Transcripts

Tech News Weekly 242 Transcript

Tech News Weekly 242

 

Mikah Sargent (00:00:00):
Coming up on Tech News Weekly. I Mikah Sargent here and yes, Jason, how is still out, but I've got a jam packed show for you. First. We talk to protocols, Ben Brody about the DMA, the digital markets act and DSA the digital service act which are two EU acts that have a lot going on. But Ben Brody does a great job of explaining what is happening there. Then my story of the week it's Kerry Paul, the guardian story about families who have sued TikTok after the death of two young girls who were partaking in a viral challenge on the platform, then IUR of CNET stops by to talk to us about lockdown mode, a new feature coming in iOS 16, as well as all of Apple's other devices that help protect against things like Pegasus spyware. Before we round things out with a rumor Roundup with mark Garman of Bloomberg and his power on newsletter, you talk about the next edition of the Apple Watch. That's all about sports and quite a few more things that Mark Gurman has up a sleeve stay tuned. It is a great show

VO (00:01:16):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWIT.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:21):
This is Tech News Weekly episode 242 recorded Thursday, July 7th, 2022. This episode of Tech News Weekly is brought to you by ITpro TV. Finally, you can enjoy getting an it education with it pro TV, visit it pro.tv/tnw for an additional 30% off all consumer subscriptions for the lifetime of your active subscription. When you use the code TNW 30 at checkout, and by collide, you can meet your security goals and pass your audit without compromising on privacy. Visit collide.com/tnw to find out how, if you follow that link, they'll hook you up with a goody bag, including a t-shirt just for activating a free trial and by express VPN, make sure your online activity and data is protected with the best VPN money can buy, visit express vpn.com/tnw right now, and get three extra months free through our special link. Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news.

Mikah Sargent (00:02:28):
And by we, I mean me because yes, I am back again for this episode of Tech News Weekly. I am Mikah Sargent, Jason Howell will be back with us next week, but until then we have an excellent show planned for you to get underway. And the first interview, my first conversation is with Ben Brody of protocol.com. And this is actually a prerecorded interview. So with movie magic underway, let's check that out. All right. I am very excited to be joined today by protocols Ben Brody, to give us an understanding of what the heck is happening with the DMA and the DSA. So Ben Brody, thank you so much for taking some time outta your day.

Ben Brody (00:03:11):
Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.

Mikah Sargent (00:03:13):
Yeah, so I think first things first is the big question. The one that I've kind of been asking since I first saw this story roll by, which is I need kind of a primer on the, or I guess they would probably say a primer on primer. <Laugh> the DMA. What is the digital markets act?

Ben Brody (00:03:30):
Well, I was gonna tell you what it's stood for. So sorry. So that's out. You can, you can get rid of

Mikah Sargent (00:03:36):
Me now. We got there. Yeah. <Laugh>

Ben Brody (00:03:38):
No, the best way to think about the DMA is it is this new set of rules for competition that kind of takes on all these different concerns that we've been hearing about by governments all around the world. And also sometimes just by academics, by think tanks by rival companies to some of the big tech gatekeepers. And so it's sort of a competition, a new set of competition rules that are aimed at those biggest folks. So you have things like you have app store provisions, which sort of sound like the app store bills that have been proposed in Congress here in the us or the stuff that's happened in South Korea. So that's stuff like you know, can Google an Apple force force you to use their payment systems that they can extract that 30% commission what is the placement how do Google an Apple have to treat rival mail apps? And what what are the bases for which they can sort of down rank those or not down rank those rival music app between Apple music and Spotify you know, how do they have to treat unvetted or sort of UN blessed apps? Do they basically have to allow side loading? So all those things there's sort of a push toward making them doable. And that's sort of one part of the DMA.

Mikah Sargent (00:05:00):
Interesting. So yeah, here in the United States, we've seen a few different states themselves kind of trying to push forward these ideas. And that's one of the things about the EU. That's so fascinating to me is a lot of times the EU just comes along and is like, oh yeah, we're just gonna take care of this across the whole swath of, of of areas. And that seems to be what this is. And oftentimes it has resulted in wide sweeping changes for big tech. And that I'm is, is something that I'm super curious about. So let's kind of break it down now. You won't have to beat box, I promise, but I'm curious specifically, and I think our listeners will be too, what do you know about how the DMA will impact apple? And, and actually, if you could clarify, it's my understanding that it's not a hundred percent there yet. What is the, the, you know, I think you said it's inevitable, but what is the kind of hold up? And

Ben Brody (00:05:54):
Yeah, so there's a couple things so that, so that's just sort of, one part of the DMA is the app store part of it. There's also the, self-referencing part about it. Like, can Google return its own properties or its advertisers. You have the parts of it where you can't repurpose like data and use them for targeting ads. You have the part of it. That's about, you know, can, how can Amazon treat the third party sellers? You know, the part of it, that's about making all these messaging services make it so that they talk together. So there's there is a lot there. And I think as you rightly pointed out, these are things that even individual us states have tried to take just a piece of like just one part of app stores or just one part of self-referencing for the most part, it has never happened.

Ben Brody (00:06:39):
And Europe in just a couple of years has basically moved forward really quickly on all of these things and basically said we're kind of okay. Basically mucking around in these markets and potentially totally remaking them and just kind of seeing if that works partially <laugh>, but partially kind of as a policy experiment and partially because I think we, they believe really fundamentally that there are a huge number of problems here. So you asked like what is coming next? So there are a few it just got through the European parliament. That's actually, the news is in the last couple of days, the DMA and the DSA advanced through the European parliament. It has to go to the European council. Remember they have the whole complicated thing there. And then there's a publication requirement and, and how long before it actually goes in the books. And then some things are delayed. It's mostly coming into force next year. There's one or two things for the fall. And then there's one or two things for later into 2024. And you asked me another question that I've completely forgotten, of course,

Mikah Sargent (00:07:39):
That that's okay. Cuz you actually, during your answer, you brought up an interesting one, you mentioned repurposing data for targeting ads. Can you explain, like, can you give us an example at, let's go with, if Amazon existed and they were wanting to repurpose data for what does that mean in practice?

Ben Brody (00:07:58):
So yeah, all, you know, all of your you know, all of your data when you're looking for various products, when you're like, oh, do I actually like the pattern on that towel? Or, you know how would how would that particular kitchen gadget does it have all the functionality that I want? Got it. And then you don't buy it, but you know, you go in there. And so there's a question about whether or not you can use that data to advertise other kitchen gadgets or other towels to people. I think actually in a lot of cases that that probably actually would be allowed, but it's the sort of cross purpose. So you collect data, maybe this isn't an Amazon thing. You collect data on a wearable mm-hmm <affirmative> health data, heart rate sleeping data, geolocation data, where you actually are as you go on your jog. And then, you know, are, is that allowed to be repurposed to sell you sleep aids, to sell you that wine store at the end of your jog wants to advertise to you? So that is maybe the clear cut case that I should have started with that is like, that's really going to be a problem, at least in the EU. And it it's always been sort of a suspect in the EU, but they're really coming down on it now and it's gonna be part of DMA enforcement.

Mikah Sargent (00:09:22):
That makes sense because that is kind of a long held concern particularly, you know, I think of Amazon and when Amazon released its health wearable, that would listen to you and give you feedback on if you sounded like you were angry that day, <laugh> the thought of that, and then later on down the line, you're on Amazon browsing and they're like, oh, here's a deal on Zen pills. You can take to, to chill the heck out. <Laugh> that makes sense. Yeah, that I think is kind of a, an underlying concern that a lot of people have. So I'm not surprised to see the EU kind of targeting that specifically. Now this next question is the one that is fascinating to me. What do opponents of the legislation have to say about the digital markets act? And furthermore, are there opponents of this act other than the big tech what are they called? The lobbyists, the

Ben Brody (00:10:15):
Lobbyists, and

Mikah Sargent (00:10:16):
The saying disguise falling. Don't let this go through.

Ben Brody (00:10:20):
There's actually one of the things that I think's been really interesting about it is there's this whole geopolitical argument. So there is, of course the tech argument, right, is that like, these are the best services that we can offer at this particular moment. And if you stop us from doing all these things, if you stop these things that power, our great ads that pay for our great service that pay for that, ultimately come back to the consumer in certain, in all of these free ads then you'll break these things that consumers really love that that literally millions and billions of consumers love. So that's kind of the tech argument. There's actually a geopolitical argument too, which is that Europe doesn't have tech giants, right? Europe doesn't have companies with the size and power of an Amazon or an Apple or, or all of these.

Ben Brody (00:11:04):
And that basically the really hard version of this is like, oh, Europe is just jealous <laugh> <laugh> but the there's also, there's also the argument that, that Europe is basically trying to engage in industrial policy. It's trying to harm these companies that are at the forefront of these markets in the hopes that like domestic European based competitors can kind of rise in their place. If you introduce the Chinese element into this and, and the fact that these companies more or less have at least in some cases, they do have a reputation for it. In some cases they have advanced or, or told the public, convinced the public, that they have a reputation for protecting security and privacy. And then you say, well, you're gonna weaken these you know, so that European or Chinese, Ooh,

Mikah Sargent (00:11:56):
Interesting

Ben Brody (00:11:56):
Rivals can rise. So this is, this is sort of the, the buckets of arguments that the tech companies will make. You know, there are always pro business folks. There are always happy consumers everywhere. And, and the tech companies have been very open in public. And with me about saying that they wanna mobilize those people but big tech isn't really much more popular in Europe than it is here in the United States.

Mikah Sargent (00:12:17):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. So, I mean, it sounds like there aren't a whole lot of sort of more individual folks or, or, you know, usually when these situations come up. So for example, when Apple was going to sort of blanket install a way for our personal libraries to be scanned for CSAM child sexual abuse material, there were large groups of, of, you know, advocates for privacy who stood up and said, no, no, no, no, no, that's, that's not something that we feel good about, but I just haven't seen as much with the digital markets act outside of Amazon and Google and Apple saying, no, no, no, we don't like this. So it's just a fascinating way that some people are standing up, some aren't in, in the situation.

Ben Brody (00:13:03):
I think that's really true. And, and it does, you know, maybe, maybe this is a good segue into the digital services act, which does have some it doesn't go as far as scanning, but does have some sort of content based rules. And there have been some civil society groups, privacy groups you know, anti censorship groups outside of the tech companies, you know, maybe sort of allied with them occasionally, but for the most part, essentially independent that have raised some concerns about that approach in the digital services act, but really not in the digital markets act context as I think you rightly point out.

Mikah Sargent (00:13:39):
So, yeah. Let's talk about the DSA. What is involved in the DSA and you have already defined the digital services act.

Ben Brody (00:13:46):
<Laugh>, I'm just the acronym guy here. I'm in D3. It's, I'm just

Mikah Sargent (00:13:50):
L O L

Ben Brody (00:13:51):
Yes. That's I'll learn what that is. One of those things, someday people keep telling me. Yeah. <Laugh> the digital services act is it's a little bit more of a grab bag. But basically what it comes down to is harmful and illegal content. And then like privacy kids, transparency, Uhhuh, <affirmative> all kind of together with, in one word. Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of all of those things all together. The workings of it are not quite as complex kind of on paper as the DMA but could be incredibly far reaching because I think as we know,

Mikah Sargent (00:14:33):
Oh, it's vague enough that it can be applied in so many different ways. Yeah.

Ben Brody (00:14:37):
Well, you know, just when you start to pull levers about what, you know, illegal speech lawful, but awful speech and even dangerous speech the Europeans are much more comfortable. I think doing that than are here in the United States with with our, our free speech norms in history and our, and the first amendment. The Europe is a little more careful or I'm sorry, a little bit more open to moving some of those, but it's just, I mean, it, the internet in a lot of ways is kind of a content surfacing and content regulating machine. And when you start to move those levers, you can just change whole kinds of things. We don't really know necessarily what the fallout is going to be. I think some of the provisions are easier. It's like rapid take down of illegal content.

Ben Brody (00:15:27):
That's a little bit easier, although there are some questions about, well, how do you know there's some stuff about you can't target ads based on certain really sensitive data points like race or gender or to kids. We kind of know what those look like. It's around the margins of the you know, the harmful speech or the speech that we think is illegal. So we take it down. That's, I think where the civil liberties and the civil society groups start to ask questions about what this is gonna look like, and, you know, is this gonna be a different internet from the one that we have in the us?

Mikah Sargent (00:16:00):
Exactly. That that's a perfect segue because with a lot of the, so the, the privacy acts that have gone into place I, it is interesting how those the, the, the privacy regulations kind of seeped into the us and then California had its digital privacy act that went through and that helped to then strengthen and encourage companies to just kind of make it a wide swath change. But this, the DSA is, as you said, kind of, it, it, it flies in the face of what we fundamentally expect from regulation and, and, you know, our beliefs on the first amendment, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So could this be the first time that, or, you know, in, in a big way, at least the first time that we see sort of two different internets whether you're in the EU or you're in the us, because I will say I, I do live in California and I, I didn't use to and when I moved here and started to see the, do not sell my personal information banner on all of the different sites, because of California's rules, that was kind of surprising to me.

Mikah Sargent (00:17:13):
And it made me think about how, when I was in Missouri and we're go to a website, I didn't see that. So is it gonna be just different banners? Are we gonna see, like, is Twitter just gonna be like, actually we can't be in the EU in general, in your history covering this. Like, what is your crystal ball take on where this could go?

Ben Brody (00:17:31):
I it's really hard. I'm not sure anybody can say based on their history, what they think this is gonna look like. I think there is a certain amount of geofencing that you can do. And there is a certain amount of the platform saying like, Hey, like we already don't allow illegal gun sales or illegal drug sales. We already don't allow harassment or brig or, or, you know, coordinated an authentic activity. And so actually our terms of service are broader than some of these rules. And we're gonna, we're gonna put in place the funding and the bodies to show that we are doing everything that we can to bring these down faster, which is really kind of the core of it. It's actually not so much like whether it comes down it's actually just sort of that it comes down faster.

Ben Brody (00:18:16):
And we're gonna let it go. I think one thing that could be really interesting that I've been looking into recently is not so much, obviously there's so much pressure on Facebook and Twitter to do really well. In English speaking places in the us, in the UK and Ireland in India and what's gonna happen when there's like, just as much pressure in Spain or in Poland or in Sweden, or you know, in Germany and Hungary and all of these places is that really gonna start to change? Maybe not so much the internet that we experience in California and Washington DC. But you know, the levels of the levels of content moderation that are brought to like Hungarian language, Twitter, I believe Hungary is a part of the EU. I apologize if I'm getting this wrong. But Polish language Twitter, which obviously is a part of the EU that I think is a place where we might start to see some changes. And I think it'll be really interesting to follow that.

Mikah Sargent (00:19:16):
Yeah. So then one, one final question for you, cuz we do have to, to let you go, I am curious about logistics because this was one of the, the things that came up for me is what is it that the EU has in place to enforce these acts and kind of do tech companies, have they in the past taken this seriously with the rules that have been in place. And do you foresee that the enforcement that is going forward is going to be enough to get the, the companies to, you know, as what was it that my, my my grandpa used to say straighten up and fly, right. I think was, was the term <laugh> will, will these companies actually straighten up and fly? Right? <Laugh>

Ben Brody (00:19:59):
Yeah. I mean, you know, these there are even more fines than under GDPR, and I think we could argue that the companies have not followed the letter of GDPR, but I think we could also argue as I think you rightly have that there are all these things that it's a lot of places on the margins where they're not following the letter, but actually a lot of the baseline assumptions about what privacy is, they actually have changed. And so if you make the fines even higher does that start to get them there? Generally they just sort of print money, so I'm not sure they really care. But you know what else are they going to go for? I don't know. So in terms of what the enforcement looks like, and this is a big question, because there has been so much criticism that, well, you just find them and they just put more money.

Ben Brody (00:20:45):
Right now we know that it's gonna kind of start with a, roughly a hundred person team that's kind of gonna be hired over coming months. That's gonna be lodged within the European commission. They're gonna be responsible for analyzing these companies for compliance, particularly with the DSA. They're gonna look for whistle blowers, which I assume means both people from within the companies. As well as when you're talking about the, the digital market sector competition, part of it rival companies that are saying, look, we're being squashed. And here's the evidence that, that this is actually unfair and it's not based on privacy. It actually is anticompetitive, et cetera, et cetera. So that's how it's gonna start. I assume it's gonna build I think if you look at some of the tech regulators that exist at the European commission at the FTC at the UK what's called the competition markets regulator, the the CMA, the competition of markets authority the staff are way bigger than just a hundred people. I think it's pretty clear that they're gonna have to get bigger, even though those regulators focus on more than just pick tech. But that's, what's kind of gonna start and it's probably in the right realm. It's probably hundreds is the right number of people and how they're finally gonna get there. And when they're finally gonna get there, I guess is gonna be a big part of the question.

Mikah Sargent (00:22:05):
All right. Well, I wanna thank you so much for taking some time to join us today. Of course folks can head over to protocol and find your work there, but if folks are looking to follow Ben Brody online, where else should they go to do that?

Ben Brody (00:22:18):
At Ben Brady DC is the Twitter handle and that's probably the fastest way both to see what I'm working on. See what I'm thinking about, which not everybody wants to know. It's a scary place in there. <Laugh> and my DMS are open. You can always reach out to me there as well.

Mikah Sargent (00:22:33):
Awesome. Thanks so much. We appreciate

Ben Brody (00:22:35):
It. Thanks for having me.

Mikah Sargent (00:22:37):
All right. Thank you, Ben Brody yet again appreciate you taking the time up next, a fatal TikTok trend. Before we address that, though, I do wanna take a quick break to tell you about it. Pro TV who are bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. You want an it education platform that is going to deliver you into a higher level of it. It's gonna get you in the door to a new it career. It's gonna get the best possible it training and certifications with it. Pro TV for you on your own schedule with their virtual labs and practice tests, you'll always be supported and prepared for your exams. You can binge episodes in 20 to 30 minute increments. They have more than 5,800 hours of it training. That is always up to date with the most current content, which is important in this fast-paced world.

Mikah Sargent (00:23:24):
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Mikah Sargent (00:24:19):
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Mikah Sargent (00:25:15):
So we're still gonna cover it today, and hopefully we can have Carrie Paul on, in the future for other stories that Carrie covers. This story today is kind of a harrowing tale about two young girls who were using TikTok and who followed a viral challenge on the platform that the families allege resulted in their deaths. In 2021, there was a TikTok challenge called the quote blackout challenge. And in this challenge, what you are meant to do is quite literally choke yourself until you pass out at which point, then you will hopefully come to after a period of time and be okay, and you will have filmed it on your phone and posted it to TikTok. Now, this resulted in the death of the, of two girls. Again, I should say this allegedly resulted in the death of two girls.

Mikah Sargent (00:26:17):
The families allege that, and there are some police officers who were involved in the investigation who also say that they believe that this was the, the cause of, of their deaths and the parents and guardians of these two girls are now suing TikTok in a Los Angeles county superior court you know, for, for damages related to the death of these two girls the group is being represented or the, the, the family is being represented by a group called the social media victims law center, S M V L C. And it's important to understand this is a legal resource that has been set up that is aimed at something we have heard about recently, which is social media, addiction and abuse. And you may remember not too long ago on the show, I spoke to Mike Masek over at tech dirt about a law making its way through.

Mikah Sargent (00:27:18):
It was passed by the assembly, still needs to be passed by the Senate, hidden California, that allows parents and guardians to Sue social media companies, if they are if they feel that the social media company has caused their child to become addicted to that social media platform and Masnick and others who are, you know, critics of this law discuss how it has actually first amendment impact and, and other situations. And I just want to make sure that it's super clear that this situation is different from that. First of all, that law is not all the way through the system yet. So you, you like me may have heard about it being in Los Angeles county and thought, oh, this is part of that you know, law that's that has been passed, no has not been passed fully yet, but this is about specifically the harm to the two girls, but the social media victims law center, which focuses on social media addiction abuse are looking at this from a bigger perspective.

Mikah Sargent (00:28:21):
Paul quotes in the piece that the platforms dangerous, this is the quote dangerous algorithm intentionally and repeatedly pushed videos of the challenge into the children's feed, then incentivize them to participate in the challenge that ultimately took their lives. Some members of the family said that essentially what they feel is that the ki, the kids were led to believe that if they partook in this challenge, then they would be able to become famous on the platform. They see other people who get lots of views on the platform by doing these different things and felt that if they did it, if they participated in it, the argument is that that is what caused them to want to partake in it to this is an interesting kind of multifaceted challenge here, because again, while the families are simply looking for some form of, of, of, of, of response to the fact that their children died, you also have this group, the S M V L C, that is looking to sort of address the algorithms, address the concerns regarding social media addiction and the sort of sway that social media seems to have on different folks.

Mikah Sargent (00:29:51):
So it, there's, there's several different quotes in here, and I think it's well worth reading the piece itself. It talks about kind of the behavior of the children, one who it seemed kind of, this came outta the blue for them, another who the family had noted that noticed that the child had started to have bruises around her neck and had asked her about it obviously. And weren't sure what was going on there. And ended up dying later on was on life support for a period of time and ultimately was then taken off of life support. I think the biggest, most important thing to understand about this is that there are these viral trends out there. There are these viral challenges out there, and ones that can even seem more innocent than this, you know, this whole pass out thing is pretty clear for perhaps people above a certain age that it's a dangerous thing to do.

Mikah Sargent (00:30:52):
But there are some that may seem innocuous at first and end up not being innocuous. And I think that there's also an argument, or at least a bit of observation related to the reach that social media has. So I wanna get into those two things first, think about a challenge that I think many people will be familiar with that was deemed the chubby bunny challenge. This was a trend, I think even before TikTok was around. Wow. Back in my day where you would take jumbo marshmallows, and you would put a jumbo marshmallow and shove it into your cheek. And then you would say the word chubby bunny, or the word, the phrase, rather chubby bunny, then you'd take another marshmallow, shove it into your other cheek and say it again. And the idea was you would keep putting marshmallows into your mouth and saying the word chubby bunny, until you got to a place where you either laughed and ended up spitting them all out, or you could not say the word anymore. At that point, then you kind of took note of how many marshmallows you were able to fit into your mouth, and you challenged your friends to try and compete.

Mikah Sargent (00:32:05):
I did that, but the challenge resulted in very dangerous situations for some folks. I don't know the numbers on how many people ended up choking to death. How many people ended up breathing aspir, essentially marshmallow into their lungs, how many people nearly suffocated because of all of the marshmallows in their mouth and the saliva that builds up and all the gross stuff that's involved there, it was a very dangerous thing. And on its face, you didn't think of it. Another challenge, the quote cinnamon challenge was even more dangerous. In the cinnamon challenge, you poured out a whole tablespoon of cinnamon into a tablespoon measure, and you put the tablespoon of cinnamon into your mouth. And most often what would happen as was shown on different YouTube videos is the person would get a little bit into their sinuses, which would cause them to sneeze, which would then cause the unsaturated portion of the cinnamon to blow out and make a huge mess.

Mikah Sargent (00:33:12):
And so it was supposed to be funny in that way. The challenge was to eat the entire tablespoon of cinnamon before you had any issues with that. What ended up happening for people who properly were able to consume all of the cinnamon was that they got a stomach ache, but some people unfortunately breathed cinnamon into their lungs. Again, aspirated the cinnamon and cinnamon has oils that make it what it is that spicy sweet taste. And that can actually burn the Aviola on your lungs, the tiny little cells on your lungs that are responsible for pulling the oxygen and putting it into your blood. And so people had damage to their lungs. They had some, in some cases, pneumonia formed because of the cinnamon challenge. And these are ones that aren't as clearly dangerous as the blackout challenge was you had the tide pod challenge, which I never in a million years thought would be one that people thought was a real thing and that they would, you know, partake in.

Mikah Sargent (00:34:22):
And if you hadn't heard about that one, it was this joke going around where you would, because a tide pod looked like it was a tasty little gummy candy that people would eat them. No, no one was actually eating them in the first place until people heard about it and then thought, oh, I should try doing that. It's very, very, very dangerous. So all along, you've got these challenges that are seemingly not dangerous. Some that are very clearly dangerous, but you see other people do them and they're okay. So then you think that it's okay to do them. And it is kind of a scary thing. And, you know, I remember my mom and other family members talking about how, when they were young, they would do similar challenges to this blackout challenge where with their friends, they would cause each other to pass out and faint and come back and ha ha ha fun, fun, fun.

Mikah Sargent (00:35:17):
You would, you know, catch each other. But the difference there is that they were doing it you know, amongst themselves. And then maybe they heard about it at school. It did not have the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people reach that these challenges have these days. And I think that's where the real impact happens. And a then lack of awareness from parents and guardians regarding this. So ultimately why I wanted to talk about this and why we were gonna have Carrie Paul on the show to talk about this is because I think those of you out there who are listening, who are parents or guardians should be mindful that there are these kinds of viral challenges that are dangerous, that are on the platform. And from what we've seen, TikTok has done very little about making sure that the algorithms are not surfacing these kinds of dangerous dangerous games, so to speak that are on the platform.

Mikah Sargent (00:36:18):
So again, just be mindful of that and be aware of this blackout challenge as well. Alright, up next, Apple has announced a new feature for iPhones called lockdown mode. We'll talk with that. We'll talk about what that means in a minute, but first, let me tell you about collide, who are bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. If you're listening to this podcast, well, then odds are good that at some point you'll go through an audit like SOC two or ISO 27 0 1. And when you do, you'll have to answer some tough questions about end point security questions, like do all your company laptops have their discs encrypted. Does everyone have the company's password manager installed? Do you have a system in place to monitor and maintain compliance throughout your cross platform fleet? Even if you're confident, the answer to all of those questions is yes.

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Mikah Sargent (00:38:15):
Back from the break and folks, I'm very excited to be joined by CNET own. Ian Sherr to talk with us today about a new feature from apple, Ian, welcome to the show. How you doing? Oh, I'm doing excellent. So glad to have you here. So this was a, a relatively recent announcement, I think maybe even just, yeah, yesterday yesterday, thank you. And apple said, Hey, look, we're gonna be rolling out a new feature in the next version of iOS. And we're also announcing some other things involving money. Can you give us first kind of the high level low down wow. High level, low down <laugh> on what Apple announced.

Ian Sherr  (00:38:56):
Sure. So they announced this new thing called lockdown mode, which is a really interesting idea. So, you know, Apple has been marketing their phones and their computers and all of their devices around being the more secure of the bunch that you can buy. And, you know, typically there's an expectation within the tech industry that, yeah, they, they generally are able to, to stand up to that, but we've seen increasingly over the last few years, this new kind of hacking attack that has gotten a lot of attention, right? It's these targeted attacks based on hacking malware that is made by third party companies. So think of Pegasus, for example, which among other things, oppressive regimes have been accused of using to hack into the phones of of, of human rights, activists, lawyers, journalists, other politicians, and whatnot. And this is a very small number of people, but Apple said in the last eight months, for example, that they have actually tracked at least 150 countries where this is happening.

Ian Sherr  (00:39:56):
And so in this case, they created a new type of feature for the iPhone, the iPad and the Mac that they call lockdown mode. And what it does is it basically puts an extreme security measure on your phone. So, whereas normally you're able to do stuff like receive a FaceTime call or even plug in your phone to a USB port for CarPlay, when it's already been set up it with lockdown modes set up, essentially you have to go through a lot more measures to be able to do that. So, you know, to receive a FaceTime call, you actually have to know the person or have tried to initiate a phone call in the last 30 days with them. If you are trying to connect to a USB device, you actually have to unlock the phone physically, right? All of these types of things, it messages that come in, they won't automatically preview PDFs anymore or images and all sorts of stuff like that. Again, they're trying to kind of reduce the tax surface is what they call it that that could be used to target at these individual people.

Mikah Sargent (00:40:59):
Now, this is a, this is a mode that's going to be available on all of Apple platforms, not just the iPhone,

Ian Sherr  (00:41:06):
Correct? Yeah. So coming this fall right for free with iOS 16, iPad OS 16 and Mac OS Ventura it's going to be something that's built in. And Apple said, look, you know, we realize this is a very new idea to really lock down these funds, you know, having worked in it and the defense industry in the past, I know how hard it is to lock these things down and also how much work goes into it. And Apple said they wanna make it as easy as possible. So there's literally just one button in the settings app where you turn it on and then suddenly it locks all this stuff down. You are able to whitelist various websites and stuff. So let's say you have a corporate website and you need to use lockdown mode for a while. You're able to at least to access the corporate website well, and not have to worry about things not working.

Ian Sherr  (00:41:53):
And they said, they're gonna work more to listen to app developers, right? Cause this also really locks down the way that the web browser works. And so if you get a link in Twitter, for example, or, you know, sent to you via WhatsApp, it's going to be following those rules. That apples sets up through its lockdown mode. Again, if it's on, if it's turned on, that's gonna cause a lot of website apps to suddenly not work the way you expected them to. So apples wants to make sure that they, they walk this line as carefully as possible between extreme security, right? This is a very rare instance that only some people will need, but walking that line of extreme security and usability, still making the phone usable and not just a paperweight, all of a sudden

Mikah Sargent (00:42:36):
<Laugh> now that I, I have to say I'm already dreading the TikTok videos where people are showing others how to turn on lockdown mode. And did you know about this secret feature in your iPhone where you can make your phone safe? Tell us in, in as, as, as detailed away as possible, who is this for? And who is this not designed for? Who should, should I I have a, oh, I don't know. I have a, a, a, an uncle who likes to send me text messages with images of his favorite cats and I'm allergic to cats. So I'm not a big fan of cats. Should I use lockdown mode? Or should I just like block the phone number? Like who is this for?

Ian Sherr  (00:43:27):
<Laugh> no, no commentary on your family life <laugh> but I will say, I will say that that Apple is actually a little squishy on this themselves. Right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> and I think partially because the, the, the, the people who are affected by this, again, it's a very small number of people, but it's very dramatic when it happens. Right. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. So, as I brought up these, these people who work in who are lawyers or who are dealing with all sorts of political issues you know, human rights, activists, journalists in some situations. And so the thing is that a lot of times these people are actually surprised themselves to learn that suddenly they are being targeted by the malware. So there are organizations out there that are actually being built up to help people identify when they need to use this stuff, train them to know when they should turn it on.

Ian Sherr  (00:44:15):
So if you work as a, as a human rights activist, you know, and you start getting that sense that maybe you should, there's going to start being training to teach you how to be protective of your stuff, including using lockdown mode. And so what Apple's does is actually given money, it's given 10 million grant to the to a a funds kind of organized by the Ford foundation. That's designed around this idea of helping to really teach people and draw attention to these types of issues. And also Apple says they want to bring in a lot more research toward these types of attacks. Cuz Pegasus was quite a surprise when we all found out about it. And to this day, it tends to shock people when they learn about it so that they wanna actually not only fund some research, but Apple said that they're going to increase their bag Boies to up to $2 million. If people find a successful attack on lock Mo lockdown mode. So clearly they understand that it's hard to identify who needs this, but when you need it, you need it and they wanna make sure it works.

Mikah Sargent (00:45:17):
Yes, absolutely. Now, one of the things I, I noticed in Apple's rundown regarding this is that configuration profiles can be installed device can't enroll in mobile device management while this is turned on. Do we know cuz it wasn't clear in this piece or in, in their newsroom article? What about people who do have phones that are, you know, company owned that are already enrolled in mobile device management or already have these configuration profiles on there? Will those, do we know if those devices will be able to turn on lockdown mode? And again, I know this is all very new, so you may not have the answer to this, but it was one that was cur I was

Ian Sherr  (00:45:55):
Curious, no, ISIS admin brain here thought the same thing. Right? So I, I, I specifically asked about that and it turns out that you won't be able to install new profiles, ah, but the ones that are existing will work and MDM won't be able to turn off the ability to use lockdown mode. So it's not something like, for example, if I work for a company that's incredibly onerous and I have a I have a weird relationship with them that they're not gonna be able to turn off my ability to turn on lockdown mode for my safety

Mikah Sargent (00:46:27):
Is lockdown is lockdown mode as easy to turn off as it is to turn on. When I feel like I'm in a or again you know, somebody Watches the tic TikTok video turns it on, right. Are they gonna have trouble being able to turn it back off again? Or is it as simple as flipping a switch?

Ian Sherr  (00:46:44):
So Apple wanted to make it as simple as flipping a switch while also making it clear what you're doing. Hmm. So I saw some kind of demo images of what it looks like and what apparently happens. Right. And there's actually people who have the betas of iOS 16 have it now. But what, what, what it is, is it's in the privacy settings of the phone. So it's hidden away a little bit in the settings app and you you're able to turn it on it kind of warns you, Hey, you're going to suddenly have less capabilities in your phone for this, that, and the other thing, you know, FaceTime messages, all the stuff we walk through, including some other stuff. And and so are you okay with that? You say, yes, the phone has to restart. So you're, you're given a very dramatic entrance into lockdown mode. And then when you wanna turn it off, it actually warns you, Hey, you're about to turn off all of these protections, are you sure? And it isn't an okay. I noticed when they showed me that it's not just an okay. It's actually the okay. Is on the right side, right. Not where we typically click on the left and it's turn off. Right. So it's very clear what you were doing as much as possible without making it so onerous that it's annoying to turn it on and turn it off.

Mikah Sargent (00:47:50):
Gotcha. That's that's good. It sounds like Apple has really thought this one through <laugh> perhaps more so than some of the other, like the CSAM protections that they had in the past where those, those announcements ended up kind of facing some scrutiny right. Again, this just came out yesterday, but I am curious if there has been any early kind of reactions to this from security researchers in particular, are they excited about the possible 2 million? I think it is now bug bounty that or I should say bounty is not necessarily a bug per se, but 2 million bounty as part of this. What are security folks thinking about lockdown mode?

Ian Sherr  (00:48:34):
Yeah. I mean, certainly nobody will complain if Apple hands on the $2 million check. Right. but you know, generally speaking, the security researchers out there seem to be pretty impressed. At least the ones who have been public about it, right. The FF was, was supportive of this citizen lab, which is actually working with the Ford foundation and Apple on this. And other issues was very supportive. Right. They think that this is going to have a a critical impact on a lot of these, you know, these, these companies that create this software. So like NSO group in Israel. So it's gonna be very interesting. We haven't heard anything from the DOJ or FBI. You may remember they are not a fan of a lot of these security things, right? Yeah. Because they wanna be able to, they wanna, you know, just to be fair to them, they wanna be able to hack into a phone of a, of a terrorist, right.

Ian Sherr  (00:49:21):
Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> imagine in a, in a, in a very high energy, high pressure situation needing to get that type of information. They're very worried about that. So, you know, they haven't said anything yet. I do have a, a request in to see if they do have anything to say, but generally speaking, it seems as though this is a pretty typical thing, right? It, they, a lot of people who are in the security world think this is a great idea, good to see Apple moving forward. Hopefully other companies are gonna follow along. And, you know, I imagine the governments over time are going to learn to scowl at it as they have at many other things.

Mikah Sargent (00:49:51):
<Laugh> indeed well in, I never scowl when you're on always happy to have you here. Thank you for joining us today for covering out a little bit of time to talk about lockdown mode. Of course, folks can head to cnet.com to check out your great work. Is there anywhere else they should go if they wanna follow along?

Ian Sherr  (00:50:07):
I'm on pretty much every social network in true, including truth, social for the people who are on that too. <Laugh> at, at Ian. Sure. I, I a N S H E R R all one word.

Mikah Sargent (00:50:17):
Thanks so much. We appreciate it.

Ian Sherr  (00:50:19):
Take care.

Mikah Sargent (00:50:21):
All right. Up next, we carry on with a little more Apple news, but this time it's all about the rumors. Before we get to that, though, I do wanna take a quick break to talk about express VPN, who are bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. I sing it because I love it ever heard of data brokers. You probably have, because I've talked about them before. So if you've Watched any of my shows, you know, about data brokers, they are the middlemen who are collecting and selling all those digital footprints. You leave online, they can stitch together detailed profiles that include your browsing history, your online searches, your location data. They then sell your profile off to a company who delivers you a targeted ad, no biggie. Right? Well, you might be surprised to learn that these same data brokers are also selling your information to the department of Homeland security and the IRS who wants the tax man showing up at their door because of some search they did on their phone.

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Mikah Sargent (00:53:07):
All right. Now that we're back from the break. It's time to talk about some rumors and joining us today is somebody who knows a thing or two about Apple rumors. It's Mark Gurman of Bloomberg. Welcome back to the show mark.

Mark Gurman (00:53:24):
Hey Mikahh. Thanks. as always for having me. Yeah, I appreciate

Mikah Sargent (00:53:27):
It. Yeah. Happy to have you here. Appreciate you taking the time. So you sure you recently published a, a, a piece about Apple's next Apple Watch, and this is interesting because what we've seen kind of in the past is since at least the, the, the original, the OG Apple Watch, where there was that gold model, most of the time since then, you've kind of had the choice between a stainless steel model or an aluminum model. And from sort of an anecdotal perspective a lot of people just go for the aluminum model and that's kind the one they know about, but for the first time we might be seeing a different kind of Apple Watch. Can you tell us what, what you've, what you've written about?

Mark Gurman (00:54:10):
Yeah, so right now there's basically, you know, aside from materials, there's two distinct Apple Watches. There's the Apple Watch series seven right, which is sort of there standard flagship. Then there's the Apple Watch se, which is their low end and they still keep around the series three. I believe as well, for some reason, this will be a new Watch. That's on top of the matrix, right? So from this fall, you'll have a new Apple Watch se right? I think they'll just call it B SC again, maybe the se two, but if I were to bet, I would say they just continue call the Apple Watch se you'll have the Apple Watch series eight, and then you'll have this new Apple Watch series eight extreme sports edition. This is a high end one. This is gonna have a larger display. This is gonna have longer battery life.

Mark Gurman (00:54:52):
This is gonna have some new tracking features for hiking and swimming. And it's gonna have a new metal case as in, it's not going to be aluminum. It's either gonna be stainless steel or titanium. And this is going to be totally ruggedized, right? So this is going to be AA Watch. That is far more durable than your normal series a or your Apple Watch. Se as you can see in the story there, it's gonna have about 7% more screen area. Now that may not seem like a lot coming from the series seven. Right. But that is a significant leap if you're coming from a series six or, or, or earlier, of course.

Mikah Sargent (00:55:31):
So I wanna, I wanna clarify what do we know about the, because I'd love to sort of get the chart of in the next iteration of Apple Watches, what are all of the new Apple Watches going to get that's new and then what is exclusive to this extreme sports Watch? Because if, if you're telling me the body temperature is only in the extreme sports Watch, that makes me sad. Cuz then I'm gonna have to get that one. Tell me more.

Mark Gurman (00:56:00):
Yeah. So I'll break it down. That's actually a good point. I'm working on my newsletter for this weekend now. So I'm gonna steal your idea and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make like a little chart that breaks down. What's gonna be new in each. Let's start from the bottom. The se the se right now, I believe has the S five processor, which is the chip from the series five. Now it's going to get the same processor as the series eight mm-hmm <affirmative> and the Explorer edition. So the se is basically just a faster processor. Okay. That's that the series eight that is going to get the body temperature. Yes. Right? The main new thing is gonna be the body temperature there. And I believe it'll have a brighter display. Now those are minor changes really on the, besides the body tip.

Mark Gurman (00:56:47):
I guess if you consider that significant on the series eight regular Watch, by the way, the series eight chip, the extreme sports chip and the new se chip is all gonna be the same chip, the S eight chip. But that chip is the same as the S seven chip, which is the same as the S six chip <laugh>. So you're not really getting a performance boost, right? You're not really getting a performance boost unless you're going from the old se to the new se or you're going from a Watch older than the series six to the eight or the extreme sports edition. Now all the big new bells and whistles from the bigger display, the rugged design, the metal case, those features, those are gonna be exclusive to the extreme sports edition. So those are your three models there.

Mikah Sargent (00:57:28):
Tell us about bands. Will the extreme sports edition still have the same size LUS? Do you know anything about, are they gonna do special bands that are just for that? I can't, I can't think of something more rugged than kind of some of the ones that we already have, but perhaps I don't know, like literal chains that you put around your wrist. I'm curious about that. If we know anything about the accessories for that Watch,

Mark Gurman (00:57:52):
So you'll see some exclusive rubberized and other higher end bands for that extreme sports edition. I don't know to answer your question, obviously that's a really good question. Very important. I should look into that. If the bands will be interchangeable and if they will work with the same bands I don't know, but if I were to guess, I would say yes, it would work with the same bands. Just because I don't think that the case design is going to be that dramatically different than the regular series eight and the older Apple Watches as well. Now, one question I've also received from a lot of people is the series eight. Also going to get that bigger display like the Explorer edition. And the answer was no, the Explorer edition will be the only one to get that newer, higher resolution screen.

Mikah Sargent (00:58:38):
So when you say Explorer edition, you're also that's the extreme sports one or is what, what's the Explorer addition?

Mark Gurman (00:58:46):
I have like five different names for it. Got it, got it, got it. Got it. So you can call it the extreme sports edition. You can call it the Explorer edition. You can call it the rugged edition. You can call it the sports model. Right. I'm just throwing out every term I can think of to cover,

Mikah Sargent (00:59:03):
Cover your bases. Yeah, <laugh> makes sense. I was cuz I guess they do have that Explorer Watch face. So that would be a great name to kind of carry into

Mark Gurman (00:59:11):
They do. Yeah, they do. And then if you remember the original Apple Watch from seven years ago, there was the Apple Watch, regular. I just call it the Apple Watch and there was the Apple Watch sport, but the sport designated the low end model, the aluminum models. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> maybe they'll bring back that sport name. Ah,

Mikah Sargent (00:59:28):
You shall see ah that's that's they do like to recycle when they can don't they both.

Mark Gurman (00:59:32):
I don't think they will personally. I really don't think they will, but it's certainly not a bad option.

Mikah Sargent (00:59:37):
Yeah. I guess there would be kind of a confusion there because in this case it would mean the higher, higher model, so right. These new Watches cuz we've already got, you know, always on display. We've got all of, of kind of the, the big hits there. When you say screen brightness, do you mean screen brightness the whole way around or will we still have the same screen brightness whenever it's in sort of always on mode whenever it kind of dims down or is it just kind of, we're just bumping up the brightness all the way around because there's more battery, but cuz the processor hasn't changed. Right. So what will they do to make that difference?

Mark Gurman (01:00:15):
Well, to be clear, I hope they up the screen brightness, I know the display on the series eight will get some improvements, my personal hope. Got it, got it. Is the screen brightness will be improved because oftentimes I'll be using the Watch outside and I'll go to settings. Cause I think the brightness for some reason will be on the lower tier and I'll keep hitting the button to try to raise the brightness. Right. And it doesn't go bright enough. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I know others who have had similar you know quirks with the Apple Watch. So I hope it'll go brighter. But what I do know is you'll see some display improvements there. And I don't know if I mentioned this earlier but longer battery life as well on the Explorer model.

Mikah Sargent (01:00:50):
Got it. Okay. So outside of Apple Watch any other rumors you've written about recently that you wanna wanna talk about here on the show?

Mark Gurman (01:01:01):
Yeah, so you'll see updates to both the Apple TV and the home pod. I think the Apple TV might come at the end of this year. The improvement there will be an a 14 chip up from an a 12, so a little bit speedier. And then on the home pod, you're gonna see something closer to the original model in terms of size and audio performance. That's gonna have the S eight processor the same as in the new Apple Watches. I'm looking forward to that. I know a lot of people are looking forward to that. There's also been some talk of them upgrading the display on top. Right. I don't know if it'll be a full multitouch touch screen per se, but you'll see an updated light show. So to speak on, on top of that new home pod also AirPods pro two coming in the fall with the better audio quality, you'll see obviously the new iPhones in the fall and I'm sure you've had many people on here talking about those. But yeah, I think it's gonna be a pretty jam packed fall, but also a pretty extensive 2023. When you incorporate all the new max that they're gonna have to launch over the next 12 months, obviously we haven't even talked about the Apple mixed reality headset. Right, right. That's really gonna be the story of 2023 for apple. And I think that'll be introduced either at the tail end of this year or in the first calendar quarter of next year.

Mikah Sargent (01:02:21):
One of the things that's always confused me with the Apple TV is after it got to the Apple TV 4k, any updates past that point were kind of confusing to me because I, I didn't know what, I don't know still don't know what benefit I would be getting out of. What, what does a faster processor mean for an Apple TV that I can already stream, you know, 4k HDR content on what will that processor enable are they, is Apple still kind of make, of course you've gotta make updates over time, but what is the selling point there for someone who has an Apple TV 4k who doesn't game? Because if my apps I can, you know, tap and, and Netflix launches automatically and starts playing, why do I need a faster processor?

Mark Gurman (01:03:10):
Really only two theories that I have for you. And I don't know the answer. So these truly our theories one, we haven't seen any major changes to TBOs recently in the last several years. So maybe there was some sort of softer revamp they've been holding back that is more fluid and requires that faster processor. Cause don't forget the a 12 that's a 2018 chip. Wow. Right. Yeah. And we are going into 2023. Right. So maybe some new software can handle it. Option two is obviously you're starting to see very little so far. Right. But eight K content. Maybe you want that faster processor to sort of prepare for a eight K future. But I don't know either way. Yeah. I just know that that new box is coming with that new chip. And I could not agree with you more about if you're gonna upgrade that chip. You really want something to take advantage of it. Right. A faster processor doesn't mean much on a streamer.

Mikah Sargent (01:04:06):
Exactly. Yeah. Let's we gotta make it compelling. Although I'm sure all the folks at Apple shooting, you know, 4k Doby vision on their iPhone, then they airplay it to their Apple TV. They're like, man, I need a better chip inside of this thing. <Laugh> whereas I'm

Mark Gurman (01:04:22):
Have you tried that? Is it not, is it kind of sluggish? Like if you, if you try

Mikah Sargent (01:04:26):
Do that. Yes. Yeah. You and I don't, this is the problem is I don't know how much of it is just networking stuff and how much of it is mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, the processor. And I, I haven't had this issue in a long time, but there for a while I was having an issue with it overheating my Apple TV 4k overheating after oh wow. Playing like high, high quality content. One thing, mark. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead.

Mark Gurman (01:04:51):
Well, I was just gonna say, what might be interesting is if they use something like UWB or ultra wide band or some sort of, you know network capability that has to do with distance and short distances rather than wifi to do some airplane streaming and such, right. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> maybe that would alleviate some of the, the issues and sluggishness or maybe it's a combination of that in a faster processor.

Mikah Sargent (01:05:12):
Yeah, that would be nice. One last question for you and I'm being a little bit selfish here, cuz I'm the one talking to you. Haha. Audience is that I, so I have the AirPods pro and I have had them for a long time and I had them replaced twice because of the clicking and the, the woo issue which you're probably, you know, they ended up doing that service repair program. Unfortunately the last time it started happening, I had dropped one of them and didn't realize it and <laugh> my dog picked it up. And so there are teeth marks on it. And so I know if I take it in, they're gonna be like, oh, that's funny. It's the teeth marks that are responsible for this pod. Not working. Not that it's actually just

Mark Gurman (01:05:52):
My dog ate my

Mikah Sargent (01:05:53):
Pods. Exactly. Yeah. So my question for you, do you know anything about with AirPods too, because we've got with AirPods pro two, you mention that it, or I can't remember if it was you, but there've been some rumors about what might be coming with AirPods pro two, is that clicky issue addressed in AirPods pro two? Is it, have you heard anything about that specifically? Because I'd like to get some new ones, but not if I'm gonna be replacing them every six months.

Mark Gurman (01:06:19):
I have not heard anything about the clickiness issue being resolved in the AirPods pro two, I've had my AirPods pros replaced as well. For the same issue that you mentioned, not the dogs <laugh> one, but the clickiness. Yeah. there was like an image leak, a Render's leak of the AirPods pro two couple weeks ago. I, I do not remember the name of the website that was originated from, but if you Google it, I'm sure you can find it. Anyone Watching this, that same report said it would have body temperature and heart rate detection. That is not true. But I think the other stuff find mine is accurate. The update. Yeah, the fine, my, the updated latency, improved audio quality, similar overall design. They tried to go stemless, but it didn't work out for this generation. Maybe AirPods pro three in five years.

Mikah Sargent (01:07:07):
Yeah. Okay. Well I guess we'll wait until then, but Mark Gorman, I wanna thank you for covering out some time today to chat with me. Of course, folks can head over to Bloomberg and get the power on newsletter, but is there anywhere else they can follow you online?

Mark Gurman (01:07:21):
Yeah. Thanks as always for having me have me on again soon, please. You can follow me on twitter@markermanandbloomberg.com slash power on subscribe. And this weekend will be all about Michael's questions from earlier earlier about the new Apple Watch. So take a look at that. Looking

Mikah Sargent (01:07:38):
Forward to seeing that chart, mark. Thank you.

Mark Gurman (01:07:41):
Thanks be well,

Mikah Sargent (01:07:43):
All righty folks that brings us to the end of this episode of Tech News Weekly. We publish this show every thursday@twit.tv slash TNW. That's where you can go to subscribe to the show in audio and video formats. If you'd like to get all of our shows ad free, we've got way for you to do that. It's called club twit for seven bucks a month. You get every single twit show with no ads, you get access, excuse me, you get access to the exclusive twit plus bonus feed that has extra content. You won't find anywhere else. And also access to the members only discord server. That is a place where you can go and chat with your fellow club, twit members. And also those of us here at twit. It is a great place to be a great place to hang out and lots of fun.

Mikah Sargent (01:08:26):
Twi.Tv/Club TWI to sign up seven bucks a month. And if you're listening right now, then I have a secret for you. If you had to twit do TV slash H O M, you will learn about the reboot of hands on Mac, which is now a club TWI exclusive that you also get as part of club TWI TWI do TV slash club tweet seven bucks a month to be part of the fund there, you can also subscribe to individual shows, including the new hands on Mac on Apple podcasts for 2 99 a month. You'll get the audio feed completely ad free. If you like to tweet at me or follow me on social media, I'm at Mikah Sargent and you can also to chiwawa.coffee. That's ch I HOA hoa.coffee, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Now you can check me out on Thursdays for Tech News Weekly and also Thursdays for hands on Mac, which is again, a club to exclusive as well as Apple podcast subscription exclusive on Saturdays with Leo Laport, for the tech guy podcast, the radio show heard around the world where we take your questions and do our best to answer them and on Tuesdays for iOS today, which I record with Rosemary orchard a lot of fun there where we talk all things, iOS, TVs, home pods, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, Jason, how will be back next week to join us.

Mikah Sargent (01:09:48):
So stay tuned for that. And of course, thanks as always to our technical director slash editor slash producer slash all of the above John Ashley, as well as Burke, who makes sure that our guests sound good and look good each week for Tech News Weekly, we appreciate both of you and folks. I appreciate all of you out there as well. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next time on Tech News Weekly. Bye.

Speaker 6 (01:10:17):
Hey, I'm Rod Pyle, editor of Ad Astra magazine, and each week I'm joined by Tariq Mallik the editor in chief over at space.com. In our new this week weekend space podcast, every Friday tar and I take a deep dive into the stories that define the new space age what's NASA up to when will Americans, once again set foot on the moon. And how about those samples from the perseverance Rover? When do those coming home? What the heck has Elon must done now, in addition to all the latest and greatest in space exploration will take an occasional look at bits of space flight history that you probably never heard of and all with an eye towards having a good time along the way. Check us out on your favorite podcaster.

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