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 a love of all things tech. And this is
Speaker 1: the tech Stuff News episode for February second, two thousand,
Speaker 1: twenty one, eight cues day as I am led to understand.
Speaker 1: Our top story for today's episode goes back to the
Speaker 1: ongoing drama with Wall Street hedge funds and a group
Speaker 1: of independent investors using platforms like Discord and Reddit to
Speaker 1: organize and drive up share prices for companies like game Stop.
Speaker 1: So as a quick reminder, the subreddit Wall Street bets
Speaker 1: took up the cause of buying shares of game Stop
Speaker 1: in an effort to counteract how some hedge fund companies
Speaker 1: were attempting to short sell that stock. Short Selling is
Speaker 1: when you borrow shares from somebody else, a different investor,
Speaker 1: and you sell those shares that are not yours at
Speaker 1: market value. Then you hope the price goes down so
Speaker 1: that you can swoop in and you know, buy back
Speaker 1: those borrowed shares for less than what you sold them for,
Speaker 1: and then you return the borrowed shares to the person
Speaker 1: you borrowed them from, and you get to pocket the difference.
Speaker 1: The Internet crusaders are buying up stocks, which makes the
Speaker 1: stock price go higher, and that starts to pressure those
Speaker 1: investors and companies that were attempting to short the stock,
Speaker 1: because the higher the stock price goes, the more money
Speaker 1: those investors will lose when it comes time to buy
Speaker 1: back shares and return them to the parties that they
Speaker 1: borrow them from. The Motivations for this action among these
Speaker 1: independent investors varies and ranges from those who are hoping
Speaker 1: they can get rich quick by jumping on a trend
Speaker 1: those be kind of like speculators to those who harbor
Speaker 1: a grudge against the hedge funds in general, which typically
Speaker 1: represent the interests of people who are, let me see,
Speaker 1: let me check my notes here, um right, filthy rich,
Speaker 1: like really filthy rich. So a short squeeze is a
Speaker 1: way to really stick it to these funds, which could
Speaker 1: stand to lose billions of dollars as a consequence. In fact,
Speaker 1: that has already happened with a couple of these hedge
Speaker 1: funds that have tried to cut their losses and get
Speaker 1: out before they saw even more money lost because with
Speaker 1: a short sell. The higher that market price goes, the
Speaker 1: more money the short sellers are going to lose when
Speaker 1: it comes time to return that stock. There's no limit
Speaker 1: to how much money they can lose, because the stock
Speaker 1: price can just keep going up, up, up and up.
Speaker 1: There's no there's no bottom there. However, this all hinges
Speaker 1: on the investors being able to buy up those shares
Speaker 1: of games Op as those shares are hitting the market
Speaker 1: in order to keep this trend going, and that's getting
Speaker 1: harder to do. Last Thursday, the day of our last
Speaker 1: news episode, in fact, the mobile stocks trading app robin
Speaker 1: Hood angered users when it put a temporary block on them,
Speaker 1: preventing them from buying shares in various companies that the
Speaker 1: Internet investors had targeted, including game Stop, but also including
Speaker 1: some other companies like AMC Theaters. Uh. They could still
Speaker 1: sell stocks, but they couldn't buy them now. At one point,
Speaker 1: robin Hood had a buying ban on fifty different companies,
Speaker 1: though as of Monday, February one, that list has been
Speaker 1: whittled down to eight, and yet game Stop is still
Speaker 1: on that list. The move prompted users to point out
Speaker 1: the inherent irony that a company naming itself after the
Speaker 1: legendary character Robin Hood, who literally robbed from the rich
Speaker 1: to give to the poor, was preventing average investors from
Speaker 1: you know, doing the equivalent action in the modern day
Speaker 1: through the stock market. Investors have filed numerous lawsuits, like
Speaker 1: more than thirty of them at the federal level against
Speaker 1: the company. At the heart of the issue is what
Speaker 1: led robin Hood to level that ban on users. It
Speaker 1: doesn't help robin Hood's case that among its sources of
Speaker 1: revenue is a hedge fund called Citadel, leading some to
Speaker 1: speculate that robin Hood was facing pressure from revenue sources
Speaker 1: that stood to lose a lot of money if they
Speaker 1: were caught up in a short squeeze. Citadel, for its part,
Speaker 1: denies that it played any role in robin Hood's decision making.
Speaker 1: This is building into a pretty compelling narrative that may
Speaker 1: or may not be realistic, and the narrative goes like this,
Speaker 1: hedge funds that are attempting to short sell companies aren't
Speaker 1: just betting that those companies shares are going to drop
Speaker 1: in price. These hedge funds, according to the narrative, actively
Speaker 1: campai Hayne for that to happen. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: the independence the investors on the sub credit in Wall
Speaker 1: Street bets are saying that these big hedge funds are
Speaker 1: using leverage and market forces to help companies fail and
Speaker 1: then they reap in rewards through this short selling practice.
Speaker 1: These companies may or may not have failed on their own,
Speaker 1: but the story that the investors are telling is that
Speaker 1: the hedge funds are actively working to cause companies to
Speaker 1: fail with only an eye on profit and no care
Speaker 1: about the consequences of failed company brings along with it,
Speaker 1: including the consequences to that company's employees and its customers.
Speaker 1: And so turning a short cell around on these hedge
Speaker 1: funds is being portrayed within these communities as an act
Speaker 1: of heroism. That buying up the stock isn't meant to
Speaker 1: be a way to turn these investors into wealthy people.
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to be buying it to make money,
Speaker 1: but rather as a way to act as a check
Speaker 1: on these hedge funds so they can't set out to
Speaker 1: them these companies just for profit. Now, I would suggest
Speaker 1: that this narrative, while a good one, isn't necessarily the
Speaker 1: whole truth of the matter. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of it in there. I think a lot of truth
Speaker 1: is in that narrative, but I also think there are
Speaker 1: a lot of other complicating factors at play. One of
Speaker 1: those is that sometimes a short cell is really just
Speaker 1: a short sell. It's not an attempt to make a
Speaker 1: company fail. Sometimes companies are just in a bad place,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the short cell recommendations are kind of an indicator,
Speaker 1: a warning flag, and it tells other investors who might
Speaker 1: have shares in those companies that maybe they want to
Speaker 1: protect their money and they should probably sell off those
Speaker 1: shares if in fact that company really is in danger.
Speaker 1: It's not manufactured danger, it's something is wrong with that company.
Speaker 1: And then there are the ripple effects of these kind
Speaker 1: of events, which can cause further market disruption. I think that,
Speaker 1: as in most things in life, the situation is actually
Speaker 1: really complicated. There are no cut and dried heroes or villains.
Speaker 1: But speaking from my own personal standpoint, it is way
Speaker 1: easier for me to side with the people who are
Speaker 1: not billionaires. I'm just saying. Also a full disclosure, I
Speaker 1: don't own any stock in any of these companies. In
Speaker 1: related news, that narrative I was just talking about really
Speaker 1: must be compelling, because Deadline, that is, the news journal
Speaker 1: that covers all things Hollywood, reports that MGM has acquired
Speaker 1: rights to a book proposal. Not a book, but our
Speaker 1: proposal for a book called The Antisocial Network by Ben Meseric.
Speaker 1: The book, as I'm sure you have all guessed, will
Speaker 1: be about this game stop share price, saga and Wall
Speaker 1: Street bets and hedge funds, and about the story of
Speaker 1: independent investors on the and it who are taking aim
Speaker 1: at the big entrenched, fat cat hedge fund managers. Meseric
Speaker 1: proposed the book and his agent was able to shop
Speaker 1: around the proposal, not even a manuscript, and nothing's been
Speaker 1: fully written out yet, and boom, MGM options it for
Speaker 1: a movie. Now, folks, both of my parents are published authors,
Speaker 1: and I just have to say, this is not the
Speaker 1: way things typically work. Now that being said, Meseric already
Speaker 1: has a track record. He wrote the book that would
Speaker 1: become the inspiration for the film The Social Network, you know,
Speaker 1: the Academy Award winning movie. So do keep that in
Speaker 1: mind that while this means that MGM has the rights
Speaker 1: to make a movie about this idea for a book,
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily guarantee that a movie will ever actually
Speaker 1: come out. Now. If it does, it's gonna take some
Speaker 1: time for that to happen. I mean, it hasn't even
Speaker 1: been written yet, let alone had a director attached or
Speaker 1: cast it or gone into pre production or anything. And
Speaker 1: between now and whenever all that stuff can happen, a
Speaker 1: lot more might evolve, and we might see a lot
Speaker 1: more happened during the fallout of this initial story. So
Speaker 1: I can't promise you that in a year or two
Speaker 1: you'll be watching something like I don't know, Tom Holland
Speaker 1: leading a group of upstart investors online against someone like
Speaker 1: I don't know, let's say, Richard Dreyfuss representing the head
Speaker 1: of a hedge fund. Clearly I should be the casting
Speaker 1: director for this movie, is what I'm saying. Now that
Speaker 1: I say it all out loud, I kind of want
Speaker 1: to see it. Well, let's stick with the Hollywood approach
Speaker 1: to the tech world, or at least, in this case,
Speaker 1: the tech adjacent world. The Hollywood Reporter says that Apple
Speaker 1: TV is producing a series called We Crashed all one word,
Speaker 1: big W, big C. We Crashed, based off a podcast
Speaker 1: from Wondering about the Real Estate Slash kind of sort
Speaker 1: of but not really tech company we Work, or to
Speaker 1: be more specific, the A WE Company, which is the
Speaker 1: parent company to we Work, along with a couple of
Speaker 1: related ventures. You know, that's the company that would get
Speaker 1: hold of office space in various markets and then rent
Speaker 1: that office space out to various freelancers and companies that
Speaker 1: didn't already have a physical space of their own. The
Speaker 1: Hollywood Reporter says that Jared Leto has been cast as
Speaker 1: Adam Neuman and and Hathaway will be Rebecca Noyman and
Speaker 1: the Noyman's are leaders in the Wee Company, or at
Speaker 1: least they used to be, with Adam as the former
Speaker 1: CEO of the Wee Company, and Rebecca was a and
Speaker 1: still is a founding partner fund bit of trivia here.
Speaker 1: Rebecca is also cousin to Gwyneth Paltrow. And it seems
Speaker 1: like some of the more new Agish wacky beliefs run
Speaker 1: in that family. Okay, I admit it, that is unfair.
Speaker 1: They don't run in the family. They positively gallop to
Speaker 1: steal a joke from arsenic and old lace. Adam Neuman
Speaker 1: previously made millions of dollars by buying up real estate
Speaker 1: and then least those buildings too We Work, you know,
Speaker 1: the company he was CEO of when the Weed Company
Speaker 1: filed for an i p O in two thousand nineteen.
Speaker 1: The filing contained a lot of unusual stuff in it,
Speaker 1: like an inscrutable hierarchy diagram that had companies nested inside
Speaker 1: other companies and no real useful information inside of it.
Speaker 1: There was also a succession plan that seemed more geared
Speaker 1: toward making the We Company a Neuman dynasty rather than
Speaker 1: you know, an independent company. I would do a full
Speaker 1: episode about the We Company and its trials and tribulations,
Speaker 1: including how that i p O never actually happened, how
Speaker 1: Adam Nouman was pressured by the board of directors to
Speaker 1: step down, complete with a nearly two billion dollar exit package,
Speaker 1: and how the company's valuation has plummeted by nearly since
Speaker 1: that planned i p O. But for one thing, We Work,
Speaker 1: despite the way it branded and marketed itself, is not
Speaker 1: really a tech company. And for another, if you want
Speaker 1: to read an incredible account about that i p O,
Speaker 1: you need to go to the Verge and read Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Lapado's article We Work isn't a tech company, It's a
Speaker 1: soap opera. Because that article is equally informative and wildly entertaining.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it. And I'll conclude this segment of
Speaker 1: our news episode with an update on the ongoing story
Speaker 1: about employees at Google attempting to unionize. I mentioned last
Speaker 1: week that the Alphabet Workers Union or a w U,
Speaker 1: which is really hard to say because of that WU combination.
Speaker 1: Can I just say triple you just make it easier? Anyway,
Speaker 1: the a WU announced it was joining an international alliance
Speaker 1: of unions connected to Google called Alpha Global, this being
Speaker 1: unions all around the world that are related to Google
Speaker 1: or Alphabet. The problem is that the United States members
Speaker 1: of this organization said they didn't know about any alliance
Speaker 1: until after the announcement of it had been published by
Speaker 1: The Verge, and that meant they didn't have a chance
Speaker 1: to vote on the matter, or even consider it, or
Speaker 1: even be told about it. What's more, the press release
Speaker 1: cited by The Verge had comments attributed to a WU leader,
Speaker 1: Poole Cool, who says she never actually made the comments
Speaker 1: that appear in the press release. What followed was confusion,
Speaker 1: and along with confusion came some mistrust, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty common and if you can't trust democratically elected leaders
Speaker 1: to actually represent those who elected those leaders. Everything falls apart,
Speaker 1: which really we're seeing play out in arenas much larger
Speaker 1: than the a WU, But we'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1: Part of the problem appears to be that the Communications
Speaker 1: Workers of America or c w A, pushed out that
Speaker 1: press release prematurely and with a false attribution to cool
Speaker 1: regarding those comments. Now there are discussions within the a
Speaker 1: WU about whether the union should disassociate from the c
Speaker 1: w A entirely, and the person responsible for the press
Speaker 1: release is no longer working with the a WU teams.
Speaker 1: If I were making a bird's eye view observation, I
Speaker 1: would say it looks like those organizing the union are
Speaker 1: relying heavily on other organizations that have proven to be
Speaker 1: a bad match, and that this in turn has actually
Speaker 1: threatened the formation of the union itself. I'm sure I'll
Speaker 1: be returning to the story again in the future. My
Speaker 1: hope is that they are able to continue their efforts
Speaker 1: to unionize. But when we see stuff like this happen,
Speaker 1: it really can cause a great deal of damage, particularly
Speaker 1: in trust. I mean, you're asking impl yease to trust
Speaker 1: that the union will take care of them When something
Speaker 1: like this happens that trust gets eroded. We've got a
Speaker 1: lot more stories to talk about in today's episode, but
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. We're back. Did you
Speaker 1: guys know there was a pandemic going on? Well, it
Speaker 1: continues to be a dominating force for news in general,
Speaker 1: and one of the stories here in the United States
Speaker 1: has been about how badly the country has handled the
Speaker 1: process of distributing and administering vaccines. It's a pretty big mess,
Speaker 1: with each state in the country largely left to determine
Speaker 1: its own processes and there being a general lack of
Speaker 1: clarity across the nation. For example, here in Georgia, we
Speaker 1: are in what is called Phase one A plus, meaning
Speaker 1: the state is currently administering the vaccine to healthcare workers,
Speaker 1: long term care facilities, citizens who are sixty five or older,
Speaker 1: and their caregivers and first responders. After that will come
Speaker 1: Phase one B, which includes essential workers, then one C,
Speaker 1: which will include people who have, you know, medical conditions
Speaker 1: that increase the risk of them contracting a severe case
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen, and then presumably will come the rest
Speaker 1: of us. But there's no actual timeline associated with that plan.
Speaker 1: There's just a description of phases, but it doesn't even
Speaker 1: have a prediction of when will move from Phase one
Speaker 1: A plus to Phase one B. You can search to
Speaker 1: see where you could go to get vaccinated, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you would be eligible for a vaccination.
Speaker 1: You just know where the locations are that are administering vaccines.
Speaker 1: So that's about it. Now, that's just Georgia and every
Speaker 1: state in the US is different. But Georgia is also
Speaker 1: home for the Centers for Disease Control or c d C,
Speaker 1: and the c d C has played a big part
Speaker 1: in why the vaccine rollout has not gone so smoothly
Speaker 1: for thousands and thousands of people. And this is what
Speaker 1: relates it to technology. It's because of a website called
Speaker 1: the Vaccine Administration Management System or VAMS v A m S.
Speaker 1: So this was developed for the princely sum of forty
Speaker 1: four million dollars. According to the m I T Technology Review,
Speaker 1: numerous states that had planned to lean on VAMS as
Speaker 1: the official way to manage vaccine rollout didn't go so well.
Speaker 1: Things have gone pear shaped. A lot of people have
Speaker 1: reported various bugs or glitches in the system that have
Speaker 1: failed to actually make appointments with facilities. So a patient
Speaker 1: goes on VAMS, goes through the process of making an appointment,
Speaker 1: appears to be confirmed for that appointment, they go and
Speaker 1: show up to the physical location, and that's when are told, hey,
Speaker 1: we have no record of you. There's no actual appointment
Speaker 1: on our books, so we can't see you. In other cases,
Speaker 1: the system appears to cancel appointments without rhyme or reason,
Speaker 1: although the c d C says this is due not
Speaker 1: to a flaw in VAMS but rather user error. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are also reports that it locks people out as
Speaker 1: they try to use the system, or it only locks
Speaker 1: them in as a patient, not an administrator, and that's
Speaker 1: a big problem for those who are trying to actually
Speaker 1: administer the system. You know, it's also not just about
Speaker 1: creating appointments, but but managing that information and tracking that
Speaker 1: information so you know who has received the vaccine, who
Speaker 1: needs to come in for a follow up, all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. So it's really a failure of the
Speaker 1: whole system. And the whole point of VAMS was to
Speaker 1: take the burden off of individual states so that they
Speaker 1: didn't have to build out their own management systems. But
Speaker 1: these various issues have led a lot of states to
Speaker 1: kind of do that anyway, rather than rely on something
Speaker 1: that other states have said has been a pretty big mess.
Speaker 1: Some local governments, like counting governments in Florida, have even
Speaker 1: repurposed online services like event bright. You know the website
Speaker 1: you would use in order to send out invitations to
Speaker 1: your kid's birthday party. They're using that in order to
Speaker 1: make appointments, which, y'all, that is messed up. Moreover, the
Speaker 1: m I T piece, which is titled What Went Wrong
Speaker 1: with America's forty four million dollar Vaccine Data System, lays
Speaker 1: out more problems. For example, the layout of the vam's site,
Speaker 1: even when it's working correctly, doesn't sound like it was
Speaker 1: made to be friendly for senior patients, and since seniors
Speaker 1: are the early focus of a lot of the vaccine programs,
Speaker 1: that's a huge problem. And it also points out the
Speaker 1: overall issue of creating systems that are accessible to a
Speaker 1: wide audience. This stuff is important. There are companies that
Speaker 1: have entire departments dedicated to this kind of stuff, and
Speaker 1: as the peace in the m I T Technology Review
Speaker 1: points out, there's a real problem with the procurement process
Speaker 1: when government offices are selecting companies to carry out these
Speaker 1: big projects, and that the process itself can eliminate a
Speaker 1: lot of different valid choices from consideration. Even if those
Speaker 1: choices are more suitable. They may be more suitable, but
Speaker 1: because they don't fit these other criteria that are required
Speaker 1: in the procurement process, they aren't even eligible for consideration. Clearly,
Speaker 1: managing such a massive effort is a huge challenge, and
Speaker 1: they are bound to be big problems along the way,
Speaker 1: But it seems like these challenges are made all the
Speaker 1: more difficult because of the nature of how the US
Speaker 1: government partners with the private sector in general, and the
Speaker 1: tech sector in particular. By the way this sort of
Speaker 1: thing is nonpartisan. We see messages like this no matter
Speaker 1: who happens to be in charge, because the policies themselves
Speaker 1: are so restrictive that it almost doesn't make a difference
Speaker 1: whether or not you have a conservative administration in power
Speaker 1: or a liberal one. The policies themselves persist, and that
Speaker 1: ends up being an issue. And speaking of the US government,
Speaker 1: one of the effects of an administration changing hands is
Speaker 1: that sometimes long term projects get disrupted, and one of
Speaker 1: those projects appears to be NASA's planned returned to the
Speaker 1: Moon under former President Trump. NASA was to aim to
Speaker 1: get astronauts back on the Moon by four, including the
Speaker 1: first woman astronaut to go to the Moon. Now, that
Speaker 1: timeline was pretty ambitious and aggressive. I wouldn't go so
Speaker 1: far as to say it was impossible, but it was
Speaker 1: going to be really hard to do and really expensive,
Speaker 1: and there is uncertainty about where the plan now stands.
Speaker 1: In the wake of Joe Biden winning the US presidency.
Speaker 1: With a new ends stration in charge, there are questions
Speaker 1: about whether NASA will get the funding needed to stay
Speaker 1: on target, particularly for that goal. We're already seeing some
Speaker 1: results of this, with NASA pushing back when it will
Speaker 1: announce lunar lander contracts. Originally, NASA was to announce which
Speaker 1: two of the three companies that had been under consideration
Speaker 1: would be awarded a pair of contracts for lunar landers,
Speaker 1: so one contract per company. We don't know which of
Speaker 1: which two of the three we're going to get these.
Speaker 1: We were supposed to find out later this month in February.
Speaker 1: Now NASA has told the contractors that the announcement has
Speaker 1: been pushed back to April. This was probably a necessary step.
Speaker 1: The agency had requested a budget of three point two
Speaker 1: billion dollars in order to stay the course. But in
Speaker 1: December twenty twenty, Congress approved a much more modest budget
Speaker 1: of eight hundred fifty million dollars. And yeah, it feels
Speaker 1: weird to call eight hundred fifty million dollars honest, but
Speaker 1: then we are also talking about trying to keep people
Speaker 1: alive and safe as we shoot them off to the Moon,
Speaker 1: and that ain't cheap. We're still waiting to hear who
Speaker 1: the Biden administration will choose to head up the agency
Speaker 1: and what priorities the administration will stress. It's all but
Speaker 1: certain that the Artemis project of returning to the Moon
Speaker 1: is going to get pushed back beyond if it sticks
Speaker 1: around as an official project in the first place. And
Speaker 1: I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: I feel like the initial timeline was probably unrealistic and
Speaker 1: you really have to define what are your goals besides
Speaker 1: just going there. Going there's great, it's really a fantastic achievement.
Speaker 1: I don't want to downplay that, but is that the
Speaker 1: best use of resources? Uh? But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: I also think that a Moon mission does have a
Speaker 1: lot of potential. You can find ways to perhaps harvest
Speaker 1: resources from the moon, though that's a very delicate matter.
Speaker 1: You have to figure out a way of doing that.
Speaker 1: It isn't too damaging or dangerous or we'll have long
Speaker 1: lasting consequences. But then you can also pursue a challenge
Speaker 1: that would undoubtedly inspire countless others to really dream big
Speaker 1: and become the next generation of pilots and engineers and scientists.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a big thing in itself. So, like
Speaker 1: I said, I do feel uh complicated about this. Moving on, Microsoft,
Speaker 1: which has managed to dodge a bullet in the United
Speaker 1: States as the US government has discussed the fate of
Speaker 1: big companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple, is going
Speaker 1: under the magnifying glass. Over in the EU, antitrust regulators
Speaker 1: have until March five to decide if Microsoft's proposed acquisition
Speaker 1: of ZeniMax Media is acceptable or if the EU regulators
Speaker 1: will prevent it or require concessions before the acquisition can
Speaker 1: move forward. As it stands, the deal is valued at
Speaker 1: seven and a half billion dollars. Holy cow, makes that
Speaker 1: forty four million dollar website really look like small potatoes, right,
Speaker 1: So what is it that zenni Max does? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's got to be important for that kind of money, right, Well,
Speaker 1: Zenny Max is the parent company of Bethesda, the video
Speaker 1: game studio responsible for things like the older Scrolls games,
Speaker 1: the Fallout titles, and the Doom titles. Though the story
Speaker 1: is behind Fallout and Doom stretch back to other studios
Speaker 1: before Bethesda. But that's that's a matter for a different episode.
Speaker 1: And yeah, video games are a huge business, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to downplay that. It's just one of those
Speaker 1: weird facts of life that I really find bizarre that
Speaker 1: we're talking about money for a video game company acquisition
Speaker 1: that is orders of magnitude larger than the money that's
Speaker 1: put forward as part of an effort to administer vaccines
Speaker 1: against a deadly pandemic. But that's enough of me on
Speaker 1: my soapbox. I get it, you all don't need to
Speaker 1: hear it. If Microsoft's acquisition can move forward, it will
Speaker 1: put the company on more equal footing with Sony and
Speaker 1: the PlayStation platform. For a long time, one of the
Speaker 1: big strengths PlayStation has had against the Xbox platform is
Speaker 1: a list of really good exclusive titles. Now there's a
Speaker 1: chance Microsoft would be able to create new titles with
Speaker 1: Bethesda's work that tie in with those those big popular
Speaker 1: franchises and have them be exclusive to Xbox in the
Speaker 1: Windows platform, as long as they don't end up like
Speaker 1: Fallout seventy six, which the Gaming World at Largest categorized
Speaker 1: as a let's see here says here a total disaster. Now,
Speaker 1: it's more likely that the games will still be available
Speaker 1: for Sony's console, but that Microsoft will then include them
Speaker 1: with their Xbox Game Pass service. That's one of the
Speaker 1: big selling points for the Xbox series of consoles. Essentially,
Speaker 1: you subscribe to that and you get access to dozens
Speaker 1: of different video games idols that are included in the
Speaker 1: subscription price, so you don't have to pay extra to
Speaker 1: get access to them. So that's probably where this is going.
Speaker 1: And and and honestly, that's kind of the best of
Speaker 1: all worlds because Microsoft can still make money selling games
Speaker 1: that are going for a competitor's console while they also
Speaker 1: build up the library of games in their own exclusive
Speaker 1: subscription service. It's kind of a no brainer, really. And
Speaker 1: we have a couple of short Facebook stories to mention.
Speaker 1: Three of them actually. First up is the newly appointed
Speaker 1: Oversight Board at Facebook. This is an independent group that
Speaker 1: is reviewing Facebook's moderation policies. Ours Technica reports that this
Speaker 1: group recently ruled against four of the five substantive rulings
Speaker 1: that Facebook provided them, and reading over these rulings, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of floored. It's five different cases in which Facebook
Speaker 1: chose to remove a post for the interpretation of the
Speaker 1: post violating Facebook's rules, and the board agreed with four
Speaker 1: of those five decisions. But I'm not sure that I
Speaker 1: fully agree with the board in every case. Though to
Speaker 1: be fair, I'm working from summaries of what these cases were.
Speaker 1: I don't have the full context, but it really illustrates
Speaker 1: how complicated moderation actually is and why it requires a
Speaker 1: lot of work and it's not something you can just
Speaker 1: hand over to an algorithm. And by creating this independent
Speaker 1: oversight board, Facebook also kind of has an excuse when
Speaker 1: someone gets mad at a post that Facebook didn't take down,
Speaker 1: because the oversight board is sort of setting the precedent
Speaker 1: and Facebook and say, hey, we got an independent board
Speaker 1: of experts who make these decisions, so go blame those people. Now.
Speaker 1: Related to that story is another one that Facebook is
Speaker 1: kind of navigating some super tricky territory when it comes
Speaker 1: to anti Semitism and use of the term Zionist. This
Speaker 1: issue shows how difficult things can be due to context
Speaker 1: and language. For example, some Jewish people who criticize the
Speaker 1: Israeli government's polo sees use the term Zionist when talking
Speaker 1: about specific policies that they don't agree with. But there
Speaker 1: are others who use the term interchangeably with other terms,
Speaker 1: and they all end up being part of expressions of
Speaker 1: hate speech. And so this is a really challenging situation
Speaker 1: in which some uses of a word might fall into
Speaker 1: the category of hate speech, something that clearly violates Facebook's
Speaker 1: policies and should be removed. But in other cases it's
Speaker 1: being used in a way where it's a part of
Speaker 1: a legitimate criticism of Israeli government actions. When I say
Speaker 1: legitimate criticism, I mean sincere as opposed to whether or
Speaker 1: not you agree with the point of that criticism. The
Speaker 1: Jewish Voices for Peace organization circulated a petition calling for
Speaker 1: Facebook to avoid classifying zionist as hate speech outright. Facebook
Speaker 1: reps have said that the company allows the term when
Speaker 1: it comes to political discussions, but then removes it in
Speaker 1: cases where it's quote used as a proxy for Jews
Speaker 1: or Israeli's in a dehumanizing or violent way. End quote.
Speaker 1: And as I said, this is a really complicated matter,
Speaker 1: and I feel we're seeing the beginning of a lot
Speaker 1: of very difficult conversations within Facebook and between Facebook and
Speaker 1: its critics, as more people demand that social networks take
Speaker 1: a firmer stance when it comes to moderating user content.
Speaker 1: And finally, the Wall Street Journal reports that internal memos
Speaker 1: within Facebook revealed that researchers had pointed out to executives
Speaker 1: that there was a rise of hate groups and misinformation
Speaker 1: campaigns in the summer of twenty twenty, including calls to violence.
Speaker 1: So that doesn't look great considering how extremists use platforms
Speaker 1: like Facebook to organize ahead of the assault on the
Speaker 1: US capital. And it also doesn't look great for organizations
Speaker 1: like the FBI that at least initially stated that there
Speaker 1: just wasn't any real heads up of any issues, when
Speaker 1: in fact, it appears that there were a lot of
Speaker 1: warning signs months in advance. We have some more tech
Speaker 1: stories to cover in just a moment, but before we
Speaker 1: get to those, let's take another quick break. We're back.
Speaker 1: Ford has announced that starting in twenty three, the company's
Speaker 1: vehicles will incorporate Android Auto, and this is a six
Speaker 1: year partnership Ford has made with Google. Android Auto is
Speaker 1: a platform for well, I mean, it's kind of obvious
Speaker 1: car systems, and it means that Ford vehicles will have
Speaker 1: certain Google apps like Maps and even Assistant incorporated into
Speaker 1: their entertainment systems. And I have to admit that could
Speaker 1: be kind of neat being able to talk to your
Speaker 1: car to have it do things like give you directions,
Speaker 1: or play your favorite station, or give you an update
Speaker 1: on whether or make schedule changes to your calendar. All
Speaker 1: of that seems like a decent way to keep your
Speaker 1: eyes on the road instead of on your phone or
Speaker 1: on the dashboard of the car. The two companies also
Speaker 1: announced that they were forming a new R and D
Speaker 1: group called Team Up Shift, which would explore all sorts
Speaker 1: of of uses of technology in the car world, like
Speaker 1: improving the experience of buying a car. Hey, you know,
Speaker 1: if I think if this means that a salesperson doesn't
Speaker 1: get up and leave you waiting for half an hour
Speaker 1: to try and you know, kind of put the screws
Speaker 1: to you, that's a good start. Anyone out there who
Speaker 1: has had the experience of buying a new car from
Speaker 1: a dealership likely has their share of really bad stories.
Speaker 1: But the partnership is also going to look at stuff
Speaker 1: that happens behind the scenes with the aim to improve
Speaker 1: processes and manage supply chains and all sorts of stuff
Speaker 1: that customers rarely think about, but they really have a
Speaker 1: real impact on the bottom line of a business. And
Speaker 1: according to reps, with the companies, there will be no
Speaker 1: harvesting of personal information, so you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about forward and Google logging every time you go to
Speaker 1: that greasy spoon or you like, or if you haven't
Speaker 1: hit the comic book store every week, or you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is other people do. Don't judge me. I
Speaker 1: like greasy food and I like comic books. Anyway, this
Speaker 1: could be an interesting partnership, But I do think it's
Speaker 1: good for people to ask tough questions about data management
Speaker 1: and privacy because we have seen how that information can
Speaker 1: be misused or even just collected and bartered without our
Speaker 1: knowledge or consent. And hey, that leads me well into
Speaker 1: the next story, which is that sixty Minutes reported that
Speaker 1: China may have stolen the personal data of around eighty
Speaker 1: percent of all adults in America. That is staggering. Imagine
Speaker 1: you're with a group of four friends and for this
Speaker 1: hypothetical situation, we're saying that everyone's been vaccinated. It's all safe, yea,
Speaker 1: except you look around at your friends and you think, hey,
Speaker 1: only one of us has not had their personal data
Speaker 1: stolen by China. That I mean, yikes, guys. And the
Speaker 1: information stolen is personal information that apparently includes bio data
Speaker 1: like DNA and stuff, which is truly wild. According to
Speaker 1: the International Business Times, the purpose of doing that kind
Speaker 1: of thing might be to feed that information into China's
Speaker 1: medical industry in an effort for that industry to dominate
Speaker 1: the global medical treatments and technologies markets, essentially giving China
Speaker 1: a scientific edge on all things medical. But you know,
Speaker 1: without going through that whole nasty business of asking people
Speaker 1: for permission to harvest and use their personal and biological information. See,
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing we have to be on
Speaker 1: the lookout for. And guys, if you were looking forward
Speaker 1: to going to Coachella, have some bad news. For the
Speaker 1: third time since the pandemic started, Coachella is canceled. Coachella
Speaker 1: was supposed to happen in April of but by that
Speaker 1: point the pandemic was in full bloom in the United States,
Speaker 1: and so the organizers postponed it to October twenty. That
Speaker 1: turned out to be a bit too ambitious as well,
Speaker 1: as we were sliding toward another terrible surge in COVID cases,
Speaker 1: and so twenty twenty was called a loss, and the
Speaker 1: plan was to hold Coachella one in April, but seeing
Speaker 1: as the vaccine rollout it's likely to still be in
Speaker 1: the early stages for most of the population even by
Speaker 1: that point in time, April isn't a guarantee either, and
Speaker 1: now the show has been canceled. There are rumors that
Speaker 1: it might get pushed to October again, but as I
Speaker 1: record this, there's been no official word on that. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the live events industry has been absolutely hammered by COVID,
Speaker 1: and it appears that the vaccination rollout this year will
Speaker 1: really determine when we can expect some of those big
Speaker 1: events to return. So in the meantime, stay home if
Speaker 1: you can, key social distancing, wash your hands, and be safe.
Speaker 1: Our last couple of stories are about Vigia Games. First
Speaker 1: up is the game everyone loves to dunk on for
Speaker 1: some pretty legitimate reasons cyberpunk. The latest is that PC
Speaker 1: gamers should take some precautions before installing any mods. Now,
Speaker 1: for those not up on gaming lingo, mods are modifications,
Speaker 1: and in this case, it refers to stuff that's been
Speaker 1: programmed by other people who don't work for the video
Speaker 1: game company, with the purpose of creating different effects or
Speaker 1: opening up new features once you download it and install
Speaker 1: it into the code of your game. Some games natively
Speaker 1: support mods, and even have marketplaces where users can shop
Speaker 1: around for different types of mods. And a mod might
Speaker 1: make a game look better, or it might create weird
Speaker 1: and silly effects, or it might allow you to do
Speaker 1: stuff like make edits to the game while you're playing
Speaker 1: it so that you know you don't have to do
Speaker 1: that irritating thing where you play a game to progress.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, right, who has time for that anyway?
Speaker 1: Forbes reported a subreddit post that indicated that there were
Speaker 1: some vulnerabilities in the PC version of the game that
Speaker 1: could allow for malicious mods to integrate with the game
Speaker 1: and then compromise the PC running the game. So you
Speaker 1: might think you're getting, you know, a cool mod that's
Speaker 1: gonna make Keanu Reeves your best Friend Forever BFFs, but
Speaker 1: in fact it ends up creating a back door for
Speaker 1: a hacker to take over your computer. Apparently there are
Speaker 1: some workarounds to protect your PC to patch those vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: on your own, but as of this recording, there's no
Speaker 1: official patch from the video game company CD project to
Speaker 1: fix things. And finally, we have some good news, at
Speaker 1: least for Nintendo. The company had projected it would sell
Speaker 1: twenty four million Nintendo Switch consoles in the current fiscal year,
Speaker 1: which lasts through March, so Nintendo's fiscal year doesn't follow
Speaker 1: the calendar year. However, the company has already sold twenty
Speaker 1: four point one million units, and looking at the calendar,
Speaker 1: we still have a little bit to go before March
Speaker 1: is over, so that's prompted Nintendo to adjust its projection
Speaker 1: upward to twenty six and a half million units. Now,
Speaker 1: clearly the pandemic has had a big effect with this,
Speaker 1: with lots of people buying a Switch console during lockdown.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm one of those people because I bought
Speaker 1: one for my wife, and honestly, I should probably get
Speaker 1: one of my own because it looks like a lot
Speaker 1: of fun and she won't let me play it. Also
Speaker 1: the fact that the company has exceeded its projected sales
Speaker 1: also helps explain why sometimes it can still be a
Speaker 1: challenge to find a switch console in stock depending on
Speaker 1: where you live. Um, it's hard to find those in
Speaker 1: inventories at times. But good news for Nintendo and there's
Speaker 1: some big titles that are coming up in the in
Speaker 1: the months ahead. That's what's really got them excited about
Speaker 1: the potential of hitting that tway six and a half
Speaker 1: billion unit benchmark. So that's good for them. Bee beep,
Speaker 1: beep beep, breaking news. I had already finished recording this
Speaker 1: episode and just as I was about to jump into
Speaker 1: sending it off to super producer Torii, I saw the
Speaker 1: news today. Oh boy, and it's more of a a video
Speaker 1: games So we're just tagging this onto the very end.
Speaker 1: Apparently Google is now shuttering. It's in house Stadia Games
Speaker 1: Development studio. That headline comes straight from c NET and
Speaker 1: Shelby Brown. So Shelby, big thanks to you for getting
Speaker 1: that out there. Just before I was going to send
Speaker 1: this off. It's awesome that I get to talk about
Speaker 1: this only in the sense that it is breaking news.
Speaker 1: It is said I'm also a Google Stadia user, I
Speaker 1: got a chance to get hold of a Stadio system,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of interesting. I haven't really played with
Speaker 1: that much, to be honest, but I thought it was
Speaker 1: an interesting idea. However, Google has now decided that they're
Speaker 1: not going to really get into the business of developing
Speaker 1: video games. They will instead continue to act as a
Speaker 1: platform supporting video games, So you can still have video
Speaker 1: games on the Stadio platform, just that Google won't be
Speaker 1: making any of those itself. So I thought I would
Speaker 1: update that before this episode goes out because I had
Speaker 1: the chance to do so. Back to Jonathan. Thanks Jonathan.
Speaker 1: All Right, guys, that wraps up this episode of tech
Speaker 1: Stuff News. We will be back on Thursday with more
Speaker 1: news episodes. Tomorrow you will get a brand new episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff Proper. That one's going to be all
Speaker 1: about Discord, So if you're curious about the platform I
Speaker 1: talk all about history and tomorrow's episode, be sure to
Speaker 1: tune into that. If you have any suggestions for topics
Speaker 1: I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, let
Speaker 1: me know. Discord was a user suggestion. Maybe you can
Speaker 1: make one of your own. The best way to get
Speaker 1: in touch with me is over On Twitter, the handle
Speaker 1: is text stuff H s W and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart
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