Tech News Weekly 350 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

0:00:00 - Mikah Sargent
Coming up on Tech News Weekly. Amanda Silberling of TechCrunch is here to talk about her time at the White House. Yeah, that's right, she got an invite to the White House to see the conversation between the president and creators and influencers and everything to do with the creator economy. Then my story of the week is all about Microsoft's recall AI feature and how it continues to be delayed and delayed and delayed as Microsoft works on the security concerns involved with the new AI feature. Afterwards, Lisa Eadicicco of CNET stops by to give us a great review of the Google Pixel 9. Yes, Lisa was able to go hands-on with the device and talks all about her impressions of Google's latest Pixel. And after that, Shahram Mokhtari of iFixit is back and this time he's talking about the teardown of Samsung's Galaxy Ring. As you might expect, it's not very repairable. We talk about that. We talk about the most dangerous teardown he's ever done and everything in between. Stay tuned for an awesome episode of Tech News Weekly.

0:01:18 - VO
Podcasts you love. From people you trust. This is TWiT.

0:01:33 - Mikah Sargent
This is Tech News Weekly, with Amanda Silberling and me, Mikah Sargent, episode 350, recorded Thursday, august 22nd 2024. I fix it. Tears down the galaxy ring. Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking that tech news. I am your host, Mikah Sargent, and I am joined across the internet today not by our typical co-host, but by another co-host who I'm so happy to have here. It's been a month of weirdness, I will tell you, because we've had all sorts of co-hosts in all sorts of places, and joining us today is TechCrunch's own, Amanda Silberling. Welcome back to the show, Amanda.

0:02:14 - Amanda Silberling
Hello, it is me across the internet Now, no longer making the schedule weird because of me.

0:02:22 - Mikah Sargent
You and many others played a role this month and it was fun because it was different, and I'm so glad that you are here today to be with us. It's awesome that you get to join us this month. Yes, and for folks who are tuning in for the first time, the way that things go here is we kick off the show by having two stories of the week, and so Amanda is going to introduce her story of the week and, I think, do a little bit of bragging and I am very much looking forward to that. So, Amanda, without further ado, tell us where you've been, what you've been up to ado, tell us where you've been, what you've been up to.

0:03:10 - Amanda Silberling
Yeah, so last week I went to dc to go to the white house where there was the first ever white house creator economy conference, which that's just kind of wild, that the white house is having a conference for social media creators and influencers and it was quite an interesting time. So I wrote an article about the experience of going to this conference and President Biden made a surprise appearance, which I guess oh, wait, that wasn't even planned.

No, well, I mean, I guess it was probably planned, but like we didn't know about it until the day of.

I am making the assumption that I guess the presidential schedule is very hectic and last minute, and so we didn't know until they sent us the agenda the day of and it had a thing that said POTUS drop in. And I was like like, excuse me, uh, so joe, uh, our boat, yeah, our boy joe showed up and it was pretty weird and all the phones fly up and then he pretends to take a selfie and yeah, it was interesting. But uh, the the conference itself basically was like very focused on mental health actually, which, which I thought was surprising to the fact that one of biden's big policy pushes right now is the kids online safety act, which is an, a legislation intended to make the internet safer for kids, but people are also concerned about how it could potentially impact anonymity and um privacy online. So they did a panel about mental health, they did a panel about AI and creators, and then Biden shows up and pretends to take a selfie with people.

But what I thought was particularly interesting about what he was talking about was he was drawing a really specific distinction between creators and traditional media, which was also weird, because the way that white house media works is you have the press pool who's just like all the journalists from all the big outlets who every day the pool rotates and they just kind of follow biden around and go to the stuff that he's doing.

And then there were some journalists, including me, who were there specifically to cover the white house event, uh, for the creator economy, which is separate from the press pool. So we weren't in the press pool but we were standing with the press pool and uh, president biden was saying like oh, the you know, like you can't uh trust the media anymore. They're like blowing up stories and like it all. It sounded very like trumpian in a way what he was saying about the media. And then he said I'm not going to take questions from the press, but I'll take questions from the creators. But then someone in the press pool tried asking a question and then the press got kicked out and I didn't leave.

0:06:27 - Mikah Sargent
Can we pause for just a second? This is so much more dramatic than I expected it would be.

0:06:35 - Amanda Silberling
Yeah, there's drama.

0:06:36 - Mikah Sargent
Like they said, what we're going to do today is we're going to do this sort of political statement by having the press and the creators next to each other in the room and then, biden, you are going to lambast the press and then you're going to say I see you there, but I will not look at you, I will not answer your questions. I will only be taking, uh answer questions from the folks we trust, and then this feels so much like a um, a step back into the royal gallery like this is that's wild.

0:07:16 - Amanda Silberling
Sorry to interrupt, but like I just have, to process that and the press got kicked out because they asked a question. Well, I mean, I do think it was a bit uh, I don't think it was necessarily the most professional thing that this journalist, after being told not to ask a question, like shouts a question at him, uh, but also it's like what do you expect?

like I don't know what the norms necessarily are for the press pool on a regular basis? Um, but he specifically was like I don't want to talk about foreign policy. Like someone like asked a question about inflation and he was like it's going like I don't remember what he said, but he kind of just gave the generic like whatever the latest information about inflation was. But yeah, so the press pool got kicked out, but because, um, the like five or six journalists that were there covering the creator economy event specifically were not in the press pool, I was just kind of like I'm gonna stay in the room and if someone kicks me out then I'll leave. But no one kicked me out, um, and then one of the creators asked him what his favorite social media platform is and he declined to answer. So I mean, we didn't really get a lot from this creator and Biden Q&A, but I just think what questions are being asked.

0:08:35 - Mikah Sargent
It sounds like not very good ones.

0:08:38 - Amanda Silberling
Yeah, the thing also is that if you have seen Biden speak recently, you will know that he he can talk a lot without saying a ton, which you know. That's it is what it is. So he did answer the question about what social platform is his favorite by going into like well, you know, my grandchildren all have different answers. So you know one of my grandchildren she's an artist. I have another grandchild who hopefully will be starting at Penn next year I have another grandchild who works in environmental policy. That's honestly impressive right.

Yeah, I was like honestly, like it's so interesting, even just the experience of being in the same room as someone that has so much global power and then being like he's just a guy who wants to talk about his grandkids, I guess.

But I think I mean, aside from my own personal experience of I went to the White House, it was interesting I think a larger takeaway here is that the government is really paying attention to the role of creators as both like many media companies, as well as just people with big influence that they want to be swaying. So we're seeing this this week, now that the DNC is going on in Chicago, and for the first time there is like a whole large cohort of creators that were invited to cover the DNC. And even in that case it's really interesting because the credential process is different for journalists as opposed to creators. Creators which this was sort of something we were thinking about at the conference too where, like, um, people who work for outlets, like on a salary, were in the press area, but then there were creators that were invited that are doing journalism they're just doing it on an independent basis that were on the creator side of things.

And I think that we're kind of in a weird time of media right now where we have all these tech companies like Substack, beehive, and then also the traditional social platforms that are making it possible for people to do journalism professionally and not be tied to a traditional media outlet, but then societally we're not seeing them necessarily as journalists and that divide is very interesting to me, especially as it pertains to, like political coverage and simultaneously, on one hand, I think more people having the opportunity to be in media is good, because traditionally the people that are able to get jobs in media are not always like the most diverse set of people, and I think the more voices out there the better. On the other hand, like our creator is going to be fact checking as rigorously as journalists. I mean, depends on the people, but interesting trend happening here and Biden loves his grandkids. I mean, depends on the people, but interesting trend happening here and Biden loves his grandkids.

0:11:27 - Mikah Sargent
I learned I, so I think it's I guess I was not expecting, because they talk about it being the creator economy right, this was a creator economy event, and to take the time to instead kind of talk about mental health, and then for you it was clear that the reason why was because of the legislation that's being kind of worked through right now. Did this is? Did anyone have anything to say about that? To say about that, because I think that that alone, if no one did, draws a clear distinction between journalists like yourself and the creators, who maybe are not thinking about all of the angles. And it does like I understand that there's trust in these creators and trust in these influencers, but I hate to sound like old men shouting at a cloud In some ways.

That could be scary, because I think things can get lost. Do you feel like? Well? A? I'd love to have the answer to if anyone kind of noticed that outside of those of you who were there to cover that aspect of it, but also who were the creators that were there? Were they creators that were making political content? Were they creators that were making beauty content? And this is not to be clear. This is not me saying that one is better than the other. It is simply me saying me kind of trying to understand the folks who get access to these events and what that means in terms of what the goal was yeah, it was an interesting mix of they.

0:13:23 - Amanda Silberling
Also, it wasn't only creators, it was about people. I don't know the exact divide, but some of the people there were like startup execs or like people involved in the business of the creator economy. Up creators and, um, like just lifestyle, uh, mental health focused creators uh, there was someone that makes videos about how to do your taxes. There was someone that makes videos about racial inequity and health care like it was a pretty ride, wide ranging crew. But I think that was something that was interesting to me too was that on these panels, it was either white house officials interviewing the creators or vice versa, and I think that it's not necessarily like part of the job description for a beauty creator to know about politics.

So then, you end up in a situation where they're kind of just like excited to be there and they are being told very specific things to say, like I do know for a fact that, like behind the scenes, they are talking to these creators and like planning out the conversations, not necessarily like scripting it, like in an inauthentic way, but it's pretty commonplace for big conferences like this, let alone at the White House, that you have pre-interviews before you go on stage and you discuss what you're going to talk about on stage before you go on stage. In a lot of cases and I did talk to one of the creators that was on stage and they said, yes, like ahead of time, we talked about what to talk about.

0:15:09 - Mikah Sargent
So I mean, and that's not atypical right.

0:15:13 - Amanda Silberling
I mean yeah, I mean that's at these conferences it's pretty typical, yeah, like it does, it's expected, but it does, I think, sometimes get lost that that is the case and so it's good to have that, that knowledge, that understanding and I think especially with like for journalists in particular, like we know that we are allowed to ask questions, um, the professional relationship is specifically arranged such that, like we don't have a sort of like financial relationship necessarily like, whereas I think sometimes with creators it is not the same, like I'm sure some of these creators were like paid to be flied out.

I mean, I honestly don't know in this case I'm just like conjecturing, but I think they just don't know as much like what sorts of things you are and aren't allowed to do in an interview. So if the White House is telling them like these are the questions we want you to ask, then they are more likely to be like OK, sure, whereas I think a journalist would be more likely to be like well, there's nothing contractually preventing me from asking another question and if I have the opportunity to interview people in government, maybe I want to know more about like things that maybe they aren't trying to tell us but you want to find out.

0:16:36 - Mikah Sargent
Absolutely, and it makes me think of the recent coverage on Google's phones and the Team Pixel stuff and how. For influencers, there is often a whether it's spoken or unspoken because sometimes it's unspoken understanding that to maintain access, one must say positive things about the stuff that they're covering, and so if you have that mindset going into it, you may not think about how you are able to ask questions that would maybe get a journalist kicked out of the room, although I know in this case they. You know they asked a dumb question, but yeah, I think that that that's something mindful of. Now we are running out of time for this first topic. Is there anything else that you want to say about your time at the white house before we move along?

0:17:42 - Amanda Silberling
I just think that it sort of was a like concrete representation of how the tides are turning in, looking at creators like they are doing a real job. Because they are doing a real job. This is a very fast growing sector. Like it's very easy to discredit and be like oh, they're just on TikTok making dancing videos, but these are people building small media businesses. Sometimes they are creating products out of those media businesses and I don't think that in five years we're going to be like wasn't it so weird that there was a creator economy conference? It's going to be like well, yeah, I mean, the White House has like like science fairs at the White House. Like why not create our economy conferences?

0:18:30 - Mikah Sargent
Absolutely, I agree with you. All right, folks, we are going to take a quick break before we come back with my story of the week. I want to tell you about our first sponsor on the show, which is 1Password. All right, let's ask a question that I have a feeling I know the answer to Do your end users always work on company-owned devices and IT-approved apps? Yeah, I didn't think so. So how do you keep your company's data safe when it's sitting on all those unmanaged apps and devices? Well, 1password has an answer to this question. It's called extended access management. 1password, extended access management helps you secure every sign-in for every app on every device, because it solves the problems traditional IAM and MDM can't touch.

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And now it's time for my story of the week. So you may remember that Microsoft back in October or rather no, I'm sorry that Microsoft back in, I believe it was June told users that they were going to be able to try a new feature on Windows called Recall, and Recall was this feature that would basically kind of watch, so to speak, everything that you were doing, taking screenshots of everything that you're doing in your PC throughout the day and then holding that information locally and giving you the ability to use AI to kind of go back and look at what you'd been doing. So if you went to some websites and then you kind of forgot about it, you could ask, you could prompt the AI for help in recalling what you had been studying that day, what you'd been researching that day. Well, when the feature was first announced, people were not very happy about it. There was concern that it would be used as a tool for employers to spy on their employees which is funny because there are already tools to do that. There was concern that, because the snapshots were stored locally in a place that didn't seem very secure, that if someone had access to your machine then they would be able to gain access to those screenshots and potentially see things that you see, things that, uh, you would them rather not, you would not want to have other people see.

There were a lot of of initial, uh, concerned reactions about the feature.

Then Microsoft said, whoa, when we launch windows 11, we're not going to, uh, bring this out as part of the feature. It's going to be something that will come later. And then it was delayed and now it seems like this recall AI feature is going to be available for people to test in October. Now this is just for the folks who are kind of subscribed to Microsoft's testing program in order to actually try out these features, and so these are Windows Insiders. Basically, the internal testing and internal adjustments to Microsoft Recall needed to take place in order to improve the security failure to communicate what the feature is, how it works and what it isn't. I think that that was the big issue when it came to this feature, because the fear that folks had about this were kind of unrealized. It's a secure, local, private, on-device feature that would maintain that database locally and give you the ability to recall what was there. So I wanted to open this up, Amanda, to kind of talk about your initial thoughts about this feature.

0:24:49 - Amanda Silberling
But I think, more importantly, if something like this is at all of interest to you, yeah, I guess my initial reaction when the feature was announced was like feels a little creepy, like it's like watching me. I think that's like a pretty human response of like we all have these fears, of like our iphone is listening to me and like I mentioned uh buses yesterday, and now it's uh giving me bus recommendations. I don't know. I just saw a bus out the window and picked a noun and then was like I don't know, are people shopping for buses online?

But you know what I mean and I think that, even if it is like an on device thing that is not being shared in the cloud or whatever, I think that that initial skepticism will stick with a lot of people and I think sometimes that's like a barrier with new tech. That feels a little too like dystopian, for lack of a better word, but then at the same time, like it does seem like a useful feature I also worry about like how much does that slow down your computer if it needs to like record your screen all the time and like remember what you're doing? But um, I don't know. I mean I guess that's the purpose of having it roll out in beta, so people can test it.

0:26:13 - Mikah Sargent
Exactly, and that's the thing. It's in beta. It was never a feature that was going to ship to the public until it was ready, and I think that that is where there was a confusion on the public's part and, in some cases, the tech press's part, and there was a poorly communicated aspect from Microsoft itself in not explaining that this is a feature that we're looking at bringing. Here's what it is today. We're going to be taking feedback, for example, to dial in on what people will be comfortable with.

I have to say that, as a person who was diagnosed with ADHD back in college, I have over time, through a number of different techniques and therapy and everything, been able to manage that, but this feature seems 100% directed at me. I would love to have a feature like this on my devices that I know is secure. To be clear, that helps me remember things that have happened throughout the day, because I'm really not great at the different like note-taking and link-saving apps and stuff. What I have is an ongoing text message thread with myself and I just send myself links and images and that's the only thing that works for me. And I've tried loads of different apps and loads of different programs and services and none of them work, and so just sending it, and then that, I'll be honest with you, still really doesn't work.

I forget the things that are in there all the time. And then, every once in a while, I get this wild hair and I'm like this time I'm going to put it in one of these apps. And then I go looking in my messages and it's not there and I'm like, well, I wonder which app I put it in this time. So, having something like this, where I don't have to have any active role in saving this stuff, goodness gracious, I would love to have it. I think it sounds great, but I do want those protections in place and the absolute certainty because, you're right, there's a difference between sort of doing what you're doing and then doing what you're doing while someone quote unquote is watching, and it could shape your behavior and make you feel like you can't use your device how you once used your device.

0:28:52 - Amanda Silberling
Yeah, I'm thinking about even features like face ID on the iPhone, which, when you think about it, like kind of wild that my phone can recognize my face and use that to open or not open my phone. But like, because it's happening on device, I'm not super worried about it. Maybe I should be, who knows if apple is up to no good. But um, I mean, I think that if we have evidence that this is secure and remaining on your device, then it is interesting to think about how this kind of technology could help people that have ADHD or just need a different method of note-taking than writing stuff on a paper, because everyone's brains work differently and need different ways of remembering stuff.

0:29:47 - Mikah Sargent
As far as this goes, we're going to have to see what the official delay is going to look like. It's again been holding back the feature so many times when it will launch, if it's only going to launch on those Copilot Plus PCs, and how people react to it once it's actually out in the wild a little bit more. So you know, obviously security seems to be the biggest concern that Microsoft has about it, which makes sense, and it could mean that this feature doesn't make it into devices until next year. I mean, it is August and there aren't that many months left, so we'll have to see. Well, I believe that it is time for us to bid adieu to Amanda Silberling, who joins us from TechCrunch. We thank you so much for taking some time to join us today, and of course, folks can head over to techcrunchcom to check out your work. Is there anywhere else that people should go to keep up with what you're doing?

0:30:51 - Amanda Silberling
Yes, I co-host the podcast Wow of True, which is an internet culture podcast about how what is happening online impacts our real lives, and I think it's good. I think you should listen to it.

0:31:05 - Mikah Sargent
I think you should too. I absolutely do. Thank you so much, Amanda, for being here this week, and we'll see you again next month.

0:31:11 - Amanda Silberling
Yep, thank you Bye.

0:31:13 - Mikah Sargent
Bye-bye, alrighty folks, we've got a great interview up. Next it's all about the Google Pixel 9. But we'll take a quick break so I can tell you about our next sponsor, that is BetterHelp. We're bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly.

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Visit betterhelp.com/tnw today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp H-E-L-P.com/T-N-W. And we thank BetterHelp for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. All righty, we are back from the break and that means it's time for our next interview. This time we're talking about the Google Pixel 9. Lisa Edechiko of CNET is here to tell us about her time with Google's latest Pixel. Welcome back to the show, Lisa.

0:33:57 - Lisa Eadicicco
Thanks again for having me.

0:33:59 - Mikah Sargent
It is always a pleasure to have you join us, and, by golly, if people are listening to the audio, they should tune into the video as well, because Lisa has the coolest hair I've ever seen. Thank you, it is awesome, it is very great. So you had an opportunity to try out Google's latest Pixel devices and kind of see where they stand in this lineup of smartphones that are coming out that have, it seems, ai as a main feature, and so I wanted to ask you first, the Pixel 9, and Google, via Android, has introduced several new AI features. Which of these do you actually think will have the most significant impact on how people use their smartphones day to day? Because, you know, normally I'd put the dessert at the end, the AI stuff would go at the end, but I know people are wanting to know about it, and so we're going to kick it off with that, because that's how Google did when they announced their devices at the Made by Google event.

0:35:01 - Lisa Eadicicco
Absolutely, and it's something that I've been thinking about a whole lot this year because that's been the big theme of the year with new smartphones In terms of what I think is useful. I do think things like circle to search and the new Gemini overlay, which lets you kind of ask about the content that's on your screen using the Gemini virtual assistant. I think in the long term, it's changes like that that are actually going to be really helpful, Really, anything that stops us from having to jump between so many apps and switch between apps and copy and paste things all the time. I don't know how many people are actually using those features today, but it's those types of changes that I think will really pay off over the long term.

In terms of other features, with the Pixel 9, image generation and photo editing has been a big theme, and that's kind of what we saw from Samsung just last month as well with the Galaxy Z Fold 6.

And I do think those features can be helpful, but I'll be honest, I don't know how many people are actually using them. I've never taken a photo and said, wow, I really want that I don't know beautiful flower that I just took a picture of to be something entirely different, right. So maybe there is a use case for it that I'm just not seeing. I think people that want to create maybe fun photos to share with their friends and family will use it, as we've seen some reports highlighting the concerns about some of the really disturbing images you can make from the verge and digital trends, so that's also something that's top of mind in terms of how these tools will be used. But overall, a lot of these AI features do feel a little siloed, like they're there for one specific reason to generate an image, to edit an image, to translate a phone call, right. So what I'm really waiting for is the day when a lot of these AI changes kind of come together to make your phone feel more intelligent.

0:36:43 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, so you kind of talked there at the end about these siloed features, and it does make me wonder. You know you talk about how the features don't necessarily make it an upgrade worthy device on its own. What do you think that Google needs to do to make these AI capabilities more compelling for users? Is it just the use cases aren't there? Is it that they're communicating about them wrong? If you were in charge, what changes do you think would actually make this worthwhile? Or is it just the case that you know the AI stuff is just I don't know icing on top of the cake, as it were?

0:37:25 - Lisa Eadicicco
Yeah, I do think it's the case that some of this AI stuff is like a nice to have but not something that you really need right away, and I do think the use cases that will be really helpful are just gonna take a little bit more time.

I think devices have to get a little bit better at on-device processing, because I do think what's gonna make this useful is the idea that my phone knows my habits and it knows what I'm trying to do and it's making that easier somehow in terms of software. And, like I said, I think circle to search and the Gemini overlay are kind of the start of that. But I think for it to really go further, the only way people are really going to be super comfortable with that is if it happens on device. I also think there's reliability issues right now as well. We all know that large language models tend to hallucinate and in my experience using Gemini, it did give me some incorrect answers. So before we can really rely on it fully to help us do things and use it all the time and feel good about it, I do feel like we do have to wait for some of those hallucination issues to kind of, you know, become a thing of the past, or at least become reduced significantly enough where we feel comfortable trusting it.

0:38:33 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, I agree 100%. That's the thing that keeps me from making more use of AI, sort of in a general aspect. You know, I'm not going to do my Google searches in an AI because I'm worried that when I say can my dog eat cantaloupe, that it's going to tell me yes and then it turns out it's actually no because it's hallucinated something. So, yeah, there's definitely that hesitation that I have there about it and I wouldn't be surprised, if that's the case, for other people to make it just a more generally useful device. Now I'm curious kind of how the Pixel 9's design and build quality compares to previous Pixel models, because I think Google does a good job I feel, at least of kind of differentiating more so than you see from some other smartphone manufacturers between its models, and so I'm curious kind of if you see this as a big improvement and what improvements have been made if so.

0:39:32 - Lisa Eadicicco
Yeah, absolutely. I do see this as a big improvement and I really love the design of the Pixel 9. It's one of my favorite things about it. It's kind of just like subtle changes, like the camera bar doesn't stretch across the entire back of the phone. It kind of has this like floating island kind of look to it and for those of you watching, I do actually have it right here so you can kind of see it.

0:39:50 - Mikah Sargent
Oh, it's so pink.

0:39:51 - Lisa Eadicicco
Yeah, it's really pink, but it kind of like just floats there in the middle, which kind of makes the edges look a bit more seamless and kind of more exaggerated, which I really like. And I know I'm going to say this and I hope Google doesn't take it the wrong way but it does look more like an iPhone and I think that's kind of a good thing. I know a lot of people probably just put cases on their phones and might not even care, but for those of you who don't or just really want a phone that feels really well built, I think the Pixel 9 certainly delivers and the Pixel 8 was a little bit different. The edges were not quite as flat and, like the camera bar stretched across the device. It was still a really nice looking phone, but I'm glad that Google found a way to make the Pixel 9 look even nicer.

0:40:33 - Mikah Sargent
Nice yeah, and I've heard that the colors really just pop on it, and I think that stands out in comparison to another big smartphone manufacturer who always goes with those muted colors. So it's kind of cool to see that whimsy there from the company.

Let's talk about something that has always been, I feel, a big feature of the Pixel. I mean it's kind of in the name of the device. How does the camera setup on the Pixel 9 compare to its own predecessor? How does it stack up against competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S24? And I think a bigger question here is do you think these upgrades maybe address a key area where previous Pixel models were lacking?

0:41:18 - Lisa Eadicicco
So it's pretty similar to the Pixel 8's camera. The big difference here is that the ultra-wide camera has a 48-megapixel sensor, which is a higher resolution than the 12 megapixel one on the previous generation, and the biggest difference that I saw when I was comparing the two is that there's just more color in the ultra wide photos I took with the pixel 9, which is really nice and in terms of samsung. So a lot of this will depend on, I guess, what you prefer in a smartphone camera. Samsung tends to exaggerate colors a bit more, which sometimes people like that in a photo. Sometimes people want something that's more true to life. But the big thing that the Galaxy S24 has that the Pixel 9 does not is a dedicated telephoto camera. So if you really take a lot of zoomed in shots, maybe you go to a lot of sporting events or concerts, things like that. I do think that you kind of get more for your money and the Galaxy S24 might be the better option if you really care about having that Zoom camera.

0:42:13 - Mikah Sargent
Understood and then so, moving on kind of from the camera a feature of the camera that it is, it is an AI feature. You tested the new add me feature for group photos. Um, I'm curious kind of in general, because there was a good portion of this and I also spoke with Jason Howell uh of all about Android, about this feature, and he seemed pretty bullish on it. Um, but there is kind of a larger question here how do you see this type of computational photography evolving? How well do you feel the feature worked for you? And then, I think, more so, what challenges does it present in terms of authenticity in photography?

0:42:56 - Lisa Eadicicco
Yeah, that's a great question because it's something that I've been thinking about ever since we got magic editor last year, about authenticity and photos and same thing with best take. I do think that Admi is a little bit I don't know. There's something about best take and making someone smile in a photo that really rubbed me the wrong way. I think Admi feels a little less I don't want to say creepy, but creepy. But I also find, though, that it makes it kind of it's not as easy as it should be to use, and it's not because the software isn't good, it's just that it's a weird thing to do, right, like to take a photo, get in the photo, swap places with someone else, tell them to hold the camera and follow the lines. It's just that inherently feels like a clunky experience, and I don't know how to change that aspect of it. But I will say this it is really cool.

Like I've been reviewing phones for 10 years, a lot of them are the same. This was one thing that I looked at and was like oh, wow, that's crazy. I'm seeing this like holographic version of myself through my phone, and I'm not even sitting there anymore. So it is interesting. I just don't know how many people are actually going to use it, because I think 90% of the time it's just easier to ask someone else to take the photo, or sometimes you get really fun photos trying to take a selfie with it, like I don't know. I feel like the more we have these tools that help us make these artificially perfect photos, the more we're going to lose those like authentic moments of everyone trying to cram into a photo and things feeling natural. But that's just my opinion.

0:44:25 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, I think I think you might be on to something. Last question that I have for you what are your thoughts on, kind of the long term value of the Pixel 9, especially now that Google is saying, hey, you're going to have seven years of software updates? Do you think this is a device that has the legs to last that long?

0:44:47 - Lisa Eadicicco
Yeah, I mean, I hope so. I think the idea of holding onto your phone for a long time is great, because a lot of people won't upgrade their phone until they really have to, and, especially since google tends to take a lot of their features and bring them down to other phones that have the tensor chip, I do think that they will probably. Um, I mean, they haven't said this, they haven't mentioned anything about bringing new features to previous pixels, but they do tend to do that. So, um, I I do feel like it's hard to say, without holding on to it, seven years, but it's certainly in a good position to do so. That said, seven years is a long time, so by then, you might want something with a better camera or maybe some of those really cool AI things I was talking about earlier that aren't a reality yet will be a reality, like there might be other reasons you want to upgrade your phone, but I do think it's at least a nice ambition to have a phone that lasts for seven years.

0:45:40 - Mikah Sargent
Absolutely, I agree with you. Any other things that you'd like to say about the Pixel 9 that stood out to you before we? We bid you adieu.

0:45:51 - Lisa Eadicicco
No, I think we hit on basically all of the thoughts that I had around AI and the design and the camera. I think my take is that AI isn't really a reason to upgrade your phone yet and if you're already a fan of Pixel devices, you'll like the Pixel 9 for a lot of the other reasons that you've already liked Pixels, like the camera, the design, things like that. So yeah, that's kind of my takeaway.

0:46:12 - Mikah Sargent
Awesome. Folks should, of course, head over to CNETcom to check out your full review. Lots of great photos in it, lots of information worth checking out. So again, cnetcom. But if folks want to keep up with what you're doing, what's the best way for them to do that?

0:46:29 - Lisa Eadicicco
Yeah, absolutely. So you can follow me on X. My handle is just at Lisa at a Chico, and you can also find me on threads under the same handle. And then, of course, there's seen that's YouTube channel, where you'll find my video reviews.

0:46:41 - Mikah Sargent
Alrighty Lisa, thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate it.

0:46:45 - Lisa Eadicicco
Great. Thank you so much.

0:46:47 - Mikah Sargent
Folks up. Next, we've got another great interview, this time about the Samsung Galaxy Ring. Before that, though, I do want to tell you a little bit about Club TWiT twit.tv/clubtwit. If you head there, $7 a month gets you access to the club. When you join the club, you will get access to some great things. First and foremost, you get every single TWiT show ad free. It's just the content, none of the ads, because you, in effect, are the sponsor of the show, so we'd love to have you join us there Again, $7 a month twit.tv/clubtwit.

On top of that, you gain access to some other great benefits the TWiT+ bonus feed. That has extra content you won't find anywhere else behind the scenes before the show. After the show, special Club TWiT events get published there. The Club TWiT Discord server a fun place to go to chat with your fellow Club TWiT members and also those of us here at TWiT We'd love to see you there and access to the video versions of our Club TWiT shows, including two that I do iOS Today and Hands-On Mac. So consider joining the Club twit.tv/clubtwit. All right, we are back from that break and now it is time. I'm very excited to be talking to Sharam Mokhtari of iFixit, who joins us after breaking down tearing apart the Samsung Galaxy Ring. Welcome back to the show. It's been a long time it's been a couple of years.

0:48:20 - Shahram Mokhtari
Good to be back, Micah. Thank you for having me. Yeah, good to have you here.

0:48:22 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, such a pleasure. So I think you know I've got some questions planned. But first and foremost, I am just curious when it comes to something that is more novel like this you know there aren't a whole lot of other smart rings out there how does iFixit go about preparing for a teardown like this? Is there precedent at all to draw on? What does that look like when it comes to figuring out okay, we're going to tear this down. Or is it just like you get it in hand and you're going all right, let's make it work?

0:49:02 - Shahram Mokhtari
You know, sometimes it is like that To some extent. The Apple Vision Pro is a good example, because we hadn't had a device from Apple that was a VR headset and it turned out that the entry into the device was pretty novel. So we kind of drew on our past experience as much as we could on other VR headsets, but when it arrived we kind of had to go for it. The Galaxy Ring Apologies was somewhat like that. One of my colleagues had torn down the Ura Ring Gen 2, I believe it was. So there is some institutional experience there that we draw on, but a lot of it. Especially with new devices.

You don't know what they've changed. You don't know what's going to be new. Sometimes the opening procedures are different. In fact, we're tearing down the Pixel 9 today and we've already run into a couple of surprises. You just kind of go with it, you go with the flow. Generally speaking, eventually there's going to be a way in and it can be pretty similar across devices. It might not be the same as the pixel 8, but you might find there's some similarities with the iphone 14 and that can be fun to discover all right, so let's talk about it then.

0:50:12 - Mikah Sargent
What are the main findings from the teardown of samsung's galaxy ring? And then how do they compare? To compare to the few similar devices that are out there, like the Aura Ring?

0:50:23 - Shahram Mokhtari
I'm not sure that there's any surprises here. At least, I don't feel that there was any specific, very exciting find in there. We were expecting it to be a disposable device. It's very difficult to manufacture a device this small, this thin, designed to be on your finger day in, day out and not seal it up.

So we were expecting to see another disposable device like the Oura Ring, and it is similar to the Oura Ring in a lot of ways, and the Oura Ring also borrows from smart rings that came before it, and the Dior ring also bought rows from smart rings that came before it. It has to be ring-shaped, because those are the dimensions you're working with, and you have to pack in a tiny battery of some sort. Every electronic these days is powered by lithium polymer batteries or lithium ion cells, and with smart rings in particular, you're looking at a few photodiodes and a few leds that flash a particular color, say green, and picks up the reflection from that color to measure your blood oxygen, blood oxygen levels, things like that. Now you have to pack all that into this tiny little device and unfortunately in the consumer market these do become disposable devices then.

0:51:41 - Mikah Sargent
Because it is so miniaturized and it all has to be kind of just stuck in there, the best that they could do. So there was something that you found the press connector in the Galaxy Ring. Can you talk about the significance of that? Can you talk about the significance of that when it comes to maybe being a manufacturing decision as opposed to a user-friendly choice?

0:52:04 - Shahram Mokhtari
Sure, sure, and that was surprising for us too. So we partnered up with LumaField for this one. They produce these amazing CT scans and we had three orders of these rings. Only one of them arrived. The other two got cancelled. So the one we did receive we sent to Lumenfield to scan for us, and one of the first things that stood out was this press connector.

A press connector for those that don't know. It's a connector type that attaches to a flexible cable that usually you'll see it run to things like your battery inside your mobile phone, and it's an easy connector to deal with. You put a small plastic spudger underneath the connector and pop it up, and it allows you to quickly and easily replace a degrading battery. What's interesting in this case is that you have a press connector in a device that you'll never be able to reach. So from that we can draw the conclusion that it's not made for the consumer. It's not made for repair. That was never the intention, because it's impossible to get to it after you have the finished product.

The only thing that leaves you and I think it's an educated guess on our part, but a reasonable one the components for the device. I actually have the guts here in my hand. Components for the device actually have the guts. Here in my hand you have the, the brains of the device, where all the ICS and the sensors are, and this is the part that has the press connector on it. There's a battery here and a inductive coil that attaches to the battery and the whole thing will attach to the main body through that press connector.

This has to be a cost-saving measure of some sort for Samsung. They probably designed, not designed. They probably manufactured this in one place, manufactured this in another place and had to bring them together on a production line somewhere. That's probably what made financial sense to the manufacturer. All the same, interesting, and we looked at if you check out our blog posts on it. We looked at the Oura Ring Gen 3 that LumaFuel kindly scanned and sent for us, and the Oura Ring Gen 3 uses slaughter points because that's kind of it's low profile. It's what you would expect to see in a device that is not user accessible. There's no need to use a press connector, but interesting.

0:54:20 - Mikah Sargent
So then let's talk about how the design and you touched on this a little bit, the design of the Galaxy Ring itself makes it a disposable tech accessory, like what about? It specifically takes it from being a device that people could A fix themselves or B better recycle in some way, and puts it squarely into the territory of it's got to be tossed after the battery dies.

0:54:54 - Shahram Mokhtari
Yeah, yeah, the battery dies, yeah. So unfortunately, with consumer electronics, like so many things, like plastics, we've just gotten into the habits of believing that it's okay to manufacture and make things that are one use. Sometimes that might be the case. You might find some life-saving situations where you absolutely should do something like that. Nobody's arguing that there aren't cases where it's justified, but something like consumer piece of technology where you have a smartwatch that is potentially repairable, that can do all the same things, but you're still manufacturing a low profile device like this with a sealed battery, and that sealed battery is what makes this device disposable. You're making a tiny device with a sealed battery that you cannot replace.

A lot of people are unaware. Lithium-based batteries do have an expiry date, so there's a certain number of cycles you can go through. If you're a tech savvy, you probably know this, but a lot of people genuinely don't. There's a certain number of life cycles that lithium polymer battery can take. So after 400, 500 cycles, you'll see all over the forums Oura rings are failing. Oura rings are failing after a year and a half, after two years, if they don't have any manufacturing effects.

And what do you do with a device that has epoxy and plastic all the way on the inside sealing that battery in. You can't remove that epoxy without destroying the device. It messes up the sensors, it messes up the board, it's just impossible. So all you can do is throw the device away. But we're knowingly manufacturing these right and as consumers, we're knowingly buying these and people need to realize the lifespan of this thing is a year and a half, two years. If you get any more, great, fantastic. If you could get seven years, I would have less of an argument to say well, you know, at seven years you still have to do something with it. But at least. At least it's extending the lifetime of that piece of electronics and not contributing so much to our e-waste problem that we have right now globally.

0:57:00 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, it's tough because they do a good job of showing these flashy things that everybody needs and that you think you need, and it's stuff like this happens. I mean, you make something that's not you know. Oh well, we had to get it out there. I know that we could do it better, but we had to get. No, you don't really have. So let's talk a little bit about the challenges that you experienced in trying to disassemble the galaxy ring. I mean, you, in a way you've kind of touched on it's the thing that doesn't come apart. But what was it? A lot of um heating that needed to be done. Was it dremeling, like what was involved? It actually taken this thing apart. So I.

0:57:51 - Shahram Mokhtari
I was desperate to get some really good photos out of this. This was my, this was my first smart ring that I was disassembling and I wanted all the chips to be in place. I wanted everything to remain in place so we could run our chip ID, identify everything and just get some really neat shots of this right? Because at the end of the day, yes, it's a consumable device, but it's still a cool piece of tech. I like tech. I want this to come apart easily.

Um, I spent maybe close to two hours with a reflow station, which is that's like a heat gun. Um, yeah and um, I was directing heat all the way around the epoxy slowly. Uh, with the heat gun in one hand, uh, this and a little clamp in the center and a dental pick in my other hand. I was literally slowly chipping away at the epoxy as it melted as I went around. That was a good hour, hour and a half.

Within the first couple of minutes of applying heat, the battery pack actually burst. It let out a. I could smell it. It's a tiny battery pack, so it was never going to be much of an issue. In fact, the battery on this thing was dead when it arrived to us. This ring was non-functional when we received it on day one Manufacturing defect of some kind on the battery pack, which goes to show why you should have repairable devices. What happens when your battery dies? Well, ours died on day one, apparently, but that pack exploded. It let out some noxious fumes through the epoxy that had opened up, but that also gave me an entryway into removing the rest of the epoxy. Fiddly work, very tedious, had to be done with a lot of patience to get to the point where I can actually have functional press connectors to actually demo in our photos.

0:59:41 - Mikah Sargent
Wow, oh my goodness. Yeah, that's kind of scary. I guess now this is a little off topic, but I'm curious to ask what's the most dangerous experience, if you can think of it, that you've had as an iFixit teardown expert? Can you think? Back to something that was like whoa.

1:00:10 - Shahram Mokhtari
That's a super easy one. A colleague of mine, myself and a colleague, uh, we took this massive battery pack, this thing, um, I don't know where it came from. It was designed to be in something to operate something very large for extended periods of time, uh, and we intentionally punctured that battery. We have a video on our youtube channel uh, my colleague Arthur, she ran up to it in a full space suit, fire retardant gear and used the nail gun to punch a bunch of holes into that battery pack and this thing ignites. It shows the danger. It was an overcharged battery pack. So you know, for context, it was overcharged already. It was at maximum. It was at 110% capacity, if you like, full of energy, and when you release that energy it comes out quite violently and quite spectacularly. I'm a bit of a pyromaniac, so it was quite fun, dangerous but fun.

1:01:09 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, from a distance.

Yeah, from a distance. So this is my kind of final question for you, because you folks do a fantastic job of A making repair manuals available online. You folks come up a lot in when people are asking me questions about the devices that they have. I often am able to point them to you and say, hey, you can get this kit. And say, hey, you can get this kit.

As an aside, when I was, I think, middle school maybe I got the best Christmas gift I think I've ever gotten, which was a Kindle keyboard, and I had that thing for years, used it all the time, loved it, loved it, loved it. The battery unfortunately, as we've talked about, expired. It went bad and through iFixit I was able to get a replacement and learn how to replace it. And then, once again, at some point, that battery went bad and so I was able to fix it again and replace it, and so it's just keeping this thing that I've had for so long. That means so much to me around and I've always appreciated that.

And I appreciate these teardowns too, because they point to what is repairable, what's not. I love getting to repair stuff myself, but the question I have is. Are there any companies that you're seeing that, when it comes to these smaller products, they're doing it the right way? And does iFixit have any concept for what it would look like to do something that is as small as that is the right way? Or is it just that, look, these small things are just not doable right now because we don't have the technology? Look, these small things are just not doable right now because we don't have the technology. Is there a way to make it as miniaturized as that needs to be and still make it repairable In your mind?

1:03:08 - Shahram Mokhtari
is that a possibility? I think you've provided part of the answer, that last section you just said do we have the technology to make this happen? I would argue for something like this no, we do not have the technology to make it happen in a sustainable manner, and we need to put sustainability front and center in everything we do. That is important. That is very, very important at this stage in our species development. So, yes, I think you've got part of the answer absolutely correct. At the same time, we are a species that put people on the moon with devices with the power of a 1980s calculator, 1970s calculator. I don't know. There's that famous comparison there between the Apollo 11 computer had so much memory. We can do amazing things when we put our minds to it.

Do we have the technology to do this. It doesn't seem so, at least not in a sustainable manner, but I might be wrong. There are things like supercapacitors out there that mix capacitive materials with lithium battery technology and they have a much longer lifespan. So if you can make something like this with a 10-year lifespan, it becomes far more palatable in our ability to justify making it with the resources we have, with the longevity that we need to achieve. As for other items, other technologies, other manufacturers and companies, there are definitely steps being taken, very positive, very large steps are starting to be taken to make repairable products, to make products that do last a good long time. Seven years is the standard we like to hold up. If you can make your laptop, your mobile phone, your smartwatch last seven years, that's a really good thing. It's a step well above the two to three years that we see among consumer electronics these days, and manufacturers are starting to do that. They're starting to make things.

We looked at the Microsoft um tablets, the recent Microsoft surface tablets that were released. Compare those to what they made just five, six, seven years ago. It's leaps and bounds different. You've got, you've gone from a tablet that you had to literally you have to destroy the keyboard on the Surface laptop to get the battery and today you've got things like plastic brackets with screws that neatly allow you to remove everything and the battery becomes the first thing that is accessible. It's an amazing change and it shows the kind of advocacy that iFixit is doing. Other people out there, environmental groups, are doing, but iFixit is doing. Other people out there, environmental groups, are doing. They're bringing e-waste to the attention of manufacturers and saying, hey, I know you don't think about these things when you're designing, but you can do it. It can be part of your design process. It doesn't have to be a long-term cost. Think of it as a green company, but also your investment into your own children's future and your grandchildren's future. Right, because at the end of the day, none of us are getting off this rock.

There's only one way off it, and uh well, at least until Elon fixes that we'll see about that.

1:06:22 - Mikah Sargent
That. We'll see about that, thank you, thank you. Thank you. That was a great answer and I have to say I had only considered, you know, I hadn't considered that if something lasts much longer, that that's also an acceptable option. But, yeah, that makes sense. You know, I kind of was always thinking of it as it needs to be repairable and replaceable, or you can make it last a lot longer than one to two years. And, yeah, a 10-year ring makes a whole lot more sense and I think compares to even actual jewelry that exists, where after 10 years it might get worn down and needs to be replaced, or what have you. So, yeah, that that totally makes, um, makes a lot of sense. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. I know you've got a lot on your plate. Um, of course, folks can head to ifixit.com to check out the work that you're doing. Is there anywhere else they should go, maybe? Uh, how they can find the YouTube and how they can keep up to date with what you're doing.

1:07:18 - Shahram Mokhtari
You can find us on YouTube. We write a lot of blog posts. We do some teardowns, some analysis. We do a lot of environmental and advocacy work as well. You can find all of that on our website, and, especially if you've got something broken and you want to figure out how to fix it, please check our website. Ask questions in our forum. If you can't find what you need, someone will come running to help you keep that device out of the waste pile, and it's also my genuine pleasure to be back here. Thank you so much, Mikah.

1:07:48 - Mikah Sargent
Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it and look forward to having you on again soon. All righty folks, that is going to bring us to the end of this episode of Tech News Weekly. This show publishes every Thursday at twit.tv/tnw. That is where you can go to subscribe to the show in audio and video formats.

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