Tech News Weekly 442 Transcript

Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Tech News Weekly, Dan Moren of Six Colors is here. We talk about the warning from Tim Cook that Apple's prices are going to increase, plus discuss dumping Roku after its potential acquisition. Patrick Holland of CNET stops by to give us the lowdown on Android 17 now that it's finally here. And I share a warning about how hackers have found a backdoor into many an American home. All of that coming up on Tech News Weekly.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:39]:
This is Tech News Weekly. Episode 442 with Dan Moren and me, Mikah Sargent. Recorded Thursday, June 18, 2026. Android 17's best new features explained. Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking that tech. Your host, Mikah Sargent. And we are typically joined by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of the Verge this week, but JPT will be joining us next week. In her place today is the wonderful east coast bureau chief of Six Colors.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:16]:
It's Dan Morin. How you doing, Dan?

Dan Moren [00:01:19]:
I'm doing well, Mikah. I'm glad to know I'm the utility infielder of Tech News Weekly. I can third base, shortstop, second base, first base. I can do it all. Just call me. Call me up whenever you need me from the dugout.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:31]:
I will call you up when I need you from the dugout. And I will call you up when I need baseball metaphors I do not understand.

Dan Moren [00:01:36]:
Excellent. Good. I've got a billion of them.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:38]:
That's fantastic. I am proud of myself that I did know it was baseball though. That's good.

Dan Moren [00:01:42]:
So I guess next I was a real swing and a miss is what I'm saying.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:46]:
I get that one too. Haha. Cricket. Anyway, let's go ahead and get into the show. In case you didn't know this welcome. Or if you've been here before and you didn't know what's going on. In any case, this is the part of the show where we share our stories the week. These are the stories we find interesting or maybe frightening.

Mikah Sargent [00:02:04]:
And for whatever reason, we want to share them with you. Am I selling it? I hope so. Our first story of the week comes from you, Dan. Tell us all about it.

Dan Moren [00:02:14]:
Yeah, you know, it's always an interesting moment when a CEO has to go talk to a news publication, and even more so when they have to deliver some bad news. And this week we got to see Apple CEO Tim Cook do just that when he went to talk to the Wall Street Journal and tell them that sadly Apple is going to have to raise prices. This is not a thing that they do very much. It happens occasionally from time to time and mostly it's to keep up with the state of the world. And in that case today, this week, the. The state of the world is bad. No, the state of certain markets in the world are bad, specifically memory chips. You've probably heard this if you are a follower of Tech News, but RAM and SSD, Flash, you know, NAND chips are both in a demand right now in large part because of the huge increase in artificial intelligence usage.

Dan Moren [00:03:09]:
Apple is jockeying a lot more for position with its suppliers, a position that it's, it's previously been able to kind of lock down by the fact that they've got this huge business that's very predictable, very seasonal. Right, okay, we know we need a bunch of new iPhones in the fall. We know we're going to need X million gigabytes of RAM and Y million gigabytes of storage. And so they kind of negotiate these deals ahead of the time. But we've seen in tremendous increases in demand and that has led to tremendous increases in price. According to the Journal, memory prices in particular DRAM have gone from in Q1 2023 to now have risen almost 900% which is a whole lot of percents. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money.

Dan Moren [00:04:00]:
I mean the Journal has a graph of this and it is scary looking. And so you know, between that and, and Flash storage going up, they're expecting the storage on, on NAN to sort of even out. But it looks like RAM for the moment is going up even even further. I guess that 900 is an estimate of where it might be next year. Right now it's still, it's only, only 600 or so percent. Sorry. And you know, people want devices. You know, lots of people are buying both consumer level, you know, products as well as especially these high end servers and server like computers to do things like run artificial intelligence agents or train models, etc.

Mikah Sargent [00:04:43]:
This is.

Dan Moren [00:04:44]:
Look, it's always been the case with computer technology that there are certain processes that things like, you know, can eat as much memory and storage as you're willing to give them. And so that's one of the reasons I think when I often we counsel the people to buy computers, we say buy as much RAM as you can afford because there's always more RAM is always useful. But AI in particular is incredibly voracious when it comes to that because the more RAM and storage you can throw at it. The more complex and powerful you can make these models by feeding them more and more information. AI truly will take as much RAM as you can throw at it. So there's no ceiling on it. There's no point at which it's like, well, it becomes less efficient for us to have. You know, there's sort of a sweet spot.

Dan Moren [00:05:22]:
No, it's just you keep feeding it ram. And so since we have that, and we have tons and tons of companies looking to do that, obviously more and more demand and that means less supply for companies like Apple that want to be able to lock in these prices in advance. So taking an unprecedented move, you know, Tim Cook going out there and letting people know they're going to have to raise prices. As he says, we're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us. And we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but that situation has become unsustainable. To me, that reads like Apple was willing to take a bath on its gross margin for a while because it was intent on trying to see if it could ride this out and basically not upcharge consumers. And it took that approach as well with tariffs from everything. No, during the whole, like, up and downs of tariffs, Apple kept its prices pretty steady and I don't think suffered too much financially as a consequence.

Dan Moren [00:06:18]:
But it's clear that because there's no respite in sight from these high prices, Apple is going to have to adjust their pricing. And of course, the other shoe that he doesn't drop here, but I think you can kind of read between the lines, is when prices go up, they rarely come down again. So I think we can expect to see some higher prices. Apple has some tools available as disposal because it can take sort of a holistic look at its entire product line and say, well, something like the MacBook Neo, which kind of exists predicated on this low price point, we can kind of peg that and keep that stable. But that may mean raising prices on higher cost products that we think are less subject to that because the people willing to pay those high prices are willing to pay a little bit more for the products that they want. And you have this additional pricing tool of a few products that we kind of expect to be coming down the pipeline but have not arrived yet, which do not have price tags affixed to them. So, for example, that much removed foldable iPhone that's coming in September, which we are already expecting to be expensive, nobody knows what it's going to cost. So Apple can charge whatever they want for it and nobody can say, but that's more expensive than it was before because the product didn't exist before.

Dan Moren [00:07:32]:
Similarly, the touchscreen MacBook Pro that we're expecting to show up either late this year or early next year, nobody knows where that is on the price point. So they could basically adjust that and hope to make up some ground from that. So, yeah, I mean, the biggest question is we're going into the set of the back half of the year. Apple traditionally sells a lot of stuff in its holiday quarter towards the end of the year. Obviously, people are very price sensitive right now. And so the question is, will these higher prices impact consumers buying habits in the holiday season and will that impact Apple's bottom line? We just don't know. But we're going to have to keep an eye out as we move into the fall.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:07]:
Something that sticks out to me about this in general is, you know, we see after WWDC and events that Apple has press events, announcements that come by way of interviews, right. With. With different publications. And so you'll see head of software talking to the Wall Street Journal or someone and kind of detailing a little bit more about whatever it was that they didn't have an opportunity to get out on stage or they felt like they needed to go into more detail. But it feels, and this is where I hope you'll correct me if I'm wrong, like, it's been a while since we've had such direct and clear,

Dan Moren [00:08:53]:
what

Mikah Sargent [00:08:53]:
could be termed negative information directly from the company. Right. You'll get, oh, we've got headwinds and we've got this, we've got that. But for an article that is straight up, just Tim Cook saying, look, the price increases are going to happen. Seems like it is a unique thing, at least in a while. What do we think that this is just, I mean, we've also got a CEO transition happening. We've got all this other stuff. There's a part of me that wants to ascribe more to this about, like, well, we can let Tim say the bad news because he's about to move to a different role.

Dan Moren [00:09:31]:
I don't think that's wrong. I think that that is the reason Tim Cook is out here saying that so he doesn't have to, you know, John Ternus, who's the incoming Apple CEO, is expected to take over September 1st. I don't think he wants his first note to be. And I, I, John Ternus have rolled in and decided to raise all the prices Right. That doesn't look good for him. It's not a great foot to start his new tenure on, especially because, you know, we're expecting him to be a long term CEO, right. Like this guy's been in Apple as a lifer. So I think he wants to be able to come in with sort of the decks cleared.

Dan Moren [00:10:03]:
And there's no, there's no harm to Tim coming out and saying this, right? He is a, you know, lame duck CEO as it were. And so him coming out and given the bad news is I think a very, very savvy thing to do. I'm interested that they did it at this particular moment. I think part of that is, you know, a lot of the, the world is still sort of looking at the stuff from, from wwdc. I noticed, I couldn't help but notice as I looked at the byline on this, the dateline on this, that came out at 5 o', clock, which is after the markets close. So you know, there's no question here that they're kind of trying to soft pedal, especially five o' clock before a, a long weekend in the U.S. a holiday weekend. You know, if they really wanted to bury it, I guess they could have done it Today, Thursday at 5:00 o', clock, coasted that right into that three day weekend.

Dan Moren [00:10:50]:
But it still feels like something they're trying to put out there, but also not let take over the news cycle. And of course we haven't seen the price increases either, right? This is advanced knowledge. You might see strategic leaks like this from time to time. Famously, of course, the Journal had a scoop that the, the iPad when it debuted would be under a thousand dollars. And then of course Apple came in, you know, much lower than that. But that was a planted leak. This is a CEO on the record saying these things, which is a very different, very different beast not noted in here is how much. Right.

Dan Moren [00:11:24]:
Those prices could be. I mean a price increase of 5% or a price increase of 10% might look very different. And again, that sort of talks to the overall calculus of does Apple kind of act strategically here? I doubt that we're going to see a price increase across the board. I don't think they're going to be like every single thing we sell is going to be X percent more expensive. I don't think that that really makes sense for the way they run their business. I think we're going to see sort of strategic and targeted price increases on specific types of products, maybe even models within that, maybe even things like customizations within that. Right. Like, for a long time, Apple has been, I think Apple was buffered a little bit here because, you know, anybody you ask will tell you that Apple's prices for its RAM upgrades have always been on the high side compared to what you could do if you could buy your own ram.

Dan Moren [00:12:12]:
In recent years, you haven't been able to do that because of the way Apple builds its computers. But I think they had a little bit of buffer there and were able to say we can absorb this much in terms of fluctuations in the market, but now that it's hit such a level at such a sustained period, they can no longer kind of subsidize that. So, yeah, it's, it's a lot of interesting questions. I'm not sure we'll see anything before the fall just because the summer tends to be kind of a fallow period. And we know there are new products coming in the pipeline, but it will be really interesting to see how they handle it.

Mikah Sargent [00:12:43]:
Absolutely. Yep. And we will be keeping an eye on it, of course. All right, we do need to take a quick break before we come back with my story of the week. All right, we are back from the break, joined this week by Dan Morin of Six Colors. And I have a piece that I found over on Engadget that I think is really worth talking about. If you out there own a Roku, I mean, a lot of people do, whether it's a Roku TV or a Roku smart box or something in between. There is, of course, some concern going forward, and Devendra Hardawar thinks that it could be time to throw it out.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:25]:
Hardawar argues that the era of Roku as a friendly independent streaming box is over, and that's because of a blockbuster deal. Fox's proposed $22 billion acquisition of Roku. Hardawar says he was already souring on the company as it shifted from a simple set top maker into an ad and data machine with a clunky interface that still can't easily switch between apps. But handing the keys to Fox, Devendra writes, is the last straw, frankly, because it's time to consider what you are buying, what you are sort of being willing to put up with and what data is being shared. You know, you can think of this piece as kind of a consumer rights manifesto, also a little bit of a eulogy for Roku. Pour one out for the original Roku, and frankly, you know, it comes down to whether it's a good idea to, to sort of keep supporting the company and keep hoping that it will continue to be what people want it to be versus you know, moving on while there's still time to find something else. So let' of talk about this because frankly the complaint begins before we even get to the Fox Steel. Hardawar was saying that, you know, watching Roku transform from being a simple set top box provider to a money making machine driven by ad sales and data collection was enough to make him go.

Mikah Sargent [00:15:04]:
I don't know about this. There was the moment that Roku added Alex Jones Infowars channel. That's after it was blocked by YouTube, by Apple, by Twitter, by Facebook. And Roku did reverse the decision after users complained, but it was an odd thing to add it after it had been blocked entirely by others. And then there's the software too. The simplistic OS might be just a little bit too simple because it doesn't let you easily jump between different apps. But that Fox acquisition is the biggest kind of red flag at this point and kind of the thing that made hard of our feel like it was time to move on. I wanted to ask you Dan, are you rocking a or multiple set top boxes in your home? What is your fan? Does your family do they go Roku, what do things look like for you?

Dan Moren [00:15:56]:
Yeah, I'm pretty much exclusively an Apple TV user. We only have one television and that's. It's got Apple TV on it. That's the main interface. I got my parents an Apple TV years ago which they use. I think people tend to use either that or their built in, you know, TVs apps if they have them. I It's been a long time since I've used a Roku. I'm not sure I've ever owned a Roku.

Dan Moren [00:16:16]:
I am, I own some of the Amazon Fire TVs in various points and maybe some of the Google options as well. But I never really delved in Roku but I know people who really like them and prefer them. But I understand all of these criticisms, especially Fox's acquisition. It seems like something that it is an interesting acquisition too, right? Because it gives them this weird little inroad where it comes to all of the stuff that's on your tv, not just producing content, but worrying about software and, and hardware and all of those things and kind of makes me wonder whether or not the software and hardware is long for this world because so much of it seems to be driven by things like ad sales and because you know, Roku has its, its ad supported Roku channel and as, as this story notes, Foxbot to be back in 2020 as well, which also required them to divest a 5% stake in Roku. And so it feels to me like maybe that ads supported network thing is, is more in alignment with what Fox is trying to do. And so I'm kind of curious to know whether or not they actually intend to hold on to all of the hardware and software that they are, they are making. But yeah, I don't know, I, I, I can't. It must be a difficult world for Roku, I'm thinking getting squeezed out by things like, not just the premium experiences that things like the Apple TV offer, but then the integration for the larger companies, whether it's Apple or Google.

Dan Moren [00:17:47]:
You know, they obviously have huge advantages because they play within their own ecosystems. And then on top of that, things like the Fire TV again, huge play with Amazon's ecosystem and low prices that get subsidized by the fact that, you know, it's supported by Amazon. Where does Roku, a little independent, you know, maker of hardware sit in this world that the, when the point is that these systems have become so commoditized. On the other side of that you also have the fact, as I said, that TVs tend to have these apps built in now. And so I gotta imagine that Roku is hitting a little bit of a squeeze there when it comes to, well, how, how much is it worth it for us to continue to build physical hardware and maintain software when maybe we just make our services available on other platforms and that's where our money making opportunity is.

Mikah Sargent [00:18:37]:
Yeah. So in my home most of what we have is Apple tv. The main space has an Apple TV in it and that is the way that we watch most of what we watch. But we do have two televisions that are TCL Roku TVs that are now just called Roku TVs. And on both of those the built in Roku is enough. But what Hardawar specifically is discussing here about not being able to switch between apps and it is very much the case. It's like I wish that I could buy a little bit of extra RAM and pop it in there because it is slow to switch between things. Sometimes you hit a button and it doesn't go back and then you wait a second and then it goes back.

Mikah Sargent [00:19:28]:
And so there's just, it's, they're very underpowered when it's just built into the tv. And that's kind of annoying especially when you are used to that more premium experience that frankly you do get with the Apple tv. In fact in our chat, Moose Espionage, says after using an Apple tv, the ad ridden horrible interfaces of the other platforms make me recoil in horror whenever I see them. Of course, speaking with a little bit of, of, of hyperbole. But the fact is, yes, you look at, you launch the Roku and there's some sort of ad popped up in the lower left hand corner and there's always different recommendations and things that are being presented to you that are kind of obnoxious. And I think also there's the fact that a lot of people don't go in and turn off some of the content scanning features and, and everything else that helps to subsidize. But I think that people are becoming more aware of that and I do wonder how much of that is eating into what was once a means of profit or at least revenue for Roku as people kind of look to reclaim their privacy. And so I, you know, obviously don't know the percentage of people who turn that stuff off versus keep it on versus care about it or do not.

Mikah Sargent [00:20:51]:
But I do find it interesting that that is also part of it. Regardless, you know, it is a little bit frustrating to see what feels like an accessible platform, financially, an accessible platform being gobbled up. It is the way of things. It's unfortunate that it's the way of things. It is. You know, I'm not surprised by this, but I do think that it is unfortunate that it has gone this simply because I liked that there. I like that there is.

Patrick Holland [00:21:26]:
Yeah.

Mikah Sargent [00:21:27]:
An option. An option, exactly.

Dan Moren [00:21:28]:
I mean, I think it's just really hard to make. It's just unfortunately really hard to have a business that is a, you know, niche business. And especially a niche business that I think is not a high end business. Right, like, because sooner or later your stuff is going to get commoditized and taken out on the lower end. Buy things, things like TV apps or your streaming box from your cable provider. They have apps or streaming options on them now. Right. So it's a very vulnerable business and it's unfortunate, but unfortunately that is the way I feel the same way oftentimes about.

Dan Moren [00:22:01]:
Saw somebody writing about Logitech Harmony this week. The. The universal remote and is the dream of the universal remote dead? And the answer is those, those universal remotes still technically work even though they're no longer being supported. But in a world where every TV you buy and every box you get from your cable provider has a remote with some sort of possible capability to handle these things, it's really hard for an individual company that is just dependent on making that product Survive. It's a lot of overhead, it's a lot of work to manufacture something. And I think Roku is realizing that maybe it's, it's coming to the end of its, its line there.

Mikah Sargent [00:22:43]:
Yeah. Now Roku of course was originally incubated by Netflix, became that independent space that made it so that TVs,

Patrick Holland [00:22:56]:
they are

Mikah Sargent [00:22:57]:
in some ways responsible for the modern smart tv. And you know, of course we've seen Roku get into the, this kind of home theater, but again more accessible home theater where these devices were more cost friendly and so more people were able to access smart sound and excuse me, home theater sound and surround sound. And that is really cool. You know that that was part of the, part of the history of this company. But seeing that this acquisition is, you know, something that they're, that we're now faced with, that we're now confronted with, it is a matter of once again watching right, what happens next. Devindra Hardawar sort of puts out a bleak future where things get rather drastic on the platform of using it as a means of selling and pushing different Fox properties. We don't know if that's going to end up being the case. We don't know until we see that.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:08]:
But certainly, you know, you may be wondering where to go next. It is hard. It is difficult to suggest the Apple TV as an easy replacement for Roku because of its cost. It is I think a, a really good experience, particularly if you're in the Apple ecosystem. If you're not, then things do get a little bit more complicated. I suppose that, you know, any Google TV style product that's available at this point might be okay. Samsung has its own take on smart tv but you have to, it has to be the, the full TV purchase. So yeah, I don't know.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:52]:
Dan, do you Maybe a refurbed 1080p Apple TV like what would you recommend for people?

Dan Moren [00:25:00]:
I mean I always recommend the Apple tv. About that is because I'm firmly entrenched in the, in the Apple ecosystem. You may be able to find deals on them, you know, on Amazon and other places but they are expensive and I get it, I get it from people who don't want to do that. I do think Google certainly offers a cheaper option. I have not personally used a lot of the Google interface for that. I know some people still like, I mean with the budget stuff, the, the Amazon will sell you a, you know, fire stick for right now, for prime day it looks like for 25 bucks. Right. It's hard to argue with the cost Then again, as I said, a lot of that sort of gets subsidized by the idea that you are not only an Amazon subscriber, but there are ads, etc, right? Amazon loves itself some ads.

Dan Moren [00:25:45]:
So for that, if you are, if you are allergic to ads in your experience, then the Apple TV is for certain the best option that you're going to see. But it is, it comes at a premium and not everybody's willing to go for that. And some people are pretty happy with the built in apps, right? Those are quote unquote free. So if your TV or your, you know, cable box has some ability to stream stuff, that might be enough. If that's all you want to do. Just all you care about is, is getting your shows. But yeah, it is unfortunate that, that everything is kind of getting squeezed out to the same, the same major players that control literally everything else.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:19]:
I do forget also gaming consoles often.

Dan Moren [00:26:22]:
That's.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:23]:
Well, yeah, you can go there too. All right, well, Dan Morin, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Of course, folks can head over to 6colors.com to check out your work, but where else should they go to do so?

Dan Moren [00:26:33]:
Well, you can find me on most social media as DMORin and if you'd like to see my books, my science fiction and fantasy books as well as all the podcasts and all the other places that I rent, please go to dmorin.com and check out links there and you'll find all the things that I do across the Internet.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:54]:
Sounds good. Thank you, Dan. We appreciate it.

Dan Moren [00:26:56]:
Thanks. See you later.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:58]:
All righty, folks, we're going to take a quick break before we come back with my interview this week. All right, we are back from the break and Android's biggest update of the year is here. Android 17 is rolling out now with even more arriving in the months ahead. Which leaves an obvious question. What's worth jumping on today and what's worth the wait? Here to walk us through it is CNET's own Patrick Holland. Welcome back to the show, Patrick.

Patrick Holland [00:27:21]:
Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Mikah Sargent [00:27:22]:
Absolutely. So now we know Android 17 officially rolling out. If people haven't been following along, can you kind of set the stage for us? What devices are getting it right now? What are the sort of tentpole features? And how is the rest of the rollout expected to play out?

Patrick Holland [00:27:39]:
Absolutely. So Android 17 is Google's latest version of their Android phone operating system. And, and it is out right now. So if you have a Pixel device, specifically a Pixel 6 or newer, you can download it and start using many of the features we're going to talk about for people with Samsung phones and Android phones from other brands, Those will likely. Android 17 will likely come to those phones later this summer because those brands have to integrate it with their own things. So, like, for example, Samsung has like one UI. What's neat about Android 17 is this is not like a. If this was like a house remodel, this is not.

Patrick Holland [00:28:14]:
We got a fancy new kitchen and a new wing we added to the house. This is, hey, we really improve things with the foundation as well as some of this, the flow of your house. So I think a big theme that we're noticing, and my cat's here to really support us here with these discussions, is the fact that Android 17 is about making your life easier and reducing the friction you have with your phone.

Mikah Sargent [00:28:39]:
Absolutely. Now, Google's release timing seems to have shifted over the past few years. Why does it matter that this update is landing when it is? And how does that timing compare to the rest of the industry? Also, with I think an acknowledgement that wwdc we saw a similar commitment to performance improvements to the subtle changes as opposed to. Here are some big new things you need to check out.

Patrick Holland [00:29:07]:
Yeah. Well, let's talk about the release schedule.

Mikah Sargent [00:29:08]:
Right.

Patrick Holland [00:29:08]:
So a few years ago it would be that we saw our first glimpse of the new Android OS at Google I O in May, and then it would roll out in October, starting with Pixel phones. A couple years ago, they started releasing those Pixel phones in August. In fact, there was an awkward year where we didn't have a new Android on the Pixel phone. And it was very scandalous for those of us who cover Android and Pixel phones. But I think with their new schedule, what's neat is there's been a developer beta of Android out since the beginning of this year. And what Google's done is right before Google I O, they kind of released all the stuff that would be kind of more consumer stuff, things that they would be excited about, like Pause Point and Bubbles and some of the stuff we'll talk about. And now we're not even a month. We're able to actually people are able to download it and use it.

Patrick Holland [00:29:50]:
This is not a beta. This is the actual version of it. Compare that to Apple and it launching a preview of iOS27 and that will come out in the fall, probably September. And right now we're still in the first developer beta of that. And so it's going to be a while for those features. Hit. Now, the big difference between those two things is the fact that with Android it's got to go through those other companies to be integrated with their software. Whereas with Apple, once that launches in September, pretty much everybody can download it that day.

Patrick Holland [00:30:22]:
I think it's thematically what's interesting is both companies have talked a little bit about like kind of that behind the scenes stuff. It's the, we might call it like bugs and security things, these things that are very important to the phone and just squashing those. And while it's not the most exciting thing to report on or it doesn't make the most exciting TikTok video to watch, it's probably going to be the stuff that most people like because no one likes to have that bug or that friction or like, oh, why does it do this? Or always have to restart this app on this phone? Hopefully a lot of stuff will be relieved with Android 17.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:55]:
Now with this, one of the features that you did spend a little bit of time on is screen reactions or screen reaction. Could you walk us through what it actually does and then especially for you, what made it stand out as you were testing it?

Patrick Holland [00:31:07]:
Yeah. What's great about this is I think this is definitely there's a lot of things geared toward creators and we'll talk a little bit about that. But one of them built right into the phone is you can record the screen of your phone and now you have the option to turn on your selfie camera. And what's neat about this is it turns you into a mini green screen studio and it would cut me out from my background and put me on the bottom of that screen or I can move my image around wherever I want. And I'm sure we've all seen those videos on social media where someone's reacting to a social media video. I see a lot of those for cooking. I'm really into that. And what's neat about this is you don't need to go through another app.

Patrick Holland [00:31:48]:
It's reducing that extra step or steps to do that. You do not need an actual green screen. Basically, as long as you have your Android 17 powered phone, you'll be able to do it from anywhere. And I think it's kind of neat because as someone who has become kind of like the default it for their friends and family, how many times would it be cool to do a screen recording and make the reaction of me showing them the setting where they're supposed to hit the toggle and then the other button on the other side where they're supposed to Turn something on and they can actually have a little mini Patrick do that. So I do think it's going to be a really neat feature. I think as people learn with it, you might see more of these kind of reaction videos and social media, but also think it could be a nice little like it tool for your friends and family.

Mikah Sargent [00:32:31]:
That. That's really cool, especially for those of us who do that.

Patrick Holland [00:32:35]:
Yeah, your audience could probably relate to that a lot.

Mikah Sargent [00:32:38]:
Absolutely. Exactly. There are a whole new set of creator editing tools. This is. Yeah, you know, all of this area, this partnership with Meta though, things like video stabilization, AI powered editing with Instagram, tell us more about this. What can people do that they maybe couldn't do before? And then did you get a chance to test these tools and how did they, how do they hold up? Yeah.

Patrick Holland [00:33:02]:
So there's a bunch of tools that are specifically targeted for meta apps like Instagram and Instagram Edit. And what's neat about this is all APIs. So these are things that can be adopted by software developers for other apps. So maybe TikTok for example, might adopt some of this. But what's neat about is it brings a lot of functionality to Instagram that Android owners either had to go through their native app and then do a video with Night Sight there and then upload it. So now you can record video straight in Instagram, which is nothing new, but you can now record ultra HDR videos and images. You can also record Night Sight. Take Night Sight photos and videos inside your Instagram app.

Patrick Holland [00:33:43]:
You can also. I think this is pretty cool. It has stabilization, so if you're holding an ear on the go, those apps did not have stabilization in Instagram. You'd have to use your native app to record that and then upload it again. It's just reducing those friction points. And in Instagram Edits, which is a separate app, there's some really cool features. There's one where it can smart enhance your photo. It uses your on device AI to make the image quality look better, sharper, more vibrant.

Patrick Holland [00:34:10]:
And one that I'm sure Burke, your sound guy, will appreciate is it could take the audio from a video and separate that audio out into different audio tracks. So the example they showed us was a recording that a mom made of her kid at the beach. And there was different tracks for the mom's voice. The people kind of far away, there were different tracks for the water and the wind. And then you go in and mute the mom yelling at the kid and raise the water level. It's the sound of the water. So you really captured the, the scene that that kid was experiencing. So all that is built right into Instagram or Instagram edits.

Patrick Holland [00:34:45]:
And it just goes to show, you look at something like that, you look at screen reactions. Android kind of is aware of how people are using their phones. And it's not just people who have recognizable names that are influencers. A lot of people are on social media or are sharing things and this is just a way to make it one less step, one less app that you have to go through to get some of the quality that we have for our photos and videos.

Mikah Sargent [00:35:08]:
Otherwise nice. Now with these changes, it seems like Android 17 is leaning into the digital well being of an all. I believe you mentioned pause point at one point. How does it work? What problem is it trying to solve?

Patrick Holland [00:35:23]:
This is it's technically my favorite feature. It's probably a close second would be bubbles and that's a whole nother conversation. But pause point and maika, maybe as someone who covers tech, do you ever find yourself like on your phone or on your laptop or even iPad or tablet and you're just scrolling through an app for minutes on end and then there's just a moment like, wait, how did I get? I what, how did I get here? What was I doing?

Dan Moren [00:35:47]:
You know.

Mikah Sargent [00:35:47]:
Yes, you lose. Yeah, you lose track of time. You lose. Yeah.

Patrick Holland [00:35:51]:
And maybe you're someone who wants to be, you know, may want to use YouTube less, not to watch less Cnet videos or watch less Twitter videos, but everything else I want to kind of reduce my, that I want to. Or there are certain apps that you want to use more purposefully. So the idea of pause point is when I like, for example, if I go to open YouTube and I have this set up, it will just interrupt that open process. And it has a couple different options, but I think my favorite is Breathe. And it's literally about 10 seconds and it just shows an icon of breathing and then it just politely asks you, you know, what's your intent or what do you want to do? Is this something you want to do and you have the option to open the app or not. And I think for people like me who can sometimes be on autopilot, like, oh, I went to check the weather and now I'm 12 scrolls down in Instagram, it might just prevent that little bit of friction, not too much for you to reconsider. So I think it's a smart tool. But it's also telling that now our phone companies who've created these highly addictive devices are the Ones also helping us to limit that a little bit or control that.

Patrick Holland [00:36:56]:
So I think it's a welcome tool and I think it's probably one of the biggest parts that we're seeing here and my category is as well.

Mikah Sargent [00:37:04]:
And we love it. And we love it. Let's go to the security and safety side. A lot of companies paying, paying more public attention to this, there's a batch of changes around things like location sharing, protecting a lost or stolen phone. Do you think these updates are going to matter to the average person and how come?

Patrick Holland [00:37:25]:
I think they will, I think. And let's talk security stuff first. A lot of it's just some things that you'd be like, I can't believe that wasn't a thing before. Like the idea of being able to share selected contacts with an app versus all your contacts. The ability to give approximate location versus precise location to like a website for example. So some of these are kind of long time coming. Some of the anti theft features, I think we've all been there where we've maybe we've forgotten our PIN number or something like that. It's actually going to limit how many times you can do it.

Patrick Holland [00:37:55]:
So if someone does get ahold of your phone it will limit the amount of times they can try different PIN numbers or passwords to get in. In terms of safety stuff, I do want to say so this is specific to Android 17, but I was actually talking to some of the people at Google about this and I was like, hey, well, what's one of the most important features of Android that a lot of people aren't talking about? And I think a lot of us saw videos or the news coming out of the Philippines recently of that horrible earthquake they had. And one of the features that's built in are these earthquake alerts. And, and they were quick to say like they didn't want to take credit that this may have helped people. But as someone who's in California, I get them on my phone too. But it's amazing that having that extra couple seconds to decide what to do or there's that dramatic video, someone running out of a jollibee and the whole building falling down, the phone here is actually not only helping you be safe online but literally in real life. So I do think when I see features like that they're not the most exciting features and we hope that no one ever has to use a feature like that or no one has to use a feature like the some of the anti theft detections protections on their phone, but they're There. And it's nice to see Google really upping the level of that.

Patrick Holland [00:39:08]:
And some of them, like I said, like stuff like contact sharing, like. Huh, that's right. That's never really been a system wide thing before.

Mikah Sargent [00:39:14]:
Huh. I mean that is, that is interesting. I mean especially again when we are presented with this idea that the changes to the platform are more subtle. They're kind of tiny little fixes and stuff. That's really where you sort of lean into that. But there's a lot of this stuff that's just right behind the surface that when you get into it you go, oh wait, this is actually going to make a big difference to my experience overall. Or it can make a big difference to the experience overall. And I also think it can be a little difficult on the Google on the Android side of things because of those pixel dumps that, you know, wondering what's new, what's coming as part of the operating system and everything.

Mikah Sargent [00:40:00]:
So being able to kind of peel that apart is important as well. Of course, something that all of the big tech companies that make consumer devices are talking about is AI. And seems like a lot of the most ambitious pieces of Android 17 Gemini intelligence, for example, aren't around arriving until later this year. What is still on the way? Where do we think Android is heading? And maybe you could tell us a little bit more about. Because when I first read Gemini Intelligence, I think, wait, isn't that just Gemini? What is this unique aspect of it? Yes, you could tell us about that as well would be great.

Patrick Holland [00:40:41]:
Yeah. I think there's that old 60s Batman TV show with Adam west and all their things were like, oh, we got the Batmobile, the Bat computer. And it feels like, hey, we have Gemini Intelligence, we got the Gemini Flash model and Gemini Flashlight, like Gemini Assistant. There's all these things. So we know the word Gemini. And I think with Gemini Intelligence, what's neat about this? And we're going to try to not even say the term, it's about kind of helping things become more helpful on your device. Right. And I'll use the term once, but there's a lot of talk about this agentic AI and, and essentially the idea is it's able to surface things on your phone when you need it.

Patrick Holland [00:41:23]:
It's able to find things that you do on your phone and be helpful. A very simple example is something like intelligent autofill where maybe I'm filling out a form and I need my driver's license number and some contact info or something like that. The contact info, I think A lot of people are using used to, but having the driver's license stuff, it might be able to surface that for you. And it's doing that all on device and it's doing that in a secure way. So we see Apple doing something similar with their launch of Siri AI, which is like really showing that, hey, if we can do this in a way that protects your privacy, but a way that can also use your data, these things could actually be very useful. And whereas we're talking about things like the apps earlier, that can save me from having to go to a green screen app and upload a video, having that kind of functionality on your phone just directly to find the information you want to acknowledge context in a chat conversation that you're having with friends to be able to pull up that info so you're not hunting things down or search the phone for like, hey, where is that invite to my interview with Mikah today? Like, find the link? Is that in a text message? Was that in my neat email? And it can locate those things. So I think what's interesting, we talked about the timeline real quick of Android is this stuff with AI, it's not on an annual cycle, it's done a monthly or quarterly update stuff. Like by the time a lot of these features come out, there's going to be a whole bunch of other things that are faster, smarter, more intelligent, more accurate.

Patrick Holland [00:42:59]:
That that'll be right behind it as well. So by Google adjusting the Android cycle, it's one to be there for the pixel and have things ready for the fall launch of all these phones. But I think it's also there to really set the stage for things like Gemini intelligence and the improvements. We'll see to that over time as well.

Mikah Sargent [00:43:16]:
That makes sense. Well, Patrick Holland, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. It's always a pleasure to get to chat with you and of course folks can head over to cnet.com to check out your work, but if they want to stay up to date with the great work you're doing, where should they go to do so?

Patrick Holland [00:43:31]:
Okay, I'm going to say a couple of sites. One is LinkedIn. I know LinkedIn. What? But yeah, look up CNET, look up Patrick Holland. You'll find me there. I put a lot there. You can also find me under Directed by Patrick on Instagram and Threads. You'll also see the lovely cat that made a cameo is often on that feed as well.

Mikah Sargent [00:43:46]:
Awesome. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Patrick Holland [00:43:49]:
Thanks for having me.

Mikah Sargent [00:43:49]:
Take care all righty, folks, we're going to take a quick break before we come back with my story of the week. And it's time for my story of the week. This is a wild piece. The Wall Street Journal published this exclusive from CyberSecurity reporter Robert McMillan. It's the kind of story that makes you look a little differently at every gadget you have plugged in around your house. I've got a lot of those. The short version of the story. Millions of cheap Internet connected devices in American homes, video streaming boxes, digital picture frames, even pirated copies of video games shipped with hidden backdoor software baked in.

Mikah Sargent [00:44:30]:
Yeah, that software quietly turns your living room electronics into something called a residential proxy network. You can kind of think of it as Airbnb, but for Internet access and where there's, you know, no payment actually involved. Someone in Moscow or Beijing can route its traffic through a home network in maybe Bellingham, Washington, and then look to all the world as if it's just an ordinary American user. But it's not just scammers that are running through these connections. It's actually state backed hackers from Russia, from China, from Iran, from North Korea. The whole thing was uncovered by Comcast, believe it or not. And it started with a single phone call. So let's talk about how this works.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:20]:
First, the phone call that started it all. In February 2024, Comcast head of information security, Nupur Davis, got a call from her Microsoft counterpart named Igor. Forgive me, Igor, if I mispronounced your name. Now, Microsoft was investigating a break in that was tied to one of the world's most capable cyber adversaries and wanted information on something specific. Six Comcast IP addresses. From there, the trail led to Midnight Blizzard. It's a hacking group that's linked to Russia's foreign intelligence service. And it had gotten into the email accounts of Microsoft's own senior leadership.

Mikah Sargent [00:46:05]:
You may remember this. The method that they used was they routed these through ordinary consumer Internet connections to disguise the traffic. Davis of Comcast said it was such a step change from any threat we'd seen before. Yeah, so they hacked it, but they hacked it while looking like they were just your everyday ordinary users. So with a residential proxy network, these services let anyone who pays route their Internet traffic through someone else's home address. So in that way, that's where it's like an Airbnb for Internet access. So a user in Moscow can bounce their traffic through a home network in Washington and then appear to be that local US Connection. It's important to note that not every user is a criminal.

Mikah Sargent [00:46:55]:
There can be different reasons why this technology is used. But of course the networks have ballooned in scale and, and have also ballooned in risk. So where before it may be that, you know, somebody in a different country is trying to view parts of the web that they would otherwise not have access to, they are able to view those parts of the web or get access to content, for example, that they might not otherwise have access to. But it's not just, you know, your everyday user, it's also cyber criminals. And for a hacker, that payoff is simple because a US based IP address makes them look like a normal American user instead of a full on foreign threat. We'll talk more about how this has gone down and what has been done to try to fix it. All right, we are back from the break. As I mentioned, my story of the week this week is about hackers using residential proxy networks to appear as if they are US based in order to gain access to, well, it depends, in some cases, rather critical company infrastructure.

Mikah Sargent [00:48:03]:
It started with six addresses and became a backdoor into America. So remember that this was sort of a collaboration between Microsoft and Comcast and it involved six IP addresses that turned out to be part of a network of roughly 750,000 IPs across various homes and businesses. The DCA Digital Citizens alliance, which is an advocacy group, estimates that there are 20 million of these backdoors in the US alone. 20 million. The wall Street Journal describes tens of millions of consumer devices that get turned into criminal cloud computing networks. Comcast engineers concluded this was, quote, a backdoor into America operating at an industrial scale. A bigger problem because of the sheer numbers. So now you're probably going, right, right.

Mikah Sargent [00:48:57]:
But like, how in the world does this, how did this happen in the first place? Well, here's how the backdoors get into your house. The Chinese provider behind the network Comcast traced is named IP Idea. IP Idea got its software preloaded on low cost devices like video streaming boxes, digital picture frames and more. And then it also will attempt to sneak software into mobile apps and copyright free illegal copies of video games. So if you're going online and getting copies of video games, then you may not realize that built into it is some software that is called IP Idea. Once it's installed, then the company can rent out access so that paying customers can bounce their traffic through that home network by September of 2024. Two years ago, Comcast found the software could get into networks even if it was behind firewalls, and then hop from one device to another. So an infected streaming box could be used to reach a phone.

Mikah Sargent [00:50:09]:
And then if that phone connects to a bring your own device work network, then company data could be exposed. Now, now let's talk about who's actually getting these right, because as I mentioned, it's not just fraud, it's not just cybercriminals, but definitely people, you know, everyday cybercriminals, but government backed hackers from Russia, from China, from Iran, from North Korea, and of course again, it makes it look like it's coming from the US so it can't be traced back to a foreign government. Brett Leatherman, the assistant director for the FBI Cyber Division, said if the actors can get US based ip, they have a leg up in being able to target government agencies, industry and others. In April of this year, agencies from nine countries, including the us, the uk, Germany and Japan warned that China's state hackers were using networks of hacked consumer devices. And of course, that made it difficult for anyone to attribute where the malicious activity was coming from. Over the past year, Russian hackers have been stealing Microsoft 365 credentials, then using bogus Microsoft Teams meetings. Normally, Microsoft's servers would take care of this problem by flagging a login from overseas. So now because of these residential proxies, it makes them look legitimate, so they're no longer trying to fish your password.

Mikah Sargent [00:51:33]:
It's hard to detect where this is coming from and who is doing it. And frankly at this point, according to Adam Myers, senior vice president of CrowdStrike, says identity is their bread and butter. And one of the infrastructure pieces that they're dependent on is resident potential proxies. So why can't you just shut this stuff down? Well, in January, Google did use a US court order to dismantle IP Ideas infrastructure. Unfortunately, the network was back in operation within two weeks. It just picked up new proxy devices from a different provider. So this can be very difficult to detect, it can be very difficult to fix, it can be very difficult to figure out. And it becomes a matter of personal responsibility, not buying the least expensive tech available and connecting it to your home network, not pirating video games, and also being careful about the software that you install on your computer.

Mikah Sargent [00:52:49]:
If you do those things, then you are protecting yourself more than the people who end up being involved in this. But if you've got the chops to do so, you can also keep an eye on your network to provide even more protections therein. Regardless, a piece well worth checking out, there's a lot more detail involved and I think it's going to be something that we're going to have to keep an eye on going forward when it comes to the different smart home devices that we have in our homes. Right? Oof folks, that is going to bring us to the end of this episode of Tech News Weekly. The show publishes at Twitter TV TNW every Thursday, so be sure to check it out if you're not subscribed, get the audio, the video version. If you'd like to follow me online, I'm @mikahsargent on many a social media network. Or you can head to chihuahua.coffee, that's C H I H U A H U A.coffee, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Be sure to check out my other shows including iOS today, Hands-On Apple and Hands-On Tech.

Mikah Sargent [00:53:48]:
Tune in Sunday for us to wrap up the month of June, and I'll be back next week with another episode of Tech News Weekly with Jennifer Pattison Tuohy.

Mikah Sargent [00:53:59]:
All right, everybody. Bye bye.