Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland, Diamond,
Speaker 1: executive producer for iHeartRadio, and how the tech are here.
Speaker 1: It's time for the Tech News for Thursday, February twenty third,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, and we're going to start off by
Speaker 1: talking about the United States Supreme Court, which has been
Speaker 1: hearing a couple of legal cases that involve Section two thirty. Now,
Speaker 1: in case you're not familiar with that, Section two thirty
Speaker 1: is part of Title forty seven of the United States Code.
Speaker 1: It's part of the Communications Decency Act of nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: But we're not going to jump all the way into
Speaker 1: all that because it really gets in the weeds. What
Speaker 1: Section two thirty is about is accountability, specifically when it
Speaker 1: comes to stuff that's been posted online, namely that a
Speaker 1: platform isn't responsible for the material posted to that platform.
Speaker 1: Just as he wouldn't blame a street corner if someone
Speaker 1: standing on the street corner were to incite a riot,
Speaker 1: It's not the street corner's fault. It's the person who
Speaker 1: did the inciting. So two thirty extends a similar protection
Speaker 1: to online platforms, and it allows users to post content,
Speaker 1: whether it's text or audio or video or whatever. And
Speaker 1: it also gives the platforms the authority to moderate content
Speaker 1: as they see fit. This is what lets platforms create
Speaker 1: content moderation policies and then enforce those and it protects
Speaker 1: such platforms from legal attacks for enforcing their policies. There's
Speaker 1: also some stuff there about making a reasonable attempt to
Speaker 1: remove illegal content, like if a platform fails to do that,
Speaker 1: then it doesn't receive full protection because it is seen
Speaker 1: as sort of a facilitator. But as long as a
Speaker 1: platform demonstrates that it does make a reasonable attempt to
Speaker 1: remove such content, it receives this protection. Now, this seemingly
Speaker 1: simple idea has been in the background of some extremely
Speaker 1: complicated and emotionally charged issues. It has prompted both the
Speaker 1: left and the right political forces in the United States
Speaker 1: to criticize and question the policy. Now, sometimes it's because
Speaker 1: a platform fails to remove content that appears to lead
Speaker 1: to harm against people. Sometimes it's that there's this perception
Speaker 1: that platforms are purposefully censoring a specific population, namely conservative voices.
Speaker 1: That's one of the frequent narratives we hear in this space.
Speaker 1: One of the two cases before the Supreme Court deals
Speaker 1: with a really terrible situation, one in which a woman
Speaker 1: died during an ISIS attack, and are Ely says that
Speaker 1: attack happened partly because YouTube allowed videos that incited violence
Speaker 1: to stay on its platform. Moreover, that the YouTube algorithm
Speaker 1: was serving up these videos, which was then essentially inciting violence.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of the approach this is taking as
Speaker 1: trying not to say that YouTube is responsible for the content,
Speaker 1: but that YouTube is responsible for promoting the content through
Speaker 1: this algorithm, and that therefore the platform should be held
Speaker 1: responsible when violence actually happened in the real world. Now,
Speaker 1: clearly this is an emotionally charged case, but as the
Speaker 1: arguments preceded, the justices on the Supreme Court seemed to
Speaker 1: come to the conclusion that they just don't know enough
Speaker 1: about the Internet to really come to a decision on this,
Speaker 1: Like they don't have a full understanding of what the
Speaker 1: consequences could be for deciding upon this case, or even
Speaker 1: if this is a matter that should be decided by
Speaker 1: the judicial arm of the US government at all. This
Speaker 1: could perhaps be something that Congress, the legislative branch of
Speaker 1: the US government, should tackle instead. Now I have to
Speaker 1: applaud the justices who seem to realize that any dismantling
Speaker 1: of Section two thirty would fundamentally change how the Internet
Speaker 1: works and really cause catastrophic damage, or at least consequences
Speaker 1: that they could not anticipate. I imagine most platforms would
Speaker 1: be forced to essentially shut down rather than take on
Speaker 1: the huge burden of either being strict gatekeepers of content,
Speaker 1: meaning they would not allow anything to publish on their
Speaker 1: platform until it had been thoroughly reviewed and sanitized and
Speaker 1: made sure that it doesn't fall into any categories that
Speaker 1: would cause problems, which is not realistic, especially when you're
Speaker 1: looking at big platforms like YouTube gets like five hundred
Speaker 1: hours worth of content uploaded to it every single minute.
Speaker 1: It is impossible for humans to review that much content
Speaker 1: and be certain that every single second of every video
Speaker 1: that is passed does not cause any issues. Alternatively, the
Speaker 1: other approach that the other side has said, not really
Speaker 1: in as many words, but effectively is to allow a
Speaker 1: fire hose of everything to publish on these platforms, regardless
Speaker 1: of whether or not the content was harmful, because that's
Speaker 1: the only way you can get around any kind of
Speaker 1: accusation of censorship, right, the only way to prove you
Speaker 1: are not censoring content is to allow all content on
Speaker 1: the platform, and clearly that is not a good approach either.
Speaker 1: It's a no win situation because while you do have
Speaker 1: general agreement that Section two thirty creates problems, there's a
Speaker 1: fun to mental disagreement on why people think it causes problems.
Speaker 1: They think it causes two very different problems. Therefore, either
Speaker 1: solution would be the opposite of what the other side
Speaker 1: wants and it would be a disaster. Also, a lot
Speaker 1: of the justices were said to be bored and didn't
Speaker 1: really engage with the case, which probably is because they're
Speaker 1: not exactly the online generation. Thank goodness, they serve for
Speaker 1: their lifetime. Anyway, Section two thirty seems safe for the moment,
Speaker 1: at least from the Supreme Court. To quote the band
Speaker 1: of troubadours called Stained. It's been a while since we've
Speaker 1: talked about Elon Musk and his exploits, but we've got
Speaker 1: a few short stories that relate to him today. One
Speaker 1: is that Musk continues to fire people over at Twitter,
Speaker 1: after having already laid off around two thirds of the
Speaker 1: total workforce since he took control of the company. Most recently,
Speaker 1: people in engineering and sales departments found themselves let go,
Speaker 1: while Musk continues to demand for some massive changes to
Speaker 1: Twitter systems. Most recently, he set a very aggressive goal
Speaker 1: to overhaul how Twitter serves ads to users. Currently, Twitter
Speaker 1: relies on profile data and user behaviors to determine which
Speaker 1: ads to serve to specific people. Must wants to change
Speaker 1: that to be more like how search engines serve up ads,
Speaker 1: and make it more keyword based rather than behavior based.
Speaker 1: This has been met with some resistance and criticism, though
Speaker 1: mainly from former Twitter employees, because I imagine if you
Speaker 1: are a current Twitter employee, you're doing your best to
Speaker 1: keep your head down so that you don't become another
Speaker 1: layoff statistic once Must goes on another round of firing people.
Speaker 1: Whether Twitter can make a keyword based system work better
Speaker 1: for ad relevance remains to be seen, but there's no
Speaker 1: denying that the company has been in really rough shape
Speaker 1: from an ad standpoint, because a lot of the big
Speaker 1: advertisers that used to spend a lot of money on
Speaker 1: Twitter have kind of bailed on the platform since Musk
Speaker 1: took over two days ago. Musk tweeted out that the
Speaker 1: Twitter algorithm will be made open source next week end. Quote.
Speaker 1: Musk has said repeatedly in the past that he felt
Speaker 1: the Twitter recommendation algorithm could be improved drastically if it
Speaker 1: were made open source, and that would mean that developers
Speaker 1: all around the world would be able to contribute edits
Speaker 1: and changes and improvements and detect weaknesses and vulnerabilities as
Speaker 1: a community instead of keeping everything behind Twitter's closed doors. Moreover,
Speaker 1: adopting an open source approach could take some serious heat
Speaker 1: off Twitter, because, like I mentioned earlier, there's this general
Speaker 1: perception among the politically conservative here in the United States
Speaker 1: that online platforms have an inherent bias against conservative messages
Speaker 1: and points of view. That platforms like Twitter penalize such
Speaker 1: messages by restricting their promotion so that fewer people will
Speaker 1: see those tweets, or in some cases, they could potentially
Speaker 1: be prevented from being seen at all. The conservatives, are
Speaker 1: you saying they're the target of shadow banning? That's a
Speaker 1: policy where a platform allows the user to post as
Speaker 1: much as they want, like the user is not told
Speaker 1: that they're being prevented from saying anything, but the platform
Speaker 1: suppresses the spread of those messages so that fewer people
Speaker 1: can see and therefore engage with the material. Going open
Speaker 1: source would mean that anyone could look at the recommendation
Speaker 1: algorithm and determine what, if any bias is built into it.
Speaker 1: So there are a few reasons why Twitter would want
Speaker 1: to go this route. One last Musk story. He also
Speaker 1: announced this week that Tesla, another one of his companies,
Speaker 1: will be opening and Engineering HQ in Palo Alto, California.
Speaker 1: The office space will occupy a building that was formerly
Speaker 1: used by Hewitt Packard and Elon. Musk has a rather
Speaker 1: contentious relationship with the state of California. In twenty it
Speaker 1: seems like he was actually going to make Texas the
Speaker 1: center of Musk World, because SpaceX is centered out of there.
Speaker 1: The giga factory he was building was in Texas. He
Speaker 1: moved to Texas, and part of the reason for this
Speaker 1: might have been the fact that Musk was really upset
Speaker 1: with California's shelter in place mandate during the height of
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic. He did not appreciate the fact
Speaker 1: that he was being told he couldn't force his employees
Speaker 1: to go into work. But when Musk did relocate to Texas.
Speaker 1: Tesla kept its corporate HQ in California, and now there
Speaker 1: will be an engineering HQ there as well. All right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we've got some more news stories to cover. The Seattle
Speaker 1: Times reports that Mark Zuckerberg, after indicating that Meta was
Speaker 1: not likely to hold off additional layoffs, is now looking
Speaker 1: at holding additional layoffs. The news outlet says that HR
Speaker 1: and legal teams are drawing up plans for a reorg
Speaker 1: that will likely include significant downsizing. I'm sure Meta will
Speaker 1: position this as becoming more efficient. That's been the message
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty three. This is the year of efficiency,
Speaker 1: and thus this is going to be about reducing redundancy
Speaker 1: and further cutting back after Zuckerberg himself indicated that the
Speaker 1: company employed too many people for the amount of work
Speaker 1: that was needed to be done. The Seattle Times also
Speaker 1: reported that unnamed sources within Meta believe that some employees
Speaker 1: are likely going to quit after having their jobs dramatically change.
Speaker 1: And I infer that to mean that Meta purposefully is
Speaker 1: making at least some employees unhappy so that they choose
Speaker 1: to leave on their own terms. Because if someone quits
Speaker 1: on you, you don't necessarily owe them a severance package.
Speaker 1: So if you make the environment pleasant enough and you
Speaker 1: convince them to leave on their own, you don't have
Speaker 1: to lay them off. Now, maybe I'm being too cynical,
Speaker 1: but according to the rumors, part of the big change
Speaker 1: that's coming up is that some leaders within Meta are
Speaker 1: going to find themselves in redefined jobs where they won't
Speaker 1: have any direct reports, which means they will no longer
Speaker 1: be leaders because there won't be anyone for them to lead.
Speaker 1: So maybe this is the group of people that insiders
Speaker 1: think are going to be encouraged to quit the company.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, this is going to change the hierarchy where
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg will presumably have more direct oversight over company operations.
Speaker 1: So we'll see. On the legal front, Meta had a
Speaker 1: setback this week when a judge refused to throw out
Speaker 1: a jury's decision to hit Meta with one hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy five million dollars and damages for patent infringement. This
Speaker 1: case was brought by an app developer called Voxer Incorporated,
Speaker 1: and it concerns a technology that's used in live streaming services.
Speaker 1: The jury previously found that Meta had committed patent infringement
Speaker 1: and found in favor of Foxer. Netta then asked the
Speaker 1: judge to throw out the verdict, saying the jury was misled,
Speaker 1: the evidence was not sufficient to draw that conclusion, and besides,
Speaker 1: Voxer was mean to them on the playground. All right,
Speaker 1: That last point was a bit of embellishment from yours truly,
Speaker 1: But Meta reps did say that Voxer's lawyer made quote
Speaker 1: unquote inappropriate comments about the company. I don't know how inappropriate.
Speaker 1: The comments were. A lot of people say some really
Speaker 1: bad stuff about Meta, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: it is entirely appropriate, but maybe from a legal perspective
Speaker 1: it's a very different story. Meta still has the option
Speaker 1: to appeal this decision to a higher court, so we'll
Speaker 1: see if the company decides to do that or if
Speaker 1: it will cough up the money and just pay the damages.
Speaker 1: Don't know yet now Quasi related to Meta, The founders
Speaker 1: of Instagram, who left Meta years ago, have released their
Speaker 1: aipowered news gathering app Artifact to the general public. It
Speaker 1: was previously in a beta rollout, and basically this is
Speaker 1: an app that gathers news headlines that the app thinks
Speaker 1: you would be interested in reading, and the way it
Speaker 1: works is you download the app they have it for
Speaker 1: iOS and Android, and you start off by selecting a
Speaker 1: few topic categories that you personally find interesting. This is
Speaker 1: not a comprehensive list. Also, the taxonomy of the categories
Speaker 1: is a little bit strange, Like when I signed up,
Speaker 1: I saw a climate change which was listed under technology,
Speaker 1: but there was another area where it was like global
Speaker 1: or international news. I thought it was weird that climate
Speaker 1: change was not under there. But the ideas that you
Speaker 1: tell the app what subjects you're interested in, and the
Speaker 1: app will curate articles across various publications. This, by the way,
Speaker 1: also includes any publications you subscribe to. Part of the
Speaker 1: process is you indicate which news outlets you might have
Speaker 1: a subscription to, like if it's New York Times or something,
Speaker 1: and you can then have your log in so that
Speaker 1: you're able to read those materials as well. Then, as
Speaker 1: you use the app and you read articles that the
Speaker 1: app has gathered for you, it gathers more information about
Speaker 1: what you gravitate toward and what you are really interested
Speaker 1: in based upon what you're actually reading. So theoretically, the
Speaker 1: more you use the app, the better the app gets
Speaker 1: it figuring out what you are really interested in, so
Speaker 1: over time you get a personally curated news feed. I
Speaker 1: only just downloaded it, and I haven't really played with
Speaker 1: it very much, so I do not know how effective
Speaker 1: it is yet, and I've seen some reviews that have
Speaker 1: criticized the user interface, but personally I think it's fine.
Speaker 1: It's not great, but it's fine. It does seem like
Speaker 1: a decent use of AI, though hopefully it will not
Speaker 1: be a use that over time filters out all news
Speaker 1: that would challenge a person's views, because that would just
Speaker 1: create an aipowered echo chamber effect, and we've got enough
Speaker 1: of those already. Activision Blizzard, the game company that is
Speaker 1: kind of in a limbo space regarding Microsoft's attempts to
Speaker 1: acquire it, announced that late last year a hacker got
Speaker 1: access to Activisions systems through the old standby tricking an
Speaker 1: Activision employee with a classic phishing attack. Now, I've said
Speaker 1: over and over people traditionally are the weakest link in
Speaker 1: network security. There's not any need for a hacker to
Speaker 1: sit down in the dark at a computer terminal, their
Speaker 1: face highlighted by the glow of the display and then
Speaker 1: try typing in three different password guesses before getting entry
Speaker 1: into their targeted system. Instead, you just hit some employees
Speaker 1: with phishing schemes, and chances are you're going to get
Speaker 1: a bite somewhere that will give you a foot in
Speaker 1: the door. Anyway. The surprising thing here is that apparently
Speaker 1: Activision's employees were not made aware of the attack before
Speaker 1: the announcement to the general public, which is a heck
Speaker 1: of a way to find out that someone got unauthorized
Speaker 1: access to your company systems, and it also doesn't speak
Speaker 1: very well of Activision's process to try and avoid future attacks. Typically,
Speaker 1: in the wake of something like this, a company will
Speaker 1: put employees on high alert, and often they'll even make
Speaker 1: employees take a security course to better familiarize themselves with
Speaker 1: phishing attacks and the appropriate response to them. I can
Speaker 1: say that here at iHeart, we have a security team
Speaker 1: that even puts us to the test occasionally, because they'll
Speaker 1: craft a bogus email from a bogus address and then
Speaker 1: they'll look to see who, if anyone bites. So it's
Speaker 1: all meant to increase awareness and to improve security. So
Speaker 1: it's odd that Activision has allegedly taken a more passive
Speaker 1: approach and didn't even alert employees to the attack in
Speaker 1: the first place until it became public info. The company
Speaker 1: has said no sensitive data was accessed or stolen during
Speaker 1: this breach, but according to Gizmoto, there's a secure group
Speaker 1: called vx Underground that claims the hacker made off with
Speaker 1: some internal Activision documents that included sensitive employee data, including
Speaker 1: personal information as well as like salary info and stuff.
Speaker 1: This is really damaging to Activision as well. It's not
Speaker 1: the sort of thing the company wants to see, especially
Speaker 1: when you also take into account all the attempts at
Speaker 1: Activision for employees to unionize, because one of the big
Speaker 1: big things in union organization is often discussions about how
Speaker 1: companies try to make it against corporate policy to do
Speaker 1: things like talk about compensation, because if you start talking
Speaker 1: about compensation within a company, people will know how they
Speaker 1: stack up to others, and they can see where disparities are,
Speaker 1: and that's something that unions aim to eliminate to level
Speaker 1: out that and remove disparity. So yeah, not the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that Activision Blizzard wants to see happen ever,
Speaker 1: but particularly salary information while they're also trying to dissuade
Speaker 1: organization efforts, the EU continues to force Apple's hand, at
Speaker 1: least that's what it seems like. Previously, the EU ruled
Speaker 1: that all smartphones and similar gadgets must have a USBC
Speaker 1: charging port, effectively making USBC the universal charging standard in
Speaker 1: the EU, and that's probably going to force these companies
Speaker 1: to do the same globally, because otherwise you have to
Speaker 1: have two different production chains for products meant for the
Speaker 1: EU versus anywhere else. Companies like Apple have long relied
Speaker 1: on proprietary hardware for charging, which helps Apple control that supply,
Speaker 1: so Apple can either sell its own version directly to
Speaker 1: consumers and make a lot of profit that way, or
Speaker 1: Apple can require third parties to pay hefty licensing fees
Speaker 1: to Apple before they can sell their own version of
Speaker 1: the technology. But because of the EU law, future Apple
Speaker 1: smartphones will need to have USBC port at least in Europe.
Speaker 1: But now the rumor is that iOS seventeen, which is
Speaker 1: due to launch next year, will allow something that Apple
Speaker 1: has long resisted on iOS devices, which is sideloading. Sideloading
Speaker 1: is when a user can choose to download apps from
Speaker 1: places other than the official platform app store, Ever since
Speaker 1: Apple first launched the iOS app Store, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: like almost a year after the iPhone came out, it
Speaker 1: has restricted Apple users from downloading apps from anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Unless you were to do some alterations to your iPhone,
Speaker 1: you could not load apps anywhere except from the iOS
Speaker 1: app Store. This is also part of what gives Apple
Speaker 1: the power to take a healthy cut out of in
Speaker 1: app transactions. This is one of the reasons why the
Speaker 1: EU has pressured Apple to allow alternative because if Apple
Speaker 1: controls the policy for apps that are found in the
Speaker 1: iOS store, and Apple prevents anyone from going outside the
Speaker 1: store to get an app, it forces developers to play
Speaker 1: by Apple's rules they don't have any alternatives. Apple has
Speaker 1: long maintained that restricting apps to the official store means
Speaker 1: that each app that goes into the store has actually
Speaker 1: gone through a review process, and that this helps Apple
Speaker 1: make sure that the app is safe for users, and
Speaker 1: that without this step, users will run the risk of
Speaker 1: downloading malicious apps. So they have long maintained that the
Speaker 1: whole reason this policy is in place is to protect
Speaker 1: people from malicious applications, and there's no doubt that there
Speaker 1: will be an increased risk for malicious apps with sideloading. However,
Speaker 1: I think it's more than fair to say that Apple
Speaker 1: is far more concerned that alternatives to the App Store
Speaker 1: will reduce Apple's power over developers, and it will reduce
Speaker 1: the power over the apps that can appear on iOS devices,
Speaker 1: and that there's a chance that revenues could take a
Speaker 1: really serious hit, or at least not increase at the
Speaker 1: same rate that they had before. And as we all know,
Speaker 1: it's not enough to make a lot of money. You
Speaker 1: got to make more money than you did last quarter.
Speaker 1: That's really the secret sauce. Okay, I've got a couple
Speaker 1: more stories to finish up with, but before we get
Speaker 1: to that, let's take another quick break. Okay, when we
Speaker 1: left off, we talked about the EU and Apple. Well,
Speaker 1: the EU is also following the lead of several US
Speaker 1: government agencies and that it has asked all staff of
Speaker 1: the EU governing body, so government EU staff to uninstalled
Speaker 1: TikTok from the corporate owned devices. So anything that's owned
Speaker 1: by the EU Executive branch should not have TikTok installed
Speaker 1: on it. If you work for the EU and you
Speaker 1: have a device that was issued to you by your employer,
Speaker 1: you cannot have TikTok on it. If you do, you
Speaker 1: should remove it now. Again, just like in the United States,
Speaker 1: I think this is a totally reasonable request. If it
Speaker 1: is a corporate owned device, you shouldn't be putting TikTok
Speaker 1: on it. Unless for some reason, your job in this
Speaker 1: corporation relates directly to TikTok, then it makes sense. But
Speaker 1: I mean, if it's for personal use, do not allow
Speaker 1: that on those official devices. This move, by the way,
Speaker 1: does not prevent those employees from having TikTok on their
Speaker 1: personal devices. They can still have them on their own
Speaker 1: personal phones, just not their work phones. And why Well,
Speaker 1: there's this concern that TikTok could be gathering data about
Speaker 1: users and their employers and other sensitive information. And since
Speaker 1: TikTok is the subsidiary of a Chinese company, there are
Speaker 1: national security concerns. But even if we ignore the Chinese part.
Speaker 1: You know, TikTok has repeatedly said that that is not
Speaker 1: a real concern, that China does not have access to
Speaker 1: all this data, that it is a US centric company.
Speaker 1: Those are the arguments TikTok has made in the US. Well,
Speaker 1: this is the EU, so you're still talking about a
Speaker 1: company that's based outside of the EU. And while the
Speaker 1: United States isn't antagonistic to the EU, the fact is
Speaker 1: the EU has long pushed to protect its citizens data
Speaker 1: from being harvested and exploited outside of the European Union,
Speaker 1: so it stands the reason it would move to protect
Speaker 1: the government data as well. Again, I don't think this
Speaker 1: is unreasonable. I don't know how I feel about a
Speaker 1: wider ban on TikTok in general, but I certainly think
Speaker 1: it's a reasonable expectation for corporate or government owned devices
Speaker 1: in the world of crypto. The Securities and Exchange Commission
Speaker 1: in the United States has moved to block binance dot
Speaker 1: us from acquiring Voyager. That's a crypto lender that filed
Speaker 1: for bankruptcy last July. It was one of several high
Speaker 1: profile cryptocurrency businesses that failed last year. It happened before
Speaker 1: the huge FTX breakdown. So why is the SEC concerned
Speaker 1: about binance dot us buying out the assets of a
Speaker 1: crypto lender Voyager. Well, one is that the SEC worries
Speaker 1: that the acquisition would quote violate laws on the unregistered
Speaker 1: offer and sales of securities end quote. This is according
Speaker 1: to a report from Reuters. Adding to that complexity is
Speaker 1: that the US government has been looking into Binance. Now
Speaker 1: that's not Binance dot Us. It is Binance, the largest
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency exchange in the world. This was the one that
Speaker 1: initially said it was going to bail out FTX and
Speaker 1: then backed off on that. Instead, we're talking about Binance
Speaker 1: dot Us, which is claimed to be a quote unquote
Speaker 1: independent partner of Binance. But it's also really complicated, and
Speaker 1: I cannot even begin to unravel the legal and structural
Speaker 1: contexts of Binance dot Us in comparison to Binance. I
Speaker 1: do not know to what extent the two are dependent
Speaker 1: upon one another, and that's by on purpose, like it's
Speaker 1: meant to be difficult to tell, because like Binance, the
Speaker 1: overall company is an offshore company for the purposes of
Speaker 1: mostly avoiding regulation. So that part of it. The fact
Speaker 1: that Binance dot Us has some connection to Binance to
Speaker 1: some degree, but it's unknown to how to what extent,
Speaker 1: says Mains. The SEC says, Look, we don't even know
Speaker 1: what this connection is, and therefore we cannot allow this
Speaker 1: to go through because it's very possible that the acquisition
Speaker 1: would violate multiple laws, and due to the obtuse nature
Speaker 1: of finance dot US, it's impossible for us to say,
Speaker 1: so we can't allow it to go forward. Now. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's just going to be the end
Speaker 1: of it, or if this is just part of the journey,
Speaker 1: or how this will be resolved, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about it because that ambiguity. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a bug. I think it's a feature. And it may
Speaker 1: very well be that this is yet one more step
Speaker 1: where we see governments start to chip away at one
Speaker 1: of the foundational elements in the crypto world, which is
Speaker 1: this idea of these financial systems that are not regulated
Speaker 1: and not overseen by government agencies. Turns out that sometimes
Speaker 1: that's going to end up rubbing government agencies the wrong way. Also,
Speaker 1: when you have incredibly massive failures like with FTX, it
Speaker 1: starts to bring into question if these systems themselves are
Speaker 1: trustworthy without oversight. And I don't know the answer to that, y'all,
Speaker 1: because it's not like every government is squeaky clean either.
Speaker 1: It's it just seems like when you start getting a
Speaker 1: lot of money grouped together in a place, whomever is
Speaker 1: set to be in charge of overseeing that ends up
Speaker 1: having lots of conflicts arise. It's almost like it just
Speaker 1: kind of naturally happens, and it doesn't matter whether we
Speaker 1: call it a government or not. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: know that I don't have that problem. I'm not overburdened
Speaker 1: with the problem of too much money. I'm willing to
Speaker 1: give it a shot and find out if I'm the
Speaker 1: exception to the rule though. So yeah, this again goes
Speaker 1: out to all the billionaires out there. If you want
Speaker 1: to test me, feel free to send me, you know,
Speaker 1: a few hundred million. You know you won't even miss it.
Speaker 1: I'd be willing to bite the bullet on that one. Finally,
Speaker 1: Reuter's also reports that Mercedes Benz is going to begin
Speaker 1: to offer a quote supercomputer like performance end quote in
Speaker 1: its cars moving forward, complete with advanced self driving capabilities.
Speaker 1: Reuters reports that customers will have to pay extra for
Speaker 1: those options, and that they will enable level three autonomous
Speaker 1: driving operations. Level three is a big step right. The
Speaker 1: stuff we've mostly seen here in the United States hovers
Speaker 1: in the level two area. Level two means that you
Speaker 1: still have to have a human operator who is effectively
Speaker 1: considered the driver and that all the other systems are
Speaker 1: assisting the driver. Level three is at the lowest level,
Speaker 1: where the computer system is there to be the driver
Speaker 1: as opposed to the human, though you still need to
Speaker 1: have a human in the driver's seat who is able
Speaker 1: to take over, and the autonomous features will only work
Speaker 1: under specific conditions. Outside of those conditions, it has to
Speaker 1: be under human control. However, all that being said, Mercedes
Speaker 1: Benz is going to be offering this stuff moving forward.
Speaker 1: It sounds like the computer experience is a big part
Speaker 1: of the marketing for Mercedes Benz, that that's going to
Speaker 1: be kind of the focus of the cool features that
Speaker 1: will be included in these vehicles. They also announced a
Speaker 1: partnership with Google that will incorporate Google's navigation systems into
Speaker 1: their vehicles. That includes things not just as you know,
Speaker 1: turn left in one hundred feet, but also things like
Speaker 1: real time traffic updates so that you can have your
Speaker 1: vehicle reroute if say there's an accident that happened, you know,
Speaker 1: ten miles up the highway or something, and can reroute
Speaker 1: around those sort of things without having to have human input.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of interesting. And that's all the news
Speaker 1: stories I have today. Thursday, February twenty twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: I hope you are all well. If you have suggestions
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