Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 06/24 - Why Tonight's SpaceX Launch Is So Important

Episode Date: June 24, 2019

The Raspberry Pi 4 might finally be a full PC replacement, the first real bipartisan bill around data collection has arrived, is the Echo Show 5 the best Echo ever or just the best smart alarm clock ever, and why tonight’s Falcon Heavy launch might be the biggest test for SpaceX yet. Sponsors: SVB.com/next WeWorkRemotely.com Links: Raspberry Pi 4 on sale now from $35 The Raspberry Pi 4 Is Here and Wants to Replace Your Desktop PC for $35 (Vice) Scoop: Bipartisan senators want Big Tech to put a price on your data (Axios) AMAZON’S ECHO SHOW 5 IS THE SMART ALARM CLOCK TO GET (The Verge) DoorDash has unseated Grubhub as the leader in US online food delivery (Quartz) Microsoft Flight Simulator will support 'community content' (PC Gamer) Why the third launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket has the highest stakes yet (The Verge) Support the show directly! Subscribe to the ad-free feed right in 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 right home for Monday, June 24th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough today. The Raspberry Pi 4 might finally be a full PC replacement. The first real bipartisan bill around data collection has arrived. Is the Echo Show 5 the best Echo ever, or just the best smart

alarm clock ever? And why tonight's Falcon Heavy launch might be the biggest test yet for SpaceX. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. The Raspberry Pi 4 launched this morning with faster CPU, faster GPU, dual 4K monitor support, up to 4 gigabytes of RAM, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 AC Wi-Fi, USB3, Bluetooth 5, all with the entry-level model starting at $35. You might know the Raspberry Pi as that tiny little bare-bones computer that people have turned into everything from cell towers to supercomputers to game consoles. For the first time ever, there are three different models. $35 for a one gigabyte of RAM, Raspberry Pi, $45 for a two gigabytes, and $55 for four gigabytes of RAM. Quote, it's roughly three times as powerful as its predecessor, Raspberry Pi 3 Plus, and around 40 times as powerful as the original Raspberry Pi from 2012.

So said Matt Richardson, Executive Director North America, of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, in an email to vice. But Richardson outlined how much more ambitious the foundation is thinking with this latest version of the Raspberry Pi. In short, they think this little credit card size computer is finally ready to become an actual fully capable PC replacement. Quote, one feature that wasn't widely requested, but which we felt was important, was dual display support, Richardson said.

If you look around our office, almost everyone is using their PC with two displays, so this felt like something that was important to fulfill our aspiration of being a genuine alternative to legacy PCs. This is the first product we've made, which most users will find to be a viable alternative. On some level, the changes are just quantitative, the same features, but turned up to 11. But together they seem to add up to a qualitative change in the experience of using the device, end quote. Eben Upton, co-creator of the Raspberry Pi and Raspberry Pi trading CEO, spoke to Tech Republic

and revealed 25 million Raspberry Pi's have been sold around $6 million a year when asked what new sales slash markets he sees for the devices, he said, quote, I think there are a lot of interesting new niches in industrial and commercial sectors. I'm hopeful for this in the thin client market Two, obviously, dual display is useful for that. We think that this will allow us to address a larger fraction of that market. So each thin client is probably $300 to $400. If we can bring the sub-$100 product into that space, then A, I think we can over time take a good bit of that market, and B, grow the market, because we'll change the cost calculation of a PC on every desk versus a thin client on every desk and a PC in a data center, end quote.

Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, and Senator Josh Howley, Republican of Missouri, have introduced legislation today that would require data firms like Google and Facebook to show the types of data collected, its uses, and the assessed value of that data quarterly. Now, this does not mean we're going to start seeing any payout from these companies, but the idea behind the bill is to help consumers get a sense of the value. that they're giving up by allowing their data to be strip-mined in exchange for free services. Quoting Axios, the bill would require companies that generate material revenue from data collection or processing and have more than 100 million monthly users to disclose to users the type of

data collected, how it is used, and to provide an assessment of the value of that data once every 90 days. It would require these companies to disclose annually to the Securities and Exchange Commission the aggregate value of all their users' data. The report would have to include details of contracts with third parties for data collection, how revenue is generated by user data, and measures taken to protect that data. The bill would direct the SEC to develop methods for calculating the value of user data, accounting for varying uses, sectors, and business models. Companies must provide a setting or tool for users to delete all or part of their data, end quote.

As Professor David Carroll points out on Twitter, even if you won't be getting a monthly check from Google Facebook at all, by being forced to account for and put a monetary value on personal data, when that data is, say, abused, lost, what have you, consumers would for the first time have tangible injury to seek damages against. I feel like it's been a while since we've done a gadget review roundup, but it looks like the embargoes around the Amazon Echo Show 5 are over, because people have some takes on the latest echo with a screen. TLDR, people seem to think that it's Amazon's best smart display yet with a bright screen, convenient alarm functions. In fact, the Verges Dan Seaford says this is the smart alarm clock to get if you're in the market for one. but bottom line by lacking support for Google services, it's not as useful as it could be,

or at least not as useful as a Google Nest home assistant or whatever they call it, can be because it has those services baked in. Seaford wraps up his review by writing, quote, overall, I think the Echo Show 5 is Amazon's best implementation of a smart display yet. It still has the same limitations as the larger Echo Show. No Google Services, no real apps, no Netflix. no proper YouTube support, et cetera, but its smaller size means you probably wouldn't use most of those things on it anyway. It's much lower cost compares to the $230 show, makes it easier to accept that

it's good at a limited set of features and no more. It's also the best smart alarm clock available now with a good range of functions, loud and clear audio, and easy-to-use voice commands. At $90, and with Amazon's penchant for putting Echo devices on sale likely frequently less, the Echo Show 5 is less expensive than Amazon's own Echo spot and just $10 more than the far less impressive Lenovo smart clock. The combination of an accessible price and good execution earn it an easy spot on my nightstand, end quote. And newly minted friend of the pod, Brian Heater, summed up his review in TechCrunch this way. quote, as for the inevitable showdown between the show five and smart clock, that's almost

entirely down to which smart assistant you prefer. For my money, Google's got the edge with assistant, but both perform most tasks at roughly the same level. That includes the standard array of multimedia offerings played through middling speakers along with smart home features, though it will be interesting to see how Google continues to refine the latter on its own nest hubs, end quote. Another friend of the pod, Alison Griswold is out with some news that I think we spoke about being a possibility when she was on for her weekend bonus episode. According to research firm Second Measure, for the first time, DoorDash has unseated Grubhub in the U.S. To become the leader in terms of sales and market share in the online food delivery market.

But it's not all bad news for Grubhub, quote, Grubhub, which operates only in the U.S. is very much still growing. For the first quarter of 2019, Grubhub reported $1.5 billion in gross food sales, the total value of food, tips, taxes, and delivery fees on orders placed through its platform, which is up 21% from the same period a year earlier. The company reported 19.3 million active diners, defined as the number of unique accounts from which a Grubhub order has been placed in the last 12 months, up 28% from the first quarter of 2018.

But that growth hasn't been enough to stave off DoorDash, a San Francisco-based startup backed by $2 billion in funding and recently valued at $12.6 billion, nearly double the $6.5 billion market cap of publicly traded Grubhub. DoorDash, founded in 2013, last raised $600 million in May from backers, including Japanese tech giant soft bank. CEO Tony Zhu told Forbes that that money would help the company, quote, pull forward the future sooner, end quote. I think I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, but Microsoft recently announced that for the first time in 13 years, it will be updating its flight simulator video game. Microsoft Flight Simulator has a storied history.

It was Microsoft's first ever foray into gaming. It holds the Guinness World Record for longest running video game series. And Microsoft recently said, sometime in 2020, you'll be able to play its Flight Simulator X using, the Xbox GamePass subscription service. But wait, there's more because it seems that the game, when it comes, will support third-party content, contributions from outside devs. Quoting PC gamer, the game will support third-party content development and community content creation, the development team confirmed in a blog post this week, and no doubt modders

are already licking their lips. Microsoft didn't specify exactly how it would support community content, but my guess is that will see something akin to the Minecraft marketplace, a curated selection of mods, both paid and free, made by the community. Microsoft added that it was, quote, aware of the concerns in the current ecosystem and are working to address them, and that it genuinely wants to work closely with the community in the development of this title, end quote. We should find out more about its plan soon, because we'll start seeing the development roadmap in August, it said, end quote. Depending on when you listen to this, it might already be old news, but tonight in a four-hour window beginning at 11.30 p.m. Eastern time in the U.S., which is 330 GMT, SpaceX will attempt the third launch of its Falcon Heavy Rocket.

It will technically be flying a mission for the Air Force, known as STP2, that could ultimately certify the vehicle as capable of launching national security missions. That's why this is maybe the highest stakes launch in the history of SpaceX, because certification could make SpaceX the government's go-to provider for military and spy tech launches for the next decade, quoting the verge. SpaceX is one of four companies competing to be one of the U.S. Air Force's two primary launch providers for much of the 2020s. The two companies chosen by the Air Force will be the only ones eligible to receive contracts between 2020 and 2024 to launch DOD satellites, with flight-flats.

with flights lasting until 2027. If SpaceX makes the cut, it will be eligible for millions or perhaps billions of dollars in launch contracts from the Department of Defense. The Air Force has requested proposals for rockets to serve the agency's launch needs, and SpaceX will likely compete the Falcon Heavy along with its Falcon 9. That's why SpaceX really needs this launch to go well. The other companies in the running include Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman, both of which are developing new rockets,

the New Glenn and Omega, respectively. The United Launch Alliance is also developing a new rocket. Vulcan, based on the capabilities of its current fleet of vehicles, which includes the Atlas 5 and the Delta 4 heavy. All three of SpaceX's competitors are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. Air Force to further develop their rockets. SpaceX recently filed a lawsuit with the U.S. government because it didn't receive any development money,

a move that Blue Origin and the ULA are trying to block. However, the Falcon Heavy is the only operational rocket that's competing for these contracts, so SpaceX has a unique opportunity to show off the vehicle's ability before everyone else. It's also a big launch for SpaceX as it's the first time the Air Force will fly on a Falcon Heavy using previously flown boosters, end quote. If the launch goes well tonight, the Falcon Heavy will launch 24 satellites into space at once and all into different orbits. That's why it's such a big test. This is really putting the Falcon Heavy through its paces. The rocket will have to reignite four times to get everything into the proper

height for orbits. It will be launching satellites from NASA, the Air Force, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, various universities, even a solar sail experiment from Bill Nye, the science guy. You heard me right. Bill Nye, the science guy, is going to test one of the great dreams of science fiction, using actual photons from the sun to push through space like a sailboat on so much stellar wind. Yes, a light sail. Quote, Light sail 2 will deploy razor-thin sheets of polyester

to form a sail that's 32 square meters or about the size of a boxing ring. The spacecraft will turn its sail towards the sun and receive a tiny push no stronger than the weight of a paperclip each time it circles the Earth, Davis wrote in a blog post. If successful, photons from the sun should slowly but surely push the spacecraft deeper into space

without using thrusters and heavy fuels that other satellites rely on. The concept dates back centuries. Carl Sagan, the famed scientist communicator who co-founded the Planetary Society before his death in 1996, once showed off a light sale model on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the 1970s. Nye is the current CEO of the Planetary Society, and the organization raised the $7 million it needed for the project from donors and a crowdfunding campaign, end quote. So yeah, a super gentle nudge, but hey, a basically endless source of fuel, right? That's all for today.

I've been your host, Brian McCullough. Follow me on Twitter at Brian MCC. The show subreddit is R slash ride home, where you can tip me stories and discuss them as well. And the bottom link in the show notes today allows you to subscribe to the ad-free feed right in your podcast app. Talk to you tomorrow.