Gadgetory

the bill in South Carolina would force consumers to pay a fee to access pornography from any computer purchased in the state should we be calling this a porn tax and HTC is prepping a big announcement for January but will Samsung delay launching the Galaxy s8 until later in the year those stories plus we'll answer your viewer question so make sure you're charged and ready for the PocketNow weekly this weekly podcast is where we dissect and discuss those gadgets that make our lives mobile smartphones tablets and wearables it's all the stuff you wished existed when you were a kid and a 56k modem was all the deterrent you needed to stop you from downloading corn i'm juan carlos back now senior editor at pocketnow.com blasting the signal from another rainy night in southern california we went the whole week without any inclement weather from podcast podcasts and it's raining again outside and I can hear sirens all over the place Californians we are not good when moisture descends from the sky and joined as always this week with by plucky podcast producer mr. Jules Wong still out on location in a foreign land I was going out there buddy boy it was a dark and stormy night and I was writing in my logs now it's how other pirates and their ships can't get their crap together really why you do this you should be well and again I mean you know the the obvious joke with some of the subject matter we have up tonight you know you're gonna tell a story about pirates and that pirate booty argh no pirate boot let talk about piracy not really but like gonna save that for a later segment in the show just you know xxx hot hot sexy sexy girl girl boy time with the Pens in the condoms Wow Wow that's not at all really what we're gonna be discussing okay you know Before we jump in on the screen on your screen you know conversations of that sort because thankfully we have a sponsor this week who I'm sure they absolutely loved that lead into their business let's let's get this out of the way before we embarrass them any further this week we really want to thank Jam now that's JAMF now and that's a cloud-based mobile device management solution for the iPads iPhones and Macs in your workplace which makes device management accessible and affordable for everyone businesses can support their users without help from an IT department configure settings across all of your Apple devices quickly and consistently over-the-air managing your devices by centrally deploying apps anytime from anywhere use jamp now to ensure the sensitive company information your employees access on their Apple devices remains secure enforce pass codes and encryption over-the-air even remotely lock or wipe a device see how easy it is to set up manage and secure your Apple devices anytime from anywhere manage your first three devices for free add more for just 2 bucks a month per device and you can create your free account today they've got a special link for listeners of this podcast that's jammed dot-com slash pocket now JAMF dot-com forward slash pocket now and we thank them for supporting the pocket now weekly yeah come on and slam and welcome to the jam heck yeah buddy boy actually you know what there is something kind of cool to the notion of you know like if you're running a small business especially here in Southern California I've been noticing a lot of companies switching over to sort of tablet or smartphone based point-of-sale systems and so you know you're like you're a food truck you're a small business something like that and you probably don't you probably have like the per kid who's your IT department something like that I think could actually be kind of beneficial because I know when I was working on government contracts getting Department of Energy facilities you know up to date on security standards but using consumer solutions was a really tough call so having something like this having like you know if you're running a business and you want to check out what you might need to deploy you know some phones or some tablets out in the field maybe check them out jam Jam comm slash pocket now it could be it could be a good fit for you and your small business solutions yeah definitely would be great to manage all those phones that the carrier stores have right well you know again I think they they're they're not necessarily wrong in looking at iOS devices you know I think there have been a number of solutions I see so many iPad point-of-sale systems out here it's so crazy to think that we went from cash registers to just consumer grade tablets and that's what we're trafficking credit-card information personal information shopping and loyalty customer data and all that stuff's just going through an iOS device and that makes me a little squirrely but but if you're doing that then look at jamp because apparently not all the solutions you need I mean you're way past the days of just tossing a coin box and saying well you just have to put in exact change no exceptions sorry sorry have you ever worked like a like a fast-food gig or like a like a retail gig or anything like that no I've not not to man the cash so because normally I was I was some sort of like shift manager or trainer so I used to work at a little pizzeria in New Mexico every now and then I'd have to I'd have to run a cash register and it was crazy in the couple years this is like from from the end of high school to the like my second year of college like it only took like three or four years to go from dumb cash registers that were just basically like you know free calculators you could just do basic arithmetic on them to like I'll push the picture of the food and then it tells me how much money to give you back and oh my god the Dutchman's calculate well not touch screens just like literally big buttons that they would put pictures of food on food and it like how quickly that happened where you would have to my wife also worked a cash register at a restaurant in college and like we would have to do all that math in our heads we would have to calculate sales tax in her heads and by the time we were you know out of our second year of college like all of that had been replaced with these these point-of-sale systems that we're basically like picture book I'll push the button yeah I mean yeah I mean it's better than actual calculators and like a tax machine like a tax receipt kind of printing device that you use as actual receipt printing paper now is it was it Jeff Bezos it's saying he wants to make a grocery store where they don't even have they don't even have cash registers or checkout yeah it was the Amazon thing Amazon go I believe and they only have one thing I've been Seattle and apparently they just decided the in word of that concept spreading you know 2000 markets or so that got shut down so well you know it was fun while it lasted but we're gonna have to see how quickly they learn from all this experimentation by the meantime we're also experimenting with how we do a podcast and we'd love for you to be part of the conversation that's parents and how might someone get involved with us to like join the conversation or contribute to the discussion of his mind guys all you have to do is sign up for Twitter that's it and then once you're done with that it's I mean once that's done you just track down the hashtag P and weekly the P and weekly hashtag and track what we're talking about as we're talking about it live if you're catching the live podcast we'll be able to quickly answer your questions and promote the discussion of what's going on and if you just don't happen to be in that sort of Jam then you want to go into your email type in podcast at pocketnow.com send us your queries what not we'd love to answer any of your longer form questions and you know we appreciate any of your feedback and and surprisingly III don't know if you saw this one coming but I put the word porn in the blogpost of this podcast episode and this has been maybe one of the most aggressively shared podcast we refresh this news 89 pageviews a record mm-hmm and already we've got a couple people using that PN weekly hash tag from chamfered edges who I absolutely love that Twitter handle shoppin all of a K while getting my weekly slice of PN weekly is well worth it cheers Cheers - you don't think that's a that's a healthy behavior since you should really be watching that cart well yeah especially if you know we don't have those Amazon checkout services cuz you never know what's gonna happen to that that's stuff in there you need like oh yeah there's a turnstile Amazon in any way no they are definitely sponsoring them and you know just a jump and everyone else in the world coca-cola we drink you I hear there's a new ginger flavor out in Japan go get it pampers what is one there's there's like a funky Pepsi flavor that you can find a Target right now it's like in a gold can it's supposed to be sort of like a ginger ale Pepsi I'm nervous to trials I'm not the biggest Pepsi fan but I love like ginger so I wonder if we actually got a good version of that or if it's just like you know it's sugar water with like some isn't everything sugar water with different source acid yeah but you know we've had like a real proper sarsaparilla like a really good old timey root beer and they're really like there's there's some really aggressive flavor notes that go on in that you know it's not just like like syrup you know when you get like a really crappy deep soda and it like coats your teeth and your feels all gross and fuzzy as opposed to like a really light crisp sugarcane Cola an old-timey Cola but then there are other flavors other than just sugar and it's like well-meaning and crisp I really went no since I haven't tasted that but you know what is definitely a fun time that everyone can pretend they can it's the holiday shopping guide I know but I had to get us going since we got a jump in and it is about this kind of stuff and besides the target you know there that you have where you can get that Pepsi 1878 or whatever the heck that label is you can also get a bunch of iPads tablets smartphones well maybe not necessarily the smartphones that you might want but a lot of other smartphones available in other places and we've been able to track down a whole bunch of things lists numbers for you so depending on what sort of tastes and needs that you like and the price range is that you're concerned about you can definitely take a look you ever link in the rundown at pocketnow.com and well you can just search for a holiday shopping guide 2016 if you would like to uh check that out I mean and actually you guys you know putting this together the all of the editors that were involved in this it's just me no but I was gonna say is its I thought it was you and Adrienne and then I remembered while I was halfway through that sentence that Adrienne is off this week well he was off last week congratulations to him I'm big shout out to Adrienne and for getting his girl I have an axe I didn't want it I didn't know like if he was wanting us to break that news but a parent we should just go ahead and say fathered like close to this time last year and and so we're all very excited for him but you got to take a little time off and yeah everyone's just popping out babies but you know what we're glad to have another person in the pocket now family right now so we should like put together sort of an also like an extended pocket now family post just like all the the spouses and kids and stuff I think it could be pretty sweet so maybe it was slideshow thing let's let's take our website design and just pull it through every single little gimmick little box that we can get in on that post that'd be great i I think we can make that happen maybe maybe for New Year's maybe we can put something together to kick-off 2017 and celebrate you know what's new literally what's new definitely so are there's resolutions for K but definitely folks check out that pocket now holiday shopping guide if you're catching this just a couple days before Christmas I what I love about the guide is is how you wrote literally Amazon Prime two-day shipping won't save you if it's pointy it's over you might actually have to like walk your sorry butt into this store but if your windows procrastinators I'm terrible about you know waiting until the last minute to get my shopping done I did okay this year thankfully my wife kind of kicked my ass a bit I mean this list is pretty good you know it's amazing how many places are offering next day shipping now right yeah that's kind of a very much a belts pulling kind of get your butt in shape and do it before it does you so so you know if you're rocking some type of movement tracking solution you can get all your steps in you'll have to fight off crowds of angry people who don't know how to drive or navigate parking lots and then once you're done with all of that excitement I would say treat yourself to a crisp light and refreshing old-timey Cola and that would be a fun way to sort of you know I would say just pop into the chicken now and get the four piece combo oh you can do better than that I know what you going out there you you doing some shopping for some other people I think you need to add yourself to the list and treat yourself direct yourself no it's a bad 30 rock I'm not 30 rock Parks and Rec refworks' I'm trying to make their 30 30 bucks and wreck but Twitter follower Abhishek is totally on my side one of the best perks of the holidays it's the best time to get anything tech related so also if you're doing a little shopping for yourself I mean that would be a time to do it or you could wait until next year when but next iPhones will be coming out of their cages much better now we can properly know it's the it's the journey it's not the destination um but we've got some rumors and that some people were messaging me on Twitter about this - apparently there were some discussion following one of the PocketNow dailies hosted by hi mater Yvetta that there are rumors are pointing to sort of maybe a split release for the iPhone next year we've got the 10th anniversary coming up and while we've been looking at some of the more exciting rumors surrounding a high-end device we that might also be backed up by more traditional iPhone release strategy namely a 7s and a 7s plus next to a potential iPhone 8 codenamed 4 yes so it makes this move would make sense with what we've been hearing about three iPhone models coming in one being the big show boats of big screen and curved screen OLED and absorb home buttons and just this amazing glass the prism of sorts and then a couple of other models that are more conventional that still have a glass body but just have that familiar form factor from the 7 6 6 5 5 s 5c 4s for you became like a Sesame Street song in Reverse but I think this could be interesting I think we've been talking about you know flagship devices this more from market in general and it's becoming increasingly difficult I think for these manufacturers to get out there and really shake up what's become sort of an accepted standard for how we put a phone together and I think if we walk away from 2016 if anything was positive about 2016 it was watching flagship grade Hardware start sliding to the lowered high-end tier to the mid-range tier there were a handful of - and $300 phones this year that really kicked butt in terms of Lawrence and bang the buck ratio and so a company like Apple really needs to do something to try and strike up some kind of emotional response you know part of buying a smartphone is that emotional response of buying something shiny and that's kind of that's one of the things that factors into a high-end or a premium purchase does it really do the job better than a phone after price really it doesn't it's not that much better but there's something there's something enticing about it or there's something exclusive about it more than just the price you know a lot of our viewers were maybe a bit skeptical about the porsche design mate 9 for example but that's an exclusive premium product with a label that means something to certain consumers out there maybe not a lot of the people who actually watches podcast or listen to this podcast but you know a certain set of consumers out there will be very interested in something like that so you can pull it off then I think that's good ultimately for the industry but I think it's gonna be frustrating to a lot of tech fans because I don't think those differences are gonna come from really improving technology beyond what we currently have it'll be more appealing to an emotional satisfaction and that seems to get companies like Apple in trouble with us more gear headed geeks I mean in terms of a completely agnostic market point of view we're seeing maturation it's this is iPhone technically if this would be 10 and 11 at this point so you know people are just figuring out ok what the heck is going on and what do we need to do to make sure that's we have a supply chain that can only supply so much of what we want for the iPhone 8 which is with all those fancy little things and you know Samsung is trying its best to make sure that that can happen it's other suppliers are too but there's only going to be so many units being made that I'll just stick to what they're able to do more of which is the iPhone sevens body and whatnot and make sure that there's a price GILF that there is a you know demonstrate a demonstrable price golf and hopefully I don't see Apple going you know be magnetized towards the lower tiers with this these releases because the iPhone s a stalled project in terms of not year-to-year iterations but maybe an occasional thing so maybe we'll see iPhone set at the 7s at 649 and then 769 for the iPhone 8 or maybe even more so yeah I wouldn't be surprised if so if there's an exclusivity I there there okay I just started that sentence four times late-night podcasts these are awesome um so exclusivity I think is is valuable from a fashion standpoint putting out a device not everyone gets to have this device is one factor in being able to charge more for a product or a service and so I don't necessarily feel that there's anything really terrible about Apple engaging in a strategy where most consumers will have access to a 7 s and a 7 s plus and then somewhere around the thousand dollar price point will have an exclusive premium iPhone you know very limited quantities very limited access and showcasing bleeding edge technology bleeding edge for an iPhone technologies you know that to me actually makes a lot of sense it's kind of thing that I wish more manufacturers would try to do like I would love to see a Lumia 1020 style camera device you know Panasonic tried to put out you know a 1 inch sensor smartphone which unfortunately just never really got the got the handle of being a good phone even though I'm sure it was probably a respectable camera you know but you know a company going out of their way to say like we're only gonna make a very small number of these and because of that we have to charge much much more because it's a limited design we're not going to have the benefit of really ramping up production on something like this I think that's an acceptable conversation to have with an audience and I kind of wish a few more manufacturers would do that you know really putting the care and attention into making a one-off or a limited edition or something like that so I'm kind of curious to see like is this really gonna be the true special edition iPhone not like what we got for the iPhone se well yeah I mean I think this is the failure of the democratization of the iPhone or any you know smartphones because when you think about it you know you have all these options available to those who can afford them or to those who have good enough credit that they can finance these options and say I mean $40 a month very digestible to someone who can you know pile on the credit or you know and and then you come to the mid Rangers that are only available from the directly from the manufacturers or Amazon or whatnot and there are a one-time lump-sum fee of 200 300 400 $500 even you're kind of just okay so costing way too much to about getting an iPhone 8 and even with an iPhone se I'm still kind of struggling by the paycheck to gets to get to that and replace my phone which isn't bad need of replacing let's say so Jules I I agree I just kind of feel like Apple's never gonna be the company to properly democratize technology like right now even even the the more traditional Android players like Google isn't the company anymore critize technology I kind of feel like oneplus can rightfully have that conversation ZTE kwame with the honor realm can rightfully have that conversation Apple Apple like I look at as so I mean like the the because I agree with you in that it's a frustration or it's a failure for certain aspects of the market especially for those folks who might want one of these devices and not be able to afford them but I kind of feel like Apple properly launching a premium a super high-end luxury product even though it's not really gonna be targeted for geeks like virtu you know like it's covered in gold and studded with diamonds and is made of sapphire and crystal and all this wacky stuff but it's got like a Qualcomm 400 series chipset and a quad vgi 1/4 vga screen you know like that's not good for consumer for most consumers it's not good for us geeks but there there's a notion of the capitalist side of this discussion we're having something so way far out there I think is ultimately good for the market as a whole to sort of represent sort of the health of the smartphone get someone sort of emotionally excited about it and it's sort of like walking into a car dealership I mean we drive a Nissan and I love drooling all over the GTR when we're in the showroom and then I drive home in the Sentra you know there's something you know again it's about getting the pulse up a little bit it's about getting the emotions cranking a little bit it's not always necessarily just about the nuts and bolts bang for buck we try and justify our purchases after the fact you know we try and rationalize why we need it as 600 700 $800 phone but then we start climbing into like thousand $1500 territory you know like that's just silly but there's something still kind of exciting about that notion I would go against the oneplus being you know a whole democratizing thing because they fold up there immediately oh no I agree I think there's still I think they're still allowed at the table it's a sub $500 phone I think they're still allowed to have that chat just by the the hardware isn't radically different than a $600 plus pixel well the way that they executed a thing where they couldn't they couldn't just my supply chain they couldn't do a snap continue to set up Snapdragon 820 then go to the center Guinea 21 3t they just basically forced everyone and also I agree I agree it's a I I well I don't disagree is that the right double negative to put it there no but I you're right that they're they're trying to move their brand upscale also but when I look at a1 plus what move up the food chain though they're climbing the ladder I mean well maybe I view them more as a Harley Davidson or like a mod car thing where people you know try and just I could I couldn't afford a real Shelby Cobra but I got this kick car is that what they're not like that you know what I loved about Scion was they're really working this like youth angle and these are like inexpensive vehicles for hip trendy young people I see so many old people driving them and it's like a reasonably priced car it's comfortable it's got some fun features I think it's fun to try whoa you guys are really missing them now what you need isn't like buying this car it is the Kia Soul because you could give it this or you can get that you can get with this are you that you can get with this already I I think that's we've already just had a fifth copyright strike of the day this is where it's at and so of using the the p-n weekly hash tag from chamfered edges an even speedier iPhone successor due to the code name Ferrari perhaps and I doubt that an iPhone 8 will be any different in terms of performance III can't believe that they're gonna have a completely different chipset I think it's gonna come down to things like the build quality of the screen the wraparound screen the materials involved I think the actual innards the guts or and I'll probably come with more storage I think the base model storage would probably be higher cuz storage really isn't that expensive I think that'll probably be the delineating factors or all of those lifestyle and fashion accents not the technology and storage while it's inexpensive you can charge up the wazoo for right well when you have no options to expand it and speaking of phones that can potentially expand storage we've got some some interesting news about Samsung's strategy moving into the galaxy si Jules can you kind of break down what the timeline is looking like Samsung next year I was a little scared there because you said expanding devices well now that the Galaxy s8 is coming to us in New York City in April we're gonna get an unpacked event there sorry like Hallam Samsung did usually does its notes reveals it did so last year this year for the note 7 last year no 5 it was like both both of them were in New York and now we see this in the April maybe as we try and figure out what the heck is gonna is going to be the cause of this note 7 debacle like why did it explode all these times that it did and why the recall had to take place especially after you know initial recall where Samsung decided that they'd fix the problem so lots of questions that are still hanging in the air and lots of questions about the leaks to where in this there's been a memo from top up from DJ code the president of the mobile division who basically just said okay enough of these leaks we gotta patch it up no more or a Galaxy s8 talk make sure that the factories in China I know about this because we can't take this anymore and you know as far as we know this may be it for what we know about the innards of the galaxy si it's I mean we've already known a lot of this is also I mean so we've been we've been covering galaxy si rumors since the beginning of the galaxy note seven debacle of time this this would this would fly in the face of a lot of the information we'd been sort of trafficking in earlier in that we were looking at a samsung potentially trying to speed up or get a little bit more aggressive with the launch of the s and eight to try and quiet the memories of the note seven and this this sort of flies in the face of that that notion that samsung might be instead trying to take their time get those last final pieces put in place to make sure that this launch is as smooth as possible and if that's true it's that's a samsung that I want to see that's a samsung that I feel is taking their competition seriously and their place in the market their consumer relationship seriously that makes me a bit more interested or at least willing to sort of hold off and see what they have to release for next year and not worrying that they're trying to accelerate you know we were talking about that you know I think a month ago maybe two months ago you know the the fear of Samsung accelerating their product timetables to try and get ahead of this is in our pen in my opinion the wrong reply to the massive disaster that was the note seven yeah and even but April though because we heard later on you know even before this revelation that maybe this was going to be a more traditional launch after endo you see or maybe dirt maybe even during him don't we see but February March timeline but April's kind of unprecedented for Samsung to just wait out because we've seen LG pull in their releases more towards and obviously we've seen Motorola sort of take over the summer but you know they didn't like they've been doing a little bit of pulling in themselves too so I'm not really sure what this means in terms of fighting out the competition and clearing the air or just making sure that's they even have an idea that this thing will not blow up on them as much as the note seven did well you know what's what's fascinating is Samsung I think gets one mulligan I think this is their their one big will we'll wait to see how you respond to it situation there are still reports that they're what was one of the headlines that I read on reddit that there are still more note 7s out being used than all of the V 20s that have been sold so yeah yeah you know these twenties three speeds and also another phone that the moto moto yeah and so when you you factor that against the fact that I think most no owners probably opted for an s7 or an s7 edge Samsung this this is like the one do-over that they get look if they screw up again then I think that's absolutely disastrous for the brand but they had built up so much momentum and so much customer goodwill that one instance like this means that they can they can make this move they can delay their their announcement they can delay their launch and customers will still wait for them to make their move to see what they do and so so I think a number of people will probably wait just to make sure there aren't any major problems like the phone but I think Samsung is one of the only companies that could probably get away with that the only other one being Apple like if Apple were to make a mistake of the same significance I'll be really curious to see but but you know it's one of those things in my opinion and not really being the biggest Samsung fan anymore this is the kind of reply I want to see from the company we're gonna take our time we're going to disclose what we found in our investigation of the note 7 we're going to make sure our next product launch is great and that to me is is taking their market position seriously that's taking their relationship with customers and handling it with respect and I love pencils the bring up I just pulled up Twitter so we have a couple more tweets from the p-n weekly hash tag from Panzer Z robots hamsters and an apocalyptic dystopia Kia Soul this is how you advertise to the young people he's got he's got the jiff of that Kia Soul ad which is more of a camp stirs and then also again from chamfered edges pn weekly hope the extended unveiled date would be ample enough to prevent another note successor well from outside it doesn't seem like any other larger devices have completely unseated what the note brought to the table like I said most people went for the galaxy s7 and the SKA so could be a time for Samsung to regroup like if they want to walk away from the note branding because they feel it's tainted then this is a way that they could do an S and s 8 and s 8 edge and an S 8 Pro you know it's a way for them to tear their device strategy in a slightly different way so that customers don't mentally link you know products that explode to new products that are out there and then we also have from Edie Edie maudlin the oneplus brand was stable modern phones oh the oneplus brand was modern phones for a good price Samsung post-mortem unpacked too much PN weekly I'll be curious to see how oneplus handles 2017 yeah for that reason just because we got this weird refresh you know the one plus 3t is is just odd timing for what we would expect a company like oneplus to deliver so it's an opportunity for them to show us that they can also still do something cool in the first half of 2017 but if we're gonna be getting one plusses every six months I think it's gonna start falling prey to what is that the Osborn effect where doesn't wait and they never really by anything yeah I mean for me I expect that this is more likely to do with the Snapdragon 835 being there's the biggest of big of pretty improvements to the series so far so maybe they're just hoping that price will come in just a little bit more before they start showing up margins on that and that they'll probably move up to a quad HD screen no I mean that's the hope no III think I think that that could be you know that could be the next one plus refresh is you know I they probably started you know finding difficulties in sourcing the 820 versus the 821 yeah yeah just as a sort of chip fab was getting moved over and once the 835 is out then they move over to that and they have a better argument to then also tweak something else like screen resolution so that they oneplus can start having the same conversations about things like VR yeah they're they're behind I mean they're good at making headsets for hard phones but where's the rest of it yeah you know the full the full strategy on all these different devices and a company that we're gonna be getting a much better they get a full strategy well you know we were talking about companies that were trying to move up their device strategy and it looks like HTC might be trying to fill the void left by early announcements and Samsung at the beginning of 2017 they have something up it's something big up its sleeve coming January 12 and what for you yeah there's this big invite you know for you and it talks about the state HCC's but as a see at the end but if they have it oriented in a way that you know the you it becomes more like a you so there's a whole bunch of speculation about what this could mean we don't think honestly that they would launch the HTC 11 this quickly although who knows they might they might just capitalize on what's going on the Samsung at this point but maybe they could take a little bit more time with development and such in the meantime we do think that's what's going on here maybe Under Armour development they've been partnering with the this company for device releases such as was at the grip the health box those came out last year and this time so we've we've been on on like this on again off again rumor train of HTC working on wearables or working on a SmartWatch or working on a fitness tracker they were originally gonna be working on a Qualcomm Talk follow-up at one point there was a rumor back in the day and nothing is ever really materialized so now would be not a terrible time for HTC with the sort of a slightly reinvigorated coolness reputation to deliver something that could be like well I think it's the right time for them to diversify I was gonna make a terrible joke like I'm telling you now it's gonna be a vive phone and you know that was actually gonna be pretty lame not that a vibe own would be lame that might joke about there being of iPhone was going to be lame so now explaining the lame this is way better I was gonna say a strategic partnership like Under Armour this could be a good time for HTC to show that its continuing to diversify its product line so it's not just you know they did a couple years ago right they had like a whole thing about you know four quadrants of life with smartphones with yeah maybe VR health and then also the recámara which was that camera that kept getting on discount every tuesday the Crestron the frustrating thing about that is that they weren't wrong you know what I mean it was they put out this one product and this is kind of the same thing I would hammer Samsung for this to the the gear 360 had very little sort of full company support behind that product and it didn't sell very well same thing with LG with their 360 degree action camera and I guarantee you that there are now people in the sort of middle upper tiers of those companies going well they didn't sell I guess we shouldn't make any more and I think if HTC had continued proving and iterating they would be a competitive force in the action camera market they'd be able to build on that for other products and services and features and tie-ins to things like the vibe and tie-ins to things like their smartphones they would have inroads there instead they put it out there they sort of limped it out into the market it didn't instantly become a top seller and then they sort of let it wither on the vine and too many companies let that happen where they don't seem to be willing to invest in the long term aspects of actually having a product like that which could be a good way to differentiate yourself from the competition yeah well I mean all these low branches that come to an end in favor of this whole idea of the trunk or developing a truck a different trunk of sorts so before we move on to the next story I've got this from the p-n weekly hash tag I want to throw this one at you and just get your thoughts this comes from Steve Becker do you think HTC will ever be a competitive brand in the future as in going head-to-head with Samsung and LG what do you think Jules yeah at this point it's gonna take years and I don't think in terms of the smartphone industry we have years before to make this competitive again we're well into maturation point and we're just trying to find where that people will disseminate information next and it's still gonna be mobile it's still gonna be you know that's you know something that will cover it's just going to be how how now and well it you know a sturdy well I encompass a forum that we will be able to properly criticize a critique and criticize we'll always be able to properly criticize something like something and still criticizes the crap out of it but week was the proper word for it no that was the right word so this also from from Jonas Timothy your mom goodbye and and so this is kind of going hand-in-hand with what Steve Becker asked do you think HTC should make it tablet laptop convertible and I don't think so I don't think so um not not not to like step on new what I think HTC should be looking at are what future markets there are and I think a number of tech companies whenever they start playing overly defensive or they start getting a little reactionary there's a notion like Oh HTC should go back and make another tablet or something like that and I kind of feel like the tablet market is so stalled right now that HTC going back to make another one doesn't really bring anything new to the table so it doesn't feel like HTC's doing anything fresh they could make the best tablet ever and I think a number of people would go yeah yeah and it doesn't really get people talking like the biggest you know the biggest boost for HTC over this year was was kicking ass at the VR game that got HTC the name HTC in those circles especially in the gaming circles became a hip company again and it's those types of opportunities that I think HTC needs to be focused on you you still service a smartphone market you can still put out carrier SPECT phones like the bolt which I think are kind of mediocre at best and then you actually focus the company on what future markets will look like exactly what you were talking about jewels in that we don't necessarily know what the next generation of mobile interaction will look like but if HTC can get ahead of the pulse it can get ahead of the curve then I think the company the company will be a cool profitable competitive company if it's just like oh well can they go toe to toe with Apple for making smartphones I think that that's sort of an over discussion I think that's kind of that bus assail retired yeah absolutely what are you mixing all of our metaphors but yeah I mean I think VR is their way they have all the money towards that they have all the partners towards it that's just trying to get the Calvary to you know move in one direction at the same pace and just making sure that's that they can make you know be part of other alright so convertible tablets ice think are still on their way up there are they're still in the lower floors of things relatively speaking and if HTC can point up a killer argument for making V mobile via are much better than just from VR and just shy of even full-blown stand up PC VR I think that would be the killer app that would come I agree but but also on top of all that I think what you're talking about they're not to put words in your mouth sorry Jules but part of what you're talking about there is also sort of changing what it is what it means to have an interaction with a mobile device you know if we're talking Ken HTC makes something which can compete rightfully compete against desktop grade VR solutions or is just head and shoulders above current phone virtual reality solutions we're talking about a gadget which would probably also start walking us away from the accepted way that we interact with phones and tablets and I and that's where I agree with you I think if HTC can bring that to the discussion then they will be competitive but not competitive just yeah they make a good smartphone that we know they can make a good smartphone yeah they'll be competitive in driving the bus they'll be competitive in directing where the future of mobile interactions yeah I only hope that this ocean thing really you know turns out and we get these the you know touchless side these are Primus side rails that you can touch and you know all these interactions on sensor why I mean we've sort of seen that with a ZTE Nubia doing that kind of thing but we haven't got much out of China I'm telling you if this big announcement that they've got in January's just like we've made a Fitness band I Oh HTC I mean big announcement and then like it counts your steps not a thing anymore I mean the money the money from Under Armour is there so but but it's like it's sacrificing HTC's reputation to take that Under Armour cash and it's now no no this thing this this product whatever it is it is for you yeah now sort of a piggybacking on on that question from from Jonah's we do actually have some news some rumors pointing to a Chromebook yep from novo so we've got the the yoga book we actually did a review on pocket now of the yoga book I've got mine right here the Android version the Android version of it I actually did okay so a lot of people were talking mad shit about our arms wanting to review the Android version of the yoga book over the Windows version of the yoga book and one of the main things that I kinda needed on this device was the predictive text capabilities which aren't properly supported in Windows 10 and so I actually did I requested to review the Android version because after using both that Aoife I felt that the Android version was actually the superior product for a lot of what I feel felt people were apt to do on it this the the Android version I think actually made more sense especially once you start using this completely smooth surface keyboard area sketch area you kind of need a little software support to help you make sure words are properly spelled it does actually help improve your typing an error rate so so you think that androids cousin is gonna fare worse off because of its lack of that feature Chrome OS is just a Windows wannabe with chrome and and like cousin and Chrome OS fan maybe the app just threw their boots through their computer monitors at you Jules they are not happy well especially now how dare you well they probably they probably ran out close the threat me after the whole you know Hiroshi law chimera saying that oh we're not actually doing Andromeda so yeah that's not that it's Google assistant all the way people you guys should know this well that that's where that's where I'm torn I have very little um very little interaction I've had very little interaction with Chrome OS it's not something I I it's not something that that that really fits any part of my workflow better than current phone and tablet solution so I'm just the wrong person to ask about this but I keep seeing potential in the same way that I still see some potential with Microsoft's you know one OS for everybody kind of strategy and for Google to be playing coy about Andromeda or that Chrome OS might not be making that merge happening but we're seeing all these indicators for Android apps on Chrome OS and things like that you know they're they're walking slowly towards a more cohesive operating system strategy especially a more robust operating system strategy than what chrome originally was sort of birthed as this its web it's a browser everything lives in the cloud you know now that that's not really how people use their technology and it's gonna be a while before the infrastructure really supports sort of just a dumb terminal everything's up floating above your head the kind of computing style but yeah if we continue to put out good hardware Lenovo is gonna put em into Chrome the yoga book is really well executed hardware it's not the best typing experience but there's something so just unique about it it's so well put together that you can only I think it can only help to serve uh it can only help to benefit Chrome OS in general even if it won't necessarily help Chrome OS like explode like it's not going to be some big top seller and consumers are going to be salivating all over it but you know improvement is improvement and hopefully it sets the stage for where we might end up on Andromeda yeah well let's just hope that improvement proves itself over time but yes that is all so just a quick because this is not this is not mean to be fair we are PocketNow we're not like Pocket tomorrow so no speculating about the future why would we do that from Abhishek in my opinion one of the best HTC builds was the polycarbonate build of the HTC One x+ completely agree I miss that era of phones especially the matte finish Lumia Polly carbs were gorgeous then from chamfered edges I'd rather get the Windows version of the yoga book it does feel weird with Android loaded on it tongue sticking out emoticon I was really torn there's so much that you would I would have thought well I want Windows 10 on this I want it to be more of that netbook style computing experience and yet I have one drive on there I have Word and Excel and PowerPoint on there my Microsoft my core Microsoft services are well covered and then I can also fire up Marvel future fight do a little gaming and I kind of feel like for me personally I'm not gonna speak for anyone else but for me personally I kind of feel like the Android version was the better fit and then also from Steve Becker should there be more dual boot Android Windows mainstream tablet laptops or would that be too neat of a product and unfortunately I kind of think it would be I've played with a number of sort of low-cost Chinese solutions these dual booting environments that I think it's just a little too complicated for people to understand things like how your storage is formatted you know it's like I I know I've got 64 GBS and then you're like well 20 GB czar for Windows and 30 GB czar for Android how does that work you know so those types of things I think might stand in the way of accessibility and not to say that you can't solve those problems you can absolutely solve those issues but for anyone who's feeling like they might want that dual OS on one device strategy I think emulation is probably a better way to go yeah as a fortunately as it is right now maybe they can like emulate Windows 10 on an Android someday I mean you know what once once we start seeing Windows 10 with proper arm emulation support out in the wild I wouldn't be surprised but I'll tell you what I was probably not going to be making that transition or supporting those kinds of products really that sold way better than I was expecting for the second half of 2016 well now I was only at this wacky chart but essentially what this chart showing us is out of all of the phones that might have stepped up to fill the void left by the note 7 the Sony Xperia XZ became one of the highest selling flagships of the second half of 2016 I can't believe this I honestly look at those numbers and I'm shocked I'm shocked well I mean Japan had its strategies shifted up and I think it's doing them right so far so we have all this talk about how the note 7 and is just cratering Samsung's brand and whatnot and then we have all these other phones out there that were launched in the second half of this year that were kind of just kind of milquetoast including what we called well we called it the Xperia Z but we called it up toast as well and you know there were more interesting more spectacular kind of you know releases from Motorola from mates not really HTC but from LG one plus it's been going on there and of all things it turns out that with 0.15 percent of the total android market so far the sony xperia is just killing it everyone else is struggling to get out the point Oh 6.07 range and here we are we're just it took like a couple of months for it to just skyrocket so but we can we can kind of explain some of these numbers right the LGV 20 had a very limited release the Google pixel also its initial launch was targeted to a couple different regions oneplus is still facing five week six weeks shipping delays four orders placed today and for the first time in recent memory Sony actually got the x/z out to a number of markets roughly close to the same time as their Japanese release this this really does sort of support our hypothesis that when you advertise and you actually ship ship products to different regions those products seem to sell better yeah exactly it's amazing where little money towards the marketing can do but yeah there's just too much be happy for Sony or should we be angry so here's the thing I'm I am ultimately happy for Sony they're a company I try very hard I want to like I've got my X Z right here and there's so much about this phone which is so much improved over the xperia x the Xperia X was a miserable range of devices for me to wrap up reviews on by the time I got to the X performance I was hating my life with Sony and the X Z while I still think there are a number of options out there which might fit people better especially in some of like the $400 range to where you can kind of target the things that you want the things that you don't this is so much improved over the Xperia X and the X performance the X performance was just an abortion of a phone this is this is is more in keeping with what we would expect from a flagship device even if I do think it's it's priced higher than it should be ultimately this is what I would call progress so if this is this is what Spurs Sony to be taking more market seriously especially the North American market and to continue improving their products then I'll call that a win all right I mean it really I think it just matters that era they're out there and matters that they're available to buy yeah I mean it's a great review pin because we've been so stuffed with all these devices lately and we just are gave them back the side treatment well he wasn't no actually I'm gonna fight you on that that wasn't true it was it wasn't that we've ever put Sony off to the side and and and for anyone who's watching this or listening to this if you've caught pocket now coverage in the past you would know that our editor-in-chief Tony is a Sony fanatic that is one of the brands that he grew up with and he would never let a Sony review opportunity just sit on the side when we get these things we aggressively cover them the problem with the X going from the Z the Z 5 to the X we were months behind in getting review units or in being able to purchase them for our region so by the time we got the X performance here in the United States and we could get our hands on on a unit to review we the the X performance had been out for months so it wasn't that we pushed it off to the side is that Sony sort of pushed North America off to the side and then with the XZ was much smarter about getting that getting that hardware out to people to play with them so that's reflective I think in these sales numbers yeah in the case of the X Z we did we did a better job at try and put it all off not it's not really that's more the fact that we've been dealing with so many of these releases and that you know some things take priority over others because you know they're the names and the in the past performances of the brands yeah talking about here or even just like the newness of the brands in the US so I mean just by default in those cases like that that sort of had something to do with our kind of my blaze and with you know not only your malaise but also your marmalade well know that that that is absolutely accurate that that is that is important I just feel like there's such a current in our comments about how we're anti Sony when really I don't know that that could be farther from the truth from the team of people who are passionate Sony fans at PocketNow and just you know sort of fans fans without a country you know it's it's they don't have access to these products yet they really want to be talking about them and the same thing kind of happened with us where we never really could get our hands on a compact at the most busy part of our review schedule form eight nines and pixels and LGV 20s if that one did kind of get pushed off to the side because one wasn't sent our way but the x/z as soon as we we got the XE we were on top of at least trying to talk about it even though I know it took us a while to get reviews out got a couple tweets here from chamfered edges using the PN weekly hashtag five to six weeks yet they're 101 plus three T's giveaway can take a week or under to deliver now funny how certain youtubers got a hundred one plus three T's to giveaway and yet there's still like a month backorder on customers trying to buy that product that seems like priorities are a little out of whack there then from Panzer Z using the P n weekly hash tag advertising and actually making the product available leads to sales who would have thunk it and then he's got this really mind blown is really great Jeff on that too and then from sunlight hi PN weekly I'm proud to be a blind user of an Acer Chromebook not a fan of Windows though can't wait for Google Play support that's really interesting I I this is something that we we continue to try and and look at how we might cover it but it's something that unfortunately I have to admit we've been woefully negligent and talking about some of the accessibility issues on mobile technology especially when we get to you know I can't imagine that using an all smooth surface yoga book would be the best way to interact with technology for someone who's maybe you know got some sight issues and because it's so neat like the whole thing about being able to produce Braille input or Braille output for or just even write like multimedia content that that's gotta be a tough time and very few sources can be able to provide that kind of that kind of thing so yeah it's it's tough to get into time and you know but I think that at least we should try as a public trust service or something like there has to be initiatives there I mean the tricky thing is is obviously my perspective on that is gonna be skewed as I'll be looking at accessibility options for someone who might be hearing-impaired or vision impaired and I'm neither yeah like my my opinion on the matter is a little less valuable as to whether or not I think something might be good but shifting gears because we do have some some politics to talk about and you're gonna have to do a talk me through this one I read our story on pocketnow.com and I still can't quite wrap my brain exactly around what's going on over at t-mobile so t-mobile is being accused by were currently were an advocacy group watchdog thing called change to win that its managers have been on the mandate that's they should probably sell more and you know attain sales goals that have that you know just are you know tougher and tougher the more that they pile on and that has led to coercing you know maybe you know their managers so we'll just make it up just fraud so you're thinking about you know doing you're putting Wells Fargo into this situation in terms of making fake accounts or whatnot then yeah you're pretty much right according to FTC complaints to the industry as a whole we saw complaints jump ethically at t-mobile from 21 per millions subscribers to 29 per million subscribers that's from between 2013 and 2014 and 2015 60 per million subscribers and then in just a half year of 2016 that they logged 95 per million subscribers and that that just pales you know when you look at the others which aren't even that bad 69 is the closest that Verizon gets and Sprint is the hide the highest total we see here is 21 so now is there as that smaller to some of the fines that were levied against the other carriers for there are no customers we haven't seen any enforcement action or anything like that you just yet but many employees have been told you know or have told to change to win that they've had you know they've been pushing insurance policies on their devices done phone insurance other such services bundled accessories extra lines and some of them so the customer on the customer side 36% of a 2,200 person poll because 2200 customer poll said that they paid more per month no a 56% had said that they paid more per month than what was advertised and that 83% of 500 associates at t-mobile and asked me not as was can't see things and not as they didn't get their names tell happy trying to say you're doing fine they didn't give their names to tell that they were under pressure to cram services and products not explicitly requested by the customer and just you know some days they would just put in like a jump policy you know so that you know you get the early upgrade program and device insurance like they would put in you know a job policy for a new customer and then take it off days later just to meet a sales bill for that oh so that's I mean that's like the proper shady where there's a behavior which is which is demonstrably deceitful that you're doing something which it's like no confusion on the policy that that can't be something that that was well it tended to be done straight up like that like they think you know that managers even just you know jibe them a little bit say you know if you well if you want to make those goals and then maybe you should just try and you know do that and you know there's this one imagine who says no one says I want to work at t-mobile to do fraud but a lot of reps do it because they want to keep their jobs and they want to get the pay they need you know a lot of low-income workers at mobile they aren't bad or dishonest people but there's just a lot of pressure and there's been going around in terms of employees trying to get John Legere the CEO of t-mobile to address these issues and he hasn't really talked about this stuff this in you know the whole scheme of things where t-mobile is just like oh we're doing something that's a yes what's next well you know find out later and also the splitting of the t-mobile one plan where it's like you know there's t-mobile one international like yeah it just doesn't it it just it just doesn't feel right with me especially because they've been hammered time time again about you know labor conditions at the stores and also just the fact that the you know it's kind of deceptive that no contract offerings were no contract when you have obligations for a device you know you don't have a service contract but you have a phone contract that you had to pay off once you decide that you're out you're out of t-mobile so yeah it's just you know well that's a pretty I was gonna say that's also very disappoint that it's that it's being handled that way and that we haven't heard more word from the top it's moves like that I mean it was something similar where maybe not in the same way that reps were signing people up for services and then canceling but something very similar that I think it was 18 t just got fined for recently where people were getting signed up for services that we're adding cost to bills and there was a class action and I believe they were cramming in there got caught up in something third party services on the Biddle's exactly this it is a very high party service it's not a third party yes this is this is way more incentive and if complaints get in to the FTC and you know they take action and there's well maybe not during the Trump administration possibly but yeah from Panzers ii on twitter using the pn weekly hash tag because of shady store workers i now only do stuff over the phone direct with t-mobile i've always had to cancel random extras someone saying that they've had first-hand experience with this kind of practice and then from ed maudlin it's very smoky under the table shady crap and you know we we always have these you know this is one of the things that i think especially over the next couple years i i i i hope we see sort of a consumer revolution in maybe we don't look to these companies to help inform our like daily fashion or style or identity you know like yeah you know are you an iphone person or a galaxy person are you t-mobile or you verizon this is not a team this is a multi-billion dollar corporation which looks to extract as much wealth out of the system as they can to provide benefit for their shareholders and yeah we should expect you know good service and return for the extraction of income of our wealth it's not a friend of ours who's working to be our buddy it's a giant corporation which is offering a service for a price and so and can wash it be clear yeah ed maudlin who also is who also works with the MetroPCS which is a subsidiary of t-mobile he told me just now on the piano weekly hashtag that it is the angry god of our poo RP being average revenue per user and historically t-mobile has had I think some of the lowest in the industry so if they can get those bills up and one way to do so would be you know putting in those insurance well yeah I mean one way to increase revenue is just to make sign people up for services they didn't sign up for oh wow so another sort of not political bummer but just a sticky political topic that we're running into especially what with some of the political climate that were apt to see from the people that Trump is appointed to his cabinet people who have been very vocal about trying to for example weaken PFC seeds jurisdiction over businesses and services internet-related is that we've gotten some replies from 18t and Verizon responding to the FCC on some of the topics we've been talking about where they have first party content that can go out for free on their networks but then other companies you know their content counts against a consumers data plan and something that we feel this flies in the face of net neutrality and this is absolutely one reason why you know net neutrality is probably going to be under attack very very soon is because of these sort of corporate interests if I'm if I'm a major ISP I want you to use my services so I'll make it painful for you to use a competitor's because I I have content and I also have the pipes that deliver that content which I will make direct conflict of interest I'll make it painful with for the competitors who don't have their own well and often it's both of its I'm gonna make it painful for the competitors and I won't make it costlier for the consumers which to me is a lose/lose when those first party services typically aren't as good as the competition I have undemanding Warner it's not as good as Netflix I like Netflix better Netflix is easier to use it's available across more devices seamlessly and my on-demand is constantly crapping out whereas you know my internet connection isn't terrific but for what it is your Netflix as the service has never failed on me it's only ever been my pipe from Netflix to my house has failed on me and that's not Netflix's fault yeah well I mean you can always tune in to channel 1020 is it - it's over here it's it's channel 1,000 is is on-demand Oh 1,000 not 10 to 1 ok yeah yeah well no I mean I'm sure it's different on and every other thing but that's just it is I often can't I've gone through three different cable boxes I've been on multiple support calls and you know I can't tell you how many times I've rebooted this damn and it still doesn't function with the reliability that Netflix can you know even when our internet connection is running for crap I can switch over to LTE and still watch something on Netflix where I can't from my dedicated home cable connection with the same consistency and uptime and Netflix can offer so I'm happy to pay my what eight bucks a month for Netflix whereas I'm paying a lot for cable internet and an expanded TV package which I can't fully benefit from from Time Warner and yet we're watching the industry start to make that I'm sorry spectrum spectrum oh god I I just feel so gross even just saying the word spectrum it's just such a terrible name for a company in an age where we're trying to have conversations about like you know mental health and child empowerment and and autism and yeah yeah and there's also the fact that you know I'll just use this as my soapbox for just a second but they're ruining New York one yeah they introduced a new L bar to it so like they've squeezed away pack your nin and you know in favor of rundowns and weather information and also you know weather and trend trans information which is kind of nice but you know when you're you don't need to know what happens in you know in the next 15 minutes because they're on a wheel we know what that we you should know what the wheel is by now people but that's just me not even living in New York but knowing about New York want some news it's that's that's no fun but you know just in in wrapping up this story here you know what's fun but really oh what's that porn oh okay we're done with 18 T and Verizon no I'm good moving on because um we're not really going to talk about porn as much as we're going to talk about lawmakers who want to block consumers access to porn unless you pay some kinda more extortion they're saying it's not a tax and and I love this logic it's the same thing you know like my texts and relatives love to say oh we don't pay taxes here in Texas and then you're like any time you get on a road it's a toll road you can call it a toll you can call it a fee you can call it a surcharge it's all the same you're paying money to a government for a service welcome to paying taxes please understand that yeah welcome to Texas but you know tax it's in California yeah that one almost works and I love you for it but again it's one of those things like you know I kind of feel the whole idea is what am I getting for paying that money and I feel like we do okay here in California especially considering we're subsidizing like what you know six or seven other debtor states that get way more in federal funds than we pay in taxes and we receive and federal government but I digress this largest economy in the Union people well and I think we make up something like 15 percent of the overall United States GDP and we just surpassed Great Britain as one of the world's largest economies but no that's cool that's cool we're gonna we're gonna talk about you know you know conservative politics and picking yourself up by your bootstraps welcome guys a ton of the United States that's great it's great we're that we're the wacky coastal you know left-wing no it's fine it's fine if we want we want it we want to fix you know getting money for our taxes maybe we should just sort of reset what states get what funds from the federal government since we're all about states rights right anyway yeah Carolina WTF there's a bill going up in South Carolina which would prevent if you buy a computer in South Carolina they they want to install either some type of software or hardware which would prevent users from accessing pornographic materials online unless you pay a $20 unlock porn fee yeah look and then you can consume that content let's beat let's parse this because I feel like there are a lot more implications than just first amendment things so either manufacturers and retailers having to install the program or opt out and pay that $20 fee themselves or the consumers you know having to deal with the filter themselves and then paying the $20 fee either way it goes to a fund that is supposed to combat human trafficking which is a very valid problem and we should be doing something to solve that but in a the link between this all right so the Upstate I think you know representative his name is Mike burns I believe and he says that if you're you know you viewing pornography is a slippery slope it leads to one thing and another and suddenly all your suddenly participating in the propagation of child porn and you know well I think that scared to extreme for some people he has a point no no I I I would want to see like again I'm not saying it's not true I see no evidence for that slippery slope argument in any kind of aggregate what I would want to see is the data to back that up if we're talking about this being a public works a public good we need to not just sort of throw out these truthiness statements we need to actually demonstrate that free and accessible pornography on the Internet has more than just a casual relationship to human trafficking and some of the dirtier aspects of online subjugation and abuse of different peoples that are traded for currencies I'm really trying to be delicate about yeah how we're talking about this because because that is a very serious problem and we've seen some progress in how these rings of terrible people who put trade in paedophile materials people who trade in sex slave materials the federal government state governments and governments in the world have actually been stepping up their involvement in actually breaking some of these rings online these rings that go sort of dark web I don't think you know again not having any data in front of me but I've not seen anything that would suggest to me that the consumption of freely available pornography on the internet the web that we can track has any direct correlation to someone becoming one of these traffickers of like really really bad stuff yeah so before we go throwing laws around and extorting money from people to consume content which doesn't harm anybody it's something you're doing in the privacy of your homes at home yeah it's healthy in you know the way that you should practice it I think that we poorly educate people about how to deal with this kind of material in the first place so well and we're making itself that from a species you're absolutely right there I mean if we want to have these kinds of conversations and one I feel we need to be having them younger and in a more educational setting for though Apple that's only the way well I don't know I mean like I I never would have thought South Carolina being one of those companies parts of the country that was so hopped up on this sort of nanny state idea you know that we're gonna protect people from themselves I know it's a part of the South sort of nodes here's north or there's more there's more to this because the execution of this filter which is available you know you'd be a market solution so there's that but the execution of it would block out material obscene by state and federal definitions that and we'd also have a flag down system for people to use become a cloth across unblocked obscene material and that just opens up another can of worms about and potentially blocking people from actually are you know safe safe legal in that consents contents you know just put it in I'm always I'm always curious to know who gets to decide the Supreme Court can't decide on where the line is for smut you know what for where the line is on obscene they just sort of know it when they see it right that's always been the legal justification for why you can't just create a one-size-fits-all statute to block obscene materials who gets South Carolina what sites are blocked and what sites are accessible and what constitutes obscenity and what constitutes it's pornography yeah I mean it could be obscenity could be anything at this point you could just you know slap it on you know WikiLeaks anonymous or what you know what have you and - I don't know there would have to be a filtering system and it doesn't seem like as far as the discourse on this bill would be that's you know there there's been much discussion or thought put to that and you know the skins Republican backed bill which is scheduled to be yeah there's no surprise its Republic and a republican-controlled General Assembly in the Palmetto State right and you know the National Party the GOP also had a very strong crusade against it in their in their platform this year and you know it's just so of course we're talking about freedom of speech we're talking but you know we're also talking about interstate commerce here because if you're asking someone if you're asking a company to install something that is not required naturally that or you know any other states isn't that are then that should not be like that well that's actually you know and that's I'm glad I'm glad you started going that direction Jules because it's also one of the things we're getting a number of comments from people we will be getting to your tweets on this because as you can tell I'm really trying to not let my how infuriated I am by this notion sort of override the discussion and I'm not quite succeeding but just in terms of is this gonna serve the public good to have a law on the books which generates funds when there are so many loopholes there are so many unknowns we have no idea who's going to be in charge of you know rating something on the internet as to what's acceptable to consume and what's going to be blocked under this system and and this is brought up by a Trina using the p-n weekly hashtag and i guess as much as most other kinds of porn blockage this will affect mostly legal websites but will have no effect on tour sites or anything dark web related and that to me becomes you are not actually serving the public good you are not actually preventing abuse you're actually empowering people to go darker to either circumvent and in essence become lawbreakers by trying to circumvent this policy or they're going to try and find loopholes for purchasing computers out of the state so that they don't have this stuff pre-installed and if this is we're making the slippery slope argh slope argument can't we also make the slippery slope argument that if you start installing crap on our computing devices that monitor what kind of content we can consume that eventually that power will fall into the hands of people we don't want to have that kind of power over our computing devices maybe not a pornography maybe the next day it's any type of dissent in speech and that's deemed unhealthier unamerican isn't that the same argument can we make the same argument about that kind of policy I mean I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to my first text from Donald Trump I'm not so close so folks here's here's one of the reasons why I'm so incensed over this policy I think it should be pretty clear by now that I'm on the bleeding heart side of the political spectrum I'm very left-leaning but one of the greatest failings of the Democratic Party in particular in liberals in general has been this notion of thoughtcrime of trying to police content of trying to censor speech every single time we speak up against that type of Liberty it does a huge disservice to what I feel is the liberal cause in trying to raise boats up for everybody and trying to raise up all people from you know gangsta rap and hip-hop in the 90s to video game violence the Liberals have had a terrible track record of trying to silence this type of content where is trying mute this type of speech now for conservatives it seems to land a lot on sex they don't seem to have the same problems with violence but I find just as despicable as what the Liberals did with violent imagery what conservatives are now trying to do in protecting us from our carnal desires whether or not you consume pornography or whether or not you consume violent or aggressive media if you're age-appropriate if you're not giving this stuff to tilt children if you're not letting children consume this kind of stuff you're doing your job as a parent you're doing your job as a consumer then there should be no government force standing in the way of what a law-abiding adult should be able to consume in the comfort of their own home this is a liberty issue this is not a conservative issue this is not a liberal issue this is a freedom issue and I hope those of you who are motivated enough to potentially post about this kind of stuff or write comments on blogs or link to write your legislator you will write your elected officials to say this is absolutely not the course we should be going and this is absolutely not what we should be spending our time on as we have very real problems to fix in this country and trying to stop someone from watching porn and extorting 20 dollars out of them for the privilege is not how we're going to make America great again yeah yeah in turn I really don't want to go down the person road but I'll just make this branch here and that this is securing power and in in ways that you know partisan parsing ways where you can control the party because we've seen you know the North Carolina gerrymandering the rules changed where the governor had to you know you know is being neutered of his powers you know not being able to change stuff and all that stuff like this is going on in several places and if I you know this extent you know lots of you know the act of sex has been a big talking point a big point for evangelicals for the religious right and by you know enabling this to be discussed in their platform in the National Party's platform we see things like this act like Utah's act where porn is a you know is a public health hazard that is you know that it's that kind of platform that we get you know these kinds of bills from this kind of discussion where the problem you know if you want to throw science off the if off the table here is that we should be probably be talking to our kids about having you know being human being sexually active and being you know responsible for what we do on the Internet in terms of I don't know maybe not making mean comments bullying and then being sexually depraved through a long loop sequence of you know things for yourself well and we've got a number of comments here I do want to get to some of these tweets Edie in chamfered edges and Rina and Panzer been dropping us some great comments in chamfered edges in Singapore we don't give an F about large porn websites about a hundred of them have been blocked no payment needed just VPN this is because I've seen this brought up a number of times like oh well I'll just circumvent this if this becomes more of an issue though like if more states start sort of latching on to this idea of content censorship the problem I have is VPN is the practical solution it gets you around the block but it in essence it turns what was a normal free behavior into a crime I don't smoke marijuana but I don't feel that it should be a felony you know I don't feel that you should go to prison for a super long period of time have your life taken away from you lose the ability to vote in a number of places because you had a certain quantity of marijuana on you I feel that's a very important freedom issue especially if we're talking about whether or not that really serves the public good again it's about criminalizing behavior and it becomes about creating a thoughtcrime mentality so yes we can absolutely get around I've no doubt that you know someone will install Linux on one of these South Carolina laptops okay look all the porn I can meet um it's that that like the DMCA you know the enforcement of that policy means that you have now technically broken the law however sillier and insignificant that law might be whatever the the the financial obligations you know paying your your dues to the the government that you've wronged you know what you know what I just thought of you know I just thought of so the bill applies to Internet connected devices that you know can any computer smartphone tablet whatever I'm thinking that there's going to be a new market for hard drives full of porn binders for the women yeah like that well you know if it becomes the Underground Railroad of sharing smut I don't know I've got a couple little thumb drives and portable hard drives I will happily I will happily submit to the to the cause from Panzers II I like drinking coffee which is an addictive chemical meaning I am a drug cartel leader hashtag there I mean but that's just it you know like there there are certain religious aspects of our society that don't disagree with that sentiment that any type of substance like that which is mind-altering to whatever degree means that you're some sort of depraved individual hey from I deal with chemicals too I deal with I deal with the chemistry bad chemistry like I'm water oh you got to watch out for the dihydrogen monoxide I hear that stuff's brutal from Ed maudlin most politicians are doing anything but watching out for that without benefits of donations yeah you know this this to me the fact that they're conflating public you know protecting the public with you know sex trafficking yeah that that this is their slippery slope argument just feels like something out of reefer madness it doesn't it's one of those things we're all gonna laugh at it and no one's really gonna take it seriously and so it's it for people who feel like oh well maybe you shouldn't install crap on my computer to block my porn that's like you know number 53 on their list of things that they care about but for people who really do believe that this is you know like aw if we can block porn that means gonna make our society so much safe derp it's like number three on their list of things that they care about so they're much more apt to be for it the people who are for it are much more apt to join in the discussion however misguided that discussion might be as opposed to the people who are against it because then there's also the notion of shaming that individual but you watch porn you're sick you know like it's not that I'm defending the consumption of porn it's that I'm defending my right to do what I want with my technology and not have an outside force tell me what is acceptable to consume and what isn't within of course the reasons of the laws it currently stands and the boundaries of good taste as I see fit as a grown-ass individual to police my own content thank you mmm yeah stand up for the adults inside of us oh wait hey pander see they already sell USB drives was pretty loaded porn um well props cause it's less drugs oh is that like is is that like the the video servers behind like a flashlight or something it's coming out of a adult DVD comso NSFW people I don't feel like I'll be like because this conversation is above and beyond the scope of what we normally talk about here on pocketnow.com that's sort of the political aspects of this I'm gonna keep coming back to the same the same part of the conversation where we've been talking about net neutrality where we've been talking about broadband competition this is another one of those aspects I kind of feel like we keep getting beaten up politically and so every single time we feel like we're exhausted it's gonna make it that much easier for someone with an agenda to sneak something like this bias so this is the perfect we need to remain vigilant we need to remain a part of the conversation and we need to be the geeks need to be the people that other people can turn to for some insight and for some balanced discussion on this stuff and so I hope so there you go so thank you all so much for the comments for the discussion and and not not just for agreeing with us but also for really joining the discussion I feel that's gonna be important over the next couple years but folks this show's over another episode of the PocketNow weekly has come in gone the conversation continues though on Twitter where you can find Jules as at point Jules and I'm humbly at some gadget guy pocket now is around the web on Twitter Instagram Facebook Google+ YouTube and our home site pocketnow.com we're basically everywhere and we know what smut you've been watching now shows like this can't exist 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