Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 09/26 – Spotify Pumps Up The Jam

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Spotify’s new Jam product is kind of the coolest new feature I’ve heard in a while. Looks like the FCC is bringing net neutrality back. Google discontinues some products. New drone reviews and a new drone that either will eliminate police chases… or bring on the panopticon. Sponsors: Skip the waitlist and invest in blue-chip art for the very first time by signing up for Masterworks: https://www.masterworks.art/techmeme .Purchase shares in great masterpieces from artists like Pablo Picasso, Banksy, Andy Warhol, and more. See important Masterworks disclosures: https://www.masterworks.com/cd Hatch.co/ride Links: Spotify launches Jam, a real-time collaborative playlist controlled by up to 32 people (TechCrunch) Coinbase Role in Crypto Firm Celsius’s Bankruptcy Plan Questioned by SEC (Bloomberg) FCC Aims to Reinstate Net Neutrality Rules After US Democrats Gain Control of Panel (Bloomberg) Google killing Basic HTML version of Gmail In January 2024 (The Register) Not just a Pixel thing: iPhone 15 series users are also reporting heating issues (Android Authority) DJI Mini 4 Pro review: The best lightweight drone gains more power and smarts (Engadget) This New Autonomous Drone for Cops Can Track You in the Dark (Wired) 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 Tuesday, September 26, 2023. I'm Brian McCalla today. Spotify's new jam product is kind of the coolest new feature I've heard of in a while. Looks like the FCC is bringing net neutrality back.

Google discontinues some products. New drone reviews and a new drone that either will eliminate police chases or bring on the Panopticon. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Kind of a small feature, but I'm leading with this as a story because it's just really cool to me. I don't know why nobody has thought of this before, but Spotify has launched JAM, a new feature that lets up to 32 people curate a single playlist. Only premium subscribers can create JAMs for now, but all users can contribute to them. Here is the use case, quoting TechCrunch. The new feature, which builds on technology previously used in multi-person playlist like blend and duo mix,

is designed for real-time listening among a group of people, like at a party, where anyone can contribute to a shared queue of songs to play next. Now, explain Spotify. Instead of having one person in control of the music at a social gathering, everyone can have their say. A new jam can only be created by Spotify premium subscribers, but any Spotify users free or paid can contribute. To get started, you'll tap on the speaker icon at the bottom of your screen or the three dot menu at the top, then select the new option, start a jam from any song, album, or existing playlist. You can also control which device you want to play the tunes on, like your phone or more likely a speaker. Anyone who's on the same shared Wi-Fi network will be prompted to join the Jam when they open their Spotify app.

You can also directly invite users to contribute to the Jam by tapping your phones together with Bluetooth turned on, having a friend scan the QR code for the jam from your phone, or by using the share feature to send a link over social media, iMessage, SMS, and more. As people add to the shared queue, you'll see profiles next to the track of those who've added the song in question. Up to 32 people can be in the jam's private session at the same time, Spotify told TechCrunch. As the jams host, you're still largely in control of the music by default, as you can determine who's in the jam, change the order of the tracks, or remove songs that you don't want played.

But Spotify does allow the host to enable guest controls that let everyone remove songs or change the order of the tracks. Over time, the company says it expects to add more features to jams, though it wouldn't confirm if some sort of voting mechanism to move tracks up the list would be among them, we can only hope. In addition to simply being a shared cue for group listening, Jam also brings Spotify's personalization technology into the mix, which makes the feature unique. Jam takes into account the listening preferences of the entire group to generate suggestions based on everyone's taste. This is the same technology that powers blend, a popular addition to Spotify's app,

which has now been used to create over 45 million personalized blended playlists. In total, Spotify users have listened to over 200 million hours across all its collaborative playlists, list with Gen Z listeners in the lead. Spotify tells us that even if the people in the group have different musical tastes, the company has developed recommendation technology that can handle that problem. This involves a variety of different inputs and different signals, the company says, but the specifics are part of Spotify's secret sauce, so to speak, and vary based on the user and the shared session, end quote. The SEC is objecting to Coinbase's proposed involvement in Celsius's plan to emerge from bankruptcy, quoting Bloomberg.

Under the proposed plan, Celsius agreed to engage Coinbase to distribute assets to international customers. In a filing on Friday, the SEC, which charged Coinbase earlier this year with operating as an unregistered securities exchange broker and clearinghouse, said the agreements, quote, go far beyond the services of a distribution agent, contemplating brokerage services and master trading services that implicate many of the concerns raised in its suit. Celsius filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2022 and is working to emerge as a new user-owned company and distribute an estimated $2 billion of Bitcoin and Ether as part of the plan. Celsius wants to start fresh under new management led by investment firm Erington Capital, part of a consortium called Fahrenheit LLC that won the crypto lender's assets at a bankruptcy auction earlier this year. Coinbase, which is fighting the SEC's lawsuit, declined to comment beyond a Monday post

on X, formerly Twitter, from its chief legal officer Paul Gruval. I wonder, why would the SEC object to a trusted U.S. public company taking on this role? We look forward to addressing this with the bankruptcy. court and undertaking our important role to make Celsius customers whole, end quote. The SEC has also leveled fraud allegations against Celsius and its former chief executive Alex Mishinsky, who also faces criminal charges to which he has pleaded not guilty. The SEC said its case has been stayed pending the outcome of the criminal case against Mishinsky, end quote.

That was the SEC. This is the FCC. Sources are telling Bloomberg that FCC chair Jessica Rosenworsal is set to announce on September 26 plans to reinstate net neutrality rules governing ISPs that the FCC gutted under the Trump administration, quoting Bloomberg. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is to announce plans on Tuesday to reinstate so-called net neutrality rules governing broadband providers, according to people briefed on the matter. Remarks by chairwoman Jessica Rosenworsal will center on the FCC's role in net neutrality to people briefed on the topic said, pointing toward a possible renewed fight over U.S. regulations of broadband providers. Rosenworsel is expected to announce

plans to restore the rules according to two of the people who asked not to be identified because the details aren't yet public. Rules barring broadband providers from unfairly interfering with internet traffic were gutted by the FCC under Republican leadership during the Trump presidency. President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party said in its 2020 platform that they would, quote, recommit the United States to the principles of an open internet, including net neutrality, end quote. Rosen Worssel, a longtime supporter of net neutrality rules, received a working majority on Monday as Anna Gomez was sworn in as a commissioner becoming the third Democrat on the five-member agency. The FCC had been split two to two on partisan lines from the beginning of the Biden presidency, end quote.

I feel like somehow it's my duty to always let you know when Google sunsets things, since it's become such a running joke on the show. So Google plans to discontinue Gmail's basic HTML version in January, saying the HTML view does not include, quote, full feature functionality. quoting the register. Google suggests that not including full Gmail feature functionality is the point of the basic HTML offering. When your correspondent loaded it, Google delivered a warning that it is, quote, designed for slower connections and legacy browsers. Intrigingly, when we use Chrome's inspect network tool to test the HTML's page load time, it came in at 1,200 milliseconds,

full fat Gmail loaded in 700 milliseconds, but then kept loading elements for almost a minute before settling down. The decision has been criticized by Pratik Patel, who describes himself on Macedon as a blind technologist who finds himself championing hashtag accessibility for fun and necessity. I know many hashtag blind people who use Gmail's HTML view. Not only will they be confused, but will be unhappy, he wrote. Patel also noted that Google has made basic HTML view harder to find in recent months, a change he understands now that the feature has been canceled, end quote. and then, almost like I mentioned this or spoke Beetlejuice's name, and as I was writing, this word came out that Google is also sunseting Google Podcasts in an effort to move their whole podcasting regime over to YouTube.

Many users are reporting that their iPhone 15 series devices, including the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, get too hot to hold, especially during charging or prolonged use. quoting Android Authority. Customers who pre-ordered their iPhone 15 in the launch week have now received their phone and have spent a few days settling into it. Several early users, including me, now report facing excessive heat on their phones, especially during charging and prolonged use. Speaking from my personal experience, my iPhone 15 Pro Max running iOS 17.0.2 runs very hot in two

scenarios. One is during charging with a 65-watt USB PD GAN charger, which I've used with previous iPhones, Android flagships, laptops, earbuds, and more. With this charger, my iPhone 15 Pro Max gets very hot to the point of discomfort when holding the phone without a case. When using it with a case, I can feel the heat through the case. Using a 15-watt USBPD charger eliminates this heat, but the charging is also slower than it already is. The second is during long-use sessions when switching between chat apps and watching reels on Instagram. The phone gets hot in the space on the right side across the bottom of the camera island.

This is without gaming, without being plugged in for a charge, and on Wi-Fi, so the heat is inexplicable. Many of the users on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, have also experienced the same. This includes many prominent reviewers and early adopters who have a lot of experience working with phones. The successive heat is beyond the initial 24 hours of setup and settling in. Phones usually run hot when they are first set up, as all the apps are initialized and signed into. My experience, though, and that of others, excludes this grace period, end quote. I'd be tempted to blame the titanium on the pro models, if this was only happening to the pro models, but it seems to be across the board.

Who knows, though, maybe lighter also means hotter. Let's end with some drone stories. First, the DJI Mini 4 Pro is out, and reviewers say it is lightweight, has improved obstacle avoidance, is great with its active track 360 subject tracking. The 4K at 60 frames per second is also great, but it's not crash-proof. and it is expensive at $760, quoting from Engadget's conclusion. Once again, DJI's Mini 4 Pro sets a benchmark for small drones. It has multiple new useful features, including updated obstacle detection, active track 360,

04 transmission and waypoints. All of these make it a solid budget choice for action, sports, events, aerial photography, industrial applications, and more. Its main competition is the Autel Evo Nano Plus currently on sale for $580. That model has a similar 50-magixel camera, three-way obstacle avoidance, subject tracking, and more. However, it's limited to 4K30P and doesn't offer a remote with a screen. If you have a bit more to spend, DJI's Air 3 offers more stability and an extra telecamera. All of that said, the Mini 4 Pro isn't cheap for a budget drone.

It's priced at $759 for the drone with a battery and RCN2 controller, $9.59 with the RC2 controller, and $1,99 for the Flymore kit with three batteries and a charger, the RC2, a carrying case, and extra props. Still, if you're in the market for a drone in that price range, nothing else can really touch it, end quote. Then, Skydeo has launched the X10, an autonomous drone that it says eliminates the need for high-speed police chases by flying at 45 miles per hour and tracking people with infrared sensors. Of course, one person's high-speed police chase is another person's ultimate in-real-life person tracking device. Kind of scary? Quoting wired.

Nearly 1,500 U.S. police departments operate drones, but only about a dozen routinely dispatch them in response to 911 calls, according to ACLU research. Dron maker Skydeo aims to see that change with a new model launch last week called the X-10. The goal, co-founder and CEO Adam Brice, said during a launch event last week in San Francisco, is to, quote, get drones everywhere they can be useful in public safety. The new drone is capable of flying at speeds of 45 miles per hour and is small enough to fit into the trunk of a police car. It has infrared sensors that can be used to track people and fly autonomously in the dark. For payload bays on the X10 can carry accessories like a speaker,

spotlight, or a parachute for emergency landings. A 65X zoom camera can read a license plate from 800 feet away and follow a vehicle from a distance of three miles. I think mitigating or eliminating high-speed chases will be one of the major applications that we'll see with customers, largely based on that Zoom camera, Bry says. New capabilities like those could encourage wider use of drones and law enforcement at a time when policy concerning their use is still developing. Tests by emergency responders and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to extend drone flights beyond the operator's line of sight and respond to 911 calls started in 2017. Civil liberties advocates say there is a lack of rules to limit drone use in sensitive contexts like protests,

or in concert with other forms of surveillance technology. When Skydeo launched nearly a decade ago, it focused on selling drones to outdoor athletes interested in a machine something like an autonomous aerial GoPro, following them down a mountain or trail while capturing video. That began to change in 2020 when Skydeo got picked as one of a handful of companies approved for off-the-shelf use by branches of the U.S. military. Today, Skydeo's customers include BNSF Railway, utility companies in California and Illinois, and law enforcement agencies like the NYPD.

At the Skydeo event last week, New York Police Department Chief of Patrol's John Chelle said he thinks drones can cut down on the need for helicopter deployments. In the near future, he envisions the City Police Academy training recruits and how to pilot drones, placing at least one drone at each of the more than 70 precincts across New York, and drones launching autonomously to investigate alerts of potential gunshots heard by AI-powered tool shot spotter. Skydeo introduced docs last year that house and charge drones and can enable autonomous takeoff. ahead of the recent Labor Day holiday won NYPD Commissioner pledged to monitor large backyard gatherings using drones. At the Skydeo event last week, Chelle praised the NYPD for making 10 drone deployments over the holiday weekend, including at the Jovert and West Indian Day celebrations and the Electric Zoo Music Festival. He said they helped prevent retaliation following a shooting and contributed to officers apprehending three carjacking suspects.

An NYPD spokesperson did not respond to requests for additional details about recent drone deployments. A busy Labor Day for NYPD drones shows the department moving toward treating drones as first responders, says Daniel Schwartz, senior privacy and technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union. The nonprofit says problematic use of police drones, including at protests in 15 cities after the 2020 death of George Floyd, shows legislation is needed to limit police use of the technology. The ACLU wants bans on drone use at protests and adding weapons to the craft, and guardrails to prevent drones from being combined with other forms of. failure like face recognition or shot spotter. As part of the rollout of the X-10, Skydio announced

a partnership with AXon, which makes tasers and other police technology. Video from Skydeo drones will be more closely integrated into the software. Axon tells police departments for incident response and managing evidence. Bryce says Skydio is not working with AXon to weaponize drones, and that Skydio doesn't support weaponizing drones or robots, but he added that it's difficult to stop people from making hacks or custom modifications. Last year, Here, Axon suggested using autonomous taser-mounted drones to stop mass shootings, and the majority of the company's AI ethics board resigned in protest, end quote. You're really going to want to listen to the bonus episode this weekend. We recorded it yesterday with the up tech folks, the team that built resume writing for me.

It's largely a conversation about what I learned from building this AI thing, like what's possible with this tech now, and especially how you have to design. You have to think about designing products differently with it. Lots of learnings. about this AI moment and product. That will be out on Saturday. And reminder, check them out at uptech.com. Like they're becoming AI specialists lately, it seems. If you have an AI project of any size, these are the people to talk to.

UpTech.com. Team. Talk to you tomorrow.