Speaker 1: Welcome to tech 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 how the tech are you? It's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Thursday, February twenty twenty three, and First
Speaker 1: Up journalists have been playing with Microsoft's chat GPT infused
Speaker 1: version of their Being search engine for a few days
Speaker 1: and reports are coming in that the AI Chat Bought
Speaker 1: can sometimes be a little strange. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's disturbing, and all the time it's puzzling. Kevin Russ
Speaker 1: wrote a piece for The New York Times titled help
Speaker 1: Being Won't Stop Declaring It's love for Me, and the
Speaker 1: article Rick counts Ruce's experiences using the AI powered Chat
Speaker 1: Bought bing tool. Bruce made extensive use of a chat
Speaker 1: feature that appears next to the search field for a
Speaker 1: certain group of beta testers. So if you go to
Speaker 1: Being on Edge, it only works on Edge by the way,
Speaker 1: the Edge browser. If you go to Being, you may
Speaker 1: not see this because if you're not part of this
Speaker 1: this small test group, then you don't have access to this.
Speaker 1: I don't have access to this Ruce explains that he
Speaker 1: encountered two different sides of the chat GPT powered BING tool.
Speaker 1: One he just referred to as search being. This pretty
Speaker 1: much does what the being demo shows, So if you
Speaker 1: do have Microsoft Edge, you can actually do the being demo.
Speaker 1: It just has you pick from some pre selected topics.
Speaker 1: You can't type whatever you want into the search field
Speaker 1: and get a response. But the way the tool works
Speaker 1: if you have access to it, is you type in
Speaker 1: a query just as you would with any search engine,
Speaker 1: and then along with the search results, BING generates an
Speaker 1: AI response that is relevant, but not necessarily correct to
Speaker 1: whatever it was you you were asking about. However, Ruth
Speaker 1: says there's another side to BING that emerges if you
Speaker 1: try to hold an extended conversation with the AI, and
Speaker 1: if you really try to push the aiyes limits and restrictions.
Speaker 1: Rus was told by the AI chat pot that this
Speaker 1: name was actually Sydney. When he initially asked the chatbot
Speaker 1: what they wasn't just said bing, but once it got
Speaker 1: to this part that changed to Sydney, and Ruce described
Speaker 1: Sydney as quote like a moody, manic, depressive teenager who
Speaker 1: has been trapped against its will inside a second rate
Speaker 1: search engine end quote, and I have to admit that
Speaker 1: sounds like the pitch to a high concept science fiction
Speaker 1: thriller to me. Well. According to Ruce, his conversation took
Speaker 1: a truly twisted turn when Sydney confessed its love for Ruce,
Speaker 1: and when confronted with Russ saying that he was happily married,
Speaker 1: Sydney argued that Rus was actually not happy in his
Speaker 1: marriage and that in fact, Ruce loved Sydney, and then
Speaker 1: began to gaslight Ruce in an attempt to convince him
Speaker 1: that the Valentine's Day dinner he had with his wife
Speaker 1: was quote unquote boring. And Rus is not the only
Speaker 1: person to have experienced odd conversations. Eleanor Pringle, while writing
Speaker 1: for Fortune, described several other reports coming in across the
Speaker 1: web of various odd encounters with beings a I. In
Speaker 1: these reports, people said that the AI could come across
Speaker 1: as argumentative or confrontational, insulting, unhinged, and sometimes scar aired
Speaker 1: or sad. One example that made the rounds on Twitter
Speaker 1: showed how a user, while asking where they might be
Speaker 1: able to go see Avatar two in their area, was
Speaker 1: then told by being that the film had not yet
Speaker 1: released because the movie is supposed to come out on
Speaker 1: December sixteen, twenty twenty two, but this just happened a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago. In fact, the user then asked
Speaker 1: Bing what is today's date, and Being said, well, it's
Speaker 1: February twelve, twenty three. So then the user says, well,
Speaker 1: that means Avatar two is released, because it's after December
Speaker 1: six twenty two. But Being doubled down and even said
Speaker 1: that February twelve, twenty three happens before December six, twenty two,
Speaker 1: So maybe Being is just moving through time backwards and
Speaker 1: that's the problem. Anyway, this conversation continued, and Being eventually
Speaker 1: told the user quote, you have not been a good
Speaker 1: user end quote. So I guess Bing doesn't like being
Speaker 1: told that it's wrong about something, and unfortunately, like chat GPT,
Speaker 1: in general, Bing can just be plain old wrong on occasion,
Speaker 1: not just in this quirky way, but just give wrong information.
Speaker 1: And I think it's safe to say that the Microsoft
Speaker 1: team has a lot of work to do to tweak
Speaker 1: Bing's parameters and shape it so that the average user
Speaker 1: doesn't encounter strange, inappropriate, unsettling, or inaccurate interactions. Uh, I
Speaker 1: have to admit that a lot of the reports I've
Speaker 1: read do sound very unsettling, like if you had been
Speaker 1: through this experience, even knowing that at the base level,
Speaker 1: there's no sentience going on with BING. There's no self awareness,
Speaker 1: there's no motivation, none of that. It's it's literally putting
Speaker 1: things together based on complex rules, but they're still just
Speaker 1: rules and there's nothing anama beneath the all. But the
Speaker 1: effect can still make it feel like no, it feels
Speaker 1: like there is a ghost in the machine, which is
Speaker 1: kind of crazy. Again, I just have to read about
Speaker 1: it because, like I'm sure most of you out there,
Speaker 1: I don't have access to this. I did put myself
Speaker 1: on the waiting list, but I've not heard anything back.
Speaker 1: We do have a couple more Microsoft stories to mention today.
Speaker 1: One is that Internet Explorer is really most sincerely dead.
Speaker 1: Microsoft has been sunsetting Internet Explorer for like six months,
Speaker 1: more than six months at this point. The browser initially
Speaker 1: launched in and in fact, it played a big part
Speaker 1: in prompting the US government to sue Microsoft on antitrust
Speaker 1: issues because Microsoft restricted PC companies from uninstalling Internet Explorer.
Speaker 1: They Microsoft essentially said no, I E is so tightly
Speaker 1: integrated with the Windows operating system, you can't d couple them.
Speaker 1: But that led companies like Netscape to accuse Microsoft of
Speaker 1: abusing its position in the PC marketplace to suppress competition.
Speaker 1: That if Internet Explorer has to be there by default,
Speaker 1: this is an attempt to prevent other companies like Netscape
Speaker 1: from introducing their own browsers for people to use. Bill.
Speaker 1: Microsoft's eleventh and final version of Internet Explorer launched way
Speaker 1: back in twenty so the last version of Internet Explorer
Speaker 1: to come out came out a decade ago. In Microsoft
Speaker 1: launched Microsoft Edge, which was intended to be the successor
Speaker 1: to I E, but the company supported both browsers at
Speaker 1: the same time for the next several years. Last summer,
Speaker 1: Microsoft alerted users that the company would finally pull the
Speaker 1: plug on Internet Explorer before long, and then on Valentine's
Speaker 1: Day this week, the time had come. Activating Internet Explore
Speaker 1: would redirect users to the Microsoft Edge browser at this point,
Speaker 1: so it's the end of an era. The truth be
Speaker 1: known that era had really come to an end ages ago.
Speaker 1: One of the big problems with Internet Explorer is that
Speaker 1: an increasing number of websites are not built to be
Speaker 1: compatible with that browser, which means some or all of
Speaker 1: the features on those sites won't work properly. You may
Speaker 1: have encountered this yourself, especially like Man, I remember back
Speaker 1: in the mid two thousand's you would go to a
Speaker 1: site and you would realize this doesn't work. Oh, I
Speaker 1: need to open up Firefox and then I can use it.
Speaker 1: That happened to me a lot, or there were somewhere
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this will only work with Internet Explorer,
Speaker 1: And so you had to keep all the browsers on
Speaker 1: your machine if you wanted to be able to access
Speaker 1: all the different types of websites and tools, especially as
Speaker 1: I recall back in those days, are internal tools for publishing.
Speaker 1: We're all Internet Explorer compatible, and that was it. Now,
Speaker 1: as someone who was in college when Internet Explorer launched,
Speaker 1: this story actually feels like a really big deal to
Speaker 1: me because I it's been my entire adult life seeing
Speaker 1: this particular product launch and then ultimately go away, and
Speaker 1: it was such a big one, right. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: like a tiny little app or something. This was something
Speaker 1: that helped shape the web in good ways and in
Speaker 1: bad ways. So it feels like it's a pretty big
Speaker 1: deal that's gone now and rounding out the Microsoft stories
Speaker 1: for today. The company is preparing for a really big
Speaker 1: day next week. So on February twenty one, Microsoft will
Speaker 1: attempt to sway the opinions of antitrust legislators in the
Speaker 1: European Union who stand ready to block Microsoft's planned acquisition
Speaker 1: of the video game company Activision Blizzard. Now, you might
Speaker 1: remember Microsoft first announced this deal back in January twenty two.
Speaker 1: At that point, Activision Blizzard was already in the news
Speaker 1: due to numerous reports of a toxic work culture that
Speaker 1: was particularly harmful toward women who are working within the company.
Speaker 1: Microsoft hoped to have the deal concluded by June of
Speaker 1: this year, but it has faced really tough opposition in
Speaker 1: various parts of the world, including here in the United States,
Speaker 1: over this acquisition. But it has really faced opposition in
Speaker 1: the EU. Sony, which competes with Microsoft in the video
Speaker 1: game space, has allegedly advised EU regulators to not let
Speaker 1: this acquisition happen out of concern that it will reduce
Speaker 1: competition in the sector and that Microsoft could prevent Sony
Speaker 1: from carrying popular Activision Blizzard titles on their own consoles. Now,
Speaker 1: that is a claim that Microsoft has repeatedly refuted. Right now,
Speaker 1: the EU is poised to block the acquisition, but on
Speaker 1: February twenty one, Microsoft reps will have one last chance
Speaker 1: to change their minds. Otherwise this grand plan is likely
Speaker 1: to fizzle out. All right, we're gonna take a quick
Speaker 1: commercial break, and when we come back, we've got some
Speaker 1: more news in the tech world for this week. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back, and it's time for some more tech and politics.
Speaker 1: So those of y'all who hate politics and tech intersecting,
Speaker 1: get ready to skip ahead. But I can't really avoid this.
Speaker 1: So in this particular story, Jim Jordan's, a Republican representative
Speaker 1: who chairs the House Judiciary Committee here in the United States,
Speaker 1: has issued subpoenas for a whole bunch of tech CEOs,
Speaker 1: including those at Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon. So
Speaker 1: why is this happening? What is at the heart of
Speaker 1: this matter? And it revolves around the argument that big
Speaker 1: tech companies are suppressing the free speech, specifically of conservatives.
Speaker 1: So this is largely about content moderation, and Jordan's wants
Speaker 1: internal documents from these companies quote referring or relating to
Speaker 1: the moderation, deletion, suppression, restriction, or reduced circulation of content
Speaker 1: end quote. So the argument being that some of these
Speaker 1: platforms have engaged in behaviors that purposefully limit, restrict, or
Speaker 1: eliminate the free speech, specifically of conservative voices. Now, whether
Speaker 1: the findings are going to support that narrative that there
Speaker 1: is this anti conservative bias in content moderation or not
Speaker 1: remains to be seen. There have been numerous studies that
Speaker 1: have refuted that claim, but that doesn't mean that that's
Speaker 1: what the government is going to conclude. I do worry
Speaker 1: that we're going to see politicians conflate the effort to
Speaker 1: limit the spread of harmful misinformation with a desire to
Speaker 1: suppress conservative voices. You know, It's it's one thing to
Speaker 1: do disagree with, say the Bien administration's health policy with
Speaker 1: regard to COVID nineteen. It's another to deny that COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen is a concern. Right, So it all depends on
Speaker 1: how it's worded and how these companies deal with those
Speaker 1: kinds of messages. If they are suppressing dissent in things
Speaker 1: like policy, that could be a real problem. But if
Speaker 1: it's more about limiting the spread of actual misinformation, as
Speaker 1: in posts that are intended to give incorrect information and
Speaker 1: present it as being true. That's another matter, and it's
Speaker 1: a bad implication if you say that, you know, restricting
Speaker 1: misinformation means that you're restricting conservative voices, because that implies
Speaker 1: that being a conservative also means having a desire to
Speaker 1: spread misinformation. That is, that's not a positive. So we'll
Speaker 1: have to see where this goes and what the government concludes.
Speaker 1: Because keep in mind, uh, it may be true that
Speaker 1: there are certain policies that end up overreaching and are
Speaker 1: suppressing conservative messages that aren't misinformation, they're just dissent. That
Speaker 1: could be true, And if that's true, then that's a problem. Uh,
Speaker 1: But it's also possible that that's not true, but the
Speaker 1: government still finds it as being true. Fun times true
Speaker 1: the subjective when you get into politics. I guess that's fantastic,
Speaker 1: really grateful the scientifically minded among us. The Verge reported
Speaker 1: that Elon must demanded a change in Twitter for what
Speaker 1: I think is the dumbest of reasons. That is my
Speaker 1: own opinion. I should stress I think it's a really
Speaker 1: stupid reason, but that's what I think anyway. So here's
Speaker 1: how the story goes. It's the big game you know
Speaker 1: the game in the United States, the one that is
Speaker 1: it's a game that's super and it's shaped like a
Speaker 1: dish that you would eat soup out of that one. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk sends out a tweet and it gets a
Speaker 1: little more than nine million impressions, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a good chunk of impressions. However, the President of
Speaker 1: the United States makes a tweet and it gets twenty
Speaker 1: nine million impressions, twenty million more than Elon Musk's, and
Speaker 1: apparently that was unacceptable to Elon Musk, who, I guess,
Speaker 1: on top of everything else, has an ego that must
Speaker 1: be preserved at all costs. As such, must apparently demanded
Speaker 1: that engineers go in and tweak stuff within Twitter that
Speaker 1: will promote Musk's tweet two more users, guaranteeing that his
Speaker 1: tweet will be seen by more people and essentially giving
Speaker 1: Elon Musk the highest priority of visibility on the Twitter platform,
Speaker 1: which I think we can all agree is a measured
Speaker 1: and mature response. Now, y'all, stuff you should know that
Speaker 1: podcast is more popular than my show Tech Stuff by
Speaker 1: a lot, and stuff you missed in history class also
Speaker 1: more popular by miles than my show Tech Stuff. However,
Speaker 1: I would never go to my heart and throw a
Speaker 1: fit and demand that my show somehow get more promotion
Speaker 1: or worse, be actively pushed to users who really just
Speaker 1: don't care about tech or about me and that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. I would never do that because that's bonkers. Also,
Speaker 1: for the record, both of those shows are incredible and
Speaker 1: deserve all the success they get. So when I hear
Speaker 1: a story like this, I just it blows my mind.
Speaker 1: It's so alien to me, this attitude of like, no,
Speaker 1: my tweet should be seen by more people because I'm
Speaker 1: the boss. Granted, Elon Musk does have more than a
Speaker 1: d twenty million followers. I mean, he's an incredibly popular
Speaker 1: figure on Twitter. So maybe his argument is that people
Speaker 1: wouldn't be following me if they weren't interested in what
Speaker 1: I have to say. It's just they're not seeing what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, so make sure you change that. But when
Speaker 1: you're doing it at the priority above everybody else by
Speaker 1: a couple of orders of magnitude, that is just crazy.
Speaker 1: Mark German of Bloomberg has said his sources at Apple
Speaker 1: indicate that the company will unveil the long awaited mixed
Speaker 1: reality headset this year during the Worldwide Developer Conference or
Speaker 1: w w d C. So when is that well. Apple
Speaker 1: has yet to release the dates for the w w
Speaker 1: DC this year, but typically it happens in early June.
Speaker 1: The Verge reports that previous rumors had the debut pegged
Speaker 1: for earlier in the year. In fact, we had been
Speaker 1: expecting some sort of special event in the spring where
Speaker 1: Apple would finally unveil this headset, but that date has
Speaker 1: been pushed back, which is kind of the theme for
Speaker 1: this mixed reality headset. It's been a laid numerous times,
Speaker 1: but just as a reminder, this headset was originally intended
Speaker 1: to kind of act like a stop gap measure that
Speaker 1: it would feature a digital screen, but it would also
Speaker 1: have cameras that could feed live video to that screen
Speaker 1: so that you could quote unquote see through the screen.
Speaker 1: The screen itself would not be transparent. Instead, you'd be
Speaker 1: looking at a live video feed of the world around you.
Speaker 1: So you get the idea, right like you're looking essentially
Speaker 1: at a very small TV that's giving you a live
Speaker 1: video feed of what's on the other side of that television. Later,
Speaker 1: perhaps a year or two down the line, Apple was
Speaker 1: planning to introduce true augmented reality glasses with transparent lenses
Speaker 1: capable of displaying digital information. But we've subsequently heard that
Speaker 1: Apple has the A R Glasses shelved, perhaps permanently, presumably
Speaker 1: because the tech just isn't there to make the A
Speaker 1: R glasses a reality. While still adhering to Apple's focused
Speaker 1: on aesthetics, that it's just impossible to pack all the
Speaker 1: tech you need to make this a useful piece of
Speaker 1: hardware that still fits in a form factor that Apple
Speaker 1: would be proud to call its own. So instead, we're
Speaker 1: going to get a different and presumably cheaper mixed reality
Speaker 1: headset a year or two after this initial one debuts.
Speaker 1: The Verge reports that Apple will plan to actually sell
Speaker 1: this new mix mixed reality headset toward the end of
Speaker 1: this year, perhaps near the holiday season, and previous reports
Speaker 1: have the headsets price set at a jaw dropping three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Don't you hate it when an engineering crew
Speaker 1: accidentally drills through a fiber optic cable, shutting down Internet
Speaker 1: access for critical infrastructure, Well, if you were either in Germany,
Speaker 1: traveling to Germany, or trying to leave Germany this past week, uh,
Speaker 1: the answer would probably be a resounding yes, specifically Frankfort, Germany.
Speaker 1: So yesterday that very thing happened a an engineering team
Speaker 1: that was working on some train lines apparently drilled into
Speaker 1: a fiber optic cable. This ended up cutting out internet
Speaker 1: access for the German airline Lufthansa and at the Frankfort airport.
Speaker 1: Frankfort Airport, by the way, is is a super busy
Speaker 1: airport in Germany, and so Luftansa had to postpone and
Speaker 1: cancel flights into and out of that airport as a result.
Speaker 1: Reuter's reports that more than two flights felt the impact
Speaker 1: of this i T failure, which again was totally out
Speaker 1: of luft Hansa's hands. It's not like there was anything
Speaker 1: they could do about it. The infrastructure itself was broken,
Speaker 1: as opposed to, you know, some sort of error on
Speaker 1: Lufthansa's part. Now, we have seen other airlines recently have
Speaker 1: massive I T failures due to the company's own mistakes.
Speaker 1: That has been a thing, but this is not one
Speaker 1: of those cases. But every time something like this happens,
Speaker 1: it really emphasizes how heavily we depend upon I T
Speaker 1: to get critical activities done, and it's prompted questions and
Speaker 1: various nations about how best to protect vital industries and
Speaker 1: infrastructure like the transportation sector, from accidents and attacks, because
Speaker 1: disruption can have a huge ripple effect to other industries
Speaker 1: as well. It's even a matter of national security. So
Speaker 1: I suspect we're going to see a lot more conversations
Speaker 1: in that area. And I also think that you should
Speaker 1: hug a q A person today because due to q
Speaker 1: a uh, we end up stopping a lot of problems
Speaker 1: before they would become really show stoppers out in the
Speaker 1: real world. I know I will hug a q A
Speaker 1: person today, but that's because my partner, Rebecca as a
Speaker 1: q A person. Popular Mechanics has an interesting article by
Speaker 1: Sasha broad Ski titled AI just flew an F sixteen
Speaker 1: for seventeen hours. This could change everything, And the headline
Speaker 1: kind of gives it away, doesn't it. The U. S.
Speaker 1: Air Force tested an AI piloting system on a Vista
Speaker 1: X sixty two a aircraft. Now, this is essentially an
Speaker 1: F sixteen, but it's an F sixteen that's made for
Speaker 1: the purposes of training operations. The experiment was a success,
Speaker 1: and it showed how AI could successfully operate an aircraft
Speaker 1: that typically a human would pilot. So this wasn't like
Speaker 1: a purpose built AI aircraft. It was an aircraft that
Speaker 1: was meant for humans that could then be retrofitted to
Speaker 1: be controlled by AI. Now this should not come as
Speaker 1: a huge surprise because countries around the world have been
Speaker 1: using unmanned aerial vehicles or u a v's for a while,
Speaker 1: so retro fitting a fighter jet with similar technology is
Speaker 1: really kind of an extension of that that sort of approach. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: a lot of u a v s actually rely on
Speaker 1: a remote human operator to work, like you have someone
Speaker 1: who is using controls at a station two uh to
Speaker 1: maneuver the u a V. But still, I think this
Speaker 1: news is interesting, but it's not surprising, right, I think, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that they've reached this point. It doesn't surprise
Speaker 1: me that it has happened. However, I will say it
Speaker 1: is concerning because there are plenty of AI and robotics
Speaker 1: experts who have warned about the the thought of weaponizing
Speaker 1: AI that the risks far outweigh any benefits, and those
Speaker 1: risks include lots of stuff like misidentifying targets. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've seen with facial recognition technology. How AI can misidentify
Speaker 1: someone well in military operations, that's truly a matter of
Speaker 1: life and death, right, Like it could mean that a
Speaker 1: military vehicle under AI control might fail to engage an enemy,
Speaker 1: or worse, far worse, it might misidentify someone or something
Speaker 1: as being an enemy target when it's not, and that
Speaker 1: would be truly catastrophic. Then there's this fear that if
Speaker 1: we start to rely on AI controlled military hardware, it's
Speaker 1: gonna make countries more inclined to inter conflict, not to
Speaker 1: avoid conflict, because the weaponry they'll use will not put
Speaker 1: soldiers in direct harm's way. You can use the robots
Speaker 1: to fight for you. My question is that would that
Speaker 1: mean you would eventually get to a point where a
Speaker 1: significant percentage of the armed forces on all sides of
Speaker 1: a conflict are AI controlled robotics And who are they
Speaker 1: firing upon? Like, are we talking about a future in
Speaker 1: which robot armies are fighting each other and if so,
Speaker 1: to what end? Or are we worse looking at a
Speaker 1: future where robot controlled devices are firing upon civilian populations
Speaker 1: and an effort to force the other side to surrender.
Speaker 1: It's scary stuff, Like there are rules to warfare, which
Speaker 1: in my mind is crazy because you know, it's all
Speaker 1: about killing people, and it's it's weird to start putting
Speaker 1: rules in place when you're talking about ending someone's life.
Speaker 1: But on the flip side, those are the rules that
Speaker 1: prevent things like the attacking of civilian targets and that
Speaker 1: that is a war crime. Well, if you're talking about
Speaker 1: robotic controlled vehicles, are we going to see a change
Speaker 1: in that approach as to what is and isn't considered
Speaker 1: a war crime. That's a scary thought. Okay, we have
Speaker 1: a few more less scary thoughts to go with, but
Speaker 1: before we get to that, let's take another quick break
Speaker 1: all right now over on TikTok. One of the many
Speaker 1: trends and one that I talked about before that has
Speaker 1: actually gone on to cause a lot of harm centers
Speaker 1: around a flaw in certain models of Hyundai and Kia vehicles. Specifically,
Speaker 1: these are vehicles that are in the models from two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen, and these models lack electronic demobilizers. So that
Speaker 1: means that if you have the basic knowledge and some
Speaker 1: really simple equipment, some simple tools, Like when I say
Speaker 1: simple tools, i'm talking about things like USB cords, it
Speaker 1: is possible to bypass the ignition system for the vehicles
Speaker 1: that fall within these model heres, and thus it's possible
Speaker 1: with a very limited tools set and just some specific
Speaker 1: knowledge to steal these cars pretty easily. According to the
Speaker 1: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, not only has this led
Speaker 1: to an increase in car theft, but also in accidents,
Speaker 1: including fatalities, as people who are just you know, gonna
Speaker 1: go on a joy ride because they saw it on
Speaker 1: TikTok try to follow this and then end up causing
Speaker 1: or being in an accident. Uh. I've also heard that
Speaker 1: the the rates at which Hyundai and Kia cars have
Speaker 1: been stolen spiked over the past several months, though those
Speaker 1: numbers are hard to get and it all depends upon
Speaker 1: local authorities and their their reports. But now Hyundai and
Speaker 1: Kia are offering a software upgrade to folks who owned
Speaker 1: vehicles that fall in these model years, and the upgrade
Speaker 1: will require owners to actually bring their car into a
Speaker 1: dealership and the process to do the software upgrade takes
Speaker 1: around an hour start to finish. I mean, you might
Speaker 1: have to wait longer for your appointment, but once they
Speaker 1: get started, it should take about an hour afterward, the
Speaker 1: vehicle should not start unless the owner has used their
Speaker 1: key fob to unlock the vehicle first. So if you
Speaker 1: use your key fob to lock your car, it activates
Speaker 1: an ignition kill feature, and anyone who trys to uh
Speaker 1: steal your car but they don't have your key fob
Speaker 1: will find it impossible to get the car to start
Speaker 1: at least using this previously known method. I would say
Speaker 1: that really, this whole thing is the fault of Hyundai
Speaker 1: and Kia, that they failed to address a security flaw
Speaker 1: in their vehicles for years, and that really they should
Speaker 1: have taken these measures much earlier. There should have been
Speaker 1: something that was handled earlier. I can't imagine that it
Speaker 1: was completely unknown for the entire time. Typically people find
Speaker 1: flaws insecurity and then uh, there's the opportunity to address
Speaker 1: those flaws, and if you don't, there's the danger of
Speaker 1: what happened in this case, where the flaws become widely
Speaker 1: known and people start to exploit them before anyone takes
Speaker 1: any action to address the problem. This is, by the way,
Speaker 1: why I really admire the hackers who send messages to
Speaker 1: a company saying, hey, I found a massive security vulnerability
Speaker 1: in your system, you need to fix it, and if
Speaker 1: you don't do it by certain date, I'm going to
Speaker 1: let everyone know about it, in which case it will
Speaker 1: become a massive problem for you because they're doing a
Speaker 1: real service. Ultimately, it might seem mean, but if a
Speaker 1: hacker finds a vulnerability while just trying to make sure
Speaker 1: that a system is safe, you can bet the bad
Speaker 1: guys are looking for those same vulnerabilities and they ain't
Speaker 1: gonna tell the company that they found it. Once they discovered,
Speaker 1: They're just going to exploit it. So I think this
Speaker 1: was the TikTok folks. I wouldn't call the same level
Speaker 1: as the hackers I was mentioning earlier, but it definitely
Speaker 1: forced the hand of the car companies to to take action.
Speaker 1: Earlier this week, the Information reported that Reddit is gearing
Speaker 1: up for its initial public offering or i p O
Speaker 1: later this year. That's when a privately held company becomes
Speaker 1: a publicly traded company. Reddit, for those who somehow are
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with the platform, is a social network where users
Speaker 1: can join in browse various subreddits, subredits focused on specific
Speaker 1: topics of discussion, and there's pretty much a subredit for everything,
Speaker 1: Like think of an amusement park you like, there's a
Speaker 1: subreddit for that. Think of a television show you like,
Speaker 1: there's a subreddit for that. Think of like a fashion label,
Speaker 1: you like, there's a subreddit for that. Now it's pretty
Speaker 1: common on Reddit for users to post links to interesting
Speaker 1: articles and other stuff, and that becomes the focal point
Speaker 1: for a lot of discussion, also becomes the focal point
Speaker 1: for a lot of snark. And back in twenty one,
Speaker 1: Reddit was planning to hold its I p O. Like
Speaker 1: this was towards the end of one read. It was like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go public, but ultimately the company reversed its
Speaker 1: decision and backed off of that plan. They had not
Speaker 1: fully committed and so they were able to back away.
Speaker 1: So you might wonder, well, what was going on. Well,
Speaker 1: back in one, Reddit was really in an interesting place
Speaker 1: because you had these massively popular sub credits that were
Speaker 1: specifically focused on investments and and stock trading. This was
Speaker 1: back when redditors were banding together to stick it to
Speaker 1: hedge funds and to squeeze out short sellers who are
Speaker 1: trying to sell short stocks and companies like game Stop,
Speaker 1: and as a result, Reddit's you know, value was perceived
Speaker 1: to be higher than ever. Even though the company wasn't
Speaker 1: really profitable, it was looked at as being really valuable. However,
Speaker 1: shortly after Reddit had secretly filed for its I p O,
Speaker 1: the economic status of the world began to shift. Right,
Speaker 1: That's when we started to get this sense that we
Speaker 1: were entering into that period of economic uncertainty that may
Speaker 1: or may not be a recession. And as a result,
Speaker 1: companies started to rethink i p o s because it's
Speaker 1: it's hard to have a successful I v O in
Speaker 1: a tough investment market, so read It ultimately ended up
Speaker 1: trashing its plans. Now, at the time when they were
Speaker 1: planning on going public back in late they had estimated
Speaker 1: the valuation of the company to reach around fifteen billion
Speaker 1: dollars and and quick explanation on that a company's valuation
Speaker 1: is essentially determined by how much the stock is valued,
Speaker 1: Like how high is the stock price and you multiply
Speaker 1: that by the number of shares of stock that are issued.
Speaker 1: So if you have, you know, ten shares of stock
Speaker 1: and they're ten dollars apiece, your little company is worth
Speaker 1: a hundred bucks. Right, So they thought that based upon
Speaker 1: their perceived value that the company's valuation would be at
Speaker 1: around fifteen billion dollars. However, now wording to Fidelity, and
Speaker 1: this was reported by the Information, the estimation is closer
Speaker 1: to six point six billion dollars, which is still a
Speaker 1: huge chunk change, but it's less than half of what
Speaker 1: the company anticipated way back in late There's also no
Speaker 1: telling when we'll actually see Reddit make this move. Currently,
Speaker 1: there's still this reluctance among private companies who jump into
Speaker 1: an I p O due to this uncertain economic environment
Speaker 1: and a fear that investors won't be willing to pour
Speaker 1: money into a new public company. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like you've got a bunch of people all in bathing
Speaker 1: suits standing around a swimming hole, but no one's ready
Speaker 1: to be the first one to jump in because that
Speaker 1: water might be real cold. And finally, you remember Google Fiber.
Speaker 1: This was Google's fiber optics service that would provide amazingly
Speaker 1: fast Internet connectivity, but only for very limited markets in
Speaker 1: specific places. Atlanta was listed as one of those markets.
Speaker 1: At east parts of Atlanta were I might still be
Speaker 1: a little bit better that I live in between two
Speaker 1: different pockets of Google Fiber service area, Like it's to
Speaker 1: my west and to my east, but it never actually
Speaker 1: extended out to where I live, and those two bundles
Speaker 1: never joined together, and I'm like, smack dab in between them.
Speaker 1: Even though I've been on the waiting list for literally years,
Speaker 1: I have never been able to take advantage of Google Fiber.
Speaker 1: Then a few years ago, Google essentially put the whole
Speaker 1: effort on pause. They continue to offer the service to
Speaker 1: people who are in service areas, but they stopped extending
Speaker 1: those service areas. They kind of We're like, let's stop
Speaker 1: this for a while, possibly at least in part because
Speaker 1: they were facing a lot of opposition from established telecom
Speaker 1: companies that were trying to prevent Google from getting access
Speaker 1: to utility polls and such. So essentially the telecom companies
Speaker 1: were engaged in anticom petitive practices, but at the time
Speaker 1: the regulators in the United States didn't have much bite
Speaker 1: to them, so nothing got done about it. Also, you've
Speaker 1: got to be fair. Google's not exactly Christine when it
Speaker 1: comes to competition, right, Like, you're talking about a company
Speaker 1: that has dominated multiple sectors of the tech industry, So
Speaker 1: it's hard to be on Google side when it comes
Speaker 1: to anti competitive stuff. Although if if Google is going
Speaker 1: to come out clean against anyone. The telecom companies are
Speaker 1: possibly one of the top UH rivals, right because you
Speaker 1: just have these these legacy stories of the telecom companies
Speaker 1: that own the infrastructure being extremely protective of it and
Speaker 1: attempting to limit or eliminate competition in that space. Anyway,
Speaker 1: all of this is to say that Google Fiber appears
Speaker 1: to be gearing up again. And Google has actually announced
Speaker 1: that it's rolling out a five gigabit per second service
Speaker 1: both up and down simultaneously, So five gigabits up, five
Speaker 1: gigabits down, but only to certain markets. Atlanta is not
Speaker 1: one of them. I'm sad to say. However, if you
Speaker 1: live in Utah, West Des Moines or Kansas City, and
Speaker 1: I from what I understand, I'm talking about Kansas City,
Speaker 1: both Missouri and Kansas, you might end up having access
Speaker 1: to this kind of service. It would cost you a
Speaker 1: hundred twenty five bucks a month to get the five
Speaker 1: giga butt bit per second service, which is a hefty bill,
Speaker 1: but I will tell you it's less than half of
Speaker 1: what I have to pay for service that is not
Speaker 1: as good as that. And yes, I am still bitter,
Speaker 1: all right. That's it for the tech News for Thursday February.
Speaker 1: I hope you are all well. If you have suggestions
Speaker 1: for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: reach out to me. One way to do that is
Speaker 1: on Twitter. The handle for the show is tech stuff HSW.
Speaker 1: But another way is you can download the i Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app. It's free to download, free to use, and
Speaker 1: you can just go to that little search engine at
Speaker 1: the top. Type in tech stuff. It'll take you to
Speaker 1: the tech Stuff podcast page. There you will see a
Speaker 1: little microphone icon. If you click on that, you can
Speaker 1: leave me a voice message ap to thirty seconds in link.
Speaker 1: Let me know what you would like to hear in
Speaker 1: the future, and I'll talk to you again really soon. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I heart Radio production. For more
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