As I promised, we do have an interview, a virtual one, because we are very into social distancing. And we'll be talking a little bit about the quarantine, the mandatory quarantine, that we have witnessed in the country. So, with me is Juan Timothy, and I'll let him introduce himself as we get straight into the matter. Hi, Timothy. Good morning. Hi. Good morning. How are you? How are you doing? I'm fine. Thank you. You look very well. I'm fine. Thank you. You look very healthy. I am. We have to survive at this time. Yeah, this time of the pandemic. It has united us, and it has leveled us all at the same time. We are now all at the same, because we can stay in the house and wash our hands. No one is it. So, maybe you can introduce yourself, tell us your name and what you do. Okay. Thank you. My name is Timothy Wafula. I'm a human rights lawyer, and I work with an NGO that is called KELIN, which is short for Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network. This is an NGO that works around the right to health to protect and promote the right to health. Yes, yes. It sounds very complicated. Yes, so for focus on human rights, in case there are any violations around the right to health policies and guidelines in the health sector, that is our main focus, yes, to ensure that the right to health in the constitution is protected and promoted, yes. All right, so just by having this conversation means somewhere, somehow out there, there's been a violation of human rights, and that's what we're here to address. Yes, so our main concern in them recently has been around mandatory quarantine. You remember that when the pandemic was first announced in Kenya, a letter on the government took measures, and some of these measures included introduction of mandatory quarantine for all persons who are coming out of the country. And yes, that is a very good measure. We have to say that because it's a public health measure that is trying to prevent the spread of COVID. We understand how infectious COVID is and also the need to ensure that all measures are put in place to prevent further spread of the virus in the country. And mandatory quarantine was one of such measures that were introduced. And yes, so as I've said, it's a good measure, a public health measure whose objective is just to ensure that people who might have been exposed to the virus are separated from the rest of the population. And when they're separated, the purpose of the separation is to monitor their health to check if they're okay in cases that their symptoms, there's early detection and treatment is as soon as possible. So it's just to ensure that this person stays away from the population. But the main purpose is for health specific purposes monitoring and detection of possible infection. However, we've had some concerns from individuals who are now in mandatory quarantine. They have reached out to our organization. They have shared via social media. They have shared via video links and so many other platforms that the implementation of this mandatory program, mandatory quarantine program, is not being conducted in a manner that safeguards their health and well-being. So one, yes, yes, yes. So there was some concerns, immediately passengers arrived at JKIA. They started raising concerns how they were bundled into one bus and we know that COVID, we are promoting social distancing, people should not be in crowds. So how they were supported from the airport, then taken to the mandatory quarantine center, they had concerns and they raised and they said that this should be improved if we have to prevent a further spread of COVID. And also they have also shared concerns and saying that it's mandatory quarantine there for the viruses. And this one is also an issue that to some of them they feel the government needs to take responsibility because it's not only for the personal benefit, but for the benefit of the country that this program is being implemented. So there are cost implications that they have raised concerns about and also just the general condition of some of the quarantine facilities. So that is how we came into the conversation after hearing all this. Maybe if I may because it's a bit dangerous to blame or point fingers at the government for not being very prepared because COVID-19 kind of took the world by storm. There is no country or president or government that has prepared for this prior. There's no one who has resources just set aside for such a pandemic. So first of all, maybe we should give credit where credit is due. Thank you for doing what you can, dear government, and thank you for directives. And then in the same breath, what kind of grievances are we looking at? Are we looking at someone who's lonely maybe 14 days in quarantine? Is that a real problem? Are they lacking food? Are they lacking basic resources? Are they being given information? Do they know what's going on? Do they know how many active cases there are? Do they know how many recoveries there are? What's really going on on the ground? Okay, thank you. I think it is suffocating and it is crippling invention and not point fingers. And in the letter, there's something level of improvement. So yes, so some of the concerns that have been raised one is just to have the government develop a guideline to and a guideline has actually been developed a mandatory quarantine guideline that just states what is supposed to happen in quarantine, what are the measures to ensure infection control, to prevent further spread and such issues. So that we have one of the aim of our interventions that we need to have a proper guideline in place and a policy in place that will guide implementation of the mandatory quarantine process such that and the importance of this is the rights of people because people who are in quarantine also still have rights, the rights are respected. So if this happens within a proper framework, then the likelihood that their rights will be guaranteed and respected are higher than if it's it's conducted in a half hazard and uncoordinated manner. So some of these concerns are simply fashion. So at one point, the current mandatory quarantine for people who are in quarantine right now was extended by a further 14 days. So most of them had planned to stay in quarantine for 14 days, but later on the government issued a circular that this has to be extended for a further 14 days because they were not sure that some might have come in contact with people who are tested for COVID positive. So whereas the people who are in quarantine are not contesting them being in further quarantine, they were just concerned about how this information was being shared, that they were just hearing from this or about this from the media just like the rest of us and they are the main affected people. They were concerned about the further costs of the extra 14 days given that all of them have to pay for their bills. They were concerned that the longer they stay in quarantine and if the conditions are not improved, the management is not good. They are even risking it's it's it's for them they were saying this it becomes more that chance that you infected while in quarantine become higher as opposed to you being outside of which that should not be the case. So some of them also had concerns about the mental health saying yeah we need we need we need we need the mental health of everybody who is isolation to be taken care of and of course now the other main important bit being about the had concerns around the testing. So testing the concern was that testing they were they were delays in getting testing results. So for them they were saying if we are going to get out of here we need testing to be very prompt and results to come promptly not to be delayed by the time the results are marked things have changed and all that and also that if there are any extensions of mandatory quarantine it should affect people who have been in close contact of those who have turned COVID positive. Yeah so that was that and not a blanket extension for everybody. So just they get it in place measures to closely monitor everybody so that they're able to tell who has come in contact with a person who has tested positive, who has gone who has tested negative and has been quarantined through following all the quarantine procedures and should be discharged. Yeah so that was those were the main concerns. So for now they're saying that the concern has been if this continues this way it might be an indefinite quarantine of which it should not. The purpose is to monitor the health and ensure somebody comes out negative and if you are positive you are treated and taken for treatment so those are some of the concerns here. I imagine the grievances for lack of a better word that I've been hearing from people on the ground who are practicing self-isolation or they're staying at home is especially people with very large families are not okay you know all the kids are home all the grown-ups are home so it's a bit strenuous on them as a family with their own resources at home so I can only imagine now incurring other costs while somewhere else and it is not of your own volition it is mandatory and you can't really refuse because you know it's it's healthy it's it's good like you must be quarantined to make sure that you're not a threat to anybody else and as I am seeing it quarantine doesn't mean that you have tested positive for COVID-19 it means either you are suspected or you're displaying such symptoms so when you're placed in quarantine you might actually have a risk of of getting cross-contamination or however they put it but now translating to what the government said they said they'll have a method or a way to conduct mass testing very soon in a few weeks or I'm not to show in a few days but what does that mean for us when we now begin mass testing is it are we going to be all mass quarantined are we going to have the same kind of problems but now at a horrible blown up level that what what do we expect thank you so with them with with with them with COVID the message from the government that we need to isolate themselves if you display or to avoid social places and all these issues so with the mandatory quarantine program mostly it targets people who are suspected to have come in close contact with a person who has tested tested COVID positive so these maybe those who will go into quarantine are people for example in a household if one person tests positive then maybe the others need to be taken to mandatory quarantine but that's that should not I think the mandatory quarantine it should not be like that the routine so if these people have a way of self isolating in their homes also the guidelines allow for that that you can have self isolation in your in your house you can quarantine yourself in a facility in in in any other place so the instances where the mandatory quarantine comes in is in extreme we can say we can say should be as an extreme nation and who no longer who cannot self isolate here they have come in close contact we need to closely monitor them and and search issues and it can only happen at a certain facility so those are there so maybe we should not have concerns that with mass testing then everybody will have to be taken to quarantine facilities no the message be you are already isolating yourself at home so if the mass testing happens people some close contacts are found to be positive those who are have come into contact with them they encourage to self isolate and they if we can show that there is their measures within which to self isolate then that that one proceeds so so those are the concerns but of course those are good those are good questions that you are raising so from a citizen's point of view what would be asking the government is how many for example quarantine facilities are there if i'm taken to a quarantine facility what should i expect there so for instance i pay for my cost why why is the government not pay for my cost will i be given food will there be good hygiene will there be water how many times will i be tested at the quarantine facility many care workers are in these quarantine facilities so what's the difference between a quarantine facility and my home for instance if i am able to to self isolate in in my home what are the measures like are the health care workers in their quarantine facilities do they have adequate protective protective equipment or the protective gear that they've been talking about if it's hotel staff are they also protected so some of those are some of the questions so for instance if so if i have a pre-existing condition say cancer hiv tb and i'm in this quarantine facility how will that be taken care of so those those those are the those are the legitimate questions that we are asking right now that the government proactively shares with the people people are well prepared people know that it's only at this instance that i might i will be required to go to mandatory uh current it's actions that are available uh self isolation uh isolation at a health facility for example mother so all these people should have all the information about all these options that are there so those those are some of the things and our messaging what we in advocating for is that the government needs to take up this responsibility it needs to proactively share the information and because quarantine is being undertaken as a public health measure to protect the entire public we should support people who are in quarantine and not create an extra burden to them for instance through the costs through putting them in some deplorable conditions no let's take let's us as a government take responsibility for them because if when they come out negative it's a win it's a win for for all of us as a country and for that for the person and we should ensure that we are providing maximum support to to to to to them so yes so that's that's what i was saying it's like you heard because the next question i was going to ask you is what maybe do you think the government should do but i i like that i like the keeping open communication making sure that the facilities are you know habitable for the time that quarantine is necessary but i have a question for you maybe in conclusion there is a very very large number of canyons who live below the poverty line you know and self isolation means no food that day because you know it's it's they largely rely on their hands or movement or things like this basic basic things and i'm not speaking french this is something that we know we are canyons in canya right so what does that mean for maybe someone like me if i stay in the home then i don't i don't get to trade i won't get to eat that day but now you want me to self isolate or self quarantine or even worse now you're telling me mandatory quarantine how can we convince or how can we cater for the destitute because they exist this is a very real problem yes yes very very true and yes and that's another messaging that we've been trying to encourage that the measures that are put in place have to look into all the existing conditions that are there it has to cater for everybody it has to cater for for the vulnerable the marginalized people in informal settlements people everywhere everybody so people with great existing conditions so everybody must be catered for in these in these policies or guidelines that are there and in implementation of the guidelines it should not be blanket it should we should be looking for case by case basis so the main thing that has to be out is this information these guidelines around the quarantine what's what's what's what's in what's this quarantine that we are talking about and at what point does somebody if somebody for example are required to be in quarantine and if we are having this so now my name my other message the the issue of supporting the people everybody to be supported so for instance you will not everybody cannot pay pay for for for the quarantine and if we continue saying that we these quarantine facilities you have to pay for you to be accommodated there then there's a very big population that will not be able to afford the quarantine and it's not for there it's not just about them it's it's us as a country we are fighting this pandemic together so we need to have in place mechanisms that ensure that everybody in mandatory quarantine whether it's a mandatory quarantine whether it's a self-isolation whether it's a near the quarantine program that their needs are met that they are properly catered for cost wise hygiene wise food wise and all their needs are met and that we are not violating their rights by having them in quarantine people people should not fear they should know that this is a beneficial program for me I should not be thinking that are being taken to quarantine is a punishment no it's not a punishment you're not you're not a criminal in any way you are the objective is a public health objective to ensure your health and the health of the society but if we pass a message in as if this is a criminalized issue it's a form of punishment it's some punitive measure then that is the time that you now have experiencing challenges people are daring to for example what is now introduced so that is that is the main messaging and supporting everybody regardless of their of the of their status just following the constitutional principles and discrimination protection and rights dignity health and and all that yes what can I do what can I do as an individual to maybe I don't know help the process get information going I believe everyone has a part to play what do you suggest that I can do to help in this particular situation that we are highlighting thank you so I will say as as as individuals at the community we should not we should always be proactive in pushing the government to do the right thing we should not stay back and just let things happen seem something may be going wrong and saying hey let's not speak about it because it's a hard time for everyone now we have these rights to ask the right questions to ask that proper measures are put in place because if it becomes a bigger issue we want everybody to be we want everybody to be protected we don't want we which it is not a time to say hey let those deal with us to speak up push for information support wherever we can and provide the right information to the to the public about what is happening around the programs okay thank you so very much for the riveting conversation I think I've learned a lot and the viewers at home have as well and I believe we shall overcome and wash your hands thanks all right thank you so very much by in the morning viewers we just had a conversation with timothy and we're talking about quarantine and those who are already currently in mandatory quarantine their grievances and maybe possible solutions so what we are going to do is going to take a short musical break and then we'll be back with interview number two you don't want to miss it


Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners, thanks to all of you including John Atwood, Pat, and DeGrasia A. Daniels. Coming up on DTNS, why can't our phones be actually waterproof, YouTube's new tools to fight comment spam, and channel imitators and third-party payments come to the Apple Store in Korea. This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, June 30th, 2022 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. From Austin, Texas, I'm Justin Robert Young. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Jim. I am ready to figure out why I can't throw my phone in a bathtub full of water. But first, let's start with a few tech things you should know. ARM announced its latest CPU core designs, the high-performance Cortex-X3 and medium-core Cortex-A715. ARM's proposed design for socks would have one Cortex-X3 core, three A715 cores, and four efficiency Cortex-A510 cores. ARM says the X3 will offer 25% better performance than the outgoing X2, with the A715 offering performance like the Cortex-X1 core from 2020 with 20% more energy efficiency and 5% better performance than the outgoing A710. The A715 drops 32-bit support, meaning flagship systems on chips based on ARM's reference design would be 64-bit only. The NFT marketplace OpenC warned users that a staffer at the email vendor customer.io misused employee access to download and share email addresses of its users to an unauthorized third party. OpenC said that if you ever shared an email with it in the past, quote, you should assume that you've been impacted. Customer.io said it did not believe any other client data has been compromised. Samsung began mass producing chips using its 3nm process, reaching production ahead of rival TSMC. Samsung said the process reduces power usage by 45% and improves performance by 23% compared to its 5nm process. No word on which customer will receive these initial chips. Samsung says they were for a high performance, low power computing application. Google is updating the Chrome password manager so that it syncs with Android password manager. There will now be a single page to manage both at passwords.google. And Google's switch to Android app for iOS now works for all Android 12 phones, not just the Pixel. Researchers at Lumen Technologies Black Lotus Labs detailed a highly sophisticated custom built malware called ZuoRat. Infecting small office and home routers from Cisco, Netgear, Asus, and Dreitech. Once infected, ZuoRat finds all connected devices with the threat actor using DNS and HTTP hijacking to install other malware on. With custom malware able to target Windows, Linux, and macOS. Researchers say ZuoRat's structure appears intentionally complex, combined with being highly targeted against U.S. and Western European organizations. It indicates the capabilities of a state-sponsored actor. So, as always, make sure you're up to date on your patches and if you're infected, reboot your machine. If you reboot the router, that'll get rid of the malware, though a full factory reset is recommended for full recovery. All right, Justin, tell us what is up with Apple. Oh, that rascally company, Apple. Well, they have another policy proposal for allowing third-party payments on iOS apps. So, to catch you up, Apple is facing various pressures to allow third-party payments for apps in its iOS app store. In the U.S., a court ruled that Apple had to allow, quote, buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchase mechanisms. The wording on that is vague, and the final word on it is yet to come as Apple appealed that part of the case, and it was now granted a stay on implementing it back on December 8th. Apple has been in a back-and-forth with Dutch regulators about allowing dating apps to use the third-party payment system. Apple gives those developers a 3% discount on app store fees, so they still have to pay Apple's 27% or 12% depending on where they fall in the policy. But the biggest effort comes to us from South Korea, which passed a law last August aimed at Google, but requires all mobile app stores of a certain size to allow third-party payment systems, which pretty much brings us up to now, right, Tom? Yeah, Apple announced Thursday its latest proposed policy that allows Korean app store apps to implement third-party payment. A developer who wants to take advantage of that must fill out a form and the payment processors must meet certain criteria for reliability. Apple recommends that you use one of the following, like, whitelisted companies, KCP, InSice, TOS, and NICE as pre-approved payment processors that will pass inspection. If you implement a third-party system, you cannot also offer Apple's in-app systems. You have to choose. There's also some language that must show up in the app advising users they are not using Apple's system, so some features like family sharing aren't going to work if you use a third-party payment processor. And developers have to agree that they will handle all requests for refunds and subscription management. A new binary must be submitted for distribution in the Korean store, which is similar to what they did for the Dutch dating apps as well. And developers get a little more discount in Korea than they do in the Netherlands, 4% off of payments. But that means if they would normally give Apple 30% of their cut, if they use the third-party payment system, they give Apple 26%. And we should know that this policy must be approved by the Korean Communication Commission, the KCC, which previously expressed criticism at Apple for still keeping such a large portion of payments. Yeah, so I mean, this is just kind of an update for everybody if you're wondering, like, okay, so where are we with Apple allowing third-party payments? How's it going to work? You know, now that we've seen the Netherlands system, which is limited to just the dating apps because there's some quirks in the way they're applying regulatory frameworks there. But we're also seeing the Korean one, and it's going to be somewhere around 26 to 27%. You still have to pay Apple in order to be listed in the store. And then this white listing of payment processors I think is probably a smart way to go about that to say, like, we want to make sure we're regulating these to be reliable ways of paying because people are going to complain to Apple no matter what. So here are some ones we know meet our criteria. Not only meet our criteria, but I believe we are seeing the future of where this problem is going to go for them. Sure, you can use a third-party payment system, but we're going to discourage you against rolling your own so you can keep an even larger share of the profits and we are going to recommend that you use these trusted vendors. At that point, I would not be shocked considering Apple is making sure that you know that there are certain ancillary features that you will not get access to if you don't use Apple's own proprietary system. Wouldn't be shocked if going forward that maybe these trusted vendors make another deal with Apple so you can include more of these kinds of features when you use them if you want to use them. I think this is Apple shoring up their ability that they still would be able to to wet their beak, so to speak. Yeah, I think to a certain extent it's justified for Apple to say we are operating the App Store. We don't charge a listing fee for that. So this is the way we have chosen to recover the cost because we let people list for free. We're going to take a chunk. You can argue whether it should be 30%, 15%, 26%. Those numbers, that's up for argument. But yeah, this is the route they've chosen to fund development of the App Store. And of course, there's no way that they are going to make any move on this until they absolutely legally have to because they know exactly what the law is country by country. And they are going to work their best magic around that law. And it just makes sense for them to do so. Oh man, wouldn't it be something though if Apple just said, you know what, we're tired. We're tired of fighting. Like they would wait for all the legal processes to play out, but if they were just like, we're just going to make a new policy for everybody. Here you go. Sorry, everybody. Yeah, but every second they wait, that sweet 30% cut just keeps on coming in, keeps on coming in. What if they start to realize though that like, oh wait, if we let Netflix do this and we give them 20%, then we get the Netflix money, which we're not getting any of right now. Well, that I think is probably continuing to be figured out. Yeah. Well, YouTube announced some new policies to try to fight comment spam and channel imitators. Comment spam is going to get combated by letting creators select increase strictness. This isn't even a new option. It's a check mark under the existing option hold all potentially inappropriate comments for review. So right now you can either just let everything go up, which, you know, if your channel of a certain size is a recipe for disaster, you can say let the AI determine what might be a problem based on some things that it knows and to hold those for me to review, but let the stuff that's okay go up. Although that will allow some inappropriate stuff through.  Or you can just stop comments from going up altogether and hold them all for review. Turn them off altogether. What do you think of this part before we get to the channel stuff? I actually think that it's, I mean, it's an interesting way for them to solve that. Obviously YouTube is a user base that is wide and varied. And so they need to keep their solutions as simple as possible. But man, I actually in reading this was thinking, I would love to see more control in granularity of how you control your comments. I think it would be it would behoove the YouTube community if on your channel you could do a video that says hey from here on out we're only going to do or maybe video by video. I'm only going to do five word comments on this because if people want to say something that's a that is a bumper sticker length, then that's that's that is what it is. But if you want to say something more, we're going to encourage you to go to our discord, for example, I think that there's there's a real opportunity here to help you mold your community in those comments. Yeah, there's some some fine tuning that they could offer. I think what YouTube's trying to do though is keep it really, really simple. Yes. You know, just just just keep it so that you don't have to think about it a lot, which is why this is comically a check mark of like, I don't know hold some stuff, maybe hold more stuff because stuff's coming through so I like that they're keeping it simple. But honestly, this is the old Apple versus Microsoft approach argument, right? Microsoft says, well, let it be simple if you want, but we'll give you the tools to make it complicated underneath whereas Apple just has, you know, historically walled you off and said, we're just going to make it simple and you don't need to make it complicated. Unless you want to go into the, you know, terminal and start doing things there. But you want to know what I would almost say in the world of of community of digital community, then this is, you know, a Twitter versus Reddit or something like that. Reddit offers a lot of moderation tools. You can communicate both that are policed by mods and that are done automatically. And I think YouTube, look, they are of a certain size and creators have built communities that deserve those those those tools in mind. No, that's a good, that's a good allegory. Thanks. Thank you for bringing the allegory into the 21st century. Yeah. All right, let's talk about the channel thing as of July 29 channels will not be allowed to hide their subscriber counts. Now YouTube acknowledged in the in the post about this that some smaller channels hide their subscriber accounts so they don't look unpopular because if people don't know then they may be more likely to subscribe. But scammers and imitators use that to their advantage too. So they try to trick viewers into thinking they're a larger channel. Often what they'll do is use similar characters. And so YouTube is reducing the character set you can use as well. So they, you know, if they wanted to pretend to be YouTube itself, they might use the yen character because it looks like a wine. If somebody's not paying attention, they click on it and then they create a channel that looks like the channel they're trying to imitate. But you wouldn't be able to tell it's not now with high with subscriber counts front and center. You'll see wait a minute the channel out the beast channel I was Mr. Beast channel I was trying to go to. I know has millions of subscribers. This one only has six. Maybe I'm at the wrong place. I think it's a smart idea. Well, folks, what do you want to hear us talk about on the show? One way to let us know is in our subreddit. You could submit stories and vote on them at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. Associate Professor Reich Cho of the CQ University in Australia has an article in the conversation called it's 2022. Why do we still not have waterproof phones? It's definitely worth a read. Smartphones have varying levels of water resistance and some of them are quite impressive. But they aren't waterproof. Waterproof means water can't get in. You've likely heard phones described as being IP 69 water and dust resistant or some such thing. But Tom, what are those numbers mean? Yeah, so the IP in this case does not stand for intellectual property. It stands for ingress protection rating. It's overseen by the International Electrotechnical Commission, the IEC. That is a standards commission. It's been around since 1908. So like IEEE or ISO, if you're familiar with those, it's made up of companies, governments, users, unions, a bunch of other people, simply to make things easy for everybody to be on the same page. Each IP rating has two numbers like you heard IP 68, for example. The first is rating of protection against solids. So if you see IP 68, the six is for dust. The second number is the rating against water. Solid rating goes from one to six. Water rating goes from one to nine. So IP 68 would mean it's dust tight and almost water tight. The example that Justin gave is the max you could do. IP 69 means it's dust tight and water tight. The eight rating for water means it can withstand continuous immersion, but maybe not high pressure jets of water. Nine is protected against, you know, hitting it with a power cleanser. But Samsung phones are certified IP 68, yet they got fined in Australia last week for over-promising water resistance. What was that about? Yeah, so there's some caveats around the eight. In Samsung's case, it was IP 68 up to 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes at a time. An iPhone is also IP 68, good at the eight rating for up to six meters of water for up to 30 minutes. So if you drop them in water briefly, which is 99% of these encounters, you're still probably fine. Yeah, if you drop an IP 68 phone in the toilet and grab it right away, you should be okay. But there are other considerations. So if you drop it in a pool, chlorine, if you drop it in the ocean, salt, that can corrode the exterior. It can cause damage to the phone, especially the charging port. If you drop it in the ocean, you really need to dry it out and clean it before you try to charge it. And waterproofing materials degrade over time too. So the older a phone gets, the less waterproof it's going to be. Those seals and things just start to degrade. Also, if you dropped it and broke it, if you've cracked the screen or if you cracked the case, obviously that adds another way for water and dust to get in. All right, I think I get the rating system now. But let's go back to our original question. Why can't we just make these things waterproof, Tom? Yeah, yeah. So the weak points on our phone are the buttons and the ports.  The camera also, the camera casing has to be watertight and dust tight. Depending on what you're sealing, you might use glue, adhesive strips, tape, silicone, rubber seals. And then a lot of companies are starting to do a polymer coating added to the circuit board. So if a little water does get in, it keeps it off of the circuit board. It repels it from there. A company is developing a process for that that injects an insulator into smaller devices like the Apple Watch and the Fitbit. They don't quite have that process for the bigger stuff. But all of that adds cost. Adding all those seals adds cost to the production. In fact, Xiaomi co-founder Lee June once estimated, like back in 2016, that making a Xiaomi phone waterproof added 20 to 30% to the cost. So Professor Chu notes that there are some new methods that might make it easier to waterproof the phone. A coating similar to the one applied to circuit boards might be added to the outside of the phone. This would have to be more durable since it was the subject to the wear and tear of you touching it in the way that circuit boards are not. And circuit boards could be made on waterproof silicone, therefore obviously making them more waterproof. Yeah. PZ Milesi in the chat points out that Samsung mostly got the attention and therefore eventually the fine because they were IP68 is accurate. It's okay. And they had the information about this many minutes, this amount of water, but they were showing people swimming and surfing in their advertising. And like I mentioned, ocean water can corrode that port and they were properly disclosing that. So there's a lot that goes into this. It really is something where if you're going to have a way to get into the phone with a jack or a port, it makes it more expensive and harder to waterproof it, which is another reason why I know Apple is kind of pursuing that portless future, right? No buttons, no ports, makes it easy to make it waterproof. You know, it did make me reflect at how far we have come in the waterproofing or water resistance that we do have now. There was certainly a time where at any moment that I might have fallen into a pool with my phone, it would have immediately gone in the bag of rice, however apocryphal that solution is. But now if I go out paddle boarding on Lady Bird Lake, I'll often just keep my phone in my pocket, where I know I might fall in, but I'm not really worried about it. Yeah. I remember sitting in a pool a few years ago and realizing my phone was in my pocket and just giving up, like not even bothering taking it out and throwing in the rice. Like, no, it's done. And that was back before waterproofing. Things were a little water resistant, but maybe we're talking five, not even eight. These days it does feel like, yeah, you can splash it, you can drop it in water. If you grab it real quick, it's going to be fine. I think we've made a lot of progress, but I think a lot of people are like, yeah, but don't we have the ability to just seal this stuff off? And we do. It just would make your phone really expensive. And so, you know, companies are trying to balance that out. Not to mention like it makes it harder to repair to go through all that stuff. I don't think the companies care so much about that, but that's another part of this too. Yeah. Maybe one day. Maybe one day. Maybe one day. One day we're going to have robot umpires. That would be umpires that are actually robots. That day is not coming soon, but a lot of people use the term robot umpires to refer to using algorithms to aid in calling balls and strikes. We talked about this on May 31st on the show. We'll have a link to that show in the show notes if you want to get the full discussion about how that all works. But we have an update. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred told ESPN this week that he wants the automated ball strike system, as they call it, implemented in 2024. So he's got to get the players on board. He's got to get the fans on board. He's got two years to do it. A fully automated system would, if you didn't listen to that May 31st show, send the call to the umpire over an iPhone. And then he would say it out loud. They're trying that in the minor leagues right now. They might do it that way in Major League Baseball, but the Verge pointed out the other option they have would be to make it an appealable thing. So the humans would keep calling balls and strikes, but you would have a certain number of challenges every game to say, I think that was outside and then the algorithm would weigh in and have the final word. And that's effectively what they do in tennis, right? Like that is called by a line judge and then you can appeal that and then they will show the motion graphic of exactly where the computer said it hit, which I think is good.  It's this league, man. They love doing things about five, six years after it would have made sense to really do it when people were paying attention.  I am not a big fan of the why didn't you do this before criticism because it usually comes when they've done something. You know, and it's like, well, they're doing it now. Okay, they didn't do it before. The past is the past. I go all Mark McGuire on it, but, but I do like this.  I know some people argue like, oh, it's the beauty of the game. You get used to the empire and everybody's on the same page. Hey, how about this? How about if everybody's on the same page all the time at every game? I'm not going to rule out the fact that different stadiums, even if it's just psychological, not real, might be perceived as having different strike zones. It goes guarantee you that's going to happen. Well, that strike zone at Coors Field is a little wider. But it would be great if you didn't have to guess every time, like who's behind the plate? I do think it would regulate the umpire strike zone into something a little bit more normal if they knew they were going to be embarrassed by a challenge call. It's actually an interesting strategy thing. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. At our mail bag. Big Jim, the trade nerd, wrote some excellent additional insight in our discord related to the story on shipping from Bloomberg that we talked about on Wednesday. Jim writes regarding security risks. Some of the top ocean lines in your company are working to try to secure their internal networks, including shipboard operations. However, the majority of those ocean providers that we have now are using least vessels and those least charter operations do not necessarily follow the direct guidelines as an owner vessel by the carrier. There's also a question of which standards are they supposed to follow outside the country's waters when it comes to specific lockdown of data. The WTO statement and their guidelines are very basic at best. The World Shipping Council has advised stringent requirements that go beyond the WTO requirements and I would expect that those are going to be more likely followed as it is a US and European group. Now, couple this with the current labor negotiations going on on the West Coast, round negotiations breaking down across the United States, a backlog of cargo that needs to move inland so much so that certain container ports have an excess of five to 10,000 containers that cannot move inland because of shortages of various types mixing in a hint of hacker and you've got a wonderful recipe for disaster. But hey, who knows? Just my two cents. That was a good imitation of Big Jim's. That's just my two cents there at the end. Thank you, Jim. He wrote all that and more in the general channel of the DTS Discord if you want to go and read that and ask him some questions about it too. I'm sure he'd be happy to answer. Also, Bodie, who has his own kilowatt podcast about electric vehicles, loved the discussion on the cost of electric vehicles. We had a Monday show, wrote earlier this month, Ford's president and CEO Jim Farley was interviewed at the Bernstein 38th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference. Farley thinks that we're going to see a price war in the EV space at the $25,000 price point with a vehicle build around $18,000. Ford and other automakers will compete on the initial price on the vehicle but use a form of shared vehicle ownership and software upgrades and or services to sweeten their profits. If you don't know what that means, shared vehicle doesn't mean you like you and five people own it. It's kind of like what Tesla does with their full self-driving where you pay $12,000 to access the feature enhanced autopilot just came back for $6,000. Bodie says, I was pleased to hear Sarah Rich and Roger talk about the Chevy Bolt as an alternative to more expensive EVs. The Bolt is a good offering and with the 2023 Chevy Bolt having an estimated range of 259 miles and an MSRP of $25,600, this would be a pretty sweet option for someone wanting to get into an EV without paying a ton of money. Having said all that, if the Bolt doesn't light your fire, Bodie's got two other EVs in the $25,000 to $30,000 price range for you to consider the 2002 or the 2022, not 2002. 2022 Nissan Leaf S range of 149 miles, MSRP of $27,800 and the 2023 Mini Cooper will have a very modest range of 110 miles but if you just need to get around town, that's plenty and cost you $30,750 according to car and driver. Thank you, Bodie, for that. Appreciate the extra info. Thanks, Boats. Yeah, and I really needed to get below $20,000 myself. I thought about buying a used leaf because I could get it for below $20,000 but then I read that some of those older leafs that you buy used, you know, had battery issues and when you're buying them used, the battery's already old so if they're going to have battery issues it's more likely. And so I'm waiting for a car that's below $20,000 new. Well, actually these days I'll just buy it new because used cars are right now more expensive than new cars. But yeah, if we ever go back to a world where used cars are cheaper then I'd buy the cheaper one. Maybe one day, Tom. Maybe one day. Justin, I would normally let you talk about something you've got going on but do you mind if I say something I've got going on first? Do go, sir. This was partially named by you. It was a brainstorming session with you where we came up with the name A Word with Tom Merritt. I'm going to do a talk show. It's me and a guest using a single word to launch a conversation about how we think about the world. Not what we think. This isn't a deep dive explanation. This is a conversation about how do we deal with all the information out there. My first guest will be tomorrow Andrew Heaton talking about the word tribalism and you can go subscribe to it in all of your favorite podcast apps or go directly to a wordpodcast.com. That is a wordpodcast.com. Go check it out. Let me know what you think. Two of my favorite erudite tall bearded co-hosts. You and... I promise that the guests will get progressively less like me as the show continues. Speaking of Andrew Heaton, he's also on a show that I do. He is a permanent co-host on We're Not Wrong featuring myself and Jen Briney in the episode that just came out today. We talk about the idea of the illegitimate Supreme Court, the testimony in the January 6th hearings, and the summer of pain at the airport and whether or not we are going to see airline CEOs in front of Congress before the end of the summer, something that you might want to listen to when you're delayed at an airport during July 4th weekend, which is coming up. We are not wrong available anywhere you get podcasts. Bring the pain on, indeed. Hey, big thanks to our brand new boss, Rick, who just started backing us on Patreon. Thank you, Rick. Oh, geez, Rick. Oh, geez, Rick. Maybe Morty will be tomorrow. But for now, we're very happy to have Rick. Thank you, Rick. If you're Morty or someone else, go back as patreon.com. And you could be featured on tomorrow's show as well as get all the perks and cool things that come with getting the patron, including like a direct feed. I had an editor's desk today for the folks at the associate producer level and up talking about my new mixer and all that sort of stuff. You also get Good Day Internet, a longer version of the show, available at patreon.com. We are live Monday through Friday, 4 p.m. Eastern, 200 UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com. Back tomorrow with Patrick Norton and Len Peralta illustrating. Good to have him back. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.