This Week in Tech Episode 896 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word.
Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for TWiT, this Weekend Tech. We have a great panel for you. I'm so excited. Ian Thompson from the Registers here. He's always a laugh. We've got Ben Par hasn't been here in a couple of years. He's a venture capitalist, got a brand new podcast and from all about Android WIN two. Dow is here. We're gonna talk of course about the new Google Pixel seven Pro. The first Google Pixel watch. We'll talk about Stadia going bye by Elon Musk. What's he gonna do with TWiTtter if he actually catches the car And Papa John's. It's not just bad pizza anymore. It's all coming up next on TWiT podcasts you love
TWiT Intro (00:00:44):
From people you trust. This
Leo Laporte (00:00:48):
Is TWiT.
Leo Laporte (00:00:54):
This is TWiT. This Weekend Tech episode 896 recorded Sunday, October 9th, 2022. The whole internet burrito. This weekend Tech is brought to you by Wealthfront. Visit wealthfront.com/TWiTt to get started and get your free $50 bonus with an initial deposit of $500. That's wealthfront.com/and by Worldwide Technology with an innovative culture, thousands of IT engineers, application developers, unmatched labs and integration centers for testing and deploying technology at scale. WWT helps customers bridge the gap between strategy and execution. To learn more about wwt, visit wwt.com/TWiTt and by eight, sleep good. Sleep is the ultimate game changer and the pod is the ultimate sleep machine. Go to eight sleep.com/TWiTt to check out the pod and save $150 at checkout eight. Sleep currently ships within the us, Canada, the uk, and select countries in the EU and Australia. And by Secure Works, are you ready for inevitable cyber threats? Secure Works detects evolving adversaries and defends against them with a combination of security, analytics and threat intelligence directly from their own counter threat unit. Visit secureworks.com/TWiT to get a free trial of contagious extended detection and response, also known as X D R. It's time for TWiT. This week at Tech the show, we talk about the latest tech news. Oh, I like this panel. We finally got around to getting win two. Dow on the show. Of course you see her every Tuesday on all about Android. She's a developer. Works right now. She's working at Adobe. She's at Android Guru. We thought, well, with the new announcements from Google, we probably should have somebody who knows what's going on. Welcome win. First time on TWiTtter. Thank you for joining us.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:06):
Yeah, thank you for having me Leo. I'm very excited and very nervous, but honestly really excited. Nervous. No,
Leo Laporte (00:03:12):
That's silly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're amongst friends.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:15):
I know. I, I'm already nervous. I will keep it down to a level. I did have three cups of coffee this morning to sure that I was awake for the show. So this is gonna be like when on at 11
Leo Laporte (00:03:29):
When two to have the coffee achiever has joined us and is ready to
Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:33):
<laugh>. That was my achievement this morning. Like ding like 500 milligrams of caffeine achieve like, Okay cool. Great. That's a
Leo Laporte (00:03:39):
Good one. <laugh>. So glad
Ben Parr (00:03:41):
It's a sign that just goes over your head with the achievement in real
Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:43):
Life. Exactly. Just like ding.
Leo Laporte (00:03:45):
Oh look who that is. Haven't seen Ben Par in a long time. Serial entrepreneur. His current startup is Octane ai. He has a brand new podcast with a Hollywood star. It's called Business Envy. You're doing it with Greg Greenberg. It's so nice to see you Ben. We used to have Ben all the time on when he was at Mashable. good friend and wonderful to have you join us. Thanks for was Book Captivology also over? Oh yeah. Big book on all about the attention economy. Great to have you on.
Ben Parr (00:04:22):
Thanks for having me back. Hey, it's gonna be fun.
Leo Laporte (00:04:26):
And somebody was saying, what is that bot behind you?
Ben Parr (00:04:31):
That is my company's mascot. Okta. Okta. The cute little robot.
Leo Laporte (00:04:35):
Nice. Hello Octe. Hello. And he's done the right thing, which is erased the whiteboard behind him. So we don't know what octane i's long term strategic goals are, but that's life. I bet there was good stuff on there right before the show.
Ben Parr (00:04:51):
Just the best <laugh>. I should have written some more things next time.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:04:55):
Put
Leo Laporte (00:04:56):
Some secret messages in there. Just then gives us something to look at. And also a long time. Always welcome guy. I was hoping maybe we'd get to see you in person this week. Ian Thompson is here from the register. He is now us editor@theregister.com. But always welcome for his British ins if nothing else.
Iain Thomson (00:05:17):
Well sad I couldn't make it up but yeah, my legs a bit boo at the moment. So the other two hours in the car to get up and back would be no, a bit rough, honestly at the same time. Always a pleasure
Leo Laporte (00:05:30):
Out of friendship. It's great to see you but honestly we're very happy to do this via Zoom these days. The I know hybrid,
Iain Thomson (00:05:39):
I miss the studio vibe because when you're actually aid in person I think it adds a bit more. But yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:05:46):
It's life. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? So when we'll talk about the event this week, Thursday, Google announced there. This was kind of surprising. I had to kind of remember. This is their first Android wear watch. They've made Android wear for years, but they finally made a watch to go with it. They also announced the Pixel seven, which is just kind of the logical successor to the Pixel six. Talked a little bit about, I was surprised actually a little bit about the tablet which they say won't come out till next year. And showed a kind of cool little feature of the tablet, which is it will ally dock to what looks like a Nest speaker to turn it into a Nest hub. Max, kind of your thoughts A couple people said that the Google event was kind of sunam ballistic and it certainly is compared to did work. Yeah. Do you like that? I made that up all by myself compared to what Apple, what apple's kind of frenetic show off things are. Or even Samsungs Google seemed kind of, Yeah, we got a phone here it is. What do you even Rick Olo, it was hard for him to get excited. It felt like,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:07:03):
I dunno, maybe it was a jet lag since it was in New York. New York. Maybe when everyone just kind of jet lagged and still kind of feeling like they were on 5:00 AM California time. But yeah, I, I feel like Google events generally tend to have this kind of feeling where there's maybe just that engineering earnestness which maybe kind of bit some ballistic, Is that what you said? Yes. Sleep walkers. Sleep walkers. I don't know. I generally feel like the one thing I like is that they kind of just tell you about the product and I think is, I get older, I get a little bit less patient with a lot of piza and show and marketing and maybe that's also just cuz my day as an engineer just literally just tell me what the cool stuff is. Tell me the spec and then let me get back to my day job. But yeah, I mean I actually was pretty excited while you were live streaming with my co-host Ron Richards for the actual show. I did pre-order both the Pixel seven and the Pixel watch.
Leo Laporte (00:08:00):
So
Huyen Tue Dao (00:08:00):
It worked and so it worked. I, and it is actually kind of interesting because I am not generally a wearable person. I do have a fitness tracker but I use a whoop. So it's kind of a very specific what are you use per a whoop? Oh
Leo Laporte (00:08:15):
Yeah man, I'm
Huyen Tue Dao (00:08:16):
Not wearing it. Right.
Leo Laporte (00:08:17):
Using this. Yeah, this is for series. See serious athletes use the hoop.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:08:22):
Yeah. And it's all about data. There's no interface, no nothing. It's just this heart tracker that does, And their big thing is data science and everything like that. So they're their entire, And it also has a subscription by the way. But this is pretty serious. But it does a lot of things that Fitbit does this sleep recovery workouts and things like that. But I like it because it's focused. I used to use I think couples of Withings watches I had where I was for a while, but I think it didn't quite match my style. And so I dropped it for a while when I found Ru, which is kind of like, I'm a bit of a fitness nut and kind of analytics for the
Leo Laporte (00:08:57):
I see on your Instagram. I know
Huyen Tue Dao (00:08:59):
Various. Lisa is, Lisa and aunt are two of my most consistent cheerleaders on Instagram. So I love the TWiTt fan for that. But I kind of like that this is so focused and what's really interesting to me is that I really like the whoop so much that the fact that this device is integrate with other things that normally I would drag a device on for not integrating with Google Fit kind of other popular fitness things. Oh my gosh. Yep. There's me there
Leo Laporte (00:09:25):
You are. My goodness. It's pretty
Iain Thomson (00:09:27):
Damn. I feel unfit.
Leo Laporte (00:09:29):
Yeah, I know. I'm
Ben Parr (00:09:30):
Going to the gym right after
Leo Laporte (00:09:31):
This. Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty impressive, Yeah, I know.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:09:36):
Yeah. So I actually haven't been that attracted or me feeling the need for a smart watch. But I think partly because I do all about Android. Yeah. I'm into row a lot right now. Oh my god, this is so embarrassing. But hey there's Lisa. That's great. Lisa liking me. Oh
Leo Laporte (00:09:51):
Yeah, yeah. I would like you but it would look like I was Ming on you. So I just pretend that I don't actually see these.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:09:58):
Well if it's you and Lisa That's
Leo Laporte (00:10:00):
Right. It's less weird. And I work out with kettle bells every once in a while. My trainer makes me do it. The we use these six put Kettle bell is very Oh, puts the little puts and <laugh> that is I hurt just looking at you <laugh> <laugh>.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:10:20):
If it makes you feel better. I've been sick. Which maybe the listeners might hear it. So I haven't actually worked that in about four or five days. Oh thank you. So, Oh
Leo Laporte (00:10:26):
God, you must feel like you're falling apart. I tell you
Huyen Tue Dao (00:10:29):
It. It is. I I'm
Leo Laporte (00:10:31):
But you prefer the whoop cuz you're a serious. I do see I, because I'm Mr. Extreme with my scuba diving and my K2 climbing, I have the Apple Watch Ultra
Iain Thomson (00:10:42):
This, don't try to repair it.
Leo Laporte (00:10:43):
<laugh>. This band is designed to fit over my wetsuit, which I will never wear <laugh>. And when you set it up even it says now do you want us to tell you what depths and water temperature you're at? And I said, Oh yeah, definitely, definitely wanna know that <laugh>
Ben Parr (00:11:02):
There's my smart watch. It's a regular watch. Although I do wear an aura ring and I forgot to wear it just like you
Leo Laporte (00:11:10):
Forgot to Well we had dinner the other night. I asked you about your watch. Yeah. Cause it was a real watch and I thought, well this is weird <laugh>, why is he wearing a watch
Iain Thomson (00:11:20):
<laugh>? No, I'm with Ben on this. I was back in the UK a couple of months ago. My mom gave me my grandfather's watch. I'm getting that thing restored and strapping it on. Cause that's neat. It's just like, I don't like smart devices. I won't have them in the home. I don't like the smart watch cuz I'm just a bit of a lud light that way. But yeah, an old fashioned watch. Yeah, I'm going for that.
Leo Laporte (00:11:43):
Well and that's one thing that these are never gonna be helos me. I'm never handing my, I did get, okay, so when I got a new Apple watch a couple years ago, I gave it to my son who promptly gave it to his girlfriend. It does not have the same cache.
Ben Parr (00:11:57):
It not has resale value. Yeah. If that's the thing with technology over time
Leo Laporte (00:12:01):
It dies like a year later it's like, well that's old.
Iain Thomson (00:12:04):
Well yeah, but I mean you remember the Apple Gold Apple Watch when it first came out that they stopped supporting a
Leo Laporte (00:12:10):
Couple of years thousand dollars edition. Exactly.
Iain Thomson (00:12:13):
It's just way to tell it. You've got too much money. But I mean at least Google is getting this right with a new smartphone extension policy. But it's just,
Leo Laporte (00:12:22):
Yeah, that was a
Iain Thomson (00:12:23):
Big deal. Bond redundancy is ridiculous.
Leo Laporte (00:12:24):
Day before or a couple of days before the Google event, it came out that oh, if you have a Pixel four, you just got your last update. That three year old phone is out a date, it's done. Thank
Iain Thomson (00:12:38):
Goodness. Even though it still works perfectly perfectly.
Leo Laporte (00:12:40):
It's like how frustrating is that? This time they announced what, five years went?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:12:46):
Five years was it? Yeah, three years for OS updates and then five years for security updates, which is,
Leo Laporte (00:12:52):
That matters really
Huyen Tue Dao (00:12:53):
A little better. But compared to iOS, where I think I looked it up, I mean I am not an expert on the iOS phone so you, y'all can correct me if I'm wrong, but I mean even the iPhone six and 2014 is still getting 12 updates. And then of course Samsung is still eating well I was eating their lunch is a little bit extreme, but at least Samsung recently we committed to four years OS and five year security. So Google just feels like they're just again, live keeping up. There's
Leo Laporte (00:13:19):
Sleep, walking through the whole thing a little bit. I saw a stat since 2015, they've only sold something like 27 million pixel phones, which sounds like a lot, but it's less than the Apple sales or Samsung sell on a quarter. It
Ben Parr (00:13:35):
Feels like the battle lines are already really drawn now in the mobile phone market. I remember a decade ago covering iPhone and Android launches. It was like blow for blow a battle to the death between Apple and Google. And now it's kind of like, okay, we have a status quo. Apple is number one and then different Android players combined are number two. And then can anyone even name it number three? Everyone has tried Samsung, no one has done it. Well Samsung I consider part of the Android Center <affirmative>. Well,
Leo Laporte (00:14:05):
But if you look at manufacturers and you look globally, if you look in the US it's a little different. But if you look globally, Samsung's number one and then Apple with the iPhone probably some Chinese manufacturers next Google's way down the chart. But Google to me what they were establishing by getting, making a watch announcing kind of the more speaker stuff. They talked a lot about the Google Assistant, some voice recognition on your phone and so forth is at the ecosystem play. And that's what I took away from this <affirmative> is that it is now, there are now three ecosystems. There's Samsung, there's Google, and there's Apple. And Google wants to play in that game.
Iain Thomson (00:14:50):
I've gotta say I'd add Amazon into that because, But they don't have
Leo Laporte (00:14:55):
A phone, they don't have a watch,
Iain Thomson (00:14:57):
They don't have a phone, they don't have a watch. But they do have the data and I think looking, which
Leo Laporte (00:15:03):
Would you rather have <laugh>?
Iain Thomson (00:15:04):
Yeah, looking at Amazon's recent plays, they're not going for the hardware side of it necessarily, other than the home assistance
Leo Laporte (00:15:11):
And the robot, the iRobot vacuum bottom clear, which I think now they're saying is I suspect maybe a little bit in jeopardy because of regulatory issues. Oh interesting. Yeah, I you're right, Amazon has the data. But I mean this
Iain Thomson (00:15:27):
Is to me, so when it comes to data day handsets, yes you're right. Well
Leo Laporte (00:15:31):
Then this is why I think Google has a hard time because I think normal people, I don't know, I don't know any, but if I knew some normal people will they say okay, I could get a Samsung, I could get an Apple or I could get a Google almost, I would guess universally say, but the Google, they're gonna spy on you. And I think really trying to create that environment where they go, Hey, you want privacy, you want security <laugh> go with those guys.
Iain Thomson (00:15:58):
But Apple are being utter hypocrites about that. It's not true. Yeah. We're all about privacy. Should have a little asterisk there saying offer does not apply in China
Leo Laporte (00:16:07):
Or anywhere else. They're doing ads now. I mean Apple has Apple plenty of first party data. There's no lack of
Ben Parr (00:16:13):
It. They have done incredible branding around it's market, the privacy and the and opting out and those are good things. But there is definitely still, yeah, they want to do more ads. They're taking away market share specifically from meta. Meta is the one who's really getting punched in the face because of it. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:16:31):
MEA does not have ecosystem play <laugh> for sure.
Ben Parr (00:16:35):
Well Oculus was been their go for it, but we're not yet at the point and may never be at the point where VR headsets or even AR headsets are anywhere close to mainstream to the phone. Mark made that bet years ago that he could build a whole new hardware ecosystem and it hasn't panned out yet. But what other choice did he have? He saw what was gonna happen with Apple years ahead, but there was almost nothing he could
Leo Laporte (00:17:00):
Do. He didn't do a Facebook phone. Amazon tried and failed.
Ben Parr (00:17:04):
He tried to do a Facebook phone. I was there, it was like an HCC phone. I was there for the launch event and it flopped and its the same thing. Amazon tried a phone and it flopped. There's just a whole pile of flopped phones I'm sure we could find. There's gotta be museums just flopped, phones that fail,
Leo Laporte (00:17:21):
Throw the Microsoft kin in that pile and Oh <laugh>. Yeah, <laugh>. So what am I saying? Is it make sense that there are right now three big you? Yes, there's a huge market for cheap Android handsets, but among the premium buyers and the premium phones, there's three ecosystems. Samsung, Google and Apple. When do you think Google has a perception problem?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:17:50):
I think they're trying to figure out how to find a niche. So with Apple and with Samsung, they kind of have the big three device that we tend to take of. So Apple with its amazing and kind of integrated ecosystem. You have a watch, you have a phone and you have a tablet all kind of super well integrated. And I think Samsung is kind of competing and is in more positioned to compete with Apple because of their market share with a tablet and a successful phone. And I think, I can't help but Google must know that they, there's no way that they're gonna ever catch up to Samsung. Just I does not make sense with Samsung <affirmative> kind of already being ingrained as the reason that Android is the number one mobile operating system in the world and just their market share and just the fact that they got in there early with kind of going through carriers.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:40):
I just don't think there's any chance for Google to conceivably compete with them A and to get to the level where Samsung and Apple is. But I think going to what Ian said, I think maybe they need to shift their ecosystem a bit and with the home and the Pixel tablet, especially with the Pixel tablet, not necessarily being an iPad or an S eight tab kind of level where the footwear, there's a lot of appeal to media productivity kind of high creators where it's more of a home device. And maybe that's where maybe the ven diagram of ecosystems kind of starts to circle with Amazon is like maybe they're trying to make their ecosystem something a little bit unique. Cause I just feel like they kind of were in this space and it's like, huh, yeah the numbers aren't working at, so what can we leverage? What are our strength that we can make our ecosystem of thing and actually have it be successful. I don't know if it's perception problem. I think it's like they're in a weird spot cuz Lord knows Google has been begging developers third party developers to make amazing flagship showcase large screen apps and we're not doing it. That's a whole other rant aside about,
Leo Laporte (00:19:46):
That was another pitch when they're talking about the tablet is, Oh and we've been working for years to get developers to do tablets and that's why Android tablets have never succeeded. They just don't have the apps.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:19:58):
Yeah. Is it chicken and egg problem? And back when I think around Honeycomb time when tablets first came, people were really excited.
Leo Laporte (00:20:04):
Honeycomb was a tablet version of I had some of them. Yeah,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:20:09):
You up
Leo Laporte (00:20:10):
So many dead Android tablets around the house. Actually I've got two Google glasses. What was the seven inch tablet that Google did? That was a
Huyen Tue Dao (00:20:19):
Seven. That was low that it was amazing
Leo Laporte (00:20:21):
Tablet. And actually in hindsight, it wasn't much bigger than the modern smartphones, but it was good. It was just right. I liked it a lot. It's good Kindle size tablet. Yeah. Yeah. They go
Huyen Tue Dao (00:20:33):
Wrong hundred
Leo Laporte (00:20:36):
By the way, this is by the way, the Epi Taf, that's gonna be on Google's tombstone. Where did they go wrong? And not that Google's close to death store. Facebook maybe, but not Google. And that's only because they make so much money in search that they can fritter it away.
Iain Thomson (00:20:55):
Put this money out. Yeah.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:20:56):
Yeah. There's a
Ben Parr (00:20:58):
Branding thing cuz in the end quality between the phones I don't think is all that different. Right? You can get pretty much everything done.
Leo Laporte (00:21:06):
No, in fact you could argue the pixels six and seven have the best cameras of any smartphone.
Ben Parr (00:21:11):
It's a, it's a branding thing.
Leo Laporte (00:21:14):
But that's what I'm saying. I see people, I think real people look at Google and say no, they're an ad company. I don't trust them.
Iain Thomson (00:21:21):
But Google really missed a trick on this one because you remember when the first Nexus phones came out, they were the stripped down Android operation system. No, no Bloatware, nothing else but
Leo Laporte (00:21:31):
Geeks loved them. I don't know if real people loved them
Iain Thomson (00:21:34):
<laugh>, but I mean if you get a Samsung phone, it's got so much crap wear on there. Oh it's horrible. You cannot remove
Leo Laporte (00:21:40):
And people love
Iain Thomson (00:21:41):
It that they could have made that a unique selling point for the Nexus and then the Pixel. But then they decided, right, let's check out the pixel price and put a skin on Android. And they haven't really decided what they wanted to do with it. It was just like, be like Apple. Just be like Apple and get people to pay a lot of money and
Leo Laporte (00:21:57):
To some degree
Iain Thomson (00:21:58):
Samsung that's not gonna work.
Leo Laporte (00:21:59):
Samsung's the anti Apple. I think a lot of Samsung owners are actually buying it cause it thumbs its nose at Apple. It certainly that's their ad campaigns. Even today they still do ad campaigns mocking that. I've been seeing this ad where the woman's on the bus in love with her iPhone and then she sees the flip phone and then everything and she has to have it
Iain Thomson (00:22:23):
And then she sees it in a year and sees the screen
Leo Laporte (00:22:26):
<laugh>.
Iain Thomson (00:22:27):
But
Leo Laporte (00:22:28):
Seriously, that's how Samsung I think sees itself. And I think probably that's, market research says at least in the US the people who buy Samsung are buying it because they don't want an Apple phone. They want something of perceived similar quality and value and and I notice that there's two different messaging apps with the same name that there's two different everything, apps, browsers, everything. But we notice it. But I don't think normal, I think normal people love their Samsungs. Everybody, every time I meet somebody who has a Samsung, they love their Samsungs.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:23:04):
I have to admit I've actually been using a Z fold four. See, I
Leo Laporte (00:23:09):
See.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:23:09):
Hold on, hold on. Okay. So I've actually had a very long, and I think a lot of Android data dollars have a long love, well not even love hate relationship with Samsung. And a lot of that has to do with Samsung and their custom flavor of Android and it not kind of conforming to stock Android. So my view is incredibly skewed by being an Android dev because Deving for just stock Android is the easiest, most straightforward thing. Samsung ruins our day half the time with these weird bugs. Then so around June or July I dropped my Pixel six, Pixel six Pro on my sister's ceramic floor and it cracked. So I had a pixel. Yeah it was that sound when you, it drops and you hear and
Leo Laporte (00:23:52):
You just like
Iain Thomson (00:23:53):
Fi like ah this is gonna
Huyen Tue Dao (00:23:55):
Be expensive. And then you look and okay, so I actually had a full Z, sorry, fold three that I got from a Google thing and I was like, well crap, I don't have any other option. I started using it and specifically with foldable and I kind of had to deal with it because ya, to get something about the Google care or something with pixel six. But I kind of get it now. I do. And a friend of mine who works at Tonal Gabriel Peel woodwinds told me, Look, if you get past the where if you start really put the effort into setting up a Samsung. Yeah, yeah. You'll love it. And I think Michelle Ramon, who is also a co-host on all about Android had said that Samsung is great for power users. So once you get to that initial setup period, there's a lot that a power user can do with Samsung. And I totally get it. I kind of feel like I'm betraying my Android native brethren a little bit <laugh>, but I can see why people end up liking these phones and certainly in terms of the hardware, especially this foldable device. I get it. So yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:24:55):
You're saying if somebody knows about Samsung, good luck. They're gonna be a Samsung user forever.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:25:01):
I don't know. I
Leo Laporte (00:25:05):
Know I'm with you. I think if you're sophisticated enough to have learned how to, I mean good luck is a perfect example of an app that I don't even, Samsung doesn't even mention it, but it's in their store and about it aficionados go, Oh yeah, once you get that and bpe so bad, look I'm able to use it and it does great things. Once you get to that point you've invested
Iain Thomson (00:25:27):
Just say Bpe so bad.
Leo Laporte (00:25:29):
I
Ben Parr (00:25:30):
Heard that too.
Leo Laporte (00:25:30):
These are But that's what people are saying. Oh but you don't understand. BPE is how I interact with the phone and it works really well and I do think that this is that Samsung Aficianado speaking,
Iain Thomson (00:25:43):
People buy into it and then they, it's
Leo Laporte (00:25:45):
The I factor, right? People look Ikea furniture's a miserable experience, but if you build it, you will love it because you put so much of your heart into it that
Ben Parr (00:25:55):
It ends up blasting once you do it. Same thing once you've set the thing up with an Ann, the Samsung in particular,
Leo Laporte (00:26:02):
You've got the investment,
Ben Parr (00:26:03):
Right? It is, you're right. It is for power users and power users do love the thing.
Leo Laporte (00:26:08):
That's why they love it. Yeah.
Ben Parr (00:26:09):
It has a place that Google has not been able to find that niche, which I feel like is the conclusion that we've all come to. And I hope they figure out a specific niche. It's not like that they don't have their fans though and that people are not buying it. But I can't see a big moving in market share.
Leo Laporte (00:26:26):
It's a small group. That's the problem they have. It's 27 million phones in eight years is not moving the needle.
Iain Thomson (00:26:33):
Oh see I've been a Pixel user for a while simply because I want security updates first. That's the most important thing for me. But I mean no,
Leo Laporte (00:26:40):
That's me too. And in fact I gave my Samsung away I had a flip, which I really liked. At least I liked the form factor. I gave it to Stacy, I gave my daughter my S 22 Ultra. But because I like the pure Android experience, but we live in a bubble, it's very clear we're in a bubble. Yeah, this is it. We think everybody, Oh, everybody loves the Pixel six. Nobody even knows it exists. <laugh>. We do <laugh>. Everybody I know has a Pixel six. It's got a great camera and a great camera and photo software. But it all OB Beit. I am pixel five cause I want the three 50 mile, 3.5 mil jack. So well and it's got it's pure Androids got all the updates. I guess again, the question I'm asking is can Google's trying to make an ecosystem play? Do they have a chance in hell against Samsung and Apple? Ben is honestly no. Yeah. Where no,
Ben Parr (00:27:37):
I mean look, this is like, oh I, this is the ultimate ecosystem.
Leo Laporte (00:27:43):
It's holding up an iPhone 14
Ben Parr (00:27:44):
Program
Leo Laporte (00:27:45):
To baby. Yeah.
Ben Parr (00:27:46):
They built an ecosystem where people wanna go and build the things there first. And then Samsung built an ecosystem where everyone builds everything else. You can only build for one or two things and if you hit those two, you hit almost everybody and you can just do most of the work for Samsung and then a little bit of additional work and it goes over to Google cuz it is, they're both, I mean honestly this is union's territory. But yeah, you go think Apple first, Android second when it comes to releasing apps in general, at least in the us depends on the country. Of course
Leo Laporte (00:28:19):
I am stuck. I have of course all this different phones and I can live in all the ecosystems, but honestly as much as I hate it and it makes me mad, the Apple ecosystem rules <laugh>. I hate to admit I hate it. But the way they've set it up with continuity, with the Mac, with the iPad, with the AirPods, with the phone, with a watch you kind of want the complete set
Ben Parr (00:28:49):
Air drop an eye message on magical things. They just are.
Leo Laporte (00:28:52):
And the people, one person in my family, my daughter who has an Android phone by the way, hates Apple, which is this again, same thing, it's kind of the anti Apple. Same thing with Mary Jo Foley on our Windows Weekly show hates Apple has a pixel six. They honestly, I think Apple just sucks you in and you, it's hard to get out. That's the point of an ecosystem play, right? Lock in <affirmative>. Right. And once you make a choice, I wish mean the ideal world would be everything would be open and interrupt, operate. And you could choose the best watch. You could choose the best earbuds, you could choose the best phone, the best laptop best. And it would all work together. But it doesn't work that way. And what happens with Apple, and I think the phone is probably the gateway drug, you get the phone, then you kind of want the watch and you want the AirPods and you it and then you're stuck. You cannot go, you cannot leave. Am I Right
Ben Parr (00:29:57):
On. Yeah. We're at the point where parents are in Dr. Day, their kids. Oh I know. Into an ecosystem
Leo Laporte (00:30:08):
There. <laugh> was a hacker news story today about a guy who had bought an iPhone for his kid in the school said you may not bring the kid was, I don't know, fifth grade, sixth grade. You may not, by the way, most fifth graders or sixth graders in affluent areas anyway have phones now because let's see, it's how you keep track of your kid. It's how they can call for a ride or where they are. And the school said no you can't. I must have been some hippie school. No you can't have an iPhone. And they gave each kid an air tag and said here <laugh>, your parents can keep track of you with this <laugh>.
Iain Thomson (00:30:49):
Yeah, <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:30:51):
And I shake my head I guess
Ben Parr (00:30:54):
There was an article in the New York Times recently about how parents are putting Apple watches on their kids so that they can't track and do simple phone calling cuz you can get very cheap plans that
Leo Laporte (00:31:05):
Way. And incidentally, Apple has a mode where you set up your phone for your kid. He doesn't have to have a phone, she has an eye, an Apple watch and mom has the iPhone. Apple knows that <laugh>, it wasn't there a memo, this is a discovery and we're gonna talk about discovery and the problems with court cases and discovery in a bit. But discovery can be a nightmare for these companies. And the Epic Apple event court action, which Apple one hands down. But they lost in discovery because the email came out, I think it was from Craig Feder, Eddie EQ saying we can't put messages on Android because then parents would buy and cheap Android phones for their kids. The Apple knows this a hundred percent
Iain Thomson (00:31:51):
Lucy. Yeah, but I go ahead mean there are always gonna be parents that do this because it gives some reassurance. I mean back in my day, my mom gave me a watch and said, if you're not back by 5:00 PM I'm caught. I'm going out looking for you. It will be bad for you. But that was the
Leo Laporte (00:32:08):
Eighties version of an iPhone.
Iain Thomson (00:32:09):
I was gonna say, this is not the world we're living in right now. <laugh>. And I can kind of understand, I can understand Apple's point because obviously they want to shift hardware. But I mean these kind of child tracking things are incredibly popular. They're also, as I've learned after looking into it, incredibly insecure. I mean if you are buying a kid tracker with Android, you know are trusting that a third party manufacturer has not just copied a software stack, it isn't updating it and you could just be leaving this wide open. So there are real problems with these kind of things in terms of you might think you're making your kid safer but maybe you're not. Right.
Leo Laporte (00:32:49):
I was in a very fancy Tiburon, you probably know what Ian Yeah. Is
Iain Thomson (00:32:56):
Hip piece with money,
Leo Laporte (00:32:56):
Very, very wealthy enclave in Marin County. Lisa and I were there for lunch and there was a candy store and Lisa has to go to every candy store, some people's shoe stores, jewelry stores, she's gotta go to the candy store. So we go in, there's a gaggle of kids, all of them. And these are little kids, maybe eight to 12, maybe a little older than they, 10 to 12, 13. They're all paying with their iPhones, none of them have cash. And there's some sort of parental control. Cause the kid said, Well I only have $3 I can spend. They all were paying with tap to pay. Now it's an affluent community. But that's
Ben Parr (00:33:36):
Kind common.
Leo Laporte (00:33:37):
Yeah, I think it's a trend. <affirmative>, the
Ben Parr (00:33:39):
Wallet may barely be a thing in a decade or two. They're gonna be like, why do I have to have a physical version of my driver's license or my id? It makes no sense. Ed, you know what? Probably a little bit down the line, maybe it doesn't make sense.
Leo Laporte (00:33:52):
The Pixel watch looks very pretty. When do you think, I mean this is again, I can't hardly believe it, but Google's made where OS for years they've let Motorola and Fossil and everybody else make in Samsung now make Android wear watches. They're finally making one of their own. Is it because they bought Fitbit?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:14):
I think it is part of the ecosystem play. And I think, yeah, yeah, they have Fitbit. You gotta have everything. They wanna do something. You have to have every piece just to be table stakes in the game. And I don't know, I feel like where OS has kind of been, again, not dissimilar from tablets, but I think a little more successful than large screen story has been a weird space for Android and Google as a company.
Leo Laporte (00:34:38):
You're an Android developer and you're wearing a hoop.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:42):
I just don't need a smart watch. Well I just don't need a smart watch. Yeah. And it's actually what may blow your mind is actually quite a few of my Android friends have switched to the iOS ecosystem in recent years. Cause of the wonderful world old garden, there are lots of Android developers,
Leo Laporte (00:34:57):
They wanna be Blue Bubble Green Bubbles. They wanna be, Yeah,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:35:00):
They don't wanna be part of that Drake's arm or whatever
Leo Laporte (00:35:04):
They wanna get.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:35:06):
And I mean it's really interesting cuz I think that Google in a sense, especially as an Android developer, a lot of times we take a lot of cues from Google first party apps for better or for worse. And I think that for something where we, and for large screens, it's kind of hard to convince us to put time and effort into it. So having a wear app, even a large version app takes additional design and development time. And so we often look to Google as this kind of north star like, Hey look y'all were really, really serious this time. We promise you this time we're super serious about where os and we're super serious about large screens. And so not saying that they're doing this for developers cause I don't think so, but I think that they need to put their toe in the water to make where os successful to showcase maybe what it's about and what they can do. And I don't know why that's important. I keep thinking about this a lot, especially with questions about even the Pixel phone. We're talking about whether they're ever where they're ever going to catch up and beat Samsung or Apple. And to me the it's hopeless and it's weird because I think the Pixel phone itself even itself has kind of a muddled identity, right? Yeah. Because yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:36:21):
What is 10, What is the 10 cert two? What does that mean? Is that Yeah, Is it a good ship? Is it bad chip? We don't know. It lives in its own little vacuum
Huyen Tue Dao (00:36:30):
<affirmative>. Yeah, it's a very tech enthusiast world. And so is it a reference phone? Is it a showing off what Google they used to learning and AI can do? Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:36:40):
I feel like they want more now.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:36:42):
Well yeah, it's like they wanna compete with a flagship. It's flagship rather than, I mean they do and then they made by Google event, they had a lot of amazing examples of cross device and computational photography and machine learning and natural language and all that kind of stuff. But it's like they have all that but they somehow still wanna keep one foot in that flagship box and create a high end phone that people wanna talk about, that reviewers wanna review that people like us wanna talk about. And it's like, I don't know how these kind of competing goals are going to play out. I'm
Leo Laporte (00:37:14):
Gonna call it here there, it's hopeless. The reason they're sleepwalking through these events is cuz they know Rick Ster Low knows. He was the guy who when the Pixel Ford came out days before the event yelled at the team saying the battery life's terrible. It's like they know it's hopeless. And by the way, to announce a new phone and watched two weeks after you kill Stadia <laugh>.
Ben Parr (00:37:41):
Oh Stadia.
Leo Laporte (00:37:43):
A lot of people are still really, really pissed off about that. It's another reason people don't press Google. They say, Well Google's, it's a hobby.
Ben Parr (00:37:53):
I want Google Reader back. By the way, if someone's listening. Yeah, that's what I want. That was my favorite thing
Leo Laporte (00:38:02):
Actually. We had a conversation on this week in Google about this because you could make the case that Google was consciously killing rss. That they didn't want an open standard that, So what they did is they made Google reader to dominate and then killed it. Let's put it out of its business just as they did with X mpp. They didn't want an open standard. They wanted a standard they controlled. And I think rcs is probably their attempt to control it. And it's gonna die too because it's, I'm just frustrated with Google. I mean that's move
Ben Parr (00:38:40):
Many people
Leo Laporte (00:38:41):
Are
Iain Thomson (00:38:42):
<laugh>. Yeah, I, it seems to me they've moved into the rent seeking part of the tax cycle. They're not actually creating that much anymore. It's just a question of how can we ring as much money out of various properties that we've built up over the years and satisfy shareholders. Yeah. I mean how old
Ben Parr (00:38:58):
People now?
Iain Thomson (00:38:59):
Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:39:00):
20. Right? Two almost
Iain Thomson (00:39:01):
20. Yeah. Over 20. Over
Ben Parr (00:39:03):
20, over 20. Wow.
Iain Thomson (00:39:04):
Yeah. So
Leo Laporte (00:39:05):
It's, it's an old line tech company. And I mean I will submit and we talk about this a couple of weeks ago that honestly if it weren't the only thing, they make money on a search and as search ads. And if it weren't for that, none of this would've flown. They are now realizing that and killing stuff like Stadia. They had no reason to launch in the first place. They had no expertise in gaming. Ben Thompson says basically that they kind of knew how networking at cloud worked. So he says the business side of Stadia was lazy and stupid.
Iain Thomson (00:39:41):
<laugh> <laugh>
Ben Parr (00:39:45):
Because
Leo Laporte (00:39:45):
They didn't know gaming and they just didn't can do this.
Ben Parr (00:39:47):
But you know what? It's doable. Think about Microsoft and what a success story that's been overall into a company that wasn't into gaming and really ingrained themselves and became really successful.
Leo Laporte (00:40:01):
It took a long time. They lost a lot of money on Xbox for years and years and years
Ben Parr (00:40:05):
And takes
Iain Thomson (00:40:06):
That level halo. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:40:07):
Yeah.
Ben Parr (00:40:08):
Commitment and a low luck
Leo Laporte (00:40:10):
Maybe. And luck and timing. And you're right, because I think when it was bomber, I don't know if he even knew what Xbox was or had a strategic vision, but clearly because Sat Nadella comes from, he ran Azure comes from cloud, he saw, oh, this could really be an entree into cloud gaming. And I think the long term prospects for Microsoft gaming are very good, especially now that they're acquiring division. They bought Minecraft. That was a brilliant move, right? Brilliant <affirmative>, brilliant move
Ben Parr (00:40:50):
For
Leo Laporte (00:40:51):
Sure. They have shown since Balmer left a really good strategic vision. And that's just one example in a bunch of areas.
Ben Parr (00:41:01):
Ella just complete aside probably top five ceo Oh yeah. In the country
Leo Laporte (00:41:06):
Period. And C Pacha bottom five. Is that controversial to say?
Ben Parr (00:41:14):
It's always controversial to make a bottom five,
Leo Laporte (00:41:16):
But Well, I mean there's so many that,
Ben Parr (00:41:18):
Where does Elon go on that? Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:41:19):
I know and you got plenty of people belong there. But honestly Sun is not doing a good job with Google. It. Maybe it not his.
Iain Thomson (00:41:26):
Put him on a par with Paul. Paul.
Leo Laporte (00:41:30):
Yeah.
Iain Thomson (00:41:31):
Good way. Good guy to when it comes to making money, no vision whatsoever. A caretaker plan for the future.
Leo Laporte (00:41:38):
Yeah, pretty much. And in that business, you cannot coast, you cannot sleepwalk because you'll get your lunch eating sharks out there. Best not to walk around asleep.
Ben Parr (00:41:54):
Well the interesting thing about search, and you've probably seen it recently and maybe you've talked about it, is Gen Z is doing less.
Leo Laporte (00:42:01):
I use TikTok.
Ben Parr (00:42:03):
Use TikTok. I tried it. I tried him actually. This kind of works for certain kinds of things You're doing travel stuff. It actually is really quite useful. I understand
Leo Laporte (00:42:11):
It's a little weird. We'll talk about
Ben Parr (00:42:14):
A little bit for us. Oldies. <laugh> but not for them.
Leo Laporte (00:42:19):
There's a lot going on there. There's a lot to say about that. I just wanna point out that Google freaked out because everybody thought the future of search was the Facebook social graph. Remember that? <laugh>. And so Google created Google plus another fine Google product. Actually, to be honest, most other Google products, it was really good, but they killed it.
Ben Parr (00:42:46):
I had three quarters of a million followers on that thing. I missed them. It
Leo Laporte (00:42:50):
Was great. I loved it. So Google's flaw flaw. It's not that they make bad products cuz I think the Pixel six is a great product. Pixel Seven's gonna be a great product, but
Iain Thomson (00:42:57):
They can't follow through.
Leo Laporte (00:42:58):
There's something wrong. Well, and there was one contention that the problem is the mismatched incentives at Google. And this you could blame Cdar Pacha for which is you get promotions at Google for coming up with a new product. You don't get any support for supporting that product Google. And that's why Google invents a lot of stuff and it all flops in the long run like Stadia because they don't incent people to be on the team of the long term product. They incent people to invent the next thing. And that makes sense that that's
Huyen Tue Dao (00:43:31):
A big problem at a lot of tech companies. And I've been at large tech companies where that is exactly the case where say for example, you have a team and their job is to make features that end up on the front page of Gizmoto. And then the rest of us who have to do the hard work of keeping a service or a software scalable and maintainable and all these very unsexy words don't get as much recognition. So the incentives of incentives are way off because when you move fast and break things, someone gotta fix it. And so <laugh>, I totally agree and it's kind of messed up as someone who works on this side of it. And presumably it also kind of results in mixed business results
Leo Laporte (00:44:12):
In the while. Is it a bad management or is it, I mean,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:44:16):
I think don't know. I think sometimes structural, I think a lot of times it is structural. And again, I am just an engineer. So this is the perspective from which I'm
Leo Laporte (00:44:25):
Say just an engineer. Cause I'm just goodness, the people who make this, but that's the flow. You keep it going
Huyen Tue Dao (00:44:33):
The way it feels at times. And I think that a lot of times I think that especially in tech, a lot of people are chasing. And I think that's exactly it is what is it that will get the verge and what is it that will get wired and Gizmoto will cause a tweet to go viral. And I think because of the history of the way that tech has exploded, that's still a bar of success. And so I think a lot of companies tend to chase that quite a bit. And it kind of seeps into OKRs and goals and strategies. And then it kind of trickles down to the fact where certain things that are not sexy, but that are really important for people to, for customers and for users to be both happy and safe and secure in your service, in your software, don't get as much attention.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:45:20):
And I do agree that that causes eventual issues in terms of incentives. I mean certainly I do, and speaking for certain people, there are a lot of people on the Android team just to wanna shout out that are very good at this kind of thing. But I think when you have a big company, and I've been at a couple companies that aren't just a product, but a family of products where things like cross selling and how do we integrate this product in this product like that. Ron Richards on Triple Triple A always says the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. And that generally seems to be the case a lot. And so all of that gets mixed up and I feel like there's some lack of follow through because of all these different things going on and these mismatched incentives. So the big tech Yay.
Leo Laporte (00:46:02):
Yeah. Mean honestly, as an engineer, I'm sure this, it's much more fun to create a new product than to maintain legacy code. And I'm sure that there are all sorts of incentives, but that ultimately comes down to the leadership countering that notion and saying, No, no, no, it's really important that we make sure that our legacy products are well maintained and work and perform because that's where we make our money. And I know maybe you don't wanna do this win, but you gotta maintain your product. That's leadership. That's called good business. That's called running the company properly. And so ultimately comes down on <inaudible> shoulders in the executive team, I think. Yeah, engineers are always gonna wanna invent. I mean, that's why I'm not a code monkey because I don't wanna maintain legacy code. I don't wanna look at anybody's code base. I wanna do my stuff.
Ben Parr (00:47:00):
Why so many people wanna start companies? You wanna see it all in the news and then you see 20 million raise and you're like, Oh, it's good to be sunshined roses when it's always such, Well,
Leo Laporte (00:47:12):
Yeah. So what's so octane? You're at the stage now, you're past that stage now you're kind of in the, you're past the growth, you're kind of in the maintenance, keep it going. Is it harder?
Ben Parr (00:47:23):
It is easier to grow product. It is much easier to go. It's much harder to go from zero to 1 million in an annual recurring revenue than it is from one and above. It just, it's just
Leo Laporte (00:47:36):
Like, is it more fun?
Ben Parr (00:47:38):
It depends on a whole bunch of things. It depends on your personality. I really like the early part of building I also building teams so there's something fun at each stage. But
Leo Laporte (00:47:52):
Then that's why Serge and Larry go off and run their blimp projects and you bring in adults because it's time to run the company, not to invent the company.
Ben Parr (00:48:03):
It's a very different skill. It's a different, And very few people are great at both.
Leo Laporte (00:48:06):
Maybe that's part of the is you got a lot of founders.
Iain Thomson (00:48:10):
I think a lot of the problems with Google have been because they've hired far too many managers and not enough innovators. Do you
Leo Laporte (00:48:17):
Think it started with Eric Schmidt?
Iain Thomson (00:48:20):
No. I mean Schmidt was needed because otherwise Google wouldn't have been the success it was without, Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:48:25):
Larry called it adult supervision. Yeah,
Iain Thomson (00:48:28):
Exactly. I
Ben Parr (00:48:28):
Mean that every worked out.
Iain Thomson (00:48:30):
Yeah, no, Worked out perfectly well, not perfectly, but it worked out very well. But <laugh>, Google stopped creating. I mean, where are the big announce? I mean, do you remember when Gmail first launched? It was a bombshell on the email front. They launched it on April the first, which was a journalist we really resented because it was like, is this an April or not? Is this
Leo Laporte (00:48:51):
Another Google toilet in internet or what?
Iain Thomson (00:48:53):
Yeah, yeah. But I mean that Android whole, the photos, the whole thing, it used to create things. And right now, particularly with the Made by Googled, it's just like, Hi, here's something which everyone else has been doing for a while and some minor software tweaks. Yeah. Yes. I wasn't actually at the event, but I understand they did. They've copied Apple's practice of having cheerleaders in the back of the room who will woo up every single event. God, I hate that. And it's just like once you've done that, you've lost your central tech argument.
Leo Laporte (00:49:28):
By the way, Larry Page's Kitty Hawk, which was his electric air taxi startup is folding. They announced that on Wednesday. Yeah. Just one more
Iain Thomson (00:49:38):
<laugh>,
Leo Laporte (00:49:39):
One nail in the coffin. Hey, I have to take a break. I am having so much fun. I don't wanna stop the conversation, but we have lots more to talk about, including the existential question. Did Tza ban air tags and why? That's all <laugh> all coming up. Ben Par, great to get you back. So nice to see you. I want to hear all about your new podcast, Business Envy, business envy show.com and octane ai. It's really fun to have you here. Good to see you again. Of course, Ian Thompson. Always a pleasure. From the register.com. Now, don't have to say.co.uk, although I bet that still works, right? Oh yes. I thought of you when the queen passed. I thought, cuz I remember you when they liked the old lady and was
Iain Thomson (00:50:24):
I'm a Republican. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm a Republican with a smaller, but I think choosing your head of state, the army and the church by birth lotteries already. Stupid idea, <laugh> but on the other hand, <laugh>. But yet she did a lousy job really very well indeed. Yeah. No one should ever have to do that job. But she put a time I, I was actually kind of depressed for a couple of days.
Leo Laporte (00:50:50):
I thought you might be, I was thinking believe it or I was thinking of you and thinking I should have seen. And also,
Iain Thomson (00:50:56):
Did you see the footage of the cube? Because that was the most British memorial ever
Leo Laporte (00:51:01):
Line.
Iain Thomson (00:51:02):
Oh 13 in, I mean, David
Leo Laporte (00:51:04):
And David Beckham. Got it. Meghan
Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:06):
Waited
Iain Thomson (00:51:06):
10 hours, 13 hours. That's awesome. While all the VIPs just, Oh yeah, I'll turn up, do a quick walk past and the rest of it. Yeah, no, I mean it showed who we were as a people. She's always been there. And while I think her idiot son is gonna make a lousy king, we shall see.
Leo Laporte (00:51:24):
I predict that Charles will somehow magically take the glow and become the king. And what I realized, yeah, it's a terrible idea, but at the same time, it's really nice to have head of state who's not political, who's just there to kind of reassure people. And she was very good at that. And Charles, if he's kind of starting to look a little bit like a pr, but if he could find a way to become the nation's heart in the way that, Yeah. QE two. Well, I mean,
Iain Thomson (00:52:00):
Yeah, it was very tricky because in, he's been holding on for this job for over 60 years, <laugh> and he does have ideas about ruling the country as opposed to being a constitutional monarch, which is his job really.
Leo Laporte (00:52:18):
He has aspirations of having power.
Iain Thomson (00:52:20):
Well, I mean he's been sending letters to ministers for, oh dear, the last couple of decades about what he wants done. I mean, we forget that the royal family can actually veto legislation if it affects them personally. And considering he owns Cornwall or owned Cornwall that was a fairly wide remit. But I dunno, his first address was very well done. I like it. We'll see if he grows into the role. But as I say, the very idea of a birth monarchy is just
Leo Laporte (00:52:51):
Ing No, but as I said, I think there's a emotional value to having a non-political leader that you can kind of project upon, if, for one of a better word, your concerns and your fears. I think that's a good thing.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:05):
I actually sorry, just interject, but I heard a really brilliant YouTuber name philosophy tube, who is British once basically said that the Queen is the UK's. Yeah, in <laugh>. Yeah. And I thought that was the most yfu Sorry, How do I go into Hawaii? Explain what do I, Yeah, I understand totally. I don't think I can explain that aspirational, kind of an admiring, aspirational kind of relationship where you kinda had this person. Ok, yeah, that makes sense. But yes, the UK's wife philosophy too, not my idea, but I thought there was a very distinct way of kind of describing that emotional connection. It's like your
Leo Laporte (00:53:41):
Pillow, your pillow bride, quite it <laugh>.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:46):
So wouldn't wanna disrespect Queen by saying such, but yeah, no,
Leo Laporte (00:53:50):
I didn't. No, it really, No, I think, No, you're exactly right. And that's why I said project. It's somebody who is almost a blank slate. Really? Yes. That you onto which you project your hopes and fears, <affirmative>. And it helps emotionally, helps you. And we don't have like that in the United States. All we've got is horrible presidents and that it'd be nice to have somebody who was just apolitical that we could just kind of, Wow. I mean, the
Iain Thomson (00:54:17):
US has its own monarchy at this stage. I mean, remember Bush?
Leo Laporte (00:54:21):
Yeah. Not, I
Huyen Tue Dao (00:54:22):
Thought you were gonna say the Kardashians. Oh
Leo Laporte (00:54:25):
No. I mean Kim Kardashian is a wife. You're right.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:54:29):
We're unfor. Better or worse, our wifes, Oh dear
Leo Laporte (00:54:33):
<laugh>.
Iain Thomson (00:54:33):
Yeah,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:54:33):
There's the title that's Essential Crisis. Now
Leo Laporte (00:54:36):
I'm depressed. Oh gosh. Oh, it's great to have win two Dow. And she's my wife Who? And it's so good to have her lead developed. No, I'm kidding. Lead developer at Adobe. Cohost of all about Android. First time on the show. Thrilled to have you. Thank you for being here.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:54:50):
It'll be here.
Leo Laporte (00:54:51):
I wanna take a little break. I hate to do it cause we're having so much fun. But I wanna talk to you about Wealth Front and now is a good time to mention, I think Wealthfront Wealth Front's goal is to make building long term wealth, long term underscore wealth easy offering both high yield savings and automated investing accounts to do just that beautiful interface. You'll love the app if the bank's keeping money, that could be yours. If you're earning less than wealth fronts, 2.55% ap. Why? Yeah, what? Find out what your savings account's getting. It ain't that. I guarantee you federal interest rates, of course, they're going up this year and they're gonna continue going up. That means banks have been earning more on your savings. Have their interest rates been going up new? According to the D I C, the average US bank has only raised their rates to 0.17% this year.
Leo Laporte (00:55:46):
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Iain Thomson (00:57:14):
<laugh>. Cause they work so well without the battery. You know, don't why this rings really false. I spent a year as the editor of an aviation IT magazine,
Leo Laporte (00:57:28):
So I
Iain Thomson (00:57:29):
Didn't know. So I talked to pilots about when that first mobile phone band came in, I was talking to a pilot about it and he goes, No, we know when someone's got their mobile phone on in the aircraft because it's usually one of us, you know, can hear it. It doesn't interfere that badly. This whole hanza thing strikes me very much of, we don't want the PR problem rather than there's an actual genuine physical danger here.
Leo Laporte (00:57:54):
Here's an example, the Hanza tweet from Keep on Discovering on TWiTtter. I just traveled from Athens to Charles Dugal business class at a two and a half hour transit in Munich. Somehow he's talking to Luton. You've lost my bag in between. Apparently your team can't find it, but Apple's ear tag says it's in to lose <laugh>.
Ben Parr (00:58:16):
I,
Ben Parr (00:58:18):
I've been doing this for years, but with the tile tags to track all of my luggage. Same thing. And it's incredible And it's incredible. But you lose something. You're even just trying to track when it's gonna go and get come in. And so I had to do a disclose like year a disclosure years ago I sat on the advise innovation advisory board of Luton. So this is fascinating for me. I have no context or anything. So I will straight up say I am surprised at the taking this stance stance. It's definitely from probably a more conservative group of luan. It is not the stance that I would take by any way. We perform
Leo Laporte (00:58:54):
The wrong way to get it go about this. I would agree public,
Ben Parr (00:58:57):
You're not gonna see it in the us. I can't imagine they would do that in the US It's such a,
Leo Laporte (00:59:01):
So it is a battery and I guess they don't let you put your laptop anymore in checked luggage. Right? But it's a tiny little thing. I don't think it's, it's cost costs for concern.
Iain Thomson (00:59:14):
Honestly. We cover thermal runaways a lot and I've never heard of a coin size battery going full thermal. It just doesn't happen. They're engineered that way.
Leo Laporte (00:59:25):
Oh,
Iain Thomson (00:59:27):
But also, I mean my wife tried the air tag in the luggage thing on our last trip and it was actually quite stress inducing because we were sitting on the plane and she's like, This is still showing up as being in the terminal. Whereas my luggage, whereas my luggage right now. And then when we landed, of course it was all alright because it was just a delay from the actual signal getting through. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:59:45):
You don't wanna pay too much attention to it. But
Iain Thomson (00:59:48):
No, I mean left hand's position is ridiculous. Yeah, I mean seriously.
Leo Laporte (00:59:52):
Yeah, it's kind of, I have to say e everything now Apple has this, so as I leave home it says, my phone says, you just left your laptop behind. I know I did wanna bring it to work <laugh> a little. It can be annoying. And then I've had the same problem with bags. I keep an air tag in my bag and I will on Lutons a good look finding at Luton. But when you then get to the hotel and you go for a walk, your phone says, Are you just left your bag behind? It's like I, I'm sure there's a way to fix that. I don't know, it's, it's a little annoying. I'm just saying. But it's,
Iain Thomson (01:00:27):
Well if you've got travel, if you've got travel insurance, losing your luggage is not the worst thing in the world. Cuz if lose, I think, I dunno how it is over here, but in the UK's more than 72 hours, then the airline will pay from new clothes shopping. So really it, Oh
Ben Parr (01:00:42):
Yeah, I washed my bags for over three days. How
Leo Laporte (01:00:45):
Much did they give you? How much did they give you? Ben?
Ben Parr (01:00:49):
Thousand bucks I think.
Leo Laporte (01:00:50):
Really? Oh,
Ben Parr (01:00:51):
Decent amount.
Leo Laporte (01:00:52):
I thought they were viable from like 50 bucks or something.
Iain Thomson (01:00:56):
I call 600 a Virgin America. But no, it's
Ben Parr (01:01:00):
Mine. International trip.
Leo Laporte (01:01:01):
It depends where you lose it. If you're going somewhere and you lose it, that's bad. If you're coming home, you've got some extra underwear at home, you're probably okay. That's all I'm saying.
Iain Thomson (01:01:11):
Yeah, and you pissy that poor devil actually opens the bag and finds your old underwear. But <laugh>,
Ben Parr (01:01:16):
I'm gonna just buy $1,000 pair of underwear. That's what I'm gonna do.
Iain Thomson (01:01:22):
You can probably do that. California,
Ben Parr (01:01:23):
France. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:01:26):
All right. Two words that strike it. Is Halloween coming up? It's spooky month. I guess that's what the Gen Z calls them. So two words to strike terror into anyone's heart. Elon Musk, <laugh>. Are you scared?
Ben Parr (01:01:41):
<laugh>? I've entertained.
Leo Laporte (01:01:43):
It is entertaining. You gotta say that. I know there are people who listen to this show who say, who've already pressed a stop button. I don't blame you, but we gotta cover this. This is a story. It's a huge story.
Ben Parr (01:01:57):
I promise. We'll make it entertaining. Everyone stick around.
Leo Laporte (01:02:00):
Elon's doing his best.
Iain Thomson (01:02:01):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:02:05):
First of all, I was asking this question earlier, Are Elon's tweets weirder on the weekend? Maybe he's having more
Ben Parr (01:02:14):
Bored. He's more bored slash drunk slash yeah,
Iain Thomson (01:02:16):
Something. Yeah, yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:02:18):
Cause I'll show you his most recent tweet coming soon from the boring company, new fragrance called Burnt Hair from ced. So what is he smoking? I mean, seriously, <laugh>,
Ben Parr (01:02:34):
We already know what he's smoking.
Leo Laporte (01:02:36):
Oh, actually we've seen him do it. We still do it. He did say that this week that he finds it fun and amusing and relaxing to tweet. But some of these tweets, for instance, his peace plan for Russia
Iain Thomson (01:02:54):
And China as well. Did you see
Leo Laporte (01:02:55):
That one? Yeah. No. What
Iain Thomson (01:02:58):
Was Chinese government of Chinese government official formally congratulated him saying, actually, yes, a split site solution is part of our plan for Taiwan <laugh>. And it was just like, Oh, this was
Leo Laporte (01:03:08):
Elon plan for Taiwan. Great.
Iain Thomson (01:03:11):
And yet he
Leo Laporte (01:03:11):
Mixes it in with these amazing shots of the SpaceX dragon docking with his space station doing stuff that NASA seems to struggle with. It's a very weird ad mixture of billionaire cockiness extracurricular drug use and genius.
Iain Thomson (01:03:32):
Well, you see the Germans have, Sorry,
Ben Parr (01:03:35):
There you
Leo Laporte (01:03:35):
Go. I wanna hear what the Germans have.
Iain Thomson (01:03:37):
I was gonna say the German, the Germans have words. They probably have a word for it. So many things. Yeah, they probably do have a word for it. Yeah, it's called fa idiot <laugh>. It means someone who is incredibly smart in one or two areas and an absolute idiot in others.
Leo Laporte (01:03:53):
He's a fa idiot. That's
Iain Thomson (01:03:54):
Exactly right. Yeah. And I admire other favorite, Yeah, I mean also after what he said about Ukraine, it was just, there's another German word, which is I think Beal shaft, which is a face made for smacking <laugh>. And I think the Ukrainians would really feel that way.
Leo Laporte (01:04:09):
The moment, honestly, if your peace plan gets the vote of the Russian government and the Chinese government, you're probably on the wrong track. I'm just saying, just thinking, Well, seriously,
Ben Parr (01:04:21):
It's trying to curry favor from the Chinese company.
Leo Laporte (01:04:23):
Well, and then that's the deeper question we always ask this question about Donald Trump is like, what is his motive? And honestly, sometimes I do think Elon's playing 12 D chess, it just, he's doing it drunk or something. He's doing it on Molly. So this week he wrote a letter saying, Okay, okay fine, I'll buy TWiTtter. Thereby putting the trial off for a month. Also, maybe more importantly, putting off his deposition, which was scheduled for Thursday for another month. Also ending discovery. And then we were talking about discovery earlier. Discovery, these trials, you might win, you might lose, but they're almost always bad for the participants because stuff comes out that's embarrassing.
Ben Parr (01:05:11):
The text messages
Iain Thomson (01:05:13):
Is like,
Leo Laporte (01:05:13):
Oh know.
Iain Thomson (01:05:14):
I know. Cause
Ben Parr (01:05:15):
Okay, just a couple things I have to say here. One Elon's mindset, and you can see it through the text, is he is never wrong and it's not be, And it's because everyone is fawning over him, right? And no one's really,
Leo Laporte (01:05:33):
There's many Ask Kissers in his, what did Jason Callahan say? And you and I are both buds with Jason. I love Jason. Yeah, but I'm embarrassed
Iain Thomson (01:05:42):
I wasn't gonna bring it up, but my goodness
Ben Parr (01:05:45):
Was I was gonna bring it
Iain Thomson (01:05:46):
Up based in the mouth cringe. I mean, so I don't say it. Don't say it. Oh no, you went there. What
Leo Laporte (01:05:54):
Did he say? I can carry your Sword Boss or something like that. Oh, he volunteered to be the CEO of TWiTtter. Pestered Elon over and over again. I remember Ben, you probably got this email. I got the email. Elon said, We're gonna get together a consortium of investors to help Elon buy TWiTtter. And would you like to put some money in? And Elon eventually had to say, And it's in these messages, would you knock it off? This is embarrassing. Elon actually did not look like a do dous in these messages. It was all the people messaging him that looked like dopes, I guess. But what's Elon I think was afraid of, And I think that there's also a case to be made here. There is evidence that Elon was talking before the whistle blower was talking with Peter's. There is a message where he said, Let's go to a more secure platform. There apparently some evidence they moved to Signal and those messages have now been deleted. But there might be a problem there with Elon talking to Mudge before he blew the whistle. You think that Elon doesn't want that to get out?
Iain Thomson (01:07:02):
Well it's interesting. In her ruling, the judge did say that there were significant concerns about the signal messages, or rather the gap in the message string,
Leo Laporte (01:07:10):
The missing message, which
Iain Thomson (01:07:11):
Was, which was supposedly attributed to signal. So yeah, that could get really ugly.
Leo Laporte (01:07:17):
That might even be criminal. I don't know. But I mean there's more than this
Iain Thomson (01:07:21):
Is America execs don't get prosecuted from being criminal, for goodness sake. Elon get a mind a fine.
Ben Parr (01:07:27):
I mean, look, this is the point of why people use Signal is for this exact use case. And no, Elon's not gonna get punished for that. But Elon is gonna get punished by, he's gonna eventually buy TWiTtter one way or the other. That's just how it's, you
Leo Laporte (01:07:42):
Think So that's the question for the panel. Is he sincere and is he gonna actually complete the deal? I mean, that's really the question you think he is Ben?
Ben Parr (01:07:52):
He has no choice. Is he might be trying to make moves to delay things or to not to deposition or to try to add,
Leo Laporte (01:08:00):
Saying maybe he thought he was gonna lose. And so he wanted to preempt the trial like that, I
Ben Parr (01:08:05):
Think. Right. Don't get it. He is in historically bad at depositions because you cannot lie in a deposition and he's historically bad at them and he doesn't wanna go through that. And none of us really wanna go through that. That is not
Leo Laporte (01:08:19):
A fun, especially on mom. So
Ben Parr (01:08:21):
Yeah, <laugh>, whichever drug of your choice you wanna have your deposition in, that is up to you.
Iain Thomson (01:08:26):
I love you man.
Ben Parr (01:08:28):
<laugh> and then you can keep on saying that in the jail cell. But for Elon, he's stuck. He's stucks
Leo Laporte (01:08:37):
Gonna have to buy it.
Ben Parr (01:08:38):
He's gonna have to buy it. I, I'm sure he's trying to figure out every single way to weasel out. But I think the truth is that he's gonna buy it and then he's gonna have that chip on his shoulder to try to prove everyone wrong. I can actually make this worth more money and I can implement what I'm saying. It won't break all of TWiTtter. And
Leo Laporte (01:08:57):
If he buys it, which he says he will, $54 or 20 cents a share, it's way overvalued, right? It's buying a car for 50% over the asking price. It's
Iain Thomson (01:09:09):
Nice. It's like Microsoft trying to buy Yahoo. For what? For 48 billion
Leo Laporte (01:09:13):
<laugh>. Yeah. They breed the sigh of relief when that fell through. I could tell you,
Iain Thomson (01:09:17):
Oh, I still naming talk on that. And he was just like, that was the biggest lucky break of my career. Oh man. Was getting turned down by Jerry Yang and he was just like, seriously, We dodged such a blur on that. But
Leo Laporte (01:09:30):
Isn't that interesting? I mean, maybe what happened to Elon, he thought it was a good idea and then a day later he went, Oh, what was I thinking? This is a terrible idea. Tried to get out of it almost immediately.
Ben Parr (01:09:41):
Well, but he could have kept the due diligence portions in that deal and he didn't. That's part of what screwing him over. Cuz if it had the due diligence portions, he would've been able to get out after a due diligence pieces. And he rushed it is what he did because it felt, he probably felt like he had to rush it. And I get why he wants to own a central source of media, but it is an overvalue. It is an overvalued piece, but there's no way out. And TWiTtter's not gonna let him get out of it. The shareholder's not gonna let him get out of it. I don't know. I cannot think of a way he gets out of it. I'd be curious to see, But I'm starting to already move on to what does TWiTtter look like? Yeah. After Elon owns it, do you call it Musker? Do you send Musk is there, you press Elon's head, What you send a Musks
Leo Laporte (01:10:33):
Would
Iain Thomson (01:10:36):
About this. He's talking about this X app and as an Android developer, I'm curious what you think on this one because all this X apps app stuff looks like a coping strategy for, oh my God, I can't believe what he said. I
Leo Laporte (01:10:49):
Buy here problem right? Now. Here's the same, here's Elon's problem right now he, not only is he gonna have to spend 44 billion, but the banks who have lent him money, Larry Ellison, the Saudi Sovereign Fund, I would guess they're not compelled, right? Brian Ben, they're not compelled to go through with it. Or maybe they are. They're looking at huge losses. It depends to convince the investor. Cause if he doesn't get money from them, he's selling a lot of Tesla stock. That's gonna be a big business problem going down the road. So he has to convince investors, he has the genius plan. That's why he tweeted TWiTtter is, what does he say? Just accelerant for everything. App X the everything app. So that's a great question, Ian for why isn't there an everything app? He's likening it to WeChat in China. Why don't we have a WeChat in the us and could you make one?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:45):
No, this is insane. So I think part of it, No, this
Leo Laporte (01:11:49):
Is, it's No, no,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:51):
No, no. Sorry, sorry. So I think that it's Miss, It's totally missing a lot of things. So just a lot of other things, something succeeding depends on a lot of different things timing, luck, just a lot of different things. And so I think mean I'm not really an expert. So as far as I can tell, oh just an engineer is that WeChat I think grew organically as a chat app. And just though reflecting back on the whole RCS problem messages, iMessages, whatever is that chat is such an interesting kind of function in app category within our mobile space. It kind of makes sense that we chat is what it is because of this kind of organic nature. Especially with chat apps being very country like heavily country, country based outside of the US there, a lot of chat networks are by country. So you have a cow talk in Korea, we chat in China online in Japan.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:12:49):
And so especially given what I understand of Chinese side and everything, it makes sense that they started with WeChat, which was this kind of great platform for communicating with everyone over apps kind of building on top of that. And so in our country we have it different. We have this whole plethora of chat apps and as well, not to mention the other things that X is supposed to do, freaking financial transactions and purchasing that. That function has already been taken up by various things like Venmo, Google Pay, cash, whatever you have. And to one of the problems facing app developers in the year of our smartphone 2022, is the fact that you already have so much competition, so much embedded user bases that trying to come up with the new thing, discipline, whatever exists is a hard challenge in any individual industry, in any individual segment, any individual vertical, whatever you wanna call it.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:13:51):
So the idea that Elon Musk is gonna take TWiTtter, which is a social media network or social network of it's own very wide swath of problems, political, sociological, security, everything else. And then build the big app on top of it and get not just TWiTtter users to use all these things, but try to bring average people that don't like TWiTtter or that aren't kind of dom scrolling every day to bring this on is just fighting against that kind of internal entropy that people tend to have with the things that they, It's the IKEA problem. Once you have something that works, it takes a lot for people to move on from that. And so that is so a lot of the problem that people are navigating the same, the app space. So I don't see him replacing everything with X app. You
Leo Laporte (01:14:36):
Don't think Americans are looking for the one app to rule them all?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:14:41):
I personally don't think so. Completely
Leo Laporte (01:14:44):
Happy to have 20 apps that we use. We use Venmo and we use TWiTtter.
Ben Parr (01:14:49):
It's easy to switch between and they're better individual than a part. And who, right? But let's not forget
Leo Laporte (01:14:55):
That chat succeeded in China at a time when the great firewall of China blocked Facebook and TWiTtter and a whole lot of social services. So there wasn't that choice in China. <affirmative>, there was really a lot of support for Tencent from the Chinese government to do this. That's the rub they got sweetheart deals with the trains. And so it's not in communist China with the great firewall of China blocking you from all these Western apps. You're just not in that environment.
Ben Parr (01:15:30):
It's a different environment. But really to understand the X piece, because this is a dream that Elon has had for 20 years,
Leo Laporte (01:15:39):
Was the name of his first company was X.
Ben Parr (01:15:41):
It was the name of his first company, <affirmative>. It merged with Peter Teal's company, what was it called? And it turned yeah, Infinity and it Mer turned into PayPal and he was successful as a software founder with PayPal. Of course I would not be, I have make a prediction. I would not be shocked if Elon put TWiTtter and x.com together and turn it into some combination of TWiTtter plus like a financial app and use TWiTtter as a basis for that. Added some crypto go to it. Will it succeed? I don't think so. I think that's extraordinarily difficult. But I think he's wanted to do something like this actually for a very long time. At least the x.com thing. He wanted another shot at it. Now he could use TWiTtter to go and make another shot at it. I can see that being what's in his head right now.
Leo Laporte (01:16:32):
He's by the way lost control of the x.com domain, but bought it back. He has it right. But owning a web domain is meaningless in this day and age. If it doesn't succeed on mobile, it's not gonna succeed. If you can't put the pieces together then and if you can't deliver the app and why is TWiTtter a good place to start? I don't even think TWiTtter's the right place. You would much prefer to have WhatsApp than TWiTtter or Facebook Messenger or even Apple messages. And by the way, Facebook would love to do everything app. So at Apple, neither one has tried or succeeded. They both have payments, they both have parts of it.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:17:13):
<crosstalk> of this is well ridiculous. I mean, it's hard enough to build one good financial app. It's hard enough to build one secure chat app. It's hard enough to do one thing. And we've already talked about millions of examples, say for Google example, where even just individual products and kind of brand and vision coherence is just, it is apparently very hard. Unsurprisingly. So don't, just the technical and logistics of doing all of this in one app and trying to supplant every other app is just insane. As an engineer, I'd be like, Nope. No.
Leo Laporte (01:17:43):
Well, Elon's got another challenge, which is already since his bid for TWiTtter, 700 people have left. I don't know if you know anybody who works at TWiTtter, but I would bet that a lot of current employees are thinking, Yeah, let me just polish up that old resume here.
Iain Thomson (01:17:58):
This isn't what I signed up for type thing. Particularly the share price jumps on the buy app. They can, It's cash out the share
Leo Laporte (01:18:05):
Isn't that? Oh, I see. Then they, They cash
Ben Parr (01:18:07):
Out the day
Iain Thomson (01:18:08):
Then they can cash out their shares. Their shares and are value. And one of the things from the tweets came through was that several people were saying once you take over, you can do a really good color of headcount because all the people that don't like you are gonna leave. And that gives you an instant reduction headcount and sort of fix costs. But honestly I just don't see it. I really don't. Which is a declining social network platform anyway important with the older God, but not with the younger turning. Listen to some kind of X platform, which does everything. It's fantasy land
Leo Laporte (01:18:43):
TWiTtter, when more than 10 bucks really good. When he said, I'm gonna buy it currently $49 and 18 cents. The difference differential between 49 18 and 54 20. That $5 differential is exactly how much or little the stock market believes. If the stock market really believed it was gonna happen, the stock price would be 54 18. So that's problem number.
Iain Thomson (01:19:09):
I just don't see how he's gonna r out of it. That's the thing.
Leo Laporte (01:19:12):
I think
Iain Thomson (01:19:13):
He's gonna,
Leo Laporte (01:19:14):
But there's still no,
Iain Thomson (01:19:15):
He's got five
Leo Laporte (01:19:15):
Bucks of
Iain Thomson (01:19:17):
Uncertainty's gonna buy it, TWiTst a knife,
Ben Parr (01:19:19):
And then he's gonna have different stories the next day, the very next day, the first story's gonna be, I have returned to the greatest platform of
Leo Laporte (01:19:28):
Trump said, By the way, even if Elon invites me back, I've got truth social. I don't need TWiTtter anymore. No,
Ben Parr (01:19:33):
He'll be back.
Leo Laporte (01:19:33):
Yeah, why wouldn't, wouldn't he? He'll
Ben Parr (01:19:36):
Be back. Yeah. Period.
Leo Laporte (01:19:37):
But I have to say, I would bet that there'd be, I don't know, 5 million people would leave the minute that happened. Right. And in protest, here's Chris Anderson, the guy who does Ted talks amidst to all the searing, I'd like to offer a prediction for how the Elon Musk acquisition of TWiTtter will play out. First of all, I think the deal will indeed go through now backed by an impressive roster of co investors. Oh, get ready for some next. The company will undoubtedly experience a period of significant turmoil. Yes, there's a lot of change ahead. Many won't like it, but it will gradually become clear that a lot of the changes are actually quite exciting. First of all, fears of all content moderation being abandoned will prove unfettered. I agree with Chris on that. You can't just, you make a c pull. It becomes for Chan, if you don't keep content moderation going.
Leo Laporte (01:20:33):
Instead he says the algorithm will be adjusted to avoid giving so much amplification to political divisiveness. Is that the problem on TWiTtter? He says the debate that matters is not about who is on or off the platform, but what type of tweets get amplified If that can change, everything changes. What's interesting, and this, we saw this in the messages to Elon too. Everybody who's anybody in tech has an idea of what TWiTtter needs to survive. What TWiTtter, what you could do with TWiTtter, and this is Chris Anderson's idea. Next steps will be put into place to verify all human TWiTtter accounts. That process will lay the basis for those accounts to be used for transactions. Ala WeChat using a TWiTtter crypto coin. Oh boy. Oh, or usd.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:22):
There will be crypto.
Leo Laporte (01:21:23):
There will be crypto. You're right. Yeah. There will be crypto for example, people may be your offered paid subscriptions and receive usable tokens. This could bring the company significant revenue plus create its own economy on which goods and services can be transacted. The sheer scale of TWiTtter can rapidly bring this to critical mass. About a year from now, growing numbers of people will be attracted to TWiTtter slash x. It will be far less prone to robo spam and algorithmic fueled outrage. Instead, it will offer lots of new functionality. There's plenty. Elon can be legitimately criticized for his own use of TWiTtter can seem ill advised he can give the impression of being more political than he is. And there's no question there'll be many bumps along the way. But this is the key point. As a tech entrepreneur, he is without peer. In 2013, No, no giggling. Oh shit. Sorry. <laugh>. In 20, In 2013, Chris Anderson goes on. I predicted he could become the world's richest man within a decade. Check the next decade he'll be even more spectacular. Fixing TWiTtter may be as hard a job is converting Teslas into robo taxis and proving the viability of a monster rocket capable of taking humanity Mars. But within three years from today, I predict Elon will have accomplished all three. To which Elon says, Yeah, right. <laugh> Elon was very happy with this tweet.
Iain Thomson (01:22:49):
Would you like a set of knee pads with that?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:22:52):
Good Lord. 20 years. Nice. Oh my
Leo Laporte (01:22:55):
Goodness. Quite a prediction, huh? We'll be on Mars. TWiTtter will be the WeChat of the US of the Western.
Iain Thomson (01:23:01):
I wrote a story a while back where Musk was saying we will be on, We have our first dragon capsule on Mars, I think in 2019. Oops. It's a mo deadline. I mean always add three years.
Leo Laporte (01:23:13):
Well at least
Ben Parr (01:23:14):
I want actual dragons. I wanna ride in actual dragon instead. It's probably they're both just as
Leo Laporte (01:23:21):
Fly faster. Yeah,
Ben Parr (01:23:23):
Like
Iain Thomson (01:23:23):
Fly over to fly. Gotta take
Leo Laporte (01:23:25):
A break. But before we take the break house of the dragon or the rings of power votes,
Iain Thomson (01:23:33):
I haven't seen any of, I haven't seen, Cause British bakeoff is on
Leo Laporte (01:23:37):
Up. British bakeoff. That's a right in. Okay. My
Ben Parr (01:23:40):
Girlfriend and I, you met my girl. Remember? She's an amazing player, right? Her
Leo Laporte (01:23:45):
And I say yes.
Ben Parr (01:23:47):
We, her and I just a over on the house, not House of Dragon. The rings of power. Yeah. I think
Leo Laporte (01:23:56):
One more episode. Itri winds up Friday.
Ben Parr (01:24:00):
Just so beautiful.
Leo Laporte (01:24:01):
And it really is pretty New Zealand, you
Ben Parr (01:24:03):
Have to watch it on a giant screen with a popcorn. Yeah. And yeah, she'll just be
Leo Laporte (01:24:08):
Like, it's far less childbirth and <laugh>,
Ben Parr (01:24:15):
I mean House of Dragon I do think has intrigue, but it's still a lesser game of thrones. And I think both have their places. I just think that that beauty of the Lord of the Rings is due to television. And while the story may not be completely new, it's just gorgeous. I can forgive so many things cuz it's just the most beautifully shot show I've ever
Leo Laporte (01:24:32):
Seen. When G B B O, Sorry. G B B O G G B O
Iain Thomson (01:24:38):
G. Excellent. That's right. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:24:39):
Great British Bake. So that's the winner in this weird poll. I just think <laugh>
Ben Parr (01:24:44):
With
Leo Laporte (01:24:44):
The write in the right,
Iain Thomson (01:24:47):
You can't beat a Hollywood handshake. It's just Absolutely it is. I
Leo Laporte (01:24:53):
Have to get in the
Iain Thomson (01:24:54):
On that. Although I have to say, I apologize in advance for American viewers because they did Mexican week this week. Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:25:00):
You don't beat until
Iain Thomson (01:25:01):
They've seen someone peel and avocado with a potato peeling. Oh
Leo Laporte (01:25:05):
Lord America
Iain Thomson (01:25:06):
Just go, Oh dear. Goodness no <laugh>.
Ben Parr (01:25:09):
I saw the tweets. I saw the tweets.
Leo Laporte (01:25:11):
The British do not know how to peel avocados apparently.
Iain Thomson (01:25:14):
And we don't know how to do Mexican. When I first came over here having eaten Mexican in only in London. Then you came over here and you tasted it. So that's what it's supposed to taste like. This is brilliant <laugh>.
Ben Parr (01:25:25):
On the next episode of Business Envy, Ben and Greg started Mexican restaurant
Leo Laporte (01:25:30):
<laugh>. There is actually a story in the independent bakeoff contested horrify viewers with avocado peeling method during controversial Mexican Week episode. <laugh>.
Iain Thomson (01:25:44):
Honestly, I was flashing back to last year where one of the cooking challenges was to make brownies. So many of my American friends, just like, I'm cooking brownies right now. These people have no idea how to do this whatsoever.
Ben Parr (01:25:58):
To watch,
Leo Laporte (01:25:59):
I can't
Ben Parr (01:26:00):
Watch this.
Leo Laporte (01:26:04):
She's with the knife. Oh,
Iain Thomson (01:26:08):
I apologize in advance for those that haven't seen it, For those that have my sympathies <laugh>,
Ben Parr (01:26:13):
That was more difficult than anything I've had to watch all week.
Leo Laporte (01:26:16):
Actually at first I was a big fan of House of the Dragon. There was a little bit too much horrible childbirth and the rings of power was too complicated for me at first. But I have to say by episode six, the rings of power starts to take off. Episode seven last Friday. Wow. I think rings of power easily is gonna win this one. So
Iain Thomson (01:26:43):
How the somar or
Leo Laporte (01:26:45):
Yeah, it's kind of fish simian ish. There's,
Ben Parr (01:26:47):
There's interesting, actually legal issues because they didn't buy the Morian rights bought rights to specific notes. It's
Leo Laporte (01:26:54):
From the app Appendix of the Lord of the Return of the Return of the King. I think.
Ben Parr (01:26:58):
So there's certain things they can't reference. They can't reference Hobbs. But they talk about, Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:27:03):
Is that why they never say Hoss? They're always hards. That's hards hard foots. Oh that's interesting. And then the time frame is, Sorry. No,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:27:12):
I was just gonna say, is that in the byline that this is an adaptation of the appendix of
Iain Thomson (01:27:19):
This is the stuff that Tolkin did because he was really anal about all the backgrounds
Leo Laporte (01:27:23):
Stuff. I have billion dollars for it. Right. Or quarter of a billion dollars. Paid a huge amount of money and didn't get the rights to the Hobbits for crying out loud. Jeff. Get that together. Anyway. You're right. It's a football. It is. It is football. It is beautiful. I agree with you Ben. And I'm really kind of digging the storyline. So it took a while as for me, it took five episodes to really kind of gel and now it's really on fire on all cylinders. So we're,
Ben Parr (01:27:51):
We're gonna need a tie, a tiebreaker. We need,
Leo Laporte (01:27:55):
It's a tie. Tie between the great British <laugh> in the pat Rings of power. I don't know. Wow. John, you wanna throw the tie breaker? I haven't seen any of it. Hasn't seen it all. <laugh>, you got an opinion dog in this hunt? I actually like them both. He likes them both. You guys
Iain Thomson (01:28:12):
Suck. Ah, come on. The,
Ben Parr (01:28:16):
Everyone listening has to break the tie somehow.
Leo Laporte (01:28:19):
Yeah.
Iain Thomson (01:28:20):
Oh good grief. Yes. I mean to each their own. You have some very good TV shows over here. We have some very good ones over there. But thank
Leo Laporte (01:28:30):
You. Thank you for Jesse Armstrong though I want to thank you for him.
Iain Thomson (01:28:34):
Well we work along, we've got the actors. Michael Kane I still think is National Treasure of Station.
Leo Laporte (01:28:39):
Love him. <affirmative>. Yeah. Jesse Armstrong, who created so many great shows is the creator of Succession, which is easily the best show on television.
Iain Thomson (01:28:50):
That is a lot of fun. And it's gotta be
Leo Laporte (01:28:53):
Said. Yeah, he did In The Loop, which I thought was amazing. And that was based on the thick of it, right?
Iain Thomson (01:29:03):
Yeah. The thick of it is well worth watching. Full Lion by the way, I'm amazed if it actually gets shown over here cause it's kind of subversive. But I do recommend that. But in the thick of it is amazing. Just be aware the language is, that's
Leo Laporte (01:29:17):
What's great about
Iain Thomson (01:29:18):
It. Salty. It's
Leo Laporte (01:29:20):
Scottish ence. It's what it's great about it. And it was the inspiration for ve yes. So, which was another one of the greatest shows on
Ben Parr (01:29:30):
American. So many great US shows. Yeah. Are just inspired by the Brits. You think about the Office Dragons Den. No, that's Canadian. You think about whose line is it anyway, you think about House of Cards, house this a
Leo Laporte (01:29:45):
Lot.
Iain Thomson (01:29:46):
<affirmative>. Yep. Although I do find this is one of the kind of annoying things as a Bri British immigrant is that you took House of Cards and you took the office, both of which in their original were two series. And that was it. You wrapped the whole thing up in two series. The office carried on beat after the main character left.
Ben Parr (01:30:04):
We Americans know how to ring money out of everything. Oh yeah.
Iain Thomson (01:30:08):
No, no, no. I understand totally. But it's just incredibly frustrating cuz his story lines get stretched so far it even happened to queer as folk over here. It was just like, Yeah, what you, It's like, is money more important than creativity? Yes. Oh, hang on. I'm in America. Right? You're in
Leo Laporte (01:30:25):
America. <laugh>.
Ben Parr (01:30:26):
Not even a question in America.
Leo Laporte (01:30:28):
Yeah. Our show today brought to you by Worldwide Technology, Love these guys there at the forefront of innovation, working with clients all over the world to bring technology to business, to transform business. But one thing I always love about wwt, they know business at the heart of wwt is this notion that your business strategy and your execution go hand in hand. And they're very aware of that. So they work as a, to support you in achieving your business goals by using great technology. And it all starts with their atc, their advanced technology center. When the magazines got rid of their testing labs, I remember the great zif Davis testing labs Worldwide Tech took over. They built this amazing thing, started about 10 years ago. It's a research and testing lab with half a billion dollars in equipment from the leading OEMs, all the enterprise technologies.
Leo Laporte (01:31:26):
I remember going to visit in St. Louis right before Covid. We went out rack after rack building after building of some of the most amazing technology. Why? Because, well, their engineers use it to build proofs of concept to pilot new programs to design something for your business. But now what's really cool, they offer to you access to this lab, hundreds of on demand and Schedulable Labs featuring solutions that include technologies representing all the stuff you wanna know about the newest advances in cloud and security and networking, primary and secondary storage, data analytics and ai, DevOps, and on and on and on. So you can now get in there, test out products and solutions before you go to market. The engineers and partners use it all the time. But you can also use it, not only the labs. We can access technical articles, expert insights, demonstration videos, white papers, other tools to help you stay up to date with the latest technology and get ready for this.
Leo Laporte (01:32:31):
It's free. You don't even have to go to St. Louis. It's not, It's a physical lab space. But you can, it's virtualized. You can visit it anywhere in the world, any time of the day or night, 365 days a year. All you have to do is join the ATC platform. And by the way, while you're exploring the platform, when we were out there, we did an event. They do great events at WWT and they have wonderful communities, places to talk about, to learn about technology trends, to hear the latest research and insights from experts. It, it's a resource. You've gotta take advantage of whatever your business needs. Wwt, Worldwide technology can deliver scalable, tried and tested, tailored solutions. Because WWT brings strategy and execution together to make the new world happen for your business. Learn more about wwt, the advanced technology center. Gain access to those resources free. Again, free. All you have to do is go to wwt.com/TWiTt, create that free account on the ATC platform. It's such a great way to learn. wwt.com/TWiTt. Thank 'em so much for their support of the show and of the network. We are big fans of wwt. All right. That's it for the Elon segment. And I think you guys, you made it much more interesting than Elon had any <laugh> rate to be meta and a caller on the
Iain Thomson (01:34:03):
Death spiral. Yes.
Leo Laporte (01:34:05):
<laugh> is, that's an interesting question. Mean their stock has gone, their stock has gone down so low now that they're not in fact have to worry about EU regulations anymore because they're, their market cap is so low.
Iain Thomson (01:34:18):
Well, yeah, but they're shedding staff left and center because people are realizing their share, their share options are gonna be worth nothing in when investing time comes and they're still having to pay tax on them. So they're losing a lot of key staff at the moment. But
Leo Laporte (01:34:33):
I'm not gonna buy that Facebook and I won't say me, I'll say Facebook. Cause that's what we're really talking. I'm not gonna buy the, Facebook's gonna go away until there is a replacement for people. Even people who hate Facebook, which is almost everybody still need, That's the one place. But
Ben Parr (01:34:51):
There's, there sort of is, it's just over time. And it's called TikTok. And look, let's be clear. Like me is not going away anytime soon. Instagram is still widely popular. WhatsApp is still widely popular,
Leo Laporte (01:35:02):
But they're doing the best they can to ruin Instagram. You have to agree.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:35:06):
<affirmative>
Ben Parr (01:35:07):
Trying the best they can to compete with TikTok.
Leo Laporte (01:35:11):
They're turning into TikTok,
Ben Parr (01:35:12):
But turning it into TikTok isn't what the users want. Oh, you saw the rebellion from the Kardashians,
Leo Laporte (01:35:18):
Even back in Kardashians, the Kard. So I mean, they're actively ruining one of their best properties. They, it's kind of, Well, I think
Iain Thomson (01:35:28):
That don't, I'm not sure about ruining their, flailing about, I mean we've always seen this thing with social networks going the way back to friend store before you get this sort sharp uptake and then there's a long tail and then the next generation goes, That's boring. That's the stuff my older generation uses. Let's try something new. And in the past, Facebook was able to buy up Instagram and various competitive product competing products. But it can't do that anymore. And yeah, I agree with Ben. I think TikTok is the next thing and TikTok will be taken over by something else. Eventually. The ecosystem, the competitive ecosystem these products have to work
Leo Laporte (01:36:07):
In. Let's ask a young person when <laugh>, Oh,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:36:11):
I'm not that young
Leo Laporte (01:36:13):
<laugh>. Oh come on. I'm turning younger than us. Oh, that's
Huyen Tue Dao (01:36:16):
Turning 40 in January.
Leo Laporte (01:36:17):
Oh, you're gonna turn 40 in January. Well, okay. Yeah.
Ben Parr (01:36:20):
I'm the young end. You
Leo Laporte (01:36:21):
Have a, Yeah, it turns out Ben's the kid. So you have one, a few more months of Youngness <laugh> few.
Iain Thomson (01:36:29):
Aw
Leo Laporte (01:36:30):
You excuse me.
Iain Thomson (01:36:32):
I went clubbing for cut,
Ben Parr (01:36:35):
Gone all
Iain Thomson (01:36:36):
Hours. Hard
Huyen Tue Dao (01:36:37):
Take notes. Oh my goodness.
Leo Laporte (01:36:39):
So you're very active on Instagram, as we talked about earlier. In fact, you post videos. But I, I started Instagram and the day it started, it was a great place for me to post photos. I really liked that idea of sharing photos with friends, family, and eventually my larger social network. It's not that so much anymore. Do you still feel like Instagram fulfills you?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:37:03):
I think, but I think they're going to change my opinion of it pretty soon. I, And that's kinda like Ian said, they're flailing. The kinda introduction of reels was pretty Hamed and a little bit confusing them adding more ads to make my explore like the Explorer tab and the feed even more. They're
Leo Laporte (01:37:22):
Putting, they more ads in. Isn't that
Huyen Tue Dao (01:37:24):
Amazing? They're putting more ads. And also in places that you, I kind of, to be actually, to be perfectly frank, I am actually a sucker for Instagram ads. I'm a very
Leo Laporte (01:37:33):
Good
Huyen Tue Dao (01:37:34):
Instagram customer actually.
Leo Laporte (01:37:35):
Oh God. Yes. It's too good. Yes, yes.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:37:37):
They're too good. Especially when you're going through stories and I'm just like, Oh, what is that? That's really awesome. Or through your home feed. That's amazing. But I think they're starting to push it. I think that the ads within the profile feed, which is when you click through to an individual users feed and not the grid, but when you actually are kind of having a feed of individual users throwing ads in there is absolutely ridiculous. That's kind of a little bit experience breaking to me and a little bit confusing. You never wanna confuse users. And I sure as all been confused as F quite recently. And then also I think, I don't know if there's like a, is it the Instagram storage where they're adding the, what is it? The loop, the end of loop or the loop? They're adding some kind of functionality to add looping ads. They're
Leo Laporte (01:38:20):
Called. So we have post loops. Yeah, post loop ads. Four to ten second skippable ads. And standalone video ads would play after you watch your reel. And when the ads, it makes sense. I know why they do. That's
Huyen Tue Dao (01:38:36):
It. But for users,
Leo Laporte (01:38:37):
They do that because most people don't watch a real Only once,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:38:42):
Right?
Leo Laporte (01:38:42):
Yeah. You watch it again and again just on TikTok, you watch again and again. So they figure if we put, Cuz normally a post roll ad is like throwaway cuz people have seen the video. Why are they gonna watch the ad? But because reals, you watch it again and again. So the ideas are gonna stick to these four to ten second ads in between before you can watch it again. That means to me that maybe people might abandon. And if you're a creator, this might not be a good thing. Right.
Ben Parr (01:39:12):
And there's just, with TikTok, you have a better alternative as a creator to going viral really quickly to an audience that'll have access to, and that really matters. And with the octane side of my life, we work with a lot of people, a lot of brands that do TikTok ads. And they're really, so
Leo Laporte (01:39:31):
They work as well as Instagram ads.
Ben Parr (01:39:33):
If you do it, they can work incredibly well for interest. Incredibly cheap. Because there's still lots of time for arbitrage cuz it's still not figured out by a lot of people. But if you could really nail the storytelling format,
Leo Laporte (01:39:43):
Always good to get on the next platform before it gets big <affirmative>.
Ben Parr (01:39:47):
Before it gets expensive.
Leo Laporte (01:39:48):
Yeah, before expensive. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, yes, Instagram ads work, but they work because they're part of the scroll and the feed and they like another post and they're very clever. Cause they don't put ad until the bottom of the post. So before it, you're looking at it as if it's a post from your friends or family. And I don't know, they also much better than I, Well I haven't used Facebook, but in a long time. But I think they're much better than Facebook ads than targeting you. Right? Cuz they seem to know exactly what I wanna buy it for in the morning. I know how,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:40:25):
Oh, it is creepy. It is really creepy. It's creepy how, well Instagram knows me, but I think that it's a limit because they're in places where they're kind of acceptable, where there's a feed where, as you said, I might think, Oh, is this a post from this other creator that I'm like, Oh no, this is very adjacent content. It makes sense. I get sucked in. Oh shoot, I'm following this person now and then buying their things in the Instagram shop. That's fantastic. Or it's in stories where by nature of it, you're kind of flipping through things and waiting for something to catch your attention. And that's actually, I think, a very decent spot for the ads because especially if they're done well, they really do catch attention and they feel not obtrusive because of their capability. I don't know why I, I understand why that they're trying to offload some of the lost revenue from Facebook onto Instagram.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:41:11):
But I just feel like it's kind of a lot of different things. I think especially again, with large companies, with a lot of products, in order to counterbalance products that aren't going well, they try to leverage the products that are still doing half well. And instead of really leveraging it well, there's more just putting an anchor on it and letting it slowly sink to the bottom slowly but surely. So yeah, I don't see myself, I mean, as much as I love Instagram and I've personally, without getting too fluffy about it, I've gotten a lot of benefit out of Instagram. Like creators, fitness, makeup, all that kind of stuff. And of course, again, wildly susceptible to Instagram ads. I don't think this is the way to go to offset. And I think that trying to catch up and trying to play follow along with talk and whatever social network comes up is a losing proposition, is just kind of there on the Titanic. And they're just kind of at a little bucket and they're just, what's the word for when you bail out? They're just bailing out the Titanic with about three dozen people on their little Instagram ads. Ok, cool. I was like, come on, come on on
Ben Parr (01:42:17):
Visual.
Leo Laporte (01:42:19):
Yeah, yeah. No, it's great. It's the water's going higher and higher. Come
Huyen Tue Dao (01:42:23):
On. Loop loops. Loop. Loop. That's what the loop for
Ben Parr (01:42:27):
The boat is. Let's go to the metaverse.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:42:30):
There you go. Where the boat is above water. It
Leo Laporte (01:42:33):
Sounds like you pay attention to this space pretty closely. This is part of your business. So if you were advising somebody to buy ads these days, is are you telling 'em TikTok?
Ben Parr (01:42:46):
I am. Definitely. You have to diversify. So last year Apple really, Silas 14.5 and iOS 15 made it possible for people to opt out. Data tracking that is probably the single most consequential decision to all of online advertising in the history of ever and any business that is heavily reliant on online advertising. This is eCommerce brands, this is basically everyone. It really, really affected him. The conversion rates dropped by 40% while the rock prices skyrocketed. And so now it's a whole different era of strategy. You have to experiment with new things. And we've seen that the companies that are experimenting with TikTok ads and using that to bring new people, traffic are doing really well. But it's not this exact same, You can't use the same stuff you used in Instagram and bring it to TikTok. TikTok is just a different kind of storytelling and you have to warm 'em up a little bit more buy than say Instagram.
Ben Parr (01:43:46):
I feel like in Instagram they're more ready to buy just by the nature of the thing. And TikTok, they're less ready to buy, but you can really get them there. You just have to really follow a format. And I've seen people develop these super detailed sheets on how to do TikTok ads and they follow those, the letter and those work. It's a crazy wild west. In other words, for everything right now. This is why you're seeing just huge stock drops with meta, huge stock drops with Snapchat and everything else. And you're seeing some social networks have to be the beneficiary of even that turmoil. And a TikTok is a beneficiary of that turmoil because that's where audience is.
Leo Laporte (01:44:23):
I vote we stop calling 'em social networks. I think one of the things that's happening is the old idea of oh, it's a network of your friends, your family. It's a social network is giving way to, Oh, we're just watching tv. They're creator networks, YouTube proof this, right? People aren't going to YouTube to keep up with friends and family. They're there to watch content. People go to TikTok to watch content. So meta, which Instagram used to be a social network, Facebook did too. Both are moving more towards that creator space where it's content you watch and you get engaged with. Isn't that what's going on? Really? Is the social's dying? I dunno,
Ben Parr (01:45:07):
I
Leo Laporte (01:45:08):
You disagree in.
Iain Thomson (01:45:09):
Well, I mean, I think a lot of social companies are flailing around trying to find something that works. YouTube is killing off a large amount of its user base by overdoing the adverts just as Instagram is. TikTok is currently ascendant, but they're worried about what's, what's coming next. I don't honestly think social will die because people love it too much.
Leo Laporte (01:45:31):
People want social, but they're not getting it where they are. So where do they go to get it? I mean, I see people on Discord, Ants family and Prutz family uses Slack. That's become their social, No apps private, nobody else. Private apps there. Private apps.
Ben Parr (01:45:46):
Yeah. iMessage, WhatsApp. That's my, that's a core. A lot of my social networks now.
Leo Laporte (01:45:52):
Yeah, why not? And then you don't get ads, you don't get strangers, you don't get messages from the president. You just get <laugh>, family and friends. Right.
Iain Thomson (01:46:01):
You get those. I mean even my God Biden's, just appreciate times. <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:46:06):
Hey, it's an election season in the us The next four weeks are gonna be a nightmare.
Iain Thomson (01:46:11):
Oh don't get me. Seriously. It's one thing that could improve my YouTube experience. A I cannot vote in the US button. And I stopped getting all these adverts about proposition, this and proposition there. Is there a
Leo Laporte (01:46:22):
Button? Sorry, before we need a button. There
Iain Thomson (01:46:24):
Is a button. It was,
Ben Parr (01:46:25):
I would YouTube. It's called YouTube Premium pay. 12 bucks a month. Oh,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:46:29):
There ago.
Leo Laporte (01:46:30):
Oh,
Ben Parr (01:46:31):
I pay for it. I haven't seated added three years. Oh so
Iain Thomson (01:46:36):
Absolutely.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:46:36):
And then you go to someone's house who doesn't have YouTube premium and was like, what's with all the ads, man? Just like so
Iain Thomson (01:46:42):
You're
Ben Parr (01:46:42):
So right.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:46:44):
It It's actually funny because just two days ago Signal added stories to their beta. So to your point,
Leo Laporte (01:46:50):
Yeah. What is that all about? They, what
Huyen Tue Dao (01:46:52):
Is that? I was doing show prep and my husband and I were eating lunch and I look over and I'm like, Dude, do you have stories at the bottom of your signal? Cuz he's in the beta. I mean, to your point though, I mean it, it's kind of silly, right? The idea that, oh my gosh, not everybody's doing stories because TWiTtter added it with their, I forgot what they called their version of stories. Of course. So it's kind of interesting though that maybe that is kind of a sense of where it's going because maybe because our social networks have become so much more, for better, for worse, probably for worse, that people want that connection with their friends and family. That kind of old intimate sharing stuff like that. Facebook used to be that all these other networks used to be, and maybe the private chat apps are gonna pick it up because yeah, now I'm like, oh well I can share all my ridiculous workout videos with my family now and Signals. I think that's
Leo Laporte (01:47:39):
Why Signals doing that. I
Huyen Tue Dao (01:47:40):
Feel like I don't honestly know because
Leo Laporte (01:47:42):
Bizarre silly.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:47:43):
But yeah, it's
Iain Thomson (01:47:45):
A weird move. Yeah, it's a really weird flex for Signal. Cuz they were all about under Moi. They were all about, let's keep it pure, let's keep it simple. And now
Leo Laporte (01:47:57):
Moxie's gone. Maybe this is, I
Iain Thomson (01:47:58):
Know, but what happens? I like the team that's gone in after him. I just don't quite know what they're doing. This one.
Leo Laporte (01:48:04):
Yeah.
Ben Parr (01:48:06):
Not gonna be posting a signal story probably any type soon. <laugh> probably. I'm gonna post what tonight. Let's
Leo Laporte (01:48:12):
Be honest. Do people do that? Do group messaging and I always think of Signal as one to one private messaging. But I guess you could do a family signal. I guess you could <affirmative>. Does your husband have
Huyen Tue Dao (01:48:23):
Yeah, Crypto.
Leo Laporte (01:48:24):
Crypto.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:48:25):
That too.
Leo Laporte (01:48:27):
Yeah, Crypto.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:48:28):
But yeah, we have a family. We have a couple of different family signal groups. Cuz we in the, Oh no, Google Hangouts is going away. Drama. We, all of the tech savvy among us, were kind of, I guess auditioning different <laugh> chat alternatives and I think we Slack came up, anything like that. But I think finally everyone on settled on Signal. So I actually don't mind because I think it's interesting that a lot of my family, and I don't know what that says about my particular bubble or demographic or whatever, but that a lot of my family just completely avoid. Probably for the best TWiTtter and Instagram and all social media. But we have signals. So I don't know. I might actually post a workout workout story to Signal and see if my appreciates it. I don't, don't know. It could just then no one will ever say anything. I just embarrassingly
Leo Laporte (01:49:15):
Stop. I wish I could get my family and friends to use any single platform, but I just can't. They're, it's all Apple messages or Android messages.
Iain Thomson (01:49:26):
So much. My family have do WhatsApp groups and I refuse to use WhatsApp. WhatsApp. I've tried to get them on signaled, but what can you do?
Leo Laporte (01:49:34):
I even use Telegram. I don't care. I just want, If we can all just agree, can't we all just get along Well, Telegrams. All right. I mean
Ben Parr (01:49:42):
We're all just gonna message our truth. Social.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:49:45):
Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:49:46):
Are you on or that
Ben Parr (01:49:48):
New or that new dating app that the
Leo Laporte (01:49:50):
Conserv Oh, that was advert was is there an in Insell dating app?
Ben Parr (01:49:54):
Yeah. What is it called? Everyone that's
Leo Laporte (01:49:56):
Like a, Is it the right stuff? I think
Ben Parr (01:49:59):
The right stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Oh
Leo Laporte (01:50:01):
Goodness. The advert is just hilarious. It's kind of like, wow, this looks like a lot of really uncomfortable first dates. You know what I mean? <laugh>. Oh, I get it. Questions right? Is in right wing.
Ben Parr (01:50:16):
Yeah. And the questions they ask you on signing up are crazy. I want you
Leo Laporte (01:50:22):
Behaves like an alpha male here. I imagine I'm to treat a woman. I don't know if this is, Oh this is, yeah, this. Should I play this?
Ben Parr (01:50:29):
Do
Leo Laporte (01:50:30):
<laugh>. It's painful, but go for it. This is their promotional ad. Make sure my volume is,
Ben Parr (01:50:36):
This is what they want.
Leo Laporte (01:50:37):
This is the promotional ad for play right into their hands. I'm giving them a little extra. Don't take us, don't take it down. We're not making fun of you. Oh, why is she not talking?
Ryan (01:50:50):
I'm so exciting
Leo Laporte (01:50:51):
To announce. There's, Let's start over again. Here we go.
Ryan (01:50:53):
Hey guys, I'm
Leo Laporte (01:50:54):
Ryan. Wait a minute. First of all, hey guys. Really? Okay. Hi Ryan. Ryan's the sex imbalance in this app is gonna make Ashley Madison look good. By the way, I just wanna point out, this is carefully chosen. She's wearing a cross that's very important. So
Ryan (01:51:12):
Are you about something I am so excited to
Leo Laporte (01:51:14):
Now is famous Ryan, Matt, is she related to the other Maci in her? She's a digital marketing and brand communications strategist. Former Gator's TF athletes.
Ben Parr (01:51:28):
I don't know anything about the
Leo Laporte (01:51:30):
Eccles Asst three 11. So there
Ryan (01:51:33):
You all of us conservatives, it's called the Right stuff and it's launching this September. What I love most about it is that it's invite only. So not just anyone can join,
Leo Laporte (01:51:42):
None of your lib Tard friends can join. Okay? They call, Oh, they make that very clear. Is it? And they still get in. Yeah, but if you're not
Ryan (01:51:52):
For my ladies, you'll never have to pay because we all get premium subscriptions for simply inviting a couple friends. Gentlemen, if you want access to premium, that's on you. And by the way, only my Josh, ladies and gentlemen, the right stuff is all about getting into the right dating pool.
Leo Laporte (01:52:11):
Oh, I was.
Ryan (01:52:12):
Same values and beliefs as you. You'll start off by building your perfect profile, no pronouns necessary. We want you to put your best foot forward, which includes your favorite photos of yourself, doing what you love or
Leo Laporte (01:52:24):
Being with the posing with the president. Stop the opportunity on the golf course will
Ryan (01:52:28):
Know various sides of you. So remember, be authentic. And creative. We're sorry that you've had to endure years of bad dates and wasted time with people that don't see the world our way.
Leo Laporte (01:52:40):
Red lip tides.
Ryan (01:52:40):
Okay. Once you're in the app, you have the ability to scroll through profiles of people, people in your area, but you can also adjust the settings to see anyone anywhere. Once you've liked a couple people, you're ready to post to date, you can either keep your options open.
Leo Laporte (01:52:55):
Well, this makes sense, right? I mean it's like any other affinity group you wanna hang with the people. I mean
Ben Parr (01:53:03):
The different differences that the fbi U has been using it to find January 6th insurrection. Is that true? Oh, there was reviews even So review of someone, and I don't, could be lies, but there's been rumors. Yeah. That the FBI has been
Leo Laporte (01:53:18):
Oh boy,
Ben Parr (01:53:19):
Found some people. There is literally questions. Finally
Leo Laporte (01:53:22):
There's an app for us. Are you a proud boy? Well, I'm a proud girl and let's get together. Wow. All right. I don't wanna play any more of this but there you go
Iain Thomson (01:53:34):
Ladies, if you like to be commoditized in the right stuff, <laugh>. Exactly. What is the think
Leo Laporte (01:53:40):
All again, if you wear plus sized khakis, Kn bird beard, We've got a gal for you. <laugh>. Wow. It it's actually, that's Kaylee MACI's sister. So there you go. She has her, Well she's
Iain Thomson (01:53:57):
Another grifter on the, I'm sure they got paid very well for doing it and no one will use it and it'll die after a year. So
Ben Parr (01:54:06):
Yeah, that's it.
Iain Thomson (01:54:08):
Yeah, I was gonna say, oddly no one has done an Antifa Antifa dating Fit app. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:54:13):
We need an Antifa dating date
Iain Thomson (01:54:15):
Or whatever. Dang it. I mean eHarmony as I understand it, is now mainly a Christian dating site. I can't complain. I've met my wife on
Leo Laporte (01:54:25):
You're happily married. We don't. No, you and I don't know. I've never used any of these Hinge or Tinder or Grinder. Thank God I didn't have to married somebody before I had to use that kind of thing. Did you Ben have to use, you ever use a dating app?
Ben Parr (01:54:41):
Deborah and I met through a dating app. It was called the League. Oh. Which was also invite only for better for worse. But we met there. And
Leo Laporte (01:54:52):
What made it you a league person?
Ben Parr (01:54:57):
I have no idea what their criteria is and no one really does. That's kind of the point. You don't know what the criteria is. It's probably like, oh they did some things. Oh they look interesting. The one thing that is nice about those kind of an app, the league is if you start sending negative things about people,
Leo Laporte (01:55:14):
Okay, I'm sorry, but we're gonna have to mock you on this. <laugh>, are you standards general? Is he skateboarding in a tux?
Iain Thomson (01:55:23):
I say I often skateboard in tuxedo cause I like ski to the full lot. Lot
Ben Parr (01:55:29):
Didn't say bored if it is.
Leo Laporte (01:55:30):
That's hysterical. That's hysterical.
Ben Parr (01:55:33):
I will say this positive thing.
Leo Laporte (01:55:36):
By the way, your girlfriend or fiance, I think she's your fiance, maybe I'm should speaking out of school, but is very talented, smart. A playwright, Really cool person. So I think so. Yeah. So it worked for you. I'm not gonna knock this.
Ben Parr (01:55:58):
At least it didn't meet her on the right stuff. <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (01:56:01):
You had to yet had to get an invite though to get into this one. Huh? This is good.
Ben Parr (01:56:04):
This you had to get an invite, but it also means that if you start sending unsolicited
Leo Laporte (01:56:10):
Things Yeah, they'll kick you. Right. They
Ben Parr (01:56:11):
Kicked off immediately. Right?
Leo Laporte (01:56:12):
Yeah. Interesting. I
Iain Thomson (01:56:14):
Actually met, my wife threw Paul Web interface design on the particular dating site. They had a thing. No, no serious. Quite seriously. They had a thing that's like if you want to know more about this person's views on this topic, click here. So I clicked in. So a message has been sent. It's like, no, no, I didn't want to send her a message. I just wanted you to find out what she was like on that. She sent me a message back saying, Why don't we just chat instead and Nice. The rest is history. 14 years later.
Leo Laporte (01:56:42):
That's great. How did you meet your husband?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:56:47):
So there's gonna be a lot of context. My husband was actually my 100th TWiTtter follower. There's a lot more context around Is that,
Leo Laporte (01:56:54):
There's a lot more that though. But that was your first connection.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:56:57):
No, well to be fair, no. So that's the funny way of telling the story. But actually I met his, a coworker of his at a, Oh okay. A developer conference. My husband is also an Android developer. We're very fun at parties and
Leo Laporte (01:57:09):
Actually that's the corner I'm going to hang out to be honest with you.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:57:15):
Yeah. At the time I was doing a lot of developers write technical articles explaining how to do things and explain different aspects of development. And so at the time I had a blog and I knew all four people that read it and then all of a sudden I get a hit from my mother-in-law's house in Minnesota. I know I'm Minnesota, but who would read my blog? And anyway, it turned out it was my husband, his coworker thought that I was a great match for him. Here we are. Like
Leo Laporte (01:57:38):
That's a good way to meet somebody. A set somebody who knows you well and says, Oh I know
Iain Thomson (01:57:43):
Two other people. The old
Leo Laporte (01:57:44):
Fashioned word. Yes.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:57:45):
Old fashion. Yeah, Old fashioned. Although at the time when we said we met through TWiTtter and then we played games on, so we ended up playing left for Dead on Steam together and then we ended up Skyping How
Leo Laporte (01:57:55):
Romance's not,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:57:55):
Well 14 years ago. That was pretty freaking nerdy. We never really disclosed that. We're like, Oh, we met through work.
Leo Laporte (01:58:02):
Are you excited about the Last of Us movie?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:58:06):
I am. I actually didn't really play the whole thing through. I needed to my husband. But I am excited. I am a big
Leo Laporte (01:58:11):
Pretty faithful to it
Huyen Tue Dao (01:58:12):
Actually. Oh yeah it does for sure. Oh, I'm blanking on, Oh, playing Joe Can playing Joel. Sorry.
Ben Parr (01:58:19):
I know he talk about it. It looks like great casting is the thing for that movie. Different video games. Mario Thoughts
Leo Laporte (01:58:28):
Chris? Is it Chris Pine? Who's playing the Chris
Huyen Tue Dao (01:58:31):
Doing Fred
Leo Laporte (01:58:32):
Chris. Okay. Is he at least pretending to have an Italian accent
Huyen Tue Dao (01:58:37):
Teen? See as tiny as he can store to
Ben Parr (01:58:39):
The Bower voice by Jack Black is incredible.
Leo Laporte (01:58:43):
Well, Jack Black could do anything. He should be.
Ben Parr (01:58:45):
It does not sound like Jack Black. It sounds
Leo Laporte (01:58:46):
Fing. Actually. He should be Bowser.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:58:49):
So we were actually talking about this yesterday and I think my husband made a really good point is that you it it's a really 10, it's a really difficult thing to do the Mario Voice because
Leo Laporte (01:59:00):
It's, It's me, I, Mario
Huyen Tue Dao (01:59:02):
<affirmative>. So Right, exactly. So either Chris Pride is doing that voice and being a bit of offensive to Italian American Post.
Leo Laporte (01:59:11):
That's true. It would be a
Huyen Tue Dao (01:59:12):
Stereotype and people don't, and then there's no fidelity there. So honestly he cannot win. So I will probably watch and just try to not judge Chris Pratt either way. Cuz honestly that's a no win situation for
Leo Laporte (01:59:24):
Him. You're right, you're right.
Iain Thomson (01:59:26):
See I'm a big, I think Bob, Bob Hoskin should do it as the original Mario from the film. Yes. I think Bob Hoskins is a dead surf for this. Plus as I recently found out, he hated the film so much he was drunk in most of the Seeds <laugh> show
Leo Laporte (01:59:43):
He had to wear the plumber outfit, which was so funny. See Bob Hoskins,
Iain Thomson (01:59:48):
His son is still ashamed of him for doing that.
Ben Parr (01:59:51):
If anyone out there has never seen the original Mario Brothers movie with the like Ls D looking coupa's and uhs go go watch that thing. Make sure that you are in some illicit substance to really enjoy that thing <laugh> and have a blast of how bad it is because my God, it's so bad. It's good.
Leo Laporte (02:00:13):
This actually, I'm looking at the trailer for the New Mario movie and it really is kind of stunning. Gorgeous.
Ben Parr (02:00:19):
Yeah, it's elimination gorgeous.
Leo Laporte (02:00:23):
That's the company Illumination. They do good stuff.
Ben Parr (02:00:28):
That
Iain Thomson (02:00:28):
Is some nice rendering.
Leo Laporte (02:00:30):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm not playing the sound cuz I don't want us taken down, but oh gosh. Is that the Angry Birds, are they in this too?
Huyen Tue Dao (02:00:39):
<laugh>? Oh my gosh.
Ben Parr (02:00:42):
I think old ones from Super Mario 64 from the supermarkets. Forget. Oh yeah, look
Huyen Tue Dao (02:00:48):
<laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:00:50):
All right. We shouldn't do this to people. They're jealous of. Okay,
Iain Thomson (02:00:56):
I we stop creating new movies and just start rebooting old ones. I'm
Leo Laporte (02:01:00):
The wrong generation, never played Mario. And because I'm too old so I have nothing, there's no reference at all to this. For me, it just seems psychedelic. I do think Anna Taylor Joy as Princess Peach is probably pretty good casting.
Huyen Tue Dao (02:01:16):
Yeah, perfect. That's kind of perfect. I'm
Leo Laporte (02:01:18):
Thinking. I'm just saying little tiny break and we'll have more with our wonderful cast. Wintu Dow, who is a regular on triple A, as you call it, all about Android. She's also now a lead developer at Adobe working on an Android version of an Adobe app, which sounds really cool and fun. How many hours a day do you program? Do you code?
Huyen Tue Dao (02:01:43):
Oh geez. A lot. A lot. I mean obviously ate our job and then a lot of us, I think especially those of us in the app world still code for fun. Wow. So that's cool. Yeah, on the weekends and stuff, I think especially being in the Android iOS space, I did actually iOS develop for about a year and a half because back then there were no Android jobs and I had to eat and I was a freelancer at the time. Have
Leo Laporte (02:02:08):
Did you have a computer science degree? Did you learn it in school? I
Huyen Tue Dao (02:02:11):
Did. I actually got a computer engineer degree from the University of Maryland. I actually have a master's in electrical engineer. Technically I wanted to make video games and then actually some folks from Forus because I went to university Maryland and so for access's offices in Hunt Valley, Maryland. And they actually came and gave a talk about game development and as much as I love games, I kind of thought after the presentation was like, I think I wanna play games and not make them.
Leo Laporte (02:02:34):
Yeah, that's
Huyen Tue Dao (02:02:35):
A hard
Leo Laporte (02:02:35):
Take it from me. I could spoil you. I became a DJ cuz I loved music and then I hated music because I had to play it for work and spoiled it for me.
Huyen Tue Dao (02:02:46):
Yeah, I actually visited the res office while they were makings four and I think I just knew a friend that was working QA with them and we went to dinner and then after dinner, this was 10 o'clock, all the devs went back to the office and
Leo Laporte (02:03:00):
That's not
Huyen Tue Dao (02:03:00):
Quite the life that I want. So yeah, I do have a computer engineering degree nominally. It's been a long time though. I still don't know what voltage is really
Leo Laporte (02:03:10):
<laugh>, you don't need to. How are you? It's soldering though, or as Ian would call it. So not good.
Huyen Tue Dao (02:03:16):
Not so that good. I did take a circuits class but it was all plug and play. The nice old radio shack boards with the breadboards and everything and there was no soldering love I involved. I do have a soldering kit and I feel like in order to bring myself up to the level of my professional colleagues, I do need to sold at some point. And
Ben Parr (02:03:35):
Even you need to have a project to work on. Go build bur, build a burning man like art car, all that skills. I feel like that's how a lot of engineering friends we
Leo Laporte (02:03:47):
Did. That probably is that was the recreation. But it could spoil you if you do something you love for a living it spoil. There's a guy in the chat room said I used to love drugs and then it became a pharmacist <laugh>. It really could take the fun out of That's a good one. Something for you. Ian Thompson is also here from the register. Ben Par. We're gonna ask you in a bit about your new podcast. I can't wait to hear about it first. I know you've been wanting to hear about my mattress, so I gotta tell you about my eight sleep. I love my eight sleep or sponsor eight sleep makes both mattresses and covers. So if you have a mattress you love, We did, we got the pod to pro cover, which goes over your mattress and does an amazing thing. It turns your bed into an amusement park in effect, it turns your bed into the most comfortable, cozy, wonderful place in the world.
Leo Laporte (02:04:42):
What does the eight sleep do? That's different? Well it both heats and cools. Okay, you ready for that? It heats and cools. It goes down as low as 55 degrees Fahrenheit. That's cool enough. On a hot, hot summer night when you're sweating you go to and you just feel, oh it's refreshing. It's like I feel like I'm going for a dip and a be. It's wonderful or as hot on a cold winter night as 110 degrees toasty warm. And that's what's so cool about the eight sleep. It senses the temperature in your room, it senses how you are sleeping and then it adjusts the temperature to make you sleep better. Good sleep is nature's general nurse. It's the ultimate game changer. We all are looking for it. Still more than 30% of Americans struggle with sleep. One of the number one reasons people don't sleep well.
Leo Laporte (02:05:34):
They're hot at night, they're sweaty, they got covers. This is so much better. Fall asleep in record time, wake up refreshed and feeling great. So the way I have it and everybody's different, in fact you with every eight sleep, you can have two sides to the bed. So Lisa likes her bed, really nice and toasty warm. I like it. And I think this, I would recommend this. I start in the evening at about 10 o'clock when I'm going to bed. It's a little warm. It's a two on the eight sleep dial. And then as I get into a deeper and deeper sleep, it goes down the temperature go down and starts to cool because that's kind of the natural way your body goes into deep sleep and getting more of that critical deep sleep is so vital. Eight sleep offers the only sleep technology that dynamically cools and heats each side of the bed to maintain the optimal sleeping temperature for you and your body.
Leo Laporte (02:06:30):
And then in the morning my bed warms up again to and wakes me up. They even have a little vibration alarm you can use, but I don't even need that cuz it warms up and I'm feeling good. I'm toasty and roasty and I jump out of bed going, wow, that was a great night's sleep. Clinical data shows eight sleep users experience up to 19% increase in recovery, up to 32% improvement in sleep quality, up to 34% more deep sleep. Those restorative deep sleep stages, 34% more deep sleep. That's vital for physical recovery, hormone regulation, mental clarity. They just launched and I think we gotta get it. We have the pod two cover. They launched the next generation, the new pod three, which has double the amount of sensor. So even more accurate sleep and health tracking. You wake up in the morning and this bed is adjusting to you, the sleep doctor will actually automatically adjust.
Leo Laporte (02:07:24):
It's not magic, but it sure feels like it really has made a difference in my life. We've had ours almost a year now, so we've been through winter and summer and I can tell you it's just great and I'm excited as the temperatures start to cool off. We're gonna sleep so cozy this fall. You can too. Eight sleep.com/TWiT. I g ht, spell it out. Eight sleep.com/TWiT. Sleep cozy this fall. Save $150 a checkout on the pod eight sleep currently ships within the US, Canada, the uk and select countries in the EU and Australia. Eight sleep.com/TWiT. You go there, you get $150 off at checkout on your new pod. I think you're gonna love it. It's transformed our experience of sleep. Kevin Rose told me about it and was just raving about it on a TWiT episode and he was on with Amy Webb and Jen, she got it and then she's been raving about it. So I, when your friends get it, I had to get it and I am so happy we did. And Lisa loves it too. Eight sleep.com/tweet. We think of so much for their support for this week in tech. So you may be wondering, you were mentioning how you're hearing from President Biden a lot. Ian <laugh>, you may be wondering, a couple of years ago, didn't the FCC announce stir and shaken and you weren't gonna get as many robo calls and you weren't gonna get me?
Iain Thomson (02:08:56):
Sorry,
Leo Laporte (02:08:57):
We weren't gonna get as many text solicitations.
Iain Thomson (02:09:01):
Honestly, my aged grandmother has more teeth than US regulators. I mean it's just, it's pathetic.
Leo Laporte (02:09:08):
Well they've heard from you Ian, and they say, Oh okay, we're gonna finally crack down.
Iain Thomson (02:09:13):
Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it. It's
Leo Laporte (02:09:16):
Been actually, it's been hard. They don't have, there is a missing commissioner. The Senate has blocked President Biden's choice for the final FCC commissioner. So they don't have a majority Democratic majority on there. The chairman of the fcc, Jessica Rosen Wark is great. She was a commissioner for a long time. She's chair since Biden got inaugurated and it has been I think very good, but it's been hard to get this solved. Finally, the FCC says they are. So the whole, let me explain how this works. Stir and shaken our authentication techniques. Stir is used on one side, I think the receiving side and shaken is used on the sending side and hand in hand. It means that a phone company, your carrier for instance, can authenticate that a phone call is coming from the actual person who's placing the call. And from a real number, not a number, spoofing your area code and your exchange, not a spoof call. And that by itself, if you just said, for instance, I only wanna accept authenticated calls or your carrier said, We'll only accept authenticated calls would handle it because of course with the exception of political and they free speech First Amendment, they can't stop the political calls. But all the other calls they can bar but
Iain Thomson (02:10:41):
The telcos don't want to bar
Leo Laporte (02:10:43):
They a don't
Iain Thomson (02:10:44):
Too money out of robo calls in the first place. So they've been actively fighting against
Leo Laporte (02:10:48):
This. That's right. And they've got lots of money to spend on Congress.
Iain Thomson (02:10:52):
Oh yeah. And Congress is easily bought for aster. Should be low, low sum. They're cheap. Sorry, sorry. Get yourself a congress member contributions. Yes.
Leo Laporte (02:11:00):
Get yourself a Congress member this Christmas. They're cheap. It's a great gift for
Iain Thomson (02:11:04):
Everybody. It's an amazing country. You've legalized bribery and called it campaign contributions. It's just insane.
Leo Laporte (02:11:10):
So the law was supposed to go in effect end of June. Did not. But that there were, So there's two stages next year. The second stage, the first stage was if you don't have a facility, if you're a tele telecom company without a building, by the end of June you were supposed to be No, you gotta do stir and shaken. That hasn't happened next year. Even if you have a building, you gotta do it. The FCC says at least today that they're gonna ban seven companies. They receive their fi. This is your final warning.
Iain Thomson (02:11:46):
<laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:11:46):
You are on double secret probation, mister. Exactly.
Ben Parr (02:11:50):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:11:51):
This is your final warning. Yeah. Well
Ben Parr (02:11:57):
We're gonna slap you on the back of the hand one more time.
Leo Laporte (02:12:01):
We'll see.
Iain Thomson (02:12:01):
This is it. It was kind like the ruling with Google and its location data fine. Like 85 million this week. They got fined and this was town, I got the press release. It's like this is a historic wheel. And then actually went through the last financial data. That's 11 hours profit for them. This is an administrative cost and much said the same in Congress. There is no, you should start shifting to charging people on revenue, not profit. And then you'd start to see some really big changes because until these financial things bite, we're not gonna get anything better. And robo calls is the perfect example. We've been talking about this. I've been writing you about this for six years now when nothing gets done because there's money to be made, I dunno, maybe I'm just a cynic, but
Ben Parr (02:12:53):
I will just leave it at, I was an intern for Congress in the very beginning of when I was in college and 75% of the time my congressman was in the outside office to where they can are allowed to do phone calls to raise money. And all he was doing was raising money cuz he had to. And what that taught me was I did not want to run for conference. That's
Leo Laporte (02:13:17):
Right. A
Ben Parr (02:13:17):
Giant pile of
Leo Laporte (02:13:18):
Money. In fact you get into Congress and you still have to make these calls. You have fundraising calls every week. It's a never ending process. And this
Iain Thomson (02:13:29):
Is why you need public funding of elections over here. Well we gotta get, because otherwise these people aren't giving money to politicians outta the goodness of their hearts or in free speech. They want something for it. So just publicly fund it. Massively scale back your election campaigns. And if you can't be bothered to read your company's perspectives, then that's your lookout.
Ben Parr (02:13:48):
Well you're giving some reasonable solutions. That's not how we do things here. Well
Leo Laporte (02:13:53):
Here's the problem. The people who are elected in this broken system are the people who are gonna decide if we stop it. Well that's not gonna work. They're the ones benefiting from it. That's the problem. Not to mention the Supreme Court where their Citizens United case said, oh, oh. And by the way, corporations are people too. So just come on in and spend that money.
Iain Thomson (02:14:18):
They're people on the good stuff. They're not people on the bad stuff like going to prison or being held accountable for crimes or anything like that. But on when it comes to the essential tax and revenue rates. But raising purposes. Oh yeah, they're people. Oh
Leo Laporte (02:14:30):
They're people now. Oh yeah. Anyway, watch and see if you get fewer robocall, this is a bad time because it's political season. You'll be getting calls from the president <laugh> every day for the next 30 days. Are you getting a lot of 'em, Ian? Cuz I haven't, but maybe I just,
Iain Thomson (02:14:46):
I'm getting a lot of political adverts on YouTube that is getting absolutely spammed out. I'm getting a fair amount on TWiTtter. I've had someo calls as ever with Theo Call thing. The first thing you do when it clicks in and say are you robot? And they've actually got quite smart about that. It's like, I'm not a robot, I just wanted to tell you, it's like plus two and you're like
Leo Laporte (02:15:10):
How dare just wanna tell you
Ben Parr (02:15:11):
About your warranty of your car insurance.
Leo Laporte (02:15:14):
But I haven't gotten one of those in a while. Now maybe that's because I now have enough protections on my device. I do you still get those? I don't get
Ben Parr (02:15:22):
Text. I get they've gone a lot of text. I get. Yeah, I don't know how but I get texts from, I mean if you cannot tell I did not sign up for any Trump related text messaging glass and someone hated me enough to put me on, Oh
Leo Laporte (02:15:40):
That's a mean thing to do.
Iain Thomson (02:15:41):
<laugh>. Oh,
Leo Laporte (02:15:42):
I got an unsanitized phone number a couple of years ago when it was a phone number somebody else had used and he kept getting texts like, you gotta pay your student loan dude, you <laugh>. And at the same time you are the number one mega fan and for just another $50 you too can meet with the president. And it was mind boggling how active this guy was receiving 20 or 30 text messages from a Republican candidates a day. Obviously he he'd given money once they bite into that. But the thing is, you can't stop that because that's political. And so the First Amendment protects that. And so no matter what we do, no matter what the FCC does, you're still gonna get Rob book calls from political candidates and solicitations from political candidates and parties. However, you shouldn't be soon. You shouldn't be getting any more car warranty robocall or IRS robocall.
Iain Thomson (02:16:45):
And one day I'll have a unicorn, which you are an pure real A and Swedish chocolate.
Leo Laporte (02:16:52):
At least it's the right teller. Yeah. I hope, just
Ben Parr (02:16:55):
To be clear, similar really <laugh>, I don't know if you found a unicorn and you got it's ale from PI and you tell me to drink it. I don't think I could do it.
Iain Thomson (02:17:08):
Oh sorry. This from the nation that gave us Budweiser. I mean it's like that is love in a canoe.
Ben Parr (02:17:14):
Take no responsibility for
Iain Thomson (02:17:15):
Budweiser close to water, but no.
Leo Laporte (02:17:19):
Alright, <laugh>,
Ben Parr (02:17:21):
We can agree Budweiser's not a good beer. I
Leo Laporte (02:17:24):
Started talking about meta because I wanted to warn you that there is a meta scam out there. In fact, meta has worn 1 million Facebook users to be careful. There are at least, this is kind of stunning, 400 apps on iOS and Android in the Google Play store and the iOS app store that purport to be nice little helpful things like horoscopes and VPNs and photo editors. And really they have very few features. All they really do is say, Oh good, now log in with Facebook because we're all used to that log in with Facebook. And of course you're not really logging in with Facebook, you're logging in with the bad guys who run these apps and they are stealing your user account info.
Iain Thomson (02:18:10):
Well I mean I think this is why a lot of companies are actually dumping the Facebook login because their security is so lamentably bad, The security awareness of their users is very, very bad. What
Leo Laporte (02:18:23):
Benefit though? Why, what is there a brisk market and stealing Facebook accounts? Explain that to me.
Iain Thomson (02:18:28):
I'm spamming and presumably, I mean basically it's getting leveraged access to their accounts, selling that data on and then spamming them out
Ben Parr (02:18:37):
And yeah, it's not just spamming on the wall. I've had a couple friends go through it. Someone will take their account and then they will start just DMing all of the friends and getting them scams. And that's how, Cause I
Leo Laporte (02:18:50):
Trust my good friend on Facebook. So it must be safe.
Iain Thomson (02:18:53):
Well no, but I mean I'm with you on this Ben, I've, I've had messages from relatives who quite frankly shouldn't be using a computer at times but just like, Hi, I found these photos of you click here and then when you actually message them and say, Did you just send me this message as like what? No, not at all. Oh no. I've been locked outta my Facebook account. I think Ben's runs that. Mm-hmm <affirmative> a trusted party. You push it out. I mean Android doesn seem to be hit so hard with this, but
Ben Parr (02:19:24):
Facebook, Well it's also the demo. It's the demographic.
Leo Laporte (02:19:27):
Yeah. You go normal people. Yeah. You had a story on Red the register. I'm curious what people are thinking about this. Papa Johns pizza plus
Iain Thomson (02:19:40):
<laugh>. Honestly, I complained about not writing as much as I used to, but Brandon did an absolute classic job on this. As I, Papa John's gonna be accused of many things, a lack of flavor for a star <laugh>, but you know what I mean? <laugh>, every now and then I will try an American commercial pizza. And my goodness, they're bad. I mean Papa
Leo Laporte (02:20:04):
John
Iain Thomson (02:20:05):
A criticize British food after this. But yeah, Papa Jones was using a technique for intel and various,
Leo Laporte (02:20:11):
I think a lot of websites do this though, right? Yeah,
Iain Thomson (02:20:14):
But I mean you have to opt in.
Leo Laporte (02:20:17):
So session replace software, which, so of course a website knows you're there, they knows what you click cuz the clicks are getting sent back. But this software watches the mouse move watches what you type in sends it all back. If for instance you order a pizza then change your mind, they still get what you typed in as an order. Lot of
Iain Thomson (02:20:37):
States stage was held for months as well and reviewed by analyst
Leo Laporte (02:20:42):
And I, I don't know if you, you've been involved in this, but this is a very common and websites to heat mapping, just to get an idea of where people get lost, what features are working, what features are never seen. It's a normal process I believe.
Huyen Tue Dao (02:20:58):
Think about this. So even on mobile for example, whenever you click a button whenever and what screen you click that button and I guess what options you pick in a radio group, it's very common to send those events out. So it's a spectrum. So with the session logging, it's like they have the play by play. It's continuous amount of information on exactly everything you're doing. And normally the way I have done it, and yes I have implemented tracking events, it's pretty common to see, yeah, hotspots, what are people clicking? Are people not clicking this new feature? And so it's an interesting spectrum because in regards to what I am used to doing for my job, it takes someone on the product side or some really smart data person to take these individual events. Like, okay, they click this button and then they click that button but then, and then try to piece that together, right?
Huyen Tue Dao (02:21:48):
It's, it's more, in that case there's a lot of different pieces of puzzle and then it's kind of our job to put that puzzle together and try to create user behavior and patterns out of it. Whereas this is just literally just slight meaning me being able to tell blow for blow what a person is doing. And so it's actually making me question it. So at what point between the spectrum of we're recording exactly what the user is doing to this kind of more puzzle pc build your own user adventure style where it becomes unacceptable, you know what I mean? And at what point is it really obtrusive and granted people opt in but I think it is also user understanding of what they have opted in too. So yeah, I mean it's very common and often a very important feedback loop for developers to know whether a feature, whether a user interface, whether something actually works. And there
Leo Laporte (02:22:43):
Is a difference though between collecting stuff that's typed even if it's never posted, right? Yes. In fact I've seen companies get in trouble for that. It's not at all uncommon if you fill in a web form before you even submit that information, those keystrokes are sent back to the site and I think that's often considered a violation. And any event Papa John's is being sued for doing it. That
Iain Thomson (02:23:08):
Doesn't really, Not for that pizzas, it's just a crying day. <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (02:23:13):
I think one,
Ben Parr (02:23:14):
I kind of wanna hear your tier of pizzas here. Ian <laugh>. Oh,
Leo Laporte (02:23:17):
Are you a Papa Johns fan? Ben?
Ben Parr (02:23:20):
I, we have, You know what? I'm a, I'm from Chicago. I'm a Chicago dj.
Leo Laporte (02:23:27):
Well you've got GTOs.
Iain Thomson (02:23:28):
Oh you not a pizza. That's a tomato pie
Leo Laporte (02:23:32):
Invested in the world. That
Ben Parr (02:23:33):
Is a pizza. And look, I can love that Add New York style pizza sense. I also lived in New York and that is like I love both. Everyone could agree that's a pizza. They're both great and they're both pizza.
Leo Laporte (02:23:43):
There is
Iain Thomson (02:23:45):
To Italy and then taste proper pizza.
Leo Laporte (02:23:47):
There is, however nothing better than PEPs New Haven tomato pies. I just wanna put that, I can
Iain Thomson (02:23:56):
Think of several things better beaten around the face and neck would be
Leo Laporte (02:24:02):
A loser. This is the original pizza parlor, 1925 in America. And if you've never had in rack, you've never had their clam and garlic pizza. This is the pizza that lasts for days. You will taste this for the rest
Huyen Tue Dao (02:24:19):
With clams that last for
Leo Laporte (02:24:20):
Days. No in your mouth it will last because you will taste this for, I know because I ate quite a few of them in college. Great pizza. Great
Iain Thomson (02:24:29):
Pizza. My favorite pizza of all time will always had it in Venice, Spinach, egg, and vie and on a really thin, crispy bass. That's good. Just a nice
Leo Laporte (02:24:40):
Wood fire wood fire oven. Yeah.
Iain Thomson (02:24:41):
Yeah. My stomach wanted to take me home and cuddle me all night.
Leo Laporte (02:24:45):
And I bet that Venice Pizzeria did not spy on your web visits the way Papa.
Iain Thomson (02:24:51):
No, they did massively overcharge us. Cause it's Venice, but
Leo Laporte (02:24:55):
Papa John's actually the, I think it's a class action or it's intended to be a class.
Iain Thomson (02:25:01):
They, they're trying for a class action series.
Leo Laporte (02:25:02):
They got a guy in San Diego. But what's interesting is they accuse Papa John violating the violating the Wire Tap
Iain Thomson (02:25:11):
Act. Yeah, that's a great headline. Wow.
Huyen Tue Dao (02:25:13):
It's fun.
Leo Laporte (02:25:14):
And the California Invasion of Privacy Act. So that, well it would be interesting to see what happens with this act. I think a lot of these class action suits are just lawyers looking for ways to supplement their income.
Ben Parr (02:25:27):
I mean, I think he made a good point where the line is thin and undetermined like the crust in some ways Yes. Between is it this helpful thing or is it an invasion of privacy? Right. And two decades, several decades into the internet, we still have no idea where the line is. I
Leo Laporte (02:25:46):
Think if you use the internet, don't you just kind of know that everything you do is being sped upon by multiple parties.
Iain Thomson (02:25:53):
But you don't think that? I don't think people do, honestly. I really don't. I think this is the problem we've got to the stage where the first internet generation, we've grown up knowing nothing but the internet. Trust it by and large and you know, need that kind of requirement to at least try and tell the truth and try and tell people what you're taking.
Leo Laporte (02:26:14):
Are you a fan of the cookie consent banner?
Iain Thomson (02:26:19):
I know you hate it, Leo. I know you hate it with a passion that burns like a thousand sons. But I like it. I like being able to choose what I will go through and say, No, you can't have that data. Thank you very much. And yes, it takes an extra 10 seconds on a webpage, but I like it. What can I say?
Ben Parr (02:26:38):
Can someone make my bottom third just be a cookie? Accept it's like lined up.
Leo Laporte (02:26:42):
Oh, that's a good idea. From now on the lower third you just say, Ben Par uses cookies. <laugh>,
Ben Parr (02:26:48):
Do you accept Ben Par tracking
Leo Laporte (02:26:50):
You? Accept him tracking you. <laugh> area man is arrested for parody <laugh>. This is the first, This is humor coming. Brilliant New York Times. I have to say the Onion. So the Supreme Court docket this is first Monday in October. The Supreme Court says what cases they're gonna be taking, then they're argued and then come June they'll tell us how they feel. So quite a few of them will impact the internet Section two 30 things like that. But this one I think, I hope <laugh> is a no brainer. A man was arrested when he put a parody of his local police department on Facebook the Parma, Ohio area. Man spent four days in jail over a Facebook page he created that mocked his local police department. He was charged with using a computer to disrupt police functions. <laugh>, a jury found him not guilty and he says the civil rights were violated.
Leo Laporte (02:27:55):
He's trying to sue the city for damages. A federal lawsuit, a federal judge rather dismissed the lawsuit earlier this year saying, I love this one. The police had qualified immunity. That's of course the doctrine that lets police shoot you and not have to go to jail. But apparently they can also arrest you because you embarrassed them and annoyed them. Appeals Court upheld the decision. He took it to the Supreme Court there reviewing his request to take up the matter and the onion decided they wanted to get involved. And this is perhaps the funniest briefing in all of Supreme Court history. Have you guys read this?
Iain Thomson (02:28:39):
Oh, the Amicus brief was fantastic. Yeah, it really made me miss the old paper version of the Onion. But even so they did us proud.
Leo Laporte (02:28:49):
They hired somebody to probably a lawyer, maybe not <laugh>, to really, really spend some energy on this one. Let me pull up some of the highlights from this. For instance, they call the Supreme Court Justices Latin Wants <laugh> their point. We should probably start with their point, which is that parody does not need to announce itself. That it's not even very good parody if you have to say the following is parody as somebody who works for the register. I think you probably agree with that.
Iain Thomson (02:29:30):
We assume that people read us knowing where we come from. But I mean this is surely, and I mean America loves to bill itself with We're free. We're free. We're so free with the land of the free whatever. But the very idea that criticizing your local police department isn't in any, is unacceptable and should result in four days in jail. That's
Leo Laporte (02:29:53):
Ridiculous. Argument number one from the Onion. Let's not forget parody functions by tricking people into thinking that it is real. Two STTs est, you are dumb. These three Latin words have been the onions motto and guiding licenses founded in 1988 as America's finest news source. The onions motto is central to this brief for two reasons. First, it's Latin and the Onion knows that the federal judiciary staffed entirely by total Latin dorks. They quote Ellas in the original Latin and chambers, they sweetly whisper starry decisis into their spouse's ears. They mutter que bono under their breath while picking up after their neighbor's dog. So the onion knew that unless it pointed to a suitably Latin rallying cly cry, its brief would be operating far outside the courts vernacular. And it goes on. It's great.
Ben Parr (02:30:48):
Brilliant. The lawyers that got to work on this probably had just the greatest time ever. Yeah. Working on this. And then, look, this one has multiple purposes. So brilliant of the Onion one, obviously now it's in the dues two, it's putting into the news this ridiculous case that would have an impact on it if it created more precedent. And three, it's just hilarious. Yeah, just the entire thing front to back. Bravo.
Leo Laporte (02:31:14):
Like
Ben Parr (02:31:15):
Lawyers can write really hilarious stuff when they really want to.
Leo Laporte (02:31:20):
I like it. And the Onion reminds people that in 2012 they proclaimed King Kim. John Ung was the sexiest man alive. Nice. And then in fact, the Chinese state run news agency believed it true and published it along with a slideshow of the dictator himself in all his glory.
Ben Parr (02:31:40):
<laugh>.
Iain Thomson (02:31:41):
You'd be surprised how often that happens. I wrote nap April 1st. I wrote nap April Fool's first parody story for not the reg, my previous employer. And I got picked up by Forbes and Runners a legitimate news story. And I put all the clues in there. It was about a computer virus spreading through VCRs, which resets the clock to
Leo Laporte (02:32:03):
Pushing Zeros, <laugh>.
Iain Thomson (02:32:05):
And I even included a quote from Dr. Apri unk, but Forbes ran with it. And this was back when Forbes was actually quite serious rather than the Click bank. Radical
Leo Laporte (02:32:15):
Bracket now wouldn't mean anything if they ran.
Iain Thomson (02:32:17):
Oh yeah, no. Now I mean, but this was 2000 and yeah, six. So it still had some credibility
Leo Laporte (02:32:24):
Points to the New York Times in their story about this Abri, they the headline is Area Man is arrested for parody. Of course a parody of the onions familiar area man headline. So New York Times clearly knows
Iain Thomson (02:32:38):
What credits the onion also for their September the 11th edition because that was just what was needed at the time. Yeah, I'll never forget that. Just like the headline. But also they have the little piece on the inside. Best Sicky ever says. Says Commercial janitor, World Trade Center. Ooh. It was that kind of, it was what was needed at the time.
Leo Laporte (02:33:00):
This was back when it was an actual news paper you could get in the news stamp. Yeah.
Ben Parr (02:33:05):
I did a video ad for them once where they just had me talk about an orange bucket as if it was the most amazing thing ever. And they somehow convince a couple tech influences to just talk about it was, it was an ad for Home Depot or something, I don't know. But it was a beautiful orange bucket and it just had all the features like it. Imagine Steve Jobs talking about a bucket that, Yeah, it has
Iain Thomson (02:33:28):
Bluetooth and everything <laugh>
Ben Parr (02:33:31):
And yes this, it has the ultra protection,
Leo Laporte (02:33:33):
This onion September 11th edition came out, I wanna point out about three weeks later, so it was maybe time to start kind of laughing about it hugs up 76000% US vows to defeat whoever it is we're at war with. But my favorite was Hold on, let me get, Oh Hackers surprised to find Selves in Hell. We expected Eternal Paradise for this says suicide bombers not knowing what else to do. Woman bakes, American flag cake <laugh>. Yeah, I actually don't think I read this at the time. I've seen it since. I'm
Iain Thomson (02:34:16):
Feeling disappointed they didn't do me with a queen, cuz that was ripe for parody. Yeah. And it would've been just the kind of thing the Onion would've been good at.
Leo Laporte (02:34:22):
Yeah. Thank goodness for the onion. If you can't laugh, you know,
Iain Thomson (02:34:28):
Need satara, you know the
Leo Laporte (02:34:31):
Yeah,
Iain Thomson (02:34:32):
Life gets, That's nice. Actually, Sorry, go on.
Huyen Tue Dao (02:34:35):
No, go ahead. No, you
Iain Thomson (02:34:37):
First. Oh no, I was just saying we need sas because otherwise life gets terribly depressing. So you've gotta have something which puts a smile on your face. But yeah,
Huyen Tue Dao (02:34:46):
I was gonna say, it is actually nice to have a proper discussion about first a minute and what free speech actually means. Yes. Cause it tends to just bubble up quite a bit on your doom scrolling. And I mean, not that I'm a whi at civics and things like that, but it is nice to see an actual proper fight about First Amendment and the purposes for which that amendment was written and the actual context in which it was needed and in such a delightfully entertaining way, so much plus on all these things.
Leo Laporte (02:35:12):
So whenever anybody brings up free speech on TWiTtter, I just post the XK c d comic number 1357 public service announcement. The right to free speech means the government can't arrest you for what you say unless you're in Parma, Ohio. I guess it doesn't mean that anyone else has to listen to your BS or host you while you share it. It doesn't shield you from criticism or consequences. If you're yelled at boycotted, have your show canceled or get banned from an internet community, your free speech rights aren't being violated. It's just that the people listening think you're an a hole and they're showing you the door. Always a good comic to have.
Huyen Tue Dao (02:35:51):
Just print that out for your,
Leo Laporte (02:35:54):
As usual, Randall Monroe has an answer to everything I love.
Iain Thomson (02:35:57):
Oh, the Internet's called J is is I have a assign Randall Monroe print on my wall. Nice.
Leo Laporte (02:36:05):
Which
Iain Thomson (02:36:05):
Ones? I think it's 3 86. It's someone on the internet is wrong. Oh, I love that.
Leo Laporte (02:36:13):
Oh, I love that.
Iain Thomson (02:36:14):
Yeah, a classic. Just a classic. I mean, as a journalist you have to have that. I saw that and I was like, he's not gonna do a t-shirt of it. I'm getting assigned print <laugh>. As long
Leo Laporte (02:36:25):
As we're that forever. As long as we're doing the register. Here's another great story. Boston Dynamics says, we promise, Ah yes, we will not arm our robots. We are concerned about recent increases in makeshift efforts by individuals attempting to weaponize commercially available robots. Is that the case, Ian? Are people doing that?
Iain Thomson (02:36:47):
Oh God, I, okay, I can't name names on this, but I think Ben might know who I'm talking about. There was someone I know worked in public relations for an AI company. As I say, I can't name the exact one, but he was doing media training with their lab staff and he was like, So let me take the role of a journalist if you wanted to. Could he build a drone which could autonomously launch its weapons and kill people? And the lab would said, Oh yeah, certainly. Just give us the parameters. We can do that. And it's like, no, no, no, you don't say that. You say obviously that's something which company people will be looking at, but we would never do it. Or so that's
Leo Laporte (02:37:29):
Exactly what positive Dynamics said. Exactly.
Iain Thomson (02:37:33):
I mean it's just like the whole point of developing the Atlas robot was, it was a human eye humanoid robot. It's the combat machine, which could drive cars, use human equipment and the rest of it. And you're kind of like, we pledge literally knows what's going on. This is going to happen at some point
Leo Laporte (02:37:50):
Boston, which makes this
Iain Thomson (02:37:53):
Few of them to say that we won't do it, but they're gonna do it.
Leo Laporte (02:37:56):
It's really makes you feel better about Elon's incompetent robot <laugh> because it can barely stand, my goodness, I'm not gonna shoot you. But near meanwhile, Boston Dynamics robots are running around doing back flips, opening doors, we pledge says Boston Dynamics. We will not weaponize our advanced mobility, general purpose robots or the software we develop that enables advanced robotics. And we will not support others to do so. When possible <laugh>, we will carefully review our customers when possible. We will carefully review our customers intended applications to avoid potential. Weaponization
Ben Parr (02:38:32):
Ni, neither neither other world governments north, the AI nor artificial intelligence have agreed to the same thing. And I mean look like as technology continues to evolve and improve, this technology gets easiest for others to replicate and to build on their own. And they definitely will not promise that kind of thing. And this stuff is gonna happen and how we deal with it is going to be a bigger issue. You think the same thing about God, we're going back to politics, but tactical nokes is another example of a thing where that's hard to stop and that's a thing that exists and it's easier to make things like that as time goes on. And we are entering a society where we just have to figure out how we live with these things. Cuz the march doesn't stop.
Leo Laporte (02:39:16):
It is happening right now. In fact, Israel set up what they called an AI controlled machine gun aiming at a checkpoint in Hebron in the West Bank city, the occupied West Bank city, just in case too many Palestinians showed up at the checkpoint. It doesn't, good news doesn't fire lethal rounds, just stu grenades and sponge tipped bullets. And if you need tear gas,
Iain Thomson (02:39:43):
And my wife knows someone who's on in the Palestinian protest and he took a shotgun, sorry, a tear gas can to the head and not good now in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Not good.
Leo Laporte (02:39:54):
And I don't know if I
Ben Parr (02:39:55):
Non lethal does not mean
Leo Laporte (02:39:56):
You. Yes, exactly. Yeah. I don't know if I trust an AI controlled machine gun. Seems on the face of it a bad idea. I'm just saying Kim Kardashians in trouble. Speaking of the Kardashians <laugh>
Iain Thomson (02:40:10):
In so many ways,
Leo Laporte (02:40:13):
She has been charged with the Security and Exchange Commission and has agreed to pay 1.26 million in penalties, discouragement, and interest. What's
Iain Thomson (02:40:25):
Disor had to really rum rummage around the back of the sofa to find that it's just seriously again. Yeah, it's not exactly a fine for a billionaire.
Leo Laporte (02:40:34):
She apparently tweeted to talk about her on her, I'm sorry, it was on her Instagram account about her EAX tokens, a crypto asset security being offered by Ethereum max. The post contained a link to Ethereum Max's website which also provided instructions on how you could buy Eax tokens. She did say ad hashtag ad, she didn't disclose she was paid a quarter of a million dollars for the hashtag ad. It turns out, and I did not know this, but federal security law requires that any celebrity or other individual promotes a crypto asset security has to disclose the nature, the source and the amount of compensation they received. So it's not enough to say hashtag ad, you have to say hashtag I always paid a quarter of a million dollars to plug this bogus investment. Wow. So it cost her
Iain Thomson (02:41:32):
Bogus is a terribly strong term. Legally. No, not that I'm suggesting this is complete ether.
Leo Laporte (02:41:40):
Oh, I know what the discouragement is. They explain it. That's the money she got in payment. So she has to give them that plus a million dollar penalty. And she agreed not to promote any crypto asset securities for three years. That's kind of a slap on the wrist.
Ben Parr (02:41:56):
I mean, she probably makes more sit sitting on a private chat than she has to pay for
Leo Laporte (02:42:02):
That. If Paris Hilton gets a million dollars a night to be a DJ at a hotel,
Iain Thomson (02:42:08):
I've seen Paris Hilton DJ and she is not a dj <laugh> DJs actually move records and mix music on stage there. You stand there and you press a button on a laptop that's not DJing. Yeah.
Huyen Tue Dao (02:42:21):
This is such a tragedy of our common modern society with influencers and social media where mean the Kardashians, every couple years they have some thing, which I think even say slightly less famous people would have some kind of negative ramifications from four years ago. They were accused of stealing designs and then of course the whole fire festival thing was the whole issues around promotion and disclosing when something is just promotion and they just like, Okay, sure here the fine. Sure, whatever. That's my lunch. Move on and do the kind of just, Caver was much cavalierly cavali with much Cav. No
Iain Thomson (02:42:57):
Cavalier. Yeah.
Huyen Tue Dao (02:42:59):
Yeah. That
Ben Parr (02:43:00):
Was a good grammar thing to figure out. Caval
Leo Laporte (02:43:02):
Weirdly, is that
Huyen Tue Dao (02:43:05):
A firm <laugh>? But is Willynilly just willy nilly doing whatever single Cav idea? I like it. Cavalli is a Yeah. And it just shows to show you that with enough money, this is not a big thing. And I guess to relate it back to tech, just with Google and Apple, the rest of it is kind of a slight bother. It is not an actual punitive measure. It's just like, oh, it's a little slight and convenience and this is not gonna damage the reputation. Lord knows. So I mean,
Iain Thomson (02:43:35):
Yeah, <laugh>
Ben Parr (02:43:36):
One Cav literally is now the ad verb of the week. <laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:43:40):
<laugh>
Ben Parr (02:43:42):
Second. This is, it is an interesting kind of introspection to both the crypto world and the recording in terms of just people getting scammed and we have no idea how to deal and handle with it still. And we could go days, we won't go into days into that one. But it's also a look into our influencer culture because what 80% of kids say the number one job, 88 have
Leo Laporte (02:44:12):
88% of kids, 88%.
Ben Parr (02:44:14):
They wanna be influencers and they wanna be influencers. And so you could forgive a organization that's wanna
Leo Laporte (02:44:21):
Be influencer,
Ben Parr (02:44:22):
I wanna be half a million dollars.
Iain Thomson (02:44:25):
I mean, I don't wanna be the old fault in the show, but it used to be if you were gonna be a celebrity, you had to be good at something <laugh> and you know actually had a skill, a sports person or an author or a creator or a coder or a security maven. Just take them. Come on.
Ben Parr (02:44:44):
It depends. It depends on the type. Look, we're talking a lot about Kardashians because they're easy punching bag. But when you think about likely
Iain Thomson (02:44:53):
Individual in one case,
Ben Parr (02:44:54):
But you think about some of the individual talkers who are incredible chef or just amazingly in depth in knowledge in science and in physics, that's like, that is cool. And I like supporting that. There's other areas where it just doesn't make sense. And the fact that everyone can't be an influencer. We need people to build stuff and to run companies and to serve in government and to do everything else that makes society function.
Leo Laporte (02:45:21):
I Cavalier, Cavalier, I said, Oh Cavalier, it's
Ben Parr (02:45:26):
Cavalier,
Leo Laporte (02:45:27):
Cavalier, Cavalier.
Iain Thomson (02:45:29):
That is a nice word
Leo Laporte (02:45:30):
In a way that shows a lack of care about something important or about the feelings of other people. Cavalier.
Iain Thomson (02:45:35):
That's pretty much the Kardashians actually in a single word.
Leo Laporte (02:45:39):
Kim Cavalier, that's her no name.
Ben Parr (02:45:42):
I wanna use a new rb Caviar.
Leo Laporte (02:45:45):
Caviar
Huyen Tue Dao (02:45:47):
A little bit briny like an interesting texture.
Ben Parr (02:45:50):
High end. And briny
Iain Thomson (02:45:51):
Leaves a slightly sour taste in the mouth. But
Leo Laporte (02:45:55):
I actually do not do NFT and Bitcoin ripoff stories because there's so many of them And I just it's like, oh no, here's another, I kind of wanna do this one only cuz it's so big. Binance.
Iain Thomson (02:46:09):
Oh, it said Binance. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (02:46:11):
Binance, which is the world's largest crypto exchange, confirmed Thursdays hackers stole 2 million B N B tokens worth $568 million. Oh my God. That's half more than half a billion dollars. Blockchain security company slow missed. Not a great name if you want. <laugh> my opinion, why slow missed White <laugh> says the attackers only managed to take about 110 million because they suspended the BN BNB chain. And so they could only transfer that many before they got shut down. How the hell was, so they only got a hundred million in this hack. You
Ben Parr (02:47:00):
Can bar, you can't, can barely afford a private jet or yacht with that.
Leo Laporte (02:47:05):
Well, all those poor hackers, the hacker,
Iain Thomson (02:47:09):
Go ahead. This is gonna drive you drive units. When there as a coder minus is the biggest cryptocurrency platform in terms of exchange out there. And they were still falling for a basic bridging mistake. How the hell are these companies in operation and not doing due diligence on their code,
Leo Laporte (02:47:30):
Basically
Iain Thomson (02:47:30):
Just fast and break things
Leo Laporte (02:47:32):
The bad guy forged. Forged a message. Tricked the logic. Yeah, tricked the logic until thinking of the contract to think the message was valid, even though it wasn't, there were no funds in the account and the BSC token hub just said, Okay, here's your money. Thanks. Have a nice day. Yeah,
Iain Thomson (02:47:53):
That's, Sorry,
Ben Parr (02:47:55):
Go the wrong career.
Huyen Tue Dao (02:47:57):
Programmers are people, and this is kind of the point I always make where things, there's always like this, whenever something new in technology gets open, there's this Pan Pandora's box and you cannot trust developers to put a good lock on that box. I think it kind of talked about this a little bit back in the show when it came to the Android version of air tags and things like this is that we're humans and you, you're trusting us to write software for self-driving cars. You're actually trusting us to write this very complicated cryptographic and blockchain technologies. We're still people and there's no such thing as Boless code. And that it's scary because to the degree, to what degree, when you make a mistake, is it going to hurt people financially or physically in the approach of self-driving cars? And so I don't wanna talk about the other person that we agreed not to talk about anymore, but as clever,
Leo Laporte (02:48:50):
Just call the Prince of Darkness. It's okay.
Huyen Tue Dao (02:48:52):
The Prince of Darkness. And as clever and as intelligent and as technical as the Prince of Darkness might be, and other engineers of that make, they're still human beings. And being incredibly smart at one thing does not mean that you're incredibly good at every other thing. Every other Corolla, your ancillary an adjacent thing that goes with it. And we'll make
Leo Laporte (02:49:11):
Mistakes. Okay? Absolutely. Absolutely. Mistakes happen. There's no such thing as perfect software. But this is not the first time these bridges have been attacked. In fact if so, I'm not sure what the bridge does. I guess it bridges between, it's in one block, two,
Iain Thomson (02:49:27):
It's a transfer function where you can arbitrage the entire thing. But basically based on the data we've been getting, this is largely run out of North Korea and various other stations. Yeah. Oh no. North Korea is going after cryptocurrency unit. Oh,
Leo Laporte (02:49:46):
The attacks. Stop the bridges. Oh.
Iain Thomson (02:49:49):
Oh, no, no, no, no,
Leo Laporte (02:49:50):
No, no. You say,
Iain Thomson (02:49:51):
Wow. Natural attack and theft. A large proportion of this is propping up the North Korean nuclear program, not actually feeding their citizens because they've got plenty of those. But let's get the nukes done instead. Oh,
Leo Laporte (02:50:04):
That's not a good, That's actually not a good thing. Cross to tech crunch. Cross chain bridge hacks have become a common occurrence in the past year. So if you're coding cross chain bridge, you might really wanna think about getting it right. In June, a hacker exploded a vulnerabilities to steal a hundred million from Harmon's Horizon Bridge <affirmative>. In August, attackers drained 190 million worth of crypto from the nomad cross chain bridge. And earlier this year, hackers stole 625 million God following the attack on Axi Infinity's Ronan Bridge.
Iain Thomson (02:50:40):
Yep.
Ben Parr (02:50:41):
Everyone, please don't accidentally fund Kim Jong UN's brutal regime. Thank you. What's happening? Thank
Leo Laporte (02:50:48):
You.
Iain Thomson (02:50:50):
Crazy. I mean, this is it. If you are managing that amount of funds, a certain level of responsibility and frankly legal responsibility, I mean, we don't let banks do this work. We do let banks do this stuff, but they've got better lobbyists. But I mean, if you are a fighter company and you're getting hacked this easily, you shouldn't be in business. You really shouldn't because
Leo Laporte (02:51:12):
This really is
Iain Thomson (02:51:13):
Going, Yeah, because it's the wild west and no wants to be seen to be anti-competitive. But for goodness sake, some basic standards would be nice
Leo Laporte (02:51:23):
Penalty for the former Uber security chief who covered up, oh, failed to tell us authorities about a 2016 hack of the company's database as a jury found Joe Sullivan guilty of obstruction of justice and concealing a felony. So I guess he'll be sentenced at some later date. When the Uber hack happened he arranged for the hackers to be paid a hundred thousand dollars in Bitcoin so that they would sign non-disclosure agreements so that no one should know of what has happened,
Iain Thomson (02:52:07):
<laugh>, and we know how trustworthy those hackers can be.
Leo Laporte (02:52:10):
57 million Uber users records and 600,000 drivers license numbers were stolen. So what's your response? Let's get a non-disclosure from the guys, the hackers quick. The payment was disguised as a bug bounty. So he has been,
Iain Thomson (02:52:27):
Boy is Katie, Missouri is pissed about that because this, that kind of invalidates a lot of the bug bounty stuff.
Leo Laporte (02:52:34):
Bug bounties are a good thing. Absolutely. In fact, you know can make a pretty good living on bug bounties, <affirmative> if you're a good security.
Iain Thomson (02:52:43):
I mean, in terms of Android developers, there's a lot of people making some serious cash on this
Leo Laporte (02:52:48):
And better that you get paid by the company or by hacker one than by Erodium who's gonna give you a million bucks for the bug and then sell it on to the Saudi government. So much, much better that these companies pay these bug boies. I think
Iain Thomson (02:53:02):
As a journalist, I have to say pay not paying the Saudi government to get me cut up with a bone sore is a pretty good thing. Good idea. <laugh>. Yeah, it's a pretty
Leo Laporte (02:53:10):
Good idea.
Iain Thomson (02:53:12):
But the bug bounties are great on this sort of, but I'm curious, but as an Android developer, most people, most coders it seems when it comes to this sort of thing, would prefer to sell it to the company for a reasonable price rather than go to someone at zero dm. Is that correct?
Huyen Tue Dao (02:53:31):
Ah, I would think so Mean if we assume that many developers have some sense of responsibility and ethics towards consumers and the people that they're finding bug money for sure I would. So let's just be assuming good intentions, like I would say yes, but I don't know it. What's the quote from the dark night? Some people just wanna watch the world, but I mean, really don't know. I really do feel like there is a good legitimate business for bug bounties and for developers especially that are security experts. But I mean, people are weird, man. And I mean, this kinda reminds me of Uber's just having not a very good year for security between this and then the social engineering attackee either. But I don't know. I've never, personally, that is not my forte. I've never really participated in any bug boies, but I can't help. So especially for repeat business and also for a longevity of career, for Bug the Boies, you would wanna be more of a legitimate actor, but I don't know.
Leo Laporte (02:54:31):
There's
Huyen Tue Dao (02:54:32):
Actually, I'm saying don't trust
Leo Laporte (02:54:33):
Us. A fascinating story we talked about on Tuesday with security. Now there was a pretty severe poisoning attack on the Akamai cdn and the white hat Hacker Jacopo Teddy osi, who found it, didn't, gave the bug to Akamai and hoped for a payout right, hoped for a bug bounty. Akamai sent him a greeting card and a thank you, but no money. So <laugh>, it turns out there was a mitigation. So they went to Akamai customers and gave them the mitigation. They ended up making $50,000 in Bug Bounty because the companies were so grateful. Not Akamai, Akamai Akamai didn't even give him any swag, but the companies were so grateful that they paid them. He wrote, We are white hats, but we're still not willing to work for free. This vulnerability was very critical. Our skills are rare, complex, and sought after. We think they deserved to be valued. So while Akamai was patching, following our report, but not paying for it, we chose to race against time by asking for bounties from single Akamai customers and actually worked out well for them. So they got $25,000 from PayPal, $14,000 from Air Airbnb, and B 4,000 from Hyatt hotels. Steam only gave 'em 750 bucks. <laugh>
Iain Thomson (02:56:03):
Cheap
Leo Laporte (02:56:03):
Skates. So Madea only $400, but I love this one. Goldman Sachs sent him a Franklin a hundred dollars bill. That's it. <laugh>.
Iain Thomson (02:56:11):
What? Yeah, cause Goldman Sachs are short on cash at the moment,
Leo Laporte (02:56:16):
So
Huyen Tue Dao (02:56:16):
Goodness, cheap skates
Leo Laporte (02:56:18):
Still, they got about 50,000. They were happy with that. But that just shows you, I think people like that who are responsible white hat hackers, you gotta give 'em a bug about Apple for years did not. And then they realize that, oh, they're bad guys are just selling this to the Israeli company. And what was the name of the Israeli company?
Iain Thomson (02:56:47):
NSO Group?
Leo Laporte (02:56:47):
Yeah, I forgot the name. Because they disbanded and started a new company
Iain Thomson (02:56:52):
Kind of. They're in the middle of name, but I mean, this is exactly the problem. I mean, there are companies who think that giving a t-shirt is an, and exposure is a good response to someone finding a serious bug. And it's like, Yeah, my, does that teacher pay my mortgage then to hell with you? Have you ever thought about that? No. You pay developers. Have
Leo Laporte (02:57:12):
You ever thought about that when doing that kind of security work?
Huyen Tue Dao (02:57:16):
No, it is really not my forte. And it's very stressful. It's hard it, it's really, really hard. I took a crypto class and security class in grad school and I knew enough to know that I do not know enough about security to make a good living of it. So
Leo Laporte (02:57:31):
Yeah, you just look at things like Ro hammer fuzzing attacks and stuff. And these are really the edge of computing. I mean, really interesting, talented people doing this work. And yeah, they deserve to get, if they're gonna do the work, they deserve to get some more than a hundred dollars from Goldman Sachs.
Iain Thomson (02:57:52):
And I was gonna ask Ben, is this, when it comes to sort new businesses and the rest of it and getting finances, are companies willing to actually pay for this stuff or is it just seen as the standard security budget, which is you're a cost drain on us. And it seems companies have a, they're taking security very much end of life rather than right at the start.
Ben Parr (02:58:15):
It depends. Founder to founder, I will say our co-founder, CTO is very serious about it and made sure that there was a lot of additional security measures. But even then a smaller company could only invest so much when they have to do a lot of other things. It sort of depends and it depends a lot on the industry you're in. If you are in FinTech, you have to have that security because mm-hmm <affirmative>, a breach early on could kill your business. So as just everything else, it's fine. It's incentivized based off of the financial incentivizations of the business, but having an attack for certain businesses will kill you and for others it won't. And that kind of like if you get hacked, you're an e-commerce versus that sells candles, you're not gonna invest in that in the same way as a security crypto company or something, a photography
Leo Laporte (02:59:07):
Company. If you're not Binance, I would hope that you're putting a lot of money into your red teams, not
Ben Parr (02:59:12):
Enough teams and
Leo Laporte (02:59:14):
Was
Iain Thomson (02:59:14):
Gonna enough. Yes, No one near enough. Not enough.
Leo Laporte (02:59:17):
Now let's take a quick break before we wrap up. I am so glad to have you guys here, Ben Par, haven't seen you in a few years. You've been very busy, not only with your startup Octane ai, but with a brand new show. Tell me about Business Envy.
Ben Parr (02:59:31):
So I partnered with my friend Greg Grundberg, who you may recognize from the TV show, Heroes or Alias or Felicity or Star Wars.
Leo Laporte (02:59:39):
He's a nerd. Fan nerds, love him. Fan fan boys of
Ben Parr (02:59:44):
Oh yeah, I have seen and heard. Yeah. Him and I tried to start a business together 10 years ago to the context. We tried to start a business 10 years ago, we failed at it but we've wanted us try again. But this time we are going to get advice from the top people in business in Hollywood so that we don't screw it up.
Leo Laporte (03:00:02):
So you still gonna do the business but you're gonna do it in the podcast?
Ben Parr (03:00:06):
Yes, we're literally building a business through the podcast. We're getting advice from our friends and episodes drop on Mondays at I think 6:00 AM Eastern. Our first episode was my mentor, Mark Aler, who was one of the first early employees at Apple, was the SUV at Red Box. We have some amazing people coming on the show in the coming weeks. Top VCs, couple Hollywood celebrities who built base amazing businesses, people who've sold their companies. The person coming on, I think tomorrow sold his business for 200 million. So super interesting people, but we're getting lessons from them and then we're using that hopefully as a way for everyone else to learn actual actionable advice for how do you sell your company, how do you start a company, how do you ideate? And we'll go through things like, Oh we gotta figure out email marketing, let's go get an expert, we gotta go figure out pr, we gotta go get an expert. Like the actual act of building a business as a mechanism to learn stuff. And Greg and I have known each other for forever. So we just have this dynamic that you just have to listen to. You just gotta go listen to that trailer.
Leo Laporte (03:01:02):
Okay, great. Yeah,
Ben Parr (03:01:02):
Listen to that first episode. Everyone please subscribe.
Leo Laporte (03:01:04):
I will. I will. Business envy show.com or just search for Business Envy wherever you get your podcasts. This sounds like a really good idea for a show. I wanna listen to it. Thank you Ben. Great to have you. Ian Thompson also here from the register and yeah, great to have you. The register.com and of course when comes to us from all about Android, we're very glad to have you here today win two Dow, whose name I am, of course mispronouncing, but I'm doing the best I can.
Huyen Tue Dao (03:01:38):
Just fine, just fine.
Leo Laporte (03:01:40):
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Leo Laporte (03:03:51):
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Leo Laporte (03:07:49):
All the shows add free all of that $7 a month, man, we're not charging enough. It's really a good deal I think. And I want you to be in the club. Please go to TWiT.tv/club and join us. We would love to have you. And thanks to all of our club TWiT members who make a lot of what we do possible, keep the lights on and I think it's gonna get harder and harder to be honest and keep the lights on as we head into a recession. Advertisers getting very, very skittish. A lot of people sent me a link to a video from the Lincoln Project saying don't use TikTok, it's owned buddy Change government, watch out. But Ben, you sound like a TikTok fan. Are you worried about who owns TikTok?
Ben Parr (03:08:37):
Yes, but this is the trade off. It is a great app. It is entertaining. It is how I think if things in terms of the Gen Z does not really care that much that it is has affiliations with Chinese government and whatever security measures they say there are don't really exist. So you have to figure out how to work around that. I mean I guess you can also straight up ban it, but I don't know what the consequences of that would be. So yeah, I don't expect that anyone's gonna be banning it. The closest it could have been banned was last administration and they did not do it. So it's not gonna happen.
Leo Laporte (03:09:15):
I'm a fan of TikTok. I really think there's great content on there and I'm not sure exactly how the Chinese government could use it to co-op us. It's not the information they get. Even the White House likes TikTok. They are bringing TikTok stars in for messaging. Remember the Saturday Night Live skit when they brought in influencers to meet with the president to talk about the Ukraine situation. They just did it again for the infrastructure, I'm sorry, the Inflation Reduction Act, which actually was the Infrastructure act last month to mark the passage. 20 influencers, content creators with devoted followings on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Came to the White House, met with the president. There he is posing with all these attractive young people in the Roosevelt briefing room, <laugh> to learn not
Iain Thomson (03:10:09):
A single t-shirt there that is not,
Leo Laporte (03:10:13):
These are phones.
Ben Parr (03:10:13):
They knew they could not bring it on. I recognize a couple of these really their news tick, they're there. Yeah, there's like one who did stuff for the LA Times. It's under the desk news is there. And there's a couple others I noticed. So you've been
Leo Laporte (03:10:26):
Say people's search on TikTok. I do. They really get their news from TikTok, I
Ben Parr (03:10:30):
Mean, yes they do. Yeah,
Iain Thomson (03:10:32):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Ben Parr (03:10:34):
I mean look, you know, go.
Leo Laporte (03:10:38):
Oh go on.
Ben Parr (03:10:39):
I was gonna say, if Biden really wants to get the message out, he should hire the try guys to spread
Leo Laporte (03:10:45):
Word for him.
Ben Parr (03:10:45):
Oh goodness.
Leo Laporte (03:10:48):
There
Ben Parr (03:10:48):
I hit every meme this episode.
Leo Laporte (03:10:50):
There was a very funny skid on Saturday Night Live about the try guys. And apparently one of the try guys was caught making out with what they call 'em, the food babies.
Ben Parr (03:11:05):
The baby asked support that food babies
Leo Laporte (03:11:07):
And I have
Iain Thomson (03:11:08):
Never felt so old
Leo Laporte (03:11:12):
And so they had to fire Nick or Ned, Ned Fuller. So anyway, I don't know
Ben Parr (03:11:22):
They had to fire because it was him being in a relationship with a subordinate, the key thing. And that's what broke the internet. That and he is known as the wife guy. That was his entire stick.
Leo Laporte (03:11:35):
Yeah,
Ben Parr (03:11:36):
Look, this is actually going back to creators are bigger celebrities to Gen Z and millennials and some ways too than actual current celebrities. And we just had to know this is why people, a lot of people 50 years ago wanted to be celebrities and actors. Now they wanna be influencers because those are the celebrities. People cared a lot more about what was happening with the try guys than they did with Adam Levine.
Leo Laporte (03:12:02):
I just wanna show you. So do this. This is the Try Guys. Saturday. Oh my goodness. Live version Excellence of the actual, Oops, I clicked the wrong button of the actual try. Guys sit down in Conversa. It looks excellent, looks pretty close,
Ben Parr (03:12:22):
Pretty close. Especially close. Especially Bow Bowen. Looks extremely, Boeing is a yes, Bowen nailed it. Boeing
Leo Laporte (03:12:28):
Always. I would love to play you this Saturday Night Live video, but I know that they would immediately take me down. But it's the new season for snl. And you know what, it was a little hit and miss, but that one, if you were following the try guy's drama, well
Ben Parr (03:12:43):
<laugh> that one. The Internet's reaction was interesting cuz if you were in the try guys people didn't like it because it kind of understated the issues of dating a subordinate. And if you are not at all know anything about the tri guys, then it hit home because everyone's talking about this thing that doesn't matter compared to things like the upcoming elections or you Ukraine or
Leo Laporte (03:13:10):
Things that should take the White House higher Ed Fuller to give them insight into influencers. I think that's the kind of thing you fall, you fail worded to a government job, don't you?
Ben Parr (03:13:21):
No. You go and sell crypto for that. People on the right stuff.
Leo Laporte (03:13:28):
<laugh> be on Shark Tank any he'll
Ben Parr (03:13:32):
Be on the right stuff. The right
Huyen Tue Dao (03:13:34):
Stuff. There's layers to that man. There's just so many to that. That's like, that is an internet Burrito
Ben Parr (03:13:44):
Burrito
Huyen Tue Dao (03:13:45):
Of the week.
Leo Laporte (03:13:45):
Thank you Ben Par for the Internet Burrito of the Week. Congratulations. I don't know what any of you are talking about. Bruce Willis wants you to know that No, he did not give up the rights to a deep fake company called Deep Cake
Iain Thomson (03:14:02):
<laugh>. Well he did and he didn't. I mean basically he's given up some imaging rights. They
Leo Laporte (03:14:08):
Made a commercial contracts with his face in it.
Iain Thomson (03:14:12):
But I mean honestly, Bruce Willis, his acting range is kind of limited. I'm pretty sure APH
Leo Laporte (03:14:19):
Do it. He has aphasia now so he can't act.
Iain Thomson (03:14:21):
I know that's tired.
Leo Laporte (03:14:23):
Yeah. Cause he can't remember lines. And so I don't know. It seems like that's a good idea. There was a commercial for a Russian carrier, a cell carrier called Megaphone Fe. That's not really Bruce Willis there. That's a deep fake. Bruce Willis tied up
Iain Thomson (03:14:41):
Absolute advertising for the Russians is not a great career move at the moment.
Leo Laporte (03:14:45):
It was a fake Mr. Picky
Iain Thomson (03:14:47):
<laugh>. Yeah, but he sold it. But calling Mr. Picky. But when you're inviting,
Leo Laporte (03:14:52):
This was a couple of years, this wasn't recently. It is. It's a real actor that's a fake Bruce Willis. And I think it's pretty close.
Ben Parr (03:15:02):
I mean that's a pretty close, I mean look, Yeah, the deep fakes are like, you cannot tell much of difference. And it's being employed in the Star Wars universe with Right. The Darth Vader voice, which is incredible that
Leo Laporte (03:15:14):
They got Charles Johnson.
Iain Thomson (03:15:16):
Not just the Dar Vader voice, but I mean Rogue One when Admiral Rogue One when targeted Admiral Tarn. But also what really got me was when the princess layer turned around and said a new home is just like, that feels really wrong. I want Carrie Fisher back again. I do not want to an artificial version.
Leo Laporte (03:15:36):
I think it was, they were creepy. I and they weren't very good. But I think that in time if you But
Ben Parr (03:15:41):
They're getting better. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (03:15:42):
Like Sky right now. You wouldn't think it
Iain Thomson (03:15:44):
Was five years down the line. They're gonna be so good to. I
Leo Laporte (03:15:47):
Retired five years ago. People have no idea.
Huyen Tue Dao (03:15:50):
<laugh>,
Ben Parr (03:15:51):
All of us are just actually deep fakes having conversations. AI just generated the conversations every week, honestly.
Leo Laporte (03:15:58):
TWiT 20
Iain Thomson (03:15:59):
Reading drive seat
Leo Laporte (03:16:00):
TWiT 2029 probably will be just all of us digitized will be out on the beach sitting around a fake table. John, though, you have to be real cuz somebody's gotta push the pushy button's. YouTube rn. Now
Ben Parr (03:16:13):
If someone wants to
Iain Thomson (03:16:14):
Sitting around digitized on the beach, we're going to be in a poor house while the people that do the actual work. No,
Ben Parr (03:16:21):
No, no, no, no, no, no. Here's what I will sell my digital rights for stupid amount of money. So for anyone wants to buy my digital rights, you can have a conversation with me. There you go. And then I will go sit on a beach and I may regret that, it depends on how much you give me.
Huyen Tue Dao (03:16:36):
This is one of those parent Pandora's boxes that I keep talking about. Not this kind of seems like an okay idea, especially the case of proof we with aphasia allowing him to kind of do his job without being able to do his
Ben Parr (03:16:47):
Job money.
Huyen Tue Dao (03:16:47):
But it's really creepy. I mean, damn right. Especially with estate. Imagine the estate. I don't know. Pick, I mean even, Oh sorry, who The actor who played Grandma Tarkin is I'm
Iain Thomson (03:17:00):
Oh, Peter, Christopher Peter. Oh no. Peter Cushing.
Leo Laporte (03:17:04):
Peter Cushing. Man
Huyen Tue Dao (03:17:05):
Cushing. Yeah. I mean it's kind of hard because rights of the I IP of your own face. There's so many really interesting,
Leo Laporte (03:17:16):
Bob Dylan sold the rights to his music catalog for something like 60 million cuz he's old and he wanted to leave something for his family. And
Iain Thomson (03:17:24):
Bruce Springsteen Golden Bruce did a billion for his music.
Leo Laporte (03:17:29):
I think that's rights. I mean, there is a difference between selling the rights to your music and selling your likeness, but if it helps take care of your family when you're gone, I, all I'm saying is be glad to do that.
Ben Parr (03:17:42):
But your music is a completed art. That's not be change, that's not future. Even the selling your digital rights that
Leo Laporte (03:17:50):
Selling your past, not your future. Yeah,
Ben Parr (03:17:51):
Yeah. They could put you in any situation and you've not gonna think of every situation, whatever contract you come up with. Right. It is very different.
Leo Laporte (03:17:59):
You might be selling cell phones for Russia,
Ben Parr (03:18:01):
Which <laugh>
Iain Thomson (03:18:02):
Well, I mean we've found this out in the, we've currently in political party conference season in the uk and Liz Truss, who is Yeah, okay. Our new prime minister elected by 0.1% of the population, but she came onto her stage to the sound of M Peoples moving 'em up from the mid
Leo Laporte (03:18:24):
Nineties. Oh Lord.
Iain Thomson (03:18:26):
But M people had sold their music rights off while they said we can't hate her and everything she stands for, they couldn't stop it. Also all credit to Bobby Leski from primal screen from saying, Yeah, okay. We'd heard she'd come onto a nineties track and it wasn't ours. But once you sell this stuff, you've lost rights to it. Yeah. And the same's gonna happen to your face and to your thoughts and rest of
Leo Laporte (03:18:55):
It. If you're lucky, I'd be happy to. I'm just saying, give me the cash now and you can have my likeness later.
Iain Thomson (03:19:03):
Lisa might have something to say about that.
Leo Laporte (03:19:05):
Yeah, she's the one that's gonna sell it. What are you talking about? I can totally imagine four. I could totally see her shop my likeness. <laugh>.
Ben Parr (03:19:13):
Just imagine four Leo Leurs. There's a Leo lip. Poor robots
Leo Laporte (03:19:16):
In, It'll do the whole thing. Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah. We'll do the, Hey when, Thank you so much. I hope it was fun for you to be here. I hope you'll come back. Oh, blast. Win to do you see her every Tuesday on all about Android. She's a lead developer at Adobe. Now you have to stick your tongue out when you do that Queen code monkey. That's it. Nice. And she's an influencer. She's the whole internet burrito please. No. Too late influencer. No, no influencing around here. Please. Okay. We are gonna use that image as the thumbnail. So I'm sorry you're, You're stuck all your rights. That's alright. You've signed over all your rights. I swear. My digital right. Anyway, really a pleasure. You're great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being Thank you so much, Lee is fantastic. I really appreciate it. Same to you Ian Thompson. Any, we've been plugging for everybody else. What? Do you wanna plug anything?
Iain Thomson (03:20:08):
Well, I mean the reg carries on. We've done it for 25 years and we punched well above our weight. But in terms of plugging stuff, I would like to say an actual red journal who left us last year is now a director on nominee because he ran a number of serious articles pointing out how they were trying to turn a domain, a nonprofit domain, into a profit center for private equity. He exposed that. He's now been elected by the members
Leo Laporte (03:20:34):
Is fantastic. Ooh. Yeah, that was Nominate is the, every time you think register, right? The big UK
Iain Thomson (03:20:41):
Register. Yeah. It runs the dot code UK domain. And it was one of those stories which already warmed the cockles of my heart because everyone says journalism doesn't do anything anymore. And the rest of it, Karen spent four years researching this stuff. This move from the domain used to run co UK as a nonprofit and any excess profits went to charity. Then a new bunch of people took over. They wanted to make it to a profit center. They set up a private equity firm to buy it. They stopped doing charitable donations. He reported on all of this. Sadly we lost him to, He wanted to move back to the uk, but he's now, he was elected by the members and now we're gonna get some serious oversight. But this is something that domain holders really need to watch out for because private equity is moving into the sphere in a big way because these are basically established industries. If you're running a.org for example, or a dock code at UK or a specialized url, you are tied into that. You've been into it for 10, 15 years. And when a company takes us over and says, Right, we're gonna ch charge you 5% more each year for what? It's running a domain, it's easy. So just watch out for this. If you're running a domain and your domain is getting taken over, vote, get involved, get sorted.
Leo Laporte (03:22:11):
Awesome. As you write, that's my of the day. Write. No, I love it. As you write on the register, Karen McCarthy, former registered journalist, is here to chew bubble gum and kick nominate ass and he's all out of bubblegum.
Iain Thomson (03:22:25):
So <laugh>, I would not like to go up against Kerry, one of my oldest friends in the US and now he's moved back to the uk. But do not go up against this guy cuz he will you go down with his teeth in your throat.
Leo Laporte (03:22:36):
That is really great. Congratulations Karen. That's really good news. Is he leaving the register to do this or is he gonna Yeah,
Iain Thomson (03:22:43):
He left the register because he got sick of Bay area schools and the healthcare system. So
Leo Laporte (03:22:51):
He wanted to go home
Iain Thomson (03:22:53):
<laugh>. Well honestly, I love being over here, but you're making,
Leo Laporte (03:22:58):
You're a citizen now.
Iain Thomson (03:22:59):
Of course. Sometimes. Yeah. Not quite. No, I haven't taken that leap. I have learned an awful lot more about the US Constitution than I ever knew. Which is why the first
Leo Laporte (03:23:10):
Or than any other American native knows I might add.
Iain Thomson (03:23:13):
Well seriously, I've asked a bunch of Americans, how many members are in Congress and no one knows <laugh>
Leo Laporte (03:23:20):
538. Yeah,
Iain Thomson (03:23:22):
It's a mad, mad
Leo Laporte (03:23:24):
Senator. 538 representatives? No, no. 438. 400, 438, 435
Iain Thomson (03:23:30):
Surely
Ben Parr (03:23:31):
435 and then three from dc, three from DC the oh 5 38, I forgot those. It's 5 38 because you got a hundred from, because you get 5 38 electors and you get three additional Anyway lectures. I did study political science. Very good. Nice. Very good.
Iain Thomson (03:23:46):
It's one of my favorite Simpsons seems is when a poo goes for citizenship and there's like, what was the cause of the civil wars? Actually the causes were many and multiple them not leaving aside slavery thing. There was just say slavery. Yes, slavery.
Leo Laporte (03:23:59):
Okay.
Iain Thomson (03:23:59):
Which way is a welfare office?
Leo Laporte (03:24:01):
One word answer. Hey, thank you Ian. Such a pleasure. Always come up a bacon buddy to sometime together and it'll be a lot of fun. I appreciate, Have you watched on hbo? Have you watched the show industry yet?
Iain Thomson (03:24:15):
No.
Leo Laporte (03:24:15):
Must watch. No,
Iain Thomson (03:24:16):
I haven't even heard of it. In
Leo Laporte (03:24:17):
Fact, Oh, it's a British show about a financial services company called PurePoint. Somewhat like Salt Goldman Sachs. It is really engaging. Especially second
Iain Thomson (03:24:28):
Season. Right. Okay. That's going on my two water. It
Leo Laporte (03:24:31):
Takes a little while cuz, but by the second season you're like, I, Oh wow, this is a great show. Just wanted to mention that. Cause you always, Thank
Iain Thomson (03:24:39):
You very much indeed. Yes. Oh, and by the way, since we're recommending shows
Leo Laporte (03:24:43):
And I know that it always MUEs you when I go out. This is Dairy Girls has down a third season. Seriously? Watch it. D E r r y. I thought it was D A I R Y and I couldn't figure it out. No, no. D D R Y. They're from Dairy Ireland. Dairy Girls. They're sweet. They're so good. And I can like, so watch the show. It's such a good series. Season Three Dairy Girls. I love Letter to Dairy Girls. Thank you. Thank you. Also, Ben Par. Hey, it's really great to see you again. We had dinner a few months ago. It was really great to see you and your girl, your woman, whatever. I don't know, what do you call people these days? You're You're a friend
Ben Parr (03:25:23):
Who? Your soulmate. Your, There
Leo Laporte (03:25:27):
You go. I love that one. We had a lovely dinner and I said, Ben, the minute your new podcast comes out Business envy show.com, you gotta be on the show. And low and behold, here he is, but it won't be the last time. Come back soon.
Ben Parr (03:25:41):
Appreciate it. I cannot wait.
Leo Laporte (03:25:43):
That's great. Thanks to all of you for joining us. We do TWiT Sundays two 30 Pacific, five 30 Eastern, 2130 utc. You can watch us do it live. If you're really in a hurry, you can watch the live version@live.TWiT.tv watching live. You should chat live@irc.TWiT.tv or in the club TWiT Discord. Now with animated, which are a lot of fun you can also get shows after the fact. All the shows we do are available on the website, TWiT.tv ad supported or on the YouTube channel. There is a dedicated channel for most of our shows, including this weekend tech or subscribe in your favorite podcast client and that way you'll get it automatically just in time for your Monday morning commute. And if your podcast app allows for reviews, please leave us a five star. Let the world know about what is now. I think without a doubt, the longest running tech technology podcast in the world. Yes. Kids, Their word podcasts back in 2005 when we started. We've been doing it ever since. Have a great night. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Another TWiT is in the can!
