Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you. It's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Thursday, April twenty eight, two thousand, twenty two,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna start off with some news about Meta.
Speaker 1: The company had its first quarter report and the results
Speaker 1: gave new confidence to investors. Now you might remember that
Speaker 1: we found out that by the end of last year,
Speaker 1: Meta had seen a decline in users for the first time,
Speaker 1: and that, coupled with a couple of other tough pills
Speaker 1: to swallow, ended up being a big shadow across the company.
Speaker 1: And those tough bills included stuff like Zuckerberg acknowledging that
Speaker 1: TikTok was far more effective at a tracting young users
Speaker 1: than than Meta's properties were, including stuff like Instagram and Facebook,
Speaker 1: and that Meta had been spending billions of dollars on
Speaker 1: its Metaverse plans, but those plans are not gonna come
Speaker 1: to fruition for several years. I mean, Zuckerberg himself said
Speaker 1: it will be many years before this becomes a revenue
Speaker 1: generating part of the business. This is literally us building
Speaker 1: it out, and that meant that for a while folks
Speaker 1: were kind of seeing doom and gloom for the company
Speaker 1: because again, so much of our focus is on the
Speaker 1: short term. But now Meta reports that they saw an
Speaker 1: uptick in users this past quarter. There was actually an
Speaker 1: increase Now The Verge reports that the growth in users,
Speaker 1: while definitely being there, is still the lowest growth rate
Speaker 1: in the company's history, with the Facebook app growing by
Speaker 1: four percent in the first quarter. That company also revealed
Speaker 1: that ad revenue is likely still going to be fairly
Speaker 1: soft for the next few months, largely because of how
Speaker 1: Apple updated iOS so that users can opt out of
Speaker 1: some tracking data that Meta had been relying upon in
Speaker 1: order to deliver targeted ads. Targeted ads have super high
Speaker 1: value to advertisers, so without that guarantee, then Facebook, you know,
Speaker 1: they can still sell ads, but the targeted ads were
Speaker 1: the ones that we're bringing in the most money, so
Speaker 1: it means having to sell kind of a lower tier
Speaker 1: advertising because of this issue with Apple. Interesting to me
Speaker 1: that investors appear to be responding more to the uptick
Speaker 1: in user numbers than in the announcements that revenue might
Speaker 1: still be a bit slow. Also, Zuckerberg indicated that the
Speaker 1: company is going to ease back on some of its
Speaker 1: expenditures this year, probably because a lot of folks don't
Speaker 1: really like thinking about long term investments and they prefer
Speaker 1: to see numbers go up quarter over quarter. And Bloomberg
Speaker 1: reports that the easing off is a is a relative thing.
Speaker 1: Really that apparently the target spending for the year was
Speaker 1: somewhere around us staggering nine five billion dollars and now
Speaker 1: it's going to be somewhere closer between eighty seven and
Speaker 1: ninety two billion dollars um, which I mean, again, that's
Speaker 1: from the Bloomberg report, and that's just bonkers to me. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it continues to astound me how the company's share value
Speaker 1: can fluctuate dramatically over metrics that, at least to my eyes,
Speaker 1: don't seem to indicate actual real success or meaningful growth,
Speaker 1: like if it's not bringing in revenue, or if it's
Speaker 1: not bringing in you know, a uh an equal amount
Speaker 1: of revenue compared to the growth and users, I don't
Speaker 1: see where the value is. But then I'm not a
Speaker 1: finance person, and I fully admit that I likely just
Speaker 1: don't have a good enough understanding of investment. This is
Speaker 1: a me problem more than say, a meta problem. I
Speaker 1: guess now I do have another meta story, and this
Speaker 1: is a positive one. And I know I'm surprised too,
Speaker 1: But some researchers with Meta's AI division collaborated with researchers
Speaker 1: at the University of Illinois Urbana Champagne to tackle a
Speaker 1: hard problem that's a pun you just don't know it yet,
Speaker 1: and that problem is finding ways to make concrete that
Speaker 1: end up cutting way back on carbon dioxide emissions. There's
Speaker 1: a huge carbon footprint in concrete production. Actually did an
Speaker 1: episode about concrete not too long ago and talked about
Speaker 1: how the production of cement is a really carbon intensive process.
Speaker 1: Concrete production contributes about eight percent of all carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: emissions globally each year. So finding ways to make concrete,
Speaker 1: which is undeniably useful stuff, I mean, it's important while
Speaker 1: also cutting back on CEO two emissions would be a
Speaker 1: huge important component in our plans to achieve a carbon
Speaker 1: neutral status in the future. But a huge challenge, a
Speaker 1: huge problem is that there are multiple variables that you
Speaker 1: can tweak when you're producing concrete. You could break it
Speaker 1: down and say that concrete is essentially made up of
Speaker 1: four things. You know, it's like water, aggregate, cement, and
Speaker 1: typically some other substances that allow for the creation of concrete,
Speaker 1: which means that you can tweak those different factors, right
Speaker 1: and uh in different measurements and determine all, right, well,
Speaker 1: let's see if we put less cement in and more
Speaker 1: of this other stuff in what happens. But because you've
Speaker 1: got four variables, there are a lot of different ways
Speaker 1: to play with that, and that is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why I can get really challenging, because you guys
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time playing around with all these
Speaker 1: different variables. So the researchers used AI to train a
Speaker 1: model on one thousand different concrete formulas and then derive
Speaker 1: what would be you know, likely to be the most
Speaker 1: efficient approach that would still yield a strong and reliable concrete.
Speaker 1: Because sometimes you can change this stuff up and you
Speaker 1: will get concrete, but it takes too long to dry,
Speaker 1: it's not as strong, and yeah, maybe it didn't create
Speaker 1: as much CEO two, but it might not be useful.
Speaker 1: So they fed all these formulas into the system, and
Speaker 1: the system itself produced new formulas and the team picked
Speaker 1: the five most promising ones to continue testing and tweaking,
Speaker 1: and they modified the AI generated formulas slightly to improve them,
Speaker 1: and ultimately the team created a new formula that could
Speaker 1: replace up to half of the cement needed to produce
Speaker 1: any given amount of concrete and instead use other materials
Speaker 1: like fly ash and slag in its place. In addition,
Speaker 1: the formula was supposed to exceed all strength metric requirements,
Speaker 1: which it did, and that meant that the concrete produced
Speaker 1: should be more than strong and resilient enough to serve
Speaker 1: as concrete while that cement requirement is still reduced dramatically.
Speaker 1: Meta then teamed up with a concrete company called Ozinga
Speaker 1: to refine this formula even further and to move into
Speaker 1: real world testing. Because it's one thing to say that
Speaker 1: mathematically this is what it means. It's another thing to
Speaker 1: actually find out in the real world. There's still more
Speaker 1: work to be done, including finding out there's a way
Speaker 1: to create this kind of concrete that drives a little faster,
Speaker 1: because that would speed up construction efforts when you're making
Speaker 1: use of this concrete. Otherwise, you have to wait for
Speaker 1: it to to cure while uh, you know, before you
Speaker 1: can start laying down more. Here's some elon musk Twitter
Speaker 1: news that has nothing to do with him buying the platform.
Speaker 1: So back in two thousand eighteen, the u S Security
Speaker 1: is an exchange commission or SEC, charged Musk with fraud
Speaker 1: after he tweeted that he had secured enough funding to
Speaker 1: take Tesla private. Uh. The SECS allegations that Musk had
Speaker 1: not actually secured such funding and that the announcement ended
Speaker 1: up having a massive effect on Tesla's stock price, and
Speaker 1: that Musk was essentially manipulating the stock market, which I
Speaker 1: should add is a big no no. So there was
Speaker 1: a lawsuit and ultimately Musk settled out of court, and
Speaker 1: in the process he signed a document that required him
Speaker 1: and Tesla to each pay twenty million dollars in civil finds.
Speaker 1: Plus Musk had to step down as chairman of Tesla's
Speaker 1: board of directors, and from that point forward he was
Speaker 1: supposed to seek pre approval for any tweets he was
Speaker 1: going to send out that related to his businesses before
Speaker 1: he actually posted them. Well, recently, Musk has been trying
Speaker 1: to get that settlement thrown out, but a federal judges
Speaker 1: said no, Dice, it stands the judge argues that the
Speaker 1: SECS allegations were fair and warranted, and that Musk has
Speaker 1: no evidence that he actually secured the funding he said
Speaker 1: he had, and that he signed this settlement voluntarily, and
Speaker 1: he must therefore abide by its rules. The judge also wrote,
Speaker 1: quote Musk may wish it were otherwise, but he remains
Speaker 1: subject to the same enforcement authority and has the same
Speaker 1: means to challenge the exercise of that authority as any
Speaker 1: other citizen. End quote. Right to repair advocates in the
Speaker 1: United States can celebrate a victory. Apple has now made
Speaker 1: self service repair for iPhone twelve and thirteen models available
Speaker 1: in the United States. That means that Apple will allow
Speaker 1: people to order repair manuals, proprietary tools needed to access
Speaker 1: Apple products, and even official Apple parts through the self
Speaker 1: service repair store. Now that's not to say that your
Speaker 1: average iPhone user is really going to be able to
Speaker 1: pop open the hood and change the air filter on
Speaker 1: their phone or whatever. You get what I mean. Making
Speaker 1: repairs will require a certain level of knowledge, skill, and expertise,
Speaker 1: so it's far more likely that independent electronics repair stores
Speaker 1: will make use of this offering, giving iPhone users options
Speaker 1: when it comes to fixing problems with their phones. Apple
Speaker 1: later plans to roll out similar offerings for Mac computers,
Speaker 1: and this is a pretty big step for Apple, which
Speaker 1: for years has attempted to maintain a walled garden and
Speaker 1: require users to go through Apple and Apple alone when
Speaker 1: it comes to repairs. So good job Apple. We've got
Speaker 1: a few more news items to get through. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, let's take a quick break down under
Speaker 1: Amazon has declined to acquiesce to the government's request to
Speaker 1: take a look see at the company's product search system
Speaker 1: and algorithms. So the government wants to see if Amazon
Speaker 1: favors its own in house products over a third party
Speaker 1: merchant products and other words, giving itself an unfair advantage
Speaker 1: in the Amazon marketplace. So this is the same accusation
Speaker 1: Amazon has faced in places like India and the United States.
Speaker 1: Amazon has refused to share that information, or at least
Speaker 1: declined to send it to the Australian government, and the
Speaker 1: company denies that it has ever given preferential treatment to
Speaker 1: its own products. That's not likely to fly for the
Speaker 1: Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for the a c c
Speaker 1: c H. Now, one thing that is very much different
Speaker 1: in Australia compared to some other markets, like specifically the
Speaker 1: United States, is that Amazon is still a relatively young
Speaker 1: player in that country, and it's in fact, it's not
Speaker 1: the largest online market in Australia. In fact, according to
Speaker 1: the a c c C, Amazon brought in just one
Speaker 1: quarter of the sales that eBay saw in Australia last year. However,
Speaker 1: the a c c C is concerned about any platform
Speaker 1: that engages in what it views as anti competitive or
Speaker 1: unfair practices, even if that platform isn't as dominant down
Speaker 1: there as it is here. Now, the only other thing
Speaker 1: I know about Amazon in Australia is that the company
Speaker 1: has seen a lot of returns of boomerangs. But then
Speaker 1: I'm led to understand that's what they're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: Related to Amazon, let's talk about Twitch, because Amazon owns Twitch.
Speaker 1: According to Bloomberg, Twitch is considering a couple of moves
Speaker 1: that could dramatically impact streamers and the experience of watching
Speaker 1: live streams on the platform. First is that it sounds
Speaker 1: like Twitch wants to encourage streamers to run more ads
Speaker 1: during live streams. Obviously, that would generate more revenue for
Speaker 1: the platform, And another possible strategy is that Twitch will
Speaker 1: change the amount of subscription revenue that streamers get to keep.
Speaker 1: So right now, if you subscribe to a Twitch streamer,
Speaker 1: let's say that you know, you've you chalk over six
Speaker 1: bucks a month in order to follow a particular streamer.
Speaker 1: The streamers keep se of the revenue generated from audience
Speaker 1: subscriptions to their channel. But according to Bloomberg, Twitch is
Speaker 1: considering dropping that down, so it's a fifty fifty split.
Speaker 1: Fifty go to the streamer and the other fifty goes
Speaker 1: to Twitch itself. That is probably not going to go
Speaker 1: over so well with the streaming community at large, certainly
Speaker 1: not for some of the more active streamers who really
Speaker 1: depend upon Twitch for their livelihood. Now, whether this might
Speaker 1: prompt an exodus from Twitch to other platforms like YouTube
Speaker 1: remains to be seen. For some, like some of the
Speaker 1: really big ones, they might be signed to exclusive contracts
Speaker 1: that lock them into Twitch for a while. Um for
Speaker 1: other ones, more moderate content creators, it may be just
Speaker 1: a question they have to ask themselves. It also may
Speaker 1: turn out that the company will reconsider these moves. They
Speaker 1: haven't yet been implemented, so there's no you know, setting
Speaker 1: stone Lan to go this way. Also in gaming, AXIOS
Speaker 1: reports that far right extremism is growing in the gaming
Speaker 1: space and that the systems present in games are not
Speaker 1: up to the task of moderating players and addressing the problem.
Speaker 1: Axis cites a couple of reports. One came from the
Speaker 1: Extremism and Gaming Research Network and it published in December
Speaker 1: two thousand one. UH. There was another report from two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen from the Anti Defamation League, and these reports
Speaker 1: paint a pretty troubling picture. They show that more than
Speaker 1: half of the people who have experienced harassment in online
Speaker 1: multiplayer games believe that they were targeted because of things
Speaker 1: like their race, their gender, their sexual orientation, and so on.
Speaker 1: The two thousand twenty one report indicates that games are
Speaker 1: sorely lacking when it comes to ways that they can
Speaker 1: manage the problem. This sets them apart from platforms like Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: you know, other social network platforms that have spent a
Speaker 1: lot of money trying to deal with this problem to
Speaker 1: varying degrees of success, but the gaming space in general
Speaker 1: hasn't done that yet. UH. There are also indications that
Speaker 1: white supremacist ideology is on the rise within the online
Speaker 1: gaming world in general, so it does paint a pretty
Speaker 1: troubling picture. It doesn't mean that you know games are
Speaker 1: bad themselves, but rather there may need to be a
Speaker 1: shift and how companies end up moderating their players in
Speaker 1: their online platforms. In Michigan, several parties led by Ford
Speaker 1: and Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners have raised one million dollars in
Speaker 1: capital funding to develop a connected roadway for the purposes
Speaker 1: of autonomous cars. So the roadway will connect Detroit to
Speaker 1: ann Arbor, Michigan, and it was previously announced in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: but the recent news marks the first time serious money
Speaker 1: is being put towards this project. So the goal is
Speaker 1: to create a dedicated roadway for self driving vehicles, and
Speaker 1: the roadway will actually include hardware that will allow for
Speaker 1: communication between the vehicle and the underlying infrastructure. And this
Speaker 1: is something I'm really interested in. It's something that we've
Speaker 1: been talking about for years now, and that's the most
Speaker 1: self driving cars that we think about today. For the
Speaker 1: most part, they are largely self contained systems. It's like
Speaker 1: having your own PC, right and and not having it
Speaker 1: connect to anything else. The PC is able to do
Speaker 1: some incredible stuff, but it's restricted to its own abilities.
Speaker 1: So the car alone is responsible for operating the vehicle,
Speaker 1: monitoring the surrounding environment, avoiding collisions and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. However, if you're able to pair an autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicle with a smart infrastructure, while the vehicles on the
Speaker 1: road can communicate with the road itself, and then also
Speaker 1: by extension other autonomous vehicles, which can allow for faster traffic,
Speaker 1: less congestion, safer operations because like everyone knows what everyone
Speaker 1: else is doing already, right, all the cars are aware
Speaker 1: of all the other cars on that infrastructure and can
Speaker 1: operate at a higher rate of speed with a much,
Speaker 1: much much lower probability of something going wrong apart from
Speaker 1: things like you know, like a flat tire. Stuff like
Speaker 1: that still obviously an issue, but that cars would be
Speaker 1: able to react very quickly and collectively, so you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have things like pile ups. Now, Obviously, building out infrastructure
Speaker 1: is time consuming, it's expensive, and it's challenging, and we
Speaker 1: already have tons of roads here in the United States,
Speaker 1: and building out, replacing or upgrading existing infrastructure, that's a
Speaker 1: that's a huge endeavor. Anyone who has lived somewhere that
Speaker 1: had massive road work being done on a local Highway
Speaker 1: knows that it can take an excruciatingly long time for
Speaker 1: that work to complete. Ill if this project in Michigan
Speaker 1: ends up being a big success, it could serve as
Speaker 1: a model for future projects leading to a more safe
Speaker 1: and effective autonomous vehicle ecosystem. Finally, over in the UK,
Speaker 1: the government is revising laws regarding public service broadcasting and
Speaker 1: these laws will now also cover streaming services like Netflix,
Speaker 1: Apple TV and more that are operating within the UK.
Speaker 1: So the rules will include a restriction on broadcasting quote
Speaker 1: unquote harmful content. Now I'm not entirely certain what constitutes
Speaker 1: harmful content, like what is defined as harmful content, but
Speaker 1: if a streaming service is found guilty of broadcasting harmful
Speaker 1: content within the UK, it can be fined up to
Speaker 1: five percent of its revenue. And it sounds to me
Speaker 1: as though the process is a viewer watches a streaming service,
Speaker 1: see something on that streaming service that the viewer believes
Speaker 1: is harmful. The viewer then contact the UK's communications regulatory
Speaker 1: agency known as the Office of Communications but better known
Speaker 1: as OFFCOM, and presumably OFFCOM would then review that material
Speaker 1: to determine if it does in fact constitute harmful content.
Speaker 1: And then take action, but I'm not entirely certain. I'll
Speaker 1: have to keep an eye on it. And that's the
Speaker 1: news for Thursday, April two thousand twenty two. Hope you're
Speaker 1: all well. If you have any questions or suggestions for me,
Speaker 1: send me a message on Twitter. The handle for the
Speaker 1: show is text Stuff H s W. And I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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