers and also creators. And that Snap is also reportedly working on a drone, having previously invested $20 million and a Chinese drone company, and acquiring the drone company, ControlMe Robotics, back in 2017. Yeah, as far as the will-they-won't-they-of-Apple are those glasses in the invite mean AR glasses? I don't really care, personally. Just let me know when they announce it. I want to know what it is. It doesn't have to be at WWDC. It could be later this year, whatever. Same with Snap. I care if they're going to announce something. But yes, I think it's... I care when they announce it. Exactly. Well, it's typical Apple stuff of, I want there to be this thing this new hardware product that Apple is probably working on. Sure. We can say that. But is it going to happen in the beginning of June? It's highly unlikely. Yeah. Just call me when somebody makes one, though. I know you mentioned the HoloLens being made for the US Army. There's lots of enterprise uses for augmented reality. We've documented that show a bunch. Somebody's going to make a consumer version of this that catches on, at some point. Nobody knows when that's going to be. You can make some good bets that it might be more likely to be Apple than Snap, but you can't guarantee that. Because nobody thought Apple was going to make a phone that was better than Palm and Blackberry. But guess what? This is the world we live in. I know it's coming. I think it's coming within... I'll conservatively say the next two years, but probably within the next year. And I'm very curious who's going to crack the code on it that makes people go, oh, yeah, I'll wear that. Yeah. It's a little surprising, though, given that the tech is actually pretty good. Like on phones and tablets, Apple's own AR tech is really nice when you use it. But I had to ask myself the other day, when's the last time I actually used it? What was compelling on that screen that would be as compelling or more? Right? Yeah. Like a headset sounds more compelling. I will admit that. But is it though? Or will it... I don't want to have to pick up my phone, point it at the thing, right? And same thing. A lot of people are like, I don't want to have to wear glasses or I'm already wearing glasses. So better not look weird with the glasses I have. It's got to be as light as glasses. It's got to be simple, convenient, and easy, and then really powerful on what you use them for. Just needs to be implants. Exactly. All kidding aside, it really does. Maybe. Because there are people who are like, I'm not wearing glasses. Yeah. And for those of us who have to wear glasses, it's like, oh, maybe you can make them cool in an AR way type thing. I'm used to this. But there are going to be a huge subset of people who are like, I'm not doing that. Well, folks, are you going to wear some augmented reality glasses? Would you rather have implants? Do you not like it at all? Let us know in our Discord. You can join it by linking to a Patreon account at patreon.com slash DTNS. Well, clubhouse knockoffs are also all the rage right now. This is the thing that happens when something catches on, everybody goes, oh, that's a good idea. Let's try that too, right? Discord is launching a new version of its voice channels called stage channels basically just takes the tech they had and puts it in a package that works the way clubhouse works. These channels have some extra moderator controls that let you raise your hand. That's something new. Let's the moderator easily approve someone to start talking without having to constantly mute and unmute them. Also, let's participants indicate that they have something to say with the raise the hand thing. All like clubhouse. A Discord server will need to be a community server in order to add the stage channels. LinkedIn also confirmed that it's testing a social audio experience in its app that looks a lot like clubhouse. Company believes its audio offering will be differentiated by tying accounts to an individual's professional rather than their social identity. And meanwhile, the Verge is Casey Newton tweeted today some new data I just got on this from Sensor Tower on clubhouse downloads. February clubhouse download 9.6 million installs and in March 2.6 million installs. So it went down 73% between February and March. Listen, clubhouse is not my jam. I was invited some time ago. I am on iOS. So, you know, I'm lucky enough to have been able to give it a whirl. And I've talked in the past. I don't want to trash a platform that a lot of people really get a lot of use of out of because people do. But you know, it's it's it seems to me to be this is a great feature for a company that already exists. Discord makes sense. LinkedIn. Okay, sure. Exactly. Like Twitter, doing the same thing Facebook reportedly working on something like that. You know, for all of these companies to say, huh, this is a pretty cool idea. Let's build this into the platform that we already have and not buy the company clubhouse. You know, that's what makes sense to me. The clubhouse thing itself is, yeah, it's it's it's almost like the NFT NFT train where there's so much like, Oh, this is this is the future. This is going to kill podcast. None of that makes any sense. No, no, I think you're absolutely right. Clubhouse is about to get mirror-catted. Remember mirror cat was the thing. Oh my gosh, I can I got live stream from anywhere. And then Periscope ate its lunch got sold to Twitter and then live streaming just became a feature. I think that is 100% a good act or a that's by put money on that prediction. I think that is correct. And it's unfortunate because you just sort of see the writing on the wall. But I will say this feature in discord, which we played around very briefly with before the show seems all right. It seems like an easier way to just sort of have everyone muted that you want to be and only the people with voice that you want and an easier way for people to say, Hey, I have something and you letting them talk. Like that's useful in raids and meetings and all kinds of gaming examples that I could think of in list here, but I won't. But but that's that's a that's actually seemed like a tool that's usable. The other thing using clubhouse to sort of raw clubhouse has always struck me as well, clubby and weird. I don't like it. I'm kind of with Sarah. So I know we've talked about enough and we don't have to talk about what we hate clubhouse. But at least this feels like a useful integration into a service I'm already using and they're not going to charge for it. So I think I think that that's fine for discord and not so fine for clubhouse. Yeah. I mean, we use audio features on discord for DTS every day. We don't really have enough of us to need something like this because, you know, you just talk when you need to talk. But I could see there just being a few more folks in there and it would make a lot of sense to be like, OK, let's treat this a little bit more like a meeting. But that's how clubhouse has always been. We can do a Q&A with the audience and use it as the as the clubhouse feature, right? Instead of what we're doing, which is just streaming the show to it. Exactly. Well, yeah, that's good. Yeah, we're something something separate that's, you know, at a specific time and come on in and be part of it. I think the clubhouse thing, I don't know why it bothers me so much. And I think a lot of it has to do with the celebrity factor because it's always Elon Musk is in this room. And I'm like, oh, there's, you know, just like, tell me what happened afterwards. Just just give me a paragraph of what happened because that's all I really need, you know, to go on about my day if there's any breaking news going on. But but I think that that's all that's just, you know, it's new and hip and cool and and people will continue to use tools like this when they need to. But it's not like this. Yeah, like, like you said, Scott, like some clubby room that you have to, you know, hop in and feel cool to be part of. Yeah. By the way, you want to hear some serious NFT pro NFT talk. Go check out clubhouse. All right. Moving on. Hey, the latest beta of iOS is also interested in voice things. They have two new voices that they're adding to Siri in English. So that's cool. And here's the weird part of the new part. When you set up where you'll be weary, Siri, you'll be asked to choose from multiple voices of female voices no longer the default. The new voices are run through Apple's neural text to speech engine to make themes sound more natural. So you're going to have a choice with that particular personal assistant. Can we, can we please call it weary from now on when you're tired of it? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm actually quite tired. Weary help. Yeah. I'm a little weary of Siri. I've had my, my Siri as a default British accent man since it first came along. So I don't understand why it had to default to a lady's voice. I love the idea of just like, Hey, which, which voice do you want? We got a few different types here. We got a few different flavors. Go for it. It's kind of a funny thing that's been going on for years. Even before voice assistance, you know, there were, there were online assistants that could help, I don't know, help you book meetings and manage your calendar. And there still are. There are plenty of them, but there was some kind of backlash some years ago because a few of these, these services were, were labeled with women's names. And it was like, say your EA has to be a woman. Is that what you're saying company kind of thing? And I remember thinking that's, that's an interesting point. It was, it's not something that's ever bothered me personally, but it does seem like it makes a lot more sense to be like, you have a voice assistant super customized to you. Everything about this is supposed to be customized to you, including the voice that talks to you. I want jeeps. Yeah, you want jeeps back. That's what you've always wanted. Yeah. So I mean, I, look, they're, all of them for some reason did made that decision. And I'm, my whole thing is, okay, great, male, female, British, English, different languages, don't care, just give me more choice. And, and I, and, and default me in such a way that says, Hey, which of these do you like? Like just let me change the wake word next. Come on. Oh my gosh. The customized wake word will change everything. I can't wait. It will. It will change my life. It'll certainly change my household. Well, WISC announced that it expects to begin implementation of its Cora air taxi in New Zealand later this year. That means test flying the autonomous drones and collecting data to help integrate it into airspace systems. Boeing subsidiary in in situ Pacific will help support the trial and the implementation is the next step in WISC's plan to offer Cora flights to passengers in the Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island would includes, which includes Christchurch hasn't set a date for that yet, but I think we're inching closer. Yeah. So this is they, they'd been promising to carry passengers soon quote unquote. And everybody's like, yeah, yeah. This is the one Larry Page's Kitty Hawk is backing along with Boeing. And so everybody's like, what's soon mean? Now that they're actually doing this integration, you get a better sense of what soon means because if they think they'll get this integration done by the end of the year, then they would be able to start carrying passengers and test flights in 2022. So it doesn't mean they're going to carry passengers that doesn't mean they have a date, but it means we're closer to understanding how they would get to a date because they're they're doing these actual tests. Yeah, also New Zealand good place to be doing this right now because there are rates of COVID-19 are extremely low. And as we enter a phase of more vaccinations, which means should be lower rates, those guys are perfect for this. You don't want to do better. There are better reasons for New Zealand. Also, it's just less dense. Well, that too. But you know what I'm saying, like there's an advantage right now. Like there's also two islands. Like, yeah, I don't get from one to the other. I'm not sure that COVID played into their decision in any way. I'm just saying maybe not. But I'm saying that's lucky then because by the time they get to passengers, I mean, knock on wood, hopefully that we're in better shape. Yeah, I would hope so. I will say just as an aside, a friend of mine who was not, I would, I would say he would not call himself a technical person. The other day said, Sarah, did you know that they're going to be doing like Uber for, but for helicopter taxis pretty soon? Have you heard about that? It's starting to become a thing where people are like, Oh, bubbling up into their consciousness. Yeah, it's like, it's like people, I use Uber just as an example, but yeah, one of many companies that's working on it. I was like, I have heard about this. In fact, haven't seen it yet. But we're like, have you heard of the show I'm on? Daily. Whenever I say that, they say, I don't know. I think the ice glaze over. I know. Yeah. All right, let's check out the mailbag. Let's do it. This one comes from Christian, and this is in response to yesterday's story about Google Maps live view working indoors. And Christian says, I develop resources for self-represented litigants for the Maryland judiciary. I'd love to have this feature for some of the larger courthouses in Maryland, not only for wayfinding, I envision using it for accessibility, like navigating to accessible entrances, exits, highlighting elevators, for example, or for individuals with limited English proficiency pointing to native language resources or offices to request interpretation or translation. Christian says, I hope this new feature is not just limited to broad. Here are some stairs go down one level, as was shown in Google's example. Christian, you're absolutely right. Those are great features to put on their roadmap. It's probably going to be limited to hear some stairs go down one level, but they're just starting to do it indoors, right? So if it doesn't have all these features that you're suggesting, give them a minute, even though they're Google, and pressure them to make sure that you add the ones that they don't have to the roadmap. Because I think these are all important things to have. They may not be able to just add all that stuff at once, ask any project manager near you. Why? But yeah, and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they'll have a bunch of these in there at launch, which would be even better. This would be amazing in Vegas, by the way. Amazing. Because when you're in the middle of one of those casinos and you're like, okay. The casinos won't like it, though. No, they'll hate it. Because they want you to get lost and end up at the $5 Blackjack table. Have a drink, stay awhile. You're right. You're right. It's confusing on purpose. Getting lost in a casino. And they're, they always have good signage, but you're still like, where is it? Ah, where am I going? It's annoying. If you have feedback on anything that we talk about on the show, questions, comments, all of it. Send it to feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. Also, shout out to patrons at our master and our grandmaster levels today. They include Ragnar Varmadal, Jeff Wilkes, and Bjorn Andre. Also, an extra special thanks to Chris Allen, Chris Allen, who has supported amount-wise us the most over the years. You get a trophy and you brought Chris. Thank you. Also, thanks to Scott Johnson for being with us today. Scott, what has been going on in Frogpants Land? Well, a lot of stuff going on. The, if you've been following my Fred and Ken comic tomorrow, we finish up a story dealing with Mendoza the Goose. If that sounds familiar to you, then you've been enjoying it. I have kind of Tom to thank for that, because he sort of put it out there that we should do a little mini story. And I did, and I had a blast with it. That finishes up tomorrow. If you want to find out about that and everything else I got going on, there's a new newsletter that you can get. It's over at frogpants.club, speaking of clubs. This is a really cool club, no NFT talk, I promise. So go check it out. That's at frogpants.club and stay informed and check it out. Indeed. But I can't wait for the exciting conclusion to the Mendoza storyline. Very excited about it. Oh, I'm sure it will. Hey, folks, you know, you don't have to be Chris Allen. There's only one Chris Allen, but we love patrons that stick with us a long time like Chris. That's why we're happy to offer Patreon loyalty rewards. You can get at the highest levels, the four highest levels of support, a unique sticker, mug, t-shirt, or hoodie every three months, as long as you stay a patron at that level. 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