Gadgetory

good morning on monday November 14th it's time for the 359 podcast episode 140 with Roger tang and Jody solzman good morning everybody how are we hired morning happy monday it's Monday we got to find your new catchphrase happy morning happy man happy money's not a catchphrase I was just trying to be nice all right what are we talking about today we are we're talking about the new the reviews for the macbook pro with the touch bar are out this morning so we are we talking about the sentiment around the interwebs without mega Pro you know our own dan ackerman was pretty pretty high on it pretty enthusiastic but you know there was some definitely some caveats they're just looking around the web the the reviews are kind of positive to lukewarm so kind of break that down for you I will also talk about Mark Zuckerberg talking about again on the issue of fake news items period and the trending topics site and you know he was a little dismissive of its impact on the elections last week and you know you can make an argument that some of those fake stories given the sheer amount of stories that are appear on Facebook even if you've got like one percent that's fake that's a huge amount of stories and then lastly Joan had a very fun interview with one of the stars of the new harry potter spinoff movie prequel movie yeah dan fogler uh who is the he's a muckle he's the one the nomads nomad she's the one non wizard so we'll talk a little bit about the interview it was a fun it was a really fun interview he's a really fun guy and you do this channeling James Lipton I tried yeah so all right why don't we get started as always if you have any questions about any of these topics leave them in the comments section Brian will pick out the best and try and answer all right cheers to listeners in Greece Columbia Jamaica and everybody else thanks for joining us we're gonna get this podcast recorded and be back to enter your questions in three two welcome to the 359 when we talk about the top tech news of the day no the crap we want to throw in I'm Roger J I'm Joni salzman so the reviews of the macbook pro with the touch bar are in in the sentiment is positive to lukewarm our own den Ackman believes that it's ultimately worth it to splurge for the touch bar but notes pretty pricey and that's that's a sentiment that Walt Mossberg and with the Brewers shared and said that he noted that this will probably upset Pro users because it's not quite the probe like the macbook pro in terms of its ability to serve the creatives why are likewise said if you're in aspects that you might not like the fact that Apple called this the pro model just because it uses underpowered or older Intel chips and then there's this decision to go you know all us bc which you kind of had this expense when you bought the macbook i bought the macbook and i was all gung-ho about the butterfly keyboard and sooth in it so thin and sexy and i got the gold one and it match my phone and i was i was taken in by all the flashy glamour yeah and I really regretted it I disliked it so much I had to return it yeah um for a number of reasons it wasn't powerful enough for what I needed and that's on me I got something that wasn't powerful enough for the tasks that I was going to try to use it for but um the tangles man are rough yeah and especially if you're a pro user if you're using it for if your photographer and you want to offload things quickly there are ways to get around it might already be part of your normal routine but a lot of people just like having a USB are having an SD card easy to slip in and you pull them off and you slip it out and not having that thing among others is it's just a hassle so the macbook pro I mean especially this touch bar one comes with four USBC port do you still in your mind would that be enough to kind of alleviate your shoes or is it still it's dongle mania and you still can't really guilt that well one of the hassles that I had when I had the macbook was that it you had a limited number of those you use USB sees ya inputs you have a lot more on the pro and so if you're okay with the dongles that you use my problem is that i had to power it and in load things and do all this other stuff all through basically just a very limited number of porn so I but it's hard to say that anyone be would be really jazzed about having a lot of dongles to do what they could do easily but true I mean I guess you've got a laptop bag you can put your dongle yes at the end of the world it's not like a phone where you've got to carry dongle for it I mean I got the new iPhone and i lost my headphone jack dongle within 24 hours I lost it so just I don't even know where mine is yeah well whatever i switched the bluetooth headphones but alright so next up facebook CEO mark zuckerberg said finally kind of admitted that uh you know they needed to do some more work in terms of cracking down on the amount of fake news and hoax stories that end up in the trending topic section it's still come a problem I mean he was still a little dismissive kind of fitted the fact that these these fake stories didn't really have effect on Elections right but that's I don't we think well I think that when you say one thing to one group of people and then say a different thing when your back is up against the wall that's telling so Facebook do they tell marketers that they're not able to influence decisions like is that what they tell people that they want to get their money no they tell marketers and advertisers like we can help you drive purchase decisions but when their back is up against the wall they're getting criticized for something they don't want to admit might be something that they're doing unwittingly right the answer is look it's only a small part we don't really influence how people think right so they know you know what it's one percent but considering the sheer amount of volume stories I show up on Facebook one percent is still huge huge a speck is huge right it's huge so lastly you had a chance to talk with Dan fauxhawk one of the stars of the new harry potter movie that fantastic beasts and where to find them yes catch them okay all right got it I don't water so I mean what would you think what was he like he was super fun and one of the he's a really funny guy he came from theatre he got a Tony it was claim to fame his first big splash and public on the public scene was he got a tony award for one of his plays he's super funny a really great comedian and one of the fun things about interviewing at this point before Fanta speaks he comes out was that he was so grateful to be part of this thing that's so much bigger than him oh yeah I like I mean it his life's gonna change yeah French when I was talking to him it was only supposed to be a trilogy it was only supposed to be a trilogy of gigantic of a gigantic budget movies and now they're gonna make five of them it's just he feels really lucky and that's really sweet to see someone who is very talented and also very genuine about being grateful also you should check out the entire video interview and story I'll we're at CNN I'm Roger Cheng I'm Joanie salzman thanks for listening I definitely recommend checking out that interview since i had the pleasure of being in the room for that and and helping shoot that I didn't get to edit it but I did watch it this weekend did you like it it was so funny you did such a spot on James look yeah figuring out if we could get it across that that's what i was doing like how to get people to understand cuz it's a very specific homage yes uh it was a lot of fun i was a good color on he was in on it so I mean yeah it was all into it I mean you told me ahead of time so I kind of knew what i was looking for right myself but it was pretty great I hope that people like it I had a lot of fun doing it with him it was he's a really funny guy are you looking forward to the movie yeah I mean I read all the Harry Potters I liked all the Harry Potters actually i want to say i just read the screenplay for the you know i haven't read that yet yeah pretty good actually a little surprisingly dark I didn't hear Potter got real dark yeah it seems aren't sure with the audience yeah I guess so it's not dark in the way the end of the last color books were dark is sort of almost more emotionally dark which is guy was good is it sort of a good uh I should read it itself a good payoff yeah so we got a couple of good comments in the chat we have a perspective from Jamaica so thank you Michael for for chiming in alright says the exchange rate is just not favorable in their parts the high prices of these premium laptops putting them out of reach yeah I mean I don't know what say about that is not not as in a calm i guess i would only say like you should start looking at windows laptops because there are a lot of we had the surface in here it was real cool well the surface is also pretty expensive true but there are like you know folks like Lenovo and soos and all these other guys they make decent laptops at a good price and yeah like it's getting to the point where these things are a little out of reach like for me and that's silly isn't that that defeats the purpose the laptop is supposed to be like the everyman computer am i right another trying to force that to be the iPad or the tablet or such well that would be true but we are talking about their high-end laptop I mean the pro appears to be the most expensive one for professionals but now with the right saving and financing I in college figured out how to get myself a macbook right was still attainable and I wanted it for specific production type related meetings I think the issue is it is that it's not just our high-end like this is like their laptop at this point right yeah they're not updating the low end and that's that's what kind of irks a lot of people yes the fact that there isn't really a good low end option at Apple any more like you kind of have to go to look at windows if you want an affordable options Bobby says the the next macbook is going to be an empty box no disk drive no magsafe in the USB SD card over and for for professional photographers no buttons no screen 999 it's lighter than air because it's yeah it's gonna start sending you an etch-a-sketch after far-off people would still line up to buy that day um our buddy Michael back in the chat uh he thinks that the Facebook fake news issue is colossal because you know Google would definitely get their ass chewed out if they had the same yeah what's the word I'm looking for fallacy well yeah I mean it's definitely a different they're both monolithically large and influential tech companies right and so Google has to approach the way it delivers you information in that it at least on the surface that it's providing you the most relevant objective information and it can there's no value judgments in it but unlike facebook facebook is based on only telling you the things that are going to get you to stay engaged right and in there in there's sort of this problem where the only things you want to hear are things that maybe aren't true yeah um and that means like that's where you raise the question like those facebook have responsibilities beyond just be although like the things like trending right it's also what's trending and what's necessary training is what you need to know right I mean well how hard would it be to implement trending and trending for you okay well apply the subjectivity put a headline on it that states this story that says Kit Kats are a viable dietary option to fill all the food pyramid for brian is a great story does that mean it's true no it's for Brian right I die I think they do have to do better job just squashing fake stores in general like that's just I feel like that's a pretty big issue it's got to be as some cut off between trusted sources and even then we have a lot of people who are not too thrilled with some of the more quote unquote trusted sources over the past few months there's a lot of subjectivity a lot of bias and then also I can see where forstman oozes news stories Facebook's in a hard place because when they had when they had human curation of the trending topics thing they got flamed because what happened was regardless of whether or not they were acting inappropriately the lack of transparency meant that when right-wing sources tended to be deflated inside trending topics that presented the appearance of bias yes whether or not that was legit bias it probably was a little bit in some cases whether or not that's because fake news or less reliable news maybe tends to skew towards a right-wing thing maybe that's part of it that was part of what facebook i think has said in the past is that or no there was a new york times story that said they tested out something that would remove more hoaxes and fakes news but it disproportionately affected right wing publishers i think you could call demographics into that age group supplied age groups involved with social media versus age groups who are perhaps aggregating news through google you know it's hard to say especially facebook has become much broader in the time but remember Facebook started as a college platform strictly one demographic not one but much well now it's also been ravaged I mean it's all billions of people there's no like extends except for the kids who are all right except people that are under 21 what a Facebook let you elect their aggregators their their filters I mean like like you get to vote for who's on the curatorial team sure I mean don't think any any item that would be groundbreaking that would be yeah but also how effective would that be like they're also publicly traded company I don't think that they would yeah I mean just to be realistic I don't think they would let that like popular vote weigh in on strategic decision yeah like that trying to think outside the box here no it's fine bridging from that michael says what can Facebook really do to not let fake stories appear in the news feed because they're going to vet stories first and Facebook would lose the appeal of instantly reaching your audience I mean I that's definitely one the dilemma that she pointed out to like the fact that they had human curators initially that they got a lot of hot water for that they they ended up you know squashing that already so I don't know maybe it's that's where I guess we're a I and algorithms come in I don't know like some something that kind of helps detect or verify facts I guess and it's it's really tough I Facebook is in a really difficult position now I know what they good answer is there's also the consideration to that Facebook can be abused to take people's ability to have a voice away from them like the fact like the example of the Vietnam what is it the Vietnamese the Napalm girl no doubt that was censored and accounts that posted them were blocked because in a bubble like in a vacuum that does violate Facebook's Terms of services there's a naked underage girl in the picture but it's so significant for world history that it it's beyond the pale to believe that that doesn't have some sort of meeting that's beyond just child pornography and that's why let me go back decades if people have tried to sent that out of actual literal history books yeah basically this obviously but similar situations but the issue the point that I mating is not so much censorship it's losing the voice that those accounts lost their bank they get banned until Facebook's like oh wait maybe we shouldn't be banning people over stuff that's obviously considered something that's culturally and historically significant I mean stuff with it and it happens with other people to that post something that is offensive to one group but is protected maybe as a free as a free speech sort of thing but because there's a request to take it down and Facebook just hasn't built up to its you know as a criticism they haven't built up the ability to be able to effectively and quickly monitor a way to keep someone who has a legit reason to post something allow them to connect it to continue to have their voice on facebook if it's a legit purchase they people get banned for reasons that they should it is hard to find that middle ground where you can it's not properly fill to yourself because you should be able to opt-in opt-out of what you do do not to a certain extent to the the finite degree like if you don't want to see risk seeing anything don't get into a social network when there's so many cooks in the kitchen and here's a question okay do we think this will change people's minds about using facebook is Facebook going just suffer from this I feel like people are people live on the folks folks who use Facebook come that's that's how they use that's how they connect with people like it's having this one little controversy I think it's not going to do much to change the overall impression or utility of facebook I would agree to that do uh here's a question for me should we just start another social network called bubble book we get to stay safely in your own little bubble that's the problem with kind of an echo chamber right oh god it's it's it's weird to think about though like because we've been with facebook since the beginning there are people being born into the Facebook generation yeah yeah and they don't know any better any other option like this has been the the penultimate for a lot of people's news delivery yep and there's a lot of people who do depend on it where they live maybe in a secluded area where they don't get things like cable news radio signal certain other aspects other optional deliveries Facebook right online access yeah yeah Oh tough to think um looking for some comments what else do you thinks gonna wear what do we got going on this week like give us a little preview down the down the boy he's going on this week um she's almost pretty quiet well I've got that google photos event that's right tomorrow so tomorrow if you like google photos that app that backs up all your photos and stores them off your phone so it doesn't eat up all of your phones drive there's probably gonna be some updates about that yeah don't know yet what is gonna be but we will give you all the details when we get them mm-hmm actually I'm a big fan of google photos is it a lot yeah I i have google photos on flickr miss flickr for a while have like no limits on storm photos like no compression yeah and then now it's like if you want a user now that I guess I don't one joined it's like start charging things like if you want to automatic download tool that costs money like it's gotten really shady and no like what's that now like should I just pull it all out of yahoo cuz cuz it's yahoo and i know security issues but i donno clickers really cool way back when yeah for the eyesore well before yahoo bought it before yahoo about it super cool there are a lot of cool things oh yeah it's not entirely yahoo like also like the rise of other social networks yeah and like yeah like Instagram didn't exist when flickr alright yahoo bought flickr I think didn't exist or just barely I can't read the timelines messed up I can't know I know you foot Instagram was around but it wasn't anyone yours yeah and it wasn't owned by Facebook at that point no oh any other questions I just a good comment I think that's why google+ was pivotal for situations like this um yeah being that it has a google+ plus pivotal for like two words it's it I mean it is kind of a oxymoron to a sense but Michaels been listing off some facts and I can revisit these later about how Google Plus itself has a more structured algorithm and how it's been Oh in terms of like filtering unit corrector fishing different items whereas Facebook is really the only major social network in a situation like this he use the word tyrannical huh wow that's pretty harsh it's a bold statement okay it's based on the background right like Google+ it's using sort of the same kind of theoretically objective search algorithms as Google does right sure right it comes from a different place absolutely so I don't know let's see it's not gonna stop me from using facebook no and this will certainly be an ongoing thing over the next four years certainly to see where social networks kind of branch out since Trump kind of owned Twitter for a minute there oh yeah um last great cuz no one else wanted to buy Twitter so he could rim shot he was gonna buy the Buffalo Bills to it we were gonna have that really nothing yeah there was some quote that he said a while ago that he wanted to buy the Buffalo Bills he got outbid by the guy who owns the Sabre is also a buffalo and if he had owned the bills he wouldn't have been like he wouldn't have felt compelled to run for president if you own the bills really yeah don't blame me oh gosh that would have been a worthy sacrifice I'm sorry all right sorry I'll stop there uh are you but I'm just for I'm from Buffalo from the Buffalo area husband's from Buffalo they're the only true New York team to be fair everyone else plays in Jersey yeah yeah that's true yeah and if you're a bills fan you are a bills fan for life because you deal with a lot why would you not like yeah yeah okay come a bills fan now had to be born that way yeah that'd be all that bandwagon all right well let's wrap it up thanks everybody let's wrap it up if you like anything you saw her here check us out on seen it our podcast is also available on itunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud feedburner and google play music see y'all tomorrow