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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: And how the tech are you. It's time for the

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Speaker 1: tech news for Thursday, April twenty eight, two thousand, twenty two,

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Speaker 1: and we're gonna start off with some news about Meta.

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Speaker 1: The company had its first quarter report and the results

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Speaker 1: gave new confidence to investors. Now you might remember that

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Speaker 1: we found out that by the end of last year,

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Speaker 1: Meta had seen a decline in users for the first time,

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Speaker 1: and that, coupled with a couple of other tough pills

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Speaker 1: to swallow, ended up being a big shadow across the company.

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Speaker 1: And those tough bills included stuff like Zuckerberg acknowledging that

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Speaker 1: TikTok was far more effective at a tracting young users

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Speaker 1: than than Meta's properties were, including stuff like Instagram and Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and that Meta had been spending billions of dollars on

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Speaker 1: its Metaverse plans, but those plans are not gonna come

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Speaker 1: to fruition for several years. I mean, Zuckerberg himself said

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Speaker 1: it will be many years before this becomes a revenue

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Speaker 1: generating part of the business. This is literally us building

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Speaker 1: it out, and that meant that for a while folks

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Speaker 1: were kind of seeing doom and gloom for the company

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Speaker 1: because again, so much of our focus is on the

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Speaker 1: short term. But now Meta reports that they saw an

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Speaker 1: uptick in users this past quarter. There was actually an

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Speaker 1: increase Now The Verge reports that the growth in users,

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Speaker 1: while definitely being there, is still the lowest growth rate

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Speaker 1: in the company's history, with the Facebook app growing by

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Speaker 1: four percent in the first quarter. That company also revealed

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Speaker 1: that ad revenue is likely still going to be fairly

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Speaker 1: soft for the next few months, largely because of how

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Speaker 1: Apple updated iOS so that users can opt out of

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Speaker 1: some tracking data that Meta had been relying upon in

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Speaker 1: order to deliver targeted ads. Targeted ads have super high

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Speaker 1: value to advertisers, so without that guarantee, then Facebook, you know,

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Speaker 1: they can still sell ads, but the targeted ads were

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Speaker 1: the ones that we're bringing in the most money, so

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Speaker 1: it means having to sell kind of a lower tier

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Speaker 1: advertising because of this issue with Apple. Interesting to me

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Speaker 1: that investors appear to be responding more to the uptick

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Speaker 1: in user numbers than in the announcements that revenue might

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Speaker 1: still be a bit slow. Also, Zuckerberg indicated that the

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Speaker 1: company is going to ease back on some of its

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Speaker 1: expenditures this year, probably because a lot of folks don't

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Speaker 1: really like thinking about long term investments and they prefer

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Speaker 1: to see numbers go up quarter over quarter. And Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: reports that the easing off is a is a relative thing.

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Speaker 1: Really that apparently the target spending for the year was

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Speaker 1: somewhere around us staggering nine five billion dollars and now

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Speaker 1: it's going to be somewhere closer between eighty seven and

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Speaker 1: ninety two billion dollars um, which I mean, again, that's

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Speaker 1: from the Bloomberg report, and that's just bonkers to me. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: it continues to astound me how the company's share value

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Speaker 1: can fluctuate dramatically over metrics that, at least to my eyes,

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Speaker 1: don't seem to indicate actual real success or meaningful growth,

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Speaker 1: like if it's not bringing in revenue, or if it's

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Speaker 1: not bringing in you know, a uh an equal amount

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Speaker 1: of revenue compared to the growth and users, I don't

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Speaker 1: see where the value is. But then I'm not a

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Speaker 1: finance person, and I fully admit that I likely just

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Speaker 1: don't have a good enough understanding of investment. This is

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Speaker 1: a me problem more than say, a meta problem. I

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Speaker 1: guess now I do have another meta story, and this

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Speaker 1: is a positive one. And I know I'm surprised too,

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Speaker 1: But some researchers with Meta's AI division collaborated with researchers

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Speaker 1: at the University of Illinois Urbana Champagne to tackle a

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Speaker 1: hard problem that's a pun you just don't know it yet,

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Speaker 1: and that problem is finding ways to make concrete that

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Speaker 1: end up cutting way back on carbon dioxide emissions. There's

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Speaker 1: a huge carbon footprint in concrete production. Actually did an

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Speaker 1: episode about concrete not too long ago and talked about

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Speaker 1: how the production of cement is a really carbon intensive process.

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Speaker 1: Concrete production contributes about eight percent of all carbon dioxide

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Speaker 1: emissions globally each year. So finding ways to make concrete,

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Speaker 1: which is undeniably useful stuff, I mean, it's important while

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Speaker 1: also cutting back on CEO two emissions would be a

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Speaker 1: huge important component in our plans to achieve a carbon

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Speaker 1: neutral status in the future. But a huge challenge, a

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Speaker 1: huge problem is that there are multiple variables that you

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Speaker 1: can tweak when you're producing concrete. You could break it

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Speaker 1: down and say that concrete is essentially made up of

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Speaker 1: four things. You know, it's like water, aggregate, cement, and

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Speaker 1: typically some other substances that allow for the creation of concrete,

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Speaker 1: which means that you can tweak those different factors, right

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Speaker 1: and uh in different measurements and determine all, right, well,

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Speaker 1: let's see if we put less cement in and more

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Speaker 1: of this other stuff in what happens. But because you've

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Speaker 1: got four variables, there are a lot of different ways

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Speaker 1: to play with that, and that is one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons why I can get really challenging, because you guys

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Speaker 1: spend a lot of time playing around with all these

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Speaker 1: different variables. So the researchers used AI to train a

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Speaker 1: model on one thousand different concrete formulas and then derive

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Speaker 1: what would be you know, likely to be the most

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Speaker 1: efficient approach that would still yield a strong and reliable concrete.

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Speaker 1: Because sometimes you can change this stuff up and you

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Speaker 1: will get concrete, but it takes too long to dry,

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Speaker 1: it's not as strong, and yeah, maybe it didn't create

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Speaker 1: as much CEO two, but it might not be useful.

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Speaker 1: So they fed all these formulas into the system, and

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Speaker 1: the system itself produced new formulas and the team picked

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Speaker 1: the five most promising ones to continue testing and tweaking,

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Speaker 1: and they modified the AI generated formulas slightly to improve them,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately the team created a new formula that could

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Speaker 1: replace up to half of the cement needed to produce

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Speaker 1: any given amount of concrete and instead use other materials

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Speaker 1: like fly ash and slag in its place. In addition,

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Speaker 1: the formula was supposed to exceed all strength metric requirements,

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Speaker 1: which it did, and that meant that the concrete produced

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Speaker 1: should be more than strong and resilient enough to serve

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Speaker 1: as concrete while that cement requirement is still reduced dramatically.

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Speaker 1: Meta then teamed up with a concrete company called Ozinga

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Speaker 1: to refine this formula even further and to move into

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Speaker 1: real world testing. Because it's one thing to say that

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Speaker 1: mathematically this is what it means. It's another thing to

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Speaker 1: actually find out in the real world. There's still more

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Speaker 1: work to be done, including finding out there's a way

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Speaker 1: to create this kind of concrete that drives a little faster,

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Speaker 1: because that would speed up construction efforts when you're making

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Speaker 1: use of this concrete. Otherwise, you have to wait for

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Speaker 1: it to to cure while uh, you know, before you

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Speaker 1: can start laying down more. Here's some elon musk Twitter

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Speaker 1: news that has nothing to do with him buying the platform.

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Speaker 1: So back in two thousand eighteen, the u S Security

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Speaker 1: is an exchange commission or SEC, charged Musk with fraud

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Speaker 1: after he tweeted that he had secured enough funding to

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Speaker 1: take Tesla private. Uh. The SECS allegations that Musk had

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Speaker 1: not actually secured such funding and that the announcement ended

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Speaker 1: up having a massive effect on Tesla's stock price, and

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Speaker 1: that Musk was essentially manipulating the stock market, which I

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Speaker 1: should add is a big no no. So there was

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Speaker 1: a lawsuit and ultimately Musk settled out of court, and

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Speaker 1: in the process he signed a document that required him

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Speaker 1: and Tesla to each pay twenty million dollars in civil finds.

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Speaker 1: Plus Musk had to step down as chairman of Tesla's

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Speaker 1: board of directors, and from that point forward he was

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Speaker 1: supposed to seek pre approval for any tweets he was

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Speaker 1: going to send out that related to his businesses before

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Speaker 1: he actually posted them. Well, recently, Musk has been trying

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Speaker 1: to get that settlement thrown out, but a federal judges

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Speaker 1: said no, Dice, it stands the judge argues that the

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Speaker 1: SECS allegations were fair and warranted, and that Musk has

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Speaker 1: no evidence that he actually secured the funding he said

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Speaker 1: he had, and that he signed this settlement voluntarily, and

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Speaker 1: he must therefore abide by its rules. The judge also wrote,

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Speaker 1: quote Musk may wish it were otherwise, but he remains

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Speaker 1: subject to the same enforcement authority and has the same

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Speaker 1: means to challenge the exercise of that authority as any

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Speaker 1: other citizen. End quote. Right to repair advocates in the

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Speaker 1: United States can celebrate a victory. Apple has now made

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Speaker 1: self service repair for iPhone twelve and thirteen models available

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Speaker 1: in the United States. That means that Apple will allow

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Speaker 1: people to order repair manuals, proprietary tools needed to access

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Speaker 1: Apple products, and even official Apple parts through the self

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Speaker 1: service repair store. Now that's not to say that your

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Speaker 1: average iPhone user is really going to be able to

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Speaker 1: pop open the hood and change the air filter on

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Speaker 1: their phone or whatever. You get what I mean. Making

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Speaker 1: repairs will require a certain level of knowledge, skill, and expertise,

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Speaker 1: so it's far more likely that independent electronics repair stores

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Speaker 1: will make use of this offering, giving iPhone users options

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Speaker 1: when it comes to fixing problems with their phones. Apple

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Speaker 1: later plans to roll out similar offerings for Mac computers,

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Speaker 1: and this is a pretty big step for Apple, which

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Speaker 1: for years has attempted to maintain a walled garden and

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Speaker 1: require users to go through Apple and Apple alone when

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Speaker 1: it comes to repairs. So good job Apple. We've got

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Speaker 1: a few more news items to get through. But before

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Speaker 1: we do that, let's take a quick break down under

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Speaker 1: Amazon has declined to acquiesce to the government's request to

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Speaker 1: take a look see at the company's product search system

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Speaker 1: and algorithms. So the government wants to see if Amazon

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Speaker 1: favors its own in house products over a third party

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Speaker 1: merchant products and other words, giving itself an unfair advantage

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Speaker 1: in the Amazon marketplace. So this is the same accusation

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Speaker 1: Amazon has faced in places like India and the United States.

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Speaker 1: Amazon has refused to share that information, or at least

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Speaker 1: declined to send it to the Australian government, and the

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Speaker 1: company denies that it has ever given preferential treatment to

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Speaker 1: its own products. That's not likely to fly for the

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Speaker 1: Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for the a c c

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Speaker 1: c H. Now, one thing that is very much different

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Speaker 1: in Australia compared to some other markets, like specifically the

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Speaker 1: United States, is that Amazon is still a relatively young

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Speaker 1: player in that country, and it's in fact, it's not

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Speaker 1: the largest online market in Australia. In fact, according to

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Speaker 1: the a c c C, Amazon brought in just one

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Speaker 1: quarter of the sales that eBay saw in Australia last year. However,

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Speaker 1: the a c c C is concerned about any platform

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Speaker 1: that engages in what it views as anti competitive or

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Speaker 1: unfair practices, even if that platform isn't as dominant down

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Speaker 1: there as it is here. Now, the only other thing

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Speaker 1: I know about Amazon in Australia is that the company

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Speaker 1: has seen a lot of returns of boomerangs. But then

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Speaker 1: I'm led to understand that's what they're supposed to do.

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Speaker 1: Related to Amazon, let's talk about Twitch, because Amazon owns Twitch.

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Speaker 1: According to Bloomberg, Twitch is considering a couple of moves

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Speaker 1: that could dramatically impact streamers and the experience of watching

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Speaker 1: live streams on the platform. First is that it sounds

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Speaker 1: like Twitch wants to encourage streamers to run more ads

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Speaker 1: during live streams. Obviously, that would generate more revenue for

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Speaker 1: the platform, And another possible strategy is that Twitch will

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Speaker 1: change the amount of subscription revenue that streamers get to keep.

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Speaker 1: So right now, if you subscribe to a Twitch streamer,

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Speaker 1: let's say that you know, you've you chalk over six

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Speaker 1: bucks a month in order to follow a particular streamer.

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Speaker 1: The streamers keep se of the revenue generated from audience

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Speaker 1: subscriptions to their channel. But according to Bloomberg, Twitch is

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Speaker 1: considering dropping that down, so it's a fifty fifty split.

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Speaker 1: Fifty go to the streamer and the other fifty goes

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Speaker 1: to Twitch itself. That is probably not going to go

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Speaker 1: over so well with the streaming community at large, certainly

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Speaker 1: not for some of the more active streamers who really

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Speaker 1: depend upon Twitch for their livelihood. Now, whether this might

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Speaker 1: prompt an exodus from Twitch to other platforms like YouTube

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Speaker 1: remains to be seen. For some, like some of the

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Speaker 1: really big ones, they might be signed to exclusive contracts

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Speaker 1: that lock them into Twitch for a while. Um for

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Speaker 1: other ones, more moderate content creators, it may be just

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Speaker 1: a question they have to ask themselves. It also may

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Speaker 1: turn out that the company will reconsider these moves. They

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Speaker 1: haven't yet been implemented, so there's no you know, setting

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Speaker 1: stone Lan to go this way. Also in gaming, AXIOS

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Speaker 1: reports that far right extremism is growing in the gaming

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Speaker 1: space and that the systems present in games are not

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Speaker 1: up to the task of moderating players and addressing the problem.

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Speaker 1: Axis cites a couple of reports. One came from the

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Speaker 1: Extremism and Gaming Research Network and it published in December

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Speaker 1: two thousand one. UH. There was another report from two

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Speaker 1: thousand nineteen from the Anti Defamation League, and these reports

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Speaker 1: paint a pretty troubling picture. They show that more than

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Speaker 1: half of the people who have experienced harassment in online

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Speaker 1: multiplayer games believe that they were targeted because of things

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Speaker 1: like their race, their gender, their sexual orientation, and so on.

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Speaker 1: The two thousand twenty one report indicates that games are

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Speaker 1: sorely lacking when it comes to ways that they can

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Speaker 1: manage the problem. This sets them apart from platforms like Facebook, Twitter,

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Speaker 1: you know, other social network platforms that have spent a

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Speaker 1: lot of money trying to deal with this problem to

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Speaker 1: varying degrees of success, but the gaming space in general

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Speaker 1: hasn't done that yet. UH. There are also indications that

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Speaker 1: white supremacist ideology is on the rise within the online

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Speaker 1: gaming world in general, so it does paint a pretty

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Speaker 1: troubling picture. It doesn't mean that you know games are

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Speaker 1: bad themselves, but rather there may need to be a

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Speaker 1: shift and how companies end up moderating their players in

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Speaker 1: their online platforms. In Michigan, several parties led by Ford

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Speaker 1: and Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners have raised one million dollars in

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Speaker 1: capital funding to develop a connected roadway for the purposes

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Speaker 1: of autonomous cars. So the roadway will connect Detroit to

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Speaker 1: ann Arbor, Michigan, and it was previously announced in twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: but the recent news marks the first time serious money

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Speaker 1: is being put towards this project. So the goal is

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Speaker 1: to create a dedicated roadway for self driving vehicles, and

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Speaker 1: the roadway will actually include hardware that will allow for

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Speaker 1: communication between the vehicle and the underlying infrastructure. And this

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Speaker 1: is something I'm really interested in. It's something that we've

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Speaker 1: been talking about for years now, and that's the most

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Speaker 1: self driving cars that we think about today. For the

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Speaker 1: most part, they are largely self contained systems. It's like

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Speaker 1: having your own PC, right and and not having it

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Speaker 1: connect to anything else. The PC is able to do

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Speaker 1: some incredible stuff, but it's restricted to its own abilities.

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Speaker 1: So the car alone is responsible for operating the vehicle,

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Speaker 1: monitoring the surrounding environment, avoiding collisions and all that kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff. However, if you're able to pair an autonomous

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Speaker 1: vehicle with a smart infrastructure, while the vehicles on the

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Speaker 1: road can communicate with the road itself, and then also

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Speaker 1: by extension other autonomous vehicles, which can allow for faster traffic,

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Speaker 1: less congestion, safer operations because like everyone knows what everyone

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Speaker 1: else is doing already, right, all the cars are aware

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Speaker 1: of all the other cars on that infrastructure and can

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Speaker 1: operate at a higher rate of speed with a much,

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Speaker 1: much much lower probability of something going wrong apart from

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Speaker 1: things like you know, like a flat tire. Stuff like

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Speaker 1: that still obviously an issue, but that cars would be

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Speaker 1: able to react very quickly and collectively, so you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have things like pile ups. Now, Obviously, building out infrastructure

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Speaker 1: is time consuming, it's expensive, and it's challenging, and we

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Speaker 1: already have tons of roads here in the United States,

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Speaker 1: and building out, replacing or upgrading existing infrastructure, that's a

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Speaker 1: that's a huge endeavor. Anyone who has lived somewhere that

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Speaker 1: had massive road work being done on a local Highway

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Speaker 1: knows that it can take an excruciatingly long time for

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Speaker 1: that work to complete. Ill if this project in Michigan

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Speaker 1: ends up being a big success, it could serve as

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Speaker 1: a model for future projects leading to a more safe

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Speaker 1: and effective autonomous vehicle ecosystem. Finally, over in the UK,

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Speaker 1: the government is revising laws regarding public service broadcasting and

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Speaker 1: these laws will now also cover streaming services like Netflix,

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Speaker 1: Apple TV and more that are operating within the UK.

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Speaker 1: So the rules will include a restriction on broadcasting quote

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Speaker 1: unquote harmful content. Now I'm not entirely certain what constitutes

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Speaker 1: harmful content, like what is defined as harmful content, but

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Speaker 1: if a streaming service is found guilty of broadcasting harmful

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Speaker 1: content within the UK, it can be fined up to

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Speaker 1: five percent of its revenue. And it sounds to me

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Speaker 1: as though the process is a viewer watches a streaming service,

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Speaker 1: see something on that streaming service that the viewer believes

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Speaker 1: is harmful. The viewer then contact the UK's communications regulatory

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Speaker 1: agency known as the Office of Communications but better known

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Speaker 1: as OFFCOM, and presumably OFFCOM would then review that material

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Speaker 1: to determine if it does in fact constitute harmful content.

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Speaker 1: And then take action, but I'm not entirely certain. I'll

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Speaker 1: have to keep an eye on it. And that's the

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Speaker 1: news for Thursday, April two thousand twenty two. Hope you're

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Speaker 1: all well. If you have any questions or suggestions for me,

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Speaker 1: send me a message on Twitter. The handle for the

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Speaker 1: show is text Stuff H s W. And I'll talk

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Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.