Gadgetory

good morning on monday november seventh i'm sick as a dog but these guys aren't it's Roger Cheng and Alfred hang on the 359 podcast episode 136 what are our topics today happy Monday everyone we've got a couple of great topics for you no surprise with the elections tomorrow we'll be talking about some election talk but first will lead off with Samsung reportedly baking in its own digital AI digital assistant similar to Syria Cortana the next up will be talking about Donald Trump losing his Twitter privileges and lastly just take a look at some of the various moves up the tech companies have made to get you to get out and vote tomorrow so as always if you have any questions buying these topics leave them in the comments section Brian will pick out the the best questions we'll try our best to answer them let's get started and here we go for the recording in three two welcome to the 359 when we talk about the top tech news of the day and all the crap we want to throw in I'm Roger Cheng I'm Alfred Aang Samsung is back in the news and no it's not for recalls the company will report launched an artificial intelligent assistant in its upcoming Galaxy S eight phone it's not huge surprise since Sam some purchased an AI startup last month but is this enough to get people interested Sansa again I don't get why they're making their own AI I mean they're on Android and there's good there's Google sister Google assistant has amazing reviews for it already I think it might be because they're afraid they're gonna get shut out yes of the assistant ecosystem that's true right now I mean the only phone that can run Google assistant is the pixel not a samsung phone so you know that's a that's an issue but even without it I mean like ok Google is still perfectly functional on you know any on my samsung s7m rice right and I don't understand why they want to come out with their own thing I mean it has to be much better than you know all these other than Cirie then you know Alexa which is only on amazon it does smack of the sort of Samsung of old like with the galaxy s4 the s5 when the copy really felt like they needed to have their own versions of everything whether it was a samsung translator or Samsung a search function all these features that were already available on android samsung went and replicated and put it into their own phones it just sort out them so kind of snacks is that is very sounds really similar sort of like yeah well apples got Siri Microsoft's got Cortana we've got to have something to it's all that stuff that like drives people away from Samsung devices I remember when I was picking between like a Nexus device and a samsung at the time it was just you know there's always bloatware on it work okay well now I'm gonna have you know google translate and samsung translate and i can't delete the samsung translate so it is just like all these things that made me just want to go with yeah the nexus I mean to be fair Samsung has gotten better over the years sort of curtailing some of that but it does seem like this is kind of a return to some of that blow where I don't know maybe viv is awesome I mean it's the startup was created by the folks who created Siri they've obviously learned a lot since series come out so maybe it's something that like series also like hasn't been doing that while compared to Google assistance so it's just one of those things again where why don't what just stick with what's working yeah and part of me wonders if it's just sort of a turf battle at Samsung I'm just going that's what we got to have our own thing that seems to be the the most logical reason I think they're like paranoid they're gonna get shut out of it would you I mean paranoid might be the wrong word i think it's likely that you know they could be but all right next up the new york times reported that Donald Trump has lost his Twitter privileges so I guess no more 3m tweets about beauty queens look I this happened to like way too late in the campaign run i mean it's it's what election day is tomorrow and yeah they decided to do this around like last a week or so i mean the the man's been shooting himself in the foot for so long now with his tweet he's been staying on message though staying on message and like for this to happen now I I would just have loved to be in that room where that happened like a grown man running for president has to be told that he can't tweet well it definitely gives you I mean it's it's an illustration of the power of Twitter right like it can make or break a person make a break a a world leader so I don't write lastly if you haven't made plans to vote tomorrow you should do so a ton of tech companies are taking the get out and vote efrain taking a digital for example you log into gmail today it'll it'll give you a prompt asking you if you want know where to vote YouTube's got changed up their icon to promote voting same as Spotify uber is even volunteered to send folks to the polling places to vote so we think I think a lot of good use of you know the major part of technologies to make your life much easier than it is you know you know Google assistant all these things have been helping you make your lives easier uber getting rides and now it's kind of like this is the first time that I've seen you know a massive concerted effort from all these tech companies doing that yep yep no it's uh it's finally obscene again if you haven't if you haven't made plans to vote please do so you should vote tomorrow we don't care who you vote for peace really you should really vote either way all right for more about these stories check us out on cnet i'm roger cheng I'm Alfred Aang thanks for listening I like to just put my two cents in there and agree it is a right and a privilege to vote and I'm gonna leave it there there you go everyone there's no hipon mic at one point hopefully that didn't screw things up that's how powerful the message was we gotta do it again no I was so angry yea vote yeah so we got a question yeah do you know if the Samsung assistant is coming for all devices I mean can i download it somewhere we have no idea at this point like it's you know it is a startup they just purchased last month so it which seems kind of weird that they would integrate this so late in the game because usually takes about 12 to 18 months to create a phone the fact that the next essay will probably come out life everywhere early March that doesn't give it a lot doesn't give Samsung a lot of time to integrate it but my guess is it will only be on the s8 you know they'll probably have to create specific hardware for door hardware and software for it that may not be backwards compatible can you even download assistance no not the word usually uh they're pretty baked in yeah yeah just like the bloatware yeah it's true which our friend Michael hey Michael thanks for joining us again he said I remember going from Samsung s3 to the s5 and because of the bloatware moved from the iphone 5 to the iphone 6s just a that's a that's a real deal breaker these days absolutely hey bloatware it's it's the worst thing yeah but it's interesting that Samsung gets so much for those apples got just as much blow we're always at ya to let you delete them now though yeah they'll eat them hide them yeah I thought you could delete them out and they still stay on the back end ah all right there is a lot but the icons don't hog up your screen space I guess yeah bout it out of sight out of mind I guess know when you're paying for that storage space true all right still looking um are you guys going to vote before we come into work tomorrow because should we need to reschedule this show um somebody asked that Wow no no no I'm asking my task as I'm I know I do plan on voting in the morning but i'll be here in time for the podcast okay i'm so try to figure out my plan i don't know if i should work if i should come in and write my morning stores you know bends around go vote or they're gentle comments have been as well my plan is to get done before i come in because it's right around the corner from my house oh i don't think it should take me too long but i'll be in touch just in case just in case all of you are gonna miss me that's right I'll miss you Brian Knight well Ben and the chat wants to know do you think Samsung Willie shut out of Android completely eventually no sorry straight answer is that Reuben alright that bfr uh no look I think that might have been the case I don't know four or five years ago when they were taking with ties in and that seemed to be you know a legitimate alternative operating system but everyone's so hooked on Android now like no one can quit Android it just it wouldn't work that's why it makes no sense to me that they're making their own AI this is gonna flop and by then what line it'll be gone the reason why they're trying to build their own ai's the dilemma that all Android vendors face that if you're just using Android if you're just using Google's core services how are you different from anyone else right like every all these companies feel the need to justify why they're different they've been selling themselves on hardware a lot haven't they yeah the hardware isn't enough that this yeah I know yeah like having the curved edge phones and all that stuff is nice but like they they feel almost a compulsive need to make sure they their entire experience stanza yeah you know it's not just the hardware it's when you're when you're turning on a samsung phone as a yeah so a voice assistant usually takes a lot of money to manage do you think Samsung will go so big to actually rival the big dogs I mean if there's any company that has a resource it's definitely Sam's yeah right they've got tons of money they still make money hand over fist on like 10,000 things they make so they definitely the resources historically those Samsung hasn't been that strong on software right we keep talking about these below the bloatware and that's a great example of why they've suffered so I don't know if you know they they've got the talent to kind of propel a digital assistant to the wires useful I think the voice assistant will rival you know Siri and Google is sure to keep the talent yeah just just on the scale of the fact that Samsung has this like strong hold on pretty much like every electronic out there where I think if they can get the voice assistant also also integrate with you know their TVs their washer change their for it you know there's smart things platform yeah yeah yeah I think if that's if they can do that then yeah I think they definitely will be able to rival them here's a good question do you think Samsung has made any further modifications to viv in any way or where they sell it the same way we saw in the recent demo semi recent I would imagine they'd make some modifications probably not a huge amount because it's not a lot of time it seems like given that we're only like three or four months away from a new phone but it's it's gonna become a plug-and-play thing and maybe eventually evolved to be more sure custom to samsung phones but yeah it's not time I didn't see the demo what are we looking forward to I didn't see the demo either oh geez yeah Alfred I did not see this demo we are the wrong room right now are my colleague stephen Shankland did see the demo um so you guys are really interested we can we can fall back with answers yeah we'll check in with him yeah um do you think that Samsung needs to fix the explosion issue and that kind of goes without saying cuz a lot of other brands of smartphones are blowing up to Samsung is not the only one very good point true oftentimes when a phone overheats though is I almost a it's a user's fault often it's it's the phone structural integrity is compromised in some way that that kind of gets the barrier to go volatile in this case Samsung's case like people weren't doing anything weird and they blew up that's I think that's why they got such a bad rap and it was relatively more consistent and recurring yes yeah there which is important there are far more incidents of this than than any other phone scene and yes Samsung a plane needs to fix this issue samsung needs to be completely transparent this issue right this we still don't know what happened right yeah as far as we know that we know this person battery manufacturers we know the first version was battery-related we don't know what happened with the second one knows yeah they don't either yeah so no I mean I think it goes without saying that they should probably fix an exploding phone though yeah yeah that seems seems pretty I don't I don't know if you know their solution though will be you know one size fits all for the rest of the industry though where you know he's right samsung isn't the only one where it's happening to me but I don't know if like it just because they figure it out for their phones it'll help Apple or you know these other android phones where it's happening on here's another really good question do you think Samsung will continue to be the Android big dog or do you think someone else has a chance of jumping in at their faults how is google pixel not already Andrew well i mean it's it's still kind of a niche phone right like really you think i don't know i don't think it's a nice phone right maybe not nice nice she's not agree yeah but it's not it's not that i don't think it's a massive seller thats a no yeah no it's not iphone it's not a number one's hands right now right partly because of distribution yeah it's not it's it's available unlocked but you can only get through four right yeah so that's that's an issue um you know I would say guys like Lenovo and huawei might have the biggest chance to dethrone samsung these are companies that most Americans probably haven't heard of but they they sell really well in China the world's biggest market and there's they're increasingly starting to do well overseas lenovo they've got the motorola name as well no i don't know how much value that that has now another really good question do you think there will be any changes to voting in the near future example voting via app that's a fascinating idea i'm terrified at the throng of where that could find heart though i don't think that's going to happen anytime soon however they're all kind of security consume any liability um I there was a conference on you know voting fraud and voting security that I wrote about where they briefed with FBI members and things like so right now the only reason why you know elections haven't really been tampered with that much it's because the technology is so old yeah yeah that like you know hackers can't really like break into it and like adjust it like you can do it but like you'd have to go into like where the voter registration stuff not registration your polling station is and then like it be some straight-up Ocean's eleven times yeah yeah like take out like the computer and like replace it with like a chip on the inside like that's how old they are so it's like in a sense it's possible but it's extremely difficult to do it right and you can do in a wide scale no yeah because they're not none of the none of those devices are like connected to internet or anything like that so it's just one of those things where it's like yeah you have to be there in person and do it and I think that's you know the best security measure for it just be offline um so I I i think if you want the most secure in like fraud free election possible I don't think it's gonna happen on a nap anytime soon I keep it old-school that being said though people are really lazy so that demand micro it so think about that's the merit of it yeah right everybody virtually everybody would be like all right easy enough but on the flip side the down part to that is everybody right including the trolls and not even people who are necessarily trying gonna have actually gonna have a president boaty mcboatface well yeah well stephanie is shaking like a better candidate of everybody though there's also do you remember last week when you know there were these trolls that were trying to trick hillary clinton voters into voting online yeah it wasn't possible at all of course on some people they can't educate themselves enough i guess they're just by text 335 844 to vote for Hillary like it's American Idol or something that's the society we've built though so I like to answer the question I think it could be possible but like I don't think people are gonna bite on that it's very much an intriguing idea yeah oh yeah I am legitimately a fitter eight of the out in a perfect world it would be pop it would it would definitely be there in a perfect world where there's no trolls people are everyone is an educated voter and there's no such thing as hackers that's thank ya but um but by and large I think we're about like ninety-four percent jackasses out there so thanks for ruining at America there is a company and not it's not just America trolls are their global man international you're everywhere they need their own Island that's right all right uh let's go ahead and call today I guess ya know it's right like again another reminder go out and vote tomorrow or if you haven't well I can't do absentee now it's too late so go on vote please register for next year however you want to yes just just do it just vote go out get involved yeah do stuff be an American haha America all right do you like a the you saw her here check us on cnet our podcasts also available on itunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud feedburner and google play music we'll see y'all tomorrow you