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 iHeart Podcasts and how the
Speaker 1: tech are you? It is Friday, January twenty sixth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, and I thought maybe we would talk about
Speaker 1: some tech news. And we've got a lot of news
Speaker 1: that we could touch on due to the fact that
Speaker 1: I was out of commission for most of the month.
Speaker 1: But I figure we're just going to focus on what's recent.
Speaker 1: So first up, this week, Tesla held an earnings call,
Speaker 1: and the results didn't fill investors with optimism. The company
Speaker 1: did not meet market expectations last quarter, and Elon Musk
Speaker 1: indicated that twenty twenty four is likely to be a
Speaker 1: slower year than what the company had hoped for. So
Speaker 1: in response, investors lost a little bit of confidence in
Speaker 1: the EV company and stock prices dropped around twelve percent.
Speaker 1: Tesla is currently working on a new vehicle, which is
Speaker 1: code named Redwood. This EV is said to be targeted
Speaker 1: for like a lower price point. It's meant to be
Speaker 1: a mass market vehicle and it's rumored to be in
Speaker 1: the compact crossover category. Musk said it'll actually be sometime
Speaker 1: in the second half of twenty twenty five when It's
Speaker 1: Texas manufacturing facility will actually begin production. He also indicated
Speaker 1: that Tesla employees should anticipate some very long work days
Speaker 1: leading up to that production. He flat out said they
Speaker 1: should expect to work long shifts and sleep at the
Speaker 1: manufacturing plant. Once again, Musk shows he has a firm
Speaker 1: grasp on how to motivate a workforce. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: investors continue to worry about their nest eggs and they
Speaker 1: shoot ugly glances at Musk whenever he gets bogged down
Speaker 1: in X slash Twitter drama, which, as you imagine, happens
Speaker 1: a lot. Next up, I've got a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: social network related news, but mercifully I've left out the
Speaker 1: stuff about X, because honestly, the recent X news is
Speaker 1: just so ugly I can't even so. First up, Meta
Speaker 1: announced that its platforms Facebook and Instagram will automatically block
Speaker 1: any direct messages sent to teenage users unless those messages
Speaker 1: come from someone who is already a friend of that
Speaker 1: user on those platforms, and this applies even if both
Speaker 1: of the users are teenagers. So if TEMA sends Team
Speaker 1: B a DM but they aren't already friends on these platforms,
Speaker 1: team B will not get that message. However, if they
Speaker 1: are friends on the platform, the message will go through.
Speaker 1: Also for Facebook Messenger, it's a little different. If Team
Speaker 1: B is in Teena's phone contacts from why, I understand,
Speaker 1: the message would then go through, but they have to
Speaker 1: already be confirmed friends or contacts with each other. The
Speaker 1: age barrier is dependent upon the country you're in, so
Speaker 1: in some countries this will only impact users who are
Speaker 1: under the age of sixteen. In a few other countries,
Speaker 1: that age is actually up to eighteen. This is not
Speaker 1: a perfect system because I don't know if you've heard
Speaker 1: about this, but there's this thing called lying, in which
Speaker 1: someone could tell a social platform that they're older when
Speaker 1: in fact they are not. I know, it's insidious, right.
Speaker 1: Meta does have some systems in place that are designed
Speaker 1: to predict a person's age to try and head that
Speaker 1: thing off, to determine, Hey, is this person actually the
Speaker 1: age that they claim to be? But I have no
Speaker 1: clue how good it is, how reliable is this tech?
Speaker 1: I don't know, And considering how some of my grown
Speaker 1: ass friends act like they're five year olds. I'm really
Speaker 1: curious how any Aisis can figure out anything at all.
Speaker 1: Meta has been under a ton of scrutiny and litigation
Speaker 1: regarding how it can impact users, particularly young users, and
Speaker 1: clearly this is a move to try and mollify some
Speaker 1: of the company's harshest critics. If you'd like to learn more,
Speaker 1: I recommend Mary Ella Moon's article Facebook and Instagram will
Speaker 1: block dms to teens unless they're from a friend and
Speaker 1: that is on the site. In Gadget Gizmotos, Thomas Jermaine
Speaker 1: has what is, in my opinion, a justifiably snarky article
Speaker 1: titled NYC mayor calls social media and environmental toxin announces
Speaker 1: it on social media. Oh the irony so. Jermaine explains
Speaker 1: that Mayor Eric Adams of the Big Apple took to
Speaker 1: the podium as well as the Internet's to declare social
Speaker 1: media a public menace, something akin to guns and tobacco,
Speaker 1: which just makes me think that like our four fathers
Speaker 1: in the US would have traded these things back in
Speaker 1: the day. You know, you ship guns and tobacco and
Speaker 1: social media across the frontier anyway. Mayor Adams was arguing
Speaker 1: that social platforms have made choices that have caused direct
Speaker 1: or indirect harm to young people. And honestly, I do
Speaker 1: think there is some truth in that. We've talked on
Speaker 1: the show about how algorithms can reinforce messaging that at
Speaker 1: the very least is unhealthy or promotes misinformation. And these
Speaker 1: social platforms use algorithms in order to drive engagement and
Speaker 1: to keep people tied to their services for as long
Speaker 1: as is possible, all to serve as many ads to
Speaker 1: them as is possible. And to the platforms, it doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter if the messages they serve are good or
Speaker 1: bad or whatever. They're kind of amorl when it comes
Speaker 1: to that. They just want the messages to be effective
Speaker 1: to keep them there and to keep them engaged. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what other impacted the messages might have. If
Speaker 1: the bad messages are more effective at keeping people there
Speaker 1: than good messages are, well, them's the breaks. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I do think these networks have engaged in activities that
Speaker 1: are harmful to users, not just young ones, old ones
Speaker 1: like me too. I mean, it's the reason why you
Speaker 1: don't find me on nearly any social media these days now.
Speaker 1: Germaine in his article makes a solid point. There does
Speaker 1: appear to be a correlation between social media use and
Speaker 1: a decline in mental health. But we all know correlation
Speaker 1: is not the same thing as causation. It's a leap
Speaker 1: to say that one is causing the other, and that
Speaker 1: is valid. It's possible that social media dependency does lead
Speaker 1: to poor mental health. That is possible. It's also possible
Speaker 1: that people who already have poor mental health find themselves
Speaker 1: drawn to using social media more so it doesn't become
Speaker 1: causal in one direction, maybe it's in the other. Maybe
Speaker 1: the situation is far more complicated than any of that.
Speaker 1: So Jermaine goes on to point out how social platforms
Speaker 1: can and do exacerbate real problems in our real world,
Speaker 1: like the spread of hate speech or misinformation. So there
Speaker 1: are valid reasons to be concerned about social media, though honestly,
Speaker 1: we have to remember these platforms they're facilitators. It's not
Speaker 1: like they're magically generating this material, right, The materials not
Speaker 1: originating out of the platforms. Regular old humans are doing this,
Speaker 1: sometimes with the help of AI. So sometimes it's AI
Speaker 1: boosted human efforts to spread misery. But the platforms just
Speaker 1: make it really easy to deliver and spread the messaging,
Speaker 1: and Jermaine rightly points out that even Mayor Adams points out,
Speaker 1: we don't know to what extent or what in what
Speaker 1: way social media actually interacts with mental health. It just
Speaker 1: appears to have a negative relationship, but we don't really
Speaker 1: know very much about that. But Mayor Adams is convinced
Speaker 1: that it's bad and it should be addressed, So I
Speaker 1: recommend reading the article. I don't one hundred percent agree
Speaker 1: with Jermaine's point of view, but I feel like we're
Speaker 1: more in agreement than otherwise. I just think we differ
Speaker 1: a tiny bit toward the tail end of the matter.
Speaker 1: But I'm also quick to say Jermaine may be more
Speaker 1: right than I am. But go check out that article
Speaker 1: to learn more. Katie Kinderln of Good Morning America on
Speaker 1: ABC News wrote an article titled Florida House of Representatives
Speaker 1: approves bill to ban social media for kids under sixteen.
Speaker 1: So here we see another example of lawmakers taking a
Speaker 1: stand against these companies and their networks. The bill will
Speaker 1: actually need to go to the state's Senate for approval,
Speaker 1: and then, if approved, it would then go to the
Speaker 1: governor's desk to be signed into law or vetoed, whichever
Speaker 1: the governor decides, although I think DeSantis would probably uphold
Speaker 1: this one. Kendalyn points out that the bill passed with
Speaker 1: an overwhelming majority in the House one hundred and six
Speaker 1: one hundred and six to thirteen, and that the bill
Speaker 1: received a good deal of bipartisan support, and that's understandable. Again,
Speaker 1: there's this perception that social networks are hurting users, particularly
Speaker 1: young ones. So the bill would make it illegal for
Speaker 1: these platforms to grant accounts to any Floridian user under
Speaker 1: the age of sixteen, something that I suspect will be
Speaker 1: difficult to enforce. I mean, a kid in Florida could
Speaker 1: either lie about their age or maybe where they live
Speaker 1: in order to get around this block. Sure, a network
Speaker 1: like Facebook could take note of a person's physical location
Speaker 1: while they attempt to make an account, But who's to
Speaker 1: say you couldn't make an account while you happen to
Speaker 1: be on vacation. Like if I happened to be a
Speaker 1: fifteen year old kid from Georgia and I'm decided that
Speaker 1: I want to make a Facebook account while I'm vacationing
Speaker 1: in Florida, maybe because I'm surrounded by old people and
Speaker 1: it's rubbing off on me. I should be able to
Speaker 1: do that, right because I'm not a citizen of Florida.
Speaker 1: But maybe that Florida law would argue that it covers
Speaker 1: everyone under the age of sixteen who's in the state,
Speaker 1: whether they happen to be a citizen of the state
Speaker 1: or not. Anyway, I don't think it's really enforceable. I
Speaker 1: also don't think it addresses the root problem. Like I said,
Speaker 1: these networks, they exacerbate things that are already out there,
Speaker 1: and cutting off the networks doesn't stop the harm at best,
Speaker 1: it just slows it down. Anyway, we'll follow up on
Speaker 1: this story once we know where it goes, when it
Speaker 1: passes through the state Senate, or if it doesn't pass
Speaker 1: we'll check back then. One story that passed me by
Speaker 1: while I was recovering from my little adventure through the
Speaker 1: American healthcare system was that a media company called Doodzy
Speaker 1: released a v on YouTube that ruffled a lot of
Speaker 1: feathers because of how it used AI to quote unquote
Speaker 1: resurrect a beloved comedian who passed away years ago. That
Speaker 1: comedian was George Carlin, a man known for making shrewd
Speaker 1: satirical and often hilarious observations about culture, politics, media, and
Speaker 1: everything else. He had a reputation for pointing out hypocrisy
Speaker 1: and holding it up for public scrutiny. While the media
Speaker 1: company created an hour long comedy special featuring what they
Speaker 1: claimed to be was an AI generated impression of Carlin. So,
Speaker 1: according to the video, the voice, the content, the cadence,
Speaker 1: the delivery, all of it came courtesy of AI attempting
Speaker 1: to copy Carlin's style while generating new material. Now, Carlin's
Speaker 1: estate has filed a lawsuit against this media company, arguing
Speaker 1: that Dudezi has infringed upon copyright and has effectively stolen personality.
Speaker 1: The estate seeks damages and also the immediate removal of
Speaker 1: this video. So Carlin's estate also argues that the special
Speaker 1: harms the comedian's reputation and that it does represent theft.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most high profile examples of creatives
Speaker 1: criticizing AI content generation and arguing that the whole enterprise
Speaker 1: depends upon plagiarism and that stands as a threat to
Speaker 1: anyone who's actually in a creative field. This is one
Speaker 1: of the big concerns that both the Writer's Guild of
Speaker 1: America and sag Aftra had in their recent strikes against
Speaker 1: producers in Hollywood that studios could use AI to bypass
Speaker 1: real human creatives entirely while making something that lacks the
Speaker 1: sole sincerity and creativity of human endeavor. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to learn more, I recommend checking out J. Kim Murphy's
Speaker 1: article George Carlin Estate files lawsuit against group behind AI
Speaker 1: generated stand up Special, a casual theft of a great
Speaker 1: American artist's work that's in variety. Wired's Paresh Dave has
Speaker 1: an article titled open Ai Quietly Scrapped a promise to
Speaker 1: disclose key documents to the public, and I think it's
Speaker 1: well worth reading. It's another illustration of how the Open
Speaker 1: Ai of today appears to be quite different from the
Speaker 1: original concept of the organization. So back in the idealistic days,
Speaker 1: the company's founders, which at the time included Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: intended open ai to be a research center committed to
Speaker 1: advancing AI technologies in a responsible, safe and helpful way,
Speaker 1: and to share its findings with the world to best
Speaker 1: ensure that we all enter a future in which AI
Speaker 1: provides the most benefit and the fewest terminators, and that
Speaker 1: requires a certain level of transparency. However, it seems that
Speaker 1: open ai has now drifted a bit from those ideals,
Speaker 1: which reminds me a lot of Google. Once upon a time,
Speaker 1: Google famously had a motto that read don't be Evil
Speaker 1: as part of its corporate conduct. In fact, it was
Speaker 1: in the preface for its corporate conduct and was up
Speaker 1: on the walls of certain Google buildings. But Google took
Speaker 1: that motto off the preface and the walls and then
Speaker 1: just sort of buried it at the end of the
Speaker 1: corporate conduct statement. So it's still there, but it's just
Speaker 1: now it's at the end of it, not prominently at
Speaker 1: the very beginning, and it kind of was an indicator
Speaker 1: that Google had changed its approach. Well. Anyway, Wired sent
Speaker 1: a request for documents from open ai back in December
Speaker 1: of last year, and they received a response saying that
Speaker 1: open AI's policy of sharing governing documents has changed. That
Speaker 1: changed back in twenty twenty two, and now the company
Speaker 1: only sends financial statements. As Wired points out, this could
Speaker 1: be one of several changes that prompted the former board
Speaker 1: of directors of open ai to suddenly co founder and
Speaker 1: CEO Sam Altman last year. Of course, that decision didn't
Speaker 1: last very long, and soon afterward the entire board of
Speaker 1: directors almost had changed and Sam Altman was back in
Speaker 1: the saddle. But my point is, it looks like open
Speaker 1: Ai has changed, perhaps gradually, to a point that it's
Speaker 1: at odds with the original founding mission of the company,
Speaker 1: and that the board was uncomfortable with how things were going.
Speaker 1: It seems a bit like a boiling frog situation. You
Speaker 1: know that idea that you got a frog in water
Speaker 1: and you just gradually increase the temperature of the water
Speaker 1: until the frog is done dead from being boiled, and
Speaker 1: it never hopped out because you know you were increasing
Speaker 1: that temperature so gradually you SICKO. Anyway, I recommend the
Speaker 1: article to learn more about how things have changed, as
Speaker 1: well as what this could possibly mean for open AI
Speaker 1: and the way that companies tackle AI development in general. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we got a lot more tech news to go through.
Speaker 1: We're back and still have a couple of AI things
Speaker 1: to chat about. So Scott Foster of Asia Times has
Speaker 1: a short article titled Samsung to build all AI no
Speaker 1: human chip factories, So yes, the future of an all robot.
Speaker 1: All automated manufacturing facility is around the corner. They would seem.
Speaker 1: It's still gonna take some time right now. The projected
Speaker 1: launch date would be sometime around twenty thirty. If it works,
Speaker 1: then the manufacturing plant won't rely on human labor at all.
Speaker 1: AI will design and build and package products all by itself.
Speaker 1: Oh brave new world to have no people in it.
Speaker 1: The Washington Post reported this week that the Securities in
Speaker 1: Exchange Commission the SEC and the Department of Justice DOJ
Speaker 1: here in the United States, the US are investigating GM's
Speaker 1: Cruise division. That is, the division that's in charge of developing, deploying,
Speaker 1: and operating driverless vehicles, which have been used as a
Speaker 1: ride hailing service. Last year, one of the Cruise vehicles
Speaker 1: was involved in an accident, and it included an incident
Speaker 1: in which the cruise vehicle struck a pedestrian and dragged
Speaker 1: her for twenty feet at approximately seven miles per hour.
Speaker 1: While the vehicle should have immediately come to a stop
Speaker 1: after striking the pedestrian, in fact, it shouldn't have struck
Speaker 1: the pedestrian at all, but once doing so, it should
Speaker 1: have stopped. Instead, it mistakenly interpreted the accident as one
Speaker 1: that impacted the car's side and so it was attempting
Speaker 1: to pull over and get out of traffic. The pedestrians
Speaker 1: suffered additional injuries due to this error, as you can imagine.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're being dragged behind a car at
Speaker 1: seven miles per hour, that's like twice the speed of walking.
Speaker 1: That's going to hurt. So the next day, government officials
Speaker 1: met with the company to investigate the incident, which makes sense,
Speaker 1: and at that meeting, Cruise employees failed to, you know,
Speaker 1: mention that their car had dragged a person twenty feet
Speaker 1: down the road at seven miles per hour. So instead
Speaker 1: their narrative largely focused on another vehicle, a Nissan that
Speaker 1: was under human control, that was also involved in this accident,
Speaker 1: and the implication appeared to be that Cruz was saying
Speaker 1: it was really the driver of the Nissan, it was
Speaker 1: their fault for the pedestrians injuries, and that the Cruise
Speaker 1: vehicle really wasn't to blame. Now, according to Cruise, their
Speaker 1: intention was to show a video of the incident to officials,
Speaker 1: and this video presumably would have included the fact that
Speaker 1: the pedestrian had been dragged behind the Cruise vehicle, but
Speaker 1: a problem with their internet meant they couldn't get the
Speaker 1: video to play. And then CRU's employees just sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, didn't mention it. They didn't say, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: the video would have shown this, and we probably should
Speaker 1: tell you that our card dragged her for twenty feet.
Speaker 1: They didn't. They didn't cover the gap that was left
Speaker 1: by this lack of video, which seems pretty darn horrifying
Speaker 1: not to mention stupid. I mean, you'd have to assume
Speaker 1: that the truth would come out, and it did so
Speaker 1: not being forthcoming and bringing it up yourself makes you
Speaker 1: look even worse, which it has, at least in my
Speaker 1: opinion it has. Anyway, since that incident, the division of
Speaker 1: Cruz has changed quite a bit. Co founder Daniel Khan
Speaker 1: resigned from Cruz, Kyle Vote, the CEO, left the company,
Speaker 1: and GM also downsized nearly a quarter of the staff
Speaker 1: working at cru So just another example of what can
Speaker 1: happen when AI goes wrong, not to mention when people
Speaker 1: fail to acknowledge when AI has gone wrong. Next up,
Speaker 1: Apple is loosening its grip on iOS a little bit,
Speaker 1: but only if you happen to live in the European Union.
Speaker 1: This is, of course, so that Apple will be in
Speaker 1: compliance with regulations that passed in the EU just last year,
Speaker 1: and Apple is not happy about it. So it's not
Speaker 1: like the company had some sort of massive change of
Speaker 1: heart or anything. In fact, Apple representatives have indicated in
Speaker 1: plain English that the company feels this is a terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible mistake. But the changes mean that for the first time,
Speaker 1: EU iPhone users will be able to install fully featured
Speaker 1: browsers other than Safari on their iPhones. So you have
Speaker 1: to understand that these browsers run on of browser engines,
Speaker 1: kind of like how game engines provide a foundation for
Speaker 1: certain types of video games, and that's why certain video
Speaker 1: games feel very different from others, is that they might
Speaker 1: be built on top of a different game engine. Well,
Speaker 1: browsers are built on top of browser engines, and on iPhones,
Speaker 1: at least up until now, all browsers needed to run
Speaker 1: on top of the WebKit browser engine. However, several competing
Speaker 1: browsers typically would use a totally different browser engine to
Speaker 1: underlie their functionality. So in order to comply with Apple's
Speaker 1: requirements and to be able to run on Apple devices,
Speaker 1: these other browsers had to make a version of their
Speaker 1: browser that could run on top of WebKit, and sometimes
Speaker 1: that meant they had to shed features that would work
Speaker 1: on their browser in order to be compatible with WebKit.
Speaker 1: But now EU iPhone users can have other browser engines
Speaker 1: on them, which means these alternatives like Google Chrome will
Speaker 1: be able to exist fully featured on iOS devices for
Speaker 1: the first time. Now that's just one change that's happening
Speaker 1: with iPhones and other iOS devices in the EU. Another
Speaker 1: is that Apple is going to allow users to sideload
Speaker 1: apps onto their devices for the first time. Sideloading is
Speaker 1: when you go to some third party source for apps,
Speaker 1: so you're not going to the official iOS app store.
Speaker 1: In the past, Apple only let you download apps from
Speaker 1: the official store unless you went to some sort of
Speaker 1: extreme like if you did a jail break on your iPhone,
Speaker 1: which was not easy to do and sometimes could break
Speaker 1: your phone, then you had to get all of your
Speaker 1: apps from the iOS store. However, now EU users will
Speaker 1: be able to access third party apps or third party
Speaker 1: stores in order to get apps, and Apple says this
Speaker 1: is dangerous for the Apple's longest running statement on this
Speaker 1: is that the reason why they have this draconian control
Speaker 1: over where you can get your apps on your phone
Speaker 1: is in order to protect you. It's because you, as
Speaker 1: a user are far too vulnerable and you're just a
Speaker 1: naive little fond dancing through the woods, and meanwhile there
Speaker 1: are predators all around you. So Apple says that allowing
Speaker 1: people to sideload apps is a compromise to privacy and security,
Speaker 1: but they have to do it. They have to comply
Speaker 1: with these EU rules. So regulators have said the reason
Speaker 1: why they've got to comply is because the policy Apple
Speaker 1: had in place gave it a monopolistic hold on its
Speaker 1: app system, and that this would open up the app environment.
Speaker 1: And it'll be interesting to see what it all looks
Speaker 1: like a year from now. So will the EU show
Speaker 1: how an open environment benefits customers or will the entire
Speaker 1: Higher Continent be reduced to sinders because regulators allowed chaos
Speaker 1: to rain unchecked. We'll just have to wait and see. Recently,
Speaker 1: Netflix revealed that one place you will not be able
Speaker 1: to access its content is on the upcoming mixed reality
Speaker 1: headset from Apple called the Vision Pro. You won't even
Speaker 1: be able to launch the iPad version of the Netflix
Speaker 1: app on the Vision Pro when it launches next week.
Speaker 1: At least not as it stands right now. You will
Speaker 1: be able to access Netflix if you use the vision
Speaker 1: Pro and you go through Safari. So if you actually
Speaker 1: do the web browser version, but you won't have a
Speaker 1: native app for the headset, nor will you be able
Speaker 1: to use the iPad version. So according to nine to
Speaker 1: five Mac, Netflix's CEO actually just one of Netflix's CEO,
Speaker 1: there are co CEOs, Greg Peters. He said that the
Speaker 1: vision pro is quote unquote subscale. By that, he means
Speaker 1: there wouldn't be enough un in circulation and enough interest
Speaker 1: among the owners of those units to justify building out
Speaker 1: an experiencement just for that platform. It would cost more
Speaker 1: than what they would make back from the people who
Speaker 1: actually owned these devices. Sick Burn. I mean, it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me because for a very long time I would
Speaker 1: joke that Netflix's strategy was to get on every single
Speaker 1: screen it could, whether that screen was on a smartphone
Speaker 1: or a tablet, or it was part of a video
Speaker 1: game console, or maybe a smart refrigerator or perhaps your
Speaker 1: washing machine. So for Netflix to say, yeah, we figure
Speaker 1: that this is not a good return on investment. When
Speaker 1: it comes to the Vision Pro, it seems at least
Speaker 1: initially to be a pretty big slap to Apple's face,
Speaker 1: but then we figure that Apple isn't producing a huge
Speaker 1: number of these things. It's probably in the tens of thousands,
Speaker 1: and the fact that they'd cost more than three grand
Speaker 1: a pop means it is going to be a niche
Speaker 1: product for the most part. There are always Apple fanatics,
Speaker 1: there are developers who are interested in the platform, there
Speaker 1: are companies that are interested in a platform. But still
Speaker 1: it's kind of phenomenal in a world where we worry
Speaker 1: about inflation and there's been so much talk about inflation
Speaker 1: and making sure that you're spending money wisely, that people
Speaker 1: are still willing to spend thousands of dollars on an
Speaker 1: unproven mixed reality headset that appears to be a huge
Speaker 1: compromise from Apple's original quote unquote vision. It just it
Speaker 1: blows my mind. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. There
Speaker 1: are people who have way more money than they have since,
Speaker 1: and I guess that's always going to be the case anyway.
Speaker 1: If you bought a Vision pro, by the way, no
Speaker 1: shade on you, like you probably have legit reasons why
Speaker 1: you did. I'm just still flabbergasted that they sold all
Speaker 1: of the pre production units, or at least all the
Speaker 1: ones that they plan on manufacturing in the near future. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's still pretty fair to say that it would be
Speaker 1: a difficult sell to make something specific for the Vision
Speaker 1: Pro just because the user base is going to be small.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's probably going to be a big challenge
Speaker 1: for Apple moving forward, convincing developers to spend the time
Speaker 1: and money it takes to create new apps for the
Speaker 1: Vision Pro knowing that there's a limited reach, like there's
Speaker 1: just a limited user base, and are these developers willing
Speaker 1: to perhaps take a loss on that initial launch group
Speaker 1: in the hopes that it will establish a foundation for
Speaker 1: a larger customer base moving forward. I don't know the
Speaker 1: answer to that. I know that if I were developing apps,
Speaker 1: I would be thinking twice before creating something for the
Speaker 1: Vision Pro, just because I could spend that same amount
Speaker 1: of time. I'm an effort developing for established platforms and
Speaker 1: actually know that I have a good chance of making
Speaker 1: a return on my investment rather than doing something that
Speaker 1: might work out. But then it's Apple. Apple's got such
Speaker 1: a long track record of making technology work when nobody
Speaker 1: else could make it work. Before them. It's hard for
Speaker 1: me to say anyway, it's it's going to be interesting
Speaker 1: to see how things unfold once the product launches next week,
Speaker 1: and I'm very curious to hear people's honest reviews of it.
Speaker 1: I have a suspicion that the actual experience of using
Speaker 1: the device is pretty darn impressive, but I'm not sure
Speaker 1: it will be enough to convince someone like me to
Speaker 1: start setting money aside to buy it. I just don't
Speaker 1: think it's enough for me yet. Anyway, that's enough about that.
Speaker 1: We're going to take another quick break and when we
Speaker 1: come back, I've got a little bit more news to
Speaker 1: finish off with, so we'll be back right after these messages. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back, and we've got a little bit of a
Speaker 1: inspiring but sort of sad story, and that is the
Speaker 1: Ingenuity helicopter has flown its final mission on Mars. This
Speaker 1: was the little drone copter that could, and it last
Speaker 1: flew on January eighteenth. It briefly lost contact with the
Speaker 1: Perseverance land Rover that's the vehicle that it launched with
Speaker 1: way back in the day, but the two regained connectivity
Speaker 1: a little bit later, and at that point NASA engineers
Speaker 1: discovered that at least one of Ingenuity's rotors had broken
Speaker 1: during its final flight, so it will go flying no more.
Speaker 1: But this little sucker had already achieved far more than
Speaker 1: what NASA initially hoped. Now, let's set aside the fact
Speaker 1: that NASA occasionally sets modest goals with the hopes of
Speaker 1: exceeding them, kind of following in the footsteps of engineer
Speaker 1: Scotty on Star Trek, who would always say he would
Speaker 1: underpromise and over deliver. That way, it always seemed like
Speaker 1: he was a genius. Right If he says, oh, I
Speaker 1: have it to you in three hours, and then like
Speaker 1: in an hour later he gets it done, it looks
Speaker 1: like he just really busted his button got it done.
Speaker 1: NASA kind of follows the same thing, like they're careful
Speaker 1: with setting mission parameters because space is hard y'all. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to take anything away from NASA. Being
Speaker 1: able to do anything successfully in a space oriented mission
Speaker 1: is a huge achievement, So being careful with your goals
Speaker 1: is a good thing. So NASA's mission parameters for Ingenuity
Speaker 1: were for it to do five test flights over the
Speaker 1: course of thirty days. That was it. They thought, if
Speaker 1: we can do five, like, we don't even know if
Speaker 1: we can take off once because Mars's atmosphere is really thin,
Speaker 1: so you have to you know, being able to provide
Speaker 1: enough lift to get even a light drone off the
Speaker 1: ground is challenging. You just you don't have the thickness
Speaker 1: of atmosphere that you would have in a place like Earth.
Speaker 1: But by the end of Ingenuity's time on Mars, it
Speaker 1: had flown seventy two times phenomenal. It had even survived
Speaker 1: Martian Winter like there was concern that the cold of
Speaker 1: Mars's winter would really shut down all of Ingenuity systems,
Speaker 1: and it did, but NASA was able to reheat those
Speaker 1: systems and to reboot Ingenuities computer systems and have it
Speaker 1: still be operational. They even sent updates to Ingenuities capabilities,
Speaker 1: like they gave it firmware updates, and it suddenly was
Speaker 1: able to do more autonomous activities like identifying safe landing zones.
Speaker 1: It even did a couple of emergency landings and did
Speaker 1: so successfully. It's just fantastic, and it means that there
Speaker 1: was this huge amount of information and practical experience that
Speaker 1: NASA was able to gather that they can then use
Speaker 1: to build into future missions. And when you start to
Speaker 1: think about how far drone technology has come over the
Speaker 1: last decade because Ingenuities planning started like back in twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: when you think about how far we've come with those advancements,
Speaker 1: it really makes you get excited about the future of
Speaker 1: space exploration and space travel because we can apply what
Speaker 1: we know as well as the advances in that technology
Speaker 1: to create even better, more capable drones in the future
Speaker 1: and use them to conduct science that in the past
Speaker 1: would have been impossible for us. So honestly, my head
Speaker 1: is off for Ingenuity and the team behind it. Y'all
Speaker 1: did good. This was an incredible achievement, one that I
Speaker 1: don't think I would have imagined I would have seen
Speaker 1: in my lifetime, so I'm so pleased that I'm wrong
Speaker 1: about that. Now, that wraps up the main news items,
Speaker 1: but before I go, I do have a couple of
Speaker 1: article recommendations for you on top of the ones I've
Speaker 1: mentioned already in this episode. Both of these recommendations involve
Speaker 1: upsetting stories, so these are not happy stories. And first
Speaker 1: up is a piece by Janie Rose of Motherboard, and
Speaker 1: it's an article that's titled Taylor Swift is Living every
Speaker 1: Woman's AI Nightmare. And as the title suggests, this is
Speaker 1: about deep fake technology and how it enables people to
Speaker 1: dehumanize victims. And let's face it, most of these victims
Speaker 1: are women or they are female presenting, and they use
Speaker 1: these to create all sorts of AI generated pornographic images
Speaker 1: and then they spread them online and lots of platforms
Speaker 1: have served as kind of distribution centers. X is a
Speaker 1: big one. Reddit used to be. They've gotten better at
Speaker 1: cutting back on that, but yeah, there are places online
Speaker 1: where this just sort of runs rampant. You're not surprised
Speaker 1: that it does so on X because Elon Musk famously
Speaker 1: cut way back on content moderation when he acquired that
Speaker 1: company and has shown very little interest in addressing these things,
Speaker 1: so it becomes an ongoing issue over there. I think
Speaker 1: the article is a really important read, and it does
Speaker 1: tie in with some of the threads that I mentioned
Speaker 1: in the George Carlin story in this episode, right, this
Speaker 1: idea of using AI to victimize people in various ways.
Speaker 1: The deep fake stuff is really disturbing. It's been really
Speaker 1: troubling to me for a couple of years. Now and
Speaker 1: it's only getting worse. And obviously the sexualization is one
Speaker 1: element of deep fake technology, but there are other facets too, right,
Speaker 1: Like there's the potential of using deep fakes to spread misinformation.
Speaker 1: It's a really troubling topic, but I think it's an
Speaker 1: important article to read. Again. That's called Taylor Swift is
Speaker 1: Living every Woman's AI porn Nightmare. It's on Motherboard or
Speaker 1: Vice if you prefer. It's by Jenis Rose. The other
Speaker 1: article I want to recommend is from our old buddy
Speaker 1: Thomas Jermaine, and by old buddy. Don't know Thomas Jermaine
Speaker 1: at all. We just mentioned one of his articles earlier
Speaker 1: in this episode. This is on Gizmoto. The article is
Speaker 1: titled iPhone apps secretly harvest data when they send you notifications.
Speaker 1: Researchers find so yeah, not happy, right, like to find
Speaker 1: out that just by receiving a notification, an app may
Speaker 1: be gathering information about you. In fact, is gathering information
Speaker 1: about you and the implications that has on your own
Speaker 1: privacy and security. It's it's not fun to read about,
Speaker 1: but I think it is important to know about, particularly
Speaker 1: if you have any concern at all about privacy and security. Now,
Speaker 1: as always, I have no connection to these reporters, to
Speaker 1: the writers, journalists, to the outlets. I just find their
Speaker 1: work to be interesting and worth reading. So go check
Speaker 1: that out. And that wraps up this tech news episode
Speaker 1: for this week on January twenty sixth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: I hope all of you are well. I'm getting better
Speaker 1: every day, which is nice. It's a nice change of pace,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff
Speaker 1: is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.