Speaker 1: Welcome to text Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And it is the
Speaker 1: end of June twenty twenty, which means we have crossed
Speaker 1: another anniversary for tech Stuff. This show began publishing back
Speaker 1: in June two thousand eight. I've been working for a
Speaker 1: company called how Stuff Works dot com for about a
Speaker 1: year then really about a year and a half before
Speaker 1: we launched this show. And originally I had a co
Speaker 1: host named Chris Palette, and Chris was also my editor
Speaker 1: for all the articles I wrote for how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. And together we would tackle tech topics and
Speaker 1: Chris would make a lot of puns, like a lot
Speaker 1: a lot of them. Mean seriously, you guys seem to
Speaker 1: think that I do a lot of puns, but honestly,
Speaker 1: Chris went above and beyond. Now, over the years, this
Speaker 1: show has changed. Chris left to pursue a career he
Speaker 1: had wanted for years. That we occasionally paying each other
Speaker 1: to check in, but we haven't really been in the
Speaker 1: same room for more than a few years now. But
Speaker 1: after Chris Lauren Vogelbaum joined the show as a co host,
Speaker 1: and she stayed on for a while, but she really
Speaker 1: wanted to develop her own shows, which makes total sense,
Speaker 1: and so she came into Tech Stuff to help me out.
Speaker 1: But she had her own goals and couldn't really pursue
Speaker 1: those while also doing Tech Stuff. She's kicking butt on
Speaker 1: several shows now, including Saver, an incredible podcast all about food.
Speaker 1: If you haven't listened to the Saver podcast s a
Speaker 1: v O R. I highly recommend it. It's very informative,
Speaker 1: it's awesome, and you're gonna want to eat after every episode. Now,
Speaker 1: I had a few other guest co hosts who kind
Speaker 1: of jumped on for an episode or two after that,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, Tech Stuff kind of settled
Speaker 1: into what it is now, a solo host show about
Speaker 1: tech and its role in society. And of course, most
Speaker 1: recently the show has changed again because we are now
Speaker 1: in the era of COVID nineteen. I'm pretty sure you
Speaker 1: guys are aware of that. So I'm recording my episodes
Speaker 1: from my home and I have been doing that since March.
Speaker 1: That means that not even super producer Tari is present
Speaker 1: when I record, it's just me sitting at my desk
Speaker 1: speaking into my microphone and recording it on my computer. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be real with you guys, this gets
Speaker 1: hard for me. I'm mostly an extrovert, and I really
Speaker 1: benefit from being around other people and bouncing ideas off
Speaker 1: of them, or taking short breaks when I'm doing my
Speaker 1: research so I can have a chat and that kind
Speaker 1: of re energizes me and lets me refocus. But at home,
Speaker 1: I don't really have at So it's been really challenging
Speaker 1: to research right and record these shows. Not that I
Speaker 1: don't like doing it. I still love Tech Stuff, It's
Speaker 1: just harder now. And my hope is that this hasn't
Speaker 1: affected the quality of the show at all, apart from
Speaker 1: obviously a dip in audio quality since I'm in my
Speaker 1: home and not in an honest to goodness recording studio.
Speaker 1: But through all these changes, the show has continued to
Speaker 1: look at tech and its place in our world. So
Speaker 1: today I thought we would look back on one or
Speaker 1: two big stories from each year of tech Stuffs existence,
Speaker 1: starting with two thousand eight. And I hope this goes
Speaker 1: well because I thought of it at the last minute
Speaker 1: and then scrambled to do it. So two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: the first episode of tech Stuff was about how the
Speaker 1: Google Apple Cloud computer will work, which I admit in
Speaker 1: retrospect may have been a tad off. But as for
Speaker 1: the story that really was dominating the news in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, would probably the announcement that Microsoft was
Speaker 1: making a bid for Yahoo. Now that actually happened in February.
Speaker 1: It took place before tech stuff was really a thing.
Speaker 1: But whatever, I'm going by calendar year here, not month
Speaker 1: to month, because I don't want to go crazy. Microsoft,
Speaker 1: of course, is the software company famous for the Windows
Speaker 1: operating system and the Microsoft Office Suite, among many other
Speaker 1: things like the Xbox game consoles, and Yahoo was frequently
Speaker 1: referred to as a search engine, but really was more
Speaker 1: of a web portal that aggregated content and later actually
Speaker 1: generated content, and it also did search. Microsoft's move was
Speaker 1: to make an offer of thirty one dollars per share
Speaker 1: of Yahoo's stock, So if you took all the Yahoo
Speaker 1: stock and you multiplied it by thirty one dollars, it
Speaker 1: meant that this would even out to about forty four
Speaker 1: and a half billion with a b dollar. Nine days later,
Speaker 1: Yahoo's board of directors responded with yeah, now, we're good.
Speaker 1: Thanks anyway, Actually it was a little less firm of
Speaker 1: a know than that, because their board said that the
Speaker 1: four billion dollar deal actually undervalued Yahoo, and they countered
Speaker 1: that offer and they suggested that, you know, we really
Speaker 1: think that forty dollars per share is more fair. But
Speaker 1: that went nowhere. Microsoft would not agree to that, and
Speaker 1: Yahoo would put a little more pressure on Microsoft. They
Speaker 1: made a deal with Google so that Google would actually
Speaker 1: power Yahoo's search engine, and this story kind of fizzled
Speaker 1: out as a result. It never really went anywhere. And
Speaker 1: of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we could say
Speaker 1: that maybe that was good for Microsoft, considering how Yahoo
Speaker 1: kind of languished in the years since. Or you might
Speaker 1: argue that maybe if Microsoft had been able to go
Speaker 1: through with that deal, maybe they would have made something
Speaker 1: out of Yahoo that would be a bigger success. Looking
Speaker 1: at Microsoft and its history, that's a that's kind of
Speaker 1: a coin flip situation in my my point of view. Now.
Speaker 1: Honorable mentions for stories from two thousand eight that I
Speaker 1: didn't really do a deep dive into include Apple announcing
Speaker 1: that it was leaving Macworld behind. It would actually continue
Speaker 1: to have a presence in two thousand nine, but that
Speaker 1: was going to be the last year that Apple would
Speaker 1: attend Macworld. Macworld, by the way, was an annual industry
Speaker 1: conference that really centered on Apple products. Uh the conference
Speaker 1: itself would last until two thousand and fourteen, when it
Speaker 1: was kind of put on hold indefinitely. Windows seven was
Speaker 1: also announced in two thousand eight, and Google would launch
Speaker 1: the Chrome browser as well as the Android smartphone in
Speaker 1: two thousand eight. But let's move on to two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: This was another year of really big moves in the
Speaker 1: tech industry. Google announced the Chrome operating System. They had
Speaker 1: already launched the browser back in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: but the Chrome OS would become a really light operating system,
Speaker 1: and it emphasized cloud services rather than native applications running
Speaker 1: on the computer itself. So this was at a time
Speaker 1: when cloud computing wasn't really a common term outside of
Speaker 1: you know, a few companies in the computer industry. The
Speaker 1: Chrome operating System wouldn't stand as a major threat to
Speaker 1: either Microsoft or the Mac operating systems, but it did
Speaker 1: pave the way for lower priced laptops that didn't need
Speaker 1: the horsepower of other machines. Of the time, and that's
Speaker 1: because really all you needed was a good connection to
Speaker 1: the Internet in order to access the apps and services
Speaker 1: you wanted to run. While I don't think the Chrome
Speaker 1: operating system really changed the world, it definitely helped set
Speaker 1: the stage for the era, as short lived as it was,
Speaker 1: of the netbook. Netbooks were super lightweight computers that probably
Speaker 1: would have uck around a bit longer if it were
Speaker 1: not for the fact that some of them were just
Speaker 1: too small and they had such crappy keyboards that it
Speaker 1: would legit hurt to work on them if you were
Speaker 1: doing so for a long time. Perhaps more importantly for
Speaker 1: the long run was that Google's push for web based
Speaker 1: services moved us closer to adopting the cloud computing strategy
Speaker 1: more wholeheartedly. Between Google's emphasis on internet based applications and
Speaker 1: Apple saying the stage for smartphone apps the year before,
Speaker 1: there was a new focus on what the web could
Speaker 1: do beyond provide a place to browse for shoes, or
Speaker 1: look at kitten videos or watch hamsters dance. Today, it's
Speaker 1: not unusual at all to rely heavily on web based programs.
Speaker 1: Even video game consoles have embraced this approach. Now, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't lay all of that at the feet of Google
Speaker 1: and say that the Chrome operating system is the reason
Speaker 1: why cloud computing became a huge thing. But I do
Speaker 1: think Google's influence helped move things along at a faster pace.
Speaker 1: Another big thing to happened in two thousand nine was
Speaker 1: that Steve Jobs would leave and then come back to Apple.
Speaker 1: He had to take a medical leave of absence, and
Speaker 1: originally the reason they reported for his absence was given
Speaker 1: as as a hormonal imbalance, but in actuality, he was
Speaker 1: recovering from a liver transplant. Early in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs went on leave and he skipped Macworld. You know,
Speaker 1: Apple was still attending it, but it was the last
Speaker 1: time Apple would be at the conference. That had to
Speaker 1: be a double punch to the Macworld attendees, because not
Speaker 1: only was the last time Apple would be there, but
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs himself would not be there, which meant that
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight was the last time they would
Speaker 1: see Steve Jobs present at Macworld. Now, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: it seems pretty crass to dig into someone's personal life
Speaker 1: and medical history and then to publish that as news.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, Steve Jobs was CEO of Apple. Moreover,
Speaker 1: you could argue that no other tech brand identified as
Speaker 1: closely with a foul under than Apple did with Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1: When the company held big press events, it was Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs who had stunned the crowd with revelations of new products.
Speaker 1: He was part leader, parts salesman, parts celebrity, and so
Speaker 1: Steve jobs health could also be viewed as an extension
Speaker 1: of the company's health. The danger of having such a
Speaker 1: centralized figure is that there's a perception that forms that
Speaker 1: without that figure, the company is going to be in
Speaker 1: choppy waters, and when we get a bit further on,
Speaker 1: will revisit this. Honorable mentions for big stories in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine include the scuttle butt that eBay was preparing
Speaker 1: to sell off Skype, and that would mean it would
Speaker 1: exit what had widely been viewed as one of the
Speaker 1: worst acquisitions in tech history. Microsoft and Yahoo were able
Speaker 1: to patch things up from the year before, and they
Speaker 1: agreed that Microsoft would supply Yahoo's search tool in an
Speaker 1: effort to compete against Google. The two thousand eight elections
Speaker 1: in the United States gave rise to more people you
Speaker 1: using online social networks to push political philosophies and agenda
Speaker 1: and to market campaigns online, and we can definitely see
Speaker 1: that that is an even bigger trend today. Windows seven
Speaker 1: got a much better reception than the previous Microsoft operating system,
Speaker 1: Windows Vista, and now it's time to move to twenty ten.
Speaker 1: This was a big year, a tumultuous year. Wiki Leaks
Speaker 1: made world headlines after receiving and then publishing an enormous
Speaker 1: number of documents that revealed tons of previously unknown or
Speaker 1: unacknowledged moves by various governments and government agents around the world,
Speaker 1: including and primarily those who call the United States home.
Speaker 1: This included documents about deliberate efforts to deceive the American
Speaker 1: public about various operations around the world. It had some
Speaker 1: really heavy stuff in it, including information about how US
Speaker 1: government was working hard to protect a merror Rican officials
Speaker 1: and agents who had established practices around the world that
Speaker 1: could easily fall under the general category of torture, which
Speaker 1: I don't think I have to mention is truly awful.
Speaker 1: Other reports were equally disturbing and included incidents in which
Speaker 1: American forces had done stuff like firing upon journalists or
Speaker 1: civilians and then tried to cover it up. A lot
Speaker 1: of information about other nations and leaders were also part
Speaker 1: of this information dump, including messages that revealed how various
Speaker 1: ambassadors or officials viewed other world leaders and that caused
Speaker 1: a lot of embarrassment in official channels around the world.
Speaker 1: Wiki Leaks continues to play a big part in world politics,
Speaker 1: though in recent years there's been a lot more scrutiny
Speaker 1: and more accusations that the organization has its own agenda
Speaker 1: that goes beyond revealing the truth, that the truth plays
Speaker 1: a part in it, but it's a selective use of
Speaker 1: the truth in order to direct things down a particular path.
Speaker 1: Honorable mentions go to Gizmoto essentially stealing a prototype iPhone
Speaker 1: three gs then publishing a story about it, including a
Speaker 1: breakdown of the internal components. That story gained Gizmoto a
Speaker 1: lot of heat in the tech journalism world for the
Speaker 1: ethically questionable decision to lift the phone and then run
Speaker 1: a story on it. Apple was put in the unusual
Speaker 1: position of having to defend a product as people found
Speaker 1: it really hard to get a signal and to make
Speaker 1: calls on the new iPhone. This would later fall into
Speaker 1: a whole story that was referred to as antenna GIT,
Speaker 1: the idea that the placement of the antenna was creating
Speaker 1: a challenge to get and maintain a good signal, and
Speaker 1: of course one of the famous things in that is
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs claiming that the whole reason why there are
Speaker 1: problem was that people were just holding it wrong. In
Speaker 1: the US, Apple emerged from its exclusivity deal with a
Speaker 1: T and T and prepared to release the iPhone on
Speaker 1: other cellular carriers. Plus, the company released the iPad, which
Speaker 1: was initially ridiculed for its name upon launch, and in September,
Speaker 1: the BP oil drilling rig called deep Water Horizon caused
Speaker 1: what became the largest marine oil spill ever, a colossal
Speaker 1: and catastrophic event, and the the consequences of that are
Speaker 1: something that's going to be felt for a really long time. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's time for us to cover two thousand eleven and
Speaker 1: then we're gonna take a short break now. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's another story I could cover that had as
Speaker 1: big an impact on headlines in the United States as
Speaker 1: the death of Steve Jobs. He had retired as CEO earlier,
Speaker 1: in handing the company over to Tim Cook on October five,
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven he passed away, we saw people actually
Speaker 1: grieve for him in public. People left notes and flowers
Speaker 1: in tribute outside of Apple stores, and this sort of
Speaker 1: response is pretty much unheard of in the business world.
Speaker 1: And again, it really pointed at jobs celebrity status, right
Speaker 1: that he was more than a business leader. He was
Speaker 1: a celebrity, a figurehead, and there was a lot of
Speaker 1: worry that Apple the company would falter. And even to
Speaker 1: this day you will occasionally hear people say something like
Speaker 1: that's not how Steve would have done it, though you
Speaker 1: don't hear it as frequently as you used to. However,
Speaker 1: despite the undeniable impact his death had on business, Apple
Speaker 1: the company has continued to do quite well in the
Speaker 1: following years. Now, I would argue that as monumental as
Speaker 1: that story was, it should take a back seat to
Speaker 1: the events that were occurring in the Middle East through
Speaker 1: much of twenty eleven. While protests and demonstrations had begun
Speaker 1: late in two and various countries, we really saw an
Speaker 1: increase in twenty eleven as people in numerous countries in
Speaker 1: the Middle East leveraged apps and social media in order
Speaker 1: to stage protests against various governments. We called it the
Speaker 1: Arab Spring, and this sort of use of social media
Speaker 1: would also serve as a building block for how great
Speaker 1: movements like Black Lives Matter use social media, as well
Speaker 1: as how hate groups take advantage of those same tools,
Speaker 1: both to organize and two so discord. Honorable mentions for
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven include the rise of the amorphous hacktivist
Speaker 1: group Anonymous, thus bringing the guy Fox mask back into fashion,
Speaker 1: the launch of the Google Plus social network that, despite
Speaker 1: a fairly enthusiastic reception when it was in beta, never
Speaker 1: managed to get much traction against Facebook, and IBM. S
Speaker 1: Watson defeated two former Jeopardy champions in a special Jeopardy exhibition.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we will pick up with twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break. Early in in
Speaker 1: the United States, two pieces of proposed legislation grabbed world headlines.
Speaker 1: They were the Stop Online Piracy Act for A SOAPA,
Speaker 1: and the Protect Intellectual Property Act or PIPPA. These proposals
Speaker 1: emerged due to the entertainment industries pushed to find ways
Speaker 1: to prevent and crack down upon piracy online, and a
Speaker 1: lot of what the pieces were based upon was conjecture
Speaker 1: and faulty reasoning. For example, the entertainment industry would claim
Speaker 1: enormous losses due to piracy. But the problem is you
Speaker 1: can't prove that because you can't prove that the people
Speaker 1: who downloaded something illegally would have otherwise purchased it legally.
Speaker 1: And if they would have never purchased it, let's say
Speaker 1: that they didn't pirate it, nor did they purchase it,
Speaker 1: then you can't call that a loss. That just wasn't
Speaker 1: a sale. So it was based on faulty logic to
Speaker 1: begin with, and the implications meant that if these proposals
Speaker 1: were put into law, we would really see a fractured
Speaker 1: Internet where people in the United States wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to even see that some sites exist because of effectively
Speaker 1: digital blockades. It would have been difficult to implement, it
Speaker 1: would have been hard to enforce, and if it did work,
Speaker 1: it would essentially break parts of the Internet. Lots of
Speaker 1: sites held a simulated Internet blackout to raise awareness of
Speaker 1: the issues, and advocates for free exchange of ideas protested
Speaker 1: the proposals and the idea of regulating the Internet, and
Speaker 1: ultimately the United States government let the two pieces just
Speaker 1: die rather than risk a fallout with pushing it through
Speaker 1: into law. Another big story was that Facebook colossally mishandled
Speaker 1: its initial public offering or i p O. Then, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm butchering language, but man, this was such an enormous mistake.
Speaker 1: So this is the process that a private company has
Speaker 1: to go through in order to become a publicly traded company,
Speaker 1: or typically it's the way a privately held company becomes
Speaker 1: publicly traded. And this process ends with one where you've
Speaker 1: got this publicly traded company where anyone with cash can
Speaker 1: buy stocks in that company. The process of an i
Speaker 1: p O is really complicated, and it involves a lot
Speaker 1: of analysts who have to look at a company. They
Speaker 1: have to assess its value in an effort to come
Speaker 1: up with a proposed opening stock price. So essentially these
Speaker 1: are people who say, yeah, you know, based on what
Speaker 1: we know about how much the company makes, its assets,
Speaker 1: its debts, all that kind of stuff, we figure that
Speaker 1: it would cost X number of dollars per share, assuming
Speaker 1: that there are why number of shares available. A company's
Speaker 1: value is essentially the share price multiplied by the number
Speaker 1: of shares before going public, The estimated value of Facebook
Speaker 1: was one hundred four million dollars. The stock was to
Speaker 1: debut at nearly forty dollars per share, but there were
Speaker 1: technical glitches, including the fact that too many shares were issued.
Speaker 1: There were other issues just with Nasdaq, the stock exchange
Speaker 1: where this was happening, that had nothing directly to do
Speaker 1: with Facebook. UH. There were also problems with Morgan Stanley
Speaker 1: that was the company that was acting as an underwriter
Speaker 1: for the I p O. They were accused of using
Speaker 1: some price influencing UH mathematics, so there were some shady
Speaker 1: things going on there. The stock price would ultimately take
Speaker 1: a huge hit over the course of twenty twelve. You know,
Speaker 1: it came out just under forty dollars. It fell to
Speaker 1: a low of seventeen dollars and fifty five cents per share,
Speaker 1: so less than half of what debuted at UH and
Speaker 1: it meant that Facebook would have some ground to make up.
Speaker 1: But honorable mentions for two thousand twelve stories include the
Speaker 1: raid upon Mega Upload founder Kim dot Com in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: and Nintendo made a pretty big misstep with the launch
Speaker 1: of the Wii U, which never really took off, but
Speaker 1: Felix Baumgartner definitely took off. He wrote a balloon up
Speaker 1: to the edge of space and then jumped for the
Speaker 1: longest refall ever and eventually parachuted to safety many many
Speaker 1: minutes after jumping out of the balloon. Also, Marrissa Meyer
Speaker 1: would leave Google to become the new CEO of Yahoo Time. Hey,
Speaker 1: remember when I talked about that Wiki leaks dump and
Speaker 1: how it disrupted stuff, Well, that definitely set the stage
Speaker 1: for an even bigger story in the United States, and
Speaker 1: Edward Snowden, who was a contract worker for the n
Speaker 1: s A that stands for National Security Agency, leaked documents
Speaker 1: showing that the n s A had been instituting processes
Speaker 1: and policies and technologies that were at best gross violations
Speaker 1: of privacy. The n s AS focus is monitoring, collecting,
Speaker 1: and processing communications, all in an effort to further the
Speaker 1: interests of national security for the United States. So when
Speaker 1: it comes down to it, it's a spy agency and
Speaker 1: it really tries to suss out what everyone is talking
Speaker 1: about all the time across all different communication media. Snowdon
Speaker 1: revealed that the n s A had put in some
Speaker 1: listening devices and had agreements with these various communications companies.
Speaker 1: All of these agreements were classified. The companies were not
Speaker 1: allowed to disclose them. There was all this kind of
Speaker 1: dark veil of secrecy over everything and a lot of
Speaker 1: threats of repercussions if anyone broke that. And the whole
Speaker 1: idea was that it was scooping up information wholesale. It
Speaker 1: didn't matter if that information had anything to do with
Speaker 1: national security or not, didn't matter if the n s
Speaker 1: A suspected someone or didn't suspect them. They were just
Speaker 1: essentially pulling all data in through a funnel, and that
Speaker 1: the agency had ways to search through all that information.
Speaker 1: His actions made snowed In a target and he fled
Speaker 1: the United States. But while the government condemned the leaks
Speaker 1: as being against the interests of the United States, a
Speaker 1: lot of citizens like me began to ask, Hey, um,
Speaker 1: what are you actually defining as the United States? Because
Speaker 1: I live here and this, sure as heck doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like it's in my interests. So it didn't help that
Speaker 1: there were reports of folks who are working for the
Speaker 1: n s A who had made use of the agency's
Speaker 1: tools for their own purposes, such as to snoop on
Speaker 1: former lovers and stuff. Yeah, this was a huge, ugly story,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't the only ugly story of that year,
Speaker 1: not by a long shot. This was also the year
Speaker 1: of the Boston Marathon bombing, a truly awful event, and
Speaker 1: it also served as a harsh classroom where we all
Speaker 1: learned what happens when you have the rapid dissemination and
Speaker 1: analysis of information. Within a very short time, data about
Speaker 1: the bombing was flying across the Internet, and you had
Speaker 1: a ton of armchair detectives who were all trying to
Speaker 1: figure out who perpetrated the bombing. This led to some
Speaker 1: hasty and poorly formed hypotheses that were totally on the
Speaker 1: wrong track. People were brought under suspicion who had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with anything. So in short, the events following
Speaker 1: the bombing illustrated how dangerous misinformation and faulty assumptions can be.
Speaker 1: Honorable mentions for big tech stories of go to the
Speaker 1: embarrassing failure of the healthcare dot gov site in the
Speaker 1: United States. This was the online entry point for people
Speaker 1: looking to access the services created through the Affordable Care Act,
Speaker 1: and the site was a shambles. It collapsed under even
Speaker 1: moderate traffic, and it created terrible bottlenecks and obstacles for
Speaker 1: people who are just trying to secure medical insurance. That
Speaker 1: was bad. Was also when Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon,
Speaker 1: bought the Washington Post newspaper, setting the stage for a
Speaker 1: rivalry with a future US president. Netflix began to roll
Speaker 1: original content and started its transition from online video store
Speaker 1: into a movie and television studio. The Pebble smartwatch, which
Speaker 1: was a big Kickstarter success story, debuted, though sadly Pebble
Speaker 1: would have a fairly meteoric rise and fall. Sony and
Speaker 1: Microsoft released the PS four and Xbox One game consoles respectively,
Speaker 1: and Elon Musk said, Hey, wouldn't it be neat if
Speaker 1: we had really fast trains and introduced the hyper loop concept.
Speaker 1: That is a concept we're still trying to get our
Speaker 1: heads around and make a reality to this day. Okay,
Speaker 1: time for two thousand fourteen, and I really hate this one,
Speaker 1: but I think we really have to tackle it gamer Gate.
Speaker 1: Gamer Gate was a huge story in and it was
Speaker 1: one that I think taught us a lot of lessons,
Speaker 1: or at least presented lessons to us. I don't know
Speaker 1: that we actually learned that much because I'm seeing the
Speaker 1: same sort of stuff play out today. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about what game or gate was supposedly about and what
Speaker 1: it was really about. So, on the surface level, gamer
Speaker 1: gate was supposedly about how certain video game reviewers and
Speaker 1: developers and journalists were all in cahoots. That the journalists
Speaker 1: and reviewers were publishing biased reviews and articles because of
Speaker 1: the relationships they had with video game developers. So some
Speaker 1: of these accusations range from reviewers wanting to remain in
Speaker 1: good standing for fear that they might otherwise not get,
Speaker 1: you know, review copies, to even worse allegations that maybe
Speaker 1: some form of compensation was going on in return for
Speaker 1: writing a positive story or a positive review. But what
Speaker 1: gamer gate really was about was about targeting people in
Speaker 1: the video game industry, whether in journalism or in development
Speaker 1: or whatever, and taking a no holds barred approach to
Speaker 1: attacking those people online. And the vast majority of those
Speaker 1: targets were women. So it really was like a concentrated
Speaker 1: campaign against women in the video game industry, and there
Speaker 1: was an undeniable misogynistic streak in these attacks. The participants
Speaker 1: kept falling back to that surface level justification for what
Speaker 1: they were doing. They're saying, no, this is about ethics
Speaker 1: and journalism, but their methods and their links that they
Speaker 1: went to belied their true motivations. They would try to
Speaker 1: pressure companies to fire people that they were targeting. They
Speaker 1: would publish private information about those targets. It's called doxing,
Speaker 1: where you reveal someone's you know, address, or the address
Speaker 1: of their families, and you're essentially calling for a campaign
Speaker 1: of harassment and worse stuff followed. Now, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to budge on this one, folks. You can argue at
Speaker 1: me until you are blue in the face that gamer
Speaker 1: Gate was really about ethics and journalism and that the
Speaker 1: extreme actions were the output of a minority. But that's
Speaker 1: just not true. And it's the same sort of garbage
Speaker 1: that we see today when people will cling to any
Speaker 1: justification that lets them pursue what they want, even if
Speaker 1: they know deep down that it's wrong or unethical. So,
Speaker 1: as another example, people who protest that their individual liberties
Speaker 1: are being infringed upon because there's a stay at home
Speaker 1: order are clinging to an interpretation of liberty because they
Speaker 1: don't want to sacrifice some of their personal comfort in
Speaker 1: an effort to curtail the spread of COVID nineteen. They
Speaker 1: consider their personal comfort more important than the overall safety
Speaker 1: of the community. We can see similar tactics for people
Speaker 1: who oppose the Black Lives Matter movement, or for those
Speaker 1: who think that Confederate memorials should be displayed in public,
Speaker 1: or people who oppose the LGBTQ community, and so on.
Speaker 1: But as always I say, we have to use critical
Speaker 1: thinking and compassion, and we strip away the layers of
Speaker 1: bs to see the truth underneath, and then we address
Speaker 1: it in a fourth right way. Honorable mentions for two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen stories are many. There were a slew of
Speaker 1: hacks that targeted both companies and celebrities, pulling out sensitive
Speaker 1: information and media and then just dumping it across the Internet.
Speaker 1: That was really gross. I saw Ya Nadela would take
Speaker 1: on the job of Microsoft CEO. In two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: a web server software bug called heart bleed prompted security
Speaker 1: experts to issue some really big warnings, including the recommendation
Speaker 1: that people stay offline until more companies address this and
Speaker 1: patched their servers, because even changing passwords wouldn't be helpful
Speaker 1: because the bug would allow bad actors to actually see
Speaker 1: the new log in credentials anyway, so it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if you change the locks if copies of the keys
Speaker 1: are getting out to all the bad guys, right. Oh,
Speaker 1: and also Apple announced the Apple Watch, So there's our
Speaker 1: little bit of positive news. I guess sure. Two thousand
Speaker 1: fifteen all right, I hope I find some happy stories soon.
Speaker 1: I guess one thing I can talk about with two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen is that it was the year that Microsoft
Speaker 1: launched Windows ten. Now, I skipped over talking about Windows
Speaker 1: eight when I covered the previous years, and there's a
Speaker 1: reason for that, because Windows eight kind of stunk. It
Speaker 1: was obvious that the goal that Microsoft was pursuing was
Speaker 1: to create an operating system experience that could live on
Speaker 1: top of a suite of different hardware, from computers to
Speaker 1: tablets to smartphones. But Microsoft played a distant third place
Speaker 1: to Google and Apple in the smartphone category. It was
Speaker 1: clear they weren't going to make up the room, and
Speaker 1: lots of people hated the layout of Windows eight on
Speaker 1: their computers, so it became a big pain in the neck.
Speaker 1: Windows ten saw Microsoft returned to a more familiar user
Speaker 1: interface for its computer operating system. Just as Windows seven
Speaker 1: proved to be a correction from Vista, ten was a
Speaker 1: correction from eight, and yeah, it was a little confusing
Speaker 1: that the company just plane skipped over nine. But then
Speaker 1: we'd see Apple do the same thing a little bit later,
Speaker 1: so maybe nine is just a bad number for tech
Speaker 1: in general. Another day view that came out around in
Speaker 1: was the Amazon Echo. The Echo was one of the
Speaker 1: earliest examples of a smart speaker with a digital assistant.
Speaker 1: ECHOES version is named Alexa. While there had been other
Speaker 1: examples of voice activated assistance, I think you could make
Speaker 1: a case that Amazon helped bring this concept to the
Speaker 1: mainstream public. Millions of people would go on to purchase
Speaker 1: smart speakers, whether they were made by Amazon or Google
Speaker 1: or some other company, and we started to see a
Speaker 1: lot more development in the virtual personal assistant space, including
Speaker 1: a place where developers could create apps specifically to interoperate
Speaker 1: with smart speaker devices and other gadgets that allow for
Speaker 1: interaction with a virtual personal assistant. Honorable mentions include Google
Speaker 1: creating a new umbrella company called Alphabet, under which various
Speaker 1: Google properties, including Google dot Com, can exist, but they
Speaker 1: can remain related but separate entity, so you can have
Speaker 1: separate companies run by different heads and they can all
Speaker 1: really focus on what they need to do. The scandal
Speaker 1: known as Diesel Gate also broke that year that revealed
Speaker 1: that Volkswagen had been installing devices in their diesel fueled
Speaker 1: vehicles that were meant to help trick a mission testing
Speaker 1: procedures because the cars were not performing up to code,
Speaker 1: so they were trying to kind of cheat on the
Speaker 1: exam and then they got caught. The electric car company
Speaker 1: Tesla unleashed autopilot on the world, which has been a
Speaker 1: real controversy since there have been some terrible accidents that
Speaker 1: have happened while people were admittedly misusing autopilot. But part
Speaker 1: of this, I think comes from the hubris of Elon
Speaker 1: Musk and the way he presents information. Oh and also
Speaker 1: that was the year that some hoverboards which aren't really
Speaker 1: hoverboards but whatever, made the news because a few of
Speaker 1: them had really bad lithium batteries and they had a
Speaker 1: tendency to catch on fire and perhaps even explode, which
Speaker 1: is not good. And when we come back, we're gonna
Speaker 1: move on to ten and y'all, I might not be
Speaker 1: ready for these next few years, and I already done
Speaker 1: lived them, but we're gonna try anyway. Let's all kind
Speaker 1: of steal ourselves after this quick break, alright, so it's
Speaker 1: another tumultuous year, an election year in the United States.
Speaker 1: In fact, really I think at this point they're all
Speaker 1: tumultuous years from this moment forward. But this really marked
Speaker 1: the beginning of some serious scrutiny on social media platforms,
Speaker 1: primarily places like Facebook, but also sites like YouTube and Twitter,
Speaker 1: and the role that these sites play when it comes
Speaker 1: to spreading misleading information a k. This is the beginning
Speaker 1: of a serious look at the so called quote unquote
Speaker 1: fake news. Now. I tend to shy away from using
Speaker 1: terminology like fake news, not because I think the news
Speaker 1: isn't ache I think it frequently is, but rather because
Speaker 1: a lot of people just use fake news to describe
Speaker 1: any sort of messaging that opposes their own beliefs. If
Speaker 1: it doesn't align with what they personally hold to be true,
Speaker 1: it has to be fake. And I don't put myself
Speaker 1: above this. By the way, I know that when I
Speaker 1: encounter information that contradicts some belief that I hold, my
Speaker 1: first reaction is to reject that information. But it really
Speaker 1: is important for all of us to resist that urge
Speaker 1: and to really examine claims more closely, because sometimes we
Speaker 1: might find that what we were about to reject is
Speaker 1: in fact true, and we have to come to terms
Speaker 1: with that, even if we don't like it. I would argue,
Speaker 1: especially if we don't like it, because that means we
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to change it anyway. The conversation about
Speaker 1: fake news really exploded in ten and has been a
Speaker 1: frequent hot topic ever since. It became clear that a
Speaker 1: site like Facebook benefits from people spending more time on it,
Speaker 1: and so from that perspective, it benefits the company to
Speaker 1: promote posts that drive more engagement and keep people on
Speaker 1: Facebook longer. The actual value or validity of that content
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. What matters is keeping people active on Facebook
Speaker 1: so that they see more ads. So it's really not
Speaker 1: in the company's financial interests to crack down on misinformation
Speaker 1: if that misinformation is actually keeping people tied to the platform,
Speaker 1: why would you bite the hand that feeds you. Now,
Speaker 1: this wasn't exactly new in but the whole conversation really
Speaker 1: boiled up in that year and it hasn't gone away since.
Speaker 1: We're still watching Facebook try to avoid taking a more
Speaker 1: active role in cracking down on the spread of misinformation
Speaker 1: today because again, the company benefits from it financially Another
Speaker 1: explosive story pun intended in the Samsung Galaxy Note seven.
Speaker 1: This smartphone was supposed to make a big splash. It
Speaker 1: had this sexy curvy design and had a really high
Speaker 1: resolution display. It was supposed to be the smartphone of sixteen,
Speaker 1: but battery failures that led to things like fires and
Speaker 1: explosions became an early big story. Samsung was forced to
Speaker 1: recall the handsets twice and reportedly fixed them, but more
Speaker 1: reports of fires would follow and the company ultimately had
Speaker 1: no choice but to discontinue this phone that represents an
Speaker 1: enormous financial loss. Meanwhile, you know you had companies like
Speaker 1: airlines around the world that we're placing bands on those
Speaker 1: phone saying you're not allowed to bring that in here
Speaker 1: because of the potential risk. So this was a huge
Speaker 1: blow to Samsung, both financially and from a pr perspective.
Speaker 1: Honorable mentions go to Apple facing off against the f
Speaker 1: b I in a case where Apple refused to unlock
Speaker 1: an iPhone that had been owned by a terrorist. Tim
Speaker 1: Cook said this would set a terrible precedent that would
Speaker 1: undermine consumer confidence and it would compromise on expectations of privacy.
Speaker 1: Vine the short form video service officially shut down that
Speaker 1: year and set the stage for the rise of TikTok.
Speaker 1: A little later on, and the medical tech company Pharaos
Speaker 1: infamously fell to pieces that year. We're still waiting to
Speaker 1: see what happens in some legal proceedings regarding the Farness story.
Speaker 1: Four years later, in ten, we would see a continuation
Speaker 1: of the fake news controversies, particularly with Facebook in the US.
Speaker 1: It became clear that foreign parties, largely from Russia, were
Speaker 1: flooding Facebook with misinformation in an attempt to subvert the
Speaker 1: US democratic process. Also in the US, we saw a
Speaker 1: move to undermine the concept of net neutrality. Now, during
Speaker 1: the administration of Barack Obama, the government had begun to
Speaker 1: reframe internet access as a utility and created regulations that
Speaker 1: would prevent internet service providers from creating a fractured experience
Speaker 1: across networks and devices. With a new administration in control
Speaker 1: at the US, we saw a dismantling of those regulations.
Speaker 1: But one of the biggest stories of the year centered
Speaker 1: around something that wasn't confined just to technology, and this
Speaker 1: was the hashtag me too movement. Women were stepping forward
Speaker 1: to confront unfair and sexist practices across numerous industries, and
Speaker 1: tech was front and center. Social media would play an
Speaker 1: intrinsic role as women shared their stories and a movement
Speaker 1: built up around this, and one of the companies that
Speaker 1: was really singled out in this was Uber and the
Speaker 1: revelations of Susan Fowler, who was a former employee at Uber,
Speaker 1: it became clear that sexism and misogyny and harass then
Speaker 1: were all elements that were woven into the very culture
Speaker 1: of Uber. Over the course of seen, story after story
Speaker 1: came out that highlighted a twisted and ugly corporate culture
Speaker 1: and a general policy that saw offenders get little to
Speaker 1: no reprimand if they were a high performer then they
Speaker 1: kind of had a free license to act in reprehensible ways.
Speaker 1: The company saw several executives resign over the course of
Speaker 1: the year, including the founder and CEO, Travis Kalnik, although
Speaker 1: his resignation wasn't necessarily something he wanted to do. The
Speaker 1: company was also weathering a heavy storm brought by Google
Speaker 1: around allegations that Uber was making use of stolen proprietary
Speaker 1: information when it comes to self driving cars. So by
Speaker 1: the end of seventeen, there had been a full investigation
Speaker 1: of Uber's corporate culture, and that that concluded that the
Speaker 1: company needed massive fundamental changes. It was very critical of
Speaker 1: the company. There was a massive change in leadership at
Speaker 1: the company, and there was a public commitment to a
Speaker 1: new corporate culture that was going to emerge from Uber. Now.
Speaker 1: I wish I could say that the company has since
Speaker 1: been a model of ethical practices, but that's not really true,
Speaker 1: and it honestly is a story for another time. Honorable
Speaker 1: mentions for two thousand seventeen include a rash of data
Speaker 1: breaches that exposed the information of millions of people to hackers.
Speaker 1: Apple launched the iPhone ten. They skipped nine, but this
Speaker 1: was the tenth anniversary in the original iPhone, so you
Speaker 1: could at least argue for that. And TV companies quietly
Speaker 1: put the kai bosh on some three D televisions. They
Speaker 1: had been trying to market three D TV for years
Speaker 1: and years and years, but by seen the general consensus
Speaker 1: was that this was a non starter, and you started
Speaker 1: to see it kind of fade away from the features
Speaker 1: in various televisions that we're going on the market. At
Speaker 1: that point, all right, two thousand eighteen, let's get going.
Speaker 1: This was the year when a little game called Fortnite
Speaker 1: saw incredible growth. Now the game had seen some modest
Speaker 1: success in its original format, but then the developers included
Speaker 1: a new Battle Royal style of play. Now that's a
Speaker 1: kind of game where a bunch of video game players
Speaker 1: have their characters all dumped onto a map, and then
Speaker 1: they all have to battle it out until only one
Speaker 1: person or team remains. This game really took off at
Speaker 1: that point, and you started seeing tons of dancing memes
Speaker 1: that were unleashed upon an unwitting public. We've never been
Speaker 1: the same since. Now, the Battle Royal style game wasn't
Speaker 1: invented by Fortnite. In fact, another game, player Unknowns Battlegrounds
Speaker 1: had previously been one of the most popular online games,
Speaker 1: and it was also a Battle Royal style game. There
Speaker 1: was no shortage of accusations that Fortnite was essentially copying
Speaker 1: pub g as we call it, But the games have
Speaker 1: a very different look and feel to them. They also
Speaker 1: have very different physics and gameplay mechanics. So while that
Speaker 1: basic idea was the same, I don't know that it's
Speaker 1: fair to say that one copied the other. After all,
Speaker 1: there are other game modes that are standard in video
Speaker 1: games like you know, Last Man Standing or King of
Speaker 1: the Hill or um kill the Man with the ball.
Speaker 1: They're all these different variations that are kind of found
Speaker 1: throughout video games. I don't know that you can lay
Speaker 1: claim to a particular style. This was also the year
Speaker 1: that we started hearing more about plans for five G.
Speaker 1: That's the family of wireless data technologies that are going
Speaker 1: to deliver information and incredibly fast speeds. It's not one tech, really,
Speaker 1: it's a whole bunch of different types of tech that
Speaker 1: work in slightly different ways, but all to get the
Speaker 1: same result, that is that super fast data transfer speed.
Speaker 1: And it might have been a little early to start
Speaker 1: hyping up five G because we're now in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: and that infrastructure still has a long way to go
Speaker 1: to provide real coverage of five G technology. Plus now
Speaker 1: we have some people believing that somehow that tech is
Speaker 1: causing or spreading COVID nineteen in a news flash, it
Speaker 1: is not. And we also got the massive Cambridge Analytica
Speaker 1: scandal making headlines in ten Now, the actual events that
Speaker 1: precipitated those headlines would stretch back a few years earlier.
Speaker 1: It just became public and I've done episodes about this scandal,
Speaker 1: so it's it's a complicated story, but essentially, uh, an
Speaker 1: app developer was able to use a loophole in Facebook's
Speaker 1: ap I to gather an enormous amount of information about
Speaker 1: Facebook users without their consent or knowledge, and on top
Speaker 1: of that were efforts to use that information to manipulate
Speaker 1: public discourse about political matters, which is gross but honorable.
Speaker 1: Mentions go to the rise of the electric scooter and
Speaker 1: the various companies that created a sort of rideshare a
Speaker 1: eletric scooter business that all started to really kick off
Speaker 1: in Apple became the first company to reach a trillion
Speaker 1: dollars invaluation, though it would lose some ground before the
Speaker 1: end of the year and dip down below trillion by
Speaker 1: the end of and oh yeah, Movie Pass kind of
Speaker 1: imploded that year too. Okay, so we're up to twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: and since is not yet over, though it feels like
Speaker 1: it's lasted an eternity, and also because this episode is
Speaker 1: going to start running long, this is gonna be the
Speaker 1: last full year we look at. So twenty nineteen was
Speaker 1: when we saw TikTok gain explosive growth, and as I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. The fall of Vine really set the stage,
Speaker 1: and TikTok was able to capitalize. The company has since
Speaker 1: come under scrutiny, both from privacy advocates and officials who
Speaker 1: worry that the Chinese company that owns the service might
Speaker 1: be collecting data on behalf of the Chinese government. That's
Speaker 1: a story that still is unfolding today. We also saw
Speaker 1: the debut of Disney Plus in twenty nineteen, along with
Speaker 1: the announcement of about a zillion other new media streaming services,
Speaker 1: all of which are vying for our subscriptions and our attention.
Speaker 1: I think I might have to do a full rundown
Speaker 1: on all the major streaming players out there and how
Speaker 1: they're all trying to compete for that, you know, limited
Speaker 1: number of assets. It's getting awfully crowded and a little frustrating. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we used to think we wanted cable a
Speaker 1: la cart where you could just order the specific channels
Speaker 1: that you've wanted, and everything else you would just ignore,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't get because you never watched them anyway. And
Speaker 1: we thought for a while that streaming services we're going
Speaker 1: to kind of do that. And now streaming has sort
Speaker 1: of become its own monstrous thing that is at least
Speaker 1: as frustrating as cable was. In twenty nineteen, we also
Speaker 1: saw a lot of calls from various parties to make
Speaker 1: serious steps into dismantling and breaking up big, big tech companies,
Speaker 1: tech companies like Google and Amazon and Facebook. And the
Speaker 1: argument is that these companies have grown so large and
Speaker 1: so powerful that not only are they largely monopolistic for
Speaker 1: their various you know, industries, they also stand as a
Speaker 1: legit threat to things like democracy. The companies are pursuing
Speaker 1: the interests of their shareholders, which really means that they're
Speaker 1: looking to boost the value of the company, and sometimes
Speaker 1: or maybe even oftentimes, that means they operate in a
Speaker 1: way that might not be in the best interest of
Speaker 1: you know, everybody else. So there's been some pushback against
Speaker 1: these big companies. But then a little thing called the
Speaker 1: coronavirus sort of threw a monkey wrench in that whole process.
Speaker 1: As for the coronavirus definitely has dominated most of the
Speaker 1: early part of the year, it continues to be an
Speaker 1: enormous part of the current conversations. The Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: movement has also become a huge talking point, and tech
Speaker 1: plays an important role in that discussion to everything from
Speaker 1: the tools that people used to help organize and spread messages,
Speaker 1: to the misinformation campaigns that have been spread to try
Speaker 1: and undermine the movement, to a real problem that exists
Speaker 1: with tech companies with a lack of diversity and inclusivity,
Speaker 1: which results not just in unfair practices from a corporate level,
Speaker 1: but it means that the stuff those companies are producing,
Speaker 1: they're not really serving their customers that well. And we've
Speaker 1: got a lot more coming in twenty including you know,
Speaker 1: there's some fun stuff, not just the heavy, heavy stuff
Speaker 1: I'm talking about right here. We've got some fun stuff
Speaker 1: like the release of new video game consoles from Sony
Speaker 1: and from Microsoft. However, there's no doubt that there's going
Speaker 1: to be other really big, important and difficult stories that
Speaker 1: will unfold in the coming months, and our challenge is
Speaker 1: not to shy away from that, but to really tackle
Speaker 1: it and to say what does this mean? What can
Speaker 1: we do about it? How can we make things better?
Speaker 1: Those are questions we should always be asking ourselves, and
Speaker 1: sometimes the answer might be I don't know what to do,
Speaker 1: and the important thing is to try and look for
Speaker 1: people who can help. But really, if we can do
Speaker 1: something we absolutely should, we shouldn't just, you know, shoulder
Speaker 1: that burden onto somebody else. As for tech Stuff, we're
Speaker 1: set to keep on keeping on. I have some plans
Speaker 1: for how I want this show to evolve, but those
Speaker 1: are going to take some time to really take shape. However,
Speaker 1: I really hope to see this show continue to grow
Speaker 1: and become more than what it already is, and I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to have you guys along for the journey.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you have suggestions for future topics
Speaker 1: we should cover on tech Stuff, reach out to me.
Speaker 1: You can get in touch on Twitter. The handle is
Speaker 1: text Stuff hs W and I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.