Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 10/18 - Zuckerberg Says Free Speech Is Good! (Facebook, Also Good!)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the TechMeme ride home for Friday, October 18th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough today. Zuckerberg defends Facebook as a champion of free speech. Will iPhone users have unlimited photo uploads to Google Photos while Pixel 4 owners will not? Dial back your expectations for the Photoshop iPad app. The Vatican has a wearable prayer gadget and, of course, the weekend long read suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Samsung says that that fingerprint bug on galaxy devices is kind of what we thought it was. It's due to the sensor reading 3D patterns in certain screen protector cases as fingerprints. And the company will have a patch ready to go as soon as next week.

Starting point is 00:00:49 And they confirmed that the issue indeed affects the galaxy S10, S10, S10, 5G, and the Galaxy Note 10 plus. Quoting the verge. Until the patch is available, Samsung is advising users not to use any such covers. It says users should remove the cover, delete any previously registered fingerprints, and then re-register them without the cover applied. If you're using the screen protector that came pre-applied to your phone, then you should be fine. But for everyone else, it couldn't hurt to try and unlock your device with a non-registered fingerprint just to check, end quote. I, by the way, have no update on that.

Starting point is 00:01:29 issue with the pixel four phones opening even when your eyes are closed. You've no doubt heard that Mark Zuckerberg gave a big speech yesterday, defending Facebook as a champion of free expression. And I considered covering it even yesterday, but while I was watching it, I just was like, I'm not sure that there's a ton of news here. Zuck basically said what you would expect him to say. Facebook is a force for good. Facebook gives everyone a voice, which is good, quoting the New York Times. To make his case, Mr. Zuckerberg invoked Frederick Douglass, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Vietnam War, and the First Amendment.

Starting point is 00:02:11 He contrasted Facebook's position with that of China, where the authorities control and censor speech and which he tried unsuccessfully for years to enter to TurboCharges' company's business. Quote, people having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world, A fifth estate alongside the other power structures of society, Mr. Zuckerberg, 35, said. He added that despite the messiness of free speech, quote, the long journey towards greater progress requires confronting ideas that challenge us, end quote. I'm here today because I believe we must continue to stand for free expression, he said,

Starting point is 00:02:46 end quote. Which, cool, cool. But I do believe that the questions he later took from the audience were all pre-screened, of course, And in the live stream of the speech, which was broadcast by Facebook, a ton of people noticed that, like, all of the comments were positive. I mean, all of them. And comments like, love you, sir. Thanks for giving us an awesome social media platform. And you are such an idol for the young people, especially the young entrepreneur. And I am absolutely agreed with MZ about liberty of expression. Without, life doesn't as a good. sense, end quote. Quoting from the Washington Post. The Facebook chief executive's speech also received plenty of negative responses, but most were not visible during the talk because of how the algorithms behind a live stream with

Starting point is 00:03:38 tens of thousands of viewers work. Facebook does not show all the comments in real time on popular live broadcast because the volume is too high, said Tucker Bounds, a Facebook spokesperson. To choose what does appear, Facebook relies on a number of ranking signals to filter out those that are low quality. The signals include how much people interact with the comments and if something is engagement bait, according to a Facebook post from earlier this year. The system applies to all comments on public pages and posts with large followings. Nothing was unique to Zuckerberg's speech bounds added, end quote.

Starting point is 00:04:15 So I don't know what is more apt for 2019 than the fact that in a speech lauding free expression, Facebook's algorithms themselves showed how warped they can. can make free expression function in practice on that same platform. One of the biggest selling points for pixel phones in recent years was the fact that if you owned one, you could upload an unlimited quantity of the full high-res original quality pictures that you took on a pixel phone to Google Photos entirely for free. Now, I didn't cover this, but it looks like that free ride is ending with the pixel 4. And in a wild twist, it looks like pixel 4 owners will not have access to that free

Starting point is 00:05:04 unlimited full-res photo uploading, but iPhone users still might. What is this now? Quoting 9 to 5 Mac. As discovered by Reddit user Stephen V. Sawyer, it seems like iPhone users who use the default setting to have photos saved as H-EIC or H-EIF will get free unlimited storage of their pictures at the original resolution with Google Photos, because if Google tried to compress them, it would actually increase the file size. With all modern iPhones shooting photos in H. E.C. format, which is smaller than even Google's compressed JPG files. iPhones, therefore, get free, unlimited, original quality backups simply because it would cost Google both storage space, because if Google tried to compress iPhone H. EIC photos, they would actually become larger and

Starting point is 00:05:52 computing power, because Google doesn't need to compress and process all of the billions of photos iPhones back up. So Apple is literally saving Google millions of dollars by shooting their photos in H-EIC, and it benefits iPhone users as well because we get free original quality backups. Notably, the original pixel through pixel three owners get this benefit for life, but the just announced pixel 4 will lack the benefit with the unlimited free photo storage offered at the lower and compressed high-quality resolution, end quote. From an unexpected boon for iPhone users to an unanticipated bummer for iPad users, when Adobe announced Photoshop for iPads, they made noises like this was going to be a full-fledged version of Photoshop,

Starting point is 00:06:41 not some sort of watered-down version. But even though Photoshop for iPad is still on course to be released by the end of this year, beta testers are complaining that it actually feels like it's missing some key elements, quoting Bloomberg. Adobe has been testing Photoshop for iPad under the codename, rocket with a small group of beta tester since earlier this year. Participants have told Bloomberg News that some beta versions don't include well-established features they expected to be part of the release.

Starting point is 00:07:08 They complained about less advanced or missing features around core functionality like filters, the pen tool and custom paintbrush libraries, vector drawings, color spaces, raw editing, smart objects, layer styles, and certain options for mass creation. Their disappointment about these limitations stems from Photoshop's established reputation as a leading professional photo editing program on the desktop. Feature-wise, it feels like a beefed-up cloud-based version of their existing iPad apps and not the real Photoshop as advertised, said someone beta testing the software, who declined to be named talking about an unreleased app.

Starting point is 00:07:45 I understand it is based on desktop Photoshop code, but it doesn't feel like it right now, end quote. Other testers have called the app rudimentary and said in its current state, it is inferior to other apps like Procreate and affinity on the iPad, end quote. Scott Belski, Chief Product Officer of Adobe's Creative Cloud Division, said to Bloomberg, quote, launching every single feature that was accumulated over 25 years on the iPad on day one would not best serve our customers and the needs they have. Usage on a desktop and an iPad isn't apples to apples, he said, and Adobe will definitely expand the capabilities of Photoshop on iPad over time, end quote.

Starting point is 00:08:24 So dial back your expectations because it seems like, they overpromised here and are preparing to under-deliver. If you're an employer, you owe it to yourself to check out weworkremotely.com. Let's say you're looking to start a blockchain project. Where can you find experts on the blockchain? They don't come out of specific colleges. They're not clustered in some... All right, I had to double check that this was not an onion piece, and it is not.

Starting point is 00:08:56 I'm going to quote from CNN on this one, but I also found it. in a lot of other places. The Vatican has launched a $110-click-to-pray, wearable rosary. October is the month of the rosary, by the way, quoting CNN. The e-rosary is an app-driven device that can be worn as a bracelet. To activate it, all you have to do is make the sign of the cross, similar to how Catholics begin praying the rosary. Once activated, the wearer can choose between three different options to pray. There is the standard rosary, a contemplative rosary, or a thematic rosary which will be updated every year. The device shows the user's progress through each prayer and keeps track of each rosary completed. The interactive device is a push

Starting point is 00:09:40 from the church to reach tech-savvy millennials and Gen Z. It, quote, serves as a tool for learning how to pray the rosary for peace in the world, according to a news release from the Vatican. The project, part of the Pope's worldwide prayer network, brings together the best of the church's spiritual tradition and the latest advances of the technological world of the Vatican said, end quote. So the Catholic Church is making a wearable gadget now. It's got a free app, Android and iOS, and in addition to tracking prayers, it apparently tracks health information. You recharge it. It uses Bluetooth. But look, and I say this as a Catholic in good standing myself, do we really need rosary beads to be digital? The app to help guide prayer I get, but $110

Starting point is 00:10:28 for rosary beads that you have to recharge. I don't know. It's only available in Italy at the moment, though the Vatican says U.S. availability is coming soon. Time for the weekend long-rate suggestions. As you know, I'm a big fan of Anantec's super, super, super, super, super in-depth reviews. They're so in-depth that they take weeks to produce. That's why their comprehensive review of the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max is only coming out now. If you want thousands of words poking into every nook and cranny of the 11s, check that out. Kutaku takes a look at Niantic, creators of Pokemon Go, and how they've basically mapped the world, but Kataku asks if the next step is for Niantic to map you and your life. The article is half a deep dive history of Niantic and the mapping technology that enabled it,

Starting point is 00:11:29 especially Google Maps, but then it verges into some troubling details about Neanty's latest game, Wizards Unite, and how it might indicate what Neanty's true business model might be going forward. Quote, the files we received contained detailed information about the lives of these players, the number of calories they likely burned during a given session, the distance they traveled, the promotions they engaged with. Crucially, each request also contained a large file of timestamp location data as latitudes and longitudes. In total, Kotaku analyzed more than 25,000 location records voluntarily shared with us by 10 players of Neantic games. On average, we found that Neantic kept about three location records per minute of gameplay of Wizards Unite,

Starting point is 00:12:12 nearly twice as many as it did with Pokemon Go. For one player, Neantik had at least one location record taken during nearly every hour of the day, suggesting that the game was collecting data and sharing it with Neantik, even when the player was not playing, end quote. This next one is behind a paywall. well, but if you subscribe to the information, check out their article about the new social media startups that are trying to reinvent social media itself. In short, the social media of the future will probably look nothing like Facebook. Quote, these emerging social media firms, for which we profile below in our latest installment of startups to watch, include a business

Starting point is 00:12:47 recently launched by two former Facebook employees and another that is capitalizing on the rising trend of wireless headphones. While these founders know they face long odds jumping into a market where a few players command most of the attention. They all are aiming to establish themselves by emphasizing features that might attract younger users, end quote. And the Hollywood Reporter has another in-depth look at Apple's long, bumpy road to finally attempting becoming a player in Hollywood. Apple is spending a ton of money, apparently at the high end of what shows like the shows Apple is producing tend to cost. Nonetheless, some inside Hollywood still seem to feel like Apple is doing this in half or even quarter measures, quote.

Starting point is 00:13:29 Wedbush's Ives calls it a, quote, massive head scratcher that a company with a trillion dollar market cap isn't competing head to head with the $15 billion that Netflix is estimated to be spending per year. Quote, there continues to be a major content hole that they're going to have to fix either organically or through acquisition, says Ives, who calls MGM, Lionsgate, Sony, and A24 digestible acquisitions, but adds that the purchase of a Netflix or a Viacom CBS would be a bigger and bolder play. USC's Cole suggests that the family-focused Disney makes the most sense for Apple to gobble up,

Starting point is 00:14:03 given CEO Bob Eiger's revelation that the two companies already may have merged if founder Steve Jobs were still alive. Iger until recently was on Apple's board, end quote. And for all the talk of bad algorithms out there surfacing gross, addictive garbage, it's notable that Pinterest's recommendation tool has been successful at avoiding the scandals that other algorithms tend to step into on a regular basis. How did Pinterest do it? Quoting Will Aramis in one zero. The result of that project was tune your home feed, which it has already made available to some users. In allowing users to tweak how the algorithm responds to

Starting point is 00:14:40 each of their actions, Pinterest will offer a level of customization that relatively few will care to employ. But Seyal says, it became apparent in testing that those users overlapped heavily with the ones making the complaints. They also turned out to be some of Pinterest's most. loyal fans. And after all that, testing has yet to show any significant impact on engagement. Now, Seyall sees that as a lesson. Quote, this is a call to other platforms to open up for their users. It's a hard problem, but one people are increasingly craving good solutions for, end quote. And finally, I don't know if we've ever done anything on this before, but I do know that it's a story that y'all have pitched to me several times on the subreddit and over Twitter.

Starting point is 00:15:21 For 20 years, Intuit's turbotax has fought hard to make sure that Americans cannot file their taxes online for free and easily like you can do in most other countries. This is literally something that can and should have been possible long, long ago, except for one thing. Intuit's steadfast efforts to make sure it doesn't happen. There's the lobbying. And then there is the absolutely egregious way that Intuit tricks its customers who think they are, using a free tax filing program provided by TurboTax to still end up paying something, anything. Again, I'm not afraid to say it's egregious, and ProPublica came out with the best one piece rundown of the whole controversy. So there you go. Last link in the long reads. Read it and literally

Starting point is 00:16:12 weep for the nice things that we can't have because of one company's greed. That is all for today. My daughter has hopefully given me a bit of a cold. I hope that wasn't too noticeable in my voice. No weekend bonus episodes again this week, but we have them coming up for the next two weekends for sure. Talk to you on Monday.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 10/18 - Zuckerberg Says Free Speech Is Good! (Facebook, Also Good!)

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