Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'mond executive producer with I Heart Radio. And
Speaker 1: how the tech are you? This time for the tech
Speaker 1: news for Tuesday, January two thousand twenty three. As I
Speaker 1: mentioned last week, c e S recently happened. That's the
Speaker 1: big consumer tech trade show that takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Speaker 1: And while I did not go this year, I did
Speaker 1: read up on some of the stuff shown off and
Speaker 1: thought i'd give just a quick glimpse at a few
Speaker 1: things that caught my eye. And first up is a
Speaker 1: nineties seven inch television because of course it caught my
Speaker 1: eye because it blocks everything else that you could be
Speaker 1: looking at that is enormous. The TV comes from l
Speaker 1: G and it's an O LED television and nineties seven
Speaker 1: oh LED TV. It also comes in a wireless version
Speaker 1: where you can connect the television to your various components
Speaker 1: without you know, having wires go everywhere. Now, I have
Speaker 1: no idea how much that wireless version will cost if
Speaker 1: it does actually become a true consumer product as opposed
Speaker 1: to you know, kind of a concept or proof, you know,
Speaker 1: a prototype or something. But the wired version the TV
Speaker 1: is said to come out and around twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: It's outside of my price range for sure. Still. I
Speaker 1: can actually remember going to c E S back when
Speaker 1: the largest oh LED screens you'd see were like eight inches,
Speaker 1: when they were just kind of showing off what oh
Speaker 1: Led could do, Like there was no such thing as
Speaker 1: an no LED t V at that point. They had
Speaker 1: little displays sometimes like bendable displays, but they were tie need.
Speaker 1: So this is really an enormous leap from where the
Speaker 1: technology was when I first started going to c e S.
Speaker 1: Samsung meanwhile, showed off a seventy seven inch q d
Speaker 1: oh Lad television, so there were no there's no shortage
Speaker 1: of large TVs boasting great color representation and resolution. So again,
Speaker 1: just really phenomenal when you when you've been going long
Speaker 1: enough so that you saw where the technology was when
Speaker 1: you started, versus where it is now. Like I said before,
Speaker 1: you would never even see a television with an old screen,
Speaker 1: and now you were looking at, you know, displays that
Speaker 1: are creeping up to the hundred inch size, which is
Speaker 1: just unfathomable to me. Yeah, pretty exciting stuff. A R
Speaker 1: and VR also had some entries at c E S three.
Speaker 1: Loomis l U m u S showed off their latest
Speaker 1: design for a OUR glasses and they look kind of
Speaker 1: like Black Frame I glasses, actually a lot like them.
Speaker 1: Wired reports that they felt like they were a little
Speaker 1: bit larger than your typical glasses are, but they otherwise
Speaker 1: look pretty darn normal. Now, Loomas is in the business
Speaker 1: of supplying smart display technology to other manufacturers to incorporate
Speaker 1: into their products, so it's not like we're gonna see
Speaker 1: a Loomis branded set of a R glasses anytime soon. Instead,
Speaker 1: you might end up with a Loomis display built into
Speaker 1: some other product, like whether it's a smart window or
Speaker 1: a windshield or something along those lines. Meanwhile, HTC introduced
Speaker 1: the viv x R Elite VR headset. It's got a
Speaker 1: sleeker form factor, looks a little little way less chunky
Speaker 1: than earlier VR headsets. It's also reportedly less than half
Speaker 1: the weight of the meta Quest Pro headset, so it's
Speaker 1: pretty lightweight. And keep in mind the meta Quest Pro
Speaker 1: is meta slash, Facebook's attempt to create a headset that
Speaker 1: professionals would use in order in business settings, and if
Speaker 1: you have a headset like that, then you want it
Speaker 1: to be lightweight, because if you're wearing it a lot,
Speaker 1: like if you're working a normal work day, then you're
Speaker 1: gonna be using your headset a lot. You definitely don't
Speaker 1: want it to be too heavy. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: this one is pretty pretty sleek in that regard, and
Speaker 1: it sounded like it's a fairly impressive piece of technology,
Speaker 1: and it better be because it sure ain't cheap. It'll
Speaker 1: be coming to market in late February for the princely
Speaker 1: sum of one thousand dollars, So that's real expensive. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like the price of a an entry level or
Speaker 1: maybe you could say like a medium level gaming PC.
Speaker 1: It's nowhere close to what you would pay if you're
Speaker 1: wanting to go top of the line, like that's you're
Speaker 1: getting into the multiple thousands of dollars then, But a
Speaker 1: thousand bucks that's a lot to spend on what most
Speaker 1: people look at as a peripheral as opposed to like
Speaker 1: a computer. So yeah, I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: going to help usher in a wider acceptance of VR.
Speaker 1: It might be really impressive and work really well, but
Speaker 1: at that price point, I think it's still going to
Speaker 1: prevent a lot of people from jumping into the field,
Speaker 1: but I could be wrong. I've been skeptical about VR
Speaker 1: becoming a big thing, Like I've always thought that it's
Speaker 1: more of a niche technology, that it has its place,
Speaker 1: and that you can create really incredible experiences for VR.
Speaker 1: But because of things like the cost, as well as
Speaker 1: the fact that some people just get motion sick while
Speaker 1: they're using the technology, means that you're probably not gonna
Speaker 1: see it become the mainstream technology that say, replaces computers
Speaker 1: or becomes the next revolution in computing after the mobile revolution.
Speaker 1: Every year it's c e s. There are always gadgets
Speaker 1: that get attention because they're different from everything else. They're
Speaker 1: not necessarily better or even useful, but they're different, and
Speaker 1: then that gets a lot of attention because people, frankly,
Speaker 1: reporters get tired of covering televisions and cars and audio systems.
Speaker 1: Like there's certain categories at CES that are always represented,
Speaker 1: and even if you see something that's really good, it's
Speaker 1: like a jump ahead of what the previous models have been,
Speaker 1: the fact that you've been covering that for years just
Speaker 1: means that you're kind of tired of it, so when
Speaker 1: something different comes along, people notice. I'm actually reminded of
Speaker 1: the haptic fork from several years ago. This was a
Speaker 1: fork that had a motor built into the handle, and
Speaker 1: the motor would cause the fork to vibrate and and
Speaker 1: make food fall off the fork if it detected you
Speaker 1: were trying to eat too quickly. It was a way
Speaker 1: to try and force you to slow down your eating. Well.
Speaker 1: This year, one thing that I saw a lot of
Speaker 1: coverage on at c e S was the we Things
Speaker 1: you Scan. Now, this is a device. It's a little
Speaker 1: cartridge thing that fits inside your toilet and it analyzes
Speaker 1: your p So the idea is that this thing can
Speaker 1: analyze urine and then report back via an app on
Speaker 1: things like whether or not you're properly hydrated, or maybe
Speaker 1: you're lacking some specific nutrients, or maybe you're using it
Speaker 1: to track your hormone cycle because you and your partner
Speaker 1: want to have a baby and this can help track
Speaker 1: cycles for that kind of thing. There's no one cartridge
Speaker 1: it fits all solution here. It's not like it's not
Speaker 1: like making the claims of Farinus, where one thing can
Speaker 1: cover all eventualities. So instead you have to choose the
Speaker 1: cartridge that applies to whatever it is you want to measure,
Speaker 1: and then on top of that, you have to subscribe
Speaker 1: to the service. So there's a subscription fee on top
Speaker 1: of the cartridge fee to use the service. The cartridges
Speaker 1: are going to cost around six hundred dollars a pop.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the monthly subscription fee is going
Speaker 1: to be. I will say that while I saw a
Speaker 1: lot of outlets report on this technology, it actually surprised
Speaker 1: me that not nearly as many pointed out the concerns
Speaker 1: that Cindy Cone of the Electronic Frontier Foundation raised, namely
Speaker 1: that anytime you're talking about medical information and you're talking
Speaker 1: about an app ecosystem, you need to be concerned about
Speaker 1: data security and privacy. So Cone asks a really good question,
Speaker 1: is there anything being done with that data beyond the analysis?
Speaker 1: Could the we Things company leverage that data for other purposes?
Speaker 1: Could it possibly sell that information to other companies? And
Speaker 1: in the wake of a controversial Supreme Court decision here
Speaker 1: in the US last year, could it mean that state
Speaker 1: governments that restrict women's access to things like abortion use
Speaker 1: data collected by we Things to kind of monitor women
Speaker 1: becomes very invasive, very handmade's tale when you start getting
Speaker 1: into this now. For their part, We Things later responded
Speaker 1: to this criticism, saying that the product and service will
Speaker 1: be subject to company data private CE policies, so U
Speaker 1: big relief there. And last week I mentioned there would
Speaker 1: likely be a few flying cars on display at CES.
Speaker 1: Typically these take the form of what looks like just
Speaker 1: a very large drone with four or more rotors, so
Speaker 1: like your typical quad copter design quad copter only refers
Speaker 1: to ones that four rotors, but you know, big enough
Speaker 1: so that you could fit one or two people into
Speaker 1: like a cockpit that's in the center of these things.
Speaker 1: That's what most flying cars look like. But one thing
Speaker 1: I didn't anticipate was a quote unquote flying boat that's
Speaker 1: not really flying, but that's kind of what c net
Speaker 1: called it. It is the Candela C eight. It's an
Speaker 1: electric speedboat, so it is an electric vehicle and it
Speaker 1: uses hydrofoils. So these are like wing like structures that
Speaker 1: submerge under the water while the rest of the boat
Speaker 1: lifts up off the surface of the of the sea
Speaker 1: as you start to move up to speed, and the
Speaker 1: hydrofoils act like wings, but instead of the fluid being air,
Speaker 1: the fluid is actually the water of the sea, and
Speaker 1: this reduces the amount of surface area that actually makes
Speaker 1: contact with the water. It means that the boat can
Speaker 1: go pretty darn fast, like around thirty four miles per hour.
Speaker 1: That's really a good clip for a boat. But the
Speaker 1: C eight also has some other tricks up its sleeve.
Speaker 1: Because hydrofoils, they're cool, but they're not new. Uh. Some
Speaker 1: of the other things that the C eight has include
Speaker 1: a self piloting feature, so sort of like Tesla's autopilot
Speaker 1: that's meant to keep the boat on a set course.
Speaker 1: So let's say that you are, you know, going from
Speaker 1: one island to another. It's gonna take about three hours.
Speaker 1: You set the course and the boat keeps you on
Speaker 1: that and it detects when you start drifting due to
Speaker 1: other things like wind or current that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and can keep you on the right path. It also
Speaker 1: has tons of sensors so that the boat can keep
Speaker 1: itself stable and balanced, which is important when you're raised
Speaker 1: up on hydrofoils. And it will only set you back
Speaker 1: three hundred ninety thousand dollars. Now, of course, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of other items on display at c E
Speaker 1: S three, But since I didn't go and can only
Speaker 1: form opinions based on coverage, I'm gonna just limited to
Speaker 1: those things that thought were kind of neat. Honestly, there's
Speaker 1: so much more for me to read up on. I
Speaker 1: I'm still unaware of a lot of stuff that was
Speaker 1: at c E S. So I'm going to segue into
Speaker 1: some other news, But first, let's take a quick break. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back over in China. Some recent Tesla customers are
Speaker 1: really really unhappy. Why. Well, recently, Tesla marked down the
Speaker 1: prices of various vehicles it was selling in China by
Speaker 1: several thousand dollars. So the amount of markdown really depends
Speaker 1: upon the specific model of car, but all of them
Speaker 1: got big price cuts. However, that means that the folks
Speaker 1: who purchased a Tesla in China before the company made
Speaker 1: this markdown had paid an earlier higher price for their cars.
Speaker 1: Now they're upset that if they had just waited a
Speaker 1: little bit and then purchased their vehicle after the cuts,
Speaker 1: they could have done so for a decent discount. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, this kind of buyer's remorse is pretty common.
Speaker 1: I know that I have personally kicked myself for buying
Speaker 1: something that later went on sale, like not long after
Speaker 1: I bought it, and I think, gosh, if only I
Speaker 1: had waited, I could have saved you know, however much money.
Speaker 1: But hindsight, right, you had no way of knowing necessarily
Speaker 1: at the time when you make a purchase that a
Speaker 1: week or a month later, it's going to be significantly
Speaker 1: cheaper unless you have like insider information, you just don't know.
Speaker 1: But for some customers in Chengdu, China, things went beyond
Speaker 1: buyer's remorse because mers reportedly stormed the Tesla dealership. They
Speaker 1: got inside, they vandalized the dealership. They damaged one of
Speaker 1: the electric vehicles on display and a TV that was
Speaker 1: on display. They stole some stuff allegedly uh. They also
Speaker 1: left behind a list of demands, which includes stuff like
Speaker 1: a free lifetime subscription to the full self driving feature
Speaker 1: that Tesla offers, plus like ten million Tesla points. I'm
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with Tesla points, so I need to look into
Speaker 1: that to see what. I'm sure it's a loyalty thing,
Speaker 1: but like, what are Tesla points for. They also wanted
Speaker 1: extended warranties that kind of thing. Tesla the dealership said, hey,
Speaker 1: we're sorry. There's not like a program in place to
Speaker 1: give you a refund or to give you a rebate
Speaker 1: based upon the change in price. That's just not how
Speaker 1: this works. And the company, I don't think is very
Speaker 1: likely to meet any of these demands. But the Chinese
Speaker 1: media is reporting the matters relating to quote unquote customer
Speaker 1: rights as opposed to reporting on this is like acts
Speaker 1: of vandalism. Uh, and that could indicate that Tesla is
Speaker 1: gonna have a tough time handling pr in China in
Speaker 1: the short term. Like when I hear this story. As
Speaker 1: much as I don't like Tesla, I think, well, it's
Speaker 1: unfortunate when you buy something and then the next week
Speaker 1: it goes down in price. That's that stinks. It's never
Speaker 1: fun for that to happen to you. But it's not
Speaker 1: like the company owes you anything like you just it
Speaker 1: was just bad luck, bad timing. Um. So I really
Speaker 1: don't feel that Tesla is in the wrong here, and
Speaker 1: it it's weird that the media is referencing this as
Speaker 1: customer rights. Although China is a very different kind of
Speaker 1: country than the United States, so maybe that has a
Speaker 1: big part of it, but yeah, that's not a not
Speaker 1: a great indication of a solid, you know, reputation for
Speaker 1: Tesla within China. Next up, social media companies including Facebook, YouTube, TikTok,
Speaker 1: and snapchat, among others, are facing a new lawsuit, this
Speaker 1: time from the Seattle Public School System. Seattle is in
Speaker 1: Washington State here in the United States. The lawsuit charges
Speaker 1: that these social platforms have violated a public nuisance law
Speaker 1: that they are designed for the purposes of quote, hooking
Speaker 1: tens of millions of students across the country into positive
Speaker 1: feedback loops of excessive use and abuse of defendants social
Speaker 1: media platforms end quote. And you know that's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to deny because every social network out there has
Speaker 1: worked to find ways to keep users engaged on their platforms.
Speaker 1: That's what's profitable, and it's way less profitable for someone
Speaker 1: to pop into your service, take a look and then
Speaker 1: pop out. You want those eyeballs to stay glued to
Speaker 1: your service for as long as you can possibly keep them,
Speaker 1: so you purposefully design your service to encourage extended engagement
Speaker 1: by creating these kinds of feedback loops that psychologically reward
Speaker 1: the user for sticking with the service. From the network side,
Speaker 1: you can argue this is all in an effort to
Speaker 1: provide the best experience to the user, Like that's how
Speaker 1: you can frame it, like we're just trying to give
Speaker 1: the user the best possible experience. However, the flip side
Speaker 1: of looking at this is to say it's really an
Speaker 1: effort to make the user increasingly dependent upon the service
Speaker 1: that they become kind of addicted to it. Further, the
Speaker 1: complaint alleges that the networks have perpetuated harm on young users,
Speaker 1: citing research and reports about how the use of social
Speaker 1: media can be associated with various mental health issues like depression, anxiety, suicide,
Speaker 1: eating disorders, that kind of thing. Now, whether the court
Speaker 1: system will also find that these companies are responsible for
Speaker 1: perpetuating harm and hooking people into the system remains to
Speaker 1: be seen, because we're just at the very beginning of
Speaker 1: this process and I think be very hard to argue
Speaker 1: against it. I suspect that what we'll see as a
Speaker 1: settlement at some point, because you know, we've even seen
Speaker 1: internal documents from within Facebook slash Meta that essentially support
Speaker 1: at least some of these arguments, And you know, when
Speaker 1: your company's internal documents appear to support the allegations made
Speaker 1: against you, that becomes difficult to defend against. So we'll
Speaker 1: have to see. I mean, you never know. It all
Speaker 1: depends upon the court and how arguments are framed. So
Speaker 1: it's not like it's a done deal one way or
Speaker 1: the other yet. Next we're gonna talk about AI. In fact,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a lot about AI. I think stories
Speaker 1: about AI will be a huge thing throughout three. Chat
Speaker 1: gpt kind of got things fired up last November, and
Speaker 1: our first story about AI relates to the AI chat
Speaker 1: butt that has people creating machine generated children's book as
Speaker 1: teachers worried about students using it to cheat. You know,
Speaker 1: it goes from everything from interesting distraction to the downfall
Speaker 1: of society. And that of course is chat GPT. Reuter's
Speaker 1: reports that Microsoft is in talks with open Ai that's
Speaker 1: the group that owns and operates chat gpt, and that
Speaker 1: Microsoft plans to invest up to ten billion with a
Speaker 1: B dollars in open Ai. This deal would, reported lea
Speaker 1: see Microsoft ultimately take a forty nine steak in open ai,
Speaker 1: and other investors would take up the other and the
Speaker 1: final two percent. Because if you add nine. You do
Speaker 1: not get a hundred. I tried multiple times. I just
Speaker 1: couldn't get there. Now, the final two percent would belong
Speaker 1: to open aies nonprofit parent company. And one thing I
Speaker 1: did not realize but absolutely should have known. I mean
Speaker 1: maybe I knew it at one point and I just forgot.
Speaker 1: But it's that open Ai was originally founded by Sam
Speaker 1: Altman and Elon Musk. And once you hear that Elon
Speaker 1: Musk is involved in all that disruptive stuff that involves
Speaker 1: like arts and education, makes perfect sense because Elon Musk
Speaker 1: likes to stir uh poo poo, will say, I won't
Speaker 1: use the rude word for it, but yeah, Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is uh. I'm sure he thinks of it as being
Speaker 1: a disruptor, which I guess is, you know, putting a
Speaker 1: positive spin on it. But he wrecks shop by the
Speaker 1: way I put it. And yeah, and that includes creating
Speaker 1: things or funding things he doesn't. Musk is not an engineer,
Speaker 1: but he funds things that end up causing lots of
Speaker 1: headaches for established institutions and established ways of doing things.
Speaker 1: And frequently, not always, but frequently, the solution proposed by
Speaker 1: Musk is not superior to whatever was happening before it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, not a big surprise in the sense of like, oh,
Speaker 1: well that all fits. But yeah, I somehow missed that
Speaker 1: Elon musk Get co founded open Ai. Now that's not
Speaker 1: the only Microsoft AI story that I have today. Another
Speaker 1: deals with a program called vol E v A L
Speaker 1: L dash E. Now I can only assume that was
Speaker 1: meant as a reference to the Pixar film Wally, But
Speaker 1: voll E is an AI system that can synthesize voices
Speaker 1: like any voice. So all it takes is an audio
Speaker 1: sample of about three seconds of any voice. And not
Speaker 1: only that, Volley can synthesize speech that mimics the emotional
Speaker 1: tone and the acoustics that were present when the speaker
Speaker 1: created the sample. So if you had three seconds of
Speaker 1: someone totally losing their temper and say a tiled bathroom,
Speaker 1: the synthesized audio would likely sound livid and in a
Speaker 1: place that has a lot of hard services and echo
Speaker 1: to it. Or if someone were chipper and happy than
Speaker 1: they were in a well insulated space for sound, then
Speaker 1: it would come through the same way in the synthesized audio.
Speaker 1: So in theory, you could collect audio samples of someone
Speaker 1: in different emotional states, and then using text to speech
Speaker 1: and then switching to preserve the right tone. You could
Speaker 1: use this tool to produce like a moving monologue that
Speaker 1: the actual person has never said in their entire life.
Speaker 1: This is both fascinating and it's kind of scary. It's
Speaker 1: apparently not always convincing. I have not actually heard a
Speaker 1: lot of samples from this, so I haven't had a
Speaker 1: lot of personal experience with it. But from what I've read,
Speaker 1: at least in some cases you can tell, oh, this
Speaker 1: was machine generated, but in others there are some synthesized
Speaker 1: passages that are actually sound like they were read by
Speaker 1: the person who supply the original audio sample, and that
Speaker 1: you could not tell the difference. Now, Microsoft already recognizes
Speaker 1: how this kind of tool could cause serious problems, as
Speaker 1: Ours Technically reports researchers have written quote. Since vol E
Speaker 1: could synthesize speech that maintains speaker identity, it may carry
Speaker 1: potential risks in misuse of the model, such as spoofing
Speaker 1: voice identification or impersonating a specific speaker. To mitigate such risks,
Speaker 1: it is possible to build a detection model to discriminate
Speaker 1: whether an audio clip was synthesized by VOLI. We will
Speaker 1: also put Microsoft AI principles into practice when further developing
Speaker 1: the models. End quote. Also, Microsoft is not sharing this
Speaker 1: code that can help reduce the threat of someone using
Speaker 1: it to make it sound like. Let's say a famous
Speaker 1: person said things they never actually said. And when you
Speaker 1: consider the extent to which trolls on the Internet will
Speaker 1: go to hurt someone just for the lulls, this is
Speaker 1: a very good thing because I can only imagine them
Speaker 1: using a tool like this to make someone they don't
Speaker 1: like appear to say the absolutely worst stuff you can imagine.
Speaker 1: I'm talking like, truly vile things. That would be the
Speaker 1: first thing I would expect of this tool were to
Speaker 1: be publicly accessible, and by preserving emotional tone, it could
Speaker 1: even sound like the person was happy while they were
Speaker 1: saying the worst things you can imagine, which is a
Speaker 1: big old yuck. All Right, I've got a couple more
Speaker 1: stories I want to finish out with, but before we
Speaker 1: get to those, let's take another quick break. Hey, we're back,
Speaker 1: and we got a couple more AI stories before we
Speaker 1: move on to some other stuff. And these involve the
Speaker 1: organization do not pay. So this group does a lot
Speaker 1: of consumer advocacy kind of work. They got their start
Speaker 1: as a service that help people identify I and then
Speaker 1: cancel subscriptions to stuff that they rarely or never use.
Speaker 1: So you might create an account and then think, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: I haven't watched anything on this streaming platform and months
Speaker 1: why am I still paying for it? And then you
Speaker 1: want to bail and Do Not Pay would help you
Speaker 1: do that kind of thing. Well, something else the company
Speaker 1: has been experimenting with is using AI to help people
Speaker 1: when they have to appear in court, and apparently coming
Speaker 1: up next month, the organization is working with a defendant
Speaker 1: as they have to go to traffic court to defend themselves.
Speaker 1: The defendant is going to wear an ear piece and
Speaker 1: the AI will generate responses for the defendant to repeat
Speaker 1: while they're in court. Now, there are a few other details,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty scarce because Do not Pay wishes to
Speaker 1: preserve the defendants privacy, which makes total sense. We only
Speaker 1: know it's not going to take place in a traffic
Speaker 1: court in California, and Do not Pay has previously used
Speaker 1: AI to help people fight unfair parking tickets and found
Speaker 1: a sixty six US rate across a quarter of a
Speaker 1: million cases with that, so that usually involved AI writing
Speaker 1: generating a letter in an effort to fight a parking ticket,
Speaker 1: which is not a bad success rate six four percent.
Speaker 1: But this would be the first time that AI would
Speaker 1: actually be used in an in person court case to
Speaker 1: boost someone's defense UH strategies, and the law hasn't exactly
Speaker 1: been ahead of the game. When it comes to a
Speaker 1: I probably will not surprise you that there isn't any
Speaker 1: law against accepting AI powered assistance while appearing at trial,
Speaker 1: at least not yet, because no one ever thought that
Speaker 1: that was going to be a thing, or at least
Speaker 1: not a thing right now. So there's nothing preventing someone
Speaker 1: from doing this because no one's actually passed the law
Speaker 1: to prevent it. But then, traffic court is small potatoes
Speaker 1: because it's it's pretty low stakes. It's usually over a
Speaker 1: matter that involves some money, but it's not that much money,
Speaker 1: at least not in the grand scheme of things. It
Speaker 1: might be a lot for the person who has to
Speaker 1: pay a fine, but in the grand scheme it's never
Speaker 1: that huge, and frequently cases can end up being tossed
Speaker 1: out just because the officer who wrote the ticket fails
Speaker 1: to show up to court. If the officer doesn't show up,
Speaker 1: then the person charged as just gets to go. But
Speaker 1: on the flip side, Do Not Pay is perhaps cheekily
Speaker 1: seeking to argue a case in front of the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court of the United States. So the CEO of Do
Speaker 1: Not Pay tweeted, because of course this was in a tweet,
Speaker 1: that the company would pay a million dollars to any
Speaker 1: lawyer scheduled to argue a case in front of the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and this lawyer, in return for accepting the
Speaker 1: million dollars, would agree to wear some wireless ear buds
Speaker 1: like air pods and then follow the directions of the
Speaker 1: AI lawyer butt. The CEO says he's serious about this offwerare,
Speaker 1: but I don't think anyone's going to take him up
Speaker 1: on it, because while a million dollars is a lot
Speaker 1: of money, I don't think any lawyer wants to be
Speaker 1: the one who has their name associated with a potential
Speaker 1: publicity disaster. The things don't go well, then your name
Speaker 1: could forever be associated with this weird AI experiment. And
Speaker 1: I think most lawyers who are arguing in front of
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court wish to preserve their reputation to some degree.
Speaker 1: Plus there are rules about the kinds of stuff you
Speaker 1: can actually bring into the Supreme Court that includes there's
Speaker 1: a ban on electronic devices while the court is in session.
Speaker 1: So it's questionable about whether this would even be allowed
Speaker 1: in the first place, just on a basic level. So
Speaker 1: while the offer is sure to get some attention, I
Speaker 1: don't think there's any real chance of someone pouncing on it.
Speaker 1: But does illustrate how AI is going to continue to
Speaker 1: be a really big topic this year. All right, Switching
Speaker 1: away from AI across the pond in the UK, new
Speaker 1: legislation now requires builders to include gigabit Internet connections on
Speaker 1: any new home construction, which is a really cool thing.
Speaker 1: Any new home built in the UK has to have
Speaker 1: gigabit Internet connection is built into it. Uh. This of
Speaker 1: course doesn't mean that everyone will actually have access to
Speaker 1: gigabit Internet because you still have to have the service
Speaker 1: available in the area. You still have to pay for
Speaker 1: that service, but it will be possible. At least it
Speaker 1: won't be because your home lacks the connection. The connection
Speaker 1: will be built into the home. In addition, the legislation
Speaker 1: is going to make it easier for people in existing
Speaker 1: structures to get gigabit connections installed now. Easy does not
Speaker 1: mean cheap because the legislation is seeking for a cab
Speaker 1: a spending cap on how much it would cost to
Speaker 1: install connections into existing buildings. But that cap is high.
Speaker 1: It's like two thousand pounds. That's a lot of money, um,
Speaker 1: But the UK government estimates that around of installations would
Speaker 1: fall under such a cap anyway. So the cap is
Speaker 1: really there to prevent people who are living in out
Speaker 1: of the way places like rural areas where there's very
Speaker 1: little infrastructure. It's it's meant to prevent them from being
Speaker 1: victimized by having a h price tags they are just
Speaker 1: way too high to ever pay to have that connectivity
Speaker 1: built into them. So yeah, it's really expensive, but it's
Speaker 1: also meant to be a check on providers so that
Speaker 1: they can't bleed someone dry just because they happen to
Speaker 1: live out in the middle of nowhere. The legislation doesn't
Speaker 1: guarantee gigabit speed connectivity, uh, just the actual connections, which
Speaker 1: is there is a difference right the service and the
Speaker 1: actual hardware. So if there is no gigabit service in
Speaker 1: the region, then whatever is fastest will end up taking
Speaker 1: its place. The legislation also holds landlord's accountable too. If
Speaker 1: a renter wants to upgrade to gigabit connectivity within their apartment,
Speaker 1: they would contact a broadband provider, but because they don't
Speaker 1: own their their structure, like if they're living in an
Speaker 1: apartment or or a rented house or whatever, then the
Speaker 1: provider has to reach out to land words first to
Speaker 1: get permission, and nearly half of such requests went unanswered
Speaker 1: last year. But now if a landlord does not respond
Speaker 1: within thirty five days of receiving such a request from
Speaker 1: a broadband provider, the provider can take the matter to
Speaker 1: court to get access rights to the rented structure. By
Speaker 1: the way, reading up on what the broadband situation is
Speaker 1: like in the UK just reminded me how badly we
Speaker 1: have it here in the United States, where there is
Speaker 1: a distinct lack of competition among providers in most markets.
Speaker 1: Like the report I was reading, the person said there
Speaker 1: was like a hundred different providers they could choose from.
Speaker 1: That's not the case in the United States. Like, for instance,
Speaker 1: where I live, there is one provider who offers service
Speaker 1: that is more than two hundred megabits per second, So
Speaker 1: I'm not even in the gigabit per second area, and
Speaker 1: in the megabits per second, the next fastest is at
Speaker 1: thirty megabits per second. And that's the two major provide
Speaker 1: letters in this area, and all the other providers that
Speaker 1: are available in this area. Their services are built on
Speaker 1: top of the of the infrastructure provided by the first
Speaker 1: two choices. So there's no competition in the United States,
Speaker 1: and it's ridiculous that we continue to pretend like there is. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's me getting on my high horse about that and
Speaker 1: being irritated at how poorly this has been handled by
Speaker 1: regulatory agencies here in the United States. And I think
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous that I live in the city of Atlanta
Speaker 1: and I can't get access to gig a bit Internet. Um.
Speaker 1: And you should be upset too, because that affects the show.
Speaker 1: You know, this show, so it's it's affecting you too.
Speaker 1: It's not just me, alright, I'm done. Last year, one
Speaker 1: of the news stories that I covered was about how
Speaker 1: BMW was irritating people by locking certain car features behind
Speaker 1: subscription services, like heated car seats. So the upsetting thing
Speaker 1: is that these features typically are already present in the
Speaker 1: val right the vehicle can already do the thing that
Speaker 1: the subscription covers. It's just that the feature is switched
Speaker 1: off unless the owner pays a subscription to activate them.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people have the opinion that if
Speaker 1: a feature is in the vehicle, it should just be
Speaker 1: accessible upon purchase. I think that's our reasonable opinion. You
Speaker 1: could offer vehicles to have the feature as an option,
Speaker 1: and you can have other versions of the vehicle that
Speaker 1: do not have that option, and that can be reflected
Speaker 1: in the sticker price of the individual cars. But to
Speaker 1: have something built into a car that works but it's
Speaker 1: turned off by default, well that's frustrating for a lot
Speaker 1: of folks. And BMW is doubling down on that. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's more than doubling down on that. Here in the
Speaker 1: United States, BMW has five features that are locked behind
Speaker 1: subscription services. This is new in the US. They include
Speaker 1: Parking Assistant, Professional Traffic Camera, driving US Stance plus, drive recorder,
Speaker 1: and remote engine start. So, for example, if you wanted
Speaker 1: a one year subscription so that you could start your
Speaker 1: engine remotely, that would set you back a hundred five
Speaker 1: dollars For the year, you could pay two hundred fifty
Speaker 1: dollars at pre purchased three years of service, or if
Speaker 1: you wanted a lifetime subscription to Remote Engine Start for
Speaker 1: that specific BMW as long as you owned it, that
Speaker 1: would cost you three thirty dollars. Otherwise it's a ten
Speaker 1: bucks a month service. Personally, I look forward to the
Speaker 1: dystopian future where stuff like windshield wipers and turn signals
Speaker 1: are also subscription based, except of course, here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: most folks would be well ahead of the curve on
Speaker 1: saving money because they don't know what turn signals are
Speaker 1: for anyway. Finally, we have a right to Repair update.
Speaker 1: I'll actually be doing an episode kind of as an
Speaker 1: update to write to repair in its current status here
Speaker 1: in the United States pretty soon. But one of the
Speaker 1: big holdouts on right to repair has recently made some concessions.
Speaker 1: That holdout is John Dear. It's a company that's best
Speaker 1: known as making farming equipment. They also make things like
Speaker 1: lawnmowers and that kind of stuff. Traditionally, John Deer lockdown
Speaker 1: its equipment so that farmers had no choice but to
Speaker 1: take their stuff to authorized John Deer service facilities, and
Speaker 1: that could sometimes be more expensive than an independent repair shop.
Speaker 1: Like if you've ever had a car, and you've looked
Speaker 1: at prices of taking that car to a dealership's service
Speaker 1: center versus going to an independent repair shop, you might see, oh,
Speaker 1: I could save a lot more money if I go
Speaker 1: to the independent place. Well, that same thing is true
Speaker 1: with other types of equipment as well, and John Deere
Speaker 1: tried very hard to make sure that people could not
Speaker 1: have an alternative. They used a few different approaches to
Speaker 1: discourage or outright prevent someone from going anywhere besides a
Speaker 1: John Dear licensed service facility. And this is because locking
Speaker 1: someone into an ecosystem of service and repairs creates an
Speaker 1: ongoing revenue stream. So you're not just selling someone a tractor,
Speaker 1: you're also essentially selling them all their maintenance and repair
Speaker 1: Moving forward, it might be in the form of securing
Speaker 1: licensing agreements with various service centers around the region. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a way to make more money rather than
Speaker 1: just rely on hardware sales. But on Sunday, the companies
Speaker 1: signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau
Speaker 1: Federation and now farmers and independent repair shops will be
Speaker 1: allowed to access stuff like repair manuals, tools and parts
Speaker 1: needed to perform specific kinds of repairs on specific kinds
Speaker 1: of equipment. But in return, the Bureau agreed that farmers
Speaker 1: and independent repair shops would maintain trade secrets, they would
Speaker 1: not divulge them, and they also promised not to override
Speaker 1: things like safety features and that kind of stuff. In
Speaker 1: other words, you can't soup up your actors so that
Speaker 1: it can travel the length of the field in like
Speaker 1: one tenth the normal time or anything like that, because
Speaker 1: that would be dangerous. But this is a pretty big
Speaker 1: win for the right to repair. Okay, that's the news
Speaker 1: I have for you for Tuesday, January twenty three. Will
Speaker 1: be back later this week with some more news, assuming
Speaker 1: that stuff happens, and I mean it keeps that keeps
Speaker 1: doing that, so I guess that's gonna be a thing.
Speaker 1: And if you have suggestions for topics I should cover
Speaker 1: in future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out to me.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of different ways you can do it.
Speaker 1: One is you can download the I Heart radio app.
Speaker 1: It's free to use. It's free to download. You just
Speaker 1: type tech stuff into the little search feature that will
Speaker 1: take you to the tech Stuff podcast page and you
Speaker 1: click on that and you'll see there's a little microphone
Speaker 1: icon in there. If you click on that, you can
Speaker 1: leave me a voice message up to thirty seconds in length,
Speaker 1: or if you prefer, you can send me your thoughts
Speaker 1: in Twitter form. The handle for the show is tech
Speaker 1: Stuff hs W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Yes.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.