Flipping Back to Flipboard - DTNS 4918  ## Metadata - Author: [[Daily Tech News Show]] - Full Title: Flipping Back to Flipboard - DTNS 4918 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/38edf570-10f5-43a1-8bc6-6031456d1092 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Flipboard Surf and the Decentralized Web** - Flipboard's new app, Surf, aims to address the challenge of navigating the decentralized web. - It aggregates content from various platforms like Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, RSS feeds, podcasts, and YouTube into a customizable feed. Transcript: Sarah Lane Back in the olden days when the iPad was new, Flipboard debuted as a social magazine of sorts to browse various feeds visually. A lot of it actually came from magazines and just stuff that pulled more content that was visual and worked well on the iPad. Then social networks, including Twitter and Facebook, but they aren't the only two, walled off their gardens in a big way, hindering third parties such as Flipboard, including Flipboard Itself. But current day Flipboard still does exist. You may use it, but if you were sort of like, oh, yeah, whatever happened to Flipboard? That was kind of fun. It is currently letting users follow content from feeds like Mastodon, Threads feeds as well. And on Wednesday, the company announced a new app called Surf. It's still in beta. It has a wait list, but it is designed for iPhone, Android, and iPad users. Different from Flipboard itself. But the idea for Surf is that Mastodon, Blue Sky, Threads, RSS feeds, podcasts, YouTube videos might all be something that you are watching anyway and you are hanging out on and they Can all be remixed into a custom feed. Each feed has tabs like watch, discuss, read, listen. The whole idea is not only can you create a feed, but you can build a feed and then share with others. That kind of creates a siphon of news that is meant for you or meant for somebody else. Then, of course, others can follow various feeds, create their own. I love this idea. And I think that part of the reason I love this idea is, first of all, I was a very happy Flipboard user back in the day. And it did end up sort of becoming truncated when I still use an iPad regularly. It just, it didn't work the way that it did in the early days. Because of course, companies like Twitter and Facebook at the time, were sort of like, no, we want you to come here. You know, this is the whole third party stuff, we're gonna have to put the kibosh on, you know, some of this API stuff. What I love about what Flipboard is doing with Surf, at least in theory, because I don't have access to it now, is this may be one of the solutions for someone like me who's like, I want to Use Blue Sky. I want to use Threads. I want to still use X. I'm definitely on Instagram. I follow a variety of RSS feeds. And could that somehow be a place where I just open up an app and kind of browse through everything rather than going to everything specifically alone? Scott Johnson I'm with you on the OG flipboard love. When that thing came out, I what I was most impressed with by at the time was not so much that it was tying these disparate sources of news and information together for me, but that it was Such a cool revolutionary interface that I got to sort of build out and decide how I wanted it to be and who I would follow. And there's been a million apps since that sort of tried to do a lot of that. But I think it at the time anyway, this did this as good or better than anybody was doing it. And I loved it. So to my chagrin, when things started stopping in terms of API support for it, and it wasn't really useful in that regard with your social feeds, you just sort of saw it start to die on the Vine, and it bummed me out. So to hear that they're working on something that will essentially, in a lot of ways, bring back the original spirit of that app and do a little bit more is very exciting. So, yeah, count me in on team excited about this. Tom Merritt Yeah, I think it's almost unfair to compare this to Flipboard. It's the same company, but I think what they're doing is a very interesting and different thing. They are trying to make it easy to not only consume the decentralized web, but to use it in ways that you can't otherwise. So right now you can only sign in with Mastodon, so it's not really going to work well as a cross-posting tool yet. It might do that at some point. They're, they're working on that, but open vibe is probably a better option. If you just like, I just want to post and read and reply across multiple services. Uh, I do think what they're doing is way more interesting than just cross posting though. What they're saying is you want to follow the Utah hockey club, right? You can pull in anything that's being posted from Mastodon Blue Sky threads. You can add your own RSS feeds from the actual hockey club, from your favorite sports news source. You can put podcasts in there. And then you get all of the best information from around the web presented. And this is where the Flipboard stuff does matter in a nice, easy to read way. It's a good looking app and it breaks it down. I love that it breaks it down by watch, discuss, read and listen. And you can choose which one of those comes up first. So you're not dealing with an algorithm, but you're getting some of the benefits of an algorithm, except you control it or you find somebody you trust who's created a feed that you like Sarah Lane And you just glom onto that one yeah i wonder how many uh you know as a as a enthusiastic ipad user back in you know since 2010 when the ipad first launched you know flipboard was one of the First killer apps where i was like this is amazing this is exactly what the ipad is for Loved it. In fact, that was how I consumed the majority of my news for a couple of years. And yeah, like you said, Scott, it did fall by the wayside through no real fault of Flipboard's own. But this, I wonder how much this is also something that someone who's like, well, I don't have an iPad or a tablet, but I'm an Android user or I have an older iPhone and I still want to use This because Flipboard has always been very visual. Now, of course, if you're following a podcast feed, it's like, okay, you're going to get the album art, but the rest of it is just going to be one play button, right? It's not that visual. You're listening to something rather than looking at it. Scott Johnson Yeah, I think that the one thing that would be cool along the lines of what you're saying is if this was not just in app form, if I could just get this on the web. I'm a big fan of if you're going to have, you know, an app, you ought to have some web equivalents, then they ought to have some feature parity when possible. This doesn't always happen, and a lot of stuff is different than they are on the app than they are on the web. But I would love to see that, because then you have less of a platform specific issue happening where, well, I don't have that tablet, so I guess I'm not going to be able to use that app. I think there's an opportunity there to get a broader audience, but as someone who is pretty steeped in the iPad ecosystem, I very much look forward to this. Because like I was saying earlier, the spirit of what Flipboard did was unique at the time. It was letting you curate all of these things into one little place and kind of made a ([Time 0:08:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e43b46e2-3d11-4a61-88b6-66bb86796e9f)) - **Router Security and TP-Link Investigation** - Check your router for security updates, especially if it's a TP-Link. - The US government is investigating TP-Link, and a potential ban might disrupt updates and future purchases. Transcript: Tom Merritt And it looks pretty good to me. All right. Officials at the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Justice have all opened investigations into router maker TP-Link, which holds approximately 65% of the U.S. Market. Look to your left. Look to your right. One of you owns a TP-Link router by those numbers. TP-Link is popular because it's cheap. It's always got the lowest price or close to the lowest price. It's also the official router provided to customers of more than 300 US ISPs. So if you don't think you have a TP-Link router, go check the one you got from your ISP if that's how you got your router might be from TP-Link. Several US government agencies have TP-Link hardware, including the DEA, the Defense Department itself, and NASA. So what's happening here is just an investigation, but this is how it started with Kaspersky. They started looking into Kaspersky and then decided, the Department of Commerce didn't need anybody else to sign off on it, that it's a security risk. You can't get Kaspersky antivirus in the U.S. Anymore, and it's gone. You can't get it here anymore. This is different than TikTok. They don't have to pass a law to do this. They can just say, look, you failed to patch security flaws. You have discontinued models that are a current security flaw. You're a Chinese-based company, which is a country of interest. You're done. You're gone. You can't be sold here anymore. Now, your routers will probably keep working for a while, but most likely they wouldn't be allowed to get updates. That's what happened with Kaspersky and why it had to pull out as well. So this means that unless larger trends change, unless the US and China start warming up to each other in the next year, you're probably not going to be able to get a TP-Link router or possibly Even an update for your TP-Link router in the next year. Scott Johnson That was my big question is enforcement. And you answered it partially with, yeah, you'll keep using your router. It's not like they're going to shut down the day this decision gets made. Tom Merritt Yeah. They don't require you to remove it from your home. Certainly they'll require it to be removed from the department of defense and national and all those places sure and if you and like you said if you want updates you're probably out of Scott Johnson Luck because they're not going to allow those to come down so you know i guess as a consumer like just regular old consumers if you've got some of these you probably just need to start shopping For replacements uh if the security matters to you in terms of like up-to and patched, you're about to have a router that will never be patched again. Tom Merritt Well, one of us has several TP-Link. Roger Chang I have four, one of which I bricked because I was trying to put open word on it and it didn't work too well. Actually, it did work well, and then one day it stopped working. I actually do have a TP-Link router. I have an Archer A7, which is the one that the C7, which they integrated in with Amazon's voice assistant. I have each one of the ones units I've had. I've reflashed the firmware into open source. So it's either DDW. It's actually all DDWRT at this point, and I only use two of them as Wi-Fi access points. But one of the reasons why I actually flashed it is because TP-Link is notorious, notorious for having really slow and very abysmal security updates. So anyone who has a modicum of security consciousness will either immediately jump to a third-party firmware or they buy a ubiquity router or something like that from a company that's Really known for putting the hammer down on security. Tom Merritt Security flaws remain open for a long time. There have been actual botnets identified by Microsoft as recently as October that were mostly made up of infected TP-Link routers. I don't know whether they're the worst example of this or not, but they're certainly not the only router maker that is accused of being slow to fix their vulnerabilities. And they were founded in Shenzhen, China. So to me, that locks up the case. I'm not saying that that justifies it or not, but they are not going to pass this investigation because they, like many router makers, have these slow security updates and they are from China. Now, they tried to reorganize and say TP-Link Corporation Group is now headquartered in Irvine, California with offices in Singapore. But I don't think that's going to wash because they still have TP-Link Technologies Company Limited in China. And in a court case around a patent earlier this year, a U.S. Federal judge rejected the argument that there was no relationship between the U.S. And the Chinese business. Scott Johnson So unlike the TikTok situation, something could happen there, something could move. You don't think this has any chance of resolution outside of the ban? Tom Merritt Yeah, resolution to this would have to be on the trade negotiation table. I assume TP-Link would probably take this to court if the commerce department issued a uh an order and they would probably lose yeah and i mean it's as for the as for the market i mean there Roger Chang Are a wide variety of routers of which you know the most the most well-known are either like your netgears not D-Link anymore, but Cisco. And its sub-brands and all that. Tom Merritt Cisco and Netgear routers were used in the Volt Typhoon, not Salt Typhoon, different one. The Volt Typhoon attack on critical infrastructure in the U.S. So it's not like TP-Link is the worst offender. Like the more serious attacks are being conducted on other routers, but it is what it is. Sarah Lane I mean, during our conversation, I, you know, my router is just to the left of me. I was like, oh, let's find out TP-Link. And, you know, there's some very, very, very small text on the bottom of it that I will need my glasses to read. But I'm like, I don't even know who makes this router. I think a lot of people would say the same. I don't know. I mean, I went through spectrum because that's who's providing my internet service, but I'm pretty sure the router is from a third party. Tom Merritt If you're getting your router from an ISP, they will replace it. Like if this were to happen. And again, the investigation just started. It's not going to resolve until sometime next year. And then it's going to take some time for the order to go into effect. But I'd say by the end of 2025, there might be something happening. So it's good to good to know about it ahead of time. And if you're the kind of person who wants to put open WRT on something like Roger, you know, you could do that. ([Time 0:17:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/744a602a-2cd4-49bc-b71f-ce0032c45106)) - **Netflix's Squid Game Experiment** - Netflix is making its Squid Game mobile game free for everyone, even non-subscribers, for a limited time. - This strategy could attract new subscribers and inform Netflix's gaming service's future. Transcript: Sarah Lane Variety reports that Netflix will make its upcoming Squid Game Battle Royale game, Squid Game Unleashed, free to non-subscribers for a limited time when the game launches on December 17th. Although the company hasn't released a hard window for free play, it's good through at least the premiere of Squid Game Season 2 December 26th. We've got a few days. Netflix previously made its mobile game offerings available only to paid subscribers. So this is a little bit of a divergence for them. Scott, what do you think? Scott Johnson Well, I actually think, I don't know how controversial this will be, but I think this is a pivot point for them. There have been a number of times on the show, Wednesdays in particular, where these Netflix stories seem to crop up about what they're doing with gaming. And they seem to be sort of poking their foot in a little and then pulling it out a little and then canceling a thing and then launching a thing and then canceling that later. So it's kind of all over the place and they get criticized for that. But I find it fascinating because I think this is just watching them do what they do. They're experimenting and they're trying new things. And when those things don't work out or generate a lot of buzz or views, they drop it. Interactive programming being the most recent version of this where, you know, they got rid of a lot of their interactive shows. And I think this may be a sign of a pivot point for them. Something for free and say hey coinciding with the season two of squid game coming we're doing this big battle royale style squid game game we want as many people in there as possible That's not what they're telling us but that's what they need on their end they need to have this full of people or else this game just plain does not work it needs volume so that's one way To do it is say it's free you don't even need to sub to the thing. Maybe you saw Squid Game season one on DVD or something and you still don't have a Netflix account. Fine. No problem. Come download it. You'll have access to it. What this gives them is two things. One, big audience for the game they need to succeed. But secondly, I think it will determine the future a little bit. It will determine whether these free-to event-based games become standard for them if this succeeds. It also could sort of tell the future about whether they want to have everything under a paid umbrella or if free-to as currently constituted in lots of other genres, is another way that They can go and be outside of the sub. That may sound crazy, but again, they're experimenting, and this one feels like a big one. Like they're going to make a decision here based on this information. They'll gather data. They'll find out how many people came in, and they'll also find out how many of those people converted to accounts because you're still going to need to log into this stuff. So that conversion rate will matter. Like there's a lot of stuff, a lot of data that will come out of this that will determine what I think will be whatever the future of Netflix gaming is. Sarah Lane It also – so Squid Game, I watched the first season, you know, traumatizing but very enjoyable as well. It's a game. You know, the show itself is a game. So I think the fact that you can't, you know, Netflix being like, and now we've, you know, we've got this fun complimentary game that makes plenty of sense. Rather than trying to make a choose your own adventure type thing out of another popular series, which, you know, some people might have liked. But I think Netflix has struggled to make that a thing that people think of shows, you know, as a thing that they, they can have fun with and do, you know, outside of the show. Squid Game is a game, you know, it's all about, you know, like race to the death type thing. So I think, I think Netflix is, is being very strategic here and it makes a lot of sense to me. Scott Johnson I also think, I mean, to your point, this is a game based on a game. There's an automatic connection there, and I agree with you that that is good for the potential of the game. Them deciding to make it free to play drives a couple of points home, which is come play this game for free. Even if you don't know what Squid Game is, everybody loves Fall Guys and what's the other game? We love Fortnite. These various games that people like to play that are free to play. That may drive them here because there's some zeitgeist around Squid Game that brings them in, and that may either convert to Substantifless itself and therefore to their library Of games, or not at all, and that's what we learn. That's why I think this is important, because they're going to learn if this works or not and this moment is a big one for them so you know it's not like anybody's going to lose their shirt Over it but in typical netflix fashion they will respond accordingly and that will either be we tried forget it let's try something else or this sticks and we see more of it i assume they Tom Merritt They do that to everything they do, right? Netflix is very analytics driven. But you're right. Part of what they want to do here is see what they learn. Love Island did this without making it free to play. Love Island is very popular, less popular than Squid Game. But the game ended up being very popular with the fans of Love Island. So I think they saw that and were like, well, shoot, what if we do that with something that's mega popular and not just niche popular with Squid Game? Because when you make it free to play, and I know you touched on this, but it's worth reminding people, it's going to bring in people who don't have Netflix accounts, right? Maybe they saw season one. Maybe they just heard about it. But they're going to want to play this because they'll look at the trailer and go, oh, that looks bloody and fun. Let me try it. And then that might make them sign up and watch Squid Game season two. Like it's no coincidence that they're letting this continue up until Squid Game season two is out because they want people to sign up for Netflix and watch that Season 2. And they want to see how many people play it. They get to stress test their game servers. There's a lot of different things they can learn out of this and a lot of benefit they can get from it too. Scott Johnson Yeah, I agree. And I think either way, this just is again part of the... This is how they do it over there. Whether it's successful in the long run, I don't know. There tends to be a bit of a slapdash method to the games industry as a whole. Everybody is cranking and cramming literally over time to get things done in whatever time clock they think is important. And this is not that. This is them going, this will go inside with the show. So, yeah, we do have a little bit of a time limit on this. But what we're learning from it, we'll just kind of take it slow. And, again, I don't think any of this is going to be like overnight. I think this is going to take a while for us to see the results from it. And I'm actually looking forward to it. I want to see what this game's like. That's an important aspect of this. The game needs to be good. So there is pressure there. Tom Merritt The game crappy then nobody yeah that's not going to work at all but yeah yeah we'll see it's the number one show on netflix worldwide so they they're going to learn something you know And i i think you're right it's going to help inform what ([Time 0:27:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e2724935-90cf-436e-9caf-92e981b1ad1e))