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 I love all things tech. This time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Tuesday, November nine, twenty twenty one. Let's
Speaker 1: get to it. In the United States, lawmakers in the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives have introduced a bill that would require
Speaker 1: companies that use algorithms to determine what users see to
Speaker 1: offer up an alternative algorithm light version. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: a company like Meta slash Facebook would have to give
Speaker 1: people the option to opt out of the algorithm driven
Speaker 1: methodology that the company relies upon. Now, the idea behind
Speaker 1: this is that it would let users choose a path
Speaker 1: less likely to fill up their news feeds with the
Speaker 1: type of material that quote unquote drives engagement, since we've
Speaker 1: seen time and time again that a lot of bad
Speaker 1: actors have taken advantage of that approach to spread misinformation
Speaker 1: and hate speech and other awful stuff. This comes on
Speaker 1: the heels of the Francis Hogan hearings, in which the
Speaker 1: former Facebook employee shared her observations about the company's practices
Speaker 1: and She asserted that these practices are harmful on a
Speaker 1: really broad scale, not just two people individually, but potentially
Speaker 1: to big stuff like the concept of democracy itself. The
Speaker 1: bill is worded in a way that says companies would
Speaker 1: need to create an quote input transparent algorithm end quote,
Speaker 1: meaning that the platform wouldn't use any user data to
Speaker 1: determine what that user sees, so theoretically get a more
Speaker 1: generic experien oriants in that regard. One way this might
Speaker 1: manifest is a true reverse chronological order of posts. That is,
Speaker 1: you would see the most recent posts at the top
Speaker 1: of your feed, and then you would work down to
Speaker 1: progressively older posts, you know, the way a lot of
Speaker 1: folks preferred Facebook before the company made that choice harder
Speaker 1: and harder to find and ultimately watered it down with
Speaker 1: an algorithmic approach. If this bill becomes law, it could
Speaker 1: have a massive impact on Facebook's business. The company depends
Speaker 1: heavily on promoting material that gets a lot of engagement
Speaker 1: because that keeps people on the platform longer. That therefore
Speaker 1: Facebook has more time to sell more ads, essentially to
Speaker 1: display more ads to users, and thus they make way
Speaker 1: more money through advertising. Any regulations that would impact that
Speaker 1: could potentially lead to people spending less time on the platform,
Speaker 1: and then Facebook would make money, which I assure you
Speaker 1: the company is not super keen on doing so. If
Speaker 1: this bill does pass, I can almost guarantee that, unless
Speaker 1: it is otherwise mandated by the law, Facebook will make
Speaker 1: sure that this option to switch to the transparent algorithm
Speaker 1: approach will be buried deep in options so that the
Speaker 1: average person isn't likely to go looking for it anyway.
Speaker 1: I think this is an interesting approach, and one I
Speaker 1: happen to think is is a pretty decent idea, at
Speaker 1: least on the surface. I also imagine it won't stop
Speaker 1: Facebook's critics from advocating for the company to get broken up.
Speaker 1: That is a conversation I suspect will continue. The US
Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commission, or FTC will soon send around sixty
Speaker 1: million dollars to more than a hundred forty thousand drivers
Speaker 1: for Amazon. So why is that happening? Well, this is
Speaker 1: because Amazon US illegally withholding tips that the drivers had
Speaker 1: earned from customers between to twenty nineteen. The FTC sued
Speaker 1: Amazon earlier this year over the matter, saying that the
Speaker 1: company was regularly holding back tips that customers had opted
Speaker 1: to give drivers through you know apps and web based services. Further,
Speaker 1: the FTC said that Amazon only stopped doing this once
Speaker 1: they became aware that the FTC was investigating them. Amazon
Speaker 1: ultimately settled this case out of court and agreed to
Speaker 1: return all the money it had stolen from drivers, and
Speaker 1: they would also stop obfuse skating how much the drivers
Speaker 1: were making. Also, the company can't change how tips are
Speaker 1: factored into driver compensation without first acquiring drivers informed consent
Speaker 1: on the matter due to terms of the settlement. According
Speaker 1: to the FTC, the largest payout to an individual driver
Speaker 1: and I can't believe this, it's an excess of twenty
Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars. Now, the average payout is closer to
Speaker 1: four d twenty two dollars. But let's go back to
Speaker 1: that twenty eight large for a second. Imagine, just for
Speaker 1: a moment, that you found out your employer had effectively
Speaker 1: stolen twenty eight thousand dollars from you, that you had
Speaker 1: earned that money, but your employer took it for themselves.
Speaker 1: That is beyond unacceptable. I mean it's absolutely crazy. Right Anyway,
Speaker 1: drivers who received checks and that would be one nine thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred seven of the drivers, they should deposit or
Speaker 1: cash those checks before January seven, twenty two. The remaining
Speaker 1: drivers are actually receiving their payouts the paypals, so they
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about that. If a driver receives
Speaker 1: more than six hundred dollars, they will also receive than
Speaker 1: I R S. Form ten to fill out because they
Speaker 1: have to declare that on taxes, but that should actually
Speaker 1: affect fewer than twenty thousand of the more than one drivers. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I am glad to hear that the drivers will finally
Speaker 1: be getting the money they earned, and glad that for
Speaker 1: once we're seeing a big company held accountable for screwing
Speaker 1: over the workers that that company employs. Speaking of companies
Speaker 1: that are being held accountable, it's time to talk about
Speaker 1: Tesla again. So you might remember that last month the
Speaker 1: company rolled out an update to Tesla owners who are
Speaker 1: participating in the beta program for the so called full
Speaker 1: self driving feature. And once again I remind you that
Speaker 1: full self driving is in fact a misleading phrase because
Speaker 1: it is not actually a fully autonomous mode. Anyway, that
Speaker 1: rollout ended up causing dangerous problems as Tesla vehicles were
Speaker 1: autonomously miss and mistakenly interpreting a potential frontal collision even
Speaker 1: if there were no cars or any other obstacles in
Speaker 1: front of the vehicles. They were saying, WHOA, We're about
Speaker 1: to collide with something and there was nothing there. That
Speaker 1: then prompted the cars to engage the brakes to avoid
Speaker 1: this so called collision, and it made the Tesla's practically undrivable.
Speaker 1: Owners reported this issue. Some people even took videos of
Speaker 1: what it was like trying to drive the car with
Speaker 1: this mode enabled, and they showed how the car would
Speaker 1: spontaneously detect a potential collision in perfectly safe conditions and
Speaker 1: then slam on the brakes, and obviously that act would
Speaker 1: then constitute an actual dangerous situation, potentially leading to rear
Speaker 1: end collisions if someone were following that Tesla and they
Speaker 1: were going at a good clip. The company hastily rolled
Speaker 1: back this update, and Elon Musk tweeted out the equivalent
Speaker 1: of Hey, these things happen. It's software had it's a
Speaker 1: beta program and essentially brushed it off, but Tesla. The
Speaker 1: company subsequently filed a recall notice with the National Highway
Speaker 1: Traffic Safety Administration or the n h t s A
Speaker 1: a government authority that obviously oversees stuff like safety issues
Speaker 1: with highways and roads. So why did Tesla actually issue
Speaker 1: the recall if they had already rolled back the update. Well,
Speaker 1: that was because the nh T s A has been
Speaker 1: taking a more aggressive approach in investigating and regulating self
Speaker 1: driving vehicles recently, and Tesla has been the subject of
Speaker 1: some scrutiny. The n h T s A had already
Speaker 1: reprimanded Tesla, saying that the company has to actually follow protocol.
Speaker 1: It has to operate within the boundaries of laws and
Speaker 1: regulations for vehicles instead of just playing more fast and
Speaker 1: loose like a typical Silicon Valley company. If a software
Speaker 1: company rolls back a patch, that might be frustrating, right
Speaker 1: if a patch ens up making things worse for your
Speaker 1: software and then they roll it back. But for car
Speaker 1: companies this is really a matter of safety. I mean,
Speaker 1: if my copy of Diablo gets rolled back, I might
Speaker 1: lose some data, but with cars, we're talking about life
Speaker 1: or death kind of stuff. Anyway, Tesla, the company has
Speaker 1: started to change its ways conforming to these requirements, but
Speaker 1: not without Elon complaining about it and sicking rabid Tesla
Speaker 1: fans On regulators. Classy guy that Elon Musk also classy folks,
Speaker 1: those rabid Tesla fans cheese. I suspect this isn't going
Speaker 1: to convince the government to adopt a more lenient approach
Speaker 1: to Tesla, because Elon Musk is really good at rilling
Speaker 1: people and organizations and governments up. And while we're talking
Speaker 1: about Musk, let's also mention his ongoing complaints about, you know,
Speaker 1: having to pay taxes like a common person. You know,
Speaker 1: it's that thing that billionaires really hate to do. There's
Speaker 1: been an increased push to in increased taxes to billionaires.
Speaker 1: Those are the people who can obviously afford to pay
Speaker 1: taxes the most, but are also the least inclined to
Speaker 1: do so. And Musk is no exception to the rule
Speaker 1: that these ultra rich folks really just don't want to
Speaker 1: part way is with even a fraction of their billions. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Musk tweeted out a pole recently, and he wrote, quote
Speaker 1: much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means
Speaker 1: of tax avoidance. So I propose selling of my test
Speaker 1: less stock. Do you support this? End quote? Nearly fifty
Speaker 1: of the respondents said yes. Nowhere yet on if Elon
Speaker 1: Musk has followed through with this. He said he would,
Speaker 1: but at least when I have gone to record, that
Speaker 1: had not yet been reported. However, if he did sell
Speaker 1: that off, based upon the closing price for Testlas stock
Speaker 1: on Friday, it would have meant he would have been
Speaker 1: selling around twenty one billion with a b dollars worth
Speaker 1: of stock. Yawza. Also, the whole thing appeared to affect
Speaker 1: Tesla's stock value because the price of Tesla's stock declined
Speaker 1: by five percent. And I think this is yet another
Speaker 1: example of Elon Musk's messaging having a potentially massive impact
Speaker 1: on the market. We've seen it before, where he tweets
Speaker 1: something and then we see a massive move in the market.
Speaker 1: I think that says a lot about Musk's influence. It
Speaker 1: also says a lot about his lack of concern about
Speaker 1: how much influence he has, and it probably it's a
Speaker 1: pretty decent argument about you know why, the stock market
Speaker 1: is sometimes just a big old dumb psychological experiment. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: over time, the market typically will correct itself as long
Speaker 1: as there is enough time for it to do so,
Speaker 1: and there's a lack of interference, but really this does
Speaker 1: nail home that we humans are emotional and often irrational
Speaker 1: creatures that can do a lot of harm without a
Speaker 1: lot of effort. The Washington Post most reports that the
Speaker 1: Israeli military has been employing facial recognition technology in a
Speaker 1: widespread surveillance campaign targeting Palestinians in the West Bank region.
Speaker 1: It's part of an initiative called Blue Wolf, and according
Speaker 1: to the Post, it involves the Israeli military taking photos
Speaker 1: of Palestinians and those photos go into a large database
Speaker 1: of images, and the Blue Wolf system looks for matches
Speaker 1: in its database and then sends a signal to the
Speaker 1: soldiers phone, and the phone will flash a color to
Speaker 1: the soldier indicating whether the person in the image should
Speaker 1: be left alone or if the soldiers should detain that
Speaker 1: person or even arrest them. Apparently, the military created incentives
Speaker 1: for soldiers to participate in this program, getting them to
Speaker 1: take thousands of photos of Palestinians in the process. There
Speaker 1: were even competitions for soldiers where they could win prizes
Speaker 1: if they took the most photos within a given amount
Speaker 1: of time. The system also interconnects with closed circuit UH
Speaker 1: security cameras. Those are found throughout the West Bank region.
Speaker 1: There in, in fact, are some of these cameras that
Speaker 1: aim at or into homes of Palestinians, So to call
Speaker 1: this invasive would be understating things to the extreme. And
Speaker 1: the fact that there were incentives for soldiers to be
Speaker 1: active participants in this really makes me think of the
Speaker 1: awful stop and frisk policy that we used to see
Speaker 1: in New York City not that long ago, in which
Speaker 1: police officers effectively had quotas they were expected to meet
Speaker 1: when it came to just stopping random citizens and frisking them,
Speaker 1: which led to disproportionate targeting of non white citizens. And
Speaker 1: as always, we have to remember that facial recognition technology
Speaker 1: is far from perfect. So even if you roll it
Speaker 1: out in a way that isn't you know, authoritarian and scary,
Speaker 1: the technology still makes mistakes and when it comes to
Speaker 1: stuff like deciding if someone should be detained or arrested,
Speaker 1: that really becomes a dystopian nightmare. After that one, I
Speaker 1: think we all could use a little bit of a break,
Speaker 1: So we will be back after these short messages. We're back.
Speaker 1: So the brokerage company robin Hood, which is known primarily
Speaker 1: as a fee free company that allows the average person
Speaker 1: to invest in you know. The stock market has recently
Speaker 1: announced that hackers had breached corporate systems and gained access
Speaker 1: to the personal information of around five million customers. Uh
Speaker 1: most of them, it was just their email addresses. However,
Speaker 1: the hackers were also able to see the full names
Speaker 1: of around two million robin Hood customers and apparently for
Speaker 1: a lucky three d robin Hood customers. The hackers also
Speaker 1: saw more personal information like there's zip code and their
Speaker 1: birth date and other stuff. Now, robin Hood says that
Speaker 1: the more sensitive information stuff like social security numbers or
Speaker 1: bank account numbers or debit card numbers, those were not
Speaker 1: part of this breach, so it definitely could have been
Speaker 1: a lot worse. And apparently the hackers were able to
Speaker 1: gain access through the tried and true method of social engineering,
Speaker 1: which essentially is a fancy way of saying they tricked
Speaker 1: someone into letting them in. So in this case, it
Speaker 1: seems like they fooled a customer support representative at robin
Speaker 1: Hood to grant them access to the system. The classic
Speaker 1: way of doing this, by the way, is that you
Speaker 1: pose as I T and that you need access to
Speaker 1: a system in order to install an update or otherwise
Speaker 1: do some sort of maintenance, and you trick someone into
Speaker 1: giving you that level of access. You know, obviously from
Speaker 1: a hacker standpoint, what you're aiming for is administrator level access.
Speaker 1: But sometimes, you know, you just take what you can get.
Speaker 1: That seems to be the case with robin Hood in
Speaker 1: this instant. So that's a classic way of getting access
Speaker 1: to a system. It doesn't require you to set it
Speaker 1: a keyboard and just randomly guess at passwords, which is
Speaker 1: that's how we typically see it in like Hollywood productions,
Speaker 1: you don't often see the social engineering side. Some shows
Speaker 1: and movies do that, but most of the time it's
Speaker 1: the whole No, it's not that no, it's not that oh, hey,
Speaker 1: you got it, which I mean, if it were that easy,
Speaker 1: then nothing would be safe. It's not that easy. By
Speaker 1: the way. You might also remember robin Hood as the
Speaker 1: company that was heavily criticized when individual investors wanted to
Speaker 1: invest in game Stop stock as part of a hedge
Speaker 1: fund squeeze campaign, and then they found that robin Hood,
Speaker 1: the supposed brokerage for the people, had put the brakes
Speaker 1: on that activity, saying that they didn't want to encourage
Speaker 1: market volatility and such, whereas the critics were saying that
Speaker 1: Robin Hood had corporate ties with individuals who had a
Speaker 1: financial stake in game Stop stock going down. If you
Speaker 1: don't remember that story, game Stop stock had been trading
Speaker 1: it around twenty dollars a share for a long time,
Speaker 1: and then uh, after months of enthusiasm, we saw more
Speaker 1: investors individual investors start to buy up game Stop stock,
Speaker 1: which drove the price up. At last I looked at
Speaker 1: with some trading it somewhere around two nineteen dollars, so,
Speaker 1: you know, ten times as valuable as it was a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. Pretty incredible. But the whole reason
Speaker 1: for that, or at least one of the reasons for that,
Speaker 1: was that there were these hedge funds that had recommended
Speaker 1: short selling the stock, which hinges on a stock price
Speaker 1: going down. With the stock price going up, it ended
Speaker 1: up putting the squeeze on these hedge funds. Anyway, just
Speaker 1: another fun story in the in the history of Robin Hood.
Speaker 1: In other hacker news, a group called fail overflow announced
Speaker 1: it had uncovered the root keys for PS five encryption,
Speaker 1: that is, the Sony PlayStation five. Now what does that
Speaker 1: actually mean. Well, let's suss this out, so consoles when
Speaker 1: you boil them down, video game consoles are just specialized computers.
Speaker 1: Not that I recommend you boil a video game console
Speaker 1: or any other computer for that matter, because that will
Speaker 1: definitely violate your warranty. But computers run software, right However,
Speaker 1: video game consoles typically have protections in place, so you
Speaker 1: can't just run any software you like on them. You
Speaker 1: can only run the stuff that the company allows you
Speaker 1: to run on them, so you can run specific software
Speaker 1: like games. So it's a gated community in other words,
Speaker 1: and the company behind the video game console controls gate access,
Speaker 1: but the encryption keys, the root keys, are essentially a
Speaker 1: way to fool the gate into thinking you're the authorized
Speaker 1: identity that can come and go as you please. That
Speaker 1: means you could potentially run other types of software on
Speaker 1: this console once you unlock it. Now to me, it
Speaker 1: sounds like the fail overflow group is really your classic
Speaker 1: hacker group. These are people who wonder how systems actually work,
Speaker 1: and then they figure it out, and then they learn
Speaker 1: how they can exploit those systems. You know, but by exploit,
Speaker 1: I really mean they just use it in a way
Speaker 1: that was not the way the creators intended. So running
Speaker 1: home brew software and a console doesn't have to involve
Speaker 1: stuff like pirating games, for example, And in fact, fail
Speaker 1: overflow has made statements that make me think that the
Speaker 1: hacker group really doesn't want to encourage piracy at all,
Speaker 1: just the opposite. In fact, however, the group also acknowledges
Speaker 1: that the majority of people who would actually use root
Speaker 1: keys would likely be doing so in order to pirate games.
Speaker 1: Perhaps for that reason, the group is not publishing the
Speaker 1: root keys. Oh so they have participated in the past
Speaker 1: and finding bugs in Sony platforms and and earning money
Speaker 1: that way, because a lot of companies will pay out
Speaker 1: essentially a bug bounty. In this case, I think it's
Speaker 1: a reminder that security systems are not perfect and they're
Speaker 1: not infallible. And this would be an argument that Sony
Speaker 1: had put in a maybe not a weak encryption scheme,
Speaker 1: but not the strongest that they could. Like, if it
Speaker 1: is something that is breakable, that's not great. It shows
Speaker 1: a weakness, and that's not necessarily meant to exploit that weakness,
Speaker 1: but rather perhaps an indication to the company, Hey, the
Speaker 1: way you did this was not very good. You need
Speaker 1: to do better. Ransomware attacks have been on the rise
Speaker 1: for the last couple of years, and the hacker group
Speaker 1: REvil is one of several that have been in the
Speaker 1: news lately. The U s Department of Justice recently announced
Speaker 1: that it had arrested someone alleged to be part of
Speaker 1: the Revill gang. This would be a Ukrainian man named
Speaker 1: Yaroslav Vazynski. Polish authorities detained Vezynski in October because US
Speaker 1: authorities had issued an indictment against Vizynski way back in August,
Speaker 1: and Vazynski now faces extradition hearings which could see him
Speaker 1: transferred to the United States to stand for trial for
Speaker 1: cyber crimes. In addition, the d o J announced that
Speaker 1: it had seized more than six million dollars in assets
Speaker 1: believed to be linked to Revil's ransomware activities. Now, this
Speaker 1: money did not come from Vezynski's accounts. Instead, they came
Speaker 1: from a Russian named Yavigny paulian In. And I know
Speaker 1: I've butchered the name. You don't have to let me know.
Speaker 1: I apologize, But it was a different member of REvil,
Speaker 1: or alleged member I should say of REvil. And he
Speaker 1: was also indicted in August. He remains at large, so
Speaker 1: he has not been taken into custody. Zynski is the
Speaker 1: third of Revil's alleged members to be arrested. They could
Speaker 1: potentially face a prison sentence of up to one hundred
Speaker 1: years if they were convicted on all counts against them,
Speaker 1: And I think this is really a campaign that's a
Speaker 1: message to ransomware gangs that if they are caught, they
Speaker 1: face a price that's much higher than what they can
Speaker 1: extort through ransomware attacks. But whether that acts as an
Speaker 1: actual deterrent remains to be seen. Recently, the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which most
Speaker 1: folks have heard of as the one point to trillion
Speaker 1: dollar infrastructure bill here in the United States. Now that
Speaker 1: there is a ton of stuff in that bill, and
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about a couple of tech related pieces.
Speaker 1: One of those is a sixty five billion dollar package
Speaker 1: to increase broadband internet access in the US. Most of
Speaker 1: that would go to subsidies to internet service providers that
Speaker 1: commit to building out broadband infrastructure into underserved areas. Some
Speaker 1: of the money will also go to subsidy programs that
Speaker 1: will help individual households so that they can afford broadband
Speaker 1: access plans and thus offset the cost that they would
Speaker 1: otherwise have to pay. These measures are a good step,
Speaker 1: but they represent a massive cut to what was originally
Speaker 1: in the bill. The original version of the bill set
Speaker 1: aside one hundred billion dollars to improve broadband access, so
Speaker 1: almost half of that got taken out by the time
Speaker 1: it finally was passed. Still, a little improvement is better
Speaker 1: than the status quo by definition, but it now falls
Speaker 1: to the various I s p s and the f
Speaker 1: c C to make sure that this plan actually leads
Speaker 1: to action and increased access once President Biden actually signs
Speaker 1: it into law. Of that is, so while the law
Speaker 1: is a good step in the right direction, it's not
Speaker 1: as big at step is what people were hoping for.
Speaker 1: And of course the activation is really what matters. Right.
Speaker 1: If these companies end up taking subsidies and then really
Speaker 1: drag their feet on actually building out the infrastructure, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really do anyone any good. And we have seen
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff happened in the past. Uh, hopefully
Speaker 1: that's not how it's gonna turn out this time. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's too early to say. We have a
Speaker 1: couple more stories that we're going to cover. But before
Speaker 1: we get to that, let's take another quick break. So
Speaker 1: I mentioned that there were a couple of pieces in
Speaker 1: that Infrastructure bill that related to tech. Well, another element
Speaker 1: is one that actually concerns me quite a bit, and
Speaker 1: I've talked about it in a previous tech Stuff tech
Speaker 1: News episode. So wrapped up in that Infrastructure bill is
Speaker 1: a mandate that car manufacturers will have to incorporate technology
Speaker 1: that can passively monitor drivers and identify whether or not
Speaker 1: the driver is operating a vehicle while impaired, and then
Speaker 1: go on to limit or prevent vehicle operation if the
Speaker 1: vehicle says, yeah, this person is kind of messed up. Now,
Speaker 1: let me be clear, if the technology we used to
Speaker 1: do this were amazingly accurate, and the implementation in systems
Speaker 1: that would limit motor vehicle operation were proven to be
Speaker 1: both effective and safe, I would be all for this.
Speaker 1: I don't want intoxicated or otherwise impaired drivers to operate vehicles,
Speaker 1: potentially putting themselves and others in severe danger. I don't
Speaker 1: want that to happen. I think driving well intoxicated is Honestly,
Speaker 1: I think of it as an unforgivable act because I
Speaker 1: think it shows a flagrant disregard for human life and safety,
Speaker 1: and it's so alien to me that I absolutely condemn it. However,
Speaker 1: my big problem is that the tech we have today
Speaker 1: isn't totally reliable. Now, car companies will have to start
Speaker 1: implementing this by around so it still gives us some time.
Speaker 1: But you also have to remember that incorporating this takes years, right,
Speaker 1: you have to you know, the whole process of developing
Speaker 1: a car can be a two year process, so it's
Speaker 1: really not that far out when you start thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: we have to incorporate this within the that really means
Speaker 1: that car companies have to actively start working on implementation
Speaker 1: by four And the fact that the tech is not
Speaker 1: fully reliable is a potentially enormous problem. Like you could
Speaker 1: have a car mistakenly identify someone as being intoxicated, and
Speaker 1: then that person would suddenly find that they can't drive
Speaker 1: their car. That would be a problem, right, even if
Speaker 1: they aren't actually inhibited in any other way, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to use their car because the car had
Speaker 1: mistakenly identified them as being intoxicated. That's bad. But if
Speaker 1: the system fails to detect that someone is intoxicated when
Speaker 1: they actually are that's like having no system in there
Speaker 1: at all. Like, it's essentially the same as if you
Speaker 1: didn't have a system. So if it doesn't have a
Speaker 1: high enough level of accuracy and detecting it, you might
Speaker 1: as well not even have it. On top of that,
Speaker 1: we've seen with Tesla's autopilot and it's full self driving
Speaker 1: systems that features that are meant to take over for
Speaker 1: a human driver can sometimes be dangerous themselves. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that these systems are more dangerous than an
Speaker 1: inebriated driver, right that would be ridiculous for me to suggest. However,
Speaker 1: they haven't been proven to actually be safe. And so
Speaker 1: if you say let's replace this one definitively very unsafe
Speaker 1: act with another that has yet to be proven to
Speaker 1: be safe, that doesn't seem like it's a good move
Speaker 1: to me. I feel like this is an example of
Speaker 1: people who are relying upon technology to solve a problem
Speaker 1: that the tech just isn't up to solving yet. And again,
Speaker 1: I do get that this is a very real problem
Speaker 1: that we need a solution. We need to address the
Speaker 1: problem of drivers who drive under the influence, because they
Speaker 1: stand to be an enormous danger to others, and it's
Speaker 1: awful that there's not some you know, easy way to
Speaker 1: do this that does and involves severely restricting someone's freedom.
Speaker 1: I'm just worried that technology, at least as it is
Speaker 1: right now, is not the right solution, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's not it's not able to do what
Speaker 1: we are depending upon it to do. And if we
Speaker 1: dust off our hands and say, all right, we sorted
Speaker 1: that out, now, let's go on to the next problem,
Speaker 1: what we're really doing is just setting ourselves up for
Speaker 1: tragedy in the future when the tech falls short and
Speaker 1: people are still being people. That is, we still have
Speaker 1: some people who get inebriated and then insist on driving,
Speaker 1: and I you know, I'll also point out that there
Speaker 1: will be people who argue that this sort of thing
Speaker 1: kind of infringes on freedoms and whatnot. For the record,
Speaker 1: that's not my objection. I don't I'm not one of
Speaker 1: those people who says this tech is infringing upon my
Speaker 1: freedom because I don't believe in freedom extending to the
Speaker 1: point where you can put other people in danger. My
Speaker 1: argument is more along the lines of if I drink poison,
Speaker 1: getting someone to put a band aid on my finger
Speaker 1: is not solving the problem, right, It's not addressing the
Speaker 1: actual thing. The solution is not really a solution. And
Speaker 1: that's what I worry about when it comes to tech
Speaker 1: as a way of preventing drunk driving. I just I
Speaker 1: am not convinced that it actually is doing anything helpful. Now. Hopefully,
Speaker 1: by the time car companies have to, you know, work
Speaker 1: within this mandate because it is law now, maybe that
Speaker 1: will all be sorted out, and hopefully it means that
Speaker 1: we'll see a drastic reduction of injuries and deaths due
Speaker 1: to drivers who would otherwise be operating a vehicle while
Speaker 1: under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicating effects. I
Speaker 1: just I worry that it's not gonna be a real solution.
Speaker 1: All Right, I'm done. I know I wind on about
Speaker 1: that for way too long, but it's something that I
Speaker 1: recognize in a lot of places where people, you know,
Speaker 1: see a problem and they just say tech will sort
Speaker 1: that out, and they walk away without really without really
Speaker 1: coming up with an effective approach. The same thing, by
Speaker 1: the way, happens with climate change. I know tons of
Speaker 1: people who said we'll engineer our way out of climate
Speaker 1: change without actually proposing any actionable engineering approaches to dealing
Speaker 1: with climate change, which is the same thing as saying
Speaker 1: that's a future Jonathan problem. It never works out well
Speaker 1: for future Jonathan. Future Jonathan invariably hates present day Jonathan
Speaker 1: and really hates past Jonathan. I can say that with certainty.
Speaker 1: All Right, A while back, in fact, quite a bit
Speaker 1: ways back, I did a series of episodes about the
Speaker 1: company General Electric a k A. G E. In fact,
Speaker 1: I plan on running those episodes next week because I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be on vacation next week, so we're gonna rerun
Speaker 1: the g E episodes. But I've got an update to
Speaker 1: the GE story, and that's the company recently announced it
Speaker 1: is going to split into three separate companies over the
Speaker 1: near future. One is going to focus on energy, one
Speaker 1: company will focus on the healthcare industry, and the third
Speaker 1: company will focus on aviation. Now, this split again, it's
Speaker 1: not happening immediately. It's not like, you know, they just
Speaker 1: did a reverse Vultron. Instead, GE announced that it will
Speaker 1: spin off the healthcare organization sometime in the beginning of
Speaker 1: three and then the energy division will spin off sometime
Speaker 1: in early The idea is that each individual company will
Speaker 1: be more focused with its own specific leadership in order
Speaker 1: to direct company efforts to excel in those specific industries
Speaker 1: without having to worry about the other division. Current ge
Speaker 1: CEO Lawrence Culp said he will lead the Aviation division
Speaker 1: and that's the one that is going to hold on
Speaker 1: to the g E name. And finally, Nintendo has given
Speaker 1: video game console fans something to look forward to. The
Speaker 1: company announced in an earning skull the plans to release
Speaker 1: a brand new video game console. So the Switch, which
Speaker 1: is Nintendo's most recent console, launched in ten and Nintendo
Speaker 1: gave the Switch a little bit of a glow up
Speaker 1: earlier this year, releasing an O led screen version that
Speaker 1: had some modest tweaks, uh, the biggest one being a larger,
Speaker 1: brighter screen that was an old screen, but not nothing
Speaker 1: revolutionary like it was a It was an incremental step,
Speaker 1: not a not like a full premium upgrade. But they're
Speaker 1: also had not been any word of a successor to
Speaker 1: the Nintendo Switch, So this is really big news. When
Speaker 1: can you expect the as yet unnamed Nintendo console, Well,
Speaker 1: it will happen sometime between today and December thirty one,
Speaker 1: two thousand YEP. According to the slide deck in the
Speaker 1: earnings call, we should expect a new console sometime in
Speaker 1: the year two zero x x, so that means sometime
Speaker 1: in the next seventy two years or so we should
Speaker 1: get a new Nintendo console. Now, sure you could argue
Speaker 1: that's not really news at all, because surely Nintendo would
Speaker 1: release something between now and the end of the century.
Speaker 1: But to you, I say, come on, get off my back.
Speaker 1: I wanted something silly to end this episode with, and
Speaker 1: this one one out all right. That is the tech
Speaker 1: news for Tuesday, November nine, twenty one. If you have
Speaker 1: suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes of
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff, reach out to me. The best way to
Speaker 1: do that is with Twitter. Use the Twitter handled text
Speaker 1: stuff H s W and that'll get in touch with me. Also,
Speaker 1: as a reminder, I am on vacation. Next week we
Speaker 1: will be rerunning the g E Story episodes and on Thursday,
Speaker 1: I believe we will have of next week we will
Speaker 1: have a Smart Talks with IBM episode and then I'll
Speaker 1: be back the following week and we will be back
Speaker 1: to business as usual. And until all that time, I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again, really Sion like tomorrow text Stuff
Speaker 1: is an I heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.