Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey thereon
Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. I'm
Speaker 1: an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. It's time for the tech news for Thursday,
Speaker 1: November sixteenth, twenty twenty three. First up, over in the EU,
Speaker 1: TikTok is protesting its designation as a gatekeeper. So this
Speaker 1: relates to the EU's Digital Markets Act. That act establishes
Speaker 1: this designation of gatekeeper for companies that meet several criteria
Speaker 1: and if they do meet those criteria and the EU
Speaker 1: determines their gatekeepers, it means these companies have obligations to
Speaker 1: comply with a specific set of rules and restrictions that
Speaker 1: the EU created for these very powerful companies. So first up,
Speaker 1: what is a gatekeeper? Well, it's any company that serves
Speaker 1: as a gateway between consumers and businesses through core platform services.
Speaker 1: TikTok in this case, would be a core platform service.
Speaker 1: But okay, beyond that, the companies that merit the designation
Speaker 1: gatekeeper have to be really important players that hold significant
Speaker 1: power in their respective markets. So think about companies that
Speaker 1: have effectively a stranglehold on some specific element of the
Speaker 1: digital world. Google web search would be a clear contender, right,
Speaker 1: Facebook or Meta really would have a lot in social networks.
Speaker 1: So to continue to be considered to be a gatekeeper,
Speaker 1: there are some actual financial results that are important too.
Speaker 1: A company has to have a turnover of at least
Speaker 1: eight billion dollars for the last three financial years or
Speaker 1: have an average market capitalization of at least seventy nine
Speaker 1: point five billion dollars in the last financial year. The
Speaker 1: reason for these numbers like seventy nine point five is
Speaker 1: because obviously in the EU, this is all in euro
Speaker 1: not in dollars. The company us to also provide services
Speaker 1: to at least three member states within the EU, so
Speaker 1: if it's only operating in one, it cannot be considered
Speaker 1: a gatekeeper. If it is not making those kind of
Speaker 1: financial returns, then it can't be a gatekeeper. It also
Speaker 1: must be in an entrenched and durable position. Now that
Speaker 1: means that these companies are really well established. They're not
Speaker 1: likely to get displaced by a competitor anytime in the
Speaker 1: foreseeable future. Now, to be clear, the EU is not
Speaker 1: actually saying that TikTok is the gatekeeper here. That's one
Speaker 1: of those core services, not the gatekeeper itself. Instead its
Speaker 1: parent company bye Dance is what the EU has identified
Speaker 1: as a gatekeeper. So TikTok is saying, oh, contrier, Monefrayer,
Speaker 1: we're largely independent of Byteedance. We don't have that much
Speaker 1: to do with them. We operate very much independently of Byteedance,
Speaker 1: and when you take that into consideration, we don't qualify
Speaker 1: as a gatekeeper. So that means we shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: comply with the rules that gatekeepers have to follow. See
Speaker 1: these rules include lots of stuff. One example is that
Speaker 1: a gatekeeper has to be able to give users access
Speaker 1: to the data that they are generating through using the platform.
Speaker 1: So if a user says, hey, I want to have
Speaker 1: access to all the data you have on me based
Speaker 1: upon how I'm using your product, they have to do that.
Speaker 1: That's just one example. So clearly, any company that has
Speaker 1: gatekeeper status is going to have to put in a
Speaker 1: lot of work to comply with these rules, and furthermore,
Speaker 1: complying with those rules will also likely have a big
Speaker 1: impact on how these companies can do business in the
Speaker 1: EU in the first place. Right, those rules might end
Speaker 1: up saying that things that are normal business practices for
Speaker 1: these companies are no longer viable, and suddenly you have
Speaker 1: this very lucrative form of revenue generation cut off from you.
Speaker 1: So it's understandable that TikTok would want to find a
Speaker 1: get out of Digital Markets Act free card. Interestingly, Meta
Speaker 1: has also challenged its status as a gatekeeper. Considering how
Speaker 1: frequently Zuckerberg has bragged about, you know, having billions of users,
Speaker 1: it seems weird and difficult to argue that Meta somehow
Speaker 1: doesn't qualify for gatekeeper status, but they're trying anyway. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure they're going to find much success with that route.
Speaker 1: But the other companies that have been designated gatekeepers include Amazon, Google, Microsoft,
Speaker 1: and Apple. So the deadline for these companies to submit
Speaker 1: a challenge to the classification is let me see, let
Speaker 1: me look here today. Actually today's the last, so we'll
Speaker 1: see if the EU reconsiders. I suspect that's not going
Speaker 1: to be the case, but we'll see. Meanwhile, here in
Speaker 1: the United States, Judge von Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Section
Speaker 1: two thirty protections cannot be used as a blanket force
Speaker 1: field defense. So as a reminder, Section two thirty states
Speaker 1: that an Internet platform cannot be treated as a publisher
Speaker 1: and then held responsible for the content that users are
Speaker 1: posting to that platform. So, for example, if someone posts
Speaker 1: a video on YouTube that is slandering an innocent person,
Speaker 1: YouTube is not responsible for that video. They're not responsible
Speaker 1: for the crime of slander. Section two thirty would protect
Speaker 1: them from that. There are some limitations to section two thirty,
Speaker 1: so things can get a little bit fuzzy. Like you know,
Speaker 1: if a platform shows that it has not tried to
Speaker 1: reasonably respond to issues from the recreated by users, then
Speaker 1: it can lose some of the elements of section two
Speaker 1: thirty protection. But this particular ruling takes a totally different
Speaker 1: perspective on the problem. So at the heart of the
Speaker 1: decision isn't the content that's posted to a platform. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's actually directed at the platform's design and operation. So
Speaker 1: the argument is if the platform's design is faulty and
Speaker 1: allows for the posting and the proliferation of illegal content
Speaker 1: on the platform that is not covered by section two thirty,
Speaker 1: So it's not that the platform is responsible for publishing
Speaker 1: the material, but that its measures to prevent abuse are
Speaker 1: not sufficient, and therefore that's a design flaw and that
Speaker 1: is not covered or protected by Section two thirty. So
Speaker 1: let me give an example. Let's say a platform creates
Speaker 1: an AI powered tool that is meant to detect instances
Speaker 1: of illegal material posted to the platform, but this tool
Speaker 1: fails to work reliably and some stuff gets past the tool. Well,
Speaker 1: Judge Rogers's ruling says that the platform cannot hide behind
Speaker 1: Section two thirty to protect themselves because the root of
Speaker 1: the complaint is that the tool meant to protect against
Speaker 1: the illegal material doesn't work. It's not about the publication
Speaker 1: of the material. It's about this tool that's meant to
Speaker 1: prevent that stuff, So it's all about contextualization. The ruling
Speaker 1: means that this huge lawsuit that thirty states in the
Speaker 1: US have brought against social networking companies can actually continue
Speaker 1: to the discovery phase. So it doesn't mean that this
Speaker 1: particular lawsuit is going to turn out one way versus another.
Speaker 1: That's still to be determined in the courts. It just
Speaker 1: means that the lawsuit can proceed to the next stage
Speaker 1: in the court system. And it also means the extent
Speaker 1: of protections offered by Section two thirty have boundaries. They're
Speaker 1: not endless. It is an important precedent, and it's one
Speaker 1: that's short to concern a lot of big tech companies
Speaker 1: out in the space. Meanwhile, our march toward being engulfed
Speaker 1: in AI generated content continues. Google is experimenting with several
Speaker 1: AI powered features over on YouTube. One of them will
Speaker 1: take a tune that you hum into a microphone and
Speaker 1: then use that to generate a full music track for you.
Speaker 1: Another tool has been rolled out to a small test
Speaker 1: group of creators that is called dream Track, and this
Speaker 1: tool lets the creator create a prompt to generate a
Speaker 1: thirty second piece of music in the style of one
Speaker 1: of nine musical artists. So why only nine? Well, Google
Speaker 1: is trying to do this in a respectable and responsible
Speaker 1: way and is working with artists on this tool. So
Speaker 1: each one represented in the tool worked with Google and
Speaker 1: gave their permission for this to actually work. So you
Speaker 1: can't just use this tool to copy any artist out there.
Speaker 1: It has to be someone who has given their express
Speaker 1: permission for the tool to be able to do this.
Speaker 1: And what it can do is it can take a
Speaker 1: pretty generic prompt you might say, like make me a
Speaker 1: song about driving fast along a coastal highway, and it
Speaker 1: will take that prompt and then it will do everything
Speaker 1: from generating the music to actually writing lyrics, to creating
Speaker 1: vocals that sound like the artist you selected, and produce
Speaker 1: the whole thing for you now. According to The Verge,
Speaker 1: YouTube plans to roll out this feature specifically as a
Speaker 1: way to augment YouTube shorts. That's YouTube's take on stuff
Speaker 1: like TikTok videos and reels and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Google's Deep Mind project provides the horsepower in the background
Speaker 1: through an AI generation model that's called Leria, And unlike
Speaker 1: with a lot of other generative AI applications, I don't
Speaker 1: feel that icky about this one. I like that Google
Speaker 1: reached out to actual artists first to get their buy
Speaker 1: in on this. I like that it's limited in its application,
Speaker 1: it's not like designed to just write music. And I
Speaker 1: also like that, you know, it's it's going to give
Speaker 1: creators a chance to do things like make a backing
Speaker 1: track for their video without having to you know, take
Speaker 1: up music or potentially, you know, try and lift someone
Speaker 1: else's work and hope they don't get a copyright strike.
Speaker 1: I like that as well, so I think this is
Speaker 1: a reasonable use of generative AI, at least so far.
Speaker 1: On a related note, Google has also introduced an audio
Speaker 1: watermark for AI generated audio tracks. It's called synth id,
Speaker 1: and while it's an audio watermark, it isn't audible, or rather,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be detectable, in Google's words, by human ears.
Speaker 1: So theoretically, we puny humans won't be able to tell
Speaker 1: that it's there. But if you were to PLoP the
Speaker 1: track into some audio editing software, you should be able
Speaker 1: to find the audio watermark somewhere in the track. It's
Speaker 1: supposed to be true even if someone runs the AI
Speaker 1: generated audio through compression, or they change the speed of
Speaker 1: the track, or even if they put in other audio,
Speaker 1: like if they mix it with something else. It is
Speaker 1: not bulletproof. Google reps say that if someone had enough
Speaker 1: determination and they pushed image manipulation far enough, they could
Speaker 1: off uskate the watermark. But as we feel our way
Speaker 1: toward how we can best make use of generative AI
Speaker 1: so that we can enjoy its benefits without also having
Speaker 1: to endure massively negative consequences, stuff like this technology can
Speaker 1: help us get to that destination. All right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break. When we come back, I've got
Speaker 1: some more news items to talk about we're back. So
Speaker 1: imagine that you're in a ransomware game and you and
Speaker 1: your fellow hackers have targeted a business and you get
Speaker 1: into that business of systems, and you steal a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of data, and then you tell the target, Hey,
Speaker 1: I've got your data. If you do not pay out
Speaker 1: a ransom, we're going to share this information with the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. And then let's say that you
Speaker 1: are not satisfied at how quickly or your target's moving.
Speaker 1: Your target hasn't responded fast enough, so you could go
Speaker 1: ahead and release all the information, but then you're not
Speaker 1: going to get anything from your victim, right, It's just
Speaker 1: going to be like, well, we did it and we
Speaker 1: released information, but we didn't get any money for our efforts.
Speaker 1: How do you get your target to pay up? Well,
Speaker 1: how about you tell the authorities that they failed to
Speaker 1: disclose a data breach, because that's what the Alpha ransomware
Speaker 1: group did to a company called Meridian Link. So the
Speaker 1: hacker group alerted the US Securities in Exchange Commission, or
Speaker 1: SEC that they had hit Meridian Link with a ransomware attack,
Speaker 1: but Meridian Link failed to disclose this attack, and not
Speaker 1: too long ago, the SEC pasted a rule that says
Speaker 1: companies have four days to report ransomware attacks that represent
Speaker 1: a significant breach. So this was literally the hackers taddling
Speaker 1: on their victim in an effort to pressure Meridian Link
Speaker 1: to cough up the ransom. Never Mind that the hackers
Speaker 1: might have been a bit premature to do this because
Speaker 1: those rules, while they have been drafted, don't actually go
Speaker 1: into effect until December fifteenth, so there is no legal
Speaker 1: obligation yet for Meridian Link to have revealed this. Plus,
Speaker 1: Meridian Link could argue that the breach doesn't actually amount
Speaker 1: to being significant in the first place, so that it
Speaker 1: wouldn't have you know, triggered the rules even if they
Speaker 1: had been in effect at the time. But I just
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting that the thieves are snitching on
Speaker 1: the victims to the authorities. It's pretty crazy. Tesla and
Speaker 1: worker unions in Sweden are in a pretty big fight
Speaker 1: right now. So in Sweden, the labor market is really
Speaker 1: different from other parts of the world. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of countries have things like minimum wage requirements and
Speaker 1: working hours requirements, but in Sweden these decisions come down
Speaker 1: to worker groups. So essentially unions and the various employers
Speaker 1: in Sweden. So the two parties come together and they
Speaker 1: negotiate the terms until both sides are satisfied, and then
Speaker 1: that's those are the rules. But Tesla hasn't been doing that.
Speaker 1: The company has refused to come to the table to
Speaker 1: negotiate with Swedish workers, and so several different groups representing
Speaker 1: different types of jobs have all decided they aren't going
Speaker 1: to work with Tesla anymore. So that includes like dock
Speaker 1: workers who will stop unloading Tesla cargo in Swedish ports,
Speaker 1: So Tesla might ship stuff to Sweden, but no one's
Speaker 1: going to be unloading those ships. Electricians will not work
Speaker 1: on Tesla charging stations in Sweden. Cleaning staff will stop
Speaker 1: showing up to clean showrooms. Several unions have expressed solidarity,
Speaker 1: extending the protests beyond the first circle of employees affected
Speaker 1: by Tesla's refusal to negoiate. The company is facing increasing
Speaker 1: resistance in Sweden. Things are just going to get worse
Speaker 1: unless Tesla makes motions to actually negotiate with unions. Even
Speaker 1: the Swedish post office is going to stop delivering mail
Speaker 1: to Tesla addresses starting next week. So elon Musk in
Speaker 1: the past has shown great disdain for unions and for
Speaker 1: worker organization in general. So I can't say that Tesla's
Speaker 1: failure to engage in this process has surprised me. But
Speaker 1: it will still surprise me if that remains the case,
Speaker 1: because I don't get the impression that Tesla's really in
Speaker 1: a position where they can just write off an entire country.
Speaker 1: In space news, SpaceX has received approval from the Federal
Speaker 1: Aviation Administration here in America to perform a second test
Speaker 1: flight of the Starship Super heavy lifting vehicle, which, as
Speaker 1: I record this is currently scheduled for tomorrow, November seventeenth.
Speaker 1: Earlier this year, back in April, SpaceX attempted a test
Speaker 1: launch of this vehicle and it did not go well.
Speaker 1: About four minutes into the test launched, the Starship burst
Speaker 1: into flame, and then it's self destructed. The failure caused
Speaker 1: a great deal of damage to the surrounding area, including
Speaker 1: one case where debris from the explosion apparently hit a
Speaker 1: vehicle here on the ground. An investigation followed and the
Speaker 1: FAA created a pretty long list of issues that SpaceX
Speaker 1: would have to address before the FAA would grant permission
Speaker 1: to conduct another test. But apparently all of that is
Speaker 1: now reconciled, and if tomorrow's test goes as planned, the
Speaker 1: starship should lift off, it should fly for around ninety minutes,
Speaker 1: and then eventually it should descend vertically into the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1: So we'll have to keep our eyes out to see
Speaker 1: if that in fact happens. In New York City, the
Speaker 1: company Joby Aviation held a demonstration of its electrical Vertical
Speaker 1: takeoff and Landing Aircraft or EV tall as six propellers,
Speaker 1: it kind of looks like an oversized remote control drone,
Speaker 1: like just big enough for you to ride in, and
Speaker 1: the fact that it has six propellers, whereas most consumer drones
Speaker 1: have four. But this is an example of an electric
Speaker 1: flying taxi concept that's been around in New York for
Speaker 1: a while, and primarily the focus has been on transporting
Speaker 1: people from locations like say downtown Manhattan to an airport
Speaker 1: and or vice versa, from an airport to say downtown Manhattan.
Speaker 1: And this is a trip that if you were taking
Speaker 1: by ground transportation, it might take you an hour or
Speaker 1: sometimes longer to get there, but by air it could
Speaker 1: take you less than ten minutes. New York's Mayor Eric
Speaker 1: Adams was present for this demonstration, which saw a job
Speaker 1: ev tall vehicle lift off the ground and fly around
Speaker 1: the area. The plan is to have Jobey Aviation cleared
Speaker 1: for commercial operation by twenty twenty five, but the company
Speaker 1: still has to meet a few more FAA requirements before
Speaker 1: it can earn a license to operate in New York City.
Speaker 1: Joby Aviation is just one company that's actually competing for
Speaker 1: this potential future. There are others that are also looking
Speaker 1: to take that spot in New York. Now, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna lie. I do think it's neat, but I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not entirely convinced it actually meets a real need. I mean, sure,
Speaker 1: getting to the airport more easily and quickly is great,
Speaker 1: but the capacity of these aircraft is pretty limited, so
Speaker 1: I don't actually see it making a significant impact on
Speaker 1: larger issues like traffic, even traffic to the airports. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a very small percentage of people who are going
Speaker 1: to be able to take advantage of this, at least
Speaker 1: unless you've got like maybe a huge fleet of these things.
Speaker 1: And then you have the issue of well where are
Speaker 1: they taking off and landing? Where are you storing these things?
Speaker 1: Like you know, there are other issues that come up.
Speaker 1: If you're like, well we've got a big enough fleet
Speaker 1: to make an impact on traffic, well, then you have
Speaker 1: other problems you have to solve. I still think it's cool.
Speaker 1: I just I'm not convinced that it really solves a problem.
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of article recommendations for yall before
Speaker 1: I sign off today. First up is Will Saddleberg's article
Speaker 1: for Android Police. It is titled Android Isn't Cool with teenagers.
Speaker 1: That's a big problem. So Saddleberg points out how, particularly
Speaker 1: here in the United States, younger folks prefer iOS devices
Speaker 1: to Android, and that's really bad news for Google because
Speaker 1: you know, young folks who love Apple tend to grow
Speaker 1: up to be adults who love Apple, and then Google
Speaker 1: is left seeing an entire generation moving or not even
Speaker 1: adopting Android devices. Plus, Settleberg touches on the whole crazy
Speaker 1: status symbol thing here in the US in iPhones, particularly
Speaker 1: with I message, where if there's like a group message
Speaker 1: going on and one person has a green bubble of
Speaker 1: text instead of blue, that person is then ostracized or
Speaker 1: ridiculed because they aren't cool enough to have an iPhone,
Speaker 1: which is super lame. I think personally like I would
Speaker 1: just I would roll my eyes at that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But then I also understand, like that's kind of how
Speaker 1: kids operate. I was always oblivious to that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: I was never aware enough to pick up on the
Speaker 1: fact that I was being ostracized. I'm sure I was.
Speaker 1: I just did notice. But like when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: it was all things like designer clothes or whatever, or
Speaker 1: certain labels. Certain brand labels were big and others were
Speaker 1: considered garbage. And I never figured that out and I
Speaker 1: turned out. I mean, I'm okay anyway. The other article
Speaker 1: I have to recommend is John Broadkin's piece for Ours Technica.
Speaker 1: It is titled Cable Lobby and Ted Cruz are Disappointed
Speaker 1: as FCC band's digital discrimination. Broadkin does a really good
Speaker 1: job breaking down the actual issue and the various perspectives.
Speaker 1: It's not clear cut, Like I wouldn't say it's super
Speaker 1: clear cut from any perspective. I would also say a
Speaker 1: lot of perspectives are selectively ignoring certain things in order
Speaker 1: to make a point, which is disingenuous, I would argue.
Speaker 1: But anyway, the article does a really good job at
Speaker 1: breaking all that down. Okay, that's it. I hope you
Speaker 1: are all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
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