This Week in Google Episode 645 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for TWiG, This Week in Google. Stacey has the week off attorney Cathy Gellis joins us. She's gonna explain ancillary copyright. It has something to do with link taxes, Ant Pruitt's also here. Jeff Jarvis. We'll take a look at some of the announcements at CES, and then the bitter Twitter battle between Dionne Warwick and Oreo cookies. It's all coming up next on TWiG.
... (00:00:28):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This TWiT.
Leo Laporte (00:00:39):
This is TWiG, This Week in Google episode, 645 recorded Wednesday, January 5th, 2022. I will retaliate at a later date. This Week in Google is brought to you by Ourcrowd. Ourcrowd helps accredited investors invest early in pre IPO companies alongside professional venture capitalists. Join the fast is growing venture capital investment community@ourcrowd.com slash twig and by cash flying. Give your users the seamless online experience. They want power your site or app with cash flies CDN and be 30% faster than the competition. Learn more@twi.cash.com. It's time for TWiG, This Week in Google. The show we cover the Google verse, the Facebook verse, the Twitter verse, the media verse Ant Pruitt is here from hands on photography. Hello Ant. Good to have you back.
Ant Pruitt (00:01:36):
Hello, Mr. Laporte. Happy new year TWiG squad.
Leo Laporte (00:01:38):
Happy, happy new year. Did you go anywhere for the holidays?
Ant Pruitt (00:01:43):
No, sir. I told you I was going strategically. Find myself on the butt group of my couch and I did it successful.
Leo Laporte (00:01:49):
You did everything. You hoped it lived up to your greatest dreams.
Ant Pruitt (00:01:53):
It, it was awesome. I even caught up on that succession show. Oh, well, we'll get, I didn't binge it. Like you all claimed I was doing.
Jeff Jarvis (00:02:01):
Oh I'm eager to hear your reviews, sir.
Ant Pruitt (00:02:04):
It is such a good show. Oh, good, good. Oh, it's so good. And I love Roman and his smart, he, oh my God.
Jeff Jarvis (00:02:13):
I'm glad we didn't lead you astray, Mr. Pruitt.
Ant Pruitt (00:02:16):
Oh, it's so good.
Leo Laporte (00:02:17):
That by the way that baritone is the Leonard tower professor for journalistic innovation at the graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Westmachine.com is his blog at Jeff Jarvis on the Twitter. Hello? Jeff, happy new year to YouTube,
Ant Pruitt (00:02:37):
Long boss, happy
Leo Laporte (00:02:38):
New York with to see you. Did you do anything or did you just hunker down? God? No,
Ant Pruitt (00:02:42):
I just hunkered down
Leo Laporte (00:02:42):
And worked and have happy, happy O Macron. Yeah. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (00:02:47):
I tried not to work. Yeah. Tried
Leo Laporte (00:02:50):
Really hard. You know what I realized if I don't work if I don't do anything, I just sit on the couch. I get really lazy and then I'm too tired to work. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (00:02:59):
So I sat on the couch thinking about stuff that I could be doing. Yeah. So it was,
Leo Laporte (00:03:04):
It was a battle. It's counterintuitive. You actually get more time if you don't do anything
Ant Pruitt (00:03:09):
Than if you do so. Oh man, I struggled with it. I had, I can say that there was one day, maybe two tops that I felt like I was on vacation. The rest of the time, my mind was just all over the place. Like, oh, I could be working on this or I could be reading this and that's a hazard. Oh, that's not vacation. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:03:27):
A hazard of the product of people. <Laugh> Hey, we wanna welcome somebody brand new to our microphones. Stacy's taking the week off. She'll be back next week. Joining us now us lawyer specialist in international law, civil liberties and the convergence thereof and tech. She's a contributor at Tector Kathy Galles. Welcome to the thank you for having so good to have CG council.com, C U N S E.
Jeff Jarvis (00:03:54):
I am known to applaud Kathy's tweets Def and, and pieces defending the first amendment and defending good sense. And so I'm delighted. You're here, Kathy.
Leo Laporte (00:04:04):
Oh, thank you. Would you call yourself? Sorry. Get you everywhere with me. A section two 30 expert. I would indeed call myself a section two 30 expert. Yes she is. Oh, well, we'll try. I was doing it before. It was cool. <Laugh> okay. Okay. Well it's great. There's her? There's her Twitter feed. Great to have you. I will now follow you religiously, which means I'll be on my knees as I follow you
Ant Pruitt (00:04:31):
<Laugh> should have that. She should have me sitting is fine.
Leo Laporte (00:04:35):
You can read the tweets while sitting. Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you for that. Dispensation. See has a, is going on. It's so weird right now to be sitting here with CES going on in Vegas. It officially began today. Although, you know, as always the weekend brings those special mini conferences and stuff. There's a lot of stuff. I don't know if there's a whole lot to say about CES and you really wanted to go. We, we said you may not. You must day home.
Ant Pruitt (00:05:02):
Are you watching that afar? This smart decision turns out I've been trying to watch from afar, but it's been really, really hard between weeding through emails from being off, being on vacation and trying to just sort of pick through what is actually some good meat and good stories. And virtually know one be in there from a, the, the big tech companies knowing being there. So it's been a, it's been a little rough. I've only seen one thing that had me curious and it came just before we came on air, you know, oh, what
Leo Laporte (00:05:34):
Was that?
Ant Pruitt (00:05:36):
Well, cannon. They they're still working on stuff in the VR world. So they have their R five mirror was camera. That's not their pro grade one, but it's one of their more expensive ones.
Leo Laporte (00:05:45):
That's that's the one I got Henry, I got him the R five, not the R six. No, no. I got R six, which one's the less expensive. The R six is less than the, the six is the less expensive. That's the one I
Ant Pruitt (00:05:54):
Got him. Yeah. And the six is still nice. Yeah. He just needed it
Leo Laporte (00:05:57):
For video for TikTok. So I think it's good enough.
Ant Pruitt (00:06:00):
Yeah, it'll be perfect for that. Yeah. but they're doing this whole dual fisheye lens thing. Yes. Sort of, we saw that to, to the world of VR. And if you have all of that horsepower behind it and they shoot eight K on that camera, it creates some pretty interesting images and maybe something fairly immersive, but I'm just curious about the implementation, you know, where is this gonna be used beyond a world of real estate sales, you know? Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:06:30):
Alex Lindsay mentioned it when when they first announced it on Mac break weekly, cuz you know, he's all into this VR mm-hmm <affirmative> 3d stuff. $2,000 lens that gives you 180, I guess, 180 degree field of view for your VR productions. I am not a fan. I'm sorry. I'm I'm trying so hard. It's cool. I keep everybody's talking about augmented reality as the next big thing. I'm just trying so hard. I just,
Ant Pruitt (00:06:59):
I think I think AR is the next thing over VR. I, I, I'm still battling with VR. I believe I mentioned on our end of the year show that I think AR is going to be pretty awesome. If someone can just really, you know, set it up to where it's not a bunch of security problem and things like that. Cause if you wanna walk down the street and say hello to the person coming, you know who they are because it has a nice little identifier, but we don't want to know their credit score and things like that showing up above their heads. But I, I think it's, I think there's a cool spot for AR if we can just get it implemented with the right
Leo Laporte (00:07:37):
Security stuff in there. This was announced at CS TCL with a Chinese television maker announced their second version of their dis wearable display glasses, which look kind of like Ray bands, but you wouldn't wanna walk around cuz you're not seeing the world around you. <Laugh> you're seeing two 1080p micro screens. So it's not, it's not
Ant Pruitt (00:07:59):
AR then
Leo Laporte (00:08:01):
It's more like VR. No it's VR. Yeah. Yeah. The lenses. But that might make, that might make
Jeff Jarvis (00:08:06):
Some sense. But then, but again, if you're just watching screens
Leo Laporte (00:08:09):
Here, why not watch screens? Well, it's like 140 inch screen from turn 13 feet away. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> yeah, I I'm I'm with you Jeff. Why, why, why? Why's the question? What's the why? Cuz these companies are trying to make money on whatever the next thing is and nobody knows. So they're all just guessing they're throwing spirit speculative, right? Yeah. I, I am gonna stand by my contention that we already have the most amazing virtual experiences ever. And it's most in pictures when you're in a movie theater
Ant Pruitt (00:08:42):
<Laugh> oh, I thought you was gonna say zoom. You gonna say zoom grandpa.
Leo Laporte (00:08:47):
No. Think about this. The, and this it's a hundred year old industry. I understand. And they perfected it so that when you're they added color,
Jeff Jarvis (00:08:55):
What else did they need?
Leo Laporte (00:08:56):
No, listen to me. No,
Cathy Gellis (00:09:00):
Well it's true because you used to
Leo Laporte (00:09:03):
Go ahead, Cathy.
Cathy Gellis (00:09:04):
Yeah, no, let me tell you why you're right. You it's true because like the distance between where we were before and then all of a sudden voila you've got movies <affirmative> and the distance between where we were when you've got movies to now, now is negligible, but the real revolution was going from nothing to movies.
Leo Laporte (00:09:22):
And I would submit it's still effective when you're sitting in a theater, it's darkened the screens in front of you. The sounds around you. Movies have gotten very, very good at you've feel like you're there. Am I not? Right? Yes.
Ant Pruitt (00:09:37):
And sound design is so much bigger now in cinema. And it's part of the reason why, why I enjoy more movies now is just because of sound design. Dialogue is another problem. But sound design just really locks
Leo Laporte (00:09:49):
Me in and, and, and the choice of music to get your, I mean, what is VR about? It's about tricking your mind into thinking you're having a real experience and right. Honestly, a good movie. You don't think I'm sitting with a sticky floor on, you know, old <laugh> beat up questions. What kind of theaters do you with weirdos around me?
Ant Pruitt (00:10:08):
Oh man. He's
Leo Laporte (00:10:10):
That you think? No, you think you're, you know, you're, you're in Chinatown, Jake and, and it's, and it's so vivid that you feel like you had an experience. I think that we, we should not diminish that. That is a very refined technology. And the problem is you can't sell $1,300 glasses and you, you know, I mean, you can't make money on the content except for selling a movie ticket. I mean, you can obviously there's an industry all around it, but I just, I think the tech, this is a really good example of Silicon valley. Doesn't wanna stand still trying too hard. Yeah. Yeah. We can't stand still. We have to do the next thing, whatever it is.
Jeff Jarvis (00:10:47):
Cathy's point too is really important too, is, is if you look at that, that kind of leaps and creativity, pardon me, Gutenberg moment coming. Oh God,
Leo Laporte (00:10:56):
There
Jeff Jarvis (00:10:58):
Take your Drakes. People take your drinks from 14, from 1450 until 1800. There was basically no advance in the technology. Cause what were you gonna do? People did. It's perfect. They invented the novel, the modern novel and the essay and the, and the market for printer plays and the newspaper. So there, there's more, more to be done visually with what we have. I, I agree. So yeah, I think VRS about as meaningless watch out and here as NFTs uhoh
Ant Pruitt (00:11:30):
<Laugh> well, it's, it's, it's not like
Cathy Gellis (00:11:33):
It's not the first time they've been talking about, and now we've got VR they've been talking about are before, before in the nineties then like every time it's like, it's gonna be the thing that's right. And it wasn't the thing. I mean, it was interesting as, you know, had some interesting applications, whatever, but it mostly like, it never answered the why. And I think there, the technology is better, but I think we still haven't answered the why. And I think if you don't answer the why nothing's gonna happen with this trajectory either.
Leo Laporte (00:12:05):
I remember going to SI GRA in Los Angeles in 1992, wearing a big VR helmet, it's attached to a big cable attached to a multimillion dollar computer and flying on a tactle. And it was substantially the same, except for the heavy headset set and the, but it was substantially the same. And it was GI, it was a gimick. It was cool, but it was a, I feel like it's still gimick by the way, meta thinks maybe it's a gimick they have fired hundred developers that were working on a custom VR AR operating system, which is ironic. They just renamed themselves meta just renamed it. Yeah. According to the information, meta instructed employees to stop working on an operating system, built for scratch from scratch for virtual reality headsets, the XR OS project had been in development since 20 17, 300 employees working on it. Now I don't know if that's what mark was demonstrating when he did that famous now in infamous video, meta a video, which is ironic, cuz the virtual character looked more like a human being than mark Zuckerberg did <laugh> now, now, but maybe, maybe there was something wrong with, you know, the OS or it wasn't doing it.
Leo Laporte (00:13:26):
But the company told some staff, according to the information, they'll continue to modify an open source version of Android to do this. Hello. Google's Android met his modified version of Android internally known as V R OS not X R OS powers, the current Oculus VR headsets.
Jeff Jarvis (00:13:48):
Did they also realize that people weren't gonna trust them with it?
Leo Laporte (00:13:52):
No. Are you kidding me? <Laugh> mark Zuckerberg has no introspective, no awareness, no insight into how people view Facebook. Do you think?
Cathy Gellis (00:14:08):
No, no, no. I mean he gets memos periodically, but I don't think that instinct is necessarily there.
Leo Laporte (00:14:14):
He's class deaf. Did you see, have you seen Kathy? Have you seen the new Netflix movie? Don't look up. Oh, I have no. Oh, oh boy. There is a character in it. That's a tech a mark Zuckerberg. He's the third rich. No, he's a
Jeff Jarvis (00:14:30):
Across of various ones. I think. I think there's a little Steve jobs in him. Mark Zuckerberg is there. I think he love Musk. I think he,
Leo Laporte (00:14:36):
Oh yeah. He's a mix of all of them. Sure. Of
Jeff Jarvis (00:14:38):
All of the spectrum. Folks in the field.
Leo Laporte (00:14:42):
I wish I could play a clip from this, you know mark, mark. Rylance mark re you
Jeff Jarvis (00:14:48):
Got a lawyer. He right here. Who could defend you Leo? I am not
Cathy Gellis (00:14:52):
Lawyer, lawyer. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer. Let's be clear. <Laugh>
Ant Pruitt (00:14:58):
Dad. Gomish shes. Good. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:14:59):
She's gonna any minute now she's gonna say fair use is a defense, not a, only to hire a lawyer. Yeah.
Cathy Gellis (00:15:08):
I, I, I'm here more to mock stupid things about the law, as opposed to counsel anybody on how to actually like navigate it. I'd rather complain about, you know, this is a very dysfunctional conversation because we should be able to like enjoy the culture around us. And it's not clear that we actually can. And that's a bad thing that comes outta cost. So law I do is to inventory that complain about that and to see if maybe we can make things better, but that's not a one on one represent people that's to try to fix it for everybody type. Thank discussing it. And that there's any question about whether we could actually like share an example of what it is we're talking about. Thank maybe it would be very
Leo Laporte (00:15:49):
C counselor. No she she's. Right. But
Cathy Gellis (00:15:52):
It's a, it's a, it's a bigger problem because maybe that would be fine. Yeah. You could sort of make a fair use analysis, but you know, the expression is fair use is the right to hire a lawyer's like, you just don't wanna have the problem to deal with, but the fact that we're chilled, we have now, you know, abruptly veered off our conversation because of
Leo Laporte (00:16:11):
The legal, it, it chills this ha
Cathy Gellis (00:16:13):
To the bone. If this is the law, it has a cost. And the irony is this law supposed to stimulate creativity and expression and here it is suppressing it. So I think
Leo Laporte (00:16:23):
We've got problems. Here's the here's the, I could show a picture. I think of mark Rylance as Peter Iswell the tech guru who says, wait a minute, don't save the earth. Don't destroy that comment. There's materials we could use. That's it. <Laugh> <laugh> if, if you haven't seen it, it really is great. And when you see it, just note that character because he is exactly how I think he's how the world's starting to think of Silicon valley. I think that's actually a bit of a problem for Silicon valley, frankly, the out of touch billionaire, you know,
Ant Pruitt (00:17:00):
I, I did not want to watch it because I saw that it was number one on Netflix and I have a history of catching things that are number one on Netflix and just, I hated
Leo Laporte (00:17:10):
'Em wait didn't didn't you like that tiger thing. Show know. I mean that would be no, sir. <Laugh> <laugh>
Ant Pruitt (00:17:18):
It's horrible. But I went ahead and gave it a shot. Because
Leo Laporte (00:17:22):
We made you, I think we made you do that. Didn't we, we like had a group viewing on a
Ant Pruitt (00:17:28):
Gosh, I haven't
Cathy Gellis (00:17:30):
Tiger this movie, but the idea that, like, I think the point just trying to make that humanity can be kind of clueless about reacting to its actual problems. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> avenue. Q did. I think it's no, if not avenue Q avenue five, this name space collision is not good, but avenue five was a production, which they made one season. I don't know if they're making another one, it starred Hugh Laurie and it was excellent. And it basically predicted the pandemic behavior before the pandemic behavior was actually getting exhibited with sort of
Leo Laporte (00:18:01):
P that's the one where they're in the spaceship. Oh, that's hysterical,
Cathy Gellis (00:18:06):
Right? Yes. It was very, very funny. And also horrible and awful and just an amazing encapsulation of boy. Are we dumb as a species?
Leo Laporte (00:18:15):
It's a, there is a, there is now I think this is a genre starting with Idiocracy wall E to a certain extent, was that also with the people in the floating chairs and their big gulfs avenue five, when I liked avenue five, it there's something about it missed, I don't know exactly what it was, but it, and obviously HBO did not renew it. I, and I think don't look up, isn't perfect either, but it is a commentary and it follows in that exact vein of, you know, this without
Cathy Gellis (00:18:45):
Spoilers the scene in the airlock, which is kind of like two thirds through the series or whatever, just the scene in the airlock. It isn't even funny because it's actually so real. Like you can turn that off and turn on the news and you've seen the exact same thing.
Leo Laporte (00:19:02):
So I, I stand corrected avenue if I was renewed. So good. I look forward to season two. That's good. All right.
Ant Pruitt (00:19:10):
So the creditors don't look up. I they made me quite angry within the first 30 minutes to an hour of that movie and I guess they deserve some credit for that. It made me
Leo Laporte (00:19:21):
Emot angry because of the president and her lack of
Ant Pruitt (00:19:26):
Interest. You're just watching that and you're thinking, oh man, this is a total reflect of the crap that I see. Right.
Leo Laporte (00:19:32):
It was a little too close to
Ant Pruitt (00:19:33):
Home. Yeah. And it just, oh, it fired me up and I almost turned it off, but I said just, just continue to watch.
Leo Laporte (00:19:39):
I just read that that script was written before COVID, which is another thing that's kind of interesting crazy. Right. It was really yeah. Anyway, we don't have to go on and on.
Cathy Gellis (00:19:48):
I think avenue five was as well, which was, that was a little bit creepy. My
Leo Laporte (00:19:52):
Favorite part of avenue avenue five is when they lose they're in a, they're in a, a, a giant spaceship. They're out in space. It's a cruise though, and they're all doing yoga and the ship tilt suddenly. And everybody goes to me. I just, I don't know. I enjoyed that. Let's talk again about, we warn you, Kathy, that we sometimes get off topic a little bit. <Laugh> I was talking about meta abandoning.
Cathy Gellis (00:20:17):
I'm just copy that. I had culturally relevant knowledge. You so
Leo Laporte (00:20:20):
Like, okay. Yes, you fit right in meta could revive, according to the information XR OS or some pieces of it at a later date no known word, why they discontinued it and it could just be a, a technical issue. But it seems to me a capitulation to say, well, we'll just use Google's Android. That's exactly what they didn't want to do. That's why they were building this, right.
Cathy Gellis (00:20:47):
I mean, at some point you need hardware to put it on and maybe they couldn't quite solve that problem. If not, technically, maybe just in terms of supply,
Leo Laporte (00:20:57):
Maybe I, you know, I think this is a blue sky thing. I mean, I don't think they expected to have something next year as re this is from the information again, as recently as June Zuckerberg touted the importance of the new AR VR operating system, this is in June and said, the team is ver is pretty far along at this point. And then six months later, <laugh>, that's it. Nevermind. Nevermind. So I, I don't know what to read in the tea leaves, the, you know, in the apple, there's a lot of talk about apple launching its, its kind of VR AR headset at the end of this year for $3,000 a three, three screen device. And then of course just for CYOP what, what, what, I don't know what the, I don't even in the rumor, they said, we don't know what the third screen would they've so they got, they've got two Sony screens very high resolution 4k or maybe even eight K screens where your eyes are, but then they're buying this other OED screen from Samsung and no one understands for the eye in the back of your head rear view.
Leo Laporte (00:22:05):
I don't know. I don't know. They, this is to me again, this is an example of Silicon valley saying we just gotta find the next new thing. And we don't really know what it is, so we're gonna do this and I I'm less than
Cathy Gellis (00:22:22):
Saying what, I'm not sure it's actually they're coming up with the next new thing. They're following each other. I mean, yes, no you're right. One person, I mean, FA book might even get credit for sort of rebooting the VR stuff, but then everybody else has to kind of do it and the buzzwords everybody's gotta do the buzzword, whatever is the hot buzzword of the time, this the cool tech like this, isn't actually demonstrating a whole lot of innovation. It's develop. It's demonstrating a whole lot of, oh, we must do the cool thing that everybody he thinks is the cool thing. And that's not necessarily a valuable
Leo Laporte (00:22:52):
Contribution. It is ironic that in Silicon valley, where in theory, you honor the Mavericks, the CR here's to the crazy ones and it's just everybody, what, what, what is he doing? What's he doing? Let's do that. <Laugh> there's a lot of groups thinking that Silicon valley, speaking of which Samsung is a groundbreaking new TV feature, NFT support. Oh, come on. <Laugh> oh,
Cathy Gellis (00:23:17):
Put, let me repeat my previous comment about everybody following the buzz words.
Leo Laporte (00:23:22):
This is, this is like last year when everything Wass better with a slight coat of blockchain block blockchain, blockchain was the Vegemite of Silicon valley for a long time. I I T yeah, NFT. So, and then of course in a related story Norton the antivirus company announced that Norton 360 will now come with a Bitcoin minor shout had the cor
Ant Pruitt (00:23:52):
Cor, oh, did we say
Leo Laporte (00:23:54):
Antivirus? <Laugh> yeah, basically we're gonna put our own virus in there. We'll take 15%, but you could make some money. You could you know, already, if they're notorious for like completely bogging your computer down, I don't, now you can eat your home with it as well. So <laugh> yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, it's one of those jump on the bandwagon things, I, I have a question about
Ant Pruitt (00:24:19):
Norton. Do any of, you know, their market share? Are people
Leo Laporte (00:24:23):
Still, oh yeah. Norton software it's Norton and McAfee. Both of whom are, but such para of virtue of virtue. That's the words I was looking for. <Laugh> Norton has a 10% market share according to Semantec Sam, Simon nanotech SIM. Anyway I remember semantic MC Sytech Norton has 10% Kaspersky has 8% something like that, of the market. So but yeah, Norton merged with LifeLock. They were spun off by, you know, Intel own. Was it Intel? No, they owned McAfee. That's so confusing. Oh gosh. Yeah, there really, I weird how the
Jeff Jarvis (00:25:09):
Tech companies have the security companies have funny origin, shall we say between Mr. Mcafee and Kaspersky and Russia.
Leo Laporte (00:25:17):
And, but, you know, and in fact, I, I was rereading this article that Harry McCracken did some years ago about Peter Norton and Norton was in his day. He was no McAfee. He was a legend in his day with his arm, folded in his big fat tie on the box of every, but he sold it a long time ago. He became an art collector and a philanthropist Symantec, 13% of the market, a vast 12% E set, one of our sponsors, 11% percent web route 8% actually McAfee's down there at 8% Cylance bit defender, malware bites, trend micro. So this according TOA.
Ant Pruitt (00:26:00):
Yeah. That's why I was asking because there are so many other options out there that are not going to beat the crap outta your computer. I just that's
Leo Laporte (00:26:07):
Doing your job. Yeah. <Laugh> there was a, you know, I think we, you have to constantly reassess. I've been saying for some time you probably don't need an antivirus. Windows comes with one. Ive said that too modern operating systems. So we're locked down New York times, just get a Chromebook.
Jeff Jarvis (00:26:25):
People get a Chromebook. And these worries are,
Leo Laporte (00:26:27):
You don't need any of it. True. And then New York times had an article this week saying you probably really don't need a VPN either. Which I thought is time to stop paying for a VPN. We also have VPN sponsor. So I'm shooting myself at the foot go that far, sir. I'm
Jeff Jarvis (00:26:44):
Like, it depend, it
Leo Laporte (00:26:45):
Depends on what you're doing. It depends, you know, all of this depends on your threat model. There are definitely people who should run antivirus too. If you've got teenage kids using your computer, you might wanna put an antivirus on it. Oh yeah. There's that? Yeah. <laugh> times change things, move along. I don't know. You know, I don't know what to say. But I think did we just leave
Jeff Jarvis (00:27:08):
Entirely CES? Did we do C no, no.
Leo Laporte (00:27:10):
This is still CES. That was the Samsung TV. They announced that I'm actually waiting. I'm trying to figure out, cuz I mentioned this last week, Scott Wilkinson, our home theater guy said there is gonna be a big announcement at CES, a new TV acknowledging. Right. And I've been waiting to find out what it is. And the best I could figure is Sony has announced a new kind of old led TV with quantum dots, which
Jeff Jarvis (00:27:40):
Can only be run by a quantum computer on the blockchain to show your NFTs. I don't know if it doesn't have Scott Beckin and Dean Stockwell. I just don't think it wow. Called there's a reference.
Leo Laporte (00:27:51):
Wow. Okay. You win today. You win today's old TV show reference.
Jeff Jarvis (00:27:58):
I am amazed at how hip I
Leo Laporte (00:28:00):
Appear to be right now. Impressed. I am so impressed. Sony announced the world's first quantum dot ed TV, the Bravia XR series. So ed, we, I think we all agree, ed right now is the best technology out there. I've been watching down the road for micro led, which Samsung's been showing. Sony will also do a micro at L E D technology, but the, the Q D O led supposedly is brighter than the old EDS, dazzling, brightness, deeper blacks, more impressive midtones. And if you're impressed by that, you'll love this, the list price. I don't actually know, but I'm sure it's very expensive. I that's what he's talking about, Anne. I don't, I don't see any other big announcements in TVs, but
Jeff Jarvis (00:28:51):
Samsung projector, which is kind of cute.
Leo Laporte (00:28:54):
Yeah. They've been projectors. Oh yeah. They short thorough,
Jeff Jarvis (00:28:57):
But this is, this is,
Leo Laporte (00:28:59):
You know, more of a consumer product, 8 99. It's kind of cute. It looks like a little can li you light, you might shine on your, the painting of your ancestors on the wall, but in fact it's a poor, hairlight poor hairlight for those of you in the television business. It's the freestyle ultraportable small T smart TV projector weighs less than two pounds. Typically these don't have great pictures. 8 99, 890 $9 10 80 P it can play music and includes 360 sound. And it has a, a Samsung smart TV platform on it, which means it can spy on you as well. Oh, yay.
Jeff Jarvis (00:29:39):
Oh good. Yeah. Well, anchors anchors version odd to come from the anchor brand is bigger, but it's 4k anchor
Leo Laporte (00:29:47):
Actually has had projectors for some, for several years now. So this is these little portable projectors. I, I guess this is a category, I guess if you didn't want anybody to know you had a TV, this would be, you can see there's a market. Oh, don't laugh. Jeff. There are a lot of people. I don't, oh,
Jeff Jarvis (00:30:05):
I've known those people. Having been a former TV critic. People used to all the time going to me and say, oh, well I don't watch TV. Or I only watch
Ant Pruitt (00:30:13):
PBS the idiot box.
Leo Laporte (00:30:14):
Yeah. Yeah. I only watch PBS unless I'm watching the bachelor.
Jeff Jarvis (00:30:19):
I said, well, I always said that. How do you know who van white is?
Leo Laporte (00:30:22):
Yeah. Yeah. You don't have any cultural, you know, understanding. How are you gonna mention, you know Scott, Balo in a conversation. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta, so
Cathy Gellis (00:30:35):
I need to send a thank you to my parents. Thank you for having a TV in the house and letting me watch it.
Leo Laporte (00:30:44):
Remember the are you talking about the LG roll up TV? This was also a TV designed for people who didn't want anybody to know. They have a TV. It just looks like a credenza, but the TV rolls out of it. Notice the price by the way, says inquire to buy. If you
Jeff Jarvis (00:31:01):
Have to, you
Leo Laporte (00:31:02):
Ask you. Yeah. It's I, I think I asked and it was a hundred thousand dollars. So it costs a lot to not have a TV.
Ant Pruitt (00:31:10):
Keep it to appear. If you were talking about the Q O Q O L E D QED.
Leo Laporte (00:31:16):
Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (00:31:17):
What, what, what gets me is I'm like how much better can the television get now? Cause, oh,
Leo Laporte (00:31:25):
Now who sounds like an old man, what in your home now? Who sounds like an old man.
Ant Pruitt (00:31:29):
Yeah, but I mean, don't get me wrong. Eight K video is beautiful. It eight
Leo Laporte (00:31:34):
K video, but there's no content,
Ant Pruitt (00:31:36):
But the delivery getting that to the masses. Its not gonna happen anytime soon. Yeah. The TV that you have in your lovely home is absolutely beautiful. And why, why is there something else out there even better than that? And can you imagine something being better than what you have in your home? Well,
Jeff Jarvis (00:31:55):
And I used to think that who needs HD and I was a, I need clinic for God's sakes. You know,
Leo Laporte (00:32:01):
I, you know, I sit down in front of the 4k ed and I just, I love it. It's maybe it's a little too real, but you really? Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (00:32:09):
Your nose is like ridiculously <laugh>. Yeah. Like you're, it's
Leo Laporte (00:32:12):
Just really nice. Well then we have that big, that big projector, it in the living room that one's huge. It's a hundred inches. That's not gonna get replaced until I think micro L E D is the future of that because those are little, you they're squares. You can make it as big as you want. You just keep attaching them. But there's some technical issues that they haven't solved yet on the edges and so forth. So you
Ant Pruitt (00:32:34):
Know, the refresh rates, I see scooter a is mentioning in the IRC brighter colors, brighter, richer colors, better processing, better refresh rates. Yeah. Yeah. All of that makes sense.
Leo Laporte (00:32:44):
HDR is a big jump. I but
Ant Pruitt (00:32:47):
H yeah, we already have HDR. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:32:49):
And it looks great. Well, how about H HDR? <Laugh>
Cathy Gellis (00:32:53):
I still have to go back to the question though, of why, because it also like whether this is also depends on what you're watching. So until quite recently I was watching TV on like a 20 inch CRT monitor and I was perfectly happy because it could deliver what I wanted. Well, in a way that whatever I was watching, I could be full quantum leap
Leo Laporte (00:33:13):
Looks great on it. But if you wanna watch anything from the 21st century,
Cathy Gellis (00:33:18):
I have other taste and preferences, you know, I'm sure they'll come up later in the
Leo Laporte (00:33:21):
Show. I'm I am teasing you.
Cathy Gellis (00:33:25):
But like, I mean, I'm more likely yes. To watch sort of a public television type thing and show me my actors and show me my drama. And like, I don't need to see every pour on their face and I don't need the special effects cuz that's not gonna wow. Me. That's gonna detract me. That's not the thing that goes into what I consider an enjoyable content experience. But you're an outlier. Some exceptions may be quite, you're an outlier. I, if you just said I was hip, I had all knowledge here.
Leo Laporte (00:33:50):
So you're not the mass market. I, I take it back. I mean, people want sports and action movies. That's what they want and what they really, I think what really is driven, this is the last, who years where you couldn't go to a movie theater and people want a much more immersive, a movie theater style. Sir,
Ant Pruitt (00:34:07):
That experience at home Netflix is having, having people shooting 12 K and, and raw and so forth. And it's just absolutely beautiful, but it's only going to be so much that they can deliver to us over the internet. Well,
Leo Laporte (00:34:21):
You okay? You're a photography guy. I mean, people have said, well, you know, why do you need more resolution in the camera?
Ant Pruitt (00:34:32):
The only time I need more resolution is for cropping because they're gonna be instances. I wanna take a portrait of someone or some. So you wouldn't,
Leo Laporte (00:34:39):
You wouldn't say, oh, I need a 41 megapixel image so that I can blow it. I don't know what you blow it
Cathy Gellis (00:34:45):
Up aside of a house. I guess you don't need to make it bigger. You needed to find the bit that you wanna zoom in on. It's more like a, I don't know what to choose from it. So I'll take the big port, big platter of images and then pick what I wanna focus on later.
Leo Laporte (00:34:58):
I guess that's this is the theme then of this show is Silicon valley has to, is like a shark. It can't sit still. It has to move forward whether we need to or not. And, and
Jeff Jarvis (00:35:09):
I, I returned Gutenberg watch out. We're dang. What's
Ant Pruitt (00:35:14):
Interesting gonna happen. This episode,
Jeff Jarvis (00:35:17):
We're gonna all gonna leave drunk. What's gonna be interesting is not what happens in Silicon valley. It's moving past the technology. It's what, what people do with it. It becomes interesting. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> when technology becomes boring. That's when life becomes interesting.
Cathy Gellis (00:35:30):
Well, I, I mean, I, I keep saying why be and not just to be like, have a catch phrase, but to basically point out that if you're not answering that question, I think the innovation's just gonna slide off. It's not gonna be meaningful. It's not gonna find a market. But if you actually try to think about the why and think about the use case and think about how people interact with their technology, you know, it's probably better business because you're more likely to be able to with your market because you're meeting what the market can need or might imagine that it needs. If you can't answer the why, even as your company in a way that people think is plausible. I don't think your business is gonna be successful no matter how cool it might actually be. Do you think tech
Leo Laporte (00:36:12):
Companies are doing a good job of that?
Cathy Gellis (00:36:14):
I, I mean, I think there's been moments when they have, I don't think Silicon valley on the whole has probably done that very well. I think a lot of the times you get people who like I built something it's cool and that the coolness should be able to speak for itself. I think the companies that are more successful are the ones that engage with their users, do better design, do better research to basically try to who the audience was, understand the problem they're trying to solve and have a dynamic kind of discussion with the, with their market to figure out, did it work sometimes what happens is the market will take something and actually invent a new use. And then the company's gotta be able to pivot to back that up. But if you're listening to your customers and you care and you're actually designing for them and you care about the function and you care about the use and you care about the usability, those are, you know, it's not a guarantee, but you're much more likely to be successful than a company that doesn't bother and just focuses on the coolness and the, you know, 4k eight K 12, K whatever stuff, all your numbers in it, you know, success in technology is more about just making it flashier.
Cathy Gellis (00:37:18):
It's more useful.
Ant Pruitt (00:37:20):
I know this is a really niche population, but the photography side of things, Canon and Sony, that's exactly what they did. They took a lot of feedback from the community and slowly started to implement it into the different products out there where it's the less expensive beginner camera are all the way up to the pro great stuff. They, they took a lot of heat over the years because they would do some things that were quite asinine, but it took note of it and put it in place and they have some really, really great products. Now
Leo Laporte (00:37:51):
I do have to point out that I, I agree with you a hundred percent, Kathy. I think that that's exactly what tech companies should be fun focus on. However, <laugh>, they've managed to make a pretty good success for themselves without necessarily doing that. I don't, I don't know. It's just so apple, this week, apple hit 3 trillion in market are still there. No, they went back down a little bit, but if you look at there's Microsoft right behind them at two, this is from the New York 2.5 trillion alphabet at 1.9 trillion, Amazon at 1.7 trillion meta, almost a trillion. It's only when you get down below half of half a trillion that you get to, you know, traditional big money companies like Disney and JP Morgan. And actually this was the, this was the most amazing stat of all. Apple's 2 million, 2 trillion, I'm sorry, 3 trillion market cap. Let me see if I can find this makes it worth more than, oh shoot. I can't. But it was, it was like all the top 10 companies combined here it is. Apple's 3 trillion market cap makes them worth more than Walmart, Disney, Netflix, Nike, Exxon Coca-Cola, Comcast Morgan Stanley McDonald's at and T Goldman Sachs, Boeing IBM and Ford combined. That's amazing add, well,
Cathy Gellis (00:39:16):
Apple is not the exception to what I said. They're more proving the rule because one of the things that apple did and did well, and it fueled its success was to actually care about design. I don't happen to like their design choices, but a lot of people fell in love with it. And they were obviously engaged with UI experience, design touch E and things like that. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I think the bigger exception is Facebook, which seems incredibly outta touch with how people actually might be inclined to use their product. And they keep making it substantively and materially worse because they don't seem to really understand why people were drawn to it in the first place. So they're, I think they're the, but apple is not, although once apple gets big and they've got enough capital to do whatever they want, then they can make plenty of mistakes and it's not really gonna matter, but they're also able to become bigger in other spaces because they've got the capital and they can invest so they can do hardware, they can do software, they can operate on an IP level. They can operate on a thing level. That just gives 'em an advantage in every sector, which can snowball into something as big as you describe.
Leo Laporte (00:40:25):
I, I feel like apple though is in the same, has the same quandary that all these other companies do. And that's why they're doing AR is one of their next big pushes
Jeff Jarvis (00:40:36):
Car and cars. Cause well, because the phone is where, where movies were when they got CSCOPE uncle Leo. Right? What more are you gonna do?
Leo Laporte (00:40:46):
You know, I agree maybe that, or maybe where, where our TVs are. Maybe we are at the, at the end of where we peak phone. So again,
Jeff Jarvis (00:40:55):
Where is the modern novel, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the essay where is Mont where's Savan, where are those creators who use these tools to do things we couldn't have imagined of? That's what excites
Leo Laporte (00:41:07):
Me? No, I agree with you, the, the tech, what happens when technology is new is you focus on the technology, not on what the technology enables. And then after a while you kind of absorb it, you get used to it. We're at that stage now with the internet where it's just ubiquitous and everybody kind of accepts it's there.
Jeff Jarvis (00:41:23):
I think we're still, I think we got time to go still, where we still see the future in the analog of the past, maybe, but
Leo Laporte (00:41:28):
Part of that, everybody under 25 grew up with the internet every moment of their life. So I think it's now time for the internet O tours, the, the people who are really gonna create on top of that nevertheless, Silicon valley is still looking for the next big thing. I mean, apple can't, they can't this revenue machine going well, I'm sure they won't be it because that's not historically where these innovations come from.
Cathy Gellis (00:41:54):
Well, this is why they're all going to Mars. I mean, <laugh>, but seriously, they, they ran out of things to do on earth. So they're looking for like, you know, what's the thing we can go innovate for and maybe more power to it. I mean, there's some issues. Yeah. I read it, the fortunes and the, and the private funding of whatever. But you know, I'm not gonna look at scans at like innovation that makes the heavens reachable. Like, I think that's a good thing for humanity to start innovating towards.
Leo Laporte (00:42:21):
There's something that makes me really queasy about apple being worth 3 trillion, maybe. Is that a flaw in me that I just, I mean, certainly there seems to be that kind of reaction from Congress and the EU is it, is, is it possible for a company to become too rich, too successful too, too wealthy, too powerful? Is, is that time to start succession? Yes. <laugh>, Theyre the Roy star Waco of the real world, but Waco
Jeff Jarvis (00:42:50):
Waco's fading into nothingness. Right. And it, and it's, and, and, and,
Leo Laporte (00:42:54):
And that's actually one of the interesting subtexts of succession. Isn't it is that it's an old media company trying to figure out what, and the, and the old guy that runs the company is gonna, is full speed. He wants to buy TV station full speed ahead. And the subtext is his kids who are complete. Screwups all are all saying, no, we gotta go digital. We, I get the next big thing. What are you doing, dad? It's a, it's an interesting subtext because they are screw ups <laugh> and he continues to be the, you know, the, the top dog and all this top dog. I, so is this a flaw? Let me ask Cathy, is this a cuz you don't know me, is this a flaw in my personality that it bothers me that apples, this apple, they already hate me. So that, that apple is this powerful and this rich does that, that bothers me. I don't think any company should get this rich.
Cathy Gellis (00:43:43):
The, the, the framing of this question is interesting. You know, I think it's, I have trepidation answering this because I'm afraid of the regulatory response. If it turns out that this is actually icky, but I don't think you're weird to feel icky about it. So you know, it's one of the things of, I can't say that we shouldn't maybe ask some questions about how did this happen, and this is a good thing. And how do we make sure that it's not a bad thing, that's reasonable. But it's hard for me to be very enthusiastic of like, down with this sort of thing, because I keep seeing what comes out of Congress, where they want to be down with this sort of thing. And it's some really bad ideas that don't necessarily fix any of the ickiness and basically make it that like goodbye, innovation, goodbye, future capitalism, goodbye, future success of any sort of companies like they end up salting the earth for all sorts of other things that we might actually wanna have like smaller companies rising up to be successful and be competitors and things like that. So there be dragons, but you know, the overall instinct that you're articulating of this kind of feels icky. I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to feel
Leo Laporte (00:44:53):
Some would say it's, it's kind of anti-American. I mean, we celebrate well, no, cause
Cathy Gellis (00:44:58):
I think our story is competition. Like you wanna have the best win. And the, the thing that we sort of feel is if they're too big, that you start to worry that the best isn't winning, but like the lucky is the most privileged or something like that, where it doesn't really feel like we're rewarding the best, we're just rewarding the biggest. And that doesn't feel good with the American mythology. I don't think, yeah, it's
Leo Laporte (00:45:19):
Jeff. My wheel is that success breeds success and you've got this flywheel and pretty soon it doesn't matter if you innovate or you do good for people, or if it's a valuable company, it just does it succeeds because it's that big. You're the, I
Cathy Gellis (00:45:32):
Mean, we don't remember Carnegie because of the railroads. We remember him because he funded other stuff with his riches. So maybe that was a dysfunctional way to get this other stuff funded. But it's the thing that we seem to value more than we actually cared about his, you know, capitalist or all Gopel as
Leo Laporte (00:45:48):
Practices. I think that's another American pathology because, you know, car Argie wanted to revitalize his reputation. So he started
Cathy Gellis (00:45:56):
A lot of libraries. I don't redeem the whole, how did he go from a Robert Barron to, you know, somebody that we, we like in history, but I'm noting that the pivot point of what we remember and appreciate was not him being the capitalist, but him being the, and
Leo Laporte (00:46:10):
That's what bill gates is opening as well.
Ant Pruitt (00:46:13):
Yeah. You know,
Leo Laporte (00:46:14):
I don't, I think it worked by the way. I think it's working for bill cuz people see him now, as you know, he's, he's the guy that got the world vaccinated, not
Cathy Gellis (00:46:21):
It did, but I don't think it's working quite as well. I think he's made a couple of recent decisions that have undone his PR campaign. Yeah. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (00:46:31):
I don't have a problem with apple making all of this, some money considering that they go about it, pretty smart with efficiency and controlling the whole stack and, and so forth and just really making their profit margins just so much bigger. That's like that's business. My problem is the fact that they pay a lot less taxes than regular Joe's like us. You know, that that's the problem I've always had with these big tech companies. They're able to swindle around the system. And yeah, that's
Leo Laporte (00:46:58):
A, I mean, that's a flow of the tax code. I mean, that's the, that's one thing you can go to Congress and say, Hey, fix that. There should not be this. Yeah. But
Ant Pruitt (00:47:07):
Innate lobby against us, right. With their deep pockets, keep things
Leo Laporte (00:47:11):
The way that, well, that's one thing you get with $3 trillion, you a trillion you can really use to improve your fortunes.
Cathy Gellis (00:47:19):
I mean, I, I I'm a fan. I don't mind regulatory responses, but I don't like reactive ones. And I don't like ones that don't understand the problems they're trying to solve. There's complexity and there's you know, things are interdependent and nuance and you really need to understand what's wrong. Why it's wrong, what the interplay is with things that might even be right. Before you start trying to fix things and the problem is, is the icky or something seems the more problematic. It seems. The more, it, it, it's a visceral attempts, a regulatory response that is overreactive not appropriately tailored for the solution and either won't fix it and, or will create a whole bunch of new problems that you didn't bother to anticipate. Cuz this seemed like a really good thing that you could score political points on. So I don't mind a co you know, conversations about like, what is wrong.
Cathy Gellis (00:48:07):
Let's dig into that. It's not like, oh, capitalism, but let's think are there, are there things in the tax code? Are there things in the way we do corporate structures are there is IP laws. You know, there's a lot of things going on and they're worth a look to figure out are they accidentally? Even if we thought they were good, are they having some byproducts that aren't good. Those are fair questions to ask. But but then I pull the reign when people are like, well, it's simple. Let's just do this instead. And it's never that simple. And you have to be much more careful, right? Or else you ruin things that you actually did value. Bingo,
Leo Laporte (00:48:39):
Bingo. But, but, but this is the way the, this is how it works. This is the conversation starts. People propose things and other people say, well, that's not good. We go back and forth. Isn't that part of the process is is the brainstorming in effect.
Cathy Gellis (00:48:57):
I wouldn't mind the brainstorming, but we tend to have like, you know, actual and potentially terrible bills that end up proposed and sometimes get escape velocity where all of a sudden, they end up on the books before you could really think twice about them. So in terms of the process says, I'm all for the brainstorming. I'm all for like good hearings. I'm good. You know, let's make a record where we really understand what's going on and then figure out what the appropriate solu regulatory solution would be. That's fine. The problem is that's not necessarily what we're doing. Maybe
Leo Laporte (00:49:26):
The gridlock in Washington is saving us from that because we have sometimes accomplished a, a bloody thing in the last couple
Cathy Gellis (00:49:33):
Of years, things do escape. I mean, part of the problem with the gridlock is then things kind of get through. And sometimes, I mean, yeah, sometimes it's, there's cynical reasons why a big company is gonna push against, you know, some of these ideas and maybe they're doing it for cynical reasons, but sometimes they're also kind of saving the entire ecosystem. Right. And you know, they may be doing it for their own selfish purposes, but they may actually be having selfless purposes, but it doesn't really matter. Sometimes the thing that they want, even if they want it for themselves, turns out to actually be the right thing. And if we tend to be like, well down with big companies down with big tech, things like that, then we may Rob ourselves and blind ourselves to the fact that like doing the opposite of what they're might actually, it might hurt us if we, you know, just reject it out of hand to some
Leo Laporte (00:50:17):
Degree, probably because of Adam Smith, I feel like our system is. And, and, and because of our court system, our, our system is based around advocacy and everybody arguing their own best interest. And then we somehow, if it works, come to some solution, that is a good compromise. I don't know if that's worked in the last few years, but it's worked in the past. Let me ask you about this, Kathy, cuz you're probably right on the cus this one you know, Facebook's been running these ads lately essentially saying, yeah, you gotta fix two 30. They're not acting
Cathy Gellis (00:50:58):
Nice to say about their ad campaign. Yeah. They're not, I
Leo Laporte (00:51:01):
Mean, nothing. I I'm trying to figure out who the message is for. Is it for politically active people who watch football games who might write to their member of Congress? Is it for Congress? I don't think it's probably very well targeted, but
Cathy Gellis (00:51:14):
Oh, it's, it's, it's so dumb. It's dumb for them. And it's dumb for the ecosystem. It makes them a terrible neighbor. But I think the reason that they thought it might be a good idea and I don't wanna, it isn't a good idea, but the reason they might have thought so is there's a certain bit where, but tech in general, because it's such a regulatory target at the moment has sort of a political problem, which is, you know, all these ideas are coming at them and they're all kind of terrible. But if you just say no, no, no, no. Then everyone you're, you don't look like you care, you don't like you're playing. So I think they tried to say like, here's a bone that we're throwing, look, we're trying to play. Blah, blah, blah. So I think they were trying to like, look, you know, it's a campaign to make them look like they're not recalcitrant.
Cathy Gellis (00:51:54):
They actually like care about their impact and stuff like that. And I think it's trying to rehabilitate the perception that not necessarily that the public has what, although maybe that a little bit, but that Congress has about it. Like they're, they're not popular there. But it, I, it is a terrible idea. I don't think they really understand just how flamable the fires that they're playing with with doing this it, the, what they're calling for won't help them will hurt them in ways that I don't think they're quite calculating, but their best position to weather those regulatory winds. And it will devastate the, of the ecosystem. So a lot of people look at it, very cynically. I don't know if I share it, but I think it's credible to look at it this way, which is, you know, we think that Facebook might be too big and has some anticompetitive tendencies. This kind of looks like another one of those anticompetitive tendencies because it looks like let's call for regulation that a obliterate and will be fine. I don't think they will be as fine as they think, but you know, that might be motivating them. And that isn't good either because it will be so devastating to the it is regulatory capture, realize it or not. Right, Kathy. I mean,
Jeff Jarvis (00:53:04):
It's, it's, it's a case of regulatory capture. Its will be fine and, and the others won't be.
Cathy Gellis (00:53:09):
Yeah. I mean, I think it's poor regulatory capture cuz I don't think it's effective for them either, but but that is a read of it and that is a plausible read even if it's not actually what's motivating them. I mean, I do think the bit about the PR and the rehabilitate and trying to look like they're a team player with regulators is probably the big thing, but the effect of it will be so devastating and oh, what a shame if we happen to lose our competition. So yeah, maybe maybe the cynicism isn't misplaced.
Jeff Jarvis (00:53:38):
How sick do you get you and Mike Masnick and Jeff Kosso plus Def knee Keller and Kate KLE are all my heroes of the,
Leo Laporte (00:53:48):
Of the crew. Okay
Jeff Jarvis (00:53:49):
Well, and more. Yeah. Those are the defenders of internet freedoms versus the idiots about two 30. How sick do you get of going over the same territory with people?
Cathy Gellis (00:54:00):
You know, I have to be more patient than my personality necessarily accounts for, because I think that I, part of the problem is there's a lot of political pressure on Congress and I've talked to some people on the hill and they're kind of like, look, we get it. We understand that changing section two 30 is bad, but we have all these people who are looking at like, you know, bad stuff that seems to be happening because the internet enables bad stuff to happen. And people are saying, do something about it. And they're like, how can we go back to our constituency and not do something? You know, we need to be able to do something or else we won't get reelected because we look like we're unresponsive. So I think the key is my goal. And I'm happy to be here on this program because it's kind of is a step towards meeting that end, which is, I think we have to talk to people who are not the experts.
Cathy Gellis (00:54:48):
I mean, I think people who are in the space, yeah. How sick do I get the people who should know better, not knowing better. That's really annoying, but regular people who don't spend their days thinking about law, thinking about tech, you know, they have political will, this is a democracy. They can choose the laws that regulate them. So how do you educate them? So they can ask for good things. And I think that's the key to talk, to lay audiences for whom there's trusted, people that they can believe to say, let me understand this a little bit better, because then when they call their members of Congress, they will ask for things that are actually more useful, then just do something, burned it all down. What do I care? I hear section two 30 is bad. You might as well get rid of it. And how dare you. Not, it's not a good position. And so we can back up Congress, if ultimately we can change the political conversation so that we're asking them to give us better laws instead of ruining the good ones that we already have.
Jeff Jarvis (00:55:39):
Amen.
Leo Laporte (00:55:41):
If I were in government relations at Facebook, I might do exactly what they're doing, which is to say, sh pretend you care. <Laugh> show that you're show that you care and kind of not worry because government has a lot of other things to worry about much more important, and it doesn't seem to be very effective at getting anything done anyway. So I what's the chance that you get in trouble. You <affirmative>
Cathy Gellis (00:56:09):
I mean, I, I, I also, it's a huge company with a ton of people. And one of the things that I think is not part of our policy discussions enough is how do you steer a big company like that? You've got a lot of people, you've got a lot of smart people. You've probably got a couple idiots as well. And like, how do you, how do you steer that? Where I know there's good people, I know there's principled people. I know there's people who would really like to direct the company to be a good corporate citizen. I know there's people who would like them to have to push for good policy. There's probably also some cynical people. And then there's some people who are well, meaning and also wrong, and they're all there. And they're all trying to, you know, they've all got an or but the boat can go in circles.
Cathy Gellis (00:56:49):
Like how do you actually make that company steer as a coherent ship? You know, great. You know, you could write PhDs about organizational theory about how do these companies manage themselves. Yeah. When you've got all this talent and that it's so unwieldy. And so, you know, they've, Facebook is unique because so much goes to that. C-Suite where just a couple of people have a lot of control and this is not great when they are missing the point. We talked earlier that we think mark Zuckerberg really doesn't in into it enough what the effectives of this product in the space that he in. But on the other hand, like, you know, maybe that's good when the corporate structure does know because you've got a single point of contact that can create a coherent voice right now. And you've got a really weird tr hierarchy where you've got a couple people who can actually make the decisions, but an awful lot of other talent who might wanna direct things, but they may not all agree on which direction they should be directing things either. So I don't know, entirely know how we fix it, but we should understand that that's a dynamic. And when we deal with Facebook to understand what it is that we're dealing with, because it's not necessarily like the cult of a personality, it's something more complex than that.
Leo Laporte (00:58:02):
Let me take a little break. We'll come back. It's so great to have you CA think Alice is with us, she's a intellectual property. No, you're not really IP law so
Cathy Gellis (00:58:10):
Much. It, I do internet law, internet law. I think of myself as a free speech lawyer, but that runs the gamut of all sorts of things that when speech and technology intersect, you gotta play with all the stuff. Perfect
Leo Laporte (00:58:20):
Contributor at tech, dirt. Very glad to have her is sure. Website C G C O U N S E L. Council.Com. Jeff Jarvis also here. Great to have him back. You look less pink than usual. Did you change your life bulb? Yeah, I thought we got it. No, I, we fixed got my old version of the lamp. He looks good. Looks very good. Yeah. And of course, aunt Pruit, who always good. He can't not look good. It's just way he's built.
Cathy Gellis (00:58:50):
He's looking more pink with that shirt though. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:58:52):
I like the shirt <laugh> I like the shirt. It's good. Our show today brought to you by our crowd. This is a really interesting company. Doing something I think is, is very interesting. He's not for everybody. You have to be an accredited investor to get involved. Our crowd is a venture capital firm. They have accredited investors. They've got deal flow. They're looking a lot of companies. They specialize in the global private market. These are not companies that have gone public. They're looking for companies, tech companies that are innovating driving returns for investors, companies that might even have big exits, whether it's IPOs or sales, it's it they're looking to get in early, in other words, from personalized medicine to cyber security, to robot, quantum computing, you know, in state-of-the-art labs and startup garages and anywhere in between our crowd is identifying innovators. And then what's great is you get to participate when the growth potential is earliest, right at the beginning, that's the highest potential for growth.
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Leo Laporte (01:01:51):
In fact, you probably have never heard their name. They're just getting started, but you can invest in them today at our crowd. And I just use that as an example, I just use that as an example, there's lots of other startups at our crowd invest in blue tree or, or any of their startups or invest in their funds. O U R C R O w d.com/twig. It's free to join. And this is what I would suggest doing. Go there, you know, see if what the requirements are for being an accredited investor, cuz it does req you know, every country has their own laws about that. Oh, it's really not for somebody, you know, just starting out or you know, you, you, there's obviously other things you should, you know, you should do to build your wealth. But this is for somebody who's looking for diversification, interesting new investment opportunities.
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Leo Laporte (01:03:33):
Did you see, by the way it was in the verge yesterday, I sent this to Lisa it was talk I'm this is inside baseball. It's nobody, nobody cares about this, but podcasters who are using, we, you know, we've always relied on what you just saw, which was a host red endorsement kind of in, in ad baked in, but more and more podcasters are doing the programmatic advertising. We, we started trying, playing with that a little bit. And the verge had a long article about how poorly it's working. <Laugh> for people. This is, this is the plan, you know, and we've talked about this before. This is what Spotify is doing. In fact, that's the number one programmatic company. They, they own, they bought megaphone, which we use. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and it's it part of their Spotify span Spotify ad network. But I thought this was an interesting record, but it's a little inside baseball. So I won't podcasters are letting software pick their ads. It's already going awry. <Laugh> I love it. Let it go.
Jeff Jarvis (01:04:39):
You all, did you see that NPR is going? I didn't put this in the rundown, but since we're, since we're inside the baseball diamond right now, yes. They're going to put up a subscriber only material, the whole point of public media. Is it the whole
Leo Laporte (01:04:54):
That's disappointing. What? Public radio. Oh,
Cathy Gellis (01:04:59):
Jeff <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:05:01):
He's old timers.
Cathy Gellis (01:05:03):
Kathy point you to something that's in the rundown. No, but you should read the comment that NPR filed before the copyright office in the study of the ancillary, right? For news, I wanna get this you will not like it. Given what you just said, that the point of public broadcasting is that the public can get access to it and they are pushing for an ancillary, right? No, that would allow essentially a cause a statutory license to exist for, you know, any of these, what I call any these platforms or what I call audience facilitating services. That, yeah, I mean, they, they were very clear in the testimony. Well, you don't mean a link text. It's a link text. It's the idea that anybody is aggregating anything else on the internet to direct audience, to these other sites, how dare you do this? How dare you make money associated with it? That should be because we need the money too. And NPR came out in favor of, yes, we should totally have this scheme cuz we need money too. And I think it's
Jeff Jarvis (01:06:07):
Me tax. Sorry, what you call link tax. I call it Le threat. Yeah,
Cathy Gellis (01:06:11):
Because he likes to say that word.
Jeff Jarvis (01:06:14):
Cathy's your piece on this? I didn't know that this discussion was as far along as it was in this country. I thought it was only happening in Germany and the EU and Canada and Australia. But the lobbying power of old media apparently is working here too. Why don't you summarize if I maybe some old, since you brought it up and I think it's a wonderful piece. Oh your
Cathy Gellis (01:06:38):
Arguments. I mean, I oh our arguments arguments is, this is a terrible idea. Our arguments is that this is a completely inappropriate use of copyright. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> that the point of copyright is to make sure that the public has access to puts up walls to that. And it's economically infeasible, dumb, stupid cumbersome costly, and really detrimental to the financial interest of any smaller publications that exist in the long tail where any revenue that's gonna collect is gonna go to big players and small players. Aren't gonna get a significant piece of the pie. It, meanwhile, the services they depend on to have their expression reach audiences is not going to be able to get there because the services are gonna be disincentivized to provide the services of directing attention to anybody. You won't get the services, you won't get the platforms, you'll have fewer choices and you'll just be shouting in the wind with the, your own publication because you don't have those intermediating services to help connect you to audiences cuz they can't afford to because we decided to pick their pocket for how dare you actually make money, doing us a favor and giving us the audiences.
Cathy Gellis (01:07:51):
We have always said that we wanted needed in order to be viable entities economically. So this is killing the golden goose on a scale. If they actually go forward with it and really detrimental to anybody smaller who doesn't degree that that's in their financial or expressive best interest.
Jeff Jarvis (01:08:10):
I, I love that you put it this way in your argument is that you think you're doing something good here. You would think that we, a tech dirt would like this because oh, we wanna get paid for our stuff. But in fact you're hurting us and a tech dirt speaking for protect dirt and thus you're hurting the competition. You supposedly want to foster. So the big guys see previous discussion about regulatory capture are the ones who win and small guys and new guys lose. And so we all lose. We all lose our freedoms and this is just abhorrent that it's gotten this far. And I didn't know it. I, my blood pressure would be a lot higher if I'd known it. <Laugh>
Cathy Gellis (01:08:46):
Yeah, I had this ignorance sometimes is medically necessary BLIS, but the I mean at the testimony that they had, you know, there's on the one hand, they're like, well we need another Google. Google has too much power. And it's like, but you don't see that if you do regulatory schemes like this, you're salting the earth and making it impossible to have anybody go into the business of doing anything. That's gonna direct attention to any of these sites anywhere. Like you won't get your other Google you're you're gonna all a monopoly power essentially by stoking more monopoly power, just put it somewhere else. None of this is logical. None of this is rational. None of this is a good idea. It's undercooked and really rather greedy and entitled where the common theme was, how dare any of these based on giving us audience, if there's any money to be had by sending people to us, then that's our money and we need a piece of it. We're all of it's bad guys. This time. Sensible reason to think that.
Jeff Jarvis (01:09:45):
Sorry, Kathy, when we to be delays. Yeah, no, I mean, I can't hear you, so I oh yes, yes. I thought so. I apologize. I was not trying to cut you off
Cathy Gellis (01:09:52):
Though. I just, no. Tell me what you were saying about the, the bad guys.
Jeff Jarvis (01:09:55):
Well, so, so in the previous prior discussion about Facebook and its campaign to say, oh yeah, we're fine with doing two 30 that's regulatory capture on their staff. The bad guys in this case are big old media. In this case, the platforms don't wanna do this. They, they don't wanna ever be in a position of paying for what we use to call content. They don't wanna be paying for links but they get forced into it. And that's what happened in Australia where they say, okay, here's Bahi, we will bribe you into not pushing this law so far that everybody's screwed. And in that case, Facebook did the right thing more than Google by saying fine, we'll leave Australia. And, and so then now it's gonna happen in Canada. Now it's happening in the EU. And now it's happening here where it is big old media who never acknowledged the conflict of interest they have.
Jeff Jarvis (01:10:43):
When they cover the internet who see the internet as a competitor, they went after radio this way. They went after billboards this way, they went after television this way, and now they're just going after the internet this way, they way they always have they cash in their political capital to get protectionist legislation passed. And that's what's happening here. And it's my colleagues in big old media who are screwing you guys, you Leo too. And you Kathy and Mike at TEC dirt the, the small and new guys and, and it does, it affects all of our freedoms.
Cathy Gellis (01:11:14):
Well, it does affect everybody, but I wouldn't necessarily focus on just the big old incumbents there is that. I don't wanna say that that's wrong, but that's not a complete enough picture about the people jostling for this. Well, because you will see some of the smaller ones also thinking it's a good idea. I mean, this is really what we saw with music copyright, where you had a lot of big incumbent record companies and big incumbent artists who decided this, you know, having mm-hmm <affirmative> compulsory licenses would be good for them. And they sold a line to all the way down the spectrum to midsize and smaller where, oh yeah, this is good for you. You need this too. And so a lot of people who really don't realize the consequences are also calling up and asking for these things. So
Jeff Jarvis (01:11:54):
What about the buzz feeds and the boxes now that they're getting bigger and they're consolidating, are they basically just big old guys now or
Cathy Gellis (01:12:01):
Not? I don't know. I mean, this was really depressing. There were, you know, a lot of it also is there people aren't necessarily advocating directly. They're also advocating via organizations and the organizations are taking strange lines. Like I do find it weird. The at, you know, the news media in particular really needs the first amendment to function and, and pushing for any sort of law that has an anti first amendment consequence to it by chilling expression really seems like something they should be very careful about. And jostling in the copyright space is really not gonna pay off for them in the, the long run, because it turns a lot of barriers to expression. And this seems like the industry more than any others that you really understand how important it is not to have barriers to expression if you're going to be able to express yourself.
Jeff Jarvis (01:12:46):
So was this constitutional in the United States? Do do you think God knows what the courts we have now. So just imagine it's 10 years ago when we had courts and, and you have the opportunity to argue it. Do you think that a ancillary copyright in the us is constitutional?
Cathy Gellis (01:13:01):
Well, you, there's a couple ways to think about it. One, whether this is consistent with the progress clause itself, I think it's antithetical to promoting the progress of science and the useful arts that hasn't necessarily stopped copyright from developing and hardening and expanding over the years. However and the second bit is copyright also exists in tension with the first amendment, particularly as it starts to put barriers down. And well, we've kind of ignored that tension as well. I think it does stand, this is a very naked emperor and nobody's paying attention to the kind of conflict we're setting up up there's. So, so many people are so enamored with the idea that copyright can give people something that they have and why would they ever wanna let go of it? And it just blinds people to the reality of, well, what does it mean when that right is so long lasting impenetrable UNS, shareable, taking away from public domain, taking away from fair, use the effects on the internet with the D MCA and all the prior restraint that, that causes people don't look at the collateral damage because they've kind of bought into the, the idea that copyright was something that they could just have and how dare anybody take it away.
Cathy Gellis (01:14:07):
But this is a really modern development. It wasn't always like this. It wasn't supposed to be like this because now all of a sudden copyright is doing the exact opposite of what it was ever intended to do. It's shutting things down, it's slowing the sharing of ideas and information it's showing it's shutting down expression. And, you know, the constitution is kind of built around the idea that of democracy's gonna work. That's not the thing that should be happening. It should be the exact opposite. Well,
Jeff Jarvis (01:14:33):
I, I didn't realize until I started researching my Goldenberg book how much the origins of copyright in 17, 10, you're a legal scholar and I'm not, and I don't play one on podcasting, but I didn't fully realize how it wasn't the authors who fought for it. It was the public publishers who fought for it so that they had a tradeable asset so that they could acquire the copyright from the author and then they could sell it around. And they had an asset that, that, that, that could grow in value for them. It wasn't to protect authors at all. It was to create a marketplace. Well,
Cathy Gellis (01:15:06):
It wasn't like to correct. I mean, so before they had copyright, they had the Royal privilege licenses, forget how it's called. Yeah. The Royal print license where it didn't involve an author at all, but it basically was, could you print only if the king said so, and he wouldn't necessarily say so directly, but he would empower about four or five. Like the Royal stationers company. They were the people who were allowed, they had the license to print. So they decided what would be access acceptable to go into publication which was incredibly censoring. And as there were more democratic forces getting more leverage in, in England that that act kept expiring and eventually they couldn't renew it. So eventually they cooked up something called the statue van, which comes out completely differently where it's a statute for learning. And it did put rights in the hands of authors, where there was more of a personal ownership to it.
Cathy Gellis (01:16:08):
But the idea was something it really did shift in terms of its re language and all the, the packaging around it, that it was a statute of for learning, because we recognize the value in people having access to written information that people can then share. You I've heard what you've said before that actually this was sort of a cynical calculation by the people who just wanted to sort of make sure they got leverage under the new system. And this, this was the new system designed to make publishers do fine. And it really wasn't about the authors, but it was still in principle a much better thing for the public. And it really did sort of increase public discourse. People could go to pubs and talk about things cuz they could share their pamphlets with each other. And it really did have a sort, if you want democracy, this is the kind of thing you're gonna need to have.
Cathy Gellis (01:16:57):
So people are informed and able to exchange information. But it was limited. It didn't last forever. The rights were, you know, you get some exclusive rights, but the public could still do things. And as it was brought to the United States, it was brought over with the balance of what is what you need just to make sure you don't have market failure, cuz we wanna make sure that people are still producing written stuff. But that's all you need. The point of having this whole system is to make sure that the public gets access to all this knowledge. So if you create it a system that takes it away from the public, you're not doing what you were supposed to do. And it's not the way the copyright was written in the founding days of America at all. It's really divorced from what those principles were at this point.
Leo Laporte (01:17:43):
So this was all triggered by a, a phrase called answer. So Larry copyright, which I think is probably a term of art that isn't widely known by people in our audience. I don't wanna patronize anybody if you've been following this, I'm happy. Please patronize me <laugh> but, but I think Cathy and Jeff know what ancillary copyright means and now having read your pleading and, and, and, and listen to you. I understand it better, but, but we should explain this is by the way the copyright office asking for comment. I think the comments periods over now, right.
Cathy Gellis (01:18:22):
Today is a deadline for reply comment. Okay. So yes, functionally it's gonna be over. Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:18:27):
But they're asking for comment on the behalf of Congress, I, how first of all, is Congress considering modifying the copyright law in this way? Is that something they're actively considering right now?
Cathy Gellis (01:18:44):
Some yes. Where that is in terms of actually producing a bill. I don't know if the there's, you know, the, the turnaround time to go from this idea to something where we actually have to vote on it. There may be some amount of time. It may more
Leo Laporte (01:19:00):
Days more than that's the time to bring it up. There's a loves a
Jeff Jarvis (01:19:02):
Letter from
Leo Laporte (01:19:03):
People in the hill. It's legitimate because this has happened in Europe. In fact, you quote in in your brief, you quote this what happened in Spain and we've talked about this on the show before where the Spanish government said, no, no, Google, you've gotta pay money to newspapers. If you, if you put them in your search results, if you put their snippets in your search results, Google's response was fine. No Google news for you. And I think Spain capitulated, as I remember not, well only,
Jeff Jarvis (01:19:34):
Only very recently know, only in the last few two months, did, did a new law occur based on different European law that allows Google to go
Leo Laporte (01:19:43):
Back. So notion of ancillary, this notion of ancillary copyright is essentially saying we want to amend copyright law so that the, the newspapers, the publishers have some additional interest in what you do with it. And Jeff used the phrase link tax, which is sometimes what this boils down to is actually, if, if, if if Tector wants to write an article about an article in the New York times that the New York times would somehow share in the revenue, is that what we're talking about? Is that a fair way? Describe it.
Cathy Gellis (01:20:16):
Yeah. I mean, they're approaching it more from an aggregation standpoint. So, so they're not worried about tech for example, it's, well, they're not worried about teed at all, but it's, it's more you know, Google, Google news is the prototypical example. That's
Leo Laporte (01:20:30):
Who they're really worried about, about news. The big ticket aggregated. Yeah.
Cathy Gellis (01:20:34):
Well they want money, all these links. Oh, and yeah. Yeah. And so in fee when Google aggregates, then they can put their advertising up and they can make money from the advertising. As people aggregate on the other hand, it's then sending people to these other publication where they may bounce off because there's paywall. So like, you know, it's your fault. You're not making the money. You're not figuring out how to monetize your audience very well. And that doesn't mean that you should then go pick Google's project.
Leo Laporte (01:20:57):
I just, I understand. I'm just trying to break this down a little bit for people like me who didn't really follow it. <Laugh> happy to do something. Yeah. Yeah. So, so this, this, what, what they're considering at this point is what are the rights of these publishers when it comes to link aggregators like Google? Is there anything else, anybody else besides Google
Cathy Gellis (01:21:16):
Really well, they're mad at Facebook because Facebook people share links on Facebook. Okay. And so you get a lot of traffic from a Facebook link where you can potentially, and Facebook's in theory, also running some algorithms that are gonna sort whether things percolate up. So anyway, Facebook makes money when links appear on its site and how dare Facebook make money for having a link to my publication
Leo Laporte (01:21:39):
Here. So it they're, they're saying, should we amend copyright law in such a way that the copyright extends to somebody who links to your content,
Cathy Gellis (01:21:47):
They're using the idea that they might have copyright in it. So a lot of this study is also to examine doctrinally, whether you even would have a copyright interest in the short bits that actually do get shared the, the title, the link, or maybe the snippets blurb. Yeah. The snippets. It's an open question. Whether doctrinally, you would potentially have a copyright, but let's presume. Yes. Let's him. Yes. You could. Then the next question is, and what do you get to do with that? Do you have an exclusive right. To foreclose, somebody from reusing that in some way what, what constitutes use, that's what constitutes reuse this idea that you scooped up links and aggregated that, and now you're, you're presenting into you are on your page. Is
Leo Laporte (01:22:29):
This a major am of copyright law? Is this a big change? Would be,
Cathy Gellis (01:22:36):
I mean, yeah, it's a barrier it's sort of you're supposed to have an interchange of ideas. This is the point of it. And this is putting up a toll booth on the exchange of ideas. So we haven't seen that sort of toll booth before I, and part of it is because copyright developed in a world where we didn't have digital mediums. So you had physical scarcity of products and you could attach the exclusive rights that go into a copyright to the existence of a physical product. Things do get weird when you start having, yeah. This whole idea of
Leo Laporte (01:23:05):
Links and snippets is brand new. We've never had this right. Well,
Jeff Jarvis (01:23:08):
But, but, but two things there, there are analogs here. One is when copyrights started, news was not included, not included at all. It was intended for books and longer things. And so on news was not there. Second. Then the associated press tried to press what they called a hot news doctrine. Same as the newspaper industry tried to press this with radio and say, if I report something, the essence of it is mine for some period of time. And you can't replicate that. I mean, you certainly can't just copy. So if Walter windshield says report
Leo Laporte (01:23:39):
Of it, if washer windshield says Luci ball is a communist and the New York times publishes that the next
Jeff Jarvis (01:23:47):
Is that they would be, they would be liable over the hot news doctrine. They would've tried to argue that you can't do that. That's our
Leo Laporte (01:23:54):
Scoop. You can't publish it.
Jeff Jarvis (01:23:55):
Newspaper industry had an agreement, the built more agreement with the radio industry, the very early days where the radio industry was not allowed to repeat any news item for, I think it was 12 hours.
Leo Laporte (01:24:08):
Interesting.
Jeff Jarvis (01:24:09):
So this, so there was argument, I own the essence of this. So whereas what copyright always protects is only the treatment and the information in a free society. The information itself can never be owned, but now they're trying to change
Leo Laporte (01:24:21):
It that way. Oh, so that's interesting. So then the actual factual matter <affirmative> is not, what's been copyrighted,
Jeff Jarvis (01:24:28):
Never
Leo Laporte (01:24:29):
The way you've written it up and presented
Cathy Gellis (01:24:32):
It. Yes. Right. But there's always tension and copyright where the idea expression dichotomy, where actually, I think this is merger where basically you can't separate the two, there's only like the fact is the fact, and there's only so many ways of expressing the fact, the idea, what Jeff was saying is like the nonfiction bits of our life are not supposed to be subject to copyright. Copyright is supposed to be an original work of authorship. So it implies a certain degree of creativity. How you write your nonfiction facts could qualify for copyright, but not the facts, not the facts
Leo Laporte (01:25:01):
Themselves ever.
Cathy Gellis (01:25:02):
Right. So this is very doctrinally sort of a fraught. Yeah. Because then you get in the question of, well, copyright is now we threw and copyright and copyright is making things complicated. What's the effects of making things complicated. The effects of making things complicated is we're having some issues exchanging of our ideas now, because we don't know, is it copyrightable? Is it protectable? Does somebody own it to somebody not own it? How are we gonna have a usable conversation, the irony, and kind of the perverse irony of this push for this ancillary copyright is you know, you get, like some of the news organizations are talking about how we need an informed public and the informed public won't be an informed public if we don't have news businesses in the news business. So you have to make sure the news business is supported, but they're pushing for it to have a regulatory model that ultimately keeps the public away from the information that the news business is now producing well said. So we are going to, I
Leo Laporte (01:26:01):
Mean, and that was what Spain realized essentially
Cathy Gellis (01:26:04):
They didn't realize it. I basically was it was, I believe the, what happened was there was a local law that was really, really atrocious, Google pulled out. But then I think in EU law super preceded it and the EU law was a little bit more gentle. And so Google came back when the EU law ended up being the one that was operative. Exactly. So I don't think Google, I don't think Spain actually recanted. It just sort of became less of an issue. So it did hurt the publishers
Leo Laporte (01:26:29):
In Spain, the kind of the general principle that Google's making money off of our content. And we want a little piece of it. You, you could argue both ways on that, but the, but the, but your argument really is that it would be con sequential. It would be a bad thing for the general discourse and the general flow of information in society.
Cathy Gellis (01:26:49):
It just a, I wouldn't concede the first point. I mean, wouldn't idea. See, the first, I wouldn't concede that. Like, you know, I, and I've been thinking about it today. Like the, the, the plat, the internet platforms are being regarded as parasites in some way that they just suck from us, but it's like, no, they're not parasites. They're sys. They are giving you what you need. You need an audience or else doesn't the news
Leo Laporte (01:27:10):
Industry. Understand it, that it drives track. No, they, why don't they understand that they,
Jeff Jarvis (01:27:16):
They were adapted to that world. They're never adapt to that world. They only think of themselves as destinations that sell a product called content.
Leo Laporte (01:27:23):
Well, and by the way, model at a, at a curiosity, I think Google made a strong argument. We drive traffic, but our podcast, or Tector probably can make a much weaker argument that we drive traffic. We're just a parasite. We're,
Cathy Gellis (01:27:39):
You're not a parasite. I mean, you're like, you know, I sort of re I may never use that. It again, because the point I wanted to make is it's a Symbio. And, but that's not IMB
Leo Laporte (01:27:50):
The, but if I'm not driving traffic, if I'm not driving traffic to the news stories that we're, we're talking about, I'm not really a, Symbio
Jeff Jarvis (01:27:59):
The point of the news stories is just this, which is conversation in the public domain, in the public sphere. That is the point of it. No, that's not. The
Leo Laporte (01:28:07):
Point of is if you cut that off, you're missing the point entirely. The point of it is to drive traffic to our website. So you see our ads,
Cathy Gellis (01:28:15):
Well, nothing's gonna happen with this regulatory scheme because this regulatory scheme chills the environment. I mean, presumably how do you get people to come to your, like, what's, you're out there and you need an audience facilitating service to help bring you that traffic. And if all of a sudden that was audience facilitating services, but we
Leo Laporte (01:28:34):
Didn't need it before Google. We were, we were doing just fine before Google. No, no, no. I mean, we were in a, she survived in the form.
Jeff Jarvis (01:28:42):
You were at a tiny little shed then.
Leo Laporte (01:28:43):
No, no, I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about a newspaper. So a newspaper I understand they're upset. <Laugh>, you know, in the old days you didn't have Google to drive traffic to the newspaper. You bought it for a nickel.
Cathy Gellis (01:28:59):
Well, we're not in the old days. So it's only somewhat helpful to analogize that way. But
Leo Laporte (01:29:06):
But that, but what that what's from their point of view, what has happened is the world has changed. And all of a sudden there's these people taken low, taken
Jeff Jarvis (01:29:13):
My content. The postal service in the United States made it free, free for newspapers to exchange newspapers, which each with each other copyright was no not involved. There were editors called scissors editors. That would cut things out
Leo Laporte (01:29:24):
Of one. Now talk about the old days. This is Ben Franklin times, you're talking about now. And
Jeff Jarvis (01:29:29):
So I went, went and told the associated press. And so that was, that was done as a matter of policy of government policy to encourage the public discussion,
Leo Laporte (01:29:39):
But news. But I, I would submit that I don't think the New York times, maybe in their loftiest ideals say, we're, we're facilitating public conversation, but most sites we're, we're facilitating our revenue by creating content that you will come to see. Yeah. But if, if,
Jeff Jarvis (01:29:54):
If everybody they called up said, I'm not gonna give you a quote, unless you pay me for it. Yeah. Yeah. Which is basically what's happening here. Ah, that's good.
Leo Laporte (01:30:02):
Paul's a good analogy. There's a good analogy. Yeah. You're gonna use my quote to make money in your newspaper. What are you gonna give me? Yeah. That
Cathy Gellis (01:30:10):
Principle, that this sense of entitlement of, if you make money, I should have a piece of it is a really poisonous one that taken to its logical extent is really bad. And that's an example of it. That would be bad for the news of like, you can't get a quote, well, you're gonna make money. If that goes in your article and you have, you know, sell newspapers because there is a that you pay
Leo Laporte (01:30:31):
Me too, quote, there's a ti for TA you're. I, I, you know, people are sources for variety of reasons that benefit them. Nobody just says, well, I'm gonna money. Just hate
Jeff Jarvis (01:30:40):
Being sources. Cuz they get, they get misquoted and they get misunderstood and, and
Leo Laporte (01:30:45):
Yeah. Yeah, but
Cathy Gellis (01:30:46):
I, I mean, Jeff can speak to this better, but the journalistic ethics of paying your source are, oh no, probably a little, that's not good
Leo Laporte (01:30:52):
Fraud
Jeff Jarvis (01:30:53):
Actually. No it's changing. It's changing for this reason is when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. You know, if you go to a a professor and, and, and use their expertise and exploit that expertise and they get nothing for it and you've exploited them for that purpose, there is a school of thought that is now arguing that you should share at that level, if
Leo Laporte (01:31:18):
You're, if you go on CNN, you get paid, right.
Jeff Jarvis (01:31:22):
Or maybe not. Well, the individual contributors to contributors. Yeah. I, I was never a contributor in MSBC but right.
Leo Laporte (01:31:29):
So why did you go on and why did you give them the benefit of your expertise for, I have a huge ego. There you go. <Laugh> I mean, one of the things is,
Cathy Gellis (01:31:36):
Is it distills the quid pro quote to something that is so dollars and cents and presume that they're nothing else that you can get from it. And the, I idea we're talking about expression here. So people have interests of being heard, even if there was no economic upside people who are expressing themselves want to be heard, and this is an obstacle to being heard. Then it turns out that normally being heard is a critical first step to be able to monetize the things that you actually said. And this is also a barrier to that money actually existing. One of the problems that we have is that online monetization models are not quite ready for prime time at the moment. Online advertisement is creepy, invasive, not particularly fit for purpose. And so a lot of, a lot of I think online periodicals are having some issues, you know, making actually monetizing their stuff, but some can experiment with different sorts of monetization models and there's things to do.
Cathy Gellis (01:32:33):
And some of it is not that they're making no money, like all the advertising dollars, didn't completely dry up. They're of like needing to get reallocated a little here and some of this isn't, oh, we're not making money, but it's, we're not making all the money. And that's a completely different policy question and we're solving for, they're not making all the money and calling it. Oh, but they're not making any money at all. And I think, you know, just the economics of what problem we're trying to solve are not being well investigated. And I don't think are part of the study at the moment. And that's key. What are, we're presuming that there's really an economic failure here and we're not even understanding if that's true. And if, to the extent it's true, what is failing, how and what would be a much better way of fixing it if we actually have a problem to fix Kathy, I'm so
Leo Laporte (01:33:15):
Glad you're here. <Laugh>, I'm, he's been trying to get somebody to agree with him for so, so long boss' heart. No, I'm just teasing obviously, obviously. Well, this is something we care we care about, but I'm glad you could explain it a little bit more for yeah. Brilliantly. Explain it like I'm a fifth grader is basically my motto. Let's take a little break. It's great to have Kathy Gilles here.
Cathy Gellis (01:33:39):
You know, there no insult in that, but <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:33:43):
<Laugh> oh, no, I'm not. I hope not. We also have Jeff Jarvis, the problem is Jeff's a professor. So what happens sometimes is it becomes a collo, a colloque, you know, worthy of a graduate school of journalism and poor aunt. And I are going, I don't know what they're talking. You know what they're talking about? I don't know what they're talking. <Laugh> sitting there like this <laugh>
Cathy Gellis (01:34:06):
Well, as long as you don't feel like we're ganging up on you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Leo Laporte (01:34:10):
No, not at all. And I let it run, but my, my broadcaster instinct is going. Yeah, I know. I better explain this. You better explain this better. Explain this. So I, no, no, no. I'm so excited about the, and I don't know, I don't wanna patronize our smart audience either. Cuz I think they probably, but it's complicated and I wanna make sure the thing that I think launched it, which was the two words ancillary, copyright. I don't think people understood exactly. If you just said Leitz direct that really clarified it a lot. You tried it don't
Cathy Gellis (01:34:41):
Get tried that don't get lost than the technical term, because I can't quite explain where that came on, but it's essentially, we had copyright for a long time and this is sort of a bolt on that is changing what we always had in a way that I don't think we're completely anticipating the consequences of yeah. And it's,
Leo Laporte (01:34:56):
And it's something we talk about all the time, which is the tension between the new and the old and and you know, I mean we talk all the time about journalism and how to serve, how to save journalism and you know, whether this is necessary and yet at the same time obviously it's a technology network. So we, we kind of are on the side of technology most of the time, except except when it's me versus Jeff, then I'm the ludite am. Pruit is also here, hands on photography, our show today you take a little break and come back with a lot more. Our show today brought to you by cash. Actually, when I say brought to you by cash light, it's kinda literally brought to you cash cashle is our CD and our content delivery network. We've been with them for more than a decade.
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Leo Laporte (01:39:31):
That seems UN wrong to me. I mean yeah, so maybe mark and Andreson lost a bunch of money by the way, this market erased this tweet, but thanks to coach for bringing it back. This is from this is from some time ago I think it was 10 years ago. Mark said the ongoing veneration of scientific peer review is really question bull in a promotional promotional tweet for his investment, which didn't go so well. Now of course she'll be facing some SIG possibly. I don't know what she, what the sense will be, but it could be as much as 10, I think, 20 years per count. So thought
Ant Pruitt (01:40:15):
I saw up to 20.
Leo Laporte (01:40:16):
Yeah, it could, could be, it could be bad. It, should we celebrate this? Is this the right answer? I think it is. Yeah. Found guilty of four of 11 charges.
Ant Pruitt (01:40:33):
I'm not celebrating it until she's in there for more than two years, you know? Yeah. This, this is kind of stuff that I'm used to seeing where the rich continue to get richer or the rich continue to find a way to weasel out of their punishment. So yeah. I'll me in a couple years, she's probably
Leo Laporte (01:40:50):
Going if she goes to jail cause a country club jail anyway. Right, exactly. You know, like that's, that's not punishment man. Come on. But
Cathy Gellis (01:40:59):
I, I, I, any jail, any loss of Liberty is, is significant, significant deprivation. We shouldn't be too glib about. Hmm, sorry.
Jeff Jarvis (01:41:10):
You want, you wanna tackle Leos? I've heard an explanation, but you're, you're a council. Why did
Leo Laporte (01:41:15):
The, why did the jury go between the charges? You know, the, the investors got, got screwed over, but not the users.
Cathy Gellis (01:41:24):
Yeah. I don't, I don't know the answer to the question. It's not exactly my type of law and I didn't follow the trial closely, but basically one of the things that inform it is every charge has elements and different things that you'd have to prove. And it may just be that it could be technical. Some of the counts that she was charged on were easier to prove up than other ones were, which could, I don't know if that is the explanation. I have seen something on Twitter that suggested that might be what happened. And that, that
Jeff Jarvis (01:41:51):
What I heard was intent matter, that it was, was easier to prove in this case that she was trying to defraud the investors. It was hard to say that she was for whatever the evidence there was explicitly trying to defraud the users of the technology
Cathy Gellis (01:42:08):
That could well be for many criminal charges. Intent is an really important factor or that needs to be proven up and it may have been easier. And for some of these counts than others,
Leo Laporte (01:42:19):
Yeah. Three counts of wire fraud against specific investors, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud the other charges dropped or not guilty. Do you think she entered this attempt with the fraudulent intent or did it go bad after a while? Who knows? I guess we don't know. Oh, that's a good point.
Cathy Gellis (01:42:44):
I think the more interesting question was there's a, there's a Twitter fight happening surrounding a tweet by Benedict Evans. Where I think he was taking the other way, many had tweeted that basically, oh, this is Silicon valley ethos. And like it finally got like caught and he's like, no, that wasn't this isn't Silicon valley ethos. You know, this was more particular. And I think there's an open question of whether, you know, to what extent, cause we talked about this earlier with, with like innovators and followers. That is a certain point. I think there's just such a gold rush mentality towards, well, this thing worked. So you know, let's all have one. And, and if that happens, you get a lot of snake oil sales that keep getting offered and you know, was this a snake oil sale that went bad? Was it bad in any particular way or, you know, is this kind of what tends to happen in, and only this person got caught and I don't know the answers to that question, but I do know there's a lot of snake oil and you know, people probably lose money chasing it.
Leo Laporte (01:43:44):
Yeah. Evans was responding to a tweet by Fae Sadiki who tweeted the Elizabeth Holmes case was perhaps the highest profile test of whether the Silicon valley ethos taken to the extreme could withstand legal scrutiny. Now she makes history as the first Silicon valley CEO to be convicted of a white collar crime, to which evidence responds. I can't be bothered to go into this again, but no telling lies is not the Silicon valley ethos tolerance for failure. Yes. Bootstrapping yes. Unrealistic ambition. Yes. Lying. No, this is like climbing that Jason Blair was an indictment of the journalism ethos. Okay. That's fair enough. I
Jeff Jarvis (01:44:20):
Think that's yeah. I, I think, I think Ben as usual Ben's right. Like Kathy she's usually right. And Ben's usually right. But I, I, I think that there's a desire to say that this exhibits something about all of Silicon valley and all of technology, it's, it's Enron, it's, it's a, it's a fraudulent company. Whether however it got there, it ends up being a fraudulent country or layman brothers or, or, or whatever that, that went overboard. And, and it's not tied to technology. It's, it's an eternal story.
Leo Laporte (01:44:51):
Actually love the mistake. I love his subsequent tweet. The, he says the interesting Silicon valley angle on Theranos is that founders did not really participate in the Silicon valley system, but sold quote Silicon valley disruption to east coast investors who didn't know anything about tech or bio. I think that's who was on the Bo
Jeff Jarvis (01:45:11):
Henry kissing.
Leo Laporte (01:45:12):
George Schultz. Yeah. Right. General mad dog Madis. Yeah. It was all Easterners. <Laugh> not Silicon valley types. Yeah. Which
Cathy Gellis (01:45:21):
Is sort of interesting cuz they in theory should be sophisticated investors and yet they were defrauded it's it's kind of an interesting,
Leo Laporte (01:45:30):
Well, that's why they were perfect because they could be fooled, but they had credibility <laugh> yeah. It it's such a mess. It's just exactly what you want. Although, uhm, Sarah J also points out Tim Draper, Donald Lucas, Dixon doll, all invested in Theranos, including Larry Ellison. So there was Silicon valley money. There was the money that as, as well. So it's fascinating actually. Anyway it's a great story. If you haven't read the book absolutely must read and I think it's, I think the story, well, it's not quite over because sunny gets tried next. Although his strategy might change because I was apparently home strategy or home's attorney strategy to blame Sonny for it. <Laugh> actually, maybe it'll work even better now. Sonny can blame her and say, see, I told you it. Wasn't my idea. I guess we can do a little inside baseball. Ben Smith, the esteemed media columnist at the New York times leaves the new New York times to join. Is it Justin Smith? Justin Smith. Yep. Who is a no relation? No, no. Has a great track record Jones. Yeah. A Smith and Jones. Great track record TV reference for you. Kathy maybe. Yeah, boy, there's a, there's an old one. Don't don't worry about, I've heard of it. Yeah, no, don't worry. <Laugh> so I got nothing. Yeah. no. So tell us about Jeff's Justin Smith. Tell us
Jeff Jarvis (01:47:02):
About his Justin, Justin. I, I know in respect greatly, Justin was the the guy who brought the week magazine to the us for Felix Dennis, and did a brilliant and, and, and, and very unusual launch of the magazine. No news stands for example, and he made it work and he gave it a brand and it's really quite amazing. Then he went to the Atlantic where he brought it back from death. He was at the door knocking on hell's door and he brought it back and made it into the tremendous brand. It is, and also started
Leo Laporte (01:47:30):
Courts with some help with COVID, by the way, I think COVID helps Atlantic a lot.
Jeff Jarvis (01:47:35):
Well, that too, I think Atlantics, but I actually think the Atlantics does too many takes now, but that's another story. <Laugh> and then Justin went to Bloomberg for the last, I think, eight years where he sat directly across from Michael Bloomberg. I went to visit Justin more than once and, and, and, and the open space directly across from him and his job was to take the free parts of Bloomberg Bloomberg, you know, is the really expensive terminal. That's what Bloomberg loves the person, but to take business week, which they bought and the web and all this stuff, and turn it into a business. And, and he did, he turned into a major source of revenue. So now he and Ben Smith are gonna start something. And, and before we were on the air Leo and I were comparing notes about a new Yorker interview with Ben Smith, in which like his FIS. He said, absolutely nothing to value. It was actually
Leo Laporte (01:48:21):
Quite enjoyable. Claire, Claire Malone, writing in new Yorker, Ben Smith, can't say what his new media venture is. She, she leads by saying Ben Smith had a hunt to 44 unread text messages. When we talked for sometimes digitally distracted, 16 minutes, just just afternoon, yesterday, 15 minutes after we hung up, he responded to an email I'd sent asking if he'd like to talk, obviously <laugh> very busy, very I'm busy. I'm very busy. And it was a, it was great publicity, but he did not say what he wants to do. Except all
Jeff Jarvis (01:48:53):
They're saying is that they, they see a market in the 200 million college educated English, speaking people around the world. I believe there's an opportunity there. What the hell? That means I have no idea. It means they
Leo Laporte (01:49:04):
Was there going after the New York times is what it means. Well,
Jeff Jarvis (01:49:07):
Can they do it without?
Leo Laporte (01:49:09):
Yeah. And they do it without ancillary copy. Oh my God. No, no. Wow. This is what we call a callback. <Laugh> wait on that. I'll bring up Scott Baula. Yeah. <Laugh>,
Jeff Jarvis (01:49:22):
We'll
Leo Laporte (01:49:23):
Find a way. He made a quantum leap into a new form of journalism. Anyway, that's, it's probably pretty inside baseball, but the, but people who follow all of this are very interested to know, and it is in a way it's interesting to see a couple of people who've done very well for themselves decide to launch into journalism.
Jeff Jarvis (01:49:42):
Well, there is an online angle here too, which is the Ben has been Ben. Oh, I respect, oh, Ben's gone after me, but nevermind. He's very, very smart. And he did great things with Buzzfeed news. He left Buzzfeed before Buzzfeed went to its back and thus became public. He had tons of options and had vowed to get rid of those options. Cause it was a conflict of interest. He was the media critic at the New York times. Well, at many pointed out today that he managed to leave without having to do that because the buzz feeds back went, and God knows what his strike price was on those options. Poor guy. When, when presumes, he gets to keep the options now. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:50:24):
Good news. The I think in the ninth district court has ruled that the FCC actually has some engineering expertise. And in fact, when the FCC says, you know what we are not gonna give the telcos the six gigahertz spectrum, but we're gonna open it up for unlicensed use just as we did the wifi spectrum years and years ago the DC court said, yeah, you know what? They can do that. So that's good. We're moving ahead. And this actually is impacts wifi six E, which does use the six gigahertz band, but also opens up the band for a lot more interesting uses. Wifi has been kind of a incredible success story for on licensed unregulated spectrum at and T was really. <Laugh>
Jeff Jarvis (01:51:16):
That it must be a good decision
Leo Laporte (01:51:18):
<Laugh> yes, actually. I've been also enjoying the back and forth between at T Verizon and the federal aviation administration and the FCC. I can't tell who
Jeff Jarvis (01:51:28):
Was in the right and run on
Leo Laporte (01:51:29):
This one. Well, it's another one where the FCCS engineer said, no, 5g, go ahead. Do it. The telcos bought the spectrum. And then the FAA says, well, wait a minute, that's gonna screw up our altimeters. It's gonna make it aviation dangerous stop. Then the telco said, no, <laugh> Nope. And then, and then they said, yes, but we're not happy about it. We'll give you a couple of weeks. Although I liked the way they said, no, they said it's not our responsibility to make up for the antiquated altimeters used by some, some manufacturers they should get better altimeters, but, but, but, but, but I don't want a plane to come out of the sky either. So I think, again, this is a good case of where you, you know, the FCC for a few years was perhaps not the best scientific arbiter steward of our infrastructure steward of our infrastructure.
Leo Laporte (01:52:29):
But I think you can say, you know, I think that the circuit court was correct when saying they gotta, you know, somebody's gotta be in charge of this stuff. They got a lot of engineers Jessica Rosen, Wassel the new chairman of the FCC chairperson applauded the decision decision. She said, or she tweeted equals more wifi in more places. And it matters because it comes at a time when being connected is more important than ever. And I would agree, oh, let's see. Yesterday, the Blackberry end of an era, anybody still using a Blackberry, <laugh> not working stop working. Does Roger still is this up there in Canada? Yeah. Blackberry pivoted a while ago, they no longer make phones. They now make mm-hmm <affirmative> operating. They bought QNX and make operating systems for cars.
Cathy Gellis (01:53:19):
But my, my remembering, or is this decline of Blackberry tied to a really devastating path, a decision? Oh, I just remembering that. Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:53:28):
That's interesting. I think most people trace it to the rise of the, of the smartphone, particularly the iPhone Blackberry. I didn't really see that as a threat. And of course it completely put them out of business.
Cathy Gellis (01:53:40):
If I'm not MIS I, now I'm really curious. I'm I know there was something. And if that thing was as catastrophic against BlackBerrys, I seem to remember it being, that is an interesting thing that we shouldn't overlook when we think about the history of what happened to this technology. Hmm. Although now I'm just throwing like random rumors out. Cause I could be misremembered here from
Leo Laporte (01:54:02):
2006 is an article. <Laugh>
Cathy Gellis (01:54:04):
The story. That's what people do in for random speculations.
Leo Laporte (01:54:07):
<Laugh> that's us random speculation are us. <Laugh> I do have a story though, from I E E spectrum in 2006, the story behind the Blackberry case, a single filing with the us patent and trademark office in 1991 has caused one of the largest patent disputes in recent memory, threatening to sever more than the 3 million Blackberry subscribers from their wireless email service. And if I didn't have to click yes. On this cookie announcement, I would be able to read this article <laugh>
Cathy Gellis (01:54:38):
And we wonder why the publishers are having issues. Yeah. Really design your website so that they're readable when people can actually consume your content and then start complaining. If you know, you're still having issues.
Leo Laporte (01:54:52):
The DOJ got involved, they warned that disabling Blackberry service would harm the public. And at this time, every, every member of Congress, I remember I interviewed the chairman of the FCC, Michael Powell at the time he had a Blackberry. Everybody relied on blackberries. Yeah. I remember we used to manage to be Blackberry enterprise server. Yeah. Yeah. I love, and that's what went down by the way. That's what went went by by yesterday was all the Blackberry backend stuff. I, again, this is behind a pay wall, so I have no idea how this case ended, but <laugh> I I'm assuming that's what you, what you remember. I think you
Jeff Jarvis (01:55:29):
Owe the money now for even having mentioned it
Leo Laporte (01:55:31):
To say <laugh> right.
Cathy Gellis (01:55:32):
Yes.
Leo Laporte (01:55:34):
<Laugh> you know, honestly, if I say I EEE spectrum, that's a little plug for them. I off
Jeff Jarvis (01:55:41):
No, no, no, no. You've sold their, their it's like taking a picture in the jungle. You've stolen their soul
Leo Laporte (01:55:46):
For more information, subscribe to the I E E spectrum. And let me know what it says. Well, now you you're giving them
Cathy Gellis (01:55:52):
Free publicity. So like, and they're not paying you for
Leo Laporte (01:55:55):
The ad. So like, I try to, I try to always mention not only the, the, the, the journal, but also the third to give that author credit too. I always try to do that. Sometimes I forget, but for instance, and
Cathy Gellis (01:56:08):
Without a system of compulsory licenses, guiding your
Leo Laporte (01:56:11):
Behavior on this, right? Whatever that means, like shouldn't Ze extract. Exactly. Yes. There's this guy named Jeff Jarvis. I hope he doesn't mind me invoking his name. I,
Jeff Jarvis (01:56:22):
I, I put, if I think of what it is, I put it in here. Cause I,
Leo Laporte (01:56:24):
He says, I thought you'd like to make fun of me. He thinks this emoji is a whistling emoji. When everybody knows it's a kissing emoji.
Jeff Jarvis (01:56:33):
I, I only yesterday, why? Y I L I learned I've been using this again and again and again for whistling incredibly inappropriately. Is it a wow
Leo Laporte (01:56:46):
Seriously? You've been sending people kisses.
Jeff Jarvis (01:56:48):
Well, I've been, and I've been, I, I, I, the next, the next tweet there, I, I, I searched. I said, oh my God, what have I done? And it makes no sense. So I think I'm whistling, marking irony. Instead, I'm kissing now, by the way, in defense of myself, one does puck her up and blow. That's how you whistle. Yeah.
Cathy Gellis (01:57:08):
Well, some people can whistle through their teeth so they don't have to cover
Leo Laporte (01:57:11):
Future reference. I refer you to Emojipedia where you can not only find the emoji, but you can find the Unico,
Jeff Jarvis (01:57:22):
The
Leo Laporte (01:57:22):
Bad emoji unicorn can description the text. Cause they have a, they have a text description of the emojis. So it's like, I need
Jeff Jarvis (01:57:33):
Clippy to explain the emojis to me.
Leo Laporte (01:57:35):
<Laugh>
Cathy Gellis (01:57:36):
You, you look like you're trying to
Leo Laporte (01:57:37):
Offend somebody. The emoji, let me find somebody calling my a Sergeant here. It is. It says kissing. No it's whistling. And, and right next to it, by the way is the other one, which is face blowing a kiss and it has a little heart on it. So I think I think you in the court of public opinion, you have failed. I confessed.
Jeff Jarvis (01:58:00):
I screwed up. Yeah. <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:58:05):
It's like the grandma who kept tweeting FML to her daughter who said, what do you know what FML means? <Laugh> and it was something like, find my life jacket. I don't know. <Laugh> that's not how, exactly the story, but it was close enough. You get the gist. Well, LOL, lots of love was laugh that loud, but that's not dirty. You gotta have some,
Jeff Jarvis (01:58:33):
That was a case with a Murdock executive and a prime minister of England where their, their texts became public and LOL was used. And, and he thought it was
Leo Laporte (01:58:44):
Lots of love. Wait a minute, wait a minute. This just in a direct reference to the emoji, PGA kissing face with smiling eyes, sometimes taken to represent whistling, especially when paired with ause musical note, you needed to pair it with a musical note. You needed note, sir. And then everyone would know if has
Jeff Jarvis (01:59:08):
To, if come with a user manual that it's not a good emoji. I
Leo Laporte (01:59:12):
Repeat. It may convey such feelings as surprise, admiration, contempt, or fainted innocence as a person with hands casually whistling after wrongdoing, as if saying nothing to look at here. I think of
Cathy Gellis (01:59:27):
Also with Jeff, this isn't not only is it not an effectively universal way of communicating an idea, but it wouldn't, it also be how I'd illustrate somebody, an an emoji blowing a kiss
Leo Laporte (01:59:38):
As SIG Freud once said, sometimes an eggplant is just egg plant.
Cathy Gellis (01:59:43):
<Laugh> well,
Leo Laporte (01:59:44):
That's not an emoji. I believe he, I believe he said that. Oh, it is obviously, oh, it is. No, it is obviously you, you don't enough text messages from gentlemen callers. So we won't go into that. Let's let's, let's play the drums. My ignorance
Cathy Gellis (02:00:00):
Really is what,
Leo Laporte (02:00:02):
Yes. You're not missing anything. Kathy, trust me, let's play the music and do our Google, Google change law. Kathy, you can ignore this. This is just something we do. I don't know why we do it. We do it keep it's
Jeff Jarvis (02:00:15):
Happy. Cuz we keep on talking
Leo Laporte (02:00:16):
About other things it's supposed to be about Google. So here's the part of the show, which is actually about Google a nine to five Google reports. Google is just like everybody else working on AR smart glasses with a new project. So that's really not a change log story, but just, you know, it's appropriate because it got rid of it
Jeff Jarvis (02:00:37):
That way you, you managed to
Leo Laporte (02:00:39):
Get it on the record and this one's for you. Jeff Jarvis, Google is subject to new, tougher supervision by German regulators.
Jeff Jarvis (02:00:48):
Like they weren't on their already.
Leo Laporte (02:00:50):
They have now officially invoked the there's a five yes. Surveillance period. People be watching because yeah, the nation's federal Hartel office, which probably has a great German name, which I don't know. The watch talk can now step in earlier and band practices at deems anti-competitive Google's quote paramount significance for competition across markets. And the fact that it's economic cloud is insufficiently controlled by competition prompted the ruling. It's not very much
Jeff Jarvis (02:01:24):
For the buns
Leo Laporte (02:01:25):
Cartel app Bunes cartel app says we have, they started to look into Google's processing of personal data and to deal with the Google news showcase issue. There you go right there. The Google news showcase issue showcase in more detail. So watch out Google the, what is it though? As Cathy, maybe getting a few trips to Germany coming up. <Laugh>
Cathy Gellis (02:01:50):
I actually did a semester of law school in Germany, so that
Leo Laporte (02:01:53):
Fine. Do you speak German?
Cathy Gellis (02:01:55):
Of course. I got to a point where I could function and I won an argument with Deut Shaban, but then I came home and it didn't it didn't step didn't, but yeah. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (02:02:05):
But that's good. We should add that to our lower third, won an argument in Deutsche DEU, shaman. Google has purchased a company called I don't know how you say it. CPL amplify. Sure. For cloud security, all the good names are taken. Apparently C S I E M P L I F Y 500 million sch smackers half a billion dollars. So I should probably know what C amplify does something with security, something. Oh, I'm not in the change log section. You're looking in the change log <laugh> thank you for that editorial advice. And now the Google. It was all Google. Now the Google change log where OS
Speaker 5 (02:03:00):
Change laws
Leo Laporte (02:03:02):
Now even longer than before, whereas will soon be able to unlock Chromebooks and Android phones and tablets from your watch. Actually that's a feature apple has on its iPhone and in this day and age of masking it's much needed. I really appreciate it, Android. There it is. There's an Android watch. You probably have never seen one before, but that's it. Android automotive is getting a YouTube app and more control over cars. Chrome. I'm just gonna run right through these Chrome. If you, if you want me to stop, if you've got any interest in any of these stories to stop Chrome cash built in coming to bows, as Google works on he phone auto switching and spatial audio that's spatial. Okay. Fast pairing. We actually talked about this on windows weekly. This is something windows user is excited about. It's kind of like, I think Bluetooth El fast pairing, coming to Google TV, Android TV, and all matter, compatible smart home products.
Leo Laporte (02:04:08):
So, you know, when you open your air pods and the iPhone says, oh, you want me to pair with those? It's like that. It's fast. They're also bringing nearby share and fast pair of windows. Pcs ChromeOS is getting a quick setup via Android ability to reply to phone chat apps. And this is also for fast pairing. That'll be, oh, that's actually, that's an important one. You should show that one. The, yeah, the big one. Pixel six pause. We actually, I think we we scooped this one. Not based on any info from Google, but reporting or anything. No, no, we didn't. We wouldn't do any reporting on this, but I read it. I saw it on Reddit. Does that count
Ant Pruitt (02:04:51):
That count, sir?
Cathy Gellis (02:04:52):
You've AED a link. How
Leo Laporte (02:04:54):
Dare you a link? Yeah, it's, all's all ancillary copyright all the way down. The the Google pixel update, which was supposed to come out in December didn't I hypothesized that it was because the people who did get it early had all sorts of connectivity issues. Google now confirms that they say the December update, which has all lot of new features. It's a feature drop plus security update. Plus bug fix is gonna come out in the next couple of weeks. So it'll fix a whole bunch of stuff. I got the new pixel stand and, and the, you know, the pixel stand stuff doesn't work yet either. So come on, man. So that's coming and they confirmed our suspicion that it was really because of connectivity issues. Google photos has seemingly according to nine to five, Google removed the option to separate video backup over cellular from photo <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:05:52):
I don't know what that means, whatever that means. Google delist faulty. December 20. We already said that Android 12, January security patch has come out though for some people, at least on the three, a four, four, a four, a 5g, five and five a again, you pour pixel six people. You're just gonna have to wait. But the security update will come with everything else all at once. But everybody else with older pixel phone getting that security update. Yeah, we're on Jeff. You and I and, and aunt too. We're all pixel six pro users. We're on the November security update. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (02:06:28):
Yep. Kathy, what are you hearing patiently? Where
Cathy Gellis (02:06:32):
You pack it a pixel, but not that one.
Leo Laporte (02:06:36):
Oh, okay.
Ant Pruitt (02:06:39):
I knew you liked you. I knew you, your a pixel person. She's quite right. Let's not to like a person, not an iPhone.
Leo Laporte (02:06:43):
You. Yeah,
Ant Pruitt (02:06:45):
She's quite
Leo Laporte (02:06:45):
Alright. Apparently the sixties will get the update in the next couple of weeks and that's the Google change along. That was nice. That was fast. That was good. I like that. <Affirmative> I'm love,
Ant Pruitt (02:07:00):
You did leave out something though regarding the, the AR developments with Google. It should been, tell me more like they're working on this AR development for now
Leo Laporte (02:07:11):
Cuz you know, they just, until they stop months
Cathy Gellis (02:07:14):
Until they stop. Well, let's see. Do they hire all the Facebook engineers? Oh
Leo Laporte (02:07:19):
Who? Yeah. There there's 300 people looking for, looking for somewhere to go. Jeff's you should have saved this for your product of the week. The new Lego Gutenberg printing press. This is an appeal.
Ant Pruitt (02:07:32):
I want everyone to go
Leo Laporte (02:07:33):
Vote for this. Oh, this is an idea. This is an idea.
Jeff Jarvis (02:07:36):
I like this now has 2,525 supporters. Everyone on. If you love me, if you love me TWIs, go and vote for the Gutenberg Lego press cuz you know, it'll make me happy.
Leo Laporte (02:07:49):
Wow. They already have a thousand supporters. Let me just, can I just, do I have to sign a in or deciding
Cathy Gellis (02:07:56):
That's compelling, but what's the what's the competition?
Jeff Jarvis (02:08:01):
Probably a tactal or something. I don't know. <Laugh>
Cathy Gellis (02:08:04):
I mean, it might be like, that's really great Jeff, but the other thing,
Leo Laporte (02:08:07):
You know? Yeah. It's your fault. Hey, let's pause. He's what I liked you
Jeff Jarvis (02:08:10):
<Laugh>
Cathy Gellis (02:08:11):
I'm just hypothesizing. I'm just
Jeff Jarvis (02:08:13):
Hypothesizing. You are a lawyer after all
Leo Laporte (02:08:16):
Jeff, when you were a TV critic, did you review quantum leap?
Jeff Jarvis (02:08:21):
I can't remember. I think I might have, what year was that? Let's
Leo Laporte (02:08:23):
Go to the TV guides. Oh, late eighties. I'm gonna just log into my Lego account while I, while we're rebooting.
Jeff Jarvis (02:08:30):
<Laugh> you have a Lego account.
Leo Laporte (02:08:33):
Oh, sorry Jeff. No time.
Cathy Gellis (02:08:37):
<Laugh> this is like Jimmy Kimmel. Not bringing on Matt. Damon.
Leo Laporte (02:08:42):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. We've run outta time, Matt. I should start doing that. <Laugh>
Speaker 5 (02:08:52):
Thanks for listening to TWI. Do you want customized host red ad that stand out then the TWI network is the perfect place for your next advertising campaign. If you are tired of forgettable ad reads and want an authentic introduction of your products and services, then reach out today. TWI ads are compelling, specialized in all of our shows include video, which means we can show off products, websites, and customize videos, visit twi.tv/advertise and launch a tailored campaign. Now that's twi.tv/advertise.
Leo Laporte (02:09:24):
I don't know. What do you pick some of these? I think
Jeff Jarvis (02:09:27):
I thought that aunt might enjoy AUMs leaf. I put that in there for him
Leo Laporte (02:09:31):
Aums. Leaf's the mystery of an iPhone. So this is an interesting story. And, and I'm, and it's kind of maybe maybe not as good as we thought it was Mitch Cohen tweeted. I snapped a photo of a group of people outside today and my iPhone with its, you know, computational photography placed one woman's head with a leaf <laugh> and, and it does look like that. Cuz you could see the outline of her head. You could even see some hair are here, but then there's all these leaves all
Jeff Jarvis (02:10:00):
Her face. All her, her flesh tone face is a leaf, a brown. And
Leo Laporte (02:10:06):
It kind of stands to reason with computational photography. The iPhone is using all three lenses to, to compose that picture. And you know, it might have just made a mistake in milliseconds. Yeah. Within the milliseconds that you even hitting the shutter. So yeah. So he reported this on Twitter and then got a bunch of people looking at it and here's a crop. So you can see the photo. It does look like the guy photos put a leaf in this woman's face <laugh>, but
Cathy Gellis (02:10:37):
I think it's the, it's the Roshak filter like maybe. But do you see when you look at it?
Leo Laporte (02:10:42):
Yes. Do you see a leaf? They call, I see a puppy. He submitted it to Sebastian Dewitt who created the Haylight app. Who's really a camera. A, he probably knows more about how the iOS cameras work. And he said, so Sebastians said, could you sentence this original image to me and any images before and after? And this, this is the subsequent tweet on new year's Eve, which gave us all something to do instead of <laugh> Anderson Cooper. Big news. I said, by the way, Andy Cohen, his co-host on that is now apologizing for his yeah, his drunken. He,
Jeff Jarvis (02:11:22):
He was overserved. Bring back Cathy alleg. He was
Leo Laporte (02:11:27):
Overserved. Did you watch it? Did you watch it at one point Andy Cohen saying, look at married of Blasio day dancing. He shouldn't be dancing. He ruined this city get off of my stage. It was wild. Did you watch it Jeff? As a new Yorker? I think you'd not live. No. Yeah. Gosh, pretty wild. Anyway, back to the other Cohen Mitch Cohen, he says big news. I sent at St. W the original image. He theorized a leaf from a foreground tree, obscured the face. I didn't think anything was in viewing the closest tree as a Japanese maple, but he's right. So he shot another video that he think I'm still suspicious. But he says, this video shows that there's the leaf right there in the per getting the, a perspective and that maybe the leaf was actually in the shot and the iPhone didn't screw up. So really it's a ridiculous, this is your
Cathy Gellis (02:12:24):
First conversation.
Leo Laporte (02:12:26):
The iPhone still screwed up. <Laugh> well,
Cathy Gellis (02:12:28):
I, but this is your first conversation about like all the consumer technology and can it be better in theory this better? It caught more detail. And yet it was something at the same time.
Leo Laporte (02:12:39):
<Laugh> that's a good point. It did what I was supposed to do. Really. Really well. Not what you wanted though, right? Exactly.
Cathy Gellis (02:12:47):
Yeah.
Jeff Jarvis (02:12:48):
So Leo. Yeah, I think I found two, two count. 'em Two spectacular TikTok this
Leo Laporte (02:12:55):
Week. Oh man. Gosh. So I have to apologize in advance to Kathy that somehow we've got this new thing where we play TikTok.
Jeff Jarvis (02:13:06):
I I'm telling you. You're gonna thank me.
Leo Laporte (02:13:08):
You're gonna thank you. Wanna do TikTok T the TV's mom's report her sons through to T EA. Okay. Let's let's watch and
Jeff Jarvis (02:13:20):
Describe it for your
Leo Laporte (02:13:21):
Audience on audio. So let's let's let's put the audio on so we can, we can also hear it. You will, babe. That's the wrong one. That's the wrong one. Okay. Is it this one? Well, I guess we're not gonna do T is it this one? That's not it. Well, I just clicked your link. Oh, hell it didn't work. Okay. But try the TV. You put, you put this. I screwed up. I did. I screwed up. Go to the next one. Well, let's now you now I wanna know don't do those. No, don't do that. Don't do those. Okay. Well the boot one is okay, but don't do that one. An extra TV reporter moms. By the way, part of the reason you script is cuz you're watching TikTok on Twitter. That is definitely ancillary copyright violation right there. <Laugh> I'm definitely not helping this salt. Do not be watching the TikTok on Twitter. So this this is I did see this one actually she's a, this is good. It's kind of sad. She was a TV news reporter who quit her job to become a mother. And apparently the job can't quit. Her
Speaker 6 (02:14:23):
Kay well Sullivan reporting lying from outside my son's bedroom where he's currently being detained until naptime is over. Now this story doesn't involve a minor. So I can't release specifics. But what I can confirm is my son is a two year old terrorist who held me hostage at the olive garden earlier today. It's important to note the friends I met there do not have children and likely never will. After witnessing this situation,
Leo Laporte (02:14:48):
<Laugh> this is
Speaker 6 (02:14:49):
An active investigation, but authorities believe the pro opera precautions were taken. I brought my son's favorite snacks and even risked judgment from other moms by bringing an iPad, but not even coconut could have stopped this meltdown after several cries, demanding catch up Jack up a good Samaritan waitress. Miraculously understood it as the English word ketchup and brought him about. Unfortunately he was later punished after he threw a ketchup covered fork at her. <Laugh> not all the shows their cakes, but this one should have worn an apron. You know, these toddler outbursts are becoming increasingly common as more and more parents try out the new craze, gentle parenting, and completely suck at it. Keep trying back to you.
Leo Laporte (02:15:36):
I love it. You could take would great. You could take the woman outta the newsroom, but you can't take the, but it's also a great mockery of all television, local televis televis. Oh totally. And she's got the voice. She's got it down. She's you know, that
Cathy Gellis (02:15:48):
Was so much better than what I thought it was going to be. Cuz this just had flashbacks to when Rudy Giuliani was mayor and he was married to the anchor woman, Donna Hanover and his son like made faces and behaved really poorly at a press conference. And I thought it was going to be
Leo Laporte (02:16:03):
That <laugh> I'm actually I've I've experienced that myself. I Leo, what? Leo scroll down one on the, on the TikTok T I think, I think you did that a purpose. No, I clicked. Watch, watch then scroll down one, click the link. The link brings me here down one. Scroll, go down one more. Here is this it? There it is. All right, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I give you TikTok tea. She's got a teabag. The tea is in the tea bag. The tea looks like teabag looks like a shirt. She spills the tea. She's going through all of the tea bags. Now sewing them into a mask. Yeah, don't play the music. I should take the music off. That's a ancillary, a copyright violation right there. And she has made herself a TikTok teabag shirt. <Laugh> that gets in the hot tub and SOS.
Ant Pruitt (02:17:01):
Oh
Leo Laporte (02:17:01):
My God. In June tea. Wasn't that worth it. Wasn't that worth it. But no, now we're gonna get taken down. So no
Jeff Jarvis (02:17:08):
What's your fault. Yeah. Had the sound up.
Ant Pruitt (02:17:10):
The mom reporter was much better than that one. Oh,
Leo Laporte (02:17:14):
I thought no, no it's not. It's the background music. I think that whoever owns that music is gonna be unhappy.
Cathy Gellis (02:17:21):
No, I think we're saying that the quality of that. Well, no, that was good. But the, the,
Leo Laporte (02:17:26):
The mom, you don't have to suck up. You don't have to suck up to Jeff. It's a, okay. No <laugh>
Jeff Jarvis (02:17:31):
Everybody
Leo Laporte (02:17:32):
Kicks me here. That's what they do so well, you know, Deion, Warwick.
Ant Pruitt (02:17:37):
Oh
Leo Laporte (02:17:38):
Man. Deion Warwick. I love her. She's older these days and a little bit salty. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> apparently got into a Twitter battle with Oreo cookies. <Affirmative> so she tweeted Oreo. Hello. <laugh> which, by the way, you don't have to do that on Twitter. I just want to tell our older viewers what is your weirdest flavor? What are y'all doing the most? The one flavor was fine. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>
Ant Pruitt (02:18:10):
<Laugh>
Jeff Jarvis (02:18:11):
I think if you click on that, she was, she was commenting on a specific
Leo Laporte (02:18:14):
Flavor. Yeah. Now, now wait a minute.
Jeff Jarvis (02:18:21):
I just messing up all
Leo Laporte (02:18:22):
The time today. Aren't you? I'm just gonna, I'm messing up today. Twitter's not now, by the way, she's changed. I love this her Twitter profile picture to be her holding a stack. Got giant Oreos. <Laugh> <laugh> so so apparently this is, this is going on for a while. Let me see if I can find the original tweet here. Where is it? Is it give me some direction, Jeff?
Jeff Jarvis (02:18:50):
Well, in that story, it should have been the there.
Leo Laporte (02:18:52):
Yeah, it wasn't she okay. Nevermind. She's she's I think she's hysterical. Oh, she's on
Ant Pruitt (02:19:00):
The Twitter. When the pandemic started her and I believe it was like her younger niece or somebody told her to just start, it just started to blow up it's random. And so just genuine
Leo Laporte (02:19:12):
About everything it's actually made her a star again. She's of course famous singer singer. Yeah. She was on, I don't know if you saw there's a Saturday night life impressionist that does her. And she came on the show, which was awesome. Let me, let me see if I can get this. It's also
Jeff Jarvis (02:19:29):
Her, her, her bio on, on Twitter is just, I am not writing a bio. <Laugh> love the
Leo Laporte (02:19:36):
Better than a high level. Not, not writing a bio. Here it is. Here's the original tweet. No, I am. Hello. What is your weirdest flavor? Why are y'all doing the most? The one flavor fine to which Twitter responds. Well, this is fun or Oreo responds. I'm sorry. Oreo responds. Well, this is fun. Hi everybody. Is there a thread here?
Jeff Jarvis (02:19:57):
Then she came back and she continues. Get
Leo Laporte (02:20:01):
Em, the story. All right. Let me click
Cathy Gellis (02:20:03):
The story continues cuz they sent her a very aggressive flavor of Oreos. What flavor?
Leo Laporte (02:20:11):
And
Jeff Jarvis (02:20:11):
<Laugh> it was like,
Cathy Gellis (02:20:14):
You know, let's just leave it. I think that that's the categorization.
Leo Laporte (02:20:18):
After asking Oreo to stick to the original flavor, they sent me these outrageous items as a response Java chip flavor cream Oreo, and a flavored lip Bal <laugh>. Oh boy. But we know about this cuz when it was Android Oreo Jason's right. A company on all about Android every week would have a new Oreo flavor and we would have the remnants in our kitchen for days after that. Cuz no one wanted to, you know, fruit loop flavored Oreos. It was instinct, steaming the carpet from them baring after episodes. Oh man, what a mess? What a mess. She says I will be retaliating in a later date. And in fact I think she then went on the today show the
Jeff Jarvis (02:21:01):
Show. That's what, that's where they, they, they gave her the huge Oreos
Leo Laporte (02:21:04):
Of the today show and, and so those aren't Photoshop. Those are, those are real S what you said. I think that
Jeff Jarvis (02:21:11):
The story dude, that looks
Cathy Gellis (02:21:12):
So shocked. <Laugh> but, but I think you cruise past the most important bit, which was that line I shall be retaliating at a later date is perfect. Yes. That is the best line. It's now the mantra for like everybody. I know
Leo Laporte (02:21:26):
That I'll be retaliating at a later date. Good day, sir. I said, good day. I said, good day. <Laugh> all right. There's the, there's your Dion Warwick update for the week. Stacy will be back next week and she will let her talk then about her flick buttons, which yeah, I thought she was on this week. She's all, all over the flick buttons. She's big fan of those. We'll save that. Anything else? From this long list, poor, poor, Kathy, just can't wait to get outta here. I'm sure I
Cathy Gellis (02:21:59):
Have nothing to say about flick buttons. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:22:03):
But Kathy does have
Jeff Jarvis (02:22:05):
Of the weight. Oh, I was subs for Stacy. I gotta come up with something about a flick button. Get ready. I wanna give a little credit here. Cause I I've been worried about wired magazine. I think wired magazine been going
Leo Laporte (02:22:15):
To right. Get ready here. I read this war panic. I read this and was underwhelmed.
Jeff Jarvis (02:22:21):
You were underwhelmed. I was actually happy.
Leo Laporte (02:22:23):
I knew you would be when I read it, I thought, oh, Jeff's gonna love this because wired traditionally has been techno optimist, right? They've been, they've been very excited about technology. That's why they were founded back in the, you know, the early days of the internet, 1993. Well, practically that is the thirties practically. In fact in this piece giddy and Lichfield, who's the current editor in chief rights when wire was founded in 1993, it was the Bible of techno utopianism. We chronicled and champion inventions that we thought would remake the world. All they needed to be was released, unleashed our cover, featured the brilliant Renegade, mostly wealthy white and male geeks who are shaping the future reshaping human nature, making everyone's life more efficient, but then like TWI and everything else. The real world <laugh> impinged and wired, starting to get pretty negative. Right? Is that
Jeff Jarvis (02:23:24):
Quite negative? Yes. Under, under Gideon, under Gideon, I love Gideon. Gideon's a great, guy's brilliant editor, but I was worried about wired
Leo Laporte (02:23:32):
This of war between optimism and pessimism is the reason why I said this feels like an inflection point in the history of tech, but then that term inflection point falls into the binary trap. He doesn't wanna do the, he said, she said, you know, on the one hand, on the other hand,
Jeff Jarvis (02:23:48):
It's either is either it's one extreme or another.
Leo Laporte (02:23:50):
It's not binary. We have to reject this zero or one logic. But that's when I became disappointed because instead of he just, he basically said, well, we gotta do both, which is like, mom, fine, <laugh> take it. But it's have a point of view guy,
Jeff Jarvis (02:24:09):
But it, but it's, it's, it's what he, what he comes around to, which is what I'm trying to work on these days too, is that, is that he pay attention instead to the big problems or I would also say to the big opportunities and, and not just the technology, how is technology being used that it is about human beings. It's not about wire is and Silicon. And so it could be interesting to see what he does with this. We'll see,
Leo Laporte (02:24:31):
He says, I'm not worried. We'll be critical, but not cynical, skeptical, but not defeatist. We won't tell you what to think about the future, but how to think about it. That's
Jeff Jarvis (02:24:41):
A little overboard right there, but
Leo Laporte (02:24:43):
Well, that's when I read that, how is,
Cathy Gellis (02:24:45):
Is something sounds like a publicist. Yeah. Well, that's what I was saying before. Like we have problems. You can't say we don't have problems, but you really need to understand them if you're going to fix them. So, you know, good nuance and tearing apart, the issues correctly is, is important. I don't know if that's what he's promising, but you could read that that way. He's
Leo Laporte (02:25:04):
He? And, and this point I do agree with, he says our stance is neither optimism nor peso, but rather the belief that it's worth persisting, even when things seem hopeless, <laugh> he then says, I call it Greta Berg optimism. But whatever the story, you should find something to learn from it. And ideally the inspiration to make a positive difference yourself. Yeah. It's, you know,
Jeff Jarvis (02:25:26):
I, I'm not, I, it could have been a lot worse <laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:25:30):
You could have said it's all crap. The whole, world's going a hell in a hand would everything, if we
Jeff Jarvis (02:25:35):
Just turn off the internet.
Leo Laporte (02:25:36):
Yeah. Well, I mean, we we're always juggling those. I mean, for the last, you know, seven years, this show has been juggling. How do we feel about it? You're you've always been kind of the, take the, the techno cheerleader.
Jeff Jarvis (02:25:52):
No, the freedom, the cheerleader of the freedoms we
Leo Laporte (02:25:54):
Have there. Yeah. And I've always in as a result, cuz I kind of agree with you, but as a result, I've taken the opposite side just to make it a balanced conversation. Troll me. Yeah. Just to troll you. Well, that's the truth. I actually,
Jeff Jarvis (02:26:07):
When I was at Conde Conde, which Owens wired at one point when, when, when mobile phones became big, I suggested we rename it unwired <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (02:26:17):
You know, I wired is a very different magazine from the day it was started by Louis roo. Oh yes. And it was kind KKI magazine and the intentionally illegible you know, that was part of the, you know, the, the kind of the the look and feel of wired. It's very different magazine. It got to be a glossy tech mm-hmm <affirmative> magazine, which is kind of boring too. So yeah. Good. I thanks for the good. No, I'm glad actually glad you brought up. I, I actually bookmarked it as well. Cause I thought we should talk about it, but now let's take a break. And when we come back picks of the weekend. Yes. Kathy has one. I'm excited. Ooh. And, and no, it doesn't have there's no Scott Baula involved at all. Although it could be actually, now that I look at it, <laugh> our picks of the week. Let's let's give you the pride of place now. You're gonna get me in trouble. Can I play this? What do you think?
Cathy Gellis (02:27:16):
Oh my not your lawyer. I can't vouch for it. Oh, great.
Leo Laporte (02:27:20):
Pass the buck.
Jeff Jarvis (02:27:22):
Just like a lawyer
Leo Laporte (02:27:25):
Lewis in the news a hundred years from now. We'll just cut it out. What should I talk
Cathy Gellis (02:27:30):
About it? Do you, do you
Leo Laporte (02:27:31):
Love Huey Lewis in the news is that
Cathy Gellis (02:27:33):
I do this usually comes up in like the first five minutes that people know me, but you've now know me for two hours. It's about time. So
Leo Laporte (02:27:40):
You're from this area. <Laugh> so I'm gonna, I'm gonna assume this comes from a deep, early relationship with Huie and the band
Cathy Gellis (02:27:49):
Deep early, but I'm not from this area. I'm from New Jersey. Oh. But yes,
Jeff Jarvis (02:27:53):
Another reason I knew I liked you. Okay.
Cathy Gellis (02:27:57):
No, I've, I've been a huge fan since, for most of my life. It very much so being a fan sort of was a vehicle for growing up. So it was big deal for me. But one of the things that I was thinking about the other day is like I do first amendment law. I was gonna be a journalist, like have I always had news in my life in some form? Is this coincidence or is this inevitable? But I don't know. But I don't think
Leo Laporte (02:28:21):
The band, the news really had much to do with the news actually.
Cathy Gellis (02:28:26):
No it, it, it was a great name and the story goes that they originally gonna be Huey Lewis and the American express, but then they thought they would get sued. I wonder why not? And so like on the last minute they changed their name to, and so here they go. Yes, very close to my heart. They're very important to me. But this song has been rattling around in my head this week and I think it's a good metaphor. Ain't gonna matter a hundred years from now.
Leo Laporte (02:28:51):
I think you're right. Or another meite Annie oh, I can't remember a name who wrote a book basically on the prayer that we'll all be dead in a hundred years. So don't worry about it. Right. Well, one of the interesting things is new people is all new people.
Cathy Gellis (02:29:08):
This song is from 25 years ago. So we're already like a quarter of our way through those that century. So I, I dunno what, and we take out from that, but something
Leo Laporte (02:29:19):
That actually is a really good point. Annie Lama is the woman I was thinking of. And she says a hundred from a hundred years from now, all new people think about that, right? Jeff,
Jeff Jarvis (02:29:33):
Do you have a number? So I'm gonna get you through two numbers really quickly here. Cause I want to get to the really, really important news <laugh>
Jeff Jarvis (02:29:41):
One is that Axios reports that news consumption, we kind of knew this, but Axios does what Axios does. Well, it, it has, has fallen off a cliff. And once again, I put the wrong link up it's Axios. I, I try to find the right link for Axios it's down farther. It's her newsletter. So it goes on and on. Anyway, it's fallen off a cliff. I said, I was gonna do this quickly. This is as, as I'm gonna go through, like you go through the change
Leo Laporte (02:30:05):
Line. Well, actually I've been interested in this because we were getting our lunch handed to us by the daily and first and all the news shows during the COVID crisis. And during Trump's four years, it really hurt our numbers dramatically. Wow. While their numbers went up and up and up and up, and I was just, I've actually been very curious. I notice I don't listen to the daily and the daily news shows as much as I used to. I don't watch the news as much as I used to. I'm not surprised by that right. Way down. Good. The other thing is <laugh>, I'm glad to hear it. Good.
Jeff Jarvis (02:30:36):
That's also happening is it's so called and, and it's not a great definition. So called user generated con a phrase I've hated since the beginning now represents 39% of time spent with media. According a variety. This is why old media hate the internet. There's a connection. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:30:56):
It's all those people watching TikTok T
Jeff Jarvis (02:30:59):
Right. Okay. So now let's get past,
Leo Laporte (02:31:02):
Do we just, can I ask a point of order? Do we, are, is this user generated content? No.
Jeff Jarvis (02:31:08):
Well, that's the thing. Variety of definitions. A little bit off. Like they call, they call YouTube videos, user generate content. So on YouTube. Yes. You
Leo Laporte (02:31:14):
Would be that. See that's wrong. So yes. It's I think of TikTok. I think of, you know reels, those that's Instagram, parts
Jeff Jarvis (02:31:23):
Of YouTube are parts of YouTube. Most of
Leo Laporte (02:31:25):
Some YouTube is, but mostly YouTube is YouTube
Jeff Jarvis (02:31:27):
Is also there for people on that NBC news video. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (02:31:30):
Mm-Hmm
Leo Laporte (02:31:31):
<Affirmative> but the most important story of the
Jeff Jarvis (02:31:34):
Now, now we're gonna get to the one that really matters. This is the most important of the entire show. If you've made it this far. Congratulations, because now you're gonna learn the thing you're gonna thank me for I'm leaving immediately after this to go get this myself. I found out right before the show. Oh, it's a miracle. I'm actually here. Cuz I should have just gone my gosh trader Joe's to go by my gosh hot, a Pape puffs. <Laugh> miss.
Leo Laporte (02:31:58):
Oh
Jeff Jarvis (02:31:59):
Bet. They the lose
Leo Laporte (02:31:59):
Of the week. Actually. I bet. They're really good. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (02:32:03):
Can you imagine,
Leo Laporte (02:32:04):
Oh my gosh. I'm excited to know that there's this slash R trader Joe's subreddit. Oh
Jeff Jarvis (02:32:09):
Yeah. Oh yeah. My wife said this to me. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:32:13):
Catching
Jeff Jarvis (02:32:14):
Pepe, knowing how would it go to my heart?
Leo Laporte (02:32:17):
It's gluten, gluten free too. So good news. <Laugh> all right. Catho and pick puffs
Jeff Jarvis (02:32:25):
Jammer B is not gonna be allowed to have them because he didn't fix Kaho and Peppi the right way and then complained about it. So you're not allowed to, I'm sorry.
Ant Pruitt (02:32:33):
You're not allowed to, oh no.
Leo Laporte (02:32:38):
Ladies, gentlemen, aunt it from hands on photography. What's your pick. What's your thing this week?
Ant Pruitt (02:32:45):
My pick is I like I mentioned earlier in the show, I just got the news about Canon's CES coverage and well CES information. So I wanna try to catch up on that. And they're talking about project Kokomo. This is Essent their VR platform that they're putting together. There's the still in development. Yeah. And yeah, it does mention the fish eye lenses on the R five, but there's also reports that you don't necessarily need an R five. You can use the can and M 200. We know that camera all very well. Ah, so there's a lot of, to, to pick through here. So I'm gonna check that out as soon as we're off the air, but yeah, I'm, I'm always interested in what these folks and
Leo Laporte (02:33:29):
We, we, you know, because we are not at CES this year and, and you know, we're relying on coverage from people like you. And I should mention that father, Robert, who is at CES is gonna join us on this week in tech, on Sunday. Oh yay. So we will get some CES news in there. So, and there is, there is some news. So
Jeff Jarvis (02:33:48):
A lot of car stuff. Yeah. Stuff. There's always, it's like the new auto show.
Leo Laporte (02:33:52):
No, no, no, no, no. There's always in the north hall was always full of cars and car accessories. It was a whole hall. Always. Maybe there's something to talk about. Like BMW's color changing paint.
Ant Pruitt (02:34:03):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:34:04):
There is an innovation life needs. What else do you got for us aunt?
Ant Pruitt (02:34:09):
Next, since I was on vacation, I said I was gonna try my best to be on vacation. Yeah. Or watching some television and stuff like that. So queen Pruitt came across a movie called vacation friends, starring Lil re Howie and John Cena. Oh gosh. It was so dagum funny. Roten tomatoes score. Doesn't say so. But that movie was so
Leo Laporte (02:34:32):
Dag. I actually saw the trailer for this and I thought it looked pretty good. Yeah. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (02:34:35):
I thought it was a on, I think it's on Hulu. I believe it's Hulu. Yes. Or
Leo Laporte (02:34:39):
You can catch it's a Hulu film. Yes.
Ant Pruitt (02:34:42):
But it is so, so funny. But definitely check that out. And lastly, I want to give a shout out to black women, photographers.com. I've been following them on Instagram and it's great seeing what they're doing to try to help pro promote black female photographers and help them continue to get work in this industry. You know, it is in this household. We've talk about it a lot far as, you know, things can be tough on, on me and society, on my boys and society, you know, because of color their skin. But what they tend to forget is how bad queen it has it. At times I've seen some things with my own eyes that were just, it's flat out wrong because
Leo Laporte (02:35:23):
She's a woman it's a double win. Yeah, absolutely.
Ant Pruitt (02:35:26):
Because she's a woman, I walk in the room and things immediately changed and I'm like, really? That's not cool. Yeah. But I wanna give them a shout out because they've been working with the likes of Netflix and Nike and a lot of big brands and getting women black women work in the photography field. So kudos to black women, photographers.com. Nice.
Leo Laporte (02:35:44):
Yay. I will check it out. Very cool. Kathy. I wanna thank you so much for putting up with us for the last couple hours. Kathy Gillis is actually a, a trained professional she's a, a lawyer are interested in annual national law, civil liberties, the first amendment you can read her writing a tech dirt, or you could find out more@cgcouncil.com. Thank you, Kathy. Thank you very much for having me. Oh, we're thrilled. It was brain is great to have you. And now that I know you live nearby, we're gonna, we're have to get you up the studio once everything is opened up again. Yep. Yeah. And maybe we'll get Huey in here too. And you can have a, oh, anytime that, that sounds, that sounds fun.
Ant Pruitt (02:36:27):
<Laugh> <laugh> I love it.
Leo Laporte (02:36:29):
Pick of the week Huey Lewis and the news now. That's awesome that I love it. No ancillary copyright. We got, we got the real you got ANCI no, we got the, we got the heavy stuff into absolutely, absolutely. And Pruit hosts, hands on photography. I'm sure. You'll see some Canon news there. And a lot of other important information. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> twi.tv/ho P if you love photography, you'll love the show. And of course, as, as a community manager, man, hello. As community manager of our club TWI, you've been putting together a hell of a schedule. Tell us a little bit about what this yeah, I'm excited. What's coming up.
Ant Pruitt (02:37:10):
On the 13th. We have the book club with miss Stacy. Higginbotham we're talking autonomous and I have thoughts and I know Mr. Jammer beat have thoughts. So Anna
Leo Laporte (02:37:21):
Lewit is a wonderful novel autonomous and then all
Ant Pruitt (02:37:25):
About a right after that. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> and then right after that, the next day we're hosting an AMA with our very on Mr. Andy and NACO woo. They very interested in man and I can't wait to pick his brain and allow our club TWI members to pick
Leo Laporte (02:37:40):
His brain. That'll be 10:00 AM, but yeah, Pacific time. But if you can't be here in person, we invite you to cuz you can ask any questions, but you can always listen to that on the TWI plus feed after the fact next month, Mike ELGAN and Amira, ELGAN talk about gastro OED and I am thrilled to see that you have, you have managed to get Georgia Dow for a fireside chat at the end of the month. That's gonna be great.
Ant Pruitt (02:38:02):
Yeah. I've I've always, I've always loved miss Georgia Dow. And I was like, please let's let's let's have a chat cuz I want to pick her brain and, and hopefully she doesn't judge me too much. <Laugh> on there with her profession, psychotherapy this profession and have some weird thoughts about me afterwards.
Leo Laporte (02:38:18):
He's not gonna judge you. She's not gonna judge you. She's great. She's great. So boy, we got a lot of stuff. If you're not a member of club TWI, we crossed the 4,000 member threshold at the end of the year. We're really please. That's good. That's just fantastic. Thanks. You all have a number of corporate members now too. We have corporate memberships available as well as individual memberships. You get ad free versions of all of our shows. You get access to our discord, which discord server, which is really a great social community. I just have so much fun in you also get the TWI plus feed where a lot of these ask me anything up. Plus Stacy's book club stuff that happens before and after shows it didn't make it outtakes. That kind of thing. The GIZ fizz, the untitled Linux show. There's a lot of content on that TWI plus feed. All of that is yours for just seven bucks a month. Coach who TWI do TV slash club TWI to find out more. And we thank all of our members because you have really helped a lot doing some pretty tough times, thanks to the daily. So <laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:39:28):
Term you. So thank you very much club TWI members. Thank you aunt. Oh, I forgot to mention Mr. Gutenberg over here. Jeff Jarvis, Frank Sinatra called him a bum. Ray crock said he's a nickel millionaire, former TV guide critic and is also the director of the town nine center for the entrepreneurial journalism. Craig
Speaker 7 (02:39:49):
Craig, Craig, Craig, Craig, Craig Craig.
Leo Laporte (02:39:54):
It's a long form at the Craig Newmark Craig school of journalism at the city university.
Jeff Jarvis (02:40:02):
Thank Jason. And, and Jer B Craig asked for the sound file so he could surprise his wife.
Leo Laporte (02:40:08):
Of course he wanted it. He's got a jingle baby.
Jeff Jarvis (02:40:12):
Yeah. Who right? Who would one on jingles?
Leo Laporte (02:40:13):
Geez. You know, in radio it was always the kiss of death. As soon as they got a jingle package, Leo Lepo in the afternoon, you were gonna get canceled for sure. <Laugh> guaranteed and it works by the way. It really works. You still have your jingles, you know, I've gotta find 'em. I had some really nice, well, I would love to hear a, those, yeah. Okay. If I can find them, do you have show names or just I'm trying. It was there were a bunch of 'em. Mostly it was just the radio stations jingle and then they would shout your name. <Laugh> bill. Oh, radio station. You always wanted to clock FM is you with, and then that would <laugh> it was, but I have, they had a template. Yeah. There was a template. A, a attempt was made. Shall we say? Thank you very much, Kathy. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you. And thanks to all of you for joining us. We'll see you next time. On this weekend, Google byebye,
Speaker 8 (02:41:12):
Android is constantly evolving and if you are part of the Android faithful, then you'll be just as excited about it. As I am. I'm Jason Howell host of all about Android, along with my co-hosts Florence ion and Ron Richards, where every week we cover the news, we cover the hardware and we cover the apps that are driving the Android ecosystem. Plus, we invite people who are writing about Android, talking about Android and making Android onto the show every Tuesday at twit TV. Look for all about Android.
