Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Roger Chang I'm Alfred rang Samsung's developer conference kicks off tomorrow and while it's normally the kind of a snooze fest we actually will be paying attention because it's probably the first time we'll see the long talked about foldable smart from' phone from Samsung I'm looking forward to it I haven't really liked all the designs I've seen so far of all the prototypes and things like yeah because it takes something it makes it bigger right yes like it's as if you could fold the tablet and that's the whole goal like they want to go bigger give more space yeah hear me out here here's my proposal you take a regular size Samsung Galaxy s8 or s9 that size which is already fairly large and you make that in that foldable cuz then that'd do a palm phone yeah so then you would have more space in your pocket and you would still have that like you know like big phone that you would need I don't think we need to go bigger yeah but you do have to think about how that works right if you've got a small device that you're folding up that's a little bit more complicated than a big device folding into a smaller device yes if you think about all the components and batteries and all this stuff getting crammed in there right we have the technology we should we should be going smaller instead we had something when you fold something it's to make it more convenient to like carry around and things like that people want small they were big I would say that a lot more people want smaller devices a lot more people you mean you yes a lot more important people basically all right well beyond the foldable phone the real meat of the developer conference will be a focus on Bixby that's Samsung's off ignored digital assistant it's supposed to open up Samsung's supposed to open up Bixby to developers as well as foster alexis skill like capsules the client capsules for whatever reason you know despite the fact that Bixby's been on all the flagship phones with a dedicated physical button hasn't taken off yeah for Samsung sake they should definitely you know reboot Bixby or at least make it much better than it actually is because it is seriously running the risk of becoming the voice assistant joke right now I mean for a while that's been Cortana but now I feel like it's kind of a dead horse to make fun of Bixby's it's kind of sad because Samson try so hard to make it a thing yeah and I will say I've talked about this on previous podcast where Bixby does have an advantage because Samsung doesn't just make phones or speakers they're also making refrigerators and TVs and that is where pick speak could you know really have an advantage over something like Amazon with their Alexa microwave what yeah I mean it just hasn't really seemed to be that useful for a lot of people at the moment no it's it's not and we'll probably see the Bixby speaker smart speaker at this developer conference hopefully we'll get a launch date for this this was teased a few months back at that the note 9 launch hopefully that gives it a bit of a shot in the arm lastly offered you wrote a story about the biggest threat to today's midterms and it's not hacking what is this it's actually misinformation on social media claiming that a machine has been hacked and the Department of Homeland Security the FBI the Director of National Intelligence all put out a joint statement last night talking about this saying that they've not found any evidence of hacks against infrastructure like voting machine or voter database or anything like that right but they do know that there is a effort from Russian trolls or people from rolls from Iran basically targeting social media using that as a platform to spread lies and rumors that you know oh this vote voting machine was hacked that's not a so bother to vote is that the idea yeah that bother to vote because it's already rigged or something like that so the idea is that you know that this has happened before they've gotten videos of a voting machine where somebody presses some one person and it like shows another person instead oh yeah that will go viral that happened in 2016 during the presidential election a Russian troll account used that video and basically said look I told you this election was rigged and these machines are hacked and things like that so that is not true it turned out that the person was just using the machine wrong and there's probably gonna be a lot more cases of that happening today and that's not to say that voting machines can't be hacked it's just you should be a lot more skeptical way if you do see something like that on social media and regardless you should go vote yes yep all right for a full coverage chickens on CNN and Roger Chang I'm alfred ring thanks listening all right that's it for the recording of the audio podcast those are the stories that we're focusing on today we want to know what you want to know more in depth as these stories goes and it's gonna fuel us to go and research better and be better at our jobs allegedly in the meantime let's go ahead and shout out Carlos and Texas Aaron and Brazil and Sunil thanks for pointing out that it is Diwali coming up on the 7th so to our wide audience of wonderful Indian viewers and Watchers happy Diwali so in the meantime let's go ahead and take a question well this is more of a comment from our friend Timothy he says manufacturers are gonna have a lot of time making folding cases for these scratch heavy folding phones they're just gonna turn into bifold wallets when they're all said and done well I am really curious to see how these foldable phones look you know we've got right now the closest we've got is the axon and that ZTE phones kind of a bulky thing it's got two displays on a hinge and it folds out probably when you fold it in you know there's a screen in the front and the screen on the back and that really kind of freaks me out oh yeah look so like if you throw over the table you're just gonna scratch it up and if you have a case for it just cover up that back screen I mean so I know they've invented I think they came up with a special case that was a bit more like a bumper so it won't obscure the back screen but it's it's weird and I'm not sure if that's the way it's gonna go you know the concept video you showed earlier I think Samsung had two screens one was you know it folded out into a the inside would have a big screen and they'd fold it in and the top side would have a like a secondary smaller screen which seems like probably the best way to do it but also having those two screens seems power intensive and not super efficient and you can imagine it being really really bulky so we'll see I mean I I'm curious to see we've been we've been talking about foldable phones for a while it's really kind of touted as one of the kind of next big innovations in smartphones at a time when we're really not seeing a lot of innovation aside from notches so I mean that's that's why we're dream I don't know if it'll actually be something worth getting at least for the first couple of generations but I'm definitely fascinated by the idea and really want to see how much we're gonna actually get to see out of this cuz remember this phone isn't expected to come out until at least next year and so this is really to get developers interested so I'm fearful that like they pull out this device for like five seconds fold it open fold the clothes put back in the pocket like walk off and like that's it that's the entire thing and we'll have to wait till next year to actually get full glimpse of the phone are you psychic Roger cuz I anticipate that's exactly what's gonna happen Samsung sent me their script so I'm already well-versed today yeah so speaking of pockets have they given any potential dimensions on this new folding device like Matthews asking if it is going to comfortably fit in the pocket and I have to agree with them that just in in the world where we slim things down to you know let's call it paper thin adding a second layer to that that's gonna feel awkward and take us back to 1998 shall it not yeah I mean at least look if you look at the ax on em as and then to be fair this I think that's a rougher product but that's a thick phone it's basically two phones sandwiched together and it doesn't feel that great your it's pretty thick it's a little bulky that's why if you go with my idea and just take a regular sized phone and fold that it's still gonna be bulky okay but it would you it you would have more vertical space I would argue or fold it in a triangle shape so Ross and then you could have four phones what Walt four screens at least you can have two phones that fold into triangle shapes and then put them on top of each other into make a square you can look magnetically laughs yeah okay yeah are you making like origami phones yeah we should do that that's what they should do with all the sebacean okay air my phone is a paper crane I'm intrigued in your Kickstarter it'll never work alright moving on here's one from Timothy do let's go ahead and talk about the voice assistance already we have a lot of debate going back and forth and go ahead everybody just let it loose let us hear your true feelings on who is the suckiest voice assistant if it's Bigsby Cortana Ceri i'll stop naming them so I'll stop triggering your speakers so let's bear that in mind for this episode I already apologized Timothy do says whose fault is this Apple bought the company who created Siri and those same creators created Bigsby and Sampson bought it so well the Creator they didn't create Samsung created Bigsby they did by a company called viv which was started by one of the co-creators of Siri they didn't actually integrate that technology until like the second generation until I think earlier this year like when it first launched Bigsby woods its own Samsung homegrown technology which probably explains why it wasn't very good it's supposed to be with this new generation with a via technology it's supposed to like understand context a little bit better that said people just aren't using it even if despite the fact that there's like a dedicated physical button on your phone that only pulls a bixby people still choose to use the Google I mean yeah it doesn't help that Google assistant is on the exact same device and people are already familiar but it's it's you know it's on the home button the Google assistants on home button you know it's there is a dedicated physical button but yeah people still choose the Google version David Rodriguez needs a shout out before he has a mild aneurysm so hey hey what's up David Matthew dacher our buddy - in the chat points out it would only be logical that these folding phones be comprised completely of Gorilla Glass 6 I think that's a no-brainer oh yeah I mean that would be ideal who knows if they yeah would they be able to use that though I mean I don't know how this folding like like are they using some like flexible material to fold it or below low Just Blaze yeah ok I don't know yeah yeah I don't I don't know there's a lot of questions about this where we're still not sure how this is gonna work I would say having Google glass 6 yeah would definitely help I just don't know if that all that's part of the implementation with a flexible bid so I still really just don't understand the the point of making a folding phone outside of a the game it can be screen space screen space it's is that really just it cuz that just seems man the ultimate goal of a scroll unscrew unfurl your phone I don't know I've seen that and like I've seen that in anime or something I mean I'm all for like the unveiling of the scroll to decree the Kings exactly but like is that really functional no role that's your fun man and light it up let's talk a little bit more about the voice assistance while we're we're just dancing back and forth between topics people still going back and forth thank you for your contributions about who you think is the best and worst assistance personally for me I've been kind of married into the Amazon ecosystem so I use that the most I have Google on my phone I have mixed feelings about it it's impressed me in some instances and then utterly failed in others actually utterly failed on the same instances at different points in time yeah and I've talked to a rich brown are the head of our smart home reviews team and he generally thinks the Google options the best one I guess he's spent more time like I I'm with you I usually I've got a lot of echoes in my house so I tend to use the Amazon option but I think it's just like I'm more comfortable I haven't really had a chance to use Google assistant that much so I know with what the rich having spent time with a lot of them he generally likes Google yeah I would say that it's never too late to change over to any one of them like I started with a bunch of echo dots just because they were really cheap and I got them on a sale yeah then some Google homes were very cheap and I got those on a sale and then I was just switching between both of them for a little bit you have them both your house did you like I used to have them both I used to have an echo in one room at Google home Mini in another room and I would just like kind of trade off okay and then I kind of just made my decision that the home was like easier for me to use really yeah so I like switched over I mean I think that if you anybody that thinks that they're like stuck with one system like I think it's you're at least able to try out like the other you are but if you spend money and use like putting the time to put in like smart-home yeah gadget that's tied to a particular one I think it's tougher this way yeah I just I'm just saying if you are curious about it like they're there you can like switch over you're not like stuck I would say yo shout-out to storm king for a deep cut the scrolling phone was future tech in a sci-fi show called Earth final conflict oh holy crap I've got that show existed storm king you're my hero today holy cow that's right that's why it's stuck in my head that you've that show that I I think going watch like three episodes of before whatever reason it's stuck in my head are you gonna be able to scroll up your phone and poop your dog on the nose wanted to misbehaving if I owned dog yeah I think that would be part of the that's the future stability yeah absolutely my god now I'm just gonna sit here and watch Earth final conflict today that's why I'm not getting anything done that was a cool show man Roddenberry you don't get better than Roger show's over show's over everybody I'm just gonna fifty nine podcast is available we getting sued for this probably okay alright anyways sorry I got distracted a did do it was a cool show give me a break a fantastic special special eight nine became for that for that reference yes money I'm totally beyond distracted at this point and while we're at it let's shout out Omar what's up Omar thanks for joining us here's a great question from solid cancer oh seven horizontal folding phone or vertical folding phone which is gonna catch on the most probably horizontal horizontal yeah I think we're like a phone that folds out to become holds this way this vertical but then it becomes horizontal after you unfold it maybe I don't I don't know I mean you'd want in terms of like watching videos so most people are used to folders which is vertical so maybe it'll be that way but horizontal I don't know it's it's let's say horizontal to safer bet though do it diagonally make it a triangle yeah most of you bite yeah multiple parts and then you can kind of combine them I like that and I motorola already try that the mods yeah no well project ara really the Google's thing the Lego has a Lego stuff but no triangles though they're all like little squares and rectangles I can fold into a triangle you can also play like the the paper football game yeah and like flick that across station that is also set up by for pretty sure that's gonna hurt like hell oh yeah that would hurt a mess up your fingernail pretty bad the price of innovation is is always hot I mean all right so I'm still kind of mulling over this question horizontal seems the logical version to me because it's going to constrain the proportions of video playback right if you're gonna get more screen you're gonna do things probably more watching yeah video etc vertical really get you not much it'd be like a weird clamshell thing yeah horizontal sense it opens up like a book so yeah it it seems more natural for you like if you flipped it up yeah it just seems weird I mean he points out that yeah we used to flip up phones all the time but that was to access the keyboard not to garner more screen space yeah I can't imagine that long screenbeam we were - that's great yeah like a long screen like this unless it was a scrollable phone I'm ok with that ok what would you scroll that horizontal or vertical you could do it both ways yeah do both ways we got a couple minutes left so let's keep the conversation going mark dybul thinks that there should be a hulu of voice assistance one stop shop for them all we're now you're gonna see that that would be great that would be just opt-in you can go in and watch like NBC like yeah considering that you there's so many things that you can only watch on Netflix and Amazon now I feel like Hulu is not that's not like it's not one-stop-shop I get the idea we're trying to say MEMS being lame and quibbling yes I think that I think the idea of like voice assistance either talking to each other or being that we've talked about that concept down the line it's we're in early days of these voice assistance so of course it's gonna be fragmented people are gonna try to like stay there claim and eventually there'll be a handful how many one I think there will be once there's a clear-cut winner I mean yeah you know when search engines were coming up there was Google Ask Jeeves and Yahoo right Alta Vista yeah and you know obviously like Google had one out on that one I think it might be a different story here just because Amazon has some pretty deep pockets yep Apple is and Samsung I I don't think this is one where Google can just like we're gonna outlast all of them so it might be much harder for a clear-cut winner and in this whole voice assistant discussion and if Samsung is boosting up baek's be like it says it is then you know you know new challenger has entered the field yeah yeah I mean keep in mind Samsung is looking at I think they're looking to hire just a massive number of AI experts over the next couple of years so and that just one company with deep pockets all these companies have a huge amount of resources apple just bulked up their own AI staff so you can imagine these things we're gonna get a lot better there's gonna be a lot more there's just gonna be a lot more fragmentation for a while until this gets settled out but I don't think it's gonna set up get settled for a while one more question from Kirk regarding the Google Home Hub can it replace Samsung's smart things hub does it have z-wave what is ziwei z-wave is the one of the wireless protocols for smart home stuff I'm not entirely sure ah that's rich all right rich brown rich brown yes when are we gonna have him on the show when he comes here from yeah he's in Louisville it's a little tough to get him on he was here for the thank you folks around know I've seen oh the Google event briefly but he was in and out I would have loved to have had him on but I think we had Jess on to talk about pixels no yeah that figures no offense Jess all right we are pretty much out of time here but let's go ahead and farm a question out for future fodder what would you get out of a foldable phone use case because I'm still having a hard time picturing the true value in it and why you would need that as opposed to just getting you know smaller and tablet or something like that or I don't know using your television besides video what are some some beneficial use cases for foldable phone we've got hitch in the chat says as an athlete I would like a foldable phone I'm curious to see how that would benefit you as an athlete I'd imagine just the compact size to an extent being able to carry it that way but otherwise Phyllis in folks I'm struggling with this myself that would say with that extra screen real estate in fact that it's foldable almost like a lot is like a mini laptop like you can use you know one screen is a keyboard one screen is a screen or you could have multiple screens I could do multitasking there I bring up the acts on em because they did come up with a number of apps that sort of took advantage of the screen the idea was they on in one particular use case they had the screens kind of folded on each side so like we could play a battleship or something like it could be like a two-player thing where one person the other side I'd be on this one we'd have basically two screens interacting with each other there definitely I think that's why I'm kind of excited about this because with foldable phones and like companies like Samsung trying to get these developers on board to create new kinds of apps that take advantage of it we probably don't even know what the the real killer apps for these for this design would be I think that's something that developers are gonna have to work on the next couple months or years until we get something worthwhile all right I'll take that for now but we are out of time thanks everybody for joining us thanks everybody around the world for coming to view the 3:59 we'll be back tomorrow at 11:15 a.m. Eastern with more techie news Shetty chat but until then Roger take us on out of here 39 is available on iTunes tune in stitcher Bieber play music Amazon echo of course Tina calm I'm probably sure I missed a bunch of those but we'll see y'all tomorrow take care Dan Ackerman on to talk about the MacBook Air he wasn't here today we'll talk about that but tune in tomorrow for MacBook Air stuff buckle up folks it's gonna get weird you you