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 I love all things tech. And this is the
Speaker 1: Tech News or Tuesday June one. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1: E three, also known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is
Speaker 1: going on in full swing right now, at least virtually speaking.
Speaker 1: E three started out as a trade show event when
Speaker 1: the video game industry was actually finding it really difficult
Speaker 1: to get mainstream media attention at more generalized trade shows
Speaker 1: like ce S. There are a lot of stories about
Speaker 1: game companies being sent out to be intense in the
Speaker 1: parking lots outside of the convention centers, you know, where
Speaker 1: there was very little foot track fake. So the industry
Speaker 1: as a whole came together. Uh actually the whole story
Speaker 1: pind E three is really fastinating, But it all came
Speaker 1: together in order for video games to get a more
Speaker 1: prominent place within the media landscape. These days, however, that's
Speaker 1: not so much of a problem, right The video game
Speaker 1: industry is a multibillion dollar industry with huge companies that
Speaker 1: can easily grab headlines, whether there's a trade show or not. However,
Speaker 1: E three still stands as a time when various video
Speaker 1: game publishers and developers can get together to make announcements
Speaker 1: and show off progress that has been made on anticipated titles. Now,
Speaker 1: I've done lots of episodes in the past about whether
Speaker 1: or not the three is still relevant, and I think
Speaker 1: you know that depends on what you believe the three's
Speaker 1: purpose is. That determines whether you think it's still relevant
Speaker 1: or not. But this year, we've already seen a lot
Speaker 1: of announcements from particular companies that should have some gamers
Speaker 1: excited it. And I'm just going to cover this from
Speaker 1: a very high level because trust me, there is more
Speaker 1: than enough content on the internet right now about E three,
Speaker 1: and if you are interested, you should seek out the
Speaker 1: various video presentations because that's way better than some guy
Speaker 1: in an audio podcast saying and then you see this
Speaker 1: picture of a bunny rabbit, but it's a bunny rabbit
Speaker 1: with a flamethrower like that just you know has a
Speaker 1: limited appeal. And a little bit before E three officially started,
Speaker 1: Microsoft announced that the Xbox Game Pass service is expanding
Speaker 1: to a variety of different devices, including streaming plugin gadgets,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like the old rocou sticks and
Speaker 1: stuff that you can connect directly to compatible television's iPhones
Speaker 1: that's going to stream to iPhones now and smart TVs
Speaker 1: that will have the x Cloud version of the game
Speaker 1: Pass service built into the televisions themselves. It will be
Speaker 1: one of those options you can pick from and you
Speaker 1: just connect to controller to your television. Game Pass is
Speaker 1: a subscription service, and it lets subscribers play a rotating
Speaker 1: list of game titles from various publishers, a lot of
Speaker 1: which are part of Microsoft's growing video game empire, Bethesda
Speaker 1: being one of the crown jewels in that empire. The
Speaker 1: basic service costs nine dollars n cents per month here
Speaker 1: in the United States, but the ultimate tier, which includes
Speaker 1: both game Pass and Xbox Live Gold plus x Cloud
Speaker 1: game streaming service, is fourteen dollars cents per month, and
Speaker 1: it gets a little bit more complicated than that. There
Speaker 1: are other features, but we're gonna leave it at that
Speaker 1: because this is not a you know, this is not
Speaker 1: the Xbox game Pass podcast. But at E three, Microsoft
Speaker 1: unveiled a ton of announced games and new games, many
Speaker 1: of which will be available through Game Pass on day one,
Speaker 1: and clearly this is a huge drive to grab subscribers who,
Speaker 1: for fifteen dollars a month will have access to a
Speaker 1: selection of games that individually might retail for sixty to
Speaker 1: eighty dollars a pop. Now, the plan is to bring
Speaker 1: at least one first party game to game Pass every quarter,
Speaker 1: according to Microsoft, and out of the thirty games that
Speaker 1: Microsoft featured in its presentation, more than twenty five of
Speaker 1: them will be available on game Pass, most of them
Speaker 1: available on the day of launch, and that includes titles
Speaker 1: like Halo Infinite or Yakuza Like a Dragon, or Bethesda's
Speaker 1: new science fiction game star Field, which um looks interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to think about that one yet. Also,
Speaker 1: the Xbox port of the popular game Hades will be available,
Speaker 1: Psycho Nuts too will be available, and many many more.
Speaker 1: Oh and Microsoft also showed off a teaser video for
Speaker 1: a new Xbox branded mini fridge, because of course they did.
Speaker 1: The fridge looks a lot like an Xbox Series X console.
Speaker 1: It's cute. Sony hasn't really been part of E three
Speaker 1: for a few years now, choosing to have its own event,
Speaker 1: and Nintendo is holding its Nintendo Direct event later today,
Speaker 1: so I don't have anything to report on that front yet,
Speaker 1: and so it really does feel like E three has
Speaker 1: kind of become the Microsoft show, though there are plenty
Speaker 1: of companies like actual game companies like Ubisoft and Square
Speaker 1: Enix and Gearbox that are showing off stuff too for
Speaker 1: multiple platforms, not just Windows or Xbox. However, that's enough
Speaker 1: for video game news. Like I said, the web is
Speaker 1: jam packed with E three videos and commentary. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna leave off here and move on to other tech news.
Speaker 1: And how about some scary news. First, a nuclear weapons
Speaker 1: contractor company called soul Orients is at the focus of
Speaker 1: a cyber attack. A ransomware group calling itself REvil r
Speaker 1: e v i L claims responsibility and says that the
Speaker 1: group stole data during the attack and it's going to
Speaker 1: auction off that information to the highest bidder on the
Speaker 1: black market. Uh. The same group has claimed responsibility for
Speaker 1: other ransomware attacks in the in the recent past, and
Speaker 1: according to Reveal, the data they took from soul Orients
Speaker 1: include stuff like employee data like salary information and personal
Speaker 1: information like social security numbers and stuff about the employees
Speaker 1: of the company. Now that could represent not just a
Speaker 1: threat to each employees privacy, you know, the typical identification
Speaker 1: you know, i D stealing threat. It's also a potential
Speaker 1: security threat both for those individuals and for the country
Speaker 1: and and the company as well because of the nature
Speaker 1: of the work, right. I mean, if it's a foreign entity.
Speaker 1: Let's say it's a foreign government that decides it wants
Speaker 1: to have the information of people who work for a
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons contractor, you can see how that could quickly
Speaker 1: become a pretty nasty threat to those people's security. Now,
Speaker 1: according to the company, the attack did not appear to
Speaker 1: compromise any classified information or security related info regarding their
Speaker 1: clients or their business dealings. I would say that the
Speaker 1: information that stolen was pretty bad enough already. But the
Speaker 1: general belief is that Revel, like many ransomware groups, is
Speaker 1: based out of Russia, which is why a lot of
Speaker 1: countries have recently been pressuring Russia to crack down on
Speaker 1: these groups, something that the country seems slightly less you know,
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about doing. The U. S. Supreme Court recently declined
Speaker 1: to hear a case involving LinkedIn and a company called
Speaker 1: hick Labs that's h i Q and the heart of
Speaker 1: the matter here is that hick Labs scraped data off
Speaker 1: of linked In profiles in order to build out a
Speaker 1: database of its own, and that information on LinkedIn is
Speaker 1: publicly accessible. That means it's not behind any sort of
Speaker 1: password protection or anything. So you could, in theory, achieve
Speaker 1: the same result by just manually going to linked In
Speaker 1: and viewing profile after profile and just copying information down
Speaker 1: that way. Obviously that would take forever to do, but
Speaker 1: you could do it. There's nothing stopping you. Microsoft, however,
Speaker 1: sued hick Labs and claimed that the company violated the
Speaker 1: Computer Fraud and Abuse Act or c f a A.
Speaker 1: Now that is a law that I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to cover in a future episode of Tech Stuff to
Speaker 1: actually talk about that law, what it was intended to do,
Speaker 1: and how it has been used since it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: passing because it's a pretty contentious piece of legislation. Some
Speaker 1: people refer to it as the worst law in tech law. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the lawsuit went through the court system. It went all
Speaker 1: the way up to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,
Speaker 1: and that court found in favor of hick Labs and
Speaker 1: said that the c f a A does not apply
Speaker 1: to publicly accessible data on the Internet. In other words,
Speaker 1: you can't say that this was fraud or anything like that.
Speaker 1: They were just copying information that was available for anyone
Speaker 1: to see just by going to the site. Microsoft then
Speaker 1: pushed for this case to go to the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: but as I mentioned at the beginning, the court has
Speaker 1: declined to acquiesce to Microsoft's request. Instead, the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: has said that the Appeals Court will have to hear
Speaker 1: the case again in light of a different court case
Speaker 1: that relates to this. So I'll probably touch back on
Speaker 1: this because it is interesting. I also do need to
Speaker 1: do an episode about c F A A, so that
Speaker 1: will come up sometime in the future. Also in the future,
Speaker 1: more rowboats or robo boats, if you prefer. The U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy is slowly building out what it calls its ghost
Speaker 1: Fleet Overlord program, which sounds like it came straight out
Speaker 1: of a Tom Clancy novel, but I assure you this
Speaker 1: is real. The fleet refers to ships that can operate autonomously,
Speaker 1: and there are at least four such ships in San
Speaker 1: Diego's harbor right now. There's the Nomad and the Ranger,
Speaker 1: which both took a long distance journey to get to
Speaker 1: San Diego, and most of that journey was taken under
Speaker 1: autonomous power, with with a human pilot's taking over for
Speaker 1: things like passing through the Panama Canal. And then there's
Speaker 1: also the Sea Hunter and the Seahawk, and these vessels
Speaker 1: are all taking part in various trials where the Navy
Speaker 1: is testing out the feasibility of pairing autonomous vessels with
Speaker 1: ships that have traditional human crews on them and to
Speaker 1: see how they all work together in various scenarios, essentially
Speaker 1: like you know, kind of a war games type of thing.
Speaker 1: They also include aerial drones in this approach, and a
Speaker 1: submarine that can launch smaller unmanned submersibles through the submarine's
Speaker 1: torpedo tubes, which really sounds like science fiction and a
Speaker 1: little bit scary because whenever the topic of autonomous weaponry
Speaker 1: comes up, I get a bit uncomfortable. I'm not crazy
Speaker 1: about autonomous weapons. The tests, however, are still just that
Speaker 1: this is not an indication that robo warfares around the corner.
Speaker 1: In fact, the Navy says that actual deployment of unmanned
Speaker 1: systems is likely at least a decade of off a
Speaker 1: group of big tech companies, including Intel, Autodesk, sales Force,
Speaker 1: Alphabet that's Google's parent company, Amazon, and Facebook are petitioning
Speaker 1: the Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC, to require companies
Speaker 1: to publish a climate change performance report. So these big
Speaker 1: companies are arguing that there needs to be some more
Speaker 1: accountability within industries and that the SEC needs to make
Speaker 1: certain that companies are following through on their their plans
Speaker 1: to reduce carbon emissions and to curtail other activities that
Speaker 1: are potentially harmful to the environment. And you might wonder
Speaker 1: why these big tech companies are pushing for the SEC
Speaker 1: to do this, Like what's in it for them? I mean,
Speaker 1: most companies are not big fans of regulation, so asking
Speaker 1: for more government intervention in these matters to require companies
Speaker 1: to produce reports seems counterintuitive. However, it may be that
Speaker 1: this is both too you know, actually make moves to
Speaker 1: reduce harm with regard to climate change. In other words,
Speaker 1: it might be a sincere effort to try and do
Speaker 1: something about the climate crisis. And it may also be about,
Speaker 1: you know, making certain that other companies are not breaking
Speaker 1: the rules and getting an unfair market advantage because unlike
Speaker 1: these companies, Uh, the little ones that are breaking the
Speaker 1: rules aren't actually taking the more expensive route of being accountable.
Speaker 1: They're taking the shortcut, the carbon rich shortcut, and thus
Speaker 1: getting an unfair advantage. But that's just a guess on
Speaker 1: my part. I don't know for sure. In Pakistan, the
Speaker 1: Punjab government has announced a plan that is downright astonishing
Speaker 1: and it all has to do with COVID vaccinations. So
Speaker 1: various companies and governments around the world have created different
Speaker 1: incentives to encourage more people to go and get vaccinated.
Speaker 1: Um and as someone who lives in a state that
Speaker 1: still has an embarrassingly low number of vaccinated adults, I
Speaker 1: can understand that move. But Pakistan is going a step further.
Speaker 1: This isn't a get vaccinated and you might win a prize.
Speaker 1: This is get vaccinated or we shut off your phone.
Speaker 1: According to zd net, the Punjab government will block mobile
Speaker 1: sim cards that belong to people who refuse to get vaccinated.
Speaker 1: So if you don't get your jabs, you don't have
Speaker 1: a working mobile phone. Now, on the one hand, I
Speaker 1: feel like everyone who can get vaccinated should get vaccinated.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, cutting off mobile phones is
Speaker 1: a pretty tough penalty. Particularly in a world where many
Speaker 1: of us use our phones as our primary means to
Speaker 1: connect to the internet and thus to interact with basic
Speaker 1: stuff in our lives. So I personally lean towards this
Speaker 1: being a little too extreme for my tastes. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, I can't deny that vaccinations are absolutely
Speaker 1: critical and that a lower vaccination turnout means there are
Speaker 1: more opportunities for COVID to spread and you take and
Speaker 1: potentially get worse, which could set the whole world back
Speaker 1: to square one or even further back when it comes
Speaker 1: to fighting the disease. So I didn't know how to
Speaker 1: feel about this one. I do know that if any
Speaker 1: politician tried to do something similar here in the United States,
Speaker 1: there would be riots. According to the e f F
Speaker 1: fifteen universities have formed a consortium that is, in effect
Speaker 1: a patent troll. So what is a patent troll? Well, first,
Speaker 1: let's talk about patents. A patent is sort of like
Speaker 1: a copyright for an invention. So if you invent something new,
Speaker 1: you can apply for a patent and a patent office
Speaker 1: will review your application and then decide whether or not
Speaker 1: your invention meets the requirements for a patent. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, is it actually a new invention, could it
Speaker 1: potentially actually work? Does it rely upon any existing technologies?
Speaker 1: And if so, did you credit those technologies in your application?
Speaker 1: But assuming that your application does meet all the requirements,
Speaker 1: you can get a patent and that protects your invention
Speaker 1: and design for a certain amount of time. And during
Speaker 1: that time, no one else can legally produce your invention
Speaker 1: unless they first get your permission, which is typically through
Speaker 1: a license deal. You are allowed to exploit your invention
Speaker 1: however you like, so you can go and make you know,
Speaker 1: products based off your invention if you if you like,
Speaker 1: or you can again license it out to other people
Speaker 1: or both. A patent troll is an entity that scoops
Speaker 1: up patents. It doesn't necessarily make patents itself, although it might,
Speaker 1: but it may go around and purchase patents from other companies.
Speaker 1: And often these are low value patents, ones that haven't
Speaker 1: really been you know, exercised very much. Uh, And they're
Speaker 1: not they're not doing it for the purposes of creating
Speaker 1: anything with the patents, like, they're not going to make
Speaker 1: any products or services based off of it. Instead, they
Speaker 1: seek out companies that are making stuff that potentially could
Speaker 1: infringe upon one of those patents that the troll owns.
Speaker 1: So patentrols will buy up as many of these low
Speaker 1: value patents as possible. On cast of wide net and
Speaker 1: threatened litigation against companies that the trolls claim are relying
Speaker 1: on technology that is covered by the trolls patents. Litigation
Speaker 1: is expensive. I mean, even if you win the lawsuit,
Speaker 1: it's expensive. So a lot of companies will just pay
Speaker 1: a licensing fee. Meanwhile, the troll isn't actually doing anything
Speaker 1: useful with those patents, and it's generally thought of as
Speaker 1: a pretty skiezy thing to do. According to the e
Speaker 1: f F, this new company is going to follow a
Speaker 1: very similar approach, and the group of universities includes Harvard, Cornell,
Speaker 1: Columbia University, cal Tech, Yale, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: among several others. Finally, Airbus is now working on hydrogen
Speaker 1: fuel tanks for a planned new type of airliner called
Speaker 1: the Zero E. The E stands for emissions, so hydrogen
Speaker 1: can be used as a fuel in a couple of
Speaker 1: different ways. You could create fuel cells, which are sort
Speaker 1: of like batteries, except that you have to replenish the
Speaker 1: fuel in them. So typically you're talking about oxygen on
Speaker 1: one side of the fuel cell and hydrogen on the other,
Speaker 1: and there's like a semi permeable membrane between the two
Speaker 1: that allows ions to flow through from one direction to
Speaker 1: the other, but electrons have to flow through a different pathway,
Speaker 1: and thus you harness the electrons for you know, electricity. However,
Speaker 1: those would not really be strong enough to power like
Speaker 1: an airliner, so air Bus is looking at hydrogen as
Speaker 1: more of a traditional fuel, the kind that could be
Speaker 1: used in combustion engines. Hydrogen is the most plentiful element
Speaker 1: in our galaxy, but that doesn't make it super easy
Speaker 1: to get hold of. Hydrogen bonds readily with other stuff
Speaker 1: like carbon compounds, and that means that getting hold of
Speaker 1: hydrogen usually requires you to pour some energy into the
Speaker 1: effort first, So you have to make sure that you
Speaker 1: know the amount of hydrogen you're getting out is going
Speaker 1: to represent more of an energy storage than however, however
Speaker 1: much energy you needed to get hold of it in
Speaker 1: the first place. Moreover, hydrogen has some other challenge, and
Speaker 1: just for one thing. To make efficient use of hydrogen,
Speaker 1: air Bus needs to have it in liquid form in
Speaker 1: order to you know, hold enough of it to fuel
Speaker 1: a plane. Now, that requires keeping hydrogen at the temperature
Speaker 1: of minus four eighteen degrees fahrenheit, which is pretty chilly,
Speaker 1: much colder than any airplane air conditioner I've ever felt, thankfully,
Speaker 1: And hydrogen is also very, very flammable, so those storage
Speaker 1: tanks need to be strong and capable of withstanding temperature
Speaker 1: fluctuations and temperature cycles and that kind of thing. But
Speaker 1: this is all in an effort to reduce carbon emissions,
Speaker 1: because burning hydrogen doesn't generate carbon emissions the way gasoline does,
Speaker 1: or jet fuel for that matter, and reducing carbon emissions
Speaker 1: is something the airline industry is really looking at carefully
Speaker 1: because it's no secret that your typical flight has a
Speaker 1: pretty awful carbon footprint associated with it. So getting that
Speaker 1: reduced is a big, big incentive for airline companies that
Speaker 1: are in a world that is increasingly moving towards a
Speaker 1: carbon neutral approach to doing business. And that's it for
Speaker 1: the tech news for Tuesday, June one. We'll have some
Speaker 1: more tech news on Thursday, and in the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for topics I should cover, like
Speaker 1: the cf A A let me know over on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle for the show is tech Stuff H s
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text
Speaker 1: Stuff is an I heart Radio production. For more podcasts
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