Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you? It is time for
Speaker 1: the tech news for Tuesday, February twenty two. Let's get
Speaker 1: to it. The State of Texas has sued Meta, you know,
Speaker 1: the company formerly known as Facebook, for violating state privacy laws,
Speaker 1: specifically Texas UH. The Attorney General for Texas accuses Facebook
Speaker 1: of collecting facial recognition data without alerting or getting consent
Speaker 1: from users. The state also says Facebook shared this information
Speaker 1: with third party companies and failed to delete the information
Speaker 1: in a timely manner, as is required by Texas law. Now,
Speaker 1: this relates back to a feature that face Book, the platform,
Speaker 1: used to have, which is that you would upload a
Speaker 1: photo to Facebook and the site would suggest people you
Speaker 1: could tag in the photo by using facial recognition technology
Speaker 1: and looking for matches, mostly within your social network. The
Speaker 1: state says that the violation's number in the billions with
Speaker 1: a b, which is a pretty staggering thing to consider.
Speaker 1: What's more, according to Texas law, each violation could result
Speaker 1: in a fine of twenty dollars, so you know, you
Speaker 1: take grand and you multiply it by billions and you've
Speaker 1: got um. Hang on, let me see here, my calculator
Speaker 1: says a metric buttload of cash. Wild this last time,
Speaker 1: I'm buy a calculator out of a vending machine. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Meta reps say the case is without merit, though I
Speaker 1: should also add that the company has previously settled a
Speaker 1: class action lawsuit about a similar issue just last year,
Speaker 1: and the company actually did stop the facial workingition practice
Speaker 1: late last year, and that might take a little bit
Speaker 1: of the staying out of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's
Speaker 1: comment quote, Facebook will no longer take advantage of people
Speaker 1: and their children with the intent to turn a profit
Speaker 1: at the expense of one's safety and well being end quote,
Speaker 1: because apparently the company has already stopped this particular practice. However,
Speaker 1: I'll give some credit Baxton might be speaking more generally here,
Speaker 1: because of course Facebook and Meta do collect an awful
Speaker 1: lot of information, not just facial recognition information, but all
Speaker 1: sorts of information about people in lots of different ways,
Speaker 1: and share that with various third parties, so it goes
Speaker 1: well beyond a facial recognition problem. Tesla is facing another
Speaker 1: legal challenge, this time in South Korea. The country's antitrust
Speaker 1: regulator accuses Tesla of misrepresenting the range that the electric
Speaker 1: car company's vehicles can achieve on a single charge of
Speaker 1: the battery. For example, the Model three is advertised being
Speaker 1: able to travel up to three miles or kilometers on
Speaker 1: a single charge, but the antitrust regulator says that that
Speaker 1: is not true and that this means Tesla has violated
Speaker 1: a South Korean law called the Act on Fair Labeling
Speaker 1: and Advertising. Essentially, in America we would call it false advertising. Now,
Speaker 1: apparently at the heart of all this is the fact
Speaker 1: that batteries just don't work very well in cold weather,
Speaker 1: or at least less well as in weather with temperatures
Speaker 1: that dip below freezing. In those conditions, the cold actually
Speaker 1: inhibits the chemical reactions that happen inside a battery, and
Speaker 1: that's the Those are the chemical reactions that generate the electricity.
Speaker 1: So until the battery warms up, it can be you know,
Speaker 1: putting out less energy. And this is not a new thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you might have heard the folk wisdom that
Speaker 1: if you have unused batteries like you know, you've opened
Speaker 1: up a new pack of batteries and you want to
Speaker 1: keep the other ones as long as possible, you should
Speaker 1: put them in the freezer. Uh. Not a good idea.
Speaker 1: I mean, it does inhibit the chemical reactions where the
Speaker 1: battery might be you know, just leaking energy over time.
Speaker 1: But it also means that when you take the batteries
Speaker 1: out of the freezer and you put them into something,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna be working very well. You might not
Speaker 1: even generate enough electricity to do whatever it is you
Speaker 1: need to do. So, like you put the batteries into
Speaker 1: a flashlight, You turn the switch and maybe you get
Speaker 1: a really dim light out of the bulb, but nothing,
Speaker 1: you know, useful. We've known this forever, right, So it
Speaker 1: appears to be that the issue here in South Korea
Speaker 1: is that Tesla vehicles that are in very cold temperatures
Speaker 1: are not able to achieve these distances on a single charge,
Speaker 1: and therefore Tesla was fibbing in its advertising. Now y'all
Speaker 1: know I can get a bit harsh on Tesla, but
Speaker 1: in this case, I think this lawsuit might be a
Speaker 1: bit much. I mean, it's pretty well understood that cold
Speaker 1: temperatures effect battery life. Folks using internal combustion engine vehicles
Speaker 1: have had issues where in very cold temperature, starting the
Speaker 1: car is a challenge because the car battery that's responsible
Speaker 1: for doing things like sending energy so you can get
Speaker 1: a sparkle of the spark plugs. If that's too cold,
Speaker 1: then nothing happens when you try and turn the engine over,
Speaker 1: and people have experienced that, so it's not like it's
Speaker 1: just unique to electric cars. So I guess Tesla could
Speaker 1: have put an asterisk or something by the claims to
Speaker 1: explain that in colder temperatures you should expect a different result.
Speaker 1: But all in all, I'm not entirely certain that this
Speaker 1: lawsuit is a fair one. A regulatory filing reveals that
Speaker 1: Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company owned by Warren Buffett, one
Speaker 1: of the wealthiest people on the planet, but fourteen point
Speaker 1: six six million shares an Activision Blizzard late last year,
Speaker 1: which means that it made the purchase a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks before news broke that Microsoft was set to acquire
Speaker 1: Activision Blizzard. That is pretty darn good news for Buffet,
Speaker 1: because that deal means Microsoft is gonna pay nine dollars
Speaker 1: per share of Activision blizzards shares to buy it out,
Speaker 1: and based on my quick math, buffets holding company bought
Speaker 1: shares when they were somewhere in the mid sixty dollar range,
Speaker 1: So it means you'd be making about thirty dollars per share.
Speaker 1: And remember they bought fourteen point six six million shares,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty hefty profit. Also, just an interesting side note,
Speaker 1: one of the former board members of Berkshire Hathaway was
Speaker 1: Microsoft co founder and former CEO and chairman Bill Gates.
Speaker 1: I mean, he stepped down from Berkshire Hathaway a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, but he did serve on the board
Speaker 1: once upon a time. And um, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that there was any kind of insider trading going
Speaker 1: on there. I have no evidence of that, so I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that. I'm just saying it's fortuitous timing and
Speaker 1: some interesting coincidences. Intel announced it is acquiring a company
Speaker 1: called Tower Semiconductor for the princely sum of nearly six
Speaker 1: billion with a B dollars. Tower Semiconductor is an Israeli
Speaker 1: company that has semiconductor fabrication plants also known as fabs
Speaker 1: not fabulous but fabrication and they're locating places like the
Speaker 1: United States, Japan, Italy, and of course Israel. Intel is
Speaker 1: currently investing heavily in creating new fabrication facilities in an
Speaker 1: effort to not just alleviate the current semiconductor shortage because
Speaker 1: it's going to take a while for those facilities to
Speaker 1: come online, but also to distribute the fabrication load beyond
Speaker 1: where it currently kind of rests, which is mainly in Taiwan. Plus,
Speaker 1: the chip shortage really has proven how dependent we are
Speaker 1: on semiconductor chips, and that means manufacturing chips is pretty
Speaker 1: much a guaranteed way to make money, and it's just
Speaker 1: good for safety to spread that out a bit more
Speaker 1: so that if some thing goes wrong, the entire chain
Speaker 1: is not disrupted as a result. Now, we'll have to
Speaker 1: see if regulators in various countries allow this deal to
Speaker 1: go through. I honestly don't know how that's going to go,
Speaker 1: because we have seen a general trend where regulators are
Speaker 1: a bit more cautious about big companies and their acquisitions. However,
Speaker 1: in a lot of places like in the United States,
Speaker 1: we might see regulators who want to see this deal
Speaker 1: go through because the concerns of supply chains and chips
Speaker 1: are very much prevalent right now. I also wonder if
Speaker 1: Israel's regulators will be as enthusiastic, because a lot of
Speaker 1: countries view the semiconductor industry and companies within it as
Speaker 1: being key to national security. We saw that in England
Speaker 1: with arm where UK regulators were concerned about national security issues.
Speaker 1: Should an American company purchase a semi conductor company that
Speaker 1: was currently held by a Japanese conglomerate. It's a complicated
Speaker 1: thing anyway, interesting story. Over the last two years, we've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of reports about tech companies announcing and
Speaker 1: then subsequently pushing back dates relating to when corporate offices
Speaker 1: will reopen COVID, and pressure both from within the companies
Speaker 1: and outside of them has forced those dates to slip
Speaker 1: again and again. Well. Now, Microsoft says that starting February twenty,
Speaker 1: corporate offices in the San Francisco Bay area and in
Speaker 1: Washington State, which is the home headquarters state for Microsoft,
Speaker 1: will reopen once again, and not just to employees, but
Speaker 1: also to visitors and two guests. Now, that does not
Speaker 1: mean that all employees will be required to come into
Speaker 1: the office full time. Microsoft has a new work from
Speaker 1: home policy that allows for the possibility of more flexibility,
Speaker 1: but employees will have to work with their managers to
Speaker 1: find an arrangement that is acceptable to all parties, so
Speaker 1: it's not like a work from home guarantee. But Microsoft
Speaker 1: recognized is that people have grown used to that flexibility,
Speaker 1: and as we've seen across multiple industries, there's this tendency
Speaker 1: toward early retirement, you know, the great retirement is what
Speaker 1: people have been calling it, and that is a big
Speaker 1: concern for a lot of executives because it's awful hard
Speaker 1: to be an industry leader if you ain't got no
Speaker 1: one to lead anyway. Here's hoping that COVID actually really
Speaker 1: for real zes this time is easing off and that
Speaker 1: we're going to have a manageable baseline to work from,
Speaker 1: because the only major variants I want to see from
Speaker 1: here on out are Marvel characters. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to predict the future. We're definitely going to
Speaker 1: be dealing with COVID from now on. The question then,
Speaker 1: is just can we make it a manageable experience so
Speaker 1: that things like working in an office in person with
Speaker 1: your co workers doesn't come with a massive risk attached.
Speaker 1: So here's hoping. Well, we're going to have a few
Speaker 1: more news stories, but first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: We're back. Last week, a court filing in an ongoing
Speaker 1: age discrimination lawsuit brought against IBM included some documents in
Speaker 1: which an executive referred to older employees as quote dino
Speaker 1: babies end quote. Now, the plaintiff in this case suing
Speaker 1: IBM says that these documents back up the plaintiffs assertions
Speaker 1: that IBM is trying to get rid of older employees
Speaker 1: in an effort to replace them with younger employees, presumably
Speaker 1: for way less money. And you know, there's all the
Speaker 1: different arguments about IBM executives apparently thinking that their aging
Speaker 1: workforce is out of touch, that they're not as capable
Speaker 1: in lots of very important uh tasks these days, like
Speaker 1: promotion on social networks, things like that. UM and I
Speaker 1: am of I'm of two minds on this. UM. So,
Speaker 1: on one hand, age discrimination is just gross and it
Speaker 1: should be dismantled. People should not be discriminated against because
Speaker 1: of their age. They shouldn't be discriminated against period, right,
Speaker 1: that should not be a thing. However, one of the
Speaker 1: longstanding perceptions of millennials is that they're lazy and they
Speaker 1: don't want to work, which is unfair, I think, because
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is way more complicated, and
Speaker 1: it includes the fact that you have this aging workforce
Speaker 1: in various industries, and that aging workforce is not budging
Speaker 1: from their jobs, right, They're not leaving those positions open.
Speaker 1: So there aren't that many opportunities for younger workers that
Speaker 1: are in, you know, kind of the traditional stable career paths,
Speaker 1: Like millennials often take jobs, but it's a lot more
Speaker 1: challenging for them to get into a career right. And
Speaker 1: I don't think the answer is just to get rid
Speaker 1: of older employees because that doesn't seem fair either, Like,
Speaker 1: if if they need to work, then that also is
Speaker 1: an issue, um, and it's not fair to just get
Speaker 1: rid of them to hire younger employees, especially if that's
Speaker 1: part of the company strategy of let's save money because
Speaker 1: we don't have to pay the young people as much
Speaker 1: as we're paying the old people. That also seems kind
Speaker 1: of gross. And this whole lawsuit followed a time when
Speaker 1: IBM infamously laid off thousands of workers over the age
Speaker 1: of forty. However, IBM has issued statements saying that it
Speaker 1: does not engage in systemic age discrimination and that the
Speaker 1: messages and the documents don't reflect ibm s stance at all,
Speaker 1: and that they they claim at least that the average
Speaker 1: age of the IBM employee has not changed. Right when
Speaker 1: you average the ages across the entire company. It's not
Speaker 1: like the age is suddenly dept because they got rid
Speaker 1: of a lot of old people and hired a lot
Speaker 1: of new people. Are younger people, I should say, and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll have to wait and see how this
Speaker 1: lawsuit plays out over time to see, you know, one
Speaker 1: if the parties settled of court, or two if we
Speaker 1: get some sort of definitive proof one way or another.
Speaker 1: J Freeman a k a. Sark is in the news again.
Speaker 1: Very timely for me, because if you listen to my
Speaker 1: recent episodes, you might have heard me talk about Sark
Speaker 1: with regard to the practice of jail breaking, that is
Speaker 1: the practice of disabling Apple's protection on iOS devices so
Speaker 1: that you can load whatever software you would like onto
Speaker 1: them and not just be limited to whatever Apple allows
Speaker 1: in the app store. Well, now Freeman is in the
Speaker 1: news again because he found a way to essentially print ether,
Speaker 1: the cryptocurrency on the Ethereum blockchain. So Ethereum uses a
Speaker 1: scaling solution called optimism, and Freeman found an exploit in
Speaker 1: the optimism solution that would have allowed him to essentially
Speaker 1: create or meant his own bogus Ether. Now, Freeman didn't
Speaker 1: start printing counterfeit crypto bucks. Instead, he reported this flaw
Speaker 1: to optimist them, and in return received a two million
Speaker 1: dollar bug bounty for his troubles, which, honestly, when you
Speaker 1: think about it, that's chump change in the grand scheme
Speaker 1: of things. Because one of the basic foundational ideas with
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency and blockchain is that you shouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: mint your own coins, right. You should have to mind
Speaker 1: them or otherwise earn them in the system, but you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be able to just create them, nor should you
Speaker 1: be able to do stuff like spend the same coin
Speaker 1: more than once. You know the way you could do
Speaker 1: if there were no other protections in place, Because you're
Speaker 1: just talking about digital information that's easy for you to
Speaker 1: to create, right, so you have to have these systems
Speaker 1: in place to protect against that. So Freeman's discovery was
Speaker 1: one that could literally undermine confidence in an entire cryptocurrency system.
Speaker 1: If it were discovered that an exploit could allow you
Speaker 1: to print your own ether, well, that system could ultimately
Speaker 1: just collapse as a result, because you know you have,
Speaker 1: all confidence would be drop out of it since no
Speaker 1: one would know. Hey, the ether I got from that transaction?
Speaker 1: Is it real? Is it? Is it counterfeit? Is that
Speaker 1: ether going to go away? If it does go away?
Speaker 1: Am I going to be compensated because I accepted it
Speaker 1: in good faith? It's scary stuff. I mean, these are
Speaker 1: This is why we have like the Secret Service in
Speaker 1: the United States is in charge of investigating stuff like counterfeiting,
Speaker 1: because it very much gets to the heart of an
Speaker 1: economic system, and if if confidence drops in an economic system,
Speaker 1: the system itself falls apart. So pretty scary. A company
Speaker 1: called cha Analysis released a report saying that three quarters
Speaker 1: or nearly three quarters, of all ransomware attacks appear to
Speaker 1: originate from or are connected to Russia. Further, they also
Speaker 1: said that a significant amount of the money laundering that's
Speaker 1: taking place in the cryptocurrency world is filtered through Russian companies.
Speaker 1: The researchers pointed to certain key indicators that back up
Speaker 1: their claims. For example, they showed that a lot of
Speaker 1: ransomware code out there. We'll first check to see if
Speaker 1: the infected computer is located in Russia or not. And
Speaker 1: if it's in Russia or one of the few territories
Speaker 1: that were part of the former Soviet Union, then the
Speaker 1: ransomware isn't going to encrypt all the data on the
Speaker 1: machine and lock it down, so it does not target
Speaker 1: and infect uh those computers that specifically holds off on
Speaker 1: on locking them down. That suggests that the ransomware originated
Speaker 1: out of Russia or is operating with the consent of Russia, because,
Speaker 1: as they say, you do not poop where you eat.
Speaker 1: The researchers are very quick to say that they followed
Speaker 1: the money in ransomware attacks, and that really could just
Speaker 1: mean that the folks who are calling the shots are
Speaker 1: in Russia. But it's possible that the ground soldiers and
Speaker 1: then the hackers who are putting in the work could
Speaker 1: just be cyberguns for hire from you know, pretty much anywhere.
Speaker 1: Russia leaders have repeatedly denied any connection to hacker groups
Speaker 1: in ransomware, and not too long ago. Just last month,
Speaker 1: the Russian government said it had dismantled the well known
Speaker 1: ransomware group revel r E v I L. But I
Speaker 1: should add that that only came after numerous countries, including
Speaker 1: the United States, had launched massive campaigns to go after
Speaker 1: hackers believed to be part of the group, and some
Speaker 1: of them had been arrested. So you could argue that
Speaker 1: Russia's move here was one of self preservation by you know,
Speaker 1: dismantling the group before it gets any worse. The Senate
Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee in the United States recently passed a vote
Speaker 1: to bring the earn It Act to a full Senate vote,
Speaker 1: and that has a lot of privacy advocates worried. Also,
Speaker 1: it's a story that involves protecting children, so it's highly
Speaker 1: charged on an emotional level. And we often see these
Speaker 1: kind of things play out this way, where you'll have
Speaker 1: the surface, uh issue that you're targeting, which in this
Speaker 1: case is about protecting children, and I think everyone agrees, yes,
Speaker 1: that is something we should be concerned about. But then
Speaker 1: underneath it there are implications that go beyond protecting children
Speaker 1: and could mean disaster. So a lot of this is
Speaker 1: about removing certain protections that online platforms currently enjoy with
Speaker 1: regard to user generated content see if you're a platform
Speaker 1: that allows users to post stuff to that platform. Whether
Speaker 1: you are running a social networking platform or a blogging site,
Speaker 1: or maybe a video sharing site like YouTube or whatever, well,
Speaker 1: if you're running that platform, you are not held liable
Speaker 1: for the stuff that people share, because you didn't generate it.
Speaker 1: The users did. Now you're also supposed to take appropriate
Speaker 1: measures whenever material that is illegal or against your own
Speaker 1: policies pops up. You're supposed to actually take action in
Speaker 1: those cases when it's brought to your attention, but earn
Speaker 1: it would actually remove those protections that would make you liable,
Speaker 1: and it would force the companies that are running these
Speaker 1: online platforms to seek out and report instances of child
Speaker 1: sexual abuse material or see SAM. So this would mean
Speaker 1: platforms would have to go from being passive and only
Speaker 1: taking action when alerted to an infraction to becoming an
Speaker 1: active investigator on their own platforms. They would have to monitor,
Speaker 1: not just respond, but be more proactive and seek out
Speaker 1: instances where people are violating the rules. Now already, for
Speaker 1: certain platforms, the scale of that responsibility would be beyond
Speaker 1: their capabilities, like hundreds of hours of video or upload
Speaker 1: to YouTube every single minute, it is literally impossible to
Speaker 1: monitor all of that in real time and make sure
Speaker 1: that nothing illegal is slipping through. So you could argue
Speaker 1: that some platforms are just too big to be able
Speaker 1: to do this, at least to the letter of the law.
Speaker 1: If it should in fact pass into law. It hasn't yet,
Speaker 1: that's important. And beyond that, there's this concern about encryption
Speaker 1: and privacy. So Senator Richard Blumenthal has indicated that if
Speaker 1: a platform allows for end to end encrypted communication, that is,
Speaker 1: only the people who are communicating are able to see
Speaker 1: what is being sent back and forth. Well, such a
Speaker 1: service would not immediately be assumed to be liable for
Speaker 1: c SAM right because the service wouldn't know about it. However,
Speaker 1: Bluementhal says, the bill also says this encryption ability does
Speaker 1: not give a platform the chance to deflect responsibility either.
Speaker 1: So in other words, let's say, let's give it a
Speaker 1: hypothetical example based upon my understanding of this legislation. Let's
Speaker 1: say some investigators are doing a sting operation and they're
Speaker 1: communicating with someone through into into encryption on a platform,
Speaker 1: and they find out that that person is trafficking in
Speaker 1: see SAM through encrypted messaging. Well, the investigators could charge
Speaker 1: the platform with violating the earn It Act. And I
Speaker 1: hear some of you saying, wait a minute. If the
Speaker 1: actual communication channel really is encrypted end to end, then
Speaker 1: there would be no way for the platform, no matter
Speaker 1: who it is, to know if see SAM was part
Speaker 1: of that communication, because that's what end encryption means. It
Speaker 1: means that only those parties in the communication would see
Speaker 1: what was going on. That's the that's the promise of
Speaker 1: end end encryption is that your communications are protected their
Speaker 1: private not even the provider can see them. And that
Speaker 1: is the issue that critics are worried about, because it's
Speaker 1: just that platforms would have to abandon encrypted communication altogether
Speaker 1: or risk being liable for earn It violations that it
Speaker 1: could not possibly avoid. Otherwise there's no way to detect it,
Speaker 1: so there's no way to act on it, and yet
Speaker 1: they would be held liable if this Act were to
Speaker 1: become law as it appears to have been, you know,
Speaker 1: designed so far. Anyway, keep in mind this Act can
Speaker 1: still change dramatically and it may not ever go to law,
Speaker 1: but it does put platforms in an impossible position, at
Speaker 1: least with regard to allowing a cryptic communication so the
Speaker 1: critics are saying earn it would effectively mean the risk
Speaker 1: of providing encrypted communication services at least the United States
Speaker 1: would be too great and would lead to a surveillance
Speaker 1: culture of unprecedented proportions, or that we might even see
Speaker 1: platforms abandoned supporting user generated content altogether, although for some
Speaker 1: platforms like Facebook and YouTube that would pretty much mean
Speaker 1: they would just have to close up shop. So we'll
Speaker 1: have to see where this proposed legislation goes next and
Speaker 1: whether or not it uh it survives being altered and
Speaker 1: being voted upon. All Right, I've got several more little
Speaker 1: stories to cover before we get to that. Let's take
Speaker 1: another quick break. Okay, we're gonna close out with some
Speaker 1: futuristic stuff for this episode. First, we're going to go
Speaker 1: back to the future because the DeLorean Motor Company recently
Speaker 1: posted a promo before the Big Game that promises we're
Speaker 1: gonna get a new DeLorean and electric DeLorean with a
Speaker 1: focus on luxury. Apparently, the promo just really kind of
Speaker 1: shows a silhouette of gull wing doors of one of
Speaker 1: the the beautiful features of the original DeLorean. And you
Speaker 1: might remember the DeLorean as being the car that Doc
Speaker 1: Brown turned into a time machine in the Back to
Speaker 1: the Future series. Well, a lot of folks have a
Speaker 1: nostalgic soft spot for that car, specifically because of that movie,
Speaker 1: and um, that's funny because the car was not a
Speaker 1: high performance vehicle when it came out in nine. If
Speaker 1: you read reviews of the DeLorean that we're contemporary with
Speaker 1: the release of the Automobile, they are not but picularly
Speaker 1: positive reviews. By the time Back to the Future actually
Speaker 1: came out in the DeLorean had not been in production
Speaker 1: for three whole years, and a lot of folks, myself included, Uh,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know about the car until the movie
Speaker 1: came out, Like, I had never even heard of a
Speaker 1: DeLorean until I saw the movie. So anyway, the DeLorean
Speaker 1: Motor Company, which is not the original Delirian Motor Company,
Speaker 1: it's rather a reboot from the mid nineties and enthusiast
Speaker 1: ended up launching it in Texas and bought up all
Speaker 1: the existing parts that still remained out of the old
Speaker 1: Deloran Motor Company. Anyway, this new one is bringing the
Speaker 1: DeLorean back. Apparently no telling what the timetable actually is
Speaker 1: or how much an electric DeLorean is going to cost. You,
Speaker 1: I suspect it will be expensive, but I thought it
Speaker 1: was a cool thing to mention, Like as as all
Speaker 1: the practical parts of me say it would be silly
Speaker 1: to buy an electric DeLorean, but the child in me
Speaker 1: says once one. Something else that is cool is high
Speaker 1: performance computing, which is kind of a catch all descriptor
Speaker 1: for all sorts of very high powered computational processes. We
Speaker 1: used to call this stuff super computing back in the day,
Speaker 1: but we've sort of migrated away from calling it super
Speaker 1: computing because of the emergence of distributed systems and lots
Speaker 1: of other related stuff. Anyway, one of the big challenges
Speaker 1: of working with high performance computing is actually optimizing processes
Speaker 1: so that they can take full advantage of the system's capabilities.
Speaker 1: So generally there's this belief that you can either write
Speaker 1: a program that does stuff quickly but inaccurately, or it
Speaker 1: does stuff accurately but not quickly, and you can't do
Speaker 1: you can't be both fast and accurate at the same
Speaker 1: time because of how complicated it is to program for
Speaker 1: these very sophisticated systems. Well, now, researchers primarily based out
Speaker 1: of M I T have created a new programming language
Speaker 1: that they call a tensor language or a t l UH.
Speaker 1: The language gets super technical, and I don't really have
Speaker 1: time to dive into it and talk about what tin
Speaker 1: sores are are and all that kind of stuff. But essentially,
Speaker 1: the hope is that this programming language will make the
Speaker 1: process of optimizing programs designed for high performance computing platforms easier.
Speaker 1: The game gamers out there are all very well aware.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of games that come out that
Speaker 1: require a ton of computational power, and you could have
Speaker 1: the best system possible, like with the fastest hardware in
Speaker 1: the world, and still find it kind of chugging along.
Speaker 1: And some of that ends up being poor optimization. Like
Speaker 1: you could look at the program and say, well, there's
Speaker 1: nothing here that should be making my my system, you know,
Speaker 1: chug this way. The graphics are not that sophisticated, the
Speaker 1: lighting effects shouldn't be doing it, and yet it is.
Speaker 1: And that is because of optimization. So that is something
Speaker 1: that we see all the time with gaming, but we
Speaker 1: also see it in all different kinds of software. Well,
Speaker 1: when you're working with high performance computing systems, it becomes
Speaker 1: a real issue. It means that you're not really taking
Speaker 1: advantage of the resources that are available to you. So
Speaker 1: a t L will in theory, help programmers find the
Speaker 1: most efficient way to get the results they want from
Speaker 1: high performance computer operations, which could open up all sorts
Speaker 1: of doors. And I think that's pretty nifty. Okay, Let's
Speaker 1: say you're ready for virtual reality on the go like
Speaker 1: VR whay or out and about, or maybe augmented reality
Speaker 1: while you're out and about. However, you don't want to
Speaker 1: wear one of those super bulky headsets. You'd rather wear
Speaker 1: a sleek pair of glasses. But the problem is that
Speaker 1: form factor doesn't really allow for all the components you
Speaker 1: need to get a persistent Internet connection capable of providing
Speaker 1: you the experience you want. So what are you to do? Well,
Speaker 1: Motorola thinks you should get a high tech neck band
Speaker 1: that looks kind of like a lanyard and it could
Speaker 1: hold a lot of the key components in it. UM
Speaker 1: the product if it ever does become an actual product.
Speaker 1: Motorola says it will, but we don't know timing or
Speaker 1: pricing yet, and it also doesn't have a name yet.
Speaker 1: It does have some components that consists of a battery,
Speaker 1: a touch pad, some speakers, UM there's an accelerometer and
Speaker 1: a jar scope in there. It's got a simcard slot,
Speaker 1: is got a snap Dragon eight GIN one processor, and
Speaker 1: um it's compatible with Verizon's five gene network. It looks
Speaker 1: kind of like a smartphone sized puck on a strap
Speaker 1: to me. But the idea is that you could pair
Speaker 1: a lightweight set of VR or a R goggles with
Speaker 1: this thing, and the thing would provide the horsepower needed
Speaker 1: to run the glasses so that you could I don't know,
Speaker 1: meta the verse or whatever it is you want to do.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily a bad idea because it would take
Speaker 1: some of the weight that you would otherwise is have
Speaker 1: to wear on your face, and it puts it around
Speaker 1: your neck and on your chest, and so I think
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool in that sense. And the company, Motorola,
Speaker 1: it's saying that that's going to target this product toward quote,
Speaker 1: sports training and fan experiences, as well as making VR
Speaker 1: theaters scalable end quote, and also looking at enterprise users.
Speaker 1: So not necessarily something that you would pick up for
Speaker 1: a consumer product. Now I'll believe it when I see it,
Speaker 1: simply because I know there's still a lot of folks
Speaker 1: who are not sold on this whole the idea of
Speaker 1: having to wear something on their face to experience technology. Uh. Like,
Speaker 1: I also think of the people who are paying huge
Speaker 1: amounts of money to go to a sporting event, let's
Speaker 1: say the Big Game, UM, where I think the average
Speaker 1: ticket price was somewhere around seven thousand, eight thousand dollars
Speaker 1: per seat. Like, I can't imagine paying that much money
Speaker 1: and saying, oh, I should put on these glasses so
Speaker 1: that I can see something other than what I paid
Speaker 1: a whole lot of money to be at. I don't know,
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just I could just be missing the whole
Speaker 1: point here. And Hey, if you want to go to
Speaker 1: space and you have four fifty thousand bucks burning a
Speaker 1: hole in your very very very large pockets, have I
Speaker 1: got a deal for you? Because Virgin Galactic is planning
Speaker 1: to market its flights to quote unquote space this year. Now,
Speaker 1: as a reminder, this version of going to space involves
Speaker 1: writing aboard an aircraft that is in turn piggybacking on
Speaker 1: a larger aircraft, and at the appropriate altitude your aircraft
Speaker 1: separates from the mothership. The aircraft ignitsance, engines, and then
Speaker 1: soars to around KOs in altitude now that's high enough
Speaker 1: to get a really nice view of the Earth and
Speaker 1: see the blackness of space, and even experience some micro gravity,
Speaker 1: not true weightlessness, but like you know, only three percent
Speaker 1: of the earth gravity, so close enough for you to
Speaker 1: kind of call it weightless, but it's still well below
Speaker 1: the Carmen line, which one kilometers in altitude. That's where
Speaker 1: most space agencies define the beginning of space. Uh. In America,
Speaker 1: we award people astronaut wings if they go above fifty
Speaker 1: kilometers in altitude. But then again, you know, we all
Speaker 1: know that where space begins as something of a debate
Speaker 1: among various agencies because there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: ways to look at that. Anyway, you won't be going
Speaker 1: up in orbit because it does not reach that speed
Speaker 1: or that altitude, and the whole flight from takeoff to
Speaker 1: touchdown lasts around ninety minutes, and the space bit lasts
Speaker 1: quote several minutes end quote Gali. Anyway, the company says
Speaker 1: it plans to quote have our first one thousand customers
Speaker 1: on board at the start of commercial service later this year,
Speaker 1: providing an incredibly strong foundation as we begin regular operations
Speaker 1: and scale our fleet end quote. And here I was
Speaker 1: wondering if there ever would be a service that can
Speaker 1: make me feel as inferior as the old Concorde supersonic
Speaker 1: jet service did. And here we go. Anyway, rich people
Speaker 1: are gonna go really really high up in the sky
Speaker 1: and they're gonna see Earth from way up there, which
Speaker 1: is supposed to be a transformational experience. But I will
Speaker 1: believe more when they start spending some of the ridiculous
Speaker 1: wealth they have on solving real world problems for everyone else.
Speaker 1: And I'm grouchy, so I'm gonna end this episode. But lastly,
Speaker 1: today marks my fifteen work anniversary. Fifteen years ago today
Speaker 1: I started working as a staff writer for how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. It wouldn't be until mid two thousand
Speaker 1: eight that we would launch this podcast. And of course,
Speaker 1: while I've essentially been in the same career path since
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, the name of my corporate overlord
Speaker 1: has changed a few times, from Convex Group to Discovery
Speaker 1: Communications to Blue Cora too. Well, in anyway, it's changed
Speaker 1: a lot. But through that whole thing, I've been here
Speaker 1: reading up on tech, sharing what I've earned with others,
Speaker 1: and here's to looking at the next fifteen years. By then,
Speaker 1: we should have the metaverse, so you'll probably experience this
Speaker 1: podcast through your hollow pot or something. Oh no, maybe
Speaker 1: we'll see anyway. If you have suggestions for topics I
Speaker 1: should cover on tech Stuff, reach out to me on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle for the show is text Stuff H s
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon, y.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows