Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you. It's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Tuesday, September six, twenty twenty two. Let's
Speaker 1: get to it. And last week in the news episode,
Speaker 1: I talked about how NASA had to scrub the planned
Speaker 1: Artemist one launch due to sensors indicating that one of
Speaker 1: the engines in the Space Launch System or s l
Speaker 1: S failed to get down to the proper temperature. The
Speaker 1: Artemist project is NASA's plan to return astronauts to the
Speaker 1: Moon and to set up stuff like lunar bases, including
Speaker 1: a lunar space station, with the idea that those assets
Speaker 1: in the future will support missions to Mars. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: mentioned last week that NASA had pushed the launch to
Speaker 1: this path as Saturday, and if it didn't happen on Saturday,
Speaker 1: they would have another chance today Tuesday. Well, the launch
Speaker 1: didn't happen on Saturday, and it's not gonna happen today either.
Speaker 1: The culprit responsible for the scrub this time was a
Speaker 1: quote unquote large hydrogen leak. That's according to mission manager
Speaker 1: Michael Seraphin. And these sorts of things happen. NASA's history
Speaker 1: is filled with scrubbed launches and engineering issues. From one
Speaker 1: point of view, this is a good thing because NASA
Speaker 1: detected an issue and stopped it before it could escalate
Speaker 1: into something like an accident. Now, keep in mind this
Speaker 1: particular mission, the Artemist one, has no crew on it.
Speaker 1: There are no human beings aboard the spacecraft. But obviously
Speaker 1: you never want there to be an accident. There's always
Speaker 1: a risk not just two equipment, but to human life. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. However, the scrub also comes as a
Speaker 1: big disappointment because the s l S has been in
Speaker 1: development for a really long time. It was originally part
Speaker 1: of the now shelved constellation programs, so it's been a
Speaker 1: long time coming. The idea originally was that the s
Speaker 1: l S would have been in service for quite some
Speaker 1: time by now, so obviously each delay comes as a
Speaker 1: setback and a disappointment. Now, I mentioned last week that
Speaker 1: NASA often faces challenges when it comes to tackling huge
Speaker 1: projects due to the fact that the agency has to
Speaker 1: depend upon the government for funding, and then when there
Speaker 1: are shifts in the government due to you know, elections
Speaker 1: changing things up, well what once seemed like a solid
Speaker 1: plan can disappear. Thus the Constellation program, although that program
Speaker 1: had so many problems with it due to lots of
Speaker 1: different factors. Anyway, NASA has to address the problems with
Speaker 1: the s l S and the agency essentially has to options.
Speaker 1: Time is running out, however, so option one is to
Speaker 1: try and do the repairs on the launch pad itself. Now,
Speaker 1: that would require NASA to also construct an environmental enclosure
Speaker 1: around the launch vehicle while they do this work. But
Speaker 1: on the pad, NASA can actually test the system at
Speaker 1: cryogenic temperature, so the temperatures that the engines would be
Speaker 1: operating at during a launch. They can lower those temperatures
Speaker 1: down for those kind of tests on the pad. However,
Speaker 1: time for doing that is starting to run out, like
Speaker 1: there is a deadline for that because there are other
Speaker 1: launches that have to happen, so the pad has to
Speaker 1: be cleared and prepared for the next set of launches.
Speaker 1: So the other option is to transport the Space Launch
Speaker 1: System back to the Vehicle Assembly Building or v a
Speaker 1: B and to do repairs there. However, in the v
Speaker 1: A B they cannot lower the SLS down to cryogenic
Speaker 1: temperatures to do their tests. They can't do that inside
Speaker 1: the v A B, which means that any tests they
Speaker 1: do are going to be done at ambient temperatures and
Speaker 1: could potentially miss issues that will emerge under actual operating conditions.
Speaker 1: And if NASA does use the v A B, then
Speaker 1: the s l S will have to stay put for
Speaker 1: a while because there won't be enough time to bring
Speaker 1: it back out before the next launch, which is a
Speaker 1: scheduled trip to the International Space Station, and that would
Speaker 1: mean that the earliest that the s l S would
Speaker 1: be able to try again would be in October. Space
Speaker 1: is hard y'all tomorrow, which is Wednesday, September seven, for
Speaker 1: those of you from the future who, for some reason
Speaker 1: I have decided to listen to an old tech news episode.
Speaker 1: Apple is holding its September event where we expect to
Speaker 1: see unveilings of the iPhone fourteen, the Pro and Pro
Speaker 1: Max models. The Pro Max might actually get a name
Speaker 1: change and be called the Pro Plus. They're likely to
Speaker 1: receive the most attention. The base model probably won't be
Speaker 1: talked about nearly as my much. Now watch me eat
Speaker 1: those words. After tomorrow, we'll see. But rumor has it
Speaker 1: that Apple is adding in some new privacy and security
Speaker 1: features around the camera and phone in particular. Now, if
Speaker 1: I had to guess, I would say that this is
Speaker 1: in part a reaction to malware like Pegasus, which the
Speaker 1: Israeli company ns A Group developed and then sold to
Speaker 1: various clients, including authoritarian governments. So the Pegasus malware exploited
Speaker 1: a vulnerability long since patch now, but a vulnerability in
Speaker 1: Apple's I Message app where if you knew the phone
Speaker 1: number of your intended target, you could send them a message,
Speaker 1: and that message, just by hitting the target phone would
Speaker 1: turn that phone into a surveillance device that you could
Speaker 1: then control. That would give you the chance to listen
Speaker 1: in on the phone's microphone and whatever the camera could
Speaker 1: see and spy on your target. So my guess is
Speaker 1: the Apples created some features that will indicate when the
Speaker 1: camera and microphone are in use, so the owners will
Speaker 1: be aware when their phones are you know, snooping on them,
Speaker 1: or when an app is making use of a camera
Speaker 1: or the microphone. And it might not be obvious in
Speaker 1: the app itself, but users need to know that they
Speaker 1: might be on camera or on mike. Analysts expect that
Speaker 1: the Pro and the Pro Max or Pro Plus models
Speaker 1: will likely sport Apple's new A sixteen processor, and that
Speaker 1: the base I Phone fourteen will stick with the A
Speaker 1: fifteen processor that's used in the last generation of the iPhone.
Speaker 1: We'll probably also see some new Apple Watch models, maybe
Speaker 1: some new air pods. As for what else we'll see, well,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of rumors, but nothing really confirmed.
Speaker 1: H One question is, are we finally going to get
Speaker 1: a look at the mixed reality headset that Apple has
Speaker 1: been working on, also known as Apple's second worst kept secret,
Speaker 1: the first being Apple's electric vehicle project. If we do,
Speaker 1: that would surprise me. There is at least one analyst
Speaker 1: who thinks that Apple might have a mixed reality headset
Speaker 1: on the market by early next year, and if that's true,
Speaker 1: then maybe we will get a glimpse of it tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I am not holding my breath. I I mean they
Speaker 1: could make that a one more thing and and make
Speaker 1: it a big, big splash more. They might save that
Speaker 1: for its own dedicated event where they can just have
Speaker 1: an entire presentation around mixed reality. I honestly don't know
Speaker 1: which way they'll go. The folks at Apple are artists
Speaker 1: when it comes to PR so we'll just have to
Speaker 1: wait and see what happens tomorrow. And if there's no
Speaker 1: information about mixed reality, we know we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: wait a while. Also an Apple news, Brazil's government has
Speaker 1: ordered Apple to stop selling iPhones without a battery charger
Speaker 1: in the country, and the government says that Apple's practice
Speaker 1: of not including a battery charger hurts consumers because then
Speaker 1: they have to go out and buy a charger in
Speaker 1: addition to their phone. Now, Apple says it made the
Speaker 1: move to stop including chargers because you know chargers, First
Speaker 1: of all, they're interchangeable, at least for Apple iPhones anyway,
Speaker 1: so really you just need one. Right you buy an iPhone,
Speaker 1: you can use that same charger for the next iPhone
Speaker 1: you buy two years later, So even if you buy
Speaker 1: an iPhone every couple of generations, you can keep using
Speaker 1: the old charger. Now in the EU, this goes even
Speaker 1: further because the EU is requiring phone manufacturers to all
Speaker 1: adopt the USB C charging port as a standard, which
Speaker 1: includes telling Apple the future iPhones and the EU are
Speaker 1: supposed to include such a port, and the goal there
Speaker 1: is to reduce compatibility issues and waste, because then you
Speaker 1: just have to buy one charger for whatever phone you use,
Speaker 1: and that same charger will work on any phone you
Speaker 1: buy from that point forward until standards change again where
Speaker 1: we have to upgrade Brazil. Meanwhile, it's claiming that there's
Speaker 1: no evidence that not including a charger has any significance
Speaker 1: when it comes to environmental impact. In other words, Apples
Speaker 1: not saving the world by not including a battery charger
Speaker 1: with their iPhones, and that Apple will have to include
Speaker 1: them if it wants to sell iPhones in Brazil. Also
Speaker 1: in Brazil, an advocacy group called some of Us That's
Speaker 1: s U m of US says that meta slash Facebook
Speaker 1: has been boosting rhetoric and information from Bolsonaro in his
Speaker 1: bid to hold on to the presidency. Bolsonaro has been
Speaker 1: pulling poorly as of late, and some of Us says
Speaker 1: that he has turned to using social media platforms to
Speaker 1: push a narrative claiming that the integrity of the vote
Speaker 1: in Brazil is in question. Essentially, Bolsonaro is laying groundwork
Speaker 1: to question any election results that are not in his favor.
Speaker 1: The group claims that Meta has allowed Bulsonaro and his
Speaker 1: campaign to leverage Facebook to spread this misinformation freely, with
Speaker 1: no signs of con tent moderation or steps to label
Speaker 1: such posts as containing misinformation. While we've seen Meta make
Speaker 1: at least some moves to address misinformation campaigns here in
Speaker 1: the United States, it has long been said that the
Speaker 1: company fails to take such steps in non English speaking countries,
Speaker 1: so places like Brazil receive even less protection against misinformation
Speaker 1: campaigns than we do here in the States. The group
Speaker 1: published a report that does not mince words. It is
Speaker 1: titled Stop the Steel two point oh, How Meta is
Speaker 1: subverting Brazilian democracy. The group is calling on Meta to
Speaker 1: invest in content moderation, to ensure that all political ads
Speaker 1: meet both Meta's criteria and they don't break Brazilian laws,
Speaker 1: and to do a better job at assessing and then
Speaker 1: addressing threats to human rights that are coming from Facebook
Speaker 1: profiles and groups, also allowing third parties to come in
Speaker 1: and evaluate Facebook's own investigation and mitigation actions to see
Speaker 1: if the company is actually following through on reps have
Speaker 1: repeatedly claimed, in an effort to be more transparent, all
Speaker 1: right We've got several more stories, but before we get
Speaker 1: to that, let's take a quick break. Next up, we've
Speaker 1: got kind of a whirlwind news item. Alright, So, earlier
Speaker 1: this week, some cybersecurity analysts spread word that there was
Speaker 1: evidence of a data breach over at TikTok, and that
Speaker 1: hackers might have accessed a ton of user information in
Speaker 1: the process, as well as TikTok's own source code. In fact,
Speaker 1: some reports said as many as two billion different data
Speaker 1: records could have been stolen, and early on some analysts
Speaker 1: were urging users to update their passwords and also to
Speaker 1: enable multi factor authentication in order to protect their accounts.
Speaker 1: As I always say, it's a good idea to enable
Speaker 1: multi factor authentication. If you have that option, you should
Speaker 1: do it. It is a great way to provide extra
Speaker 1: protection for your online accounts. I know it can be
Speaker 1: a hassle when you're logging in, you're like, I need
Speaker 1: to put in a code. I get that, but it
Speaker 1: is incredibly helpful for keeping your stuff protected anyway. A
Speaker 1: Twitter user with the account named blue Hornet, who is
Speaker 1: reportedly with a hacker group calling themselves Against the West,
Speaker 1: claimed that the data was found on an Ali baba
Speaker 1: Cloud account with only a week password protecting it, that
Speaker 1: they were able to find this password through uh a
Speaker 1: wee chat messaging exchange and all this other stuff, and
Speaker 1: that obviously launched an understandable tirade against TikTok from folks
Speaker 1: about the alleged poor security, Like if this story is true,
Speaker 1: then you know it is. It is almost criminal how
Speaker 1: poor the scurity was to protect all this user information. However,
Speaker 1: TikTok reps said they took a look at the code
Speaker 1: that was posted to various hacker forums and said the
Speaker 1: code in question is completely unrelated to TikTok's back in
Speaker 1: source code, So they're implying that the hackers are I
Speaker 1: think the technical term is lying out of their behinds
Speaker 1: about hacking into TikTok's systems. And some early investigations into
Speaker 1: the posted data seemed to indicate that at least some
Speaker 1: of it was either public facing information meaning you don't
Speaker 1: need to hack anything because it's literally public info, or
Speaker 1: it could have been test data used for production purposes
Speaker 1: and reflected no real data. So in other words, when
Speaker 1: TikTok is building out something in its service, it has
Speaker 1: to use test data to make sure that you know,
Speaker 1: the something works properly, but that test data doesn't reflect
Speaker 1: any real person's information. It would be like if you
Speaker 1: had to create an account called Joe public just to
Speaker 1: test some features on an online tool you had created. Well,
Speaker 1: Joe public is not a real person in this case.
Speaker 1: I mean, there probably is someone out there called Joe
Speaker 1: public who has parents who I think their sense of
Speaker 1: humor is more important than their child's mental health. But anyway,
Speaker 1: the whole point is that test data is not real
Speaker 1: information about people. Right. So in short, if the hackers
Speaker 1: really did access information, they could be in possession of
Speaker 1: around two billion data records, which is, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot plus the alleged source code for TikTok. That's one possibility.
Speaker 1: Or it could be that the hackers have cobbled together
Speaker 1: or copied some data records that are publicly available, or
Speaker 1: they represent meaningless test data, and that there was no
Speaker 1: actual exposure of real private information. We will have to
Speaker 1: keep our eyes on this to see how it unfolds,
Speaker 1: because I mean, I honestly don't know whether TikTok was
Speaker 1: act or not. Um you know, again, the company says no,
Speaker 1: we were not. There's no evidence of that. Everything that's
Speaker 1: been posted isn't from our systems, and the hackers are
Speaker 1: claiming we toats did it um. It's not like I
Speaker 1: feel inclined to just automatically believe either groups, So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna wait for more evidence to come out. In a
Speaker 1: TikTok related news story, Byte Dance is shutting down some
Speaker 1: of its gaming sectors inside the company. So Byte Dances
Speaker 1: the parent company, the Chinese parent company that owns TikTok Um.
Speaker 1: Of course, I should add that TikTok has long maintained
Speaker 1: that it operates practically independently of Byte Dance, that there
Speaker 1: is little connective tissue between the two. That's something that
Speaker 1: often comes up when there are discussions about whether or
Speaker 1: not TikTok represents a potential danger to things like national security. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Byte Dance also, you know, poured millions of dollars, hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars into developing video game UH divisions
Speaker 1: within the company to help create games that could maybe
Speaker 1: leverage the hundreds of millions of users of TikTok and
Speaker 1: make more money off of them. Essentially, it is what
Speaker 1: we're getting down to. However, in China, the Chinese government
Speaker 1: has been taking an increasingly strict response to the video
Speaker 1: game industry and to video games in particular, uh reviewing
Speaker 1: games for any material that could be considered objectionable by
Speaker 1: the Chinese government standards, which would obviously be required to
Speaker 1: have all of that stripped or else that game would
Speaker 1: never make it to the markets in China, at least
Speaker 1: not legally. And a lot of companies in China that
Speaker 1: had been focusing on video games are now looking to
Speaker 1: kind of spread out from the Chinese market or to
Speaker 1: abandon the sector entirely because that intense amount of scrutiny
Speaker 1: has made it very difficult to do business in China.
Speaker 1: So we've seen the company ten Cent, which is famous
Speaker 1: for having a stake in numerous video game companies around
Speaker 1: the world, really pushed to increase that steak in companies
Speaker 1: like Ubisoft that are centered outside of China, potentially because
Speaker 1: that's an avenue for them to make revenue without having to,
Speaker 1: you know, cow tow to the Chinese government's demands. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So doing business in China has always been kind of
Speaker 1: a risky proposition because the government is so extremely hands
Speaker 1: on when it comes to the business sector, and we're
Speaker 1: starting to see now companies realize that, especially once they
Speaker 1: reached a certain size, that continuing to do business in
Speaker 1: specific areas within China is untenable. China has also accused
Speaker 1: the United States of conducting quote tens of thousands end
Speaker 1: quote of fiber attacks against Chinese companies and institutions, including
Speaker 1: a university, which you know could be true because cyber
Speaker 1: warfare is definitely a thing, and China definitely knows the
Speaker 1: thing and two about it, as there are reportedly several large,
Speaker 1: well funded hacker groups operating in and around China and
Speaker 1: with Chinese support, although the government staunchly denies that's the case,
Speaker 1: but no one believes them. China has said that the
Speaker 1: n s A, the National Security Agency, has infiltrated computer
Speaker 1: systems belonging to the Northwestern Polytechnical University of Chian. The
Speaker 1: n s A has not responded, at least not publicly,
Speaker 1: to this accusation. Now, could it be an accurate accusation? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't see why not. I mean n s A
Speaker 1: did a heck of a job planting surveillance on US
Speaker 1: based communication systems. We all heard about that, how we
Speaker 1: were all being spied upon by the n s A.
Speaker 1: Thanks to them planting essentially snoops at every major connection
Speaker 1: point within the communications infrastructure of the United States. I
Speaker 1: can only imagine what the n s A would do
Speaker 1: in order to devote some of that expertise to our
Speaker 1: conducting espionage on China. Still, we should always be skeptical
Speaker 1: of any communications from China. You know, you can't just
Speaker 1: take that on face value. So while there's nothing in
Speaker 1: this story that immediately makes me say, well, that's impossible
Speaker 1: or that's a lie, there's also nothing solid in the
Speaker 1: story that would make me say China is telling the truth. Uh,
Speaker 1: I just don't know enough in this case. But it's
Speaker 1: certainly is plausible. It doesn't mean that it's actually true. However, again,
Speaker 1: cyber warfare is a real thing, and you know, we
Speaker 1: often hear stories about how hackers working on behalf of
Speaker 1: China or North Korea or Russia, we're infiltrating various systems
Speaker 1: in the United States. I can guarantee you that the
Speaker 1: same sort of of ops are happening within the US
Speaker 1: against targets like China, Russia, and North Korea. Um, we
Speaker 1: don't tend to hear about them, but you know that
Speaker 1: has to be happening, because for it not to be
Speaker 1: happening is just naive. Okay, we've got a couple more
Speaker 1: news stories to cover before we finish this episode out,
Speaker 1: so let's take another quick break. We're back. The Data
Speaker 1: Protection Commission or DPC in Ireland has levied more than
Speaker 1: four hundred million dollars in fines against Meta. The DPC
Speaker 1: says that Meta mishandled personal data belonging to teen Instagram users,
Speaker 1: failing to comply with the data privacy standards of the EU. Specifically,
Speaker 1: the investigation looked into how privacy settings would change if
Speaker 1: a teenage user switched from a personal account to a
Speaker 1: business account. So Instagram's business accounts provide users with more
Speaker 1: analytics than they would get if they were just using
Speaker 1: a regular personal Instagram accounts, so sometimes influencers or people
Speaker 1: who want to be influencers will switch to a business
Speaker 1: account for that reason. But a business account would make
Speaker 1: contact information publicly available, and if the user was under
Speaker 1: the age of eighteen, that would be a problem because
Speaker 1: it violates privacy laws under g d p R in
Speaker 1: the EU. The DPC also says that Meta made some
Speaker 1: accounts public by default, even if the accounts were being
Speaker 1: held by underage users. Now, Meta, for its part, says
Speaker 1: that in addressed the public by default problem a year ago.
Speaker 1: This entire investigation has taken a couple of years in total,
Speaker 1: so it actually spans from before Meta made those changes.
Speaker 1: The company also plans to appeal this fine. The US
Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, is investigating Amazon's planned acquisition
Speaker 1: of a couple of companies, namely i Robot, which is
Speaker 1: the maker of the popular roomba vacuum cleaner, and a
Speaker 1: healthcare company called one Medical. Now the purpose of the
Speaker 1: investigation is to determine if Amazon's purchases of these companies
Speaker 1: represent anti competitive behavior that Amazon would be uh significantly
Speaker 1: reducing competition in these various markets. So part of the
Speaker 1: concern is that not long after Amazon announced it was
Speaker 1: acquiring one Medical, which was back in July of this year,
Speaker 1: Amazon then said it was going to shut down its
Speaker 1: own virtual health service. Now, the FTC might see this
Speaker 1: as Amazon admitting that it wasn't able to compete in
Speaker 1: the healthcare space, so rather than support their own in
Speaker 1: house department, they just bought the competition, which would be
Speaker 1: anti competitive behavior. It's also something that we've seen lots
Speaker 1: of like it's only been recently that we've started to
Speaker 1: see the FTC kind of opposed this kind of of strategy.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of the eighties and nineties in the UH
Speaker 1: the cable industry, like the actual cable company industry here
Speaker 1: in the United States, Buying up all your competitors was
Speaker 1: the name of the game. I mean, that's how that's
Speaker 1: how Comcast got as big as it was. It wasn't
Speaker 1: that the company was building out new networks. It was
Speaker 1: just buying up regional networks wherever it could. And those
Speaker 1: were in the days where the FTC really just didn't
Speaker 1: care about that. So things have changed, It's what I'm saying. Anyway,
Speaker 1: these investigations may not stop either acquisition in the long run,
Speaker 1: will have to see. They will likely impact the timing
Speaker 1: of these deals. They may take longer to complete because
Speaker 1: of these investigations. Then again, there has been this increased
Speaker 1: focus on the rise of monopolies in recent years and
Speaker 1: a general view that big tech companies are a kind
Speaker 1: of consolidating power to a point where they are dominant
Speaker 1: in their respective wedge of the tech sector. Like it
Speaker 1: would be hard to argue that Google is not the
Speaker 1: dominant player in search for example, So maybe the FTC
Speaker 1: will actually block this acquisition or these acquisitions from happening.
Speaker 1: Will have to wait and see. Last week, Snap, the
Speaker 1: company behind Snapchat, shuttered a messaging app called zen Le.
Speaker 1: Now Snap purchase zen Lee back in for more than
Speaker 1: two million bucks, so it's quite the investment. But now
Speaker 1: Snap is on shaky financial ground and the company is
Speaker 1: cutting way back on expenses, and that include holding lots
Speaker 1: of layoffs around folks, or about twenty percent of the
Speaker 1: overall workforce to be precise. Zen Ley appears to be
Speaker 1: a casualty of those cutbacks. The entire team found out
Speaker 1: about this last week. News first leaked on Twitter before
Speaker 1: snaps CEOs sent the zen Ley staff a letter about
Speaker 1: shutting down the service. And that is always a bad look, y'all.
Speaker 1: I mean, you never want to learn about layoffs from
Speaker 1: a public source like Twitter before leaders actually address it
Speaker 1: to the people who are going to be directly affected.
Speaker 1: That's just nasty. Now, apparently there was no chance that
Speaker 1: Snap was going to sell zen Ly off to some
Speaker 1: interested buyer like In other words, there is no hope
Speaker 1: for Zinly. Much like the Bad Girl film that will
Speaker 1: never be commercially released. Zen Ley would never be sold
Speaker 1: by Snap, not because Snap doesn't want the money. It's
Speaker 1: because Zenly relies on I P that is critical to Snap,
Speaker 1: and that means that Snap is not going to sell
Speaker 1: Zenlely because it's not willing to share this intellectual property
Speaker 1: with some other party that isn't Snap. Now, this stinks,
Speaker 1: and it points to something really ugly in the tech
Speaker 1: sector in particular, that there's often this push to create
Speaker 1: a tool or a company that's enticing enough to convince
Speaker 1: some other larger company to come along and swoop it
Speaker 1: up for a pretty penny. Like we've seen this with
Speaker 1: lots of company strategies like their their plan isn't to
Speaker 1: grow into a viable, revenue generating business, but rather to
Speaker 1: be seen as so attractive by a larger entity like
Speaker 1: Amazon or Google or Meta that one of those companies
Speaker 1: are going to come along and by the startup that
Speaker 1: that is like go to strategy and startups, not all
Speaker 1: of them, but a lot of them. But that means
Speaker 1: that when things like this happen where a company gets
Speaker 1: bought but then later abandoned, then the thing that everyone
Speaker 1: spent their time, talent and effort on building has gone away,
Speaker 1: and it feels like all of that was put to waste.
Speaker 1: See also about three quarters of the projects that Google
Speaker 1: has overseen over the years. On October one, Massa Yasu
Speaker 1: Itto will be retiring from Sony. Itto is the hardware
Speaker 1: chief for the PlayStation division within Sony and has overseen
Speaker 1: the engineering of the PS four and the PS VR
Speaker 1: headset and the PS five during his time in that role.
Speaker 1: Now he's retiring because he's reached the age for retirement.
Speaker 1: So this this isn't coming as a surprise. There's no
Speaker 1: drama attached. This is not he underperformed or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's literally it's his time to retire. Lynn Tao, who
Speaker 1: has served as the s VP of Finance, Corporate Development,
Speaker 1: and Strategy at Sony Interactive Entertainment, is going to officially
Speaker 1: take over his role. Now. Is it possible that Sony
Speaker 1: is looking to ramp up development on the next generation
Speaker 1: of PlayStation designs now that they're going to have a
Speaker 1: new hardware chief in place, like that seems like a
Speaker 1: great time to really start focusing on that. Well, it's possible.
Speaker 1: But even if that is the case, and I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it is it's just possible. But even if it
Speaker 1: is what's happening, we're not likely to see anything new
Speaker 1: in the PlayStation world for several more years because these
Speaker 1: development cycles can take half a decade or longer. Besides,
Speaker 1: you still can't get a current generation PlayStation five most
Speaker 1: days due to inventory shortages. And finally, LG is joining
Speaker 1: Samsung by incorporating a feature that will let LG television
Speaker 1: owners of more recent models anyway purchase and view an
Speaker 1: f T artwork on their TV sets. So Samsung has
Speaker 1: done this, now LG is doing us. Now. There's not
Speaker 1: much to look at yet. According to the Virgins Emma Roth,
Speaker 1: who reported on this, she actually downloaded and installed the
Speaker 1: app on her TV and checked it out. And the
Speaker 1: idea is that folks who have an LG television capable
Speaker 1: of running web os five point oh or higher, we'll
Speaker 1: be able to install an app that lets them brows,
Speaker 1: purchase and display n f T artwork. The n f
Speaker 1: T s in this case aren't on a blockchain. Instead,
Speaker 1: they are on what is called a hash graph, which
Speaker 1: sounds to me like you're trying to put line charts
Speaker 1: on a potato. But no hash graph is a distributed
Speaker 1: consensus platform. So in other words, it's a platform in
Speaker 1: which users, or rather their machines that are connected to
Speaker 1: the network, come to an agreement when it comes to
Speaker 1: stuff like the order in which transactions were made. So
Speaker 1: a ridiculously oversimplified explanation would be that the network has
Speaker 1: to come together and decide that yes. In fact, su
Speaker 1: Zy did purchase the twenty two Chiron Bugatti before Tommy
Speaker 1: bought a mint edition collection of the full set of
Speaker 1: Pokemon cards, So in that way, it is kind of
Speaker 1: similar to blockchain, but it works through a different mechanism.
Speaker 1: Another way you can think of this is that blockchain
Speaker 1: and the hash graph work to create the same result,
Speaker 1: but they do it through a different methodology. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: don't want to put words in Mr Roth's mouth, but
Speaker 1: the article seems to at least be indifferent towards this
Speaker 1: new feature, which could largely be due to the fact
Speaker 1: that there just isn't much on there yet. But I
Speaker 1: want to say I feel pretty much the same way.
Speaker 1: It is very hard for me to imagine a world
Speaker 1: where folks are buying digital art to display on their
Speaker 1: television's as if their TVs were framed fine art you know,
Speaker 1: essentially turning this digital art to the equivalent of a
Speaker 1: screen saver. Now, maybe I'm just too shortsighted and and
Speaker 1: too old fashioned, and I'm just I just don't get it.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm completely wrong about this, but yet to me,
Speaker 1: it kind of feels like when all the TV manufacturers
Speaker 1: were pushing three D on us. It's not that we
Speaker 1: wanted three D, but the company's needed to have new
Speaker 1: features to tout in order to sell new TVs to us.
Speaker 1: It's not enough to say this television this year is
Speaker 1: just like the one last year and it's just as good,
Speaker 1: so by the new one like that, that doesn't get customers.
Speaker 1: You have to have something new and exciting incorporated into
Speaker 1: the television. Sometimes those are really awesome features, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times it just ends up being like meaningless
Speaker 1: bells and whistles that don't really add to the experience.
Speaker 1: This feels more like the latter to me. But again,
Speaker 1: to be fair, I am notoriously anti n f T
Speaker 1: at least in the way that they're being treated right now,
Speaker 1: and so I admit I have a bias against this
Speaker 1: sort of thing, and I could be completely off base.
Speaker 1: That's it for the tech News for Tuesday, September six,
Speaker 1: two twenty two. Hope you are all well. If you'd
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