The Echo Dot Max is a Work in Progress - DTNS 5135

0:04This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, October 29th, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up the context of those stories, and help each other understand. Today, we are talking speakers, home automation, and how AI is changing that landscape. That's right. I'm Jason Howell. And I'm Sarah Lane. Let's start with what you need to know with a big story. The Echo Dot... There we go. The Echo Dot Max was first announced back in March, along with the Alexa Plus Early Access Program. Now we're starting to see reviews of the device. Those are starting to hit. And I was kind of reading through The Verge and thought this would be kind of interesting to talk about.

0:45There's a few things that are related to this. So The Verge review shares that the device has some strong points. It delivers good sound quality, stronger bass. It's very capable as far as being a smart hub with support for Matter, Thread, Zigbee, all that stuff that you want in a smart home. And, I mean, I like it. It's got a very attractive purple fabric finish, very eye-catching. I mean, it definitely stands out. I don't know if you have any other purple technology in your house that it would match to, but it certainly stands out. It's appealing. Yeah, yeah. And it's definitely a statement.

1:22It's a statement. Although, you know, in a small package. So it's not like you've got, you know, your whole media wall is now purple. No. Although, you know, I wouldn't hate that. That would be fine. But the review does take it to task for Alexa Plus, which is another big part of this kind of release, the performance features related to Alexa Plus, not always performing the way they expect. Noticeably slow delays on certain requests, unreliable routines that actually required recreating those routines just to get them to work. Maybe that's kind of to be expected when you move from kind of one thing to an updated version of that thing.

2:05But nonetheless, as a user, it kind of sucks to have to do that. Device controls were at times inconsistent throughout the smart home. So even though you had that MatterThread, that ZigBee, all that connectivity, if things aren't working when you want them to work, that's a bummer. Alexa Plus often losing track of conversations and context. And it's sometimes confirmed that it completed an action when it actually had not. I mean, none of these sound like deal breakers. They just kind of sound like early adopter. The price you pay is an early adopter of kind of a new thing. What do you think, Sarah?

2:42Well, so I'm very excited about this because I'm about to get the Echo Studio, which in fact should be delivered anytime now because it was supposed to be delivered at end of October, early November. So, you know, that's where we are. So I'm going to be hanging out with that for a future Live With It episode. But the Echo Dot Max, smaller form factor, but they're very similar. It does sound like from the reviews that I have read, the sound quality is very good. I am extremely interested in the Amazon Assistant Plus. I just won't say her name because I know how it triggers people's own home automation systems.

3:27I messed up on that. I probably said it like three or four times. Apologies. It's all right. You know, it happens to the best of us. Sometimes you just have to say it, right? Yeah. New product. Feels good. But so that is a huge part of my house. In fact, I had to rebuild the whole thing recently because I changed my SSID and that screwed up everything. The whole thing broke. And I mean, I have like eight smart home devices that talk to each other. And Amazon is at the basis of that. So I am very interested to see how the A plus works on the new speaker because it comes straight out of the box on the studio and also the.max and how that works with what I've got going on already.

4:14Is it going to be seamless? Is it going to compete somehow? Is it going to get confused? I'm excited to try it because I like to tinker. I also feel like Amazon is also – and maybe this is just the way it goes when you transition into new products. But Amazon seems to be suffering a little bit as other companies have with naming conventions. It was the Echo, the Echo Dot. Now it's the Echo Dot Max. The original Echo version 5 doesn't seem to be being upgraded. Now you've got the studio for sort of like audiophile folks. and uh you know it's it it seems like basically the price points have gotten higher but also the quality has gotten higher or at least the promise of quality has gotten higher so if all that works then i think people are going to be like okay yeah i'll pay more you know for the better speaker so we'll have to see yeah i mean one thing that i've noticed about this particular category of device.

5:16I don't have Madame A or A +, whatever you want to call them. I don't have Amazon's version of this in my house. I have Google's version of this. I've got Google Homes in every single room. And most of them I've had for, God, I've got to be closing in on a decade on some of these things. I've had them for so long. Now, granted, yay for technology that stands the test to time. Some of them we've been using a lot throughout the years. But I would say in the last year, our use has dropped off a cliff, partially because support and features and everything's changing in the world of this modern AI movement where they're changing A+.

5:59And then on the Google side, another related news is that the early preview for Google Gemini is rolling out to Google Home. So that promises to reinvigorate this hardware that we've had. So I give a thumbs up for these types of devices for the fact that they could last almost a decade and that we're still using them. But my habits around them have really changed because things have degraded enough. And I'm wondering if that's the case for a lot of other people and if some of these changes to how they run might reinvigorate them or is it too little too late for some people? Now, when you say that your usage has dropped off, and I know it's not just you in the house, it's your whole family.

6:41Is it just because they haven't worked well and you just stopped trying? Yeah, exactly that. And it wasn't that we really used these things for many things to begin with. It was music, it was the standard stuff. Music, weather, timer, the occasional question. Oh, great, I got the answer. maybe the occasional, you know, how much is convert two tablespoons to teaspoons or something. You know what I mean? I just hear that all the time. Yeah, totally. Like conversions will last on me and it's just easy. And what I found in the last, especially, and again, reminder, this is just about Google's products, not Amazon's, but in the last, I'd say year, year and a half, the simple standard things started to be very inconsistent.

7:26And once that started happening, yeah, we stopped relying on these things. The one in the kitchen, I don't even know if it's plugged in anymore because it was more annoying to be faced with those issues time and time again than it was just get used to something else. And so that's been my experience. Sounds like that hasn't been your experience with Amazon's devices. Well, when they're all connected to the grid appropriately, things work fine. But, you know, you break that grid and getting smart bulbs and speakers and my TV to record, it really was a weekend project just a few days ago to get myself back in business, which I am, so it's fine.

8:09But that is not the kind of project that the average household wants to go through. Totally. That's something that's fun for me because it is. But that is not something that Amazon does not want people to have to do things like that. Now, I could move over to HomeKit. I could move over to, well, actually, for the most part, with almost all my products, because my speakers are Sonos that I've chosen Amazon's assistant for. But I believe I could choose Google Home. You know, I could rejigger the whole thing if I wanted to. For now, we're sticking with what we got. But I will be very interested to see how the new speaker works and also how it may work as possibly a sound bar for my TV, which I don't have right now.

8:59I mean, it doesn't really work the same way, but I'm already thinking ahead. Yeah. Yeah. If I've got a new device, new speaker, sound quality good, good reviews, I'm getting it. What do I do with it? What room does it go in? How does this affect my life for the better? Indeed. Well, I'm sure once you have that, well, like you said, you're going to be featuring your experience with it on Live With It. Yes. And Live With It goes, we like to give ourselves a solid three months or around that or more to get a really good sense of what's going on. So look for that in an upcoming episode. But DTNS is made possible by all of you listening right now.

9:47Not three months from now, although we'd like you to be here three months from now as well, but today. Thank you to Kevin Morgan, Paul Thiessen, Ali Sanjabi, and we have two new patrons, Sahil and Sajid. Yay! Welcome! Good to have you here.

10:06All right, there's more we need to know today, so let's get to the briefs. open ai is now on the path to an ipo after its transition to a for-profit company was approved by attorney general rob bonta as we discussed on yesterday's show sam altman ceo of open ai shared on x that he's committed to keeping open ai in california and communicated as much to bonta a few weeks ago when the deal was still in progress he said quote california is my home And I love it here. And when I talked to Attorney General Bonta two weeks ago, I made it clear we are not going to do what those other companies do and threaten to leave if sued.

10:48End quote. Those other companies. Yeah. We're a cool mom. We're not like those other moms. Yeah, we're better. We're better than them. Meanwhile, Bonta shared in a memo that cases like Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI would likely not affect the restructuring process. The information says that the court is now unlikely to reverse the changes since regulatory authorities have already approved them. And even Musk's lawyer admits reverting would be a challenge. If Musk does win, OpenAI could still owe him substantial financial compensation. Okay. Well, so this is the way we're going. With that, you blink, and by the end of the week, OpenAI is already – it's not like they've announced the IPO is the next thing.

11:36But you have to imagine that the pathway seems to be pretty clear for that to be the case. And my how fast things change, even though it took a while to kind of get here for OpenAI, it really is a big transition, a big shift in what we even knew about the company even a couple of years ago. And some people don't like hearing that this has happened or really feel like this is an about face that they don't feel comfortable with. Yeah. I mean, the OpenAI going for the IPO was inevitable. As soon as it went from nonprofit to for-profit, that's what's happening. The timeline has been a lot swifter than I think a lot of people expected or even realized was possible.

12:20and we were joking before the show today, there's nary a day goes by where I don't talk about open AI, whether or not I want to. My goodness, yeah. It's just, you know, it dominates the news, even though AI in general and many companies are doing very interesting things. Open AI just happens to be one of the front runners, at least in the news cycle. So yeah, staying in California, that's interesting. You can also say that and change your mind later, right? That's true. You don't sign a decree saying I'm never going to leave. So we'll see. But that's got to keep some people happy. OpenAI also has employees that aren't in California.

13:08So it's a global company, but headquartered in California. So that's a little murky. I don't know how much that really matters. I mean, I know it matters to California for tax purposes. But yeah, as far as Elon Musk versus OpenAI, that's been going on for a while now. It sounds like if Musk's legal team says, yeah, this is a long shot. I know, right? Then Elon Musk has money to pay lawyers whether he wins or not. So I would be surprised if he's like, yeah, I'll just go ahead and stop caring. Yeah. I don't see him stopping caring. Yeah. I think I'll fight to the death. But I don't know. Stranger things have happened.

13:53Indeed. And they continue to. Apple has accused former employee Chen Xi of stealing Apple Watch trade secrets and then bringing them to Oppo, where he got his next job. Apple claims she downloaded 63 confidential files, learned from Apple's technical team, and then upon joining the Oppo team in the sensing technology department, then gave an Apple sensors presentation. That's in quotes to a number of employees detailing some of Apple's technology and future plans. By the way, a tagline for the talk was, quote, are you curious about how Apple sensors are developed? End quote. Apple alleges that Oppo is withholding some of the requested evidence that is required here.

14:42Oppo insists that no Apple secrets were discovered upon its own internal search and that she only discussed general engineering topics during his talk. And the court has now ordered Oppo to submit that documentation that it found by October 31st. So a little bit of back and forth. I mean, the tagline is a little like it seems to tell you what to expect in the talk. So for a tagline to say, are you curious about how Apple sensors are developed? And then for it to be general engineering topics that have nothing to do with Apple. I don't know. On the surface, I kind of find that a little hard to believe, but I guess stranger things have happened.

15:22And let's go back to the 63 confidential files. Yeah. If he did download those and that was against Apple policy while he was an employee there, that's already the problem. That in and of itself is a big problem. Yeah. Like whether or not he makes a presentation at his next job or does anything with it, you're stealing confidential information. Yeah. Or with the intent to share it at some point. So Apple is going to go after you for that anyway. I don't know exactly the details of how Apple knows that this happened, but let's just say that she did do this. She downloaded 63 confidential files, joins the Oppo team, has those files, maybe doesn't share that information specifically with the new team, but knows enough to give information to that new team that might seem kind of, you know, above board, all good, not saying anything too crazy, but it doesn't sound great.

16:23Now, if Apple is just in the wrong here and claims that Chen Xi stole a bunch of stuff that he didn't do, then that's another conversation. But it does sound like Oppo saying, we don't have Apple secrets. We just don't. But where was this presentation made? Was it in the office? Was it at TGI Fridays? Was it casual? Were there slides? I think there are so many moving parts here. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at in the article on Mac Rumors is a little image that kind of, I think, was used to kind of promote the talk. And yeah, I mean, it's labeled as an oppo talk, but it's a good question. Where did it actually happen?

17:14To whom? I mean, my understanding is to the team. And it seems to detail specifically what it is about, but I guess we'll find out. It's also, I should mention, she has asked for a delay in the proceedings due to a recent medical condition diagnosis that is, quote, likely to be significantly exacerbated by participation in a lengthy, high stress and adversarial proceeding. So there's either politics going on or a true medical scenario that could impact this. Or some combination of both. Or some combination of probably that. Probably that, exactly. Well, YouTube is rolling out some major updates to its TV app that you're likely to notice if you do use the YouTube app on your TV.

18:01First, interactive QR codes that let viewers shop for products featured in tagged videos that are linked to creators' stores. Now, obviously, not every creator is going to take advantage of this, but a lot of creators do use YouTube as a way to help people shop. and get some kickback from that. Second, an AI-powered upscaling option that automatically converts lower res uploads to full HD, along with future plans to upscale to 4K quality. Creators will be given the option of opting out of this upscaling. If you're like, no, no, no, I don't want that. I want my stuff to look the way it was intended.

18:42You can opt out. Viewers also have control over which version they get delivered. So you can be like, no, I want original or I want upscaling. Third, thumbnails will get a little bit sharper with new support for up to 4K resolution themselves. And integrated search will now show even more results on screen at one time. Have you seen any of this like AI upscaling on YouTube yet? I've definitely seen it. so yes with mixed results yes mixed results absolutely and that is why i can see i think it's very smart of youtube to say we're doing this but you can opt out you can opt out as a creator and say no no no you're not gonna upscale my stuff and make it look wonky you know because it does sometimes look wonky um you know sometimes it's kind of like i don't know i want to liken it to coloring a black and white movie, which is not really the same, but it changes the original intent in a creative way.

19:48It makes choices. It makes choices and that can impact the content itself, hence why creators are given the opportunity to opt out. The quality might look lower res, but it's still closer to what the creator intended versus the choice that gloss kind of quality that gets painted over when upscaling happens in certain places and darker parts of the scene and things like that. If it's a grainy skateboard video on purpose, then you don't want this. And if it's a video that actually kind of looks better to the naked eye afterwards, but it wasn't in your creative control anymore, I can still see multiple scenarios where a creator would be like, I don't want this, you know, or, or I want it selectively, you know, between my videos and same goes for viewers.

20:41You know, you watch something sometimes and you're like, yeah, that's, yeah, that's kind of weird. Uh, it just doesn't, it doesn't, it did not render correctly. So is it distracting, you know, as a viewer, I don't want to be distracted. I want to be able to focus on the thing that is the video, not the kind of like tangible quality of how it got upscaled and oh, I just now I'm noticing all the glassy thing everywhere. And I'm not focused on the content itself. I'm focused on like the production. And I'll be focused on that as a user. So now I want to ask you, Jason, how often do you use QR codes in YouTube videos?

21:20Oh, I don't know that I use QR codes often in YouTube videos, but I definitely use QR codes at the right time in my life. You know what I mean? Like if there's a QR code that's offered at a moment when it makes sense for me to want to scan something. I think I've gotten very accustomed and very used to doing that. So I think that's a cool option to give creators the choice. Because if you're in the living room sit-back environment, I don't know how else you do integrate some of those kind of product integrations that you get on Google or you get on desktop. You would sort of be like, I like that.

21:52I don't know. Now I got to search it. Yeah. Pause, search. Is that the same one? It's like a caveman. I've got to search it in a search engine. Yeah. QR codes, it's funny. I feel a little caveperson-esque because for some years I was like, ah, QR code, I don't need that. And now I'm like, they're just, if I get a QR code as an option, that's what I'm doing. in fact when i was rebuilding my smart light system that went to heck uh last week um and trying to get some of my smart bulbs back on the grid um and you know i was contacting customer support it was a whole thing and you know everyone was just sort of like oh just use the qr code on the original box and i'm like i don't have the original box oh yes you know that was years ago I don't know where the box is.

22:42The box has gone away. You saved that QR code, everybody. You saved it. Take a picture of the QR code and then pull up a picture on a screen. You don't need scissors. Just put that QR code somewhere. All right. And finally, U.S. Senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal have proposed a new bill in the U.S., obviously, U.S. Senators, that would ban individuals under 18 from using AI chatbots. The Guard Act, as it is named, would require AI firms to verify users' ages through government ID, face scans, other reliable methods as well. The bill would also require chatbots to regularly disclose that they are not, in fact, human, as well as blocking sexual and personal harm-related content for minors.

23:29Now, this comes a few weeks after Senate hearings on AI safety. That actually brought attention to the impact of these kinds of chatbots on kids. And in a related note, Character.ai will ban users under 18 from chatting with its AI characters. This starts November 25th, 2025, so not specifically related to the Guard Act, but definitely tangentially related. From now until that date, teen users will be restricted to two hours of daily chat leading up to the ban. I mean, possibly even like cutting down over time. So it's kind of like they're weaning them off of chatbot. Uh, the company is also rolling out an age assurance model for detecting and flagging underage users to direct them to a teen safe version of their chat service.

24:16Well, as someone who was a teen once, um, you know, I, I, I think some of these measures are good ideas, uh, especially because, you know, there's growing, um, worry with some people, not everybody, but growing worry that, you know, teams are being harmed by these models that, you know, it's all moving too fast. They have access to information that, you know, isn't good for their development, you know, into adults. Now, back to me being a teen, there are workarounds to all of these things. There always have. There always have been. So, I sometimes am a little eye-rolly about this stuff because it's like, they'll just figure out how to use it as an adult.

24:58You know, they'll use someone else's ID or, you know, whatever. But the point of it, I think, is to say that if you're under 18, you can't use a chatbot. I don't know. I mean, it's like alcohol and cigarettes. It's like this is not a bad thing overall. It's not 100 % harmful to younger people. It just needs to be measured in a different way. I think that's where we're at. And so you've got the scared folks saying, nah, nah, just get rid of it. Young people aren't ready for this. Very reactive. And what defines a chatbot too? Like is it character.ai where you're actually conversing with a chatbot that has a personality in air quotes, that has an identity, let's say?

25:49That's maybe a little different than chatting with ChatGPT because you have a question about, but yet the delivery mechanism is similar. So does this impact that, you know, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as they say? I don't know. You know, yeah, I agree with you, though. These things can be very reactive. And, you know, there's a lot more detail between the lines. I'm interested to see if, you know, I know that character AI is restricting to two hours daily. and then saying, and then we're not going to do that at all after November 25th. And I just want to know, what kind of loopholes are there?

26:33And if the company is convinced that there aren't loopholes, how? How do you do that? How do you keep kids off things that they want to use? I think there's only certain things that you can do. And, you know, which kind of raises for me the question of like, okay, what is the motivation then here? Is it to appease the people who say you need stricter boundaries or is it to actually put fixes into place that do the things? You know what I mean? If they're putting an age restriction boundary like enter your age, which I don't think they're doing here, but that's what we've seen so many time and time again.

27:12We've all known over the years how ineffective that is. it's very easy for me if I'm not 18 to enter the numbers 1 and 8 and then hit enter and say I am 18, you know, get beyond it. So there are ways around all these things, like you said. So we'll just have to wait and see. And finally, a few quick headlines that are just good to know if you want to understand the news coming in the future. Thank you to R.W. Nash in our subreddit for the heads up that Grammarly is rebranding its name to Superhuman and merging its writing tools with the full Superhuman Suite, which it bought previously. It's now available today for all paid Grammarly Pro users.

27:54Google announced that Chrome will soon require user permission before opening insecure HTTP sites, making secure HTTPS connections the default. This begins with Chrome 154 in October 2026. I swear, I thought they were already doing this. I thought so too, but there you go. There you go. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced at the company's first DC Developers Conference that NVIDIA will build seven AI supercomputers for the US Energy Department, aiming to regain access to China and position itself as a critical partner in building global AI infrastructure. This one's interesting. Italian tech company Bending Spoons is set to acquire AOL from Yahoo for$2.8 billion in debt financing, one month, by the way, after it also announced its acquisition of Vimeo.

28:45So Bending Spoons, coming for all those old properties. Bending Spoons, I mean, they are great at acquiring companies. But wow, when I read this this morning, AOL sold to Bending Spoons. How times have changed. Yeah, who would have thought? How times have changed. Yeah. I used to work at AOL, so maybe I would have been an employee of bending spoons. I live in Italy or something. Nintendo is releasing the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild soundtrack on vinyl in the US for the first time with deluxe and limited edition collections available June of 2026. I mean, that final cover looks sexy. It looks nice.

29:25I want that. I don't know that I've been listening to it. I knew you were going to be into this one, Jason, you know, as the audiophile of the crew. Hey, everybody, just a reminder, We do live streams all week, all week long. Catch them by becoming a subscriber at youtube.com slash daily tech news show.

29:48We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom and enough time has passed since the AWS outage last week. Maybe we can find a little humor in it. Daniel in Chicago is here to oblige. Yeah, Daniel writes, I have a slightly different perspective. on the AWS outage. He's referring to the fact that a lot of people were very upset and displaced by it. Daniel says, I'm a little annoyed. When AWS goes down, so do the Amazon facilities. I work second shift at Amazon. I left work Monday morning at 1.30 AM and everything was working fine. Later, I saw on Reddit that employees were posting that the network was down.

30:27Scanners, robots, almost everything Wi-Fi was down because, of course, Amazon uses AWS. I wondered if I might have a light workday when I went into work Monday afternoon. When I got to work at 3 p.m., everything had just come back online. I was appalled. I completely missed the chaos, and it was back to normal work for me. I missed it entirely. Daniel says, oh, well, realistically, the day goes by faster doing regular work instead of cleaning the warehouse. So, So I'm not that upset. I just thought it was funny. So it's kind of like you go to bed the night before school and you see that snow's falling.

31:04You're like, oh, tomorrow might be a snow day. And then you wake up and you realize like, yes, there was a lot of snowfall, but our plows were very effective. School's on. Yeah. I know. We never had snow days where I grew up, but definitely like flood warnings. And you'd be like, well, if the road floods, can't go to school. I don't have a canoe. Okay. Yeah. And then it's like, oh, no, the storm passed. All right, we're going to school. School day. Well, if you have thoughts on the AWS outage or anything that we talked about on the show today or in the show in general, give us a email. Give it to us.

31:43Give it. Even if you have an AOL email account, that's fine. We'll take it. Feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com. Especially if you've got an AOL email account. In fact, yeah, we want to know how you feel about Benny Tunes owning the domain. Thanks to Daniel for contributing to today's show. It was a pleasure doing the show with you, Sarah. Thank you for being here. And thank you all for being along for the entire week, each and every week, Daily Tech News. So you can keep us in business by becoming a patron at patreon.com slash DTNS. We'll see you all.

32:21The DTNS family of podcasts, helping each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.