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 a love of all things tech. And this is
Speaker 1: the tech news for Tuesday, February twenty three, twenty one. Yesterday,
Speaker 1: Spotify announced a ton of stuff that I would like
Speaker 1: to touch on. Before I get to that, I should
Speaker 1: give you all a disclaimer. I'm an employee of I
Speaker 1: Heart Media and Spotify is a competing company in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Also, what I say here is from
Speaker 1: my own perspective. It doesn't reflect any sort of official
Speaker 1: I heart stance, mostly because I'm not important enough to
Speaker 1: even know if there is an official stance, let alone
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. So let's get to those announcements.
Speaker 1: One of them is that Spotify is launching a Hi
Speaker 1: Fi or high fidelity premium subscription service later this year.
Speaker 1: The service will give subscribers access to lossless streaming audio
Speaker 1: quality and a quick word on that. Back when data
Speaker 1: throughput had a lot less behind it, it was really
Speaker 1: important to compress file sizes so that downloads wouldn't take
Speaker 1: sadar and long. But many of those compression strategies meant
Speaker 1: that this process would also give the boot to some
Speaker 1: of the files data stuff that was deemed unnecessary. When
Speaker 1: it came to audio, this meant that you would end
Speaker 1: up with lossy audio files like m P three's. These
Speaker 1: were ones that had shed some of the information and
Speaker 1: thus some of the depth and vibrancy of the audio recording. Now,
Speaker 1: Spotify is not the first to go with a lossless
Speaker 1: audio streaming service. Deezer, Title and Amazon Music all have
Speaker 1: loss lists options for premium subscribers. Now, I honestly don't
Speaker 1: know how big this is in general. I don't have
Speaker 1: a good finger on the pulse of the average consumer.
Speaker 1: My sense is that most people really like the convenience
Speaker 1: of streaming services and portable music options in general, and
Speaker 1: that they don't really care quite as much about the
Speaker 1: actual fidelity of the music they listen to. But I
Speaker 1: could be totally in the wrong here. That's just from
Speaker 1: my own, you know, feeling. I still like listening to
Speaker 1: music on high quality now and again, but that tends
Speaker 1: to be on a home system using outdated media. At
Speaker 1: this point, most of the time, I'm actually just listening
Speaker 1: to stuff without worrying about the fidelity as much I'm
Speaker 1: a monster, I know. Spotify has also been making some
Speaker 1: really big moves and podcasting, and has been for a
Speaker 1: little while now. They have launched several podcasts that are
Speaker 1: exclusive to the platform, and they've brought on others and
Speaker 1: made them exclusive to Spotify. That exclusivity approach is a
Speaker 1: tough one. You're trying to lure people over to using
Speaker 1: a specific platform with content that's unique to that platform,
Speaker 1: which is a different approach from how we do things
Speaker 1: over at my Heart, for example, our shows appear on
Speaker 1: all platforms, from my tunes to Spotify, to the I
Speaker 1: Heart app and everything. Now, there's nothing necessarily wrong with
Speaker 1: launching an exclusive show for your platform, except that you
Speaker 1: run into the danger of limiting that shows audience. We
Speaker 1: learned through the experience of Microsoft Mixer, for example, that
Speaker 1: it doesn't always work to try and bring over heavy
Speaker 1: hitters to create exclusive content and thus grow your audience
Speaker 1: that way. That doesn't always work out the best. If
Speaker 1: the creator of the show is getting paid truckloads of
Speaker 1: cash in return for their agreement, they might not really
Speaker 1: care so much if their audience isn't as huge. But
Speaker 1: for smaller creators, exclusivity can sometimes mean that you never
Speaker 1: get your feet under you. Still, Spotify does have some
Speaker 1: truly heavy hitters in the space. The company has signed
Speaker 1: a deal with d C Comics and there will be
Speaker 1: numerous podcasts set in the d C Comic universe. The
Speaker 1: first of those will be Batman Unburied. And Spotify also
Speaker 1: signed a deal with the A G. Bio production company
Speaker 1: founded by the Russo brothers. That's the pair behind Avengers
Speaker 1: Infinity War and Avengers in the Game, so they've got
Speaker 1: some serious star power behind them. It remains to be
Speaker 1: seen if that is going to pull uh significantly more
Speaker 1: users over onto that platform. Not long ago, Spotify acquired
Speaker 1: the podcast hosting platform Megaphone, which includes a feature called
Speaker 1: streaming ad Insertion. Now, if you've ever listened to an
Speaker 1: old episode of Tech Stuff or Stuff you Should Know,
Speaker 1: or Stuff you missed in history class or something like that,
Speaker 1: you might have noticed that the ads that run on
Speaker 1: any show, whether it's from the Deep Archives or not,
Speaker 1: are their recent ads. So the episodes could be several
Speaker 1: years old, but the ads are new, and that's because
Speaker 1: of tools like streaming ad Insertion. Essentially that let's podcasters
Speaker 1: designate specific tagged segments like time codes within a podcast,
Speaker 1: and ads can swap out dynamically in those spots. This
Speaker 1: gives podcasters the chance to leverage their whole back catalog
Speaker 1: for ad deals, not just the most recent episodes. So
Speaker 1: it also means you're not going to hear a five
Speaker 1: year old advertisement for a toothbrush or a mattress and
Speaker 1: has a code that doesn't work anymore. Spotify is building
Speaker 1: out its ad capabilities for podcasters was something called the
Speaker 1: Spotify Audience Network. Details are a little scarce, but the
Speaker 1: company says that the service will help podcasters monetize their
Speaker 1: shows more effectively. The plan is to first roll out
Speaker 1: the service to Spotify's exclusive podcasts, and then sometime further
Speaker 1: down the line, they will roll it out to third
Speaker 1: party podcasts that are on the Spotify platform. The company
Speaker 1: also announced new creator tools during its live event for
Speaker 1: musical artists. These tools are meant to help with discovery
Speaker 1: and making sales to new customers. The artists will be
Speaker 1: able to select which tracks they want to prioritize for
Speaker 1: discovery purposes, and Spotify will use a pop up notification
Speaker 1: called Marquis to get attention from users. Markie was actually
Speaker 1: introduced last year in twenty twenties. Just now it's going
Speaker 1: to have some new features in it and get rolled
Speaker 1: out to a larger number of artists, and that means
Speaker 1: that we're gonna see a lot more artists potentially get
Speaker 1: discovered through this tool. I think that's really cool. I
Speaker 1: think discovery remains one of the toughest challenges for any
Speaker 1: content creator, regardless of what medium they're working within and
Speaker 1: what platform they're using. Discovery is just tough. We know
Speaker 1: that more people than ever are creating awesome stuff and
Speaker 1: putting it up online, and it is really challenging to
Speaker 1: find the really good stuff among everything else that's being uploaded.
Speaker 1: So I'm all four tools that allow creators to get
Speaker 1: more eyeballs or ears as the case may be, on
Speaker 1: their work and in non Spotify news, because believe me,
Speaker 1: we actually have some. Google is lifting its ban on
Speaker 1: political ads starting tomorrow. Google first put a ban on
Speaker 1: political advertising following the insurrection at the nation's capital on
Speaker 1: January six. Though Google only started the ban on January,
Speaker 1: that particular ban expires tomorrow, that being Wednesday, and it
Speaker 1: will mean that Google will accept political ads, including those
Speaker 1: that focus on specific people whether those are candidates or
Speaker 1: an elected official, as well as ballot measures. So if
Speaker 1: you're in the United States, you might be groaning a
Speaker 1: little bit at the thought of all this, because as
Speaker 1: we just went through a truly tumultuous election, and the
Speaker 1: thought of having another round of political ads hit us
Speaker 1: so soon afterward is a bit disheartening. I would say. Facebook,
Speaker 1: for the record, also has a ban on political ads
Speaker 1: in place, and at least as of the time of
Speaker 1: this recording, that ban is still in place. It will
Speaker 1: be interesting to see if Google's decision will affect Facebook
Speaker 1: or if this will just be a diverging path with
Speaker 1: Google accepting ads and Facebook continuing to ban them. By
Speaker 1: the time this episode goes out, we might know more
Speaker 1: than maybe that Facebook will have already changed its own path.
Speaker 1: I don't know. If you've got Netflix running on an
Speaker 1: Android device, you might have some new stuff to watch.
Speaker 1: The company has a feature called Downloads for You, and
Speaker 1: the idea is that Netflix will select content based on
Speaker 1: your viewing habits, and it will pre download stuff you
Speaker 1: haven't watched yet for you, so you can watch it whenever,
Speaker 1: even if you don't have a current Internet connection. You know,
Speaker 1: like we used to have to do on airplanes. I
Speaker 1: vaguely remember flying on airplanes. Anyway, you get to choose
Speaker 1: the data limit for this feature if you even wanted
Speaker 1: on at all. It's an opt in, so you can
Speaker 1: go and turn on this option if you do want it.
Speaker 1: You can choose to limit the data to one gigabyte,
Speaker 1: three gigabytes, or five gigabytes. Also, the service will only
Speaker 1: download content when it's over a WiFi connection, so you
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about it eating up all of
Speaker 1: the data on your cellular plan. I don't think I
Speaker 1: would opt into this, but only because I tend to
Speaker 1: watch really really bad movies on Netflix so that I
Speaker 1: can talk about them with my buddies Eric and I
Speaker 1: as and I don't need Netflix judging me more than
Speaker 1: it already does, or providing me the next Shark Nado
Speaker 1: movie before I'm really emotionally prepared for it. We do
Speaker 1: know that this same service is coming to the iOS
Speaker 1: versions of Netflix later on. I'm curious to see how
Speaker 1: many people actually use it. Again, this gets into discovery,
Speaker 1: the idea that Netflix is looking at the sort of
Speaker 1: stuff you tend to view, drawing conclusions, and then selecting
Speaker 1: stuff for you that it thinks you're going to like
Speaker 1: based on your previous behaviors. Another version of AI knowing
Speaker 1: ourselves better than we do. A study funded by the
Speaker 1: Jane and Autos Erko Foundation and the Academy of Finland
Speaker 1: found that the more human robot appears, the more harshly
Speaker 1: we judge that robots actions, at least under a very
Speaker 1: specific hypothetical situation. So the team gave this hypothetical situation
Speaker 1: two people and had different versions of the scenario and
Speaker 1: ask them to kind of grade the morality of a
Speaker 1: person or robots to decision. And the problem was a
Speaker 1: classic one, the trolley problem. You probably know this one generally.
Speaker 1: They it's presented as the Other's a trolley that's hurtling
Speaker 1: down a track and it's about to collide with a
Speaker 1: group of five people, and if it does, it will
Speaker 1: kill all five. You happen to be standing next to
Speaker 1: a rail switch, and if you throw the switch, the
Speaker 1: trolley will change to a new track of rails, and
Speaker 1: it will definitely kill one person who's on that track,
Speaker 1: but the five people on the other track will all
Speaker 1: be spared. So would you do nothing and thus allow
Speaker 1: five people to die through your inaction, or would you
Speaker 1: throw the switch, thus dooming that one person on the
Speaker 1: other track to die. I mean effectively you're killing someone, right,
Speaker 1: I mean you're either killing someone by not acting at all,
Speaker 1: or killing five people by not acting at all, or
Speaker 1: you're actively killing someone by throwing a switch. It's almost
Speaker 1: like having a loaded gun and you pull the trigger
Speaker 1: in that case. So my point is there's not necessarily
Speaker 1: a right answer to this question, or maybe not a
Speaker 1: single right answer. It all depends upon your perspective and
Speaker 1: whether you think that saving five people is worth dooming
Speaker 1: someone else to death, or if you think somehow by
Speaker 1: not acting absolves you of the responsibility. Well, the study
Speaker 1: found that when people were presented with this scenario in
Speaker 1: which a human had to make the decision or a
Speaker 1: very utilitarian robot had to make the decision, the response
Speaker 1: to those decisions were essentially that both that human and
Speaker 1: that robot were making morally sound choices. However, the more
Speaker 1: human the robot was supposed to be, the more harshly
Speaker 1: people judged it. The more they said, oh, that's not
Speaker 1: a moral choice, which is weird, right, because they would
Speaker 1: give a pass to the regular robot and they would
Speaker 1: give a pass to the human, but a human looking
Speaker 1: robot suddenly seemed like that was different somehow, even though
Speaker 1: it's the same situations. Now. This is just one study,
Speaker 1: mind you, but it does show how the field of
Speaker 1: robotics hinges not just on technology but also human psychology,
Speaker 1: and the field of human and robot interactions is one
Speaker 1: I really find fascinating. And our last story is after
Speaker 1: twenty eight years, daft Punk has split up and retired.
Speaker 1: They were incredibly influential in the house and techno music genres.
Speaker 1: They were known for not just their music, but their
Speaker 1: live performances, which became increasingly rare over the years. I
Speaker 1: think Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger gets rediscovered every few years,
Speaker 1: which just shows how amazing their ability was to craft music.
Speaker 1: They also created the incredible soundtrack to Tron Legacy, and
Speaker 1: I maintained that that score and Michael Shean's performance were
Speaker 1: really the two standouts of that movie. Their last album
Speaker 1: came out in so long daft Punk, thanks for all
Speaker 1: the tunes, And that wraps up the headlines for today, Tuesday,
Speaker 1: February one. We'll be back tomorrow with a full episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff. If you guys have suggestions, for things
Speaker 1: I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, give
Speaker 1: me a shout let me know on Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: we use is text stuff hs W and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.