Quibi CEO Meg Whitman Joins + Apple & Google Team To Track Infections | Digital Trends Live 4.13.20

It's Monday, April 13th, 2020. Digital Trends Live is about to start. Here are some of the topics we're covering on today's episode of the show. We've seen many companies flip the ways to contribute to the battle against COVID-19, and now there's a new one. And while we've probably got a while to go before we're out of lockdown, we have some exciting news on the near horizon with Airspeeder declaring their goal of launching a flying eVTOL racing league this year. Plus, we'll be joined by our photography editor, Davin Matthews, as he showcases a couple of fun challenges to test your photography mettle, including one that could win you a GoPro Hero 8. And the streaming wars received their latest entrant last week with the launch of Quibi, a platform dedicated to mobile viewing with episodes of 10 minutes or less. And we'll be joined by co-founder and CEO Meg Whitman to discuss how it's all going. All of this and more on today's episode of Digital Trends Live.

Hello everyone, this is Digital Trends Live. Thanks for joining us wherever you are. We appreciate it. We've got interviews, discussions, and so much more, all broadcasting live across a number of different platforms. We're on Periscope, Twitter, Twitch, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Daily Motion, Apple News, two different mobile apps, a smart television app, and at DigitalTrends.com/live. So wherever you're joining us, you can join the conversations we need to have. And I thank everybody who is here. We've got a lot to cover today. We've got some great guests coming up. We've got Meg Whitman from Quibi who's going to be joining us. But let's bring you up to date with some trending news here first. And of course, we have to talk about how tech is battling COVID-19. And to start off, we've got a pairing that probably a lot of people never thought would happen, and that is Google and Apple teaming up together to create an app to help track the spread of COVID-19. So here is how this is supposed to work. This is news that came out actually on Friday, but we're getting some more details and some actual feedback on that too. So the concept is essentially this: you would be able to download an app that would then be able to ping off of other mobile phones that you come into proximity with, thereby letting somebody know if you were diagnosed with COVID-19. It would be able to notify them retroactively that they came into contact with you. So this is the two of them working together. It would be an app that would be available in the Apple Store and the Google Play Store. They would work together across platforms, and it's essentially the idea of contact tracing. You would have to voluntarily be a part of this. When this app rolls out, you download it, it uses Bluetooth technology to then ping other phones when you come within a certain amount of proximity to them. Once you get near them, it would register the fact that you have been near them. Now, say a week from now, somebody is diagnosed with COVID-19. Then what would happen is that app would track who they came into contact with and then notify those people of the fact that this person was diagnosed and maybe you should get tested. There's a lot that goes along with this, and we can talk about the privacy concerns as well, because there are certainly people that are concerned about that. They are looking to partner with different governments. The California Governor Gavin Newsom said they plan to implement this app and the system as a way to ease out of their shelter-in-place order. So they said that they're going to be partnering with them. So that's something that we'll be seeing more and more, how that works, and a lot of it's going to rely on local governments. Now, I see a lot of people writing in just concerned about the privacy issues with this, and certainly that's something that Google and Apple did address. They said that they're not going to be sharing personal information, but it's hard to see where this is all going to go. There was a report from a University of Cambridge professor who published a blog post outlining seven different problems that he sees with the approach, talking about how it could be ripe for trolls, it could be ripe for somebody gaming the system, for governments getting data. And there's a lot there that we do need to filter out. But we've got more information about it at DigitalTrends.com. So when you're ready, go and take a look there. The idea behind it, though, being that this would be the quickest way to notify people who may have come in contact and possibly get us back on track to open everything back up again. So that's something that they're doing. A couple other things that Google and Apple are doing: Google's also started showcasing virtual doctor options in search and maps. So we've seen both of them with maps and with search trying to advocate for different companies, essential services, for restaurants that have takeout, things like that. And now this is something that if you're looking for a doctor, they're going to showcase ones that will actually have telemedicine as a primary way for you to get ahold of them. Because even though it's essential services, essential visits to the doctor is what most people are advocating right now. There are still normal things that we need to see the doctor for, so this is a way to actually get around some of that. So they'll be highlighting that in their search. And one other thing too, with Apple Maps, they're going to be starting to display COVID-19 testing locations. That's something they've been working toward, trying to gather that information to make it available for somebody. So if you do want to go and get a test and you don't know where to go, which is kind of a confusing thing right now to figure out where we go for that, that's something that they're going to be showcasing a little bit more with Apple Maps. So a lot that these companies are doing, and they're just part of what's going on as far as tech firms looking to help battle COVID-19. But that's what Apple and Google have going on. Got a little more Apple news here in a minute. But let's go to this continuing on here with trending news. Food delivery certainly something that a lot of us are doing right now, whether it's groceries or food, whatever it is, we're all getting deliveries. And that still puts some people at risk. So thereby comes this: we have a robot pizza delivery service that is now part of a pizza company in Tempe. And this is not the first time we've ever seen this happen, but it's one of the first times in association with COVID-19. So this is using Starship Technologies' delivery robot. There are a number of different delivery robots out there, but Starship Technologies has been testing theirs for quite a long time. And what happens is, if you order a pizza and you're within a half mile of this pizza location in Tempe, they'll deliver it to you. There's a video that they showcased showing the little delivery robot. It shows up at your house, you open it up, you get your pizza, and then it continues on its way. They said it's a great way to keep everybody safe, you know, with social distancing. So that's something that they're doing with that, and they're talking about how this could be expanding to a lot of different places. So Starship Deliveries is the app you use. Starship Technologies is the name of the company. I know it kind of doesn't make sense sometimes when you think Starship Technologies, it's not a spaceship, it actually is delivery robots. That's what they make. But they're talking about expanding that to Washington DC, I believe, some different places in the UK, Irvine, California. So yeah, I bet you could see a lot more depending on how long this goes. More companies taking advantage of this. And there are other companies out there too, like Nuro, who are doing this. But interesting use case: we could be seeing robot deliveries of pizza. Continuing on here with our trending news to keep us on track. Anytime there is a rumor from Apple, it's big news. And this is what's happening right now. There are rumors about HomePod and iPhones. So the new HomePod is what's being rumored right now. According to a report from Bloomberg, it also matches up with some other leaks that we've seen, is that the new Apple HomePod could be a mini HomePod. So HomePod, in case you don't know, is their way of competing with essentially Google and Amazon for their smart home devices. I'll just say that their hubs. I don't want to set any buddies off, but with Apple's, you would use Siri. So they're coming up with a mini one that would make it a little bit more competitive there. HomePod is a lot more expensive than Amazon's and Google's. So the rumor is that they could be coming up with a mini one and maybe making it a lot cheaper to make it more competitive with the Amazon and Google devices. So there's that. There's also the rumor that a new iPhone could be coming up that's going to look a lot more like an iPad Pro. So that's kind of an interesting approach. It's going to have, allegedly again according to this report, the corners would be more squared off, kind of like the iPad Pro is now. So going to more of a uniform-ish design across their platform. The iPad Pro being one of the most recent iPads to come out, and this would be the one that comes out later this year. They said there would be a few, again according to the rumor, a few different models, and most of them would have 5G capability. They would be using 3D LiDAR systems according to this report, so that they'll be more augmented reality experiences and a lot of things that could come along with that. So we'll have to see what happens. Of note there is the rumor that the new iPhone could be coming out, a new iPhone SE could be coming out in two days. So that's a part of that. And again, I'm trying to get through all this news here really quick. I want to tell you about this. There is, yeah, something else here. You can read more about the Apple HomePod and iPhone facelift at DigitalTrends.com. And finally, looking forward to something later this year, but maybe we're all in quarantine. Wouldn't it be nice? There is this coming from a company called Airspeeder that has been working on a flying eVTOL that you can race. They've been working on this for quite a while. They've had a lot of tests where it's remote control, but they want to actually put a person in the cockpit and fly these things around and have races that go on with them. And they said in this report that they believe they could have a racing league ready to go by the end of this year. Now, there's still a lot of testing left to be done, certainly. Coronavirus has affected them too, but their testing is now shifting to South Australia, where the parent company, Alauda, that's where they're from. So they're going to be testing this out a little bit more, hopefully with an actual person in there over the summer, and then looking towards this fall to where they would actually have a racing league, almost like a full Grand Prix Championship season with these. That's the future coming pretty quick. If it happens by a year, that's pretty cool either way. I definitely would want to see what that is. But that's something that you can read more about at DigitalTrends.com.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. It's now time for the product. All right, we are all at home right now. Hello, we're broadcasting live. Let's talk about something that you need to augment your TV watching experience. We're all watching a lot of TV right now, right? We're playing some video games. Well, here's what will help. It's the LG 2.1 channel 360-watt high-res audio sound bar. If you don't have a sound bar, sound bars are great. This is one that's actually a really good deal. I'll tell you about the deal here in just a second. But like I said, 360 watts, so it's plenty loud enough. 2.1 channel sound bar. It's got high-resolution audio. It has Chromecast built in, so it works with Google Assistant. And it also has something called DTS Virtual:X. Let me explain what that is. It's essentially transforming the sound of any movie, TV show, or music, or whatever you have, into what they're calling an immersive audio. So it envelops listeners with virtual height and virtual sound channels, plus enhanced bass and crystal-clear dialogue. So it's a way to actually round out the sound in a room, make it sound bigger than it is. And that's a pretty cool feature there that they have. And LG has definitely been working on this for a long time. So again, high-resolution audio, Chromecast built-in, 2.1 channel sound bar. Here's where the deal is, though. It's normally $378. Right now, it's more than 50% off at $177. So that's a good deal. And if you follow that link right here on whatever platform you're watching, just type that link in that's below me, and that will actually get you to where that deal is. So a great deal there for the LG 2.1 channel 360-watt high-res audio sound bar. All right, continuing on here with Digital Trends Live. I know that we need to get to a break because we've got a lot of guests coming up. We've got Meg Whitman from Quibi joining us here shortly. Before that, though, we have Davin Matthews, our photography editor. He's going to be able to talk about some contests that you can do from home and possibly win some cool prizes. That's coming up next. So stick around. Back in a minute with more Digital Trends Live.

Welcome back to Digital Trends Live. Thanks for joining us wherever you are. We appreciate you getting in the thing for being here. Thanks for being part of the show. Hit subscribe. I'm Greg Nibler. And of course, we're all stuck at home trying to figure out different ways to be creative in a lot of aspects. And that's what we're going to talk about in part right now. We've got Davin Matthews, our photography editor, joining us from his location to talk about some interesting ways that you can stay busy. And first off, Davin, thank you so much for being here with us. And I want to talk about what some of these competitions are, what some of these things are that people are doing. What one do you want to start off with first?

You know what, let's start out with GoPro, because this is just an exciting challenge they've put together. You know, obviously, like GoPro is known for being outdoorsy and adventurous, and just a lot of people can't do that right now. So they've come up with this challenge they call HomePro, which is basically coming up with whatever crazy stunts you can do in the home and filming them, uploading them to social media. And you don't have to shoot them on a GoPro. You can use your phone, you could use a mirrorless camera or DSLR. They opened this up to anything, which is really great. And as you can see right here, some people are just taking this idea and running with it. Maybe don't try this at home, even though that's exactly where it happened. But yeah, it's a fun contest. And even if you don't want to enter, it's so much entertainment to just search the hashtag HomePro on Instagram or TikTok. There are so many awesome things that are going on there that people are doing to stay creative while in lockdown. So I really like that one a lot.

Again, I want to be entering, but I don't think I would try that. You're not going to jump on the balls throughout your house. So that's pretty cool if they're putting that up. And you don't have to use a GoPro, correct?

That's correct. Yeah, you can use any camera. Yeah.

So that's the GoPro HomePro challenge. I'm taking a look here. So five winners chosen a day, is that?

Yeah, so they're handing out a lot of free cameras for this. So it runs until April 30th, and they're picking daily winners. And I think it's either a GoPro Hero 8 Black or the Max, which is their 360 camera. So people kind of get their choice of which camera they want there. So yeah, it's a lot of fun. There are new videos going up all the time, and that's kind of the cool thing about it being these daily winners. It's inspiring people to post whenever they can, and it's not like you missed the deadline. You can always try again tomorrow if you didn't win today.

Nice. Well, that's something, you know, everybody's trying to figure out what to do at home and come up with some creative things since you can't leave the house really. So that's kind of cool. I'm kind of excited just to see what people submit.

Yeah, and it is nice to see that these companies are coming up with ways to stay connected with their customer base and their communities even at a time like this where, you know, GoPro is certainly a brand that's not associated with the indoors at all. But the next one is Sigma's. So Sigma is a lens and camera manufacturer, most known for their lenses, but they're doing a similar photo and video contest where you can use any camera, any lens to enter. And they are also doing weekly drawings of $500, monthly drawings of $1,000, and then they have a grand prize at the end of the contest period, which is June 26th, checking my notes. And the grand prize is a Sigma fp camera, that's their full-frame mirrorless camera, and a 45mm lens. And they'll do a second-place prize which is one of their lenses valued at $1,000. So a lot of money on the line there. And again, weekly, monthly, and grand prize, so you have a few different chances to win. And again, that runs through June 26th.

Yeah, weekly and monthly drawing. So a weekly drawing at $500, a monthly at $1,000, and then the full package for the grand prize. I'm going to look at that right now. That's pretty cool. And you know, during times like this, it's always going to be interesting to see what people come up with. That's one thing that, you know, outside of all of this, just what kind of creative things we're going to see at the end of whatever quarantine ends, or what people are coming up with. It's pretty fascinating how creative people are. So I'm excited to see, you know, again, something like that. So is this one that you're going to enter?

Uh, we'll see. I might enter that one. I don't know. I might have to figure out what I could shoot around here. But yeah, it's definitely going to be fun. I know a lot of my friends have been doing some really creative stuff on social media. But speaking of photographers doing creative indoor projects, last week we did an interview with Jeremy Cowart, who's a celebrity photographer, very well-known. And you know, he's one of these professional photographers who got hit really hard. All his clients had to cancel, so he's basically got zero revenue for however long this goes on. And the way he responded to this was to come up with an idea to do studio portraits by projecting video calls into his studio and projecting a background. So he actually has clients calling in on Zoom or another video platform, and he projects their image into a picture frame, and then he uses another projector to project a background behind it. And they look surprisingly cool. I was very impressed. And that's just one of those great creative ideas that is coming out of this time where, you know, most of the news is not great news, but then we get these stories like this that are pretty neat. So he's basically running these portraits at very low cost and just doing multiples of them every time he does it, just stacking them up in a row. And they look awesome. I mean, he's kind of embraced the whole pixelated, grainy look of video calls and just run with it and made it work. Again, something cool creatively utilizing the tech that we have at hand and just trying to come up with something interesting to do.

I definitely want to check that out too. Yeah, you know, as always, I'm going to stay... Oh, go ahead.

I just said we do have an interview up that's published now on DigitalTrends.com, so you can find it there with a lot of sample photos as well.

Nice. Well, Davin, thank you very much for giving us an update on what's going on, at least some entertaining things that people can try, you know, win some prizes, yeah, what we can do right now. So again, read those articles and that interview right there at DigitalTrends.com. Davin, thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you.

And thank you, everybody who's watching live right now. Again, this is Digital Trends Live. We're live here every weekday, 9 a.m. to noon Eastern. We've got Meg Whitman from Quibi coming up here on the show in just a little bit. Before that, though, we've got someone coming through. Clarkson, our computing editor, is going to be talking about some new things he wants you to know about. That's coming up next. Then we've got Meg, and then we've got Drew Prindle for Awesome Tech You Can't Buy Yet. A lot on the docket here for today's show. So stick around. Back in a minute with more.

Today I'm looking at the brand-new 2020 MacBook Air, but not just one of them. I have both the Core i3 and the Core i5 versions here to see how they compare and to see which, if any, of these should be your next laptop. Now, there are two kinds of people watching this video. The first love MacBooks and basically will buy them no matter what. And the second group, which generally thinks MacBooks are overrated and a little overpriced. I want to talk to that second group first, because this new MacBook Air really does address some of those issues. And it has a lot to do with price. This 2020 version now starts at just $999, or $899 for students. And that's already $200 cheaper than the MacBook Air that came out in 2018. So right off the bat, you're getting a ton of savings with this new version. Apple now starts the storage at 256 gigabytes, which is double what you were getting two years ago. And it actually cost $200 to make that upgrade at one point. Honestly, it's at the price I wish it had been when it launched in 2018. And when you compare it to other laptops around $1,000, it really does shine. For example, the screen really is the best laptop display you can get at this price. It's super sharp at 2560 by 1600. And compared to a 1080p screen, you really can see the difference. It's also really high in contrast. Of course, it's not as good as the 13-inch MacBook Pro screen, which is a little more colorful, a little more color accurate, and it's brighter. But again, for this price, it's pretty much unbeatable. The same goes with a couple of really key areas like the build quality, the keyboard and trackpad, and also these speakers. Now, the keyboard is easily the most important upgrade here. Apple is using the new Magic Keyboard, which brings back some travel and makes this a reliable computer again that you'll be able to type on for many years without thinking. That really couldn't be said of the old butterfly-style switches that we saw on previous MacBooks and the previous MacBook Air. But like I said with the 16-inch MacBook Pro, and I reviewed it, this really is one of the best typing experiences you can get. The fact that you get a full row of function keys at the top is also a nice benefit for me, because I'm not a huge fan of the Touch Bar. So that's all good stuff. And if you're familiar with Macs, it's not going to be terribly surprising. But now I want to address that second group of people, those that love Macs and will just go out and buy this thing no matter what. And there are a lot of people in this camp who maybe own an iPhone and generally prefer Apple products, who may not have been paying attention to these last few years in MacBook updates. But they've been full of really controversial things, like the keyboard which turned out to be pretty faulty, or the Touch Bar that not a lot of people really found much use for, or the limited port selection, or the throttling performance. A bunch of things that Apple has kind of made some sour decisions on that allowed some room for really great Windows laptops to kind of catch up in areas it was behind in. And these are things that the MacBook Air really used to be dominant in. We're talking about things like the design. Look at the bezels on this screen. Just to start off, there's really just no excuse for bezels this large on a laptop in 2020. And the same goes with the portability and the size of this MacBook Air. So as we all know, the original MacBook Air was basically sold on the fact that it was really, really slim, unlike any other laptop we'd seen so far. But these days, a lot of laptops have really caught up to where the MacBook Air is today. And if you look at things like the HP Spectre x360, the Dell XPS 13, or the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, these are all laptops that are both wider and thinner than the MacBook Air is today. And those laptops do that without giving up really anything in terms of build quality or design. And the same is true of battery life. The original MacBook Air really was a record setter for how much battery you could have in such a small laptop. The MacBook Air probably lasts you around 6 or 6 and a half hours, depending on your workload of course, but it may not get you to a full day on a single charge, which some of those other laptops definitely will. And then there's the performance, which is the real kicker and the reason why I wanted to test out both a Core i3 and a Core i5 version. Because Apple is introducing quad-core processors for the first time to the MacBook Air, and this should be a big deal because quad cores have really become the standard for ultrabooks. You know, all of Apple's competitors, including the MacBook Pro, used quad-core processors. Unfortunately, there's still a large gap between those other quad-core laptops and the Core i5 MacBook Air. Looking at something like a 20 to 25 percent difference in benchmarks, but also in real-life testing like in video encoding and other heavier applications like that. And that's primarily because Apple is still using a lower-powered processor here. It's really in a different class altogether. It's just a 9-watt CPU, and compared to those other 25-watt processors, it's really just not going to be able to compare in terms of performance. So when comparing this Core i5 MacBook Air to some of its competitors, the HP Spectre x360 or the XPS 13 are a couple of my favorites. I do think you're going to get a better laptop experience with either of those laptops and a number of other ones in terms of battery life, performance, and even portability. So you should know that going into the consideration of something like a MacBook Air. But here's the thing: if you were really happy with your old MacBook Air and you're looking to upgrade, I think either the Core i3 or Core i5 versions will make you very happy. That Core i3 model, despite it being a little lower powered, is going to handle all your daily tasks really well. Word processing, web stuff, basic Apple apps, Netflix watching, all that stuff it will do very well at. And I think that's what the average person who's looking at the MacBook Air is going to need. But what I wouldn't recommend are some of these higher-end, more expensive versions of the MacBook Air. You can go up to Core i7, you can add more RAM, but then you're really getting into the price territory of other laptops that are really powerful, including the 13-inch MacBook Pro. And like I said, there's a pretty big gap in terms of performance between these two laptops, and that doesn't even include the better screen that you get with the MacBook Pro. So what do you do if you need that power but you don't want to spend a million dollars on a 16-inch MacBook Pro? I think if you can wait until this rumored 14-inch MacBook Pro comes out, which is going to replace the 13-inch, I really think that's going to be worth the wait for the performance you get and the improved keyboard of course. But what Apple has with this MacBook Air is a really reliable and consistent and solid good option for a budget person or just somebody who's looking to get into the Mac ecosystem for the first time. $1,000, like I said, is a really good value for this type of laptop. And with all the extra things that Apple brings that other laptops at this price really can't.

Welcome back to Digital Trends Live. I'm Greg Nibler, and thanks for joining us. Watching this on whatever platform you are on, we appreciate it. Hit that subscribe button. And speaking of platforms, Quibi is the latest entry into the so-called streaming wars, launching on April 6th to no short amount of buzz. The concept is this: quick bites of content, episodes that are 10 minutes or less, designed to watch on your mobile device. And to talk about how the first week has been going, we're joined now by the co-founder and CEO Meg Whitman. Meg, thank you so much for being here. But I have to ask right out of the gate: how are you holding up during quarantine?

Right, yeah. It really is. Every day is just kind of the same day now. It's hard to even tell what day it is. But talking about Quibi, and just you know, with the fact that everyone is under quarantine and all of these events getting canceled, I know for Quibi, you had a lot of major things planned, a lot of premiere events that all had to be canceled. And I just want to ask: was there ever the idea pitched out of delaying the launch of Quibi?

Yeah, that's nice. All those reports of the 1.7 million downloads that you've had for that. But also going from that and talking about how it's mobile only, I also saw a report that you're looking to make this castable to televisions. Can you tell us about that and when that feature may launch?

No, it would not be. And that's interesting, seeing that kind of happen a lot faster. I'm talking about the content side of things. I got to say, I've been watching it. I really enjoyed the Chrissy Teigen show. It was a lot of fun. For you personally, what is your favorite show on Quibi right now?

But I think going back to the business and the management, but go ahead.

Second behind TikTok, that's pretty huge in itself. Talking about the business and management style, I'm just curious from your elaborate experience that you have, you ran for governor of California. What is harder: running in politics or launching an app during a pandemic?