Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 04/22 - The Galaxy Fold Is Delayed

Episode Date: April 22, 2019

The Samsung Galaxy Fold is delayed, Sri Lanka blocking social media is complicated, how you’re being tracked in the airport and at work, and why there’s no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to free apps. Sponsors: tech.FidelityCareers.com Tiny.webiste Links: Samsung’s Galaxy Fold Smartphone Release Delayed (WSJ) Sri Lankan government blocks social media and imposes curfew following deadly blasts (The Washington Post) Zillow launches AI-powered 3D home tours in the U.S. and Canada (VentureBeat) The US wants to scan the faces of all air passengers leaving the country (QZ) Employee privacy in the US is at stake as corporate surveillance technology monitors workers’ every move (CNBC) That mental health app might share your data without telling you (The Verge) Turns Out, Meal Kits Might Not Suck for the Planet (Earther) Support the podcast directly! Subscribe to the ad-free feed right here inside your podcast app! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the TechMeme ride home for Monday, April 22nd, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, the Samsung Galaxy Fold is delayed. Sri Lanka blocks social media, but it's complicated, how you're being tracked in the airport and at work, and why there's no such thing as a free lunch ever when it comes to free apps. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Yes, there have been endless, no when to hold them and no when to fold them jokes on Twitter all morning.

but now, according to the Wall Street Journal, CNBC and a bunch of other sources, Samsung is officially delaying the expected Friday rollout of the Galaxy Fold until at least next month, because, well, remember, screen issues. I'm going to quote from the original Wall Street Journal piece earlier in the day that could only quote sources. Quote, the delayed launch came hours after the South Korean technology giant abruptly scrapped pre-release media events planned for Hong Kong on Tuesday and Shanghai on Wednesday. Wednesday, a company spokeswoman said earlier on Monday, adding the journalist briefings would be rescheduled at a later date. The South Korean technology giant didn't specify why the two media

briefings had been aborted. Quote, we are conducting a thorough inspection into the issues reported by some of the reviewers of early Galaxy Fold samples, said a Samsung spokeswoman in earlier comments. We will share the findings as soon as we have them, end quote. There's really no other information to dig in here at the moment, just that now, a few minutes before I started recording this, the delay has been officially confirmed, but allow me to just state something that I'm sure Apple fanboys have been screaming into their Siri-enabled AirPods all week. Can you imagine if this was Apple and a major iPhone release was having issues that forced it to be delayed? You would never stop hearing about it literally everywhere. There'd be special reports on

every venue imaginable. Now, caveat, caveat, this is not saying. Samsung's flagship phone, the thing expected to make most of Samsung's money. But this was a super high-profile device expected to, or at least hoped, by Samsung to usher in a new paradigm in smartphones and differentiate Samsung products in a real way. It looks like Samsung took a big swing here on unproven technology, and that has blown up in their face. And yes, insert joke here about those Galaxy Note 7 handsets that had to be recalled for over heating issues because, well, they might blow up. But seriously, in a way, this should be a much

bigger story than it is. Here you have an audacious move by an ambitious tech company looking to stand out, and the big gamble that they made looks, at least at this point, to have failed spectacularly, and certainly from a PR perspective. And that's even assuming the phones still get released in a month. Or some people are beginning to question Soto Voce ever? Again, this is not me looking to find a tech angle on a tragic and horrible story in the headlines recently, but over the weekend, the government of Sri Lanka blocked access to social media platforms in order to curb the spread of misinformation after those deadly explosions across that country. As of the time of this writing, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Viber, snapshot, and

messenger remain blocked in Sri Lanka. I just want to point out three important angles to think about this, though. Number one, in terms of crises of a certain magnitude and description, will this now be the new normal? Government's fear social media is in situations like this, on the balance more harmful than useful. The social media platforms are incapable of curbing the spread of misinformation in the wake of tragedy in any meaningful or at least expedient way, and thus will we see this become a common governmental response? Caution and prudence first. In other words, shut them down, ask questions later. Second angle to consider, though, perhaps this will only apply to certain areas of the world.

Of course, Sri Lanka only recently came out of decades of civil war, a civil war which had to mention of race, class, and religion to it. And there is prior precedent to this happening, quoting the Washington Post. Sri Lanka's government shut down access to social media platforms in March 2018 out of concerns that sites had helped militants ferment deadly ethnic unrest in the deeply divided country. Anti-Muslim riots left three dead and prompted officials to declare a state of emergency, end quote. But at the same time, as the International Federation of journalists pointed out recently, South Asia saw the highest number of shutdowns by governments of social media in the world in 2018. So there's prior precedent across the whole of the

subcontinent. And then third, let me quote science fiction writer Yudanjaya Wijeratne. And again, I don't know the politics here, so take this with a huge grain of salt, but quote, dear hashtag American journalists, for the love of whatever you hold holy, stop twisting this incident to serve your anti-Facebook techno valley politics. Right now in a country with tight government controls on traditional media, social media is a boon for us. And make an effort to understand violence in Sri Lanka began before social media, internet, or telephony. To a large extent, much of race hatred is still fueled by print media in this country. You want to point fingers, at least do your research into a complex history, end quote. And finally, the Washington

Post pointed this out, quote, analysts meanwhile question whether shutting down social media is effective at diffusing strife. The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists has said there is no, quote, substantive evidence to show that such bans, which are common in South Asia, can, quote, scale down violence, end quote. Zillow has launched 3D home, an AI-powered iOS app that lets buyers view 360-degree pictures and tours of properties listed in. in the U.S. and Canada starting this week. Quoting from Venture Beat.

3D Home works by capturing images using an iPhone's camera or a compatible external camera like Rico's 360-degree theta 5 or Z1. On-screen icons guided by motion-detecting algorithms, instruct users where and when to snap photos, and once the entire house has been captured, computer vision models, adjust exposure levels, select thumbnail images that best represent each room, and stitch together 3D walkthroughs.

Process tours populate the My 3D home dashboard, where they can be edited, shared privately, or added directly to a home listing. Zillow says they take as little as 20 minutes to create, and that during the pilot, listings with 3D tours attracted more prospective buyers than those without them, end quote. A few stories now about digital surveillance.

The Department of Homeland Security has begun testing a facial recognition system to track visitors to the U.S. who overstay their visas by deploying that facial recognition technology in U.S. airports, apparently already in use in 15 airports. The tech has apparently been tested on more than 15,000 flights and has already identified 7,000 travelers who overstayed their visas and the department plans to screen 97% of U.S. departures by 2023. Here's how the system works, according to courts, quote, passengers approach cameras and installed at airport gates to have their pictures taken before boarding their plane. Those images

are then used to identify the passenger using photos from Visa and passport applications or customs screening upon entering the U.S. If a picture matches information on file, the system creates an exit record. If it doesn't, CBP officials look into it. Visa overstays can be barred from re-entering the U.S. for up to 10 years, end quote. And CNBC has a look at the rising use of surveillance technologies to monitor employees in the workplace. According to a 2018 survey by Gartner, 22% of organizations worldwide are using some sort of employee movement data. 17% are using systems that monitor workers when they're using their computer, and 16% are monitoring things like calendar usage. The piece mentions that tech, which I'm not sure we mentioned, which Walmart

recently patented to track employees around stores and can listen for things like how often and a scanner beeps to make sure inventory is getting done or even if greeters are actually, you know, greeting customers. Quoting from the piece, companies are also starting to analyze digital data such as email and calendar info in the hopes of squeezing more productivity out of their workers. Microsoft's workplace analytics lets employers monitor data such as time spent on email, meeting time, or time spent working after hours. Several enterprises, including Freddie Mac and CBRE, have tested the system. There's also Humanize, a Boston-based startup that makes wearable badges equipped with RFID sensors in accelerometer, microphones, and Bluetooth. The devices, just slightly thicker than the standard corporate ID badge, can gather audio data such as tone of voice and volume, an accelerometer to determine whether an employee is sitting or standing, and Bluetooth and infrared sensors to track where employees are and whether they are having face-to-face interactions, end quote. The piece goes on to note that data suggests such systems could boost revenue by as much as 64% in some industries, but also wonders, as I do, at what cost to, you know, employee morale.

And this is sort of surveillance related, but the sort of surveillance, I guess, we've come to expect. Mental health apps, improving your life apps, they've been sort of a rage lately. but what's the business model behind these sorts of apps? Well, you know, maybe it's the same sort of business model other apps use. Quote, free apps marketed to people with depression or who want to quit smoking are hemorrhaging user data to third parties like Facebook and Google, but often don't admit it in their privacy policies, a new study reports. This study is the latest to highlight the potential risks of entrusting sensitive health information to our phones. though most of the easily found depression or smoking cessation apps in the Android and iOS stores share data only a fraction of them actually disclose this.

The findings add to a string of worrying revelations about what apps are doing with the health information we entrust to them, end quote. The study in question published last week in the journal JAMA Network Open found that 33 of the 36 apps they studied, shared information that could give advertisers and data analytics companies information about users. Now you might say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Heard all of that before, except this, again, is your health data. What if that data were shared with insurance companies that could use it to jack up your rates or your employer? There have been controversies recently about period tracking and pregnancy planning apps. Heck, as we've discussed with this notion of if there's enough digital bread,

crumbs out there, you can be identified whether you are careful or not. Merely downloading an app that might help you stop smoking or monitor your mental health day-to-day might be enough to send up valuable data points and concerning red flags to certain observers. The piece suggests that perhaps this is one of those areas where common sense regulation would be useful, but as of right now, there are no such laws. regulations or anything surrounding what health-related apps can do with the information you share with them. There are also no restrictions to the business models they can engage in to sustain themselves.

Basically, if you're not paying a subscription for such an app or if it's not produced by some company that has another line of business, if it's free, you should probably definitely ask yourself, how does the developer of this app make money? Or at the very least, as the medical expert in the piece says, you should be asking, quote, do I trust the person who made this app, and do I understand where this data is going? End quote.

And ending with this one, so that we can go out on a slightly happier note today, with the rise of meal kit companies and meal kit apps, one of the fears has been that they might actually be terrible for the environment. Think of all that extra packaging. and shipping individually to people instead of to supermarkets or hubs. Well, it turns out, meal kit apps might actually be better for the environment. Quoting from Erther,

a first of its kind study on the environmental footprint of meal kits has found that they actually can be more climate-friendly than buying the same ingredients for the same meal at your local grocery store. There are some important caveats to bear in mind here, but it basically comes down to food waste. because the ingredients are pre-portioned and brought to consumers more directly, meal kits on average seem to result in less thrown-out food. And from a carbon emissions perspective, that's more important than the egregious packaging, end quote. The authors of the study selected five two-person meals,

salmon, cheeseburger, chicken, pasta, and salad, and prepared the meals using both the meal kit services and the old-fashioned way, which, of course, means going to the grocery store and buying the ingredients piecemeal, and then individually in your car or whatever, bringing them home. Quote, for each preparation, the researchers attempted to estimate the total carbon footprint of the meal, considering everything from agricultural production to packaging to transportation to how much waste was generated. When all was said and done, the meal kits were the environmental winners. Average carbon emissions for a meal from Blue Apron were 6.1 kilograms,

about 33% lower than the 8.1 kilograms in CO2 for the average grocery store version. In every individual case, except for the cheeseburger, the meal kit bested its grocery store counterpart, end quote. And it's not just that that meal delivery truck was going to be coming to lots of houses anyway, as opposed to each of us driving to the grocery store individually in our cars. And it's not just that you throw out less food at the end of the process either. It turns out the entire supermarket retail process itself has a ton of waste. tons of thrown out food from supermarkets for produce that has gone bad or food items unshifted by the sell-by date and that doesn't even get into the amount of refrigeration, lighting, climate control, etc. that goes into displaying the food or even simply storing it in warehouses.

According to the study, when you take all of that into account, the extra 0.17 kilograms of carbon associated with a meal kit's packaging is more than offset. That's all for today. I've been your host, Brian McCullough. Follow me on Twitter at Brian MCC. The show's subreddit is our slash ride home and the link to the ad-free version of the show, which lets you support the show directly and save some time not listening to ads. Is the very last link in the show notes, and you can subscribe right in your podcast app with a couple of taps. Talk to you tomorrow.