This Week in Tech 1038: Wu Wei Meets Wu Tang

Summary

Podcast Summary: This Week in Tech 1038: Wu Wei Meets Wu Tang

Release Date: June 30, 2025

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Daniel Rubino (Windows Central), Dan Patterson (Blackbird AI), Patrick Beja (France)

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1. Introduction and Panel Overview

Leo Laporte kicks off the episode by welcoming his panelists:

• Daniel Rubino - Editor in Chief of Windows Central
• Dan Patterson - Director of Content at Blackbird AI
• Patrick Beja - Podcaster from France

He describes the show as a relaxed "cocktail party" with smart individuals discussing the week's tech news.

Notable Quote:

Leo Laporte [01:34]: "Every Sunday I'm going to a party and we're, you know, a cocktail party with really smart people and we're going to hang out, we're going to talk about interesting stuff."

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2. Xbox Gaming and Microsoft's Evolving Strategy

The discussion shifts to Microsoft's strategy in the gaming industry, focusing on Xbox and Game Pass.

Key Points:

• Past Challenges: Microsoft's Xbox One and Xbox Series struggled despite acquiring numerous studios.
• New Approach: Transitioning to "Xbox Everywhere" by integrating Windows 11 to create a console-like interface adaptable by various manufacturers.
• Implications: Licensing this OS could allow diverse hardware manufacturers to enter the console market, potentially restoring Xbox's presence in living rooms.

Notable Quotes:

Patrick Beja [04:09]: "...they completely fell flat on their faces with the Xbox One and the Xbox series, unfortunately."

Daniel Rubino [08:26]: "Yeah, it's huge. It's their strongest angle here actually is PC gaming."

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3. Supreme Court Decisions and Tech Implications

The panel touches on recent Supreme Court rulings affecting the tech landscape.

Key Points:

• Universal Service Fund: The Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality, ensuring continued support for low-income broadband, schools, and libraries.
• Age Verification for Adult Sites: The Court allowed Texas to mandate age verification for adult websites, raising privacy concerns and potential overreach.

Notable Quotes:

Daniel Rubino [60:28]: "...the Supreme Court has supported it, it seems to me unlikely the FCC will continue to do so."

Patrick Beja [62:17]: "...the consensus is this is a problem and young people are getting issues with their view and image, self image and body image and view of sexuality."

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4. Apple’s Privacy and Advertising Controversy

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on Apple's recent controversial decision to embed ads in Apple Wallet and other apps, challenging their long-held image of privacy.

Key Points:

• Ad Insertion: Apple introduced ads for its "F1" movie across various apps, including Apple Wallet, causing backlash from privacy advocates.
• User Trust: Critics argue this move undermines Apple's reputation as a protector of user privacy, leading to skepticism about their data practices.
• Industry Standards: Comparisons are made to other platforms like Microsoft and Android, which have long incorporated ads and data tracking.

Notable Quotes:

Leo Laporte [38:56]: "They have a lot of upset in Apple Land over the fact that Apple's put a push notification for its F1 movie in your Apple Wallet."

Dan Patterson [43:35]: "There was a tree, an executive decision making tree and that's..."

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5. AI Regulation and the Big Beautiful Bill

The conversation delves into the ongoing debates surrounding AI regulation within the "Big Beautiful Bill," a comprehensive budget reconciliation bill.

Key Points:

• Moratorium on State AI Regulations: An amendment proposes a 10-year freeze on AI regulations by individual states, sparking controversy.
• Federal vs. State Control: The amendment aims to prevent a fragmented regulatory landscape, but critics argue it stifles localized governance and adaptation.
• Implications for Innovation: AI companies generally support the moratorium to maintain a unified regulatory environment, while others fear it hampers state-level initiatives to address specific issues.

Notable Quotes:

Leo Laporte [151:04]: "...an amendment on a 10 year moratorium on AI regulation by the states. And that is highly debated."

Patrick Beja [150:11]: "That is a completely crazy idea. The idea that you, you would ban states."

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6. AI and Copyright Fair Use Rulings

Recent court decisions have significant implications for AI training practices, particularly concerning copyright and fair use.

Key Points:

• Case Highlights:
  • Anthropic vs. Authors Guild: The court ruled that training AI on purchased books constitutes fair use, but using pirated content does not.
  • Meta vs. Authors Guild: Similar rulings favored Meta, dismissing claims against using authors' books for AI training.
• Impact on AI Development: These decisions affirm that AI companies can legally use copyrighted material they have rights to for training, but unauthorized use remains unlawful.
• Future Concerns: While current rulings support AI training under fair use, the potential for AI-generated content to overshadow human creators poses ongoing challenges.

Notable Quotes:

Patrick Beja [85:58]: "If this judgment stands, then it means very clearly that training an AI on copyrighted content is fair use."

Daniel Rubino [75:03]: "But the fallacy of anarchism is always this idea that, like, it's against government, period." (Note: This quote may be misattributed in the transcript context; ensure proper placement if used.)

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7. Face Recognition and ICE Practices

The panel discusses the ethical and privacy implications of ICE's (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) use of face recognition technology.

Key Points:

• Mobile Fortified Tool: ICE is utilizing face recognition via smartphones to identify undocumented immigrants, raising significant privacy and accuracy concerns.
• False Positives: The technology's high rate of inaccuracies can lead to wrongful arrests and violations of due process.
• Public Reaction: There is widespread criticism of how such technologies can be misused, emphasizing the need for stringent oversight and ethical guidelines.

Notable Quotes:

Leo Laporte [137:59]: "Face recognition technology is notoriously unreliable, frequently generating false matches and resulting in number of wrongful arrests across the country."

Daniel Rubino [150:22]: "... senza modo for due process." (Translation needed; likely discussing due process violations.)

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8. Meta’s Recruitment of AI Scientists and Competition with OpenAI

Mark Zuckerberg's aggressive recruitment strategy to lure top AI talent from competitors like OpenAI is a focal point of the conversation.

Key Points:

• High Compensation Packages: Meta is reportedly offering up to $100 million in salaries and signing bonuses to attract leading AI researchers.
• Impact on OpenAI: Such moves could deplete OpenAI's talent pool, potentially hindering its progress in AI development.
• Strategic Shifts: Meta is aiming to innovate rapidly in AI to compete with leaders like OpenAI, investing heavily in superintelligence labs.

Notable Quotes:

Dan Patterson [122:30]: "I'm just saying, I want more sources, things."

Leo Laporte [127:09]: "They're trying to build a super intelligence team."

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9. Future of Content Creation and AI Impact

The panel explores how AI advancements affect content creators, particularly musicians and artists, drawing parallels with past technological disruptions like digital music.

Key Points:

• Eroding Revenue Streams: AI-generated content may diminish earning opportunities for artists by saturating the market with easily produced works.
• Adaptation Strategies: Similar to how the music industry transitioned to streaming, content creators may need to find new revenue models, such as subscriptions or patronage (e.g., Patreon).
• Cultural Shifts: While more individuals can create content, monetizing it sustainably remains a challenge, potentially leading to a decline in middle-class creators.

Notable Quotes:

Daniel Rubino [85:02]: "We. We have Chi and stuck with it." (Possible transcription error; context suggests discussion on capitalism and creator compensation.)

Leo Laporte [89:11]: "... it's just A.I. takes it to a whole other level in terms of performance and capability."

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10. Self-Driving Technology and Tesla

Discussion on the advancements and controversies surrounding self-driving cars, focusing on Tesla's efforts and regulatory challenges.

Key Points:

• Technological Progress: Tesla's Model Y and other vehicles showcase significant strides in self-driving capabilities, though occasional mishaps raise safety concerns.
• Regulatory Scrutiny: French authorities have ordered Tesla to halt deceptive practices related to autonomous features, emphasizing the need for clear definitions and safety assurances.
• Market Reception: Despite regulatory hurdles, Tesla continues to sell robustly in certain markets, albeit with fluctuating sales in regions like the EU.

Notable Quotes:

Leo Laporte [141:08]: "Oh, my God. All right, I'm gonna add it to my cart right there." (Referring to purchasing a game, possibly misplaced in transcript.)

Daniel Rubino [143:02]: "They changed, they changed the hardware out."

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11. Closing Remarks and Game Recommendations

As the episode wraps up, the panel shares personal anecdotes and recommendations, highlighting the intersection of technology and personal interests.

Key Points:

• Expedition 33: Patrick Beja recommends this French-developed JRPG available on Game Pass, praising its storytelling and gameplay mechanics.
• Community and Support: Emphasis on the importance of creative communities and supportive platforms like Club Twit for sustaining content creation.

Notable Quotes:

Patrick Beja [159:58]: "The conversation we can have on this show. I'm not sure it applies to real people, but I like what you said."

Leo Laporte [161:02]: "I realized I was starting to learn to play the piano..."

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Conclusion

Episode 1038 of This Week in Tech features an in-depth exploration of Microsoft's gaming strategies, Apple's controversial advertising moves, significant Supreme Court rulings impacting tech, the ethical dilemmas posed by AI and face recognition technologies, and the evolving landscape of content creation in the age of AI. The panelists provide insightful analysis and engage in thoughtful debates on these pressing issues, offering listeners a comprehensive overview of the current tech climate.

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Note: This summary excludes advertisement segments and focuses solely on the substantive discussions within the episode.

Transcript

[Leo Laporte]

It's time for TWiT this Week in Tech. Daniel Rubino's here from Windows Central. Dan Patterson from Blackbird AI and Patrick Bajon from France. We will talk about Xbox gaming, Microsoft's secret strategy, why Meta changed their name and why they're offering hundreds of millions of dollars to AI researchers and what the big beautiful bill could mean for your wi fi. All that and more coming up next on Twitter.

[Dan Patterson]

Podcasts you from people you Trust.

[Leo Laporte]

This is TWiT. This is TWiT this Week at Tech, episode 1038, recorded Sunday, June 29, 2025. Wu Wei meets Wu Tang. It's time for TWiT this Week at Tech, the show. We cover the week's tech news with all my favorite people. I realized I was thinking this today. I feel like every Sunday I'm going to a party and we're, you know, a cocktail party with really smart people and we're going to hang out, we're going to talk about interesting stuff. And so, you know, thank you, Benito, for putting together a wonderful panel for our cocktail party today. Daniel Rubino is here, editor in chief of Windows Central. I almost said magazine.

[Daniel Rubino]

No, we were never a magazine.

[Leo Laporte]

Never a magazine.

[Daniel Rubino]

Some of the other future sites have been magazines.

[Leo Laporte]

But you were smart not to be a magazine magazine.

[Daniel Rubino]

It's true.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Windows Central, that's all it needs to be, the central place for Windows. Great to see you, Daniel. Also here from France. And it's not because he's a conehead. It's not patrick.com who is staying up late. He's actually, it's already Monday in France.

[Patrick Beja]

It is almost. I still have 44 minutes until it's Monday and I'm melting already.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you.

[Patrick Beja]

My computer is heating. It's just, you know, it's getting all the heat under the desk and it's rising up. Yeah. I don't know if I'm going to make it to the end of the show, but I'm going to do my best, Leo.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm going to try. Just. I'll blow on you. Try to cool it off. Also wonderful have Dan Patterson here from Blackbird AI. He's director of content there. Longtime journalist for CBS and elsewhere, now doing content for a very interesting site that is not exact. It's not an AI site exactly. Or is it?

[Dan Patterson]

Well, we use AI, but we also use humans. We call them narrative attacks because it's like a cyber attack, but the use of deep fakes or misinformation or disinformation to attack like a cyber attack. Would, I guess you'd have to use.

[Leo Laporte]

AI to kind of. It takes an AI to find an AI, I guess.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah. And we have some. Anyone can use it. I always say I don't want to log role just for our products, but you can use it just to vet yourself.

[Leo Laporte]

I have already signed in. Yeah. It's free for individual use.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah. It's Compass Blackbird AI and it will check. I don't want to call it a fact checker. It's not a fact checker. It provides context. So anything you see that you have a question about any link, any claim. If you hear somebody say the sky is green, just check it. Encompass. It's a pretty useful tool.

[Leo Laporte]

So smart.

[Dan Patterson]

Yes. And humans, you know, we. The Blackbird blog, you can read what we do. It's all. It's. It's humans. Humans.

[Leo Laporte]

It's made of humans.

[Dan Patterson]

Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

I love it. Yeah. Blackbird blog is called the Raven. I love it. That's only one kind of blackbird. There's also the Maltese Falcon, I believe. All right. I don't know where we should start. I was going to start with politics, but then I thought, you know, blood pressure. So let's start with the Xbox. We actually, before the show, I wasn't planning this, but we started having a very interesting conversation about Xbox Game Pass and what Microsoft has done with their game business. And Patrick, do you still work in the gaming business?

[Patrick Beja]

No, I left Blizzard Entertainment, which is now a Microsoft company. I left them over 10 years ago to launch into this wonderful career of being a podcaster.

[Leo Laporte]

Congrats. Really, you're full time. Very nice.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah, I've been for 11 years now and it's working out great.

[Leo Laporte]

It's amazing.

[Patrick Beja]

But yeah, I follow the gaming industry very, very closely and I do shows about the gaming industry and of course it's a passion of mine. And the really interesting thing that's happening with Microsoft and the Xbox right now is that they completely fell flat on their faces with the Xbox One and the Xbox series, unfortunately. And even though they bought about 17 gajillion studios for the longest time, they didn't manage to put out the games that would motivate gamers to buy their consoles. So of course it didn't sell. And now they shifted to this strategy of. Of course they have. They bought Blizzard and Activision and Bethesda and like a gajillion studios, as I was saying. And so they have a huge amount of games which are everywhere. And now they're. They fel into this strategy of having Xbox Everywhere, which is leading to the potentially really interesting thing, which is Windows 11. But get rid of all the crap that you don't need for gaming. Make it into a TV able interface, which is essentially a console interface, and stick it into a box, call it an Xbox, add some backwards compatibility stuff so that all your old games are compatible, and sell that as the next Xbox console. But the real interesting thing if they end up doing that is that they could license this OS and just like with the PC market, tell manufacturers, just go nuts, make consoles as well.

[Leo Laporte]

Which they kind of are implying that by saying everything's an Xbox. That's one of their tags. Yeah.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, what they're talking about with that is that they want to say you can stream from anywhere, you can play on PC. You can. And it's kind of diluting the brand, I feel a little bit they're overdoing it a little bit.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, if everything is something, then nothing is anything.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Or something.

[Patrick Beja]

That licensing opportunity with Windows as an OS adapted to a console experience means that they could potentially get a wide variety of different systems of different hardware that would benefit from the large ecosystem of different manufacturers and kind of find a backdoor back into the living room. Because the Xbox, currently, the Series X and S are not selling well enough to be an interesting proposition for developers. But if they manage to make this massive, you know, this massive development, this part of the industry, and they end up being in the living room again, of course they wouldn't get every, you know, the console business is based on 30% commission on everything you sell. Once you have the install base with.

[Leo Laporte]

You know, it's a lot like the iPhone business model.

[Patrick Beja]

Exactly. It was the precursor to that, probably. But if they have Windows, then people could install Steam and could install everything. But it's better to get, you know, 30. I mean, if they get 20% of the sales on that ecosystem, which is in the living room, and they get 30% of that, then it's better than nothing. If the console disappears as a console and they're going to be selling a lot of their own games on those devices where they don't need to pay 30% if they have consoles in the living room. If they don't, they have to pay 30% to Sony and Nintendo. But if somehow they manage to get their consoles, their hardware, into the living room, then they can also be in the living room and have an outlet there.

[Leo Laporte]

Daniel, how important is PC gaming to Microsoft's Windows business? Is that a big part of it?

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah, it's huge. It's their strongest angle here actually is PC gaming.

[Leo Laporte]

Interesting.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah. And what they're really trying to do is knock down. So right now the issue is you have consoles. Right. And what I mean that by that is the development for a game on console is technically not the same as the development for a game on PC. So you need to convince studios to target both. Right. And then of course, it's more than that. They also got to target PlayStation and maybe Nintendo. Right. So, so how do you get developers on board to doing, Especially since they've been pushing this thing called play anywhere for a few years, which is if you buy a game for Xbox, you get the PC version for free and it's a great incentive. But it's hard to convince developers to do that Right. If there's no install base. But what they're trying to do, at least from our reporting from Jez Cordon and that's other news that's come out, is that they're trying to blur the lines between PC gaming and console gaming. And by that I mean by the development tools used for this, which could also mean a translation layer akin to what SteamOS does with Proton and converting PC games. And so in doing that, they wouldn't even need that.

[Patrick Beja]

If the next Xbox runs on Windows 11, then just develop it for Windows and you're good. You have a console version as well.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah, the only issue there comes up is like licensing and like how that gets handled. But yeah, I mean, that's the point is that they're trying to reduce the barriers for developers targeting these symptoms, these systems. And you know, the other one is like handheld gaming is becoming really big now because the hardware technology from processors and battery and everything is getting to the point where this is actually feasible, where we can actually have handheld gaming systems that deliver the performance and graphics that we want and it can play these first party games. And so you have all that you have. Streaming, of course, worked well to just regular TVs or to your phone or even to handheld games. Like handheld gaming systems can both run the system like the game directs, which is awesome, or you can stream and get even better quality graphics, but at like, you know, a fifth of the battery life because you're not doing the processing on the device itself. So they, you know, it's true. You know, Patrick's right, they were pushed into the situation from a point of weakness, but from it they've been able to sort of one read the room. Right. You know, I know Leah pointed out like the idea of like streaming and a Subscription service is not new. It's where everything has been going, going. But they were the first to really sort of push it for gaming and now Nvidia is there. Of course they have GeForce now, which is a really impressive system too. So I think you have a strong chance of making very, an interesting proposition in the coming years, especially since it's going to be mostly platform and hardware neutral. And that's going to be really cool because it means yeah, you can have it on a console in your living room. You can also have it on a handheld that's in your bag. You can have it on your phone, you can have it on your laptop. I can tell you they're really going after ARM64, specifically Qualcomm. They're making their games, they're really target because that's kind of a weakness too. Right now it's like, well can you game with a Qualcomm chip? And you can. They're very powerful. They're working on that too. So they're going to really knock down those barriers and I think it's going to really work out for them in the end. It's a stronger position, I would say than Sony has, which is console. And now they're like, okay, we're going to do a handheld too. But they also have a mixed history on this. Right. It's not like Sony is a slam dunk when it comes to hardware and all this technology either.

[Leo Laporte]

So off your strengths, right? That's, that's what you should do.

[Dan Patterson]

That's.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah, that's exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

The irony of this is I've always been team Xbox, which of course is contrary to the market. But the irony of this is one of the first Xboxes I bought had a pass through for your TV set. It was designed to be a living room device. It was designed, they actually wanted you to use it as your set top box.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, the reason Bill Gates okayed the the Xbox is that they were seeing Sony with the PlayStation 3, was it 2 or 3? They were thinking, well this is the computer in the living room. And Bill Gates of course didn't know anything about gaming, but when he saw that he thought it could be a threat and be the computer in the living room. And he thought we have to be in that market. Of course that never turned out to become an actual family computer in the living room.

[Dan Patterson]

But just 25 years later, Patrick, just, you know, Daniel, to your point about particularly streaming and GeForce now, although Microsoft does have their own game pass cloud gaming streaming platform, they also in the previous regulatory environment had to or said that they would be open and you can stream all of your game Pass apps through GeForce Now. And, you know, this ties in again, Daniel, with that handheld gaming push. Those Snapdragon processors have become really capable in the last couple years. And I'm sure that Microsoft is looking at that environment along with handhelds and cloud, along with AI that can enable this. Although we talk a lot about consumer AI, AI can really help with the efficiencies of delivering this data over the cloud. I think that they're really looking at this as it's not the second opportunity for mobile, but it's an opportunity for Microsoft to kind of get back something they lost with the mobile revolution.

[Leo Laporte]

It also sounds like the end of the discrete gpu. Do you still need an Nvidia card or a Radeon card?

[Patrick Beja]

Oh, they haven't had.

[Leo Laporte]

Do they work with arm, Daniel, or. No, technically, no.

[Daniel Rubino]

But there's no also technical reason why they can't. It's just that Nvidia is kind of the gatekeeper right now to that technology.

[Leo Laporte]

Well. And they've got bigger fish to fry now with AI, so.

[Daniel Rubino]

Well, we also know Nvidia for a fact, is going to release an ARM64 processor, so.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, is that.

[Dan Patterson]

Are you really? Huh.

[Leo Laporte]

That's really interesting.

[Daniel Rubino]

They're coming.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I got a question.

[Leo Laporte]

Question.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Like, isn't this like, a golden opportunity for Mac to just jump in here and just kill everybody? Because everybody's got a Mac, they don't.

[Leo Laporte]

Have developers, but all they have to.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Do is like, I don't know, they have to figure out a way to get games to work on Mac because everybody's got a Mac and they don't.

[Leo Laporte]

Support Unreal Engine, which is what all the developers are using.

[Patrick Beja]

No, but they do now. They have a really powerful. I forget the name, but they have a really powerful Metal. No, no, no, no. Not just Metal, but there's also Unity. Well, Unity is the engine that goes. No, but they announced it last year and it went almost unnoticed. Oh, God, I'm sorry.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Because on a hardware level, what does it do?

[Leo Laporte]

What powerful one.

[Patrick Beja]

Essentially, it enables Windows games to very easily be.

[Leo Laporte]

They did. They snuck that in. There's an emulator that they can do and makes your Windows games run on Mac.

[Daniel Rubino]

I don't think. 10 new games that got support.

[Patrick Beja]

The thing is, it's so weird. The Mac is so weird. Weird. They now have. It wasn't the case, you know, 10 years ago, but they. They now have everything that they need to Be a serious contender in the games market, except for developers or the.

[Daniel Rubino]

Internal will and maybe even the market.

[Leo Laporte]

So they've got the will. The real problem is Apple makes a lot of money on casual gaming. Yeah, right.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

So it could AAA for them. But they want it, they definitely want it.

[Dan Patterson]

Years ago I used to, back in the Intel Mac days. Oh, hi. Sorry, my kiddo just broke in here.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, let me see. Well, you shouldn't put her on camera, but. How old is she now? How old is she? Three?

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, let's, let's. Hi. Did you have a fun adventure?

[Leo Laporte]

We're having a BBC moment right now. Yes, she's wheeled her way into the room.

[Patrick Beja]

So just for context, for people listening who might not be aware how big each of those markets are, the mobile market is 50% revenue wise of the entire gaming market and the PC market is 25 and the console market is 25. Okay, so when we talk about Nintendo and Sony and Microsoft with the Xbox, all of that together is 25% of the market. PC is as big as all of that. And again, mobile is as big as both of those together.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it just pride that makes companies want to be participate in the, in the piece, in the, you know, the AAA market?

[Patrick Beja]

Oh, it's, it's a very, in the console market, it's a very captive market. It's a lot of money. You get 30. So this is how the console market game works. You make exclusive games that are really good that you can only get on one platform, on your platform.

[Leo Laporte]

Sony has done so well.

[Patrick Beja]

This is, this is what Sony does, this is what Nintendo does. And this is what, and this is what Microsoft failed to do with the Xbox. Unfortunately they didn't have system sellers. That's how you call them. And once that's done, you sell as many consoles as you can and you have an install base and once the install base is there, you take 30% of every single thing that other developers sell on your console. And that has been turbocharged with digital distribution and microtransactions and seasons and all of those. PlayStation made more money in four years of PlayStation 5 than all of the previous generations combined. Combined. So it's a lot of money still. And there's no reason like no one would willingly abandon a market like that if they, if they had a strong contender there.

[Daniel Rubino]

I'll also say with the PC market, it's a completely different piece. You know, addressing webinar asking about, with Macs. The thing people have to understand with PC gaming, it's not just the fact you're running it on Windows PC Gaming is its own genre. And by that I mean like, okay, you could have a Mac and you could play a video game on it. That's not a gaming PC. A gaming PC is something where you can have RGB lighting any.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Believe me, I understand this more than most people, Daniel. But like what I'm saying, what I'm saying is that like this is a whole new marketplace place for, for the, for game. For game developers. Like everybody who has a Mac that doesn't have a PC is a whole new market.

[Patrick Beja]

Because gamers already have PCs. Anyone who's seriously interested.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Exactly.

[Patrick Beja]

Gaming has a PC already.

[Daniel Rubino]

So it's like video, it's like video editors. Right. Like you, you. As much as video editing can get good on PC, the Macs are still going to be king for video editing and content creators. Right. Wherever I see video youtubers, they always have max. Right. And sure, sure some people will use Windows to get in that, but that's just a Mac world. But it's just like that for gaming. If you're already into PC gaming, you've invested in all that hardware, all the accessories. There's like so many different.

[Leo Laporte]

It's culture more than just a hardware platform. Yeah.

[Daniel Rubino]

100%.

[Leo Laporte]

And it's hard to change culture. That's hard to do.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

As Apple knows. Well because it's Apple's culture that's kept them on top from their point of view.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah.

[Patrick Beja]

Not to. To make the whole show about gaming which I.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, you know, the other choice is the Supreme Court. So I think you should stick with.

[Dan Patterson]

Gaming at this point.

[Leo Laporte]

Health insurance and health insurance and the big beautiful bill which is currently being debated and will be debated tonight till the wee hours of the morning and nobody wants us to talk about that though we have to because it does have a significant impact on a number of tech issues. But let's stick with gaming for now for just a little bit more pleasant cocktail party.

[Patrick Beja]

That's fantastic to talk about PC gaming. It has so much freedom and I love all forms of gaming, you know, I don't have. But PC gaming, especially in past, I would say five years, everything is on PC. Using a controller in the past 10 years has become so easy on PC that a lot of developers put their games that would in previous times been console only. They also put them on PC because it can work with a controller. It's very easy. You don't really have to support desktop and keyboard and mouse.

[Leo Laporte]

Historically the advantage consoles have was it was simple. Right. You just play the game. But the advantage, I think the perception is that the PC game quality is higher. Frame rates are better.

[Patrick Beja]

No, it's also very.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't think that's necessarily true.

[Dan Patterson]

Diversity of choice. I think ecosystem.

[Patrick Beja]

Well still have everything on PCs. And the one thing I wanted to get to, I'm sorry, is that Japanese developers, developers have started being interested in PCs as well in the last five years. So you really can get anything on PCs. What consoles have, if I'm being honest, it's the price and it's the fact that it's easy to use from your couch. It's a, you know, couch experience. Whereas PC, you have to be on your.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And there's Nintendo, which is its own thing.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And a perfectly good thing. I mean the Switch has two has been a huge success. Even though it was really only an incremental improvement on the Switch that probably most of the people who bought the Switch 2 already had.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, every Nintendo handheld is like the greatest handheld, you know, every Nintendo handheld is the most selling.

[Daniel Rubino]

But that's the irony. It's not. It's actually like I find the Switch to be one of the worst handhelds ever. But because their IP is so strong, it outweighs it.

[Leo Laporte]

You gotta like Mario.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Always been the case. That's always been the case since day one.

[Leo Laporte]

Exclusives are very important in this business. As you, as you said earlier, Patrick.

[Dan Patterson]

Said it right, Nobody would intentionally abandon this market. Micro or Nintendo or Sony. But I can also understand if I, if I'm thinking strategically, I see those as islands. And as great as Nintendo's IP is, Sony @ least has started to open up and sell their games on PC. And I think that that just is an acquiescence of them saying, yeah, we're going to still sell hardware, but we got to, we have to sell to a bigger market market and Microsoft, to.

[Daniel Rubino]

Their credit with studios. You know, part of the thing was when they made all those acquisitions was we promise we're not going to abandon Sony because that was. They could, they could just be like, hey Sony, no, no more PlayStation games for call of Duty. But they're not. They're in fact they're doing the opposite. Like right now, within the next two months, Gears of War Reloaded, which is the first version of the game, but it's been remastered, is coming out and for the first time it's going to the PlayStation. Right. Like, so Microsoft is all about trying to get their stuff everywh. Hey, Nintendo, you want our games, you can have them. You know, so that's a very different type of approach that, you know, we haven't seen in the gaming industry.

[Leo Laporte]

They had to do that to get permission to buy Activision Blizzard, right?

[Patrick Beja]

Well, it was very specifically for Call of Duty, which is the highest selling game in the history of video games. And Sony argued if we don't have Call of Duty, which honestly was a bit, a little bit of an exaggeration, they said if we don't have Call of Duty, that's it, we're toast, we can't compete, it's over. And the only reason, I mean, of course the reason they said that is that they take 30% again of every sale of every copy of Call of Duty and of every piece of microtransaction that comes after that, which is a lot. But also they wanted to derail the purchase of Activision by Microsoft. And Microsoft offers a contract saying, we will put, if that's your problem, we will put Call of Duty on PlayStation for the next 10 years. No strings attached, no problem. And Sony refused to sign it initially when they were starting the lawsuit. And in the end they signed it.

[Dan Patterson]

Because my guess, so this, my just speculation, I have no idea. Just speculation. My guess, if I'm sitting in Microsoft and Sony these decision maker seats, right, Microsoft has kind of pulled off this, this really interesting thing where they went from competing and failing of selling a box that you put under your TV to selling services and selling an ecosystem and environment. And Sony could see this coming. It's not just about Call of Duty, it's about them saying, no, we must stop them from becoming a platform because otherwise we remain the company that sells boxes and we're competing with Nintendo went, oh, that's just a guess.

[Patrick Beja]

But like they, they are competing with Nintendo anyway. The only difference now is until maybe Xbox pulls it off with this new Strategy with Windows 11 gaming, they have one less competitor and the most direct competitor. And we are already seeing that Sony is, you know, know, pushing what's acceptable. They've increased the price of their console, of their hardware many times. They're pricing their accessories at a level which makes everyone go, you're selling it for how much now?

[Dan Patterson]

What a smart strategy of Microsoft. Hey, I made my two competitors compete against each other and they're selling junk. Like we're not selling junk, we're selling services. It costs way less than like more.

[Leo Laporte]

Profit and services than there is.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, like, it's so smart. They just made their two rivals compete against each other.

[Patrick Beja]

They were already competing again. I know the only thing that's changed is that there's one less competitor in that market.

[Leo Laporte]

Microsoft's not competing anymore.

[Patrick Beja]

Anymore. They might not, but Microsoft is now a different. They went from a console manufacturer to a game developer and publisher. It's a different thing. You know, it's like, in a way, Samsung sells RAM chips to Apple and their competitors in another. But there's money to be made there. And so Microsoft is going to put all their games, they have so many games, so many games now that of course they're going to sell them everywhere. At some point, it becomes more interesting to make money by selling the games in as many places as you can.

[Leo Laporte]

All right, let's take a little break now before Patrick's computer gets overheated. There's actually still a lot of Microsoft news. There's some Apple news. One of the hottest controversies of the week is all about Apple. And then of course, there's a little bit of politics. I'll put it off as long as I can, but we got to talk about that big, beautiful bill and what it's going to do to a lot of the things that we rely on in tech. But first, a word from our sponsor. It's great to have Patrick Beja, Daniel Rubino and Dan Patterson here. It's great to see all three of you. What a great conversation. We can keep talking about gaming. I'm enjoying it. I am. This episode of this Week in Tech brought to you today by netsuite. It's interesting time for business, to say the least. Tariffs and trade policies are dynamic, supply chains are squeezed and cash flow, well, it's tighter than ever. If your business can't adapt in real time, you are in a world of hurt. You need total visibility, from global shipments to tariff impacts to real time cash flow. That's NetSuite by Oracle, your AI powered business business management suite trusted by over 42,000 businesses. NetSuite is the number one cloud ERP for many reasons. It brings accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one suite. You have one source of truth giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. With real time forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. And with AI embedded throughout, you can automate a lot of these everyday tasks, letting your team stay strategic. Netsuite helps you know what's stuck, what it's costing you and how to pivot fast. It's one system, full control. Tame the chaos with NetSuite. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, download the free ebook Navigating Global Trade. 3 insights for [e-mail] TWiT that's NetSuite.com TWiT. We thank him so much for supporting this week in tech. We were talking about this good news. If you've got any Bing Rewards bucks. For a mere 500 Bing rewards bucks, you can extend the deadline on Windows 10 from October 25th for another year. Daniel I was so pleased. I thought, wow, I probably don't have any. I have 58,000 Bing Bucks. I don't know where these came from, I guess because I subscribe to Game Pass. I don't know.

[Daniel Rubino]

But I'm no surprise. I'm a huge user Bing and co pilot and everything.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I'm not. So I don't, I don't know what happened. I have no other.

[Daniel Rubino]

Paul Ferrari yeah, yeah, it's.

[Leo Laporte]

But what it really tells me that Microsoft is just looking for a way to keep people on Windows 10 or at least not freak people out about October 25th. Fifth.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah. You know, I think this was something that they had to do anyway because.

[Leo Laporte]

People 500 points is big deal. I mean it's not.

[Daniel Rubino]

No, no. And it's not. Right. And it's. Or, yeah. Or you could pay $30, I think it was. So. But yeah, obviously most people aren't going to go out buy a new PC. Just because their operating system is not going to have support anymore doesn't mean it's not going to stop working. You still got to beat up if.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean, I mean, what is the uptake on Windows 11? I think there's more Windows 10 users out there right now than there are Windows 11 users.

[Daniel Rubino]

It's about shifting over right now to the majority of Windows 11.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it okay?

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah, partly because Enterprise obviously is going to be at the forefront of doing those upgrades because they do have to. Right. So they will be buying new laptops and stuff because of security concerns. Consumers are a different situation where, you know, and I would also say there's that small percentage of people, probably people listen to this podcast who are aware that you can technically force any computer to run Windows 11 if you know what to do. Right, Right. So it's like, so those people are just going to get around it anyway. This is just for your, your normal.

[Leo Laporte]

Folks who, this is for normies who might have a. I think, I'm sorry, I think it's a thousand Bing bucks.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah, it's a thousand points. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. Not 500, but still a thousand.

[Daniel Rubino]

But it's easy to get a thousand. Yeah. I have over 200. At one point I had over 220,000 and wow. I think, think. Yeah. But what's cool about for. For those who don't know Dinner at.

[Leo Laporte]

The Olive Garden, by the way. Don't.

[Daniel Rubino]

Oh, it's more than that. Yeah. I mean like so you can take those points and you can redeem them for gift cards at Amazon and various places. I use some. I donate to an animal shelter. But you can.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, that's a good thing. I didn't know you could give it to charity. That's a good thing.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah. There's charity thing too. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Go to Bing.com Microsoft Rewards.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah, but it's. Yeah, you can use a point for a lot of things and you can use it for buying Microsoft. You can buy video games with.

[Leo Laporte]

Up in the upper right, you get to see your Microsoft rewards. Look at this.58441. But I can give that to charity. That's good to know. I'll save 1000 for my Windows 10. I'm not running Windows 10 anymore, but if I were, that's a good thing. To me. It was an acknowledgement from Microsoft that. Yeah, yeah. Even though we got to stick with our deadline, it's problematic.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah. But you know, it's like one of those things. Some people think, oh, they should just endlessly support Windows 10. But it costs a lot of money, right. To maintain support for an operating system.

[Leo Laporte]

That is so that's an interesting question. In fact, I was just reading a piece that said, you know, this is somewhat of a dark pattern. There's.

[Daniel Rubino]

Here's.

[Leo Laporte]

How much does it cost? They're going to be doing the bug fixes for Enterprise anyway. Same thing with Apple. Apple pretty much makes you upgrade, you know, after Tahoe. This is the last version of macOS that's going to support the Intel Macs. But those are perfect. The machines are not worn out. They're perfectly good. It really. It feels like a dark pattern, is it not?

[Daniel Rubino]

That it is. You know, they would argue that the reason for this is because Windows 11 supports more advanced hardware security features, which is required, they'd say, for safer Internet. So, and there's truth to that, that the today's newer hardware with TPM 2.0 and everything like that is more secure than a laptop from 10 years ago. But of course there's the economics of it, the situation which is is if you only use a computer on occasion or you're not that concerned about security, this doesn't come off as like something you have to do or you necessarily Want to go out and buy a new laptop? Even though I would make an argument that for laptops like today, today's laptops, I would say for the first time and ever are where we kind of envision they should be. You have 4K screens now. You have 5G, you have 5 all day battery life. Yeah, yeah. You have extreme performance. You have. You the video game support. Right. So there's like very good reasons why today's laptops are a different story than they were from like five, ten years ago. It's not even close. But not everybody has the money to go out to be able to afford these things.

[Leo Laporte]

So I, I wish I could find this article I had read because it made me think, you know, maybe the thing to do, Linux doesn't do this, right? Linux. As long as there are a few, a handful of enthusiasts using a piece of hardware, there will be a version of Linux for it and most open source programs for it because they support. And I'm just thinking maybe instead of buying another Mac or a PC, I should get a fairly robust Linux box and have thin terminals everywhere. In other words, do cloud computing in my house. You're being sarcastic, aren't you, Dan?

[Dan Patterson]

No, no, no, I think that sounds fun. I mean there's some.

[Leo Laporte]

I feel like I'm getting manipulated into obsoleting this hardware when it's perfectly fine. Fine. Maybe it's just me. I know I'm undermining the entire economic basis of the PC industry.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I mean that's the whole smartphone market to it you're talking about, Leo.

[Leo Laporte]

It's absolutely the same thing for smartphones.

[Daniel Rubino]

The Linux market will always have that advantage and, and to sell it to people, it's always going to be that. If you're into computers like you listen to this podcast, right? You read news on this stuff. Linux is always going to be an interesting option for you to explore, even try out for your average consumer though, it's just not happening ever. Yeah, you know, it's just not.

[Leo Laporte]

Do we feel bad about all the crap going into the landfill that's not really obsolete?

[Daniel Rubino]

So at least there are programs in your town. And you know you're not supposed to just take your laptops and throw them in the garbage. Hopefully no one's doing supposed to give.

[Leo Laporte]

Them to poor people who can't do any better, right?

[Daniel Rubino]

Least there's recycling programs that will take care of it.

[Dan Patterson]

There's a fantastic science fiction book called Waste Tide by Shen Kai Fan about kind of a colony that develops around e waste in China.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, it's like a cargo cult.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah.

[Daniel Rubino]

Is it a comedy? Yeah, no, I'm just kidding.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm just thinking maybe if I got, you know, I mean, being perfectly realistic, a PC you buy today, whether a laptop, maybe not so much because they get banged around more, but a PC you buy today, today should probably be still just as useful ten years from now. Yes. Except for the fact that the operating system gets obsoleted and the browsers don't work and then you have to upgrade it because your software, I mean, this is.

[Daniel Rubino]

We, we've written an article about this. It's a meta tail talking about how Chrome OS is a viable alternative for people here. If you have an old laptop, can't get to Windows 11 and you technically don't want to force Windows 11 on it, even though it's not that hard, you know, like you could just put Chrome OS on it, which I would say is. I would say Chrome OS is actually the, the mainstream alternative to doing Linux on old hardware. For most people. That would be totally fine.

[Patrick Beja]

Sure.

[Leo Laporte]

And it's Linux. It's just an even simpler Linux. That's right. All right, I shouldn't bring this up on a technology show because I'm dependent upon you buying a new laptop every few years. So please do us all a favor.

[Patrick Beja]

No, but I think you're fine. I think we're underestimating the need of normal people to have something that's familiar and, or simple. That's the whole reason, reason why people love Apple computers because. And phones because they're a little bit more simple to use than the other things. And even Chrome os, if you go tell my mom, hey, here, you know, your computer wasn't cutting it for, you know, Windows. Whatever. Here's Chrome os. I don't think she's gonna be happy with it. She's not gonna, you know, it takes her 15 minutes to understand where something is on the desktop. So. So I think this is a conversation that we can have on this show. I'm not sure it applies to real people, but I like what you said.

[Dan Patterson]

There, Patrick, though familiar and simple. And I think that those things are relative and they're different for different people. It's Mac and Apple operating systems are familiar and simple for me. My dad found that Chrome OS was actually very familiar and simple for me.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, but stand back. Apple's about to change the entire look and feel feel of its operating systems, including macOS. It will not be simple and familiar. It'll be a brand new thing.

[Patrick Beja]

Is it?

[Leo Laporte]

Well, maybe not.

[Patrick Beja]

Confusing because you see the thing behind it and you're like, oh, they're changing that too.

[Leo Laporte]

There is some trouble in Apple paradise. There's a lot of upset in Apple Land over the fact that Apple's put a push notification for its F1 movie in your Apple Wallet, in your everything.

[Patrick Beja]

It was everywhere.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, well, they're really marketing F1. There's. They have a lot at stake for some reason. I mean, they spent a quarter of a billion dollars to make the movie. Maybe that's all it was, but at.

[Daniel Rubino]

Least I got good reviews.

[Leo Laporte]

I think it's a fine summer movie. It's by the same guy at a Top Gun maverick. So it's going to be a fun action movie. It's got real movie stars in it and big, powerful engines. I'm an F1 fan, so of course I'll go see it. But putting an ad in your Apple Wallet, something Apple forbids any, every other app from doing. Jon Gruber, who has been until recently an Apple advocate, is very upset. He says the fact that no company can inject an ad into your physical wallet, it just can't happen. So Apple's message to users is, is trust Apple Wallet and move more of your stuff that goes in your wallet into your digital wallet. But now they're putting ads in there. Now, Microsoft has faced the same heat for similar kinds of ads. They're house ads in Windows. Is this part of the inshittification of modern operating systems? Do we just have to put up with this?

[Daniel Rubino]

I mean, we talked about earlier with services, right? Services are the new thing. And Apple is facing, facing, I would argue, some pretty big headwinds, right? Regulatory issues in Europe, pressures on the iPhone. They got their new operating system, which is not where I'd say their new UX is not getting a lot of love. There's, you know, there's lack of innovation. They invested a lot in Vision Pro, which appears to be maybe going nowhere, and they missed out on the AI stuff, which they're trying to catch up on now. But the fact is they're getting hooked on services and software and renewable forms of revenue. The problem when you buy an iPhone, it's just like when you buy a console for gaming is like you bought it, you're done. So now you get people to buy the games.

[Leo Laporte]

But I think the thing that's offensive to me and many is it's not like Microsoft and Apple are in financial difficulties. No, they're hideously profitable, both of them, them.

[Daniel Rubino]

But capitalism says that company needs to.

[Leo Laporte]

Be has stop Making more money.

[Dan Patterson]

Is it the. The idea that a company as. With a. A brand as pristine as Apple and a product that has built up such user trust and equity has decided to. I'll just stick an ad in there because we want people to see our movie.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. And it makes people at. Gruber says, look, seeing this ad is completely destructive. He writes to all the hard work other teams of Apple have done to make Apple Wal actually private and to get. More importantly, users believe that it's private. Now users are going, is Apple tracking me? I'm seeing. By the way, I haven't seen the ad. So it's not everybody getting this ad.

[Dan Patterson]

I saw it.

[Patrick Beja]

It was to be for people who. Oh no, I didn't get the one on Wallet. It was about getting a coupon. A coupon for buying.

[Leo Laporte]

It was a fandango ad. You probably didn't get it because. Do you have fandango?

[Patrick Beja]

No, we don't. We don't.

[Leo Laporte]

So you.

[Patrick Beja]

But it was like it kind of. If you squint really hard, it kind of makes sense in Wallet because you get a cube, you know, you get a good price on your tickets. Like you have to squint really, really hard. But it was also on Apple podcasts, on Apple music, on Fitness plus, on Apple tv, on and. And on Wallet.

[Leo Laporte]

There's places it should be in places it shouldn't be.

[Patrick Beja]

I don't know. I don't know. I think it's this not dishonest but it's like inappropriate. It's like it's your thing and it's your plat and there was probably a meeting with Tim Cook and Tim Cook was like, it would be a real shame if.

[Dan Patterson]

Well, there you go.

[Patrick Beja]

If F1 wasn't the best performing movie. I don't know. I don't know how to make it. Tim Cook, you said something.

[Leo Laporte]

Very good job. Well done.

[Dan Patterson]

I didn't know it was across different apps in the Apple ecosystem. Is that what you said? It was across different. Right.

[Patrick Beja]

Different kinds of ads. But there was notifications.

[Dan Patterson]

Again, just sitting with your like, let's put our corporate exec thinking hat on and just put yourself like all of those departments are led by somebody. There's a leader there, an executive who's worked up to that job and they're respected in that job. So who above them said that this movie goes into all of these apps. Do you see what I'm saying? There's like, there's a tree, an executive decision making tree and that's.

[Patrick Beja]

They're all in The Tim, Tim Cook meeting.

[Leo Laporte]

Right, exactly.

[Dan Patterson]

So all I'm saying is like I'm also trying to think as a journalist like, like who made these decisions and.

[Leo Laporte]

Who shot come from the top.

[Dan Patterson]

Right, right, right.

[Patrick Beja]

I would argue there's no way, especially the Wallet thing. There's no way anyone pushes a notifications like a notification like this from Wallet without Tim Cook's explicit approval.

[Dan Patterson]

Very interesting.

[Patrick Beja]

Do you guys agree they're out the door.

[Leo Laporte]

It shakes Apple's position that we are the privacy company.

[Patrick Beja]

It's Chef's, it's a, it's, it's very inappropriate. I think this is something that they will not, not that no one will forget.

[Leo Laporte]

They worked really hard to create that impression. Whether they earned it or not, I don't know but they worked really hard, spent a lot of marketing dollars.

[Daniel Rubino]

I'll give credit to, you know, people pushing back on this for that reason because Lord knows we've heard of it for years with Microsoft and Android does this too. Of course all the stores do it to a certain extent. So I'll give credit. You know where credit sup being consistent in this saying that, you know, we been against this stuff for years and now we're doing it too. But I've been seeing this encroaching on Apple for years. If you go to their store, you see the same thing. You know, I always find this offensive too. On Android you go search for an app and then the first one comes up, you're like, oh, there it is, you're about to install. Oh wait, that was an ad. Sorry. It's. The app you want is actually below it.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Daniel Rubino]

You know, so it's like this is all over the place. It's. But everything's a service these days. You're just renting equipment, you're just, you know, everything. Everything is a temporary thing again.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm going to buy a Linux server, I'm going to run thin clients everywhere and I'm going to see if I can go 10 years. I'll be dead by then anyway, but I'll see how fine. See who lasts longer, that Linux box or me.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, AI Leo will still be here.

[Leo Laporte]

There will always be a. We'll always have AI Leo to kick around.

[Patrick Beja]

I think in the case of Apple, from now until the end of eternity, anytime they say, say we protect your privacy, someone will bring up that wallet ad forever. This was a very wrong like a short term strategy that will hurt them more in the long term, I think.

[Dan Patterson]

I don't know that consumers care that much though. I Mean, I think that we like, we probably care. The security, the cyber people. Yeah. I think the average consumer doesn't, doesn't.

[Patrick Beja]

Care down the line. I, I think the, the reason it's important is that when people say, oh, Apple is secure, they turn to the person in the know who's, you know, aware of Apple and Google and Microsoft and like Apple is secure. Right. And if that person is angry because there was an ad in their wallet, you know, about a movie they don't care about, then of course it's, it's not from one day to the next, everything has exploded and fallen apart. But it's a dink in the, in the argument, in the armor.

[Daniel Rubino]

All they have to do.

[Dan Patterson]

It's a dink. Oh for sure. Yeah. And it's a further degradation.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah. They just got to stay ahead of the competition in terms of that perception.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. They're not worse than anybody else.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, that's exactly better.

[Patrick Beja]

There's no question. They're better than everyone, than everybody else in that regard. And that's why. And that's. No, they're, they're much better. We have to be honest. They are much better than. This is the first.

[Leo Laporte]

This is the first. So in that respect they are better because everybody else has been doing this forever.

[Dan Patterson]

Leo was the first. Was it ads in your. Just like Daniel said, in all the stores and now in, in your, your app store. I, I mean for a long time in the App Store there have been ads and.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Dan Patterson]

Not forever. In the recent era. They came in.

[Leo Laporte]

Steve. Not brand new. Relatively new. Yeah. Yeah.

[Patrick Beja]

Steve tried with, I, he's tried with ads.

[Dan Patterson]

Then he failed.

[Patrick Beja]

So Apple that, you know, and somebody's.

[Leo Laporte]

Pointing that out in chat that it's only because Apple failed at ads.

[Patrick Beja]

Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

That they became the privacy leader.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah. And they wanted to do the ads with a lot of, of privacy. But they are, there are private. I think there's a mis. Misunderstanding of what Apple says we are private. What they say when they say we are private. I think the main thing they're talking about is third party.

[Leo Laporte]

We know everything about you. Yeah.

[Dan Patterson]

They try to find.

[Leo Laporte]

Although I have no.

[Patrick Beja]

But even, even their, their arguments and rules that are in place. The at. What's it called, ATT transparency thing.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Patrick Beja]

It's not about preventing individual entities from collecting your data because of course it's, it's to cross reference and to build profiles and to. That's what it's about. And in that sense I think they're very, very consistent.

[Leo Laporte]

I think you can call it security theater. Because we now know that almost basically your phone, your smartphone, is a privacy nightmare. And almost every app that's installed has telemetry. You saw the story that both Meta and a Russian search engine, Yandex, were embedding completely deceptively, the capability to track you beyond what ATT would allow. Wow. Every app has libraries in it now that's tracking your location. You are regardless of what Apple says, your iPhone is a privacy nightmare. And Apple has done nothing really to.

[Daniel Rubino]

Prevent that surprise for them. I never leave my house.

[Leo Laporte]

My is right here, baby.

[Dan Patterson]

I am far more boring than. Can you have any ideas?

[Leo Laporte]

You know, I long ago gave up on privacy. You know, it's certainly an honorable thing to try to. A reasonable thing to try to protect your privacy. It's very, very difficult. And there are all sorts of COVID ways that people are collecting information about you. And now in the United States, with big balls in the Social Security Administration and Doge Co, you know, using Palantir to kind of correlate data from a variety of federal databases, the government, nobody knows more about me than the government. And that's all now available to. I don't even know who. The Russians, anybody. So good luck. If you want to protect your privacy, you better get rid of all your technology. Don't apply for Social Security security, don't have health insurance. Basically, you have to get out of civilization to get away from this. At this point. It's infuriating.

[Patrick Beja]

I wish I knew more about privacy laws in the EU because I can't confidently tell you that it's better here.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, GDPR is a big step. I mean, at least you have a privacy law. We don't even have a federal privacy law.

[Patrick Beja]

I mean, even beyond that, there are laws against creating files, certain types of files. You know, you can't. I would guess it's the same in the US but like, for example, you can't create a file that says all of these people are Jews, for example. You know, it's. You can't.

[Leo Laporte]

But you can create a file that says all these people are autistic, thanks to.

[Patrick Beja]

I don't know that you can in.

[Leo Laporte]

The EU Here, though, you can. And I. And that's.

[Patrick Beja]

The federal government can address these issues with laws. Right? You. You could. Yeah, we should, but we need the political will.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. So I gave up.

[Patrick Beja]

That's the other option. Obvious. And of course, the important thing to note here is that you're not necessarily at risk of anything, right? As you can be. Be extremely public, because there is you're not part of any minority that I know of. So, no, I'm lucky.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. I'm privileged.

[Patrick Beja]

Concerns, right?

[Leo Laporte]

That's exactly right. Yeah. This. You know, we're celebrating Pride Month. I'd be much more concerned if I were gay, if I were transgender, if I were not white. I mean, and.

[Patrick Beja]

And the problem.

[Leo Laporte]

Not a good time to be the other in the United States of America.

[Dan Patterson]

Adam Yamiguchi at CBS News has been doing tremendous reporting on this. If you want further.

[Leo Laporte]

What's the conclusion?

[Dan Patterson]

I don't know if there's a conclusion.

[Leo Laporte]

All right.

[Patrick Beja]

The issue is that there's no immediate conclusion that you can say, okay, this is why it's bad. It's more of a. If you look at history, if you think about what could be done and if. And maybe in the future, it could lead to. You go problematic. Right. And. And so you look at it and you're like, yeah, but I'm happy to get targeted ads. What's the harm? And the reality is, at the moment, there isn't really a harm, except, you know, well, in the US it's starting to be a little bit iffy. But that's why it's so difficult to have a definitive conclusion on this issue, is that when people ask, what's the harm? Your end answer, even though it's valid, is very vague.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. It's like, well, people always bring up insurance to me, like, well, okay, it's not just marketers that are buying that information. Insurance companies are. And even that doesn't scare me.

[Dan Patterson]

I was on the Cambridge Analytica beat years ago at CBS News, and that was the hardest thing. Like, and even what didn't it end up being?

[Leo Laporte]

That their capabilities were highly overstated.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, I mean, that is true. But while we were learning this, I would have editors and producers challenge. Challenge me and say, well, okay, so, like, yes, this seems bad, and it probably is bad, but, like, what's the harm? Like, if I'm. If I'm sitting and watching this show or reading this news story, like, how did this impact me? What's the harm? And it. There are harms, but like Patrick said, it's kind of hard to enumerate what those are in a very simple and easily digestible way that doesn't get into nuance and, like, kind of big picture stuff.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, I can paint you a scenario where, in that case, it's problematic Addict. If you have scenarios.

[Dan Patterson]

But. Right, right. It requires explaining. And when you're explaining, you're losing. So when you're trying to Explain things to people like, what is the harm? You have to explain things. And that requires nuance and patience and all that.

[Leo Laporte]

Let's take a break. I just want to let you know that our ads, in fact, are not based on targeting except in the very broad and by the way, very effective way that if you're listening to our shows, you're tech, your interest in technology, that seems to be sufficient. We don't, no podcast knows, as you know, Patrick, information, demographic information about its audience, you know, so we're not able to use that information. Nevertheless, there are plenty of advertisers who say, well, but I like a tech audience, right? I like it decision makers. And we do appeal to that group of people. So there are ways to do advertising without spying on your audience.

[Patrick Beja]

I mean, that's how the entire world worked before the Internet. You would target a magazine or a certain slot on TV where you had abroad, you know, this age group, this socioeconomic type of people. And it worked. Okay. All right, we're taking a little break.

[Leo Laporte]

And I'm going to do an ad for you, even though I know nothing about you. We're talking about this week's tech stories with Patrick Beja, Daniel Rubino, Dan Patterson. More, more to come in just a little bit. But first, a word from our sponsor, Shopify. Now, imagine you're lying in bed late at night. You're scrolling through this new site you found. How many times have I done that? Right? Hitting the add to cart button on that item you've been looking for. Man, those jeans are going to look good. I mean, now you're ready to check out. But then you remember, oh, crap, this happens to me all the time. Your wallet's in the living room downstairs, and I don't really want to enter a credit card number right now. Just as you're getting ready to abandon that cart, that's when you see it. Oh, the purple shop button. If you shopped online, chances are you have bought from a business powered by Shopify. And that, by the way, both my kids use shop pay on their websites. Salt Hank, my daughter, that purple shop pay button you see at the checkout out there that makes buying so incredibly easy. There's a reason so many businesses sell with it because Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business. I love that sound. Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like Mattel and Gymshark and yes, Salt Hank, to brands just getting started. Shopify gives you that leg up from day one with hundreds of beautiful ready to go templates to express your brand style. Oh, and forget about the code. You don't have to worry about that at all. Tackle all those important tasks in one place. From inventory to payments and analytics and more. Spread your brand's word with built in marketing and email tools to find and keep new customers. Did I mention that iconic purple shop pay button it's used by millions of businesses around the world. I think I did. It's why Shopify has the best. This is important. The best converting checkout on the planet. Your customers already love it. If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time for you to head over to Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com TWIT go to shopify.com TWIT shopify.com TWIT Henry uses it to sell his salts and his pickles and his apparel. My daughter is selling books T shirts. It really is empowering. It's very cool technology. Shopify.com TWIT thank you Shopify. So the Supreme Court ended its session this week with a flurry of decisions in all interesting different directions. One the Go start with the good news news. Supreme Court has rejected claims that the Universal Service Fund is Unconstitutional Low income broadband fund can keep running, says the Supreme Court, which frankly kind of surprised me. This was on Friday. They rejected claims that it's unconstitutional. The Universal Service Fund subsidizes telecommunications services for low income consumers, rural health care providers, schools, libraries. It's it's supervised by a nonprofit the FCC named to run the program, usac, the universal service administrative company. I have to say that despite the fact that the Supreme Court has supported it, it seems to me unlikely the FCC will continue to do so. So it may be a Pyrrhic victory. After all, they have made a decision that some say is going to cause a lot of problems. This is the Free Speech Coalition versus Paxton, of course Paxton of Texas, the Attorney General of Texas. Age Verification the Supreme Court ruled that it is okay for Texas to require adult sites to you require age verification. They said it's not meaningfully more risky than having to show your ID at a liquor store. I think this is a huge threat to privacy. But I'm curious about what you think because of course, if you kind of think about it, if you're going to require age verification for adult sites, that means everybody who uses an adult site site will have to present government ID that says who they are and that information will Be recorded by the adult site and stored in a database and yes, probably sold on to the highest bidder.

[Daniel Rubino]

Or leaked and hacked.

[Leo Laporte]

Or leaked and hacked.

[Dan Patterson]

Or used to target companies that they don't like and say you are an adult site and must register and if you don't, you're out of business.

[Leo Laporte]

I suspect Ken Paxton's real goal is to. Is to. Is to actually put pornography out of business. Right. That they're not worried about age verification. They want all these sites to go away.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, that's what I mean. Like use this to target the company. Like, well, you know, if you can't do this in South Dakota and then West Virginia and then another. Right. You chip away at state by state.

[Leo Laporte]

And that's what's happening. This is. Texas is not the only state there, I think 20 or so with, with laws like this. And incidentally, incidentally, porn is in the eye of the beholder. An adult site could be an LGBTQ resource site. It could be sex education, it could be women's healthcare providers.

[Patrick Beja]

Is it. Are those like, how does. I hate that this is happening? Because I'm gonna turn into the devil's advocate here and I really don't like that I'm gonna defend anything about this. But, but which sites are designated as needing age verification? Is it actual well known porn sites or is it.

[Leo Laporte]

It's not named by site.

[Patrick Beja]

Okay, is it just like a general. Well, porn sites, like sites that have porn have to age verify and each site has to self determine if they are.

[Leo Laporte]

Here's the definition of sexual material harmful to minors directly from the Texas bill. Any material that the average person. Okay, there's problem number one. Applying contemporary community standards. That's. Problem two would find taking the material as a whole. Well, you have to remember we're in a country where they ban books from the library, like Shel Silverstein's books from the library because of, you know, violating contemporary community standards.

[Patrick Beja]

Hmm. Yeah. Which community is it? Which community is the whole country? Is it your community? Is it? Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Can't have nipples. Oh, female nipples. Male nipples are okay. No caressing, touching, or fondling of nipples, breasts, buttocks or genitals anyway you could.

[Patrick Beja]

So. Okay, you could keep reading this.

[Leo Laporte]

I'll probably get banned if I, if I continue.

[Patrick Beja]

So the reason I ask is that we have a similar thing happening in France at the moment. It's happening now. And a lot of porn sites have been required to implement age verification techniques with the same issue that you have in the US which is the age verification technique. It was not specified. It's like, just do it. And the entire tech community is like, well, funny story, it's impossible to do while also protecting your. Guaranteeing your private data to stay private.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, that's a pornhub, which admittedly it's in the name, is a pornography site, as adult site said. It says, okay, we're leaving Texas because we can't do this in a private fashion.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah, they did that in France as well. And then there was a legal proceeding that allowed them to come back and they are currently implementing something in the UK after having said, we are fighting for the. The problem for pornhub, I suspect, is not so much to defend freedom of speech and a little bit more that, you know, if they implement a system like that, their traffic is going to, you know, be full by 90%.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, and their point is, an interesting point is that, yeah, we're going to be good about it, but there's plenty of sites that aren't.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, so in France, the way it works, and I'm sure you're going to say, oh, but that's the government doing more than it should. It's not, not whatever porn is, they designated a number of specific sites like they said, you, you, you, you, you and you, you have to do it. And so everyone else, including sites that might provide information to, you know, trans people or, you know, that kind of thing, they know that they're not in that bucket. So that's one difference. The other thing I do want to say, I completely agree with the tech community that this is a security, I'll say issue so as not to say nightmare. But I also want to acknowledge the fact that the science on the topic is that there is a problem. Teens are getting. Well, I'm not going to go into details, but the science is, the consensus is this is a problem and young people are getting issues with their view and image, self image and body image and view of sexuality. And it is not the same as when we, some of us went and, you know, watched porn movies once a month or whatever. It's so readily available, it's so, so everywhere that it is becoming an issue. Same with.

[Leo Laporte]

Just out of curiosity, what is the issue? Are kids not fornicating anymore?

[Patrick Beja]

Well, I think, I'm sure they are, but it's.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, I'm sure they are too. So what is the issue?

[Patrick Beja]

Well, I would refer you to the papers.

[Leo Laporte]

I think when you say science, that's a pretty broad term for this.

[Patrick Beja]

No, what I mean, the science is the academic, the academic studies on the on the matter, I think. Well, I mean, let's. Okay, you don't believe me. I will try to go and dig up the.

[Leo Laporte]

No, no, I've seen them. I know what you're talking about.

[Dan Patterson]

Having a pedantic discussion about what is or is, I think, is kind of part of the point. And. And I think that's a distraction. And I think that not enumerating, not defining what is or is not is also part of the strategy here. It is so that we can define it ad hoc as we go and define things that, like Leo said, could expand the scope of merely what you or I might think of as straight porn sites. This is something that is designed to be a little more strategic and crafty and define those things however they want and however particular courts want. In certain states, I think there might.

[Patrick Beja]

Be an intent in Texas at least, or, you know, certain states and with certain political leaders. That is, I believe, absent here in France. Again, it is specific sites that have been named. Named that are specifically porn sites. You know, it's. The scope is that you can disagree that this is right.

[Leo Laporte]

And so they don't name specific sites. That's the problem in this law.

[Patrick Beja]

That's. That's the issue. That's why you can get the. To the concern. Well, what about, you know, things that are informing.

[Leo Laporte]

We're in a country. Maryland, for instance, Supreme Court said parents can pull their kids from public school lessons if LGBTQ books are used. We're in a country where the definition of what is harmful to children is getting broader and broader and broader.

[Daniel Rubino]

But violence is okay. Don't forget violence.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, that's fine.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, all the violence you want.

[Dan Patterson]

Because especially in our game pass. Video game standard.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Patrick Beja]

Wow. I guess my point was we have that too in France, but it's much more narrow.

[Leo Laporte]

You have a naked woman on your money.

[Patrick Beja]

We have naked people everywhere. When you were talking about breasts, do.

[Leo Laporte]

You allow kids under 16 to hate. Handle French money?

[Patrick Beja]

But that's the point. This is not what it's about. It's about specific. The specific effects of the readily available and abundance of pornographic content on. And our money would be. When I'm saying this, I don't think if you. If. Yeah, but there's a nipple. Breasts. Seeing breasts is not porn.

[Leo Laporte]

It absolutely is.

[Patrick Beja]

It's in that law in the U.S. not in France.

[Leo Laporte]

That's all.

[Patrick Beja]

Point.

[Leo Laporte]

That's all we're talking about.

[Patrick Beja]

What I'm saying is we're doing it right, and clearly you're doing. You're doing it wrong. I guess that's, that's what I'm saying.

[Dan Patterson]

Leo, just, just a question. I don't know and I really haven't been following the particulars, but this is intersection 230 at all.

[Leo Laporte]

That's an interesting question. So like 30, could you apply this?

[Dan Patterson]

I guess part of my thinking is could you apply this to like Blue sky or X or threads or any social media?

[Leo Laporte]

I think you could.

[Dan Patterson]

That's kind of where I'm thinking like.

[Leo Laporte]

Because if there's anything adult on those sites, then those sites could be required to do age verification. And that's kind of what I'm caveat.

[Patrick Beja]

To my, we're doing it right. Which that is already a problem for us. What about Reddit? What about X? What about Blue Sky?

[Leo Laporte]

Reddit's weird. All of our sites are loaded with adult content.

[Patrick Beja]

Absolutely. And that's, that's a huge problem because when you and we actually, we want to, we like the French government wants to ban social media for kids below 15 in the same way that they want to ban porn, which becomes a much bigger issue because if you ban porn sites, at least you're limiting the age verification to porn sites. If you want to age Gate X and Blue sky and Reddit, you're essentially age gating and age verifying, buying the entire Internet. Which is a much bigger, like whatever issue you have with age verification on porn sites, it's 10 times worse when you have to do it on the whole Internet because as you said, Leo, if you want to make sure that a kid is a kid, you have to check everyone. You can't magically know that's the issue. So you have to ask to find a way. And the technical means are not defined. There are a lot of companies that are claiming they can do it with AI, with selfies, with like it's not, not all government id. But the question still remains, what do you do with all that information? Do you keep it? You do, you store it? They say they don't. Do we trust them? Like that's the whole problem.

[Daniel Rubino]

Luckily, we also know that kids can never hack around stuff.

[Leo Laporte]

Right?

[Daniel Rubino]

Find new ways. Anyone who has kids and has a router and they've locked it down knows it's 100% effective and the kids never find a way around it.

[Patrick Beja]

You know, you know, I used to, to make that argument. I, I, I, I think it, it's a kind of a fallacy. Of course people are going to break the law, kind of if you want to push it to the, that's not a Reason to not to make laws. Right.

[Daniel Rubino]

We know that kids are how realistic is this?

[Leo Laporte]

But if it's 100% enforceable that's and and and instead causes issues with access to free speech content for a results then you got a problem.

[Patrick Beja]

I don't know how enforceable it is. What I can tell you is that people not me who have tested the Brave browser with its Tor mode may have been able to access porn sites when they were blocked without doing anything complicated at all and just launch.

[Leo Laporte]

Thanks for the tip. Let me write that down. Was it Brave browser?

[Daniel Rubino]

Really impressive a browser. That's what I'm saying. There's like 9 million ways around this stuff.

[Patrick Beja]

It has essentially a tour mode where.

[Leo Laporte]

It how long before the junior high school Everybody in the junior high school.

[Dan Patterson]

Knows oh and that was complex.

[Patrick Beja]

As much as I, I, I, you know replied well it's not a reason to not make a law. I would have to. This is so simple.

[Leo Laporte]

Fentanyl has been illegal in the United States for a long time. Time for anything but medical professionals hasn't stopped the epidemic in any respect. You know I it anyway the Supreme Court has ruled. So it's done, it's over. We'll. We'll watch with interest in those states where those laws exist to see what happens.

[Daniel Rubino]

I just find it I will say.

[Patrick Beja]

The way it's defined is very concerning. I completely admit. Like if it's just it's the problem is you can't define it unless you name the specific sites. It seems like what a reasonable person according to current community standards it would seem like a reasonable way to define it. There's no other way to define it. But even that is too vague.

[Leo Laporte]

So Daniel, what were you going to say?

[Daniel Rubino]

I just find it funny that we live in an age where people get elected to government and talk about the deep state and you can't trust a federal government and all that.

[Leo Laporte]

But people, states, rights.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah, let me give them my id. Let them enforce this and ensure just like I don't know, it seems like the people this is why I always say everybody on the right and the left are full of it when it comes to government. And this idea of like no, we want small governments and I don't. You want government that works for you want the government that enforces the things you believe in against the people you don't like.

[Leo Laporte]

I think you're exactly right. Yeah.

[Daniel Rubino]

It doesn't matter what size does the left want?

[Patrick Beja]

Does the left want small government?

[Daniel Rubino]

The extreme left left Libertarians do Libertarians, an anarchist I do, yeah. But I'm not part of the Democratic Party.

[Leo Laporte]

Are you an anarchist? Do you have. Do you have an A tattooed on your. On your bicep there?

[Daniel Rubino]

I. I've been saying I've been an anarchist in high school.

[Leo Laporte]

I like that.

[Daniel Rubino]

I still, I still stick with it. It's the only. And anarchism isn't about saying we need to get rid of all government. It just says. I think most forms of government or authority are probably full of.

[Patrick Beja]

Have you lived in the.

[Leo Laporte]

No.

[Daniel Rubino]

No.

[Patrick Beja]

Okay. It might change your mind.

[Daniel Rubino]

No, there's no changing my mind. If you're. You're. Everybody's either for freedom or you're against freedom. It's. And it's.

[Leo Laporte]

You're just against freedom. You French people, you.

[Daniel Rubino]

But everybody's for freedom. It just, It's. We're just going to talk about how much we have.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Daniel Rubino]

But the goal should always be we strive for more and we try to limit authority.

[Leo Laporte]

I agree with you. I try to think of government as not necessarily authority. I think good government is reflecting the desires of society or the needs of society or the goals of society, like roads, no pollution, things like that. Is that not a reasonable thing for. For a society to do?

[Dan Patterson]

And corruption of government.

[Leo Laporte]

How would you do that? You would do that with government? Yeah.

[Daniel Rubino]

No, I mean, so it's like, this is always the. Fast we can go down this hole. The fallacy of anarchism is always this idea that, like, it's against government, period. And you can never, like, if you have one person that goes, you can't do that. Like, well, we're not anarchists anymore. Right. Like, that's not how it works. Because we live in what we would describe as a liberal democracy, as. Although people would say, you're a constitutional republic, but we have democratic mechanisms. All right, so did I vote for the stop sign down the street? No. Did I vote to have the road paved down the other street?

[Patrick Beja]

No.

[Daniel Rubino]

Did I vote for. We don't vote on every everything.

[Leo Laporte]

In fact, no, we have a representative government. But you would agree we still have stop signs. A good thing, isn't it?

[Daniel Rubino]

Sure, of course. But what I'm saying is we still describe ourselves as a democracy, even though the fact we don't even have a. It's always been so democracy. Yeah, yeah. So. But that stuff is so. It's never an app.

[Leo Laporte]

But that's the only workable way to do it. If you had to vote on every stop sign.

[Daniel Rubino]

Of course. No, of course. But that's my point. This is About. This is about definitions. Right. So anarchism is. Is in. There's a famous quote about this. It's not whether we achieve anarchism today, tomorrow, or whenever. It's that we walk towards anarchism forever. Basically. It's this idea that you just strive for the goal of limiting government where you can, and it doesn't mean that seems fair. Yeah. And I think that's why I don't find it a controversial idea. Like, if you've read anything about the founding of the United States, this is literally. That was the whole point. Like, this was what everybody wrote about, you know, this is. This is that stuff, you know.

[Dan Patterson]

Right. And part of that was that the corruption of government is not an argument against government itself. Those two things are separate. And that is actually fundamental. I mean, that's fundamental to the founding of this country. It's also something that, like, although you may be upset at your politicians demand better work within the system and demand better. Destroying the system harms other people. I have empathy for other people.

[Leo Laporte]

Let's not just so is so anarchy isn't about destroying the system.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, that's true. That's true. I'm ascribing things to Daniel that came from my punk rock youth of people who I disagreed with there is that.

[Daniel Rubino]

Very basic, like, yeah, we must destroy the system.

[Dan Patterson]

But that's who I'm talking about, not you.

[Leo Laporte]

That's more nihilism than it.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Daniel Rubino]

Which is nihilism.

[Dan Patterson]

Black Flag fans.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah, right. Yeah. Nihilism is about let's destroy the system. Because whatever comes after it has got to be better than what we have.

[Patrick Beja]

Now, which is a very dangerous way.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that's demonstrably not true from history.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And that's political nihilism, not nihilism as a whole.

[Dan Patterson]

We started this show with Xbox.

[Leo Laporte]

That's why I started with Xbox. We're take a break. When we come back. We will. Enough of that. Let's talk about. Oh, AI. We haven't talked about AI yet. Okay, that'll be good. And the debate does continue for the Big beautiful Bill. I will tell you some potential negatives and one of them is the debate over whether one of the amendments to the Big beautiful bill, which is really a budget bill, budget reconciliation bill, is a 10 year moratorium on AI regulation by the states. And that is highly debated. I'm curious what you all think of that. We'll get to that in just a little bit. But first, a word from our sponsor, Zscaler, the leader in cloud security Hackers. We know this are using AI to breach organization. Organization. We also know on the other hand, AI powers innovation can drive efficiency. So it's a, it's a double edged sword. It can also help bad actors deliver more relentless and effective attacks. Phishing attacks over encrypted channels increased it by 34.1% last year. And that was fueled primarily by the growing use of generative AI tools, which makes those phishing attacks much more effective by the way, as well as phishing as a service kits. Yes, there is such a thing. All industries from small to large are facing this challenge. But they're also wanting to use AI to leverage it to increase employee productivity with public AI. For engineers with coding assistance, it's a huge, huge thing that's happening. Marketers using AI for writing tools, finance creating spreadsheet formulas, automate workflows for operational efficiency across individuals and teams. Companies are embedding AI into applications and services that are both customer and partner facing. Ultimately, AI can help you move faster in the market and gain competitive advantage. So we've got this balance right. Companies need to rethink how they protect their private and public use of AI. They also have to think about how they defend against AI powered attacks. And that's where Zscaler comes in. Jason Kohler, who's the Chief Information Security Officer the CISO at Eaton Corporation, leverages Zscaler to embrace AI innovation and, and combat AI threats. He says, quote, data loss detection has been very helpful for us. ChatGPT came out, we had no visibility into it. Zscaler was our key solution initially to help us understand who was going to it and what they were uploading. Imagine right, your employees are going to use this. Zscaler can help. The other thing Zscaler helps with is security. Traditional security tools like firewall, firewalls, perimeter defenses, then you have to have a vpn, right? And that gives you a public facing IP address which exposes your attack surface. And then this, you know, AI empowered hacking era is absolutely defense. You're defenseless. So this is the other side of the coin. It's time for a modern approach with Zscaler's comprehensive zero trust architecture and AI that ensures safe public AI productivity, protects the integrity of private AI and stops AI powered attacks. Tax thrive in the AI era with Zscaler Zero trust plus AI to stay ahead of the competition and remain resilient even as threats and risks evolve. Learn [e-mail] security that's zscaler.com security we thank them so much for supporting this week in Tech. So there were two big court decisions this week, one to really benefit and Thrive Topic. The other benefited Meta. In both cases, the courts held that AI training can be fair use. Judge William Alop in the fifth District, or it's in Cal in the west west coast, said it was fair use for Anthropic to train on a series of authors books. The lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild, then Vincent Chah Cabria dismissed another group of authors complaints against Meta for training on their books. Now, Alsip pointed out that Anthropic did break the law when they used pirated media, which might put them in other words, the books that they bought and scanned, that was fair use. The books they didn't buy but pirated, that was not fair use. Meanwhile, the metadata ruling asserted that because of a flood of AI content could crowd out human artists, the potential was there for the entire field of AI training to be fundamentally at odds with fair use. That's something you've been saying, Benito. Neither case addressed questions about Generative AI. When does output infringe copyright on who's on the hook if it does. However, I think Anthropic and Meta are both saying a victory for AI. AI, that AI reading content, if it does so legitimately, is fair use of that content. You agree? Dan, what do you think? You work in this business.

[Dan Patterson]

You know, my instinct, especially like in the last. Well, I maybe two or three years ago, initially when generative AI first hit, my instinct was that if you are ingesting, transforming and reselling, to me as a layperson, that doesn't seem like fair use. That seems like you're taking something, turning it into something else and repacking it.

[Leo Laporte]

But what are you reselling? If you in, if you read Moby Dick, if your machine reads Moby Dick, you're read well, and then sells a summary of Moby Dick. Is that not transformative?

[Dan Patterson]

But doesn't the training data help the capabilities of the AI improve?

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, but so I'm just saying like.

[Dan Patterson]

This was my thought initially a couple years ago now, now I, I don't know, like I'm of two minds. One is ethics and one is legal. And legally is what I'm way more interested in because I can have my feelings, but my feelings might change when I have more information. And my feelings might harden when I have more information. So what I'm really interested in in is like what legally is happening here and what are the harms or the maybe benefits? What are the implications? I know that it sounds like I'm Ducking it. But I'm way more interested in how these case laws are being settled and then what does that do to the AI systems. And I kind of have this other feeling where AI has been really beneficial to a lot of my life and I'd like to see it improve, but not exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

As Sam, as Sam Altman said, AI that's trained only on non copyrighted material isn't going to be very useful. Do you want that AI?

[Daniel Rubino]

The problem with all this, of course, is the fact that as humans, we learn by training ourselves on copyrighted material every single day.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. This whole show is based on copyrighted material.

[Daniel Rubino]

I hate to tell you, all art is derivative. Right. You know, so there's. There, that's the problem here, is that like this is how we all function. It's just A.I. takes it to a whole other level in terms of performance and capability. So that's why.

[Dan Patterson]

Performance and capability. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's.

[Daniel Rubino]

That's feels wrong, but I think legally, I think this is going to end up favoring the AI companies, at least the way the law currently is written. Well, it's going to.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, at least in the case of Anthropic, the key argument that the judge or the key part of his judgment was the fact that the AI's work is transformative.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Patrick Beja]

Even phrased it as, this is the most transformative, one of the most transformative things I've seen in my life in.

[Leo Laporte]

The us that's one of tests for fair use that if something is transformative.

[Patrick Beja]

In the case of, in the case against Meta, I believe the argument was the judge said, you guys, the author's lawyers did a terrible job. If you had said this or that, I would have judged differently. So I suspect the next case will go differently, but certainly in the one against between Anthropic and the three authors, the effect, the pirated part is important for Anthropic because they pirated a lot of books. And if the damage was damages are important, then it can result in like several hundred billion dollars in damages. But for future AI training companies or future models, if they train, or at least according to this judgment, we'll see how it goes following the legal process. But if this judgment stands, then it means very clearly that training an AI on copyrighted content is fair use use. And that is a huge part of the whole conversation. It might be even argued that this is the main contention between copyright holders, authors, creators and the AI companies. That's the whole salami. How do you say it? Trying to sound American? That's the whole thing.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't know if that's American or Italian.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The proper word would be McGill. The proper word would be McGilla.

[Leo Laporte]

McGilla is the American word.

[Patrick Beja]

That's the whole. But yeah, so, so the, the key takeaway here is yes, it's fair use and that is very bad news for content creators and this is very good news for AI companies. Again, if the, the, this ruling stands down the line, which would very likely.

[Leo Laporte]

Jason Kalakanison, who has invested in a company that does licensing of content for AI, he said that's going to ultimately be where we're going to end up, is that AI companies, because they're going to make money on this training, will end up licensing content so that they have the content to make.

[Dan Patterson]

I think that's the future of news media too. I have this ongoing chat with some people like former cbs and this is kind of a debated, a fun debated topic like the future of media. But I think, think that like, you know, why create your own brand and then license it to an AI? Why not just lice, like do your own content directly for the AI?

[Leo Laporte]

I don't pay, you know, I mean, I subscribe to Bloomberg and New York Times and Washington. I subscribe to a lot of news services. But this show is based on what I glean and you know it as co host because you see the rundown, which is basically a series of links to other people's articles. This show is completely derivative. But I could, I consider at fair use it's transformative. I, I do as a matter of course try to credit articles and the authors of the articles when we talk about it. But I'm doing kind of the same thing as an AI is doing.

[Patrick Beja]

That's how it's always worked in the media. And quite frankly, even if you discount like the very low quality sites and the AI sites that are everywhere now, even before that, the Internet is roughly, you know, I don't know, 90% people commenting on an AFP or AP report. And it's like, yeah, Jeff Jarvis says.

[Leo Laporte]

That he taught journalism for years. He said there's one story that's original and the rest are copies.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, that's why everybody tries to break.

[Patrick Beja]

News is what Daniel was saying. The scale and capability are so different that it's, you shouldn't really, you should at the very least re examine the conclusions you've come to in the world beyond before AI. You should look at them and see if they still fit for the situation. That is, it's kind of like social Media, like, you have laws and rules about free speech and everything. In a world where people talking mean, you know, you go out on your lawn and you yell at a cloud. It's a different world when anyone yelling at a cloud can reach the entire planet. Right? Yeah. And so I feel like this is what we, the, the conclusions we apply to the world of media and what you do and what I do are maybe not appropriate when AI gets involved. Maybe they are.

[Daniel Rubino]

It reminds me very much of, you know, back in the 90s and everything with MP3s and, you know, people trading music and ipods. This idea was, you know, you would go out to the store, you bought a tape or you bought a cd, you owned that song and that music, and as your one copy of it, even copying to a cassette was like the music industry was like. But then once it became the ability to, like, mass copy music and just share just the scale of it. Yeah, the scale of it was just like something no one had anticipated. It's all these questions came about, like, can you copy a song and turn to an MP3 and who can you share it with and who pays for it? And, you know, can you have an ipod that jams like 10,000 songs on it?

[Patrick Beja]

Right.

[Daniel Rubino]

None of this was anticipated. So, like, the idea of, like, you know, I agree with Patrick about, you know, we need to kind of go back and rethink this because the way everything is changing right now, it's just we never thought of it that way, even though it's using the same systems we've always used, which is.

[Leo Laporte]

We actually talked about this on Friday. I had a guest, Stephen Witt, who wrote a book called How Music Got Free, which is the history of the digital music revolution. Really good book. And what became clear after reading the book and talking to Steven is that while everybody and their brother, you know, the music industry sued their customers, people fought this, but ultimately it wasn't anything you could stop. So they adjusted their business model. They changed to accommodate it. Now you can argue, well, this, you know, new streaming model isn't very good for artists and so so forth, but it was a way of handling this piracy problem. And I don't think the piracy problem is considered much of a problem anymore, mainly because they made it so easy to access the music in high quality for very low cost that people just didn't. Nobody bothers trying to steal music anymore. Right.

[Patrick Beja]

The interesting thing is that piracy is coming back for video because there are so many streaming services.

[Daniel Rubino]

That's true too.

[Patrick Beja]

And their prices have gone up especially Netflix.

[Leo Laporte]

And so it's an economic force. Piracy.

[Patrick Beja]

It's a user experience. Yeah. Yes.

[Dan Patterson]

There's a great book that is tangential or at least adjacent to that era called Sellout by Dan Ozzie. And it's about the independent musicians that were either took advantage of this from the late 90s to the early 2000s. We really don't think about this idea of selling out anymore. But at the time of it was a really big deal and some bands air quotes sold out and got hammered by this change and some bands really figured out how to adjust to the permutations of. Of content distribution changing so rapidly. Anyway, it's a really fun book to. To read about that era.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Make selling out embarrassing again, please.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, yeah. You remember when we cared about selling.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, man, make that embarrassing again, yeah.

[Patrick Beja]

The. The conclusion of all of those thoughts is that at. Sometimes there's a piece of technology that comes on the scene and it's a genie that can't go back in the bottle or at that side of the bag.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Patrick Beja]

And you. That's it. That's the new state of the world. And I fully believe that AI is an invention, generative AI. AI exists now. There is no going back to work to a world where it doesn't exist. So we have to figure out how it's going to work out with it existing legally and practically. And I honestly think that the copyright holders and the artists and the creators. I've seen no evidence that serious people thinking about this think that there's a way to. To make it so AI doesn't exist anymore. Some people on Twitter or whatever will say, oh, this is crap like this. It should. But all the people who are actually thinking about the problem are like, how do we make it work? Sag, aftra, for example, the actors union in Hollywood and the US have been on strike for video game voiceover and motion capture and everything. And they ended up finding an agreement after. After like, what was it, 11 months of striking. And from what we've seen, what we understand of that agreement is that it's informed consent for voice actors on how their voice will be used and proper compensation. So this is just to say they understand. Even them who are extremely subject to being replaced by AI or partially erased. And they are working with it and trying to make sure that their opinion and the way they want things to go is forcefully taken into account.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I actually made that case to Stephen Witt is that it's important to read his book because we are repeating that cycle, the cycle that happened with music now with AI. The question though, and it's the same question really for both technological inventions is what happens to the creator? What happens to the artist, the musician, the writer? Because it's pretty clear that in both cases we need people to make music. We need people to create the content the AI is ingesting. Right. So how do we make sure that they are fairly compensated? This article from the Walrus, the death of the middle class musician. It's easier than ever to make music. Harder than ever to make a living from it. And this is what technology hath wrought. You know, everybody has logic in their. On their laptop.

[Patrick Beja]

Is it harder to make a living than when you had to like make music in your garage and try to find.

[Leo Laporte]

Harder to get rich?

[Patrick Beja]

Well, yeah, no, yes, it's hard.

[Unnamed Speaker]

No, I will, I will say yes, it's harder to make a living.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, it's harder to make a decent living maybe.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah, because I mean the focus has gone from selling albums to touring. Basically. You need to tour and make money through merchandise.

[Unnamed Speaker]

No, also like just generally the environment values music very low. So even playing gigs every day, you're not going to make enough money to make a living.

[Leo Laporte]

A couple of years ago I had.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It's just the value has been diminished.

[Leo Laporte]

A couple of years ago at a dinner with Paul Simon and I was asking about piracy and how I felt about it, he says, my only concern is my kids, my son is a musician. How is he going to be able to survive in a world where the values his creation so little? And I think that's a reasonable question.

[Patrick Beja]

Does the world, I'm sorry again, does the world value creation so little?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yes, absolutely. 100%. Yes, absolutely.

[Dan Patterson]

I think if you're a graphic artist.

[Leo Laporte]

You'Re worried because everybody's using Mid Journey to create the illustrations for the music.

[Patrick Beja]

I would argue there are more creators in the world right now that there have ever been. Maybe they're making.

[Leo Laporte]

There's no doubt about that.

[Dan Patterson]

That's exactly what they're doing, Patrick. Exactly. And there's in fact I would encourage you to the YouTube channel for Rick Beato. He was an old rock producer who has been streaming this. He talks about this. Exactly. And there you can, you can look at the stats. The music business charts us because they see Spotify as their own competition. They see silence as a competition and they certainly see YouTube as a competition because it is sapped their resources, which is original content creators. Yeah, absolutely. Patrick. There is so much fear in the music business right now about what's happening now. And that, yes, there are more creators. They're on YouTube and substack. They're not making rock and roll.

[Leo Laporte]

So on the one hand, if you're. If your need is to create, and ultimately that is a human need. Yeah, you're. You definitely have the tools available to you to do that. Anybody can be a podcaster. Anybody can be a blogger. Anybody can be an artist or a photographer. The question is, can you make your living doing that? And I think increasingly the answer is. We saw this happen with photography decades ago. Got harder and harder to make a living as a photographer as soon as everybody had a camera in their pocket. So I don't know, does the world owe everybody who wants to be an artist a living? No, not necessarily.

[Patrick Beja]

I will go one step further and in so doing, become the bad guy that everyone can hate. And I disagree with myself here, but I'll ask for the sake, for the sake of play.

[Leo Laporte]

Devil's advocate, Patrick. That's what I always do.

[Patrick Beja]

We. I think there will always be people who want to make music.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes. Because you do it, because you love it.

[Patrick Beja]

Yes. But do we need. I can't believe I'm going to say this. Do we need to music? Yes. There was a time. There was a time when sculpting was one of the major art forms.

[Leo Laporte]

We don't need sculpting. We need music.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Music is probably the oldest art form, though, Patrick. Music is probably the oldest music.

[Leo Laporte]

I will say.

[Patrick Beja]

I'm just asking.

[Leo Laporte]

I understand what you're saying, though, is do we need the arts? And I would say that is probably the most fundamental thing humans do. And we will always.

[Patrick Beja]

We have lots of different. I would argue 10 TikTok making is a form of art.

[Leo Laporte]

Nobody's saying that people aren't able to create. In fact, it's obvious more. Almost everybody now can be a creator.

[Dan Patterson]

Look, it's like World of goo, right? You have goo blobs here and here. And the YouTube. Sorry, the YouTube glue bob blob took the music blob. Right. So, yes, we have creators. They're just doing this thing over here.

[Patrick Beja]

I don't. I. I can't accept the idea that maybe there will be less musicians, less.

[Leo Laporte]

No, there won't be. It'll just be harder to make a living as a musician. I have to say, Middle Ages, how many musicians made a living? You made music because you were entertaining your family at night. You didn't have a TV set.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Okay, first of all, the music industry itself is only about 100 years old. It's really not brand new exactly as an industry. So we've only really been able to make money by being a musician for the last hundred years.

[Leo Laporte]

Precisely. In fact, Jeff Jarvis says this in general about mass media.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But that's a good thing. We should have kept that going. Right. Whether we take that away, like, that's the question.

[Leo Laporte]

Platinum artists is the question you should be asking. Right. Do we need to have people become insanely rich and popular, or is it all right to have musicians in every subway stop?

[Dan Patterson]

That's kind of the heart of that book selling sellout. It's, it's that a number of musicians looked at what was happening in the music business, the commodification of their art, and they decided to do. Some musicians did not do that. Some musicians decided to continue to try to push and push and push into the major record label system. And other musicians found that they could tour and develop an audience and cultivate that audience and find other revenue streams. But that was a much smaller, smaller group of musicians than existed before.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, and, and that's why Pamplomous, remember Pamplomous, they lost a huge amount of money on their tour. And the, the. What was his name?

[Patrick Beja]

Jack Conti created Patreon.

[Leo Laporte]

So as a way for people to become a, A patron of the arts.

[Patrick Beja]

Listen, I live on Patreon. That's how I make my living. I have a number of very generous and patrons who allow me to be a professional podcaster. Jack Conti and Pamplomous, specifically. Pamplemoose was doing covers, Right. Not original music. Yeah, Pamplemoose was most of their thing. What I know about them, they were doing covers. So when they say, oh, and we were getting no money out of the millions of views we were doing on Those videos like 15 years ago, it's because the original creators of those pieces were getting the money.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Patrick Beja]

I don't know if that's. Is that how it should work? Maybe not. But it's not like they weren't, you know, there was no money being made and it went nowhere. Or someone, you know, YouTube specifically, I was talking about.

[Leo Laporte]

The thing that prompted him was he went on tour because. For that reason, right. And said, oh, we're going to do a tour. And it was so ended up being really not a profitable tour. And that's when he said, we've got to find a better way. I think it's, you know, we are absolutely also funded by our audience with our club. That's a very important part of our business.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Something that we're missing out, though. When you're talking about music is the whole scaffolding and infrastructure that supports musicians. Talking about your studio engineers, your recording engineers, your master.

[Leo Laporte]

You don't need that anymore. Yeah, you can do it yourself. Yourself.

[Unnamed Speaker]

No, but that's.

[Leo Laporte]

Didn't have a but now a musician.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Is expected to have every single skill from marketing to mastering to make. Now, now the musician's supposed to do all of that stuff.

[Patrick Beja]

Every. Every, every artist.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Exactly. But it hasn't always been this way. This is brand now the artist has to do literally everything you have to do.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a lot easier to do that. And. And AI makes even the marketing part easier. We're going to take.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But not all artists can do everything. Some artists can really just make music, you know, some artists can't do all. All that stuff.

[Leo Laporte]

You know what? I'm learning to play the piano. No one will ever pay me to play the piano, ever. I promise you. Does that stop me from learning? No, I'm loving it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's also the problem is that people will do it for free so that people will take advantage of that.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Because people love to make music or paint or take pictures. I don't make any money on my photography, but it's one of the joys of my life. But paper me is when somebody says, hey, I like your picture on Flickr.

[Patrick Beja]

There is a societal question there. Do we need people to be motivated to make music professionally? And seriously, I think not.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, then we're going to the. We're going to the capitalism question here. And do we really want to go there?

[Dan Patterson]

And, you know, well, it's a question.

[Patrick Beja]

About AI as well. If AI does, you know, do we need universal basic income?

[Dan Patterson]

Do you guys remember that iPad commercial last year that Apple cut a lot.

[Leo Laporte]

Of flash, crushed the creatives.

[Dan Patterson]

Right, right.

[Leo Laporte]

And then out of it came an iPad.

[Dan Patterson]

Yes. So, okay, okay. Like a terrible ad. Like a. Got everybody lampooned for. For obvious reasons. But just to affirm kind of Patrick's point and maybe the broader point of this conversation, maybe we don't need commercial music in the same way that we did. And there are potential millions more people making music right now that we just don't know about or we know about them, but they're in a playlist or a.

[Leo Laporte]

Every time I see a street busker and I walk by and I go, God, that guy's great, it reminds me that there are millions of brilliant musicians we've never heard of and will never hear of who probably won't even Make a living, but they exist.

[Dan Patterson]

And that's enabled by an iPad. Like I. Look, I played the viola growing up. We didn't have a lot of money, but I had enough money to play the viola. But a lot of people don't. And I think maybe if you put a cheap tablet in their hand, a lot of people will be able to make music.

[Leo Laporte]

I agree. Hey, we got to take a break. I have an AI tool that I think we can all agree is a very bad idea. Coming up in just a second. This is this Week in Tech with some very smart philosophers. Patrick Beja. It's always a pleasure having you on. From France. He's notpatrick.com does a bunch of podcasts you bring. Brought back the English language one. The Phileas Club.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah, the Phileas Club. It's really fun. We send audio letters to Filius from different parts of the world and tell him who's Phileas. Well, that's all of us, Leo.

[Leo Laporte]

Listen and find out. How about that notpatrick.com or on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast Podcasts you should really be not Phileas.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, I do a lot of shows, not just letters to Phileas.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay, thank you, Patrick. Also with us, Daniel Rubino, editor in chief of Windows Central. A great place to go to get your Windows news and to keep up on what's going on with Microsoft in general. Anything particular you'd like to plug, Daniel, before we go into our ad? No, it should always come in. When are you. You know, when's your. When's your novel coming out? You should always come here with something.

[Daniel Rubino]

I know someday I'll write a book, but. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Do you have a novel in the. In your desk drawer?

[Daniel Rubino]

I wouldn't do a novel. I would do a book on philosophy.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, an anarchist's handbook, perhaps?

[Daniel Rubino]

I've been trying to synthesize Daoism and anarchism for a long time, and eventually I'll write that book.

[Leo Laporte]

I am a devoted Taoist. In fact, I do Tai Chi every day.

[Daniel Rubino]

Day.

[Leo Laporte]

And I have a dowdaging verse of the day that I put in my diary every day. I love it because it's nothing. It's a very easy philosophy to follow. If you try too hard, you're not doing it right.

[Daniel Rubino]

It's the only philosophy you can read, too, and you feel pretty good about yourself.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, Yeah, I love it. True goodness is like water. Water is good for everything. It doesn't. Doesn't compete. It goes right to the low loathsome places and so finds the way. Right. Good. I want to see Daoism and anarchy together at last. You got to write that book. I'm looking forward to it. Until then, Everybody go to windowscentral.com and read up on all the latest. Also with us, Dan Patterson, whose work at Blackbird AI is really valuable, really important. Helping debunk, misinformation, getting the context people need about the stories they read. And it's free for all at Compass. Blackbird AI. Did I say that right?

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, yeah. That's just one of our. One of our context checking or deep fake checking products that you can look at. I'm still at, like, I still freelance for Jason Heiner at ZDNet, all that. Like, I'll never not freelance.

[Leo Laporte]

Once a journalist, always a journalist.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah. And, like, would you like to do.

[Leo Laporte]

A reading from the Beasties Boys book while you're. While you're here?

[Dan Patterson]

That is a fantastic book. But let me tell you, the audiobook for the Beastie Boy book is fantastic. It is like listening to the streets of New York city in the 1980s. It's so good. That's what I want to plug. Listen to the audiobook for the Beastie Boys book.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, my God. All right, I'm gonna. I'm putting it on my wish list right now. Not on Audible because I don't want to support Amazon anymore. I do all my books now from Libro FM because it supports my local bookstore. Let me just see if it has the b. Awesome Beastie Boys book by Adam Horowitz. That one. Is that it? Let's see here. Is this it?

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

With pizza on the front cover.

[Dan Patterson]

That is a good book.

[Leo Laporte]

All right, I'm gonna add it to my cart right there. Look at that. Will I enjoy it even if I don't understand the street?

[Dan Patterson]

If you like Beastie Boys, you remember.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm an old man.

[Dan Patterson]

2.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I mean, those are two of the actual Beastie Boys who wrote that book, so.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

It's written by the Beastie Boys. Yeah.

[Dan Patterson]

I mean, the actual book is great, too, because it's a massive coffee table book with beautiful photographs. It's just tremendous.

[Patrick Beja]

We all have different types of friends, right? There's the one that's kind of an. But fun to be around once in a while.

[Leo Laporte]

Me, I already recognize myself in the book. The Beasties Boys book. All right. That's a good plug. Thank you. This episode of this Week in Tech, brought to you by our friends at Outsystems, the leading AI powered application and Agent development platform. This is a fascinating story. Outsystems has been around for more than 20 years and for that whole time the mission of Outsystems has been to give every company the power to innovate through software. But imagine how their mission has evolved in the time of AI. You know, traditionally IT teams have had two choices. Any company has had two choices when it comes to software. The build versus buy conundrum, right? You can buy off the shelf SaaS products. You know you get it today but you lose flexibility and differentiation. Or build it yourself, which as I know from deep experience, costs a lot of money, takes a lot of time. It doesn't always give you the results it you want. Well, there's now a new way besides build and buy. AI forges the way for another path. The fusion of AI low code and DevSecOps automation into a single development platform. That's Outsystems. Your team will build custom applications with AI agents and it's as easy as buying generic off the shelf sameware plus, which is great without systems flexibility, security and scalability. Scalability comes standard with AI powered low code. Teams can build custom future proof applications at the speed of buying with fully automated architecture, security integrations, data flows and permissions. Outsystems is the last platform you need to buy because you can use it to build anything and customize and extend your core systems too. Build your future with OutSystems. Visit outsystems.com TWIT to learn more. That's Outsystem. We thank him so much for supporting this week in tech. I think we can agree facial recognition, while it has some use, probably should not be in the hands of ice. This is from 404 Media. They are breaking so many. They are so good these days. Joseph Cox the new tool, it's called Mobile Fortified. You know when I don't. You wouldn't mind? Not this Patrick, but every time we exit or enter the U.S. customs and Border patrol takes a picture of us. In fact, I even think it says we don't save the picture. But they do. And according to internal ICE emails viewed by 404 Media, they're using those photos plus others. I would imagine to put an app on ICE's phone that they are now using. They are going around taking pictures of people to see if they're illegal, undocumented I should say undocumented immigrants, they call them illegal. Now one of the things we know for sure is that face recognition is notoriously bad for false positives. If ICE is using that out in the field with a smartphone company camera and then arresting people on the base of this. This is a nightmare, a privacy nightmare, a law enforcement nightmare. A really bad idea. You agree?

[Daniel Rubino]

It's also aren't the smartest people in the world who are using this technology?

[Leo Laporte]

No, they're thug. Frankly I consider them Trump's Gestapo. Face recognition technology. This is Nathan Fried Wessler, Deputy director of the ac. Face recognition technology is notoriously unreliable, frequently generating false matches and resulting in number of wrongful arrests across the country. We know this. Immigration agents relying on this technology to try to identify people on the street is a recipe for disaster. Congress has never authorized DHS to use face recognition technology in this way. The agency should shut this dangerous experiment down. Down Mobile Fortify. Even the name is creepy.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And the absolute irony of that photo that's in that article of them taking pictures and they're wearing masks. It's like, come on man.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah. Don't you dare take a picture of us. It's a very one way street on this one. I, I guess there's nothing really much to say. This is an example of how AI can be used in a variety of ways. Ways not always.

[Patrick Beja]

I mean you were, we were pondering what the potential issues would be with too much personal information being out there.

[Leo Laporte]

There you, there's one right there.

[Patrick Beja]

In the case of U.S. customs. I. It might be the same in the EU. I don't think so, but maybe. I've been to the US a few times. Of course.

[Leo Laporte]

And they took your picture, do they.

[Patrick Beja]

They take pictures and they take your fingerprint prints.

[Leo Laporte]

Yep.

[Patrick Beja]

As well.

[Leo Laporte]

Yep.

[Patrick Beja]

And if I'm, I don't know if they use that database for that search. But the main issue to my, the way I understand it is that not only do they take the picture, but if they end up arresting you, you're not allowed due process. Correct. Right.

[Leo Laporte]

So you may end up in El Salvador or worse.

[Patrick Beja]

So if there is a false positive during the great hazard picture taking.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes.

[Patrick Beja]

Right. If there is like this is a very real possible scenario. There is a false positive of someone who is not, you know, the person that they identified that gets sent somewhere without due process. Process. What if they, they're wrong? Is there a way for that person to say no, no, no, no, no, this is who I am. Ask my wife. You know, I'm. Do they go like that? This, this is the whole issue of where does it go down the line at some point.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, just thought you should know. Just, I'm just saying, just Asking the questions here. What else?

[Patrick Beja]

So, you know, everyone outside the US Is shaking their head. You know, this is not something that.

[Leo Laporte]

I hope you don't blame us for this, though. I best. I'm thinking, you know, my wife does not want to travel outside the US For a number of reasons. One, she doesn't want to have to come back in, but two, she's very much worried that people will not welcome Americans.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, I mean, I don't want to say that similar political movements haven't been seen outside the US But I think we all understand that there is part of the country that is pushing this government and pushing in, you know, for these policies. And I think we also don't want to discount the hardships that have led to embracing that kind of political, daring, political agenda. But I don't know, this is a whole different conversation. But to answer your question, very.

[Leo Laporte]

Would you be nice to me if I came to visit?

[Patrick Beja]

I think most people understand that, you know, hope so. Only 70 million Americans voted for this.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. All right. All right. Moving away from politics, Meta. This is a fascinating story going on between Meta and Open AI. Mark Zuckerberg said that he's going around personally to the best people at OpenAI and offering them $100 million salaries plus hundred million dollar signing bonus bonuses to jump ship. And he says it's working. Sam Altman says, no, that's, they haven't been offering that much. Or maybe it's the other way around. Actually, it is the other way around. Sam Altman saying they're offering that much and they're not going. Adam Bosworth, CTO at Meta, says Sam's just being dishonest. He's suggesting we're doing this for every single person. Look, you guys, the market's hot. It's not that hot. Notice that's not a categorical denial. They are offering a lot to the right person, I think, and it may well be $100 million.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, they just poached three additional researchers. Siegler at Spyglass just said, well, Maybe there's not 100 million signing bonus, but, you know, if you take everything into account, it might not be that far from the, from the mark. And certainly, I don't know what got into Zuckerberg that he thought, you know, the, the scientists at Meta weren't cutting it and that Llama apparently is maybe not good enough or I don't know.

[Leo Laporte]

There was even a rumor that they're abandoning Llama. I don't know if that's true either.

[Dan Patterson]

I would suspect that is A silly rumor, I would like to say, that's substantiated beyond.

[Leo Laporte]

Like this. This comes from Sam Altman talking on a podcast with his brother. Brother Jack.

[Dan Patterson]

Oh, was it really?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Sam said they started making, like, these giant offers to a lot of people on our team. This direct quote, you know, like $100 million signing bonuses. More than that comp per year. And notice the Bosworth denial didn't say they're not doing that, only that they're not doing it for everyone.

[Dan Patterson]

They meant the. The other stuff, not that.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, what other?

[Dan Patterson]

Anyway, that Meta might drop Llama.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, Metamike. I don't know if that's.

[Dan Patterson]

I don't know that I've seen that substantiated anywhere stuff. Yeah, it was on a podcast. Sorry.

[Leo Laporte]

Certainly kind of amazing amount of money. I wish I'd studied whatever is you have to study. The three scientists they acquired are all Chinese. I don't know if it's a great loss to OpenAI. Although one OpenAI employee said it was.

[Patrick Beja]

I mean, it's starting to be. It's three now, but there were two more a week ago. Right.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean, if you're willing to write the big check, I guess you could. I mean, look, how would you find. Somebody comes to you and says, I'll give you 100 million now and 100 million a year, even if it's 100.

[Patrick Beja]

Million in a year. I think. You think about.

[Leo Laporte]

No, they're saying no, this is what Altman says. $100 million signing bonus plus more than 100 million a year.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah. Which. I'm not sure I trust him about.

[Leo Laporte]

This, but maybe Mark could afford it.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the issue. That's the incumbent or, you know, the fact that they have such a huge, huge budget.

[Leo Laporte]

And by the way, Darrell Pockets in our YouTube chat, pointing out that Meta has more Blackwell H100 GPUs than any other company. I think it was 100. I can't remember what number was. It was a huge number. So they have.

[Patrick Beja]

So here's my. Here's my theory. Yann Lecun, who's the. I believe he's the chief AI scientist at Meta. Right. Or at least he's very high, high up there. He's still working there. I was. Check now it was like, is he gone? Why is Meta. Why is Zuck going on a buying spree for AI scientists? I think he's done with LLMs. He's hinted more than once that LLMs are good, but you're not going to achieve AGI with LLMs, and there are other avenues that they're exploring now. And I think he's like, LLMs are crap for AGI. We need to go another route, so we're pushing in that direction. And Zuckerberg had a meeting three weeks ago with LeCun. And LeCun was like, well, I'm not doing that anymore. And so Zach was like, okay, do your thing.

[Leo Laporte]

What do you. What do you need, Jan? What do you need?

[Patrick Beja]

No, according to Walt, I think he said we need. We still need people to work on LLM, so let's go hire you.

[Leo Laporte]

Do your thing, Jan. We'll do ours.

[Patrick Beja]

That's my theory.

[Leo Laporte]

So Wall Street Journal says it's known as the List, and it's a secret file of AI geniuses. Only a select few researchers have the skills for the hottest area in tech. Mark Zuckerberg and his rivals want to hire them, even if it takes pay packages of more than $100 million.

[Patrick Beja]

I'm so done with tech Bros. The list.

[Leo Laporte]

The list. PhDs from elite schools like Berkeley and Carnegie mellon. Experience at OpenAI, Google's DeepMind. They're usually in their 20s and 30s. They all know know each other. It's. This is the Journal, and they all spend their days staring at screens. Wow. I just feel like I made a big mistake when I chose to be a podcaster instead of an AI scientist. I know Common lisp. One recruit who has spoken with Zuckerberg, who is personally counting his dream team of potential hires, describes the company's goal is nothing less than a transfusion fusion from the company's top AI labs. It's a new lab at Meta devoted to superintelligence.

[Patrick Beja]

I mean, that's. That's the game, right? It's capitalism. We were talking about it a little bit earlier. There is no reason he couldn't go around and offer 100 million signing bonuses, right? And I believe that OpenAI, at least, maybe not the other companies, but OpenAI AI has a lot of money in the bank as well. Maybe not enough to offer, to offer that kind of, by the way, compensation.

[Leo Laporte]

You might be right about Yann Lecun, because the leader of the superintelligence team is a guy named Andrew. I'm sorry, Alexander Wang. He's 28 years old, grew up in New Mexico.

[Patrick Beja]

That's the scaly I. Dude, look at this guy.

[Leo Laporte]

Look at him. He's a kid.

[Patrick Beja]

He's. He's a really interesting guy.

[Leo Laporte]

He got bought out meta, bought 14 billion doll for a stake in scale AI so in effect, you could say $14 billion for this guy because he.

[Patrick Beja]

Knows everyone and he is a very well connected in Silicon Valley and political circles. I think this is, you know, more about his connections and maybe then he's the guy who can, you know, call people to tell them about the hundred million.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, at least one of the hires said, yes, we will be joining Meta. No, we did not get $100 million. Sign on. This is Lucas Speyer posting on X. So you got 99 million, big deal.

[Patrick Beja]

I mean, even if he got 10 million in equity, right? At that point it becomes abstract. So I'm sure the point is Zuckerberg is going around trying to to poach AI scientists as I have very little love for him, but as is his absolute right, he.

[Leo Laporte]

He's trying to build a super intelligence team. According to the journal of roughly 50 people, he's. Zuckerberg's in a group chat with two meta executives called recruiting party and there's an emoji with a party hat in which they discuss hundreds of potential candidates and tactics for approaching them, whether they prefer to be contacted by email, text, or WhatsApp.

[Daniel Rubino]

You know what's funny about this story? It's like I feel like when we watch Hollywood movies, this is like the opposite story. Like the real story should be, there should be a list of the top AI scientists and son wants them all dead.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, that makes more sense. Which is worse, being hired by Meta or being murdered?

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah, like that would be like the real espionage. Like, oh my God, that's a story. But it's just like, oh, a bunch of kids getting hired for billions of dollars.

[Patrick Beja]

It's like, okay, we're getting the social network too, right? Yeah, we're getting the social network too.

[Leo Laporte]

This may explain that rumor, Dan though, because he's building this super intelligence team separate from the Llama team. So that's probably where the rumor came from.

[Dan Patterson]

I'm just saying I want more sources, things.

[Leo Laporte]

Thing is, Mark is very fickle. Like two years ago it was all about the Metaverse. He even changed the company name.

[Patrick Beja]

I don't think that's being fickle. I think he saw something that he wanted the company to stand for and some kind of goal, and he believed that it could be achieved. And honestly, I think that that is still something really interesting and worth pursuing. Maybe it's 10 or 20 or 50 years down the line, it will be possible to make concrete, but it's still very interesting. The Metaverse stuff, I don't poo poo it as much as some of my friends and colleagues. But he saw what was happening with AI and instead of going, oh, no, no, no, no. We. Our thing is the metaverse, he very intelligently went horrible. Holy crap. Oh, sorry, can I say that?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, you can say crap. Yeah.

[Patrick Beja]

Okay. And he was like, it was a holy part I was wondering about.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't know about holy. Father Robertson in the chat room wanted to ask him about that one.

[Patrick Beja]

And he was like, oh, we need to be. To get on that. And I mean, to be fair, they were very much on it already, but they amped up the effort. Now, I wouldn't call it fickle. I think he. He assumed astutely, or it was pretty obvious, thought, we can't slack on this, so let's go full hog on it.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The thing with the metaverse Metaverse is that it kind of exists already. It's just not Facebook. It's called Minecraft.

[Dan Patterson]

Microsoft.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah, no, that's not. That's not the metaverse.

[Leo Laporte]

Microsoft has a metaverse.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's not the one that he envisioned.

[Leo Laporte]

But what's Microsoft's Metaverse?

[Dan Patterson]

Microsoft paid $70 billion for Minecraft for a bunch of, you know what's in there?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Do you know what's in Minecraft? You know how much has been built, built in Minecraft? Like, there are museums, plaques in there. There are museums in there. There are concert.

[Leo Laporte]

I would say Roblox has given Minecraft a run for its money.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, video games, man. My. Like, second life in World of Warcraft. You can't tell me 20 years ago people weren't living in World of Warcraft.

[Unnamed Speaker]

There's all this art.

[Patrick Beja]

It's just not very much like I was very much living in World of Warcraft. That's not.

[Leo Laporte]

You haven't heard from Uncle Joe. 12 years he's been living in World of Warcraft.

[Dan Patterson]

A lot of the reporting that came out in 20, 21 and 22, which was when they launched the big Metaverse project, was that meta. That meta at the time, which was called Facebook had a big brand problem. They had a brand problem because blue app. Well, although we may think of that derisively. The real reporting at the time, this was Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, some us and others. But the reporting was that we don't really think of ourselves as Facebook anymore. We think of ourselves as a conglomeration of apps. And what they tried to do do is obviously we know that the Metaverse was a silly, A silly wool over your eyes thing that, like the way this was pitched. I. I Reported on this all day long. This was a silly thing. They knew this was silly. It was a video game in a VR headset. They had no intention of their sci fi. They had no intention. Nobody there had any intention on that, that sci fi future. What they saw is VR is an emerging market. We can invest in, in this and perhaps this will pay off. But what we really need to do is spend a lot of money to change our brand. Sorry for the rant, but like, that's the reporting at the time.

[Leo Laporte]

That makes a lot of sense.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, that, that might be the case, but I would like to push back on the idea that the metaverse is just a silly thing in that world of Warcraft and Minecraft. Are the metaverse what the metaverse could be?

[Dan Patterson]

My point is that people are already spending time in a simulated reality and that that isn't really what what meta or Facebook was selling at the time. That's my only point.

[Patrick Beja]

Sure, I mean, we've had virtual worlds for a long time, but people equate that with the metaverse and they say, you know, Minecraft or Fortnite or whatever. But the vision that he was pushing maybe disingenuously, is photorealistic simulated environment.

[Dan Patterson]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. It was disingenuous and that they knew it was disingenuous. Maybe I, I, that that's a lot of money.

[Leo Laporte]

$10 billion to spend on a year. Okay.

[Dan Patterson]

I'm just telling you what my sources in the company told me other companies reported. I don't know what's in Mark's heart. I don't.

[Leo Laporte]

But I tell me this, no one even knows if he has a heart. Dan.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, if, if you can indeed create an ecosystem where you can have photorealistic environment depicted and photorealistic you shown to other people in real time, essentially what you get is presence. Right. The feeling of presence anywhere.

[Leo Laporte]

Actually, Vision Pro has really improved that with the latest version. Those 3D pictures of people are actually much more realistic. I've heard from a number of people, including Jason Sell, I'm actually break weekly that you forget you're in a virtual environment. You actually think you're hanging out with people.

[Patrick Beja]

And I think that's the thing. As much as like smartphones made information ubiquitous, you could get information from anywhere. If you manage to create a photorealistic environment and maybe even make it a replica of an existing environment and maybe even in real time, then you do for information. You do for presence what you did for information.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, that's the pitch they were giving in 2000, 2021. That's, that's fine. But like, the reality is that we don't have that and we didn't have that. We didn't have the ability to get anywhere close to that. And Apple showed that with the best hardware. All I'm saying is, I'm not saying that's not a compelling vision and that it could have happened, it might still happen. But the reality, the facts on the ground don't support that.

[Leo Laporte]

That and what they were doing was something a little more surreptitious.

[Dan Patterson]

Fantastic selling. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Credit to Ben Cohen, Berber Ginn and Megan Bobruski at the Wall Street Journal because obviously they did some good reporting on the list. We're gonna take a break and come back in just a little bit. Last break of the show. Final thoughts with a very deeply philosophical crew this week. I like you guys. It's nice to have an anarchist, a Taoist, all in one person. Daniel Rubino. Dan. Patrick Patterson. Got two Dans and a Patrick. Patrick Beja. Good to have all three of you. Our show today brought to you by ExpressVPN. I just saw a study where third party, I think it was Pete Marwick, audited all of ExpressVPN's technologies and said absolutely, they do no logging. Look, ExpressVPN is more than a sponsor to me. It's the VPN I recommend. It's a VPN I use. Going online without ExpressVPN and be like, I don't know, driving without car insurance. You know, you might be a great driver, but with all the crazy people on the road these days, why would you take that risk? Look, everyone needs ExpressVPN. Every time you connect to an unencrypted network in a cafe, a hotel, an airport, your online data is not secure. Any hacker on the same network can gain access to and steal your personal data. It doesn't take much technical knowledge to hack some somebody like that. Just some cheap hardware is needed. A smart 12 year old could do it and they're motivated to. Your data is valuable. Hackers can make up to $1,000 per person selling personal info on the dark web. ExpressVPN stops hackers from stealing your data by creating a secure encrypted tunnel between your device and the Internet and the VPN you use. The choice you make is super important. You need to trust ExpressVPN. I love ExpressVPN. And they go the extra mile to make sure your data is absolutely invisible. We know that now thanks to the recent audit. ExpressVPN is the best VPN because it's super secure. Would take a hacker with a supercomputer over a billion years to get past ExpressVPN's encryption. It's easy to use. You fire up the app, you click one button, you get protected. It works on all your devices, phones, laptops, tablets, even your routers. So you can stay secure on the go and everywhere in your house. Rated number one by the top tech reviewers at CNET and the Verge. In fact, when I travel to travel, I use it. Catch a football game or my shows or just, you know, keep me secure. Secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com twit that's E-X P-R-E-S-S V-P-Com twit to find out how you can get up to four extra months free when you buy a two year package. Expressvpn.com twit we thank them so much for their support of this week in tech. Don't forget that address. Use it so they know you saw it. Here expressvpn.com TWIT let's see. Oh, good news. If you are worried about privacy, Android phones will soon be able to warn you about stingrays. Those are phony cell sites that we know are set up. In fact, Washington D.C. is loaded with stingrays so that foreign governments, United States law enforcement and others can snoop on your cell phone. They trick your phone into joining the network. They then pass the traffic on so you don't know you're not on a actual cell site, but they get to see everything you do. Law enforcement. According to Ars Technica, Brian Whitman writing has massively expanded the use of stingray devices because cell phones, right that that's the key. So apparently Android is in position now of being able to identify a stingray while you're using it and warn you about it. Here's the pop up. You might see mobile network security connected to unencrypted networks. They even will tell you the name of the sim. So you know the person who's involved in this story, Dan, Was that what you were saying?

[Dan Patterson]

Oh, you know, I, I the metaverse story.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, the metaverse story. Sorry.

[Dan Patterson]

No, no, sorry. I, I was just posting like here was a package we produced about the metaverse back.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh cool.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, yeah. No, this stingray story is fascinating and DC is loaded with it. I assume lower Manhattan is too.

[Leo Laporte]

I think every major your metro problem.

[Dan Patterson]

When I was in Ukraine it was 2017, right? As like when Russia Launched the not Petrovirus and like I landed in the airport and like my phone started overheating. My iPhone just started going nuts. I'm like, how many networks is this connecting to? Oh shit.

[Leo Laporte]

Look at this. This is a Stingray device made by the Harris Corporation. Is that you just buy it off the shelf.

[Dan Patterson]

Awesome. Put this with your wi fi.

[Leo Laporte]

Unfortunately the phone has to to have version three of Google's iRadio hardware abstraction layer. The Pixel phones do not support it yet of course. So. But look, maybe this would be, if you're worried about it, a thing to look for. Phones that launch on Android 16 later this year, like the Pixel 10 will be the first to do this apparently.

[Dan Patterson]

That's a great feature.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, no kidding. Thank you. Thank you, Google. Google's position is only we should be allowed to spy on you.

[Daniel Rubino]

I was going to say. That's exactly what I was going to say.

[Leo Laporte]

That's our job.

[Daniel Rubino]

Only we get to spy on you. Screw the government up.

[Leo Laporte]

Hey, good on France. Tesla has been ordered to stop deceptive practices on self driving capabilities in France. You know that they just delivered this week a model Y over 30 miles away without a driver. Elon says, without even a driver assist. They just said hey Model Y, go to your new owner. And it did.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah, that's a cute trick.

[Leo Laporte]

It may, I'll be honest, it makes. I see videos of Waymos pulling into the wrong lane of all sorts of crashes with these robo taxis or just weird behavior. I feel like these companies are using us as beta testers and risking our lives on this necessarily.

[Daniel Rubino]

Oh, I mean that's, I'll give Tesla credit for that in a sense that.

[Leo Laporte]

Bravo.

[Daniel Rubino]

Well, they was just like it's going to take forever for the government to make rules around this and get this stuff going. So we're just going to go and do it, do it. Now someone tells us to stop.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, in fact, when Doge was in the government, I guess they still are, but one of the things Elon got was the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to drop its investigation. Investigations? Yeah, of self driving vehicles.

[Daniel Rubino]

I mean if you look at a lot of early science, you know, I, I used to do research and we used to have to do the institutional review board, the IRB and all this kind of stuff. But the reason why that stuff exists is because there were scientists who didn't do those things.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Daniel Rubino]

And they would manipulate people and they would do deceptive practices. But the science we got out of it, like the Stanley Milgram stuff is like amazing data.

[Leo Laporte]

Stanley Milgram the famous Stanford Prison Experiment. Experiment, right. Is that Pilgrim's? Was.

[Daniel Rubino]

No, no, no, that was Milgram did the Obedience to Authority where.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh yeah, right.

[Daniel Rubino]

The other person.

[Leo Laporte]

Which you could not do anymore because of ethics.

[Daniel Rubino]

No, no, but it was such like, you know, Post World War II, that was such like insightful, critical research.

[Leo Laporte]

But we're lucky we have the research. Thank goodness he did it.

[Daniel Rubino]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

I, I feel bad for the people he subjected to this.

[Daniel Rubino]

Right. But with the, the full self driving side stuff. I full confession. I like screwing with people. So I was like, I told people I sold my Tesla a while ago because of Elon Musk and they're like, yeah, right, go. And I'm like, yeah, I just bought a new Tesla instead.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh man. Which one do you have?

[Daniel Rubino]

I, I just bought the another Model 3, but it was the, the Highland Reversion which actually took upgrade. Huge upgrade. Yeah, but it was the all wheel drive 1.

[Leo Laporte]

Do you have a bumper sticker that says, you know.

[Daniel Rubino]

No, no, I will not katao to that. I, I have seen a couple people, but in my area I've seen quite.

[Leo Laporte]

A few in our area anyway.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

Saying I bought this before Elon went crazy or things of that sort.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yes, I feel that way. I just don't feel like I need to prove it to you.

[Leo Laporte]

Don't need to announce like yeah, yeah.

[Daniel Rubino]

And so like. But my, the car came with 30 days of full self driving and I used it zero times because couple reasons. One, I don't trust it. I just.

[Leo Laporte]

Weren't you curious though? Weren't you tempted?

[Daniel Rubino]

No, because the thing was like, say here's the other thing too. Say I tried it and I was like, whoa, this is amazing. This is game changer.

[Leo Laporte]

Then you'd want it.

[Daniel Rubino]

I would want it. But one, I work from home so like I don't help you driving. Yeah, yeah, driving is not really a chore for me. Two, it cost eight grand and it's like, no matter how good it was, I'm not paying eight grand for it. So it's just like I'm like, why even bother trying it when there's no way I'm going to want to have this?

[Leo Laporte]

I got a worse story because when I bought my model I X, I spent an extra 5,000 so it would be ready for FSD.

[Daniel Rubino]

Oh yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Which it never got.

[Daniel Rubino]

They changed, they changed the hardware out.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Daniel Rubino]

Now we're hardware revision four.

[Leo Laporte]

So I, I, I gave him a five grand for nothing.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah. Oh, well, it's, I mean it's getting better. I think it'll be there someday. I'm just not going to be that guy that's going to. And I, I remember he was also like, oh, but someday you'll be able to. When you're car, when you're not using it, you can have your car be a taxi.

[Leo Laporte]

He promised. He's been promising that for five years.

[Patrick Beja]

I'm like, I don't care how much.

[Daniel Rubino]

Money I need, I don't want other people using my car.

[Leo Laporte]

That's what France is saying. Patrick is.

[Patrick Beja]

No, no, no. That's the whole basis for the valuation of Tesla.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Patrick Beja]

That's the idea that at some point he's going to flip a switch and all of a sudden everyone's going to be making so much money from using their cars as taxis, which I guess might happen, but it's. There was a video from Tesla of self driving going through Paris and going through the Arc de Triomphe, the Place.

[Leo Laporte]

De la Concorde roundabout.

[Patrick Beja]

The Place de Lac de Triomphe. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Which is the craziest roundabout in the world by far.

[Patrick Beja]

Oh, well, maybe not by far.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it the case, I think it's the case that most roundabouts, the people in the roundabout have the right of way. On the Arc de Triomphe roundabout, the people entering have the right of way because otherwise you would never get in.

[Patrick Beja]

Yes. No one has the right of way.

[Leo Laporte]

No one has the right of way.

[Patrick Beja]

But you know the interesting thing, there are very few accidents on that roundabout. Everyone knows how crazy it is. And, but so the point is every.

[Leo Laporte]

They actually sent a Tesla into that roundabout about.

[Patrick Beja]

Yes. And it successfully traversed it. And so it's very symbolic because the. Anytime anyone would say, well, there's self driving here and that, and, and then French people and especially Parisians would go, oh, but wait until they come to the Place de Lac, the Triomphe. That's the real test. And now it's been passed. Of course, we don't know, you know, if they chose the time or if they tried 15 times and this one it succeeded and, but symbolically it's impressive. And honestly, I'm impressed by self driving, period. I think Tesla isn't there yet and their first tests in the 10 square meters of Austin where they are operating have been a little bit hazardous. But Waymo is expanding every single week, it seems, and doing hundreds of thousands, thousands of rides per week.

[Leo Laporte]

They seem to have won this battle.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah. And even more than that, they're showing that self driving works. Not everywhere maybe, but you know, it's really The. The Gardner Hype Cycle 10 years ago, we were like, oh, self driving. It's happening, it's happening, it's here. And then it wasn't here. And everyone got tired and the hype fell down. But by the time the hype was at its lowest, meaning three years ago, the tech actually started working. And, you know, self driving kind of works now. Maybe not everywhere, maybe not all the time, but the initial studies show that the first stats show that it is a lot more. A lot safer than you're showing a video. And there are.

[Leo Laporte]

Is this giving you a cold sweat here, by the way? Notice the driver, his hands are right next to the wheel. He is ready.

[Patrick Beja]

They have to do that just to show that he's ready to.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, jump right in.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

But that's why, of course, France authorities, that's why they're going after Tesla, because Tesla's claiming autonomy when in fact, a driver does have to be right there. That's not autonomous in the French authorities point of view.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah, it isn't. And it's not in anyone's point of view.

[Leo Laporte]

It's. But people aren't, apparently. Tesla sales in the EU are plummeting down 67%.

[Patrick Beja]

You still see a lot of them. You know, there. There are enough that were sold before, but, yeah, they were there. There is some. Certainly there are people still buying, buying them. I have a. A good friend. Maybe I shouldn't say his name. He said it publicly that he bought a new Tesla even though he didn't want to.

[Leo Laporte]

His name is Daniel Rabino.

[Patrick Beja]

Is actually. It's Cedric, which I think you.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, Cedric, I know Cedric, of course.

[Patrick Beja]

Yeah, we do. So we. We do my tech show, my weekly tech show he comes on every month and. And he was like, I wanted to buy an electric car again. And I looked at everything and this was the only one that would tick all the boxes for a reasonable price. Things might have changed. Now there are, you know, the. The Chinese manufacturers which are coming in and very competitive. But at the time, maybe a year ago or six months ago, he bought it. He was like, that's my only reasonable option.

[Leo Laporte]

So that's how.

[Daniel Rubino]

Exactly how I felt. It's the. I get the arguments, people not liking Elon and Tesla 100%, not an issue. If someone tells me, I'm like, yes, I get it. But when I look at stuff, I'm like, Ford and Honda and everything else, and I'm just like, they're not exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

I've had a Mach E. I liked my Mach E. I have a BMW i5 right now, Lisa has a Mini Cooper electric and our son has a Chevy Bolt. They're all very good. I don't think Tesla has the mark. It has the lock that it used to have.

[Daniel Rubino]

Sure, that's true. I just like when it comes to design and execution and features and fun that for me, the Tesla just still ticks all the boxes. And I've looked at other things, but I just. Nothing. And plus it was just the pricing. The only reason I really went for. I got a great trade in for my previous Tesla.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Daniel Rubino]

And they had the 0% APR. It was just like. And plus I had $11,000 in EV rebates. Instant. By the way, those are probably going.

[Leo Laporte]

Away in the big beautiful bill.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yep. And that was another reason I want to jump on this before our day I went away because it's like watch.

[Leo Laporte]

With interest what goes in the. That they're debating it right now. It'll probably go all night. A number of things in reconciliation in the Senate could change the way we work for. For instance, the Senate version could force the FCC to sell off half the spectrum used by the 6 GHz Wi Fi band, which currently is unregulated. The FCC might have to sell it to AT&T.

[Daniel Rubino]

Oh, good.

[Leo Laporte]

We'll watch that with interest. There's also that moratorium on states passing AI restrictions for 10 years. The parliamentarian at first said it could stay in, then said it couldn't stay in. It's unclear what the status of that.

[Patrick Beja]

Is.

[Leo Laporte]

But as far as I know, it's still in the bill. They're debating that right now as we speak, and we'll probably be debating it all night long.

[Patrick Beja]

That is a completely crazy idea. Right? The idea that you, you would ban states. Is it because then you don't have 50 different pieces of legislation you have to adhere to. Is that the problem or.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, that's. That's why all the AI companies support it, because they don't want a crazy quilt of regulations. But of course, that only makes sense if there's a federal law. And then there is. Well, there is the no Fakes act, which the EFF says the no Fakes act has changed. And it's so much worse. The bill which says it targets the issue of misinformation and defamation from generative AI. No Fake stands for the Nurture Originals, Foster Art and Keep Entertainment Safe Act. However, it's basically a censorship structure. In fact, the president in his State of the Union speech said, I'm going to use that because no one's been treated worse on the Internet than I have. The new version of the no Fakes act requires almost every Internet gatekeeper to create a system that will A take down speech upon receipt of a notice, B keep down any recurring incident, meaning adopt inevitably overbroad replica filters on top of the deeply flawed copyright filters, C take down and filter tools that might have been used to make the image, any filter tools that might be used to make the image, and D, unmask the user who uploaded the material based nothing more than on the say so of the person who alleges that it's a deep fake.

[Patrick Beja]

What does it mean to unmask the user to the person accusing them or.

[Leo Laporte]

Or to the authorities?

[Patrick Beja]

Okay.

[Leo Laporte]

The problem is. So I run a Mastodon instance and I would be. This law would affect me because I would have 48 hours upon being informed that that is a deep fake. It's a revenge porn of me. I don't like it to take it down. I don't. That's not enough time for me to very verify it. So what's going to happen? It's going to immediately be taken down.

[Dan Patterson]

And for small businesses like you, it would be flooded with this. So it's just better to shut it down.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Patrick Beja]

How does it work for things like CSAM and terrorism and things like that, which I guess has to be taken down very quickly as well, right?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah. This is sort of supposed to be the same thing, but I think is so broad and so draconian that it basically allows anyone to get a subpoena, not just from a judge, but from a court clerk. And without any form of proof.

[Patrick Beja]

It seems very wide. Just like we were talking about with the age verification on porn sites. The definition was so wide it became seem like very dangerous here also, it seems like it could be like Trump saying, I'm gonna use that.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, Congress already passed the bill, actually, that Trump said he was gonna use the Take It Down Act.

[Patrick Beja]

Oh, that's a different one.

[Leo Laporte]

This is even. Well, no, I've conflated them too, because they sound similar. Anyway, we'll keep an eye on that one.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It's kind of like YouTube at scale, right? Like someone put the DMCA claim against.

[Leo Laporte]

You content ID everywhere.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And if there's one thing we've learned from content id, I certainly have learned it is don't even take a chance because it's such a pain in the butt to fight it. And you know you're going to meanwhile be demonetized or even taken down. And you just. It's a chilling effect.

[Patrick Beja]

That I've experienced with Apple which I know you talk about sometimes when they have an event on, on Twitch and I got a strike on Twitch because I was commenting on it.

[Leo Laporte]

We stopped putting it on Twitch and YouTube. We now do it in the club only.

[Patrick Beja]

Everyone that I know has gone to the same.

[Leo Laporte]

That's interesting.

[Patrick Beja]

Has done the same.

[Leo Laporte]

That's interesting. Yeah.

[Patrick Beja]

Which I think, I honestly think, I mean maybe it's Apple's right. But I ended up actually contact. Fighting it, contacting those lawyers and, and it was. I was imagining they would want me to like, you know, sign my firstborn to them to remove it. They were very nice. They were like, yeah, we just want you to confirm that you will not use it to, you know, to, to in the future to disparage Apple or whatever. I can't remember what the phrasing was, but it was very reasonable and you agreed to it.

[Leo Laporte]

And are you going to continue to do it on Twitch?

[Patrick Beja]

So no, the thing is I promised that I wouldn't do it in a way that was infringing on copyright were very. Which was very wide. But of course, like you, I decided not to live comment.

[Leo Laporte]

Why?

[Patrick Beja]

Risk shows. That's right. Which no one is doing anymore. Which I would argue is allowing Apple to broadcast their message unimpeded.

[Leo Laporte]

Exactly the point.

[Patrick Beja]

No commenting. There is no context. There is no. I mean you can of course comment it with just without showing the image that you can do but people who want to watch it want to see what's being discussed.

[Leo Laporte]

Well and here's, here's the thing that's such broad disparagement. If I say gee, I really don't like iOS 26, is that disparagement?

[Patrick Beja]

No, but that's not even the issue. You can't show their produced copyrighted content, which is their presentation which if you can't show it and comment on, comment on it at the same time. The only thing thing that's left is their unmodified.

[Leo Laporte]

Precisely. That's the point.

[Patrick Beja]

Version which is their message, their version of their marketing and what they want to say when they say we have however many benefits to this and that and we are very eco friendly and of course you're going to see articles later.

[Leo Laporte]

This is the thing. In the US what you were doing, what we were doing is protected. It's as, as fair use in France too. But fair use is only the right to hire a lawyer and you and I are not in the position to fight this in A court of law. So we just give up. Speaking of giving up, I think we've done more than enough here to disrupt the status quo. Want to thank you guys. Our favorite anarchist, Daniel Rubino. I think we should do a whole show. Forget the book. Let's do a show on Daoism and anarchy. Anarchism. Do it together at last. I love it.

[Daniel Rubino]

Need a couple beers, but. Yeah, that'll be a fun discussion.

[Leo Laporte]

Wu Wei meets Wu Tang. It'll be great. I can't wait. Daniel is the editor in chief at Windows Central. Always a pleasure to have you on, Daniel. Thank you. What's the game you're playing these days?

[Daniel Rubino]

Oh, I mean, the joke is I have a Steam account and Xbox game. Pass. I have 200 games I'm not. Not playing.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, exactly. I have every game that I'm not playing.

[Daniel Rubino]

Yeah, exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

I realized. So I. I said I was starting to learn to play the piano. I thought every moment I spend playing Valheim or, you know, Elder Scrolls Online or whatever is a. Is a moment I'm not learning how to play the piano. So I decided to make an executive choice and learn the piano instead. It's great to have you, Daniel. Thank you for being here.

[Daniel Rubino]

Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure.

[Leo Laporte]

Patrick. Thank you for staying up late with us. It is now Monday and it is cooling off, I hope.

[Patrick Beja]

Well, my computer is very warm.

[Leo Laporte]

So is mine. It's 32 degrees up here, so we're hoping that you get a little bit of a respite in at some point.

[Patrick Beja]

I'll open the window when we get offline.

[Leo Laporte]

All right.

[Patrick Beja]

We'll do a show one day, and I will explain to you all the ways that France is protecting the music industry and subsidizing music production.

[Dan Patterson]

Fantastic.

[Patrick Beja]

And artists. And are they really. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, that's wonderful.

[Unnamed Speaker]

You know, most every. Most every other country has, like, a vibrant arts thing in their government. It's just America that doesn't.

[Leo Laporte]

At this point, we're defunding public broadcasting. We don't. You know, America has no art.

[Patrick Beja]

One of the reasons we're doing this is that America is such a broad influence on cultures of French culture. You have to subsidize. But if you're. If you're a musician and you manage to get like, 40 gigs a year. I think it's 40. Something like that. Then you will get essentially a diluted version of unemployment benefits for the next year to allow you to search for more gigs and keep going. It is very. And so I'M just trying to say I'm. I love music and I want it to be protected. I was just playing Devil's Advocate earlier in the show.

[Leo Laporte]

I love that. Patrick hosts podcasts on tech and [e-mail] including La Rendezvous Tech, La Rendezvous Jeu, the Phileas Club, Lac Toute. And what game are you playing these days?

[Patrick Beja]

I finished a couple of weeks ago Expedition 33 and it is such a wonderful modernized JRPG by a French team. It's one of the best games of the year. I think it's going to get Game of the year. It's an incredible game.

[Leo Laporte]

It looks beautiful.

[Patrick Beja]

Recommend. It's on, it's on Game Pass. If you allow me just two seconds. This is an Unreal Engine 5 game which was made by 30 people. A core team of 30 people.

[Daniel Rubino]

Wow.

[Patrick Beja]

Nowadays you can make a game like this because we have the tools and the productivity increases that those tools and technology afford us a few years. Like this is aaa huge budget level quality and it's a good game on top of that, like it's an amazing, amazing achievement.

[Leo Laporte]

Expedition 33 Microsoft says I'm too young to play it, unfortunately. But oh well, it is included with my Game Pass. Thank you, Patrick. And of course Stan Patterson. I'm glad to hear that your health scare was just a scare and that you are alive and well and with us.

[Dan Patterson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

It's great to see you. Director of Content, Blackbird AI Everybody should sign up at Compass, Blackbird AI and just get a little fact checking in your life, you know, a little context.

[Dan Patterson]

Although as we're talking, I'm subscribing, resubscribing to Game Pass Ultimate.

[Leo Laporte]

What game do you want to play, my friend?

[Dan Patterson]

I'm finishing up. Also, Claire Obscura, Expedition 33. Not just one of the best games of the year, one of the best games I've played. It is a type of video game that you give to people who are like, why do you play video games? Give them that game and they'll go, oh geez, it's. The story is tremendous, the mechanics are great, it's fun, it's heavy, it's easy to play, but it's very challenging and complex. Fantastic game.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, there you go. And by the way, according to Compass by Blackbird AI, Taylor Swift is not breaking up with Travis Kelsey. So that's a relief. That's a relief. I'm going to go download this game now. You got Expedition 33. You got me.

[Patrick Beja]

It's on Game Pass.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that's right. I don't have to do anything. I just play it nice. It's right over there. My Xbox is right over there.

[Dan Patterson]

Hey, Patrick, what was your runtime?

[Patrick Beja]

I'm not sure I want to say because there are things happening at the end that you might spend time with. How far along are you?

[Dan Patterson]

I'm about halfway through. I'm full. I'm far into the second act.

[Patrick Beja]

Okay, 30 hours. I would say 30. This is the tip I'll give you and everyone listening.

[Dan Patterson]

Just over 12.

[Patrick Beja]

Very important. Once you are kind of ready, reaching the end and you can feel you are, don't dilly dally around. Don't go making lots of quests because you're gonna out level the last encounters and it's not gonna be as fun. So you can do that after just.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, interesting. Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting. It's. Don't get too good is what you're saying. If you want the challenge in, in.

[Patrick Beja]

True JRPG fashion, you will out level the encounter and it will. Will be trivial. And it is so intense. And the way the storytelling integrates into the actual fighting action is incredible. So if it's not as intense when you're doing it, you're not experiencing the full breadth of what the game is intending to do. And it's so original with like this Belle Epoch French aesthetic. And I. I could talk about it for hours. It's really good.

[Leo Laporte]

I can't wait. I'm gonna play it right now. Thank you.

[Patrick Beja]

Story mode. Playing story mode.

[Leo Laporte]

Story mode.

[Patrick Beja]

It's too difficult if you don't play in story mode. Just crank down the difficulty one notch.

[Dan Patterson]

I agree.

[Patrick Beja]

And you'll love it.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, very cool. Patrick, Daniel, Dan, great to have all three of you. Thanks to all of you for joining us. And of course, a special thanks to the members of Club Twit who keep this artist and all the artists who work on our shows. Employed 25% of our operating income now from you Club Twit members. It's one of the ways we could stream on eight different platforms a Club Twit, Discord, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, X.com, facebook, LinkedIn. But it's also what allows us to do all the interesting stuff we do in the club. Like our music special that we did on Friday. That's a club special. We stream it live for everybody, but then it is saved on the Club Twit feed for just Twit club members for a month. Then we put it out in public. That's true of many of the things we do in the club. But honestly the reason to join the club is not the discord, not the ad free versions of all the shows, but because if you like what we do, it's a way of kind of almost voting and saying keep doing what you're doing. Find out more at Twit TV Club Twit whether you're a member or not, do subscribe to Our Newsletter TWiT TV Newsletter. You'll keep up on everything thing coming up on all of our shows. It's a good way to do that. Thank you all for being here. You can if you're not watching the show live every Sunday 2 to 5pm Pacific, 5 to 8 Eastern, 2100 UTC. You can also download it. It's on our website TWiT TV. There's a YouTube channel dedicated to this week in tech and of course you can subscribe in your favorite podcast player and that way get it automatically audio or video or most the minute we're done. I do have recommend that you give us a nice review because that helps spread the word. Apple just did a feature thing on 20 years of podcasting and all the amazing podcasts, some of which have lasted 20 years and didn't even mention this. That's why the reviews are so important, because discovery is difficult in this world and we think everybody should be listening to it. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time. As always, as I said for now more than 20 years. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Another Twit is in the can.

[Patrick Beja]

Amazing.

[Leo Laporte]

This episode is brought to you by Coda. I love seeing the team come together to make this show happen. But you know what? I don't love trying to keep keep track of all the information, data and projects across dozens of platforms, products and tools. Coda is an all in one collaborative workspace that's helped 50,000 teams worldwide get on the same page. Offering the flexibility of docs with the structure of spreadsheets, Coda facilitates deeper teamwork and quicker creativity and their turnkey AI solution the intelligence of Coda Brain that's a game changer Powered by Grammarly, Coda is a entering a new phase of innovation and expansion aiming to refine productivity for the AI era. So whether you're a startup looking to organize the chaos or an enterprise organization looking for better alignment, Coda matches your working style. It connects to hundreds of your favorite tools including Salesforce, Jira, Asana, Figma. Head over to Coda IO Twit right now and get six months of the team plan. Plan for startups for free. That's c O d a IO twit. And get six months of the team plan for free. Coda IO twit.