What to expect with Dolby Vision 2 - DTNS 5095

0:00Hi all, this is Kim and Penn Holderness from Lifeline.

0:02Dr Niki: Summer is here, which means it's officially travel season. And when you're out there making plans, you need somewhere reliable to stay. That's why Best Western is such a solid option. This summer, get 1 ,000 bonus points and a chance to win 250 ,000 bonus points. So wherever you're headed, make it count with this limited time offer. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at BestWestern.com. No additional purchase necessary for sweeps. See bonus points, T's and C's and sweeps rules for details and visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. There's a reason millions of people start their day with Morning Brew Daily.

0:36Each morning, we break down the biggest news in business from the latest tech headlines to why nobody can afford a house right now. All in a format that fits seamlessly into your day. You'll leave each episode of Morning Brew Daily smarter and ready to take on the world around you. I'm Toby Howell. And I'm Neil Freiman. And we're ready to show you that business news doesn't have to be boring. So join us on Morning Brew Daily, available wherever you get your podcasts.

1:25available now. Explore further at Range Rover.com. This episode is sponsored by Morning Brew Daily. If you're anything like me, you want to stay informed about what's happening in business and finance, but you also don't have an hour every morning to sift through headlines. Morning Brew Daily is the go-to business news podcast for millions of people. It's a daily business news podcast that's a quick, fun, and easy way to start your day. Whether it's the latest in tech, markets, or the trends shaping the economy, the show breaks it all down in a way that's clear, engaging, and actually enjoyable to listen to.

2:01Hosts Neil Freiman and Toby Howell make the show feel like you're catching up with two friends while giving you the context you need to feel smarter and more confident throughout your day. New episodes drop every weekday wherever you get your podcasts. Tune into Morning Brew Daily wherever you get your podcasts.

2:20this is the daily tech news for tuesday september 2nd 2025 we tell you what you need to know follow up in the context of those stories and help each other understand oh dr nikki is back with her

2:32Dr Niki: monthly update on u.s science funding and dolby vision 2 this time it's vision near is coming to a living room near you. The visioning. I'm Jason Howell. There you go. I'm Tom Merritt. Let's start with what you need to know with a big story. So what exactly is the visioning? Well, it's Dolby Vision 2, as Tom said, the next generation of HDR TV technology. Though you might have to wait a little while to enjoy it, and we'll tell you a little bit about what it is and how long you have to wait. It includes a new content intelligence tool set. As you can imagine, it's driven by artificial intelligence, of course, because what isn't it in the year 2025?

3:21And that will adjust the picture quality dynamically. It's based on the content itself. It also happens in real time. So it's making smart decisions about how that content looks, you know, sharpness, brightness, darkness, all the things. Precision Black is another feature. It's going to sharpen details in darker scenes while still attempting to keep things true to what the filmmaker was actually shooting for. Because that's kind of the trick here is sometimes these adjustments actually end up pushing the content outside of what they wanted. They wanted it to be really dark. This tends to do it, at least promises to do it, a little bit smarter, as I think all these features do.

4:01An upgraded light sense feature will better match on-screen adjustments to the lighting that you have in the room, the ambient lighting in your room. See how that works. And this one's a little controversial. I saw a lot of kind of pushback on this in a few of the articles that I read in the comment section. Authentic motion, which gives the creators themselves. So this is entirely driven by the filmmakers, let's see, and their team gives the creators control of motion smoothing features on a shot by shot basis. So what they're looking for is a reduction in judder and more of a preservation around a motion picture-like experience and something that looks like film and avoiding ultimately that what people call soap opera look where things just look a little too sharp, a little too real, kind of, I don't know, animated.

4:54It's hard to explain soap opera look. But what do you think, Tom?

4:58Dr Niki: So I got lots of thoughts on this. and obviously Dolby Vision 2 would not be a big story if it was just like the blacks got darker and the contrast is better and even the AI of it where they're like, you know, creators can make sure to give us the author's intent in the metadata and then we'll adjust that to the ambient light into your room. Everybody would be like, yeah, okay. So Dolby Vision got Dolby Vision near and it's going to be better. Great. Like, can't wait to see if that's true when I try it out. But the authentic motion thing, That's a big play. The motion smoothing or whatever it's called on your particular TV, that soap opera effect, it bothers people because we are not used to cinematic presentations having that many frames.

5:48Dr Niki: And the one thing that does have that many frames is something shot on videotape. So that soap opera effect is because soap opera is universally shot on videotape because it's cheaper. Most TV shows up until, you know, the 90s were shot on videotape. And videotape has more frames. It's actually, quote unquote, better because it's giving you more frames. But we are just so used to 24 frames being quality that we perceive it as lower quality. unless we're watching sports because sports has never been cinematic. In fact, NFL Films looks weird and kind of cool because it's 24 frames, right? It's shot on film.

6:28Dr Niki: And so you're like, ooh, that makes the NFL look like it's shot in a movie. But when you watch a football game, you don't get upset about motion smoothing. In fact, there's a lot of TVs that will try to automatically turn on motion smoothing for sports. And in fact, Dolby Vision 2 has a feature that's like, we'll be able to tell when you're watching sports are doing video games and enable just the right kind of stuff, one of which is motion smoothing to make it look good. So the idea that you could somehow take the improvement in frames and put it in a film in just the right places so that you most of the time are thinking it's 24p, but in places where it might help because you need a few extra frames to stop it from looking juddery and shuddery uh i'm really curious how that works out in practice right well and i'm and i'm really curious to see what kind because this does require something more from a creator and it's not like they don't have the resources to address this like i'm curious to know how creators will choose to get involved in something like this you know whether their own personal let's just call it politics, you know, come to play as far as as far as this feature is concerned.

7:41Right.

7:41Dr Niki: James Cameron's never going to create a profile for this. The studio might create it for a release and he might even try to fight it. You know, that's the kind of person that we're talking about here. Or is there, you know, on a shot by shot basis kind of implies that maybe there's some parts of a movie, let's say, that really would stand to benefit from this versus like like what comes to mind for me is i think um to to a certain degree when things start to look weird with that soap opera effect are things that you know where it's a really ornate set with a lot of you know a lot of human involvement in there where it crosses over from that film look into being like oh wait a minute i no longer is my reality transformed i now see this as a set because it looks so sharp and so revealing that i don't get the haze of film to like make it look cinematic.

8:33Now it just looks like somebody put a camera in a room and is recording it through their phone. But there might be scenes where that effect really makes it come to life. Maybe. Yeah. It's a creative decision. That's cool.

8:45Dr Niki: That's interesting. Yeah. Like, I really wonder what the application will be for that. If it's on a frame or a shot by shot basis, when do they decide now is a good time versus now is not. And OK, now you've inspired another thought of me. All right. Cause, cause what you were talking about reminded me, and you remember this, I think this happened when we were both at CNET, when you started shooting in HD, you had to change makeup because makeup had been accentuating features to take advantage of the fact that you had low resolution on a 480p signal for television. And when HD came along, suddenly people look like clowns because you could actually see all the makeup, right?

9:23Dr Niki: It wasn't being fuzzed out by the low resolution is there such a thing where this could force people to or not force people but encourage people to be like well i'm going to do a practical effect because with the and then and then engage the authentic motion because that makes it look more real somehow interesting yeah i don't know instead of using a visual effect i'm going to use a practical effect and to do a yeah i don't know that's interesting you are then relying on this technology to be accessible to the people who you know are watching your content and which is you know kind of worth talking about here as well this these features these like new newly announced features that are actually part of dolby vision 2 those are only going to be offered on new tvs that are strictly compatible with dolby vision 2 so if you have a dolby vision compatible tv it's not going to get these features necessarily though dolby vision content with all of that added metadata for dolby vision 2 will still play on older sets it's just without those added features so you don't lose that content doesn't right you don't you don't lose that or you don't have to watch like a separate version of it if it's dolby vision it's going to work on your dolby vision tv set if it's dolby vision 2 and you have a 2 tv set which by the way hisense is the first brand with a TV coming soon that supports the new technology.

10:46Likely all of them, all the other brands, major brands are going to be in lockstep very soon after. But if you have all those things, then you'll benefit. Put that in air quotes, because that might be up for interpretation.

11:00Dr Niki: You'll get the new features. You'll get the new features, yeah. Yeah. And Canal Plus, the French content service or content company, will be the first content company to support this as well. But I have no doubt. I mean, Dolby Vision's been around for 10 years and we don't even think about it. We don't talk about like, oh, this one's not in Dolby, right? It's just supported. It's Dolby. They're not on the decline or anything. So yeah, it'll be a year or two before all the content makers are on board and it'll be until you buy a new TV, but maybe by the end of next year, most new TVs will come with this.

11:39Dr Niki: So I don't think the adoption will be a big deal unless, like you said, unless it just crashes and burns and people are like, yeah, we're just not going to bother with that. Turn it off. But I think the other things like the precision blacks and all of that will be enough for companies to say, well, no, we're adopting Dolby Vision 2. We just might not take advantage of authentic motion. Or they might. Like I do know that the authentic motion feature is directed by the creator. Yeah. I wonder how much control the user has over that too. Can I just turn off authentic motion? Like I just truly hate the, you know, I'm not saying this myself, but I'm sure there are some people that are so vitriolic about it that they're like, absolutely.

12:19I don't want to see it.

12:20Dr Niki: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's going to have to be versions of this, this content that plays on sets that don't use, they use HDR plus or older versions of Dolby vision or something. So, so yeah, you're going to be able to do that. That, that would make sense to me. uh and and tvs will all start supporting this uh you'll you'll start to get it'll it'll be supported by the content streamers uh and everything uh and and really that part won't be a big deal right it won't be like oh this one's not with dolby vision 2 it'll just be like oh this one looks better like you won't even think about it it's just whether you have dolby vision 2 or not um but that yeah i'm very curious whether authentic motion takes off uh but i would I would expect by CES, we'll have all of the televisions.

13:07Dr Niki: This is my big. Oh, you're so right. Yes. Go to CES. You'll see all the authentic motion you want. Everybody who announces a new TV will be like, and this one supports Dolby Vision, too. Well, now I got to go to CES, Tom. Dang it. Well, there you go. That's all she wrote. I'll see you there. DTS is made possible by you, folks. Thank you, Chris Beneteau, Jeffrey Zilks, A-Lo, a.k.a. Adam L. And Bill Kay. Yeah, thank you. For supporting the show. This episode is sponsored by Morning Brew Daily. If you're anything like me, you want to stay informed about what's happening in business and finance, but you also don't have an hour every morning to sift through headlines.

13:50Morning Brew Daily is the go-to business news podcast for millions of people. It's a daily business news podcast that's a quick, fun, and easy way to start your day. Whether it's the latest in tech, markets, or the trends shaping the economy, the show breaks it all down in a way that's clear, engaging, and actually enjoyable to listen to. Hosts Neil Freiman and Toby Howell make the show feel like you're catching up with two friends while giving you the context you need to feel smarter and more confident throughout your day. New episodes drop every weekday wherever you get your podcasts. Tune into Morning Brew Daily wherever you get your podcasts.

14:26Hi all, this is Kim and Penn Holderness from Lifeline.

14:29Dr Niki: Summer is here, which means it's officially travel season. And when you're out there making plans, you need somewhere reliable to stay. That's why Best Western is such a solid option. This summer, get 1 ,000 bonus points and a chance to win 250 ,000 bonus points. So wherever you're headed, make it count with this limited time offer. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at BestWestern.com. No additional purchase necessary for sweeps. See bonus points, T's and C's and sweeps rules for details and visit BestWestern.com for complete terms and conditions. Morning Brew Daily breaks down the biggest news in business every morning, so it fits seamlessly in your day.

15:04I'm Toby Howell. And I'm Neil Freiman. And each morning, we cover everything from the latest tech headlines to why nobody can afford a house right now. You'll leave each episode of Morning Brew Daily smarter and ready to take on the world around you. And some people are saying it's the best part of their morning. Because we know something you don't. Business news doesn't have to be boring. Join millions of monthly listeners and check out Morning Brew Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Drew Afualo from the comment section. Listen, it's time to stop settling for hair products that just don't work.

15:37With all the prestige brands at Sephora, upgrading your routine is easy. If your hair needs repair, they've got the K18 Leave-In Molecular Repair Hair Mask. If you're trying to level up your wash day, the Kerastase Elixir All-Time Hair Oil leaves your hair looking ridiculously shiny without feeling heavy. And if you're into that glossy, healthy hair vibe, the Gisu Honey Infused Hair Oil is a must-have. Also, Sephora makes it super convenient with free shipping and same-day delivery. Shop hair at Sephora and give your hair the upgrade it's been waiting for. Summer's supposed to be the easy season.

16:09So why are so many people quietly Googling a therapist between summer Fridays? Because more daylight doesn't fix the hard stuff. Sometimes it just turns the volume up. Grow does therapy differently. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. The therapist you want takes your insurance on Grow. Grow accepts over 125 insurance plans. Sessions average$21 with insurance, and some pay as little as$0, depending on their plan.

16:51Visit growtherapy.com slash ACAST today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

17:10There is more we need to know today, so let's get right to the briefs.

17:14Dr Niki: YouTube is now enforcing rules that it put in place back in 2023 for premium family plans that require all the members of a premium family plan to live at the same address as the plan manager. Used to be YouTube didn't even have a rule against this. They're like, yeah, your family can be any five people or whatever the max was anywhere in the world. 2023, they said, you should all live at the same address. Now they're cracking down on it. YouTube will analyze access to your premium account based on IP address. So, you know, well, creative VPNing might help. Over the course of 30 days to determine if an account is being accessed inappropriately.

17:53Dr Niki: YouTube will send a warning email to the user and then pause access after 14 days, shifting them to the free ad supported tier while keeping them in the family group because there are some family group aspects of Google accounts that are not require you to be in the same household. So they're not going to kick you out. They're just going to say, you can't get the benefit of ad free behavior. This has only been a couple of people saying like, oh, I got the warning. So it seems like they're going slow on this. Very slow. Yeah, it does not seem like this has been a huge onslaught of emails going out yet.

18:27But, you know, the obvious comparison here is that Netflix did this a couple of years ago. Yeah. Hulu did it before Netflix. Just did it so long ago, people forget. Yeah, yeah. And I was never as in on the Hulu thing as I have been on the Netflix thing. So that's just top of mind. You know, in the case of Netflix, and this is old data, but nonetheless is what I what I was able to come up with, because I was like, how successful was this for Netflix? And in the six days that followed the change being made, they had, quote, the four single largest days of user acquisition in the U.S. So, you know, say pretty effective.

19:06I think, you know, people kind of probably hope that it wouldn't be that effective.

19:11Dr Niki: And then suddenly Disney Plus decided to do it. And then HBO Max decided to do it. So here you go. I think everybody thought like, I mean, how much more could you actually make? And Netflix was like, I don't know, let's F around and find out. And everyone's like, that's a good amount. Maybe we should try this. A lot more. It is one of those rare. I think they're rare. I know everybody doesn't think they're rare. But if you actually look, they're rare. They're rare examples of a consumer hostile feature actually being good for business. Yeah, indeed. Well, this is kind of along the same lines. Amazon is ending its policy that has allowed Prime members to share free shipping perks with people outside their household.

19:54It starts on October. I know this has been for like forever. Starts on October 1st. Only household members at the same address can share Prime benefits through the Amazon Family Program, which, by the way, has a new name to Amazon Household. So it's not a new service, as Tom, you pointed out to me, because I think you got the email and I did not read it in any of the news that I was reading. Amazon Household is not a new service. It's just a new name for Amazon Family, the program that existed before. Vice versa. Amazon Family is the new name. OK, got it. Got it. Sorry. See, it's so confusing.

20:29All of those users who were previously sharing perks will need to pay for their own temporary discounted subscription,$14.99 for the first year. So that's not bad for a first year cost followed by$14.99 per month thereafter. Or you can get a yearly, you know, and I'm sure there's a cost associated with that as well.

20:48Dr Niki: Yeah. Yeah. The yearly is cheaper than paid 15 a month. Right. Interesting way of going about this to say like, look, we'll charge it cheap for the first year to ease the pain. But if you're not in the same household, folks, sorry, you need to buck up and get this stuff sent to you. It'll be interesting how they deal with this because it's not IP address, I wouldn't think, but maybe it is. That's what I was wondering, too. Yeah. I got an email because Eileen added me to her Amazon Prime subscription in like 2004 or something like whenever they launched it. And it was like, you were added on as a person.

21:30Dr Niki: You should either get your own subscription or join Amazon family if you're in the same household. So I clicked on the Amazon family thing and it took me to it was a page that said Amazon household is now Amazon family. And I'm like, oh, but I'm already a member of this. So why did you send me that email? Anyway, I think I'm fine. Question mark. You'll soon find out when you start paying six or eight dollars to ship that thing, you thought you were going to get free shipping. Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to doubt that this thing, because I was added under the old sharing plan, won't know the difference and make me jump through hoops to make them go, no, I'm part of Amazon family.

22:09Dr Niki: There I am. There's my account. last week several mainstream outlets reported that gmail had emailed 2.5 million gmail users urging them to reset passwords and enable two-step authentication because of a data breach google posted to its blog on tuesday that didn't happen there was no breach uh and if you didn't get one of these emails one person emailed us uh it was like i can get that email what's up with that and it's like well it's because they didn't send one it turns out uh the security protections Gmail, Google says are quote, strong and effective. So I don't know what caused this one. A lot of times when this kind of mistaken reporting happens, it's because there are databases that people have compiled leaked passwords and then found that they work on another account because people reuse passwords and they'll create a database of those because you can automatically, you know, check that stuff and then sell them.

23:08Dr Niki: And then that'll get, that'll get reported as a data breach, even though it's not a data breach. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah, that totally makes sense. There was a famous Apple data breach reported that wasn't a data breach. It was just people were using the same password on their Apple account that they had used on another service that got breached. And a database was created of that. And it wasn't Apple's fault. Apple's like, you need to change your password. That has happened to Google before. There are plenty of databases out there that are like, oh, these people's Google password is the same as the password they were using over here on, you know, TransUnion that we breached.

23:45Dr Niki: That's not what was going on this time, though. There was no like database that somebody uncovered and then was being misreported as a data breach. It was just somebody decided to say that Gmail was sending these emails and Google's like, no, no, no. And I should just say, I think you said 2.5 million. billion. Oh, it's a billion. Yeah. It's a much larger scale. Yeah. Apparently that's a bigger number. Thank you, Jason. Yeah. No, I just, just want to make sure that people. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, not that, not that 2.5 million isn't a lot, but 2.5 billion. That's a lot. That's pretty much all the Gmail users, right?

24:22Dr Niki: And people are like, well, I didn't get this email. I was the same. I was like, I didn't get this email. Uh, it turns out that's cause they didn't send one. They do send these kinds of emails sometimes if they detect, you know, that something may have happened that you don't have to factor on and maybe they see a database where someone has figured out they will take proactive measures, but they don't send them to everybody at once. Indeed. Mastodon says it cannot enforce Mississippi's new age verification law. This follows Blue Sky, who also left the state on similar grounds, similar reasons. Mastodon says its decentralized system doesn't track its users and that actually makes compliance technically impossible without them having to go in and like you know completely change and alter the user experience anyways mastodon has recently rolled out a feature allowing server admins to set a minimum signup age so it's kind of the sort of you know along those lines but but the software does not store that data.

25:23So there's nothing to reference after the fact in the system. So do we think that Mastodon, well, I mean, it's decentralized. Is it even possible for Mastodon to be completely like, no, it doesn't work in Mississippi anymore because everybody has their own instance?

25:39Dr Niki: Well, that was the argument between Mike Bazdick from TechDirt, who's a board member of Blue Sky, who pulled out of Mississippi because of this, and the head of Mastodon because he was like, I'm not going to pull out of Mississippi. I can't. It's decentralized. Right, right. I suppose he could pull out the Mastodon service that Mastodon, the organization, runs. Runs. But even that is actually technically separate from the whole open source project. And then every other server, it's up to them, whether they pull out of Mississippi or not. And then it's up to Mississippi to go find every Mastodon server and try to find them.

26:19Dr Niki: Blue Sky was a bigger target because Blue Sky, while technically decentralizable, doesn't have multiple servers yet. The way Mastodon has thousands of servers. Blue Sky, I mean, technically they have a couple now, but mostly all the users are on one. So they're a big target. And Masdyk was like, well, why don't you have to pay the fine if you don't do the age verification the way Mississippi wants you to and you don't pull out. And he was like, because we're decentralized. I think it's more just like, because Mississippi ain't going to go after us. Yeah, it'd be interesting to see. I mean, this is really just kind of proof of the strength or the reason, the rationale behind decentralized networks, right?

27:05Like at the end of the day, people might feel comfortable being on a service that doesn't have those kind of limitations and that sense of control by someone I don't trust or whatever the case may be.

27:19Dr Niki: Yeah. OpenAI followed up on last week's announcement with a blog post Tuesday giving details about its plans to improve the responses given to teen users and those under emotional distress if trouble is detected. The update will route sensitive conversations to specialized models, the most recent models under GPT-5, and integrate advice from a big team of like nationally recognized physicians and experts to kind of look over these kinds of responses. Also, users are going to have to be 13 years of age and those younger than 18 must get parental approval and parents will be able to link their teens accounts and receive notifications when the system detects their teen is in a moment of acute distress.

28:05Dr Niki: The age limits aren't new, but this ability for parents to link their accounts would be due. These changes are expected to roll out soon, by the end of the year at the latest, and more features to come to be detailed by OpenAI. This, of course, follows in the wake of a lawsuit against OpenAI where they are being accused of being culpable in the suicide of a teen who was using ChatGPT to talk before they took their own life. Yeah, and it's not just that case. There are certain times, and I'm not saying it's unjustified at all, but there are certain times where a certain kind of aspect of tech news gets the microscope on it and then suddenly you start seeing all these stories.

28:47There's a lot of stories kind of bubbling up right now around, oh, well, can you believe that the AI instructed this person to blah, blah, blah? And again, I'm not saying that at all to discount it. I think it happens and I think these safeguards need to be put in place. I wonder how much of it goes unreported or unnoticed. I'm really curious about the kind of the triggering for parents linking the account and how that system actually works. I don't know. That one has me very curious, you know, to know, like, do you get details about the conversation or are you just notified?

29:21Dr Niki: Yeah, how much detail do you get? Or is it just. Right, exactly. There's trouble. You might want to check in. Yeah, totally. And if you're like, wait, wasn't this last week? Yes, last week OpenAI said they were going to do all these things. Today, they've got the details. So if you want to go check out their blog post for more, do that. Indeed. And finally, Aliff Aeronautics has been granted approval to start testing its flying cars at Half Moon Bay and Hollister airports in California. The company's Model Zero Ultralight will kick off the trial. Other prototypes to follow, including a$300 ,000 Model A craft.

30:00Craft? Would it be craft or vehicle? Aircraft. Yeah. Yeah. Trials will cover driving, vertical takeoff, forward flight and landing. Nearby aircraft, of course, will be notified. There will also be an AI based obstacle detection system. So hopefully some improved safety comes from that. Aleph joins Archer, Joby, XPeng, Doroney, Lilium, Samson, Sky, Klein. Apparently there's a lot in the race for the first flying car.

30:29Dr Niki: Yeah, yeah. Although I got to give it to Aleph. their little like ufo look and design is pretty cool yeah it is it kind of has a has like a blimpish quality to it like i was watching the video of it of it landing and i could not determine like is this heavy or light like it kind of looks like both at the same time i can't figure it out yep well those are the essentials today let's dive a little deeper all right it's once again time to check in with Dr. Nikki on what's going on with U.S. science funding. Dr. Nikki, welcome back. Thanks for having me once again, Tom. I like that this U.S. science funding list gets shorter.

31:09Dr Niki: That's good. We'll keep thinking about that in a positive way. Okay, what do we got? All right, so the interesting thing, I guess, I don't know how to frame it, but some of the things I talked about last time I was on are about things that were going to happen now happened. And if you didn't listen, one of the main things is that there was an executive order that made it so all federal grants from specifically science, I'm sure it's happening to other things, are going to be reviewed by a political appointee who is going to check if the grant proposals demonstrably advance the president's policy priorities.

31:49Some people say this still might be challenged in court as a lot of these executive orders are. So that's a thing that is now happening.

31:58Dr Niki: So someone appointed by the president now reviews these versus a – I don't know if it's by the president but by somebody related to the president. Oh, OK. OK. Someone who is part of the political party versus someone who is within the organization. Yeah, I should clarify that before it would be scientists who are specific to that field and who have had successful grants in the field who eventually, through experience, ascended this position. And now those people all got fired the last time we covered it, and they've been replaced by these political appointees who don't have expertise in the field and who specifically want to make sure that the grants align with the political policy.

32:42Dr Niki: The political policies. Got it. Okay. So there's been a lot of grant back and forth, and I'm not covering every single one of them, but giving a few examples. So, for example, NIH and NSF suspended about 300 grants from UCLA at the beginning of August. But then a judge ordered NSF, not NIH, to reinstate them two weeks later. For now, the work is still on pause because, as you know, when the judge orders the reinstatement, they still don't like the next day reactivate. There's a lot of paperwork. But this is addressing research from plasma physics to computer science and also research about some toxic contaminants from the recent L.A.

33:21fires. So this is one case at UCLA, but there's a lot of other cases where it's like on again, off again. So just a lot of chaos going on in the grant world right now. Yeah. And then on the other hand, kind of in a more negative space, since that was kind of a good thing, the Supreme Court recently upheld the cancellation of 800 NIH grants that are on, quote unquote, sensitive topics. These are grants that are worth altogether$783 million. Topics that are said to be sensitive include COVID-19, diversity, equity and inclusion inclusion, sorry, and transgender health. So this is grants that were similar to previously revoked, reinstated, and now from on top of the Supreme Court revoked again.

34:07Dr Niki: Yeah. This is where we're at. Like it's a bit of a crazy world if you have grant funding or if you're seeking it. Well, and what's going on here, just to set the context for this, the Supreme Court isn't saying we like or don't like these topics. The Supreme Court is saying the people who revoked the funding had the authority to do it or not. Right. And so it's going back and forth because one judge said, I don't think they had the authority to do it. And then the Supreme Court came in and said, no, actually, I think they do. And they did specifically from the court mention that this DEI driven, let's say, revoking of the grants is not necessarily legal.

34:49But the way in which it was done means that they can't un-revoke it.

34:53Dr Niki: Well, yeah, there's also a lot of times you'll see that with courts, and I think it gets misunderstood, where a court will say, I don't think this is legal, but the case you brought to me doesn't ask me the question that allows me to say this. You asked me a different question, and my answer to that is, well, that, no, you can't stop it on those grounds, so maybe you want to start over again. Anyway, yeah. And it's funny because I really get the impression that NIH and NSF and all the other ones don't quite know what's going on, which means us at universities don't quite know what's going on, which means what do we do if we want to get funding for our research?

35:25We just throw it into the void. That's what I'm doing right now. So it's an interesting time for sure.

35:30Dr Niki: Yeah. Just hail Mary. Throw it up and hope. Who knows? If you know any donors who subscribe to DTNS, let me know. Yes, please do. Give us feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. Yeah. All right. Moving on to some more recent news. This dropped as of recording yesterday and today. So you may have heard that the director of the CDC, Susan Munares, was fired, kind of. So the relationship that happened is like she was kind of fired whether or not it's legitimate. And then a bunch of other top officials at the CDC also resigned, like five or six of them. So what initially happened is the director of human health services, RFK Jr., has wants to adopt these new restrictions on U.S.

36:21vaccines, including the COVID vaccine. And the CDC director refused to sign those because she said that they were not to the benefit of the public. He called for her resignation and said that she was fired. However, she is a presidentially appointed job. So technically only the president can fire her. So her lawyers are now challenging this. And this has also resulted in the delay of the meeting where every year a bunch of doctors and CDC people get together to determine what we should do with the new COVID-19 vaccine. So there's kind of a domino effect happening with the CDC right now.

37:00Dr Niki: And if I understand it right, the delay is, you know, which ones the United States will cover, which ones the United States says are safe for people to take, stuff like that. Which people should or should not get it. Yeah, recommendations and guidelines as well. Which strains should we vaccinate against, things like that. And if you want to go get it and you're willing to pay for it yourself, you probably can. Most people probably can, unless you're a child or a senior. Pregnant. Or pregnant, yes. Oh, that's one of the new ones. I think some of the pharmacies have been now requesting prescriptions, although it's been flopping back and forth.

37:37So this is really new as a lot of these things. A lot of these get announced and then change really immediately. So this is what we got right now. Really, the reason this got delayed is because there's chaos at the CDC and we don't know who's in charge. So they can't have this meeting until they've finished.

37:52Dr Niki: And it's not impossible that the president comes in and says, like, no, you want my authority? Here you go. You're fired. Yeah, that's very possible. but then the Senate would have to appoint a new director. So that's where we're at right now. All right. Well, that's it though. Thank you, Dr. Nikki, for keeping us updated as you've been doing every month this year. I really appreciate it. As always, if folks want to follow you, where should they go? Sure, they can go find me at nicoleackermans.com. I try to keep up to date posting these stories there so you don't have to sift through a bunch of DTNS episodes, although you're welcome to listen to them there too, but I've got the link right in my website.

38:26Dr Niki: Yeah, if you want to get a more shareable version. Exactly. Thank you so much for doing that. Thanks, Tom. See you later. You can join in the conversation in our Discord, which you can link to a Patreon account to get into. Want to get in the Discord? Want to chat with folks? Just become a patron. Patreon.com slash D-T-N-S. This episode is sponsored by Morning Brew Daily. If you're anything like me, you want to stay informed about what's happening in business and finance, but you also don't have an hour every morning to sift through headlines. Morning Brew Daily is the go-to business news podcast for millions of people.

39:03It's a daily business news podcast that's a quick, fun, and easy way to start your day. Whether it's the latest in tech, markets, or the trends shaping the economy, the show breaks it all down in a way that's clear, engaging, and actually enjoyable to listen to. Hosts Neil Freiman and Toby Howell make the show feel like you're catching up with two friends while giving you the context you need to feel smarter and more confident throughout your day. New episodes drop every weekday wherever you get your podcasts. Tune in to Morning Brew Daily wherever you get your podcasts. You're a pro at running your life, at committing to your workout, at showing up every day.

39:39At Bombas, we're pros too. Pros at making socks. Our sport assortment has specialized socks for whatever sport you're committed to. Running, hiking, golf, Pilates, and so much more. Made with sweat-wicking yarns, blister-fighting details, and targeted arch support. Bombas Sport is pro-level socks from the pros of socks. For another pro, you. Go to bombas.com slash audio and use code audio for 20 % off your first purchase. That's bombas.com and use code audio.

40:09We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. And Thursday, we talked all about the negativity on the DTNS subreddit about Microsoft Copilot. I would have enjoyed being in on that conversation today. Jeff wants to stick up for Copilot fans.

40:26Dr Niki: Yes, Jeff writes, I guess I'm a minority, but Microsoft Copilot is my go-to AI assistant. This is mostly because of all the ones I've tried. Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Self-Hosted, etc. et cetera, it's the one that I most consistently get useful results from. It also helps that it's well integrated into Edge. Yep, I'm apparently the only Edge user too. And Microsoft Office for work. Now, for certain tasks, coding, for instance, I'll sometimes defer to a different tool. But as a first pass, it's usually Copilot because more often than not, it tends to give me what I consider better results than the alternatives.

41:02Dr Niki: To the audience, your mileage may vary, but don't write off Copilot just because it's Microsoft. Try them all for yourself. See what works best for you. Then vote with your money. Now, do I want it integrated into my TV, microwave, refrigerator, et cetera? I'm ambivalent. If it adds value, I can see how it might on a TV. Then I'm happy to have it. If it doesn't add value, I won't use it. Jeff in Knoxville, Tennessee. Jeff, you are preeminently reasonable in this take. And I'm pretty sure you're not the only one who feels this way. You're just most people don't get as loud about something that they're like, yeah, this works for me.

41:38Dr Niki: than they do about, I hate those. Yeah, I mean, Jeff got exactly by the end, exactly where my mind was at with this, which is, I mean, there's a million different models out there. There's a million different AIs and LLMs and everything, and everybody's going to, you know, as you explore these, at least my experience has been, as you explore these, as I have explored these, let's put it in an I statement, I have over time discovered for myself what this one is good for, for me, and what this one is good for, for me. And having that kind of personal understanding of it makes it really effective.

42:13I think taking a look at it and going, oh, well, it's Microsoft Copilot. Of course, it's awful because they had Clippy or whatever the myriad of reasons that people automatically jump to that Copilot is bad. Copilot might be bad for you. It might do exactly what somebody else wants it to do. And I think that's great. Hey, we've got a lot of choice. That's a good thing.

42:30Dr Niki: Yeah. And now that you mention it, I feel like it's coders that generally trash Copilot. And even Jeff is like, yeah, for coding, I might use something else. So to your point, right? It's just different versions of these are good for different things. Yeah. Find the one that works for you, for the tasks that you have, especially. What are you thinking about if you want to continue this conversation about Copilot? Or if you have insight into another story that we talked about or haven't, share it with us. Feedback at dailytechnewsshow.com. Big thanks to Dr. Nikki. Thanks to Jeff for contributing to today's show.

43:03And thank you for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business. You can. And we appreciate if you do. You can become a patron at patreon.com slash DTNS. That's it. We'll see you tomorrow.

43:23The DTNS family of podcasts. Helping each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.

44:00Thank you. Book direct and save at BestWestern.com.

44:33to that glossy, healthy hair vibe, the Gisu Honey infused hair oil is a must have. Also, Sephora makes it super convenient with free shipping and same day delivery. Shop hair at Sephora and give your hair

44:44Dr Niki: the upgrade it's been waiting for.

45:03Thank you.