Gadgetory

hey hey everybody thanks for hanging out sorry we're running so late today it's episode 357 of the 359 podcast I'm BVG and the house is full today Ben Joan and Alfred hey we're getting so close to the 350 ninth episode I whoa bursting with excitement and the name of the show is three one three fifty-nine yes so look out for a marathon episode where we're just basically doing a podcast all day on Wednesday so look out for that for today though we've got a packed episode we're talking about Google's new ad blocking effort on Chrome also spending with Bitcoin that is if you actually do spend your Bitcoin on anything like goods or services and then Jones here to talk about the code media conference that should just came back from just got back so oh and if we have time we'll talk about the home pod ruining furniture which i think is very funny as unusual what i'm just here a look cute yeah and rune furniture that's just like just like a new puppy as usual sending your questions and comments BVG we'll get to as many as you can at the end of the show let's get to the podcast and we'll see you soon see in the chat in 3 minutes and 59 seconds from 3 to welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Riven I'm Joanie Saltzman I'm Alfred hang starting today Google is cracking down on some of the most bothersome online ads and videos using its Chrome browser to block pop-up ads ads that cover more than 30% of your phone screen and autoplay videos with sound this is just the first step and a controversial one too since some folks see this as a moot see this move as Google getting too much power over what ads websites can actually show what do you guys think so yeah this is also it kind of in tandem with another play that Google is doing where it's blocking access now or just marking as heavily insecure on any website that you go that's not HTTP which is a lot of websites like CNN's website is an HTTP as currently but I think that falls in the criticism that you were talking about you know Google kind of taking a lot of control over like what websites you're able to visit and all that and it's important to note that it's Google has a unique role in that place because Google is Facebook and Google command like almost all of the new money that's coming in to digital advertising and they're the majority that your advertising money right now already yeah and so the people that they're that Google is now blocking ads for is like the 2% of a digital ad money that's of new digital ad - coming in is going to like 2% of people that are Google Facebook and now Google is starting to block some of that money you know why that isn't annoyed about this though the rest of the people that come on don't have to deal terrible in the media and we have to serve ads to you know keep the lights on and pay the bills but you're absolutely right Alfred a lot of users find many many of these ads super annoying and they probably wish that Google went even further there are a ton of downsides to ads they're distracting they slow websites they eat up your phone battery some of them might have malware on it they track users so they build profiles about you I mean like there's there are a lot of reasons why people don't like ads and it really does show the point as to you know not everything you know you can get free content on the internet but sometimes it does come with us it's in saying that so much of our internet still looks like it's from like 1998 or something because of all these like ridiculous ads on how much space they take up yeah next up I wrote a story about how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies aren't still aren't living up to their promise as digital cash that you can use to pay for goods and services most people just hold on to it as an investment vehicle do you guys have Bitcoin have you ever actually spent it no no no I bought some Bitcoin I'm very excited because I don't want to be that the case of the person that was like hey I had like one Bitcoin in 2009 and I bought you know like toilet paper with it and now it's worth $20,000 right now that's valid toilet paper worth $20,000 yeah like one of the most well known stories about that is Florida software developer who spent 10,000 Bitcoin on two pizzas and I'm sure he wishes he wasn't so hungry that day last up John you just came back from the code media conference maybe you can tell us a little bit about what were some of the biggest things that happened there what were some of the headlines from the event yeah so one of the things that people are talking about on the ground there you know the code gets some really good speakers some really interesting speakers they had Facebook and YouTube show up on the first day and a lot of people in the audience were frustrated that you know you have these really powerful giant companies and then they get up on stage even though they're facing a lot of really intractable problems and they aren't really upfront about how they're dealing with it you know they it's like why are you even inviting these people here they're not gonna say anything what there's nothing wrong with Facebook or YouTube it's been they're perfect they're perfect in every way well that's kind of like it sounds like a joke but it's not they don't get up there and say that but they it feels like that sort of cognitive dissonance where they won't they're so dedicated to not having to go on the record about addressing these problems either because they can't or because they won't because they don't want to speak about it in a public forum that it feels like that a little bit like why are you what do you even wear well world are you living in yeah yeah definitely if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Johnny Salzmann I'm Alfred Inge all right thanks for listening little rough on the dismount I don't think that wasn't my fault this that would have gone over well at the Olympics usually I'm it's MIT's my fault on the dismal ways been more of a bronze guy anyway that's true alright everybody thanks for joining us we are going to go ahead and delve through the comments and see if you guys got any good feedback and questions for us to keep the conversation going until then I don't even have a suggestion this time I'm completely burnt out today you guys fill sometime in the meantime I wanted to talk about this home fight story we didn't get to it during the podcast but it is pretty funny it's apparently I don't think it's the home pot the new Apple home pies it's Apple's new smart speaker apparently messes up your wood furniture if left on top of it for too long it'll just create kind of like a white ring around it I think that's it's like from from the heat from yeah it's an acid or something like that it's it's not an acid because it kind of goes away after a while but I think that it's the same thing that happens if you put like a coffee mug or like hot tea on your wood furniture well that's like condensation I think bunch which like couldn't they like solve that for like a three hundred and fifty dollar well yeah right hope so you would think that they would just put it on toothpicks or something am I gonna have to like a coaster when I buy that's what I'm oh my gosh there you go but I thought home but I have to get like an apple ploy so they can start selling like coasters or their own home pods they're gonna be at least five hundred dollars Oh stirs too so yeah um I coaster i coaster but yeah 995 so do we have any questions I'm still digging I'm still digging okay keep going all right well we have so many questions we do all right fine let's go back to the like the chrome stuff cuz to me that's pretty interesting and talk about it from the user side I think the other thing that I also wanted to talk about was that in Steven Shanklin story yesterday he called out like the LA Times and Forbes like their websites is having some like particularly bothersome ads I've been on those websites I wouldn't disagree with that I'm not saying that they don't have good content it's just sometimes it can be pretty bothersome to see some of the ads sometimes like they they like take over the page or you have to like click through them actually I mean countdown during during the conference the editor-in-chief of Huff Post was on stage and one of the comments one of the questions from the audience is like I just went to your website on mobile and I had to see 17 ads yeah four of which we're all for the same company before I could actually get to your content Wow yeah so it's something yeah there's a lot of reason there's a lot of points what are you what did she say about that she was like well I don't like to hear that that's not the experience you should be having but I'm getting paid a lot of money so sorry see curly she was like I'm sorry to hear that you should actually be seeing 42s I don't know this is this is another way of looking at it - is that a lot of the websites that have paywalls now like the New York Times Washington Post Wall Street Journal they also serve ads they're not nearly as bothersome right well then again the LA Times also has subscriptions but if I were paying a subscription and didn't have to have any ads that would be useful that's an interesting idea since they definitely like text based online publishers more of them are gravitating toward this sort of paywall scheme because people are more willing to open their wallets for publishers today though it'll be interesting to see if they start to consumer start to say like hey I'm paying you money I don't want to see the ads did you hear about what salon.com did tell us so on monday some news had come out that if you went to their website with an ad blocker you can opt out of it it was basically yeah we won't show you yet but you'll basically be mining cryptocurrency for us while you're on the web's yeah and we won't show you ads but you're gonna be mining for crypto currency for us and somebody some people who tried it out and it showed like their chrome processor like it was taking up like a hundred percent of their and like it just slowed down to a halt to the point where they couldn't even navigate the website because it's like yeah I mean that's that gets people talking about you but like ultimately their business is not mining yet and they're making their business their business like it's either it's either they're making it really on it's like turn off your ad blocker turn off your ad blocker and like view our ads so we can make money off of that or mine some currency for us and keep your ad blocker but I think it's an experiment it probably didn't work and people got really mad about hey let's take some questions I finally got a couple of good ones in here you ready yes it only took me a few minutes sorry always good conversation in the chat imagine soggy says does Google does the Google adblock include those scammy ads that when you click on the link it's a pop-up that says you win a new iPhone like what is really in their targets yeah it's supposed to block those kinds of ads though with that like rhetoric around it they're trying to prevent like a lot of these like scam ads okay I can read through some of these in Chrome you will no longer see ads that cover more than 30% of your phone screen cover your screen and show you a countdown timer autoplay video with sound use quote sticky panels that won't go away and pop up to cover part of your screen so those are all pretty annoying I've had to deal with like plenty of those and that's nice but I would probably say that a lot of people in the chat would like to see them go well that well that includes stuff that's not ads though but more so like part of the website design like oh subscribe to our newsletter kind of thing like when that pops up like it's not an ad that's a good question I don't know I don't know I think they have different kinds of IDs that they're identified by so it's supposed to not I mean I would hope that a wouldn't target things are actually just part of the website experience and then you can judge that separately if the website experience also sucks right that's my two cents sure a couple more questions let's keep talking about ads Watson says isn't removing these annoying ads going to dramatically lose profit for Google do they think their shareholders will be happy about this well this is the thing is that they're actually taking away ads from other ones that like make money off of these ads yeah I mean it's it's they will block some ads if on google sites if they do fall into this realm but I haven't really noticed Google having these types of ads and I think that's probably why they identified them specifically because they don't tend to do this kind of thing I want to see something that actually the bothers me the most is when the ad or when the page loads in chunks and then ad moves everything so I've already got the mouse click here in place and I go and then it says I miss fire that's the one that bugs me the most I don't know I hate pre-roll I don't hate pre-roll as much as I hate autoplay audio which more than a few people like sir enjoy in the chat also hate but yeah it's that thing we're a sec alright I can beat it yeah yeah I hate waste I hate it when websites have autoplay yeah I think we all do let's go and have some more questions why don't we James Vincent if I see multiple ads on a mobile web page I'll just leave the site I agree with Google blocking them finally yeah one of the worst ones I experienced is this a comic books I don't want to throw them under the bus and name them but yeah I'm a comic book geek go figure and I love the content on the site but man the ad experience is miserable especially when you click through from social and it just gets to the point where it stacks and stacks and stacks and I can't even read it it's completely unreal nights that's partly the issue is that chrome is a very successful product for Google it gives them a lot of user data it helps redirect people to Google which is you know how they make all their money where they serve you ads on google.com so they have a vested interest in preventing that type of thing from happening now the way ads tend to work is that these are the worst offenders I remember when we were first starting with the internet pop-ups used to be the super annoying thing that ever everybody had to deal with and as South Park generally you know gets on top of this stuff before anybody who really starts talking about it it's they're gonna they're gonna redirect to something else yeah where they eventually the ads eventually become people I'm more astonished that something like that has survived so long after how negative it's like I don't even have a good analogy for it like what's something that everybody hates like everybody hates pop but you really like they aren't Google they don't have the resources to have an advertising base like Google but they have I'm sorry but they have to make money somehow and they don't have the wherewithal they're focusing on giving you great content I'm sure yep they don't have the wherewithal to have an ad experience as good as their content experience I presume not knowing do they but I feel like you know it's easy to take a crap on these really small publishers that are gonna get hurt by this because they are doing annoying things but they're trying they're just trying to how to figure out how to make a buck I'm not talking about like porn sites or things that are sending you malware but like the actual people that are getting hurt are usually you know publishers that you like you're not you're 110% correct and I should come down and I'm so hard but it's it's that it's the the piling that bothers me it's when I go to the site and they've got an autoplay with audio video on plus banners and then there's an overlay and that's what I'm talking about that would say it's the trifecta of all the worst experience and they happen concurrently yeah not even like switch page here's another ad experience we're gonna keep I get that and as somebody who works in my bread and butter comes from us being able to serve ads the experience still sucks and the concept of the pop-up is like the definitive worst experience out of all of them that's like the reference point it's the Kleenex of bad ads yeah and I think that another another piece of context to throw in is that the inventory is almost limitless on on like for online ads and that's partly why like the value of them has dropped so low and that's why a lot of as Joan said you know these smaller publishers have to serve a lot of ads because you have to like bundle all of these to actually turn it into something that's off value so you know it's it's interesting to think about like newspapers and magazines where like you know they're dead tree media but they their inventory is far more limited and therefore they can charge more money then somebody can online so one thing that we can talk about is ways that publishers like the comic book site that do you like so much ways they can deliver a good experience but also get money so there's there are things like like the brave browser where like your comic book site could just sign up to be part of their program where brave has a blocking built into it but you can as a user sign up for a program where the time that you you have it's it's a crypto currency sort of thing which I know like hold on it's not entirely stupid but as a crypto currency where you as a user sign up for the cryptocurrency and you say that all right however much time I spend on these websites I want you to divvy up my amount of currency and pay those publishers because I'm not looking at their ads or you can you can basically say like you really like this comic processor give like 80% of divvy it up by proportion to what I'm looking at every day but the given for the last 20% just give it to that publisher because I really value them so there are ways where does this currency come from it comes from brain yeah brave made it's called the basic attention token and they launched it so that's you know it's still at they only just have done in the last month or month and a half interesting interesting ways that you as a user without having to you can you know people talk about like let me just give you my money so I don't have to see this stuff like I love your content but let me just give you money instead of having to deal with it that's one way that people are trying to sort of figure out ways to do that I mean it's not what YouTube is doing with leg YouTube red I mean I know there's premium content too but like you don't get ads on YouTube yeah yeah it's like actual just paying YouTube money it's a little bit less like there is a middleman though YouTube is the middle yeah this is more of like a direct like I want to give them although you could consider the cryptocurrency middleman dollars but yeah yeah I'm doing oh sorry online tip jars for instance is something that a lot of media companies had tried in the past and I don't think they've really been that successful so this sounds like it might be a way of like improving that concept yeah does this technically qualify as a subscription then you think this is I don't think that we're going to see a increased uptick in the concept of subscription-based Internet content oh we already are we are yeah there are people are subscribing more especially for news content like text-based content people are subscribing for that more than they got it thank you for that let's talk to Josh and storm king who are both asking basically the same question will the chrome ad blocker work like a normal a blocker or is it just going to filter through and allow Google ads to surface well I think that well so yeah so Google like normal ad blockers like if you're looking like adblock plus or like any kind of extensions that blocks every ad like not just like these offending ones this is like Morka so Google like Chrome standard of like this ad takes up this much space or this ad has audio in it and it plays automatically so we're blocking that from chrome but I think this is how it works it's Google analyzes sites and warns them warns the site specifically that they're being intrusive with their ads and gives them an opportunity to get rid of those intrusive ads if they don't do that then they become blacklisted and every single one of their ads on the page ceases to exist through Chrome so it is a bit of an like somewhat judicious I suppose effort to try to say like hey these these aren't up to snuff on Chrome get rid of them if you don't get rid of them sorry you can't serve any ads now but I think that underlying that question is whether Google would allow their own ads Google I think won't be creating ads that fall into the categories as intrusive and so it's not like Google will be blocking if Google had an ad that was exactly the same as seeing it had an ad if they were both intrusive it's not like crew and would block the scene at one but not would allow the Google because Google wouldn't you're gonna be meeting their own standard we would create like a pretty awesome like time paradox if Google ended up blocking its own ads somehow and I feel like that would be pretty self-defeating on Google's side but I don't know I guess anything could happen but I don't think it's like a Mahna Mahna monopolistic power that they're gonna be abusing I think it's more setting standards and then they're gonna abide I was I was gonna kind of bring up the point though that I feel like most people that use Google Chrome already have an ad blocker on it some well plenty of people do as Steven Shanklin mentions and his stories I think it's hundreds of millions of people I'm gonna double-check I'd like AB hundreds of millions of people do use it yeah at blocking extensions on Khan chrome are so prevalent that like the fake version of adblock plus got like millions of download it was like a malware like extension and like millions of people still downloaded the fake version of it before it got taken down yeah well maybe that's why people don't have downloaded the wrong one dude I got an ad blogger he gave me a virus that's like the ultimate Rick roll if I've ever seen one we got a lot of great conversation going on from is this going to kill off torrenting sites Alex is asking open-eyed would pop up had to be less annoying if the ads are something you're interested in I've always said try to sell me something I want I don't mind being short hitched but if it's just trashed and it's just trash also if it's obtrusive them going to you could offer me like the best pizza in the world if you throw it in my face I hate you for it you know Schiffer asks it will not ask but theorizes and i love this idea it will be interesting when we go with ads once VR or AR becomes mainstream like I'm walking down the street and then a BestBuy wall pops up in front of you stops you it's like it's like in Futurama when when they have ads inserted into their dreams yes that's coming like a freight train yeah III think that the concept of likes and give me ads that I won the other side of the coin there is that you would have to get pretty thoroughly profiled by the advertisers to know what it is that you won and I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with that they'd rather be you know more anonymous online and not have you know constantly tracking the problem is is that I know a lot of that already happens like there are probably like dozens of trackers you know that are checking like what I'm doing on chrome at any given moment truth very true we're almost out of time but let's talk a little bit about home pod before we let everybody go because there is still some conversation going on about that for sure so do we know exactly what it is it's causing these rings is it paint residue is it moisture because when you get a coffee table you put a drink down on there it's that what the ring the ring is usually caused by condensation I think it's just dry heat the ring is usually caused by a VHS tape that you watch and then the girl shows up no no not the ring is the movie though yeah so it's not caused by the VHS it's it's the ring anyway whatever I mean like Apple confirm that it happens to wirecutter was the one that found out about this and they said the marks can infuse improve after several days and you could you could like use like a polish on the surface like Old English or something to try to remove it so it seems to only happen on wood surfaces mostly untreated so it does seem to be like what is a heater condensation related okay that's interesting because Kangol ox is thinking that it might have been something to do with the paint residue being caused by overheating or excessive vibration essentially just leaving an imprint on the table and I got to wonder like how hot does that home pod run does it run warm it's not going to cause damage I don't because war wood will warp yeah cuz it goes away though it were at least according to Apple like if you remove it for a bit and like what is it like wipe it down you said yeah with like yeah I don't think if it were heat that wouldn't happen I love the burn dinner it's like like have you ever like I don't know I live in New York and so I put wood on top of my radiator because you don't have a choice because I don't have a choice and so I turn and I think it's just I think it's just just dry heat that causes if it's an untreated piece of wood like a shelf that you get from Ikea not speaking from experience but I think it's just yeah it's just dry heat and the longer that you have it on there the more permanent it'll be I would just be really interested to see if anybody I'm sure somebody amongst us is gonna wind up with a home pod and if they leave it planted in the exact same location for an extended period well we all if it does actually cause long-term damage like a year down the road I'd like to talk and see I'm guessing shot in the dark here but Dan Ackerman probably gets one right I would be interested to see if that actually cause long-term damage not something you can polish away we have one in the office we should probably set something up with that yeah but when it's in the office with us we are gonna be using it for testing and different content so it's probably a move I'm saying like funny just man they just plant this thing put it somewhere on a piece of wood like a home pod leaves like the coffee rings that I leave all over this table like a time-lapse video of like how long it takes for the ring to pop up like a year I think we are just about out of time and that's gonna be it for the week and we are off Monday for Presidents Day yeah but coming up next week who wants to who wants to fill everybody in and our big plans have we been talking about it alright brief a little bit yeah 3:58 baby yeah what are we talking about on that I don't know we'll have to find out when it comes but the episode after that is the three that's gonna be a sick one yeah it'll be it'll be nice it'll be a marathon show as I mentioned on the pre-show we're gonna be going on for what are we gonna say this for four hours 11 ounce starting at 11 a.m. Eastern Time we're gonna have three hours and 15 minutes you're right more nacho and we're not allowed to go any any longer than that because we never do we never go over time and we're gonna we're gonna have some special guests and vvg we'll be forced to spend the entire three hours and 59 minutes manning this whole thing oh my cycle ourselves are you wearing diapers for this or like what's the I'll be getting sponsored by I diaper change the subject we know it's not gonna leave a ring anymore exactly but yeah we hope to see everybody there you know tuned in and out at your convenience you know we're not mandating yet that anybody stays for four full hours oh and a revolver to watch the whole pod guy we're gonna spend an extended period of time with the folks over at mouth mouse and they're gonna educate education tec-9 profit we're gonna be talking to them which which will be really nice and we look forward to seeing everyone there at your best convenience and until then we hope everyone has a good weekend who wants to take us out I don't know should I do it you go ahead you do it the 3:59 podcast is available on itunes tuna and stitcher feedburner google play music the amazon echo and of course cnet.com thanks for listening everyone have a great weekend thanks everybody