Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. Is time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Thursday, April twenty second one, and long
Speaker 1: time Tech Stuff listeners know that I'm not really an
Speaker 1: Apple user. Heck, way back in the day, when Chris
Speaker 1: Palette was my co host, we would receive listener feedback,
Speaker 1: which is a kind way of putting it that accused
Speaker 1: me of having an anti macbias. Actually made it kind
Speaker 1: of a joke for a long time. And this episode
Speaker 1: is absolutely not affiliated with or sponsored by Apple. With
Speaker 1: all that out of the way, let me gush a
Speaker 1: bit about what Apple showed off this week during their
Speaker 1: spring Loaded event. We're gonna start off with the new Imax,
Speaker 1: which are just beautifully designed machines. Apple has always paid
Speaker 1: super close attention to esthetics. The new Imax reminds me
Speaker 1: a bit of the classic iMac G three computers from
Speaker 1: the late nineties and early two thousand's. These were all
Speaker 1: in one computers, so monitor and CPU and all that
Speaker 1: stuff all in one package, and it was the big
Speaker 1: monitor style, you know, like the CRT style monitors, and
Speaker 1: there were several translucent case colors that you could choose from.
Speaker 1: They also follow in the style of the later iMac
Speaker 1: all in ones, which went with the flat display form
Speaker 1: factor with all the computer parts built in. So now
Speaker 1: you've got this flat and incredibly thin. The new Imax
Speaker 1: are like less than twelve millimeters thick, but you've got
Speaker 1: this flat display, and you can choose one that has
Speaker 1: a back that has a bright color to it, kind
Speaker 1: of like smartphones do. I happen to really like the
Speaker 1: purple one. You can get matching accessories for it as well,
Speaker 1: like the keyboard and mouse will have accents that complement
Speaker 1: the color scheme of your computer. Now the thing just
Speaker 1: looks gorgeous to me. It also has a really neat
Speaker 1: feature that I like. The computer uses its sensors to
Speaker 1: detect changes in environmental lighting. So if you're working in
Speaker 1: a space that has a lighting profile that changes over time,
Speaker 1: like you are working in an office that has a window, well,
Speaker 1: the iMac will dynamically adjust stuff like screen brightness and
Speaker 1: color balance and contrast. So for folks who work in
Speaker 1: digital photography or video production, those are really important considerations.
Speaker 1: Back in our office in the old days, the video
Speaker 1: team would work in a darkened area sometimes you just
Speaker 1: call it the cave, because they needed to make sure
Speaker 1: they knew exactly what their monitor settings were in order
Speaker 1: to get the best result from editing. And if the
Speaker 1: lighting kept changing, you might end up having two shots
Speaker 1: that have mismatched color balance or white balance. Anyway, these
Speaker 1: computers look amazing, and if I were in the space
Speaker 1: to upgrade the old iMac I have, I would jump
Speaker 1: on this. But all that being said, I'm not really
Speaker 1: in the Apple ecosystem. The iMac I have is from
Speaker 1: like the early mid two thousand's era, and I haven't
Speaker 1: touched it in years. So while I feel the urge
Speaker 1: to splurge, as it were, I don't think I can
Speaker 1: justify it for myself. These are expensive computers. They start
Speaker 1: at twelve nine for a base model that has four
Speaker 1: color options, or you could pay almost fift dollars for
Speaker 1: the upgraded models with more color options. Now that's not
Speaker 1: ridiculously expensive for a new computer, but it's probably more
Speaker 1: money than I should pay just because I think they
Speaker 1: look pretty. I need to have a better reason than that.
Speaker 1: But maybe I'll do a side hustle and save up
Speaker 1: my pennies to get one anyway, because I mean, they're
Speaker 1: so pretty. I also do not own an Apple TV device. Lord,
Speaker 1: do I have a four K television. In fact, my
Speaker 1: television doesn't have HDR, doesn't support high frame rate, none
Speaker 1: of that stuff anyway. All that being said, the announcements
Speaker 1: regarding the new Apple TV four K, which does support
Speaker 1: HDR and high frame rate, also included something that I
Speaker 1: thought was super cool. All right, so the device lets
Speaker 1: you stream content to your television or download stuff to
Speaker 1: the Apple TV device, and then you can view it
Speaker 1: on your super fancy television. All of that is standard.
Speaker 1: None of that is new stuff. But the thing that
Speaker 1: impressed me is that Apple has built in a tool
Speaker 1: that automates sort of like the TV settings like brightness, contrast,
Speaker 1: and color balance. Using an iPhone, Apple TV owners can
Speaker 1: do a sort of automated calibration. But it's not affecting
Speaker 1: the TV settings itself. What it does is it measures
Speaker 1: the color balance that your television is outputting, you know,
Speaker 1: the brightness, the white balance, all these sort of things.
Speaker 1: The contrast, the iPhone could pick that up and then
Speaker 1: adjust the video streaming to the television, so the settings
Speaker 1: of the video so that the TV displays video that
Speaker 1: is close to industry standard specifications. So again it's not
Speaker 1: changing the settings of the television set, but rather the
Speaker 1: video feed so that it shows up on your TV
Speaker 1: the way that the creators of various films and television
Speaker 1: shows intended. And I think this is phenomenal. It's a
Speaker 1: pretty common experience for people to get television home from
Speaker 1: the store. They set it up, and then they sit
Speaker 1: down and watch and they feel like the picture quality
Speaker 1: just isn't as good at home as it was in
Speaker 1: the store. Well, getting the settings just right for your
Speaker 1: particular viewing environment takes a little bit of effort, and
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily intuitive or easy, particularly depending on the
Speaker 1: model of the television. The user interface for some of
Speaker 1: these TVs gets to the point where you could spend
Speaker 1: hours trying to tweak settings and and not be any
Speaker 1: better result by the end of the day. And all
Speaker 1: of that means that you're going to have a less
Speaker 1: than optimal viewing experience. So this new feature for Apple
Speaker 1: TV helps you get around that by having the stream
Speaker 1: adjust for the jankie settings of your television, which happened
Speaker 1: to like a lot. Oh, and then there's the iPad Pro. Heck,
Speaker 1: I'm on record years ago saying the iPad would be
Speaker 1: a flop. It is one of the dumbest things I've
Speaker 1: ever said on this show. And if you've been listening
Speaker 1: for a long time, you know that comes up against
Speaker 1: some pretty stiff competition. But I want to talk about
Speaker 1: a feature that Apple calls center Stage, and it involves
Speaker 1: using the iPad Pro as a video camera. Now, I
Speaker 1: know there's this social stigma attached to using a tablet
Speaker 1: as a camera, and I get that, but this is
Speaker 1: kind of neat The iPad Pro has a wide angle
Speaker 1: lens which lets you get a really good field of
Speaker 1: view of a scene. So imagine you set up an
Speaker 1: iPad Pro to act as your video camera as you
Speaker 1: do some sort of you know, YouTube style video. The
Speaker 1: example that Apple used was a cooking video which was perfect.
Speaker 1: Center Stage has the iPad Pro digitally punch in, zooming
Speaker 1: in and effectively cropping out the edges of the field
Speaker 1: of view so that you are in the center of
Speaker 1: the frame. But because we're talking about a wide angle lens,
Speaker 1: that gives you the freedom to move a little bit
Speaker 1: to the left and to the right. You've got some
Speaker 1: face there, and the iPad pro can digitally pan the perspective,
Speaker 1: keeping you near the center of the frame even as
Speaker 1: you move around. It's kind of the same effect as
Speaker 1: if there were someone operating a camera and they were
Speaker 1: panning the camera to keep you in view. If someone
Speaker 1: else happens to join you in the video, the iPad
Speaker 1: pro can digitally zoom out and keep you both inside
Speaker 1: the frame of you. It's like having an automated camera operator.
Speaker 1: So I can see that being really handy for certain
Speaker 1: types of single creator videos like a SMR artists or
Speaker 1: cooking videos or maker videos, and I think that is
Speaker 1: super neat. Apple had a lot of other stuff to
Speaker 1: talk about as well. They had a purple iPhone, as
Speaker 1: in the back of the iPhone is purple, and they
Speaker 1: also showed off air tags, which are little tokens you
Speaker 1: can attach to stuff like your keys, or maybe put
Speaker 1: one inside your wallet or your purse, and when you
Speaker 1: can't find those things, like when that happens, you can
Speaker 1: use your iPhone that's paired with that tag to track
Speaker 1: down where it is. Apple's version gives you an indicator
Speaker 1: that tells you what direction the lost object can be
Speaker 1: found in. So you have a little arrow that says,
Speaker 1: go this way, and it also tells you how far
Speaker 1: away you are from it. It gives you like a
Speaker 1: distance meter, and it includes haptic feedback as you start
Speaker 1: to get closer, which is kind of like it's saying
Speaker 1: you're getting warmer. You're getting warmer as you know, you
Speaker 1: get close to whatever it is you lost. Now, these
Speaker 1: kind of tags aren't exactly new. Tile does something similar,
Speaker 1: and in fact, there is some ongoing kerfuffle related to this,
Speaker 1: but I'll have to cover that in a later episode
Speaker 1: because it's just breaking news as I record this. But
Speaker 1: Apple's app approach is more precise than what I have
Speaker 1: seen in other implementations. Anyway, most of the stuff I
Speaker 1: mentioned will be available for order by the end of April,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it won't actually start shipping until
Speaker 1: the second half of May. And a again, I am
Speaker 1: not an Apple guy, but I do admit some of
Speaker 1: these things sound kind of cool and useful for specific applications,
Speaker 1: specific use cases, specific types of users. I just don't
Speaker 1: happen to fall into those categories, but I do encourage
Speaker 1: folks who do fall into those categories to look into
Speaker 1: it further. However, we have some other tech news to
Speaker 1: touch on. Over in the UK, TikTok is in some
Speaker 1: legal trouble and Longfield, who is the former Children's Commissioner
Speaker 1: for Britain, has filed a lawsuit that alleges TikTok has
Speaker 1: collected personal information of children who are using the app,
Speaker 1: which is a huge no no in the UK and
Speaker 1: the European Union. The lawsuit seeks out a staggering one
Speaker 1: billion dollars and damages from the company to cover for
Speaker 1: the data collection that has been going on since May ofen.
Speaker 1: According to the allegations, the collected data includes stuff that
Speaker 1: you would expect like tele phone numbers, location information, and
Speaker 1: of course the videos actually shared through the app. But
Speaker 1: Longfield argues that this process is not communicated clearly to
Speaker 1: the user and moreover goes to great links to make
Speaker 1: it unclear what the company is actually doing with all
Speaker 1: the data it's collecting. The lawsuit seeks to force TikTok
Speaker 1: to stop the practice of collecting data that's originating from
Speaker 1: children using the app. This is at best a complicated solution.
Speaker 1: For TikTok to work, it has to be able to
Speaker 1: collect some information, even if all it's doing is enabling
Speaker 1: the basic features of the app. A total halt could
Speaker 1: mean that TikTok simply won't be able to find a
Speaker 1: way to make things work for younger users, which in
Speaker 1: turn creates the problem of how do you make sure
Speaker 1: that TikTok has an age gate that it's restricted to
Speaker 1: people who are of age, which is a thorny issue.
Speaker 1: TikTok representatives say that the allegations are misleading and that
Speaker 1: the company will quote vigorously defend the action end quote.
Speaker 1: That's to be expected. There's no surprise there. As for
Speaker 1: what I think, well, all major social media platforms are
Speaker 1: ultimately in the business of collecting user data and then
Speaker 1: leveraging that data in order to generate revenue. That's the
Speaker 1: nature of the business, and I agree that when it
Speaker 1: comes to children, this is a huge problem. It's one
Speaker 1: thing for an adult to understand the consequences and implications
Speaker 1: of sharing so much information, although I would argue that
Speaker 1: a lot of adults, perhaps the vast majority of them,
Speaker 1: don't really understand this fully or appreciate it fully. However,
Speaker 1: it's definitely a challenge for a child to understand it,
Speaker 1: and I am not actually sure what the right solution
Speaker 1: is here. Though, if TikTok could somehow have like an
Speaker 1: age gate on their side that prevented the company from
Speaker 1: collecting data about younger users, I'd be in favor of that.
Speaker 1: I just don't know how realistic that is. Meanwhile, over
Speaker 1: here in America, the Federal Communications Commission, or f c C,
Speaker 1: is making some moves to tackle the seriously annoying and
Speaker 1: sometimes dangerous practice of robo calls. These automated calls range
Speaker 1: from being a nuisance to enabling various scams and misinformation campaigns.
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you folks out there, but
Speaker 1: for me, it has meant that if I'm getting a
Speaker 1: phone call and I do not recognize the phone number,
Speaker 1: I do not answer the phone. I just let those
Speaker 1: calls go to voicemail, and miraculously, about nent of calls
Speaker 1: never leave a message. This convinces me that whatever the
Speaker 1: call was couldn't have been important, or else they would
Speaker 1: take the effort to leave a message. Meanwhile, I'm getting
Speaker 1: between five and twelve calls from numbers I don't recognize
Speaker 1: every single day. Well, everyone is fed up with that,
Speaker 1: including people in the government. So what exactly is the
Speaker 1: f c C doing. Well, it's kind of passing on
Speaker 1: that responsibility to the telecommunications companies, which makes sense. So
Speaker 1: the idea is that the f CC will create a
Speaker 1: database or actually has created a database, that all voice
Speaker 1: providers will have to use. The database is the Robocall
Speaker 1: Mitigation Database, which sounds almost like it's a futuristic kind
Speaker 1: of police force, but no, this is a document or
Speaker 1: a database that phone companies will use to keep the
Speaker 1: FCC informed on their individual robocall mitigation programs. Starting on
Speaker 1: September one, phone companies quote must refuse to accept traffic
Speaker 1: from voice service providers not listed in the Robocall Mitigation
Speaker 1: Database end quote. So in other words, if you fail
Speaker 1: to meet these FCC requirements, you don't get on that list.
Speaker 1: If you're or a phone voice provider, then if you're
Speaker 1: not on the list, you don't get in. That means
Speaker 1: like your calls will not go through to other people.
Speaker 1: The rules also involved incorporating protocols that will verify that
Speaker 1: phone numbers are coming from where they claim they're coming
Speaker 1: from before it can go to a customer. So you
Speaker 1: might be aware of the practice of spoofing. That's when
Speaker 1: a robocaller uses a sort of mask for the phone number.
Speaker 1: They will often end up using a phone number that's
Speaker 1: similar to yours in an effort to get you to
Speaker 1: pick up the phone. So you might get an incoming
Speaker 1: call and you're like, hey, this phone number is just
Speaker 1: a couple of digits off from mine, it must be local.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go ahead and answer. It turns out
Speaker 1: it's coming from who knows where, and that phone number
Speaker 1: was spoofed. Well, these protocols will let phone companies verify
Speaker 1: that a call that claims it's coming from a number
Speaker 1: that's just two digits off from your number is really
Speaker 1: in fact from that phone number. If it isn't, it's
Speaker 1: got to be blocked. That's the kind of idea there.
Speaker 1: So the message here to phone companies is you have
Speaker 1: the tools and you have until June one to get
Speaker 1: them all in place, and if you do then you'll
Speaker 1: be on this list. But if you fail to do it,
Speaker 1: you won't be on the list, which means calls through
Speaker 1: your services are just gonna be blocked to all the
Speaker 1: other phone providers out there. This is an interesting approach.
Speaker 1: It is one that worries me a little bit just
Speaker 1: for innocent customers of phone voice providers. I mean, they
Speaker 1: are not necessarily culpable for robocall practices that are carried
Speaker 1: out on that same service, but they depend on that
Speaker 1: phone service. I'm not sure how you work around that, Like,
Speaker 1: how do you make sure that the innocent customers who
Speaker 1: are affected by this are still able to communicate to
Speaker 1: folks using the phone. I don't know what the answer
Speaker 1: is there, but it is an interesting approach and I
Speaker 1: will continue to cover this story. If you live in
Speaker 1: Seattle and you shop at Whole Foods, you might be
Speaker 1: able to pay for your artisanal groceries with the wave
Speaker 1: of your hand. Amazon is piloting a payment program called
Speaker 1: Amazon One at a few Whole Foods stores in Seattle.
Speaker 1: Customers who opt in can link a credit card or
Speaker 1: Amazon account to their palm print, essentially so then after
Speaker 1: having their groceries rung up after they've done shopping, they
Speaker 1: can run their palms over as payment. They scan the
Speaker 1: palm and the money comes from the connected card or
Speaker 1: Amazon account. Amazon has already used this technology for a
Speaker 1: few of its pilot stores that operate without cashiers, and
Speaker 1: the company says that the tech could end up being
Speaker 1: used in other locations such as sporting events and such.
Speaker 1: Not in a way, I think that approach could help
Speaker 1: down on practices like scalping and the whole resale market,
Speaker 1: which could mean that for stuff like you know, sporting
Speaker 1: events and theater events, that the folks who really want
Speaker 1: to go to those events but constantly find it difficult
Speaker 1: to get tickets because scalpers have bought up huge banks
Speaker 1: of them might have a better chance. But then you
Speaker 1: could also say that whenever you start incorporating biometrics into
Speaker 1: payment plans, it gets a little creepy, so there can
Speaker 1: be a negative response, which I think is totally understandable
Speaker 1: and justifiable. Some groups are already expressing concerns about issues
Speaker 1: like privacy or potentially with hackers, so there are legitimate
Speaker 1: objections to this. Uh, the questions would I use this
Speaker 1: kind of process, I mean probably, I've used similar processes
Speaker 1: for lots of other stuff, like when I travel on airlines,
Speaker 1: for example. But that's me, and that's my personal choice.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't blame anyone else for saying, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: comfortable doing that, And I think that's you know, a
Speaker 1: valid response and it comes up to individual preference. Finally,
Speaker 1: some of you gamers out there might be fans of
Speaker 1: an old game called Cotour a K Nights of the
Speaker 1: Old Republic. This is an action RPG games set in
Speaker 1: the Star Wars universe. The story takes place thousands of
Speaker 1: years before the events of the film franchise, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't involve any of the characters from the Star Wars movies.
Speaker 1: The original game, produced by BioWare, published way back in
Speaker 1: two thousand three, and now it sounds like there is
Speaker 1: a remake in the works held by a Spear Media.
Speaker 1: That company is best known for producing ports. So in
Speaker 1: the video game world, developers frequently focus on making a
Speaker 1: specific game for a specific platform like Windows, PCs or
Speaker 1: the PlayStation or whatever, and they spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time and money and other resources to make the game.
Speaker 1: But of course, there are lots of platforms for games
Speaker 1: out there, and most of them are not compatible with
Speaker 1: the other ones. So if the company wants their game
Speaker 1: to be available across all platforms, they have to port
Speaker 1: the game over, essentially rebuilding the game for other platforms. Now,
Speaker 1: sometimes that can be done without having to recreate lots
Speaker 1: of the game other times, it's a more involved process,
Speaker 1: and many game studios don't have the time to do
Speaker 1: all of this internally, so they contract that work out
Speaker 1: to other studios like Asper Media. But this sounds like
Speaker 1: it's not just a port to let players run the
Speaker 1: game on modern hardware. This sounds like Asper Media is
Speaker 1: actually going the extra step to remake the game, presumably
Speaker 1: so that the effects and gameplay are brought up to
Speaker 1: speed with more recent trends in the video game space.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about this. Nights of the Old Republic
Speaker 1: was a game I really enjoyed. I liked how the
Speaker 1: game asks you to make various judgment calls, and based
Speaker 1: on your decisions and gameplay, you might find yourself becoming
Speaker 1: an enlightened Jedi master or a vicious and ruthless Sith warrior,
Speaker 1: or perhaps something in between. So I'm really looking forward
Speaker 1: to seeing the outcome. Well that's a selection of stories
Speaker 1: for Thursday, April twenty one. A reminder out there that
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for future topics that I
Speaker 1: should tackle and tech Stuff, reach out to me and
Speaker 1: let me know. The best way to do that is
Speaker 1: on Twitter. The handle for the show is tech Stuff H.
Speaker 1: S W and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I heart Radio production. For more
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