Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the
Speaker 1: tech are you. It's time for the tech news for
Speaker 1: the week ending Friday, November twenty second, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: This week, the US Department of Justice filed proposals regarding
Speaker 1: what to do about Google, and by what to do,
Speaker 1: I mean how best to address the issue of Google
Speaker 1: absolutely dominating web search, among other things. So this is
Speaker 1: like an anti trust lawsuit proceeding, so as expected, the
Speaker 1: suggestions the DOJ has are pretty extensive. One really big
Speaker 1: one is that the DOJ says Google should stop paying
Speaker 1: out gobs of cash to other platforms in order to
Speaker 1: make Google Search the default search tool on those platforms.
Speaker 1: So Google literally spends billions of dollars every year on
Speaker 1: this effort and pays out companies like Apple to use
Speaker 1: Google Search as the default on their various platforms, whether
Speaker 1: that's iOS or whatever. And the DOJ argues that this
Speaker 1: has led to Google essentially squashing competition and entrenching itself
Speaker 1: as the dominant web search provider. But the proposal goes
Speaker 1: further and says Google should also sell off its Chrome
Speaker 1: browser entirely. Google introduced Chrome back in September two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, and since then it has become the most
Speaker 1: popular web browser on the market. Stat Counter estimates that
Speaker 1: it holds around sixty six percent of the market share
Speaker 1: right now. The DOJ says the Google should not be
Speaker 1: allowed to release some other browser during the term of judgment,
Speaker 1: so not to create a workaround by oh, yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: sell off Chrome, we just happen to release a different
Speaker 1: browser CO called really highly polished Metal or something like
Speaker 1: that would be a no no. Also, if Google doesn't
Speaker 1: do what the DOJ says, then the department indicated that
Speaker 1: it might come after Android, which is Google's mobile operating system. Well,
Speaker 1: Google has of course protested these proposals in these strongest
Speaker 1: possible terms, even going so far as to suggest the
Speaker 1: changes that the DOJ is demanding would essentially break the
Speaker 1: Internet and harm America's standing in the global technology market.
Speaker 1: Companies like Apple are probably feeling a little antsy too,
Speaker 1: because if the DOJ's proposals do move forward, well, Apple
Speaker 1: would be saying bye bye to several billion dollars of
Speaker 1: revenue every year, so that would be rough. The DOJ
Speaker 1: argues that the payments to companies like Apple also end
Speaker 1: up being incentives that Google is paying out. Essentially, Google
Speaker 1: is incentivizing companies to not develop competing products on the
Speaker 1: market because these companies can make more money just taking
Speaker 1: money from Google and using Google's tool than they would
Speaker 1: if they develop their own product individually. These proposals are
Speaker 1: just proposals right now. These are not rules that Google
Speaker 1: is going to have to immediately abide by. In fact,
Speaker 1: this is something that will be brought before a judge
Speaker 1: in the United States later in twenty twenty five, possibly
Speaker 1: in the second half of twenty twenty five. So we're
Speaker 1: far from a point where Google is facing actual consequences
Speaker 1: just yet. And seeing where the US elections went this
Speaker 1: past year, I would be shocked if the government continues
Speaker 1: to take such a strong stance against corporations and anti
Speaker 1: competitive practices moving forward. Generally speaking, Donald Trump has shown
Speaker 1: to be very friendly toward corporations and less concerned about
Speaker 1: things like, you know, anti competitive behaviors, so it would
Speaker 1: really surprise me if we see continued movement on those fronts.
Speaker 1: But that being said, the Trump administration also has its
Speaker 1: own acts to grind against Google for perceived bias, not
Speaker 1: saying there's actual bias, but there's definitely they perceive a
Speaker 1: bias and have since identified Google as like an enemy
Speaker 1: of the people by presenting search results that conservatives sometimes
Speaker 1: argue are purposefully biased against them. And so it could
Speaker 1: be possible that we'll still see government action brought against Google,
Speaker 1: but it will be driven more by retribution than by
Speaker 1: a desire to break up a trust, which is kind
Speaker 1: of a weird place to be. Bahima abdel Rahman and
Speaker 1: Joe Teddy have an article on BBC World Service. It
Speaker 1: was in Arabic and so I had to rely upon
Speaker 1: a translate feature, so hopefully everything that I read was
Speaker 1: accurately translated. That can always be tricky, but it revealed
Speaker 1: some pretty disturbing information about verified users on X, some
Speaker 1: verified users a small selection, and of course X is
Speaker 1: the service formerly known as Twitter. So the reporters say
Speaker 1: that a BBC investigation found verified users on X who
Speaker 1: were sharing links to sites that traffic in images and
Speaker 1: videos of child sexual abuse material or CEESAM. The reporters
Speaker 1: state that once they alerted X to these accounts, in question.
Speaker 1: The service did ban those accounts, but questions remain about
Speaker 1: the actual verification process, because one would hope that if
Speaker 1: you're providing a check like a verified check, and if
Speaker 1: you're allowing verified accounts to have a much larger reach
Speaker 1: than standard accounts, you would also have a process that
Speaker 1: would include some sort of vetting to make sure that
Speaker 1: those accounts in question aren't violating the law. The BBC
Speaker 1: reported that at least one verified account had been posting
Speaker 1: links to illegal material for at least six months without
Speaker 1: any intervention on behalf of x The investigators found the
Speaker 1: accounts by searching for a few keywords in quote unquote
Speaker 1: Arabic dialect. These words have been used as a sort
Speaker 1: of code among se Sam traffickers as a means of
Speaker 1: finding one another without directly raising suspicion. According to the BBC,
Speaker 1: the verified accounts didn't have very many followers, but because
Speaker 1: those accounts were verified, their posts actually had a really
Speaker 1: broad reach and thousands of people saw these posts. So
Speaker 1: while there weren't a lot of followers for the individual accounts,
Speaker 1: they still had a pretty big impact. And obviously the
Speaker 1: story is absolutely horrifying, and in my opinion, it also
Speaker 1: puts a spotlight on how X's approach to verification, where
Speaker 1: it becomes just a simple paid option, is far inferior
Speaker 1: to the way it worked in the old Twitter days.
Speaker 1: But I guess I should stop beating that drum and
Speaker 1: just accept that X is, in my opinion, totally inferior
Speaker 1: to what Twitter used to be. Smritty Malapti and my
Speaker 1: apologies for Armalapati. I suppose I'm mispronouncing this name terribly anyway.
Speaker 1: A reporter for Nature has an article that's titled a
Speaker 1: Place of Joy Why scientists are joining the rush to
Speaker 1: Blue Sky. Now, if you recall, blue Sky is an
Speaker 1: alternative to x, slash, Twitter or Meta's threads, it's closer
Speaker 1: to mast it on. It's like the federated version of
Speaker 1: these services, which means that it's housed on multiple servers
Speaker 1: that connect to one another, but it's not centralized the
Speaker 1: way Twitter was or is. Blue Sky itself started as
Speaker 1: a project within Twitter. Jack Dorsey was behind the initial creation,
Speaker 1: although he is no longer involved with the company. So
Speaker 1: why are scientists migrating to blue Sky? Well, according to
Speaker 1: the article, it's for several reasons. One, there's more control
Speaker 1: over what you see on Blue Sky, You're more likely
Speaker 1: to see messages posted by people and accounts you actively follow,
Speaker 1: rather than stuff that some algorithm is just shoving at
Speaker 1: you for whatever reason, For example, prioritizing posts from folks
Speaker 1: who paid to be verified over other stuff that you
Speaker 1: actually want to see. Moderation has taken far more seriously
Speaker 1: at blue Sky. If you block someone on blue Sky,
Speaker 1: it is a real block. It's not the way it
Speaker 1: is over on X. People who are blocked from you
Speaker 1: on X can still see what you post, which is wild,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like their reasons for leaving X are
Speaker 1: pretty similar to my own reasons when I left X
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. If you still have an
Speaker 1: account on X, I'm not throwing any shade at you.
Speaker 1: I mean, lots of people have accounts for lots of reasons.
Speaker 1: But it just became clear that X is not the
Speaker 1: right place for me, and I think for a lot
Speaker 1: of other folks they're coming to a similar conclusion. Sticking
Speaker 1: with Blue Sky, Jonathan Vanian of CNBC has an article
Speaker 1: in which Blue Sky's CEO Jay Graber has explained that
Speaker 1: Blue Sky is quote unquote billionaire proof, meaning that Blue
Speaker 1: Sky couldn't be bought and repurposed the way Elon Musk
Speaker 1: bought and transformed Twitter. Blue Sky's design is based on
Speaker 1: an open source approach with federated service as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: so even if someone were buying up blue Sky servers,
Speaker 1: you could create a new one and port your server
Speaker 1: over to that one and maintain all your previous connections
Speaker 1: with those whom you follow and those who follow you.
Speaker 1: And Blue Sky's approach appears to be resonating with lots
Speaker 1: of people. The service has seen millions of people sign
Speaker 1: up in the wake of the US elections. It now
Speaker 1: has more than twenty one million registered users, but that
Speaker 1: is still minuscule compared to a service like Twitter. Twitter
Speaker 1: has reported having hundreds of millions of monthly users. So
Speaker 1: let's keep everything in perspective. Okay, we've gotten more news
Speaker 1: to get through. Before we get to that, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. We're back. The US Consumer Financial Protection
Speaker 1: Bureau or CFPB issued rules that will group large digital
Speaker 1: payment providers under the Bureau's regulations. So this is only
Speaker 1: going to apply to digital payment apps that handle more
Speaker 1: than fifty million transactions a year. That covers heavy hitters
Speaker 1: like Google Wallet and Apple Pay that kind of thing. Initially,
Speaker 1: the CFPB was planning on a much more comprehensive list
Speaker 1: that would include apps that handle five million transactions or
Speaker 1: more per year, but it switched to this, so these
Speaker 1: services are now going to be subjected to regulations the
Speaker 1: same way that banks and credit unions are here in
Speaker 1: the United States. The CFPB issued a statement saying that
Speaker 1: the rules mean that consumers are going to receive more
Speaker 1: protection as a result, including against actions like illegal account closures,
Speaker 1: just meaning that if these digital payment systems do certain
Speaker 1: acts that are questionable or illegal, the CFPB has the
Speaker 1: authority to regulate that and to punish a company for
Speaker 1: doing those kinds of things, and that this was just
Speaker 1: to establish that they do have to follow these rules.
Speaker 1: There's some rough news for gamers as we head into
Speaker 1: the holidays. Nvidia announced that it is facing a potential
Speaker 1: gaming GPU shortage this quarter. This is a into an
Speaker 1: article by Hassam Nasir of Tom's Hardware. Nasir reports that
Speaker 1: during the most recent Nvidia earnings call to shareholders that
Speaker 1: chief financial Officer Collette Kress revealed a possible squeeze in
Speaker 1: GPU supplies, one that would likely be addressed early next year,
Speaker 1: and this could mean that finding graphics cards in the
Speaker 1: short term the holiday season, particularly graphics cards that are
Speaker 1: not exorbitantly expensive, might be a little tricky. Nasir writes
Speaker 1: that one possible reason for this shortage could actually be
Speaker 1: in Vidia's plan to launch a new series of cards,
Speaker 1: a new generation of GPUs called Blackwell, and this will
Speaker 1: happen in January of next year, So the reduction in
Speaker 1: supply could partly be due to Nvidia wanting to set
Speaker 1: the stage for a huge launch with a new generation
Speaker 1: of cards next year. And I know it's a lot
Speaker 1: easier to sell a bunch of new cards if there
Speaker 1: aren't a bunch of previous generation cards on sale for
Speaker 1: a lower price on the market already. Tom Warren of
Speaker 1: The Verge has an article explaining how Microsoft appears to
Speaker 1: be urging Windows ten owners to upgrade to a new
Speaker 1: computer in order to migrate to Windows eleven and to
Speaker 1: take advantage of copilot features. Warren reports that some Windows
Speaker 1: ten users are encountering full screen pop ups that not
Speaker 1: only point out that Microsoft will be ending support for
Speaker 1: Windows ten in October next year, but also that it
Speaker 1: might be time to get a new machine because as
Speaker 1: Warren points out the messaging is suggesting, you know, well,
Speaker 1: you need a new computer to run Windows eleven because
Speaker 1: Windows eleven has system requirements that a lot of older
Speaker 1: computers just don't meet. But Warren also points out the
Speaker 1: messaging could be considered a little misleading because Microsoft will
Speaker 1: continue to provide limited ongoing support for Windows ten. However,
Speaker 1: you will have to pay thirty dollars a year to
Speaker 1: get those extra updates. But yeah, I don't know how
Speaker 1: I would feel if I were working on my computer
Speaker 1: and I just got a message that completely took up
Speaker 1: the entire screen that essentially is saying, Hey, I know
Speaker 1: stuff's real expensive right now, and you probably have a
Speaker 1: lot of other things on your mind, but you should
Speaker 1: really get a new computer. That would really cheese me off. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the actual messages don't say that. I am liberally paraphrasing
Speaker 1: and interpreting here and switching over to Alfonso Maruccia of
Speaker 1: techt Spot, let's talk about another article that details a
Speaker 1: move by Microsoft that is rubbing people the wrong way.
Speaker 1: That article is called the Official Bing Wallpaper app does
Speaker 1: some nasty malware like things to Windows. Yikes. So here's
Speaker 1: the deal. The app is meant to let users swap
Speaker 1: out their desktop wallpaper on their computers in a really
Speaker 1: easy and seamless way. Only it seems to do stuff
Speaker 1: that's not at all related to displaying wallpapers, you know,
Speaker 1: stuff like decrypting cookies, including cookies saved in browsers other
Speaker 1: than Microsoft Edge, like Chrome or Firefox. It also apparently
Speaker 1: incorporates some sort of geolocation features and installs bing visual
Speaker 1: search on the computer, as well as prompts users to
Speaker 1: make Edge their default browser and install some sneaky browser
Speaker 1: extensions and competing browsers of Chrome and Firefox. So it
Speaker 1: certainly sounds like the Being Wallpaper app is drastically overstepping
Speaker 1: itself here. I'm reminded of Sony and DRM, where Sony
Speaker 1: inadvertently created malware with its digital rights management approach. That
Speaker 1: sounds kind of like what we're talking about here, But
Speaker 1: I have no idea what the intent was, but it
Speaker 1: definitely doesn't doesn't sound like it was a good move
Speaker 1: on in my opinion. Maxwell Zef of tech Crunch reports
Speaker 1: that Apple is apparently developing an updated version of Siri
Speaker 1: that will lean heavily on the large language model approach
Speaker 1: to AI. This means that Siri would ideally become more conversational.
Speaker 1: Presumably this will make it possible to use Siri to
Speaker 1: interact with apps in a deeper, more complex way, but
Speaker 1: it is going to take some time. Zef says. The
Speaker 1: plan is for Apple to release this new version of
Speaker 1: Siri in the spring of twenty twenty six. In the
Speaker 1: do As I Say and Not As I Do category,
Speaker 1: our next story is about generative AI and why you
Speaker 1: should not rely on it, especially for important stuff like say,
Speaker 1: filing expert testimony in a lawsuit that is aimed to
Speaker 1: take on generative AI. All right, so not really generative AI.
Speaker 1: Deep fakes. It's related, but not the same thing. So
Speaker 1: in Minnesota, there is a state law that makes it
Speaker 1: illegal to knowingly disseminate deep fakes up to ninety days
Speaker 1: before an election if the material in that deep fake
Speaker 1: video was made with an intent to influence the election,
Speaker 1: and if the subject of the deep fake video did
Speaker 1: not consent to being in it. Christopher Coles has challenged
Speaker 1: this law, filing a lawsuit that argues this violates the
Speaker 1: First Amendment the Freedom of speech in the US Constitution.
Speaker 1: The state Minnesota has tapped the director of Stanford University's
Speaker 1: Social Media Lab a guy named Jeff Hancock to provide
Speaker 1: expert testimony regarding the dangers of deep fake technology. So
Speaker 1: Hancock did, but apparently the testimony he submitted contains hints
Speaker 1: that he himself relied on Generative AI in order to
Speaker 1: write it, which is a big old whoopsie. Hancock's testimony
Speaker 1: cites a study that doesn't appear to actually exist, which
Speaker 1: suggests it is an AI hallucination. Now, some of y'all
Speaker 1: might remember that several months ago I did an episode
Speaker 1: of Tech Stuff that was quote unquote written by Generative AI,
Speaker 1: and one of the things I found really upsetting when
Speaker 1: I did this was that the AI invented experts in
Speaker 1: order to present certain information as having academic validity, like
Speaker 1: it was presenting a point of view, and then inventing
Speaker 1: a person to have apparently given that point of view.
Speaker 1: But those experts, as far as I can determine, were
Speaker 1: not real people at all. So the same sort of
Speaker 1: thing appears to have happened here in this case with
Speaker 1: the expert testimony, and at the very least that is embarrassing. Now,
Speaker 1: for the record, I do think deep fakes are incredibly
Speaker 1: dangerous and that regulation is needed. I understand the First
Speaker 1: Amendment argument, but if I can create a video that
Speaker 1: appears to show you proclaiming beliefs that you absolutely do
Speaker 1: not hold, or that shows you admitting to a crime
Speaker 1: that you did not commit, or your calling for action
Speaker 1: that you would never actually agree to, all of that
Speaker 1: is a problem. Right, Like, if I create something that
Speaker 1: makes it seem like you, like it's coming from you
Speaker 1: and you are the ones saying these things, that's not really,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, a First Amendment thing, because the First
Speaker 1: Amendment covers my freedom of expression. But if I'm using
Speaker 1: deep fakes, it appears that I am co opting your
Speaker 1: freedom of expression to say whatever it is I want
Speaker 1: you to say. At least that's my opinion. I'm not
Speaker 1: an expert. I am not a legal expert by any means,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think the law actually has merit in
Speaker 1: this case. But I guess that's a matter for the
Speaker 1: courts to decide. And of course it kind of stinks.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really stinks that the expert witness apparently
Speaker 1: used generative AI to create their testimony, because it really
Speaker 1: undermines their credibility and I think hurts the state's case,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to see this go the other way.
Speaker 1: One last story page, Gaully of Vice dot Com has
Speaker 1: a piece titled AI Jesus is now taking confessions at
Speaker 1: a church in Switzerland. That headline, I think is a
Speaker 1: tad bit misleading. The AI Jesus is not meant to
Speaker 1: take confession at least, it's not meant to perform the
Speaker 1: sacrament of confession. So instead, this AI power generative tool
Speaker 1: is meant to communicate in a way that's aligned with
Speaker 1: at least depictions of Jesus. I don't know which depiction
Speaker 1: of Jesus, like I don't know which interpretation of the
Speaker 1: Bible was used to create this particular AI chatbot. But
Speaker 1: church attendees can go into a confessional booth and have
Speaker 1: a conversation with an AI chatbot that's meant to emulate Jesus,
Speaker 1: and they receive answers to their questions that are meant
Speaker 1: to engage their spiritual wary thoughts and questions and things
Speaker 1: like that, And it sounds like lots of people find
Speaker 1: the experience actually pretty enlightening, but others have dismissed it
Speaker 1: as just a gimmick. It actually reminds me a lot
Speaker 1: of early chat thoughts, because those were programmed to mimic
Speaker 1: specific kinds of social interactions, like talking to a psychoanalyst,
Speaker 1: for example. So this doesn't exactly surprise me. But again,
Speaker 1: this isn't to say that there's some sort of robopowered,
Speaker 1: coin operated confessional booth or something. We haven't gotten to
Speaker 1: that point. We're not quite at Futurama levels of absurdity
Speaker 1: just yet. But you know, give it a year, we'll
Speaker 1: see where we end up. That's it for the tech
Speaker 1: News for this week, the week ending November twenty second,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. I hope all of you out there
Speaker 1: are doing well, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
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