Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 09/10 – “Campus” Is Facebook, But For College Kids (Insert Joke Here)

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Facebook goes back to its roots by going back to school with Campus. The Long-Term Stock Exchange is ready for its closeup. The former head of the NSA is joining Amazon’s board. The second-gen Motorola Razr is here. And an in-depth review and assessment of whether or not Microsoft’s Surface Duo knows what it wants to be. Sponsors: Doubleup.agency Today In Digital Marketing Podcast Links: Facebook reinvents Facebook with the launch of Campus for college students (The Verge) Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors (The Verge) Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors (The Verge) Motorola’s second-gen foldable Razr adds 5G, better cameras, and a chance at redemption (The Verge) Bose announces $279 QuietComfort Earbuds and $179 Sport Earbuds (The Verge) MICROSOFT SURFACE DUO REVIEW: DOUBLE TROUBLES (The Verge) TikTok, U.S. Discuss Ways to Avoid Sale (WSJ) 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 Tech meme right home for Thursday, September 10th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Facebook goes back to its roots by going back to school with campus. The long-term stock exchange is ready for its close-up. The former head of the NSA is joining Amazon's board. The second-generation Motorola Razor is here, and an in-depth review and assessment of whether or not Microsoft's Surface Duo knows what it wants to be. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Remember how Facebook launched as a social network only for college students? You had to have a dot edu email address even to sign up originally, and each Facebook was

originally restricted to a given school. You couldn't even friend someone from a school on the other side of the country. Well, it's back to the future for Facebook in a way because it is piloting what it is calling campus, a section of the Facebook app specifically designed for college students to interact with peers at their school. It's launching at 30 universities in the U.S. for now, quoting the verge. Campus is designed to be a place where students can interact only with peers at their school. They can access a campus-only news feed and join groups, events, and group chat rooms called Campus chats pertaining to campus life. And a nod to the original Facebook, they'll even have

access to a campus directory where they can find and friend other students. In order to access campus students have to provide their dot edu email address as well as their graduation year. And once they're in, they'll create a new profile specifically for the section, although their usual profile and cover photos will follow them to campus. They'll also have the option to add or remove their major classes, hometown, dorm, and minor. The more information they add, the more they'll be able to find classmates with commonalities, which also, of course, gives Facebook more data about what the college students are studying and who they're talking to, which informs.

its ad-targeting decisions. Charmaine Hung, PM of Campus, says the team opted for a separate profile because students might not want to share hyper-specific college information on their public profile. For now, campus is being piloted with 30 universities around the U.S., including Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, University of Louisville, Vassar, and Virginia Tech. No Harvard, though. These students won't be able to interact with each other, and neither will students from nearby colleges. For now, campus is siloed so that only people who attend the same school can see and interact with each other, end quote. As Ed Bot snarked on Twitter, I mean, they could just call it the Facebook and be done with it,

end quote. Or imagine this startup pitch. What if we built a social network for college kids? You've heard of Uber but for X, Clubhouse but for X. What this presupposes is, what if there was a Facebook but for Facebook? There's a new stock market in town that's hoping to attract the attention of Star, startups and tech companies looking to go public eventually. Actually, we've discussed it before, the long-term stock exchange. Nine years after he proposed it in the lean startup, Eric Reese's

vision for a stock exchange that, well, allows companies to focus on building long-term value is here, quoting protocol. The long-term stock exchange can now trade all U.S. exchange-listed stocks, and it will now start soliciting new listings from companies that commit to policies around diversity, sustainability, and long-term planning. I will view this as a success, just if every company from now should have to consider it, said the LTSE's CEO, Eric Reese. Just like they have to consider where to list, they have to hear a pitch from NYSC, they have to hear a pitch from NASDAQ, we just want them to hear our pitch to, end quote. Silicon Valley entrepreneur and lean startup author Reese designed the exchange to reward founders and investors who are thinking years down the road.

Quarterly reports are still an SEC regulation, but the LTSC requires companies who list on the exchange to agree to a set of five principles designed to promote long-term thinking, including which stakeholders are important, a company's environmental and community impact, a company's approach to diversity, how a company invests in its own employees, and how it rewards them for its long-term success. The exchange doesn't set strict quotas or standardized rules, like requiring a woman on the board, but companies interested in listing have to set up policies that adhere to the principles to be eligible to list. As of Wednesday, the LTSE is open to stock trading, but the real challenge will be getting a company to sign on to list specifically with the LTSE or through a dual listing. The exchange is now allowed to solicit listings from companies, a process that can take between 18 and 24 months,

but Reese has already been running informational meetings to start familiarizing companies with the LTSE, end quote. Here's another one from the eyebrow raising department, as revealed by an SEC filing. The former director of the NSA, Keith Alexander, is joining Amazon's board of directors. This is eyebrow raising because, quoting the verge. A former director of the National Security Agency and the first commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, Alexander served as the public face of U.S. data collection during the Edward Snowden leaks, but he retired from public service in 2013. Alexander is a controversial. figure for many in the tech community because of his involvement in the widespread surveillance systems revealed by the Snowden Leaks. Those systems included Prism, a broad data collection program that compromised systems at Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook, but not Amazon. Alexander was broadly critical of reporting on the Snowden leaks, even suggesting that reporters should be legally restrained from covering the documents. Quote, I think it's wrong that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000 whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these,

you know, it just doesn't make sense, Alexander said in an interview in 2013, quote, we ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don't know how to do that. That's more of the courts and the policymakers, but from my perspective, it's wrong to allow this to go on, end quote. Alexander's board spot will also give Amazon new expertise in defense contracting, an area of particular focus for the company in recent years. Amazon was a leading candidate for a recent $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon, but it ultimately lost out to Microsoft, end quote. Actually, quoting from Edward Snowden himself on Twitter. Quote, it turns out, hey Alexa, is short for, hey, Keith Alexander. Yes, the Keith Alexander personally responsible for the unlawful

mass surveillance programs that caused a global scandal. And Amazon Web Services, AWS, hosts around 6% of all websites, end quote. Motorola has unveiled the second generation of the modern Razor. It's gaining 5G, a Snapdragon 765G processor, 8 megapixel rear camera, larger battery, 8 gigabytes of RAM, but it is keeping the same 6.2 inch foldable display, the 2.7 inch quick view display on the outside when it's all folded up, and it's coming in at $1,39, about $100 less. than last year's original version of the modern razor. Quoting the verge,

the new razor will only support sub-6 gigahertz networks, not the faster MM-wave variant. It's something that we've already seen on other foldable devices like the Razor's most direct competitor, Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 5G, but it's still disappointing to see, especially given that MM-wave speeds are so much faster than sub-6 gigahertz deployments today, at least in the U.S.

Motorola is also making the new razor much more accessible, Where the original was a Verizon exclusive in the U.S., the new model will be sold unlocked as well as through AT&T and T-Mobile. Verizon is notably missing this time around, likely due to the lack of MMWave support. The biggest thing missing from the announcement is any definitive improvement to the hinge system, which was one of the biggest concerns with the original model. Motorola says it has, quote, collected feedback from Razor owners, and the new model should last up to five years of daily use from even a power user who flips their phone open and shut 100 times a day, but there's no mention of specific improvements to the

durability or strength of the hinge or display, end quote. Since we're on a product announced tip, anyway, Bose has also announced the $279 quiet comfort earbuds and the $179 sport earbuds. As you can probably guess by the name, one is for, you know, chilling out and tuning out the world, while the other is for workouts and runs. This marks Bose's re-entry into the red-hot and competitive wireless earbuds market. Quoting the Verge. With the flagship quiet comfort earbuds, Bose is promising to deliver all the quiet of Bose around ear headphones

in a truly wireless form factor. As for the sports earbuds, essentially a successor to 2017's sound sport-free, Bose says they're designed for comfort and stability through even the most vigorous intense workouts. Both will be available on September 29th with pre-orders starting to day. So in one fell swoop, Bose is trying to take on the AirPods Pro and Sony's 1000XM3 earbuds with the quiet comfort earbuds, and the sports earbuds will compete with lower cost options like the Jabra Elite 75T and Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus. The sports earbuds don't have any kind of noise cancellation. But the quiet comfort earbuds sure do. You can choose between 11 levels of

noise cancellation, according to Bose. That level of granularity isn't unusual to see in noise-canceling headphones, but it's a little rarer to find in earbuds. Each earbud is slightly over an inch long and weighs 0.3 ounces, about the same as a quarter, according to Bose. The ear tips have been redesigned with more of an oval shape, which apparently makes for a better seal. That improves noise isolation and is combined with an exclusive new algorithm that produces an opposite signal to outside noise in under a millisecond. As for sound quality, Bose says the quiet comfort earbuds avoid boosting any particular frequencies, and go for a faithful reproduction of your music, though the company says bass is rich and strong

at any volume. Boz says there's no electronic hiss when watching videos or listening to podcasts. Some true wireless earbuds can produce audible, even annoying levels of white noise, but it's not an issue for Bose's primary competitors, end quote. And as for battery life, by the way, the quiet comfort earbuds get a pretty standard six hours of listening and another 12 hours from the carrying case slash battery box. sports earbuds, meanwhile, get five hours and ten hours, respectively. Also, I wanted to share with you Dieter Bones' review of the Microsoft Surface Duo, because remember, Microsoft has big, long-term ambitions in the dual-screen space going forward, but also because

it was just a damn sexy and interesting-looking device. I wish I had gotten my hands on a review unit myself. Hint, hint, Microsoft. Deeter says the Surface Duo has thin, beautiful hardware, a good battery life and largely fulfills Microsoft's promise of running two apps at once. And yet, he says the software isn't quite there yet. It's a bit buggy. Also, the camera is kind of bad. Here's Deeter's summary, quote, Microsoft Surface Duo aspires to be something different from any other gadget you've used. It could be mistaken for a phone or a small tablet, but it's both less and more than those things. When it's closed, there are no screens or cameras. In shape and appearance, it's like a small book, a digital version of the field notes notebook I carry around in my back

pocket. When open, you get two screens side by side or one screen with the other folded back. And like a notebook, it feels somehow more natural to hold than a phone's vertical slab shape. You hold it in your hand with the two sides angled toward you like a book. In truth, there's nothing the Surface Duo can do that you can't do on your current smartphone or tablet. Your smartphone surely takes better photos and your tablet doesn't have a big gap in the middle of it. But the difference with the Surface Duo is the way you do things is unique. I found myself tackling tasks that would have frustrated me on those other devices. It's unlikely that Microsoft has lit upon an iPad-sized market with the duo, but despite the bugs, I do think it has made a

case for itself as a new kind of device, or at the very least it has earned a chance to keep a spot in the emerging class of devices that try to fit a larger screen in your pocket by folding it in half in some way. It's not really ready. It has a bunch of good ideas, but the execution is bad in places and a lot of people aren't going to get what Microsoft is going for. Microsoft has the clearest, strongest vision for a new direction in mobile computing that I've seen this year, but picking a direction and getting to the destination are still two different things, end quote. Finally, today, just to keep you updated on the whole TikTok saga, sources are telling the Wall Street Journal that Bight Dance is continuing its months-long

talks with the U.S. And the talks are hitting the urgent phase as the September 20th deadline for any deal is fast approaching. Apparently they're trying to thread the needle now and somehow avoid a full sale of U.S. operations since the Chinese government threw a wrench in the works with that technology export thing. A number of options remain on the table. The situation is fluid and a sale is still a possibility the people said. Even if there isn't a full sale, the outcome would likely involve some sort of restructuring of TikTok one of the people said. that could involve a deal in which TikTok takes on a U.S. technology partner that helps secure its data and potentially takes a minority stake. The main concern for government officials involved in the talks has been the security of TikTok's data and keeping it out of reach of the Chinese government said people familiar with the negotiations.

The talks grew more complicated late last month when China issued new restrictions on the export of artificial intelligence technology, forcing By Dance to pause and evaluate how the new rules might affect a sale. One question is whether the order would prevent TikTok's all important algorithms from being included in a deal, with people close to the bidders indicating that if they aren't the platform becomes much less attractive, a group including a representative from at least one of TikToks, major investors, Sequoia Capital. General Atlantic and Kowachu Management LLC met last week in Virginia with representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency to discuss data security, a person familiar with the matter said.

End quote. Alex Cantowitz and I are debating recording a weekend bonus episode tomorrow afternoon about the TikTok thing. Normally I record bonus episodes earlier in the week. But in this case, we don't want the news to get ahead of us. I'm sure it will be just our luck that we'll record a whole episode kicking around the various prospects for a deal. And sure enough. An hour later a deal will be announced and it will be out of date. But we're going to try it nonetheless.

So as you just heard, I tried the whole descript robo voice thing again because they just released a library of stock voices. And you got to admit, that one sounded pretty, pretty good. Still not, you know, perfect, not uncanny Valley, but really good. I'm sorry I keep experimenting with this. I hope it's not overly annoying. and in fact I promise not to do it again in the near future at least, but I just find it fascinating. That's the number one reason I've been doing it, really. The nerd in me can't help myself.

But also, if I could crack this to everyone's satisfaction, there is a whole menu of bonus content that I could gin up at some point in the future, so we shall see. Talk to you tomorrow.