September 27, 2021 - Episode 604 - Show Notes

September 27, 2021 - Episode 604

Monday Sep 27, 2021 (01:32:04)

Description

This week, the EU is supporting USB-C, Nintendo is revealing gaming details, and Facebook apologizes for not being great.

Participants

Scott Ertz

Host

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram Piltch

Host

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

Allante Sparks

Special Correspondent

Allante - also well known as Wolff - is the newest member and co-host for PLuGHiTz Live! Radio. A gifted artist, he is usually found drawing up a character or two or sketching up whatever comes to mind. Do not think that he is not a hardcore gamer because he is about as hardcore as it gets! His favorites range from fighting games to RPGs, adventure and even a racing game here and there. Fighting games are his forte and he relays this message for all who oppose: You mess with the Wolff and you get the fangs!

Xbox Live - Enigmatic Wolff

PSN - Tsukuyomi_Okami

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EU wants to unify chargers again, specifically targeting Apple

Several years ago, the European Union announced that it wanted to unify mobile chargers across all manufacturers. The goal was to eliminate electronic waste because previously switching phones often means getting a new and completely different charger. But, by the time the EU got involved, almost all major manufacturers were already using micro-USB. Now, the EU is looking to update the requirement, modernizing for USB-C and removing the remaining loophole.

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Nintendo Direct - N64, Genesis, Splatoon 3, Bayonetta 3, and more

This week, Nintendo hosted its most recent Nintendo Direct presentation and announced some unbelievably exciting games and gave us information about known projects. The company even announced an expanded version of its Switch Online service, bringing games from additional consoles to the platform. Nintendo is definitely looking to increase gamers' time on the console.

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Facebook apologizes, promises not to be as terrible in the future

If there is one company that seems unable to stay out of the news, it's Facebook. Last week, while we were off, the company got itself into a world of trouble. The Wall Street Journal published a string of reports on the company based upon a huge stockpile of leaked documents from the company. This included special rules for VIPs, that allowed millions of users to "violate our standards without any consequences," promoting troll farm content within the US, knowingly causing harm to girls through Instagram specifically, ignoring drug and human traffickers, and even undermining the company's COVID efforts. These reports are worth reading because they are wild.

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Twitch makes agreement with NMPA - what it means for streamers

While 2020 was a struggle for many of us, it was a particular year of struggle for game streaming site Twitch. The brand, owned by Amazon, had famously skirted copyright law when it comes to music played on its platform. While YouTube streamers get shut down instantly and can receive strikes if they accidentally stream from a location with background music, Twitch streamers had long used music in their streams without any fear of repercussions. That came to an abrupt end last year, when stream replay videos were deleted with no notice, followed by an apology for handling it poorly.

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Scott Ertz (00:00)

This week the EU is supporting USB-C, Nintendo is revealing gaming details, and Facebook apologizes for not being great. Wherever you are and however you're accessing our show, whether it be on social media, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter, or through one of the podcatchers like Apple Podcast, Google Podcast. Tune in and a myriad of other options through our live stream platforms, Livestream.com, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter or of course on our website, Plughitzlive.com. Thank you for making us a part of your day. This is Episode 604 of F5 Live for September 27, 2021. And there are several ways that you can join us. The first is, if you're joining us live right now, normally Sunday nights at 9pm Eastern, you can go to F5live.tv/joinus. And there you can chat with us in the studio, give us your feedback on the topics as we talked about that. If you're not able to join us live, that is okay. You can also subscribe to this and all of our other shows by going to Plughitzlive.com/subscribe. There you'll see F5 Live, The Piltch Point, Plughitz Live Presents, First Looks, and a whole lot more. And of course, you can find all the ways to watch, listen, and follow along. So for our regular viewers, you'll notice that was different because my script crashed just as we started the show. Oh, isn't technology fun? Anyway, we're here on a Monday. And we're back. We've been off for a little while for some personal stuff. I was saying. We had some other stuff going on. So it's good to be back, Avram. How have you been? I've been away for too long.

Avram Piltch (02:10)

Good. Good. It's good to be back. I'm glad you're feeling better. It's so awesome to have Allante here.

Scott Ertz (02:22)

Oh, for sure. What's up?

Allante Sparks (02:25)

You know, when there's a heavy gaming topic. I've got to show up.

Scott Ertz (02:33)

Tonight we're talking about all the Nintendo stuff. It's hard to do a Nintendo topic and not have Allante on the show. So-

Allante Sparks (02:41)

-because I'm a fanboy.

Scott Ertz (02:45)

Yeah, for sure. And that's good. You know, we've always said this right that the way this show works is we've got people who have different areas of interest and different focuses. And that's how we keep the show fresh and interesting. We got different people who know different things. Allante is definitely our Nintendo expert.

Allante Sparks (03:09)

And I know a lot about gaming in general.

Scott Ertz (03:14)

So what have you been up to Avram? You've always got interesting projects going on.

Avram Piltch (03:18)

Yeah, well, just really messing around with 3D printers a lot. So they'll watch behind me like and even show it to you. There you go. Okay. So that is actually a highly recommended 3D printer called the Elegoo Neptune 2. It is one of the best deals in 3D printing. You can often find it for $160 or $180 on Amazon. It is functionally equivalent to Creality. I think Ender Three Pro which is a very popular model. And it works really well. And so I've been messing with it. I had to kind of put it together which took me a little while and then it didn't come totally put together. Now I'm trying to upgrade it because you can add a sensor to it that will do level two automatic bed leveling for you, which is kind of a big issue with 3D printers- it is having the bed D because by default you have to kind of level a bed by turning a bunch of thumb screws which is not a precise process. So I have notes over there somewhere, like a sensor that my friend sent me that basically it will, when you install the firmware, the sensor will go and touch the bed and a few places. So it will make a map, basically have different points on the bed and like how far to put the printhead above. Even if the bed is physically not even, it will make it even in your print by lowering it. So I have to-

Scott Ertz (05:02)

It doesn't require you to do something to respond to it. It compensates for the current-

Avram Piltch (05:10)

Yes, it compensates for your lack of balance. Some people don't like to do it themselves. The upgrade is like 40 bucks. But you've got to like, string the wire through to the bottom and unscrew some things. And like these open air 3D printers are much more for a DIY crowd. So like, when you're getting started with 3D printers, which I did a few months ago, something more like this one, right, this close three here is a better idea is easier, because it kind of just works, right? But then you know, you find out that the real 3D printing geeks don't use these enclosed ones that mops, they use ones like that. It's sort of like PCs, right? It's like you can get your prebuilt PC that just works. But you can't do everything you want.

Scott Ertz (06:07)

You can use your iPhone, it works out of the box, but it doesn't do everything you want. At some point, you either are fine with that, or you get something more powerful, more customizable.

Avram Piltch (06:21)

Exactly. So you know, the big challenge is actually getting into print and different types of plastic. That's the challenge for 3D printing. Most people are printing and what's called PLA, which is good and makes stuff like this. But it will, it's kind of brittle. So if you have anything that's a tool or anything like that, that needs a little tolerance when you squeeze it, or you're running a screw through, you want to use something, you want to use PETG which is this other type of filament that I have on this thing. But the PETG, if the temperature is not totally right, it gets stringy, so you get to the bottom of this little stringy. But anyway, that's the project stuff I've been working on. I've been spending a lot of time on 3D printer stuff.

Scott Ertz (07:16)

I will tell you all the 3D printer stuff that you've been doing lately, has gotten me wanting to get back into it. I have got two open air 3D printers sitting at AMRoC that are in pieces that I think I want next time over there.I think I'm gonna bring one back and get it back up and running.

07:39

And I want to learn how to 3D print. That's been one thing I've really been wanting to get into. And so hearing you talk about this, I'm trying to absorb as much information as I can.

Avram Piltch (07:52)

It's-

Scott Ertz (07:53)

-for people who are interested in getting started with 3D printing, we have a Piltch Point episode with a lot to do, there might even be two, with a lot of information about how to get started. And then Tom's Hardware has a ton of 3D printing information, which is why you have to-

Avram Piltch (08:16)

Yes, yes, we were doing a lot and like you learn by doing so learning how to do this has been very helpful to me. You know, I think, obviously, there's a lot of different sides to it, like what do you want to do with it. Do you just want to make cute models like this? Which is nice. But you know, I didn't really need that many cute models in my life. Or, if I did, I needed ones that were pop vinyls. But, you know, there's useful things that you can do with it too - making little tools and things like that. I have over here somewhere a wrench I made with a need for it. I can't say it is a great wrench because I should purchase a different plastic because it's a little bit, you know, porous. Here I have this little metal bin here a 3D print here some feet for the 3d printer that were printed on a 3D printer. Alright, and you can screw them. So like this will, you know. So I thought it was kind of cool that you could actually take a screw that's, you know, 3D prints that has a thread-

Allante Sparks (09:29)

-Starting because server rocker Scott

Scott Ertz (09:31)

Yeah, right.

Avram Piltch (09:33)

So, anyway, you know, so there's useful things like that where maybe you need a part for a robot. Maybe you need a little hook or rack or something broke. And you need exactly the right thing. This 3D printer could be really good for that.

Scott Ertz (09:54)

Yeah, yeah. And I can tell you when we did the robot on the weekend, a couple years ago We used several 3D printers during our design and implementation process for several parts on the machine, so yes, lots of capability in the robot space. Speaking of robots, a great transition point, next week, starts Roboticon 2021. We will be at AMRoC, every weekend of October, doing various versions of broadcasts, but don't worry, that doesn't mean that F5 Live will come to a halt. We will either be doing them from AMRoC after hours, or we will be doing them back here on Sundays like normal. So the show will go on, just be in lots of different places. And we won't exactly know what it's gonna look like- the weekend. But we will be here. And we will have tons of content on our Twitch channel where we will be hosting the Roboticon content, as well as on the Roboticon YouTube page. So definitely check that out. As well. I think if you search for Roboticon Tampa Bay, you'll find our YouTube channel. And we'll be there basically every weekend of October for some version of broadcasts. So that'll be a ton of fun, we're looking forward to it, we're going to try some new stuff. Particularly that we want to try, we're going to use this as an experiment for CES. We've gotten some ideas on some things that we want to do, basically using the same technology that Avram uses to connect in. For this show, we want to be able to do that from the show floor at CES. And so we're gonna try it out at Roboticon, we'll see if it works. We will be talking about it on the show after it either works, or it doesn't. So keep an eye out for that. That'll start next weekend. But for now, let's get down to some news. This week's nifty gifty on F5 Live is proudly powered by the Microsoft Store, whether you're looking for a laptop, tablet, one of the many new surface devices that were announced this week, Xbox games and a whole lot more, you can get them all at the Microsoft Store. And remember that current students, faculty, parents, and active military can save up to 10% on almost everything. To browse the products and learn more about the discounts and the new service hardware, you can go to F5live.tv/microsoft. So normally we would talk right now about the surface hardware but I did a breakdown of that on GNC weekend review last night so if you want to check that out GNCweekly.com is the place for that but instead, we're going to talk about an interesting development that's coming out of the EU several years ago, and by that I mean, I think it was 2009 the EU started a process of trying to standardize phone chargers. Now, I don't think any of us have any problem with the idea of standardized phone chargers. In fact, the fact that USB-C is the de facto standard right now is pretty fantastic. But in 2009 Micro USB was the thing that was trying to rule the world. And so they got all the major players to agree to either implement it or have a process for using Micro USB in particular, as you've figured out Apple was the question mark there. And so Apple agreed to give all EU residents an adapter from micro usb to lightning that seemed to make everybody happy. But times have changed. Micro USB is dead. And the current standard is USBC. And so the EU has tried to get all the industry players to make a similar agreement. And obviously everybody has except for Apple. And the reason that Apple is being a bigger problem this time is because the EU doesn't just want compatibility. They want a port. So that's a big wording change from the last one. They don't want to just plug your USB-C into an adapter for lightning and be able to charge that way. They want a USB-C port on the iPhone. So Apple said, "No, thank you." And so now they're looking at actual instead of agreement or regulatory means they are looking at legislative means to force any company that sells a phone, tablet, camera. I've got the whole list here. Where did it go? Smartphones, tablets, cameras, headphones, portable speakers, and handheld video game consoles, everybody to use USB-C. And again, basically, everybody is covered except for Apple.

Avram Piltch (15:48)

Not a lot, but not laptops.

Scott Ertz (15:50)

Laptops are not in that list.

Avram Piltch (15:55)

So, I mean, we have seen some really nice progress in the laptop world in the last like two, three years or so

Scott Ertz (16:05)

Including with the new surface devices that have the dual option for the magnetic port or USB-C.

Avram Piltch (16:14)

Yes. So we have seen that. And by the way, Apple was actually a pioneer in this space in the sense that Apple was among the first to use USB-C charging on a laptop, Apple as USB-C charging and a laptop Apple as USB-C charging now on new tablets, but not phones.

Scott Ertz (16:34)

Right. And apparently they're pushing hard on it. So Apple's argument -there are two specific arguments against the way. There's one argument against the concept and there's one argument against the way it's implemented. So Apple's argument is against the concept of standardization. And they have argued that essentially, they have more ability to do interesting things, if they have their own connector. And I'm going to tell you, just so we all know, Plughitz Live put out a post on social media across all of our social media asking, "Does lightning give you anything that USB-C doesn't?" and even diehard Apple fans went "Ugh". So I think while Apple says you know, we have more capability to do interesting things if it's our own connector. They're either living in the past when iPod docks existed or they once again are trying to fight giving up any kind of control.

Allante Sparks (18:00)

It definitely sounds like they just want to be masters of their own domain. Thank goodness that Micro USB died by the way. Yeah, I mean, I hated it.

Avram Piltch (18:13)

Micro USB is not dead. It is dead on phones. It is not dead in the Single Board Computer World, Micro-controller world. Here's a Raspberry Pi Pico, right. A new device just came out in January and Micro USB.

Scott Ertz (18:39)

This is a professional production, TV production. SDI adapter, from HDMI to SDI for high-end cameras, that powers off of Micro USB. Right. Brand new places. The brand new-

Avram Piltch (18:59)

There's a lot of places that just won't give up on USB-C. Which I don't, I mean, you have Micro USB. And then I mean, I think it is slightly more expensive, because I've noticed that there's like a lot of different clones of this board here, and then more expensive ones that have type C. So I think type C does cost a little bit more. It's probably a minuscule amount more but yeah, so on a phone that costs hundreds of dollars, it's probably de minimis the right savings that they got-

Scott Ertz (19:37)

When you're dealing with a Pico board or something like that, you know? They're looking to take advantage of the penny savings by going into old stock and Micro USB. Somebody has got some air rolls up somewhere, desperately wanting to-

Avram Piltch (20:01)

Could it just be that it just cost less to manufacture? I don't know. But I have heard that type C is still slightly more expensive. But anyway, whatever the case is, you're right. Micro USB is a pain. I mean, it is one of those things that even no matter how many times I plug it in, I always get it wrong at least two times.

Allante Sparks (20:24)

Yep. Right. Always on a third try.

Avram Piltch (20:28)

Yes. Right. And if you do it, shoot, and if you try too hard to do it, and you do it wrong, you can break it. So when type C came along, I really, really was excited about it. I still love USB type C. So yeah, Apple really has no legit excuse. Right? The worst part of it is that they've implemented USB type C on every other device they make. So if you think it's not a good standard, why are you using it?

Scott Ertz (21:01)

Exactly. And that's why I feel like they're still stuck in the old accessory locking days. And in fairness, mini and micro USB did not give the capabilities that that 144 and lightning gave the iPod and iPhone with, you know, full dock control. And all of that, mini and micro did not give that capability. They were not, they were simply not part of the overall standard. But C does.

Avram Piltch (21:36)

So, I'd like to see, I would like to see the EU or somebody impose this on laptops. below a certain wattage. Right now you can only do type C up to 100 Watts, although that's going to change and there's going to be a 230-Watt standard, but I don't think, I mean, I still think the majority, it's getting better to where a lot more laptops have Type C now. But still, it's not universal. I mean, you have to get something like this.

Scott Ertz (22:13)

Right. I was surprised to see that laptops were not in this collection. But I don't know, that's the only thing

Avram Piltch (22:24)

I think they don't know, could lead to people legislating this they don't know.

Scott Ertz (22:30)

And that brings us to the second challenge, which is to the specific implementation. We got a quote from Maria Chaplia, who is the research manager at the Consumer Choice Center. And she said that forced conformity is the greatest enemy of progress. Now, what she goes on to say a lot of things, but specifically, what she's arguing is that it's great that all the phones are basically using USB-C. But to legislate and force USB-C by name means that if there's a need for a change, like there was from micro to see, it's not going to be as easy. It's not going to be as straightforward. And it's going to be discouraged because this law is written the way that it is because it specifies USB-C. If it specified a modern standard or something like that, she wouldn't be arguing the same thing. But the fact that it spells out USB-C at some point, we may need to move away from it. Yes, we used USB-A as our primary thing on computers since the late 90s. And we switched to C because it's a better idea.

Avram Piltch (24:00)

If this is a regulation, can't they just change and update the regulation as needed? I don't see type C going away anytime soon.

Scott Ertz (24:07)

It's not a regulation. It's an actual legislation. So you don't have you don't have a regulatory body, they can just decide on a change. It's got to go through the European Commission and the whole Parliament cherry process that makes it a big thing as opposed to a regulatory body. That specializes in this kind of thing going well obviously it's time we need to be looking at something.

Allante Sparks (24:37)

Here's what I think of that. What I think of that is I don't think there's anything stopping anybody at that. I totally understand the idea of if they put this legislation in and you know, you can only use USB-C that kind of deters ,you know, any kind of idea of making that technology better or making something better? But isn't that necessarily stopping anybody from trying to make something better? You know-

Scott Ertz (25:12)

It doesn't entirely stop it. But the concern that the Consumer Choice Center has is that it factors into every engineering decision, right? Is it worth spending the time to consider this only to have the EU step on it and tell us this isn't the standard? Or to do this, we've got to do this. Yeah, we've got to go to this whole regulatory thing. That's the concern that she has, and I understand it. Now. Obviously, this is highly conceptual, right now. And so I don't know what reality looks like. So USB-C is not going anywhere, anytime soon.

Avram Piltch (26:04)

Right? Here's my prediction about reality. And of course, this could be as good as my predictions I made when my son was born, which is not very good. But I don't think that there will be another wired standard after USB-C. I think wireless is what happens after USB-C. So I don't think that this is ever going to be an issue because they haven't said that you have to. This is only a wired charging standard. It's not a wireless charging standard curve. People have also said that Apple may get a rat to try to get around this by just having no cord at all right? Making people use their charger. The next standard is going to be the next standard for charging after this is going to be wireless. I mean, it already is cheap. But I think the next USB-C first of all, I just think is gonna be around for a really long time. But beyond that, you know, 10 years, 20 years down the road, I don't know. There's wireless power over the air? Like we've seen, like the Ossia Cota stuff or whatever, where they're doing power delivery over the air. And I think that is the next thing that will really replace type C.

Scott Ertz (27:26)

And if you look at just the Apple ecosystem, right now, the company that's fighting this the hardest, if you look just the Apple ecosystem, they did something interesting with the 7th Gen Apple Watch, which was just announced 10 days ago. And normally, I don't know where it is on here. But somewhere on here, there's a hidden diagnostic port that apparently does not exist on the seven. And instead they've got this 65 gigahertz, 60 or 65 gigahertz proprietary connection, wireless communication that appears to have replaced the diagnostic port. So they have already leaned into this. So for like ultra short range communication, probably throw the thing on a diagnostic charger, and you get data that way as well. So it looks like they've already started to pull even their own hidden diagnostic ports off of devices. So a portlet's future isn't as far-fetched as it may sound. So yeah, I totally agree. So it's definitely interesting. The European Commission is looking at this now. No official decisions have been made, but they probably will be made in the near future and we will see what that implementation ends up looking like. This week's Piltch Point with Avram Piltch is proudly powered by PureVPN. The best way to protect your privacy online is with PureVPN you can hide your online activities saying goodbye to regional restrictions and improve your streaming quality plus it's available for almost all of your devices and they get a special price right now. You can go to PiltchPoint.live/PureVPN Alright, so we get another opportunity to see a new product right? I always love when you've got show-and-tell.

Avram Piltch (29:59)

Yes. Here's my today's show-and-tell: it is a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9th. So now the Gen 9th means it's the 9th X1 Carbon that doesn't mean it's using 9th Generation Intel CPU. It actually is using a 11th Generation Intel Core CPU. So the excellent carbon has been around for a while. I mean they've obviously been the ninth generation of it, but it is the productivity. It is longer than the productivity laptop because it is super thin, super light, but has everything you need to really work smarter not harder. So this here is point six inches then just like prior ThinkPad X1 Carbon was only two and a half pounds like prior X1 Carbons, but there is something a little different about it. It is slightly longer and narrower. Because it has a 16x10 display. So prior models like many laptops on the market today use 16x9 displays so 1920x1080 was the base resolution. This is 1920x1200. So that gives you 11% more vertical screen real estate. That means when you're viewing a webpage or editing a document or something like that, you are going to see a little bit more on this screen than you would have on last year's model and on most products in the market. So this comes with a choice of starts at $1,100 and it uses an Intel Core i5 or i7 11th gen processor and it has either eight or 16 gigs of RAM. I definitely recommend going with 16 and up to a one terabyte SSD. What is really cool about this is the battery life is just unbelievable. It lasts 15 and a half hours on a charge in our test.

Scott Ertz (32:32)

Wow.

Avram Piltch (32:33)

Mind you like I said it's only two and a half pounds and .6 inches thick. The keyboard is obviously a really really good keyboard because it's a ThinkPad. And ThinkPad keyboards are always among the best. If not, THE best.

Scott Ertz (32:51)

Notoriously wonderful.

Avram Piltch (32:54)

Yes. For those who like the knobs as I do. You have the TrackPoint or this last touchpad. The screen here, this is a touch anyway. You can get it with touch, not touch. Or you can get it above 4k. It was like 30, 40x2400. So actually slightly above 4k. If you desire. The speaker system on this is actually really good. You have two speakers on either side of the keyboard and another two on the bottom surface here. It actually sounds really good. It has the ports you need a lot of thin and light no books these days only have Type C. But here you have two Type C ports which are actually Thunderbolt four compatible and you can charge from either of these. You can use the charger that comes with it or you can use any USB-C charger that supports you know 60 Watts, or even I think 45 will do and also has USB type A ports, full size HDMI out not micro or mini HDMI, and another full size USB and headphone jack and locks lot on the other side. So the performance is really strong, you know on par with other notebooks like this and obviously it's integrated graphics so it's not going to be forgiving. But you've got a really good feel with the keyboard. It's really light, great to put on your lap, and stays cool while you use it. Even pretty cool is when we were running intense benchmarks cinebench 23 on repeat, it stayed, the cooling was good. The display, the default display, is not super colorful, it's about 71% of the DCI P3 Color Gamut. But if you get the 4k display, it probably has more color. On the other hand, the viewing angles are really good. This registers 350 nets. Again, if you buy the more expensive screen, you can get one that promises 500 nets. But unless you're going out in the sun, this is probably more than adequate and you get really good battery life for the you get really good battery life for having a lower screen. Here you have a 720P webcam, which is decent, you know it does the job. It has a shutter here. So if you're worried about privacy, you can close the shutter. They also make a version of this which my ravine in here doesn't have with an IR camera for doing Windows Hello facial recognition. If you so desire. But it's you know, pretty straightforward notebook that just really does a fantastic job. The keyboard just feels really fantastic. I love using the TrackPoint because then I can type and navigate on the desktop without moving my hands touch to the to the touchpad. I know some folks just don't like using the knob. But really, it's hard to ask for more. I mean, I wish this were more upgradable. That is my biggest beef with it, you cannot upgrade the RAM, it's soldered and you might be able to upgrade the SSD I have, you're supposed to be able to. I tried removing the back on this. What you're supposed to do is loosen the five screws here and and take the back off but the back would not buy off for me. And I wasn't going to force it because I try not to break this stuff people send me for review. But you're supposed to be able to get the back off to change the SSD if you want. My recommendation is just buy it with a file, don't buy it with the 256 gig SSD option because that's two levels. So, I mean, this is a really good laptop. It's going to be on our review of this going out probably tomorrow on Tom's Hardware. And it's going to be on our list of best Ultra Portables and best Ultrabooks because if you are looking for a clamshell laptop for being productive, this is the one to get. This is absolutely what I will take with me to go to a major event like CES. I actually have an earlier like three generation, an earlier generation of this that I do take with me everywhere. A powerhouse,

Scott Ertz (38:17)

Yes, a shopping journey that we all got to follow along.

Avram Piltch (38:23)

Yes. Okay. That's all true. As an aside, I was at my mother's 80th birthday party yesterday. And I was and we had over some of her friends who are of a similar age. And one of them said he needs to replace his Surface? He said "should we replace his Surface 4 because the battery is swelling?" And I said "oh your battery's swelling? Yes you should get rid of that laptop as soon as possible."

Scott Ertz (39:02)

And hide from it.

Avram Piltch (39:03)

Yes, I don't even know where you're supposed to take something like that. But turn it over to some e-waste place or something because of the fire hazard. And then he said," Well, what should I get your place for?" I really actually don't care about using it as a tablet. So I don't know why he had a Surface in the first place. So I said to him, "Well, if it were me, I would get a ThinkPad X1 Carbon." But he said "okay, but yeah, that sounds pretty good. What about HP?" I said, "Okay," well another good choice for folks who just want to do just want a laptop that's good for carrying around and just getting work done, but not necessarily gaming and not necessarily doing intensive, processor intensive stuff like video editing. HP Spectre X360 is always a good choice so that's the advice I gave him but if it were me I would get the ThinkPad. Because the battery life is really epic. The keyboard is first class and of course you have kind of like a consumer class notebook like the Specter, this is a business class notebook that's gone through mil-spec testing so it's more likely to survive being dropped and shaken around and things like that. It's made to last and I can say from experience with other thinkpads I've had them do last. My son has a ThinkPad that I won in 2014 and he's using it every day now. It's a seven year old notebook it's still working pretty well

Scott Ertz (40:48)

Nice. Yeah, they're pretty hard to kill and based on your past recommendations I have also recommended the X1 Carbon many times because I know how much you like it.

Avram Piltch (41:10)

Yeah, it's definitely really good. So I definitely strongly recommend it. For more information definitely check out our review which should be live probably tomorrow.

Scott Ertz (41:22)

Very cool. Well Avram ,as always, I appreciate the information. I always love to see the products that you're messing around with, especially when they're new laptops. Show-and-Tell is my favorite day of the week, and I look forward to what we talk about next.

This week's Extra Life at F5 Live is proudly powered by Loot Crate whether you're a gamer, anime fan, or a pop culture aficionado, Loot Crate has got a crate for you. They curate a bundle of collectibles, apparel, figures and more that you can't find anywhere else. They get delivered to your door. It's like getting an awesome birthday present from yourself every month. And to learn more about the crates that are available, and the deals that are going on, you can go to F5live.tv/lootcrate. All right, so this week, Nintendo gave us a lot of information about a lot of things- games, services, hardware, a little bit of everything. So we're gonna dive into it. It's why we've got Allante here with us. I mean, we always love having Allante here with us, but we bully him into it when there is a Nintendo topic that's this intense. So I guess let's start with Switch Online, because it's one of the things that, I think, has been the most talked about. Everybody's got their little things about this game or that game. But Switch Online is what I saw, talked about the most. And in particular, this new subscription tier Switch Online is 20 bucks a year right now. And there's a new Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack. We don't know how much it's going to cost, but it's super cool.

Allante Sparks (43:43)

So it sounds really interesting, because they decided to, "Hey, we're going to kick off this new service, this addition to your yearly subscription". Hopefully, it's not anything more than $40 or something right? You know, I mean, but either way, it's a yearly thing. So I can't really complain about it too much. But they decided to give us some new virtual console things to play. And those two new consoles that we get to play are now N64 games and Sega Genesis games. How crazy is that? Right? But we've also been waiting a very long time for that.

Scott Ertz (44:27)

It's true. It's a little surprising. And you know, one of the things that we've said since the Switch came out was that if any console had the ability to be like the go to place for retro gaming, it would be the Switch. It's got all this capability to do , you know, emulation of basically any other platform. We've gone all the way back to the original NAS and Famicom but somehow they've missed all kinds of stuff that they own, like the N64, which is probably the thing that people wanted the most. When they announced the NAS mini The first thing they said was, well, that's nice, but can we get an N64 Mini? And they went-

Allante Sparks (45:17)

No. Why would we do it? What do you think we want?

Scott Ertz (45:22)

But with this, we got lots of cool games coming. Right? Yes, everything from your basics. Dr. Mario. Okay, up through Mario Kart 64, Super Mario 64, Yoshi's Story, Starfox 64 were on launch day.

Allante Sparks (45:44)

Come on. This to me is really exciting. Like, especially the Okay, so we, a lot of the internet in general, was we've been wanting, you know, N64 emulator, which really should have come around a long time ago. It's not not gonna, you know, poke at Nintendo too much. But it really should have been like the GameCube era, or even the Wii era. At this point. The Switch should be emulating the Wii especially since the Wii is not very powerful at all. But anyway. It's the fact that they threw in Sega Genesis along with this. What that hook was the hook. Yeah, you know, that's the thing that really was like, "Okay, this is awesome."

Scott Ertz (46:36)

Eco, Phantasy Star 4, Sonic The Hedgehog. But just to which makes me a little sad. I'd like the first one as well. But whatever. Yeah, the streets are rage too.

Allante Sparks (46:51)

That's a good one.

Scott Ertz (46:54)

Contra: Hard Corps, Castlevania: Bloodlines, all kinds of Genesis games.

Allante Sparks (46:59)

Yeah. This was a good move, honestly. Unexpected and a great move. And not only are they offering the seats, I mean, this is just for we're just talking about the online service. But along with this, they also announced these controllers for the N64 and the Sega Genesis that are going to be coming out for the switch. Fully wireless. Bluetooth, correct?

Scott Ertz (47:27)

I think so.

Avram Piltch (47:29)

Also, Bluetooth?

Scott Ertz (47:31)

Yeah, I would say I think that's how all the controllers work.

Allante Sparks (47:33)

And they're, it's wonderful.

Scott Ertz (47:36)

They are modeled after the actual console controllers. The N64 controller looks and feels like an N64 controller.

Allante Sparks (47:43)

Like you still need three hands.

Scott Ertz (47:44)

Yeah, exactly. And the Genesis controller just to annoy all of us. If you are in Japan, you will get the good Sega Genesis controller with the six buttons. And if you were in the West, you get the garbage three button controller.

Allante Sparks (48:02)

Why do we get three buttons?

Avram Piltch (48:03)

Because there's always got to be something that's more exciting if you go to Japan and yeah. I mean, what's that? Right? Yeah, so yeah, you know you've given me a mission, right? Hopefully I can go to Computex next May, right? They often will have the Japanese Nintendo stuff on sale at the computer mall there. And last time I was there, now I was lost on me because I was looking for it but one of my colleagues was excited because they had like this retro Famicom there that you could get in the United States and maybe get an eBay or something. Right. So I wouldn't be surprised if this is out by then if I go to the computer mall next year, and they have the six button controller there.

Scott Ertz (49:04)

And you bring one back for each of us. Yeah, that's what I heard. Word on.

Avram Piltch (49:10)

You gave me a mission. So I will tell you good now, it will have to say, I don't know what they say when it's coming out. Is it going to be out by May?

Scott Ertz (49:21)

If I wrote correctly, it's supposed to be before the end of the year, right? Yeah,

Allante Sparks (49:23)

Yeah, it is supposed to be before the end of May.

Avram Piltch (49:25)

Oh, so there's a decent chance. They often have several stores that are devoted just to selling controllers and games and things like that. Most of the stuff they have is just stuff you can get in the US. But this is not to take this off on a Computex tangent or something. But, every time I go, I'm so sad that I haven't gone in the last 2 years because of the pandemic. But every time I go we take a flight the same flight arrives at five in the morning, Taiwan time. The hotel will not let us check in until like 1 in the afternoon. So inevitably, we have to find something to do before we can check in and go to sleep. Right? And so I end up leading all of my co-workers over to the computer mall where we will hang out until it opens up at 9 am or something and we'll walk around the computer mall and if it's the first time that some of us see the computer mall. "Oh, this is cool". For the rest of us we're kind of like, "Wait a second this is sort of like Newegg but in person" because they don't have a lot that you could already buy here online. But what they do have for those who are looking for it is that kind of thing. So usually I'd walk around and they're like "I got to buy something when I'm here. But there is nothing here I couldn't buy elsewhere". Now it has given me a mission. So next year just remind me before I go hopefully I'll be going hopefully that'll be it. I'll remind you guys to remind me and I will look for it there because like I said they usually have some weird stuff, like PlayStation and Nintendo stuff as far as PC hardware. It's very generic stuff you can get here.

Scott Ertz (51:22)

Alright, before we move on to the next topic, I want to say hi to the chat room. I see we've got some people saying Hi. Hello. If you've got input on our Nintendo topic or anything else we're talking about tonight, definitely let us know

Allante Sparks (51:32)

I know that one.

Scott Ertz (51:33)

Excellent.

Allante Sparks (51:34)

Yeah.

Scott Ertz (51:35)

So our next topic is Bayonetta 3. He made that noise then too.

Allante Sparks (51:41)

Yeah. God I love that game. Oh, yeah. See some more buddies in chat? Bayonetta 3. Oh my god. So here's the thing. When was the date of the reveal trailer?

Scott Ertz (51:56)

I believe Dec 7, 2017.

Allante Sparks (51:58)

Yes. So that was when we got the announcement of Bayonetta 3, and all we got was a logo. Which I mean "Hey, cool." We knew it was on the horizon. Sorry, that was my fit of anger. But we knew it was on the horizon. So now we finally got a reveal trailer. We finally get to see what she looks like. She looks absolutely gorgeous. We got to see a little bit of the environment

Scott Ertz (52:30)

As per usual it's the reason why Jess plays her.

Allante Sparks (52:33)

Exactly. She always looks incredibly different, but always immediately recognizable. So you know, they did a great job with her design. The environment looks a little different. The guys were talking Japanese at the beginning and I was like, What is this and I was like, Oh, it's Bayonetta. Definitely 100% I recognize these cinematics anywhere but a couple details that one thing that I noticed I'm really big into voice acting and I know a lot of people notice this right away is when she started talking. Her voice was different and I was a little concerned at first. I can't give any spoilers away but there seems to be a probably a very good reason why her voice is different. If you recall some of the events of both of the games. So go play them they are definitely available 1 and 2 for the Switch and you know across various systems they're kind of you can get one here I think on the Yeah, you can gotta get them across various systems but super super excited that we got to see her in action. We got to see you know she still has a lot of for torture moves. She's still gonna have various weapons. I'm just hoping that we get to, you know, still see some of our favorite characters show up like her strange two best friends John and Rodin, who has been her arms dealer for the first and second game. Super. Super Excited.

Scott Ertz (54:31)

The next game that we want to talk about we're not going to talk about everything that's in our article. But some of our highlights. We've got a visitor if you're watching, you're going to see a dog tale of a dog as we've got a visitor in the studio right now. There's a nose-

Allante Sparks (54:48)

so you're a star dog.

Scott Ertz (54:54)

The game that I think you made the most noise about was the new Splatoon.

Allante Sparks (55:00)

Yeah. Challenge my inner tool man there. Yeah, Splatoon is anybody that knows me. They know that that's one of my favorite games. I play it entirely too much. I probably have about 1,600 hours of gameplay for Splatoon. And they finally showed off some more details. We got to see some of the special weapons that they're bringing along in the new game so there was a kind of stretchy arms special that we got to see where you can kind of traverse the boards around and you're kind of ink form. And kind of like the inkjet you'll return back to your original spot where you activated it.

Scott Ertz (55:56)

Zipcaster.

Allante Sparks (55:57)

Zipcaster. Thank you. You'll have the names because I don't remember them. There was what was the ball call that goes to the Crab bowl or-

Scott Ertz (56:07)

-the Crab Tank, Crab Tank

Allante Sparks (56:08)

Crab Tank

Scott Ertz (56:10)

I said exactly what it sounds like.

Allante Sparks (56:13)

You get to it, it has various forms. Well, two forms. It's a sphere, but you get to walk around as a crab. And it's got two different shooting modes, a kind of a regular gun mode, and then it's got like an explosive round, almost like a grenade launcher mode. And they also brought back a couple of Splatoon 1 special weapons, one being the killer well, Killer Wail and the other one 5.1 Thank you I couldn't remember the number surround sound Dolby um, and, and they also brought back the Baller special, which is completely different now. Before it was an instant activation which was horrible. And, if your teammates were either near you or touched you, you would kind of share that protection, protective bubble with your teammates, but now it's kind of a device that you activate and it makes a giant bubble in that area.

Scott Ertz (57:24)

It's called the Big Bubbler.

Allante Sparks (57:25)

Big Bubbler. The Killer Wail is special if you remember from the first game if you set down the weapon, it shoots out these waves and then it creates a damaging wave that kills you but now it does all sorts of things. They're like six different small waves and it says they home in on the enemies and kind of travels around. They didn't really show that one off too much. But I look forward to seeing how that one actually works. And there's actually a third one I forgot to mention: it's the Inkzooka.

Scott Ertz (58:03)

Bazooka

Allante Sparks (58:03)

Trizooka- I knew I had a new name. So that one actually you'll notice you have three like big tanks on your on your back of the weapon instead of it just being the rocket launcher that it used to be. And now it shoots three projectiles three times which is wild because it used to shoot out get this it was a heart horizontal weapon that shot vertical shots towards you that got bigger The farther they traveled and it was a one hit kill. So now three projectiles that you that spread out and you could shoot three of them.

Scott Ertz (58:46)

That's crazy.

Allante Sparks (58:46)

It's wild. I don't know how that's not going to be absolutely broken. When it comes out,-

Scott Ertz (58:54)

I have to address something that's happening in the chat room right now. Somebody just said that they have 1,900 hours in Splatoon.

Allante Sparks (59:01)

He didn't say "they." He said "you" as in "me". You do.

Scott Ertz (59:09)

Okay. So he checked my weed profile. I just want to put that into perspective. I definitely got the calculator out. That's 79 days. So I just wanted to do that real quick. So that's the reason why Allante is this excited about Splatoon three because there's 1,900 more hours available to him. Apparently

Allante Sparks (59:34)

I may play it just a little too much. Just a little but yeah,-

Scott Ertz (59:44)

That's almost three full months if you were to play straight through anyway.

We've got some other information on Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Metroid Dread but the game that I kind of honed in on is Mario Party Superstars? Yeah. So that's the game that I honed in on because Mario Party has been a disappointment for so long. It used to be fantastic. It was one of my favorite games-

Avram Piltch (1:00:16)

-when you don't like the current one.

Scott Ertz (1:00:18)

No, that's okay. Because superstars is bringing back a lot of the stuff that I loved about the first while keeping some of a lot of the stuff that's good about the current and making what is theoretically a superstar game so I'm stoked about some of the old boards now added online play. I really love this day and night. Cycle thing Yeah, World cycles so sometimes Boo is asleep and sometimes steals you're still using your stars. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not going to try and gender Boo because I'm thinking 3000 Brigade, and that's messing me up. I'll definitely have a drag queen in blue. So you know I do?

Allante Sparks (1:01:06)

I'll tell you, I'll tell you what's wrong with the current Mario Party real quick. They did not structure the boards very well. Because several, I want to say about 80% of the time that I played the current Mario Party game whoever went first wins.

Avram Piltch (1:01:29)

Yeah, interesting. Yeah. So you're I think you're right it is. It is a little bit of a challenge for my son, my son and I just like we love to play Super Mario Party. And that's one of those really good games to play with other people or kids for sure. And he will that's one of those games that we can really enjoy together as opposed to like Minecraft, which I can't I try that I just can't get into it and that the graphics that actually make me want to vomit, but like Mario Party is great so like I'm excited about this new one because it's going to be even better than the current one.

Scott Ertz (1:02:11)

I'll tell you. We used to do Mario Party events like New Year's Eve at my family's New Year's Eve party on the old N64 games. We used to play it all the time. And you know some of it has gone away because the I don't currently have a switch obviously that's going to have to change with all this but I don't currently have a switch but I've played some of the current ones I played the the Wii and Wii U and it just didn't feel the same but I love that they're doing the feel the same. And the more modern stuff and adding stuff like the day and night and there's a lot of cool stuff. I was super stoked about this and I haven't been excited about a Mario Party game in a number of years.

Allante Sparks (1:03:04)

One thing I really think that Nintendo made a good decision on and I think they got this from the recent success of Fall Guys: Knockout is Fall Guys is Mario Party without the board's you're just competing in minigames to get the crowd to be number one. And that's what I think that's what people have wanted, really. And so they've made it to where you are in this new Mario Party, you can just play the mini games online, you can play the boards online but you can also play just the mini games online as well.

Scott Ertz (1:03:45)

Instead of just it being like a training Island like in the old games. It's like a full featured game in and of itself, which I like yeah, that's that's a cool addition. And I think you're right, you know, Fall Guys and WarioWare. The point both taught Nintendo that there's a lot of potential in theoretically just partial games. Which I think is a good thing. Yep. So super stoked.

Avram Piltch (1:04:18)

By the way, If you need to Switch. There's another little piece of Switch news which is that the Switch Oled is going to be out October 9.

Scott Ertz (1:04:28)

Yep. Yep, absolutely.

Allante Sparks (1:04:29)

I'm definitely getting a doc but not the whole and that-

Avram Piltch (1:04:33)

You should get if you're going to get a minor says it's not worth it. If you have an existing switch, right? You buy a new switch just for the for the improvements,-

Scott Ertz (1:04:45)

I definitely read the article from your colleague over at Tom's Guide.

Avram Piltch (1:04:51)

Yeah, I mean a lot of people have opinions on it but it just seems to me like it's worth the extra 50 bucks. If you're buying a Switch.

Scott Ertz (1:05:01)

for sure. Yeah, that's, that's my plan. So I will have one soon. And I'm excited about all this, most of all the retro console stuff because everybody knows I have way too much retro stuff as it is, but I don't always keep it all plugged in. This will make things way easier for me.

Allante Sparks (1:05:21)

And I know we're not going to talk much about this, but they are doing a fantastic fantastic job with Metroid Dread? Yeah, for sure. I have to say that.

Scott Ertz (1:05:29)

Yeah. And we've got a good summary of what's going on over there. At the website if you go to Plughitzlive.com. It's one of the current articles or in the description linked in our video.

Allante Sparks (1:05:46)

Me too. Super excited.

Scott Ertz (1:05:51)

There's so much to be excited about. From this Nintendo Direct. Really possibly the most full featured Nintendo Direct in ages.

Allante Sparks (1:06:02)

It's a good one.

Scott Ertz (1:06:03)

Yeah. So super, super excited. I definitely can't wait to see a lot of this stuff come out.

This week's News from the Tubes on F5 Live is proudly powered by Malwarebytes whether you use a PC, a Mac, or a mobile device, Malwarebytes premium is the company's strongest protection ever. It fights threats that traditional antivirus software can't stop. It actively blocks, worms, and dialers and exploits and bots and all kinds of stuff. And you can use your computer and mobile devices with confidence and peace of mind. To learn more. And to get a special price, you can go to f5live.tv/malwarebytes. All right, It is no secret that Facebook is a mess. Yep, yep, in the time that we were off, the mess got more interesting, for sure. In particular, a series of reports from the Wall Street Journal that included but are not limited to special rules for big VIPs that allowed millions of users to quote and violate our standards without any consequences. promoted troll farm content in the US. The company knew that Instagram was causing harm to girls and buried the report. They ignored drug and human traffickers. And even put things into place to undermine the company's own COVID efforts. And these reports are all worth reading. They're all links at the upstream. But Facebook wants you to know, they're sorry. And don't worry, pinky promise won't happen again. Obviously, we hear this all the time, right? They do something or lots of some things that suck, they get caught. They get called out and they go, Oh, we're sorry, we won't do it again. But in this case, they have promised to make changes, what are those changes, they're actually going to care about or claim to care about safety and security. As part of the product design and development. Now, you might be surprised to find out that that was not a priority. It wasn't just not a priority. It was actively discouraged by both the growth and policy teams, both departments within Facebook actively discouraged the design and development teams from thinking about safety and security. So they pitch a new feature. They talk about how safety would factor in how security would factor in. Growth and policy would both go now. Don't worry about that part. just build it and let's move on. And so you end up with all of these problems and more. There's a story that comes to mind at our former software company. We used to talk about it all the time. I may have even told it on the show. I know Allante has heard it. Bank of America put in ATMs, people would leave their bank cards because they take their money and they leave their ATM cards in the machine. So what do you do? Well, you suck the cards into the machine. Okay. Then you have a machine full of cards. So somebody can pull the ATM off the wall, take the cards and start breaking into accounts. Okay, so now you have to put a shredder in the ATM. So now you have ATMs all over the country, with card shredders built into them, and somebody that has to empty them. And now you've got people coming in and having to get new cards and being inconvenienced, all they had to do was think, give you the card back before your money, you're not leaving without the money. Take your card, and now we'll give you the money. And that's how they work now.

And that's exactly what would happen here. So they'd implement a feature, things would go horribly wrong. They put policies on top to address the very specific problem. And then that would cause its own problems. A great example that we have talked about on the show Avram was they wanted, people were doing stupid images. So what did they do? They tried to promote video over images. And so what did people do? They did videos that were still images. So the company then had to put an algorithm in place to check the videos to make sure there was motion. And then they would demote the ones that didn't have motion. So what do you do, do what we're doing right here and you have a slightly animated background. And you put your text overtop of that, and it doesn't get demoted. And so what do they do, they roll back the whole thing.

Allante Sparks (1:11:28)

Sounded like it was a bad idea in the first place.

Scott Ertz (1:11:30)

Right? And that's exactly the kind of nonsense that is happening here. But now, they're not going to let the growth and unified policy teams fully override safety and security ideas.

Avram Piltch (1:11:49)

Look, this is true in every. This is true in most businesses, I don't think Facebook is just a business that is under a lot of scrutiny. Sure, for very good reason. Because it's so popular, and it has great implications for our public life. But the reality is that almost every business, when given a choice between doing the right thing, and doing the thing that makes more money is going to do the thing that makes more money, unless there's an economic incentive for them not to do it. So listen, they're like, for example, this business of not banning not disciplining VIPs, right. This is because A, they don't want to create a controversy that causes people to leave, B, these VIPs will probably drive traffic and, and, you know, usage. So why would we want to get rid of our cash cows? So yeah, you know, of course they're gonna do it. Of course, the people who control the money are going to make the decisions. And they have incentive. So probably what happened with the video thing was, somebody came up with the idea, maybe it was because they were selling video ads, who knows, came up with the idea that that video, we need to drive video plays, right? And that's what we care about. And there was probably someone in the room who said was, who said, don't. But you know, people are just going to create still videos and workarounds. Oh, come on whose, Oh, come on. Don't Don't be a negative, negative Nelly, whatever. Like, you know, we want to drive. We want to drive revenue and you're telling us to stop. Why? You know, okay, but I think this is going to be a problem. Oh, don't be such a Don't be so negative. We got to drive money. So what happened was that the person who said that it wasn't gonna work was right. But you know, that's, that's how it works in every business. Yeah, that, that I'm aware of, is a part of everything, every business, everybody business, you have people who want to try something to drive growth. And even if it's an idea where you're like, Hey, wait a second, maybe this is going to be a problem. They will always want to try it. Because the incentive is to grow. And so they have for something like that to not work they literally have to see it.

Scott Ertz (1:14:38)

Yeah, true. And you know, obviously, it's certainly a default behavior for many, it's not always that way . The thing that comes to mind is the microphones that are in front of all three of us. The company wanted to lower the quality of the first company he founded and he's like, No thank you. And he laughed and went off and made these instead. Because he was more interested in making a product that people loved and wanted than that necessarily, you know, getting that extra $3 by getting rid of some shielding inside of a product and then shocking my brother. That's obviously a different topic. But yeah, there, there are the exceptions and other ones that were being shot down by the growth and policy teams. In this case, which is obviously a shame. And like we said in the past, they come out, they get caught doing a thing. They apologize. Do things ever really change? No, not really. But they make a grand showing of pretending that they do.

Allante Sparks (1:15:55)

Yeah. Just a bunch of negative Nellies I love. I love that name.

Scott Ertz (1:16:03)

That phrase I really wanted was Debbie Downer. Hey, the next one, I wanted a national reference in there.

Avram Piltch (1:16:09)

I'm sorry. Next, next.

Scott Ertz (1:16:14)

Next is Facebook topic, Debbie Downer. But yeah, so I don't suspect that a whole lot is going to change. But obviously, I suppose We'll see

This week's DRM not included in that F5 Live is proudly powered by Amazon Prime, you know that you get free shipping on millions of products. But that's not all you get. You get free music with Amazon Prime music, free TV, movies and documentaries with amazon prime video, Free games and a free twitch subscription with Amazon Prime gaming and a whole lot more. And to learn more about what's available to get quick links to all of these features and more. And to get a free 30 day trial. If you're not already a subscriber, you can go to f5live.tv/prime.

Right speaking of if given the opportunity to do the wrong thing. They will talk about Twitch for a second. Hello Twitch overlords. We will be talking about you for a little bit. If there were I don't know, let's say if there were four letters to describe 2020. At Twitch, it would definitely be DMCA. I think the DMCA defined 2020 for Twitch, they absolutely came under fire with RIAA, DMCA notices. I think we kind of theorized that Twitch had not mattered to the RIAA until the beginning of 2020. And then they figured out how to scan it. And once that happened to the DMCA takedowns started to happen. And so very famously, we talked about replay videos just being deleted, with no notice. And then a very bizarre email being sent to streamers that didn't exactly explain what was going on. And then a very public apology. Sound familiar about handling things very poorly and promising to do better. The actual DMCA process has gotten a little better inside of Twitch, but this week, well, last week, an announcement was made. And then this afternoon, another one was made just after the article got shared again. So let's talk about what happened last week, Twitch announced that they had an agreement with the NMPA, the National Music Publishers Association, an organization that you may not have heard of, but it's kind of a sister to RIAA, it's a similar organization. The agreement does not give streamers the ability to use music from NMPA artists in their streams. Let's be very clear about that. That is not what it does. What it does, is does not slit your throat if you accidentally do have music on your stream, -

Allante Sparks (1:19:50)

Which happens during special events. Yeah, and all sorts of stuff.

Scott Ertz (1:19:54)

Yeah. So if you're, you know, this would never happen on say YouTube. Whether you're at a booth at CES, and there's music playing in the background and YouTube hits you for a DMCA for music you didn't know was playing never happened. That kind of thing happens on Twitch too, especially if you're playing let's say GTA where actual music starts to play, right? There's all kinds of problems. So this prevents you from getting absolutely destroyed by a DMCA takedown, there's a new policy for an MPa, where your videos will come down, you'll get warnings, instead of just like, I don't know, they come to your house and smack you with a sandal or whatever it is they do right now. They're definitely calming the process down. But for NMPA artists, there are future possibilities as part of the agreement, which could include revenue share with artists from your stream if you want to use NMPA music. But none of that has been announced yet, but it's all part of a possible future with the NMPA.

Allante Sparks (1:21:12)

Today newsflash

Scott Ertz (1:21:13)

They announced I got the email at 12:38 this afternoon. That is it. Warner Music or Universal Music, Warner Music has been added to the agreement. So they're obviously out there actively working to create a process for these organizations to find, report, find and report on authorized usages, not under the DMCA process, which is better, I think, for everybody, because they have not handled DMCA well.

Allante Sparks (1:21:49)

Now, many people were getting their VODs and stuff taken down for just playing a game. Yeah, that had its own music playing.

Scott Ertz (1:21:58)

So this is gonna be a better process. that not everything goes straight, it goes to a warning, some things will still skip a warning, for example, if you are trying to rebroadcast a concert, they're still gonna hit you with the sandal or whatever the process is, there is definitely still there's definitely still things you're right. Some things don't don't have soft penalties, some of them still have very stiff penalties. So I think that's a good thing. Things like that were for you restreaming a concert, or playing pre release music, things like that. Those are still gonna have very stiff penalties. But I think this is better. It's not great. But we're getting there. I mean, the process isn't isn't great anywhere, right? Anybody? Anybody who's dealt with the YouTube process, or God forbid, the Facebook process? Oh my god, we've got a drawn project video from 2018 that every six months Warner Music puts a claim on three seconds of our video for a song that is not in the video. If it feels like clockwork, every six months, we get the urge in three months, we get DMCA notice, we've muted three seconds of your video for this. Oh, A, it's fair use. Because it's a performance. And B, It's not actually in that video.

Allante Sparks (1:23:40)

I feel like it's high noon. And this is wild, wild west versus Wild West.

Scott Ertz (1:23:46)

Because it's been the Twitch thing, right? Yes. laws don't apply to us. Yeah. they do.

Allante Sparks (1:23:53)

Yeah, it's you know, you have people who have been playing all sorts of copyrighted music while they're streaming. And while I understand, I understand and agree that music makes the experience better. It's like you still need to kind of, you know, abide by these rules. But then you've got, you know, the DMCA, guns, just rapid fire shooting everyone. And it's like, Well, okay, slow down. Because some people are just playing video games. You know, they don't even know what's going on. Right? They're not trying to break the rules.

Scott Ertz (1:24:28)

And it requires so many people to understand copyright law. Right? Yes, the three of us right now understand the rules to a painful extent, partially because we talked about it on the show, but partially because we all are content creators. And, at least the two of us, I don't know if Avram ever got kicked for the same kind of stupidity, but Allante and I know have dealt with this stuff. We both had interviews and stuff come down.

Avram Piltch (1:25:04)

I haven't had that problem because I guess I haven't had enough stuff posted that actually was in a space where music was playing. But I'm, I'm very conscientious about this kind of stuff, because I can't be right. obvious. Are you guys all aware of the whole business now of police actually playing copyrighted music when they are doing something that they are doing?

Scott Ertz (1:25:32)

Because typically Disney music? Yep.

Avram Piltch (1:25:35)

Oh, is that it's specifically Disney music guests who say they want to make the best sound.

Scott Ertz (1:25:39)

It's the best to use. I mean, Disney sued a daycare for a hand painted mural. Yes, Disney music is the way to go.

Avram Piltch (1:25:50)

Right, right. So I don't know, somebody should invent a kind of AI or something that I'm sure is feasible. They can actually, like, remove background music from or from a video. Yeah, I'm not saying sorry. But like, it knows that. I mean, we have all kinds of things to filter images and filter sound. So could we figure out what the offending frequencies are something and, and get them out? Yeah. Now isn't this half the reason why people use TikTok because you can get all the stream music and TikTok.

Scott Ertz (1:26:29)

So certainly part of it. And Instagram rails works the same way.

Allante Sparks (1:26:34)

Yeah, it does.

Avram Piltch (1:26:35)

So can't Twitch? Why can't Twitch make some kind of agreement like that?

Scott Ertz (1:26:40)

That's what they're working on. I think this is step one. Before, and I mean, in the announcement, they talked about future possibilities. And then in bold said, This does not mean you can use music, right. But they did talk about future possibilities in the emails that came out, and the NMPA press release did as well. I think this is phase one of appeasing the associations first, and then now that we have a process for artists to to deal with unauthorized use, let's talk about how we can deal with licensing for four, you know, twitch affiliates and Twitch partners and stuff like that, how can we talk about legally integrating our music into the platform with some sort of of stream revenue share or something like that? There's a lot of possibilities that I think are going around behind the scenes. But I think they had to appease the associations first and then move on to appeasing Twitch and streamers. Because they've got all the power in fairness, they get all the power, the law is 100% behind them.

Allante Sparks (1:28:00)

Sure. So you would think with all the money that they make, though, that Amazon is Amazon entirely made from this. Yeah, that it shouldn't be difficult to come up with a solution that kind of helps everybody. You know, there's a lot of ads playing on Twitch now. You know, it's like watching TV in the 90s, almost depending on what channel you're on, or what channel you're on. Yeah. So I don't know that.

Scott Ertz (1:28:29)

Well, we'll see where this goes. I'm hoping that bat is the future Avram, that there will be some sort of agreement where you know, you can, you can say I'll, I'll give up 10% of my revenue or whatever. And that'll go to the artists whose music that I play or something like that does sound like something like that is on the horizon. And depending on the percentage I think it'd be 100% worth it because like Allante said it makes things way more engaging. So

Allante Sparks (1:29:01)

I mean, and I I know you're wrapping this up, but like, I think of like artists on Twitch Yeah, some people like to just sit and draw chill chat with their, you know, with their audience. Yeah. And if you just sit there in silence right. There, we got to come to some kind of compromise. Absolutely.

Scott Ertz (1:29:24)

If you're making any money from it, I will tell you, it is worth every penny of $29 a month to sign up for a motion array to be able to use that music for stuff like that. Just putting that out there. Personally, I think it's worth every penny of the $29 to get the licenses to that music to be able to use and stuff when they're not a sponsor at all, but they are responsible for the background video that's playing right now. And the opening for both F5 Live and Piltch Point.

Allante Sparks (1:29:57)

Thank you motion

Scott Ertz (1:29:59)

Yes, collision, they've been responsible for a lot of our stuff. So it's a great deal for content creators, honestly. But yeah, hopefully we'll see something like that come around soon. And with that, that is our show. Thank you to those of you who joined us live, there was a lot of conversation happening in the chat. And thank you for that. We always appreciate it. If you did not join us live and would like to in the future, normally Sunday nights at 9 pm Eastern, you can go to f5live.tv/joinus. There you can see links to all the platforms that you can join us for. You can just watch us on Twitch right there at that link and chat. Give us your feedback on the topics as we talk about them. Wherever you are, make sure that you have subscribed whether that be on one of the podcatchers during YouTube or Facebook through Twitch, Twitter wherever you are, definitely subscribe so you get notifications if you're on YouTube, please hit the bell because subscriptions don't mean anything anymore. And a reminder that next week starts Roboticon, Tampa Bay 2021. It's going to be an extended kind of exploded event, instead of everything happening at once. Every weekend will be dedicated to a platform. First Lego League is next weekend. And it will be on Saturday and Sunday I think. So we'll have a lot of stuff going on, we will continue to do our show either from there or back here in the studio, depending on how things go. So it will still be on but we've also got a lot of content from the event that we will be streaming on our Twitch channel. So you'll want to watch that as well. It's gonna be a ton of fun. And with that, on behalf of the staff, it's not here that we'll be there next week. I'm Scott, I'm Avram, and I'm Allante and we'll see you back next time. Ciao.

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