coming up on tech news today uber officially gets its new CEO AI assistants are beginning to speak each other’s language Samsung’s new gear sports SmartWatch is unveiled and we take a closer look at what Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods could mean for employees and customers alike all that more coming up next on tech news today this is trees bandwidth for tech news today is provided by cash fly at CA CH e FL y com [Music] this is tech news today episode 1843 recorded Wednesday August 30th 2017 this episode of tech news today is brought to you by grasshoppers stay connected and running business from your mobile phone with grasshopper to save $50 on your order visit try grasshopper comm slash twit hello this is the show I wasn’t saying hi to you oh talking to them sorry I misunderstood okay well high-tech news today the stuff you might have missed or the stuff that you already heard about and you want to hear about again yeah I get Maroni because I’m Jason Howell and we’re gonna dive deep yeah that’s why I even heard of it before but we’re gonna dive deeper than you heard of it we add the bling to the tech news yeah Tim’s ubers board of directors I like that that’s that’s nice Uber’s Board of Directors voted and and we got a facepalm from Burke so we know we did something right I voted unanimously for Daraa Kasbah Shahi long standing CEO of Expedia to be its new CEO last night the decision came after the board spent a grueling 72 hours interviewing a few few different people as options HP’s CEO Meg Whitman GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt and of course Cosmo Shahi and weighing all options and melt dropped out of the consideration on Sunday Whitman apparently tried to push for more control which would effectively have limited Travis kolonics involvement and that ultimately sidelined her in favor of Cosmo Shahi who was eventually picked unanimously Callanetics statement wishes the new CEO well saying that casting his vote was quote a big moment for me and I couldn’t be happier to pass the torch to such an inspiring leader that was noble of him yes yeah and they had he’s on the board so he also yeah right voted obviously yeah but they had an all-hands meeting and they were both there they took a selfie with Arianna Huffington they’re all besties now oh he’s gonna start September 5th cause roshani cause for Shaw he and he says he said in All Hands meeting they’ll they’ll be an IPO IPO within 18 18 between 18 and 36 months and Kara Swisher was there at the All Hands meeting live tweeting it as she does and she her take was that the reason they chose him is that he was going to be the only one that’s gonna be able to stand up to Callen ik and the board oh just because I mean because Callen dicks made these like overtures of like I’m gonna be the next Steve Joffe back and and you know he’s not that’s basically that sort of founder myth is really different Steve Jobs is not I know Steve Jobs and you are no Steve Jobs mr. Connick you’re friends with Steve Jobs I’m not and I and I wasn’t when he was alive either but I wish and I sometimes dream that we were friends yeah I can understand that he was a visionary that’s for sure Kalen ik I mean you know he built up Ober to what it is it’s just you know along the way made some bad decisions and that’s why he is where he is apparently meg Whitman was the forerunner like there were rumors I think last month that Meg Whitman might be the pick for this and she ended up kind of shooting down those rumors on Twitter saying yeah you know putting putting it to bed essentially but then got pulled back in and went for it really hard and and ultimately you know it like I said it was kind of her decision to double down and to say hey I want more control Travis should be less involved with uber as a result and that was the deciding thing that made the board kind of be like yeah we don’t know if you know how comfortable we are with that and the focus turned to cause for shahi and the board really wanted to bottle up that news and not let it get out they felt like they owed it to her employees to keep it inside until Kasbah shahi actually accepted and everything and of course like minutes after that meeting happened on Monday the news leaked and you know so good luck on that one because it never stays for very long no I mean it you’re very nice to say that Kalen ik made some bad decisions because what he did was create an incredibly toxic culture for sure that took a company that really disrupted something that needed disruption and changed the world and you know he ran roughshod over laws just like horrible things you know just just knowing that someone had they they you know the the woman in India who had been raped someone had her medical records he knew about that he didn’t do anything about it so it’s just I I hope that they can come back but again like I’m using lifts from for the foreseeable future and good luck to you cause Raja he good luck to you yeah I mean honestly everything that I read he wrote a very candid letter to his employees at Expedia he said in the email he said that he’s scared from the perspective that he’s been with Expedia for so long that he doesn’t know what it’s like outside of that place but that you know and we hear this time time again the growth comes from those uncomfortable situations putting yourself in a new situation and you know the transition like that can be very good for a person and when you read through the email like it humanizes him had to to another level at least it did for me it made me really feel like uber needed a level-headed grown-up in this role and it really seems like he is that so I’m very curious to see what he can do for the company I think he’s a good pick and here’s a weird thing and maybe I just didn’t read the most recent news but and this also came from Karis was sure that they said at the All Hands meeting that you know he’s leaving Expedia to come here but then there’s been no actual official indication that he’s leaving Expedia like that hasn’t like he has taken the job as CEO of uber but but there’s been no announcement from Expedia that he’s leaving there so is he going to do like a you know a Twitter thing where Jack Dorsey is the CEO of Twitter and square no because actually shortly before we came to the show Expedia did announce a new CEO their CFO mark auger strim up is now the CEO of the company so that’s not going to happen I don’t know if he would have any other involvement outside of that but I think pretty much is his primary thing going forward this is super cuz usually I have this like um right into my vein Twitter yeah but I turned turned it off right before the show so yeah I try and do that too yeah everyone should turn off their there okay you know that ancient proverb the enemy of my enemy is my friends mm-hmm ironically Syria’s never heard it and she better watch out because after a year of coordination Microsoft and Amazon have formed a partnership that will allow Cortana and the Amazon echo to work together in perfect digital assistant harmony or something like that later this year the collaboration will allow you to access Amazon voice services via Cortana on Windows 10 pcs Android and iOS will come in the future you’ll also be able to access Cortana on your Amazon echo your echo dot or your echo show so if you depend on Cortana and you also have an echo this is great news and if you depend on Cortana please email me at Megan on Twitter on TV because I’ve never met someone who depends on Cortana oh yeah I mean it sounds great I’ve used her on my iOS device Padre he was a big I mean granted not a big digital assistant user but he hates Cortana yesterday in her office he called her bossy and I got upset because I was like would you call Siri bossy like you know would you call big speed bossy that was the question cuz Bixby’s the only male assistant and his answer was who’s Bixby so not much help there are things that Cortana does you know help you if you use if you’re in the Microsoft ecosystem and you have all your appointments and all your mail is in an Outlook and she’s gonna allegedly like bring all that up and you know if you you have Cortana that you use on your mobile device and then you’ll be able to have all that at you know be able to access that on your echo show at home I’m wondering what kind of integration we’ll have with the echo show which Australis really has a screen will I be able to like flip through my my Outlook email yeah hey hey echo tell Cortana that I need is that how this works it’s gonna get really noisy and really confusing very quick I mean I think interoperability is a really good thing when it and especially as this whole kind of aspect of technology is building out and getting more popular and all these devices like it’s already so splintered right there’s already so many different players in the game so making them interoperable on one hand makes a whole lot of sense but on the other hand it just kind of feels a little confusing – granted there are things that each of them are very good at you know that each of them have certain strengths echo feel like is really good at shopping also very good for home control assistance really good for search Siri is good for I mean what would you say Apple things here a certain song series good for playing a song at Apple music she can read my eye messages read my emails you know the series series like that that vein that direct vein into Apple control Cortana you know I suppose the same could be said for Microsoft so they have strengths individually and interoperability makes sense from that perspective because then you can use each of them for their individual strengths but I have man there’s also a lot of overlap right there’s also a lot of things that assistant does or that the Google home does that Amazon echo also does as far as home control is concerned so then as the consumer I have to figure out like well what am I using which one for out of the same device maybe it’ll become clearer at some point but at least right now it feels like it could potentially be kind of confusing and muddy yeah I mean we have like we have the echo show and the Amazon echo both in the kitchen and then it’s like which do I use those for its can rising I mean this makes sense because I think Bezos and Nadella just decided you know what we’re stronger together than we are apart this is I mean if I had to guess they didn’t they didn’t they didn’t answer my phone calls but this came from such an Adela you know he’s they’re making lots of apps on iOS lots of apps on Android like he really has been changing the company into being more open so this this makes sense for them I mean wouldn’t it be great if you know Google assistant would work better on my iPhone or you know wouldn’t it be great if they really had that kind of integration but it’s it makes sense for Microsoft and Amazon to team up against Google and Apple alone you know but it doesn’t make sense ever for Google and Apple to team up against them right now it doesn’t yeah Google and Apple I don’t see that happening I could maybe see Google opening up assistant API to to allow for more of this down the line Google’s of you know while Google prides itself in being an open company as far as that’s concerned so I could kind of see that I had a really hard time seeing Apple playing that game but hey companies can change just like people can change I suppose yeah anything’s possible there yeah but my favorite is my favorite assistant is Google assistant which I use on the iPhone and I don’t I mean I don’t know if it’s because I think the breadth of knowledge the things that it knows about me and I just really like the interface it feels like we’re chatting yeah yeah yeah what agree like a bottle of fine wine Samsung gave the note eight a week to open up before announcing a few new wearable devices by the way if you give your bottle of wine a week to open up it’s not good anymore that sort of thing the gear sport is a sporty-er iteration of the successful gear s3 with a round 1.2 inch display Megan also Bixby integration and a rotating bezel for navigation through the Tizen operating system that rotating bezel has been a key feature of the previous model of this watch and a big reason why people actually love it a lot as a fitness device it has an improved continuous heart rate monitoring system automated activity tracking water proofing of course and four gigs of on-board storage capacity for storing music directly to the watch and they also actually announced an updated gear fit the gear fit 2 Pro which is kind of the smaller kind of rectangle Ong rectangular lightweight fitness tracker without a lot of the SmartWatch functionality I’m gonna say something crazy are you ready you don’t like rounds around smartwatches no I like this round smart one I think it does the round things like my problem with the it’s not like I don’t like round watches Brown watches are lovely it’s just that when the old ones they had they looked like a smartphone and then they had the flat tire thing and things were cut off everything was supposed to fit in that square but I think what they’re doing here with the it’s called the Samsung Sport what is it called that the note sport Sport I like what they’re doing with around I like that round thing around what did you go rotating bezel yeah I like the rotating bezel and I like those Fitness rings that’s what the Apple watch does and I’m addicted to them so whenever I see them I think oh you got to close those rings so I like it I I think they’ve taken round to a new level say that Wow round has evolved and I’m gonna tell you something else I like about it that they they have the Fitness includes calorie counting which is an issue that I’ve had because I think like calorie counting isn’t cool anymore people don’t like to do it it’s hard and you know entering in all the food’s MyFitnessPal etc but I think it’s essential to to being healthy I think that what you eat and how much you exercise go together and you can’t do one without the other and I think it’s really important when the Apple watch it’s kind of like okay well I burned all these calories but you have no idea that you know I ate a bucket of french fries so like you’re giving me congratulations but it’s not the whole story so it looks like it is calorie counting I don’t know how they’re doing it it looks like you have to enter the number of calories so that’s never fun like trying to guess what that salad you just made yourself how many calories that is and it’s like well I must might as well you know eat some sort of food that came out of a bag because it tells me how many calories right that’s not healthy so I like this I am Pro gear sport yeah it looks nice and it’s running Tizen it’s not Android underneath which you know Samsung for the most part has moved towards Tizen they’ve found a good fit for the Tizen operating system they tried it in phones that didn’t work so hot but it really has been working for their smartwatches and allows them to kind of stand out from Android wear devices which you know some would have seen as as a feature the fact that Google locked down the Android wear interface that you you know really manufacturers could only differentiate on hardware and the software was the same Samsung can do a little bit of both they can play in both worlds and of course also tightly integrate it into its own devices which Samsung always loves to do Bixby’s on here there isn’t assistant because it’s not running Android but you do have the Bigsby assistant on here to integrate you know that experience as well so that one that we’re looking at now on the screen is gonna be about two hundred dollars yeah so this is the gear fit 2 Pro the smaller version it’s around $199 I believe we don’t have a price or availability for the gear sport but the gear s3 is around 349 gear fit 2 pros $1.99 so you know somewhere in there that’s a that’s a wide price range about $150 price range swing there but it’s somewhere in that range you I guess well people who ordered Andy Rubens essential phone are not getting their devices on time but they did get an email asking them to send their drivers license according to the verge people who replied automatically to this email sent their identification to everyone else on a large email list the verge claims that replies went back to essential not to a scammer and that it was a miss configuration on essentials part the official Twitter account earlier today said essential is looking into it but I just screw direct in the chat room a little while earlier posted a link to a note from Andy Rubin one of the most important jobs of a founder is to recognize when things aren’t going quite right and make the necessary decisions and take action to correct them before customers are impacted founders are often faced with thousands of micro decisions daily to keep their company’s laser focus on delivering products into the right markets at precisely the right time yesterday we made an error in our customer care function that resulted in personal information from approximately 70 customers so not that many but better than zero customers getting their drivers license share whether people would be better being shared with a small group of customers we’ve disabled the misconfigured account and have taken steps internally to add safeguards against this happening in the future we sincerely apologize for our error that’s nice it’s nice there’s more I’m not gonna read it all but he does it’s nice that he apologized and said nd I mean that’s no good if you sent your your driver’s license out and it got sent to a small group of people but you know people make mistakes well come yes people make mistakes companies make mistakes oneplus is another kind of upstart from a few years ago that made some very questionable marketing decisions that you know Kay consistently time and time again they had great hardware they were new to the through the industry and they had a lot of you know they made they made big claims and and purported to be able to back it up and so they had a lot of buzz around it but they made really poor marketing decisions that really offended people along the way and they had to kind of regain that trust over time and I would say at this point three four years on they really have they’ve really righted that ship and made changes to kind of improve how they do that so it’s not impossible Samsung we just saw them right the ship right like not many people are talking about the note 7 debacle not seem like a really big deal last year so there are ways to do that it’s just kind of unfortunate essential has has been since since being announced has made a decent amount of errors and you know individually they probably don’t add up to much they’re really m’lee falled into the area of making promises or making claims like we’re gonna have it shipping in 30 days and then you don’t hear anything for a month and a half or we’ve taken your credit card and we’re gonna begin shipping a week later still no shipping confirmation no word at all from essentially even though they’ve charged your credit card little things like that add up from a customer perspective and then this I mean you know I saw many comments here of people that had pre-ordered hadn’t been charged yet and they’re like yeah because if a companies you know getting this wrong then I kinda don’t think I want to support them I mean but why are they asking for driver’s license photos I don’t understand that well I mean they didn’t send it to everyone obviously there are more than 70 people who ordered the leo order he didn’t get this email that’s a really good question companies really shouldn’t do that no and I mean you know if somebody an essential should have understood that if I mean in this day and age we are so vigilant or we’re taught to be so vigilant on the emails that we receive and the information that we share via email which in many ways can be somewhat insecure you know like if you’re making that request have some really great information and maybe do it in a way that doesn’t rely on the customer to email it because that’s how these things happen in you know in a phishing attack or whatever so we’re trained to look for that set up a portal if you really have to have it set up a secure portal people type in that email that that URL address and do it securely online don’t do it through an email it’s just really weird like it’s really seems like a basic like rule that that was broken here and I don’t understand why yeah and the bummer of it was is that like people are really desperate to get this phone they really want to get it and so like that is crime like that’s why so many people thought this was a phishing email because it’s like I really want my my phone I’m gonna do I’ll send you whatever you want my firstborn child take it I want that phone with no logo on it and so yeah it doesn’t it doesn’t and to be fair it’s probably not someone it essential they it’s probably a third-party company that they you know to do shipping and all of that I’m not saying it doesn’t mean it sistent not essentials fall because they’re the ones that hired the company but it’s probably not you know like Andy Reubens assistant that sent out an email asking for you know for credit for driver’s license numbers but yeah they are by the way essential is offering anyone that was affected by this one year of life lock security and monitoring and everything so at least there’s that Andy Rubin said in the email or in the in the letter as essentials founder and CEO I’m personally responsible for this error and will try my best to not repeat it so they bought it they botched the launch of this phone like they botched it you know Leo he’s like and he doesn’t even know when it’s coming and you know it’s like okay well like there’s a you know too bad it’s fine but um yeah it’s it’s kind of sad because there are like we do want to see more people more smartphones more choices for people yeah more companies rise to the top and yes scooter X pointed out and I did read this some or that those that were contacted had some sort of an issue with a credit card not going through I’m just saying like yeah I’ve had that happen before and I’ve never been asked for a photocopy of my driver’s license so that’s weird anyways never ask no company should ever ask you for any personal information through email with like I said don’t just set up a link to go yeah something different yeah that’s just weird how they’ve approached that coming up and and as Burke said it’s a rookie move yeah coming from a non rookie by the way and Reuben anyways coming up how the Amazon acquisition of Whole Foods could affect the many workers employed by the grocery chain but first let’s take a minute to thank grasshopper they’re the sponsor of this episode of tech news today grasshopper is a virtual phone system that’s designed for entrepreneurs and grasshopper actually works just like a traditional phone system but in this case it requires no hardware purchased with their iOS and Android app callers can reach you wherever you are on your mobile phone you already have the hardware grasshopper allows you to keep your existing numbers so you can maintain your brand when you make a call your client will see your grasshopper caller ID instead of your personal phone number you simply select the toll-free or a local number you can record a custom greeting add multiple extensions for your business toll-free numbers of course when you see a toll-free number you know it’s great for marketing it makes your business sound even more professional you can do that here set up department and employee extensions with custom call forwarding to any phone in the world you can 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Paul Warner who has a PhD in clinical and industrial organizational psychology and specializes in understanding the psyche of both employees and consumers thanks for joining us Paul nice to be here thank you so you’re a consulting psychologist let’s start by can you just explain what exactly that means you know really what my role is to add some science to both the workplace and also to in trying to understand consumers as well you know if people anytime they visit a store or you know interact with a product and try to evaluate that product what we’re really trying to measure there is some sort of psychological construct so my role is to help organizations understand really what their employees are thinking and also what their customers are thinking as well so is that kind of the same science is like we know that Apple opens stores and they have all their products out because someone told them someone like you told them that you know someone touches something they’re more likely to buy it is that the kind of science we’re talking about yes yeah that’s that’s part of the science that we’re talking about but it’s also looking at the intentions that people have and and basically the idea is that if people have certain beliefs and intentions it will naturally lead to action so if someone for example indicates that they would recommend a brand or a product to their friends and family the theory is that they would be more likely to return to that product or to that brand and also spend more as well so it’s almost trying to predict human behavior you know from both an employee and and a consumer perspective as well so I know when when Amazon first announced that they were considering buying Whole Foods there was a lot of head-scratching because Whole Foods is known as this company that really works for the employees employees love to work there and Amazon is not known for that in fact they’re known for for the opposite and and so when it was first announced Paul Mackey John Mackey who’s the CEO of Whole Foods said that he they had prioritized employees over customers and that was going to change after the merger what do you make of that you know there’s it was an interesting statement because there’s a real mythology around the idea that you have to choose one or the other customers versus employees I think his statement suggested that there was more investment employees than then possibly the actual customer experience but but really what we have found with both our clients and also in my experience is that it is not a zero-sum game that you can you know focus on both customers and employees one does not have to you know undermine the other so it’ll be interesting to see this merger as it takes place to see where they rotate is it more towards the customer experience or will they continue to show their strengths around the employee experience if you’ve looked at all at Whole Foods and some of the you know the the employee responses that they have they they really do provide a good experience for their employees now the the real test will be to make sure that they are providing what their customers need and expect but also expanding their customer base as well and not sacrificing the employee experience in in the in that process yeah I mean I’ve been I’ve been at Whole Foods a customer for years and one of the things that I’ve actually really appreciated cuz I’ve known a lot of people that have worked at Whole Foods over the years and everything and then you go in there and you see it as well is that the people that work there actually genuinely enjoy working there at least the folks that I’ve met and I’ve known that I’ve worked there that’s been the case how could how would you say a potential brand shift towards a focus a wave or a focus away from the employees and towards the customers I mean how could that affect the the brand for the people who are very used to what Whole Foods has been with the employee I think yeah I think you will have an attrition of some of their loyal loyal customers to what degree time will tell but really what what is important is that they need to retain that strength of that one-on-one human interaction when you go into a wholefoods it’s it’s not just about you know price and and product availability it’s really about that that human interaction where you’re asking about the right cheese to pair with wine or the right cut of meat to purchase and and so it’s going to be really critical for them to retain that strength and also for Amazon to capitalize on that strength to make sure that yes they with technology they’re trying to decrease the amount of effort that that customers are required to take to purchase you know Whole Foods Goods but also you know allowing them to have that that one-on-one interaction I think that’s gonna be an interesting test to see how they they they do with these two cultures merging and what about the Amazon stores that we’ve heard of that they’re testing now with with Amazon employees where you just walk right out without you know without paying anything they just no they just scan something inside your phone and know what your credit card number is and what your Amazon account is what how do you think that that Whole Foods is going to deal with that and how do you think employees feel at that point that they they might in the near future be automated out of a job well you know it’s it’s interesting because if you look at the the Amazon retail model you have a certain amount of floor space or real estate that that products are competing in and and therefore you have to really understand what your customers want so with that automation with the data that you’re gathering from your employees you’re really personalizing the experience for them so that they went when they walk into that that retail environment they have the products that that consumers need but with with automation what what is really misunderstood is that it’s a great opportunity for different types of job roles I mean been talking about automation and and the loss of jobs to automation since the Industrial Revolution and really what automation has done has actually created more jobs so the the key is well the key is that Amazon and Whole Foods should should not you know it should be very transparent with their employees about what it means for them but the reality is that this will open up new different types of jobs for both Whole Foods and Amazon employees as well so so getting back to the psychology of it I mean I’ve been thinking a lot about Amazon because I just I just think that they sometimes know me better than I know me and you know what I’m likely to buy through my Amazon echo because I don’t want to think about it anymore and and you know but there I’d still do shop at Whole Foods and I think for me and for other people I joked about the you know humanely raised echo dots but there was just a big pile of Amazon echoes like right in front of the produce and it was a little disconcerting because I think the way that Whole Foods works as I understand it is that they really work very hard to make the the grocery store a place where you really want to be you feel comfortable it feels like you’re walking through a garden picking fruit off the vine it’s like you’re socially conscious like you know what I mean they picked their their their fruits and vegetables from local farms and everything and those nods totally go counter to that it seemed right and you know even though it’s like Safeway and you know a lot of places have you know sort of you know had where you could you could go and you know order online and pick up they really haven’t done much of that so so what’s gonna be the effect of being owned by an Amazon on that I’m just walking through the field picking grapes off the vine yeah yeah so so to the psychology of this really when when consumers make purchasing decisions and when employees behave in a certain way oftentimes it has to be in line with their own personal identity so you know you talk about the being socially conscious environmentally conscious that’s part of some of who someone is and their identity and so it may feel disconcert I think initially for a lot of consumers that go in and see an echo dot they’re right next to the organic avocados but what the the the real test will be for Amazon to try to integrate the the variety of products into people’s personal identity a lot of you know consumers I mean Amazon has been wildly successful because what they’ve done is they personalize the experience so when you’re purchasing something from Amazon it’s like they know you often better than you know yourself and there they will have to replicate that kind of experience and and of course be really trying to gather data from consumers as they go along to see if the if certain products do fit in with their identity because if it doesn’t you are going to lose part of that loyal customer base well as for the employees I know we reported earlier that there was some people had seen the Amazon logo being stamped in meat and we had an argument here in the studio about like that looked like Amazon sent a mold out and made them but it appears according to reports that this was hand molded by employees so would you take that as a sign that these employees are happy to be owned by Amazon well I don’t know if it’s a direct sign that they’re they’re happy but I I think it is a sign that they’re they’re creative and innovative and it’s a it’s a sign that someone has a very good sense of humor as well they they’re they’re real what what this does indicate that the employees are very acutely aware of what is happening within the company and how they feel about that whether it’s you know they’re using that as I renew or if they’re happy about the acquisition I I won’t guess but it is going to be very important from both brands to be transparent with their employees and make sure that again they’re retaining their strengths because Whole Foods has created a great environment for employees to strive and they need to continue to do that Amazon can also learn a lot from from Whole Foods as well and especially as they’re venturing into this this new retail space and and one of the key things that we have we have found in working with some of the world’s best brands is that those those organizations that listen to their employees not just on how they feel about their jobs and whether or not they’re satisfied and happy with with their work but if they ask them for their ideas around products around the way that things are done or processes employees seem you know feel a lot more valued and are a lot more loyal so this this is really an opportunity for both Amazon and Whole Foods to tap into that those frontline employees and and gather their perceptions around the changes rather than just you know looking to decipher what what kind of logos they’re putting in the meat well thank you so much for joining us this is fascinating I’m fascinated with the brands these days I bet you have some really great stories Paul Warner is vice president of consumer and employee insights at in moment and de Paul Warner on Twitter thanks so much for joining us thank you thank you we really appreciate it all right feedback time Kevin from Ohio writes this week you talked about the new Fitbit SmartWatch was that the ioniq I believe it was and how the battery life was something like 10 hours with GPS you joked how if you can’t finish a race in 10 hours you should stop anyway my girlfriend actually just participated in the Burning River endurance run she ran 50 miles and it took just over 14 hours to complete some folks who ran the 100 mile options wow we’re out for upwards of 28 hours granted of all my friends who are into these epic races not one of them uses Fitbit tracking including me they simply don’t compete with the likes of Garmin and other Ironman and ultra marathon level sports devices and I imagine the sports devices on that level are not like smart devices necessarily they’re more all guard Garmin has been has had GPS in it for a long time a lot like a decade at least so they’ve been smarter than your average SmartWatch they don’t I mean you can’t probably respond to Twitter on most of them or anything like right yeah they’re smart in this one particular way like the Garmin Forerunner is one that I’m looking at right now is 300 bucks so you know similar price yeah okay I had a conversation with Kevin who sent this email that I was like what do you like to use is it better than the Apple watch because I’ve been considering that I’ve been considering Garmin for a while and you know as we talked about earlier the new Fitness watches from Samsung they they if you’re like if you’re gonna be running hundred mile races then you’re probably not a good Fitbit and an Apple watch is not gonna right I do for you and that is insane I don’t yeah we were down in the Marin Headlands going across the Golden Gate Bridge and there was one of those 100-mile races and the people are just like they’re normal looking people they don’t look like Superman it’s just it’s mental at some point I think absolutely I think that’s exactly my mental I mean that mental EMTs fan of the day is Daniel who emailed this picture saying enjoying some TNT with my three-year-old bear via the twit app on Apple TV he is a lab pitbull ciaochao sharp a mix or so the adoption papers said we can’t really see him because of the thing Larry Larry is all love to see how how big it’s just Shar Peis are small aren’t they I don’t know what a Shar Pei is but I think Shar Peis are kind of small though he’s awesome and thanks for taking her advice that including a picture of your dog oh we have more we will the last request pulled in a few of these we got more for the next few days just record a picture of your dog or you or a video take it post it you know how to do it how I watched TNT and we will find it yeah Shar Peis aren’t really that big I mean they’re not tiny either but they’re not that big they’re the ones with really super wrinkly faces they’re like wrinkled all over they’re actually pretty adorable if you’ve been putting off your comment either for or against net neutrality on the FCC’s restoring Internet freedom plan that is likely to dismantle rules devised back in 2015 then you better get busy and like right now and honestly only really if you’re watching live or you listened shortly after it was published because the official deadline for comment is tonight 9:00 p.m. Pacific 12:00 a.m. Eastern but who are we kidding today twenty one point nine million comments have been given twenty one point nine million eighty nine percent of those that fall into the pro– net neutrality camp are duplicates ninety nine percent in the anti net neutrality camp are also duplicates so there’s been some serious gaming of the system by people with mad script skills yo well so are they duplicate comments or they duplicate people that are sending the comments duplicate comments as far as I could know I don’t know if it’s duplicate people that’s actually a really good question because if it’s duplicate people then you’d throw all those out duplicate comments sometimes that’s how people mobilize it’s like right that’s not gaming the system because a lot of websites said like here cut and paste this if you support you know which you know this wasn’t like no one’s actually going through this and and this is just public comments and no one’s reading them I’m sure they’re people are reading it so where’s a study by I don’t know if this is the same data that you got by in Prada and they had they said that 98.5 percent opposed the repeal and there were one point seventy seven million anti repeal non form letters so that’s why the wave they described says someone who really was like hey dude net neutrality to stay around because I want my Netflix cuz I like to Netflix and chill thank you so much and then there was someone else who said you know I want net neutrality gone because I want a free internet you know that sort of thing right you get that yeah everybody else just read wrote out a forum water yeah so so there were one point seventy seven million anti repeal and twenty four thousand for the repeal so there were a lot more non form letters anti anti yes anti repeal so pro net neutrality non form letters beat anti net neutrality non foremothers my brain hurts yeah I mean it matters cuz you speak you speak your piece matters you know you’re kind of answering to yourself to if you really feel strongly about this and you don’t do something or or you do something about it and leave a comment maybe in the grand scheme of things that might not be the thing that makes it all the difference but you feel a little better about yourself knowing that you stood to your convictions you know hey there you go the more you know but I do think that I like if all you can do is a form letter do the form letter but I do think that it is appreciated in week C can people actually someone read this and Prada and I would imagine so because there probably has to be a little bit more I mean if if they can detect all the form letters and group them together that’s all of those letters that they actually don’t have to do anything with that just becomes a single category of like we got X in an X amount of these forms anything else and I imagine I mean I don’t know the process of it but I would guess there’s a little bit more intent there right you actually have to go in and and see what they say when they’re not grouped into this gigantic group together they become more individualized and it kind of forces action a little bit tabulation as it were Thank You Burke I was just gonna say that if you do I don’t know if there there was a phone number to call about net neutrality but in terms of political action calling really does matter get getting if you can get an actual person on the phone or you can leave a voicemail to express your side that really does make a difference people really pay attention to that these days yeah for sure after the comment period ends FCC is gonna take a look at these responses and they say they’re gonna make adjustments to the proposal as they see fit based on that next scheduled meeting is September 28th although that’s unlikely to be the date at which the vote actually takes place so that will happen somewhere down the line so this gonna stretch on for a while longer ever forever and ever tear Accords live every Monday through Friday 4:00 p.m. Pacific 7:00 p.m. Eastern 2300 UTC at TV slash live you can be part of the show by emailing us TNT at Twitter TV leave us a short voicemail at 2 6o TNT show and find us on Twitter we’re at tech news today TV and I am also going to be on the screen savers this weekend for my digital cleanse this is week four of our 10-week digital cleanse you can still join us only about three or four minutes it doesn’t take up that much of your time and is all on YouTube and if you want to tweet at me with your digital cleanse tips do so at mega Moroni and I’m at Jason Howell thanks to Kevin our technical director today thanks to Burke for helping in the studio Kevin are you editing thanks to Kevin our technical director and editor today and thanks to you for talking tech with us today we’ll see y’all tomorrow bye everybody [Music] you