This Week in Tech Episode 889 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word.
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Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for TWiT this week in tech coming up, Jason Heiner editor in chief of zing that joins Nicholas Deleon from consumer reports. Owen Thomas from protocol will talk about the changing streaming landscaped is, is streaming about to beat cable TV. Hmm. Maybe you're gonna watch the house of dragons tonight will also discuss the very weird mark Zuckerberg avatar and its relationship to a 18th century sculpture, and then no children in the bathroom without surveillance a new tool for schools. That's raising I all of that coming up in a lot more this week on TWiT podcasts. You love

TWiT Intro (00:00:45):
From people you trust. This is TWiT.

Leo Laporte (00:00:55):
This is TWiT this week in tech episode, 889 recorded Sunday, August 21st, 2022. The thin green line this week at tech is brought to you by express VPN, going online without express VPN. It's like using the bathroom and not closing the door, secure your online activity by visiting express vpn.com/TWiT and get an extra three months free and a one year package. And by zip recruiter, summer's packed with things to do and you can enjoy them all because if you need to hire ZipRecruiter can help zip recruiters, technology finds great candidates, and you can invite them to apply. Try it free at ziprecruiter.com/TWiT and by audible audible lets you enjoy all of your audio entertainment in one app. Let audible help you discover new ways to laugh. Be inspired or be entertained. New members can try it free for 30 days. Visit audible.com/TWiT or text TWiTt to 500, 500 and by Noom with their psychology first approach Noom way empowers you to build more sustainable habits and behaviors. Sign up for your trial at noom.com/TWiTt. Dive for TWiT this week at tech, the show we cover the weeks tech news with fabulous technology journalists. We've got a great panel for you. Kicking things off with my dear friend, Jason Heiner now editor in chief of ZD net. I guess we first met when you were at the tech Republic, right?

Jason Hiner (00:02:34):
That's right.

Leo Laporte (00:02:35):
Yes. Way back in the good old days. And then way back through several acquisitions. You never really left the company.

Jason Hiner (00:02:42):
<Laugh> that's true, right? Not since 2001. Yeah. Not since 2001. I've been here tech Republic and then tech Republicans eating it and then seen it and then back to Z it,

Leo Laporte (00:02:52):
But all the same basically parent company. And 

Jason Hiner (00:02:56):
My start date is still the same

Leo Laporte (00:02:57):
21 years. That's kind of mind blowing Jason. That's awesome. That's F for sure. Fantastic.

Jason Hiner (00:03:03):
Yeah, I, I thought it would last a year at best.

Leo Laporte (00:03:06):
<Laugh> so

Jason Hiner (00:03:07):
It's all a bonus instead.

Leo Laporte (00:03:08):
Well, I kinda know what you mean when I started podcasting. I thought, well, there's no future in this, but I'll I'll play with it. <Laugh> I've been doing it quite as long as you have, but almost 18 years. Yeah, 18 years now. Also let's say hello to a good friend, a new friend he's been on several times now. Nicholas Deleon from consumer union consumer reports. He's a senior electronics reporter over there. Hey Nicholas.

Nicholas De Leon (00:03:32):
Hello, Leah. How are you? Great to

Leo Laporte (00:03:33):
See you for having me. Yeah. Love having you on you were kind of a late discovery. I think it's been a couple of years now, but it was so great when I found you. And so

Nicholas De Leon (00:03:43):
Glad I basically cold called you. I've been a I, as, as I've explained in the past, I've been a fan of you for a long, long time. And I call, I called emailed you to say, Hey, I'm a big fan of your work. Keep it up so glad that was

Leo Laporte (00:03:55):
Basically it so glad you did. Yeah. Thank you. Also another longtime friend now at protocol it's of course Owen Thomas he's senior editor over there. It's not the protocol or ah, protocol. It's just protocol, right? Just protocol it's protocol protocol. Hey it's it's how things are done. Yeah. He's got a great big P on his polo shirt stands for protocol. <Laugh> great to see you. Okay. Show of hands. How many of you are gonna watch house of dragons tonight? The new game of Thrones, New York times actually had an article say let's not <laugh>. Yeah. So two outta three are not. That's very interesting. Oh, and you, and I'll be watching this, in fact, it's like a special date. It's the prequel to the game of Thrones saga. It does not come from George R Martin's pen, which is why they could do it because they've used up all his ink <laugh> and then some but did he ever finish the books? No.

Jason Hiner (00:04:55):
Nope, Nope,

Leo Laporte (00:04:56):
Nope. And

Jason Hiner (00:04:58):
Working on it,

Leo Laporte (00:04:59):
He and Patrick Rothfus have become kind of the duke Newcomb forever of fantasy fiction. Right. <laugh> promised but never delivered. But that's okay. In fact George, a Martin probably for political reasons said, this is the, this is the prequel that I should have always existed. I'm a hundred percent behind the house of dragons. But number of people pointed out, this is kind of a battle between old Hollywood and new media because in two weeks, Lord of the rings, debuts on Amazon prime. So you have Warner brothers a hundred year old, you know, motion picture company. I dunno if this really counts as Warner brothers it's been acquired, it's been sold, it's been bought it's a, but it's now part of, you know, Warner discovery and all of that. So this old line media company creating game of throne, spent a lot of money. Amazon spent even more money for the streaming rights to the Lord of the ring series and then created their own. Is it a prequel or a sequel? I think it's a prequel to the Lord of the rings.

Owen Thomas (00:06:11):
So it's a prequel because I think the, the Lord of the rings proper the trilogy and the Hobbit that those rights they're gone, barau remain with Warner.

Leo Laporte (00:06:21):
Yeah. Oh, isn't that funny? Warner has them. Oh, that's hysterical.

Nicholas De Leon (00:06:25):
So both interesting.

Leo Laporte (00:06:26):
Yeah.

Owen Thomas (00:06:27):
So it's, it's such a, it's such a, Morra like we're watching the Sandman right now on Netflix, but DC comics, right. Property. and you know, it's like, it's, it's such a patchwork of, you know, rights and like, you know, rights and intellectual property. It doesn't to a consumer. I don't think it makes any sense. Like it doesn't give you any signpost to it, like where you're going to find the stories you like.

Leo Laporte (00:06:54):
Yeah. it said that Amazon spent a quarter of a billion dollars getting the rights alone for the Lord of the rings, prequel and committed to five seasons. They were already, but they hasn't even debuted five seasons worth, at least a billion dollars, which would make it at least at <laugh> at the time. <Laugh> the most expensive TV series ever. I imagine though, that Warners is spending a lot on house of the dragon, the prequel. I'm just looking to see if I can find a number. I don't know if, how many seasons they've committed to though. That's interesting. And remember, it's not gonna have the show runners from game of Thrones, David Bennioff and Dan Weiss after the last season, maybe people are gonna be glad <laugh> I just, it's a very interesting battle. And the New York times today says don't watch either one of them. I think it's link bait, to

Nicholas De Leon (00:07:57):
Be honest. Did I write that man? That suck

Leo Laporte (00:08:00):
<Laugh> is that how you feel? Are you gonna

Nicholas De Leon (00:08:02):
Admit to that? I could not. I'm sure they'll be fine, but I could not be less interested in a media thing than the dragon show or, or Lord. Like, I feel like Lord, the rings, I feel a, the books are still awesome. B the movies to me came out basically yesterday. I don't, I don't understand the point of, of this new reboot or this show or whatever. I, I don't know. I don't get it. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm more of a video game guy anyway, so I really shouldn't even be talking. But yeah, I, I personally am not super interested in either property actually.

Leo Laporte (00:08:35):
It's it's kind of life or death. I think at this point for HBO, HBO's been going through a lot of troubles of late streaming viewing is flat. They just canceled, I think 38 shows to save money from, they just kicked him off HBO, including a lot of originals. I think there's a bit of a struggle going on these days. And I wonder cuz Amazon and apple have a big advantage. We've talked about this before their business does not rely on the success of, of a TV show. Right. They can afford to spend a billion dollars on a TV show.

Jason Hiner (00:09:19):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:09:20):
Just to drive traffic. Right.

Jason Hiner (00:09:23):
For sure. It's it is a big advantage. I, I mean, I don't, we just finished a redesign that we've been working on for eight months. Beautiful.

Leo Laporte (00:09:30):
By the way I said this off air,

Jason Hiner (00:09:31):
I just I'll

Leo Laporte (00:09:32):
Say it on the air. Gorgeous.

Jason Hiner (00:09:34):
Yep. Thank you Leo. But because of that, I don't really watch TV. I just see spoilers on TWiTtter. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:09:39):
So wait a minute. Are you saying that you have been staying up all night doing this redesign?

Jason Hiner (00:09:45):
Well, obviously I'm not, I'm not the person doing the redesign, but we've been

Leo Laporte (00:09:49):
No time, no time for sleep,

Jason Hiner (00:09:51):
But we've been for eight months. We've been obviously really, really busy. Wow. And and also working on, you know, we've been doing some hiring and doing other things. So because of that, I haven't been watching a whole lot of TV that said, I, I do understand this really evolving landscape. We write about it. We think about it. We, we talk about it a lot, the evolving landscape of, of media. And it, it, it is getting to the point where it, it is getting to an inflection point where there's such, there's not enough money coming in from the old streams for, for, for old media. And now you have apple and Amazon who essentially throw in their, their media buys as part of becoming part of this very expensive subscription, right. For Amazon prime or, or apple one, I guess apple one, you wouldn't call it very expensive, but, but still more than what Netflix costs, you know typically, so they, they have, they're just playing a different game.

Jason Hiner (00:10:54):
And so because of that and the numbers are are a lot different. They have a built, they have built in audiences for what they're doing. And so all of a sudden you're seeing like really this year there, there's a, a changing landscape that's happening in media. And now it's starting to affect not just these big box sort of films and and, and media franchises. But now it's slipping over into live sports as well, which is sort of the last the last piece of the puzzle that a lot of the traditional media companies like my former employees, CBS, you know, had to you know, they had a corner on the market and that's rapidly changing. And, and so I think we, we certainly should be prepared that the game looks a little different going forward.

Leo Laporte (00:11:40):
Do you think, I mean, we just learned that the Sinna world which owns Regal theaters, declare bankruptcy, do you think that it's over for movie houses going out to see the movies did COVID finally put it out of its misery? Do you think we're all staying home to watch streaming now or in your case, Jason, not watch anything, but <laugh> stay home and work, which is Ooh. So sad.

Jason Hiner (00:12:07):
Yeah. That is sad. So no, I, I think that when, when I go by and I have actually seen a few movies in the theater over the last six months, the theaters look pretty crowded to me and it might be sort of the post COVID. Yeah. They going back.

Leo Laporte (00:12:21):
Yeah. They couldn't get back on their feet after a very bad couple of years, I think. Yeah.

Jason Hiner (00:12:25):
Yeah. Yeah. So there is an experience at the movies. I think if you can create experiences is the same thing that some of the retailers are doing, right. If you can create experiences where that people can get, you know, in store

Leo Laporte (00:12:37):
Like Alamo draft house, where you go, you can get tacos, you can get beer and watch a movie

Jason Hiner (00:12:44):
<Laugh>. Yeah, exactly. If you have those in person experiences, because you can't replicate that online. Yeah. I mean, you get a little bit in your, in your living room, but, but sometimes you wanna get out of your living room and that's where you want to take advantage of cool experiences like that.

Leo Laporte (00:12:58):
It's also the studios it's, I think there's a crunch for talent and the studios are now competing with streaming and there's a lot of money from coming from apple and Amazon and others, I guess, HBO, Netflix, for sure. And that's competing with movies for talent. And there's a, there's a limited talent pool.

Jason Hiner (00:13:21):
There is, as we're seen by the, the lack of quality from some of these shows that haven't watched. But no,

Leo Laporte (00:13:27):
And the lack of quality movies, I can't think of a, I mean, there've been a few good movies, but it's not like been a great year for motion pictures. Has it?

Jason Hiner (00:13:35):
No, partly why I don't watch is like, I haven't seen a whole lot of good quality things coming out that give me any urgency to, to, you know, want to carve the time out. Like I'd rather go exercise or, or spend time like playing video, like, like Nicholas mentioned playing video games with my kids or doing something like that than watching the shows cuz the quality it's so watered down because these, all of these places are buying so much content and the, and then the quality of content is pretty low cuz then all of these writers are just having to pump out. You know, it's a, it's a golden age. If you're a writer for of scripts, cuz you can just get to pump out stuff constantly. But because of that, the quality's not great right now

Leo Laporte (00:14:11):
In July. For the first time ever streaming had more viewers than cable TV, according to Nielsen. And the number one streamer still despite struggles is Netflix with 8% of the market, YouTube of course, doing very well. 7.3, then Hulu prime video Disney plus and HBO max with only 1% Hulu did well, thanks to only murders in the building and the bear, which I loved. The bear was a great show. If you like food and restaurants Netflix, despite, you know, struggling a little bit with, with stranger things wasn't as big as they had hoped they spent 200 million on the gray man. In fact I've already green lit 3, 2, 2 more movies, a third, second and third sequel with Ryan Gosling as a Jason born style superhero <laugh> and I, I, I say superhero, but it's actually made by the two guys who did Avengers end games.

Leo Laporte (00:15:16):
So it definitely has that. It has a very much of a, a, a comic book feel to it. But unfortunately it, it did very well in its first week and didn't do so well in subsequent weeks. Maybe they, people didn't like it. I thought it was fun. So 5 billion minutes, <laugh>, that's how Netflix measures it. <Laugh> 5 billion minutes. Wow. Of, of viewing time, 8% of the total TV viewing. We're just, you know what, this is just, and, and, and you might say, well, that text story, it is a text story because it's how technology is very much changed every part of our lives, including how we enter are entertained.

Owen Thomas (00:15:56):
I think we E even though streaming just overtook cable, I think we may have kind of already passed peak streaming, at least in the Hollywood gold rush sense. I mean, HBO HBO max is cutting back on its production of originals and also like the made for streaming category of movies. So under the new CEO of Warner brothers discovery, David Asal, they've, you know, they've said, we're going to make big theatrical movies and we're going to make movies for HBO streaming and cable, but we're not going to make as many you know, HBO max,

Leo Laporte (00:16:33):
You know, well, they're also merging the discovery plus an HBO.

Owen Thomas (00:16:38):
And their theory is there, I think is you have a lot of cheap unscripted, reality TV, right. Coming in from discovery, right. And the economic model that is just far superior to like putting, you know, putting out a big splashy movie, especially if you are not amortizing that IP across, you know, physical theaters you know, maybe cable distribution, maybe, you know, other licensing

Leo Laporte (00:17:02):
Not to mention the fact that Warner brothers discovery has 55 billion in debt. Yikes. <laugh>, that's a lot of debt. Yeah. 

Owen Thomas (00:17:15):
Netflix is not debt free, but you know, they've, they've borrowed a lot of money at very cheap rates. Kind of during the you know, during that long, low interest rate environment we've been in that's obviously changing too. And I think, you know, like the, the economy the macro economy is affecting Hollywood too. In that sense, you know, debt's a little more expensive. So the, the premise that you use really cheap money to like

Leo Laporte (00:17:42):
Fund, ah, good point,

Owen Thomas (00:17:43):
You know, fund all of this IP creation that you then amortize over time that the, the, the calculus is different.

Leo Laporte (00:17:51):
Now, Netflix debt compared to 55 billion is 14.5 billion, but they also have 6 billion in cash. And their, but their annual interest is seven. You know, the, the interest they have to pay every year is 752 million. So this is why Netflix, by the way, has been having a lot of trouble in the stock market. People are, people are nervous about the future of Netflix. I don't know. What do you think what's the future? Is it a where do we get our entertainment in the future? Is it just a, I think Nicholas might be a, might be a, a Harger. <Laugh> just get off like video games going forward.

Nicholas De Leon (00:18:26):
I'll tell us a fun little anecdote in 2006, I was at Gizmoto and we had some like consulting thing with time Warner. So we flew out to California and, you know, some guys were showing them off, oh, here are the new phones. Some guys were showing them off. Here are the new, you know, here's the new, whatever. I was in charge of video games, but the more important or the more interesting conversation they had with them was I was explaining like how I consumed media, how I consumed content. It was like, and I was very Frank with them, was like, look, I torr everything. I have an XB. I was 20 at the time. I was like, I torr everything I have, XBMC hooked up to my TV. I have an over the air antenna.

Leo Laporte (00:19:00):
They did not wanna hear from you. Wow.

Nicholas De Leon (00:19:02):
<Laugh> yeah, no, I was like, dude, I'm never gonna pay for this stuff actually.

Leo Laporte (00:19:05):
Oh

Nicholas De Leon (00:19:05):
My God. And yeah. Okay. When I was 20 that's, perhaps not the most polite way to say that, but the point is I was like, look, this is kind of the future here. You've got people sitting at home with their own kind of self self-selected media situation, which is basically all Netflix and, and Disney pluses now today. But they were very skeptical. They're like, oh, people aren't going to stay home and wanna pick and choose which shows they wanna watch. I was like, are you CRA you? What? So I, so I feel vindicated, you know, so however many years later that, yeah, that's exactly what happened. And you know, I

Leo Laporte (00:19:38):
Don't remember where you should listen to that Nicholas kid.

Nicholas De Leon (00:19:40):
I mean, it's what, again, I was fairly, you know, silly about, oh, very cavalier about my consumption habit. But like, this is like, why would I do you were right? Why would I watch linear television? You were, I could pick and choose my, choose my own adventure.

Leo Laporte (00:19:53):
And I think about,

Nicholas De Leon (00:19:53):
And they were just very skeptical. I was like, okay, whatever

Leo Laporte (00:19:56):
At that time, I would think about my kid. Yes. Who would never watch TV watch YouTube. And when his friends came over, they just had YouTube playing nonstop. I mean, it was, it was a harbinger of the future. And, and remember Hollywood's response to this was quibi <laugh>.

Nicholas De Leon (00:20:12):
Yeah, of

Leo Laporte (00:20:12):
Course. Which is now the punchline to a joke. Like, does anybody remember? Quibi they've fumbled this future to some degree, but remember house game of Thrones really did very well. So I understand why they're saying, well, maybe we can do, you know, reproduce that success with house of dragons. It's a, I, I wouldn't wanna be in their shoes at this point. Is it a golden time for creators? There's a lot of money floating about.

Owen Thomas (00:20:39):
Yeah. But I think it's getting tighter.

Leo Laporte (00:20:40):
I think

Nicholas De Leon (00:20:41):
It's, it is getting tighter.

Leo Laporte (00:20:43):
And I, and we talked about this, I remember both Ben Stiller, creator of severance on apple TV and two of the principles in the Ted lasso show saying, it's weird doing a show for apple because we have no idea how many people are watching. If anybody's watching, they don't give us numbers. And that's the other thing with streaming. You heard what Netflix numbers are? Well, we have 15 billion minutes. <Laugh>

Nicholas De Leon (00:21:08):
Like,

Leo Laporte (00:21:09):
What, what does that compare that to ratings? In fact, now for the first time ever Amazon and Nielsen closed a deal to have Nielsen, which is the classical TV rating system to give them numbers on Thursday night football, which is moving to streaming this season only

Nicholas De Leon (00:21:25):
On, I was say, things are getting tighter unless you're a sports league. You know, tho those rights don't seem to be you know, Nick Khan, who's the co CEO of w E. He was very bullish on the idea of the streamers moving into live. They had their conference call about a week ago. And he is like, look, Netflix already reportedly bid on F one live rights, YouTube reportedly bid on NFL, Sunday ticket. These streamers are coming and it's just a matter of time. Look, I, I watched a lot of soccer that's on ESPN plus for LA league.

Leo Laporte (00:21:55):
Barlo yeah, but a major league soccer in the us, the us soccer league is all gonna be an apple for

Nicholas De Leon (00:22:00):
Apple TV

Leo Laporte (00:22:00):
10 years,

Nicholas De Leon (00:22:02):
Which is great. Well, it's, it's an instrument conversation. Is that good for the league or is it not? Because now you're, you're on this premium platform, which is okay, that's fine. It's apple, it's shiny, but are, are ordinary folks going to stumble across a game? You're are

Leo Laporte (00:22:16):
They gonna say apple? Yes. You know, whatever it is, a month, five bucks a month,

Nicholas De Leon (00:22:20):
Are you

Leo Laporte (00:22:20):
Choosing to watch soccer?

Nicholas De Leon (00:22:22):
Are you choosing short term money over medium to longer term exposure? And that is a question I don't think anybody knows the answer to. And so Nick Conn's answer was like, well, we're gonna do everything. We're gonna have a streaming package. We're gonna have a broadcast TV package. We're gonna have a cable package. I only bring up WBE cuz I, I like wrestling. And I think they're actually speaking of streaming business, an excellent company to kind of study because they've been kind of navigating the digital media situation for arguably their entire existence. You know, they're, they're basically a content or an IP company and they're just selling it to who's the highest bidder. And nowadays these are the highest bidders. So they're actually for the folks listening kind of, you wouldn't necessarily think it, but they're an interesting company to study in, in this kind of wider conversation. Well,

Leo Laporte (00:23:03):
That's what the NFL's trying to be too. Right. The NFL, which made a lot of money off broadcast television and still is heavily broadcast. Yes. It created an app NFL plus. And they're now in conversations for Sunday ticket, which they say is gonna cost two, no three, was it two and a half billion or three and a half billion, a lot of money more than a billion a year, I think for somebody. Yeah. And of course that immediately direct TV, which paid a billion and a half last time and lost half a billion a year for three years said, no, that's not gonna be us. Yeah. Immediately Google, Amazon and apple said, well, we make some money. Maybe we could be players here.

Nicholas De Leon (00:23:41):
Yeah. And apple also does MLB. They have live games on Friday nights, which are kind of an interesting experiment for them. I'm not a fan, kinda a

Leo Laporte (00:23:48):
A, not a fan of what they're doing though.

Nicholas De Leon (00:23:50):
Well, no, I, I I'm, I've been a baseball fan. My whole life I've really got way back into it this year for whatever reason. And the apple TV broadcasts are, are okay. I would say the presentation is, is interesting. I'm pretty sure it's 10 80 P the announcers and I'm certainly not the only person who complained

Leo Laporte (00:24:06):
Just no, they're terrible.

Nicholas De Leon (00:24:07):
Awful. They're not super good. And, and it's a question like if I wanna watch the Mets, I'm the met guy. I wanna hear Keith Hernandez.

Leo Laporte (00:24:13):
Yeah. You want the local

Nicholas De Leon (00:24:14):
Guys. I wanna hear by, by

Leo Laporte (00:24:15):
The way, that's the rumor that NFL will start using our offering. And this is something you can do on streaming, multiple soundtracks. You could pick the home team. You could pick the away team. Yes. I think that's really interesting. Right? You could choose.

Nicholas De Leon (00:24:31):
Yeah. You could do that with MLB TV, mlb.tv as well. You could choose the home broadcast or the away broadcast team.

Leo Laporte (00:24:36):
I always choose. I'm a Homer. I want, I want hear my giants. I wanna

Nicholas De Leon (00:24:39):
Hear my guy. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:24:41):
Yeah. I don't want to hear some. And

Jason Hiner (00:24:42):
Then sometimes they get annoying and you're like, okay. I, I gotta switch

Leo Laporte (00:24:45):
Over. At least you have the choice.

Jason Hiner (00:24:47):
Yeah. The choice,

Leo Laporte (00:24:47):
The worst thing is to watch a national broadcast in any sport and hear people dis your team <laugh>

Nicholas De Leon (00:24:53):
On it. Or they don't even know what

Leo Laporte (00:24:54):
They're talking about or they don't know what they're, it's just the worst.

Nicholas De Leon (00:24:57):
Why. Yes. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:24:58):
So this is a, I think it's an opportunity. I honestly think that the MLS deal with apple 10 years for major league soccer, which has not been doing that great well in the us, it's always been a struggle to get soccer and big in the us. It's a real opportunity for on Apple's part to show how you can use technology, do 4k, do you know? Yes. You know, FLS been using drones to, to drone go into the huddle and then zoom out and zoom. And I'm, I just waited for a player to go get outta here and it smack the drone, but it's really great as a viewer to see unique angles, unique. And I think apple could do a lot with stats. They could really be interesting and they, I hope they will. They haven't done that with baseball. All they MLS more minimal with baseball, which is exactly not what I want.

Nicholas De Leon (00:25:46):
MLS is small enough. It's it's is it a major league, I guess, depending on who you're talking to, it's a major league, but it's a smaller league. So I feel like it definitely affords apple the ability and I'm sure MLS, you know, figured this as well to experiment, to see what they can kind of do. This is not the NFL where you're not gonna mess with the NFL. That's that's they won't

Leo Laporte (00:26:01):
You.

Nicholas De Leon (00:26:01):
Yeah. Yeah. They won't let you and majorly baseball. It feels like they would, they would just like, not want, but like major league major league soccer is like, okay, cool. Let, let's see. Let's it skews younger anyway the sport, at least in the United States. So it's like, let's, let's see what we can do here to make this more, more exciting or more kinetic, a more interesting, is there a more dynamic broadcast? It feels like MLS is like the perfect size league to kind of try to figure that out with,

Jason Hiner (00:26:25):
To experiment. I will say the only interesting thing I've ever seen in eight K was a soccer match on a 98 inch Samsung TV. Oh yeah. Where, where you look and you, the ball goes across the screen and it's not a blur. It's perfect. Right. You, you actually see the ball tracking, like you're looking through a window and then they also experimented with some different angles down on the field, up from sort of the, where was this? So, I mean, this was it. This was in Korea at Samsung's. There you go. You know? Okay. So, so it was filmed just to show off eight K. Yeah. So very interesting, but I, but it made me actually feel like soccer was less boring watching it, you know, in, in eight K. And so, which is for the us, soccer's tough because you know, a lot of these games are like one, nothing, two, nothing. The ball just goes back and forth. They call penalties and we don't know why, what offsite they

Leo Laporte (00:27:19):
Flop on the ground. And they look like they've been hurt. And

Nicholas De Leon (00:27:22):
Actually just had bad times. Like they 7:00 AM east coast, which is 4:00 AM Pacific. No one in no in California.

Leo Laporte (00:27:28):
Hey, I get up at 6:00 AM to watch formula one. Don't tell me about that. I I'm willing to do that. Wow. 

Owen Thomas (00:27:34):
The, so with with rising production costs and rising, you know rights, right. Deals are, are the economic going to follow?

Leo Laporte (00:27:41):
Well, that's great question.

Jason Hiner (00:27:43):
Yeah. Yeah. That's a good

Owen Thomas (00:27:44):
Question. You know, I, I don't know if we can sustain the number of,

Leo Laporte (00:27:46):
But that's why you look at Amazon apple Google, because they have income, you know, especially Amazon and apple, it's all part of a services play. You know, prime is really to get people in the door. I, I don't think they have to make money on any individual thing or maybe they do. I don't know. You know, maybe their shareholders are gonna say, wait a minute, why are you spending hundreds of millions of dollars on something that's not making you any money? I don't

Nicholas De Leon (00:28:11):
Know. That's also

Jason Hiner (00:28:12):
Understood question. Adding

Leo Laporte (00:28:13):
Subscribers. Yeah. Yeah. Well, apple has apple has changed its accounting to RPU average revenue per user. How do you get the average revenue up? You get 'em to, to buy apple services, right? You already sold 'em the phone. How do you get more money out of them? Well, we got football, we got soccer. We got baseball. Would you pay for that?

Nicholas De Leon (00:28:33):
Jason? What the don't think I was gonna add, go ahead. Oh, sorry. Let's go ahead. The, well, the, the bubble burst in terms of sport sports rights fees and this type of thing, this conversation's been going on again, I'm a, a wrestling fan. So I kind of studied the business aspect of it for a long time. The difference now is, is like, you know, let's say a decade ago it was, it was, it was a broadcast networks. It was, it was NBC, it was Comcast. It was CBS. It was just, now you've got the streamers, you've got YouTube and, and, and apple and stuff 10 years from now who will be the new entrance to keep the, the bubble rising. It's like, okay, for the NFL deal in the year 2040, who is the new company that's going to offer, you know, how many multiples of the previous deal that is? That's a, a very long term question, but like the reason why the, the fees have continue to escalate is because of the YouTubes and the apples of the world. And if those companies you know, are this doesn't do well. They don't, they don't get the eyeballs or for any reason they don't wanna be in sports anymore. Who, who steps in then? That is, that is a question for a little while from now, but you

Leo Laporte (00:29:39):
Is WWS prime revenue from pay perview. That's my impression. Good. No,

Nicholas De Leon (00:29:43):
It's actually,

Leo Laporte (00:29:44):
That's a good television.

Owen Thomas (00:29:45):
Yeah. And that's a good example of consolidation where world wrestling, entertainment decided they were not going to make it as a standalone streamer and did a deal with peacock

Leo Laporte (00:29:54):
And stuff. Oh, interesting.

Nicholas De Leon (00:29:55):
Exactly. Yeah. They, for years they launched a WWE network in 2014 and they had been, I listened to every single one of those conference calls. They kept trying to like, oh, our data's valuable. We're gonna, they have these, these, they thought that 80 million Americans were, had an affinity was the word they used <laugh> for WWE. And I was like 80 million. That is when 5 million people watch Monday night raw on Mondays for free. You're gonna tell me 80 million people have an interest in the, in this. So they had like weird expectations when they launched their network. And yes, Owen was right. They, they sold it. The, the second they could, they, that, that had changed leadership. And he's like, this is not, this is not working. They had like a million subscribers, which is fine. But you know, it's a lot easier when you get NBC U to pay you $250 million a year and you basically just have to put on basically random matches. They don't even have to be good because now you're just providing content. You don't even have to convince fans to buy pay perviews you don't have to convince fans to buy tickets. It's just NBC you giving you money for the, for whatever the content is. They've got that deal. So it is, it is a very interesting turn of events.

Leo Laporte (00:30:56):
So I'm forgive me. I'm, you know, everything I know about the WWE I learned from Hulk Hogan. I'm not, <laugh>, I'm not, I'm not up on this, but I presume there are there's stars that can, Dr. Can draw. And you're saying that peacock might not be getting the best matches doesn't matter. It's just matches

Nicholas De Leon (00:31:16):
It doesn't, if you're WWE, you have zero incentive to provide compelling matches or interesting matches because you're getting paid regard. It's like a salary versus being on commission. It's like, well, if I'm getting paid,

Leo Laporte (00:31:26):
I get paid

Nicholas De Leon (00:31:27):
Anywhere thousand. Why would I get paid anyway? Yeah. If I'm on commission, I really gotta hustle to earn that dollar it's same thing.

Leo Laporte (00:31:32):
I'm gonna watch this with interest. I think while I'm not so much interest in the content, it does sound like it's a great test tube for how a modern content company.

Nicholas De Leon (00:31:42):
Yes. I've, I've a very

Leo Laporte (00:31:43):
Changes.

Nicholas De Leon (00:31:44):
Yeah. Again, it's wrestling, it's kind of who cares, but it's, it's, it is literally a billion, billion dollar revenue company. You know, all the mainstream company, you know, wall street journal, all those guys cover it as you would cover it, Netflix or whatever. So if you were to approach it from that sort of angle and like, okay, I'm not gonna watch SmackDown on Fridays. I mean, whatever, but like what the business is doing and how they're trying to navigate the, you know, balance the, the plate streaming broadcast cable. They're an interesting entity to, to keep an eye on.

Leo Laporte (00:32:10):
Yeah. And NFTs. And yeah, they're

Nicholas De Leon (00:32:14):
Trying that too.

Leo Laporte (00:32:14):
Yeah. And action figures and on and on and on, I mean, this is potentially a very valuable property, as long as you can, you know, keep people interested in it.

Nicholas De Leon (00:32:24):
Yeah. And the question now, you know, Vince macand long time CEO FA well he bought the company from his father, but CEO recently retired because of allegations.

Leo Laporte (00:32:34):
Disgrace. Yeah.

Nicholas De Leon (00:32:35):
Yes, yes. Retired in disgrace. So whatever, but now the question is like all who's buying this company, it's a very healthy business. They make money handover, fist, you, it pretty much runs on its own. You don't have to do anything again. The matches don't matter. You just put, put person a versus person B and NBC's paying you. So it doesn't matter. That's like who's gonna buy this. Yeah. And all the it's it's, it's the usual contender. It's like, well, NBC could just buy it. Why would they, why would they keep paying rights fees every five years, escalating rights fees when they can just own the whole thing from ad Z. You never have to think of that again. Disney has been talked about, is there a, is there,

Leo Laporte (00:33:08):
Is there a stigma though? Does it, does it like, does it feel like down market to some of these guys?

Nicholas De Leon (00:33:13):
That is all that is the, been the perception they've been trying to fight, basically, since I was a kid, I was like, this is, this is razzling. This is,

Leo Laporte (00:33:20):
Is, you know, it's play acting. It's not, you know, it's not a real sport it's theater.

Nicholas De Leon (00:33:25):
Correct. And it's defense. We were just discussing house of the dragon at

Leo Laporte (00:33:29):
Well, that's play acting as well. <Laugh>

Nicholas De Leon (00:33:31):
Exactly like what is, what is more, what is more real real if I wanna watch real, I'll watch the NFL. If I wanna watch, like, I've got two hours to kill who kind of cares how those hours are spent. So it's like, but yes, to your point, it, it is, it can be viewed as, as kind of like, eh, but they've, they've done a good job over the past, eh, 10, 15 years of trying to like increase the caliber of the advertisers. And so they are, they've been working at that and now it is, again, to me, it feels it's a matter of time until someone buys this thing and it, and then it's just like another P and L on, on, NBC's kind of like conference call everywhere

Leo Laporte (00:34:06):
Day at NBC NBC. I, you know, it's the kind of thing I think apple might say, yeah, we're not gonna buy recipe.

Nicholas De Leon (00:34:11):
IM gonna be surprised if apple buy to me

Leo Laporte (00:34:13):
TOB. And I think I'm ashamed to say that that's very snobby to say, I know I have lots of friends who like you, Nicholas are big fans and it's not down market really, but I could see apple saying, well, maybe it's not the right fan.

Nicholas De Leon (00:34:26):
It feels like a strange fit. Yeah. And they don't have a relationship. Anyway, WWE has had a relationship with B NBC USA network for 30 years or however long it's been. So they know each other and they've known each other. So to me, it feels again, it's, it feels inevitable. Like it's a matter of time someone buys because it is, it is reliable revenue and it kind of doesn't even matter. That's been, you know, if you ask fans like really hardcore fans over the past, let's, let's say 10 years WWE has more or less been unwatchable. It has been bad. And people, either people either hate watch it, or they watch it because they've got podcasts and it's content for the podcast, or like, whatever. But like, people really have not liked the product. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because they're doesn't matter. The ratings are more or less. Okay. They get paid. However they get paid. And it is, it is like in elastic, it's like, it doesn't matter. They could just produce like, imagine releasing just like a bad album, man. It doesn't matter because fans are gonna buy it anyway. It's like, well, that's kind of what WB has been living for

Leo Laporte (00:35:25):
On the market. A while the market's buying it too, they they're paid, they paid 10 million in dividends in the second quarter, they get 10 million in share repurchases.

Nicholas De Leon (00:35:33):
That was their calling card for a while. They were very reliable dividends. It's like, like, yeah, it's resting. Who cares? I get my 50 cents or whatever per, per share per quarter, whatever, whatever it was. But yeah, they've, they've been a very interesting company to kind of keep your eye on. Even if, again, you mention,

Leo Laporte (00:35:48):
I think they're a bellwether. I think that's what I'm interested in now. And I will pay more attention to them cuz I think they're a bellwether for how a content company can navigate a very challenging time. Yes.

Nicholas De Leon (00:35:59):
And I do give them credit for navigating this and doing pretty well. Again, the WWE network launched in 2014 with perhaps unreal expectations, but they did, you know course, correct eventually. And they've got very smart people as there. This guy Nikon he's their new co CEO. He feels to me like one of the smartest executives in like streaming or Hollywood or whatever, like the, that more, more people don't know him. People know David ASLA, people know. Right. Guys like that, people that people don't know, Nick con, I feel like that's the name you're gonna be hearing in a lot over the next couple years is

Leo Laporte (00:36:32):
Vince MCM. Man's daughter still

Nicholas De Leon (00:36:34):
She's co CEO. Yes. She's co

Leo Laporte (00:36:36):
CEO. So she's still there. Yes.

Nicholas De Leon (00:36:38):
Yes. She had stepped away for a leave of absence about a month before all this Vince McMan stuff started happening. She left the company mm-hmm <affirmative> and she came back about three weeks later. So she's co CEO and then her husband the former triple H wrestler. His name is Paul. He is now in charge of the, the creative aspect. That's

Leo Laporte (00:36:56):
Not a good wrestler name. It's

Nicholas De Leon (00:36:58):
Not a good

Leo Laporte (00:36:58):
Wrestler. It's be the undertaker Paul or yeah, death machine Paul or something. Paul Paul

Nicholas De Leon (00:37:03):
They've, they've kind of got three executives kind of pulling the strings, the two co CEOs running the business and, and then Paul Leveck, the former triple H guess still current, triple H he's running back the wrestling, the

Leo Laporte (00:37:14):
Story's his handle. Did he have a handle?

Nicholas De Leon (00:37:15):
His name was triple H Hurst. Helmsley.

Leo Laporte (00:37:18):
Awful. Just awful. No wonder he failed.

Nicholas De Leon (00:37:21):
He was my favorite when I was 14, 15, really? Oh yes. And, and everyone hated him, but I, he was a bad guy. He was a heel, but I, as a, oh, I loved the heel. I always like the bad guys. Yeah, yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:37:31):
Yeah, yeah. Everybody does. That's that's yeah. So I actually had a question for Jason cuz you've seen eight K. So we, it was a pretty steady progression from SD standard definition to HD full high Def to UHD 4k. But I'm wondering if we're gonna make that same step to eight K. I feel like the problem is content's gonna get very yes. They're TVs, but that content's gonna get heavier and heavier. Do you think AK is the next step a logical step or, or, or is it we don't need it any better than 4k?

Jason Hiner (00:38:08):
Hmm, no, I, I think we do need better than 4k. Like 4k still doesn't isn't as good as the human eye, you know, the human is, is as long as there's stuff, that's gonna be more like looking out a window and, and seeing,

Leo Laporte (00:38:21):
So you, when you looked at it in Korea, in South Korea, you could, it was like, wow, this is a significant step up

Jason Hiner (00:38:29):
That the soccer was,

Leo Laporte (00:38:31):
The soccer was.

Jason Hiner (00:38:33):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean the, the other stuff, like, you know, looking at beautiful pictures of mountains.

Leo Laporte (00:38:38):
Yeah. They always have the same crappy content, you know, here's a sea oter. Yeah. I know.

Jason Hiner (00:38:43):
That, that stuff look

Leo Laporte (00:38:44):
At the look at the drops of water on his fur. It's incredible.

Jason Hiner (00:38:48):
<Laugh> because a lot that stuff is amazing in 4k two and right. I, I don't really notice the difference in soccer. I did.

Leo Laporte (00:38:56):
What you don't wanna see is Lord of the rings in eight K because Gandolph staff looks like it came from, you know, wizards are us, it looks like a piece of plastic, which it is. Yeah. By the way. <Laugh> and now you're seeing it as it is.

Owen Thomas (00:39:09):
I'm a big I'm a big fan of RuPaul's drag race. And I think the drag Queens would have words with you if you tried to put them on.

Leo Laporte (00:39:16):
Yeah. Let's not. Yeah. <Laugh>

Owen Thomas (00:39:18):
We lose the

Jason Hiner (00:39:18):
Magic, all the pores, all the pores. Yeah. <laugh> no, I, I, I, I would say the soccer was the one thing that I was like sports. Oh, okay.

Leo Laporte (00:39:26):
No sports makes a lot of sense. It

Jason Hiner (00:39:27):
Really looked amazing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:39:29):
And, you know, yeah. Have

Jason Hiner (00:39:30):
Like some big epic stuff.

Leo Laporte (00:39:31):
I spent a lot of money with YouTube TV, with Google to get the Olympics in 4k. And it really does look fantastic. I mean, it really it's much better for sports, not so hot for other things.

Nicholas De Leon (00:39:43):
Jason, was that demo. Was that in a higher frame rate as well? Or was that the,

Leo Laporte (00:39:47):
Oh, that's a good question.

Jason Hiner (00:39:47):
It was, it was in a, in a much higher frame rate that that's why the soccer ball, when it went across the screen, he was like, whoa, there's no blur. It was all. That would be

Nicholas De Leon (00:39:55):
Great.

Jason Hiner (00:39:56):
Yeah. So cool. So cool. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:39:58):
Yeah. And you need a giant screen because there's an eight K on a 70 inch TV, big deal, right?

Jason Hiner (00:40:05):
Yeah. Doesn't, you're not gonna tell, but this was 98 inches. It was eight K. It was very, it was high frame rate. Forgive me. I don't remember exactly what it was, but yeah, when it was, when, when the ball went across the screen, when the players were diving, you know, it was like, whoa, it's not blurry. Like all of a sudden

Leo Laporte (00:40:22):
He's not bird. I can see every inch <laugh>

Jason Hiner (00:40:25):
Yeah, exactly. See it purposely, I see every grass stain on, on his, you know, socks. It, it was, it was pretty, it was pretty interesting. And that was where I realized like, okay, this is better.

Leo Laporte (00:40:35):
The tool change there. I mean, we've got the TVs, we've got the cameras. Delivery is a question mark. We don't really have, it is good way to deliver it at this point, but I guess we could solve that.

Jason Hiner (00:40:46):
We will. That reminds me mainly with will keep getting better.

Nicholas De Leon (00:40:48):
Yeah. I was just gonna say at EFA, the big European kind of version of CES in 2010, I was there and ESPN was it announced 3d. They were gonna do 3d.

Leo Laporte (00:41:00):
Remember that,

Nicholas De Leon (00:41:00):
That kinda, I think there, I think there's an official FIFA world cup 2010 Blueray or whatever in 3d, in 3d that feels you cannot, I think I may have had it at one point.

Leo Laporte (00:41:11):
You cannot go to the store today and buy a 3d TV. They're all gone. I still have one with the glasses, which are dusty as hell. Cuz I've, they're sitting behind the TV charging. Oh, those will work. <Laugh> well, we've never used them on this Panasonic VI yeah, I think 3d, even in movies there's no. Do they do 3d movies anymore?

Jason Hiner (00:41:31):
Yeah, they do. Do they? They still do 3d. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. They still offer most of the big movies in 3d and like cinema mark is still big with 3d. Okay. Okay. I think some of the others are too reg go and yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:41:46):
All right. Can

Owen Thomas (00:41:46):
We talk about speaking of 3d? Can we talk about mark Zuckerberg's <laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:41:51):
Yes. Oh my God. When we come back, I wanna take a break, but let's talk about mark. I don't know what D that is. Is that a negative number? I don't know. Mark Zuckerberg's what is it called? Horizon? new horizon. What's the name of their virtual reality horizon world horizon world mark in's horizon world, as as the TWiTtterverse said 10 billion for that really? But before we do that and I am so glad to have you guys as my, my panel today, Owen Thomas from protocol from consumer reports, Nicholas Deleon, and the wonderful Jason Heiner from CD net. I do wanna talk about our sponsor for this segment of the show express VPN. The only VPN I use, the only VPN I trust. When you go to the bathroom, you close the door behind you, right? They always say, oh, well, you know, I have nothing to hide.

Leo Laporte (00:42:44):
You close the bathroom door, you have something to hide. You don't want random. Passerbys looking in saying, Hey <laugh> so, so why would you let somebody watch you online using the internet without express VPNs, like going to the bathroom and not closing the door. And I'll tell you why your internet service provider, they know every site you're going to, when you do a Google search, they know, they say, oh, hi Leo. Sure. Let me record all the things you search for. Cuz our advertisers would love to know that and worse lately we're seeing governments buy that information from data brokers from third parties subpoenaing that information from ISPs and sites like Facebook. You can get a lot of trouble for the stuff you're doing. In fact, we've got a story coming up in just a little bit. How Google turned a guy's service off express VPN can put a stop to this.

Leo Laporte (00:43:40):
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Leo Laporte (00:44:29):
The performance is superior. And let me emphasize this, cuz I think it's important to know it's important to choose the right VPN provider because yeah, sure. The VPN's protecting you from your ISP, but then they see everything the ISP would see, right? So you've gotta find a VPN provider that cares about your privacy. As much as you do express VPN does. It was just a great article about how express does what they do. They have a custom version of Debbie and the Linux distro that refreshes itself every day. So everything's wiped off when you use the express VPN, it fires up their trusted server in Ram sandbox. So it can't write to the hard drive. And as soon as you leave, it goes away. And so does every trace of your visit? They do everything possible to protect your privacy, no government, even if they seize the servers without a warrant as happens sometimes not in this country, but in other countries, no government can see what you've been doing with express VPN.

Leo Laporte (00:45:28):
And we know that too, from many news stories about governments, seizing the servers, finding nothing on them. So very important. Number one, VPN, according to Mashable the verge, countless others, the only one I use, if you wanna protect your privacy, if you think your online activity should be your business and no one else's go to express vpn.com/TWiTt today, E X, P R E S S vpn.com. Please use the slash TWiT. So they know you saw it here. And as, as a thank you, you'll get an extra three months free with your one year plan. That's the best deal, less than seven bucks a month. And you do wanna pay for a VPN because you wanna be the customer, right? Not the product express VPN pm.com/TWiT. Thank you. Express VPN for your support of this week in tech

Jason Hiner (00:46:21):
Zuck. Get so relieved when it's like, I just wanna say I get so relieved when you have products on here that I'm, that I'm already using because it

Leo Laporte (00:46:28):
Actually the reaffirms the

Jason Hiner (00:46:29):
Amount of money,

Leo Laporte (00:46:30):
Your choice.

Jason Hiner (00:46:30):
Well, no, no, no. It's that the amount of money that I've spent when I come on this show over the years is like astronomical because I find out about new product cuz you pick good products and you, and then I'm like, oh shoot, okay. I wanna try. I think the list of things that I've tried is definitely like in the dozens that you know, from, from TWiTt. So I should really write you a, I should write you a, a

Leo Laporte (00:46:52):
Testimonial testimonial, Jason Heiner for that editor in chief CD net says, yes, I buy all that crap. Everything <laugh> here is let's see a picture of mark Zuckerberg in his new virtual reality environment. They call it horizon worlds where here's his Instagram, we're launching horizon worlds in France and Spain today looking forward to seeing people explore and build immersive worlds. And then there's a picture of the, of a, kind of a weak picture of the Eiffel tower standing nowhere. I don't know what this is. Something in Spain. Is that supposed to be LA SA Lara Amelia? I guess so. Yes it is. I think so. It's just so terrible. I can't tell. And who the hell is that? Is that a space alien? No, it Zuck himself. Of course immediately became a meme on TWiTtter and elsewhere saying he spent 10 billion for this <laugh> 10 billion last year alone.

Nicholas De Leon (00:47:50):
I thought you were gonna talk about that motherboard story of him in the I will, that they found. So

Leo Laporte (00:47:54):
I will. That's next? That's next? IM, I'm gonna talk about that too. I'm not sure which one you wanted to talk about. Owen one is you wanna talk about this horizon worlds?

Owen Thomas (00:48:04):
Yes. I mean the, you know, the, basically the fact that mark Zuckerberg got cyber bullied into an, he did upgrade

Leo Laporte (00:48:12):
To, so he upgraded. Is this better? At least. Well, okay. So look at this one hair, no texture it's painted on his head. I don't know what's going on with the eyes. That's not his mouth, it's it? It's a very attractive mouth, but it's not his mouth. Here's the new improved texture in the hair. His eyes aren't quite as massive. He looks like maybe his nose, he was broken a couple of times. Maybe it's writing that surfboard with the flag. I don't know how he did that. And then the mouth does look a little more like his, although he still has a,

Owen Thomas (00:48:43):
He's kind of worse if, you know, if you think about the uncanny valley theory,

Leo Laporte (00:48:48):
It's a very, yeah. Trying

Nicholas De Leon (00:48:49):
To be realistic. Yeah.

Owen Thomas (00:48:51):
But it's kind of falling in that trough of like, you know, still not realistic enough. But

Leo Laporte (00:48:57):
He he posted on Instagram saying, I know that photo I posted earlier this week was pretty basic, which by the way, in Zuck world basic is about the worst, you know, thing you could be was pretty basic. So <laugh>, here's a better one. He said, I just took it real quickly major updates to horizon and avatar graphics coming soon. I'll share more connect also. I know the photo I posted earlier this week was pretty basic. It was taken very quickly to celebrate a launch. Mark. You're one of the richest men in the world. You own outright. One of the biggest companies in the world, it was taken very quickly. I, we were in a rush. The graphics and horizon are capable of much more even on headsets. And actually I have to say whatever this is down at the bottom, that's that's a little more suitable. It looks like some Greek rule. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I'm still not. I've gotta tell you. I'm not gonna spend, I guess a minute. <Laugh> in the horizon worlds.

Nicholas De Leon (00:49:55):
I feel the same way I feel. And I'm again, I'm a huge gamer. If you, if you leave me to my devices, I'll play switch or PS five all day. I don't know about this horizon and whole metaverse thing feels, do you

Leo Laporte (00:50:09):
Do any, so which VR games do you play? Do you use the quest or?

Nicholas De Leon (00:50:13):
I have a quest too with a new one. I, I, I played Arizona sunshine, the zombie game when it came out. I'm not super, they're not, I don't find the games to be very good. And so I don't really play half life was good. Halflife Alex, which came out.

Leo Laporte (00:50:28):
Yeah. Cuz those things, the face suckers that I, I didn't play it, but I would imagine half fun is awesome too. Those would be really scary in VR, like jumping out.

Nicholas De Leon (00:50:37):
Yeah. I I'm more of a traditional either PC or console gamer or I'd I'd frankly just rather ride my bike than like horizons worlds or whatever. Yeah. And I don't know. I like I get, I think I brought this point up one of the previous times I was on, I don't know that there's an amount of money you could give my adopted mother where she would spend any amount of time in horizon

Leo Laporte (00:50:57):
Using her as an example of a real person. In other words.

Nicholas De Leon (00:50:59):
Yeah, she's an, she's a normal person was a normal job. She's a professor this just fundamentally uninteresting to her. And if it's interesting to her and ING to me as a giant nerd gamer, who is, who is like, I don't, who is hyped about this? I don't know

Leo Laporte (00:51:14):
You guys at protocol had a I thought a really interesting interview with the product leader, Roblox, Josh Aon. I dunno if that's his real name but they're doing it too. Roblox is gonna do last week, the company announced a big step forward for its work on graphical fidelity with an update to the materials. It Le it lets its users create virtual worlds out of boy, if anybody could succeed in a virtual environment, it would be Roblox. Right

Owen Thomas (00:51:43):
Though. I, I don't know if the graphics are the, the key thing. I mean, is it, you know, is it more the, the gameplay of the virtual world? I mean, that seems to be what makes

Leo Laporte (00:51:52):
That's true of any

Owen Thomas (00:51:53):
Game Fortnite.

Leo Laporte (00:51:54):
It's true of any game, otherwise people wouldn't play eight bit games, right? It's the game, correct? Yeah.

Owen Thomas (00:52:01):
And horizon worlds. Isn't really a game. So, you know, well,

Leo Laporte (00:52:07):
That's true too. Go into it. Yeah. It's a social, but is it not the case that, that this is Meta's future? Like there, this is all their hopes and fears and prayers are in this box called virtual reality.

Owen Thomas (00:52:23):
Remember when Facebook was like, where you went to play games, you know, like yeah. Farm fabulous

Leo Laporte (00:52:29):
And farm. Oh yeah. Farmville,

Owen Thomas (00:52:30):
Farmville, you know, they, they, more or less, you know, just walked away from that entire market. I think if you are a game maker though, you're going to have long memories of that period and think really long and hard. If you want to have that same company as your partner in in building out games on top of horizon world,

Leo Laporte (00:52:50):
I'm also not crazy about the idea of a company owning my metaverse like, whose metaverse are you in? Are you in the Rob box? Metaverse are you in the Facebook? Metaverse what it feels like. It shouldn't be like that.

Jason Hiner (00:53:09):
Right. It's why Invidia is trying to do what it's doing with this or what they're calling the omniverse which is this kind of cross platform. Metaverse now they have quietly partnered with Pixar and apple. There you go. And so I, if apple does a headset, you know, worst kept secret in tech world, you know, in January or somewhere around there, you know, perhaps it's built on this, this platform. So that, that's interesting. I, I do, I do agree that people have lock in fatigue. I, I think, and so something like the metaverse feels like I, I think something that people are gonna really wary about being just locked into an ecosystem

Leo Laporte (00:53:58):
Here is NVIDIAs drives SIM, which Nvidia, as you know, is very much into autonomous vehicles. This is designed for you to test your autonomous vehicles. This is I actually recognize this tunnel. This is a tunnel. I would drive every day to get from San Francisco to Marin the Robin Williams tunnel. I think it's called. Yeah. Yeah. This looks pretty good. I mean, I w this, I could see maybe for a driving game or something like that. Yeah. Oh, actually, I guess it's in Germany now. Suddenly we're in Germany. <Laugh>

Jason Hiner (00:54:30):
Come out of the tunnel in Germany,

Leo Laporte (00:54:32):
Far, far, far enough to Altoon. Okay. So they got the technology. Certainly they got the hardware.

Jason Hiner (00:54:42):
I do think it's as oh and said until there's a compelling experience, even that's the one asterisks I'll put on my, like, you know ecosystem lock in comment, like is if there's an experience that a lot of people want, they'll probably, they may throw that to <laugh>, they'll throw that to the wind. You know, at least initially to have an experience that they're really interested in. I think that's why you can argue that maybe apple arcade, which has been moderately successful for apple, why it hasn't perhaps been more successful is it's it's never had that one must play experience that a lot of people want to go there for, even though I think they've taken some swings at that, I think it'll be the same for the metaverse too. Like it's a, it's a hits, it's a hits based business. And until there's something that a lot of people want to go there and do it it'll be it'll. It probably won't see much action.

Leo Laporte (00:55:33):
Yeah. It's gonna be, it's like 3d TV. It it's just that every company in the world spending billions of dollars, hoping it's gonna be the next big thing, but there's no guarantee. Right. so let's, let's now go to LACMA, the Los Angeles county museum of art Eric's king, who is a product designer at riot games on a date with his girlfriend at Los Angeles county museum of art. They were viewing an exhibition called the archive of the world, art and imagination in Spanish America, 1500 to 1800 king saw something he'd not expect to see a sculpture entitled Virgin of mercy or Pilgrim of keto. Take a look, baby mark <laugh> same hair, same eyes. He actually looks a lot like the horizon world's mark Zuckerberg. He took a picture course and and called motherboard or tweeted it. I don't know. Somehow he let motherboard know. I remember leaning over to my girlfriend and whispering in her ear, not to annoy other visitors. It looked just like Zuckerberg. She ended up laughing so hard. <Laugh> my attempt not to interrupt the space. Wasn't very effective. I guess mark is probably the last guy in the world to have a Caesar cut haircut. So maybe it's, it's no accident, baby Zuck. That's the one you wanted to, to look at, right? Owen <laugh>

Owen Thomas (00:57:01):
Exactly. That's and it's, it's the same uncanny valley effect. It is, you know, about the same quality of execution.

Leo Laporte (00:57:09):
Yeah. <laugh> well, I don't know if mark Zuckerberg is the reincarnation of the Pilgrim of keto, but there's definitely some people at Lac, Mahu. I think

Jason Hiner (00:57:20):
This reminds me of the, the, the Chinese doppelganger for Elon Musk. I'm sure you've talked about this on the show before. Oh, no, it's big. Like in December. Yeah. Look, look up Chinese doppelganger for Elon Musk. This, this one is, is pretty wild.

Leo Laporte (00:57:35):
Well, let's see, here is a guy in China who looks just like Elon Musk. And actually this story says he has been suspended from TikTok and TWiTtter. Well, he does look just like, he's the guy on the left. You might be puzzled. Yeah. his name Elong ma he got suspended on Wabo and Dugin this week because Musk has previously said I would like to meet him in person. He went viral. <Laugh> playing, I guess, playing Elon Musk

Jason Hiner (00:58:10):
<Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:58:12):
And the Chinese authorities did not like it

Jason Hiner (00:58:15):
<Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:58:16):
Oh, his, his username is Elong Musk <laugh>

Jason Hiner (00:58:20):
Yeah. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:58:23):
239,000 followers on TikTok 3.9 million likes

Jason Hiner (00:58:26):
<Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:58:27):
Wow. So TikTok TikTok is the last place he can he can be. Yeah, it's interesting. Hmm. Alright. Real news. Real stories. How about this one? New York times this morning. Wow. What a story? It starts with a young father who has a child. Who's not feeling it all. Well. they call the doctor, the doctor says, oh, what's the problem. He says, well, you know, you know, there's some swelling in his intimate parts. The doctor says, well send me a picture. Kashmir hill had the story. This was a Friday night in February of 2021. The nurse said send photos. So the doctor can review them. Mark's wife as happens by the way, all the time, especially during COVID Mark's wife grabbed her husband's phone, texted a few high quality closeups of their son's groin area to her iPhone.

Leo Laporte (00:59:29):
So she could upload 'em to the healthcare provider's messaging system. In one of them Mark's hand was visible, helping to better display the swelling that was that with help from the photos, the doctor diagnosed the issue, prescribed antibiotics, the kids feeling much better. However, however, a couple of days later his Gmail account is shut down. He's a Google fi user. He loses his not only his email, but his phone number. It turns out his Android camera had backed up his photos to the Google cloud. Google's C Sam child, sexual abuse materials, scanner. Automatedly recognized it sent it to Nick M the national center for missing and exploited children. Nick Mac, of course it didn't wrap. It didn't match anything in their existing database. So they had a human look at it. Humans said, yeah, that's C Sam and Google immediately took down his account because of harmful content.

Leo Laporte (01:00:32):
That was a severe violation of Google's policies and might be illegal. Furthermore, they referred his name to the San Francisco police department. It's kind of ironic because the father was a software engineer working on an automated tool for taking down video content flagged by users is problematic, who better you know, to understand how this worked. He filled out a form requesting a review of Google's decision explaining what had happened. Google said, no that's it you're respondent. We are not gonna reinstate the account. No further explanation. What he did not know is the SFPD has started an investigation. The SF P D eventually cleared him. In fact, he received in the mail a Manila envelope in December. So this started in February. So eight months, nine months later, he got a Manila. Actually 10 months later, he got a Manila envelope in the mail from the SFPD with a letter saying you've been investigated copies of the search warrant were in there, served on Google. And his is P they got everything. An investigator whose contact information was provided, got Mark's internet searches, his local location, history, his messages, any documents, photos, and videos he'd stored with Google. The investigator at least was intelligent enough to look at it and say, yeah, no, I understand what happened. I determined this is the quote. In the report I determined the incident did not meet the elements of a crime, no crime occurred.

Leo Laporte (01:02:10):
So the father sent this back to Google saying, can I have my account back? Google said, no. His account was permanently deleted as was his fine number. So he lost his emails, lost his fine number, lost all the documents, lost all the photos, everything stored on Google. He says, I spoke to a lawyer about suing how much it would cost. He, he says, I decide it wasn't worth the 7,000 bucks. I would've had to give the attorney look, no one supports child pornography or, or child sexual abusive material. But this is exactly the problem when apple proposed this, that, that eff and others pointed out this, this false positive that can have a devastating effect on your life. Even, even if you prove, if you provide evidence that there was nothing going on wrong, his decade old Google account gone, he was a paying user of Google's web services gone. And, you know, this is the most humiliating. He now has to use Hotmail for his email address. I'm being silly, isn't it? It's, that's, it's horrible.

Owen Thomas (01:03:21):
The, the irony is that the San Francisco police department is being more helpful than Google. They have a copy of one of the parents that Kmar hill wrote about in this article of his Google account. And they're trying to get it, trying to get that data back to him which again is more than Google is doing. I think, you know, this may be a case where regulation is called for where if you can, you know, get cleared by a police department or other law enforcement agency in an investigation and present that evidence you know, Google should not be able to make a determination that's, you know, above and beyond what the police have found. That that seems, you know, that seems like Google appointing itself as the police.

Leo Laporte (01:04:08):
Yeah. It's kind of sad. You have to go to the San Francisco police department and say, can I have my data cuz Google won't give it to me. Wow. It does raise the issue though. Remember when you take pictures on your device, whether it's an iPhone or an Android phone you may well be uploading it to servers where it's gonna be scanned. And in fact, as soon as Google saw that they scanned everything else, they went through everything he had on the Google servers and I'm sure apple would do exactly the same thing.

Jason Hiner (01:04:39):
Yeah. There, there are. And the

Leo Laporte (01:04:41):
Companies go ahead. Jason, and then, and then Owen,

Jason Hiner (01:04:45):
I, I was just gonna say, there are a couple takeaways from this one is just what you said, Leah. Like, I have to be really thoughtful about, you know, photos that you take for, for that reason. And, and I think the other is that this is the kind of thing when these companies, you know, act and, and don't have a good system for appeal or, or a, a sort of a rational system for, for appealing, what is clearly a mistaken a bad filter. And I I've been a party. This I could, I could tell a story about it. That was kind of just ridiculous on its face with YouTube. But this is where there's so much, so many calls for regulation, because this is again where like institutions running over individuals. This is where you start to run into people, really having the sense that we need to regulate big tech companies, cuz they control so much of the universe now. And so there has to be guardrails put in place so that they can't just act with impunity, do these things to, to individuals that have real effects on their lives and then have be completely flip about not having a good appeals process for them, if they are flagged, you know, falsely.

Leo Laporte (01:06:01):
So it's inter I'm watching the chatroom and some people in the chat room saying, well, he did that. It's illegal what he did and Google had the right to go through it. Perhaps they agreed that Google should restore it now, but, but nothing Google did was, was inappropriate. I disagree <laugh> I mean the government couldn't do this without warrants that's so that the police department had to get warrants, they had to go to a court, they had to go to a judge. They did all that Google didn't.

Owen Thomas (01:06:30):
The police department literally found that no crime had been committed. So how I, I don't, I, I don't understand the viewers who are saying that

Leo Laporte (01:06:39):
It wasn't a crime, it's a crime, it wasn't a crime. Right. And I can tell you right now, I mean, I've said, well, maybe I shouldn't talk about this, but it's not, <laugh>, it's not unusual for a doctor to say, send me pictures. Especially during COVID this was standard practice. I don't know what you're supposed to do as a parent. And I, it is appalling. I

Owen Thomas (01:07:02):
Think, I think actually there is an opportunity for you know, for doctors to rate maybe secure, you know, regulated apps that are like single purpose and their safety, like the image never gets stored on a server except one that the doctor has access to it's auto deleted after the doctor reviews it, you know, I think, I think actually there's some smart technology that could be applied to like this specific scenario. But I think there's also some, some logic to saying, just bring the kid into the doctor, you know, even if the doc, you know even if the doctor says, oh, just take a photo, like no,

Jason Hiner (01:07:44):
Yeah. Or video maybe do VI, but I know that there are some of these, these like cm E EMR systems that now have these like encrypted video chat or photo upload, which is likely related to some of these region reasons. But I also wonder too, like there there's all kinds of opportunities for false positives. What if you're taking a, you know, baby's first bath and you're giving it the kid a bath. Absolutely. And you take a photo and you, you send it to the grandparents. Right. You can imagine a scenario, tons of scenarios like that. Maybe their algorithms are smart enough to know the difference of that. Because I, I have to think that's likely very common. But, but it still sort of raises the question of like, could, could that become a case where you're you know have a false positive for child exploitation.

Leo Laporte (01:08:37):
Yeah. to me it's a strong argument against using automated tools for this. I understand there's a problem with child pornography. I don't know how widespread it is. Last year, Google filed 600,600,000 reports of child abuse, material and disabled. The accounts of 270,000 users. Whoa are all 270,000 people, child pornographers. If it's that widespread, I guess we've got a problem. I don't think it is. Wow. I just I understand these companies would far rather cut off, let's say a hundred thousand people wrongly than be pilled in the press for you know, allowing child pornographers to exist. But in fact, I have a feeling there's quite a bit of underground child pornography being circulated on these servers that they're, they're not effectively getting rid of. I it's just shocking to me.

Nicholas De Leon (01:09:48):
Can I ask, I, I haven't read the full article. Did Google provide comment to cashmere? Did they say they offer any explanation? No. Oh

Owen Thomas (01:09:55):
Yes, no, no, they did.

Leo Laporte (01:09:56):
Oh, what they say? Oh yeah, they did. Oh, okay. Here we go.

Owen Thomas (01:09:59):
They stood by their decision. And really, you know, okay. Basically they emphasized the importance of you know, stopping the online spread of child sex, sexual abuse material.

Nicholas De Leon (01:10:11):
Even after the police cleared, this guy even

Owen Thomas (01:10:15):
Asked the police cleared this guy. They,

Nicholas De Leon (01:10:17):
I agree with you, Owen. That seems to me that like, is Google now? Do they outran the police? Like we have law enforcement agencies. My, I don't know. I have zero insight to the, it feels like this is the type of thing. Google's probably scrambling to like, figure out how, you know, what happened.

Leo Laporte (01:10:31):
They're gonna reinstate the guy now

Nicholas De Leon (01:10:33):
I'm sure. But that's crazy that they, they kind of like

Leo Laporte (01:10:36):
In a, a statement, this is talk about an, an anemic statement in a statement. Google said, this is from KME Hill's article, child sexual abuse material is abhorrent and we're committed to preventing the spread of it on our platforms. That's it?

Jason Hiner (01:10:50):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:10:51):
All a few days after mark filed the appeal, Google respondent, it will not restate reinstate the account. No further explanation. That is, that is a stock response. Of course, child sexual abuses material is important. That's not what this was.

Jason Hiner (01:11:04):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It reminds me of the, you know, in the movie SCR where bill Murray plays the media executives and, and you know, something happens. And then, then the press calls and he's like, we at IBC are shocked,

Leo Laporte (01:11:16):
Shocked, shock

Jason Hiner (01:11:18):
Tragedy.

Leo Laporte (01:11:18):
Yes. <Laugh> sometimes I just hate corporations. I don't know what, what, what to say about him. All right. Moving, moving on. We can move on. Update your iPad, iPad OS and Mac OS zero day in the wild of two vulnerabilities found in web kit, the browser engine that powers safari because of it powering safari means it powers everything else on the iPhone. The two flaws affect iPad, OS iOS, Mac O S Monterey maliciously crafted web content. So you go to a website with those devices could lead to arbitrary code execution with kernel privileges. Woo. And apparently some successful exploits such as powerful nation state spyware are using these vulnerabilities to break through devices layers of protection. So if you saw that update and you're saying, well, do I need to do it? Yeah, you do. Wow. 

Owen Thomas (01:12:27):
My, my friends and I were were commenting on how this like ripped through the, all the family chat threads and like, you know, the, you know, like,

Leo Laporte (01:12:37):
Yeah, cuz there's people like you who have to now tell everybody, mom, dad do this. They need to know. And they may not even know. I, the

Owen Thomas (01:12:49):
Freaking whoever's the, whoever's the, the you know, defacto family, it person.

Leo Laporte (01:12:53):
Right. Well, and that's why I mentioned it here. I know everybody who watches our shows is, are geeky. And they probably, I mean, I'm sure they've already applied the patch, but just tell everybody else you need to do this. All right. Little break. Well, come back with more our fabulous panel, Jason Heiner I like seeing you every time I see you, Jason, I get a, I get a, I get a little smile in my, in my heart. Thanks. Leo CD net editor inchi. It's also nice to see people succeed and you have, and I do like it also that you have a TWiTt FES and an original iMac. That was, was that the first one, the, the original

Jason Hiner (01:13:33):
Mac and Matt classic. That was the Mac classic. So it was like, you know, basically third generation of the, of the early Mac.

Leo Laporte (01:13:40):
I wish I still had my Mac from 1984 that I spent 2000. You have yours, John? I bought it at Macy's because, because I had to charge it because I couldn't afford a $2,400 computer, but I can charge it on my Macy's card. So I got my first Mac in 84, I think, March of 84 at Macy's you two John and you, but you saved yours. What was I thinking? What a full on I

Jason Hiner (01:14:08):
Worked, I worked two jobs over the summer of before my senior year of high school to buy that, cuz it was the same one we used in the journalism lab and and so that I could do some of my work at home.

Leo Laporte (01:14:21):
That's so cute. Are your kids old enough to be buying computers yet?

Jason Hiner (01:14:26):
My daughter just just on Friday, bought her first phone with her first money.

Leo Laporte (01:14:31):
She's

Jason Hiner (01:14:31):
16. So she bought, she got an iPhone 11. Good in purple

Leo Laporte (01:14:36):
Smart. Perfect, cool. Purple iPhone. Perfect. Our 19 year old announced this morning cuz he just got a job at Safeway. It's his second job. He said I picked out the computer. I'm gonna buy <laugh> nice. I think it's it like kind of goes around. You get, you know, you work those jobs, you save up the first thing you do, you save up enough money by the way, the computer he's gonna buy a course air gaming machine a little bit more than that. Meto.

Jason Hiner (01:15:07):
$1,500. Is he

Leo Laporte (01:15:08):
Ambitious? His mom? My wife said maybe you should look at car insurance before you <laugh> before you buy that computer. Oh and what were you gonna say?

Owen Thomas (01:15:20):
I just remember I graduated high school, like right before the class came out and so we were stuck buying an se 30, which was like,

Jason Hiner (01:15:29):
It

Owen Thomas (01:15:29):
Was more expensive, but that SC 30 lasted man. I, I used,

Leo Laporte (01:15:33):
It was the 30 cuz it had a 30 megabyte hard drive. I

Owen Thomas (01:15:36):
I think it was a 68. Oh 30 chip.

Leo Laporte (01:15:40):
Yes. 68 68 0 3. Oh, okay. That was the 30.

Jason Hiner (01:15:43):
Yes. The SC 30 was actually what we had in the journalism lab. Now that you say it Owen and the, and the classic was like essentially was the se 30, the sort of, you know polished version of it or more.

Leo Laporte (01:15:55):
Yeah, it's recognizable. Cause it had this, the, the slots in the front, they looked like fins. Yeah. I'm just curious. Wow. It was $4,369 in 1989, which is equivalent to $9,550 today. Holy cow had a megabyte of Ram. You could get all the way up to 128. These are megabytes kids. Yeah. Megabytes of Ram.

Jason Hiner (01:16:21):
And I remember I had a friend who bought a 40 megabyte hard drive to external hard drive. It was. And I, I can't even remember. It's like 800 bucks at least or 1200 bucks or something. And, and I remember somebody telling him you'll never use that much space. You you'll never have enough data to ever use all of that.

Leo Laporte (01:16:41):
What was your first Nicholas?

Nicholas De Leon (01:16:44):
My first my first Mac was the second gen iMac. I got it in early 2002. And my first computer was some Packard bell.

Leo Laporte (01:16:55):
Oh God. <Laugh>

Nicholas De Leon (01:16:56):
Piece of junk in 1996. I remember those. I ran windows 95. It was a, it was a Frank inside of a machine. I still have the iMac in my dad's basement, actually. Nice. with originally everything, it still has all my, I turned it on. I dunno. A couple years ago. It still has all my high school essays and stuff.

Leo Laporte (01:17:12):
Oh, that's awesome. Oh, you definitely keep that. Awesome. Yeah,

Nicholas De Leon (01:17:16):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Nice.

Leo Laporte (01:17:17):
That's great. All right. Let's take a break. Come back. Lots more to talk about also hear Nicholas Deleon, consumer reports. He is there's senior electronics reporter. So <laugh> I guess that just covers a, you could do answering machines as well as computers.

Nicholas De Leon (01:17:36):
I would love to do all sorts of wacky tech. Yeah. It's it's funny. We are still electronics. It's not technology. Even though we write about everything that any traditional technology yeah. Publication would write about. I mostly cover laptops and like wifi stuff.

Leo Laporte (01:17:51):
I have been a proud subscriber for, I don't know, 30 years. I wonder I should log in and see if they say, I can't say that about protocol. <Laugh> I've been a proud subscriber for six months. Let me now I'm in the middle of a login and I said something

Leo Laporte (01:18:15):
Don't say anything Leo or you'll mess up your password. I already did never mind. I'll take a break and I'll tell you coming up our show day brought to you by ZipRecruiter. We just hired somebody with ZipRecruiter. I'm trying to remember who, oh yeah. She starts Monday. Yeah, Viva. She starts Monday and that's a great name. Isn't it? Viva. zip recruiter is the smartest way to hire and, and we believe it cuz we use it. Look, you're a business owner and it's summertime. The last thing you wanna do is be spending your, you could be at the pool. You don't wanna be going through unqualified candidates for that job. You could be having a barbecue. You could be on vacation. You could be redoing your deck. You could be gardening. You could be watching house of dragons, but no, your inbox is full.

Leo Laporte (01:19:04):
Your voicemail is full because you didn't use zip recruiter. You need to use zip recruiter. That's what we use. Whenever we have an opening, ZipRecruiter is the way to find great candidates because they do the work for you. And now you can try it free ziprecruiter.com/TWiTt. So when Ashley left, she, she got a great job. We're very proud of her. As often happens with employees, she she found a wonderful job. So she left. But that left us with a gaping hole in our continuity department. Lisa runs to ZipRecruiter cuz she knows it's the fastest way to hire plus the, the, so first of all, you post on ZipRecruiter. It's going out to a hundred plus job boards. Social media goes everywhere. They put it everywhere. You just click once they put it everywhere, but then they also do something amazing. They go through your your opening and they, and they find people in their database.

Leo Laporte (01:19:56):
They have millions of resumes that match and they send their names to you and say, look, here's be some good people. And then you invite them. Now I have to tell you, when you invite somebody to apply to a job, they are are so flattered. It really is a great way to make that first introduction. They're gonna follow through four out of five employers, a post on ZipRecruiter, get a quality candidate within the first day. It's the number one rated hiring site based on G2 satisfaction ratings as of the first of this year. And I have to tell you, we are very happy. Viva is not the first person we hired through zip recruiter. We've hired many of our best staff members as ZipRecruiter. You can too. Let's ZipRecruiter. Do the work for you this summer. Try it. Free. ziprecruiter.com/TWiT Z I P R E C R U I T E R. Ziprecruiter.Com/T w I T. Zip recruiter is the smartest way to hire and we can vouch for it cuz that's what we use. Zip recruiter. I'm very happy with the zip, with the zip <laugh> yeah, I gotta try one more time. My consumer reports password, I think it's monkey 1 23. I think that's the problem. I think it's an old, I've been a member for so long. Does it say, I feel like it says,

Nicholas De Leon (01:21:16):
I don't know

Leo Laporte (01:21:17):
Offhand. Yeah. My benefits, my products, my feed account settings member. Oh yeah. Member since 2001 21 years. Since before you were born Nicholas.

Nicholas De Leon (01:21:28):
Wow, thank you. Yeah, just I'll say I spoke to a guy. Yes. Or the other day. And he has been a CR subscriber. I think he said since the eighties, I was like, wow, that, that actually might be before I was

Leo Laporte (01:21:39):
I'm sure I was a subscriber before 2001. Cuz I know I in the eighties and nineties I would get the magazine. Sure, sure, sure. Right. I'd go through it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't buy a thing without looking at CR first.

Nicholas De Leon (01:21:50):
So yeah. That's how my parents were too. I remember the, the previous design with the red, the, the red circles and stuff. Love it. It's green now, but <laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:22:00):
Well you are. Thank you for the job. You do. You are vital. Maybe you wanna tell your readers to stay away. <Laugh> you mentioned your Packard bell machine.

Leo Laporte (01:22:14):
Yes. You might wanna stay away from laptops from, well there variety of companies, but older windows, XP laptops. This is from a post by Raymond Chen, who is a Microsoft chief software engineer. The story of what happens when those older laptops play the music video for Janet Jackson's rhythm nation. Now I would play it, but YouTube will immediately take us down. So I'll just leave that as an exercise for the, a major computer manufacturer, probably Packard bell. I'm thinking <laugh> I don't know. I'm just saying discover that when you,

Nicholas De Leon (01:22:58):
It was such a bad computer, it

Leo Laporte (01:22:59):
Was such a bad computer. I wouldn't be surprised. Let's put it that way. Yeah. That when you play rhythm nations, certain models of their, their laptop would crash and they couldn't figure out why <laugh>. So it also crashed to competitor's laptops. Eventually they figured out what's in common. Oh, it's this particular model of 5,400 RPM laptop hard drives the song has a resonant frequency that causes a vibration in the drive that causes it to com to crash. So this manufacturer fixed it by putting in a filter in the audio pipeline that removes that frequency. I don't know if that made rhythm nation sound terrible, but and then he, he mentions also a similar situation that happened with another laptop and, and resonance. A Microsoft developer revealed that playing the game 101 mono Chrome mazes. I don't remember this one would reliably crash.

Leo Laporte (01:24:06):
The speaker trace was so close to the reset trace when it got vibrating when reset the computer. So if you know what, it's so funny because these are such old computers, but I bet you there are people listening and go. Yeah. I, I never could play that game. <Laugh> I thought it was something wrong in the game. Wow. Wow. So, so I would love right now to play rhythm nation and see if any of your computers crash, but let's hope you are not still using windows XP, Raymond Chen posting at Microsoft blog, the old new thing. I love it. When these guys tell anecdotes from the, you probably couldn't tell the story then, because it would've looked bad for that company, but now it's okay.

Leo Laporte (01:24:58):
We mentioned that tonight is the house of dragons. I didn't mention though, all the fabulous tie-ins to get you to watch this show. T-Shirts there's Funko pops. There's barware you can buy believe it or not at the Warner brothers shop artisanal serving planks. <Laugh> when they came of Thrones houses, burnt into the serving plank. I think everyone, everyone should have such a thing. There's your next sponsor? Leo <laugh> you know what? If it's half the dragon Funko pops I'm there I'm I'm with you. <Laugh> I'm with you. There's Seras targ. There's the Allison high tower, Damon tar and re oh, sorry. I gotta sign up and save. Why does Warner brothers logo still have the water tank? Come on guys. That is, that is, that is not the best way to represent your company. That's ridiculous. Is that in LA? That must be on their back lot. Somewhere. What are their house of dragon things? Here's a exclusive house of dragon beverage, glass scent, a jacket. Do you think they're gonna judge this show on whether, you know, orders fly in? Here's a t-shirt that says history does not re remember blood. It remembers names. I'm not wearing that.

Nicholas De Leon (01:26:28):
<Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:26:30):
I don't even know what that means. I'm not re I'm not wearing that. What other, what other well you mentioned wrestling.

Nicholas De Leon (01:26:40):
Oh, yes. I was waiting for this.

Leo Laporte (01:26:42):
Yeah. A E w dynamite brought back Ricky, the dragon Steamboat <laugh> he's 69. So he won't be wrestling. He will

Nicholas De Leon (01:26:51):
Be still better than half the guys today. Anyway,

Leo Laporte (01:26:54):
<Laugh> probably is. He could take a pile driver, like no one else. He will be the special guest timekeeper. Does that mean he rings the bell? What does that mean? Yes. Yes. For a match between the American dragon. Brian Danielson and Daniel Garcia. Oh,

Nicholas De Leon (01:27:10):
It happened.

Leo Laporte (01:27:11):
Oh,

Nicholas De Leon (01:27:11):
It's over. That was, that was last Wednesday.

Leo Laporte (01:27:13):
Yeah. Was it a great, oh yeah, it was Wednesday. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Daniel Garcia did not have a dragon nickname, but decided he should have some. So he created a nickname himself, the dragon Slayer and renamed his scorpion death lock to. Was it good? Is that a good move to the dragon Tamer?

Nicholas De Leon (01:27:31):
Yeah. Well, Danielson has been the American dragon for like 20 years. Oh, it's been his nickname for ever basically.

Leo Laporte (01:27:38):
Yeah, yeah.

Nicholas De Leon (01:27:39):
A bit of weird corporate whatever <laugh> but they're on TVs. They're, you know, they're, it's, it's all Warner brothers discovery and it feels slightly like, I dunno how many viewers are gonna tune into the dragon show because they saw Ricky, the dragon Steamboat. Maybe they'll get a couple.

Leo Laporte (01:27:55):
I'm all excited. Now I gotta see this show. Los Angeles, natural history museum. It's a museum. It's natural history. They're gonna have a house of the dragon, the targ dynasty exhibit displaying costumes and paraphernalia, as well as a giant dragon skeleton, which as vice is quick to point out is a prop because dragons are not real in case we case you were worried. <Laugh> but the weirdest one is HBO partnered with dual lingo. You can learn high Valer <laugh> they've updated their course in high Valer 150 new words, 700 new sentences. I'm sure they had clinging on in the day. So this is just more of the same <laugh> there is a 3d billboard. Can I play this? Sure. This, I feel like I could play this. This is a 3d billboard in times square. I love these 3d billboards because they aren't, they cool Japan. They, they do these all the time. It looks like. Yeah. That dragon is really on that building. That's pretty believable. Yeah. Yeah. Is it gonna breed fire?

Jason Hiner (01:29:08):
The screens have gotten so good. Wow. They're so good. Just set the whole building on fire.

Leo Laporte (01:29:13):
That's awesome. Just yeah. Blew it all off. Oh, and by the way, LG then says, watch it on our 97 inch TV. <Laugh>

Owen Thomas (01:29:21):
Do you get a 97 inch TV into a house?

Leo Laporte (01:29:25):
You don't, you build the house around it. <Laugh> I'm not kidding. I many, many years ago, sharp at CES showed 108 inch TV. And I was still at the time doing live with Regis and Kelly. And I said, well, guys, let's show this on, live with Regis and Kelly. And they were so excited about this opportunity to show off this. It was at the time, you know, there was a battle who has the biggest screen at CES. You may remember this. This must be, oh yeah. Yeah. It's like maybe, I don't know, 15 years ago, it's a long time ago. So they, the only way they could ship it is in the belly of especially built seventh 47. It arrives in this giant case with five technicians, they bring it onto the set. They open up the box. This is the day before they open up the box.

Leo Laporte (01:30:13):
They take it out. It's got a line down the middle of the screen. They're immediately on the phone to Tokyo talking to, they try, it's broken. There's a, there's something broke in transit. And so they said, when you show the TV on, on live we're gonna have a, a lot of grass <laugh> and the picture, and no one will see the line. And if you can't stand in the middle. Okay. And I guess you know what you could, that, that, I think that's still on YouTube. You could, you could watch it. I don't think you'll see the line,

Jason Hiner (01:30:49):
The way they're gonna start to do these is they're gonna make them in multiple panels. So we saw this in, in Korea and they, and they showed this at CES too. I think this might be the biggest TV ever shown off at CES. Samsung did the, the wall TV.

Leo Laporte (01:31:01):
Oh, I loved the wall. I saw that

Jason Hiner (01:31:04):
292 inches. That was smaller panels. Like I wanna say 50 inch.

Leo Laporte (01:31:07):
Yeah. It's micro L E D.

Jason Hiner (01:31:09):
Yeah. And then, and then they put the panels next to each other and it looks seamless, you know, it doesn't so, so I think eventually, you know someday that's, that's what it, that's what it'll be. I mean, it's also possible that it could be, and I know we've all seen this many times like that they will, the, the O LEDs will be, will be rollable O LEDs. You'll bring them in and they'll just be like, rolled up like a poster. And then you'll, you'll spread that out, you know you know, 10, 20 years from now when they're, when they're not very expensive. And and we wanna put up something larger than 65 inches or something on our, on our walls,

Leo Laporte (01:31:48):
They, I think there are issues as I remember with the borders on these things, but I think that's the future for me. That's gonna be the future of of, for me. Yeah. I wanna, I'm not gonna replace my big projector. My a hundred inch projector until they have 'em that big. Yeah, I think yes, here it is. Ladies and gentlemen. <Laugh> I found the video. Yes, here I am. By the way, this was, they put me in a lab coat and everybody's on lab coat and gentlemen world's

Dr Leo (01:32:17):
Largest flat panel. Dr.

Leo Laporte (01:32:18):
Leo, Dr. Leo, don't look for the green line down the middle.

Dr Leo (01:32:23):
Isn't this great. Look at that. This is an LCD it's 10 P. Now there are only three in the world. This is the only one in the United,

Leo Laporte (01:32:34):
I guess you can't see that line. It's

Kelly (01:32:35):
So beautiful. Look at our gorgeous audience mugging

Dr Leo (01:32:38):
For the camera.

Leo Laporte (01:32:39):
They're am I gonna get taken down by Regis and Kelly Sharp

Dr Leo (01:32:43):
Makes all sizes, but this is the biggest 108. It

Nicholas De Leon (01:32:46):
We're.

Leo Laporte (01:32:47):
Yeah, we're commenting. This is derivative. It's not gonna do anything to the worst

Dr Leo (01:32:51):
Is you have to take the roof off the house

Leo Laporte (01:32:52):
To get it in. There you go. You literally had to take the roof off the house to get that in, to get it in. You'd have to build the house around it, but if you're shack or whoever, and you, you know, you can afford $150,000 TV, you

Nicholas De Leon (01:33:06):
Right.

Leo Laporte (01:33:07):
Could afford to take the roof off.

Nicholas De Leon (01:33:09):
Leo. Can I ask you a question? Was that a fun gig? That looks incredible

Leo Laporte (01:33:13):
Doing

Nicholas De Leon (01:33:13):
That. Oh yes.

Leo Laporte (01:33:15):
Yeah. It was a great gig. Dick DeBartolo, who, you know, Mads mad writer he's our GI was, did it for years with Kathy Lee reaches Kathy Lee after nine 11, they couldn't get anybody to come to New York to do this show. Yeah. They called me like the next month. And I said, well, yeah, I'll come out. And I remember because I went over to the nine 11 site and yeah, it was very, very, very moving. They had chain link fences around it, but, you know, posters can have you seen this person? I can't find them. Yeah. Flowers. It was incredibly moving. It's now a beautiful Memorial. They've really made it the gorgeous Memorial, but I started. And then, so that was 2001 and I did it for, I think 10 or 13 years. I did it until re is retired.

Nicholas De Leon (01:34:01):
Wow. I didn't know that. That's it.

Leo Laporte (01:34:02):
That's awesome. And then Lance Yuloff, you guys will know former editor in chief PC magazine. He took it over. I don't know who's doing it now. Although I'm, I'm lobbying. They have, they had a guy who does sandwiches on TikTok and I'm lobbying them to bring my son on who is the king of sandwiches on TikTok with 2.1 million followers, cuz then it would be like a, like a, a dynasty. Yeah. Right. It's a dynasty

Nicholas De Leon (01:34:28):
<Laugh> it's like father and son playing the same baseball team. Incredible.

Leo Laporte (01:34:31):
I don't think they'll make him wear a lab coat though. That that would be silly. Speaking of TV shows here comes ring. The doorbell MIT technology review headline says ring's new TV show is a brilliant, but ominous viral marketing ploy, you know, ring, which is owned by. Amazon's been getting a lot of heat lately for letting police have access to videos and so forth. Turns out the other doorbell, guys, Google do the same thing. So I'm not sure it's just a ring problem, but one way to improve your your reputation is to do a TV show. That's kind of like America's funniest home videos only it's America's funniest home doorbell videos. There is a ring doorbell hashtag on TikTok with 2.5 billion views. The new show will be called the premier next month. It'll be called ring nation. And it will feature as you might imagine, videos from doorbells things like funny animals, marriage proposals, and heartwarming neighborhood interactions. This is from the press release. Wanda Sykes will host and it comes from MGM studios. Wait a minute. Who just bought MGM? Oh, Amazon. Oh yeah. <Laugh> that's funny.

Jason Hiner (01:35:54):
Shocker.

Leo Laporte (01:35:55):
Shocker. So you know what? It'll probably do fine, but I think it is a little bit about sanitizing. Oh, it's so cool. When we, we ring before Amazon bottom ring was a sponsor and they loved it. I would do. I started this actually, cuz I, they loved, I would you'd see all these on TWiTtter. I'd pull up a few doorbell videos as part of the ad and they loved that. So I can, I think I should take some credit.

Jason Hiner (01:36:20):
Anybody. Remember America's funny has tone videos. Yeah. oh yeah. It was actually really pretty good. And so that, that makes me think that it'll be the same probably some decent material. There's a to, that they have, we had to draw, I

Leo Laporte (01:36:33):
See it on Reddit all the time or TWiTtter. We, I always enjoy think

Nicholas De Leon (01:36:37):
Of how many cameras and running 24. So there's gotta be at least, you know, a 20 minute show worth of content a week. I mean

Jason Hiner (01:36:45):
Yeah, I agree. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:36:46):
For sure. And there's lots, the thing is, and this is the only problem with the show. I don't know if you know, but remember this, but the ring doorbell is very, it's a fisheye, so everything is fisheye. Mm. And it's a little, I don't know if I would wanna watch a half hour of fisheye videos, but they actually started this who's that in 2018. And again, I wanna totally take credit for this. They have a channel on tv.ring.com of ring videos. And so I think was just, was just natural that they would do a a TV show. So watch for that coming soon to a TV near you,

Jason Hiner (01:37:28):
Was it Bob? Saggot? That was the

Leo Laporte (01:37:29):
Bob Saggot

Jason Hiner (01:37:31):
The lake. Yeah. They should bring Bob sagt back to

Leo Laporte (01:37:33):
Do. Who wants to tell Jason?

Jason Hiner (01:37:36):
Oh, is it, is it not a Bob?

Leo Laporte (01:37:38):
Bob, Bob hit his head on a sink and passed away.

Jason Hiner (01:37:42):
Oh, and now I feel terrible. Yeah. 

Nicholas De Leon (01:37:46):
In the metaverse we can bring Bob back.

Leo Laporte (01:37:48):
I think so. Yeah. He it was a weird avatar bomb story back in March. He was on, on tour. And, and they discovered his, his body in the hotel room the next morning and the orange county Sheriff's office said that he died of accidental blunt head trauma. And, and it was, there was a bump in the front and the bump in the back and it's, oh, I hate to say this, but it sounded almost comedic. Like he hit his head and then went sprung back and then really hit his head and then went to bed. Cuz he died in his bed. He thought, wow, that hurt went to bed and, and there was bleeding. Yeah. So

Nicholas De Leon (01:38:29):
Speaking of, of avatar and metaverse Leo, did you guys, I, I, I missed it. Did you guys talk about the VIN Scully avatar at the

Nicholas De Leon (01:38:36):
No field of dreams game, the other, oh yeah. Google that real quick. Vince Scully, obviously the, the legendary Dodgers announcer, he recently passed and majorly baseball had a field of dreams game, which is a, a game between who was it? The Cubs and the reds in this kind of like corn field from the movie. And, and I believe it was a seventh inning stretch. They had like a avatar thing, a Vince Scully, like singing, take me out to the ball game or something. I wonder if you, I was wondering if you think it looks good or bad. I thought it looked

Leo Laporte (01:39:05):
Kind of weird. It's apparently caused a lot of <laugh> yes. Discomfort.

Nicholas De Leon (01:39:12):
I was watching live. I was like this doesn't look very convincing.

Leo Laporte (01:39:17):
Here's a, here's a, here's a tweet.

Nicholas De Leon (01:39:18):
The thought is nice

Leo Laporte (01:39:18):
Here. I'll and you know, I loved did you grow up in the LA area?

Nicholas De Leon (01:39:24):
Me? No. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:39:24):
New York. Yeah. I loved VIN Scully, even though I was a giants fan. He was the Dodgers play by play guy for 60 years. But he, there was nobody better. In fact, when he, he was great. It's weird because we were talking about him when we were talking about apple baseball some weeks ago, the day he died, but he hadn't passed yet or we didn't know of it yet. We were talking about it. And then the very next day we did a tribute to him. I played some old VIN Scully clips and stuff. Cuz there was nobody better, but this is, this is from the field of, they do this every year in Iowa in the cornfield where field of dreams.

Nicholas De Leon (01:39:57):
It was kinda fun.

Leo Laporte (01:39:58):
Yeah. So he must have recorded this at some point America. Yeah. But where's the avatar. So these are clips from the movie.

Nicholas De Leon (01:40:06):
It was, yeah, it was like in the seventh start, the seventh inning stretch. He was in the, the stands or whatever,

Leo Laporte (01:40:13):
Like they did with the fitty. Who was it that they did that at? 

Nicholas De Leon (01:40:17):
Yes. 

Leo Laporte (01:40:18):
Not fitting,

Nicholas De Leon (01:40:18):
I dunno if it's the same tech or same company, but yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:40:23):
Let me see if I can find the a, so that's the wrong thing. I guess

Jason Hiner (01:40:27):
I, I do kind of have a problem with using likenesses of people after they're gone. Like I, I had the same reaction with the, in the star wars movie where they brought grandma Tarkin back, you know? And <laugh>, you know, used the, use the avatar instead of just getting somebody else to, to play the person. 

Leo Laporte (01:40:51):
Well you have to, I mean I'm sure VIN Scully's estate had to approve it. Well maybe not though. I don't know.

Jason Hiner (01:40:58):
They, I don't know. Maybe

Leo Laporte (01:40:59):
His contract with the Dodgers said, and I, you know, every time we do a contract, it says you're we own your image in perpetuity, in all forms of media now or ever more invented <laugh> throughout the universe. Seriously. I remember tech TV, the release would be that broad. So if, you know, maybe you know, that was part of the deal is that we, we can do anything we want with your,

Jason Hiner (01:41:26):
That they use those clauses to essentially say, oh yeah, it, it just where it gets, where it gets concerning is where cuz then you can put anything into that person's you know, mouth, right? Yeah. And, and that's where, that's where,

Leo Laporte (01:41:42):
Well that's exactly the problem, isn't it? And yes, dead or alive. You don't have to, you don't have to be dead to have what else's put

Jason Hiner (01:41:50):
In your mouth. Well, this is true. This is, this

Leo Laporte (01:41:52):
Is true. You see it all the time in the, in the in this day and age of deep fakes. I deep fakes just a matter of time, just a matter of time. Let me take a quick break. Lots more to talk about great panel today. So good to have all three of you. This episode of this weekend, tech brought to you by, oh, we love these guys. One of our longest term sponsors audible, a U D I B L E with my schedule and how I'm always on the go. I don't have a ton of time to do the things I wanna do like reading. That's why I love audible. Audible offers an incredible selection of audiobooks across every genre from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity, memoirs, mysteries, and thrillers, motivation, wellness, business, and more. You'll discover exclusive audible originals from top celebrities, renowned experts and exciting new voices in audio.

Leo Laporte (01:42:42):
As an audible member, you can choose a title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases and all audible members get access to a growing selection of audio books, audible, originals, and podcasts included with every membership. You can listen to all you want and more get added every month you can listen to the audible app anytime, anywhere, while traveling, working out, walking, doing chores, you decide my latest read is Clara in the sun. It's our club's special. And what a great reader on this amazing audio book about artificial friends. We'll be talking about it on Thursday, but you still have time to listen. Get the audio book@audible.com. Right now, let audible help you discover new ways to laugh. Be inspired or be entertained. New members can try it free for 30 days. Visit audible.com/TWiTtter. Text TWiTtter to 500, 500 that's audible.com/TWiT or text TWiT to 500, 500 to try audible free for 30 days. Audible.Com/TWiT. Thank you audible for many years of supporting this week in tech. All right. I think we can go back. Yeah.

Nicholas De Leon (01:43:52):
Can I close that loop very quickly? The baseball hologram thing. It was Harry Carey. I dunno why I said Vince Scott.

Leo Laporte (01:43:57):
Oh, Harry Carey. No wonder I couldn't find it. Yes, no. Yeah, no, that's no good. That's no good. I remember going to Wrigley field and the seventh inning stretch. Harry leans. He's the broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs leans precariously out the window of this broadcast booth, holding a beer. He's already six sheets to the wind and he goes, yes, sing it with me. And he sings, take me outta the ball game. It was such a great tradition. Oh, that's kind of disappointing that did they do the same thing with the, with the 

Nicholas De Leon (01:44:32):
No, no beer this time.

Leo Laporte (01:44:34):
Yeah. It's but he did the, he sang the sang the song.

Nicholas De Leon (01:44:36):
Yes. I'm curious to hear your opinion.

Leo Laporte (01:44:39):
Oh God. I've actually, I saw it and I feel bad for people who never got to see it in real life. So maybe this is a chance to see something here I'll play. I'll play this error, geos restricted video unavailable from your current location, the TWiTtch studios. That's where

Nicholas De Leon (01:45:00):
I'm looking at it on YouTube right now.

Leo Laporte (01:45:02):
Yeah. You know what? I'm in sportsnet.ca. So that's why I'm in Canada. They don't want me to watch it. All right. <Laugh> we've already done so many things. That'll get, get us taken down might as might as well do. I'm sorry. Do one more. No, it's not your fault. I just it's too. Youtube's fault. These are all absolutely. Justifiable. it's just that you, YouTube, you know, is kind of just like Google. Yeah. Automated and you don't really, I know Fox sports is gonna take me down for sure. We'll just edit this out. He was much drunker and older when I saw him. <Laugh> no, I don't like that at all.

Jason Hiner (01:45:50):
Play a clip. Yeah. Just play a clip doing it. He did it so many times. There's

Nicholas De Leon (01:45:54):
No, yes. Just play a clip.

Leo Laporte (01:45:56):
<Laugh> he did it every game.

Jason Hiner (01:46:02):
Sometimes we use technology when it's like, we, why, you know, like same thing with like when they did princess Leia in the, in that movie that I mentioned rogue one is the name of it, the star wars movie. And it was a really pretty good movie. And then, and then those two avatars that they used of, of, you know, as just like why what's yeah. It looked like cartoons in

Leo Laporte (01:46:26):
Yeah. Normal, but, but what, what do you think when it gets so good that you can't tell it's an a it's a then what?

Jason Hiner (01:46:33):
Yeah, I

Leo Laporte (01:46:34):
Know they used for that. They used her like leftover film of her from other movies. She'd already passed Carrie Fisher. And I think they used, they like spliced in old clips to match the content.

Jason Hiner (01:46:49):
Yeah. That was in, that was in the third movie. This was the one where they actually just, at the very end, she shows up and it was a, it was an, an avatar with very bad.

Leo Laporte (01:46:59):
Oh, it's badly done. But what if they did it perfectly?

Jason Hiner (01:47:03):
Yeah, I know

Nicholas De Leon (01:47:05):
I'll jump in here because this popped up a few weeks ago. Am I believe it was Amazon correct me if I'm wrong. They, they said they were gonna use the assistant to bring back dead develop. Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:47:15):
Oh, that

Nicholas De Leon (01:47:16):
Was

Leo Laporte (01:47:16):
Three as hell. Yes. At the pass.

Nicholas De Leon (01:47:19):
Yes. When I was 15 years old, she passed away from cancer. Not to bring the show down, not to get two serious, but like that that's true. That happened. Yeah. I have zero interest in like some electrified version of hearing my mom say anything like that's insane to me. I have, I have a million photos. We actually have like old whatever pre VHS or whatever, the cam quarter, whatever that tape format was, videos of her. But like the idea that like, I'm gonna let Amazon Alexa mimic my mother is like, and I, I tweeted to that, to that extent. And you know, I don't, I think to be people really know how to people D know how to respond to that type of admission, frankly. But like, it's like, I don't want that. And if anyone might, it might be me again. I'm speaking for me. I can't speak to it for other people, but for someone who has like standing in this conversation yeah, that doesn't really interest me. No, sir. No. Thank you

Leo Laporte (01:48:14):
Amazon announced this at that re Mars conference in Las Vegas RO hit Persad who's senior vice president had scientists for Alexa said, well, AI can't eliminate that pain of loss. It could definitely make their memories last in a video played at the event, an echo dot has asked a word, can you finish gram? Can grandma finish reading me the wizard of Oz echo response? Okay. And then suddenly it's the kid's grandma voice we had, we had to learn to produce a high quality voice within with less than a minute of recording.

Jason Hiner (01:48:54):
We're only at the beginning of this. Like we, we have to back,

Leo Laporte (01:48:58):
But I, I know you don't want it. And, but yeah, Nicholas, but maybe somebody

Nicholas De Leon (01:49:02):
Would I, and I, I do respect that. I do, I do get that and I'm a hundred percent fine with that, but my perspective is like humans have souls. You know, we're not just like a, a clump of cells that you can replicate with some dumb algorithm. And I don't like it. I don't like it.

Leo Laporte (01:49:19):
Remember the black mirror episode where her, her, I think her boyfriend has died and there's a service that brings him back. And of course it's black mirror, so it ends in tear. <Laugh> it's not good. I mean, this is something that's probably gonna happen. It's not, maybe not my lifetime, maybe in yours, Nicholas,

Nicholas De Leon (01:49:45):
But people that's

Owen Thomas (01:49:47):
Fine already.

Leo Laporte (01:49:48):
Go ahead. Owen.

Owen Thomas (01:49:49):
Oh, people have created chatbots based on, you know, the text message history with a loved one. Yeah. and it seems to be for the people who've done it. It seems to be a form of mourning. You know, I can't get inside their heads about why that is how they're processing the, the loss, but technology technology is there.

Leo Laporte (01:50:10):
I wouldn't wanna deny it to somebody who wants it, I guess.

Nicholas De Leon (01:50:14):
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's my perspective. You know, if some, if someone is into that, if they, if they attach meaning to that, or if that is meaningful for whatever reason or other process, that's awesome. That's great. I'm, I'm happy for you, frankly. But for me I don't like it, I guess,

Leo Laporte (01:50:31):
And let's not forget that at least Microsoft and, and meta haven't got the best track record with chatbots. Mm. Both of them, there was Tay, remember Microsoft's Tay, which oh, yeah. Was taking ideas from, I don't know where TWiTtter or read it and eventually became racist, antisemitic and nasty. Same thing happened two weeks ago with meta, they had a blender bot, an AI chat bot, supposedly giving Facebook users the the opportunity to talk to meta and share feedback. It also became basically, and hetic, it said Jews are overrepresented among America's super rich and political conservatives are now outnumbered by liberal left leaning Jews. It turned into Trump. <Laugh> wow. And it also thought Trump was the president still. It had to be taught that no. In fact, Joe Biden is not a former vice president. He's the president of the United States. So I'm not sure that a chat bot of grandma gonna be, <laugh> be really bad if grandma came back as an anti semi. I mean, really let's, you know

Jason Hiner (01:51:48):
I, I do think we're just at the beginning of this, like, this is gonna be a decade long debate, you know, about it's

Leo Laporte (01:51:55):
Gonna come up things.

Jason Hiner (01:51:56):
Sure. For sure. Yeah. For sure. Cause the technology is getting better and better to your, to your point. Yeah. You know, Leo, what, what happens when it is good enough? I, the part that, that I, I worry a little about bit about is just taking somebody's likeness profit companies profiting off of the likeness and the voice of someone and putting things, words, and, and, you know, expressions and all of it into, into them and profiting, you know, off of them when those aren't in fact, you know, their views necessarily. Right.

Leo Laporte (01:52:33):
I mean, if you have a recording of grandma. Wow, great. Do you have any Nicholas, any recordings of your mom, any videos or pictures?

Nicholas De Leon (01:52:42):
Yes. We have videos. We have whatever the cam quarter was in like the eighties and nineties we had, we have those options.

Leo Laporte (01:52:48):
Those are cherish. I'm sure. Right. Yeah.

Nicholas De Leon (01:52:50):
But that's the, that's different from like Amazon, like algorithmically spinning up her, her, her, her voice, I think to monetize my mother, like what come on.

Leo Laporte (01:52:58):
No. And I have to say more and more. I mean, everybody now has hundreds of thousands of pictures of themselves and videos. You know, anybody who's anything after say 2005 it's well documented. So when I'm gone, there'll be hundreds of thousands of hours. My kids can ignore. It'll be great. That's the future? I think we don't need deep fakes if you've got, those is what I'm saying. This

Jason Hiner (01:53:24):
Show may still go on. They will be with all the footage that you've given us. There, there, there could be, you know, an avatar of Leo hosting

Leo Laporte (01:53:32):
Twit for another 15 years. Honestly, I endorse that message. If I could find somebody who would create a an avatar and an AI that could speak like me and say things that I might say, I don't even care. If it becomes antisemitic, I don't care. I'll be dead, but <laugh>, I think that would be great if you know, we get to TWiT 2000 and it's me still hosting it. That'd be great. I like that. I love that idea. Let's take a little break. We will talk lots more to, we haven't even gotten some of the biggest stories of the week. I can't believe it. It's too much fun talking to you guys. It's wonderful to have you Owen Thomas from protocol. He is senior editor there senior electronics reviewer for consumers union, the fabulous consumer reports, Nicholas Deleon. Great to have you.

Leo Laporte (01:54:26):
Thank you. And of course, editor in chief of Zeti net, Jason Heiner our show today brought to you by Noom. If you do have a Leo avatar, I hope you'll use a more modern, a little chubby in the old days. And maybe you don't wanna bring that one back. In fact, you know, maybe wait a little bit. I'll get even thinner. Noom is my secret. I've been on every day. You know, anybody who's followed our shows. I'm always talking about the lightest diet. Finally, I get tired of dieting, but more than a year ago, I told my wife, I said, Lisa, I wanna do Noom. And because I'd seen the ads as you probably have. And I thought this might be a better idea. It's not a diet. It's about learning. What triggers you to eat? Why you eat, what you eat and all of that, there are no bad foods.

Leo Laporte (01:55:12):
There's no restrictions. Noom is about learning so that you eat more healthily. And as a result, perhaps lose weight. So Lisa said, okay, a couple of days later, let me do it too. I only have a little bit to lose. Lisa is now on the lifetime maintenance plan. She lost all the weight. She looks fantastic. I lost about 20 pounds. She, she didn't have much to lose. I think she lost 10 pounds, but she's kept it off. It's amazing. Noom weight is a psychology first approach it's designed to help you build more sustainable habits and behaviors with lasting results. And it's true. In fact, on the cruise, there was a guy in our chat who I love, I won't name names, cuz I don't wanna embarrass him. But I, I love this guy. And I was really looking forward to seeing him on the cruise and he wasn't there.

Leo Laporte (01:56:06):
I couldn't find him. I put on discard. I said, where are you? He said, I'm right here. I didn't recognize him because he'd lost 60 pounds since I saw him last. And I said, what did you do? He said, no. I said, they worked. He said, I loved it. He's kept it off. Neither of us gained weight on the cruise. Actually Lisa lost a pound. I don't know how she did that. But that's saying a lot. You go on a cruise where there's 18 meals a day and you don't gain weight Noom because I learned why I eat, how I eat. I'm a fog eater. I, I don't even notice the food I'm putting in my mouth. So Noom help me with their lessons to pay attention to every bite, to, to turn off the TV, put down the phone and focus and chew and eat.

Leo Laporte (01:56:49):
And I, my meals are more enjoyable and I don't eat in a fog anymore. To date Noom weight has helped more than 3.6 million people lose weight, including Lisa and me, every journey's different. And that's neat. Lisa's lessons were different than mine. They're always personalized to you. Your goals. It's based on scientific principles, well known technologies like C B T cognitive behavioral therapy that help you understand your relationship with food. So there's no bad foods. There's no restrictions whether your health, whatever your health goals are. It's a flexible non-restrictive program that focuses on pro progress instead of perfection. And you get to do it the way you want to do it. Choose your level of support from five minute daily, check-ins personal coaching. You get a group. If you want to participate in you get a coach you, you get an app, a fantastic app on iOS and Android days off fine.

Leo Laporte (01:57:45):
They even tell you actually, sometimes they'll say you've done so well celebrate today. You know, have some fun, eat a, eat a piece of cheesecake it's okay. And no matter what happens, Noom always helps you get back on track. Active, numerous lose an average of 15 pounds. At 16 weeks, I lost more. It's 95% of customers say Noom weight is a good long term solution, absolutely validates that they publish more than 30 peer reviewed scientific articles to inform their users and practitioners and scientists about their methods, about their effectiveness. It really, really works as grounded in science. And I could just, I could tell you it works. I've met so many people now and we've told so many people we've shown so many people about Noom and, and, and, and with great results. I'm kind of a Noom ambassador these days as Lisa really is she's she loves it.

Leo Laporte (01:58:41):
Say what's focused on what's important to you with nom weight psychology based approach. I got my trainer to do it. <Laugh> my massage therapist. Sign up for your trial today. Noom.Com/TWiT N O O m.com/TWiT. I hope I can get you interested at least go check, do the trial that when you first sign up, there's an on onboarding thing. There's a lot of questions do that because it really is tailoring the program to exactly what you need. And that's really important. N O om, noom.com/TWiT. Thank you Noom. Seriously. Thank you for everything you've done for us. Before we get back real quickly, a fabulous week on TWiT and we made a little movie to celebrate. 

Leo Laporte (02:00:34):
Amazon, and Nielsen. This is interesting. Have made a deal to get ratings for Thursday night. Football at Nielsen will primarily measure Amazon viewers on TV sets. The very fact that they used the phrase

Leo Laporte (02:00:57):
The UHF or VHF.

Leo Laporte (02:01:01):
We had a lot of fun and of course, club TWiT members add to the fun. We're gonna have a great book club on Thursday. If you're not a member of club TWiT, here's the pitch real quick, seven bucks a month. You get ad free versions of all the shows you get access to the really fun club TWiT discord, where there are always good conversations, not just about the shows, but about everything. Geeks are into you. Also get the TWiTt plus feed and you get some special stuff that we don't put out in public hands on windows, Paul Theros new show, hands on Macintosh Micah sergeant's new show, the ultimate Linux, or sorry, the untitled Linux show, although it should be the ultimate Linux show the gizz fizz. And as I mentioned on Thursday, our book club Clara and the son aunt Stacy, and I will talk about a, a wonderful book and you still have time to read it.

Leo Laporte (02:01:50):
You can read it pretty quickly or listen on audible. All of that. It it's like your whole, it's like a country club for TWiTt listeners, TWiT TV slash club. Twit is seven bucks a month. We thank all of our club, TWiT members, cuz they really are helping us out in what we anticipate to be next year. Maybe even harder than the COVID years. It's it's lean out there cuz cuz well there's a lot of reasons I'm gonna blame Spotify. You guys are great. So thank you for the support. Seven bucks a month, TWiT.tv/club TWiT. I bought this. I'm so sad. I bought it. I was shortly after I got it. Snap canceled. It <laugh> the flying selfie, pixie drone. I should have brought it. I have it at home. It's the idea is it lands in your hand, you throw it in the air, it takes a selfie of you puts it on snap. I updated it and it crashed and I never was able to get it working again. So, but four months after it's launch snap says yeah, never nevermind. The pixie drone 230 bucks. I wasted.

Jason Hiner (02:03:03):
Ouch.

Leo Laporte (02:03:03):
Ouch.

Owen Thomas (02:03:05):
Do you remember Lily robotics?

Leo Laporte (02:03:07):
No,

Owen Thomas (02:03:08):
I think it was a, it was a drone startup with pretty much the same idea they filed for bankruptcy in 2017. I believe,

Leo Laporte (02:03:17):
Oh this is the one that would follow you around.

Owen Thomas (02:03:20):
Yes. probably ahead of its time. Yeah. Yeah, they got in trouble with the I believe with local officials in San Francisco where they were based basically saying that they, they kind of deceived people with their with their crowdfunded.

Leo Laporte (02:03:39):
They were rated by the S F P D <laugh> took 60,000 orders worth more than 34 million for their drone. Did they never ship a drone?

Owen Thomas (02:03:53):
I don't believe they did. I mean, obviously drone technology's a lot better now this is five years on from, from their failure. But 

Leo Laporte (02:04:02):
Yeah, in fact my drone will follow me now, which is good because if I were steering it, it would plow right into a tree.

Jason Hiner (02:04:09):
I remember covering one in 2016. In China I saw it, it was called hover camera. There's an article on actually I saw on ZDNet I think OREC Republic. It's called it's just called hover camera. They eventually made it to CES. Oh yeah, it is on ZDNet. I saw it at GM I C Beijing, which is kind of like their version of CES. And yeah, it was really interesting at the time. It, it was one of the first ones that I saw that, that actually worked where you could hold it in your hand, you know, you, you hit the app on your phone, it takes off and then and then it can follow you around and, and take a, a, a good camera. You can, I think you used gestures to, to tell it to, well,

Leo Laporte (02:04:55):
This looks very similar, same idea as the picks as the snap one.

Jason Hiner (02:05:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:05:05):
Well, is it, is, can you still get it the hover?

Jason Hiner (02:05:08):
I don't know, but I think they did actually ship it. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (02:05:11):
It was available in apple stores for $500

Jason Hiner (02:05:17):
Yauch this hard zero, zero robotics was the company, right. That did it. They were in stealth mode. Until just before that <laugh> yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:05:26):
Interesting. A previous version of this article stated customers could fly the hover camera passport in stores with the assistance of the apple genius. We have corrected it to reflect the fact that you can't, the employee would fly. Oh,

Jason Hiner (02:05:38):
That one's, that one's a little different.

Leo Laporte (02:05:40):
Is that different? This is when you fly in the apple stores. <Laugh>

Jason Hiner (02:05:44):
Okay. Oh no, that one. So that one is the right one. Yeah. That's this one is, this one was a year after my original story, but it's okay. It's, it's the same. That is the same, same idea. But they had a video to looks like it's still live on YouTube, but I don't know what ever happened to them. They sort of lost touch with,

Leo Laporte (02:06:01):
You know, if you're not DJA it's, it's gonna be a tough

Jason Hiner (02:06:04):
It's gonna be tough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.

Leo Laporte (02:06:06):
Speaking of DJA Chinese company us is planning. In fact, this article is from protocol to block sales of older chip making tech to China. China has been trying to catch up desperately with Taiwan, with TSMC with American chip makers, especially because TSMC now has gotten down to the three nanometer process quote. So quote three nanometer process, but they do it with a technology that the us government will not allow China to have E U V extreme ultraviolet lithography. E U V tools are manufactured by a Dutch firm, but the us was able to convince the Netherlands to block the company from selling equipment to China, because one of the submodules is made in California. And without that, they can't build the E U V machines. What do you think of this Owen? This is your stor, not your max journey wrote it, but from protocol is this fair play?

Owen Thomas (02:07:15):
I think so. You know, and it's, it's really interesting that rather than kind of play with the nanometers, which have become really just marketing hype in the, in the chip world, they're looking at specific technologies and looking where they can kind of trip China up in this race to, you know, ever, ever improving chip technology. It's, you know, it's certainly fair play in that. China has made no secret that it wants to fight a kind of war of technological and scientific advancement with the west. If they're, you know, if they're thinking about that as a means of WARF, then, you know, this is, seems like a logical response.

Leo Laporte (02:08:02):
I'd make the argument in the opposite though. And of course it's a very tricky game to play especially with China was very adept at, at manipulating soft power tools you know, sending money to Africa and other countries in their rode and belt initiative. I feel like the thing that keeps the piece best is if we're all in bed together if economically China's dependent on us, they're not gonna declare war on us. So I feel like there should be a way to work with China to support China's growth, maybe their hostile, in which case, I guess we have to be sort of hostile back, but I also think it's so important for us to be in relationship with them. That that's how you have peace. Yes,

Owen Thomas (02:08:55):
For sure. That's we really are. So

Leo Laporte (02:08:57):
Go first, Jason, and then we'll go back to you Owen. Sorry.

Jason Hiner (02:09:01):
Owen can finish and then I'll go.

Leo Laporte (02:09:03):
Okay. Owen

Owen Thomas (02:09:05):
And, and I think the key thing here is like, this is a very nuanced,

Leo Laporte (02:09:09):
Oh, I'd agree with you on that. Yes. You

Owen Thomas (02:09:11):
Know, policy, like it really gets into the weeds of, you know, technologies like fin fat and E UV.

Leo Laporte (02:09:17):
I think you wanna avoid though, kind of xenophobia and say, oh, they're Chinese, they're dangerous. And I see that with

Owen Thomas (02:09:23):
Right. No that's

Leo Laporte (02:09:24):
And stuff.

Owen Thomas (02:09:25):
Yeah. And that's why, that's why compared to say the Trump administration's approach to TikTok, this is just incredibly nuanced and specific. And, you know, there, there feel, it feels like there's a strategy and a goal that is more than just like beat up China. Like the us administration is thinking, you know, what's what do we want to accomplish here? Right. And I think that's, you

Leo Laporte (02:09:50):
Know, yeah, that's interesting. I don't wanna verge to, to the red scare mentality of the fifties, but at the same time, I understand this is a very subtle diplomatic aim. And sometimes you have to exert pressure. Maybe that's how the Biden administration is exerting pressure. I don't think the tariffs that the Trump administration used were a very good or effective tool. They heard us more than they were China, frankly. There's but I also think it's so important what we don't, I don't want to get in a situation where we're at odds. We sort of are right, but let's, let's maybe tamp it down a little bit. I thi for instance, I don't know if, if we'd had stronger economic ties with Russia would they have been so apt to invade Ukraine and, and if we did, then our sanctions would've been more effective, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know. I'm not an expert on this kind of thing. I just, I worry that we, if we get too knee jerk in our response, everybody is at risk.

Jason Hiner (02:10:49):
Everybody loses. Yeah. And we are, the, the us economy is so interdependent with China and vice versa. And, and the moves to separate, you know, or to wall off is, is not gonna be helpful or, or useful. Now, there, there is still competition between the two that there likely will be. It's the number one and two economies in the world. There, there's gonna be competition for tech and and for just innovation in general as part of this, but you're gonna see things like, I, I think keeping technology out of the hands of the Chinese, unless it has some kind of you're, you're worried about them doing something that is yeah, it, it is gonna be used destructively against someone else. Doesn't necessarily seem like the, the best idea. Now at the same time, you have China saying recently that all of this American, the like the us chips act was anti-competitive yeah. For global competition, it was right.

Leo Laporte (02:12:05):
Which <laugh> that's was the point of it we'll give money to our American and that Taiwanese chip manufacturers, as long as they don't deal with do with any business with China, it was, it was expressly that,

Jason Hiner (02:12:17):
And, and, but, but it won it in, ultimately what the Chi, what that chips act was in its core was a response to what China and Taiwan and South Korea have already been doing with their chip manufacturers for years, for decades. And that the us has fallen behind because they haven't made this a friendly environment for those, for companies to operate those kind of chip making facilities here. And so they're behind, it's gonna take, you know, five years, at least for the us to catch up even with the, the chips act. And so, you know, some of these things are all, all of that is just to say that some of these things are stuff that happens that you, you know, try to win the, the war of rhetoric. When in fact it's just really good. There's a lot of really intense competition for things that are gonna you know, shape the future of the economy, the future of innovation. And so it's not a bad thing that these companies have, you know, are, are sort of elbow in each other to, to move forward and, and compete with each other. We just need to make sure our elbows aren't too sharp. Yeah. 

Leo Laporte (02:13:30):
In this well put, well, put it is a delicate, tight rope. Yeah. And I it's well above my pay grade, but I just, I feel like it makes, I don't, you know, what we, what we don't want is for the two economies to become decoupled. That's right. That's agreed very dangerous at some point. Yeah. little bit I think we're almost done here except for this, the tool that monitors, how long kids are in the bathroom is now in 1000 American schools. Oh, great. We've seen this in the, in the workplace where employers are closely monitoring their employees, break time, bathroom, time, and so forth. And now they're doing it in schools with a, something called EHA pass, a digital system that students have to use to request to leave their classroom. Which notes, how long they've been away. It's being used widely in the thousand schools in the United States. Very much like the tool used to monitor Amazon employees. <Laugh> oh, I, I don't know if I like this idea or not. I don't like it. I know that. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely don't like this. I can't imagine. We really need to, to do that.

Owen Thomas (02:14:45):
It's just policing, you know, it's just overpolicing.

Leo Laporte (02:14:48):
It is overpolicing. Yeah.

Owen Thomas (02:14:50):
Yeah. You know, like, why does a kid ask to go to the bathroom? Sometimes they need to go to the bathroom. Sometimes they just need to be by themselves for a second. You know what? Sometimes if they wanted to

Leo Laporte (02:14:59):
Go smoke a cigarette, <laugh> let 'em go. <Laugh> you know, I, yeah, we don't have to judge it. I need some bathroom time. Do you mind the tool promises, quote hall, omniscience, fuck. With the ability to always know who has a pass and who doesn't without asking the student, Hey, Papas, please. It, it is also designed. The website says specifically to block vandalism and TikTok challenges. <Laugh>

Jason Hiner (02:15:35):
All

Leo Laporte (02:15:35):
Right. Maybe I'm outta touch.

Jason Hiner (02:15:36):
Think those two things are together as like,

Leo Laporte (02:15:39):
Maybe I'm outta touch, but, but maybe there is a problem now with kids going off and twerking in the hallways. I don't know maybe doing the dance. I don't know

Nicholas De Leon (02:15:51):
How long, just some smart kid just hacks that and just like disables. It that's, this feels like one of those who asks, there you

Leo Laporte (02:15:56):
Go. There

Nicholas De Leon (02:15:57):
You go. Are teachers asking for us? Don't they have like a million, one other things to worry about. There

Leo Laporte (02:16:01):
You go. Don't go

Nicholas De Leon (02:16:02):
To the best.

Leo Laporte (02:16:02):
Yeah. We don't need a hallway am notions.

Nicholas De Leon (02:16:05):
No, I don't think

Leo Laporte (02:16:06):
We do

Jason Hiner (02:16:06):
Also, like they're, they're already managing for outcomes, right? Like they, they, they have standardized testing. Kids get grades. Yeah. You know, if, if, if they're, if they're going to the bathroom a little longer, cuz they need a break, like Owen was saying, sometimes they just need a break, right? Yeah. Yeah. Let 'em cry. And, and, and their, and their grades are, are, and they're doing okay on their grades. Like it's fine. Right. And if they're, if they're not doing it on their, okay. On their grades, then, you know because there's not spend enough time in the classroom or whatever, then there's probably bigger things to, to, to, to work on than,

Leo Laporte (02:16:41):
Well, I know one bigger thing. I wanna work on the house of dragons. I wanna let you guys go <laugh> so you could either watch or not watch and make a statement by your lack of attendance. Thank you so much, Jason. Heiner for being here. Good job. On the news ZD net. I think it really looks great. I told you Mary Jo Foley, your employee <laugh> much how much I liked it. Shaak you know what? I went to her article on Wednesday, I guess you launched it on Wednesday, went to her article on Wednesday and it went, whoa, this is a news unit, but I immediately liked it better. Cause it's just cleaner. It's easy to find stuff. The stuff you want is there well done.

Jason Hiner (02:17:21):
Thank you. Lots of thought. Lots of people that worked on it. But really it embraces our mission for 20, 22 and beyond, which is helping people deal with disruptive innovation, understand it, understand how they can sort of have a, a piece of it now for the things cuz our, our audience has always been professionals, early adopters enthusiasts. And so we wanted to make a, a site that really reflected that and that serves that audience really well. And so we we've simplified a lot of things and, and, and really optimized for you know, for, for what we believe is a very exciting, very momentous sort of next five to 10 years in tech. And, and that's what we're, we're preparing

Leo Laporte (02:18:06):
For. Good. I, you know, a I'm a fan having worked for more than a decade for Ziff Davis back the original parenting company back in the tech TV days. And before B I know so many people including you working at seating, really very talented, good writers, great people. I wanted to succeed. We need it. So I'm glad you're doing well. It's great to see you again, Jason, thank you for

Jason Hiner (02:18:29):
Joining. Thanks Leo. Likewise,

Leo Laporte (02:18:31):
Mr. Owen, Thomas, always a pleasure to see you. What, what's what, tell me something exciting and new about protocol what's going on over there. I like it that let's see it's it's free. <Laugh>

Owen Thomas (02:18:44):
I really like that. Yeah. We're we're we, we pay, we still haven't dabbled in the, in the pay universe though, you know, never, never say never. We are just rocking and rolling, you know, doing coverage from Washington to wall street to Silicon valley. Especially at that nexus of, of policy and technology, where, where things get like little wonky and weird. I think the chip story is a good example of what we do where we can, you know, we can deep dive into the details of the technology and then like zoom out and tell you big picture why it matters.

Leo Laporte (02:19:19):
Yeah. I loved, in fact, we didn't get to it, but I loved your article about wallets and why everybody's doing a wallet now. And it's that kinda understanding that's so important. And so useful to people who cover this space and I visit protocol every single day. So thank you for the, thank you. The good work you're you're doing. And my friend from consumers union, of course, you know, I love consumers report, consumer reports Nicholas, they lay on what are, what are you, what are you working on right now?

Nicholas De Leon (02:19:48):
I am working on and it should be published in the week or two. We are, we did a big fan gaming chairs earlier this year when yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:19:56):
Remember that the best.

Nicholas De Leon (02:19:56):
Yeah. Yes, yes. That is wrapping up. We bought basically we bought every single gaming chair of note <laugh> and random through the ringer. Cause they're read popular kids like a I one right now. Sure. and kind of give you tips and which ones to buy, which ones to avoid. I don't really wanna say too much on the year right now. But it is a very thorough investigation into these gaming chairs, which, which again, they're kids love them. You cannot use YouTube without seeing these things. So that's, that's what I've been working on on and off over the past couple weeks, and that's called this quite soon.

Leo Laporte (02:20:29):
Somebody blew the lid off the gaming chair consortium.

Nicholas De Leon (02:20:33):
Well, you see so many roundups on other sites. I'm not gonna mention names, but like, did they, did they even, did they buy these chairs with own money? Probably not. Did they even get reviews in? I kind of doubt that just aggregated, like right. Regurgitated marketing copy. And it's like, okay, that's fine. I guess. But like we bought them and used them and we have like, that's what I love about on staff. Yeah. That like analyze these things for, for performance and, and their ergonomic bonafide and they're, I don't wanna say anything. They're they're they're they're not great. I GU I guess I can say, which is probably not surprising. Yeah. They're most of them are not awesome. I guess I'll leave it at that, but it, it is interesting to see the brands which ones do better than others and which ones are just like, just not not good. I guess again, I don't wanna say too much. I'll probably get in trouble is coming up in a week or two

Leo Laporte (02:21:25):
Plus a great article on the new tax credits for plugin hybrids. Yes. I was gonna mention that actually that's really confusing. And so thank you for doing the, the hard work to figure out which ones qualifying, which ones. Don't of course, for I've been a member forever, consumer reports.org, the consumers union, you guys do great work and it's always a pleasure to have you on. Thank you, Nicholas.

Nicholas De Leon (02:21:47):
Thank

Leo Laporte (02:21:47):
You, Leah. Thanks to all three of you. It's a great, great show. We do TWiT Sunday afternoons. It's kind of the, the last, the last word in tech and the first podcast of the week. We like to do it Sunday, so you can have it on Monday. I used to say for your Monday morning commute. But if your, even if you, your commute is just from the bedroom to the office, that's fine. We do it at 2:00 PM. Pacific 5:00 PM, Eastern 2100 UTC of a Sunday evening. If you, I mentioned that, cuz you can watch us do it. Live, live.Twit.tv, live audio and video streams there. If you are watching live chat with us live, our IRC is irc.Twit.tv. There's instructions there for using an IRC client. Or you could just use your web browser to participate in the chat. And of course our club TWiT members are in there, discord chat as well after the fact on demand versions of the show are available at the website. There is also a YouTube channel, youtube.com/this weekend tech. And there is of course an RSSV cuz we're a podcast. So you could subscribe in your favorite podcast client and that way you get it automatically. So it'll be there for you Monday morning, however far your commute. Thank you so much for being here. We'll see you next time. Another twit is in the can!