Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 12/11 - Mr. Pichai Goes to Washington

Episode Date: December 11, 2018

Mr. Pichai goes to Washington, another bug prompts Google to kill Google+ even sooner, Keurig for beer makes no sense, and Doom turns 25.Sponsors:DataDogHQ.com/ridehomeTiny.websiteFlatironSchool.com/podcastLinks:Google moves up Google+ consumer shutdown to April 2019 (VentureBeat)Uber customers and drivers are furious after a major outage causes all kinds of issues (BusinessInsider)Social media outpaces print newspapers in the U.S. as a news source (Pew Research Center)Fintech start-up Plaid raises $250 million at $2.7 billion valuation, adds Mary Meeker to board (CNBC)Vroom nabs $146M from AutoNation, VCs for its used car site (TechCrunch)Keurigs for Beer Make No Sense (Gizmodo)Doom is 25 and co-creator John Romero is putting out a giant expansion for it (TechCrunch) 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 Tuesday, December 11th, 2018. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Mr. Pichai went to Washington.

Another bug prompts Google to kill Google Plus even sooner. Curig for beer makes no sense. And Doom turns 25. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. We all knew that Google was killing Google Plus because of that big exploit it discovered recently. but now we know they're shutting it down even sooner. Why, pray tell? Well, Google found another bug.

Quoting Venture Beat, after discovering another security issue potentially impacting 52 and a half million users, Google today announced that the consumer version of Google Plus will be shutting down four months sooner in April 2019 instead of August 2019. Furthermore, Google will shut down all Google Plus APIs within the next 90 days.

While we recognize there are implicating, for developers, we went to ensure the protection of our users, said David Thacker G-suite vice president of product, end quote. Apparently, this new bug was introduced just in November, and it affected the Google Plus API. The company says that no third-party exploited this bug, and they have zero evidence that app developers were even aware it existed during the six days that it did exist. The bug was introduced, detected, and remedied all.

in the course of a week, Google says. So no harm, no foul, right? Well, first of all, GDPR is now in effect and there can be fines and consequences if Google wasn't properly conscientious. And second, Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified before the House Judiciary Committee today. Yes, Sundar Pichai finally made his appearance

before Congress today. I didn't expect there to be any unusual headlines made, and there weren't. Sundar was polite and contrite. The Congressfolk were chastising and prone to grandstanding and equal measure. But some of the questions asked were better this time around. Representative Ted Deutsch especially asked some smart questions. The Judiciary Committee grilled Pachai about the Google and Facebook ad duopoly. Google's plans vis-a-vis China and that search engine product they're supposedly working on. They asked about data privacy, of course. Republicans were keen to probe alleged political bias inside Google, and obviously there were some questions around data security.

Some highlights from Pachai's prepared remarks. He said, quote, I'm incredibly proud of what Google does to empower people around the world, especially here in the U.S. And we support federal privacy legislation and proposed a legislative framework for privacy earlier this year. and I lead this company without political bias and work to ensure that our products continue to operate that way. And finally, quote, as an American company, we cherish the values and freedoms that have allowed us to grow and serve so many users. I am proud to say we do work and will continue to work with the government to keep our country safe and secure. Uber apparently suffered a major service outage that started popping up last night and apparently was ongoing this morning. You might not have noticed it on your end,

but chances are your driver did. On social media, drivers have been grousing that Uber's systems were down or at least working intermittently all night. Down Detector is a service that monitors website uptime and showed a huge spike in Uber-related issues around 5 p.m. yesterday. Quote, I was in the middle of a delivery,

said one person on Down Detector, went to pick up the order and couldn't pull the address up for delivery. I called support number and was on hold for 20 minutes. Never got help. On Reddit, one driver said, quote, was on a ride and it wouldn't show any info aside from arrival time. Afterwards, I was trying to review the receipt and it wasn't showing the trip, end quote. And this morning on Twitter, Uber driver Cliff Ames Jr., said, quote, in addition to the outage, I tried to reach someone at the customer service line over 10 times today from 3 p.m.

8 p.m., I only got a busy signal. After 8 p.m., I only got a message that there was an outage, and you were working on it. No live person ever answered. I also tried to send a message through the app, but because it wasn't working, I wasn't able to reach anyone to address the issue I was having. Again, I did my best to get back online, but your outage and lack of customer service made that impossible, end quote. It actually never occurred to me that Uber would have a customer service apparatus for the drivers. But that certainly makes sense. No word from Uber about this outage, at least at the time of this recording. Milestone alert, according to Pew Research, in a recent study, one in five U.S. adults said they frequently get their news from social media,

surpassing the number who frequently report getting their news from print for the very first time. Only 16% of adults say they get their news from print, while 20% report relying on social media. Radio still comes in at 26% in terms of how people get their news. News websites come in at 33% and 49% from television. But it is notable that the number of people getting their news from television shows the biggest drop. 57% reported they got their news from television only two years ago. This apparently is why, quote, news diets differ drastically for younger and older Americans. Age gaps that have long been notable have now widened substantially with those 65 and older

five times as likely as 18 to 29-year-olds to often get news from TV. A large majority of those 65 and older, 81%, get news from television often, as do about two-thirds, 65% of those 50 to 64. Far fewer younger Americans are turning to television. news, however, only 16% of those 18 to 29 and 36% of those 30 to 49 get news often from television. The age divide is nearly as large for social media, but in the other direction. Those 18 to 29 are about four times as likely to often get their news from there as those 65 and older. Prince popularity only persists among those 65 and older.

Among the oldest age group, about 4 in 10 or 39% get news from print. often, but no more than 18% of any other age group do. Some news about funding rounds that will allow me to talk about a couple of interesting startups. Plaid makes tools which lets other apps connect to user bank accounts. So if you use Venmo, Robin Hood, a whole slew of popular money apps, Plaid is the company working in the background to connect to your bank and keep the money flowing. Plaid just announced that it has raised a $250 million Series C round at a $2.65 billion valuation.

Mary Meeker led the round for Kleiner Perkins, who will also join Plad's board. Andresen Horowitz and Index Ventures joined the round as new investors and the existing arms of City, American Express, Goldman Sachs, and Google previously invested in Plaid, making it one of the red-letter companies in FinTech. When you hear the term FinTech bandied around, this is what they're talking about. Quoting CNBC, we've been really fortunate to have incredible growth in the fintech ecosystem and have been a key partner in driving that, Plaid, CEO Zach Parrott told CNBC in a phone interview. Plaid's co-founders declined to comment on the valuation. As of December, the company said 25% of people in the United States with bank accounts have connected to Plaid through an app, a 13% increase from last year, end quote.

Plaid also says it integrates with more than 10,000 banks, connects 20 million consumer accounts, and reported that its customer base doubled just this year. And used car marketplace Vroom has raised $146 million for a series G round led by auto retailer AutoNation. Valuation was not disclosed, though Vroom says it was an upround, and when it raised $50 million back in 2016, it was valued at $440 million.

Here's how TechCrunch describes the company, quote, led by Chief Executive Officer Paul Hennessy, the former CEO ofpricelyne.com, Vroom is an online platform for buying and selling refurbished, pre-owned cars. The company purchases, used vehicles, then includes them on its online catalog,

which currently lists just over 3,200 cars. Once it finds a buyer, it provides financing support through a number of leading partners, including Capital One and Allies, and delivers the vehicle directly to consumers' doorsteps in the U.S. To date, the company says it has sold 250,000 cars. Founded in 2013, the company has raised $440 million in equity funding to date,

but it hasn't all been smooth sailing. Earlier this year, Vroom laid off roughly 30% of its staff after a futile attempt at building brick-and-mortar car dealerships. As a result, Vroom shut down its Dallas dealership, which was where most of the layoffs occurred, Hennessy said. Its Houston dealership is the only in-person effort still up and running. And a gadget review. We're really hitting all of the bases today.

But this gadget is a little unusual. LG has announced what it is calling a capsule-based craft beer system. So imagine if you will, because this is actually what it is, a machine that looks like a curig. It's a curig for beer. It's called the LG Homebrew, and LG-Sexam. says it, quote, automates the whole procedure from fermentation, carbonation, and aging to serving and cleaning, end quote. It's got five beers available at lunch, an American IPA, an American pale ale,

an English stout, a Belgian-style wit beer, and a dry Czech pilsner. It apparently takes two weeks to produce five liters of beer, and there's, of course, a mobile app to keep tabs on the brewing process. So as many people have already joked, what exactly is craft about an automated beer brewing machine? And Tom McKay at Gizmoto is especially incensed, quote, at least there are reasons to buy a curing. It's somewhat easier and more efficient than making your own coffee, and in a setting like

an office, it at least partially negates fights over which lazy co-worker should be responsible for brewing the next serving or cleaning the machine. There was less use for others trying to. to replicate its success like the utterly useless jucero. Of course, homebrewing kits are nothing new, but they're generally intended to make brewing your own beer easier, not do it for you. Since the user is more or less not involved in the LG homebrew process beyond hitting a button, it's hard to see the appeal for hobbyists. For people with a more casual approach, nothing wrong with that, one might wonder whether the expense of the device combined with the

price of the pods will actually result in a customer saving money compared to just picking up a 12 pack. And with the craft beer market still exploding, there's more of a selection than ever. So this is the kind of thing that's all too likely to end up just collecting dust in your basement, end quote. But hey, if this is up your alley and you're going to see yes a month from now, LG says it will be demoing the homebrew on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Finally today, genre and generational defining video game Doom is turning 25 years old, and to mark the occasion, the game's co-creator John Romero has released new levels for the original game.

I worked on it part-time during 2017 and 2018, mostly while I was on vacation or in the evenings, Romero explained in a post on his website. For me, making this whole episode was a labor of love and a reminder of all the amazing times that we had at Id working on the original. I was fortunate to be part of such a great team and a foundational game. I wanted the levels to feel like they belong, to the original game as if they were a true fifth episode.

There's more detail in the levels than episodes 1 through 5, but not overly so. The boss level is terrifying. There's a massive room in ESM6 that is the coolest room I've ever created in any map, end quote. This new chapter is called Sigil, has nine new levels. The soundtrack includes a new song by heavy metal guitarist Buckethead, and will be released in that good old Wad format. W-A-D for Where's All the Data, which was the original format for Doom, if you're old enough to

remember. You can download the levels for free and play them on your original copy of Doom, which is only $5 if you don't already have it. And quoting from TechCrunch, but true Doom megafans will want to go with a boxed edition. The standard one comes with a three-and-a-half-inch floppy disk-shaped USB drive with the game on it, but the Beast Box has a bunched. of extra gear inside the giant box, a booklet and print, an X-L-sized Sigil T-shirt, and, most tempting of all, a pewter statue of John Romero's head on a spike. This is a reference to a famous Doom Easter egg, but honestly would have made perfect sense anyway, end quote.

SIGIL comes out in February, and if you're into more modern stuff, in case you weren't aware, Doom 2016 recently came to the Nintendo Switch. that's all for today FYI on Apple Podcasts, nay iTunes the tech meme right home is sitting at 296 reviews and you know how my OCD

kicks in around round numbers if you've never rated or reviewed the podcast yet. Now's your chance to get us to 300 reviews. Screenshot it if you do I'll try to figure out who actually did the 300th review and I'll happily give you a shout out Talk to you tomorrow.