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, October six, twenty twenty two. And
Speaker 1: I mentioned this first item briefly in yesterday's episode, but
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, after I had already submitted my news episode
Speaker 1: for the day. So this is the height of rudeness.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk went ahead and switched gears yet again. Actually,
Speaker 1: to be fair, he did that on Monday, but the
Speaker 1: news broke on Tuesday. And what I mean by all
Speaker 1: this takes us back to the sprawling, chaotic and messy
Speaker 1: Twitter acquisition. All right, let's get a previously on segment
Speaker 1: in here to really kind of sum arise what has
Speaker 1: been going on with this whole saga back in April two.
Speaker 1: At this point, it feels like it happened an eternity ago.
Speaker 1: Ellen Musk revealed that he had purchased, uh, let me see,
Speaker 1: I think the technical term is a metric buttload of
Speaker 1: Twitter stock, like just under ten percent. This was enough
Speaker 1: to merit an invitation to join Twitter's board of directors,
Speaker 1: and Musk considered doing that, but then he saw on
Speaker 1: the fine print that if he did join the board
Speaker 1: of directors, he would have to agree to a limit
Speaker 1: on how much stock he could own. Now, whether Musk
Speaker 1: was already considering buying Twitter outright, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: at some point it became clear that that was what
Speaker 1: he decided he wanted to do. So. Musk then goes
Speaker 1: on to make an offer on Twitter to buy out
Speaker 1: all existing stock at fifty four dollars twenty since per share,
Speaker 1: which would bring the total cost of acquisition to around
Speaker 1: forty four billion with a B dollars. Must then win
Speaker 1: about securing financing for this deal, which included a meeting
Speaker 1: with investors who would put up some of the cash
Speaker 1: to fund it, and also banks that would loan out
Speaker 1: more money against Musk's considerable personal assets. Oh and um,
Speaker 1: one really important part of this initial agreement is that
Speaker 1: Musk agreed to waive due diligence, which I think a
Speaker 1: ton of folks have said was a curious strategy, which
Speaker 1: that's what the kind people are saying. Others are saying
Speaker 1: it was just playing dumb. You wouldn't agree to buy
Speaker 1: a house without first having an inspector walked through and
Speaker 1: make sure you know the foundation is solid and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But things seem to be set
Speaker 1: in motion for a Musk acquisition of Twitter. The board
Speaker 1: of directors were happy with this idea. Uh, there was
Speaker 1: the requirement to hold a shareholder vote to see if
Speaker 1: shareholders agreed, and that didn't happen until this past September,
Speaker 1: but ultimately shareholders voted in favor of that too. However,
Speaker 1: in July, so not that long after the wheels were
Speaker 1: in motion, Musk appeared to have second thoughts about this acquisition,
Speaker 1: and there's been a lot of speculation about this. Musk
Speaker 1: was arguing that Twitter had misrepresented its value at the
Speaker 1: early negotiations, and he claimed that the platform was absolutely
Speaker 1: riddled with bought accounts. Twitter claimed that, based upon its
Speaker 1: own process, bots made up less than five of all
Speaker 1: monetize able accounts. Musk argued there was way way more
Speaker 1: than that, possibly as much as nine, which seems absolutely
Speaker 1: unrealistic to me. But then I also think the less
Speaker 1: than five percent number is at least hard to believe.
Speaker 1: It might be true through, but it's hard to believe.
Speaker 1: Lots of folks suggested a hypothesis that the financial downturn
Speaker 1: that we've seen this year meant that Musk's own assets
Speaker 1: were worth way less than what they had been when
Speaker 1: he first made the offer, and that it was possible
Speaker 1: that he was also starting to hit some resistance with
Speaker 1: financing As a result of this, plus, Twitter itself started
Speaker 1: to look like a less valuable purchase, helped in no
Speaker 1: small part by the fact that Musk himself was slagging
Speaker 1: off Twitter pretty much at every opportunity. And he might say, ha,
Speaker 1: that seems weird that you would bad mouth something you
Speaker 1: were planning on buying, since you'd actually be creating a
Speaker 1: larger gap between the price you had agreed to pay
Speaker 1: and the value of the thing you were buying. But
Speaker 1: then you're not the world's richest man, right, You just
Speaker 1: don't see the big picture anyway. Twitter filed a lawsuit
Speaker 1: against Musk in an effort to force him to go
Speaker 1: through with the acquisition. Twitter was our guing that the
Speaker 1: deal Musk signed didn't leave him the option to just
Speaker 1: back out, and that's true. Musk can't back out of
Speaker 1: the deal unless certain specific criteria are met. For example,
Speaker 1: if Musk could legally prove that Twitter purposefully misrepresented its
Speaker 1: value to a significant degree, he could potentially walk out
Speaker 1: of this deal. The details get a little more complicated
Speaker 1: than that, but that's the basic idea. But even then,
Speaker 1: Musk would still have to cough up a billion dollars
Speaker 1: just to walk away. Twitter's lawsuit is set to go
Speaker 1: to court on October seventeen, so it's getting here soon.
Speaker 1: Musk's legal team had tried to push for a later date.
Speaker 1: They wanted it to happen as late as early, but
Speaker 1: the judge wasn't having it. Twitter was arguing for it
Speaker 1: to be earlier. In fact, so the October date, in
Speaker 1: some respect was kind of a compromise between the two. Now,
Speaker 1: the judge has largely been sighting with Twitter on pre
Speaker 1: trial decisions, and that kind of brings us up to
Speaker 1: this week's news. On Monday, Musk filed a letter with
Speaker 1: the Securities and Exchange Commission Twitter recommending himself to acquiring
Speaker 1: Twitter and the agreed upon terms that were made way
Speaker 1: back in April of this year. But he did ask
Speaker 1: that this happened uh on a couple of preconditions. One
Speaker 1: of those conditions is that if his financing falls through,
Speaker 1: he would be allowed to pay the billion dollar penalty
Speaker 1: and then walk away. The other condition is that Twitter
Speaker 1: could please drop its lawsuit please. The lawsuit was starting
Speaker 1: to look like it was gonna get real ugly for
Speaker 1: all involved. In fact, not starting the lawsuit was clearly
Speaker 1: going to be ugly for both Elon Musk and for Twitter. Already,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's personal text messages have been entered into the
Speaker 1: court pre trial proceedings, which does not paint a good picture.
Speaker 1: Twitter's dirty laundry is ready to be put on display. Plus,
Speaker 1: the pre trial stuff may have indicated to Musk's legal
Speaker 1: team that the chances of winning the case were a
Speaker 1: wee bit on the slim side, and that would mean
Speaker 1: that if Musk lost the legal battle, he would still
Speaker 1: have to acquire the company anyway, his punishments, he has
Speaker 1: to go through the deal that he already agreed to do. Now.
Speaker 1: So far, Twitter has not filed for a stay in
Speaker 1: court action, and it's kind of understandable because I feel
Speaker 1: like if Twitter did drop the case entirely, they might
Speaker 1: not trust that Elon Musk will follow through on his
Speaker 1: statement that he is in fact going to acquire the company. However,
Speaker 1: Musk was originally scheduled to sit for a deposition today
Speaker 1: and that has been postponed, so that part has been delayed,
Speaker 1: at least temporarily. Also, Reuter's reports that some banks have
Speaker 1: held talks with Musk about financing back in the summer,
Speaker 1: but had since backed out, so it's not entirely clear
Speaker 1: where all the different financing is coming from. Uh. The
Speaker 1: ones that are remaining in place are in a potentially
Speaker 1: really tough position because it's an economically risky time for
Speaker 1: banks to get involved in large debt financing transactions. So
Speaker 1: this could mean that the banks that are still involved
Speaker 1: in this are in danger of losing a another buttload
Speaker 1: of money. So what I'm saying is that this deal
Speaker 1: is not a sure thing. It looks like it's heading
Speaker 1: towards Elon Musk acquiring Twitter. That seems to be where
Speaker 1: we are headed, but the details are still a bit fuzzy.
Speaker 1: Um Oh. We also heard that before all of this,
Speaker 1: Musk had been holding some talks with Twitter in an
Speaker 1: attempt to negotiate a lower price than the one he
Speaker 1: had previously agreed to. But you know, when the ink
Speaker 1: is dry on the contract, it's pretty hard to come
Speaker 1: up with a convincing argument to get the seller to
Speaker 1: reduce the price. Anyway, now we are all caught up
Speaker 1: until later today, probably in which case I'll have to
Speaker 1: do another update next week. Well I might as well
Speaker 1: put this story next because we're already talking about Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: Tesla released an announcement stating that it will be shifting
Speaker 1: to a camera only approach in its driver assist technology.
Speaker 1: That means the company is phasing out stuff like ultrasonic sensors.
Speaker 1: It is already h taking out things like like LDAR,
Speaker 1: So this is testas stripping out some of the technologies
Speaker 1: that uses for computer vision really is what it comes
Speaker 1: down to. Now. The ultrasonic sensors we're mostly used for
Speaker 1: stuff like parking assist and collision prevention. And it's really
Speaker 1: interesting to me because generally speaking, the trend you see
Speaker 1: an autonomous vehicle company ease goes the opposite way. And
Speaker 1: by that I mean most companies that are working in
Speaker 1: that field are really building out a robust suite of
Speaker 1: technologies to support computer vision. They're not relying on a
Speaker 1: single one, but a whole array of different array is
Speaker 1: almost a pun, but a whole array of different technologies
Speaker 1: to try and provide computer vision for these complicated autonomous systems.
Speaker 1: Tesla says, no, we're just gonna go pure optical camera.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna simplify things. So yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of a it's kind of a reversal of what everyone
Speaker 1: else is doing. As Tesla does this, the company says
Speaker 1: drivers should expect certain features to be unavailable at first
Speaker 1: when they purchase a new Tesla that is camera only.
Speaker 1: So those features include stuff like park assist uh summon,
Speaker 1: where you get your car to magically drive up to
Speaker 1: wherever you are. Auto park is another one. So these
Speaker 1: kind of things that the ultrasonic sensor was specifically designed
Speaker 1: to handle, you know, to to maneuver a car without
Speaker 1: having it bump into stuff that's close by. Those are
Speaker 1: the things that will not be available initially as Tesla
Speaker 1: moves to this camera only approach. Now, the company claims
Speaker 1: that the features will return, but it will take time
Speaker 1: because the company has to ensure that the camera only
Speaker 1: version can complete these tasks as reliably and as safely
Speaker 1: as earlier Tesla models that had ultrasonic sensors. Now, I
Speaker 1: imagine this move could bring down the cost of production
Speaker 1: of the vehicles, they won't need as many different components,
Speaker 1: so it will probably mean that making a Tesla vehicle
Speaker 1: will be less expensive, which could mean that we'll see
Speaker 1: reduced sticker prices on future Tesla's, But with so many
Speaker 1: complex economic factors at play, I wouldn't count on that,
Speaker 1: just because we have other things like you know, inflation, recessions,
Speaker 1: semiconductor shortages, all these kind of things play into that.
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying that the Tesla's next year are
Speaker 1: going to be cheaper than the ones this year. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got a lot more stories that have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with Elon Musk coming up, but first let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. We're back on Tuesday, a fire in
Speaker 1: Amazon's JFK eight warehouse in New York temporarily shut down operations.
Speaker 1: Amazon sent the day shift home with pay while working
Speaker 1: with the fire department, which Amazon says certified the building
Speaker 1: is safe. Not too long after getting the fire put out,
Speaker 1: and then they had the night shift come on as
Speaker 1: per normal, And when the night shift got there, some
Speaker 1: workers reported that there were still areas of the warehouse
Speaker 1: that had enough smoke to cause problems, you know, like
Speaker 1: it was hard to breathe that kind of thing. Now,
Speaker 1: this is the same Amazon warehouse that voted to unionize
Speaker 1: earlier this year. That's something that Amazon has yet to
Speaker 1: formally recognize, although the National Labor Relations Board to here
Speaker 1: in the US has sided with the Amazon workers on
Speaker 1: this one, and about fifty workers staged a walkout in
Speaker 1: protest of being told to work in an environment that
Speaker 1: they felt was inherently unsafe. Amazon has subsequently suspended those
Speaker 1: workers with pay. Now, I think that's an interesting choice
Speaker 1: considering how other Amazon facilities are also getting close to
Speaker 1: holding votes on unionization, because I feel like this kind
Speaker 1: of press is more likely to encourage employees to organize
Speaker 1: into a union, which obviously Amazon does not want to
Speaker 1: have happened. So making a choice like this seems to
Speaker 1: fuel the movements to organize. Anyway, Amazon is saying it's
Speaker 1: investigating the matter and that it's going to resolve the
Speaker 1: suspensions one way or another once that investigation is complete.
Speaker 1: A jury has found Uber's former chief security officer guilty
Speaker 1: of attempting to cover up a massive hacker intrusion into
Speaker 1: Uber's systems. All right, let's get some backstory on this.
Speaker 1: So back in Joseph Sullivan became the chief security officer
Speaker 1: for Uber. He would actually leave Uber in ten he
Speaker 1: would start to work over at cloud Flare in the
Speaker 1: same sort of role. Now, a year before Sullivan came
Speaker 1: to Uber, in hackers penetrated Uber systems and they accessed
Speaker 1: databases containing personal information for approximately fifty thousand Uber users
Speaker 1: and drivers. Uber reported this to the US Federal Trade Commission,
Speaker 1: or FTC, and this happened all shortly before Sullivan even
Speaker 1: joined the company. But the FTC investigated Uber's security systems
Speaker 1: and processes and essentially said, Yo, this ever happens to
Speaker 1: you, you you need to let us know stat Now, this
Speaker 1: was the environment into which Sullivan stepped as the new
Speaker 1: Cso alright, So in twenty six a second hacker attack,
Speaker 1: this one way bigger in scope, hit Uber. The hackers
Speaker 1: access systems that contained data on around fifty seven million
Speaker 1: Uber users and drivers. It included more than half a
Speaker 1: million driver license numbers along with other information. Now, the
Speaker 1: FDC had told Uber that the company has to report
Speaker 1: these kinds of intrusions promptly, considering the massive effect they
Speaker 1: can have on millions of people. But Sullivan allegedly chose
Speaker 1: to cover the whole thing up. Oh and this hack
Speaker 1: happened less than two weeks after Sullivan had just appeared
Speaker 1: before the FTC to give an update on Uber's security
Speaker 1: systems and practices. So Sullivan had just recently reassured the
Speaker 1: FTC that Uber strategy was up today. Then he found
Speaker 1: out that Uber was hit by this massive hacker intrusion.
Speaker 1: Then he decided to cover it up further. Uber would
Speaker 1: later pay the hackers one thousand dollars in cryptocurrency because
Speaker 1: the hackers claimed they would delete the information they stole
Speaker 1: only if they were paid a ransom. Uber even found
Speaker 1: out the identities of a couple of those hackers and
Speaker 1: convinced them to sign non disclosure agreements about the breach,
Speaker 1: So instead of alerting authorities to these people, they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: don't talk about this ever. All right, sign this deal,
Speaker 1: you get your money, don't ever talk about it. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: these hackers were targeting other companies using very similar approaches
Speaker 1: to what worked with Uber. So the FTC argued that
Speaker 1: what Sullivan was effectively doing was covering for criminals who
Speaker 1: were continuing to perpetuate digital crimes while also disguising the
Speaker 1: fact that Uber had been hit by this. The whole
Speaker 1: thing went to trial, and, as I said, a jury
Speaker 1: found Soul have been guilty of a couple of different charges,
Speaker 1: namely obstruction of justice and one called misprision of felony.
Speaker 1: I was completely unfamiliar with that phrase, but it means
Speaker 1: that he knew that a federal felony had been perpetrated,
Speaker 1: and then he took steps to conceal that felony. While
Speaker 1: he was found guilty, he has yet to be sentenced.
Speaker 1: He could potentially face up to five years in prison
Speaker 1: for the obstruction charge and three years for the misprision charge.
Speaker 1: Fun fact, though before he started working in security roles
Speaker 1: for tech companies, Sullivan was a lawyer with the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice. Oh, how the turns have tabled. Yesterday, Intel
Speaker 1: announced it is getting closer to a process that would
Speaker 1: allow the company to scale up quantum computer production, specifically
Speaker 1: chips for quantum computers, using a very similar approach to
Speaker 1: how it designs chips for classical computers. Now, I've talked
Speaker 1: about quantum computing before, how a sufficiently powerful quantum computer
Speaker 1: paired with the right algorithm or program could potentially solve
Speaker 1: very tricky computational problems in a fraction of the amount
Speaker 1: of time it would take a classical computer to do
Speaker 1: that same task. Now, this is not true for all
Speaker 1: computational tasks, mind you. There's some things that a classical
Speaker 1: computer can do much more efficiently than your typical quantum computer,
Speaker 1: unless you were somehow able to build a truly massive
Speaker 1: quantum computer that could compete with a classical computer for
Speaker 1: those tasks, which would be very very hard to do.
Speaker 1: For a subset of computational problems, however, including ones that
Speaker 1: relate to our current encryption practices, a quantum computer could
Speaker 1: potentially cause massive disruption. It's possible that with a powerful
Speaker 1: enough quantum computer and with the right algorithm, you could
Speaker 1: decrypt pretty much anything that has ever been encrypted in
Speaker 1: a short amount of time. No more secrets. In other words,
Speaker 1: So this has pushed research facilities and academic institutions and
Speaker 1: various companies to work on developing the next generation of
Speaker 1: encryption tools that would be able to withstand this kind
Speaker 1: of computational approach. Anyway, For a long time, all of
Speaker 1: this was largely in the realm of the theoretical because
Speaker 1: early quantum computers were pretty puny, and they were more
Speaker 1: of a demonstration of the principles of quantum computing as
Speaker 1: opposed to a practical implementation, and scaling these quantum computers
Speaker 1: is really hard to do. It's hard to build more
Speaker 1: and more powerful quantum computers. It does happen, but it's
Speaker 1: a very big challenge. They are incredibly expensive machines to
Speaker 1: build and operate, and it's very very easy for stuff
Speaker 1: to go wrong. But Intel's announcement indicates that this theoretical
Speaker 1: reality may soon manifest as real reality, and not too
Speaker 1: long from now. Granted, for all of this to really
Speaker 1: be a problem, you also have to develop those algorithms
Speaker 1: or you know, a series of instructions that a quantum
Speaker 1: computer would follow to carry out a task like decrypting
Speaker 1: stuff that we would otherwise think of as being practically untouchable.
Speaker 1: It's not like you build a quantum computer and it
Speaker 1: magically can decrypt things. You have to design an algorithm
Speaker 1: that effectively leads the quantum computer to do this. But
Speaker 1: there are people who are working on those algorithms and
Speaker 1: improving them all the time. It's just that you have
Speaker 1: to marry that with a quantum computer of sufficient power
Speaker 1: to make it actually do the thing. You wanted to do.
Speaker 1: But this really does mean we're on the precipice of
Speaker 1: an enormous transformation in digital communication and encryption. And that's
Speaker 1: just one possible quantum computing application. There are lots of others,
Speaker 1: so very exciting. Also, you know, notably a little scary
Speaker 1: because of the implications for things like encryption and the
Speaker 1: idea that with the right machine and algorithm, all stuff
Speaker 1: that previously we thought of as being private and safe
Speaker 1: and locked away isn't. So that that is concerning. But yeah,
Speaker 1: still also really exciting that this is happening and hopefully
Speaker 1: things will turn out. Okay, all right, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: another quick break while I calm myself down, and we'll
Speaker 1: be back to conclude this news episode with a few
Speaker 1: more stories. Okay, while looking at news articles for this episode,
Speaker 1: I came across a headline titled social media use linked
Speaker 1: to developing depression regardless of personality. Now, that headline reinforces
Speaker 1: some preconceived ideas of my own, and it also mirrors
Speaker 1: my own personal experience, so it seems to reinforce my
Speaker 1: anecdotal experience. So my first reaction to this headline was, well,
Speaker 1: of course, I'll go ahead and cover this, but I mean,
Speaker 1: of course it does. However, then I thought, hang on,
Speaker 1: I just did an episode about critical thinking. I should
Speaker 1: use some critical thinking. I should really read about how
Speaker 1: this study was performed and what it concluded. And once
Speaker 1: I did that, and I to be clear, I just
Speaker 1: read the press release. I have yet to read the
Speaker 1: full study. I haven't taken enough time to do that yet.
Speaker 1: But even just reading the press release, I tempered my
Speaker 1: reaction significantly. Now this is not to say that I
Speaker 1: think the headline is necessarily inaccurate, but rather that I
Speaker 1: have more questions and I feel like there's some big
Speaker 1: gaps in the reasoning here. Anyway, a group of researchers
Speaker 1: from the University of Arkansas, Oregon State University, University of Alabama,
Speaker 1: a couple of others. They took a sample of one
Speaker 1: thousand US adults between eighteen and thirty years old. Uh.
Speaker 1: Actually that sample was taken back in eighteen, so this
Speaker 1: is four year old data. That's one thing we've got
Speaker 1: to keep in mind. And they look to see how
Speaker 1: depression correlated both with social media use as well with
Speaker 1: certain personality traits, like are people who express certain types
Speaker 1: of personalities? More likely to be depressed if they use
Speaker 1: social media. That was kind of the question. Now the
Speaker 1: press release says, quote, for each personality trait, social media
Speaker 1: use was strongly associated with the development of depression. End quote.
Speaker 1: Now that phrase has some wiggle room in it. Right,
Speaker 1: strongly associated doesn't necessarily mean there's a causal relationship there. Right,
Speaker 1: that you have an association, but it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: one causes the other. But in another part of the
Speaker 1: press release, it says, quote, those with high neuroticism were
Speaker 1: twice as likely to develop depression than those with low
Speaker 1: neuroticism when using more than three minutes of so show
Speaker 1: media per day. End quote. Y'all that better be a typo.
Speaker 1: Three hundred minutes of social media per day. Three hundred
Speaker 1: minutes is five hours. That is a lot of time
Speaker 1: on social media. I mean, I did a cursory search
Speaker 1: to find out how much the average person spends on
Speaker 1: social media in a day. The number I kept seeing
Speaker 1: was one forty seven minutes. This was on sites like Statista,
Speaker 1: which some people have issues with, but I've seen it
Speaker 1: reported in a couple different places. Of course, they could
Speaker 1: all be getting their data from the same source, but
Speaker 1: still one seven minutes is less than half of three
Speaker 1: hundred minutes, right, So from what I was saying, the
Speaker 1: average person spends less than half that amount of time.
Speaker 1: So if you're spending three hundred minutes of time per
Speaker 1: day on social media, you are well outside the norm. Also,
Speaker 1: we should point out that according to these sites they
Speaker 1: are saying a hundred forty seven minutes is average. That's
Speaker 1: an increase of two minutes over one. So in other words,
Speaker 1: this keeping in mind that the data we're looking at
Speaker 1: in this study is four years old, presumably the average
Speaker 1: amount of time spent on social media back in eighteen
Speaker 1: was significantly lower than a hundred forty seven minutes. So
Speaker 1: three hundreds is a crazy outlier, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And I'm also saying, if you're spending twice as much
Speaker 1: time as the average person on social media, maybe there's
Speaker 1: another factor at play that's contributing both to your depression
Speaker 1: and the amount of time you're spending online. Also, I
Speaker 1: should point out, one people, that's a very very small
Speaker 1: sample size. It's hard to draw broad conclusions on such
Speaker 1: a small sample. Now, none of this is to say
Speaker 1: that the research is inherently bad or that the researchers
Speaker 1: all came to faulty conclusions. It's just that, based on
Speaker 1: the press release, I can't really see any kind of
Speaker 1: causal link between social media use in depression. This isn't
Speaker 1: to say there's not a link. There might be. I
Speaker 1: just don't see it being pointed out in this this study.
Speaker 1: Based on the press release. In fact, I could argue, well,
Speaker 1: what if the causal link goes the other way. What
Speaker 1: if it's not using social media leads to depression. What
Speaker 1: if having depression leads to an overreliance on social media.
Speaker 1: That kind of gets back to that idea of the
Speaker 1: strong association, right, That could be a causal link that
Speaker 1: goes in a different direction. It could just be a correlation.
Speaker 1: So I don't feel like you can draw any firm
Speaker 1: conclusions about this. Even though the press release goes on
Speaker 1: to say that people should be cutting back on the
Speaker 1: amount of time they spend on social media. I also
Speaker 1: think that I just don't think this study supports that argument,
Speaker 1: at least not not with any real evidence. It just
Speaker 1: seems to confirm feelings we have about it. I do
Speaker 1: think that it shows that we need a better designed,
Speaker 1: larger scale study to really look at to this also
Speaker 1: to acknowledge the fact that these kind of studies are
Speaker 1: inherently difficult to do. It is so hard to control
Speaker 1: for various variables that can affect things like depression that
Speaker 1: are outside the scope of the study, and because of that,
Speaker 1: it is very difficult to draw any sort of firm conclusion.
Speaker 1: So the whole reason I said this was again to
Speaker 1: once again reinforce the idea of critical thinking is important,
Speaker 1: especially when you encounter things that reaffirm your your previously
Speaker 1: held biases. Because it happened to me this morning, and
Speaker 1: then I took a moment and started asking questions again.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's all absolutely perfectly accurate. There's just some gaps
Speaker 1: there in the reasoning, but you can't say for sure
Speaker 1: one way or the other, which is why I go
Speaker 1: on ti rates like this, all right, Moving on. Earlier
Speaker 1: this week, the UK government announced plans to build a
Speaker 1: prototype fusion reactor on the side of a decommissioned coal
Speaker 1: mine and to have it up and running by twenty
Speaker 1: forty now. The specific approach the UK is taking is
Speaker 1: the spherical TACAMAC for energy production or STEP. A tacamac
Speaker 1: is a machine that can generate incredibly powerful magnetic fields
Speaker 1: meant to contain plasmas UH. This is in a doughnut
Speaker 1: shape called it trus and the purpose of a tocamac
Speaker 1: is to essentially force superheated atoms which are moving like
Speaker 1: crazy otherwise, but forcing these these really fast moving atoms
Speaker 1: to come into very close contact with one another so
Speaker 1: that they fuse into a heavier atom and release UH
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of energy in the process. So fusion,
Speaker 1: if we can get it to work, would absolutely transform
Speaker 1: our approach to energy. Fusion does not have the same
Speaker 1: dangers and drawbacks as nuclear fission does, and researchers have
Speaker 1: creative fusion reactions in labs. But the question is whether
Speaker 1: we can figure out a way to make a sustainable
Speaker 1: approach where you're able to, you know, do this more
Speaker 1: than just in an instant and be able to continue
Speaker 1: to have fusion reactions so that you can continue to
Speaker 1: provide energy in the form of electricity, or also if
Speaker 1: we can figure out a way to get more energy
Speaker 1: out than what we put into it. Right, if it
Speaker 1: costs you more energy to start and maintain the set
Speaker 1: of fusion reactions, then you get out of those fusion reactions.
Speaker 1: Then you're operating at a net loss, and it makes
Speaker 1: no sense to do it. You know. It means that
Speaker 1: you're wasting more energy than you're getting out of it.
Speaker 1: And you could just bypass that whole process and use
Speaker 1: the energy you were going to use to start and
Speaker 1: maintain the reactions to provide electricity to folks. So if
Speaker 1: we do figure it all out, that would be great.
Speaker 1: It would be transformational. Twenty forties seems like an incredibly
Speaker 1: ambitious and aggressive deadline to me. Um, maybe it's accurate,
Speaker 1: But because I haven't done research on fusion in a
Speaker 1: little while, maybe the advancements we've made make that less
Speaker 1: unlikely than I feel as it is. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need to do more research at the moment. I would
Speaker 1: be shocked if a working prototype fusion reactor we're up
Speaker 1: and running by twenty UM. I think it's more likely
Speaker 1: to go well over scheduled and probably way over budget,
Speaker 1: which is estimated to be in the like ten billion
Speaker 1: pounds range. Remember we're talking about the UK here, so
Speaker 1: pounds rather than dollars. But maybe, um, if it works,
Speaker 1: that would be amazing. I would love to see it happen.
Speaker 1: I just I feel I got a bad feeling about this,
Speaker 1: but I do need to do more research to see
Speaker 1: what progress we've made in fusion, because maybe is a
Speaker 1: reasonable estimate. I would love to see it happen. The
Speaker 1: Great Firewall Report, which is an organization that analyzes china
Speaker 1: censorship approach to the Internet, has stated that the country's
Speaker 1: government has made some updates to the technology uses to
Speaker 1: prevent Chinese citizens from accessing anything that the government doesn't
Speaker 1: approve of, which includes the whole laundry list of different things,
Speaker 1: including stuff that criticizes the Chinese government, and the report
Speaker 1: states that beginning on October three, the Chinese systems were
Speaker 1: starting to block quote t LS based censorship circumvention servers
Speaker 1: end quote TLS. By the way, it stands for a
Speaker 1: transport layer security. It's a cryptographic protocol. It's used all
Speaker 1: over the place. You've used it all the time without
Speaker 1: even knowing about it, and it's essentially used to encrypt
Speaker 1: data in an effort to provide security and privacy and
Speaker 1: authentication for communications. So these servers were relying on a
Speaker 1: protocol to essentially provide cover so that a user in
Speaker 1: China would be able to access information that the government
Speaker 1: would otherwise censor. But now China has found a way
Speaker 1: to essentially fingerprint these TLS based servers and to block
Speaker 1: access to them, and that sounds nasty for all sorts
Speaker 1: of reasons. To me, it's not exactly surprising given China's
Speaker 1: historical approach to information and communication. However, there are other
Speaker 1: tools like naive proxy that's still work right now, but
Speaker 1: the TLS based circumvention tools are being targeted pretty effectively.
Speaker 1: And finally, one story that's been unfolding in the gaming
Speaker 1: world revolves around the team based shooter game Overwatched two,
Speaker 1: which has had no shortage of controversies surrounding it and
Speaker 1: the company behind it, Activision Blizzard, is kind of a
Speaker 1: ground zero for controversy in general. One controversy is that
Speaker 1: Overwatch two is, of course it's equel to Overwatch, and
Speaker 1: that upon the release of Overwatch two, Blizzard to shut
Speaker 1: down the original game, so players can't play Overwatch anymore.
Speaker 1: They're forced to play Overwatched two. And another issue is
Speaker 1: that until recently, Blizzard was going to require all Overwatch
Speaker 1: two players to I had an active phone number that
Speaker 1: would be associated with their battle dot net account, and
Speaker 1: the thinking behind this was to create kind of a
Speaker 1: multi factor authentication system to establish not just player identity,
Speaker 1: but to be able to single out cheaters and abusive players.
Speaker 1: Right Like, if you have someone who's cheating in a game,
Speaker 1: or they're hurling slurs around and they're just being trolling,
Speaker 1: you can flag them. And now Blizzard could not just
Speaker 1: banned that account, but ban any account associated with that
Speaker 1: phone number. So that way the player would not just
Speaker 1: be able to go out, create a new account and
Speaker 1: go right back to abusing the system and the players
Speaker 1: in it. They would be completely banned as long as
Speaker 1: they were relying on that phone number. If they switched
Speaker 1: phone numbers, then it was a different story. But obviously
Speaker 1: that's a harder thing to do. But Blizzard has since
Speaker 1: walked this back a little bit. Now, anyone who was
Speaker 1: playing Overwatch the connected battle Net accounts since June nine
Speaker 1: will not have to submit a phone number to connect
Speaker 1: to their battle Net account. This change will start to
Speaker 1: roll out beginning tomorrow, October seven. However, accounts that were
Speaker 1: not connected to battle neet and then have to be
Speaker 1: in order to play Overwatch two, and all new accounts
Speaker 1: with Overwatch two will have to submit a phone number
Speaker 1: in order to play. However, this phone number system will
Speaker 1: not accept certain types of phone numbers, like those belonging
Speaker 1: to a voice over Internet Protocol line or void line,
Speaker 1: or phones that use prepaid SIM cards, which means that
Speaker 1: gamers who rely on those kinds of phones will effectively
Speaker 1: get locked out of playing over Watch two if they
Speaker 1: aren't in that little window of time where they get
Speaker 1: an exclusion from this policy. So this disproportionately effects lower
Speaker 1: income gamers who might be reliant upon prepaid SIM cards
Speaker 1: because they can't afford your typical phone contract. So because
Speaker 1: they don't have the type of phone that is interoperable
Speaker 1: with Blizzard system, they can't play over Watch two. And
Speaker 1: this creates an accessibility issue. So it seems to me
Speaker 1: that Blizzard was trying to solve one problem that is
Speaker 1: online abuse and cheating, and inadvertently created an accessibility problem. Also,
Speaker 1: we haven't seen yet whether Blizzards issues, whether blizzards approach
Speaker 1: will actually affect abuse and cheating, if it will actually
Speaker 1: work right, So we don't know if their solution works
Speaker 1: to solve the problem it was meant to solve, but
Speaker 1: we do know it has created a totally different problem.
Speaker 1: Fun times, all right, that's it for the news for Thursday,
Speaker 1: October six, two thousand twenty two. I hope you all
Speaker 1: are well. If you want to suggest topics for me
Speaker 1: to cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, there are
Speaker 1: a couple of different ways of doing it. One is
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Speaker 1: You can click on the little microphone icon and leave
Speaker 1: me a voice message up to thirty seconds in length.
Speaker 1: And by the way, shout out to Tom Valdez for
Speaker 1: sending me some really great messages. Really appreciate it. Tom,
Speaker 1: thanks so much. You could be like Tom, click on
Speaker 1: that little icon, leave a message. I've got a couple
Speaker 1: of of shows that I'm going to be doing in
Speaker 1: the near future that came from those suggestions. If you
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Speaker 1: is still a working entity. Who knows when that might change,
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Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Y.
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