Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are Yet, it's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Tuesday, April five, twenty twenty two. Let's
Speaker 1: get to it now. A lot has happened over the
Speaker 1: last few days, and some of it was even real.
Speaker 1: I am, of course referencing the fact that between our
Speaker 1: last news episode and this one, we had April Fool's Day,
Speaker 1: a day where in the past we've seen numerous companies
Speaker 1: release joke news items, fake press releases. Some might go
Speaker 1: so far as to describe them as lies, and it's
Speaker 1: hard to argue against that. I think whether or not
Speaker 1: you think of them as lies really depends heavily on
Speaker 1: whether or not you thought the joke was funny. Anyway,
Speaker 1: On top of all that tomfoolery, some important real stuff
Speaker 1: actually happened. For example, Amazon workers at the JFK eight
Speaker 1: warehouse on Staten Island, New York, voted to form an
Speaker 1: employee union. This has been going on for quite some time.
Speaker 1: The votes are in and they've passed. They needed a
Speaker 1: simple majority, and that's what they got with two thousand,
Speaker 1: six hundred fifty four employees voting to form a union
Speaker 1: and two thousand, one thirty one voting against. So now
Speaker 1: the employees there can form an independent union and that
Speaker 1: will get the backing of the National Labor Relations Board
Speaker 1: here in the US. That union will then have the
Speaker 1: authority to negotiate collectively for all the employees that the
Speaker 1: union represents. This is something that Amazon has been fighting
Speaker 1: against for several years now, and we've heard numerous stories
Speaker 1: about the company attempting to dissuade employees from organizing. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: in Bessemer, Alabama, we're still waiting to find now whether
Speaker 1: Amazon warehouse workers there have voted to unionize. They actually
Speaker 1: held the vote and they counted the vote, and the
Speaker 1: results came in and showed more confirmed votes against unionizing
Speaker 1: than four But there are also more than four hundred
Speaker 1: challenged votes in the balance, and that's actually enough to
Speaker 1: swing the vote in favor of unionizing if enough of
Speaker 1: them come out as being uh in favor of a union.
Speaker 1: So that all has to get resolved before we have
Speaker 1: a firm answer on whether or not a union is
Speaker 1: forming at that warehouse Uh, the matter is going to
Speaker 1: have to go to a judiciary authority to determine the outcome,
Speaker 1: so we'll have to wait a little bit longer to
Speaker 1: hear back on that. Um. This is a dramatic story
Speaker 1: that's been playing out for more than a year now,
Speaker 1: and it's also gonna be interesting to see if the
Speaker 1: Staten Island vote is going to prompt more employees both
Speaker 1: of Amazon and of other companies to consider unionizing. If so,
Speaker 1: we can see some pretty dramatic changes in business in
Speaker 1: general and the tech industry in particular. UM. And those changes,
Speaker 1: you know, it's hard to even understand the consequences of them. Uh.
Speaker 1: It could affect all sorts of things, from the speed
Speaker 1: of products getting rolled out to the price of them.
Speaker 1: But importantly, the thing we should keep in mind is
Speaker 1: the whole purpose of the unions is to guarantee that
Speaker 1: employees have a fair and uh, you know, equitable treatment
Speaker 1: from their employer. That's the important thing to remember. The
Speaker 1: Intercept reports that an Amazon worker chat app that is
Speaker 1: in development currently contains a list of banned words that includes,
Speaker 1: you know, stuff you would expect like profanity and slurs.
Speaker 1: Those are on the no No list and if you
Speaker 1: were to use this app and try to use those words,
Speaker 1: your message would presumably be locked. But that list also
Speaker 1: contains other words like union and ethics and restrooms, which
Speaker 1: should probably raise some red flags. Now, to clarify things
Speaker 1: a little bit, the purpose of this particular app, which
Speaker 1: Amazon officials say it may never be deployed, Like this
Speaker 1: might be a fuss over something that never actually is
Speaker 1: used because it is still in development, But the purpose
Speaker 1: is to let employees give shoutouts to each other. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, it's all about praising other employees so
Speaker 1: that they are recognized for their contributions as such, say
Speaker 1: Amazon reps, the company wants to weed out words and
Speaker 1: phrases that could potentially be a downer or allow someone
Speaker 1: to abuse the app, and you know, might prevent someone
Speaker 1: from saying something like, hey, Bob, you did great work today.
Speaker 1: Sorry you have to pee in a bottle in order
Speaker 1: to make quota. Now, as you imagine, acknowledging reality in
Speaker 1: an Amazon warehouse can really be a drag sometimes and
Speaker 1: I'm being a bit harsh, but then the whole endeavor
Speaker 1: seems insincere to me. Then again, the app still is
Speaker 1: in development. It could change significantly before it's rolled out,
Speaker 1: and again, it may never be rolled out, so I
Speaker 1: really shouldn't rush to judge. I think I just do
Speaker 1: because Amazon has this history of trying to suppress employee organization,
Speaker 1: and so this news story strikes me as a little insidious. Now,
Speaker 1: normally I save space stuff for the end of news episodes,
Speaker 1: and we will have some space stuff at the end
Speaker 1: of this one. But this particular space story relates to Amazon,
Speaker 1: so I thought I would round out the trilogy of
Speaker 1: Amazon news stories. The company has secured eighty three launches
Speaker 1: over the next five years. These launches relate to the
Speaker 1: company's Project Kiper, which is similar to space x is
Speaker 1: starlink product. Amazon plans to launch around three thousand satellites
Speaker 1: into low Earth orbit, and the satellites will provide Internet access.
Speaker 1: So customers on Earth will presumably get some sort of
Speaker 1: like satellite antenna dish kit to set up and that
Speaker 1: will track satellites as they move overhead and the satellites
Speaker 1: will provide Internet connectivity to the customers. Satellite provided internet
Speaker 1: is not a new thing, obviously, but in some regions,
Speaker 1: like a lot of regions, really satellite service can be
Speaker 1: your only real Internet solution for you know, a broadband
Speaker 1: access and they rarely have very many competitors in those spaces.
Speaker 1: UM and satellite connections do have a couple of downsides,
Speaker 1: the main one being that due to the distance between
Speaker 1: your antenna and the satellite and everything else down here
Speaker 1: on Earth, there can be noticeable latency ak a delay
Speaker 1: when you want to do stuff. The bandwidth itself can
Speaker 1: be pretty decent, so once things are initiated, like once
Speaker 1: you start a download the down it can move pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: but there's still a lag between when you command something
Speaker 1: like when you click on a download link and when
Speaker 1: it actually happens because there's all that distance between the
Speaker 1: Earth and the satellite. You know, even at the speed
Speaker 1: of light, it takes a little time for that to
Speaker 1: go through and it can be long enough for you
Speaker 1: to notice it. So that's a bit of a downside.
Speaker 1: It means also that certain things like high end streaming
Speaker 1: gaming is not really viable on a satellite communication. Still,
Speaker 1: for some folks in rural and out of the way locations,
Speaker 1: satellite internet is often the best option for Internet service. UH.
Speaker 1: There are other issues that this raises, like, just like
Speaker 1: with starlink UH, the idea of launching thousands of satellites
Speaker 1: into low Earth orbit concerns scientists on Earth who are
Speaker 1: worried that they will interfere with astronomical observations and such.
Speaker 1: But that's where we are now. Over the next five years,
Speaker 1: Amazon plans on launching the satellites in those three launches,
Speaker 1: so we'll have to see how that develops. Moving on,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, the you know man famous for companies like
Speaker 1: Tesla and SpaceX, can add yet another title to his
Speaker 1: business card. He is now a member of Twitter's board
Speaker 1: of directors. Musk has accumulated nine point to five per
Speaker 1: cent of Twitter ownership, which makes him the largest shareholder
Speaker 1: in Twitter. He also posted a poll not too long
Speaker 1: ago to his followers asking if they thought Twitter rigorously
Speaker 1: adheres to the ideals of free speech, and a little
Speaker 1: more than two thirds of the respondents, which numbered more
Speaker 1: than two million people, said no. This has naturally led
Speaker 1: some people to worry that Musk might use his position
Speaker 1: on the board to maybe reverse some decisions regarding blocking
Speaker 1: certain accounts that were found to be abusive or responsible
Speaker 1: for spreading misinformation Like there. There's worried that Musk might
Speaker 1: undermine uh certain moves that Twitter has made in order
Speaker 1: to fight back against those things. He also pulled his
Speaker 1: followers asking if they might like an edit button, something
Speaker 1: that long time Twitter users have wanted for years. Um
Speaker 1: Musk spent nearly three billion dollars to acquire his stake
Speaker 1: in Twitter, which seems like a pretty steep price for
Speaker 1: me to buy an edit button, but there you have it.
Speaker 1: BuzzFeed News has an interesting article titled TikTok's parent byte Dance,
Speaker 1: made fake accounts with content scraped from Instagram and Snapchat.
Speaker 1: Former employees say, uh, that's a lengthy title, and it's
Speaker 1: a lengthy article, but it's well worth a read. It's
Speaker 1: also about something that happened around five years ago, so
Speaker 1: it's not like this is, you know, fresh news, but
Speaker 1: it's something that we've gotten details about recently. So five
Speaker 1: years ago is when byte Dance acquired a company called
Speaker 1: flip a Gram. Flip Agram was a photo and video
Speaker 1: sharing service, and according to buzzfeeds sources, byte Dance then
Speaker 1: scraped content off of other services, including Instagram, in order
Speaker 1: to upload that content to flip Agram, and in the
Speaker 1: process also created fake accounts that would host that content,
Speaker 1: so they were taking someone else's videos, creating a fake
Speaker 1: account on Flipogram, and then putting those videos onto that account.
Speaker 1: So why did byte Dance do this, Well, one reason
Speaker 1: might have been to test out what kinds of content
Speaker 1: would perform best on the platform, sort of like industry research,
Speaker 1: and byte Dance was primarily interested in targeting American customers,
Speaker 1: so stealing content from other sources and putting it up
Speaker 1: on Flipogram was a type of research into the American market.
Speaker 1: This would inform the company as to what types of
Speaker 1: content were most likely to draw more people to Flipogram.
Speaker 1: The company could even inflate the view numbers on such content,
Speaker 1: giving those account a boost in an effort to attract
Speaker 1: new users and guide existing once towards the types of
Speaker 1: content that we're performing best on the platform. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, you might look at at something and say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a thousand likes on it, and it turns
Speaker 1: out that no, maybe it was only like two hundred likes,
Speaker 1: and then the company boosted that. Now. Another reason that
Speaker 1: they were scraping content might have just been to create inventory.
Speaker 1: Social apps gain value from active users and also their
Speaker 1: user generated content. So if you have a social app
Speaker 1: but no one's on it, then it's worthless. Right. The
Speaker 1: social app is only worth anything if there are people
Speaker 1: on it and that they're doing stuff there. So the
Speaker 1: app on its own is just a platform, and empty
Speaker 1: platforms are not very interesting. This is one of the
Speaker 1: big reasons why it's hard for new social networking platforms
Speaker 1: to really make a big impact. The value of Facebook
Speaker 1: to its user base is typically voiced in a way
Speaker 1: that's like, that's where everyone I know happens to be.
Speaker 1: So that's why I'm on Facebook, at least for those
Speaker 1: of us who are in a certain age range, because
Speaker 1: it's well documented that younger people are not flocking to
Speaker 1: Facebook anyway. The practice of scraping is generally looked down upon,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's litigated, And in this particular case, I
Speaker 1: would argue it's even worse because it involves taking content
Speaker 1: that does not belong to Bite Dance without permission and
Speaker 1: then falsely posting it elsewhere using a fake profile. So
Speaker 1: we've seen companies like Meta come down hard on on
Speaker 1: researchers who are scraping data off public profiles just for
Speaker 1: the purposes of conducting research. Facebook or Meta has said
Speaker 1: that's expressly against company policy, and they've shut down researcher
Speaker 1: profiles for doing that, even if the research itself had
Speaker 1: real scholastic value to it. You can bet that Meta
Speaker 1: really doesn't like it when some other corporation is scraping
Speaker 1: content off of their their services in an effort to
Speaker 1: build competing products. Anyway, the article is a really good read.
Speaker 1: It goes into much more detail on the matter and
Speaker 1: covers other related stuff as well. I recommend you check
Speaker 1: it out. We've got some more news items to cover,
Speaker 1: but before we get to that, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: I've talked a lot in recent episodes about how Apple's
Speaker 1: policy of requiring app developers to use Apple's own payment
Speaker 1: processing system is landing the company in hot water around
Speaker 1: the world. You might remember that Dutch authorities have find
Speaker 1: Apple fifty million euro for that and are considering doing more. Well.
Speaker 1: We also have to remember that Google has very similar requirements,
Speaker 1: but until recently, the company wasn't enforcing those requirements with
Speaker 1: any particular fervor. In other words, for a while, companies
Speaker 1: can kind of get away with just ignoring that requirement it,
Speaker 1: but that has changed now. Companies like Amazon and Barnes
Speaker 1: Noble have found themselves at a point where they either
Speaker 1: have to accept Google's policy, which is that all digital
Speaker 1: transactions have to go through Google Plays building system, or
Speaker 1: they can't offer digital transactions through apps. The policy does
Speaker 1: not affect stuff like ordering physical goods. So if you
Speaker 1: know you were using an app in order to order
Speaker 1: a hard copy of a book from Barnes and Noble,
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble could still use its preferred payment processing
Speaker 1: system for that like that would not be against the
Speaker 1: rules because you're ordering something physical. It's only if it
Speaker 1: were a digital copy of the book that you would
Speaker 1: have to go through Google Plays billing system. So anyway,
Speaker 1: now you can't use the Barnes and Noble Enook Book
Speaker 1: Reader to order new e books. It has just become
Speaker 1: a tablet. It is no longer used to to order
Speaker 1: and down load digital books to your device. In Amazon's case,
Speaker 1: we're mostly talking about stuff like Audible content, so audio
Speaker 1: books and other audio content off of Audible can no
Speaker 1: longer be purchased unless you're going through Google Play. So
Speaker 1: you can still buy credits for Audible through the Audible app,
Speaker 1: but you won't be able to buy titles using a
Speaker 1: credit or debit card. Directly through the app. Audible memberships
Speaker 1: will be handled through Google Play billing. And Google has
Speaker 1: a different arrangement in place for a very small number
Speaker 1: of companies, notably Spotify as one of those where it's
Speaker 1: testing a pilot program, but it has not extended that
Speaker 1: arrangement to companies like Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Now
Speaker 1: I imagine we'll see some legal challenges to Google's policy
Speaker 1: similar to what we're seeing with Apple, and that the
Speaker 1: Spotify arrangement, which is where Google will allow alternate payment
Speaker 1: systems to be included in apps as long as those
Speaker 1: apps also include Google Play, like you have to have
Speaker 1: the official Google building system as an option in there,
Speaker 1: even in this pilot program. But I imagined that is
Speaker 1: what we're going to see become the norm overtime. Like
Speaker 1: it's just I think that's just gonna be the way
Speaker 1: it has to go. Otherwise, Google is going to be
Speaker 1: facing some pretty serious antitrust legislation around the world, just
Speaker 1: as Apple has been. German authorities concluded a month's long
Speaker 1: investigation into a dark web ring by seizing that rings
Speaker 1: server infrastructure within Germany. Those servers powered this ring's dark
Speaker 1: web marketplace, so a black market on the dark web.
Speaker 1: It appeared to be a market that was Russian and
Speaker 1: origin because the primary language in the marketplace was Russian
Speaker 1: and according to the authorities, the market was a popular
Speaker 1: place to deal in such illegal materials as prohibited drugs,
Speaker 1: fraudulent documents, and stolen data, among other illegal things. So
Speaker 1: in addition to shutting down the market, the authorities also
Speaker 1: sees more than twenty five million dollars worth of cryptocurrency.
Speaker 1: Million dollars is a lot of money, but it's loose
Speaker 1: change when you look at how much business passed through
Speaker 1: the market just back in According to prosecutors, that was
Speaker 1: that around one point to three billion euros that year. Yauza. Now,
Speaker 1: typically the shutdown of markets like this one, which the
Speaker 1: authorities called the Hydra market, that usually ends up just
Speaker 1: being a bump in the road for illegal activity and
Speaker 1: black markets in general. It's usually just a matter of
Speaker 1: time before some other market takes its place. We've seen
Speaker 1: that in the past with the famous dark web markets
Speaker 1: like the Silk Road. The United States has formed a
Speaker 1: new department called the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy
Speaker 1: or c d P. According to the US State Department,
Speaker 1: this organization will quote address the national security challenges, economic opportunities,
Speaker 1: and implications for US values associated with cyberspace, digital technologies,
Speaker 1: and digital policy end quote. It will also include three
Speaker 1: policy units within the bureau. There will be the International
Speaker 1: Information and Communications Policy, the International Cyberspace Security Unit, and
Speaker 1: the Digital Freedom Unit. The U. S. Senate will have
Speaker 1: the responsibility to appoint the head of the bureau, which
Speaker 1: will be known as an ambassador at large. The State
Speaker 1: Department has already transferred about sixty employees to the new bureau,
Speaker 1: and these are employees who are already working in departments
Speaker 1: relating to international communications and cyber coordination projects. The Department
Speaker 1: also plans to fill out another thirty or so positions,
Speaker 1: which will bring up the total staff for this department
Speaker 1: to nearly one. Honestly, when I first read this news item,
Speaker 1: my thought, wait, we didn't already have this, am I
Speaker 1: sure this news item didn't come out like twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is a new thing, and I think
Speaker 1: it's safe to say it's long past do. My hope
Speaker 1: is that the staff will include experts who can go
Speaker 1: on to provide useful insight into digital matters, because I'm
Speaker 1: sure You've all seen examples of politicians who just they're
Speaker 1: they're in charge of creating legislation that affects the tech sector,
Speaker 1: but they themselves lack any savvy when it comes to technology.
Speaker 1: A lot of times we see that kind of legislation
Speaker 1: not just failed to solve a problem, which frequently is
Speaker 1: the case, sometimes they create new problems or they'll make
Speaker 1: an existing problem a worse one. So my hope is,
Speaker 1: and I realized this is a long shot, but my
Speaker 1: hope is that this bureau will really help be an
Speaker 1: asset so that, uh, when, when, when it comes to
Speaker 1: forming legislation that revolves around the Internet in particular, that
Speaker 1: we have a more informed approach and one that's more
Speaker 1: likely to succeed and to achieve the actual goal of
Speaker 1: the proposed legislation. Uh. That's that's asking a lot, but
Speaker 1: you know, hope. Springs Eternal CNN Business has an interesting
Speaker 1: piece about Axie Infinity and a recent hack that has
Speaker 1: affected that game and the company behind it. The article
Speaker 1: is titled After a six hundred twenty five million dollar hack,
Speaker 1: the party must go on And I think I might
Speaker 1: have to do a full episode on sky Mavis, that's
Speaker 1: the company that developed the game Axi Infinity, and to
Speaker 1: cover that not just that company, but other companies like it,
Speaker 1: because these are businesses that are built on top of
Speaker 1: the cryptome mining industry, and the value proposition of the
Speaker 1: company is that by participating in its products, you end
Speaker 1: up earning cryptocurrency, the idea being that you make money
Speaker 1: by using the thing. So in the case of Axi Infinity,
Speaker 1: that's a game in which players collect digital pets essentially
Speaker 1: called axes. It's in some ways similar to something like Pokemon,
Speaker 1: and in order to play the game, you first have
Speaker 1: to either purchase or rent three axis for yourself. The
Speaker 1: money that you spend in order to enter the game
Speaker 1: essentially goes into a crypto network called the Ronan network,
Speaker 1: and playing the game powers the crypto mining efforts, and
Speaker 1: you earn cryptocurrency through playing. And I really want to
Speaker 1: look into this further because just from a casual glance,
Speaker 1: it comes across to me kind of like a pyramid
Speaker 1: scheme or a an Zi scheme in particular, and that
Speaker 1: in order for this thing to keep moving ahead, you
Speaker 1: constantly need a fresh influx of new players to buy
Speaker 1: into it. Um. But the company, I should stress, has
Speaker 1: dismissed those criticisms and said, no, it's not a Ponzi scheme.
Speaker 1: It's not that, and that the aim is to have
Speaker 1: a self perpetuating system that presumably would not require having
Speaker 1: new people signing on just to keep it going. Anyway,
Speaker 1: That's really just part of the story, that little bit,
Speaker 1: like just the fact that this is a thing that
Speaker 1: I wasn't really aware of. That was part of the
Speaker 1: story for me. But the larger part in the article
Speaker 1: is that the Ronan network was the target of a
Speaker 1: massive hack and as a result, the hackers were able
Speaker 1: to steal about twenty million dollars in USDC and around
Speaker 1: a hundred seventy three thousand ether on the Ethereum blockchain,
Speaker 1: which is a big old yikes now. The news item
Speaker 1: also describes that despite activity across the own a network
Speaker 1: freezing while the company tries to resolve these issues, and
Speaker 1: we don't know yet if they will be able to
Speaker 1: recover any of that stolen money. Hopefully they will, but
Speaker 1: we don't know if that's going to happen or not. Uh.
Speaker 1: We still see enthusiasts supporting the game and the company,
Speaker 1: which is really enthusiastic. Now I've got feelings about that,
Speaker 1: but I haven't played the game. I am also notably
Speaker 1: not a fan of crypto in general, and I definitely
Speaker 1: have a bias against this whole sort of thing, and
Speaker 1: I readily admit that. But I do plan to look
Speaker 1: into these types of games and companies further to get
Speaker 1: a better understanding of them, how they work, how secure
Speaker 1: they are. Uh, and so there will be an episode
Speaker 1: about these in the future. I will definitely do that. Okay,
Speaker 1: we've got a few more stories to cover before we
Speaker 1: get into those. Let's take another quick break. We're back.
Speaker 1: According to stat Counter, which analyzes stuff like web browser
Speaker 1: market share, Microsoft's browser Edge managed to edge out Apple's
Speaker 1: Safari browser to become the second most popular browser on
Speaker 1: the Internet. But we've got a major caveat to talk about.
Speaker 1: We're specifically talking about desktop browsers, so we're not including
Speaker 1: mobile devices at all in this, just browsers that are
Speaker 1: on desktop and laptop computers. Now in the lead with
Speaker 1: a bullet is Google's Chrome browser, that maintains around sixty
Speaker 1: of the market share of all dusktop browsers. Edge is
Speaker 1: at nine point six five, which puts it slightly ahead
Speaker 1: of Safari, which is sitting at seven point five seven
Speaker 1: and again, once you factor in mobile devices, the story
Speaker 1: changes dramatically. At that point, Chrome's share drops slightly to
Speaker 1: sixty four point five percent, Edge goes all the way
Speaker 1: down to four point oh five percent, and so far
Speaker 1: he jumps up to eight team point eight four percent
Speaker 1: thanks to all those iPhones out there. Still, I'm sure
Speaker 1: Microsoft is happy to see the performance climb on desktops,
Speaker 1: which is nearly where all the focus of Microsoft is like,
Speaker 1: that's their bread and butter is the desktop world now.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason for the jump could be because
Speaker 1: of Windows eleven. The adoption rate of Windows eleven hasn't
Speaker 1: been spectacular. It has underperformed and also has shown signs
Speaker 1: of already having plateaued. But those who did purchase new
Speaker 1: machines with Windows eleven on it found that it became
Speaker 1: a bit tricky to switch to a different default web
Speaker 1: browser than Microsoft Edge because Microsoft and made some changes
Speaker 1: to Windows eleven that appeared to purposefully make such a
Speaker 1: switch harder to do. Now, Microsoft has since changed those settings,
Speaker 1: making it much easier to change your default browser if
Speaker 1: you want to. But it's possible that that was one
Speaker 1: of the factors that contributed to the numbers. I just
Speaker 1: don't know for sure, but um, I think Edges a
Speaker 1: decent browser. I've used it a few times. I have
Speaker 1: a computer where that is my main browser. Um, and
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's it's there's nothing wrong with it. I
Speaker 1: think the the tactics used to kind of give it
Speaker 1: quote unquote and edge are a little shady. And it's
Speaker 1: also something that Microsoft has been in trouble for in
Speaker 1: the past, Like there have been cases where Microsoft was
Speaker 1: brought into anti competitive lawsuits due to this sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know, the company did change that, so that's
Speaker 1: a good thing. And uh yeah, it's not a bad browser,
Speaker 1: So good on you. Microsoft. The Dolo and Motor Company
Speaker 1: of Texas, which I should stress is not the same
Speaker 1: company as the one that originally made the iconic DeLorean
Speaker 1: d m C twelve sports car, has announced that it
Speaker 1: will introduce its electric vehicle DeLorean on August twenty two.
Speaker 1: The company has been teasing this for a while now,
Speaker 1: and based on the photo that the company has shared
Speaker 1: of its of its electric vehicle, which only shows a
Speaker 1: bit of the rear of the car, it's going to
Speaker 1: look quite a bit different from the classic DeLorean DMC twelve.
Speaker 1: It is said to feature the beloved and expensive to
Speaker 1: maintain goal wing doors. Um, and I mean going doors
Speaker 1: are are one of the things that really set the
Speaker 1: Delirian apart in my mind. So I am curious about this.
Speaker 1: I love the look of the old DMC twelve. Uh,
Speaker 1: it seems like a kind of car we're looking at.
Speaker 1: It is probably the most satisfying experience you're gonna have
Speaker 1: with a vehicle. UM. I'm also not sure how much
Speaker 1: appeal the DeLorean name will have if it doesn't closely
Speaker 1: resemble the car we all remember from Back to the Future.
Speaker 1: But if it means that we have another interesting, practical,
Speaker 1: and you know, hopefully affordable electric vehicle on the market,
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. I think there needs to be
Speaker 1: a lot of competition in that space, and competition ultimately
Speaker 1: benefits the consumer. No word yet on whether or not
Speaker 1: this electric vehicle will be able to reach eighty eight
Speaker 1: miles per hour, But then I think most of the
Speaker 1: old DMC twelve cars wouldn't hit eighty eight miles per
Speaker 1: hour unless you drove them off a cliff, so that's okay.
Speaker 1: The state of California has contributed twenty million dollars in
Speaker 1: grants to a project that will cover eight thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred feet of canals in California with solar panels. These
Speaker 1: are canals that are part of the water management system
Speaker 1: in the state, and there are a couple of really
Speaker 1: big goals for the project here. One is to reduce
Speaker 1: the amount of water lost due to stuff like evaporation.
Speaker 1: California requires a lot of water. That's the most populated
Speaker 1: state in the United States, and there are there's a
Speaker 1: lot of farm land out there too, so the state
Speaker 1: requires lots and lots of water. So water management in
Speaker 1: the state has always been a huge issue, and frequently
Speaker 1: that that issue gets exacerbated by stuff like droughts. Now,
Speaker 1: the other big goal, obviously is to generate electricity using
Speaker 1: those solar panels, and this project aims to study the
Speaker 1: viability of rolling this practice out to the nearly four
Speaker 1: thousand miles of canals across California. So if it works
Speaker 1: really well in this kind of test environment, we might
Speaker 1: see it be adopted more broadly throughout the state and
Speaker 1: that could end up supplementing California's electricity needs significantly. Producing
Speaker 1: as much as you know thirteen giga watts of juice
Speaker 1: as well as save more than sixty billion gallons of
Speaker 1: water every year. It will take some time to complete
Speaker 1: this much more modest project. This this sort of experimental
Speaker 1: project at the University of California has estimated it will
Speaker 1: be complete as of June tree, so it'll be a
Speaker 1: while before all of those canals get capped with solar panels.
Speaker 1: Assuming this project proves to be you know, successful and practical.
Speaker 1: Axiom Space, the private space company, is set to send
Speaker 1: an all private astronaut team up to the International Space
Speaker 1: Station on April eight. This will be the first time
Speaker 1: that a crew entirely made up of private enterprise astronauts
Speaker 1: will be sent up to the I s S. I
Speaker 1: will say that the leader of the mission is a
Speaker 1: retired NASA astronaut but is now a private astronaut. So
Speaker 1: Axiom is billing this as being something entirely different from
Speaker 1: space tourism. Instead, it is quote the beginning of many
Speaker 1: beginnings for commercializing low Earth orbit end. Quote that's according
Speaker 1: to Calm Gafarian, a co founder of axiom Com, went
Speaker 1: on to say, quote we're like in the early days
Speaker 1: of the Internet, and we haven't even imagined all the possibilities,
Speaker 1: all the capabilities that we're going to be providing in space.
Speaker 1: End quote. Now, I don't know about you, but based
Speaker 1: on how the Internet has kind of shaped out over
Speaker 1: the last couple of decades, that statement actually fills me
Speaker 1: with more dread than excitement. But I'll try to be
Speaker 1: optimistic here. It's very true that we can't even anticipate
Speaker 1: what sort of things we will learn and benefit from
Speaker 1: through the commercialization of space. Undoubtedly, even those of us
Speaker 1: who will never slip the bonds of Earth and fly
Speaker 1: up into space will still get to see the benefits
Speaker 1: from those developments as companies conduct interesting R and D
Speaker 1: in an environment we simply cannot reproduce here on Earth.
Speaker 1: But I'm still a little bit anxious about it, if
Speaker 1: I'm honest. Finally, Newsweek reported that a group of scientists
Speaker 1: have put together a proposed radio message that could be
Speaker 1: beamed into deep space, and this message would include multiple
Speaker 1: pathways for some strac terrestrial intelligent beings out there to
Speaker 1: understand what the contents of that message actually are. Those
Speaker 1: contents include Earth's location. This is something that physicist Stephen
Speaker 1: Hawking once said was a supremely bad idea, because any
Speaker 1: outcome that involves someone actually hearing and understanding the message
Speaker 1: is more likely to result in negative consequences than positive ones.
Speaker 1: But let me assuage your fears. The first thing to
Speaker 1: keep in mind, this message actually has not been sent.
Speaker 1: It's just been composed, and it might never be sent.
Speaker 1: But secondly, space is enormous. I mean, Douglas Adams had
Speaker 1: it right. Space is big, really big, and radio signals
Speaker 1: travel at the speed of light, which is the fastest
Speaker 1: stuff in the universe, but it still takes a really
Speaker 1: long time for light to reach distant locations in space.
Speaker 1: This is why we describe distances and stuff like light
Speaker 1: years like it literally takes years for light to travel
Speaker 1: from certain points to us. If a star is three
Speaker 1: light years away, that means it takes three hundred years
Speaker 1: for light to get hear from that star. And we
Speaker 1: haven't observed any signs of intelligent life outside of our planet.
Speaker 1: Some days it can be pretty challenging to find signs
Speaker 1: of intelligent life on our planet. It's it's likely that
Speaker 1: any intelligent life that is out there, if there is any,
Speaker 1: is pretty darn far away from us, certainly far enough
Speaker 1: away where we haven't heard any radio signals from them,
Speaker 1: which means that you have to, you know, think in
Speaker 1: terms of how many years have we been listening, uh,
Speaker 1: and you start to expand beyond that, you assume first,
Speaker 1: of course, that the alien races are leveraging radio communications
Speaker 1: in some way. But we haven't heard anything. So that
Speaker 1: suggests that if there is intelligent life in our galaxy,
Speaker 1: that it's not very close to us. So it's gonna
Speaker 1: take a long time for our message to get to
Speaker 1: some place where someone might be listening. Then it will
Speaker 1: take them even longer to go from that location to
Speaker 1: get here, because they will have to travel slower than
Speaker 1: the speed of light, unless we're talking about beings that
Speaker 1: are made up of pure energy, in which case we
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't even recognize them as being alive anyway. So
Speaker 1: I just think that, you know, worrying about this is
Speaker 1: is being a little premature. Also, we should keep in
Speaker 1: mind that again, because space is so big. If you're
Speaker 1: beaming a message where you're like have a concentrated radio
Speaker 1: signal and you're sending it out into deep space, if
Speaker 1: if the intelligent life is off the path of that
Speaker 1: radio beam, it's not gonna pick up the message anyway,
Speaker 1: So you'd have to be like incredibly lucky to be
Speaker 1: targeting the intelligent life in the first place. Otherwise like
Speaker 1: you could be sending a signal in the wrong direction. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just don't think that there's any reason for us
Speaker 1: to be scared about this. I also don't really think
Speaker 1: there's any benefit in doing it, um because again, if
Speaker 1: anything does pick up that message, by the time it
Speaker 1: gets to our planet, we will have changed so much
Speaker 1: now it'll be generations and generations after our own that one,
Speaker 1: we can't assume that that generation wants to make contact
Speaker 1: with alien life. Two, we don't even really know what
Speaker 1: will be like at that point um, or even if
Speaker 1: we'll still be on Earth, maybe we'll have abandoned it
Speaker 1: for some other place. So the whole practice to me
Speaker 1: seems impractical. But maybe maybe I'm just being Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: just being too cynical here. Let me know. Let me
Speaker 1: know what you think, and if there are any suggestions
Speaker 1: for topics I should cover on Tech Stuff, let me
Speaker 1: know that as well. The best way to get in
Speaker 1: touch with me is to use Twitter. The handle we
Speaker 1: use for the show is tech Stuff h s W
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Y text
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