Name: Are driverless cars unsafe? Do people hate the Apple Watch? Find out here
Uploaded: 2015-07-24
Duration: 4 min 8 s
Description: A team of Fortune writers debates the hottest issues in the tech industry.

[ BLANK_AUDIO ] Let's jump right in . So earlier this month, a pair of security experts was able to wirelessly disable a Jeep Cherokee as it was driving down the highway. Fact or fiction Fiction, car hacking is a major concern. Fact, fiction, fact. Bob, you're our security expert, tell us why. I am, and bear with me, I know it seems crazy to say that it's not a major concern. But what I would say is car hacking is a great thing. We need more people hacking into cars, finding these vulnerabilities. Why? Otherwise you're gonna have these vulnerable vehicles on the road, and that's putting people's lives at risk. I don't know about that. Aaron, what do you think? You're basically saying that we need black hat hackers in order to get white hat- White hat. Hackers. These are the bad guys. That we're worried about here. I'm not worried about Jeep itself experimenting on how people can hack into their cars. That's good, we definitely need that, I'm scared of all the other people. I say hacking is a good thing, what should be a concern is patching your systems when you find that they are weak. Okay, we've gotta move on. Moving on, critics of the Apple watch have vocalized their displeasure almost from day one, when it was introduced, but there's speculation now that the watch has pulled in almost a billion dollars in sales. So fact or fiction? Reports of the Apple watches unpopularity Are greatly exaggerated. What do you think? All right, we all agree. It's exaggerated. Really? We all agree? Erin, why? Well, I guess, look at it this way. I mean, the Apple Watch still doesn't have a real use case. People are still kinda trying to figure out whether or not they need it. But people are excited about it and super interested in it. And if you look at these sales, they mirror the iPhone sales when it was first released. I mean, I think this is actually even faster than the iPhone sales. So I think we're gonna see a continued acceleration. But Andrew, there's still so much we don't know. And a lot of critics are panning things like you need the iPhone right nearby, and all these other things. So why are you agreeing? Right, I'm agreeing because They're a little bit cagey, so I'll give you that, right? They won't release the actual numbers, and I think there's something to be said about that, but at the same time, look, this gadget is probably moving off the shelves pretty well because of the just heightened interest. What I'm looking at is round two. Are people gonna buy it once they already know what it is? Fair point. Another story this week was the release of Microsoft's Windows 10, which the company is gonna offer for free. Fact or fiction? Microsoft's release signifies a huge change in philosophy for this company. What do we think? Okay Bob, let's start with you. So, I think Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft is making big, bold moves. Very different from what Microsoft has usually done. I mean, they've relied on Microsoft Office to sell the software to people, and now they're just giving it away for free. And, also they're kinda transitioning to a service. This is gonna be like The operating system to end all operating systems, it's just gonna be updates from here on out, you're not going to have to actually buy it anymore. Okay, Andrew, what do you think? I do think it's a big change, I mean these are changes that were just anathema years ago, but at the same time, they're kind of getting pushed into it by Apple, so I don't wanna give them too much. Much credit. Okay, finally, ride- sharing app Lyft partnered with Starbucks this week in an unexpected move. Fact or fiction, Lyft's partnership with Starbucks will make it more competitive with Uber. What do we think? [ LAUGH ] Oh my god! Erin, we'll start with you. Well, first of all, Uber has tons of these kinds of partnerships. The have partnerships with Spotify. They have partnerships with all kinds of banks and hotels. Partnerships not what's really going to draw someone to a service unless this is one of their few partnerships. And yes Starbucks is a huge company but Starbucks has made a lot of partnerships with other startups before that have gone nowhere, for example, square. There was huge fanfare about that a few years ago, and what has really come of that? But Uber's a juggernaut, right? Mm- hm. But Bob, so is Howard Schultz. So, right? That's true. Isn't this gonna give Lyft a boot? Well, I think it's a step in the right direction for Lyft, and that they can actually leverage these sort of frequent flyer mile programs to a good degree. But Lyft is a pipsqueek. They just- [ LAUGH ] they are not competing with Uber right now. Uber's in like, what? 300 cities? And Lyft still has to break out of the US. [ MUSIC ]

Are driverless cars unsafe? Do people hate the Apple Watch? Find out here

A team of Fortune writers debates the hottest issues in the tech industry.