Meta Agrees to Change Its Ways, But Not Admit Guilt - DTNS 5340

[music] This is the daily tech news for Wednesday, August 26, 2026. We tell you what you need to know, give you the important context, and try to foster understanding. >> Today, Meta will change its ways towards teens, but stop short of admitting it broke the law. And right before the show started, Apple announced it will hold its September 9th event in Certino. >> Foldable phones. >> I bet it's going to be iPhones. >> Yeah. Uh this will be the first big product announcement after John Turnis takes over as CEO on September 1st. Anyway, I'm Tom Mary >> and I'm Sarah Lane. >> Let's start with what you need to know with that big story. >> All right, so we won't be getting a president setting case about social media this time. The lawsuit from 29 US state attorneys general against Meta has been settled out of court just as we were getting to the juicy testimony or what we thought would be anyway. The allegation was that Meta designed Facebook and Instagram to drive compulsive use by children and tried to hide known risks of using those products. Uh they alleged that these decisions violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act as well as some consumer protection statutes. So Tom, let's run through what got agreed to. >> Yeah, settle in folks. [laughter] That's a there's a lot of stuff here. The settlement is a consent judgment. That means it carries the same legal weight and enforcability as a judgment issued after a full trial. Uh so Meta can't weasle out of what it has agreed to. However, the agreement does not constitute an admission by META of any liability, wrongdoing, or violation of any local, state, federal, or international law. So, they it doesn't go on their permanent record. Uh they're they they're not admitting guilt. Uh but they do have to follow all of the things they have agreed to under the force of law. Well, and and and before we get to some of the details, I for everybody out there who's sort of like, but guilt or not guilt, like it means we we've decided to settle, but we're not a a a uh a previous felon. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and that helps in the court of public opinion a little, I suppose, but it also helps in future cases. And Meta has a lot of future cases coming. uh if they had admitted guilt then in future cases that would make it easier for the people suing them for other things right >> uh Meta has agreed to implement the following changes to its apps so if you are a teen a default daily 2hour time limit for users younger than 18 that is across Facebook and Instagram cumulative so you spend an hour on Instagram and then an hour on Facebook boom you hit the time limit now parents can increase that limit but only the parents or guardians And there is a total block on apps from midnight to 6:00 a.m. That can also be adjusted by the parents. Uh Meta will deliver clear prompts and notifications to teens every 15 minutes of continuous screen time to let them know, hey, you're still going, as well as reminders when they hit the 60-minute and the 90 minute of cumulative use marks. They will not get any notifications overnight uh or from 8 am to 300 pm during school hours unless they are direct messages and alerts about their account security or safety. So direct messages under a teen account has to come from a friend or family. It can't come from strangers. And if there's like, hey, somebody's trying to break into your account, they'll get those DMs. But otherwise, from midnight to 6:00 a.m. they don't get any other notifications. from 8:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. when they should be in school. No notifications. >> Okay. Um, you know, I [snorts] wonder how much cuz I'm just trying to think of myself as a young teen, you know, living this life right now and saying, "Oh, now >> I've only got a couple hours a day, you know, where do I go? You know, h how do I make the most of it of this time?" Yeah. And I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing, but that changes behavior. >> Yeah. It's it's it's going to try to reduce it. Now, a lot of these kids are going to try to get around this by creating accounts uh but that are adult, but we'll get to that in a second. Uh some other things that they're doing to reduce the addictiveness of the platform. Uh no longer displaying the number of likes or reactions on posts, banning extreme makeup filters, uh in addition to an already existing block on cosmetic surgery filters. So, they're going from the most extreme to to just like things that do makeup. Uh, a way to view a non-algorithmic feed on Facebook and Instagram, as well as periodic reminders that it's an option and giving parents the option to make the non-algorithmic feed the default on their children's account. Now, algorithmic will still be the default, but there will be a lot of ways for either the parent or the child to change that. Uh, and the teen or the parent can turn off autoplay so that videos don't just automatically start playing. Again, that's up to the person, not to the platform. >> I think that's a good reminder for all of us that you can do that. >> Yeah. >> You know, for all of us who are just like, ah, I didn't want to watch that right now. That that is a setting. >> That would be nice to have. Exactly. Uh there will be, as I mentioned, an enhanced mechanism for teens to report harmful content uh with a promise to respond to 90% of those reports within 6 hours. The enhanced mechanism, I think, just tries to make it easier for them to find where to report it. Uh but the response time, I think, is the bigger meteor part of this, right? >> Yeah. >> Um and then for those kids trying to be like, well, I'll just create an adult account. Uh Meta has agreed to enhanced age assurance measures to identify not only those younger than 18 so that they can't get the adult permissions but also to stop children younger than 13 who try to use the app which is against the policies. They're not allowed to have an account until they're 13. And Meta agreed that an independent auditor will monitor these practices and and give it feedback on what's working and what not. all of these changes and this is where the uh consent part I think applies. They have to follow these changes and keep them in place for 10 years. Uh except for the time limit part. Those only have to stay in place for 5 years unless YouTube and Tik Tok sign on to those time limits in which case Meta says if they do it then we'll agree to do that for 10 years. >> That's [laughter and gasps] very schoolyard. um you're like well we'll do it for five but if those other guys like that yeah and we are talking about teens and schools but I think that's more of a it's a competitive disadvantage for us to do this so we want to try to work something into this settlement that encourages YouTube and Tik Tok to do it now why YouTube and Tik Tok would do it uh outside of their own lawsuits I don't know maybe it would help them with their own lawsuits but there's no other reason for YouTube and Tik Tok to do it not you know not just to help Meta >> yeah it's not as if the three are exactly best friends. >> No, no. I I I you know, they're they're frenemies at best, right? Um >> competitors. >> Meta will be subject to an injunction prohibiting it prohibiting it from making further false, misleading or deceptive statements around its safety features. So, that was one of the allegations is that they were deceiving teens. Uh and the force of law on this one, there is a quot that if this settlement is approved will be a court injunction that says you can't do that. You can't make a false, misleading, or deceptive statement or you're in violation of this agreement and we'll be pulling you back in court for punishment. And the headline is the amount of money that Meta is going to pay. >> Really buried the lead here. >> Yeah, everybody's like, "Yeah, but how much is this going to cost him?" Uh, Meta will pay a total of $16.7 billion, most of which will fund stateesed youth online safety initiatives. This is similar to what happened in the New Mexico suit uh where there was an obeyance fund. Uh but essentially they'll they'll divide these up couple of billion to each state and then the state will take that and create its own youth online safety initiative. So Meta's just given them the money and the state has to implement it. 5.3 billion of that 16.7 billion will only be paid if YouTube and Tik Tok also implement those longer time limits and age assurance methods as well as each of them paying 5.3 billion dollars themselves. So this might only be 11.4 billion if YouTube and Tik Tok don't sign on to this. I Okay, so given that this was, you know, settled out of court, um, or, you know, eventually settled out of court, I wonder how much YouTube and Tik Tok might say, "Excuse excuse you." >> Yeah, we're not part of this. >> Yeah. Like, this is not about us. Um, you you're only going to pay more if we also pay more. Now, I understand where the attorneys general would be coming from on this, saying, "We we have the same issues with all >> we're going to sue you, too." Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Like, we're coming for you as well. Uh so maybe, you know, we're all kind of getting that plea deal ahead of time. >> Yeah. Uh, and then Meta also says it will reduce the daily time limit from 2 hours to 1 hour and extend the nighttime block from midnight to 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. if Tik Tok and YouTube agree to do the same. [laughter] Again, there's a lot of like, if you can get Tik Tok and YouTube to agree to this, I guess that's how this negotiation would go is meta is like, look, we'll make that nighttime block longer if you can get Tik Tok and YouTube to agree to it. And the attorneys general go like, all right, yeah, we'll take that challenge. We'll we'll try to talk them into it. I mean, I'm not much of a Tik Tok user myself, but I'm also not a child. Uh, but uh good luck getting the youngs not to watch YouTube videos overnight. >> No, they they won't be able to. They'll be blocked and there will be no way for them to get around it cuz that happens. Uh, and honestly, that's not entirely the point. The point is to put up the roadblock and and and do your best because I don't think anybody thinks they're really going to stop everyone from doing it, but it'll stop some. A company like Meta is is >> they they can't stop kids from doing kid things. >> Yeah. >> But they can say here is everything we did in our power to to you know do right do right by this lawsuit. >> Now if you heard me say 16.7 billion and you're like Tom I see I'm looking at this headline right here from a reliable source that says 17.1 billion. That's because Meta also agreed to pay459 billion million459 million in the related case about the misuse of adult information related to Cambridge Analytica. Uh so that's a separate case but that's being paid as along with this. So total Meta is going to be paying 17.1 billion but only 16.7 billion come from the actual case about children. Uh both parties are going to wave their right to appeal if this settlement is approved by Judge Gonzalez Rogers, which I I didn't see anyone expressing any uh skepticism that the judge would approve the settlement. Seems like it's probably going to get approved. Um and you can in some cases appeal a settlement if you change your mind later. Uh and the both parties are saying we won't do that. We're we're not going to appeal this. But as I mentioned, this isn't the end. There are hundreds of other cases being brought uh including one involving social media personal injury claims. There's a consolidated nationwide federal school district case. Uh and there's a chance that Meta won't be able to settle them all. So if you're someone who's like they're getting away without admitting their guilt, uh there are going to be lots of other chances to force them to admit guilt. Uh and this is not a, you know, brush off we'll just write a check and and get away. there there are some very significant changes that they're making to the teen accounts. And I, you know, as as much fun as we're having with the YouTube and Tik Tok of it all, I think that is a a significant effect if the attorneys general can get YouTube and Tik Tok to agree to be like, "Hey, you need to do this, too. This is tantamount to legislation to say the major uh the major companies that that teens use for stuff, although SNAP's not part of this, but SNAP's got their own lawsuits against them. Uh the major companies will have nighttime blocks. You know, they will have age assurance methods. Uh so it is it is there are some significant outcomes to this even if Meta didn't have to admit guilt. >> Well, you know what we're guilty of, Tom? >> What is that? >> Loving our patrons. If that's a crime, I don't want to be uh blah. >> Lock me up. >> Yeah, exactly. [laughter] There we go. Thank you. >> DTNS is made possible by all of you listening and some of you watching as well. Thank you today to Howard Yermish, John Atwood, Pat, and Ian Smart. >> That's smart. >> There's more we need to know today. Let's get to the briefs. >> Let's do it. With Gamescom underway in Germany, we have Xbox announcements. Some of you have already heard some some some rumors of this. Pre-orders of the 25th anniversary Xbox Series X25 limited edition console open for all on August 27th for $900. Shipping November 13th. You can only order one per customer. We also have the Xbox X25 special edition wireless controller also available for pre-order for $80 shipping on October 20th. IKEA also showed off its 25th anniversary Xbox line of furniture, including game controller displays, gaming side tables shaped like a D-pad, a thumbstick tool, and others. And probably the biggest news today, Xbox announced its disc to digital program that lets owners of physical game discs claim digital copies, saying, "You know what? Yeah, I already paid for it. I should get both." Most disc based games for Xbox One and Series X support this feature. Microsoft says that thousands of titles will be supported at launch with more being added over time, saying players can claim a digital entitlement by inserting a supported disc into an Xbox One or Xbox Series X console and launching the game. So, you can use those digital copies in Xbox Play Anywhere and Xbox Cloud Gaming and Xbox Insiders can test the feature starting, drum roll please, August 31st. >> Yeah, that's the big one. Uh, everybody wanted that. This one's been rumored. Uh, turns out the rumored price of the Xbox 25th edition, Xbox Series 25th uh, edition was right. And so was this that the Dista Digital was going to launch here. Uh, and I think it's a good program. I I don't think there's a whole lot for people to pick at. Uh Xbox didn't say anything about, and this will of course lead us to phase out physical discs, but disctodigital programs do make it easier to phase out dis physical discs, right? Because it gets a bunch of people with physical discs to understand the advantages to being able to store their games in the cloud. >> It's kind of implied, but again, Microsoft didn't say, "This is what we're doing." very wisely [laughter] not say anything uh about that and they haven't you know to their credit uh while Sony has said we're going to stop making discs you know at the end of next year uh Microsoft hasn't said that and probably the wiser thing to do would just be to slowly phase it out and just have more digital only releases and not not hang a flag on it the way Sony had to do >> well and and at that point for everybody who has physical copies and then say like well why not get the digital >> uh they're less mad later. >> Yeah. Especially this people like, "Oh, but if I have a digital copy, I get to play it in more places. I now I can play it on my PC and I can play it in the cloud and I and all of that sort of thing." Uh without taking it away. I think that's the key. And saying like, "Look, if you want to buy the physical copy, you still can and you get all of the benefits of the digital as well." >> Yep. >> Uh Bill Gates caused a stir today writing a post on gatesotes.com. You may not have realized that was his website, gatesotes.com. I didn't until today. >> Yeah, today I learned. Uh the post is called the turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make now are critical with a subheading, we need a plan to ensure that the good outweighs the bad. I've seen most stories kind of characterizing this as Bill Gates turning against AI. Uh I read the whole thing. I don't think it's him turning against AI. I think what it is, well, I'll get I'll get to what I think what it is. Uh but it is him laying out risks as well as benefits. Uh he was very specific on the risks. He laid out three big ones. Many jobs will disappear forever. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. The the debate is whether there will be enough new jobs created to replace those jobs that disappear forever. Uh we we no longer have all the buggy whip makers that we used to, but we came up with other jobs. And he addresses that. He says, "I don't know that we're going to be able to replace these jobs as fast as they disappear." That's his worry. The second one is AI will empower people to do more harm. So pointing out that it makes it faster for people to come up with bad things to do. Both cyber security, but also medical and bioteterrorism and things like that. These are all well-worn paths. >> Plant hacks. >> Yeah. These these are real risks and everyone knows about them. And again, the debate is, but will we get good at detecting and defending against them as fast as they get good at uh doing harm? And again, Gates says like that's not a guarantee. If we don't have a plan, we might not. Uh and then he also worries that AI could stunt kids development and replace human relationships. This feels like the weaker of his three uh arguments. uh this is always a worry with every new kind of media or technology. Uh and he he makes a couple of remarks in his in his statements that well in the past people said it wasn't a problem but this time it's different. So he's he's having that this time it's different. This time it's a real risk to kids development because if they have an AI pal they might not make real friends. Uh he also spent some time talking about benefits. Uh he's a little less organized in that section. He didn't have bullet points. He just describes like yes there's amazing things we can do with health by detecting diseases. There's amazing things we can do with science. Uh and there are definitely our productivity increases. This is why I don't think it's him turning against AI because he makes the point of like yes all the things I've said in the past that AI will do well I am still in agreement with. But he recommends that we plan and he spends a lot of time saying we should have a plan and I support a plan and I'll help governments create a plan and there needs to be a plan. He spends less time designing what that plan would be. But he does give us three things that he thinks should be part of a plan. One is set aside jobs reserved for humans. Uh in other words, jobs that could be replaced by automation including robots and he does talk a lot about robots and saying like hey blue collar folks are not going to be exempt from this. So we need to be prepared for that as well. They're going to come for white collar first but then the robots are going to come for the blue collar manufacturing jobs. He's like, "We should reserve some jobs for humans and we'll have to evolve that over time uh as as we determine which jobs, you know, should be replaced and which jobs aren't." He says, "I believe we should tax AI tokens and robots." In other words, rebalance how we tax labor and capital. And I think this is really what he has come to the conclusion of which is uh-oh if jobs get reduced uh you there's all kinds of ways we can make up for that like universal income and there will be benefits from the increased productivity of automation. Uh but if jobs get reduced income tax goes down and if income tax goes down governments don't have enough money. I think what he's identifying is not well we should worry about jobs being replaced but we should worry about the current tax system not being applicable to the new world. This is very similar to worries with electric vehicles. We we based an entire economy in government on paving roads and building bridges because we get gas tax. If cars aren't buying gas, you're not getting that tax. So there's like, well, maybe we need to tackle electric vehicles on the miles they drive, on road usage, uh, rather than on the fuel they use. Uh, and I think Gates is making that same argument here, which is before it becomes a problem, we need to start taxing the actual machines. We need to start taxing AI. We need to start taxing robots so that we have enough tax base to be able to fund the transition from the old economy to the new economy. >> None of this actually sounds too crazy to me. I know because it's Bill Gates, people go, "Oh, you know, Bill Gates is spouting off." Um, but uh what uh what stands out to me is the idea that certain jobs would be reserved for humans. Uh, I don't know exactly what Gates thinks those jobs should be. >> One of one of the examples he gave was like if if you have been diagnosed with a fatal condition, a robot could tell you, but it shouldn't. A human should tell you that. I'm like, yeah, okay. I I guess I can see that. >> Yeah. I mean, I don't [laughter] I mean, in a any given year, I don't know how many instances that specific thing, you know, is is >> Well, sure. And he's not saying the only one, but he's like there are things like that where we could replace them, but maybe the human touch will be better and we want to res we want to make that the rule that we >> or even kind of you know going back to this you know this idea that you know children's literacy is at risk because of AI and you know humanto human contact is is >> not physical uh but you know just you know talking is very important you know restaurants >> critical thinking libraries. I mean, yeah, just just >> various things that we we as not young people are are just very used to that. And so, we're trying to figure out like how do the robots get involved? And so, I think what he's getting at is if you're if you're younger and this is all you know and it becomes more and more the same, you know, who's at risk here? And I think that's a very good conversation to have. >> Yeah. No, I I I I don't mind that one where it's almost like the greeter at Walmart, right? Like, hey, we may have robots stocking the shelves, but let let's keep the humans out front. So, you get a human touching, you get human relationships and maybe maybe still have people walking around in the aisles asking you if you need to help. Even though a robot could totally do it, let's reserve that for humans. I don't know who gets to decide that. Uh the the idea of having the government reserve jobs for humans [clears throat] sounds like a recipe for arguing about which jobs were classified and which weren't. >> Um but I I I don't mind the uh I don't mind the concept at all. And I really think almost everything in this is a way for him to get you to listen to him so that he can push his tax. He he makes a he spent several paragraphs saying this. I know I'm involved in AI with my relationship with Microsoft still, but I'm not writing this because it's going to benefit me. Uh, and then he says we should tax AI. Now, you could say that would be bad for Microsoft to have to have a tax on AI and reduce the, you know, usage of of its product, but also its regulatory capture. Like if you have to tax AI tokens, then that means >> it wouldn't just be like something against Microsoft. It's everybody, >> right? And and the smaller companies would have a harder time competing with Microsoft in that case. But I honestly I I I don't believe that's the motivation here. I don't think he's just trying to protect Microsoft. He's in the process of giving away his wealth. Uh I think what he's trying to do is is identify like this is going to an unpopular solution uh that that is going to have to happen. And when there are unpopular solutions, society usually puts them off as long as they can. So let me see if I can scare people into changing it before it becomes a problem. >> Yeah. I don't know if that's going to work, but I think that's what's going on in this. >> I I I will say, you know, before we move on, I mean, Bill Bill Gates [laughter] uh posting something on what what was it? Uh gatesotes.com. >> Gates. Yeah, I'll bookmark that. But uh you know, that's going to get a lot of attention because it's Bill Gates. A lot of people don't feel dissimilar from anything that he's saying. >> Yeah. >> A lot of people do. So it it's not like we have some one blanket solution here, but I think keeping the conversation alive, especially because this is all moving so quickly is is is the right call. Whether his tax call is the right call, you might have very strong feelings about that. And you know, once we get into government and politics, um it it's it's it's sort of the wild west. But I do think the more people in positions of extreme power uh talk about what they're worried about and potential solutions, the the less we feel like, oh, we just like flew blind into this new AI nightmare. >> End of the storm. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And you know, uh a headline that says Bill Gates turns against AI is going to get people to pay attention even if it's inaccurate in my opinion. Uh he didn't turn against AI. He just wants you to look at what he thinks needs to be done to limit the bad effects of AI. >> Well, uh, if you would like product reviews from people who put gadgets, services, platforms to the test, then your new show is Live with It. Many of you are already following us. Uh, and we appreciate you very much. Each week we talk about the tech in our lives, robots, air fryers, smart TV solutions, the works. This week, DTNS producer Amos is walking us through his Ubiquiti Unifi system in his house, which I'm just going to tell you is very, very thorough. If you want tips on total control over your home internet plus, this is the episode for you. We are on YouTube at youtube.com/livewithitshow. Uh that's just just bookmark us there. It's very easy to find our episodes that way. And also huge huge thanks to all of our patrons who are keeping us trying out new things. patreon.com/livewithit. >> Now, some quick headlines that are going to improve your critical thinking that is degrading because we've all been using AI. [laughter] [gasps] >> Amazon's Ring said Wednesday that its throw away the key encryption is the new default for videos uh on its doorbells, which is not end to end. It stores rotating keys in the cloud and deletes them within 24 hours. That allows it to process video alerts without having a permanent encryption key to other data. So, you can still turn on end to-end encryption, but you won't have the video processing alerts. >> Yeah. At first, I hated this, then I liked it, then I hated it, then I liked it. But I think I ended up liking it cuz you they didn't turn off end encryption. They just said, "Look, if you want to do the processing, let's create a way where you can keep most of your stuff encrypted most of the time and you have less of a surface attack area." Cuz before it was all or nothing. >> Yeah, this this isn't a we took away a feature. It's we've added a feature. >> So, >> a week after video clips of GTA 6 leaked online, Rockstar Games finally issued the following statement. It would be an understatement to say that having videos of Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay leak this way has been heartbreaking for our team and this is obviously not how we intended for you to see the game after all this time. They they basically apologized for letting it leak and was interesting. >> I'm also like well but nobody's played the game yet. It's >> but now everybody's seen it and they were going to have a big reveal on Netflix tomorrow and now it's just it's ruined Sarah. They ruined Well, you know, I I'm sure you know, the marketing team at Rockstar is just like, how? Why? But, uh, yeah, I I I think people are still going to play the game. >> I think so, too. >> Instagram is rolling out a new feature called first draft that automatically trims video clips and removes pauses to pull the best moments out of an initial cut that then you can tweak further. So, it's not doing everything for you, but it's sort of like we think this is how you probably wanted to edit this. First Draft is rolling out first on iOS. >> Lenovo launched its 8.4 in Legion Y700 Infinite flagship tablet. Uh, it's available in China with a 2.5K screen, 165 Hz OLED display, Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip inside, 24 GB of RAM. Might be worth it just for the RAM. Uh it starts at $4,999 yuan uh which is about $744 US. >> Reuters sources say that Moonshot, that's the maker of the Kimmy model, is negotiating with Microsoft, Amazon, and Google over revenue sharing to let the companies offer Kimmy K3 to cloud customers. Reportedly, Moonshot wants up to 30% of revenue made off of Kimmy K3. >> Dang, that's a chunk. >> It is. Uh, you know that ox alpha model that everybody was like, "Ooh, it's free, but who makes it and it performs really well on open router? Who what is this about?" Uh, it was Jipu. Uh, China's Z.AI says, "We did it. We made Ox Alpha. It's going to remain free for now and it will release the weights for the model on Wednesday night. >> If you're keeping track on models, Alibaba released its Quinn 3.8 flash downloadable model on Wednesday. Along with its weights, the 125 billion parameter model is comparable to Opus 4.6 and Deepseek V4 Flash. >> A lot of US policies against Chinese tech have been to to beat them back so that they they are unable uh to compete in chips. They do not appear to be entirely working as Huawei put a bid in to build data centers for the Egyptian government using its Ascend 950 series chips that it makes for training and inference. Uh the US of course is preparing a counter offer involving Nvidia and Microsoft. >> Amazon is shutting down Mechanical Turk on September 30th. The platform was launched in 2005. I almost said 2025. No much much uh longer ago than that. 2005. And employed people to do short digital tasks for micro payments. >> I should hurry up and use it before it goes away. I never used I never had any mechanical Turks do any >> I didn't either. Um, I I I was never totally sure how it worked. Uh, >> I mean, it was more for people who had small businesses or startups and like I I need I need someone to crunch through all of these spreadsheets. It's tedious little task. >> Well, guess who's mad? People who used to be paid that AI agents uh type jobs, >> right? We now we need to transition all the mechanical Turk workers, the Turkers. Uh, SoundCloud announced that artists will soon be able to sell their music directly on SoundCloud instead of having to send people to thirdparty sites like Band Camp. They could still do that, but they will be able to sell it directly if they want to. Uh, SoundCloud says it will beta test the feature first with 200 US-based Artist Pro subscribers. An analysis of DNS records indicates that the number of users hosting their own email server has dropped by half over the last decade. In 2016, 44.6 6% of the top million domains ran their own mail server. In 2026, that is down to 22.4%. Meanwhile, Google Workspace hosts 21.8% and Microsoft 365 hosts 16.8%. I tell you what, I moved my own uh server to Google Workspace uh because I got tired of of chasing uh email blacklists and and having you know emails bounce saying like you're this came from an untrusted server. Uh it's not something impossible to do, but it's it's it's a job to run your own email server and it it makes financial sense to outsource it. Uh I'm I'm with the folks who wrote this report saying it is kind of risky to have that that few of a email providers uh delivering all of the email of the world. Uh so it would be nice to have a little more competition. >> If they do it well then then you don't worry about it all that much. >> Great leverage. >> Well, we like to end every episode here on DTNS with shared perspectives. Today Paul has some thoughts on drone delivery. Yeah, I really like this, Paul. Thank you for for writing in. Uh he wanted to chime in on the discussion Sarah and I were having about the logistics of drone delivery last week. Uh some of the pro possible problems that that could interfere with it were what we were talking about. And he said, "I've had a lot of questions as well, like what if I want a burrito delivered to my apartment on the 12th floor? And how can I prevent someone from stealing my burrito delivered by a noisy attention-grabbing drone?" And then Paul says, "Recently, I watched a video where they tested a pizza delivery drone." The news story didn't reveal all the details, but they did show that the drone homeed in on the location provided by the customer, probably by tracking the customer's phone location. This particular customer had chosen to receive the pizza in a public park, but presumably they could have picked any suitable location. The drone stayed high in the air, maybe 20 ft or higher, and lowered the pizza in a delivery bag attached to a cable. The reporter simply detached the bag, and the delivery was complete. All in all, it seemed a pretty smart way to sidestep some potential issues. If you live in an apartment or have lararsenous neighbors, no problem. Just step outside to a safe open area and the drone lowers the delivery to you and you take it. Like Tom mentioned, most of us have questions about this sort of thing simply because we haven't experienced it yet. It should be interesting to see what other potential problems and solutions come up as these deliveries become more widespread. As always, thanks for the great show, Paul. >> Aw, thanks Paul. Yeah, I [laughter] I'm sure many of you have seen the video of the drone that dropped the delivery into somebody's pool. >> Yes. >> Uh that, you know, made the rounds over the last couple of days. And, you know, it's it's one of those situations where it's like, yeah, we're we're going to run into things like this. This doesn't First of all, not everybody has a hot tub, uh, you know, [snorts] or just a large body of water in their backyard. >> Yeah. But uh but you know it's there there are going to be you know weird little accidents. Right now I get a ton of deliveries to my house. You know dog food stuff for myself. I mean just it's relentless. And every so often you know the delivery is either wrong goes to the wrong apartment where I'm like I don't even know where that is. Um or you know where it's delayed. You know, there are there are many issues that we're all kind of like, well, yeah, but the convenience of getting it delivered to your front door is worth it, right? So, that's that's where we are with the drone thing. Like, there there's a lot of talk about like, how is this going to go wrong? And it will go wrong, but [clears throat] most of the time it's designed to be great. >> Yeah. It would be like if if uh automobiles were brand new and people are like, I'm not getting in one of those. you could run into somebody else. Yeah. [laughter] >> It's like, yeah, that's that's still true. And yet everybody still drives. So, uh Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm not getting an electric car. What if I run out of gas? >> Yeah. Uh so, I I think you know what what I the takeaway I will have from this discussion we've just had, Sarah, is uh make sure that you're not standing by your pool when the drone comes to deliver your pizza. You know, go go to the front yard or something like that. >> Yeah. and and yeah, make sure that the rabbid band of coyotes that live in the backyard are sleeping when the burrito gets delivered or you know it's going to be mayhem. >> Indeed. >> Well, you might be thinking about anything we talked about on the show. And if you do, if you have insight into a story we've talked about or may talk about in the future, let us know. Feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. >> Big thanks to Paul for contributing to today's show. Thank you for being along for Daily Techne Show. You're the folks who keep us in business. My goodness. If you're a patron, thank you. If you're not, you can fix that really easily. patreon.com/dtns. [music] >> The DTNS family of podcasts, helping each other understand. >> Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this broker. [laughter]