coming up on tech news today tomorrow is Apple’s big day in the Sun also Amazon’s fire TV update will soon include echo capability also 4k capability Google is appealing the 2.7 billion dollar antitrust fine it received in the EU PewDiePie puts let’s play on the line by opening his mouth and a look at the mental health of gaming industry workers all that more coming up next on tech news today this is twist bandwidth for tech news today is provided by cash fly at CA CH e f ly calm [Music] this is tech news today episode 1850 recorded Monday September 11th 2017 this episode – tech news today is brought to you by rocket mortgage by Quicken Loans home plays a big role in your life and that’s why Quicken Loans created rocket mortgage it lets you apply simply and understand the entire mortgage process fully so you can be confident that you’re getting the right mortgage for you get started at rocket mortgage com / TNT hello and welcome to tech news today this is the show where we talk about some of the biggest tech news stories with people who are passionate about technology i’m jason howell mega Moroney is out today she’s got an event that she’s attending tonight she’ll be back tomorrow but joining me in her place is the triumphant return of Russ Pitts how’s it going Rossiter oh it’s going very well Jason thank you I’m a person whose passion about say that at the top and then I’m like wait a minute is the person that’s on just talking about technology because it’s their job or are they actually passionate about it so you run a little bit of a risk I suppose but I’m happy that you yeah thank you yeah so it’s good to have you back you you’ve been busy obviously we’ve had you on a number of times you’ve talked a little bit about flying-saucer media I go flying saucer mediacom to find out some of the projects that you’ve been working on there but you just got back from PAX West tell us a little bit about why you were there yeah so is that PAX West in Seattle last week because we were premiering the actual physical premiere of the film I’ve been working on for the last 21 months the it’s called we are Desert Bus it’s a documentary about desert bus for hope fundraiser that’s been going on for the past 10 years I’m not not all not straight for the last 10 years but they run the fundraiser for about a week every November and they’ve been doing it for the last 10 years last year we were in Canada with them filming we filmed off and on for most of 2016 but we were in Canada for most of the month of November filming with them as they did their 10th anniversary fundraiser so far to date they have raised something on the order of 3.8 million dollars for child’s play charity yeah huge event and I was it was a ton of fun right on and that’s got to be such a big feeling of accomplishment I mean a motion like finishing a motion picture like a film a full-length film finishing a novel these are things that I have to imagine like I’ve never done either of those things yet I have to imagine because they take so much coordination so much time and effort you get to the end the end of the line and it just like feels totally satisfied after all that amount of work yeah it’s it’s interesting you know I’ve written books I’ve made films this is my first feature-length documentary film so you know 21 months is a long time for anything being done with it I mainly just relieved right because I have that brain space back now but but I’m one of those people I’m always thinking about what’s next like I was finishing the film and I was working with my with my crew to finish up post-production I was already thinking about what’s what was next I was talking to my wife about it she’s like you know what I think you just take a few months off like oh yeah okay maybe I’ll try to savor this being done with something for a while and so you see what comes to that yeah but when you’re used to moving and working on something and everything like that it’s really not that easy to take time off it’s like all these people that are like I want to make so much money that I don’t have to work anymore and then they don’t have to work anymore they accomplish that and they’re like 5-minute months in and they’re bored out of their minds and so they work because it’s better than not working are you where you go bananas you know like those guys who you know that multi-billion dollar mansions and just tweet tweet all day sweet tweet angry stuff all today all right well that’s awesome we’re gonna talk more about kind of some of the stuff some of the other stuff that you’ve been working on a little bit later on this show before we get there we got a lot of news to cover so let’s get started tomorrow is the big day the moment Apple fans the world over have been waiting for with an event to see the launch of the 10th anniversary iPhone or the lineup of iPhones the first event to take place at Apple’s mega spaceship campus in Cupertino and the Steve Jobs theater and seeing as how there is no such thing as a good surprise in the digital age anymore and thanks to the leak of iOS 11 firmware here’s what we expect to see a this point before we dive into this are you an iPhone owner are you and I fall out absolutely and I had until this year I was on every two years plan and I just switched to it every year plan so something they’ll be announcing something tomorrow that I will have in my pocket by the end of the year I’m sure you’re gonna be following this with much interest we’ve got the iPhone 8 and the plus models those both will have the LCD display glass backs wireless charging quick charge via the USB 3 lightning plugs basically for the most part it kind of like a an upgrade to the existing iPhone model but with some extra features obviously because it’s the next major upgrade but that one that everybody is waiting for of course because it’s the most expensive and the biggest change is the more than $1000 rumored at this point iPhone X or iPhone 10 depending on whether you follow Apple lore and the fact that they like to turn X’s into tens it doesn’t follow numerically in the terms of iPhone models but what do you think because at this point it seems like we know that it’s going to be iPhone with a letter X but is it X again I think I would have to go with 10 on that and it’s funny because there’s actually a film and there’s the scene in the film I just shot where they are doing Desert Bus 10 but they decided to call it desert buzz X on paper but pronounced 10 and that that’s happening and it’s really art imitates life or life imitates art I’m gonna call it I’m gonna call it iPhone 10 even though there hasn’t been a nine and they’re releasing the eight just now it’s kind of weird but then they skipped to so I guess I don’t know yeah this should actually be seven I just there’s precedent for jumping numbers and not just an apple either I think Samsung did the same thing they all they all jump it’s it’s it’s just branding and marketing more than anything this device is going to be very different supposedly edge to edge o LED display kind of a cutout on the front-facing camera around the display or the display is gonna cut out around the the camera up at the top no home button no touch ID instead it’s gonna have facial recognition that we talked about on the show before wireless charging a vertical dual camera or on the back and this one from from all accounts is going to be delayed the release on this which this is definitely the the premium device that Apple is likely to announce tomorrow and I’m guessing the device that Russ Pitts will be ordering and with oh yeah I’ve got my seven plus right now and it’s a fine to find device it’s a perfect you know perfect perfect iteration of the iPhone so I’d be happy I got the red one too so I’m happy to hang on to that for a little while until that till at ten comes out with the edge to edge screen and the no I’m not sure you know I’m not sure about the no home button but I could I can do without the touch ID because that just you know that you get used to the touch ID you know if your hands a little bit wet or you have a little lotion on them you know you have to press it like nine times and then just when you get used to that it goes instantly right as soon as you pick up the phone and it just messes up my whole flow so I’m a polenta love yet I won’t be happy to get rid of that well yeah supposedly and now with this phone that will be announced tomorrow it could be sitting on the on the desk and that whatever sensor it’s using to detect facial recognition will even from an angle be able to recognize that you are there and keep your phone unlocked for you or a locket when you pick it up suppose I’m hoping an apple it would push out a feature like this I don’t think unless it was working you know at least close to a hundred percent a hacker especially if they’re replacing something like touch ID which is very known at this point yeah yeah I mean we’ll say and in what will be interesting is if I do the facial recognition thing and then I shave my beard right or maybe I’m wearing a hat right how good is it is it like dog level of facial recognition where let’s get really close for recognises no better be a little bit better than that if this is Apple this is like the main amount of security like the primary security on the device it better be just a hair better than that Apple watch Series three they’re expecting a faster processor inside LTE radio so you can finally leave the house without your and still have your watch updating and streaming music and all this stuff are you an Apple watch where I am NOT I really enjoy my old school analog watches my wife has the Apple watch she loves it she loves did a vibrate to the vibrate alarm feature she uses that to wake up every morning it’s a nice gentle way to wake up yeah she uses it for fitness tracking I would be concerned with the LTE radio about battery life because the battery life on those guys isn’t really that great to begin with well it’s a tiny device can’t pack a whole lot of battery and there’s gonna be a lot of software software improvements to maximize the amount of battery and then an LTE radio in there yeah it kills it a lot faster so we’ll see how much Apple can can tweak it to make it extend a little bit more but maybe that’s just kind of the trade-off you know if you’re getting that extra freedom you have to be able to accept the fact that it’s not gonna last as long as something else doesn’t get you through to the end of the day yeah I think that’s the big the big question maybe it comes with a matching accessory that’s like a battery wristband that you can put on your other wrist just touch them together every once in a while like Wonder Woman yeah I like it or yeah like a wireless battery charger that you just snap onto the watch face when you’re out and about you’re like I need a top-up and you just don’t and it covers a battery it wirelessly charges for an hour your wrist is maybe five pounds heavier we should totally work for Apple Apple TV generation five with 4k Ultra HD support also apparently according to this iOS 11 firmware leak that leaked a bunch of details ahead of time someone I’m sure got fired for that a haptic feedback in the remote if that’s your thing get a little kick when you hit the menu button or something I’m not really quite sure why so that I mean you know people have 4k TVs they need content they need a set-top box that’s gonna support that and so I suppose that makes a whole lot of sense I don’t know that new Gen 4 I do you know it’s it’s hilarious we actually have Apple all over the house and I was troubleshooting the the take this org website earlier today and some of my folks who are using Windows machines we’re seeing an error well I can’t actually troubleshoot this error because I have no Windows devices but we have the Apple TV’s and they’re kind of wonderful but that generation for remote really could use the haptics because it’s it they they redesign the remote and it’s a little less intuitive and it’s really super the touchpad is super sensitive so getting some little vibrating feedback on that touchpad on that remote a pretty good thing alright also possibly see an update to the air pods the little dangly white things that hang out at people’s ears now that we’ve just kind of gotten used to also update iOS 11 Mac OS High Sierra watch OS for TV OS 11 all the release dates for those are probably going to be detailed I don’t know are you I mean obviously we have yet to get any of these formal announcements we’re gonna find out first thing tomorrow morning based on what you’ve heard in the lease are you excited as an Apple fan are you excited about what you’re hearing I am I am you don’t know generally get more excited about refinements I used to be on the S train you know I would buy the the iPhones when they came out with the S model because I get I get more excited about the the tuning and the refinements to the existing stuff than I do about the you know big brand new devices now we have you know we have two Apple TVs in the house one of them is a gen 3 so we’ll probably get the Gen 5 to replace that and switch them around I’m excited about the air pods I haven’t tried them yet I’ve been sort of waiting to try them but if they’re coming out with a gen 2 that’s kind of cool so yeah I mean it’s not like it seems weird that this is the biggest leak right because it doesn’t seem like a lot of really big bold new stuff like they’re not introducing the air pods they’re not introducing the watch it seems like just sort of run of the mill you know off-year updates so like I don’t know it’s kind of cool to know what’s gonna happen ahead of time but like if I was gonna risk my job or my career to leak a bunch of stuff I could maybe I would have I don’t know maybe I waited until I had something good you know like it’s kind of depressing at this point how use to these these pre-announcement leaks we’ve gotten because it used to be that an announcement would happen and you’d be surprised and it’s very possible that Apple will have some surprises still to offer and that even possible that even some of this information is inaccurate in reality and it doesn’t end up coming to fruition but still you get to the announcement it’s almost nine times out of ten you’re let down a little bit because you weren’t surprised at all because we know too much we’re just – yeah – in the know at this point we’ve been poking around in closets you know in the in the weeks leading up to Christmas and we found everything already but you’re hoping we’re just hoping something new is gonna show up under the tree yeah Burke is wondering about the Mac Pro and I don’t think we’re seeing anything about the Mac Pro maybe they’ll show something off because they did sit here there we go there we go by the end of the year they would have some sort of a Mac Pro announcement or update but so maybe we’ll find out more about that I haven’t seen any leaks though that point – here it is get your wallets ready let’s let’s get these out to you but regardless live coverage here on the TWiT Network if you want to watch the live announcement you can along with commentary by Leo Meghan Maroney and Alex Lindsey they’re gonna be here at 9:45 a.m. Pacific tomorrow morning 12:45 p.m. Eastern I just go to Twitter on TV slash live and you can watch that recorded live streamed live and find out along with everyone else in the chatroom just what Apple has in store I’ll tell you if they released an ounce of Mac Pro tomorrow they’re getting my whole paycheck dang I know right you’re like you already listed off like three things that you can’t win yeah I’ve been waiting on that Mac Pro I’ve been using an eye iMac pretty decent iMac fur for my film editing but man I could really use I could really use a better machine how about 2000 is it a 2007 or 2008 Mac Pro that’s still like I’ve maxed it out with memory like it’s still still doing everything that I needed to do but I’m starting to see kind of like the cracks in India in the whole you know update experience and everything so I’m hope I’m pulling for a Mac Pro as well because I would probably get fingers crossed come on Santa daddy needs a new computer Amazon has higher resolution video in its sights as well and it looks like an upcoming refresh of the Amazon fire TV lineup will bring 4k HDR 60 frames per second video to the device the cubicle set-top box is like a big boxy cube thing will not only handle the increased image quality it also has far-field microphones and a speaker on board to make it yet another large saw capable device with no need for an extra voice enabled remote and it will work like a standalone echo at all time so even if you’re not using it in the fire TV capability it’s still another echo device in your room that can you know talk with other echo devices that you can throw voice commands to and Shop through if that’s your thing which I don’t know is is that your thing Rus not really I get kind of scared about having something in the house that’s always you know I was one of those who took the Furby threat really seriously back in a day was it ever no but I do remember that time I remember people be a pretty darn freaked out that Furbies might be like a secret spying thing you know with a microphone and all that it’s listen it listens and repeats what you say okay so how do we make that worse let’s get something that not only listens and can repeat what you say but does a Google search and is connected to the Internet yeah that’s how could that possibly go wrong and catalogues all that information definitely forever and ever that’s your thing there you go there will be an IR infrared capability inside of the media center the cube one the premium one so it can control all the other devices that you have in your home media setup so that’s kind of nice controls on the top like the echo dot the smaller one so you can mute it if you like you just tap the button and you can have it muted and that kind of takes away some of the freewheeling capability of it but the potential is there there’s also going to be a mid tier apparently firetv device that will have a sorry to say this hanging dongle form-factor kind of like the chromecast kind of plug it into HDMI and back it hangs down and basically all the only other plug it has is USB for power and that’s gonna be like mid tier if you don’t need 4k are you HD so there you go not much more there a few months after the European Commission issued a 2.7 billion dollar antitrust fine against Google for what it deemed as abuse of its search dominance and online shopping results Google is now appealing the filing in the lower u courts at least for now google has not sought to sidestep compliance with the original order that would place penalties on the company if they didn’t follow suit but they’re basically from what it seems anyways it seems like they’re kind of emboldened and I don’t know if this was in the works prior to this or not but there was I believe it’s an Intel case a similar Intel case antitrust case in the EU that lasted for eight years in a eight year old case and it was just last week ordered to be re-examined by the lower court and normally I guess the EU court and the lower court are kind of in lockstep with how they’re determined this is kind of a break from that and so it’s kind of kind of ends up being a signal to companies like Google who are in similar water to say hey if you challenge this it’s very possible that the lower court will overturn it or you can get another five to six years of a delay before having to do anything so there you go this this you thought this was over it’s not extending for another six years welcome welcome to the movie [Laughter] I’m really interested to see how this is gonna turn out because it is it is a landmark it does have the potential to be a landmark case it does have the potential to really change the way these large data companies operate and it is honestly I’m kind of kind of on the side of the courts here you know it’s a little strange you know the situation with Google and also you know Google tweaking its search to to point to its own services I’d be like if the if the you know I was gonna get an analogue analogy right it’d be like if the phone company back in the day also sold real estate when you got your phone book right there ad for they’re a real estate company was on the front page of the our section I mean that’s basically what Google is doing I think no matter what you search for their stuff is gonna show up sooner and their search algorithm is kind of a black box anyway I know a lot of people who make a lot of money trying to guess you know how what buttons to push to get their stuff SEO trite to get it ahead of everybody else’s stuff so it’s a black box and they’re also kind of tinkering on it you know to their own benefit behind the scenes that’s kind of not cool yeah I’ve kind of gone back and forth on this over the years because for the longest time I was like yeah but it’s Google service like I guess I’m okay with the fact that Google you know I mean of course they are they make all these things so of course through their their product they’re going to show you there are other products that they do but I mean the world that we live in now we’re at Google Google is not the only search engine but if you’re in on Google’s world I mean it can encompass everything it covers everything and it goes so deep so it can it really has the potential to yeah I mean to fall afoul to these charges I mean in this case EU is charging that Google was giving its own search search placement of its shopping product up at the top search results and you know and that basically also ended up demoting rival products in the process and I guess that’s that’s the question here is it okay the EU has already said that’s not and the risk here is that that has a ripple effect to other markets including the US and that’s what it absolutely what Google does not want so the longer they can delay this and extend it out the way Intel has the better potentially long term just pull out of the EU what then who knows it yeah that’s not a good plan go do that although Burke Burke is shaking his head Berthe thinks Google should pull out of the EU but I don’t I don’t think you do that if you’re Google you’re a worldwide company that’s that’s that’s kind of suicide to a certain degree right yeah I think that’s I think that’s the worst case for Google you know I feel like if I feel like the court is going to come back and uphold the decision and it’s gonna be a lot like you know the the the Bell Telephone AT&T thing back in the 80s where you know you can either be you can either be that search monopoly or you can sell all these other services and products but you can’t really do both right right so I can imagine a world in which Google has to split off a bunch of its services in a world edge bezel as design is all the rage these days and of course we’re probably gonna see it on the iPhone 10 or X or whatever it’s gonna be go back to mid 2016 and there was really only one phone at that time that did this and that was the Xiaomi me mix it was definitely the first of the new version a new kind of world order of phones that started to do this bezel list design now we have the sequel the me mix 2 and it’s actually got a little bit smaller of a displace 5.99 inch display down from 6.4 4-inch ceramic back rounded aluminum frame as a front-facing camera in the chin of the phone which is similar to last year’s model so that’s one thing to get used to and I wonder well I guess on the iPhone they have the little cutout in the display so you don’t have to do the turn your phone upside down or take selfie otherwise you’re shooting up your nostrils thing that keeps the the front-facing camera up at the top instead of in this phone that cameras down on the bottom so if you want to take a selfie you better rotate that bottom side up in order to do it properly because it’s right down there but it’s a nice looking phone and shout me put produces you know nice nice hardware for a really great price I mean in this case it’s actually a little bit more comparable to prices that we’re used to seeing these 64 gig models around $500 you can get a full ceramic unibody version of this for seven hundred twenty dollars I don’t know what do you think I think it’s really interesting to see them coming up with a with a competitive product I feel like they’re they’re exploiting the breach a little bit that Samsung yielded with the with the exploding galaxy notes it seems like Samsung is doing a pretty good job of recovering from that but you know that kind of a mishap you know when you get on a plane and even if you’re considering buying a Samsung and you hear the a lot of the airplanes say you know hey don’t use this phone because it could explode kill everyone on the plane I mean that’s that’s that’s a lot of bad press so it definitely creates an opening where if you’re Sammy you’ve got the opportunity to come in with this nice machine I haven’t used one I haven’t held one they look pretty slick but as we’ve already established I’m kind of a Apple robot so um I’m on the outside looking in on this one yeah I mean I cover a lot of Android devices Xiaomi produces really interesting hardware but I mean it’s next to impossible it’s well it’s not impossible you can’t get it through normal normal avenues here in the States you have to import it in the you know Xiaomi just doesn’t sell in the States they don’t right now maybe they will someday but they don’t so if you really wanted to get this you’d have to go through some effort and thankfully if you did want to do that it has LTE support for all US bands so if you were to import it you could operate it on on the LTE networks here in the States it has very nice specs for Android devices Snapdragon 835 which is kind of the top of the line right now six gigs of ram 3400 milliamp power battery USBC so only no headphone jack so you’re doing your headphones through the USBC which is a another one of those nice trends those those what is it courageous trends they have put it one time and then but you know this whole ceramic thing I have you did you were you aware of the essential phone Andy Rubens kind of essential phone I wish I brought it in here but I don’t know a husband path it’s basically any Rubens to create a creator of Android and he created a phone called the essential phone released a new product that is essentially ceramic on the back and it’s titanium on the sides it’s meant to be like we made it so tough that you don’t need a case sort of thing and it looks really slick and everything like that so ceramic apparently you know scratch proof I did not experience that it’s scratched and it scratched just through normal wear and tear so there was that and then if you saw that video that Kevin was just playing from the verge right of ceramic is definitely not impervious to breaking if it drops so this whole trend to materials that can kind of shatter if if you make one mistake in your ownership just don’t know how I let how I like that very much there it is there’s the chip away from the top there it is yeah ceramic is definitely not shadow proof I actually brought home that one of my first trips to Japan I brought home a ceramic knife that I had not seen and in the States held held its edge really really well just a beautiful cutting tool but you know just a little flick on the on the very tip of the blade and that blade shattered it’s yeah you know there’s pros and cons I’m not sure I would want to carry a shatter prone phone but I have no problem carrying a no headphone jack phone I just bought five of these to put in every room of the house so I can take calls no matter where I am that’s what you got to do that’s the future yeah yeah exactly I don’t know if that’s the future that’s the unfortunate future I’m still totally in the plug you know the analog headphone world give me a headphone port on my phones I don’t want to have to look for a dongle that’s only because I haven’t been forced to I’m sure with the next phone that I get that requires me to I’ll get used to it but for now I don’t like it anyways lots to look forward to there but coming up next what did pewdiepie say this time yes he said something we’ll talk about it but first let’s take a minute to thank the sponsor of today’s episode that is rocket mortgage by Quicken Loans they’re the sponsor of today’s episode of tech news today the mortgage experience if you’ve gone through it you already know that it hasn’t kept up with the times it’s not always so easy to find all that information it’s dated it needed a client focused technological revolution and that’s why Quicken Loans created rocket mortgage rocket mortgage gives you the confidence that you need when it comes to buying a house or refinancing your existing home loan it’s simple it allows you to fully understand all the details and be confident you’re getting the right mortgage for you it’s convenient their trusted partners allow you to share your financial information with rocket mortgage at the touch of a button the way we’re used to online or used to things fast and that’s what rocket mortgage is all about it’s also powerful whether you’re looking to buy your first home or your 10th rocket mortgage is able to perform thousands of calculations in seconds you know exactly what to expect based on your income your assets and your credit rocket mortgage can analyze all the home loan options for which you qualify and then find the one that’s just right for you rocket mortgage by Quicken Loans apply simply understand fully mortgage confidently to get started go to rocket mortgage comm slash TNT that’s rocket mortgage comm slash TNT Equal Housing lender licensed in all 50 states and MLS consumer access org number 30 30 and we think rocket mortgage by Quicken Loans for their support of tech news today all right here we go no doubt if you keep tabs on gaming circles you’ve heard about the latest words to blurt out a PewDiePie’s mouth during a let’s play gaming session over the weekend pewdiepie for those who don’t know is the most popular youtuber on the planet with more than 57 million subscribers and 14 billion views well during a live stream where he played player unknowns battlegrounds PewDiePie targeted a player inside the game in the live stream and casually threw out a racial slur that I can’t repeat here because it’s a word I simply don’t say in any context let alone a live stream to thousands of people now it’s causing a ripple effect that includes camposanto co-founder Sean vana man I hope I said that right who said he was filing a DMCA takedown of pewdiepies game streams of the company’s game fire watch he basically said I’m sick of this child he’s this direct quote I’m sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make he’s worse than a closeted racist he’s a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry I know you have thoughts about this I mean this you know this is the gaming world and you are very tuned into the gaming world how much influence does someone like PewDiePie have over fellow gamers and how serious is this well I mean if you want to talk to peer deep eyes influence he’s massive he’s you know the most popular YouTube gaming star it’s weird to call him a gaming star – because it’s more of a pop culture thing but what he does with his videos almost exclusively he plays games our games are involved in Subway’s so he’s speaking to that you know generation the younger generation who focus for whom videogames are like right they’re just part part of their their environment so it doesn’t even you know it doesn’t even register that gaming isn’t it is a unique thing for folks in that generation it’s just part of life so a megastar like PewDiePie who treats video games you know as a big Buddhist Lee as they do just naturally flows and he is so profoundly popular it’s it’s kind of scary it would be kind of scary even if he wasn’t frequently involved in this kind of controversy has such a large following he has by himself almost single-handedly shaped the the the ecosystem of YouTube and streamers and let’s players he created this sort of mega stardom where companies and advertisers are are seeking him out and and and basically competing with each other to get him to wear something on his show or to get a shout out on his show or to give him to play one of his games on his let’s plays it’s really extraordinary I first became aware of PewDiePie maybe six years ago and he was already big in some circles but he had not really achieved that sort of mainstream breakout awareness where people like you know me who are not you know who are definitely older than 20 we’re kind of aware of his phenomenon and and you know how much a part of it he was but you’d be hard-pressed to meet anyone under the age of 20 or even 25 who doesn’t know PewDiePie or doesn’t watch PewDiePie he is just that you know is is the Beatles of let’s players I mean I get in trouble saying things that hyperbolic like that but I don’t think that’s an exaggeration in this case he is that generations Beatles well yeah I mean when you’re when you consider just the sheer number of subscribers that he has on YouTube being the most subscribed to person means that is audience is enormous and is oh you know I mean as far as as far as I’ve seen as far as I know and and some of the kids that I’ve talked to you know his audience includes kids and that’s been one question that I’ve had about this I mean this kind of this world that we live in where YouTube live streaming is so is is such an important part of a a lot of a lot of people’s lives like it is the replacement for TV for a lot of people I guess is what I’m saying and kids included where you can have someone someone someone who is in PewDiePie’s position whether he’s racist or not right like that’s kind of not the question cuz I don’t know that for sure but when you’re in a position that PewDiePie is in where you have that kind of reach you I mean I feel like that holds him to a higher standard would you agree like that takes you out of this realm of like some of the some of the feedback that I’ve seen people supporting PewDiePie in this is well yeah I mean I play games all the time and we say some crazy stuff while we’re streaming you just say things blah blah but I mean and that may be the case and I totally you know like I’ve played games and said some you know crazy stuff to my friend or whatever I definitely never said that and I think when you’re streaming to thousands upon thousands of people you definitely don’t say that unless you actually unless there’s something else going on there so should he be held to a higher standard what do you think yeah that’s the thing I’ve been seeing a lot of this on Twitter over the last day or so that you don’t something like that doesn’t come out by accident unless it occasionally comes out on purpose right like that doesn’t you know sneak out of your mouth unless it’s already in there in a part of your natural repertoire but in a sense it doesn’t even matter if PewDiePie is racist the the the fact is he has this platform he’s taking the money right like I think when you achieve that level of Fame and success you do have a moral obligation to your audience and to your followers to set a good example and you know obviously that’s objective maybe the way he behaves is what he considers a good example okay then you know there’s no there’s no what you can argue against that that’s fine but I think you also have a fiduciary on a professional obligation to your sponsors into your content partners you know PewDiePie is making content that he doesn’t really have to pay for uh you know he these games are sent to him even if he does buy the game he’s creating hours and hours of entertainment for people and he’s not paying licensing fees he’s not you know paying a fee to that people who created this game to create content based off of it is operating like most people on YouTube do under a broad definition of the fair use law which in actuality it doesn’t cover let’s place the the laws the most legal experts tend to agree that the the law here is is definitely on the side of folks like Kapil Santo who don’t have to permit this use of their property and can pull the plug at any moment right so if your if your pewds as we call him in the biz if your pues and you’re making millions of dollars off this content right you have to at some point kind of acknowledge the power that these people who are giving you those dollars have over you or else stop taking the money but you know it’s pretty clear Kapil Santo for one doesn’t want their product to be associated with someone who says the thing PewDiePie says and I and I and I you know Disney voted the same way not too terribly long ago you know I can’t I have a hard time believing that other knowing knowing that people I do in the industry knowing the the people who agree with Sean and the people you know that I’ve spoken to personally about this and about other issues relating to this type of thing I expect many other Studios will follow and that this you know if it’s not the beginning of the end for PewDiePie which was faces he’s so big it’s not he’s so big his audience has proved resilient against this kind of controversy whether they care or not they just don’t sue doesn’t seem to influence their love for him just fine for them but III think this will definitely have a major impact on the way business is done on YouTube and in the the way these types of Let’s Plays are propagated I expect it is the beginning of the end of the let’s play star whatever happens next whatever the new environment is for people to create content about video games I think we’re I think we’re into a new paradigm at this point you’re the right person to bring on for that a story for sure I was fantastic we got another gaming story here the NES classic was impossible to buy due to low production and high demand the SNES class Sic has as much if not more demand a Nintendo of America president Reggie fils-aime is reassuring the public that the company had the company has dramatically increased they say production of the unit ahead of its release although that comes after plenty of pre-order issues I mean if you’re trying to preorder this it was one thing after another Walmart has a bunch of cancellations of pre-orders they said that was a technical glitch pre-orders on August 22nd were basically out of stock in minutes so are you buying this do you think the SNES Classic is gonna be any easier to get by the end of the year is it gonna be as much of a dip of a prize if you do get it I don’t I honestly don’t know I didn’t buy the the NES classic and I actually didn’t have an SNES I skipped that generation of consoles so I do nostalgia there yeah I went from NES to PC and stayed there for a good long while so I don’t have that connection to that console so I’m not necessarily interested in getting it but I am paying attention to to what happens here so I feel like well what’s what’s interesting to me is is the confession about the the production of the NES classic the previous version and how they underestimated demand because they were basing their estimating demand for that mini console based on other similar products released by other companies which I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those other types of you know console in a boxes they’re usually terrible so I mean I know Nintendo in general is a conservative company but to to lowball the demand so so steeply based on you know the such pitiful offerings I don’t know I can’t say that was a smart move there but III do believe I do believe them when they say they’ve learned the lesson I do believe them when they say that they’re increasing production I’m not sure it will matter because people tend to hoard these devices and buy them in Lots and then sell them on eBay in fact it’s actually a running joke in the industry now that basically any any Nintendo device or amiibo or anything Nintendo makes that is popular in any way which is most things they make you have to buy on eBay for you know 20 or 30 percent markup because the scalpers tend to get there first so I don’t know I mean it would be nice if Super NES many classics were falling down the chimney right and left this holiday season but I wouldn’t expect it so then I’m thinking if you were not of the SNES era and then you went straight to PC at that point you would hold out for a Sierra online console yeah quest 1 through whatever you like I’m in not that you can’t play those games today I’m sure there are pretty easy ways to play those games still but hey make it easy I’d totally buy that TT’s Family Day is Hamish McEwen who sent us this picture from the livestream if I remember correctly Leo is just done with this weekend Google set up has begun for the tnt set and this right here is what it looks like when Leo Laporte takes a picture of you this is what you have to look forward to when Leo takes a picture of you thank you for sending that and show us how you watch or listen to tnt to record a video or take a picture of yourself or your setup posted on Instagram Google+ Twitter or Facebook and use the hashtag how I watch tnt and we will find it now finally Russ thought we’d take a few minutes and talk about something that I’m sure you hold dear to your heart and that’s the work of your nonprofit take this tell us a little bit about the idea behind take this and how it’s helping to address mental health issues and depression in game development yeah yeah so you know take this and I’ve been on the show a few times talking about take this but we have we found at the Oregon 2012 because we were frankly we were losing friends to depression and suicide and we wanted to know what we could do you know how do you reach people who are so are dealing with issues that are so complex and then don’t feel like they can talk to anybody about them so we started to take this to just sort of propagate this idea that it’s okay to not be okay it’s okay to talk to people about mental health issues that try to erase that stigma that keeps people from getting the help that they need and since then you know in the five years we’ve been doing this we’ve we’ve raised a ton of money we’ve started we’ve published stories and information on tech this org and we’ve helped a lot of people we’ve done panels we do rooms at conventions where people if they’re overwhelmed they can come and they can can talk to somebody about mental health issues in general or just take a break from the bustle of a busy show like like the pack show I was just dad for example and as we’ve been doing that what we’ve found is that people come to us and they get so much benefit from the things that we do offer so the consumer level things we offer and they’ll come and say hey if you can do this for a game convention maybe you can come to our video game studio or maybe you can come to our you know technology company and talk to us about mental health and how the workplace can can exacerbate mental health issues or can mask mental health issues or how you know you can there’s things you can do to make a workplace healthier for people who deal with mental health issues and more welcoming so we did we launched the underground program which you were just showing there on the screen it’s a program where we actually do we go into companies and we give lectures we give talks with you training on mental health awareness we train managers HR managers on how you know just simple techniques that they can use to to manage employees who are dealing with mental health issues make the workplace a little bit less stressful for folks you know we call one of the things I call out and I’ve talked at the the game developers conference in San Francisco a number of years in a row about this you know when you get into cold and flu season like we’re getting into now you’ll send somebody to the store they’ll buy a bunch of you know Purell and a bunch of emergency and you know stock the fridge with with juices and stuff to try and take care of people to boost their immune systems but you know you get into a busy like a crunch period where you’re releasing any product or you’re releasing a game and you know there’s there’s self-care that you can do and promote for people’s mental health as well but we don’t address those issues and we don’t talk about them as much here in the United States so that’s what we do we show up and we give people the tools that they can use to sort of very easily make their workplaces mentally healthier is there a strong correlation between game development environments and employees suffering from these kinds of things or do you think it’s I mean I I mean obviously depression is a much wider thing but why the strong correlation with with gaming specifically well you know it’s like I said to my friends in game development and it’s like the Jurassic Park problem right where they have all the problems of a zoo in an amusement park and video game development you have all the problems of a technology company and an entertainment company combined right there often inventing their their technology there on the spot every time they make a new game and they have to serve an audience and they have all the demands of the publisher that they’re working for if they’re self-published they have the audience demands of the audience people who work in the video game industry frequently move they frequently will work at a studio for the lifecycle of one game and then you know get laid off or you know move to another studio just because there’s all kinds of time pressures the gold posts move frequently people will often be working on a game for so long that’s technology they’re using to make that game becomes outdated while they’re making it so they have to go back to the drawing board it’s a very that is super common actually so there’s a lot of pressure you know and you sit in the in the room and they keep the the studios dark so that you can see the screens better and a lot of people you know who are computer programmers just prefer the dark they’ll they’ll push themselves hard to work extra hours so they’re sitting at a desk for long hours a lot of times they’ll have like a full kitchen in the studio so that you can have your folks stay there because obviously the longer they’re focused on a task the you know the the conventional wisdom anyway is that the longer they’re focused on a task the faster the solutions will come but they the opposite is actually true you know the more breaks you take and the more frequently the more rested you are the more frequently you can get up and walk around actually the more efficient you are and the the data holds that up we actually have data that shows that people who are mentally healthy and happier twelve percent better workers right so if I could go to any company and say hey I have an off-the-shelf solution for you that’s gonna make your product twelve percent faster or bigger or better nobody’s gonna say no to that and that’s basically what we’re saying here it’s like we there are ways you know there are simple changes you can make to how you’re on your studio how you dress people with mental health issues and just how you sort of deal with those issues that will can make your people up to 12 percent more efficient just by making them happier so I don’t I don’t know anybody who wants they you know sort of understand the scope of the problem and how quickly and easily they can change it says no to this the challenge is convincing people that there’s an issue at all and one that they should solve right so it’s very hard especially particularly with the stigma about mental health issues it’s very hard to have that conversation with people and it’s very hard to convince them that this is a problem that you know their studio is contributing to but we found that you know once we get to that point with folks that’s you know then it’s super easy to make the changes that don’t make everybody’s lives better fantastic really great work that you guys are doing I’m so happy you get the chance to talk to raise awareness a little bit more about this where can people find out more maybe you know maybe we’ve got people listening that want to kind of run this by the powers that be or whatever and get you guys involved sure yeah take this dot o-r-g slash underground on that has all the all the information in the general pitch for the underground program the program itself was designed co-developed by an HR person who works an HR crisis resolution at NASA as well as a number of management experts in the video game space so definitely people who who understand the pressures and how to speak to very intelligent technology type people so check it out fantastic Russ I’m so happy that we got to bring you on once again Russ pits has been too long as the things popping on with me today and talking a little technology and gaming and all the fun stuff and some of the not so fun stuff as well really appreciate it it’s awesome having back yeah of course there’s always a pleasure thanks for having me absolutely take this org slash underground to find more about take this and Russ we will talk to you soon thanks again man thank you TNT records live every Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Pacific 7 p.m. Eastern 2300 UTC at with TV slash live you can be part of the show by emailing us at TNT at 20 V leave us a short voicemail to 6o TNT show and you can find us on Twitter at tech news today TV if you want to find me directly on Twitter not the show but just me you can do that as well I’m there at Jason Howell by the way Russ is there as well at Russ pits and thanks to Kevin our our technical director today I think our editor okay only editor here today so that would be a yes thanks to Bert for helping out in the studio and thanks to you for talking Tech with us today we’ll see y’all tomorrow time for awkward high-five you high-five me huge [Music] you