Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. Heythren,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm
Speaker 1: an executive producer with iHeart Radio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. It's time for the tech news for Tuesday,
Speaker 1: April nineteenth, twenty twenty two. And you know, it's been
Speaker 1: a whole week since we learned of Elon Musk's desire
Speaker 1: to outright purchase controlling shares of Twitter, And as Emperor
Speaker 1: Palpatine would say, everything is proceeding exactly as I have foreseen,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, a more fun way to say
Speaker 1: I told you so. You might remember last week on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: I said that Musk's decision not to take a seat
Speaker 1: at the board of directors at Twitter could indicate that
Speaker 1: he was actually going to try for a hostile takeover,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of situation, And then the next
Speaker 1: day we learned that's exactly what he was doing. Then
Speaker 1: you might remember on last Thursday, I said that Twitter's
Speaker 1: board of directors might choose a pathway to foil that
Speaker 1: plan by implementing a poison pill strategy, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: that's what they did. So look at me, I can
Speaker 1: see the future except, of course, I think pretty much
Speaker 1: anyone paying any attention to this would have come to
Speaker 1: the same conclusion. So really I'm nothing special. Anyway. You
Speaker 1: might wonder what the heck a poison pill is, and
Speaker 1: there's actually a couple of different versions of it, but
Speaker 1: the one that Twitter looks to be employing looks like
Speaker 1: a flip in poison pill to me. I'd have to
Speaker 1: actually read more about it to find out. But this
Speaker 1: is where a company seeing that's in danger of being
Speaker 1: acquired ends up offering up new shares of stock to
Speaker 1: existing shareholders, but they exclude the party that's actually trying
Speaker 1: to acquire the company. So they're saying, hey, we've got
Speaker 1: new shares and you can buy them in discount, so
Speaker 1: you can buy them cheaper than what they're going for
Speaker 1: on the market. That gets a live shareholders to buy
Speaker 1: up shares. That dilutes the would be acquirers ownership. Right,
Speaker 1: You've got more shares of the stuff going out there,
Speaker 1: but the acquirer can't get hold of them, so their
Speaker 1: steak in elon Musk's case, we're talking around nine two
Speaker 1: starts to get smaller because there's more, there's more pie
Speaker 1: out there and they're not allowed to get any more
Speaker 1: of the pie. This also can have a big impact
Speaker 1: on the value of the stocks themselves, and in the
Speaker 1: short term, it can make it way more expensive to
Speaker 1: complete a takeover. And Musk has already kind of given
Speaker 1: his um his his final bid of what he will spend.
Speaker 1: But you know, if he has to buy even more
Speaker 1: shares of stock in order to get that controlling interest,
Speaker 1: that it's going to cost him more because there are
Speaker 1: more shares out there now. Usk has in return tweeted
Speaker 1: that should his acquisition succeed, one of the first moves
Speaker 1: he's gonna make is he's going to reduce the salary
Speaker 1: of the board of directors to zero dollars. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is kind of a knockdown, drag out, ugly business fight
Speaker 1: in the tech space. Uh, still too early to say
Speaker 1: exactly what's gonna happen. I would be surprised if the
Speaker 1: acquisition goes through. I would actually be surprised if Elon
Speaker 1: Musk is really sincere about going after it. But I
Speaker 1: don't know the man, and um it could very well
Speaker 1: be that this is legit what he wants to do.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg reports that Tesla's factory in Shanghai is really shifting
Speaker 1: into a higher gear pun intended, and this is in
Speaker 1: the wake of shutdowns in the region due to COVID.
Speaker 1: Now you might remember that China takes a pretty drastic
Speaker 1: approach to addressing COVID outbreaks. The government forces entire regions
Speaker 1: to shut down and isolate. That includes regions that host
Speaker 1: massive industrial facilities like the Shanghai Tesla facility, which was
Speaker 1: closed for three weeks because of COVID. So now the
Speaker 1: bosses at the factory are looking at a way to
Speaker 1: make up for lost time and also to prevent future shutdowns,
Speaker 1: and they are doing this by forcing employees to stay
Speaker 1: in the factory for several weeks all the time, like
Speaker 1: they're not allowed to go home, so that includes sleeping
Speaker 1: at the factory. Reportedly, the company has been handing out
Speaker 1: mattresses and sleeping bags to employees and they will have
Speaker 1: to stay on the premises. Now, presumably this is also
Speaker 1: to head off the possibility of another outbreak, because if
Speaker 1: one does occur in Shanghai, while the factory would then
Speaker 1: have to shut down, but by having all of its
Speaker 1: employees already at the factory, they can just shut down
Speaker 1: in place and just keep on producing cars even while
Speaker 1: the rest of the region is on lockdown. UM as
Speaker 1: for the employees, you know, quality of life, I guess
Speaker 1: it's not all bad. They will have designated places where
Speaker 1: they're allowed to sleep on the floor of the shiny
Speaker 1: Tesla factory. Uh. They'll also have access to shower facilities.
Speaker 1: They will get three meals a day, and they will
Speaker 1: get an allowance equivalent to about sixty dollars a day luxury.
Speaker 1: I'm being a bit facetious here. Tesla initiated the plan
Speaker 1: yesterday and they will continue to force employees to live
Speaker 1: at the factory until at least May first. Oh brave
Speaker 1: New world to have such corporations in it. And news
Speaker 1: related to electric vehicles are j Scaringe, the CEO of
Speaker 1: the electric adventure vehicle company Rivian, has echoed concerns that
Speaker 1: Elon Musk made a few months ago, so really repeating
Speaker 1: something that Musk has already said, which is that the
Speaker 1: world's ability to produce batteries that are suitable for electric
Speaker 1: vehicles is way behind what demand is going to be
Speaker 1: in just a few years. As governments around the world
Speaker 1: are passing legislation that will ban the sale of new
Speaker 1: internal combustion engine vehicles in the not too distant future.
Speaker 1: The general assumption is that electric vehicles are going to
Speaker 1: take their place. But electric vehicles need batteries, and right now,
Speaker 1: the world just doesn't produce that many of them, certainly
Speaker 1: not enough to meet global demand assuming a shift to
Speaker 1: E VS from I sees, that is, electric vehicles from
Speaker 1: internal combustion engine vehicles. Now. Our j told The Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal that, quote, the world's cell production combined represents
Speaker 1: well under ten percent of what we will need in
Speaker 1: ten years end. Quote. So this point is, unless there's
Speaker 1: a massive change, including huge investments in production, and that's
Speaker 1: going to involve everything from mining the raw materials to
Speaker 1: manufacturing the batteries themselves. Unless there's this massive increase across
Speaker 1: the board, we are going to encounter a supply change
Speaker 1: shortage that makes the semiconductor crisis look quaint by comparison.
Speaker 1: The demand for vehicles will still be very high, but
Speaker 1: supply will be insufficient. Like if you're in a world
Speaker 1: where you can't sell internal combustion engine vehicles and it
Speaker 1: has to be an electric vehicle, but you're only able
Speaker 1: to produce ten of the electric vehicle batteries needed to
Speaker 1: meet the world's demand. You could easily imagine that vehicle
Speaker 1: prices would hit the stratosphere. I mean, demand is always
Speaker 1: going to be intense, people are always going to need vehicles,
Speaker 1: Supply will be very very low. That means that even
Speaker 1: a simple car like one that doesn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of bells and whistles on it could be well beyond
Speaker 1: the purchasing range of most people. And so people like
Speaker 1: Musk and r J are making the argument that while
Speaker 1: a change to e VS makes sense from an environmental standpoint,
Speaker 1: like it makes sense for us to get off of
Speaker 1: internal combustion engine vehicles, there's no denying that there are
Speaker 1: still practical challenges that we have to acknowledge and tackle
Speaker 1: if we are going to make it happen. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, it's not this is a bad idea, but
Speaker 1: rather this is unsupportable unless we figure something out. Otherwise
Speaker 1: we're just going to be in a different crisis of
Speaker 1: our own making. In our ongoing coverage of how the
Speaker 1: labor movement in the United States is affecting the tech sector,
Speaker 1: the Washington Post reports that employees at the main Apple
Speaker 1: store in New York City have begun to circulate petitions
Speaker 1: in an effort to unionize. The employees leading the effort
Speaker 1: have taken the quaint name fruit Stand Workers United, because
Speaker 1: you know Apple fruit Stand cute. Among the employees, concerns
Speaker 1: are that pay has remained stagnant even as inflation increases,
Speaker 1: which just means that employees are effectively earning less over time. Also,
Speaker 1: they claim that employees have been subjected to quote unquote
Speaker 1: unfair or abusive practices. The process of forming a union
Speaker 1: requires several steps. First, the employees have to collect signatures.
Speaker 1: This is getting people to sign a union card, and
Speaker 1: at least of the employees at the store would have
Speaker 1: to sign a card. They would then submit those signed
Speaker 1: cards to the National Labor Relations Board, which would then
Speaker 1: authorize a vote for the employees to to hold about
Speaker 1: whether or not to form a union. UH This would
Speaker 1: take a majority vote for the n l r B
Speaker 1: two back an employee union. Apple would then have to
Speaker 1: either acknowledge the union or try to fight back and
Speaker 1: refuse to acknowledge it, at which point the employees would
Speaker 1: likely have to lean on the n l r B
Speaker 1: to support them in order to force Apple's hand and
Speaker 1: accept the union's existence. Now, according to the Post employees.
Speaker 1: At least a few other app stores are also exploring
Speaker 1: the possibility of forming unions. So, like I've said several
Speaker 1: times in the recent past, it does look like we're
Speaker 1: seeing a bit of a labor movement in the US
Speaker 1: these days. We've got more to say about labor and
Speaker 1: tech and lots of other stuff, including some cool science
Speaker 1: fiction e stuff. But first, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: over at Amazon. The company has a court mandate ordering
Speaker 1: them to reinstate Gerald Bryson. So two years ago, Bryson
Speaker 1: protested working conditions in the Staten Island fulfillment center where
Speaker 1: he worked. He argued that conditions in the facility were unsafe,
Speaker 1: particularly due to COVID, because this was just as COVID
Speaker 1: was starting to become a major thing, and that he
Speaker 1: and his fellow co workers were in danger working in
Speaker 1: those conditions. Amazon subsequently terminated his employment, and Bryson brought
Speaker 1: a lawsuit against the company and argued that the grounds
Speaker 1: for termination were purely retaliatory for his protest. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, it was the company striking back at him
Speaker 1: for bringing attention to these matters, and that's against the
Speaker 1: law here in the United States. The court agreed with Bryson.
Speaker 1: They ruled that Amazon had unfairly fired him in retaliation
Speaker 1: for his protest, and Judge Benjamin W. Green has ordered
Speaker 1: Amazon to reinstate Bryson to his former position, as well
Speaker 1: as pay him back pay owed to him because he
Speaker 1: should have been employed that whole time, since the termination
Speaker 1: was unjust. Bryson worked at the same facility in Staten
Speaker 1: Island that recently held its own successful push to unionize,
Speaker 1: so again ties into what we were talking about before
Speaker 1: the break. Amazon also released a statement last week two
Speaker 1: shareholders announcing that it has hired a law firm that's
Speaker 1: led by Lauretta Lynch, a former U. S Attorney General,
Speaker 1: to conduct an awe it on the company's policies and
Speaker 1: practices with regard to how they affect racial equity. However,
Speaker 1: Amazon's current plan only focuses on hourly employees. It does
Speaker 1: not cover salaried employees. Current and former employees who have
Speaker 1: filed lawsuits against Amazon arguing that you know Amazon's work
Speaker 1: place conditions have led to things like racist treatment. They
Speaker 1: say that Amazon's plan is not enough. In fact, some
Speaker 1: of those employees are or were salaried ones, and they
Speaker 1: point out that their cases, their complaints wouldn't register in
Speaker 1: such an audit, they wouldn't count, and that Amazon's plan
Speaker 1: was designed specifically to limit the damage the audit might do.
Speaker 1: In addition, the plan won't extend to employees at places
Speaker 1: like Whole Foods Market. It's just that the Amazon facilities
Speaker 1: themselves and Amazon reps say that the audit will cover
Speaker 1: the largest part of the company's workforce. That you know,
Speaker 1: the hourly workforce makes the vast majority already of Amazon's payroll,
Speaker 1: so this is a good audit. Critics, however, claim that
Speaker 1: it's really Amazon's way to have a little bit of
Speaker 1: damage control. Um. I'm sure the truth is somewhere in
Speaker 1: the middle, and we'll have to wait to see what
Speaker 1: the audit uncovers. Janko Ritger's of Protocol reports that Amazon
Speaker 1: has a couple of job listings that might indicate the
Speaker 1: company's foray into mixed or extended reality endeavors. One such
Speaker 1: listing says the employee will work on creating extended reality
Speaker 1: concepts that will eventually at least coalesce into a product
Speaker 1: of some sort, but no other real details were mentioned.
Speaker 1: I guess that makes sense. I mean, you don't want
Speaker 1: to spell everything out in a job listing, but the
Speaker 1: listings in general indicate the Amazon is interested in developing, producing,
Speaker 1: and marketing those kinds of devices. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: stuff that could be virtual reality or augmented reality or
Speaker 1: something in between. And since everyone is gung ho for
Speaker 1: the metaverse, this should not come as a huge surprise.
Speaker 1: The vision of the metaverse includes the back end, which
Speaker 1: is the actual stuff we will encounter as we navigate
Speaker 1: through the metaverse. But then you also have the front end,
Speaker 1: the technology that we will be using to access the
Speaker 1: metaverse in the first place. Right now, companies like Meta
Speaker 1: are way in the lead on that front, having at
Speaker 1: least reached modest success with their VR products. A R
Speaker 1: has had a bit of a tougher go, partly because
Speaker 1: the really cool stuff has it made it to the
Speaker 1: consumer market. I mean, I think the Microsoft hollow lens
Speaker 1: demonstrations I saw. I never got to try one myself,
Speaker 1: I only got to see videos of them. Those demonstrations
Speaker 1: were super nifty. I thought they were really cool. But
Speaker 1: Microsoft has kind of held that tech back from consumer technology. Uh,
Speaker 1: they market it to companies for all sorts of official purposes,
Speaker 1: like for training and for engineering and that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: which makes sense, but you know, I really want to
Speaker 1: get my grubby little hands on the thing. Plus, one
Speaker 1: of the demos they showed off included a Minecraft demo,
Speaker 1: and come on, you're gonna show off Minecraft. It's got
Speaker 1: to become a consumer technology, right Anyway, I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: that Amazon getting into this space really comes as a surprise.
Speaker 1: It's just interesting to see confirmation in the form of
Speaker 1: job listings. As for what kind of timeline we should
Speaker 1: expect before we start seeing Amazon branded mixed reality systems,
Speaker 1: I would guess that's gonna take a couple of years
Speaker 1: at least, because I mean, you know, starting from ideation
Speaker 1: to production, it takes some time. Business Insider ran an
Speaker 1: article about a former TikTok Global account director named Pabo
Speaker 1: Martinez that gives a bit of insight into how the
Speaker 1: company does business, and it ain't pretty so. According to Martinez,
Speaker 1: employees at TikTok corporate headquarters are encouraged, which I often
Speaker 1: find is really a euphemism to mean they were directed
Speaker 1: to work very long hours and even attend work meetings
Speaker 1: on weekends so on their days off. Now, Martinez referred
Speaker 1: to this as adhering to the nine nine six culture,
Speaker 1: and nine is in reference to a pretty brutal work
Speaker 1: schedule that a lot of Chinese companies, particularly in the
Speaker 1: tech sector, followed, and I guess some of them still do.
Speaker 1: So means you start your work day at nine am
Speaker 1: and you work until nine pm, and you do that
Speaker 1: six times a week, nine nine six. If you think
Speaker 1: that sounds horrible, you're right. In fact, it was bad
Speaker 1: enough in China that ultimately the Chinese Supreme Court declared
Speaker 1: that it was an illegal practice. Whether or not companies
Speaker 1: have actually stopped doing that, I don't know, but you
Speaker 1: know they're supposed to. And apparently that kind of merciless
Speaker 1: approach to work and the complete denial of a work
Speaker 1: life balance filtered down through Bite Dance, which is the
Speaker 1: Chinese company that is the parent company to TikTok, and
Speaker 1: it's saturated into the TikTok work culture. Now, considering that
Speaker 1: the narrative TikTok has been pushing for years is that
Speaker 1: TikTok is really an American company and that it has
Speaker 1: very little connective tissue to its Chinese parent company, I
Speaker 1: would say this revelation ain't exactly good news for TikTok.
Speaker 1: The company has constantly had to deny that it is
Speaker 1: filtering information data back to Bite Dance, and that in fact,
Speaker 1: it could be seen as sort of a surveillance company
Speaker 1: on behalf of China. That's an accusation the company has
Speaker 1: denied for a long time. But if it turns out
Speaker 1: that they are employing practices that are very similar to
Speaker 1: Chinese work culture practices, that raises some doubts, right uh.
Speaker 1: And even if it were to turn out that there
Speaker 1: were no directives coming down from Bite Dance, that no
Speaker 1: one from Bite Dance was telling TikTok, hey, you need
Speaker 1: to institute these work practices. There's been a lot of
Speaker 1: pushback against this kind of thing lately here in the US.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen it in the video game industry
Speaker 1: in particular, where there's a real effort to eliminate crunch. Uh.
Speaker 1: That also happens in other kinds of production. So I
Speaker 1: think it's just a bad, bad look for TikTok, as
Speaker 1: the kids say, so, we'll have to wait and see
Speaker 1: if TikTok has a response to this. As I record
Speaker 1: this episode, I have not seen one from the company.
Speaker 1: Preston Dunlap, the former Chief architect officer for the U
Speaker 1: S Department of Defense, gave an interview to Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: to explain why he decided to resign his position. Now
Speaker 1: essentially done. My apps major complaint is that the US
Speaker 1: government is so bureaucratic that it is impossible to move
Speaker 1: with any alacrity when adopting new technological strategies. You can't
Speaker 1: move fast like the Silicon Valley philosophy, at least for
Speaker 1: the longest time, has been move fast and break things.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to do that when you're working a
Speaker 1: government job. Though, first of all, moving fast is impossible,
Speaker 1: and breaking things is really frowned upon. So Dunlap argues
Speaker 1: that the US is falling further and further behind technologically,
Speaker 1: particularly in the realm of defense, and he said, quote,
Speaker 1: by the time the government manages to produce something, it's
Speaker 1: too often obsolete end quote. Now, I could definitely see
Speaker 1: how that would be really frustrating, And in fact, we've
Speaker 1: seen manifestations of this in different aspects of politics where
Speaker 1: it intertwines with tech. It's nearly always the case that
Speaker 1: technological evolution greatly outpaces the government's pace and its capability
Speaker 1: of handling tech. So we've seen this in realms where
Speaker 1: the government has been considering passing regulations to limit the
Speaker 1: negative impact of certain technologies. By the time all that
Speaker 1: gets hashed out and signed into law, you're already onto
Speaker 1: the next thing. So it's always the government's always behind
Speaker 1: and trying to catch up. But we also see it
Speaker 1: when the government is trying to implement technology and technological solutions,
Speaker 1: same sort of thing. By the time you've gotten all
Speaker 1: the approvals and you've gotten the budget and you've you've
Speaker 1: put the team together and everybody's actually building stuff and
Speaker 1: you've got it all finished, it's already out of date.
Speaker 1: So Dunlap is not the first official to resign while
Speaker 1: citing frustrations with issues with bureaucracy. Last year, Nicholas Chiland
Speaker 1: stepped down and warned that China is pulling ahead of
Speaker 1: the United States in the field of artificial intelligence. So
Speaker 1: we've actually seen other officials make this same argument. Uh,
Speaker 1: And honestly, it's kind of hard to come up with
Speaker 1: solutions for this unless you're talking about forming departments that
Speaker 1: have way less oversight and way more freedom. But then
Speaker 1: you get into dangerous territory. As well. Right, like we've
Speaker 1: all seen and read and experienced media that's all about
Speaker 1: some secret department that doesn't have oversight and all the
Speaker 1: terrible things that it can do. Uh. That is a
Speaker 1: risk you run when you go that way. But on
Speaker 1: the flip side, if you have endless layers of oversight,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to make any progress whatsoever. Hopefully there's
Speaker 1: some sort of middle ground there where progress can be made.
Speaker 1: And um, yet you aren't giving people free reign to
Speaker 1: be evil mad scientists. A boy can dream. All Right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take another break. When we come back, we've
Speaker 1: got a couple more news stories stick with us. Okay.
Speaker 1: Before the break, I talked about how Preston Dunlap stepped
Speaker 1: down from the Department of Defense, citing the issues with
Speaker 1: the you know, the government uh departments adopting technological solutions.
Speaker 1: This does not mean that the US military is in
Speaker 1: the Stone Age. It is far from it. The U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy recently issued a press release revealing that back in
Speaker 1: February of this year, a trial of the layered Laser
Speaker 1: Defense System or l l D, proved successful in bringing
Speaker 1: down a high speed drone that was kind of standing
Speaker 1: in for a cruise missile. They also took down other
Speaker 1: style drones and some other targets. The laser that the
Speaker 1: Navy used is an all electric laser, which simplifies the
Speaker 1: operations compared to older chemical based laser systems. So essentially,
Speaker 1: the the weapons system would have power as long as
Speaker 1: the ship it's on is powered, and the system includes
Speaker 1: a telescopic targeting system. It's guided by artificial intelligence and
Speaker 1: can be used to attack aerial or naval targets. So
Speaker 1: now we've got our pew pew lasers that could be
Speaker 1: standard issue on US Navy vessels in the not too
Speaker 1: distant future. Uh, really useful for defense like shooting down
Speaker 1: cruise missiles or targeting military drones. Very useful kind of technology.
Speaker 1: Interesting that we've gotten to the point where we can
Speaker 1: have a powerful enough laser take down those targets that quickly,
Speaker 1: because obviously, uh, you know, the lasers that I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with are ones that would take a sustained amount of
Speaker 1: time on a target to do any real damage. Obviously,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about something like a cruise missile, the
Speaker 1: time of operation has to be super fast. So I'm
Speaker 1: very curious to learn more about the actual technicals specs
Speaker 1: of the l l D. I imagine they are terrifying.
Speaker 1: In the U S. State of Pennsylvania, legislators have introduced
Speaker 1: a measure that I hope to see deployed around the world.
Speaker 1: And it's a small thing, but it's a meaningful one
Speaker 1: and it's being called click to cancel. And this isn't
Speaker 1: about making it easier to punish people for saying and
Speaker 1: doing awful things. It's not that kind of canceling. This
Speaker 1: is actually about canceling service subscriptions. So if you're like me,
Speaker 1: you've probably got at least half a dozen different subscribed
Speaker 1: services under your belt. In fact, if I counted all
Speaker 1: the ones that I'm subscribed to, I'm sure there's at
Speaker 1: least ten or twelve, and I'm probably forgetting a few
Speaker 1: in that as well. And that's a big problem for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Um it could be difficult just
Speaker 1: keeping track of all the subscriptions, let alone being able
Speaker 1: to get out of them if you don't want them anymore.
Speaker 1: So this legislation would require companies to make it very
Speaker 1: clear to customers that they have an active subscription to
Speaker 1: the company services. And moreover, that should be as simple
Speaker 1: as clicking and on screen option to cancel that subscription. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you should receive regular notices about the
Speaker 1: services you're subscribed to, and you should have the option
Speaker 1: to piece out of them whenever you want. Now, considering
Speaker 1: the fact that a lot of companies make it inconvenient
Speaker 1: to even find out how to unsubscribe, then they can
Speaker 1: set customers on a wild goose chase in order to
Speaker 1: see it through. This would be a big change, one
Speaker 1: that would be really positive for consumers, and I think
Speaker 1: it would be pretty much welcome everywhere. I'll keep an
Speaker 1: eye on the story to see if this proposed legislation
Speaker 1: makes it all the way into law and what effect
Speaker 1: that might have in other areas. Maybe you will see
Speaker 1: this become a trend. Euro News reports something pretty darn interesting.
Speaker 1: Some scientists in Sweden came up with a way to
Speaker 1: store solar energy that could allow for long term storage.
Speaker 1: And it all involves shape changing molecules. All right, so
Speaker 1: follow me on this one. If you want to make
Speaker 1: something change shape, you have to exert energy to do it, right,
Speaker 1: Like if you want to compress a spring, you have
Speaker 1: to push down on the spring to do it. Then
Speaker 1: if you let go the spring goes back to its
Speaker 1: original shape. It's effectively pushing back. The scientists did something
Speaker 1: similar to this by creating an engineered molecule that, when
Speaker 1: it is exposed to solar energy, changes shape. If that
Speaker 1: molecule is then immersed in liquid, it will hold that
Speaker 1: changed shape. But then if you mix a certain catalyst
Speaker 1: into the mixture, the molecules will revert to their original shape,
Speaker 1: and in the process, the molecule has to release energy.
Speaker 1: Remember it took energy to make it change shape in
Speaker 1: the first place, so when it goes back, it has
Speaker 1: to relinquish that energy. That energy is in the form
Speaker 1: of heat. So you could use a system like this
Speaker 1: to absorb solar energy, store it in liquid, and then
Speaker 1: release it on demand, and you could use the heat
Speaker 1: to do some sort of useful work, like using it
Speaker 1: to help generate electricity. So far, the amounts that the
Speaker 1: scientists have generated in electricity, those those amounts are very small.
Speaker 1: It's far too small to really do any useful work.
Speaker 1: But the concept is solid and could be incredibly useful
Speaker 1: in the future. It's almost like bottling liquid sunshine. And
Speaker 1: I just thought that was really nifty. And finally, I
Speaker 1: have to mention that NASA recently announced that way back
Speaker 1: in they beamed hologram doctors to the International Space Station
Speaker 1: and didn't even tell us about it. And I, for one,
Speaker 1: I'm offended that they sat on this for so long.
Speaker 1: I mean, come out, we're talking Star Trek Voyager kind
Speaker 1: of stuff here, if you if you watch Voyage or
Speaker 1: you know they had a holographic doctor. Anyway, the team
Speaker 1: of doctors were led by flight surgeon doctor Joseph Schmid.
Speaker 1: And you might wonder how the heck they manage this?
Speaker 1: How did they get a hologram aboard the I S
Speaker 1: S Well, they use some technology that's been available for
Speaker 1: a little while, including the Microsoft hollow lens, which I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier in this episode, and a Connect camera. You
Speaker 1: might remember the Connect was a peripheral for the Xbox consoles,
Speaker 1: and um, that camera is able to sense depth, and
Speaker 1: then when you combine that with a projection system, you
Speaker 1: can project three dimensional images. So the hollow lens is
Speaker 1: an augmented reality device which can overlay digital information on
Speaker 1: top of your view of the real world around you.
Speaker 1: So astronauts in the International Space Station we're wearing a
Speaker 1: hollow lens and thus able to see and interact with
Speaker 1: the doctors. The doctors remained back here on Earth. The
Speaker 1: experiments that a record for the long distance in hollow portation,
Speaker 1: as they called it. I hate that term, but I
Speaker 1: get what they're saying, hollow teleportation. So this was kind
Speaker 1: of like an even geekier version of telepresence or video
Speaker 1: chat something like that. Also, I should add in this case,
Speaker 1: the hollowportation was only in one direction, so the astronauts
Speaker 1: wearing the hollow lens they could see the holograms of
Speaker 1: the doctors, but the doctors were not wearing hollow lens.
Speaker 1: There was no connect camera aboard the I s S,
Speaker 1: so they weren't able to see the astronauts the same
Speaker 1: way the astronauts were able to see them. NASA says
Speaker 1: it does plan to create future systems that will allow
Speaker 1: for two way hollow presence, and that could be really useful.
Speaker 1: Like you could imagine, let's say an astronaut has to
Speaker 1: conduct a specific experiment that involves operating some really tricky
Speaker 1: high tech equipment. You could get the person who designed
Speaker 1: the equipment or who built it, or an expert in
Speaker 1: the field to be in a hollow presence with that astronaut.
Speaker 1: You know, the expert doesn't have to travel up to
Speaker 1: the International Space Station. They're here on Earth, but through
Speaker 1: cameras they can see what the astronauts sees and help
Speaker 1: guide them through the experiment. That could be incredibly useful,
Speaker 1: which I think is also really nifty. And that's it
Speaker 1: for today's episode of tech Stuff. If you have suggestions
Speaker 1: for future topics I should tackle on the show, please
Speaker 1: reach out to me. The best way to do that,
Speaker 1: at least until Elon Musk buys it, is on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle for the show is text Stuff H s
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text
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