Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Eng Apple and Samsung's long-running legal dispute is finally finally over the tech giants on Wednesday said they agreed to settle their beef though terms of the deal still aren't yet clear Apple and Samsung have been fighting over design and functionality issues on their smartphones and tablets since 2011 the settlement comes just after a retrial in May that resulted in Samsung needing to pay five hundred and thirty-nine million dollars in damages to Apple so probably the most important thing that I was thinking about with this because we talked a lot about this on the show is what's what do you think the consumer impact of all this is gonna be I mean I think the big issue now will be you know sort of like patent issues goes with Apple it's the the idea that like if you try to take like one of Apple's ideas or anything like that they're going to they're gonna be able to sue you and like in the end they're gonna be able to like wait it out I mean this is like a seven-year thing so I mean I don't know what it'll mean for all the knotch copiers out there but I mean it's really interesting that it takes a you know after seven long years and have being for like it went to the Supreme Court yeah and then you know it went to the Supreme Court that's basically the whole idea of oh whoa we have to pay half a billion dollars to them but maybe we should just settle this instead of like having to continue this feud and continue appealing it do you see any possibility that having fewer of these patent lawsuits around some of them are frivolous that and they also invite patent trolls do you see the potential of having the bar raised on patent lawsuits maybe lowering prices for consumers I'm not I don't think but like something like this would lower prices for consumers I think like cheaper parts or anything like that would lower prices but like as far as prices goes you could probably expect it to continue to rise even without like patent issues like this no that's that's too bad and unfortunately I think you're right next up if you want to create a new delivery business amazon wants to help the e-commerce titan unveiled a new program called delivery service partner what a clever name that will help entrepreneurs form companies to deliver its packages so what is this like it like uber but for delivery service or something which they already have so it's always broader than that it's almost as if uber were not only to like hire you as a contract worker but to allow you to hire other uber drivers on top of that so and they they plan on providing branded vehicles for lease and training they literally want to create more like small and local delivery businesses because they have so much huge demand for from customers and so would this kind of take a burden off of like USPS then or maybe I mean the the problem there is is that the demand is surging so much that it's probably going to use all of its traditional delivery partners in addition to this as well anyway last our own Derrick her wrote about con artists targeting uber drivers Alfred tell us a little bit about those yeah so this this scam is pretty convoluted but it's really sophisticated the way that it works is that they'll call the uber driver pretending to be from uber and they're very professional about and they basically say we'd notice some activity on your account can you give us your username us your information username and your password and then they and then they also ask for your confirmation number because like if you have two factor authentication they ask you're gonna get a text message of a code now can you tell us what that code is like as a way to confirm that it's you but what they're really doing is using that to log into your account and then like empty out your bank your your earnings and and diverting your earnings to their own basically yeah they they're able to look at your transaction history notice like oh this person like takes their money out on Sunday so I'm gonna divert it to my account on like a Saturday or something like that so we can get it first jeez yeah so if you're an uber driver I guess anybody on the internet probably the rules of the road are biggest do not provide the devices like uber would never call you asking for your user name and password they already have it you have it yeah so I mean that's basically what uber has said as well yeah so by the way for the next two weeks we're going to be going to a weekly podcast Thursday's but don't worry we'll be back to our regular schedule in mid-july if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Inge thanks for listening okay thanks everybody for joining us for the recording of the podcast that'll be posted later on all of those lovely syndication and availabilities enough for right now I'm gonna jump into the chat as I always do and dig out your best questions and comments yes even you trolls let's start off with a question from a new name from Swapnil welcome to the show welcome welcome who is gonna earn more from settling this dispute regarding Apple and Samsung and exactly how are they going to earn more geez that's a good question I'm not sure what the details of the settlement Ari I don't think that's available yet I think to a certain extent maybe the beneficiary of the settlement could be Samsung in that Apple was literally trying to use these lawsuits to try to push Samsung's products off the market they were trying to gain smartphone dominance through lawsuits it didn't eventually didn't end up working because both of these companies have so much money that they were able to just keep the lawsuits dragging on for seven years but this at least takes the threat of Apple kicking Samsung out of the US market off the table so there is that benefit there any other I agree if everything you said oh wow that's a that's a first thank you very much we need to make note that today is our loyal friend Josh Buddha's birthday happy birthday Josh had a birthday just so many birthdays and may you live to 120 and continue watching the podcast with Laura these podcasts actually increases your life expectancy right it's totally true so on that note let's take a question from good ol Josh at this point does it matter who really won the lawsuit apples still using Samsung panels in the iPhone 10 that's a really good point I would agree with that'd nobody really it's a settlement no what it really wins not only that but like think about it even if Samsung were to end up paying I think it was the the expectation was that they were gonna pay like a billion dollars that was one of suppose that was what they wanted how much money is that for Samsung it's not really ours it's right but like considering that it's such a big company a billion dollars it's not gonna harm it one way or another obviously it would like to keep the billion dollars but it's it's I I agree with Joshua's perspective on this one I'm just it's interesting that all these like suppose it like blood feuds I guess from companies and lawsuits are just like oh we're just gonna settle this and said like the Google way Moe and not Google uber way mo mmm-hmm like trial also ended in that way was so anticlimactic realize I did some time not still going alone yeah they settled it oh yeah yeah yeah now I remember that but yeah that's that's unfortunate but you know it's there's a very good reason for this and it's usually that your lawyers say that like waiting for a jury or a judge to determine the outcome is much more risky and problematic but the thing is is that they did trial after trial after trial in this particular case and it just kept going and this was expected to continue going into appeals which Apple versus Samsung so it's it's nice to see that I guess it's finally ending the major smartphone patent war this was the big one that was finally sunsetting let's continue on with another comment from Josh does this suit affect current generation phones I don't think so this was this was related and you know look it's I don't think Apple ever successfully got Samsung's products off of the market in the first place so I don't I don't believe that it affects current generation phones and Samsung made some design changes in the intervening years to prevent further exposure it just does feel like seven years of wasted fighting now like the more I look back at it when I'm like well this doesn't really affect anything now well ok cool they just they throw a lot of money at it yeah nothing matters yep well let's take one from Matthew - are the - and the Chad did anyone see the news that Washington DC wants to raise taxes on uber and lyft to be able to give money to the metro system now I haven't heard about this we are in New York dacher we rely on you can keep us up to date with what's going on in DC did you guys hear anything about this I know there have been kind of like rumblings around about how to exploit some of these car share services to benefit the local businesses in a number of different I mean yeah that was that was a similar plan that they wanted to do in New York with like the subway fare stuff or at least like subway repairs but it wasn't uber and lyft so or like ride shares it was just like anything from like the TLC in general which would include uber and lyft but also like yellow cabs the the whole idea was that like if you were traveling like in a certain region or something like that or at a certain distance that like they would take some of that money and use that for like repairing like the MTA and like all the all the problems that like the subway has so I'm not surprised they pitched something like that for Washington DC I didn't hear about it but it does seem to fall in line with what they've been pitching in other cities yeah if if a revenue stream becomes big enough the government will probably find a way to go after it at some point so I'm also not surprised by this and thanks for mentioning a - here's one from Tammy Thompson let's go back to the patents how can you patent common functionality because coevolution happens with technology as it does in nature with similar develops happening with the form factor following function and feature demand she's got a great point it's hard to really kind of pinpoint who is truly responsible however if we look at history everybody comes up with something first and then Apple figures out how to market it better yeah I think in apples like patent dispute though some of the things that they were arguing for weren't exactly common functionality like the swipe to unlock stuff also like the actual like the look of the phone yeah yeah so like there were some very basic phone design elements and you know features that we take for granted these days that were part of this lawsuit yeah here's one from dray Faye what patents exactly are we talking about like to swipe to open or neither them even and use anymore what specific things as far as the smartphone functionality goes it was Apple fighting the Samsung about so by the way going back to Tammy's question and I I definitely appreciate your comments Tammy how do you know which patent or whose idea it was first I mean like this was the whole purpose of like it took them seven years they they went through multiple rounds of discovery it was super complicated and Apple you know put its best case forward and Samsung put its base case forward to try to figure out well okay where did this idea originated from as far as the original patents the ones that I know about and that you mentioned were you know swipe to unlock features or like the swipe and I think pinch-to-zoom a mention in this one and also just like basic that's like like the whole like shape of it and all this stuff and like where the camera wasn't on all that yeah thank you yeah I know it's it goes to a very important point with tech patents too is that there's been a lot of disagreement that the government allows these tech companies to have these very vague patents that they can then use for litigation and so that's that's another issue that is hopefully being fixed we invented touching buttons right okay exactly but like if you could patent something like that yeah then you will so there are a lot of companies that just you know push forward as many patents as they possibly can hoping to get them approved and then you can utilize them for future litigation so this was depending on what side you're on one could argue that this was exactly what was going on in the Apple versus Samsung situation from Ryan Williams wouldn't Samsung then make money off the iPhone 10 sales if they provided that display yes and they absolutely do yes yeah they I mean like they're a supplier for the iPhone 10 with the OLED screens we all know that there was actually news today that LG is now gonna be a second supplier for OLED screens and yeah it's an interesting storyline specifically for the iPhone 10 where Samsung wins whether you buy a Samsung phone or an iPhone in this current cycle here's one from APEC is Amazon is the Amazon shipping program going to add to the job market or add instability with uber or even take away from other shipping companies it's a great question I'm hard to predict it's it's hard to predict from Amazon's perspective they claim that there's so much demand going on in e-commerce that the PI keeps growing and therefore the traditional shippers are gonna have plenty of business going forward so that's not going to harm them whether it takes away from gig economy workers that's a really good question and we'll just have to find out yeah I'm more curious if it will it will actually take off because like Amazon announces like a lot of programs like I always think like that's probably just gonna flop like I don't know who's really gonna use this yeah they do big splashy and I totally agree they do big splashy announcements they got a ton of press and buzz about this what if they only end up with like three companies that want to you know actually use this service so we'll we'll definitely keep an eye on that here's a counter-argument towards a peg from Ryan that I thought was a really fantastic conversation and makes us feel irrelevant to even have the podcast cuz you guys have all the great commentary APEC says would that decrease the cost and shipping altogether since they're using their own shipping service so these are this is like a partnerships shipping service but yes in effect if you create this satellite of smaller and medium sized delivery partners Amazon's ultimate goal is to lower shipping costs because their shipping costs are skyrocketing I mean like everybody's buying more from Amazon which is a good thing for the company but they're also trying to figure out that's what a manager shipping costs for them right like not people ordering stuff because if if I have like Amazon Prime I'm not paying for shipping anyway that's true however they just raised Amazon Prime this year by like $20 so you could indirectly benefit from them lowering or at least restraining there but I don't think they're gonna lower Amazon Prime no I said they lower the shipping costs totally agreed the best case scenario would be that they would hold back on raising yeah I'm again in future years unlike instead of doing it three or four years from now maybe they would do it five or six years from now yeah but somebody's got to pay for the expert for the expanse and other Amazon Prime original series like I thought that's what every yes yeah I'm original shows it's the best deal in retail ever everybody should have Prime according to Jeff Bezos according to Jeff Bezos one more from Matthew dacher do we think delivering for Amazon will be as good a job as steadily working for an established company like UPS or FedEx good luck with that one guys you work for the establishment company like UPS or FedEx like half your time is already delivering for Amazon I feel yeah so there could be a bit of a complication in starting a delivery company that's like beholdin to just one company yeah you know like there are risks associated with that so like coming back to like uber there's a very good reason why Oberer drivers are also lyft drivers they want to diversify their income streams they don't know if like ubers gonna screw them over one way or another so the possibility of that happening if you start a business completely through this service Amazon is obviously trying to make it very attractive but are they gonna be a good partner in the future what's what's the possibility of you branching out and starting to work with other companies like Walmart so those are the things that people are really gonna have to think about before joining onto the service yeah I feel like it'd be like if you only had you'll all your like live shows and stuff like only on Facebook or something like that like you're not I'm like any other like platform like promoting your stuff I imagine like that's what it'd be like if you were only delivering for Amazon yeah yeah and there's probably plenty of work to go around right now but like who's to say what happens at five years from now so that's that's definitely a good question some good good insights from the chat today as always one more from APEC as far as patents go don't basically all tech have patent rights from so many companies that it's a mismatch of who gets a piece of the pie when it comes to the money maybe yes not really sure the question we're not business analysts now I'm not I'm not really sure what that question is I'm just here to make fart jokes man I'm really into okay I'm gonna say yes we're gonna try to research that a peck sorry about that hey let's break them all with a little bit we're at the end of the show just about out of time let's help a new friend Michael Lambert they're just getting into podcasts what would we recommend he has Spotify I think as far as what's on our playlist and what services we use you guys go ahead I don't listen to podcast oh you just start no I just star in podcasts I I feel like the iTunes like the podcast app on the iPhone is really helpful and they have like top charts that you can find all sorts of things on various categories so there's a tune in stitcher right but these are there's like a ton of podcast stuff these days so if you're interested in tech they're like so many different tech podcasts like and you can delve into like very specific areas like crypto if you're interested in crypto or listen to me yeah I mean like there's there's a lot of stuff from like NPR that you could listen to I also really like guy Roz has a podcast called how I built it which which I listened to a lot so I recommend I used to listen to a lot of them I listened like freakanomics regularly and which is also from NPR 99% invisible which both of those are excellent yeah yeah you totally slow played what the hell man you listen to a podcast that's my move here that's my move but no I don't I don't listen I don't really listen anymore just because it's like I'm not interested in them anymore the new wave is VR cast no that's not yeah I mean those are two great podcast I would start with if you like game show kind of podcast there's a wait wait don't tell me if I never miss wait wait and then there was another one that's similar to it that they do on Saturdays do you know what I'm talking about Brian it's not wait wait don't tell me what is something similar to it's like all pun based and stuff oh shoot if you had an ass I would remember the title hang on it's uh no fear well I remember host name is ephyra hang on hang on go ahead you guys talk so this is like also like considered a Golden Age of podcasts obviously we're not included in that I guess by either way if you're asking me another ask me not yeah that's a great podcast with OFIR Eisenberg and it's it's shot here at the Bell House in New York and England yeah if if you're interested in just like kind of seeing where like podcasts like started to like really get their energy back like I would listen to cereal also because that's kind of like the granddaddy you know we're all like the excitement about podcasts really came back yeah I'm gettin itchy waitin for a third season here mm-hmm spin-off I mean let's go ahead and self plug we got us here on the 359 podcast it's available all over the place we'll tell you about that at the end of the show Cena also has a book club now which Dan Ackerman and Scott Steinhaus and they talked to fantastic authors there is also oh what's the one the Ian's hosts Ben what's that called status update status I wouldn't is not status updated as often is the 359 but you could definitely check that out show is updated as often as we're the only Daily Show from Cena yes that's true but we also now have the the UK podcasting backup that's right and those kids are a lot of fun mm-hmm as far as platforms go a lot of people in the chat are shouting out google podcasts which I did try out just as a platform it really is the only reason I haven't adopted it even being like a mega Google user myself is because I adopted stitcher 10 12 years ago and I built out my library in there and they functioned largely the same so for me to migrate the whole thing that Google just seems kind of silly since I've already built it in to my echo at home and all of my mobile devices so I'm sticking with stitcher just because I'm grandfathered in but Google podcast is a fantastic platform to nice and I guess that's about it for comment Arian questions I do want to mention for a little bit of trivia today on June 28th 6:28 is today the circle constant based on the radius instead of the diameter it's also international caps lock day which celebrated again on a why over 22nd I know make sure I should have mentioned that at the beginning so that you could all use caps lock in the chat when commenting very very bad idea come on it make it easier to read my eyes are starting to go anyways that is it for us for the week like we mentioned earlier on we are on a bit of a staggered schedule for the next couple of weeks Rogers traveling Ben's working on a big project alfred is working on a project a Joan has been all over the earth running around doing projects ourself so it's gonna be harder to get us all to sit down and do a consistent daily show we will be back a week from today live on Thursday and then again a week from that live on Thursday doing a bit of a weekly recap for you and there also we've got like a Monday show in the can so yeah yeah coming in this Monday we have a special edition it'll be an extended edition it won't be live but we'll publish it across all the platforms it's like a mid-year review we go over the top ten stories that have been making headlines in the tech world and science and information news through 2018 so far it's a real horrorshow yeah we'll be back we're just basically stepping out to get some cigarettes but we'll be back soon okay dad well alright let's wrap it up guys okay you didn't put the thing up how am I supposed to know what to do the 359 podcast is also available on what you might use a feed burner we will play google podcasts just tuned in stitch I'm like switching up the complete order so you don't remember what it is yeah fine I'll do it the 359 podcast is available on iTunes tuna and stitcher feedburner google play music google podcasts the amazon echo and of course the cnet.com the cnet.com i almost forgot that one anyway thanks everybody for tuning in and thanks as always for your questions happy birthday Josh and we'll see you again Monday technically just not live watch for the publish we'll see you don't see us but we won't see you true take care everybody see you soon you you