Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 10/17 - Unlocking Tech on Phones Is Broken

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 Thursday, October 17th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough today. The fingerprint sensors on Galaxy S-10s can be tricked by a phone case.

Starting point is 00:00:45 The Pixel 4 face recognition system unlocks your phone even if you're asleep. Netflix kicks off tech earnings season, Airbnb's losses double, and Travis Kalanick is getting the billions treatment. Paging Bobby Axelrod. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. from the you had one job file. Samsung says it will be issuing a patch for its software because a bug was discovered on its Galaxy S10 phones that would allow any fingerprint, not just the fingerprint of the phone's owner, to unlock the phone. So, yeah, failing at the one thing fingerprint sensors are supposed to do is weird, but it's also weird how this was discovered. A woman in Britain contacted the Sun newspaper there to say that, after, you know,

Starting point is 00:01:34 after she purchased a third-party silicone phone case, her husband and anyone else, was able to use their finger to unlock her phone, quoting the verge. Apparently, certain gel-cover-style screen protectors can confuse the ultrasonic sensor, and if you register a fingerprint while the cover is applied, then the phone can start unlocking itself for anyone's fingerprint,

Starting point is 00:01:59 not just those you've registered. After initially issuing a statement saying that customers should only use, quote, Samsung authorized accessories with their device. Samsung now says it's going to fix the issue. The company told BBC News that it is, quote, aware of the case of S-10's malfunctioning fingerprint recognition and will soon issue a software patch, end quote. One Twitter user claimed that the Note 10, which uses a similar sensor, is also susceptible to the same issue, end quote.

Starting point is 00:02:28 Apparently, it was a widely known issue that the S-10 didn't work well with certain screens protectors. Marquez Brownlee, for example, has a video up from February that shows that he had a hard time getting his phone to unlock after a thick screen protector was applied. But until now, I guess no one tested if the design of certain phone cases would also be able to fool the device into reading the cases as people's fingerprints. Until the patch is released, if you need to use a case, I guess it's back to good old numerical pin codes. Tech earning season is upon us once again. And as always, kicked things off by reporting Q3 revenue of $5.25 billion, up 31% year-over-year, with 158 million paid subscribers, which was an increase of 6.8 million subscribers, and up 21% year-over-year.

Starting point is 00:03:22 The company beat on earnings, but slightly missed analyst's expectations on revenue, and came up short on expectations for paid international subscribers. At the time of this writing, the stock is up around 4%, quoting CNBC. Netflix previously forecast paid net ads would increase year over year, but it's now adjusting estimates to reflect an increased difficulty to project its future content slate, minor elevated churn due to pricing changes and increasing competition. In its letter to shareholders, Netflix addressed the onslaught of new streaming services that are set to arrive later this year, including Disney's Disney Plus and Apple's Apple TV

Starting point is 00:03:58 plus, as well as NBC Universal's Peacock and WarnerMedia's HBO Max. The company warned the launch of these new services will be quote, noisy, and it could generate, quote, modest headwinds in the near term. Many are focused on the streaming wars, but we've been competing with streamers, Amazon, YouTube, Hulu, as well as linear TV for over a decade, the company said. The upcoming arrival of services like Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus, HBO Max, and Peacock is increased competition, but we are all small compared to linear TV. While the new competitors have some great titles, especially catalog titles,

Starting point is 00:04:31 none have the variety, diversity, and quality of new original programming that we are producing around the world, end quote. As CNBC's Steve Kovach put it, investors seem to be shrugging off Netflix's earnings because Netflix basically fessed up to two things that most investors probably were already assuming. Number one, its price elasticity can only go so far. Raising prices earlier this year caused some people to unsubscribe. Netflix admitted. And so far, they've not come back. And number two, competition is coming and it has franchises that people know and love. Netflix really doesn't quite yet. Quote, so far it hasn't proven it can build a Disney caliber franchise. Stranger Things perhaps comes the closest, but it's not enough to keep Netflix subscribers sucked in year-round and in between seasons.

Starting point is 00:05:23 Meanwhile, Netflix will lose some of its most popular third-party franchises like The Office and Friends to its rivals. In short, Netflix admitted this week that it might be too expensive and lacking in enough engaging stuff to watch in order to keep subscribers growing at the levels it needs to. The pressure is on, end quote. They're not public yet, but the information has some information on Airbnb's earnings, which they say show Q1 losses of $306 million, which means that Airbnb's losses have roughly doubled year over year. The good news is that revenue of $839 million is up 31% year over year, but those losses might be an issue.

Starting point is 00:06:09 Of course, it is common for a company to try to get all of the pistons firing before an IPO in order to present the best growth picture. But the problem is, in a post-wework environment, it might be problematic for Airbnb to try to come to market with losses ramping up, quoting CNBC. The company's sales and marketing investments rose 58% year-over-year to 367,000, million dollars in the first quarter and marketing spend is expected to come in above the 1.1 billion spent in 2018. Revenue reportedly grew 31% year over year to $839 million, while expenses climbed 47%. In a statement, Airbnb said, quote, we can't comment on the figures, but 2019 is a big investment year in support of our hosts and guests, end quote. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported Airbnb saw strong growth in total booking value during the first quarter, which could

Starting point is 00:06:58 help it lure additional investors. Additionally, Airbnb said in January it had reached its second straight year of profitability based on an EBAA basis and saw a notable uptick in guest arrivals, which could point toward rapidly accelerating growth, end quote. So the question is, what narrative will be most palatable to investors if and when Airbnb tests the market waters later next year? Will the narrative be high growth company, in which case this ramp up and marketing spend is justified, or will the narrative be cash-burning unicorn, which investors suddenly seem to have soured on? In other words, might Airbnb be in danger of ramping up to please investors right when that's kind of what they don't want to see, quoting the information?

Starting point is 00:07:42 Kevin Koppelman, a senior analyst at Cohen & Company said public investors often scrutinize how much advertising cuts into the profits of online travel businesses. Quote, you want to understand how fast the companies are growing, but also how much is driven by repeat direct customers versus just pushing on the advertising side, Kauffelman said. In general, he said, greater dependence on advertising creates more risk of a slowdown in the business, though he cautioned that he couldn't speak directly to Airbnb's advertising outlays until a fuller picture of the company's finances emerges when it goes public. A jump in advertising spending might be a sign that Airbnb is having a harder time keeping existing customers engaged, end quote.

Starting point is 00:08:20 The deed is kind of done. The FCC has formally approved the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint. The final vote was along party lines with the Democrats on the panel dissenting. It's not official official yet because, quoting the Verge, now the T-Mobile Sprint merger faces one more battle before they plan to close the deal. The FCC and DOJ are the only two federal agencies required to approve telecom deals before they can close, and the DOJ already gave the companies the thumbs up in July. However, a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general are still trying to block the deal

Starting point is 00:09:00 through a multi-state lawsuit, and representatives from the two companies said they won't close the merger until that is resolved, end quote. Privacy-focused web browser Brave says it now has 8 million monthly active users and 2.8 million daily active users. Quoting the block, the browser with opt-in blockchain functionality also compensates content. creators, users, and advertisers in its native basic attention token, or bat, for viewing online ads. Brave said it has delivered nearly 400 ad campaigns to date. The browser maker further said that it now has over 290,000 verified publishers. 200,000 of those are YouTube creators, 33,000 website publishers, 15,000 Twitch streamers, and 28,000 are Twitter accounts, end quote. cool, the weird that that disparity between daily active and monthly active is so enormous.

Starting point is 00:10:00 And as Thomas Bacadol said on Twitter, quote, for a privacy-focused browser, I'm slightly worried that it's even able to track this metric, end quote. I mean, I'm not really suggesting anything nefarious. And I don't think Thomas is. I can see how they could track usage and still be good with privacy. But still, Google has confirmed that the Pixel 4's face unlock system, can allow access to users' devices even when their eyes are closed, which would be a problem because that suggests the possibility that Bay could unlock your phone while you're sleeping and check on those sketchy DMs that you're not fessing up about.

Starting point is 00:10:41 BBC News uncovered this by holding a pixel in front of various people's faces when their eyes were closed. They tried it on a lot of people, and the phones kept unlocking. If someone can unlock your phone while you're asleep, it's a big security problem. said cybersecurity expert Graham Cluley. Someone unauthorized, a child or a partner could unlock the phone without your permission by putting it in front of your face while you're asleep, he told BBC News. I wouldn't trust it to secure the private conversations and data on my phone, end quote. Google's Pixel 4 support website tells customers, quote, your phone can also be unlocked by someone else if it's held up to your face, even if your eyes are closed, end quote.

Starting point is 00:11:18 It says concerned customers can switch on lockdown mode, which deactivates facial recognition when they want enhanced security. security. Google told BBC news, face unlock could not be fooled by photos or masks, however. We will continue to improve face unlock over time, it said in a statement, end quote. Now, the question is, if you put the wrong phone case on there, can any face unlock a pixel four? Hat tip to Christopher Pew. Yahoo says it is shutting down its long-running Yahoo Groups platform on October 21st and will permanently delete all posted content on December 14th. Quoting Vice, Yahoo Groups launched in 2001 is basically a cross between a platform for mailing lists and internet forums. Groups can be interacted with on

Starting point is 00:12:11 the Yahoo Groups site itself or via email. In the 18 years that it existed, numerous niche communities have made a home on the platform. Now, with the site's planned obsolescence, users are looking for ways to save their group's history. Yahoo notes that users can download their own data from the site's privacy tab and posters on the R-slash data hoarders subreddit are sharing links to automated scraping tools. What's a good way to download specific Yahoo groups? One Reddit user wrote. I'm a member of a private one run by Cold War vets, and a lot of the information and discussions there aren't replaceable. Yahoo's announcement says that the site will continue to exist, but all public groups will be made private and require administrator approval to join.

Starting point is 00:12:53 Further, administrators will have access to some limited group settings, although most features files, links, photos, attachments, message history, and more will be turned off. According to Yahoo, users will still be able to interact with their groups via email, end quote. I give Google grief all the time for sun-setting products, but Yahoo is literally the mass murderer in tech of vast incalculable archives of digital history wither geocities. Reminder of this because it can't be repeated enough, quoting Brandon Downey on Twitter. Myth, putting stuff on the web means digital tech and network will ensure it lives forever. Reality, short-sighted companies will set fire to our collective history before you can blink, end quote. Microsoft has announced two new open source projects, open application model and dapper.

Starting point is 00:13:51 To make it easier for developers to build cloud, edge and Kubernetes apps. quoting Mary Jo Foley in ZDNet. Open application model is a specification for describing applications so that the application description is separated from the details of how the application is deployed onto and managed by the infrastructure, Microsoft officials said in their October 16th blog post. Unlike more traditional platform as a service or pass models, OAM is platform agnostic, official said. Even though Rudder is built on top of Kubernetes, it is quote, not tightly bound to

Starting point is 00:14:25 Kubernetes, end quote. Microsoft execs said their goal is to bring OAM to a vendor-neutral implementation for Kubernetes on GitHub. And over time, Microsoft may turn OAM into a managed service like Alibaba is doing, officials told TechCrunch. Dapper, which Microsoft is describing as a set of microservice building blocks for cloud and edge is also meant to be agnostic. Microsoft officials said Dapper will support all programming languages and developer frameworks and can be accessed by standard HTTP or GRPC programming interfaces, end quote. If you're a fan of the book Super Pumped, the battle for Uber, the book about the Travis Kalanick saga at Uber by Mike Isaac, and if you're a fan of billions, well, guess what?

Starting point is 00:15:16 This is your lucky day because the book Super Pumped is going to be turned into a showtime series created by Billions creators Brian Cappellman and David Levian. Quoting Variety. Coppulman and Levian will work on the series under their overall deal with Showtime. It was announced back in May that Billions had been renewed for a fifth season at the Premium Cableer, with the show remaining one of Showtime's highest rated and most watched series. Along with Billions, the duo has previously worked on films such as Rounders, Oceans 13, runaway jury, and solitary man, end quote.

Starting point is 00:15:50 So, casting suggestions for who will play Travis, anyone? Eugene Way suggested Kyle Chandler, who I agree is nearly a dead ringer for Kalanick, but maybe a little too old. Other suggestions I've seen, Adam Devine and Joseph Gordon Levitt. I've told you many times that October is the month to visit New York City, if you're going to visit. We are currently having the most October day ever right now. It's a bit chilly. It's super windy. all the leaves are just cascading off the trees and swirling around everywhere.

Starting point is 00:16:30 The light is amazing. The cobblestones are gray. The dog urine puddles are mostly hidden. It's absolutely the best. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 10/17 - Unlocking Tech on Phones Is Broken

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