Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. It's time for the tech news for Thursday,
Speaker 1: April six, twenty twenty three. Earlier this week, I talked
Speaker 1: about how Germany is considering a ban on open ais
Speaker 1: chat GPT out of privacy concerns following Italy's move to
Speaker 1: do just that very thing. Italy has issued essentially a
Speaker 1: ban and Germany's considering the same sort of thing. Well. Today,
Speaker 1: open Ai is scheduled to present Italian regulators a plan
Speaker 1: to address their concerns and to essentially patch some vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: in an effort to get that band lifted and perhaps
Speaker 1: prevent a domino effect throughout the rest of the European Union.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned in Tuesday's episode, the concerns here really
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with chat GPT's reliability as an
Speaker 1: information source, So this isn't concern about misinformation or anything
Speaker 1: like that, or plagiarism. It's rather how open ai and
Speaker 1: Microsoft handle user data and privacy, and it's also meant
Speaker 1: to ensure that underage users are unable to access the tool,
Speaker 1: and again this is a get due to the sensitive
Speaker 1: nature of their personal information. So it's more about how
Speaker 1: our companies like open ai and Microsoft getting EU citizen
Speaker 1: information and how are they using it, and they want
Speaker 1: to make sure that all of that is by the
Speaker 1: regulations of the EU. We've known that Meta, the parent
Speaker 1: company of Facebook and Instagram, has been working on its
Speaker 1: own AI. The company has already made its large language
Speaker 1: model called LAMA available to academics, and at least one
Speaker 1: of those academics subsequent leaked the code to get hub. Now.
Speaker 1: The financial newspaper Nica Asia reports that Meta is preparing
Speaker 1: to launch a commercial AI product using generative language features
Speaker 1: by the end of this year, so something similar to
Speaker 1: Google Bard or Chat GPT. This doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: the average Meta user will have direct interactions with this
Speaker 1: generative AI. Rather, one potential use could be totally behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, with the AI helping Meta's advertising division to
Speaker 1: work with clients to create more effective ad campaigns. Maybe
Speaker 1: you've seen what amounts to be the exact same ad,
Speaker 1: but the ad itself is clearly geared for different demographics.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of seeing the same commercial in English and Spanish.
Speaker 1: It was the exact same commercial with the same beats
Speaker 1: and everything, but it did have a totally different cast
Speaker 1: for the English version that from the Spanish one. It's
Speaker 1: just that they were both working from the exact same script.
Speaker 1: That's the sort of stuff that AI might help with.
Speaker 1: It might help craft approaches that it calculates will be
Speaker 1: most effective depending upon the audience. So an AI version
Speaker 1: of this might actually not use the exact same script.
Speaker 1: It might use a different script that the AI has
Speaker 1: calculated will be more effective for the intended viewer. Further off,
Speaker 1: a potential use of this AI might come in handy
Speaker 1: for Meta's version of the metaverse. I think this one
Speaker 1: is probably a bit more blue sky as it stands,
Speaker 1: but the article mentions the use of describing a virtual
Speaker 1: landscape that you have in mind and the AI can
Speaker 1: help craft it for you. So instead of you having
Speaker 1: to go through the trouble of learning how to use
Speaker 1: the graphics tools or programming or whatever the UI is
Speaker 1: for that meta space, you just tell the AI what
Speaker 1: you want and it makes it kind of like your
Speaker 1: own genie. Of course, that's only gonna matter if anyone
Speaker 1: actually wants to go to the metaverse. We'll chat more
Speaker 1: about that later in this episode. Anyway, it will be
Speaker 1: interesting to see if Meta does indeed launch these or
Speaker 1: other commercialized applications involving AI, particularly because the conversation around
Speaker 1: AI has been getting a little bit spicy lately. People
Speaker 1: have started to say we should pump the brakes on AI,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering, how is that going to impact initiatives
Speaker 1: like this one. It might not. The initial thoughts of
Speaker 1: using it to help with advertising seem like it would
Speaker 1: be less obvious to the average person and therefore might
Speaker 1: slip under the radar and be considered perfectly fine. We'll
Speaker 1: have to wait and see. Speaking of Meta and AI, yesterday,
Speaker 1: the company showed off its segment Anything model, or sam
Speaker 1: This model can apparently identify objects in videos and still images,
Speaker 1: even if the model had never been trained on those
Speaker 1: particular objects. I'm not sure how the heck that works,
Speaker 1: but that's how Reuters reported it. The Reuters report also
Speaker 1: mentions that there were a few ways to interact with
Speaker 1: the model. So for example, you might have a picture
Speaker 1: opened up and you've got the sam AI agent active.
Speaker 1: At the same time, you could ask it to outline
Speaker 1: something specific in the picture. So, for example, maybe it's
Speaker 1: a college dorm room and you tell Sam, hey, can
Speaker 1: you outline the pizza in this picture, which, of course,
Speaker 1: as we all know, will be stuck to the ceiling
Speaker 1: or whatever. Anyway, Sam would then draw a little rectangle
Speaker 1: around the item in question once it identified it in
Speaker 1: the picture. This technology is in some ways an extension
Speaker 1: of stuff that Meta has been doing for years, like
Speaker 1: identifying specific people in photo. Admittedly, it has been a
Speaker 1: while since I've been on Facebook, but I do remember
Speaker 1: uploading images and then immediately seeing suggestions for tagging people
Speaker 1: in my pictures because Facebook was helpfully letting me know
Speaker 1: that it knows what all of my friends look like. Well,
Speaker 1: now Facebook is essentially telling me that it knows what
Speaker 1: everything looks like. I bet nothing can go wrong there. Finance,
Speaker 1: the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, continues to be at the
Speaker 1: center of scrutiny. Most recently, the company has shut down
Speaker 1: its derivative businesses in Australia after the country essentially revoked
Speaker 1: Binance's financial services license there. Now. This is due to
Speaker 1: an ongoing probe in which Binance apparently miscategorized some retail
Speaker 1: investors as wholesale investors, and you might be left saying, well, wait,
Speaker 1: so they lost their financial services license over what could
Speaker 1: have been a clerical error. Here's the rub. See, Australian
Speaker 1: law provides greater protections for retail investors. For the average
Speaker 1: person who's investing, the government protects them more because they
Speaker 1: don't have the same resources that a company investor would have.
Speaker 1: Right so the government steps in and says the investor
Speaker 1: deserves some protection. So the country's regulators are pointing out
Speaker 1: that Binance was possibly categorizing investors as wholesale in an
Speaker 1: effort to bypass that higher level of protection. Australians will
Speaker 1: still be able to engage with the exchange, so people
Speaker 1: who have money in crypto and they live in Australia
Speaker 1: will still be able to use Binance for that purpose. However,
Speaker 1: Binance will not be allowed to create derivative businesses in
Speaker 1: Australia for at least the near term. The collapse of
Speaker 1: FTX continues to have a massive impact beyond the crypt world.
Speaker 1: You might remember FTX was the second largest crypto exchange
Speaker 1: before things went pair shaped toward the end of last year,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that did early last year
Speaker 1: before everything went totally bonkers, was it established a philanthropic
Speaker 1: agency called the FTX Foundation. This foundation would issue grants
Speaker 1: to various applicants for all sorts of stuff. Well, since
Speaker 1: FTX went belly up last year, that funding source has
Speaker 1: been cut off. And worse than that, some folks who
Speaker 1: have received grants are now scrambling to try and pay
Speaker 1: that money back before it becomes legally mandated that they
Speaker 1: do so. And as you might imagine, this has had
Speaker 1: a huge impact on various research projects as well as
Speaker 1: independent researchers. This includes students who have since had to
Speaker 1: drop out of school because the foundation was funding their
Speaker 1: education and that money is gone. Routers has a whole
Speaker 1: piece about this. It's a pretty sad story if you
Speaker 1: want to read more about it. And it really isn't
Speaker 1: the fault of these researchers and students. It's not the
Speaker 1: fault of the people who receive the grants. It's not
Speaker 1: the fault of the people who gave the grants. The
Speaker 1: group that was put in charge of the FTX Foundation
Speaker 1: appeared to have been sincere in their efforts to help
Speaker 1: fund these projects. The problem was that FTX was engaged
Speaker 1: in shenanigans. And while you would say the people who
Speaker 1: receive the grants aren't at fault and they should not
Speaker 1: be penalized, you also have to think about the customers
Speaker 1: of FTX who saw their investments mishandled and essentially stripped
Speaker 1: away from them, and that they deserve to have as
Speaker 1: much of their money returned to them as they possibly can.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately that also means the money that had been
Speaker 1: directed toward foundation efforts. It is an ugly, ugly situation. Well,
Speaker 1: before things get uglier, let's take a quick break. We're
Speaker 1: back the verges. J Peters, who actually wrote a couple
Speaker 1: of articles we'll be talking about today. He has an
Speaker 1: article that argues it might just be the absolute worst
Speaker 1: time for Apple to jump into the mixed reality space,
Speaker 1: and I'm inclined to agree. You might remember that everyone
Speaker 1: expects Apple to announce its mixed reality headset. It's a
Speaker 1: VR slash AR headset, a far cry from the original
Speaker 1: concept of a pair of eyeglasses that were capable of
Speaker 1: handling AAR functionality. This is more of your standard, you know,
Speaker 1: headset with a full display in front of it. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a rough times Peter's points out the market for
Speaker 1: high end VR headsets isn't exactly taking off like a
Speaker 1: rocket right now, where sales are pretty bad. Whether it's
Speaker 1: Meta's Quest Pro, which originally had the staggering price tag
Speaker 1: of fifteen hundred dollars, which, to be fair, is only
Speaker 1: half of what we expect Apple's headset to cost. Also,
Speaker 1: Meta has since slashed that price down to a thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: all the way down to Sony's VR setup for the
Speaker 1: PS five. That demand just hasn't pulled through either. It
Speaker 1: hasn't been there. There have been modest sales of lower
Speaker 1: priced VR headsets, but they have been really modest. On
Speaker 1: top of that, CNBC reports that research firm Piper Sanders
Speaker 1: surveyed teens who had VR headsets and found that only
Speaker 1: four percent of them would use their headsets daily and
Speaker 1: fourteen percent would use them once a week. That's not
Speaker 1: great like those numbers. That's you know, you're talking about
Speaker 1: the people who have already bought a headset and they're
Speaker 1: not using it that frequently. That's that's bad news for
Speaker 1: a lot of companies right now. And worse than that
Speaker 1: is that both of those numbers are taken out of
Speaker 1: the teens who actually have a VR headset, and they
Speaker 1: only make up twenty nine percent of all the teens
Speaker 1: that were surveyed for this research. So the other way
Speaker 1: to think about this is that less than a third
Speaker 1: of all the teens surveyed in this project own a
Speaker 1: VR headset. Out of them, only four percent of that
Speaker 1: twenty nine percent use it every day. Yikes. I don't
Speaker 1: find this really surprising personally, but that's due to two
Speaker 1: really big factors. One is that VR tends to be expensive.
Speaker 1: There are lower cost headsets out there, and some of
Speaker 1: them are pretty good, although you know, you often need
Speaker 1: to have a really decent computer to run the software,
Speaker 1: so even if the headset isn't that expensive, you might
Speaker 1: need an expensive computer to really make the most out
Speaker 1: of it. And you're still talking about hundreds of dollars
Speaker 1: or even a cheap headset. And while a team might
Speaker 1: save up for a phone, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: smartphones cost around a thousand dollars. That's really expensive. But
Speaker 1: a phone is something you can carry with you wherever
Speaker 1: you go and you can use it pretty much anytime,
Speaker 1: whereas a VR headset is only a sometimes technology. To paraphrase,
Speaker 1: cookie monster. So it's a really big thing to ask
Speaker 1: a consumer to hand over several hundred bucks or more
Speaker 1: for some technology that they're only occasionally going to use.
Speaker 1: Despite the efforts of companies like Microsoft and Meta trying
Speaker 1: to convince us that the future is virtual. By the way,
Speaker 1: I find it really fascinating that you have companies that
Speaker 1: are pushing for this vision of the future where we're
Speaker 1: going to interact with one another in a virtual realm. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: those very same companies are requiring employees to come back
Speaker 1: into the office to work there because they don't want
Speaker 1: them to work remotely. That seems like a mixed message
Speaker 1: to me, does it. Not like they're saying, Hey, the
Speaker 1: virtual world, that's gonna be amazing. Everyone's gonna want to
Speaker 1: work there. You're gonna want these devices because it's going
Speaker 1: to make work better, but you need to come into
Speaker 1: the office disconnect there anyway. That's one big factor is
Speaker 1: just the cost of these things. I think that's a
Speaker 1: big barrier to entry. But the other one is content. Now,
Speaker 1: there are some truly great VR experiences out there, but
Speaker 1: there's not an overabundance of them. The library for really
Speaker 1: good VR experiences is fairly thin, and this actually creates
Speaker 1: a catch twenty two situation. Developers are not eager to
Speaker 1: jump into creating really good VR experiences because they're not
Speaker 1: likely to make back their investment because the installed base
Speaker 1: for VR is pretty small. But the install base is
Speaker 1: small in part because there's a lack of content, so
Speaker 1: this sort of perpetuates itself anyway, long story short, I
Speaker 1: remain skeptical that VR is going to emerge from being
Speaker 1: a niche technology and become a mainstream tech for the
Speaker 1: common consumer, at least in the near term. If it
Speaker 1: does happen, it's going to take a lot more time,
Speaker 1: and that's probably going to take even more steam out
Speaker 1: of a lot of metaverse projects that are also connected
Speaker 1: to this concept of VR and AAR. And we've already
Speaker 1: been seeing cutbacks to metaverse divisions as companies look to
Speaker 1: control costs. So I think the metaverse quest in general
Speaker 1: is taking a really massive hit right now. Not all
Speaker 1: metaverse projects involve VR or AR. A lot of them do,
Speaker 1: but not all of them do, but I think pretty
Speaker 1: much all of them have had the rug pulled out
Speaker 1: from under them. Google has updated its developer policy for Android.
Speaker 1: It will require developers to make it easier for users
Speaker 1: to delete all their personal data off the respective apps, companies, services,
Speaker 1: should they choose to do so so. Before Google required
Speaker 1: developers to make it possible to delete an account. This
Speaker 1: was a prerequisite for having an app on the Google
Speaker 1: Play Store. So not only could you delete the app
Speaker 1: off your phone, which would remove the app from your phone,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't magically delete your account with that app. Developer.
Speaker 1: Now you would be able to actually go and say, hey,
Speaker 1: take out my account entirely, delete the account, delete all
Speaker 1: the information you have on me. That was something Google
Speaker 1: had already demanded the developers supply. However, they didn't have
Speaker 1: any rules in place about how developers could implement that policy,
Speaker 1: which meant a oliper could have made it possible, but
Speaker 1: really bloody annoying to delete an account. So you know,
Speaker 1: you can make it a standard practice that if you
Speaker 1: wanted to remove your app, sure you could uninstall it,
Speaker 1: but if you wanted to delete your account, you had
Speaker 1: to contact the developer and request a manual deletion, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people just don't go to that step.
Speaker 1: Now Google is saying that developers will have to include
Speaker 1: a way for users to initiate account and data deletion
Speaker 1: online or from within the app itself. So that way,
Speaker 1: if you find out, say that the recipe app you've
Speaker 1: been using, has been secretly selling your information to China,
Speaker 1: you could hit self destruct on your account and your
Speaker 1: data while also uninstalling the app, and hopefully that's exactly
Speaker 1: what would then happen. It's a good step toward consumer protection,
Speaker 1: but it is unclear how Google plans to actually enforce
Speaker 1: these policies and to make sure that developers actually follow
Speaker 1: the rules. I mean, you might have a button that
Speaker 1: says delete my account, and the developer says your account
Speaker 1: has been deleted, and nothing actually happened. So how does
Speaker 1: Google make certain that the developer is following through on
Speaker 1: the policy. Hopefully this will get sorted out and it
Speaker 1: doesn't just become something that Google can point to and say,
Speaker 1: but we told them it's against the rules, so it's
Speaker 1: not our fault. You can tell that I don't have
Speaker 1: a whole lot of faith in this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Earlier I mentioned an article by j Peters of The
Speaker 1: Virgin I said he was going to come up again,
Speaker 1: and here it is. Mister Peters has been a busy
Speaker 1: Little Bee this week. Yesterday The Verge published a piece
Speaker 1: written by Peters about his experiences at fashion week. I mean,
Speaker 1: to be more specific, Metaverse fashion Week held at decentra
Speaker 1: Land and if you want a scathing indictment of the
Speaker 1: metaverse concept in general and decentral Lands history in particular,
Speaker 1: you have got to watch the video. The future is
Speaker 1: a ed mole Decentraland and the Metaverse by Folding Ideas.
Speaker 1: I've recommended the Folding Ideas channel before. He did a
Speaker 1: really fascinating piece about NFTs. He's talked about the crypto world.
Speaker 1: It's funny because he started off really being a channel
Speaker 1: that analyzed it, dived into deep analysis of film and
Speaker 1: television and narratives, and now he's tackling everything and his
Speaker 1: work is truly it's phenomenal. At Peter's of The Verge,
Speaker 1: he also mentions this specific video in his own coverage,
Speaker 1: and his experience and the video from Folding Ideas both
Speaker 1: paint a fairly bleak or at least bland image of
Speaker 1: the metaverse, rather than a virtual world teeming with cool
Speaker 1: avatars doing six stunts while daft punk is playing in
Speaker 1: the background. It sounds like most of the experience is
Speaker 1: pretty empty, like there are virtual landmarks and stuff, but
Speaker 1: not that many people populating it, and the avatars you
Speaker 1: do see can often just be standing idle. Maybe they're
Speaker 1: logged in just for the purposes of being logged in,
Speaker 1: possibly to accrue some sort of credit in the process,
Speaker 1: kind of like those time wasting games that you have
Speaker 1: where you make a turn and then it says you
Speaker 1: have to wait five minutes for your next turn. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's kind of what's happening. Peter says that the Metaverse
Speaker 1: Fashion Week quote felt kind of like a County fair
Speaker 1: end quote with its layout, so you could actually wander
Speaker 1: from booth to booth and check things out. Peter said
Speaker 1: most of the spaces weren't very interesting, and the bits
Speaker 1: that were meant to be interactive frequently didn't work well,
Speaker 1: if at all, so it could be a frustrating experience.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you could look at virtual fashion and potentially
Speaker 1: even purchase some with in world currency so that your
Speaker 1: avatar could wear a bespoke virtual fur code or something,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't you know, it didn't come across as
Speaker 1: a ringing endorsement of the Metaverse in general, or at
Speaker 1: least decentral Lands version of it. Folding Ideas found similar
Speaker 1: issues when exploring decentral Land in general, including issues with
Speaker 1: collision detection, which made it all but impossible to you know,
Speaker 1: like climb a staircase to go to our virtual building's
Speaker 1: second floor or you know, first floor if you happen
Speaker 1: to be in England or something. Peter said the only
Speaker 1: time he really saw users interacting with one another was
Speaker 1: at the closing party for Fashion Week, when quote dozens
Speaker 1: of avatars grooved on a virtual dance floor as a
Speaker 1: video of a human DJ played on a big screen.
Speaker 1: End quote. Based on Peters's article and the Folding Ideas video,
Speaker 1: which again Peter's also references in the article, the current
Speaker 1: incarnation of the Metaverse, or at least decentral Lands version
Speaker 1: of the Metaverse, is pretty boring. Decentral Land, by the way,
Speaker 1: is one of the groups that has abandoned plans to
Speaker 1: incorporate VR into its version of the Metaverse, So instead
Speaker 1: of going with a virtual reality approach, which is sort
Speaker 1: of what Meta has been hinting at, they're looking at
Speaker 1: going with the third person avatar approach, similar to what
Speaker 1: you would see in a massively multiplayer online role playing game.
Speaker 1: So maybe it's unfair to say that the metaverse is
Speaker 1: kind of pointless and boring. Maybe you could argue we're
Speaker 1: still a year or two out from being able to
Speaker 1: see stuff that's really compelling beyond narrow use cases. That's
Speaker 1: entirely possible. But even if that is the case, there
Speaker 1: is a lot of work that has to be done
Speaker 1: to make the metaverse something interesting enough for me to
Speaker 1: want to check it out beyond say, you know, checking
Speaker 1: out a curiosity. Like if one of my favorite bands
Speaker 1: was going to do a virtual concert, I might check
Speaker 1: that out because I like the band and I might
Speaker 1: be enjoy being able to hear them play a set,
Speaker 1: even though I wouldn't actually be there in person. I
Speaker 1: might check that out. But I can't imagine going to
Speaker 1: the metaverse just to go and that. Until that changes,
Speaker 1: I think the metaverse is kind of at a non
Speaker 1: starter for me. Okay, we got a few more stories
Speaker 1: to cover before we get to that. Let's take one
Speaker 1: more break. We're back. Vietnam has joined the list of
Speaker 1: countries currently investigating TikTok So. In this case, Vietnam's government
Speaker 1: says that this investigation is to ensure that TikTok is
Speaker 1: complying with laws and regulations, and also that you know,
Speaker 1: it's paying its proper taxes. Plus there are some concerns
Speaker 1: about content, with government official Lee Kuangtudo saying quote the
Speaker 1: platform needs to aid by local regulations on both content
Speaker 1: and tax obligations end quote. And also that some content
Speaker 1: on TikTok was quote toxic, offensive, false, and superstitious end quote,
Speaker 1: which yeah, I mean that's true, But then there's also
Speaker 1: a lot of that kind of stuff on pretty much
Speaker 1: every single platform that allows for user generated content on it.
Speaker 1: But I do get it. TikTok is built in such
Speaker 1: a way that bad content can go viral awfully fast,
Speaker 1: and next thing you know, people are watching videos that
Speaker 1: convince them to try stupid, dangerous stuff, or they're watching
Speaker 1: videos that contain blatant lies that are being passed off
Speaker 1: as fact. And if you trust TikTok more than you
Speaker 1: know a credible source, you're bound to get into trouble. Previously,
Speaker 1: upon the request of Vietnam's government, TikTok removed one point
Speaker 1: seven million videos off the platform. This was just toward
Speaker 1: the end of last year. So we'll see if there's
Speaker 1: going to be a similar purge. In the wake of
Speaker 1: this new investigation, Toyota appears to be ready to dive
Speaker 1: into electric vehicle development with real fervor after years of
Speaker 1: resisting it. According to Reuters, the company has long leaned
Speaker 1: on alternatives to pure electric vehicles, including fuel cell vehicles
Speaker 1: and hybrids. The general perception in the car world that
Speaker 1: I have picked up on is that Toyota's really dragged
Speaker 1: its feet when it comes to electric vehicles and really
Speaker 1: tried to push hard for different approaches. But after a
Speaker 1: massive change in leadership, including a new CEO, the company
Speaker 1: now appears to be repositioning to focus seriously on electric vehicles.
Speaker 1: Whether or not Toyota can make up for a lost
Speaker 1: time remains to be seen. The company is definitely behind
Speaker 1: its competitors when it comes to creating the infrastructure needed
Speaker 1: to build electric vehicles apidly at scale, but better late
Speaker 1: than never. Sometimes international law enforcement activities get badass mission names.
Speaker 1: Such is the case with a recent operation that seized
Speaker 1: the Genesis market, an online market that catered to hackers
Speaker 1: and data thieves and other na'er duells. So what was
Speaker 1: the operation's name? Operation Cookie Monster? That's right, I referenced
Speaker 1: cookie Monster twice in this news episode. Apparently, the sting
Speaker 1: operation included two hundred eight property searches and one hundred
Speaker 1: nineteen arrests. Yowza Ours Technical reports that while the public
Speaker 1: facing web page was taken down, the dark web version
Speaker 1: is still up. If you were to use tour and
Speaker 1: to navigate to this marketplaces Onion based dark web website,
Speaker 1: you could actually still go there. So this suggests that
Speaker 1: the International Law Enforcement Group has not seized all of
Speaker 1: the assets held by this particular organization, so there's still
Speaker 1: work to be done. Apparently most of the activity on
Speaker 1: this hacker market involved the buying and selling of private information.
Speaker 1: There were around fifty nine thousand registered users on the
Speaker 1: site yikes, and that they were using tools that were
Speaker 1: doing things like creating a simulation of your browsers. So
Speaker 1: if your machine had been one of the ones compromised,
Speaker 1: someone could potentially be looking at what you're looking at
Speaker 1: in real time as you use the browser and be
Speaker 1: able to do things like logyear passwords and things of
Speaker 1: that nature, real fun stuff. So yeah, it's a good
Speaker 1: thing that it got seized, but obviously without the dark
Speaker 1: web assets being turned off, you know, that there's still
Speaker 1: more to be done. Finally, are you lonely and also
Speaker 1: are you flush with cash? And are you tired of
Speaker 1: dating poor people? Well, I have potentially good news for you.
Speaker 1: Tender is contemplating a service currently referenced as tender Vault,
Speaker 1: and this would let lonesome folks who have deep pockets
Speaker 1: find others who are like themselves. So, according to Yahoo Life,
Speaker 1: tender Vault would cost five hundred dollars a month, though
Speaker 1: you could pay up front for a year and save
Speaker 1: yourself some dough then it would just be five grand
Speaker 1: for the whole year, and in return, you would have
Speaker 1: your tender profile boosted. Plus you'd be able to look
Speaker 1: for other folks who had also joined tender Vault. So
Speaker 1: in other words, you could sort your searches so that
Speaker 1: you're only looking for other people who also spent five
Speaker 1: hundred bucks a month to be part of this group.
Speaker 1: So all the snooty rich people can make certain they
Speaker 1: could avoid all the innokds that stands for not all kind, dear,
Speaker 1: and then they could avoid the rest of us, you know,
Speaker 1: the unwashed peasants just trying to find love or a
Speaker 1: hook up. Personally, I wonder if those boosted profiles will
Speaker 1: be viewable by the general public, and if they will
Speaker 1: see that it's a profile belonging to a Tinder Vault user,
Speaker 1: because I could definitely see a rise in searches for
Speaker 1: a brand new sugar Daddy or sugar mommy year or whatever.
Speaker 1: Ain't love grand or maybe five grand a year. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's it for this episode of tech Stuff. Hope you
Speaker 1: are all well. If you'd like to reach out to me,
Speaker 1: you can do so by sending me a message on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle for the show is tech stuff HSW or
Speaker 1: you can drop me a line by using the little
Speaker 1: microphone icon on the tech Stuff page in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: It's free to downloads free to use. Just tap that
Speaker 1: little microphone you leave a voice message up to thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: I'm link and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.