Gadgetory

today's 3:59 is sponsored by player unknowns battleground mobile pub G mobile is an on-the-go Battle Royale at its greatest with i popping graphics super smooth gameplay and a variety of exciting play modes download the official mobile version of pub g for free go to your android or iOS App Store and type P ubg mobile and collect a special reward using the promo code hol ZBZ x 9 C code also listed in the episode description play now morning podcast BBG audience Ben Alfred Marian a BB GV we can't hear ya there's no audio the only reason we heard you just now is because you're very loud I'm alive oh they're EVG V guys it's me its Alfred it's Marian for the first time ever Mary and Joe she's gonna be talking to us about a deep dive she worked on for a long time about voter data so send in your questions and comments about that we're also going to be talking about Siri being a really kind of sad laggard in smart home I wrote that story today so check it out on SEANET and alfred just wrote a story you see in sinner or and super smash brothers okay alright cancel his taunt and Petey Petey piranha Peter prizes final smash it's just piranha plant was the normal character but piranha plant is gonna be DLC for the new Super Smash Brothers ultimate which comes out in December 7th I didn't write about that though is actually a date of privacy law data privacy law data privacy bill a draft of a data privacy bill Friday right Alfred Panza plans on interrupting me repeatedly about Super Smash Brothers so that's what the podcast is gonna be like today so buckle up for that anyway let's get to the podcast and we'll see you in four minutes okay are we rounding up now is that what the show is all about I screw I don't know what's happening we're that lazy and inaccurate anyways alright stick around see you back in the chat sending questions and comments about today's stories we'll see you back there in 3 minutes and 59 seconds from 3 to 1 welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox ribbon I'm Alfred Inge and with us today special guest in super speedy speed desk reporter Mary and Joe hey guys how's it going starting off Apple this week held its second product launch event in as many months but didn't unveil any new smart home devices and barely discussed its home bad speaker guys do you think there's still a chance for Apple to really do anything there's always a chance for Apple to do anything like they can come out ten years late on something and people will say that they innovated a product it's yeah god you're right but I'm so sad to know about that that is true though I mean yeah I think the big advantage that Apple always has is that even though they're late to the party they seem to always you know get it right in a sense the more polished product they're much more polished they like kind of like they hit the pressure points on like what people actually want and that is not me saying this to say that like apples are the best or anything like that but it just seems that like a lot of people do enjoy their product for that very reason even though they're late I wouldn't disagree with you however the analysts that I spoke with for the story that I wrote about this today said that smart home is rapidly becoming an ecosystem play and if you're not in the Amazon ecosystem or the Google ecosystem it's gonna be really hard to transition over to something else unless you're a really big Apple fan I mean you could say the same thing about Android though right like how many yeah like Android is in a lot of operation oh yeah but the point is is that like apples doing pretty well without that ecosystem for Android yeah I guess that's true and we'll see if Apple keeps things up and I'm still waiting to find out if a home pod Mini is gonna come out Mary and are you expecting a home pod mini or not I mean only if it's rose gold then I'll consider it okay good idea next it's not just Facebook and Google and Amazon who know everything about you it's also politicians lucky you Marian today wrote a deep dive piece about the subject ahead of next week's midterms so Marian what type of info might people be a little surprised to find these folks know about them well apparently everything because when you fill out the form to vote you have your date of birth name home address and voting history and race gender depends on where you live they can access that information about you from the state's office I know so they get a lot of data from consumer data which means you know where you shop how many kids you have how you work you know like you also mentioned in your story property ownership marital status wealth and income magazine subscriptions club ownership exactly just to get a sense of who you might vote for and how they can get you to vote for this so I noticed some of these in your story some of these data brokers make inferences on you know the type of voter that you would be based on the apps that you have on your phone so if you have an app like say CNET they might think that you're very informed intellectual absolutely genius brain level person but then they also mentioned you know if you have an app like candy crush on it what kind of inferences are they making based off people that like to play puzzle based games on their phone well from what my source told me if you have just games on your phone they'll assume that you're not very educated and if you guys to be like brokers also aren't very cool and and if you are data brokers listening to this I don't like you at all okay we have one more story to get to last Senator Ron Wyden introduced a new bill this morning I believe called the consumer data Protection Act which would impose harsher penalties for companies who violate your privacy alfred you wrote about this tell us a little bit it's important to note that this is still a draft so this hasn't made it on the floor or anything like that no senators have offered their input on it but this is actually one of the first data privacy bills that is has been introduced at least in any way shape or form a lot of other lawmakers have been talking about wanting to draft their own but this is the first one that's really come to light and you know there's been a big push for this for a long time coming after Equifax is breech and Facebook you know issues with Google and privacy and what are the harshest things that they're doing here is that they're saying if you do they're bringing criminal charges to breaches in the past all you could really do is sue them in a class-action lawsuit or the FTC could find them so in this scenario a company CEO for example if they purposely lied to the FTC they could spend prison time for up to 20 years which is oh yeah this is pretty big so how similar is this to the gdpr in the EU only in financial terms not in criminal charges terms because the gdpr doesn't bring like you won't go to jail over that like this is interesting so in some ways it could actually be more in Sahara yeah okay also check back on CNET to read more about these stories as well as follow us today about the Google walkout that's going on I think right now I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred I know Mary and Joe thanks for listening all right thanks everybody for joining us for the recording of the audio podcast you can check out the links to subscribe to that in the description below as well as get on board with pub G Mobile who is our sponsor this week which is pretty cool that's a fun game I'm not good at it but it's fun I'm not good at mostly you also paid to say that all this we are paying that's how sponsorships work and downloading that game will result in data brokers thinking that we're not very adjective we're not very educated which I guess might that's a terrible assumption of me but I'm I'm very frustrated about that because I have a lot of games downloaded on hey to avoid that I'm tracking you maybe you should oh speaking of which that's one of the questions I wanted to ask you is there anything people can do to restrict this type of thing from happening like for instance if you're a Facebook user you can remove some of your information like your hometown or your employer whatever is there a corollary to that for data brokers or you know politicians too like hopefully no just a little bit less about you actually it's not that it's not really possible because he shop online you wouldn't give up that delivery at the door and then you definitely need link and then you need all this online stuff to you know to come back to the world so so arguably you would have to not shop online you would buy everything in or dine in cash you would have to go dark and then you would be able to restrict some of the information you they know about you we have a privacy yeah so that again is a draft so there's it's not set in stone or anything like that but a part of the draft would create this kind of central do-not-track website like in the same way that you have that for your phone number or like do not call this kind of things so it would be like it do not track website that you can go on there and see all the websites that you are being tracked on and just do it all like there because right now the only way that you can really do that if a website even allows you to opt out is like you go to each individual website so like I'd have to go to Facebook then Google then Twitter then seen it then ah geez and from a consumer perspective I am digging this bill so we'll see if it actually gets any movement whatsoever mm hmm all right it's time to take some questions starting right out with the whole smart home story we had about Siri and other voice assistants Hugh yeag says Siri has already been lapped by Alexa and Google Timothy do follows up with which is worths Siri or Bigsby yeah sorry to say that there are actually voice assistants that are doing worse than Siri as hard as as hard as it can be to believe yeah Bigsby is well behind the curve even in Apple terms and so is Cortana Cortana I would argue basically like throw up the the white flag when they decided to pair up with Alexa that's not true all right they're friends yeah exactly we're not things were partner that's that's exactly what happened but the one thing that could be interesting about both Apple and Samsung is is that these are giant companies they're not startups and they're both just kind of getting started in smart homes so there is a possibility that they are gonna be making more waves but yeah I won't son doesn't even have their smart speaker out yet yeah I will say this though Samsung does have an advantage over here over Apple with its voice assistant only because they're not just trying to put it on your phone or a speaker like what Apple is doing with the home pod and like Siri like they're trying to put it in their fridges like Samsung has all their smaller plants and worse they're putting their TV they're putting like TV remotes and all that washing machines like you're supposed to have Bigsby true however I have a samsung phone I use Bigsby because I write a lot about voice assistance Bigsby is pretty bad yes like I try to just say my wife using Big D every day I feel like it gets worse it somehow doesn't recognize yeah the like the same thing that I tell ya every time just saying that Samsung has that advantage that it is more of an electronics company than Apple is or it has yeah builds more stuff yes yeah cool hello all right next question coming in from oh let's take one from Priority One haven't heard from you in a while well I was asking the guys and gals at our home automation on reddit saying that the home kit is very hard to pro gram has anyone had an experience here with the home kit I personally have not I don't use home kit I have is Google home I have I have a Google home in my house just one of them and I also have a bunch of echo products I have the echo show the echo spied a bunch of echo speakers but yeah I don't generally use home kid so unfortunately I don't know much about that one but yeah shout out to the home automation folks at read it what say yeah you did her name a there right I did huh hence the shout out got some fans now I guess so good job burger Larry a next question from Timothy do what is the next step for Siri and the smart home what features need to be there in order to set them apart from the others now I just want to contrast that against Ryan's recent comic that says remember and Siri was an synonymous with voice assistant boy did they fall behind fast like how are they going to play catch-up at this point they're basically AOL the the rumor has been and I think it's more wishful thinking than a rumor at this point is that they would come out with a home pod mini which would be like the smaller version of the home pod which knowing Apple it's going to be at least a hundred dollars if not a hundred and fifty dollars but it'll be a smaller version and if you have the money to spend on something like that you would be able to put it in a lot more rooms in your house as opposed to what they have now which is no just three hundred fifty dollars just make the air pods home pod that's a tiny yeah and then you would walk around your house with them and yeah listen to your you know I don't know whoever else yeah or yeah I wouldn't listen anybody yeah so I mean so the battery life on the air pods kind of suck though air pods are perfect is everywhere no I mean batteries specifically oh yes okay so the home pod mini is one idea the other one would be that they would create a smart display similar to the home hub or the Lenovo smart display or the JBL link view the problem is is that Apple doesn't really do a lot of like new product developments they really wait for things to develop alfred was talking about this earlier that they wait for markets to develop and then they kind of swooped swooped in and out an opportunistic moment yeah remember maybe they'll do that remember when Apple invented the smartphone the tablet that you could also smart on and this is yeah they invented a lot of products so maybe they will continue to invent with like a smart display in 2025 but at this point there aren't even really rumors about this stuff coming out so if you're like holding your breath for an Apple product for your smart home you will die anyway yeah those are good questions definitely very good questions about that very good questions closing thoughts before we move on to the next topic Huey yang wouldn't it be better for Apple to partner with Amazon or Google that wouldn't happen yeah I really don't think that would happen seems very unlikely I mean the thought process there Hughey is solid like you you're not off base conceptually and from like from a consumer perspective yeah but from a business perspective I think because Apple likes money that they would not do that because they want to make the most money out of everybody so that they can I don't know what you do with money but they just like it a lot yeah they like money so much that they're sitting on nearly a quarter trillion dollars in cash and cash alternative so they want to put more money in that money pile yeah I'm not really sure why though yes but the point is is that they would not partner with Google or Amazon because they don't want them to have that money right that's that's the way the world works playing it like I'm five that's what we're here for hey Marion uh-huh nice to have you on the show finally I know I haven't worked with you since we were talking about eSports a couple months ago huh yeah topic so let's let's talk a little bit about something maybe a little more pressing at the time with the midterm elections coming up literally right around the corner you've been you've been quiet let's talk to you for a little while I've got your map open here tell me tell me what you want to talk about in regards to the to the voter right so on the map we made an interactive map that if you move your mouse around you can see in your state how much is that your voter data sold for and was like type of informations included and what are the limitations if you go to like dark orange color you can see that Ohio let's say they don't have any limitations on your voter data that means anyone can go online and download your name and home address and use it however they want to looks like Ohio's the darkest stayed on here right because I literally went on their website and downloaded what yeah like some states even just email me oh here you go like there's every voter in our state some of them they charge per voter though is that right or they charge just to get access to the data well usually it's like a statewide a voter list that you can buy so that's like an excel sheet or something like that and you pay what's like the maximum that you usually pay for those max mom I believe is more than okay yeah but the some states give it to you for free fewer politicians so every state has different law we don't have a federal bill that protects that that's bonkers just look at some of this I'm glad you made this for anybody who's curious about your state if you are a u.s. resident and we have a lot of international listeners go ahead the links in the description right now check that map out it's kind of daunting and horrifying to an extent alright moving on let's talk more about some of these data breaches Timothy do I like this is there a plain English version of these long long long versions of the User Agreement laws there is not you're talking about like as privacy policy stuff like when you sign up for something or that yeah that's what if he's interested there there is not there have been lawmakers that have called out Congress I mean called out tech companies for this if you remember during one of the Mark Zuckerberg during the Mark Zuckerberg hearing one of the Senators basically told them you know I feel like I'm reading Swahili when I'm looking at this which was also controversial after the fact but the there's been other people basically saying you know your privacy policy is crap and basically you reads it yeah nobody reads that so you can't use that as a defense and you know there have been some frameworks of data privacy bills that basically say that you know you need a plain English version of your privacy policy which by the way they are also called for I think that they did a bit they did a bill what is this dodd-frank I believe did a bill related to banks and credit card issuers where it was more plain English descriptions because it was it was way too confusing for people and it was related to their money where it was like we're gonna give you 0% APR for the first three months and then after that it's gonna like we're gonna jack it up to like 20% or something like that so I if I remember correctly it was dodd-frank said you have to explain to people and plain English very clearly whether this is actually costing them so I yeah I for consumers that would be great if you did something similar I know that Twitter told Congress members that they were working on revamping their privacy policy and having it more visual if like pictures that actually tell you what you're like what kind of data or you're in effect it I mean like make fun of you want but like it would be a lot more helpful in a private privacy policy I wish everything I signed had a little coloring book on the side of it but this privacy bill draft though from senator Wyden does not introduce anything like that so his bill draft is a lot more about giving the FTC the ability to prosecute tech companies not so much like what a tech company should be doing for privacy stuff I'm sure these tech companies would be super on board with this going in jail yeah we love this idea that we could potentially go all right swinging the pendulum back before we call this show a day or day a show what the hell my trying to say let's talk a little bit more about election data or voter data rather Timothy dude did you get any pushback when you're making these requests for the data Marian yes I called almost all the states and trust me I waited a long time and called them a couple of times yeah so definitely got some watch back you know when I try to talk to them but luckily we got a story and please give it a read so it's definitely an ongoing issue as well so definitely contact us if you have any thoughts oh that's what you were concerned about here's another really good one from priority one if I do a mail-in ballot does this still take place yes do you have to put your name and home address when you register as a voter so essentially even if you're not doing anything digitally you're still like there they're compiling your data into their own database and it's their database that they're it you can access right everyone has to give their some sort of information when they'd register so that's correct and data brokers are also used by advertisers in general it's just politicians when they're trying to get elected function the same way as advertisers and that's why they're using data brokers the same way and a lot of data brokers that as so like data to politician those who work with business so that's also concerning as well yeah there there was an app called vote with me that a lot of people in the privacy circle have been talking about recently which takes advantage of how public that data is it's supposed to look through your contacts for their voting history which is public records and it tells you like all your friends in your contacts like if it's basically if they voted should have been friends with if they if they like register to vote and they use their phone number that you have like this app can like look that up and it's incredibly creepy the whole point of it is to tell your friends like hey get out and vote I know you haven't like voted recently but like that's really weird and maybe you should so it's it's the voting history as in which elections they voted in not who they vote or status which party they're registered with and whether or not they voted in the most recent elections but it does tell you if you're right so I'm looking at a screenshot of the app right now it says like show me friends who are Democrats Republicans and/or all and can vote in a tight election and it acts as your contacts for that so super cool definitely intrude on your friends privacy to get them to vote that's a really cool thing to do definitely very chill person and you know what just one more thing companies like i360 has an app for campaign volunteers from knock on your door and before they do that they know that you live there who live there with you and what your political leanings are yeah somebody stop by my house and was lately yes they were like are you Benjamin I'm like nobody calls me that but this is gonna go well I'm Ben Fox not Ben Fox Ruben they're like well you're gonna vote for this guy I'm like are you my Amazon delivery person no get off my property Jesus all right here's a good tough one to kind of close out the show from the - do you think we'll see something like the gdpr come to the US yeah yeah yeah that's happening yes yeah there's a pushing tell of your series yeah because tech companies are even pushing for it here's the thing like so there's been like multiple hearings on this now like Facebook has said that they're open to it Apple with Tim Cook last week who made that massive speech about calling for a federal privacy bill in the US Google is on board for it Amazon is on board for it Twitter's on board for it AT&T is on board for charter community like every major tech company wants this in the US but here's the thing they want to be able to influence it right they want it to be they they want to write this law so that it like favors them the most of course because they really didn't have a hand in writing up gdpr and they're furious about that where they basically like you know they've complained about gdpr a lot like in these hearings they talk about how they've spent millions of dollars of resources into making sure that they're compliant for gdpr so what they're trying to do now is basically have control of this federal bill so if you're seeing all these tech companies saying like yeah we welcome a federal privacy law like gdpr in the US that's true but they won't want wanted on their terms so there are privacy advocates that are going out there and you know basically trying to say yeah yeah don't like fall for this don't like really make the argument they're making this argument that like just because they're into it doesn't mean that it's good for you it'd be as if like tobacco like big tobacco come he's like we're like hoping one idea regularly yeah yeah which does also happen so let's started positive but then ended super dark so thank you very much for that that's what I do okay we have to wrap it up here's here's a thought for everyone to bake life improvement says I'm gonna start a subscription service company three bucks a month and you get a tldr version of all your terms and conditions life improvement if you pull this off let's if you start a Kickstarter for this I'm in dude I am so in I like this idea well done if you can make it happen we'll plug it all right we are finished for the week thank you again to pub G mobile for the sponsorship we'll be back on Monday with regularly scheduled program until then have a good weekend everybody and Ben yes say bye I exist all right cool 3:59 is available on iTunes tune in stitcher Feedburner google play music google podcast the amazon echo and of course cnet.com mary and thanks very much for joining us thank you have a good weekend everybody we'll see you soon bye bye you you