Tech News Weekly 428 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Tech News Weekly, Dan Moren joins us again and very excited to talk first and foremost about the Grammarly lawsuit. Plus, where do things stand in that Live Nation settlement? Is it actually a settlement at all? Then Abrar Al-Heeti of CNET drops by to tell us about her time at MWC in Barcelona before I round things out about how China is in love with OpenClaw. All that coming up on Tech News Weekly.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:41]:
This is Tech News Weekly, episode 428, with Dan Moren and me, Mikah Sargent, recorded Thursday, March 12th, 2026. Live Nation Settles With the DOJ. Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news. I am your host, Mikah Sargent, and we are typically joined by Jake Ward on this day, but Jake is traveling, so we wish him well on his travels. Joining us today is someone who has quickly become the person I call on when I really need somebody to fill in because they do a great job every time they're here. It's Dan Moore, and welcome back to the show, Dan.

Dan Moren [00:01:25]:
It's good to be here, Mikah. I am among the most available. That is one of my Uh, that is one of my key qualities, availability.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:34]:
I think it's capability followed closely by availability.

Dan Moren [00:01:38]:
Oh, closely by availability. Sure.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:41]:
So this of course is Tech News Weekly and we kick the show off by talking about our stories of the week. And if you thought Dan Moren was going to bring you a story about Apple, you would be wrong.

Dan Moren [00:01:56]:
Oh, for once I show up and I'm not doing a story about Apple. Amazing. It is, however, a story about AI because we can't escape AI. It's everywhere. And it's a story about the law because we can't escape the law.

Mikah Sargent [00:02:10]:
Believe me, as much as we try.

Dan Moren [00:02:11]:
I tried. This is the story about Grammarly. You might know Grammarly as that lovely program that corrects your grammar and spelling and does all sorts of useful stuff to make sure that when you write stuff and send an email or post it or send it to your boss, it looks like a human wrote it except a robot. I'll actually help you write it. Recently, Grammarly's come under some fire because they introduced a new feature at the end of last year, uh, which they called Expert Review. And what this tool promised to do was essentially look at your writing and tell you the opinion of notable writers and journalists about your writing and how you might improve it, how they, they would suggest were they perched on your shoulder looking at what you've written. What they might say. Um, the only problem—

Mikah Sargent [00:03:03]:
so just— so that's, that's the pitch.

Dan Moren [00:03:06]:
Uh, that's the pitch, is this is essentially you're typing something and it's like, hey, what would Stephen King say about what you wrote? Or spookier, what would Neil deGrasse Tyson say about this email you're sending to your boss? Why are you asking Neil deGrasse Tyson about an email you're sending to your boss? Can't answer that question. Now, this seems like— I'm not even gonna say it seems like a good idea because it seems like a weird idea, right?

Mikah Sargent [00:03:34]:
It's a weird idea.

Dan Moren [00:03:35]:
Not a thing that I would go out there and really pitch. But Grammarly, I guess, decided this was a thing that they really, uh, felt was compelling to their users. Only problem— well, one of many problems, perhaps the largest of these problems— they did not get the permission from any of these people to do this. Moreover, it also included, uh, lots of famous people who are dead, um, to give suggestions. I don't know that, you know, William Shakespeare was thrown in there, but there are certainly people in there, uh, who are no longer around. Like Carl Sagan, uh, was another good example. But there are also a bunch of people who are like journalists on the internet. So Neel Patel from The Verge was in there.

Dan Moren [00:04:17]:
As were a couple other Verge editors like David Pierce and Sean Hollister.

Mikah Sargent [00:04:20]:
Were they all ready for this?

Dan Moren [00:04:22]:
No one was ready for this. I mean, there are people from all over. I mean, Casey Newton, who does Platformer, Joanna Stern from the Wall Street Journal, Jason Schreier and Mark Gurman from Bloomberg. Like, I hate all of these people. Like, and, and it's kind of bizarre because to, to build on that aspect of it, I was reading The Verge had, uh, the one of the first stories to talk about this, and they were talking about the fact that their editor was one of the people in the expert review, and they said— and the advice they gave me was a thing that specifically, you know, I've worked with my editor for a long time, this is a thing he would never say. He would never tell me to do this. Um, which is weird, right? It's extra weird because then it just feels like you're slapping these people's names on kind of generic writing advice that doesn't really relate in any way to it. And I can see You know, oftentimes when these features or tech features get announced, you can try to kind of draw the dotted line in your head, right? You're like, oh, you know what they thought? They thought we've got an LLM, we can train it on a bunch of writing from these online sources, and we can essentially use that to analyze all the writings from this particular person.

Dan Moren [00:05:34]:
That's not exactly something that LLMs are always great at. I mean, it seems like something they should be great, like, good at because it's very much pattern recognition. But I think what we're discovering here is there are some shortcomings to just how good it is at analyzing those models. And like everything else, LLMs tend to sort of flatten the effect of all these things because they're taking kind of, you know, a statistical likelihood. So they also, you know, they point out a lot of other stuff because this is sort of artifacts from these things being trained on existing text. Like there are outdated job titles from some of these people, right? Places they used to work that they don't work anymore, probably because they were trained on text from when they worked at that particular place. Um, so, you know, The Verge asked Superhuman, which is the parent company of Grammarly, about this at the time, and they said, oh, well, this doesn't, this doesn't claim endorsement or direct participation, these people, it's just influenced by them. That turned out to just continually create— so this kept going.

Dan Moren [00:06:33]:
We are now at the point— so the latest developments of this is A, Superhuman has taken down this feature and apologized. Initially they said, oh, you can write an email if you want to opt out. If you're a person.

Mikah Sargent [00:06:43]:
This is not how life should be.

Dan Moren [00:06:44]:
This is not how this works.

Mikah Sargent [00:06:46]:
Yeah, that's not how— you can't just do this.

Dan Moren [00:06:49]:
Yeah, so shockingly, they have been sued. Uh, there's a class action lawsuit making its way through the Southern District of New York, uh, brought among others by Julia Angwin, who founded The Markup and is a, uh, you know, writer and editor of long time standing. And basically go in saying, we did not allow you to do this. And as, uh, Angwin's lawyers have argued, this is kind of cut and dry because generally you're not allowed to use people's names for commercial purposes. Like, even if you're not claiming they endorsed it, you have a right to your identity, your personhood, and that cannot be used to sell somebody else's product. You can't slap someone's name on that product even if you're like, it's not an endorsement, right? Like, I could put all sorts of names on my books, right, if I just wanted to do this. Oh, it's not an endorsement, I just happened to put their names on my books. What a coincidence, right? Stephen King, I was plastering that over my book cover.

Dan Moren [00:07:44]:
Did he endorse the book? No. No, I didn't say that. I just put his name there. So yeah, I, I think this is going to go pretty badly for Superhuman. I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but my, my read of that seems like this is a classic Silicon Valley move, right? It's the— it's the— to take the, the Jeff Goldblum line from Jurassic Park: they were so busy thinking about whether or not they could do this thing that they didn't stop to think about whether or not they should do this thing. And the answer was no.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:11]:
You should not do this thing.

Dan Moren [00:08:14]:
Um, but yeah, it's another of the examples of, especially I think right now with the bubble around AI and LLMs in particular, the temptation to see how many other things can we throw this out? What good pro— what good things can we create or what features can we monetize based on what AI or LLMs can do? And let's not think about the consequences. Let's just throw it in there so we can say, look at this cool thing that AI let us do on our product. Um, it's a, it's a classic move fast and break things, only what you may have broken is your business model.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:47]:
I, I think what bothers me the most about this is the idea that, like, I want— I would love— I want to be in sort of the deposition because I just truly— I want to understand why they thought this was a good idea, why they thought this was okay, and hear from them legitimately, like, What did you talk about when you decided, when you convinced yourselves that it would be okay to take living people and sort of slap their virtual name on? That's just, it doesn't make sense to me. And like, I genuinely wonder, did they, can, when this happened, did they go, we know we'll get pushback, here's our plan for pushback, or did they go We think everybody's just going to be so honored. Yeah, they're going to be honored by this. And no, there's no world in which, like, if I heard that my name was— look, Grammarly is a helpful tool for people. I believe it's been a sponsor on the network in the past. It is not a tool that I use. Having been a copy editor for many years, I, I can only imagine What, like, I would be annoyed if my, my writing and my sort of, uh, way of doing things was used to push, you know, this. Yeah, I completely understand the lawsuit and everything that's involved there.

Mikah Sargent [00:10:21]:
Um, I wonder how much of an impact though any of this is going to have on Superhuman. Because I'm thinking now about how it doesn't— like, I don't see everyday people making use of this feature in the first place. People who use Grammarly all the time because their work required them to, you know, install it and make use of it so that the emails are what they should be. I don't see them making use of this anyway. So when it goes away, Uh, I don't think that it's going to make a much of a difference.

Dan Moren [00:10:58]:
No, I, I agree. I think, you know, again, if I want to look at the root of what is driving this kind of thing, you know, I, I always tend to be a person who boils it down to kind of the, the fun— the failures fundamentally of our system, right? Of the idea that Grammarly, as you said, useful tool, but because of the pressures of, you know, capitalism they, they need to feel like they're growing, they're expanding, right? It's not enough to just be good at grammar checking. What other things can we put into our product so that we can grow and accumulate more, more users and more customers? And sometimes, oftentimes, that leads to bad decisions because, you know, you're trying to figure out what other things can we shove in, and, and you start to deviate a bit from your core competency, right? In the case of Grammarly, like, hey, we're a really good grammar checker. Nobody looked at it and said But what if I could get Cormac McCarthy telling me how to write my email to my boss? Like, nobody asked for that. So, you know, I get the temptation to have these exciting new tools and try to figure out how you can apply them to the, the business that you're, you're doing. But yeah, it does feel to me like there is a dearth of people stopping and thinking about consequences and about what, what is actually going to happen and how these things can be received. I mean, and that is at the root, unfortunately, also of all the AI and LLMs. Issues as well, right? I mean, how many of these things do we— do we know— do we know were trained on pirated materials? There's any number of cases in which they have evidence suggesting that, you know, the likes of Meta and Anthropic, you know, settled that case, right? Like, but there are like depositions with evidence that they're like, yeah, we downloaded this giant trove of pirated ebooks and we used it to train our model, and everyone's like You can't do that.

Dan Moren [00:12:52]:
Nobody— and in some of these cases, they, you know, even worse, they did say like, well, we shouldn't do— like, nobody should talk about this, but we're doing it, right? Like, in those cases, people are knowing— they know it was wrong. But there's a lot of cases where people are like, oh, this is a cool thing, where can I get a bunch of text on the internet? Let me just scrape every single, like, you know, article written in the last 10 years or something. So I, I think unfortunately it is a technology that really lends itself to You know, ask for forgiveness instead of permission. Yeah, maybe not always the best approach.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:22]:
No, I mean, yeah, this lesson needs to be learned and it needed to be learned a long time ago. It continues to not be learned. So lawsuit, lawsuit, lawsuit. Frankly, it happened. All right. We need to take a quick break before we come back with my story of the week. Joined joining us today, Dan Moren of SixColors.com. Let me tell you, about our first sponsor of this week's episode of Tech News Weekly.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:50]:
It is Bitwarden bringing you this episode. Bitwarden is the trusted leader in password, passkey, and secrets management. Bitwarden consistently ranked number 1 in user satisfaction by G2 and Software Reviews, with more than 10 million users across 180 countries and more than 50,000 businesses. Whether you're protecting one account or thousands, Bitwarden keeps you secure all year long with consistent updates. With the new Bitwarden Access Intelligence, organizations can detect weak, reused, or exposed credentials and immediately guide remediation, replacing risky passwords with strong, unique ones. This closes a major security gap. Credentials remain a top cause of breaches, as you know, but with Access Intelligence, they become visible, they become prioritized and corrected before exploitation can occur. Also, Bitwarden Lite is here.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:41]:
Bitwarden Lite delivers a light lightweight, self-hosted, yes, self-hosted password manager built for home labs, personal projects, and environments that want quick setup with minimal overhead. Bitwarden is now enhanced with real-time vault health alerts and password coaching features that help users identify weak, reused, or exposed credentials and take immediate action to strengthen their security. Bitwarden now supports direct import from Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi browsers. Direct import copies or imports credentials from the browser into the encrypted vault And this is great. It's without requiring a separate plaintext export. So this is going to make things easier, but also more secure because it helps reduce exposure with that manual export where you might forget to delete. G2 Winter 2025 reports Bitwarden continues to hold strong as number 1 in every enterprise category for 6 straight quarters. Bitwarden setup is easy, supports importing from most password management solutions.

Mikah Sargent [00:15:40]:
The Bitwarden open source code is regularly audited by third-party experts and Most importantly, Bitwarden meets SOC 2 Type 2 GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA compliance, and ISO 27001:2002 certification. So get started today with Bitwarden's free trial of a Teams or Enterprise plan, or get started for free across all devices as an individual user at bitwarden.com/twit. That's bitwarden.com/twit. And of course, we thank Bitwarden for sponsoring this week's episode. Of Tech News Weekly. All right, back from the break. We kicked off the show by talking about Grammarly. Now it's time to talk about Ticketmaster.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:23]:
This week, the Department of Justice announced a settlement with Live Nation Ticketmaster that on paper was supposed to signal progress in one of the biggest antitrust cases in the entertainment industry. But as Lauren Finer reports for The Verge, the reaction from industry insiders, from lawmakers, and from consumer advocates has been anything but celebratory. Instead of the structural breakup many had hoped for, the deal offers what critics describe as a collection of half measures: a 5% fee cap, a pledge to open Ticketmaster's backend to competitors, which almost sounds like Ticketmaster's just mooning the industry, um, and the divestiture. It is absolutely. And the divestiture of booking agreements at just, just 13 amphitheaters. The settlement landed right in the middle of an ongoing jury trial, cutting short testimony that was expected to lay bare how Live Nation allegedly wielded its monopoly power. And now many are asking a simple question: who actually asked for this? So let's talk about what's going on here. I mean, we have heard about this ongoing Ticketmaster-Live Nation thing for some time.

Mikah Sargent [00:17:35]:
And I remember it. I remember, I think it was even Jason Howell who was getting tickets for his daughter for a Taylor Swift concert and at the same time told me, like, all of the complaints that he had about it. And then shortly after that, we heard that some lawmaker also experienced this and got so mad that it was time to take a look at things, which on one hand, love that we're paying attention to this. On the other hand, really annoyed that The way that this has to happen is from a lawmaker taking notice. Surprise, surprise. But that gave people hope because we've heard for a long time that Ticketmaster, Live Nation basically has figured out a way to make venues and ticketing all its thing. And there are so many kind of behind-the-scenes deals that we've heard about that go on that make it so that ticket prices have to be very high. But then also there's, all the issues with people purchasing tickets and reselling.

Mikah Sargent [00:18:43]:
I mean, there's just a lot that goes on here. But this deal, you know, might sound like meaningful reform on the face of it. But when you start to really dig in, it doesn't make a lot of sense because as I mentioned, there's a 5% cap on Ticketmaster service fees at Live Nation owned or operated amphitheaters, a pledge to give artists more transparency on their own ticket sales, and a requirement that Ticketmaster open its backend technology to competitors. Stakeholders are going— one in fact said, the theme today in this, in the discussions I've had with partner organizations and members has been this. Who asked for this? Like using multiple ticketing systems for an event. Uh, oh, wait, let me read this again. Uh, he added that several provisions of the settlement either propose solutions his members likely won't care to take advantage of, like using multiple ticketing systems for an event, or are so scaled down that they're hardly meaningful. Uh, at trial, witnesses had described Ticketmaster software in unflattering terms.

Mikah Sargent [00:19:43]:
The CEO of the competitor SeatGeek called it, quote, something out of the 1980s. And Kevin Erickson, the director of the artist advocacy group Future of Music Coalition, said they just argued that Ticketmaster's tech stack is held together with duct tape. And so why is giving people access to Ticketmaster's tech stack a remedy? Basically, Ticketmaster got read for filth. But the problem is that the settlement does not match what the community and everyone else is saying is wrong here.

Dan Moren [00:20:19]:
Right.

Mikah Sargent [00:20:20]:
I'd love to hear what are your thoughts on this in general?

Dan Moren [00:20:22]:
Yeah.

Mikah Sargent [00:20:23]:
And did you expect that more would come out of this?

Dan Moren [00:20:25]:
I mean, I hope— I always hope, but that hope usually goes unanswered. You know, the process feels so opaque, I think, is one of the frustrations of consumers, as you know. I don't buy a lot of tickets to live events, but I have run into that thing where you buy it and you're like, oh, these tickets, I mean, they're pricey, but they're not bad. And then you go through all the steps and all the fees then get added on and you're like, wait a second, I thought this was only $100. Now it's $150. What happened? So, you know, I think the challenge here is that a lot of this is, you know, is an antitrust problem. And therefore they— it's because Live Nation controls so much of the market not only for ticket sales but for venues, right? Like, they are— they own venues. And this is a— this is part of the challenge.

Dan Moren [00:21:08]:
I was just reading some good analysis from Ashley Karman over at Bloomberg about this whole story as well, and how we'd hope to find out a little bit more as this progressed through the trial. But since now it's been settled, we're unlikely to know. Although the states, uh, several states have not signed on to this settlement, I guess. So there are still some outstanding legal issues that will need to be, you know, wrapped up. But the, the DOJ, for its part, seems to be satisfied. So we'll see what happens there. Um, one of the things that she pointed out which was really interesting was the breakdown of the costs that were testified to by one of the lawyers for Live Nation, who said essentially, you know, with something like a $78 face value, $74 goes to the artist and $4 to the promoter. The venue collects a $15 fee.

Dan Moren [00:21:52]:
Ticketmaster gets a $5 fee. The credit card company requires a $2 transaction fee. Um, you know, certainly Live Nation's taking its fair share, but a lot of the bulk of it basically goes to the artist. And there's the big argument that, well, you know, it's hard to argue against the artists getting paid for this, especially because, you know, if we're talking about music in particular, this is an industry where streaming has depressed how much artists get paid for their music being listened to online. So live concerts are one of the ways they can make that money back. Um, and so that's a challenging aspect to it as well when you're trying to sort of think about it. And, you know, there is a— there is an argument as a larger case that, you know, if the, the tickets get too expensive, the market will react and people won't buy tickets because it's too expensive to go to these things. That doesn't seem to be happening in a lot of cases, right? So the argument would be, well, is the market really suffering from this if people are still buying expensive tickets to go see Taylor Swift? Because there's not really a competition to that, right? You can't— if you're not going to go see Taylor Swift, you're gonna be like, well, 'Well, maybe I won't see Taylor Swift, but we'll go to see Bruce Springsteen.' No, there's no substitute, right, for artists.

Dan Moren [00:23:00]:
If you like an artist, you're gonna go see that artist. So I think the disappointing part of it is, though they are trying to do things like cap these fees, it does feel a little bit like weak tea compared to having more options for third-party vendors to be engaged in this process. And obviously, over the years, Live Nation and Ticketmaster they've, they've bought up all the competition, right? Like, it has become consolidated. This feels like a textbook antitrust situation where one party controls a huge part of this infrastructure, and it's hard to see how this remedy is actually going to fix that problem.

Mikah Sargent [00:23:35]:
Yeah, yeah. I, I just, uh, you know, the Department of Justice even says that Live Nation owns, operates, or exclusively books at least 40 of the top 50 and 60 of the top 100 amphitheaters in the United States. Huge. So 13 of those across the US is not as many as people would want. And here's the thing, the company isn't actually selling any of those venues. It's agreeing to let other promoters book into them.

Dan Moren [00:24:07]:
So some of the 13 agreements— yeah, exactly.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:10]:
Yeah, they appear to be in areas where also weather constraints shorten the season. Or make for uncomfortable summer viewing. So perhaps not even a concession. It seems like this— of course, what I'm saying, what I'm about to say is just me, you know, speculating or not even speculating, but just making an observation that it kind of feels like the DOJ and Live Nation sat down together and said, now, how can we make this work for both of us or even more for Live Nation?

Dan Moren [00:24:37]:
And I, you know, not to, not to delve too much into the realm of political analysis, but we recently had the antitrust DOJ case against Google. Too, right, which also wrapped up with kind of lackluster remedies against the, the antitrust argument there. And it's hard not to kind of look at these various— connect these dots and think about, well, is there a, is there a political angle when it comes to dealing with the business, you know, and monopolies as a concern in an administration that is, you know, evidently very business-friendly? You know, I think, I think there is a part of that that you have to kind of at least consider. And as a result, it doesn't shock me that this DOJ was willing to make a deal here and accept those settlements as being sufficient to remedy the antitrust complaints, which, yeah, I don't know that I'd agree, but it doesn't surprise me.

Mikah Sargent [00:25:31]:
Yeah, I'm not surprised.

Dan Moren [00:25:34]:
Um, I'm disappointed. I'm just disappointed. That's right, DOJ, you heard here from us. We're not surprised, but your, your Tech News Weekly dads are just disappointed.

Mikah Sargent [00:25:42]:
We're just disappointed in you. Um, now I want to point out, of course, the settlement arrived mid-trial, so the public is not going to get— will probably not get that full accounting of Live Nation's behavior or alleged behavior. Um, and that's kind of one of the big complaints. Uh, it was Erickson who said by leapfrogging past the airing of the evidence to the remedies makes it especially difficult to judge whether the sentence matches the crime. Um, the jury had just been hearing from the COO of AEG, which of course is a major Live Nation rival, and the plaintiff's witness list still included more venues, uh, Live Nation executives, and yes, for those of you who are for some reason a fan of this person, also included Kid Rock. Uh, proceeding states may still continue their case, but the federal settlement sidesteps the kind of public reckoning that we thought was going to come through and make a difference. So yeah, it's not great. It's not great at all.

Dan Moren [00:26:44]:
Ticket prices are not really going to go down anytime soon. So if you were hoping to snag some cheap, cheap tickets to that musical act you want, it's still going to be pricey.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:55]:
Yeah. Well, Dan Moren, I want to thank you for your capability and your reliability and your availability. All of those things mean a lot. If people would like to follow along with the work that you're doing, where are the places they should go to do so?

Dan Moren [00:27:10]:
I'm like a, like a midsize rental sedan. I'm capable, I'm reliable, I'm available. There you go. Um, you can find all of my writing about tech over at sixcolors.com, which predominantly covers Apple-related stuff. Uh, you can hear my podcasts, including The Rebound, which you can search for on Apple Podcasts, and Clockwise, which I co-host with Mikah every week, uh, over on Relay, uh, relay.fm/clockwise. And for all of my other work, including my novels, which you should go buy, uh, you can go to dmorrin.com and get a full list.

Mikah Sargent [00:27:43]:
What a novel idea. What a novel idea. Thank you, Dan.

Dan Moren [00:27:48]:
Thanks.

Mikah Sargent [00:27:49]:
Alrighty, folks, let's take a quick break before we come back with a familiar face in just a moment. But first, let me tell you about our next sponsor of Tech News Weekly. This episode brought to you by DeleteMe. Love DeleteMe. Ever wonder how much of your personal data is out there on the internet for anyone to see? I certainly have. It's more than you think. Your name, your contact information. Sure, you expected that.

Mikah Sargent [00:28:10]:
Social Security number. Did you expect that? Home address. Even information about your family members, all being compiled by data brokers and sold online. Anyone on the web can buy your private details. This can lead to identity theft, phishing attempts, doxxing, harassment. But now you can protect your privacy with DeleteMe. As a tech insider and show host, obviously I'm aware of how little privacy we have and how much of the personal information we have is out there that can compromise my safety, my security. And so that is why I personally recommend and use DeleteMe, because it has helped me to solve this problem and keep me protected.

Mikah Sargent [00:28:49]:
It's really nice to be able to go through and see each month just how much of my data is being removed from the web. DeleteMe is a subscription service, and that's important because it removes your personal information from hundreds of data brokers. But I'll talk about how it can continues to do so and how that's important. You can sign up and provide DeleteMe with exactly what information you want deleted, and then you let their experts take it from there. So yes, there are people who are going out and making sure that your data is removed from online. DeleteMe sends you regular personalized privacy reports showing what information they found, where they found it, and what they removed. And DeleteMe is not just a one-time service. That subscription thing, very important, because DeleteMe is always working for you, constantly monitoring and removing the personal information you don't want on the internet.

Mikah Sargent [00:29:33]:
To put it simply, DeleteMe does all the hard work of wiping your and your family's personal information from data broker websites. So take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for DeleteMe at a special discount for our listeners today. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindelete.me.com/twit and use promo code TWIT at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindelete.me.com/twit and enter code TWIT at checkout. That's joindelete.me.com/twit. Code TWIT, T-W-I-T. And we thank Delete.me for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. All right, we are back from the break and I am excited to say that even though we missed her last week, joining us today is Abrar Al-Heeti of CNET.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:22]:
Welcome back, Abrar.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:30:23]:
Thank you so much. It's a good thing I wasn't here last week because then we have something to talk about this week.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:29]:
Yay.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:29]:
Yes.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:29]:
So you got to tell us first and foremost where you were. And you know what? I think some people at least will want to hear, especially people who are regular guests, what was it like being in Barcelona?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:30:43]:
Yes, I was in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress. It was my second time being there. And the second time is a bit more— a little easier to navigate than the first time where it's all just a whirlwind and you're running around the show floor and realizing just how many booths there are. But this year was great. It was just as busy, but I kind of learned how to manage my time a little better, enjoy being in Barcelona a little bit more. And it's great. It's a great environment just to be around so many people who are so excited about not just tech, but mobile tech. And the world part of Mobile World Congress is so true.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:18]:
I think, you know, you see some of that at CES, but I think when you're, you know, obviously in a different location, you're going to have a different variety of people where Europe might be closer to them than the US might be. And so you just get a whole different mix of people. So it's really fun to see all that.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:33]:
That is— yeah, that's pretty cool. Um, I, I can imagine that being part of the, the experience. Now, yeah, um, tell us, how does Mobile World Congress compare to CES in terms of perhaps— what we'll do too— what the, what the MWC folks sort of pitch Mobile World Congress as, and then also how does it compare in terms of actually being there and what it turns out being?

Dan Moren [00:32:02]:
Yes.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:32:03]:
So the nice thing about Mobile World Congress is that it's a little bit more focused. I think those of us who go to CES and MWC is still overwhelming. They're both overwhelming, but you go to CES and there's so many types of tech. There's such a variety of categories that you could tap into. There's a little bit of that with MWC, but it's that's really more mobile technology focused. So whether you're talking about hardware or satellite technology or, you know, accessories or, you know, cellular providers, all of those things, it's a little bit more, it's a little bit more focused on a particular niche rather than feeling like, oh my gosh, like, you know, you still have robots, of course, because it's a tech conference. But it's still, it's a little bit more like honed in, which is, which is really nice. So in terms pitches and also just in terms of navigating the show floor.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:32:52]:
There's, you know, similar to CES, there's, you know, different pavilions for different countries. But, but you see a lot of the same big players there. You know, Samsung's going to be there, Google is going to be there. Apple was not there, but Apple still, you know, made waves with their own announcements. Love that for them. And for those of us who are running around covering all of it.

Mikah Sargent [00:33:15]:
Yeah. Um, so let's then dig into the magic. Uh, tell us sort of what you saw, what stuck out to you. Uh, it looks like— I look at the CNET recap, yeah, and there was quite a bit of stuff. Um, tell us, yeah, let's, let's just go down the list of what you saw and liked and thought was interesting.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:33:37]:
Yeah, well, um, one of the things that I saw actually technically for the second time was the Motorola Razr Fold. Um, I saw this first at CES and then got a little bit more hands-on time during MWC, and this is coming out in the summer. Um, very excited about this just because it's always cool to see another player in the, in the phone, in the foldable phone space. Um, so it has a larger external and internal display than the Galaxy Z Fold 7 or the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Um, also kind of like that slimmer design, so, uh, really great to see that. Then I think the phone that really stole the spotlight though was the, the Honor Robot phone with a little little camera on a gimbal that, that comes out and is very, very flashy. It's definitely the flashiest phone there. But the Honor Magic V6 was there too.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:34:27]:
So lots of unique phone concepts. And that was kind of my takeaway from this was people talk a lot about how phones are boring, but there are some really interesting phones out there. It's whether you are willing to leave your iPhone behind and try something a little bit different. And those options exist, maybe not as much in the in the US as they do in some parts of the world, but we have, we have a good amount of options here. Um, and then one other phone that, that caught my attention, um, so Tecno had a few, uh, speaking of phones that we don't really have here, um, they had a few concepts that were really cool. I think the thing that really stole the spotlight and really dominated our socials was this modular phone where the phone itself is 4.9mm thick, but what you do is you can attach battery packs, you can attach a larger camera, you can attach microphones, um, all all these magnetic accessories to kind of build up your phone as you want it so that if you want, you just have a thin little thing that's easy to toss in your pocket. But if you really want to build it up, you can attach all these components, which is really cool. So I think those were kind of the most interesting phone concepts and devices.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:35:35]:
And then the thing that I tried for the first time was the Android XR glasses, smart glasses. These have been introduced for a while now. We saw them at Google I/O last year too. But it was my first time actually trying them on, and I am not a smart glasses person. I don't think they're really necessary.

Mikah Sargent [00:35:55]:
Interesting.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:35:55]:
I think plain old glasses are just fine. But then I tried these on, and I was like, you know what? Maybe you don't knock it till you try it. And once I tried it, it was really cool to see Google Maps in the lens and not obstructing my view. Because I think one of the things that really bugs me is when you're in a new place, and you're walking around, and you want to navigate, but you also just want to see where you are, right? You want to see your surroundings. Okay, but you wear these smart glasses and then you can have that Google Maps navigation and still be able to take everything in, which is really cool. Being able to look at something and say, play a song from that album, or look at a picture and say, guide me here. Or the really cool thing is translation. So somebody speaks to you in a different language and then you see that text and you hear that translation in an AI version of their voice at the same time.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:36:43]:
Dystopian, cool, all of that. So now I'm apparently a smart glasses believer. All it takes is 2 seconds. And that's it. So, yeah. And then I'll think one other thing that, that stood out to me was I saw this exhibit for airport technology. So what the airport of the future could potentially look like. So obviously robots, like a robot concierge could be an option or an entertainment robot as you wait for your delayed flight, which sounds super fun and not aggravating.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:37:19]:
There's also smart luggage tags where you can, you know, essentially connect it to this app for a luggage tag called BagID. And then it'll show a digital tag and refresh for your flight. So you're not using paper tags all the time. You can use it, you can track it with Apple Find My or Samsung SmartThings. And then the last airport thing that I thought was cool was a little autonomous autonomous cart called AlbaRide, which is launching at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport this year. And it's a little autonomous single rider seat that will get you to your gate. And good for mobility, increasing accessibility and getting people to their gates faster and easier, hopefully.

Mikah Sargent [00:38:05]:
Okay, airport tech.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:38:07]:
Yeah, you know, it was a big focus for them this year for some reason. They were advertising like crazy every corner we went.

Mikah Sargent [00:38:16]:
Yeah.

Dan Moren [00:38:16]:
Wow.

Mikah Sargent [00:38:16]:
Um, what would you say perhaps is sort of in your specific favorite tech space? Like what, sort of theme-wise that you saw there, but then also when you were on the plane leaving, what stuck with you?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:38:34]:
Yeah, I think there's something very similar to last year, which is the thin foldable phone craze. So, um, I am, I'm really fascinated excited by companies kind of experimenting more. I think you can only pitch AI so much and realize how little people care. Then once you do something like make a phone super thin or make it fold, or even with Samsung, make a display that blocks out the view from the side in only certain portions of the screen, the privacy display on the S25 Ultra is amazing. These kinds of things where it's like hardware And so to see that kind of innovation was really cool and it really does echo a lot of the trends that we saw last year and that are continuing this year and we're continuing at Mobile World Congress. So I think it's an exciting time to be in the market for a new phone and have some fun with it.

Mikah Sargent [00:39:28]:
Yeah, now when you looked around, I mean, 'cause I would imagine you're seeing people you know, walking around with tech, um, and then also seeing sort of the groupings, right, of where people are going. I'm kind of curious, for the people who are there, uh, that are covering all of this, are they still carrying iPhones and Samsung phones, or do you see people kind of quote-unquote putting their money where their mouth is in terms of actually making use of, of some of these other options that It's funny that you ask that because it's actually something I kind of called out in my wrapper piece is that people are fawning over these phones, but guess what they're recording with?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:40:12]:
They're recording with an iPhone or, you know, the, you know, S25 Ultra, whatever they have in their hands. We are creatures of habit. And I think even me personally, right? Like, I'm good with one screen. I'm good with a phone that doesn't fold. I like testing those phones. I like using those phones. But when it comes to just something I need every day, innovation is really exciting, but it's not always needed for your everyday tasks. So I think I saw a lot of that, you know, and I think when you do look at people from certain parts of the world where they have a little bit more variety, you see like, oh, they, they like to experiment a little bit more than we do in the West.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:40:53]:
So there was definitely a divide there. But I wonder if that'll change. I wonder if, if there will someday be this wave, maybe once Apple, you know, decides to experiment more with their hardware, that we'll see more people kind of shift to having some more fun with that.

Mikah Sargent [00:41:08]:
Yeah, I think some more fun, some more whimsy would be nice.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:41:11]:
Yeah, just in general.

Mikah Sargent [00:41:13]:
Yeah. Now the, the last thing that I'm curious about is how much pet tech did you see while you were there? Was there lots of pet tech, a little bit of pet tech? Will my dog start carrying around, um, a watch that I can call her her or him on?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:41:32]:
Yeah, I, I— so my colleague Patrick Holland definitely looked at the pet phone, I believe it's called. Um, he wants to know if he can talk to his cats, right? Um, so, um, there was a good amount of it there. I personally didn't end up checking out a lot of it because I'm a boring person with no pets. Um, I know it's disappointing, I gotta work on that. But, um, but that is always— I mean, I feel like that's such a growing trend at any tech conference, right? Is how people love their pets. How do we tap into this and make that process of caring for your pet easier? And, and yeah, what if you could just keep in touch with them? And, and so yeah, I'm glad I had some colleagues who are more, more fun than I am look into that kind of stuff.

Mikah Sargent [00:42:15]:
Oh, yeah, there's, there'll be a link in the show notes to an article about the pet cam and pet phone. Yeah, I have used in the past I had a— it was a webcam that was a dog treat dispenser. Fun. You would think, and I think if you have a big dog, probably a lot of fun. My dogs immediately became terrified of it because it like, it goes as the hopper sort of brings a treat down into this little thing and then it goes, oh no, there's this little arm inside that shoots the treat out into the, you know, into the space. And so between those two sounds, plus things flying at them.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:42:56]:
Right. I can understand.

Mikah Sargent [00:42:57]:
That's frightening. Yeah. So anytime I turned it on to try to see them while I was gone, they would be as far away from it as possible.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:43:07]:
Maybe we could all use a little less tech, I think, is the takeaway here. Us and our pets.

Mikah Sargent [00:43:11]:
Yeah. That is the takeaway. That is the takeaway. Aabrar, anything else that you want to mention before we say goodbye? Or did we, did we cover what mattered at MWC?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:43:22]:
I think so. I think that that pretty much covers the gist of it, and I'm glad I got to talk to you about it. It's, it's a good time. And, um, yeah, just really cool to see what, what different people care about in different parts of the world and, and what we have in common.

Mikah Sargent [00:43:36]:
Nice. Thank you so much, Aabrar. We appreciate it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:43:38]:
Thank you. I appreciate it. Take care.

Mikah Sargent [00:43:41]:
Alrighty, folks, we're gonna take a break. Before we come We're back with one more story of the week. I want to tell you about Zscaler bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. Zscaler is the world's largest cloud security platform. The potential rewards of AI, frankly, too great to ignore, but unfortunately, so are the risks. Loss of sensitive data and attacks against enterprise-managed AI. Generative AI increases opportunities for threat actors because it helps them rapidly create phishing lures, write malicious code, and also automate data extraction. There were 1.3 million instances of Social Security numbers leaked to AI applications.

Mikah Sargent [00:44:21]:
ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot saw nearly 3.2 million data violations. So it's time to rethink your organization's safe use of public and private AI. Check out what Siva, the Director of Security and Infrastructure at Zura, says about using Zscaler to prevent AI attacks.

Mikah Sargent [00:44:39]:
With Zscaler being in line in a security protection strategy, it helps us monitor all the traffic. So even if a bad actor were to use AI, because we have tight security framework around our endpoint, helps us proactively prevent that activity from happening. AI is tremendous in terms of its opportunities, but it also brings in challenges. We're confident that Zscaler is going to help us ensure that we're not slowed down by security challenges, but continue to take advantage take advantage of all the advancements.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:09]:
With Zscaler Zero Trust plus AI, you can safely adopt GenAI and private AI to boost productivity across the business. Their Zero Trust architecture plus AI helps you reduce the risks of AI-related data loss and protects against AI attacks to guarantee greater productivity and compliance. Learn more at zscaler.com/security. That's Zscaler. Zscaler.com/security. And we thank Zscaler for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. All right, back from the break. This week, MIT Technology Review had an interesting report on what I would call a pretty fascinating phenomenon that's unfolding in China, the explosive popularity of OpenClaw, which if you've watched any of the Twitch shows, you will be familiar with OpenClaw by now.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:59]:
It is an open-source AI agent that's become so wildly popular So popular it spawned an entire cottage industry of hustlers, tinkerers, and impromptu consultants that are cashing in on the craze. The AI tool has become the country's latest tech obsession, and for savvy early adopters with even a little technical know-how, it has turned into a genuine business opportunity. But beneath the gold rush energy, there are real questions about security, about practicality, and whether the hype is outpacing the technology. Technology itself. So let's talk first and foremost about OpenClaw in China. First, you should know that OpenClaw has been given the nickname Lobster in China. It's a reference, of course, to its logo, and raising a lobster has become the phrase of the moment. One 36-year-old software engineer in Shenzhen says, have you raised a lobster yet? Has that— like, that question, have you raised a lobster yet, has been inescapable over last month.

Mikah Sargent [00:47:03]:
The engineer has been building open-source tools on top of the OpenClaw ecosystem since January, including one that visualizes the agent's progress as an animated desktop worker and another that lets users voice chat with it. You've probably heard about, uh, Leo's use of the tool, um, and then also heard about the security implications on SecurityNow. Now, this is another thing that's important to understand. And who are the people who are making use of it? Uh, who is raising lobsters right now? There are lawyers, doctors who have little technical background but are curious about learning new things. So it's not just developers, but in China, there are cross-disciplinary gatherings where people meet to talk about raising lobster and seems to be perhaps more AI curiosity in China than we even have here in the US. Uh, the scale of community engagement is something worth pointing out. Just last weekend, the developer we were talking about attended 3 OpenClaw events in Shenzhen. These are separate events, and each had more than 500 people.

Mikah Sargent [00:48:12]:
The largest on March 7th pulled in more than 1,000 attendees, so many that people were standing shoulder to shoulder, with many unable to find a seat. Uh, one of the tech influencers who was there did a live stream showing OpenClaw's capabilities and ended up getting 20,000 views. But it's not just big tech in China. We can't forget about big government in China. China's major tech companies are riding the wave. Tencent held a public event offering free installation support for OpenClaw. That of course drew long lines— elderly users, children. Companies are promoting their own models, APIs, and cloud services that work with the lobster, as well as their own OpenClaw-like agents.

Mikah Sargent [00:48:58]:
Uh, perhaps more telling though, again, government response. The one district in Shenzhen released policies to support OpenClaw-related ventures, offering free computing credits and also cash rewards for standout projects. Other cities have begun rolling out similar measures. Henry Li, who's a software engineer in Beijing, captures just how deep this seems to go. Saying, it was not until my father, who is 77, asked me to help install a lobster for him that I realized this thing is truly viral. And it's become a bit of a gold rush. OpenClaw requires a level of technical knowledge that most people don't have. You've got to type commands into a terminal.

Mikah Sargent [00:49:41]:
You got to navigate developer platforms. Running in— running it is also an issue. If you've got older or budget laptops, it's going to be a struggle installing it on a daily use computer without doing that data partitioning.

Dan Moren [00:49:54]:
It's—

Mikah Sargent [00:49:54]:
you're dealing with privacy and security risks. And so that gap that's become, uh, apparent here, that exists between demand but also technical capability, has then created this new service economy. There's a 27-year-old software engineer in Beijing who started selling a basic installation service for just about $14. Within weeks, he'd scaled into a full-fledged operation with tiered packages of basic installation, custom configuration packages, ongoing tutoring, quickly became overwhelmed with customers and pulled in around $830 at a single weekend. On Chinese e-commerce platforms there, if you search Open Claw, hundreds of listening listings, excuse me, for installation guides, technical support packages. And there are also hardware sellers who are cashing in. Uh, one Shenzhen-based seller who sells refurbished Macs was among the first to offer Mac Minis and MacBooks with OpenCore pre-installed. It runs continuously in the background.

Mikah Sargent [00:50:56]:
Obviously, it's got hard drive access, and so people are after that dedicated device rather than risking their personal data on their everyday machines. Um, apparently Lee says that orders have increased 8-fold in just 2 weeks. We'll talk in a moment about the people who are not buying into OpenClaw. Perhaps some of you as well. But first, I want to tell you about our final sponsor of today's episode, and that is Pebl bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. I got a quick question for you, appropriate given our international topics today. Are you hiring in another country right now? Because once you do, things can get complicated pretty quick, but that is where Pebl can help because Pebl will help you send offers to anyone in the world in minutes and get them onboarded fast. Pebl, AI-powered, as you might imagine, global human resources platform built for founders, HR leaders, operators who are hiring and supporting teams around the world.

Mikah Sargent [00:51:53]:
Now Pebl will help you hire, pay, and manage talent in more than 185 countries with fast onboarding that can be done in minutes instead of juggling separate tools for contracts and payroll and benefits. Benefits and compliance. Pebl is going to bring everything together with built-in guidance and local expertise to support you, especially helpful if you're managing teams internationally or planning to grow. The fastest growing companies in the world use Pebl to stay organized and reduce risk, and founders use it to scale faster without having to become HR or compliance experts. Rated number 1 in compliance on G2, the customer testimonials speak for themselves. For example, Page needed global talent to align with bold mission as a digital diagnostics company revolutionizing cancer pathology with AI. Paige's VP of Finance and Operations said, quote, over the past year, we've doubled, if not tripled, our global headcount. That growth has been largely thanks to our partnership with Pebl.

Mikah Sargent [00:52:48]:
Bottom line, it simplifies global people operations so that you can spend more time growing the business and supporting your team. Pebl's new standard discounted price at $399 USD per month per employee helps you contain chain costs. Go to hipebl.ai to get a free estimate. That's hipebl.ai for a free estimate. And we thank Pebl for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. Now, before the break, I was talking about how OpenClaw, or as it's lovingly known in China, Lobster, is gaining a lot of popularity among a lot of people in China. China. But there are people not buying into the hype.

Mikah Sargent [00:53:33]:
Uh, Tianyu Feng, a PhD— or probably Feng— a PhD candidate studying the history of technology at Harvard, notes that this kind of behavior isn't entirely new. Uh, the Chinese internet users that, you know, we've sort of looked at in the past have long paid for one-off IT support services like installing Adobe software or learning how to jailbreak Kindles. But here the stakes are, of course, higher. There's one tech worker who offers a little bit of skepticism saying, "The hype in first-tier cities can be a little overblown. The agent is still a proof of concept, and I doubt it would be of any life-changing use to the average person for now." In fact, he says, "Using Open Call safely and getting meaningful results requires a level of technical fluency an independent judgment that most new users simply just don't have yet. On March 10th, China's cybersecurity regulator CN CERT issued a formal warning about Open Call's security and data risks, saying the tool heightens users' exposure to data breaches. Despite those concerns, the enthusiasm does not appear to be slowing. Uh, the one person who is now flush with money from his Open Call side business has bigger ambitions, wants to use the momentum and the capital to build I want to start a venture with AI tools at the center.

Mikah Sargent [00:54:54]:
So not just this, but other tools as well with OpenClaw and other AI agents. I want to see if I can run a one-person company. I'm giving myself one year. Frankly, a sentiment that seems to capture the broader energy of this moment in China. Genuine technological excitement, that hustle of entrepreneurs, and the, of course, optimism that we've seen with AI. AI in particular. But goodness, given the security implications of OpenClaw, I just worry about its installation on so many people's devices, particularly those who do not know what they're doing. And so please, if you're thinking about installing this, please be mindful of the security risks and really read up on that before going down this path.

Mikah Sargent [00:55:49]:
Folks, that's going to bring us to the end of this episode of Tech News Weekly. As always, I want to thank you so much for being here. If you would like to subscribe to the show and you're not, please head to twit.tv/tnw. That is where you can go. We publish a show every Thursday. If you'd like to check out our shows without any ads— that was weird, but that's how we're doing it— well, join our club, twit.tv/clubtwit. When you join the Club, $10 a month, $120 a year. You can also scan that QR code in the top corner there, uh, twit.tv/clubtwit.

Mikah Sargent [00:56:24]:
You will gain access to every single one of our shows ad-free, just the content. You also gain access to our awesome feeds. We have a feed that has behind the scenes, before the show, after the show. We have a feed that has our live coverage of tech news events. The NVIDIA event is coming up and that will be included as part of your Club subscription and access to the feed that has our shows, our special shows for the club, like My Crafting Corner, Stacy's Book Club, Photo Time, Coffee Time. I think we just recently had a chat with Johnny Jett, but that might be coming up. In any case, those are all available in that feed. If that's not enough, I understand.

Mikah Sargent [00:57:06]:
I'm also offering you an invite to our club. Club by way of our Discord. When you join the club, you will gain access to the Club Twit Discord, a fun place to go to chat with your fellow Club Twit members and those of us here at Twit. So be sure to check it out. twit.tv/clubtwit is where you go to sign up. If you'd like to check out my other shows or follow me online, head to— I'm @micasargent on many a social media network, or you can head to chihuahua.coffee, chihuahua.coffee. Coffee. And of course, be sure to check out my other shows, including iOS Today and Hands on Apple, which will publish today, and Hands-On Tech, the show that publishes every Sunday here on the network.

Mikah Sargent [00:57:49]:
Thank you so much for being here. Always appreciate chatting with you all, or at least seeing your chats in the Discord. And I'll be back next week with another episode of Tech News Weekly. Bye-bye, everybody.