Gadgetory

Alexa start the podcast okay welcome to the 359 podcast it's episode 308 on Tuesday October 31st happy Halloween your host today are Roger tang and I as act I thanks a lot yeah hey thanks thanks look giant dot it's good to see seriously yeah I was just gonna apologize for not having costumes and then he's sprung that on at the last minute we're just kind of amazing you don't appreciate my ability to commit no I I totally appreciate it thankful because both of us got lame and didn't have any concentrating I didn't realize in retrospect I just kind of look like the Black Knight from yeah I was thinking that before I saw Amazon logo I I thought you're going as a Black Knight yeah probably should have that's that's fine my joke earlier was it there's like a little scratch on it you could be a refurb any scratch it would be fine I was for a second I was worried Brian was gonna do the whole show of that talking battle X avoid with the show would laugh three hours listen I'm just trying to bring a little funny today sorry I cannot sorry constant our next question robotic I can't help you with that right alright so what are we talking about the heavy stuff I know the iPhone 10 reviews are out we don't have Scott I promise we will have Scott on to actually talk about it and bring the iPhone 10 way to build me up there sorry I'm sorry I said we've got no no no we're talking about some heavier stuff some really important topics Facebook Google and Twitter are are going to the first of three congressional hearings to talk about Russia's influence on the u.s. elections and we'll also be talking about Apple Qualcomm and the latest in their legal fight that's why I have eyes on our legal expert retired attorney that's correct retired attorney Aya's Akhtar on to answer the questions answer your questions about like whether or not what's the endgame with the reason again no he's gonna he's gonna answer all of your questions you have about like about yeah about law love will it does none of that's gonna be usable come on alright alright as always leave the comment I'll give any questions look in the comment section Brian will pick out the best and we will get to them in 3 minutes and 59 seconds see you in a few minutes back in the chat from 3 to welcome to the 359 I'm dr. Chang and with me is retired attorney I as act are retired turning and current CNET superstar I need to add that that is Akhtar hi hello Roger so Facebook Google and Twitter face Congress today the first of three congressional hearings looking into how Russia used the social networks to influence the US election and some of these stats are startling facebook says 126 million americans or a third of our population was exposed to russian-backed accounts twitter says there are 2700 accounts that are believed to be associated with the the internet research agency which is russia's click farm or troll farm and and google said that IRA its spent forty seven hundred dollars on ads and there are 18 youtube channels associated with the group all this begs the question do you think these companies are too powerful I don't know that too powerful so much is the way people interact with them might be the bigger issue because I know when it comes to Facebook sharing a lot of people don't click through they just share there's no vetting at all right so they meet the normal person is seeing the headline there's moving on they're not noticing what they're actually reading same thing with tweets it's very quick to spread information or misinformation so I don't know if the companies themselves are too powerful but it does say that they need to do something about it because of how people are using their tools so to speak all right I think the question that hopefully we'll get an answer after the next couple days is like do we need regulation clearly Congress and Senator the Congress is looking at regulations these companies are saying we hear you but we think we can totally regulate ourselves and everything will be okay yeah I mean this is arguably the Wild West because this is this is uncharted territory how this these places can influence an election that's a very serious event so there's a question did it influence the event what's the actual impact on it because just because you saw something did it influence you or not and that's a really bigger question so will that lead to regulate I could see these companies with their lobbying efforts to make sure yeah will regulate ourselves for now until something needs to be done but this might be the event that says something needs to be done right I mean that it definitely takes something dramatic and obviously the u.s. elections it get it doesn't get as dramatic is that right kind of important so next up we want to talk about Apple we're probably looking to ditch Qualcomm as a supplier of cellular radios this is the latest and they're big legal spat which they have disagreements over how much Apple should be paying Qualcomm for both the technology and for the radio in the iPhone so is this just legal posturing it's just making a bluff here yeah I mean when we see a lot of these legal battles in the past you know Apple and Samsung famously go at it all the time but Samsung screens are on the iPhone 10 yep and they have a working relationship same thing with Qualcomm with Apple trying to have all the stuff in the public likely they're trying to get a better deal maybe a better settlement and by the end of this we'll probably see that beautiful phrase cross license cross patent license oh yeah they'll figure their stuff out together it'll be all private and we won't know any of the details right it's just it's interesting just entertained the idea of ditching Qualcomm because it's the largest supplier of mobile chips and radios the only two other two that I'm aware that could do this or Intel immediate AG yes and Intel is in some of the the iPhones the new iPhones I believe it's t-mobile ATT the modems themselves modems themselves yes it's a very limited field also Apple has its own manufacturing facilities with comes of chips so I don't know if they can pivot and make modems or not but this is a very difficult field to be in right you can't just decide one day I'm gonna start making chips or I'm gonna make I'm gonna start making radios because there is a lot of set-up time and the process to make these things is rather complicated and it's unclear whether Intel Media Tech could actually provide the volumes that Apple really demands yeah that's a really tough thing because iPhones are I mean I couldn't agree I think this is more legal posturing this is definitely more Apple saying we don't need you we can go on without you you know just taylor swifting right now exactly so you know trying to get try to get everyone back to the bargaining table to actually talk it out all right it's all this time we have for these stories and more check us out and seen it I'm Roger Chang Amaya's actor thanks for listening alright so I'm gonna go ahead and jump into the chat find and dig out some good questions and comments for everybody until then we did kind of miss a story that we were trying to lineup today I'll be what I thought ran out of time - OH Roach oh yeah yeah we were trying to sorry we were trying to tease the the the ride that Tim shieff has had on a lame-o self-driving cars it's a good one of the Google self-driving cars just kind of ran out of time but that'll happen it's a really cool I mean we had a lot of complicated storage discuss those it was it was tough I wanted to give some shout out some love to Roadshow and the Whale Oh story which is on the front page of Cena of course of course yep so I as educate us a little more in the in the legal proceedings that we might see over the next couple of days or with I'm kind of curious as to what's gonna go down with the social media fallout I don't know how far we can dig into this before we get into danger territory but it is going to be really there's anything legal there's just gonna be a lot of back-and-forth there gonna be a lot of questions a lot of Wyatt tech people saying like okay we've made that statement yeah we're not we can't tell you more I would imagine a lot of just getting stopped from getting actual answers kinda like when we saw what was that CEO experience with other guy oh yeah the experience to you Equifax and he's basically do you think the monopoly guy shall appear I think there's a chance it's also tala weaned so yeah but yeah I would think that we're gonna get not a lot of information out of these experts and we're gonna find basically the prepared statements is all that they will say because that is the safest thing to say over and over again which is frustrating because it's gonna be these were like two hour-long sessions and they're they're just a row of senators and representatives all asking questions that we want answers - yeah and there's just gonna be like we'll have to defer to the statement oh yeah people want to see something like a court drama or like and it's every asset ok yeah I did it you can't handle the truth no that doesn't happen so jack nicholson moment isn't one if it does happen in the next few days we'll all over amazing likes in fact that person would lose their job be frequent counsel loses their their stuff hearing it'll be viral and that would be the new distraction because we won't even pay attention you're right we wouldn't be talking to rush in which time with this idiot that's I can't believe that dude flip the table yep alright let's go ahead and take a question through them the chat and first up we got James Vincent a comment regarding our our headline is Google Facebook Twitter too powerful no I don't think they are too powerful there's just no one else to knock them off they're tough spots how do you respond to that I mean does that mean they're by definition too powerful like that it's almost kind of a monopolistic right there is no other facebook alternatives okay wait a second so if you look at Google's findings when they're talking about the YouTube channel isn't it yeah $4,700 they actually aligned about Google+ and they're like we found no Google+ I'm 98% sure that's what it said I just what you can double check me on that I have a link somewhere yeah there are alternatives but they just I mean Google tried to be an alternative Facebook and that didn't really work I mean you could argue that as a source of news there they're competitors right Google like Google is a good source I mean it's not good I mean it's not saying it's good or bad I'm just saying it's a very popular source of news and just like Facebook news feeds of become a popular source of news and in that respect they do kind of compete with each other but I think it's still kind of same problem right yeah but they're not meant to be news organizations if you want to go there right no there's no exercising judges but my point is people go to those sites right that's where the problem lies there is no and I know Facebook is throwing people at this problem but but there is no sort of editorial control right right right and here's there's no way to say this it doesn't come off as arrogant to some extent as we sit here in our paid seats to be in a my paid I think this is free you get what I'm trying to say though and it's a we've got things like Facebook YouTube Twitter that gives everyone a platform to be their own news agency sure everyone's got a voice now and how do you vet that to an extent because you don't want to take away anyone's power of opinion but how do you regret a credit but they have tried to stop fake news they've you know they've partnered with like let us know to PolitiFact yeah they've they've they partner with companies or outside organizations to the vets and the stories the problem is there's just so much out there that these organizations can't get to everything it takes days sometimes well are we are on that no are we too deep is there any coming back I think this is a pivot point because like if you think about it I guess in the old days if you had anybody could print out anything and like okay this is the news if being spread out or you can go to the town square there's like a lunatic talk extry extry you can have all of this stuff but right now we're in this weird position where Facebook you know we've seen a lot of social networks come and going facebook's managed to stick around yep internet time a long time mmm-hmm and it seems that they have a lot of users and that's not going to go away anytime soon and we're learning we can't just trust everything we see because it's just because it looks like it's official it might not be and seeing Facebook's like increased add transparency a statement the other day we are going to have clear labels and what's an advertisement this is the kind of stuff that has to happen because I don't think and this might sound naive I don't know if a lot of this was foreseeable to go oh that's how this is going to work somebody's gonna figure out we're gonna throw a bunch of propaganda well I mean to that point Facebook was warned about this by early on by security company so compared to experts by even the government expressed concerns about it X burying wires Stan Facebook kind of looked into this before the election is long before the elections and this sort of said we'll look into this and nothing really happened it was foreseeable and some of it was foreseeable I mean you know if you're if you're looking at from the Facebook perspective you're probably thinking no that's crazy right is that that was like a burst first reaction when everyone kept saying you know this was your fault that you know Trump won the election and there was a fake news they messed everything up his first reaction was no that's crazy like that idea and then he has that last naive on his part yeah kind of human-like like musk he's like okay you guys aren't really with us write this but musk is gonna be on a front line the fight against the artificial intelligence war with the t1000 Mark Zuckerberg is a sleeper agent for them I don't know all right that's a little strong we don't met that is not the opinion of CNN toward staff just bejust Alexa just bake bake Alexa listen Zach seems like a really nice cyborg that's all I'm trying to say I'm okay with that he still got some human left if he's a cyborg yeah I mean this is essentially we're on the cusp of iRobot the questioning of who gets rights and the first one to be questioned is Isaac Oberg all right what questions do we get I'm sorry I got distracted for a minute well I mean Josh Boyata brings up a good point and this is just kind of expanding on what we were already talking about earlier and what we just went into detail most recently but he says I feel that Google and Facebook don't deserve all the blame for spreading this fake news because it should comes from the people taking advantage of how the site's work yes we know that from algorithm exposure and just general I don't know the phrase we come up with people don't take time to verify anything they see online and that's definitely the case that is part of that he said before I'm guilty of it that is part of the problem for sure I think most people blame I mean ultimately you blame Russia because that's where a lot of this misinformation is coming from but some responsibility has to be put upon these companies it can't just be this neutral biased and you're like we're gonna put out all the stuff it's up to you guys to figure out what's real I mean that's it's hard especially when you're getting this when you're being flooded with this information overload it is hard to vet everything that comes through right exactly and here is the elephant in the room the devil's advocate question coming from Dan McLean and I'm glad you brought this up and we should we should address this how well vetted is the established media ooh that's a question it is a good question I would say I mean depends on your agency yeah it depends on I guess it depends on which media outlet but I mean I can only speak for my time you know writing both from CNET and at The Wall Street Journal the folks there I mean there's a lot of training that goes into the job there's a lot of process to make sure these stories are as objective as possible you know nothing is 100% objective but you know you you I mean I worked at all that at least had the intent to get things right to get information out there that is useful to readers and that's not always the case with a lot of the sources that are out there right they're already the publication's or their organizations like the our IRA which they submit news and information whose sole purpose is to mislead you and so you know it's it's it's I don't I get tongue-tied when talking about the the question of it's tough because we draw the line between media and objective reporting in business because they both play a major well it depend in it if there's a line between editorial and business that's really what the thing is like I know ethics I don't learn a lot about ethics in law school you'll figure everyone thinks that's a joke it's not immoral and and being actually ethically sound in what you're doing and what you're saying I know that transfers to journalists as well absolutely if your editorial head is saying look we have to get this right and also your name is on the violin so you want to be right you know reading these things yeah and that's why you stand by your piece so maybe maybe The Times doesn't have something as fast as some other site does but odds are they're researching the hell out of this to make sure that they are going back to the original source because one of the things I've seen is the re reporting of other stuff because if you go okay from this site to the next site to the next site if you never go back to the original source right you have just hearsay you need that original source information before you move on to that so look we and see that we we write and we report other stories but we always check with the source we always check with there's no companies with the original people that are the subjects of those stories because we want to get it right right I mean it may not be a like it may not be up to us the companies may not want to talk about certain things but we're always trying to get things right yeah and I think kind of in a weird ironic sense there there's a level of the business aspect to it that could seem like that's the corruptible end of objective objective reporting yeah but the motivation at hand is you have to be as correct as possible to not get called out on your credibility so that your platform can remain the whole point of this is like we like doing this we didn't do this to get rich this right definitely job I've been in the media and some aspect since I was 14 years old I worked for a newspaper worked for a local radio station pursued radio and broadcast and technical production as my my my career continued to work for local radio stations and other media outlets got involved in media law as like a personal interest throughout that and ultimately when you get down to it at the end of the day I'm not trying to oversimplify this but this is one it's writing one giant essay and the bibliography which is always everybody's least favorite part about doing it that's really what has to come down into it is citing your sources yeah and I think that's what kind of holds our glue together there's that motivation where you're working with a team here I'm not solo out of my basement like Alex Jones we're working together to try to bring the most relevant information to an audience that would appreciate it of course first and foremost but trying to stretch beyond that at the same time and I'm not trying to get on the soapbox I'm gonna wrap this up soon it's just something I've felt very passionate about and the whole fake news thing bothers me to my core and I don't know I like what I do I like what we do I hope other people do at the same time and I've completely gone off the rails and lost my training out here that's you're on the rails yeah idea fake news I mean it upsets me as well as someone who spent a career trying to get it right you don't always get it right I mean we're humans we make mistakes but there's a higher there higher stakes though when you work here and you know it's our livelihood at the same time you know if somebody can can preach all they want on YouTube and it costs them nothing right right right we have overhead we have goals to to me we have stretch goals we have an audience to ultimately we have a reputation that we have to uphold that's a big thing is the reputation that's yeah any other questions so you know I didn't mean to get so deep into that very so boxy therefore yes sorry I write again it's something that I've been really passionate about and you know that's the biggest thing that bothers me about the current climate keeping politics out of it it's just like fake news I've had my own family members start preaching the fake news thing it's like you know what I do for a living right well you know known me for 31 years and how hard I've tried to be a good person like right you know oh it's not you it's all the other ones shut up yeah that's about all I got so thanks everybody for it for entertaining my yeah my gripe on what's supposed to be kind of a fun silly spooky day I know this is the most frightening episode is wow that's a frightening look actually I can't do anything I don't know you can't even you sound like an echo I can't do anything all right I guess we could we should wrap it up there we got a run we're gonna have more on the congressional hearings tomorrow as well as hopefully we'll have Scott on to talk about the iPhone 10 he's a busy man yep so we'll see but I a thank you very much for joining us thank you for having offering your your legal expertise as a retired attorney retired attorney that's mean that's true by the way and currency that superstar bring it so I'm Roger all right if you liked anything you saw or heard here check us out on CNET podcast is also 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