Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. It's time for the tech news for Tuesday,
Speaker 1: June sixth, twenty twenty three. And I'm sure you've already
Speaker 1: heard all about it, but yesterday Apple finally unveiled one
Speaker 1: of the worst kept secrets in the industry, the company's
Speaker 1: mixed reality headset. Apple calls it the Vision Pro and
Speaker 1: that pro part should tip you off that the company's
Speaker 1: target audience is business users. Certainly, the three five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars price tag puts it out of the reach for
Speaker 1: most consumers, though I'm sure there will still be several
Speaker 1: tech enthusiasts who have deep pockets who are going to
Speaker 1: shell out the dough to be one of the first
Speaker 1: to own the headset. By the way, Business Insider reports
Speaker 1: that there was a collective grown in response to hearing
Speaker 1: that price tag during the Worldwide Developer Conference, or WWDC
Speaker 1: That's where this announcement happened. Apple ended up confirming a
Speaker 1: lot of rumors that had been circulating about this headset
Speaker 1: for months now. It is a pass through system that
Speaker 1: means the headset has an opaque screen, like it's a
Speaker 1: display that has a solid back to it, and it
Speaker 1: uses cameras to capture live video and then feed that
Speaker 1: to the display in front of the user's eyes, so
Speaker 1: you're not actually looking through the headset, you're looking at
Speaker 1: a live video feed on what's on the other side
Speaker 1: of the headset, now, the opposite side from your peepers,
Speaker 1: the part that other people can see. There is a
Speaker 1: display that looks kind of like you're wearing ski goggles
Speaker 1: on top of a headset, and this display can show
Speaker 1: your eyes to people who are looking at you, or
Speaker 1: rather an image of your eyes, so it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like you just have a screen strapped to your face,
Speaker 1: even though that's exactly what you do have personally. The
Speaker 1: video demonstration I saw made it look kind of creepy,
Speaker 1: kind of like Uncanny Valley ish, but that could just
Speaker 1: be me. The system works with gesture controls. I think
Speaker 1: these controls actually look really impressive. Like Apple's great at
Speaker 1: things like user interfaces and gesture controls. One of their
Speaker 1: strongest suits, I would argue is in their user interfaces,
Speaker 1: and this seems to be no exception. I thought that
Speaker 1: the gestures looked really compelling, like it was really cool
Speaker 1: how you could navigate through the system, So I like
Speaker 1: the interface as presented in Tim Cook's keynote. I still
Speaker 1: don't think the technology really has the applicability for mainstream
Speaker 1: audiences or even for most businesses. I don't think it
Speaker 1: has enough utility to warrant being an actual thing yet,
Speaker 1: but that could be a Chicken and the Egg sort
Speaker 1: of problem. And by that I mean until we see
Speaker 1: some really amazing features, you know, like killer apps that
Speaker 1: are designed for the hardware, we can't fully grasp how
Speaker 1: useful that hardware will be. But then unless there's a
Speaker 1: good amount of support for the hardware and demand for
Speaker 1: the hardware, well there'll be very little incentive for developers
Speaker 1: to make those killer apps in the first place. I
Speaker 1: think Apple's tech looks really impressive, limited in use, but
Speaker 1: also price to a point where it will be a
Speaker 1: real challenge to make it a success. And obviously this
Speaker 1: is a big step down from what Tim Cook had
Speaker 1: hoped for initially, namely a technology that would fit in
Speaker 1: the form factor of a normal pair of eyeglasses that
Speaker 1: actually have transparent lenses in them. But maybe this is
Speaker 1: just a case of having to learn to crawl before
Speaker 1: we can learn to walk, or run or even fly.
Speaker 1: I'm very curious about whether this product is going to
Speaker 1: end up being a foundational cornerstone of Apple's business in
Speaker 1: the future. I have my doubts, but I would love
Speaker 1: to be proven wrong, because despite all my skepticism, I
Speaker 1: really think augmented reality is super cool and potentially it's
Speaker 1: a game changer for lots of different applications. Also, the
Speaker 1: headset is technically capable of VR, but Apple kind of
Speaker 1: ignored that in the presentation. From what I understand, representatives
Speaker 1: were adamant about not talking about virtual reality at all.
Speaker 1: It was pretty much all augmented reality or AR all
Speaker 1: the time. Perhaps this was to highlight the pro stuff
Speaker 1: even more because I think VR typically gets put into
Speaker 1: a bucket that is associated with gaming, even though VR
Speaker 1: can be more than just gaming, it's just that's what
Speaker 1: it's primarily associated with. Anyway, if you've got three thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred ninety nine American dollars burning a hole in
Speaker 1: your pocket, you can unburden yourself a that cash. In
Speaker 1: early twenty twenty four to get a pair of the suckers.
Speaker 1: I should add that the Vision Pro was really just
Speaker 1: a one more thing moment at the WWDC, which harkens
Speaker 1: back to how Steve Jobs would drop a bombshell of
Speaker 1: an announcement at the end of lots of other announcements.
Speaker 1: So that means that Apple also unveiled tons of other
Speaker 1: stuff besides this mixed reality or if you prefer, augmented
Speaker 1: reality headset. So that includes a new fifteen inch MacBook
Speaker 1: air which will be available starting next week. You can
Speaker 1: preorder it now for one two hundred and ninety nine dollars.
Speaker 1: This would be the largest screen yet for the MacBook
Speaker 1: air Line. The next generation of Mac Pro and the
Speaker 1: Mac Studio computers will get Apple's latest M two Ultra
Speaker 1: microprocessor that boosts the power of those two computers considerably.
Speaker 1: The price tag on those really drive home the increase
Speaker 1: in power, so Mac Studio comes in at a starting
Speaker 1: price of two thousand dollars. That's the starting price for
Speaker 1: the base model. If you're talking about the Mac Pro, well,
Speaker 1: that starts at seven grand. Yowza. Apple also unveiled new
Speaker 1: features for iOS seventeen, including a standby mode, so if
Speaker 1: you are charging your iPhone and you have it mounted
Speaker 1: so it's horizontal. It can act as a kind of
Speaker 1: smart display if you want. Apple also showed off widgets. Hey,
Speaker 1: y'all remember widgets, Like widgets were a big thing like
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago. Well they're back, baby, just like POGs
Speaker 1: out's back in pog form. Well they're on pretty much
Speaker 1: everything now. Widgets are like Apple showed off widgets all
Speaker 1: over the ding dang darn place, including the Apple Watch.
Speaker 1: And there were a lot more announcements, but it gets
Speaker 1: into some pretty nitty gritty stuff with Apple, and I've
Speaker 1: got a lot more news to cover, so I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna leave that for now, and people who are really
Speaker 1: really into Apple can look into it further. There are
Speaker 1: no shortage of articles out there about all the announcements
Speaker 1: at WWDC. Moderators at stack overflow, which is a software
Speaker 1: developer forum, are on strike, at least some of them
Speaker 1: are now. First of all, these moderators are volunteers, so
Speaker 1: it's not like they are paid to be moderators of
Speaker 1: this forum. They're upset due to a change in forum
Speaker 1: policy dictated by stack Exchange, which is organization that owns
Speaker 1: stack Overflow and the moderators have been told that they
Speaker 1: are not allowed to moderate AI generated content just for
Speaker 1: being AI generated. So moderators have been arguing that generative
Speaker 1: AI is untrustworthy, that it can present incorrect information but
Speaker 1: do so in a way where it's acted as if
Speaker 1: it's factual and reliable info, and that generative responses could
Speaker 1: potentially include hallucinations just made up stuff. And that is
Speaker 1: true as we've seen. Generative AI attempts to construct relevant
Speaker 1: answers to queries, but can on occasion just make stuff
Speaker 1: up if it lacks relevant information to use in its place. Plus,
Speaker 1: as moderators have pointed out, it can also engage in plagiarism.
Speaker 1: It can present work that others have created without giving
Speaker 1: proper credit, which is a big no. Note. The moderators
Speaker 1: are also concerned that the policy will mean that the
Speaker 1: value of information across the forums will go into decline,
Speaker 1: that there won't be guardrails place to prevent misinformation and
Speaker 1: mistakes from proliferating across the forums that in turn could
Speaker 1: help developers as they try to create the next generation
Speaker 1: of apps and software. So the moderators also have said
Speaker 1: that this change in policy was communicated one way in
Speaker 1: private to the moderators themselves, but in a totally different
Speaker 1: way when it was communicated to the public at large
Speaker 1: within the forums, and they say that this is a
Speaker 1: problem with transparency within the organization. Stack Overflow says that
Speaker 1: only slightly more than ten percent of moderators have refused
Speaker 1: to work as part of this strike. And further, the
Speaker 1: change in policy wasn't due to misplaced trust in AI.
Speaker 1: It's not to say, oh no, we totally trust AI
Speaker 1: to give the right answers. Instead, it was more an
Speaker 1: indication that stack overflows AI detection duel is not very good,
Speaker 1: that their detection duel creates a lot of false positives,
Speaker 1: meaning it will flag posts that were actually written by
Speaker 1: a real human being as being AI generated. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, the concern is that moderators could end up
Speaker 1: removing posts that were written by people simply because a
Speaker 1: faulty tool said it had been created by AI. And
Speaker 1: this just creates a very complicated problem. We see here
Speaker 1: that the moderators have a good point, right, you don't
Speaker 1: want misinformation to spread across your forums and to make
Speaker 1: life more difficult for developers. On the flip side, you
Speaker 1: don't want to start striking content off the forums because
Speaker 1: a tool told you it was made by AI, when
Speaker 1: in fact it was created by people. So yeah, complicated
Speaker 1: issue here. Okay, we're going to take a quick break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we've got some more tech news
Speaker 1: to talk about. We're back. So this week marks the
Speaker 1: first week for Linda Yakarino as Twitter's new CEO. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk has relinquished control. I mean, he's staying on at
Speaker 1: Twitter in various capacities, So maybe it's a bit grandiose
Speaker 1: for me to say he's relinquished control, but he's at
Speaker 1: least stepped back from the chief leadership position at the company,
Speaker 1: and it is also a notable step in Twitter's journey
Speaker 1: toward trying to re establish confidence with advertisers and users.
Speaker 1: Musk also intends for Twitter to transform into an everything app,
Speaker 1: something that encompasses everything from communication to commerce and beyond,
Speaker 1: and this is something he's talked about a lot in
Speaker 1: the past, So he says that's part of Linda's job
Speaker 1: is to kind of guide Twitter through this transition, which
Speaker 1: maybe that'll still happen, but I feel like it's going
Speaker 1: to take an awful lot of work to repair Twitter's
Speaker 1: image to make that a successful app. It is very
Speaker 1: hard to be a successful app if you have alienated
Speaker 1: a ton of the user base and corporate partners. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of bad blood between Twitter and tons
Speaker 1: of different other entities. So this is a pretty tall
Speaker 1: mountain to climb. So hopefully Linda Yakarina will be able
Speaker 1: to do this. I actually I wish her all the best.
Speaker 1: I hope Musk isn't too involved in day to day decisions.
Speaker 1: I also assume Tesla stockholders are hoping for that as well.
Speaker 1: They've long been complaining that Elon Musk has spent way
Speaker 1: too much of his time and energy on Twitter at
Speaker 1: the expense of Tesla. So let us be cautiously optimistic
Speaker 1: that things will change for the better, and we'll just
Speaker 1: have to keep eyes on it in the meantime. Last
Speaker 1: week I mentioned that a developer who created a third
Speaker 1: party Reddit app said he was going to have to
Speaker 1: shut down the app due to reddits change with its
Speaker 1: policy for its API or application programming interface. So Reddit
Speaker 1: is going to charge developers for requests that are made
Speaker 1: to the Reddit platform. And by that I mean the
Speaker 1: more frequently an app references Reddit, and the more people
Speaker 1: who are using the app, the more expensive it will
Speaker 1: be for them to to maintain that relationship. The developers
Speaker 1: will be made held responsible for paying a bill. Essentially,
Speaker 1: Reddits Tim Rathschmidt said the reason for this decision is
Speaker 1: that the company has to spend millions of dollars in
Speaker 1: hosting fees, and that means that the more people use
Speaker 1: the platform, the more expensive it is to run the platform,
Speaker 1: and that these third party apps can drive up that
Speaker 1: usage quite a bit, and thus Reddit needs to offset
Speaker 1: the costs by billing the app developers. If the apps
Speaker 1: weren't so dang popular, it wouldn't be as expensive for
Speaker 1: Reddit to be Reddit, but because of the increase in activity,
Speaker 1: Reddit needs to charge developers to recoup costs. That's essentially
Speaker 1: the argument that Reddit is making. That explanation hasn't really
Speaker 1: satisfied a lot of Reddit users, though, and several subreddits
Speaker 1: are playing to go dark for a couple of days
Speaker 1: this month to raise awareness and prote the change in policy.
Speaker 1: And again, this comes down to a pretty complicated matter.
Speaker 1: Reddit is not a not for profit organization. It's trying
Speaker 1: to generate revenue. It's a business, and it does have
Speaker 1: to pay hosting fees and if apps are driving those
Speaker 1: fees up, the money to pay for those fees has
Speaker 1: to come from somewhere. On the other hand, really useful
Speaker 1: apps may not have a way to generate enough revenue
Speaker 1: to pay what Reddit is demanding, So if they can't
Speaker 1: raise the money to pay those fees and be a
Speaker 1: coherent business on their own, they have to fold. It
Speaker 1: may be that the app is incredibly useful, but it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily a big revenue generator, and thus it'll just
Speaker 1: go away. That can ultimately lead to a situation where
Speaker 1: users have no options other than the official Reddit app
Speaker 1: to access Reddit, and then you get into a situation
Speaker 1: where you're looking at non competitive practices and a potential
Speaker 1: monopoly which would get Reddit in trouble with regulators. So again,
Speaker 1: it's super complicated, and I can't pretend to have the
Speaker 1: answers here. I don't have a solution that would solve
Speaker 1: all of these issues across the board. Now it's crypto time. Gosh,
Speaker 1: it feels like it's been a while since I've had
Speaker 1: a bunch of cryptocurrency related stories. Once the fallout from
Speaker 1: FTX collapsing kind of settled, things went a little quiet,
Speaker 1: but we are off to the races again. So first up,
Speaker 1: the United States Securities Exchange Commission or SEC has filed
Speaker 1: more than a dozen charges against Binance, the world's largest
Speaker 1: crypto exchange, and its founder, Chong pen Jao akacz So.
Speaker 1: Among those charges are that Binance has operated as an
Speaker 1: unlicensed securities exchange and also that the company has co
Speaker 1: mingled customer funds with the company's own funds. That's not
Speaker 1: that different from what was going on over at FTX
Speaker 1: before it collapsed. By the way, there are also accusations
Speaker 1: that Binance has used its US subsidiary, Aabinance dot Us
Speaker 1: as a kind of smoke screen, that Binance dot Us
Speaker 1: was created to make an illusion of obeying the law,
Speaker 1: but then the larger international Binance was operating outside of
Speaker 1: the law and was actually pulling all the strings. All
Speaker 1: the transactions were really happening at this higher layer where
Speaker 1: it's the wild West. Actually I would say it's not
Speaker 1: even the wild West, because even in the wild West
Speaker 1: you still had laws. Anyway, these charges appeared to be
Speaker 1: supported by the testimony of two previous CEOs for Binance
Speaker 1: dot Us. That's not good. These two CEOs, who were
Speaker 1: not named but were former CEOs of the company said
Speaker 1: it became pretty clear that they were a little more
Speaker 1: than window dressing and that CZ was really the guy
Speaker 1: calling the shots, or, as one of the two unnamed
Speaker 1: CEOs apparently said, quote, I'm not actually the one right
Speaker 1: this company and the mission that I believe I signed
Speaker 1: up for isn't the mission And as soon as I
Speaker 1: realize that I left end quote. Seems to be a
Speaker 1: pretty big blow to Binance's claims that everything is on
Speaker 1: the up and up. CZ for his part, denies all
Speaker 1: these charges. He says they are meritless, that Binance operates
Speaker 1: within the boundaries of the law and has been cooperative
Speaker 1: with the SEC, and that there's nothing to see here.
Speaker 1: We'll see about that. This also has not satisfied some investors,
Speaker 1: who understandably are a little bit concerned about the whole thing,
Speaker 1: particularly after the drama that was ftx's collapse and the
Speaker 1: collapse of several other crypto related companies in the past year.
Speaker 1: Reuter's reports that since the SEC filed those charges, investors
Speaker 1: have pulled nearly eight hundred million dollars of assets from
Speaker 1: the crypto exchange. Now that's not to say that money
Speaker 1: isn't also flowing in. It is. It's just that, at
Speaker 1: least for some cryptocurrencies, more money is going out than
Speaker 1: is coming in. So, namely, in Ethereum, seven hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy eight point six million dollars have left the exchange
Speaker 1: in a net loss. So eight hundred and seventy one
Speaker 1: million in ethereum entered Binance, but more than one point
Speaker 1: six billion in ethereum left it. Now, it's too early
Speaker 1: to say what the long term effects, if any, the
Speaker 1: SEC's charges are going to have to Binance. It may
Speaker 1: just be another little roadbump for Binance. It could be
Speaker 1: something much more serious, which I know comes across as
Speaker 1: super wishy washy, but literally, I think it's too early
Speaker 1: to draw any conclusions. I'm not ready to say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the beginning of the end, because it may
Speaker 1: not be. Binance has been through a lot and has
Speaker 1: stuck around, so whether or not this will just be
Speaker 1: another little footnote in its history remains to be seen. However,
Speaker 1: Binance is not the only crypto exchange in SEC's crosshairs.
Speaker 1: The agency also sued Coinbase this morning, accusing the company
Speaker 1: of behaving as an unregistered broker and exchange. SEC chair
Speaker 1: Gary Ginsler elaborated on this and pointed out that the
Speaker 1: New York Stock Exchange is not allowed to operate both
Speaker 1: as a stock exchange and also a hedge fund company,
Speaker 1: but that Coinbase combines a lot of services across different
Speaker 1: financial institutions that effectively means they're trying to be all
Speaker 1: things to all investors, despite the fact that regulations would
Speaker 1: say that that's not allowed. So the complaint says that
Speaker 1: Coinbase's core businesses break securities laws. Now, again, this is
Speaker 1: in the very early stages of a legal process, so
Speaker 1: it is too soon to predict how this is going
Speaker 1: to affect Coinbase in particular and the larger crypto community
Speaker 1: in general. It could be that the process forces Coinbase
Speaker 1: to fundamentally change how it operates, or also to pay
Speaker 1: a settlement perhaps a side Maybe it would go even
Speaker 1: more extreme, maybe Coinbase would be forced to shut down.
Speaker 1: Or it could pan out that Coinbase successfully argues it
Speaker 1: hasn't broken any laws at all. However, one thing that
Speaker 1: is clear is the struggle between regulators and the crypto
Speaker 1: community is going on strong. It's not going to stop
Speaker 1: anytime soon. Okay, I've got a couple of bizarre stories
Speaker 1: that I need to talk about. But before we get
Speaker 1: to those, let's take another quick break. Okay, y'all. I'm
Speaker 1: actually kind of reluctant to talk about these next couple
Speaker 1: of stories because I feel like it's very difficult to
Speaker 1: approach them in a way that is responsible. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I feel like I have to or
Speaker 1: else people will ask me why I didn't talk about them.
Speaker 1: So first up, NASA held its first public meeting about
Speaker 1: unexploed anomalous phenomena or UAP. So once upon a time
Speaker 1: we would refer to this stuff as UFOs or unidentified
Speaker 1: flying objects. I actually prefer unexplained anomalous phenomena because, for
Speaker 1: one thing, not every UFO incident is actually involving an object.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's not an object, it's an illusion, and an
Speaker 1: illusion is not a thing, so object is a misleading term.
Speaker 1: For another, not every incident actually involves something that's flying,
Speaker 1: so flying can be an inaccurate term. Some UAP ends
Speaker 1: up being just a really mundane situation that can be misinterpreted.
Speaker 1: So here's an example. There can be a pilot who's
Speaker 1: flying at night over the ocean on a particularly cloudy evening,
Speaker 1: and the clouds could obscure the pilot's view of the Moon,
Speaker 1: but the Moon's light might still hit the water at
Speaker 1: some distance and create a reflection. Now, the pilot can't
Speaker 1: see the Moon, but the pilot can see the reflection,
Speaker 1: and because it's dark, it might not be easy to
Speaker 1: tell that this is just a reflection on the surface
Speaker 1: of the water. It's just to the pilot it looks
Speaker 1: like a light off on the horizon. And next thing
Speaker 1: the pilot knows, this light seems to be traveling with them,
Speaker 1: and it seems to maneuver in strange ways as the
Speaker 1: pilot moves course. But in fact there's nothing flying at all,
Speaker 1: unless you count the Moon. I don't the moon already
Speaker 1: thinks it's so big? Yeah, I see you, Moon, not
Speaker 1: getting any props from me anyway. According to the report
Speaker 1: that NASA gave at this meeting, all but two to
Speaker 1: five percent of the hundreds of UAP reports are something
Speaker 1: that we could easily explain, right, All but two to
Speaker 1: five percent of those those remaining incidents quote display signatures
Speaker 1: that could be anomalous end too quote. Now, of course
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean anything, right. They could be anomalist or
Speaker 1: they could be totally normal. And mundane. We lack the
Speaker 1: information to be able to make a judgment. So saying
Speaker 1: that we don't have enough information isn't the same as
Speaker 1: saying there's stuff out there that defies explanation and must
Speaker 1: be non terrestrial or at least non human in origin.
Speaker 1: I'm sure some people are frustrated that NASA didn't go
Speaker 1: so far as to say, I don't know, maybe it's aliens,
Speaker 1: but to go that far would require extraordinary proof. Now
Speaker 1: there's another story that I feel I have to tell
Speaker 1: that ties into this kind of concept as well, and
Speaker 1: it's because it's getting a lot of circulation as I'm
Speaker 1: recording this episode. So The Debrief published a very long
Speaker 1: article by Leslie Keene and Ralph Blumenthal this week that
Speaker 1: details claims from a person they name as David Charles Grush, who,
Speaker 1: according to the article, is a former Department of Defense operative.
Speaker 1: He worked for the Department of Defense in various capacities
Speaker 1: and has said that the United States has in its
Speaker 1: possession intact vehicles and parts of vehicles of quote unquote
Speaker 1: exotic origin, meaning created by non human intelligence. That is
Speaker 1: obviously a truly extraordinary claim, and the report, like I said,
Speaker 1: it's spreading like wildfire. As I record this episode, everyone
Speaker 1: seems to just be referencing this one article, Like, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen any investigative journalism that went to verify this article.
Speaker 1: They're just kind of using the article as the foundation
Speaker 1: and then repeating claims that were made in it. So
Speaker 1: I want to raise a couple of red flags. None
Speaker 1: of this is to say that the article is inherently untrustworthy.
Speaker 1: It's just stuff that makes me a little skeptical. So,
Speaker 1: first off, the authors of this article, Leslie Keane and
Speaker 1: Ralph Blumenthal, they are both notable journalists, all right, They
Speaker 1: have long careers in journalism, distinguished careers. However, they are
Speaker 1: also both published authors who have written books in the
Speaker 1: UFO and aliens space. So that raises some red flags
Speaker 1: for me immediately. I don't know if that means they
Speaker 1: are predisposed to believing extraordinary claims that involve things like
Speaker 1: UFOs or UAPs, but it does concern me because they've
Speaker 1: already been writing about this stuff for a while and
Speaker 1: these claims never seem to ever produce anything, right. We
Speaker 1: hear about them occasionally, but we never actually see anything produced. Secondly,
Speaker 1: I tried to find some information about David Grush earlier
Speaker 1: before I started writing this episode. But my search has
Speaker 1: pulled up nothing other than variations of this article. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's spreading like wildfire right now. So
Speaker 1: when I did a search for his name, I just
Speaker 1: got countless versions of this story, and again it all
Speaker 1: seemed like they were kind of summarizing what was already
Speaker 1: published in the debrief, but not verifying anything other than
Speaker 1: one exception. I did find one web page on a
Speaker 1: defunct Space Force website for the Shriever Space Force Base
Speaker 1: that had a person named David Grush who was promoted
Speaker 1: to the rank of captain. David Grush was one name,
Speaker 1: along with dozens of others of lieutenants who had received
Speaker 1: this promotion. That's the only other instance I could find
Speaker 1: of David Grush's name. That's not to say that other
Speaker 1: stuff doesn't exist out there, maybe it's just buried under
Speaker 1: these recent reports. But what I'm saying is these sort
Speaker 1: of things make me remain skeptical. Now. If it comes
Speaker 1: to pass that these are in fact real reports of
Speaker 1: real vehicles from non human intelligence, that would be beyond disruptive.
Speaker 1: As it stands, it would be pretty darn and credible
Speaker 1: because it would mean either some sort of non terrestrial
Speaker 1: entity has visited us, and you know, we haven't detected
Speaker 1: any evidence of intelligent life anywhere within our vicinity, and
Speaker 1: our own history of radio communications only dates back a
Speaker 1: little more than a century, which means for anyone to
Speaker 1: have known about us, to know that we exist, would
Speaker 1: require them to be within say a hundred light years
Speaker 1: of Earth. That then you have to think about actually
Speaker 1: traveling to Earth, Right, Why would anyone travel to Earth randomly?
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe just by chance, but that seems to
Speaker 1: be pretty crazy to think about. But if they're coming
Speaker 1: here because they've detected life, well then they would need
Speaker 1: to be you know, probably within a hundred light years
Speaker 1: of us, and then they would have to have some
Speaker 1: means of try travel that could take them to Earth
Speaker 1: within you know, one hundred one hundred years, and that
Speaker 1: just seems like that's a big commitment. It's just it's
Speaker 1: hard to align all of this so that it makes sense,
Speaker 1: because to travel to Earth would require a lot of time.
Speaker 1: We know that matter cannot travel at the speed of light,
Speaker 1: so if something's one hundred light years away, it's going
Speaker 1: to take way way, way longer. For a physical craft
Speaker 1: to travel that distance, barring some weird wormhole technology, which
Speaker 1: I guess is possibly within the realm of possibility, but
Speaker 1: would require such an enormous amount of energy that, again,
Speaker 1: the investment to going to Earth would be so great
Speaker 1: that it's hard to imagine why anyone would agree to
Speaker 1: do it. So I guess what I'm saying is that
Speaker 1: there are a ton of factors that would have to
Speaker 1: fall into place, some of which appear to contradict our
Speaker 1: understand ending how the universe works for this to actually
Speaker 1: be true. Now, there is another possibility. You could argue, well,
Speaker 1: maybe the discovery of non human intelligence created materials doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that it came from outside of Earth. It just
Speaker 1: means there was some sort of non human intelligence present
Speaker 1: on Earth at some point that made a vehicle. That
Speaker 1: also seems unlikely to me, because you would think that
Speaker 1: there would be more evidence that would have been uncovered
Speaker 1: independently of these activities, and that not all of those
Speaker 1: could potentially have been kept quiet by some cabal of
Speaker 1: official government agencies. So I'm just saying red flags abound. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe the whole story is true. Maybe it is, but
Speaker 1: it will require extraordinary proof to actually have me, you know,
Speaker 1: come around to that. As it stands, I remain very
Speaker 1: very skeptic, and uh yeah, I'm not even saying that
Speaker 1: anyone is telling an outright lie necessarily, just that it
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't pass the smell test for me. But
Speaker 1: I also admit that I could be completely wrong about this.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I am, but I could be. Now.
Speaker 1: Our last story is partly goofy and partly a warning
Speaker 1: about the excesses of venture capital activity. The information reports
Speaker 1: that the company Zoom spelled zume is no more, and
Speaker 1: that is notable because that startup launched in twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: and raised nearly four hundred and fifty million dollars in funding,
Speaker 1: and yet has now gone out of business. Initially, the
Speaker 1: company aimed to bring pizza delivery into the future, so
Speaker 1: the business model would combine robotics with essentially food trucks.
Speaker 1: So the idea was that a customer would order a pizza,
Speaker 1: you know, like through an app or whatever, and the
Speaker 1: food truck driver would get a notification to drive to
Speaker 1: that customer's location. Meanwhile, in the food truck part, a
Speaker 1: robot in the truck would actually make the pizza so
Speaker 1: it'd be cooked to order, so you get a really
Speaker 1: fresh pizza this way, right, the pizza's actually being cooked
Speaker 1: as it's being delivered to you. Apparently, this business model
Speaker 1: was a bust. The company spent way more money than
Speaker 1: it was generating in revenue, and apparently part of the
Speaker 1: problem was that the cheese would slide it all over
Speaker 1: the place if the truck hit any bumps in the road,
Speaker 1: so you would end up with a substandard pizza as
Speaker 1: a result of all this, so that is an issue.
Speaker 1: The company attempted to pivot by going to a more
Speaker 1: traditional like stationary food truck route with still maybe using delivery,
Speaker 1: but the food truck itself wasn't the one moving around.
Speaker 1: You would have the food truck be stationary with the
Speaker 1: robot making its pizzas. But this also didn't end up
Speaker 1: being a sustainable business. Then the company changed directions completely.
Speaker 1: It totally dumped the pizza business and instead switched to
Speaker 1: designing sustainable packaging. That is a pretty big change in
Speaker 1: your business model. Anyway, that didn't work either, and last
Speaker 1: month the company folded, according to the information. So the
Speaker 1: story illustrates that venture capital can frequently dump a ton
Speaker 1: of money into businesses that aren't really viable. And you
Speaker 1: might think at first that too much money isn't really
Speaker 1: that bad of a problem, but it definitely can be.
Speaker 1: It can lead to very bad decisions that in the
Speaker 1: long run, will doom a startup. We saw it again
Speaker 1: and again leading up to the dot com bubble bursting
Speaker 1: a couple of decades ago, and yet it seems as
Speaker 1: though the investment world hasn't really taken those lessons to heart.
Speaker 1: Well in the meantime, farewell zoom, we hardly knew ye,
Speaker 1: And now I'm craving pizza. Finally, I would like to
Speaker 1: recommend an article that is a really good piece to read,
Speaker 1: but it kind of goes beyond a news item. So
Speaker 1: today I want to recommend an article that was published
Speaker 1: June first in The New Yorker. It's titled A Confession
Speaker 1: Exposes India's Secret Hacking Industry. It was written by David D. Kirkpatrick.
Speaker 1: It explains how India is the source or maybe I
Speaker 1: should say outsource of hacking assets used by various entities
Speaker 1: around the world. It's a good read and you should
Speaker 1: definitely check it out again. That is A Confession exposes
Speaker 1: India's secret hacking industry in the New Yorker, and as
Speaker 1: always I have no connection to the New Yorker. I
Speaker 1: do not know David Kirkpatrick. This was just an article
Speaker 1: I thought was worth reading. That's it for today's news episode.
Speaker 1: I hope you are all well. We will not have
Speaker 1: a news episode on Thursday. If all goes as planned,
Speaker 1: we will have a full length tech Stuff episode in
Speaker 1: its place, unless things change. But as it stands right now,
Speaker 1: that's the plan because that's what I recorded. But we
Speaker 1: will see. I hope everything's going well for you, like
Speaker 1: I said that already, and I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.