Gadgetory

and good morning on February first it's episode 349 of the 359 you know me I'm BVG and we are finally back I apologize for the chaotic schedule we're back and here we go with Alfred Inge and Ben facts really we survived without you yeah at all arguably better off not really but anyway welcome back thanks for coming in we've got a loaded show today because we're in the middle of tech earning season so we're gonna start off with Facebook's earnings talk about some of the troubles that they're having trying to retarget their website trying to make it a little bit friendlier and nicer but losing some some usage in the meantime while they're trying to retarget their audience and retarget their their site we'll also talk a little bit about Twitter BOTS Alfred wrote a story about IOT home security that we'll jump into and then we'll wrap up with intel light show drones you might remember them from the Superbowl which is coming up on Sunday what's a Superbowl this is a curb owl the superb owl which is my favorite apparently we're gonna get sued for saying Superbowl because you're not allowed to say Superbowl unless Super Bowl Super Bowl Super Bowl anyway send in your questions and comments BBG we'll get to as many as you can at the end of the show and let's get to the podcast all right stick around we're gonna record the four in a podcast feedback join you in the chat in three minutes and 59 seconds from three to welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm alfred hang all is not well in the land of social media facebook reported earnings yesterday Sayle saying daily active users dropped in the US and canada for the first time ever also people are spending less time on the site how far do you think that this is just kind of a bump in the road that Facebook is facing while they're trying to retarget their site and trying to change things around a little bit I mean if this is a bump in the road this is a big bump in the road I mean I would say this is more like a dead deer that kind of jumped on their windshield or something I think that there's gonna be a continuation of less usage on Facebook and you know some more problems that they're I think they say people are starting to move away from it I think it's left all these fake new stuff and political discourses left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths and you know it's one of those things where a lot of people that I know and this is purely anecdotal like I can't say this reflects for all of America but you know most people I know like are basically only on Facebook for like messenger and events now like they don't want to be left out of somebody's birthday party but I don't think they really care like what people have to post on it anymore and you can see that from what facebook has been doing for to drive up engagement you know you get these texts and are like hey did you see the comment that your friend made on this other photo by the way you're having a birthday party I didn't I didn't get the yeah I don't use Facebook oh okay all right that's that's a little awkward but that's okay do you do you what what would you like to see Facebook actually do to change things around or do you think that it's it's just not really working and maybe people are moving on to like other other concepts well they're trying to turn the car around now they're trying to bring it back to you know what it was kind of started on with like this is just for my friends and my family and talking to them but I think you know they've gone too far now and down this road where they really can I mean like people have come to know Facebook is like a service for this and you know and I think the direction that a lot of people on social media are going toward which is why you see snapchat and Instagram which Facebook owns is so popular in in the sense of you know they are insular it's like snapchat isn't about having a million friends it's about having like a small group of people that like you taught us a smaller note yeah yeah tighter connections we also wanted to touch on Twitter they're grappling with a BOTS problem but do you think that they can fix their BOTS problem or do they even want to in some ways it inflates their numbers they get to say that they have over 300 million plus users a lot of those folks are BOTS so they would take a significant hit to their reputation and they'd have to say that they had negative numbers if they did kick off all their BOTS I think BOTS will be around on Twitter as long as influences assigned to follower count you know you can be extremely smart you can have a lot of great insight but if you don't have like the follower account you know you're not people aren't gonna like think much of you and I think that's where this BOTS industry really thrives on okay so Alfred you also wrote today about the hassle of managing the security updates for all your Internet of Things devices tell me a little bit about that so the issue of you know the rise of IOT devices is that you're gonna have so many in your home and it's gonna be you know really difficult to maintain updates for all of them you know it's gonna be your TV your toilet that talks to you for some reason your refrigerator a toaster all this stuff that's in your home that's connected all needs to be updated yeah and it all needs to be updated at all time think about how annoying it is read update just your phone we're just your computer yeah it's extremely frustrating nothing about that with all your devices so and but that's a major security risk because there's so many IOT devices that can be hacked for that for botnets so a lot of security companies have now come out with these routers that it all connects to that one router and then it automatically pushes out the updates for them but it's gonna cost yeah so I mean the idea is would you want to pay $10 or $15 a month to give up that hassle a lot of people have said yes a lot of people said I would much rather pay for that convenience yeah Marie it's kind of like insurance okay last I wanted to touch on a story that I wrote about about Intel's drone light shows and they made a big splash at the Super Bowl last year expect to see a lot more of them this year I got a chance to see the mini drones indoors at CES and definitely there were there a lot of videos of this online check them out do you know if they're performing with Justin Timberlake I don't think they're gonna be back at the Superbowl but it would definitely be pretty cool if they were oh yeah I saw them outside the Bellagio in Las Vegas which I was very cynical about it but it did look pretty cool in person yeah so if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNET I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm alfred Aang thanks for listening so I got this new smart device is called a smart spoon I don't know if you guys we got this in the lab yet or not but I was like if you're eating well it tells me what's in the spoon it'll send a text to my phone and tell me what I'm eating don't you have to take a picture of the spoon first though you do yeah for and then you have to pay a $13 subscription fee annually so that they can keep that in the database but it's all totally worth it and it only takes seven hours to charge mmm like I love where we're going with our log of you're eating later on exactly I think I forgot what I ate at 11:53 this morning spoilers it was bacon not with the spoon though I have a smart spork at home and it did get hacked and now somehow I can't eat well I can't eat I can't eat and some hackers have all my credit card information and my social security number but I would say that it's worth it because yeah it's usually you want to keep it offline and if you do have to get our online plug-in ethernet cord to it so all my device all my utensils our utensils have a Ethernet port I'm good good that's that's really get the dongle for here plates I think ok so we're making fun of this but I think I've talked to enough people in the industry and I think it is true seeing year over year how much how many things end up getting a wireless connection in your home how many do end up going on Wi-Fi that this is an inevitability so what you wrote about it is important I don't know if it makes sense to do that like 10 or 15 dollars yeah rip shin sir I was generally frustrated by this whole notion everyone that I had talked to kind of pitched it as this like humanitarian effort kind of that's like we have to make it money we have to protect everybody we have to make sure that all these IOT devices don't get hacked because there could be a crisis also give us a lot of money to do it ok like you can I'm glad to be one or the other kind a lot of security companies do that they're just trying to scare you to a certain extent but if it is a worthwhile service that does help people out I mean I I know it's it's a lot of people have a hard time updating stuff just the basic stuff yeah so if if something just kind of does it for you and it's out of sight out of mind then maybe it is worth them I wonder if I don't or alone if I can offer that myself as a service just like they wouldn't or like you wouldn't be able to work here anymore but yeah if you have any devices I can update for them for you for a fee right get Inc this move how about we take some questions from the chat first and foremost Matthew dashers asking if we have loud neighbors in the studio today yeah we always have neighbors oh these are these are our buddies at Giant Bomb and yeah they they play video games and they play them very loud and we're very hot as you should as you should very happy to have them as colleagues but especially this week they've been very very enthusiastic about the games that they've been I think they're still playing Super Mario Sunshine they've been run along yet long running project but yeah don't blame me I didn't build this studio I just have to deal with it the insulation is lackluster the studio though huh didn't you didn't you build videos I didn't like put the walls and drywall up by hand there's no solution so yeah like lair of I was doing audio for the past three days and if you listen very carefully you will hear the giant bomb people yelling very loudly at certain parts during our podcast we're trying to be very serious and talk about Apple and they're like oh my god I made it the next level yeah I call it an easter egg Josh Boyd has got a really good question how is paying a monthly or how was paying monthly for a secure router that different than paying monthly for your ISP yeah so Comcast actually has something like this that they're planning on launching for their x5 tier of customers where you you do you know how like you pay you pay for your router depending on what internet servers you have right you're renting it from yeah so they're doing that there it's gonna be some new router that's coming with it that is like a security router they're partnering up with Kujo which is a smart firewall company and an angry dog yes but yeah sounds expensive but you're not buying the router though you're technically renting the router so you which is which could be more expensive yeah no longer so it'll kind of be like you're paying your ISP for the internet service itself but then you're paying another like 15 I don't they haven't determined the price yet but based off of patterns that I've seen with other subscription services there let's say like 10 to 20 dollars so on top of like they already $80 a month that you pay for internet that it's gonna be like this much for security now so and just to understand it correctly so I have a smart fridge and a smart toaster and a smart television the router is gonna take care of the updates for every single yeah so if it's because it's all gonna be connected to your router and then it like scans online every day for like updates to all the devices because all the all your devices have like a certain fingerprint on it like it knows that this is like a samsung fridge or like and what model and stuff and all it is that I can totally see the value of that yeah I don't know that I would personally spend $15 a month on it but I can and it is it's more than just updates to I mean there there are devices out there that have like default passwords on them so you had and you you don't know that you can change them or something like that so some routers will scan for all like devices that have default passwords and it'll tell you like hey you should probably change this and here's how you can do it kind of thing like through our app as opposed to like having to type in your IP address in your like browser and then like going through that and go sifting through all your devices and stuff that way it is a nice kind of headache saver but ultimately this is another one of those we made this problem for ourselves in situations very good point - points out that he owns his own router and modem some ISPs don't let you do that yeah I know I actually had two recently I had my own for a long time and had to take it out of the chain because they disabled it I don't know why or what their logic or reasoning was behind it but I actually had to go back and put the deposit down for their stupid box my I bought my in through Verizon FiOS and I think that's generally if you plan on keeping a service for several years it does generally make more sense to just buy it outright and that's what I did my ISP actually does let you buy your own router but they won't tell me which ones are compatible with their services totally cool of course a great thing to do and I'm still renting mine only because I thought I'd have been out of that apartment in like a year yeah it's been like almost two years now so I mean I I might as well just get my own I just keep forgetting about it Wow two years that's tough here's an interesting thought and it might be a little presumptuous but kin pill I think that's how it's the name is pronounced uh do you think that Facebook would go out with a bang now again presumptuous hmm I mean if myspace has lived of this long I don't think Facebook's going anywhere in a hurry granted it's a downward spiral that's not something any website has ever gone out with a bang though I like most of them just kind of like fade out and then like they've been too obscure yeah and then no one uses it and then Geocities it's still there yeah I think Geocities is completely gone but III think so too didn't even go out with a bang so do okay to add some additional information to what we were talking about the usage numbers are really important related to Facebook because that's how they make their money they generate money almost entirely through advertising so they need a lot of eyeballs the thing is is that a lot of their general financial metrics were very good we highlighted the ones that were problematic because those numbers tend to go up all the time and so it's very notable when they go down but sales were up nearly 50 percent to 13 Oh nearly 13 billion dollars profit rose 20% monthly active users were up 14% to 2 point 1 3 billion and daily active users were up also 14 percent to 1.4 billion so Facebook's not going anywhere no it's definitely not going anywhere but it is kind of like a pretty widespread feeling amongst users whereas like this isn't what I used to be yeah I don't use it as much yeah but like Facebook like my mom's on yeah they did a really good job though basically just worming their way into your life whether it's through messenger events you want to see how your friends are doing maybe announcement wedding announcement whatever there's something that gets you to go on phase me whether it's every day or every month or every week or whatever III think that the better question to ask though is you know do you think that you'll live to see the day that Facebook like is no longer like the premiere like social network it's a great question because yeah he's probably definitely amazing if they somehow existed in there like as a social media company as opposed to something else by the time I died like a long time from now devil's advocate I stance on Facebook but I don't invest in it as much I don't interact with it as much it's like you said messenger and events that's where I can stay in touch with people that you know friends I have that are far away the this is the easiest way to you know keep tabs on them check in on and say hi yeah that kind of thing and for that I still appreciate it but as far as like entertainment value it's garbage yeah for me it's more of a Leanback experience where I do kind of like filter through to see what's going on there see what people are talking about most of the time I find it kind of annoying because if I'm talking to my actual friends I'm talking to them on whatsapp or text message it's the same thing that you were talking about with snapchat where it's smaller nodes creates like more material converse and that's why Instagram is so popular now too because it's not it's literally you just look at photos it's really none of like the whole you know packaged PS that comes with it of like this is why or countries it's awful like oh I love I love my wife happy anniversary now I see anniversary photos on on Instagram though yeah well I find those also annoying whatever it's like if anybody if anybody does that I'm not gonna not gonna trash you for it it's fine well I already did how dare you enjoy the company of your loved ones we have a perspective from an isp technician actually in the chat right now frame out thank you for chiming in this is actually good information and you kind of forget that there's always two sides to every story and he says hi guys I'm a technician for an isp company the advantage of leasing a modem is that the modem if it goes bad the company's gonna replace it for you free of charge as opposed to you know what's on your own bankroll and also yeah they and and I remember the ISP tech that installed mine did say that if they do update it then you just rent the updated version as opposed to you're holding the bag with with the old one that you've already purchased so those those are very good point and thank you very much for I love ISP technicians I've always like I always really appreciate all the advice that they give them and I feel so bad I mean there's social media as well III just think that like ISP technicians get a bad rep because of the companies that they work for I think most people are angry at the companies and not like the text themselves yeah thank you for watching yes thank you for joining us did I don't want to go into detail on it so but Danny Green made a comment about some shady business going on with a very specific ISP provider and oh yeah they're being sued for it we're going through Danny there's literally a New York City like prosecution case against them for it really I wrote about them we got I hate him so much wait why can't we met if we we've written about it we can go for the attorney general's office like yeah its spectrum the Attorney General's Office put out a statement against originally it was Time Warner Cable that there throught they were saying like you can handle the speed but they're totally rattling on you yeah yes yeah I I remember reading through the court documents and it would basically be like it's completely impossible because the modem that they give you it like doesn't even isn't even capable of reaching this speed so it's just so they were forced to like issue replacements and stuff but you had to be aware that they were offering it it's not like they were going around saying like hey we're being sued by the way do you want a new free router it's kind of like you kind of had to know that it was going on to get one this might only be in New York though because it was the New York Attorney General's Office that was doing it so yeah yeah and then they wonder why people hate and don't trust them so I swear spectrum and like live nation should just get into bed with each other and like that would be a terrifying combination we got a couple of comments about Facebook from Michael Brown our old buddy Michael Brown has anyone notice how Facebook is switching to be more like Google+ he expands hmm Google+ is interest-based has been for years hence still having a strong niche user base and there's a conversation going on about trying to get people more involved with groups not to mention third-party logging capabilities of Facebook and how it's just kind of like bled into every little bit in corner that has less and less to do with you and your personal interactions and your actual friends mm-hmm but isn't that what Zuck said a few weeks ago how we're gonna like Reath tool the the news feed so that it's more about people in your life not the places yeah and more more impactful or more important conversations the problem is to me that seems incredibly forced because doing it on Facebook which is a very big platform where some people follow or they have they have friends with like thousands of folks you don't really want to like spill your guts every day about how you feel or whether you feel good or bad on any particular day it does kind of make sense that if you are gonna share certain things like that you would with a smaller group of friends and that's been Facebook's problem I would say for a long time whether they're gonna actually successfully do that they make it more interest based as Michael Brown mentioned I don't know they would they would have to find a way to have people use groups a little bit more often I mean they had been requests they had been prioritizing Facebook groups for a little bit I don't know if that's still their mission now but there was a period of time where like Facebook groups were like the thing that Facebook was like trying to go all-in on we're right because that's how social interactions yeah yeah you know like it's that's whatever I mean I I would I guess you guys can come to like Thanksgiving but it would be a little strange you know so whatever all right we got one more before I call today imagine soggy says it's basically criminal that Twitter doesn't capitalize on the tons of free advertisement with TV shows and movies and ad campaigns use hashtags that is I never thought about that before I've totally thought about that I totally wait what do you mean I'm sorry I don't get it what's the issue I think he's trying to say you look everywhere now every billboard in New York has you know the Smurfs movie hashtag Smurfs Rock and yeah and how Twitter doesn't actually monetize that and every single why would they be able to like right sighs I don't know and I don't know like I know newsrooms do like the ad you know this is yes they don't yeah but they don't own every newscasters got their Twitter and their handled the present company included yeah they don't yeah they don't own the hashtag early at symbol no they don't but they have I mean I don't know it's like saying like all these people that have like email addresses it's or like Gmail addresses sorry whereas like what they should be monetizing off of that too I don't a minimum they should be capitalizing and benefiting from the fact that they get so much free advertising for it I mean like it really is like your publisher like people are using these hashtags on like Facebook or something which they do have hash out but it's not like people don't don't don't like think like when they see how hikes I'm like oh I should look up this hashtag on Facebook most of the times they're probably going on Twitter for it yeah I don't know I don't I think they get the free advertising all right I mean like people go on their website and it can boast like these numbers and then they can get money from advertisements based off of that yeah and they should be doing it and they actually have been monetizing the hashtags bit with the little like a custom emoji thing that you get on like certain hashtags like they pay Facebook Twitter for that service so they are okay well that is fairly recent and hopefully they're making some money doing it we got one for the road that just popped up Joey brows says is it me or is Facebook completely lost its appeal what is the next big thing in social media and I feel like we need to have Brian Cooley in the room to answer this but there's a thought we've seen the very brief flutter of snapchat we've seen Instagram kind of hold tight even though that's the technically Facebook now we've seen Twitter somehow stay ahead above water what would be the next big thing in social media Alfred I feel like this one's for you I mean I like I said I think it's it is going toward more like a temporary content and like closed off content I think that's why even though Instagram complicit anti social media kinda yeah even though Instagram completely stole you know snapchat stories concept like I think people resonate with that idea a lot of like this isn't gonna last forever this isn't gonna be like as a part of my identity because I think a lot of young people now that are like growing up with technology all around them or stem and realize that you know everything that you do online is logged forever kind of thing and in the sense of you know it's not I I look toward like the young crowd when I try to see like what's gonna be happening next online and or like what the next big trend is or something like that and I think yeah they're moving towards something like this isn't logged forever and the idea of why do I need like three thousand like something friends when I only talked to like maybe 15 of them seven yeah and there is there is a potential for somebody to take that crown but I would probably say that one of the one of the ones that's in the best position to do it is whatsapp and whatsapp is owned by Facebook so because I use I tend to use whatsapp a lot and I've been using it for especially beneficial in international right absolutely that's why I started using it one of our friends moved to Israel and it was really easy to stay in touch with them with without extra fees yeah exactly so but that's the thing is that Facebook was smart enough to gobble up some of its potential competitors before they've got big enough to really challenge the come well yeah they also tried to buy snapchat yep and then when they said for the same reason yeah I mean yeah they know who's coming after them and they have the money to just say like you know we'll pay you this much to be out be our friend and yeah I'm like socializing on virtual reality by the way Facebook also has a lock on that or they've definitely like cornered that with oculus all right I think Zuckerberg is very smart and recognizing certain places where you know this is this is where we are today but where might we be you know three to five years from now he's certainly had some good foresight with that Scott things that the next big thing is gonna be a brand new never before seen platform that's still to be determined kind of situation I think that might be the case I think we are on the hook to develop it right here in this room let's get right on it we already thought isn't the next big social platform like smart spoons yes absolutely yeah there he goes our spoons okay oh people looking to buy that no I already bought it oh you didn't okay all right cool buy a spoon all right that's it that was a good conversation sorry we only had one live show this week that's my fault little scheduling conflict but we're back for real this time I know I've said it before and we're getting close to episode three 359 this is the 359 episode 359 where we are cooking up something special for everybody more to come later we'll fill you in with more details but yeah come on quick Benoit take us home the reef is benign podcast is available on iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner google play music Amazon echo and of course it's calm thanks everybody also Apple and Amazon earnings are tonight so look on CNET for those and we'll see you on Monday take care everyone have a great weekend go Eagles go Eagles you